Lying, which has always been done by human beings, was made legal in all free market political economies in 1892 when an English Court of Appeal validated Puffery. It consists of exaggerated and even false claims mainly about products or services.
In political contexts, any subject can be puffed. People often say, “all politicians are liars.” Yet many are bewildered by the current chaotic state of American politics. The President is a prolific and inveterate liar, yet his supporters believe him even when the falseness of his claims is evident. Conventional wisdom, however, seems to hold that normal people reject propositions that evidence shows are untrue, so those who accept known falsehoods are thought to be brainwashed, ignorant, and even stupid. Yet no one seems to notice how much that is false or unknown to be true plays in people’s lives. In contrast to the conventional wisdom, people do not easily relinquish their beliefs.
Consider the vast role religious beliefs play in people’s lives. Even the only nominally religious, who rarely practice what they preach, seldom abandon their beliefs when chided for hypocrisy. Of course, religious dogma is never known to be true, but religious people accept it as though it were. The actual status of the belief is irrelevant. Although the United States has no state religion, its officials routinely ask an unnamed and unidentified God to bless it, and when nothing happens, no one seems to care. The world of religious belief is unrelated to secular reality.
Aspects of religious belief can be used to explain what people find bewildering. A person who continues to believe something after it has been shown to be false is nevertheless convinced of its truth. That conviction must have some foundation. For the religious, the source is scripture which conveys the infallible word of God. Belief in scriptural maxims, even when experience shows them to be false, cannot be questioned. The conviction of a true believer is so absolute that it cannot be abandoned. Regardless of what the religious person sees with his own eyes, he believes the religious maxims which have been revealed in scripture.
When scripture is mentioned, most people think of the Bible or the Koran, but scripture takes numerous forms. Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations functions as scripture; so does Karl Marx’s Das Kapital because many consider the contents fundamentally true, beyond question. Capitalism and Communism are both ideologies and the books are their Bibles. But the free market economy of Adam Smith in two centuries has not demonstrated its effectiveness in providing for the welfare of people in general. Nevertheless economists believe in it without serious objection and ignore criticisms of it. Beliefs which cannot be dismissed even when shown to be dubious ideologies. Religions are ideologies; so are economic theories.
The unquestionable conviction of true believers is the only thing that explains the hypocritical reality of believing what has been shown to be false. These ideologies are the creeds men live by. In this sense, all people are true believers. Believing is woven into the fabric of our DNA.
Even scientific and technological activities are founded on faith in an ideology. Scientists believe that the scientific method will yield knowledge that is beneficial to mankind. The belief is rarely questioned, but no evidence supports that view. That scientific knowledge is beneficent is just another belief. Science has brought humanity environmental pollution, global warming, and atomic bombs. What comparable benefits has it produced? The belief in science is no more certain than the belief in a second coming. The ultimate benefits of scientific knowledge are not obvious; yet people are rarely made aware of that, because the value of the ideology cannot be questioned.
Human beings are credal; they are not rational. Beliefs rather than knowledge guides their lives. Except for the processes of alimentation, excretion, and reproduction, every other activity is governed by one or more ideologies. People are regularly told to “stand up for their beliefs.” No one is ever told to “stand up for knowledge.”
Groups adopt ideologies. When two incompatible ideologies clash, resolution is unlikely; violence is. Faith in beliefs is not a reliable guide to living. Today the Earth’s population seems to be comprised of numerous incompatible ideological groups. As long as faith, belief, and opinion are strong influences on behavior, most people will continue to endure deplorable human conditions. Humanity’s only salvation is a revival of morality based on a simple maxim that all can understand. Something like the Hippocratic Oath. Do no harm to anyone! Otherwise, humanity’s future is grim.
But the bewilderment mentioned in the first paragraph of this essay can easily be dissolved. In a democracy, when people vote, they generally believe they are voting for a person. They are not! People vote for an ideology, and nothing the candidate says that is not directly related to it has any relevance. It’s just puffery.
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John Kozy is a retired professor of philosophy and logic who writes on social, political, and economic issues. After serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, he spent 20 years as a university professor and another 20 years working as a writer. He has published a textbook in formal logic commercially, in academic journals and a small number of commercial magazines, and has written a number of guest editorials for newspapers. His on-line pieces can be found on http://www.jkozy.com/ and he can be emailed from that site’s homepage.
Libya has been in a state of the constant chaos since the NATO intervention in 2011. After the fall of the government of Muammar Gaddafi, the country fell into the hands of warrying armed factions, many of which were linked to radical Islamist groups. Al-Qaeda and then ISIS strengthened and expanded their presence in the country. The erupted humanitarian crisis has never been fully overcome. A high level of violence, crime and unsolved humanitarian issues turned Libya in one of the key hubs of arms, drugs and even trafficking. A large number of the refugees moving to Europe uses Libya as a transfer point.
NATO contributed very little efforts to change this situation, defeat terrorism and restore the order. One of the reasons is that the Western-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), based in Tripoli, is itself largely linked to radicals. Groups that declared their support to the GNA control a part of northwestern Libya. The only real anti-terror effort undertaken by pro-GNA forces and their foreign backers took place in 2016, when they moved to chuck ISIS out of the coastal city of Sirte. Despite this, ISIS cells kept a notable presence in the county. The GNA receives support from the US, various EU states, Qatar and Turkey.
The southwestern part of the country is controlled by local Tuareg and Tabu militias. Central, northeastern and southeastern Libya is in the hands of the Libyan National Army (LNA) and the allied to it House of Representatives based in the city of Torbuk.
Over the past few years, the LNA under the leadership of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar has consolidated control over a major part of the country, sometimes by forming pacts and alliances with local communities like in the south and sometimes by defeating radical militant groups by force. The LNA has also carried out a successful operation against militant and criminal groups in southern Libya. This effort was officially coordinated with the governments of Niger and Chad. Egypt, the UAE and France are often mentioned as the LNA backers. An interesting fact is that wilde media speculations about Russian mercenaries, Special Forces and, if we take into account the British mainstream media, even military bases allegedly deployed and created to support the LNA are barely linked with the reality on the ground. The real Kremlin involvement in the conflict has so far been mostly limited to diplomatic contacts with representatives of at least formally constructive local forces.
On April 4, Field Marshal Haftar officially announced a start of counter-terrorism operation in the area of Tripoli. In the following days, the LNA has made a series of advances capturing large areas south of the city, including Tripoli International Airport, and reached the vicinity of the city. According to local sources, over 40 people were killed or injured in clashes between the LNA and pro-GNA forces. The sides even employed their existing air forces in order to deliver strikes each against other.
However, a coalition of pro-GNA forces, which includes the al-Nuasi Brigade, the Tripoli Revolutionaries Brigade, the Special Deterrence Force, the al-Mahjub Brigade, the 33rd Infantry Brigade, the Abu Obeida al-Zawia Forces, the al-Halbus Brigade and the Usama al-Juwayli Forces, appeared to be able showing some resistance to the LNA only when Haftar-led forces reached the city’s vicinity.
On April 7, the U.S. Army Africa Command (AFRICOM) announced that it had evacuated its troops from the Libyan capital “in response to the evolving security situation” there. This means that Washington expects clashes in the city itself.
The LNA claims that its move to capture Tripoli is not a part of political struggle, but an operation against terrorists who are hiding there. Nonetheless, it’s clear that the LNA advance is another move made in the framework of the previous LNA attempts to put an end to the division of the country into feods controlled by local warlords and to consolidate the governmental power, including the right of use of force, in one hands. In the event of success, it will allow to restore a kind of order in the major part of he country and to crack down on local militant and criminal armed groups that operate freely in the existing power vacuum.
On the other hand, the LNA advance faced a wide criticism on the international level. Foreign powers use the collapse of Libya to exploit its territory and energy resources in own favor are opposing the LNA actions under the banner of the need to defend democracy and prevent humanitarian crisis.
In the event of their success the humanitarian and security situation in Libya will likely continue to deteriorate creating a room for the further expansion of radical groups, first of all ISIS and al-Qaeda, in and contributing to the continuing flow of migrants to Europe.
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In a recent interview in the Polish media, retired General Waldemar Skrzypczak spoke of the possibility of NATO launching a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the Russian Federation. His remarks not only serve to remind of the danger of a thermonuclear war between the world’s nuclear powers in the new era ‘Cold War’ -an issue which is disturbingly underplayed in the public discourse on global security- they should also serve to concentrate the minds of the Polish people on the question of the survival of their nation in the event of a nuclear armageddon.
Wlademar Skrzypczak’s comments recorded by the media conglomerate Wirtualna Polska speak of the hardline, anti-Russian attitude of many influential establishment figures in former Eastern Bloc nations who have welcomed NATO’s eastward expansion towards Russia’s borders, as well as the deployment of innovative weaponry such as missile shields.
But the idea of a nuclear ‘First Strike’ has perilous implications for Poland.
It was always understood at the time of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War that Poland would be wiped off the map in the event of a nuclear war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The same can be argued today if a war of similar magnitude developed between NATO and the Russian Federation.
Skrzypczak’s thinking is reminiscent of the dangerous expositions of Herman Kahn who believed in a “First Strike” doctrine and a winnable nuclear war. Yet, if he is truly serious about this, he may have to bear in mind the ‘Demographic Precaution Plan’ suggested by Tadeusz Tuczapski, a senior Polish general during the Cold War. The plan provided that Poland could only be preserved by building a special bunker housing a hundred men and two hundred women who would form the germ of a reconstituted Polish nation after a nuclear holocaust.
Tuczapski, who like many of his counterparts was alarmed at the prospect of Poland having to bear the brunt of a nuclear attack, outlined his theory to Polish leader General Wojciech Jaruzelski at a training briefing in the General Staff:
I stood up and told Jaruzelski, “General, more should be given to Civil Defence so that a good, solid bunker could be built, lock up in that bunker a hundred Polish men, some sort of real good fuckers and two hundred women so that we can rebuild the Polish nation. Give some money for that.”
Jaruzelski was apparently offended either by what he perceived as Tuczapski’s flipancy or the tastefulness of his remarks. Perhaps both. But Tuczapski felt that he was being a realist. Many senior Polish generals were worried that Poland would not survive even a limited exchange of nuclear weapons in a conflict which was often envisaged would start off with conventional battles that were certain to inflict great damage on Poland’s civil and military infrastructure.
Whatever the shortcomings may be of her internal administration, the narrative of Russian aggression does not stand up to objective scrutiny. Indeed, what may be termed as ‘aggression’ has come from the West: NATO’s eastward expansion in breach of agreements reached between the leaders of America and the Soviet Union as a condition of the reunification of Germany, the abrogation by the United States of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces regime, and the deployment of a missile shield system.
Conflicts involving the Russian armed forces near and at a distance from its borders can be persuasively argued to have been reactive rather than proactive in nature: the response to Georgia’s aggression against South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the absorption of Crimea in response to the U.S.-backed coup in Kiev which threatened Russia’s security interests in the Black Sea, and the NATO-supported infiltration into Syria by Islamist militias which mirrored covert US support for Chechen Jihadists.
Remarks of the sort made by Skrzypczak were rare during the U.S.-Soviet Cold War because leaders on both sides were careful to seek to diffuse tensions and not intensify them. It is time for the leaders of Poland, the Baltic nations and others to begin speaking in terms of dialogue and diplomacy; not war. Otherwise the Polish nation must begin seriously considering the Tuczapsk Demographic Plan.
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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: Adeyinka Makinde.
Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102 Print Edition: $10.25 (+ shipping and handling) PDF Edition: $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)
Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.
Reviews
“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.” –John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University
“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.” -Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations
Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction. –Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute
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With a population of 70 million people, the 2nd largest economy in Southeast Asia, and transforming into a key regional partner for Beijing and its One Belt, One Road initiative, the US and its partners sought to propel opposition parties into power during recent elections held in March.
The US plans to use this possibly impending designation as the basis upon which to “justify” forthcoming Hybrid War measures against the Islamic Republic aimed at dismantling its “deep state” network in the Mideast, including through possible strikes against the IRGC and its Hezbollah allies in Syria.
Till, 14, was abducted, beaten and shot in August 1955, his body sunk in the Tallahatchie River. His mother, Mamie Till Bradley, insisted on an open casket because she wanted to “let the people see what they did to my boy”. It was the “first great media event of the Civil Rights movement”.
So did, recently, a left-leaning President of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), who wrote a letter to King of Spain, Felipe VI, and to Pope Francis, demanding apology for the ‘abuses that were committed during the conquest of Mexico.’
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.
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.
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.
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This article was originally published on January 18, 2018.
Last November, an American military inspection team visited the Azov Battalion on the front lines of the Ukrainian civil war to discuss logistics and deepening cooperation. Images of the encounter showed American army officers poring over maps with their Ukrainian counterparts, palling around and ignoring the Nazi-inspired Wolfangel patches emblazoned on their sleeves.
Azov is a militia that has been incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard, and is considered one of the most effective units in the field against pro-Russian separatists. But it also widely known as a bastion of neo-Nazism within the ranks of the Ukrainian military that has been criticized by international human rights groups, tied to an international fascist network and even a major terror plot.
According to Lower Class Magazine, a leftist German publication, Azov maintains a semi-underground outfit called the “Misanthropic Division” that recruits heavily among the ranks of neo-Nazi youth in France, Germany and Scandinavia. Foreign fighters are promised training with heavy weapons, including tanks, at Ukrainian camps filled with fascist fellow travelers. They even include military veterans like Mikael Skillit, a Swedish former army sniper turned neo-Nazi volunteer for Azov.
“After World War Two, the victors wrote their history,” Skillit told the BBC. “They decided that it’s always a bad thing to say I am white and I am proud.”
Foreign Azov volunteers are driven by the call of the “Reconquista,” or the mission to place eastern European nations under the control of a white supremacist dictatorship modeled after the Nazi Reichskommissariat dictatorship that ruled Ukraine during World War II. The mission is promoted effusively by Azov’s chief ideologue, Andriy Biletsky, a veteran fascist organizer who leads the Social National Assembly in Ukraine’s parliament. Biletsky’s assembly has pledged to outlaw interracial contacts and vowed “to prepare Ukraine for further expansion and to struggle for the liberation of the entire White Race from the domination of the internationalist speculative capital.”
Perhaps the most notorious of the racist European youth drawn to the military training camps of Ukraine was a 25-year-old French farm worker named Gregoire Montaux. In June 2016, Moutaux was arrested on Ukraine’s border by the country’s SBU security services with a staggering arsenal of assault rifles, thousands of rounds of ammunition and 125kg of TNT explosives. He had even managed to gain possession of two anti-tank grenade launchers.
Driven by hardcore neo-Nazi ideology, Moutaux planned to blow up a “a Muslim mosque, a Jewish synagogue, tax collection organizations, police patrol units,” and attack the Euro 2016 soccer championship. According to the SBU, the would-be terrorist had been in communication “with military units fighting in Donbas” — the eastern Ukrainian area where Azov maintains its training camps.
While mobilizing racist youth across Europe, Azov leadership has also managed to foster a warm relationship with the American military. In one photo posted to Azov’s website last November, an American military officer can be seen shaking hands with an Azov officer whose uniform was emblazoned with the Nazi-inspired Wolfsangel patch that serves as the militia’s symbol. The images highlighted a burgeoning relationship that has been largely conducted in secret, but whose disturbing details are slowly emerging.
Though Washington has not embarked on anything in Ukraine like the billion dollar train-and-equip program it implemented in Syria to promote regime change through a proxy force of so-called “moderate rebels,” there are clear and disturbing similarities between the two projects. Just as heavy weapons ostensibly intended for the CIA-backed Free Syrian Army went straight into the hands of Salafi-jihadi insurgent forces, including ISIS, American weapons in Ukraine are flowing directly to the extremists of Azov. And once again, in its single minded determination to turn up the heat on Russia, Washington seems willing to ignore the unsettling political orientations of its front line proxies.
In recent months, a wide spectrum of observers of the Ukrainian civil war have documented the transfer of heavy weapons made in the USA to the Azov Battalion, and right under the nose of the US State Department.
Made in Texas, tested by Azov
The story of how American arms began flowing towards the Nazi-inspired militia began in October 2016, when the Texas-based AirTronic company announced a contract to deliver $5.5 million dollars worth of PSRL-1 rocket propelled grenade launchers to “an Allied European military customer.” In June 2017, photos turned up on Azov’s website showing its fighters testing PSRL-1 grenade launchers in the field. The images raised questions about whether Ukraine was AirTronic’s unnamed “customer.”
Two months later, the pro-Russian military analysis site Southfront published a leaked contract indicating that 100 PSRL-1 Launchers worth $554,575 — about 1/10th of the total deal — had been produced in partnership with a Ukrainian arms company for distribution to the country’s fighting units.
In an interview last December with the US-backed Voice of America, AirTronic Chief Operating Officer Richard Vandiver emphasized that the sale of grenade launchers was authorized through “very close coordination with the U.S. Embassy, with the U.S. State Department, with the U.S. Pentagon and with the Ukrainian government.”
Finally, this January, the transfer of the lethal weapons to Azov was confirmed by the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRL). Aric Toler, a DFRL researcher, asserted that
“the US Embassy did absolutely help facilitate this transfer, and I’m not sure if they were aware that Azov would be the first to train with them.”
As NATO’s de facto lobbyist in Washington, and one of the most fervent advocates in Washington for arming the Ukrainian military, the Atlantic Council was an extremely unlikely source for such a disclosure. While the think tank’s motives for exposing Azov’s use of American arms remains unclear, its researchers wound up highlighting a truly scandalous episode of semi-covert American support for neo-Nazis.
A day after the Atlantic Council reported on Azov’s acquisition of American arms, the Ukrainian National Guard insisted in an official statement that the grenade launchers were no longer in Azov’s possession. Meanwhile, the heightened scrutiny prompted Azov to delete all photos of its soldiers testing the weapons.
When the House of Representatives passed its Defense Appropriations act last September, it included a provision ensuring that “none of the funds made available by this Act may be used to provide arms, training, or other assistance to the Azov Battalion.” But the provision has yet to be authorized. Back in 2015, pressure from the Pentagon prompted Congress to strip out a similar restriction, and questions remain about whether it will ever be enforced.
In the meantime, Azov officers like Sgt. Ivan Kharkiv have revealed to American reporters that “U.S. trainers and U.S. volunteers” have been working closely with his battalion. And as the photographs posted in November on Azov’s website indicated, US officers have met with Azov commanders two months to provide them with “training, or other assistance” that is explicitly forbidden by the congressional provision.
“Your struggle is our struggle”
The American government’s collaboration with committed Nazi ideologues to undercut Russian geopolitical goals is not new, nor has it been a particularly well-kept secret. In his 1988 book length expose, “Blowback,” investigative journalist Christopher Simpson lifted the cover off the CIA’s program of rehabilitating former assets of Nazi Germany, including documented war criminals, and revealed how it employed them counter the spread of communism in Europe.
