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Once again Canada’s Foreign Minister, Chrystia Freeland, jumps on the anti-Russia bandwagon, mimicking the rhetoric stemming from Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential run and the fabrications of the DNC, the FBI, CIA, Christopher Steele, and a whole menagerie of other elements.  It is not surprising given her historical background relationship with Ukraine and her support of the US supported Maidan coup. While she insists “rule of law” is not a “smorgasbord” from which to pick and choose, she and her cohorts in the Liberal party appear to do just that in many cases ranging from Huawei, Venezuela, and Israel on the international scene to the recent SNC-Lavalin affair for domestic policies.  But that aside, this is greater than the rule of law, it is all about foreign meddling, not by the Chinese, nor the Venezuelans, but by her favorite, Russia.

At the recent G7 meeting one of the man topics was Russian interference.  During that discussion, Freeland stated,

“Our judgment is that interference is very likely and we think there have probably already been efforts by malign foreign actors to disrupt our democracy.”

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, added some nuance,

“We know that states like Russia have got a very active, planned, thought-through strategy to interfere in democratic processes in Western countries and [to sow] dissension and chaos wherever they can.”

So it is not the actual vote being meddled with – it is me, the voter – they are trying to mess with my head and create dissension and chaos wherever I can.  Okay, part of that is true, I am a dissenting voice to the status quo, but don’t blame the Russians, I did it all on my own…I think.

What the nature of this chaos is I am not sure.

• Is it the truckers rally/drive across Canada to protest the lack of a pipeline?
• Is it the indigenous people blocking a road on their unceded territory?
• Is it electing populists like Doug Ford who rant on about the carbon tax?
• Is it the many women who turned their backs on Trudeau during the recent Daughters of the Vote who sat in Parliament for a day – or that some of them actually rose and left when opposition leader Scheer was to speak?
• Is it the barrage of anti-identity issues put forth by the conservative right wing?  Without their definition of chaos and dissension, it is hard to tell.

Voter’s dilemma

But for me and the Russians, it all boils down to whom will I give my vote.

The Liberals are not doing what the Liberals promised to do and are obviously hand in hand with the corporations and financial benefactors rather than with the environment, voting changes promoting democracy, and any real movement on indigenous affairs, especially concerning the Indian Act of 1867, not to mention using “rule of law” as a smorgasbord.  Further, their foreign policy is so in line with U.S foreign policy I wonder why we bother pretending to be an independent state.  So I don’t want to vote for them.  Sunny ways have given way to cloudy days.

I might as well vote for the Conservatives as then at least I know what I am getting – a business oriented neoliberal government that sides with the U.S. on all foreign affairs issues.  However, their domestic policies and slash and burn budgets – some call it austerity – that feed the rich and ignore the poor are something I cannot countenance and obviously I do not accept their foreign policy either.

Next is where some might think my natural tendencies might lie, with the supposedly socialist NDP.  Yet again their foreign policies line up neatly with the two main parties, meaning they also support all the foreign policy garbage emanating from the U.S.    Even their domestic policies do not add up to expectations about workers or the environment although they are pretty good when it comes to the group of issues labelled ‘identity politics’ – as are all other parties to some degree including the Conservatives if one can avoid the more right wing grass roots rants.

The Bloc Québecois are out as I am not a Québecer leaving me with the lowly Green Party, a party I should have strong affinity for as well.  While Elizabeth May does not want a coup in Venezuela she does want regime change, although disguised as a peaceful change with fair elections.  Nothing about U.S. sanctions causing the majority of the problems.  She calls for an “honest broker” and says the Vatican, as a member of the UN,  that “the Office of the Holy See could be the right institution to calm the waters”.  Nice image…but an honest broker?  The Catholic church?  The ones that destroyed the liberation theology of its own clergy in Latin America?

As well, Ms May had to be voted down by her own party for her condemnation of the BDS movement against Israel, a peaceful action defying the colonial-settler state.  As with all other Canadian parties, the Greens still support the now impossible two state solution – a solution that was never in the cards from the beginning anyway.  It has always served as a talking point diversion while creating more settlements and an apartheid state.

So what am I to do?  I do not at this point like any of them.  Do I hold my breath and vote for the least offensive, hoping something might change?  Do I simply look at the local candidates and see how far they have swallowed the party line?  Do I choose not to vote (and yes I would still have the right to complain)?

So carry on Russia, keep messing with my head.  Perhaps one day I can use that as an excuse within the “rule of law” – by way of insanity – for the choices I make.

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Jim Miles is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The Toronto Star should get its facts straight and stop distorting Rwanda’s tragedy.

A day after the 25^th anniversary of when two Hutu presidents were blown out of the sky, the Star’s editorial board published “There’s no excuse for ignoring lessons of Rwanda’s genocide”. It claims, “on Jan. 11, 1994, Canadian Maj.-Gen. Roméo Dallaire, at the time force commander with the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda, sent a chilling and urgent cable to UN Headquarters in New York. He had been informed of the details of a plan for the ‘extermination’ of ethnic Tutsis by Hutus.” After stringing together a few hundred more humane-sounding, though meaningless, words Star editorialists returned to their core liberal interventionist Canadian hero theme: “In his cable of January 1994 he urged UN leaders to act by telling them the obvious: Where there’s a will to prevent mass killing, there is a way.”

The Star should check Dallaire’s fax more closely. Revealingly, the much-celebrated “genocide fax” the editorialists reference is not titled “‘genocide’ or ‘killing’  but an innocuous ‘Request for Protection of Informant’”, reports International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) lawyer Christopher Black in a 2005 story titled “View from Rwanda: The Dallaire Genocide Fax: A Fabrication”. The two-page “genocide fax”, as New Yorker reporter Philip Gourevitch dubbed it in 1998, was probably doctored a year after the mass killings in Rwanda ended. In a chapter devoted to the fax in Enduring Lies: The Rwandan Genocide in the Propaganda System, 20 Years Later Edward S. Herman and David Peterson argue two paragraphs were added to a cable Dallaire sent to Canadian General Maurice Baril at the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations in New York about a weapons cache and protecting an informant (Dallaire never personally met the informant). The added paragraphs said the informant was asked to compile a list of Tutsi for possible extermination in Kigali and mentioned a plan to assassinate select political leaders and Belgian peacekeepers.

At the ICTR former Cameroon foreign minister and overall head of the UN mission in Rwanda, Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh, denied seeing this information and there’s no evidence Dallaire warned the Belgians of a plan to attack them, which later transpired. Finally, a response to the cable from UN headquarters the next day ignores the (probably) added paragraphs. Herman and Peterson make a compelling case that a doctored version of the initial cable was placed in the UN file on November 27, 1995, by British Colonel Richard M. Connaughton as part of a Kigali-London-Washington effort to prove the existence of a plan by the Hutu government to exterminate Tutsi.

Even if the final two paragraphs were in the original version, the credibility of the information would be suspect. Informant “Jean-Pierre” was not a highly placed official in the defeated Hutu government, reports Robin Philpott in Rwanda and the New Scramble for Africa: From Tragedy to Useful Imperial Fiction. Instead, “Jean-Pierre” was a driver for the MRDN political party who later died fighting with the Rwandan Patriotic Front.

Incredibly, the “genocide fax” is the primary source of any documentary record demonstrating UN foreknowledge of a Hutu “conspiracy” to exterminate Tutsi, a charge even the victor’s justice at the ICTR failed to convict anyone of. According to Herman and Peterson, “when finding all four defendants not guilty of the ‘conspiracy to commit genocide’ charge, the [ICTR] trial chamber also dismissed the evidence provided by ‘informant Jean-Pierre’ due to ‘lingering questions concerning [his] reliability.’”

Tellingly, Dallaire didn’t even initially adhere to the “conspiracy to commit genocide” version of the Rwandan tragedy. Just after leaving his post as UNAMIR force commander Dallaire replied to a September 14, 1994, Radio Canada Le Point question by saying,

“the plan  was more political. The aim was to eliminate the coalition of moderates. … I think that the excesses that we saw were beyond people’s ability to plan and organize. There was a process to destroy the political elements in the moderate camp. There was a breakdown and hysteria absolutely. … But nobody could have foreseen or planned the magnitude of the destruction we saw.”

Doctoring a fax to make it appear the UN had foreknowledge of a plot to exterminate Tutsi may sound outlandish, but it’s more believable then many other elements of the dominant narrative of the Rwandan genocide. The day after their editorial, for instance, the Star published a story titled “25 years after genocide, Rwanda rebuilds” which included a photo of President Paul Kagame leading a walk to commemorate the mass killings. But, Kagame is the individual most responsible for unleashing the hundred days of genocidal violence by downing a plane carrying two Hutu presidents and much of the Rwandan military high command.

Even the  Star has reported as much. A year ago they published a story titled “Did Rwanda’s Paul Kagame trigger the genocide of his own people?” For its part, the Globe and Mail has published a series of front-page reports in recent years confirming Kagame’s responsibility for blowing up the plane carrying Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana, which triggered mass killings in April 1994. In an October story titled “New information  supports claims Kagame forces were involved in assassination that sparked Rwandan genocide” the Globe all but confirmed that the surface-to-air missiles used to assassinate the Rwandan and Burundian Hutu presidents on April 6, 1994, came from Uganda, which backed the RPF’s bid to conquer its smaller neighbour. (A few thousand exiled Tutsi Ugandan troops, including the deputy minister  of defence, “deserted” to invade Rwanda in 1990.) These revelations strengthen the case of  those who argue that responsibility for the mass killings in spring 1994 largely rests with the Ugandan/RPF aggressors and their US/British/Canadian backers.

By presenting the individual most culpable for the mass killings at the head of a commemoration for said violence the Star is flipping the facts on their head. The same might be said for their depiction of the Canadian general. At the end of their chapter tracing the history of the “genocide fax” Herman and Peterson write, “if all of this is true,” then “we would suggest that Dallaire should be regarded as a war criminal for positively facilitating the actual mass killings of April-July, rather than taken as a hero for giving allegedly disregarded warnings that might have stopped them.”

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Before discussing the arrest of Assange in some depth, by way of an introduction, its important to mention a Gore Vidal observation

“We Americans should stop going around babbling about how we’re the greatest democracy on earth, when we’re not even a democracy. We are a sort of militarised republic. American democracy is apparently a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates, where fifty percent of people won’t vote, and fifty percent don’t read newspapers. I hope it’s the same fifty percent.” concluding “The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along, paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return”

Assange was carrying a copy of “Gore Vidal: History of the National Security State & Vidal on America” when he was arrested last Thursday at the Ecuadoran Embassy in London.

By Friday afternoon, the 2014 publication was No. 35 on Amazon. “Gore Vidal” features conversations between the author-playwright and Paul Jay, founder of The Real News Network, a non-profit with a stated mission of “independent, verifiable, fact-based journalism.”

Vidal, who died in 2012 at age 86, had a longtime aversion to U.S. military force and surveillance and the unbridled power in Washington.

Assange hadn’t left the Embassy since 2012 for fear of arrest and extradition to the U.S. for publishing thousands of classified military and diplomatic cables.

Assange, whatever one thinks of his personality traits, is still a publisher and is irrefutably entitled to the same First Amendment protections as any other US citizen…. only he’s NOT a US citizen – think about that for a moment.

The Knight First Amendment Institute was established in 2016 by one of the most famous universities in America, Columbia University in combination with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to safeguard free expression in the shifting landscape of the digital age.

The Institute made one of the first professional comments in public on the case made against Julian Assange by the US Government. “The indictment and the Justice Department’s press release treat everyday journalistic practices as part of a criminal conspiracy,” Executive Director Jameel Jaffer said in a statement provided to the equally prestigious Columbia Journalism Review “Whether the government will be able to establish a violation of the hacking statute remains to be seen, but it’s very troubling that the indictment sweeps in activities that are not just lawful but essential to press freedom; activities like cultivating sources, protecting sources’ identities, and communicating with sources securely.”

There seems so far no official statement about Assange since his arrest from the greatest investigative journalist of our age, Seymour Hersh, whom one can imagine is wisely keeping his powder dry to see how things develop.

In the present absence of his opinion, here are some links to comments made by a few other notable persons, not in order of importance:

1. Daniel Ellsberg On Assange Arrest: The Beginning of the End For Press Freedom
2. Chomsky: Arrest of Assange Is “Scandalous” and Highlights Shocking Extraterritorial Reach of U.S.
3. Partnering with Assange was unpleasant. But work like his is crucial. – The Washington Post

By Alan Rusbridger who is a former editor in chief of the Guardian. He is principal of Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford and chairs the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

A pertinent question posed from the above very informative and explanatory piece on Assange:

“…if Assange is in the dock, why not the editors of the Guardian, the Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, the Hindu, El Pais and numerous others?”

The only note of criticism of the Alan Rusbridger piece is where he says “Educated, journalist working for a respectable organization”. This has nothing to do with it. There were no institutions providing degrees in journalism back in 1789 when the US First Amendment was written into the US Constitution. There were no “respectable organizations” either, just a bunch of enterprising individuals, some well intentioned, some crooked, who published newspapers, magazines, pamphlets and all sorts of stuff.

“Freedom of the Press” does not refer to snobs who sniff each other’s bottoms and act like they know everything; it literally refers to the Freedom to Print and disseminate whatever you want. “Freedom of Speech” guarantees our right to speak our minds in the public square, and the government is required to protect us from being stopped by its own agents or others in the community. Your voice can carry only so far, so to be able to “speak” to a wider audience you need a different medium. In the 18th century that was the printing press. You could print your “speech” and distribute it at will to people. The government cannot infringe on your right to do so, and other private parties cannot do so either. They do have recourse if you slander them, misrepresent them or steal from them (copyright) etc…. But it has nothing whatsoever to do with being a member of the media circus we call journalism today with its coziness to power, with its sense of self-importance and its base corruption with money and influence.

And finally I end with the view as of April 11,  from one of the many Russian English language publications (The Saker), to satisfy the insatiable appetite of those afflicted with ‘Russophobia’.

“What happened is this: since the legacy Zionist-media hates Assange and since they were embarrassed by having this Uber-whistle-blower locked away for 7 years for daring to reveal the true nature of the Anglo/Zionist Empire, they did not have anybody in front of the Ecuadorian Embassy when Assange was rendered.  Now they have to humiliate themselves and ask RT (whom they hate and constantly insult) for some footage.

Here is Margarita Simonian’s brilliant reaction (translated from Russian) describing this state of affairs:

The most obvious sentence one could pass over total disgrace the world media has become can be seen in the fact that nobody was here to film the arrest of Julian Assange, only us (RT).  That in spite of the fact that everybody already new that he would be expelled.  Now they have to come and ask for our footage. CNN and The Guardian have the gall to call us and ask how it is that we were the only ones to get this footage. It’s obvious: you are just the spineless hypocritical servants of your Establishment and not journalists at all.  This is why such a thing happened.

As for Russian spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, her succinct comment speaks for itself and I believe for the majority of us, the people of the world.

“The hand of ‘democracy’ chokes the neck of freedom.”

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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a special “address to the nation” last Wednesday to boast that India had become only the fourth ever country to shoot down a satellite.

The Defence Research and Development Organisation’s success in using an indigenously-developed missile to shoot down an Indian satellite in low-Earth orbit would, Modi claimed, “have an historic impact on generations to come.” “We are now a space power,” he thundered in a speech broadcast on television, radio and social media.

Modi’s ordering of a demonstration of India’s “space war” capabilities and his subsequent hyping of the test’s success in a nationwide address were driven by both strategic and immediate domestic political considerations.

In late February, India came to the brink of all-out war with Pakistan, after Modi ordered air strikes inside Pakistan for the first time since the 1971 Indo-Pakistani war.

New Delhi’s demonstration of a potential to “blind” Pakistan by eliminating its space-based surveillance and communications satellites in any future conflict was certainly meant to frighten Islamabad. However, last week’s anti-satellite missile test was aimed first and foremost at China, the only country other than the US and Russia that had hitherto shot down a satellite.

In pursuit of the Indian bourgeoisie’s great power ambitions, New Delhi, under a succession of governments, whether led by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or the Congress Party, has aligned India with Washington in opposing the growth of China’s economic and strategic power across Asia, while developing its own nuclear “triad”—the capacity to fire nuclear weapons from land, air and underwater—with the stated aim of “deterring” Beijing.

A major element in the BJP’s campaign for India’s multi-phase April–May general election is the projection of Modi as a “strongman,” ready to aggressively assert India’s interests, especially against Pakistan, New Delhi’s nuclear-armed arch-rival.

The commandeering of India’s airwaves to announce the successful anti-satellite missile test was a shameless attempt to identify Modi with India’s military prowess, with the double aim of mobilizing the BJP’s right-wing Hindu communalist base and diverting mounting social anger among India’s workers and toilers along reactionary lines.

Even as he boasted in his nationwide address about India’s ability to shoot down an adversary’s satellites, Modi claimed that India’s intentions were purely peaceful and that the March 27 test was not directed against any country. A subsequent Ministry of External Affairs statement asserted India is “against the weaponisation of Outer Space and support(s) international efforts to reinforce the safety and security of space based assets.”

However, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, appearing at a press conference with Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman only hours after Modi’s address, was much more forthright, declaring that India has to prepare for “tomorrow’s wars.”

“We should remember,” said Jaitley, “tomorrow’s wars will not be the same as yesterday’s wars. Conventional army, navy, cyber, space… we have to prepare for all these. We are in such a geopolitical situation in the world, where our preparedness is our deterrent and … our biggest security.”

In its report on Jaitley’s remarks, the Indian Express added that government sources insisted India’s demonstration of its “power to destroy” in space would bolster its international stature and thereby ensure New Delhi will be among the “exclusive club” of states that will determine the rules governing space.

Modi has now incorporated the downing of the satellite into an election stump speech that was already bristling with nationalist bellicosity. At an election rally Thursday in Uttar Pradesh, Modi, referencing the cross-border attack he ordered on Pakistan in September 2016 and February’s bombing raid, boasted that his government has shown the courage to conduct “surgical strikes” in all spheres—“land, sky and space.” He then went on to declare the election a contest between “a decisive government and an indecisive past.”

All the opposition parties, from the Congress and a parade of regional and caste-based parties to the Stalinist Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM, have voiced support for the reactionary geo-political ambitions of Indian elite associated with last week’s missile test, while criticizing Modi for milking it for electoral gain. This is basically the same attitude they took to the February 26 airstrike: supporting the attack, while criticizing Modi for “politicizing” it.

Congress Party President Rahul Gandhi issued a tweet congratulating the DRDO and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) on the success of the test, while sarcastically wishing Modi a “very Happy World Theatre Day.” For his part, senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel tweeted that it was India’s previous Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government that “had initiated the ASAT (anti-satellite) program which has reached fruition today.”

In a letter to the Election Commission, CPM General Secretary Sitaram Yechury complained that Modi’s televised address violated the Model Code of Conduct that is in force during election campaigns.

“Such a mission,” argued Yechury, “should normally be announced. .. by the relevant scientific authorities like the DRDO.”

The Indian media has almost universally lauded the test as proof of India’s growing military-technological sophistication, although much of the commentary has also argued that India must invest much more in developing its military capabilities.

“Delhi’s explicit demonstration of space weapon capabilities is welcome,” declared an Indian Express editorial, “but it must be part of a clearly articulated military space doctrine that identifies India’s political objectives and technological goals in outer space and the strategy to realise them.”

Washington responded to India’s anti-satellite missile test by effectively voicing support for India developing its military space capabilities. A US State Department spokesperson told the Press Trust of India,

“We will continue to pursue shared interests in space and scientific and technical cooperation [with India], including collaboration on safety and security in space.”

Washington’s only concern was that the Indian missile test has created a large amount of space debris.

With the aim of harnessing India to its military-strategic offensive against China, successive Democratic and Republican administrations have showered strategic favours on New Delhi, emboldening it in its confrontation with Pakistan. These favours include giving India access to advanced civilian nuclear technology and fuel, which allows New Delhi to focus its own nuclear program on weapons development, and to the advanced weapons systems the US sells it most “trusted” allies.

Like India, the US is aggressively preparing for great-power conflict in outer space. In June 2018, Trump announced he was creating a “Space Force” as the sixth branch of the US military.

Islamabad has deplored the Indian anti-satellite missile test as a step toward the “weaponisation of space.” The response of Beijing—which has an “all-weather” strategic partnership with Pakistan, but is also anxious not to push New Delhi further into Washington’s strategic embrace—was more cautious. In reference to last Wednesday’s test a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement declared. “We have noticed relevant reports and we wish all countries can effectively maintain peace and tranquility of outer space.”

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Featured image: Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing the nation after India’s A-SAT missile shoots down a live satellite in Lower Earth Orbit. (Source: Daily Excelsior)

This writer’s favorite film of all time, right ahead of Seven Days In May and JFK is of course Casablanca. The film had it all, from WW2 suspense to old fashioned romance… with a good dose of twists and turns. In the film Paul Henreid plays Victor Laszlo, the Czech resistance leader, who has already escaped and alluded the Gestapo a few times. Laszlo has  been tortured on more than one occasion, yet told them nothing important. He comes to Casablanca in search of a way to leave North Africa and go to the USA to continue his important work. In a powerful scene near the end of the film Laszlo and Humphrey Bogart’s lead character Richard Blaine (AKA Rick of Rick’s Cafe Americain) discuss Laszlo’s work:

Rick: Did you ever wonder if all of this is worth it?

Victor: You might as well question why we breathe. If we stop breathing we will die. We stop fighting our enemies and the world will die!  

How many times those of us who swim against the current of popular belief have asked ourselves questions like that. How many times our close friends and loved ones may have asked us ” Hey, you’re not getting paid for what you’re doing and it’s getting you nowhere. Why not just chuck it and live a life?” The answer usually comes from deep within us. Look at the work of Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and Eric Snowden. These three not only risked their entire careers but one did jail time, and all three face false charges of treason in their quest for truth and justice. When the US government, in league with their international lackeys, has committed so many war crimes and crimes against humanity, those three, like Victor Laszlo, jumped into the fray and told the truth. Remember the horrific and disgraceful Apache helicopter massacre of July, 2007? That was when gun crews were heard on tape firing on a group of unarmed Iraqi men ( with two Reuters journalists among them) as if it was some fucking video game! From ten to eighteen men were killed, and two children sitting in a car were badly wounded! Yet, the release of this film was seen by US authorities as a breach of what, national security? If Victor Laszlo had access to such information against the illegal occupiers of his country, he would have done the same thing.

I asked a few colleagues and guests of my radio show as to why they write and rally others for the cause of defying this empire:

Paul Edwards, filmmaker and columnist: I write because it’s what I can do to fight the sickening fraud, deceit and injustice and crime of my own vicious and corrupt country: America!

Peter Koenig, geopolitical analyst, lecturer and writer: Yes, we are surrounded by what some call the Devil’s Minions. … this should give us more energy to NOT LET GO! Do we have the stamina to bring sufficient conscience into the war arena to slowly turn that ship around?

Bob Koehler, Anti war and anti empire columnist : Activism isn’t about shaking your fist at the bad guys. It’s about co-creating the future. It’s participatory evolution. To the extent that I listen to my soul, I am an activist.

Edward Curtin, professor, historian and anti imperialist writer- It is the call of my conscience, a spiritual necessity. Or call it simply my human response to violence and injustice. I could not live with myself if I did not respond.

It seems like Americans always look for leaders to speak for them in every such manner. NO, what we need here during these terrible times, are more regular folks, like those quoted above, to speak up and  speak out for themselves about the need for drastic change. Why drastic? Well, as with WW2 Europe, the forces of evil , with their lust for greed and power, are ‘ Too Big To Succeed’ and must be thwarted. Victor Laszlo , Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and Eric Snowden were not schooled to become activists. They chose to!!

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Philip A Farruggio is the contributing editor for The Greanville Post. He is also frequently posted on Global Research, Nation of Change, World News Trust and Off Guardian sites. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 300 columns on the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also host of the ‘It’s the Empire… Stupid’ radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be reached at [email protected].

“Your honour, I represent the United States government”.  The Westminster Magistrates Court had been left with little doubt by the opening words of the legal team marshalled against the face of WikiLeaks.  Julian Assange was being targeted by the imperium itself, an effort now only garnished by the issue of skipping bail in 2012.  Would the case on his extradition to the US centre on the matter of free speech and the vital scrutinising role of the press?

Thomas Jefferson, who had his moments of venomous tetchiness against the press outlets of his day, was clear about the role of the fourth estate.  A government with newspapers rather than without, he argued to Edward Carrington in 1787, was fundamental so long as “every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.”  To Thomas Cooper, he would write in November 1802 reflecting that the press was “the only tocsin of a nation.  [When it] is completely silenced… all means of a general effort [are] taken away.”  The press provided the greatest of counterweights against oppressive tendencies, being the “only security” available.

Not so, now.  The fourth estate has been subjected to a withering.  The State has become canny about the nature of the hack profession, providing incentives, attempting to obtain favourable coverage, and, above all, avoiding dramatic reforms where necessary.  An outfit like WikiLeaks is a rebuke to such efforts, to the hypocrisy of decent appearances, as it is to those in a profession long in tooth and, often, short in substance.

It has logically followed that WikiLeaks, the enemy of the closed press corps and an entity keen to remove the high priests of censorship, must be devalued and re-labelled.  This has entailed efforts to delegitimise Assange and WikiLeaks as those of a rogue enterprise somehow detached from the broader issue of political reportage.  In this, traditional media outlets and the security establishment have accommodated each other; the State needs secrets, even if they rot the institutional apparatus; exposing abuses of power should be delicate, measured and calm.  Scandals and embarrassments can be kept to a minimum, and the political system can continue in habitual, barely accountable darkness.

The indictment against Assange is the clearest statement of this strategy.  It insists on shifting the focus from publication and press freedoms, which would pit the legal wits of the prosecution against the First Amendment, to the means information is obtained.  Unscrupulous method, not damning substance, counts. In this case, it is computer intrusion laced with the noxious addition of conspiracy, a criminal concept vague, flexible and advantageous to the prosecution.  The other side of the bargain was, the document alleges, Chelsea Manning, who thereby gathered the “classified information related to the national defense of the United States” pursuant to a pass word cracking pact, relaying it to WikiLeaks to “publicly disseminate the information on its website.”

A delighted Hillary Clinton, as she has always done with Assange, revelled in the prosecutorial brief, approving of an approach she could scant improve upon. At a New York speaking event, with husband Bill also in attendance, she suggested that journalism and Assange were matters to disentangle, if not divorce altogether.  “It is clear from the indictment that came out that it’s not about punishing journalism, it’s about assisting the hacking of the military computer to steal information from the US government”.  Call it something else, and the problem goes away.  “The bottom line is that he has to answer for what he has done, at least as it’s been charged.”

West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin went one better than Clinton on John Berman’s New Day on CNN, doing away with any niceties, or impediments, British justice might pose to extradition efforts. “We’re going to extradite him.  It will be really good to get him back on United States soil.  So now he’s our property and we can get the facts and truth from him.”  The Senate Intelligence Committee vice chair Mark Warner has similarly given the hurry on to British courts to “quickly transfer” Assange in an effort to finally give him “the justice he deserves”.  New York Senator Charles Schumer, who obviously thinks the Constitution is irrelevant in this whole affair, simply wants red tooth in claw revenge for Assange’s “meddling in our elections on behalf of Putin and the Russian government”.  To Schumer, the issue of a security breach seems less important than avenging the lost Democratic cause against Donald Trump.

Media coverage of Assange’s efforts over the years have often centred on the tension between the mind blowing “scoop” and the pilfering “hack”.  Scoop Assange is to be praised; Hack Assange is to be feared and reviled.  The paper aristocrats such as The Washington Post and The New York Times have blown hot and cold on the subject.  One study from 2014 in the Newspaper Research Journal, in assessing publications run in the two over the course of the Cablegate affair, showed a rejection on the part of The Grey Lady of WikiLeaks as a journalistic outfit, with the Post taking a different view.

The fault lines are now sharper than ever.  Assange’s arrest has done much to out the security establishment gloaters.  Their tactic is one of personalising character and defects, as if that ever made a difference to the relevance of an idea.  Michael Weiss, writing for The Atlantic, is characteristically obscene, and does everything to live up to the national security establishment he praises.  Assange was a man who “reportedly smeared faeces on the walls of his lodgings, mistreated his kitten, and variously blamed the ills of the world on feminists and bespectacled Jewish writers”.  As he was pulled out of the Ecuadorean embassy he looked “very inch like a powdered-sugar Saddam Hussein plucked straight from his spider hole.”

This grotesque exercise of equivalence – Assange the cartoonish beardo on par with a murderous dictator – has been supplemented by a general air of mockery, some of it more venal than others.  Such behaviour has always been music to those who believe in the sanctity of the state.  Guy Rundle of Crikey noted the same tendency of many a hack who had gathered outside the court to cover Assange’s trial.  Their behaviour, in mocking Assange the man rather than Assange the publisher, “essentially validated every critique of mainstream media that WikiLeaks has ever made: that the profession is full of natural psychopaths, who spruik cynicism and call it even-handedness, who speak power to truth, who wilfully mistake the adrenaline rush of the micro-scoop and the petty scandal for genuine contestation.”

In this war of language, the treatment of Assange can only be seen as one thing: an act of muzzling a publisher framed as a computer security breach. In so doing, it criminalises the very act of investigate journalism, the sort that actually exposes abuses of power rather than meekly accommodating them.

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

“About suffering they were never wrong,” wrote W. H. Auden in the poem “Musée Des Beaux Arts.” 

These lines occurred to me last week when all eyes were focused on the brutal British seizure of Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

No one should have been surprised by this despicable spectacle carried out in the noonday light for all to see, for the British government has not served as America’s jailer for the past seven years for no reason.  It doesn’t take x-ray eyes to see that the British and the Moreno government in Ecuador are twin poodles on the American leash.  After a phony display of judicial fairness, the British, as required by their American bosses, will dispatch Assange to the United States so he can be further punished for the crime of doing journalism and exposing war crimes.

Assange has suffered mightily for American sins.  The Anglo-American torturers know how to squeeze their victims to make old men out of the young.  Abu Ghraib was no aberration.  The overt is often covert; just a thin skin separates the sadists’ varied methods, but their message is obvious.  No one who saw Assange dragged to prison could fail to see what the war-mongers, who hate freedom of the press when it exposes their criminal activities, can do to a man.  Nor, however, could one fail to see the spirit of defiance that animates Assange, a man of courageous conscience cowards can’t begin to comprehend.

Bought and sold, compromised and corrupted to their depths, the American, British, and Ecuadorian governments and their media sycophants have no shame or allegiance to law or God, and have never learned that you can imprison, torture, and even kill a person of conscience, but that doing so is a risky business.  For even the corpses of those who say “No” keep whispering “No” forevermore.

While the media spotlight was on central London, Auden’s lines kept running through my mind:

About suffering they were never wrong,

The Old Masters, how well they understood

Its human position: how it takes place

While someone else is eating or opening a window or just

Walking dully along

His words transported me from London to a lonely jail cell in Virginia where Chelsea Manning sat brooding. Chelsea hearing the news about Assange. Chelsea realizing that now the screws would be further tightened and her ordeal as a prisoner of conscience would be extended indefinitely.  Chelsea summoning all her extraordinary courage to go on saying “No,” “No,” “No.” Chelsea refusing the 30 pieces of silver that will be continually offered to her, as they have been for almost a decade, and that she has refused in her emphatic refusal to give the Judas kiss to Julian, to whom she is wed in this non-violent campaign to expose the truth about the war criminals.

Auden’s words reminded me not to turn away, to pay attention, to not walk dully along and ignore the lonely suffering of truth-tellers.  How can anyone who claims to oppose the American wars on Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, etc., turn away from defending Manning and Assange, two brave souls who have already spent nearly 15 years combined imprisoned for exposing the war crimes of the American and British governments, crimes committed in our name and therefore our crimes.

Who will have the bad faith to buy the torrent of lies that the propagandists will spew forth about Assange as they wage a media blitz to kill his reputation on the way to disposing of him?

The jackals in government and media, so-called liberals and conservatives, will be sadistically calling for blood as they count their blood money and wipe their lips.  Only cowards will join this bleating crowd and refuse to go to that lonely, empty place – that cell of conscience – where the truth resides.

All should remember that Chelsea Manning spent more than seven years in prison under the Obama administration for revealing a video about George W. Bush’s war crimes in Iraq; that Assange had to escape the Obama administration’s clutches by seeking asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy; and that now that Trump is in office, the reimprisonment of Manning and arrest of Assange are perfectly in accord with the evil deeds of his predecessors.  These men are titular heads of the warfare state.  They follow orders.

Who can sail calmly on and pretend they don’t see the gift of truth and hear the forsaken cries of two lonely caged heroes falling into the sea?  Who can fail to defend such voices of freedom?

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Distinguished author and sociologist Edward Curtin is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Featured image is from Massoud Nayeri

Introduction

Over the past half-decade, a small army of US analysts, politicians, academics and media pundits have been predicting the imminent fall, overthrow, defeat and replacement of the Venezuelan government. They have been wrong on all counts, in each and every attempt to foist a US client regime.

In fact, most of the US induced ‘regime changes’ has strengthened the support for the Chavez – Maduro government.

When the US promoted a military-business coup in 2002, a million poor people surrounded the presidential palace, allied with the military loyalists and defeated the coup.   The US lost their assets among their business and military clients, strengthened President Chavez, and radicalized his social program. Likewise, in 2002-03 when state oil company executives launched a lock-out. They were defeated, and hundreds of hardcore US supporters were fired and Washington lost a strategic ally.

A more recent example is the overbearing role of President Trump’s bellicose proclamation that the US is prepared to invade Venezuela. His threat aroused massive popular resistance in defense of national independence, even among discontented sectors of the population.

Venezuela is in the vortex of a global struggle which pits the imperial aspirations of Washington against an embattled Venezuela intent on defending its own, and like countries, in support of national and social justice.

We will proceed by discussing the multi-sided means and methods adopted by Washington to overthrow Venezuela’s government and replace it by a client regime.

We will then analyze and describe the reasons why Washington has failed, focusing on the positive strengths of the Venezuelan government.

We will conclude by discussing the lessons and weaknesses of the Venezuelan experience for other aspiring nationalist, popular and socialist governments.

US Opposition:  What Venezuela Faces

The US assault on Venezuela’s state and society includes:

• A military coup in 2002
• A lockout by the executives of the Venezuelan oil company
• The exercise of global US power – organized political pressure via clients and allies in Europe, South and North America
• Escalating economic sanctions between 2013 – 2019
• Street violence between 2013 – 2019
• Sabotage of the entire electrical system between 2017 -2019
• Hoarding of goods via corporations and distributors from 2014 – 2019
• Subversion of military and civilian institutions 2002 – 2019
• Regional alliances to expel Venezuelan membership from regional organizations
• Economic sanctions accompanied by the seizure of over $10 billion dollars of assets
• Sanctions on the banking system

The US direct intervention includes the selection and appointment of opposition leaders and ‘dummy’ representatives overseas.

