Entirely unexpectedly, I have been down in London this last three days outside and around the Ecuadorean Embassy, following WikiLeaks’ announcement that their sources indicate Julian might be expelled within hours or days. Plainly Julian’s position within the Embassy has deteriorated fundamentally, to the extent he is now treated openly as a closely guarded prisoner. I still have not myself been granted permission to visit him and he is now very isolated.
Nothing has happened so far this weekend, though I stated from the start that if the police were going to move in, the most likely time would be 4am on Monday morning. There is a thought that the massive media presence occasioned by Wikileaks’ announcement may have succeeded in deterring President Moreno from the expulsion. Let us hope that will prove the case.
I am very exhausted, having been more or less on 24 hour watch for three days. It was also somewhat difficult to tell Nadira her birthday celebration had shifted without notice from a restaurant in Edinburgh to a wet pavement in London. But I was very pleased to have a very fruitful in depth conversation with Kristin Hrafnsson, editor in chief of Wikileaks. Our thoughts ran along these lines, and as this does not involve secrets but rather media handling, I see no harm in sharing these thoughts with you.
When Julian does leave the Embassy, whatever the circumstances in which he does that, it will be for a day or two the largest media story in the world and undoubtedly will lead all the news bulletins across every major country. The odds are that he will be leaving and facing a fight against extradition to the United States, on charges arising from the Chelsea Manning releases which revealed a huge amount about US war crimes and other illegal acts.
It will be very important to try to focus a hostile media on why it is Julian is actually wanted for extradition. Not for the non-existent collusion with Russia to assist Trump, which is an entirely fake narrative. Not for meetings with Manafort which never happened. Not for the allegations in Sweden which fell apart immediately they were subject to rational scrutiny. And not for any nonsense about whether he hacked the communications in the Embassy or cleaned up the cat litter.
This is not going to be an easy task because pretty well all of the Western media is going to want to focus on these false anti-Assange narratives, and they will be determined to give as little attention as possible to the fact he is a publisher facing trial for publishing leaked state documents which revealed state wrongdoing. It is a classic and fundamental issue of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Drawing together a team that can get this message across in such MSM windows as are afforded, as well as through social media, is an important task. The team needs to be in readiness and to be backed by a suitable support infrastructure that can be dusted off and sprung into action. The public framing of Julian’s position will undoubtedly impact on the final outcome; that is why the MSM have put in such a consistent effort to demonise one of the most interesting figures and original thinkers of our time.
If the balloon really had gone up this weekend, we would have been woefully unprepared to deal with the task of explaining the true story. If nothing else, this weekend’s alarm has been very helpful in concentrating minds on the size of the task.
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In an orgy of illegal land expropriations that makes a mockery of the United Nations and treats Europe and the international community, as a bunch of fools.
What will it take to rid politics of this puffed-up, power-seeking politician?
Without action by Europe, this maverick leader of Israel’s Right-wing Likud Party, aided and abetted by an allegedly demented US President, will provoke a war in the Middle East that could easily spread first to Europe and then the world.
For many years, we have warned that the agenda for a ‘Greater Israel’ incorporating initially all the land from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, including the ethnic cleansing of the entire Muslim population, was Likud policy. Now we see this illegal process being openly implemented in blatant violation of the will of the UN Security Council.
If no action is taken against this dissident politician, already under indictment on three charges of corruption whilst in office, then the UN and the international community will have abdicated all authority and Netanyahu will remain free to subjugate and eventually control a strategic section of the Middle East, armed, funded and supported by the Trump administration.
Is this why, in Britain, we fought two world wars and gave the lives of over a million of our menfolk, in military service, so that we could live in freedom and peace? Likewise in Europe.
Is this really the world we want to live in?
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Hans Stehling (pen name) is an analyst based in the UK. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
America’s war on the world continues to escalate. The arrogance of mad emperor Trump and his minions seemingly knows no bounds. The cowardice and insanity of the “resistance” is revealed yet again in their support for Trump’s plot to destroy Venezuela. Fake socialists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made laughingstocks of themselves by supporting the coup in words that made clear they were either shameless liars or completely ignorant of the history of America’s centuries long war on Latin America.
This history extends from the time of the Monroe Doctrine, through the endless invasions and coups of the 19th and early 20th century. To the more recent history of coups followed by bloodbaths as in Guatemala, Chile, and many more countries culminating in Operation Condor and related schemes to rule all of Latin America through torture terror and assassination. The United States has brought untold misery and horror to it’s neighbors. But even in those dark times when hundreds of thousands were murdered, raped, tortured and the vast majority of hundreds of millions more were kept in crushing poverty and misery America did not claim the right to appoint the presidents of the nations in it’s “backyard”. Instead it overthrew them in secret. It is even more alarming since for 70 years nearly the entire world has been absorbed by the American empire the whole world is now “America’s Backyard” as they mockingly refer to Latin America how many more countries will have fake governments appointed for them as an excuse for America to seize their assets?
The people of Venezuela are no longer fighting just for the future of socialism in their country. They are not only fighting for the liberation of Latin America from the tyranny of the American Empire. They are now battling for the freedom of the entire world. Mad Emperor Trump has already extended the principle by giving Syria’s Golan Heights to Israel which has been illegally occupied by Israel since 1967. In addition to torturing and imprisoning the local population Israel used the Golan Heights to funnel terrorists into Syria. America like Israel is a rogue state in violation of international law and acting in defiance of the whole world and even of it’s own agreements.
Venezuela has faced a seemingly endless series of coup plots since Hugo Chavez came to power 20 years ago. Nothing so enrages the empire as the attempt to improve the lives of ones’ people. The Bolivarian revolution provided the people of Venezuela with housing, healthcare, subsidized food, cheap fuel and perhaps most importantly a chance to shape their own destinies. For the first time Venezuela’s poor were free to hold their heads up with pride, they were mobilized to demand a better future and were empowered by Venezuela’s brand of direct democracy. It was the people of Venezuela not a bunch of slave owning imperialists who wrote their new constitution.
In response to US attempts to launch a coup or plunge the nation into a CIA backed civil war President Nicolas Maduro called on the people of Venezuela to once more rewrite their constitution to enable them to meet these new threats. Venezuela began to recover to the horror of the empire and last year Nicolas Maduro won the Presidential election yet again. The opposition had so thoroughly discredited itself that America ordered it’s pawns to boycott the elections since they stood no chance. The empire has responded to this turn of events by redoubling it’s efforts. Last fall it attempted to assassinate President Maduro with a drone bomb utilizing it’s Colombian and Venezuelan proxies. It was yet another insane precedent as if it’s criminal global torture and assassination program was not bad enough (90% of it’s victims being innocent civilians) now the US claims the right to openly assassinate any head of state that does not bow to it’s will.
When that didn’t work convicted criminal Elliott Abrams was brought in to design a full on covert war against Venezuela. Abrams became infamous in the 1980’s for his attempt to cover up the brutal dirty wars the US was fighting in El Salvador and Guatemala in defense of fascist regimes that murdered, raped and tortured their people.
All so that american corporations would have cheap labor and access to the regions rich natural resources. 70-80,000 were killed in El Salvador 100,000 people were killed in Guatemala during the Reagan era. Elliott Abrams job was to turn truth on it’s head claiming that the human rights situation was gradually improving while it was actually growing steadily worse. When anyone in the press dared to expose the slaughter Elliott Abrams would try to get them fired or would try to discredit them with blatant lies. Abrams work in the 1980’s played no small part in forever destroying mainstream investigative journalism ruining the careers of Raymond Bonner who exposed the El Mozote massacre.
El Mozote where El Salvadoran troops trained by the US killed 1,200 people on orders “to kill anything that moves.” The same strategy the US had used in Vietnam, Korea, Greece and other countries. He was also involved with smuggling weapons in to the Contras and drugs out with his good friend Oliver North. Convicted of lying to Congress during the Iran/Contra affair when he denied soliciting funds for the contras but was revealed to have personally asked the Sultan of Brunei for 10 million dollars which mysteriously disappeared. He was pardoned by Iran/Contra mastermind then President George H.W Bush. He floated around Academia and think tank land working for the CFR and PNAC where he lobbied for the Iraq war during the 90’s. After George W. Bush stole the 2000 elections Elliott Abrams was once again back in government. In the brutal Iraq war the “El Salvador option” was employed brutal death squads were trained by Abrams colleagues from Central America in the 1980’s and Iraqis faced a campaign of torture and assassination. Abrams launched coups in Venezuela and Haiti. In Venezuela however the people rose up flooding the streets demanding the return of Hugo Chavez. Haiti was not so lucky in 2004 President Jean Bertrand Aristide was kidnapped by the US military and since then Haiti has been ruled by a succession of corrupt puppets.
Haiti and Venezuela are far more interconnected then most people realize. It was Haiti which was the site of the first anti-imperialist revolution and had defeated the French, British, and Spanish empires after Haiti’s slaves rose up and liberated their country. Haiti supplied weapons, ships, troops and advisers to Simon Bolivar “the Liberator” who sought to liberate and unite Latin America. In exchange for this invaluable assistance Bolivar promised to abolish slavery. Simon Bolivar would be the inspiration for Hugo Chavez’s Bolivarian revolution who for a time came close to realizing Bolivar’s dream of a united and liberated Latin America.
Chavez’s vision embraced not just Latin America but the islands of the Caribbean like Cuba and Haiti which Venezuela hoped to help unite and develop. In truth Chavez’s vision embraced the whole world and one could write a whole book on his work to support Iraq, Libya, Palestine, and Syria. However returning to Haiti America had invaded and occupied the island shortly before WW1 and later installed brutal father and son military dictators Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier and Jean Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier who ruled through torture assassination and death squads a familiar pattern. Incidentally at the same time America invaded Nicaragua in an attempt to capture the revolutionary General August Sandino who would later inspire the Sandinistas to overthrow Nicaragua’s version of the Duvalier family the Somozas.
The same Sandinistas Elliott Abrams was waging covert war on in the 1980’s and which america targeted with a failed coup attempt last year. Aristide in Haiti would come to power through elections not a revolution but America would still target him with two coups and unleash death squads to massacre his supporters. The latest episode occurred last October through November 2018 in the Lasalin neighborhood 231 people were killed over a month long period with most killed on November 13 2018. Lasalin which has been targeted with a half a dozen of these massacres since the 1950’s the last following the 2004 coup against Aristide masterminded by Elliott Abrams. The massacre was in revenge for the massive uprising against President Juvenal Moise who the US helped steal the 2017 election through massive fraud and vote suppression causing people to rise up in 2017 as well. On July 6 2018 the people rose up again to protest fuel price hikes and demand Moise’s resignation.
In revenge the people of Lasalin were massacred. The US and UN are waging a brutal dirty war on Haiti training police to torture and murder and bringing in shadowy mercenaries to help their Haitian death squads suppress a revolution. Now the people of Haiti are rising up again in response to the theft of 3.8 billion in petrocaribe funds that Venezuela had given to their impoverished country. In response the US has been ordering it’s haitian proxies to wage a terror campaign on the people of Haiti. The world must demand an end to the UN occupation of Haiti and the looting of the country by American and Canadian businessmen.
Returning to Venezuela with the failure to Assassinate Maduro and the installation of infamous war criminal Elliott Abrams a plan was hatched to wage everything short of full scale war on Venezuela. A media war, an economic war and an escalation of the covert war using Colombian death squads and Venezuelan fascists to murder loyal Venezuelans. A war of sanctions that seek to strangle the country and prevent it from selling it’s oil. On January 23 the US declared a parliament member who had not even run in the election Juan Guaido as the President of Venezuela convincing a dozen countries to go along with the farce and ignoring the rest of the world who refused to support this latest outrage. They had been grooming Guaido for years through various CIA/NED funded NGO’s. The vast majority of Venezuelans completely rejected this american appointed puppet nor did the military commit treason by backing Guaido. However by pretending Guaido was president the US now had an excuse to seize CITGO the Venezuelan state owned oil company in the US with assets worth 30 billion. After robbing the people of Venezuela the US now offered them charity in the form of “humanitarian aid” which included equipment the opposition has used to murder their fellow Venezuelans. The US demanded Venezuela let the “AID” in threatening war otherwise. The opposition then burned their own AID trucks in a failed attempt to justify a war. USAID has long been used as a CIA front used as a cover for both the Phoenix program in Vietnam and Operation Condor in Latin America and is thus implicated in the torture and murder of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people a fact that should always be remembered whenever the topic of American “Humanitarian Aid” is brought up.
However thanks to the bravery of the Iraqi resistance which inflicted a humiliating defeat on the US military 2003-2011 it is unlikely the US will actually invade Venezuela which is roughly the same size as Iraq with a huge city Caracas full of armed Chavistas who could be counted on to resist any occupation for years. Worse for the empire Chavez the internationalist long ago forged friendly military ties with Russia who have provided S300 air defenses, Russian fighter jets, trainers, and advisers. America’s fascist puppets Colombia and Brazil would prefer to use their militaries to murder defenseless peasants and labor leaders not risk a military disaster by invading Venezuela at least for now. Thus Mad Emperor Trumps hopes for a full scale war on Venezuela have been rejected by his own military. However they will continue to wage a covert war on Venezuela involving sabotage assassination and terror.
As a punishment for the Venezuelan people for failing to rise up and overthrow their own government and install an American puppet the US launched a much more ruthless strategy. The whole country is being put under siege as the electric grid is being sabotaged through cyberwarfare, electromagnetic warfare, bombings, and sabotage. Like the people of Gaza or of Iraq the entire country has lost power with the first attack occurring on March 7. The empire hoped the country would be plunged into chaos but instead the people of Venezuela have largely united to meet this new challenge. This attack on Venezuela’s electricity is utterly criminal and has deprived many Venezuelans not just of power but of water, money, transportation, and food. Thankfully many of the revolutionary socialist projects that Chavez and Maduro have set up have moved in to deal with the crisis. Collectives are growing their own food. Neighborhoods are already organized to meet the challenge. The people of Venezuela have provided an example of cooperation and heroism to the entire world.
America’s war on the planet continues around the world in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Palestine, Yemen, the Philippines, the Congo, Afghanistan, Haiti, Venezuela and many other places. Defeated in Syria the empire seeks to recolonize the entire western hemisphere so it can rob the people blind and reduce them to misery. At home the country is falling apart, the populace has been driven insane by years of propaganda. Prisons, immigrant detention camps, police murdering with impunity, ever escalating internet censorship, total surveillance, tent cities, corrupt, cowardly, dishonest politicians, poisoned water and air, ignorance, poverty and homelessness ever on the rise. This is the wonderful system that must be exported to every corner of the globe at the cost of millions of lives and trillions of dollars. A system that robs the poor to give to the rich and rolls on endlessly like a juggernaut destroying country after country.
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The Trump administration is considering designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organization. This is an old Joe Lieberman idea from 2007, and it is a very bad idea. It keeps being done rhetorically (2007, 2017), and then announced again out of amnesia. It is illogical, but it is also practically speaking a potential disaster if it were actually thoroughly implemented.
The notion is illogical because the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) is a state actor, not a non-state actor. Terrorists are civilians who commit violence against other civilians to achieve some political goal.
The IRGC is sort of like the US national guard. It isn’t the formal army, but it is an adjunct to it.
If the US has a problem with IRGC actions, they should accuse the Iranian government of war crimes. States commit war crimes. There are international laws and institutions for dealing with war crimes.
But the practical side of the issue is that Iraqi Shiite militias close to the IRGC are essentially the hosts and protectors of the some 5,000 US troops in Iraq.
Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called Saturday for the Iraqi government to expel US troops from Iraq as soon as possible, lest they become entrenched. Iraqi PM Adel Abdul Mahdi is on a state visit to Iran. Iran is proposing dozens of joint projects, despite the US increasingly severe sanctions on Iran.
When ISIL took over 60% of Iraqi territory in 2014, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani called for Iraqis to mobilize against the terrorist organization. Many Shiites took this call to mean they should form militias, since the formal Iraqi army had collapsed.
The Shiite-led Iraqi government reached out to the IRGC for help with training and logistics, and the IRGC appears to have sent a small number of troops into Iraq.
The IRGC planned out and helped execute the first major campaign against ISIL, at Tikrit. The US initially declined to join in because it was an Iranian-led campaign, but in the end whenthe Iraqi forces got bogged down, the US offered air support. IRGC offered strategic advice, but a lot of the heavy lifting was done by Shiite militiamen who formed a strong bond to the IRGC.
The formal Iraqi military is still small and week, and the Shiite militias are increasingly powerful, having formed civilian political parties, and having done well in elections.
So security is provided to US troops, essentially by the friends of the IRGC.
The Trump administration is painting a big red X on the backs of those troops.
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The premise of Easternization concerning Asia’s rise is a topic of prime importance for those following global foreign affairs. Gideon Rachman’s overall and very direct theme is that of the rise of Asia as the world rebalances from colonialism.
Rachman’s second premise, a “prejudice” he acknowledges, “is largely a positive view of the role of American power in the world.” So my mind right away reads a contradiction in ideas, as rebalancing from colonialism is for the contemporary world a rebalancing from the neocolonialism perpetrated and perpetuated by the U.S. Reading Easternization then becomes an exercise in examining Rachman’s discourse in light of his obvious view of U.S. imperial exceptionalism.
Immediately – the very next sentence – is the usual ‘we are doing good, but made some mistakes’ that tends to serve for apologists of U.S. global behaviours, as “there is no denying that, over the decades, the United States has committed terrible wrongs in the exercise of its power,” yet “U.S. power has seemed to me to represent a better foundation for a just world,” using the Soviet Union (now dead and gone) and China as the “obvious” bad alternatives. Rachman indicates “without dominant powers and guided solely by the rule of law,” the “multipolar world is already emerging and proving to be unstable and dangerous.”
My oh my, I love these imperial apologetics. U.S. good. Rest of the world (except for sycophantic governments elsewhere) bad.
Asia out of context
There are two main areas – other than the fallacy of needing a global hegemon for a just world – where the arguments fall apart. The main one is the lack of context, mainly because if context had been included, the arguments for being a force for good fall apart completely. Certainly much of what he says is true, but only in the limited context in which it is presented.
When discussing southeast Asia he argues about Indonesia having “enjoyed years of rapid economic growth,” that “wars of decolonization gave way to bloody struggles of the Cold War,” and neighbouring Cambodia was “destabilized,” and the “bloodletting” of Suharto’s Indonesian coup and the invasion of East Timor byu Indonesia. Great, nice summary but…
…but what about the U.S. role in all this? The “terrible wrongs” in this region are primarily the fault of the U.S., not for freedom and democracy but for global control of resources, economies, and sycophantic governments. The U.S. took over France’s colonial war for Vietnam, recognizing its natural resources and strategic positioning vis a vis China. Cambodia was “destabilized” by a massive and continuous bombing campaign during the Vietnam war. The Indonesian coup was instigated by the CIA, with the “suspected communists” mainly being anyone who was against the government – teachers, lawyers, union organizers – or who worked the land – the peasants and indigenous people working the land for a subsistence living. Sure Indonesia’s economy has seen “rapid growth” – that is what happens when a neoliberal austerity regime takes over and allows large transnational corporations to rape the land, pollute everything, and pay a pittance for wages to those kicked off their homelands.
Africa out of context
The lack of context is global, as need be to protect the U.S.’ global spread. Rachman is formerly a writer for the Economist, and refers to it concerning Africa: “After the Ethiopian famine, the Rwandan genocide, the civil wars in Somalia and Congo, and Zimbabwe’s descent into despotism, it was hard to find much optimism about Africa….” Later he argues about Africom, its “establishment had a lot to do with the emergence of terrorists threat in Africa.” Again, great, nice summary in a teaspoon, but what about the whole pot?
The U.S. has had a hand in all these areas of conflict. It started in 1961 with the CIA instigated assassination of Patrice Lumumba (and later that of Dag Hammarskjold) in the Congo in order to protect western interests in the region, being again mostly natural resources and cheap labour. It continues on through to today (in the 2016 terms of the publication of this book) with Ethiopia intermingled with the wars in Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea and other areas of U.S. interference. The terrorist threat is a largely U.S. instigated due to its destruction of various governments, in particular Libya, and for its own hidden support for the terrorist groups it covertly sponsors in the region. For democracy? Not a whit – for control of African resources and strategic positioning for transportation and Eurasian containment.
Latin America out of context
Surely Latin America is an area where outright colonialism, let alone “terrible wrongs” and neocolonialism, should easily be recognized. After the U.S.’ own revolution for independence, South America shook off the Spanish yoke of Spanish control and largely consolidated its independence – fractured as it was – by 1830. It was in 1823 the U.S. applied the Monroe Doctrine against outside powers – other than themselves – interfering in South America. Any interference was to be considered an act of aggression against the U.S. How convenient – colonialism of the second order, also to be noted that Bolivar was against slavery while the U.S. was still very much accepting of slavery. Rachman’s history is very abbreviated, “Throughout the Cold War the United States had fought to combat Russian power in Latin America. – acting often ruthlessly, from Nicaragua to Cuba to Chile.”
Ruthlessly indeed. In Guatemala in 1953 the CIA instigated the overthrow of the democratically elected Arbenz government, setting off decades of covert and overt operations against the people of Guatemala in favour of – at the time – United Fruit (Chiquita). SInce then all Latin American countries have had some form of covert or overt attack by the U.S. CIA and black operatives to overthrow governments for the people to install governments for the corporations and the U.S. Really, this is a much “better foundation” than leaving countries to their own devices and emerging democracy.
Yes the U.S. has committed “terrible wrongs” around the world, but not because of good intentions for “rule of law” or democracy or some other platitudinous rhetoric. The other area where Rachman’s arguments fall apart are simply on his main topic. Certainly his thesis is happening, the ‘east is rising’, but it is presented in military type terms, making both China and Russia appear as the main antagonists, with the U.S. being the grand defender of global harmony.
China and Russia
China of course is the main contender within Easternization, but Russia incurs the most of Rachman’s wrath.
The China argument starts of with a differentiation between nationalism and democracy in China, which is entirely specious as the U.S. presents itself as the most democratic society in all its exceptionalism while at the same time inculcating a nationalism in all its patriotic children. He indicates that China is “fundamentally unstable” without any real background to that argument other than to say that “some combination of economic problems, political upheaval, and regional tensions may eventually stop the country’s rise – or even cause it to break up,” the latter being the obvious U.S. choice if actions in Yugoslavia and the Middle East are indicators.
Reading between the lines and understanding Rachman’s belief in the U.S. as global hegemon, the breakup and control of China is an obvious goal, not for democracy, but for Asian resources, cheap labour, and to isolate Russia in order to give it the same treatment. While China is viewed as a “threat” It is the latter, the breakup of Russia, which receives the most vitriol from this discourse.
The anger against Russia reflects the century long hatred the U.S. government has created towards anything to do with Russia. Domestically it started with the many attacks against “bolshevik” labour unions, followed by the hope that Germany and Russia would simply exhaust each other in the Second World War, followed immediately by the creation of the Cold War (with plans to make a nuclear attack on Russia preceding their usage on Japan) and the travesty of the McCarthy era, to be followed by the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, the depredations created by the U.S. shock doctrine during the Yeltsin years (his “failed state” argument), and ultimately and finally the collapse of the Soviet Union and the “end of history.”
But then along came the ferocious little fellow named Putin, and the rage against his evil desires continues. It is with his Russian arguments that Rachman loses any credentials left for having a reasoned critical analysis of the global situation. His turn of language and outright lies concerning Russian actions simply reflects his exceptionalist credentials to those of the typical Russia bashing fear mongering mainstream so typical of U.S. media today.
In the introduction Rachman argues “For two decades after the end of the Cold War, the United States and the EU based policy on the hope that Russia would join the community of Western democratic, capitalist nations.” to be fair, he does say later on that “there is some historical and contemporary evidence for the suggestion that Western leaders were so conficent of their victory…that they felt little need to accommodate Russian concerns” and “treated Russia with neglect and disdain.” Yeah, sort of there, but missing the whole Yeltsin shock doctrine debacle purpetrated on the country by western corporate capitalists and politically oriented academics (notably Jeffrey Sachs). Russia would only be welcomed into the “western community” if it became fully subservient to U.S. interests.
Russia is “ruthless” (hey, so was the U.S. in Latin America), “angry”, a “military threat”, and Putin was filled with “rage and humiliation.” He says “Russia’s population of 150 million is falling,” that it has a “moribund economy”, and is a “declining power.” None of which is true.
His history follows the typical U.S. centric view, speaking of the “invasion” of Georgia, the “revolution” in Ukraine and its ”violent repressions”, along with the “separatists” shooting down the jetliner, the “annexation” of Crimea, and the “land grab” in eastern Ukraine.
Georgia attacked South Ossetia and its cohort of Russian defenders, resulting in the Russian counterattack, which could have taken all of Georgia had the wished, but didn’t. Ukraine was subject to a CIA/NSA sponsored coup, with the neonazi favorites fomenting the violent repression in the Maidan, while the separatists in eastern Ukraine were simply trying to defend themselves from attacking neonazi militias and Ukrainian army regulars wanting to ethnically cleanse the area of its Russian population. Not a land grab, mostly assistance to an endangered group of people. The cause of the jetliner shoot down, has remained indeterminate as the recorded documents have never been released. Crimea voted to ask for association with Russia, and the Duma accepted the proposal, no annexation necessary. Crimea, since the fall of the Soviet Union, had always wanted to be distanced from Ukrainian power in Kiev.
Same old, same old
What finally happens within Easternization is the realization that Rachman wishes to maintain the status quo of U.S. dominance. He bases his argument on the tried and not true aphorism “the rule of law” used by most western countries wanting to attack another country in some way. But what this rule of law amounts to is the freedom of the military-industrial-corporate-financial complex to operate however, whenever, and wherever in the world, under the protection of the U.S.military.
For it is the U.S., according to Rachman, that needs to be have the “global security role”, to have the “role of global policeman,” and as he says himself in support of my contra-indicators, it is “a question of military power and economic muscle come to the fore.” Somehow Rachman sees that as “morally defensible and strategically feasible,” in spite of its horrible moral record left out of his context, and while it might be strategically feasible, it is only thus so while endangering the world to U.S. plans for a first strike nuclear war as conventional war will not do it.
In other words, it is the same old story of the U.S. military supporting U.S. corporate greed throughout the world for the enrichment of the few, while harvesting the labour and the resources of the rest of the world.
Rachman’s Easternization is an interesting read, but only good for tried and true exceptionalists.
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Jim Miles is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Turkish troops and armored units are massed along Turkey’s southern border awaiting orders to invade northern Syria. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to clear a ten mile-deep swath of land east of the Euphrates River in order to remove terrorist-linked militants (YPG) currently occupying the territory. The proposed offensive would put US Special Forces in the line of fire which significantly increases the likelihood of US casualties. If American troops are killed or wounded by the Turkish operation, Washington will respond in force leading to a potentially catastrophic face-off between the two NATO allies. The possibility of a violent clash between Turkey and the United States has never been greater than it is today.
On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned Turkey that any unilateral action in Syria would have “devastating consequences.” Pompeo’s comments were intended to intimidate Erdogan who stated on Tuesday that the military offensive would begin shortly after last weekend’s elections. If Erdogan proceeds with his plan, Pompeo will undoubtedly give the military the go-ahead for retaliatory attacks on the Turkish Army. This will either lead to a speedy retreat by Turkey or asymmetrical strikes on US strategic assets across the region. In any event, the fracas with Turkey is bound to widen the chasm between the two former allies forcing Erdogan to reconsider his commitment to the western alliance. Any further deterioration in relations between the US and Turkey could result in a dramatic shift in the global balance of power.
Washington’s problems with Erdogan began years before the current dust-up. The Turkish leader has always steered an independent foreign policy which has been a constant source of frustration for the White House. During the war in Iraq, Erdogan refused to allow the US to use Turkish air bases to conduct their operations. (Erdogan did not support the war.) Presently he is purchasing air defense systems from Russia (S-400), (which VP Mike Pence has strongly condemned), he has attended summits in Sochi with Moscow and Tehran in order to find a political settlement for the war in Syria, he has signed contracts with Gazprom that will make his country the energy hub of southern Europe, and he has been harshly critical of US support for the its Kurdish proxies in east Syria (the SDF) which is an offshoot of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), a group that is on the US State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.
Most of the friction between Erdogan and the US has been brought on by Washington’s flagrant disregard for Turkey’s security concerns. The current crisis is just another self inflicted wound, like the failed coup in 2016 which backfired spectacularly strengthening Erdogan’s grip on power while fueling widespread distrust of the United States. Check out this excerpt from an article in the New York Times dated August 2, 2016:
“A Turkish newspaper reported that an American academic and former State Department official had helped orchestrate a violent conspiracy to topple the Turkish government from a fancy hotel on an island in the Sea of Marmara, near Istanbul. The same newspaper, in a front-page headline, flat-out said the United States had tried to assassinate President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the night of the failed coup.
When another pro-government newspaper asked Turks in a recent poll conducted on Twitter which part of the United States government had supported the coup plotters, the C.I.A. came in first, with 69 percent, and the White House was a distant second, with 20 percent.
These conspiracy theories are not the product of a few cranks on the fringes of Turkish society. Turkey may be a deeply polarized country, but one thing Turks across all segments of society — Islamists, secular people, liberals, nationalists — seem to have come together on is that the United States was somehow wrapped up in the failed coup, either directly or simply because the man widely suspected to be the leader of the conspiracy, the Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, lives in self-exile in the United States.” (Turks Can Agree on One Thing: U.S. Was Behind Failed Coup – The New York Times)
Let’s cut to the chase: Was the United States behind the plot to remove Erdogan from office in 2016?
Probably, just as the United States was behind more than 50 other regime change operations since the end of WW2.
And is the US currently harboring the mastermind of the Turkish junta in a sprawling compound in rural Pennsylvania?
Yes, this is probably true as well. But, even though Turkey has provided the US with mountains of evidence identifying Gulen as the coup-leader, and even though Turkey has cooperated in the extradition of numerous terror suspects sought by the United States, the US simply doesn’t feel any obligation to return the favor by treating Turkey with respect and fairness. Why is that? Why is there one standard for the United States and a completely different standard for everyone else?
Erdogan has repeatedly asked the Trump administration to respect Turkey’s legitimate security concerns by removing terrorist-linked militants (YPG) from the area around Turkey’s southern border. In mid December, Trump discussed the issue with Erdogan over the phone and agreed to meet the Turkish president’s requests. Four days later (December 19) Trump announced that all US troops would be withdrawn from Syria within 30 days. Since then, the administration has failed to meet any of its prior commitments. It has increased its troop levels in east Syria, bolstered its military hardware and weaponry, and reinforced its positions along the border.
The US has also failed to fulfill its obligations under the terms of the Manbij Roadmap which requires the US to remove all YPG fighters in and around the city and assist Turkey in establishing security in Manbij. There has been no movement on this front at all. If anything, the situation has gotten worse. This suggests that the Trump team has no intention of lifting a finger to address Turkey’s security concerns or of following through on its clearly stated commitments. It suggests that Washington is actually trying to provoke Erdogan in taking matters into his own hands and doing something that he might later regret.
While Ankara’s designs on Syrian territory have no legal basis, they have been consistently reiterated (without change) from the earliest days of the war. As far back as 2012, Turkey insisted on a “safe zone” which would establish a buffer between itself and YPG militants operating in east Syria. The Obama administration agreed to assist Erdogan in the creation of a safe zone in exchange for the use of the strategically-located airbase at Incirlik. Here’s a clip from another article at the New York Times dated July 27, 2015 which explains:
“Turkey and the United States have agreed in general terms on a plan that envisions American warplanes, Syrian insurgents and Turkish forces working together to sweep Islamic State militants from a 60-mile-long strip of northern Syria along the Turkish border, American and Turkish officials say.
The plan would create what officials from both countries are calling an Islamic State-free zone controlled by relatively moderate Syrian insurgents, which the Turks say could also be a “safe zone” for displaced Syrians.
While many details have yet to be determined, including how deep the strip would extend into Syria, the plan would significantly intensify American and Turkish military action against Islamic State militants in the country, as well as the United States’ coordination with Syrian insurgents on the ground. …
“Details remain to be worked out, but what we are talking about with Turkey is cooperating to support partners on the ground in northern Syria who are countering ISIL,” a senior Obama administration official said, using another term for the Islamic State. “The goal is to establish an ISIL-free zone and ensure greater security and stability along Turkey’s border with Syria.” (“Turkey and U.S. Plan to Create Syria ‘Safe Zone’ Free of ISIS”, New York Times)
Repeat: “Turkey and the United States have agreed in general terms on a …safe zone” In exchange, the US would be allowed to use the Incirlik airbase. This is the deal that Obama made with Erdogan, but the United States never kept up its end of the bargain. Of course, the facts related to Incirlik have been swept down the memory hole in order to demonize Erdogan and make it look like he is the one creating all the problems. But that’s simply not the case. It wasn’t Erdogan who scotched the safe-zone deal, it was Obama.
By the way, the announcement that Turkey had struck a deal with Obama on Incirlik turned out to be the trigger for Russia’s entry into the war. This little known fact has escaped the attention of historians and analysts alike, but the truth is clear to see. Shortly after the above article was published (July 27, 2015), Russia began hastily clearing airfields and shipping its warplanes to Syria. Two months later, Russia began its momentous air campaign across Syria.
Why the hurry?
Mainly because of the information that appeared in the NY Times article, particularly this:
“Turkish officials and Syrian opposition leaders are describing the agreement as something just short of a prize they have long sought as a tool against Mr. Assad: a no-fly zone in Syria near the Turkish border.”
“No-fly zone”? Is that what Obama had up his sleeve?
Once Putin realized that the US was going to use Incirlik to establish a no-fly zone over Syria, (the same way it had in Libya) the Russian president quickly swung into action. He could not allow another secular Arab leader to be toppled while the country was plunged into chaos. This is why Russia intervened.
What Trump’s Neocons Want
So now Turkey and the United States are at loggerheads, the Turkish Army has completed its preparations for a cross-border operation east of the Euphrates, while Pompeo, Bolton and Pence continue to exacerbate the situation by issuing one belligerent statement after the other.
Is this the administration’s strategy, to lure Turkey into a conflict that will force Washington to get more deeply involved in the Middle East? Is that why the US has shrugged off its commitments to Ankara, dug in along the border, created a Kurdish state at the center of the Arab world, and is now thumbing its nose at Erdogan?
What is it the neocons (Pompeo, Bolton and Pence) really want?
They want to intensify and expand the fighting so that more US troops and weaponry are required. They want a wider war that forces Trump to go “all in” and deepen his commitment to regional domination. They want America’s armed forces to be bogged down in an unwinnable war that drags on for decades and stretches across borders into Lebanon, Turkey and Iran. They want Washington to redraw the map of the Middle East in a way that diminishes rivals and strengthens Israel’s regional hegemony. They want more conflagrations, more bloodletting, and more war.
That’s what the neocons want, and that’s what their provocations are designed to achieve.
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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.