According to Simpson, the CIA recruited Mykola Lebed, a Gestapo-trained leader of the Ukrainian OUN militia who oversaw the torture and slaughter of Jews in Krakow, to help bolster West Germany’s intelligence services in 1947. Two years later, the CIA smuggled Lebed into the US under a false name. He was promptly hired by the Pentagon and dispatched on widely promoted speaking tours that rallied support for Ukrainian guerillas. For the next several decades, Lebed advanced the anti-communist cause through the Prolog Research Corporation, a New York City-based publishing house that was eventually revealed as a CIA front.
In his 1991 book,
“Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party, journalist Russ Bellant provided a new layer of disturbing detail to the history of US collaboration with former Ukrainian Nazis. Bellant documented how the Ukrainian OUN-B militia reconstituted under the banner of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA), an umbrella organization comprised of “complete OUN-B fronts.”
The Reagan administration was honeycombed with UCCA members, with the group’s chairman Lev Dobriansky, serving as ambassador to the Bahamas, and his daughter, Paula, sitting on the National Security Council. Reagan even welcomed Jaroslav Stetsko, a Banderist leader who oversaw the massacre of 7000 Jews in Lviv, into the White House in 1983.
“Your struggle is our struggle,” Reagan told the former Nazi collaborator. “Your dream is our dream.”
The “imaginary Nazis” come to life
The relationship came full circle after the corrupt but democratically elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted in the 2014 coup known as Euro-Maidan. From the ranks of the neo-fascist street toughs that waged a pitched battle against national riot police in Kiev’s Maidan Square, the Azov Battalion was formed to do battle with pro-Russian separatists in the country’s east. The militia’s commander, Andriy Biletsky, had earned his stripes as a leader of the fascist group, Patriot of Ukraine. And he made no secret of his Nazism, proclaiming that his mission was to “lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade for their survival… against the Semite-led Untermenschen.”
At the time, supporters of the NATO-inspired coup painted any and all reports of the presence of neo-Nazis in post-Maidan Ukraine as Kremlin propaganda. Jamie Kirchick, a neoconservative operative, made the most obtuse attempt at spinning the fascist surge in Ukraine, erasing militias like Azov as “Putin’s Imaginary Nazis.” Liberal historian Timothy Snyder also dismissed the problem of neo-Nazism in Ukraine, defending the Maidan putsch as “a classic popular revolution.”
But it was not long before the wave of Nazi nostalgia and anti-Semitism sweeping across the country became impossible to deny. In Ukraine’s parliament, the veteran fascist Social-National Party founder Andriy Parubiy has risen to the role of Speaker. Vadym Troyan, a leader of Biletsky’s neo-Nazi Patriot of Ukraine organization who served as a deputy commander of Azov, was appointed police chief of the province of Kiev.
Massive torchlit rallies pour out into the streets of Kiev on regular occasions, showcasing columns of Azov members marching beneath the Nazi-inspired Wolfsangel banner that serves as the militia’s symbol. Author and columnist Lev Golinkin noted that the neo-Nazis who violently paraded through Charlottesville, Virginia last year bore flags emblazoned with the another symbol displayed by Azov: the Sonnengrad, or Nazi SS-inspired black sun.
Across Ukraine, Nazi collaborators like Stepan Bandera have been celebrated with memorials and rallies proclaiming them as national heroes. Bandera was the commander of the wartime militia the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B), which fought alongside Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union. Despite his OUN-B militia’s role in the massacre of Jews and ethnic Poles during the war, including a pogrom that left 7,000 Jews dead in Lviv, a major boulevard in Kiev has been named for Bandera. In today’s Ukraine, even mainstream nationalists revere Bandera as a freedom fighter.
Last May, Azov supporters held a torchlit rally in Lviv, in honor of General Roman Shukhevych, the late commander of the UPA insurgent militia that helped massacre thousands of Jews in Lviv. (Ironically, the massacre has been documented in detail by Timothy Snyder, the historian-turned-apologist for Ukraine’s government).
Two months later — on the anniversary of the pogrom — the city of Lviv held “Shukhevychfest,” celebrating the blood stained general as a “successful musician, an athlete, a businessman.” During the festival, neo-Nazis tossed a molotov cocktail into a local synagogue and vandalized the Jewish house of worship with graffiti reading, “Yids, remember July 1 [the date of the Lviv massacre].”
The explosion of pro-Nazi memorials across Ukraine has provoked harsh condemnation from the World Jewish Congress and prompted anti-Nazi activist Efraim Zuroff to openly lament that “Ukraine has more statues for killers of Jews than any other country.” But even as Ukraine’s Jewish community reels at the developments in horror, the US government has been mostly silent.
American reporters who visited Azov in the field have had a much harder time denying the uncomfortable reality of Nazi mobilization, however. When USA Today’s Oren Dorell toured an Azov training camp, he met a drill sergeant named Alex who “admitted he is a Nazi and said with a laugh that no more than half his comrades are fellow Nazis.” The Azov soldier also told Dorell he “supports strong leadership for Ukraine, like Germany during World War II.”
“[Alex] vowed that when the war ends, his comrades will march on the capital, Kiev, to oust a government they consider corrupt,” Dorell reported.
Another Azov volunteer told the Guardian that Ukraine needs “a junta that will restrict civil rights for a while but help bring order and unite the country.”
While the hapless liberal-oligarchic government in Kiev struggles for legitimacy, the neo-Nazis of Azov yearn for the “Reconquista.” Until their dream is realized, however, the militia is likely to be bogged down in an intractable conflict with pro-Russian forces and hoping that an influx of American weapons can turn the tide.
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Featured image: Left: Members of the Azov Battalion offer a sig heil salute. Right: US military advisors meet with Azov commanders in the field in November, 2017.
“Here we go again in #Haiti. Another messy morning in #PAP where getting gas has become a matter of who you know because pumps are only delivering on a privilege basis. This station at Bois-Patate says it’s only giving diesel to intl organizations”. This tweet from Miami Herald’s Caribbean correspondent, Jacqueline Charles, on April 2, 2019, captures the mood of what Haitians face on a daily basis.. And not just for fuel.
In June 2017, President Jovenel Moise made a big promise: “I give myself between 18 and 24 months for Haiti to have (24-7) electricity’’, he said. Twenty-ninemonths later, most parts of Haiti are still facing daily blackouts. Some of them can last up to eight days.
What’s behind Haiti’s gas shortage and power blackout? Try $ 80 million in unpaid bills, the Miami Herald revealed on January 18th. But the Haitian government has never explained the real cause of the recurring fuel shortages that, among other things are contributing to the blackouts. As for the newspaper article, unfortunately only few Haitians will understand it because most of them don’t read or understand English, if they can read at all.
Those who do understand had better not complain on Twitter. You might find yourself slapped with a summons to appear before the Port-au-Prince chief prosecutor to explain yourself. That is what happened to Maarten Boute when he let his frustrations out on Twitter in January during a month long fuel shortage. Boute is the Haiti Chairman and CEO of Digicel, a multinational telecom company and one of the government’s biggest tax payers.
A dreadful chaos
The specter of chaos has been hovering over Haiti for several decades. However, the country’s current situation has never been so difficult in the last 30 years.
“Even the coup period of ’91 doesn’t compare with this anarchy Paul Denis, a former Haiti justice minister said. “Fear lies in the heart all of all citizens. Armed groups impose their law in every corner of the country. Legitimate authorities have lost the monopoly of force for the benefit of bandits”[1], he asserts.
Even diplomats are not immune. On March 28th, as he visited a program financed by his government, Chile’s ambassador to Haiti, Patricio Utreras Díaz, accompanied by his wife and a Chilean delegation, were attacked by five heavily armed men. Their visit to Boutin, a village in Croix-des-Bouquets on the west side of the capital, “was brutally interrupted around 11:30 am when 5 individuals armed with AK-47s attacked and opened fire on the procession of the Embassy of Chile (about 18 people) leaving many bullet impacts on their vehicles,“ reported Haiti Libre, an online publication. Although the Embassy’s security agents responded and managed to regain control, ‘’a Haitian volunteer from the NGO “América Solidaria,” Frantz Eliancin, died while the ambassador’s driver was shot in the wrist’’[2]. This attack on a diplomatic convoy was a first for Haiti and showed the degradation of criminal acts in the country.
Samuel Madistin, a lawyer who serves as Chairman of the Borad of the human rights group, Fondation Je Klere (FJKL) describes the current situation as ‘’unprecedented’’.
Like Denis, he too, says it is worse than in the early 90’s when the Organization of American States“and the international community started sending the first contingents of [UN peacekeepers] and stabilization mission to Haiti.”
“The state is totally absent and the citizens are left to fend for themselves, while neighborhoods around the capital are controlled and led by gang leaders. We are in an explosive situation that can lead to any disaster at any time,’’ he says.
Madistin and Denis’ warnings come as the latest U.N. peacekeeping mission prepares to come to a close.Can a volatile Haiti, which has seen over 200 demonstrations since December — including 10 days of violence in February — finally take responsibility for its own security?, Jacqueline Charles of the Miami Herald asks in her latest piece.
‘’It’s the duty of any state to ensure the security of its territory and the protection of its citizens,” Madistin responds. For the human rights lawyer, the international community has contributed to the security degradation of the country.
‘’It did not help us. On the contrary, it wasted millions of dollars for nothing by participating in a so-called stabilization of the country, which in fact, put Haiti in this total failure,” he says.
Haiti National Police Director Michel-Ange Gédéon says he has confidence in the training of officers to take over once U.N. forces leave the island nation. Butseveral police officers have been killed these past months, including at least two were burned alive. In an interview with the Miami Herald, Gédéon concedes that‘’there are weaknesses, from the need for more vehicles and firepower to the lack of logistics capabilities.’’In addition, protecting human rights remains a serious issue. Not for Haitians but also for members of the US Congress.
Last month, 104 members of Congress sent a bipartisan letter to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressing concerns that police used excessive force against protesters during the recent civil disturbances. That letter was triggered by the recent human rights allegations about extrajudicial killings in the community of La Saline in November 2018 and the Haitian government’s overall lack of accountability. Human rights groups in Haiti have reported that as many as 71 individuals were killed, while women and girls were raped and houses looted.[3]
A harsh political indifference
Haiti is just not in the throes of a political crisis, but an economic crisis as well. The Gourde, Haiti’s national currency, has been falling drastically for the past seven years. Under the administration of former President Michel martelly and his PHTK political party, this devaluation got even worse. Haiti’s current president, Moise, was hand-picked by Martelly to be his successor. He describes himself as a businessman, but has never held political office or worked in government prior to assuming the presidency in 2017.
For the past two years, “Moise has been widely criticized by politicians and citizens alike for failing to publicly respond to the demands of the people. He has also been vilified for his government’s lack of transparency and its ineffectiveness,” writes Sandra Lemaire of the Voice of America.[4]
Source: Twitter
Haiti’s Institute of Statistics and Informatics (IHSI) says the country’s unemployment rate is 45.6 percent. Others put it much higher. Either way, it’s safe to say that at least half of the Haitian population does not work and most jobs are in the informal sector.
It is also widely known that the PHTK party, which remains in power under Moise, has little use for qualified professionals who do not share their political views. The disregard for university graduatse could be seen in former president Martelly’s own words – a now famous tirade from his days on the presidential campaign. ‘’Plomas, plomas plomas, what’s the deal with these diplomas?’’. Martelly himself has no diploma. In the 2011 elections, he asked the Haitian people to reject Mirlande Manigat, a highly recognized intellectual and university professor, and to choose” between a 30-year old system’’ and the change he represented. Meanwhile, Martelly said he symbolized “honesty”.[5]
Questions about the characterization of his own character and tenure has been crystallized through what is believed to be the biggest embezzlement in the history of Haiti: the PetroCaribe fund. Haiti’s Superior Court of Auditors has detailed cited disastrous management practices and the suspected diversion of nearly $2 billion (€1.7 billion) from the fund, which is part of an oil alliance Haiti has with Venezuela.
A report published by the auditors has added fuel to the PetroCaribe Challenge, a grassroots movement against widespread corruption in Haiti that began on social media and now has spread to all corners of Haiti. Indeed, Martelly represented so much honesty that Haiti today is ranked 161 out of 180 countries on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.
Indifference. Disdain. This is how the current and past PHTK’s administrations treat the Haitian people. Haiti has become the land of their so-called, ‘’legal bandits;’’ A land to flee from by any means necessary.
This week, at least 15 Haitians died while in search of a better life when their boat capsized off the Turk and Caicos islands. Not a word or a tweet from Moise after the tragedy.
‘’In just over a month, a total of 43 compatriots have died at sea fleeing misery, aggravated by the failure of governance and the disastrous economic and financial record of the man of the banana’’, wrote the Nouvelliste, Haiti’s oldest daily newspaper, referring to the president. “Haitians die because your administration does not rule, President Moise’’, titled the day’s editorial.
Duval than went on to list all the missed opportunities and lack of sound economic policies. Then he concluded: “Haiti can no longer meet the minimum requirements of the international community to receive funds. Haiti cannot even meet the minimum requirements of its own law on public accounting.”[6]
Ironically, the same day Duval’s editorial ran, the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince was announcing the first visit of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Haiti, Canada, and the Caribbean, Cindy Kierscht. Her mission? To “highlight how the United States and Haiti (can) work together toward a more safe, secure, and prosperous Haiti”. Haitians on Twitter thought it was a joke; an April Fools’ Day prank. It was not.
Why support such a regime as PHTK? Why would the United States support a president as despised and incompetent as Jovenel Moise? How much more suffering will the Haitians have to endure for the international community to come to its senses? It is clear that the countrywill not survive three more years of this misery.
In the meantime, the UN Security Council met in New York on Wednesday, April 3, 2019 to discuss the end of the United Nations Mission for the Support of Justice in Haiti (MINUJUSTH). While the interventions of the other members of the Council only recounted the missteps of the current administration, the United States of America was practically the only country in this meeting to claim that everything is going well in Haiti.
‘’Nations like Haiti don’t ‘fail’ because of their people, but because they’ve been relentlessly exploited by the more ‘developed’ world,’ ’Amy Wilentz, an American journalist and writer, wrote three years ago in The Nation.
She made the following point: ‘’Haiti’s ongoing crisis is the product of global forces, and only huge, unlikely changes in international behaviors—especially on the part of the biggest, most abusive nations and organizations—will allow the Haitians themselves to turn things around”. When will the international community understand that?
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Nancy Roc is an independent Canadian journalist with over 30 years of experience. Originally from Haiti, she is specialized in political analysis and her work has been published in many Canadian newspapers, such as La Presse de Montreal, Le Devoir, Jobboom, Le Soleil or L’Actualité magazine; as well as on websites, such as, l’Observatoire des Ameriques, Gaiapresse.org and Alterpresse.org She has also collaborated numerous times as a political analyst with Radio Canada and CBC News Canada. Her other research topics’ specializations are the environment, climate change, violence against women, women’s empowering and autonomy.
Notes
[1] Loop Haïti: En 30 ans, Haïti n’a jamais eu une crise aussi aiguë, selon Paul Denis, March 15th, 2019.
[2] Haiti Libre, Haiti – FLASH: The procession of the Embassy of Chile attacked with weapon of war, January 28th 2019.
[3] Jacqueline Charles, U.N. is set to end peacekeeping in Haiti. Can the country’s police force do the job?,Miami Herald. April 2, 2019.
[4] Sandra Lemaire, Haitian President to People: ‘I Hear You’, February 15th, 2019.
[5] Haiti Libre – Haïti – Élections : Premier débat Manigat – Martelly, March 9th 2011.
[6] Frantz Duval, Des Haïtiens meurent parce que votre administration ne gouverne pas, président Moïse, Le Nouvelliste, April 1st, 2019.
April 9th, 2019 by CAAT - Campaign Against Arms Trade
Tomorrow, the Court of Appeal in London will hear an appeal brought by Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) to overturn a 2017 High Court judgment which allows the UK Government to continue to export arms to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen. In May 2018 CAAT was given permission to appeal against the original verdict. This followed a hearing in front of two Court of Appeal judges, Lord Justice Irwin and Lord Justice Flaux.
The case will be heard on 09, 10 and 11 April, with the first day and a half expected to be public. The hearings will begin at 10:30. A vigil will take place outside the Court at 09:30 on Tuesday 09 April (Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London WC2A 2LL).
CAAT’s legal team is led by Martin Chamberlain QC, assisted by Conor McCarthy and lawyers from Leigh Day. They will argue that the decision to grant the licences was against UK arms export policy, which clearly states that the government must deny such licences if there is a ‘clear risk’ that the arms ‘might’ be used in ‘a serious violation of International Humanitarian Law’. The case will also include a joint intervention from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Rights Watch UK and one from Oxfam
As set out in the claim, a range of international organisations including a UN Panel of Experts, the European Parliament and many humanitarian NGOs, have condemned the ongoing Saudi air strikes against Yemen as unlawful. The violations of international humanitarian law (IHL) found by the bodies listed include:
A failure to take all precautions in attack as required by IHL
Attacks causing disproportionate harm to civilians and civilian objects.
A failure to adhere to the principle of distinction and/or the targeting of civilians and civilian objects and those not directly participating in hostilities.
The destruction of Cultural Property and/or a failure to adhere to the immunity to be afforded to such property during armed conflict.
A recent report from Mwatana for Human Rights, a Yemeni based human rights group, has linked UK-made bombs to attacks on civilian infrastructure.
Since the bombing of Yemen began in March 2015, the UK has licensed £4.7 billion worth of arms to the Saudi regime, including:
£2.7 billion worth of ML10 licences (Aircraft, helicopters, drones)
£1.9 billion worth of ML4 licences (Grenades, bombs, missiles, countermeasures)
In reality the figures are likely to be a great deal higher, with most bombs and missiles being licensed via the opaque and secretive Open Licence system.
Andrew Smith of Campaign Against Arms Trade said:
UK-made weapons have played a central role in the four year Saudi-led bombardment of Yemen. The results have been catastrophic, with tens of thousands of people killed and vital infrastructure destroyed. We believe that these arms sales are immoral, and are confident that the Court of Appeal will agree that they are unlawful.
Rosa Curling of Leigh Day said:
There is strong global concern over the actions of Saudi-led forces in Yemen. The United Nations, the European Parliament, Select Committees and many NGOs have raised concerns about the clear violations of international humanitarian law taking place against the Yemeni people. Despite this, the UK government continues to grant licences to allow arms to be sold to Saudi Arabia. Our client firmly believes that these licences are being issued unlawfully and we look forward to putting forward their arguments in the Court of Appeal.
The claim which will be considered calls on the Department of International Trade to suspend all extant licences and stop issuing further arms export licences to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen while it holds a full review into the compatibility of the exports with UK and EU legislation.
If you are planning to write about the case, or to attend the Court of Appeal hearings, CAAT can provide background details and briefings on the UK’s political and military relationship with Saudi Arabia.
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The No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act (NOPEC), which was introduced by Democrat Senator Herb Kohl in 2000 and received backing from Donald Trumpin 2011, has never been approved and has little chance of being passed.
This legislative proposal aims to allow OPEC oil companies to be sued under the U.S. antitrust law for their attempts to set international prices by limiting oil supplies, a practice which has been regularly applied as a way of stabilizing the global market.