In brief the US has engaged in a sustained, two decades struggle designed to bring down the Venezuelan government.  It combines economic, military, social and media warfare. The US strategy has reduced living standards, undermined economic activity, increased poverty, forced immigration and increaser criminality.  Despite the exercise of US global power, it has failed to dislodge the government and impose a client regime.

Why Venezuela has Succeeded?

Despite the two decades of pressure by the world’s biggest imperial power, which bears responsibility for the world’s highest rate of inflation, and despite the illegal seizure of billions of dollars of Venezuelan assets, the people remain loyal , in defense of their government. The reasons are clear and forthright.

The Venezuelan majority has a history of poverty, marginalization and repression, including the bloody massacre of thousands of protestors in 1989.  Millions lived in shanty towns, excluded from higher education and health facilities. The US provided arms and advisers to buttress the politicians who now form the greater part of the US opposition to President Maduro.  The US- oligarch alliance extracted billions of dollars from contracts from the oil industry.

Remembrance of this reactionary legacy is one powerful reason why the vast majority of Venezuelans oppose US intervention in support of the puppet opposition.

The second reason for the defeat of the US is the long-term large-scale military support of the Chavez-Maduro governments .Former President Chavez instilled a powerful sense of nationalist loyalty among the military which resists and opposes US efforts to subvert the soldiers.

The popular roots of Presidents Chavez and Maduro resonate with the masses who hate the opposition elites which despise the so-called ‘deplorables’.  Chavez and Maduro installed dignity and respect among the poor.

The Venezuelans government defeated the US-backed coups and lockouts, these victories encouraged the belief that the popular government could resist and defeat the US-oligarch opposition.  Victories strengthened confidence in the will of the people.

Under Chavez over two million modern houses were built for the shanty town dwellers; over two dozen universities and educational centers were built for the poor, all free of charge.  Public hospitals and clinics were built in poor neighborhoods as well as public supermarkets which supplied low-cost food and other necessities which sustain living standards despite subsequent shortages.

Chavez led the formation of the Socialist Party which mobilized and gave voice to the mass of the poor and facilitated representation.  Local collectives organized to confront corruption, bureaucracy and criminality. Together with popular militias, the community councils ensured security against CIA fomented terror and destruction.

Land reform and the nationalization of some mines and factories secured peasant and workers support – even if they were divided by sectarian leaders.

Conclusion

The cumulative socio-economic benefits consolidate support for the Venezuelan leadership despite the hardships the US induces in recent times.  The mass of the people have gained a new life and have a lot to lose if the US- oligarchy returns to power.  A successful US coup will likely massacre tens of thousands of popular supporters of the government.  The bourgeoisie will take its revenge on those many who have ruled and benefited at the expense of the rich.

There are important lessons to be learned from the long-term large-scale successful resistance of the Venezuelan government’s experience but also its limitations.

Venezuela, early on, secured the loyalty of the army. That’s why the Chavista government has endured over 30 years while the Chilean government of Salvador Allende was overthrown in three years.

The Venezuelan government retained mass electoral support because of the deep socio-economic changes that entrenched mass support in contrast to the center-left regimes in Argentina, Brazil and Ecuador which won three elections but were defeated by their right-wing opponents, including  electoral partners, with a downturn in the economy, and the flight of middle-class voters and parties.

Venezuela’s linkages with allies in Russia, China and Cuba  provided ‘life jackets’ of economic and military support in the face of US interventions, something the center-left governments failed to pursue.

Venezuela built regional alliances with nearly half of South America, weakening US attempts to form a regional or US invasion force.

Despite their strategic successes the Venezuelan government has committed several costly mistakes which increased vulnerability.

• Failure to diversify their exports, markets and banking system. The US sanctions exploited these weaknesses.
• Failure to carry out monetary reforms to reverse or contain hyperinflation.
• Failure to maintain the hydro-electoral system and secure it from sabotage.
• Failure to invest in and recruit new technical professional to upgrade the operation of the financial system and prosecute financial corruption in the banking system. Venezuela worked with high officials who engaged in financial and real estate transactions of a dubious nature.
• The failure to recruit and train working class and professional political cadres capable of oversight over management.

Venezuela has taken steps to rectify these errors but the question is whether they have time and place to realize radical reforms?

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Award winning author Prof. James Petras is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

In 2016 Trump promised tax cuts for the middle class. Now it’s clear Trump’s 2018 tax cut is making the middle class pay for corporations, businesses, investors and the wealthiest 1% households historic tax cuts totaling no less than $4.5 trillion over the next decade.

A massive redistribution of income favoring the capitalist class–at the expense of everyone else–is underway. Only now approaching April 15 ‘tax day’ in the US are the dimensions becoming apparent.

Polls show 80% of the 170 million taxpayers in the US are saying they’re paying much more this year.

And 17% indicate they used to get refunds in the past but are now writing the IRS checks for $ thousands more this year. That’s 17% of 170M, or almost 30 million households no longer getting refunds! And 136 million saying they’re paying more! So that’s a middle class tax cut?

$4.5 Trillion to Capital Incomes

Conversely, capital incomes are getting a tax cut of no less than $4.5 trillion, under the Trump 2018 tax cut. Their big payday is due largely to cuts in corporate tax rates, the new 20% off the top business pass through deduction, the elimination of the Alternative Minimum Tax for corporations and reduction of the AMT for individuals, the halving of the Estate Tax, favorable changes in personal income tax brackets, levels and rates, more credits for private school tuition and child care costs, no upper limits on itemized deductions, and many other measures.

But the biggest tax break of all, more than $2 trillion over the next decade goes to US multinational corporations: the foreign profits tax and all territorial offshore taxation for US multinational corporations are now eliminated altogether. And if they repatriate their $4 trillion in profits held offshore they can bring it back at a 10% one time corporate tax rate instead of the prior 35%. The big beneficiaries of the $2 trillion tax cut for multinationals are the tech, banking, oil & energy, big pharmaceutical, and telecom companies. (See my blog, jackrasmus.com, postings during early 2018 where I previously documented these details of how much capital incomes will gain from the Trump tax cut).

The Ideological Cover-Up of 2018

The corporate press and media throughout 2018 refused to accurately report the $4.5 trillion historic income transfer. Instead, they fed the public the phony calculation that the cost of the Trump 2018 tax cut was ‘only’ $1.5 trillion over the coming decade. That calculation was made based on ignoring the $4.5 trillion in reporting, and the $1.5 trillion tax hike on the middle class, and estimating that the tax cuts would generate 3-4% economic growth annually for the next decade every year. And thus there would be no recession for another decade! The $4.5 trillion in this manner got reduced to the official, press reported $1.5 trillion. ($4.5 trillion for business and investors minus $1.5 trillion tax hike on middle class minus the phony growth assumption of $1.5 trillion more tax revenue = the phony $1.5 trillion hit to the US budget deficit and claim the Trump tax cut was only $1.5 trillion!)

In true supply side phony economic ideology, by giving investors and corporations trillions of dollars more, academic hacks for business argued corporations would invest it in the US, creating more jobs and production from which more government tax revenue would follow. This neoliberal argument has been used to justify tax cuts for corporations and rich investors since Reagan. And its been wrong ever since. There’s no shred of empirical evidence showing a direct causal relationship between business-investor tax cuts and economic growth or jobs. For example, in 2018 real investment (in plant, structures, equipment, etc.) in the US in 2018, after the introduction of the Trump tax cut in January, continued to decline over the course of 2018 by more than two-thirds, reaching a low point at the end of the year.

Instead of corporations investing in the US and creating jobs after receiving the tax cuts, the Trump tax cuts produced a windfall profits gain to their bottom line. How much?

The Trump tax cuts, it has been estimated, account for 22% of the 27% profits gain by the Fortune 500 companies alone.

The $1.5 Trillion Tax Hike on the Rest of Us

So where is the $4.5 trillion go in 2018? It didn’t go to the US Treasury. Corporate tax revenues alone are off by several hundred billions of dollars so far. The hundreds of billions tax windfall for corporate America instead has been diverted into financial markets, into merger & acquisitions of other companies, into offshore expansion by US multinational corporations and into speculation in foreign currencies, stocks, dollarized bonds, and derivatives markets. Or just hoarded on corporate balance sheets in anticipation of the next recession, now around the corner.

And how is the $1.5 trillion tax hike on the middle class occurring? Unlike the manner change in provisions benefiting capital incomes by hundreds of billions in 2018 (continuing to provide $4.5 trillion over the coming decade), middle class taxpayers are now seeing how much more taxes they are beginning to pay (to make up the $1.5 trillion over the decade).

The main changes and provisions that are now ‘whacking’ the middle class include ending the personal exemptions ($16,200 for family of four), eliminating more than a dozen deductions for those who itemize their taxes, changing the tax brackets and levels of the personal income tax, making singles pay more for the AMT, ending or phasing out at lower thresholds various tax credits, and so on.

So the middle class now finds itself writing larger checks to the IRS than they had in the past, much larger! Meanwhile, corporations, businesses, investors, and the wealthiest households enjoy a massive reduction in their tax.

While the Trump government, Congress, and media focus on the ‘Great Distractions’ (Trump on immigrants as cause of our problems; Democrat leaders on Russia intervention in US elections–neither of which the average American gives a damn about), Trump continues to ‘pick their pockets’–big time.

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Dr. Jack Rasmus is author of the book, ‘Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes: Monetary Policy and the Coming Depression’, Clarity Press, 2017; ‘Alexander Hamilton and the Origins of the Fed’, Lexington Books, March 2019; and ‘Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy’, Clarity Press, 2016. He teaches economics at St.Marys College in California and blogs at jackrasmus.com.

With the unlawful seizure of the Wikileaks publisher and founder Julian Assange the powerful have established an ominous prelude to this year’s upcoming Easter holidays.

And how is the world reacting to this demonstration of power? Those who question the ’might is right’ mantra are reacting with shock and disbelief, but with the foreboding that the persecution of Assange is just the beginning of the long-planned for world-wide reign of tyranny. The silencing of the truth-seekers and those who dare expose the atrocities committed by athorities and hidden out of sight of the public eye. The public that vote for and finance the political leaders and the system.

But the majority of people remain silent – either out of fear or because they choose to believe the distorted ’news’ served in the corporate-owned or politically influenced mainstream media machine. The very same media that once profited from the publication of the Wikileaks revelations. These media outlets turned their backs on their fellow journalist Julian Assange and have since been at the forefront of attacking him. Riciculing him and backstabbing him by falsely accusing him of spying and hacking.

These unfounded accusations are now being voiced as established facts by politicians and media around the world paroting the announcements of the all powerful. Some of these politicians may be excused due to a lack of knowledge, although it would then have been wiser not to comment.

However, is it not more likely that they utter their biased views in order to please the powers-that-be? The powers that have now once again demonstrated their unchallenged omnipotence to dictate to the world what is right and what is wrong.

Is it wrong to expose and shine the light upon clandestine and horrific human rights abuses, war atrocities and mass killings of innocent people? This is what Assange has done by publishing leaked documents sent to him by whistleblowers and sources who had the courage and conscience to break their oath of silence. Assange has done what every publisher in journalism should hold as their main priority: publishing the truth, regardless of the cost. This is his only ’crime’.

It is due to the publication of such truths that the Vietnam War was finally ended. Due to the public outcry and shock when the pictures of the ’Mai Lai Massacre’ in Vietnam appeared in the press. The public was suddenly awakened by the appalling facts – the facts that our leaders desperately tried to keep hidden.

Will the present showcase of the Assange proceedings be a wake-up call to the public? Will we allow injustice, the violation of international law and the brute silencing of the messenger to be carried out right in front of our eyes without lifting an eyebrow?

Or will the voices of freedom and truth prevail and drown those shouting ’Cruzify, Cruzify’?

Only time will tell, but time is running out if we are to avert yet another gross example of injustice which will have its place in the history of humankind.

Every voice counts. When we stand up for truth, we save not only Julian Assange, but our right to freedom of speech and thought.

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Britt Bartenbach is a journalist, radio host and writer based in Denmark. She has written a number of non-fiction books mainly dealing with hitherto unknown affairs from World War Two, the latest of these being ’Operation Phoenix – A Spy’s Personal Account of the Abduction of Hitler’. Her newly published book ’A Day in the Life – A Spiritual Journey’(www.thebookpatch.com) is delving into the mysteries of life and death. Britt Bartenbach can be reached on: [email protected].

Featured image is from thierry ehrmann | CC BY 2.0

Time and again, the ICC breaches its mandate, calling for “end(ing) impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious crimes of concern.”

The court consistently ignores US/NATO imperial war crimes, prosecuting their victims instead.

Established by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court on July 1, 2002, it’s mandated to prosecute individuals for genocide and aggression, as well as crimes or war and against humanity – the highest of high crimes.

Never in the court’s near-17 year history did it fulfill its mandate, a disturbing record.

Since established in 1945, the performance of the UN is worse over a far longer duration. Established “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our life time has brought untold sorrow to mankind,” its near-75-year history reflects consistent failures.

Its leadership did nothing to deter war, human rights abuses, or other high crimes of powerful member states, notably the US, other Western ones and Israel – responsible for countless high crimes of war and against humanity, committed with impunity.

In 2016, ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said she’d launch an investigation into Afghanistan war crimes after US November elections.

Its high crimes of war in Afghanistan and other war theaters are well documented – notably damning information in the Afghan War Diary and Iraq War Logs revealed by Chelsea Manning, published by WikiLeaks.

There’s enough credible information in them to indict top officials of three US regimes, most current and past congressional members for funding US wars, the entire Pentagon high command, and countless subordinates below them.

Last week, the Trump regime annulled Bensouda’s US visa (except to visit UN headquarters in New York) after Pompeo vowed to shield Americans from what he called “unjust prosecutions,” adding:

“If you’re responsible for the proposed ICC investigation of US personnel in connection with the situation in Afghanistan, you should not assume that you still have, or will get, a visa or that you will be permitted to enter the United States.”

“We are prepared to take additional steps, including economic sanctions, if the ICC does not change course.”

Washington rules call for prosecuting its victims, not US government and military officials responsible for the highest of high crimes.

The 2002 American Service Members’ Protection Act (ASPA, aka The Hague Invasion Act) “protect(s) United States military personnel and other elected and appointed officials of the United States government against criminal prosecution by an international court to which the United States is not party.”

It authorizes the president to use “all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any US or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court.”

It prohibits the extradition of anyone from America to the ICC. In a November 2000 open letter, Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, Zbigniew Brzezinki, former CIA director Richard Helms, and other US signatories said Washington must put “our nation’s military personnel safety (sic) beyond the reach of an unaccountable international prosecutor (sic), operating under procedures inconsistent with our Constitution (sic)” – when it comes to enforcing US accountability for high crimes too serious to ignore.

Bensouda found what she called “a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed in connection with the armed conflict in Afghanistan” – a colossal understatement.

In January, senior ICC Judge Christoph Flugge resigned in response to threats by Trump regime officials, notably John Bolton, calling the court “ineffective, unaccountable, and indeed, outright dangerous” – accusing it of “assault(ing) the constitutional rights of the American people and the sovereignty of the United States,” adding:

“We will not cooperate with the ICC. We will provide no assistance to the ICC. We will not join the ICC.”

“We will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us” – except when prosecuting US enemies, most often unjustly accused of imperial crimes committed against them.

According to Bolton, the ICC “threatens American sovereignty…US national security interests” and Israel, falsely calling the apartheid state “a liberal, democratic nation,” turning truth on its head claiming its naked aggression is “self-defense.”

Bolton threatened punitive action against the court and its judges, saying

“(w)e will sanction their funds in the US financial system, and we will prosecute them in the US criminal system. We will do the same for any company or state that assists an ICC investigation of Americans.”

The above views represent the position of other Trump regime hardliners. On Friday, intimidated pre-trial ICC judges backed off.

A statement rejected Bensouda’s request to launch a formal inquiry into war crimes committed by US forces in Afghanistan – citing what it called practical considerations, making chances for success unlikely.

Human rights groups slammed the decision. A statement by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) said the following:

“Tens of thousands of victims in Afghanistan, along with victims of US torture, had urged the ICC to authorize the investigation,” adding:

“Despite finding that requirements were met as regards both jurisdiction and admissibility, (three) Pre-Trial judges decided that authorizing an investigation would not serve (what they called) ‘the interests of justice…’ ”

“ ‘(T)he complexity and volatility of the political climate…makes it extremely difficult to gauge the prospects of securing meaningful cooperation from relevant authorities” in the US, they added.

According to CCR senior staff attorney Katherine Gallagher, ICC pre-trial judges “sen(t) a dangerous message: that bullying wins and that the powerful won’t be held to account.”

“In bowing to (Trump regime) pressure, “the Pre-Trial Chamber – and the States Parties who have failed to adequately resource and support the Court – accepts impunity.”

“(V)ictims of the powerful will not stop in their efforts to make true the adage that no one is above the law.”

Gallagher “filed victims representations with the Pre-Trial Chamber in support of the investigation.”

International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) honorary president Patrick Baudouin “condemn(ed) the ICC’s shocking decision, which is based on a deeply flawed reasoning,” he said, adding:

“The ICC was created precisely to overcome the very challenges that made national investigations impossible. It is unacceptable that these challenges are now invoked by the court to deny justice to the victims.”

“It is a dark day for justice,” he stressed. So is every day that US, NATO, Israeli, and their imperial partners’ high crimes of war, against humanity, and genocide go unpunished.

Unaccountability assures more of the same in perpetuity – justice for perpetrators ruled out as a way to stop it.

“And we call ourselves the human race” – with attribution to John F. Kennedy, expressing opposition to a preemptive military strike on Soviet Russia with nuclear weapons when the US alone had operational ICBMs able to deliver them.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Julian Assange was bundled away by British police after Lenin Moreno, the president of Ecuador, gave the green light for the expulsion of the Wikileaks publisher from the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Assange’s arrest represents an abuse of power, highlighting not only how true journalism has now been banished in the West, but also how politicians, journalists, news agencies and think-tanks collude with each other to silence people like Julian Assange and his Wikileaks foundation who are a nuisance to US imperialism.

Assange is “guilty” of two “cardinal sins”: revealing US war crimes committed in Iraq and committing the unpardonable sin of publishing the emails of Clinton, Podesta and the Democratic National Committee, thereby revealing such chicanery in US domestic politics as the fraud committed against Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primaries.

These revelations among the many (Vault 7, Torture, Diplomatic cablograms), by Assange’s Wikileaks, these transgressions in the eyes of the US ruling elite, struck at the very foundations on which the edifice of “American exceptionalism” is built, namely, the democracy that is meant to be a light unto the world, and the “just wars” that flow from a missionary zeal to make the world safe for democracy. The media and politicians accordingly crow about the “beautiful missiles” and other high-tech weaponry that will be employed in the ensuing humanitarian interventions, while omitting to mention that the military-industrial complex that benefits so much from endless wars may be the very donors who fund the warmongering politicians into office, and that the warmongering editorial line of newspapers may be influenced by share portfolios of the editors themselves.

Releasing footage of US military personal laughing as they slaughter dozens of clearly unarmed Iraqis civilians from the distant safety of an Apache helicopter is one of the strongest ways of showing how false, artificial and propagandistic the concept of “humanitarian war” and “responsibility to protect” (R2P) is.

In today’s communication age, that footage, those images, that laughter, are a very powerful antidote against the lies we are daily fed by our media corporations.

The mainstream media will never tell us that the reason why Washington has been at war for half of the last two centuries is because of US imperialism. They will never tell us that the ceaseless interventions are driven by an insatiable greed for resources, or often enough by the simple desire to plunge a country into chaos if its recalcitrant leaders refuse to genuflect appropriately and show due respect.

That footage straightforwardly debunked all the thousands of accumulated hours of media propaganda that had been built up to convince us that Washington beneficently bombs countries in order to bring democracy and free the oppressed.

In the same way, by pulling back the curtain to show how the Democratic primaries were a farce, Wikileaks revealed how the concept of democracy in the United States is worn out and in fact now non-existent. The political parties are fed and controlled by donor money, and the accompanying media coverage can be bought, allowing for tens of millions of Americans to be fed on a steady diet of false news, lies and promises that will never be kept.

It becomes clear, reading the revelations published over the years by Wikileaks, that terms such as democracy and R2P are nothing more than excuses and justifications for the US to bomb whomever it wishes. The moneyed interests ensure the election into office of those who can be relied upon to look after the interests of the 1% at the expense of the 99%, all the while giving moral lectures to the rest of the world while ignoring the inherent double standards.

The mainstream media are tasked by the powers that be with marketing war in order to advance US foreign-policy objectives. Without the moral justification for war, it becomes more difficult to convince Americans and Europeans to send their sons to die thousands of miles away from home. It is straightforward Brainwashing 101: repeat a lie long enough, and people will start to believe it.

The only way the US sees to fix the problem is to silence the source and ignoring the consequences, even when we are talking about a journalist of international fame who has sought asylum in an embassy and has been confined there for seven years.

This Australian has succeeded in simultaneously becoming the number one enemy of the military-industrial complex, the Democrats, and therefore for all American Russophobes. He did his job so well that he managed to become a target of practically all of the Washington establishment, which is determined to lock away the likes of Assange and Snowden (if only they could) and throw away the key.

His destiny seems marked, with a probable extradition to the US, where a secret trial based on false accusations awaits him, without him even being able to examine the evidence with a lawyer. They would have sent him to Guantanamo at an earlier time, but the effect is the same. Of course this is not bad news for everyone, with many rejoicing at the news of his arrest. All the #MeToo crowd and groups related to human rights applaud Lenin Morero’s decision to kick Assange out of the embassy and his arrest by the British police. Those who would be expected to make their voices heard reveal themselves to be agents of imperialism by their shameful silence.

Print and broadcast media outside the US play their role in contributing to a wave of disinformation, omissions and lies in the interests of US propaganda. They may be divided over US presidents and their preference for Democrats or Republicans, but they are firmly united in the belief that that Washington (and Tel Aviv) is always in the right.

In the meantime, we see more and more wars caused by the US, whether directly or indirectly and regardless of who sits in the White House. True, authentic journalism disappears under the waves of censorship. In the West, lies and fake news runs rampant, and the three-year Mueller hoax will be remembered in history as a prime example of how the elite can program the minds of tens of millions of citizens by simply repeating again and again a complete and utter falsehood without any supporting evidence.

Assange’s arrest and those of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese technology company Huawei, and Marzieh Hashemi, anchorwoman for Iran’s English- language Press TV, leads us to pause for a moment to reflect on the changes taking place and on how the US empire is reacting aggressively to the ongoing transformation from a unipolar to a multipolar world. The loss of prestige, respect, dignity, loyalty and honesty are all consequences that the US now faces, partly as a result of the excellent journalistic work of Wikileaks over the last 15 years.

Arresting a journalist, who is an Australian citizen, in an embassy, then extraditing him to a third country, to be tried in secret, without seeing the evidence (because classified top secret), where he is accused of espionage, is is a new low even for Washington, which should worry anyone who still cares about freedom of information.

The flaccid response of Assange’s journalistic colleagues can best be explained by the words of the late Udo Ulfkotte, a German journalist who revealed that he had published fake material fed to him by the CIA, claiming that this was common amongst mainstream journalists:

“Non-official cover occurs when a journalist is essentially working for the CIA, but it’s not in an official capacity. This allows you to create a partnership between your partner and your partner. The CIA will find young journalists and mentor them. Suddenly doors will open up, rewards will be given, and you know it, you owe your entire career to them. That’s essentially how it works. I was publishing articles under my own name written by agents of the CIA and other intelligence services, especially the German secret service. I was taught to lie, to betray and not to tell the truth to the public.”

Or we could mention the great Robert Perry:

“This perversion of principles – twisting information to fit a desired conclusion — became the modus vivendi of American politics and journalism. And those of us who insisted on defending journalistic principles of skepticism and even-handedness were more shunned by our colleagues, to hostility that first emerged on the right and by neoconservatives but eventually sucked into the progressive world as well… The demonization of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia is just the most dangerous feature of this propaganda process — and this is where the neocons and the liberal interventionists most significantly are together. The US media approach to Russia is now virtually 100 percent propaganda.”

Basically, Assange’s major fault lies in having revealed the true face of US imperialism through images, news, emails, cablograms and videos, an imperialism that has for decades brought wars, death and destruction around the world for its own political and economic gain, using illegitimate justifications that are backed up by self-proclaimed experts and amplified and repeated endlessly by the mainstream media.

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Federico Pieraccini is an independent freelance writer specialized in international affairs, conflicts, politics and strategies. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Flickr

In what human rights groups call an appalling decision, the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber II decided not to grant the Prosecutor’s request to open an investigation into alleged crimes committed in Afghanistan and on the territory of other States Parties implicated in the U.S. torture program. Tens of thousands of victims in Afghanistan, along with victims of U.S. torture, had urged the ICC to authorize the investigation.

Despite finding that requirements were met as regards both jurisdiction and admissibility, the Pre-Trial judges decided that authorizing an investigation would not serve “the interests of justice”, due to “subsequent changes within the relevant political landscape both in Afghanistan and in key States (both parties and non-parties to the [ICC] Statute),” “the complexity and volatility of the political climate…mak[ing] it extremely difficult to gauge the prospects of securing meaningful cooperation from relevant authorities”, along with a lack of possibility of preserving evidence for crimes committed in the early 2000s. The three judges added that, “in light of the limited amount of… resources, [authorizing the investigation] will go to the detriment of other scenarios (be it preliminary examinations, investigations or cases) which appear to have more realistic prospects to lead to trials.”[1] The Pre-Trial statements are clear references to the harsh campaign waged by the Trump administration against the Court as well as to the lack of support –  including financial – given to the Court to carry out its mission to combat impunity.

“With its decision today, the International Criminal Court sends a dangerous message: that bullying wins and that the powerful won’t be held to account. In bowing to the pressure campaign of the Trump administration, the Pre-Trial Chamber – and the States Parties who have failed to adequately resource and support the Court – accepts impunity. But the victims of the powerful will not stop in their efforts to make true the adage that no one is above the law,” declared Katherine Gallagher, Senior Staff Attorney at the U.S.-based Center for Constitutional Rights, who filed victims-representations with the Pre-Trial Chamber in support of the investigation.

“We condemn the ICC’s shocking decision, which is based on a deeply flawed reasoning. The ICC was created precisely to overcome the very challenges that made national investigations impossible – it is unacceptable that these challenges are now invoked by the Court to deny justice to the victims. It is a dark day for justice,” said Patrick Baudouin, FIDH Honorary President.

“After 11 years of preliminary examination by the Office of the Prosecutor, the judges took more than a year to consider the gravity of the crimes and the Court’s jurisdiction. After this unusually long period, the ICC decided today to reject Fatou Bensouda’s request. Not because the crimes were not committed, but for practical and political reasons”, says Guissou Jahangiri, FIDH Vice-President and Armanshahr/OPEN ASIA Executive Director. “The thousands of victims, of violent extremists and of both national and international forces, who participated in this process and who were overwhelmingly in favour of an investigation, are not being acknowledged. The ICC has turned its back on them.”

Background

On November 20, 2017, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda submitted her request to the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber III to open an investigation into the situation in Afghanistan on the following charges.

The Office of the Prosecutor (“OTP”) requested the authorization of the ICC Pre-trial Chamber judges to open an investigation into three sets of crimes on the territory of Afghanistan:

(1) crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty, persecution on political and gender grounds, and intentionally directing attacks at civilians, humanitarian personnel and/or protected objects, and conscription of children under the age of 15 by the Taliban and affiliated armed groups;

(2) war crimes, including torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, and sexual violence by Afghan government forces, namely members of the ANSF; and

(3) war crimes committed by U.S. armed forces and members of the CIA not only on the territory of Afghanistan, but also by U.S. actors operating in secret detention facilities operated by the CIA in Poland, Romania, and Lithuania since 1 July 2002, principally focusing on the period of 2003-2004.

Tens of thousands of victims had participated in the proceedings to support the Prosecutor’s request to open an investigation on the situation in Afghanistan, as serving the interest of justice in Afghanistan.

The United States is not a State Party to the ICC Statute. On 10 September 2018, John Bolton, the U.S. national security adviser, threatened the ICC with sanctions if an investigation was opened into alleged war crimes committed by American nationals in Afghanistan, declaring “the United States will use any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court.” He added that the Trump administration would “fight back” and impose sanctions if the Court formally proceeded with opening an investigation into alleged war crimes committed by U.S. military and intelligence staff during the war in Afghanistan or pursued any investigation into Israel or other U.S. allies.

As a first concrete step, on March 15, 2019, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the U.S. will revoke or deny visas to members of the International Criminal Court involved in investigating the actions of U.S. troops in Afghanistan or other countries, and was prepared to take further steps, including economic sanctions. On April 4, 2019, the United States revoked the visa of the ICC Prosecutor.

The United States pressured the United Nations to recognize self-proclaimed “Interim President” Juan Guaido during a Security Council (UNSC) meeting on Wednesday.

US Vice President Mike Pence told the UNSC that “the time has come” for the UN to recognize Guaido as Venezuela’s “legitimate president” and accept the latter’s representative to the world body. He added that the US would circulate a resolution to this effect, but offered no details on its timetable. A previous US resolution at the UNSC was vetoed by Russia and China on February 28.

Pence went on to reiterate the warning that “all options are on the table” to oust the Maduro government. “This is our neighborhood,” he told reporters afterward, calling on Russia to cease its support to the Maduro government.

Venezuela’s UN representative, Samuel Moncada, slammed what he called a “clear move to undermine” Venezuela’s rights, adding that his legitimacy depended on UN recognition and not on the declarations of the US vice president.

Russian ambassador Vassily Nebenzia accused the US of causing Venezuela “billions of dollars in losses” as a result of sanctions.

“[The US] deliberately provokes a crisis in Venezuela in order to change a legitimately elected leader for a US protege,” Nebenzia said in his speech.

Chinese representative Liu Jieyi likewise affirmed that Venezuelan affairs should be handled internally and criticized the imposition of sanctions, while his South African counterpart, Jerry Matjila, called for the UNSC to take a “constructive approach.”

Wednesday’s UNSC meeting came on the heels of a session at the Organization of American States (OAS) which approved Guaido’s appointment, Gustavo Tarre, as a representative to the body “until new elections are held.” The proposal had 18 votes in favor, 9 against, six abstentions and one absence.

Venezuelan authorities denounced the move as a violation of international law and of the OAS charter. The Foreign Ministry reiterated that Venezuela is due to leave the OAS on April 27, having started the process two years ago. Caracas denounced meddling in its internal affairs after the OAS had repeatedly tried to apply its democratic charter. However, it never managed to secure the necessary 24 votes.

Diplomatic battles surrounding Guaido’s recognition have extended to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). According to Bloomberg, the IMF cut off Caracas’ access to almost US $400 million in special drawing rights (SDR). While the IMF has shown no signs of recognizing Guaido, and lists Finance Minister Simon Zerpa as Venezuela’s representative, sources told Bloomberg that a government must be recognized by a majority of the Fund’s members to access its SDR reserves.

Venezuela remains mired in a deep economic crisis that has seen its international reserves shrink to around $9 billion. The cash crunch has been further compounded by US and allies freezing Venezuelan assets held abroad. In one such case, the Bank of England has refused to repatriate an estimated $1.2 billion worth of Venezuelan gold held in its vaults.

International tensions have also flared around the issue of humanitarian aid, with US and Venezuelan opposition ultimately failing to force an estimated $20 million worth of aid across the Venezuela-Colombia border on February 23. The operation faced strident criticism from international agencies such as the United Nations and the Red Cross, who refused to take part in the “politicization” of aid.

During Tuesday’s UNSC meeting, UN aid chief Mark Lowcock stated that Venezuela is facing a “very real humanitarian problem” and talked about the need to step up UN efforts in the Caribbean country. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres later tweeted that the UN estimates there are 7 million people in need of aid in Venezuela, and that the UN is working to increase its assistance “in line with the principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence.”

UN agencies have increased their work in Venezuela in recent months, most recently via an agreement between Caracas and the UN’s Central Emergency Resource Fund for US $9.2 million to address the health and nutritional impacts of the country’s severe economic crisis. President Maduro has also appealed for UN assistance in countering US sanctions to bring medicines and medical equipment to Venezuela.

Likewise, the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) recently announced a scaling up of its activities in Venezuela, doubling its annual country budget to $60 million as part of an agreement with the Venezuelan government.

Maduro met a Red Cross commission headed by IFRC President Peter Maurer on Tuesday to coordinate the agency’s work in Venezuela. Maurer had previously met Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza to “strengthen cooperation agreements.”

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This Mint Press article was first posted on Global Research on March 10, 2017

A new release of CIA documents by Wikileaks indicates that the intelligence agency has the means and the intent to mask the cyber-attacks it commits by making them seem as if they originated from a foreign power.

Earlier today, Wikileaks once again made headlines following its release of the “largest ever publication of U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) documents.” The massive release – just the first batch in a trove of documents code-named “Vault 7” by Wikileaks – details the CIA’s global covert hacking program and its arsenal of weaponized exploits.

While most coverage thus far has focused on the CIA’s ability to infiltrate and hack smartphones, smart TVs and several encrypted messaging applications, another crucial aspect of this latest leak has been skimmed over – one with potentially far-reaching geopolitical implications.

According to a Wikileaks press release, the 8,761 newly published files came from the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence (CCI) in Langley, Virginia. The release says that the UMBRAGE group, a subdivision of the center’s Remote Development Branch (RDB), has been collecting and maintaining a “substantial library of attack techniques ‘stolen’ from malware produced in other states, including the Russian Federation.”

As Wikileaks notes, the UMBRAGE group and its related projects allow the CIA to misdirect the attribution of cyber attacks by “leaving behind the ‘fingerprints’ of the very groups that the attack techniques were stolen from.”

In other words, the CIA’s sophisticated hacking tools all have a “signature” marking them as originating from the agency. In order to avoid arousing suspicion as to the true extent of its covert cyber operations, the CIA has employed UMBRAGE’s techniques in order to create signatures that allow multiple attacks to be attributed to various entities – instead of the real point of origin at the CIA – while also increasing its total number of attack types.

Other parts of the release similarly focus on avoiding the attribution of cyberattacks or malware infestations to the CIA during forensic reviews of such attacks. In a document titled “Development Tradecraft DOs and DON’Ts,” hackers and code writers are warned “DO NOT leave data in a binary file that demonstrates CIA, U.S. [government] or its witting partner companies’ involvement in the creation or use of the binary/tool.” It then states that “attribution of binary/tool/etc. by an adversary can cause irreversible impacts to past, present and future U.S. [government] operations and equities.”

