Global Research

It is significant that US President Donald Trump has decided to withdraw his troops from Syria. The 14^th December decision was followed immediately by another announcement by the President to pull out a sizable number of soldiers from Afghanistan where the US has been involved in a war for the last 17 years — the longest war in its history.

Both the decisions, especially the one on Syria, have been condemned by a lot of US Senators and Members of the House of Representatives. They feel that the decisions undermine the US’s role as a global power. US allies such as Britain and France have also criticised the pull-outs. By getting out of Syria in particular, the US has made it easier for certain powers from within and without the region to exert even more influence over the politics of that country and that of its neighbours to the detriment of the West. Most of the international media argue that US success in fighting the terrorists in Syria which Trump cited as the reason for the withdrawal will be rendered meaningless in no time since terrorist cells are still alive and capable of striking at civilians. In the case of Afghanistan, the US cut-back, the media contends, will expedite the Taliban’s goal of gaining total control over the country.

Conventional wisdom suggests that whether or not the US is around the Taliban will emerge victorious sooner than later. If anything, the US military presence — a foreign power on Afghan soil — has enhanced the Taliban’s reputation as a resistance force among the ordinary people. The eventual total withdrawal of the 16,000 US soldiers will allow the Afghan people themselves to determine their future which will be influenced to some extent at least by Afghanistan’s important neighbours, Pakistan, Iran, China, India and Russia.

If we now turn to the situation in Syria, we would realise that the US role in combating terrorism was limited. The Syrian Army, with the backing of the Lebanese Hezbollah, Iranian militias and the Russian military were primarily responsible for the defeat of the multitude of terrorist outfits in the country between 2012 and 2017. Indeed, there is more than enough evidence to show that some of the more prominent terrorist outfits were in different times and in different circumstances aided and abetted by institutions and organisations associated with the US, Britain and France and countries in the region such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. They provided financial assistance, military training and critical intelligence, apart from establishing regional and global networks to buttress the activities of the terrorists.

Viewed against this backdrop, the end of the US military operation in Syria may well accelerate efforts within the country to bring about much needed constitutional and political reforms which Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had tried to initiate in 2001. In formulating these reforms, he will have to work closely with his allies, Iran and Russia. But at the end of the day it is the Syrian people themselves who will determine the destiny of their historically and culturally rich nation.

Suppressing the independence and sovereignty of the Syrian nation — and not combatting terrorism – was the real reason behind the active intervention and involvement of numerous actors from within and without the region in the 7 year Syrian conflict. Simply put, the aim was to oust Bashar, the protector of Syrian sovereignty, to achieve regime change in pursuit of the US-Israeli agenda of perpetuating their hegemony. Trump realised even before he became President that he would not be able to achieve this. Hence, his troop withdrawal.

This should not give us the impression that Trump is in any way opposed to US-Israeli hegemony. His staunchly pro-Israel policy; his intimate relationship with the Saudi elite; his military support for the Saudi-led war on the people of Yemen; his aggressive stance against Venezuela and his lukewarm attitude towards Cuba; his perpetuation of sanctions against Russia stemming from US policy on Crimea and the Ukraine; and his trade war against China aimed at curbing its economic dynamism all seem to indicate that he believes in flexing US power on the global stage. Besides, under Trump US military expenditure has remained high at 610 billion dollars in 2017.

What are the real reasons then that persuaded Trump to act the way he did on Syria and Afghanistan?  In both countries the prospect of imminent defeat was a factor that influenced Trump’s decision. More than that was the financial cost of war in the two countries. It is estimated that the Syrian war would cost the US 15.3 billion dollars in 2019. The figures are even more staggering for Afghanistan. With 16,000 troops in the country, the war costs the US taxpayer 45 billion dollars a year. Between 2010 and 2012 when the US had 100,000 troops on the ground, the Afghan war cost a 100 billion a year.

Will some future analyst conclude that in withdrawing US troops from Syria and Afghanistan, Donald Trump acted on his well-honed business instincts?

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Dr. Chandra Muzaffar is the President of the International Movement for a Just  World (JUST). He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

The military-industrial complex revolving door keeps revolving. Sunday morning, President Donald Trump announced in a Twitter post that he plans to replace outgoing Secretary of Defense James Mattis, temporarily at least, with current Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick M. Shanahan. Shanahan will assume the job on January 1 — two months before the departure date Mattis had proposed. Before taking on their current government jobs, Mattis and Shanahan worked for two of the largest military contractors — Mattis as a General Dynamics board of directors member and Shanahan as a Boeing senior vice president.

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What was the reaction to the warning by Russian President Putin when he said that the world underestimates the peril of nuclear war, and that this tendency is increasing?

The commentary in the La Republica is significant, speaking of his “highly alarming tone”. The almost absolute silence of the whole Parliamentarian arc is also eloquent. As if Italy had nothing to do with the race to stock up nuclear weapons which, warned Putin in his end-of-year Press conference, could lead to the “destruction of all civilisation or even the whole planet”. The scenario is not alarmist, but a realistic assessment by scientists who study the effects of nuclear weapons.

A specific danger – emphasises Putin – is the “tendency to lower the bar for the use of nuclear weapons, by creating tactical low-impact nuclear charges which may lead to a world-wide nuclear disaster”. This is the category including the new B61-12 nuclear bombs which the USA will begin to deploy in Italy, Germany, Belgium, Holland, and perhaps in other European countries, during the first half of the year 2020.

“High precision and the possibility of using less destructive warheads”  – warns the Federation of American Scientists – “may lead military commanders to insist on the use of nuclear  bombs in an attack, knowing that radioactive fallout and collateral damage would be limited”.

Italy shares the responsibility for the growing danger of nuclear war, since, in  violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and not being a signatory of the UNO Treaty forbidding nuclear weapons, it is providing the United States with a primarily anti-Russian capacity, not only with its bases, but also aircraft and pilots for the deployment of nuclear bombs. This comes with the explicit or implicit consent (by renouncing real opposition) of the entire arc of Parliament.

The other danger – warns Putin – is the “disintegration of the international system for arms control”, initiated by the retreat of the United States from the ABM Treaty (Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty) in 2002. Created in 1972 by the USA and the USSR, it forbade each of the two parties to deploy interceptor missiles which, by neutralising reprisals by countries under attack, would have favoured a « first strike », in other words a surprise nuclear attack. Since then, the United States have developed the “anti-missile shield”, stretching from Europe to the borders of Russia – two ground installations in Romania and Poland, and four warships cruising the Baltic and the Black Sea.  Equipped with launch tubes, these ships are able to launch interceptor missiles and also cruise missiles with nuclear warheads.

Italy shares the responsibility in this case also – the installation of the JTAGS (Joint Tactical Ground Station) at Sigonella (Sicily). This a US satellite station for the “anti-missile shield”, one of five on the planet. The situation is made worse by the fact that the USA now want to retire from the 1987 INF Treaty (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty) – which eliminated the US nuclear missiles based in Comiso – in order to be able to deploy in Europe anti-Russian ground-based intermediate-range nuclear missiles. The Italian government is also implicated, since it endorsed this plan at the North Atlantic Council of 4 December, and is without a doubt favourable to the installation of these missiles in Italy.