The Saudi Arabian threat makes visible a growing discontent over the way the U.S. treats OPEC countries. According to Reuters, senior Saudi energy officials have been analyzing the ditching-dollar-oil-trades possibility for several months and would have already mentioned reported it to U.S. officials.
In the unlikely event that Saudi Arabia were to adopt this new policy, it would undermine the dollar status as an international reserve currency, which could weaken in turn the U.S. ability to enforce economic sanctions on nation states.
“The Saudis know they have the dollar as nuclear option” and if Washington and Trump “let the NOPEC pass … it would be the U.S. economy that would fall apart,” the source added in comments to Reuters.
#US imposed sanctions this Friday to vessels and companies engaged in oil shipments between #Cuba and #Venezuela, a lawful activity under commercial contracts. These measures are an act of extraterritoriality, interference and imperial arrogance. 🇨🇺🇻🇪 pic.twitter.com/vAt7j3kftF
— Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez (@DiazCanelB) April 6, 2019
Russia, China and some European countries have been calling for reducing the dollar’s influence in international trade. If this happens, the U.S. would lose a significant part of its ability to control both the world economy and its own growth.
Due to President Trump’s aggressive foreign policy, however, Russia, Venezuela and Iran, all of which are being placed under harsh U.s. economic sanctions have been selling their oil in Euros, Yuans or other traditional or virtual currencies.
Non-dollar oil contracts are concrete challenges to the U.S. hegemony at the oil market. If Saudi Arabia makes a move in that sense, it would also mean a heavy blow to the U.S. geopolitical strategies.
Saudi Arabia, which controls a 10th of global production, made oil deals for US$356 billion in 2018, which made it the world’s biggest oil exporter.
At a price of US$70 per barrel, the global oil output is estimated to be about US$2.5 trillion. At least 60 percent of this amount is now being traded in dollars.
In addition, oil futures and options trading reached a nominal value of US$5 trillion in 2018, as reported by Reuters.
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In a conference call with Wall Street firms in April of 2017, Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg lauded the Federal Aviation Administration’s “streamlined” certification process for enabling the aircraft manufacturer to rush its new 737 Max model into service.
“That’s helping us more efficiently work through certification on some of our new model aircraft such as the Max as it’s going through flight test and entering into service,” Muilenburg told the financial analysts. “So we’re already seeing some benefits there of some of the work that’s being done with the FAA.”
Four months later, the first 737 Max 8 commercial jet was brought into service. Since then it has become the giant aircraft makers’ best-selling plane, accounting for 30 percent of its profits, which grew 24 percent in 2018 to $10.5 billion.
It is this aircraft that crashed in Indonesia in October of 2018 and on March 10 of this year in Ethiopia, killing all passengers and crew on board, a combined total of 346 people. In both cases, investigators have identified an automated system designed to counter the plane’s tendency to stall, called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), as a key factor in the fatal crashes.
Muilenberg’s touting of the gutting of serious government oversight points to the systemic subordination of safety concerns to profit and market share and the transformation of regulatory agencies into rubber stamps for the major corporations.
CNN reported Muilenburg’s remarks on Thursday, the same day that the Ethiopian Transport Ministry released the results of its preliminary investigation into the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 just six minutes after takeoff from the airport in Addis Ababa. As in the Lion Air disaster just five months before, which crashed just 13 minutes after takeoff, the plane repeatedly pitched downward and the pilots were unable to regain control.
The Ethiopian report, based on information from the recovered flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, as well as communications between the pilots and air traffic controllers, contradicted attempts by Boeing and some media commentators to imply that pilot error, not design flaws or faulty equipment and software, was responsible for the disaster. It concluded that just a minute into the flight, one of two angle of attack sensors on the plane began emitting false readings, triggering the MCAS anti-stall mechanism and forcing down the nose of the aircraft.
Particularly damning for Boeing and the FAA was its finding that the pilots followed the emergency procedures provided by Boeing to counter such a development and manually stabilize the aircraft, but were unable to regain control of the plane. This shattered the claims made by both Boeing and the FAA after the Ethiopian crash that the steps provided to pilots to overcome such an emergency and manually fly the plane were simple and easy to carry out, and their suggestions that the Flight 302 pilots had failed to follow the prescribed emergency procedures.
The preliminary report issued by the Transport Ministry’s Accident Investigation Bureau explained that the pilots disengaged MCAS, but the plane continued repeatedly to pitch downward despite their efforts to manually raise the nose. It further concluded that the manual control in the cockpit designed to lift or lower the nose, called the manual trim, failed to work.
The Initial Findings state, in part:
After the autopilot disengaged, the DFDR (digital flight data recorder) recorded an automatic aircraft nose down trim command four times without pilot’s input.
The crew… confirmed that the manual trim operation was not working
It was at this point, some four minutes into the flight, and only then that the pilots reengaged MCAS, presumably in a desperate, last ditch attempt to save the plane. In the event, MCAS forced the nose down at a 40 degree angle, leading the plane to plunge to earth at an impact speed of 575 miles per hour.
The report’s Safety Recommendations unambiguously place the onus for the disaster on Boeing and US regulators and imply that a far more serious and thorough examination is needed than the software patch on which Boeing is working before there is any return to service by the 737 Max.
Since repetitive un-commanded aircraft nose down conditions are noticed in this preliminary investigation, it is recommended that the aircraft flight control system related to flight controllability shall be reviewed by the manufacturer.
Aviation authorities shall verify that the review of the aircraft flight control system related to flight controllability has been adequately addressed by the manufacturer before the release of the aircraft to operations.
This evaluation was underscored by Ethiopian Transport Minister Dagmawit Moges at a press conference in Thursday. She said, “The crew performed all the procedures repeatedly provided by the manufacturer but was not able to control the aircraft.”
Dennis Tajer, a spokesman for the American Airlines pilots union and 737 pilot, was quoted Friday in the New York Times as saying:
“The captain was not able to recover the aircraft with the procedures he was trained on and told by Boeing.” Speaking of the MCAS system, he continued, “It was too aggressive. They left the pilot with no ability to gain control of the aircraft if it went to the full limit.”
Muilenburg, in a statement Thursday following the release of the Ethiopian report, acknowledged for the first time that faulty sensor data and MCAS played a role in the crash of Flight 302. However, the company and the FAA are planning only to add a software patch to MCAS that will prevent the system from being triggered by only one, instead of both sensors, and moderate the aggressiveness of its downward push of the nose.
However, virtually nothing is being said about the highly unusual design that allowed MCAS to be triggered by only one sensor in the first place. The standard design for systems that are critical to the safety of a commercial aircraft has always included some form of redundancy, so that the malfunction of a single sensor does not lead to disaster. Why the 737 Max was designed without such redundancy for the critical MCAS function, and why no change was made after the Indonesian crash last October, has not been explained.
Even as Muilenburg and Boeing reaffirmed the “fundamental safety” of the 737 Max, the company announced Thursday that it had discovered another problem requiring an additional software patch, further delaying the implementation of changes to the MCAS system. While a company spokesman called the new problem “relatively minor,” the Washington Post cited two officials “with knowledge of the investigation” as saying the new problem related to software affecting flight control hardware and was there classified as “critical to flight safety.”
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There was no official leak, but this must have been discussed when Presidents Xi Jinping and Emmanuel Macron met last week in Paris. After all, Macron has been posing as a staunch defender of the environment and the self-attributed MC of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
It’s certainly not being discussed as part of the current election campaigns in India. And, in Washington, the issue does not seem to even register.
The Hindu Kush Himalayan region extends for 3,500km across eight nations. It is the earth’s de facto Third Pole, considering the immense amount of ice it holds. The area is an absolutely critical water source for about 250 million mountain dwellers across Asia, as well as the staggering 1.65 billion people living in the river valleys below.
Now, a detailed report by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), the result of five years of research by over 350 analysts and policy experts from 22 nations and 185 organizations, has come to a stark conclusion.
Even if the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century is met – and everyone attuned to realpolitik knows that it won’t – that would cause the melting of nothing less than one-third of glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region.
Considering that the Paris Agreement goal won’t be realistically met, that translates into current emissions leading to no less than five degrees (5C) in warming and the melting of two-thirds of the Hindu Kush Himalayan glaciers by 2100. Imagine that spectacular succession of glacier-covered peaks across the region being mostly reduced to bare rock in less than a century.
The hyper-complex Hindu Kush Himalayan system crisscrosses Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar. Glaciers in this region feed the Ganges, the Indus, the Yellow River, the Mekong and the Irrawaddy – among 10 major river systems. Directly and indirectly, these glaciers supply 1.65 billion people with clean air, food, energy – and jobs.
The path towards environmental disaster is eerily straightforward. Melting glaciers flow into rivers and lakes. Bursting lakes inevitably translate into more floods. And that means extra glacier runoff into major rivers, more flooding and inevitable destruction of crops.
Late last year in my travels in the Karakoram I saw quite a few receding glaciers. The photo above, of the Hopper glacier in Gilgit-Baltistan in northern Pakistan, gives an idea of what a receding glacier looks like, at very close range.
The ICIMOD report stresses how about one-third of the 250 million mountain people in the Hindu Kush Himalaya live on less than US$1.90 a day. More than 30% don’t have enough to eat, and around half may be “facing some form of malnutrition.”
Compare that to the fact the hydropower potential of the Hindu Kush Himalayan region is immense – enough, according to the report, to power half a billion homes across the eight nations.
In northern Pakistan, I saw how scores of mini-hydropower plants have been set up, as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Still, more than 80% of the rural population across the eight HKH nations relies on firewood and dung. And around 400 million people, especially in India, still don’t have basic access to electricity.
Amazon forests also doomed?
Meanwhile, the alarming prospects for the Hindu Kush Himalayan region are mirrored in the tropics by what lies in store for the Amazon rainforest.
The new administration of Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro looks set to destroy every single political, legal and trade-system impediment to transform a great deal of the Amazon into Soyaland – to the delight of the powerful agribusiness lobby.
The land rights of indigenous Brazilian populations have already been severely limited. Deforestation, even during the presidential election campaign, from August to October 2018, shot up 50%.
By late 2018, no less than 75% of China’s soyabeans were already being imported from Brazil – and that figure is rising. After all, Brazil has got what it takes: command of the necessary infrastructure, and an immense, “unexploited” land area. Beijing faced no problems whatsoever; the entire US shortfall, because of the US-China trade war, was instantly replaced by Brazil.
Predatory casino capitalism is about to coin a new motto: Had enough of Himalayan floods? Go plant soya in the Amazon.
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Featured image: The Hopper glacier in Gilgit-Baltistan in northern Pakistan. Photo: Pepe Escobar / Asia Times
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO, celebrated its 70th Anniversary on April 4, 2019. Some of us don’t see anything worth celebrating about an incredibly expensive, dangerous and harmful alliance which should have been closed down exactly 30 years ago.
Why 30 years ago? Because in 1989, the First Cold War in the Western sphere – Europe – between the Warsaw Pact and NATO came to an end thanks to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact.
When that happened and the Berlin Wall came down, NATO too should have been dissolved.
Its raison d’etre until then had always and unambiguously been the very existence of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact (which, by the way, was established 6 years after NATO, in May 1955) and its socialist/communist ideology.
But NATO instead continued to expand – today 29 countries of which 10 former Warsaw Pact members – against all promises about the opposite given to the last Soviet President, Mikhail Gorbachev. And it has caused much harm even in peacetime.
Let’s look at some dimensions that will remain untold at this Anniversary.
How is NATO unlawful?
If – like this author – you believe that it is wrong and even unlawful for an organisation to ignore and violate its own treaty/statutes/laws, NATO is an unlawful alliance which systematically violates both its preamble and treaty provisions.
I’m pretty sure that most people – including those in politics and media – have never even glanced through the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s treaty text. Since most people have also never read the United Nations Charter either, about 99% of humanity has no idea of how close the two legal documents are to each other at least when it comes to stated purposes.
Neither do they have a clue about NATO’s full commitment to adhere to the UN Charter provisions.And those provisions aim at abolishing war and make peace by peaceful means and only use – UN-organised – military means as a last resort (Chapter 7) when everything civilian has been tried and found to be in vain.
Are you surprised? Then read the NATO Treaty Preamble (my emphasis in bold):
“The Parties to this Treaty reaffirm their faith in the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and their desire to live inpeace with all peoples and all governments.
They are determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilisation of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and therule of law.”
Article 1:
“The Parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, to settle any international dispute in which they may be involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered, and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.”
Article 5:
“The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations…”
Self-explanatory and meaningful. But completely ignored.
Only self-defence, defensive weapons and postures
Imagine if NATO adhered to such principles in its day-to-day policies. Today it does the exact opposite and wraps it all in boringly predictable rhetoric and the three mantras to explain and legitimize whatever it does: Security, stability and peace – none of them having emerged yet in the real world, neither 1949-1989 nor since.
A new NATO that would thus go back to its original Treaty provisions and build its new policies on them, would be very acceptable to the world, seen as no threat to anybody.
It would be entirely defensive and only take action if one of its members were first attacked. That’s a basically defensive posture and in complete unity with moral principles and international law.
And it would adhere to the Kantian categorical imperative about world peace: Do only yourself what can be elevated to a general principle adhered to be all others in the system without endangering that system.
Defensive postures – self-defence – can be done by everyone without upsetting the system. Offensive “defence” is nonsense and simply can’t, it will lead to eternal armament and militarism.
That’s why the UN Charter’s Article 51 talk about self-defence.
Psychological problems?
Yes, for sure – and I say that without being a psychologist. It’s not really important to diagnose precisely. The problem is that what NATO does today is devoid of fact-based analyses of the world around it. It is based, instead, on internal dynamics which is the sum total of its member states’ MIMACs – Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complexes.
Thus, NATO has only one answer to every problem it sees: More money and more weapons.
To legitimize its operations, it has to constantly develop/maintain enemy images, see one enemy here and see another enemy there and interpret the whole world as though it is “out to get us”.
With this sophisticated but deliberately deceptive “fear-ology” – i.e. making citizens pay without too much protest by considerable information and propaganda (fake and omission) operations that guarantee that people fear these constructed enemies – it continues ad absurdum while the world around it changes rapidly.
At every given moment and occasion: Make the enemy look gigantic and ourselves at least a little inferior and therefore in need of new weapons, doctrines, exercises, expansions and what not.
Military expenditures as a main indicator
And what is the reality outside this – absurd – reality show?
Well, there are many indicators of military strength but if you want just one which allows for comparisons in fixed prices and over time, the best single measurement is military expenditures.
Based on this single indicator, NATO’s military strength is overwhelming if compared with the military expenditures of the one-country enemy, Russia.
Here are the figures:
US military expenditures as of today is between US 700 and 1100 billion depending on what is included. The lower is Pentagon-only, the higher includes home security, pensions, costs for veterans etc. Russia’s military expenditures were US 69 billion in 2016, 55 in 2017 and likely further reduced in 2018.
In crude terms and based on reliable research including SIPRI’s statistics, facts are that the US military expenditures alone is 13-20 times higher. Rule of thumb is that the US stands for about 70% of NATO’s total expenditures.
If you sit in Moscow you need to add the expenditures of the 28 other NATO member, some of which – like Germany, France, Italy and Britain – are among the highest in the world. And either own or hosts nuclear weapons close to your country.
And as if that wasn’t enough, NATO’s military expenditures is increasing. The US demands up to 2% of the member states’ GDP. NATO recently decided to further increase its military expenditures by US 100 billion. That is, believe it or not, almost twice the total Russian military expenditures.
To learn more and find out how much you are not told when you listen to NATO’s representatives and advocates arguing permanently for higher and higher contributions from all members. The relevant figures are here and here and here.
NATO’s Mausoleum 2018
What type of psychological illness?
So what to make of an alliance that for 30 years has been unable to define its post-Cold War mission, has violated international law and its own treaty time and again?
What to make of NATO’s militaristic elites who are vastly and increasingly superior their self-defined enemies in terms of expenditures and technological quality, but feel they must shout and scream constantly about all the existentially threatening enemies they see (Russia, Iraq, China, North Korea, Iran, Libya, Venezuela, and who is next?) and must attempt to force even allies to line up behind policies that clearly violate international law such as the sanctions on Iran?
What to make of a US-managed NATO elite who constantly threatens others with war, place sanctions on them, seek to isolate them, speak bad about and demonise them, and accuse them of doing what they themselves do to a much larger extent?
What should we call it? Paranoid? Psychotic? Autistic? Insane? Should we say that NATO is losing the grip, thrives on invented images, live in a fantasy world filled with illusions and self-deception?
Or, should we just say that it suffers from dangerous ‘groupthink’ which excludes the possibility that NATO’s decision-makers are ever seeing or hearing counter-views and counter-facts and therefore increasingly believe that they are – exceptionally – chosen by God to lead the world and that they are always right and can’t be wrong?
I’m not sure what defines the illness better or that a precise diagnosis is necessary. But I am sure that NATO is unhealthy and dangerous.
Any group that keeps twisting reality to suit only its own inner structural needs, continues to interpret reality so as to maximize its own utility in it and for decades avoid reality checks and lessons learned is, by definition, a dangerous enterprise.
Over time, such an alliance – and its declining leader – are likely to become a victim of its own propaganda, mistaking it for the reality and the truth. Military secrets are well-protected from outside scrutiny. Even better protected, it seems, are the ways of thinking, the values and the manifest absence of self-criticism: “It’s ours to dominate and we have so much firepower that we don’t have to think!”
The whole structure and power ideology, the mission and the discrepancy between political conduct and its own treaty make NATO its own worst enemy. It will be the last to see that NATO now is the acronym of the North Atlantic Treaty Obsolescence.
“We have met the enemy and he is us” says Pogo. It applies beautifully to militarism that can never produce peace
But wait…
The problem, however, is that the ageing alliance sits on huge arsenals of nuclear weapons (not mentioned in its treaty). It builds on a nuclear doctrine that permits it to plan and, if necessary, conduct a nuclear war. It finds it right to be the first to use nuclear weapons and even against a conventional attack. And it is dominated by the US Empire and the US nuclear doctrine.
The problem, furthermore, is that when they gather, its leaders could feel emboldened by a megalomaniac illusion that they are omnipotent and should be rulers of the world.
When we observe what they decide on a day-by-day basis, I’d say that in reality, they are anti-intellectuals who lacks the basics of ethics. Worse, to possess so much destructive power, you must be utterly careful and humble. No sane person can possible perceive NATO and its dominant countries as humble.
NATOs constructive contribution to humanity’s future is infinitely small compared with its destructive impact, its confrontational attitude, its expansion and its members’ warfare, particularly in the Middle East.
We could actually live in a peaceful world if it wasn’t for NATO and its member states. But no other group of countries has conducted more warfare for so long, killed so many and destroyed so much as they have.
Nobody has had so many resources – including information and media influence – at their disposal to threaten millions of citizens into fearful submission. (We need a taxpayer revolt against military expenditures…)
Think of all the good that could have been done in the world for just a tiny fraction of what NATO and its member states have squandered over the years on their military and on warfare, death and destruction.