While a major motivating factor in the CIA’s use of UMBRAGE is to cover its tracks, events over the past few months suggest that UMBRAGE may have been used for other, more nefarious purposes. After the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election shocked many within the U.S. political establishment and corporate-owned media, the CIA emerged claiming that Russia mounted a “covert intelligence operation” to help Donald Trump edge out his rival Hillary Clinton.

Prior to the election, Clinton’s campaign had also accused Russia of being behind the leak of John Podesta’s emails, as well as the emails of employees of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

Last December, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper – a man known for lying under oath about NSA surveillance – briefed senators in a closed-door meeting where he described findings on Russian government “hacks and other interference” in the election.

Following the meeting, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), a ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee,remarked: “After many briefings by our intelligence community, it is clear to me that the Russians hacked our democratic institutions and sought to interfere in our elections and sow discord.”

Incidentally, the U.S. intelligence community’s assertions that Russia used cyber-attacks to interfere with the election overshadowed reports that the U.S. government had actually been responsible for several hacking attempts that targeted state election systems. For instance, the state of Georgia reported numerous hacking attempts on its election agencies’ networks, nearly all of which were traced back to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Now that the CIA has been shown to not only have the capability but also the express intention of replacing the “fingerprint” of cyber-attacks it conducts with those of another state actor, the CIA’s alleged evidence that Russia hacked the U.S. election – or anything else for that matter – is immediately suspect. There is no longer any way to determine if the CIA’s proof of Russian hacks on U.S. infrastructure is legitimate, as it could very well be a “false flag” attack.

Given that accusations of Russian government cyber-attacks also coincide with a historic low in diplomatic relations between Russia and the U.S., the CIA’s long history of using covert means to justify hostile actions against foreign powers – typically in the name of national security – once again seems to be in play.

Whitney Webb is a MintPress contributor who has written for several news organizations in both English and Spanish; her stories have been featured on ZeroHedge, the Anti-Media, 21st Century Wire, and True Activist among others – she currently resides in Southern Chile.

On Thursday, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested by the UK police inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he was granted political asylum in 2012. This termination of asylum by Ecuador in violation of international law came a week after WikiLeaks warned the public it had received information from two high level Ecuadorian government sources about a US-backed plan for the Ecuadorian government to expel Assange from its embassy.

Assange’s lawyer confirmed he had been arrested under a US extradition warrant for conspiracy to publish classified information with whistleblower Chelsea Manning revealing government war crimes in 2010. Specifically, this relates to WikiLeaks’ publication of the Collateral Murder video, documents concerning the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the US Diplomatic Cables.

In making a statement outside Westminster Magistrate’s Court in London, the editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks Kristinn Hrafnsson told reporters that Assange’s arrest marks a “dark day for journalism”. This prosecution of Assange is recognised by experts on free speech rights as an attack on freedom of the media everywhere.

James Goodale, First Amendment lawyer and former general counsel of The New York Times, said this about the US government’s efforts to charge a journalist who is not American and did not publish in the US, possibly with espionage:

“If the prosecution of Julian Assange succeeds, investigative reporting based on classified information will be given a near death blow.”

David Kaye, UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression stated that

“prosecuting Assange would be dangerously problematic from the perspective of press freedom.”

Responding to this latest development on the WikiLeaks founder, American Civil Liberties Union commented,

“any prosecution by the United States of Mr Assange for WikiLeaks’ publishing operations would be unprecedented and unconstitutional, and would open the door to criminal investigations of other news organisations.”

Freedom of Press Foundation also issued a statement, alerting that the charge against Assange is a serious threat to press freedom” and noted that it “should be vigorously protested by all those who care about the First Amendment.”

Just a day before his arrest, WikiLeaks held a press conference with the attorney representing Assange. They exposed the Ecuadorian government’s spying operation against Assange, whose asylum and citizenship rights the country has an obligation to protect.

Ecuador’s surveillance inside the London embassy, conducted in cooperation with the US had constituted a total invasion of privacy, and included the recording of Assange’s meetings with his lawyers and doctor. Assange’s lawyer Jennifer Robinson described this as a severe breach of lawyer-client privilege, which had undermined the ability of his legal team to properly defend their client.

The seriousness of Ecuador’s treatment of its own citizen and asylee was recognised by the UN. The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy, Joe Cannataci and Independent UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Nils Melzer, who warned last Friday that Assange’s arrest may be a “serious human rights violation,” had planned to meet Assange on April 25 to investigate these rights violations in the embassy.

Assange’s arrest and possible extradition to the US is much bigger than an individual issue. This goes right to the heart of freedom of expression, basic human rights and due process. Our failure to resist the US government’s assault on this western journalist could empower authoritarian states to do the same.

If the US can prosecute a non-US journalist for revealing its secrets, why can’t Russia prosecute an American journalist in Washington revealing secrets about Moscow? Why can’t Saudi Arabia prosecute a journalist for revealing secrets about the murder of a Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi?

WikiLeaks has published material given to it by whistleblowers. Many media organisations have published that material. What about The New York Times and The Washington Post? Are they going to face charges too? In fact, the Trump administration has already threatened prosecution of journalists publishing classified material.

Should a publisher who released truthful information about government corruption and illegal wars be condemned? When did telling the truth become a crime? The act of publishing information that is verified to be authentic in the public interest must not be punished. Exposing government war crimes, human rights violations and murder of civilians including journalists is not a crime. This is the very function of a free press, as a vanguard of our democracy.

The prosecution of Assange sets a very dangerous precedent. This is a prosecution of our democracy that stifles freedom of expression of anyone in the world. This is not a political issue, defined as left vs right or one ideology against another. This is an issue that concerns our fundamental human rights. It is about a question of whether or not we would have a civil society, governed by the rule of law.

Now is the time to take action. We must pressure the UK government to oppose the extradition of this persecuted journalist to the US. And mobilise to demand the Trump administration drop the criminal charges against Assange and WikiLeaks. We must fight to defend Assange, not for his sake, but for ours and for our democracy.

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Nozomi Hayase, Ph.D., is the author of WikiLeaks, the Global Fourth Estate: History is Happening(Libertarian Books, 2018). Her essays have been featured in many publications. Find her on Twitter: @nozomimagine

Wikileaks has obtained and decrypted this previously unreleased video footage from a US Apache helicopter in 2007.

It shows Reuters journalist Namir Noor-Eldeen, driver Saeed Chmagh, and several others as the Apache shoots and kills them in a public square in Eastern Baghdad. They are apparently assumed to be insurgents.

After the initial shooting, an unarmed group of adults and children in a minivan arrives on the scene and attempts to transport the wounded. They are fired upon as well. The official statement on this incident initially listed all adults as insurgents and claimed the US military did not know how the deaths ocurred.

Wikileaks released this video with transcripts and a package of supporting documents on April 5th 2010 on http://collateralmurder.com.

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The Hamilton Coalition To Stop The War condemns the governments of Ecuador, the UK, and USA, for their collaboration in arresting and extraditing journalist Julian Assange. This was not a secretive operation carried out under the cover of darkness. Rather, it was handled very roughly and in broad daylight to send a chill into the bones of would-be investigative journalists and whistle-blowers around the globe.

Assange’s rendition from asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy touches all the peace movements of the world, because without the information provided by investigative journalists and whistleblowers, peace activists would not be able to hold our governments to account. Without courageous people such as Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning, we wouldn’t know about the helicopter gunship massacre of Reuters journalists and ordinary civilians in Baghdad. We wouldn’t know about the details of rendition and torture carried out in Guantanamo. We wouldn’t know about the instructions to its embassy in Damascus, as early as 2006, that Washington was determined to overthrow the legitimate government of Syria (Wikileaks Papers, Chapter 6).

Collateral Murder: U.S. Apache helicopters killing journalists in Iraq from Jesse Taylor on Vimeo.

Assange’s alleged crime, in the eyes of the rulers of the US empire, was that, using their own words and documents, he weakened the establishment narrative that the US was a force for good in the world. Instead, writing in his journalistic capacity and interpreting his revelations, he showed the US government is a criminal enterprise which ignores international law, relies on brute force, threats, bribes, unholy alliances with barbaric client states, and torture, to try to establish its domination over the whole word. Assange was initially popular among the mainstream media under the Bush administration, who freely used his Wikileaks’ material. However, they turned on him once Obama came into power and have not lifted their voices to defend him now.

Lest we Canadians feel smug in the knowledge that Assange is being tormented at the behest of the USA, let’s recall that successive Canadian governments acted as handmaidens to US imperialism in Somalia (where black youths were tortured and killed by Canadian soldiers), the former Yugoslavia where Canadian jets participated in 78 days of illegal bombing), Afghanistan (where Canadian troops routinely handed over suspects to be tortured by Afghan authorities), Libya (where a Canadian general led the NATO operation which turned the country into a failed state), and Venezuela (where our foreign minister is playing a big role in an attempted regime change operation). Let’s also note that the mainstream media in Canada is also promoting the lie that Canada is a force for good in the world and that it is extremely difficult to get any alternative viewpoint expressed in print, on radio, or on TV.

So it is now up to us in popular movements and on social media to remind the world what Assange revealed: the truth about the secret crimes of the US empire. We need to defend Assange and Chelsea Manning against trumped up charges of espionage and support their freedom of expression. We can carry on their work in Canada by building a peace movement which seeks to break out of centuries of supporting decaying empires and their corrupt military alliances (such as NATO) and develops instead a truly independent and peaceful foreign policy.

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Earth’s magnetic field is getting significantly weaker, the magnetic north pole is shifting at an accelerating pace, and scientists readily admit that a sudden pole shift could potentially cause “trillions of dollars” in damage.  Today, most of us take the protection provided by Earth’s magnetic field completely for granted.  It is essentially a colossal force field which surrounds our planet and makes life possible.  And even with such protection, a giant solar storm could still potentially hit our planet and completely fry our power grid.  But as our magnetic field continues to get weaker and weaker, even much smaller solar storms will have the potential to be cataclysmic.  And once the magnetic field gets weak enough, we will be facing much bigger problems.  As you will see below, if enough solar radiation starts reaching our planet none of us will survive.

Previously, scientists had told us that the magnetic field was weakening by about 5 percent every 100 years.

But now we are being told that data collected from the SWARM satellite indicate that the rate of decay is now 5 percent per decade…

It’s well established that in modern times, the axial dipole component of Earth’s main magnetic field is decreasing by approximately 5% per century. Recently, scientists using the SWARM satellite announced that their data indicate a decay rate ten times faster, or 5% per decade.

In case you didn’t quite get that, 5 percent per decade is 10 times faster than 5 percent per century.

If the rate of decay continues at this pace, or if it speeds up even more, we could be looking at a mass extinction event that is beyond what most people would dare to imagine.

As more solar radiation reaches Earth, we would expect to see a rise in cancer rates, and this is something that even National Geographic has acknowledged…

However, if the magnetic field gets substantially weaker and stays that way for an appreciable amount of time Earth will be less protected from the oodles of high-energy particles that are constantly flying around in space. This means that everything on the planet will be exposed to higher levels of radiation, which over time could produce an increase in diseases like cancer, as well as harm delicate spacecraft and power grids on Earth.

Of course we are already seeing this.  Cancer rates have been rising all over the world, and if you live in the United States there is a one in three chance that you will get cancer in your lifetime.

But as the magnetic field continues to weaken, things will get worse.

A lot worse.

The weaker the magnetic field gets, the amount of solar radiation that will reach us will rise, and eventually it would get so bad that the entire human race would be in jeopardy.  The following comes from Futurism…

Radiation and cosmic rays are a real concern for NASA, especially when it comes to long-term spaceflight.  Astronauts on a mission to Mars could undergo up to 1000 times the exposure to radiation and cosmic rays that they would get on Earth.  If Earth’s magnetic field disappeared, the entire human race – and all of life, in fact –  would be in serious danger.  Cosmic rays would bombard our bodies and could even damage our DNA, increasing worldwide risk of cancer and other illnesses.  The flashes of light visible when we close our eyes would be the least of our problems.

And even if some of us found a way to survive underground for a while, we still wouldn’t be able to survive because solar winds would strip away our planet’s atmosphere and oceans…

Without Earth’s magnetic field, solar winds — streams of electrically charged particles that flow from the sun — would strip away the planet’s atmosphere and oceans. As such, Earth’s magnetic field helped to make life on the planet possible, researchers have said.

So could such a scenario actually happen?

Well,  some scientists are saying that our magnetic field “could be gone in as little as 500 years”, but they are telling us not to worry because Earth’s magnetic poles will “flip” and things will eventually return to normal…

The magnetic field surrounding Earth is weakening, and scientists say it could be gone in as little as 500 years.

The result? Earth’s magnetic poles could, literally, flip upside down.

Of course most scientists believe that a pole flip takes hundreds or thousands of years to happen, but they don’t actually know because they have never seen one take place.

They also believe that we would potentially be facing “trillions of dollars in damage” to our power grid and electrical infrastructure because the magnetic field would be so weak during a flip…

Storms far less powerful than these could cause much more damage if they happened to hit while Earth’s magnetic field was in the midst of a reversal, Roberts said. The result would likely be trillions of dollars in damage to our electrical infrastructure, and right now, there’s no plan for dealing with an event of that magnitude.

“Hopefully, such an event is a long way in the future and we can develop future technologies to avoid huge damage,” Roberts concluded. Keep your fingers (but not your magnetic-field lines) crossed.

Most of the experts also believe that a pole flip is still a long way off, but what everybody agrees on is that the magnetic north pole is moving toward Russia at an accelerating pace…

But what’s really catching attention is the acceleration in movement. Around the mid-1990s, the pole suddenly sped up its movements from just over 9 miles (15 kilometers) a year to 34 miles (55 kilometers) annually. As of last year, the pole careened over the international date line toward the Eastern Hemisphere.

And earlier this year, authorities had to issue an emergency update to global positioning systems because “the magnetic field is changing so rapidly”…

The most recent version of the model came out in 2015 and was supposed to last until 2020 — but the magnetic field is changing so rapidly that researchers have to fix the model now. “The error is increasing all the time,” says Arnaud Chulliat, a geomagnetist at the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) National Centers for Environmental Information.

I know that I must sound like a broken record by now, but this is important.  Our planet is becoming increasingly unstable, and we are seeing things happen that we have never seen before.

Everyone agrees that the Earth’s magnetic field is rapidly getting weaker, and that is making us more vulnerable with each passing day.

Most of the experts are trying to put a happy face on things and are assuring us that everything is going to be okay.

Hopefully they are right, but I wouldn’t count on it.

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Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

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Despite an unfolding controversy over the suppression of scientific evidence of pesticide dangers, David Bernhardt was confirmed today to become the next secretary of the Interior. The final Senate vote, largely along party lines, was 56-41. 

The vote comes as Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and eight other Democratic senators seek an Inspector General investigation into Bernhardt’s efforts as deputy Interior secretary to scuttle a scientific review of harm to wildlife caused by chlorpyrifos and two other pesticides. The review concluded that these pesticides jeopardize the existence of more than 1,300 endangered species.

“Bernhardt will be even worse than Ryan Zinke. He’s the perfect distillation of Trump’s contempt for the natural world,” said Kierán Suckling, executive director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “He has spent decades scheming to undercut protections for wildlife and public lands across the country. This puts him in the perfect position to turn those nightmarish dreams into reality.”

Since the early 2000s, Bernhardt — a longtime lobbyist for polluting industries — has worked to undermine the effectiveness of the Endangered Species Act. As the top political lawyer in the Bush administration, he was the chief architect of that administration’s attempt to weaken the Act’s implementing regulations by allowing federal agencies to ignore the full spectrum of harms caused by development. Those regulations were overturned by Congress at the beginning of the Obama administration.

In 2018 Bernhardt led the Trump administration’s push to gut even more of the Endangered Species Act’s regulations. One set of regulatory changes would weaken the consultation process designed to prevent harm to endangered animals and their habitats from federal agency activities. A second set of changes would curtail the designation of critical habitat and weaken the listing process for imperiled species. A third regulation would gut nearly all protections for wildlife newly designated as “threatened” under the Act.

In March, under Bernhardt, the Interior Department finalized a plan to weaken protections for the endangered greater sage grouse. The imperiled bird will be pushed closer to extinction by the plan, which opens vast areas of sage grouse habitat in seven Western states to oil and gas drilling.

“Future generations will mourn the animals and plants that went extinct because of the Trump administration, and they will not forgive or forget Bernhardt’s avarice,” said Suckling. “It’s heartless to condemn a species to extinction just so his former clients can make a few more bucks.”

Over the past two years, the Trump administration has denied protection to 55 imperiled species of animals and plants, while listing only 16 species under the Endangered Species Act — the slowest rate of any administration in history.

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Brian Hook, the United States Special Representative for Iran, in an Opinion published in the New York Times, raises the question that: “Isn’t it time to abandon the policies that have kept the people of Iran and the United States apart since 1979?” In this paper, he tries to rationalize and legitimize Trump’s irrational and illegitimate policies against Iran, such as withdrawal from JCPOA, imposing maximum pressures and sanctions against Iranian people, and even preventing their access to humanitarian aids- contrary to the US international commitments-   when many people are suffering from the most devastating flood in recent history.

Developing a fabricated narrative and expecting everyone to believe it, not only doesn’t contribute to understanding the problem but also is misleading for those who have constructed it and naturally leads to self-deception and costly mistakes in foreign policy. That’s exactly what has happened in the US foreign policy toward the Middle East during the past four decades and the Trump administration is prolonging it another decade.

Image on the right: Mohammad Mosaddegh in court, 8 November 1953 (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Both Iran and the US should abandon the policies that have kept the people of Iran and the US apart. However, Iran-US problems did not begin in 1979 but with the 1953 military coup against the democratic government of Mohammad Mossadeq. Before that, Iranians had a positive image of the US since the constitutional revolution in Iran (1905-11).

If the military coup had not happened, there would not have been a revolution in 1979. Even, Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the Iranian revolution was emphasizing on reform not a revolution for a long time. It was the US support for a corrupted and inefficient dictatorship that made the revolution inevitable.

In the Middle East, we have been experiencing lose-lose conflicts for decades. The Iraqi war (1980-88) [Iran-Iraq] supported by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the US, imposed 200,000 casualties, 700,000 injured, and one trillion dollars of costs on Iran. Two years later, Saddam attacked its main supporters, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.

To get rid of their self-created threat, Saudis invited the US to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1990 and since then the US has been constantly engaged in the Middle East conflicts. Israel intensified their efforts against Iran mostly after the collapse of the Soviet Union and Iraqi defeat, since the early 1990s, with dual containment and ILSA sanctions. They were concerned with losing their strategic importance in Washington and tried to construct a new “common enemy”.

During the 1990s the US followed Saudi Arabia in Afghanistan to contain Iran through Taliban. That approach led to 30 years of instabilities in Afghanistan, creating a safe-haven for Al-Qaeda and finally the September 11 terrorist attacks that killed three thousand innocent people in New York. In 2003 Netanyahu played a key role in convincing the US to invade Iraq, while the US was already engaged in the Iraqi quagmire for a decade following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The Iraqi war cost the American people 36,000 casualties plus 7 trillion dollars economically.

In the Middle East context, the US has mostly suffered from its “allies and friends”, not “enemies”. Following Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Israel from Afghanistan to Iraq, Syria, and Yemen have imposed more than 58000 casualties, 7 trillion dollars of costs on the US and much more on the Middle East. Saudi and Israeli Lobbyists are paid to “enlighten” Washington about the region. If the US has received 50 billion dollars of yearly net profits for following the Saudi and Israeli approach during the past 50 years, it does not reach to half of the total costs that the US “friends” have imposed on the country.   This is the root cause of problems in the region that has undermined the US’ global position and influence in all parts of the world from East Asia to South America.

US foreign policy toward the Middle East has been “America last” for decades. Trump promised to “drain the swamp” but it seems that the “swamp” has drained the rationality of the Trump Administration. The decision to enlist IRGC as a terrorist organization is a clear example of irrationality. In recent years, IRGC played a key role in fighting with ISS and other terrorist groups and without IRGC and its allies, ISS had invaded from Baghdad to Beirut. Only a limited number of people like Netanyahu and Saudis welcomed the US designation of IRGC because they are behind all anti-Iran decisions in Washington.  When it comes to the US policy-making toward the Middle East, the US has not been able to decide based on America interests.

Iran has a dynamic society and has been able to resist the US threats, sanctions, and pressures for four decades. It is much stronger and developed now than in 1979. Iran soft power stems from it’s belief system, culture, inclusive institutions, rationality, national solidarity, and stability. These soft elements plus Iran hard power such as endogenous military and security capabilities, economic resilience, strong infrastructure, 15 million young people with higher education, scientific achievements, strategic location, regional markets, natural resources, etc. will help Iran to defend itself during the next decade.

The US officials have wrongly been convinced that dictatorship brings stability in the Middle East, that’s why we see them behind all military governments and despotic monarchies. Inefficient dictatorships are the root cause of regional instabilities in the Middle East. In 2009, two years before the Arab spring, Human Development Report described the situation in the Arab world with “inefficacy, unemployment, low-quality education, ethnic conflicts, the growth of population, corruption, lack of political freedom and military governments”. These challenges plus foreign military and political interventions led to a decade of instabilities and conflicts.

Now in 2019, the situation in the Middle East and North Africa is much worse than in 2009. The region faces with “low-quality governance, stagnant economies, deteriorating education and health services, high unemployment rate, water shortages, food insecurity, and rampant corruption”.  The most stable countries in the region are those with levels of political participation and democracy such as Iran and Turkey. As Trump said, some of the wealthy Arab government’s wouldn’t “last a week” without  US protection.  That’s why they hugely invest in public relation companies in Washington to pay the costs of their making with American blood, money, and military.

During the past 40 years, Iran has behaved responsibly and contributed to peace in the region. Iran opposed the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union; accepted 2.5 million Afghan refugees; opposed the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait; supported the peace process in Tajikistan; opposed domination of Afghanistan by Taliban (while the US allies recognized the group); played a key role in Bonne conference to bring peace and stability in Afghanistan; contributed to peace and stability of Iraq; proposed inclusive peace plans for Syria and Yemen (rejected by the US allies); supported Iraqi and Syrian forces against ISS and other terrorist groups; negotiated and implemented JCPOA according to IAEA while the US not only withdrew from that but also puts pressure on other countries to violate an international agreement.

The US has mostly benefited from Iran’s regional and international behaviors and stuffed from the policies followed by its “friends”.

• By supporting Saddam against Iran;
• creating and supporting Al-Qaida and Taliban; blockading Qatar;
• launching military coups in the region; military intervention in Bahrain and Yemen;
• supporting terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq; purchasing nuclear capable missiles (Saudi Arabia);
• producing nuclear weapons (Israel) and investing in other countries nuclear program… the US “friends” ( Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Israel) have imposed huge costs on the US and the Middle East.

The Middle East and North Africa need 60 to 100 million jobs during the next decade and without a regional peaceful context,  it would be impossible to create them by any government.  It is evident that the current US approach toward Iran and the Middle East, – mainly shaped by Netanyahu, MBS (Mohammed ben Salman) and MbZ (Mohammad bin Zayed)- will lead to more instabilities, failing states, migration, extremism, terrorism, conflicts and costs not only for MENA but also for Europe, the US and the rest of the world.

As a famous Iranian poet, Saadi, says: “a wise enemy is much better than a stupid friend“. If Pompeo and Hook really believe in democracy and human rights, it’s better that they prevent the Khashoggi killer unhook. As far as brains and minds in Washington is occupied by Saudi-UAE-Israeli Lobbies and the US is thoughtlessly following them, it’s difficult to imagine any reconciliation between Tehran and Washington under any government the Middle East and North Africa will remain as the least peaceful part of the world.

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Mr. Nabi Sonboli is an international affairs expert and scholar at the Institute for Political and International Studies (IPIS), which was founded in 1983 in Tehran as one of the first think tanks in Iran. He writes on Iran foreign Policy, Iran-US relations and Middle East developments. His writings have been published by Irandiplomacy.ir, Iranreview.org, Irna.ir, the Iranian Journal of International Affairs, Foreign Policy Journal (Persian), Central Asian and Caucasus Review (Persian), Al-Monitor, and other journals.

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Right after Julian Assange was arrested by the U.K. secret police at the Ecuadorian embassy in London which was his refuge for almost 7 years, the corrupted media in the U.S. joyfully gloated about this arrest. Their message to the American people was that the Assange saga is over, end of story!

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia issued a press release and charged the founder of WikiLeaks with “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for agreeing to break a password to a classified U.S. government computer”. They were expecting to see Julian Assange in the American courtroom immediately “pursuant to the U.S./UK Extradition Treaty”. It seemed that the plan against Julian Assange which was plotted by the U.S., U.K. and new regime in Ecuador is going forward accordingly. That was April 11, 2019. However 24 hours later, the reality on the ground looked more complex than a phony charge on a piece of paper! Even the New York Times –mother of all fake news — had to admit that: “Extraditing Assange Promises to Be a Long, Difficult Process”. Indeed, there are many obstacles for the American authorities to extradite and convict Mr. Assange. According to BBC, “Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said Assange should not be extradited ‘for exposing evidence of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan’”.

Agnes Callamard, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial executions tweeted that

“the UK had now arbitrarily-detained the controversial anti-secrecy journalist and campaigner, possibly endangering his life”.

Ben Wizner, the American Civil Liberties Union’s director issued a press release in this regard and commented:

“Any prosecution by the United States of Mr. Assange for Wikileaks’ publishing operations would be unprecedented and unconstitutional, and would open the door to criminal investigations of other news organizations. …”

These facts overwhelmingly prove that the charges against Julian Assange are invalid and baseless. However only through a vigorous campaign in defense of Julian Assange, the democratic minded people are able to defeat the dangerous attack on freedom of speech in America. As John Pilger, the great journalist and filmmaker of our time has stated:

“The shocking arrest of Assange carries a warning for all … . The warning is explicit towards journalists. What happened to the founder and editor of WikiLeaks can happen to you on a newspaper, you in a TV studio, you on radio, you running a podcast.”

Free Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning NOW!

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Massoud Nayeri is a graphic designer and an independent peace activist based in the United States. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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Former and much loved Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa has accused Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno of suspending the asylum of cyber-activist Julian Assange in order to obtain a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Correa said that there is evidence of the agreement and that Moreno, whom Correa selected at his successor, has promised to “hand over” Assange in a 2017 meeting with Paul Manafort, former US campaign chief to Donald Trump.

Former President Correa, who broke with Moreno, also commented on visits to Ecuador by US Vice President Mike Pence.

At these times, Moreno would have promised to “help isolate Venezuela, leave the Chevron oil corporation, a company that destroyed half of the Amazon rainforest, unpunished, and to deliver Assange.”

Last month, the IMF announced approval of a $4.2 billion loan to Ecuador. The first installment, of $652 million, has already been paid.

Correa suspects that the Ecuadorian president made the decision to withdraw Assange’s asylum after WikiLeaks published documents about Moreno’s alleged relationship with a failing company, INA Papers.

The former president pointed out that the company INA Papers was registered in 2012, when Moreno was still its vice president.

According to the Ecuadorian head of state, the measure to remove his asylum was a response to the journalist’s disrespectful and aggressive behavior, his hostile and threatening statements against Ecuador and alleged violations of international conventions, justifications considered to be unconvincing both by supporters of the cyber-activist as by several analysts.

Assange, who is responsible for the publication of US government secret documents, is the reason for the extradition request. The great concern for his lawyers – and he too – is that the British authorities actually decide to send him to the United States, where the legal consequences of upsetting Washington are still uncertain.

Assange will be on videoconference for the proceedings of the next extradition hearing, set for May 2.

It will be a preliminary session of a court case that can last for months or even years.

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Paul Antonopoulos is a Research Fellow at the Center for Syncretic Studies. He has an MA in International Relations and is interested in Great Power Rivalry as well as the International Relations and Political Economy of the Middle East and Latin America.

Mairead Maguire has requested UK Home Office for permission to visit her friend Julian Assange whom this year she has nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

“I want to visit Julian to see he is receiving medical care and to let him know that there are many people around the world who admire him and are grateful for his courage in trying to stop the wars and end the suffering of others,” Maguire said.

“Thursday 11th April, will go down in history as a dark day for the Rights of humanity, when Julian Assange, a brave and good man, was arrested, by British Metropolitan Police, forcibly removed without prior warning, in a style befitting of a war criminal, from the Ecuadorian Embassy, and bundled into a Police Van,” said Maguire.

“It is a sad time when the UK Government at the behest of the United States Government, arrested Julian Assange, a symbol of Freedom of Speech as the publisher of Wikileaks, and the worlds’ leaders and main stream media remain silent on the fact that he is an innocent man until proven guilty, while the UN working Group on Arbitrary Detention defines him as innocent.

“The decision of President Lenin Moreno of Ecuador who under financial pressure from the US has withdrawn asylum to the Wikileaks founder, is a further example of United States’ global currency monopoly, pressurizing other countries to do their bidding or face the financial and possibly violent consequences for disobedience to the alleged world Super Power, which has sadly lost its moral compass. Julian Assange had taken asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy seven years ago precisely because he foresaw that the US would demand his extradition to face a Grand Jury in the US for mass murders carried out, not by him, but by US and NATO forces, and concealed from the public.

“Unfortunately, it is my belief that Julian Assange will not see a fair trial. As we have seen over the last seven years, time and time again, the European countries and many others, do not have the political will or clout to stand up for what they know is right, and will eventually cave into the Unites States’ will. We have watched Chelsea Manning being returned to jail and to solitary confinement, so we must not  be naive in our thinking: surely, this is the future for Julian Assange.

“I visited Julian on two occasions in the Ecuadorian Embassy and was very impressed with this courageous and highly intelligent man. The first visit was on my return from Kabul, where young Afghan teenage boys, insisted on writing a letter with the request I carry it to Julian Assange, to thank him, for publishing on Wikileaks, the truth about the war in Afghanistan and to help stop their homeland being bombed by planes and drones. All had a story of brothers or friends killed by drones while collecting wood in winter on the mountains.

“I nominated Julian Assange on the 8th January 2019 for the Nobel Peace Prize. I issued a press release hoping to bring attention to his nomination, which seemed to have been widely ignored, by Western media. By Julian’s courageous actions and others like him, we could see full well the atrocities of war. The release of the files brought to our doors the atrocities our governments carried out through media. It is my strong belief that this is the true essence of an activist and it is my great shame I live in an era where people like Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning and anyone willing to open our eyes to the atrocities of war, is likely to be hunted like an animal by governments, punished and silenced.

“Therefore, I believe that the British government should oppose the extradition of Assange as it sets a dangerous precedent for journalists, whistleblowers and other sources of truth the US may wish to pressure in the future. This man is paying a high price to end war and for peace and nonviolence and we should all remember that.”

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Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate, Co-Founder, Peace People Northern Ireland, Member of World BEYOND War Advisory Board

In a March 26 United Nations press briefing strong on fact and devoid of bigotry, the United States Peace Council, headed by Bahman Azad, just returned from their recent visit to Venezuela, presented an eyewitness account of realities on the ground in Venezuela.  Their factual information drastically contradicted Western media distortions and propaganda intended to discredit the government of President Maduro.  The panel included Dr. Margaret Flowers a pediatrician and co-Director of Popular Resistance.org, Attorney Kevin Zeese, also co-director of Popular Resistance.org, Sara Flounders of the International Action Center and  founder of the organization No War on Venezuela.

Both Dr. Flowers and Sara Flounders confirmed that Presidents Chavez and Maduro had constructed 6,000 medical clinics, trained 18,000 physicians, and built almost three million housing units to provide decent homes for the poorest citizens. They had also provided the highest per capita availability of pharmaceuticals in Latin America.  Living standards for the poor dramatically improved.

Attorney Kevin Zeese confirmed that the current Venezuelan constitution guarantees human rights and defense of law and civil society.  He added that there were 168 credentialed international observers during the recent re-election of Maduro, and they confirmed that Maduro won 68% of the vote. There is zero legitimacy to Guaido’s farcical claim to the “interim presidency,”: according to the Venezuelan constitution, only if Maduro was too ill to govern, or dead, could he be replaced, and then, only the Vice President could legally replace him.

Following the failed coup against President Chavez in 2004, the US, in violation of international law under the Rome Statute, imposed illegal sanctions to cripple and ultimately destroy the Venezuelan economy, and since 2017 have imposed coercive economic sanctions which are tantamount to modern day piracy.  The US and its proxies, including the UK, have stolen billions of dollars belonging to the Venezuelan people, and have blocked pharmaceutical supplies, crippling the medical system;  when Venezuela attempted to purchase medications from India and Turkey, the US blocked that.

In 2014 US President Obama declared Venezuela a national security threat, opening the way for military intervention.  The criminal methods used to destroy the democratically elected government of Allende in Chile are being repeated in an attempt to destroy the Maduro Presidency, and steal the richest oil supply on the planet, and other precious natural resources that belong to Venezuela. Zeese confirmed that the coercive sanctions against Venezuela are violating the UN Charter, and should be challenged in international courts.

When the US puppet Guaido failed to foment a coup d’etat last month, mercenaries trained in Colombia and funded by Venezuelan assets stolen from Venezuela by the US and its proxies, are preparing to disguise themselves as disaffected Venezuelan military personnel, and planning to cause chaos, spreading terrorism, which will serve as an excuse for Western military intervention.  This is a heinous pattern of engineered violent provocations,  employed by the infamous School of the Americas, during the period from the 1950’s through the 1990’s, and technologically vastly advanced today. On March 24, an article headlined: “US and Puppet Guaido Implicated in Terrorism Plot,” reported that Guaido’s Chief of Staff Roberto Marrero was implicated in terrorist plots funded by assets seized from Venezuela and channeled into bank accounts through Colombia.  “Teams of assassins, brought from Honduras and El Salvador were trained in Colombia to carry out terrorist acts in Venezuela.”

There is solid evidence that the blackout in Venezuela, following Guaido’s failed coup d’etat, was engineered by the US-Guaido junta:  according to Sara Flounders, blueprints for the blackout attacks were traced to a source in Chicago with software equipment based in Houston, Texas.

As early as the 1960’s, the Latin American military was trained in methods of terrorism at the International Police Academy Center in Washington, with courses in Texas, at Los Fresnos.  The Latin American military was trained in everything connected with explosives, the way to manufacture explosive charges, anti-personnel  systems, bombs capable of destroying a building, a car, or railroad tracks.  In “free time” students practiced using a knife and techniques for killing silently, without noise….once the student was familiar with everything concerning primary explosives, he undertook the study of what is called “detonating cord” and its various applications  .. Then the student proceeds to the study of electronic systems and electric detonators.  When the student has a working knowledge of all these systems, he is taught an excellent type of bomb – a booby trap wired to the electric bulb in a Frigidaire (so that when someone opens the door, the system explodes.)

