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The 14^thof February meeting in Sochi between the three Presidents (Russia, Turkey and Iran) is not expected to find solutions agreeable to all parties about the two main problem areas left in Syria: northeast Syria (Manbij to Qamishli/al-Hasaka), currently occupied by US forces, and Idlib city and its rural areas occupied by jihadist groups friendly to Turkey. 

There are fundamentally different points of view. At the top of the agenda, the gathering is expected to have further discussions on a possible US withdrawal in the coming weeks – the month of April seems plausible – as announced by officials in Washington.

All parties are agreed, however, that US withdrawal is a priority and will be a relief to the Levant. Therefore, any step that help to reach this objective smoothly should be taken. Nevertheless, the main differences are triggered by the Russian desire and intention to conclude a “temporary deal” with Turkey over North-east Syria’s status after the US withdrawal. These differences are related to the price Syria should pay to see US forces out of the country.

Sources among decision makers in Damascus said “Russia is trying to find an excuse for Turkey to move into north-east Syria, within a “buffer zone” of 12,000 sq km out of the 42,000 sq km that represent the zone east of the Euphrates under US occupation, reviving the 1998 Adana agreement between Ankara and Damascus”.

On January the 23rd, President Putin said the 20-year-old agreement was still binding. A Syrian source reports,

“The Russian President is trying to open the road for Turkey to regain a direct relationship with Syria on a higher level. Russia believes the temporary presence of Turkey is acceptable as long as the unity of Syria is non-negotiable. But we in Damascus believe that if Turkey moves in, it will be difficult to dislodge its forces ever again”.

Russia has never abandoned the idea of Syrian unity and considers it important for the entire geographic area to return under the control of the central government. Nevertheless, Moscow believes the danger from the US is greater, and that it is worth seeing Turkey replacing the US forces temporarily if this is what Washington wants.

On the other hand, the Syrian and the Iranian Presidents disagree with Putin’s strategy because they are convinced that Turkey will never abandon control over the agricultural and natural energy wealth and resources in Northeast Syria under the pretext of fighting their sworn enemies, the Kurdish militants.

According to Syrian officials, Saudi Arabia, unlike Qatar, has abandoned its proxies in Syria.

“Riyadh was aiming to return to Damascus and reopen its embassy very soon when the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo put pressure on the Arabs to stop the process and prevent the return of Syria to the Arab League, throwing obstacles in the way of their end run towards Damascus. Nevertheless, Qatar is still active, supporting al-Qaeda in Idlib and the Turkish presence in north-east of Syria. Therefore, the US, Russia, Turkey and Qatar seem to agree on a Turkish presence in the Syrian “buffer zone” running from Manbij to Ayn al-Arab, Tal Abyad, al-Hasaka and Qamishli”.

The destiny of the Kurds and their families unwilling to live under Turkish occupation is clearly no longer an interest of the USA. Also, Russia, Turkey and Qatar believe the only hope for the Kurds will be to move towards the Syrian government forces who will cross the Euphrates after the US withdrawal. The “revised Adana agreement” promoted by Moscow and Ankara will affect Syrian demography at the expense of the Kurds, who believed the US would provide them with an independent state, and never imagined a sudden US departure.

Turkish ambitions in Syria are not limited to northeast Syria. Ankara is unwilling to depart from Idlib and is demanding that local groups sort out their differences, mainly between the al-Qaeda group of “Hurras al-Deen” and the jihadist group of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham.

Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is no longer related to the al-Qaeda group led by Ayman al-Zawaheri; its leader Abu Mohamad al-Joulani likes his independence. Joulani has been following the exact ideology and creed of ISIS and al-Qaeda during his time connected to these groups, but he had disagreements with some of their practices and lack of adaptation to the environment. In fact, Joulani doesn’t need to follow ISIS or al-Qaeda and nothing prevents him from being an independent Syrian jihadist with slightly different objectives and priorities. He has foreign fighters from all over the world under his command and is based in the Levant which every jihadist believes is the “promised land” for establishing an “Islamic Emirates”. Indeed, Joulani is the leader of “a jihadist group on the creed of Sunnah and Jama’a with the aim of imposing the Islamic Sharia through jihad and Da’wa,” as he describes the objective of his group in his communiqué.

Joulani leads a group that follows “Jihad al-Tamqeen”, meaning “Jihad until it becomes strong”, evoking a patient opportunist religious struggle, which aims to avoid burning bridges, and to adapt to its environment and to new developments without changing ideology or altering its creed. It compromises temporarily on alliances and practices until the group becomes strong enough to let go of some pragmatic policies that help it survive, gather strength and recruit. Joulani’s pragmatic policy suits Turkey very well. Turkey is the most powerful Islamic country present in Idlib, strong enough to hold back Russia and the forces of Damascus from attacking his stronghold. Turkey is happy to deal with a “chameleon jihadist” as long as it serves both parties’ purposes (Turkey and HTS).

However, Ankara wouldn’t mind delivering the skin of the Syrian al-Qaeda “Hurras el-Deen” for Russia to bomb and while Joulani to wears the skin of a jihadist obedient as a sheep. Joulani can help Turkey to resolve its awkward situation, if he shows pragmatism–Turkey has been embarrassed by its lack of commitment to the agreement signed with Russia in September last year, when it committed to end the al-Qaeda presence in Idlib and its surroundings. A metamorphosed Joulani is very convenient to both Ankara and Moscow.

The situation in the Levant is still complicated and unsolved due to prevailing scepticism about impending full US withdrawal from the country, and the lack of trust among partners. Russia seems to be tolerating the Turkish presence temporarily. Iran, a close Turkish partner, would like to see the Syrian forces in control of the entire territory but also gives priority to seeing the “great Satan” leave permanently. Damascus and Tehran share the same fear of seeing Turkish troops hanging on in Syria for a very long time. These differences may prevent a successful Sochi meeting, where the destiny of Idlib and northeast Syria are still unknown and not agreed upon between allies until now.

No perfect solution can be expected, since trust is clearly lacking- mainly over the future Turkish role and presence in Syria. Independently of this, the Kurds remain, regardless, the biggest losers.

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Gong Xi Fa Cai: happy year of the Pig 2019! Congratulations, the Year of the Pig has arrived!

“According to the Chinese astrology, 2019 is a great year to make money, and a good year to invest! 2019 is going to be full of joy, a year of friendship and love for all the zodiac signs; an auspicious year because the Pig attracts success in all the spheres of life.”

So, what is astrology actually saying? We will soon have some sort of ‘brotherhood of men’ year ahead of us; a year that could bring both peace and understanding between all the zodiac signs?

We all wish that it could be possible. But we all have doubts that this is what is actually ahead of us!

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So, where does the world stand, as the most populous nation on earth – China (but also Vietnam and several other countries) – celebrates the New Year?

To be honest, the world does not ‘stand’ at all – it lies in the gutter. It appears to be in coma.

Washington, but also Paris, Berlin and other capitals of the Western mafia grouping which has bullied the world for decades and centuries, declared its unwavering support to a Venezuelan treasonous cadre – Juan Guaidó – a U.S.-‘educated’, handpicked ‘regime change dummy’. It is now almost certain that the West will not stop in front of anything; that it will try to destroy the Bolivarian Revolution and to occupy a country that is potentially so rich, that it alone could satisfy the entire global demand for oil, for at least 30 years.

That’s not such a good beginning, is it?

But there is much more that is happening, simultaneously; unsavory, disgusting stuff, which brings the West into face to face confrontation with the rest of humanity, endangering our entire planet, igniting wars and conflicts in all corners of the world.

As the Year of the Pig begins, the U.S. is basically throwing into the trash can, its nuclear treaty with Russia.

President Trump is flexing his muscle, capriciously and erratically antagonizing China, challenging the mighty Dragon to a duel which could, potentially, destroy the entire global economy.

In the meantime, people are disappearing, getting arrested, getting muzzled: journalists, executives of successful non-Western companies, activists. Social media accounts of those individuals who are critical of the Western terror, are being suspended. People who dare to criticize the Western global regime have become unemployable, and often already ‘disappeared’ from the public gaze. Non-Western media outlets are being intimidated, sanctioned and constantly attacked, in both Europe and in North America. There are ‘official’ budgets allocated for that. Philosophy, arts and literature have been reduced to entertainment, or to ‘academic disciplines’, while the academia itself has already collapsed, becoming synonymous with the lowest sort of collaboration.

These are dark ages, again. Terror reigns. Millions are dying, annually, mostly in the neo-colonies. The environment is being ruined. And the citizens in Western countries are too busy demanding more benefits for themselves, totally indifferent to crimes their countries are committing all over the world.

Just two months ago, I reported from Syria, that Syrian people had won, after tremendous sacrifice. Now, however, things are getting ‘complicated’ again. The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syrian territory is not something we can be sure of, in this 2019 Year of the Pig.

The same goes for Afghanistan, where almost a two decades long NATO occupation has brought tremendous suffering and no benefits to the people. The once proud and freedom-loving nation now lies in rubble, with the lowest standard of living in Asia, and the shortest life expectancy.

And once mighty Iraq? Just a skeleton. And as the Year of the Pig begins, Trump declared that the U.S. military forces will stay, in order to ‘observe’ Iran! Well, that was not the deal, the Iraqi president protested: “You were supposed to be here in order to fight terrorism, only!” But who listens, and who cares. Iran is on the hit list of the Western mafia regime. To use ‘neighboring houses’ for the expansion of destruction, in this case already ruined Iraq, is something that NATO countries have had no problems of doing, for decades.

Listen to the Western mass media, and Russia is now ‘behind all evil political deeds’, as far as Europe and North America are concerned. Anti-Russian propaganda in the West and in its colonies (the latest was a comical outburst of a Western puppet, the Indonesian ‘President’ Jokowi), has reached a crescendo and were it not be so dangerous, it would make all rational human beings roll about on the floor laughing.

The most depressing is that the Western public is totally complacent. With certain notable exceptions (Italy, Greece), there is no attempt to change the regime and to save the world from tragedy. The so-called “Yellow Vests” in France are obsessed with higher salaries and better benefits for the French citizens, with near zero interest in what their country – neo-imperialist France – is doing to Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Russia and other parts of the world.

In fact, there is hardly any soul-searching drive that can be detectable in the West, amongst the ‘common people’. They live, work, consume, enjoy the highest living standards on earth, and as long as they benefit, no crimes committed by their governments, corporations and individuals disturb their conscience.

By now, it is crystal clear that the world cannot count on the Western public to end the global terror that is being spread from London, Washington, Paris, and their dependencies – such as Riyadh, Tel Aviv or Jakarta. The West will have to be confronted and stopped ‘from outside’.

Will there be many confrontations and battles in the 2019 Year of the Pig?

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The most important for this year, is to convince the global public that the West (and its colonies) have lost absolutely all the right to even utter such definitions as “democracy”, “freedom” or “human rights”.

For centuries and decades, these concepts have been brutally violated by all Western colonialist powers, and as a result, hundreds of millions of oppressed people have been dying, or living in appalling slums under fascist dictatorships.

Today, the West is the greatest ideologically fundamentalist, as well as undemocratic force on earth. Great majority of people there accepted all ideological dogmas of ‘exceptionalism’, while conquered nations are also forced to believe in Western exceptionalism.

The West tries to systematically overthrow all democratic, free and independent governments on earth. Then, it replaces them with servile and corrupt regimes that rob their own people and deliver loot to the doorsteps of the masters in New York, London and other ‘white’ Western capitals. The West is running the most brutal, racist, and morally defunct system in the history of the world. It is a fascist system, which is propelled by business, brainless consumption, moral emptiness, enslavement and shameless control as well as gray uniformity.

This 2019 Year of the Pig is not starting well.

But Chinese astrological predictions are actually positive. Let us share their optimism and not give up!

This should be the year designated to confront, with determination and courage, all the bad and filthy pigs of business, of colonialism and of imperialism.

At least in theory, good pigs should fight bad pigs, and win the battle.

Therefore, Happy New Year 2019, Happy Year of the Pig!

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This article was originally published on New Eastern Outlook.

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

All images in this article are from the author

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In Hebron, Israel Removes the Last Restraint on Its Settlers’ Reign of Terror

By Jonathan Cook, February 13, 2019

You might imagine that a report by a multinational observer force documenting a 20-year reign of terror by Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers against Palestinians, in a city under occupation, would provoke condemnation from European and US politicians.

The ‘Other’ Big Shutdowns: GM’s Is Permanent for at Least 14,000, Ford’s for 1,000 in US, 25,000 Abroad

By Dr. Barbara G. Ellis, February 13, 2019

If millions of America’s working-class felt empathy and fear for the 800,000 and their families caught in the recent 35-day federal temporary shutdown, what about the 14,000 out of nearly 18,000 General Motors employees with at least 12 years service facing permanent layoffs? Or Ford’s 1,000 in the U.S. out of possible 25,000 abroad (Britain, France, Germany, Russia).

Imperialist Aggression and What We Can Learn from the Attempted Coup Against Venezuela

By Alison Bodine, February 13, 2019

The day before Guaido’s self-declaration, U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence was so excited at the prospect of overthrowing the democratically elected President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro that he could barely contain himself.

Rule Britannia against China: New UK Aircraft Carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth into the South China Sea in 2021?

By Tom Clifford, February 13, 2019

China has claimed a huge amount of territory in the sea and built air bases and naval facilities on many of the islands. There is little the West can do about it militarily. It can, through diplomacy, get China to navigate a different course but a spanking new aircraft carrier from Britain, regardless of how up-to-date it is, will not make an iota of difference.

RIP INF Treaty: Russia’s Victory, America’s Waterloo

By Cluborlov, February 13, 2019

On March 1, 2018 the world learned of Russia’s new weapons systems, said to be based on new physical principles. Addressing the Federal Assembly, Putin explained how they came to be: in 2002 the US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. At the time, the Russians declared that they will be forced to respond, and were basically told “Do whatever you want.”

Starving Venezuela into Submission

By Israel Shamir, February 13, 2019

First, you starve people; then you bring them humanitarian aid. This was proposed by John McNaughton at Pentagon: bomb locks and dams, by shallow-flooding the rice, cause widespread starvation (more than a million dead?) “And then we shall deliver humanitarian aid to the starving Vietnamese”.

Ukraine: NATO in the Constitution

By Manlio Dinucci, February 13, 2019

The day after the signature of NATO’s membership protocol with North Macedonia as its 30th member, Ukraine did something without precedent: it included in its Constitution the engagement to enter officially into NATO and the European Union at the same time.

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In July 2003, Dr. David Kelly, a British weapons inspector who had disclosed to the media that Tony Blair’s government’s dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction was “sexed up,” was found dead in a public park a mile away from his home.

The inquiry into his death concluded that Kelly had committed suicide by slitting his left wrist but the mystery surrounding his death has remained unresolved to date, though the obvious beneficiary of his propitious “suicide” was the British intelligence itself.

More recently, on March 4 last year, Sergei Skripal, a Russian double agent working for the British foreign intelligence service, and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a public bench outside a shopping center in Salisbury. A few months later, in July last year, a British woman, Dawn Sturgess, died after touching the container of the nerve agent that allegedly poisoned the Skripals.

In the case of the Skripals, Theresa May’s government promptly accused Russia of attempted assassination. There are a couple of caveats, however. Firstly, although Sergei Skripal was a double agent working for MI6, he was released in a spy swap deal in 2010. Had he been a person of importance, Moscow would not have released him and let him settle in the UK in the first place.

Secondly, the British government concluded that Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a Moscow-made, military-grade nerve agent, Novichok. A question would naturally arise that why would Russian secret agents leave a smoking gun evidence behind that would lead prosecutors straight to Moscow when their assassins could have used a gun or a knife to accomplish the task?

Sergei Skripal was recruited by the British MI6 in 1995, and before his arrest in Russia in December 2004, he was alleged to have blown the cover of scores of Russian secret agents. He was released in a spy swap deal in 2010 and was allowed to settle in Salisbury.

Both Sergei Skripal and his daughter have since recovered and were discharged from hospital in May last year, which means they might not have been poisoned by Novichok. In fact, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov shared the results [1] of a Swiss laboratory in April last year, according to which “BZ toxin” was used in the Salisbury poisoning which was never produced in Russia, but was in service in the US, UK and other NATO states.

Nevertheless, the US, UK and European nations expelled scores of Russian diplomats and the Trump administration ordered the closure of Russian consulate in Seattle. In a retaliatory move, Russia also expelled a similar number of American, British and European diplomats, and ordered the closure of American consulate in Saint Petersburg. The relations between Moscow and Western powers reached their lowest ebb since the break-up of the former Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in December 1991.

Although Moscow might appear as an aggressor in these instances, in order to understand the real casus belli of the new Cold War between Russia and the Western powers, we must recall another momentous event that took place in Deir al-Zor governorate in eastern Syria in February last year.

On February 7, a month before the alleged assassination attempts in Salisbury, the US B-52 bombers and Apache helicopters struck a contingent of Syrian government troops and allied forces in Deir al-Zor that reportedly [2] killed and wounded scores of Russian military contractors working for the Russian private security firm, the Wagner group.

The survivors described the bombing as an absolute massacre, and Kremlin lost more Russian citizens in one day than it had lost throughout its more than tow-year-long military campaign in support of the Syrian government since September 2015.

The reason why Washington struck Russian contractors working in Syria was that the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – which is mainly comprised of Kurdish YPG militias – had reportedly handed over the control of some areas east of Euphrates River to Deir al-Zor Military Council (DMC), which is the Arab-led component of SDF, and had relocated several battalions of Kurdish YPG militias to Afrin and along Syria’s northern border with Turkey in order to defend the Kurdish-held areas against the onslaught of the Turkish armed forces and allied Syrian militant proxies during Ankara’s “Operation Olive Branch” in Syria’s northwest that lasted from January to March 2018.

Syrian forces with the backing of Russian contractors took advantage of the opportunity and crossed the Euphrates River to capture an oil refinery located to the east of the Euphrates River in the Kurdish-held area of Deir al-Zor.

The US Air Force responded with full force, knowing well the ragtag Arab component of SDF – mainly comprised of local Arab tribesmen and mercenaries to make the Kurdish-led SDF appear more representative and inclusive – was simply not a match for the superior training and arms of Syrian troops and Russian military contractors. Consequently, causing a carnage in which scores of Russian citizens lost their lives, an incident which became a trigger for the beginning of the new Cold War as is obvious from subsequent events.

Regarding the brinkmanship, in the aftermath of alleged Douma chemical weapons attack in Syria on April 7 last year, one of the “smartest” American presidents ever tweeted on April 11, 2018:

“Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and ‘smart!’ You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!”

When Donald Trump’s advisers drew his attention to the fact that he might have telegraphed his intentions of bombing Syria to Moscow, he came up with an even more childish tweet the next day, saying:

“Never said when an attack on Syria would take place. Could be very soon or not so soon at all! In any event, the United States, under my Administration, has done a great job of ridding the region of ISIS. Where is our Thank you America?”

Fact of the matter is that during the week before the alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria, Donald Trump was so distracted by the FBI’s raid on the office of his attorney Michael Cohen and the release of former FBI director James Comey’s tell-all book that he had paid scant attention to what had happened in Syria.

He kept fulminating about those two issues throughout the week before the alleged Douma chemical weapons attack on his Twitter timeline and mentioned the alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria on April 7 last year only in the passing.

Even though Trump’s babysitter then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis admitted on the record that although he was sure chlorine was used in the attack in Douma, Syria, he was not sure who carried out the attack and whether any other toxic chemical agent, particularly sarin, was used in the attack. If chlorine can be classified as a chemical weapon, then how is one supposed to categorize white phosphorous which was used by the US military in large quantities in the battle against the Islamic State in Raqqa?

Despite scant evidence as to the use of chemical weapons or the party responsible for it, Donald Trump ordered another cruise missiles strike in Syria on April 14 last year in collaboration with Theresa May’s government in the UK and Emmanuel Macron’s administration in France. The strike took place a little over a year after a similar cruise missiles strike on al-Shayrat airfield on April 6, 2017, after an alleged chemical weapons attack in Khan Sheikhoun, that accomplished nothing.

Both those cruise missiles strikes in Syria were not only illegal under international law but were also unlawful under American laws. While striking the Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria, Washington availed itself of the war on terror provisions in the US laws, known as the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), but those laws do not give the president the power to order strikes against the Syrian government targets without the approval of the US Congress which has the sole authority to declare war.

The Intercept reported last year [3] that the Trump administration had derived the authority to strike the Syrian government targets based on a “top secret” memorandum of the Office of Legal Counsel that even the US Congress can’t see. Complying with the norms of transparency and rule of law had never been the strong points of American democracy but the Trump administration had done away with even the pretense of accountability and checks and balances.

The fact that out of 105 total cruise missiles deployed in the April 14, 2018 strikes against a scientific research facility in the Barzeh district of Damascus and two alleged chemical weapons storage facilities in Homs in Syria, 85 were launched by the US, 12 by the French and 8 by the UK aircrafts demonstrated that the strikes were meant as a show of force against Russia by a “powerful and assertive” American president who regards the interests of his European allies as his own.

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Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism.

Notes

[1] Lavrov: Swiss lab says ‘BZ toxin’ used in Salisbury:

https://www.rt.com/news/424149-skripal-poisoning-bz-lavrov/

[2] Russian toll in Syria battle was 300 killed and wounded:

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-mideast-crisis-syria-russia-casualtie/russian-toll-in-syria-battle-was-300-killed-and-wounded-sources-idUKKCN1FZ2EI

[3] Donald Trump ordered Syria strike based on a secret legal justification even Congress can’t see:

https://theintercept.com/2018/04/14/donald-trump-ordered-syria-strike-based-on-a-secret-legal-justification-even-congress-cant-see/

You might imagine that a report by a multinational observer force documenting a 20-year reign of terror by Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers against Palestinians, in a city under occupation, would provoke condemnation from European and US politicians.

But you would be wrong. The leaking in December of the report on conditions in the city of Hebron, home to 200,000 Palestinians, barely caused a ripple.

About 40,000 separate cases of abuse had been quietly recorded since 1997 by dozens of monitors from Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Italy and Turkey. Some incidents constituted war crimes.

Exposure of the confidential report has now provided the pretext for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to expel the international observers. He shuttered their mission in Hebron this month, in apparent violation of Israel’s obligations under the 25-year-old Oslo peace accords.

Israel hopes once again to draw a veil over its violent colonisation of the heart of the West Bank’s largest Palestinian city. The process of clearing tens of thousands of inhabitants from central Hebron is already well advanced.

Any chance of rousing the international community into even minimal protest was stamped out by the US last week. It blocked a draft resolution at the United Nations Security Council expressing “regret” at Israel’s decision, and on Friday added that ending the mandate of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) was an “internal matter” for Israel.

The TIPH was established in 1997 after a diplomatic protocol split the city into two zones, controlled separately by Israel and a Palestinian Authority created by the Oslo accords.

The “temporary” in its name was a reference to the expected five-year duration of the Oslo process. The need for TIPH, most assumed, would vanish when Israel ended the occupation and a Palestinian state was built in its place.

While Oslo put the PA formally in charge of densely populated regions of the occupied territories, Israel was effectively given a free hand in Hebron to entrench its belligerent hold on Palestinian life.

Several hundred extremist Jewish settlers have gradually expanded their illegal enclave in the city centre, backed by more than 1,000 Israeli soldiers. Many Palestinian residents have been forced out while the rest are all but imprisoned in their homes.

TIPH faced an impossible task from the outset: to “maintain normal life” for Hebron’s Palestinians in the face of Israel’s structural violence.

Until the report was leaked, its documentation of Israel’s takeover of Hebron and the settlers’ violent attacks had remained private, shared only among the states participating in the task force.

However, the presence of observers did curb the settlers’ worst excesses, helping Palestinian children get to school unharmed and allowing their parents to venture out to work and shop. That assistance is now at an end.

Hebron has been a magnet for extremist settlers because it includes a site revered in Judaism: the reputed burial plot of Abraham, father to the three main monotheistic religions.

But to the settlers’ disgruntlement, Hebron became central to Muslim worship centuries ago, with the Ibrahimi mosque established at the site.

Israel’s policy has been gradually to prise away the Palestinians’ hold on the mosque, as well the urban space around it. Half of the building has been restricted to Jewish prayer, but in practice the entire site is under Israeli military control.

As the TIPH report notes, Palestinian Muslims must now pass through several checkpoints to reach the mosque and are subjected to invasive body searches. The muezzin’s call to prayer is regularly silenced to avoid disturbing Jews.

Faced with these pressures, according to TIPH, the number of Palestinians praying there has dropped by half over the past 15 years.

In Hebron, as at Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, a Muslim holy site is treated solely as an obstacle – one that must be removed so that Israel can assert exclusive sovereignty over all of the Palestinians’ former homeland.

A forerunner of TIPH was set up in 1994, shortly after Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli army doctor, entered the Ibrahimi mosque and shot more than 150 Muslims at prayer, killing 29. Israeli soldiers aided Goldstein, inadvertently or otherwise, by barring the worshippers’ escape while they were being sprayed with bullets.

The massacre should have provided the opportunity for Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s prime minister of the time, to banish Hebron’s settlers and ensure the Oslo process remained on track. Instead he put the Palestinian population under prolonged curfew.

That curfew never really ended. It became the basis of an apartheid policy that has endlessly indulged Jewish settlers as they harass and abuse their Palestinian neighbours.

Israel’s hope is that most will get the message and leave.

With Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in power for a decade, more settlers are moving in, driving out Palestinians. Today Hebron’s old market, once the commercial hub of the southern West Bank, is a ghost town, and Palestinians are too terrified to enter large sections of their own city.

TIPH’s report concluded that, far from guaranteeing “normal life”, Israel had made Hebron more divided and dangerous for Palestinians than ever before.

In 2016 another army medic, Elor Azaria, used his rifle to shoot in the head a prone and badly wounded Palestinian youth. Unlike Goldstein’s massacre, the incident was caught on video.

Israelis barely cared until Azaria was arrested. Then large sections of the public, joined by politicians, rallied to his cause, hailing him a hero.

Despite doing very little publicly, TIPH’s presence in Hebron had served as some kind of restraint on the settlers and soldiers. Now the fear is that there will be more Azarias.

Palestinians rightly suspect that the expulsion of the observer force is the latest move in efforts by Israel and the US to weaken mechanisms for protecting Palestinian human rights.

Mr Netanyahu has incited against local and international human rights organisations constantly, accusing them of being foreign agents and making it ever harder for them to operate effectively.

And last year US President Donald Trump cut all aid to UNRWA, the United Nations’ refugee agency, which plays a vital role in caring for Palestinians and upholding their right to return to their former lands.

Not only are the institutions Palestinians rely on for support being dismembered but so now are the organisations that record the crimes Israel has been committing.

That, Israel hopes, will ensure that an international observer post which has long had no teeth will soon will soon lose its sight too as Israel begins a process of annexing the most prized areas of the West Bank – with Hebron top of the list.

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A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net.

Featured image is from EAPPI

In its second provocative Freedom of Navigation operation in the South China Sea this year, the US Navy sent two guided missile destroyers yesterday—the USS Spruance and USS Preble—within the 12 nautical mile territorial limit claimed by China around Mischief Reef in the Spratly island group.

The naval operation coincided with the beginning of trade talks between the US and China this week ahead of a March 1 deadline by US President Trump for a deal to avert even more aggressive US trade war measures against China. The intervention of the two destroyers is designed to send a menacing message to Beijing that the US intends to step up its confrontation on all fronts unless China bows to its demands.

Naval spokesman Commander Clay Doss told CNN that the navy carried out the operation “to challenge excessive [Chinese] maritime claims and preserve access to the waterways as governed by international law.” China has never threatened access by international shipping to the South China Sea.

Admiral John Richardson, chief of naval operations, told reporters earlier this month that China was placing military hardware on the islets under its control in the South China Sea.

“There’s been sort of a steady increase,” he said. “The weapons systems have been getting increasingly sophisticated so it’s something we’re watching very closely.”

In reality, China’s expansion of facilities in the South China Sea is in response to Washington’s increasingly aggressive challenges to China’s territorial claims and to the US military build-up in Asia, firstly under President Obama and now Trump. The South China Sea is adjacent to major Chinese military bases, including its nuclear submarine pens on Hainan Island.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying yesterday condemned the latest US naval intrusion. She expressed China’s “strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition” and called on the US to “immediately stop its provocative actions.”

Hua said:

“The relevant actions of the US warships violated Chinese sovereignty, and undermined peace, security and order in the relevant sea areas.” She declared that China had “indisputable sovereignty over islands in the South China Sea, including the Second Thomas Shoal, Mischief Reef, and the adjacent waters.”

The repeated US military provocations in waters near the Chinese mainland are fuelling calls for tougher counter-measures.

“If the US warships break into Chinese waters again, I suggest that two warships should be sent: one to stop it, and another one to ram it,” Senior Colonel Dai Xu told a forum in December organised by the hawkish Global Times newspaper. “In our territorial waters, we won’t allow US warships to create disturbance.”

Last September, the USS Decatur sailed within 12 nautical miles of the Gaven and Johnson reefs controlled by China in the Spratly Islands. In a bid to ward off the US warship, a Chinese destroyer came within 45 metres of the USS Decatur in a manoeuvre denounced by the US navy as unsafe and unprofessional.

The incident was another indication as to how tense the situation in the South China Sea has become.

Last month’s naval provocation by the US also took place at the start of trade talks with China. On January 7, the destroyer USS McCampbell intruded within the 12 nautical mile limit around the Paracel Islands in South China Sea. On the same day, US and Chinese negotiators began three days of talks in Beijing to defuse the mounting trade war.

US-China tensions in the South China Sea have escalated dramatically since the Obama administration directly intervened in territorial disputes between China and neighbouring South East Asian countries that had previously been regarded as low-key regional matters.

US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton provocatively told a regional forum of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2010 that the US “was back in Asia to stay,” had a “national interest” in ensuring freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and offered to become involved in the territorial disputes.

The Obama administration launched the first freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea and gave strong backing to the decision by the Philippines to challenged China’s maritime claims at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in the Hague. The US itself was in no position to challenge Chinese claims firstly because it was not a party to the territorial disputes, and secondly, because it has not ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The court ruling in 2016 ruled against the existence of territorial waters in the South China Sea, but did not adjudicate on the sovereignty of the disputed islands.

Obama’s aggressive challenge to China in the South China Sea was part of a far broader confrontation—diplomatically, economically and militarily—known as the “pivot to Asia.” The US exploited issues such as the South China Sea to drive a wedge between China and its neighbours, strengthened diplomatic and military ties throughout the region, sought to isolate China economically and expanded US military forces throughout the Indo-Pacific.

Trump has taken up where Obama left off, threatening a full-blown trade war and making further preparations for military conflict. The political establishment in Washington has fallen into line with these threats and provocations in a bid to ensure that China, now the world’s second largest economy, never challenges US global domination.

The US is also pushing for its allies to become actively involved in naval provocations in the South China Sea. Last August the British navy sent the HMS Albion close to the Paracel group in its first freedom of navigation operation. In January, the frigate HMS Argyll carried out the first joint US-British exercise in the South China Sea with the USS McCampbell “to address common security priorities.”

Yesterday, British Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson announced that the aircraft-carrier Queen Elizabeth, with two squadrons of F-35 stealth fighters, will be sent into disputed waters in the Pacific. In his speech, Williamson declared that Western allies must be prepared to “use hard power to support our interests,” and failing to intervene against aggressive foreign powers “risks our nation being seen as little more than a paper tiger.”

Such reckless actions by the US and its allies risk an incident, whether accidental or deliberate, that triggers a devastating war between nuclear armed powers.

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Observers have been struggling to find an historical comparison for the War on Syria since it first broke out over 8 years ago, and while the conflict is veritably a unique one in its own right, the best comparison that can be made to its current phase over the past couple of years is Laos because of how “Israel’s” ongoing secret war on the Mideast country in the New Cold War somewhat mirrors the former campaign that the US waged on the Southeast Asian state in the Old Cold War.

The “Worst-Kept Secret” In The Mideast

Netanyahu just acknowledged that “Israel” was responsible for the latest bombing attack on Syria earlier this week when his armed forces shelled a hill, observation post, and hospital near the occupied Golan Heights in response to what he said was “Iran and its attempts to entrench itself in the region”, specifically reminding the world that “Israel’s” forces literally “operate every day” on this front.

His remarkable chutzpah confirms what the former “IDF” chief revealed last month about how “Israel” “struck thousands of targets without claiming responsibility or asking for credit” on a “near-daily” basis, which was already more or less known to the world as the Mideast’s “worst-kept secret” after the Russian Ministry of Defense practically said as much after the tragic mid-September downing of its spy plane in Syria.

RT reported at the time that the Ministry’s spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that “[Israel’s] jets carried out more than 200 strikes against targets located in Syria over the past 18 months alone”, which would conservatively average out to at least one attack every two and a half days or so. Interestingly enough, Iranian Foreign Minster Zarif told the world about this well over half a year before Russia did when he accused“Israel” in February 2018 of “mass reprisals against its neighbours and daily incursions into Syria, Lebanon”, which the author admittedly thought was a gross exaggeration for perception management purposes but now humbly accepts that it was the closest public representation of the truth at the time. The question therefore arises of why neither Russia nor Syria touched upon this before then, but the answers might be “politically inconvenient” for most of the Alt-Media Community.

Explaining The Silence

Regarding Russia, it and “Israel” are practically allies at this point as a result of the many publicly acknowledged instances of high-level strategic and military cooperation between the two in Syria extensively cited in the author’s recent piece about how “I’m A Pro-Putin Anti-‘Putinist’ And It’s About Time That Alt-Media Acknowledges That We Exist”. Follow-up evidence of this objective observation can be seen from the fact that Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov felt the need to deny that Russia and Iran are “allies” in Syria while simultaneously emphasizing that his country “in no way underestimates the importance of measures that would ensure the very strong security of the State of Israel” (from 1:20-1:40 of his interview with CNN), which preceded the meeting that Presidential Special Envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentiev recently had with the head of the Mossad.

Concerning Syria, the self-professed “beating heart of Arabism” is now the “broken heart of the Resistance” after having the ignoble distinction of being the country that’s been bombed by “Israel” many more times than any other. The Arab Republic is simply unable to defend itself from its neighbor’s regular onslaught against the Iranian and Hezbollah forces that it legally welcomed into the country to assist with its War on Terror, and the much-touted S-300s still haven’t passed into Syria’s full and independent control (and may never will if Russia strikes a deal with “Israel” to that effect to “ensure its very strong security”). Simply put, Syria is embarrassed to have turned into the “IAF’s” bombing range and therefore sees no need to publicize each and every time that its sovereignty is violated.

Different War, Same “Secrecy”

For all intents and purposes, “Israel” is waging a so-called “secret war” on Syria in the New Cold War that’s somewhat similar to the one that the US waged on Laos in the Old Cold War, seeing as how the entire world knew about both but didn’t say anything for their own reasons. Just like the US dropped more bombs on Laos than it did during the entirety of World War II, so too did “Israel” bomb Syria many more times than it bombed any of its other enemies, although the scale of its carnage is incomparable in a physical sense to America’s. Nevertheless, the historic comparison is accurate in a structural and strategic sense, but that’s where the similarities end.

Back then, the USSR actively opposed the US’ “secret war” on Laos, but nowadays Russia “passively facilitates” “Israel’s” secret war” on Syria as part of its grand strategic policy of “balancing” that tacitly aims at ensuring Iran’s dignified but “phased withdrawal” from the Arab Republic. In addition, no American aircraft were every downed by its allies in Laos to the best of the author’s knowledge, though “Israel’s” reckless mid-air tactical maneuver in September resulted in a Syrian-fired S-200 tragically hitting one of Russia’s own spy planes, but this importantly didn’t end the alliance between the two and Netanyahu’s upcoming summit with President Putinnext week is expected to publicly confirm the two sides’ reconciliation with one another since then.

Opposite Outcomes

Continuing with the mental exercise of comparing and contrasting the US’ “secret war” on Laos to “Israel’s” “secret war” on Syria, it can provocatively be predicted that the latest one’s outcome might be the opposite of its predecessor’s. Whereas the US failed to dislodge the Pathet Lao from the country and the communist revolutionary movement ultimately ended up taking over the state, “Israel” will probably have much more success in keeping Syria’s Iranian and Hezbollah partners away from the occupied Golan frontier and ultimately preventing them from entrenching their influence all throughout the country. The reason for this is that “Israel’s” predominant ally in Syria (Russia) is much more powerful than America’s was in Laos (the Royal Lao Government), and Moscow can exert diplomatic “mediating” influence over Damascus that Vientiane was incapable of exerting over the Pathet Lao.