Where is the stability, security and peace that NATO has promised us over the last 70 years? If you have promised to achieve something for 70 years that has still not materialized, it doesn’t require a professor to judge that it is time to say ‘Goodbye’!
NATO’s 70th Anniversary self-celebration is tragic and should never have happened. Its new Alliance headquarters should be seen as a mausoleum over militarist folly and vanity.
Its members’ squandering of scarce resources in times of the West’s multi-crisis with not a single successful war to show while hatred against the West is on the rise everywhere, NATO is a major reason that the West is falling. In the process, it has of course to blame everybody else.
When NATO is gone, what could this be used for?
Only someone who has been fooled, brainwashed or paid well can believe that this alliance is for the common good of its own members and of humanity.
“Vaccines are often administered before a diagnosis of combined immune deficiency is made. …live vaccines may produce chronic infections in patients with combined immune deficiency.” – Infectious Diseases Society of America (2013)
“It is now known that vaccine viruses can be serially transmitted through human hosts, and may revert genetically toward wild-type transmissibility and virulence.” — U.S. and European health officials (2008)
Vaccine Strain Live Viruses Can Infect Others
Just like people with viral infections can shed and transmit wild-type virus, 86 people given live virus vaccines can shed and transmit vaccine strain live attenuated virus. 87 Like wild-type virus, vaccine strain live virus can be shed in body fluids, such as saliva, 88 89 nasal and throat secretions, 90 breastmilk, 91 92 urine and blood, 93 94 stool, 95 and skin lesions. 96 Shedding after vaccination with live virus vaccines may continue for days, weeks or months, depending upon the vaccine and the health or other individual host factors of the vaccinated person.
Vaccinia Virus Shedding for Two to Three Weeks
After primary smallpox vaccination, vaccinia virus is shed for two to three weeks and can be transmitted to others through body secretions and especially through skin contact with the open vaccinia virus lesions at the site of the vaccination until the lesion scabs over and separates from the skin. The CDC states:
“After a person is vaccinated with vaccinia, the vaccination site contains infectious virus from the time of papule formation until the scab separates from the skin (a period of approximately 2–3 weeks). During this period, a risk exists for inadvertent inoculation to another body site or another person. The most frequently reported sites of vaccinia infections caused by unintentional transfer are the face, nose, mouth, lips, genitalia, anus, and eye.”
In 1961, the Sabin live attenuated oral polio vaccine (OPV) was licensed and soon U.S. public health officials recommended that all infants and children be given OPV instead of the inactivated, injectable Salk vaccine, which had been licensed in 1955 and widely used. OPV contains three vaccine strain polioviruses given orally by liquid drops in the mouth and public health officials adopted the Sabin live attenuated oral polio vaccine (OPV) as the preferred polio vaccine because OPV not only vaccinated the recipient but also “passively” vaccinated those coming in close contact with a recently vaccinated child shedding vaccine strain live polioviruses in the stool, saliva and nasal secretions.”
Millions Infected with Polio Vaccine Strain Viruses
In 2008, U.S. and European health officials analyzed eight outbreaks of paralytic polio between 2000 and 2005 in Hispaniola, Indonesia, Egypt, Philippines, Madagascar (2), China and Cambodia that were caused by circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV). The officials admitted “it is now known that vaccine viruses can be serially transmitted through human hosts, and may revert genetically toward wild-type transmissibility and virulence.” — U.S. and European health officials
Acute Flaccid Paralysis Cases Increase Dramatically in India
Following two decades of repeated child vaccination campaigns using OPV (oral polio vaccine) in India, the World Health Organization in early 2014 pronounced India “free” of wild-type polio.
The controversial declaration comes at a time when India has been experiencing a huge increase in reported cases of non-polio acute flaccid paralysis (NPAFP).
In 2004, 12,000 cases of non-polio paralysis were reported but that number had increased by 2012 to 53,563 cases for a national rate of 12 per 100,000 children.
Two pediatricians in India compiled data from the national polio surveillance project and discovered a link between the increase in OPV use among children during stepped-up polio eradication campaigns and the increasing cases of NPAFP among children.
In a 2012 article published in a medical ethics journal, the doctors stated, “Clinically indistinguishable from polio paralysis but twice as deadly, the incidence of NPAFP was directly proportional to doses of oral polio received.” Because polio is among the more than 200 related viruses in the Picornaviridae family of enteroviruses, the doctors suggested that public health officials investigate “ the influence of strain shifts of enteropathogens induced by the [polio] vaccine given practically every month.”
Majority of Babies Shed Vaccine Strain Live Virus
In one study, MedImmune reported that after FluMist vaccination 89 percent of babies between six and 23 months of age shed vaccine strain live influenza virus and 20 percent of adults between 18 and 49 years old shed vaccine virus.
Vaccine-strain virus shedding reached a peak between two and three days after FluMist was inhaled and shedding was generally finished by day eleven.
MedImmune also measured transmission of live vaccine-strain live influenza virus between several hundred young children in a daycare setting: “A prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was performed in a daycare setting in children younger than 3 years of age to assess the transmission of vaccine viruses from a vaccinated individual to a non-vaccinated individual…
At least one vaccine strain was isolated from 80% of FluMist recipients; strains were recovered from 1-21 days post vaccination…One placebo subject had mild symptomatic Type B virus infection confirmed as a transmitted vaccine virus by a FluMist recipient in the same playgroup.”
A 2011 published study of children aged six to 59 months in a daycare setting found that most of the children given trivalent live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) shed more than one vaccine virus within 11 days of vaccination.
Warning for the Immuno-compromised
However, CDC warns that
“Persons who care for severely immunosuppressed persons who require a protective environment should not receive LAIV, or should avoid contact with such persons for 7 days after receipt, given the theoretical risk for transmission of the live attenuated vaccine virus.”
Majority of Vaccinated Infants Shed Vaccine Strain Rotavirus for A Week or Longer
In the 2013 RotaTeq product information insert, Merck reported that vaccine-strain rotavirus shedding was documented in the stool of 32 of 360 (8.9 percent) patients following one dose of RotaTeq and appeared as early as one day and as late as 15 days after vaccination.
The drug company acknowledged that “Transmission of vaccine virus strains from vaccinees to non-vaccinated contacts has been observed post-marketing.” 238 The CDC reported that
“Fecal shedding of rotavirus antigen was evaluated in all or a subset of infants from seven studies in various countries. After dose 1, rotavirus antigen shedding was detected by ELISA in 50% to 80% (depending on the study) of infants at approximately day 7 and 0 to 24% at approximately day 30. After dose 2, rotavirus antigen shedding was detected in 4% to 18% of infants at approximately day 7, and 0 to 1.2% at approximately day 30. The potential for transmission of vaccine virus to others was not assessed.”
Measles, Mumps, Rubella Viruses and Live Attenuated Measles, Mumps, Rubella Viruses
Measles virus is a paramyxovirus, genus Morbillivirus with a core of single-stranded RNA. It is rapidly inactivated by heat and light and has a short survival time (less than two hours) in the air or on objects. Measles is highly contagious and causes a systemic infection that begins in the nasopharynx.
The virus is shed through respiratory secretions (nasal discharge, coughing sneezing) for four days before symptoms appear until three to four days after rash onset, when it is most easily transmitted.
The incubation period from exposure to symptoms is 10-12 days and symptoms start with fever, cough, runny nose, conjunctivitis, white sports in the mouth and progresses to a rash that starts on the face and spreads to the rest of the body and lasts for about a week.
Complications include very high fever, diarrhea, otitis media, seizures, pneumonia, encephalitis (0.1% reported) and very rarely subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) and death.
Merck’s MMR Vaccine
The live attenuated combination measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine used in the U.S. is manufactured by Merck and contains the following warnings about vaccine strain measles virus infection and shedding:
“Measles inclusion body encephalitis (MIBE), pneumonitis and death as a direct consequence of disseminated measles vaccine virus infection have been reported in immunocompromised individuals inadvertently vaccinated with measles-containing vaccine;” although Merck also states that “Children and young adults who are known to be infected with human immunodeficiency viruses and are not immunosuppressed may be vaccinated” and that “The ACIP has stated that “patients with leukemia in remission who have not received chemotherapy for at least 3 months may receive live virus vaccines.
Short-term, low- to moderate-dose systemic corticosteroid therapy, topical steroid therapy (e.g. nasal, skin), long-term alternate-day 6 treatment with low to moderate doses of short-acting systemic steroid, and intra-articular, bursal, or tendon injection of corticosteroids are not immunosuppressive in their usual doses and do not contraindicate the administration of [measles, mumps, or rubella vaccine].”
Excretion of small amounts of the live attenuated rubella virus from the nose or throat has occurred in the majority of susceptible individuals 7 to 28 days after vaccination. There is no confirmed evidence to indicate that such virus is transmitted to susceptible persons who are in contact with the vaccinated individuals. Consequently, transmission through close personal contact, while accepted as a theoretical possibility, is not regarded as a significant risk. However, transmission of the rubella vaccine virus to infants via breast milk has been documented.”
“There are no reports of transmission of live attenuated measles or mumps viruses from vaccinees to susceptible contacts.”
“It is not known whether measles or mumps vaccine virus is secreted in human milk. Recent studies have shown that lactating postpartum women immunized with live attenuated rubella vaccine may secrete the virus in breast milk and transmit it to breast-fed infants. In the infants with serological evidence of rubella infection, none exhibited severe disease; however, one exhibited mild clinical illness typical of acquired rubella.”
“There have been reports of subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) in children who did not have a history of infection with wild-type measles but did receive measles vaccine. Some of these cases may have resulted from unrecognized measles in the first year of life or possibly from the measles vaccination.”
Vaccine Strain Measles Reported
There have been published reports of vaccine strain measles with clinical symptoms that are indistinguishable from wild-type measles.
There are also a few reports of measles vaccine strain virus shedding and lab confirmed infection in children following MMR vaccination.
In 2002, there was a published report by researchers in France of “a child presenting with fever 8 days after vaccination with a measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. Measles virus was isolated in a throat swab taken 4 days after fever onset. This virus was then further genetically characterized as a vaccine-type virus.”
In 2010, Eurosurveillance published a report about excretion of vaccine strain measles virus in urine and pharyngeal secretions of a Croatian child with vaccine-associated rash illness.
A healthy 14-month old child was given MMR vaccine and eight days later developed macular rash and fever. Lab testing of throat and urine samples between two and four weeks after vaccination tested positive for vaccine strain measles virus. Authors of the report pointed out that when children experience a fever and rash after MMR vaccination, only molecular lab testing can determine whether the symptoms are due to vaccine strain measles virus infection. They stated: “According to WHO guidelines for measles and rubella elimination, routine discrimination between aetiologies of febrile rash disease is done by virus detection.
However, in a patient recently MMR-vaccinated, only molecular techniques can differentiate between wild type measles or rubella infection or vaccine-associated disease.
This case report demonstrates that excretion of Schwartz measles virus occurs in vaccinees.” In 2012, a report was published describing a healthy 15-month old child in Canada, who developed irritability, fever, cough, conjunctivitis and rash within seven days of an MMR shot.
Source: author
Blood, urine and throat swab tests were positive for vaccine strain measles virus infection 12 days after vaccination. Addressing the potential for measles vaccine strain virus transmission to others, the authors stated,
“While the attenuated virus can be detected in clinical specimens following immunization, it is understood that administration of the MMR vaccine to immunocompetent individuals does not carry the risk of secondary transmission to susceptible hosts.”
Not Known How Long Vaccine Strain Measles Virus Infection and Shedding Lasts
In 2013, Eurosurveillance published a report of vaccine strain measles occurring weeks after MMR vaccination in Canada. Authors stated,
“We describe a case of measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine-associated measles illness that was positive by both PCR and IgM, five weeks after administration of the MMR vaccine.”
The case involved a two-year-old child, who developed runny nose, fever, cough, macular rash and conjunctivitis after vaccination and tested positive for vaccine strain measles virus infection in throat swab and blood tests.
Canadian health officials authoring the report raised the question of whether there are unidentified cases of vaccine strain measles infections and the need to know more about how long measles vaccine strain shedding lasts.
They concluded that the case they reported ”likely represents the existence of additional, but unidentified, exceptions to the typical timeframe for measles vaccine virus shedding and illness.”
They added that “further investigation is needed on the upper limit of measles vaccine virus shedding based on increased sensitivity of the RT-PCR-based detection technologies and immunological factors associated with vaccine-associated measles illness and virus shedding.”
Vaccine manufacturers and the medical community caution susceptible individuals, including pregnant women, newborns, and those with a compromised immune system to avoid close contact with anyone who has been recently vaccinated with either live varicella zoster (chickenpox) or herpes zoster (shingles) vaccines.
Conclusion
Live vaccine virus shedding is a possible source of transmission of vaccine-strain viral infectionbut how frequently that occurs is unknown
There is no active surveillance of live virus vaccine shedding and most vaccine strain virus infections likely remain unidentified, untested and unreported.
The risks associated with exposure to someone vaccinated with one of the live attenuated vaccines can be greater or lesser, depending on the vaccine and the general health of an unvaccinated (or vaccinated) person.
Some passively acquired immunity to vaccine-strain viruses may occur with widespread use of live virus vaccines in populations but it is unknown how long that immunity lasts.
It is also not known how many vaccine strain infections, which occur in vaccinated persons or close contacts, lead to chronic health problems or even death.
The development of experimental genetically engineered live virus vaccines and virus vectored vaccines, especially those that are being “fast tracked,” have the potential to cause unknown negative effects on human health and the environment. There is a vacuum of knowledge about the potential of live attenuated and genetically engineered vaccine viruses to mutate and recombine with other viruses and create new viruses that will cause disease or affect the integrity of the human genome, human microbiome and healthy functioning of the immune and neurological systems.
The impact of vaccine-strain virus shedding infection and transmission on individual and public health is a question that deserves to be asked and more thoroughly examined by the scientific community.
The fact that children and adults given live virus vaccines have the potential to pose a health risk to both unvaccinated and vaccinated close contacts should be part of the public conversation about vaccination.
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Since his retirement from his holistic mental health practice, Dr Kohls has been writing the weekly Duty to Warn column for the Duluth Reader, Minnesota’s premier alternative newsweekly magazine. His columns, which have been re-published all around the world for the last decade, deal with a variety of justice issues, including the dangers of copper/nickel sulfide mining in water-rich northeast Minnesota and the realities of pro-corporate “Friendly” Fascism in America, militarism, racism, malnutrition, Big Pharma’s over-drugging, Big Vaccine’s over-vaccinating, Big Medicine’s over-screening and over-treating agendas, as well as other movements that threaten human health, the environment, democracy, civility and the sustainability of the planet and the populace. Many of his columns have been archived at a number of websites, including the following four:
Comments Off on Why Children that Have Been Recently Vaccinated with Live Virus Vaccines Should be the Ones that Are Isolated (Rather than the Healthy Unvaccinated Ones)
On 6 April 1994, the Hutu presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, their top military staff and six French crew members were assassinated when surface-to-air missiles shot down the Rwandan presidential jet on approach to Kigali airport. It is now well established that the assassination plot that decapitated the Hutu-led governments was executed by Rwanda’s now president and strongman-for-life, then Major General Paul Kagame, commander of the terrorist Tutsi-Hima army that invaded Rwanda from Uganda.
Now, 25 years later, while Kagame and the Rwanda genocide industry commemorate the 25th anniversary of the so-called 100 days of genocide, U.S. taxpayers continue to pay millions of dollars for yet another bogus asylum show trial targeting another genocide survivor and fugitive from the terrorist Kagame regime. Meanwhile, reporting on the trial in federal court in Boston, Massachusetts, the Boston newspapers have not challenged the vested-interests of their quoted sources or the machinations of the Department of Homeland Security and its Immigration & Customs Enforcement.
The wreckage of the presidential Mystere Falcon airplane, shot down on approach to Kigali airport on 6 April 1994, at rest after air-to-surface missiles caused it to crash into the presidential compound. Photo by Cranimer, New Vision newspaper, Kampala, Uganda.
Jean Leonard Teganya, 46, is a wanted man who has spent much of his adult life trying to start over and recover from the atrocities he survived in Rwanda.
Teganya was a medical student who volunteered at the hospital in Butare, Rwanda in the spring of 1994, treating the sick and wounded when no doctors or nurses were available (due to the large numbers of casualties).
Mr. Teganya was also a victim of the violence in 1994, rescued by fellow students after being attacked by an armed militia in Butare. He fled Butare around 20 June 1994, after killings intensified in the region in parallel with the arrival of the Rwandan Patriotic Army.
In June of 1994 Mr. Teganya fled Rwanda during the mass exodus of some 2 million Rwandans to neighboring countries. Mr. Teganya ended up in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) at Nyakavogo, a (mostly) Hutu refugee camp that in September of 1996 was attacked by Paul Kagame and the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) in violation of international humanitarian law.
A trial in a federal court in Boston commenced against Jean Leonard Teganya on 11 March 2019. Photographs of the scars of his wounds were shown to the Boston jury by the attorneys from the public defenders office that are representing him.
Witnesses for the prosecution, flown in from Rwanda for the trial in Boston, swore under oath that Mr. Teganya wore the hats, shirts and scarves of the ‘extremist Hutu’ parties. Prosecution witnesses described in great detail the insignia that was on Mr. Teganya’s hat: a machete and tool. He helped commit genocide, the U.S. prosecutors and immigration agents in Boston said, then tried to claim asylum.
“‘The defendant had a problem,’ Assistant US Attorney Scott L. Garland told a jury in US District Court in Boston during opening arguments in the trial against Teganya,’ reported the Boston Globe. ‘His problem was that his application for asylum would be denied if the US found out what he had done in Rwanda, because persecutors cannot claim asylum.'”
More than two weeks of hearings later, witnesses for the defense described Mr. Teganya as an amicable, quiet man devoted to helping other people. They described an intelligent, sensitive and caring fellow student who did not participate in party politics. More than 15 witness stated under oath that Jean Leonard Teganya never wore the signature clothing of the more radical Hutu political parties.
Where and how were the Rwandan prosecution witnesses to Mr. Teganya’s alleged crimes identified and who identified them? These are some of the pivotal questions that an ICE agent on the witness stand at Mr. Teganya’s trial was unable or unwilling to answer with conviction.
Did the ICE agent commit perjury?
Hutu, Death Agents, Have Becomes Its Victims
As the cataclysm unfolded in Rwanda in 1994, the western media reported from behind the RPA lines. The RPA narrative became the mainstream establishment narrative (that remains the predominant one): Tutsis as victims, Hutus as killers.
When the United Nations High Commission for Refugees special rapporteur Robert Gersony reported on the RPA’s widespread killing of scores of thousands of Hutu inside Rwanda, the report was squashed: all Hutus were killers, all Tutsis were victims. Gersony went silent and stayed silent.
As a survivor of the mass atrocities and genocide that occurred in his home country of Rwanda during the civil war, Jean Leonard Teganya was one of millions of innocent non-combatant Rwandans uprooted and driven from his homeland.
