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Special counsel Mueller indicted political strategist/former Trump advisor Roger Stone on seven counts – see below. 

In a politicized show of force, Stone was dramatically arrested pre-dawn on Friday at his south Florida home by around two dozen heavily armed FBI agents in bullet-proof vests and tactical gear despite facing no threat.

The scene resembled a Hollywood sound stage production, CNN notified in advance to capture the politicized arrest on video for maximum effect – an agent banging on Stone’s door, shouting “FBI! Open the door! FBI! Warrant!”

After his arrest, Stone appeared in federal court later on Friday morning. Charges are connected to Robert Mueller’s politicized Russiagate witch hunt probe, ongoing since May 2017, finding no improper or illegal connection between Trump, his team and Russia – because there’s nothing to find.

Indictments, including against Stone, have nothing to do with the special counsel’s stated purpose, nothing justifying what’s going on, no Russian US election meddling, no evidence suggesting it – no reason to continue a probe that never should have been begun in the first place.

Like Watergate to remove Richard Nixon from office on trumped up charges, targeting him for political reasons related to his social, environmental and geopolitical agenda, a similar scenario is playing out against Trump to delegitimize and undermine him for the wrong reasons.

Nixon threatened entrenched military/industrial/security and other interests, why he was marked for removal.

Trump favors improved relations with Russia and surprisingly North Korea as well – fire and fury evolving to friendship with Kim Jong-un, DLT saying “(h)e wrote me beautiful letters and we fell in love.” Who could have imagined the unimaginable – and there’s more.

While going along with endless US wars of aggression, escalating them, allowing himself to be co-opted, Trump called for scaling back in Syria and Afghanistan in favor of other priorities – polar opposite the military, industrial, military, media complex’s agenda, supporting endless wars and more of them.

Undemocratic Dems and media scoundrels never forgave him for triumphing over Hillary, a race he was supposed to lose, not win.

All of the above reasons are why he’s a marked man – justifiable reasons ignored, unjustifiable ones why dark forces want him delegitimized, removed from office, or weakened enough to be defeated for reelection in 2020.

Stone was indicted on one count of obstruction of justice, five counts of false statements, and one count of witness tampering.

Charges are unrelated to nonexistent Russian US election meddling or leaked information to WikiLeaks it revealed. No DNC hacking occurred, no evidence suggesting it. Claims otherwise were fabricated.

According to Stone’s attorney Grant Smith, “(t)here was no Russian collusion,” so what’s going on is “a clear attempt at silencing Roger,” adding:

“This was an investigation they started as about Russian collusion, and now they’re charging Roger Stone with lying to Congress about something he honestly forgot about, and as Roger has stated publicly before, he will fight the charges.”

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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.

Lately, it has become a habit of Orientalist apologists of Western imperialism to offer reductive historical and theological explanations of Sunni-Shi’a conflict in the Middle East region in order to cover up the blowback of ill-conceived Western military interventions and proxy wars that have ignited the flames of internecine conflict in the Islamic world.

Some self-anointed “Arabists” of the mainstream media posit that the division goes all the way back to the founding of Islam, 1400 years ago, and contend that the conflict emerged during the reign of the fourth caliph, Ali bin Abi Talib, in the seventh century A.D.

One wonders what would be the American-led war on terror’s explanation of such “erudite” historians of Islam – that the cause of “the clash of civilizations” between Christians and Muslims can be found in the Crusades when Richard the Lionheart and Saladin were skirmishing in the Levant and exchanging courtesies at the same time.

Fact of the matter is that in modern times, the Sunni-Shi’a conflict in the Middle East region is essentially a political conflict between the Gulf Arab autocrats and Iran for regional dominance which is being presented to lay Muslims in the veneer of religiosity.

Saudi Arabia, which has been vying for power as the leader of Sunni bloc against the Shi’a-led Iran in the regional geopolitics, was staunchly against the invasion of Iraq by the Bush Administration in 2003.

The Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein constituted a Sunni Arab bulwark against Iran’s meddling in the Arab world. But after Saddam was ousted from power in 2003 and subsequently when elections were held in Iraq which were swept by Shi’a-dominated parties, Iraq has now been led by a Shi’a-majority government that has become a steadfast regional ally of Iran. Consequently, Iran’s sphere of influence now extends all the way from territorially-contiguous Iraq and Syria to Lebanon and the Mediterranean coast.

Moreover, during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Bush Administration took advantage of the ethnic and sectarian divisions in Iraq and used the Kurds and Shi’as against the Sunni-led Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein. And during the occupation years from 2003 to 2011, the once dominant Sunni minority was politically marginalized which further exacerbated the ethnic and sectarian divisions in Iraq.

The Saudi royal family was resentful of Iran’s encroachment on the traditional Arab heartland. Therefore, when protests broke out against the Shi’a-led Syrian government in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, the Gulf states along with their regional Sunni allies, Turkey and Jordan, and the Western patrons gradually militarized the protests to dismantle the Iranian resistance axis.

A full-scale Sunni-Shi’a war has been going on in Syria, Iraq and Yemen for the last several years which will obviously have its repercussions all over the Islamic world where Sunni and Shi’a Muslims have coexisted in relative peace for centuries.

Notwithstanding, in order to create a semblance of objectivity and fairness, the American policymakers and analysts are always willing to accept the blame for the mistakes of the distant past that have no bearing on their present policy, however, any fact that impinges on their present policy is conveniently brushed aside.

In the case of the creation of the Islamic State, for instance, the US policy analysts are willing to concede that invading Iraq back in 2003 was a mistake that radicalized the Iraqi society, exacerbated sectarian divisions and gave birth to an unrelenting Sunni insurgency against the heavy-handed and discriminatory policies of the Shi’a-led Iraqi government.

Similarly, the war on terror era political commentators also “generously” accept the fact that the Cold War-era policy of nurturing al-Qaeda and myriads of Afghan so-called “freedom fighters” against the erstwhile Soviet Union was a mistake, because all those fait accompli have no bearing on their present policy.

The mainstream media’s spin-doctors conveniently forget, however, that the creation of the Islamic State and myriads of other Sunni Arab jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq has as much to do with the unilateral invasion of Iraq back in 2003 under the Republican Bush administration as it has been the legacy of the Democratic Obama administration that funded, armed, trained and internationally legitimized the Sunni militants against the Shi’a-led Syrian government since 2011-onward in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa region.

In fact, the proximate cause behind the rise of the Islamic State, al-Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham, Jaysh al-Islam and numerous other Sunni Arab jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq was the Obama administration’s policy of intervention through proxies in Syria.

The border between Syria and Iraq is highly porous and poorly guarded. The Obama administration’s policy of nurturing militants against the Syrian government was bound to have its blowback in Iraq sooner or later. Therefore, as soon as the Islamic State consolidated its gains in Syria, it overran Mosul and Anbar in Iraq in early 2014 from where the US had withdrawn its troops only a couple of years ago in December 2011.

Apart from Syria and Iraq, two other flashpoints of Sunni-Shi’a conflict in the Middle East region are Bahrain and Yemen. When peaceful protests broke out against the Sunni monarchy in Bahrain by the Shi’a majority population in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011, Saudi Arabia sent thousands of troops across the border to quell the uprising.

Similarly, when the Iran-backed Houthis, which is also an offshoot of Shi’a Islam, overran Sana’a in September 2014, Saudi Arabia and UAE mounted another ill-conceived Sunni-led offensive against the Houthi militia in Yemen in March 2015.

The nature of the conflict in Yemen is sectarian to an extent that last year, the Yemeni branch of al-Qaeda’s leader Qasim al-Raymi claimed that al-Qaeda had been fighting hand in hand with the Saudi-led alliance against the Iran-backed rebels for the last three years.

The revelation hardly comes as a surprise, though, because after all al-Qaeda’s official franchise in Syria, al-Nusra Front, has also been fighting hand in glove with the so-called “moderate” Syrian opposition against the Syrian government for the last eight years of the Syrian proxy war.

Furthermore, according to Pakistan’s National Commission for Human Rights, 509 Shi’a Muslims belonging to the Hazara ethnic group had been killed in Pakistan’s western city of Quetta since 2013. Although a southern Punjab-based sectarian militant outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi frequently claims responsibility for the massacre of Hazaras in Quetta, such claims are often misleading.

The hub of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi’s power mostly lies in Punjab whereas the Balochistan province’s provincial metropolis Quetta, which is almost three-hour drive from the Af-Pak border at Chaman, is regarded as the center of Taliban’s activities.

After the American invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in 2001 with the help of the Northern Alliance, the top leadership of the Taliban has mostly settled in Quetta and its adjoining rural areas and Afghan refugee camps, hence it is called the Quetta Shura Taliban.

In order to understand the casus belli of the Taliban-Hazara conflict, it’s worth noting that the leadership of the Hazara ethnic group has always taken the side of the Tajik and Uzbek-led Northern Alliance against the Pashtun-led Taliban.

The Taliban has committed several massacres of the Hazara people in Afghanistan, particularly following the 1997 massacre of 3,000 Taliban prisoners by the Uzbek warlord Abdul Malik Pahlawan in Mazar-i-Sharif thousands of Hazaras were massacred by the Taliban in the same city in August 1998 for betraying the Taliban.

The Hazara people are an ethnically Uzbek, Dari (Afghan Persian)-speaking ethnic group native to the Hazarajat region in central Afghanistan but roughly 600,000 Hazaras also live in Quetta, Pakistan. Although the conflict between the Taliban and Hazaras might appear religious and sectarian, the real reasons of the conflict are political in nature, as I have already described.

Now, when the fire of inter-sectarian strife is burning on several different fronts in the Middle East and the Sunni and Shi’a communities are witnessing a merciless slaughter of their brethren in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain Afghanistan and Pakistan, then it would be preposterous to look for the causes of the conflict in theology and medieval history. If the Sunni and Shi’a Muslims were so thirsty for each other’s blood since the founding of Islam, then how come they managed to survive as distinct sectarian groups for 1400 years?

Fact of the matter is that in modern times, the phenomena of Islamic radicalism, jihadism and consequent Sunni-Shi’a conflict are only as old as the Soviet-Afghan jihad during the 1980s when the Western powers with the help of their regional allies trained and armed Afghan jihadists to battle the Soviet troops in Afghanistan.

More significantly, however, the Iran-Iraq War from 1980 to 1988 between the Sunni and Baathist-led Iraq and the Shi’a-led Iran after the 1979 Khomeini revolution engendered acrimony and hostility between the Sunni and Shi’a communities of the region for the first time in modern history.

And finally, the conflict has been further exacerbated in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011 when the Western powers and their regional client states once again took advantage of the opportunity and nurtured militants against the Arab nationalist Gaddafi government in Libya and the Baathist-led Assad administration in Syria.

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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.

Prime Minister Imran Khan’s “Naya Pakistan” (“New Pakistan”) just passed legislation loosening the country’s previously difficult visa procedure to allow for most of the world’s nationalities to either receive one on arrival or electronically, which will not only boost tourism and facilitate business dealings but impressively show the international community that Azad Kashmir is truly free and not “Pakistan-occupied” like India falsely alleges.

Pakistan just unprecedentedly passed legislation loosening its previously difficult visa procedure to allow for most of the world’s nationalities to either receive one on arrival or electronically as part of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s “Naya Pakistan” (“New Pakistan”) vision of revolutionizing his country’s domestic and foreign affairs, with it being expected that this will immensely boost its tourism industry and facilitate the clinching of international business deals along the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

The future influx of tourists to Pakistan’s world-renowned mountains and beaches will help to dispel the country’s negative reputation that was manipulatively cultivated by the US and India as part of their years-long infowar on it, powerfully proving that Pakistan has been deliberately misportrayed this entire time and prompting people to question what else the Western Mainstream Media is lying about when it comes to the South Asian state.

The most immediate impact of PM Khan’s move, however, is that people will be able to see that Azad Kashmir (“Free Kashmir”) is truly free and not “Pakistan-occupied” like India falsely alleges, which can importantly help the country contradict one of the most malicious myths spread about it since independence because the rest of the world will be able to see with their own eyes that the population there doesn’t behave like their counterparts across the Line of Control.

The part of Kashmir under India’s control can legitimately be described as Indian-occupied because of how much the population is fiercely resisting New Delhi’s “authority” in response to the rampant abuses that the state regularly carries out against them, which it actually goes to great lengths to suppress by shutting down the internet and assassinating activists in cold blood, to say nothing of barring most foreigners (and especially journalists) from the region for “security purposes”.

Altogether, the grand strategic impact of “Naya Pakistan’s” visa liberalization law is that the country is confidently opening up to the outside world in order to bring regular folks, businesspeople, and ultimately even entire civilizations together on its territory, which will showcase its recent socio-economic and security successes while simultaneously having a powerful effect in reshaping international perceptions, especially when it comes to Kashmir because of how much Pakistan’s transparency contrasts with India’s secrecy.

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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.

With the rise of internet social media, patronized by multi-millions of receptive people and supplied by a small number of companies that have achieved dominance, a path way to information control was cleared.

To complete the highway, all that was required was its extension to and from Washington elites, neocon types, intelligence agencies and establishment types. These connections are being built now. They picked up speed in the last two years with the resistance to Trump and his agenda.

Microsoft now uses NewsGuard to rate news sites via an optional browser add-on; but NewsGuard’s ratings are biased, it being dominated by establishment types. Its blacklisting of the Drudge Report is an example. This is only one step in an ongoing process in which big-tech social media eliminate accounts and news sources. Facebook allied with the Atlantic Council, which houses the Digital Forensic Research Lab. Its aim is to “analyze open-source material to provide proof against false narratives”.

When the censors decide what’s false, they necessarily have beliefs about what is true. What if they are wrong? What if they are biased? What if the truth is more complex than they think it is? What if new facts come to light that tarnish or render obsolete their views? What if the censors act on behalf of interests in or close to government who want to maintain secrecy for their own purposes? What if the censors stand against Wikileaks, as NewsGuard does? What if truth-tellers sometimes get it wrong? Will they be entirely censored and cut off from certain internet avenues as is now being done?

Who will provide protection against the information protectors? Who will provide protection against false narratives that the censors believe in, which they use as benchmarks and claim are true?

There is no substitute for people thinking for themselves, and that requires handling conflicting and incomplete information. The notion of news-raters dividing the news sources into trusted and untrusted sites simply alters the problem. The problem doesn’t go away. People then have to decide which news-raters are trustworthy or not. Meanwhile, people who do not actively think about political and other issues are putty in the hands of those who control the information flows and shape the narratives.

The information control highway is in its infancy. It can go to unimaginable lengths to control speech and the distribution of speech, especially the latter. Sufficient control over distribution makes control of actual content less important to the information-controllers.

This disturbing development is going to be countered by the rise of the independents. Independent news sources and interpreters are going to find a market and build out counter-networks. The forces of censorship are going to lose this war.

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Featured image is from TruePublica

Originally, there were four parties involved in the Afghan conflict which are mainly responsible for the debacle in the Af-Pak region. Firstly, the former Soviet Union which invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. Secondly, Pakistan’s security agencies which nurtured the Afghan so-called “mujahideen” (freedom fighters) on the behest of Washington.

Thirdly, Saudi Arabia and the rest of oil-rich Gulf states which generously funded the jihadists to promote their Wahhabi-Salafi ideology. And last but not the least, the Western capitals which funded, provided weapons and internationally legitimized the erstwhile ‘freedom fighters’ to use them against a competing ideology, global communism, which posed a threat to the Western corporate interests all over the world.

Regarding the objectives of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, the then American envoy to Kabul, Adolph “Spike” Dubs, was assassinated on 14 Feb 1979, the same day that Iranian revolutionaries stormed the US embassy in Tehran.

According to recently declassified documents [1] of the White House, CIA and State Department as reported by Tim Weiner for The Washington Post, the CIA was aiding Afghan jihadists before the Soviets invaded in 1979. The then American President Jimmy Carter signed the CIA directive to arm the Afghan jihadists in July 1979, whereas the former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December the same year.

That the CIA was arming the Afghan jihadists six months before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan has been proven by the State Department’s declassified documents and admitted by The Washington Post, which is owned by Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon. The Washington Post has a history of working in close collaboration with the CIA as Bezos won a $600 million contract [2] in 2013 to host the CIA’s database on the Amazon’s web-hosting service.

Fact of the matter, however, is that the nexus between the CIA, Pakistan’s security agencies and the Gulf states to train and arm the Afghan jihadists against the former Soviet Union was formed several years earlier.

During the late 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 and the Soviet Central Asian States.

The former Soviet Union was wary that its 40 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.

Even the American President Donald Trump recently admitted [3]:

“The reason Russia invaded Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia; they were right to be there.”

Incidentally, Trump also implied the reason why Soviet Union collapsed was due to the economic burden of the Soviet-Afghan War, as he was making a point about the withdrawal of American forces from Syria and Afghanistan.

Notwithstanding, in the Soviet-Afghan War between the global capitalist and global communist blocs, Saudi Arabia and the rest of Gulf’s petro-monarchies took the side of the global capitalist bloc because the former Soviet Union and Central Asian states produce more energy and consume less. Thus, the Soviet-led bloc was a net exporter of energy whereas the Western capitalist bloc was a net importer.

It suited the economic interests of the oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries to maintain and strengthen a supplier-consumer relationship with the Western capitalist bloc. Now, the BRICS countries are equally hungry for the Middle East’s energy, but it’s a recent development. During the Cold War, an alliance with the industrialized Western nations suited the economic interests of the Gulf countries.

Why did Pakistan choose to join this unholy alliance against the global Left? In order to understand this, we need to take a cursory look at the history of Pakistan. During the British colonial rule before the independence of the subcontinent in 1947, Pakistan’s leadership used to have a patron-client relationship with the British imperialists.

The Indian leadership also used to have that relationship with the British imperialists, but in the case of Pakistan, there was an additional aggravating factor involved: the numerical weakness of the Indian Muslims and their consequent dependence on the British imperialists against the permanent numerical majority of the Hindus.

It’s not that the Hindu leaders were not afflicted with the colonial mentality, but in the case of Pakistani leaders, the myth of invincibility and infallibility of the West was cherished even more. That’s why Pakistan’s first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan declined the request of a state visit from the former Soviet Union and went on a state visit to Washington instead.

It wasn’t just the colonial mentality of Pakistan’s leaders but certain geopolitical considerations also played into their thinking for forming a strategic alliance with the Western bloc. Immediately after the independence, India annexed the Muslim-majority state of 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.

Then in the 1950s, India took advantage of the Kashmiri territory, as the riverheads of Pakistani rivers are located in Kashmir, and diverted the waters of Pakistani rivers to irrigate India’s western provinces. The whole of Bahawalpur region in southern Punjab turned barren overnight and the agricultural economy of the nascent state of Pakistan suffered a tremendous blow.

With the involvement of the World Bank and the Tennessee Valley Authority of the US, Pakistan and India signed the Indus Waters Treaty in 1960, which allocated exclusive rights for the use of three eastern rivers to India, and some rights such as the right to build hydroelectric projects over the western Pakistani rivers, Jhelum and Chenab, as well.

All these incidents and Pakistan’s relative weakness vis-à-vis India made it even more dependent on the Western military and developmental aid. That’s why it joined the Washington-led, anti-communist SEATO and CENTO alliances in the region during the 1950s.

So much so that when an American U-2 spy plane was shot down in May 1960 by the Soviet Air Defense Forces while performing photographic aerial reconnaissance deep into Soviet territory, Pakistan’s then-President Ayub Khan openly acknowledged that the spy plane had flown from the American airbase in Pakistan’s northwestern metropolis, Peshawar.

When Pakistan had forged such a close alliance with Washington, it became impossible for it to stay neutral when the former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Regarding the motives of the belligerents involved, the Americans wanted to take revenge for their defeat at the hands of communists in Vietnam, the Gulf countries had forged close economic ties with the Western bloc and Pakistan was dependent on the Western military aid, hence it didn’t have a choice but to toe Washington’s policy in Afghanistan.

In the end, the Soviet-Afghan War proved to be a “bear trap” and the former Soviet Union was eventually defeated and was subsequently dissolved in December 1991. It did not collapse because of the Afghan Jihad but that was an important factor contributing to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Regardless, more than twenty years before the declassification of the State Department documents as mentioned in the aforementioned Washington Post report, in the 1998 interview [4] to the alternative news outlet The Counter Punch Magazine, former National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, confessed that the president signed the directive to provide secret aid to the Afghan jihadists in July 1979, whereas the Soviet Army invaded Afghanistan six months later in December 1979.

Osama bin Laden and Brzezinki, 1979?

Here is a poignant excerpt from the interview: The interviewer puts the question:

“And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic jihadists, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?”

Brzezinski replies:

“What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?”

Despite the crass insensitivity, one must give credit to Zbigniew Brzezinski that at least he had the courage to speak the unembellished truth. It’s worth noting, however, that the aforementioned interview was recorded in 1998. After the 9/11 terror attack, no Western policymaker can now dare to be as blunt and forthright as Brzezinski.

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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] CIA was aiding Afghan rebels before the Soviets invaded in 1979:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/01/07/history-trump-cia-was-arming-afghan-rebels-before-soviets-invaded/

[2] Jeff Bezos Is Doing Huge Business with the CIA:

http://www.alternet.org/media/owner-washington-post-doing-business-cia-while-keeping-his-readers-dark

[3] Trump’s history lesson on the Soviet Union:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/01/02/trumps-bizarre-history-lesson-soviet-union-russia-afghanistan/

[4] Brzezinski Interview: How Jimmy Carter and I Started the Mujahideen:

https://www.counterpunch.org/1998/01/15/how-jimmy-carter-and-i-started-the-mujahideen/

Featured image: President Reagan and Mujahideen leaders from Afghanistan, 1980s

Israel has attacked Syria many times during the last seven years of war imposed on Syria. It has run red-lights and broken taboos in order to provoke the “Axis of the Resistance” inside Syria, but has refrained from infuriating Hezbollah in Lebanon. Nevertheless, the most recent Israeli attack has pushed Syria and its allies beyond tolerable limits. Thus, President Assad prepared himself for a battle against Israel between the wars, knowing that such a battle could last weeks. But the president of Syria won’t be alone: Assad and Hezbollah’s Secretary general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah will both be running any future battle against any Israeli aggression when the decision to engage will be taken.

Most recently Israel bombed the Syrian army and destroyed the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) offices and bases in Syria without inflicting any human casualties. At the same time, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put himself on the level of IRGC-Quds brigade General Qassem Soleimani, by challenging him on social media.  In fact, Netanyahu fell right into the trap the Iranian general set for President Donald Trump.

Soleimani asked President Hassan Rouhani “to avoid answering this thug (Trump) who is beneath your level” and to allow him (Soleimani) to respond to Trump’s provocations of Iran. Thus Soleimani, a mere officer in the Iranian security forces, engages leaders of countries and even an arrogant Prime Minister who commands what he considers the best army in the Middle East and among the strongest in the world. But Soleimani’s style is different from Netanyahu’s. He doesn’t have a twitter account; he spends his time in the battlefield and in meetings with group leaders, officials, and sometime presidents and prime ministers. Soleimani is patient but he can be expected to respond to provocations sooner or later.

Well-informed sources say that Iran is unwilling to abide the repetitive Israeli aggressions against Syria and IRGC positions. The Axis of Resistance is aware that Netanyahu is trying to pull it into a confrontation while US forces are deployed in Northeast Syria and before the Warsaw meeting organised by Trump against Iran. It is a difficult moment for Iran to react, but that doesn’t mean its allies can’t respond.

As noted in a previous article about the decision of the central government in Damascus to establish a new rule of engagement against continuous Israeli attacks, Syria was planning retaliation against any future Israeli attacks. This Syrian decision came just before Trump’s announcement of his intention to withdraw from Syria. This statement gave pause to Syria and its allies, as they reflected upon the best way to respond.

Tel Aviv is aware of the limitation of Iran in this critical moment and understands that the Resistance Axis would rather see a US withdrawal than to retaliate against Israel continuous attacks. Nevertheless, the most recent Israeli attack has pushed Syria and its allies beyond tolerable limits. Netanyahu announced his responsibility for the multiple bombardments of Syria–an unprecedented break with Israel’s protocol of silence. He used the army as an advertising tool for his forthcoming election.

The Israeli Prime Minister perhaps doesn’t realize that Soleimani won’t reply to his provocation in Syria because Iranian targets were not bombed in Iran. Damascus, a close and strategic Syrian ally, responded to the attack by launching missiles against Israel which has driven it out of control bombarding tens of targets to avoid a larger escalation. Nevertheless, the Syrian Ambassador to the UN Bashar al-Jaafari warned that Tel Aviv airport could be bombed if Israel repeats its aggression on Syria. What al-Jaafari didn’t reveal is the fact that President Assad prepared himself for a battle against Israel between the wars, knowing that such a battle could last weeks.

Indeed, a long battle between Syria and Israel would put an end to Netanyahu’s chances to be re-elected. No Israeli Prime Minister has been elected who has exposed his country to danger and triggered the death of citizens.

But how can Syria retaliate if, as Israel claims, all Syrian and Iranian warehouses have been bombarded and destroyed with their thousands of missiles? How can Hezbollah support Syria if, as Israel claims, it has crippled all convoys transiting from Syria to Lebanon? How is it possible to re-supply Lebanon if the US is occupying the al-Tanf crossing between Syria and Iraq, allegedly to stop the flow of weapons from Tehran to Beirut?

In 2006, Israel paid the price when it believed that it had undermined Hezbollah’s arsenal and discovered, through the massacre of the Merkava at Wadi al-Hujeir and the bombing of the Saar-5 vessel, that its intelligence about Hezbollah missiles and Syrian support was poor and that the US and Israeli intelligence failed. Tel Aviv wrongly believed it could easily fulfil the US dream of establishing a “new Middle East” announced by its Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. No one in Israel expected Hezbollah to stand with its Kornet anti-tank guided missiles and its Chinese anti-ship missiles.

Today, the Resistance Axis, i.e. Syria and Hezbollah in the Levant, have not only greater experience of warfare, but they also have more modern anti-ship missiles (Yakhont) and other lethal surprises like precision missiles capable of hitting any target anywhere in Israel.

Moreover, Hezbollah has several bases for its strategic missiles on the Lebanese-Syrian borders. The group will not hesitate to generously use them against Israel if Israel attacks its ally Syria. But Hezbollah is not expected to limit its support to weaponry. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is not only a master orator and a skilled psychologist of warfare, but also a meticulous military planner and commander. He was present in the military operational room in every single battle against Israel and participated in every single move his men took against Israel in the 2006 war and since. Logistic-technical-military planning and command and control between Hezbollah and Syria is today united. Nasrallah knows how to fight Israel, how much fire power to use and when. Assad and Nasrallah will both be running any future battle against any Israeli aggression when the decision to engage will be taken.

Russia is aware of determination of the Resistance Axis to respond and the danger this could pose for everyone in the Levant.  The Russians tipped the IRGC to evacuate their command and control bases less than an hour before they were attacked by Israel. Russian military command asked the IRGC about their new command and control bases and were told that “their bases, from today onward, will be spread over the entire Syrian geography alongside the Syrian army, in every single barracks”.

This answer pushed Russia to ask Israel, more directly and overtly, to stop bombing Syria. Russia would hate to find itself in the middle of an exchange of missiles between Syria and Israel flying above its head in the Levant.

Netanyahu’s arrogance pushed  him to abandon Israel’s policy of refusing to admit responsibility for its aggression, confusing the military command. The Prime Minister transmitted his electoral gossip inside the military establishment; he prefers to become a social media star rather than to follow the discreet example of his predecessors.

If Netanyahu wants to be re-elected, he needs to avoid a battle with Syria whose outcome he cannot control; his best strategy would be to keep silent until the polls.

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Did Trump blink? Did undemocratic Dems win the 35-day standoff?

On Friday, DLT announced a deal to reopen government for three weeks without having gotten congressional border wall funding.

He vowed to build a “wall or steel barrier (in) predetermined high-risk locations” with or without congressional funding, saying if Dems don’t approve it by February 15, he’ll use executive power to address a (non-emergency) emergency.

The Trump/Dem battle over whether to build or not to build a border wall has nothing to do with national security, nothing to do with stopping criminal gangs from entering the country, a DLT perpetuated myth, nothing to do with stopping the flow of illicit drugs into the country.

They pore in through all its borders, by land, sea, and air – supported by the CIA and Wall Street, profiting hugely from what’s gone on for decades, what politicians and major media never explain.

Late Friday, Trump signed congressional legislation to reopen government, effective immediately, saying if Dems don’t approve border wall funding by mid-February, “the government will either shut down” again or he’ll act on his own to authorize funding by executive power.

Battle lines remain drawn. Things came to a head for Trump over polls showing popular sentiment against him, his approval rating dropping below 40%, along with major US airport delays because many unpaid personnel called in sick and aren’t working, an untenable situation for travelers.

A bipartisan conference committee will reportedly be established to debate the politicized issue – Trump demanding border wall funding, Dems opposing him for political advantage.

A late Friday White House statement said DLT “signed into law: HJ Res. 28, the ‘Further Additional Continuing Appropriations Act, 2019,’ which includes a short-term continuing resolution that provides fiscal year 2019 appropriations through February 15, 2019, for continuing projects and activities of the Federal Government included in the remaining seven appropriations bills.”

“Also included in the enrolled bill are provisions regarding retroactive pay and reimbursement, and extensions of certain authorities.”

The White House is preparing a draft proclamation, declaring an invented national emergency along the southern border with Mexico, earmarking $7 billion in potential funds from existing programs, draft language saying:

“The massive amount of aliens who unlawfully enter the United States each day is a direct threat to the safety and security of our nation and constitutes a national emergency” – even though it’s invented, not real, adding:

“Now, therefore, I, Donald J. Trump, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the National Emergencies Act (50 USC 1601, et seq.), hereby declare that a national emergency exists at the southern border of the United States.”

An unnamed US official said Trump may authorize use of $681 million from Treasury forfeiture funds, $3.6 billion for military construction, $3 billion for Pentagon civil works, and $200 million of Department of Homeland Security funds for border wall construction.

Dems will surely challenge him for political advantage if he moves this way – along with its continuing agenda to delegitimize, undermine, and weaken him overall, wanting him removed from office or defeated for reelection in 2020.

With Dems controlling the House, the period ahead will likely be more tumultuous than what’s gone on since Trump’s election – a process he was supposed to lose, not win, the price for defeating media darling Hillary.

For now, partial government shutdown since December 22 is over at least until mid-February. What then remains to unfold – Dems so far ahead in the battle for political advantage, Trump weakened as planned.

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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.

Nicolas Marduro is Venezuela’s legitimate democratically elected and reelected president.

The country’s process is scrupulously open, free, and fair, the world’s best, a model for other nations. Polar opposite to America’s fantasy democracy, the best money can buy.

Coup d’etats reflect longstanding US policy since the 19th century, numerous Latin American countries (among many others) targeted successfully and unsuccessfully.

They include Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, British Guiana, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Ecuador, Guatemala, Grenada, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Suriname, along with Venezuela earlier and in progress.

The late William Blum explained why there will never be a coup in Washington – because there’s no US embassy there, infested with CIA operatives.

It’s not a pretty picture, “enough to give imperialism a bad name,” Blum stressed. The US interferes in the internal affairs of virtually all other countries, including their elections, independent ones like Venezuela targeted for regime change – by naked aggression, color revolutions, or old-fashioned coups.

US attempts to topple sitting governments are planned well in advance, on the shelf, updated as needed, ready to be implemented when ordered.

Juan Guaido is Washington’s latest designated puppet to serve its interests in Venezuela, a little known National Assembly head outside of the country, catapulted from obscurity to international prominence.

According to the Wall Street Journal,

“(t)he night before (he illegitimately) declared himself interim president of Venezuela, (he) received a phone call from Vice President Mike Pence” – pledging to back his illegal power grab.

“That late-night call set in motion a plan that had been developed in secret” earlier by Trump regime hardliners, “culminat(ing) in Guaido’s” unconstitutional self-declaration as Venezuela’s (US designed illegitimate) interim president.

Pence reportedly told Guaido if the National Assembly invoked Article 233 of Venezuela’s Constitution (to usurp interim power), the Trump regime would back him. The article states the following:

“The President of the Republic shall become permanently unavailable to serve by reason of any of the following events: death; resignation; removal from office by decision of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice; permanent physical or mental disability certified by a medical board designated by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice with the approval of the National Assembly; abandonment of his position, duly declared by the National Assembly; and recall by popular vote.”

“When an elected President becomes permanently unavailable to serve prior to his inauguration, a new election by universal suffrage and direct ballot shall be held within 30 consecutive days. Pending election and inauguration of the new President, the President of the National Assembly shall take charge of the Presidency of the Republic.”

Nothing stated above applies to Maduro – democratically elected and reelected by a process independent monitors called open, free, and fair – his legitimacy affirmed judicially, an attempt by a foreign power to replace him a flagrant breach of international law.

Trump straightaway recognized Guaido, planned and orchestrated in advance of his announcement, most Latin and Central American countries, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, and other nations going along with the attempted coup.

Russia, China, and other states expressed opposition the attempted coup. Putin phoned Maduro, offering support, a Kremlin statement saying:

“The President of Russia expressed support for the legitimate Venezuelan authorities amid the worsening of the internal political crisis provoked from outside the country.”

“He emphasized that destructive external interference is a gross violation of the fundamental norms of international law.”

“He spoke in favor of searching for solutions within the constitutional framework and overcoming differences in Venezuelan society through peaceful dialogue.”

The statement failed to name the US or condemn the Trump regime’s coup d’etat attempt against a sovereign government and its leadership.

Nothing was said about how Putin intends supporting Maduro’s legitimacy. Rhetorically alone is meaningless when toughness against imperial lawlessness is needed – in Venezuela, Syria and elsewhere.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev incorrectly called an old-fashioned US coup d’etat attempt in Venezuela a “quasi” one. There’s nothing remotely “quasi” about it.

So far it’s an attempt short of succeeding. Washington has lots of ways to push its agenda with toughness, military force an option, implemented many times before.

On Friday, Maduro showed weakness, not strength, saying he’s willing to meet with Guaido to try resolving differences through dialogue.

“If I have to go to talk with him I am willing because I believe in the truth. I am a democrat. I am a man of my word. Hopefully sooner rather than later the opposition will get out of the way of extremism and open a sincere dialogue,” he said.

Note: If a US official or other citizen colluded with a foreign power, declaring himself or herself interim US president, they’d likely be arrested and charged with sedition or treason.

An individual charged and convicted of seditious conspiracy to topple a sitting US president or government would face up to 20 years imprisonment.

The Constitution’s Article III, Section 3 calls treason “giving aid and comfort” to the nation’s enemies, a crime more serious than sedition. The punishment for treason in America is life imprisonment, parole possible only after incarceration for 40 years.

What’s going on in Venezuela was and remains orchestrated and controlled by Washington, Guaido following orders, Trump regime hardliners calling the shots.

Convicted neocon Iran/Contra co-conspirator, death squad supporter, Elliot Abrams was appointed DLT’s point man for regime change in Venezuela. Pompeo turned truth on its head, saying he’ll “help the Venezuelan people fully restore democracy and prosperity to their country.”

Abrams never met a tinpot despot, allied with US interests, he didn’t fully embrace and support. Convicted of lying to Congress, GHW Bush shamefully pardoned him.

He was a founding Project for a New American Century (PNAC) member – its “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” a scheme promoting US global hegemony by endless wars and other means.

Abrams was involved in Bush/Cheney’s aborted April 2002 coup attempt in Venezuela, and the regime’s 2003 war on Iraq – based on Big Lies like all wars of aggression.

He expressed eagerness “to get to work on” transforming Venezuela into another US vassal state. Controlling the country’s oil reserves, the world’s largest, is a key objective behind what’s going on – so Big Oil can exploit them.

On Friday, Trump’s Treasury Department said it won’t freeze whatever Venezuelan assets the US controls.

Instead, it’ll assure that  “commercial transactions by the Venezuelan government, including those involving its state-owned enterprises and international reserves, are consistent” with Washington’s recognition of Guaido as (illegitimate) interim (puppet) president.

At stake going forward is preserving and protecting the hemisphere’s most vibrant social democracy – governance of, by, and for all Venezuelans equitably, a system Republicans and Dems abhor at home and abroad.

Venezuela’s military supports Maduro’s legitimacy as president, opposing Trump coup attempt.

Keeping its support is key, the best chance of defeating the latest US regime change attempt – preventing Washington from gaining another imperial trophy.

A Final Comment

On Friday, Reuters headlined “Exclusive: Kremlin-linked contractors help guard Venezuela’s Maduro – (unnamed) sources,” saying:

“Private military contractors who do secret missions for Russia flew into Venezuela in the past few days to beef up security for President Nicolas Maduro in the face of US-backed opposition protests, according to two (unnamed) people close to them” – and a “third (unnamed) source,” saying:

“The contractors are associated with the so-called Wagner group whose members (are) mostly ex-service personnel…”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov debunked the claim, saying “(w)e have no such information.”

Russia’s envoy to Venezuela Vladimir Zaemsky slammed the report, saying

“I don’t know about the presence of any Russian private military companies in Venezuela. This is another hoax.”

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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.

Pompeo named Elliott Abrams as special envoy for Venezuela Friday. The Guardian reminds us of Abrams’ awful career serving in previous Republican administrations:

Abrams is widely remembered in Central America, but particularly from his time in the Reagan administration, when he tried to whitewash a massacre of a thousand men, women and children by US-funded death squads in El Salvador, when he was assistant secretary of state for human rights.
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He shrugged off the reports as communist propaganda, and insisted: “The administration’s record in El Salvador is one of fabulous achievement.”

Abrams also helped organise the covert financing of Contra rebels in Nicaragua behind the back of Congress, which had cut off funding. He then lied to Congress about his role, twice. He pleaded guilty to both counts in 1991 but was pardoned by George HW Bush.

More than a decade later, working as special Middle East adviser to former president George W Bush, Abrams was an enthusiastic advocate of the Iraq invasion. He was in the White House at the time of the abortive coup in 2002 against Hugo Chavez. The Observer reported that Abrams gave the green light to the putsch, another an inspector general enquiry found no “wrongdoing” by US officials.

That was not enough to erase his reputation as the assistant secretary of dirty wars. The message sent by his return to the front rank of US diplomacy will not missed in Caracas.