Over the weekend, the Ecuadorian government issued a statement denying that it was going to “imminently” expel Julian Assange from its London embassy. This followed mounting opposition to its threats to terminate the WikiLeaks founder’s political asylum, including from United Nations bodies and other international rights organisations.
The statement was in response to WikiLeaks’ warning last Friday that it had received information from a “high-level source” within the Ecuadorian state that the government of President Lenín Moreno would expel Assange from the embassy, where he sought political asylum in 2012, within “hours or days.”
Significantly, the Ecuadorian statement did not deny that it had been preparing to evict Assange from the building. Nor did it give any guarantee that he would not be removed and forced into the custody of British police at some point in the future, only that it would not take place “imminently.” As WikiLeaks supporters have noted, “imminent” is a vague word that can be interpreted in different ways.
The statement also did not repudiate comments by the country’s foreign minister, Jose Valencia, on Friday, that his government had the right to “unilaterally” end political asylum, even though such action is in violation of international law.
It twice referenced the fact that WikiLeaks tweeted reports on the “INA papers,” documents which implicate the Moreno government in corruption, perjury and fraud. The regime has used the papers as a pretext for the stepped-up attacks on Assange, by making unsubstantiated claims that he was responsible for leaking them to an Ecuadorian opposition lawmaker last February.
The ongoing dangers confronting Assange were underscored by the entrance of two armed British police officers into the embassy on Sunday morning. It is not known what they did in the building for the several minutes they were inside.
WikiLeaks supporters who are maintaining a continuous protest in defence of Assange outside the embassy have documented large numbers of British police and what appear to be undercover operatives in the area.
This morning, Cassandra Fairbanks, an online journalist, filmed an unmarked car inexplicably shining a light, attached near one of its wheels, at the embassy. She tweeted that one of the operatives left the vehicle and asked assembled journalists what publications they were from, before “calling it in.”
The threatening police activities follow WikiLeaks’ allegation, over the weekend, that the British and Ecuadorian governments had already agreed to a “strategy” for Assange’s eviction.
The document made clear that the WikiLeaks founder would be immediately arrested by British police on trumped-up bail charges. This would facilitate extradition proceedings to the US, which is pursuing Assange for his role in WikiLeaks’ exposure of American war crimes, mass surveillance and illegal diplomatic intrigues.
More information has come to light about the sordid machinations leading up to the heightened threats to oust Assange from the embassy.
The UN’s first Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy, Joseph Cannataci, has published a timeline of his attempts to meet Assange. It suggests that a significant factor in the Ecuadorian government’s efforts to terminate the WikiLeaks founder’s asylum, was that its gagging and surveillance of him were coming under UN and wider international scrutiny.
According to Cannataci, he received an email notice and evidentiary documentation of a complaint by Assange and his legal team on March 29 alleging that the regime had violated his privacy. WikiLeaks lawyers have previously claimed that the Moreno regime was spying on Assange, on behalf of US intelligence agencies.
Cannataci’s attempts to meet with Assange on that day were unsuccessful, because the embassy did not answer or return his calls.
On the night of March 31, Cannataci emailed Ecuadorian authorities requesting a meeting with Assange. He did not receive any response throughout April 1.
On April 2, the Ecuadorian ambassador to Britain, Jaime Marchan, replied that the request for a meeting had been relayed to authorities in the capital. Shortly after, Cannataci received a complaint from Moreno, accompanied by a signed letter from the Foreign Minister Valencia, claiming that Assange had “violated” the Ecuadorian president’s privacy.
The same day, Moreno gave a hysterical interview, claiming that Assange had personally “hacked” the contents of his iPhone and Gmail accounts, which are among the INA papers, and that the WikiLeaks founder was responsible for the corruption scandal engulfing his government.
Marchan did not explicitly acknowledge or respond to Cannataci’s further request for a meeting with Assange on April 3, preventing it from going ahead. Within days, WikiLeaks claimed to have received information that Assange was about to be evicted from the embassy.
The timeline presents a damning picture of a corrupt and crisis-ridden regime, seeking to cover-up its violations of the human rights of a refugee publisher and journalist with lies, evasions and dirty intrigues. It explains why, many weeks after the publication of the INA papers, senior government figures suddenly began claiming Assange was responsible for the leaks. The Moreno regime knows that Assange had nothing to do with the leaking, because it cut off his internet access and communications in March 2018.
There is no doubt that these machinations were conducted in close collaboration with the US government, which has close ties to the Moreno regime.
The Ecuadorian threats coincide with the Trump administration’s jailing of Chelsea Manning. The US government has detained the courageous whistleblower, who leaked the US army’s Iraq and Afghan war logs and hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks in 2010, for refusing to give perjured testimony against Assange before a Grand Jury.
This indicates that the Trump administration does not have a legal case for Assange’s extradition that could withstand judicial scrutiny. The ongoing exposure of the illegal intrigues of the Ecuadorian and British authorities will also complicate their attempts to terminate Assange’s asylum.
WikiLeaks’ determination to defend Assange and defeat the conspiracy against him found powerful expression in an interview with one of his lawyers, Jennifer Robinson, on Channel Seven’s “Sunrise” program in Australia, on Saturday.
Robinson noted that Assange had been granted asylum by the previous Ecuadorian government “for publishing information about war crimes, human rights abuses and corruption by governments around the world.” She recalled that Assange had received the Sydney Peace Prize and a Walkley Award for outstanding journalism in 2011.
Robinson warned that it was a “serious situation” that “an Australian journalist faces prosecution in the United States,” for publishing activities.
“If it was Egypt, or Turkey, the Australian government would be criticising it and standing up for its citizen,” she said, and asked, “Why isn’t the Australian government doing it in this case?”
Robinson stated that Assange had been compelled to seek asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in 2012, because the then Labor government had not protected him. She called for the Australian government to intervene to secure Assange’s safe passage to Australia with a guarantee against extradition to the US.
Significantly, one of the hosts of the program stated that the Australian government “clearly needs to do more.” Her colleague expressed concern over Assange’s deteriorating health.
To secure the elementary demand outlined by Robinson requires the building of a mass political movement of workers, students, young people and all defenders of civil liberties, to force the Australian government to fulfil its responsibilities to Assange. This crucial fight is inseparable from the broader struggle against the turn by governments internationally to online censorship and authoritarianism, amid mass hostility to war and inequality, and an upsurge of the class struggle.
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Israel’s election campaign, now in its last days, must be the first in which a sitting Israeli prime minister has sought to win over voters by boasting about how much he insulted a president of the United States.
One of the last campaign videos by Benjamin Netanyahu spliced together media clips of US analysts voicing disbelief back in 2011 at the Israeli prime minister’s public humiliation of Barack Obama.
The ad not only described Netanyahu as “lecturing” Obama, but showed him visibly angering the US president by berating him for chasing “illusions” in his pursuit of peace talks with the Palestinians. It closed with Likud’s campaign slogan: “Netanyahu. Right-wing. Strong.”
Netanyahu’s electioneering has rarely been subtle. But after Israel’s attorney general announced during the campaign that the prime minister faced corruption indictments, Netanyahu has had every incentive to plumb new depths.
His officials have stated that his main rival, Benny Gantz, a general he once appointed as military chief of staff, is mentally unstable. One Likud video showed Gantz’s head emerging from a cuckoo clock.
The character assassination has been aided by the leaking of a recording of an off-guard Gantz saying that, if he could have done so, Netanyahu would have had him killed.
Netanayhu’s team also exploited, and possibly leaked, a claim that Gantz’s mobile phone was hacked by Iran. “If he couldn’t protect his own phone, how will he protect our country?” Netanyau has said.
Innuendo has suggested that compromising information on the phone could be used for blackmail.
Gantz, who heads the Blue & White party, hardly emerges spotless, either. He has steeped himself in dubious military glory with ads showing footage of the devastation in Gaza that he presided over, a bombing spree that killed more than 500 children. The video bragged about his sending the enclave “back to the Stone Age”.
Blue & White, which includes two other high-powered generals, is the Israeli security establishment’s effort to oust Netanyahu, who is seen as having squandered international goodwill with his public intransigence on peacemaking.
The generals are no less opposed to Palestinian statehood. They understand the Israeli public’s mood: a recent survey shows that more than 40 per cent of Israelis favour some form of annexation of the West Bank.
Pandering to these sentiments, Netanyahu said at the weekend he would extend Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank during his next term.
Gantz has shown no inclination to stray far from this consensus. In his inaugural campaign speech, he said he would “strengthen the settlement blocs” as well as “retain control of security in the entire land of Israel”, which includes the West Bank and Gaza.
He has repeatedly evaded questions about what solution he proposes for the Palestinians.
But, like most other security officials, Gantz believes it is important for Israel to court the West by giving the appearance of a willingness to negotiate.
Nonetheless, it is no simple matter to dislodge Netanyahu from power after he has won three general elections over the past decade on his security record.
He did so on previous occasions by vanquishing the country’s founding Labour party, which has traditionally presented itself as centre-left. Over time, faced with an unassailable Netanyahu, Labour leaders stopped paying lip service to the Oslo peace accords they signed a quarter of a century ago.
Instead, they began to champion illegal Jewish settlements on Palestinian territory nearly as vociferously as the ruling Likud party.
This time, there are no left-leaning parties in the running. This is a straightforward slugging match between the right wing (Gantz) and the even more right wing (Netanyahu).
For most of the campaign, the two parties have been neck and neck. To form the next government, Netanyahu or Gantz must forge deals with much smaller parties in the 120-member parliament to gain a majority.
Netanyahu will need a mix of the far-right and religious-extremist factions he has previously relied on to clear the 61-seat threshold. To help, he has invited into a future coalition Jewish Power – the rebranded fascists of Kach, a party that was outlawed more than 20 years ago.
Gantz, on the other hand, is caught in an electoral trap. He will either have to out-right-wing Netanyahu to win over these same extremist parties, or secure the backing of Jewish centre-left groups and parties representing Israel’s Palestinian citizens, a fifth of the population.
Bearing in mind his military career, Gantz risks alienating his core support if he suggests a readiness to enter into a deal with the Zionist left or with the country’s Palestinian minority.
Netanyahu understands Gantz’s bind. At the last election, in 2015, the Israeli prime minister warned on polling day that “the Arabs” – Israel’s own Palestinian citizens – were “coming out in droves” to vote. He added that the Jewish left was supposedly “bussing them” to polling stations.
Throughout this campaign, Netanyahu has fanned similar flames. During a recent TV interview, he accused the Palestinian parties of supporting terrorism. He has even characterised the possibility of loose, informal support from Palestinian legislators for a Gantz-led government as “working to eliminate the state of Israel”.
In a recent interview Gantz also said the Palestinian leadership in Israel “speaks out against the State of Israel, so I cannot have a political discourse with it”. He has said he will sit only with parties that are “Jewish and Zionist”.
Meanwhile, Yair Lapid, a former TV news host and Gantz’s electoral partner, voted along with Likud to ban two Palestinian parties already in the parliament from running in the election. The decision was overturned in the courts.
None of this has been lost on Israel’s Palestinian voters. They have had to sit through an allegedly ironic campaign video by the current justice minister, Ayelet Shaked, of the settler-allied New Right party, in which she sprays herself with a perfume labelled “Fascism”.
They have also seen Oren Hazan, a legislator in Netanyahu’s Likud party, emerging from a bubble bath, in a James Bond parody video, to shoot dead a lookalike of a leading Israeli-Palestinian politician.
In Nazareth, the largest Palestinian city in Israel, it has been hard to discern that an election is just around the corner. There have been few posters or rallies, and no excitement. According to a late poll, half of Palestinian voters in Israel intend to stay home.
In part, that reflects a protest at the Nation-State Basic Law, passed last summer, which made explicit Israel’s self-definition as a Jewish state: that Palestinians can never properly be Israeli citizens and that they will always be viewed as unwelcome interlopers.
But it is also a judgment that any success by the Palestinian parties, split in this election into two acrimonious camps, will have no impact on the direction Israeli policy takes.
Whether Netanyahu or Gantz wins, more legislation will be drafted to advance institutional discrimination against the Palestinian minority, and the abusive treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories will intensify.
US President Donald Trump has done his best to give Netanyahu an electoral leg-up. That has included the recognition of Israeli claims to sovereignty over the Golan Heights and an invitation to the White House days before polling.
Last-minute surprises are still possible, but most expect Netanyahu to win outright. Even if the election is indecisive, Israeli history suggests that the most likely outcome is a national unity government between the two largest parties.
Whatever Netanyahu and Gantz claim now about being bitter enemies, the truth is that, ideologically, they have more in common than either cares to admit.
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A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
As we head for NATO’s 70th birthday, it’s time to assess the nuclear-armed military alliance that came into being to ensure western military superiority during the Cold War. Most strikingly, during its first 40 years of existence – namely the Cold War, NATO embarked on no wars or military campaigns. Yet in the 30 years since the Cold War and the removal of its political and military rival, the Soviet Union, NATO has massively expanded territorially, changed its mission statement from a defensive to an aggressive posture and embarked on a series of wars, of which their intervention in Afghanistan is getting on for two decades long.
These activities have turned the end of the Cold War from a unique opportunity for new diplomacy and peaceful development into a new era of global tension, encircling Russia and China thereby creating the conditions for a new Cold War, tearing up international legal norms, notably around national sovereignty, and introducing bogus notions of ‘humanitarian war’.
A second NATO anniversary worth noting fell last week, on 12th March: twenty years since the first former Warsaw Pact states joined NATO. On that day, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic signed up, and just days later they found themselves at war with their neighbour Yugoslavia. The war was illegal and brought devastating human consequences to what remained of Yugoslavia – including the legacy of toxic Depleted Uranium. It was also the first use of Tony Blair’s baseless justification for wars of intervention.
Forces.net, the armed forces news service is one of the few outlets to cover the anniversary of NATO’s expansion into eastern Europe, and makes some very valid points, noting that the first expansions in 1999 began a ‘seemingly unstoppable march of the alliance’s border towards Russia.’ Tellingly, the report also observed that while Russian actions in Crimea have renewed NATO’s focus on Russia, some have questioned ‘whether NATO’s expansion has provoked Russia and risked a new Cold War.’
That is the crucial question and as NATO is now expanding into Latin America, the implications of these developments need to be understood too. These are just some of the issues that will be addressed by the movement when the NATO summit takes place in London in December, where Donald Trump is expected to be present and CND is preparing for major protests.
Protest: No to Trump – No to NATO – London Demonstration Central London • December 2019
Meanwhile, the No to War – No to NATO network, of which CND is part, has issued the following statement for the 20th anniversary of the NATO war on Yugoslavia. Read it, and be moved to take action against NATO.
Stop NATO wars and interventions!
On March 24th, 1999 the illegal war on Yugoslavia began
Twenty years after the start of the illegal war on Yugoslavia, the international network “No to war – no to NATO” remembers this deliberate attack on a sovereign state. A Pandora´s box was opened, from which several illegal wars were to follow: on Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and Syria, with a bloody trail of destruction, forced removal, sorrow, and death.
The war on Yugoslavia was the blueprint for the fuelling of ethnic and nationalist conflicts, and the militarization of societies up to the point of war. Those who are fleeing from war zones are still continually threatened by military actions, whether the perpetrator be EU/Frontex and/or NATO.
The supposed legitimation for these wars was a web of lies, employed to gain dominance, influence, resources, and hegemony.
During this time, NATO has developed global reach and became THE international military alliance. This has been emphasized by the jointly taken decision of its members to achieve defence spending of at least 2% of GDP by 2024. This boost will reduce the influence of China and Russia and secure resources for capitalist hegemony.
Contradictions between NATO states cannot conceal this common objective and the permanent territorial expansion of NATO serves these purposes. Preparations for war, most recently against Venezuela, underline its aggressive attitude. Abandoning nuclear weapons has never been seriously considered as an option. Through the comprehensive modernization and intended deployment of new nuclear weapons by the US, following the dissolution of the INF treaty, the nuclear arms race will be fuelled to a level not seen in decades. Furthermore, NATO´s first strike strategy is a threat to the planet as a whole.
Since its foundation in 2009, the international network “No to war – no to NATO” has successfully managed, through various actions, to reduce support for NATO among the population in key states, and even to delegitimize NATO. Our objective remains the same – twenty years after the illegal attack on Yugoslavia, and 70 years after NATO’s founding: to overcome the dinosaur named NATO and to replace it with an international organization for collective security and disarmament.
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Kate Hudson has been General Secretary of CND since September 2010. Prior to this she served as the organisation’s Chair from 2003. She is a leading anti-nuclear and anti-war campaigner nationally and internationally.
I actually wrote an earlier text on this issue in 2012 when Obama was running for re-election. Sadly, ALL of the issues and ideas below were those that neither of the Two Party/One Party system would dare to agree with.
Now we are in the Age of Trump and the pirates have really been let loose on us. All the Democrats seem to focus on is Russia Russia Russia. If I hear the phrase ‘The Mueller Report’ anymore I think I will be committed! The ‘skinny’ of all this is that the Democrats focus on the absurdities of Trump’s tweets and misinformation, along with a ridiculous border wall.
Meanwhile, while the Dow breaks records and “reported” unemployment figures are low, few from either party seem to grasp the ‘Why’ of this. Well, the late and great Naval Air Colonel Bob Bowman, who had his epiphany after serving in Vietnam, explained it all to me many years ago. I asked him about Wall Street and the Dow, and about our labor figures. “Philip”, he said, “It’s all very simple to understand. Unemployment figures will be lower when either many of the low wage earners will have to get two and even three part time jobs to survive, or have given up even looking for work. As far as the Dow index, when wages are going up the Dow will be low. When wages are going or staying down the Dow will go up. Period!”
I don’t intend to list countless measures that, as President, I would take. No, rather, in this world of one minute sound bites and KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid) I have a streamlined platform that covers the really pertinent and key issues of our day:
Cut the military spending drastically to save our states, their cities and our prestige as a nation. The 25% Solution Movement has a simple and novel approach to this: Congress cuts military spending 25% by an ‘Up and Down ‘vote, since this spending is considered Discretionary … As President I will use my bully pulpit to go directly to the American public, urging everyone to A) get out and continually demonstrate for this, and B) let their congressional representatives know that they will not vote for anyone who refuses to support this! Period!
Use the added revenues from the above action ($ 170 billion a year) to send to all 50 states to help with their budget deficits. This would then allow the states to send money to the cities for the same purpose. No need to lay off police, firefighters, teachers etc or to close libraries and schools. You get my drift?
End the occupations of Iraq & Afghanistan and send the troops home… ASAP! This would save us over $ 100 billion a year and stop the killing of our troops and the innocent civilians that they kill. It would also allow the UN, along with the Middle Eastern nations, to help stabilize those two countries.
Flat Surtax of 50% on all personal income over and above one million dollars per year. Let’s leave the federal tax rates as is and begin taxing the millionaires and mega millionaires. If we are truly a nation entrenched in the Judeo- Christian traditions and precepts, are we not supposed to be ‘Our brother’s keeper‘? Cannot a person who earns millions in income, whether it is from salary, bonus, interest, commissions, or inheritance, afford to live quite well on 50% of those millions? Did you know that 50% of working Americans earn less than $ 27,000 a year? How can a single mother or father raise a child or two on that meager amount? Do the math and see how taking half from a very wealthy person is perhaps the most spiritual thing we can do as a nation.
Return the corporate tax rates to what they were in our recent past. Honor small business by instituting payroll tax forgiveness for up to the first $ 20,000 of wages, for both the employee and employer. This would return close to $ 1500 a year to each worker, tax free. The small business owner would have saved up to $ 1500 for each employee. I would cap this plan at a maximum of 100 employees., though ALL employees anywhere still get their forgiveness. This plan would discourage ‘off the books ‘hiring and give small businesses more capital to stay competitive, if they choose.
Jumpstart a movement to get private money out of electoral politics… federal, state and local. Not an easy thing to accomplish, due to the 1976 Supreme Court ruling of Buckley vs. Valeo. That ruling stated that ‘Money is free speech‘. How do we get around such an unfair interpretation without going insane and waiting 20 years for constitutional amendments? Well, as President, I would challenge you, the voters, who elect the moneyed interests time and time again. I would urge that you only support candidates who agree to limit acceptance of campaign donations up to $ 100 per person. On top of that, we must not support any candidate who accepts PAC money at all. Period!
I would push for Congress to open up Medicare for any American who wishes to buy in. It should be 100% government run with no room for private insurers. By some of the aforementioned actions, there would be plenty of money to jumpstart it etc. The buy in would still cost less than currently under our Medicare system , which relies on private insurers too much. Having such a system would be easier to manage, with one claim form for all.
Why not have our federal government jumpstart community nonprofit mortgage banks? Imagine if your city, town or county opened, with federal loan guarantees, a nonprofit mortgage bank, charging only overhead costs? Translated: a current mortgage of let us say 5% from a for profit bank would now be perhaps 2% from a nonprofit community one. More home ownership, fewer renters and economic stimulus for many such peripheral industries.
Windfall profits tax on Big Oil and Big Pharma. How can it be that the prices at the pumps and on medicines spiral upwards while the majority of working stiffs experience depression, both financially and psychologically? We would use the added revenue to create more solar energy use and wind farms. Portugal is getting more dependent upon wind for energy use. Why can’t we? As far as medicines, let’s use the revenue increases from a windfall tax on Big Pharma to jumpstart an alternative care movement. We need more Americans to be able to get acupuncture and chiropractic treatment, massage therapy, psychological counseling to name a few such alternatives to established Western Medicine. Let’s be blunt: For too long our nation leads the world in the ‘drug and cut ‘mindset of medicine.
I could go on and on. For now, this is my platform. If you agree with even 2/3 of it, then voice your support. You know and I know that I cannot win election, but… the word will get out that we have viable options to what this current Two Party / One Party has been offering.
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Philip A Farruggio is a son and grandson of Brooklyn, NYC longshoremen. He has been a free lance columnist since 2001, with over 400 of his work posted on sites like Global Research, Greanville Post, Off Guardian, Consortium News, Information Clearing House, Nation of Change, World News Trust, Op Ed News, Dissident Voice, Activist Post, Sleuth Journal, Truthout and many others. His blog can be read in full on World News Trust, whereupon he writes a great deal on the need to cut military spending drastically and send the savings back to save our cities. Philip has a internet interview show, ‘It’s the Empire… Stupid’ with producer Chuck Gregory, and can be reached at [email protected]
President Moon Jae-in of South Korea has played a vital role of mediation for three Seoul-Pyongyang summits and two Washington-Pyongyang summits. Owing to these summits, on the Korean peninsula, there are no longer nuclear tests; we see no more ICBM launching; North Koreans are free now from the threats of annual joint military exercises; the DMZ is now demilitarized.
But the world’s honest hope for a breakthrough at the Hanoi Kim-Trump died.
President Moon will meet Trump in Washington on the 11th of April. It will be a Mission Impossible.
It is hoped that God will be on his side.
All these summits have provided the hope for the possible beginning of the peace process. But, the sudden collapse of the second Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi has cast dark clouds over the horizon of the peace process. In fact, nobody seems to know what will happen now. However, we know that, to go any further with the peace process, the world needs once again the leadership of President Moon.
In this paper, I will tackle the following. First, I will examine the current state of the peace process, and then, I will discuss the possible range of Moon’s mediation activities. Third, I will evaluate the probability of success of Moon’s effort. Finally I will add a few words of summary.
The Current state of the Peace Process
In my previous paper (Global Research March 10, 2019), I identified five factors of the collapse of the Kim-Trump Hanoi Summit including the mismatch of the price for Pyongyang’s gift, the mutual mistrust, the Cohen factor before Bolton’s intervention, the Japan factor and the Trump factor
However, according to recent information including the revelation by Choe Son-hui, Vice Minister of North Korea’s Foreign Ministry and other sources, the real reason of the collapse of the Summit was something much more serious.
Before the summit, there was an agreement among the official negotiation teams that the “small deal” was to be signed by the two leaders.
The “small deal” meant that North Korea would dismantle the Yongbyon nuclear facilities in exchange of the lifting of the five UN sanctions which have prevented the inflow into North Korea of daily necessities vital for the very survival of North Korean citizens including the medicines for children.
However, at the extended summit late morning of the 28th of February, the National Security Advisor John Bolton came into the summit room with a yellow envelop in which the content of the “big deal” was supposed to be found. For the sake of the big deal, Pompeo and Bolton would have compelled Trump not to sign the “small deal” agreement.
Now, the big deal package would ask far more than the dismantlement of the Yongbyon nuclear facilities which represent 80% of North Korea’s nuclear capacities; the big deal would require the elimination and shipping of all nuclear weapons to the United States and elimination of all nuclear materials as well as the destruction of all chemical and biological weapons. In addition, the experts of nuclear products should be permanently assigned to jobs unrelated to nuclear products. In other words, the big deal would deprive North Korea of all means of self defence.
In short, what Bolton and Pompeo demanded was the application of so-called the Libya model leading to the total destruction of the country. Bolton and Pompeo surely knew that North Korea would never accept such an unrealistic demand.
Then, we must ask why the Libya model? The answer is this: there is a powerful force in the U.S. who is against denuclearization of North Korea; it asks Pyongyang to accept the Libya model knowing very well that Kim Jong-un, especially his generals, would never accept it. What this force wants is the perpetuation of the state of war on the Korean peninsula leading to regime change.
Who are behind this powerful force? It is now a common knowledge that there are pro-war oligarchs in Washington including defence industry, the military and the intelligence establishment; these oligarchs are supported by think tanks and corporate media fatly funded by the oligarchs.
But, these oligarchs cannot be permanent; they can vary in composition depending on political power; there must be a force much stronger and more deeply rooted in the U.S. and other countries of the West; it could be the “Deep State”, the dark and almighty global financial system created a few hundred years ago to dominate the world.
Pyongyang now knows what the dark force behind the Washington hard-liners wants and what Trump hopes to get. This powerful anti-denuclearization force represented by Bolton and Pompeo want to maintain the state of war on the Korean peninsula.
Nonetheless, Pyongyang and Seoul believe, at least, try to believe that Trump is sincere in lifting the sanctions and helping North Korea to become a ” normal country” in exchange of ” reasonable denuclearization”.
As for Kim Jong-un, he is expected to announce soon his peace plan in the light of what has happened in Hanoi. He may consider three options.
First, he may stick to the “small deal” consisting in gradually getting rid of Yongbyun nuclear related facilities in exchange of corresponding lifting of the five sanctions.
Second, he may accept a modified “big deal” comprising the dismantling of the Yongbyon nuclear facilities plus the elimination of nuclear weapons and even some of the ICBMs.
Third, if the pro-war force in Washington insists on the Libya model, North Korea will give up its peace dialogue with Washington; it may try to form a sort of economic bloc with Russia and China.
Role of Moon Jae-in
President of South Korea, Moon-Jae-in will visit Washington for a summit with President Trump. Moon may give himself two missions.
First he is expected to strengthen the mutual trust between Pyongyang and Washington.
Second, he may give himself the task of proposing a “reasonable” denuclearization acceptable to both North Korea and the U.S.
At the beginning of the peace dialogue, there was surely strong mistrust partly because of the lack of sincerity, mainly on the part of Washington. But, North Korea trusts Moon, for he has been promoting the North South dialogue and cooperation since 2000, especially since 2003 while serving as chief of staff of President Rho Moo-hyun who carried out the “Sunshine Policy” initiated by his predecessor, President Kim Dae-jung. For last two years, Moon has been developing warm relations with Trump and this has made Trump to rely on Moon to check the reliability of North Korea’s statements.
Moon’s trust-mediation would have contributed to trust building between Pyongyang and Washington. Furthermore, the good “chemistry” between Kim and Trump would have been another factor for the dissipation of mistrust between the two countries which had been enemies for seventy years.
But, Moon’s trust-building efforts may become useless, if the pro-war establishment represented by Bolton and Pompeo keep on creating mistrusts regarding North Korea. This leaves three options to Moon.
First, ask Bolton and Pompeo to persuade their “real boss” to abandon the idea of regime change in North Korea.
Second, ask Trump to change the composition of his advisors with those who are for peace on the Korean peninsula and in the region of East Asia
Third, Moon could suggest a compromise between the “small deal” and the “big deal”; that is, Moon should come up with a “middle deal”.
The small deal is what Kim proposed to Trump at the Hanoi Summit consisting of dismantling of the Yongbyun nuclear facilities in exchange of the removal of the five U.S.-led sanctions. The Big deal is the Libya model.
It is not the job of Moon to specify the contents of the middle deal. But, it must be based on some principles. First it must not deprive North Korea of its capacity of defending itself as a normal country. Second, it must be a sequential process in which each step of denuclearization activities is matched by corresponding sanction lifting.
Probability of Moon’s Success
The probability of Moon’s success in Washington depends on the how Moon will be able to do the following.
First, Moon should tell the Americans that the role of South Korea is not merely the mediation between Pyongyang and Washington. The denuclearization is as much South Korea’s issue as it is the American problem. Moon should let Washington to remember that South Korea is a partner of Korea-US security alliance; the U.S. should respect the interest of its alliance partner. South Korea does not want the regime change in North Korea;South Korea wants denuclearization and normal economic development of North Korea.
Second, Moon should invest time and resources to convince the Americans that North Korea is not a threat to the U.S. or to any other nation. The pro-war forces in the U.S. have been justifying their hard policy toward North Korea under the pretext that North Korea is a threat to the world. Once the Americans are convinced that North Korea is not a threat, the Washington oligarchs would have difficulty in justifying their hostile North Korea policy.
President Moon has a mission impossible; he has too many adversaries who are determined to keep the state of war in Korea. The conservatives both in South Korea and Japan are as much anti-denuclearization as the Washington pro-war oligarchs.
In fact, South Korean conservatives are deploying all their resources and efforts to prevent Moon from establishing peace and restoring democracy which has been destroyed by the conservatives; the aim of the conservatives is to make Moon’s government powerless so that they will retake the power in three years. If this happens, the peace process will stop. As for Abe’s Japan, it has been taking measure in order to increase diplomatic friction with South Korea hoping to discredit Moon’s government and increase the probability of South Korean conservatives’ retaking of the power.
Thus, the mission of Moon is very challenging; it is near impossible. In fact, he is taking a big political risk. If the peace process succeeds, both North Korea and the U.S. will claim their victory; if it fails, both will blame Moon.
But, Moon will continue his mission of peace mediation, because he loves peace and justice.We are grateful for that. He needs the world’s support.
To close my thought, I add this. The stake is high; now could be the golden time for the peace process; if we miss it, the state of war may continue in the Korean peninsula; the conservative may come back and the South Korean society will remain corrupted and the regional security in the region will remain shaky.
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Professor Joseph H. Chung is professor of economics and co-director of the East Asia laboratory (OAE) of the Study Center for Integration and Globalization (CEIM), Quebec University-Montreal in Montreal (UQAM). He is Research Associate of the Center for Research on Globalization (CRG).
On Friday, the Trump Neocons and the Treasury Department and its Goldman Sachs alumnus boss imposed sanctions against 35 ships and two companies involved in the legal transport of oil from Venezuela to Cuba.
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.@POTUS is taking action against a vital source of the Maduro regime’s wealth. Today the U.S. will sanction 34 vessels owned or operated by PDVSA, as well as 2 additional companies that transport Venezuelan crude oil to Cuba. Venezuela’s oil belongs to the Venezuelan people!
The legitimate Venezuelan National Assembly called for international support of its decree. The Department of the Treasury has sanctioned companies and vessels facilitating illegal oil transfers from the Maduro regime to Cuba. This is only a first step. https://t.co/ovylOAPPHs
Cuba has been “illegal” for sixty years. In other words, it has successfully if tragically resisted the imposition of the neoliberal order following the Cuban Revolution.
It’s safe to say the average American knows virtually nothing about Cuba and its history. They don’t know about Fulgencio Batista, the brutal military leader who enforced a neoliberal (and Mafia) status quo in Cuba. At the time, foreign corporations, primarily American, owned 70% of the arable land, and Batista served as a middleman for transnational business deals.
“By the late ’50s, U.S. financial interests included 90 percent of Cuban mines, 80 percent of its public utilities, 50 percent of its railways, 40 percent of its sugar production and 25 percent of its bank deposits—some $1 billion in total,” writes Natasha Geiling.
In 1952, unable to gain the support of the Cuban people in his bid for the presidency (his party was in last place), Batista staged a military coup. He was aligned with the Cuban elite, the owners of sugar plantations, and received logistical, military, and financial support from the US government.
“He aligned himself with the mafia from the United States who controlled drugs, gambling and prostitution rings in the U.S. The Batista government was favored by American-based corporations that had invested in Cuba,” writes Timothy Alexander Guzman.
In order to crush dissent to his dictatorial regime, Batista imposed iron-clad media censorship. He ordered his Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities to kidnap, torture, and murder political activists.
Batista created an anti-Communist secret police to silence the public with violence, torture and public executions. It is estimated that there were between 10,000 to 20,000 people murdered under the Batista regime with financial and military support from the Washington. During Batista’s reign of terror, the July 26 Movement organized by Fidel Castro and other anti-government groups throughout Cuba were forming a rebellion against the Batista government.
In 1959, Castro rejected the characterization that his movement was communist, preferring instead to call it humanismo. However, in order for the US to intervene (as did later with the failed Bay of Pigs invasion), it portrayed Castro as a communist and a threat to US national security (which, of course, means it was a threat to predatory banks and corporations).
“The Soviet Union, the socialist camp, the People’s Republic of China, and North Korea helped us resist, with essential supplies and weapons, the implacable blockade of the United States, the most powerful empire ever to exist,” Castro said.
On October 19, 1960, in the waning months of the Eisenhower administration, the US place a crippling embargo on Cuba. This resulted in Castro nationalizing US and transnational business interests.
“Since 1961, the official U.S. policy toward Cuba has been two-pronged: economic embargo and diplomatic isolation.”
At the same time, Eisenhower was working secretly with the CIA to assassinate Castro and re-install a neoliberal autocracy.
The CIA plan was dubbed Trinidad and it was based on successful CIA coups in Iran and Guatemala. Trinidad envisioned an amphibious invasion. The idea was to carve out a beachhead and establish a council that would gain international recognition and support by the US and the Organization of American States.
After Kennedy was elected, the CIA produced a revised plan, codenamed Zapata, later known as the Bay of Pigs plan, and it turned out to be a spectacular failure. This plan and other unsuccessful attempts to destabilize Cuba resulted in Castro’s move toward communism and the imposition of a police state and widespread political repression.
Relations between Cuba and the US thawed a little during the Obama administration, but after Trump was elected and the neocons began dictating foreign policy the old anti-Communist animosity returned with a vengeance.
“[The Obama administration] made a deal with a government that spread violence and instability in the region and nothing they got, think about it, nothing they got, they fought for everything and we just didn’t fight hard enough, but now, those days are over,” Trump said during a speech in Miami. “We now hold the cards. The previous administration’s easing of restrictions of travel and trade does not help the Cuban people. They only enrich the Cuban regime.”
The “violence and instability” Trump mentioned includes Cuba sending doctors to Venezuela.