Forced to flee at the age of 21, from one country to another, he was for all practical purposes a fugitive from injustice (at the hands of the RPA), forced to survive or perish under the constant nagging memory of the horrors that he witnessed and the threat of arrest and persecution by the current regime in Rwanda.
His real crimes? He is a Hutu. He is an intellectual. He is a survivor. He had a U.S. government issued work permit and (for over two years) he was working at a prestigious university.
Mr. Teganya persevered in finding a new home, building a new life, raising a family.
And the worst crime of all? Jean Leonard Teganya was on the path of gaining asylum in the United States of America.
When president Paul Kagame and his Directorate of Military Intelligence in Rwanda learned that Mr. Teganya was legally employed as a laboratory technician at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge Massachusetts, and that Mr. Teganya was about to gain legal U.S. residency status through the formal immigration process, they set about manufacturing a case against him.
The RPA slaughtered hundreds of thousands of unarmed non-combatant Rwandans–mostly Hutu women, children and elders–and also uncountable Congolese citizens during the Rwandan and Ugandan invasion of Zaire in 1996 and 1997.
Western political meddling abroad faced another serious setback – this time in the Southeast Asian country of Thailand.
With a population of 70 million people, the 2nd largest economy in Southeast Asia, and transforming into a key regional partner for Beijing and its One Belt, One Road initiative, the US and its partners sought to propel opposition parties into power during recent elections held in March.
However, the military-linked Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP) won the popular vote, delivering US-backed opposition parties their first serious defeat at the polls since rising to power in 2001.
The US-backed Thai opposition is led by fugitive billionaire, ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. He was ousted from power in 2006 after a series of corruption scandals, human rights abuses, and attempts to illegally consolidate power.
Shinawatra has since attempted to return to power through a series of nepotist proxies including his sister Yingluck Shinawatra who served as prime minister from 2011-2014 until likewise being ousted by judicial and military intervention.
In addition to Thaksin Shinawatra’s Pheu Thai political party, he also maintains a violent street front known as the “red shirts,” and is bolstered by US-funded nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), “student activist” groups, and extensive support throughout the Western corporate media.
In the most recent election, Shinawatra divided his political forces into multiple parties in a hedging strategy meant to preserve at least one party against disbanding for serving illegally as the fugitive’s proxies.
In addition to Pheu Thai, Shinawatra also fielded Thai Raksa Chart, Pheu Tham, Pheu Chart, and Future Forward.
US Finds “New” Proxy in “Future Forward”
While Pheu Thai and other parties are openly run by Shinawatra as proxies, the latter – Future Forward – has attempted to claim it is not a nominee party.
However, nothing could be further from the truth.
The party – headed by billionaire Thanathorn Jungrungreangkit (normally referred to as Thanathorn) – not only promotes an identical agenda of removing Thailand’s military from politics – thus paving Shinawatra’s return to power – it literally established its party headquarters next door to Shinawatra’s Pheu Thai Party. It includes various pro-Shinawatra politicians in its party, and was promoted by Shinawatra’s Thai Raska Chart (TRC) party as a nominee after TRC’s disbanding ahead of elections.
Thanathorn himself is co-heir of the Jungrungreangkit fortune accumulated by his late father, and since taken over by his mother. The Jungrungreangkit family has long allied itself with Shinawatra.
Media interests the family controls have served as stalwart supporters of Shinawatra and his political agenda for years. This support extends itself to promoting the same Western interests and agendas that in turn are sponsoring and benefiting from Shinawatra’s bid to return to power.
It should come as no surprise then to see concerted support across the Western corporate media for Thanathorn and his Future Forward Party – as an alternative to supporting Shinawatra whose credibility and popularity are flagging despite years of extensive Western lobbying.
Thanathorn’s Future Forward Party came in 3rd behind the military-linked PPRP and Shinawatra’s Pheu Thai Party. Despite this – it has been inexplicably endowed by the Western media with a disproportionate and imaginary mandate. Thanathorn has found himself in legal trouble in the wake of the election, facing at least 3 charges including sedition. When summoned by Thai police, he was accompanied by foreign embassy staff including representatives from the United States, UK, and Canada.
While this is being portrayed by the Western media as “international support” for a “pro-democracy” candidate – even a cursory look at US-UK-Canadian foreign policy reveals self-serving interests – not “democracy” – serve as the common denominator underpinning such “support.”
Readers should recall the US-UK-Canada’s role in multiple illegal wars stretching from Libya in North Africa, to Iraq and Syria in the Middle East, to Afghanistan in Central Asia – and their collective, ongoing support for genuine dictatorships like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the Neo-Nazi-aligned regime presiding over Kiev, Ukraine.
The West’s support for Thanathorn and Future Forward – then – is nothing more than direct meddling in Thailand’s internal political affairs, merely hidden behind democracy, rather than in its defense.
The West – through proxies like Shinawatra and Thanathorn – seek to weaken or entirely remove Thailand’s independent institutions including its courts, military, and constitutional monarchy – thus paving the way for unopposed economic “liberalization” and the co-opting of Thailand’s foreign policy to rollback ties with Beijing, transforming the Southeast Asian state into a bulwark against China at its own expense.
Washington’s Losing Bet
At the height of Thaksin Shinawatra’s power, he was the 4th richest man in Thailand. His political and financial power was such it required nearly 2 decades of intensive efforts – including 2 coups – to sufficiently diminish. This only recently culminated in Shinawatra’s Pheu Thai political party losing the popular vote in recent elections.
Between 2010 and now – Shinawatra has gone from 4th richest to 19th. His credibility and influence has waned to the extent his own proxies – including Thanathorn – must deny any ties to him.
Thanathorn – the West’s “new” proxy – is nonetheless a stand-in for Shinawatra. However, he comes from a family ranked 28th in terms of wealth – and his own personal political and financial background is already tainted with corruption and scandal.
The West finds itself resorting to proxies many times weaker financially, and politically more compromised than Shinawatra in 2001 – going up against Thai institutions that are more organized and prepared to defend Thai sovereignty than ever.
The Western media’s attempts to “will” the Thai political crisis into a shape that serves its interests didn’t work for Thaksin Shinawatra at the height of his power, did not work ahead of recent elections, and will not work for Shinawatra’s stand-in who is many times weaker post-election than Shinawatra in 2001.
The West’s setbacks in Thailand are just one part of a much wider pattern of US-European foreign policy failures stretching around the globe from clumsy regime change efforts in Venezuela to a humiliating defeat in Syria and a stagnant, two decade-long war in Afghanistan. Regionally, setbacks in Thailand are part of a wider trend seeing US primacy in Asia being displaced by both China and the rise of other regional powers.
The notion that characters like Thanathorn and parties like Future Forward represent “democracy,” while their agenda is dictated from overseas by fugitive Thaksin Shinawatra and his Western sponsors, and defended in Thailand by representatives from Western embassies in Bangkok – is an unsustainable paradox. Democracy by definition is a process of self-determination – not one in which a nation’s fate is dictated from abroad. It is only a matter of time before the reality of this paradox catches up with the hypocritical rhetoric used to perpetuate it.
Those betting on Shinawatra, his nominee Thanathorn, his party Future Forward, or even American primacy in Asia must ask themselves whether or not they believe by this time next year – or even next decade – this unsustainable agenda will finally gain traction, or find itself more deeply mired by multiplying failures.
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Tony Cartalucci is Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
US-led NATO aggression raped and destroyed Libya, transforming Africa’s most developed nation into a cauldron of endless violence, chaos and human misery – what happens virtually wherever US forces show up.
In 2011, Libya was terror-bombed and attacked on the ground to destroy its sovereignty, plunder its oil wealth, privatize the world’s largest aquifer system, dollarize the country, exploit its people, and establish pro-Western puppet rule.
Muammar Gaddafi was toppled and sodomized to death for supporting pan-Africanism, a United States of Africa free from imperial dominance, and Libyans sharing in the country’s oil wealth, a notion anathema to the US and its imperial partners.
Libya today is a dystopian failed state. Dozens of rival factions vie for control, including US-supported ISIS, al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
Two main ones are the UN-backed Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) and the Tobruck-based Libyan National Army (LNA), led by CIA asset Khalifa Haftar.
The US and Britain nominally support the GNA. France, Israel, the Saudis, UAE, and Egypt back Haftar. Much of the country is lawless, territory bordering Algeria, Niger, Chad and Sudan a haven for terrorists and other armed groups.
In January, Haftar’s forces launched an offensive to purge what he called the “south(’s) terrorists and criminal gangs.”
Days earlier, his forces began advancing on Tripoli in the West, aiming to defeat the Fayez al-Sarraj-led GNA, calling on area resident to lay down their arms and surrender. He seized control of nearby areas and Tripoli’s international airport.
Declaring a state of emergency, GNA forces mobilized to combat his troops. Hafter issued a statement saying he expects the conflict to be resolved by around mid-April – as soon as a new national unity government is formed he seeks control over.
On Sunday, his forces bombed a Tripoli suburb where LNA troops are defending the city. According to GNA Colonel Mohamed Gnounou, a counteroffensive dubbed “Volcano of Anger” was launched to combat his advance on the city.
On Saturday, the GNA launched air attacks on his forces around 30 miles south of Tripoli. The UN mission in Libya (UNSMIL) called for a two-hour humanitarian truce to evacuate wounded combatants and civilians wanting to leave the city.
Dozens have been killed, many others injured since Haftar’s offensive was launched. On Sunday, a Pentagon statement said “(d)ue to increased unrest in Libya (it’s responsible for, along with France and Britain), a contingent of US forces” are being “temporarily relocated from the country…”
US troops in Libya have nothing to do with “support(ing) diplomatic missions, counterterrorism activities, enhancing partnerships and improving security across the region” – everything to do with advancing Washington’s imperium
GNA prime minister Sarraj slammed Haftar, saying
“(w)e extended our hands towards peace but after the aggression that has taken place on the part of forces belonging to (him) and his declaration of war against our cities and our capital…he will find nothing but strength and firmness.”
He warned of “war without winners” if things aren’t resolved diplomatically. Talks between both leaders were held in late February, failing to resolve differences.
According to Libya Analysis’ Jason Pack,
“Haftar is posturing…parading his troops…making a few air raids, trying to control some strategic points but not trying to conquer” Tripoli he wants the world community to believe, adding:
The “UN and world community ha(ve) doubled down on (an upcoming national) conference…(un)swayed by violence and spoilers” like Haftar.
International players differ on Libya, some Western and regional states supporting the GNA, others for the LNA.
After meeting with Haftar on Thursday, UN Secretary General Guterres warned of a “bloody confrontation.”
On Friday, G7 foreign ministers called on parties involved in the conflict to “halt all military activity and movements toward Tripoli, which are hindering prospects for the UN-led political process, putting civilians in danger, and prolonging the suffering of the Libyan people” they don’t give a hoot about.
If otherwise Britain, France, and other NATO nations wouldn’t have partnered with the Obama regime’s 2011 aggression in Libya.
It’s the root cause behind endless violence and chaos in the country for over eight years, including the ongoing GNA/LNA conflict, showing no signs of resolution so far.
A Final Comment
On Sunday, an unnamed “top Libyan military source” told Sputnik News that LNA forces failed to heed UNSMIL’s call for a temporary ceasefire so wounded combatants and civilians could leave Tripoli.
His warplanes bombed the city, more likely to come if the world community doesn’t intervene to halt fighting.
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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.”
The US plans to use this possibly impending designation as the basis upon which to “justify” forthcoming Hybrid War measures against the Islamic Republic aimed at dismantling its “deep state” network in the Mideast, including through possible strikes against the IRGC and its Hezbollah allies in Syria.
From Farce To Tragedy
Alt-Media is making a mockery out of the US’ reported plans to designate the IRGC as “terrorists”, giddily quoting the Iranians who spun this rhetoric around and announced that they’ll reciprocate by doing the same to the US military if that happens. The “chattering class” is having a field day using this opportunity to highlight the many abuses that America has committed across the Mideast and the world in general over the decades, seemingly not caring one bit for the possible consequences that could transpire if the US actually goes through with the unprecedented move of designating part of a foreign military as “terrorists”. That’s a mistake because the US’ plans need to be taken much more seriously than they are since they’ll likely herald a new escalation of the Hybrid War on Iran through the possible commencement of direct strikes against the IRGC and its Hezbollah allies in Syria.
“Sitting Ducks”
Like I wrote back in April 2017 after the US’ first conventional strike against Syria, “Trump’s Cruise Missile Message To Iran” was that his country won’t hesitate to hit it and its non-state allies there next, though provided that America was prepared for the inevitable backlash that this would undoubtedly unleash. In hindsight, the US preferred to “play it safe” and not “up the stakes” to the point of potentially triggering a larger Mideast war, but nowadays it appears as though Bolton has convinced Trump that now is the perfect time for striking Iranian positions in Syria due to the Islamic Republic’s refusal to agree to the dignified but “phased withdrawal” that Russia has been pressing them to commence for most of the past year as part of its broader “balancing” strategy. In addition, sanctions have finally begun to bite and a sudden increase in the physical and financial costs of Iran’s Syrian deployment might be all that’s needed to get it to begin the “phased withdrawal” process.
The US insists on maintaining a troop presence in Syria despite Trump’s promised “withdrawal” last year precisely because of its desire to “contain” Iran, so it’s not inconceivable that it will seek to intensify the pressure that it puts on its rival to the point of striking the IRGC and its Hezbollah ally if Washington “officially” regards them both as being “terrorists”. Iran has no air defense assets in the country and Russia is extremely unlikely to allow its Syrian partners to have full and independent control of the much-touted S-300 in order to avoid the scenario of Damascus escalating the situation by shooting at American warplanes and possibly dealing Moscow enormous embarrassment if Washington manages to destroy its surface-to-air missile systems in response. Simply put, Iranian forces are practically “sitting ducks” if the US decides to strike them.
A Likely Ultimatum In Latakia
It should be taken for granted that Iran has many asymmetrical means through which it could likely respond, whether in Syria, Lebanon, the Gulf, or even in “Israel”, but one also shouldn’t over-exaggerate its capabilities either since Tehran has yet to unleash the devastating consequences that it regularly promises every time “Israel” hits its forces in Syria. One can only speculate whether this is a prudent move to patiently wait until the “right moment” or if everything was nothing more than one big bluff to begin with, but whatever the case, the US evidently thinks that it can manage whatever response Iran might have to the potential bombing of the IRGC and Hezbollah by American forces in the event that the former is designated as “terrorists” and Trump wants a dramatic headline-grabbing news event to follow this development.
In fact, the US might even issue an ultimatum to Iran to withdraw from Syria or be militarily driven out after reports recently emerged that the country is about to clinch a deal for operating the Mediterranean port of Latakia just a few hundred kilometers from “Israel“, something that’s sure to set off alarm bells in both Washington and Tel Aviv because of speculation that this economic agreement might have military implications. The reason why an ultimatum might be issued in this case instead of just “bombing first and making demands later” (as is the usual US modus operandi) is because of how close Russia’s Hmeimim airbase is to the port, meaning that any possible strike against Iran’s assets there would be extremely complicated to pull off without coordinating with Russia otherwise another September-like midair tragedy might transpire.
Russia: An Ally To Whom?
“Israel” certainly doesn’t want to repeat the events of that fateful day, nor would the US be willing to risk the outbreak of World War III if a few missiles carelessly veered off course and either hit the Russian base or its assets, so it should be assumed that those two are already in secret talks with Moscow (likely facilitated by Netanyahu’s “shuttle diplomacy” between their two capitals) in order to agree upon a “solution” to this scenario. Syria and Iran should have anticipated that something of the sort was in the works because of Russia’s lengthy track record “passively facilitating” “Israeli” strikes against the IRGC and Hezbollah, so both of them probably predicted that their port deal might force Moscow to stop “balancing” and finally pick a side once and for all.
The “surprise”, however, is that Russia is completely disinclined to pick Iran over “Israel” because it derives enormous strategic benefit in Syria by removing its “friendly competitor” and strengthening its increasingly monopolistic control over the country in the economic, political, and military domains. Furthermore, Iran’s relative weakening is advantageous for Russia because it makes the Islamic Republic more desperate to agree to whatever “sanctions relief” deals Moscow might offer it irrespective of the possibly unfavorable conditions. “Israel”, meanwhile, is poised to become Russia’s top military-strategic partner in the Mideast, and Moscow believes that the comprehensive benefits of this relationship far surpass whatever Iran could provide for it. As such, it can be expected that Russia will silently work to avert the scenario of direct US strikes on the IRGC and especially the Latakia port by more actively encouraging Iran’s dignified but “phased withdrawal” from Syria.
Concluding Thoughts
The US’ very probable designation of the IRGC as a “terrorist” group in the near future would open up the Hybrid War floodgates by providing the “justification” that the Pentagon needs to commence strikes against its rival’s special forces or at least issue the threat thereof as part of a series of forthcoming escalations designed to trigger Iran’s dignified but “phased withdrawal” from Syria. The IRGC has reportedly suffered many casualties already because of Russia’s “passive facilitation” of “Israeli” strikes against it over the years but has yet to make either of them pay, so the likelihood of Iran doing anything real dramatic in response to the US possibly striking its special forces too is low.
In any case, Russia — as the undisputed hegemonic power in Syria — would prefer for the US and “Israel’s” issues with Iran’s military presence in the Arab Republic to be settled as peacefully as possible without posing a danger to its Aerospace Forces, fearful as it is of a repeat of last September’s tragedy in the event that either of those two bomb the Latakia port facilities near its Hmeimim airbase that Iran is on the brink of possessing. Therefore, the US’ reportedly impending designation of the IRGC as “terrorists” will probably cause Russia to cooperate more closely with it behind the scenes (possibly via “Israeli” mediation) to ensure Iran’s dignified but “phased withdrawal” from Syria.
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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.
Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
The British-American Project for the Successor Generation, to give it its full title, was officially founded in 1985 – “to perpetuate the close relationship between the United States and Britain,” and in the words of BAP’s official history, through “transatlantic friendships and professional contacts”. Today, It has a membership of over “1000 leaders and opinion formers”, drawn equally from both countries. It was conceived in 1982 by Nick Butler, a Labour Party insider of the old right and a research fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (known as Chatham House). It was funded by the far-right oil baron J. Howard Pew and launched by (neoliberal) US president Ronald Reagan and right-wing media baron Rupert Murdoch.
There is a very good reason why this organisation has a reputation for being described as the ‘Trojan Horse of America’s foreign policy in Britain’. Although it rarely features in the mainstream media and journalists are not invited to conferences or meetings, the organisation recruits Britons of liberal or left-of-centre inclinations of political talent (and connections) when they are young. As the Guardian article of 2004 said – “They are indoctrinated with propaganda about the virtues of American capitalism and of America’s role in the world and then watches them approvingly as they steer British politics in an ever more pro-Washington direction.”
The project’s greatest success was New Labour. One only has to think of a so-called liberal left-leaning political party cooking up lies such as the ‘dodgy dossier’ and using it to contribute to the killing a million innocent civilians – as it was in Iraq – such is the scale of their influence.