“If these missiles arrive in Europe, the West should not be astonished if we react” said Putin.

A warning which was ignored by Conte, Di Maio and  Salvini (1) who continue to beat the drum for the anti-migrant “Security Decree”. But when US nuclear bombs and missiles arrive and put the real security of Italy in danger, they see nothing, hear nothing and say nothing.

Source: PandoraTV

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This article was originally published in Italian on Il Manifesto.

Translated by Pete Kimberley

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

Note

(1) – President and vice-presidents of the current Italian government.

On December 19, Donald Trump announced in a Twitter message: “Our boys, our young women, our men, they’re all coming back and they’re coming back now. We won”. Shortly thereafter, Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said in a statement: “We have started the process of returning US troops home from Syria as we transition to the next phase of the campaign”.

The reasons for Donald Trump’s move are many, but they are mainly driven by US domestic concerns. The temperature is heating up for Trump following the midterms, as the Democrats prepare to take command of the House of Representatives in January, something that Trump had always hoped to avert. He surrounded himself with generals, in the forlorn hope that this would somehow protect him. If the last two years of his presidency were constantly under the cloud of Mueller’s investigation, or insinuations of being an agent of Putin, from January 2019 the situation is going to get much more complicated. The Democratic electoral base is baying for the President’s impeachment, the party already in full pre-primary mode, with more than 20 candidates competing, with the incumbent of the White House offering the rallying cry.

The combination of these factors has forced Trump to change gears, considering that the military -industrial -intelligence -media- complex has always been ready to get rid of Trump, even in favor of a President Pence. The only option available for Trump in order to have a chance of reelection in 2020 is to undertake a self-promotion tour, a practice in which he has few peers, and which will involve him repeating his mantra of “Promises Made, Promises Kept”. He will list how he has fought against the fake-news media, suffered internal sabotage, as well as other efforts (from the Fed, the FBI, and Mueller himself) to hamper his efforts to “Make America Great Again”.

Trump has perhaps understood that in order to be re-elected, he must pursue a simple media strategy that will have a direct impact on his base. Withdrawing US troops from Syria, and partly from Afghanistan, serves this purpose. It is an easy way to win with his constituents, while it is a heavy blow to his fiercest critics in Washington who are against this decision. Given that 70% of Americans think that the war in Afghanistan was a mistake, the more that the mainstream media attacks Trump for his decision to withdraw, the more they direct votes to Trump. In this sense, Trump’s move seems to be directed at a domestic rather than an international audience.

The decision to get out of Syria is timed to coincide with another move that will also very much please Trump’s base. The government shutdown is a result of the Democrats refusing to fund Trump’s campaign promise to build a wall on the Mexican border. It is not difficult to understand that the average citizen is fed up with the useless wars in the Middle East, and Trump’s words on immigration resonate with his voters. The more the media, the Democrats and the deep state criticize Trump on the wall, on the Syria pull out and on shutting down the government, the more they are campaigning for him.

This is why in order to understand the withdrawal of the United States from Syria it is necessary to see things from Trump’s perspective, even as frustrating, confusing and incomprehensible that may seem at times.

The difference this time around was that the decision to withdraw US troops from Syria was Trump’s alone, not something imposed on him by the generals that surround him. The choice to announce to his base, via Twitter, a victory against ISIS and the immediate withdrawal of US troops was a smart election move with an eye on the 2020 election.

It is possible that Trump, as is his wont, also wanted to send a message to his alleged French and British allies present in the northeast of Syria alongside the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and US soldiers. Trump may be now taunting: “Let’s see what you can do without the US!”

It is as if Trump is admonishing these countries in a more concrete way for not lifting their weight in terms of military spending. Trump is vindictive and is not averse, after taking advantage of his opponent, to kicking him once he is down. Trump could be correct in this regard, and maybe French and British forces will be forced to withdraw their small group of 400 to 500 illegal occupiers of Syrian territory. Macron has for now reacted angrily at Trump’s decision, intensifying the division between the two, and is adamant that the French military presence in Syria will continue.

There is also a more refined reason to justify the US withdrawal, even if Trump is probably unaware of it. The problem in these cases is always trying to peer through the fog of war and propaganda in order to discern the clear, unadulterated truth.

We should begin by listing the winners and losers of the Syrian conflict. Damascus, Moscow, Tehran and Hezbollah have won the war against aggression. Riyadh, Doha, Paris, London, Tel Aviv and Washington, with their al Qaeda, Daesh and Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist proxies, failed to destroy Syria, and following seven years of effort, are forced to scurry away in defeat.

Those who are walking a tightrope between war and defeat are Ankara and the so-called SDF. The withdrawal of the United States has confirmed the balance on the ledger of winners and losers, with the clock counting down for Erdogan and the SDF to make their next determinative move.

The enemies of Syria survive thanks to repeated bluffs. The Americans of the military-industrial-intelligence apparatus maintain the pretence that they still have an influence in Syria, what with troops on the ground, attacking Trump for withdrawing. In fact, since the Russians have imposed a no-fly-zone across the country, with the S-300 systems and other sophisticated equipment that integrate the Syrian air-defenses into the Russian air defenses, US coalition planes are for all intents and purposes grounded, and the same goes for the Israelis.

Of course the French and British in Syria are infected with the same delusional disease, choosing to believe that they can count for something without the US presence. We will see in the near future whether they also withdraw their illegal presence from Syria.

The biggest bluff of all probably comes from Erdogan, who for months threatened to invade Syria to fight ISIS, the Kurds, or any other plausible excuse to invade a sovereign country for the purposes of advancing his dreams of expanding Turkish territory as far as Idlib (which Erdogan considers a province of Turkey). Such an invasion, however, is unlikely to happen, as it would unite the SDF, Damascus and her allies to reject the Turkish advance on Syrian territory.

The Kurds in turn seem to have only one option left, namely, a forced negotiation with Damascus to give back to the Syrian people, in exchange for protection, the control of their territory that is rich in oil and gas.

Erdogan wants to eliminate the SDF, and until now, the only thing that stood in his way was the US military presence. He even threatened to attack several times, even in spite of the presence of US troops. Ankara has long been on a collision course with NATO countries on account of this. By removing US troops, Trump imagines, relations between Turkey and the US may also improve. This of course is of little interest to the US deep state, since Erdogan, like Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), is considered unsuitable, and is accordingly branded a “dictator”.

Trump probably believes that with this move, as with his defense of MBS concerning Khashoggi, that he can try and establish a strong personal friendship with Erdogan. There are even talks about the sale of Patriot systems to the Turks and the extradition of Gulen.

When Will They Leave, and Cui Prodest?

It remains to be confirmed when and to what extent US troops will leave Syria. If the US had no voice in the future in Syria, with 2,000 men on the ground, now it has even less. Leaving behind 200 to 300 special forces and CIA operatives, together with another 400 to 500 French and British personnel, will, once they are captured with their Daesh and al Qaeda friends, be an excellent bargaining chip for Damascus, as they were in Aleppo.