Accepting this observation as accurate, it can be prognosticated that the end result of “Israel’s” “secret war” on Syria will probably be the perpetuation of the unofficial Russian-enforced “buffer zone” that Moscow created within 140 kilometers from the occupied Golan Heights and even its possible expansion if it can “convince” Damascus to “roll back” its Iranian ally’s influence in that part of the country. Unlike in Laos where the US had no chance of brokering international deals for the country’s post-war reconstruction (largely owing to its military-strategic failure there and eventual withdrawal from the region), Russia is in an excellent position to broker Syria’s post-war reconstruction with the Gulf Kingdoms and even “Israel’s” Western European allies in the event that Damascus does what’s “requested” of it by taking steps to ensure Iran’s dignified but “phased withdrawal” from the country.

Concluding Thoughts

Historical comparisons can provide creative and insightful ways of reevaluating contemporary conflicts and forecasting their possible solutions, but their accuracy is never absolute and the resultant models shouldn’t ever be assumed to be the be-all and end-all for understanding the object of study. Such is the case of Syria and Laos’ “secret wars”, which are remarkably similar in many senses but also really different in others. Both target states found themselves in the center of Cold War competition between the most important powers of the day, but the outcome of the current “shadow conflict” will probably be the opposite of the previous one due to the pivotal “balancing” role that Russia is playing in it, which astronomically improves “Israel’s” odds of at least partially achieving the success of its strategic objectives in Syria in a manner that the US never had a chance to do in Laos.

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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 Times of Israel

If the so-called American Revolution of 1776 was truly committed to breaking with monarchical and autocratic rule from the United Kingdom then why did slavery grow at a rapid rate after the achievement of independence of the former 13 colonies in North America?

This is an important political question since even in the 21^st century there are repeated references by elected officials in both houses of Congress, the White House and the Supreme Court to the “Founding Fathers” and “Framers of the Constitution.” What is not mentioned by these career politicians and lifetime jurists is that many of the authors of the U.S. Constitution were large-scale slave owners themselves.

These wealthy landowners and slave masters did not see any reason to liberate the more than 700,000 Africans living in the former colonies by the conclusion of the 1780s. The existence of slavery was quite profitable and with the discovery of the cotton gin in 1793, the expansion of involuntary servitude across the South and extending further west empowered the planters to the point where as a result of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 they were able to dominate the House of Representatives through a provision declaring that enslaved Africans could be counted as three-fifths of a person.

In an article published by Paul Finkelman of the Albany Law School in New York:

“The three-fifths clause provided the extra proslavery representatives in the House to secure the passage of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 (bringing Missouri in as a slave state); the annexation in 1845 of Texas, which was described at the time as an ‘empire for slavery’; the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850; the law allowing slavery in Utah and New Mexico; and the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 (which opened the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain territories to slavery). None of these laws could have been passed without the representatives created by counting slaves under the three-fifths clause.” (See this)

Some Aspects of the Anti-Slavery Movement in Britain in the Late 18^th Century

While the descendants of the British colonialists were divorcing themselves from the Crown, a burgeoning anti-slavery movement was taking hold in England. London was the largest center of the Atlantic Slave Trade where enormous profits earned from the exploitation of African labor was set to spawn the rise of industrial capitalism in the 19^th century.

Image on the right: James Somerset portrait during the 1770s

An important episode in the history of jurisprudence related to the legal basis for African enslavement was the case of Somerset v. Stewart which was heard and decided in London during 1772. James Somerset was an African purchased in Virginia and held by a Scottish merchant and customs officer. (See this)

Somerset was brought from Virginia to England by Charles Stewart with the intent to continue his enslavement. Somerset fled from captivity and was later imprisoned. He filed suit in the British courts demanding his freedom based upon the lack of sufficient English law recognizing slavery within the unwritten constitution.

Although there were codes under British customary law which reinforced slavery, the courts found that there was no legal basis for the ownership of Somerset by Stewart. The although narrow ruling was not intended to free enslaved Africans from bondage it provided the impetus for the abolitionist movement in both Britain and what later became known as the U.S.

A summary of the ruling states that:

“In a decision handed down by William Murray, Baron (later Earl) of Mansfield and Chief Justice of the Court of King’s Bench, the court narrowly held that ‘a master could not seize a slave in England and detain him preparatory to sending him out of the realm to be sold’ and that habeas corpus was a constitutional right available to slaves to forestall such seizure, deportation and sale because they were not chattel, or mere property, they were servants and thus persons invested with certain (but certainly limited) constitutional protections.” (See this)

The decision was hailed by the African population and anti-slavery proponents in Britain. Granville Sharp, a staunch advocate for the elimination of slavery had taken up the case on behalf of Somerset advising his lawyers on the arguments put forward in the case.

Sharp had written a tract in 1769 entitled “A Representation of the Injustice and Dangerous Tendency of Tolerating Slavery”, considered a foundational publication of the abolitionist movement of the 18^thcentury. Gaining a reputation through the Somerset Case and previous attempts at freeing enslaved Africans, Sharp was approached by Olaudah Equiano in 1781 to seek his support in exposing the Zong massacre. (See this)

Equiano, also known as Gustavus Vassa, wrote in his autobiography that he was captured in West Africa in the region now known as southeast Nigeria. He would be taken to Virginia where he worked to purchase his own freedom. Later he would be a co-founder of the Sons of Africa, an organization of emancipated people in Britain committed to the elimination of slavery. (See this)

The Zong was a British slave ship from Liverpool which captured 400 Africans setting sail later from Accra in West Africa. While traveling to the Caribbean island of Jamaica, many of the people on board were sickened including both European sailors and enslaved Africans.

After the deaths of 70 slaves and sailors on board, the captain Luke Collingwood authorized the throwing of Africans overboard resulting in the brutal deaths of another 133 people. This was done for the purpose of collecting insurance on the enslaved. The incident was widely publicized and consequently mobilized the Free African community and abolitionist movement in Britain.

Claims for the payment of the insurance were denied by the Baron of Mansfield who had ruled in the Somerset decision. Nonetheless, despite gallant attempts by abolitionists, the European crew was never convicted of murder. The ruling in the case said the killing of Africans was warranted under such circumstances as the purported lack of water, food and the prevalence of disease.

An historical website, blackpast.org, said of those in authority related to the attempt to prosecute the responsible individuals:

“Great Britain’s The Solicitor General, Justice John Lee, however, refused to take up the criminal charges claiming ‘What is this claim that human people have been thrown overboard? This is a case of chattels or goods. Blacks are goods and property; it is madness to accuse these well-serving honorable men of murder… The case is the same as if wood had been thrown overboard.’”

Just a decade later after the acquittal of the perpetrators of the Zong massacre, Captain John Kimber was placed on trial for the torture and murder of an African woman aboard the slave ship Recovery. Through the efforts of the abolitionists in Britain, Kimber was brought before the court, even though he was not convicted.

African woman tortured by John Kimber who was acquitted of murder by British courts in 1792

These developments illustrated the inherent racism within the British legal system. Such occurrences prompted the persistence of the anti-slavery campaigns. Africans such as Equiano and Ottobah Cugoano through the Sons of Africa grouping spread the consciousness related to the humanity of Black people. (See this)

The Sons of Africa worked closely with the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Thomas Clarkson, a co-founder of the Society, along with ten other anti-slavery advocates, persuaded parliamentarian William Wilberforce to introduce legislation demanding the end to human bondage. However, it would take decades of work to bring about the abolition of slavery in the British Empire.

Image on the right: Ottobah Cugoano also known as John Stuart was an abolitionist and member of the Sons of Africa in Britain during the late 18th century

Cugoano was kidnapped by the British in the West Africa region of today’s Ghana in 1770 being taken to England. He would win his emancipation and publish a book in 1787 entitled: “Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species.” (See this)

As opposition to slavery increased through political actions along with mass rebellion, the British parliament would pass the Slave Act of 1788 and Amelioration Act of 1798 related to the treatment of Africans in bondage under the control of England. Later in 1807, the British parliament would pass the Slave Trade Act, ostensibly outlawing the transatlantic trade. The trade would continue illegally and the domestic production and trade in enslaved Africans satisfied the demands for unpaid labor within the growing cotton plantations of the southern U.S. Later in 1833 the Slavery Abolition Act was passed by the British parliament. Nevertheless, Africans in the Caribbean were forced to undergo a period of apprenticeship leading to years more of virtual enslavement and consequent rebellion.

Other events such as the Haitian Revolution against France from 1791-1803 resulted in the founding of a Black Republic in the Caribbean, heightened the fears of the slave owning class which maintained its political advantage through the American legislative system. It would take a series of slave rebellions in the U.S. from 1800 through 1859 to escalate the intransigence of the planters provoking their secessionist ambitions leading to a civil war from 1861-1865, which created the conditions for the legal abolition of African slavery in the U.S. (See this)

The Legacy of Slavery Extends Into the 21^st Century

African American historian Gerald Horne published a study on the impact of the anti-slavery movement in Britain and the motivations for independence by the founders of the U.S. during the late 18^thcentury. The book entitled: “The Counter-revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America”, advances a thesis which conflicts with the conventional assumptions fostered by the educational system related to the separation of the 13 colonies from Britain.

An abstract of the Horne research project released in 2014 says:

“Prior to 1776, anti-slavery sentiments were deepening throughout Britain and in the Caribbean, rebellious Africans were in revolt.  For European colonists in America, the major threat to their security was a foreign invasion combined with an insurrection of the enslaved.  It was a real and threatening possibility that London would impose abolition throughout the colonies—a possibility the founding fathers feared would bring slave rebellions to their shores. To forestall it, they went to war.” (See this)

154 years since the legal abolition of involuntary servitude in the U.S., the descendants of Africans formerly enslaved are still facing national oppression and economic exploitation. Today the criminal justice structures serve as the principal mechanism of social containment and institutional repression. Inevitably it will take a revolutionary struggle to complete the genuine emancipation of the African people in America.

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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of Pan-African News Wire. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from the author

The Miami Herald (2/8/19) reported, “Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro continues to reject international aid—going so far as to blockade a road that might have been used for its delivery.“

The “Venezuelan leader” reporter Jim Wyss referred to is Venezuela’s elected president. In contrast, Wyss referred to Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s “interim president.”

Guaidó, anointed by Trump and a new Iraq-style Coalition of the Willing, did not even run in Venezuela’s May 2018 presidential election. In fact, shortly before the election, Guaidó was not even mentioned by the opposition-aligned pollster Datanálisis when it published approval ratings of various prominent opposition leaders. Henri Falcón, who actually did run in the election (defying US threats against him) was claimed by the pollster to basically be in a statistical tie for most popular among them. It is remarkable to see the Western media dismiss this election as “fraudulent,” without even attempting to show that it was “stolen“ from Falcón. Perhaps that’s because it so clearly wasn’t stolen.

Data from the opposition-aligned pollsters in Venezuela (via Torino Capital) indicates that Henri Falcón was the most popular of the major opposition figures at the time of the May 2018 presidential election. Nicolás Maduro won the election due to widespread opposition boycotting and votes drawn by another opposition candidate, Javier Bertucci.

The constitutional argument that Trump and his accomplices have used to “recognize” Guaidó rests on the preposterous claim that Maduro has “abandoned” the presidency by soundly beating Falcón in the election. Caracas-based journalist Lucas Koerner took apart that argument in more detail.

What about the McClatchy-owned Herald‘s claim that Maduro “continues to reject international aid”? In November 2018, following a public appeal by Maduro, the UN did authorize emergency aid for Venezuela. It was even reported by Reuters (11/26/18), whose headlines have often broadcast the news agency’s contempt for Maduro’s government.

It’s not unusual for Western media to ignore facts they have themselves reported when a major “propaganda blitz” by Washington is underway against a government. For example, it was generally reported accurately in 1998 that UN weapons inspectors were withdrawn from Iraq ahead of air strikes ordered by Bill Clinton, not expelled by Iraq’s government. But by 2002, it became a staple of pro-war propaganda that Iraq had expelled weapons inspectors (Extra! Update, 10/02).

And, incidentally, when a Venezuelan NGO requested aid from the UN-linked Global Fund in 2017, it was turned down. Setting aside how effective foreign aid is at all (the example of Haiti hardly makes a great case for it), it is supposed to be distributed based on relative need, not based on how badly the US government wants somebody overthrown.

But the potential for “aid” to alleviate Venezuela’s crisis is negligible compared to the destructive impact of US economic sanctions. Near the end of Wyss’ article, he cited an estimate from the thoroughly demonized Venezuelan government that US sanctions have cost it $30 billion, with no time period specified for that estimate. Again, this calls to mind the run-up to the Iraq invasion, when completely factual statements that Iraq had no WMDs were attributed to the discredited Iraqi government. Quoting Iraqi denials supposedly balanced the lies spread in the media by US officials like John Bolton, who now leads the charge to overthrow Maduro. Wyss could have cited economists independent of the Maduro government on the impact of US sanctions—like US economist Mark Weisbrot, or the emphatically anti-Maduro Venezuelan economist Francisco Rodríguez.

Illegal US sanctions were first imposed in 2015 under a fraudulent “state of emergency” declared by Obama, and subsequently extended by Trump. The revenue lost to Venezuela’s government due to US economic sanctions since August 2017, when the impact became very easy to quantify, is by now well over $6 billion. That’s enormous in an economy that was only able to import about $11 billion of goods in 2018, and needs about $2 billion per year in medicines. Trump’s “recognition” of Guaidó as “interim president” was the pretext for making the already devastating sanctions much worse. Last month, Francisco Rodríguez revised his projection for the change in Venezuela’s real GDP in 2019, from an 11 percent contraction to 26 percent, after the intensified sanctions were announced.

The $20 million in US “aid” that Wyss is outraged Maduro won’t let in is a rounding error compared to the billions already lost from Trump’s sanctions.

Former US Ambassador to Venezuela William Brownfield, who pressed for more sanctions on Venezuela, dispensed with the standard “humanitarian” cover that US officials have offered for them (Intercept, 2/10/19):

And if we can do something that will bring that end quicker, we probably should do it, but we should do it understanding that it’s going to have an impact on millions and millions of people who are already having great difficulty finding enough to eat, getting themselves cured when they get sick, or finding clothes to put on their children before they go off to school. We don’t get to do this and pretend as though it has no impact there. We have to make the hard decision—the desired outcome justifies this fairly severe punishment.

How does this gruesome candor get missed by reporters like Wyss, and go unreported in his article?

Speaking of “severe punishment,” if the names John Bolton and Elliott Abrams don’t immediately call to mind the punishment they should be receiving for crimes against humanity, it illustrates how well the Western propaganda system functions. Bolton, a prime facilitator of the Iraq War, recently suggested that Maduro could be sent to a US-run torture camp in Cuba. Abrams played a key role in keeping US support flowing to mass murderers and torturers in Central America during the 1980s. Also significant that Abrams, brought in by Trump to help oust Maduro, used “humanitarian aid” as cover to supply weapons to the US-backed Contra terrorists in Nicaragua.

In the Herald article, the use of US “aid” for military purposes is presented as another allegation made by the vilified Venezuelan president: “Maduro has repeatedly said the aid is cover for a military invasion and has ordered his armed forces not to let it in, even as food and medicine shortages sweep the country.”

Calling for international aid and being democratically elected will do as little to protect Maduro’s government from US aggression as being disarmed of WMD did to prevent Iraq from being invaded—unless there is much more pushback from the US public against a lethal propaganda system.

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Joe Emerberger is a writer based in Canada whose work has appeared in Telesur English, ZNet and Counterpunch.

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Prof. Michel Chossudovsky, a renowned expert on Latin America gave an interview to broadcaster and journalist, Bonnie Faulkner (gunsandbutter.org) and the below is a summary of the key points of this interview.

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Click link below to listen to the full interview.

Venezuela: From Oil Proxy to the Bolivarian Movement and Sabotage. Abysmal Poverty under US Proxy Rule (1918-1998)

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky and Bonnie Faulkner, February 10, 2019

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This is an extremely important explanation of the situation, summarised. It is a must read for anyone confused about what is going on in Venezuela.

Prof. Chossudovsky discussed the economic and political crisis in Venezuela, and with a good deal of expertise and authority having been a past Advisor to the Venezuelan Minister of Planning.

It is hoped the following accurately distils his views for readers to comprehend the basics of this rather disgraceful attempt at regime change by the US Government.

To start with one must explain the three key objectives of the US:

– Install a US proxy regime,

– Confiscate the country’s extensive oil wealth (Venezuela has the largest oil reserves Worldwide),

– Impoverish the Venezuelan people.

A few weeks ago, President Trump announced that the U.S. would recognize without an election, Speaker of the Venezuelan parliament, Juan Guaidó as the legitimate President of Venezuela.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Vice President Mike Pence called Guaidó the night before Trump’s announcement and pledged that the US administration would support him.

Ironically, Chossudovsky wryly points out, the position of Speaker of the National Assembly (Parliament) of Venezuela, held by Juan Guaidó, is comparable to that of the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and, of course, the leader of the majority party, the Democrats, which is currently Nancy Pelosi.

There are certain differences from the constitutional standpoint, but what President Trump has intimated in declaring that Guaidó is the interim president of Venezuela is tantamount to saying, “Hey, Donald Trump, what about Nancy Pelosi for US President?”

Why can’t for example President Maduro of Venezuela say, “We would like Nancy Pelosi to be the President of the United States….and then, of course, we’ll go to the UN Security Council to have it endorsed.”

That illustrates “the ridicule of political discourse but also the shear fantasy of U.S. foreign policy”.

Chossudovsky says it is ‘a novelty’ in relation to regime change.

“We have military coups in Venezuela going back to the early 20th century – a whole bunch of military coups. We have color revolutions, which instigate protest movements. That is already ongoing in Venezuela. Then we have this new formula of intimating that we don’t like the President; have him replaced by the Speaker of the House. And that’s, of course, a very dangerous discourse because, as I mentioned, it could backlash onto President Trump himself.”

Russia and China backed Maduro but France, Britain, Spain and Germany said they would recognize Juan Guaidó as President unless Venezuela calls a new presidential election “within eight days”.

But wait a minute. Maduro was elected, he won the Presidency of Venezuela democratically and with a large majority.

France’s President Macron also won the Presidential election with a a very slim majority and nobody is questioning Macron’s Presidency except of course the Yellow Vest movement which is throughout France. That doesn’t seem to be making the headlines anymore and on the contrary people in Venezuela are taking to the streets to endorse Maduro.

The fact of the matter, the Professor continues is that “all these leaders in Europe are, first of all, caving in to U.S. foreign policy; they are essentially behaving as U.S. proxies”.

Adding

“Under a constitutional democracy, how is it that they could actually support the United States in calling for the Speaker of the National Assembly of Venezuela to become President of the country? It’s an absurd proposition, and that this would then get to the United Nations Security Council is even more absurd.”

“It’s a very complex process, and I think people have to understand first of all that Venezuela has the largest oil reserves worldwide; more than Saudi Arabia, both traditional crude as well as tar sands, which are extensive but also very easy to manage and produce compared to those of Canada, for instance. What is at stake is a battle for oil.”

Now when we look at what is happening in Venezuela today and where the U.S. policymakers say, “We want to come to the rescue of the people who have been impoverished.”

In reaction, Chossudovsky asserts

“this is a nonsensical statement. The history of Venezuela was a history of poverty right until Chavez became President. They retained that level of poverty and exclusion. Not to say that there aren’t very serious contradictions (within Venezuelan society); that’s another issue.”

Further explaining that the

“U.S. Foreign policy wants to restore. They want to restore Venezuela as a subordinate country with a poor population and elites that are aligned with the United States. That is the nature of the crisis which is ongoing today in Venezuela.”

Chossudovsky importantly also reminds us

“Now, there’s another thing I’d like to mention, which I think is very important. What has been the response today to this crisis? I saw recently a statement by a number of progressive authors and it essentially says that there should be mediation or negotiation between both sides. I think that that is something which is rather much misunderstood. There cannot be mediation between the government of Venezuela and a proxy for the CIA, which is Guaidó.”

The Professor concluded by saying

“Our thoughts today are with the Venezuelan people”

A final comment I would like to make is before our governments embark on more adventures and regime changes, it might be opportune to ponder these indirectly relevant facts. The US Military deaths in action since 1999 were 5,273. US Veterans since 1999 was a whopping 128,240 suicides and counting. What does that tell you as a reader?

Professor Michel Chossudovsky is author of 11 books. The complete lengthy interview is available on the Global Research website, globalresearch.ca for those interested.

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On January 23, 2019 Juan Guaido declared himself to be the “acting President” of Venezuela. He was immediately recognized as the interim President of Venezuela by the United States government, followed in quick succession by the government of Canada, and right-wing governments in Latin America.

In order to achieve his new-found executive status, Guaido didn’t need to win the support of the majority of the people in Venezuela, let alone even run in any election. In order to get this appointment, all that he had to do was pledge allegiance to his bosses at the U.S. capital, Washington, DC.

The day before Guaido’s self-declaration, U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence was so excited at the prospect of overthrowing the democratically elected President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro that he could barely contain himself. He recorded a video message of support to the Venezuelan opposition:

“As the good people of Venezuela make your voices heard tomorrow, on behalf of the American people, we say: estamos con ustedes. We are with you. We stand with you, and we will stay with you until Democracy is restored and you reclaim your birthright of Libertad.”

But, what exactly does Pence mean when he claims support for Libertad (“Freedom” in Spanish)?

In the new era of war and occupation, which began with the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, “human rights,” “democracy,” “freedom,” have all become euphemisms in the deadly song of the U.S. war machine. Millions of people from Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Libya and across the Middle East and North Africa have been murdered by U.S. led wars, occupations, and covert and overt military operations in their countries. Millions of other people suffer needlessly under brutal imperialist sanction regimes imposed on people in North Korea, Iran and Venezuela.

For over the last 17 years, the Unites States government and their allies, including the government of Canada, have been on a mad path of destruction to regain hegemony in the Middle East, North Africa, and Latin America. As the U.S. government and other imperialist countries face increasing financial crisis, they will stop at nothing to find new markets, people and resources to exploit.

In order to retake complete control for their own economic gain, the U.S. government must destroy the independent and sovereign peoples and governments that stand in their way. This is how the democratically elected government of President Nicolas Maduro and the revolutionary people of Venezuela came squarely into their cross-hairs.

The U.S.-Led War on Venezuela

Without there being a single firefight, the U.S. government is at war with the people of Venezuela and their Bolivarian revolutionary process. It is an imperialist war of aggression imposed on the people of Venezuela through a coordinated campaign of political, economic and military threats and attacks. When the U.S. government and their allies recognized Juan Guaido as the “interim President” of Venezuela – it was nothing short of an attempted coup d’état against the democratically elected President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro. It was an escalation in their anti-democratic and illegal intervention in Venezuela, which has included imposing brutal sanctions, threatening military attack, and giving financial and political support to Venezuela’s violent opposition.

It is especially relevant to the recent U.S.-led aggression against Venezuela to understand that just as President Trump refuses to recognize the 2018 electoral victory of President Maduro, so did President Obama refuse to recognize President Maduro’s first term victory in 2013. For the U.S. government and their allies – “democracy” is only “democracy” when their selected candidates take office.

Canada’s Vicious Role Against the People of Venezuela

The government of Canada is complicit in the imperialist war against the people of Venezuela and their democracy. Armed with their own set of interests in Venezuela’s natural resources, the government of Canada has effectively served as a proxy for the U.S. government in the international arena where the U.S.’s own history in Latin America would be an obstacle to their imperialist project to overthrow the government of Venezuela.

The government of Canada does so consciously and willingly. Chrystia Freeland, the Foreign Minister of Canada, exposed the government when she said,

“We have a very direct interest in what happens in our hemisphere, that’s why we have been so active and will consider to be so active,” during a Press Conference on Venezuela on January 28.

It is with this same reasoning that Minister Freeland has taken up her role as a leader in the illegitimate Lima Group, which was formed by the U.S. government in order to pursue further intervention against Venezuela, when their efforts in the Organization of American States failed.

The government of Canada has also imposed three rounds of sanctions against Venezuela and given support and an ear on Parliament Hill to Venezuela’s violent right-wing opposition.

Following the appointment by the U.S. government of Guaido as interim President of Venezuela, the Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau released a statement that “commended Juan Guaido for his courage and leadership in helping to return democracy to Venezuela and offered Canada’s continued support.” With more or less nuance, this is the same sentiment expressed in official statements by leaders of the Conservative party and the NDP as well – as if somehow the government of Canada has the right to tell the people of Venezuela who their President is, and if their elections are free and fair.

Maduro Elected by People, Guaido Selected by the U.S. Government On January 15, 2019 appointed “interim President’ Juan Guaido was given an editorial in the Washington Post. Heavy on rhetoric and devoid of facts, Guaido claimed in this editorial that President Maduro was an “usurper” when he took office for his second Presidential term on January 10, 2019 “because we didn’t have an election.”

No election? Then, what was it when over 9.3 million Venezuelans voted in the Presidential election on May 20, 2018, choosing from four candidates representing 16 political parties? What did 14 electoral commissions from eight countries observe on the election day in Venezuela, if not a Presidential election?

On May 20, 2018 President Maduro was elected to a second term in office with nearly 68%, or over 6.2 million votes. The opposition candidate who won the greatest votes was Henri Falcón who received almost 21%, or 1.9 million votes. This election was a resounding victory for the people of Venezuela and the Bolivarian revolutionary process.

If, according to Guaido, there was no election, it is because not only did he not run in the election, nether did his pro-U.S. political party. Voluntad Popular was one of three opposition political parties that boycotted the election. However, as Pasqualina Curcio, a Venezuelan economist, researcher and academic wrote in an article “The Maduro government: why illegitimate?”, “The fact that three parties (AD [Accion Democratica], VP [Voluntad Popular] and PJ [Primera Justicia]) freely decided not to participate does not make the electoral process illegitimate.”

In fact, based on the election results, President Maduro has a stronger claim to Presidential legitimacy then most of the heads of state that are now attempting to force his overthrow. 31.7% of eligible voters in Venezuela cast their votes for Maduro, compared to only 27.3% for U.S. President Trump and an even lower 26.8% for Prime Minister of Canada Trudeau.

It is also important to note that in the eight months since the Presidential election, none of the candidates or political parties that ran in the election have made any claims of fraud. They haven’t contested the results.

In the weeks leading up to the attempted coup and Juan Guaido’s Washington DC appointment as “interim President” of Venezuela, he was in frequent communication with leaders in Venezuela’s violent counter-revolutionary opposition, as well as the U.S. government and the government of Canada. The architects of the coup attempt, Maria Corina Machado, Leopaldo Lopez, Antonio Ledezma and Julio Borges all have close ties to the Untied States, and a direct-line to the Oval Office through right-wing U.S. Senator Marco Rubio.

Juan Guaido was assigned by the government of the United States as the “interim President” of Venezuela as he promised to deliver them exactly the kind of government in Venezuela that they desired.

Who is Guaido Anyhow?

Juan Guaido had not been a significant or well-known politician in Venezuela. In 2015 he was elected to Parliament with only 26% of the vote. The only reason that he became President of Venezuela’s National Assembly was because the opposition parties have decided to rotate the leadership as a way of dealing with their differences. Guaido became President of the National Assembly when it was the turn for his party, Voluntad Popular or Popular Will, in English, to take the position.

Voluntad Popular is a violent counter-revolutionary political party in Venezuela. Their methods of their leaders, like Leopaldo Lopez, range from participation in a coup against President Chavez in 2002 (which was overturned by the mass action of people in Venezuela in less than 48 hours), to violent street riots known as the “Guarimbas” that killed 43 people in 2014 and over 125 people in 2017.

Today, Guaido and the opposition controlled National Assembly, are claiming Constitutional authority. However, since 2016 Venezuela’s National Assembly has been held in contempt of court after refusing to correct electrical irregularities in the 2015 National Assembly elections. Even prior to this declaration, the National Assembly had been incapable of passing any legislation that complied with Venezuela’s Constitution.

Sanctions and Humanitarian Aid – Which One is It?

The crocodile tears of imperialist governments and their mainstream media minions are the most bitter when they describe the suffering of the people of Venezuela, who they claim are being denied food, medicines and basic goods by a corrupt and callous government that is unable and uninterested to manage its own affairs, and care for its people.

Never a word is spoken about the devastating effects of U.S. sanctions on the lives of every day people in Venezuela.

For example, the attempted coup against Venezuela was enforced with another round of sanctions, this time targeting Venezuela’s state-run oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA). Trump administration officials reported that the sanctions “are expected to block $7 billion in assets and result in $11 billion in export losses over the next year for Venezuela’s government,” as reported by the New York Times. (Of course, these same officials also reported “Purchases of Venezuelan oil by American companies would be released once PDVSA is controlled by a government led by Mr. Guaido.”)

Mainstream media isn’t condemning sanctions on Venezuela because they still are working exactly how their imperialist government bosses intended. Sanctions are an attempt to strangle the economy of Venezuela. With this, imperialist governments are betting that the people of Venezuela will be brought to such misery that they support the overthrow of their democratically elected government.

Imposing crippling sanctions on Venezuela has also opened the possibility for the U.S. government and their allies to make the claim that Venezuelans need “humanitarian aid.” This claim is not only a good way to try to win over the hearts and minds of people living in the U.S. to their campaign for increased intervention in Venezuela, it also serves as a way for the U.S. government to bolster the “human rights defender” image of their appointed puppet Guaido.

In a January 24, 2019 Editorial, the Washington Post even suggests,

“The administration’s best approach would be to join with its allies in initiatives that would help Venezuelans while bolstering Mr. Guaido. A multilateral operation to deliver humanitarian supplies to Venezuela or to its borders, in cooperation with the National Assembly, is one possibility.”

If that isn’t turning humanitarian aid into a political tool, then what is it?

In all, U.S. sanctions are reported to have cost Venezuela at least $6 billion. So, how is it a humanitarian gesture of any shade that the U.S. government has pledged only $20 million for aid? That is barely 3% of what the sanctions have denied people of Venezuela. The people of Venezuela don’t need handouts – they need an end to the war and sanctions against their economy. So-called humanitarian aid is nothing, but an empty gesture meant to confuse people, both in Venezuela and back in the United States and around the world.

Why the U.S and Other Imperialists Hate the Maduro Government

In an interview on January 28, 2019 on Fox News U.S. National Security Advisor and war-monger John Bolton exposed one reason why the U.S. government is so determined to overthrow the government of President Maduro,

“It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.”

One of the gains of the Bolivarian revolutionary process is that the oil wealth of Venezuela has been taken out of the pockets of transnational companies, and redirected to funding social programs for poor, working and oppressed people in Venezuela. Yes, it is in the interests of the government of U.S. to have their hands on the Venezuela’s natural resources, including oil, once again.

Exactly how the revolutionary government of Venezuela poses a threat to U.S. control of Latin America deserves an even closer look.

Once again, the words of John Bolton are an important view into the strategic thinking of the U.S. government and their imperialist allies. On November 1, 2018 Bolton made a speech at the Freedom Tower in Miami, where he first coined the term “Troika of Tyranny,” in reference to the governments of Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba. His speech continued,

“Yet today, in this Hemisphere, we are also confronted once again with the destructive forces of oppression, socialism, and totalitarianism. In Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, we see the perils of poisonous ideologies left unchecked, and the dangers of domination and suppression.”

Bolton’s comments followed similar rhetoric and fear-mongering from U.S. President Trump at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2018, where he condemned the “socialist Maduro regime and its Cuban sponsors, not long-ago Venezuela was one of the richest countries on earth, today socialism has bankrupted the oil-rich nation and driven its people in abject poverty. Virtually everywhere, socialism, or communism has been tried, it has produced suffering, corruption and decay.”

These comments expose that Venezuela is not only a threat to the hegemony of the United States in Latin America, it is also a threat because it challenges capitalist ideology that has proclaimed the death of socialism. The government of President Maduro and the Bolivarian revolutionary process have dared to proclaim that a better world, a world that puts the interests of people before those of profits, is not just necessary, but also possible.

For the last 20 years the Bolivarian revolutionary process has implemented measures in Venezuela that have massively elevated the quality of life for poor, working and oppressed people in Venezuela. The revolutionary government calls these measures anti-capitalist and socialist, and this is exactly how they have managed to create so much fear and anxiety among imperialist powers. Since the election of President Hugo Chavez in 1998, these anti-capitalist measures have paved the road for a better life and a socialist future for the people of Venezuela. With sanctions, provocations, inciting violence, and threatening military attacks, the United States is preventing this from happening.

Imperialist countries know full well where the Bolivarian revolutionary process is going if left unchecked. The anti-capitalist measures that are taking place in Venezuela today have the potential to culminate with the people of Venezuela deciding that they do not want capitalism anymore. This is the main reason why the U.S. government and their allies must prevent revolutionaries and the people of Venezuela from succeeding with their social justice projects.

Therefore, President Trump’s “military option,” has never been taken off the table. Now that Mike Pompeo, an ex-CIA director is Secretary of State, John Bolton, a war-monger and regime change engineer is National Security Advisor, and a war criminal Elliot Abrams is special envoy to Venezuela, the conditions are ripe for increasing war on Venezuela.

People of Venezuela are Resisting in Defense of Their Popular Government

Although millions of people in Venezuela have been mobilized in the streets in defense of the democratically elected government of President Maduro, not one has received even a mention on prime-time news. People from all sectors of life in Venezuela, have been organizing in defense of their sovereignty and self-determination, in schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods.

There has also been little to no reporting on the opinions of people in Venezuela themselves when it comes to U.S. intervention and sanctions against their country. In a poll conducted in early January by the private firm Hinterlaces, 81% of Venezuelans disagreed with the “US economic and financial sanctions that are currently applied against Venezuela to remove President Maduro from power.” When asked, “Would you agree or disagree if there were international intervention in Venezuela to remove President Maduro from power?” 78% replied “I would disagree.”

What is the most important sign that the people of Venezuela support their democratically elected government of President Maduro and the Bolivarian revolutionary process? With all of imperialism’s tremendous effort and coordination, the U.S.-backed January 23 coup attempt failed.

Venezuela Solidarity – Now More Than Ever Before

“Our solidarity with the Venezuelan people and our brother Nicolás Maduro in these decisive hours in which the claws of imperialism seek again to mortally wound the democracy and self-determination of the peoples of South America.” – Evo Morales, President of Bolivia (via Twitter, January 23, 2019)

Although the U.S. government and their allies, including Canada, have not been successful to overthrow President Maduro and reverse the Bolivarian revolutionary process, the struggle of the people of Venezuela against imperialist intervention is far from over. As President Morales emphasizes, these are decisive times for poor, working and oppressed people around the world.

In the days following Guaido’s self-declaration as President of Venezuela, hundreds of actions were organized around the world, from Africa to Asia to Europe and across North and South America. People from many different walks of life came out into the streets in defense of Venezuela’s sovereignty and self-determination. These actions do and must continue, especially from within the United States, Canada and Europe where imperialists are preparing for further attacks to bring chaos and destruction to Venezuela’s shores.

However, following their failed coup in Venezuela, there is one thing that the US and other imperialists learned very well, Venezuela is not and will not be alone.

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This article was originally published on Fire This Time!

Alison Bodine is Coordinator of Fire This Time Venezuela Solidarity Campaign. Follow Alison on Twitter: @alisoncolette

A startling case of Brexititis, marked by nostalgia for imperial grandeur, the singing of Rule Britannia when taking a shower, and an unhinged view of the world and Britain’s diminished role in it, was observed in London on February 11.

On that day, Gavin Williamson, UK defense secretary, said there are plans to sail the country’s new aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth across the oceans to put China in its place by cruising majestically into the South China Sea. China has claimed a huge amount of territory in the sea and built air bases and naval facilities on many of the islands. There is little the West can do about it militarily. It can, through diplomacy, get China to navigate a different course but a spanking new aircraft carrier from Britain, regardless of how up-to-date it is, will not make an iota of difference.

And two military bases, Williamson added, in the Caribbean and Asia will be built to “strengthen our global presence,’’. OK, so far so good, that’s what defense chiefs say routinely, boost global presence, show the flag, it’s what they are paid to do to boost their budgets, but then he added “to enhance our lethality and increase our mass”. It does beg the question, what lethality and what mass?

First of all, the carrier will enter active duty in 2021. Very sportsmanlike, very British, telling the “enemy” your plans two years in advance. The Chinese must be shaking in their boots and boats.

Williamson said that the UK had to be ready to use “hard power” when he announced that the carrier’s first operational mission would take place in the South China Sea. Absolute tosh. Britain is in no position to take on China in that sea. Full stop.

Even the British government torpedoed the notion. An official spokesman said in response that the carrier would not be deployed until 2021, that it would visit a number of global locations and that the prime minister, not the defense chief with ambitions to lead the party, would take the final decision over its route.