In the years immediately before the founding of BAP, the early 1980s days of Tony Benn and CND, the Labour party was sceptical about America. In the late 1990s under Blair and Co, it was swallowing almost anything the US did, said and asked of it. But that has now changed with the arrival of Jeremy Corbyn. Yesterday’s so-called revelations in The Times (a Murdoch asset) about anti-semitism in the Labour party, completely debunked by shadow attorney general Baroness Chakrabarti, is yet more evidence of the ever more desperate measures being deployed to save Theresa May’s government imploding neoliberal government.
2016 – the rise of antisemitism
In June 2016, Ruth Smeeth resigned her position in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet as Parliamentary Private Secretary for the shadow Northern Ireland and Scotland teams. This was part of more than 60 coordinated resignations from Corbyn’s shadow cabinet organised by plotters with the aim of precipitating a no-confidence vote and forcing his resignation. The plot failed.
Smeeth then staged a stunt at a press conference where Corbyn was launching a report into the manufactured claims from Labour’s right wing that the party under his leadership was anti-Semitic. Smeeth stormed out of the meeting, with her office later claiming she had been reduced to tears. She made an official complaint to the party after claiming, “a Jeremy Corbyn supporter” had “used traditional anti-Semitic slurs to attack me for being part of a ‘media conspiracy.’
Smeeth claimed that under Corbyn, Labour was not a “safe space for British Jews”. She called on Corbyn to stand down as the leader of the party – “immediately and make way for someone with the backbone to confront racism and anti-Semitism in our party and in the country.”
In the meantime, the Chicago based news outlet – Electronic Infatada reported in December 2016 in an article entitled – UK Labour MP Ruth Smeeth was funded by Israel lobby:
“official records show that Ruth Smeeth was funded by two ultra-wealthy figures from the same pro-Israel organization she once worked for. But these relationships have been overlooked by the British press, which have extensively reported on her allegations of anti-Semitic abuse at the hands of Jeremy Corbyn supporters.”
Access to a system where disinformation like Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-Semitism story can be promoted, in this case, comes via the British American Project. This could partly be because Ruth Smeeth is married to Michael Smeeth, a member of the executive body of BAP.
BAP includes a number of prominent UK and US journalists and broadcasters among its membership. A UK journalist, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, told the Guardian of one BAP conference: “The amount of drink, the way you were treated, the dinners with everyone who was anyone used to come a lot. It was money that I’d never seen at any conference before. We used to joke, ‘this is obviously funded by the CIA.”
And as it turns out, joking may have been some sort of defence mechanism because it then transpired that Ruth Smeeth was, according to a Wikileaks cable – an intelligence asset of the United States.
“What is generally not known is that Ruth Smeeth was identified by WikiLeaks, via a US embassy diplomatic cable, as a “strictly protect” – US informant.”
The cable, dated April 24, 2009, was one of more than 251,287 made public by WikiLeaks and is headed “UK POLITICAL SNAPSHOT”. It notes, “Labour Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Burton [the seat she contested and lost, prior to winning another in 2015] Ruth Smeeth (strictly protect) told us April 20 that [former Labour Prime Minister Gordon] Brown had intended to announce the elections on May 12, and hold them after a very short (matter of weeks) campaign season.”
The cable ends: “(Note: This information has not been reported in the press.)”
Wikileaks – US cable published as “Classified – UK political Snapshot”. Ruth Smeeth is identified as a US Informant to “be protected.” CLICK HERE FOR FILE
The cable testifies to the intimate connections that Labour’s plotters have to the US state and its intelligence agencies. And this is more than likely just the tip of the iceberg as is usual in cases such as these. For instance, global corporations are involved in BAP.
Ruth Smeeth, is today, still right at the heart of the anti-semitism story. A quick Google search provides numerous mainstream media articles and never-ending hit pieces that roll on day after day.
And so to summarise, a Labour MP, with proven deep connections to right-wing Israeli organisations, married to an executive of a right-wing think tank that was funded by Murdoch and other neo-con organisations has been trying to bring down Jeremy Corbyn who has sympathy with the plight of the working class and that of the Palestinian people in particular.
Mehdi Hasan -Columnist at The Intercept and host of the Deconstructed podcast has stated publicly that:
“I’m being told by people I trust that the Sunday Times may have got parts of this Labour/antisemitism story seriously wrong, which wouldn’t surprise me. Watch this space.”
For balance, even Howard S Stern, the author of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism (which the Labour party has endorsed) has spoken against constant unfounded slurs against Jeremy Corbyn.
There is no doubt that in a party with over 500,000 members, the biggest in Europe, there are going to be those with views anathema to certain groups. And there is no doubt that antisemitism exists in the Labour party. But the same applies to all mainstream political parties and emerging voices on the right and left. For the Tories, it is a clear hatred of black people as Windrush demonstrates. For Tommy Robinson, it’s Muslims. For the left, it is conservatism, for the right it’s liberalism – the list goes on.
BAP, Blair and American Intelligence
Evidence of American infiltration of the British government emerged when it was leaked that following Tony Blair’s first election victory in 1997, the BAP released a private circular headlined, “Big Swing To BAP.” The circular stated, “No less than four British-American Project fellows and one advisory board member have been appointed to ministerial posts in the new Labour government.”
Joel Stein, a well known American journalist wrote of BAP in a Los Angeles Times article after attending one of the ‘conferences’ as a potential member – “the British-American Project is a CIA front, a tool for converting Brits into neocons.” He also wrote that BAP was funded by huge corporations such as JP Morgan, UPS and BP, and Paul Wolfowitz (the architect of the New American Century that Bush/Blair used to blow up the Middle-East) is on the advisory board.
To confirm corporate influence – John Pilger wrote in a December 2007 article published in the New Statesman, “Since 1985, BAP ‘alumni’ and ‘fellows’ have been brought together courtesy of Coca-Cola, Monsanto, Saatchi & Saatchi and Philip Morris, among other multinationals.”
Pilger went on to say that – “BAP conferences are held alternately in the US and Britain. This year it was in Newcastle, with the theme “Faith and Justice”. On the US board is Diana Negroponte, the wife of John Negroponte, Bush’s former national security chief notorious for his associations with death-squad politics in central America. He follows another leading neocon, Paul Wolfowitz, architect of the invasion of Iraq and discredited head of the World Bank.”
The British American Project, with its clear links to the American government, current links to global corporations, to finance, the nuclear industry, healthcare, government, strategic intelligence and politics uses its influence and persuasion, ethical or not, to shape the political environment of Britain. Is it a stretch to say BAP is distorting Britain’s democracy?
By the nature of the British American Project – it is obvious that Jeremy Corbyn and his vision of Britain’s is to be resisted at all costs.
And so it is that this story, the story of Corbyn’s antisemitism that sits with the same falsehoods we are all immersed in these days in Britain. They are the slogans of division. Taking back control was a lie. Leaving the EU would be the easiest thing in the world was a lie. The reasons for attacking Iraq and Libya were all founded on lies. Climate denial is a lie. Trickle-down economics is a lie. We are being immersed in a disgraceful environment of political propaganda, disinformation and downright lies cooked up by those with vested interests and promoted by the billionaire offshore owners of the press and fellow travellers such as Ruth Smeeth and contriving organisations such as BAP.
Little wonder that this very day, according to an alarming new study from the Hansard Society that more people in Britain would now favour a populist ‘strongman’ – an authoritarian to rule the country because faith in our democracy has now reached a new low never witnessed in Britain’s long history!
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The Mainstream Media’s deliberate misportrayal of Libyan National Army General Haftar as “Russian-backed” is meant to turn him into a bogeyman for the purpose of discrediting his military gains after he turned on his American patron.
Haftar “Goes Rogue”
Much of the Mainstream Media’s reporting about the latest events in Libya usually always includes at least one line about how Libyan National Army (LNA) General Haftar is allegedly “Russian-backed”, which is meant to turn him into a bogeyman in the minds of the West’s intended infowar audience. Haftar used to be patronized by the US (where he spent years of his life after fleeing Libya following a failed plot to overthrow Gaddafi) until “going rogue” a few years back and behaving much more independently in pursuit of what he genuinely believes to be his homeland’s true national interests. Instead of “playing by the rules” and letting the so-called “international community” impose political “compromises” on his country by “recognizing” the so-called “Government of National Accord” (GNA) of militant Islamists and other “socially unsavory” characters as the “legitimate government” of Libya, he vowed to liberate his country from those forces irrespective of whether the globalist authority of the UNSC supports his initiative or not.
International Interests
To be sure, he’s not doing this entirely on his own since he’s thought to have the support of Egypt, its Emirati financial backer, and Africa’s extra-regional “superpower” of France, but he’s nevertheless openly flouting the “official” will of the “international community” with his ongoing liberation campaign and in a sense almost taunting Trump to intervene against him, a quagmire-like trap that the President is prudently avoiding by withdrawing the rest of the US’ forces in the country following the latest outbreak of hostilities. It’s not often that a man can defy the US on the international stage and live to tell about it, but that’s precisely what Haftar has done, though it should be noted that the US is still “tolerating” him because it keenly understands that he’s genuinely popular and commands the most effective fighting force in the country. Furthermore, the US’ “Lead From Behind” stratagem implies that the unipolar hegemon can just leverage its close relations with his three suspected patrons in order to ensure a semblance of “stability” and that he doesn’t get “too far” “out of hand”.
What’s meant by this is that the US doesn’t want to see Russia taking advantage of the situation by bringing order to chaos like it’s done in Syria following fake news infowar reports that began to emerge last year about the Great Power “balancer” supposedly eyeing strategic opportunities to “export” the “Democratic Security” model that it’s presently perfecting in the Central African Republic to the war-torn North Africa state next. It should be pointed out that Russia is a rising global diplomatic power but that there are serious limitations to its use of conventional force abroad, hence the low-cost and mostly commitment-free policy of allegedly employing private military contractors (PMCs) in pursuit of its foreign policy ends in conjunction with sustained diplomatic engagement with all of a given conflict’s parties. It can be ruled out, however, that Russian PMCs are active in Libya both because no proof of them operating there has emerged and also because Moscow is unlikely to deploy them in support of an internationally unrecognized military force such as Haftar’s.
The Russian “Straw Man”
Even so, the Mainstream Media has an interest in propagating this false narrative because of just how compelling it is in the contemporary context of the New Cold War, delegitimizing Haftar’s military gains in the process as revenge for his “defection” from the US by deliberately misportraying him as a “Russian puppet” who’s violating “international law” at Moscow’s “sinister” behest. In addition, smearing the LNA General in such a manner is meant to downplay his genuine popularity in the country and the objective effectiveness of his military forces, as well as precondition the intended infowar audience into thinking that any setbacks that he might experience are (an ephemeral) “victory” by the Western-backed GNA against the “Russia’s man in Libya”. The West’s exaggerated reporting about Russia’s standard diplomatic “balancing” initiatives towards this conflict are also supposed to create a sense of urgency back home about the need for people to rally behind their governments in advance of any forthcoming multilateral campaign supporting the GNA against Haftar.
For all of its recent diplomatic and “balancing” successes in Syria, the Central African Republic, and Afghanistan, Russia has still largely failed to get the rest of the world at large to acknowledge its peacemaking gains and appreciate them due to its historic lack of broad soft power appeal (excepting the impressive ideological sway that it once held during the Old Cold War) and inability to properly articulate its policies to the global masses (due to a combination of ineffective messaging and “political sensitivities” pertaining to “transparency”). That’s why Russia always seems to be in a defensive position responding to Western infowar attacks against it instead of proactively shaping the wider discourse on whatever the issue of relevance may be. Russia’s rhetoric is effusively praised by those who are receptive to it, but its words (mostly condemnation of American foreign policy) are rarely backed up by actions that actually change anything on the ground, thus making them ring hollow.
Concluding Thoughts
For these reasons, the Mainstream Media will probably continue to deliberately misportray Haftar as a “Russian-backed” “renegade warlord” in order to score cheap soft power points at Moscow’s expense, capitalizing on the country’s inability to properly defend its “balancing” strategy. This rhetoric might initially seem harmless in the grand scheme of things, but it could actually be intended to galvanize Western support ahead of a multilateral “Lead From Behind” intervention aimed at “saving Tripoli” from a “pro-Russian wannabe dictator”, an entirely invented narrative but one which might nevertheless be effective in conveying a sense of urgency in support of this possibly forthcoming US-inspired mission. In addition, it’s much more politically convenient for the West at large to blame Haftar’s gains on Russia than to acknowledge the sharp differences that the US and others have with France, the UAE, and Egypt over Libya, thereby perpetuating the illusion of “international unity” over the country’s post-2011 future in spite of the facts.
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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.
Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
This week, the Foreign Ministers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries met in Washington, DC. NATO was greeted with bi-partisan support from Congress and by protesters who held actions and events from Saturday, March 30 through their meeting at the US Department of State on April 4.
US foreign policy is not the fabled “good cop” bringing peace to the world, but rather a policy of domination using military, economic and political power to accomplish aims for US transnational corporations and US empire. From the Iraq, Libyan, Syrian, Afghanistan and Yemeni wars (in particular) people understand the US uses its power in destructive ways that create chaos, suffering, refugees and death throughout the globe. But, few people understand the role of NATO.
At the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, April 4, 2019. Margaret Flowers.
The Real NATO
The mythical NATO is an organization that keeps the peace in the world, but, in reality, it has always been an aggressive military force to protect western capitalism and provide cover for illegal interventions. When the US is unable to get the United Nations Security Council to approve military action, NATO provides a multi-national approach to wars as occurred in Serbia and Afghanistan among others. When Congress will not grant authority for US military action, as in Syria, NATO participation becomes the legal cover for massive military attacks by the United States.
While NATO provides a veneer of legality, in reality, it does not have any international legal authority to go to war any more than the United States has. Even NATO military attacks require either (1) UN authorization through the Security Council, or (2) a direct military attack and a self-defense response. The NATO wars are illegal under international law, just as unilateral wars by the United States are illegal.
Yves Engler writes that NATO was created not to stem Soviet aggression, which was the public justification, but to prevent the growing political left from succeeding in taking power after World War II. It was also an alliance to maintain unity among the historic colonial powers in the midst of former colonies gaining their independence from western domination.
At the time NATO was founded in 1949, there was little possibility of aggression by the Soviet Union after a war that killed 25 million Soviets. The Soviet Union and Russia were never a threat to the United States as historian Peter Kuznick explains. We discussed the history of NATO and its current role in global militarism with Engler on our podcast, Clearing the FOG, which airs on April 8, 2019.
This dynamic continues today. Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Warsaw Pact, NATO has become “imperialism’s global strike force,” according to Danny Haiphong. Any country that dares to assert its sovereignty and use its resources to meet its people’s needs becomes a NATO target.
Yet, there are liberal politicians who continue to fall for the lies about NATO. Earlier this year, the House of Representatives passed the NATO Support Act. All 208 Democrats who voted (26 didn’t), voted for it, including many progressives such as Pramila Jayapal, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar.
Black Alliance for Peace, (left to right) Paul Pumphrey, Ajamu Baraka, YahNé Ndgo and Asantewaa Mawusi Nkrumah-Ture at No 2 NATO in Washington, D.C.
NATO In Washington, DC
NATO foreign ministers came to Washington, DC this week for a series of events culminating with a meeting in commemoration of its 70th-anniversary on April 4, which was also the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King in 1968 and the anniversary of his “Beyond Vietnam” speech in 1967 where he connected the triple evils of racism, militarism and the extreme consumerism of capitalism. The primary focus of the week was how NATO can combat Russia.
The protests began on March 30 when hundreds of people met across from the White House to call for an end to NATO as well as opposition to the economic war and threats of military attack against Venezuela. People described the vicious NATO attack on Yugoslavia that included an aerial bombardment from March 24 to June 10, 1999, involving 1,000 aircraft flying 38,000 combat missions, despite the UN Security Council voting against the attack as did the US House of Representatives. The bombing included attacks on civilian infrastructure as well as military targets, destroyed the country, killed thousands and created a mass exodus of 850,000 refugees.
Protesters also described the expansion of NATO from 12 to 29 countries with a particular focus on nations bordering Russia. This occurred despite US promises to the Soviet Union that NATO would not seek to expand after they disintegrated. The collapse of the Warsaw Pact in 1989–1991 removed the de facto main adversary of NATO, which should have led to its dissolution but instead has led to its reorganization and expansion. Now, NATO seeks to expand to Georgia, Macedonia and Ukraine as well as spreading into Latin America with Colombia joining as a partner and Brazil considering participation (not coincidentally, these two nations border Venezuela).
On Wednesday, when seven NATO foreign ministers, a US senator and a member of Congress, among others spoke at the Center for European Policy Analysis’ “NATO at 70” conference, they were confronted by multiple protesters who were able to get into the highly-restricted conference. Dozens more demonstrated outside. Protesters described NATO as a war-making alliance that should be abolished.
During the week, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg had a friendly meeting with President Donald Trump where they talked about expanding NATO and having NATO members spend more money on militarism. When Stoltenberg spoke before a joint session of Congress, he was given repeated bi-partisan standing ovations. In his speech, he called for more funding and applauded Trump’s efforts to increase funding for NATO.
The next day when NATO foreign ministers met at the State Department, hundreds of protesters were outside showing opposition to NATO. A coalition of peace groups came together for this protest and events throughout the week calling for disbanding NATO. Breaking from the bi-partisan support for NATO, Howie Hawkins, who announced an exploratory committee for Green Party presidential nomination, joined the protests calling for an end to NATO and dramatic cuts to the military budget.
Our task of educating the public about the real purpose of NATO was highlighted by a conversation we had with a Park Police officer at the King Memorial. We were protesting without a permit and he was telling us we had to leave. We explained that King protested without permits and we were echoing King’s message of nonviolence and an end to war. The officer responded, “you are stretching King’s message by protesting NATO.”
His comment crystallized our task. People do not realize what NATO really is. Our first task is to educate the public about the real role of NATO as a military alliance that has waged war around the world. This includes Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Libya, and Syria among others. Once the public understands the true role of NATO, we must make our demands clear — end NATO.
The world needs to move beyond militarism to mature and legal forms of dispute resolution by creating courts that prosecute war crimes and the crimes against humanity of all countries, including members of the UN Security Council, and putting in place agreements that end the threat of nuclear war, the most destructive form of war.
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Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese co-direct Popular Resistance where this article was originally published.
The prize is Tripoli, for anyone that can take it and secure it by this summer. That will, it’s felt by many, stabilise Libya or, conversely, at worse, make Her descend into a greater quagmire resulting in a new phase of very intense fighting and all out civil war.
Not much hope, at this moment, to feel optimism for a peaceful conclusion in Libya between the warring parties.
One of the reasons for such pessimism is the failed visit to Tripoli of the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres (and his U.N. Envoy for Libya Ghassan Salame) culminating a news conference there on Thursday.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres with his U.N. Envoy for Libya, Ghassan Salame (Source: The Duran)
Having arrived there for talks with the U.N. selected GNA Government of Fayez Serraj ….ahead of hopes for National Reconciliation Conference planned for the middle of this month, they were caught off guard.
Because simultaneously Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar was ordering his Libyan National Army (LNA) troops to “advance” on Tripoli.