Putting Abrams in charge of any aspect of U.S. foreign policy is a horrible mistake. Putting someone with such a well-known, appalling record in charge of a regime change effort in Latin America confirms critics’ worst suspicions about this intervention in another country’s internal political dispute. It is a measure of how completely hard-liners now dominate Trump administration foreign policy that a vocal Trump critic can be brought on to lead a high-profile foreign policy initiative. Venezuela policy has been designed by Rubio and Pompeo, both of whom are notoriously hawkish, and it is going to be carried out by a neoconservative with one of the bloodiest and ugliest foreign policy records of anyone that has served in government over the last forty years. All the while, Bolton couldn’t be happier with what has been happening. Trump is letting his foreign policy be conducted by some of the very worst people in the Republican Party, and it is just a matter of time before it blows up in his face at great cost to the U.S.

The message that the Abrams appointment sends is the worst imaginable that the U.S. could send right now. Here is an official with a long record of supporting violent abuses, civil wars, and coups in Latin American countries and a backer of forcible regime change in other parts of the world, and he is being put in charge of an effort to “restore democracy” to Venezuela. That should be setting off every alarm bell there is. Pompeo could scarcely have chosen a person with a worse, more sullied reputation in the region, and by putting him charge of Venezuela policy he has all but announced that our policy is the cynical and destructive one that its opponents have feared it will be.

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We are frequently told that people in Venezuela have no food, clothing or toilet paper, and that popular discontent with the left wing government is driven by real hunger. There are elements of truth in this story, though the causes of economic dislocation are far more complex than the media would have us believe.

But I ask you to look at this photo of supporters of CIA poster-boy, the West’s puppet unelected “President” Juan Guaido, taken at a Guaido rally in Caracas two days ago and published yesterday in security services house journal The Guardian. Please take a really close look at the photo. Blow it up as big as you can. Scan individual people in the crowd, one by one.

Source: Craig Murray

These are not the poor and most certainly not the starving. As it chances I have a great deal of life experience working amongst seriously deprived, hungry and despairing people. I know the gaunt face of want and the desperate glance of need. Look at these Guaido supporters, one by one by one. This designer spectacled, well-coiffed, elegantly dressed, sleekly jowled group does not know hunger. This group does not know want. This is a proper right wing gathering, a gathering of the nicely off section of society. This is a group of those who have corruptly been siphoning Venezuela’s great wealth for decades and who want to make sure the gravy train flows properly in their direction again. It is, in short, a group of exactly the kind of people you would expect to support a CIA coup.

Those manicured hands raised in the air will never throw rocks, or get involved in violence unless against a peasant strapped to a chair for them. It is not this crowd which will suffer as public disorder is manipulated and directed by the CIA. These wealthy ones are immune, just as Davos serves as nothing but an annual reminder of how very poorly God aims avalanches.

There is real suffering in Venezuela. The CIA is working hard to stoke violence, and the genuine poor will soon start to die, both in those egged on to riot and in the security services. But do not get taken in by the complete nonsense that this is a popular, democratic revolution. It is not. It is yet another barefaced CIA regime change coup.

UPDATE Such wisdom as this blog finds is often crowd-source, and with thanks to a commenter below here is some useful information from Jill Stein.

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Featured image is from Prensa Presidencial

The worldwide network that facilitates transnational organised crime and corruption is, tragically, one of globalisation’s most enduring success stories. It is also, therefore, one of its deadliest flaws. While the produce and proceeds of crime flow seamlessly across borders, justice and law enforcement remain largely trapped within national boundaries, and are being steadily undermined and captured. Meanwhile, journalists attempting to document this are intimidated, locked up and murdered.

As the forces of globalised crime and corruption continue to chisel away at our freedom and security, the murdered journalists left in their wake have taught us powerful lessons about how to respond. These lessons concern not only journalism, but also law enforcement and the kind of society we want to live in.

One of these journalists was our mother, Daphne Caruana Galizia. She was assassinated in Malta on October 16, 2017, when a bomb placed under the driver’s seat of her car exploded as she rushed to the bank to unblock her account, which had been frozen by the country’s economy minister. It was the last in a string of attacks she endured for her reporting, but not the last violation Malta would suffer for what she had revealed.

A trained archaeologist, our mother uncovered a web of corruption linking major multinational deals, passport sales and a sophisticated global money-laundering operation, and tugged on the threads until they led her to the heart of Malta’s government.

The result was not what she expected. Instead of resignations came reprisals. Pockets of institutional independence in Malta that had survived four years of populism were quashed. And our mother, a beacon of hope and courage for hundreds of thousands, including judges and law-enforcement officials, was executed in broad daylight.

The people she exposed remain in public office, while those who campaign for justice for her murder are assaulted in public. By exposing the venality of the powerful in a place where institutions are little more than facades, our mother’s work triggered a backlash that killed her, and is currently throttling the country’s public life.

Little wonder, then, that in 2018 Malta fell the furthest in press-freedom rankings in Europe, a region that itself experienced the fastest decline globally. The country also slipped in democracy rankings and rule of law indicators, and leads the field in hate speech.

The impact of globalised crime and corruption is not limited to Malta and Europe, of course. In response, investigative journalists have banded together in global networks such as the Daphne Project. And the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers show just how effective investigative journalism can be in forcing greater transparency, undermining criminal networks and driving up the cost of political corruption for its perpetrators.

But while journalists increasingly cooperate across borders, national law-enforcement authorities are still playing catch-up in combating crime and corruption. As a result, the impact of investigative journalism varies widely by country and over time. In countries where law-enforcement authorities are independent from the central government and private interests, and where the public can channel grievances effectively through responsive political institutions, investigative reporting can have an immediate impact on preventing corruption and state capture.

But in countries lacking the will or capacity to root out organised crime and corruption, and with a public too polarised to unite against its enemies, compelling transparency and accountability can have perverse results. In such places, journalists continue to be targeted, with dangerous consequences both for local communities and the global economy.

When journalists come under attack, it usually means that the societies within which they operate are so corrupt that their principal law-enforcement institutions and democratic checks have already been fundamentally compromised. This makes investigative reporters the last people left standing between the rule of law and those who seek to violate it, and it makes their work both more dangerous and less effective.

The most recent phase of globalisation gave us Moneyland, a vast playground for organised criminals and kleptocrats that hoovered up weaker jurisdictions like Malta into the service of dark money. The right response to this is not to retreat behind national borders, but to create a new global entity designed to address the transnational nature of organised crime and corruption. For a start, law-enforcement bodies could learn from journalism and work more urgently to develop the trusted-network approach that organised crime has perfected.

As the world seemingly enters a new phase of globalisation, we must not allow new opportunities to be extended to global crime and corruption. Otherwise, our collective future will belong to an alliance of dark money, disinformation and the sort of division that robbed our country of its most prominent journalist.

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Matthew Caruana Galizia is a journalist and software engineer who has worked on investigations into international corruption for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Andrew Caruana Galizia is a global leadership fellow and strategic intelligence lead at the World Economic Forum.

Paul Caruana Galizia is the finance editor at Tortoise and a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics. 

Featured image is from Project Syndicate

This could have been seen as audacious.  Instead, it had the smell of a not so well concealed sponsorship, the backing of a meaty foreign hand.  Venezuelan opposition leader and President of the National Assembly Juan Guaidó decided to take a quick step in the direction of the presidency.  His own counterfeit theory is simple: he is not being a usurper, so much as a panacea for the usurpation by the current president, Nicolás Maduro. 

“I swear to assume all the powers of the presidency to secure and end to the usurpation.”   

Such language is not that of a principled revolutionary figure so much as a hired hand intent on returning the country to conservative tedium.  The power doing that hiring has had friendly press outlets for Guaidó to express his opinions. On January 15, the president of the National Assembly was permitted space in The Washington Post to claim that his country was witnessing something without precedent. (Be wary of the message claiming the exceptional.)  “We have a government that has dismantled the state and kidnapped all institutions and manipulate them at will.” 

But even Guaidó had to explain, despite deeming Maduro an unrecognised figure, that Venezuela was not your vanilla, crackpot dictatorship wedded to the use of police powers.

“The regime may have ties to drug trafficking and guerrilla groups, but we also have a functioning, democratically elected parliament, the National Assembly.” 

Pity, then, that Guaidó needs so much outside help to make his call.

Maduro, understandably, fumed at the challenge. 

“We’ve had enough interventionism, here we have dignity damn it.”

But dignity is a hard matter to retain in broader geopolitical dramas.  Shame, compromise, and a general muddying of credibility tend to follow in such foreign incursions. 

The official Venezuelan president cannot be said to have been a friend of state institutions.  He is holding power under a form of sufferance.  His interpretation of the democratic mandate can be said to be sketchy at best, a feature not uncommon in the history of the Americas.  Authoritarianism breeds revolt, which breeds authoritarianism, a default revenge mechanism.  But Maduro has good reasons to sneer at his opponent and the warm embrace by US officials of the movement seeking to remove the Chávista. The memory of 2002 and the failure on the part of Washington to remove Hugo Chávez remains strong and, in some ways poisonous; the failed coup resulted in attempts on the part of Chávez to neutralise the power of his opponents, be they in the Supreme Court or the corporate media.  Mass round-ups and executions were resisted, but authoritarian counter measures were used.  Maduro has merely been one of Chávez’s keener students in that regard.

To this dysfunctional mess can be added the pervasive, consistent and persistent molestation of US foreign policy.  Gardens in Latin America have been trampled upon by US thuggery since the Republic was founded, and the tendency is instinctive and genetic.  That thuggery also shares a neurotic relationship with democracy, the product Washington finds hard to export while scuttling the democratic projects of others.  Hustlers and gamblers are not, by their dispositions, democratic: they believe in the doomed nature of change, and, to that end, identify the steady horse they would wish to back in any political race.  If that horse is sympathetic to capital interests, despite kicking in the teeth of liberal democracy, all the better.

While apoplectic hysteria governs the US security heavies from the Hill to the public talk circuit about Russian electoral interference, dispensation will always be given to meddling in the affairs of others. Trump, for one, has acknowledged Guaidó’s declaration as legitimising an interim presidency, one that will arm an opponent of Maduro and ensure a transition of loyalty to the United States.

“The people of Venezuela have courageously spoken out against Maduro and his regime and demanded freedom and the rule of law.”  (Richly inconsistent, is The Donald, on matters regarding freedom and the law.)

The international reaction has been illustrative of the broader issues at stake, making it far more than a matter of pure bullying from Washington.  Other countries have decided to make Venezuela their business, some by suggesting that it should not be the business of others.  Mexico remains an observer of the status quo.  China and Russia have taken the view that non-interference should be the policy while Turkey insists that Maduro dig in.  Cuba and Bolivia had defended the incumbent, but Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Peru and Argentina have gone the whole hog in accepting Guaidó.  

Liberal democratic states have shown themselves presumptuous enough to violate the UN Charter in directly stating their willingness to back Maduro’s opponents.  Even timelines have been advanced and demands issued that directly impair the Venezuelan political process. 

“Unless elections are announced within eight days,” suggested France’s unpopular President Emmanuel Macron, “we will be ready to recognise @jguaido as ‘President in charge’ of Venezuela in order to trigger a political process.” 

Given Macron’s own tarnished legitimacy as leader, harangued as a charlatan intent on market and labour reform, this came across as rich posturing. 

The same with Spanish Prime Minster Pedro Sanchez, yet another figure who has decided to make Venezuelan politics a matter of personal interest. 

“The government of Spain gives [President] Nicolas Maduro eight days to call free, transparent and democratic elections.  If that doesn’t happen, Spain will recognise Juan Guaidó as interim president in charge of calling these elections.” 

And to think that Sanchez can hardly be said to have a standing vote in those elections.

As in other countries, the fate of the incumbent government may be decided by the loyalty of the army.  The position, as stated by the country’s defence minister Vladimir Padrino, is that the armed forces do not, at this point, recognise the usurping antics of the opposition leader “imposed by shadowy interests… outside the law”.  Such stances, as history shows, change.

From this whole mess, one conclusion may be drawn.  Venezuela has ceased being a midget to be pushed over by the obese villain and its allies, though it still risks succumbing to the dictating wishes of others.  Maduro has severed relations with Washington, issuing marching orders to US diplomats. But the schismatic spectacle of two governments seeking to pull the strings has become an absurdly disruptive prospect.  Any state that has suggested this as feasible should be wary of what they wish for. 

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

This morning Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza presented a brilliant defense of President Maduro’s government, against the attempted coup d’etat engineered by the United States and its proxies in Europe and newly right-wing Latin American countries Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Ecuador.  The United States called this “emergency” meeting, seeking the authorization of the United Nations Security Council for intervention in Venezuela’s internal affairs, and the infamous regime change similar to that which  spread chaos in Libya after the UN Security Council authorized military intervention to overthrow the government of  Muammar Gadaffi (2011 No Fly Zone)

South Africa, Equatorial Guinea, the Russian Federation, China, Caricom, Bolivia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Cuba were among the countries which opposed what has now become transparent violation of international law, and the usurpation of the independence of the United Nations to conceal geopolitical engineering, otherwise known as capitalist imperialism.

US Secretary of State Michael K. Pompeo denounced Russia and China for opposing a Presidential Statement condemning Maduro’s government, and Pompeo singled out Cuba as the arch-villain propping up the government of Maduro, which could be understood as a backhanded compliment to Cuba’s power.  In fact, Cuba has helped build the medical and educational system of Venezuela from the earliest days of the late Hugo Chavez’s Presidency.

Venezuela’s Arreaza began citing an almost endless list of  U.S. military interventions and invasions of sovereign Latin American countries,  and the reimposition of the Monroe Doctrine, recalling the 1912 US marine invasion of Mexico, the destabilization and overthrow of the democratically elected Guatemalan President Arbenz, Brazil’s Goulart, Chile’s Allende, and the replacement of these democratically elected governments with fascist dictatorships whose human rights violations and barbarity rivaled some of the worst savagery of nazi Germany.  The Venezuelan Foreign Minister denounced the coercive blockade denying the Venezuelan people  many billions of dollars, in addition to the 1.2 billion dollars frozen in Belgium, and other US European proxies etc. etc., which has led to the widespread hunger and collapse in the living standards of the Venezuelan people, many of whom are migrating to other countries.

When France and Germany called for regime change in Venezuela, citing massive demonstration against Maduro as undercutting his legitimacy, in an almost comic rebuttal to France, Russian Ambassador Nebenzia mentioned the massive demonstrations of the “Yellow Jackets” opposing French President Macron’s policies, and the question was raised regarding the possibility of demand for regime change in France. Ambassador Nebenzia quickly reassured the French delegation that he did not intend to call a Security Council meeting for that purpose, but his point was well taken, and had its effect.

Perhaps most incriminating among the charges of imperial designs against Venezuela’s sovereignty was Arreaza’s statement that last year President Maduro had invited the UN Secretary-General, and European High Commissioner Federica Mogherini to monitor the forthcoming Presidential elections in Venezuela, to determine  their legitimacy or otherwise.  In a breathtaking disclosure, Arreaza revealed that both the UN Secretary-General and the EU’s Federica Mogherini refused to be present to monitor the Venezuelan Presidential elections, stating many months prior to the elections that the election outcome would be a fraud.

This indicated collusion, and a deliberate premeditated intent to discredit the outcome of the Venezuelan elections, whether or not they were in fact legitimate; and this collusion in demonizing Venezuela’s election is an indictment of gross prejudice and corruption within the very organizations charged with impartially evaluating the quality of those elections.

Russian Ambassador Nebenzia stated that Germany’s attempt to invoke “preventive diplomacy,” as an excuse for intervening in Venezuela’s internal affairs was, in fact, a deliberate incitement to civil war in Venezuela, and had nothing to do with prevention.

It is difficult to know what will ensue, but the stark division within the Security Council, and additional fierce opposition to Security Council or unilateral intervention voiced by neighboring countries in the region near Venezuela, indicates that the threat of U.S. military intervention will have difficulty influencing the outcome of events, especially since Russia has warned the U.S.:  “Hands Off Venezuela”!!!

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

Featured image is from teleSUR

As a progressive Jew, I find that many of my family members and friends are still what we call “PEP” — progressive except Palestine. Amid ever-worsening injustices created by the Israeli system of apartheid and Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian lands, it is past time for this to change.

I am hopeful that the firestorm sparked by Michelle Alexander’s recent New York Times column, “Time to Break the Silence on Palestine,” will finally generate the heat necessary to force more people and groups on the left to overcome the fundamental hypocrisy of the “progressive except Palestine” approach.

Screengrab from The New York Times

I was deeply inspired by Alexander’s column and her decision to speak so honestly about the difficulty of overcoming the fear of backlash over taking a public stand against the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Striking a comparison between the risk taken by prominent critics of Israel and the risk Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. took by publicly criticizing the Vietnam War, Alexander observes,

“Those who speak publicly in support of the liberation of the Palestinian people still risk condemnation and backlash.”

Invoking Dr. King’s exhortation that “a time comes when silence is betrayal,” Alexander reflects on “the excuses and rationalizations that have kept me largely silent on one of the great moral challenges of our time: the crisis in Israel-Palestine.”

Alexander’s words resonated with me, a Jew who uncritically supported Israel for many years until I saw the parallels between US policy in Vietnam and Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories. My activism and critical writings have followed a trajectory from Vietnam to South Africa to Israel to Iraq to Afghanistan and other countries where the United States continues its imperial military actions.

My Own Path Toward Speaking Out Against the Israeli Occupation of Palestine

I was born in 1948, the year Israel was created out of whole Palestinian cloth. When tasked with finding a destination for Jews displaced by the Holocaust, the United Nations chose Palestine. Thus began a brutal and illegal occupation that continues to this day.

In his book, Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five, Israeli-American Miko Peled describes the 1948 “ethnic cleansing campaign that was sweeping through Palestine like wildfire, destroying everything in its path.” Palestinians call it the “Nakba,” Arabic for “catastrophe.”

My family was not religious but we were proud of our Jewish heritage. My father fought the Nazis in World War II and relatives perished in the Holocaust. My paternal grandmother was an activist against the Tsar during the Russian pogroms. On her way to a Siberian prison, she escaped and, at the age of 18, boarded a ship bound for the United States.

We revered Israel as the homeland of the Jews. At the Passover Seder, we would raise our glasses and intone, “Next year in Jerusalem!” At Sunday School, we gathered coins to plant trees in the Holy Land. It wasn’t until I left home that I learned the truth about Israel and became an outspoken critic of its policies.

In 1967, during my freshman year at Stanford, I came to oppose the war in Vietnam and joined The Resistance, a group of draft resisters and their allies. The following year, I signed up for Students for a Democratic Society, where I learned the war was not an isolated event, but rather part of a long history of US imperialism. But I was still unaware that the war Israel launched in 1967 “completed its occupation of Palestine,” in the words of Peled.

The anti-Vietnam War movement at Stanford challenged my long-held assumptions about US foreign policy. My commitment to ending an unjust war against a people fighting for liberation eventually opened my eyes to the plight of the Palestinian people and Israel’s role in repressing them.

After college, I went to law school and became a peoples’ lawyer. I joined the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), a progressive political-legal organization which I later served as president. The NLG’s guiding motto is, “Human rights are more sacred than property interests.” In the NLG, I met many people who criticized Israel’s illegal policies and US complicity in them.

In 1977, the NLG sent a delegation to Israel and Palestine. The report they issued was the first comprehensive analysis of Israel’s practices published by a non-governmental organization dedicated to the protection of human rights. It documented violations of the 1949 Geneva Conventions by Israel as a belligerent occupant of the West Bank and Gaza.

The allegations in the report disturbed me greatly. They described Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians, including house demolitions, administrative detention and torture. The report documented beatings, burning with cigarettes, forced standing while naked for long periods exposed to heat or cold, dousing with hot or cold water, cutting the body with razor blades, biting by dogs, sensory deprivation, sodomizing with bottles or sticks, inserting wires into the penis, electric shocks to sensitive parts of the body, and suspension from the floor with hands or feet tied to a pulley device. Reading the case studies made me physically ill.

Apartheid – From South Africa to Palestine

Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration the Age of Colorblindness, wrote that some of Israel’s practices are “reminiscent of apartheid in South Africa and Jim Crow segregation in the United States.”

After the Palestinians launched the second intifada, or uprising, NLG members went to the region and published a report in 2001. It documented a system of apartheid in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, as well as the United States’ uncritical support of Israel.

That report describes illegal settlements and bypass roads, restricted movement of Palestinians, discriminatory land policies, differential treatment of Jews and Palestinian non-Jews, and Israeli policing of Palestinian political expression. It also analyzed indiscriminate and excessive use of lethal force against Palestinians, indiscriminate and excessive use of force against Palestinian property, delay and prevention of medical treatment, and collective punishment against the Palestinians.

South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, pointed to similarities between apartheid in his country and Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians.

“My voice will always be raised in support of Christian-Jewish ties and against the anti-Semitism that all sensible people fear and detest. But this cannot be an excuse for doing nothing and for standing aside as successive Israeli governments colonize the West Bank and advance racist laws,” Tutu wrote in a Tampa Bay Times article. He noted “Israel’s theft of Palestinian land,” and “Jewish-only colonies built on Palestinian land in violation of international law.”

Tutu cited a 2010 Human Rights Watch report that “describes the two-tier system of laws, rules, and services that Israel operates for the two populations in areas in the West Bank under its exclusive control, which provide preferential services, development, and benefits for Jewish settlers while imposing harsh conditions on Palestinians.” Tutu wrote, “This, in my book, is apartheid. It is untenable.”

On July 19, 2018, the Israeli Knesset passed a law that illegally enshrines a system of apartheid. The legislation, which has the force of a constitutional amendment, says,

“The State of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people, in which it fulfills its natural, cultural, religious and historical right to self-determination.” It continues, “The right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.”

There is no guarantee of self-determination for the 1.8 million Arabs who make up 20 percent of Israel’s population.

Tutu called on “people and organizations of conscience to divest from . . . Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions and Hewlett Packard,” which profit “from the occupation and subjugation of Palestinians.” He was advocating participation in the non-violent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS), which Alexander also mentions in her column.

When representatives of Palestinian civil society launched BDS in 2005, they called upon “international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era … [including] embargoes and sanctions against Israel.”

Israel continues to attack Gaza, described as the world’s largest “open air prison” as Israel maintains a tight blockade, restricting all ingress and egress. Headlines in the mainstream media falsely portray an equivalence of firepower between Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza. But Israel’s use of force greatly exceeds that of the Palestinians, and the asymmetric warfare continues to escalate.

In 2014, Israel mounted an offensive called “Operation Protective Edge,” relentlessly bombing Gaza for nearly two months, killing 2,251 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians. The number of Palestinians wounded was 11,231, including 3,540 women and 3,436 children. On the Israeli side, six civilians and 67 soldiers were killed and 1,600 were injured. Tens of thousands of Palestinians lost their homes and the infrastructure was severely damaged. Israel targeted numerous schools, UN-sanctioned places of refuge, hospitals, ambulances and mosques.

As Operation Protective Edge was winding down, the NLG and other legal organizations sent a letter to the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, urging her to investigate war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity in Gaza committed by Israel and aided and abetted by US leaders. The letter was based on an article I wrote documenting those crimes.

Criticism of Israel Is Not Anti-Semitic

I have become sharply critical of Israel. An active member of the NLG’s Palestine Subcommittee, I write frequent articles and do media commentary about Israel’s violations of international law. I am also a member of Jewish Voice for Peace and I work in support of BDS.

Years after I first read the 1977 NLG delegation report, I visited Ellis Island, where my grandparents arrived in the United States. It is now a museum. As I walked the route they traveled, I felt very emotional about what they endured. But my deep feelings about the suffering of my ancestors during the Holocaust are not inconsistent with my criticisms of Israel for subjecting the Palestinians to a different kind of oppression.

As stories continue to emerge about Israel’s killing of unarmed protesters at the Gaza border during the Great March of Return, it is increasingly difficult to ignore the facts. Yet even those who see the truth about Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians worry about reprisals for speaking out.

Alexander describes the silence of many civil rights activists and groups, “not because they lack concern or sympathy for the Palestinian people, but because they fear loss of funding from foundations, and false charges of anti-Semitism.” She mentioned the case of Bahia Amawi, a US citizen of Palestinian descent, who lost her Texas elementary school job last year after refusing to pledge in writing that she would not participate in the BDS movement. Glenn Greenwald pointed out the grave danger anti-BDS laws pose to freedom of speech, tweeting,

“The proliferation of these laws – where US citizens are barred from work or contracts unless they vow not to boycott Israel – is the single greatest free speech threat in the US.”

There is a false equivalency between criticizing Israel and being anti-Semitic. Any criticism of Israeli policy is labeled anti-Semitism, even though many Jews—including members of Jewish Voice for Peace, Jewish Center for Nonviolence and IfNotNow—oppose the occupation.

The BDS movement is not anti-Israeli, as it targets the policies, not the people, of Israel. And actions against Israel’s policies, including BDS, do not equate to anti-Semitism. Rafeef Ziadah, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee, says,

“As a matter of principle, the BDS movement has consistently and categorically opposed all forms of racism, including anti-semitism and Islamophobia.”

Palestinian human rights activist Omar Barghouti wrote in The New York Times in 2014,

“Arguing that boycotting Israel is intrinsically anti-Semitic is not only false, but it also presumes that Israel and ‘the Jews’ are one and the same. This is as absurd and bigoted as claiming that a boycott of a self-defined Islamic state like Saudi Arabia, say, because of its horrific human rights record, would of necessity be Islamophobic.”

Even though many persist in equating condemnation of Israel with anti-Semitism, groups like Jewish Voice for Peace continue to gain traction. Jews are increasingly willing to examine the facts on the ground in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

And although Congress, dominated by the powerful Israel lobby, continues to give more money to Israel than any other country, two new members of Congress — Representatives Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) — support BDS.

Alexander is optimistic: “There seems to be increased understanding that criticism of the policies and practices of the Israeli government is not, in itself, anti-Semitic.”

We in the Jewish community have a special responsibility to fight against the Israeli system of apartheid and its illegal occupation of Palestinian lands. The BDS movement is an effective weapon in this struggle. I urge my fellow Jews to join BDS and oppose Israel’s illegal and inhumane policies in whatever way they can.

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Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and a member of Jewish Voice for Peace. Her most recent book, Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues, contains a chapter analyzing Israel’s targeted killing case. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

“With its totally unexpected action, Israel has officialised attacks against military targets in Syria, and has warned Syrian authorities not to exact vengeance on Israel” – this was how the Italian medias reported yesterday’s Israeli attack in Syria with cruise missiles and smart bombs. “This is a message to the Russians, who, together with Iran, are enabling the survival of Assad’s power structure”, commented the Corriere della Sera.

Nobody questions the “right” of Israel to attack a sovereign state in order to impose the  government it ought to have, after eight years during which the USA, NATO and the Gulf monarchies tried  to demolish it with Israël, as they did in 2011 with the State of Libya.

No-one is scandalised by the fact that these Israeli aerial attacks, on Saturday and Monday, caused dozens of deaths, including at least four children, and serious damage to Damascus international airport. On the other hand, there was much talk about the fact that the ski resort of Mount Hermon (entirely occupied by Israël with the Golan heights) had prudently stayed closed for a day, causing great displeasure to the holiday crowds.

Nobody seems to be worried by the fact that the intensification of Israëli attacks in Syria, on the pretext that it is being used as a launch pad for Iranian missiles, has begun the preparations for a major-scale war against Iran, planned with the Pentagon, whose effects would be catastrophic.

The US decision to withdraw from the Iranian nuclear deal – an agreement defined by Israel as “the surrender of the West to the Axis of Evil led by Iran” – has provoked an extremely dangerous  situation, and not only for the Greater Middle East. Israël, the only nuclear power in the Greater Middle East – and non-signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which however has been validated by Iran – currently has 200 nuclear weapons pointed at Iran (as specified by US ex-Secretary of State Colin Powell in March 2015). Among the various vectors for nuclear weapons, Israël possesses a primary squadron of F-35A fighters, which was declared operational in December 2017.

Israël is not only the first country to buy the new fifth-generation fighter from the US company Lockheed Martin, but with its own military industries it plays an important rôle in the development of fighter aircraft. Last December, Israël Aerospace Industries began the production of wing components which make the F-35 invisible to radar. Thanks to this technology, which will also be  applied to Italian F-35’s, Israël is potentiating the attack capacities of its nuclear forces, integrated into NATO’s electronic system via the “Programme of individual cooptation with Israël”.

But we find nothing of this in our medias, just as we can find nothing about the fact that, as well as the victims caused by the Israëli attack in Syria, there are those, much more numerous, visited on the Palestinians by the Israëli embargo in the Gaza Strip. There, due to the blockade decreed by the Israëli government on international funds destined for health facilities in the Strip, six hospitals out of thirteen, including the two paediatric hospitals Nasser and Rantissi, were obliged to close down on 20 January because of the lack of fuel necessary for the production of electrical energy.  In the Gaza Strip, network distribution of electricity is extremely sporadic).

We can not tell how many victims will be caused by the deliberate closing of the hospitals in Gaza. In any case, we will find no pertinent information in our medias, which however widely broadcast the declaration by Vice-Prime Minister Matteo Salvini on the occasion of his recent visit to Israël – “I pledge all my commitment to support the right to security for Israël, a bastion of democracy in the Middle East”.

Source: PandoraTV

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This article was originally published on Il Manifesto. Translated by Pete Kimberley.

Manlio Dinucci is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

“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   

The Green New Deal endorsed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and more than 40 other US Representatives has been criticized as imposing a too-heavy burden on the rich and upper-middle-class taxpayers who will have to pay for it, but taxing the rich is not what the Green New Deal resolution proposes. It says funding will come primarily from certain public agencies, including the Federal Reserve and “a new public bank or system of regional and specialized public banks.”

Funding through the Federal Reserve may be controversial, but establishing a national public infrastructure and development bank should be a no-brainer. The real question is why we don’t already have one, like China, Germany, and other countries that are running circles around us in infrastructure development. Many European, Asian and Latin American countries have their own national development banks, as well as belonging to bilateral or multinational development institutions that are jointly owned by multiple governments. Unlike the US Federal Reserve, which considers itself “independent” of government, national development banks are wholly owned by their governments and carry out public development policies.

China not only has its own China Infrastructure Bank but has established the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which counts many Asian and Middle Eastern countries in its membership, including Australia, New Zealand, and Saudi Arabia. Both banks are helping to fund China’s trillion-dollar “One Belt One Road” infrastructure initiative. China is so far ahead of the United States in building infrastructure that Dan Slane, a former advisor on President Trump’s transition team, has warned,

“If we don’t get our act together very soon, we should all be brushing up on our Mandarin.”

The leader in renewable energy, however, is Germany, called “the world’s first major renewable energy economy.” Germany has a public sector development bank called KfW (Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau or “Reconstruction Credit Institute”), which is even larger than the World Bank. Along with Germany’s non-profit Sparkassen banks, KfW has largely funded the country’s green energy revolution.

Unlike private commercial banks, KfW does not have to focus on maximizing short-term profits for its shareholders while turning a blind eye to external costs, including those imposed on the environment. The bank has been free to support the energy revolution by funding major investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency. Its fossil fuel investments are close to zero. One of the key features of KFW, as with other development banks, is that much of its lending is driven in a strategic direction determined by the national government. Its key role in the green energy revolution has been played within a public policy framework under Germany’s renewable energy legislation, including policy measures that have made investment in renewables commercially attractive.

KfW is one of the world’s largest development banks, with assets as of December 2017 of $566.5 billion. Ironically, the initial funding for its capitalization came from the United States, through the Marshall Plan in 1948. Why didn’t we fund a similar bank for ourselves? Apparently because powerful Wall Street interests did not want the competition from a government-owned bank that could make below-market loans for infrastructure and development. Major US investors today prefer funding infrastructure through public-private partnerships, in which private partners can reap the profits while losses are imposed on local governments.

KfW and Germany’s Energy Revolution

Renewable energy in Germany is mainly based on wind, solar and biomass. Renewables generated 41% of the country’s electricity in 2017, up from just 6% in 2000; and public banks provided over 72% of the financing for this transition. In 2007-09, KfW funded all of Germany’s investment in Solar Photovoltaic. After that, Solar PV was introduced nationwide on a major scale. This is the sort of catalytic role that development banks can play, kickstarting a major structural transformation by funding and showcasing new technologies and sectors.

KfW is not only one of the biggest but has been ranked one of the two safest banks in the world. (The other is also a publicly-owned bank, the Zurich Cantonal Bank in Switzerland.) KfW sports triple-A ratings from all three major rating agencies, Fitch, Standard and Poor’s, and Moody’s. The bank benefits from these top ratings and from the statutory guarantee of the German government, which allow it to issue bonds on very favorable terms and therefore to lend on favorable terms, backing its loans with the bonds.

KfW does not work through public-private partnerships, and it does not trade in derivatives and other complex financial products. It relies on traditional lending and grants. The borrower is responsible for loan repayment. Private investors can participate, but not as shareholders or public-private partners. Rather, they can invest in “Green Bonds,” which are as safe and liquid as other government bonds and are prized for their green earmarking. The first “Green Bond – Made by KfW” was issued in 2014 with a volume of $1.7 billion and a maturity of five years. It was the largest Green Bond ever at the time of issuance and generated so much interest that the order book rapidly grew to $3.02 billion, although the bonds paid an annual coupon of only 0.375%. By 2017, the issue volume of KfW Green Bonds was $4.21 billion.

Investors benefit from the high credit and sustainability ratings of KfW, the liquidity of its bonds, and the opportunity to support climate and environmental protection. For large institutional investors with funds that exceed the government deposit insurance limit, Green Bonds are the equivalent of savings accounts, a safe place to park their money that provides a modest interest. Green Bonds also appeal to “socially responsible” investors, who have the assurance with these simple and transparent bonds that their money is going where they want it to. The bonds are financed by KfW from the proceeds of its loans, which are also in high demand due to their low interest rates; and the bank can offer these low rates because its triple-A ratings allow it to cheaply mobilize funds from capital markets, and because its public policy-oriented loans qualify it for targeted subsidies.

Roosevelt’s Development Bank: The Reconstruction Finance Corporation

KfW’s role in implementing government policy parallels that of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) in funding the New Deal in the 1930s. At that time US banks were bankrupt and incapable of financing the country’s recovery. Roosevelt attempted to set up a system of 12 public “industrial banks” through the Federal Reserve, but the measure failed; so he made an end run around his opponents by using the RFC that had been set up earlier by President Hoover, expanding it to address the nation’s financing needs.

The RFC Act of 1932 provided the RFC with capital stock of $500 million and the authority to extend credit up to $1.5 billion (subsequently increased several times). With those resources, from 1932 to 1957 the RFC loaned or invested more than $40 billion. As with KfW’s loans, its funding source was the sale of bonds, mostly to the Treasury itself. Proceeds from the loans repaid the bonds, leaving the RFC with a net profit. The RFC financed roads, bridges, dams, post offices, universities, electrical power, mortgages, farms, and much more; and it funded all this while generating income for the government.

The RFC was so successful that it became America’s largest corporation and the world’s largest banking organization. Its success may have been its nemesis. Without the emergencies of depression and war, it was a too-powerful competitor of the private banking establishment; and in 1957, it was disbanded under President Eisenhower. The United States was left without a development bank, while Germany and other countries were hitting the ground running with theirs.

Today some US states have infrastructure and development banks, including California; but their reach is very small. One way they could be expanded to meet state infrastructure needs would be to turn them into depositories for state and municipal revenues. Rather than lending their capital directly in a revolving fund, this would allow them to leverage their capital into 10 times that sum in loans, as all depository banks are able to do. (See my earlier article here.)

The most profitable and efficient way for national and local governments to finance public infrastructure and development is with their own banks, as the impressive track records of KfW and other national development banks have shown. The RFC showed what could be done even by a country that was technically bankrupt, simply by mobilizing its own resources through a publicly-owned financial institution. We need to resurrect that public funding engine today, not only to address the national and global crises we are facing now but for the ongoing development the country needs in order to manifest its true potential.

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This article was first published on Truthdig.com.

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

Featured image is from LifeGate

HAARP – the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program – was initiated as an ionospheric research program, established in 1993 in Gakona, Alaska and operated by the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. It was and is funded by the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Its alleged purpose “was to analyze the ionosphere and investigate the potential for developing ionospheric enhancement technology for radio communications and surveillance. HAARP is a high-power, high-frequency transmitter used for study of the ionosphere.” 

That is the official version. HAARP was supposed to be shut down in May 2014, but then it was decided that the facility would be transferred to the University of Alaska. In reality, this sophisticated research project, owned by the military, and most probably with CIA hands in it, is continuing in some secret location, working on “ionospheric enhancement technologies”, to be used to influence weather patterns – in fact, to weaponize weather.

The first known occasion when the US air force used high power, high frequency transmitters, was to influence the intensity and duration of the monsoon during the Vietnam war in the 1960s. The idea was to render the transition of the Vietcong from North to South Vietnam on their jungle paths more difficult or impossible through extended heavy rains. To what extent this attempt was successful is not known.

However, since then, research has evolved and it is now possible to influence weather patterns throughout the world. In other words, to create droughts, floods, storm, hurricanes – wherever such weather phenomena are convenient for the purposes of empire and its vassals. Talk about man-made climate change. Imagine the amount of money that can be generated by such unsuspicious weather modifications – let alone the amount of human suffering, famine, despair – chaos, economic collapse – eventually entire segments of populations can be wiped out. And all will be attributed to ‘climate change’, which are claimed to be man-made due to our civilization’s excessive CO2 emissions. Man-made – indeed!

Extensive and prolonged changes in weather patterns can have devastating economic impacts. The Pampas, stretching over some 750,000 km2, is one of South America’s most fertile region, covering Argentina’s norther tier from the Atlantic to the Andes and also all of Uruguay and part of southern Brazil. The area was struck in 2017 / 2018 by one of the harshest droughts in the last 10 years, severely curtailing Argentina’s main staple – wheat, corn, soybean and beef. Argentina is the world’s third largest exporter of soybean and corn.

Argentina was counting on record agricultural yields that would contribute significantly to the expected 3.5% GDP growth in 2018. Instead, 2018 agricultural exports are expected to be reduced by some US$ 3.5 billion. This is expected to result in a cut of GDP growth by at least 1% to 1.5%, not counting agriculture related industries that will suffer losses, many of which may have to close and thereby also increasing unemployment – and human misery.