The prime minister’s spokesman said:

“In relation to China, I think we have set out areas where we have concerns – such as around cyber-intrusions against the UK and our allies. But it is also a country with which we have a strong and constructive relationship.”

Let’s face reality. If the Queen Elizabeth enters the South China Sea, the Chinese will protest, and demand Britain stop its provocation. Then the carrier will retreat after a brief stint in the disputed waters. Point made. The carrier returns home, Britain still rules the waves and the spirit of Drake and Nelson lives on.

The missiles on Fujian province alone can secure the sea for China. It does not need to deploy its navy to deal with an aircraft carrier. In the meantime, and in stark contrast, post-Brexit Britain will be hailing a new trade deal with China as a ‘win-win situation” for both countries. The deal will highlight Chinese investment in Britain in communications, banking and transport. Britain will invest heavily in Chinese manufacturing and education sectors.

A reality check. Britain’s armed forces are at their smallest number since the Napoleonic wars. At about 80,000, they would not even fill Wembley stadium’s 90,000 capacity on cup final day.

There is a threat from terrorism but technological and robotic counter-measures need to be enhanced to deal with it. There is no threat from the South China Sea. There is a clear and present danger, though, of believing that post-Brexit Britain can again rule the waves. Or that China is an enemy that needs to be taught a lesson. They have had experience of being taught lessons from the West.

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Tom Clifford is an Irish journalist based in China. 

Featured image is from Royal Navy

In the British Indian context, the divide-and-rule policy originally meant that the British imperialists used this strategy to sow the seeds of dissension and communal hatred to prolong their tyrannical rule in India, which is a valid contention. However, some Indian historians later came up with the fancy notion that colonial powers lent their support to the division of India in 1947 in order to use Pakistan as a bulwark against communist influence in the region. This latter conspiracy theory is farthest from truth.

Firstly, the British imperialists took great pride in creating a unified and cohesive British Indian army and it’s a historical fact that the latter organization was vehemently opposed to the division of the British Indian armed forces. It simply defies common sense that if the colonial power was apprehensive of the expanding influence of the former Soviet Union in the region, in that case it would have preferred to leave behind a unified and strong India army, rather than two divided armies at loggerheads with each other.

Secondly, although Pakistan joined the Washington-led SEATO and CENTO alliances in the 1950s and it also fought America’s Jihad in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union during the 1980s, we must bear in mind that there were actually two power-centers of communism during the Cold War: the Soviet Marxism-Leninism and the Chinese Maoism.

If the intention of the colonial powers was to use Pakistan as a bulwark against communist influence in the region, then how come Pakistan established such cordial relations with China during the 1960s that President Ayub Khan and his Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto played a pivotal role in arranging President Nixon’s visit to China in 1972?

Fact of the matter is that both India and Pakistan had good relations with the Western powers during the Cold War; however, India had friendly relations with Soviet Union and adversarial relations with China, whereas Pakistan had adversarial relations with Soviet Union and friendly ties with China. The relations of India and Pakistan with the communist powers were based more on their national interests than on ideological lines.

The relatively modern Indian historians who came up with the aforementioned conspiracy theory have actually retrospectively applied this theory to the chain of events: that is, they conceived the theory after Pakistan joined the anti-communist alliances and played the role of Washington’s client state during the Soviet-Afghan Jihad in the 1980s. At the time of independence movement in the 1940s, neither the Hindus nor the Muslims of British India knew anything about the aftermath of their respective freedom struggles.

Nevertheless, historically Pakistan’s military first used the Islamists of Jamaat-e-Islami during the Bangladesh war of liberation in the late 1960s against the Bangladeshi nationalist Mukti Bahini liberation movement of Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman (image on the right) – the father of current prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina Wajed, and the founder of Bangladesh, which was then a province of Pakistan and known as East Pakistan before the independence of Bangladesh in 1971.

Jamaat-e-Islami is a far-right Islamist movement in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh – analogous to the Muslim Brotherhood political party in Egypt and Turkey – several of whose leaders have recently been hanged by the Bangladeshi nationalist government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed for committing massacres of Bangladeshi civilians on behalf of Pakistan’s military during the late 1960s.

Then, during the 1970s, Pakistan’s then-Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto began aiding the Afghan Islamists against Sardar Daud’s government, who had toppled his first cousin King Zahir Shah in a palace coup in 1973 and had proclaimed himself the president of Afghanistan.

Sardar Daud was a Pashtun nationalist and laid claim to Pakistan’s northwestern Pashtun-majority province. Pakistan’s security establishment was wary of his irredentist claims and used Islamists to weaken his rule in Afghanistan. He was eventually assassinated in 1978 as a result of the Saur Revolution led by the Afghan communists.

Pakistan’s support to the Islamists with the Saudi petro-dollars and Washington’s blessings, however, kindled the fires of Islamic insurgencies in the entire region comprising Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indian-administered Kashmir and the Soviet Central Asian States.

The former Soviet Union was wary that its forty-million Muslims were susceptible to radicalism, because Islamic radicalism was infiltrating across the border into the Central Asian States from Afghanistan. Therefore, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979 in support of the Afghan communists to forestall the likelihood of Islamic insurgencies spreading to the Central Asian States bordering Afghanistan.

Regarding the Kashmir dispute, there can be no two views that the right of self-determination of Kashmiris must be respected in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions on the right of plebiscite for the Kashmiri people, and Pakistan should lend its moral, political and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri cause; but at the same time, the militarization of any dispute, including Kashmir, must be avoided due to horrific human suffering that militancy and wars anywhere in the world inevitably entail.

The insurgency in Kashmir erupted in the fateful year of 1984 of the Orwellian-fame when the Indian Armed Forces surreptitiously occupied the whole of Siachen glacier, including the un-demarcated Pakistani portion.

Now, we must keep the backdrop in mind: those were the heydays of the Cold War and Pakistan army’s proxies, the Afghan jihadists, had the upper hand against the Red Army in the Soviet-Afghan War during the 1980s, and the morale of Pakistan’s military’s top brass was touching the sky.

Moreover, Pakistan’s security establishment also wanted to inflict damage to the Indian Armed Forces to exact revenge for the dismemberment of Pakistan at the hands of India during the Bangladesh War of 1971, when India provided support to Bangladeshi nationalists and took 90,000 Pakistani soldiers as prisoners of war after Pakistan’s humiliating defeat in the war of liberation of Bangladesh.

All the military’s top brass had to do was to divert a fraction of its Afghan jihadist proxies toward the Indian-administered Kashmir to kindle the fires of insurgency in Kashmir. Pakistan’s security agencies began sending jihadists experienced in the Afghan guerilla warfare across the border to the Indian-administered Kashmir in the late 1980s; and by the early 1990s, the Islamist insurgency engulfed the whole of Jammu and Kashmir region.

Here, it’s worth noting, however, that an insurgency cannot succeed anywhere unless militants get some level of popular support from local population. For example: if a hostile force tries to foment an insurgency in Pakistan’s province of Punjab, it wouldn’t succeed; because Punjabis don’t have any grievances against Pakistan.

On the other hand, if an adversary tries to incite an insurgency in the marginalized province of Balochistan and Pakistan’s tribal areas, it would easily succeed, because the local Baloch and Pashtun populations have grievances against the heavy-handedness of Pakistan’s security establishment.

Therefore, to put the blame squarely on the Pakistani side for the Kashmir conflict would be unfair. Firstly, immediately after the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, India annexed the Muslim-majority princely state of Jammu and Kashmir in violation of the agreed-upon “partition principle” that allocated the Muslim-majority provinces of the British India to Pakistan and the Hindu-majority regions to India.

Even now, if someone tries to foment an insurgency in the Pakistan-administered Kashmir, it wouldn’t succeed, because the Kashmiri Muslims identify themselves with Pakistan. The Indian-administered Kashmir has seen many waves for independence since 1947, but not a single voice has been raised for independence in the Pakistan-administered Kashmir in Pakistan’s seventy-year history.

Secondly, India re-ignited the conflict by occupying the strategically placed Siachen glacier in 1984. Pakistan’s stance on Kashmir has been quite flexible and it has floated numerous proposals to resolve the dispute. But India is now the new strategic partner of Washington against China, hence India’s stance on the Kashmir dispute has been quite inflexible, as it is negotiating from a position of strength. Diplomacy aside, however, the real victims of this intransigence and hubris on both sides have been the Kashmiri people and a lot of innocent blood has been spilled for no good reason.

Finally, another obstacle to the peaceful resolution of the Kashmir dispute is that the Kashmiri liberation struggle and militancy have been indigenized to a great extent during the last two decades. An entire generation of Kashmiri youth has been brought up in an environment of violence and bloodletting. Now, no political solution to the Kashmir conflict is possible unless it is acceptable to domestic political leadership of the Kashmiri people.

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Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

On March 1, 2018 the world learned of Russia’s new weapons systems, said to be based on new physical principles. Addressing the Federal Assembly, Putin explained how they came to be: in 2002 the US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. At the time, the Russians declared that they will be forced to respond, and were basically told “Do whatever you want.”

And so they did, developing new weapons that no anti-ballistic missile system can ever hope to stop. The new Russian weapons include one that is already on combat duty (Kinzhal), one that is being readied for mass production (Avangard) and several that are currently being tested (Poseidon, Burevestnik, Peresvet, Sarmat). Their characteristics, briefly, are as follows:

• Kinzhal: a hypersonic air-launched cruise missile that flies at Mach 10 (7700 miles per hour) and can destroy both ground installations and ships.
• Avangard: a maneuverable hypersonic payload delivery system for intercontinental ballistic missiles that flies at better than Mach 20 (15300 miles per hour). It has a 740-mile range and can carry a nuclear charge of up to 300 kilotons.
• Poseidon: an autonomous nuclear-powered torpedo with unlimited range that can travel at a 3000-foot depth maintaining a little over 100 knots.
• Burevestnik: a nuclear-powered cruise missile that flies at around 270 miles per hour and can stay in the air for 24 hours, giving it a 6000-mile range.
• Peresvet: a mobile laser complex that can blind drones and satellites, knocking out space and aerial reconnaissance systems.
• Sarmat: a new heavy intercontinental missile that can fly arbitrary suborbital courses (such as over the South Pole) and strike arbitrary points anywhere on the planet. Because it does not follow a predictable ballistic trajectory it is impossible to intercept.

The initial Western reaction to this announcement was an eerie silence. A few people tried to convince anyone who would listen that this was all bluff and computer animation, and that these weapons systems did not really exist. (The animation was of rather low quality, one might add, probably because Russian military types couldn’t possibly imagine that slick graphics, such as what the Americans waste their money on, would make Russia any safer.) But eventually the new weapons systems were demonstrated to work and US intelligence services confirmed their existence.

Forced to react, the Americans, with the EU in tow, tried to cause public relations scandals over some unrelated matter. Such attempts are repeated with some frequency. For instance, after the putsch in the Ukraine caused Crimea to go back to Russia there was the avalanche of hysterical bad press about Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, which the Americans had shot down over Ukrainian territory with the help of Ukrainian military.

Similarly, after Putin’s announcement of new weapons systems, there was an eruption of equally breathless hysterics over the alleged “Novichok” poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter. A couple of Russian tourists, if you recall, were accused of poisoning Skripal by smearing some toxic gas on the doorknob of his house some time after he left it never to return. Perhaps such antics made some people feel better, but opposing new, breakthrough weapons systems by generating fake news does not an adequate response make.

Say what you will about the Russian response to the US pulling out of the ABM treaty, but it was adequate. It was made necessary by two well-known facts. First, the US is known for dropping nuclear bombs on other countries (Hiroshima, Nagasaki). It did so not in self-defense but just to send a message to the USSR that resistance would be futile (a dumb move if there ever was one). Second, the US is known to have repeatedly planned to destroy the USSR using a nuclear first strike. It was prevented from carrying it out time and again, first by a shortage of nuclear weapons, then by the development of Soviet nuclear weapons, then by the development of Soviet ICBMs.

Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” was an attempt to develop a system that would shoot down enough Soviet ICBMs to make a nuclear first strike on the USSR winnable. This work was terminated when Reagan and Gorbachev signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in December, 1987. But then when Bush Jr. pulled out of the ABM treaty in 2002 it was off to the races again. Last year Putin declared that Russia has won: the Americans can now rest assured that if they ever attack Russia the result will be their complete, guaranteed annihilation, and the Russians can rest secure in the knowledge that the US will never dare to attack them.

But that was just the prelude. The real victory happened on February 2, 2019. This day will be remembered as the day when the Russian Federation decisively defeated the United States in the battle for Eurasia—from Lisbon to Vladivostok and from Murmansk to Mumbai.

So, what did the Americans want, and what did they get instead? They wanted to renegotiate the INF treaty, revise some of the terms and expand it to include China. Announcing that the US is suspending the INF treaty, Trump said: “I hope we’re able to get everybody in a big, beautiful room and do a new treaty that would be much better…” By “everybody” Trump probably meant the US, China and Russia.

Why the sudden need to include China? Because China has an entire arsenal of intermediate-range weapons with a range of 500-5500 (the ones outlawed by the INF treaty) pointed at American military bases throughout the region—in South Korea, Japan and Guam. The INF treaty made it impossible for the US to develop anything that could be deployed at these bases to point back at China.

Perhaps it was Trump’s attempt to practice his New York real-estate mogul’s “art of the deal” among nuclear superpowers, or perhaps it’s because imperial hubris has rotted the brains of just about everyone in the US establishment, but the plan for renegotiating the INF treaty was about as stupid as can be imagined:

1. Accuse Russia of violating the INF treaty based on no evidence. Ignore Russia’s efforts to demonstrate that the accusation is false.

2. Announce pull-out of the INF treaty.

3. Wait a while, then announce that the INF treaty is important and essential. Condescendingly forgive Russia and offer to sign a new treaty, but demand that it include China.

4. Wait while Russia convinces China that it should do so.

5. Sign the new treaty in Trump’s “big, beautiful room.”

So, how did it actually go? Russia instantly announced that it is also pulling out of the INF treaty. Putin ordered foreign minister Lavrov to abstain from all negotiations with the Americans in this matter. He then ordered defense minister Shoigu to build land-based platforms for Russia’s new air and ship-based missile systems—without increasing the defense budget. Putin added that these new land-based systems will only be deployed in response to the deployment of US-made intermediate-range weapons. Oh, and China announced that it is not interested in any such negotiations. Now Trump can have his “big, beautiful room” all to himself.

Why did this happen? Because of the INF treaty, for a long time Russia has had a giant gaping hole in its arsenal, specifically in the 500-5500 km range. It had air-launched X-101/102s, and eventually developed the Kalibr cruise missile, but it had rather few aircraft and ships—enough for defense, but not enough to guarantee that it could reliably destroy all of NATO. As a matter of Russia’s national security, given the permanently belligerent stance of the US, it was necessary for NATO to know that in case of a military conflict with Russia it will be completely annihilated, and that no air defense system will ever help them avoid that fate.

If you look at a map, you will find that having weapons in the 500-5500 km range fixes this problem rather nicely. Draw a circle with a 5500 km radius around the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad; note that it encompasses every single NATO country, North Africa and Middle East. The IMF treaty was not necessarily a good deal for Russia even when it was first signed (remember, Gorbachev, who signed it, was a traitor) but it became a stupendously bad deal as NATO started to expand east. But Russia couldn’t pull out of it without triggering a confrontation, and it needed time to recover and rearm.

Already in 2004 Putin announced that “Russia needs a breakthrough in order to have a new generation of weapons and technology.” At the time, Americans ignored him, thinking that Russia could fall apart at any moment and that they will be able to enjoy Russian oil, gas, nuclear fuel and other strategic commodities for free forever even as the Russians themselves go extinct. They thought that even if Russia tried to resist, it would be enough to bribe some traitors—like Gorbachev or Yeltsin—and all would be well again.

Fast-forward 15 years, and is that what we have? Russia has rebuilt and rearmed. Its export industries provide for a positive trade balance even in absence of oil and gas exports. It is building three major export pipelines at the same time—to Germany, Turkey and China. It is building nuclear generating capacity around the world and owns a lion’s share of the world’s nuclear industry. The US can no longer keep the lights on without Russian nuclear fuel imports. The US has no new weapons systems with which to counter Russia’s rearmament. Yes, it talks about developing some, but all it has at this point are infinite money sinks and lots of PowerPoint presentations. It no longer has the brains to do the work, or the time, or the money.

Part of Putin’s orders upon pulling out of the INF treaty was to build land-based medium-range hypersonic missiles. That’s a new twist: not only will it be impossible to intercept them, but they will reduce NATO’s remaining time to live, should it ever attack Russia, from minutes to seconds. The new Poseidon nuclear-powered torpedo was mentioned too: even if an attack on Russia succeeds, it will be a Pyrrhic one, since subsequent 100-foot nuclear-triggered tsunamis will wipe clean both coasts of the United States for hundreds of miles inland, effectively reducing the entire country to slightly radioactive wasteland.

Not only has the US lost its ability to attack, it has also lost its ability to threaten. Its main means of projecting force around the world is its navy, and Poseidon reduces it to a useless, slow-moving pile of scrap steel. It would take just a handful of Poseidons quietly shadowing each US aircraft carrier group to zero out the strategic value of the US Navy no matter where in the world it is deployed.

Without the shackles of the INF treaty, Russia will be able to fully neutralize the already obsolete and useless NATO and to absorb all of Europe into its security sphere. European politicians are quite malleable and will soon learn to appreciate the fact that good relations with Russia and China are an asset while any dependence on the US, moving forward, is a huge liability. Many of them already understand which way the wind is blowing.

It won’t be a difficult decision for Europe’s leaders to make. On the one pan of the scale there is the prospect of a peaceful and prosperous Greater Eurasia, from Lisbon to Vladivostok and from Murmansk to Mumbai, safe under Russia’s nuclear umbrella and tied together with China’s One Belt One Road.

On the other pan of the scale there is a certain obscure former colony lost in the wilds of North America, imbued with an unshakeable faith in its own exceptionalism even as it grows ever weaker, more internally conflicted and more chaotic, but still dangerous, though mostly to itself, and run by a bloviating buffoon who can’t tell the difference between a nuclear arms treaty and a real estate deal. It needs to be quietly and peacefully relegated to the outskirts of civilization, and then to the margins of history.

Trump should keep his own company in his “big, beautiful room,” and avoid doing anything anything even more tragically stupid, while saner minds quietly negotiate the terms for an honorable capitulation. The only acceptable exit strategy for the US is to quietly and peacefully surrender its positions around the world, withdraw into its own geographic footprint and refrain from meddling in the affairs of Greater Eurasia.

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You are so kind-hearted! I shed a tear thinking of American generosity.

“So many delightful goodies: sacks of rice, canned tuna and protein-rich biscuits, corn flour, lentils and pasta, arrived at the border of troubled Venezuela – enough for one light meal each for five thousand people”, – reported the news in a sublime reference to five thousand fed by Christ’s fishes and loaves.

True, Christ did not take over the bank accounts and did not seize the gold of those he fed. But 21st century Venezuela is a good deal more-prosperous than 1st century Galilee. Nowadays, you have to organise a blockade if you want people to be grateful for your humanitarian aid.

This is not a problem. The US-UK duo did it in Iraq, as marvelous Arundhati Roy wrote in April 2003 (in The Guardian of old, before it turned into an imperial tool): After Iraq was brought to its knees, its people starved, half a million of its children killed, its infrastructure severely damaged… the blockade and war were followed by… you guessed it! Humanitarian relief. At first, they blocked food supplies worth billions of dollars, and then they delivered 450 tonnes of humanitarian aid and celebrated their generosity for a few days of live TV broadcasts. Iraq had had enough money to buy all the food it needed, but it was blocked, and its people received only some peanuts.

And this was rather humane by American standards. In the 18th century, the British colonists in North America used more drastic methods while dispensing aid to disobedient natives. The Red Indians were expelled from their native places, and then they were provided humanitarian aid: whiskey and blankets. The blankets had been previously used by smallpox patients. The native population of North America was decimated by the ensuing epidemics from this and similar measures. Probably you haven’t heard of this chapter of your history: the USA has many Holocaust museums but not a single memorial to the genocide near home. It is much more fun to discuss faults of Germans and Turks than of your own forefathers.

First, you starve people; then you bring them humanitarian aid. This was proposed by John McNaughton at Pentagon: bomb locks and dams, by shallow-flooding the rice, cause widespread starvation (more than a million dead?) “And then we shall deliver humanitarian aid to the starving Vietnamese”. Or, rather, “we could offer to do [that] at the conference table.” Planning a million dead by starvation, in writing: if such a note would be found on the ruins of the Third Reich, it would seal the story of genocide, it would be quoted daily. But the story of the genocide of the Vietnamese is rarely mentioned nowadays.

They did it in Syria, too. At first, they brought weapons for every Muslim extremist, then they blockaded Damascus, and then they sent some humanitarian aid, but only to the areas under rebel control.

This cruel but efficient method of breaking nations’ spirit has been developed by lion tamers for years, perhaps for centuries. You have to starve the beast until it will take food from your hands and lick your fingers. ‘Starvation-taming’, they call it.

The Israelis practice it in Gaza. They block all export or import from the Strip, interdict fishing in the Mediterranean and drip-feed the captive Palestinians by ‘humanitarian aid’. Jews, being Jews, make it one better: they made the EU to pay for the humanitarian aid to Gaza AND to buy the aid stuff from Israel. This made Gaza an important source of profit for the Jewish state.

So in Venezuela they follow an old script. The US and its London poodle seized over 20 billion dollars from Venezuela and from Venezuelan national companies. They stole over a billion in gold ingots Venezuela had trustingly deposited in the cellars of the Bank of England.

Well, they said they will give this money to a Venezuelan Random Dude, rather. To the guy who already promised to give the wealth of Venezuela to the US companies. And after this daylight robbery, they bring a few containers of humanitarian aid to the border and wait for the rush of bereft Venezuelans for food.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted:

“The Venezuelan people desperately need humanitarian aid. The U.S. & other countries are trying to help, but Venezuela’s military under Maduro’s orders is blocking aid with trucks and shipping tankers. The Maduro regime must LET THE AID REACH THE STARVING PEOPLE.”

Venezuelans aren’t starving, even though they are going through difficulties. The biggest noise is made by the wealthy, as always. If Pompeo wants to help Venezuelans, he might lift the sanctions, return the funds, lift the blockade. The biscuits he wants to provide are of but little use.

President Maduro is right when he refuses to let this hypocrisy bribe the stomachs and hearts of his people. It is not just that he remembers his Virgil and knows, Timeo danaos et dona ferentes, “beware gift-bearing Greeks.” There are too many American and Colombian soldiers around the pending delivery place, and this place is suspiciously close to an airport with an extra-long runway suitable for a an airlift.

The US is known for its propensity to invade its neighbours: Panama was invaded in 1989 to keep the Panama Canal in American hands and to roll back the agreement signed by the good-hearted President Jimmy Carter. President George Bush Sr sent his airborne troops in after calling Panama president “a dictator and cocaine smuggler”. This is exactly what President Trump says about Venezuela’s president.

They are likely to use this aid to invade and suborn Venezuela. Wisely, Maduro began large military exercises to prepare the army in case of invasion. The situation of Venezuela is dire enough even without invasion. Their money has been appropriated, their main oil company is as good as confiscated; and there is a strong fifth column waiting for Yankees in Caracas.

This fifth column consists mainly of compradors, well-off young folk with a smattering of Western education and upbringing, who see their future within the framework of the American Empire. They are ready to betray the unwashed masses and invite the US troops in. They are supported by the super-rich, by representatives of foreign companies, by Western secret services. Such people exist everywhere; they tried to organise the Gucci Revolution in Lebanon, the Green Revolution in Iran, the Maidan in the Ukraine. In Russia they had their chance in the winter of 2011/2012 when their Mink-Coat Revolution was played at Moscow’s Bolotnaya Heath.

In Moscow they lost when their opponents, the Russia-First crowd, bettered them by fielding a much-bigger demo at Poklonnaya Hill. The Western news agencies tried to cover the defeat by broadcasting pictures of the Putin-supporters demo and saying it was the pro-Western Heath. Other Western agencies published pictures of 1991 rallies saying they were taken in 2012 on the Heath. In Moscow, nobody was fooled: the mink-coat crowd knew they were licked.

In the Ukraine, they won, for President Yanukovich, a hesitant and pusillanimous man of two minds, failed to gather massive support. It is a big question whether Maduro will be able to mobilise Venezuela-First masses. If he is, he will win the confrontation with the US as well.

Maduro is rather reticent; he hasn’t disciplined unruly oligarchs; he does not control the media; he tries to play a social-democrat game in a country that is not Sweden by long shot. His subsidies have allowed ordinary people to escape dire poverty, but now they are used by black marketeers to siphon off the wealth of the nation. Far from being a disaster zone, Venezuela is a true Bonanza, a real Klondike: you can fill a tanker with petrol for pennies, smuggle it to neighbouring Colombia and sell it for market price. Many supporters of the Random Guy have made small fortunes this way, and they hope to make a large killing if and when the Americans come.

A bigger problem is that Venezuela had become a monoculture economy: it exports oil and imports everything else. It does not even produce food to feed its 35 million inhabitants. Venezuela is a victim of neoliberal doctrine claiming that you can buy what you can’t produce. Now they can’t buy and they do not produce. Imagine a democratic Saudi Arabia hit by blockade.

In order to save the economy, Maduro should drain the swamp, end the black market and profiteering, encourage agriculture, tax the rich, develop some industry for local consumption. It can be done. Venezuela is not a socialist state like orderly Cuba, nor a social-democratic one like Sweden and England in 1970s, but even its very modest model of allowing the masses to rise out of misery, poverty and ignorance seems too much for the West.

It is often said there are two antagonists in the West, the Populists and the Globalists, and President Trump is the Populist leader. The Venezuela crisis proved these two forces are united if there is a chance to attack and rob an outsider country. Trump is condemned at home when he calls his troops back from Afghanistan or Syria, but he gains support when he threatens Venezuela or North Korea. He can be sure he will be cheered on by Macron and Merkel and even by The Washington Post and The New York Times.

He has the real WMD, the Weapons of Mass Deception, to attack Venezuela, and these WMD had been activated with the beginning of the creeping coup. When a rather unknown young politician, the leader of a small neoliberal rabidly pro-American fraction in the Parliament, Random Dude, claimed the title of president, he was immediately recognised by Trump, and the Western media reported that the people of Venezuela went out in mass demos to greet the new president and demand Maduro’s removal.

They beamed videos of huge Caracas demos back to Venezuela. Not many viewers abroad noticed that the video was old, filmed in 2016 demos, but the Venezuelans saw that at once. They weren’t fooled. They knew that there is no chance for a big protest demo on that day, the day of a particularly important baseball game in the professional league between Leones of Caracas and Cardenales de Lara from Barquisimeto.

But the WMD kept lying. Here is a report by Moon of Alabama: the reports of large anti-government rallies are fake news or prophecies hoping to become self-fulfilling ones:

Agence France-Press stated at 11:10 utc yesterday that “tens of thousands” would join a rally.

AFP news agency @AFP – 11:10 utc – 2 Feb 2019

Tens of thousands of protesters are set to pour onto the streets of Venezuela’s capital #Caracas Saturday to back opposition leader Juan Guaido’s calls for early elections as international pressure increased on President #Maduro to step down http://u.afp.com/Jouu

Tens of thousands of protesters are set to pour onto the streets of Venezuela's capital #Caracas Saturday to back opposition leader Juan Guaido's calls for early elections as international pressure increased on President #Maduro to step down https://t.co/3uRSRdBBy5 pic.twitter.com/9Z80EuMVZc

— AFP news agency (@AFP) February 2, 2019

That was at 7:10am local time in Caracas, several hours before the rally took place. Such “predictive reporting” is now supposed to be “news”. A bit later AFP posted a video:

AFP news agency @AFP – 15:50 utc – 2 Feb 2019″>

VIDEO: Thousands of opposition protesters pour onto the streets of Caracas to back Venezuela’s opposition leader Juan #Guaido who is calling for early elections, as international pressure increases on President Nicolas #Maduro to step down

VIDEO: 🇻🇪 Thousands of opposition protesters pour onto the streets of Caracas to back Venezuela's opposition leader Juan #Guaido who is calling for early elections, as international pressure increases on President Nicolas #Maduro to step down pic.twitter.com/JdWS12j9KJ

— AFP news agency (@AFP) February 2, 2019

That was at 11:50am local time. The attached video did not show “thousands” but some 200 people milling about.

They lie that there are army deserters spoiling for a fight with the army. The young guys CNN presented weren’t deserters, and they didn’t live in Venezuela. Even their military insignia were of the kind discarded years ago, as our friend The Saker noticed.

However, these lies won’t avail – my correspondents in Caracas report that there are demos for and against government (for Maduro slightly bigger crowds), but the feelings aren’t strong. The crisis is manufactured in Washington, and the Venezuelans aren’t keen to get involved.

That’s why we can expect an American attempt to use force, preceded by some provocation. Probably it won’t be a full-blown war: the US never fought an enemy that wasn’t exhausted prior to the encounter. If the Maduro administration survives the blow, the crisis will take a low profile, until sanctions do their work and further undermine the economy.

In this struggle, President Trump is his own bitter enemy. He seeks approval of the War Party, and his own base will be disappointed by his actions. His sanctions will send more refugees to the US, wall or no wall. He undermines the unique status of the US dollar by weaponising it. In 2020, he will reap what he sow.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Israel Shamir can be reached at [email protected].

Featured image is from The Unz Review

Its a political war of the American Empire in support of the interests of the extreme right that today governs,

They are warmongering in order to take over Venezuela.  

I call on the people of the world to wake up, open your eyes, to see that it is an aggression against a peaceful country

If you really want to support Venezuela, support peace. 

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Our thanks to Information Clearing House (ICH) for having brought this video to our attention.

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The Russian Foreign Ministry issued an uncharacteristically detailed warning about one of the possible scenarios that might transpire in this former Soviet republic by the end of the month following its upcoming parliamentary elections on 24 February.

The Ministry’s Warning About Moldova

Moldova might very well be on the edge of experiencing its own Maidan by the end of the month, judging by an uncharacteristically detailed warning that was just issued by the Russian Foreign Ministry ahead of the country’s upcoming parliamentary elections on 24 February. As reported by TASS, Russia’s diplomats published a commentary on Tuesday in which they forewarned about the following scenario:

“Interference in the internal affairs of other countries has long become a familiar feature of Washington’s foreign policy. This is seen particularly well in Venezuela, where the United States in fact is trying to stage a government coup. Its occupation of part of Syrian territory after unsuccessful attempts to topple a legitimate government in Damascus belongs here, too. Apparently, a similar scenario is being prepared for Moldova. As soon as he took office last autumn, (US Ambassador to Moldova Derek) Hogan became deeply involved in Moldova’s internal processes.

 He’s been making public statements to support some politicians against others and issuing recommendations as to how to hold parliamentary elections. If the winner (of the upcoming elections) is disliked by Washington, the Moldovans will be threatened with the disruption of ties with the West and even a rerun of Ukraine’s Maidan scenario. It is very undesirable to see Moldova become another test site for such irresponsible experiments, which have already ruined Iraq and Libya and plunged Syria and Ukraine into the turmoil of bloody conflicts.”

It’s very possible that something of the sort is in the works when considering the contradictory interests that the US and Russia have in the former Soviet republic. Both countries are after diametrically opposing outcomes that naturally make Moldova a New Cold War fault line of outsized geostrategic importance.

Russia vs. America

Russia wants to retain Moldova’s existence as an independent state in accordance with the will of the majority of its population while carefully contributing to a peaceful resolution of the Transnistria Conflict, whereas the US might not be above dissolving the Moldovan state if its plans to pull it into the “Euro-Atlantic” orbit chaotically fail. About America’s agenda, it might very well try to implement a combined Venezuelan-Syrian-Ukrainian Hybrid War scenario in Moldova that sees a failed military coup attempt (or threat thereof) transition into an Unconventional War that ends with the success of a pro-reunification referendum with Romania modelled off of the Crimean precedent.

From Venezuela…

To explain, Russian-friendly multipolar President Dodon recently had to refute fake news that the military is allegedly planning a coup if the upcoming election isn’t free and fair (understood by context to mean that he won and would be accused of rigging it), but the rumor might nevertheless influence how the electorate votes.

For example, it’s entirely possible that an influential Indian ideologue’s fearmongering last year about the possibility that his country could invade its much smaller neighbor in the Maldives if the incumbent won the election contributed to his ultimate loss after some of his supporters might have figured that they’d be voting for their country’s de-facto annexation to India.

So too, in this instance, might Moldovans think that voting for Dodon would be a surefire way of triggering his pro-American “deep state” enemies’ tripwire of carrying out a military coup in Moldova on the purported basis of “restoring democracy”, just like how the US wants the Venezuelan one to do against Maduro on a similar pretext.

…To Syria & Ukraine

Failing that scenario’s actualization (both in terms of a military coup, and Dodon’s supporters voting against him or abstaining for the sake of preventing the aforementioned from happening), the next step in this phased regime change operation might realistically be to provoke Syrian-like Unconventional Warfare in the capital prior to pulling off a Color Revolution.

Usually Color Revolutions precede Unconventional Warfare and not the reverse, but Moldova is a special case where the breakdown of the constitutional order could be abused as the basis for manipulatively recreating a Crimean scenario in the country whereby pro-Romanian Moldovans would hold a referendum for reunification with their ethno-historical homeland.

There’s nothing wrong with that happening in principle, but it can almost be assured that the timing of the vote and the context in which it would be occurring within the politically divided country would probably lead to the disenfranchisement of those who are against this happening, basically ensuring that it succeeds against the will of the rest of the population who it would directly affect.

The Worst-Case Scenario In Transnistria

It should be said that the wishes of those in Transnistria don’t matter in this sense since they already democratically indicated that they wish to be a separate nation, but what’s being referred to is the many in so-called “rump Moldova” who are proud of their country’s independence in spite of its ethno-cultural similarities with Romania and want to preserve its statehood.

All of this is of immediate relevance for Russia because Moscow maintains a military presence in Transnistria that might come under threat in the event that Moldova reunites with Romania under questionable circumstances unlike the more clear-cut Crimean precedent that it would evidently be trying to emulate, albeit in geopolitically weaponized manner.

The geography of the potential theater is such that Russia could not reliably resupply its forces in Transnistria without passing through either hostile Ukraine or NATO-member “Greater Romania”, thus worryingly threatening a wider conflict if the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ warning comes to pass about an impending regime change provocation in Moldova.

Concluding Thoughts

That said, it would be wrong to imply that the next global crisis is right around the corner and about to break out in Moldova in less than two weeks’ time, but just that observers should be alert for any signs that this scenario might be unfolding whether incrementally or otherwise in order to not be taken off guard in case some of this forecast materializes.

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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.

On the occasion of the emergency meeting of the Lima Group, held in Ottawa on February 4, we denounce the role of the Government of Canada in what is nothing less than a coup d’état.

A coup d’état under way

Since Wednesday the 23rd of January, events have unfolded in a blatant choreography:

1) self-proclaimed president of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, has immediately been recognized by the US, Canada and those Latin American countries close to the US;

2) France, Germany and the United Kingdom, as well as the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal have all threatened to recognize Guaidó unless elections are called within eight days;

3) the US has pressured members of the Organization of American States to “choose sides” while trying, without success, to have Guaidó recognized by the UN Security Council;

4) the National Assembly of Venezuela has appointed new ambassadors, a prerogative outside its jurisdiction;

5) the Bank of England has refused a withdrawal of Venezuelan gold reserves by Venezuelan officials;

6) billions of dollars in new sanctions have been levied by the White House against the oil company PDVSA, followed by the professed intention to transfer Venezuelan bank accounts and assets held in the United States to Juan Guaidó.

All these mechanisms to suffocate the Maduro government were planned in-advance. From mid-December – a while before he was elected president of the National Assembly – Juan Guaidó visited Washington, Brazil and Colombia to present his plan for mass protests on 10^th of January and his self-proclamation on the 23^rd.

The threat of military intervention completes the panoply of destabilizing measures: “We do not exclude any option,” says Donald Trump and John Bolton, his National Security Advisor. As early as August 2017, Trump spoke of “a possible military option, if necessary.” The same year, Mike Pompeo, then Director of the CIA, spoke of a possible role for Colombia in this regard. As an echo, at a press briefing on January 29, John Bolton’s notebook read “5,000 troops in Colombia.” Elliott Abrams’ appointment as special envoy to Venezuela – known for his support for mass killings by the armies and death squads of El Salvador and Guatemala in the 1980s – is cause for fearing the worst.