The military-industrial-intelligence-media complex considers Trump’s decision the worst of of all possible moves. Mattis even resigned on account of this. The presence of US troops in Syria allowed the foreign-policy establishment to continue to formulate plans (and spend money to pay a lot of people in Washington) based on the delusion that they are doing something in Syria to change the course of events. For Israel, it is a double disaster, with Netanyahu desperate to survive, seeking to factor in expected elections in a now-or-never political move. Trump probably understands that Bibi is done for, and that at this point, the withdrawal of troops, fulfilling a fundamental electoral promise, counts more than Israeli money and his friendship to Bibi.

Erdogan has two options before him. On the one hand, he can act against the Kurds. On the other hand, he can sit down at the negotiating table with Damascus and the SDF, in an Astana format, guided by Iran and Russia. Putin and Rouhani are certainly pushing for this solution. Trump, on the other hand, would like to see Turkey enter Syria in the place of US forces, to demonstrate he concluded a win-win deal for everyone, beating the deep-state at their own game.

Erdogan does not really have the military force necessary to enter Syria, which is the big secret. He would be against both the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and the SDF, though the two not necessarily in an alliance.

There is a triple bluff going on, and this is what is complicating the situation so much. On the one hand, the SDF is bluffing in not wanting help from Damascus in case Erdogan sends in his forces; on the other hand, Erdogan is bluffing in suggesting he is able to conquer the territory held by the SDF; and finally, the French and British are bluffing by telling the SDF they will be able to help them against both Erdogan and/or Assad.

Iran, Russia, Syria are the only ones who do not need to bluff, because they occupy the best position – the commanding heights. They view Trump’s decisions and his allies with distrust. They know very well that these are mostly moves for internal consumption by the enemies of Syria.

If the US withdraws, there is so much to be gained. The priority then becomes the west of Syria, sealing the borders with Jordan, removing the pockets of terrorists from the east, and securing the al-Tanf crossing. If the SDF will request protection from Damascus and will be willing to participate in the liberation of the country and its reconstruction, Erdogan will be done for, and this could lead to the total liberation of Idlib. It would be the best possible outcome, an important national reconciliation between two important parts of the population. It would give Damascus new economic impetus and prepare the Syrian people to expel the remaining invaders (ISIS and the FSA/ Turkish Armed Forces) from the country, both in Idlib and in the northeast in Afrin.

Russia is aware of the risk that Erdogan is running with the choices he will take in the coming days. Perhaps the reason why Putin chose diplomacy over war with Turkey after the downing of a Russian Su-24 in 2015 was in order to arrive at this precise moment, with as many elements as possible present to convince Erdogan to stick with Russia and Iran instead of embracing Trump’s strategy and putting himself on an open collision course with Damascus, Moscow and Tehran.

Putin has always been five moves ahead. He is aware that the US could not stay long in Syria. He knows that France and the UK cannot support the SDF, and that the SDF cannot hold territory it holds in Syria without an agreement with Damascus. He is also conscious that Turkey does not have the strength to enter Syria and hold the territory if it did. It would only be able justify an advance on Idlib with the support of the Russian Air Force.

Putin has certainly made it clear to Erdogan that if he made such a move to attack the SDF and enter Syria, Russia in turn would militarily support the SAA with its air force to free Idlib; and in case of incidents with Turkey, the Russian armed forces would respond with all the interest earned from the unrequited downing of the Su-24 in 2015.

Erdogan has no choice. He must find an agreement with Damascus, and this is why he found himself commenting on Trump’s words the following day, criticizing US sanctions on Iran in the presence of Iranian president Rouhani. The SDF know that they are between a rock and a hard place, and have already sent a delegation to start negotiations with Damascus.

Trump’s move was driven by US domestic politics and aimed at the 2020 elections. But in doing so, Trump inevitably called out once and for all the bluffs built by Syria’s enemies, infuriating in the process the neoliberal imperialist establishment, revealing how each of these factions has no more cards to play and is in actual fact destined for defeat.

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Federico Pieraccini is an independent freelance writer specialized in international affairs, conflicts, politics and strategies. 

Featured image is from SCF

President Donald Trump’s order to withdraw from Syria has been greeted, predictably, with an avalanche of condemnation culminating in last Thursday’s resignation by Defense Secretary James Mattis. The Mattis resignation letter focused on the betrayal of allies, though it was inevitably light on details, suggesting that the Marine Corps General was having some difficulty in discerning that American interests might be somewhat different than those of feckless and faux allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia that are adept at manipulating the levers of power in Washington and in the media. Mattis clearly appreciates that having allies is a force multiplier in wartime but fails to understand that it is a liability otherwise as the allies create an obligation to go to war on their behalf rather than in response to any actual national interest.

The media was quick to line up behind Mattis. On Friday, The New York Times featured a lead editorial entitled “Jim Mattis was right” while neocon twitter accounts blazed with indignation. Prominent chickenhawk mouthpieces David Frum and Bill Kristol, among many others, tweeted that the end is nigh.

During the day preceding Mattis’s dramatic announcement, the press went to war against the Administration over Syria and also regarding other reports that there would be troop reductions in Afghanistan. The following headline actually appeared on a Reuters online article the day after the announcement by the president: “In Syria retreat, Trump rebuffs top advisers and blindsides U.S. commanders.” It would be difficult to imagine stuffing more bullshit into one relatively short sentence. “Retreat,” “rebuffs” and “blindsides” are not words that are intended to convey any sort of even-handed assessment of what is occurring in U.S. policy towards the Middle East. They are instead meant to imply that “Hey, that moron in the White House has screwed up again!”

Consider for a moment the agenda that Reuters is apparently pushing. It is supporting an illegal and unconstitutional invasion of Syria by the United States that has a stated primary objective of removing a terrorist organization which is already mostly gone and a less frequently acknowledged goal of regime change for the legitimate government in Damascus and the expulsion of that government’s principal allies. Reuters is asserting that staying in Syria would be a good thing for the United States and also for its “allies” in the region even though there is no way to “win” and no exit strategy.

Reuters is presumably basing its assessment on the collective judgments of a group of “top advisers” who are warmongers that the rest of the world as well as many Americans consider to be psychopaths or possibly even insane. And then there are the preferences of the “blindsided” generals, like Mattis, who have a personal interest in career terms for maintaining a constant state of warfare. If you want to really know how what the military thinks about an ongoing war ask a sergeant or a private, never a general. They will tell you that they are sick of endless deployments that accomplish nothing.

The New York Times lead story headline on Thursday also let you know that its Editors were not please by Trump’s move. It read “U.S. ExitSeen as a Betrayal of the Kurds, and a Boon for ISIS.” They also editorialized “Trump’s Decision to Withdraw From Syria Is Alarming. Just Ask His Advisers.”

The Washington Post was not far behind. It immediately ran an op-ed by the redoubtable neocon chickenhawk Max Boot, whom Caitlin Johnstone has dubbed The Man Who Has Been Wrong About Everything. The piece was entitled Trump’s surprise Syria pullout is a giant Christmas gift to our enemies making a twofer with an incredible “Fuck the EU” Victoria Nuland’s piece entitled “In a single tweet Trump destroys U.S. policy in the Middle East,” which appeared simultaneously. That anyone would regard Boot and Nuland as objective authorities on the Middle East given their ultimate and prevailing loyalty to Israel has to be wondered at, but then again Fred Hiatt is the editorial/opinion page editor and he is of the same persuasion, both ethnically and philosophically. They are all, of course, devoted Zionists and the big lie about what is going on in the region is apparently always worth repeating. As Joseph Goebbels put it in 1941 “…when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it…even at the risk of looking ridiculous.”