The neoliberal Mauricio Macri, who came to power in December 2015 as an implant by Washington, has already devastated the country by drastic austerity programs, combined with severe tariff increases for public and social services, i.e. transportation, electricity fuel, water supply, as well as health and education. The country is in shambles with an unemployment rate, officially hovering around 10%, but in reality, it is more like 20% to 25%. The poverty rate increased under Macri’s dictatorship to about 35%, from about 15% in November 2015, before Macri came to power. Strikes and social protests abound. There is not one week without social unrest – which drives the country further into the ground. Like the Yellow Vest in France who want to oust President Macron, Argentinians want to get rid of Macri.

In comes the IMF which has recently published a devastating report about Argentina’s state of the economy. It predicts a grim scenario with rising interest rates on Argentina’s mostly dollar denominated debt, triggering local money production and a predicted inflation of 40% – a continuous loss of purchasing power, hurting especially the poor and average income earners, prompting more social unrest – a vicious downward spiral.

In June 2018, the IMF, invited by Macri to the rescue, followed its usual recipe of more debt and more austerity. The scenario looks pretty similar to what happened in 2010 / 2011 and forward in Greece, just on a much larger scale, at least by a factor of 5 over a 3-year period. In Argentina, the IMF “agreed” to a standby credit of US$ 50 billion – the largest in the IMF’s history – with a tranche of US$ 15 billion to be drawn immediately. However, in September 2018, the peso crashed under the burden of debt and inflation and Argentina faced insolvency. No problem. The IMF came to the rescue with an additional US$ 13.4 billion bringing the total for 2018 to US$ 28.3 billion (Greece’s first ‘bailout’ tranche in 2010 which was €20 billion (US$22.6 billion at today’s exchange rate).

That the IMF repeats Greek “mistake” in Argentina, is, of course, a joke. This is not a mistake. This is calculated greed, administered to the people of Argentina, usurpation at its worst. Argentina is a much larger and richer country. Much more, almost infinitely more, can be extracted from her economy than from Greece’s. And Argentina has been primed by a complacent president, put in place by those financial oligarchs, intent to milk Argentina to the bones.

Would it therefore be surprising, if the Argentine economic disaster, and consequently the IMF “rescue action” was helped a bit by “climate change” à la HAARP?

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Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21^st Century; TeleSUR; The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

This new year will likely mark another milestone in science and medicine. Again, Americans will spend more money on diagnostic tests, surgeries and other medical procedures, and patients will consume more drugs and receive more treatments than any other time in US history. We will continue to be inundated with television drug advertisements with the reassuring message, “you don’t have to fight this battle alone. We are with you.” There will be images of laboratories, medical research and happy patients to strengthen viewers’ faith that medical science is progressing and working on our behalf. We will be promised that new cures for life-threatening diseases are on the horizon.  

The US will also spend a minimum of $3.5 trillion on healthcare, in addition to a $1.5 trillion loss in work and wages due to illness. Five trillion dollars total. Approximately 18 percent of the US GDP. And tens of millions of additional dollars will be spent advertise Big Pharma’s message.

And herein lies the fundamental problem. There are more doctors, more hospitals, more pharmaceutical drugs and medical procedures than ever before and yet we have not conquered nor made any significant progress in curing any major disease. Instead of making efforts to fund disease prevention and educate the public, prevention has been abandoned altogether. There are volumes of excellent peer-reviewed studies documenting research and clinical experience showing a healthy diet, physical exercise and stress management regimens can either completely prevent or be incorporated into medical treatment protocols successfully. However, there is no profit to be made in prevention. Modern medicine is solely devoted to disease management. 

How did we reach this threshold where trillions of dollars have been tossed into an abyss?  One reason is that few voices have been able to reach the public to address the widespread corruption in corporate science, especially medicine, agriculture, and environmental issues. Honest, independent science is ignored in favor of proprietary pharmaceutical drugs and genetically modified foods. Fraudulent research has been used to justify nuclear power as a clean green energy. Political officials working on behalf of fossil fuel interests convince us with junk science that hydro-fracking poses no health risks and is environmentally-friendly. 

A single Big Pharma corporation with thousands of employees and billions of dollars in sales and profits is deeply connected to investors, public relations firms, federal health officials and the media. All of these external invested parties are in turn dependent upon the corporation’s revenue stream. Money that is trickled down is spent to dominate medical schools to push the conventional drug agenda’s regime, or to front groups and foundations to buy off so-called experts to debunk critics. Revenues received by the mainstream media networks for drug advertisements are payoffs assure that no reporting appears that might put the company and its medical products into a bad public light. 

The benefit Big Pharma receives from hijacking the federal regulators and legislators is protection from the nation’s judiciary. So when a drug like Merck’s anti-arthritic Vioxx conservatively kills over 60,000 patients and injures an additional 130,000, there is no immediate FDA recall and deaths are permitted until the crisis reaches a tipping point and health officials are forced to step in. However, never is a drug executive prosecuted. Vioxx sales earned $18 billion and Merck only had to pay a $5 billion settlement. Everyone who knew Vioxx was a defective product had engaged in malice of forethought with no deleterious consequences. The company merely paid a fine and returned to business as usual. And the media simply whitewashed the seriousness of Merck’s crimes about Vioxx. 

Science creates artificial intelligence, geoengineering, and 5G wireless technology. These are held as great achievements. On the other hand, we never hear from mainstream media anything about their downsides; and certainly private corporations will never leak evidence for their risks and dangers.  If a scientific invention appears in the peer-reviewed literature, it has already reached a gold standard. Any controversy has been settled.  However, now we find that the entire peer-reviewed journal system is utterly corrupt. In fact, as we will recount, it is all a fraud, and it will worsen without any efforts made to reform it. Quite simply there is no concerted will nor ethical standard to improve the peer-reviewed system because too much profit is generated. 

Now drugs are being pushed upon healthy people not because it will treat a disease, but because we are told it will prevent a disease. Such is the case for new HIV prevention drugs, such as Truvada and PrEp, and statins. There is no definitive science that these drugs are effective enough for anyone to take them.  Imagine being healthy and told that starting chemotherapy will prevent cancer. That would be insane.  

And now we discover that the world’s largest open source site for medical information is Wikipedia.  Content about medical products and therapeutic regimes are penned by completely unqualified editors with no medical background, many who prefer to remain anonymous. Yet Wikipedia editors state with authority that there are no proven health benefits for non-conventional and natural medical therapies. Reading any Wikipedia entry about chiropractic, acupuncture, homeopathy, Chinese medicine, naturopathy or energy medicine, the reader will walk away believing it is all pseudoscience or fraud.  However, collectively there are hundreds of thousands of studies to support these therapies’ efficacy and safety. Legitimate scientific inqury has already shown their efficacy. Independent board-certified physicians have been using complementary and alternative medicine for a long time with excellent results. But you will not find any of these qualified physicians being invited to lead a committee at the FDA, CDC or any other national health agency or department. Nor do we find special reports about successful advances in natural health regimens appearing on Dateline, Sixty Minutes, CNN, nor in the New York Times and Washington Post.   

So where excactly in the cesspool of modern medicine, food science, and the agro-chemical industry are we to find truth. No one in the scientific and federal health agencies can be trusted anymore. They are all compromised. No mainstream journalist is trustworthy, and no one can be certain whether a paper appearing in a peer-reviewed science journal is reliable or not. Even the clinical physicians on the front lines of healthcare work in the dark. It is only after large numbers of deaths and injuries, such as with Agent Orange, DDT, aspartame, mammography, etc, that a light goes on. But only for a short time before returning to the dark. 

Our research shows that the majority of pharmceutical corporations have settled laws suits, some are described in this article.

Reports suggest that 440,000 people in the US died as a result of medical errors.(see below). Our analysis suggests that  death from iatrogenic related causes is significantly higher.

How is it that the pharmaceutical industry and medical establishment has killed more Americans than those who died in Vietnam without any serious consequences?  Now wrap your mind around this. If we take a conservative figure of preventable deaths from medicine, 500,000 per year during the last four decades, that would account for approximately 20 million deaths. That is more than all those killed in wars throughout America’s history.  

The reason for American medicine turning into the nation’s largest and deadliest battlefield is because for scientific corruption succeed without impunity, everything must be interconnected. The Surgeon General, the heads of federal health agencies, drug makers, the insurance industry, medical schools and professional associations, and the media operate as a single army waging a war on health against Americans. Corporate interests control everything. Modern medicine has morphed into a religious cult. which does not contemplate the potential of its own vulnerabilities. And numerous patients have been played for fools.  As we will see, medicine profits from keeping patients sick. 

We understand that you may be confused about this message because it goes directly against everything the medical establishment tells us. The fact is that science is completely vulnerable to corruption, and this has more often than not always been the case. Private industry and government know this perfectly. The checks and balances between private and public interests have collapsed. Today, a sincere person who whistleblows on government and corporate malfeasance and crimes can find him or herself going to jail.  The medical regime is now a single entity. All of its parts are consolidated and entwined into a monolithic behemoth to prevent injury to its bottom line. 

Is it not time we said “enough.” 

When we consider Marx’s statement that “history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce,” it requires little effort to look back upon history and witness a long legacy of scientific horrors and tragedies. Yet today, matters have worsened. Ever since the Rockefellers privatized American healthcare back in the 1930s, science in the hands of powerful private interest groups and corrupt government agencies has spiraled downward to its current state today: a sad and virulent spectacle of burlesque. 

If medical corruption had been conducted with the results of vastly improved health in the nation, we might close our eyes. However, as corruption throughout the medical establishment and federal health agencies increases, so has the health of the nation substantially decreased. The monster the Carnegie Foundation unleashed in its Flexner Report to set the standard for medical education back in 1910 has since opened its jaws wider to swallow the little integrity that might remain in American medicine. The nation’s health statistics and annual rise in preventable diseases proves the case. 

The US is the world’s most medicated country and yet ranks at the bottom of the pack of developed nations for quality of health. It is also the only nation in the developed world with the average lifespan in decline. A Consumer Report survey estimates that 55 percent of Americans regularly take a prescription drug, and among those most take four drugs on average. In 2016, over 4.5 billion prescriptions were filled, earning the pharmaceutical industry over $200 billion.[1] An earlier estimate conducted and published by the Mayo Clinic found that 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug and over 50 percent are on two. Twenty percent of patients are on five or more.[2] Over 17 percent of citizens 45 years and older take antidepressants, including one in four women.[3] A multi-year population-based survey conducted by the University of Illinois at Chicago found that 32 percent of adults diagnosed with depression were taking medications with depression listed as an adverse effect! These drugs include proton pump inhibitors, analgesics, beta blockers and synthetic hormone contraceptives.[4] 

For anyone who cares to take a broad, objective and panoramic view of the illnesses plaguing the American landscape, the situation will be found shocking. Clearly it needn’t be this way. Most people enter the sciences for noble reasons and because of a passion for discovery. So then why do they so often emerge out of the end of the institutionalized treadmill as proponents of products that create more harm than good?

The Dismal State of Modern Science

There have been prophetic voices in the past who have warned about the travesty modern scientific advancement is headed. In his 1924 essay “Icarus or the Future of Science,” the British mathematician and moral philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote,

“I am compelled to fear that science will be used to promote the power of dominant groups, rather than to make men happy. Icarus, having been taught to fly by his father Daedalus, was destroyed in his rashness. I fear that the same fate may overtake the populations whom modern men of science have taught to fly.”

Later in his essay Bertrand continues,

“whether, in the end, science will prove to have been a blessing or a curse to mankind, is to my mind still a doubtful question.” 

For Russell, those who can sincerely call themselves scientists pursue their discipline out of a love for knowledge. Science is supposed to improve conditions necessary to foster our well-being and happiness, and to preserve the planet’s environment in an ethical manner. A scientist who truly pursues knowledge out of love, Russell argues, will desire the fruits of his work and craft to be expressions of kindness for the greater good. On the other hand, science is perverted when knowledge is pursued solely for power and domination over others. He warned about the trends of his day increasing whereby the holders of scientific knowledge become “evil” and science solely serves the ambitions of the powerful and those who control scientific inventions’ utility. “Scientific knowledge,” Russell wrote, “does not make men more sensible in their aims, and administrators in the future will be presumably no less stupid and no less prejudiced than they are at present.”[5]

Since the days when science broke free from religion during the European Renaissance, the blind faith in perpetual scientific progress as humanity’s best of fortunes has been incanted to our present day. In fact, in the 21st century, scientific materialism has now generally replaced religious beliefs and morals altogether. This is especially evident in the contemporary regressive movements of Skepticism, the New Atheism, Science- and Evidence-based Medicine, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, Randian Objectivism, and scientific positivism, which have all been chained to corporate capital and science’s bureaucracies. This perpetual myth in scientific progress, says Russell, “is one of the comfortable nineteenth-century delusions which our more disillusioned age must discard.”  In the end, Russell foresaw that science may be the ultimate cause behind “the destruction of our civilization.” From our own perspective, given our governments’ and corporations’ utter disregard towards climate change, insensitive destruction of the natural world and other species, medical abuse of prescription drugs, and brushing off the lives of those in economic and social straits, we have to agree. 

Modern Medicine: The Exemplar of Scientific Nepotism

Throughout its history the practice of medicine has been associated with humanitarian and compassionate efforts to relieve the suffering of others. In modern times, we assume that medical science is serving us to find new miracles to save our lives. In ancient systems, medicine was perceived as a divine art and knowledge brought down to humans by the gods on high. A healer who lived by the ethical codes of his craft was held in high esteem by rulers and peasants alike. Although there have always been medical pretenders who took advantage of the ignorant, the medical arts themselves retained their integrity…. until our modern era.  Before outlining the many ways that conventional corporate medicine has become the paragon of a science turned enemy against its essential moral code and the people it is supposed to serve, we might begin with a recent example depicting just how low the medical discipline has sunk into Hades. The state of modern American medicine was accurately summarized in April 2018 when Goldman Sachs released its financial projection report, “The Genome Revolution,” to biotechnology companies. The report doesn’t hesitate to state clearly that for future investment, corporate profits far outweigh the curing of disease. 

Goldman Sachs is one of Wall Street’s largest investors in high growth technologies, particularly pharmaceuticals, medical devices and healthcare services. The report presents the frightening question, “Is curing patients a sustainable business model?”

Even for the most hardened proponents of natural medicine and opponents of Big Pharma, there are times when a drug developer hits the nail correctly. Such is the case with Gilead Sciences’ drugs Harvoni and Epclusa, which have achieved over a 90 percent cure rate for hepatitis C. This is an extraordinary cure rate.  But for Goldman, this is a bad sign for investors and shareholders. The drugs’ success has steadily drained the pool of patients requiring treatment. At their peak in 2015, these drugs earned $12.5 billion. Three years later it is expected to earn under $4 billion, and revenues will continue to decline.  Goldman writes,

“In the case of infectious diseases such as hepatitis C, curing existing patients also decreases the number of carriers able to transmit the virus to new patients, thus the incident pool also declines … Where an incident pool remains stable (eg, in cancer) the potential for a cure poses less risk to the sustainability of a franchise.”[6]

Goldman’s report confirms an observation that we have been voicing for many years. That is, modern medicine is no longer about treating disease; rather, it is all about disease management to keep patients on drugs for life. How did this trend of an amoral medical philosophy and a betrayal of Hippocratic principles come about since billions of dollars are spent annually to discover cures for disease?  

Before the arrival of the Reagan era, most scientific pursuits remained relatively free of commercial efforts to deceive and corrupt. Although federal health agencies have in the past funded witch hunts to squash non-conventional medical theories and practices, such as Chiropractic and more recent homeopathy, overall ethical standards were upheld to approve drugs’ efficacy and safety to the best of their capabilities. Certainly there were serious oversights and failures costing many lives such as Quaalude-300, PTZ for convulsive therapy, thalidomide and the acellular pertussis vaccine. There were also cases of gross conspiracy and scandal that destroyed numerous lives, such as the 1932-1972 Tuskegee experiment to secretly withhold penicillin from untreated African American males with syphilis. However, it was only during the past three decades that private corporations’ blitzkrieg to subdue the nation’s health agencies to control their executive functions and administrations were succeeding at a rapid pace. 

Before the collapse of the Soviet Union on Christmas day in 1991, governance was dictated in a bipolar world between two military giants. The governments of the US and the Soviets, and their respective allies, were the sole stakeholders moving the pawns on the world’s chessboard.  On the global scene, private industry and civil society would have to wait to grab a seat at the table of governance until American global hegemony was established. Therefore the collapse of the Soviet bloc opened the floodgates for commercial interests. Large corporations serving primarily domestic interests went international. New markets increased exponentially and private corporations and investment banks took advantage of the openings in these markets. Exploitation of these opportunities commenced unimpeded. Otherwise national corporations morphed overnight into transnational behemoths, with values competing with national economies, which has resulted in widespread commercial influence over practically all of our institutions in government, higher education, professional associations and the media.  In addition, science became embedded in private economic interests and the governments of the developed nations, notably the US and Britain, were eager to throw in their support to assure unlimited corporate growth would freely increase. The emerging corporate aristocracy were not perceived so much as uncontrollable rogue entrepreneurs who necessitated strict government oversight and regulation to be kept in tow. Rather they became partners as their agendas melted into being one and same. 

Ronald Reagan, the first Deregulator-in-Chief, opened a pathway for private interests to gain greater control over the sciences. According to Leslie Janka, a former White House deputy press secretary under Reagan, his entire presidency “was PR.”

“This was a PR outfit,” stated Janka, “that became president and took over the country. And to the degree then which the Constitution forced them to do things like make a budget, run a foreign policy and all that, they sort of did. But their first, last and overarching activity was public relations.”[7]

Reagan, who consulted astrologers for decision-making, was a science illiterate who favored private economic growth over altruism and consumer safety by any means. This meant gutting the Environmental Protection Agency of its scientific oversight on industries’ propensity to evade regulatory hurdles and pollute the environment. 

It was also during the Reagan era that pharmaceutical firms infiltrated the halls of the federal government. Through concerted lobbying and persuasion, Reagan signed the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act to protect vaccine makers from financial liability due to vaccines’ adverse effects. Before this bill, only a few firms continued to manufacture vaccines; the financial risks and compensation burden from vaccine injuries were too high for most drug companies. Reagan is therefore credited for launching the current vaccine boom, estimated to be worth $60 billion by 2020, with no legal liability placed upon companies for pushing unsafe and minimally effective vaccines. This trend entered hyper drive disorder under President Clinton, who perceived himself as the first “biotech president” and invited more corporate executives with conflicts-of-interest into his administration than any previous president. If the proliferation of GMOs is regarded as a contagion and curse on human and environmental health, then Clinton is ultimately to be blamed. 

There are three primary avenues by which science becomes corrupted and thereby damages the public’s health and the environment. These include: 1) corporate influence over scientific discoveries that are developed into products for public consumption; 2) corruption within the scientific community itself; and 3) the emergence of a positive philosophy towards science that adheres to all of the dogmatic trimmings of fundamentalist religious faith and that seeks full protection from government to become the reigning ideology of the state. 

This latter trend has been termed “scientism,” an incoherent ideology that identifies rationality and reason with science itself.  Scientism embraces the premise that science can explain everything. One of the more common criticisms against scientism is its “claims that science has already resolved questions that are inherently beyond its ability to answer.”[8] This scientific hubris particularly plagues the biological disciplines such as mental health, immunology, drug-based conventional medical therapies, neurobiology, the genetic etiology of disease, nanomedicine and genetic modification of plants for industrial agriculture.

One unrecognized consequence of scientism is that it plays directly into corporate hands to advance its’ financial interests and commercial control over a population. By tossing aside philosophical and ethical considerations over natural scientific discoveries and findings, scientific truths stand alone as sterile and amoral tools that can be used as economic weapons of destruction. This is most evident in the pharmaceutical industry that pushes questionably ineffective and unsafe drugs to treat physical and mental disorders, or the agro-chemical corporations’ poisoning the public with carcinogenic pesticides and environment-damaging genetically modified crops.

According to a report released by the Union of Concerned Scientists,

“Corporations attempt to exert influence at every step of the scientific and policy making process, often to shape decisions in their favor or avoid regulation and monitoring of their products and by-products at the public expense.”[9]

In order to achieve their goals, private interests make every attempt to win over the White House, Congressional legislators, senior federal agency officials and even the judicial courts. One of science-generated industries’ greatest threats is independent evaluation of the scientific research supporting their products. Therefore, winning over or buying the allegiance of the legislative heads of Congressional committees and the executive tiers of federal agency regulators is a prime directive to grease the bureaucracy in order to make the licensing channels for product approval slide through smoothly and to lessen regulatory due diligence and scientific scrutiny. 

There are several ways that private corporations succeed in influencing the government and enslave it to do their bidding. One is the prerequisite to assure that the judicial terrain is safe for corporations to conduct scientific malfeasance and fraud. This includes manipulating and fudging scientific data, preserving and exerting control over scientists, and taking control of peer-reviewed scientific literature. Although these tactics are found throughout many industries, it is the medical and food professions that are today the most corrupt and acting with blatant criminality.  

Charles Seife and his students at New York University undertook the task to determine to what extent the FDA covers up evidence of fraud and corruption in medical drug trials. They reviewed FDA documents for about 600 clinical trials. How often do federal health officials discover flagrant and intentional misconduct and subsequently decide to bury the evidence and prevent it from becoming public to the medical community?  Seife discovered such actions to be an official pattern within the agency. Given the high rate of content deleted or blacked out from the documents the FDA provided, the investigators could only determine which pharmaceutical company or drug was involved in 1 of 6 of the reviewed trials. For one trial alone, where FDA inspectors found significant fraud and misconduct, 78 different medical publications printed articles based upon that single study.  In an article for Slate, Seife writes, 

“Nobody ever finds out which data is bogus, which experiments are tainted, and which drugs might be on the market under false pretenses. The FDA has repeatedly hidden evidence of scientific fraud not just from the public, but also from its most trusted scientific advisers, even as they were deciding whether or not a new drug should be allowed on the market. Even a congressional panel investigating a case of fraud regarding a dangerous drug couldn’t get forthright answers.”[10] 

In one case, a new anti-blood clotting drug, rivaroxaban, involved four large trials recruiting thousands of patients in clinical sites in over a dozen countries. According to Seife, one of the trials “was a fiasco.”  In half of the sixteen clinical sites, the FDA discovered “misconduct, fraud, fishy behavior or other practices so objectionable that the data had to be thrown out.” One Colorado site falsified data. In the Mexican site, there was “systematic discarding of medical records.” Despite these overwhelming problems, the drug trial was published favorably in the prestigious British journal The Lancet. The FDA found similar problems in the three other trials; in one the data was ruled “worthless.” The FDA advisory committee of “expert” reviewers were only informed that inspectors discovered only “significant issues” at two sites in one of the trials. Rivaroxaban was nevertheless approved in 2011. Since then lawsuits for wrongful death from rivaroxaban continue to increase.[11] 

In another case from 2010, Cetero, a private research company that contracts to Big Pharma, faked data for over 1,400 drug safety and effectiveness trials conducted for roughly 100 drugs, mostly generic knock offs, that were being targeted for the US market. Although the FDA had uncovered this fraud, it has refused to make these 100 drugs known to the professional medical community and public.[12] 

A possible reason for some federal health agencies becoming compromised in an administrative strait jacket being pulled ever tighter by private industry is due to excessive downsizing and withdrawal of funds during the current and past two presidencies. A decade ago, an article by Jessica Washburn appearing in Discover Magazine reported about the dire situation at the NIH’s Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction.

The Center is responsible for the evaluation of chemicals and their impact on reproductive health. With continual deregulation following the Koch Brother agenda to permit private industries to flood the environment with toxic substances to their hearts’ desire, this is an enormously important department carrying the mandate to assure the health of pregnant women and to protect their fetuses. Yet the Center only employed three people, one who was part-time. The vast majority of the workload was outsourced to a private consulting firm, Sciences International. For almost ten years, this firm, which had been receiving funding from over forty chemical companies, was the primary evaluator of the environmental toxins mothers-to-be were being exposed to.[13]

*

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

Richard Gale is the Executive Producer of the Progressive Radio Network and a former Senior Research Analyst in the biotechnology and genomic industries.

Dr. Gary Null is the host of the nation’s longest running public radio program on alternative and nutritional health and a multi-award-winning documentary film director, including Poverty Inc and Deadly Deception.

Notes

1  https://www.webmd.com/drug-medication/news/20170803/americans-taking-more-prescription-drugs-than-ever-survey  

2  https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/nearly-7-in-10-americans-take-prescription-drugs-mayo-clinic-olmsted-medical-center-find/  

3 https://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.pn.2017.pp9b2

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2684607

4  https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2684607  

5  Russell, Bertrand.  “Icarus or the Future of Science,”  

6  https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patients-a-sustainable-business-model.html  

7 Mark Hersgaard  On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency

8 Hughes, Austin.  “The Folly of Scientism,” The New Atlantis.   

9  https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/scientific_integrity/how-corporations-corrupt-science.pdf

10  https://slate.com/technology/2015/02/fda-inspections-fraud-fabrication-and-scientific-misconduct-are-hidden-from-the-public-and-doctors.html  

11  Ibid. 

12  https://www.propublica.org/article/fda-let-drugs-approved-on-fraudulent-research-stay-on-the-market  

13 http://discovermagazine.com/2007/oct/sciences-worst-enemy-private-funding  

Here is the first part of this interview:

Brazil and the Illusion of the Rich: An Island of Prosperity Surrounded by Misery and Suffering

By Frei Betto and Dr. T. P. Wilkinson, January 13, 2019

***

Part II

Fighting Corruption in Latin America. Politics and Religion

In the wake of the Brazilian presidential election where reserve army captain Jair Bolsonaro was inaugurated in January to lead the largest country in South America back to the far right, returning it to the narrower US imperial orbit while strengthening ties to the global bullies in Washington and Tel Aviv.

Frei Betto (Carlos Alberto Libânio Christo) served for a short period as an advisor to the PT government. He resigned his office because he could not accept responsibility for some of the decisions taken where he was engaged.[i] It is often said in Brazil that the PT lost the elections by their own actions—grossly disappointing their supporters—and turning the election this year into a protest vote, which the party governing since 2002 was bound to lose. Of course elections themselves do not change the power structures of a state. And the manipulation of elections even to the point of usurping the lawfully elected candidates (e.g. Honduras) has a long tradition in the “backyard” of the United States. Nevertheless the demand for integrity and fairness in government is not restricted to those “white glove” regimes of the North.

Frei Betto discussed the issues made central to the election hysteria: corruption and religion.

***

Dr Wilkinson: One explanation given for corruption is the presence of dishonest people in the institution.

The other explanation is that there is incoherence between the institution’s structures and procedures and the needs of those working with the institution.

The Reformation that began nearly 500 years ago was partly motivated by the corruption of the Church. Some argued that it was sufficient to purge the dishonest clergy while others argued that the rule of the Church itself was corrupt. They wanted another church or to completely reorganise the existing one.

The last elections have focused attention on corruption. The most publicised response was to put former president Lula in jail. What kind of corruption does Brazil have and what options are there for remedying it? Does Church history offer any lessons?

Frei Betto: Corruption has always existed in human history, including in the group of Jesus (Judas). To combat it, good intentions do not suffice nor the encouragement of the practice of virtues. It is necessary to create a political institution that inhibits and severely punishes corruption. This is the case in Cuba. The construction company Odebrecht[ii], responsible for corruption in almost all the Latin American countries in which it maintained works, confessed to corruption in of all of them, except Cuba. Does that mean there are no corrupt people in Cuba? Is there no corruption? There is, and I was invited to give a lecture at an important event of the General Comptroller of Cuba in May 2018. However, Cuban officials have to think long before accepting corruption. And in the work of the Port of Mariel, Odebrecht could not corrupt anyone.

Without this institutional mechanism that inhibits and punishes corruption, it tends to spread.

TW: Fidel and religion:

Not only did Castro give you the opportunity to explain the relationship between him, the Cuban revolution and religion (especially Catholicism). The book also shows your own relationship. At least this is what I saw after reading your prison memoir.

The presidents of the largest countries in the Western hemisphere, the US and Brazil, both claim their policies have a religious foundation. Does that make the present conflict in Brazil (and the US) a religious conflict too? If yes, what are the religious issues? And how might they be resolved? If no, what does the religious rhetoric mean—for those who are religious and those who are not?

FB: Religion, like politics, serves to liberate or to oppress. That of Jesus was liberating; that of the Pharisees and Sadducees, oppressing. In the medieval period religion was used to expand the power of the Church. Dictators like Franco, in Spain; Salazar, in Portugal; and Pinochet, in Chile, used religion to justify the atrocities they practiced.[iii]

Today, oligarchic governments, such as those of Trump, and neo-fascists, such as Bolsonaro’s, use religion to manipulate the conscience of the people.[iv] This is the “opium of the people” religion denounced by Marx. The religion of the gospel, liberating, is that of Pope Francisco, that of Saint Oscar Romero[v], that of Dom Pedro Casaldáliga.

However, the state must be secular. Confessional politics is to yield to religious fundamentalism. As most people in the West are religious, many opportunists take advantage of this to distort the purpose of religion and make money. They announce that “Jesus is the Way” but they are there to collect the toll…

TW: The Catholic Church in the Middle Ages was probably the great “mass media” of that epoch. Today the Mass Media- mainly owned by private corporations—plays an important role in shaping the perceptions of reality and at the same time creating reality when people act according to their perceptions.

An outside observer, following Brazilian history, cannot avoid seeing that there has always been a complaint about corruption in Brazil, in political and economic life. Yet for the past several years now the PT has been portrayed as the “most corrupt” political party in all Brazilian history. Much of the PT support seems to have been lost because people believe the PT was completely corrupt.

Is this a “perception” of corruption or a “reality”? Can you place the accusations of corruption in Brazil in historical context? The statements of many supporters of military government are based on the idea that the military is not corrupt. However the regime that the current president supported was also accused of corruption before 1986. Is it possible that the corruption that lost the PT the election is a corruption in the Mass Media, too?

FB: Corruption has always existed in Brazilian politics. The failure of the PT was not to react vigorously when some of its leaders got into corruption. And I must stress that there is no proof that Lula has been corrupted. He is an unjustly imprisoned political prisoner.[vi] But other PT leaders have become corrupt. A minority that greatly damaged the Party’s image in general. And this was well exploited by PT opponents in the election campaign.

The new Brazilian government, headed by Bolsonaro, has ministers accused of corruption and under investigation.[vii] The president’s own son, currently Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, will have to explain how one of his assistants, named Queiroz, handled so much money when Flávio served as a state deputy in Rio de Janeiro.

Operation Lava Jato,[viii] which investigates corruption in Brazil, is a very important initiative, but assumed a partisan character. It sends to jail the PT politicians accused of corruption and leaves in freedom politicians of other parties evidently involved in the corruption.

TW: When the CEBs began to proliferate in Brazil, one explanation given was that they filled the gaps left because the Catholic Church never had enough priests for the Brazilian masses.

The CEBs were both potentially democratic and potentially competition for the growing Protestant churches. For this reason even conservative clergy were willing to work with these new forms of church.

An analogy could be drawn in secular life. The size of Brazil has always been a problem for those who want to govern it. The country’s administration was concentrated in the coastal cities and the interior was left to the control of the private sector (latifundistas). This has also meant that even though Brazil is a rich country—with much natural and human potential—there has been great difficulty creating and implementing national policies that balance the great differences between the peoples and regions of Brazil.

In the 1950s and 1960s there were movements to develop the Brazil as a whole. In Europe there was a “redevelopment” after the destruction of WWII, which culminated in the European Union. Yet the difference between Germany and Portugal show that even the rich European countries are not able to balance the distribution of wealth between rich and poor regions. And now there are movements to break-up the EU. Do you think it is even realistic to make, let alone expect, successful and sustained socio-economic policies for the entirety of a country as big as Brazil—at a time when, at least in the rich parts of the West, large highly differentiated political entities appear incapable of such policies? Does this mean that all social-economic policy will be surrendered to the private sector?

FB: The economic policy of a country always derives from an ethical option. And in Brazil, except the two terms of President Lula and the first of President Dilma, economic policy was never aimed at reducing social inequality. The goal now, under the Bolsonaro administration, is to make the rich richer and preserve this huge inequality.

By 2018, Brazil was the 9th most unequal country in the world and the most unequal in Latin America. The richest 1% of the population appropriated more than 25% of the national income. And the sum of the wealth of the richest 5% was equal to the sum of the wealth of the remaining 95% of the population. 80% of the Brazilian population – 165 million people – survived with an income of less than two minimum wages per month (R $1,908). And 0.1% of the richest portion concentrates in its hands 48% of all the national wealth. And the richest 10% get 74% of the national wealth. And 50% of the population –104 million Brazilians– share 3% of the country’s wealth.

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Notes

[i] Frei Betto published his reflections on this period in A Mosca Azul: Reflexão sobre o poder, São Paulo 2006

[ii] Organização Odebrecht, is one of the largest engineering and construction companies in the Americas. It was founded in Salvador, Bahia, by Norberto Odebrecht in 1944. In 2016, the group admitted to illegal payments to politicians in such countries as the US, Switzerland and Brazil, settling in one of the largest consent decrees in the world.

[iii] For a discussion of this topic see Karlheinz Deschner, God and the Fascists, 2013.

[iv] For a detailed history of Rockefeller overt and covert promotion of right-wing “Pentecostal” religious groups throughout Latin America, esp. in Brazil, see Gerald Colby and Charlotte Dennett, Thy Will Be Done, 1995.

[v] Roman Catholic Monsignor Oscar Romero was murdered by a US-funded death squad, while saying mass in San Salvador on 24 March 1980. He was canonised in October 2018 under Pope Francis. Romero was probably the most notorious victim of the US “Phoenix” political warfare operations throughout Central America. His elevation to sainthood has been seen as at least partial vindication of liberation theology in Latin America—persecuted both politically and ecclesiastically during the previous papacies.

[vi] Lula was committed to prison prior to the presidential elections (thus disqualifying him) by a judge who flagrantly disregarded the law whereby an accused is entitled to exhaust the course of appeal before a sentence is enforced.

[vii] The Folha de S. Pauloreported in the third week January that the investigation of Flavio Bolsonaro was suspended last week due to his immunity as a deputy and his election to the Brazilian senate. However new accusations have been made.

[viii] “Operação Lava Jato”. This is a kind of designation for police investigations into suspicions of large-scale criminal activity, esp. corruption, common to Brazil and Portugal (e.g. Operação Marquês, ongoing). Lavo Jatois a combination of investigations conducted by Brazil’s federal police into corruption, obstruction of justice, etc. that began in 2014.

Featured image is from Antonio Scorza / Shutterstock

News of another summit between the US and North Korean heads of state is surely encouraging for advocates of Korean peace. Hopes are high that North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un has an inkling the Trump administration will budge from its commitment to “maximum pressure” – the threat of invading North Korea and economic sanctions causing widespread starvation among its citizens – to have even agreed to a second summit in the first place.

Yet President Trump already confirmed during his press conference announcing the summit on January 19^th that he intends to maintain the full catalogue of sanctions until North Korea’s complete denuclearization. So it appears an end-of-war declaration is the most that can be expected of these talks. At a minimum the two leaders must produce a concrete framework and timeline for peace that is not contingent on North Korea’s denuclearization for their meeting to be a development on the initial summit in Singapore last June.

Still, much skepticism is in order. After all, it took just a month for the Trump administration to flip the script of the Singapore agreement and begin demanding North Korea initiate denuclearization prior to a peace deal – a nonstarter for Kim Jong-un’s government and the reason US-NK diplomacy has been stalled ever since.

Even with a peace deal in place, the Trump administration will still want the North Korean government to go out on a very precarious limb to achieve the initials steps of nuclear disarmament. Washington has requested a complete declaration of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal – including the location of these weapons and intrusive inspections – to confirm nothing is being hidden. This will expose North Korea’s nuclear weapons to a possible preemptive attack by the US.

While such an attack may seem unlikely, it is not so outlandish from the perspective of a country completely destroyed by the US during the Korean War and subject to decades of invasion drills just off their coast by the American and South Korean militaries (sometimes to seize nuclear weapons). Not only a declaration of peace, but an ironclad security guarantee backed by other stakeholders in the region will be necessary for North Korea to take that risk. This is something China, Russia and South Korea could take part in.

Still, peace and security is one thing; the purpose of nuclear weapons as a trade chip is another. Pyongyang has always sought a give-and-take approach – gradual removal of sanctions for each denuclearization step. North Korea will never commit to a lengthy (years-long) process of disarmament that is destined to remain incomplete prior to the next US presidential election (and likely transition to an even more hostile Democratic administration) without any reciprocal sanctions relief along the way.

Kim said so himself during his national address on New Year’s Day when he warned that his government would have “…no option but to explore a new path in order to protect our sovereignty [if the US] continues to break its promises and misjudges our patience by unilaterally demanding certain things and pushes ahead with sanctions and pressure.”

If some form of a peace deal is born of the next summit, it will be a huge success. But the prospects of denuclearization will remain remote if the US does not eventually relent on gradual sanctions relief. Given the ideological commitment to sanctions pervading imperial Washington, it will take nothing more than a complete come-to-Jesus moment by the Trump administration, including longtimeNorth Korean regime change advocate National Security Advisor John Bolton (he of undue influence in the White House), to overcome this unbridgeable gap.

While observers can be allowed some measure of optimism based on the summit announcement, South Korean President Moon Jae-in – the prime mover of the peace process from the beginning – cannot afford to wait much longer for the Trump administration to see the light on sanctions.

At stake for South Korea is the unfettered inter-Korean economic exchange needed for lasting peace on the peninsula and to pump life into its stagnating economy. The South Korean president has explicitly stated what he believes must happen to get to this point.

“North Korea knows it needs (to take) clear denuclearization steps to see international sanctions lifted and the United States also realizes that reciprocal measures are needed to match these North Korean denuclearization steps,” he said during a televised news conference on January 10^th.

Yet President Moon is also aware that North Korea will never take the initiative on denuclearization without a security guarantee, which is why he has been calling on the US to agree to formally end the Korean War – so far to no avail. If the upcoming summit can produce the latter, perhaps Moon can move on to convincing Washington about sanctions relief.