Guterres’s parting words as he left Tripoli were fairly despondent,
“I leave Libya with a heavy heart and deeply concerned. I still hope it is possible to avoid a bloody confrontation in and around Tripoli.”
Though ‘Prime Minister’ Serraj and Field Marshall Haftar met in Abu Dhabi last month to discuss a potential power sharing agreement regardless fighting broke out on Wednesday evening between Haftar’s forces and ‘militiamen’ loyal to Serraj’s government.
On Thursday morning, Haftar’s LNA units said they had taken control of the town of Gharyan, about 50 miles south of the capital Tripoli.
Immediately Mr Guterres called for de-escalation and reiterated his view that there is “no military solution” to the country’s eight-year, what tantamounts to a slow burning, civil war.
“There can be no National Conference in these circumstances,” he told reporters in Tripoli.
While in his radio address on Thursday evening, Haftar ordered a “victorious march” on Tripoli to “shake the lands under the feet of the unjust bunch” adding “Tripoli, we hear your call,” concluding significantly with a ‘olive branch type ground rule’, by saying “Whoever raises the white flag will be safe.”
So to recap; the two main power rivals are Fayez Serraj’s Government called the GNA internationally-recognised and chosen, repeat chosen, not elected, by the U.N., who are based in Tripoli, and a rival government, located in the East of Libya, in Benghazi (and Tobruk) however this one was elected by Libyan people; an administration called the HoR, who’s Army Chief of Staff is Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar.
Haftar’s Army has also recently completed a campaign that leaves them controlling large areas of the the south of the Country.
These territorial gains in the main, were achieved by ‘cutting deals’ with local militia groups, rather than fighting them. A very Libyan solution!
The ‘$64,000’ question is has or will Haftar secure a permanent reliable deal with enough of the important militias in both Zintan and Misrata? Militias who are currently in the pay of those that run Tripoli today.
If hypothetically there were a lasting agreement with Zintan and/or Misrata and Haftar, then but only then, would Haftar have a chance of taking Tripoli, by June at a guess, and he could declare an interim government.
What many people fail to realise is that Haftar at 75 years old has no appetite to keep the reigns of power. Haftar would prefer to be a figurehead such as a ceremonial President. His primary objective is to eradicate former terrorists like Abdul Hakim Belhadj and all senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood currently wielding the real power in Tripoli.
Not forgetting that Haftar personally enjoys the backing from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who see him as a potential leader. Russia and France also is favourably disposed to Haftar too. Eventually, one would presume, that the US will warm to him as well given the past association Haftar had with America.
In conclusion therefore is the prediction that IF Haftar persuades enough of the Western militias to either stand down and/or join him, that the last battle for Libya can start in Tripoli ….with hopefully Haftar prevailing and finally bringing peace to Libya.
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The USA Patriot Act was written months before 9/11, kept on the shelf, ready to be enacted into law following the mother of all false flags.
Numerous other police state laws, executive orders, presidential and homeland security directives, congressional authorization for endless wars, the global war OF terror, not on it, and other tyrannical measures followed – notably establishment of the Department of Homeland Security.
In November 2002, the Homeland Security Act created the DHS, joining the FBI, CIA and NSA in enforcing repressive policies.
These agencies have sweeping unconstitutional powers of repression on the phony pretext of preparing for, preventing, and responding to domestic emergencies.
Pre-9/11, that’s largely what other federal agencies, as well as existing state and local ones are all about, including police – able to fulfill their mandates at a time America’s only enemies are invented ones. No real ones exist.
The DHS and related federal agencies are all about centralizing unprecedented military and law enforcement powers in the executive branch.
Operating extrajudicially by breaching international and constitutional law protections, the DHS is repressive and insidious, encroaching on state and local authorities by “mandat(ing) federal supervision, funding, and coordination of ‘local first responders.’ ”
Weeks before creation of the DHS, the US Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) was established in October 2002, an unprecedented move to militarize the mainland plus Alaska, Canada, Mexico, Gulf of Mexico and Straits of Florida.
For the first in the nation’s history, presidents may deploy Pentagon troops on US streets on the phony pretexts of countering illicit drugs, an insurrection, and protecting national security.
Sweeping DHS powers include establishment of the so-called Directorate of Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection – a Big Brother intelligence agency to spy on ordinary Americans, along with the FBI, CIA and NSA.
A wide-ranging intrusive public and private information database was created on virtually all Americans – including financial transactions and records, medical ones, emails, phone calls, purchases, books and publications read, organization memberships, as well as other personal habits or patterns.
The Patriot Act and HSA ended the distinction between foreign and domestic intelligence gathering. The firewall separating them no longer exists.
These and related measures transformed the US into a police state, most Americans none the wiser – unaware of how their fundamental freedoms eroded, heading toward eliminating them altogether. That’s what totalitarian rule is all about.
The vast majority of Republicans and undemocratic Dems support what’s going on. Speech, media and academic freedoms are increasingly compromised, along with assembly and association rights.
Ordinary people have virtually no First Amendment right “to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” Fifth and 14th Amendments due process rights were compromised.
Arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment for alleged involvement in terrorism or association with an “undesirable group” leaves everyone vulnerable to state-sponsored abuse.
Fourth Amendment protections from unreasonable searches and seizures were lost, along with privacy rights.
Big Brother watches everyone. Trump escalated wars of aggression he inherited, along with waging war by other means on Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and other sovereign independent states.
Washington wants them all eliminated. War on unwanted aliens of the wrong race and ethnicity rages, as well as Muslims from the wrong countries, working Americans, and the nation’s most vulnerable, its people color and poor.
Black Americans and unwanted aliens suffer most. Sacking of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was likely for not being repressive enough for Trump regime hardliners.
US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan is replacing her as acting DHS secretary.
Last Friday, Nielsen traveled with Trump to the US/Mexico border to participate in discussions with border officers and local law enforcement officials.
According to AP News,
“Trump aides were eyeing a staff shake-up at Homeland Security and had already withdrawn the nomination for another key immigration post,” adding:
“Tensions between the White House and Nielsen have persisted almost from the moment she became secretary…(She) was viewed as resistant to some of the harshest immigration measures supported by the president and his aides.”
It’s likely why she was sacked, AP saying White House immigration hardliners want “to clean house…bringing in…people who share their (extremist) views…”
Tough but not tough enough, Nielsen implemented Trump regime policies harming unwanted aliens, including separation of young children from parents, traumatizing many.
The idea aims to discourage unwanted alien mothers from coming to America with children – treating them harshly to dissuade others from seeking refuge here.
Detention facilities for undocumented immigrants are deplorable, hundreds of thousands of detainees inhumanely treated, conditions as bad or worse than imprisoned criminals face.
Policies ahead under McAleenan are likely to be tougher than Nielsen implemented – unwanted aliens to suffer more than already.
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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.”
The Syrian American Council and a collection of pro-war lobbyists have led an intimidation campaign aimed at bullying a major Washington-based bookstore, Politics and Prose, into canceling award-winning journalist and author Max Blumenthal’s launch event for his new book The Management of Savagery.
And it appears to have worked. Politics and Prose announced that it would “postpone” the event, citing “concerns” over the event’s “format, substance, … [and] security” in a tweet. In a testament to the ferocity of the harassment campaign against the small chain, the company has pinned the statement to the top of its Twitter page so that anyone visiting it sees immediately that they caved.
Politics and Prose is the go-to space for D.C. book events. If you are on a book tour and coming to Washington, chances are that Politics and Prose will be hosting your event.
On Monday, I called the Politics and Prose location that was to host the event for Blumenthal. I was directed to the events department, as nobody in the store itself had authority on such matters. After being put on hold for a few minutes, I was told by an employee,
“I spoke to all of my co… my manager and also our events person and we have no plans for canceling that event. It is going to go on as scheduled.”
What was left out was that the store had already begun making onerous demands of Blumenthal, including requiring him to have an “interlocutor” on stage, specifically, one who would appease the Syrian American Council. Blumenthal secured Andrew Cockburn, one of the premiere journalists covering U.S. and Middle East politics and a longtime correspondent for Harper’s Magazine. But Blumenthal told MintPress that Cockburn was denied; Politics and Prose management insisted that Cockburn was “too sympathetic” to his own views.
Since @PoliticsProse caved to a harassment campaign spearheaded by a pro-regime change lobbying group & a gaggle of anarcho-neocons in NYC I've decided to release audio of the events department telling me on Monday that the event will "go on as planned" & isn't being cancelled pic.twitter.com/MVeRipFiul
As the pressure campaign increased, so too did the company’s suspicions of Blumenthal. One would think that they would be familiar with Blumenthal already, as he has appeared for three previous book events there.
Critics say that Blumenthal paints a rescue organization as a terrorist group and has mocked victims of war crimes. What they leave out is that Blumenthal’s reporting exposed that rescue organization — the infamous White Helmets — as a Western government-funded public-relations project that has, in fact, been operating alongside extremist groups like Jabhat al-Nusra and Al Qaeda. And he has not mocked victims of war crimes, but instead made light of the lack of evidence of those crimes beyond manipulative social-media videos that ranged from the slickly produced to outright sloppy.
Disappointed to see @PoliticsProse cave here. I personally think @MaxBlumenthal's brave, incisive work should be given as big a platform as possible, but even if you disagree, pressuring a book store to cancel his book launch is censorship, & no serious person should accept it: https://t.co/sYhVtcJfT4
In a phone conversation with Blumenthal just hours before the April 3 event, Politics and Prose co-owner Bradley Graham informed him that his reporting from Venezuela, where he recently challenged corporate media deceptions from Caracas, had also become a problem. Graham said:
A number of people … have expressed concern on various aspects of the event; first and foremost that you’re being given a platform and in some cases raising not just objections about your positions on Syria, but on Venezuela, on other issues.”
“I don’t know what is behind all this, and this is the point I’m trying to get to,” Graham told Blumenthal, according to the journalist. “We haven’t had the time to sort through what all these claims are and whether there’s any relevance to them or not.”
Politics and Prose co-owner Lisa Muscatine chimed in:
“We just felt so up-against-the-wall. They’re all over our social media… We’ve been fucking inundated.”
The Syrian American Council celebrated the success of their pressure campaign, thanking Politics and Prose for “listening” to the “Syrian American community,” whose views, in their implicit opinion, are monolithic. They went on to accuse Blumenthal of denying the “lived experiences” of Syrian Americans, who in reality are not so homogenous.
Thus they were able to silence their most effective critique. Blumenthal’s latest book, The Management of Savagery, reveals the cynical aspirations of this lobby, from regime change to genocide, if its bedfellows are any indication of its aims.
Deceptions and double standards
Blumenthal told MintPress News that the criticism of his book willfully misrepresented its content:
None of these people who tried to have me canceled have read this book, but it’s understandable that they would want it banned, because it is actually about them. But if they had opened the book they would see that it’s actually a critique of right-wing politics and Islamophobia through the framework of American empire, showing how these proxy wars and regime change wars that the West has waged from Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya to Syria have been like steroids for the ultra-right, whipping up a xenophobic frenzy thanks to a series of refugee crises that our national security state fomented.
In my book, I go back to the era well before the so-called “war on terror” to show how this campaign of destabilization fueled the rise of Islamophobia, which Donald Trump effectively exploited to become president. So anyone trying to say this book is somehow Islamophobic – I’ve seen that allegation carelessly thrown around – clearly hasn’t read it. I think this book is one of the most damning surveys of the rise of the Islamophobia industry and the national security state’s role fueling it – and funding it in many cases. Clearly these regime change lobbyists want to burn my book because it exposes their own cynical tactics, but in doing so they’re seeking to deprive people of the ability to to learn about the horrible political crisis we’re in in the West from a new and unique angle.”
Blumenthal has been covering what he calls the “anti-Islam industry” for years. In fact, it is part of what brought the author to prominence. His investigation into the rise of Islamophobia in which Blumenthal named and shamed leading anti-Muslim agitators and funders predated mainstream studies of the trend and was even blamed in an angry screed by the far-right FrontPageMag for providing “the idea behind” the Center for American Progress report on anti-Muslim politics, “Fear Inc.” Blumenthal told MintPress that he founded the Grayzone Project at AlterNet in 2015 in part to provide critical coverage of the dangerous anti-Muslim politics that Trump was exploiting at the time.
Can you give more details? Publishers and book sellers should defend freedom of expression. When there is a force against freedom of expression, this force should be defeated, met (e.g by providing an opposing speaker), or in the least, documented to thwart covert censorship.
During his exchanges with the owners of Politics and Prose, Blumenthal said he emphasized the double standards they were applying to him.
“I pointed out that last week they hosted Janet Napolitano, who was essentially the deportation tsar under Obama, destroying thousands of immigrant families through the deportation machine she oversaw. And I said that nobody asked her to have somebody on stage to challenge her when she, unlike me, was actually personally involved in human rights abuses. Politics and Prose has also hosted David Frum, the neocon who appears in the pages of my book crafting the bogus case for the war in Iraq in which a million people were killed. Nobody said that he had to have someone grilling him for his role in one of the worst catastrophes in modern history. The owners really didn’t have a response to my comments.”
Gulf-backed experts, foreign operatives and pro-war lobbyists put the pressure on
Blumenthal said that the owners of Politics and Prose insisted they’d spoken to “Middle East experts” about his book and that they expressed reservations about hosting him. But when pressed for the names of those experts, he received one: Amy Hawthorne, a former resident fellow at the Saudi-funded Rafik Hariri Center at the Atlantic Council – a think tank backed by the arms industry and various Gulf monarchies that has been at the center of the campaign for regime change in Syria.
Before her time at the Atlantic Council, Hawthorne worked in the US State Department, where she “helped to shape and coordinate US support for Egypt’s transition and advised on the US response to the Arab Spring,” according to her bio.
Another one of the self-styled Syria experts who pushed to have Blumenthal’s Politics and Prose event canceled was Charles Lister. Like so many of the lobbyists demanding the censorship of Blumenthal’s book, Lister is a fellow at a Gulf-funded think tank featured in the “Management of Savagery” for research that falsely claimed that 70,000 so-called “moderate rebels” were battling the Syrian government. When Blumenthal personally confronted Lister about his discredited claims during a 2017 Atlantic Council meeting, Lister flew into contortions and struggled to push back.
I’ve read @MaxBlumenthal’s book and there’s a section about @Charles_Lister that he would hate for the public to see.
Mouaz Moustafa, the director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, also joined the campaign to block Blumenthal’s book event. In fact, Blumenthal’s book documents how Moustafa served as the Washington point man for the Syrian regime change operation, escorting John McCain to the Syrian border in 2013, where the late senator posed for photos with extremist insurgents involved in the kidnapping of Shia pilgrims.
As Ben Norton reported at The Grayzone, Moustafa has continued to lobby the Trump administration on Syria. He even boasted that he was “hanging out” with CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer and MSNBC’s Chris Matthews at about the same time as he was clamoring online for the cancellation of Blumenthal’s book event.
“It is totally understandable that a character like Moustafa would want my book banned,” Blumenthal said. “I excavated his shocking record of pro-war lobbying and expose all the deceptions that were deployed in the process.”
The Syrian American Council, the pro-war lobbying outfit that led the charge against Blumenthal’s book, has also been involved with some unsavory figures during its push for regime change in Syria. As Norton reported, the Council hosted at its 2015 gala a Syrian opposition activist named Maher Sharafeddine who has openly called for the genocide of religious minorities in Syria.
“I am warning the Alawites to get out of the country or they will all be slaughtered. There can be no reconciliation with the Alawites,” Sharafeddine said during an infamous 2015 appearance on Al Jazeera Arabic. “The only way for us to take [power] from them is over their dead bodies.”
“It is the right of the [Sunnis] to demand the slaughter of the Alawites,” the host of that Al Jazeera show, Faisal al-Qassem said, “Of course, of course,” Sharafeddine replied.
"proud independent book store since 1984.." it says on your twitter banner.
Perhaps the most remarkable figure to weigh in against Blumenthal’s book and demand the cancellation of his event was James Le Mesurier. A former British military intelligence officer and UAE-backed mercenary, Le Mesurier oversaw the foundation of the White Helmets in Turkey and placed himself at the center of destabilization campaign against Syria’s government. Through the White Helmets, who were at the scene seemingly any time a major chemical attack was alleged, Le Mesurier played a central role in driving the US to bomb Syria over so-called “red line” violations.
“The whole history of Le Mesurier and the White Helmets in trying to push the US to decapitate the government of another previously stable Middle Eastern state is told in ‘The Management of Savagery,’” Blumenthal said. “Once again, you have a figure trying to cover up their dirty deeds by censoring a journalist who dared to expose them.”
From my point of view, and I told this to Politics and Prose,” Blumenthal continued, “they have surrendered to a bullying campaign run by a lobbying apparatus that’s tried to silence me and shut down my factual journalism, which has helped expose what I consider to be one of the biggest scandals in recent memory, which is the multi-billion dollar campaign to arm and equip extremist insurgents to rip Syria to shreds. But I think the public wants to know more about this titanic scandal, and it wants to know what’s on the pages of my book, and there’s nothing these war lobbyists can do about that. The mask is off.”
Blumenthal’s book is available through his publisher at Verso and many other locations. The launch event for ‘The Management of Savagery’ will be held at the Justice Center at 617 Florida Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. on Wednesday the 10th at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
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Alexander Rubinstein is a staff writer for MintPress News based in Washington, DC. He reports on police, prisons, and protests in the United States and the United States’ policing of the world. He previously reported for RT and Sputnik News.
Featured image: This composite image shows the cover of Max Blumenthal’s new book, The Management of Savagery, left, and an Associated Press photo of the late Senator John McCain posing with Mouaz Moustafa in Syria in the early days of the Syrian war.
One of the more interesting aspects of the relentless march of the Israel Lobby in the United States is the extent to which it has expanded its reach down into the state and even local level. Previously, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the hundreds of other Jewish and Christian Zionist organization dedicated to promoting Israeli interests had concentrated on the federal government level and the media, believing correctly that those were the key players in benefiting Israel while also making sure that its public image was highly favorable. The media was the easy part as American Jews were already well placed in the industry and inclined to be helpful. It also turned out that many Congressmen and the political parties themselves had their hands out and were just waiting to be bought, so “Mission Accomplished” turned out to be a lot easier than had been anticipated.
But amidst all the success, the Israeli government and its diaspora supporters discovered that it was receiving a lot of unwelcome publicity from an essentially grassroots movement that went by the label “Boycott, Divest and Sanctions” or BDS. BDS was strong on American campuses and its appeal as a non-violent tool meant that it was growing, to include many young Jews disenchanted with the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu version of the Jewish state.
Israel works hard to influence the United States at all levels and is generally very successful, but it seemed a stretch to try to pass legislation banning a non-violent movement at a national level so it focused on the states, where legislators would presumably be less concerned over the Bill of Rights. It mobilized its diaspora resources to focus on elections at local and state government levels where Jewish constituents were active in interviewing candidates regarding their views on the Middle East. Candidates understood very well what was happening and also appreciated that their answers could determine what level of donations and the kind of press coverage they might receive in return.