The infamous U.S. police “advisor” Dan Mitrione trained the Latin American military in updated torture techniques;  Mitrione kidnapped homeless beggars on the streets of Brazil, stripped them naked, and demonstrated various torture methods on their live human bodies, as a result of which these human guinea pigs died or were murdered.  This is an example of U.S. aid to Latin America.

In the half century since then, massively sophisticated methods of sabotage of the economies of countries independent of Washington’s control have been devised, and if these do not succeed, Washington and allies resort to military intervention, often employing the U.N. Security Council as enablers, as was the case in Libya, in 2011, and in 1991 in Iraq.  Today Venezuela, the world’s country richest in oil is the target.  Any hosannas of concern for the people of Venezuela are fraudulent, as desperate refugees from other countries are ignored or imprisoned by the U.S government, as are the numerous homeless, impoverished citizens of the USA, a dangerously increasing number.

On April 10, U.S. Vice-President Pence disgraced himself at the  UN Security Council by questioning the Venezuelan Ambassador’s authority, and pressuring the UN Security Council to revoke his legitimate credentials. Venezuelan Ambassador Moncada is a gentleman, otherwise he would have replied to Pence that the government of the United States is so grossly discredited, including by more than half its citizens, and still undergoing a probe of corruption by the Department of Justice (paid for by U.S. taxpayers), that Pence should not be sitting in the UN Security Council, but his own credentials should be revoked, and he should be replaced by Bernie Sanders.

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Carla Stea is Global Research’s correspondent at United Nations Headquarters, New York, N.Y.

Several headlines have blared “Julian Assange Arrested.” This is misleading because Assange has been under de facto arrest ever since the Swedish authorities sought his extradition regarding sex-related allegations.

Assange always stated that he was amenable to going to Sweden with a guarantee of no-further extradition to the United States. Sweden refused to accede to such a guarantee. Assange was also open to being interviewed in England. Finally, after having interviewed Assange in England, half-a-year later Sweden dropped its case against the man who has never been charged with any crimes.

Nonetheless, the United Kingdom behaved as any obedient lapdog would to its master, it stated that it would arrest Assange. Why? Because of the relatively benign charge of having breached bail. Note that this breach of bail for something that he was never charged. That should put to rest any patina of legitimacy to the UK’s legal posturing. Will Assange get a fair trial in the UK, something he has said he did not receive previously. The remarks of the district judge Michael Snow foreshadow blatant partiality. Snow said of Assange:

“His assertion that he has not had a fair hearing is laughable. And his behavior is that of a narcissist who cannot get beyond his own selfish interests.”

So what is the Assange case really about? It’s about power: the power to wage wars, the power to kill, the power to commit war crimes, and the power to silence or control narratives. The video “Collateral Murder” exposed the US power structure’s killing, warring, and monstrous criminality. Is it not a morbid hypocrisy that the people (Assange and Chelsea Manning) who expose the grotesquerie of killing are targeted for retribution through the so-called justice system while the killers go unpunished.¹

WikiLeaks, however, is a publisher not controlled or cowed by the power structure.

Now that Assange has had his asylum revoked by Ecuadorian president Lenin Moreno (something that is held to be illegal, including by former Ecuadorian foreign minister Guillaume Long) that casts great shame on himself and his nation. Former president Rafael Correa called Moreno corrupt and “a traitor.”

So the question is what now? What do people who care about the right-to-know do? What do people who care about exposing war crimes and government corruption do? What do people who care about protecting whistleblowers do?

This is not just about protecting Julian Assange, the person. There are many political prisoners and persons unjustly persecuted in the world. Assange is one of too many victims of the Establishment. But Assange has garnered prominence, and this is because he and WikiLeaks had the skill, courage, and audacity to bring to light the nefarious deeds of the power structure that it intended to keep in the dark.

Protecting Julian Assange means not just preventing the extradition of the Australian citizen (shame also to Australia) to the US, but freeing Assange. As a strict elementary principle, people should not be arrested, persecuted, or denigrated for having the moral integrity to expose criminality. Instead they deserve plaudits and should be regarded as great role models for others.

What can be done?

1. Western state/corporate media needs to reverse its path and step to the forefront of protecting the public’s right-to-know. It seems highly unlikely, as it would be a massive reversal for a media that has thoroughly discredited itself. It is in the self-interest of the monopoly media. It would be self-preservation of its publishers and journalists who would now be subject to legal reproach when the power structure is dissatisfied with the news.² Although the monopoly media would be coming extremely late to the game, protecting the right-to-publish (and the First Amendment in the US) would be pure self-interest.

Expecting a new tune in the monopoly media, however, is not about to happen because the monopoly media is part of the power structure seeking to make an example through Assange of the maltreatment that other potential whistleblowers would face.

Abusing law to prosecute Assange, even in secret (as would be expected given the power structure’s aversion to transparency) should cast an even brighter spotlight on what Assange and WikiLeaks are about, and why the US is seeking to silence the publisher.

2. Award Assange and WikiLeaks the Nobel Peace Prize. While the Nobel Peace Prize may still hold luster for some people, given its questionable awards to dubious recipients, its image has become quite tarnished. Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to a whistleblower who exposed the malignancy of war would be right in line with the sentiments and intention of Alfred Nobel. People should make their views known to the Nobel Committee. It would be much more difficult to extradite a current Nobel peace laureate, wouldn’t it? It would be a reversal for the Nobel Committee in Norway.

3. The United Nations. Given that UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that Assange’s detention was arbitrary and called on the UK to allow Assange to leave the Ecuadorian embassy without fear of arrest or extradition, the latest arrest in the UK is the UK further thumbing its nose at the world. What if the UN panel along with other diplomats and dignitaries were to hold vigils outside the British Gitmo where Assange is being held?

4. People power. The force to challenge the establishment power structure is people power — the power of the masses. This should take on many forms. The obvious one is masses taking to the streets. Unless this is of enormous size and sustained, it will only be a resistance blip on the radar. Depending on how much people value their right-to-know; how much they are opposed to killing people living far away who have never lifted a finger against them, their family, their neighbors, their countrymen and women; how much they are dedicated to justice for all humans … they will be willing to engage in further sacrifice: general strike. This will hurt corporations and send a signal to politicians who fear losing political influence. And as an additional measure, people should consider abandoning reader- and viewer-ship of monopoly media, hurting the bottom line and spooking investors.

This is another fight people must not lose. The protection of Assange would be a victory for all those who are unjustly incarcerated everywhere; a victory for people’s right-to-know and empowerment of the people (knowledge, they say, is power); a victory for the anti-war crowd; a victory for freedom of the press; and, of course, a victory-of-sorts for Assange and WikiLeaks.

Most importantly, it would be a victory for humanity.

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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. Indeed, they were exculpated in a book as The Good Soldiers by Washington Post writer David Finkel. As interpreted in The New Yorker: “The soldiers are callous, as you would expect young men caught up in a particularly ugly and confusing kind of war to be. Callous and angry—and also, in other moments, hopeful, generous, capable of friendliness toward Iraqis.” The New Yorker article proffers as excuse, “bad judgement” and that such acts are “absolutely inevitable in wars”: “Does it reveal a war crime? I don’t think so. This isn’t Abu Ghraib, or the rape atrocity in the Triangle of Death, or the Haditha massacre. The Apache crews make a series of bad judgments—some of them understandable, like mistaking the photographer’s long lens as it pokes around the corner of a building for an RPG; others much less defensible, like firing repeatedly at a van that has stopped to pick up a wounded man—but they aren’t shooting indiscriminately like in a free-fire zone. The video is important because it shows the kind of tragedy that is absolutely inevitable in wars likes the ones America has been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan…”

2. As an aside, the attempt to belittle Assange’s credentials as a journalist or publisher are risible given the flawless publication record of WikiLeaks, which stands as the envy of every publishing entity.

Featured image is from the Activist Post

This Friday, from the headquarters of the United Nations (UN), a group of 60 member states advocated for the Defense of Peace and the Principles of the UN Charter. The name of the coalition is still in discussion, however, they work together to develop a plan of action in rejection of the aggression against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and any other sovereign people.

The Foreign Minister of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Jorge Arreaza, insisted that the support of these countries towards Venezuela is only in the framework of the defense of the fundamental principles of the Charter of the United Nations and highlighted the execution of seven concrete actions will be developing over these weeks, in favor of peace and self-determination of peoples.

It should be noted that the UN Charter promotes the taking of effective collective measures to prevent and eliminate threats to peace, as well as the promotion of peaceful means for the settlement of disputes, in accordance with the principles of justice and international law. Likewise, it fosters friendly relations among nations based on respect for equal rights and the free determination of peoples.

“We are working on the name of the group and analyzing the next actions to take collectively, in New York, in Geneva, this is a coalition of countries within the United Nations and we are very happy for the support that Venezuela is receiving (…) remember today is Venezuela, but President Donald Trump already expressed that Cuba and Nicaragua are on his list. We can not allow it to happen in this way”, the FM warned.

The Minister of Foreign Relations took as an example the Syrian Arab Republic,

“yesterday we listened to the Ambassador of Syria narrate the experience that his country has gone through and we also heard other experiences of terrible interventions against the right to peace of the peoples that has occurred through so many years”.

During the meeting the representatives of the 60 States discussed the media propaganda operation that has been built on the Colombian-Venezuelan border, and how the United Nations has not been summoned in this process of supposed humanitarian assistance that takes place outside the framework of international law.

They also urged all the members of the Organization and specifically the United States that is a permanent member of the Security Council to respect and comply with the provisions of the UN Charter, affirming that this is not an ideological or political principle, it is to be or not in favor of war.

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Featured image is from Gobierno Bolivariano de Venezuela

When Trump designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terrorist organisation, Iran hit back hours later by labelling the US Central Command ‘CENTCOM’ a supporter of terrorism. Now two governmental military entities have been designed terrorist supporters, putting the US and Iranian forces at the level of al-Qaeda and the ‘Islamic State’ (ISIS) for their opposing armies. Trump’s decision is somewhat symbolic. Already in 2007, the IRGC was placed on the US Department of Treasury list of entities guilty of proliferation activities and support for terrorism. In 2011 President Obama added the Iranian Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics, the Basij and the Iranian police to a Treasury Department list of entities responsible for human rights abuses. Trump has now added Iran to a State Department list of supporters of terrorism. Tensions between Iran and the US has never reached such a high level, and have been in continuous escalation since Trump took office. What could go wrong?

These decisions may put the two forces against each other, on the ground in the Middle East or at sea in the Straits of Hormuz. A violent reaction could emanate from either side and bring the Middle East into unprecedented danger. Iran, rightly or wrongly, believes that Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, who has obvious influence over President Trump, is pushing the US to trigger a war. Accordingly, Iran and its regional allies are preparing for war.

Preparing for the worse, in recent days Iran has contacted allies in the Middle East, explaining the dangers of the situation and its possible consequences for their respective countries. All allies expressed readiness to support Iran and engage in any future war if the US attacks the ‘Islamic Republic’ and its existence is at stake. This information has been confirmed by a trusted source in direct contact with decision makers among Iran’s allies.

According to the source, Lebanon, or more precisely the political-military force operating under the trio equation (the Army, the People and the Resistance), “shall not be excluded from any future war between Iran and the US in the Middle East”. The source confirmed that Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah promised that

“Hezbollah will not stand idle if Iran comes under attack; it shall respond rather than watch events unfold”.

This means any US-Iran war will expand to other countries, notably Lebanon and Israel.

“Trump is granting any wishes expressed by Israel Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu. He – Netanyahu – is said to be behind the US sabotaging and revoking the nuclear deal with Iran. Netanyahu told Trump to move the embassy to Jerusalem and to recognise it as the capital of Israel. Trump gave Israel the Syrian occupied Golan Heights to boost Netanyahu’s election. Trump even defined Netanyahu as “your prime minister” when addressing American Jews at the recent AIPAC meetings. Netanyahu boasts that Trump designated the IRGC as a terrorist organisation at his request. Thus, Israel –in Tehran’s view—considers this a golden opportunity to start a war against Iran, particularly now that many Arab countries enjoy good relationships with Netanyahu, share Israel’s hostility to Iran (i.e. Saudi Arabia, Bahrein, the United Emirates), and are either supportive of a war or unable to stand in the way of Israel’s plans. Netanyahu enjoys unlimited support from Trump and will have full US military support in case of war. This is why Israel will be a target in any war against Iran”, said the source.

On the delicate domestic situation in Lebanon, a multi-ethnic country in financial distress, the source said:

“Iran has invested (armed and financially supported allies) for decades in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Palestine. This investment will not be wasted. Both Lebanon and Israel have long had enough reasons to start a war, but the political and military circumstances were not appropriate. To be clear, there has been no cease-fire deal or agreed on rule of engagement between Hezbollah and Israel since the 2006 war but only a cessation of hostility. Therefore, a war between the US and Iran means a war against Israel”.

On Syria, the source considers the economic situation to be critical.

“By imposing economic sanctions to cripple the country, the US and Israel are trying to win what they lost on the battlefield. Any foreign support is blocked in order to prevent reconstruction and to straightjacket the government of Damascus. Any rapprochement between Damascus and the Arab countries has been stymied by the US, who have succeeded in stopping the resumption of Arab diplomatic relations with Syria. The US is pushing Syria to think carefully about its future steps and to submit to the will of Trump. President Bashar al-Assad will not succumb; he would rather go to war against Israel to recover Syria’s Golan Heights. This could happen when and if the US starts a war against Iran”.

In Iraq, the central government is trying to avoid any bras-de-fer between Iran and the US, maintaining a delicate balance between the two enemies. Nevertheless, Iraqi groups ideologically linked to Iran have expressed their readiness to be directly engaged against US forces in case of war, believes the source.

Iran may change its behaviour at sea, mainly around the Straits of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. It is possible that the IRGC will take a more aggressive attitude towards the US Navy in the area, further complicating the situation. A conflict between the two sides seems inevitable even if a declaration of war is not imminent. Tehran, despite its tit-for-tat actions, is not expected to provoke US forces. It will not, however, hold back in the event of an error on the other side. If the US aims to frighten Iran, then a war-like situation is plausible.

Since taking control of the White House, Trump has transformed the Middle East into a more chaotic place: by his occupation of Syria, by allowing Saudi Arabia to continue its war on Yemen, and by offering Jerusalem and the Golan Heights to Israel. War is nothing new in this part of the world. The apparent victory of the extreme right and re-election of Netanyahu as prime minister make it all the more likely.

Israel tried – but failed – failed to defeat and neutralise Hezbollah in 2006. The US and Israel, along with Europe and Arab countries, attempted regime-change in Syria. One of their many failed objectives in attacking Syria was to disrupt the flow of weapons to Hezbollah and to push Syria away from the “Axis of Resistance”. Under the watchful eyes of Obama’s administration, ISIS grew and expanded in Iraq and Syria. US policy failed there too, having sought to divide Mesopotamia into three weak states: Kurdistan, Shiistan and Sunnistan. All these attempts were directly linked to Iran, who benefits from having powerful allies in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. The latter country is currently rejecting US sanctions and expanding its energy and commercial relationship with Iran to an unprecedented level. All these US policies have sought to break Iran and force it to accept US domination, a policy Washington has been trying to achieve since 1979. Perhaps, in the minds of Trump and Netanyahu, it is time to hit Iran directly. Alternatively, it may be that Iran’s fears are exaggerated.

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All images in this article are from the author

“Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from 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   

For seven years, from the moment Julian Assange first sought refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, they have been telling us we were wrong, that we were paranoid conspiracy theorists. We were told there was no real threat of Assange’s extradition to the United States, that it was all in our fevered imaginations.

For seven years, we have had to listen to a chorus of journalists, politicians and “experts” telling us that Assange was nothing more than a fugitive from justice, and that the British and Swedish legal systems could be relied on to handle his case in full accordance with the law. Barely a “mainstream” voice was raised in his defence in all that time.

From the moment he sought asylum, Assange was cast as an outlaw. His work as the founder of Wikileaks – a digital platform that for the first time in history gave ordinary people a glimpse into the darkest recesses of the most secure vaults in the deepest of Deep States – was erased from the record.

Assange was reduced from one of the few towering figures of our time – a man who will have a central place in history books, if we as a species live long enough to write those books – to nothing more than a sex pest, and a scruffy bail-skipper.

The political and media class crafted a narrative of half-truths about the sex charges Assange was under investigation for in Sweden. They overlooked the fact that Assange had been allowed to leave Sweden by the original investigator, who dropped the charges, only for them to be revived by another investigator with a well-documented political agenda.

They failed to mention that Assange was always willing to be questioned by Swedish prosecutors in London, as had occurred in dozens of other cases involving extradition proceedings to Sweden. It was almost as if Swedish officials did not want to test the evidence they claimed to have in their possession.

The media and political courtiers endlessly emphasised Assange’s bail violation in the UK, ignoring the fact that asylum seekers fleeing legal and political persecution don’t usually honour bail conditions imposed by the very state authorites from which they are seeking asylum.

The political and media establishment ignored the mounting evidence of a secret grand jury in Virginia formulating charges against Assange, and ridiculed Wikileaks’ concerns that the Swedish case might be cover for a more sinister attempt by the US to extradite Assange and lock him away in a high-security prison, as had happened to whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

They belittled the 2016 verdict of a panel of United Nations legal scholars that the UK was “arbitrarily detaining” Assange. The media were more interested in the welfare of his cat.

They ignored the fact that after Ecuador changed presidents – with the new one keen to win favour with Washington – Assange was placed under more and more severe forms of solitary confinement. He was denied access to visitors and basic means of communications, violating both his asylum status and his human rights, and threatening his mental and physical wellbeing.

Equally, they ignored the fact that Assange had been given diplomatic status by Ecuador, as well as Ecuadorean citizenship. Britain was obligated to allow him to leave the embassy, using his diplomatic immunity, to travel unhindered to Ecuador. No “mainstream” journalist or politician thought this significant either.

They turned a blind eye to the news that, after refusing to question Assange in the UK, Swedish prosecutors had decided to quietly drop the case against him in 2015. Sweden had kept the decision under wraps for more than two years.

It was a freedom of information request by an ally of Assange, not a media outlet, that unearthed documents showing that Swedish investigators had, in fact, wanted to drop the case against Assange back in 2013. The UK, however, insisted that they carry on with the charade so that Assange could remain locked up. A British official emailed the Swedes:

“Don’t you dare get cold feet!!!”

Most of the other documents relating to these conversations were unavailable. They had been destroyed by the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service in violation of protocol. But no one in the political and media establishment cared, of course.

Similarly, they ignored the fact that Assange was forced to hole up for years in the embassy, under the most intense form of house arrest, even though he no longer had a case to answer in Sweden. They told us – apparently in all seriousness – that he had to be arrested for his bail infraction, something that would normally be dealt with by a fine.

And possibly most egregiously of all, most of the media refused to acknowledge that Assange was a journalist and publisher, even though by failing to do so they exposed themselves to the future use of the same draconian sanctions should they or their publications ever need to be silenced. They signed off on the right of the US authorities to seize any foreign journalist, anywhere in the world, and lock him or her out of sight. They opened the door to a new, special form of rendition for journalists.

This was never about Sweden or bail violations, or even about the discredited Russiagate narrative, as anyone who was paying the vaguest attention should have been able to work out. It was about the US Deep State doing everything in its power to crush Wikileaks and make an example of its founder.

It was about making sure there would never again be a leak like that of Collateral Murder, the military video released by Wikileaks in 2007 that showed US soldiers celebrating as they murdered Iraqi civilians. It was about making sure there would never again be a dump of US diplomatic cables, like those released in 2010 that revealed the secret machinations of the US empire to dominate the planet whatever the cost in human rights violations.

Now the pretence is over. The British police invaded the diplomatic territory of Ecuador – invited in by Ecuador after it tore up Assange’s asylum status – to smuggle him off to jail. Two vassal states cooperating to do the bidding of the US empire. The arrest was not to help two women in Sweden or to enforce a minor bail infraction.

No, the British authorities were acting on an extradition warrant from the US. And the charges the US authorities have concocted relate to Wikileaks’ earliest work exposing the US military’s war crimes in Iraq – the stuff that we all once agreed was in the public interest, that British and US media clamoured to publish themselves.

Still the media and political class is turning a blind eye. Where is the outrage at the lies we have been served up for these past seven years? Where is the contrition at having been gulled for so long? Where is the fury at the most basic press freedom – the right to publish – being trashed to silence Assange? Where is the willingness finally to speak up in Assange’s defence?

It’s not there. There will be no indignation at the BBC, or the Guardian, or CNN. Just curious, impassive – even gently mocking – reporting of Assange’s fate.

And that is because these journalists, politicians and experts never really believed anything they said. They knew all along that the US wanted to silence Assange and to crush Wikileaks. They knew that all along and they didn’t care. In fact, they happily conspired in paving the way for today’s kidnapping of Assange.

They did so because they are not there to represent the truth, or to stand up for ordinary people, or to protect a free press, or even to enforce the rule of law. They don’t care about any of that. They are there to protect their careers, and the system that rewards them with money and influence. They don’t want an upstart like Assange kicking over their applecart.

Now they will spin us a whole new set of deceptions and distractions about Assange to keep us anaesthetised, to keep us from being incensed as our rights are whittled away, and to prevent us from realising that Assange’s rights and our own are indivisible. We stand or fall together.

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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 French court on Thursday upheld a guilty verdict against chemicals giant Monsanto over the poisoning of a farmer who suffered neurological damage after using one of its weedkillers, the latest legal setback for the company over its controversial pesticides.

Cereal farmer Paul Francois has been fighting Monsanto, a formerly US company which was bought by Germany’s Bayer last year, for the past 12 years.

In the first ruling of its kind against Monsanto anywhere in the world, a French court in 2012 found it guilty of poisoning Francois.

He said he began experiencing symptoms including blackouts, headaches and loss of balance and memory after inhaling fumes while using the now-banned weedkiller Lasso.

Monsanto appealed and lost in 2015 but decided to go a third round.

“I won, and I’m happy, but at what cost?” Francois told reporters after the verdict.

He denounced what he called years of “legal harassment” by Monsanto, which can still appeal Thursday’s ruling by the Cour de Cassation, a top French appeals court.

The ruling, he said, was “a message to the government,” which he urged to ban other toxic pesticides that contain glyphosate, used in Monsanto’s top-selling Roundup.

“History will judge them for not acting,” he said, referring to a campaign pledge by President Emmanuel Macron to phase out glyphosate in France, which he backed down on last year.

Monsanto is facing thousands of US lawsuits over glyphosate exposure, and last month was ordered by a San Francisco court to pay around $80 million to a retiree suffering from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

‘Not a chemist’

Francois said he fell ill in 2004 after accidently inhaling fumes from a vat containing Lasso, a monochlorobenzene-based weedkiller that was legal in France until 2007 but which had already been banned in 1985 in Canada and in 1992 in Belgium and Britain.

He argued that Monsanto was aware of Lasso’s dangers long before it was withdrawn from the French market, and sought damages of more than one million euros ($1.13 million) for chronic neurological damage that required long hospital stays.

The court in Lyon, southeastern France, rejected the company’s appeal but did not rule on how much Monsanto might have to pay, which will be determined in a separate ruling.

It did order the company to pay 50,000 euros immediately for Francois’s legal fees.

In its ruling, the court found that Monsanto should have clearly indicated on Lasso’s labelling and instructions for use “a notice on the specific dangers of using the product in vats and reservoirs”.

“The plaintiff’s assumed technical knowledge does not excuse the lack of information on the product and its harmful effects—a farmer is not a chemist,” it added.

Speaking after the verdict, a lawyer for Monsanto France, Jean-Daniel Bretzner, said it would probably appeal, since the ruling applied to Lasso’s producer—in this case, Monsanto Europe.

Parent company Bayer confirmed it was weighing an appeal.

“Supposing that Paul Francois was accidently exposed to Lasso, by definition such exposure is rare,” it said in a statement.

Wave of lawsuits

It was the latest conviction against Monsanto involving its weedkillers and pesticides, which have been widely used around the world for years.

Last month, a San Francisco court ordered the $80 million pay-out to a retiree who blames its popular Roundup weedkiller, which contains glyphosate, for causing his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The company said it would appeal as it faces thousands of similar lawsuits in the United States.

It had already been ordered last year to pay $78.5 million to a California groundskeeper who attributed his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma to using Roundup as well as Monsanto’s Ranger Pro.

Monsanto denies that Roundup causes cancer and has challenged findings by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, an arm of the World Health Organization (WHO), which classified glyphosate as a “probable carcinogen” in 2015.

But Bayer, which paid $63 billion for Monsanto last year, has seen its stock plunge some 40 percent since the takeover was completed last June, largely reflecting fears of Monsanto’s exposure to lawsuits.

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Featured image: French farmer Paul Francois, left, and his lawyer Francois Lafforgue at a press conference in Lyon, southeast France, after an appeals court upheld his lawsuit against Monsanto over its Lasso weedkiller

The US First Amendment affirms fundamental speech and media rights without which all others are threatened. No society is free without them. Eliminating them assures totalitarian rule.

In her 1951 book, titled “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” Hannah Arendt said it’s “never content to rule by external means (alone)…(T)otalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating and terrorizing human beings from within.”

She called it dictatorship based on:

“(1) an elaborate ideology (militarism and predatory capitalism in the US and UK);

(2) a single mass party (in the US and UK, its war party);

(3) (state) terror;

(4) a technologically conditioned monopoly of communication (in the US and UK, establishment media serving as press agents for wealth, power and privilege, reporting the official narrative, suppressing truth-telling on vital issues);

(5) a monopoly of weapons (in the US – how it used to be; today Russian super-weapons exceed the best in the West); (and)

(6) a centrally controlled economy (socialism for the rich in the US and UK by accommodative legislation and government handouts to monied interests, law of the jungle free market capitalism for their exploited people).”

Democracy in both countries is pure fantasy. Elections when held are farcical. Dirty business as usual wins every time. Ordinary people have no say over how they’re governed.

US exceptionalism, the indispensable state, and moral superiority don’t exist. Police state America is increasingly a totalitarian plutocracy, oligarchy and kleptocracy – unfit and unsafe to live in for its ordinary people. The same goes for the UK and other Western countries.

They honor their worst, persecute some of their best, notably courageous truth-tellers exposing dirty secrets of the imperial state and its partners want suppressed.

The mistreatment of Chelsea Manning, other heroic whistleblowers, and now journalist Julian Assange for doing the right thing constitutes a major body blow to already fast eroding freedoms in the US and UK – heading toward eliminating them altogether.

Right wing  Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno acted in cahoots with the UK and US, illegally rescinding Assange’s citizenship and asylum status in the country’s London embassy – a dark day for the rule of law and fundamental human and civil rights.

Assange’s forcible Thursday arrest had nothing to do with earlier dropped phony rape and sexual abuse charges in Sweden, nothing to do with Assange skipping bail in London – everything to do with his virtually certain extradition to the US.

DOJ spokeswoman Nicole Oxman explained it, saying

“I can confirm that Julian Assange was arrested in relation to a provisional extradition request from the United States of America.”

The sole fabricated charge against him of “Conspiracy to Commit Computer Intrusion” was used to smooth the extradition process.

Once in US custody, a further indictment is highly likely, maybe certain to follow on espionage charges under the long ago outdated 1917 Espionage Act, a WW I relic, solely pertaining to the war.

It’s what Chelsea Manning was unlawfully charged under ahead of her guilt by accusation trial and 35-year prison sentence, commuted by Obama after nearly seven years served.

She’s been detained again since March 8 for invoking her constitutional rights not to give grand jury testimony – a secretive, manipulative process designed for prosecutors to get indictments, targeted individuals guilty of no crimes vulnerable, why the system should be abolished.

Assange faces a similar fate as Manning during her earlier kangaroo court trial.

It’s why preserving and protecting Net Neutrality is vital – digital democracy, the last front frontier of media freedom.

Note: The US House passed Save the Internet Act (HR 1644) – written to prevent corporate ISPs from acting as online gatekeepers, able to decide how and what people may access digitally.

The GOP-dominated Senate and Trump veto power remain major hurdles to overcome.

By email, Law Professor Francis Boyle explained that

“contrary to (media and other) reports, the US government can add charges after Assange is extradit(ed).”

According to Law Professor Jonathan Turley,

indictment of Assange “under the Espionage Act would be quite challenging for the government, absent some new evidence establishing a nexus and intent,” adding:

“I have handled First Amendment and national security cases, and I would call the Assange arrest the most anticipated case of my generation in defining the outside boundaries of those areas…This could prove one of the most important cases in (US) history.”

On Friday, the Russian embassy in the UK press secretary issued the following statement on Assange’s arrest, saying:

“UK media (reports) called the WikiLeaks founder a ‘puppet of the Kremlin.’ We are not surprised at such statements. The UK media often try to find Russian involvement in all possible issues.”

“Such insinuations around the case of Assange had already taken place earlier” – no evidence ever cited. Without it, allegations and accusations are baseless.

“I would like to point out that WikiLeaks was initially promoted by The Guardian newspaper. One can hardly accuse it of having links to Russia,” the statement added.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called Assange’s forcible arrest “squeezing the throat of freedom.”

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov expressed the same view, call his unacceptable arrest “a blow to media freedom,” adding:

Assange “is being persecuted…(T)his does not correspond to the ideals of freedom of the press, freedom of the media, and their inviolability” – just the opposite, how totalitarian regimes operate.

A Final Comment

Assange is being unlawfully detained at London’s Belmarsh prison – classified as Adult Male/Category A, a high-security facility. Known as Britain’s GITMO, it’s described as follows:

It’s for “those whose escape would be highly dangerous to the public or national security.

Offenses that may result in consideration for Category A or Restricted Status include:

“Murder, manslaughter, wounding with intent, rape, kidnapping, indecent assault, robbery or conspiracy to rob (with firearms), firearms offenses, importing or supplying Class A controlled drugs, possessing or supplying explosives, offenses connected with terrorism and offenses under the Official Secrets Act.”

So-called most dangerous inmates are held in Belmarsh’s secretive high security unit, described as a prison within a prison – likely where Assange is jailed.

Mark Hughes was the first UK reporter ever allowed in the unit, saying its living conditions are “cramped.”

To gain entry, he “negotiated 15 gated doors and had (his) fingerprints scanned.” Inside, he saw “a windowless” facility “(s)urrounded by CCTV cameras in a small carpeted reception area – the only carpet in the block…”

He had to remove his “shoes and belt and put all (his) belongings through an X-ray machine. (He) walked through a metal detector and a was given a body search – the lining of (his) jeans, the soles of (his) feet and inside (his) mouth were all checked.”

Guards go through the same procedure every time they enter the unit.

“At the end of the reception area is a red iron gate. Passing through this door involves at least a four-minute wait, as it can only be unlocked by staff in the control room who check people’s identity using remote cameras which zoom in to study their faces.”

“Once through you are faced with four more doors, each leading to a different part of the unit. No two doors in the unit can be opened at the same time.”

“The (unit) is on two floors and is split into four ‘spurs.’ Each one has 12 single-occupancy cells.”

The unit “was originally used almost exclusively to house IRA prisoners. But since then it has held KGB agents (sic), al-Qa’ida terrorists (the US and UK support), and even Charles Bronson – Britain’s most violent prisoner – who had a whole spur to himself.”

Some Belmarsh prisoners are isolated in solitary confinement for 22 hours daily, likely how Assange is being mistreated.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

There was no hearing, no semblance of trial.  But there was swift summary judgment: Israel Folau, a star member of the Australian Rugby Union team, had been banished from the national team.  There was only one problem: he was avoiding taking any calls from Rugby Australia to inform him of that fact.

“For an organisation not recently known for quick and decisive action,” suggested Brett McKay, “Rugby Australia’s handling of a delicate matter has been as swift as it has been sensible.” 

It was a familiar episode of institutional clumsiness, coupled with a lack of competence.  Rugby Australia had evidently hardened to the man.  Folau was being accused of another round of excessive zealotry.  First came an Instagram post addressed to “drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists and idolaters”.  While they were on route to hell, the dedicated evangelical was intent on saving them. 

More was to come.  Last Thursday, the Daily Telegraph revealed footage of a sermon given by Folau before churchgoers last month. 

“Christmas and Easter, that’s man-made,” he asserts.  “For many years we were caught up in the world and thinking that celebrating Christmas was biblical, but when you read this passage you can see what God says about it.” 

And so he does, going through Jeremiah 10:1-5, excoriating the path of the heathen “and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the brethren are dismayed at them.” 

The lack of consistency in approaching Folau’s very publicly held beliefs on homosexuality and all who deviate from the path of the righteous had previously caught the officials off guard. Now, not wishing to look weak, they decided to strike savagely.  The question here is whether a code of conduct hearing will feature.  According to the Rugby Union Players’ Association,

“it is imperative that the proper process is followed under the code of conduct.”

And given that the player’s options seem to also be closing towards other international leagues, this is probably going to happen.   

This point is a simmering one, and RA must, to some extent, shoulder the blame.  Rather than being removed from the boiler, the issue remained after comments made by Folau last year on Instagram that a special spot in hell was reserved for gay people.  He proceeded to explain that “it was never my intention to hurt anyone with the Instagram comment”.  It is also worth noting that Folau was not alone, garnering some support within the team.    

Rugby Australia, then, preferred containment rather than any overtly aggressive measure.  Rugby AU CEO Raelene Castle described having a “calm open and honest” meeting with Folau over his use of social media.  A strong warning issued.  Folau could continue playing.  In fact, he was given a new contract. 

The inconsistent approaches of Rugby Australia have not gone unnoticed.

“During the past five years (probably longer),” comments Paul Cully for the Sydney Morning Herald, “Rugby Australia has consistently rewarded those whose past behaviour was a red flag, which they have ignored.” 

The broader problem here is what Folau is being punished for.  Bad boys face a confused regime of sporting administrators keen to use the sporting assets at their disposal while also seeking some exalted moral high ground.      

It is clear that a behavioural norm is emerging in the workplace: you are to be removed, silenced or made to disappear for holding unsavoury opinions.  This is particularly problematic when it comes to a clash of rights; in this case, Folau is a fire-and-brimstone type who is unlikely to change his creed and believes, wholeheartedly, in his cause.  His performance as a sportsman is not as relevant as the permitted moral code that attaches to that workplace. The result is often one of shabby treatment for the detractors from the managerial perspective.

The attempt at discarding Folau is being waged on a few fronts.  Rugby Australia is citing behavioural issues with a renewed sense of purpose; elite coaching director Rod Kafer has decided to hit the player with the suggestion that he has weaknesses in the Australian squad and can be easily left out.  “If we just take the Wallabies view, we’ve struggled to find actually Israel’s best position for the Wallabies.”  True, he brought “some real unique characteristics” but these did not translate into being “an outstanding player” in international rugby. 

While there is nothing to celebrate in the extreme views of Folau, his treatment is becoming part of a pattern that characterises modern work and how public views are aired.  If only, some bureaucrats in RA are no doubt sighing, he could remain a quiet fundamentalist.  And this problem might well have been approached differently.  Instead of the inherent messiness of loading the weapon with a four-year-deal last year, Rugby Australia might have simply not renewed it.  But then again, this would jar with another part of the RA credo: winning above all else.