This may require a lot more than lobbying. Despite the initial positivity that came out of Singapore, US sanctions have actually increased since, President Moon’s efforts notwithstanding. This stands in stark contrast to the great strides the two Koreas have made toward diplomatic and military reconciliation over that time, sometimes to the chagrin of Trump administration officials.

The path of least resistance for Moon to achieve peace has always been through the participation of Washington given the barrier of US-led sanctions and the fact he is president of a country that has been deeply linked to America politically, economically and militarily since the era of the US occupational government following World War II. However, the deadline for South Korean patience is drawing near. As a single term president with three years remaining in his tenure, Moon cannot afford to waste another six months waiting for an unlikely epiphany among policymakers in Washington. If the Trump administration fails to produce anything positive from the next summit in the short term or if it later becomes evident the US will never relent on gradual sanctions relief, the time for Moon to contemplate violating sanctions will be at hand.

An Alternative Path for Kim’s Economic Modernization

For his part, Kim Jong-un made it clear in his aforementioned address on January 1^st that North Korea will not wait on the US forever. While the majority of his speech detailed his mission for reforming the North Korean economy, Kim also addressed the peace process and denuclearization – two issues that are fundamentally linked to attracting direct foreign investment for this economic reform.

Kim called for Koreans alone to be the masters of the peace process, stating that inter-Korean diplomacy, dissolution of military tensions, and economic cooperation should move forward regardless of outside influence (a clear reference to the United States). He also reiterated his commitment to denuclearization, as long as Washington accedes to reciprocity in the process, and reaffirmed his moratorium on the use and testing of nuclear weapons.

His much-publicized warning that his country would take an alternative approach if the US maintains maximum pressure was largely received by Western media as a threat to rekindle the tensions of yesteryear by refocusing on nuclear development. This only makes sense when taken completely out of the context of a speech devoted chiefly to economic reforms. North Korea’s standing in the world, in particular with China, Russia and South Korea, has improved as a direct result of Kim’s diplomatic initiatives and moratorium on nuclear testing. Going backward would mean alienating the very countries he is courting for investment.

A more likely explanation is that the North Korean leader was alluding to the existence of other partners in the region that can still support his economic ambitions if his diplomacy with Washington breaks down through no fault of his own. Indeed, he followed up his speech with a visit to Beijing just seven days later, another reminder to Washington that it’s not all about the US.

China and Russia have been vocal in their support for Kim Jong-un during this peace process and have openly called for sanctions to be relaxed in return for North Korean steps toward denuclearization. There is plenty of evidence that China is already ignoring sanctions outright, though not on the massive scale that Kim no doubt hopes for one day. This means the sanctions element of maximum pressure already exists in name only and China has the advantage of first access to North Korea’s economy.

At the same time, Washington has inadvertently created a scaffold for an alternative global economic system through its trade war with China and aggressive use of sanctions against Russia and Iran, one that North Korea may be able to integrate with whether the US government likes it or not. China has dramatically reduced investment in the US (down more than eighty percent this year alone) while its economic and military ties with Russia strengthen. It is also being disincentivized from further financial integration with American satellite states after the arrest of representatives from telecom giant Huawei in Canada and Poland for violating arbitrary Iranian sanctions (that were supposed to have been removed after President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran).

China will no doubt avoid flagrantly advertising deepening economic relations with North Korea, but with each passing day it has less reason to avoid doing so as it searches for alternative markets to park its investment capital. At the same time, Russia and Iran have already been heavily sanctioned – perhaps beyond further meaningful sanctioning – and may not be reliably penalized for trading with North Korea. Both countries could serve as crucial fuel sources as Kim pursues economic development.

While Kim is clearly staking his own domestic reputation and legacy on economic modernization rather than the past focus on shows of military prowess, it is still uncertain what denuclearization requirements the Chinese and Russian governments will have before deepening economic ties with North Korea. Also yet to be determined is whether South Korea, barred by sanctions, will stand by and watch as China takes advantage of North Korea’s attempted economic opening.

South Korea’s Choice: Settling for Reduced Military Tensions or Pursuing Lasting Peace

Imagine two countries (of the same nationality, no less) that have built railways right up to their respective borders yet cannot properly link them – despite obvious mutual economic interest and dramatic steps toward peaceful coexistence in the last year – because another country on the opposite side of the world disapproves.

The railway linking South Korea to the North – and to China, Russia and the rest of the Asian continent – is not only a symbol for the entire peace process, but a major economic incentive for all stakeholders in the region. Though technically connected, its state of disrepair is a metaphor for a divided nation and a stalled peace process.

South Korea was in essence made an artificial island off the mainland of Northeast Asia with the division of the peninsula after World War II. Simply by upgrading the North Korean railway system and resuming regular passage between the two Koreas, the South could suddenly – as if by magic – reconnect to the Eurasian landmass. The boon this would represent for trade should not be underestimated and President Moon clearly views the potential economic benefits of peace as the stimulus needed to revive South Korea’s flagging economy. None of this is possible as long as South Korea respects the sanctions regime.

During his January 10^th press conference, Moon spoke of the need to act quickly once sanctions are removed.

“Investors from China and around the world may end up scrambling to enter North Korea to gain the advantage there. It is crucially important that South Korea not miss its window of opportunity.” He added, “At a time when the South Korean economy is facing structural difficulties and cannot achieve the kind of high-speed growth it experienced in the past, I believe that inter-Korean economic cooperation will become a new and historic growth driver contributing new vitality to our economy.”

But what if sanctions are never lifted by the United States? South Korea will run the serious risk of being left behind if it continues to wait for the Trump administration to first accept the need for gradual sanctions relief and then deliver on that promise. Sanctions were never meaningfully lifted for Iran despite being a condition of Obama’s nuclear agreement and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – the same man in charge of North Korean diplomacy all this time – recently admitted the aim of Iran sanctions is in fact regime change. President Moon must seriously consider the possibility that “maximum pressure” is not really meant to induce denuclearization at all (it’s not as if most North Korean sanctions were designed to engineer the isolation and eventual collapse of North Korea, or anything).

No matter what comes out of this second Trump-Kim summit, it is hard to be optimistic Washington will voluntarily deliver sanctions relief given the US Empire’s history of duplicity, the ideological bent of significant members of Trump’s own administration, and the fundamental opposition to peace in the US media and among the Democratic opposition. South Korea must force Washington’s hand by putting the US in a position to lose something – finally making them a stakeholder in the peace process.

People Power Can Make the Difference in Korea

The roots of Korean peace extend to the people of South Korea, who – through a nonviolent mass movement known as the Candlelight Revolution – rose up and ousted the corrupt right-wing and pro-war government of Park Geun-hye to elect a peace-oriented president willing to push inter-Korean diplomacy regardless of the mood in Washington. The North and South Korean governments’ commitment to the peace process then forced a reluctant Trump administration to the table.

This is the model President Moon will have to employ once again when President Trump – a man with a notoriously undisciplined mind who is beset by domestic controversy and myriad other foreign policy concerns – proves unwilling or incapable of doing what needs to be done to convince North Korea to denuclearize.

By violating sanctions (and what would be more impactful and symbolic than upgrading the railway connecting the two Koreas?) the South Korean president can force Washington to make a choice: whether to completely alienate its ally and host to 23,000-plus American military personnel by punishing it economically, or stand down, permit reciprocal sanctions relief for denuclearization progress and thereby allow the Korean peace process to carry forward to its ultimate conclusion.

If the US government chooses punishment and continued obstruction, a surprise may be in store. The South Korean people have already shown what they are capable of achieving through the Candlelight Revolution. The moment the US begins to penalize South Korea for sanctions violations will be the point it becomes starkly clear to Koreans and the rest of the world that America is the single obstacle preventing their reconciliation and the economic benefits true peace will bring. This could spur the South Korean people to demand an end to the military alliance and eventually force the US to withdraw troops from the country.

So let us applaud the news of an upcoming summit between the US and North Korea, but do so with an understanding that the empire may never honestly approach denuclearization negotiations until it has something to lose if the process fails. Korean peace must be founded on unbound economic exchange, and President Moon must let it be known that this peace – not perpetual war – is the only way the US can retain its alliance with South Korea.

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This article was originally published on Antiwar.com.

Stu Smallwood is a Korean-English translator currently based in Montreal, Canada. He lived in South Korea for eight years from 2008-2016 and has a (useless) MA in Asian Studies from Sejong University in Seoul. In addition to Antiwar.com, his writing has appeared at Global Research and the Hankyoreh. He can be reached by email at stuartsmallwood[at]gmail.com or through his Twitter handle @stu-smallwood.

Featured image: South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un embrace each other after releasing a joint statement at the truce village of Panmunjeom, Friday. / Korea Summit Press Pool

 “Never before has a high-level official said that the opposition should overthrow the government… this has no historic comparison in the 200 years of US-Venezuela relations.”

– President Nicolás Maduro, January 23, 2019 [1]

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America’s long sought goal of regime change in Venezuela may be on the verge of being realized.

Thanks in large part to low oil commodity prices and U.S. economic sanctions imposed in 2017, an economic crisis has devastated the country. [2] Accusations of fraudulent elections have helped generate a rhetorical case that President Maduro is a “dictator” and a “usurper.” [3]

Boosted by distorted and biased press coverage, and hostile language from the U.S. and Organization of American States’ hawkish Secretary-General Luis Almagro, the Venezuelan opposition made their move on January 11, 2019. One day after Nicolás Maduro had been sworn in to his second term of office as president, the opposition controlled National Assembly declared Maduro to be illegitimate and appointed a relative unknown, opposition legislator Juan Gerardo Guaidó Márquez, to be their interim president, until fair elections could be conducted. [4]

January 23rd, on a day when Venezuelans commemorate the historic overthrow of military dictator Marcos Evangelista Pérez Jiménez, national demonstrations rose up across Venezuela, both in support of and in opposition to Maduro’s reign. At an opposition protest in Caracas, Juan Guaidó announced that he was assuming the role of Head of State. [5]

Shortly afterward, as if on cue, U.S. President Trump officially recognized Juan Guaidó as interim President of Venezuela. A number of countries including Canada, Brazil, Columbia, and other members of the so-called Lima Group would quickly follow suit. [6]

A certain threshold has been crossed. Following a short-lived mutiny by National Guardsmen in the Venezuelan capital, high ranking military officials have pledged their fealty to Maduro. Outbreaks of violence have erupted in Venezuela with estimates of between 14 and 26  casualties. Maduro has ended diplomatic relations with the U.S. and has ordered all U.S. diplomats out of the country by Sunday January 27th. Russia, China, Turkey, Cuba, and Iran have all expressed their support for Maduro as the country’s rightful leader. On Saturday January 26th, during tense deliberations at the United Nations, Russia outright accused the U.S. of engineering the Venezuelan coup d’etat. [7][8]

With so much at stake for the country’s population, the region and potentially the world, it is essential to get an honest picture of the events as they unfold, and the historical and geopolitical context in which they take place. Venezuela wouldn’t be the first and likely won’t be the last nation to suffer a tremendous toll from an intervention that is prettied up as a “humanitarian” mission of mercy.

On this week’s Global Research News Hour, we got hold of guests who can help fill in the blanks left by mainstream media coverage of the Venezuelan crisis, put some facts on the table, and try to project where this crisis is headed.

In our first half hour, Caracas-based journalist Lucas Koerner brings an on-the-ground perspective on the lead up to last week’s events, provides some background on Juan Guaidó, shares his take on the unity of the Venezuelan military behind Maduro, and makes an educated guess as to where events are leading in coming days.

In our second half hour we hear from Professor Radhika Desai and Venezuela-Canadian writer and activist Nino Pagliccia. In a round table conversation with host Michael Welch, these observers discuss the inauguration of Maduro, which Desai attended in person, the cracks in the National Assembly’s claims of Maduro’s unconstitutional assumption of power, the motives behind America’s and Canada’s advocacy for the Venezuelan opposition, the prospects for Russia and other powers to block U.S. hegemony, and how the situation is likely to evolve in coming months.

Lucas Koerner is a journalist and staff-writer with Venezuelanalysis.com. He is based in Caracas, Venezuela.

Radhika Desai is Professor at the Department of Political Studies at the University of Manitoba and a Director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group based at that university. She has authored a number of books including  Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire (2013) published by Fernwood. She is also a member of the Winnipeg based Venezuela Peace Committee.

Nino Pagliccia is an activist and freelance writer based in Vancouver. He is a retired researcher from the University of British Columbia, Canada. He is a Venezuelan-Canadian who follows and writes about international relations with a focus on the Americas. He is the editor of the book “Cuba Solidarity in Canada – Five Decades of People-to-People Foreign Relations” (2014). He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Note: In Winnipeg, a solidarity action is scheduled to take place Saturday January 26th in front of the U.S. Consulate in Winnipeg at 201 Portage Avenue (North-west corner of Portage and Main). Organized by Peace Alliance Winnipeg and the Venezuela Peace Committee.

For solidarity actions around the globe, visit the site for the Alliance for Global Justice (afgj.org)

(Global Research News Hour Episode 246)

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Notes:

1. https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14243
2. https://www.globalresearch.ca/venezuela-under-siege-the-wests-ongoing-campaign-against-president-maduro/5657804
3. Juan Guaido (January 15, 2019), ‘Juan Guaido: Maduro is a Usurper. It’s time to Restore Democracy in Venezuela’, Washington Post; https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/15/maduro-is-usurper-its-time-restore-democracy-venezuela/?utm_term=.6a849fe7ec8c 
4. Tom Phillips (January 11, 2019), ‘Venezuela: opposition leader declares himself ready to assume presidency’, The Guardian; https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/11/venezuela-maduro-juan-guaido-assume-presidency
5. Richard Vaz (January 23, 2019), ‘Venezuelan Opposition Leader Guaido Declares Himself President, Recognized by US and Allies’; https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14244
6. ibid
7. Richard Vaz (January 24, 2019), ‘Venezuela: Several Casualties as Violence Erupts’; https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14250
8. Andrew Roth, Lily Kuo, David Agren, Ed Augustin, Peter Walker and agencies (January 24, 2019), ‘Russia and key allies vow to stand by Maduro in Venezuela crisis’, The Guardian; https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/24/juan-guaido-venezuelas-opposition-leader-declares-himself-interim-president

The prevailing Alt-Media narrative that Washington wants to impose a pro-US puppet regime on Venezuela in order to control all of the country’s oil doesn’t make much sense when considering that it already buys 41% of the Bolivarian Republic’s total exports, meaning that another more nuanced explanation needs to be offered in order to account for this narrative double-think.

The Alt-Media Community is full of commentary about how the US wants to impose a puppet regime on Venezuela in order to control the country’s oil, but that doesn’t make much sense because it already buys 41% of the Bolivarian Republic’s total exports as evidenced by the Energy Information Agency’s executive summary of the energy trade between the two as of 7 January, 2019. The US is Venezuela’s top customer whereas Venezuela is the US’ third-largest supplier of crude oil imports according to the report, so Washington is already getting all that it needs from Caracas as it is. Given this ironic dynamic between the two geopolitical and ideological foes, it could be expected that the US would also obtain access to the resources of the world’s largest oil reserves in the Orinoco Belt one day too, once again contradicting the simplistic narrative that Washington is only waging this Hybrid War for the oil.

Nevertheless, the truth of the matter is that control over Venezuela’s oil is indeed one of the motivations behind this conflict, though not in the way that it’s being portrayed. Alongside ensuring full geopolitical control over the Caribbean Basin and ideologically confronting socialism, the US wants to obtain predominant influence over Venezuela in order to incorporate it into a parallel OPEC-like structure for challenging the joint Russian-Saudi OPEC+ arrangement per the author’s late-2016 prediction about the formation of a “North American-South American Petroleum Exporting Countries” (NASAPEC) cartel. This entity would function as “Fortress America’s” energy component and have the potential to exert powerful long-term pressure on the international oil market at Russia and Saudi Arabia’s expense. When coupled with the US and Qatar’s joint LNG investment plans, it’s clear to see that the US is making a global power play for control over the world’s energy industry, which could very adversely affect Russia.

The multipolar Eurasian Great Power relies on its energy exports to advance its financial and geopolitical interests, though that might be more difficult to do despite its oil and gas partnerships with Saudi Arabia and Iran respectively (which are part of the country’s “balancing” strategy) in the event that the US’ Western Hemispheric-wide NASAPEC and its LNG alliance with Qatar are able to potently compete with it across this domain. The potential risk is that Russia could stand to lose out on a lot of long-term revenue if the US is able to manipulatively keep oil and gas prices low, which could combine with the increased costs associated with the New Arms Race brought about by Washington’s withdrawal from the INF Treaty to put immense pressure on Moscow to “compromise” with its chief geopolitical rival per the stratagem described by the author in his April 2018 piece about “What The US Really Wants From Russia”.

President Putin’s ultimate legacy rests on his ability to deliver on the many socio-economic promises that he made to his compatriots during his re-election campaign last year, though these were all predicated on the assumption that the future oil and LNG markets would remain stable and largely under Russia’s controlling influence, as well as the expectation that the country’s hypersonic missile advancements could deter the onset of a costly New Arms Race. The US’ aforementioned energy and military moves shattered those presumptions and could throw the Russian leader’s carefully crafted plans to improve the overall livelihood of all of his countrymen (especially the majority of the population that lives outside of its most developed cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg) into jeopardy, though right now this worst-case scenario is still far from certain pending the outcome of the Venezuelan Crisis, thus explaining why Russia is so eager to “mediate” between the government and “opposition”.

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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.

For a few days now, tension has been rising high in Venezuela. On 23 January, the President of Parliament proclaimed himself president. He was immediately recognized by the US, Brazil and a number of other countries. There are fears that this is the beginning of a long period of confrontation and destabilisation.

Cycles of violence

The attempt to dethrone President Maduro does not come out of the blue. Since Maduro became president after the death of Chávez in 2013, the US has resolutely aimed at a regime change. The US tries to persuade parts of the army to turn against Maduro, but without any result so far. That is why Washington relies first and foremost on the internal opposition and on diplomatic pressure.

The US gives assistance to the political opposition and tries to unite it as much as possible. According to the color revolution handbook, NGOs, student organizations and local organizations are funded, trained and coached to organize street riots as effectively as possible. The street violence must destabilize the country to such an extent that the government is forced to resign, or that the army intervenes and deposes the government.

Since 2013, the opposition twice unleashed a cycle of large-scale violence. In 2014, 43 people were killed and 800 injured. In 2017, 131 people died.

In the meantime the economic situation deteriorated very much. This was mainly the result of an economic model that is extremely dependent on oil prices, but also of an outright economic warfare against the government.

A new offensive

In May 2018, Maduro won the presidential elections with 68% of the votes. That was a blow to the opposition, from which it had to recover. But when Nicolas Maduro was sworn in for a second six-year term on 10 January, it saw its chance for a new offensive. The US-controlled Organization of American States promptly declared that it would not recognize Maduro as president. Five days later Trump announced that he was considering recognizing [to recognize] Juan Guaidó as president.

Guaidó is the thirty-five-year-old president of Parliament. He is very close to Leopoldo López, with whom he is in daily contact, despite his house arrest. Together they founded the right-wing party Voluntad Popular. In the past, this party organised armed pickets that killed people, set fire to public buildings and hospitals, led to attacks on ministries, etc.

Strengthened by Trump’s backing, the opposition took to the streets the same day with the aim of ousting President Maduro and forming a provisional government. Amnesty was promised to the military who would defect. Six days later, on 21 January, some rebellious soldiers posted a video message online in which they declared themselves loyal to the opposition leader.

Tensions increased. On 22 January, Michael Pence, vice president of the US, posted a video message calling on Venezuelans to take to the streets and get rid of Maduro. One day later, the opposition did what Pence asked, they massively took to the streets. There were also large counter-demonstrations by supporters of the government. Guaidó proclaimed himself the new president. He was immediately recognized by the governments of the US, Brazil and Canada, among others. Russia, China, Turkey and Mexico, a large and important country in the region, continue to recognize Maduro. Europe was initially cautious, but now also unambiguously opts for a regime change.

How to proceed?

It is unlikely that the recognition of Guaidó by the US and some other countries will bring down President Maduro. But it may lead to further destabilisation of the country. The White House has opted for the strategy of chaos, as it has already done in so many other places.

The recognition of Guaidó will give the opposition a boost. If Guaidó is not allowed to hold the presidency, this may lead to more economic sanctions. The US is currently considering a ban on oil imports. This would have serious consequences for Venezuela’s financial position and would further reduce oil production.

An increasing number of recognitions of Guiadó as president will make it more likely that more countries will adopt economic sanctions against Venezuela. Threatening sanctions, stronger opposition and increasing violence will intensify the pressure on military officers and the PSUV top, in the hope that they will eventually change camps.

At the moment a foreign military intervention is unlikely, even with escalating violence. But in the past Trump has not ruled out such an intervention. With the recent election of the belligerent Bolsonaro, such an intervention could possibly be outsourced by the US to Brazil, together with Colombia, Peru and other countries in the region.

In any case, the interference in the domestic affairs of a sovereign country that the US is exhibiting today is unashamed and unprecedented. It violates the most elementary principles of the United Nations.

The deadlock in Venezuela can only be resolved through national dialogue. Maduro, for his part, is in favor of calling for a dialogue, directed to the country as a whole by the governments of Uruguay and Mexico. Any foreign interference or pressure will only add fuel to the flames.

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Featured image is from Black Agenda Report

Well, that didn’t last long.  Yesterday Canada’s ambassador to China, John McCallum, presented three arguments concerning Meng Wanzhou, one of the leading executives for Huawei, who was arrested in December in Vancouver airport, at the request of U.S. authorities.  Today he recanted, saying he created confusion, misspoke, that his comments are not accurate – yet at the same time he did not outright deny the truth of his comments.

“I regret that my comments with respect to the legal proceedings of Ms. Meng have created confusion. I misspoke. These comments do not accurately represent my position on this issue. As the government has consistently made clear, there has been no political involvement in this process… .Canada respects its international legal commitments, including by honouring its extradition treaty with the United States. The rule of law is fundamental to all free societies, and we will continue to defend and uphold this principle.” (John McCallum, Canada’s ambassador to China. Thursday, January 24, 2019).

His three points from yesterday were,

• Political influence/interference from the U.S.
• U.S. laws were being applied extraterritorially, in other words out of their jurisdiction.
• the supposed criminal action occurred because Huawei executive Meng had dealt with a country under U.S. sanctions – sanctions not supported by Canada as they result from the U.S. abrogation of the Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, signed along with Russia, France, Germany, China, and the U.K.

All three points are still valid today so while he misspoke and created confusion, perhaps that stems from the truth of his statements. PM Justin Trudeau stuck to his usual rule of law platitude but also did not negate the statements, allowing a degree of wondering if the comments were vetted, or if they were being allowed to pass for concerns about foreign policy political relationships with China.

And then we come to the “rule of law” so beloved of political leaders attempting to side step an issue.  McCallum repeated the mantra, perhaps to save his own skin, but also to allow domestic politics to play out as Trudeau wants to manage them.

There is much that can be presented about Canada’s real “rule of law” both domestically and internationally, ranging from the bombing of Serbia and the bombing and overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya to the denial of indigenous rights across Canada.  But the real example of operating outside the law is Canada’s response to another hotspot – Venezuela.

Rule of law for Venezuela

Ben Rowswell, former Canadian ambassador to Venezuela (2014-2017) was a guest on CBC’s Power and Politics today.  He supported Canada’s proclamation that the Maduro government was not the real government of Venezuela and that Juan Gaido was the acting president.  His reasoning revealed either ignorance (not likely) or complicity with U.S. interests (most likely) – his main argument was that this was neither a Canadian nor a U.S. issue but a Venezuela issue.  It is absolutely a U.S. issue as the U.S. has interfered in Venezuela at least for the past two decades, using covert operations and sanctions against the government.

The main issue is not dictatorship versus democracy as the U.S. is quite willing to be friends with dictatorships (see Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Egypt).  The problem is about oil and U.S. global hegemony (see also Syria, Iraq, Libya, Sudan).  Without being able to control oil and its pricing in U.S. petrodollars the U.S. economy would sink rapidly into recession/depression.

Canada has long supported U.S. hegemony, indeed is an important pawn in the whole situation, and it is in that sense that Canada’s declaration on the Venezuelan opposition leader comes into play.  Therefore it is very much in line with Canada’s foreign policy to abrogate international law, international customary law, and declare Maduro’s government to be invalid.

Venezuela looks like Chile

Another red-herring argument presented by those supporting Trudeau’s position is one of Canada’s support being in synch with the Lima group of countries.  If the latter are looked at closely they are all countries in which the government has at one time or another been overthrown by U.S. interests, covertly or overtly, and are all now right wing sycophants of the Washington consensus.  Columbia in particular for decades has been essentially a U.S. operations base for the so called “war on drugs”.  Most of these governments use militaries and  paramilitaries who have received their training at WHINSEC, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, where a good schooling in subversion, torture, interrogation and extra judicial ‘rules’ can be obtained.  Venezuela is looking a lot like Chile during the Allende-Pinochet coup.

The main rule of law throughout this whole scenario are the rules of law as established by CIA/NSA cronies supporting the ability of U.S. corporations to extract whatever they want from the countries, using U.S. dollars for trade, and sourcing cheap unprotected labour.

Clear, disciplined and principled?

Returning to the China fiasco (at least it is in Canada’s position), the CBC also had the former ambassador to China, David Mulroney on as a guest.  He described McCallum’s action and words as a “bad idea that went badly wrong,” a judgement that is at best premature and not very nuanced as to what might have occurred behind the scenes before and after the comments.  He further thought that the comments might raise “questions over our integrity”, and that Canada operates in a “clear, disciplined, and  principled manner.”  All his talking points sound academically fine and well spoken, but are only the usual cover for Canada’s attempts at creating the global perception that we are the good guys.

Are we clear?  Clearly between a rock and a hard place – the U.S. and China, and clearly on the U.S. hegemonic side when it comes to cases such as Venezuela.  Clearly not wanting to offend the U.S. government – not Trump himself as such, but the deeper state.

Are we disciplined?  For sure:  disciplined by our status as a pawn within the U.S. global empire, tied to them economically and increasingly politically.  To be sure, we are self-disciplined when it comes to imperial projects around the world, a large part of our British inheritance.

Principled – Oxford definition a “personal code of right conduct.”?  Not at all.  Canada survives on the support of the US$, in terms of its overall economic ties, in terms of its oil exports priced in US$.  Canada supports U.S. foreign policy which at its base is a militarized economy supporting corporate adventures anywhere in the world that it can – and in those areas that it cannot, it will do its best to subvert the government and place their ‘owned’ cronies in place.

In all areas of foreign policy and in many areas of domestic policy, Canada remains servile to U.S. interests, mostly willingly as those in power very much wish to stay there.  Much of the world surely recognizes this, while the “western” world continues to play out its myths.

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Jim Miles is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

There are so many diverse memories to a mind that has traveled through the decades like an endless wind. Being a ‘baby boomer’ who just cannot accept the utter surreal bad aftertaste of our current comic book empire, one desires to retreat into the distant past. This past of course had its own times of despair, but for a youth of those days it sure seemed better. Such is the nature of this nostalgic ‘look back’.

The autumn of ’65 found this writer living in what was then most likely the greatest place to be a youth. That would be Brooklyn, NYC, in the fabulous neighborhood called Sheepshead Bay. We didn’t actually live by Sheepshead Bay, where the fishing boats and great seafood restaurants were. Yet, close enough to ride one’s bicycle to it. Avenue U was my ‘stomping grounds’, filled with a slew of Mom and Pop shops of all kinds. My neighborhood consisted of a mix of Italian American families (my own), Irish American families, Jewish families and other ethnic groups of no great number. Looking back, segregation was in practice in those days (as still is the case now in most urban areas) and seeing a black face meant you saw either a cleaning lady, janitor or store helper. Sad but true.

When I got home from school each afternoon, I rushed around the corner to the World Telegram and Sun home delivery office to pick up my papers. I had secured one of the best routes, because I was now older than most of the other kids, being already 15 and soon to be 16. My route began right there, at the office, which was Bedford Ave and Avenue U, and strolled right down the alphabetical ladder to Quentin Road, which would have been Ave Q. Proudly, I rode a used but still in great condition Schwinn Black Phantom, which was big and powerful, replete with its own shock absorber. It did not travel as fast as the new 3 Speed English or Italian racers as they called them, but it was reliable and rode smooth as hell.

This one November afternoon the gray skies and chilly weather seemed to go right through you. I had my heavy jacket on, and my head was warmed by the old reliable woolen beanie cap, as they called them in those days. I had folded my papers at the office, so as to more easily toss them from my bike at the stoops of the one and two family homes on Bedford Ave. The quicker I finished the better to get home and start my homework, which usually took two hours each day. As I went up Bedford, really making good time, I came to this one family home near the corner of Ave S. In the front window sat this old lady by a desk, in full view from the street. She seemed to be lost in some deep concentration, with a pencil in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Figuring to get a better tip, I parked my Black Phantom and brought the paper to her doorway. She looked up and, waving her hand, invited me in. The door was open. Inside now, I handed her the paper. Man, it sure felt warm inside. “Why don’t you sit down for a minute young man and warm yourself?” I did. I asked her what she was doing, a really stupid question as I could see she had a crossword puzzle in front of her. “The only reason I get the Sunday Times is for their crossword puzzle”, she answered while still locked into it while slowly dragging on her Chesterfield plain tip. The manner in which she was apparently enjoying her smoke caused me to take the risk and ask for one. Now, I really did not even like cigarettes, but at 15 my parents would go crazy if they saw me smoking, so why not give it a shot? I asked if I could have one and she said “Help yourself, but it is a nasty habit for someone as young as you.” I lit up and sat there with her for what seemed an eternity to a young man like me. She liked it when I helped her with the puzzle and remarked at how clever I was.

“You must be good in school, I imagine.” I nodded in the affirmative. When the phrase ‘Taft Hartley’ came up as a correct answer, the old lady turned to me. “Do you know what that means?” she asked. I did not. “Well Philip, the crazy conservative Congress, with that hat salesman Truman going along, made damn sure that striking workers got another roadblock in their efforts.” Then she took a minute or two and gave me a quick education on labor matters. I jumped in by telling her about my dad, a longshoreman, and now that she mentioned it, he did use that phrase ‘Taft Hartley’ to explain to my Mom and Grandmother why his strike was delayed last year. Now it all made sense.

Well, the 10 minutes I had planned on staying there ran into a half hour as I noticed the skies getting a bit darker. My paper route was only half completed. I left most of the cigarette in her ashtray, thanked her as she thanked me again for bringing her paper in for her, and hustled out. As I rode on I was so thrilled that this old lady, much older than my parents, had treated me like an equal, even for but 10 minutes. From that first encounter with the lady in the window, we became friends. Each day I would park my bike and bring the paper in for her. We would sit and chat about whatever, share a smoke (which I never could inhale) and I would be on my way. As November moved into December, she and I would share information on our lives.

She had a great deal of anger for what was going on in Vietnam. “We just have no business being in some rice paddy and killing and being killed for what? Nothing!” Being 15, I honestly never really even noticed what was happening in Vietnam. That revelation would come about two or three years later. The old lady would also tell me about her son and what he was doing now, and I would do the same as to my parents etc.  On most afternoons she would have a plate filled with cookies for me. On bitter cold days she would make a cup of tea as well. Interestingly, I never asked her first name, only knowing her last name from my route sheet. She called me Philip and that was that.

After the Christmas vacation I decided to find a part time job that would pay me better, and besides, paper delivery was for kids. I was now at the ripe old age of 16. I did miss my visits with the old lady, but sometimes ‘out of sight, out of mind’. It must have been the following winter, January of ’66, that I did find myself going by her house. We had a humongous snow storm, at least 15 inches, and there was money to be made shoveling snow. My pal Big Frank and I took to the streets (you had trouble anyhow walking the sidewalk) to make some money shoveling. I remember that day so well. It was a blue sky, sunny freezing cold Thursday that felt like a Saturday, and everybody was home. Not much work and schools closed as well. Big Frank and I figured we’d hit Bedford Ave, with those bigger homes and lots more driveway and stoop. When we got across from the old lady’s house, I decided to go across and say hello. There was no one in her window, and a guy next door was shoveling his walk. I called out to him if he knew if the old lady next door was around. “Oh, Mrs. Nelson, no kid, she passed away nearly a year ago.” I asked him how. “Well, if you knew her then you knew she practically went to bed with a ciggie hanging from her mouth. That’s what did her in. Too bad. Nice old lady.” As I crossed back to catch up with Big Frank, the wet from my eyes was beginning to crystalize.

As I grew up more, went to college and began to learn about things that they don’t tell you on the TV or newspapers, I always thought of the old lady in the window. She was more than just cool, as we referred to people who were ‘above the crowd’. That old lady smoking a Chesterfield plain tip with me was outright exceptional!

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Philip A Farruggio is a son and grandson of Brooklyn , NYC longshoremen. He has been a free lance columnist since 2001, with over 400 of his work posted on sites like Global Research, Greanville Post, Off Guardian, Consortium News, Information Clearing House, Nation of Change, World News Trust, Op Ed News, Dissident Voice, Activist Post, Sleuth Journal, Truthout and many others. His blog can be read in full on World News Trust, whereupon he writes a great deal on the need to cut military spending drastically and send the savings back to save our cities. Philip has a internet interview show, ‘It’s the Empire… Stupid’ with producer Chuck Gregory, and can be reached at [email protected]

Contrary to the Alt-Media Community’s “wishful thinking” expectations that Russia would “pull a Syria” in Venezuela by commencing a full-on military intervention in support of the country’s democratically elected and legitimate government, Moscow instead decided to channel the diplomatic dimension of that Mideast campaign by offering to “mediate” between the authorities and “responsible” members of the “opposition”.

The Hybrid War on Venezuela unprecedentedly escalated earlier this week when Juan Guaidó proclaimed himself “president” and was recognized by the US and many of its allies as such, pushing the Bolivarian Republic to the brink of civil war and raising fears that a multilateral military invasion might be imminent. Amidst this uncertain situation, Russia spoke out very strongly against the US’ violation of international law and meddling in Venezuela’s internal affairs, raising hopes among many in the Alt-Media Community that Moscow might be mulling a repeat of the Syrian scenario by commencing a full-on military intervention in support of the country’s democratically elected and legitimate government.

Much to their surprise, however, what Russia seems to have had in mind in that respect was only the diplomatic dimension of that Mideast campaign after it swiftly suggested that it could “mediate” between the authorities and “responsible” members of the “opposition” just like it’s been doing between Damascus and the Arab Republic’s so-called “moderate opposition”. In fact, when President Putin spoke to his Venezuelan counterpart, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that they didn’t even discuss the possibility of Russia extending financial or military assistance to its partner. This follow’s President Putin and Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov’s earlier call for a “peaceful dialogue” to end the crisis.

Moving beyond Russia’s principled stance in publicly defending international law and condemning the US’ violation thereof, the country’s real interests in Venezuela lay in ensuring that its partner repays its billions of dollars in loans and respects the energy and military deals that it previously agreed to. Seeing as how the US-backed “opposition” would probably render those deals null and void if they successfully seizes power and consequently inflict a serious financial blow to sanctions-beleaguered Russia, Moscow has a natural interest in trying to “get on their good side” and “peacefully facilitate” a possible “leadership transition” per its “balancing” strategy if it’s concluded that such a scenario is “inevitable”.

It does indeed seem as though Russia might be countenancing such an outcome considering that President Putin somewhat surprisingly didn’t think it appropriate to discuss dispatching emergency financial and military aid to Maduro, possibly believing that it might be all for naught if Moscow received intelligence about the US’ next planned moves in the Hybrid War and didn’t want to risk deepening its potential loss if the “opposition” was about to make a major move that might successfully lead to the government’s overthrow.  That possibly being the case, it makes sense why Russia would want to “mediate” between Maduro and the “opposition” as soon as possible to hopefully “hedge its losses”.

To clarify for anyone who might be confused by this sudden turn of events and unexpected application of the Syrian scenario, Russia is a capitalist country that’s focused first and foremost on protecting its own interests before anyone else’s, and it’s not going to sacrifice its soldiers’ lives to uphold Venezuela’s socialist system. It appreciates the country’s multipolar orientation but couldn’t protect its partner (and most importantly, its assets) even if it wanted to because it can’t secure the trans-Atlantic supply lines necessary to do so. There’s also no geopolitical incentive of becoming the regional kingmaker like it did in the Mideast with Syria to justify such a risky operation anyhow.

Simply put, Russia’s billions of dollars’ worth of assets and contracts are indefensible if the country succumbs to the rolling US-backed coup attempt, which is why Moscow is so motivated to “mediate” between the two domestic parties of the conflict just two days after the latest Hybrid War escalation. Venezuela’s located half a world away from Russia whereas Syria is within comparatively closer proximity and not as difficult to sustain with emergency arms shipments and Moscow’s ultimate military intervention, though as can be seen, the Syrian scenario is nevertheless still being applied in Venezuela through Russia’s efforts to “balance” between the democratically elected and legitimate government & the “moderate opposition”.

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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.

A firefight broke out on the contact line between Israeli and Syrian forces in the Golan Heights, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on January 24.

According to the statement, forces from the Syrian side of the contact line opened fired on an IDF patrol. Israeli soldiers returned fire. The IDF reported no casualties, but did not specify where the incident took place.

The IDF also revealed that it had deployed an additional battery of the Iron Dome air defense system in the area of Gush Dan.

These developments came just a few days after extensive Israeli airstrikes on Syrian military and alleged Iranian targets in the countryside of Damascus, which took place on January 20-21. On January 23, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stated that Israel’s “policy is clear and it will not change” promising more actions against Iranian in Syria. With no doubt the Israeli-Iranian as well as Israeli-Syrian conflicts continue to escalate.

ISIS cells in the Homs-Deir Ezzor desert remain a threat to the Syrian Army. On January 22, ISIS fighters killed 4 Syrian soldiers and officers in the desert west to the US-controlled area of al-Tanf. The killed people were reportedly members of the Sixth Regiment of the army’s Border Guards. Last weekend, government forces eliminated 2 ISIS members in the al-Hublah area, also close to al-Tanf.

According to local sources, hundreds ISIS members still hide in the desert area, including the US-declared security zone near al-Tanf. This threat cannot be neutralized without a large-scale security operation in the area.

Government troops discovered a 600-meter long underground tunnel in the district of Darayya southwest of the capital of Damascus. 14 mines and 20 IEDs were found in the tunnel.