Comments relating to the articles, op-eds and editorials in the Post and Times bordered on the hysterical, sometimes suggesting that readers actually believe that Trump was following orders from Russian President Vladimir Putin. And what was stirring at Reuters, The Times, and the Post was only the tip of the iceberg. The mainstream television news providers united in condemning the audacity of a president who might actually try to end a war while the only favorable commentary on Trump’s having taken a step that is long overdue came from the alternative media.

One might profitably recall how Trump has only been praised as “presidential” by the Establishment twice – when he staged cruise missile attacks on Syria based on faulty intelligence. The Deep State wants blood, make no mistake about it and it is not interested in “retreat.” And Trump will also get almost no support from Congress, with only longtime critics of Syrian policy Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee as well as Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard praising the move initially.

The arguments being made to criticize the Trump initiative were essentially cookie cutter neocon soundbites. The Reuters piece in its first few lines of text asserts that the reversal of policy “stunned lawmakers and allies with his order for U.S. troops to leave Syria, a decision that upends American policy in the Middle East. The result, said current and former officials and people briefed on the decision, will empower Russia and Iran and leave unfinished the goal of erasing the risk that Islamic State, or ISIS, which has lost all but a sliver territory, could rebuild.” The article goes on to quote an anonymous Pentagon source who opined that “… Trump’s decision was widely seen in the Pentagon as benefiting Russia as well as Iran, both of which have used their support for the Syrian government to bolster their regional influence. Iran also has improved its ability to ship arms to Lebanese Hezbollah for use against Israel. Asked who gained from the withdrawal, the defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, replied: ‘Geopolitically Russia, regionally Iran.’”

Another so-called expert Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute was also cited in the article, saying

“It completely takes apart America’s broader strategy in Syria, but perhaps more importantly, the centerpiece of the Trump administration policy, which is containing Iran.”

Israel is also turning up the heat on Trump, claiming that the move will make it more insecure. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to increase air attacks on Iranian targets in Syria as an added security measure to make up for the American betrayal. Normally liberal American Jews have joined the hue and cry against Trump on behalf of Israel. Filmmaker Rob Reiner tweeted on Thursday that the president is a “childish moronic mentally unstable malignant narcissist” who is “committing Treason” against the United States.

The real story, lost in the wailing and gnashing to teeth, is that even after conceding that Donald Trump’s hyperbolic claim that the United States had defeated ISIS as the motive for the withdrawal is nonsense, there is still no good reason for Washington to continue to keep troops in Syria. The U.S. in reality did far less in the war against the terrorist groups infesting the region than did the Russians, Iranians or the Syrians themselves and, as a result, it will have less say in what kind of Syria emerges from the carnage. That is almost certainly a good thing for the Syrian people.

But let’s assume for sake of argument that the U.S. invasion really was about ISIS. Well, ISIS continues to hold on to a small bit of territory near the Euphrates River and is reported to have between one and two thousand remaining fighters. There are other estimates suggesting that between 10,000 and 20,000 followers have dispersed and gone underground awaiting a possible resurgence by the group. The argument that ISIS will reorganize and re-emerge as a result of the American withdrawal assumes that it is the 2,000 strong U.S. armed forces that are keeping it down, which is ridiculous. The best remedy against an ISIS recovery is to support a restored and re-unified Syria, which will have more than enough resources available to eliminate the last bits of the terrorist groups remaining in its territory.

So we go to fallback argument B, which is “containing Iran.” “Containment” was a U.S. policy devised by George Kennan in 1947 to inhibit the expansion of a powerful and sometimes aggressive soon-to-be nuclear armed Soviet Union, which was rightly seen as a serious threat. Iran is a second world country with a small military and economy with no nuclear arsenal and it neither threatens the United States nor any of its neighbors. But Israel supported by Saudi Arabia does not like Iran and has induced Washington to follow its lead. Withdrawing from Syria recognizes that Iran is no threat in reality. Positioning American military forces to “counter” Iran does not reduce the threat against the United States because there was no threat there to begin with.

And then there is the argument that the U.S. departure empowers Iran and Russia. Staying in Syria is, on the contrary, a drain on both those countries’ limited resources. The more money and manpower they have to commit to Syria the less they have to become engaged elsewhere and it is hard to imagine how either country would exploit the “victory” in Syria to leverage their involvement in other parts of the world. Both would be delighted if a final settlement of the Syrian problem could be arrived at so they can get out.

And as for the United States, the military should only be deployed anywhere to defend the U.S. itself or vital interests. There is nothing like that at stake in Syria. So, is American national security better or worse if the U.S. leaves? As Russian and American soldiers only confront each other directly in Syria, U.S. national security would in fact be greatly improved because the danger of igniting an accidental war with Russia would be dramatically reduced. There have reportedly already been a dozen incidents between U.S. and Russian troops, including some involving shooting. That has been a dozen too many. Even the possibility of starting an unintended war with Iran would potentially be disastrous for the United States as well as for everyone else in the region, so it is far better to put some distance between the two sides.

And finally, it is necessary to go to the argument for disengagement from Syria that is too little heard in the western media or from the usual bonehead politicians named Graham and Rubio who pronounce on foreign policy. How has American intervention in the Middle East and south and central Asia benefited the people in the countries that have been invaded or bombed? Not at all. By some estimates four million Muslims have been killed as a consequence of the wars since 2001 and millions more displaced. More than eight thousand U.S. military have died in the process in wars that had no purpose and no exit strategy. And the wars have been expensive – $6 trillion and counting, much of it borrowed. War without end means killing without end and it has to stop.

Withdrawing from Syria is the right thing to do, though one has to be concerned that there might be some secret side deals with Israel or Turkey that could actually result in more attacks on Syria and on the Kurds. Donald Trump is already under extreme pressure coming from all directions to reverse his decision to leave Syria and it is quite possible that he will either fold completely or bend at least a bit. It is to be hoped that he will not do so as a Christmas present to the American people. And he might want to think of a Christmas present for 2019. One might suggest a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

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

Featured image is from The Unz Review

As our nation debates the merits of President Trump’s call for withdrawing US troops from Syria and Afghanistan, absent from the debate is the more pernicious aspect of US military involvement overseas: its air wars. Trump’s announcement and General Mattis’ resignation should unleash a national discussion about US involvement in overseas conflicts, but no evaluation can be meaningful without a clear understanding of the violence that U.S air wars have unleashed on the rest of the world for the past 17 years.

By our calculations, in this “war on terror,” the U.S. and its allies have dropped a staggering 291,880 bombs and missiles on other countries—and that is just a minimum number of confirmed strikes.

As we contemplate that overwhelming number, let’s keep in mind that these strikes represent lives snuffed out, people maimed for life, families torn apart, homes and infrastructure demolished, taxpayer money squandered and resentment that only engenders more violence.