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

Just finished viewing, for the umpteenth time, one of my favorite films, Chinatown (1973), directed by Roman Polanski and starring Jack Nicholson. At the end of the film, when the bad guy, played by John Huston, gets away with his criminal shenanigans, it made me ponder a bit. I thought back to another of Polanski’s classics, Rosemary’s Baby (1968). Sure as hell, at the end of that film the bad guys, the Satan worshippers (and of course the devil himself) get away with their evil deeds. Then I continued to ponder another of his films, Ghost Writer (2010) and the evil ones get away with their deeds as well. Now in all of these films there were diligent heroes who took the time to investigate whatever hunches they had, all to no end. So, the old adage of ‘Evil triumphs when good men do nothing’ just did not fit, because too many ‘good men’ just couldn’t give a shit!

Why would Polanski choose to take on three such storylines? Well, I wish I could interview him for my radio show, but for creative license allow me to extrapolate a bit. In all three scenarios it seems that the ‘forces of evil’ were so powerful (in one case the devil himself) and had so many minions serving their interests, that truth alone was held hostage.

The ‘bad guys’ always get away with it! Sad but true. Yet, and this is key to my whole theory, if the ‘bad guys’ did not have so many minions working for their interests, then perhaps the ‘good guys’ would triumph. In Rosemary’s Baby it was ‘cut and dry’ that not enough of the public at large was awake to such a diabolical threat. After all, how many of our fellows out there would even contemplate the existence of the devil?  Remember the old saying ‘The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist.’? Nuff said on that. However, in the case of Polanski’s next film on this subject, Chinatown, the uber rich guy, Noah Cross, had so many connections, and so many minions in his employ, that his evil deed went unpunished. At the end of the film, when JJ Gettes, played by Nicholson, is shouting to the cops about what Noah Cross has been conniving as to the city’s precious water supply, they turn a deaf ear. His partner says to him ‘Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown!’ Finally, in Polanski’s powerful third film in this trilogy about evil, Ghost Writer, the hired ghost writer to a former British PM does his homework and discovers the evil of our Military Industrial Empire. He connects the USA’s Deep State in manipulating the Brits in our quest to control the Middle East with our illegal invasion of Iraq etc. The film ends with him, as he is about to publicize this whole can of worms, being run over and killed in the street.

Was Polanski just cynical to a tee, or maybe too honest? I choose both possibilities. To this writer, the real gist of it all is not so much the presence of evil doers. No, the real skinny of this is the legion of devil’s disciples who serve them so well. Remember, that in the late 1930s, when many here in the US knew of the horrific treatment of the Jews in Germany, only 9% of people polled thought that we should let the refugees into our country. Or better yet, watch this administration and Congress in action.

The minions are working so well to serve this evil empire. How many in both the Congress and the mainstream media stood in line like good lemmings and supported our pre-emptive (and illegal and immoral) attack and occupation of Iraq? Fact is always being skewed into half truths and fabrications for the suckers… sorry, the public, to ingest. As with the public in all three of Polanski’s films, the cloud of obliviousness seeps down. Reminds one of the old Twilight Zone episode ‘To Serve Man’, when the myriad of good folks are on line to get into the spaceship with their new alien friends. This guy runs up to the main character and says ‘ I finally was able to figure out the real meaning of their book ‘To Serve Man’… It’s a cookbook!’

Dinner anyone?

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Philip A Farruggio is the contributing editor for The Greanville Post. He is also frequently posted on Global Research, Nation of Change, World News Trust and Off Guardian sites. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 300 columns on the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also host of the ‘ It’s the Empire… Stupid’ radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be reached at [email protected].

Trump is poaching BRICS countries one by one, first extending an offer to Brazil to become a “Major Non-NATO Ally” and now a bipartisan group of American lawmakers wants him to do the same with India, a proposal that by its very nature proves that New Delhi was lying all along about wanting to “multi-align” between Great Powers while it was really just repeating the platitudes that the Russian “deep state” desperately needed to hear in order to be naively deceived while this game-changing pivot was taking place before their very eyes.

No sooner had Indian “thought leaders” just left Moscow after participating in a landmark “trust-building” conference hosted by the prestigious Valdai Club did the news emerge that a bipartisan group of American lawmakers proposed that the US designate India as a “Major Non-NATO Ally” (MNNA), contradicting whatever “reassurances” those “experts” gave their Russian hosts that India was wholly committed to its “neutral” policy of “multi-alignment” between Great Powers. If successfully promulgated into law, then India would be the second BRICS country invited to enter into an official strategic partnership with NATO after Brazil was offered the opportunity to become a MNNA during Bolsonaro’s visit to DC last month. The hyperlinked piece in the last sentence connects to an article that I wrote at that time that also debunks the myth of BRICS, which the Alt-Media Community imagines to be some sort of legendary superstructure for dismantling the so-called “New World Order” even though the reality is a lot less “sexy”.

One by one, Trump is poaching the BRICS countries and reducing the five-member bloc to its three-member RIC precursor prior to stripping it down to its RC core. The writing was on the wall for years that this was in the process of happening and I initially drew attention to it in a piece from May 2016 asking “Is India Now A US Ally?” in the run-up to the conclusion of the LEMOA deal that allows the US to use all of India’s military facilities on a case-by-case “logistical” basis. The Indophile lobby all across the world and especially in Russia vehemently insisted that nothing of the sort was happening, being either cringingly naive or deliberately deceptive but with the end result being that many of Moscow’s decision makers were misled into trusting India despite New Delhi obviously preparing for a game-changing pivot before their very eyes. Proverbially speaking, “the cat’s out of the bag” with the new US legislative proposal and it’s clear to see what India was up to this entire time.

The timing of this initiative couldn’t have been better for Prime Minister Modi since it might boost his reelection prospects during the ongoing month-long electoral process and serve as a “good cop” counterpart to the US’ recent “bad cop” one of calling his government out for lying about supposedly downing a Pakistani F-16 during the famous February dogfight. From the American perspective, clinching this accord could lock India into its military-industrial complex ecosystem and accelerate the country’s redirection away from Russia and towards the West in this respect, powerfully undermining the “credibility” of its claims to “multi-alignment” and revealing them to have been nothing more than “wishful thinking” rhetoric purposely designed to deceive their intended Russian audience. The belated but inevitable realization of this fact will widen Russia’s “deep state” fault lines and speed up the pace with which the influence of Kabulov’s “Progressives” replaces that of the Indophile “Traditonalists” while also more quickly catalyzing a comprehensive breakthrough in the country’s bilateral relations with the global pivot state of Pakistan.

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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.

After living under a grant of asylum in London’s Ecuadorian embassy for nearly seven years, WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange was forcibly ejected and arrested by British police on April 11. Ecuador’s president, Lenin Moreno, accused Assange of “repeated violations to international conventions and daily-life protocols.” After an anonymous source revealed the “INA Papers,” a dossier that implicated Moreno in money laundering and contained personal photos of his family, WikiLeaks tweeted about it but denied any connection to the hacking.

Rafael Correa, who was president of Ecuador until 2017, had granted Assange asylum in 2012 to protect him from extradition to the United States to answer for WikiLeaks’s publication of evidence of U.S. war crimes. Ecuador’s foreign minister at the time, Ricardo Patino, said that without this protection, Assange could suffer “political persecution” or extradition to the U.S. where he might face the death penalty.

In 2010, WikiLeaks published classified documentation of U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, which Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning had provided. It included the “Collateral Murder Video” that showed U.S. soldiers in an Army helicopter gunship kill 12 unarmed civilians walking down a street in Baghdad.

Sweden investigated Assange in fall 2010 for allegations of sexual assault. Assange was living in Britain at the time. Sweden issued an extradition warrant so Assange could face questioning about the investigation in Sweden. Assange fought extradition but lost in Britain’s Supreme Court in June 2012. He sought and received refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

In spite of pressure from the British government, in August 2012, Correa granted asylum to Assange, who has remained in the Ecuadorian embassy ever since. Sweden dropped its investigation of Assange in 2017.

The Trump Administration Indicts Assange

Assange’s arrest comes thanks to the Trump administration’s decision to pursue WikiLeaks. The Obama administration refrained from indicting Assange for fear of establishing “a precedent that could chill investigative reporting about national security matters by treating it as a crime,” according to Charlie Savage of The NewYork Times. Obama’s government had difficulty distinguishing between what WikiLeaks did and what traditional news media organizations like the Times “do in soliciting and publishing information they obtain that the government wants to keep secret,” Savage wrote. News organizations, including the Times, published articles that drew on documents WikiLeaks had published in 2010, including “logs of significant combat events in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

But the Trump administration decided to come after Assange. In 2017, then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo said,

“WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service.”

An indictment filed on March 6, 2018, in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia charges Assange under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. It alleges he was part of a conspiracy to access a computer without authorization in order to obtain classified information that “could be used to the injury of the United States.” Assange faces five years in prison if convicted.

Assange’s April 11 arrest was based on two grounds: failure to appear on a British warrant in 2012, and a warrant of extradition to face indictment in the United States. After his arrest, Assange was taken before a British judge and pleaded not guilty to failing to surrender to the court in 2012. District Judge Michael Snow convicted Assange, who now faces 12 months in prison in the U.K. for that offense. This is unrelated to the charges Assange would face in the United States.The indictment says Manning provided WikiLeaks with 90,000 “war-related significant activity reports” about Afghanistan, 400,000 about Iraq, 800 Guantánamo detainee “assessment briefs” and 250,000 U.S. State Department cables. WikiLeaks published the vast majority in 2010 and 2011. The indictment alleges Assange helped Manning attempt to crack a password to make it harder to identify Manning as the source of the classified information.

U.K. Should Deny Extradition of Assange to the U.S.

Meanwhile, Assange vows to fight extradition to the United States. Under the 2003 extradition treaty between the U.S. and the U.K., the U.K. can deny extradition if the offense sought is punishable by death. The U.S. Justice Department is apparently planning to file new charges against Assange, in addition to those listed in the 2018 indictment. But under the 2003 treaty, the United States cannot charge Assange with violation of the Espionage Act, because it carries the death penalty.

Moreover, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment forbids extradition to a country where there are substantial grounds to believe the person would be in danger of being tortured.

The danger of torture in the U.S. is real. During the first 11 months of Manning’s incarceration in 2010, she was held in solitary confinement and subjected to humiliating forced nudity during daily inspection. The former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture called Manning’s treatment cruel, inhuman and degrading, possibly rising to the level of torture.

There is thus good reason to believe Assange might be subjected to such illegal treatment if he were extradited to the United States.

A few days before Assange’s removal from the embassy and arrest, Nils Metzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, warned that extradition to the U.S. “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.”

Assange’s Indictment Will Chill Freedom of the Press

Assange’s prosecution is unprecedented.

“The Justice Department has never charged journalists with violating the law for doing their jobs,” Savage wrote.

“Reporting on leaked materials, including reporting on classified information, is an essential role of American journalism,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a statement.

The ACLU’s Ben Wizner cautioned that prosecuting Assange “would set an especially dangerous precedent for U.S. journalists, who routinely violate foreign secrecy laws to deliver information vital to the public’s interest.” He added that “while there is no First Amendment right to crack a government password, this indictment characterizes as ‘part of’ a criminal conspiracy the routine and protected activities journalists often engage in as part of their daily jobs, such as encouraging a source to provide more information.”

Kristinn Hrafnsson, editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, responded to Assange’s indictment, saying,

“This is journalism. It’s called ‘conspiracy.’ It’s conspiracy to commit journalism.”

Reporters Without Borders, an organization that protects freedom of the press, called on the U.K. to oppose extradition of Assange. It would “set a dangerous precedent for journalists, whistleblowers, and other journalistic sources that the U.S. may wish to pursue in the future.”

The 2003 treaty between the U.S. and the U.K. prohibits extradition if the request is “politically motivated.” That limitation is certainly at play here: Trump administration has made a political decision to single out WikiLeaks and make it an example. The administration wishes to send a message to other press organizations that they publish material critical of U.S. policy at their peril.

The U.K. must deny the extradition of Assange to the United States.

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Copyright Truthout. Reprinted with permission.

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and a member of the advisory board of Veterans for Peace. Her most recent book is Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The date – April 11, 2019 – will live in infamy in the annals of Western “values” and “freedom of expression.” The image is stark. A handcuffed journalist and publisher dragged out by force from the inside of an embassy, clutching a Gore Vidal book on the History of the U.S. National Security State.

The mechanism is brutal. WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange was arrested because the United States demanded this from the Tory British government, which for its part meekly claimed it did not pressure Ecuador to revoke Assange’s asylum.

The U.S. magically erases Ecuador’s financial troubles, ordering the IMF to release a providential $4.2-billion loan. Immediately after, Ecuadorian diplomats “invite” the London Metropolitan Police to come inside their embassy to arrest their long-term guest.

Let’s cut to the chase. Julian Assange is not a U.S. citizen, he’s an Australian. WikiLeaks is not a U.S.-based media organization. If the US government gets Assange extradited, prosecuted and incarcerated, it will legitimize its right to go after anyone, anyhow, anywhere, anytime.

Call it The Killing of Journalism.

Get Me That Password?

The case by the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) against Assange is flimsy at best. Everything has to do essentially with the release of classified info in 2010 – 90,000 military files on Afghanistan, 400,000 files on Iraq and 250,000 diplomatic cables spanning most of the planet.

Assange is allegedly guilty of helping Chelsea Manning, the former U.S. Army intel analyst, to get these documents. But it gets trickier. He’s also allegedly guilty of “encouraging” Manning to collect more information.

There’s no other way to interpret that. This amounts, no holds barred, to all-out criminalization of journalistic practice.

For the moment, Assange is charged with “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.” The indictment argues that Assange helped Manning to crack a password stored on Pentagon computers linked to the Secret Internet Protocol Network (SIPRNet). [Though a closer look at the indictment shows the alleged help was to obscure Manning’s identity and not intrude into a DOD computer.]

In March 2010 chat logs obtained by the U.S. government, Manning talks to someone alternatively named “Ox” and “press association.” The DoJ is convinced this interlocutor is Assange. But they must conclusively prove it.

Manning and this person, allegedly Assange, engaged in “discussions.” “During an exchange, Manning told Assange that ‘after this upload, that’s all I really have got left.’ To which Assange replied: ‘Curious eyes never run dry in my experience.’”

None of this holds up. U.S. corporate media routinely publishes illegal leaks of classified information. Manning offered the documents he had already downloaded to both The New York Times and The Washington Post– and he was rejected. Only then did he approach WikiLeaks.

The allegation that Assange tried to help crack a computer password has been doing the rounds since 2010. The DoJ under Obama refused to go for it, aware of what it would mean in terms of potentially outlawing investigative journalism.

No wonder U.S. corporate media, deprived of a major scoop, subsequently started to dismiss WikiLeaks as a Russian agent.

The Nuclear Option

The great Daniel “Pentagon Papers” Ellsberg had already warned back in 2017:

“Obama having opened the legal campaign against the press by going after the roots of investigative reporting on national security – the sources – Trump is going to go after the gatherers/gardeners themselves (and their bosses, publishers). To switch the metaphor, an indictment of Assange is a ‘first use’ of ‘the nuclear option’ against the First Amendment protection of a free press.”

The current DoJ charges – basically stealing a computer password – are just the tip of the avalanche. At least for now, publishing is not a crime. Yet if extradited, Assange may be additionally charged with extra conspiracies and even violation of the 1917 Espionage Act.

Even if they must still seek consent from London to bring further charges, there’s no shortage of DoJ lawyers able to apply sophistry to conjure a crime out of thin air.

Jennifer Robinson, Assange’s very able lawyer, has correctly stressed his arrest is “a free speech issue” because it “is all about the ways in which journalists can communicate with their sources.” The invaluable Ray McGovern, who knows one or two things about the U.S. intel community, has evoked a requiem of the fourth estate.

The full context of Assange’s arrest comes to light when examined as sequential to Chelsea Manning spending a month in solitary confinement in a Virginia jail for refusing to denounce Assange in front of a grand jury. There’s no doubt the DoJ tactic is to break Manning by any means available.

Here’s Manning’s legal team:

“The indictment against Julian Assange unsealed today was obtained a year to the day before Chelsea appeared before the grand jury and refused to give testimony. The fact that this indictment has existed for over a year underscores what Chelsea’s legal team and Chelsea herself have been saying since she was first issued a subpoena to appear in front of a Federal Grand Jury in the Eastern District of Virginia – that compelling Chelsea to testify would have been duplicative of evidence already in the possession of the grand jury, and was not needed in order for U.S. Attorneys to obtain an indictment of Mr Assange.”

The Deep State Attacks 

A trade deal with America may be really important from an economic point of view but it is also going to be a bad thing for the health of British people. If you have not experienced the American way of doing business first hand you would not understand it. It is not pleasant in so many ways.

This is just one example of the way business is conducted in America. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists conducted an investigation into breast implants, which then led onto other reports being made public. This is the first few paragraphs of their latest report on medical implants, which you can read in full HERE.

“Records of millions of cases of patient harm and product malfunctions previously kept hidden from the public could soon be released following a major policy change by the key United States regulator.

In a major advance for medical device transparency, the U. S. Food and Drug Administration has pledged to disclose information kept buried for nearly two decades under a program known as “alternative summary reporting.”

The program allowed manufacturers of about 100 devices to submit quarterly reports summarizing large numbers of incidents to the FDA without the data being revealed to the public.

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced the policy change on Twitter two days after the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reported that hundreds of thousands of incidents related to breast implants had been kept out of public sight under the summary reporting program.”

Subsequent to that a March 7 report by Kaiser Health News revealed that more than 1.1 million incidents since 2016 had been kept from public view because of ‘alternative summary reporting’.

We have no idea of the health implications or damage it may have caused overall. However, when it came to breast implants alone, thousands of women across the USA suffered debilitating illnesses, including a rare form of cancer, after receiving them. Medical professionals and surgeons simply had no idea just how dangerous some of these devices could be to their patients because there was no data made available to them in the first place.

‘Summary Reporting’ is a tool devised to mislead the public about the scope and severity of harm to people caused by the medical industry. This is not to say that all medical devices are harmful, only that data existed of those that did cause harm and it was withheld – courtesy of the US government. The health of their own citizens clearly meant nothing.

ICIJ reported last November that thousands of breast implant patients worldwide were experiencing serious ailments and injuries as part of its global Implant Files investigation and a scandal then emerged forcing the data out into the open.

This one example only goes to show just how deceitful the American government and American corporations can be in pursuit of profit.

Other examples are food additives that are scientifically proven beyond any doubt to cause cancer still being used by food manufacturers in America due to a deliberately designed loophole in the law. These same additives are banned in the EU and subsequently in the UK – for now. This list of additives does not include growth hormones and GMO products, which is another matter completely.

Another example is that of cosmetics. The EU has banned 1328 chemicals from cosmetics because they are known carcinogens but the US has banned only 30 of them. HERE is the official journal of the EU and the list of chemicals that are banned. It’s lengthy document says – “Given the hazardous properties of substances classified as carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic, category 1A, 1B and 2, pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council on classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures their use in cosmetic products should be prohibited.”

As a US/UK trade deal gets closer to being announced, all British citizens will soon be in a position of having to ask questions about the products they buy for the sake of their health.

I have had a number of years exposure to American style legislation when it comes to public protective measures and by and large it is dire. There are many examples I could give such as American fruit being packaged in a French style with French wording and images giving the impression of their products have not been exposed to GMO production techniques or covered in banned pesticides. Not that they need say so even if they were. Another is Greek yoghurt or specialist European cheese manufactured by American corporations in the USA and then packaged to give the impression of European goods.

In fact, even in American organic food today, there are dozens and dozens of synthetic ingredients that can be included in organic products, for no other reason than there is no organic equivalent to the chemical synthetic replacement being used. In other words – they would not qualify for organic food in the EU or in Britain currently.

The consequence is that everything you buy has to be scrutinised if you worry about what you are consuming. In my case, there was a simple rule, don’t buy it if it’s an American product, which can be restricting in product ranges where they have market dominance.

It should not be forgotten, that Britain has one of the safest food chain systems in the world – America is listed as the 7th worst in the world.

Still not convinced? Read – BREXIT: Appalling US food standards will add £1billion to NHS to combat serious food poisoning

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Featured image is from TP

With Russiagate, the Democrats created some powerful karma to answer for; especially for the likes of Rep. Adam Schiff and Rep. Eric Swalwell, (D-Calif.), both of whom persist in the mindless search for the Holy Grail.   After cheating Bernie out of the nomination in 2016, the Dems had not yet learned their “karmic lesson” when they lost to the Donald in the Presidential election. The Mueller Report is but the latest of that karmic reckoning.

There is no pride in being one of those who “got it right” that there was no evidence, not a scintilla of material fact to prove collusion between the Trump campaign and the dastardly Russians.  As the country has been torn asunder by a two year politically tainted investigation  begun with no evidentiary standard and no probable cause, there is little satisfaction to be gained.

That being said, we must acknowledge that all the players who supported this unprecedented farce as an attack on the country’s rule of law.  How could the autocratic digital giants, the intel community (which missed 911), the already discredited MSM and the pathetically trivial Democratic party think they could get away with lie after lie?  Because they counted on the Democratic rank n file and other hypnotized Americans to believe anything they are told – repeat a lie often enough and the masses will own it.

The determination of no new indictments and no collusion is little cause for celebration in that the country should not have had to endure the extended anguish of an insistent, irrational, near-hysterical drumbeat generated by the MSM and Democrats as co-conspirators.   It is fair to say that all participants were consciously aware that they were repeatedly lying to the American public just as it is highly probable that Special Counsel Robert Mueller who was appointed in May, 2017 knew well before the 2018 mid-term elections that allegations of collusion and obstruction were unsubstantiated.

Now that the Report into the Investigation on Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election has been delivered, all can rest assured that the American system of government works, that the checks and balances did their job and that American democracy survived another close call.

As a result of the hyperventilating hubris, the word ‘collusion’ has now become an empowered part of the lexicon.  There is now an implicit warning for any candidate, or indeed any citizen, to be wary with whom they speak, be wary of their associations, to not fraternize with just anyone and to be ultra sensitized to meeting with any potential adversary, even in the legitimate interests of diplomacy.

In addition, without the political will to do so, there will be little initiative for PTB (powers that be) to undo the new generation of intense political repression and censorship initiated by Russiagate that can be traced directly to Clinton’s loss in 2016.  Two weeks after that election, the Washington Post, long believed to be a CIA asset, combined allegations that Russia exploited American online platforms “critical of the US government” with the now discredited creation of ‘fake news’ that 200 American websites were “peddlers of Russian propaganda.”

As Attorney General William Barr quotes from the Mueller Report

“The Special Counsel found that Russian government actors had successfully hacked into computers and obtained emails from persons affiliated with the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party organizations and publicly disseminated those materials throughout  various intermediaries including Wikileaks.”

This statement is in direct contradiction with Bill Binney, former NSA Technical Director for Analysis and co-founder of NSA’s Signal Intel Center who conducted independent forensic research.  Binney concluded that the data was ‘leaked by a person with physical access to the DNC computer” and that the “DNC data was downloaded to a storage device and transported to Wikileaks, like on a thumb drive or cd rom.”  While neither Mueller, any Congressional committee nor the FBI ever contacted Binney regarding his findings, the DNC refused to turn over their computer to the FBI for forensic testing.   After the full Mueller report is publicly available,  Binney’s feedback promises to be enlightening.

As some Democrats and MSM continue to spin the illusion of a pending obstruction of justice charge,  Barr’s letter relying on the Mueller Report is clear – the “Report identifies no actions that constitute obstructive conduct” and that  ‘evidence does not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime,” therefore, there is no proof ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ that obstruction occurred.  Legalese 101 says that obstruction cannot be alleged if no crime was committed but when did proof or evidence ever make a difference to the co-conspirators. Review of the Mueller Report itself will provide further details.

It was the unverified Steele dossier that provided the FBI with the basis for its submission to the FISA Court that Russian collusion had occurred and in order to obtain the necessary warrants (four of them) to spy on the Trump campaign; specifically US Naval Academy graduate, the hapless Carter Page.  Prior to its FISA Court submission, the FBI knew that the Dossier was a bogus document.  We know that the HRC campaign and the DNC funded Fusion GPS firm to get the dirt on Trump.  Fusion then brought in Christopher Steele who put together a salacious piece of garbage that the FBI took and ran with.

The dossier was then circulated by Obama CIA Director John Brennan and publicly released by BuzzFeed and CNN in January, 2017.  Former Obama Director of National Intelligence James Clapper provided ‘inconsistent information’ to the House Intelligence Committee that he “flatly denied” any media discussions regarding the dossier and then “subsequently acknowledged discussing the dossier with CNN’s Jake Tapper” and perhaps others.

CNN (Tapper, Carl Bernstein, Evan Perez and Jim Sciutto) went on to win White House Correspondents Association’s 2018 Merriman Smith Award for outstanding reporting with the Judges noting that the “depth of reporting demonstrated in these remarkable and important pieces, and the constant updates as new information continued to be uncovered showed breaking news reporting at its best.” The WHCA gathers annually to “celebrate the First Amendment and the crucial role of journalism in informing and protecting the public.” BuzzFeed, which broke the original story, did not share in the $2500 award.

In reality, the award apparently struck other WHCA members as unusual, considering the entire story took little actual reporting and instead relied on leaks from Brennan and Clapper.

There should be enough shame to go around but there appears to be no evidence of a conscience or the need to pay a karmic debt among any of the perpetrators.

In the aftermath of Mueller, Judicial Watch has filed an FOIA suit to obtain the records of communication between Brennen, Clapper and CNN including all documents related to the dossier.

In a September, 2016 text message from FBI attorney Lisa Page to Peter Strock, she relates the  preparation of talking points to brief  FBI Director Jim Comey on the efforts to bring down Trump.   In that same message, Page adds that  “POTUS wants to know everything we are doing.”

The question arises whether the usual mealy-mouth Republican establishment and a previously compromised FISA Court will step up and better protect the Constitution than they have in the past?   

*

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Renee Parsons has been a member of the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist for Friends of the Earth and staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC. She can be found on Twitter @reneedove31. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Except during WW II, the neoliberal 90s when Boris Yeltsin was Kremlin leader, and end of the Reagan era, Russia bashing has been intense since its 1917 revolution – notably throughout Vladimir Putin’s tenure, especially since Trump triumphed over media darling Hillary.

US history is pockmarked with hostile actions against its own people and other nations threatening no one. At home, persecuted Black Americans went from chattel to wage slavery, from Jim Crow to its modern-day version, and from freedom to mass incarceration.

The great “Red Scare” and Palmer raids after Russia’s 1917 revolution targeted left wing groups and individuals for their ideological beliefs, not wrongdoing.

Red-baiting launched J. Edgar Hoover’s career as DOJ Bureau of Investigation’s General Intelligence Division head, the FBI’s precursor he led for over 35 years after its establishment.

His infamous COINTELPRO tactics were and remain all about infiltrating, disrupting, sabotaging, and eliminating activist groups for ethnic justice, racial emancipation, as well as economic, social, and political equality across gender and color lines.

Anti-war, human and civil rights groups, the American Indian Movement, Black Panther Party, and similar activist groups were targeted for neutralizing.

Clandestine tactics today include Big Brother surveillance, roving and other wiretaps, warrantless searches, delayed notice warrants, so-called “sneak and peak” searches, national security letters, Internet and cell phone tracking, and other flagrant constitutional violations.

Beginning in 1938, House Un-American Activities Committee witch-hunt hearings into alleged disloyalty and subversive activities became headline news.

In the late 1960s, more of the same followed by the renamed House Committee on Internal Security.

Notorious McCarthyism in the 1950s was a demagogic smear campaign against prominent figures – slandering them, ruining careers, even accusing WW II hero General George Marshall of being “soft on communism.”

Notable Hollywood figures were blacklisted. McCarthyism was baseless slander, unscrupulous fear-mongering, and political lynchings.

Modern day Russophobia launched Cold War 2.0. It’s far more threatening to world peace than its earlier version.

Russia under Vladimir Putin is falsely accused of malign activities because of the country’s sovereign independence, opposition to Washington’s imperial agenda, its aim for multi-world polarity, and status as the world’s dominant military power, its super-weapons exceeding the Pentagon’s best, developed at a small fraction of the cost.

Russiagate witch hunt House, Senate and Mueller probes were a colossal hoax, discovering no US election meddling nor improper or illegal Trump/Russia connection – because there was nothing to find.

Yet Russia bashing remains unrelenting, nearly everyone in Washington involved, major media in lockstep with Russophobic hysteria over nothing.

Years earlier, right wing commentator George Will turned truth on its head, calling governance under Putin “a toxic brew of nationalism (sic) directed against neighboring nations (sic)…”

Early during Putin’s tenure as president, the Russophobic London Guardian turned truth on its head, comparing him to Stalin, saying:

“Authoritarianism is growing harsher, society is being militarized…calling on the West to reexamine its (relationship with) the Kremlin,” citing nonexistent “barbaric actions, dismantlement of democracy and suppression of human rights.”

The above characterizations apply to the US, Britain, France, Germany, Israel, and their imperial partners, not Russia.

Early in Trump’s tenure, Politico attacked Russia, turning truth on its head, saying

“Europe’s political stability, social cohesion, economic prosperity and security are more threatened today than at any point since the Cold War (sic) (because) Russia is destabilizing the continent on every front (sic)” – a bald-faced Big Lie.

Virtually all establishment media falsely accused Russia of meddling in the US 2016 presidential election to help Trump defeat Hillary – despite no evidence suggesting it because none exists.

The NYT has been in the vanguard of proliferating the Big Lie, repeating it time and again for emphasis, adding to its resume of shameful misreporting.

Last September, it falsely accused Russia of “the most effective foreign interference in an American election in history” – despite nothing of the kind occurring, not in November 2016, earlier, or thereafter.

Electoral interference is a US specialty at home and abroad, its dirty hands wanting puppets in power worldwide it controls. One-party rule with two extremist right wings runs America – the War Party, waging it on humanity.

According to Time magazine disinformation,

“Putin built a ragtag empire of tyrants and failing states…from major conflict zones such as Venezuela, Libya and Syria to the more obscure corners of Africa,” adding:

“What comes through is a newfound Russian willingness, even an eagerness, to involve itself in wars and cultivate regimes anywhere Moscow sees a chance to assert itself.”

Fact: Russia is the world leader among major powers in seeking diplomatic resolution to ongoing political and hot conflicts – the US the main instigator.

Fact: Russia seeks cooperative relations with other countries. The US wants dominion over them, their resources, and populations.

Fact: The Russian Federation never attacked or threatened another nation – what the US does repeatedly, waging permanent wars of aggression and other hostile actions on humanity.

The evil empire is headquartered in Washington – with branch offices in London, Paris, Berlin, other NATO capitals, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Seoul, Riyadh, Cairo, Brasilia, Buenos Aires, and numerous other cities worldwide.

It’s allied with an array of tinpot despots and fantasy democracies worldwide – notably extremist regimes in NATO countries, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Africa, Asia, Latin and Central America.

Russia gains allies through mutual cooperation. The US pressures, bullies, bribes, and threatens other nations, demanding they submit to its will, resisters targeted by aggression, color revolutions, and old-fashioned coups.

Russia’s influence worldwide is growing, America’s waning. All empires in world history met the same fate, no exceptions.

Arrogance, hubris, and overreach brought them down, what awaits the US unless nuclear war, environmental destruction, or both dooms us all, an ominous possibility.

*

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from InfoRos

This article which reveals the historical background of the Wikileaks affair was first published by Global Research on October 24, 2010

On October 22nd [2010], the whistleblowing web site WikiLeaks released nearly 400,000 classified Iraq war documents, the largest leak of secret information in U.S. history.

Explosive revelations contained in the Iraq War Logs provided further evidence of the Pentagon’s role in the systematic torture of Iraqi citizens by the U.S.-installed post-Saddam regime.

Indeed, multiple files document how U.S. officials failed to investigate thousands of cases of abuse, torture, rape and murder. Even innocent victims who were targets of kidnapping gangs, tortured for ransom by Iraqi police and soldiers operating out of the Interior Ministry, were “investigated” in a perfunctory manner that was little more than a cover-up.

Never mind that the Pentagon was fully cognizant of the nightmare playing out in Iraqi jails and prisons. Never mind the beatings with rifle butts and steel cables, the electrocutions, the flesh sliced with razors, the limbs hacked-off with chainsaws, the acid and chemical burns on battered corpses found along the roads, the eyes gouged out or the bones lacerated by the killers’ tool of choice: the power drill.

Never mind that the death squads stood-up by American forces when the imperial adventure went wildly off the rails, were modeled on counterinsurgency methods pioneered in Vietnam (Operation Phoenix) and in South- and Central American during the 1970s and 1980s (Operation Condor) and that a “Salvador Option” was in play.

Never mind that the former commander of the U.S. Military Advisory Group in El Salvador, Col. James Steele, was the U.S. Embassy’s point-man for setting up the Wolf Brigade or the Iraqi Interior Ministry’s Special Police Commandos, notorious death squads that spread havoc and fear across Iraq’s cities, towns and villages.

The killings and atrocities carried out by American and British clients were not simply random acts of mayhem initiated by sectarian gangs. On the contrary, though sectarianism and inter-ethnic hatred played a role in the slaughter, from a strategic and tactical point of view these were carefully calibrated acts designed to instill terror in a population utterly devastated by the U.S. invasion. As researcher Max Fuller reported five years ago:

In Iraq the war comes in two phases. The first phase is complete: the destruction of the existing state, which did not comply with the interests of British and American capital. The second phase consists of building a new state tied to those interests and smashing every dissenting sector of society. Openly, this involves applying the same sort of economic shock therapy that has done so much damage in swathes of the Third World and Eastern Europe. Covertly, it means intimidating, kidnapping and murdering opposition voices. (“For Iraq, ‘The Salvador Option’ Becomes Reality,” Global Research, June 2, 2005)

Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morrell denounced the leaks Friday evening, claiming the document dump was a “gift to terrorist organizations” that “put at risk the lives of our troops.”

Playing down the significance the files lend to our understanding of the U.S. occupation, Morrell characterized them as “mundane.” To the degree that they chronicle the nonchalance, indeed casual indifference towards Iraqi life displayed by U.S. forces, Morrell is correct: they are numbingly mundane and therein lies their horror.

The logs paint a grim picture of life after the “liberation” of the oil-rich nation. As with the organization’s publication of some 75,000 files from their Afghan War Diary, 2004-2010, Friday’s release provides stark evidence of U.S. complicity–and worse–in the systematic abuse of prisoners.