The stakes: oil, neoliberalism and hegemony

In an interview with Fox News, John Bolton clarified one of the crucial issues of the Coup:

“It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies really invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.”

However, beyond the oil, the current coup aims to restore the hegemony of the United States in Latin America. Since the beginning of the 21st century, its domination has been mitigated by the left turn taken by several countries, moving away from neoliberalism and adopting progressive social policies. In the same period, the rise of China and Russia has increased their presence on the South American continent. The establishment of a right-wing government in Venezuela, favorable and indebted to foreign investment, would therefore benefit the United States and its allies.

And Canada in all of this?

Involved in the current coup, Canada was one of the first countries to recognize Juan Guaidó’s self-proclamation. Since September 2017, it has imposed economic sanctions against Venezuela in close consultation with the United States. Despite the absence of the US in the Lima Group, the latter includes countries that advocate the same hard line against Venezuela.  Presumably, Canada is the liaison in this regard. In its article on the preparations for the coup, AP News reports that Canada played an important role behind the scenes and that Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland offered Canada’s support to Guaidó as early as January 9th.

The website, Global Affairs Canada, indicates that the February 4th emergency meeting “will bring together the Foreign Ministers of the Lima Group countries as well as participants from across the international community. They will meet to discuss support for Juan Guaidó, interim president of Venezuela, and to explore ways in which the international community can further support the people of Venezuela. Does this mean that for Canada, those countries that do not recognize Guaidó’s self-proclamation – namely the majority of the OAS countries and most other countries in the world – are not part of the international community?

The political maneuvering, repression and authoritarianism of the Maduro government are reprehensible. But that is not the question here. As the UN Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights urgently recalls: “Coercion, whether military or economic, must never be used to secure a change of government in a sovereign state. The use of sanctions by outside powers to overthrow an elected government is in violation of all norms of international law.” Not to mention the bloodshed that might be provoked by a foreign military intervention or clashes between a fractured Venezuelan army.

For a negotiated end of the crisis

The only responsible and legitimate international approach to the crisis in Venezuela is the immediate lifting of foreign economic sanctions and the search for a genuine Venezuelan political solution through negotiation, under the auspices of independent mediators.

Uruguay and Mexico have pledged to take this path, and have announced the organization of a conference of neutral countries in Montevideo on February 7th. Canada has chosen foreign interference, which is dangerous and reprehensible.

 

Judith Berlyn,

Martine Eloy,

Raymond Legault,

Suzanne Loiselle

Members of Collectif Échec à la guerre

Montreal

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Featured image is from teleSUR

The Venezuelan government seems to be openly preparing to face a US military invasion.

On February 10, the country’s military kicked off large-scale military drills, which will run until February 15. According to President Nicolas Maduro, the drills are set to become the biggest ones the country has held in its 200-year history.

On the same day, multiple air defense systems, including Pechora-2M launchers, were spotted maneuvering in the area of San Cristobal, near the border with Columbia, an expected member of the US-led coalition in the event of invasion in Venezuela.

On February 7, Israel’s satellite company ImageSat International released a satellite image, allegedly showing that the Venezuelan military was releasing its S-300VN air defense system from mothballs in Captain Manuel Rios Airbase on February 4.

Separately, President Maduro announced the setting up of 50,000 “popular defence units” and promised that the US will get a South American “Vietnam War” if it decides to invade.

The military preparations came amid several important security developments. In January, authorities detained fugitive Colonel Oswaldo Garcia Palomo after he had crossed back into the country from Colombia. On February 7, he appeared on a video confessing to his ties with the CIA and Colombian officials to overthrow the Maduro government. According to Venezuelan Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez, Palomo was involved in an effort to rally soldiers to mutiny, close off the capital and overtake the presidential palace.

On February 5, authorities seized a shipment of US-made weapons, which was discovered at a storage yard of Arturo Michelena International Airport in the city of Valencia. The stash included at least 19 rifles and 118 magazines, high-caliber ammunition, as well as 90 radios and six mobile phones – and was likely sent from Miami, Florida on February 3.

At the same time, Washington is reportedly engaged in so-called direct contacts with representatives of the Venezuelan military and government to convince them to support the coup and help to bring US-proclaimed Interim President Juan Guaido into power. These efforts achieved at least a partial success.

On February 2, Air Force General Yanez, reportedly defected to the opposition’s side. He called for others to follow him in supporting “the right side.” On February 9, Colonel Ruben Paz Jimenez declared his support to the opposition. Separately, two more service members, Captain Hector Luis Guevara Figueroa and Army pilot Carlos Vásquez defected and called for others to do so.

Another, but also important front is the media sphere. US President Donald Trump has openly stated that he does not rule out a military option for Venezuela. Nonetheless, Washington still needs some formal pretext. Therefore, State Secretary Mike Pompeo declared in an interview with FOX Business that there is a growing Hezbollah and Iranian influence in Venezuela.

“People don’t recognize that Hezbollah has active cells — the Iranians are impacting the people of Venezuela and throughout South America. We have an obligation to take down that risk for America and how we do that in South America and all across the globe,” Pompeo said.

Washington says that Hezbollah, which it is considers to be a terrorist group, has been using Latin America as a base of fund-gathering for years. If it accidentally appears that the Maduro government has “deep ties” with Hezbollah, this could become a sufficient and necessary condition to propel a military intervention.

One more point of pressure is the delivery of the US humanitarian aid, which the Venezuelan government rejects.

President Maduro called this effort a “fake humanitarian assistance” designed to “humiliate” the country and “justify a military aggression”. On February 9, Guaido stressed that he would not rule out authorizing a US military intervention, whenever the term “authorizing” means in the case of the nation leader appointed from Washington.

With all these public statements and accusations, the White House cannot afford to tolerate the Maduro victory in the ongoing standoff. So, the US will continue to ramp up the pressure in political, economic and clandestine spheres. However, if these measures appear to be not enough to overthrow the government, a more direct action, including a military invasion, may be implemented.

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“We will not kneel, we will not fear reprisals, we will keep protesting until the end,” said one Gilet Jaune protester to me on Saturday as the police tore into the crowd, scything people to the ground and trampling them underfoot.

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“For more than two months the people who come out into the streets are met with governmental repression. Since the 17th November 2018 we have been on the streets but we have not been listened to.” The statement from the Yellow Vests —  or Gilets Jaunes (GJs) as they are better known in France — was published just before Saturday February 2, 2019, when tens of thousands of GJs took to the streets of cities nationwide for Acte XII (Week 12) of the protests that have been a weekly event since they first began on November 17, 2018.

The GJ movement has taken France by storm since its sudden appearance after the increasingly unpopular President Emmanuel Macron introduced a number of measures that appeared to protect the French wealthy elite while penalising those already on the brink of poverty. The increase in the fuel tax was the final straw that broke the back of the already pressurized population struggling to make ends meet every month.

Geographer Christophe Guilluy had prophesied the potential of this uprising in 2014. Guilluy demonstrated the demographics of most major French cities comprising the wealthy, banking, industrial-capitalist centers surrounded by the ghettoized and marginalized suburbs that are home to an estimated 60 percent of the urban population. For those scraping a living together in the suburbs, driving to and parking in the city center for work could cost as much as 250 Euros ($284) per month. The impact of an increase in the cost of fuel would hit these people the hardest.

Historian and author Diana Johnstone, based in France, best explained the origin of the Yellow Vest as the symbol of this organic, grassroots movement. The yellow vest is something that every French citizen must have in their car in case of a road accident — the vest must be worn to prevent being unseen and run over by other vehicles. Wearing the yellow vest during protests signifies that French citizens do not accept being invisible to and railroaded by their government.

Jerome Rodrigues, Gilets Jaunes spokesperson, targeted with a GLIF4 grenade and a LBD40 bullet which hit him in the eye during Acte XI, Jan 26, 2019. Jerome Rodrigues | Facebook

Acte XII came one week after the shocking targeting of prominent Gilet Jaune spokesman Jerome Rodrigues in Paris on January 26, 2019. Rodrigues had been filming live during the march when the arrival of the Black Bloc contingent caused him to call for the GJs to withdraw and avoid the inevitable violence. The Black Bloc element will be examined in a later section of this article.

On film, we can see the police factions advance, ignore the Black Bloc (or “Casseurs” in French), and begin targeting the retreating and peaceful GJs. Rodrigues is first targeted by a GLIF4 grenade that detonates close to him and is then hit in the eye by an LBD40 “flashball” bullet. After his hospitalization, Rodrigues informed his thousands of followers that there is little chance of saving his eye. As he is a plumber by trade, this senseless injury will have a potentially catastrophic effect on Rodrigues’ ability to provide for his family.

A police officer takes aim with the LBD40 “flashball” bullet launcher. Gilet Jaune | Facebook

French state weapons of mass mutilation

Rodrigues is only one of 19 GJs who have lost an eye to the “sub-lethal” LBD40 bullet launcher that is being liberally used by security forces during GJ protests across France. The LBD40 is the evolution of the notorious “flashball bullet,” 10 times the velocity of a paintball. The modern LBD40 launcher is a very accurate instrument with a “red-dot” laser pointer sight that ensures pinpoint targeting of civilians.

A collage showing French security forces taking aim at Yellow Vest protesters with the LBD40 launcher.

Recently, French human-rights organizations, the UN Human Rights Commissioner, and members of the French medical fraternity have unequivocally cautioned against the use of the LBD40 in crowd-control situations. While it is classified as a “sub-lethal” weapon, when used in violation of police regulations, at close range and in unstable crowd environments, it is lethal and capable of terrible damage to a human body — particularly the face, which appears to be a favorite target of the national police in France.

A member of the Toulouse Observatory of Police Practices (OPP) after being shot by French security forces. Photo | OPP

A member of the Toulouse Observatory of Police Practices (OPP) was shot in the face during the Acte XII protests in Toulouse on Saturday February 2, 2019. The following statement is taken from a translation of the OPP press release:

One of the OPP members, Jerome, also a member of the Human Rights League, was injured in the forehead by a projectile shot by the police forces […] his helmet, which was badly damaged, probably prevented a more serious injury.”

The press release goes on to condemn the disproportionate “panic” use of tear gas against peaceful protestors. The OPP also observed the heavy-handed tactics of the police, “including police officers, members of the Brigade Anti-Criminalite — Anti-Crime Brigade (BAC) — and members of “security and intervention companies.” The statement ends with this chilling indictment:

The injury of our comrade and OPP observer [..] recalls that police services, in the context of law enforcement operations, are disproportionately and indiscriminately using weapons of war in their possession. They cause serious injuries, regardless of the victim’s behaviour, including when the victim is not responsible for any incident.”

OPP calls for a ban on LBDs and GLIF4s. It also demands that the BAC police officers are no longer involved in demonstrations and asks for a moratorium on the presence of private security and intervention companies at the GJ marches. The photo below has been circulating on social media; it shows what appear to be civilians carrying French national police weapons and working alongside official police factions during a GJ march.

Previous investigations have revealed that the GLIF4 grenade, or “grenade de desencerclement,” has also been condemned by an internal French police laboratory inquiry and recommendations have been submitted to the Interior Ministry for the banning of their use in crowd-control operations. The GLIF4 contains 25g of TNT, emits 165 decibels, and may contain CS or tear gas in powder form or 10g rubber pellets released upon detonation. These grenades have been responsible for the amputation of hands, hematomas, and the formation of necrotic tissue among the GJ demonstrators.

Antoine Boudinet lost his hand when a GLIF4 grenade landed next to him during GJ protests in Bordeaux. Photo | Laurent Theillet

The following video is taken from the Twitter account of French journalist David Dufresnes, who is recording all police infractions against civilians. This civilian was injured above the eye by a GLIF4 grenade in Place de la Republique, Paris during Acte XII:

allo @Place_Beauvau – c'est pour un signalement – 384

Eclat de grenade, paupière touchée

Place de la République, Paris, #ActeXII

Source: @Yanmdi pour @LeMediaTV pic.twitter.com/bdxPJhRcbK

— David Dufresne (@davduf) February 3, 2019

Despite all the evidence of the traumatic effects of these weapons upon civilians, the French Council of State ruled that the LBD40 was a necessary instrument of “self-defence” for the forces of “law and order.” This ruling was announced two days before Acte XII. Acte XII thus went ahead in the knowledge that there was a high risk of further injuries and targeting of civilians by the forces of “law and order” with weapons that are clearly “lethal” when misused.

The French Interior Minister, Christophe Castaner, also ruled that the GLIF4 grenade would continue to be used until stocks were exhausted, without specifying the number of grenades still in stock.

The only conclusion that can be drawn from this blatant denial of responsibility for the mutilation of French citizens by the state-militarized police forces is that the state is effectively enabling and endorsing the police savagery being witnessed nationwide.

A portrait of French Interior Minister Christopher Castaner composed of images of Yellow Vest protesters injured by police. Photo | Twitter

Castaner further denied any use of the controversial LBD40 bullet in Place de la Bastille, where Rodrigues was targeted. Unfortunately for Castaner, the enquiry conducted by the Inspection Generale de la Police Nationale (IGPN), the police ombudsman in France, found that the police had used the LBD40 launcher at the moment of Rodrigues’ wounding.

In the report, the policeman admits to using the LBD40 but denies targeting Rodrigues, claiming that they hit another demonstrator in the stomach. Castaner continues to refute the deliberate targeting of a prominent and popular member of the GJ movement, despite a plethora of video evidence filmed by other GJ demonstrators who were surrounding Rodrigues at the time.

Acte XII – Remembering the victims of state-sanctioned repression

Jerome Rodrigues and another of the victims of the LBD40 flashball attend the White March in Paris, Feb 2, 2109. Photo | Vanessa Beeley

Acte XII — the White March — was in honour of all victims of what is perceived as state-sanctioned brutality against unarmed civilians since the protests began. The following is an excerpt from the GJ statement published just before the march:

After a short speech the wounded Gilets Jaunes will lead the march. During the march there will be a pause to demand the prohibition of weapons such as Flashball LBD40 and the GLIF4 grenades. …Paris and all cities of France will collectively pay their respects to the wounded, the Gilet Jaunes victims, injured in their thousands and dozens mutilated for life.

Many have had their lives permanently turned upside down by state violence. Some have lost hands, others an eye. …Their life is permanently ruined, they are simple, peaceful citizens of this country who were exercising their right to protest against a capitalist dictatorship which refuses to allow them to live a dignified life.”

Some of the 159  seriously injured GJs — taken from activist site Desarmons Les, which records incidents of police violence and campaigns for the prohibition of LBDs and GLIF4s. Photo | Desarmons Les

I traveled to Paris to participate in the march and to witness events for myself. I arrived as the GJs were just beginning to gather before setting off on the 5km march through the Paris streets — final destination, Place de la République. The atmosphere was buoyant and defiant but definitely good humored and peaceful. There was a strong sense of solidarity and what struck me most was the representation of a wide range of French society. All classes, all backgrounds, all ethnicities unified in rejection of the erosion of their civil liberties and threat to their constitutional right to protest the perceived transformation of the French state into a repressive plutocracy.

A GJ protester wears an eye patch with Castaner’s name on it. Photo | Vanessa Beeley

As protesters were milling around, enjoying live music and the colorful, imaginative costumes, the Black Bloc or “Casseurs” (looters) arrived. Around 10 Casseurs ran towards the GJs, dressed head to foot in black and with their faces covered. They pushed a woman to the ground and ran over her. The atmosphere changed immediately: the GJs started to chant “Degages” or “get out” and I could hear shouts from the organizers calling for calm and no violence.

The Casseurs headed to the nearby restaurant, some brandishing wooden clubs, and were clearly threatening to smash the windows. Almost immediately, a number of GJs encircled the Casseurs and forced them to retreat without causing any damage. There was a degree of ensuing confusion, during which I could hear protesters condemning the Casseurs and calling for them to stop profiting from the GJ marches to carry out their violent acts of destruction and demolition of public property.

The following video shows the moment that the Casseurs are pushed away from the restaurant by the GJs:

An independent journalist, Laurent Daure, who accompanied me on the march, stated that it was always difficult to identify the Casseurs and to know whether they belonged to Antifa, an alleged anti-fascist movement with suspected funding from notorious philanthrocapitalist, George Soros; or to far-right factions that have also piggy-backed the GJ marches to promote their agendas; or whether they were agents provocateurs despatched by the French state to discredit the GJ movement, guilt by association.

A protestor in the Place Félix Eboué waiting for the march to begin. Acte XII, Paris. Photo | Vanessa Beeley

After rousing speeches from Rodrigues and other previously injured GJ protestors who attended the march, we set off amidst the cacophony of brass bands, drums and chanting of the GJ songs and slogans that have become the mantra of these marches — “Macron assassin” and “Macron demission/resign” being two of the most popular.

A protester wears an eye patch with a target on it to protest police use of the LBD40 bullets to blind protesters. Acte XII, Feb 2, 2019. Photo | Vanessa Beeley

As we progressed along the predetermined route, I was impressed by the number of people who came out on their balconies as we passed and were waving yellow balloons and French flags in solidarity. The rear of the march was flanked by motorcyclists wearing yellow vests who intermittently revved their engines to add to the orchestra of protest. Different sections of the march were differentiated by the banners they were carrying.

One amongst many of the children marching with the Gilets Jaunes, Acte XII, Feb 2, 2019. Photo | Vanessa Beeley

I saw environmental activists, anarchists, women’s rights movements, animal rights groups, human rights groups marching side by side. I heard animated political discussions among protesters and I saw children carried aloft on their parents shoulders blowing whistles and participating in an event that will surely shape their future. The march was a riot of color. For the first time in a very long time I felt a sense of optimism and belief in the power of the “little people” to reverse the tide of globalism and capitalist adventurism that is sweeping our world. As one of the posters for Acte XII stated: “The powerful will only stop dominating us when the little people stop crawling.”

Gilets Jaunes, Acte XII, Feb 2, 2019. Photo | Vanessa Beeley

One thing I was acutely aware of was that the blue flashing lights of police cars could be seen a few hundred meters behind us as we moved through the streets. The police did not accompany the march as we are accustomed to seeing in the U.K. When the Casseurs re-appeared alongside the march at various moments, there was no effort made by the police to arrest them or prevent the damage they caused to shop and bank windows along the route. In fact, it was very much left to the GJs to manage the Casseurs, which put them at risk and will lead to further accusations from some residents, business owners and government ministers that the GJs are the cause of the damage.

A protester wears a sandwich board calling for the end of the “massacre” by state security forces. Acte XII, Feb 2, 2019. Photo | Vanessa Beeley

The march had a brief pause in Place de la Bastille, the area where Rodrigues had been shot the weekend before. The GJs peeled off into the surrounding restaurants for sandwiches and refreshments. There was an atmosphere of conviviality among the restaurant staff and their yellow vested clientele. Again, I remarked that the police vans and cars kept a distance, lights flashing. There was no effort by the police to mingle with the marchers despite it being a good-natured event.

A sign reads “no social peace without equal sharing. The people are not a cash cow.” Acte XII, Feb 2, 2019. Photo | Vanessa Beeley

As the GJs set off again on the last leg of the march, towards Place de la Republique, I noticed that the vans of police had moved closer and the heavily armored police officers were on the pavement. They were remote and tense, not prepared to converse with marchers or bystanders.

A French police officer dressed for “war.”Acte XII, Feb 2, 2019. Photo | Vanessa Beeley

Just before the Place de la Republique, the victims of previous police violence were diverted down a side street as news had reached the march that tear gas was already being used in Place de la Republique less than 200 meters away. Most marchers told me this was following the pattern of previous marches so the priority was to protect the injured from any further harm. Marchers had joined hands in a circle around the injured as a symbol of protection and solidarity and they opened the circle to allow the safe exit of their comrades.

Victims of police violence are taken to safety down a side street just before Place de la Republique., Acte XII, Feb 2, 2019. Photo | Vanessa Beeley.

As we approached Place de la Republique, the tear gas was drifting towards us and started to sting our eyes and the back of our throats. The scene in the square itself was one of demonstrators trying to relax after the march. People were standing in groups talking, buying coffee and tea from the stalls, or simply walking around. A man walked past me carrying a yellow rose. This was not the hotbed of “pestes brunes,” the “fascist plague,” as described by Gérald Darmanin, Macron’s budget minister.

As I advanced, I filmed the protesters. I could see nothing that would provoke the police to fire the tear gas to force people to disperse. It was clear that this was the end of the march and that people would start to drift back home after a few moments of reflection and discussion. As I got closer to the center of the square, the boom of tear gas launchers became more persistent and people started to react and to panic. It became clear very quickly that this was a deliberate attempt to incite the crowd and to drive them toward the arterial roads and side streets which, by now, were blocked by the security forces.

Protestors and civilians try to exit the Place de la Republique but are pushed back by police, Acte XII, Feb 2, 2019. Photo | Vanessa Beeley

We exited the square and headed back the way we came. By now, the street was blocked by at least 15 police vans. The militarized police officers lined the street, clad in black body armor, faces concealed behind visors, brandishing shields and weapons. I watched protesters and civilians alike approach them, asking to be allowed through to escape the billowing clouds of tear gas that were building up in the square behind them. The police refused. I spoke to one officer who glared at me from behind his visor. I told him he was putting civilian lives in danger. “Peu importe,” he replied; “who cares.”

It is now proven that the French state is using a more potent gas against its own people. State militia or police forces are using CM3 gas in preference to CM6 gas in some cities. CM3 is six times more intense than CM6 and can cause skin lesions and damage to the eye cornea along with increased nausea; burns to the face; and, during prolonged exposure (which is the current police tactic), damage can be permanent and risk of chronic conditions increased.

Police block exit routes from Place de la Republique, turning civilians back towards the square which was enveloped in tear gas, Acte XII, Feb 2, 2019. Photo | Vanessa Beeley.

The tension started to build. Demonstrators — many of them women — became distressed. They had experienced this tactic during previous marches and they knew what to expect. Journalist Laurent Daure explained to me:

The police will either charge or advance. Their intention is to force the civilians back into the square and then kettle them there, not allow them to leave. They will rain down tear gas and then when the crowd reacts, they will charge and attack them. When the crowd reacts to that, they will fire on them with the LBDs or the GLIF4 grenades. This is what they do.”

Police advance towards Place de la Republique, Acte XII, Feb 2, 2019. Photo | Vanessa Beeley

I saw one tourist, pulling his wheeled suitcase behind him, ask the police if he could pass. The officer refused. The line of police started to advance. I spoke to one burly officer who had taken position next to me. I asked him how he could do this to his own people. He replied that “this is as bad for us as it is for you,” and insisted that we move down to the next exit point which he claimed was open. People were refuting that information; they knew it was also closed. Suddenly another officer grabbed me by the arm and started to push me towards the square. The police line was advancing rapidly, sweeping civilians towards certain danger and risk of injury.

The following video shows the events I have described:

What happened next was chaos. The Place de la Republique became a battleground. I saw medics screaming at the police officers to allow the fire brigade through with a stretcher for someone who had been injured, nobody knew how. We could see police officers from another side street charging the crowd in huge numbers, wielding truncheons. We could hear the firing of the LBD40 weapons and the detonation of GLIF4 grenades. The tear gas was still being rained down. Nothing prepared me for the brutality I was witnessing. One woman I spoke to on the sidelines told me:

I never expected to see this in my lifetime. I feel as if we are at war. In many marches the women are forced to stay in the square for hours, even if they need the toilet they are not allowed to leave. They are forced to go to the toilet in public. They are humiliated.”

The following video shows the violence of one the police charges into the crowd; a journalist is flung to the ground.

The following video shows police and security forces firing randomly into crowds who are weakened by tear gas inhalation:

During the attacks, at least one civilian was shot, at close range, in the face, by an LBD40 bullet. He is heard saying that he has been “targeted in the head.” He is bleeding and clearly traumatized as the police force him to the ground. The blood pools on the pavement while the police tie his hands behind his back. Medics who rush to attend to him ask him if they can contact any family members for him. A later video shows the man, his face bruised and bloody, hands still tied, being herded into a police van. He was arrested; to my knowledge he was not hospitalized despite the fact his jaw could easily be fractured. The following video covers the attack on this unarmed civilian:

Nobody is exempt from police violence during these protests. Journalists, medics, bystanders and civilians caught up in the mayhem are also affected both physically and psychologically. On Saturday, journalist Stephanie Roy, who has covered the marches from the beginning, was hit in the leg by a GLIF4 grenade:

#Paris Blessée par un tir de grenade de desencerclement à la jambe tout comme de nombreux manifestants. Les risques du métier…
Merci au confrères pour leur aide.#GiletsJaunes #ActeXII #Acte12 #2fevrier pic.twitter.com/krNZAaibiw

— Stéphanie Roy (@Steph_Roy_) February 2, 2019

Another GJ told me that police have previously kept people trapped in an area for more than two hours. They have finally opened one side street and allowed people to leave but not before having their bags searched or being subjected to body searches. If anything deemed suspicious is found in their possession, they risk being detained or eventually fined. “We are at war,” he told me. “We cannot submit to this kind of repression; it is not who we are and they [the state] know that.”

Protesters carrying a banner demanding amnesty for the Gilets Jaunes “disappeared” in detention, Acte XII, Feb 2, 2019. Photo | Vanessa Beeley

On the February 5, French MPs voted to pass the repressive Loi anti-Casseurs (the anti-looting law). Reaction on social media from the GJs and their supporters has been swift to condemn what they judge to be another attack on their constitutional rights and their liberty to protest injustice. The law has the full support of Interior Minister Castaner and his Macroniste acolytes. A minority in Parliament consider the new law to be a threat to civil liberties.

The law will effectively increase police powers of repression in France under the pretext of combating the Black Bloc or Casseurs, while it is admitted, even by Castaner, that these agents provocateurs are a tiny minority, numbering fewer than 300 nationwide. The law will sanction bag, vehicle and body searches during or leading up to protests. Prefets will have the power to ban targeted protesters for up to one month if they deem them “a grave threat to public order.”

Protesters who have been banned will be listed as wanted people. Those covering their faces during a protest, including wearing a gas mask, risk one year in prison and being fined 15,000 Euros ($17,000).

Gilets Jaunes Acte XII, Paris. A protest sign reads “As under Vichy, submit to the oligarchy of Macron.” Acte XII, Feb 2, 2019. Photo | Vanessa Beeley

What is Macron afraid of?

Emmanuel Macron was elected by the neoliberals, the globalists and capitalist elite to protect and expand their interests worldwide. Macron was not elected to represent the majority of his people, he was maneuvered into position to protect the banking cabals and their interests. Macron’s bubble has burst on the sword of dissent.

Macron’s political ascendancy was enabled by the oligarchs whose power base he is now mandated to defend at all costs. In 2008 Macron joined the Rothschild Investment Bank (RIB), where he earned the nickname “the Mozart of finance” for his successful orchestration of big-business mergers and acquisitions. During his time at RIB, Macron acquired a small fortune, which may have contributed to his loyalty to the ruling class; certainly his time at the bank would have taught him how to build an influential and close-knit establishment network that would further his own ambitions to be “king.” French author Francois-Xavier Bourmand has recently published a shocking investigation into the media and big-business moguls who facilitated Macron’s meteoric rise to the presidency — the title is Emmanuel Macron, the Banker who wanted to be King. (“Emmanuel Macron, le banquier qui voulait etre Roi”)

Macron’s foreign policy has been nothing more than an extension of the resource-hungry globalist plundering of target, resource-rich nations such as Syria — and now Venezuela is in Macron’s neoliberal crosshairs. Even while France burns, Macron is shoring up the distorted narratives that support the U.S. military and economic adventurism in Venezuela.

The Gilets Jaunes have exposed Macron for what he really is: an instrument of power on the global stage who will not be allowed to deviate from his machiavellian road map. Under Macron, France is rapidly being plunged into plutocracy and totalitarianism and the French people are pushing back.

Gilets Jaunes Acte XII, Paris. Protesters carry signs depicting state-sanctioned violence and the perceived dictatorship of Macron’s regime, Acte XII, Feb 2, 2019. Photo | Vanessa Beeley

In a recent condescending attempt to reconcile with the GJs, Macron said:

“If being a yellow vest means wanting fewer parliamentarians and work being paid better, I am a yellow vest, too!”

Nothing demonstrates a state hierarchy disconnect from its people more than a dismissive, hollow statement of solidarity while maintaining policies that collectively punish citizens who align themselves with the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity. At the same time, Macron has criticized the GJ refusal to elect leaders or buy into the theatre of identity politics and he has claimed that the GJs are “infiltrated by 40,000 to 50,000 militants who want the destruction of institutions” — an entirely refutable and ridiculous claim in support of which neither he nor anyone else has brought forward a scintilla of evidence. As journalist Laurent Daure told me:

Macron has peddled every conspiracy theory going to discredit the GJ movement — from Russia being behind them to injuries being faked. He has used the media to sow confusion and disinformation to distract from his plummeting popularity.”

One GJ demand has pierced the heart of the globalist movement: the referendum or direct democracy. The demand is for a designated substantial number of signatories to determine the right to call a referendum on specific issues. As author Diana Johnstone points out, “the right to a CIR [Citizens Initiated Referendum] exists in Switzerland, Italy and California.” This proposal threatens to wrest power away from those who have a monopoly over it and who make decisions for their populations that serve their own interests not those of the “little people.” It will send shivers down the spine of neoliberalism and globalism.

Johnstone cited the case of Etienne Chouard, a teacher who has been working on the concept of direct democracy for decades.

He (Chouard) insists that a referendum must always be held after a long debate and time for reflection, to avoid emotional spur-of-the-moment decisions. Such a referendum requires honest, independent media which are not all owned by special interests. It requires making sure that politicians who make the laws follow the popular will expressed in the referendum. All this suggests the need for a people’s constitutional convention.”

The GJ movement has kicked Macron’s hornets’ nest and what we are witnessing is the turning of the jackboot of power and tyranny against its own people — “the little people” who are of no consequence to the giants among the ruling elite, the wealthy, the privileged who profit from the spilling of blood at home and abroad, where their military adventurism has resulted in the deaths of millions of “little people” in Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Central Africa and is now threatening Venezuela.

However, just as Macron, his predecessors, and allies in the U.S.-led coalition of interventionism have underestimated the solidarity and history of the Syrian people that have resisted eight years of punishing war and economic sanctions, they have also underestimated the depth of the roots of the French people in the history of their battles for “liberte, egalite and fraternite.”

“We will not kneel, we will not fear reprisals, we will keep protesting until the end,” said one GJ to me on Saturday as the police tore into the crowd, scything people to the ground and trampling them underfoot.

The sign in the photo below reads:

Stop the violence. Shame on you [Macron and Castaner], what have you done for money? Democracy is a Referendum. You injure, trample, humiliate, denigrate the people. Shame on the government.”

Gilets Jaunes Acte XII, Paris, Feb 2, 2019. Photo | Vanessa Beeley

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This article was originally published on MintPress News.

Vanessa Beeley is an independent journalist, peace activist, photographer and associate editor at 21st Century Wire. Vanessa was a finalist for one of the most prestigious journalism awards – the 2017 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism – whose winners have included the likes of Robert Parry in 2017, Patrick Cockburn, Robert Fisk, Nick Davies and the Bureau for Investigative Journalism team. You can support Vanessa’s journalism through her Patreon Page. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: A collage showing French security forces taking aim at Yellow Vest protesters with the LBD40 launcher. Photo | MintPress News

A decision by Japanese government officials to “restrict” questions from an unnamed reporter during press conferences has provoked protests by other journalists.

The controversy has re-raised longstanding questions about the environmental impact of a controversial new base for US Marines being constructed in the southwestern prefecture of Okinawa.

At the start of 2019, officials from the Cabinet Office (the government ministry that coordinates the operations of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo) directed the press club covering the Cabinet Office to “restrict” a certain reporter from asking questions during daily press conferences covering the Japanese prime minister. The Cabinet Office also accused the reporter of “spreading misinformation” about the environmental impact of infill.

The unnamed reporter in question is most likely Mochizuki Isoko, a journalist with the Tokyo Shimbun daily newspaper, who is known for asking difficult questions.

In Japan, news outlets typically get access to politicians and government officials through press clubs, which regulate the activities of members, and can even exclude reporters or news outlets. In turn, sources, such as government departments, can deny or limit press clubs with access. But it’s unusual to ban or restrict the activities of journalists from media outlets like Tokyo Shimbun, a prominent daily known for its watchdog approach to government activities.

Reporter questioned environmental effects of construction for US Marine base

Mochizuki apparently angered the Cabinet Office during a news conference on December 26, when she asked about the risks of environmental contamination at a controversial construction site in Okinawa.

In order to build a long-planned base for US Marines permanently stationed in Okinawa, sand and rock infill is being used to build an artificial island in a bay off of Henoko, a township about 65 km north of Naha, Okinawa.

The construction project is destroying and literally paving over existing tropical coral habitat in the bay. It has been reported that the construction project is using inexpensive red soil infill, instead of the gravel that was budgeted in the project and paid for by the government, in an effort to cut corners. There are also suspicions that construction contractors including Ryuku Cement are pocketing the difference.

The use of red soil as infill for marine construction projects is specifically prohibited by Okinawan law, even though the Henoko project has the direct support of the central government in Tokyo. The iron-rich red soil contaminates the surrounding seawater and is deadly to native corals. Local activists such as the Osprey Fuan Club say the infill also will likely contaminate nearby surviving coral colonies.

酷すぎる。 pic.twitter.com/VddTBdh8e5

— 平和への道＠彡トシピコ彡 (@toshipiko1) December 21, 2018

“Outrageous.”

The preservation of coral habitat displaced or destroyed by the Henoko project has been a contentious and potentially embarrassing issue for the government for the past few months, with Prime Minister Abe even claiming corals would somehow be moved away from the infill site to be transplanted in a new location.

Reporter accused of asking questions that would ‘spread misinformation’

When Mochizuki asked a series of pointed questions about the possible harms of the project at a December 26 press conference, it struck a nerve with media relations staff at the Cabinet Office.

Shortly thereafter, in their letter to the press club, the Cabinet Office strongly denied that red soil was being used as infill, and then also asserted that if it was used, its presence did not contravene Okinawan prefectural laws.

The Cabinet Office did not name Mochizuki, but instead stated that a “certain reporter” (特定の記者), had asked “inappropriate questions” (“正確でない質問に起因するやりとり”) that would “spread misinformation” to both members of the press club and to the general public (“内外の幅広い層の視聴者に誤った事実認識を拡散”). The Office said this could “impair” the significance of information presented during press interactions with the Cabinet Office itself (“記者会見の意義が損なわれる”).

The Cabinet Office then demanded that this unnamed reporter be “restricted” by the press club from asking questions at press events, for supposedly spreading misinformation about infill used in the Henoko project.

The reporter is widely believed to be Mochizuki Isoko, given that she had raised the controversial topic of red soil infill at the December 26 presser.

The letter from the Cabinet Office to the press club came to light more than a month later, on February 1, when it was published by Sentaku, a weekly news magazine. The Sentaku story swiftly generated a firestorm of debate.

An opposition lawmaker commented that “it’s totally obvious to anyone that it’s red soil” that is being used as infill at the Henoko site. After reading about the news in Sentaku, the Federation of Japanese Newspaper Unions (commonly known as the 新聞労連, Shimbun Roren) also publicly pushed back against the Cabinet Office, generating even more discussion.

On February 5, the Federation lodged an official complaint with the Cabinet Office.

For the rest of the week, trending hashtags on Twitter included “Tokyo Shimbun reporter restricted from asking questions” (#京新聞記者の質問制限), “towards a country where we can freely ask questions” (#質問できる国へ) and “we have the right to know” (#知る権利).

When questioned about its letter to the press club, the Cabinet Office denied that it was trying to shut down Mochizuki or any other reporter:

本件申し入れは、記者の質問の権利に何らかの条件や制限を設けること等を意図していない

(There is no intent) to place any conditions or restrictions on the right of reporters to ask questions.

At a February 7 news conference, a Cabinet Office spokesperson also denied that the unnamed reporter was Mochizuki, after Mochizuki herself — undeterred by previous requests — asked the spokesperson about the intention behind the Cabinet Office’s original letter. She described the letter as “a form of psychological pressure on me and my company.”

As a reporter, Mochizuki has long endured adversarial treatment from government officials that could be described as deliberate bullying.

A Harbour Online article from early December notes that Mochizuki typically only receives 2-3 second replies from government officials during press conferences, less than the 22-second replies and explanations her colleagues at Tokyo Shimbun receive, and far less than the 81-second replies reporters at Asahi Shimbun receive on average.