After the horrific crimes of September 11th, 2001, Congress was quick to pass a sweeping Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). While three presidents have claimed that the 2001 AUMF legally justifies these endless wars as a response to the crimes of 9/11, no serious reading of the Authorization could interpret it that way.  What it actually says is:

“That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”

As former Nuremberg prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz told NPR a week after 9/11,

“It is never a legitimate response to punish people who are not responsible for the wrong done… We must make a distinction between punishing the guilty and punishing others. If you simply retaliate en masse by bombing Afghanistan, let us say, or the Taliban, you will kill many people who don’t believe in what has happened, who don’t approve of what has happened.”

And yet here we are, 17 years later, mired in wars in which we are bombing ever more “nations, organizations (and) persons” who had absolutely nothing to do with the crimes committed on September 11th.  We don’t have a single real or lasting success we can point to in 17 years of war in 7 countries and “counter-insurgency” operations in a dozen more.  Every country the U.S. has attacked or invaded remains trapped in intractable violence and chaos.

Please look at this chart, and take a few moments to reflect on the mass destruction it represents:

Numbers of bombs and missiles dropped on other countries by the U.S. & its allies since 2001

These figures are an absolute minimum of confirmed strikes, based on U.S. Airpower Summaries for Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria; the Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s count of confirmed drone strikes in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen; the Yemen Data Project‘s count of Saudi-led airstrikes on Yemen; and other published statistics.  Figures for 2018 are through October for Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan; through November for Yemen; and incomplete for other countries.

There are several categories of airstrikes that are not included on this chart, so the real total is certainly much higher. These are:

• Helicopter strikes: Military Times published an article in February 2017 titled, “The U.S. military’s stats on deadly airstrikes are wrong. Thousands have gone unreported.”  The largest pool of airstrikes not included in U.S. Airpower Summaries are strikes by attack helicopters.  The U.S. Army told the authors its helicopters had conducted 456 otherwise unreported airstrikes in Afghanistan in 2016.  The authors explained that the non-reporting of helicopter strikes runs throughout the post-9/11 wars, and they still did not know how many actual missiles were used in those 456 attacks in Afghanistan in 2016.
• AC-130 gunships: The airstrike that destroyed the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan in 2015 was not conducted with bombs or missiles, but by a Lockheed-Boeing AC-130 gunship.  These machines of mass destruction, usually flown by US Air Force special operations forces, are designed to circle a target on the ground, pouring howitzer shells and cannon fire into it, often until it is completely destroyed.  The U.S. has used AC-130sin Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia and Syria.
• Strafing runs:  U.S. airpower summaries for 2004-2007 include a note that their tally of “strikes with munitions dropped… does not include 20mm and 30mm cannon or rockets.” But the 30mm cannons on A-10 Warthogs and other ground attack planes are powerful weapons, originally designed to destroy Soviet tanks.  They fire up to 65 shells per second and can blanket a large area with deadly and indiscriminate fire, but that does not count as a “weapons release” in U.S. airpower summaries.
• Yemen: Journalist Iona Craig, who has reported from Yemen for many years and manages the Yemen Data Project (YDP), told us she doesn’t know what proportion of actual airstrikes its data represents, and that the number of bombs or missiles recorded in each “air raid” in the YDP’s data is only a minimum confirmed number. Whatever fraction of total air raids YDP’s data represents, the actual number of bombs dropped on Yemen is certainly higher than these figures. YDP just doesn’t know how much higher.
• The U.S. and allies conducting “counter-insurgency” operations in West Africa and other regions.

The U.S. public soon lost its appetite for sending our own sons and daughters to fight and die in all these wars.  So, like Nixon with Vietnam, our leaders reverted to bombing, bombing and more bombing, while small deployments of U.S. special operations forces and larger numbers of foreign proxies do most of the real fighting on the ground.

Our enemies call us cowards, especially when we use drones to kill by remote control, but more importantly, we are behaving like arrogant fools.  Our country is acting as an aggressor and a bull in a china shop at a critical moment in history when neither we, nor the rest of the world, can afford such dangerous and destabilizing behavior from a hyper-militarized, aggressive imperial power.

After U.S.-led bombing, artillery and rocket fire destroyed two major cities in 2017, Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, the U.S. and its allies conducted fewer airstrikes in 2018, but actually increased the number of strikes in Afghanistan.

We are heading into 2019 with new initiatives to reduce U.S. military involvement overseas. In Yemen, that initiative is the result of massive grassroots pressure on Congress, and is being done in opposition to Trump’s continued support for Saudi aggression in Yemen. In the case of Syria and Afghanistan, it is coming from Trump himself, with broad popular support but bipartisan opposition from Congress and DC elites.

Those who are part of the bipartisan war consensus should reflect on the growing public awareness of the murderous futility of U.S. overseas wars. A survey by the Committee for a Responsible Foreign Policy revealed “a national voter population that is largely skeptical of the practicality or benefits of military intervention overseas.” Donald Trump seems to realize this public disdain for endless war, but we shouldn’t let him get away with reducing U.S. troop presence but continuing—and in some cases escalating—the devastating air wars.

A good New Year’s resolution for the United States would be to put an end to the wars we have been engaged in for the past 17 years, and to make sure we do not allow the same military madness that got us into this mess to sucker us into new wars on North Korea, Iran, Venezuela or other countries.  Yes, let’s bring the troops home, but let’s also stop the bombing. Sustained advocacy toward the Trump administration and the new Congress by peace-loving Americans will be critical if we are to fulfill this resolution.

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This article was originally published on Common Dreams.

Nicolas J S Davies, a researcher for CODEPINK, is the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq and of the chapter on “Obama At War” in Grading the 44th President: A Report Card on Barack Obama’s First Term as a Progressive Leader.

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK for Peace, is the author of the new book, Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Her previous books include: Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection and Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control

Featured image is from the authors

Managing a bank will always be a more lucrative criminal enterprise than raiding one but this Brechtian styled analysis only goes so far.  A closer look at the extraordinary nature of Goldman Sachs and its operations reveals not merely a bank but a cult of considerable proportion, brazen in its operations and indifferent to authorities.  While states have been surrendering their functions to banks with more regularity than unconscious organ donors, the catch-up was bound to happen. In Malaysia, a country at times irritable with the liberties taken by financial institutions, a retaliation of sorts is taking place.

Three weeks ago, Mullah Abdul Manan Akhund, a powerful Taliban commander in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, was killed by an American drone strike. Several journalists and political observers, both Afghan and foreign, shared the news on their Twitter feeds and beyond. Mullah Manan’s death was a big headline, and it also strengthened the 17-year narrative of the so called ‘War on Terror’, which is supposed to be a success.

On the very same day that Mullah Manan was killed, another event occurred in Paktia, a province in eastern Afghanistan. At least 12 civilians were killed in one night of airstrikes and night raids conducted by Afghan and American forces. In fact, the Afghan forces who have been involved – the CIA-backed Khost Protection Force (KPF) – is notorious for killing and torturing civilians.

The next day, family members of the victims buried their loved ones in public, and by holding this ceremony, they also expressed their protest.

Such an event is not rare in Afghanistan. While the world’s – especially the Western public’s focus – often lies on Kabul and other cities, the country’s rural areas have become the main setting of brutal night raids, drone strikes and other military operations.