According to the Gray Lady of Propaganda, The New York Times, this medical aid isn’t about helping needy Venezuelans, but a cynical political move.
“In interviews, 16 members of Cuba’s medical missions to Venezuela—a signature element of relations between the two countries—described a system of deliberate political manipulation in which their services were wielded to secure votes for the governing Socialist Party, often through coercion,” the Times reported last month.
Now that Washington has targeted oil shipments between Venezuela and Cuba, it is likely only a matter of time before a tanker is seized or sunk by the US military.
Rabid “exceptional nation” neocons are running US foreign policy again and the possibility of armed conflict between the US and Cuba is heightened to a level not seen since the Cuban Missile Crisis. That one nearly resulted in a nuclear war.
I doubt this engineered crisis will terminate in a nuclear showdown. However, considering Trump’s belief nukes can and should be used, and the venomous pronouncements of his neocons toward not only Venezuela and Cuba, but also Russia and China, it’s not difficult to imagine the unimaginable.
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The United States has struck at least $68.2bn worth of deals for firearms, bombs, weapons systems, and military training with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates since the start of their war in Yemen – billions more than previously reported – according to data collected by an American think tank.
That colossal sum includes, for the first time, both commercial and governmental arms deals and indicates that US involvement in the disastrous war may be greater than suspected. In fact, the weapons expenditure could have funded the United Nations’s 2019 humanitarian appeal for Yemen – which totalled $4bn – 17 times over.
According to the data collected by arms trade watchdog Security Assistance Monitor (SAM) and reported here for the first time, American companies have made deals worth at least $14bn with the Emiratis and Saudis since March 2015, when the coalition intervened in the conflict.
Government sales tend to be for major systems, like combat aircraft, tanks, bombs, and ships, some of which are more likely than others to be used in Yemen – partly because it can take years to finalise such deals, which frequently grab headlines.
But it’s the smaller weapons like firearms and bombs sold in commercial sales that experts say are disproportionately likely to be used in the conflict and inflict significant damage.
William Hartung, director of the arms and security project at the Center for International Policy, a progressive think tank in Washington, DC, which houses SAM, said the commercial data shows the US footprint in Yemen is “dramatically understated” because commercial sales are “so rarely discussed, compared to big glitzy deals like the fighter planes”.
SAM’s estimate was all but confirmed by a US state department official, speaking on background, who said the overall value of American weapons deals to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen since March 2015 totalled about $67.4bn.
New details about the arms deals come amid a continued push in the US Congress to end Washington’s involvement in the war in Yemen, which has displaced millions and led to widespread disease and malnutrition.
In February, the Senate passed a bill to withdraw US military support for the coalition and the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives voted 247-175 in favour of the resolution on Thursday. US President Donald Trump has threatened to veto the effort, however.
“President Trump is going to have to decide if we are going to continue to aid the Saudi military in killing thousands of civilians and blocking humanitarian aid to Yemen,” Senator Chris Murphy, one of three lawmakers behind the bipartisan bill, told Middle East Eye.
Some of the deals were struck just days after US-made weapons were shown to have been used by the Saudi-led coalition in air strikes that killed civilians, including school children on a field trip, guests attending a wedding, and an entire family, excluding a five-year-old girl, at their Sanaa home.
“It’s hard to imagine a more dramatic example of the negative consequences of US arms sales,” Hartung said.
“They’re supporting regimes that are murdering civilians and causing a humanitarian catastrophe… This is a stain on the United States.”
The weapons in the deals range from missile defence systems to grenade launchers to firearms, but most were offered in deals by US arms manufacturers to the Saudi and Emirati governments.
And that’s why, until now, the total figures used by journalists and researchers for approved US deals have been deceptively low: unlike government deals, data on commercial deals is difficult to obtain, with bare-bone details only made public long after Congress is notified, sometimes even 18 months later, said Christina Arabia, the director of SAM, which collected the data used in this story and is the only organisation which tracks both types of sales.
Without US weapons, experts say the coalition fighting in Yemen – which is led by Saudi Arabia and includes the UAE – would be largely unable to wage its war. As of 2017, three out of every five weapons imported by the coalition was US-made, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
Some of those weapons have been used in more than 100 coalition air strikes and cluster bomb attacks which have killed civilians or targeted hospitals and villages since March 2015, NGOs and media outlets have reported.
The Saudi-led coalition is responsible for 4,764 reported civilian deaths since 2016, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED).
Yet deals over the past four years have continued largely unabated. “Most deals to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, or anywhere else, basically sail through Congress without a discouraging word, much less a vote,” said Hartung.
Tracking nightmare
The main reason the total worth of US arms deals to the Saudi-led coalition has been publicly undervalued, said Arabia, is the convoluted and opaque way commercial deals are tracked and reported.
The US government publishes details about arms deals concluded with other governments – through the “Foreign Military Sales” programme – whenever the administration gives its approval. But tracking deals between commercial US arms manufacturers and foreign governments – ‘Direct Commercial Sales’ – is tricky.
Some deals are listed as going to multiple countries, hiding the true recipients of the weapons or any dollar amount. Other agreements don’t give specific weapon types, only rough categories like “firearms and ammunition”.
There are also thresholds, which mean certain, lower-value deals aren’t disclosed to Congress – any firearms deal under $1m, for example – and some deals are only listed at a threshold amount when they are worth far more.
The US state department recently listed an arms export deal to Saudi Arabia – for work related to the Patriot air defence system – as being worth “$50 million or more”. SAM data shows it was in fact worth over $195.5m.
The result of this murky reporting? The public is left in the dark about where, how many and to whom US arms are sold, said Arabia.
“There’s some information about the type of weapon in one committee report,” she said. “Then another committee report will say the country name, and then I have to contact another committee to get the dollar amount of the sale.”
Sometimes, Arabia said, she only gets figures because she has built relationships with specific committee staffers. She says that since the US midterm elections in November, when the Democrats took control of the House of Representatives, she has been unable to get her usual flow of information.
However, bit by bit, Arabia has pieced together a database of commercial deals to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Combining figures from both the government and commercial deals she has tracked, Arabia’s totals show that the US has agreed on over $54.1bn in weapons and training with the Saudis and more than $14bn with the UAE since the coalition’s intervention in the war.
Their figures only date back to 2015, making it impossible to know how many weapons the US sold commercially to the coalition pre-war. The commercial and government sales programmes both began in 1976.
While the state department attests to the accuracy of her numbers, Arabia suspects she may still be billions of dollars too low.
Attacks followed by deals
It is now clear, using SAM’s data, that the US has approved arms deals with Saudi Arabia and the UAE just days after the coalition were shown to have used US bombs to kill civilians in Yemen and also after the brutal killing of Washington Post and Middle East Eye columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Most recently, on 6 December, two months after Khashoggi was dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the Trump administration approved a commercial deal for more than $195.5m in upgrades to Saudi Arabia’s Patriot missile defence system.
Deals made soon after coalition attacks using US weapons include:
On 9 August 2018, a coalition bomb hit a school bus in northern Yemen carrying boys on a field trip. It killed 54 people, including 44 children. A week later, Congress was notified of a commercial deal with the UAE worth $344.8m for spare parts for a Patriot missile defence system.
CNN reported on 17 August that the bomb used in the school bus attack was manufactured by US firm Lockheed Martin, the biggest arms maker in the world. Three day’s after CNN’s report aired, the Donald Trump administration made a deal with the UAE for $10.4m in rifle parts.
Saudi-led coalition pilots bombed a wedding northwest of the Yemeni capital Sanaa on 22 April 2018, reportedly killing 33 people, including the bride. Days later, Bellingcat proved that US firm Raytheon had made part of a bomb found at the scene of the attack. The Trump administration approved a commercial deal with the Saudis on 21 June for $2.1m in rifles and grenade launchers.
On 25 August 2017, a laser-guided bomb hit a residential area in Sanaa and killed a couple and five of their six children. A photo of five-year-old Buthaina – the only family member who survived – taken soon after the attack went viral. In it, swollen and bruised, she pulls her eyelids apart to see. Amnesty International proved a month later that a chunk of a bomb found amid the ruins was made by Raytheon. Weeks later, on 6 October, the US authorised a deal to send a THAAD missile defence system worth $15bn to Riyadh.
Similar Saudi-led coalition attacks and US weapons agreements happened throughout 2015 and 2016, when former US President Barack Obama was still in the White House.
The Saudis and Emiratis led a coalition of Arab countries into the Yemeni civil war in March 2015 to quell a Houthi uprising. The Saudis say the Houthis are a proxy for Iran, while analysts say the UAE seems to be attempting to crush opposition groups and gain territory in Yemen, particularly along the Red Sea.
Just before Obama left office, his administration, which authorised $117bn in arms deals to the Saudis in eight years, halted the sale of precision-guided munitions due to human rights concerns over attacks carried out by the Saudi-led coalition.
But in May 2017, while in Saudi Arabia on his first overseas visit as president, Trump announced he would overturn that suspension.
As a result of the ongoing conflict, Yemen – already one of the poorest countries in the Middle East – has “all but ceased to exist”, according to the UN, which said the country is now facing “the worst man-made humanitarian crisis of our time”.
Unofficial channels
But while US government and commercial arms deals to countries in the Saudi-led coalition total tens of billions of dollars, many US-made weapons also make their way into the hands of warring parties in Yemen through unofficial channels.
An arms dealer in Yemen’s Houthi-controlled north offered to sell an M4 rifle to an ARIJ journalist posing as a buyer earlier this year for $4,500.
The journalist – who asked to remain anonymous because of safety concerns – said it is common to see US firearms and grenades in Yemeni weapons markets, and that they can be found in both the north and the south.
When Houthi fighters attack coalition positions, they often take their weapons, he said. There’s also a black market, where a network of traders buy and sell arms.
“It’s so normal to find American weapons in Yemen,” said Nadwa al-Dawsari, Yemen country director for the Center for Civilians in Conflict, a Washington, DC-based NGO.
In fact, the presence of US-made arms across the country is “not a surprise to any Yemeni”.
That’s in part due to the fact that the US backed former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh in the so-called war on terror after 9/11, al-Dawsari said. A former US ambassador to Yemen said in 2018 that the US had spent more than $115m equipping Saleh’s forces between 2002 and 2009.
In 2015, the Pentagon also lost track of $500m worth of firearms, aircraft, and other military hardware in Yemen.
Now, the Saudi-led coalition appears to be diverting American-made armoured vehicles to local militias, a violation of arms agreements, an ARIJ report published last year found.
The documentary showed that the Abu Al-Abbas Brigades – a Salafi group in Taiz backed by the Emiratis, whose leader is now on a US terror list – received three US-made Oshkosh M-ATV armoured vehicles in November 2015.
The South Yemen flag was also seen flying on another such vehicle – the BAE Caiman MRAP –which is typically used by Yemeni militias backed by the UAE. Abu Dhabi claims to have trained about 25,000 Yemeni soldiers.
Endless involvement
Beyond the weapons, training and technical help, the full extent of American involvement in Yemen – in the war and in counter-terrorism – is impossible to measure.
The US has provided the coalition with intelligence support and military advice, according to a Congressional Research Service report. And while Washington previously helped Saudi aircraft with mid-air refuelling, the US defence department said it stopped that programme in November.
But amid ongoing pressure to end all assistance to the Saudi-led coalition, the Trump administration has insisted Yemenis would be worse off – and the civilian casualty count much higher – without its involvement in the war.
They also argue that the threat of Iran justifies continued US arms sales to the Saudi-led coalition.
“If you truly care about Yemeni lives,” said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a recent press briefing, “you’d support the Saudi-led effort to prevent Yemen from turning into a puppet state of the corrupt, brutish Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Senior Trump administration officials have also insisted that they are making sure the weapons are not being used to commit human rights violations.
“We will not provide arms where we believe they will be used to conduct a gross violation of human rights,” said Tina Kaidanow, who worked on arms sales for the US state department, at a conference last year.
A state department official speaking on background said US defence sales to the Gulf are part of a commitment to regional stability, and that civilian deaths would likely increase were it not for US pressure on the Saudis.
Yet the defence department said it does not track coalition planes, their targets, or the success of their missions post-refuelling.
This has been contested, with a former state department adviser who worked with the coalition until 2017 telling the New York Times that American officers had access to a database detailing every air strike.
“On the issue of the air strikes, the Pentagon has been lying about how much they know,” Hartung said.
At the same time, a new arms transfer policy under Trump, encouraging arms dealers to be more proactive and easing restrictions on manufactures, aims to increase US competitiveness in the global arms market and create more jobs.
“Under this administration there will be no more active advocate for US sales than the US government itself,” said Kaidanow.
Meanwhile, future arms deals to the Saudi-led coalition are increasingly likely to be done commercially, as pressure mounts on the US to end its role in the war, Arabia said.
The most recent $195.5m deal with Saudi Arabia for work related to the Patriot air defence system, she added, “probably would have been halted in Congress” if it had been a government deal.
Raytheon declined to answer questions about human rights considerations and any responsibility it may bear for civilian deaths in Yemen. “I don’t think we’re going to have anything for you on that,” a spokesperson said in a phone call.
Lockheed Martin did not respond to several requests for comment to the same questions.
‘A tacit alliance’
The sheer amount of weapons and training the US provides to the coalition means that both Saudi Arabia and the UAE are heavily reliant on the US for their war effort in Yemen. This is especially true of the Saudis.
“It would take decades,” wrote Hartung in a recent report, “for the kingdom to wean itself from dependence on US equipment, training and support.”
Over two-thirds of the entire Saudi combat-ready fleet comes from the US, according to the same report. In November 2015, the US made $1.29bn in deals for bombs, warheads, and laser-guidance tail kits because Saudi supplies were “depleted”.
The US also supplies the lion’s share of weapons used by the UAE and has trained thousands of their soldiers. According to Hartung, 78 of the UAE’s 138 fighter planes come from the US.
Hartung said he believes a withdrawal of all channels of military support to Saudi Arabia and the UAE “would cripple their ability to wage war in Yemen [and] particularly the indiscriminate air war”.
Instead, Hartung accused the administration of “putting [a] stamp of approval on what these countries are doing” in Yemen, where now about 24 million people need humanitarian assistance, thousands have died of war-related malnutrition, and over 67,000 civilians and fighters have been killed.
“It is essentially a tacit alliance,” he said.
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Formed in the years immediately following World War II, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), then comprised of Canada, the United States, and ten European powers, was presented to the world as a defensive pact, wherein an attack on one member is an attack on all. The Encyclopedia Britannica explains that NATO was established and conceived as “a counterweight to Soviet armies stationed in central and eastern Europe after World War II.”
Estimates have it, that NATO and its ‘allies’, cronies, proxies and mercenaries killed more than 20 million people since NATO’s existence, basically since the end of WWII.
The unilateral use of force by NATO member states against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999 has made obvious the flaws of the United Nations system of collective security and has demonstrated the unenforceability of the ban on the use of force in contemporary international law.
The dangers of a World War are casually dismissed. War is portrayed as a humanitarian endeavor. The Mainstream media contends that war is a peace-making undertaking and that NATO should be granted the Nobel Peace prize.
NATO and NATO member states, separately and together, destroy non-belligerent countries as policy. They destroy the rule of international law, they destroy socially uplifting economies, they destroy democratic political economies, they create millions of refugees, and their wars of aggression impose the death penalty on millions.
The day after the signature of NATO’s membership protocol with North Macedonia as its 30th member, Ukraine did something without precedent: it included in its Constitution the engagement to enter officially into NATO and the European Union at the same time.
Less than two years ago Montenegro became the 29th state to join NATO, an American-led military alliance that has become a far-reaching intervention force since the USSR’s demise. The accession of mighty Montenegro to NATO must have set hearts fluttering across the Atlantic in Washington.
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“Today, our Alliance is the strongest in history, guaranteeing the freedom of our almost one billion citizens, the security of our territory, and the protection of our values, including democracy, individual liberty, human rights, and the rule of law.” – Statement issued by the NATO Foreign Ministers, Washington D.C., 3rd-4th April 2019
Formed in the years immediately following World War II, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), then comprised of Canada, the United States, and ten European powers, was presented to the world as a defensive pact, wherein an attack on one member is an attack on all. The Encyclopedia Britannica explains that NATO was established and conceived as “a counterweight to Soviet armies stationed in central and eastern Europe after World War II.”
Today, seventy years after its founding, the Soviet Union is no more. NATO has increased its military involvement in theatres around the world, including the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, the Mediterranean, and Libya. Many of these missions were framed as ‘humanitarian interventions’ or disaster relief as opposed to aggression.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), NATO powers spent $900 billion USD in 2017 on militarism, accounting for 52 per cent of global military spending. These figures do not, however, account for U.S. spending on actual theatre wars, so-called ‘overseas contingency operations’ in addition to other military related expenditures.
In an article timed with the 70th anniversary commemorations, ProfessorMichel Chossudovsky’s outlines how, in fact, NATO is the military arm of a hegemonic project to impose an economic restructuring on targeted countries, making them and their resource base rife for exploitation by the Anglo-American capitalist class. He documents the organization’s role in recruiting and financing destabilizing elements in Kosovo, Libya ad Syria among other countries:
“NATO member states are harnessed into endorsing Washington’s imperial design of World conquest under the doctrine of collective security.”
As NATO foreign Ministers gather in Washington D.C. to toast their contributions to the ‘peace and security’ of the world, and draw up their plans for the next 70 years, the Global Research News Hour radio program attempts to probe this much more dissenting perspective on the role of NATO and the Euro-Atlantic powers generally, in global affairs.
In the first half hour, we hear from a man who literally wrote the book on NATO. Mahdi Nazemroaya explains how NATO was conceived to counter left movements in Europe as well as advance its geo-strategic aims on the Eurasian continent. He also explores the U.S.-centric economic imperatives being forged through this bellicose alliance. He also advances an opinion of the recent news that NATO member Turkey will purchase an anti-missile system from Russia rather than purchase the counterpart technology from NATO ally the United States.
In the second half hour, we look at the NATO anniversary in the context of a history of Western European imperialism and plunder. Andre Vltchek addresses how imperialism is advanced through not only guns and bombs, but by exploiting ethnic and religious differences. He also examines the pathological dimensions of empire and the distinctions between Western and Sino-Russian involvement in countries like Syria and Venezuela. He also provides his understanding of why the West commands the admiration of those within countries targeted for imperial domination.
Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is an award-winning author and geopolitical analyst, author of The Globalization of NATO (Clarity Press) and a forthcoming book The War on Libya and the Re-Colonization of Africa. He is a Sociologist and Research Associate at the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), a contributor to the Strategic Culture Foundation (SCF) and a member of the Scientific Committee of Geopolitica, Italy.
Andre Vltchekis a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are his tribute to “The Great October Socialist Revolution” 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 ground-breaking 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.
It is also available on 93.9 FM cable in the communities of SFU, Burnaby, New Westminister, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Surrey and Delta, in British Columbia, Canada. – Tune in at its new time – Wednesdays at 4pm PT.
Radio station CFUV 101.9FM based at the University of Victoria airs the Global Research News Hour every Sunday from 7 to 8am PT.
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The U.S State Department special operator for Venezuela, Elliot Abrams, has revealed that Venezuela is already in possession numerous highly effective S-300 (Antey 2500 version) systems. This makes a military campaign against Venezuela highly unlikely, given the high-importance of air-cover for any boots on the ground, and the high effectiveness of the S-300 system. It also explains the decision of OAS member states Columbia and Brazil not to resort to military intervention against the Bolivarian Republic – a jungle war without air-cover would be extraordinarily costly in terms of casualties and the resulting social and political unrest. While the U.S military has known of this, until Abrams statement today there was a reluctance to report the problems posed by this, amid Trump’s war-drums surrounding his alleged ‘all options’ approach to Venezuela.
Previously, FRN relayed a report from a private Israeli satellite giving the locations of the S-300 systems then believed to be in movement to strategic locations. While the source was questionable regarding alleged piece movement, it led to some confusion as to whether Venezuela indeed possessed the systems at all.
CSS analysts are of the opinion that the U.S military’s knowledge of Venezuela’s relatively advanced anti-air capacities are one of the factors behind the now infamous Abrams confession that the U.S has no plans to ply a thorough military campaign against the Bolivarian socialist nation.
In short Venezuela has at least six systems now operating, each system can target nearly 25 advanced fighters or attack planes simultaneously. This means that the Venezuelan anti-air forces could target 150 U.S fighters, bombers, attack planes, and even ballistic missiles simultaneously. With a hit rate of about 85%-90%, the U.S could expect to lose upwards of 130 planes in a sortie unless the SAM systems were overwhelmed. However, the U.S possesses about 1800 fighters and attack planes in its entire arsenal; many of these are deployed around the world and could not be used all to attack Venezuela, for numerous reasons including vulnerability and logistics.
The S-300 system is effective against 4th and 5th generation U.S fighters and attack planes, as well as most bombers, when bombers lower altitude to avoid detection. Venezuela is said to have at least five of these Antey 2500 systems now forward deployed, and one S-300VM. These systems are extremely similar, and summarily it can be said that Venezuela has six S-300 systems comprised of several models of the system.
The major revelation was made hours ago, when the U.S State Department subsequent to a closed door meeting, briefed media about its belief that the several planes of Russian military, numbering more than 100 personnel so far, are in Venezuela to help make sure the S-300’s are up to par. They are believed to be installing the latest computerated upgrades to Venezuela’s S-300 systems, also known as the Antey 2500, a very high-end export version above the S-300VM.This is known to be able to target and hit 4th fighters and attack jets, such as the F-16, F-14, and F/A-18, including the 4.5 generation of those makes, as well as 5th generation jets like the F-35 with an 85% success/hit rate.
The Russians in Venezuela would be there to see that these S-300/Antey 2500’s are upgraded to effectively target U.S jets at a range of over 230 km, with the introduction of the 48N6E2 missile and similar. This upgraded system is apparently capable against not just short range ballistic missiles, but now also medium range ballistic missiles. It uses the 83M6E2 command and control system, consisting of the 54K6E2 command post vehicle and the 64N6E2 surveillance/detection radar. It employs the 30N6E2 fire control/illumination and guidance radar.
S-300 system
Abrams pronouncements, however, that the Russians were there to perform electrical repair work required for the S-300’s in the aftermath of the black-out, is incoherent given that these systems are not operated on grid. It is likely that his statement was made to give some credibility to the possibility of a U.S attack, i.e., that such an attack upon Venezuela’s electric system could be replicated, and therefore the U.S air forces could attack during such a black-out. This is contrary to what is known about the electric systems that militaries rely on, including back-up generators or being off-grid to begin with.
“In our opinion, one of the things the Russians are doing there is to help the authorities with the S-300 systems that have suffered from the blackouts,” special representative Abrams said.
Abrams clarified that the US is not aware of what kind of maintenance is being provided by the Russian military, which on the face of it appeared to contradict his assertion from just moments earlier.
In early March, the National Electricity Corporation of Venezuela reported sabotage on the large hydroelectric power station El Guri. The incident in Caracas and in 21 of the 23 states of the country suffered electrical black-outs. Nicolas Maduro blamed Washington for the incident. In turn, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denied these allegations, while tweets from American politicians such as Marco Rubio appeared to confirm U.S interference.
On Saturday March 23rd, two airplanes with Russian servicemen arrived at the airport near Caracas for consultations on military-technical cooperation. According to local media reports, 99 military personnel were flown to Venezuela, and 35 tons of cargo were also delivered. As Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova emphasized, the presence of Russian specialists is regulated by an agreement on military-technical cooperation between Moscow and Caracas.
International law is clear and unequivocal. It’s automatically US constitutional law under the Supremacy Clause (Article VI, Clause 2) – pertaining to treaties, conventions, and other international agreements to which the US is a signatory.
According to the UN Charter and other international law, no nation may attack another for any reason except in self-defense if attacked or an attack is clearly imminent.
Even then, the Security Council alone may authorize military action by one nation against another – not the US president, Congress or courts.
Venezuela is at peace with its neighbors and all other nations, not at war or threatening any, obviously not the US – a country waging war on humanity at home and abroad.
For over two months, everything thrown at its legitimate government for regime change failed.
Is US military intervention coming? Will Britain, France and other NATO countries join a US “coalition of the willing” to rape and destroy Venezuela?
It’s the strategy used in the 1990s rape of Yugoslavia and in all post-9/11 wars of aggression against nations threatening no one.
In my view, it’s highly unlikely. The world community opposes it, notably EU, Latin, and Central American nations.
That said, the Trump regime pulled all its staff from Venezuela. A State Department alert advised US citizens in the country to leave.
On Friday, an unnamed Trump administration official said military intervention “is seriously (being) considered as events unfold” – because everything else tried so far failed, adding:
US tactics “continue to diminish due to Maduro’s recent actions. These tools are diminishing, which is leaving us with increased economic tools and increased economic pressure…and also a military option, which, as President Trump has said, is on the table.”
“The European community, the United States, and the Lima group have made it clear that the consequences of any harm that comes, or an arrest of Juan Guaido, would be devastating to Maduro.”
“It would be the worst and last mistake he makes, and, therefore, we are watching very closely.”
Trump and other regime hardliners earlier said they’re running out of nonmilitary options so belligerent intervention may come next.
Are these and similar comments meaningless bluster, aiming to pressure Venezuela’s military to switch sides? What hasn’t worked so far won’t likely ahead.
Convicted felon Elliott Abrams was appointed point man for regime change in Venezuela.
Dirty Central American wars he orchestrated in Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala were responsible for over 300,000 deaths, countless thousands more brutally tortured, and forced into exile.
In June 1986, an International Tribunal on Genocide in Central America called the period a time of intense violence – made in the USA by Abrams and his co-conspirators, saying:
Things “verg(ed) on a near total break-down of the state institutions and open warfare between state governments, competing rebel forces challenging state authorities and indigenous” peoples.
“In the course of resurgent violence, acts of genocide and ethnocide (were) committed against indigenous groups.”
Accusations “of state sponsored and rebel force sponsored genocide against indigenous peoples (were) repeatedly made throughout the course of” the decade, including massacres, torture, forced military service, land seizures, arbitrary arrests and imprisonments, population relocations, and attacks amounting to genocide under the UN Convention.
“That there is sufficient evidence to warrant the convening of a (genocide) tribunal goes without question.” Perhaps Abrams intends an encore of the above atrocities in Venezuela.
Is he plotting something similar in Venezuela, together with other Trump regime co-conspirators?
Along with more illegal sanctions, proxy and cyberwar war are most likely, the former with armed paramilitary thugs for involvement in violence creating chaos, the latter by attacks on Venezuelan infrastructure.
Direct military intervention would be high-risk, neighboring countries Colombia and Brazil especially hostile to the idea, concerned about possible millions of Venezuelans fleeing cross-border for safety.
Russia appears committed to help preserve and protect Venezuelan sovereignty. If US forces attack the Bolivarian Republic, will Putin intervene against Trump regime aggression similar to how he acted in Syria?
Will the US risk possible East/West confrontation over Venezuela?
In a same day article, I suggested Guaido’s arrest, detention, and prosecution for high crimes against the state is likely coming, adding:
Most likely what will follow is escalated US sanctions war, along with more Trump regime threats and establishment media rage. All of the above are coming anyway whether Guaido remains free or detained, awaiting trial – direct US military intervention highly unlikely despite regime threats otherwise.
Venezuela has a choice – going all out to preserve and protect its hemisphere’s best social democracy and sovereign independence or become a US vassal state, the country transformed into a fascist police state, its people terrorized into submission.
The choice is simple. Fundamental freedoms are too important to lose. They’re worth fighting for, no matter the risks.
Losing them to an imperial power means all hope is lost – which is no choice at all.
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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
1. Kills unarmed protestors, including students, as an everyday alleged security operation and imprisons thousands of dissidents, including teenagers, without trial
2. Imposes a inhumane blockade of essential goods upon 2 million civilians in an illegal effort to produce a regime change in an entire population by denying it adequate electricity and water, medical, food and building supplies – for more than 10 years with the result that an entire people are now predominately unemployed, with inadequate food and water, no jobs and no future – all this under the transparent pretext of ‘arms control’
3. Treats over 20% of its own people as second-class citizens with restricted civil rights purely because of their ethnicity
4. Refuses to allow UN inspectors from the IAEA to inspect its undeclared nuclear weapon stores, now estimated to contain up to 400 warheads in secret underground bunkers
5. Refuses to be a party to the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, the Chemical Weapons or the Biological Weapons Conventions (CWC/ BWC)
6. Refuses to comply with UN Security Council Resolution 2334 that demands its withdrawal from all Occupied Territories including the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, or with UNSCR 497 which stipulates that Israel’s ‘decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration in the Occupied Golan Heights is null and void and without international legal effect.’ Consequently, US President Trump’s recent decision, in collusion with AIPAC the Zionist lobby, regarding the Golan Heights is a violation of international law and a threat to global peace.
7. Refusal to comply with the U N Resolution that requires Jerusalem to be an ‘international city’ with free and unfettered access to all faiths. UN Security Council Resolution 476, adopted on 30 June 1980 declared that ‘Israel’s actions as an occupying power in altering the status of the Holy City of Jerusalem have no legal validity and constitute a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.’
8. Is an indiscriminate supplier of arms and military equipment to regimes around the world
9. Is the head of an international lobby whose agenda is to influence legislative assemblies in both the US and Europe
10. Is the one state in the world seen as capable and willing to unleash weapons of mass destruction upon the world in support of its agenda for a ‘Greater Israel’ to encompass, in due course, all the land from the Mediterranean to the River Jordan and eventually from the Nile to the Euphrates in order to fulfil a biblical prophecy
It is generally acknowledged that this is where the spark will be lit that will likely engulf us all in nuclear war, in the foreseeable future, and is not difficult to comprehend the consequent increase in antisemitism worldwide – albeit that the majority of World Jewry do not live in Israel and, whilst acknowledging it as a Jewish homeland, disassociate themselves completely from its policy of ethnic cleansing and illegal settlement in the Occupied Territories.
Tragically, however, the government of the state of Israel cares nothing for the welfare and security of the 8 million strong Jewish Diaspora or that its policies endanger all Jews everywhere: in America, France, Britain and around the world. Israel’s Right-wing, illegal expansionism is now fast becoming both a threat and a tragedy of serious proportions.
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Hans Stehling (pen name) is an analyst based in the UK. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
According to WikiLeaks on Thursday, Julian Assange’s freedom is gravely threatened, tweeting:
“BREAKING: A high level source within the Ecuadorian state has told @WikiLeaks that Julian Assange will be expelled within ‘hours to days’ using the #INAPapers offshore (corruption and money laundering) scandal (involving President Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno) as a pretext — and that it already has an agreement with the UK for his arrest.”
Reports surfaced months ago, suggesting Moreno might collude with the US and UK on Assange – ignoring his citizenship rights, along with revoking his asylum granted him in Ecuador’s London embassy by President Rafael Correa in August 2012.
On Tuesday, Moreno falsely accused Assange of “repeatedly violat(ing) the conditions of his asylum,” suggesting he’ll revoke his asylum, hand him over to UK authorities, followed by extradition to the US.
Moreno lied claiming Assange “hack(ed) private accounts (and) phones.” The phony accusation relates to a WikiLeaks tweet about what’s referred to in Ecuador as the INA Papers.
In March, information from Moreno’s cell phone and gmail account sent to an opposition lawmaker was published online, the material called the INA Papers, allegedly implicating Moreno, his brother, and close associates in an offshore corruption scandal, involving perjury and money laundering.
Denying wrongdoing, Moreno turned truth on its head, saying
“(i)n WikiLeaks we have seen evidence of spying, intervention in private conversations on phones, including photos of my bedroom, of what I eat, of how my wife and daughters and friends dance.”
He accused Correa of spying on him by planting a hidden camera in the wall of his presidential office. Correa called the charge absurd.
WikiLeaks didn’t publish the INA Papers. Pressured by Washington and Britain, Moreno has been seeking an easy way to justify revocation of Assange’s asylum. He provided no evidence supporting his charges because none exists.
Assange is a political refugee – granted Ecuadorian citizenship and given asylum in the country’s London embassy by former President Correa.
Under international law, refugees and asylum seekers are protected.
Article I of the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees calls them:
“(P)ersons who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, (are) outside the country of their nationality, and (are) unable to or, owing to such fear, (are) unwilling to avail (themselves) of the protection of that country.”
Post-WW II, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was established to help them. To gain legal protection, they must:
be outside their country of origin;
fear persecution;
be harmed or fear harm by their government or others;
fear persecution for at least one of the above cited reasons; and
pose no danger to others.
Assange clearly qualifies on all of the above, entitled to political asylum by Ecuador as a citizen of the country.
Expulsion from its London embassy would be a flagrant violation of international law, unjustifiably justified by baseless charges.
Assange is an investigative journalist/whistleblower, publishing material supplied by sources believed to be credible, unidentified for their protection.
WikiLeaks is not an intelligence operation. Nor it it connected to Russia or any other country. Claims otherwise are fabricated.
Assange earlier explained that WikiLeaks has the right “to publish newsworthy content. Consistent with the US Constitution, we publish material that we can confirm to be true…”
US regimes are at war on individuals who reveal dirty secrets about the imperial state – notably its high crimes of war, against humanity, and other serious wrongdoing.
It’s information everyone has a right to know, providing it a vital public service, heroism above and beyond the call of duty, warranting high praise – nearly always with no monetary compensation. Doing the right thing is its own reward.
The Obama regime prosecuted more whistleblowers doing their job honorably than all his predecessors combined.
Trump hardliners consider leaking vital information everyone has a right to know a threat to national security which it’s not.
Since the 1970s, Congress repeatedly affirmed the right of civil servants to report what they believe are abuses of power, government corruption, rule of law violations, dangers to public health and safety, as well as other wrongdoing.
Journalism the way it should be is protected by the First Amendment. It’s the most important freedom. Without it all others are threatened.
Truth-telling in America today is greatly endangered. When ruling regimes consider independent journalists and whistleblowers doing their jobs honorably threats to national security, totalitarian rule replaces freedom.
In 2012, the Obama regime turned truth on its head, falsely declaring Assange an enemy of the state, forcing him to take refuge in Ecuador’s London embassy to avoid unjust arrest, extradition to America, prosecution, and imprisonment to silence him – for doing the right thing, for the crime of vital truth-telling.
At the time, a secret grand jury issued a sealed indictment, reportedly accusing him of spying under the long ago outdated 1917 Espionage Act, enacted shortly after America’s entry into WW I.
It should have been declared null and void decades ago. During WW I, it prohibited anyone from interfering with US military operations, supporting the nation’s enemies, promoting insubordination in the ranks, or obstructing military recruitment.
It remains the law of the land, used to charge, prosecute, convict and imprison Chelsea Manning unjustly, along with other unjust charges against her.
Assange faces the same fate if extradited to America. Anyone exposing US high crimes and/or other dirty secrets Washington wants suppressed is vulnerable.
Assistant US Justice Department Attorney Kellen S. Dwyer revealed the indictment, saying it “need(s) to remain sealed until Assange is arrested.”
Trump earlier called him “disgraceful,” saying the “death penalty” would be OK against him and others associated with WikiLeaks.