東京新聞・望月衣塑子記者について、昨年末に寄稿した記事。
菅官房長官と内閣府･上村秀紀室長の振る舞いの妥当性を｢時間｣と｢質疑内容｣に着目して検証しました。#質問できる国へ https://t.co/xG5wnBAH3b

— 犬飼淳 / Jun Inukai (@jun21101016) February 6, 2019

“In regards to Mochizuki Isako from Tokyo Shimbun, here’s an article published in December 2018. In terms of how (the Chief Cabinet Secretary and the Communications Director) behave, here’s a look at how much time is spent answering her questions.

#towards a country where we can freely ask questions”

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Featured image: Government infill project at Henoko Bay in Okinawa. Questions about the use of environmentally harmful red soil in the project led to demands that a journalist be shut out of press conferences. Image widely shared on social media.

US controlled Haiti endured over 500 years of severe repression, slavery, despotism, colonization, reparations, , unrepayable debt, overwhelming human suffering, and destructive natural disasters.

Elections when held are farcical, democracy pure fantasy, Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s tenure the exception to the longstanding rule.

He once said

“(t)he people of Haiti want life, not death. They want peace, not violence. They want democracy, not repression.”

US colonization of the country denies them their fundamental rights – an entire population subjugated by Washington, suffering under its imperial boot.

Haiti is the region’s poorest country, its per capita income a small fraction of the Latin and Central American average, the vast majority of its people deeply impoverished, living on less than $2 a day, many less than $1.25 a day, affected by malnutrition, diarrheal and other diseases, along with overall severe deprivation.

Instead of improving, things keep deteriorating. Life expectancy is 57 years – compared to the Latin and Central American average of 69 years.

Most Haitians are illiterate. Only about one-fifth of secondary-age children attend school. One-fourth or less of the population has access to safe water.

Millions of Haitians are food insecure. According to Mission Belem’s Renata Lopez,

“(t)here are many, many problems in Haiti (including) lack of good water, lack of electricity, and hunger,” adding:

Hunger is most serious “because most of the people (have no jobs), and if they don’t work, there aren’t enough meals in a day. They can’t manage the situation with their families.”

Hunger, malnutrition, slow starvation for many, mass unemployment, and repression are state-sponsored national calamities. Mission Belem calls the country “chronically hungry.”

According to the World Food Program’s State of Food Insecurity in the World report, over half of Haitians are malnourished, many severely. It’s the key contributing factor to low life expectancy, along with untreated or poorly treated illnesses and diseases.

What’s heard daily in Haiti is people saying “I am hungry,” the misery most of its people endure.

In February 2017, Jovenel Moise succeeded US puppet/provisional Haitian president Jocelerme Privert. Turnout was 18%. The vast majority of Haitians boycotted the farcical process.

Moise is Washington’s man in Port-au-Prince. Reviled by Haitians, many thousands are protesting against him, demanding he resign, public anger in the country continuing since last summer over intolerable conditions, deep corruption, and repressive rule.

One protestor earlier said if the president refuses to resign,

“we will cut off the roads and burn everything, because we have nothing else to lose.”

Ongoing protests in Port-au-Prince and other cities caused at least eight deaths since January, hundreds injured, scores arrested, vehicles burned, a police station and businesses attacked, parts of the nation paralyzed – forcing closure of public offices, schools and enterprises.

February 7 marked the second anniversary of Moise’s tenure. He may not be around for a third of his five-year term.

Last year he survived an assassination attempt during a public event. Violence rocked Haiti last summer and fall, expressing public anger over Moise’s rule – millions taking to the streets nationwide.

They began over so-called PetroCaribe account plundering of around $3.8 billion, a fund established to finance schools, hospitals, clinics, and roads, lost to massive corruption.

Opposition leader Moise Jean Charles said

“protests will continue until Moise resigns. If (he) does not…step down from power, we are going to name an interim president in the coming days.”

A so-called Core Group comprised of the UN special representative in Haiti, envoys from the US, EU, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, and OAS sided with the despotic Moise regime over long-suffering Haitians, saying:

It “deplores the loss of life and property damage caused by the unacceptable acts of violence that took place on the margins of the rallies, while acknowledging the professionalism demonstrated by the Haitian National Police” – ignoring how repressively they operate, serving privileged interests over beneficial social change.

Protests show no signs of ebbing. Moise’s days may be numbered. Staying or leaving won’t change a thing.

Haitians suffer under Washington’s imperial grip and despotic rule, Aristide’s tenure the exception to the rule.

The nation’s ruling authorities are installed to serving Western interests, ordinary Haitians exploited for profit, suffering from the scourge of imperial dominance.

A Final Comment

In February 2017, the Trump regime turned truth on its head, saying the

“inauguration of a democratically-elected president allows Haiti to return to democratic and constitutional rule.”

The hypocrisy needs no elaboration. Rigged Haitian elections have no legitimacy, a reality ignored by Republicans and undemocratic Dems.

The contrast with what’s going on in Venezuela is stark, its democratically elected and reelected President Maduro declared illegitimate by Trump regime hardliners – going all-out to topple him, perhaps by military intervention if ongoing tactics fail.

Note: What have the NYT and rest of US major media reported about Venezuela – plenty almost daily since Trump illegally recognized usurper in waiting Guaido interim (puppet) president, their reporting entirely one-sided, supporting the coup attempt.

What have they reported about Haitian suffering, rigged elections and despotic rule – practically nothing. Rare reports repeat the official narrative.

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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.

The rise in UK air and drone strikes in Syria since September 2018 has been laid bare in the MoD’s latest responses to a Drone Wars UK FoI request.

The number of British strikes in Syria per month rose to its highest ever amount (75) in December 2018.

.

Overall, the UK launched 244 air and drone strikes in Iraq and Syria during 2018, firing 512 munitions. Between 2014 and the end of 2018, the UK has fired more than 4,100 missiles and bombs in a total of 1,925 strikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.  You can see the details on our stats page here.

In 2018, for the first time, more UK weapons were fired in Syria than in Iraq – in fact almost 10 times more (464 in Syria, 48 in Iraq).  While UK aircraft continue to fly in Iraq, 90% of UK missions occurred in Syria.

UK Reaper drones continued to operate in both Iraq and Syria during 2018, however there were no UK drone strikes in Iraq.  While the MoD continues to insist that its drones are primarily for intelligence and surveillance operations, Reapers fired more weapons in 2018 than the UK’s dedicated strike aircraft, the Tornado, and almost as many as Typhoons.  27% of UK strikes were carried out by drones during 2018. Overall, a quarter of all British air strikes against ISIS have been carried out by drones.

Although ISIS has been virtually defeated as a military force in Iraq and Syria, with its territory reduced to a few square miles in the Euphrates Valley (indeed this weekend the final battle is reported to have begun) UK Ministers and defence officials insists that UK strikes will continue until the group is absolutely and totally defeated. This though other nations are withdrawing their forces and senior UK commanders acknowledge that ISIS is no longer a credible military force.  While the UK’s Tornado’s have been withdrawn, UK drones and Typhoons will continue to launch strikes.  In the case of British Reaper drones, that’s approaching 12 years of continuously launching strikes.

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The Trump promoted GOP scam was all about benefitting corporate interests and high-net-worth households.

Wage hikes attributed to tax cuts have been mostly hype. Big business gained hundreds of billions of dollars from the law – used mostly for stock buybacks and generous handouts to executives, workers getting shortchanged. 

Thousands got pink slips. The federal deficit is ballooning by over a trillion dollars annually, social benefits slashed to help pay for the tax cuts, a transparent wealth transfer scheme.

Analyzing the tax cut scam a year later, Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) said the following:

• Corporations were the big winners. So were high-net worth households. “(S)old as a boon to the (disappearing) middle-class,(cuts) primarily benefit(ted) the wealthy.”
• “By 2027 when the law is fully implemented, 83% of the tax cuts will go to the top 1%.” Little was done to end profit shifting to offshore tax shelters.
• According to the Congressional Budget Office, about $300 annually is moved abroad to avoid taxes.
• Corporations with accumulated offshore earnings got “a tax cut of over $400 billion on those profits.”

The GOP legislation encourages offshoring of US jobs and production by taxing foreign profits of American companies “at half the rate on domestic earnings.”

The so-called “small-business” tax cut has gone mostly to “wealthy owners of big firms. Most owners of pass-through businesses—sole proprietorships, partnerships and S corporations—are now generally allowed to exclude 20% of their business income from taxation,” ATF explained.

By 2024, 60% of the tax breaks will go to America’s 1%. The weakened estate tax widens the wealth gap. David Stockman estimates the great GOP tax cut heist will increase the federal debt to around $35 trillion by 2028.

Today it’s $22 trillion, rising exponentially. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin lied claiming the tax cuts would pay for themselves through through increased economic growth generating more tax revenues from lower rates.

“(I)nstead the deficit is increasing considerably due to the tax cuts,” said ATF – mostly because corporate tax revenue dropped by about one-third, almost $100 billion year-over-year since the December 2017 law took effect.

The GOP plan for checking the spiraling debt is by cutting social services for ordinary Americans – notably Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Increased corporate profits went mostly to shareholders and corporate executives, not workers.

Trump lied saying corporate America would use the windfall tax breaks by giving the average US household a $4,000 pay raise, “shower(ing) workers with bonuses,” along with generating “massive investments.”

A year later, “corporations are mostly using their actual and anticipated tax cuts and their rising profits to buy back their own stock, which principally further enriches wealthy shareholders and top corporate executives,” ATF explained.

According to its database, “$853 billion in share repurchases” were announced in 2018 – “120 times more” than workers got in pay increases last year, a slim “$7.1 billion” for the entire 128.5 million US workforce – about $55 per worker if my math is right.

Contrary to Trump’s promise, “worker wages are getting no boost from the tax cuts,” said ATF. “(O)nly 4.4%” of them received a monetary benefit ascribed to the measure.

Year-over-year-through December, inflation-adjusted “average real hourly wages for all workers rose just 0.8%, while average weekly wages actually fell, because employees were working fewer hours,” ATF explained, adding:

“Special interests are the GOP tax law’s big winners” – what was predicted before the law was enacted at yearend 2017.

Polls show most Americans know they were scammed. Benefits gotten are too meager to matter, and it gets worse. Millions of US workers expecting tax refunds either aren’t getting them or will receive much less than they anticipated.

Last week, the IRS said around 30 million US taxpayers will owe the agency money, three million more than before the GOP tax cut.

Average refunds going out are down 8.4% year-over-year so far. The American Institute of CPAs vice president Edward Karl said “(t)here are going to be a lot of unhappy people over the next month. Taxpayers want a large refund.” Millions will be sorely disappointed.

Last April, Trump falsely said not only will Americans “save a lot of money,” but the filing process will be simplified on “one page, one card,” adding:

“You’ll have a nice, simple form next year. This will be the last year (under the old system). So take pictures of it and enjoy it. This is the last time you’ll have to file a very complex and big tax form. It will be much easier starting next April.”

Tax code changes made things more complicated, along with ordinary Americans benefitting little from the great GOP tax cut heist.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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President Starts a War? Congress Yawns. Threatens to End One? Condemnation!

By Rep. Ron Paul, February 12, 2019

Last week’s bipartisan Senate vote to rebuke President Trump for his decision to remove troops from Syria and Afghanistan unfortunately tells us a lot about what is wrong with Washington, DC. While the two parties loudly bicker about minor issues, when it comes to matters like endless wars overseas they enthusiastically join together.

Indigenous Activists Set Up Protest Camp at South Texas Cemetery to Stop Trump’s Wall

By Gus Bova, February 12, 2019

Just a few feet north rises a sloped earthen river levee, which the Trump administration soon plans to transform into a 30-foot concrete and steel border wall.

Being Marco Rubio

By Philip Giraldi, February 12, 2019

Americans consistently indicate in opinion polls that they approve of congress less than any other part of the federal government. The approval rating is sometimes in the single digits. As the congress was intended, per the Founders, to serve as the direct link to the American people, there is a certain irony in its being the most despised branch of government.

Scotland’s Bomb: Six Times More Powerful than Hiroshima

By Arthur West, February 12, 2019

Trident is a fearsome weapon of mass destruction. Each Trident warhead is at least six times more powerful than the bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima at the end of the second world war.

Is America’s “Deep State” Divided over the Taliban Peace Talks?

By Andrew Korybko, February 12, 2019

Not everyone in America’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) is on the same page regarding the ongoing Taliban peace talks, especially when it comes to the official role of increasingly irrelevant Kabul in this process.

Who Guards the Guardians? “Newsguard”, the “Integrity Initiative” and Other Threats to Independent Media

By Michael Welch, Whitney Webb, and Patrick Henningsen, February 11, 2019

It is estimated that six major corporations own and control 90 percent of everything Americans see, read and hear. Consequently certain narratives will get emphasis, and the spectrum of debate will be restricted.

Pompeo Attempts to Link Iran, Hezbollah to Crisis in Venezuela

By Whitney Webb, February 11, 2019

During a Wednesday night interview with FOX Business host Trish Regan, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made several statements that raised eyebrows, such as claiming that Cuba had invaded Venezuela and “taken control” of the Venezuela’s “security apparatus” and that U.S. sanctions illegally imposed on Venezuela “aren’t aimed at the Venezuelan people.”

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The Canadian and U.S. governments are now openly supporting the treasonous overthrow of the democratically-elected President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro.

The U.S. is now openly holding direct communications with Venezuela’s military, urging them to abandon the president.

I’m not surprised by Donald Trump’s unprincipled arrogance and bullying, but I’m somewhat taken aback by Justin Trudeau, a “moral leader of the free world,” according to the New York Times.

How is it that we have few problems with the undemocratic regime of the Saudi Arabian monarchy, indeed we continue to supply weapons to the Saudis, while they bomb neighbouring Yemen, but Venezuela is problematical?

While the Saudis only occasionally ever hold even municipal elections, Maduro won a national presidential election in May, 2018, with 68 percent (6.2 million) of the votes cast. Henri Falcon came in second with 21 percent. The turnout was 46 percent, despite a boycott by some opposition members.

Although Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said recently that “the Maduro regime…seized power through fraudulent and anti-democratic elections,” and said he is “now fully entrenched as a dictatorship,” this is blatantly incorrect: a boldfaced lie.

International observers of the 2018 Venezuelan elections published four independent reports, all of which concluded that the election results represented the will of the voters and were “uncontestable.” (See this)

An international observer mission led by the Council of Electoral Experts of Latin America (CEELA), comprised of former top electoral officials from throughout the region, said the election was clean. (See this)

As reported in the Windsor Star edition of the National Post on February 5^th, a Canadian delegation which observed the election touted Venezuela’s “strong and vibrant democracy.” Their report noted, “We witnessed a transparent, secure, democratic and orderly electoral and voting process.” (See this)

In September, 2012, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said,

“As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.” (See this)

So, this is not about democracy.

Despite all of this, the media continue to refer to Maduro’s 2018 election as ‘widely viewed as fraudulent.’

Canada and the U.S. have now recognized Juan Guaido, President of the National Assembly, as Acting President of Venezuela.

Mr. Guaido is an appointed, unelected leader of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, which has been largely powerless since Venezuela’s Supreme Court, which supports Maduro, tried to dissolve it in March, 2017.

In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Mr. Guaido did not reject the possibility of supporting U.S. military intervention in Venezuela. For his part, Donald Trump, who has offered support to Guaido, has threatened a “military option” for Venezuela. (See this)

So, why Venezuela? As former BBC journalist Greg Palast points out, the first thing to note is that after four centuries of white supremacy, Venezuela has now had two Black Indian, Mestizo men as presidents, Hugo Chavez and since 2013, Nicolas Maduro, whom the rich whites call “monkeys.” If you don’t think this is partly about racism, then read the history of Haiti.

Media and politicians say Venezuela has been ‘badly managed.’

I’m reminded of Fidel Castro’s quote:

“For forty years you try to strangle us. And then, you criticize us for the way we breathe.”

Chavez and Maduro both have promoted social programs which help the poor majority. When oil prices were high, under Chavez, this paid for poverty reduction, health care, education, etc. According to the CIA Factbook on Venezuela:

“Social investment in Venezuela during the Chavez administration reduced poverty from nearly 50% in 1999 to about 27% in 2011, increased school enrollment, substantially decreased infant and child mortality, and improved access to potable water and sanitation through social investment.” (See this)

The Venezuelan economy is based on oil. It has the largest oil reserves in the world, three times those of Saudi Arabia.

Shortly after Maduro took office in 2013, oil prices began their collapse, and he was forced to borrow money to support the vast social programs, which caused wild inflation. The white privileged class’s bank accounts have become nearly worthless.

In tangent with this, the U.S. began what the UN rapporteur for Venezuela called “medieval sieges.” Now, Trump has cut off Venezuela from oil sale proceeds in the U.S., its biggest customer, receiving 41 percent of its exports.  Trump has seized Venezuelan-owned Citgo oil in the U.S. The British government has seized Venezuelan gold assets. Both are holding these assets until Mr. Guaido is President. THIS violates UN principles expressing a duty not to intervene in domestic matters, and to refrain from the threat or use of force against any state. (See this and this)

Recently, the U.S. declared transactions with Iran to be illegal. This led to the case of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, a Chinese national arrested by Canada.

Now Trump has cut off Venezuela from access to U.S. banks, which renders international transactions difficult, if not impossible. In August 2017, he restricted Maduro’s access to U.S. banks. (See this)

Trump also banned gold transactions with Venezuela. (See this)

Under U.S. pressure, The Bank of England is currently withholding $1.2 billion in gold from Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government. (See this)

The ‘disrespectful’ Mestizos have dared to keep their oil revenues for the benefit of their own people. They must be punished.

Maduro certainly is managing badly, under this blockade.

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James Winter, PhD, is a Professor in the Graduate Program in Communication and Social Justice at the University of Windsor.

Featured image is from Fort Russ

Consapevoli della crescente pericolosità della situazione mondiale, della drammaticità dei conflitti in atto, della accelerazione della crisi, riteniamo che sia necessario far comprendere all’opinione pubblica e ai parlamenti il rischio esistente di una grande guerra.

Essa non sarebbe in alcun modo simile alle guerre mondiali che l’hanno preceduta e, con l’uso delle armi nucleari e altre armi di distruzione di massa, metterebbe a repentaglio l’esistenza stessa dell’Umanità e del Pianeta Terra, la Casa Comune in cui viviamo.

Il pericolo non è mai stato così grande e così vicino. Non si può rischiare, bisogna moltiplicare gli sforzi per uscire dal sistema di guerra.

Discutiamone al

Convegno internazionale

I 70 ANNI DELLA NATO:

QUALE BILANCIO STORICO?

USCIRE DAL SISTEMA DI GUERRA, ORA.

Firenze, Domenica 7 Aprile 2019

CINEMA TEATRO ODEON

Piazza Strozzi

ORE  10:15 – 18:00

Tra i relatori:

Michel Chossudovsky, direttore del Centre for Research on Globalization (Global Research, Canada).

Gino Strada, fondatore di Emergency.

Alex Zanotelli, missionario comboniano.

Franco Cardini, storico.

Generale Fabio Mini.

Tommaso Di Francesco, condirettore de il manifesto.

Giulietto Chiesa, direttore di Pandora TV.

Manlio Dinucci, giornalista.

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E VIDEOMESSAGGI

MICROFONO APERTO AL PUBBLICO

PER LE CONCLUSIONI

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Cell. 393 998 3462

 

VIDEO :

No dia seguinte à assinatura do protocolo de adesão da Macedónia do Norte à NATO, como 30º membro, a Ucrânia efectuou um acto sem precedentes: incluiu na Constituição o compromisso de entrar oficialmente na NATO e, ao mesmo tempo, na União Europeia.

Em 7 de Fevereiro, por sugestão do Presidente Petro Poroshenko – o oligarca enriquecido com o saque de propriedades do Estado, que se recandidata à presidência – o parlamento de Kiev aprovou (com 334 votos contra 35 e 16 abstenções), neste sentido, as emendas da Constituição .

O Preâmbulo enuncia “o rumo irreversível da Ucrânia para a integração euro-atlântica”; os Artigos 85 e 116 decretam que a tarefa fundamental do Parlamento e do Governo é “obter a plena adesão da Ucrânia à NATO e à União Europeia”; o Artigo 102 estabelece que “o Presidente da Ucrânia é o responsável do curso estratégico do Estado para obter a adesão plena à NATO e à União Europeia”.

A inclusão na Constituição ucraniana do compromisso de entrar oficialmente na NATO, envolve consequências gravíssimas:

Ø  No plano interno, vincula a essa escolha o futuro da Ucrânia, excluindo qualquer alternativa e proíbe, efectivamente, qualquer partido ou pessoa que se oponha ao “curso estratégico do Estado”. Já hoje, a Comissão Eleitoral Central impede Petro Simonenko, membro do PC da Ucrânia, de participar nas eleições presidenciais de Março.

O mérito de ter introduzido na Constituição o compromisso de fazer entrar oficialmente a Ucrânia na NATO vai, em particular, para o Presidente do Parlamento, Andriy Parubiy. Co-fundador do Partido Nacional Socialista Ucraniano, em 1991, segundo o modelo do Partido Nacional Socialista de Adolf Hitler; chefe das formações paramilitares neonazis, usadas em 2014 no putsch da Piazza Maidan, sob orientação USA/NATO, e no massacre de Odessa; Chefe do Conselho da Defesa e Segurança Nacional que, com o Batalhão Azov e outras unidades neonazis, ataca civis ucranianos de nacionalidade russa, na parte oriental do país e com esquadrões violentos, efectua espancamentos ferozes, devastação de sedes de partidos políticos e queima de pilhas de livros em perfeito estilo nazi.

Ø  No plano internacional, deve ter-se em conta que a Ucrânia já está na NATO, da qual é um país parceiro: por exemplo, o batalhão Azov, cuja marca nazi é representada pelo emblema da SS Das Reich, foi transformado num regimento de operações especiais, dotado de veículos blindados e treinado por instrutores norte-americanos da 173ª Divisão Aerotransportada, transferidos de Vicenza (Itália) para a Ucrânia, apoiado por outros da NATO.

Visto que a Rússia é acusada pela NATO de ter anexado ilegalmente a Crimeia e de concretizar acções militares contra a Ucrânia, se ela entrasse oficialmente na NATO, os outros 30 membros da Aliança, de acordo com o Art. 5, deveriam “ajudar a parte atacada, iniciando a acção considerada necessária, incluindo o uso da força armada”. Por outras palavras, eles deveriam travar uma guerra contra a Rússia.

Sobre estas implicações perigosas da modificação da Constituição ucraniana – por trás das quais existe, de certeza, a rapina dos estrategas USA/NATO – caiu sobre a Europa, o silêncio político e mediático.

Também está em silêncio, o Parlamento italiano que, em 2017, concordou com um memorando de entendimento com o Parlamento ucraniano, assinado por Laura Boldrini e Andriy Parubiy, reforçando a cooperação entre a República Italiana – a qual nasceu da Resistência contra o nazi-fascismo – e um regime que criou na Ucrânia, uma situação análoga àquela que levou ao advento do fascismo nos anos Vinte e do nazismo nos anos Trinta.

Manlio Dinucci

il manifesto, 12 de Fevereiro de 2019

Il giorno dopo la firma del protocollo di adesione alla NATO della Macedonia del Nord quale 30° membro, l‘Ucraina ha compiuto un atto senza precedenti: ha incluso nella propria Costituzione l’impegno a entrare ufficialmente nella NATO e allo stesso tempo nell’Unione europea.

Il 7 febbraio, su proposta del presidente Petro Poroshenko – l’oligarca arricchitosi col saccheggio delle proprietà statali, che si ricandida alla presidenza – il parlamento di Kiev ha approvato (con 334 voti contro 35 e 16 assenti) gli emendamenti in tal senso della Costituzione.

Il Preambolo enuncia «il corso irreversibile dell’Ucraina verso l’integrazione euro-atlantica»; gli Articoli 85 e 116 decretano che compito fondamentale del parlamento e del governo è «ottenere la piena appartenza dell’Ucraina alla NATO e alla UE»;  l’Articolo 102 stabilisce che «il presidente dell’Ucraina è il garante del corso strategico dello Stato per ottenere la piena appartenenza alla NATO e alla UE».

L’inclusione nella Costituzione ucraina dell’impegno a entrare ufficialmente nella NATO comporta conseguenze gravissime:

Ø  Sul piano interno, vincola a tale scelta il futuro dell’Ucraina, escludendo qualsiasi alternativa, e mette di fatto fuorilegge qualsiasi partito o persona si opponga al «corso strategico dello Stato». Già oggi la Commissione elettorale centrale impedisce a Petro Simonenko, esponente del PC di Ucraina, di partecipare alle elezioni presidenziali di marzo.

Il merito di aver introdotto nella Costituzione l’impegno a far entrare ufficialmente l’Ucraina nella NATO va in particolare al presidente del parlamento Andriy Parubiy. Cofondatore nel 1991 del Partito nazionalsociale ucraino, sul modello del Partito nazionalsocialista di Adolf Hitler; capo delle formazioni paramilitari neonaziste, usate nel 2014 nel putsch di Piazza Maidan, sotto regia USA/NATO, e nel massacro di Odessa; capo del Consiglio di difesa e sicurezza nazionale che, con il Battaglione Azov e altre unità neonaziste, attacca i civili ucraini di nazionalità russa nella parte orientale del paese ed effettua con apposite squadracce feroci pestaggi, devastazioni di sedi politiche e roghi di libri in perfetto stile nazista.

Ø  Sul piano internaziionale, va tenuto presente che l’Ucraina è già di fatto nella NATO, di cui è paese partner: ad esempio il battaglione Azov, la cui impronta nazista è rappresentata dall’emblema ricalcato da quello delle SS Das Reich, è stato trasformato in reggimento operazioni speciali, dotato di  mezzi corazzati e addestrato da istruttori USA della 173a Divisione aviotrasportata, trasferiti da Vicenza in Ucraina, affiancati da altri della NATO.

Poiché la Russia viene accusata dalla NATO di aver annesso illegalmente la Crimea e di condurre azioni militari contro l’Ucraina, se questa entrasse ufficialmente nella NATO, gli altri 30 membri della Alleanza, in base all’Art. 5, dovrebbero «assistere la parte attaccata intraprendendo l’azione giudicata necessaria, compreso l’uso della forza armata». In altre parole, dovrebbero andare in guerra contro la Russia.

Su queste pericolose implicazioni della modifica della Costituzione ucraina – dietro cui vi sono certamente le lunghe mani degli strateghi USA/NATO – è calato, in Europa, il silenzio politico e mediatico.

Tace anche il parlamento italiano, che nel 2017 ha concordato un memorandum d’intesa con quello ucraino, sottoscritto da Laura Boldrini e Andriy Parubiy, rafforzando la cooperazione tra la Repubblica italiana, nata dalla Resistenza contro il nazi-fascismo, e un regime che ha creato in Ucraina una situazione analoga a quella che portò all’avvento del fascismo negli anni Venti e del nazismo negli anni Trenta.

Manlio Dinucci

il manifesto, 12 febbraio 2019

Last week’s bipartisan Senate vote to rebuke President Trump for his decision to remove troops from Syria and Afghanistan unfortunately tells us a lot about what is wrong with Washington, DC. While the two parties loudly bicker about minor issues, when it comes to matters like endless wars overseas they enthusiastically join together. With few exceptions, Republicans and Democrats lined up to admonish the president for even suggesting that it’s time for US troops to come home from Afghanistan and Syria.

The amendment, proposed by the Senate Majority Leader and passed overwhelmingly by both parties, warns that a

“precipitous withdrawal of United States forces from the on-going fight…in Syria and Afghanistan, could allow terrorists to regroup.”

As one opponent of the amendment correctly pointed out, a withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan is hardly “precipitous” since they’ve been there for nearly 18 years! And with al-Qaeda and ISIS largely defeated in Syria a withdrawal from that country would hardly be “precipitous” after almost five years of unauthorized US military action.

Senators supporting the rebuke claim that US troops cannot leave until every last ISIS fighter is killed or captured. This is obviously a false argument. Al-Qaeda and ISIS did not emerge in Iraq because US troops left the country – they emerged because the US was in the country in the first place. Where was al-Qaeda in Iraq before the 2003 US invasion the neocons lied us into? There weren’t any.

US troops occupying Iraqi territory was, however, a huge incentive for Iraqis to join a resistance movement. Similarly, US intervention in Syria beginning under the Obama Administration contributed to the growth of terrorist groups in that country.

We know that US invasion and occupation provides the best recruiting tools for terrorists, including suicide terrorists. So how does it make sense that keeping troops in these countries in any way contributes to the elimination of terrorism? As to the “vacuum” created in Syria when US troops pull out, how about allowing the government of Syria to take care of the problem? After all, it’s their country and they’ve been fighting ISIS and al-Qaeda since the US helped launch the “regime change” in 2011. Despite what you might hear in the US mainstream media, it’s Syria along with its allies that has done most of the fighting against these groups and it makes no sense that they would allow them to return.

Congress has the Constitutional responsibility and obligation to declare war, but this has been ignored for decades. The president bombs far-off lands and even sends troops to fight in and occupy foreign territory and Congress doesn’t say a word. But if a president dares seek to end a war suddenly the sleeping Congressional giant awakens!

I’ve spent many years opposing Executive branch over-reach in matters where the president has no Constitutional authority, but when it comes to decisions on where to deploy or re-deploy troops once in battle it is clear that the Constitution grants that authority to the commander-in-chief. The real question we need to ask is why is Congress so quick to anger when the president finally seeks to end the longest war in US history?

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Environmentalists, veterans of the Standing Rock protests and Carrizo/Comecrudo tribal members are vowing to stare down the president’s bulldozers.

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The 154-year-old Eli Jackson Cemetery sits about a mile from the Rio Grande, south of the Hidalgo County town of San Juan. Encompassing about a quarter-acre, it hosts the remains of some 150 South Texans. Just a few feet north rises a sloped earthen river levee, which the Trump administration soon plans to transform into a 30-foot concrete and steel border wall. South of the wall, the feds plan to clear a 150-foot “enforcement zone,” raising fears that bodies will be exhumed, and most of the cemetery razed. But the dead have new company: a small group of Native American activists and allies who say they’ll stand in front of the bulldozers and refuse to move.

On Wednesday, about 15 people milled about a makeshift campsite at the cemetery where they’d recently erected 10 tents. Over the last three weeks, they’d cleared out Johnson grass and other weeds that had overgrown many of the graves. As I approached the site, Juan Mancias, a long-time environmental and Native American rights activist, came out to welcome me to what he called “Yalui Village.” Mancias, 64, is the tribal chair of the Carrizo/Comecrudo, a group Indigenous to South Texas and Northern Mexico that claims about 1,500 members but isn’t recognized by the federal government. “Yalui” means “butterfly” in the Carrizo/Comecrudo language.

Juan Mancias during a prayer song at the Eli Jackson Cemetery.  GUS BOVA

Last month, Mancias met with descendants of those buried in the cemetery and hatched the encampment idea. Now, he’s leading a coalition of Carrizo-Comecrudo members, Valley residents and allies hailing from South Dakota, Colorado and Missouri in a last-minute bid to stop the border wall. Mancias, who grew up in North Texas but whose family is from the Valley, believes that unmarked graves of Native Americans would be unearthed during wall construction. He’s also a distant descendant of some buried in the cemetery. Around seven people are currently camping overnight at the site, while more come during the day. The group has pledged to engage in civil disobedience if necessary.

“We’re here, ready to protect the environment and our rights as the original people of this land,” Mancias said. “What are they gonna do? Run us over?”

Some of the activists are veterans of the Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. One Lakota/Dakota activist, DuWayne Redwater, came from South Dakota to join the Texas encampment. On Wednesday, Redwater led the group twice in prayer songs. Asked why he traveled so far, he rebuffed the question.

“Being from where I’m from, it’s kind of our job,” he said, “to be landlords and caretakers of this land.”

Others are locals, like Patricia Rubio, who works as a plant nursery technician at the nearby National Butterfly Center, which is also threatened by the wall. Rubio said she plans to grow plants near the cemetery to attract bees and butterflies. The group also plans to set up camps on other properties in the area, depending on how wall construction advances.

DuWayne Redwater sings at the Jackson Ranch Church Cemetery, another graveyard about 500 feet west of the Eli Jackson Cemetery. This cemetery sits further from the levee, so it is likely to survive potential wall construction.

The Eli Jackson Cemetery has been a designated state historical site since 2005. It was originally a family cemetery for the Jacksons, whose patriarch fled Alabama with his African-American wife in the 1850s and purchased a swath of ranchland, including the plot the graveyard sits on, according to Jackson descendants and documents submitted to the Texas Historical Commission. More families used the cemetery over time, including other prominent Anglos who left the Deep South, along with local Hispanic families of less gilded backgrounds. The area was even a waystation for a time on the Underground Railroad, and some escaped slaves settled there permanently, eventually burying their dead in the cemetery. Not all graves are marked.

“We’re here, ready to protect the environment and our rights as the original people of this land.”

Last summer, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released a map indicating that the agency plans to build its wall through the cemetery, stopping just shy of the nearby Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge, using funds that Congress appropriated in March. CBP is aware of the graveyard’s existence: In early October, the Texas Historical Commission sent the federal agency a letter flagging the historic site. But a few weeks later, in an online question-and-answer session, a CBP official responded to a query about the graveyard as though the agency were unfamiliar: “As these historical sites are identified, CBP will be consulting with landowners and other stakeholders to identify strategies that avoid or minimize impacts to these sites to the greatest extent practicable.”

The feds have not yet waived environmental or historic preservation laws for the stretch that includes the cemetery, though that could happen at any moment. No construction contract has been awarded yet, but federal court records show the government hopes to do so in mid-March. Records also show that the government is currently pursuing eminent domain against a property about 400 yards east of the graveyard, though it hasn’t started the process for the cemetery itself. A decade ago, in neighboring Cameron County, at least one small historic ranching cemetery was bulldozed during wall construction, as reported by The Intercept. In an email Thursday, a CBP spokesperson said he didn’t know when the agency would start construction at the Eli Jackson Cemetery, and didn’t answer further questions.

Image on the right: Olda Canales at the Eli Jackson Cemetery.  GUS BOVA

As I was about to leave on Wednesday, an activist pulled me aside to meet one more person. Olda Canales, 81, had just walked up to the encampment with an offering of homemade banana bread. Canales grew up across the gravel road from the cemetery, on a property where two of her brothers still keep some livestock. Now living in a nearby colonia called Las Milpas, Canales knows the Eli Jackson Cemetery as well as anyone. As we threaded among the tombstones, she pointed to the graves of eight people she knew in her lifetime, including her great-grandmother. Canales is happy about the encampment. “Because the ancestors are here,” she said, “I’m grateful someone is taking care of it.”

I asked her about Trump and his wall. “He doesn’t live our life here,” she said, her voice wavering. “So to him, it’s easier.” Then Canales began telling me about her great-grandma, who lay at rest just a few feet away.

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Gus Bova reports on immigration, the U.S.-Mexico border and grassroots movements for the Observer. He formerly worked at a shelter for asylum-seekers and refugees. You can contact him at [email protected].

Featured image: Activists raise their fists atop the levee overlooking the Eli Jackson Cemetery, the exact location of Trump’s impending border wall. GUS BOVA

As teachers and scholars from across the United States, Canada, and other parts of the world, we are united in our opposition to oil and gas exploration and drilling in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. We strongly condemn the draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program and the rushed process by which the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) prepared the document. Downplaying the dangers of expanding fossil fuel development in the Arctic, and disregarding scientific data and concerns raised by Indigenous peoples, the BLM is also shutting the public out of the process, undermining a core purpose of the National Environmental Policy Act.

Fossil fuel development in the Coastal Plain would devastate an Arctic nursery of global significance. It would violate human rights, jeopardize food security, and threaten the health and safety of Indigenous communities. It would contribute to the escalating crises of climate change and biological annihilation. The Arctic Refuge is an irreplaceable ecological treasure. Its fate should not be decided on an expedited timeline that prioritizes outcome over process to benefit the oil industry and its allies.

Ever since drilling proponents snuck an Arctic Refuge leasing provision into the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the Trump administration has been moving aggressively to rush through the required Environmental Impact Statement. During the scoping phase of the EIS, the BLM held only one public hearing outside of Alaska—in Washington, DC, on a Friday night in mid-June 2018. Still, a large number of people showed up to voice their concerns about the ecological, cultural, and climate impacts of drilling in the Arctic Refuge.

Dismissing the concerns raised by the public and Indigenous peoples and “relying on outdated and incomplete science,” the BLM hastily assembled a draft EIS and released it on December 20, 2018, the day before the longest government shutdown in US history began.