Often, civilians are killed. In recent weeks, massacres like the one in Paktia took place in several other provinces such as Nangarhar or Helmand, where Mullah Manan was killed. But contrary to the death of the Taliban commander, civilian casualties often go unnoticed. Nobody cares about some ‘alleged militants’, as civilian victims are regularly described in news reports and their families in Afghanistan’s uncovered hinterland. They are, for many, just collateral damage.

In fact, drone strikes like the one that killed Mullah Manan, rarely kill militant leaders. The very first drone operation in the history of mankind took place in October 2001 in Kandahar, and its target – Taliban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar – survived. Years later, he died naturally, the many drones did not kill him but instead killed others, people without faces and names. Other American hunts were unsuccessful too.

Recently, it has been revealed that Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, a senior Taliban leader, is dead. He death was caused by sickness and old age, not by a Hellfire rocket. During the last 17 years, Haqqani – who is also considered as the founder of the so-called ‘Haqqani network’ – has been declared dead a couple of times.

Other people, such as Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, have been ‘killed’ several times by drone strikes. According to Reprieve, a human rights organisation based in the United Kingdom, between 2002 and 2014, at least 1,147 people in Pakistan and Yemen have been killed by drone strikes for the sake of 41 actual targets.

In some cases, targets have been killed after several drone strikes. In others, like in the case of al-Zawahiri, they are still alive today. The question remains, who has been killed instead of them in all these attacks?

This is also one of the reasons why it is problematic that some journalists, analysts and politicians decided to highlight Mullah Manan’s death, despite seemingly not caring about the many civilian casualties of drone strikes and similar operations in the past. It is just strengthening the flawed narrative of ‘precise’ drones and killer squads that solely kill ’terrorists’.

Another such strike took place last weekend in Logar province. According to different reports, at least 12 civilians were killed.

“They were driving home and were mistaken for Taliban fighters. Will this make it on to the news anywhere? Will, anyone, be brought to justice for this?”, a victim’s relative said on social media.

According to recent US military figures, more than 5,000 bombs have been dropped on Afghanistan in 2018. This is a record in the in the 17-year long war. Numbers from 2001 to 2003 are not available. Besides, it is also known that the military’s numbers are flawed and problematic. Last year, research by the Military Times revealed that US military data from Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan was factually wrong.

“The American military has failed to publically disclose potentially thousands of lethal airstrikes conducted over several years,” the media outlet reported.

In short, many more bombs have been dropped. They just did not want to tell us.

While Afghanistan and Afghans are being bombed more than ever, the Taliban – Afghanistan’s largest insurgent group – is controlling more territory than it has since 2001. Additionally, Daesh, also known as Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP), has made crucial gains too and is capable of conducting complex brutal attack in the middle of big cities like Kabul.

Unsurprisingly, many people are asking themselves the following: Who are these bombs killing?

The answer is simple: Definitely not militants, because the nameless and faceless people who are getting killed regularly are civilians, and the mass murder of these people has created a massive blowback. Thus, militancy and extremism have increased in the region.

Just as in many other places on Earth, the US War on Terror has failed in Afghanistan too. While at least some American policymakers and observers have understood this reality, their Afghan allies in Kabul and their supporters apparently have not. Over the last few years, war crimes committed by Afghan forces have increased significantly.

At this very moment, the Afghan National Army and brutal militias such as the CIA-backed KPF are using American weapons, and they use them much more brutally than the Americans themselves, as whistle-blower who used to be part of the US drone programme, told me after Afghan forces bombed a religious school in the northern province of Kunduz last April.

At least 36 civilians, mostly children, were killed back then while the Kabul government spread fake news, claiming that a ‘Taliban meeting’ took place inside the school.

After the UN confirmed the civilian casualties, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani apologised in public. Since then, his government has done nothing to prevent more civilian casualties but continues to create more of them.

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Were charges evidence-based or politically motivated? Most likely the latter. More to develop on this ahead.

Hostile US political, economic, and financial actions against China, Russia and Iran risk developing into something much more serious than already.

China is America’s main economic rival – why Canada acted as a US proxy in the arrest and detention of Huawei Technologies’ chief financial officer Sabrina Meng Wanzhou, still holding her as a virtual prisoner under house arrest.

The action was all about aiding corporate America over foreign competition, notably China’s aim to be an economic, industrial and technological powerhouse, well on its way toward achieving it.

Huawei is a cutting-edge, privately owned, Chinese tech giant, a pioneering firm, the world’s largest multinational telecom equipment maker, the second largest smartphone maker – behind Samsung, ahead of Apple.

It’s a Fortune top 100 global company, its revenue last year around $92 billion, a market leader in scores of countries worldwide – competing successfully against rival US firms.

The Trump regime wants US telecom/tech companies, getting an international advantage over Huawei by fair or foul means – what targeting Meng is all about.

It’s notably an effort to undermine Huawei’s efforts to become the world’s leading fifth generation (5G) cellular communications company.

The same thing appears to lie behind the Trump regime’s Justice Department action against two Chinese nationals, Zhu Hua and Zhang Shilong, reportedly employed by Huaying Haitai Science and Technology Development Company.

They’re accused of being hackers for a group known as APT 10, standing for Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) – undetected cyberattacks over a prolonged period. They’re more about monitoring network activity than data theft or attempts to damage invaded networks or organizations.

Zhu and Zhang were indicted on dubious charges of conspiracy to commit computer intrusions, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft.

According to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, ‘(t)he  indictment alleges that the defendants were part of a group that hacked computers in at least a dozen countries and gave China’s intelligence service access to sensitive business information,” adding:

“This is outright cheating and theft, and it gives China an unfair advantage at the expense of law-abiding businesses and countries that follow the international rules in return for the privilege of participating in the global economic system.”

FBI Christopher Wray claimed “China’s goal…is to replace the US as the world’s leading superpower—and they’re breaking the law to get there, adding:

“They’re using an expanding set of non-traditional and illegal methods. And Chinese state-sponsored actors are the most active perpetrators of economic espionage against us.”

Hostile actions against Huawei and the above named Chinese nationals may undermine Sino/US trade talks.

In response to charges against Zhu and Zhang, Beijing accused the Trump regime of “fabricating” them, “smearing the Chinese side on cybersecurity issues.”

Trump’s Justice Department alleges that Zhu and Zhang acted on behalf of Beijing’s Ministry of State Security (MSS). China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying responded strongly to the charges, saying:

“The US move is vicious in nature, severely violating the basic norms governing international relations and damaging cooperating between the two countries. China resolutely opposes the accusations and has lodged a solemn representations to the US side,” adding:

“The Chinese government’s position on cybersecurity issues is consistent and clear. China is a staunch defender of cybersecurity and has consistently opposed and cracked down on any form of cybersecurity.”

“For a long time, it has long been an open secret for the relevant departments of the United States to conduct large-scale and organized network theft and monitoring and monitoring activities for foreign governments, enterprises and individuals.”

Washington’s Five Eyes partnered countries, jointly cooperating in signals intelligence – Australia, Britain Canada, and New Zealand – are in cahoots with the Trump regime in lodging charges against China.

Will hacking charges and unacceptable treatment of Meng derail Sino/US talks to resolve major differences between the world’s dominant economies?

Are further hostile US actions against China coming? Is Beijing’s patience with the Trump regime wearing thin?

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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.