Earlier, Pompeo falsely called WikiLeaks a “non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.”
John Bolton once said Edward “Snowden should swing from a tall oak tree.” He called for “a cyberwar attack on WikiLeaks.”
Attorney Carlos Poveda believes a deal was struck between Ecuadorian President Moreno and the Trump and Theresa May regimes to extradite Assange to the US, saying:
“There has been a rapprochement between the United Kingdom, the United States and Ecuador,” adding:
“I believe that (the US and UK) have reached some agreement, and that is exactly why the special protocol (on home rules) was introduced, which is to justify Julian’s withdrawal (from the Ecuadorian embassy) to accelerate the process of ending his asylum and hand him over to the UK authorities” – for extradition to America.
Major unjust charges await him, Poveda saying “(i)t will not be a death penalty, but he may get a life sentence” – maybe without the possibility of parole.
Horrific US mistreatment of Chelsea Manning, other whistleblowers, and countless others falsely charged in the US show the imperial state wants everyone in its crosshairs denied their fundamental rights if dare reveal government wrongdoing.
Constitutionally guaranteed due process and equal protection under law no longer apply in the US. Police state injustice replaced them.
Chelsea Manning languishes in solitary confinement detention since rearrested on March 8 for invoking her constitutional rights, refusing to give grand jury testimony, believing she was wrongfully subpoenaed for three reasons.
Trump regime hardliners opposed the commutation of her sentence by Obama, wanting her imprisoned again for revealing US high crimes of war.
They’re aiming for her to unwittingly self-incriminate herself during grand jury testimony, along with providing information to be used against Assange.
If expelled from Ecuador’s London embassy, he awaits a harsh fate similar to years of torture abuse Manning continues to face.
Note: Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry denied the reports about Assange’s imminent expulsion from its London embassy.
His supporters pitched tents outside the embassy, backing his right of asylum. “NO EXPULSION” is spelled out in LED lights on the sidewalk in front of the embassy, cameras positioned near its entrance.
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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
April 6th, 2019 by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
VIPS warn that Trump’s policies regarding Venezuela appear to be on a slippery slope that could take us toward war in Venezuela and military confrontation with Russia.
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MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT:Avoiding War with Russia over Venezuela
Mr. President:
Your Administration’s policies regarding Venezuela appear to be on a slippery slope that could take us toward war in Venezuela and military confrontation with Russia. As former intelligence officers and other national security practitioners with many decades of experience, we urge you not to let yourself be egged on into taking potentially catastrophic military action in response to civil unrest in Venezuela or Russian activities in the Western Hemisphere. With the recent arrival of two transport aircraft and enduring political support for the government of Venezuela, the Russians are far from crossing any “red line” emanating from the 1823 Monroe Doctrine.
Unfulfilled Objectives in Venezuela
Inside Venezuela, U.S. actions have failed to do more than plunge the country into deeper crisis, cause greater human suffering, and increase the prospects of violence on a national scale. President Maduro’s mishandling of the economy and authoritarian reactions to provocations are impossible to defend, but they result in part from the fact that he has been under siege since he was first elected in 2013 and has faced sanctions aimed ultimately at removing him from office. In our view, the advice you’ve received from your top advisors – Florida Senator Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor John Bolton, Special Representative Elliott Abrams, and Secretary of State Michael Pompeo – was and apparently continues to be wrong.
Recognition of Venezuelan National Assembly President Juan Guaidó as “interim president” did not prompt the military to rise up against President Maduro. Neither did attacking the officer corps as merely corrupt opportunists and drug-traffickers enriched through loyalty to former President Chávez and Maduro, nor did repeatedly threatening them with harsher sanctions. Those actions reflected a fundamental misunderstanding about the Venezuelan military, which has never been free of corruption and political compromise but has also never been so totally isolated from the Venezuelan people that it hasn’t felt their suffering. U.S. policies incorrectly assumed that the officers – while probably fed up with Maduro’s shortcomings – would support Guaidó despite his faction’s commitment to dismantle Chavismo, which most officers believe brought historically necessary changes to the country, including enfranchisement of the poor.
Similarly, your Administration’s repeated hints at military intervention have been counterproductive to your regime-change objectives. Your policy and intelligence advisors were correct in interpreting the disparate polling data showing popular support for Guaidó as actually being support for the U.S. to extricate the country from its crisis – the National Assembly President was a political unknown until the United States and others recognized his claim to the Presidency – but your team showed a lack of understanding of Venezuelan nationalism. Venezuelans do not welcome the destruction that would be caused by U.S. military attack; they recall the death toll of Operation Just Cause, when the United States killed more than 3,000 Panamanians (by its own count) to remove one corrupt authoritarian, Manuel Noriega. Threats of invasion have pushed people to circle around Maduro, however reluctantly, not reject him.
Your Administration’s strategy of punishing the Venezuelan people, including apparently knocking out their electricity, seems based on the false assumption that humanitarian crisis will prompt a coup to remove Maduro. In fact, the U.S. sanctions have allowed Maduro to shift blame from his own failings to U.S. malice – and it has left Guaidó, whom your advisors portray as the moral equivalent of our Founders, looking like a sell-out to Yankee imperialists at the cost of the Venezuelan people’s health and welfare and magnified civil disorder.
Lost Opportunity for Diplomacy
Senator Rubio, Mr. Bolton, Mr. Abrams, and Mr. Pompeo have also squandered a formidable moment to build on common values with allies in Latin America and Europe. Even though most Latin Americans find your aides’ public assertion that the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well to be insulting, the right-leaning Presidents of most of South and Central America rallied with you to support Guaidó’s self-proclamation. But Guaidó’s lack of leadership – he appears totally scripted by U.S. Government agencies – his inflexibility on negotiations, his open call for U.S. military intervention, and your own Administration’s dangling threat of war are rapidly alienating all but the most subservient to U.S. policy dictates. Negotiation proposals, such as those being developed by the International Contact Group, are gaining momentum.
Internationalizing the Conflict
National Security Advisor Bolton and others have sought to internationalize the Venezuela issue since before Guaidó’s proclamation. Bolton’s reference to a “Troika of Tyranny” in November – which he called “a triangle of terror stretching from Havana to Caracas to Managua” and “sordid cradle of communism in the Western Hemisphere” – was a veiled Cold War-era swipe at Russia and China. Mr. Bolton, Senator Rubio, and other advisors have made clear on numerous occasions that the overthrow of President Maduro would be just the first stage in efforts to eliminate the current governments of the “Troika” and “Communist influence” in the Western Hemisphere.
They have repeatedly asserted that Cuban advisors have been crucial to the Maduro government’s survival without providing evidence. Indeed, the reportedly “hundreds” of Venezuelan military defectors, including many managed by U.S. agencies, have not provided even credible hearsay evidence that Cubans are doing more than providing routine assistance. In addition, the threats coming out of Washington have preempted any willingness that Cuba might have had to contribute to a regional solution to the Venezuelan crisis as it has in similar situations, such as Colombia’s recent peace process, the Angola peace process in 1989-90, and the Central American negotiations in the early 1990s.
Provocative Rhetoric about Russia
Most dangerous, however, are aggressive statements about Russia’s engagement with Venezuela. Russian oil companies, particular Rosneft, have long been in Venezuela – bailing out the Venezuelan petroleum company (PDVSA) as its mismanagement and falling oil prices have caused production and revenues to plummet. Most long-term observers believe Rosneft’s decisions, including throwing good money after bad, have been motivated by business calculations, without a particularly ideological objective.
Your advisors’ rhetoric imposing an East-West spin on the issue presented President Putin and his advisors an opportunity to try to poke the United States in the eye – especially as Administration efforts to remove Maduro foundered and diplomatic support for Guaidó cracked. Maduro and Putin have not enjoyed particularly close personal relations in the past, and their shared strategic interests are few, but U.S. rhetoric and threats have given them common cause in tweaking us. A meeting in Rome between your special envoy, Elliot Abrams, and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov achieved nothing amid further U.S. sanctions against Venezuela and continued threats that “all options” were on the table.
Publicly available information is insufficient for us to know exactly what was aboard the two Russian aircraft that landed at Maiquetía last week – two months after your Administration publicly proclaimed its intention to remove Maduro – but precedent suggests Moscow had two main objectives.
One, and probably primary, is to embarrass your Administration by defying your rhetoric, just to rub your nose in Moscow’s sovereign right to have the relations, including military liaison, with whomever it pleases. In this sense, Russian behavior resembles its intervention, at Bashar al-Assad’s request, in Syria. And it is not a far cry from Moscow’s reaction to the Western-supported coup in Kiev.
Another objective, if press speculation about the Russian advisors and equipment aboard the aircraft is correct, would be to shore up Venezuela’s ability to warn of and respond to a U.S. military strike. Your Administration has publicly asserted that the Russians are helping repair S-300 surface-to-air missile systems, which have a purely defensive purpose. There is no evidence, not even circumstantial, that Russia has any offensive objectives in this relationship.
The U.S. reaction has suggested a much greater chance of military confrontation. Mr. Bolton “strongly caution[ed] 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.” Without defining what activities he would object to, Mr. Bolton said, “We will consider such provocative actions as a direct threat to international peace and security in the region.” Your Special Representative said the “Russian presence” is “extremely pernicious.” Your Secretary of State said, “Russia’s got to leave Venezuela.” You said, “Russia has to get out” and reiterated that “all options are open” – including presumably forcing the Russians out militarily. And we note that Russia has not closed its embassy in Caracas as your Administration has.
Avoiding the Slippery Slope
As intelligence officers and security experts, we have given many years to protecting our nation from a host of threats, including from the Soviet Union. We also believe, however, that picking fights. including ousting governments, blocking negotiated settlements, and threatening other countries’ sovereign decision to pursue activities that do not threaten our national security – is rarely the wise way to go.
We repeat that we are not defending Maduro and his record, while at the same time pointing out that many of his troubles have been exacerbated by U.S. policies and efforts to oust him. We believe that due process and practical, realistic policies better protect our national interests than threats and confrontational rhetoric. It strains credulity to believe that your advisors picked this fight with President Maduro without realizing that Venezuela would seek help fixing its defensive capabilities.
Moreover and very seriously, rhetoric challenging Russia could all too easily lead to a much more consequential confrontation.
Invoking the 1823 Monroe Doctrine is unhelpful. For Russia to provide assistance for purely defensive purposes to a country in which we seek to create regime change and threaten military attack would not be widely seen as violating the Monroe Doctrine or crossing a “red line.”
We realize that some in the media are trying to egg you on into taking forceful action, perhaps even of a military nature, to punish Russia in any case. We urge you not to fall into this trap. This is not 19th century Latin America, and it is a far cry from the Cuba missile crisis of 1962.
The best way to prevent dangerous miscalculation would be for you to speak directly with President Putin. Washington’s energies would be better spent clearing up differences, adjusting failed policies, and promoting a peaceful resolution in Venezuela.
For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Fulton Armstrong, former National Intelligence Officer for Latin America & former National Security Council Director for Inter-American Affairs (ret.)
William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)
Marshall Carter-Tripp, Foreign Service Officer & former Division Director in the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (ret.)
Bogdan Dzakovic, Former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA Security, (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
Mike Gravel,former Adjutant, top secret control officer, Communications Intelligence Service; special agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps and former United States Senator
Larry Johnson, former CIA Intelligence Officer & former State Department Counter-Terrorism Official, (ret.)
Michael S. Kearns, Captain, USAF (ret.); ex-Master SERE Instructor for Strategic Reconnaissance Operations (NSA/DIA) and Special Mission Units (JSOC)
John Kiriakou, former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former Senior Investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Karen Kwiatkowski, former Lt. Col., US Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of Defense watching the manufacture of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003
Clement J. Laniewski, LTC, U.S. Army (ret.)
Linda Lewis, WMD preparedness policy analyst, USDA (ret.)
Edward Loomis, NSA Cryptologic Computer Scientist (ret.)
David MacMichael, former Senior Estimates Officer, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA presidential briefer (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East & CIA political analyst (ret.)
Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)
Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)
Peter Van Buren, U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Officer (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Larry Wilkerson, Colonel, U.S. Army (ret.), former Chief of Staff for Secretary of State; Distinguished Visiting Professor, College of William and Mary
Sarah Wilton, Commander, U.S. Naval Reserve (ret.) and Defense Intelligence Agency (ret.)
Ann Wright, U.S. Army Reserve Colonel (ret) and former U.S. Diplomat who resigned in 2003 in opposition to the Iraq War
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Featured image: A Hands Off Venezuela protest in London on January 28, 2018. (Socialist Appeal/Flickr).
German lawmaker Alexander Neu lambasted NATO for conducting aggressive wars and raking up defense spending, suggesting Germany should quit its military command, and the bloc be dissolved altogether.
NATO’s 70th birthday is “not a reason to celebrate, but rather an occasion to finally rethink it, before it’s too late,” Neu wrote in Die Freiheitsliebe blog on Thursday.
The lawmaker from the opposition Left Party slammed the US-led military bloc as an organization that poses “significant security risk to the world” and “systematically violates international law.”
NATO revealed its true colors when it waged an “aggressive war” against Yugoslavia without the UN’s approval, and carried out numerous interventions, which claimed the lives of “countless victims,” Neu argued.
He pointed out that last year NATO’s member states spent more than $1 trillion on defense, which is far more than the defense budgets of its rivals, China and Russia, combined.
The imperialist competition and the fear of losing economic and ideological supremacy drive NATO towards more rearmament and confrontation.
In order to avoid global escalation, the lawmaker proposed that Germany should leave the alliance’s “military structures,”and then NATO itself should be dissolved and replaced by a new “collective security system,” which would include Russia.
Berlin’s contribution to NATO has caused a rift with Washington in recent years, as President Donald Trump repeatedly accused Germany, along with other EU nations, of not spending its “fair share” on the bloc’s collective security. German officials rebuked the criticism, but admitted the country won’t reach NATO’s spending target until 2024.
Founded in 1949, NATO was primarily seen as a bulwark against the Soviet Bloc during the Cold War. The alliance continued its existence after the Soviet Union collapsed, and expanded eastwards, despite vehement protests from Moscow.
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Following WikiLeaks’ warning yesterday that Julian Assange faced imminent eviction from Ecuador’s London embassy, widespread opposition has emerged to the illegal plans to terminate his political asylum.
Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, issued a statement calling upon the Ecuadorian government of President Lenín Moreno to “abstain from expelling Mr. Assange … or from otherwise ceasing or suspending his political asylum.”
Melzer warned that if Assange was removed from the embassy, he was “likely to be arrested by British authorities and extradited to the United States,” adding, “Such a response could expose him to a real risk of serious violations of his human rights, including his freedom of expression, his right to a fair trial and the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
Senior Ecuadorian officials have sought to deflect any questions about WikiLeaks’ claims that a high-level source within the country’s state apparatus indicated that Assange’s expulsion from the embassy building would take place “within hours or days.”
Outside the Ecuadorian embassy Friday, the country’s ambassador to Britain, Jaime Marchan, told the press that there was “no change in the Señor Julian Assange situation” and that he was “offended” by reports to the contrary.
Marchan, who has played a central role in creating a hostile environment for Assange within the embassy, was then asked, “Is he going to be released in the next couple of hours?” He responded, “We are definitely not going to comment on that.”
The country’s foreign minister, Jose Valencia, declared on Twitter that WikiLeaks’ statements were “unfounded” and that his government would not be “giving a running commentary” on “rumours” that it found “insulting.”
Valencia then effectively confirmed WikiLeaks’ warning, stating, “Diplomatic asylum is a sovereign power of a state which has the right to grant or withdraw it unilaterally when it considers it justified.”
The suggestion that political asylum can be granted and withdrawn, based on political expediency and the immediate interests of national governments, makes a mockery of international law. Political asylum is either inviolable, or it does not exist at all. Assange’s status as a political refugee has been repeatedly confirmed by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and other international rights organisations.
Valencia pathetically added that any decisions taken by his government would be carried out in a “sovereign manner independent of other countries.”
The foreign minister’s claims notwithstanding, world public opinion already recognises that the Moreno regime is operating as a vassal of the US government. Within Ecuador, the government enjoys an approval rating of less than 20 percent and is seen by the bulk of the population as a corrupt lackey of American imperialism.
The pretext for the attempt to evict Assange from the embassy is universally viewed as a monumental fraud.
The Ecuadorian government has, over the past week, made entirely unsubstantiated claims that the leaking of Moreno’s iPhone and Gmail data to an opposition lawmaker last February was the product of a conspiracy hatched by Assange and WikiLeaks. They are well aware that the release of the material, and related documents, which implicate the regime in corruption, bribery and perjury, had nothing to do with Assange, whose internet access and communications were cut off by the Ecuadorian government in March, 2018.
The evasive and duplicitous comments of senior Ecuadorian officials result from the fact that they, along with their co-conspirators in the US and British governments, are engaged in a sordid task.
They are seeking to present their plans to illegally abrogate the political asylum of a journalist and publisher, whose only “crime” has been to expose the predatory wars, diplomatic intrigues and mass surveillance operations of the major powers, as a legitimate and proper exercise.
WikiLeaks has further exposed the backroom machinations aimed at forcing Assange from the embassy, publishing earlier today what it stated was the summary of a “press strategy” agreed upon by the Ecuadorian and British governments.
Under the secret deal, the British government would “take the lead” following Assange’s eviction. The Ecuadorian regime would state that Assange had broken the “asylum terms” contained in an illegal protocol it issued last October, banning him from making any political statements, including about his own plight.
The British government would then declare that it would not allow the Trump administration to “kill” Assange in the event of his extradition to the US and would posture as a defender of “due process.” Ecuador would present this as a “concession” and say that the initial granting of asylum to the WikiLeaks founder was only aimed at preventing him from facing the death penalty.
The agreement resembles nothing so much as a deal between criminal gangs, to carry out an extrajudicial kidnapping operation in violation of all national and international laws.
Any measures along these lines will be opposed by millions of workers and young people.
An attempt to extradite Assange to the US would rightly be viewed by the world’s population as illegal and illegitimate. It would be bitterly contested in the courts by WikiLeaks’ internationally-renowned legal team.
Last year, US prosecutors revealed, apparently by mistake, that they had already filed charges against Assange, likely over WikiLeaks’ 2010 publication of the US army’s Iraq and Afghan war logs and hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables, revealing war crimes and diplomatic intrigues on a global scale.
The Trump administration, however, has signalled that it does not have a case for Assange’s prosecution that could withstand judicial scrutiny under British, US or international law, setting the stage for a protracted legal and political battle over any extradition request.
For the past three weeks, the US government has held Chelsea Manning, who leaked the 2010 documents to WikiLeaks, to try and force her to give perjured testimony against Assange. The courageous whistleblower has refused to participate in this legal travesty.
The widespread support for Assange and Manning among workers, students and young people stands in stark contrast to the silence of all of the official political parties in the United States, Britain and Australia.
Jeremy Corbyn, who, prior to becoming leader of the British Labour Party, claimed to defend Assange, has said nothing about the stepped-up assault on the WikiLeaks founder.
In Australia, the Liberal-National government of Scott Morrison, the Labor Party opposition, the Greens and the trade unions have remained silent, in line with the protracted collaboration of the entire political establishment in the US-led vendetta against Assange, who is an Australian citizen.
This demonstrates that a movement to free Assange and Manning must come from the working class, not the capitalist parties that are engaged in online censorship, an accelerating drive to war and the evisceration of democratic rights.
Workers must be made aware that the mass social and political struggles they are entering, are inseparable from the defence of courageous journalists and whistleblowers, who are being persecuted in order to establish a precedent for the suppression of all opposition to militarism, austerity and dictatorship.
The WSWS and the Socialist Equality Parties (SEP) around the world are committed to playing a central role in this crucial fight.
The SEP in Britain has called for maximum participation in protests organised outside Ecuador’s London Embassy. The Australian SEP has today issued a statement, reiterating its demand that the Australian government fulfil its responsibilities to Assange and compel the British government to allow him to leave the country, and return to Australia, with a guarantee against extradition to the US.
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On 4th of April 2019 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) “celebrated” the 70th Anniversary of its murderous existence. This horror organization was born sort of as a “Rosemary’s Baby”, signed into life in Washington DC, as the North Atlantic Treaty. Its creation was absolutely unethical but also absolutely “legal” – meaning what we, the west, have made the law, a man-made law for war, was applied by the Washington-Pentagon driven NATO. Estimates have it, that NATO and its ‘allies’, cronies, proxies and mercenaries killed more than 20 million people since NATO’s existence, basically since the end of WWII. Compare this with about 70 to 80 million killed in WWII. – The 70 years of NATO are considered “Peace Time” – were they really a period of Peace?
This is a call on all NATO members to exit NATO – to opt for Peace and to exit NATO! To stop fighting wars – to liberate yourselves from the shackles of NATO.
Was the artificially and under totally false pretenses, as we know today, Cold War, which started immediately after WWII and lasted until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 – a period of Peace? – Or was it rather a period of constant intimidation for war, a period of armament of the west, a period of maximizing profits for the mainly US military industrial complex – a period, to destroy any chance the Soviet Union may have had to economically advance, as the arms race made it impossible for the USSR, the country that won WII, to concentrate on economic development at home after having lost 25 million lives and her basic production infrastructure.
And yes, it was the Soviet Union – not the “allies” (US, UK, and France) that liberated the world at the time from the German Nazi dominance. And yes, western history books tell you a different story. Western history books are never to be trusted.
The entirely Pentagon-run NATO has today 29 member countries (see NATO member states), 26 of which are in Europe, and one, Turkey, in Eurasia. Plus, there are a number of “associated” or wannabe members, like Ukraine, Israel – and in recent months, would you believe! – Colombia in South America joined NATO through a so-called “Cooperation Agreement”, dating back to 2013 – and Brazil is perhaps the next candidate. The US want to control again their “backyard”, by applying again their Monroe Doctrine (no foreign power, other than the US, in Latin America) except, that the backyard has learned its lesson.
While Venezuela and her hydrocarbon and other mineral riches is the main target right now for NATO’s presence in Colombia and perhaps soon in Brazil, the most democratically elected government in the western world, is not just buckling under, as Washington is used to from the past. No. Venezuela has a solid strategic, economic – and MILITARY alliance with Russia and China. Despite all the infamous Trump-Pompeo-Bolton saber-rattling, its Russia and China who are drawing the red line. So much for the Monroe Doctrine. Times ar’a changing.
The US/NATO – all ruled by the Pentagon – have about 800 – and according to some estimates more than 1,000 military bases in about 100 countries. Not all are known to the public. The funds used to arm and maintain the bases are your tax-payer’s moneys. While producing weapons for the NATO killing bulldozer, these moneys are not available for much needed, education and health care, let alone basic infrastructure in poor countries, precisely those countries that are being colonized by the US / NATO military bases.
It has, of course, never been a priority for the western elite – those financial-military-petrol and lie-propaganda giants – that dark shady neofascist state that pretends to manipulates the rest of the world, to care for people’s health, and, of course even less so, for people’s education. Educated people are dangerous for these nefarious lecherous, greedy kingpins.
Take note! People around the world, your education is not wanted. Instead the money – YOUR MONEY – your government is supposed spend to give you a decent education so you can earn a decent living and understand the ropes of this ever more complex globe – these funds – YOUR FUNDS – are spent for arming to the teeth the NATO bases, to colonize you and your countries, to enslave you to a One World Order under a western dollar dominated financial hegemony.
They have already all the instruments in place, IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organization (WTO); they are subordinates to NATO. Get out of them too. They are the “elite’s” (for lack of a better term) tool to suffocate you with debt – so you will be at their mercy and sell them your resources for a pittance. Create your own economy, outside of the realm of GLOBALIZATION, of globalized neoliberalism, bordering already today on neofascism. Get out of NATO – and the rest will follow.
Because that’s what Europe has become: A US-NATO-Pentagon colony. European Nations – you think since you are a member of NATO, you have a say in NATO decisions? – Better think again. You know, you have no say in NATO. It couldn’t be more obvious that the Pentagon is calling the shots. Trump and his minions, on behalf of the Pentagon and, of course, on behalf of the military industrial oligarchs, is threatening you – you European members, better pay up to NATO, or else… Whatever “else” means, it’s supposed to scare you. You know, you leaders (sic) of so-called EU members, you have been coopted to obey. Your non-elected European Commission (EC) that calls the shots on European legislation – yes, not the EU Parliament – has also been bought by Washington. The EU is nothing but a puppet of Washington and run by NATO.
But, then, what can you expect, the European Union was never an idea of Europeans. It was an idea born by the CIA already during WWII – then transplanted to some “willing” Europeans, with the promise of NATO protection from the evil Soviets. And, bingo, the red scaredid it. It was the US Senator Joseph McCarthyera. The Red Scare. And today, we live in the entire wester era Russia Scare, then the China Scare, scares no-end – they keep NATO in place – keep NATO in Europe and gradually moving around the world – South China Sea, Latin America; the scares keep NATO ravaging and killing millions around the globe.
All the while – there is a real danger of a nuclear war – People, wake up! The Masters of WAR, NATO, are just waiting for the moment to provoke that infamous Red Button. People of this Universe, don’t you realize – if that happens, we are all doomed; mankind is doomed. Mother Earth may recover, but humans self-destruct.
People! Before that happens, kill the killing machine; kill NATO in its roots. Exit NATO! Contribute no penny anymore to the NATO budget. Withdraw from NATO, get out of NATO. Kick NATO out of your sovereign countries. Regain your NATO-stolen sovereignty. – And you will see the feeling of Peace enhances your wellbeing, while the constant fear of war destroys your soul.
Getting out of NATO is actually easy, it’s also legally possible. As per Article 13 of the NATO charter, all of you members are eligible to exit NATO and to opt for PEACE:
There most likely may be multiple attempts to coopt (buy) your leaders again, under the false pretenses of security. Don’t fall for it. There is no danger from the “East”. In fact, neither Russia or China have an expansionist history. They have a different philosophy. They are seeking a multipolar world, by connecting to what is most logical – the so-called European Continent, which is geographically just the western most part of the huge contiguous Continent of Eurasia, even including the Middle East. Trading with friendly nations within this huge land mass is not only logical, it had been done in the past for thousands of years.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, six years ago, launched the so-called Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also called the New Silk Road, connecting the world with transport, industrial cultural, learning and research infrastructure; the largest and most brilliant all-inclusive economic development project of known human history. It aims at connecting people, not separating them. It aims at equality and justice, including those left behind, for a world of Peace. As a Chinese delegate to an international conference recently said – we are building bridges to connect people, while the west is building walls.
It’s time for a new era of Peace. Seventy years of NATO, of killing for dominance and greed – is passé. Stop NATO. Exit NATO. Abolish NATO.
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Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; TeleSUR; The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
On April 4, the Afrin Liberation Forces (ALF) announced that their units had carried out a series of attacks on Turkish-backed militants. According to the ALF, on April 2, Kurdish fighters destroyed a bulldozer of Turkish-backed militants with an anti-tank guided missile near the town of Mare. On April 3, ALF members attacked a base of the Turkish-backed 55th Brigade near the city of Azaz, east of Afrin. At least three militants were reportedly injured in the attack.
The ALF is a brand of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which has been created in an attempt to distance the group from constant attacks on Turkey-led forces in the region of Afrin. The YPG is a core of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and official YPG statements providing details into attacks on the Turkish Army and its proxies, which were observed in 2018, were fueling tensions between Ankara and Washington. Now, when the YPG rebranded its units attacking Turkish targets, the US has an opportunity to claim that its ‘local ally’ is not involved in these developments.
On April 3, Russian warplanes conducted a new series of raids against terrorist targets in the Idlib de-escalation zone. This time airstrikes hit Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham positions at the hill of Nabi Ayoub, which is located in the area of Jabal Zawiya.
The April 3 strike was the first aerial attack on Idlib terrorists since March 22. Back then, warplanes of the Russian Aerospace Forces conducted a series of airstrikes near the towns of al-Fu’ah and Kafriya in eastern Idlib.
A low intensity of this Russian activity demonstrates that the widely-speculated Syrian Army operation in the Idlib demilitarized zone is not expected anytime soon.
On April 4, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Moscow for negotiations on the situation in Syria with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Following the US recognition of the occupied Golan Heights as a part of Israel, Tel Aviv is aiming to consolidate its gains on the diplomatic front. Another goal of the Israeli leadership to undermine the Russian-Iranian cooperation in the region. However, so far, these efforts have been unsuccessful.
Israel’s ImageSat International released satellite images showing two buildings, which were hit in the March 27 Israeli airstrikes on the Shaykh Najjar Industrial Zone, northeast of the city of Aleppo. Both buildings are located in the northwestern part of the industrial zone, according to ImageSat’ photos. One of them appears to be a storage hangar.
Israeli media claimed that Iranian forces were using both buildings for military purposes. However, there has been no evidence to support this claim so far. Videos released from the ground shows that the targeted buildings were a kind of industrial facilities.
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The unilateral use of force by NATO member states against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999 has made obvious the flaws of the United Nations system of collective security and has demonstrated the unenforceability of the ban on the use of force in contemporary international law. The concept of “humanitarian intervention” has been proven to be legally invalid, essentially serving as an ideological tool to justify acts for which it is impossible to obtain Security Council authorization.
The absence of a balance of power – after the collapse of the bipolar system of the Cold War – has made the Security Council’s decision-making procedures ineffective, inviting the most powerful actor to circumvent the world organization in the very task that defines its raison d’être, namely the preservation of peace. The dysfunctionality of the Council in the Yugoslavia/Kosovo conflict was further aggravated by a systemic flaw in the UN Charter, namely the provisions of Article 27(3) allowing a permanent member to act as judex in causa sua / “judge in his own cause,” and to block any collective enforcement action against its own acts of aggression.
In terms of international criminal law, the NATO war of 1999 has further exposed the problems of judicial procedures based on Chapter VII resolutions of the Security Council. The (legally invalid) creation of an ad hoc court by virtue of a coercive measure of the Council has meant a politicization of proceedings and a practice of double standards, effectively determined by the most powerful states in the Council at the time. No investigation was ever opened over the war crimes committed by NATO forces in the course of the 1999 war (over which the Yugoslavia Tribunal of the Security Council clearly had jurisdiction).
In regard to (state) accountability for acts of aggression as well as (personal) responsibility for the commission of international crimes, the lesson from the NATO war of 1999 is twofold: (a) that international law under the UN system of collective security is impotent, and (b) a unipolar power constellation frequently invites acts of self-help and encourages a policy of faits accomplis. This can only be challenged if a credible balance of power emerges at the global level. In the present constellation, the absence of checks and balances – in terms of the constitutional set-up of the UN as well as of realpolitik – has led to a state of disorder that goes well beyond regional conflicts, and has made the notion of the “international rule of law” an abstract ideal.
I
What distinguishes a legal from a moral norm is the former’s enforceability. According to Kelsen, law is a coercive normative order1 where violations are sanctioned by virtue of the state’s monopoly of force.2 Only the latter, practiced in the framework of an elaborate separation of powers, ensures the “rule of law” and, subsequently, stability of a political order. It makes the difference between a legitimate state, deserving international recognition on the basis of sovereign equality,3 and a “failed” state.
Since the establishment of the system of rules and regulations referred to as “international law,” the status of these norms has been in question. Unlike norms at the domestic level, international legal norms lack unified enforcement mechanisms, the distinguishing criterion between law and mere morality. This is particularly serious in regard to the fundamental principle governing relations between sovereign states, namely the prohibition of the use of force.4Tantamount to the abrogation of the jus ad bellum – that was traditionally considered as prerogative of sovereign rule, the prohibition was first enshrined in a normative framework in the Briand-Kellogg Pact of 19285 and has subsequently become an integral part of the United Nations Charter.6 It is this norm, however, that in the history of the United Nations Organization has often proved unenforceable, and especially in cases that involved those countries, which, according to the UN Charter, have a “primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.”7 The NATO war of 1999 against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is a case in point. In order to understand the gravity of this unilateral use of force and its implications for the international rule of law in general, one must be aware of the global constellation and the discourse on world order at the time.
When the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, with the unavoidable proxy wars in its wake, had come to a close with the disintegration of the Socialist bloc, hopes were raised by the self-declared winner of that power struggle of a new golden era of peace – “where the rule of law, not the law of the jungle, governs the conduct of nations.”8 Following the UN Security Council’s authorization of coercive measures against the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990/1991 (that resulted in the restoration of Kuwaiti sovereignty), international commentators saw the world organization’s role as guarantor of collective security suddenly restored after decades of paralysis due to the superpower veto. The newfound unanimity and co-operation among the Council’s permanent members was praised as foundation of a stable and just “New World Order.”9 However, the expectations were rather quickly proven illusory since unanimity among the permanent members was the result of the dominant position of only one member state. In the absence of a balance of power, only a few states did dare to object, or resist, the Security Council’s most powerful member.10 Unavoidably, the unipolar constellation invited abuses of power and – where Security Council authorization could not be obtained – unilateral action. The perpetuation of the punitive sanctions against Iraq (that amounted to collective punishment and a gross violation of the human rights of almost the entire population)11 was one such abuse made possible because of the veto provision of Article 27(3) of the UN Charter.12 The series of unilateral, arbitrary military actions by the United States, alone or with her allies, in the years after the Cold War13 is proof of the subversive, namely “self-serving,” effect of the veto, and particularly so in a unipolar constellation: no coercive measures can ever be undertaken against a permanent member if that state violates the norm of the non-use of force. According to the wording of the last sentence of Article 27, Paragraph 3, a party to a dispute is not obliged to abstain from voting on that very dispute. Consequently, a permanent member can veto any coercive action or condemnation of its own acts of aggression.14 It is no surprise that this statutory provision has been an effective guarantee of impunity and, thus, an invitation to arbitrary uses of force that are solely determined by considerations of national interest, and not by respect for international legality.