The Neets’ąįį Gwich’in tribal governments of Arctic Village and Venetie, who worked in a government-to-government capacity in the EIS process, denounced the BLM draft. In a press release, the tribes claimed:

“The draft goes so far as to boldly declare that oil and gas development in the caribou calving grounds will have no impact at all on the Tribe’s subsistence hunting practices.”

Equally important is that the government did not adequately consult the tribes prior to the release of the document. “Today’s release was done with no prior notification to our Tribal Councils, who have met with the BLM for months on a government-to-government basis,” said Native Village of Venetie Tribal Government Executive Director Tonya Garnett. “The total lack of regard to our tribal governments on an issue of such importance really demonstrates how BLM leadership views their trust responsibility to our Tribes.”

The draft EIS set the deadline for public comments to end on February 11, 2019. On December 21, 2018, the Arctic Village and Venetie tribal governments were joined by a coalition of environmental and Indigenous human rights organizations in submitting requests to extend the public comment period—to April 29, 2019—to ensure robust participation by the interested public. On January 14, 2019, in the midst of the government shutdown, the coalition submitted additional requests, reiterating the need for the extension of the public comment period and asking that additional public hearings be held across the nation so that members of the public outside of Alaska are given an opportunity to have their voices heard. Finally, the coalition requested that notice of the hearings be provided at least two weeks prior to the first hearing date to give the public sufficient time to prepare remarks.

When the BLM announced its plans on January 30, 2019, the agency failed to respond to the requests from the coalition and instead offered a much shorter extension until March 13. The BLM also announced only one public hearing outside of Alaska—again, as during the scoping phase, in Washington, DC. But this second round of hearings was structured on an even more compressed timescale to invite even less public input. The BLM stipulated that all public hearings be finished within a much shorter window of time—starting on February 4 and ending on February 13—and that the first hearing would happen just two business days after the announcement, not the two-week notice requested by the coalition. These decisions underscore the Trump administration’s rampant and repeated efforts to stifle public participation in the process.

Front-page article on the Arctic Refuge Public Hearing in Fairbanks, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, February 5, 2019.

Indeed, the first BLM hearing, held in Fairbanks on February 4, did not even include a public forum: it was merely an “open house” information session for agency officials to provide an overview of the draft EIS. Gwich’in and Iñupiat elders and leaders spoke out against this injustice, and demanded the right to be heard.

“We are beyond frustrated that our elders are not allowed to speak today,” one leader explained.

Tribal members and grassroots groups—including Defend the Sacred Alaska, Native Movement Alaska, and the Fairbanks Climate Action Coalition—joined together to turn the anti-democratic charade into what one participant called a “People’s Hearing.”

The voices of the people need to be heard, because the BLM’s rushed process has resulted in a flawed environmental review.

The draft EIS fails to address the ecological impacts of drilling. Fossil fuel development would degrade the habitat of the Porcupine Caribou Herd as well as that of migratory birds, polar bears, and other creatures. More than 200,000 caribou embark every year on the longest land migration of any animal on earth, journeying from their wintering grounds in Canada and Alaska to the Coastal Plain, where they calve and nurse their young. According to caribou biologists, the entirety of the calving and nursing grounds that stretch from the Arctic Refuge to the adjacent Ivvavik National Park in the Yukon Territory of Canada should be protected if the herd is to survive and thrive. With caribou herds across Canada and the circumpolar world in severe decline, the Department of the Interior should respect scientific and traditional ecological knowledge to sustain this transnational herd. Likewise, the draft EIS minimizes development impacts on the nesting and feeding habitats of millions of birds that migrate to the refuge from all fifty US states and all over the world. Nor does it adequately consider the impacts on polar bears, now listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, as their traditional sea ice habitat continues to disappear due to rapid Arctic warming. As we are in the midst of what scientists call biological annihilation, these impacts on wildlife need to be considered fully, not ignored or minimized to expedite drilling.

The draft EIS fails to address Indigenous rights and environmental justice. For the Gwich’in communities on both sides of the US-Canada border, the prospect of drilling represents an existential threat to their culture. The Gwich’in have relied upon the Porcupine Caribou Herd for their nutritional, cultural, and spiritual sustenance for millennia. To them, the Coastal Plain is Iizhik Gwats’an Gwandaii Goodlit (the Sacred Place Where Life Begins). Their food security, human rights, and cultural future are all stake in this decision. For many Iñupiat people who call the area home, fossil fuel development would lead to increased social stress and air pollution with potentially severe health impacts on community members. The dangerous levels of toxic pollutants emitted by drilling could cause respiratory illnesses and other health problems, as has been documented in Nuiqsut following the development of the Alpine oil field. Indigenous voices must be heard, not marginalized and brushed aside in the rush to develop.

The draft EIS fails to address climate change. Fossil fuel extraction would contribute to further warming of the already rapidly-warming Arctic—an action that would affect the whole earth, as the Arctic is a critical integrator of our planet’s climate systems. As climate scientists keep telling us, we are living through a pivotal moment in history, a time in which the US and other nations around the world need to transition to a sustainable energy future. Deciding not to drill in the Arctic Refuge would be a crucial step in this direction.

Instead of racing to turn a wildlife sanctuary into an oil field, the BLM needs to assess the full impacts of drilling on the ecological, cultural, wilderness, and subsistence values of the Arctic Refuge. The fossil fuel industry has already developed large portions of northern Alaska. The Coastal Plain of the Arctic Refuge—a contiguous stretch of unparalleled public land that constitutes about 5% of Alaska’s Arctic coast—should be protected permanently not auctioned off at breakneck speed.

Since the Trump administration is attempting to complete this significant environmental review in a rushed and undemocratic manner, environmental and Indigenous activists have decided to take ownership of the process and create their own democratic structures. The coalition has organized a series of Public Community Hearings in March. Independent of the BLM’s hasty and flawed process, these hearings will amplify voices of the public and highlight the administration’s suppression of public participation. The public hearings represent a democratic push from below, an effort to enlist—rather than exclude—all people in this critical environmental debate. The coalition has scheduled public hearings in three cities: Albuquerque, New Mexico, on March 5; Denver, Colorado, on March 8; and Seattle, Washington (date will be announced soon on the letter web-page).

As teachers and scholars, we know that younger generations are worried about the escalating dangers to our planet’s biological, climate, and life-support systems. The short-term drive to drill in the Arctic undercuts their hopes for a sustainable future. The natural and cultural values of the Arctic Refuge far exceed any oil that may lie beneath the Coastal Plain. Rather than rushing to lease and drill, the US government should keep this cherished place and vibrant ecosystem protected for generations to come.

Sincerely,

Rosemary Ahtuangaruak (Iñupiaq), Arctic Indigenous Scholar, Arctic Research Consortium of the United States (Alaska, USA)

Subhankar Banerjee, Lannan Chair and Professor of Art and Ecology, University of New Mexico (New Mexico, USA)

Finis Dunaway, Professor of History, Trent University (Ontario, Canada)

Norma Kassi (Vuntut Gwitchin), Director of Indigenous Collaboration at the Arctic Institute of Community-Based Research (Yukon, Canada)

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All images in this article are from thelastoil.unm.edu unless otherwise stated

Americans consistently indicate in opinion polls that they approve of congress less than any other part of the federal government. The approval rating is sometimes in the single digits. As the congress was intended, per the Founders, to serve as the direct link to the American people, there is a certain irony in its being the most despised branch of government.

One can blame the two major parties for much of the negativity, as the process whereby candidates for office rise through the system that seems designed to weed out anyone who has ever expressed any viewpoint that is not approved by the bipartisan establishment. Indeed, many Americans complain that Democratic and Republican congress critters differ only superficially, both being corrupt from top to bottom and largely driven to stay on top so they can continue to benefit personally from the spoils of office.

One of the emptiest of all the empty suits in the Senate is Marco Rubio of Florida. The boyish looking Rubio is, to be sure, ambitious, but his thought processes, if they exist at all, are hard to discern. He is, more than most congressmen, both totally ignorant and completely programed in what he says and how he says it. Anyone who doubts that judgement should watch the February 2016 debate with former New Jersey governor Chris Christie in which Christie totally destroyed Rubio, effectively ending his bid to become the GOP candidate for president. Christie criticized Rubio for memorizing a “25-second speech that is exactly what his advisers gave him.” The two argued, but Rubio seemed stuck with his stump speech, which Christie called him out on every time he launched into it. Christie eventually turned and told the audience “There it is. The 25-second memorized speech.”

Rubio is pretty much straight-line neocon in his pronouncements, his most recent policy statement being that the Venezuelan people have two choices – change their government or starve. He tweeted it with his usual eloquence:

“Hunger & desperation is growing inside #Venezuela & people know the only thing standing in the way of $50 million of food & medicine is #Maduro. Military leaders should make a choice, before a choice is made for them. The window for a negotiated exit is closing fast.”

Columnist Whitney Webb responded with

“Marco Rubio is openly saying that if Venezuela’s military doesn’t turn on Maduro soon, ‘a choice will made for them’ by the United States. Scariest threat for an imminent invasion of Venezuela I have yet to see.”

Rubio, who is Cuban-American, is inevitably hard-line against taking any steps to improve relations with his ancestral homeland, is hostile to “enemies” Russia and China, and wants American soldiers to stay in Afghanistan and Syria forever. It is a formula for continuous conflict worldwide, with the United States paying the tab both in dollars and in casualties.

But Senator Marco Rubio’s greatest affection is reserved for the Jewish state Israel. Why? Because that’s where his money and political support come from, and, for its part, the Israel Lobby sees Rubio as a perfect simple-minded patsy to advance its agenda. Israel’s promoter with the deepest pockets, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, was pursued by Rubio who “…consistently championed Israel in speeches on the Senate floor while also pushing legislation aimed at supporting the cause” during the GOP nomination process. Rubio eventually received Adelson’s endorsement received Adelson’s endorsementl in February 2016.

Before acquiring Adelson’s support, Rubio had “already gained support from Miami billionaire Norman Braman and New York billionaire investor Paul Singer, among others.” Both Braman and Singer are known to be major supporters of Israel. Marco’s affection for both Israel and Florida Jews derives largely from his connection to Braman, a former Philadelphia Eagle’s owner and currently a billionaire Miami resident who owns Florida’s largest network of car dealerships. Braman, an active supporter and funder of the illegal Jewish settlements in the Middle East, has been Rubio’s major financial backer since his early days in Florida state politics and as a quid pro quo whenever Marco expresses his love for both Jews and Israel, he is speaking to and for Braman.

Rubio has recently written, or had written for him, an op-ed in The New York Times entitled “The Truth About BDS and the Lies About My Bill” that seeks to explain why recent legislation to protect Israel that the senator sponsored does not violate the First Amendment guarantee of free speech.

Senate bill S.1 for 2019 finally passed out of the Senate last week on a 77 to 23 vote with Rand Paul as the only Republican Senator to vote against it. The full title of S.1 is the Strengthening America’s Security in the Middle East Act of 2019, which might be considered a bit of a fraud as it has nothing to do with the United States and is really all about giving Israel money and anything else it might desire, to include destroying the nonviolent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement that has targeted Israel’s apartheid. In his speech defending the bill, Rubio openly admitted that he was seeking to help Israel. He also registered his opposition to the impending pullout of U.S. troops from Syria because it would, according to him, “endanger” the Jewish state.

Rubio’s op-ed was written before the final vote on February 5^th, but it predicted correctly that the bill would receive “a bipartisan supermajority” in the Senate. Anything having to do with Israel normally receives such “supermajorities” from congressmen who are intimidated, or expecting to be raptured shortly or on the Israel Lobby payroll.

The op-ed’s author comes out swinging, declaring that critics have “echoed false claims made by anti-Israel activists and others that the bill violates Americans’ First Amendment rights. That line of argument is not only wrong but also provides cover for supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, who embrace an international campaign of discriminatory economic warfare against Israel, a fellow democracy and America’s strongest ally in the Middle East.”

One supposes that “anti-Israel activists” consist of that increasing number of Americans who want to see Israel held accountable for its war crimes and crimes against humanity. Yes indeed, a boycott is “discriminatory economic warfare” using peaceful and non-threatening means to bring about change. And no, Israel is neither a democracy nor an ally of the United States. Has the Senate approved a treaty of alliance with Israel, Marco? You’re in the Senate and should know the answer to that one.

Rubio goes on to claim that “the goal of the movement is to eliminate any Jewish state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.” Wrong again Marco. Even if some BDS supporters might like to see that, it is not a “goal of the movement.” The movement is non-violent and Israel has a large army that would make such an objective a fantasy.

The author then describes how “While the First Amendment protects the right of individuals to free speech, it does not protect the right of entities to engage in discriminatory conduct. Moreover, state governments have the right to set contracting and investment policies, including policies that exclude companies engaged in discriminatory commercial- or investment-related conduct targeting Israel… That’s why, since 2015, more than 25 states, including Florida, have adopted laws or issued executive orders to divest from or prohibit contracts with companies that wage discriminatory economic warfare against Israel.” Wrong again Marco. Free speech includes supporting discriminatory conduct. The American Civil Liberties Union has addressed the issue succinctly, arguing correctly that “Public officials cannot use the power of public office to punish views they don’t agree with. That’s the kind of authoritarian power our Constitution is meant to protect against.” And several state laws protecting Israel from the First Amendment have already been ruled unconstitutional.

Marco then expands on his argument,

“The Combating BDS Act does not infringe on Americans’ First Amendment rights or prohibit their right to engage in boycotts. By design, it focuses on business entities — not individuals — … it focuses on conduct, not speech. Indeed, it does not restrict citizens or associations of citizens from engaging in political speech, including against Israel.”

Indeed Marco, but how do you explain the fact that several of the well-publicized cases involving BDS legislation have involved individuals not “business entities” who refused to sign pledges regarding Israel, which, when last I checked, was not even part of the United States and has nothing to do with contracting in this country? Those individuals have been denied government benefits and have been fired from jobs they had held for years.

And then there is the hypocrisy issue for Marco Rubio. If openly and vocally opposing trade with or travel to Cuba should similarly be suppressed, would he and his Cubanos associates consider that to be constitutional or perfectly legal? I think not. And Cuba, as far as I know, does not line up snipers to shoot children and medical workers while also stealing land from its rightful owners. Israel is a racist apartheid state. Cuba, for all its faults, is not.

It would be difficult to find a more insipid justifications for S.1 than those provided by Marco Rubio. He does not understand that the “state” at all levels is supposed to be politically neutral in terms of providing government services. It is not supposed to retaliate against someone for views they hold, particularly, as in this case, when those views are part of a nonviolent opposition to the policies of a foreign government that many consider to be guilty of crimes against humanity. Rubio clearly believes that you can exercise free speech but government can then punish you by taking away your livelihood or denying you services that you are entitled to if you do not agree with it on an issue that ultimately has nothing to do with the United States. How such a lightweight came to be a Senator of the United States of America eludes me.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

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

Featured image is from The Unz Review

Since its outset, the Trump administration has ratcheted up pressure on Venezuela and radicalized its positions. In the process, the Venezuelan opposition has become more and more associated with—and dependent on—Washington and its allies. An example is the opposition protests slated for February 2. The actions were timed to coincide with the European Union’s “ultimatum” stating that they would recognize the shadow government of Juan Guaidó if President Nicolás Maduro did not call elections within a week’s time.

The opposition’s most radical sectors, which include Guaidó’s Voluntad Popular party (VP) along with former presidential candidate María Corina Machado have always had close ties with the United States. Guaidó, as well as VP head Leopoldo López and the VP’s Carlos Vecchio, who is the shadow government’s Chargé d’Affaires in Washington, were educated in prestigious U.S. universities—not uncommon among Latin American economic and political elites.

The ties between the opposition and international actors are strong: last weekend, Vecchio called the campaign to unseat Maduro “an international effort.” At the same time, Guaidó, referring to opposition-called protests, stated

“today, February 2, we are going to meet again in the streets to show our gratitude to the support that the European Parliament has given us.”

In doing so, Guaidó explicitly connected the authority of outside countries to his own assumption of leadership.

The outcome of Washington’s actions is bound to be unfavorable in a number of ways, regardless of whether or not they achieve regime change. Most important, a government headed by Guaidó will be perceived both by Venezuelans and international observers as “made in U.S.A.” The opposition’s association with foreign powers has allowed the Maduro leadership to rein in discontent members of the Chavista movement.

Furthermore, Venezuelans will perceive any sign of economic recovery under a Guaidó government as made possible by aid, if not handouts, from Washington, designed to discredit Maduro’s socialist government, though such assistance will undoubtedly be used to further U.S. economic and political interests. In fact, U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton has indicated that he is already calling on oil companies to opt for investments in Venezuela once Maduro is overthrown. As he told Fox News,

“we’re in conversation with major American companies now… It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies really invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.”

Either explicitly or implicitly, Washington is dictating strategy, or at least providing input into its formulation. One of the challenges the opposition faces is the need to demonstrate to rank-and-file Venezuelans that the current offensive against Maduro will be different from the disastrous attempts of 2014 and 2017, when anti-government leaders assured protesters that the president would be toppled in a matter of days. The opposition leadership claims that this time is different for two reasons. First, the regional Right turn has deepened, and the opposition is more able than ever to rely on decisive support from Washington and other governments, regardless of how democratic they are—see the neofascist credentials of Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro.

Second, the opposition is counting on the backing of military officers, particularly lower-ranking ones who have allegedly lost patience with Maduro. In addition to some defections, junior officers attempted to stage a military coup just two days before mass opposition protests on January 23 when Guaidó declared himself president. Previously, the Venezuelan opposition expressed a degree of contempt for military officers for their unwillingness to defy the Chavista government. The opposition’s new perspective dates back to Trump’s three meetings with military rebels and his statement, made alongside President Iván Duque of Colombia in September of last year, that the Maduro government “could be toppled very quickly by the military if the military decides to do that.” The U.S. effort to encourage the military to step in was again made evident on Wednesday when John Bolton tweeted that U.S. sanctions against senior officers for alleged illegal actions could be lifted “for any Venezuelan senior military officer that stands for democracy and recognizes the constitutional government of President Juan Guaidó.” Recently, Guaidó made a similar offer to military officers, implying continuity and closeness between Washington and the shadow government.

Also noteworthy is that Guaidó and other VP leaders are closer to Washington than the rest of the opposition. The Wall Street Journal reported that Guaidó consulted Mike Pence the night before his self-proclamation as president on January 23. According to ex-presidential candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski the majority of the opposition parties were not aware of Guaidó’s intentions and in fact did not support the idea.

To make matters worse, the VP-led opposition is openly working hand-in-glove with Washington. Last week Guaidó announced that he would attempt to transport humanitarian aid the United States has deposited on the Colombian and Brazilian borders into Venezuela. He called on the Venezuelan military to disobey orders from the Maduro government by facilitating the passage, while Maduro ordered it blocked. While playing political benefactor, Washington was clearly manipulating the optics of the situation to discredit Maduro and rally more international support for Guaído. In an apparent rebuke to Washington and Guaidó, UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric on Wednesday insisted that the humanitarian aid be “depoliticized.”

Opposition leaders and the Trump government are also working together to isolate Venezuela economically throughout the world. Julio Borges, a leading member of the opposition, has campaigned to convince international financial institutions to shun Venezuelan transactions and has urged Great Britain to refuse to repatriate Venezuelan gold stored in London. President Maduro has responded by calling on the Attorney General to open judicial proceedings against Borges on grounds of treason. Along similar lines, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross are currently attempting to convince international business interests to deny the Venezuelan government access to national assets in their possession.

The Trump administration’s blatant and undisguised interventionism may in fact backfire and help Maduro counter his sagging poll numbers, which last October the polling firm Datanálisis reported was 23%. Maduro recently lashed out on Twitter at the close nexus between Washington and the opposition, saying

“Aren’t you embarrassed at yourselves, ashamed at the way every day by Twitter Mike Pence, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo tell you what you should do.”

Anti-imperialism is, of course, a major cornerstone of the Chavista movement, born from resentment of U.S. interventionism and heavy-handedness that had for decades controlled many of Venezuela’s resources and dictated its economic policies. The maneuvers of the Trump administration and its allies only double down on this narrative, and are counterproductive at best when it comes to solving the crisis. Their actions also risk fanning the flames of anti-Americanism throughout the continent. It wouldn’t be the first time: In 1958, then-vice president Nixon was attacked by a riotous crowd in Caracas, and a decade later Nelson Rockefeller’s fact-finding tour arranged by then-President Nixon faced off with angry disruptive protests. Both incidents were responses to Washington’s self-serving support for regimes that came to power through undemocratic means, in some cases with U.S. involvement.

In its strategy towards Venezuela, Washington is invoking not only its Cold War policy but the Monroe Doctrine and its view of Latin America as the U.S.’ “backyard,”—a claim that is especially anathema throughout the region. Indeed, Vice President Pence said to Fox News, answering a question about why Trump is withdrawing troops from Syria and Afghanistan while intervening in Venezuela.

“President Trump has always had a very different view of our hemisphere,” he said. “He’s long understood that the United States has a special responsibility to support and nurture democracy and freedom in this hemisphere and that’s a longstanding tradition.”

President Trump recently appointed neocon Elliott Abrams as special envoy to Venezuela. Abrams has in many ways personified the application of the Monroe Doctrine with his blatant disregard for human rights violation and the principle of non-intervention in Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador in the 1980s and his alleged implication in the 2002 coup against Hugo Chávez.

Trump’s decision regarding CITGO, a U.S.-based company owned by Venezuela’s state-owned PDVSA, speaks to a dangerous precedent. On Wednesday he declared that jurisdiction over CITGO would be turned over to the shadow government, and appealed to other countries to follow similar steps. While condemning anti-democratic actions and fraudulent elections in Venezuela, these sanctions ignore the rule of law. The Maduro government was never given the opportunity to defend itself and legal procedures were not followed.

It is always a dubious exercise to guess at President Trump’s intentions. His actions in Venezuela could be designed to divert attention from the multiple probes into his own unethical behavior, or they may be a way to draw attention away from the utter fiasco of U.S. interventions in the Middle East, from Libya to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Trump may also view his Venezuela policy as a quick fix to Make America Great Again. Along similar lines, Trump evidently sees the downfall of the Maduro government as the ultimate proof that socialism doesn’t work. He indicated as much in his State of the Union address on Tuesday when he used the topic of Venezuela as a springboard for declaring:

“We are born free, and we will stay free… America will never be a socialist country.”

Yet regardless of short-term results of U.S. support for Guaidó, the final outcome will be negative. There are a number of reasons why: first, it bolsters the position of the most radical elements of the opposition led by the VP party, thus contributing to the fragmentation of the anti-Chavista movement. Second, it attaches a “made in U.S.A.” label to those positioned to govern should Maduro fall. The stigma would undoubtedly scuttle their chances of maintaining longstanding majority support and in doing so would undermine their authority and ability to govern. Third, the appeal to the military to save Venezuela has terrifying implications for a continent with a long history of military rule. And finally, the seizure of Venezuelan assets, which have then been turned over to a political ally, violates sacred norms of property rights, and in the process erodes confidence in the system of private property. These four considerations are an indication of the multiple adverse impacts that the Trump administration’s rash approach to the Maduro government will have on the United States, Venezuela, and the rest of the region.

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Steve Ellner is a retired professor from Venezuela’s University of the East, a long-time contributor to NACLA: Report on the Americas, and currently associate managing editor of “Latin American Perspectives.” Among his over a dozen books on Latin America is his edited The Pink Tide Experiences: Breakthroughs and Shortcomings in Twenty-First Century Latin America(Rowman & Littlefield, 2019).

Featured image: A Hands Off Venezuela protest in London on January 28, 2018. (Socialist Appeal/Flickr).

The Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament looks forward to 2019 as another year of campaigning to rid our country and our world of the scourge of nuclear weapons, writes ARTHUR WEST

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In Scotland we are very conscious that 25 miles down the road from the wonderful city of Glasgow the Faslane naval base houses the Trident nuclear weapons system.

Trident is a fearsome weapon of mass destruction. Each Trident warhead is at least six times more powerful than the bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima at the end of the second world war.

However the radioactive fallout from a weapon as powerful as Trident would also cause deaths and injuries around the world — even in countries not directly involved in the conflict. A number of scientists are also of the view that climate change affecting global food supplies could not be ruled out in the event of a nuclear weapons exchange anywhere in the world.

It is a popular myth that nuclear weapons provide security. As Tim Wallis says in his wonderful book The Truth About Trident,

“security in today’s world does not come from military might, or from threatening other countries with nuclear destruction. It comes from working effectively with others through multilateral institutions such as the UN to ensure that all countries are secure from threats like fascism, genocide, megalomaniacal attempts at global domination and other ideologies that potentially threaten all of us.”

The destructive power of the current Trident system means that it presents a major threat to world peace. It is even more worrying that the UK government is pressing ahead with plans to replace the current system with an even more lethal set of weapons of mass destruction.

A number of recent reports have indicated that the cost of Trident replacement is spiralling and now looks likely to exceed £200 billion. This represents a major drain on public spending and takes money away from areas such as health, education and community care.

Our executive committee recently decided to organise a series of Scrap Trident Action Days across Scotland throughout 2019. These activities will involve street stalls, public meetings and protests aimed at hammering home the message that it is time for Trident to go and, if it does, the world becomes a more peaceful place.

Scottish CND also works in partnership with a number of organisations in the wider Scottish peace movement. For example we are part of the Scottish Don’t Bank on the Bomb Network that campaigns to raise awareness about the way some banks and financial institutions finance the production of nuclear weapons.

A recent report produced by the network highlighted the point that two Scottish financial institutions, the Royal Bank of Scotland Group and Standard Life Aberdeen, have between them made available over £2.8bn to companies involved in nuclear weapons production between 2014 -2017.

The level of financial assistance which continues to be available to nuclear weapons producing companies means that the work of the network is vitally important – and this is why Scottish CND will continue to play a full part in its activities during 2019.

It would be remiss of me when giving any account of the current work of Scottish CND not to mention our involvement with ICAN — the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

Within the structures of ICAN Scottish CND work with partner organisations to support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons which was passed at a special session of the United Nations in July 2017.

This treaty, which asks countries to commit themselves to not becoming involved in the testing, production, manufacturing and stockpiling of nuclear weapons, is very welcome indeed. The treaty also asks countries such as Britain to take steps to get rid of their nuclear weapons as a step towards a peaceful and more secure world. At the present time 19 states have fully ratified the treaty and 70 have signed the treaty with an intention to ratify.

Unfortunately the UK government has refused to engage with the treaty and is doing their best to ignore it. However in Scotland the First Minister and a number of MPs from different political parties have indicated their support for it.

In terms of Scottish CND priorities we will continue with the uphill struggle to pressurise the Westminster government to take a more serious view of this very important nuclear disarmament treaty.

It goes without saying that the world is a very dangerous place at the moment. The Trump administration seems intent on moving away from treaties aimed at the reduction of nuclear weapons. The British government also seem totally committed to pressing ahead with Trident renewal. This is why we must increase our activity.

At the present time we have active local groups in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Renfrewshire, Ayrshire, Aberdeen and the emergence of groups in Fife and Arran. It will be one of our priorities in 2019 to try to add to our local groups and networks and strengthen our anti nuclear weapons message across the country.

The last two years have also seen the revival of the Scottish CND Trade Union Network. The main aim of the Network is to raise awareness about nuclear weapons issues within the Trade Union movement. The Network organises regular stalls at Trade Union conferences and provides briefing papers on issue such as Defence Diversification and the health and safety dangers arising from basing nuclear weapons in Scotland.

To sum up: we realise that currently we are working in a very difficult political context – it has been a particular challenge since 2016 to prevent peace issues being totally lost within the constant debate around Brexit issues.

However, despite this current difficult political context, Scottish CND and our partners in the wider peace movement are well aware that it is our responsibility to continue struggling for a more peaceful world free of the scourge of nuclear weapons. In the words of Kate Hudson, general secretary of CND, CND is needed now more than ever.

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Arthur West is the chair of Scottish CND.

Featured image is from Morning Star

Last week, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) uncovered a large ISIS base in the outskirt of the city of al-Mayadin in the province of Deir Ezzor. The base contained several mass graves of civilians who had been executed by the terrorist group more than two years ago, a training ground, a munitions workshop and a tunnel network to connect various positions. Army troop seized dozens of improvised rocket-assisted munition and a destroyed T-72 battle tank on the site.

This revelation once again highlighted large security problems, which still exist in the areas liberated from ISIS in eastern Syria. Al-Mayadin was liberated by the SAA in October 2017. However, government forces still release reports about newly found weapons caches and tunnels abandoned by ISIS. This is likely a result of the insufficient efforts or lack of resources to fully secure the area.

Such problems become especially important as the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are finishing their operation against ISIS in the Hajin pocket and multiple ISIS members are fleeing it towards the Homs-Deir Ezzor desert, northeastern Syria and western Iraq.

On February 9, the SDF announced the start of its final push to eliminate the ISIS-held pocket. The announcement came in response to an attack by a group of 12 ISIS members on SDF positions in the Omar oil fields. SDF fighters, backed by US-led coalition warplanes, repelled the attack killing 10 ISIS members. 2 others withdrew to their positions in the Euphrates Valley.

On February 10, the SDF press center announced that the group had captured 4 supply roads and 19 positions from ISIS. However, clashes in the area are still ongoing, according to this version of the events.

Reports are appearing from multiple sources that the US-led coalition and ISIS are holding negotiations behind the scenes. According to some sources, the sides even reached an initial agreement, which would allow the terrorist group’s leaders and fighters to withdraw to an unspecified area. The sources believe that this area will be the al-Anbar desert in western Iraq or the desert near al-Tanaf in southeastern Syria, where a U.S. base is located. The families of ISIS members and injured ISIS fighters will be allowed to enter the areas controlled by the SDF.

The SDF has a long history of faking battles against ISIS in order to cover its deals with the terrorist group. For example, in October 2017, the Kurdish group was claiming that its fighters are storming the last ISIS positions in the city of Raqqa, while in reality the terrorists were being transferred with their weapons to Deir Ezzor province.

A new wave of protests against the US-led coalition took place in the provinces of Deir Ezzor and al-Raqqa during the weekend. During the events organized by local Arab leaders, protesters were burning improvising US and French flags and demanding the end of the foreign occupation as well as reconciliation with Damascus.

Meanwhile, the SDF announced that its security forces had arrested 63 “terrorists” during a large-scale combing operation in Raqqa city. The group’s statement didn’t mention ISIS or accuse these supposed terrorists of any real crimes. Some local sources say that the arrested persons may have been supporters of the reconciliation with Damascus.

The situation in the Idlib de-escalation zone remains tense with both the government and militants accusing each other of ceasefire regime violations. According to the existing data, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is actively attempting to form a united command of the existing militant groups in the area in order to be prepared for an expected large-scale military confrontation.

On the other hand, Russian military advisers and Russia-linked private military contractors continue to train pro-government forces. Groups of photos showing Russian specialists training SAA personnel and members of pro-government militias appear on a constant basis.

On February 9, the YPG-linked Afrin Liberation Forces (ALF) announced that Kurdish forces had carried out a series attacks against pro-opposition militants in the Turkish-occupied area of Afrin in northern Syria on February 6th and 7th. The attacks targeted two vehicles and two positions of the Turkish-backed Hamza Division and Jaysh al-Sharqiyah. As a result, seven militants from both groups were injured.

Meanwhile, a large-scale media campaign about allegedly growing tensions between Tehran and Moscow over the increasing Iranian and Hezbollah presence in Syria can be observed in mainstream media outlets and Israeli-linked media organizations. The goal of the campaign is to impact the political situation in Syria ahead of the expected withdrawal of US forces.

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Not everyone in America’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) is on the same page regarding the ongoing Taliban peace talks, especially when it comes to the official role of increasingly irrelevant Kabul in this process.

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan paid a surprise visit to Afghanistan at the beginning of the week where he spoke about the need to include increasingly irrelevant Kabul in the ongoing peace process, which was a reaffirmation of the US’ official position on the matter but one which isn’t being followed by Special Envoy Khalilzad in his latest peace push with the Taliban. The emerging differences over this topic between the military and diplomatic representatives of the US “deep state” highlight the diverging interests between these two bureaucratic factions when it comes to America’s possible withdrawal from Afghanistan and deserve to be explored a bit more at length in order to properly understand their competing visions.

Shanahan represents the military’s traditionally conservative approach towards peace talks, which are usually approached with caution and interpreted by this institution as more of a political game than anything else. Over one hundred thousand Americans have fought for Kabul’s sake, roughly 20,000 of them have been wounded for it, and over 2,000 gave their lives to protect its writ, which is why it’s so humiliating for the military to see the State Department’s envoy dealing exclusively with the Taliban and negotiating their country’s withdrawal with it instead of with the internationally recognized authorities in the Afghan capital. Although the argument can be made that it’s better for America’s long-term military interests to “cut and run” from this quagmire, it can’t be overlooked how much prestige the military believes that it loses by doing so, especially in the context of a “negotiated surrender” to the Taliban.

As for Zalmay Khalilzad, he’s not fazed by any of this since professional diplomats often understand conflicts much differently than their military counterparts do and are more concerned with the “bigger picture” than anything else. That being the case, Khalilzad might rightly believe that America’s international reputation can be somewhat improved by finally withdrawing from Afghanistan and responsibly allowing its most popular on-the-ground forces to progressively return to power as part of a “political transition”, which would show that “America First” is just as much about reaching pragmatic peace deals with hated foes as it is about increasing the pressure on Great Power rivals. In addition, it would therefore make sense to earn the Taliban’s trust in order to protect American investments after the withdrawal.

Concerning the intelligence community, none of their high-level representatives have yet to hint at their stance towards the Taliban peace talks, but that’s to be expected since they’re only officially supposed to procure, analyze, and disseminate information to their country’s military and diplomatic leaders involved in this process than independently try to shape the outcome one way or another. That doesn’t mean that a few of them might not “go rogue” and try to subvert the President’s plans like some of their colleagues have been doing in other respects such as their nation’s relations with Russia, but just that this has yet to be evidenced and might not actually materialize since they’re probably more concerned with other operations instead, such as “containing” China.

In conclusion, two of America’s three most relevant “deep state” factions are certainly at odds with one another, but the very nature of the diplomat-driven US-Taliban peace talks means that the military doesn’t have much of a say in this process. It’s not that the institution as a whole wouldn’t benefit from a withdrawal, or even that it’s entirely against such a move in the first place, but just that they’d prefer for it to be done in what they traditionally view to be a “dignified” fashion by at least going through the motions of involving the increasingly irrelevant authorities in Kabul who America’s servicemen fought, died, and were wounded to protect.  They needn’t worry, however, because Khalilzad will probably rope them into this arrangement sooner than later, though likely only at the tail end for symbolism’s sake and under intense pressure to sign a pre-agreed Taliban peace deal.

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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 Stars and Stripes

African boxing and boxers merged into the consciousness of the different societies fighting for liberation from colonial control and as such the careers of the most successful ones became entwined with the nationalist sentiments of the day as the connection between Roy Ankrah’s British Empire title win and Kwame Nkrumah’s release from British detention showed. — Excerpt from “The Africans: Boxing and Africa” by Adeyinka Makinde, Chapter 8 of the Cambridge Companion to Boxing

February 12th 1951 is a day writ large in the history of Ghana. It was the day that Kwame Nkrumah was released from detention by the British colonial authorities in the Gold Coast, later to become the independent state of Ghana in 1957.

Nkrumah, perhaps the greatest purveyor of Pan-Africanism, was encouraging of African endeavour in all fields of human existence. This included lauding the achievements of boxers such as Roy Ankrah who became the first African fighter to win a British Empire boxing championship, and Dick Tiger, the three-time world champion whose 1963 bout with Gene Fullmer in the city of Ibadan was the first world title bout held in “black Africa”.

As I note in my chapter on Africa and boxing in the Cambridge Companion to Boxing, African boxers reflected the nationalist aspirations of the day and their achievements intensified the Pan-Africanist sentiments of the times as evidenced for instance by the popularity of Hogan Bassey among South Africans.

Boxers also played a part in ethnicized revolts in the post-independence era. Many Ga boxers, as part of the “Tokyo Joe” sub-culture, represented a form of resistance against the ruling government of Ghana, while Dick Tiger, Nigeria’s “Pugilistic Plenipotentiary” would become a propagandist for the secessionist state of Biafra.

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

Adeyinka Makinde is the author of Dick Tiger: The Life and Times of a Boxing Immortal and Jersey Boy: The Life and Mob Slaying of Frankie DePaula. He is also a contributor to the Cambridge Companion to Boxing. 