Is it simply business as usual or a corporate conspiracy to destroy the planet? However one characterizes it our planet is being cooked so already wealthy people can make even more profit.

Last Friday the New York Times published a front-page story titled “The Oil Industry’s Covert Campaign to Rewrite American Car Emissions Rules.” The article pointed out that Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Marathon Oil, Koch Industries and other oil/refining interests won “rollbacks” to vehicle fuel mileage rules that “have gone further than the more modest changes automakers originally lobbied for.” The legislative changes are expected to “increase greenhouse gas emissions in the United States by more than the amount many midsize countries put out in a year.”

With internal combustion engines consuming nearly two-thirds of US petroleum, industry profits are threatened by measures that cut gasoline consumption (be it better fuel mileage, diverting funds from roadway, eliminating auto infrastructure, etc.). About 150,000 gas stations do hundreds of billions of dollars in sales every year. In The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World Paul Roberts explains that the oil industry’s business model is planned around the gasoline pump, “from the kind of crude oil it sought to the kind of refineries it built, to its intense focus on retail marketing.”

The oil industry’s recent opposition to regulating automakers is consistent with its history of promoting automobility, as I and Bianca Mugyenyi detail in Stop Signs: Cars and Capitalism on the Road to Economic, Social and Ecological Decay. As far back as 1925, oil representatives packed a committee organized by the US surgeon-general concerning the health effects of leaded gas. They successfully argued that lead was harmless despite the fact that companies such as Standard Oil of New Jersey knew leaded gasoline  was a health threat. Over the next 60 years lead levels increased a hundred-fold until it was finally banned in 1986.

In the 1930s and 40s Standard Oil of California and Phillips Petroleum were part of the corporate conspiracy against trolleys  that changed the face of urban landscapes across North America. With General Motors and other companies they set up a network of front organizations that ripped up, converted and resold a hundred electric transit systems in 45 cities.

Amidst increasing smog in California in the 1950s, oil interests engaged in a fight against anti-pollution legislation. They financed  the Stanford Research Institute to contest the findings of Professor Arie J. Haagen-Smit who demonstrated that automobiles  and oil refineries were the major sources of smog.

In 1970 oil companies helped defeat  California’s Proposition 18, an initiative to divert a small portion of the state gas tax to public transit.

Oil companies were part of the National Highway Users Conference (NHUC) that was set up during the Depression to lobby for roadway funding. When the Chicago Transit Authority proposed using $30 million in state fuel tax to finance improvements to mass transit in the mid-1950s, the NHUC sent in two full-time workers to successfully coordinate opposition (with the Illinois Highway Users Conference) against the proposal.

In 1951, the NHUC launched Project  Adequate Roads, which called for a national highway system. Project Adequate Roads helped win the massive Interstate Highway System.

Oil interests were part of another group that lobbied for the Interstate. Beginning in 1942 the “Road Gang”, a secret society of men representing, automobile, truck and tire makers as well highway engineers, top highway bureaucrats, etc. met regularly in a private Washington, DC, restaurant to push for more roadway.

The private automobile has risen to dominance in large part because of its ability to draw together a wide array of powerful corporate interests from steel makers to real estate developers, rubber companies to big box retailers. During the automobile’s embryonic phase, the oil industry was already big business. At that time, oil was mainly used to fuel the kerosene lamp, a business destroyed by the emergence of gas and electrical illumination. The powerful oil interests of the day, led by the Rockefeller family, were bailed out of this crisis and set up for life with the advent of the automobile. And as barrel upon barrel was drained from the earth and pumped into gas tanks, big oil swam in its profits.

So, in many respects, oil interests lobbying against restrictions on automakers is simply business as usual, given their history of promoting automobility. But, given the dangers of climate disturbances ‘business as usual’ takes on the appearance of a criminal corporate conspiracy to destroy civilization.

Today the Department of Agriculture released a final rule to implement the mandatory GMO disclosure law passed in 2016. It will allow the genetically engineered ingredients in many foods to remain hidden from consumers. Below is a statement from Scott Faber, senior vice president of government affairs for the Environmental Working Group:

No one should be surprised that the most anti-consumer, anti-transparency administration in modern times is denying Americans basic information about what’s in their food and how it’s grown.

The Trump administration has yet again put the interests of pesticide and biotech companies ahead of the interests of ordinary Americans.

The final GMO disclosure rule fails to meet the clear intent of Congress to create a mandatory disclosure standard that includes all genetically engineered foods and uses terms that consumers understand. A fair standard should address the needs of consumers who don’t have expensive phones or who live in rural places with poor cell service but the rule put forward today simply fails to do that.

At a time when consumers are asking more and more questions about the use of genetic engineering, today’s rule will further undermine the technology by sowing greater confusion among Americans who simply want the right to know if their food is genetically modified – the same right held by consumers in 64 other countries.

Despite today’s disappointing, and likely unlawful, decision, we are pleased that companies that trust consumers – including Campbell’s, Mars, Danone, Kellogg’s, Coca-Cola and Unilever – will voluntarily disclose all GMOs in all their foods, not just in those required by the final rule.

EWG is announcing today that it has created a new portal on its Food Scores website for consumers who want to seek out certified organic and non-GMO options. The website lists more than 3,000 food products that are both certified organic and certified GMO-free.

The Environmental Working Group is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action.

The US suddenly and unexpectedly announced the withdrawal of US troops from Syria after years of illegally occupying the country. The US presence aimed at ousting the Syrian government, boosting militant groups the US and its partners have armed and backed since the 2011 conflict started, and denying Damascus access to its own resources, particularly oil concentrated east of the Euphrates River.

The US occupation of Syria is only one part of a much larger, decades-long campaign of achieving, maintaining, and expanding US hegemony across North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia – as well as the ultimate goal of encircling and containing both Russia and China.

A genuine withdrawal from the Syrian conflict would signal a seismic shift in US foreign policy and mark an irreversible decline in American hegemony.

It is difficult to believe such a seismic shift could happen, and so suddenly.

It is also a shift not founded in US foreign policy or fact.

There are several key possibilities to consider:

• A US withdrawal paves way for unilateral Israeli strikes;
• It also paves the way for an expanded Turkish incursion;
• US troops won’t be on the ground as targets in the immediate aftermath of any wider conflict Israel or Turkey provokes;
• US troops can re-enter theater with renewed pretext to fight Damascus directly in defense of allies Israel or Turkey and;
• US troops can re-enter theater along the better formed and protected front Turkey seeks to create.

US Withdrawal From Syria Removes Obstructions to Escalation, Not Peace 

US policymakers have drawn up plans for years regarding US primacy in the Middle East. In the 2009 policy paper published by corporate-financier funded think tank – the Brookings Institution – the use of US proxies like Israel to carry out major attacks on Iran were given its own chapter.

However, the only obstruction to this option was the necessity of Israeli warplanes to fly over either US-ally Jordan or US-occupied Iraq.