II
In the new constellation that resulted from the collapse of the bipolar balance of power, the war against Yugoslavia (over the Kosovo issue) in 1999 has been the decisive event that laid bare the weakness of the UN system of collective security and, structurally related to it, the impotence of international law in the existing statutory framework. The unprecedented unilateral use of force by the member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has demonstrated that, under the present statutory conditions, the most serious violations of international law, namely acts of aggression, can be carried out with impunity if backed by at least one permanent member of the Security Council. However, the non-enforceability of the ban on the use of force does not make a war of aggression legal. The procedural impossibility to restrain a permanent member in the use of military force (or, for that matter, also in the application of other coercive measures such as sanctions) has been a predicament of the United Nations Organization since the very beginning, but has become more consequential in the absence of a balance of power, i.e. in a situation where there is no effective deterrence from the part of other major players.15
The Kosovo intervention of NATO was blatantly illegal (1) in its very factand (2) in its conduct. As the Security Council did not authorize the use of force, the war of 1999 constituted an act of aggression, i.e. a serious breach of a peremptory norm of general international law.16 In terms of its conduct, the war involved numerous violations of international humanitarian law, which also raises the issue of personal criminal responsibility. Even the “Independent International Commission on Kosovo,” established by the government of Sweden in August 1999 and consisting of experts mainly from NATO countries, could not deny, in its final report, that the massive use of force against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia “was illegal because it did not receive prior approval from the United Nations Security Council.”17 In view of the intrinsic illegality in terms of general international law, the Commission felt the need to make the point of morality, stating that “the NATO military intervention was illegal but legitimate.”18 This was also the approach of those who – under pressure to justify, or “legitimize” post festum, a blatantly illegal act – developed a doctrine of “humanitarian intervention.” However, unlike the seemingly more cautious Commission, the advocates of humanitarian intervention in most cases would also insist on the “legality,” under contemporary international law, of such an undertaking.19 In this regard, the Commission regretted the “growing gap between legality and legitimacy that always arises in cases of humanitarian intervention,”20 suggesting so-called “threshold” and “contextual principles” on which to base a decision on whether to militarily intervene or not if the Security Council does not endorse the use of force in a particular case of humanitarian emergency.21
In the decision to launch “Operation Allied Force” against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, on 24 March 1999, NATO did not only breach Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, but violate basic provisions of its own charter, the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949. Ignoring the Treaty’s – explicit and unambiguous – provisions regarding collective security and the use of force, the organization put itself above the authority of the UN Security Council. The Treaty clearly sets out the mandate of NATO in subordination to the United Nations’ system of collective security. While the Preamble “reaffirms” the “faith” of NATO members “in the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations,” and Article 1 explicitly uses the wording of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, Article 7 of the Treaty specifically affirms “the primary responsibility of the Security Council for the maintenance of international peace and security.” Article 5 explicitly defines the mission of NATO within the framework of individual and collective self-defence according to Article 51 of the UN Charter. The Treaty does not contemplate any other use of armed force outside the scope of self-defence, and further obliges the organization to report all measures taken on the basis of collective self-defence “immediately” to the Security Council (Article 5, second paragraph), emulating the wording of Article 51 of the UN Charter also in this regard. It is evident that the offensive action against Yugoslavia in 1999 stands in sharp contrast with the defensive statutory mission of the organization; it can in no way be legitimized by reference to the North Atlantic Treaty.
NATO, thus, had to find a way to “circumvent” its own statute, though this could do nothing to “legalize” a patently illegal conduct. One month into the bombing campaign, the NATO member states met, in the framework of the North Atlantic Council, in Washington DC to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty. They adopted a new “Strategic Concept”22 by which they effectively broke with the defence doctrine of the North Atlantic Treaty. Solemnly invoking “common values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law,”23 the member states proclaim “a broad approach to security (…) in addition to the indispensable defense dimension”24 and subsequently introduce the notion of “non-Article 5 crisis response operations.”25 They make clear that this “broad approach” includes armed action not only in cases of an attack on any of its members, but also to deal with, or avert, “other risks.”26 The “management of crises through military operations,”27 as post-Cold War NATO- parlance goes, may also be carried out “beyond the Allies’ territory.”28 Nothing could be further away from the doctrine of collective self-defence on which NATO was established, including the prohibition of the unilateral use of force. The self-righteous attitude, indeed an almost imperial claim to power by NATO states as arbiters of global standards, apart from and above the United Nations, is also obvious in the Washington Declaration of 23 April 1999, adopted by the Heads of State and Government.29 In Paragraph 7 of their Declaration, they emphatically state: “We remain determined to stand firm against those who violate human rights, wage war and conquer territory.” The Statement on their ongoing military operations in Yugoslavia,30 issued on the same date, is an even blunter testimony of NATO’s patronizing approach vis-à-vis the international community and of the organization’s tendency to bend international law to serve an agenda of power politics. In Paragraph 1, the Heads of State and Government assert: “The crisis in Kosovo represents a fundamental challenge to the values for which NATO has stood since its foundation: democracy, human rights and the rule of law.” Trying to circumvent the illegality of their military action, they further state that “NATO’s military action against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) supports the aims of the international community (…): a peaceful, multi-ethnic and democratic Kosovo where all its people can live in security and enjoy universal human rights and freedoms on an equal basis.” (Paragraph 2) In view of the violence the NATO intervention actually triggered on the ground,31 and of the repeated serious and systematic violations of international humanitarian law by NATO forces, the cynicism of this Statement could not have been greater.
Neither the eulogies of human rights and the rule of law nor the euphemism of “crisis response operations” in the organization’s new Strategic Concept could do away with the outright contradiction of this approach, and the military action justified by reference to it, to the norms of international law as they are presently in force – and underlie NATO’s very constitution. In the words of Bruno Simma: “If the Washington Treaty [North Atlantic Treaty] has a hard legal core which even the most dynamic and innovative (re-)interpretation cannot erode, it is NATO’s subordination to the principles of the UN Charter.”32
Similarly, the theories advanced to make “humanitarian intervention” a legally sound concept have led nowhere.33 The later redrafting of the notion under the label of “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P)34 could not change either the predicament of an approach that confuses the levels of legality and morality and cannot explain on what basis the fundamental human right to life can be sacrificed for an “ideal” the definition of which may depend on the ideological worldview of the intervening state(s).35 This dilemma has been particularly obvious in the Kosovo war of 1999 where the humanitarian paradigm was not only used by NATO, but formed the basis of arguments of many activists and scholars who saw in this military operation the “most important precedent supporting the legitimacy of unilateral humanitarian intervention.”36 Some even hinted at a development towards a customary rule of humanitarian intervention.37 The debate was legally rather imprecise, often ignoring procedural requirements of the law (under the UN Charter) in favor of vague commitments to not precisely defined values (whose perception – particularly in terms of democracy – may to a considerable extent depend on the ideological position of an actor or commentator). However, avoiding the technicalities of the law and resorting to “pure” morality in a military confrontation that was shaped by power politics and national interests on all sides was ultimately a (naïve) denial of reality. In his plea for a humanitarian justification of the 1999 war, Fernando R. Tesón even speaks of the “relative purity” of the intervention, meaning NATO’s bombing campaign to which he refers as “the Kosovo incident.”38 Similarly, Vaclav Havel, then President of the Czech Republic, embarked on the road to moral idealization of the force of arms, avoiding sober legal scrutiny and ignoring the facts of realpolitik: “This is probably the first war ever fought that is not being fought in the name of interests, but in the name of certain principles and values. If it is possible to say about a war that it is ethical, or that it is fought for ethical reasons, it is true of this war.”39 In a more sober assessment, Adam Roberts however observed that “Operation Applied Force will contribute to a trend towards seeing certain humanitarian and legal norms inescapably bound up with conceptions of national interest.”40
An imprecise humanitarian approach as in the case of the Kosovo war, confusing law and (power) politics, indeed risks – under the disguise of a just war doctrine – the undoing of a major achievement of modern international law, namely the abrogation of the jus ad bellum.41 So far, the debates and controversies over the NATO intervention against Yugoslavia have not produced any sound and legally consistent arguments for replacing the United Nations’ doctrine of non-intervention, which has been the cornerstone of peaceful co- existence among states since the end of World War II.42
Apart from the intrinsic illegality of the NATO intervention – as a war of aggression, the actual conduct involved a series of grave breaches of international humanitarian law that, in many instances, may amount to war crimes. This particularly relates to deliberate attacks on civilians or civilian installations such as infrastructure and industrial plants, or the use of cluster bombs and depleted uranium ammunition.43 These acts did indeed give rise to questions as to personal responsibility under the norms of international criminal law. Again, as in the case of general international law, those provisions have proven unenforceable under the existing conditions within the United Nations. Although the “International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia” (ICTY), established by the Security Council in 1993,44 had (territorial as well as temporal) jurisdiction in the case, no formal investigation was ever undertaken by the Prosecutor. In her memoir, the then Prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, writes that she intended to open an investigation regarding the NATO campaign in 1999.45 She admits, however, and in no uncertain terms, that her efforts were “ultimately overshadowed by a sense of futility,” and confesses: “I understood that I had collided with the edge of the political universe in which the tribunal was allowed to function. (…) And my advisors warned me that investigating NATO would be impossible.”46 In spite of the statutory independence of the Prosecutor in the conduct of his/her mandate,47 and the undisputed statutory jurisdiction of the Court in this case, the international crimes allegedly committed in the course of the NATO campaign were never even formally investigated by the very Court the United Nations Security Council had set up for that purpose.48 Again, also at the level of criminal justice, the NATO war against Yugoslavia has proven the impotence of international law. As in the case of impunity for aggressive war, if conducted by a permanent member of the Security Council, it is the absence of a balance of power within the United Nations that has paralyzed a supposedly independent court and subverted the very idea of justice.
III
The illegal use of force by NATO, not restrained by UN mechanisms of “collective security,” resulted in a reversal of political order in the Province of Kosovo and Metohija. Security Council resolution 1244 (1999)49 served as a kind of “legalization,” post festum, of the “régime change” brought about by aggressive war. The so-called “Rambouillet Agreement”50 that preceded the military attack amounted to an ultimatum, i.e. a threat of the use of force in violation of the UN Charter . As Christopher Layne succinctly put it: “At Rambouillet the Yugoslavians were ‘negotiating’ with a gun to their head.”51 Drafted by NATO states, but never ratified by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or Serbia, it was meant to introduce new constitutional arrangements for Kosovo. This “agreement” was in fact a colonial diktat by which NATO put itself above the authority of the United Nations. This is obvious in the arrogant wording of Chapter 7, Article I/1/a: “The United Nations Security Council is invited to pass a resolution under Chapter VII of the Charter endorsing and adopting the arrangements set forth in this Chapter, including the establishment of a multinational military implementation force in Kosovo. The Parties invite NATO to constitute and lead a military force to help ensure compliance with the provisions of this Chapter.” It is obvious that this was also a diktat upon the United Nations, which again has made clear that the Security Council can only exercise its mandate if there is a balance of power among its permanent members. In this context, resolution 1244 (1999) was a capitulation of the Security Council vis-à-vis NATO as an offensive military alliance – an outright declaration of bankruptcy of the UN system of collective security under Chapter VII of the Charter. The subsequent secession of the territory of Kosovo and Metohija from Serbia in 200852 was not only in violation of the constitution of the Republic of Serbia,53 but a clear breach of international law – since it was proclaimed by functionaries (members of the “Assembly of Kosovo”) who had come to power as result of an illegal foreign intervention.54 The right to self- determination is indeed of dubious nature when it is exercised “on the bayonets” of an aggressor force.
After the collapse of the bipolar balance of power at the beginning of the 1990s, the intervention of NATO had not only a destabilizing impact on international order, but it effectively undermined the United Nations Organization in the exercise of its mandate of collective security. This unilateral use of force – not challenged, or reigned in, by the international community – was followed by a series of similar actions by the United States and her allies, as in the case of the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 or the intervention in the Syrian civil war in the years after 2011. These actions have further undermined the authority of the UN Security Council, which also became apparent when the US with other NATO countries overstepped the mandate under resolution 1973 (2011) of the Security Council to bring about régime change in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.55
In conclusion, the 1999 NATO bombing campaign has highlighted the ineffectiveness, in fact impotence, of international law in the absence of a balance of power. This gives rise to the question as to the nature of the international legal order within the framework of the United Nations Organization. How can arbitrariness and unilateral action be avoided in a system that lacks basic checks and balances, which are indispensable for the rule of law? How can the norm prohibiting the international use of force be upheld when the “enforcers” of the law are de facto exempt from its application? The impunity with which NATO states were able to act against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has laid open a structural problem in the makeup of the United Nations Organization: namely a normative inconsistency in the Charter.56 The norms of the non-use of force (Article 2[4]) and those regulating the decision- making procedures in the Security Council (Article 27[3]) are incompatible. The privilege of any permanent member to veto57 coercive measures against an illegal use of force by itself or one of its allies58 has opened the door to self- serving interventions of great powers whenever they feel strong enough.
The lesson learned from the NATO war of 1999 is that “international law” lacks the quality of law as long as there exist no uniform procedures of enforcement under the UN Charter. As a reform of the Charter cannot realistically be expected (because of the very veto of the privileged members),59only a balance of power – where major players deter each other from violating the law – may guarantee respect of the basic norms of general international law, first and foremost the prohibition of the unilateral use of force. As long as these conditions of realpolitik are not in place, interested parties may always see the NATO war of 1999 as a precedent for future unilateral action.
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Prof. Dr. Hans Köchler is President of International Progress Organization.
Notes
1. Hans Kelsen, Reine Rechtslehre [1934]. Ed. M. Jestaedt. Tübingen/Vienna: Mohr Siebeck / Verlag Österreich, 2017, Chapter I/6/c: Das Recht als normative Zwangsordnung, pp. 94ff.
2. On that notion (monopoly of force / Gewaltmonopol) see also Max Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft: Grundriß der verstehenden Soziologie [1921/22]. Ed. Johannes Winckelmann. 5th, rev. edition. Tübingen: Mohr, 2009, § 17 (“Politischer Verband, Hierokratischer Verband”).3. Article 2(1) UN Charter.
4. Article 2(4) UN Charter.
5. Treaty between the United States and other Powers providing for the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy. Signed at Paris, 27 August 1928, entered into force on 24 July 1929.
6. “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state …” (Article 2[4]).
7. Article 24(1) UN Charter.
8. President George H. W. Bush, “Address to the Nation Announcing Allied Military Action in the Persian Gulf, January 16, 1991,” in: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George H. W. Bush (1991, Book I). Doc. AE 2.114. U.S. Government Publishing Office: Washington DC, p. 44.9. For details see Hans Köchler, Democracy and the New World Order. Studies in International Relations, Vol. XIX. Vienna: International Progress Organization, 1993.
10. Concerning the Gulf War resolutions of 1990/1991 see the testimony of Erskine Childers, a former United Nations senior civil servant, who spoke of the “use of bribery and extortion to silence” by Western powers with the purpose to induce certain decisions in the Security Council: “The Demand for Equity and Equality: The North- South Divide in the United Nations,” in: Hans Köchler (ed.), The United Nations and International Democracy. Vienna: Jamahir Society for Culture and Philosophy, 1995, p. 32.
11. For a general assessment, see Peter Wallensteen, Carina Staibano, and Mikael Eriksson, The 2004 Roundtable on UN Sanctions against Iraq: Lessons Learned. Uppsala: Uppsala University / Department of Peace and Conflict Research, 2005, esp. Chapter 6.
12. The sanctions initially imposed in 1990 to force Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait could not be lifted because of the veto. They were only lifted after the United States had invaded and occupied the country in 2003.
13. For details see Barry M. Blechman and Tamara Cofman Witte, “Defining Moment: The Threat and Use of Force in American Foreign Policy Since 1989,” in: International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. National Research Council. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2000, pp. 90-122.
14. For details, see the author’s analysis, The Voting Procedure in the United Nations Security Council: Examining a Normative Contradiction and its Consequences on International Relations. Studies in International Relations, Vol. XVII. Vienna: International Progress Organization, 1991, chapter V/b: “The specific abuse of the veto for reasons of power politics / Circumventing the abstention clause,” pp. 29ff.
15. On the dilemma of power politics in the UN system see also Hans Köchler, “The United Nations Organization and Global Power Politics: The Antagonism between Power and Law and the Future of World Order,” in: Chinese Journal of International Law, Vol. 5, Issue 2, 1 January 2006, pp. 323-340.
16. On the definition of the concept of aggression, cf. S. Sayapin, The Crime of Aggression in International Criminal Law. Historical Development, Comparative Analysis and Present State. The Hague: Springer / T.M.C. Asser Press, 2014, pp. 98ff.
17. Independent International Commission on Kosovo, The Kosovo Report: Conflict – International Response – Lessons Learned. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 4.18. Loc. cit.
19. On the problematic legal nature of the notion of “humanitarian intervention” cf. also the author’s analysis: The Concept of Humanitarian Intervention in the Context of Modern Power Politics: Is the Revival of the Doctrine of “Just War” Compatible with the International Rule of Law? Studies in International Relations, Vol. XXVI. Vienna: International Progress Organization, 2001. – For en evaluation of the concept in connection with the NATO intervention see, inter alia, Aidan Hehir, “NATO’s ‘Humanitarian Intervention’ in Kosovo: Legal Precedent or Aberration?” in: Journal of Human Rights, Volume 8, Issue 3 (2009), pp. 245-264.
20. Op. cit., p. 291.
21. Op. cit., pp. 292-294.
22. The Alliance’s Strategic Concept approved by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Washington D.C. on 23rd and 24th April 1999. North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Press Release NAC-S(99) 65, issued on 24 Apr. 1999, at https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_27433.htm.
23. Paragraph 6 of The Alliance’s Strategic Concept.24. Paragraph 25.
25. Paragraph 31.
26. Paragraph 24.27. Paragraph 49.
28. Paragraph 52.
29. The Washington Declaration Signed and issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Washington D.C. on 23rd and 24th April 1999. NATO, Press Release NAC-S(99)63, 23 Apr. 1999, at https://www.nato.int/docu/pr/1999/p99-063e.htm.
30. Statement on Kosovo. Issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C. on 23rd and 24th April 1999. NATO Summit, Press Release S-1(99)62, 23 April 1999.
31. Cf. the assessment by Lord Carrington, former Secretary-General of NATO: The bombing “made things very much worse. (…) I think what Nato did by bombing Serbia actually precipitated the exodus of the Kosovo Albanians into Macedonia and Montenegro. I think the bombing did cause ethnic cleansing.” (The Guardian, 27 August 1999) See also The Kosovo Report, loc. cit., pp. 88ff.
32. “NATO, the UN and the Use of Force: Legal Aspects,” in: European Journal of International Law, Vol. 10 (1999), p. 1.
33. For details, see the author’s analysis, The Concept of Humanitarian Intervention in the Context of Modern Power Politics.
34. The Responsibility to Protect: Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, 2001. The Commission was founded under the authority of the Government of Canada.
35. For a critical assessment of the notion see also Mary Ellen O’Connell, “Responsibility to Peace: A Critique of R2P,” in: Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, Vol. 4 (2010), pp. 39-52.
36. Fernando R. Tesón, “Kosovo: A Powerful Precedent for the Doctrine of Humanitarian Intervention,” in: Amsterdam Law Forum, Vol. 1, No. 2 (2009), pp. 42-48; p. 42.
37. E.g. Antonio Cassese, “Ex iniuria ius oritur: Are We Moving towards International Legitimation of Forcible Humanitarian Countermeasures in the World Community?” in:European Journal of International Law, Vol. 10 (1999), pp. 23-30.
38. Op. cit., p. 43.39. Address by Vaclav Havel, President of the Czech Republic, to the Senate and the House of Commons of the Parliament of Canada. Parliament Hill, Ottawa, 29 April 1999, at http://old.hrad.cz/president/Havel/speeches/1999/2904_uk.html.
40. Adam Roberts, “NATO’s ‘Humanitarian War’ over Kosovo,” in: Survival, Vol. 41, No. 3, Autumn 1999, p. 120.
41. Hans Köchler, “The Concept of Humanitarian Intervention …,” Chapter IV, pp. 37ff.
42. For an early critical assessment of the notion of humanitarian intervention see also H. Scott Fairley, “State Actors, Humanitarian Intervention and International Law: Reopening Pandora’s Box,” in: Georgia Journal of Comparative Law, Vol. 10 (Winter 1980), pp. 29-63.
43. For details of the civilian toll see the report of Human Rights Watch: The Crisis in Kosovo, at https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/nato/Natbm200-01.htm.44. Resolution 827 (1993), adopted on 25 May 1993. – We do not address here the question of the legality of the Tribunal. For details of the Security Council practice of establishing ad hoc tribunals see the author’s analysis: Global Justice or Global Revenge? International Criminal Justice at the Crossroads. Philosophical Reflections on the Principles of the International Legal Order Published on the Occasion of the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Foundation of the International Progress Organization. SpringerScience. Vienna/New York: Springer, 2003, pp. 166ff (“Ad hoc tribunals established by the Security Council”).45. Carla del Ponte with Chuck Sudetic, Madame Prosecutor: Confrontations with Humanity’s Worst Criminals and the Culture of Impunity: A Memoir. New York: Other Press, 2009, pp. 58ff.
46. Op. cit., p. 60.47. Article 16 of the Statute of the ICTY, Paragraph 2: “The Prosecutor shall act independently as a separate organ of the International Tribunal. He or she shall not seek or receive instructions from any Government or from any other source.”
48. On the problematic role of the UN Security Council in this regard cf. also the
author’s analysis: The Security Council as Administrator of Justice? Studies in International Relations, Vol. XXXII. Vienna: International Progress Organization, 2011.49. “On the situation relating Kosovo.” Adopted by the Security Council (with 14 votes to none against, and the abstention of China) at its 4011th meeting, on 10 June 1999.50. Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo, 23 February 1999 (never signed by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia). Text released by the U.S. Department of State: https://1997- 2001.state.gov/regions/eur/ksvo_rambouillet_text.html.51. Ted Galen Carpenter (ed.), NATO’s Empty Victory: A Postmortem on the Balkan War. Washington DC: Cato Institute, 2000, p. 16.
52. “Declaration of Independence” of 17 February 2008, proclaimed by the “Assembly of Kosovo,” the parliamentary body established as part of the United Nations Interim Administration that came into being after NATO had succeeded in forcefully removing the existing governmental authority in Kosovo.53. For details see the chapter, “Self-determination and the law of force: The case of Kosovo,” in the author’s article, “Normative Inconsistencies in the State System with Special Emphasis on International Law,” in: Dušan Proroković (ed.), Kosovo: Sui Generis or Precedent in International Relations. Belgrade: Institute of International Politics and Economics, 2018, pp. 108-136.54. Köchler, loc. cit.
55. For details see “Memorandum on Security Council Resolution 1973 (2011),” in: Hans Köchler, Force or Dialogue: Conflicting Paradigms of World Order. New Delhi: Manak, 2015, pp. 380-385.
56. See the author’s analysis, “Normative Inconsistencies in the State System with Special Emphasis on International Law,” in: The Global Community – Yearbook of International Law and Jurisprudence 2016. Ed. Giuliana Ziccardi Capaldo. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 175-190.57. On the position of the veto in the normative framework of the Charter see also the author’s analysis: The Voting Procedure in the United Nations Security Council. 58. “Normative Inconsistencies in the State System with Special Emphasis on International Law,” loc. cit., p. 180.59. According to Article 108 of the Charter, any amendment requires the consent of the permanent members.
We had already been told that in the Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302 crash which killed all 157 people on board, the 4-month old 737 MAX 8’s anti-stall software reengaged itself four times in 6 minutes as the pilots struggled to straighten the plane post-takeoff. In the end, the anti-stall software won and pushed the plane nose-down towards the earth. Now, Ethiopia -finally?!- released its report in the March 10 crash:
Minister of Transport Dagmawit Moges said that the crew of the Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa to Nairobi on 10 March “performed all the procedures repeatedly provided by the manufacturer but were not able to control the aircraft.” As result, investigations have concluded that Boeing should be required to review the so-called manoeuvring characteristics augmentation system on its 737 Max aircraft before the jets are permitted to fly again, she said.
The results of the preliminary investigation led by Ethiopia’s Accident Investigation Bureau and supported by European investigators were presented by Ms Moges at a press conference in Addis Ababa on Thursday morning.
Ethiopia is being kind to Boeing. However, though the anti-stall software played a big role in what happened, Boeing’s assertion (hope?!) that a software fix is all that is needed to get the 737MAX’s back in the air around the globe rests on very shaky ground (no pun intended whatsoever).
The Seattle Times did an article on March 26 that explains a lot more than all other articles on the topic combined. The paper of course resides in Boeing’s backyard, but can that be the reason we haven’t seen the article quoted all over?
If the assertions in the article are correct, it would appear that a software fix is the least of Boeing’s problems. For one thing, it needs to address serious hardware, not software, issues with its planes. For another, the company better hire a thousand of the world’s best lawyers for all the lawsuits that will be filed against it.
Its cost-cutting endeavors may well be responsible for killing a combined 346 people in the October 29 Lion Air crash and the Ethiopian Airlines one. Get a class-action suit filed in the US and Boeing could be fighting for survival.
Boeing has long embraced the power of redundancy to protect its jets and their passengers from a range of potential disruptions, from electrical faults to lightning strikes. The company typically uses two or even three separate components as fail-safes for crucial tasks to reduce the possibility of a disastrous failure. Its most advanced planes, for instance, have three flight computers that function independently, with each computer containing three different processors manufactured by different companies. So even some of the people who have worked on Boeing’s new 737 MAX airplane were baffled to learn that the company had designed an automated safety system that abandoned the principles of component redundancy, ultimately entrusting the automated decision-making to just one sensor — a type of sensor that was known to fail.
That one paragraph alone is so potentially damaging it’s hard to fathom why everyone’s still discussing a software glitch.
Boeing’s rival, Airbus, has typically depended on three such sensors. “A single point of failure is an absolute no-no,” said one former Boeing engineer who worked on the MAX, who requested anonymity to speak frankly about the program in an interview with The Seattle Times. “That is just a huge system engineering oversight. To just have missed it, I can’t imagine how.” Boeing’s design made the flight crew the fail-safe backup to the safety system known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS. The Times has interviewed eight people in recent days who were involved in developing the MAX, which remains grounded around the globe in the wake of two crashes that killed a total of 346 people.
The Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) was already a late addition that Boeing had not planned for initially. They wanted a plane that was so like older ones that no training would be needed, but did put a much heavier engine in it, which was why MCAS was needed. As I wrote earlier today, they cut corners until there was no corner left. On hardware, on software, on pilot training (simulator), everything was done to be cheaper than Airbus.
The angle-of-attack (AOA) sensor of the 737 MAX is the bottom piece of equipment below just below the cockpit windshield. (Mike Siegel / The Seattle Times)
A faulty reading from an angle-of-attack sensor (AOA) — used to assess whether the plane is angled up so much that it is at risk of stalling — is now suspected in the October crash of a 737 MAX in Indonesia, with data suggesting that MCAS pushed the aircraft’s nose toward Earth to avoid a stall that wasn’t happening. Investigators have said another crash in Ethiopia this month has parallels to the first.
Boeing has been working to rejigger its MAX software in recent months, and that includes a plan to have MCAS consider input from both of the plane’s angle-of-attack sensors, according to officials familiar with the new design. “Our proposed software update incorporates additional limits and safeguards to the system and reduces crew workload,” Boeing said in a statement. But one problem with two-point redundancies is that if one sensor goes haywire, the plane may not be able to automatically determine which of the two readings is correct, so Boeing has indicated that the MCAS safety system will not function when the sensors record substantial disagreement.
The underlying idea is so basic and simple it hurts: safety come in groups of three: three flight computers that function independently, with each computer containing three different processors manufactured by different companies, and three sensors. The logic behind this is so overwhelming it’s hard to see how anyone but a sociopathic accountant can even ponder ditching it.
And then here come the clinchers:
Some observers, including the former Boeing engineer, think the safest option would be for Boeing to have a third sensor to help ferret out an erroneous reading, much like the three-sensor systems on the airplanes at rival Airbus. Adding that option, however, could require a physical retrofit of the MAX.
See? It’s not a software issue. It’s hardware, and in all likelihood not just computer hardware either.
Clincher no. 2:
Andrew Kornecki, a former professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University who has studied redundancy systems in Airbus and Boeing planes, said operating the automated system with one or two sensors would be fine if all the pilots were sufficiently trained in how to assess and handle the plane in the event of a problem. But, he said, if he were designing the system from scratch, he would emphasize the training while also building the plane with three sensors.
The professor is not 100% honest, I would think. There is zero reason to opt for a two-sensor system, and 1001 reasons not to. It’s all just about cost being more important than people. That last bit explains why Boeing went there against better judgment:
[..] Boeing had been exploring the construction of an all-new airplane earlier this decade. But after American Airlines began discussing orders for a new plane from Airbus in 2011, Boeing abruptly changed course, settling on the faster alternative of modifying its popular 737 into a new MAX model. Rick Ludtke, a former Boeing engineer who worked on designing the interfaces on the MAX’s flight deck, said managers mandated that any differences from the previous 737 had to be small enough that they wouldn’t trigger the need for pilots to undergo new simulator training.
That left the team working on an old architecture and layers of different design philosophies that had piled on over the years, all to serve an international pilot community that was increasingly expecting automation. “It’s become such a kludge, that we started to speculate and wonder whether it was safe to do the MAX,” Ludtke said. Ludtke didn’t work directly on the MCAS, but he worked with those who did. He said that if the group had built the MCAS in a way that would depend on two sensors, and would shut the system off if one fails, he thinks the company would have needed to install an alert in the cockpit to make the pilots aware that the safety system was off.
There you go: A two-sensor system is fundamentally unsound, and it’s therefore bonkers to even discuss, let alone contemplate it.
And if that happens, Ludtke said, the pilots would potentially need training on the new alert and the underlying system. That could mean simulator time, which was off the table. “The decision path they made with MCAS is probably the wrong one,” Ludtke said. “It shows how the airplane is a bridge too far.”
Kudos to the Seattle Times for their research. And yeah, we get it, at over 5000 orders for the plane, which costs $121 million each, there’s big money involved. Here’s hoping that Boeing will find out in the courts just how much.
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Featured image: 737 MAX 8. The angle-of- attack (AOA) sensor is the lower device below the cockpit windshield on both sides of the fuselage. (Mike Siegel/The Seattle Times)
Every day people make decisions about what to eat, sometimes opting for colorful fruits and veggies, sometimes finding the smell of bacon irresistible. At the end of the day people are controlling their own health. What is remarkable though, is the possibility that something one swallows today could have a lasting effect on future offspring—children, grandchildren, great grandchildren. New research is finding a generational impact of certain chemicals. This time it’s not the bacon we’re worried about—but plastics and the toxins within them.
Twenty years ago, researchers at Washington State University discovered accidentally that the now-infamous bisphenol A (BPA) was leaching out of plastic cages, harming the mice within. The contamination caused abnormalities in mice eggs and fertility. Numerous subsequent studies found BPA exposure affects adult fertility and health across species, including monkeys, fish, and humans. Known to decrease sperm count in rats and to cause breast cancer in women, BPA was banned in 2012 by the FDA from being used in baby bottles and sippy cups. Yet BPA is still used in many products, including epoxy resins used to coat canned foods. A 2004 study of 2,517 people found that 93% had detectable quantities of BPA’s by-product in their urine.
Since the toxic effects of BPA came to light, several replacement bisphenols were quickly brought to market by chemical companies and are now in widespread use. Twenty years after the BPA toxicity discovery, by remarkable chance, the same Washington State University lab recently noticed again that something was amiss with their mice. This time the mice were housed in cages comprised of replacement bisphenols, largely believed to be safer than BPA. The researchers subsequently performed controlled studies with several of the replacement bisphenols including BPS, a widely used replacement.
Results demonstrated that the new bisphenols behaved similarly to BPA, causing health problems including detrimental effects on fertility in both males and females, reported in Cell Biology in September 2018. Scientist Sarah Hunt explained, “This paper reports a strange déjà vu experience in our laboratory.” What the lab discovered once with BPA, it was seeing again with the replacements. Perhaps most troubling were the long-lasting effects of the toxins. Even if all bisphenols could be magically eliminated today, the toxic effects would still last about three generations through the germline of people already exposed. This means bisphenols ingested today could affect the fertility of one’s great grandchildren.
The bisphenol case demonstrates that FDA bans do not necessarily solve the root problem. Chemical companies tend to roll out similar chemicals to those that have been banned, because this is the easiest way to bring something to market quickly. But more testing is needed before chemicals are released into the environment. Long term problems such as generational infertility and cancer risk often cannot easily be examined in clinical trials, and environmental effects are not rigorously analyzed prior to release.
The Washington State University study also proved that damaged and heated plastics are particularly deadly, as the damaged cages leached more toxins. This should serve as a warning for those who microwave food in plastic containers for their families. And it should remind us that discarded plastic bottles degrading in oceans and rivers are releasing toxins that cause irreversible infertility.
The current estimate of plastics in our oceans is approximately 150 million metric tons. By 2050, the amount is expected to ‘outweigh the fish,’ according to Jim Leape, co-director of the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions. A recent study has determined microplastics (small plastic particles) are present in every river and lake in Britain. And they have been found in tap water, everywhere from the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC to the Trump Grill in New York. A study of 159 drinking water samples on five continents found that 83% of those samples were contaminated. Plastics are everywhere, from the highest mountains to the deepest parts of the ocean and Arctic. Nanoplastics less than 50 nanometers long have even been found in plankton, which is ingested by fish that humans eat.
Scientists are finding that plastics are disrupting marine mammals’ ability to reproduce. Many forms of plastic including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and Bisphenol A are endocrine disruptors, meaning they affect the hormonal systems of animals. An orca of adult age called Lulu, researchers recently found, was barren as if she was a juvenile. Analysis revealed very high levels of PCBs in her lipid tissues. One orca pod off the coast of Scotland has not produced a calf in 25 years. Despite bans on PCBs 30 years ago, toxins remain in orca mothers’ milk, and are passed from mother to baby. A recent study published in the journal Science predicts that half the world’s population of orcas will be extinct in just a few decades due to PCB poisoning. Researchers have also found that despite the PCB ban in Europe, levels of PCBs have not decreased, indicated that they may be leaching out of landfills. Hormone disruptors have also been found to impair male frogs’ fertility, and to cause tadpoles to more frequently develop ovaries rather than testicles, thus skewing the proportion of males to females. Similar problems have been found in fish. Reproductive risks associated with endocrine disrupting chemicals span species.
Bisphenol A is known to decrease sperm count and to cause cancer in many species. Its counterpart replacement plastics (BPS, BPF, BPAF, BPZ, BPP, BHPF… to name just a few), researchers have recently discovered, are no better. Whether these pollutants have already affected humans is anyone’s guess, but it would be wise to view statistics during the time period since plastics became popular, starting in the 1960s, and to see if there is a significant trend over time.
It appears there is. Notably, a 2017 study found that sperm counts per milliliter declined by more than 50% from 1973 to 2011, with total sperm counts down almost 60%. Two other recent studies have demonstrated that over the past few decades in the U.S. and Europe, both sperm count and motility have decreased.
The United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) recently debated a proposed legally binding treaty to address plastic pollution. One objective of the proposed treaty was to phase out single use plastics by 2025. Norway also suggested a global agreement for handling ocean plastic pollution. Sadly, the U.S. was the largest voice against the proposed treaty and the proposed global waste disposal plan.
Eventually a non-legally-binding agreement was reached in which the U.S. watered down the language to “significantly reduce” plastics by 2030, eleven years from now. One UN delegate described the Trump representatives as “trying to remove all targets and timelines.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. has been exporting large quantities of plastics overseas for years, historically mostly to China. In the previous year, 70% was exported to China and Hong Kong. But in 2018, China banned imports of plastic waste. Since the ban the U.S. has looked to poorer nations for its overseas garbage dump. Unearthed, Greenpeace’s research group, has found that in the first six months of 2018, almost half of U.S. plastic wastewas sent to developing countries: Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam. U.S. plastic waste exports to Thailand went up by nearly 2,000% this year.