According to the War Logs, in 2006 an unnamed U.S. Special Operations Task Force was accused of blinding a prisoner in their custody; we read the following:

ALLEGED DETAINEE ABUSE BY TF ___ IN ___ 2006-02-02 17:50:00

AT 2350C, IN ___, WHILE CONDUCTING OUT-PROCESSING, DETAINEE # ___ REPORTED THAT HE WAS ABUSED DURING HIS CAPTURE. DETAINEE IS MISSING HIS RIGHT EYE, AND HAS SCAR___ ON HIS RIGHT FOREARM. DETAINEE STATES THAT HIS INJURIES ARE A RESULT OF THE ABUSE THAT HE RECEIVED UPON CAPTURE. DIMS INDICATE THAT THE DETAINEE WAS CAPTURED ON ___ IN ___, AND THE CAPTURING UNIT WAS TASK FORCE ___. THE DETAINEES CAPTURE TAG NUMBER IS ___. IN PROCESSING PERSONNEL STATE THAT THE DETAINEE___ CAPTURE PHOTO DEPICTS A BANDAGE OVER HIS RIGHT EYE, AND INJURY TO HIS RIGHT FOREARM. THE DETAINEE HAS COMPLETED THE DETAINEE ABUSE COMPLAINT FORM, AND WE ARE SEEKING A SWORN STATEMENT FROM THE DETAINEE. PER ORDER OF Task force ___, THE DETAINEE ___ TRANSFERRED AS SCHEDULED, AND CONTINUE CID INVESTIGATION UPON ARRIVAL AT ___ GHRAIB.

File after gruesome file reveals that even when confronted by serious evidence of abuse, the outcome was as sickening as it was inevitable: “No further investigation.”

Called “Frago 242” reports for “fragmentary orders,” the military files summarized thousands of events. When alleged abuse was committed by an Iraqi on another Iraqi, “only an initial report will be made … No further investigation will be required unless directed by HQ.” Those directives never arrived.

In fact, in a hypermilitarized society such as ours’ where the “chain of command” is valued above basic human decency, never mind the rule of law, orders to be “discrete” always come from the top. Investigative journalist Robert Fisk recounted how during a November 2005 Pentagon press conference:

Peter Pace, the uninspiring chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is briefing journalists on how soldiers should react to the cruel treatment of prisoners, pointing out proudly that an American soldier’s duty is to intervene if he sees evidence of torture. Then the camera moves to the far more sinister figure of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who suddenly interrupts–almost in a mutter, and to Pace’s consternation–“I don’t think you mean they (American soldiers) have an obligation to physically stop it. It’s to report it.” (“The Shaming of America,” The Independent on Sunday, October 24, 2010)

In essence, Frago 242 were the political means used by the U.S. administration to absolve themselves of command responsibility for the slaughter they had initiated with the March 2003 invasion. “We reported these horrors. What more do you want?”

Eager to pass security management onto their Iraqi puppets and cut their losses, the Pentagon and their political masters in Washington bypassed their obligations as the occupying power to ensure that human rights and the rule of law were respected by the clients whom they had installed to rule over the oil-rich nation. One file from 2006 tells us:

ALLEGED DETAINEE ABUSE BY IA AT THE DIYALA JAIL IN BAQUBAH

2006-05-25 07:30:00

AT 1330D, ___ REPORTS ALLEGED DETAINEE ABUSE IN THE DIYALA PROVINCE, IN BA’___ AT THE DIYALA JAIL, vicinity. ___. 1X DETAINEE CLAIMS THAT HE WAS SEIZED FROM HIS HOUSE BY IA IN THE KHALIS AREA OF THE DIYALA PROVINCE. HE WAS THEN HELD UNDERGROUND IN BUNKERS FOR APPROXIMATELY ___ MONTHS AROUND ___ SUBJECTED TO TORTURE BY MEMBERS OF THE /___ IA. THIS ALLEGED TORTURE INCLUDED, AMONG OTHER THINGS, THE ___ STRESS POSITION, WHEREBY HIS HANDS WERE BOUND/___ AND HE WAS SUSPENDED FROM THE CEILING; THE USE OF BLUNT OBJECTS (.___. PIPES) TO BEAT HIM ON THE BACK AND LEGS; AND THE USE OF ELECTRIC DRILLS TO BORE HOLES IN HIS LEGS. FOLLOW UP CARE HAS BEEN GIVEN TO THE DETAINEE BY US ___. THE DETAINEE IS UNDER US CONTROL AT THIS TIME. ALL PAPERWORK HAS BEEN SENT UP THROUGH THE NECESSARY ___ AND PMO CHANNELS. CLOSED: 260341MAY2006. Significant activity MEETS MNC- ___

Two days later, additional torture victims were found in the Diyala Jail, and U.S. military personnel report:

ALLEGED DETAINEE ABUSE BY IP IVO BA’: ___ DETAINEES INJ, ___ CF INJ/DAMAGE

2006-05-27 11:00:00

AT 1700D, ___ REPORTS ALLEGED DETAINEE ABUSE IN THE DIYALA PROVINCE, IN BA’___ AT THE DIYALA JAIL, vicinity. ___. 7X DETAINEES CLAIMS THEY WERE SEIZED BY IA IN THE KHALIS AREA OF THE DIYALA PROVINCE. THEY WERE DETAINED AROUND – ___ AND SUBJECTED TO TORTURE BY MEMBERS OF THE IA AND IP. THIS ALLEGED TORTURE INCLUDED, AMONG OTHER THINGS, STRESS POSITIONS, BOUND/___ AND SUSPENDED FROM THE CEILING; THE USE OF VARIOUS BLUNT OBJECTS (.___. PIPES AND ANTENNAS) TO BEAT THEM, AND FORCED CONFESSIONS. ALL DETAINEES WERE DETAINED FOR ALLEGED INVOLVEMENT IN AN ATTACK ON A IA Check Point IN KHALIS. FOLLOW UP CARE HAS BEEN GIVEN TO THE DETAINEES BY US ___. THE DETAINEES ARE UNDER US CONTROL AT THIS TIME. ALL PAPERWORK HAS BEEN SENT UP THROUGH THE NECESSARY ___ AND PMO CHANNELS. Serious Incident Report TO FOLLOW. CLOSED: 280442MAY2006. MEETS ___

Case closed.

WikiLeaks release prompted the UN’s chief investigator on torture, Manfred Nowak, to demand that the Obama administration “order a full investigation of US forces’ involvement in human rights abuses in Iraq,” The Guardian reported.

Nowak said that if the files demonstrate clear violations of the UN Convention Against Torture then “the Obama administration had an obligation to investigate them.”

A failure to investigate these serious charges “would be a failure of the Obama government to recognise its obligations under international law.” There’s little chance of that happening under our “forward looking” president.

On the contrary, as The Washington Post reported Sunday, that former CIA general counsel Jeffrey H. Smith, a current adviser to America’s top spook Leon Panetta, wants to hang the messenger.

Smith said, “‘without question’ he thought that [WikiLeaks founder Julian] Assange could be prosecuted under the Espionage Act for possessing and sharing without authorization classified military information.”

The Post informed us that Obama’s Justice Department “is assisting the Defense Department in its investigation into the leaks to WikiLeaks. Though Smith said he did not know whether efforts were underway to gain custody [of Assange], he said, ‘My supposition is that the Justice Department and Department of Defense are working very hard to see if they can get jurisdiction over him’.”

As I discussed in late 2009, perhaps the Pentagon is working feverishly to do just that, deploying a Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) “Manhunting team” to run Assange and his organization to ground.

In Manhunting: Counter-Network Organization for Irregular Warfare, retired Lt. Col. George A. Crawford wrote in a 2009 monograph published by Joint Special Operations University, that “Manhunting–the deliberate concentration of national power to find, influence, capture, or when necessary kill an individual to disrupt a human network–has emerged as a key component of operations to counter irregular warfare adversaries in lieu of traditional state-on-state conflict measures.”

And with an administration that asserts the right to kill anyone on the planet, including American citizens deemed “terrorists,” it isn’t a stretch to imagine the Pentagon resorting to a little “wet work” to silence Assange, thereby disrupting “a human network” viewed as deleterious impediment to Washington’s imperial project.

After all, in Crawford’s view, “Why drop a bomb when effects operations or a knife might do?”

Be that as it may, there was already sufficient evidence before Friday’s release that American military personnel and outsourced “private security contractors” (armed mercenaries) had committed war crimes that warranted criminal investigations.

Even after 2004 revelations by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker sparked the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, the files show that the systematic abuse and execution of prisoners, along with other serious war crimes, were standard operating procedure by the United States and their Iraqi “coalition” partners.

When Hersh’s investigation first landed on the doorstep of the Bush White House, we were told that detainee abuse was the work of a “few bad apples” on the “night shift” at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

While enlisted personnel were charged, tried, convicted and imprisoned for their crimes, senior Pentagon officials including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and their top aides were exonerated by the White House and their accomplices in the corporate media.

“The truth is” Robert Fisk writes, “U.S. generals … are furious not because secrecy has been breached, or because blood may be spilt, but because they have been caught out telling the lies we always knew they told.”

Tom Burghardt is a researcher and activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to publishing in Covert Action Quarterly and Global Research, his articles can be read on Dissident Voice, The Intelligence Daily, Pacific Free Press, Uncommon Thought Journal, and the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks. He is the editor of Police State America: U.S. Military “Civil Disturbance” Planning, distributed by AK Press and has contributed to the new book from Global Research, The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century.

“Kagame is an example of an American supported leader whose crimes go unpunished because he is useful to them and because they are party to his crimes.

The Prosecutors of the ICTR have wasted 17 years protecting Kagame from his responsibility for the crimes he and his forces committed in Rwanda in 1994.” – Christopher Black, international criminal lawyer, counsel to complainants to the ICC Prosecutor regarding alleged crimes by Paul Kagame. [1]

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On April 6 1994, the Presidents of Burundi and Rwanda were slain in a rocket attack on their plane. This incident triggered the 100 day killing spree now referred to as the Rwandan genocide. [2]

Twenty five years later, on Sunday April 7th , President Paul Kagame, in the presence of dignitaries from around the world, laid a wreath at the Gisozi genocide memorial site in Kigali at which over a quarter of a million victims of the massacre were buried. [3]

In his speech to the crowd, Kagame vowed his country would never repeat the mistakes of the past that led to the genocide:

“This history will not repeat. That is our firm commitment.” [4]

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, present at the same ceremony, expressed similar sentiments:

“It is our generational duty to never forget what humankind is capable of. It is only by remembering that we can build a brighter future together.”[5]

In light of the violence that has ensued in Africa and around the world since those horrible months a quarter of a century ago, these pledges come across as no more binding and sincere than those taken by Al Pacino’s character Michael Corleone during the infamous Baptism scene from the 1972 movie The Godfather.

Significantly, a body of analysis and eyewitness testimony suggests that the standard account of the Rwandan genocide, painting the Hutu majority as the principal villains and the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) as the saviours who ended the genocide, is a distortion of the truth. While not absolving the Hutu extremists of their crimes, an alternative interpretation holds that the RPF forces are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands themselves, including the two African presidents killed on April 6th. This is apart from the millions the RPF has had a role in killing in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the time since the genocide.

As this year’s Rwandan Week of Mourning comes to an official close, we take a look at some of the facts contradicting the official Rwanda narrative, and why it matters 25 years later.

Our first guest, Phil Taylor, worked as an investigator for the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda. In a 20 minute conversation, Taylor talks about why he believes the UN instituted body failed to prosecute Kagame and the RPF forces he led as credibly accused war criminals.

In our second half hour, Canadian journalist Judi Rever elaborates on the theme of her 2018 book, which encapsulates 20 years of dogged research. In an exclusive 30 minute interview, Rever outlines the crimes of the Tutsi-dominated rebel force, replies to critics like Gerald Kaplan who have challenged her claims, explains the resiliency of the established Rwanda narrative, and talks about the threats to the lives of Kagame critics, herself included, who attempt to expose the truth. She also points to some of the powerful interests abroad whose complicity in these two decade old horrors goes far beyond merely ‘standing idly by.’

Phil Taylor is host of the Taylor Report airing on CIUT 89.5 FM every Monday at 5pm Eastern Time. A long time social activist and journalist, Taylor formerly worked as an investigator for defence lawyers involved in the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda.

Judi Rever is a Montreal based freelance print and broadcast journalist. Her reporting on Rwanda has been featured in seven front-page stories in the Globe and Mail, one of Canada’s leading national newspapers. Her 2018 book In Praise of Blood: The Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, published by Random House Canada, was a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for non-Fiction.

(Global Research News Hour Episode 256)

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The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca . Excerpts of the show have begun airing on Rabble Radio and appear as podcasts at rabble.ca.

The Global Research News Hour now airs Fridays at 6pm PST, 8pm CST and 9pm EST on Alternative Current Radio (alternativecurrentradio.com)

Community Radio Stations carrying the Global Research News Hour:

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Notes:

1. https://www.globalresearch.ca/kagames-mass-atrocities-in-rwanda-and-the-congo/5346739
2. Clement Uwiringiyimana (April 7, 2019), ‘Rwanda honors those killed in genocide 25 years ago’, Reuters; https://www.reuters.com/article/us-rwanda-genocide/rwanda-honors-those-killed-in-genocide-25-years-ago-idUSKCN1RJ04Y
3. ibid
4. https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/kwibuka25-president-paul-kagames-full-address
5. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-19-2028_en.htm

Tonight both Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange are in jail, both over offences related to the publication of materials specifying US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, and both charged with nothing else at all. No matter what bullshit political and MSM liars try to feed you, that is the simple truth. Manning and Assange are true heroes of our time, and are suffering for it.

If a Russian opposition politician were dragged out by armed police, and within three hours had been convicted on a political charge by a patently biased judge with no jury, with a lengthy jail sentence to follow, can you imagine the Western media reaction to that kind of kangaroo court? Yet that is exactly what just happened in London.

District Judge Michael Snow is a disgrace to the bench who deserves to be infamous well beyond his death. He displayed the most plain and open prejudice against Assange in the 15 minutes it took for him to hear the case and declare Assange guilty, in a fashion which makes the dictators’ courts I had witnessed, in Babangida’s Nigeria or Karimov’s Uzbekistan, look fair and reasonable, in comparison to the gross charade of justice conducted by Michael Snow.

One key fact gave away Snow’s enormous prejudice. Julian Assange said nothing during the whole brief proceedings, other than to say “Not guilty” twice, and to ask a one sentence question about why the charges were changed midway through this sham “trial”. Yet Judge Michael Snow condemned Assange as “narcissistic”. There was nothing that happened in Snow’s brief court hearing that could conceivably have given rise to that opinion. It was plainly something he brought with him into the courtroom, and had read or heard in the mainstream media or picked up in his club. It was in short the very definition of prejudice, and “Judge” Michael Snow and his summary judgement is a total disgrace.

We wrapped up the final Wikileaks and legal team meeting at 21.45 tonight and thereafter Kristian Hrafnsson and I had dinner together. The whole team, including Julian, is energised rather than downhearted. At last there is no more hiding for the pretend liberals behind ludicrous Swedish allegations or bail jumping allegations, and the true motive – revenge for the Chelsea Manning revelations – is now completely in the open.

To support the persecution of Assange in these circumstances is to support absolute state censorship of the internet. It is to support the claim that any journalist who receives and publishes official material which indicates US government wrongdoing, can be punished for its publication. Furthermore this US claim involves an astonishing boost to universal jurisdiction. Assange was nowhere near the USA when he published the documents, but nonetheless US courts are willing to claim jurisdiction. This is a threat to press and internet freedom everywhere.

These are scary times. But those may also be the most inspiring of times.

UPDATE

We are reassembling Wikileaks/Julian legal and media team from 10am Friday in Doughty Street Chambers. I and others will be available for further media interviews from then. I can be reached on 07979 691085.

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

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Chelsea and Julian Are in Jail. History Trembles.

By Craig Murray, April 12, 2019

Tonight both Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange are in jail, both over offences related to the publication of materials specifying US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, and both charged with nothing else at all.

Video: Assange’s Lawyer Says Wikileaks Founder’s Life in Danger if Extradited to the U.S.

By Defend Democracy Press, April 12, 2019

Assange’s lawyer, Carlos Poveda, told journalists that his client, who has lived in Ecuador’s London embassy for almost seven years, was not given a chance to defend himself before his asylum there was terminated in reprisal for corruption allegations against Ecuador’s president.

British Government Arrests WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange on Behalf of the American Empire

By Dr. Leon Tressell, April 12, 2019

Assange now faces extradition to the U.S. where the Department of Justice (DOJ) has indicted Assange today with a federal  charge of conspiracy with Chelsea Manning to gain access to classified government records i.e. the Iraq and Afghanistan War logs. The DOJ’s press release states that Assange faces a maximum of 5 years in prison if convicted of, “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.”

Julian Assange Should be Lauded and Protected, Not Persecuted and Destroyed

By Mark Taliano, April 12, 2019

Julian Assange is a hero. He defied the globalizing apparatus of fascist repression to expose the war criminals in our midst. Now, the same war criminals and their agencies who commit supreme international war crimes as policy have apprehended him.

The Assange Arrest Is a Warning from History

By John Pilger, April 12, 2019

The shocking arrest of Assange carries a warning for all who, as Oscar Wilde wrote, “sew the seeds of discontent [without which] there would be no advance towards civilisation”. The warning is explicit towards journalists.

Julian Assange: The Age of Injustice

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, April 12, 2019

Washington’s man in Quito said he revoked Assange’s political asylum and Ecuadoran citizenship because Assange engaged in free speech.

USA v. Julian Assange: DOJ Indictment on Phony Charge Revealed

By Stephen Lendman, April 12, 2019

Britain complied, unjustly arresting Assange with intent to hand him over to US authorities – to be detained and prosecuted on one fabricated count, calling for imprisonment for up to five years if convicted.

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In a major confession revealed on Friday April 5th, Kosovo’s Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj said his government’s policies serve US interests against Serbia and Russia, and he is only following Washington’s orders.

“The Albanian people in all our lands are part of what America is leading. Throughout the global plan, we are together,” Haradinaj told the Albanian-language Gazeta Blic last Friday.

“I am a soldier of America on the ground. I only carry out the orders,” the premier said.

Haradinaj was a commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) terrorist organization during the 1998-1999 conflict, struggling to separate the Serbian province to make it an independent Albanian state.

In June 1999, after a 78-day NATO air war, Serbia allowed for UN peacekeeping forces to enter – which in practice meant NATO took Kosovo and handed it over to the KLA.

“He’s telling the truth,” said Paris-based political analyst Nikola Mirkovic, adding that Haradinaj is openly saying what he has been over the past 20 years since the US and NATO trained, armed and funded the KLA.

“Kosovo is clearly an American protectorate today, and Haradinaj is just telling the truth, he’s just an American soldier,” the analyst told RT.

Mirkovic argued that Kosovo’s independence – declared in February 2008 but recognized only by the US and its allies – was an illusion. In disputes among ethnic Albanians,

“it is always the American ambassador at the end of the day who is receiving the final word and who is deciding what is happening,” he added.

Kosovo is not recognized by most of humanity, including Russia, China and India, as well as Serbia itself, noted Mirkovic. Washington’s policy since 2008, regardless of which party is in power, has pressed Belgrade to recognize Kosovo as an independent state.

“Why NATO bombed Yugoslavia 20 years ago? Because it wanted a position in the Balkans, it wanted a military base like Bondsteel,” Mirkovic explained, referring to the huge US base in southeastern Kosovo.

Haradinaj would have been unaware of the national prayer breakfast in Washington in February, supposedly on account of tariffs. There were even reports that he and another KLA commander – Kosovo’s president, Hashim Thaci – were being denied visas to enter the United States and address the issue. However, Haradinaj was able to travel to the US last weekend by posting a photo of Detroit on his Twitter account.

His plans during this US visit seem to include only meetings with members of the Albanian diaspora, however, rather than any meeting with officials of the administration of US President Donald Trump.

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The government refuses to confirm or deny the presence of British special forces in Yemen.

Its missions are exempt from freedom of information and even Parliament’s defence committee.

This wall of secrecy cracked slightly after five SBS members were injured in Yemen, causing an insider to speak out anonymously last month.

The insider’s allegations were then raised in Parliament, just hours after Foreign Office Middle East minister Alistair Burt resigned over Brexit.

At the Court of Appeal — The government will defend its arms sales to Saudi Arabia at a secret court hearing in London tomorrow in a bid to obscure sensitive details about Britain’s covert role in the Yemen war.

The Court of Appeal went into closed session this afternoon with journalists, campaigners and some lawyers forced to leave court room 72 until later today.

Only security-vetted judges and special advocates remained to discuss “a large quantity” of evidence behind locked doors.

The government said the secrecy was required to “protect national security” and avoid divulging highly sensitive aspects of its relationship with Saudi Arabia and the ongoing war in Yemen.

It comes amid incendiary allegations in the press that British special forces are directing Saudi bombing raids in Yemen.

The Mail on Sunday has claimed that members of the Royal Navy’s elite Special Boat Service (SBS) have “forward air controllers” on the ground in Yemen. These are specially trained commandos who guide fighter jet pilots on bombing runs to ensure they hit targets.

Their presence in Yemen could explain the British government’s insistence that Saudi air strikes are not causing civilian casualties.

Sir James Eadie QC, a lawyer who represents the Department for International Trade, has repeatedly cast doubt on reports by Amnesty International, Medecins Sans Frontieres and even a UN panel of experts who say Saudi Arabia is bombing Yemeni schools, mosques and hospitals.

Mr Eadie said in open court yesterday that International Trade Secretary Liam Fox is privy to more information than charities and the UN about the Saudi military’s decision-making process.

He refused to explain how this was possible in public session and promised to reveal more in secret court.

He only hinted that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) “is able to base its analysis on a wide range of information including sensitive MoD-sourced imagery.”

Mr Eadie said this “secures a more comprehensive and immediate picture than that provided by third party commercial imagery” which is used by the UN.

Burt’s shoes were filled at short notice by Mark Field, who went off script and promised to hold an internal investigation – into an issue he could neither confirm nor deny existed.

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Featured image is from Morning Star

On April 11, the Syrian Military Intelligence Directorate prevented a terrorist attack in the city of Homs. Local sources said that intelligence agents dismantled a remotely-controlled heavy improvised-explosive device, which was attached to a civilian vehicle near the Akramah al-Makhzomeh Elementary School. The attack perpetrators were reportedly apprehended in a special operation. No group has claimed responsibility for the failed attack. However, the IED’s remote control appears to be identical to those usually used by ISIS terrorists.

On October 1, 2014, a double-tap terrorist attack targeted this school area killing more than 45 civilians, mostly women and children. Since the start of the collapse of ISIS’ self-styled Caliphate two years ago, the terrorist group’s sleeper cells have made several attempts to carry out attacks within the government-held area. However, the Syrian military, security forces and intelligence have foiled most of them.

On April 10, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) uncovered several weapon caches in the towns of al-Dumayr and Arbin around the capital of Damascus. Yugoslav-made M79 Osa anti-tank weapons supplied to the Free Syrian Army by the US-led bloc in the early years of the war were among seized equipment.

A fresh round of reports speculating that the SAA is training for a possible military operation in the Idlib de-escalation zone has appeared online. According to them, SAA units are currently training on the usage of advanced anti-tank missiles, anti-drone systems, surveillance systems and engineering equipment supplied by Russia with this purpose. However, this training is likely just a part of the ongoing train in advice mission, which Russia kicked off to reshape and strengthen the SAA in 2015.

Units of the Russian Military Police reportedly withdrew from the town of Tell Rifaat, which is jointly controlled by the SAA and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in northern Aleppo. At the same time, reports appeared that the Turkish Army and pro-Turkish militants expanded their presence in the nearby area. Some local sources already claimed that the SAA and Russian forces may allow Turkey to crack down on the YPG in the area if the Kurdish group undertakes hostile actions against the SAA in this region or in some other areas across northern Syria.

A humanitarian crisis continues to develop in refugee camps run by US-backed forces in eastern Syria. The US-backed administration even reached an agreement with the Iraqi government that will allow more than 31,000 Iraqi citizen, mostly women and children, to return to their country. While US-backed forces claim that this number does not include suspected ISIS fighters, there are little doubts that it includes ISIS-linked persons. Despite this, this development should east the humanitarian crisis in the refugee camps at least partly.

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The Great RussiaGate Deception all began with John Brennan. It was Brennan who reported “contacts… between Russian officials and persons in the Trump campaign”, just as it was Brennan who first referred the case to former FBI Director James Comey. It was also Brennan who “hand-picked” the analysts who stitched together the dodgy Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) (which said that “Putin and the Russian government aspired to help…Trump’s election chances.”) And it was Brennan who persuaded Harry Reid to petition Comey to open an investigation. At every turn, Brennan was there. He got the ball rolling, he pulled all the right strings, he whipped up a mood of public hysteria, and he excoriated the president at every opportunity. For those who want to know where Russiagate began, look no further than John Brennan.

Here’s a bit of what Brennan told the House Intelligence Committee during his testimony in 2017:

“We were uncovering information and intelligence about interactions and contacts between U.S. persons and the Russians. And as we came upon that, we would share it with the bureau.”

Brennan’s statement clarifies his role in the operation, he was providing the raw intelligence to Comey and Comey was reluctantly following up with surveillance, wiretaps, leaks to the media, and the placing of confidential informants in the Trump campaign. It was a tag-team combo, but Brennan was the primary instigator, there’s no doubt about that.

And let’s not forget that Comey didn’t really want to participate in Brennan’s hairbrain scheme to smear candidate Trump. At first he balked, which is why Brennan leaned on Senate Majority leader Harry Reid to twist Comey’s arm. Here’s a little background from Tom Fitton at artvoice.com:

“Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid reportedly believed then-Obama CIA Director Brennan was feeding him information about alleged links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government in order to make public accusations:

According to ‘Russian Roulette,’ by Yahoo! News chief investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff and David Corn… Brennan contacted Reid on Aug. 25, 2016, to brief him on the state of Russia’s interference in the presidential campaign. Brennan briefed other members of the so-called Gang of Eight, but Reid is the only who took direct action.

Two days after the briefing, Reid wrote a letter to then-FBI Director James Comey asserting that ‘evidence of a direct connection between the Russian government and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign continues to mount.’ Reid called on Comey to investigate the links ‘thoroughly and in a timely fashion.’

Reid saw Brennan’s outreach as ‘a sign of urgency,’ Isikoff and Corn wrote in the book. ‘Reid also had the impression that Brennan had an ulterior motive. He concluded the CIA chief believed the public needed to know about the Russian operation, including the information about the possible links to the Trump campaign.’

According to the book, Brennan told Reid that the intelligence community had determined that the Russian government was behind the hack and leak of Democratic emails and that Russian President Vladimir Putin was behind it. Brennan also told Reid that there was evidence that Russian operatives were attempting to tamper with election results. Indeed, on August 27, 2016, Reid wrote a letter to Comey accusing President Trump’s campaign of colluding with the Russian government.” (“The John Brennan-Harry Reid Collusion to ‘Get Trump’”, artvoice.com)

So Brennan fed Reid a load of malarkey and the credulous senator swallowed it hook, line and sinker. It may sound incredible now, given the results of the Mueller report, but that’s what happened. Here’s more of Brennan’s testimony to Congress:

“I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and U.S. persons involved in the Trump campaign that I was concerned about because of known Russian efforts to suborn such individuals and it raised questions in my mind, again, whether or not the Russians were able to gain the cooperation of those individuals.”

Okay, so Brennan says he gathered “information and intelligence that revealed contacts between Russian officials and persons in the Trump campaign.”

What information? What intelligence? What officials? Brennan has never identified anyone and never produced a lick of evidence to back up any of his claims, and yet, his testimony was taken as gospel truth. Why? Why would anyone in their right mind trust anything Brennan has to say? Hasn’t Brennan lied to Congress in the past? Didn’t the CIA’s inspector general find that Brennan’s agents “improperly” spied on US Senate staffers”? Hasn’t Brennan defended the use of torture and promoted Obama’s homicidal drone program? Hasn’t Brennan revealed his personal animus and vitriolic hatred for Donald Trump many, many times before. So why would anyone trust what he has to say? It makes no sense. The man has a major credibility problem which is a polite way of saying he’s a serial liar. Here’s more from Brennan:

“I don’t know whether or not such collusion — and that’s your term, such collusion existed. I don’t know. But I know that there was a sufficient basis of information and intelligence that required further investigation by the bureau to determine whether or not U.S. persons were actively conspiring, colluding with Russian officials.”

Got that? So Brennan had zero hard evidence of anything, but he thought that a few scratchy phone intercepts were sufficient for the FBI to hector, harass and spy on the GOP nominee for president of the United States. Can you see how ridiculous this is? No one elected John Brennan to anything, and yet, he arbitrarily decided that he had the right to sex up the intelligence so Comey and Clapper would do his bidding and try to bring down Trump. This is the type of thing you’d expect to see in a police state not America.

We are told by the Guardian that: “GCHQ (British Government Communications Headquarters) played an early, prominent role in kickstarting the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation, which began in late July 2016. One source called the British eavesdropping agency the “principal whistleblower”. (Guardian)

This might be true, but I seriously doubt it. I suspect the Guardian is just covering for Brennan because they know that his ridiculous claims of “contacts between Russian officials and persons in the Trump campaign” are complete, utter nonsense. There were no contacts between Russian officials and the Trump campaign because–as the Mueller report states– there was no coordination, no cooperation, and no collusion. In other words, Brennan just made it up to pursue his own personal vendetta against Trump which is what you’d expect from the most partisan CIA chief in history. Here’s more from the same article:

“The Guardian has been told the FBI and the CIA were slow to appreciate the extensive nature of contacts between Trump’s team and Moscow ahead of the US election. This was in part due to US law that prohibits US agencies from examining the private communications of American citizens without warrants. “They are trained not to do this,” the source stressed.” (Guardian)

“The extensive nature of contacts between Trump’s team and Moscow”???

There were no extensive contacts nor were there any illegal, unethical or improper contacts. If there were, AG Barr would have highlighted them in the 4-page Mueller report summary released last weekend. But he didn’t, because they don’t exist. The Democrats are now clinging to the feint hope that their flimsy obstruction case can be pulled from the ash-heap, but that’s not going to happen. It’s impossible to obstruct a case when you already know the case is is a fraud. Trump did not break the law. It’s that simple.

As for Brennan, well, he was providing classified briefings to ranking members of Congress (expressing his belief that Moscow was helping Trump win the election) as early as August 2016. The date seems particularly relevant given that Trump did not become the GOP’s official presidential nominee until July 21, 2016. Was that just a coincidence or did it suddenly dawn on Brennan that Trump must be a Kremlin mole shortly after he clinched the top spot on the ticket? Funny how that works, isn’t it? Trump nabs the nomination and all of a sudden Brennan shifts into high gear digging up all kinds of fictional intercepts from Estonia and god-knows where else. Is this the looniest story you’ve ever heard or what?

There’s really no part of Brennan’s implausible storyline that holds water. Even his flagship Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), which was supposed to provide iron-clad proof of Trump’s culpability, fizzled out like a Roman candle in a summer downpour.

Brennan of course hit all the cable news stations shortly after the ICA was released touting its wishy-washy findings as rock-solid proof of wrongdoing but, strangely enough, the report undermined its own credibility by providing a sweeping disclaimer that cautions readers against drawing any rash conclusions from the analysts observations. Here’s the money-quote from the report:

“Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents.”

Nice, eh? So, while Brennan continues to insist that the Kremlin meddled in our elections, his own analysts suggest that any such judgements should be taken with a very large grain of salt. Nothing is certain, information is “incomplete or fragmentary”, and the entire report is based on what-amounts-to ‘educated guesswork.’ It’s a wonder why anyone took the report seriously to begin with.

There’s no way to get around the fact that Brennan was glitzing up the intelligence to persuade Comey into hounding Trump. That’s the bottom line here. The unelected agents in the bureaucracy decided to use their considerable power to try to sabotage the election, prevent the normalisation of relations with Russia, and pave the way for impeachment proceedings. Only they got caught with their pants down, so someone’s going to have to take the fall.

Who is responsible for placing spies in the Trump campaign? That’s what we want to know. Who is Stefan Halper and who did he work for? Why did he cozy up to Trump campaign advisers Carter Page, Sam Clovis and George Papadopoulos? Was it all part of an ‘entrapment’ scheme? How many other spies were assigned to the Trump campaign? What was their purpose and who did they work for? Who signed off on the FISA applications that were improperly obtained? How was the Steele dossier used to build the case against Trump? Who authorized or participated in the leaks to the media? Who approved the wiretapping of Trump advisors? Was Trump wiretapped too? What was Obama’s role in all of this? How much did he know and how much did he authorize? How has Brennan escaped blame for the political firestorm he started? (According to Mother Jones, it was not the FBI that initiated the “Trump-Russia connection”.. but ..”Former CIA Director John Brennan … was the one who got the ball rolling.”)

The only way the American people are going to find out what really happened is by interrogating the people who know. Putting John Brennan in the docket would be a good place to start.

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As it had threatened during last fall’s election campaign, the newly-elected Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government has introduced legislation to prohibit a wide range of persons “in authority,” including teachers, from wearing symbols of their religious beliefs while exercising their functions. Those affected include judges, prosecutors, police, and jail guards, but also teachers, childcare providers, public transit operators, health and social service workers, municipal and administrative tribunal and board officials, etc.

Bill 21, “An Act respecting the laicity of the State,” also provides that those delivering or receiving government services may lose their jobs or be denied services if they refuse to uncover their face for identity or “security” reasons. Similar provisions, adopted under the previous Liberal government but suspended pending a legal appeal, will now be implemented pursuant to the CAQ’s decision to shield its legislation from civil liberties challenges using the constitutional “notwithstanding” clause.

Prime targets of the legislation are obviously Muslim women wearing headscarves or other clothing they associate with their religious beliefs. A “grandfather” clause exempting employees in their current jobs would effectively bar them from promotions or other public employment.

Scapegoating Minorities

The government bill – with its racist connotations – comes in the wake of the murder of six worshippers in a Quebec City mosque in January 2017 and the recent massacre of 50 Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand by right-wing racists, and is consistent with the pattern of reactionary scapegoating of minorities increasingly practiced by many government leaders in the major capitalist countries as they heighten austerity and restrict immigration.

Bill 21 is supported by the Parti Québécois (PQ), which had earlier, when in government, sponsored a widely-criticized “charter of values” with similar provisions that the PQ had hoped would win the support of Québécois apprehensive at the changing pluricultural face of Quebec society and fend off pressures to integrate ethnic minorities through more effective French language training and affirmative action in employment.

The bill is opposed by the opposition Liberals and by Québec solidaire (QS), now the second party of opposition in the National Assembly following the defection of a PQ member.