Put together enough intimidated legislators in that fashion and you eventually will have a majority willing to pass legislation blocking or even criminalizing the BDS movement while also granting special benefits to Israel. As of this writing, there is anti-BDS legislation in 27 states, some of which denies state services or jobs to anyone who does not sign an agreement to not boycott Israel. Particularly draconian bills currently advancing in Florida equate any criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, explicitly define Israel as a Jewish state and also enable anyone who says otherwise to be sued.
Another blatant propaganda program that is being used with congressmen, as well as state and local officials plus spouses, is the sponsorship of free “educational” trips to Israel. The trips are carefully coordinated with the Israeli government and many of them are both organized and paid for by an affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee called the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF). There are also other trips sponsored by AIEF as well as by regional Jewish organizations that particularly focus on politicians at state and even local levels as well as journalists who write about foreign policy.
Everyone is expected to return from the carefully choreographed trips singing the praises of the wonderful little democracy in the Middle East, and many of the travelers do exactly that. The pro-Israel sentiment is buttressed by the activity of the state and local diaspora Jewish groups, which tend to be very politically active and generous with their political contributions.
This coziness often borders on corruption and inevitably leads to abuses that do not serve the public interest, particularly as American citizens are quite openly promoting the interests of a foreign nation. An interesting example of how this works and the abuse that it can produce has recently surfaced in Virginia, where a so-called Virginia-Israel Advisory Board (VIAB) has actually been funded by the Commonwealth of Virginia taxpayers to promote and even subsidize Israeli business in the state, business that currently runs an estimated $500 million per annum in favor of Israel.
Grant Smith’s Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRMEP) has done considerable digging into digging into the affairs of VIAB, which was ostensibly “created to foster closer economic integration between the United States and Israel while supporting the Israeli government’s policy agenda” with a charter defining its role as “advis[ing] the Governor on ways to improve economic and cultural links between the Commonwealth and the State of Israel, with a focus on the areas of commerce and trade, art and education, and general government.” Smith has observed that “VIAB is a pilot for how Israel can quietly obtain taxpayer funding and official status for networked entities that advance Israel from within key state governments.”
Documents released under Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act indicate that not only does VIAB not create opportunities for Virginians, it also is active in working against the BDS movement. According to the documents, VIAB, which avoids any public disclosure of its activities, is currently also being scrutinized by the state Attorney General over its handling of government funds.
VIAB was founded in 2001 but it grew significantly under governor Terry McAuliffe’s administration (2014-2018). McAuliffe, regarded by many as the Clintons’ “bag man,” received what were regarded as generous out-of-state campaign contributors from actively pro-Israeli billionaires Haim Saban and J.B. Pritzker, who were both affiliated with the Democratic Party. McAuliffe met regularly in off-the-record “no press allowed” sessions with Israel advocacy groups and spoke about “the Virginia Advisory Board and its successes.”
The Virginia Coalition for Human Rights (VCHR) reports that VIAB is “the only Israel business promotion entity in the United States embedded within a state government and funded entirely by the state’s taxpayers. In terms of the overall state budget, VIAB’s direct share is small ($209,068 for fiscal years 2017 and 2018). However, VIAB’s diversion of state, federal and private grants, as well as demands on state-funded entities like colleges and universities to collaborate in projects designed primarily to benefit Israel, run in the millions of dollars per year. VIAB’s main objective is to provide preferential and unconditional funding to oftentimes secretive Israeli business projects designed to entwine Israeli industries into Virginia industries and government. VIAB seeks to transcend warranted, growing and legitimate American grassroots concerns about human rights in Israel-Palestine by pressuring state lawmakers and the local business community into providing unconditional support and developing a long-term ‘stake’ in Israel.”
Per VCHR, documents released under the Freedom of Information Act found that VIAB, among other suspect practices, had “Provided reports of success that the office of the Governor found to be “inflated without merit.” VCHR concluded that “there should be no preferential and unconditional Commonwealth of Virginia support for Israeli business projects for four key concerns: moral, economic, good governance and state public opinion.” Moral was due to Israel’s “dismal human rights record,” economic because Virginia has a half-billion dollar trade deficit with Israel, good governance because VIAB’s board and leadership are drawn from the “Israel advocacy ecosystem,” and public opinion because opinion polls suggest that over one third of Virginians favor halting all funding for “Israeli business ventures.”
On a similar issue a shadowy group called the Institute for Curriculum Services (ICS), which is actually a “partisan group with backing by state and local Israel advocacy organizations,” is seeking to change the information conveyed by the history and social studies textbooks used in K-12 classrooms across Virginia. ICS recommended changes include: “1. Emphasizing Arab culpability for crisis initiation leading to military action and failure of peace efforts—and never Israeli culpability, even when it is undisputed historic fact. 2. Replacing the commonly used words of “settlers” with “communities,” “occupation” with “control of,” “wall” with “security fence,” and “militant” with “terrorist.” 3. Referencing Israeli claims such as “Israel annexed East Jerusalem” and the Golan Heights as accepted facts without referencing lack of official recognition by the United Nations and most member nation states.”
The activity of the VIAB is little more than robbery of Virginia state resources being run by mostly local American Jews to benefit their co-religionists in Israel. What is significant is that the theft from the American taxpayer, having long occurred at the federal treasury level, now extends down to state and local jurisdictions. And the ICS is yet one more example of attempted Israeli brainwashing of the American public on behalf of the Jewish state to completely alter the narrative about what is going on in the Middle East. Will it ever end? Perhaps, but only when the American people finally wake up to what is being done to them and by whom.
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Philip M. Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served nineteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was the CIA Chief of Base for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and was one of the first Americans to enter Afghanistan in December 2001. Phil is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a Washington-based advocacy group that seeks to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values and interests. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: Mel Chaskin, Chairman of Virginia Israel Advisory Board. Credit: YouTube
A new book about Emmett Till, Let the People See,[i] aims to explore “not just history but memory”. Elliott J. Gorn says Emmett Till’s story “keeps resurfacing in unexpected times and places … [and] like the dark Tallahatchie river, gives up its secrets in its own time”. It’s not true.
Stories don’t give up secrets in their own time. History reveals secrets when we care about what those secrets explain. And the relevant sort of caring often involves loss and sacrifice.
Gorn writes that “how people have told the Emmett Till story over the years depended upon why they were telling it”. Of course. But he explains the meandering of historical memory as if it’s just that: meandering.
Till, 14, was abducted, beaten and shot in August 1955, his body sunk in the Tallahatchie River. His mother, Mamie Till Bradley, insisted on an open casket because she wanted to “let the people see what they did to my boy”. It was the “first great media event of the Civil Rights movement”.
Mamie Till-Mobley weeps at her son’s funeral on Sept. 6, 1955, in Chicago. (Chicago Sun-Times/AP)
But it is no surprise that Till disappeared until 70s feminist Susan Brownmiller brought the story back through sexual stereotypes. Angela Davis’ exposure of such lies was not a twist of the Tallahatchie River. It was political struggle. Davis sacrificed for an uncomfortable truth: that some in a “free” society are non-people, killed with impunity.
And there’s the rub. Davis fought for truth. North American academics typically don’t believe in it, at least not moral truths.[ii] They talk about “myths and fictions”: stories that come and go, like bends in a river. Easy.
Gorn’s aim is to take Till’s story seriously. But he gives truth and spectacle the same status. The book ends at the Smithsonian. A chapel-like room hosts a memorial casket described as “profound”, “sacred” and the “holy of holies”. Spectacle is easy. Truth, when it matters, is not.
The truth about truth is that you cannot discover it – that is, you cannot learn what you did not previously expect – without loss and sacrifice. This is because what you expect is part of what you live and who you are. It limits imagination. It’s why George Orwell said popular opinion is a greater threat to freedom of thought and expression than authoritarian government. [iii]
Jean Paul Sartre knew it. In “Black Orpheus” (1948), an essay about Caribbean and African poets, Sartre said Europeans would not understand such poetry just by reading. Sartre knew, because he read Marx—and philosophers of science now know very well – that how we understand depends on who we are.
And who we think we are, which may be wrong. We may, for instance, have a false idea about our superiority. It may be presupposed, that is, lived, not recognized, just taken for granted. If we also maintain the false belief that we are free when we look to ourselves, living “from the inside,” we live lies: about ourselves.
We live lies and call it “freedom”.
Thus, Sartre wrote in a preface to Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth that “liberal hypocrisy” hides from Europeans not just the dehumanization of others but that of Europeans. Reading Fanon, Sartre wrote, we know “step by step, the dialectic that liberal hypocrisy hides from you and is as much responsible for our existence as for [that of the colonized]”.
It is a dialectic well-known to philosophers from the South. They weren’t necessarily Marxist, but they couldn’t help noticing that the individualism of the North does not promote the development of individuals. This is precisely because, as argued by the between-centuries Cuban philosopher, Enrique José Varona, it hides the very dialectic Sartre mentions: between individuals and society.
Varona noticed a paradox: liberal individualism denies individualism.[iv] This is because when you are ignorant of dialectic, you think of yourself in social terms without knowing you do. You define yourself according to social expectations, ignorantly: You look “inside” and start from there.
You don’t know lo humano. It takes work. Varona knew this because he knew imperialism. He and independentistas before him – José Agustín Caballero, Félix Varela, Luz y Caballero, Martí – knew what Sartre pointed out in mid-twentieth century: that “liberal hypocrisy” hides a dialectic crucial to truth.
That truth was about them: their humanity. And it is about Emmett Till.
Till died in a society driven by greed and profit. That’s one truth. But it is also true that, more than sixty years later, that society still calls itself “free”, falsely. Even its fiercest critics, calling themselves “anti-authoritarian”, call it “free”, knowing full well that it’s the only place on the planet where kids regularly shoot classmates dead while studying in school.
Hatred is not freedom for the simple reason that it destabilizes the mind. You can’t think clearly. It’s known by philosophers in many cultures. A new book, Leadership and the Rise of Great Powers(Princeton University Press April 8, 2019), drawing on (Chinese) realist philosophy, acknowledging – god forbid – moral truths, argues that humane leadership helps explain international influence.
Unfortunately, the author, Yan Xuetong, thinks more adequate ideology – replacing liberalism – will come from the US. It is not likely. It will come from the South. Varona, and those of his anti-imperialist tradition, centuries-long, have had more direct experience with lies that matter: about lo humano.
In “Black Orpheus” Sartre describes Caribbean and African poetry as a “hymn by everyone for everyone”. That is, the message is universal, containing truths. Anti-authoritarian liberals don’t hearthatstory, which is aboutstories, and how some – about freedom, for instance – are lies. The reason is the arbitrary authority, mostly denied and unrecognized, of those who equate spectacle and truth.
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Susan Babbitt is author of Humanism and Embodiment (Bloomsbury 2014). She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Notes
[i] Oxford University Press, October 2018
[ii] E.g. Dallas Willard, The Disappearance of Moral Knowledge
[iii] 1943. The freedom of the press. http://orwell.ru/library/novels/Animal_Farm/english/efp_go
[iv] E.g. Enrique Ubieta Gómez Ensayos de identidad (Havana 1993) 172f.
“Do you think it is possible that most of Europeans really don’t know about crimes their countries committed all over the world?”
“They don’t know… They don’t want to know… They make sure that they will never know,” I replied.
That Europe and North America have been constructed on hundreds of millions of corpses of, what George Orwell used to call, un-people, is fairly well established and proven fact. But somehow it never entered the sub-consciousness of the white race which is inhabiting what we now call the West, but also many parts of the ‘conquered’ world, from Latin America, to Africa and Asia.
Horrors of the past are carefully softened by shock-absorbing academic jargon, when they are addressed at such institutions like Cambridge, Oxford or Sorbonne universities. Or they are belittled, even dismissed, by loud cheers and clicking of the glass, in the Europeans pubs.
It is not something that is mentioned directly in ‘polite society’.
And yet, the topic is not only related to the terrible world history.
All that we are experiencing now, all over the world, is to some extent related to this past. From wars to plunder of the natural resources; from shameless ‘regime changes’, to fearless provocations of the West against Russia, China and Iran.
Even what people read and how they think has roots in colonialism, holocausts and slavery.
To even mention the topic cost many brave men and women their lives. Patrice Lumumba, who denounced colonialism, was murdered by the Brits and the U.S., without any scruples. President Sukarno was overthrown and imprisoned, until his death. So were many others.
Denouncing colonialism and crimes against humanity committed by the West; its kings, armies, religions, even common citizens, is a dangerous undertaking, often ‘punishable’ by death.
Yet crimes have been so monstrous, that regularly, great and brave people keep standing up and pointing fingers at Europe, the United States, and at the elites of the European stock, in South America and elsewhere.
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So did, recently, a left-leaning President of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), who wrote a letter to King of Spain, Felipe VI, and to Pope Francis, demanding apology for the ‘abuses that were committed during the conquest of Mexico.’ He declared in Tabasco State, in front of an ancient pyramid:
“There were killings, impositions… The so-called conquest was carried out with the sword and the cross.”
President Obrador triggered literally a storm, at home and abroad. Fierce national debate erupted among Mexican intellectuals, academics, public figures as well as common people.
Spanish government of Pedro Sanchez rejected the letter “with full firmness”. Obviously, “Euro-socialists” have very little to do with the internationalist struggle, these days.
The right in Spain spoke with even greater spite. According to The New York Times:
“Campaigning ahead of next month’s general election, Pablo Casado, the leader of the conservative Popular Party, described the Mexican demand as an affront to the Spanish people. Spain, he said, should instead celebrate “with pride” its historical role in Mexico, “the way great nations do it, those that have contributed to the discovery of other people.”
An insult, of course, but a predictable one.
“We saved what was left, and we built new culture, but this genocide is something that has to be acknowledged”, explained an academic from UNAM, John Ackerman.
“It is not disproportionate”, Jesus Ramirez, Spokesperson of the Presidency, told a Mexican newspaper La Razon. “They (Spain) asked Jews for forgiveness, for the expulsion in 1492, and Germany did the same, for holocaust.”
Spain clearly indicated that there would be no official apology, and to its rescue came, almost immediately, such staunch supporters of the West, as Colombia with its bunch of pro-Western (and Western-paid) intellectuals.
Despite the fact that Spain murdered millions of indigenous people on the territory of today’s Mexico; people who were, during the conquest, enjoying much more advanced civilization than that of Spain itself;despite the fact that there were countless rapes, cases of torture and religious bigotry, as well as unbridled looting, there seems to be absolutely no remorse coming from Madrid.
Deeply rooted complex of superiority is, once again, clearly in control of the behavioral patterns of the Europeans. Response of Spain is overall bombastic, arrogant and dismissive.
Vulgarity and arrogance of Spanish regime should not be seen as something new, or unexpected. This is how the U.K. responds when India or Pakistan or some African nation tries to open a legal case, trying to hold it responsible for genocides, slave trade or forcefully triggered famines. This is how France acts when accused of crimes against humanity in Africa, Asia or Caribbean. Or Belgium, when told that it is responsible for at least 9 million lives in what is now Congo, during the reign of the King Leopold II. Or Germany, for the holocaust it committed on the territory of today’s Namibia. And on and on it goes, as the list of crimes of the European countries is endless, as well as unrecognized.
Spain is no exception. It is just that in the past it grabbed one tremendous piece of pie – bigger than it could swallow. And its kingdom was too bizarre, grotesquely fanatic and primitive; too religious and greedy. It could not really govern well over its colonies, and so it was looting and murdering, and forcing people into Christianity, while, at some point, losing much of its ‘profits’ to other European states that were simply ‘investing’ into Spain’s ‘expeditions’.
Mexico suffered terribly, especially from Spanish conquest, but not only from it: it was also bled by France, the United States and others. But Spain began the attacks, and logically, it should be the first country to profusely apologize.
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Not everyone in Spain is ‘outraged’ by the demands of AMLO. Some acknowledge that past should not be buried, that it actually is tremendously relevant.
“Lopez Obrador is president with plenty of dignity. He is right to demand apology from the King, for cruelties during the conquest”, declared Ione Bellara, MP from a Spanish political party Podemos.
AMLO is now governing the most populous Spanish speaking country on earth, with population around 3 times bigger than that of Spain. His words matter. Position of Mexico matters. It cannot be simply dismissed, in either Madrid, Vatican or in Brussels.
Mexico is an extremely complex and divided nation. As almost all previously colonized countries are. European elites had been implanted into Mexico, India, and dozensof other countries. Where they were not implanted directly and permanently, like into Indonesia or Malaysia, locals were handpicked, ‘educated’ abroad, and then injected back, in order to serve Europe in particular, and the West in general.
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In a university town of Cholula, near the city of Puebla, Spaniards slammed their church on top of the biggest (by volume) pyramid on Earth – Tlachihualtepetl. It is still sitting there: the church on top of the pyramid, unapologetically. Local authorities are even proud of its presence, promoting it as a ‘major tourist site’. I hope, one day, UNESCO includes it in the “memory of humanity” list, as a symbol of cultural vandalism.
I talked to one of the curators, Ms. Erica, asking her about this insanity. That was just few weeks before AMLO was sworn in as president. She explained, patiently:
“We are strongly discouraged from speaking about brutality of the past. Mexico’s attitude towards its own history is truly schizophrenic. On one hand we know that our country was plundered, raped and abused, by the Spanish colonizers, by the French, and then by the U.S. But we, scholars, teachers, curators, are literally ordered to ignore it, to ‘be positive’; to ‘look for good things’ in what was done to us, and what we inherited.”
Recently, all this is changing. Now, it is possible to speak, to remember the past, and to demand.
In India and the Middle East and Africa, people are monitoring developments in Mexico, carefully.
They are also studying the situation in Europe and in North America. Both parts of the Western world are overdue for hundreds of apologies. Frankly, they also own the world hundreds of trillions of dollars, for murder of hundreds of millions of human beings, and for destruction of the entire continents.
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It is possible that Pope Francis would be much more forthcoming than the Spanish regime.
“With this Pope, it could be the new beginning for Catholics and Christians in general”, I was recently told by a renowned left-wing theologian and philosopher John Cobb.
In 2015, Pope Francis already spoke to farmers, garbage collectors and indigenous people in Bolivia, wherehe asked for forgiveness:
“I say this to you with regret: Many grave sins were committed against the native people of America in the name of God… I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offense of the church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of America.”
Many are convinced that the Argentinian Pope Francis is a closet socialist. AMLO may receive an apology from him, but not from Spanish government.
But the discussion is on. Entire nation is debating its past.
As I have been writing this essay on board of a 9 hours 30 minutes long Aero Mexicoflight from Buenos Aires to Mexico City, I managed to engage half of the crew in the debate.
“This has nothing to do with me”, declared an elderly steward, after reading part of my essay.
“But I want to know the past of my country”, protested a young flight hostess. “It is all connected to our present, and future.”
“AMLO is fighting for Mexico!” was the prevalent opinion.
He is. The Western empire is resisting. But ideological fight for justice is on.
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Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Four of his latest books are China and Ecological Civilizationwith John B. Cobb, Jr., Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism, a revolutionary novel “Aurora” and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter.
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.
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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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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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