Most developing nations do not have sufficient recycling infrastructure to properly handle plastic waste. On Earth Day 2018, the top producers of mismanaged ocean plastic waste were ranked by tons of waste. The top five after China were Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. In some cases as in parts of the Philippines, recycling is done laboriously by hand, picking bottles out of large dumps. As this is very difficult and time consuming, large quantities find their way into oceans and rivers. Sadly and not surprisingly, the Pasig River in the Philippines transports approximately 72,000 tons of plastic downstream, and has been declared “biologically dead” since 1990. Instead of helping these countries to develop recycling infrastructure, we are sending them more toxic waste.
We might think we are kicking the can down the road by sending plastics overseas but they will wash right back up on the Hawaiian and California coast. Beachgoers might witness solid litter washing ashore, or unearthed from the stomachs of dead whales. Or they might not notice the pollution — instead unknowingly consuming microplastics in their next Ahi Tuna sandwich. On the East Coast, one might encounter them in a glass of water at the Trump Grill in New York. There is only one world sink after all. Tossing poison to the other end of the tub only works for so long – it will inevitably, over time, mix and wash back to your side of the water. And when one of us is diagnosed with cancer, do we really know the cause?
It is instructive to remember the orca Lulu, a mammal like us, who no longer produces eggs. And to remember that if sperm counts continue to decline at the present rate, they will soon reach levels where it becomes difficult to have children. By then, the world’s water supply may be irreversibly contaminated and an enforceable treaty will be too late.
Postponing a legally binding treaty may put us on the path of our fellow mammals the orcas, half of which already face inevitable extinction worldwide. And we can not forget the tragedy of the orca Tahlequah, who last summer carried her dead calf for a record 17 days and 1,000 miles in mourning.
Eleven years may be too late.
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Meena Miriam Yust is an attorney based in Chicago, Illinois. Educated at Vassar College and Case Western Reserve University School of Law, she published a draft Migratory Insect Treaty with commentary in the Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law.
Three years ago– almost to the day – Saudi Arabia rattled its first sabre towards the United States, with an implicit threat to dump US Treasuries over Congress’ decision to allow the Saudis to be held responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
In a stunning report at the time by the NYTimes, Saudi Arabia told the Obama administration and members of Congress that it will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American assets held by the kingdom if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible in American courts for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Then, six months ago, the Saudis once again threatened to weaponize their wealth as the biggest importer of arms from America in the world.
And now, Reuters reports, citing three unidentified people familiar with Saudi energy policy, Saudi Arabia is threatening to drop the dollar as its main currency in selling its oil if the U.S. passes a bill that exposes OPEC members to U.S. antitrust lawsuits.
While the death of the petrodollar has long been predicted (as the petroyuan gathers momentum), this is the most direct threat yet to the US Dollar’s exorbitant privilege…
“The Saudis know they have the dollar as the nuclear option,” one of the sources familiar with the matter said.
“The Saudis say: let the Americans pass NOPEC and it would be the U.S. economy that would fall apart,” another source said.
Riyadh reportedly communicated the threat to senior U.S. energy officials, one person briefed on Saudi oil policy told Reuters
As Reuters details,NOPEC, or the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act, was first introduced in 2000 and aims to remove sovereign immunity from U.S. antitrust law, paving the way for OPEC states to be sued for curbing output in a bid to raise oil prices.
While the bill has never made it into law despite numerous attempts, the legislation has gained momentum since U.S. President Donald Trump came to office. Trump said he backed NOPEC in a book published in 2011 before he was elected, though he not has not voiced support for NOPEC as president.
Trump has instead stressed the importance of U.S-Saudi relations, including sales of U.S. military equipment, even after the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi last year.
A move by Saudi Arabia to ditch the dollar would resonate well with big non-OPEC oil producers such as Russia as well as major consumers China and the European Union, which have been calling for moves to diversify global trade away from the dollar to dilute U.S. influence over the world economy.
Russia, which is subject to U.S. sanctions, has tried to sell oil in euros and China’s yuan but the proportion of its sales in those currencies is not significant.
Venezuela and Iran, which are also under U.S. sanctions, sell most of their oil in other currencies but they have done little to challenge the dollar’s hegemony in the oil market.
However, if a long-standing U.S. ally such as Saudi Arabia joined the club of non-dollar oil sellers it would be a far more significant move likely to gain traction within the industry.
And why China suddenly admitted to increased gold reserves…
And why there has been a spike in yuan buying by reserve managers last year, as the IMF pointed out in a recent report.
So the next time you hear an analyst on CNBC categorically dismiss the notion that the loss of the dollar’s reserve currency status isn’t something that markets should take seriously (even as several crediblevoices have warned that it should be), you’d do well to remember this chart.
Nothing lasts forever.
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All images in this article are from Zero Hedge unless otherwise stated
Chinese nuclear bombers. Chinese hypersonic missiles. Chinese carrier killer missiles. Chinese cyberattacks. Chinese anti-satellite weaponry. Chinese militarization of the South China Sea. Chinese Huawei spying.
So many Chinese “malign intentions”. And we’re not even talking about Russia.
Few people around the world are aware that the Pentagon for the moment is led by a mere “acting” Defense Secretary, Patrick Shanahan.
That did not prevent “acting” Secretary to shine in the red carpet when presenting the Trump administration’s 2020 Pentagon budget proposal – at $718 billion – to the Senate Armed Services Committee: the top US national security threat is, in his own (repeated) words, “China, China, China”.
“Acting” Shanahan has been in charge since Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis – the original butcher of Fallujah in 2004 – resigned last December. His former employer happened to be Boeing. The Pentagon’s inspector general is still investigating whether Shanahan was in fact acting as a no holds barred Boeing commercial asset whenever he met the Pentagon top brass.
That, of course, fits the classic Beltway “revolving door” pattern. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, a Washington-based group, actually filed a complaint around the fact that “acting” Shanahan blasted Lockheed Martin, Boeing’s competitor, in every top-level Pentagon meeting.
Shanahan told the Senate,
“China is aggressively modernizing its military, systematically stealing science and technology, and seeking military advantage through a strategy of military-civil fusion.”
That includes Beijing’s development of a nuclear-capable long-range bomber that, according to Shanahan, will put it on the same level as the US and Russia as the only global powers controlling air-, sea- and land-based nuclear weapons.
It’s essential to remember that Mattis and Shanahan are the main authors of the National Defense Strategy adopted by the Trump administration which accuses China of striving for “Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United States to achieve global pre-eminence in the future.”
Now compare it withCol. Larry Wilkerson‘s view; the whole Pentagon show is all about offense while Russia and China are always emphasizing defense.
Gerasimov identified “the US and its allies” as engaged in permanent war of all types, including “preparation for ‘global strike’, ‘multi-domain battle’, [and the] use of the technology of ‘color revolutions’ and ‘soft power’. Their goal is the elimination of the statehood of undesirable countries, undermining their sovereignty, changing the legitimately elected public authorities. Thus it was in Iraq, in Libya and in Ukraine. Now similar actions are observed in Venezuela.”
So there it is, graphically explained: Venezuela, geostrategically, is as important to Moscow as Syria and Ukraine.
Gerasimov also detailed how, “the Pentagon has begun to develop a fundamentally new strategy of warfare, which has been dubbed the ‘Trojan Horse’. Its essence lies in the active use of the ‘protest potential of the fifth column’ in order to destabilize the situation with simultaneous strikes by precision-guided weapons on the most important targets.”
Then the clincher; “The Russian Federation is ready to oppose every one of these strategies. In recent years, military scientists, together with the General Staff, have developed conceptual approaches to neutralize the aggressive actions of potential opponents. The field of research of military strategy is armed struggle, its strategic level. With the emergence of new areas of confrontation in modern conflicts, methods of struggle are increasingly shifting towards the integrated application of political, economic, information and other non-military measures, implemented with the support of military force.”
Call it Russia’s response to Made in USA Hybrid War. With the major incentive of being a value for money operation; after all the Russian General Staff, unlike the Pentagon, is not in the business, for all practical purposes, of stealing trillions of dollars from taxpayers for several decades.
There’s no question the Chinese leadership, not exactly adept at state of the art Hybrid War techniques, is studying the Russian military strategies in excruciating detail.
Of course this is all intrinsically linked to Putin’s leadership. Last month, in Moscow, Rostislav Ishchenko, arguably the top Russian analyst of the Ukraine saga, explained it to me in detail:
“Putin does not ‘take over the elites’ or ‘guide the nation.’ His genius lies in an acute intuitive sense of the strategic needs of the nation (which creates a strong feedback and causes absolute trust of the absolute majority of the people), but most importantly, he is a master of political compromise, understanding the importance of maintaining peace between different social, economic, and political groups within the country, to ensure its stability, prosperity, and international authority. Given that foreign policy is always a continuation of domestic policy, we can clearly trace his desire for compromise in Russian international activity.”
“Putin, Ishchenko added, “does not try to suppress the opponents even in those cases when Russia is unconditionally stronger and the result of the confrontation will clearly be in her favor. Putin understands that both the loser and the winner lose in the confrontation. Therefore, he always offers a compromise for a long time, almost to the last opportunity, even to those who clearly do not deserve it, moving to other solutions only after the opponent has clearly crossed all possible red lines and can pose a threat to the vital interests of Russia. An agreement based on consideration of each other’s interests is always stronger than any short-term ‘victories’, which tomorrow will result in the need to reaffirm their status of the winner again and again. It seems to me that Putin understands this well. Hence the effectiveness of his actions. You can also take a look at his team. These are professionals who adhere to a variety of ideological views (or do not adhere to any). The main thing is that they perform their work qualitatively. The ability to manage such a team is another of its undoubted advantages. After all, these are all ambitious people who are aware of their professionalism and are able to defend their opinion, which is not always the same for everyone. Nevertheless, they work as a single mechanism and achieve really great results.”
Watch out for Yoda’s hordes
To expect the same from the US industrial-military-surveillance complex would be idle.
In fact, “acting” Shanahan’s deputy, Under Secretary David Trachtenberg, doubled down when addressing the Senate Armed Services Committee; he said that Washington will not relinquish its self-attributed right for a nuclear first strike.
In his own words; “A ‘no-first use’ policy would erode US allies’ belief that they are protected.” As if all US allies were begging in unison to be “defended” by US nuclear bombs. In true “war is peace” mode, this Orwellian state of affairs is justified under the Pentagonese notion of “constructive ambiguity”.
The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) exhibits a long list of causes that may detonate a US nuclear first strike – including a worryingly vague attack on “allied or partner civilian infrastructure”. Even a clumsy false flag, for instance in the South China Sea, could lead to such a stand off.
Yoda is of course RAND asset Andrew Marshall, who was the director of the nefarious Office of Net Assessment at the Pentagon from 1973 to 2015.
Predictably, scores of Atlanticist think tanks are celebrating Yoda as the winner in devising the new rollback US “strategy” against China.
Yoda did groom scores of analysts across the whole spectrum of the industrial-military-surveilance complex – including think tanks, universities and mainstream media.
So in the end Yoda did body-slam Bismarckian Henry Kissinger – who remains alive, sort of (if Marshall was Yoda, would Kissinger be Darth Vader?) Kissinger always advised containment in relation to China, disguised as what he termed “co-evolution”.
Yoda finished off not only Kissinger but also the Obama administration’s wobbly and ill-defined “pivot to Asia”. Yoda preached hardcore confrontation with China. There’s no question that even beyond the grave, he’ll continue to rule over his warmongering Beltway hordes.
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Pepe Escobar is an independent geopolitical analyst, writer and journalist.
April 5th, 2019 by Center For Biological Diversity
The Center for Biological Diversity sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today for public records on the Trump administration’s decision to allow bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides and genetically engineered crops on national wildlife refuges.
Today’s lawsuit follows an August 2018 decision by the Trump administration to reverse a refuge-protection measure that prohibited the use of neonicotinoid pesticides and genetically engineered crops that trigger greater pesticide use.
“Pesticide-intensive farming has no place on America’s national wildlife refuges,” said Hannah Connor, a senior attorney at the Center. “The public has a right to know where and when these dangerous practices are being allowed to poison our refuges. These incredibly precious places were set up to protect wildlife, not industrial-scale commercial agriculture.”
Between September and November 2018, the Center submitted multiple Freedom of Information Act requests to the Fish and Wildlife Service seeking public records on its 2018 decision to allow neonicotinoid pesticides and genetically engineered crops on national wildlife refuges. Today’s lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, comes after the administration failed to respond to those public-record requests.
“First the Trump administration reversed a sensible ban on risky agricultural practices on wildlife refuges, and now it’s hiding key details about pesticide use in specific refuges,” said Connor. “The American public deserves to know how this administration is putting its toxic agenda above the interests of our public lands and imperiled wildlife.”
Under the Trump administration, the Service has been widely criticized and repeatedly sued for refusing to release records lawfully requested under the Freedom of Information Act.
Background
The United States’ 562 national wildlife refuges are the world’s largest collection of lands set aside specifically for the preservation of imperiled fish and wildlife. These forests, wetlands and waterways are vital to the survival of thousands of species, including more than 280 protected under the Endangered Species Act.
But industrial-scale farming of crops like corn and soybeans has become common on the refuges. According to a 2018 Center report, No Refuge, in 2016 alone an estimated 490,000 pounds of harmful pesticides were dumped on commodity crops grown throughout the refuge system. That pesticide use is expected to grow following the Trump administration’s 2018 decision to allow pesticide-intensive, genetically engineered crops and bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides on these lands.
The extensive use of pesticides by private, commercial farms on refuges threatens sensitive habitats and the very purpose of the refuge system. Neonicotinoid pesticides are a leading cause of large-scale pollinator declines. They are also highly toxic to aquatic invertebrates and pose a substantial threat to birds. The European Union has banned these pesticides for outdoor uses in agriculture.
The use of genetically engineered crops on wildlife refuges will spur an increased use of toxic pesticides like dicamba and glyphosate. That will ramp up harm to pollinators, as well as birds, aquatic animals, other wildlife and public health. Glyphosate use on genetically engineered crops has contributed to the significant decline of monarch butterflies over the past two decades because the pesticide kills milkweed, the monarch caterpillar’s only food.
The Center for Biological Diversity and Center for Food Safety launched a lawsuit challenging the Service’s 2018 reversal immediately after it was announced. That suit challenges the agency’s failure to consider the risks of increased pesticide use to imperiled species that rely on national wildlife refuges for food, habitat and protection.
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Featured image: Monarch butterfly photo by John Buse, Center for Biological Diversity.
India plans to begin 5G trials by 2020, but experts and industry stand at odds over its impact on human health and environment. The fifth generation wireless network promises to be 50 times faster than its predecessor — 4G. Down To Earth talked to a series of experts on the issue
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Paul Heroux, professor of toxicology and health effects of electromagnetism at Department of Surgery, McGill University Health Centre, Canada, speaks with Down To Earth about adoption of 5G will be detrimental towards people’s health.
Akshit Sangomla: What are the primary health impacts of using 5G mobile network and is there enough scientific evidence to prove that these impacts will take place?
Paul Heroux: All artificial electromagnetic radiation is a problem because biological systems are not adapted to it. Since exposure has increased progressively and started at a time when disease detection was primitive, those impacts went largely unnoticed. The health evidence has been there, but ignored for decades. 5G will promote cell phone use and therefore human exposures to phones and base stations. The higher frequencies will concentrate the radiation in a smaller portion of the human body because of smaller penetration depth. These frequencies also need more intensity to allow penetration through obstacles. The exposures will be more concentrated over time because of the beam-forming (5-10°) that is specific to 5G. On the specific issue of cancer, all major animal studies, including Chou (1992), Repacholi (1997) and NTP-Ramzzini (2019) confirm carcinogenic action of electromagnetic radiation (EMR).
AS: Countries like UK, US and even India are pushing for faster adoption of 5G? Have the concerns around health impacts been resolved?
PH: Industry has performed no health studies on 5G. They do not need to as they have a stranglehold on legislation that allows them to arbitrarily place base stations where they went on streets close to homes and people have no recourse whatsoever. Dominique Bellepomme, an oncologist in Paris, calls this a “crime against humanity”. As usual, to push adoption of the next update, industry represents that 5G is a revolution, while in fact it is only an expansion of wireless. Most of the applications presented to promote it are “vapourware”, things that either already exist or will never see implementation. Self-driving cars can be designed without 5G. The internet of things is an invasion to privacy primarily optimised for spying and should be framed with restrictions that protect private information and the right not to be irradiated by EMR.
AS: In a completely 5G-connected world how severe could these impacts be?
PH: There would be impacts on cancer rates, on neurological diseases, including electrical hypersensitivity (EHS), fertility and diabetes. Children are particularly vulnerable.
AS: What is the current stand of the European Union and other global bodies about the health consequences of 5G?
PH: The International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, warned in 2002 and 2011 about the connection between EMR and cancer. Many other international and public bodies are under the direct influence of industries. Since this question involves interdisciplinary science, it has been possible for industry specialists to infiltrate many organisations, who also get generous donations from large tech corporations. The convenience of wireless has created a huge financial base and a wide public audience that has been driven to believe by publicity and simplistic science that there are no health implications to EMR.
AS: Can the health impacts be reduced without affecting implementation of 5G?
PH: It is perfectly possible to design the fastest telecommunication systems while minimising health impacts. First, give the highest priority to deployment of optical fibre networks to home and businesses, which can, ultimately, be two crore times faster than 5G. Second, capitalise on wired connections, which, like cable, can bring speeds of 10 gb/second to homes. Third, recognise cell phones for what they are: a radiating device. Redesign them to minimise user exposures, which can result in reduction by factors of 100. And, use them sparingly, rather than letting them become a substitute to workstations, and the home of eye candy.
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Final in a four-part series on the 70th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The first two installments discussed how NATO was set up to blunt the European left and to enable global dominance while the third focused on NATO’s role in spurring conflict and military spending. This article details the Left’s relationship with NATO.
The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), the NDP’s predecessor, backed NATO. In early 1949 the National Council of the party announced, “the CCF believes that Canada should support and join a North Atlantic security pact.” At its 1950 convention the party passed a resolution supporting NATO and, in coded reference to his aggressive response to its opponents, long time party secretary David Lewis writes, “the NATO issue did not disappear. It had to be dealt with at every subsequent convention, and always produced one of the most heated debates.” Army Captain and party advisor Desmond Morton describes the battle over a compromise resolution on military alliances at the NDP’s founding convention in 1961. The motion to abandon NORAD, but stay in NATO, was “subjected to a bitter, emotional attack from the floor. As they had done in so many CCF conventions, [MJ] Coldwell, [Tommy] Douglas and Lewis came to the microphones to hammer back the unilateralists.”
Party leaders did not only employ the power of persuasion. In addition to benefiting from the dominant ideological winds, the leadership employed the levers of power within the party. On one occasion, Coldwell threatened to resign as party leader if members did not support the North Atlantic treaty. When a group of Manitoba CCF members, including individuals elected to the provincial legislature, organized an anti-NATO group the provincial secretary blocked their access to the party’s mailing list. Federal MP and future party leader, Stanley Knowles also intervened to pressure the Manitoba CCF to punish prominent opponents of NATO and the provincial party expelled two former members of the Manitoba legislature for campaigning against the North Atlantic accord.
Two decades after its creation the NDP finally called on Ottawa to withdraw from NATO. But, its 1969 position was partially reversed in the mid-1980s, culminating in a 1987 “security” policy paper that equivocated on the subject. When members have submitted resolutions critical of NATO at recent NDP conventions they have been buried. In a 2015 federal election debate party leader Tom Mulcair called the NDP “proud members of NATO” and said his government would make the alliance a “cornerstone” of its foreign policy. There’s little indication that new leader Jagmeet Singh has changed the party’s position.
On the eve of the 1980 referendum the Parti Québecois’ 1979 White Paper (Québec-Canada: A New Deal. The Québec Government Proposal for a New Partnership Between Equals: Sovereignty-Association) said an independent Québec would continue its membership in NATO. More recently, the PQ’s 2012 election platform pledged to remain in NATO. In its platform Québec’s other main sovereigntist party, Québec Solidaire, calls for “Canada’s immediate withdrawal from NATO and NORAD.”
The Green Party has questioned “maintaining membership in NATO” and called for “shifting our focus away from NATO war missions towards UN Peacekeeping contributions”, but they don’t appear to have explicitly asked to withdraw from the alliance. The Communist Party and other smaller Left parties have called for withdrawing from NATO.
For decades the ‘house of labour’ backed NATO. The Canadian Labour Congress’ predecessors – the Canadian Congress of Labour and Trades and Labour Congress – supported the formation of NATO and the CLC’s inaugural convention called on the “Canadian government not to falter or fail in its support of NATO”, which it described as a measure for “self-protection against aggression.” In 1957 the CLC “reiterated its support of NATO in the memorandum submitted to the government of Canada.” As part of an effort to promote the military alliance, the newly formed labour federation distributed 11,000 copies of a booklet titled “The Trade Unions and NATO”. The pamphlet explained, “unfortunately we still do have to spend large sums on defence, and the responsibility for the fact rests with international communism. Canadian labour firmly supports NATO.”
Through the 1960s the CLC continued to back NATO. It wasn’t until 1976 that the CLC “urged the federal government to … deemphasize the military role of the North Atlantic organization.” In recent years the CLC and its affiliates have said little about NATO.
A number of peace organizations – Pugwash Canada, Project Ploughshares, etc. – have taken ambiguous positions towards NATO. The president of the antiwar Rideau Institute Peggy Mason attended all NATO Council meetings when she was a lead adviser to Progressive Conservative MP and foreign minister Joe Clark from 1984 to 1989. During a 2012 National Defence Committee parliamentary meeting Mason noted, “I’m talking as someone who has spent the better part of the last 10 years working with NATO.” The Rideau Institute president trained NATO commanders for peace and crisis stabilization operations and, according to Mason’s LinkedIn profile, continued in this role after taking over RI.
For their parts, the Canadian Peace Congress, Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, Canadian Peace Alliance and others openly call for Canada to withdraw from NATO, which shouldn’t be a controversial position for progressive organizations.
Though it would elicit howls of outrage from the militarists, withdrawing from NATO would not be particularly radical. European countries such as Sweden and Finland aren’t part of the alliance, nor are former British dominions Australia and New Zealand, not to mention Canada’s NAFTA and G7 partners Mexico and Japan. Still, withdrawing from NATO would dampen pressure to spend on the military and to commit acts of aggression in service of the US-led world order. It’s long past time to do so.
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It is time to stop believing these infantile narratives the British political and media establishments have crafted for us. Like the one in which they tell us they care deeply about the state of political life, and that they lie awake at night worrying about the threat posed by populism to our democratic institutions.
How do they persuade us of the depth of their concern? They express their horror at at the murder of an MP, Jo Cox, and their outrage at the abuse of another, Anna Soubry – both victims of the frenzied passions unleashed by Brexit.
But the political and media elites don’t really care whether politicians are assaulted, vilified or threatened – at least, not if it is the kind of politician who threatens their power. They aren’t seriously worried about attacks on democracy, or about political violence, or about the rottenness at the core of state institutions. Their outrage is selective. It is rooted not in principle, but in self-interest.
Is that too cynical? Ponder this.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn hasn’t faced just shouted insults from afar, like Soubry. He was recently physically assaulted, hit on the head by a man holding an egg in his fist. But unlike Soubry, our media expressed no real concern. In fact, they could barely hide their sniggers at his “egging”, an attack they presented as little more than a prank. They even hinted that Corbyn deserved it.
‘Kill vampire Jezza’
The media have been only happy too to vilify Corbyn as a Kremlin stooge and a former Soviet spy. Senior Tory Iain Duncan Smith this week called Corbyn “a Marxist whose sole purpose in life is to do real damage to the country” – a remark that, as ever went, entirely unchallenged by the BBC interviewer giving him a platform. Just imagine a Labour MP being allowed to accuse Theresa May of being a fascist whose only goal is to destroy the country.
But the BBC has never bothered to conceal its intense dislike of Corbyn. Its news shows have even photoshopped the Labour leader to make him look “Russian” – or “more Russian”, as the BBC and the rest of the media mischievously phrased it. Those who protested were told they were reading too much into it. They needed to lighten up and not take themselves so seriously.
Senior Conservatives, including the former defence secretary Michael Fallon, have regularly portrayed Corbyn as a threat to national security, especially over concerns about the Trident nuclear missile system. Many senior members of Corbyn’s own party have echoed such smears – all amplified, of course, by the media.
Those who suggested that the government and media needed to engage with Corbyn’s well-grounded doubts about the safety of nuclear weapons, or the economics and practicalities of the Trident programme, were derided – like Corbyn – as “pacifists” and “traitors”.
And the mood music to these political clashes was the quite literal demonisation of Corbyn by the red-top dailies. Most famously, the Daily Mail photoshopped him as Dracula, above the headline: “Labour must KILL vampire Jezza.”
Degraded political culture
Then Corbyn became the target of another sustained smear campaign. It was claimed that this lifelong, very public anti-racism activist – who over decades had forged strong ties to sections of the British Jewish community, despite being a steadfast critic of Israel – was a secret anti-semite, or at best providing succour to anti-semites as they overran the Labour party.
Was there any factual basis or evidence for these claims? No. But the British public was assured by rightwing Jews like the Board of Deputies and by “leftwing” Jewish supporters of Israel like Jonathan Freedland that evidence wasn’t necessary, that they had a sixth sense for these things.
Corbyn’s supporters were told that they should not question the wildly inflammatory and evidence-free denunciations of Corbyn and the wider Labour membership for a supposed “institutional anti-semitism” – and, with a satisfyingly circular logic, that to do so was itself proof of anti-semitism.
The weaponisation of anti-semitism through political spin by Corbyn’s political enemies, including the Blairite faction of the parliamentary Labour party, was and is a dangerous assault on public life, one that has very obviously degraded Britain’s political culture.
Too toxic to lead Labour
The smear was meant to override the membership’s wishes and make Corbyn too toxic to lead Labour.
It has also politicised the anti-semitism allegation, weakening it for a section of the population, and irresponsibly inflaming fears among other sections. It has deflected attention from the very real threat of a rising tide of rightwing racism, both Islamophobia and the kind of anti-semitism that relates to Jews, not Israel.
Then, there was the serving British general who was given a platform by the Sunday Times – anonymously, of course – to accuse Corbyn of being a threat to Britain’s security. The general warned that the army’s senior command would never allow Corbyn near Number 10. They would launch a coup first.
But no one in the corporate media or the political establishment thought the interview worthy of much attention, or demanded an investigation to find out which general had threatened to overturn the democratic will of the people. The story was quickly dropped down the memory hole. Those who sought to draw attention to it were told to move on, that there was nothing to see.
And now, this week, footage has emerged showing British soldiers – apparently taking their commanders’ expressed wishes more seriously than the media – using a poster of Corbyn as target practice out in Afghanistan.
Questioning ‘security credentials’
Do the media and politicians really care about any of this? Are they concerned, let alone as outraged as they were at Soubry’s earlier discomfort at the verbal abuse she faced? Do they understand the seriousness of this threat to British political life, to the safety of the leader of the opposition, they themselves have stoked?
The signs are still far from reassuring. Theresa May did not think it worth using prime minister’s questions to condemn the video, to send an unequivocal message that Britain’s political choices would never be decided by violence. No one else in the chamber apparently thought to raise the matter either.
Sky News even used the footage to question yet again Corbyn’s “security credentials”, as though the soldiers might thereby have grounds for treating him as a legitimate target.
The clues as to where all this is leading are not hard to fathom. The white nationalist who drove into a crowd outside Finsbury Park mosque in London in 2017, killing a worshipper, admitted at his trial that the real target had been Corbyn. An unexpected roadblock foiled his plans.
The fact is that no one in the political or media class cares much whether their constant trivialising of Corbyn’s political programme degrades British political life, or whether their smears could lead to political violence, or whether four years of their incitement might encourage someone to use more than an egg and a fist against Corbyn.
So let’s stop indulging the media and politicians as they cite Jo Cox’s murder and Anna Soubry’s intimidation as evidence of their democratic sensibilities and their commitment to political principle.
The truth is they are charlatans. They will use anything – from the murder of an MP to confections of anti-semitism and smears about treason – to incite against a democratic politician who threatens their domination of the political system.
It is their refusal to engage with a political argument they know they will lose, and to allow a democratic process to take place that they fear will produce the wrong result, that is setting the scene for greater polarisation and frustration. And ultimately for more violence.
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Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
A high level source within the Ecuadorian state has told Wikileaks that Julian Assange will be expelled within ‘hours to days.’ — WikiLeaks on Twitter.
The Mueller investigation of an alleged collusion between Donald Trump and Russia to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election has come to its drawn-out end — or not. US monopoly media reported incessantly on the affair, dubbed Russiagate, despite the paucity of evidence.
The monopoly media has apparently learned little from its misreporting of the possession of WMD by the Saddam Hussein government in Iraq. The wording “alleged” was absent from the reporting as were the WMD in Iraq. Nonetheless, such monopoly media reporting of alleged acts as though they were facts has continued over the use of poison gas by the Assad government in Syria and an assassination attempt on the Skripals in England, attributed to Russian agents. Having not learned, the New York Times and Washington Post seek to perpetuate the Mueller “Witch Hunt,” as Trump has ridiculed it.
In an age when educational institutions call for sharpening critical thinking skills, the corporate and state media scribes show a paucity of critical thinking. It should be apparent that when a journalist, anchor, reporter reports on a claim one has an immediate first duty to verify factuality by demanding evidence to back any claims. Do these media people purchase bridges in Brooklyn without checking the deed of ownership?
This media disinformation can have serious consequences, even criminal or genocidal consequences. The monopoly media was heavily complicit in bolstering the US government rush-to-war, basing its reporting on false stories and dubious sources. The war which claimed perhaps upwards of a million Iraqi lives [1] was argued to be a genocide by Abdul Haq al-Ani and Tarik al-Ani in their legal tour de force: Genocide in Iraq: The Case against the UN Security Council and Member States (Clarity Press). In their book, the authors make known the destruction of critical infrastructure (e.g., Iraqi power systems, roads, railroads, and domestic petroleum production) and the commission of war crimes (e.g., bombing civilian defense shelters) by the US and its collaborators. [2]
Wikileaks published evidence of the war crimes carried out in Iraq when it released the “Collateral Murder” video of US military in an US Apache helicopter shooting an unarmed group of adults and children.
Julian Assange is the founder of Wikileaks, and as such has been identified as an enemy of the governmental-media-military industrial complex. Sexual allegations were raised against Assange in Sweden, but he was never charged, and the case was closed by Sweden. Assange was on record as willing to go to Sweden and face the allegations, but he could not receive a guarantee that he would not be turned over to the United States. Britain keeps him confined to the Ecuadorian Embassy, what a United Nations panel calls “arbitrary detention,” with the threat of arrest and likely extradition.
I wrote an article last summer that cited reports that Ecuador’s president Lenín Moreno was about to renege on asylum that the government of previous Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa had granted Assange.
Now the specter of Assange being evicted from the Ecuadorian embassy is again at the forefront of news. The Associated Press wrote that Moreno complained that WikiLeaks was intercepting his communications and invading his privacy. Importantly, AP noted that Moreno provided no evidence for his claims.
“BREAKING: A high level source within the Ecuadorian state has told @WikiLeaks that Julian Assange will be expelled within “hours to days” using the #INAPapers offshore scandal as a pretext–and that it already has an agreement with the UK for his arrest.”
BREAKING: A high level source within the Ecuadorian state has told @WikiLeaks that Julian Assange will be expelled within "hours to days" using the #INAPapers offshore scandal as a pretext–and that it already has an agreement with the UK for his arrest.https://t.co/adnJph79wq
Assange’s “great crime” is revealing the crimes of US empire. War is peace. And revealing the crimes of Empire is deemed criminal by Empire.
Others, not beholden to Empire, but followers-of-conscience are indebted to Assange who as a publisher, performed a massive service to humanity by informing people about acts their governments are involved in, support, or are silent about. WikiLeaks respects “our” right to know. It allows us to know of corruption and criminality in our governments so that society can organize to denounce and put an end to such corruption and criminality.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire recognized such service when she wrote the Nobel Peace Committee to nominate Assange:
Julian Assange and his colleagues in Wikileaks have shown on numerous occasions that they are one of the last outlets of true democracy and their work for our freedom and speech. Their work for true peace by making public our governments’ actions at home and abroad has enlightened us to their atrocities carried out in the name of so-called democracy around the world. This included footage of inhumanity carried out by NATO/Military, the release of email correspondence revealing the plotting of regime change in Eastern Middle countries, and the parts our elected officials paid in deceiving the public. This is a huge step in our work for disarmament and nonviolence worldwide.
After criticism for awarding the prize to dubious types such as Barack Obama, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is being pressured from Nobel Peace Prize Watch to adhere to Alfred Nobel’s testament and his anti-militarism. Such an award may be the Nobel committee’s greatest opening to celebrate Alfred Nobel’s legacy and garner new luster for the Nobel Peace Prize’s tarnished reputation.
A Nobel Peace Prize should confer some kind of protection and immunity from further political persecution should Assange leave or be forced to vacate the Ecuadorian embassy — should it not? What kind of embassy would kick out a Nobel Peace Prize winner? And would Britain arrest a current Nobel Peace Prize winner? And would the Trump administration seek to persecute a Nobel Peace Prize winner given that Trump has been pining for his own Nobel, risible as that sounds.
Despite Assange’s sacrifice to humanity, he has ruffled the feathers of the power structure. Again, it is clear that Assange must be protected. The Nobel committee must come through for humanity and for peace.
People power needs to mobilize. If people care deeply about their right to be informed, to be apprised of their government partaking in war crimes, then millions must take to the streets and squares, especially in Norway and Britain.
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Kim Petersen is a former co-editor of the Dissident Voice newsletter. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Twitter: @kimpetersen.
Notes
1. John Hopkins University epidemiologists corroborated an initial study and in the second study reported “654,965 additional deaths in Iraq between March 2003 and July 2006.”
And the neocon-ization of the Trump administration continues. While The Donald is packing away Big Macs and Diet Cokes, his neocon secretary of state is appointing likeminded warmongers.
Morgan Ortagus is a deep insider with connections to both sides of the war party and its “creative destruction” directors on Wall Street and within prominent neocon “think tanks.”
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Pleased to welcome Morgan Ortagus as our new @statedeptspox. Her experience as an intelligence analyst & public affairs officer in foreign policy & national security will benefit America. She'll lead our fight to communicate & defend US foreign policy. Welcome to our team Morgan. pic.twitter.com/kSqTdPFNzv
Ortagus has been a fixture of the GOP foreign policy establishment for more than a decade. She has served as a press officer at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), a financial intelligence officer at the Treasury Department and an intelligence officer in the U.S. Naval Reserve. She has also worked with several political campaigns, as well as a political action committee, and has experience working on Wall Street and in foreign policy consulting.
In addition to working with spooks and a federal agency that undermines elections and foments coups in foreign lands, Ortagus “served on the boards” at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a coven of warmongers run by Kimberly Kagan, wife of notorious neocon Frederick Kagan.