The Syrian Army shelled positions of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in the towns of al-Janabirah and Tell Bazzam and positions of Jaysh al-Izza in the towns of al-Lataminah and Hissraiyah in the Idlib de-escalation zone. Pro-government sources claimed that several militants were killed in the shelling.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and Jaysh al-Izza are the main militant groups responsible for violations of the ceasefire regime in the area. However, limited strikes on their positions are far from being enough to neutralize them.

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After two days of intense pressure and a concerted campaign by the US and Canada to install Juan Guaidó as the new “self-declared” interim President of Venezuela, it is clear that they have failed in this objective. It is also clear that their illegal and undemocratic attempts to destabilize the country and overthrow the democratically elected President Nicolás Maduro will continue – with incessantly harmful consequences. Despite this, the people of Venezuela have risen once again to defend their country and democracy against hostile foreign intervention. It is essential that we support them in this fight.

The mainstream media is full of “Who is Juan Guaidó?” articles, which is fair given that the President of the National Assembly has never been an important leader in Venezuela until the US and Canada tried to make him one. Indeed, he was elected to the National Assembly in 2015 with only 26% of the votes. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal have also already published details of the months of meetings and planning between U.S. officials and Guaidó before his January 23 self-declaration as interim President.

It was not accidental that the night before planned opposition protests and Guaido’s announcement on January 23 that US Vice President Mike Pence put out a video message encouraging Venezuelan’s to overthrow their government,

“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.”

The next day, the US and Canada recognized Juan Guaidó as President of Venezuela almost immediately following his self declaration at a rally. The day after that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo frantically failed to get a meeting of the Organization of American States to recognize his new “President”. Speaking with the hypocrisy and aggression which comes only from the mouths of imperialist politicians, he also called for the overthrow of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro,

“His regime is morally bankrupt, it’s economically incompetent and it is profoundly corrupt.”

Pretty rich words coming from a leading official of U.S. President Donald Trump‘s administration, for which the terms “morally bankrupt”, “economically incompetent” and “profoundly corrupt” would be much better applied.

Following not far behind, Canada’s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland quickly issued a statement recognizing Guaidó as President. Details also emerged of discussions between Freeland and Guaidó in the weeks leading up to his announcement.

We have already seen the Middle East raided and ravaged for the last twenty yeas by the “democracy” imposed by the U.S and Canada.  Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen are all still suffering its horrifying outcomes. We cannot now allow them to sink their bloody claws further into Latin-America!

One final undeniable truth: If Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro did not have the support of millions upon millions of Venezuelans, he would not still be in power. This support for the Bolivarian Revolution has been decisive time and time again in thwarting decades of coup attempts and foreign aggression. Living as we do in the “belly of the beast”, peace-loving people in the U.S. and Canada have a special responsibility to mobilize against these government’s illegal and undemocratic “regime change” programs. Especially in tense, decisive times such as these we need to speak loud and clear to emphasize that Trump, Pence, Pompeo, Trudeau and Freeland do not speak in our names. We demand the governments of the US and Canada immediately halt their aggression against Venezuela and accept the Venezuelan people’s democratic election of Nicolás Maduro as their President.

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Alison Bodine is Coordinator of Fire This Time Venezuela Solidarity Campaign.

Featured image is from France 24

Washington has chosen a president for Venezuela.  I wonder if Trump saw the black humor in doing to Maduro what the Democrats and presstitutes are doing to him.

Few Latin American governments have ever had a government that represents the majority indigenous people or a president who was not of Spanish descent.  Chavez in Venezuela perhaps was the longest lasting indigenous leader.  His successor Maduro is also indigenous.

Indigenous Latin American leaders are unacceptable to Washington, because they tend to be reformers who represent their country’s people instead of American business and financial interests.  Consequently, when a Latin electorate elects a leader who will put them first, Washington overthrows the leader.  This is the history of US/Latin American relations.

In the 21st century alone Washington has overthrown the elected presidents of Honduras, Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela and overturned the independence of Ecuador that had provided asylum protection for Julian Assange.  Washington’s coup with the Spanish elite against Chavez in Venezuela initially succeeded.  Chavez was in captivity, but before he could be murdered the Venezuelan people and military forced his release.  

Chavez, either because he lacked the power to move against the traitorous Spanish elite or because he chose to display magnanimity, did not hold those responsible who participated in the coup against his life and Venezuelan sovereignty.  Washington’s agents, the Spanish elite,  were not arrested and retained their control over the media and the economy. Venezuela has substantial oil revenues, but they do not reach the government’s budget or protect the value of the currency.  I do not know who controls the Venezuelan oil, but it appears the revenues are being stolen.  As it seems unlikely the Spanish elites would permit the indigenous people to control the oil business, possibly the oil revenues are what funds, along with Washington,  the anti-Maduro opposition. If the Maduro government is stealing the revenues, then the government is committing suicide.

Consequently, Washington and its Venezuelan vassals have had a free hand against Maduro. The whores who comprise the Western media have served Washington’s demonization of Maduro, an elected president that Washington calls a dictator.  In the election that re-elected Maduro, Washington instructed the traditional Venezuelan oligarchy to boycott the election.  That allowed Washington to claim that Maduro was not legitimately elected.

Of course, if there had been any chance of Washington and its Spanish vassals winning the election, they most certainly would not have boycotted it.  But the whores who constitute the American media have no integrity and thereby no problem in overlooking the fact that Venezuelans prefer Maduro to Washington’s Spanish vassals.

Washington using sanctions and economic punishments has been trying for years to destabilize Venezuela in order to bring down the government and install Washington’s agent as president. This policy has cruelly punished the Venezuelan people, but nevertheless they have clung to their indigenous leadership.  The other day Washington organized a military coup, but few participated and it was easily put down. 

Defeated on these fronts, Washington had Trump and Pence declare that Maduro was not the president of Venezuela and that Washington recognized its agent in the legislature as president.  Pence called for the newly annointed president to overthrow the Maduro government and threatened Maduro with invasion if he acted against Washington’s designated president.

Maduro’s response, a numbrer of years late, was to order all US diplomats out of Venezuela.  Washington replied that as Washington does not recognize Maduro’s government as legitimate, Maduro lacks the authority to throw them out. The US diplomats will remain and continue the conspiracy against Maduro.

Here we have a situation in which Washington, not the Venezuelan people, has chosen the president of Venezuela and refuses to accept the Venezuelan government’s break of diplomatic relations.

As I write, indications are that Washington’s vassals in Canada and Europe are also withdrawing recognition from the legally elected government of Venezuela, conferring recognition instead on the unelected agent of American business and financial interests selected by Washington.

What does this say about the West?  The West regards itself as the home of integrity, human rights, democracy, truth, and goodness.  But in fact the West is committed to supporting Washington’s suppression of Venezuelan self-determination.

What Washington is doing to Venezuela is a good lesson for the gullible Russian Atlanticist Integrationists and the gullible pro-western Chinese youth.  As China’s Global Times put it: “For a long time, the US has been eager to replace international law with its geopolitical interests and values so as to legalize its interference” and hegemony over the world. (See this)

Putin expressed his support for the legitimacy of Maduro’s government and said that the Venezuelan internal political crisis was “provoked from outside the country.” (See this)

Will Washington announce tomorrow that the US has decided that Alexei Navalny, not Vladimir Putin, is president of Russia?  Will Washington announce that the US no longer considers Xi Jinping to be China’s president, as his one party regime makes him illegitimate, and has replaced him with Tsai Lng-Wen?

How long will other powers tolerate Washington’s illegality and aggression?

How long will Americans tolerate the shame that Washington heaps upon their shoulders?

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

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

The White Helmets, “volunteers” who reportedly “rescue Syrians from rubble.” Never in history has such a group been so feted by the elite, or received so many awards from institutions acting as extensions of US and UK hegemony.

The song “Bella ciao” became famous worldwide through the “Resistenca”, the Italian resistance movement against fascism during the Second World War. It’s about a partisan in northern Italy who flees to the mountains and says goodbye to his lover (Oh Beauty, Ciao!): “And if I die as a partisan, (…) bury me up there on the mountain.” It was translated into many languages as a song of the labour movement. In left circles it belongs to the best known battle songs. Isn’t it time for us today – inspired by the protest song “Bella ciao” – to oppose the power-hungry and violent authorities that legitimize worldwide wars and establish a New World Order with more decisive resistance and with civil disobedience or other non-violent actions “to fall into the wheel’s spokes” (Bonhoeffer)?

The occidental decadence

What changes in our society and culture can be interpreted and criticized as decay, decline or depravity in order to legitimize a more decisive resistance against the authorities? Again and again we have to mention the problem of violence, which has not been solved by humanity. The excessive brutality makes its mark on our age too. Striving for power in economy and politics drives us again and again into catastrophes. Wars are no longer justifiable, they have become obsolete!

“If a nuclear war supported by the USA is declared an ‘instrument of peace’ and is tacitly tolerated and accepted by the international institutions and highest authorities, including the United Nations, there is no turning back: human society has been irreversibly forced onto the path to self-destruction. Now there is a need for a mass movement of people that will powerfully criticize the legitimacy of wars and the New World Order – a worldwide popular movement that declares war as a crime.” This is what Michel Chossudovsky, the renowned economist as well as founder and director of the “Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG)”in Montreal, called for as early as 2012 in his book“Towards a World War III Scenario“. (1)

Two more analyses make you sit up and take notice: Alexander Demandt, Professor of Ancient History at the Freie Universität in Berlin, wrote on 20.01.2016 in the “Frankfurter Allgemeinen (FAZ)”, a longer, very readable article on the topic “The Fall of the Roman Empire. The End of the Old Order”:

“The Roman Empire was friendly to foreigners. But immigrants could only be integrated in manageable numbers. The power structure shifted. The empire remained alien to the foreigners – yet they took the power ower.”Following the article, an FAZ journalist asked the author what we can learn from the fall of Rome. He replied: “That we must pursue a far-sighted policy with a sense of proportion and pay attention to the long-term consequences of immigration. The tension between rich and poor peoples is ancient. The Europeans’ fear of the poor peoples of the South is also old. For a culture to end, however, it takes some time – in the case of Rome about 500 years.”(2)

Finally, the FAZ-journalist wanted to know what advice would Demandt as a historian give the German Chancellor (in January 2016). The answer:

“We must limit the influx. Basically everyone knows that, too. To do this, you have to accept hardship. Word has to get  around first that it is not worth coming to Germany. We must not give up our sovereignty. Mrs Merkel must not act for the benefit of foreign governments and at the expense of the German people. Her oath of office provides for the opposite. A moral sense of arrogance resonates here. One must stand up for one’s own people – and not run away.”(3)

The second analysis comes from the US economist Dennis J. Snower and is completely new. Snower is regarded as one of the best known and most renowned experts on the world economy. In addition to his professorship in economics at the University of Kiel, he heads the Kiel Institute for World Economy. In a “WELT”-interview on 3.01.2019 entitled “There will be major social conflicts in Germany”, he recklessly settles accounts with politics that fails to recognize people’s needs. (4)

In an introductory statement, the editor of Welt asks a question about the fears of many Germans:

“The year 2018 was marked by conflicts and uncertainty. Trump, Brexit, the AfD-driven federal government; most recently the yellow vests on the streets in France. Many people have the feeling that our Western societies are falling apart. Is this fear justified?”

Snower replies:

“The world is in a bad state and nothing needs to be glossed over. It could come to this because the politics and all of us do not understand the problems we see all over the world and are fighting them wrong.”

Snower predicts:

“I expect that there will be great social conflicts because of this; greater than the Federal Republic has seen so far.”

He further believes that the increasing mechanisation of society and the threat of job loss through automation would put Germany to the test. One problem also lies in the attempt to solve all social problems economically:

“Those affected are mainly concerned with completely different things, and that is why it can only go wrong if politics tries to settle dissatisfaction only with financial benefits.”

A further reason for the drifting apart of society is also a lack of community. Due to the increasing isolation of society through mechanisation, the strengthening of the community is all the more important. (5) (S. a. NRhZ No. 689 of 02.01.2019: “Common sense as a guiding idea”)

Today we are facing the collapse of our environment and an omnicide.

Many other decadent developments in our society and culture should also be mentioned, such as the screaming injustice in the world, the destruction of Mother Earth, the radioactive contamination of the earth or the deliberate depopulation.

“The ruling elite,” writes the independent US geoscientist and international expert on radiation and public health, Leuren Moret, on her website www.leurenmoret.info, “has been conducting secret nuclear wars for the purpose of depopulation since the Second World War. They do this under the guise of atmospheric tests for the purpose of ‘national security’, nuclear power ‘so cheap that it can hardly be measured’ and ‘kinetic energy projectiles’ with depleted uranium.” (6)

Rosalie Bertell, US doctor, biometrician and environmental activist, who received the Alternative Nobel Prize for her book on the dangers of radioactive contamination of the Earth in 1986, speaks of an omnicide:

“The concept of species erasure aims at a relatively rapid, deliberate, radiation-induced end of history, culture, science, biological reproduction and memory. It is the ultimate human rejection of the gift of life, an act that requires a new word to describe it: Omnicide.”(7)

We are talking here about the destruction of Mother Earth by uranium weapons. The levels of new warfare cannot be ignored. Bertell summarizes them as plasma weapons, weather wars and geo-engineering.

In an interview on “Radioactivity and the extinction of life – Are we the last generations?” Rosalie Bertell calls for our voice to be raised:

“What we are doing right now is to reduce the number of viable generations on our planet by introducing errors into DNA or the gene pool. (…) We have reduced the survivability of living systems on the planet, whether our planet recovers from these interventions or not. We do not have an alien source that can provide us with new DNA. (…) We are responsible for what we leave to the next generation. (…) It seems that our generation does not care about the future. That is not our heritage. Our heritage is to leave our children something better than we have received. But that doesn’t seem to bother us. (…) We will surely have to raise our voices, (…).”(8)

The World Health Organization (WHO) confirms the forecasts of the two scientists. According to these forecasts, the incidence of cancer is rising drastically worldwide. The WHO expects that by 2030 more than 21 million people develop tumors every year. Deaths from cancer will also rise from 8.2 million to 13 million. At World Cancer Day 2017, she reported:

“The burden of cancer in the WHO European Region continues to rise, placing an enormous physical, emotional and financial burden on those affected, their families and communities as well as the health systems. Despite efforts in the areas of prevention, early detection and treatment, cancer mortalityincreased between 2000 and 2015 in all parts of the European Region by 6.6 per cent.”(9)

Time for a more decisive resistance against the authorities!

As a reminder, the oath of the German Federal President, the Federal Chancellor and the Federal Ministers according to Article 56 (and Article 64) of the Basic Law:

“I swear that I will devote my strength to the welfare of the German people, increase their benefit, turn harm away from them, uphold and defend the Basic Law and the laws of the Federation, fulfil my duties conscientiously and exercise justice against everyone.”(10)

It is pointless to enumerate when and how politicians have not been and will not be able to live up to this oath. Each of us cannot give just one example. More than 100 years ago, the great Russian writer Leo N. Tolstoy put his assessment also on record about those in power – admittedly at a different time. (May every sincere politician gladly dissociate himself from it.):

“One could still justify the subordination of an entire nation to a few people if the rulers were the best people; but that is not the case, has never been the case, and never can be. Often rule the worst, the least important, the cruelest, the most immoral, and especially the most dishonest people. And that this is so is no coincidence.”(11)

Since cheap speeches or excellent analyses have, in my opinion, little or no effect because our politicians are not interested in people’s opinions and only pursue their own interests and those of their “whisperers”. Therefore, I agree with the words of the Swiss poet and politician Gottfried Keller (1819-1890), who had the opinion:

“No government and no battalions are able to protect justice and freedom, where the citizen is not able to step outside the door himself and see what there is.”(12)

One way to offer more decisive resistance to the authorities is through civil disobedience. But the highest authority is warning against this. The German political scientist and sociologist Theodor Ebert wrote in an article for the “FrankfurterRundschau” on the subject of “Civil Disobedience“:

“While civil courage ranks at the top among the democratic virtues, the willingness to disobey civil law is not only suspected among public prosecutors of disturbing legal peace and undermining the foundations of liberal democracy. (…)

When Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference protested in Birmingham in 1964 against the discrimination of blacks by the violation of the rules by  the white Sheriff Connor, in  his opinion disturbed the legal peace, and King was imprisoned for it, he legitimized his behavior towards critical colleagues (…), in the meanwhile famous ‘Letter from a Birmingham City Jail’: He had resorted to civil disobedience in order to dramatize his ‘concern in such a way that it can no longer be ignored‘. This is now considered the classic justification for civil disobedience.” (13)

The intrepid theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who fought against National Socialism and was executed in 1945, demanded already in April 1933 publicly of a Christian “not only to connect the victims under the wheel, but to fall into the spokes of the wheel itself”.(14) And the world-renowned left-wing intellectual and emeritus professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT, Avram Noam Chomsky, titled his new book: “Fight or Fall! Why we must rise up against the masters of mankind!“

Finally, I would like to repeat Chossudovsky’s request from his book “Towards a World War III Scenario“:

“Now a mass movement of people is necessary, which with all its power criticizes the legitimacy of wars and the New World Order – a  worldwide popular movement which declares war a crime.”

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Dr. Rudolf Hänsel is an educationalist and psychologist.

Notes

(1) Chossudovsky, M. (2012). Das Szenario eines Dritten Weltkriegs. Die geheimen Pläne des Pentagon zur Errichtung einer Neuen Weltordnung. Rottenburg, S. 126

(2) https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/staat-und-recht/untergang-des-…-das-ende-der-alten-ordnung-14024912-p3html

(3) A.a.O.

(4) https:/www.welt.de/wirtschaft/plus186481972/Dennis-Snower-Es-wird-grosse-soziale-Konflikte-geben.html

(5) A.a.O.

(6) NRhZ Nr. 680 vom 31.10.2018: “Das Danaergeschenk des ‚barmherzigen Engels‘“

(7) NRhZ Nr. 633 vom 18.10.2017: „Trägheit des Herzens“

(8) A.a.O.

(9) A.a.O.

(10) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidesformel

(11) Urban, P. (Hrsg.) (1983). Leon N. Tolstoi. Rede gegen den Krieg. Frankfurt am Main, S. 47 

(12) https://www.gutzitiert.de/zitat_autor_gottfried_keller_716.html

(13) „Frankfurter Rundschau“ vom 18.01.1984

(14) https://sciencev1.orf.at/koertner/142961.html

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Mobilize and Defend Venezuela!

By Andre Vltchek, January 25, 2019

In the past, the US tried to overthrow Chavez, it attempted to starve Venezuela, to make its medical system collapse, then to assassinate Maduro. It produced a ‘deficit’ of food, even toilet paper. It ordered its lapdogs in Latin America to antagonize the Bolivarian revolution.

US Regime Change in Venezuela: The Documented Evidence

By Tony Cartalucci, January 25, 2019

According to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – the impetus for Washington’s sudden interest in Venezuela is the suffering of the Venezuelan people.

Regime Change and Speakers of the Legislature: Nancy Pelosi vs. Juan Guaido, Self-Proclaimed President of Venezuela

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, January 25, 2019

Trump’s endorsement of Venezuela’s speaker of the National Assembly Juan Guaido (which repeals the presidential succession procedures under the constitution) is tantamount to stating that Nancy Pelosi could legitimately from one day to the next replace Trump as interim president of the US. A pretty grim prospect for the Donald.

Venezuela – An Appeal to Russia, China and All Unaligned Countries for Support of Sovereign Venezuela

By Peter Koenig, January 25, 2019

Ongoing unrest in the streets of Caracas and major Venezuelan cities, all inspired and fueled on by the United States, and also the OAS (Organization of American States), the Club of Lima (except for Mexico), its European puppet allies, is confusing and dividing the people and has already killed at least 16.

Venezuela: Preplanned Provocation by Washington,”The Indirect Adaptive Approach” to Regime Change

By Andrew Korybko, January 24, 2019

The Hybrid War on Venezuela is reaching its climax following the preplanned and coordinated provocation of the US and its “Lima Group” allies to recognize Juan Guaidó as the country’s “interim president” after he swore himself into office on the day that the Bolivarian Republic celebrated the 1958 ouster of a former strongman.

The Coup in Venezuela Must be Resisted

By Craig Murray, January 24, 2019

Venezuela has elections. Juan Guaido has never even been a Presidential candidate. Despite massive CIA opposition funding and interference over years as Big Oil tries to regain control of the World’s largest oil reserves, Nicolas Maduro was democratically re-elected in 2018 as President of Venezuela.

Mike Pence Calls for Coup d’Etat in Venezuela

By Stephen Lendman, January 24, 2019

Since Hugo Chavez established Bolivarian social democracy in Venezuela, a vibrant system, a model for other nations, the US plotted to replace it with fascist tyranny.

Regime Change in Venezuela: Trump, Almagro and Guaidó – The Troika of Insanity

By Nino Pagliccia, January 24, 2019

As the government supporters march in some areas of Caracas, opposition groups are not only marching, they are actually committing the most outrageous, albeit expected, action: they observe as Juan Guaidó, recently declared president of the in-contempt National Assembly, declares himself interim president of Venezuela!

Washington Has Appointed a President for Venezuela

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, January 24, 2019

Washington routinely meddles but now has gone far beyond mere meddling. Washington has this day (January 23, 2019) declared that the elected president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, is no longer the Venezuelan president. Washington, not the Venezulan people, has decided who is Venezuela’s president.

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Washington’s reckless push for regime change in Venezuela, where the US actively supports a person who “ignores all laws,” might set a dangerous precedent, former president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa told RT.

We are urged to resist Trump’s lies: the lies of US capitalism. But there are lies about those lies that are not resisted. They are not recognized.

You see this in an intriguing new book about US interrogation during the Korean War.[i] The “untold story” it tells is not untold. It is about “a complex eco-system of violence, intimacy and bureaucracy” aimed at solidifying US global power. We learn the self-proclaimed guardian of the world lied about its methods, claiming “our traditional lack of imperialistic ambition”.

The empire denied being an empire. The war in June 1950, Monica Kim argues, was about violation of the 38th parallel; by 1952 it was violation of human subjects. The US made the “stunning” claim that a simple “yes” or “no”, recorded by an interrogator, was the “free individual choice” of Koreans and Chinese prisoners. US policy of voluntary repatriation was psychological warfare.

It is not an “untold story”, not even, or especially the subject-violating part. Only the details change. US subject fashioning was known more than a century before the Korean War. A group of non-radical priests in Cuba began a remarkable debate (1836-8), influencing neighboring countries, about precisely this question.[ii]  They knew imperialism erases people. It erases them to themselves.

It deadens moral imagination so there is no “free choice” to be human. You can’t meaningfully choose what you can’t imagine. This is the part of the “new liberal paradigm” Kim misses: Truth is useless if we can’t imagine, or don’t want to accept, what that truth explains. If, in daily life, I accept the liberal lie about “free individual choice”, I won’t believe what contradicts it, no matter the evidence.

It is how understanding works and it is well-known in North American philosophy of science. The independistas in Cuba, two centuries ago, knew this. Moreover, they wrote about it: a lot. They exposed the “stunning” lie long ago. They refused to participate in it and their ideas survived. They still do.

Raúl Castro said on January 1, 2019, the sixtieth anniversary of the Cuban Revolution:

“Only thus can we understand the feat of having withstood the tough years of the Special Period, when we were left alone in the middle of the West, 90 miles from the United States. Then, nobody in the world would have bet a penny on the survival of the Revolution.”

It’s an understatement. Not only would no one in 1990 have bet on Cuba’s survival, no one in 2019 believes it happened (in the North, at least). If they did, they’d ask how it happened and they’d investigate the “decolonizing subject” that explains it.

The “decolonizing subject”, Kim writes, claimed a voice. Sure, and it is ignored. It is not in English. Trendy jargon like “decolonizing subject” describes the “new liberal paradigm” without understanding what that paradigm does. It lies about freedom, true. But it lies about lies. They are not refuted by truth.

Lies of the empire, sustained by power, “fashioning subjects” through fear, are only fully grasped by rejecting them in daily life, by refusing to participate.

We can learn from Hans Fallada’s Alone in Berlin. The protagonists, Otto and Anna Quangel, leave postcards around Berlin, criticizing Hitler. The postcards are useless. They achieve nothing, materially. But Otto and Anna die “without moaning and whimpering”.

That’s huge. They suffer, of course. But their examples sow seeds for a future (better) Germany.  Or so Fallada suggests. Otto says to his Nazi tormentors, “at least I stayed decent. I didn’t participate”. And the judge at the trial “could see recognition [of Otto’s dignity] in the faces of the spectators in the courtroom”. He wanted at all costs “to strip the accused of that recognition”.

He can’t do it. Otto laughs in the courtroom and Anna’s eyes are “as serene and merry as [Otto] had ever seen them”. The empire lies about Venezuela as it lies about Cuba, and it will continue to do so. But the truth will survive and will motivate because it will be lived by some. And it will be recognized.

It will be lived for the same reason Otto and Anna keep handing out their postcards. As Otto says to Anna:

“Who wants to die. Everyone wants to live, everyone – Even the most miserable worm is screaming for life! I want to live too. … [But I want] to die properly, without moaning and whimpering. That would be disgusting to me…”

It is not the lies that matter most. It is whether they are lived. This was known once in the US. During the anti-war movement of the 70s, there was a slogan: There are no innocents. It meant a comfortable life, promoting values sustaining the empire’s lies, was collusion in the slaughter such lies justified.

It is a hard truth for the “new liberal paradigm”.  Kim says the empire used the “power of ideas”. The independistas knew it was the nature of ideas they had to discuss. They must be lived. It will eventually be called an “untold story” by some academic in North America.  But it has been told and still is being told in Venezuela and elsewhere. It is because it matters, as Otto noticed, that “at least I stayed decent”.

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Notes

[i] Monica Kim The Interrogation Rooms of the Korean War: The Untold History(Princeton University Press ,Feb 5 2019). See forthcoming review at https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/

[ii] https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/30/cubas-quiet-wealth-why-it-is-needed/

The U.S. Department of Defense produces more hazardous waste than the five biggest U.S.-based chemical companies combined and is the biggest contributor to global pollution in the world.

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This week, the Department of Defense released a report to Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Jim Inhofe (R-OK) detailing the threat climate change poses to U.S. national security. Not only does the report fail to mention U.S. bases that have been destroyed or evacuated recently due to natural disasters, it completely omits the outsized role the Pentagon plays in furthering climate change, as the number one polluter in the world.

Inhofe is perhaps most famous for throwing a snowball on the Senate floor in an attempt to disprove climate change, which might be the most spectacular instance of a Republican official invoking cold or snowy weather to delegitimize science to date.

But the meme itself runs contrary to science. The warming of the atmosphere causes the temperature of surface water to get hotter, thereby releasing more moisture in the air, thereby creating more snowfall.

Be careful and try staying in your house. Large parts of the Country are suffering from tremendous amounts of snow and near record setting cold. Amazing how big this system is. Wouldn’t be bad to have a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming right now!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2019

The reports were delivered to Inhofe and President Donald Trump, who also denies the existence of climate change. Two months ago, Trump said that he didn’t believe a study on climate change involving 13 federal agencies.

Congress had compelled the Pentagon to conduct the assessment on managing “effects of a changing climate” in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2018.

Report ignores billions in damage

The report studied 79 military complexes, finding that most are, or will be, at risk of becoming severely vulnerable to climate change manifest as flood, wildfires, thawing permafrost, desertification, drought and more.

The report does mention two wildfires in Colorado in March 2018 that hampered training exercises, and discusses flood at the Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia. There, the sea level has risen 14 inches since 1930 and flooding has become “more frequent and severe.”

But the report doesn’t rank the 10 most vulnerable military bases, as it was ordered to do, and doesn’t include any Marine Corps bases. In September, the Corps’ biggest base on the East Coast, Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, was damaged to the tune of $3.6 billion by Hurricane Florence. As a result of the damage, 84,000 gallons of sewage was released on the base.

The following month, Hurricane Michael ripped through Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, with up to 17 F-22 fighter jets damaged or destroyed. Those fighter jets come at a price of around $339 million apiece, or $5.7 billion for the lot of them. Nonetheless, the appendix to the Pentagon’s report did not mention Tyndall as one of the Air Forces’ most vulnerable sites.

In November, the Naval Base Ventura County in California was evacuated as wildfires approached it, but the base was not listed as an installation where wildfires pose a “current” threat — nor were any other bases, for that matter.

“While this climate report acknowledges that nearly all the military installations it studied are vulnerable to major climate change impacts,” House Armed Services Committee Chair Adam Smith (D-WA) said in a statement on Friday, “it fails to even minimally discuss a mitigation plan to address the vulnerabilities.”

Jack Reed (D-RI), the ranking Democrat on the Committee, accused the Pentagon of “treating climate change as a back burner issue.”

Wow! #PENTAGON confirms in a #ClimateChange report to @JimInhofe that the #US has "1774 sites worldwide"!! pic.twitter.com/8OgmjQiMjX

— Zlatko Percinic (@ZlatkoPercinic) January 23, 2019

The report says that the Department of Defense is updating infrastructure “to better adapt to climate impacts,” citing a separate assessment that “provided a database with regionalized sea level scenarios… for 1,774 [Department of Defense] sites worldwide.”

The globe as Pentagon’s trashcan

As MintPress News previously reported, the Department of Defense produces more hazardous waste than the five biggest U.S.-based chemical companies combined and is the biggest contributor to global pollution in the world.

Hundreds of U.S. military bases are listed as “superfund sites” by the Environmental Protection Agency. Of the roughly 1,200 Superfund sites in the U.S., nearly 900 (close to 75 percent) are either abandoned military sites or related to the military. The 900 figure does not include current military installations. Camp Lejeune is one such base.

The U.S. has polluted the earth immeasurably through its testing of nuclear bombs. On the Marshall Islands alone, the U.S. dropped more than 60 nukes in the 1940’s and 1950’s. In Iraq, U.S. policies have created severe desertification of 90 percent of the land, turning a country that used to export large quantities of food into a country that imports 80 percent of its food.

The U.S. military’s use of depleted uranium and Agent Orange, among other chemicals, has also contributed to climate change and environmental destruction. Its 19 aircraft carriers and ships that function as such also consume huge amounts of fuel — as do the jets, tanks, and other machinery at the Department of Defense’s 1,774 military sites.

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It is new and it is not new, but it is tremendously wicked and deadly – the latest type of coup the US invented and is now applying against Venezuela.

Of course, coups and attempted coups are what could be described as the ‘West’s specialties’, and have been utilized by the U.S., U.K. and other imperialist countries against innumerable unfortunate nations on all continents. In Latin America, basically each and every country has suffered from them, from the Dominican Republic to Chile and Argentina; in Asia, from Indonesia to Thailand, and in the Middle East from Iran to Egypt and Syria. Whenever people of some country dared to vote in the socialists, Communists, anti-colonialists or simply some decent bunch of people who were determined to serve their own population, the West corrupted and deployed local elites and military, overthrew elected or revolutionary governments and installed brutal servile regimes. Thousands died, sometimes millions, but the Empire couldn’t care less; as long as it got its way.

There has been a clear pattern to how the West constructed its terror acts against almost all truly freedom-loving nations.

But what the West is now doing to Venezuela is something else, and totally extreme; the hostile acts against President Maduro and his comrades are stripped of all the scruples and cosmetic “refinements” of the past. They supposed to demonstrate in the cruelest terms who the real ruler of the world is, and who is ‘in charge’. This is ‘Western democracy at its best’!

In the past, the US tried to overthrow Chavez, it attempted to starve Venezuela, to make its medical system collapse, then to assassinate Maduro. It produced a ‘deficit’ of food, even toilet paper. It ordered its lapdogs in Latin America to antagonize the Bolivarian revolution.

Now, in the latest development, the regime in Washington has simply hand-picked its favorite traitor inside the socialist republic of Venezuela – a treasonous cadre named Juan Guaido, (who served, briefly, as President of the National Assembly of Venezuela), “recognizing him” as the “interim President of the country”.

Of course, before Guaido first declared himself, pompously, President of Venezuela, he was almost immediately put into his place by the Venezuela’s Supreme Court, which disavowed him as the chief of the National Assembly. So, let us call him former chief.

But the Western mass media propaganda campaign kicked into top gear, and overnight became utterly unscrupulous. As a result, it is now becoming almost impossible to read any information about the Supreme Court ruling, unless one goes to non-Western sources.

So, let’s go ‘there’. As reported by Iranian Tasnim, on January 22, 2019: 

“Venezuela’s Supreme Court head Maikel Moreno announced on Monday that the judges had disavowed Juan Guaido as the chief of the opposition-controlled National Assembly.”

And the RT, just one day earlier:

“Venezuela’s Supreme Court has declared all acts of the country’s National Assembly null and void, days after the opposition-held assembly declared President Nicolas Maduro’s election illegitimate.”

Also, the Venezuelan foreign minister, Jorge Arreaza, snapped at Guaido on 21^st January, 2019:

“You see this man, who nobody knows in Venezuela—you ask in the streets, “Who is Juan Guaidó?” and nobody knows him—but he’s being pushed to say that he is the new president, by the U.S.”

And he did say that! On the 23^rdof January 2019, in front of his mob of supporters in Caracas.

And then, a day later, President Trump ‘recognized him’ as the country’s interim president. Canada did the same. The same did France, now a second-rate but increasingly rejuvenated imperialist and neo-colonialist power. Followed by that U.S. puppet – the Organization of American States (OAS), with such fascist countries on board, like Brazil, and Colombia now leading the pack.

Today, the world is clearly divided, as China, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Syria, South Africa, Bolivia, Cuba, Mexico, Uruguay and many others are firmly on the side of the legitimate revolutionary government of President Maduro.

Confrontation is inevitable.

Venezuela ordered all US diplomats to leave and it cut off all diplomatic ties with Washington. US refused to make its embassy staff depart from Caracas, declaring that the Venezuelan government is ‘illegitimate’.

This amounts to a declaration of war. The US refuses to recognize the sovereignty of Venezuela. It reserves the right to tell the Venezuelan people who their realpresident is! It only recognizes its own, supreme control over the hemisphere and the Planet, showing spite for international law.

It is childish, arrogant, outrageous, and surreal. But it is really happening. And unless it is stopped, right there, in Caracas, this new form of ‘spreading coups’, and enforcing global dictatorship, may spread to all other parts of the world.

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Although there are many ‘new elements’ at play, the situation, to a great extent, resembles the ‘Syrian scenario’, as was conveyed to TASS, on January 24, 2019, by Venezuela’s Ambassador to Russia Carlos Rafael Faria Tortosa:

“The Venezuelan authorities know that the US is trying to stage a Syrian scenario with “government in exile” in Caracas… After US Vice President Michael Pence called for overthrowing our government, our president decided to sever diplomatic relations with the US authorities and asked US diplomats to leave Caracas in the next 72 hours. This is an adequate response which our brave president provided to flagrant interference… No country can allow any other country to state their opinions about the internal affairs of the state, especially when it comes to calls for overthrowing [the authorities].”

“We know what the next steps will be. The US will now have a justification [for their actions] that there are two governments in the country, like they did in our fraternal Syria with President Bashar Assad and its people. They created a government in exile, which led to great losses, to casualties, to demolition of the country’s infrastructure.”

Will Caracas ask Moscow directly for help, as Syria did years ago, while fighting for its survival? It is not certain, yet, although this possibility certainly exists. Venezuela is counting on increasing support from Russia, Iran, China, Cuba and other socialist or independent countries.

For Venezuela, the only way to survive, is to cut off all its dependency on the West, immediately. Washington is threatening Caracas with further sanctions and even with an oil embargo.

There is no reason to panic. But Maduro’s government has to rapidly and fully realign itself. There are many countries outside the NATO realm which are willing to buy Venezuelan oil, and/or fairly invest in its infrastructure and industry. Russia, Iran, China and Turkey are the most important ones, but there are many others.

There has to be new strategy on how to alleviate the pain of the ordinary Venezuelans. This, too, has to come from ‘outside the Western sphere of control’, even outside Latin America; a continent known for its brutal European-descendent elites, consistent lack of solidarity, courage, and acceptance of the West’s rule (the greatest modern-day hero of South America, Hugo Chavez, died attempting to build an united, proud, socialist Latin America, just to be stabbed in his back and spat at by many of the servile Latin American nations. Cuba was fully abandoned after the destruction of the Soviet Union, and had to be saved by China).

The country has to mobilize; it has to fight. Fight for its survival. With all its allies united, ready to defend Venezuela, the same as it has been happening in Syria.

Venezuela suffers and struggles for humanity, not just for itself. With the name of Chavez and socialism on its lips.

Russia is standing by its ally, Venezuela. On 24 January, 2019, Sputnik reported:

Russia warns the United States against military interference in Venezuela’s affairs, it would be a disaster, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Thursday:

“As we see how the situation in Venezuela develops, we note the willingness of a certain group of countries, including the United States, to use different platforms such as the Organization of American States, to increase pressure on our ally Venezuela under different pretexts… But we have always supported and will support friendly Venezuela that is our strategic partner.”

From the country devastated by a similar destabilization campaign as the one that is taking place in Venezuela, the Syrian official press agency SANA carried a message of support for the legitimate Venezuelan government:

“The Syrian Arab Republic condemns in strongest terms going to extremes by the US and its blatant interference in the affairs of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela which constitutes a flagrant violation of all international norms and laws and a brazen attack against the Venezuelan sovereignty,” a source at the Foreign and Expatriates Ministry said on Thursday.

The source added that the destructive policies adopted by the US in different parts of the world and its disregard of the international legitimacy represents the main reason behind the tensions and the state of instability in our world…

The Syrian Arab Republic affirms its categorical rejection of the blatant US interferences, and it renews full solidarity with the Venezuelan leadership and people in preserving the sovereignty of the country and foiling the hostile schemes of the US administration…”

In the past, countries accepted the Western terror unleashed against them as something inevitable. But now, the situation is changing. Russia, Cuba and Syria, Iran and China, and now Venezuela, are refusing to surrender, or even to “negotiate with the terrorists”.

Aleppo, which I described as “the Middle Eastern Stalingrad”, stood tall, fought, resisted and defeated vicious enemies. Now Caracas, the Latin American Leningrad, is under siege, starving, but determined to fight against foreign invasion and treasonous cadres.

All over the world, people have to mobilize and fight, by all means, against fascism and for Venezuela!