Québec solidaire has a mixed history on these issues. It is now almost 10 years since the party adopted its position on laicity (or, as it is more commonly known in English, secularism). It made a clear distinction between the need for state neutrality toward religious belief or lack of belief, and the freedom of individuals “to express their own convictions in a context that favours exchange and dialogue.” It would allow “state agents” (employees or officials) to wear religious insignia such as a crucifix or hijab.

However, the program would also remove this right from those whose clothing was deemed to promote religion or interfere with their duties or safety standards. And in subsequent years QS leaders, drawing on these hypothetical caveats in the party’s program, began adapting to other parties’ attempts to impose dress codes not only on state employees but on citizens from minority ethnic communities. In a previous article, I cited several such instances involving QS members of the National Assembly. The relevant account is excerpted in an appendix following this article.

These positions were endorsed in 2010 by the QS National Coordination Committee (CCN), the party’s top executive body. They drew support from a Quebec government inquiry, chaired by Gérard Bouchard and Charles Taylor, that in 2008 had proposed a ban on the wearing of religious insignia by a limited number of state agents – prosecutors, cops, prison guards and the speaker and deputy speaker of the National Assembly – while exempting teachers and “other state agents.”¹

(Taylor has since renounced his signature on this report, declaring after the Quebec City mosque attack that legislation along such lines had provoked an increase in hate speech and assaults especially against Muslim women.²)

The party’s adaptations to state intolerance reflected as well a tendency of the same QS leaders to seek common ground with the Parti Québécois, also expressed in several attempts over the years to get the QS membership to agree to electoral alliances with the PQ – all of them rejected by party congresses.³

The CAQ bill has provoked a growing wave of public opposition from civil liberties groups, school boards, and some unions. Meanwhile, many Québec solidaire members had expressed unease with statements by newly elected QS members of the National Assembly indicating support for a “compromise” that would adopt the Bouchard-Taylor report’s position. The party opened a discussion on the issue, which was placed on the agenda of a National Council (NC) meeting held March 29-31.

QS Debates Issues

Three positions emerged from this debate. A relatively small “laicity collective” called for a complete ban on religious signs by public employees at all levels. Because this proposal conflicted with the party’s program, it was ineligible for debate at the CN meeting, which was confined to “interpreting” the program and had no authority to pre-empt a position adopted in a duly constituted membership congress.

A second position – endorsed by several internal QS commissions and ad hoc collectives – rejected the MNAs’ compromise and supported a position of “open laicity” that generally rejected any prohibition on display of religious beliefs by public employees.

The party executive then moved to put two options before the NC members, both of which began with the same “whereas” clause: “that in all cases restrictions on the wearing of religious signs are possible when these contravene one of the four criteria set out in article 7.5.2 of the Québec solidaire program (proselytism, duty of discretion, exercise of the occupation or safety standard).” Option A would ban such signs for persons in authority exercising “a coercive power,” as supported by the MNAs, while Option B stated that “Whereas the discretionary duty applies to the actions and decisions of persons and not to their appearance, no particular rule concerning religious signs should apply to certain professions instead of others, including those that exercise a coercive power.”

The National Council meeting voted overwhelmingly in favour of Option B.

However, this was followed by a second vote, also proposed by the party executive, which asked NC members to choose between two options: one that would bar those dispensing or receiving government services from wearing clothing that conformed to any of the four exceptions allowed by the party program; and another that would allow such services to persons wearing clothing that covers the face, “except for considerations of identification or safety.” The latter option was adopted. This position, which in practice would affect the tiny minority of Muslim women who wear a niqab or burqa, moves QS uncomfortably close to the discriminatory positions of the CAQ, Liberals and PQ on this aspect.

So in the end the party program on “open laicity” as it is often called, was reaffirmed, albeit with its explicit limitations, while the MNAs’ attempts to find some compromise with opposing positions were largely rebuffed. However, it remains for a party congress to amend the QS program to remove the caveats that have served as a pretext for the slippages of principle that have characterized the party’s public positions over the past decade.

In other decisions, the 330 NC members voted to continue making the party’s program on climate change its main campaign for the coming year. That program, which presents many progressive concepts but within the framework of a general “green capitalism” approach, should also be the subject of critical analysis along with the position on laicity as the party prepares for its next convention, to be held toward year-end, and where it plans to complete and review its program as a whole.

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Appendix

Excerpted from “Québec Solidaire Prepares to Confront a New Government of Austerity and Social and Ethnic Polarization,” October 23, 2018.

Quebec’s new premier, François Legault, threatens to implement as a priority the CAQ’s plans to prohibit the wearing of “religious signs” among state-employed persons in positions of “coercion” (cops, prosecutors, judges and jail guards) or “authority” (including elementary and secondary school teachers, and perhaps others).

Québec solidaire has waffled on this issue for many years. The party claims to adhere to the principle of separation of church and state. In 2009, the resolution adopted at the party’s first convention on program stated that the party distinguishes between the need for state neutrality toward religious belief or lack of belief, and the freedom of individuals “to express their own convictions in a context that favours exchange and dialogue.” As I reported at the time:

“Delegates voted in favour of allowing ‘state agents’ (employees and officials) to wear religious insignia (a crucifix, hijab, whatever), but added some caveats that leave much to subjective interpretation and enforcement by employers: ‘provided they are not used as instruments of proselytism’ and do not interfere with their droit de réserve (duty of discretion), or ‘impede the performance of the duties or contravene safety standards.’ Delegates rejected other resolutions that would impose no such restrictions or, alternatively, would impose secular dress codes on civil servants, and they rejected as well a proposal to refer the whole issue for further decision at a later convention.”

While these caveats were problematic, QS leaders in subsequent years went further and began adapting to other parties’ attempts to impose dress codes not only on state employees but on citizens from minority ethnic communities.

In 2011, the sole QS member of the National Assembly, Amir Khadir, voted with the other parties for a PQ motion to ban Sikhs from entering the legislature because their ceremonial kirpans were to be deemed “weapons.” Ironically, the motion was prompted by an incident a month earlier when four members of the World Sikh Organization were turned back by security guards when they came to testify to a parliamentary committee in favour of the right of Muslim women to wear face coverings when receiving government services – which a Liberal government bill then under debate would have denied.

In 2013, when the National Assembly was again debating the PQ government’s now-infamous Charter of Values, QS leader Françoise David tabled a bill that if adopted would have enacted a “charter of secularism” that banned “state agents” from wearing signs indicative of personal religious belief. David described this as an “historic compromise.”

Although in 2017 the three QS MNAs voted against the Liberal government’s Bill 62 prohibiting citizens from wearing face coverings when receiving or dispensing public services, they called instead for adoption of a “genuine” charter of secularism. QS leader Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois said their position was a “compromise”that takes a harder line than the Liberals in that it would bar people who wear overt religious symbols such as turbans and hijabs from working as judges, jail guards and cops.

These positions, which clearly violate the QS program adopted by the membership, have prompted a number of protests from defenders of civil liberties, including a very strong “Open Letter” addressed to the party by a number of QS members including prominent human rights lawyers.

Unfortunately, during their swearing-in on October 17, the new QS MNAs told reporters that they intend to support the “compromise” that would ban religious signs for persons in authority. But at least one – Catherine Dorion, representing Québec-Taschereau – said later she was not really sure what her position would be.

These issues should be on the agenda of the QS National Committee meeting, now scheduled to take place December 7-9. The party’s reaction to Legault’s forthcoming legislation will be an early test of the adherence to basic democratic principles of its new parliamentary deputation. 

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Richard Fidler is a member of Solidarity Ottawa and a member of Québec solidaire. He blogs at Life on the Left.

1. The report is no longer available online. However, here is a summary of its key recommendations: “Fact file: 10 Bouchard-Taylor report recommendations.”
2. Quoted by André Frappier, “La laïcité au Québec, un débat de société en évolution.”
3. See, for example, “Quebec Solidaire Congress: United Front Against Austerity and For Independence.”

Featured image is from The Bullet

Leaving aside Britain’s past, most particularly that of empire, the country is not just continually moving towards authoritarianism it is beginning to demonstrate all the early signs of a rogue state. These are strong words but the actual definition of a rogue state is –  “a nation or state regarded as breaking international law and posing a threat to the security of other nations.” Examples such as the illegal invasion of Iraq, Syria and latterly Libya are very clear. Irrespective of the technicalities, they all broke the rules of International laws or norms. But other examples demonstrate how lawless Britain as a state really is.

Chagos

Here, an entire population were forcibly removed from their island homeland at British gunpoint to make way for a US Air Force nuclear base, the people were dumped destitute over a thousand miles away, their domestic animals gassed by the British army, their homes fired and then demolished. To achieve this, Britain maliciously threatened the Mauritian government into ceding the Chagos Islands as a condition of its Independence.

Recently, the International Court of Justice found that the British occupation of the Chagos Islands was unlawful by a majority of 13 to 1. Britain rejected this ruling.

Ex British ambassador Craig Murray wrote –

“this represents a serious escalation in the UK’s rejection of multilateralism and international law and a move towards joining the US model of exceptionalism, standing outside the rule of international law. As such, it is arguably the most significant foreign policy development for generations. In the Iraq war, while Britain launched war without UN Security Council authority, it did so on a tenuous argument that it had Security Council authority from earlier resolutions. The UK was therefore not outright rejecting the international system. On Chagos it is now simply denying the authority of the International Court of Justice; this is utterly unprecedented.”

Weapons and war crimes

Britain’s arms and munitions sales are now regularly in the news. Even The Lords international relations committee said that British weapons were “highly likely to be the cause of significant civilian casualties” in various countries where illegal wars, acts of genocide and war crimes are being committed. A quick online search lists numerous examples.

Israel

Then there is Britain’s relationship with Israel, which is taking a battering due to internal politics and finger-pointing over claims of racism. Fundamentally though, the issue is about war crimes being committed against the Palestinian people. British arms sales to Israel is at best questionable, especially the news that British made sniper rifles were used to kill and injure thousands of Palestinians recently. But Britain’s support in this genocidal war again goes against all international norms where the conflict is described by Amnesty International as an “abhorrent violation of international laws.” It added that – “This is another horrific example of the Israeli military using excessive force and live ammunition in a totally deplorable way. This is a violation of international standards, in some instances committing what appear to be wilful killings constituting war crimes.”

In addition, UK policy is allowing trade with ‘Israeli’ goods from illegal settlements in the occupied territories. The British government has stated that it does not even keep a record of imports into the UK from these illegal Israeli settlements. Acquiescing in this illegal trade by an occupying power is a violation of international law. The December 2016 UN Security Council Resolution, to which the UK agreed:

‘reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law”

Libya

Mark Curtis, a British foreign policy expert and historian writes about Britain’s illegal attack of a soverign state – Libya: “British bombing in Libya, which began in March 2011, was a violation of UN Resolution 1973, which authorised member states to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya and to use ‘all necessary measures’ to prevent attacks on civilians but did not authorise the use of ground troops or regime change promoted by the Cameron government. That these policies were illegal is confirmed by Cameron himself, who told Parliament on 21 March 2011 that the UN resolution ‘explicitly does not provide legal authority for action to bring about Gaddafi’s removal from power by military means.” Today, Libya is a failed state and overrun by militant factions.

Extrajudicial assassinations and even a kill list

Reprieve’s report entitled Britain’s Kill List accused the Conservative government of extreme deception of parliament. Officially, Britain has never had a so-called ‘kill list’ but David Cameron had to admit to an extrajudicial assassinations programme in the Middle East, which we at TruePublica reported. All such killings break the most fundamental of international laws and norms as detailed HERE.

The Reprieve introductory paragraph reads –

“On September 7th, 2015, Prime Minister David Cameron came to Parliament and announced a “new departure” for Britain, a policy of killing individuals the Security Services and the military do not like, people placed on a list of individuals who the UK (acting along with the US and others) have identified and systematically plan to kill. The mere admission that there is a Kill List certainly should, indeed, have been a “departure” for a country that prides itself on decency. Unfortunately, it was not a “new departure” at all, as we had been doing it secretly for more than a decade.”

Statelessness

Britain has once again broken international norms. The goals of UNHCR’s stateless campaign, a Global Action Plan to End Statelessness 2014 – 2024 introduced a guiding framework comprised of 10 Actions to be undertaken by states. In the case of high-profile ‘ISIS Bride’ runaway from Bethnal Green to Baghuz, Shamima Begum, the UK disregarded Actions 4 and 9:

Action 4: Prevent denial, loss or deprivation of nationality on discriminatory grounds.

Action 9: Accede to the UN Statelessness Conventions.

But Britain’s has its own laws. Section 40(2) of the 1981 British Nationality Act states the Home Secretary won’t make any individual rendered stateless as a result. Under this, the UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid’s decision to revoke Begum’s citizenship breaks UK law and international norms.

Political prisoner

Then, there is the persecution of Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, which is now seven years old. Ecuador has protected Assange for the past half decade from being turned over to Washington until his arrest by British police yesterday. By definition, Assange is the only political prisoner in western Europe.  A United Nations legal panel ruled that Assange should be allowed to walk free and be compensated for his “deprivation of liberty” and that his detention was illegal.

Assange has been nominated for a Nobel peace prize every year since 2010. His really big crime was releasing film of an American helicopter gunship killing civilians and journalists in Iraq. Britain is more than just complicit of it attack of fundamental and important press freedoms in arresting him.

Assange’s lawyer criticised the British government for being poised to arrest and extradite Assange to the United States. “That a government would cooperate with another state to extradite a publisher for publishing truthful information outside its territory sets a dangerous precedent here in the UK and elsewhere,” she said. “No one can deny that risk. That is why he sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy.”

Surveillance

The UK government’s record on bulk data handling for intelligence purposes saw the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling that state surveillance practices such as those practised in Britain violated human rights law. United National Special Rapporteur on Privacy Joe Cannataci said Britain was setting a bad example to the world and that Britain’s surveillance techniques on its own citizens was – “worse than Orwell’s 1984.” The highest courts in Britain have ruled against the government on mass surveillance.

In 2014, British spies were (illegally) granted the authority to secretly eavesdrop on legally privileged attorney-client communications, according to documents. The documents were made public as a result of a legal case brought against the British government by Libyan families who allege that they were subjected to extraordinary rendition and torture, where Britain was proven to be in violation of international laws, in a joint British-American operation that took place in 2004.

A lawyer, in this case, said – “It could mean, amazingly, that the government uses the information they have got from snooping on you, against you, in a case you have brought. This clearly violates an age-old principle of English law set down in the 16th century – that the correspondence between a person and their lawyer is confidential.”

In addition, just one of the many operations carried out by the British state was called Optic Nerve. It illegally went about capturing images from webcams of millions of completely innocent citizens accused of nothing. Between 3% and 11% of the images captured by the webcams were sexually explicit in nature and deemed “undesirable nudity.” The public has not been reassured that these files still exist or not that were taken to build an illegal facial recognition system the government had not declared.

Surveillance operations such as – Muscular, Socialist, Gemalto, Three Smurfs, XKeyScore, Upstream and Tempora are all examples of extreme surveillance systems being used in Britain that would be completely unknown if it had not been for Edward Snowden – another political prisoner. All such operations would be deemed illegal in court and of breaking international laws or norms in normal democratic countries.

Health and Safety

In 2015, the Government pushed through a law that exempted a large number of self-employed people from the protection of the Health and Safety at Work Act. The Government managed to get away with reducing the level of protection because the self-employed are not covered by the European “Framework Directive”, which is the regulation that sets minimum standards that countries have to comply with.

At the time the TUC pointed out to the Government that there were other international laws that the UK had signed up to in many other non European countries that did cover the self-employed including those of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Council of Europe.

Disability

The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities examined the British government’s progress in fulfilling its commitments to the UN convention on disabled people’s rights, to which the UK has been a signatory since 2007.

Its report concludes that the UK has not done enough to ensure the convention, which enshrines the rights of disabled people to live independently, to work and to enjoy social protection without discrimination – is reflected in UK law and policy.

Although it praises some initiatives by the Scottish and Welsh governments to promote inclusion, it is scathing of the UK government’s inconsistent and patchy approach to protecting disability rights and its failure to audit the impact of its austerity policies on disabled people.

Trust

Breaking international laws and norms has a long-term effect, mainly that of detriment to national security, long-term interests and trust. There is an assumption, of course, that international law cannot be enforced but in today’s world, international sanctions can be as damaging as using force. Those sanctions could be economic or diplomatic in nature. And if Britain wants to be an international player, it very strongly needs to appreciate and adhere to international laws and norms.

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Featured image is from TP

According to a report by Reuters, on Thursday, Julian Assange’s lawyer said that the life of the Wikileaks founder would be in danger if he is extradited to the United States following his arrest in London. Assange’s lawyer, Carlos Poveda, told journalists that his client, who has lived in Ecuador’s London embassy for almost seven years, was not given a chance to defend himself before his asylum there was terminated in reprisal for corruption allegations against Ecuador’s president. While being forcibly removed by authorities from the embassy, Assange could be heard shouting, “You can resist. You must resist.”

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Following Assange’s Thursday  arrest by UK police in Ecuador’s London embassy after his asylum status was illegally rescinded by President Lenin Moreno, acting in cahoots with the US and Britain, the DOJ confirmed what’s widely known.

Its spokeswoman Nicole Oxman said

“I can confirm that Julian Assange was arrested in relation to a provisional extradition request from the United States of America.”

Britain complied, unjustly arresting Assange with intent to hand him over to US authorities – to be detained and prosecuted on one fabricated count, calling for imprisonment for up to five years if convicted.

Once in US custody, he could be indicted on more serious charges, similar to ones against Chelsea Manning. Unjustly prosecuted and convicted, Obama commuted her politicized 35-year sentence at the 11th hour before leaving office.

The fabricated charge against Assange is for “Conspiracy to Commit Computer Intrusion,” according to an unsealed indictment, dated March 6, 2018, stating the following Big Lies, not a shred of credible evidence supporting them:

Assange “publicly solicited submissions of classified, censored, and other restricted information (sic).”

He “was not authorized to receive classified information (sic) of the United States.”

Fact: 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,” he explained.

Everyone in the US has the same right, what the First Amendment is all about, affirming speech and press freedoms – the most fundamental of all democratic rights bipartisan hardliners in Washington want compromised and eliminated.

Obama prosecuted more whistleblowers exposing US wrongdoing than all his predecessors combined. Trump likely aims to match or exceed him.

Whistleblowers revealing government wrongdoing deserve high praise, not police state prosecution. Manning revealed important information everyone has a right to know, including:

• the collateral murder video, exposing the killing of unarmed Iraqi civilians by a US Apache helicopter crew;
• the Afghan War Diary, revealing uninvestigated civilian casualties and private military contractor abuses;
• the Iraq War Logs, revealing civilian casualties and uninvestigated reports of torture; along with
• US diplomatic cables, explaining corporate interests and espionage in international diplomacy.

For heroism above and beyond the call of duty, she received numerous honors and awards, including three Nobel Peace Prize nominations.

Subjected to appalling affronts to her dignity and fundamental rights, she was tortured and imprisoned for nearly seven years for political reasons, her First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eight Amendment rights violated.

She’s again been detained since March 8 for refusing to give grand jury testimony, her constitutional right, unwilling to respond to unjust questioning, refusing to say anything detrimental to Assange’s fundamental rights and her own.

She, Assange, and countless others are victims of US judicial unfairness, denied their fundamental habeas, due process, and equal protection under law rights.

The US indictment against Assange includes other fabricated claims – nothing backed by credible evidence, nothing suggesting wrongdoing.

Prosecuting him, Manning and other whistleblowers is all about wanting US crimes of war, against humanity, and other wrongdoing suppressed – along with intimidating others with damning information to remain silent.

Assange’s indictment lied saying he “did knowingly and intentionally combine, conspire, confederate and agree with other co-conspirators known and unknown to the grand jury to commit an offense against the United States.”

He published information about US government wrongdoing everyone everywhere has a right to know – his action entirely lawful, warranting high praise, not prosecution.

No Assange/Manning “conspiracy” occurred, nothing unrelated to what journalism the way it’s supposed to be is all about – truth-telling on vital issues the highest journalistic obligation and distinction.

In Westminster magistrates court on Thursday, Assange pled “not guilty” to charges against him. He was pronounced guilty of breaching bail conditions, sentenced to a maximum 12 months in prison after failing to testify before the court.

According to the judge, the US must present documentation for extradition of Assange by June 12. Outside the magistrates court, his lawyer Jennifer Robinson said his arrest sets a “dangerous precedent  for all journalist and media organizations in Europe and around the world,” adding:

“This precedent means that any journalist can be extradited for prosecution in the United States for having published truthful information about the United States.”

“Since 2010, we’ve warned that Julian Assange would face prosecution and extradition to the United States for his publishing activities on WikiLeaks. Unfortunately today we’ve been proven right.”

According to Robinson and WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson, his defense team intends to contest the Trump regime’s extradition order in an international human rights court – likely referring to the European Court of Human Rights or European Court of Justice, the highest EU court.

If Assange is extradited to the US, he’ll be harshly mistreated and imprisoned, perhaps never again to be free, maybe eliminated behind bars by torture or other abusive treatment.

That’s what police state injustice is all about, how the US, UK, and other fantasy democracies operate – by their own rules exclusively, breaching fundamental international laws repeatedly.

Note: Video images of Assange when arrested and at magistrates court showed him looking frail, haggard, and likely in poor health – the ill effects of being a virtual prisoner inside the Ecuadorian embassy since August 2012.

RT UK said he was forcibly carried out of the embassy, reportedly shouting “RESIST.”

“The “UK has no civility,” and “the UK must resist” before being whisked into a police van and taken away.

Following a three-day October 2017 medical assessment by Drs. Sondra Crosby, Brock Chisholm and Sean Love, they wrote the following in a London Guardian article, saying:

“(O)ur assessment reveals that he has had no access to sunlight, appropriate ventilation or outside space for over five and a half years. This has taken a considerable physical as well as psychological toll.”

Given his frailty and poor health, his life will be seriously jeopardized if imprisoned longterm – what he surely faces if handed over to US authorities.

A Final Comment

Former UK ambassador, historian, human rights activist Craig Murray slammed the police state arrest of Julian Assange on Thursday, saying:

“District Judge Michael Snow is a disgrace to the bench who deserves to be infamous well beyond his death.”

“He displayed the most plain and open prejudice against Assange in the 15 minutes it took for him to hear the case and declare Assange guilty, in a fashion which makes the dictators’ courts I had witnessed, in Babangida’s Nigeria or Karimov’s Uzbekistan…a gross charade of” injustice.

“The whole team, including Julian, is energized rather than downhearted. At last there is no more hiding for the pretend liberals behind ludicrous Swedish allegations or bail jumping allegations, and the true motive – revenge for the Chelsea Manning revelations – is now completely in the open.”

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from Massoud Nayeri

Eight years after the start of the U.S.-led military intervention to overthrow Moammar Gaddafi and promote “stability,” Libya is still wracked by civil war. Ironically, the violence over the next few days has forced the U.S. to evacuate its remaining forces—there for diplomatic security and counterterrorism—from the volatile country.

Ever since the collapse of the old regime and Gaddafi’s violent death in 2011, Libya has been split among rival militias, and since 2014 it has had two would-be national governments. The government based in Tripoli now enjoys international recognition and some Western support, while the government in the eastern Libyan city of Tobruk has benefited from the support of Egypt, the Saudis, and the United Arab Emirates.

The leader of the Tobruk government’s forces, Khalifa Haftar, is a former exile (at one point in the U.S., reportedly backed by, and maintaining ties to the CIA) who returned to Libya during the 2011 war and served as the head of the new army under the first post-Gaddafi government. Haftar broke with them in 2014, and he has been engaged in a fight to take control of eastern Libya and to oppose the government in Tripoli ever since. Over the last few months, his forces have seized the oil fields in the south of the country. Libya’s long-running civil war escalated sharply in the last week as Haftar launched a surprise offensive against Tripoli in an attempt to seize the national capital. His aggressive move has been met with widespread condemnation, from the U.N., the U.S., and the EU, and it has driven the rival western militias to band together in opposition to him.

Borzou Daragahi reported on the fighting earlier this week:

A military offensive by a Libyan warlord against the country’s capital has done what years of negotiations and talks have failed to do – unite the country’s powerful western militias in an all-out effort to defend Tripoli.

Already at least 41 people have been killed and dozens more injured in clashes inside and outside of the capital, as the UN and EU struggled to put an end to the conflict that has pitted the country’s two main armed alliances against each other for control of the city of 1.2 million.

A “national conference” had been scheduled to take place next week to try to negotiate a political settlement, but Haftar’s abrupt decision to assault the capital has put an end to that for the foreseeable future. Libya has been unstable and chaotic since the U.S.-led regime change effort collapsed the old government and left the country’s many militias vying for power, but conditions have lately grown even worse. Foreign powers have been treating Libya as their playground for the last eight years, and with Haftar’s offensive, we can see evidence of the increasingly baleful regional influence of his Egyptian, Saudi, and Emirati patrons. Haftar met with Saudi King Salman in Riyadh on March 27, and both the Saudi and Egyptian governments appear to have given him their blessing for this attack. As Tarek Megerisi put it in a recent article on Haftar and the civil war:

“Haftar’s ascension has been driven by foreign powers whose understanding of Libya is skewed and whose interests are at odds with that of the Libyan population and many states dependent on Libya’s stability.”

Security conditions in the country have deteriorated so quickly over the last few weeks that American forces based in western Libya were evacuated at the start of the week. The U.S. is currently fighting one of its many unauthorized wars in Libya, and it has cooperated with the Tripoli government against the local ISIS affiliate for the last several years. The U.S. has so far not joined the fighting against Haftar’s forces. The Trump administration has publicly criticized the new offensive and called on Haftar to halt the attack, but it is doubtful that the U.S. will do anything more than that.

Haftar’s offensive isn’t likely to be successful, and could end up costing him his recent gains:

By mobilizing and uniting most forces in western Libya against him, Haftar’s attack on Tripoli has totally transformed the balance of forces in Libya.

He wanted to grab it all; now he faces the real possibility that he might lose most (even all) of what he had before the attack.

— Wolfram Lacher (@W_Lacher) April 9, 2019

Whatever the outcome of the latest battle, the continuation of the war is certain to deepen the misery of Libya’s civilian population. Eight years later, Libya is still living with the instability and violence that resulted from U.S.-backed regime change made possible by Western intervention. Like many other such interventions, the Libyan war has left behind a legacy of upheaval and destruction. The civilians that supposedly benefited will be living with the consequences for years and probably decades to come.

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Daniel Larison is a senior editor at The American Conservative.

Featured image: Fighters for Libya’s interim government rejoice after a tactical victory back in 2011. Creative Commons   

Today the UK government broke international law by arresting Julian Assange in the embassy of Ecuador at the behest of the United States. The British government has been ignoring for years demands from UN human rights experts to release Assange made back in December 2015 and December 2018.

Assange now faces extradition to the U.S. where the Department of Justice (DOJ) has indicted Assange today with a federal  charge of conspiracy with Chelsea Manning to gain access to classified government records i.e. the Iraq and Afghanistan War logs. The DOJ’s press release states that Assange faces a maximum of 5 years in prison if convicted of, “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.”

Ecuador’s president recently visited Washington and caved in to American demands to withdraw its asylum status from Assange. The former president of Ecuador Rafael Correa, who granted Assange asylum 6 years ago has castigated the current president of his country declaring on twitter: 

“The greatest traitor in Ecuadorian and Latin American history, Lenin Moreno, allowed the British police to enter our embassy in London to arrest Assange. Moreno is a corrupt man, but what he has done is a crime that humanity will never forget.’’

The Trump regime with its grave concern for the human rights of people in Venezuela has now decided to step up its war against democracy by attacking the freedom of the press which is protected by the first amendment of the U.S. constitution. 

The American Civil Liberties Union responded to news of Assange’s arrest with the following comment:

“Any prosecution by the United States of Mr. Assange for Wikileaks’ publishing operations would be unprecedented and unconstitutional, and would open the door to criminal investigations of other news organisations. Moreover, prosecuting a foreign publisher for violating U.S. secrecy laws would set an especially dangerous precedent for U.S. journalists, who routinely violate foreign secrecy laws to deliver information vital to the public’s interest.’’

We should not forget that President Obama, who had no problems with declaring that Chelsea Manning was guilty before her trial even started and whose government convened a grand jury to indict Assange back in 2010, backed off from prosecuting Assange in 2013. The DOJ concluded that if it prosecuted Assange then it would also have to prosecute the New York Times, The Washington Post and the Guardian for publishing classified material from Wikileaks.

Not surprisingly, the actions of Washington’s puppet ally in London have been greeted with a furious response. 

London based human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell accused Ecuador of failing to protect Assange: 

“The decision of the Ecuadorean government to hand over Assange to the UK police is a clear violation of his Ecuadorean citizenship and asylum rights.

“Assange’s arrest will put him at risk of extradition to the US, where he will very likely face charges that could see him jailed for 30 or more years. A secret grand jury has been convened to prepare an indictment against Assange and key Trump officials have said that prosecuting Assange is a priority.

“Assange did not leak anything. He published the leaks of Chelsea Manning, as did the Guardian and New York Times. Why is he being signalled out?

“Assange published evidence of American war crimes. He’s a hero, not a criminal.

“The British government should refuse to do the bidding of the Trump administration. It should give public assurances that Assange will not be handed over the US authorities. His extradition to the US is not in the public interest.”

The leader of Spain’s Podemos party, Pablo Iglesias, has called for Assange to be released. On twitter he lambasted the actions of the UK government:

“Exploitation, injustice and the privileges of the powerful are only possible because they are built on lies. That’s why if there’s something that power fears – in Spain and elsewhere in the world – it’s the truth. Free Julian Assange.” 

Time will tell if UK courts cave into American pressure and allow the extradition of Assange to the United States. In early February the High Court in London blocked the extradition of computer hacker Laurie Love to the United States on the grounds that conditions in American jails would have left him at a high risk of suicide. This case together with international pressure may yet save Assange from extradition to the U.S. 

Regardless, this case is all about American imperialism seeking revenge upon a journalist who had the temerity to expose its war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Pulitzer prize winner Glenn Greenwald, who exposed U.S. and UK global surveillance programmes based upon classified documents supplied by Edward Snowden, makes the same point in a comment directed at those elements lauding the illegal actions of the British government:

“If you’re cheering Assange’s arrest based on a US extradition request, your allies in your celebration are the most extremist elements of the Trump administration, whose primary and explicit goal is to criminalize reporting on classified docs & punish WL for exposing war crimes.’’

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Leon Tressell is a UK based historian whose research focuses upon geo-politics and economics.

President Putin and “Israeli” Prime Minister Netanyahu are brothers-in-arms after the former helped the latter win his historic reelection with a last-minute photo-op stunt that ultimately proved pivotal to his victory, and with Russia and “Israel” now proceeding along the path of “two states, one nation” after their close and comprehensive cooperation with one another since the onset of Moscow’s 2015 anti-terrorist intervention in Syria, the era of “Putinyahu’s Rusrael” has finally arrived.

A New Era For The “New Mideast”

Netanyahu’s historic reelection to a fifth term in office will make him “Israel’s” long-serving Prime Minister since its “founder” Ben-Gurion, and it wouldn’t have been possible for him to pull off such a victory in the neck-and-neck race without the pivotal last-minute assistance that President Putin provided through the photo-op stunt of returning 20 “IDF” remains that the Russian military dug up in Syria specifically at Tel Aviv’s request. The Russian and “Israeli” leaders are now brothers-in-arms at precisely the moment when their two governments are proceeding along the path of “two states, one nation” as a result of their close and comprehensive cooperation with one another since the onset of Moscow’s 2015 anti-terrorist intervention in Syria, thereby making 2019 the year in which the era of “Putinyahu’s Rusrael” has finally arrived as a force to be reckoned with on the world scene.

From “Balancing” To Allying

Most of the Alt-Media Community is likely in a state of cognitive dissonance at the moment after practically everything that their “trusted outlets” indoctrinated them for years to believe has been proven to be false, especially the “wishful thinking” narrative that President Putin has supposedly turned Russia into an “anti-Zionist crusader state allied with the Resistance”. Nothing could be further from the truth as the Russian leader is totally disinterested in taking sides on any dispute that isn’t of immediate relevance to his nation’s security and has therefore positioned his country to play the part of the Eastern Hemisphere’s supreme “balancing” force instead. In the case of Russian-“Israeli” relations, however, he’s moved beyond simply “balancing” and towards the extreme of outright allying as part of his risky gamble to “seize the moment” and attempt to replace America’s historic patronage over the self-professed “Jewish State”.

Right Under Everyone’s Nose

I’ve been extensively documenting the creation of “Putinyahu’s Rusrael” and strongly recommend that readers who aren’t already familiar with my work kindly review the following analyses in order to be brought up to speed and understand the strategic context in which this game-changing development is taking place:

• “Russia’s Grand Strategy In Afro-Eurasia (And What Could Go Wrong)”
• “President Putin On Israel: Quotes From The Kremlin Website”
• “It’s Official, ‘Israel’ Is Now A Joint Russian-American Protectorate”
• “Alt-Media Silent As ‘Israel’ Admits To 200+ Strikes In Syria”
• “Here’s How The Latakia Tragedy – Nay, Conspiracy! – Might Have Played Out”
• “Russia’s Reshaping Syria’s ‘Deep State’ In Its Own Image”
• “Russia’s Non-Denial About Brokering Iran’s Withdrawal From Syria Is A Big Deal”
• “I’m A Pro-Putin Anti-‘Putinist’ And It’s About Time That Alt-Media Acknowledges That We Exist”
• “So What If Trump ‘Recognizes’ ‘Israel’s’ Annexation Of The Golan?”
• “It’s Time To Talk About The S-300s, ‘Status Symbols’, And The ‘Savior Complex’”
• “Mideast Activists Need To Stop Their Double Standards Towards Russia!”

Undeniable Facts

Long story short, the indisputable facts are that President Putin has met with Netanyahu more times over the past four years (13) than with any other leader, thus forming a deep personal bond with him that’s since become fraternal and could explain why he had Russia do so many favors for “Israel” over the past couple of years. As acknowledged by Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov in September following the midair accident that President Putin famously chalked up to a so-called “chain of tragic circumstances“, these favors included ‘passively facilitating’ over 200 of “Israel’s” anti-Iranian and anti-Hezbollah strikes in Syria over the preceding 18 months alone, carving out a 140-kilometer anti-Iranian buffer zone from the occupied Golan Heights (where President Putin reportedly vacationed with his family in the 1990s), “preserving Jewish sacred places and graves in the city of Aleppo”, and risking the lives of Russian servicemen by having them dig up “IDF” remains in the middle of an SAA-ISIS firefight.