ISW is funded by the death merchants—Raytheon, General Dynamics, DynCorp, and others—and it pushes the concept of the indispensable nation engaged in forever war around the world, a conflict promoted in the name of “democracy,” which is code for mass murder campaigns waged by the financial elite in its quest for total domination and theft of everything valuable on planet Earth.
Naturally, some folks over on the so-called “New Right” support the appointment of an ardent neocon—a former pretty face from Fox News—at the State Department, thus demonstrating they are little different than establishment Republicans, or for that matter Democrats.
Jack’s photo of Ortagus in the jump seat of a fighter jet is appropriate. She will be covering up war crimes and pushing neocon propaganda on Venezuela, Iran, Syria, Russia, China, and North Korea.
Trump’s now largely forgotten promise to bring home the troops and get out of the “nation-building” (creative destruction) business was swept into the dustbin of history soon after the election.
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The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) continue their bombing campaign in Syria. In the framework of this campaign, IDF aircraft strike what the Israeli leadership describes as Iranian infrastructure and weapon shipments to Hezbollah and pro-Iranian armed groups. Nonetheless, positions and equipment of the Syrian Armed Forces often appear to be target of Israeli strikes allegedly aimed solely against Iran. In rare cases, when Israel publicly admits strikes in Syria, it claims that the SAF is being targeted because of its “hostile actions” towards Israeli missiles and aircraft entering Syrian airspace.
The unofficial and illegal pattern of Israeli strikes, the double-faced public attitude of the Israeli leadership as well as the unwillingness of Syrian and Iranian forces to admit any damage and casualties caused by Israeli actions hinder efforts to get a real assessment of the effectiveness of the IDF military campaign. Taking into account that the IDF provided little details even into officially declared strikes, this breeds grounds for wild media speculations and rumors.
On the one hand, Syrian and Iranian media demonstrate a classic example of “there were no casualties” coverage. On the other hand, US and Israeli media, and sometimes even official Tel Aviv, time and time again destroy almost entire Iranian military infrastructure and even Syrian air defense system, which then mysteriously resurface by a next Israeli strike.
Despite this, the jets and weapons list employed by the IDF against targets in Syria are an open secret.
The core of the Israeli Air Force striking force is the F-16I Sufa. This warplane is a modified variant of the F-16D block 50 and 52 fighter and ground attack aircraft. The F-16I, which has a crew of two, differs from the original F-16 by modified avionics and weapons systems.
The F-16I is fitted with a pair of removable conformal fuel tanks provided holding 450gal of extra fuel on both sides of the upper fuselage. They increase the aircraft’s mission range and combat endurance. The fitting of conformal tanks makes the two wing inner store stations normally used for external tanks available for weapon carriage expanding the warplane’s air-to-ground weapons capacity. The F16I is fitted with a dorsal avionics compartment, which extends from the rear of the cockpit to the fin and houses additional avionics systems, chaff and flare dispensers and the aircraft’s in-flight refuelling receptacle. Among other equipment, the F-16I got the Elbit Dash IV display and sight helmet system, mission and presentation computers, and digital map display. The jet navigation system includes a combined ring laser gyro inertial navigation system, global positioning system (RLGINS/GPS) and a digital terrain system. The F-16I has the Northrop Grumman AN/APG-68(V)9 multi-mode radar, which reportedly has 5 times the processing speed and 10 times the memory capacity of the previous APG-68 radars on the F-16.
There were 102 F-16I Sufra in service with the Israeli Air Force until February 2018, when the Syrian military shot down one of these jets. It was the first occasion on which Israel lost a jet to an enemy combatant, since 1982.
At the same time, there still has not been a comprehensive evidence to confirm that any of F-35I of the Israeli Air Force (IAF) has been employed in combat ever. Claims by Israeli officials that some F-35I was employed somewhere and somewhen cannot be considered as a reliable proof.
The prime striking weapon used by the IAF is the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB). Vestiges of these bombs are often being found on sites of the Israeli strikes. In particular, GBU-39 SDBs were employed on March 28 when the IAF targeted supposed Iranian targets in Aleppo city.
The GBU-39 SDB is precision-guided glide bomb developed to provide aircraft with the ability to carry a higher number of more accurate bombs. The GBU-39, which was first introduced by Boeing in 2006, has a standoff range of more than 110km due to its pop-out wings. The 250lb (113.6kg) bomb uses an inertial navigation system (INS) and GPS to hit static targets with high accuracy, although it has only 22.7kg of explosives.
Another GBU-39 advantage is its stealthy signature. The bomb has a length of 1.8m and a diameter of 0.19m, but its radar cross section of 0.015m2 only. This creates additional difficulties for enemy air defense systems in the event of a massive strike with the usage of GBU-39 bombs. In September 2008, Israel receives approval from the US Congress to purchase 1,000 bombs. Israel was the first country outside of the US to receive the weapon.
In the event of massive strikes on Syrian air defense systems and alleged Iranian targets, like ones in May and February 2018, and January 2019, the IDF employs a wider list of weapons. For example, the widely-covered destructions of Russia-supplied Pantsir systems of the Syrian military, airstrikes were supported by a massive usage of ground-launched IAI Harop loitering munitions.The IAI Harop is an anti-radiation drone that can autonomously home in on radio emissions. The munition can either operate fully autonomously, using its anti-radar homing system, or it can take a human-in-the-loop mode. If a target is not engaged, the drone will return and land itself back at base.
Thanks to a small radar cross-section, the IAI Harop is intended to target enemy air-defense systems in a first line of attack and can evade SAMs and radar detection systems, which are designed to target much larger aircraft or to intercept fixed-trajectory missiles. It has a flying time of 6 hours and a full range of 1000 km. The IAI Harop has a weight of 135kg, a length of 2.5m and a wingspan of 3m. Unlike other drones that carry explosive warheads, the Harop itself is the main munition with an onboard explosive of 23kg.
Taking into account a wide economic and military support from the US and its coalition, the Israeli military enjoys a relative freedom of operations and has almost an endless stock of offensive means to engage Syria and its Iranian allies in this kind of individual air attacks, which it is currently being employed. A military technical advantage over the Syrian Armed Forces allows Tel Aviv to employ its strike policy almost without suffering real consequence. However, incidents like one in February 2018 demonstrates that this advantage is not something fully irresistible. Over the past few years, Damascus has achieved a visible progress in training and strengthening of its air defense forces, first of all thanks to Russian support. A relatively low efficiently of Israeli strikes on Syria, especially in comparison with the picture provided by pro-Israeli sources, is a demonstration of this. At the same time, modern Syria has no means and resources to repel a wide-scale Israeli aerial operation, if Tel Aviv make a fundamental decision to fully suppress Syrian air defense forces. The issue is that military and diplomatic cost of this “success” that Israel will have to pay for this may appear to be too big. Therefore, the current status quo will remain unchanged in the near future and the IDF will continue to make separate strikes on alleged Iranian targets, which will face limited responses by the Syrian Air Defense.
This puts Russia, which is a key Syrian ally in the sphere of the military technical cooperation, in a complicated situation. So far, Moscow has limited its response to Israeli actions to diplomatic steps, a widely promoted S-300 delivery and a declared modernization of the Syrian air defense network. This “limited” response was predetermined by a role of “neutral force” ready to work with all sides to de-escalate the conflict, which Russia seeks to play in the region. This attitude has weak sides. Currently, most of Syrians see the Russians as heroes and allies that had helped to reverse the course of the war. Nonetheless, the Russian inaction in response to Israeli actions, especially amid the low intensity of military actions on key frontlines, undermines this image. If the situation develops in this direction, in 2-3 years, Russia may lost the hard-won support from the Syrians. In this event, and especially in the event of a lack of success in other fields, Moscow may find itself operating in a very different environment on the ground.
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From time to time, celebrities recoil and, in anger, seek to march for a change to the status quo. Much of is never intended to alter much, but they can count their names among the indignant luminaries and say they tried to do something.
The recent imposition of Syariah law in the Kingdom of Brunei, a tiny speck of territory wedged between Sabah and Sarawak, was enough to enrage George Clooney, Sir Elton John, and a few others concerned that their moral credentials might be hurt by the move.
In incensed words penned for Deadline, Clooney’s moral advisory noted that,
“Every single time we stay at or take meetings at or dine at any of these nine hotels we are putting money directly into the pockets of men who choose to stone and whip to death their own citizens for being gay or accused of adultery.”
Clooney is also careful to pour some scorn on the sultanate.
“Brunei isn’t a significant country.”
He also notes previous boycotting efforts against the kingdom for its treatment of the gay community that supposedly worked.
“We cancelled a big fundraiser for the Motion Picture Retirement Home that we’d hosted at the Beverly Hills Hotel for years.”
Remarkable, indeed, but for the fact that the process of imposing Syariah laws remained unimpeded.
Such exasperated notes of anger ignore the fact that the Kingdom had been engaged in amending the penal code with these Hudood laws to better reflect religious doctrine for some six years or so: the Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah had made it clear in 2013 that sharp and direct laws of that sort would be introduced in due course. The country, in his words, would “have two criminal justice systems working hand in hand”.
This would duly comply with his adopted direction as defender of the faith. He had claimed that the inspiration to alter the legal system was divine, its mechanism designed to immunise the country against debauching foreign influences.
“It is because of our need that Allah the Almighty, in all his generosity, has created laws for us, so that we can utilise them to obtain justice.”
Arguably, another force was at play too: desperation. Oil production has fallen and reserves may run out by 2025. Deficits are also ballooning.
In May 2014, the so-called first phase of the Syariah Penal Code was implemented. In an announcement by the Sultan,
“With faith and gratitude to Allah and the Almighty, I declare that tomorrow, Thursday, 1 May 2014, will see the enforcement of Syariah Law Phase One, to be followed by the other phases.”
This initial stage involved fines and jail terms for indecent behaviour, a lack of attention to attending Friday prayers, and ex-nuptial pregnancies.
The state, which remains in the anachronistic embrace of an absolute, oil rich monarchy, has been run by the Sultan for over five decades in a manner that can be considered part comic and cartoonish. (James Bartholomew, in his The Richest Man in the World(1989) offers a few treats on that score.) Laws, which include such richly cruel provisions as stoning to death consenting males who have intercourse, instances of adultery, and amputation for theft, came into force on April 3. These also include 40 cane strokes for those found consenting to lesbian sex and/or a maximum of 10 years in prison and fines or jail for those who “persuade, tell or encourage” Muslim children under 18 years “to accept the teachings of religions other than Islam”.
The International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, through its co-chair The Hon Michael Kirby, former High Court justice of Australia, has expressed his discomfort.
“It is a horror story that contemporary rulers are even considering the restoration of these shocking punishments in today’s world of the internet, science, the global response to disease and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. It is an affront to universal human rights involving ‘cruel, unusual and degrading punishment’.”
In such a view, the good judge has ignored the fundamental paradox of technological development and supposedly modern advances. Each era must have its witches and superstitions. The internet, far from doing away with them, has encouraged the imagination of a few more. There are conspiracies, fantasies and a continued fear of harmful influences. Indeed, the presence of sophisticated technology and innovation is no guarantee of a merciful disposition. Ancient Rome was, at its zenith, a technological giant, yet appreciated gladiatorial combat and the feeding of pious Christians to hungry lions.
The latest iteration of the Brunei penal code is the brainchild of one of the world’s obscenely wealthy. And it exists alongside such abysmal wealth that is measured in the hotel ownerships through the Dorchester Group Ltd, aircraft, gold plated Rolls-Royces, and an assortment of other very worldly possessions.
And he remains fickle about them. At one point, the Sultan had in his possession a custom-made Boeing 727, equipped with a Jacuzzi that would, at a moment’s notice, have water pumped from the sky in a matter of seven-and-a-half seconds. As with a person who can have quite literally anything, he duly lost interest.
He also has his defenders, those who wish to see him as a cut above the rest.
“It is a matter of importance that the Government and people of Britain should not be,” intoned Lord Chalfont in the late 1980s, “misled into believing that the Sultan is a polygamous, profligate oriental potentate buying hotels as other people buy video cassettes and engaging with dubious associates in erratic financial transactions”.
With any dogmatic, brutal code, inconsistencies are bound to arise. The rulers will never reflect the laws they pass. The Sultan’s older brother, Prince Jefri Bolkiah, owner of a yacht by the name of Tits and two tenders by the names of Nipple 1 and Nipple 2, is a noted womaniser (and, it would seem, enslaver of women, with several claiming they were kept in that virtual state). In terms of the filthy lucre, he is said to have embezzled some $15bn worth from a sovereign-wealth fund. He has since agreed to make some restitution. He is, in short, a leech, and derives pleasure from it.
With such creatures, the code seems at odds. It is theatre, grand and distant, with regulations imposed from above, receiving the rubber stamp of consent from below. Pure and sometimes sincere credulity, where it exists, is a powerful thing indeed.
Besides, goes one particular sentiment, these latest impositions, at least the most savage ones, may never actually be enforced. The death penalty, despite being on the books, was last carried out in 1957 when the state was still a British protectorate. The onus of proof for stoning is onerous – the need for four witnesses. There are exemptions and exceptions. But history shows that moral righteousness is rather easy to satisfy when it comes to finding fault. Witness evidence can be mysteriously found; circumstances can be invented. In times of desperation, cruel laws tend to be enforced.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
“We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity.” – Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam.” Riverside Church, April 4, 1967
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Dear Chelsea,
Do not lose heart, for as a prisoner of conscience, your inspirational witness sustains so many of your less free brothers and sisters on the outside. Our hearts and hands reach out to you with love and thanksgiving. Your courage is contagious, or so I hope, for it resonates in the soul of every person who senses the meaning of the power of individual conscience to oppose state violence and the beauty of those who will not betray a comrade, who will not deliver the Judas kiss demanded by the killers, as you will not betray your brave brother, Julian Assange, also held under lock and key for the “crime” of revealing the truth.
You remind me of another young woman from long ago and far away whose bravery in the face of radical evil is celebrated today as a sign of hope in dark times. She is Sophie Scholl, the young German college student who, like you, was arrested for releasing documents exposing state atrocities, who, like you, was prompted by a higher power, by her conscience, who, like you, was arrested for releasing documents exposing such crimes against humanity, in her case those of Hitler.
Little seems to change over the years, doesn’t it? The killers go on killing, from Golgotha in ancient Jerusalem to Hitler’s Germany to Vietnam and Iraq and on to Palestine and Syria today. Why bother with the list. History is a litany of bloodbaths. Where does it all go, this blood? Does the good earth soak it up?
But in all the darkness, certain lonely voices of resistance have kept the lighted chain of faith alive. You stand in that line, a living embodiment of a faithful non-violent warrior. So does Julian.
I am writing this epistle to you on 4 April, the day in 1967 that our brother Dr. Martin Luther King stood tall in the pulpit of Riverside Church in New York City and followed his conscience by breaking with those who urged him to ignore the truth eating at his soul. The truth that he must not remain silent about the U.S. obscene war against Vietnam. “A time comes when silence is betrayal,” he said. Then he added:
The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world… This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation’s self-defined goals and positions.
We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation, for those it calls “enemy,” for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers…. A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act.
One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring…. When I speak of love, I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality.
This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: “Let us love one another (Yes), for love is God. (Yes) And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. . . . If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us.” Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day.
Chelsea, you have heeded Dr. King’s message and you have put to shame those of us who profess faith in “the living God” that informed Martin’s call for a non-violent revolution.
You, like Sophie and Julian, have released documents that tell the truth about the savage actions of our government.
You have suffered for us many times over. You have stood strong and tall, like Jesus in front of Pilate, and you have shown the road we must all travel out of the darkness that threatens to consume us.
You have shown us by your actions “that silence is betrayal” when it comes to one’s government’s immoral and illegal actions.
And you have shown us by your sacred silence in Caesar’s court that is a U.S. grand jury, that your conscience will never allow you to betray another truth-teller.
You are, Chelsea, the embodiment of faith, hope, and courage.
You are America’s conscience.
While you are in prison, none of us is free.
We demand your freedom and that of brother Assange.
Here is a song of love to boost your spirits. I hope you can hear it. Maybe I send it to boost my own, to help me carry on as you have done. Maybe it will help us all.
You keep teaching us what it means to be free and walk in faith.
Blessings for carrying it on.
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Distinguished author and sociologist Edward Curtin is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
Seemingly overnight, the Green New Deal has arrived. Given the sorry state of our environment, what possible objections could there be? In this case, plenty – and they all trace back to the Green New Deal’s deeply complex and surreptitious ties to UN Agenda 21.
Those who claim that Agenda 21 amounts to little more than a right-wing rant or is somehow anti-Semitic are at best seriously misinformed.
Those who buy into the carefully crafted jargon of Sustainable Development, Smart Growth, Redevelopment and the Green New Deal are similarly misinformed and need to know that the environmental movement has in fact been highjacked by the Agenda 21 plan.
First, Some Background
Journalist Thomas L. Friedman is sometimes credited with being the original source for the term “Green New Deal” because in two 2007 articles, in the New York Times and The New York Times Magazine, Friedman connected FDR’s “New Deal” to a new “green” economy, suggesting that this might provide an economic stimulus program that could address economic inequality and climate change at the same time. Almost prophetically, Friedman also argued in earlier writings that an “iron fist inside a velvet glove” would be needed to maintain the coming new world order.
The same year the Friedman articles came out the Green New Deal Group was formed. By July of 2008 this group came out with its Green New Deal Report which was originally published by the New Economics Foundation. A few months later, in October of 2008, Adam Steiner, who was Executive Director of the United Nations Development Programme (UNEP), unveiled the Global Green New Deal Initiative, the objective of which was to rescue the failing global economy by creating jobs in “green” industries, “funded” of course by the big banks.
Then, following the example set by the European Greens in 2006, the United States Green Party adopted a Green New Deal platform in 2010. To its everlasting credit, the U.S. Green Party has also placed monetary reform as one of its core planks, ending the banking system’s privilege of creating the nation’s money (as credit or debt) and returning the monetary privilege to the government where it belongs, without which reform no other reforms are possible. Other political parties would do well to adopt this most important objective, since this is the true heart of “populism” historically. However, the vast bulk of the Green Party’s Green New Deal platform bears a marked (and troubling) resemblance to the Green New Deal as set out through the United Nations Agenda 21 Sustainable Development program.
Most recently, a twenty-nine-year-old freshman Congresswoman from New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has overnight managed to not only make national headlines but garner the full attention of Congress, a feat never before accomplished by one so young and so soon in office. It was her promotion of the Green New Deal that seems to have garnered her such sudden fame. But the so-called legislation she has been promoting is in reality a “draft text” that calls for a proposed addendum for House Rules: it changes the rules and creates a new process for the allocation of power, all while echoing almost verbatim United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. As a recent article in Technocracy News says, with a complete version of AOC’s “bill” included: “Its scope and mandate for legislative authority amounts to a radical grant of power to Washington over Americans’ lives, homes, businesses, travel, banking, and more.” Dr. Naomi Wolf confirms by going over the document point by point.
The Green New Deal is in fact a part of a global sustainable development program that was officially rolled out at the “Earth Summit” held in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil in 1992. Out of that summit came Agenda 21 Earth Summit: The United Nations Program of Action from Rio, a 354-page document that can be purchased at online book retailers or downloaded in pdf format from the UN website.
Agenda 21 has been updated to include Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development and its offshoot the Global Green New Deal which is a program that was commissioned by the United Nations Environment Program or UNEP for short, mentioned above. A map and outline of “partners” reveals just how deeply embedded in global thinking this program has become. Effectively, Agenda 21 provides the template while Agenda 2030 gives the goals for achieving “sustainable development”.
Inasmuch as Sustainable Goal 13 is about Climate Action, it is worth noting that in 2009 the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) set up an unelected international climate regime with authority to dictate land use, relocate “human settlements” and directly intervene in the financial, economic, health care, education, tax and environmental affairs of all nations signing the treaty. One must wonder why upwards of $100 billion has been spent on promotion of the current global warming model yet next to no discussion is devoted to natural forcing agents such as solar and cosmic radiation, volcanoes, clouds, water vapor, and grand solar minimums – even though these have been well documented in the scientific literature to have significant impact on climate. Nor have funds been committed to disseminating information about military weather warfare or other long standing geoengineering projects and their effect on climate. Yet at least five geoengineering Solar Radiation advocates co-authored the section covering contrails in the 2007 IPCC report.
As uncovered by prominent activist Rosa Koire, Sustainable Development was originally created and defined by the United Nations in 1987. President George Herbert Walker Bush, along with leaders from 178 other nations, signed the “Action Plan” unveiled at Rio in 1992.
This plan is anchored by the political philosophy of Communitarianism which effectively establishes a new legal system used by regional and local governments affiliated with the emerging global government, circumventing national law via a program of “balancing.” Implemented by a relatively small self-appointed group of decision-makers and influencers who achieve “consensus” among themselves rather than through the public voting process, this philosophy holds that the individual’s rights are a threat to the global community. In practice, the consistent rallying cry “for the greater good” is defined any way that suits those in power.
Within six months of his election in 1992, former President Bill Clinton issued Executive Order #12852 thus creating the President’s Council on Sustainable Development or PCSD. This Council ran for six years, 1993-1999. Its members included Cabinet Secretaries for Transportation, Agriculture, Education, Commerce, Housing and Urban Development, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Small Business Administration, Energy, Interior, and Defense. CEO’s of various businesses, such as Enron, Pacific Gas & Electric, BP Amoco, Dow Chemical and others also were included, as were environmental organizations, including the National Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, World Resources Institute, the Nature Conservancy, the Environmental Defense Fund among others.
To further facilitate the transition, Clinton awarded the American Planning Association a multi-million dollar grant to write a land use legislative blueprint for every municipality in the U.S. Completed in 2002, this blueprint is entitled Growing Smart Legislative Guidebook with Model Statutes for Planning and the Management of Change. As Koire tells us, this guidebook is being used in every university, college and government planning office in the nation. And as part of the Common Core program for the younger set, former Vice President Al Gore helped write Rescue Mission Planet Earth: A Children’s Edition of Agenda 21.
In 2012 “H Concurrent Resolution 353” was discussed by the U.S. Congress. A short, 8 minute video clip shows various members, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, rising in support of H CON Res 353, which “expressed the sense of the Congress that the U.S. should take a strong leadership role in implementing the decisions made at the Rio Earth Summit by developing a national strategy to install Agenda 21 and other Earth Summit agreements through domestic and foreign policy.”
As Koire relates, the clear goal of these initiatives was, and is, to change public policy to bring it into alignment with the Agenda 21 plan.
Implementation and Implications
Agenda 21 is a global plan that is to be implemented locally via “soft law”. Despite the fact that this agenda would have far reaching material impact on each and every one of us, the U.S. citizenry has not been given the opportunity to study or vote on any of the various facets of Agenda 21. Moreover, the vast majority, out of deep concern for the planet, are effectively neutralized by the jargon, buzz words and slogans with purposely obscure definitions, all of which are dreamt up by the best PR firms money can buy. Perhaps even worse, as Rosa Koire, who has experienced negative ramifications in her Santa Rosa community, writes in Behind the Green Mask:
The irony is that UN Agenda 21 mandates ‘more’ citizen involvement but does it by creating so many boards, commissions, regional agencies, non-profits, meetings and programs that it is impossible to stay on top of what is happening. We’re too burned out to fight more than one issue at a time. So we become, necessarily, more fragmented, less of a neighborhood, exhausted and isolated because we can’t keep up. The so-called citizen involvement is dictated by phony neighborhood groups with paid lobbyists and facilitators running them. The boards and commissions are chosen based on ‘team players’ or shills selected to push through an end game by running over the few actual unconnected citizens. These groups are the ‘prescreening groups’ for candidates for public office. THEY are the ones who get donations at election time. It’s doubtful that anyone will get on the ballot who doesn’t play ball.
There were 17 official sustainable development goals (or SDGs) for the new 2030 Agenda that was universally adopted by nations around the world at the United Nations plenary meeting in New York on September 25, 2015. These SDGs do not replace Agenda 21. The 2030 Agenda clearly states, “We reaffirm all the principles of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, including, inter alia, the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.”
A short article titled Agenda 2030 Translator: How to Read the UN’s New Sustainable Development Goals unveils some of the actual consequences of the Agenda. To start you off, Goal 1 as stated: End Poverty in all its forms everywhere. Goal 1 as translated: Centralized banks, IMF, World Bank, Fed to control all finances. Goal 2 as stated: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. Goal 2 as translated: GMO. And so on.
Another article titled simply Agenda 21 shows how big “S” Sustainable Development will affect the farmer:
If you own livestock and they can drink from a creek, then they want you to permanently fence off your own land to prevent any upset of potential fish habitat. . . Agenda 21 focuses on the goal of eliminating meat consumption and using pastures to grow wheat, corn and soy for human consumption. To get us to comply, we’re told in endless propaganda campaigns that meat is dangerous and the vegan lifestyle is the only healthy alternative. . . “Grazing livestock” is listed as “unsustainable” in the UN’s Global Biodiversity Assessment Report. In the same document, agriculture and private property are listed as “unsustainable.” All the private property and water rights infringements we have been seeing come directly out of the Sustainable Development programs. They come in a wide variety of names to throw people off, such as Comprehensive Planning, Growth Management, Smart Growth, and so forth.
The local government implementation of Agenda 21 was prepared by ICLEI (which stands for International Council for Local Environment Initiatives) for the Earth Council’s Rio+5 Forum held April 13–19, 1997 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; for the 5th Session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development; and for the UN General Assembly’s “Earth Summit+5” Special Session. Out of this came The Local Agenda 21 Planning Guide put out by ICLEI and the United Nations.
Resilient Cities are part of ICLEI. According to its website the organization was founded in 2010 by ICLEI (now known as Local Governments for Sustainability), the affiliated World Mayors Council on Climate Change and the similarly affiliated City of Bonn, Germany. Resilient Cities is billed as the first forum on cities and adaptation to climate change. In 2012 Resilient Cities was renamed as Global Forum on Urban Resilience and Adaptation.
Smart Growth, Smart Cities and 5G
Smart Growth and Smart Cities are also part of the “sustainability” plan as evidenced by their lofty sounding goals which somehow fail to look at “new” energy or even non-industrial hemp as a soil-rebuilding, environment-friendly way to provide a sizable portion of the nation’s energy needs; which fail to understand the crucial importance of restoring carbon-rich humus to the soil via holistic livestock management and other forms of regenerative agriculture; which somehow rely on the big banks and a flotilla of “investors” rather than doing the obvious by reforming the nation’s monetary system; and which, as Koire and others correctly assert, can only lead to totalitarianism in the end.
The explosive, worldwide rollout of 5G networks “makes Smart Cities a reality” despite recognized and significant associated health risks. By September of 2018, thanks to an FCC ruling and carrier lobbying, twenty states, seemingly under cover of night, had already passed legislation to strip their cities of the power to regulate 5G rollouts. The FCC ruling in particular has sparked considerable push back, because not only will the FCC’s move force taxpayers to subsidize industry access to publicly owned infrastructure but, as chief information officer for New York City Samir Saini declared: “the FCC is threatening the public’s right to control public property, and dozens of cities, states, and towns from New York City to Lincoln, Nebraska to Anchorage, Alaska are ready to defend that right on behalf of our residents and taxpayers.”
On top of all this we now find that the “tsunami” of data collection enabled by 5G could consume one fifth of global electricity by 2025. As most know, wind and solar (both of which also have significant environmental and land use problems) just won’t cut it, and especially so with 5G.
An Endless Web of Carefully Branded Commissions, Boards, Agencies and Programs
Other groups and organizations tied to Agenda 21 continue to proliferate. These organizations include those that formulate “Climate Action Plans” now being adopted by local communities worldwide. The Center for Climate Solutions is one such organization and the California based Institute for local Government is another. You can google your state, city or county plus “Climate Action Plan and Resilient Plan” to learn more about how this is taking place in your own community. You can bet that none of them include alternative forms of “new” energy (including soil building non-industrial hemp) or regenerative (carbon-sequestering) agriculture which can only be properly practiced by small producers.
An offshoot of the Regional Planning Association is America 2050 whose focus is on planning for the emergence of mega-regions, or high density urban areas, along with infrastructure development, with the aim of “shaping the infrastructure investment plan” and “providing leadership on a broad range of transportation, sustainability, and economic-development issues impacting America’s growth in the 21st century.” FEMA feeds into the development of megaregions through its Hazard Mitigation Program through which it, as well as HUD, provide grants to assist, at taxpayer expense, state and local communities with the purchase of properties located in high fire risk, high flood risk, high erosion risk, high mudslide risk areas.
“Redevelopment” is another important and mis-leading buzzword, as it in truth represents an unknown government which among other things uses eminent domain for private gain, not the “greater good” despite claims to the contrary. As Koire writes in her book Behind the Green Mask:
A little 40 page book titled Redevelopment: The Unknown Government put out by the California Municipal Officials for Redevelopment Reform lays out the ugly truth with charts, cartoons and hard data . . . Supported by powerful lobbyist groups fronting bond brokers, lawyers, and debt consultants, the trend of designating more and more redevelopment areas is also supported by government agency staff members and private businesses that profit from redevelopment. Diverting property taxes to these bloodsuckers is big business: by 2006 redevelopment agencies statewide (in California) had amassed $81 billion in bonded indebtedness, a figure that is doubling every 10 years. And don’t think that this is only in California – it’s in nearly every city and county in the United States. Because the agencies can sell bonded debt without voter approval (unlike school boards) and the city’s general fund is responsible for any over-extended debt, these are cash cows for bond brokerage firms.
The World Resource Institute recently published Creating a Sustainable Food Future which was produced “in partnership with the World Bank, UN Environment (UNEP), UN Development Programme and the French agricultural research agencies CIRAD and INRA.” On its publication announcement page, it asks whether we will be able to produce enough food sustainably to feed the estimated 10 billion people that will exist on the planet by 2015.
As explained in fair detail in my book Climate Change, Land Use and Monetary Policy the answer is a resounding yes! Contrary to Agenda 21 fears, we will be able to sustainably feed, conservatively, 20 to 30 billion people worldwide if we change the way we do agriculture, which MUST include holistically managed livestock. In so doing we will dramatically reduce the amount of land now devoted to industrial agricultural systems and the amount of pollution generated by such systems – all while putting carbon back in the soil where it is needed to sustain life on this planet.
At first glance the above-mentioned World Resource report also seems to agree, as indicated by this 2018 headline in a San Francisco Chronicle article titled “New Report Urges Drastic Changes in Food Production and Consumption”. The article goes on to summarize the report’s version of “sustainability”:
The core recommendations of the 96-page report line up with many of the innovations that are already happening, sometimes at a small scale, at many Bay Area farms, food companies and tech startups. That includes the development of plant-based meat substitutes, companies and local governments that focus on reducing food waste, and farms that are making changes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. . . The report calls on governments to fund research and development and to provide “flexible regulations” for new technology such as plant-based meat substitutes and innovations in plant breeding like genetic editing. . . Individuals should make changes to their diets, too, the authors say, especially in wealthy countries like the United States where the majority of animal-based foods are eaten . . . A lot of the technological advances the report urges are happening in the Bay Area. The region has become a global hub for the creation of plant-based meat substitutions, including those made by Impossible Foods of Redwood City. . . A new batch of companies is developing lab-grown or “cultured” meat that will be made of chicken, beef or fish tissue from cells but won’t require raising or killing animals.
Green Grabbing, The Best Way to Save Nature Is to Sell It
The 1992 Rio Earth Summit spawned a series of world summits on sustainable development sponsored by the UN. In 2012 the 20th anniversary of the Rio summit was dubbed Rio + 20. Its focus was the Green Economy with the specific purpose of ushering in global economic growth by putting market values on environmental services and environmentally-friendly production and consumption. This plan led to the term “green grabbing” which refers to the appropriation of land and resources – purportedly for environmental ends. It should, therefore, come as no surprise that, as this article in Bloomberg Online suggests, Wall Street Is More Than Willing to Fund the Green New Deal.
Some illustrative excerpts which were taken from a 2012 article titled Green Grabbing Our Future at Rio + 20, appeared in my book Climate Change, Land Use and Monetary Policy. The article was originally posted on the Food First website, and was written by Eric Holt-Gimenez, Executive Director of Food First. Some excerpts:
The Rio process itself has been steadily privatized under the weight of 20 years of neoliberal globalization. As the global contradictions between economy and environment have intensified, nature itself is becoming a source of profit. . . What was once a state-oriented, regulatory framework has morphed into a market-based, corporate initiative.
The corporate trend to privatize and commercialize ecosystem services and resources in the name of environmental protection is known as “green grabbing” as these schemes can result in local communities losing resource rights. . . It is the favored approach of the big conservation organizations like World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Conservation International (CI) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), who have thus guaranteed their place at the Rio+20 negotiating table alongside neoliberal governments and powerful multinational business interests.
The Green Economy concept that determines the content of all submissions [for the Zero draft report] was itself created by a group led by Pavan Sukhdev a former senior banker from Deutsche Bank and head of UNEP’s Green Economy Initiative. This is a reflection of a long trend in partnering between the CBD, big environmental organizations and corporate representatives i.e. the World Business Council on Sustainable Development, the International Chamber of Commerce, CI, WWF, IUCN etc.
The dubious justification for bringing nature to Wall Street—where credits and shares of ecosystem services, biodiversity derivatives, avoided emissions and even wildlife species banking can be chopped up, repackaged and resold along with debt, mortgages, hedge funds and the like—is that the best way to save nature is to sell it. In doing so, we are told, we will grow the economy and this in turn will benefit the poor, thus ending poverty and hunger.”
Summing It Up
In practical terms, Agenda 21 is a global plan implemented locally through ICLEI (and other bodies and organs) using “soft law”. The following excerpts from an article titled UN’s Agenda 21Targets Your Mayor provide a useful example of how local implementation occurs:
From June 1 through 5, 2005, the city of San Francisco was the site of an international conference called “World Environment Day.” But the agenda of this conference was much bigger than just another hippy dance in the park. This meeting of the global elite had a specific target and an agenda with teeth. The goal was the full implementation of the UN’s Agenda 21 policy called Sustainable Development, a ruling principle for top-down control of every aspect of our lives – from food, to health care, to community development, and beyond. This time, the target audience is our nation’s mayors. The UN’s new tactic, on full display at this conference, is to ignore federal and state governments and go straight to the roots of American society. Think globally – act locally.
Here’s a quick look at a few of the 21 agenda actions called for. Under the topic of energy, action item number one calls for mayors to implement a policy to increase the use of “renewable” energy by 10% within seven years. Renewable energy includes solar and wind power.
Not stated in the UN documents is the fact that in order to meet the goal, a community would have to reserve thousands of acres of land to set up expensive solar panels or even more land for wind mills. Consider that it takes a current 50-megawatt gas-fired generating plant about 2-5 acres of land to produce its power. Yet to create that same amount of power through the use of solar panels would require at least 1,000 acres. Using wind mills to generate 50 megawatts would require over 4,000 acres of land, while chopping up birds and creating a deafening roar. The cost of such “alternative” energy to the community would be vastly prohibitive. Yet, such unworkable ideas are the environmentally-correct orders of the day that the mayors are being urged to follow.”