Featured image: Roy Ankrah (Left) the featherweight champion of the British Empire with Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, leader of the independence movement of the Gold Coast which later became Ghana. (CREDIT: James Barnor)

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Biodiversity of insects is threatened worldwide. Here, we present a comprehensive review of 73 historical reports of insect declines from across the globe, and systematically assess the underlying drivers. Our work reveals dramatic rates of decline that may lead to the extinction of 40% of the world’s insect species over the next few decades.

In terrestrial ecosystems, Lepidoptera, Hymenoptera and dung beetles (Coleoptera) appear to be the taxa most affected, whereas four major aquatic taxa (Odonata, Plecoptera, Trichoptera and Ephemeroptera) have already lost a considerable proportion of species.

Affected insect groups not only include specialists that occupy particular ecological niches, but also many common and generalist species. Concurrently, the abundance of a small number of species is increasing; these are all adaptable, generalist species that are occupying the vacant niches left by the ones declining. Among aquatic insects, habitat and dietary generalists, and pollutant-tolerant species are replacing the large biodiversity losses experienced in waters within agricultural and urban settings. The main drivers of species declines appear to be in order of importance:

To read the full scientific report click here

“Quis custodes ipsos custodet?”

(translation: “Who guards the guardians?”)

– Juvenal (from The Satires – Satire VI, lines 347-348)

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[CKUW 95.9FM, the radio station out of which the Global Research News Hour is produced each week, depends on listener support to survive and thrive. The station is having its annual fund-raiser until February 15th. The next episode will be a live broadcast at 2:00pm EST, 11:00 am PST and 7:00pm GMT on February 15th. The show can be streamed at ckuw.ca. Please consider a donation to show your support for Global Research News Hour and similar spoken word shows which break from the corporate media mono-culture of ideas. Donations can be made at fundrive.ckuw.ca ]

Global Research is in the direct line of fire of the forces described in this week’s interview. Support from our audience is crucial to retaining editorial independence and providing alternative and accurate information and analysis each week. Take a moment to make a donation to the site and pledge your support. – MAW]

Three decades ago, authors Edward Hermann and Noam Chomsky made the point in Manufacturing Consent that conventional news media in actual practice serves and defends the social, economic and political agendas of privileged groups within domestic society, the state and the global order.

It is estimated that six major corporations own and control 90 percent of everything Americans see, read and hear. Consequently certain narratives will get emphasis, and the spectrum of debate will be restricted. Without popular support, elite power interests seeking to maintain an agenda of corporate plunder and military intervention cannot prevail. Hence, the need for talking points about “humanitarian interventions”, “self-defence against the terrorists”, and “fiscal prudence” to distract and divert attention from corporate pillage.

The arrival of the internet and social media in the last two decades changed the playing field and gave independent analysts with dissenting opinions on issues ranging from foreign policy in the Middle East, to 9/11 to domestic U.S. and Canadian politics a chance to share their views with millions. According to a September 2016 Gallup poll, Americans indicated that their trust in mass media, principally newspapers, radio and tv had fallen to its lowest level in history – 32 percent. According to a Pew Centre poll conducted a year later, two out of three Americans get their news via social media, with 45 percent of those getting their news from facebook, 18 percent from Youtube, and 11 percent from twitter.

A major benchmark was reached during the 2016 U.S. Presidential election campaign. Despite reporting that appeared to favour the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, Republican Donald Trump emerged victorious, much to the chagrin and exasperation of the punditry at that time.

The assumption, first hinted at by Ms. Clinton, was that Russia was hacking into the election and using all manner of cyber tools in order to rig the election in Trump’s favour.

The powers that be now have a convenient pre-text for disrupting the spread of independent media outlets that threaten their grip on the public’s imagination. To protect us from foreign interference and “Kremlin-supported media”  we have seen Facebook forge a partnership with the Atlantic Council to control the spread of fake news and disinformation. A body called the Integrity Initiative, formed in autumn 2015, to alert “politicians, policy-makers, opinion leaders and other interested parties” to the threat posed by Russia to domestic democratic institutions in the United Kingdom, the U.S., Canada and across Europe. And just last year, a new start-up called Newsguard wants to install a plug-in on all the world’s most popular browsers that would utilize the fact-checking expertise of their corps of professional journalists to discern, according to their own criteria, disinformation sites from ‘reliable’ ones.

This week’s Global Research News Hour looks into these would-be defenders of democratic discourse and goes into some depth, based on the figures spearheading these efforts, to determine the ulterior motives behind these services.

Whitney Webb, is the author of a major expose on Newsguard specifically. She shares her understanding of this informational Trojan Horse in our first half hour.

In our second half hour, geopolitical analyst Patrick Henningsen tracks the larger trend of assaulting independent journalism in the name of patrolling disinformation on the web. He introduces our audience to the Integrity Initiative, and the Facebook/Atlantic Council partnership. He also offers some thoughts about a recently announced decision by the Canadian government to appoint a panel of non-partisan bureaucrats to monitor elections for ‘foreign interference’ and the practical outcome of such efforts.

We end the show with an appeal to audiences to support host radio station CKUW during its annual Fundrive.

Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News and has contributed to several other independent, alternative outlets. Her work has appeared on sites such as Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire among others. She also makes guest appearances to discuss politics on radio and television. She currently lives with her family in southern Chile.

Patrick Henningsen is an American writer and global affairs analyst and founder of independent news and analysis site 21st Century Wire, occasional co-host of UK Column and is host of the SUNDAY WIRE weekly radio show broadcast globally over the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR). He has written for a number of international publications and has done extensive on-the-ground reporting in the Middle East including work in Syria and Iraq.

(Global Research News Hour Episode 248)

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Two weeks ago, the heads of the United States intelligence and security agencies presented their annual “Worldwide Threat Assessment Report” to Congress. The report inevitably made front page news because it appeared to contradict President Donald Trump on a number of key points, most particularly concerning North Korea, ISIS, Russia, and Iran. The president predictably lashed out on the following day with a tweet, declaring inter alia that the intelligence community was “extremely passive and naïve when it comes to the dangers of Iran.” He also recommended that the directors of the agencies should “go back to school,” presumably to address their ignorance on some international issues.

The report’s key judgements included an assessment that North Korea is “unlikely to give up all of its nuclear weapons and production capabilities,” that the Islamic State in Syria “still commands thousands of fighters,” that Iran is in compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement (JCPOA), and that Moscow seeks to “divid[e] Western political and security institutions.”

The report also dismissed the immigration issue along the Mexican border as a major threat apart from noting that instability will continue due to high crime and unemployment in Central America. It also included climate change as a developing national security issue, both viewpoints contradicting the White House’s own assessments.

Regarding North Korea, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats observed that Pyongyang “is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capability because its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival,” which would seem to be a reasonable assessment. Likewise the assessment for ISIS which “…still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria [as well as] thousands of dispersed supporters around the world, despite significant leadership and territorial losses… The group will exploit any reduction in CT pressure to strengthen its clandestine presence and accelerate rebuilding key capabilities, such as media production and external operations.”

But the major area of disagreement with Trump is over Iran, where the danger of a new war is perhaps most pressing. The report notes that

“Iranian officials have publicly threatened to … resume nuclear activities that the [nuclear accord] limits if Iran does not gain the tangible trade and investment benefits it expected from the deal.”

But Coats also added that

“We do not believe Iran is currently undertaking the key activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device,” a comment that was endorsed by CIA Director Gina Haspel.

Iran did indeed have an exploratory nuclear weapons program up until 2003 when the effort was abandoned because the threat from Iraq was eliminated by the United States. Since that time the program has not been revived both for economic reasons and on religious grounds. A 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s nuclear program looked into the allegations that there was a secret effort underway but came up with nothing substantive apart from disinformation created and circulated by the Israelis. It concluded,

“We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.”

Some critics of the current threat assessment ignore the fact that the report represents a best effort collective judgment on issues and countries where hard intelligence is often lacking. Sometimes the assessments are in part speculative, as in the case of the review of the increasingly adversarial relationship with Russia and China, where both nations “are more aligned than at any point since the mid-1950s, and the relationship is likely to strengthen in the coming year as some of their interests and threat perceptions converge, particularly regarding perceived U.S. unilateralism and interventionism and Western promotion of democratic values and human rights. Russia and China seek to shape the international system and regional security dynamics and exert influence over the politics and economies of states in all regions of the world and especially in their respective backyards… The post-World War II international system is coming under increasing strain.” Again, it is a reasonable assessment to include in a “threat” report, apart from the insertion of some self-vindicating knee-jerk language relating to unilateralism, interventionism, democratic values, and human rights.

Regarding Iran in particular, the Israel Lobby has worked hard to convince both Washington and the Europeans that there is some kind of Persian global threat that is developing, employing both nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. The Intelligence Community report to a certain extent dismisses that proposition and does so in no uncertain terms. It is a slap at the Israelis and their promoters in Congress and the media, which have been all too effective in their campaign to distort and manipulate U.S. national security policy to serve their purposes.

Unfortunately, however, neocons to include Mike Pompeo, John Bolton and Elliott Abrams do not reason from facts. They are ideologues who stake out positions based both on religion and on a clear perception that serving Israel’s interests is the path to power in Washington. And, unfortunately, they are well placed to manipulate President Trump and appear to be calling most of the shots on U.S. foreign and national security policy.

So, it would appear that the intelligence and national security’s threat assessment is pretty much on target, bearing in mind that it is a “threat assessment” and not World Affairs 101. It is intended as a document that examines problems without necessarily providing solutions or insisting on certain courses of action.

And also bear in mind that the authors work for the president. Critics point out how often the intelligence community has gotten things wrong, frequently citing the Iraq war, but they fail to understand that once upon a time, experienced professionals who largely remained apolitical ran the nation’s security agencies, serving both Democrats and Republicans. But that all changed after several scandals involving the CIA and the FBI in the 1960s and 1970s.  Ever since the time of President Jimmy Carter the top positions have been political appointees, who owe their jobs and their celebrity status to the man in the White House.

To cite only one example of how intelligence is politicized, in 2002-3, analysts and case officers at the working and managerial level at CIA were dubious about the alleged links of Saddam Hussein with the 9/11 terrorists and even more critical of the claimed Weapons of Mass Destruction. But the then Director of CIA George Tenet, who was not a trained intelligence officer, knew what his pal George Bush wanted to hear and he delivered with a “slam dunk,” even though he must have known that the information he had reviewed was completely unreliable. And it didn’t help that a cadre of Israel-firsters in the Pentagon and in the White House itself were simultaneously feeding phony intelligence into the system, straight up to the desk of Vice President Dick Cheney, in an effort to corrupt the entire process and bring on a war.

So even when the intelligence boffins get something right it can turn out wrong. The current national security incumbents are surely right about Iran, in particular, but the White House has chosen a different set of what it chooses to regard as facts, one apparently presented to the president by the likes of John Bolton and in late-night phone calls with heavyweight Zionist investors like Sheldon Adelson. So the answer to the question whether the intelligence community needs to go back to school is “No. But it needs to be de-politicized and have professional management restored.” That, of course, will never happen.

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This article was originally published on American Herald Tribune.

Philip M. Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served nineteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was the CIA Chief of Base for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and was one of the first Americans to enter Afghanistan in December 2001. Phil is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a Washington-based advocacy group that seeks to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values and interests. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from President Trump and intelligence community leaders, Jan. 31, 2019. Image credit: Twitter.com/realDonaldTrump

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“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   

With Trump the silences are usually as expressive of his intentions as the incoherent dogmas. Indeed, his Second State of the Union Address (delivered in Congress on February 5, 2019) gives a clear insight into the political mentality of tormentor in chief when it comes to the human condition.

The speech contains many tensions, but none more illuminating than his denunciation of socialism and his silence about the resurgence of fascist tendencies throughout the world, and not least in his own country, which he several times anointed that night as the best the world has ever known. He is not the first leader to make such a claim, of course, but he is undoubtedly the least qualified, and his own two years of faulty leadership has contributed to making America far less admired and far more feared, than previously.

His diatribe against socialism had at least two targets: First, the Sanders wing of the Democratic Party now personified by the more radical recently elected women in the House of Representatives, especially Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as well as the declared female presidential aspirants, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Tulsi Gabbard. And secondly, the Maduro elected government in Venezuela, which he alleged failed because of its ‘socialist policies.’ Trump contends that these policies transformed Venezuela from being a wealthy example to the rest of Latin America into a society of ‘abject poverty and despair.’

When it comes to the United States, to contend that there is an incipient ideological war between the Democrats as the party of socialism and the Republicans as the party of capitalism, Trump seems to be launching a more virulent version of the Cold War than what existed during the period of rivalry with the Soviet Union. It also overlooks the persistence of the toxic ‘bipartisan consensus,’ that owes its zombie-like persistence to the Faustian Bargains struck with both political parties that merge support for global militarism with that of capitalism as reinforced by the dysfunctional ‘special relationship’ to Israel. There is no current intimations that the Democratic Party will field a ticket for the 2020 elections that will challenge this consensus.

The media liberal mainstream, as might be expected, ignores the bipartisan consensus that has by now inscribed anti-socialism in its digital DNA. A typical reaction is that of Chris Cuomo, the unabashedly anti-Trump CNN news program host who warns the Democrats not to fall into the supposed trap set by Trump. Cuomo advises the Democrats that they would be making a potentially fatal mistake if they would be so foolish as to try to defend ‘socialism’ as a desirable option for American voters.

Of course, the more progressive views articulated by these Democratic presidential hopefuls, as well as by Stacey Adams who the DNC wisely chose for a formal response to Trump’s speech, is not socialism in any meaningful sense. It does not propose shrinking the private sector by shifting the ownership of the mainsprings of production and services to the public sector, that is, to government control. Trump, knowingly or more likely unknowingly, confused ‘socialism’ with a politics of empathy for the American people. Empathy under current conditions means such humane policies as affordable health care for all, highly subsidized higher education and student debt relief, equitable taxation, environmental and climate change sanity, drastically reduced military spending, and vastly increased infrastructure investment. I would add to this list an end to regime change geopolitics, a reduced global military profile, and an upgrading of respect for international law and international institutions, especially the United Nations.

To denounce socialism as unamerican is something never done even during the ideological hysteria of McCarthyism that disgraced the nation at the height of the Cold War. Trump’s language seems intended to brand those who espouse socialism by name or even by their platforms as subversive adherents of a faith alien to American values and traditions:

“… we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country. America was founded on liberty and independence — not government coercion, domination, and control. We are born free, and we will stay free.”

It may be helpful to recall that during the Great Depression the Socialist Party under the leadership of Norman Thomas was a respected and formidable presence on the American political landscape, widely praised by many non-socialist for pushing New Deal Democrats to adopt more compassionate policies toward the poor and unemployed precisely to weaken the appeal of socialist alternatives. For those of us old enough to remember, there are few active in American political life then or now more imbued with American values and our better angels than Normal Thomas. To assert, as Trump did, that socialism is un-American is to insult the memory of this great American.

Perhaps, most serious of all, was the seemingly deliberate misidentification of the ideological threat actively undermining authentic American political, economic, social, and cultural traditions, institutions, reputation, and morale. It is the fascist threat that is real, and the socialist alternative that is fictitious. The celebration of militarism, bonding with autocratic oppressors around the world, the demonizing of immigrants and asylum seekers, war mongering toward Iran, challenging the rule of law, and ultra-nationalist versions of patriotism that are threatening the future of America, not fascism. The perversion of values and the neglect of the real interest of the American people were notably symbolized by several striking silences in Trump’s long speech: he not time to include a sentence about climate change, gun violence, or predatory warfare in Yemen.

If we are to restore humane republicanism in America it will require not only a repudiation of Trump and Trumpism but also a rejection of the bipartisan consensus and deep state geopolitics. This means we must hope that the next American president will be a truly progressive female candidate who breaks free of the consensus and is not embarrassed by an ardent embrace of social and political justice for all Americans and a global outlook that is responsive to urgent long-term challenges (climate change, nuclear disarmament topping the list) and to the immediate crises calling for international cooperation of an unprecedented scale, a move in the direction of moral globalization (migration, famine, crimes against humanity).

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Richard Falk is a member of the TRANSCEND Network, an international relations scholar, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, author, co-author or editor of 40 books, and a speaker and activist on world affairs.  In 2008, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) appointed Falk to a six-year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on “the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.”

Featured image is from USA Today

Ever since the EU referendum debate kicked off in 2016 after David Cameron’s announcement to hold one, we at TruePublica have had very grave concerns about the undue influence of a prominent and highly influential think tank – the Insitute for Economic Affairs. It is notorious for being one of the least transparent think tanks in the EU, let alone Britain, when it comes to funding and it’s hard-right, ultra-free-market position makes a mockery of its so-called charitable status.

There’s a lot we don’t know about the funding of the IEA because they refuse to disclose it. What we do know is that the IEA has big money from big tobacco firms, oil and gambling firms and has issued position statements against public health measures such as … tobacco packaging and taxation, climate change denial, promoting gambling with a drastic increase in casinos. The IEA also accepts funding from the US through the ‘American Friends of the IEA’, which exists solely to funnel money to the IEA in London. It reportedly has many other anonymous US donors.

The IEA has been also, amogst other things, been campaigning hard for the NHS to be dismantled in favour of the disastrous American model of insurance backed health care, which has been calculated to cost the taxpayer another £40 billion.

The National Health Action Party reported last year that –

“They (IEA) want to see local health boards turned into competing national franchises. They want hospitals to be paid exclusively by these franchises for work done, and for hospitals to be forced into bankruptcy rather than receive financial support from central government. They want to see tax refunds in return for co-payments.”

The IEA has direct influence with Tory big-guns pushing for a hard Brexit. As reported last July –

“A group of establishment figures, funded to the tune of millions, are covertly pursuing a political campaign in favour of extreme free trade, acting in effect as lobbyists for secretive corporate interests.”

Let’s also not forget that the IEA were caught red-handed brokering access to senior politicians for foreign donors seeking to influence the course of Brexit. As we at TruePublica have consistently warned, these foreign donors are American and they want a new market to exploit. They want deregulation, deregulation and more deregulation.

And as if any more evidence was required about the activities of the IEA, it comes as the Charity Commission finally takes action, even if it’s just a mild slap on the wrists – it exposes further the deep rot permeating through politics at Westminster and Downing Street.

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By Mat Hope – DeSmogUK:

A prominent London think tank has been censured by the Charity Commission for explicitly lobbying for a hard Brexit. The commission said the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA) had breached rules regarding political activity, which are meant to prevent charities campaigning on issues outside of their charitable remit.

The IEA is officially registered as an educational charity. The commission ruled that the IEA‘s ‘Plan A+’ report was “calling for a change in government policy and for a particular approach to the UK’s exit from the European Union”, which “does not further educational purposes, and so constitutes a breach”.

The 147-page report aimed to offer an alternative plan to Theresa May’s Chequers deal, which was resoundingly rejected by parliament in January 2019. The plan called on the government to cut EU environmental regulations to secure free-trade deals with the US, China and India after Brexit.

In its ruling, the Charity Commission criticised the IEA for the tone of the Plan A+ report, saying it “did not invite the reader to make up his or her own mind, and instead presented one proposal for the way that Brexit should be achieved”.

The Plan A+ report was authored by Shanker Singham, Director of the International Trade and Competition Unit at the IEA and a former Washington lobbyist with ties to organisations known for promoting climate science denial.

In July 2018, Singham was caught alongside IEA Director Mark Littlewood in an undercover sting by Greenpeace’s investigative unit, Unearthed, talking about how the organisation’s reports could be written to suit donors’ agendas.

Providing a Platform

The Charity Commission also censured the IEA for an event it held promoting the report on 24 September 2018, which included providing “a platform for parliamentarians known to publicly and vocally support a particular outcome from the UK’s exit from the European Union”.

The launch was attended by Tory MPs David Davis and Boris Johnson, who both resigned thier cabinet posts over objections to the Prime Minister’s Brexit strategy. The Plan A+ report was also backed by Jacob Rees-Mogg, a high-profiile figure in European Research Group, which is lobbying within parliament for a hard Brexit.

“By holding such an event in the public spotlight, the charity was engaging in campaigning and lobbying activity that is not sufficiently connected to its educational purposes”, the commission concluded.

The IEA removed the Plan A+ report from its website in November 2018, following a warning from the Charity Commission.

The commission has now asked the IEA to implement a new peer-review process to ensure all future reports meet regulatory guidelines, and provide it with assurances it will not engage in inappropriate campaigning activities again.

The IEA said it was “disappointed” by the ruling. Responding to the judgement, IEA chair Neil Record said:

“The IEA is considering a range of options, as we believe this warning has extremely widespread and worrying implications for the whole of the thinktank and educational charity sector.”

“A precedent is being set: research papers – and their launches – which put forward policy proposals may now fall outside the parameters of what the Charity Commission considers acceptable activity.”

Record is a major Conservative party donor, and has given funds to climate science denying campaign group the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

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Featured image is from TruePublica

There is a sad disregard for human life among the neocon regime-changers. The devastation of Iraq, with its million dead, was a mere stepping stone to a “re-making” of the Middle East. A Libya turned into a modern day slave market after neocon-backed “liberation” is off the radar screen. Who cares, right?

Syria suffered a half million dead after a US backed jihadist insurgency – strongly backed by the neocons – and not a word of remorse.

In fact, in a remarkable act of chutzpah, neocons have taken to blaming the victims in Syria, with the Washington Post’s Josh Rogin branding Assad, who fought and ultimately defeated US-backed terrorists (and in so doing saved Syria’s ancient Christian community) an “enemy of humanity.” One need not join the Assad fan club to come to the easy conclusion that an al-Qaeda-controlled Aleppo, for example, was a living hell while an Aleppo liberated by Assad very soon was on its feet again as a multi-confessional and multi-cultural center of Syria.

The sick disregard for human life as Washington gins up the regime change machine is on display again, bolder and more sadistic than ever. Witness the neoconservative Senator from Florida, shown above, who Tweeted this week that as hunger is growing in Venezuela, that country’s military must make a choice whether to support the US-backed overthrow of its government or allow the people to starve. Clearly threatening war, Rubio wrote, “military leaders should make a choice, before a choice is made for them.”

MintPressNews writer Whitney Webb put it best:

“Marco Rubio is openly saying that if Venezuela’s military doesn’t turn on Maduro soon, ‘a choice will made for them’ by the United States. Scariest threat for an imminent invasion of Venezuela I have yet to see.”

Other neocons behind this regime change operation are showing signs of desperation as after more than a week of their backing the US-selected “interim president” – who had never run for the office – there are not yet any major signs of the Maduro government crumbling under the pressure.

National Security Advisor John Bolton, who has spearheaded this idiotic operation (as he helped spearhead the idiotic 2003 invasion of Iraq), is almost begging the Venezuelan military to change sides. He is no doubt frustrated that the “cake walk” he likely promised Trump is to this point looking like no such thing.

Bolton Tweeted on Wednesday:

The U.S. will consider sanctions off-ramps for any Venezuelan senior military officer that stands for democracy and recognizes the constitutional government of President Juan Guaido. If not, the international financial circle will be closed off completely. Make the right choice!

Translation: “Want some money? Help us overthrow your government!”

The cynicism goes even deeper than that, however. After supporting the most brutal and aggressive sanctions against Venezuela for years – a policy that no doubt contributed to the misery they now pretend to seek to ameliorate – the regime changers are now dangling US “humanitarian” aid in front of Venezuelans if only they come over to the pro-rebel side and help overthrow their government.

A US convoy of “humanitarian” relief trucks has set out in Colombia all the way to the Venezuelan border. After trying to starve Venezuelans for years, suddenly the US government dangles food in front of them. For a price.

That’s not humanitarianism, it’s inhumanitarianism.

But the US “aid” convoy to Venezuela was so obviously a political move to use food as a weapon that even the UN and other NGOs refused to take part in the charade. Unsurprisingly, the Venezuelan government did not allow the US convoy to enter its territory and deliver aid to any rebels that might be eager to receive it.

Another example of how paranoid and unstable the Venezuelan government really is? No, actually just a couple of days earlier another “aid” shipment was found to contain a cache of weapons slated for delivery to the rebels.

Maybe they were just “moderate” rebels”?

You don’t believe the US government would make such a dishonest and dangerous move as to hide a cache of weapons inside a “humanitarian” aid shipment? Ha! For Bolton and his new/old comrade in charge of regime change in Venezuela, Elliot Abrams, this was a return to the “good old days” where such practice was all in a day’s work.

As an article in the 1987 Los Angeles Times informs us:

Oliver L. North and other Reagan Administration aides deliberately used a 1986 program of “humanitarian aid” for Nicaraguan rebels to help support the secret effort to deliver military aid to the contras , U.S. officials said Monday.
…
The aid was administered by the State Department’s Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office, but officials said that all significant decisions were made by a “Restricted Inter-Agency Group,” consisting of North, Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams and Alan D. Fiers, chief of the CIA’s Central America Task Force. (emphasis added)

Boltlon, Abrams, and the rest of Trump’s neocons aren’t even trying to make this original. They have pulled the old 1980s “support Latin American dictators” playbook off the shelf and are blatantly plagiarizing themselves! And the tens of thousands of innocent dead littering the scorched earth of their murderous policies? Don’t expect an apology: they are panting for more death and destruction!

The US “aid” convoy to Venezuela was a farce from the beginning. Delivering humanitarian aid was the last thing on the neocon mind. Much more important was to deliver a message. And thanks to the slavishly compliant mainstream media in the US and among its allies, that message was amplified to all corners of the globe. As German government mouthpiece Deutsche Welle put it, “Maduro rejects humanitarian aid as nation starves.”

Score that headline a major win for the CIA and other psy-op masters.

Except unlike in Yemen, where the Germans and other “allies” back the US and Saudi genocide of the population amidst plenty of concrete evidence of horrific starvation, there is no evidence of anything remotely resembling a Yemen-like starvation nightmare in Venezuela. If there was, we’d see it in full livid detail. And again, Yemen doesn’t count because it’s the US and its allies doing the starving and blocking the humanitarian relief.

The neocons still have not broken up the Venezuelan government but they are not out of weapons. Secretary of State and top neocon dog Mike Pompeo may be about to go nuclear. In the face of a stalled regime change Pompeo came out yesterday with the outlandish claim that the Venezuela is now a central battle ground in the “War on Terror”! He told FoxNews’ Trish Regan that Venezuela is full of “active Hezbollah cells.” And that, “The Iranians are impacting the people of Venezuela and throughout South America.”

He added, ominously: “We have an obligation to take down that risk for America.”

Having over decades established Hezbollah as the ultimate bogeyman (despite their not targeting Americans or the US and in fact being primarily focused against Israeli expansionism and aggression), the neocons are now doing their best to use raw fear of terrorism to motivate Americans to support a US invasion of Venezuela.

And if Americans are not sufficiently propagandized that the Venezuelan government is the new Hitler and must be deposed before it throws more babies from incubators and distributes more Viagra to its troops? Breitbart is always good for a few low-IQ chunks of red meat to the feverish masses. Today they breathlessly report – PROOF of the depravity of Maduro – that…”Nicholas Maduro Threatens to Kill American Troops if They Invade Venezuela.”

What a revelation! Has there been country in history that actually welcomed a hostile invasion?

What is next for Venezuela and the neocon regime change plan? Well it is not going to plan at present, but as with all of these operations it is the neocons holding the cards (and the cash). The “correlation of forces” are definitely on their side. The neocon regime changers must only hit the target once, while the legitimate government of Venezuela must parry each blow.

As for the obligatory disclaimer (this is getting tedious): No, we do not “support” Maduro or socialism or all the really bad things he is accused of in Venezuela. Our opposition is as American patriots: We do not want a global US empire that arrogates to itself the authority to decide who is and who is not acceptable to govern a foreign country. No sanctions, no meddling, no “regime change”. A sound defense of this country and a passionate dedication to leading not by force or subterfuge, but by example.

The neocons have been given carte blanche by a seemingly lazy or uninterested President Trump. Will we rise to the occasion and defend real American values against their obsessive, failed attempts to conquer the globe? Will we hold our representatives in Congress accountable to real American values? There is some wavering in Congress about an implied authorization for the use of force in Venezuela. It is a unique opportunity for us to make our preferences known in a way that might make a difference. What do you say? It’s not that hard.

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“We’re going to continue running as fast as we can right up to February 15, so that we can take action immediately on February 16 if necessary.”

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With congressional negotiators still working on a deal to keep the federal government open after the current stopgap funding measure expires on Friday, Feb. 15, airport workers are already planning mass protests for next Saturday in case the government shuts down again.

Air traffic controllers and other airport employees were widely credited for creating the pressure that ended the longest shutdown in American history last month, and Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA) president Sara Nelson told New York Magazine on Friday that workers are gearing up to mobilize if congressional negotiators fail to reach a deal—or if President Donald Trump unilaterally scuttles any agreement.

As New York Magazine‘s Sarah Jones reported,

“Nelson says that the union will be out leafleting in airports in 80 major cities next week ahead of Saturday’s demonstrations.”

“We are also working very hard to get information out to all of our members about what’s at stake,” Nelson told New York Magazine. “We need people to fully understand what the issues are so that we can be prepared to respond potentially with withholding our service, if that’s what it takes to stop a continuation of the shutdown.”

According to Jones, the AFA is not alone in preparing to mobilize if the government shuts down again, once more putting the pay of hundreds of thousands of federal workers at risk:

Nelson cites the American Federation of Teachers as “a very strong ally” in addition to Unite Here, which represents many federal subcontractors who have still not received backpay for paychecks withheld during the shutdown. Reached by phone on Friday afternoon, Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, told New York that AFT is “very concerned” about the shutdown’s impact on both the aviation industry and its unions. “We are working together to do what is impossible to do alone,” she said.

As Common Dreams reported, air traffic controller unions warned throughout the previous government shutdown that forcing airport employees to work without pay dramatically increases flight safety risks.

On the day the government shutdown ended last month, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) halted flights into New York’s LaGuardia Airport, citing air traffic controller shortages caused by the shutdown.

Speaking to In These Times on Friday, Nelson—who called for a general strike during the previous funding lapse—emphasized how truly “dangerous” a continuation of the government shutdown would be.

“We’re going to continue running as fast as we can right up to February 15, so that we can take action immediately on February 16 if necessary,” Nelson said.

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Featured image: Sara Nelson (Source: AboveWhispers)

Mike Pompeo, the current American Secretary of State, gave a speech at the American University in Cairo on January 10, 2019. He started the speech identifying himself an evangelical Christian, that is also a Christian Zionist, and said, “In my office, I keep a Bible open on my desk to remind me of God and his Word and the Truth” and he referred to Israel as “our [United States] ally”, a distinction not granted to any Arab country in his speech.

A white, Christian Zionist, American Secretary of State gave a speech in Egypt – a conservative Muslim country, where the Muslim Brotherhood was born, where some of the most conservative Muslim thinkers are from and the home of Al Azhar University; the internationally renowned and recognized Islamic academic center – where he celebrated his country’s resounding support for Israel. To add insult to injury, the Secretary of State proudly noted that “President Trump campaigned on the promise to recognize Jerusalem – the seat of Israel’s government – as the nation’s capital. In May, we moved our embassy there”.

Pompeo went on to use this “platform” in Egypt to lambast President Obama, the first American president of African, Muslim heritage; bashing him and holding him responsible for ills in American foreign policy and in the Middle East.

The whole event is incongruous, to say the least; a black comedy!

Pompeo assured us that “It is a truth that isn’t often spoken in this part of the world… America is a force for good in the Middle East.” An example of this honorable American “force for good” in the Middle East, he noted, is the presence of “US military personnel stationed in Saudi Arabia and major bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the Emirates. They are there at the invitation of the host country.” This raised two points:

First, why are American military personnel in the Gulf countries? Trump had answered this question, regarding Saudi Arabia specifically, at a rally in October 2018 in Southaven, Mississippi. He clarified the US role in Saudi Arabia, saying “We protect Saudi Arabia. Would you say they’re rich? And I love the King, King Salman. But I said: King – we’re protecting you – you might not be there for two weeks without us – you have to pay for your military” This is NOT a force for good.

Second, Pompeo stated that Americans are in the Gulf countries at the invitation of the host countries which makes it legitimate and legal. However, Pompeo declared that “In Syria, the United States will use diplomacy and work with our partners to expel every last Iranian boot”. It is kosher for America to be in a country at the invitation of the host country to protect its political system, but is it not kosher for Iran to be in Syria at the invitation of the host country to protect its political system?

Thus, America in the Middle East is not “a force for good”, but a force to protect oppressive and expansionist authoritarian regimes on the one hand and exploit the resources of the host country on the other.

Pompeo came up with another curious assertion: “We learned that when America retreats, chaos often follows.” Vietnam descended into total chaos following the American invasion and started the process of recovery after the American retreat. Iraq descended into total chaos following the 2003 American invasion and so did Syria, following the American and American allies’ invasion during the recent civil war. Both countries are on the way of recovery with the reduction of American military involvement. A notion is developing in the Middle East, and to some degree worldwide, that Israel and, its closest ally the US, threaten international peace and security.

In another part of the speech, Pompeo said that America, along with allies and partners, dismantled “the Islamic State’s caliphate, liberating Iraqis, Syrians Arabs and Kurds…” However, he ignored the fact that it was the US, and particularly its allies in the region, who recruited and encouraged terrorists from all over the world to come to Syria and opened their borders to these terrorists to gather in Syria. Once in Syria, these terrorists were provided money and weapons to establish the Islamic State’s Caliphate.

Wittingly, or unwittingly, Pompeo gave the green light to Israel to wage a war against Iran. He said, “We strongly support Israel’s efforts to stop Tehran from turning Syria into the next Lebanon”. This is another example of America not being “a force for good”, but a force for war and destruction.

Another curious assertion by Pompeo: “America has always been, and always will be, a liberating force, not an occupying power.” This brings back to memory the tragic Vietnam War and the American Mỹ Lai Massacre: “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it”.

The low point in Pompeo’s speech, and there were several, was when he said with a straight face that “Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries contributed towards stabilization efforts” in Syria. Tell that to the Syrians who, in this brutally cold winter, are facing shortages of heating fuel, cooking fuel and electric power.

President Abraham Lincoln is often credited for having said:

“You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”

It is loud and clear that Pompeo, and beyond him the American administrations in recent decades, have forgotten Lincoln’s admonition and try to fool all the people all the time.

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Prof. Elias Samo, PhD, Professor of International Relations at American and Syrian universities. 

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Growing up Irish-Catholic in the Bronx in the 1960s, I was an avid reader of the powerful columns of Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill in the New York newspapers.  These guys were extraordinary wordsmiths. They would grab you by the collar and drag you into the places and faces of those they wrote about. Passion infused their reports.  They were never boring. They made you laugh and cry as they transported you into the lives of real people.  You knew they had actually gone out into the streets of the city and talked to people.

All kinds of people: poor, rich, black, white, Puerto Rican, high-rollers, low-lifes, politicians, athletes, mobsters – they ran the gamut.  You could sense they loved their work, that it enlivened them as it enlivened you the reader. Their words sung and crackled and breathed across the page. They left you always wanting more, wondering sometimes how true it all was, so captivating was their storytelling abilities. They cut through abstractions to connect individuals to major events such as the Vietnam War, the assassinations of President Kennedy and his brother Robert, the Central Park jogger case, Aids, among others.  They were spokesmen for the underdogs, the abused, the confused, and the bereft, and relentlessly attacked the abuses and hypocrisies of the powerful.

They became celebrities as a result of their writing. Breslin ran for New York City Council President along with Norman Mailer for Mayor with the slogan  “No More Bullshit,” did beer and cereal commercials, and Hamill dated Jacqueline Kennedy and Shirley McLaine.  Coming  out of poor and struggling Irish-Catholic families in Queens and Brooklyn respectively, they became acclaimed in NYC and the country as celebrity reporters.  As a result, they were befriended by the rich and powerful with whom they hobnobbed.

HBO has recently released a fascinating documentary about the pair: Breslin and Hamill. It brings them back in all their gritty glory to the days when New York was another city, a city of newspapers and typewriters and young passion still hopeful that despite the problems and national tragedies, there were still fighters who would bang out a message of hope and defiance in the mainstream press.  It was a time before money and propaganda devoured journalism and a deadly pall descended on the country as the economic elites expanded their obscene control over people’s lives and the media.

So it is also fitting that this documentary feels like an Irish wake with two old wheelchair-bound men musing on the past and all that has been lost and what approaching death has in store for them and all they love. While not a word is spoken about the Catholic faith of their childhoods with its death-defying consolation, it sits between them like a skeleton. We watch and listen to two men, once big in all ways, talk about the old days as they shrink before our eyes. I was reminded of the title of a novel Breslin wrote long ago: World Without End, Amen, a title taken directly from a well-known Catholic prayer. Endings, the past receding, a lost world, aching hearts, and the unspoken yearning for more life.