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

Featured image is from Prensa Presidencial

Canada’s trade union-backed, ostensibly “progressive” Liberal government is playing a key role in the regime-change coup that Washington has launched against Venezuela’s elected president, Nicolás Maduro.

Canada quickly seconded US President Donald Trump’s announcement Wednesday recognizing Juan Guaidó, Venezuela’s self-proclaimed “interim president,” as the country’s head of state.

The cabinet Trudeau named after winning office in October 2015 was hailed as an exemplar of diversity and inclusiveness. With an equal number of women and men, newspaper columnists lauded the “gender-balanced cabinet.” It boasted an indigenous Justice Minister, an Indian-born Sikh defence minister, a former Somali refugee as immigration minister, a gay Treasury Board president, and a quadriplegic Veteran Affairs Minister.

Particular acclimations were given for the selection of a female minister of foreign affairs, Chrystia Freeland. In an article in September on Canada’s “feminist foreign policy,” Foreign Policy magazine wrote that last year Canada hosted “the first-ever meeting of female foreign ministers, as part of a package of commitments it made to prioritize women’s issues under its G-7 presidency this year.”

The meeting, Foreign Policy wrote, was “unprecedented in its display of female power on the world stage.”

“It is important—and historic—that we have a prime minister and a government proud to proclaim themselves as feminists,” declared Freeland. “Women’s rights are human rights.”

In reality, as underscored by Canada’s role in aiding and abetting the US-orchestrated regime-change operation in Venezuela, the only “identity” that matters is that all the members of the Trudeau cabinet are defenders of imperialism.

Trudeau has been enthusiastically promoted by the New York Times and Guardian as a poster boy of contemporary liberalism. That is a liberalism that has renounced all social reform, is pro-austerity and pro-war, and which privileges issues of racial, ethnic and gender identity, as a means of rallying the support of sections of the affluent middle class.

Trudeau and Freeland are recycling and amplifying the foul propaganda emanating from the CIA and the likes of Brazil’s new ultra-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, that Guaidó—a representative of the country’s traditional US-aligned oligarchy—is the incarnation of the democratic aspirations of the Venezuelan people.

Ottawa’s role, however, goes far beyond trying to provide a smokescreen for yet another “made in USA” coup and obscuring the inexorable connection between Washington’s current intrigues in Venezuela and the succession of invasions, occupations and coups it has orchestrated in Latin America since 1898.

Ottawa, according to news reports, will soon host a meeting of the Lima Group, a coalition of US allies in the Americas, to plot the next steps in the “regime-change” operation against Maduro and the bourgeois nationalist regime he heads.

Since its establishment in August 2017, Canada has acted as Washington’s principal agent inside the Lima Group. Last September, Canada was conspicuous in leading opposition to a Lima Group “pledge” to oppose any foreign military intervention in Venezuela—i.e. a US invasion.

Wednesday’s US-fomented coup has pushed the impoverished South American country to the brink of civil war and, with Trump demonstratively declaring “all options on the table,” brought the US to the brink of a military assault on Venezuela.

There is every reason to believe that Canada will participate in any US military action against Venezuela, reprising, albeit almost certainly on a larger and bloodier scale, its 2004 role in assisting the US in overthrowing Haiti’s elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Washington has spearheaded the resurgence of imperialism, waging a never-ending series of wars since 1991 in an increasingly desperate attempt to offset the decline in its global economic position. But all the imperialist and aspiring great powers, big and small, are rearming and reviving war as a vital instrument of state policy.

A major belligerent and, from an economic and strategic vantage point, beneficiary of the two imperialist world wars of the last century, Canadian imperialism is no exception. Long gone are the days when Canada’s ruling elite, with a view to politically and ideologically harnessing the working class to its rule, promoted the myth that Canada and its military have a special “peacekeeping” vocation.

Since 1991, Canada, under Liberal and Conservative governments alike, has played a leading role in one US-led war after another, including the first Gulf War, the 1999 NATO war on Yugoslavia, the Afghan War, the 2011 regime-change war in Libya, and the ongoing US war in the Middle East.

As in Venezuela today, Canada’s government and military have, in the course of these wars and interventions, repeatedly aligned with extreme right-wing and outright fascist forces. Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) personnel involved in the bombing of Libya described themselves as “al Qaeda’s air force.” Similarly, in the Ukraine in 2014, Canada helped orchestrate, in concert with Washington, a fascist-spearheaded coup against the country’s elected president.

Canada’s longstanding and rapidly expanding military-security alliance with Washington and Wall Street enjoys all but unanimous support with the Canadian ruling class, as the best means to assert its own predatory imperialist interests and aims on the world stage.

Canada’s banks and resource companies are important players in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Canadian ruling elite shares Washington’s determination to roll back Chinese and Russian economic and geopolitical influence in the Americas.

Under Trudeau and his purported “feminist foreign policy,” Canada is playing an even more rapacious and reactionary role in world affairs than under the neoconservative and onetime Iraq war enthusiast, Stephen Harper.

Declaring that Canada must prepare for the wars of the 21st Century and play a larger role in sustaining a US-led world order, the Trudeau government announced in June 2016 plans to hike military spending by more than 70 percent to almost $33 billion by 2026.

Already Canada is playing a leading role in US imperialism’s three main military-strategic offensives, any one of which could rapidly spiral into a war between nuclear-armed powers: in the Middle East, against Russia and against China.

Canada is leading one of NATO’s four new “forward deployed” battalion-sized battlegroups on Russia’s borders; routinely deploys warplanes and battleships to patrol the Black Sea, Baltic States and Eastern Europe; and is training Ukrainian Army and National Guard personnel to, in Trudeau’s words, “liberate” Eastern Ukraine.

And long before Ottawa ordered, at Washington’s behest, the December 1 arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on trumped-up charges, Canada was closely aligned with Washington in its escalating confrontation with China. Building on a secret 2013 US-Canadian military agreement on coordinating operations in the Asia-Pacific, the CAF has greatly expanded deployments in Asia. CAF head Jonathan Vance now routinely describes the South China Sea and Malacca Straits, key chokepoints in US war planning against China, as of vital strategic importance to Canada.

There are vital lessons to be learned from Trudeau’s role in Trump’s coup attempt in Venezuela, applicable in every country all over the world. Replacing one set of representatives of the financial oligarchy with another, regardless of their race, gender, or sexual preference, will not lead to a more “humane” outcome. The struggle against imperialism and social inequality must base itself on the social force capable of opposing capitalism and imperialist war: the working class.

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With the end of the unipolar moment, which saw Washington dominate international relations, the richest and most powerful Eurasian countries are beginning to organize themselves into alliance structures and agreements that aim to facilitate trade, development and cooperation.

At the height of the US unipolar moment, Bill Clinton was leading a country in full economic recovery and the strategists at the Pentagon were drawing up plans to shape the world in their own image and likeness. The undeclared goal was regime change in all countries with unapproved political systems, which would allow for the proliferation of US-made “democracy” to the four corners of the earth. Clearly Eurasian countries like Russia, India, China and Iran were on top of the to-do list, as were countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

The bombing and destruction of Yugoslavia was the final step in the assault on the Russian Federation following the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. Yeltsin represented the means by which Western high finance decided to suck all Russia’s wealth, privatizing companies and plundering strategic resources.

China, on the other hand, saw a rebirth as a result of American and European manufacturing companies relocating to the country to take advantage of the cheap labor it offered. India, historically close to the USSR, and Iran, historically averse to Washington, were struggling to find a new balance in a world dominated by Washington.

Tehran was clearly in an open conflict with the United States because of the 1979 Islamic revolution that liberated the country from Western submission under the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. India understood the new reality, laying the foundations for a close cooperation with Washington. Previously, the use of jihadism in Afghanistan, through the coordination between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United States, had severely undermined relations between India and the United States, remembering that New Delhi was an important ally of Moscow during the Cold War.

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the commencement of the unipolar era, India, Russia, China and Iran started down their paths of historical rebirth, though starting from very different positions and following different paths. India understood that Washington had immense economic and military power at its disposal. Despite the early embraces between Clinton and Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, relations between New Delhi and Washington reached unexpected heights during the Bush era. A series of factors helped to weld the bond. There was, firstly, the reality of India’s great economic growth. Secondly, India offered the opportunity of counterbalancing and containing China, a classic geopolitical scenario.

During this delicate unipolar period, there were two highly significant events for Russia and China that represented the beginning of the end for Washington’s plans to dominate the planet. First of all, Putin became president of the Russian Federation on December 31, 1999. Secondly, Beijing was accepted into the World Trade Organization (WTO). Today’s Chinese economic power took flight thanks to the Western industrial companies relocating their manufacturing to China so as to see their dividends triplicate and costs more than halve. It was a winning model for the capitalist, and a loser for the Western factory worker, as we would come to see 20 years later. The strategic thinking of the newly elected Putin was geopolitically visionary and had at its base a complete revamp of Russia’s military doctrine.

China and Russia both initially sought to follow the Indian path of cooperation and development with Washington. Moscow attempted a frank dialogue with Washington and NATO, but the decision by the US in 2002 to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) marked the beginning of the end of the Western dream of integrating the Russian Federation into NATO. For Beijing, the path was more downhill, thanks to a vicious circle whereby the West relocated to China to increase profits, which were then invested into the US stock market, multiplying the gains several times. It seemed like the Americans were onto something until, 20 years later, the entire middle and working classes found themselves being reduced to penury.

In this period following September 11, 2001, Washington’s focus shifted rapidly away from confronting rival powers to the so called “fight” against terrorism. It was an expedient way of occupying tactically important countries in strategically important regions of the planet. In Eurasia, US forces settled in Afghanistan on the pretext of fighting al-Qaeda and the Taliban. In the Middle East, they occupy Iraq for the second time and have made it an operational base from which to destabilize the rest of the region in the decades since.

While India and China mainly pursued peaceful growth as a means of economically empowering the Asian region, Russia and Iran early understood that Washington’s attention would eventually fall on them. Moscow was still considered the deadly enemy by the neoconservative Cold War warriors, while the Islamic revolution of 1979 was neither forgotten nor forgiven. In the decade following 9/11, the foundations for the creation of a multipolar order were laid, generating in the process the huge transitional chaos we are currently experiencing.

India and China continued on their path to becoming economic giants, even as there is a latent but constant rivalry, while Iran and Russia continued on their path of military rejuvenation in order to ensure a deterrent sufficient to discourage any attacks by Israel or the US respectively.

The breaking point for this delicate geopolitical balance came in the form of the “Arab Spring” of 2011. While India and China continued their economic growth, and Russia and Iran grew to become regional powers that were difficult to push around, the US continued its unipolar rampage, bombing Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq after having earlier bombed Yugoslavia, as the Pentagon devising light-footprint operations in the Middle East with the help of the Saudis, Israelis, Brits and French, who aided and armed local jihadis to wreak havoc. First Tunisia, then Egypt, and finally Libya. More dead, more bombs, more chaos. The warning signs were apparent to all regional powers, from China and Russia to India and Iran. Even if the synergies were still not in place, it was clear to everyone what had to be done. US destabilization around the world had to be contained, with particular focus on Eurasia, the Middle East and North Africa.

Slowly, and not without problems, these four countries began a military, economic, political and diplomatic cooperation that, almost a decade later, allowed for the ending of the US unipolar moment and the creation of a multipolar reality with different centers of power.

The first confirmation of this new phase in international relations, favoured by historical ties, was the increasingly multifaceted cooperation between India and Russia. Another factor was China and Russia being drawn to the Middle East and North Africa as a result of the Obama administration’s actions in the Middle East with its Arab Springs, bombing of Libya and destabilization of Syria. They feared that prolonged chaos in the region would eventually have a negative effect on their own economies and social stability.

The final straw was the coup d’état in Ukraine, as well as the escalation of provocations in the South China Sea following the launch by the US of its so-called “Pivot to Asia”. Russia and China were thus forced into a situation neither had thought impossible for the previous 40 years: the joining of hands to change the world order by removing Washington from its superpower dais. Initially there were amazing economic agreements that left the Western planners stumped. Then came the military synergies, and finally the diplomatic ones, expressed by coordinated voting in the United Nations Security Council. From 2014 onwards, Russia and China signed important agreements that laid the foundations for a long-running Eurasian duopoly.

Obama’s legacy did not stop, with more than 100,000 jihadists unleashed on the country, financed by US and her allies. This led Moscow to intervene in Syria to protect its borders and obviate the jihadists’ eventual advance on the Caucasus, historically Russia’s soft underbelly. This move was hailed by the Pentagon as a new “Vietnam” for Russia. But these calculations were completely wrong, and Moscow, in addition to saving Syria and frustrating the plans of Washington and her confederates, greatly strengthened its relationship with Iran (not always a simple relationship, especially during the Soviet period), elevating it to the high level of regional cooperation.

Obama’s legacy was to inadvertently create a strategic triangle involving Iran, China and Russia and their development of high-level projects and programs for the region and beyond. It represents a disaster for US foreign policy as well as the unquestionable end of the unipolar dream.

Jumping forward a few years, we find Trump in the driving seat of the United States, repeating just one mantra: America First. From the Indian point of view, this has further aggravated the relations between the two countries, with sanctions and duties placed on India for what was a Western decision in the first place to shift manufacturing to low-wage India in order to further fatten the paychecks of the CEOs of Euro-American companies.

Modi’s India is forced to significantly increase its ties to Iran to guarantee its strategic autonomy in terms of energy supply, without forgetting the geographic proximity of the two countries. In this context, Russia and Iran’s victory against terrorism in the Middle East pacifies the region and stabilizes Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Libya, thereby allowing for the development of such new projects as the mega Silk Road 2.0 investment on which Beijing places considerable importance.

We could go on in this vein, detailing how even China and India have overcome their historical mistrust, well aware that divide and rule only benefits those who are on the other side of the ocean, certainly not two countries experiencing great economic growth with a common border spanning thousands of miles. The meetings between Modi and Xi Jinping, as well as those between Putin and Xi Jinping or Putin with Modi, show how the intention of these three leaders is to ensure a peaceful and prosperous future for their citizens, and this cannot be separated from a stronger union together with an abandonment of disputes and differences.

The synergies in recent years have shifted from the military and diplomatic arenas to the economic one, especially thanks to Donald Trump and his aggressive policy of wielding the dollar like a club with which to strike political opponents. One last step that these countries need to take is that of de-dollarization, which plays an important role in how the the US is able to exercise economic influence. Even if the US dollar were to remain central for several years, the process of de-dollarization is irreversible.

Right now Iran plays a vital role in how countries like India, Russia and China are able to respond asymmetrically to the US. Russia uses military power in Syria, China seeks economic integration in the Silk Road 2.0, and India bypasses the dollar by selling oil in exchange for goods or other currency.

India, China and Russia use the Middle East as a stepping stone to advance energy, economic and military integration, pushing out the plans of the neocons in the region, thereby indirectly sending a signal to Israel and Saudi Arabia. On the other hand, conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are occasions for peacemaking, advancing the integration of dozens of countries by incorporating them into a major project that includes Eurasia, the Middle East and North Africa instead of the US and her proxy states.

Soon there will be a breaking point, not so much militarily (as the nuclear MAD doctrine is still valid) but rather economically. Of course the spark will come from changing the denomination in which oil is sold, namely the US dollar. This process will still take time, but it is an indispensable condition for Iran becoming a regional hegemon. China is increasingly clashing with Washington; Russia is increasingly influential in OPEC; and India may finally decide to embrace the Eurasian revolution by forming an impenetrable strategic square against Washington, which will shift the balance of global power to the East after more than 500 years of domination by the West.

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

Featured image is from SCF

The Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Cuba condemns and energetically rejects the attempt to impose a coup d’etat, a puppet government at the service of the United States, in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, and expresses its unwavering solidarity with the government of Constitutional President Nicolás Maduro Moros.

The true objectives of actions against Venezuela are to control the vast resources of this sister nation and destroy the value of its example, as an emancipatory process defending the dignity and independence of Our America.

As President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez said:

“The sovereignty of our peoples is expressed today in one’s attitude toward Venezuela. To support the legitimate right of the sister nation to define its own destiny is to defend the dignity of all.”

Other coup attempts should not be forgotten, such as the military coup of 2002 and the 2003 oil lockout; the aggressive U.S. Executive Order describing Venezuela as “an unusual and extraordinary threat to national security and foreign policy” of the superpower; unilateral coercive measures; the call for a military coup against the constitutional government of Venezuela; the President of the United States’ threat to use “a possible military option” and the August 4 assassination attempt against President Maduro.

The acts of a group of countries and the shameful role of the OAS constitute a new, desperate attempt to implement an unsuccessful policy of regime change, which has not been imposed due to the unwavering resistance of the Venezuelan people and their determination to defend national sovereignty.

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The President (Speaker) of the Venezuelan National Assembly and leader of the majority party (Democratic Unity Roundtable)  Juan Guaido has been endorsed as (self-proclaimed) interim president of Venezuela by President Trump in the name of democracy:

Today, I [Donald Trump] am officially recognizing the President of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Juan Guaido, as the Interim President of Venezuela.  In its role as the only legitimate branch of government duly elected by the Venezuelan people, the National Assembly invoked the country’s constitution to declare Nicolas Maduro illegitimate, and the office of the presidency therefore vacant. (Trump Statement, White House, January 23, 2019)

Trump’s decision –coupled with threats of military intervention and the freeze of Venezuelan assets in the US — confirms the criminal nature of US foreign policy not to mention the complicity of the Western media, which has upheld the legitimacy of Trump’s decision.

A dangerous precedent. Don’t like a president of a sovereign country, replace him/her by “appointing” the Speaker of the House as interim president.

But there is something else which sofar has not been addressed:

The position of speaker of the National Assembly held by Juan Guaido (from a constitutional standpoint) is  in some regards comparable to that of the Speaker of the US House of Representatives and the leader of the majority party which is currently held by Democrat Nancy Pelosi.

Nancy Pelosi is second in line to the US presidential line of succession, after Vice President Mike Pence.(25th Amendment of Constitution and 3 USC 19, a section of the U.S. Code, established as part of the Presidential Succession Act of 1947).

In contrast, Juan Guaido, president of Venezuela’s National assembly (with regard to presidential succession) would assume the office of the presidency of Venezuela during a short interim period, pending the holding of new presidential elections within thirty days, as stated in Article 233 of the Venezuelan constitution.

By endorsing a procedure which proclaims Juan Guaido as president of Venezuela, Trump has opened up a Pandora’s box, which could potentially backlash on his own presidency:

Trump’s endorsement of Venezuela’s speaker of the National Assembly Juan Guaido  is tantamount to stating that Nancy Pelosi could legitimately from one day to the next replace Trump as interim president of the US. A pretty grim prospect for the Donald.

Juan Guaido is to Venezuela what Nancy Pelosi is  to the United States. The opposition to president Maduro controls the National Assembly. The opposition to president Trump controls the House of Representatives.

Theater of the Absurd? Imagine for a moment what would happen if a US politician or the president of a foreign country were to demand that Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the House of Representatives and majority leader of the House were to be confirmed as interim President of the US, to the detriment of President Trump. Not an impossibility?

Sofar the US Congress including Nancy Pelosi have refrained from taking a position on Trump’s endorsement of Juan Guaido as interim president.

Author’s note: a correction applying to the Constitutional procedure in Venezuela, January 26, 2019

The Washington Post broke the story [1] on Wednesday, January 23, that satellite images suggested Saudi Arabia had constructed its first-known ballistic missile factory. Paul Sonne, reporting for The Washington Post, notes: “If operational, the suspected factory at a missile base in al-Watah, southwest of Riyadh, would allow Saudi Arabia to manufacture its own ballistic missiles.”

The report adds:

“The ballistic missile manufacturing complex — which satellite images suggest broke ground in 2013 when King Salman was defense minister — highlights the nation’s intention to make its own advanced missiles after years of seeking to purchase them abroad.”

How the Saudis obtained the technological expertise necessary to build the facility is unclear, according to the report, though one potential supplier could be China, which has sold ballistic missiles to Saudi Arabia in the past and has helped supply ballistic missile production capabilities to other nations, particularly to Pakistan, whose military has forged deep institutional ties with the Saudi royal family since the 1980s.

Regarding Saudi Arabia’s fervid desire to acquire nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities to match Iran’s military superiority in the Middle East region, the Washington Post report is not the only instance of its kind. David Sanger and William Broad reported in The New York Times [2] in November that before Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was implicated in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, American intelligence agencies were trying to solve a separate mystery: was the prince laying the groundwork for building an atomic bomb?

Screengrab from The New York Times

According to the New York Times report, the Saudi heir apparent had been overseeing negotiations with the US Energy Department to get Washington to sell designs for nuclear power plants to the kingdom. The deal was worth upward of $80 billion, depending on how many plants Saudi Arabia decided to build.

But there was a hitch: Saudi Arabia insisted on producing its own nuclear fuel. Such fuel can be used for benign or military purposes: if uranium is enriched to 4 percent purity, it can fuel a power plant; at 90 percent, it can be used for a bomb. Saudi Arabia has vast uranium reserves and there are currently five nuclear research centers operating in the kingdom.

The report further noted that the Crown Prince set off alarms when he declared in a CBS News interview in March last year,

“Saudi Arabia does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb, but without a doubt, if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible.”

Regarding Saudi Arabia’s clandestine nuclear activities, in November 2013, BBC’s defense correspondent, Mark Urban, published a report [3] that Pakistan’s military had made a secret deal with Saudi Arabia that in the event of Iran developing a nuclear weapon, Pakistan would provide ready-made nuclear warheads along with delivery systems to Saudi Arabia.

Similarly, in 2004, it emerged during the investigation of Pakistan’s top nuclear scientist, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, dubbed as “the father of Pakistan’s nuclear program,” that he had sold centrifuge designs to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Additionally, in recent years, Pakistan’s defense production industry, with Chinese assistance, has emerged as one of the most sophisticated military-industrial complex in the region. Not only does it provide state-of-the-art conventional weapons to the oil-rich Gulf states, but according to a May 2014 AFP report [4], Pakistan-made weapons were used in large quantities in Sri Lanka’s Northern Offensive of 2008-09 against the Tamil Tiger rebels.

Moreover, in May last year, Pakistan’s former army chief, General Raheel Sharif, was appointed to lead a 40-member military alliance of Muslim nations dubbed as “The Muslim NATO.” Although the ostensible purpose of the alliance is to combat terrorism, in fact the alliance of Sunni Muslim nations was cobbled together by Saudi Arabia as a counterweight to Iran’s meddling in the Arab World, which Saudi Arabia regards as its own sphere of influence.

Furthermore, it’s worth noting that Pakistan’s military and Saudi Arabia have forged very deep and institutionalized ties. Thousands of Pakistani retired and serving army officers work on deputations in the Gulf Arab States. And during the 1980s, when Saudi Arabia lacked an efficient intelligence set-up, Pakistan’s Inter-services Intelligence (ISI) virtually played the role of Saudi Arabia’s foreign intelligence service.

Notwithstanding, the Trump administration recently announced the most stringent set of sanctions against Iran to appease Benjamin Netanyahu. Donald Trump has repeatedly said during the last two years that the Iran nuclear deal signed by the Obama administration in 2015 was an “unfair deal” that gave concessions to Iran without giving anything in return to the US.

Unfortunately, there is a grain of truth in Trump’s statements because the Obama administration signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran in July 2015 under pressure, as Washington had bungled in its Middle East policy and it wanted Iran’s cooperation in Syria and Iraq to get a face-saving.

In order to understand how the Obama administration bungled in Syria and Iraq, we should bear the background of Washington’s Middle East policy during the recent years in mind. The eight-year-long conflict in Syria that gave birth to scores of militant groups, including the Islamic State, and after the conflict spilled across the border into neighboring Iraq in early 2014 was directly responsible for the spate of Islamic State-inspired terror attacks in Europe from 2015 to 2017.

Since the beginning of the Syrian conflict in August 2011 to June 2014, when the Islamic State overran Mosul and Anbar in Iraq, an informal pact existed between the Western powers, their regional Sunni allies and jihadists of the Middle East against the Shi’a Iranian axis. In accordance with the pact, militants were trained and armed in the training camps located in the border regions of Turkey and Jordan to battle the Syrian government.

This arrangement of an informal pact between the Western powers and the jihadists of the Middle East against the Iranian axis worked well up to August 2014, when the Obama Administration made a volte-face on its previous regime change policy in Syria and began conducting air strikes against one group of Sunni militants battling the Syrian government, the Islamic State, after the latter overstepped its mandate in Syria and overran Mosul and Anbar in Iraq from where the US had withdrawn its troops only a couple of years ago in December 2011.

After this reversal of policy in Syria by the Western powers and the subsequent Russian military intervention on the side of the Syrian government in September 2015, the momentum of jihadists’ expansion in Syria and Iraq stalled, and they felt that their Western patrons had committed a treachery against the Sunni jihadists’ cause, that’s why they were infuriated and rose up in arms to exact revenge for this betrayal.

If we look at the chain of events, the timing of the spate of terror attacks against the West was critical: the Islamic State overran Mosul in June 2014, the Obama Administration began conducting air strikes against the Islamic State’s targets in Iraq and Syria in August 2014, and after a lull of almost a decade since the Madrid and London bombings in 2004 and 2005, respectively, the first such incident of terrorism occurred on the Western soil at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in January 2015, and then the Islamic State carried out the audacious November 2015 Paris attacks, the March 2016 Brussels bombings, the June 2016 truck-ramming incident in Nice, and three horrific terror attacks took place in the United Kingdom within a span of less than three months in 2017, and after that the Islamic State carried out the Barcelona attack in August 2017, and then another truck-ramming atrocity occurred in Lower Manhattan in October 2017 that was also claimed by the Islamic State.

Keeping this background of the quagmire created by the Obama administration in Syria and Iraq in mind, it becomes amply clear that the Obama administration desperately needed Iran’s cooperation in Syria and Iraq to salvage its botched policy of training and arming jihadists to topple the government in Syria that backfired and gave birth to the Islamic State that carried out some of the most audacious terror attacks in Europe from 2015 to 2017.

Thus, Washington signed JCPOA in July 2015 that gave some concessions to Iran, and in return, the then hardliner Prime Minister of Iraq Nouri al-Maliki was forced out of power in September 2014 with Iran’s tacit approval and the moderate former Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi was appointed in his stead who gave permission to the US Air Force and ground troops to assist the Iraqi Armed Forces and allied militias to beat back the Islamic State from Mosul and Anbar.

The Trump administration, however, is not hampered by the legacy of Obama administration and since the objective of defeating the Islamic State has already been achieved and Donald Trump gave indications of withdrawing American troops from Syria as early as April last year, though the long-awaited decision was finally announced on December 19, therefore Washington felt safe to annul the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018 and the crippling “third-party sanctions” have once again been put in place on Iran at Benjamin Netanyahu’s behest.

Although the European Union is resisting the Trump administration’s pressure to cancel the Iran nuclear deal for now, the neocolonial world order is led by the United States; Europe will find no choice but to toe Washington’s line sooner or later.

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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.

Notes

[1] Can Saudi Arabia produce ballistic missiles?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/can-saudi-arabia-produce-ballistic-missiles-satellite-imagery-raises-suspicions/2019/01/23/49e46d8c-1852-11e9-a804-c35766b9f234_story.html

[2] Saudis Want a U.S. Nuclear Deal. Can They Be Trusted Not to Build a Bomb?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/22/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-nuclear.html 

[3] Saudi nuclear weapons ‘on order’ from Pakistan: BBC’s defense correspondent, Mark Urban.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-24823846

[4] Pakistan-made arms were used against Tamils in Sri Lanka:

http://newsweekpakistan.com/the-war-that-wasnt-live/

Every once in a while, one of those stories comes along that makes the mainstream corporate media look like a bunch of middle-school kids filming their “news show” on an iPhone with their neck ties crooked. Recently, one of those stories splashed down into the middle of our cultural zeitgeist like a small meteor landing in the middle of an elite dinner party.

It made our mass media pundits look like hardened fools. But they have kept spouting their nonsense anyway, hoping no one notices the soup dripping down their faces.

But to talk about that, I have to talk about this: Last month we finally got to see the Senate report spelling out the Russian meddling in our last election. And it was a bombshell. It rocked the heart of our country. It shredded the inflamed mucousy core of our palpitating democracy.

As Dan Cohen reported for the Grayzone Project, the report said that

“…everything from the Green Party’s Jill Stein to Instagram to Pokemon Go to the African American population had been used and confused by the deceptive Facebook pages of a private Russian troll farm called the Internet Research Agency.”

Back to the point—we learned from the report last month that the Russian Internet Research Agency manipulated every one of us with Facebook ads. If you don’t mind though, the Senate and the corporate media (and anybody else who knows the secret oligarchy handshake) would really prefer you just ignore the fact that Facebook clearly stated: “…56% [of the Russian ads] were after the election” and “…roughly 25% of the ads were never shown to anyone.”

But like an overweight man dressed like Wolverine at a Comic-Con, our brave congressmen and -women are not about to be dissuaded by reality. After the reports came out, Sen. Mark Warner tweeted,

“Incredible. These bombshell reports demonstrate just how far Russia went to exploit the fault lines of our society and divide Americans, in an attempt to undermine and manipulate our democracy.”

Just after posting that, Warner patriotically pissed his red, white and blue Underoos.

So who are these amazing nonpartisan unbiased sleuths who put together this legitimate and nonpartisan unbiased Senate report? The New York Times found out they are a group called New Knowledge (which sounds like a terrible boy band). New Knowledge was founded by two veterans of the Obama administration, Jonathon Morgan and Ryan Fox. …So, I guess we’re, um, doing away with the “nonpartisan unbiased” thing.

Well, in that case—I say go hard or go home. I want MORE bias!

The Grayzone Project pointed out that besides working for Obama and the State Department,

“… Morgan also developed technology for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the arm of the Department of Defense created for basic, applied technological research, and futuristic war toys.”

All right, all right, not bad. But I know what you’re thinking. “Lee, that might be a great bias appetizer, but we want the full bias entree!”

OK, how about this?

Ryan Fox is a 15-year veteran of the NSA and was a computer analyst for the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) military unit. JSOC is notorious for its spree of atrocities across the Middle East. …

Hell yeah! You can feel that bias in my toes, can’t ya? But, the truth is, we’re still only at a 45 percent bias rating. I say we get it up to at least 65 percent. Back to Dan Cohen:

The report … was overseen by Renee DiResta, a former Wall Street trader and tech specialist who was recruited by Obama’s State Department to devise strategies for combating online ISIS propaganda.

So now we’ve got former Wall Street, former State Department, former Obama White House, former NSA, former DARPA, and former JSOC writing this completely legitimate completely factual report for the Senate about the powerful Russian impact of Facebook ads that no one ever saw.

I love it. This is like a report written by a hungry virus telling you not to wash your hands.

But hold on, it’s not only this Senate report that showed nefarious Russian meddling. It’s also all of those evil Russian bots. How do we know there are evil Russian bots? Well, most outlets quote Hamilton 68, which tracked Russian influence operations on Twitter.

Outlets like MSNBC, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Mother Jones and Tiger Beat. They’re all quoting Hamilton 68 or people who are referencing work done by Hamilton 68. Well, who the hell made Hamilton 68, and why does it sound like a ’90s alt-rock band that opened for Blink 182?

Oh, what do you know! Our old friend “[Jonathon] Morgan is also one the developers of Hamilton 68. … Funded by the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy—which is itself backed by NATO and USAID.”

Well OK, that sounds pretty serious. Clearly these people have found a special device that locates Russian bots on the interwebs, and it most likely resembles the thing Egon used in the “Ghostbusters” movies. So, shouldn’t we just congratulate Morgan on helping to develop the holy grail for spotting Russian bots and then call it a day? Well, there’s one itsy bitsy problem:

 … one of Hamilton 68’s founders, Clint Watts, admitted that the Twitter accounts it follows may actually be real people who are not Russian at all.

Real people? Who aren’t Russian? Call me crazy, but what I personally look for in a Russian bot is something that is at least Russian. And if not that, then a bot. And if neither, then you don’t have much of a goddamn Russian bot, do ya? Claiming these are Russian bots is like saying, “I just met the Queen of England, except she may have been a small Icelandic goat.”

Then, a few weeks ago The New York Times revealed that New Knowledge carried out an elaborate false flag operation to hurt the election chances of Judge Roy Moore in Alabama. You might recall that Roy Moore is an accused pedophile and a proven dipshit. And I don’t believe he should be elected to pick the bedbugs out of Rush Limbaugh’s armpits. But that doesn’t mean I think these New Knowledge charlatans shouldn’t be revealed for what they are.

So here’s how New Knowledge’s game worked, according to the Times. New Knowledge created a fake Facebook page in order to get conservatives in Alabama to support patio supply salesman Mac Watson instead of Roy Moore.

New Knowledge then tried to make everyone think that Moore’s campaign was working with the Kremlin by showing that he had thousands of Russian bots following his Twitter account. Many in the mainstream media ran with this outlandish idea. Mother Jones’s well-researched (sarcasm) article on the topic was titled “Russian Propagandists Are Pushing for Roy Moore to Win!” In the article they sourced (Can you guess?) Hamilton 68.

So to rehash: Hamilton 68, using their “Ghostbusters” device (patent pending), found that Russian bots (which may not be Russian and may not be bots and may not be Russian bots) were simply in love with alleged pedophiliac Alabama judges. So much so, that a majority of their tweets (meaning at least 51 percent) were in support of Roy Moore.

But as The New York Times has revealed, New Knowledge’s own internal report said,

“We orchestrated an elaborate ‘false flag’ operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet.”

After these revelations came out a few weeks ago, Facebook suspended some of the accounts. So now The New York Times found itself in a quandary. They must have been thinking,

“We need to report on this huge development in which the core authors of the Senate report on Russian meddling and the co-founder of Hamilton 68 were involved in lying, bullshitting, and false-flagging in order to help the Democratic party. But that completely undermines the Russiagate hysteria we have anchored our ship to. What do we do?”

Well, kids, take notes. This is how you do it. This is how you have your yellowcake uranium story and eat it too.

The New York Times headline was “Facebook Closes 5 Accounts Tied to Russia-Like Tactics in Alabama Senate Race”

Russia-like tactics?! This is literally an article about how Russia was NOT involved in the Alabama senate race false flag. In fact, it’s an article on how the guy who helped write the Senate report on the so-called Russian tactics is also one of the top people at New Knowledge, which either created or pushed pretend Russian bots to support Roy Moore so that they could leak to the press, “Russian bots are supporting Roy Moore!”

Sometimes the ability of the legacy media to believe (or at least regurgitate) their own bullshit is truly breathtaking.

To sum up this fuck de cluster:

1) The Senate report is laughable.

2) Any journalist who quotes Hamilton 68 should have their face sewn to the carpet.

3) If you want ridiculous pathetic reporting on nonsense that seduces us all to the edge of nuclear annihilation, turn to your mainstream corporate media.

4) If you want someone to actually put together the truth about these issues, you’ll have to turn to alternative outlets like Truthdig or the Grayzone Project.

5) Bill Murray and the Ghostbusters were ahead of their time.

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Lee Camp is an American stand-up comedian, writer, actor and activist. Camp is the host of the weekly comedy news TV show “Redacted Tonight With Lee Camp” on RT America. He is a former comedy writer for the Onion and the Huffington Post and has been a touring stand-up comic for 20 years.

Featured image is from Shutterstock

On January 7, 2019, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police trespassed on the land of the Wet’suwet’en people and arrested 14 land defenders in heavily militarized fashion, following the orders of fossil fuel behemoth TransCanada.

The militarized police were enforcing an injunction from the British Columbia Supreme Court to clear a road on which members of two clans of the Wet’suwet’en Nation — the Gilseyhu (Unist’ot’en) and Gitdumden — were peacefully occupying their land. This land is unceded, as the Canadian Supreme Court recognized in the landmark 1997 Delamuukgw decision.

TransCanada was granted an interim injunction to start pre-construction on the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline, even though the company does not have the free, prior, and informed consent of the Wet’suwet’en people to build it. Five hereditary chiefs whose traditional territory is on the proposed route oppose the project.

All five hereditary chiefs of Wet’suwet’en Nation stand in opposition to the project. Photo credit: Kathleen Martens/APTN.

As RAN said in a statement condemning the police raid,

“This trampling on Indigenous rights in favor of private oil and gas interests and the criminalization of land defenders is not only unacceptable, it’s unlawful, and cannot take place on Indigenous unceded lands.”

The banks supporting the Coastal GasLink pipeline are contributing to this clear abuse of Indigenous rights, even though many of them have stated policies acknowledging the right to free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous communities.

Who’s banking the pipeline?

Coastal GasLink is a project of TransCanada Pipelines Ltd., the same subsidiary of TransCanada behind the controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The 420-mile Coastal GasLink pipeline would carry fracked gas from northeast British Columbia to LNG Canada, a massive proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal that exemplifies the sector’s climate and human rights impacts.

Coastal GasLink is estimated to cost about US$4.5 billion, so how is TransCanada funding the project? Currently, the pipeline has no project-specific finance. Instead, it is being supported by the banks that have extended general corporate loans to TransCanada Pipelines Ltd. (including two loans signed as recently as December 2018), underwritten bonds issued by the company, and facilitated the sale of company assets.

Here are the key banks behind the project, in order of importance:

1) JPMorgan Chase

JPMorgan Chase is the #1 backer of TransCanada Pipelines Ltd., and therefore of the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

JPMorgan Chase is the lead agent on the majority of the company’s loans. TransCanada Pipelines Ltd. currently has four loans worth a total of about $9.8 billion. Two of those, totaling $5.5 billion, were signed in December 2018 and increased the subsidiary’s available credit by two thirds. (We recently wrote up the details of those transactions.) JPMorgan Chase was the lead agent — the bank responsible for arranging the deal and coordinating between TransCanada and its lenders — on both of those new loans. That makes it the lead agent on more than half of TransCanada Pipeline Ltd.’s current credit. It’s also a lender to the company’s other two lines of credit.

JPMorgan Chase is one of two key bond underwriters. TransCanada Pipelines Ltd. issued nine bonds, totaling $9.3 billion, in 2018. JPMorgan Chase was a lead manager — one of two banks directing the bond sale — on eight of those nine transactions.

This makes JPMorgan Chase the #1 banker of TransCanada Pipelines Ltd., and therefore of Coastal GasLink pipeline, despite an Environmental and Social Policy (see p. 17) that expects clients to obtain free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples.