The problem that almost no one sees is that UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development is the action plan to inventory and control all land, all water, all minerals, all plants, all animals, all construction, all means of production, all information, all energy, and all human beings in the world. Agenda 21/Sustainable Development is about Inventory and Control!
Beware Agenda 21 and its Green New Deal!
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On 26 March, WikiLeaks’ Twitter account announced that President Moreno is being investigated by Ecuador’s Congress for corruption, sparked by the INA Papers leak. The same tweet referenced President Moreno’s attempt to surrender Assange in exchange for US debt relief, a fact that had been reported by The New York Times.
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Corruption investigation opened against Ecuador's president Moreno, after purported leaked contents of his iPhone (Whatsapp, Telegram) & Gmail were published. New York Times reported that Moreno tried to sell Assange to US for debt relief. https://t.co/0KFcBrnUfr
The following day, Foreign Minister Jose Valencia said that the WikiLeaks tweet was “an absurd lie to harm the dignity of our country… we will not tolerate… inventions and insults… I cannot anticipate when and when we will take action in relation to this, but we will take action for certain.”
On 28 March, Communications Minister Andrés Michelena told CNN Español that the INApapers were part of a plot of Julian Assange, Venezuelan President Maduro and former Ecuadorian President Correa to bring down Moreno’s government. He added,
“You have to understand how these people are connected, Mr. Assange is the Troll Center, the hacker for former President Correa, [Assange] handles the technological and social media side.”
That same day, the national assembly, in which Moreno’s party and other right parties command a majority, passed a resolution inviting the Foreign Ministry to take action against Assange’s asylum on the basis of the INApapers leak “in the national interest” if it considers it pertinent to do so.
In March 2019, Moreno’s approval ratings dropped to 17%. Statements by the government of Ecuador deliberately implicate WikiLeaks in the INApapers leak. For example, Ecuador’s Vice President Otto Sonnenholzner said in a local radio interview,
“What Wikileaks and other political actors have done, to publish private photos of the President of the Republic, of his family, is a despicable, repugnant, and odious act.”
“It is absolutely outrageous, reproachable, it shows Assange for what he is… of course we will act. We will not allow his website to interfere in the private channels of communication of the Ecuadorian head of state…. he is biting the hand that feeds him.”
Foreign Minister José Valencia has stated:
“we are going to analyze whether Mr. Julian Assange’s aggressive publications against the Ecuadorian state merits a legal action by the Ecuadorian state.”
On 1 April, Ecuador submitted a request to the United Nations Rapporteur on Privacy to take urgent measures in response to the INApapers publication, listing WikiLeaks as the responsible party.
President Moreno, desperate to divert public attention away from the scandal, is using the claims as a pretext to oust Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. On 2 April, the President stated that Assange has “violated the ‘conditions’ of his asylum” and that he will “take a decision” “in the short term.” He said,
“In WikiLeaks there is proof of espionage, of hacking, of the fact that phones have been intercepted and private conversations, there are even pictures of my bedroom.”
Assange’s lawyer in Ecuador, Carlos Poveda, explained that Assange had nothing to do with the publication:
“Remember that WikiLeaks has an internal organization and Mr. Assange is no longer in the editor. We will now resort to other types of situations, especially the Inter-American Commission”. (Listen to audio here.)
Nevertheless, Ecuador’s Vice President, Otto Sonnenholzner, has suggested that Assange would be prosecuted over what he described as a WikiLeaks “hack,” alluding to the rigid protocol that Ecuador has imposed on Assange to maintain a constant threat of expulsion.
The INA Papers are a set of documents published in February 2019, allegedly uncovering the operations of INA Investment Corp, an offshore tax haven created by the brother of Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno. The trove of emails, phone communications and expense receipts are said to link the president and his family to a series of corrupt and criminal dealings, including money laundering and offshore accounts. The leak has sparked a congressional investigation into President Moreno for corruption. Moreno can’t be summoned for a criminal probe while he remains president. He is currently being investigated and risks impeachment.
The recent reaction of the Ecuadorian government to the INAPAPERS scandal could not be worse. Instead of clarifying and making the issue transparent, the government spokesmen, to divert attention from the still timorous official investigations, position a monumental lie, accusing WikiLeaks of having leaked communications and images of President Moreno’s family circle.
Not a single document referring to INAPAPERS, or the president’s family, has ever been leaked or published by WikiLeaks, let alone by Julian Assange, who for more than half a year has not been its editor and who has been isolated for one year under a regime quasi-prison by the government of Ecuador.
Despite being an outrageous accusation, the farce has reached the point that the Ecuadorian National Assembly has issued a resolution to investigate Julián and encourages the government to take measures to “safeguard national interests.” In short, the government seeks a false pretext to end the asylum and protection of Julian Assange.
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The Trump regime demands Turkey cancel its planned purchase of Russian S-400 air defense missiles.
Technologically superior to US long-range surface-to-air Patriot missiles, nothing in the West matches their effectiveness.
S-400s can destroy multiple hostile aircraft, ballistic missiles, and other aerial targets up to 250 miles away at high and low altitudes.
China was Russia’s first foreign buyer, its military saying it “saw that the S-400 system by its capabilities today is unparalleled in the world in its armament class.”
It’s able to overcome heavy enemy fire and electronic countermeasures. In 2017, Turkey contracted with Russia to buy S-400s.
Last month, President Erdogan affirmed the contract, saying deliveries of the air defense systems are formalized, adding purchase of Russian S-500s may follow when they’re available next year.
After meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov last Friday, Turkish Foreign Minister Melvet Cavusoglu said the following:
“The contract with Russia on S-400s remains in force and these defensive systems will be delivered to Turkey.”
“(T)alks on this issue are underway. We are not going to sell S-400s to third countries. We do not need this as we are acquiring them for our own needs.”
In 2017, Turkey made an advance payment for the systems to Moscow, deliveries expected in July.
Last year, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Wess Mitchell warned Turkey, saying
“(w)e made it clear that if (Erdogan) buys S-400s, there will be consequences.”
“We will introduce sanctions within the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). Delivering F-35 combat aircraft Ankara contracted for may be halted.”
On Monday, the US halted deliveries of F-35 parts and equipment to Turkey, an unnamed Trump regime official, saying:
“Pending an unequivocal Turkish decision to forgo the delivery of the S-400, deliveries and activities associated with the stand-up of Turkey’s F-35 operational capability have been suspended while our dialogue on this important matter continues with Turkey.”
Last week, Dem Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Chris Van Hollen, along with Republicans James Lankford and Thom Tillis, introduced legislation to ban the sale of F-35 warplanes to Turkey unless it cancels purchases of Russian S-400s, Shaheen saying:
“The prospect of Russia having access to US aircraft and technology in a NATO country, Turkey, is a serious national and global security risk,” Lankford adding:
“Turkey is an important NATO ally and willing partner in addressing a number of US national security priorities. It’s concerning that Turkey would seek close defense cooperation with Russia, whose authoritarian ruler (sic) seeks to undermine NATO and US interests at every turn (sic).”
Parts of the F-35 aircraft’s fuselage, landing gear, and cockpit displays are made in Turkey. Its government showed interest in the Patriot system, not at the expense of abandoning purchase of Russian S-400s.
Russia’s most advanced 5th generation Su-57 aircraft matches or exceeds the capabilities of the Pentagon’s F-35 at a fraction of the cost per plane – about $40 to $45 compared to well over $100 million for the overpriced US aircraft.
Sukhoi United Aircraft Corporation’s head developer Mikhail Strelets said the US F-22 wasn’t designed to strike ground targets like the Su-57, calling the Russian aircraft more versatile to the F-22 and F-35.
According to Russia’s Rostec corporation, the Su-57 and other advanced Russian aircraft have innovative glass coatings, saying:
“It doubles radar wave absorption and reduces the aircraft cockpit’s radar signature by 30%. Currently, the coating is applied to the canopy of T-50 (Su-57 aircraft since August 2017), Su-30, Su-34, Su-35, MiG-29K and Tu-160 planes.”
The coating reduces visibility to hostile radar and protects pilots from ultraviolet, thermal and other potential harm.
The Su-57 is designed to destroy all types of long and short-range air, ground, and naval targets, overcoming air defense capabilities to successfully complete their missions.
Rostec’s Viktor Kladov said Putin may approve sales to foreign buyers of the Su-57E, a variant of the 5th generation Su-57. Turkey expressed interest in the aircraft if Washington halts deliveries of F-35s.
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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
I met journalist and friend Rafiq Lutf and cameraman Abdul-Mun’aim Arnous in January 2018 and I was honoured when Rafiq asked me to work with him on his film project, The Veto.
As Dr Shaaban said to me in August 2016, “Western propaganda is paid for in Syrian blood”. This is true. The horrifying bloodshed and loss of life in Syria could never have happened without the colonial media manufacturing consent for another illegal war against a Sovereign nation.
The Veto tracks the evolution of the propaganda campaign waged by Western media against Syria. From Baba Amr in Homs 2011/2012 until the modern day “propaganda construct” – the NATO-member-state funded White Helmets. It honours Russia and China’s vetoes that have consistently defended Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the UN.
George Orwell said “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” Western media has been tasked with writing the history of the Syrian conflict to serve the aggressors in the US Coalition of terrorism.
As Dr Shaaban also told me:
“The US alliance and its media are focusing on our history, material history, cultural history, identity, our army. Any power that keeps you as an entire state, or any statesman that represents strength or unity will be demonized and destroyed.”
The Veto exposes the criminal intentions of Western media and it archives the progression of the propaganda war waged by the West against Syria. Syrians are writing the history of the Syrian conflict because Syria and her allies have courageously resisted the Imperialist machine.
As Rafiq has said so eloquently “ we are the Veto” and we must use it against the Industrial Media Complex in the West. Syria’s history belongs to the Syrians and Syria’s final victory must ensure that Western media is never again given the power to destroy a nation, divide its people and promote international terrorism both military and economic. Watch the film:
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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.
Featured image is from 21st CW
Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.
Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes the mainstream media narratives on Syria.
Western countries are up in arms over the conclusion of Brunei’s phased adaptation of Islamic law which will controversially see homosexuals and adulterers stoned, much to the consternation of human rights activists across the world. Hollywood celebrity George Clooney, known for his involvement in Darfur and Syria, is hopping on the bandwagon and trying to lead the charge among those who want to boycott Brunei-owned hotels, add some so-called “star power” to this issue and therefore attracting hefty Mainstream Media attention to his new pet cause. For as off-putting as the Sultanate’s new sharia standards may be for many people, the “inconvenient fact” is that the country has the sovereign right to govern itself however it sees fit, so Clooney and others are technically trying to meddle in its domestic affairs just like they falsely accused Russia of doing in the US’ own.
It’s true that international protest movements can gain a certain degree of political moment in today’s globalized world, especially if the targeted state in question has business interests that could potentially be boycotted in Western countries where such movements are most popular, but there’s little chance that Brunei will backtrack on its sovereign decision to implement Islamic law. The oil-rich but ultra-tiny state strategically positioned off the northern coast of Borneo along the southern shores of the South China Sea probably won’t see any decrease in the number of countries trying to court it after this controversy, and it could always replace those that does with others who want access to its resources and location badly enough that they’ll ignore this issue. After all, most of its partners are Asian countries anyhow who ordinarily don’t get involved in these sorts of heavily politicized affairs.
It should be pointed out, however, that the UK maintains a base in Brunei that could become the focal point of protest activity back home or in the US, with activists possibly seeking to pressure London to pull out of the facility until Brunei reverses its stance on sharia. That campaign probably wouldn’t succeed, however, since these same human rights and democracy activists haven’t been able to get the UK to stop supporting Saudi Arabia in its much more brutal War on Yemen, so trying to get the country to pull out of this strategic outpost along the southern shores of the South China Sea is likely doomed to fail from the get-go. Even so, it’ll be interesting to watch how Brexit-mired Britain attempts to deflect any renewed criticism of its foreign policy in that respect and whether this further erodes its soft power.
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Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
We learned many lessons in fighting the Conservative governments in the past, and personally in our long battle to block the privatization of Ontario Hydro One. The government of Doug Ford in Ontario, and the policies that Andrew Scheer is putting forward as federal Conservative Party leader going into the coming election, is forcing us to learn some old battles and take up a new round of struggles in the Canadian labour movement. Beware of any party promising free tax cuts with more prosperity and saying things like ‘tax cuts pay for themselves’. There is no free money. Strip away the smoke-and-mirrors show, and you’ll see that the only thing that Conservatives do is transfer wealth to the private few.
Tax cuts are the central policy pillar of the Ontario Conservative Party, and the current government of Premier Doug Ford. The Conservatives inevitably promise that tax cuts will be good for everyone. Former Conservative Premier Mike Harris, with his so-called Common Sense Revolution, promised that ‘all boats would be lifted by the rising economy’. During the last provincial election, Doug Ford made the same promise; he said that his government’s policies would bring in many great paying jobs and “prosperity and progress the likes this province has never seen before.”
The reality of Tax cuts and trickledown economics. When the wealthiest 1% have crammed as many dollars as they can into their pockets the rest of us will get the odd $20 bill that falls out.
Tax Cuts
However, since Reagan’s and Thatcher’s time, trickledown economics has been completely discredited. It was a completely ridiculous theory, in the first place. It’s like believing that as the wealthy cram as many $100 bills as they can into their pockets, everyone else will get the odd $20 bill that falls out. Over the last 25 years, we’ve had so many tax cuts, mostly to the wealthy and their corporations, we should be awash in great well-paying jobs. Just ask any young person who is caught in the job churn from one low wage contract to the next. Trickledown is not working for them.
The other ridiculous claim made by the Conservative Party is that ‘tax cuts pay for themselves’. The Tories are practitioners of the big lie, telling the same lie over and over again for years until it becomes accepted as conventional wisdom.
Deficits
The Conservative Party constantly decries and criticizes deficits, when, in fact, tax cuts, including tax freezes, have added greatly to municipal, provincial and federal deficits. Great damage has also been done by funding reductions to healthcare, education, social services and infrastructure to pay for tax cuts. Reductions to funding for healthcare have also hurt many people, and I’m one of them. Cuts to healthcare almost killed me, and put my family and I through hell.
The former Conservative Party Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, once said, “I believe that all taxes are bad,” and this is exactly what the Conservative Party and its leaders believe, that all taxes must be reduced or removed. The current Conservative national leader, Andrew Scheer – a Harper clone, has already promised such tax relief; tax cuts are a core policy of his platform, while at the same time, he promises to reduce the deficit. Absolute baloney. There is no free money. They never say how they are going to pay for their tax cuts.
Deficit financed tax cuts should be completely illegal, as should tax cuts financed by reductions to healthcare, education, social services and infrastructure, or by turning public sector jobs into low-wage contract and part-time work with few or no benefits. Working people and the poor have to labour and struggle for years and years and still end up having less access to services and a reduced or eliminated social safety net, all to pay for tax cuts that only benefit the wealthiest 1%.
The net result of tax cuts is massive transfers of public wealth to the wealthy. When was the last year that you can remember when there weren’t any cuts? No one can answer because only the luxury liners are rising, and everyone else is sinking in their wake. There’s a reason why rich people use a healthcare system paid for by a progressive tax system: so healthcare would be good for everyone.
It’s long past time for an adult discussion on taxes. It would be a very interesting to see just how much of the total of all deficits are caused by tax cuts, including tax freezes. And where has all the money gone? It’s gone into the bank accounts of the wealthy, including many offshore accounts used to avoid taxes altogether. As Charles Dickens is reputed to have said in the 1830s: the rich will take the widow’s mite and the orphan’s crumb.
Deregulation
This is what the Conservatives call ‘cutting red tape’. In Ontario, developers and loggers are salivating at the prospect of getting their hands on Ontario Place, and on the Green Belt lands, as well as ridding the province of those pesky regulations on endangered species and restrictions on cutting down very valuable 300 and 400-year-old trees in, of all places, Algonquin Provincial Park. This is what Ford’s promise of cutting red tape really is. This is what Ford means when he says Ontario is open for business! Come on in and help yourselves. There won’t be any rules in your way, so you can maximize profits.
However, chopping down all the grandfather trees is just wrong, as is developing as much of ‘green spaces’ as they can just to make a buck and add to their already outrageous fortunes. It should be illegal for private companies to profit from public wealth! Kathleen Wynne just paid the ultimate price and was completely humiliated in the last provincial election for selling Hydro One, also part of our public wealth.
There’s a reason why regulations were made in sectors like finance, construction, mining, manufacture and the environment: to protect people from the excesses of business and markets. Our financial regulations largely protected us from the 2008 financial meltdown in the USA. While politicians promise that private-sector discipline will lead to ‘increased efficiencies’ and lower taxes, what really happens is that public wealth and profit-making opportunities get transferred to the private few.
In fact, the private sector has been very anxious to gain control of public assets for a long time. Since the crash of 2008, there has been a ‘flight to quality’ for investors, and now is their big chance to obtain public assets at fire-sale prices. Ford is promising $6-billion in ‘increased efficiencies’. Do we really want private sector discipline and increased efficiencies like Enron, Worldcom, Nortel, Lehman Brothers, Fannie May and Freddie Mac, whose financial frauds caused the crash of 2008, and the savings and loan scandals of the 1980s and 1990s.
The Holy Words
‘Competition’ and ‘market’ are the holiest words in Conservative policy, which promotes the idea that competitive markets can solve problems much more efficiently than any government. The Conservatives are very eager to introduce competitive bidding systems throughout the public sector, including healthcare. They use code words like ‘monetization’ and ‘modernization’ to justify their drive for smaller government and the privatization of public services. According to them, private owners in deregulated, competitive markets will result in ‘increased efficiencies’ and lower cost.
The Harris/Eves Conservatives endlessly promised that ‘increased efficiencies from a deregulated electricity market would result in lower rates’, but everyone knows what a deregulated competitive market has done to their hydro bill. Ask anyone who has paid a hydro bill in the last fifteen years. Ford’s promises to lower hydro rates are bogus. He will never reverse deregulation or close the electricity market, which is what would be required to lower rates. The Conservative Party of Ontario needs to be held accountable for that colossal mistake.
Watch for Ford and Scheer to tell us that they have to sell public assets to pay for infrastructure like transit instead of raising taxes. Privatization and deregulation of our public services and assets is presented as a painless way to solve the debt crisis. Meanwhile, there are no demonstrations or protests by Canadians demanding that their public institutions be deregulated or privatized.
Inaction and Denial of Climate Change
Both Scheer and Ford claim fighting climate change through a carbon tax is a job killer and makes us uncompetitive. There’s that holy word again. Everyone knows the global environment is in big trouble! Doing nothing is just not an option. There are no jobs on a dead planet! And no money or wealth either! Both Ford and Scheer promise to fight a carbon tax. That only acts in the interests of the wealthy and of corporate profits. We have less than ten years to collectively change our behavior, to aggressively fight and invest heavily against climate change. Will it cost money? Yes, but the cost of doing nothing has already been extreme and every climate scientist says it is going to get much worse. We can’t afford not to act, and do it right now!
Here’s a scientific fact that should make everyone concerned enough to act. If the permafrost melts and releases all that methane and stored carbon dioxide and the oceans warm to reach a tipping point, it could result in runaway global warming causing all the methane stored as methyl hydrates on the ocean floor to start to be released. If that happens, it’s curtains for the human race.
Conservatives Channeling Their Inner Trump
Ford has already called the media fake news and has promised to make Ontario great again. He and his cronies have no problem employing the politics of division, using greed, intolerance and fear as organizing tools. For example, Andrew Scheer is already fear-mongering about taxes and illegal border crossers, while social conservatives like the Christian right – which has far too much influence over the Conservative Party – are promoting intolerance against the LGBTQ+ community, and same-sex marriage, not to mention the elimination a woman’s right to choose, always high on their agenda.
Both Ford and Scheer need to be reminded that what made Canada a great country and a competitive place to do business was our public healthcare and education system, as well as our public hydro systems.
This is a Crisis!
The Conservative Party is always claiming there is a crisis, and creating one if there isn’t. John Snobelen, a cabinet minister with the Harris Tories, famously said, “Let’s create a crisis.” Ford has started down the road of creating a crisis in healthcare in Ontario with his cuts, and his claim that transformative change through competition and market-driven solutions will come to the rescue. Contracting out healthcare is just another form of privatization. Scheer is already claiming there’s a deficit crisis while still promising tax cuts.
Policies to Serve the 1%
Today we are busy slashing social services and letting our infrastructure crumble in order to pay for tax cuts. Families are working harder and longer hours, many working multiple jobs in part-time or contract work. Although our resources are demanded all over the world, all we hear about is that deficits are out of control and that we have to continuously tighten our belts. We’ve all been tightening our belts for so long now that the circulation is completely cut off to our legs and feet!
The wealthy and their corporations have held far too much sway over our governments. Conservative governments have been all too eager to deregulate labour laws and give corporations the flexibility they crave to maximize profits. What is the ultimate form of labour flexibility? It’s slavery!
Every step that governments take to improve labour legislation and regulate a ‘living’ minimum wage is a step away from slavery. However, successive Conservative governments have been eroding and repealing labour laws and have kept the minimum wage far too low. Look at Premier Ford’s recent repeal of labour laws and his axing of the minimum wage! Isn’t it great how in Ontario you can work at a reduced minimum wage for sixty hours a week with no overtime provisions, right into your eighties or until you drop dead?
People labouring at minimum wage and in part-time contract work are virtual slaves. Young people caught in the job churn of part-time and contract work are told to just get used to it. They generate a lot of wealth for a very wealthy country. Surely they deserve to share in a small part of that wealth for $15 an hour and permanent full-time jobs. Is this the prosperity the tax cut crowd has been promising for more than twenty-five years?
While everyone else’s wages have stagnated over the last thirty years, the top 1% have seen their pay and wealth increase dramatically but still don’t like paying all those extra taxes. Governments have been all too happy to accommodate them. Since 1980, the top federal tax rate has been cut by almost 50%. If the progressive tax system had not been changed, there would be no deficits, and we would have a national surplus.
Inequality is at an all-time high. A massive concentration of wealth is in the hands of the few. We don’t have a wealth-creation crisis; we have a severe distribution-of-wealth crisis. This concentration of wealth in the hands of the few is simply not sustainable. The wealthy would do well to remember that since the French revolution in 1789, and in every revolution, before every war and before every financial collapse since then, there was a huge concentration of wealth in the hands of the few. We’re there right now.
The fall 2019 federal election will soon be here. The logical conclusion of Conservative Party policies and beliefs is this: let’s cut taxes as close to zero, let’s eliminate all rules and regulations, let’s transform our whole society into a competitive, privatized market, including air and water as commodities, and that way we’ll have so many ‘increased efficiencies’ that we’ll have prosperity.
Where is the Leader and Party with the Following Promises?
Where is the promise that they will deal aggressively with the distribution-of-wealth crisis and narrow the huge gap between the haves and have nots? Where’s the promise to restore a progressive tax system where everyone pays their fair share of taxes? Where’s the promise to restore and rebuild our public sector and public infrastructure? Where’s the promise to bring in regulations so that everyone can share in Canada’s prosperity? That means regulations to end job churn and mandate that full-time work is full-time work that cannot to be cut up into pieces of part-time or contract work with few, if any benefits and no pension! Where’s the promise to deal with climate change realistically and effectively based on the facts, even if it means a tax on carbon pollution.
Reversing tax cuts is not raising taxes: it’s restoring funding to build a civil, more just and equitable society! If it was seen that everyone was paying their fair share, no one would mind paying taxes.
As voters, we must stop believing and voting for the Conservative tax-cut-and-red-tape lie. You will not like where that takes us. Tax cuts and deregulation have never delivered on their promise of prosperity for all – in fact, quite the opposite. You just can’t build a civil society and a country on tax cuts and deregulation. Never have, never will! Tax cuts and deregulation are making the majority of us poorer and the top 1% much richer and crippling government’s ability to govern. It is time to end this insanity.
Be aware that once upon a time we proudly invested in our schools and hospitals, our libraries, and our electricity, water, sanitation and transportation systems. We are long past due to get back to making those investments! What are we going to do, return to creating a huge underclass of people waiting at the company gate, desperate to compete for a few hours work so we can solve our cash crisis?
When you cut and carve out public services by privatization, all you get is hollowed out cities and a lot of poverty. Look south of the border, and at Britain, to see what happened when they went down this path. We all don’t like paying inequitable taxes. But I hate stepping over people in the street more. I hate gridlock and potholes more. I want my schools, hospitals, libraries, firefighters, police and paramedics to be there. I want my son and young people and their children to have a future. I’m willing to pay more for these things so we can truly have a more equitable, livable society in which prosperity is shared by all. But we also need to shift the tax burden and attack and limit corporate power. The labour movement in Canada needs to be again, as it once was, at the forefront of these battles today.
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Paul Kahnert was a Toronto Hydro worker and CUPE Local One member for 33 years. He was a spokesperson for the Ontario Electricity Coalition from 2001 to 2010. The Ontario Electricity Coalition and its members CEP and CUPE stopped the sale of Hydro One in a Province wide campaign and court case in the Spring of 2002.
Discoveries of natural flora, fauna and phenomena are not necessarily straightforward things. The discoverer may wish to conceal the source. The discoverer may also have various motivations. In certain grave instances, the entire claim might be fabricated. Piltdown Man, discovered in a gravel pit in England in 1912 by amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson, was celebrated as an ancestral link to humans. In 1954, with the application of dating methods, the discovery was designated a fraud. A human skull had been cleverly paired with an orang-utan’s jaw.
The quest for the Australian Night Parrot remains one of the stranger tales of the naturalist meeting the professional researcher; the skilled amateur in battle with establishment practices; the vainglory efforts to seek a place in the birding pantheon.
An entry on the site Bush Heritage Australia gets the description of the bird to a flying and enthusiastic start. “The Night Parrot (Pezoporus occidentalis) is one of the most elusive and mysterious birds in the world. This nocturnal and mostly ground-dwelling parrot is endemic to Australia but for around 100 years it was feared to be extinct. Incredibly, we now have a second chance to save it!” As has been remarked, this particular bird has been Australia’s Ivory-billed Woodpecker, driving ornithologists professional and amateur to the edges of sanity.
Then came the moment and the initial, gasping thrill. In 2013, Queensland naturalist John Young rediscovered the Night Parrot, first found in 1845. (There had been, prior to that, a road-killed specimen in 1990 in western Queensland, and a headless sample to the south-east in 2006, found on barbed wire.) Young, however, was cautious. Locations were kept secret; exposing the sites might led to over enthusiastic twitchers finding their way to the area, disrupting the environment. Evidence, caught on video and photos, would be shown to the anointed, an all invitation-only gathering. He was keen to push the scale of the discovery: two pairs of Night Parrots, and a nest with three nestlings.
Young, however, had a history, one weighed down by naturalist half-truths and a persona of perceived quackery. Through the 1990s, he survived on funding from anaesthesiologist Tom Biggs and his wife. This enabled him to pursue his roving adventures through Young Wildlife Enterprises, a company he established to produce films, run tours and identify rare bird species. He spent time pursuing gigs for conservation, propelling, for instance, the move to establish TYTO Wetlands, thereby saving the Crimson Finch and Eastern Grass Owl.
In November 2006, Young was confronted by accusations from bird enthusiast Greg Roberts that he had been big in the manipulation game regarding the discovery of a new species of what was termed the Blue-fronted Fig Parrot. Young had boasted of the discovery, extolling his own knowledge and climbing skills. But he was also secretive, deleting original photographs so that no forensic expert might corroborate the find. According to Penny Olsen in Glimpses of Paradise (2007), this was true to form: claim of “a sensational find, shrouded in secrecy, which divided the birding community and ultimately came to nothing.”
The 2013 discovery seemed like an atonement, and his show to the selected guests at the Queensland Museum in Brisbane was akin to a ritual cleansing. Money followed, ironically enough from a mining company Fortescue Metals Group, to study the bird’s ecology and document its behaviour. Young was picked, working alongside conservation ecologist Steven Murphy in a collaboration of some friction. Murphy, for one, thought Young’s methods free of science, a wildlife buccaneer lacking method.
Young was subsequently given free rein by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy to find and document rare bird species on the organisations properties, something akin to an environmental janitor. Then, the millstone of history seemed to tug again. Hanging heavily, there seemed to be problems. Old pictures were revisited. Did Young actually place a mesh around The Night Parrot he photographed in 2013? Were the pictures taken at a time the birds were not active? Murphy was particularly riled by Young’s doctoring of one photo where damaged feathers, occasioned by the capture, were removed.
Then came specific allegations regarding Young’s work for the AWC. The material in question featured a Night Parrot feather, found at Kalamurina Wildlife Sanctuary, South Australia; a Night parrot call recording, downloaded at Kalamurina from an acoustic monitor; and Night Parrot nests and eggs supposedly found at Diamantina National Park, Queensland.
Red-faced, officials of the AWC proceeded to cleanse the website of any reference to the bird. “We have received questions about the veracity of some of the content and we are investigating these matters.” Content connected to the night parrot “will not be republished until we receive the results of the independent investigation into the veracity of the work.”
The independent panel’s findings were damning on all three items. It transpired that the feather in question, whilst being that of a Night Parrot, said to be the same one sent by AWC to the South Australian Museum, was different and therefore not conclusive of its existence in Kalamurina. Night Parrot calls published by the AWC from recordings made in September 2018 purportedly taken at Kalamurina were actually derived from publically available material from a Western Australian specimen, not a local one. As for the discovery of eggs and nests, a majority of consulted experts (eleven individuals including nine ornithologists) concluded that the eggs in one nest could not have been natural.
In February, the Year in Review summary of 2018 was conspicuously silent on Young and the Night Parrot, despite extolling “delivering measurable outcomes for Australia’s wildlife” by means of delivering “ecological return”. The trumpet still sounded: “Almost 87 percent of AWC’s operational expenditure continues to be spent where it can make the greatest difference to Australia’s threatened wildlife – in the field.”
Works such as David Goodstein’s On Fact and Fraud: Cautionary Tales from the Front Lines of Science (2010) show scientists as fallible creatures prone to careerism and the posterity disease. Discovery lust can muddle a scientist’s integrity, a point encouraged by what Goodstein calls the Reward System and the Authority Structure. Rather than being high priests of fairness and objective research, they are as susceptible to manipulation and deceiving as any group.
The difference here is they do not necessarily see it in that light. In that cosmos, merit and manipulation can be seen to go hand in hand. The injection of “falsehoods into the body of science is rarely, if ever, the purpose of those who perpetrate fraud. They almost always believe that they are injecting a truth into the scientific method.” Robert Millikan, for instance, manipulated his data, not so much to deceive as to reach the most accurate value for the charge of the electron. Young, in addition to his attempt at redemption, can be said to have some something similar, with his compulsive touching up of images, and his denial that he had captured the birds in question.
Nobel laureate physicist Richard P. Feynman, in his commencement address at the California Institute of Technology in 1974, offered a cardinal warning regarding scientific integrity: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool…. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.”
Young’s greatest trickery was one played upon himself. The others, for a time, fell into his orbit, and even then, with some scepticism. He was never particularly good at maintaining a front for long. But for all that, there was enough to front the claim that The Night Parrot had been found, tantamount, as the editor of Birdlife Australia suggested, to “finding Elvis flipping burgers in an Outback roadhouse”. A salutary tale to any future discoverer of the remarkable and doggedly elusive, and the dangers that entails.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
Seeking dominance over all other nations is imperialism’s defining feature – by brute force if other tactics fail.
With no end of it in prospect, they continue on the phony pretexts of humanitarian intervention, responsibility to protect, and democracy building – a notion US policymakers revile, tolerating it nowhere, especially not at home and in oil-rich Venezuela, Bolivarianism considered the threat of a good example.
On Wednesday, 15 bipartisan neocon Senators introduced the so-called Venezuela Emergency Relief, Democracy Assistance and Development (VERDAD) Act (sic) – supporting regime change in the hemisphere’s preeminent democracy they want eliminated.
The bipartisan gang of 15 includes John Barraso, Michael Bennett, Ben Cardin, Bill Cassidy, Chris Coons, John Cornyn, Ted Cruz, Dick Durbin, Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley, Tim Kaine, Marco Rubio, Jeanne Shaheen, and Todd Young.
The measure calls for providing another $200 million for regime change efforts, $200 million more to Colombia and Brazil, blood money for hardening their support for the scheme, on the phony pretext of providing support for Venezuelan “refugees” in their countries.
The measure has nothing to do with “restor(ing) democracy and prosperity” in Venezuela (sic), nothing to do with humanitarian aid (sic), everything to do with supporting the Trump regime’s diabolical coup plot.
Other provisions call for revoking visas for relatives of illegally sanctioned Venezuelans and removing sanctions from others willing to recognize designated puppet/usurper in waiting Guaido.
The legislation urges nations complicit with the coup plot to act against Maduro’s legitimate government the same way.
It requires support from international financial institutions to fully go along with the scheme. It calls for State, Treasury and Justice Departments to wage toughened financial war on Venezuela.
It doesn’t provide temporary protected status (TPS) for undocumented Venezuelans in the US – adhering to Trump’s hardline position against aliens of the wrong race, ethnicity, and/or religion in the country.
Passage of the measure in both houses overwhelmingly and signed into law by Trump is virtually certain. Menendez said the following about the legislation:
“(T)he United States Congress is coming together in a bipartisan manner to put teeth behind our support for the Venezuelan people (sic) as they seek to restore democracy (sic) and address a humanitarian catastrophe of unprecedented proportions in our hemisphere (sic).”
Rubio has been waging near-daily Twitter war on Venezuela, conducting his own campaign for regime change, notably pushing for US military intervention. He turned truth on its head, saying:
“As Maduro and his gang of narco-terrorists thugs (sic) continue holding the Venezuelan people hostage (sic) under their failed socialist regime (sic), the United States Senate is sending a clear bi-partisan message by introducing the VERDAD Act…”
Other co-sponsors issued similar remarks. The measure is the latest US effort to increase pressure on Maduro.
Everything thrown at him so far failed, this measure likely to fare no better, as long as Russia is committed to preserving and protecting Bolivarian social democracy – key to defeating the Trump regime’s coup plot.
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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
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.
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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.
'My Belief in Jesus Christ Makes a Real Difference': @SecPompeo Says His Christian Faith Puts Everything in Perspective https://t.co/iJ8KJZDCQG
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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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?
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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.
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 evidenceoverwhelmingly indicates thatit 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.
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.
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“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.
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…….
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.
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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.
Mike Whitney is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
“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.
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.
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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.
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-Kevorkianrevealed that the Israeli occupation authorities had issued permits to large pharmaceutical firms to carry out tests on Palestinian and Arab prisoners.
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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.
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All images in this article are from Indian Punchline
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.
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Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation 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.
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.
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Featured image: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg addresses Congress [Photo Credit: C-Span]
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)
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.
“This weekend the New York Timesbreaks 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.”
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.
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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation 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.
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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.”
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