Hamill, especially, wrote columns that were beautifully elegiac, and his words in this documentary also sound that sense despite his efforts to remain hopeful.   The film is a nostalgic trip down memory lane. Breslin, who has since died, tries hard to express the bravado that was his hallmark in his halcyon days, but a deep sadness and bewilderment seeps through his face, the mask of indomitability that once served him well gone in the end.

So while young people need to know about these two old-school reporters and their great work in this age of insipidity and pseudo-objectivity, this film is probably not a good introduction.  Their writing would serve this purpose better.

This documentary is appearing at an interesting time when a large group of prominent Americans, including Robert Kennedy, Jr. and his sister Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, are calling for new investigations into the assassinations of the 1960s, murders that Breslin and Hamill covered and wrote about.  Both men were in the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in 1968.  They were friends of the senator, and it was Hamill who wrote to RFK and helped convince him to run. Breslin was in the Audubon Ballroom when Malcolm X was assassinated. He wrote an iconic and highly original article about the JFK assassination. Hamill wrote a hard-hitting  piece about RFK’s murder, describing Sirhan Sirhan quite harshly, while presuming his guilt. They covered and wrote about all the assassinations of that era.  Breslin also wrote a famous piece about John Lennon’s murder. They wrote these articles quickly, in the heat of the moment, on deadline.

But they did not question the official versions of these assassinations. Not then, nor in the fifty plus years since. Nor in this documentary. In fact, in the film Hamill talks about five shots being fired at RFK from the front by Sirhan Sirhan who was standing there. Breslin utters not a word. Yet it is well known that RFK was shot from the rear at point blank range and that no bullets hit him from the front. The official autopsy confirmed this. Robert Kennedy, Jr. asserts that his father was not shot by Sirhan but by a second gunmen. It’s as though Hamill is stuck in time and his personal memories of the event; as though he were too close to things and never stepped back and studied the evidence that has emerged.  Why, only he could say.

Perhaps both men were too close to the events and the people they covered. Yes, their words always took you to the scene and made you feel the passion of it all, the shock, the drama, the tragedy, the pain, the confusion, and all that was irretrievably lost in murders that changed this country forever, killings that haunt the present in incalculable ways. Jimmy and Pete made us feel the deep pain and shock of being overwhelmed with grief. They were masters of this art.

But the view from the street is not that of history. Deadlines are one thing; analysis and research another. Breslin and Hamill wrote for the moment, but they have lived a half century after those moments, decades during which the evidence for these crimes has accumulated to indict powerful forces in the U.S. government. No doubt this evidence came to their attention, but they have chosen to ignore it, whatever their reasons. Why these champions of the afflicted have disregarded this evidence is perplexing. As one who greatly admires their work, I am disappointed by this failure.

Street journalism has its limitations. It needs to be placed in a larger context. Our world is indeed without end and the heat of the moment needs the coolness of time. The bird that dives to the ground to seize a crumb of bread returns to the treetop to survey the larger scene. Breslin and Hamill stuck to the ground where the bread lay.

At one point in Breslin and Hamill, the two good friends talk about how well they were taught to write by the nuns in their Catholic grammar schools.

“Subject, verb, object, that was the story of the whole thing,” says Breslin.

Hamill replies,

“Concrete nouns, active verbs.”

“It was pretty good teaching,” adds Breslin.

And although neither went to college (probably a saving grace), they learned those lessons well and gifted us with so much gritty and beautiful writing and reporting.

Yet like the nuns who taught them, they had their limitations, and what was written once was not revisited and updated. In a strange, very old-school Catholic sense, it was the eternal truth, rock solid, and not to be questioned. Unspeakable and anathema: the real killers of the Kennedys and the others. The attacks of September 11, 2001 as well.

When my mother was very old, she published her only piece of writing.  It was very Breslin and Hamill-like and was published in a Catholic magazine. She wrote how, when she was a young girl and the streets of New York were filled with horse drawn wagons, the nuns in her grammar school chose her to leave school before lunch and go to a neighboring bakery to buy rolls for their lunch. It was considered a big honor and she was happy to get out of school for the walk to the bakery she chose a few streets away. She got the rolls and was walking back with them when some boys jostled her and all the rolls fell into the street, rolling through horse shit. She panicked, but picked up the rolls and cleaned them off. Shaking with fear, she then brought them to the convent and handed them to a nun. After lunch, she was called to the front of the room by her teacher, the nun who had chosen her to buy them.  She felt like she would faint with fear. The nun sternly looked at her. “Where did buy those rolls?” she asked. In a halting voice she told her the name of the bakery. The sister said, “They were delicious. We must always shop in that bakery.”

Of course the magazine wouldn’t publish the words “horse shit.” The editor found a nice way to avoid the truth and eliminate horse shit.  And the nuns were happy.

Yet bullshit seems much harder to erase, despite slogans and careful editors, or perhaps because of them.  Sometimes silence is the real bullshit, and how do you eliminate that.

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

The European tour of the Brazilian Workers Party’s (PT) 2018 presidential candidate, Fernando Haddad, meeting with and praising imperialist officials at the forefront of the regime-change operation in Venezuela, is yet another exposure of the party’s bogus claims to represent an “anti-fascist” opposition, both in Brazil and abroad.

Haddad was in Portugal and Spain in the third week of January in order to promote the formation of a so-called Progressive International, announced in late 2018 by US Senator Bernie Sanders and former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis.

The timing of the trip was designed to coincide with the World Economic Forum in Davos in order to allow Haddad to present himself internationally as the alternative to Brazil’s fascistic new president, the ex-army captain Jair Bolsonaro, who was invited to give the keynote address to the billionaires’ summit.

Haddad met with Portuguese and Spanish government officials, at the same time that the Spanish government was publicly criticizing and pressuring the European Union from the right for not joining the US regime-change operation in Venezuela, which the PT ostensibly opposes. He also held talks with the Tsipras administration in Greece, which has imposed brutal austerity and rules in alliance with the right-wing, militarist Independent Greeks party backed by Greek billionaire shipping magnates.

The move to involve Tsipras in the “anti-fascist” front represented by the Progressive International also explodes Varoufakis’s claims that he has broken with Syriza after helping it forge the alliance with the Independent Greeks, and lay the trap of the fraudulent austerity referendum of 2015, in which a clear majority voted against the austerity measures to no effect, as Tsipras applied them anyway.

This attempt to present government officials who are pillars of the European Union as a bulwark against fascism and political reaction is line with the PT’s relentless political cover-up of the role of the Brazilian military in the crisis-ridden Bolsonaro administration.

This effort is ever more concentrated on presenting Bolsonaro’s vice-president, Gen. Hamilton Mourão, as a “reasonable,” “nationalist,” “democratic” and even “pro-abortion” alternative to Bolsonaro, above all praising the supposed restraint he is exercising in the face of the Venezuelan crisis, which has brought praise for Mourão to a feverish pitch.

Such praise has been chiefly voiced through the PT’s sycophantic mouthpiece, Brasil247, with a series of concocted reports of Mourão’s “battles” against Bolsonaro and his foreign minister, Ernesto Araújo, whom Brasil247 refers to with cynical light-mindedness as “insane” for echoing the Trump administration in formulating Brazil’s attitude towards Venezuela.

If one reads Brasil247, one is sure that Mourão, twice punished by the Army High Command for inciting the military against Presidents Dilma Rousseff and Michel Temer in 2015 and 2017, would lead a selfless and redeeming coup against Bolsonaro to rid Brazil of fascism and Christian bigotry, if only he had enough support.

On Mourão’s first days in office as interim president while Bolsonaro was in Davos, Brasil247 eulogized:

“while Bolsonaro runs away from press conferences, Mourão praises the media.”

After Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL) Congressmen Jean Wyllys announced in late January that he would leave the country due to death threats from criminals suspected to have executed Rio de Janeiro city councilwoman Marielle Franco in March 2018—and who have connections to Bolsonaro himself— Brasil247 wrote:

“Mourão confronts Bolsonaro and says threats to parliamentarians are a threat to democracy.”

The fraudulent report never mentioned that Mourão, in the next sentence, said, “despite that, we don’t know what he was up to,” suggesting that Wyllys might actually have been targeted due to himself being involved with organized crime—the exact allegation used by the far right to justify Franco’s assassination.

After the brother of imprisoned former PT President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva died and Lula was denied a leave from jail—where the PT says he’s kept as a political prisoner of the military—to attend the funeral, Brasil247 wrote:

“Mourão says Lula should go to the funeral: it’s a humanitarian issue.”

Then on February 1, after Mourão was interviewed by the Brazilian daily O Globo, Brasil247 reported:

“Mourão defends abortion: it’s the woman’s decision,” adding that he was “directly confronting ‘Bolsonaroism,’ especially its fundamentalist wing” and that the declaration was “explosive and should open another intestinal crisis within the government.”

No comment was made of the fact that Mourão declared it to be “his personal position, not in a government capacity,” basically the same declarations that Bolsonaro had given in his campaign, that he thinks women should have the right to abortion, but would never touch the issue while in power—which was precisely the PT’s position during its four terms in power.

The gravest of lies, however is that Mourão is defending a “non-interventionist” policy towards Venezuela that represents the position of the Brazilian military, in contrast to Bolsonaro’s alignment with the US-led regime-change operation in Caracas. Throughout the development of this operation, Brasil247 has run innumerable reports taking at face value Mourão’s declarations that Brazil would not intervene, and charging that intervention was “the will of Bolsonaro.” Editorial board member Celso Amorim, the PT government’s former foreign minister, wrote last month that the military could “save Brazilian foreign policy.” He then stated in an interview that “Mourão ends up being the most reasonable in refusing an intervention.”

On February 3, Folha de S. Paulo columnist Igor Gielow finally exposed the real content of the “non-interventionist policy” of the Brazilian military: they were against support for the Lima Group, which required Brazil to cut ties with the Venezuelan military, because this would isolate the Brazilian military from “the reality on the ground.” Not reported by Brasil247 was the fact that Mourão had already stated to Folha de S. Paulo on January 31 that he believed the crisis in Venezuela “would be solved once their military realized the status quo could not be maintained,” and that “this was near.” In other words, there was a strictly tactical divergence within the Brazilian government on how best to further the interests of national capital abroad, in which the military believe they needed to keep their channels open to its Venezuelan counterparts in order to assist in the organization of a coup. This was promoted by the PT’s mouthpiece into a determined resistance by the Brazilian military to imperialism and its agent, Bolsonaro.

The nakedness of this feverish pro-military campaign by PT’s propaganda conveyor belt in the press, unions and academia has already resulted in an attempted cover-up, with columnists feigning surprise that “the vice president appears to have turned into an opponent of the president, gaining the sympathy of lots of people on the left,” as João Filho wrote on The Intercept. Gustavo Conde, on February 2 reacted with rage in a column published by Brasil247, denouncing the “progressive puritanism that is an enemy of democracy” of those “saying that the left ‘flirts with Mourão.’” Such attitudes, he writes demonstrate “that not only the right wing can’t interpret a text.” He concludes by defending such support, saying that with “a jaunty Mourão causing problems for the incompetents around Bolsonaro, the political scene tends to turn toxic for this underdeveloped fascism that has taken over Brazil. This is the point to be observed and potentialized (emphasis added).”

Such utter prostration before the increasing dominance of the Brazilian military, goes all the way down to the pseudo-left. The self-styled “Trotskyists” of Resistência, which operates inside PSOL, featured on their esquerdaonline.com.br, an article by Luis Felipe Miguel expressing hope that Mourão is “capable of steering the ship without so many crises” and that his “more reasonable government might nod to internal and external public opinion by changing its composition—sacking an environmental criminal from the Environmental Ministry, for example.”

What unifies the pseudo-left, the PT and Mourão is their class position. The PT and the pseudo-left are expressing their bourgeois and upper-middle class hatred and contempt for the working class. They see it as responsible for voting out the “prestigious” PT governments, which fostered—not unlike Venezuela’s chavistas themselves—record stock market profits that they now fear will be threatened by Bolsonaro cutting ties with China and the European Union, on the one hand, and provoking an explosive development of the class struggle, on the other.

No one expresses these positions as clearly as Eliane Brum, a fixture of the right-wing Blairite Guardian opinion pages who campaigned for the PT in the second round of last year’s election. Her unfettered and unabashed hatred for the working class has been on display many times. She declared that the election of the fascistic Bolsonaro was the “the takeover by the average man,” and, during last May’s truckers’ strike, she wrote that the hundreds of thousands of workers were striking because they saw their “masculinity threatened by growing LGBT and women’s protagonism.”

The support for Mourão among these layers was explained in her January 30 column in El Pais titled “Mourão, the moderate.” Intended as a criticism of the praise for Mourão, she ended up writing about herself, declaring: “even those who campaigned against everything Bolsonaro represents rooted for one of his aides to do what he is paid for, because now he is Brazil, and Bolsonaro’s shame is everyone’s humiliation.” A complete break with the right-wing politics of the PT and its apologists is the essential task confronting the working class in Brazil in order to defend itself from political reaction and wholesale attacks on its social conditions.

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“The struggles of the Black working-class, united around a national program must have international solidarity and must be understood within the context of an anti-imperialist struggle against global capitalism and the US-led imperialist global economic, military and political infrastructure. For the Black working-class and the Black liberation movement not to struggle against capitalism, is not to be engaged in a struggle for Black liberation.” —Saladin Muhammad, Black Workers for Justice

We must remind our people that over 150 million Africans live throughout the so-called Americas. We especially must raise this reality at critical moments like this when the corporate media and establishment opinion is legitimizing U.S. gangsterism that could kill thousands of people in Venezuela.

Afro-Venezuelans contacted Black Alliance for Peace to ask us to remind our people in the United States that military forces will target Afro-Venezuelans if a military intervention occurs because they represent a core constituency of the Bolivarian revolutionary process in Venezuela.

When a so-called opposition takes down the flag of its own country and raises the U.S. flag—after also displaying the Israeli flag on its podium during a demonstration—the true nature and interests of this element are exposed. This is an opposition that burnt Afro-Venezuelans alive because they assume all Black people support the government.

We know what will happen if a U.S.-led military intervention takes place. It will be a re-play of the 1989 invasion of Panama, where U.S forces turned the Black community of El Chorrillo into a “free fire zone,” resulting in the complete destruction of the community and the deaths of over 3,000 Panamanians.

The U.S. state has demonstrated repeatedly that it has no regard for non-European life, from Iraq through Libya to Yemen and a dozen nations in between.

It is imperative we separate our folks from this naked imperialist move on Venezuela. It is important for African/Black people to be clear where we stand on these kinds of issues. The war and militarism being waged against us by the domestic military we call “the police”—along with the mass incarceration complex—is part of the global Pan-European Colonial/Capitalist White Supremacist patriarchy that is now conspiring against the Bolivarian revolutionary process in Venezuela. The European Union Parliament’s decision to recognize the puppet government being imposed on the people of Venezuela demonstrates why we have a common enemy in the U.S./EU/NATO “axis of domination.”

There can be no confusion—despite the sectoral fights inside the capitalist class that is currently playing out in their struggle against Trump, they are united when it comes to projecting the dominance of the Pan-European imperialist project. They are prepared to fight to the last drop of your blood and mine to defend their privilege.

That is why the Black Alliance for Peace is clear: We say “not one drop of blood from working class and poor to defend the interests of the capitalist oligarchy.” We want peace and People(s)-Centered Human Rights, but we recognize that there is no peace without justice. Real social justice, which requires radical structural change, cannot be realized without struggle. And there can be no effective social change without clearly identifying the enemy—the source of our oppression—and being able to imagine an alternative.

The people of Venezuela have made a choice. We will not debate the merits of their process—its contradictions or problems. Our responsibility as citizens/captors of empire is to put a brake on the U.S. state’s ability to foster death and destruction on the peoples of the world.

BAP is calling on all African/Black organizations to oppose U.S. intervention in Venezuela. Create public educational materials for the groups you are working with. You can pull from BAP’s statement on Venezuela, which raises the important principles we must defend: https://blackallianceforpeace.com/bapstatements/defendvenezuela

We are also joining with organizations from across the country to support a national day of action against U.S. intervention February 23. We will share more information on that on our site as that information is produced. If you might be interested in organizing actions on that day, please get in contact with us at [email protected].

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“People don’t recognize that Hezbollah has active cells — the Iranians are impacting the people of Venezuela and throughout South America. We have an obligation to take down that risk for America and [what we’ll talk about is] how we do that in South America and all across the globe.” — Mike Pompeo

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During a Wednesday night interview with FOX Business host Trish Regan, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made several statements that raised eyebrows, such as claiming that Cuba had invaded Venezuela and “taken control” of the Venezuela’s “security apparatus” and that U.S. sanctions illegally imposed on Venezuela “aren’t aimed at the Venezuelan people.”

However, the most surprising claim Pompeo made in the interview was that Hezbollah and Iran were “active” in Venezuela, presenting a national security “risk for America.”

After accusing China, Cuba and Russia of interfering with U.S. efforts to install U.S.-funded opposition figure Juan Guaidó and oust current Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Pompeo made the following assertion:

“People don’t recognize that Hezbollah has active cells — the Iranians are impacting the people of Venezuela and throughout South America. We have an obligation to take down that risk for America and part of what we will talk about next week in Warsaw is certainly how we do that in South America and all across the globe.”

Pompeo’s mention of Hezbollah — a political party that has wide support in Lebanon’s democracy — has been noted by many outlets for seemingly providing a justification for the U.S.’ “obligation” to intervene in Venezuela, potentially with military force, by attempting to link the Venezuelan government to the U.S.’ Middle Eastern enemies. What has been entirely overlooked, however, is the fact that Pompeo also signaled a promise of military intervention “all across the globe.”

Indeed, if the U.S. intervenes in Venezuela with Hezbollah as the pretext, it sets a precedent for going to war where Hezbollah is actually located — Lebanon — as well as against Hezbollah’s most powerful regional ally and favorite Trump-era boogeyman, Iran.

A whole doctrine out of whole cloth

Pompeo’s suggestion that Hezbollah is “active” in Venezuela has slowly become a Trump administration talking point over the course of the past two years, largely due to the influence of Pompeo — who publicly made the claim in August 2017 — himself and National Security Adviser John Bolton.

Bolton helped to bolster the claim that Venezuela’s government is connected to Hezbollah, through his connections to the Gatestone Institute, which Bolton chaired from 2013 to 2018 and used to heavily promote the alleged Hezbollah-Venezuela link over that time frame. Bolton, as recently as last January, argued that “Hezbollah, exploiting the long history of expatriate Middle Eastern trading networks in Latin America, remains a murky but continuing threat” in Venezuela, providing no evidence to back up his claim beyond suggesting that Middle Eastern immigrants to Venezuela are indicative of a Hezbollah presence.

Claims of Hezbollah’s links to Venezuela largely revolve around one man, former Venezuelan Vice President Tarek Al Aissami, who is of Lebanon-Syrian ancestry. The claims have been promoted as fact – despite an absence of concrete evidence – by a mix of neoconservative think tanks, such as the Center for a Secure Free Society, and former Bush officials, such as Roger Noriega, along with the Bolton and AIPAC-linked Gatestone Institute.

Similarly, many of these same groups, particularly John Bolton, have been instrumental in asserting that Iran – a strategic ally of Chavista Venezuela –is not in Venezuela for any “normal” alliance but in order to provide cover for alleged illicit activities, including its alleged ambitions to build a nuclear bomb. Bolton has accused Venezuela of harboring and collaborating with Iranian criminals and “smugglers;” and, during a 2013 hearing, Bolton claimed that Iran was operating in Venezuela in order to avoid international scrutiny:

These are expert smugglers with — the largest Iranian diplomatic facility in the world is in Caracas, Venezuela […] they are laundering their money through the Venezuelan banks.”

Bolton has also asserted that Iran uses Venezuela “to retain access to the country’s extensive uranium reserves,” suggesting that Venezuela is connected to Iran’s alleged desire to acquire and develop nuclear weapons. However, independent scientists have long countered that Venezuelan uranium deposits are minimal and likely impractical to extract.

Yet, that didn’t stop the usual pro-intervention think tanks — such as the Center for a Secure Free Society and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, whose board of trustees includes Henry Kissinger, ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods and notorious neoconservative Richard Armitage — from promoting the claim.

Notably, no concrete evidence of either an illicit Hezbollah-Venezuela or an Iran-Venezuela connection has ever emerged beyond innuendo made by individuals and organizations with a vested interest in demonizing anti-imperialist governments in Latin America and beyond.

Terror here, terror there, terror everywhere

While the lack of evidence should be enough to write off this claim, it is still regurgitated by Trump officials and pro-interventionists because it offers a “terror threat” justification for U.S. meddling and potentially U.S. military intervention in Venezuela, as Hezbollah is considered a terror group by the United States.

Indeed, the potential for U.S. military intervention in Venezuela in order to “support” the parallel government of the U.S.-backed Juan Guaidó has been repeatedly mentioned by top Trump officials, including Trump himself in recent days. With Hezbollah and Iran thrown into the mix, the Trump administration is seeking to link its aggressive Middle East policy with its aggressive Venezuela policy in order to justify intervention in Venezuela because it is in “our hemisphere,” as Pompeo stated during his recent interview.

However, given the attempt to establish this link between Venezuela and Hezbollah/Iran, it must be understood that this is a connection that the Trump administration will seek to use in both directions. Indeed, if the U.S. succeeds in deposing the current Venezuelan government by using the alleged threat of Iran and Hezbollah as pretext, it could then link that intervention in Venezuela to the need to intervene at the source of those pretexts: Lebanon and Iran.

Indeed, the U.S.-backed regime-change efforts targeting Iran are already well underway and the same Trump officials now promoting the alleged link between Iran, Hezbollah and Venezuela are those who have long pushed for a preemptive war with Iran.

In Lebanon’s case, U.S. threats towards Lebanon have failed to derail Hezbollah’s popularity in the country, as evidenced by Lebanon’s most recent elections. However, Israel — whose influence over the Trump administration’s foreign policy has been the subject of numerous MintPress reports — has been actively preparing for war with Lebanon for over a year, with Hezbollah and Hezbollah-supporting civilians as the targets.

As MintPress previously reported, these war preparations have the full support of the United States and top U.S. military commanders have openly stated that — when the war starts — U.S. troops are “prepared to die” for Israel and Israel’s military will have final say over whether or not Americans are deployed to fight and die in this war.

With Pompeo’s recent statement that America is “obligated to take down” the risk of Hezbollah and Iran in Venezuela and beyond, his comments must be seen for what they are: a promise that U.S. intervention and potentially a military invasion in Venezuela will be just the beginning for the new neoconservatives who hold complete control over Trump administration foreign policy.

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Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News and has contributed to several other independent, alternative outlets. Her work has appeared on sites such as Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute, and 21st Century Wire among others. She also makes guest appearances to discuss politics on radio and television. She currently lives with her family in southern Chile.

Michael Hudson explained that Washington “treat(s) Venezuela as an extension of the US economy, running a trade surplus in oil to spend in the United States or transfer its savings to US banks.”

Sanctions prevent Maduro’s government “from gaining access to its US bank deposits,” including state-owned CITGO refiner, transporter and marketer of transportation fuels, lubricants, petrochemicals and other industrial products.

The US plot involves “making it impossible for Venezuela to pay its foreign debt,” forcing the nation to default on its obligations, a pretext for the Trump regime to try seizing its foreign assets.

Making Venezuela’s economy scream aims to crush it into submission, leaving it vulnerable to stealing the nation by the US.

It’s held captive by US demands. Economic, financial and sanctions war transformed normality into crisis conditions.

Financial war can be more dangerous than standing armies, war waged by other means, raping nations and their people for profit.

Examples abound, including earlier in Chile under a US-installed military dictatorship, Greece transformed into a zombie country by the European Commission, ECB and IMF.

The latter financial institution is considered the loan shark of last resort for good reason, serving US-led Western monied interests at the expense of nations and their people.

Venezuela is being slowly suffocated by asymmetrical warfare, sucking out its financial oxygen to survive, wanting its wealth transferred to US interests.

According to a Latin American Geopolitical Strategic Center (CELAG) study, US financial war on Venezuela since Maduro’s April 2013 election through 2017 cost the country $350 billion in lost production of goods and services.

The US has been systematically strangling its economy under Obama and Trump. What’s going on may be prelude to military intervention – unjustifiably justified by made-in-the-USA humanitarian crisis conditions and low oil prices.

Washington blocked Venezuela “from international financial markets, preventing it from using the credit market both to renew maturities and to make new loans,” the CELAG report explained.

Its dependency on revenues from oil sales made it highly vulnerable to US war by other means. The “economic consequences of the (US) boycott” of the country have been devastating, notably to its people.

Trump warned that he might intervene in Venezuela militarily, a nightmarish scenario if he goes this far.

DLT is a serial liar, last month calling Venezuela as menacing as North Korea. Neither country threatens others. The US and its imperial partners threaten world peace and humanity’s survival.

Since Maduro’s tenure as president began, the CELAG report said “the Venezuelan public sector stopped receiving in net terms flows that in the quinquennium 2008-2012, more than USD$95 billion dollars, that is, about USD$19 billion per year” because of US asymmetrical warfare, adding:

“The Venezuelan Government had to pay more than US$17 billion dollars in the five-year period 2013-2017, about US$3.3 billion dollars per year.”

Its economy “suffered international asphyxiation of US$22.5 billion dollars a year resulting from a deliberate international strategy of financial isolation. It is necessary to also include the fall of crude oil prices that happened around 2015.”

“As a consequence of the blockade, losses in the production of goods and services oscillated between a range of USD$350 billion and USD$260 billion in the period 2013-2017.”

If Maduro received international financing, Venezuelan GDP growth from 2013 – 17 would have exceeded Argentina’s.

Instead it faces possible financial collapse without international help, China and Russia most able to provide it among nations recognizing Maduro’s legitimacy.

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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.

The number of workers participating in strike action in the US during 2018 reached the highest level in 32 years, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report issued Friday morning in Washington. The figures document the rise in the class struggle in the course of the year, spearheaded by public school teachers who rebelled against their unions and carried out statewide strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Arizona.

The BLS report identified 20 major labor disputes, defined as strikes or lockouts involving at least 1,000 workers. It was the largest number of such actions since 2007, when there were 21 strikes or lockouts of that size.

More than 485,000 workers staged walkouts during the year, with the vast majority of these being teachers and other school workers, including 86,000 in Arizona, 45,000 in Oklahoma, 35,000 in West Virginia and 26,000 in Kentucky, all in protracted battles with their state governments, as well as 123,000 in North Carolina and 63,000 in Colorado, who were limited to one-day strikes.

Teachers on strike in West Virginia (Source: WSWS)

The total number of workers involved was the largest since 1986, when 533,000 workers engaged in major strikes or lockouts. The 2.8 million work days lost to strikes or lockouts in 2018 were the most since 2004.

Of the 20 major walkouts, eight were by teachers, including the six statewide actions and local strikes in Jersey City, New Jersey and Tacoma, Washington. Five strikes were by health care workers in Rhode Island, Vermont and California; two by telecommunications workers; two by hotel workers and two by construction workers. One was the lockout of workers at National Grid, a New England-based gas utility. Not a single major strike took place in manufacturing.

The figures released by the BLS raise a number of important historical and political issues.

While far higher than the average of the past 20 years, the 2.8 million work days lost in 2018 is a lower figure than for any year from 1947 through 1999. This figure rose as high as 60 million in 1959, the year of a 116-day industry-wide steel strike, and never fell below 10 million until 1982, the year after the Reagan administration smashed the PATCO air traffic controllers’ strike.

In the rest of that decade, work days lost to strike action exceeded 10 million only in 1983, 1986 and 1989, remaining well below that figure throughout the 1990s, as the unions systematically smothered or betrayed struggles by workers. There were 20 million work days lost in 2000, a number inflated by a six-month strike by 135,000 commercial television actors, most of whom worked only infrequently, but the figure plunged to 1.1 million in 2001 and 659,000 in 2002, before declining to the all-time low of 124,000 in 2009, the year after the Wall Street crash.

The most important revelation in the strike statistics—and one on which the media reports sparked by the BLS announcement are entirely silent—is the contradiction between the rising curve of worker militancy and the continued efforts by the unions to strangle the class struggle.

Of the six conflicts in 2018 with the largest impact in terms of work days lost, only one, against the Marriott hotel chain, was called by the unions. Four were statewide teachers’ strikes initiated by the rank-and-file on their own, using social media—in West Virginia (525,000 work days lost), Arizona (486,000), Oklahoma (405,000) and Kentucky (182,000). A fifth was the lockout imposed on utility workers at National Grid by the employer (156,000 work days lost).

Of the 2.8 million work days lost in labor disputes in 2018, nearly two-thirds were not the result of strikes called by the unions. They emerged organically out of the workplace and the conflict between the workers and employers. If it had been up to the unions, these struggles would never have taken place.

The upsurge of the working class in 2018 did not represent a revival of the unions, but a rebellion of the working class against them. These organizations have become a straitjacket, not only in politics—with the decades-long subordination of the working class to the Democratic Party—but in the assertion of even the most elementary class interests of workers for decent wages, working conditions and health and retirement benefits.

The initial struggles of the working class in 2019 have already confirmed this assessment. The teachers’ unions betrayed the week-long strike by 33,000 Los Angeles teachers in the most blatant fashion possible, abandoning the most important demands before the strike even began and rushing through a ratification vote in a matter of hours, having broken up the teachers into hundreds of separate meetings to block any organized opposition.

At the same time, the teachers’ unions are repeating the same policy as in 2018, when they kept the statewide strikes separated month-by-month so as to prevent the emergence of a nationwide strike by educators against budget cuts, low pay and increasing class sizes. While Los Angeles teachers were on the picket line last month, the unions delayed strikes in Oakland, Denver and the state of Virginia. These strikes too, should they break out, will be staggered in time and deliberately separated from one another.

Even more blatant is the deliberate silence of all the American trade unions, and particularly the United Auto Workers, on the heroic struggle by 70,000 auto parts workers in Matamoros, Mexico, across the border from Brownsville, Texas. These workers defied their unions to launch strike action, which has won substantial pay raises and bonuses at most of the auto parts plants, while inspiring other workers in the Mexico-US border region to launch their own strikes demanding similar increases.

The UAW and the other American unions have ample reason—from the standpoint of the millionaire bureaucrats who head them—to censor any news of the Matamoros struggle. The workers there have rebelled against the unions, denouncing them as corporate stooges, elected strike committees of rank-and-file workers to lead their struggle, and defied local, state and national government threats of police repression.

It is the nightmare of every union official that American workers will see the Mexican workers’ struggle as an example to be followed. This is particularly true of the UAW and its counterpart in Canada, Unifor, which have made anti-Mexican chauvinism a central feature of their politics, blaming plant shutdowns and layoffs, like the current shutdowns threatened in Detroit, Lordstown, Ohio and Oshawa, Ontario, on workers south of the Rio Grande.

It is in order to assert and demonstrate the fundamental unity of the struggles of the working class—in the US, Canada, Mexico and throughout the world—that the Steering Committee of the Coalition of Rank-and-File Committees and the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter are holding a demonstration today at 2 pm outside General Motors headquarters in downtown Detroit to fight the GM plant closings and layoffs.

We urge auto workers and other workers in the Detroit area and throughout the Midwest to join this rally, take up its call to establish rank-and-file committees independent of the unions, and build a mass movement of the working class to defend jobs, wages and working conditions on the basis of a socialist and internationalist program.

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Featured image: Demonstrators rally in Washington, D.C. on June 30, 2018 to protest the Trump Administration’s cruel immigration policies. (Photo: Susan Melkisethian/flickr/cc)

Holding the Eurovision Song Contest near to where 2172 Palestinian children have been killed since 2000, disregards the extreme brutality of the occupying military force of the host country.

Over two thousand dead children are equivalent to the massacre of the student population of maybe three entire secondary schools in Britain.  Yet the world that has remained silent, now intends to celebrate on soil just a few kilometres from where over two thousand children lie.

It will inevitably be seen as an obscenity, by all decent civilised people in Europe as well as by millions of viewers around the world.  Shame on those responsible for endorsing such a spectacle that apparently accepts the killing and injuring of thousands of innocent children as a normal part of the political landscape.

Those responsible only act in such a manner in the confidence that their own children are safe.  But those Palestinian children were, (and are), no different to our own, before they were cruelly injured or killed by bullets from a brutal army of occupation.

“In 2012, Breaking the Silence, an organization founded by former Israeli soldiers whose purpose is to expose alleged abuses committed by the Israeli Defense Forces released a booklet of witness reports written by more than 30 former Israeli soldiers. These reports document of Palestinian children being beaten, intimidated, humiliated, verbally abused and injured by Israeli soldiers.” – Wikipedia

It is a travesty of justice that makes a mockery of international law and the Geneva Conventions on Human Rights, and no respectable broadcasting organisation should be seen as being, in any way, a party to it.

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

Featured image is from RTE

9/11 was a neo-con coup. To believe otherwise is to willfully suspend the laws of physics, and to reject historical facts and common sense. It requires a leap of misguided faith.

The mythology of 9/11 is destroying humanity primarily through an acceleration of permanent warfare and the normalized commission of supreme international war crimes, but also through a covert form of metastasizing totalitarianism, an inverted totalitarianism[1], that is suffocating North America with its war propaganda, its Homeland Security and Patriot Act, its ubiquitous spying, and the corruption of media messaging – all for the benefit of a publicly bailed-out “neoliberal” diseconomy.

David Griffin, in “BUSH AND CHENEY/ HOW THEY RUINED AMERICA AND THE WORLD” identifies and elaborates upon 15 miracles[2] implicit in the “official” narrative, and the Zelikow 9/11 Commission stories, that official narrative believers necessarily accept.  The list is as follows:

1. The Twin Towers and WTC 7 were the only steel-framed high-rise buildings ever to come down without explosives or incendiaries.
2. The Twin Towers, each of which had 287 steel columns, were brought down solely by a combination of airplane strikes and jet-fuel fires.
3. WTC 7 was not even hit by a plane, so it was the first steel-framed high-rise to be brought down solely by ordinary building fires.
4. These World Trade Center buildings also came down in free fall – the Twin Towers in virtual free fall, WTC 7 in absolute free fall – for over two seconds.
5. Although the collapses of the of the WTC buildings were not aided by explosives, the collapses imitated the kinds of implosions that can be induced only by demolition companies.
6. In the case of WTC 7, the structure came down symmetrically (straight down, with an almost perfectly horizontal roofline), which meant that all 82 of the steel support columns had to fall simultaneously, although the building’s fires had a very asymmetrical pattern.
7. The South Tower’s upper 30-floor block changed its angular momentum in midair.
8. This 30 floor block then disintegrated in midair.
9. With regard to the North Tower, some of its steel columns were ejected out horizontally for at least 500 feet.
10. The fires in the debris from the WTC buildings could not be extinguished for many months.
11. Although the WTC fires, based on ordinary building fires, could not have produced temperatures above 1,800°, the fires inexplicably melted metals with much higher melting points, such as iron (2,800°) and even molybdenum (4,753°).
12. Some of the steel in the debris had been sulfidized, resulting in Swiss-cheese-appearing steel, even though ordinary building fires could not have resulted in the sulfidation.
13. As a passenger on AA Flight 77, Barbara Olson called her husband, telling him about hijackers on her plane, even though this plane had no onboard phones and its altitude was too high for a cell phone call to get through.
14. Hijacker pilot Hani Hanjour could not possibly have flown the trajectory of AA 77 to strike Wedge 1 of the Pentagon, and yet he did.
15. Besides going through an unbelievable personal transformation, ringleader Mohamed Atta also underwent an impossible physical transformation.

The official narrative assigns blame to al Qaeda, but al Qaeda, known and documented, are US proxies in Syria, Iraq, and beyond.  Blame lies elsewhere.

The Project for a New American Century, and the Anglo-Zionist plans for world hegemony should be demonized and rejected for what they are: a megalomaniacal global catastrophe.

The perpetuation of the 9/11 mythology leads us astray and diverts us from the causes of our own destruction.

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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.

Notes

[1] Sheldon Wolin, “Inverted Totalitarianism How the Bush regime is effecting the transformation to a fascist-like state.” The Nation, 1 May, 2003.( https://www.thenation.com/article/inverted-totalitarianism/?fbclid=IwAR2vMyxBnqq5u8e73qltIxC7TRZz6HYSFYU5VYv4nE7zX8xHtmRzarurAwc) Accessed 10 February, 2019.

[2] David Ray Griffin, BUSH AND CHENEY HOW THEY RUINED AMERICA AND THE WORD. Olive Branch Press, 2017, 291-292.

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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 

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Author: Mark Taliano

Year: 2017

Pages: 128 (Expanded edition: 1 new chapter)

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