2) Bank of Montreal

Bank of Montreal is the lead agent on two older loans to TransCanada Pipelines Ltd. that add up to about $4.3 billion. It’s also a lender to the two new loans and participated in one 2018 bond sale.

3) Deutsche Bank

Deutsche Bank was the other lead manager, alongside JPMorgan Chase, on eight bonds (worth approximately $8.7 billion) that TransCanada Pipelines Ltd. issued in 2018. The German bank was also a lender to all four current loans.

4) Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce

The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce was the sole manager on one of the nine bonds issued by TransCanada Pipelines Ltd. in 2018, as well as a lender to all four current loans.

The Canadian bank also advised TransCanada on a November 2018 deal that sums up TransCanada’s backwards direction: the sale of its stake in wind energy facilities in Quebec, to the tune of $630 million, in order to fund Coastal GasLink pre-development costs.

5) 17 other banks

At least 17 other global banks are also supporting TransCanada Pipelines Ltd. in a range of roles on its current lines of credit and recent bond sales. These include: Alberta Treasury Branches, Bank of America, Barclays, Citi, Crédit Agricole, Credit Suisse, Desjardins, Export Development Canada, HSBC, Mizuho, MUFG, National Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank, SMBC, TD, and Wells Fargo.*

The Wet’suwet’en have made it clear that the fight is not over. We demand that these banks cut their ties with TransCanada, as the company tramples on Indigenous rights in order to ram through the dangerous pipeline. The world is watching — hundreds of solidarity actions are taking place across Canada and around the world — and RAN and allies will continue to pressure these banks to stop supporting Indigenous rights abuses.

Rainforest Action Network shuts down a Chase Bank branch in San Francisco. Photo credit: Laurel Sutherlin/Rainforest Action Network.

Data source: Bloomberg Finance L.P. All monetary values in USD.

Author’s note: This list may not include every bank that is a lender to TransCanada Pipelines Ltd., as the full lender lists are not disclosed on all four active loans.

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Featured image: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police raided the Wet’suwet’en access checkpoint set up on Gidumt’en territory on January 7. Photo credit: Jesse Winter/StarMetro Vancouver

On December 13 National Security Advisor John Bolton made a presentation at the Heritage Foundation to unveil the foreign policy of the administration of President Donald Trump towards the African continent. (See this)

Bolton emphasized that the administration’s posture towards Africa would be based upon the interests of the United States above and beyond all else. He suggested that there would be no aid without accountability.

Interestingly enough this does not represent an alternative path to what has existed for decades under successive administrations. Even under Democratic Party leadership, U.S. economic and military interests have remained paramount in crafting relations with various African governments. (See this)

Much of the aid given to African states is designed to advance the profitability of multi-national corporations based in the U.S. along with facilitating a deeper penetration by the Pentagon across the region. The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), founded under the Republican President George W. Bush in 2008, was strengthened and enhanced by President Barack Obama. (See this)

Libya leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi and South African counterpart Nelson Mandela during the early 1990s.

It was the Obama administration which led the massive bombing campaign against the North African state of Libya, at the time the most prosperous nation on the continent. Today after the destruction of the country in 2011, Libya, despite its wealth in oil, natural gas and geo-strategic location on the Mediterranean, is mired in poverty becoming a source of instability across North and West Africa as well as being a hub for human trafficking and modern-day enslavement.

Trump has heightened the bombing of Somalia under the guise of “the war on terrorism”. The current administration has never given an adequate explanation of the deaths of four Green Berets killed in combat in the uranium-rich West African nation of Niger in 2017. (See this)

Fundamental Imperialist Policies Remain Intact Under Democrats and Republicans

Although Trump has been condemned for his statements referring to African Union (AU) member-states in the most vulgar and derogatory terms, similar comments and sentiments have been expressed historically albeit utilizing more sophisticated language. Africa has never been viewed by the White House as an equal partner with the U.S. and Western Europe.

The rhetorical support given during various periods since the 1950s in regard to Washington’s purported support for self-determination and national independence was done with the aim of protecting the economic interests of transnational corporations. When there was a threat of genuine sovereignty and sustainable unity, these states were targeted for destabilization and regime change.

In February 1966, the First Republic of Ghana under President Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown by disgruntled lower-ranking military officers and police forces. Even though many western-oriented Ghanaians thought they had carried out the coup in response to what was perceived as opposition to the policies of the ruling Convention People’s Party (CPP), it was sensed by progressive elements that the putsch was engineered by Washington.

Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson, who was head-of-state in 1966, has often been portrayed as the most liberal leader of the U.S. Taking over after the assassination of his predecessor, President John F. Kennedy, who was ambushed in a motorcade in broad daylight in downtown Dallas, Texas, the home state of Johnson, on November 22, 1963, LBJ escalated the genocidal war against the Vietnamese people in 1964-65 and invaded the Dominican Republic in 1965 to prevent a leftist government from taking power.

Some twelve years later after the death of Johnson and the exposure of U.S. crimes against humanity stemming from the revelations beginning with the break-in at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) offices in Pennsylvania which exposed the Counter-intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) in 1971, soon to be followed by the documented excesses of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) through projects such as Operation Chaos along with the investigations triggered by the Watergate burglary carried out by operatives of the administration of Johnson’s successor, President Richard M. Nixon, a New York Times article by Seymour M. Hersh revealed the actual role of Washington in the removal of Nkrumah. The New York Times, known as the newspaper of record, has never been a supporter of anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist governments on the continent and around the world.

Nonetheless, the Hersh article stated clearly on May 9, 1978 that:

“The Central Intelligence Agency advised and supported a group of dissident army officers who overthrew the regime of President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana in February 1966, first‐hand intelligence sources said yesterday. The agency’s role in the coup d’état was carried out without prior approval from the high‐level interagency group in Washington that monitors C.I.A. clandestine activities, these sources said. That group, known in 1966 as the 303 Committee, had specifically rejected a previous C.I.A. request seeking authority to plot against Mr. Nkrumah, who had angered the United States by maintaining close ties to the Soviet Union and China. There was no immediate comment from the C.I.A.” (See this)

Yet subsequent declassification of State Department documents refute this notion of plausible deniability proving that the plans to destabilize Ghana had been in the works for many years utilizing the American embassy. Nkrumah was out of Ghana en route to China and Vietnam when the coup took place. The Pan-Africanist leader and principal ideologist of the African Revolution during the post-World War II era resettled in Guinea-Conakry until 1971 when he then travelled to Romania for medical treatment where he died on April 27, 1972. (See this)

Kwame Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba

Revolutionary movements throughout the continent were systematically opposed by imperialism from the 1960s until the present. In Angola from 1975 until 1989, Washington sought to undermine the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) prompting the intervention of Cuban internationalist forces in defense of the independent state. The defeat of the racist-apartheid South African Defense Forces (SADF) in southern Angola in 1988 led to the liberation of Namibia (1990) and South Africa (1994) eliminating white-minority control in the sub-continent.

Role of Antiwar Movements in the West

The human rights and peace movements in the U.S. and Western Europe must consistently oppose the militaristic and exploitative policies towards Africa right alongside similar efforts in Latin America and Asia. There must be the building of people-to-people programs which link the problems of poverty and underdevelopment in the U.S., Europe and around the world.

A considerable amount of the anti-Trump posturing by the Democratic Party and its allies has proven to be quite superficial. California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, the reinstalled Speaker of the House of Representatives, was recently halted by the Trump administration from utilizing military aircraft to travel to Afghanistan and Brussels. The purpose of the trip was to reassure the Belgium-based North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that the Democratic Party wishes to maintain this imperialist entity for future operations against Russia, China and the peoples of the globe. The Pentagon and NATO have been occupying Afghanistan for over 17 years where thousands of western troops have died, notwithstanding hundreds of thousands if not millions of Afghans and Pakistanis. (See this)

This same Democratic Party, despite its liberal sophistry, opposes any notions of a withdrawal by Pentagon troops from Syria and Iraq, nor the halting of support by Washington of the State of Israel. Pelosi has not spoken one word against the destabilization of Venezuela where the Trump administration has recognized the imperialist-backed opposition leader in an effort to overthrow the Bolivarian Republic led by President Nicolas Maduro of the United Socialist Party (PSUV). (See this)

Democrats are not calling for the dismantlement of AFRICOM and its military bases, airstrips and intelligence stations in Africa. There appears to be no legislation from the Democratic-dominated Congress to reform trade policies which perpetuate underdevelopment and dependency between Africa and the western imperialist states.

Any political program designed to support AU member-states should take these factors into consideration. Until there is a fundamental transformation of the U.S. political and economic system, foreign policy towards Africa will remain imperialistic.

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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

On 23 January 2018, the United States has initiated a coup against President Nicolás Maduro and his Government, by encouraging and fully supporting the “self-proclaimed” opposition leader, Juan Guaido, as interim President. Already days ago he had received the full support of President Trump, and today, in a special televised speech, US Vice-president Mike Pence declared that Venezuela’s Freedom begins with the new interim president, Juan Guaído.

RT reports that

“the Venezuelan military will not accept a president imposed by ‘dark interests’, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino said after Washington and a number of its allies recognized a lawmaker [Juan Guaído] as the new leader in Caracas.”

“The army will continue to defend the constitution and national sovereignty, Padrino said on Wednesday afternoon, hours after opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido was proclaimed interim president by the National Assembly, in a direct challenge to President Nicolas Maduro.”

Washington’s immediate recognition of Guaido as Venezuelan’s legitimate leader, was instantly followed by the Organization of American States (OAS), as well as Canada and France. Mexico apparently has declines to do so “for now”. Is the “for now” an indication that Lopez Obrador’s actions are already being controlled by Washington?

This is an appeal to Russia and China and to all unaligned nations that love their freedom and sovereignty – to stand up in defense of Venezuela’s freedom and sovereignty.

May they use their diplomatic leverage, and if that does not work on Washington’s ‘savages’ – use other means that the empire understands. Keeping Venezuela free from the yoke of the US and its vassal allies – is essential for all the people in Latin America who have already been subjected to US implanted subjugating and abusing dictators, who not only have ruined their countries’ economies, but created extreme poverty where there was prosperity before, i.e. Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Paraguay, Uruguay –  and Chile, which is well on her way to an economic and social demise.

Venezuela must stay and remain tall.

President Putin and Jinping – please do whatever you can and whatever you must, to stop the US bulldozer from overtaking Venezuela!

Ongoing unrest in the streets of Caracas and major Venezuelan cities, all inspired and fueled on by the United States, and also the OAS (Organization of American States), the Club of Lima (except for Mexico), its European puppet allies, is confusing and dividing the people and has already killed at least 16. It is not clear who is responsible for the killing, but undoubtedly opposition forces funded by outside sources and / or the Fifth Column (inside Venezuela) have a bloody hand in the Venezuelan violence. A western instigated civil war is a real risk.

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This coup attempt is an abject illegal interference in another country’s sovereignty, with the ultimate violent and vicious goal that Washington has been practicing over the past 100 years around the globe – and ever with more impunity – of “regime change” to steel a non-conform, non-submissive government’s resources, and of course, to reach eventually the ultimate goal of full spectrum world dominance. Venezuela has by far the world’s largest known hydrocarbon (petrol and gas) reserves which is two days of shipping time away from Texas oil refineries, versus the Arabian Gulf from where today the US imports 60% of its petrol – a shipping time of 40-45 days, higher shipping costs, plus the risk of having to sail through the Iran-controlled Gulf of Hormuz.

In addition, Washington cannot tolerate any socialist country, let alone, one that is located in what Washington considers its backyard, like Venezuela, or, for that matter Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia. The other left-leaning South American country, Ecuador, has recently been “converted” with an internal “soft” coup, aka fake or manipulated elections. Those are usually operated through strong Fifth Columns funded from abroad – and with substantial menaces, including death threats.

So, Washington is dead set, especially with Trump and Pompeo at the apparent helm, who openly propagate a US (and allied, including NATO) invasion of Venezuela to “free” their “oppressed” people; to bring them from one of the only true democracies in the world (quote by Chomsky and the international election supervising US Carter Institute, among others) under the usurping dictatorship protection of the United States of America. Venezuelans will not tolerate such a farce. The 6 million Venezuelans who stood solidly behind Nicolas Maduro when they voted for him in May 2018, have already stood up – and will continue defending their freely and democratically elected President, despite the western media’s fake images of “tens of thousands” in the streets of Caracas demonstrating against legitimate President Maduro and for the self-proclaimed “interim president”, Juan Guaído.

He is, in fact, a criminal who acts totally against Venezuela’s Constitution on which he swore his allegiance to the country when he took up a seat in the Venezuelan parliament. It is clear that this “mass-movement”, as depicted by western media, was organized from outside, possibly paid for by US sponsored “NGOs” – and Venezuelan “insiders”, covert or openly from the opposition, trained by the CIA and other infiltrated US secret service groups. Clearly the Fifth Column is and was at work in Venezuela for years, bringing about the downfall of the economy by monetary and oil price manipulation from outside and from within; and by diverting food and medicine shipments from being delivered to supermarkets and instead being transferred as contraband into Colombia, where they are sold at dollar-manipulated inflated local currencies.

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This coup attempt reminds so much of another US State Department instigated but failed overthrow in April 2002 against President Hugo Chavez. The coup was botched by the Venezuelan military and the people of Venezuela. President Chavez was reinstated within 2 days. And the present coup so far has also failed.

President Maduro’s decision to break diplomatic relations with the US is therefore, not only logical, but totally legal. He has given all US diplomats 72 hours to leave the country. Now comes the other ‘coup’ – the US refuses to accept the legal expulsion of their diplomats from Caracas, because the self-proclaimed and US recognized “interim president” has called for all diplomats, first of all those from Washington, to stay in the country. Pompeo is threating Venezuela for any harm that may happen to US citizens, including diplomats during this upraising and what they consider “change of government”.

Here is Pompeo’s statement with regard to diplomatic relations with Venezuela.

Stay tuned to how this crisis will unfold.

May Venezuela’s friends and allies put all their might, diplomatic and other, at the support of Venezuela’s freedom and sovereignty.

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Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21^st Century; TeleSUR; The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

It is a political idiosyncrasy that most political systems avoid: the state, as if suffering a stroke, operating at only partial capacity, incapable of paying certain employees and incapable of fronting certain services.  And so it is in the United States, which is facing the longest shut down in its history after the record set under the Clinton Presidency – 21 days in 1995 – was passed.   

Prior to the 1970s, the administration of the day could generally expend moneys without prior congressional approval.  Then came a shifting of power from the executive to Congress in a 1974 law, reorganising the budget process.  Scrapping duly followed between the arms of government, and the legal opinion of United States attorney general Benjamin R. Civiletti provided the kiss of dysfunction to politics in Washington.  Agencies could not, he surmised with high priest severity, continue to operate in the absence of congressional appropriations, bar those engaged in certain vital tasks, such as protecting life and property. 

The reasons for the current squabble remain less significant than the process and consequences.  President Donald Trump wants his wall on the Mexico border; the Democrats remain cool to aspects of the idea.  The result has been a standoff and the drying up of pay checks to certain federal employees.

The term “shutdown” is deceptive.  The state itself, for the most part, is still functioning, hence that qualifying word “partial”.  The imperial mechanisms of waging war, procuring weapons of death and lining the pockets of the military industrial complex are exempt activities, the purview of the Department of Defence.  Many agencies have also been funded through the current fiscal year. 

But services out of the news, and on the margins, are the first to go into the world of pro-bono delivery, food pantries and food banks.  An estimate in terms of how many are going without pay runs into 800,000.

Then come those flexing arms of Homeland Security: the Coast Guard and the Transportation Security Administration.  Political decisions can have stinging irony, and for a president keen to press home his interest in border security and impervious walls, not paying members of these parts of the security apparatus seems a jarring, and risible, oversight.  TSA employees have found small ways to inflict vengeance: employees are calling in sick in large numbers; checkpoints have been closing.

The Coast Guard has had to be comforted by words rather than cash.  Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson described members as “brave” in their task of keeping “America’s waters safe” even as they assisted the navy in various “maritime theatres of war” in maintaining security and countering piracy.

The issue with shutdowns is problematic in several ways.  Trump’s loyal base may remain unmoved by his obstinate childishness, but the issue remains depleting to the entire practice of governance. When the money stops trickling into services, the political figures of the day will be noted and marked.  But Trump retains a padding that resists corrosion and wearing.  The same cannot be said either about members of the GOP, or the Democrats.  As the Republic rusts before the fantasy of a wall and a self-engineered, partial paralysis, the man who remains standing, whatever the polls say, is Trump.

The danger for the Democrats is how to stay mighty and distant, instead of close and small.  This has been all but impossible for them.  Trump is ramping it up with delinquent enthusiasm, as he always does, playing the trivial politics of small gains and considerable bellows, and also making it hard for his opponents to escape falling for much the same.  

He has, for instance, delighted in preventing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from using a plane that would have taken her on a trip to Afghanistan.  Trump’s administration, in the words of a White House official, “worked with the Air Force and (the Defence Department) and basically took away the rights to the plane from the speaker.”  The note from Trump to Pelosi explaining the decision suggests an emperor keen to prevent an out of favour official from seeing the sights of the imperium. “Due to the Shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan has been postponed.” The “seven-day excursion” (how true) would be rescheduled “when the Shutdown is over”.

Pelosi, not wanting to be left out of the barnyard romp of low expectations, retaliated by insisting that the House of Representatives “will not consider a concurrent resolution authorizing the president’s State of the Union address in the House chamber until the government has opened.”

Trump, in a previous note to Pelosi, dared and cajoled the House Speaker into seeking to prevent the speech from going ahead. “It would be so very sad for our country if the State of the Union were not delivered on time, on schedule, and very importantly, on location.”  Trump, inadvertently, is accurate in one respect: if Congress be that great cinema, and theatre, of dissimulation and intrigue, a studio production line insulated from the electors, it is only appropriate for the chief to address its members there and then. 

Trump’s dark pull, Washington’s scolding id, is total and consuming to opponents and followers alike, barrel scraping, and ultimate circus.  Others, as they have done before, will have to busy themselves running matters while those on the Hill and in the White House pursue matters of non-governance.

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

The new National Intelligence Strategy of the United States (NIS) released its strategy for 2019 Tuesday. The document reveals that 17 intelligence agencies of the U.S. are against President Donald Trump’s impulsive behavior on war and peace.

The 36-page report issued by Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats has targeted Trump’s friends in Moscow and his business partners.

The Intelligence Community (IC) thinks of Russia as an emerging threat.

“These adversaries pose challenges within traditional, non-traditional, hybrid, and asymmetric military, economic, and political spheres. Russian efforts to increase its influence and authority are likely to continue and may conflict with U.S. goals and priorities in multiple regions,” the report said.

Daniel Benjamin, Bill Clinton’s National Security advisor, wrote on Twitter,

“This is one of the few benefits of having a president who reads absolutely nothing. No way he would have signed off on the intel strategy if he knew what was in it.”

This is one of the few benefits of having a president who reads absolutely nothing. No way he would have signed off on the the intel strategy if he knew what was in it. https://t.co/Xx8HTuq9Hp

— Daniel Benjamin (@Benjamin05055) January 22, 2019

The host of Deep State Radio also said that Donald Trump himself is a threat to his own country.

Translation, because Shane is too polite to say it: The New National Intelligence Strategy highlights the dangers posed by the president of the United States and his sponsors overseas. Not kinda sorta. Unmistakably. https://t.co/GlimHY3Fi1

— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) January 22, 2019

The report does not mention “radical Islamic terrorists” as a threat. The 2019 document replaced the phrase with “traditional adversaries.”

The 2019 document also suggests that the country move on from U.S. interventionist policies which witnessed wars being waged on Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Somalia; wars whose importance and benefits to the U.S. population was never clear.

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Featured image is from Strategic Culture Foundation

Venezuela is in the throes of a classic Hybrid War, and analyzing the indirect adaptive approach to regime change being applied there can be instructive for identifying and understanding similar processes whenever they unfold elsewhere.

The Hybrid War on Venezuela is reaching its climax following the preplanned and coordinated provocation of the US and its “Lima Group” allies to recognize Juan Guaidó as the country’s “interim president” after he swore himself into office on the day that the Bolivarian Republic celebrated the 1958 ouster of a former strongman. The symbolism is intentionally designed to send a message to the Venezuelan people that Maduro will be their next leader to be overthrown, as well as signal to the international community that “the people are rising up against the regime”. This didn’t just happen out of the blue, however, but is the culmination of the US’ carefully calibrated regime change strategy over the years that follows the model laid out by the author in his similarly titled 2015 book, “Hybrid Wars: The Indirect Adaptive Approach To Regime Change”.

What follows is a simplistic summary of what the US did to bring the Bolivarian Republic to the brink:

1. Develop A Multifaceted Motive To Justify The Time And Effort

 All Hybrid Wars aim to achieve something of strategic significance, and in the Venezuelan case, the US wanted to advance its geopolitical objective of totally controlling the Caribbean, its ideological agenda of overthrowing a socialist government, and its economic one of controlling the world’s largest oil reserves in the Orinoco Belt.

2. Externally Disrupt Macroeconomic Development

The US imposed sanctions and utilized other forms of coercion against Venezuela in order to undermine its macroeconomic development, which was doubly effective because these disruptive measures were timed to coincide with the oil price crash that made it impossible for the state to continue its socialist model of wealth redistribution without reforms.

3. Exploit Governmental Mismanagement

It’s to be expected that no government is capable of perfectly managing any adverse situation that comes its way and Venezuela is certainly no exception, but the US weaponized Maduro’s mismanaged response to Washington’s Hybrid War on his country through infowars and other psychological influence operations in order to encourage unrest.

4. Unleash Previously Organized Color Revolution Cells

After having clandestinely cultivated Color Revolution cells inside the country and abroad, the US blew the dog whistle to order them into the streets from time to time in response to certain “trigger events” such as what its Mainstream Media portrayed as “disputed elections”, all in order to catalyze a self-sustaining cycle of Hybrid War unrest pitting “civilians” against the state.

5. Establish Parallel Governing Structures

Simultaneously with the advanced stage of Color Revolution cultivation, the US took advantage of Maduro’s initiative to create the Constituent National Assembly in order to have the National Assembly function as a parallel governing structure under the influence of Washington and foreign-based regime change figures.

6. Rely On Designated Proxies To “Justify” Further Intervention

The next foreseeable step is for the US and its allies to “justify” their further intervention into Venezuela’s domestic affairs on the pretext that their designated proxy Guaidó (or his possible “successor” if something happens to him) might request “additional assistance”, which will likely be covert but could also take on conventional dimensions in the worst-case scenario.

In any case, nobody should get their hopes up about Russia commencing a military intervention in support of Maduro like it did for Assad. It’s impossible for Russia to maintain the cross-Atlantic supply lines necessary for such a feat given that the US has total control over the air and sea domains in this space. The most that it could probably do is dispatch emergency shipments of various weapon systems, but even that’s only relevant when it comes to deterring conventional aggression and has almost no impact on countering hybrid threats such as those posed by Color Revolutions and urban terrorism. Rhetoric aside, Russia’s only real interests in Venezuela are in ensuring that its billions of dollars in loans are repaid and that Caracas respects the energy and military deals that it previously signed with Moscow. Russia would certainly take a financial hit if the US’ regime change operation succeeds and the subsequent coup “authorities” cancel these agreements, which is why it might try to “pragmatically compromise” with the “rebels” if they appear to be on the brink of victory.

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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 January 23, hundreds of civilians took to the streets in the town of al-Mansoura in the province of Raqqa to protest against the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) after the group’s security forces had murdered a civilian.

According to local sources, Ahmad al-Zaban, a member of the prominent al-Bukhamis tribe, was killed because he had refused to join the SDF. In 2018, the Kurdish-dominated group started to employ forced conscription as a measure to form some Arab units within its ranks. This effort is a part of attempts to justify the political and military dominance of US-backed Kurdish armed groups in northeastern Syria.

During the protests in al-Mansoura, the locals and members of the al-Bukhamis tribe clashed with the SDF’s security forces and burned down their center. This forced the SDF to temporarily withdraw from the town. The locals also demanded that the SDF hand over those of their members who had been involved in the crime. The  situation is developing, but it is not likely that the group will find a comprehensive peaceful solution with the protesters. In most of the cases, the SDF’s security forces just crack down on protests and accuse the opposition of links with terrorists.

Earlier this week, several tribes living on the eastern bank of the Euphrates held rallies asking Russia and the Damascus government to restore river bridges, which had been destroyed by the US-led coalition. The destruction of bridges is one of the tools used to prevent movement of people and goods between SDF-held and government-controlled areas.

The isolation of the SDF-held area from the rest of Syria as well as an ongoing large-scale propaganda campaign claiming that the bloody Assad regime is preventing people from returning to their homes are tools, which are being used to undermine Syria’s territorial integrity.

Meanwhile, the SDF has achieved notable progress fighting ISIS in the terrorist-held pocket near the Iraqi border. The SDF has captured the villages of al-Baghuz al-Fawqani and Shajlah and advanced on ISIS positions in the village of Murashida. When this village falls into the hands of the SDF, the ISIS-held pocket will be formally eliminated.

According to pro-Kurdish sources, more than 5,100 people have fled the ISIS-held area. At least 500 ISIS members were among them. They surrendered themselves to the SDF.

In Moscow, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin held a meeting discussing a wide range of topics, including the situation in Syria. In a press briefing following the meeting, Putin announced that Moscow and Ankara had agreed to work on additional measures to implement the Idlib deconfliction agreement.

“We see that our Turkish partners are making great efforts to eliminate the terrorist threat there and it is necessary to work together to remove tension in that region”, Putin said. He added that Russia is also working to support negotiations between the SDF and Damascus.

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Since the time immemorial, it has been an article of faith of every Muslim that suicide is ‘Haram’ (prohibited) in Islam. There is a well-known Islamic precept that whoever commits suicide will go straight to hell. But the Takfirists (those who declare others as heretics) have invented a new interpretation of Islam in which suicide is glorified as ‘martyrdom’ and suicide bombing is deployed as a weapon to cause widespread fear.

Historically, suicide bombing as a weapon of war was invented by the Tamil Tigers during the 1980s in their war against the Sri Lankan armed forces. The Tamils are a Hindu ethnic group of northern Sri Lanka who were marginalized by the Buddhist majority and they led a civil war in the country from 1976 until they were defeated by the Sri Lankan armed forces’ Northern Offensive in 2009.

Among the Muslims, suicide bombing as a tactical weapon was first adopted by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Israel-Palestine conflict during the Second Intifada that lasted from 2000 to 2005. Then, the transnational terrorists of al-Qaeda adopted suicide bombing as a weapon of choice in some of their most audacious terror attacks in the US and Europe.

After that, all the regional militant groups – including the Taliban in Afghanistan, al-Shabab in Somalia, Boko Haram in Nigeria and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria – have also adopted suicide bombing as a tactical weapon in their rebellions against regional adversaries.

The phenomena of militancy and insurgency anywhere in the world has less to do with religious extremism and more with the weak writ of state in remote rural and tribal areas of the Third World’s impoverished countries, which is sometimes further exacerbated by deliberate arming of certain militant groups by regional and global players.

The Afghan jihadists of today, for instance, are a legacy of the Cold War when they were trained and armed by the CIA against the former Soviet Union with the help of Pakistan’s security agencies and the Gulf’s petro-dollars.

Similarly, the Islamic State’s militants in Syria and Iraq are a product of Washington’s proxy war in Syria in which Sunni militants were trained and armed in the border regions of Turkey and Jordan to battle the Shi’a-led government in Syria in order to contain the Shi’a resistance comprised of Iran, Syria and their Lebanon-based proxy, Hezbollah, which constituted an existential threat to Israel’s regional security.

In order to empirically prove the point that militancy anywhere in the world has less to do with the professed ideology or religion of militants and more with geo-political factors, here is a brief list of some of the recent non-Muslim insurgencies around the world:

• First, as I have already described, the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka who invented suicide bombing as a tactic of war were Hindus.
• Second, the Naxalite-Maoist insurgency in India’s northeast that has been raging since 1967 and has claimed tens of thousands of lives has been comprised of Hindus.
• Third, the insurgency of the FARC rebels in Colombia that lasted from 1964 to 2017 and claimed hundreds of thousands of lives was a conflict among Christians.
• Fourth, the Northern Ireland conflict that lasted from 1968 to 1998 and claimed thousands of casualties was a dispute between Protestants and Catholics.
• Fifth, Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army that operated in Uganda, South Sudan, Central African Republic and Congo since 1987 was comprised of Christians and animists.
• Sixth, the Nuer rebellion led by Riek Machar against his former ally President Salva Kiir’s Dinka tribal group since December 2013 in South Sudan which has claimed tens of thousands of lives has been a conflict among Christians.
• Seventh, the Hutu-Tutsi conflict that led to the Rwandan genocide in 1994 and claimed hundreds of thousands of lives was also a conflict among Christians.
• And lastly, all the belligerents of the Second Congo War that lasted from 1998 to 2003 and claimed millions of fatalities were non-Muslims.

Keeping all this empirical evidence in mind, it becomes amply clear that Islam as a religion is just as peaceful or ‘violent’ as Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism; and taking a cursory look at the list, it also becomes obvious that the common denominator among all these disparate insurgencies has not been religion.

Since most of these insurgencies have affected the impoverished and underdeveloped regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America, thus the only legitimate conclusion that can be drawn from this fact is that deliberate militarization and weak writ of impoverished, developing states has primarily been responsible for breeding assortments of militant groups in the remote rural and tribal hinterlands of the aforementioned regions. That’s the only common denominator among these otherwise unrelated list of insurgencies.

The root factors that have mainly been responsible for spawning militancy and terrorism anywhere in the world are not religion or ideology of militants but socio-economics, ethnic diversity, marginalization of disenfranchised ethno-linguistic and ethno-religious groups and the ensuing conflicts; socio-cultural backwardness of the affected regions, and the weak central control of the impoverished developing states over their territory, which is often exacerbated by deliberate training and arming of certain militant groups that were used at some point of time in history as proxies by their regional and global patrons.

Excluding large-scale insurgencies, even if we take a cursory look at some individual acts of terrorism, the Virginia Tech shooting in April 2007 that claimed 32 lives was perpetrated by a South Korean Seung-Hui Cho; then a Norwegian far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik shot dead 77 students on the island of Utoya, Norway, in July 2011; after that, Adam Lanza carried out the Sandy Hook Elementary Schools massacre in December 2012, killing 27 people including 20 children; and more recently, Stephen Paddock committed one of the worst mass shootings in the American history, killing 58 people in cold blood and injuring hundreds more at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas in October 2017.

Peaceful or not, Islam is only a religion just like any other cosmopolitan religion whether it’s Christianity, Buddhism or Hinduism. Instead of taking an essentialist approach, we need to look at the evolution of social phenomena in its proper historical context.

For instance, to assert that human beings are evil by nature is an essentialist approach; it overlooks the role played by nurture in grooming human beings. Human beings are only intelligent by nature; they are neither good nor evil by nature; whatever they are, whether good or evil, is the outcome of their nurture or upbringing.

Similarly, to pronounce that Islam is a retrogressive or violent religion is an essentialist approach; it overlooks how Islamic scriptures are interpreted by followers depending on the subject’s socio-cultural context.

For example, Western expat Muslims brought up in the West and who have imbibed Western values would interpret a Quranic verse in a liberal fashion; an urban middle class Muslim of the Muslim-majority countries would interpret the same verse rather conservatively; and a rural-tribal Muslim who has been indoctrinated by radical clerics would find meanings in it which could be extreme.

Thus, it is all about culture rather than religion or scriptures per se. In a nutshell, blaming Islam for terrorism is like holding Christianity responsible for imperialism; obviously, there is no correlation between the two.

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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.

Minutes ago, a powerful blast ripped through the heart of Damascus after a bomb was set off near the Russian embassy.

According to a military source in Damascus city, the blast was a result of an IED (improvised explosive device) that was set off inside the Al-Adawi District.

So far, the casualty total is unknown.

Update (2:47 P.M): The explosion was a result of a car bomb.

More details to come…

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Venezuela has elections. Juan Guaido has never even been a Presidential candidate. Despite massive CIA opposition funding and interference over years as Big Oil tries to regain control of the World’s largest oil reserves, Nicolas Maduro was democratically re-elected in 2018 as President of Venezuela.

The coup now under way is illegitimate. I opposed Maduro’s move to replace the elected National Assembly. Sometimes I read back things I wrote in the past and decide I was wrong. Sometimes I think the article was right, but a bit of a potboiler. Occasionally I am proud, and I am proud of my analysis on Venezuela written on 3 August 2017. I believe it is still valid.

Hugo Chavez’ revolutionary politics were founded on two very simple tenets:

1) People ought not to be starving in dreadful slums in the world’s most oil rich state
2) The CIA ought not to control Venezuela

Over the years, Chavez racked up real achievements in improving living standards for the poor and in providing health and education facilities. He was widely popular and both he and his successor, Nicolas Maduro, also racked up very genuine election victories. Maduro remains the democratically elected President.

But the dream went sour. In particular it fell foul of the tendency of centrally planned economies to fail to get the commodities people want onto shop shelves, and to the corruption that goes with centralisation. The latter was certainly not worse than the right wing corruption it replaced, but that does not diminish its existence.

Every revolution will always displace an existing elite who are by definition the best educated and most articulate section of the population, with most access to resources including media – and to CIA secret backing, which has continued throughout at an increasing rate. Chavez did not solve this problem in the way Robespierre, Stalin, Trotsky or Mao would have done. He embraced democracy, let them be – and largely left their private offshore billions, and thus their power, untouched.

Inevitably the day came when economic and administrative failings cracked the solidity of support from the poor for the revolution. The right then stepped up their opposition with a campaign led by corrupt billionaires, which the western media has failed to acknowledge has been throughout murderously violent.

The problem with revolutionary millenarianism is that its failure to achieve utopia is viewed as disaster by its proponents. Maduro ought to have accepted that it is the nature of life that political tides ebb and flow, ceded power to the opposition gains in parliament, maintained the principles of democracy, and waited for the tide to turn back his way – taking the risk that the CIA might not give him the chance. Instead he has resorted to a constitutional fix which dilutes democracy, a precedent which will delight the right who in the long term have most to fear from the populace. Given the extreme violence of the opposition, I am less inclined to view arrests as unquestionably a straightforward human rights matter, than are some pro-western alleged human rights groups. But that Maduro has stepped off the democratic path I fear is true. He has, bluntly, gone wrong, however difficult the circumstances. I condemn both the departures from human rights best practice and the attempt to use a part indirectly elected body to subvert the elected parliament.

But, even today, Venezuela is still vastly more of a democracy than Saudi Arabia, and a far greater respecter of human rights than Israel in its dreadful repression of the Palestinians. Yet support for Israel and for Saudi Arabia are keystones of the foreign policy of those who today are incessant in their demands that we on the “left” condemn Venezuela. The BBC has given massively more news coverage to human rights abuse in Venezuela this last month than in a score of much worse countries I could name – than a score put together.

Human rights abuse should be condemned everywhere. But it only hits the headlines when practised by a country which is on the wrong side of the neo-con agenda.

Anybody who believes that a country’s internal democracy is the determining factor in whether the West decides to move for violent regime change in that country, is a complete idiot. Any journalist or politician who makes that claim is more likely to be a complete charlatan than a complete idiot. In recent years, possession of hydrocarbon reserves is very obviously a major factor in western regime change actions.

In Latin America over the last century, the presence of internal democracy has been much more likely to lead to external regime change than its absence, as maintenance of US imperialist hegemony has been the defining factor. That combines with oil reserves to make the current move a double whammy.

It is disheartening to see the Western “democracies” so universally supporting the coup in Venezuela. The EU in particular has leapt in to support Donald Trump in the quite ludicrous act of recognising corrupt Big Oil puppet Guaido as “President”. The change of the EU into full neo-con mode -so starkly represented in its bold support for Francoist violence in Catalonia – is what led me to reconcile with Brexit and a Norway style relationship.

When I was in the FCO, the rule on recognition was very plain and very openly stated – the UK recognised the government which had “effective control of the territory”, whatever the attributes of that government. This is a very well established principle of international law. There were very rare exceptions involving continuing to support ousted governments. The pre-1939 Polish government in exile was the most obvious example, though once Nazism was defeated Britain moved to recognise the Communist government actually in charge, to the fury of exiled Poles. I was involved in the question of the continued recognition of President Kabbah of Sierra Leone during the period in which he was ousted by military coup.

But I can think of no precedent at all for recognising a President who does not have and has never had control of the country – and has never been a candidate for President. This idea of the West simply trying to impose a suitably corrupt and biddable leader is really a very startling development. It is astonishing the MSM commentariat and political class appear to see no problem with it. It is a quite extraordinary precedent, and doubtless will lead to many new imperialist adventures.

One final thought. The right wing Government of Ecuador has been one of the first and most vocal in doing the West’s bidding. The Ecuadorean government has been colluding with the United States over the efforts to imprison Julian Assange, and at this very time has arranged for FBI and CIA personnel in Quito to take false and malicious statements manufactured by the Ecuador government in collaboration with the CIA, about Julian Assange’s activities in the Embassy in London.

Ecuadorean government documents had already been produced out of Quito, and shown to MI6 and CIA outlets like the Guardian and New York Times, purporting to show the diplomatic appointment of Julian Assange to Moscow in December 2017. I have believed throughout that these fake documents were most likely produced by Ecuador’s new CIA influenced government itself.

Today Ecuador, once a key part of the Bolivarian revolution, is simply a puppet of the CIA, voicing support for a US coup in Venezuela and working to produce fake testimony against Assange. I warn you firmly against giving credence to Luke Harding’s next “scoop” which will doubtless shortly emerge from this process.

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Venezuela’s Defense Minister, Vladimir Padrino Lopez, declared Wednesday that the National Bolivarian Armed Forces (FANB) refuses to accept the opposition leader Juan Guaido as the interim president of the Latin American country.

“The Homeland’s soldiers don’t accept a president imposed by obscure interests or self-proclaimed unlawfully,” said Padrino Lopez in his Twitter account, adding that the armed forces will defend the Venezuelan constitution and national sovereignty.