Furthermore, President Putin refused to blame “Israel” for last September’s incident, and not once did he order his military to suspend the so-called “deconfliction mechanism” that he agreed to create with Netanyahu three years prior just before the commencement of the anti-terrorist intervention. Russia’s highly-publicized dispatch of S-300s to Syria was nothing more than smoke and mirrors because the SAA still doesn’t have full and independent operational control of these systems, thus strategically neutralizing them and ensuring that they don’t pose a threat to “Israel” whenever the self-professed “Jewish State” coordinates with Moscow to bomb suspected Iranian and Hezbollah positions in the Arab Republic. Speaking of which, President Putin confirmed after his February meeting with Netanyahu that Russia and “Israel” are forming a so-called “working party” to accelerate the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Syria, implying that Iran’s will also have to leave too. And finally, last week’s “corpse diplomacy” was an unprecedented sign of solidarity between Russia to “Israel”.

The Yinon-Putin Plan

All of this begs the obvious question of what President Putin expects to receive in return for his unshakeable loyalty to Netanyahu, but the answer certainly isn’t what the misguided Alt-Media masses were brainwashed into believing. The Russian leader isn’t playing the much-mocked game of “5D chess” and “just waiting to backstab Bibi” at the “perfect moment”, but is hoping that “Israel” will allow his country to play an important role in what he has evidently concluded is the “inevitable” partial success of the Yinon Plan. In exchange for “passively facilitating” “Israel’s” plans in Syria (though importantly after having stopped their full success through the 2015 anti-terrorist intervention there), Russia expects to receive generous “Israeli” foreign direct investment once Tel Aviv formally joins the Eurasian Union that Moscow also amazingly convinced its sworn Iranian enemy to become a member of as well.

Should Russia succeed in getting Syria to agree to the “draft constitution” that Moscow wrote for it and Damascus ends up surrendering its legal claim to the Golan Heights like the document strongly implies (and by innuendo “recognizing” “Israel”), then Moscow could “legally” connect the country’s gas supplies under its control to Tel Aviv’s Eastern Mediterranean Gas Pipeline and therefore “co-opt” this megaproject that could otherwise compete with its energy exports to Europe. In addition, Russia and “Israel” could jointly use their influence over the region’s Kurds to more confidently assert themselves by proxy in the Mideast’s central pivot space in accordance with the Yinon Plan’s pertinent precepts for managing this strategically positioned transnational demographic. Given the game-changing geostrategic impact that the Russian-“Israeli” alliance is poised to have in the region, it’s therefore more accurate to describe the Yinon Plan as the Yinon-Putin Plan instead.

Russia: Rhetoric vs. Reality

The reality that was just described is at total odds with the rhetoric coming out of Russia, but that’s all by design because Moscow oftentimes says what the global public wants to hear but ends up doing whatever is best for its own interests irrespective of whether the international audience approves of it or not. For example, Russia used to occasionally condemn “Israel’s” anti-Iranian and anti-Hezbollah strikes in Syria despite it now being acknowledged by its own admission last September that it was coordinating them with Tel Aviv this entire time through the so-called “deconfliction mechanism”. Ditto Russia’s reaction to Trump’s “recognition” of “Israel’s” annexation of the Golan Heights, which was actually facilitated by the anti-Iranian buffer zone that Moscow carved out last summer after pushing the self-professed “Jewish State’s” enemies 140 kilometers away from the occupied region at Tel Aviv’s behest.

The established pattern is that Russia rhetorically says whatever is in line with international law in order to increase its appeal among the region’s majority-Arab population but always ends up accepting “Israel’s” unilateral actions out of pragmatic “realpolitik” considerations and a lack of political will to impose unacceptable costs on Tel Aviv to change its behavior. This modus operandi strongly suggests that Russia might actually not be as opposed to Trump’s so-called “Deal of the Century” as it officially claims to be, especially when considering that Netanyahu is speculated to have informally functioned as a mediator between the American and Russian leaders. As such, it’s possible that Russia might even secretly encourage the “Deal of the Century” if it believes that it’s “inevitable” and not “incompatible” with the Yinon-Putin Plan, especially if it has “Israel’s” “trusted reassurances” of this.

Concluding Thoughts

As incredible as it might have initially sounded to readers who have been brainwashed for years by their Alt-Media mental overlords into believing that President Putin is an “anti-Zionist crusader”, the argument has strongly been put forth in this analysis that he’s actually the opposite of what many people thought he was. Far from being “anti-Israeli”, the Russian leader is probably one of the most pro-“Israeli” people on this planet after committing his country to ensuring the self-professed “Jewish State’s” security in the face of Iran and its ally Hezbollah’s threats to destroy it. His brotherly ties with Netanyahu have led to similarly fraternal relations developing between Russia and “Israel” as they proceed along the path of “two states, one nation” and gradually merge into a single strategic force, ergo the era of “Putinyahu’s Rusrael” that’s impossible at this point for anyone to credibly deny.

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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

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

Featured image is from LobeLog

In August 2012, Assange sought and was granted asylum in Ecuador’s London embassy (by then-President Correa) to avoid arrest, extradition to Sweden on phony rape and sexual assault charges. 

They were all about wanting him handed over to the US to be prosecuted for truth-telling investigative journalism the way it should be – Sweden conspiring with the US and UK for this purpose.

Subsequently, Swedish Public Prosecution director Marianne Ny dropped charges against Assange because they never were valid in the first place.

At the time, his lawyer prematurely declared

“total victory,” adding “(t)he preliminary investigation has been dropped and the detention order has been withdrawn, and from Sweden’s point of view this is now over.”

London’s Metropolitan Police said a warrant for his arrest remained in force for failing to surrender to authorities on June 29, 2012. Without asylum in Ecuador’s embassy, it was executed – extradition to the US sure to follow.

Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno conspired with the US and UK to rescind Assange’s citizenship and asylum status based on Big Lies – selling his soul for whatever favors he was promised.

Former US Attorney General Jeff Sessions called arresting Assange “a priority…(W)e will seek to put some people in jail” for whistleblowing, he blustered.

As CIA director, Mike Pompeo said Assange deserves the death penalty. He turned truth on its head saying

“(i)t’s time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is: a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia” – a bald-faced Big Lie, adding:

“We have to recognize that we can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us.”

Candidate Trump said “I love WikiLeaks.” Calling its site “amazing,” he added “I love reading those WikiLeaks.” Reportedly he mentioned WikiLeaks over 100 times in the final weeks of his campaign.

He later called Assange “disgraceful,” adding he deserves the “death penalty.” Following his Thursday arrest, he turned truth on its head, saying “I know nothing about Wikileaks. It’s not my thing.”

John Bolton once said Edward Snowden “should swing from a tall oak tree.” He urged waging cyberwar on WikiLeaks.

Make no mistake. The unprecedented arrest of Assange is what police state injustice is all about. Britain intends handing him over to US authorities to be prosecuted for the “crime” of truth-telling – putting all other independent journalists everywhere at risk.

In the US, First Amendment speech, media and academic freedoms are fast eroding, along with assembly and association rights. Ordinary people have virtually no right “to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Exposing government wrongdoing is one of the highest forms of patriotism. It involves risking personal harm and welfare for the greater good. It’s all about doing the right thing because it matters, because truth-telling on vital issues is its own reward.

When whistleblowers and journalists are criminalized for exposing government wrongdoing on the phony pretext of protecting national security or other fabricated reasons, fundamental freedoms no longer exist.

Orwell said

“(i)n a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

Thomas Jefferson once said

“(w)hat country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance.” He also said free speech “cannot be limited without being lost.”

Harry Truman once said

“(w)hen even one American – who has done nothing wrong – is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all Americans are in peril.”

The ACLU earlier said protecting national security and classified information “cannot be at the expense of a free, open and informed society.”

Increasingly, the US national security state targets activists, political dissidents, anti-war protestors, Muslims from the wrong countries, unwanted aliens, human rights lawyers like Lynne Stewart involved in defending the “wrong clients,” whistleblowers, and investigative journalists.

Reporters Committee for Freedom executive director Lucy Dalglish said

“(t)he message (authorities) are sending to everyone is: ‘You leak to the media, we will get you.’ ”

Longtime reporter/author Helen Thomas accused Obama of “controlling the press. It’s shocking. It’s really shocking,” she added.

“What the hell do they think we are, puppets? They’re supposed to stay out of our business. They are the public servants. We pay them.”

Waging war on truth-telling journalism the way it should be is more aggressive now than ever in the US and other Western countries, highlighted by Assange’s arrest and certain prosecution in the US – likely on espionage charges on top of his current indictment, what got Chelsea Manning sentenced to 35 years imprisonment.

They’re in esteemed company. Previous US targets included Socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs, Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) founder Bill Haywood, social justice advocate Emma Goldman, journalist/author/socialist activist John Reed, political activist Max Eastman, civil rights leader Philip Randolph, Social Democratic Party of America and its successor Socialist Party of America co-founder Victor Berger, human rights lawyer Lynne Stewart, among others.

Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark one said “(o)ur jails are filled with saints” – countless numbers of politically persecuted individuals languishing in America’s global gulag.

The US honors its worst, persecutes and abuses its best and most honorable – what tyranny is all about.

Today in the US, UK, and other Western societies, fundamental freedoms are fast eroding, replaced by police state rule, tyranny over governance the way it should be.

That’s what Assange’s arrest signifies. The only solution is mass resistance, people power challenging repressive authority.

When governments ill-serve their people, they forfeit their right to rule, civil disobedience an essential tool for change.

There’s no alternative to living free and safe. If repressive ruling authorities aren’t effectively challenged and replaced by governance serving everyone equitably, we’re all doomed.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

In the late hours of April 10, the Libyan National Army (LNA) announced that it had shot down an IL-39 warplane of the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA). According to the LNA media office, the warplane was shot down by the 166th Brigade, when it was flying over the outskirts of the capital Tripoli.

The warplane reportedly took off from Misrata airbase, east of Tripoli. This airbase is the headquarters of the GNA’s air force, which reportedly operates nine IL-39 Albatros trainers / light attack warplanes among other aircraft. According to the available data, the IL-39 was downed with an anti-aircraft gun, such as the ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft twin-barreled autocannon, which is currently actively employed by both sides of the conflict.

Last week, when GNA jets started carrying out strikes on advancing LNA units, the LNA declared a no-fly zone over the western part of the country. Nonetheless, the April 10 incident became the first example of a real action against GNA air power undertaken by LNA forces. The LNA is known to be operating at least one Soviet-made 2K12 Kub medium-range air-defense system, as well as a variety of man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADs). This is far from being enough to impose a real no-fly zone across the region, but LNA units equipped with anti-aircraft gun and MANPADs would pose a significant threat to the small and largely outdated GNA air power.

At the same time, the LNA continued its advance on Tripoli. Its forces captured the bases of the 42nd Battalion and the 4th Brigade south of the city. The first base is located near the town of Ain Zara. The second is near the town of Aziziya. According to reports, the LNA destroyed several GNA vehicles and captured loads of weapons and ammunition on the scene. LNA units also re-entered the area of Tripoli International Airport where intense fighting is now ongoing. At least one GNA airstrike on LNA forces was reported in the town of Qasr bin Ghashir.

While the LNA has not achieved a rapid and decisive victory over pro-GNA forces in Tripoli, the developments of the last few days have demonstrated that a coalition of pro-GNA militias is incapable of pushing LNA forces back from the city along the entire frontline. In the medium term, this means that the LNA has every chance of isolating the capital from the rest of the pro-GNA areas. This development would be a significant blow to the defenders of Tripoli, would prepare the way for further offensive operations and would strengthen the negotiating position of the LNA leadership.

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Mr. President,

Your Deep State handlers have finally managed to have WikiLeaks publisher and editor Julian Assange dragged out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London and arrested. He faces extradition to the United States where more than a few people in high places have called for his execution.

If your administration follows through on a promise to prosecute Assange, it will look bad for you. After all, you praised Assange during the presidential campaign after he leaked the DNC trove. More than any fictional Russian attempt to spin the US election, the DNC leak turned people against Hillary Clinton and the Democrats and may have helped you win the election.

It really doesn’t matter if you support Assange or not. It is obvious you are not in control of your administration—the so-called Deep State and the neocon rabble are fully in control. It seems the only thing you really control is your smartphone and Twitter feed. 

I believe you will go along with Assange’s persecutors as part of a futile attempt to take down the “lying media,” but only because they lie about you, not because they lie to the American people. 

Mr. President, it is obvious, and has been since the campaign, that your presidency is about you and your overinflated ego. It has nothing to do with public service and the American people. 

All presidents since Truman—with the possible exception of Kennedy, assassinated for deviating from the establishment script—have served the interests of the financial elite and its national security state, its intelligence agencies (most prominently the CIA), and associated industries, notably the military-industrial complex, the latter which you served as salesman of the month for while on a whirlwind sales tour last year. 

It’s important to note that when British cops hauled Assange out of the embassy, he held a book in his hand: Gore Vidal’s History of The National Security State. It is precisely these people who are responsible for the persecution of Assange. They need to send a message: if you reveal “national security secrets”—the murder of journalists, for instance—you will be hunted down, renditioned, tortured, locked in solitary confinement, prosecuted, and possibly executed (as a number of our “representatives” and their script-reading talking heads have demanded). 

It is obvious you will not fight the Deep State or drain the swamp. You can’t even keep insider and neocon operatives from infiltrating your administration. On the other hand, you have warmly embraced the racist apartheid state of Israel and its corrupt leader, Bibi Netanyahu, thus making it obvious you support totalitarian violence against innocents. The bombing raids you ordered in Syria and Iraq have killed thousands of civilians. 

For you, Mr. President, Assange was merely another stepping stone in your ego-driven quest to become the most important person (at least in popular imagination) in the “free world.” Like your supporters who naively believed your flaccid commitment to bring the troops home and put an end to “nation-building,” Assange faces betrayal. He is no longer of use to you. 

Assange will be extradited and charged as a “hacker,” and when convicted (a certainty) the sentence will be five and a half years max. Your Justice (just-us) Department knows it can’t get him on espionage, so they’ll go for a lesser charge, but one that sends the same message—reveal the truth about the United States and its crimes and face prosecution. 

I sincerely doubt, Mr. President, you care about the First Amendment and the freedom of the press. I don’t believe you are concerned about a development concurrent to the persecution of Assange—the effort to shut down alternative media. 

I say this because, over the last few months, you have complained about and promised a response to leaks within your administration. Your endless complaints and often antagonistic responses (primarily on Twitter) to admittedly unfair media coverage demonstrates an animosity toward the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. 

I urge you to pardon Julian Assange after the Deep State wolves make an example of him. I seriously doubt you will do this. You are apparently more comfortable with the likes of the psychopaths John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and the host of neocons and CFR operatives embedded in your administration, and not the American people. They need to know the truth about what the government does in their name. I don’t see this happening. And I don’t see your faithful MAGA supporters calling for it. 

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

Kurt Nimmo is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the Activist Post

Julian Assange is a hero. He defied the globalizing apparatus of fascist repression to expose the war criminals in our midst. Now, the same war criminals and their agencies who commit supreme international war crimes as policy have apprehended him.

Ecuador has shamed itself and proven itself to be a servile vassal of Empire through its actions and inactions, specifically by violating opinion 54/2015 of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions of the United Nations, and by violating Opinion OC-25/2019 of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and Resolution MC-54-19 of the IACHR of March 2019 which obliges Ecuador not to “deport, return, expel, extradite or otherwise remove Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy,”[1] where Assange was sheltered.

The public has a right to know that Empire is waging war against us all, and that Empire is perpetrating wars of aggression that impose the death sentence on millions.  Empire and its NATO appendage are forces for globalized mass murder, and the globalized displacement of peoples.  It is not a force for good. It creates wars, it does not prevent them. It is the embodiment of evil wrapped in shrouds of propaganda.

When governing agencies bury the truth with impunity, they are also burying millions of corpses.    Assange helped to expose Empire for the Life-destroying, Democracy-destroying, Freedom-destroying cancer that it is. He should be lauded and protected, not persecuted and destroyed.

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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017.

Note

[1] teleSUR, “Assange Arrest ‘National Shame’ and ‘Historic Error,’ Ecuador’s Ex-Foreign Minister Says.” 11 April, 2019. (https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Assange-Arrest-National-Shame-and-Historical-Error-Ecuadors-Ex-Foreign-Minister-Says-20190411-0013.html?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=socialnetwork&fbclid=IwAR0QowYIu0GAsHEnYLqQ8TV4WwzZEpEDO3GktqzUsB0A7JkBwvTHe6HTfwU) Accessed 12 April, 2019.

Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.

Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes  the mainstream media narratives on Syria. 

Voices from Syria 

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-1-6

Author: Mark Taliano

Year: 2017

Pages: 128 (Expanded edition: 1 new chapter)

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The glimpse of Julian Assange being dragged from the Ecuadorean embassy in London is an emblem of the times. Might against right. Muscle against the law. Indecency against courage. Six policemen manhandled a sick journalist, his eyes wincing against his first natural light in almost seven years.

That this outrage happened in the heart of London, in the land of Magna Carta, ought to shame and anger all who fear for “democratic” societies. Assange is a political refugee protected by international law, the recipient of asylum under a strict covenant to which Britain is a signatory. The United Nations made this clear in the legal ruling of its Working Party on Arbitrary Detention.

But to hell with that. Let the thugs go in. Directed by the quasi fascists in Trump’s Washington, in league with Ecuador’s Lenin Moreno, a Latin American Judas and liar seeking to disguise his rancid regime, the British elite abandoned its last imperial myth: that of fairness and justice. 

Imagine Tony Blair dragged from his multi-million pound Georgian home in Connaught Square, London, in handcuffs, for onward dispatch to the dock in The Hague. By the standard of Nuremberg, Blair’s “paramount crime” is the deaths of a million Iraqis. Assange’s crime is journalism: holding the rapacious to account, exposing their lies and empowering people all over the world with truth. 

The shocking arrest of Assange carries a warning for all who, as Oscar Wilde wrote, “sew the seeds of discontent [without which] there would be no advance towards civilisation”. The warning is explicit towards journalists. What happened to the founder and editor of WikiLeaks can happen to you on a newspaper, you in a TV studio, you on radio, you running a podcast.

Assange’s principal media tormentor, the Guardian, a collaborator with the secret state, displayed its nervousness this week with an editorial that scaled new weasel heights. The Guardian has exploited the work of Assange and WikiLeaks in what its previous editor called “the greatest scoop of the last 30 years”. The paper creamed off WikiLeaks’ revelations and claimed the accolades and riches that came with them.

With not a penny going to Julian Assange or to WikiLeaks, a hyped Guardian book led to a lucrative Hollywood movie. The book’s authors, Luke Harding and David Leigh, turned on their source, abused him and disclosed the secret password Assange had given the paper in confidence, which was designed to protect a digital file containing leaked US embassy cables.

With Assange now trapped in the Ecuadorean embassy, Harding joined the police outside and gloated on his blog that “Scotland Yard may get the last laugh”. The Guardian has since published a series of falsehoods about Assange, not least a discredited claim that a group of Russians and Trump’s man, Paul Manafort, had visited Assange in the embassy. The meetings never happened; it was fake.

But the tone has now changed. “The Assange case is a morally tangled web,” the paper opined. “He (Assange) believes in publishing things that should not be published …. But he has always shone a light on things that should never have been hidden.”

These “things” are the truth about the homicidal way America conducts its colonial wars, the lies of the British Foreign Office in its denial of rights to vulnerable people, such as the Chagos Islanders, the expose of Hillary Clinton as a backer and beneficiary of jihadism in the Middle East, the detailed description of American ambassadors of how the governments in Syria and Venezuela might be overthrown, and much more. It all available on the WikiLeaks site.

The Guardian is understandably nervous. Secret policemen have already visited the newspaper and demanded and got the ritual destruction of a hard drive.  On this, the paper has form. In 1983, a Foreign Office clerk, Sarah Tisdall, leaked British Government documents showing when American cruise nuclear weapons would arrive in Europe. The Guardian was showered with praise.

When a court order demanded to know the source, instead of the editor going to prison on a fundamental principle of protecting a source, Tisdall was betrayed, prosecuted and served six months.

If Assange is extradited to America for publishing what the Guardian calls truthful “things”, what is to stop the current editor, Katherine Viner, following him, or the previous editor, Alan Rusbridger, or the prolific propagandist Luke Harding?

What is to stop the editors of the New York Times and the Washington Post, who also published morsels of the truth that originated with WikiLeaks, and the editor of El Pais in Spain, and Der Spiegel in Germany and the Sydney Morning Herald in Australia. The list is long.

David McCraw, lead lawyer of the New York Times, wrote:

“I think the prosecution [of Assange] would be a very, very bad precedent for publishers … from everything I know, he’s sort of in a classic publisher’s position and the law would have a very hard time distinguishing between the New York Times and WilLeaks.”

Even if journalists who published WikiLeaks’ leaks are not summoned by an American grand jury, the intimidation of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning will be enough. Real journalism is being criminalised by thugs in plain sight. Dissent has become an indulgence.

In Australia, the current America-besotted government is prosecuting two whistle-blowers who revealed that Canberra’s spooks bugged the cabinet meetings of the new government of East Timor for the express purpose of cheating the tiny, impoverished nation out of its proper share of the oil and gas resources in the Timor Sea. Their trial will be held in secret. The Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, is infamous for his part in setting up concentration camps for refugees on the Pacific islands of Nauru and Manus, where children self harm and suicide. In 2014, Morrison proposed mass detention camps for 30,000 people.

Real journalism is the enemy of these disgraces. A decade ago, the Ministry of Defence in London produced a secret document which described the “principal threats” to public order as threefold: terrorists, Russian spies and investigative journalists. The latter was designated the major threat.

The document was duly leaked to WikiLeaks, which published it.

“We had no choice,” Assange told me. “It’s very simple. People have a right to know and a right to question and challenge power. That’s true democracy.”

What if Assange and Manning and others in their wake — if there are others — are silenced and “the right to know and question and challenge” is taken away? 

In the 1970s, I met Leni Reifenstahl, close friend of Adolf Hitler, whose films helped cast the Nazi spell over Germany.

She told me that the message in her films, the propaganda, was dependent not on “orders from above” but on what she called the “submissive void” of the public.

“Did this submissive void include the liberal, educated bourgeoisie?” I asked her. 

“Of course,” she said, “especially the intelligentsia …. When people no longer ask serious questions, they are submissive and malleable. Anything can happen.”

And did. 

The rest, she might have added, is history.

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“EXIT NATO!”  – was the glaring title on a huge screen greeting the several hundred participants of the Anti-NATO Conference in Florence, Italy, on 7 April 2019. Officially it was called The International Conference on the 70^th Anniversary of NATO, sponsored by the Italian No War No NATO Committee, Global Research of Canada and the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW). I had the privilege to attend this important forum.

Following the EXIT NATO poster, was another huge slide decorating the conference wall – proclaiming that NATO, as a reward for all their work for Peace, should be rewarded with the Peace Nobel Prize. No doubt, nuclear armament and eventually nuclear wars – to be fought by NATO – by whom else – will make the world a safer place. Wars are actually good for Peace. They are also good for economics, but they are particularly good for Peace.

I’m not kidding you – these are declarations one can read – and has been able to read since practically 9/11, in such prominent “Truth News” papers like the Washington Post and the NYT.  – So, why not the Peace Prize to NATO? – It wouldn’t make much difference, considering the track record of the Nobel Prize Committee – it would fall right into place.

Other than that, the conference basically outlined the atrocities committed by NATO, its associate and crony terrorist armies, ISIS, Al Qaeda, Al Nusra – and so on, changing names for revolving terrorists, recruited and trained by the CIA and funded by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, and of course the US directly or through her many State Department funded and subsidiary NGOs, like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and many others. And of course, not to forget a prominent funder of terrorism, Turkey – who is now trying to make a smiling face to Russia and the east, even flirting with the idea of entering the club of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO); on the one hand purchasing Russian military defense systems – the S-400 – and at the same time US fighter planes F35, dancing on as many weddings simultaneously as they can. – Who would trust Turkey under Erdogan? – Turkey also still hosts one of the most strategic and most dangerous nuclear-equipped NATO bases – literally between east and west.

The Conference recalled the Cold War. By now everybody knows – really? – well, for those who don’t – that the so-called Cold War was one of the best propagated and fakest news of the 20^th Century. It’s a brilliant idea that sprung out of the McCarthy Nazi-era – like NATO itself – to arm the US to the teeth – maximizing profits of the military industrial complex, under the pretext of halting the advancement of the Soviet Union into just liberated western Europe, just liberated from Hitler’s Nazi-Germany. Never mind that western Europe has been saved by the Soviet Union who lost 25-30 million people and basically their transport and production infrastructure.

Yes, it was not the so-called allies – US, UK and France – they came in last, when the bulk of the job was already done by what is today Russia. But of course, no western history book would tell you the truth. In fact, it must be said here too – the US funded Hitler’s war against the Soviet Union with money channeled from the FED, through Wall Street banks, and eventually through the Rothschild dominated Bank for International Settlement (BIS), located in Basel, Switzerland, right at the border to Germany, from where it was easy to pass the money on to the Reichsbank – Hitler’s Central Bank. Yes- that’s how the US was already then dancing on various fiestas at the same time; on the one hand bombing Germany and, on the other, financing Germany’s war against what the US already then perceived as an archenemy – The Red Scare – the Soviet Union. Well, these acts of treason then were the precursors of NATO today.

Prof. Michel Chossudovsky (Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization) at the conference in Italy

Anything socialist is evil for the US, still today. Trump himself and his minion clowns, Pompeo, Bolton and Pence – are lambasting Venezuela and Cuba for being evil and destructive socialist countries – and that socialism will not be tolerated nowhere by the falling empire – sorry, falling it is – of the United States of America.

The other purpose of the Cold War farce, was to make the Europeans believe that they were under a constant threat of a Soviet invasion, that they had to arm themselves also to the teeth – imagine war-recovering Europe having to spend their money on arms for no use! – and of course most of these weapons had to be bought – yes, you guessed it – from the US military industrial complex – more profit for the war oligarchs. The Anglo-media even created a virtual barrier between western “free” Europe and the bad-bad Red Scare, the Soviet Union, the Iron Curtain. Yes, the Iron Curtain; children in school were indoctrinated to be aware that the enemy is luring behind the Iron Curtain, and that the enemy always comes from the East. Hilarious, when you think back. At that time (almost) everybody believed it.

And the third, or perhaps first objective of the Cold War, was to block the Soviet Union from developing a viable and autonomous economy with which they could thrive, as most socialist countries do, until they are boycotted, punished and financially “sanctioned” into suffocation – by the west. These illegal financial manipulations with and within sovereign countries’ economies, are, of course, illegal by any standards of international laws – laws that have become meaningless in the light of US / NATO power, scary nuclear power. These acts of financial and human rights high crimes are only possible, because of the all dominating, fraudulent US-imposed – and NATO-protected – western monetary system.

The NATO-driven Cold War, a constant nuclear threat towards the Soviet Union, was intended to force Russia also to arm for their defense, instead of being able to use their economy’s added value to rebuild their devastated country. The USSR was never a threat to Europe. There was never an intention of the Soviet Union to invade western Europe. The same today, we are being made believe that Russia wants to invade Europe – that’s why NATO needs to build all these military bases, at the door step to Russia. Russia is by far the largest country, territory-wise, in the world, they don’t need to add more land. Historically, neither Russia or China have a record of expansionism.

In the end, the NATO-led Cold War managed to dismantle the Soviet Union by ‘buying’ some corrupt Soviet leaders, so that the new Russia, whose socialist system just was made to collapse, unprepared with legislation for what was to come – privatization by fire-sale of their entire economy. Like vultures, the financial institutions, IMF, World Bank, agents of the FED, descended on Moscow to literally steel by indebting whatever had any value. This misery still has not entirely abetted, as the Russian Central Bank was restructured, following the image of the FED – today, under President Putin, much has changed and was reformed, however, the financial sector is still heavily invaded by the Atlantists – or what you may also call the Fifth Columnists. And of course, even those are protected by NATO – as NATO issues threats, nobody knows from where they come – but you know who executes them, in case of…

The Florence Anti-NATO Conference also recalled some of the most abject killing sprees of NATO in its 70 years of existence, the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Ukraine – the Maidan massacre followed by the so-called Ukrainian civil war – and the crowning of sorts, the ten-year war on Yugoslavia – the total destruction of Yugoslavia, with the final blow 1999, the merciless bombing of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. – Why Yugoslavia? – Let’s dwell just a moment on this war of cruel destruction and killing – because it is so typical for Pentagon-driven wars of annihilation. Yugoslavia, a socialist country, in the 1970s and 80s under Maoist President Tito, had a prosperous economy, much more so than the rest of Europe. The US-dominated west cannot let a socialist economy flourish. Other countries, especially stagnating western Europe, could get ideas.

Remember, socialism is evil. So, with what is today called the “Balkanization” – cut into pieces – of Yugoslavia was the old-old tactic of divide to conquer, as well as by creating internal chaos, the western powers kept control of the people, and eventually NATO was able to advance closer and ever closer to the Russian border, by occupying former Yugoslav republics with NATO bases (Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia and Kosovo is waiting in the wings), in addition to the further expansion east to Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, not to mention the former Soviet Republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

This expansion east – ever closer to Moscow, is a flagrant breach of a promise made by the allied forces. In 1991, then German Foreign Minister Genscher promised Russian President Gorbachev that NATO would not move one inch further east than Germany. In fact, he assured Gorbachev that NATO would not move into what before the German unification was Eastern Germany. This promise was unfortunately never recorded in writing, and Gorbachev was miserably betrayed. As we know by now, a betrayal by the west is very normal. In the meantime,12 more NATO bases east of Germany, including in former East-Germany, were built.

In their 70 years of existence, US-NATO, allied and proxy forces, as well as mercenaries, have killed between 20 and 25 million people around the globe, in wars and conflicts – in the eternal war against “terror” – that was “justified” by self-inflicted 9/11, the start to the final phase of the PNAC – Plan for a New American Century – to reach Full Spectrum Dominance.

Wars have a cost – a financial, economic and a social cost. The US official military budget for Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 is US$ 700 billion; for FY 2019 Trump proposes US$ 750. If approved it would be a 40% increase in the last 9 years. But that’s not all. This is just the officially published figure. The real cost for the war, defense and security apparatus to which also the opaque CIA and associated secret services count – is well over a trillion dollars, perhaps as much as US$1.5 trillion – per year.

Conference delegates

The US has currently about one million military personnel stationed in 175 countries around the globe. The Pentagon maintains about a thousand military bases in more than 100 countries. The war cost, in currently seven war theatres is prohibitive – medical costs for veterans, for social services to returning veterans – and we are not talking the cost of off-battle ground lives, i.e. by ever-mounting suicide rates. The Veteran Administration released a study that covered suicides from 1999 to 2010, showing that roughly 22 veterans were dying by suicide per day, or one every 65 minutes.

The reality is most likely a much higher figure – and the despair and human depression from anxieties related to the never-ending wars has increased exponentially in the last 9 years – more suicides, more desperation, more broken families – – entire generations of kids with fathers at war. This cost cannot be put in figures of dollars and cents – it’s a social cost that bears its toll in years, perhaps generations from now.

The US spends per capita ten times more than the rest of the world together on military / war expenses. President Trump requests European NATO countries to increase their military budget by contributing more to NATO, first up to 2% of GDP – threatening he may decide to withdraw NATO from Europe, if Europe does not comply with his request, still making believe that NATO is a defensive force – protecting Europe- from what, and from whom? – Good-bye NATO. This is the moment to call Trump’s bluff.

But NATO – the Trans-Atlantic Treaty Organization – has also gone overseas to Latin America. NATO has a Cooperation Agreement with Colombia, where the US has 5 military bases – which will automatically convert into NATO bases. NATO is also negotiating with Brazil’s new Nazi-leader, Bolsonaro, to enter Brazil, and, as such being a threat and a potential attack force to topple the Venezuelan democratically elected socialist government. Washington makes no secret – they want Venezuela’s hydrocarbon resources, the world’s largest reserves, gold and other minerals of which Venezuela is rich. NATO is perfect to do the dirty job.

But it gets worse, this Trump clown or the masters behind him had recently the audacity to ask for a European military budget increase to 4% of GDP – or else…. Yes. Let’s decide for else. Good riddance, NATO.

The overall NATO budget is well over a trillion dollars per year – yes, per year. And that is – people of Europe, people of the world! – that is to finance a killing machine that bulldozes countries into the ground with bombs and tanks, that kill indiscriminately civilians and other countries’ defensive military, countries that have never  done any harm to the United States, nor to Europe which follows the Washington mandate like a bunch of vassals, what Europe has become.

Imagine, what could be done, with more than a trillion dollars or euros per year – in terms of building up education, health services, public infrastructure, and other social services – and expand these services to developing countries, to those very countries that are now bombarded mercilessly by NATO! – This, dear People of Europe, is your tax money. Do you want it to be spent killing people around the world for Washington’s world hegemony? – NATO does not protect you. NATO has been designed as an aggressive force – you were just never told. But look out of the window, the window of your ‘safe space’, and you will see the squandering of your tax money.

NATO is invading the space of Russia and China, countries that are seeking friendly relations with the rest of the world, they are seeking a multi-polar world, but encounter instead a response of aggression. NATO is preventing the natural, namely friendly relation and trading as equals within the huge Continent Eurasia, of which Europe has been artificially separated as a continent. This tremendous landmass Eurasia, includes also the entire Middle East and connects to Africa. This enormous mass of land and people and resources – does not need the west, the west, called America.

Wouldn’t it be wise for countries and people of Eurasia, to just live sovereign lives, with friendly interactions, trading as equals not with a one-upmanship as is currently the norm for trading between the rich OECD nations dominating the World Trade Organization (WTO), with the rest of the world- which depends on trade but is always on the losing end?

One more point – that needs to be understood. Europe, the European Union as it was conceived and is limping along today – has never been the idea of Europeans, but was born during WWII in the heads of the CIA, then transplanted into some “willing” European heads and then ‘defended’ by NATO – the “unifying force”. Europe has no Constitution, only a number of non-binding accords, like Maastricht and Lisbon – but no Constitution that holds it together, that outlines a common vision in defense, in economic development, in monetary policy. The European Union results in a bunch of country, some even hostile to each other. They have a common currency, the Euro, without even having a common economic development objective. This currency, forged as the little brother of the US-dollar, equally nothing but fiat money, no backing whatsoever; this currency is not sustainable. So, the currency barely 20 years old, will eventually collapse or fade, and so will the European Union. It hasn’t happened yet, because NATO is holding it together, because Brussels is nothing but a puppet of the Pentagon. It is Washington through the Pentagon, and through NATO that is running Europe.

People of Europe – is it that what you want? Your tax money spent killing people and destroying countries around the globe, and having lost all independence, autonomy as a country, as well as monetary sovereignty – by being run by a military killing machine, called NATO?

It’s time to kill NATO, rather than being killed by NATO. Exit NATO now. It’s time for NEXIT.

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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 Organizationaround 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 21^stCentury; 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.