Last Monday a group of soldiers, arrested and facing trial, moved in two military vehicles, stormed the headquarters of the Detachment of Urban Security located in Petare, Sucre municipality, stealing from there a batch of weapons and kidnapping two officers and two members of the Venezuelan National Guard at gunpoint.

In an unconstitutional event the president of the National Assembly in judiciary contempt, Juan Guaido, sworn himself in on Wednesday morning. After which U.S. President Donald Trump recognized the illegal self-proclaimed president. The same was done by the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, who has instigated attacks against Venezuela and his Government.

The government of Mexico, led by the center-left Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, maintained its previous position and reaffirmed their recognition of Nicolas Maduro as the legitimate president of Venezuela. Bolivia, Uruguay and Russia also decided to recognize Maduro.

The Venezuelan president described the international effort as a coup organized by Washington against the Bolivarian Revolution and announced the Latin American country would end diplomatic relations with the U.S.

Opposition forces backed by the U.S. and other right-wing governments and organizations i the region continue with their coup agenda against the Bolivarian government. Meanwhile, in the streets of Caracas, Chavismo mobilizes in defense of peace, democracy and sovereignty of the country in the face of interference and destabilization of the national and international right-wing .

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Featured image is from Wikimedia Commons

The Venezuelan right-wing, backed by the United States and other right-wing governments in the region, continue with their coup agenda against the Bolivarian government.

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The Venezuelan and international right advances in its destabilizing plans, which are rejected by revolutionary people in the streets.

The Venezuelan right-wing, backed by the United States and other right-wing governments in the region, continue with their coup agenda against the Bolivarian government. Meanwhile, in the streets of Caracas, Chavismo mobilizes in defense of peace, democracy and sovereignty of the country in the face of interference and destabilization of the national and international right-wing.

In an unconstitutional event the president of the National Assembly in judiciary contempt, Juan Guaido, sworn himself in on Wednesday morning. After which U.S. President Donald Trump recognized the illegal self-proclaimed president. The same was done by the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, who has instigated attacks against Venezuela and his Government.

For his part, US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, joined the interference with a call to Venezuelan military and security forces “to support democracy.” In addition, he gave his support to Guaidó “while establishing a transitional government and preparing elections.” Other presidents and governments of Latin America have supported Guaido, directly attacking the Bolivarian Government of democratically elected President Nicolas Maduro.

#Live | President of #Venezuela @NicolasMaduro: It is a tremendous irresponsibility on the side of the U.S. government and the extremists who have taken power in the U.S. who want to lead Venezuela to a civil conflict, a violent conflict.

▶️ https://t.co/EOOSCUDs0E pic.twitter.com/Hq5NhXDPGi

— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) January 23, 2019

The strategy: Usurp powers

This Wednesday the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) urged the Prosecutor’s Office to determine the responsibilities of the members of the National Assembly (AN), in contempt, for the usurpation of the powers of the Executive.

Judge Juan Jose Mendoza pointed out that the National Assembly “expressly violates Article 236, numerals 4 and 15, as it seems to usurp the competence of the President of the Republic in directing the foreign relations of the State.”

He also ratified the unconstitutionality of the acts of the AN and found that it continues in contempt.

Juan Guaido, the new face of the coup

The appointment of Juan Guiado as “leader” of the Venezuelan opposition is not casual, the act responds to the construction of an image that seems more “popular,” contrary to that of the traditional leaders of the Venezuelan right-wing.

Guido has his origins based in the popular middle class, he is an engineer graduated from a private university, even his physical appearance is far from the traditional profile opponent.

His image contrasts with the one of the president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, who comes from the working class as a bus driver. Guaido was a protagonist of the violent actions of the opposition in 2007, 2014 and 2017 usually known as Guarimbas.

Background: Opposition and usurpation

On April 11, 2002, the Venezuelan opposition also ignored the Constitution and staged a coup d’état, in which the president of Fedecamaras (Federation of the commerce chambers), Pedro Carmona Estanga, declared himself president, with the complicity of the country’s media and oligarchic sector.

Carmona revoked the 1999 Constitution and the 49 enabling laws decreed by President Hugo Chavez in the framework of the Enabling Law. It also dissolved the other public powers, the Supreme Court of Justice, the Attorney General of the Republic, the Ombudsman, the National Electoral Council, the National Assembly and the General Comptroller of the Republic.

#Venezuela | "Nobody voted for #JuanGuaido" citizens reject coup plotters. #Venezuela23E pic.twitter.com/rMjJ7LI2iP

— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) January 23, 2019

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Featured image is from France 24

After last week’s embarrassing debacle in which special counsel Robert Mueller issued a rare statement calling bullshit on BuzzFeed over their Trump Tower Moscow report that Trump ordered his attorney Michael Cohen to lie about the timeline, the beleaguered news outlet has taken a second bite at the apple with a new report (oddly written by a completely different journalist) refuting comments by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani that “no plans were ever made” for the project. 

Not so fast Rudy… 

In their new report, BuzzFeed claims that the Trump Tower Moscow idea was “led by Trump’s then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, and his associate Felix Sater” despite writing in November that Sater both thought of and spearheaded the idea, turning to Cohen to “get it off the ground” while overpromising that he could seal the deal through his Russian connections that never panned out.

Sater, a brash real estate promoter who pleaded guilty to racketeering in 1998 and became a longtime asset to US law enforcement and intelligence agencies, had worked with the Trump Organization on deals in the past and said he came up with the idea. Cohen, Sater recalled, said, “Great idea.” –BuzzFeed

Today’s “gotcha,” however is that the project had progressed much further than Giuliani claimed on Monday when he told the New Yorker “no plans were ever made. There were no drafts. Nothing in the file.”

Not true, writes BuzzFeed’s Azeen Ghorayshi.

The president and his representatives have dismissed the project as little more than a notion — a rough plan led by Trump’s then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, and his associate Felix Sater, of which Trump and his family said they were only loosely aware as the election campaign gathered pace.

On Monday, his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said “the proposal was in the earliest stage,” and he went on to tell the New Yorker that “no plans were ever made. There were no drafts. Nothing in the file.”

However, hundreds of pages of business documents, emails, text messages, and architectural plans, obtained by BuzzFeed News over a year of reporting, tell a very different story. Trump Tower Moscow was a richly imagined vision of upscale splendor on the banks of the Moscow River. –BuzzFeed

Trump Tower Moscow hasn’t exactly been a secret, admits BuzzFeed, noting that Donald Trump tweeted about it following the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, and writing in his book The Art of the Deal that he had been trying to expand his business empire into Russia for over 30 years.

@AgalarovAras I had a great weekend with you and your family. You have done a FANTASTIC job. TRUMP TOWER-MOSCOW is next. EMIN was WOW!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 11, 2013

Over the last week, Giuliani admitted to the New York Times that the Trump Tower Moscow discussions were “going on from the day I announced to the day I won,” Giuliani quoted Trump as saying. He then walked back those comments, claiming in a statement: “My recent statements about discussions during the 2016 campaign between Michael Cohen and then-candidate Donald Trump about a potential Trump Moscow ‘project’ were hypothetical and not based on conversations I had with the President.”

In other words, Giuliani is a walking gaffe machine – which we already knew.

That said, the Trump Tower moscow project appears to have been much more developed than anyone in the Trump camp has acknowledged.

According to a finalized letter of intent signed by Donald Trump on Oct. 28, 2015, the tower would have “approximately 250 first class, luxury residential condominiums.”

It would be located in Moscow City, a former industrial complex outside of the city center that has since been converted into an ambitious commercial district clustered with several of the tallest skyscrapers in Europe.

Its hotel portion would feature “approximately 15 floors” and contain “not fewer than 150 hotel rooms,” the letter of intent stated. The building would feature a luxury spa and fitness center, a commercial component “consistent with the overall luxury level of the Property,” and an office space “consistent with Class A luxury office properties,” as well as “luxury” parking. –BuzzFeed

Also in the plan was “The Spa By Ivanka Trump,” as well as a $50 million penthouse suite that they would give to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“My idea was to give a $50 million penthouse to Putin and charge $250 million more for the rest of the units,” Sater told BuzzFeed in November. “All the oligarchs would line up to live in the same building as Putin.”

Read the development proposal here.

Show Trump the money

The Trump Organization stood to make $4 million on an up-front payment for the deal; 25% of which would be paid upon execution of the licensing agreement, another quarter when they finalized a location, and the other half a week before the project’s groundbreaking – or two years after the execution of the licensing agreement, whichever came first.

From there on out, Trump’s company would also get a cut of all the condominium sales at the tower, the agreement stated. From the total selling price of each unit, his company would get 5% for sales up to $100 million, 4% for the next bracket up to $250 million, 3% for anything between that and $500 million, 2% for anything up to $1 billion, and thereafter, a solid cut of 1%. For commercial and office spaces, it would get a 3% cut of all the rent. It’d get another 3% of sales on food and beverages, spa and fitness center use, and conference fees.

The deal also stipulated how much Trump’s management company would get paid for running operations at Trump Tower Moscow over 25 years. For the first five years, it would get 3% of all revenue generated by operating the hotel per month. Over the next two decades, it’d receive a flat 4%. In addition, the management company would also receive a monthly “incentive fee” — an additional 20% of the gross operating profit for the hotel — subject to annual negotiations. –BuzzFeed

At the end of the day, Trump Tower Moscow has never happened – and Trump himself has turned out to be the worst “Putin Puppet” ever after slapping heavy sanctions on Moscow and selling Ukraine weapons that the Obama administration wouldn’t.

“Let’s make this happen and build a Trump Moscow,” wrote Sater to Cohen in October of 2015. “And possibly fix relations between the countries by showing everyone that commerce & business are much better and more practical than politics. … Help world peace and make a lot of money, I would say that’s a great lifetime goal for us to go after.”

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In the book Brexit – A Corporate Coup D’etat, one chapter is dedicated to the threat of EU regulation, due to be enforced in 2019, which would have all but destroyed Britain’s dominance as a global leader in the tax haven and money laundering business. Over the years, Britain has consistently voted against creating a globally representative inter-governmental body to shape a framework of rules to strengthen international cooperation on tax matters and has successfully resisted international pressure to take effective action against its tax havens in the Channel Islands, the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands, and other British dependencies. In this article, the Tax Justice Network not only confirms this threat but highlights the ongoing efforts the British government are having in the background to create what they themselves are calling the – ‘Singapore-on-Thames’ development strategy.

The EU‘s new anti-abuse measures coming into force in this year would have tightened up restrictions on UK-based intermediaries (City of London et al.) that take part in off-shoring and tax avoidance, of which Britain is a global leader, had it stayed an EU member.

As far back as 2015, the Tories had rejected plans announced by Brussels to combat “industrial-scale tax avoidance by the world’s biggest multinationals”. After all, Britain had built a corporate tax haven for multinationals that included slashing corporation tax from 28% to 19%, for multinationals with offshore financing subsidiaries. As a result, Britain saw a number of large corporations set up (virtual) headquarters in the UK with a small amount of staff to take advantage of these tax laws.

It is interesting to note that around the same time in 2015, Conservative, UKIP and DUP MEPs voted against the EU’s plans to crack down on corporate tax dodging, by making companies report where they make their profits and pay taxes. While the Conservatives blocked legislation, Labour, Liberal Democrat, SNP, Plaid, and Green MEPs voted for the plan.

Two years earlier In 2013, Cameron personally wrote and appealed to the then president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, to prevent offshore trusts (like the one his father was involved in and he would personally benefit from) from being dragged into a wider EU clampdown on tax avoidance. Cameron argued that trusts should not automatically be subject to the same transparency requirements as companies.

In addition, the issue of Britain’s tax havens and tax arrangements with corporations and the banking industry had become so serious, a desperate David Cameron argued that the EU should ask the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the G20 to agree on a global framework for transparency agreements, which it would not.

When Cameron learned that his efforts had failed and that the EU had forged ahead, off-shoring and mass tax avoidance in Her Majesties territories were then truly threatened. Trillions are laundered, hidden and disguised through a network of facilitators in the City of London and the British Crown Dependencies. The City of London has become known as the global crime scene for money laundering. The other jurisdiction that wants access to this huge secrecy network is both the U.S. and especially the transnational corporations of the U.S.

“It is amazing to see how a government can put itself at the service of the financial sector. Often it can be difficult to see who is a regular lobbyist, and who is a UK representative. And judging by what they’ve tried to achieve, it seems they’ve been more concerned with the interest of the banks than with those of its citizens,” said the author of the study, Corporate Europe Observatory campaigner Kenneth Haar.

Tax Justice Network’s John Christensen recently spoke at the European Parliament organised by the European Free Alliance of the Greens on Brexit and the future of tax havens. Here’s more information on the event and you can watch the whole thing here. Christensen spoke about the impact of Brexit on tax evasion and money laundering – and he makes some interesting points, part of which, makes reference to not just EU tax regulation but more importantly, what is coming next for Brexit Britain. Just three slides of that presentation says it all (The link at the bottom takes you to the entire text).

Brexit and the future of tax havens

Slide one

It will come as no surprise that at the time of the 2016 referendum the UK government did not have a clear vision of the type of relationship for trade in financial services they would be seeking with the EU27 once Brexit is finalised.

The initial assumption seems to have been that passporting rights could be retained for the UK-based financial services sector and extended to satellites in the crown dependencies and overseas territories.  This was the message I heard in the summer of 2016 both in London and the Channel Islands.

However, once it had become clear by end-2016 that passporting would not be a viable option, the focus shifted to gaining acceptance of mutual recognition of regulatory standards on the basis of ‘equivalence‘.

Judging from discussions I’ve had this month in London, this expectation of recognition of equivalence of standards remains the goal for post-Brexit relations.

I am going to suggest that granting of equivalence should be contingent on the UK and its dependencies committing to and implementing minimum standards on transparency and regulatory compliance, and these commitments are subject to regular – annual – review of their spillover impacts on EU and other third-party states in order to block the UK from engaging in tax wars and regulatory competition.

Before discussing this further, I want to raise my concerns about the UK government’s proposals for a Singapore-on-Thames.

Slide two

Senior government ministers have been signalling the ‘Singapore-on-Thames’ development strategy since January 2017, when Prime Minister May and her Chancellor Philip Hammond both flagged it up as a potential route.  Since then other senior ministers, including Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Home Secretary Sajid Javid, have signalled that this is the model they would pursue post-Brexit.

Slide three

Just to put this in context, Singapore has rapidly expanded its role as an offshore financial centre in the past decade, currently ranks number five on the Financial Secrecy Index, and has a secrecy score of 67.  That secrecy score reflects general weaknesses in Singapore’s corporate transparency regime and low level of commitment to tackling corporate tax dodging.

So this raises questions about what senior politicians in London mean when they talk about Singapore-on-the-Thames.  Mr Javid – a serious contender to replace Theresa May as leader of the Conservative Party, who has worked as a banker in Singapore – has spoken about using tax cuts and deregulation as part of a “shock and awe strategy” to transform the post-Brexit UK economy.

What the Singapore-on-the-Thames visionaries appear to have in mind can be summed up as:

• A commitment to sweeping tax cuts for corporations and mobile rich people – tax wars as a fiscal weapon;
• Tax measures such as accelerated capital allowances to attract mobile investments to UK;
• Comprehensive de-regulation, removal of social and environmental protections;
• Weak or non-existent compliance with international anti-money laundering measures;
• Retaining golden visa arrangements to provide residence rights of wealthy non-British citizens, increasing exposure to oligarchs and corrupt illicit financial flows.

As mentioned, you can read the entire text HERE. What these experts are presenting here should be of really serious concern to any normal British citizen. If, as many social commentators have said, that Brexit came about in part because neoliberal capitalism had created millions of ‘left-behinds’ what will a post-Brexit world look like when it is dominated not by an industrial regeneration and transformation programme to sell manufactured goods and services to the world, but merely a tax haven for the rich and powerful to contribute even less?

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As a long-time activist, I just bought a yellow vest made famous in France by the hundred thousands of the 99% who don them every Saturday. They are finally revolting after 40 years of grinding austerity imposed by successive governments largely benefitting the 1%. Thanks to social media, and the Internet, Yellow-Vests has spread to 25  countries also seething under years of austerity imposed on the suffering by the insufferable: Europe, Britain, and Poland, as well as Bulgaria, Serbia, Iraq, Tunisia, and Israel. 

It also shook the global 1%, the “world’s financial and political elites” at their annual conclave at Davos, Switzerland, according to AP observers who said their “economic outlook is darkening.” After all, threat by the Yellow Vests is a simultaneous bank run in France, perhaps the French banking industry’s—and the European Union’s—“worst nightmare,” as an RT analyst put it.

Another nightmare that could spread globally is a 70% marginal tax rate for incomes over $10 million suggested by new House member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). It’s caught fire with credible economists and 59% of U.S. voters so far, particularly with reminders the rate was 91% on $200,000 during the Eisenhower presidency (1953-61). In today’s dollars, that tax rate, say, in 1955 would affect incomes of only  $1.8 million, relatively comparable to more Davos’ attendees than $10 million.

Despite America’s corporate media’s near-blackout of Yellow Vest doings in France, millions of us around the globe have spent 11 Saturdays watching dozens of YouTubes of mostly peaceable amblings and camaraderie of Yellow Vests along the narrow streets and main squares of Paris and villages—all approved by 80% of a long-enraged and, now,  obdurate public.

The “Vests” have handed French president Macron a revealing list of 42 demands  to change how ordinary people, especially in the provinces, have to survive. The major demand is the Citizens Initiative Referendum (RIC), a mandated national vote on public issues, repealing laws, changing the constitution, each based on at least 700,000 signatures on petitions.

One of the most stirring events of RT News’ 24-hour coverage was 100,000 Yellow Vests, amid hundreds of French flags, singing “La Marseillaise” against the backdrop of the Arc de Triomphe. But a shock seen around the world for the once-popular, handsome young president were all the countrywide signs demanding he resign (“Macron Demission!”).

Considering that the Yellow-Vest movement has that kind of power, why not one on Saturdays in the U.S. initially to stop President Trump’s threat to overthrow the U.S. Constitution via the National Emergencies Act of 1976 by circumventing Congress’s Constitutional power of the nation’s purse. It has refused to give him $5.7 billion of taxpayer dollars to build a political replica of the “Berlin Wall” to shut off a few thousand Central Americans trying to emigrate. Even Congressional Republicans knew asylum seekers were not hordes of criminals, as Trump insists. From the 1.6 million crossing that southern border in the 1980s, the Customs/Border patrols  reported a drop to 43,000 last year. Most of this trickle  entered legally through border posts and were not criminals.

In short, Congress did not see the border situation rising to any possible level of a national emergency. Trump then retaliated with the longest federal shutdown in history by refusing to sign the national appropriations bill covering government operations and the paychecks of  800,000 civil servants—until Congress hands over those billions of taxpayer dollars to fund his wall.

In midst of Trump’s threats to destroy Congress either by the Emergencies Act or by taking as hostages 800,000 public servants and most government services, I couldn’t be the only American watching the Yellow Vest movement and suddenly realizing that the same public rising here could carry the same message (“Trump Resign!!”). All his actions clearly point to his intention to toss the U.S. Constitution—and America’s 243 year-old democracy. That is exactly where its precedent might well lead, given Trump’s lifelong admiration of dictators like Putin and Kim Jong-um and others. Or the fascist and horrifying military efficiency and pageantry in regimes of Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin. Too many in Congress seem too terrified to stand up to him on this issue.

Perhaps millions of Americans would don yellow vests if they learned for one thing that the Emergencies Act has 123 provisions destroying their freedoms. Most actions are without legal recourse. The most terrifying, listed in the current Atlantic, permit a president like Trump to:

• Ignore the U.S. Constitution.
• Bypass Congress and its laws.
• Freeze American bank accounts.
• Block emails from reaching destinations.
• Control/censor U.S. Internet traffic.
• Invoke emergency powers unrelated to emergencies.
• Use the armed services, National Guard to “suppress insurrections” (i.e., any group assembled to “petition the Government for a redress of grievances,” as guaranteed in the First Amendment )
• Invoke martial law indefinitely “until the laws can have their free course.”
• Blacklist suspected national “threats” individuals from jobs, housing rentals, healthcare services, buying food.
• Detain indefinitely those suspected of being of national “threats.”
• Order the Treasury to take action against any American offering “material support” to asylum seekers, undocumented immigrants inside the U.S.

A pair of alarmed reportorial experts on the Constitution, Patrick Martin and Andre Damon, instantly warned:

“Such an action would concentrate in his hands, and in those of his successors, a new mechanism for the exercise of unrestrained presidential power. In this fundamentally new political system, the vast resources that are regularly allocated by Congress to the military could be marshaled by the president to carry out actions not just internationally, but within the United States itself. If there is anything that constitutes “high crimes and misdemeanors,” justifying the immediate initiation of impeachment procedures, it is such a threat to override Congress.”

Author and activist Naomi Klein added that if Trump weren’t stopped, the cost to the nation would be “huge.”

“What further roll back of rights (e.g. curfews, ‘no protest zones’), not to mention intensified state violence and surveillance, become possible under the banner of ’emergency?’ What is to stop him from declaring emergencies again and again if this works?”

Beyond these staggering possibilities, Trump has increased real American domestic emergencies through deliberate neglect by severe budget cuts to programs and especially appointing incompetent cabinet members. And the nation is about to learn of other possible violations of presidential powers—high crimes and misdemeanors—that Special Council Robert Mueller’s investigation and forthcoming report will reveal.

So a subtle nationwide “Trump, Resign” message from millions of Yellow-Vested Americans every Saturday could well make his return to the heady billion-dollar life of a real estate tycoon and TV channel owner seem far more attractive than the least of his White House headaches. A Nixon-like abrupt and dramatic departure would save time, money, effort, and lifetime humiliation in a House impeachment and Senate ouster. Or suffering the betrayal of a majority of the cabinet, applying the 25^th Amendment, to notify Congress that he: “is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

Too, articles in progressive websites have begun asking why—given this situation and critical, unmet domestic necessities—American activists weren’t copycatting the Yellow Vest movement (“Will the U.S. Have Its Own Yellow-Vest Movement?” “Why hasn’t there been a “yellow vest” movement in the USA?”). After all, pundits asked, aren’t most Americans in the same situation as the French? The federal shutdown over Trump’s wall does pale compared to the vast, neglected, and critical real emergencies millions of Americans have been facing for years to pay for heavy tax cuts for the rich and set off unquestioned endless wars for raw resources and market monopolies abroad. 

Paying for America’s endless wars is chiefly responsible for austerity on the home front.

For instance, some 78% of full-time employees barely survive from paycheck to paycheck, fearing downsizings like GM’s 14,000 autoworkers this year may well happen to them. Or shuddering in empathy to the 800,000 federal staffers and their families in a calamitous budget shutdown. Among authors focused on those catastrophes is world hunger/environmental specialist Frances Moore Lappé:

“If the stress of making ends meet and economic inequality were the distinguishing causal forces, shouldn’t Americans have been the first to hit the streets? In France the top fifth of all earners receive almost five times more than the bottom fifth. Sounds extreme. But here that gap is eight-fold. Such contrasts in economic inequality carry with them real differences in the depth of human suffering. Consider that American babies die at a rate 80 percent higher than French babies; and disparities in death rates   between babies in poor and wealthy neighborhoods is more significant in Manhattan than in Paris. Moreover, our lives are on average three years shorter than those of the French. In education, American college grads are burdened with student-loan debt averaging almost $29,000, whereas in France the cost of higher education is negligible.”

Additional specifics came from long-time progressives Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers:

“Many of the problems the French people suffer are also felt in the United States. The US economy has been designed for the wealthy for decades and billionaire President Trump-era policies have made that reality worse. People never fully recovered from the 2008 economic collapse when millions lost houses and jobs, got lower income and higher debt. The globalized economy that has been designed for transnational corporations has not served the people in the United States well.  The fly-over states of the Midwest have been left hollowed out. Rural hospitals are closing as the economy disappears. In urban areas across the country, decades of neglect and lack of investment have created impoverished conditions. Racist and violent policing have been used to prevent rebellion and contain the unrest. People are struggling. Addiction and suicide rates are up. There is vast hopelessness and despair.”

These conditions, as well as Trump’s chaotic presidency, undoubtedly explain the greatest turnout (118,049,275) for midterm elections since 1914 (50.3% vs. 50.4%, respectively). Candidates who seemed to champion progressive change did well.

With the rumble starting for 2020 presidential candidates, millions of Americans who also believe we are in a domestic and foreign emergency could put on yellow vests every Saturday to force them to listen to us, not the special interests who control them.

But for once let’s not do it in street demonstrations or at town halls or house parties. Most Americans tend to avoid them because they involve time, energy, money—and fear of violence

Instead, why not just wear a yellow vest when going outside the home for the next successive Saturdays. If a sea of thousands of women in pink pussy hats all around the country could unnerve Trump, timid lawmakers, and shadowy Deep State rulers, think of the visual effect of a Yellow-Vest movement springing up in this country to stop the President’s efforts to undermine the U.S. Constitution and create a police state—to say nothing of ignoring the country’s well-being.

Think also of the impact on the nation’s “summer soldier and sunshine patriots” — and Trump’s base — when their neighbors, friends and even families go about their Saturdays in yellow vests. They would equal a thousand lawn signs declaring quietly, and firmly, the super-strong message that neither Trump nor any future president can destroy our governmental system.

 Think also of the other benefits of neighborhood Yellow Vests.

Such a “demonstration” would require no organization, but, rather, heavy promotion on Social Media, the Internet, and in stemwinder speeches (“Put on a yellow vest and follow us!”) by such Congressional newcomers,say, as Ocasio-Cortez and/or 2020 candidates for state, local, or federal offices.

Yellow-Vest Saturdays would cost neither time and energy, nor gas/bus fare. It would keep streets free of smashed store windows, overturned and burned-out cars and tear-gas residue. It would prevent police violence leading to deaths and major injuries tieing up hospital staffs and beds, and the ruinous expense of insurance claims.

Public expenditures would be significantly reduced for police outlays of rubber bullets, tear gas, tasers, Flash-Balls®, gas and water for water cannons—and budget-breaking overtime pay. The Establishment paymasters for Black Bloc/Antifa provocateurs would hesitate to let them start trouble at backyard barbecues or harass tenants lugging groceries to upstairs apartments.

Six months after the start of our Revolution against the British, Thomas Paine wrote that those were “the times that try men’s souls.” But so are these times when a president now or in future believes he can overthrow the U.S. Constitution and rule by whim or whimsy, backed up by police and the Pentagon.

Paine’s words in The American Crises, inspiring the colonists, still are the clarion call to stop Trump from using self-proclaimed, flimsy crises to please his base by employing the Emergencies Act. Or ignoring blatant domestic priorities. Paine gave us a rallying cry suited for dealing with him—or any future president with dictatorial ambitions:

“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

Barbara G. Ellis, Ph.D., is the principal of a Portland (OR) writing/pr firm. A veteran professional writer and editor (LIFE magazine, Washington, D.C. Evening Star, Beirut Daily Star, Mideast Magazine), Ellis also has been a long-time journalism professor (Oregon State University/Louisiana’s McNeese State University) and a nominee for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in history (The Moving Appeal). She is a contributor to such websites as Truthout, Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, and Global Research, as well as being a political and environmental activist.

Many American still long for the good old days when men were still manly and President George W. Bush was able to announce that there was a “new sheriff in town” pledged to wipe terrorism from the face of the earth. “You’re either with us or against us,” he growled and he backed up his warning of lethal retribution with an enemies list that he called the “axis of evil.”

The axis of evil identified in those days in the 2002 State of the Union Address consisted of Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Iraq, which had not yet been invaded and conquered by the American war machine, was number one on the list, with Saddam allegedly brandishing weapons of mass destruction deliverable by the feared transatlantic gliders that could easily strike the United States. Bush explained that “Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax and nerve gas and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens, leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections, then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.”

North Korea meanwhile was described as “A regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens” while Iran “aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people’s hope for freedom.”

The phrase “axis of evil” proved so enticing that Undersecretary of State John Bolton used it two months later in a speech entitled “Beyond the Axis of Evil.” He included three more countries – Cuba, Libya and Syria because they were “state sponsors of terrorism that are pursuing or who have the potential to pursue weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or have the capability to do so in violation of their treaty obligations.” The nice thing about an Axis of Evil List is that you can make up the criteria as you go along so you can always add more evildoers.

Iraq was removed from the playing field in March 2003 while Libya had to wait for President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to be dealt with, but North Korea, Cuba, Syria and Iran are still around. Nevertheless, the idea of an enemies list continues to intrigue policy makers since it would be impossible to maintain the crippling burden of the military industrial complex without a simple expression that would convey to the public that there were bad actors out there waiting to pounce but for the magnificent efforts being made by Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and Raytheon to defend freedom.

The Administration of President Donald Trump, not to be outdone by its predecessors, has recently come up with two enemies lists. The first one was coined by the irrepressible John Bolton, who is now National Security Adviser. He has come up with the “troika of tyranny” to describe Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, where he sees “…the dangers of poisonous ideologies without control, and the dangers of domination and suppression… I am here to convey a clear message from the President of the United States about our policy towards these three regimes. Under this administration, we will no longer appease the dictators and despots near our coasts in this hemisphere. The troika of tyranny in this hemisphere — Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua — has finally found its rival.”

Bolton also demonstrated that he has a light touch, adding

“These tyrants fancy themselves strongmen and revolutionaries, icons and luminaries. In reality, they are clownish, pitiful figures more akin to Larry, Curly, and Moe. The three stooges of socialism are true believers, but they worship a false God.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has apparently also been looking at Venezuela and not liking what he is seeing. On his recent road trip to the Middle East he told reporters that

“It is time to begin the orderly transition to a new government [in Caracas].”

He declared that

“The Maduro regime is illegitimate and the United States will work diligently to restore a real democracy to that country. We are very hopeful we can be a force for good to allow the region to come together to deliver that.”

“Force for good” is another key soundbite used by Pompeo. In his Cairo speech on January 10th, he described the United States as a “force for good” in the entire Middle East.

Bolton might have thought “troika of tyranny” was a hands down winner, but he was actually upstaged by the dour Vice President Mike Pence who declared to a gathering of US Ambassadors that

“Beyond our global competitors, the United States faces a ‘wolf pack of rogue states.’ No shared ideology or objective unites our competitors and adversaries except this one: They seek to overturn the international order that the United States has upheld for more than half a century.”

The states Pence identified were North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. Of the five, only North Korea can even plausibly be considered as a possible threat to the United States.

As wolves are actually very social animals the metaphor provided by Pence does not hold together very well. But Pence, Bolton and Pompeo are all talking about the same thing, which is the continued existence of some governments that are reluctant to fall in line with Washington’s demands. They have to be banished from polite discourse by declaring them “rogue” or “tyrannical” or “evil.” Other nations with far worse human rights records – to include Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Israel and Egypt – are given a pass as long as they stay aligned with the US on policy.

So useful “lists” are all about what Washington wants the world to believe about itself and its adversaries. Put competitors on a list and condemn them to eternal denigration whenever their names come up. And, as Pence observes, it is all done to prevent the overturning of the “international order.” However, his is a curious conceit as it is the United States and some of its allies, through their repeated and illegal interventions in foreign countries, that have established something like international disorder. Who is really doing what to whom is pretty much dependent on which side of the fence one is standing on.

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Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is 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 SCF

Whether the US is really willing to pull troops out of Afghanistan and Syria or not, it has triggered a huge wave of diplomatic and military provocations across the immediate region, the mess which the US might possibly want to happen as a consequence. It has to be admitted that the US gain nothing by withdrawal, so the announcement of troops’ pullout is pointless. The attack on US troops in Syria’s Manbij last week can be used as an excuse to reverse the US’s pullout decision.

The US saw China, Russia and Iran advancing to Afghanistan that prompted Washington to shake up its Afghanistan policy and renew its predominant role in the region to counter the trio rivals. The US allowed Pakistan, India, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and other allies to take up a stronger stance and role in Afghanistan. These countries seek to settle their disputes and feud within the boundaries of Afghanistan. Although, Russia, China and Iran seems unable to get themselves fully involved in Afghanistan in the face of US presence, they have renewed their efforts to cut the impact of US influence in Afghanistan and the region.

India invited Afghan national security advisor Hamdullah Mohib, the former president Hamid Karzai and US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad to resume a major role in Afghanistan amid the brouhaha of US forces’ withdrawal. India’s move is aimed at delivering a message of caution to Pakistan which is believed to carry a huge influence over Taliban’s talks with the US.

According to Indian Express, India blasted at Pakistan that it has no right to speak on behalf of Afghanistan. Indian foreign ministry spokesperson has said that Pakistan has no right to tell Afghanistan as an independent country on how to regulate its foreign policy or how regional states should play role in regional affairs. India also declined Pakistan’s allegations that it cannot play a role in Afghanistan.

It was the first instance of provocation of ties between arch enemies – India and Pakistan – as a result of US calculations. The US can retain its status and place in the international system only under the umbrella of diplomatic and military chaos in the world. Now, the situation in Afghanistan has been designed so carefully where Pakistan and India both spontaneously leans towards the US’s support and its presence for their own stake.

Amidst the US-led so called peace efforts with Taliban, Saudi Arabia came forward to host the “US-Taliban” talks, but on certain condition which has not been accepted by the US special envoy and Afghan government. Saudi Arabia’s intelligence chief had urged Afghan government to dissolve four major parties in Afghanistan to prevent them from taking part in the upcoming presidential election. These parties are on Saudi Arabia’s blacklist over ties with Iran, Turkey, Kazakhstan and other rivals of sorts. In diplomatic terms, Saudi Arabia stands hostile to Iran, Russia and Turkey and has adopted impulsive measures so far to counter its rivals in Afghanistan.

Saudi Arabia which takes pride in its revenues from Hajj pilgrimage, oil and gold think that every rash decision it take would be accepted by the world, especially the Muslim states. Afghanistan is different to other states where the reins of power are at the hand of the US and it never ever take up a stance regardless of the US gesture.

Saudi Arabia has pumped billions of dollars into Afghanistan’s war since the 1970s to Mujahideens during the Soviet invasion or the Taliban via Pakistan, and has used its “holy status” to indoctrinate Jihadists, Taliban and other militant groups, but it is still lagging far behind in diplomatic area and gets its demands refused by the US and Afghanistan.

Saudi Arabia has remained as one of the largest financiers of then-Taliban regime and the current Taliban rebellion.

Some sources in Qatar told BBC that all states involved in “efforts to end protracted Afghan war” are in pursuit of their own interests rather than the proclaimed agenda.

The European Union edges backward from the physical and political scene in Afghanistan and this is not out of any weakness, but owing to lack of EU’s confidence on Afghanistan’s government that only toe the US line and carry no steady and sustainable foreign policy.

If the EU find a flaw or loophole in the US policies in Afghanistan and discover a powerful leader or group distaste to the US’s trajectory, it would, of course, step forward with new countering agenda and ambitions in mind. The EU sounds unaligned with US in many world issues like sanctioning of Iran that it challenges by proceeding some deals with the Islamic Regime despite heavy sanctions.

Not just the EU, there is Iran, China and Russia whose inactions or failed attempts to make inroads in Afghanistan have contributed to the expansion of US influence in Afghanistan. Some powerful EU states, Russia, China, Turkey and Iran and partly India which, in a sense, stands opposite to the US’s imperial agenda, have no ability o push for taking up some steering role in Afghanistan. If they come together, some if not all of them, it could truly pose a challenge to the US’s foothold.

Now is the high-time for rival states to grab the opportunity to form a concrete opposition to US in Afghanistan as the presidential election is scheduled for July this year and blocs are taking shape against each other. All the presidential candidates have either paid service to the US in the past or they sound stubbornly loyal to the US, so the election result is absolutely in favor of the US.

The Taliban always refuse to prepare for talks with the government of Afghanistan, professedly under the pretext that the Afghan government is a puppet regime installed by the US, bears zero legitimacy as well as for inking Bilateral Security Agreement with the US in 2014. But, what remains the fact which media won’t tell is that the US fears that if rivals like Russia, Iran or China infiltrate into the power base or in other terms the presidential system of Afghanistan, any new government could imperil the long-term US strategic agenda for Afghanistan with a view to promoting Russian or Chinese agenda. Therefore, the US doesn’t authorize the government in Kabul to speak with Taliban, and there is no cover for this circumstance unless Taliban itself reject negotiation with Kabul.

Afghanistan’s government under Ashraf Ghani insists on chance to speak directly with the Taliban which is all but symbolic. The government heavily depends upon foreign aids including the US and EU also referred to as “the International Community”.

Several conferences have been held so far on Afghanistan in Brussels, Geneva, Bonn, Tokyo, Istanbul, Vienna and other venues only to beg to world countries for funds. In such platforms, each Afghan government has to rattle off a litany of successes it has achieved over a period of time to convince the donors for continued aid. To this end, Afghan government makes dramatic pleas from “Taliban leadership” to sit in one table with Afghan govt. to show the international community it seeks “peace”.

On the heyday of talks with Taliban, Iran grabbed the opportunity to show up as an influential power in the region and announced in late December that Tehran has engaged in negotiations with members of the Taliban. Iran is third in line to regional countries – Russia and China – that speak of negotiations with the Taliban.

It is no secret that the Taliban have no independent leadership and they will never poise to talk with Iran, Russia or China in the presence of US. It means that the regional powers have formed their own brand of Taliban only to challenge the US’s expansionist policies. Iran, in particular, sees the Afghan-US Bilateral Security Agreement as a menace and, for now, Talibanization is deemed as the sole weighty option that can protect or at least fend off any enemy encroachment through its border.

Iran, Russia, China, Turkey, Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia have joined hands with Pakistan to negotiate with the Taliban and brush the Afghan government off the table, because none believe that it genuinely represents Afghanistan.

The Taliban militants have repeatedly acknowledged that they receive funds from Saudi Arabia, UAE and Pakistan – the only states which recognized the savage regime of the Taliban in 1996.

By drawing Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar into the war, the US has unburdened itself of the brunt of huge cash and costs of arms that have been poured into the hotspots of battlegrounds.

In Raisina Dialogue this year in India, former Afghan president Hamid Karzai said that it is not possible that the US will withdraw from Afghanistan. He asserted:

“The US troops will not leave Afghanistan and the US negotiation with Taliban is only about the US stations in Afghanistan and its delivery to the Taliban. They haven’t come to leave”.

He went on to say:

“Read Robert Killen’s book that say ‘Afghanistan has vital strategic importance because all of its neighbors are superpowers’”.

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