The report would claim under a chapter titled, “Leave it to Bibi: Allowing or Encouraging an Israeli Military Strike” (.pdf) that (emphasis added):

An Israeli air campaign against Iran would have a number of very important differences from an American campaign. First, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) has the problem of overflight transit from Israel to Iran. Israel has no aircraft carriers, so its planes must take off from Israeli air bases. It also does not possess long-range bombers like the B-1 or B-2, or huge fleets of refueling tankers, all of which means that unlike the United States, Israel cannot avoid flying through someone’s air space. The most direct route from Israel to Iran’s Natanz facility is roughly 1,750 kilometers across Jordan and Iraq. As the occupying power in Iraq, the United States is responsible for defending Iraqi airspace. 

It would also state (emphasis added):

From the American perspective, this negates the whole point of the option—distancing the United States from culpability—and it could jeopardize American efforts in Iraq, thus making it a possible nonstarter for Washington. Finally, Israeli violation of Jordanian airspace would likely create political problems for King Abdullah of Jordan, one of America’s (and Israel’s) closest Arab friends in the region. Thus it is exceedingly unlikely that the United States would allow Israel to overfly Iraq, and because of the problems it would create for Washington and Amman, it is unlikely that Israel would try to fly over Jordan.

And finally, the Brookings paper would claim (emphasis added):

An Israeli attack on Iran would directly affect key American strategic interests. If Israel were to overfly Iraq, both the Iranians and the vast majority of people around the world would see the strike as abetted, if not authorized, by the United States. Even if Israel were to use another route, many Iranians would still see the attack as American supported or even American orchestrated. After all, the aircraft in any strike would be American produced, supplied, and funded F-15s and F-16s, and much of the ordnance would be American made. In fact, $3 billion dollars in U.S. assistance annually sustains the IDF’s conventional superiority in the region.

Thus, by removing US troops from Iraq regarding 2009 US plans to have Israel strike Iran then – or to have US troops withdrawn from Syria to distance the US from culpability ahead of Israeli strikes in the near future – the US can remove this critical obstruction toward greater escalation and even major war – not toward peace.

As to what the US would do in the wake of a supposedly “unilateral” Israeli strike – Brookings had an answer for that too (emphasis added):

However, as noted in the previous chapter, the airstrikes themselves are really just the start of this policy. Again, the Iranians would doubtless rebuild their nuclear sites. They would probably retaliate against Israel, and they might retaliate against the United States, too (which might create a pretext for American airstrikes or even an invasion). And it seems unlikely that they would cease their support for violent extremist groups or efforts to overturn the regional status quo in the aftermath of Israeli airstrikes. Their opposition to an Arab-Israeli peace treaty would likely be redoubled. Hence the United States would still need a strategy to handle Iran after completion of the Israeli airstrikes, and this could mean a much longer time frame to achieve all of America’s goals.

This policy within a Syrian context could mean major, unprecedented Israeli strikes on Syrian targets – a major escalation from previous and more limited strikes – but avoiding Russian targets, under the assumption Moscow will fall short of retaliating to avoid full-scale war.

Israel has already made its intentions clear that it will continue confronting “Iran” in Syria after the withdrawal of US forces.

Any retaliation by Damascus – real or staged – will be used to bring the US back into the conflict with a wider claimed pretext to take on Damascus directly – with the added benefit of not having US troops on the ground serving as easy targets in the immediate fallout of a much larger conflict.

Turkey Too? 

There is also Turkey to consider – a nation that has played a central role in facilitating the proxy war against Syria since it began in 2011. US policymakers have included Turkey in tandem with Israel as two coordinating pressure points against Damascus for decades.

A 1983 document signed by former CIA officer Graham Fuller titled, “Bringing Real Muscle to Bear Against Syria” (PDF), states (their emphasis):

Syria at present has a hammerlock on US interests both in Lebanon and in the Gulf — through closure of Iraq’s pipeline thereby threatening Iraqi internationalization of the [Iran-Iraq] war. The US should consider sharply escalating the pressures against Assad [Sr.] through covertly orchestrating simultaneous military threats against Syria from three border states hostile to Syria: Iraq, Israel and Turkey. 

The report also states:

If Israel were to increase tensions against Syria simultaneously with an Iraqi initiative, the pressures on Assad would escalate rapidly. A Turkish move would psychologically press him further. 

More recently, US policymakers in 2012 Brookings Institution document titled, “Saving Syria: Assessing Options for Regime Change” (PDF), which stated (emphasis added):

Some voices in Washington and Jerusalem are exploring whether Israel could contribute to coercing Syrian elites to remove Asad. 

The report continues by explaining (emphasis added):

Israel could posture forces on or near the Golan Heights and, in so doing, might divert regime forces from suppressing the opposition. This posture may conjure fears in the Asad regime of a multi-front war, particularly if Turkey is willing to do the same on its border and if the Syrian opposition is being fed a steady diet of arms and training. Such a mobilization could perhaps persuade Syria’s military leadership to oust Asad in order to preserve itself. 

Regarding events on the ground now – Turkey is already signaling its intentions to enter Syria east of the Euphrates and expand its military occupation across more Syrian territory.

Turkish forces entering into Syria would serve as a front against Syrian forces in the outbreak of wider war with supply lines protected all the way to the Turkish border and deep into Turkish territory. US forces re-entering the theater can do so from Turkey and avoid being cut off in US bases currently scattered across eastern Syria.

Whether or not Russia and Iran have created a sufficient amount of incentives and deterrents to place  between Turkey and its continued role in destabilizing Syria since then remains to be seen. Only Moscow, Tehran, and Damascus can know what deals they have with Ankara and where its apparent plans to enter Syrian territory fit into them.

Empire Dies Hard 

US involvement in Syria was always aimed at eventually undermining, encircling, containing, and eventually overthrowing first Iran, then closing around Russia further.

Unless we are to believe the US has abandoned its wider hegemonic ambitions – and there is no evidence to suggest that it has – it is irrational and ill-advised to believe the US is truly walking away from Syria without plans to dangerously escalate the conflict while minimizing its own culpability.

The United States has gone from an uncontested global superpower at the end of the Cold War, to an increasing dangerous, desperate fading hegemon today. The weaker it appears, the more unpredictable and dangerous its actions are becoming. A genuine withdrawal from Syria would neither fit America’s current global ambitions, nor fit its recent pattern of increasingly dangerous and desperate policies implemented from Eastern Europe to the Middle East and North Africa, into Central Asia, and across East Asia.

A skeptical public leaves no room for the US to capitalize on the apparent “good will” the US is trying to cultivate through its supposed withdrawal from Syria ahead of provocations by proxy it will have fully underwritten and will immediately move to exploit toward greater war.

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Tony Cartalucci is Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from NEO

Escalating U.S. military confrontations, political threats, extreme tariffs and an ominous trade war against China are having global repercussions. These provocations impact the economy and the political alliances of every country, not only China.

The emerging policies of China and the U.S. reveal, in the starkest light, a fundamental difference in the form of each state. The two countries are all too often lumped together as “superpowers.” This hides the underlying struggle.

The current threats against China are an extension of the U.S. military policy called the “Pivot to Asia.” This is an overarching strategy to rebalance and realign U.S. military power to focus on China as a rising power. It was initiated in the Obama administration in 2012 by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

It was recognition that, counter to the hopes of Wall Street, the People’s Republic of China had not collapsed in chaos under the weight of U.S. capitalist investment and political pressure.

Now 400 of the U.S.’s 800 overseas military bases encircle China. The goal, in the terminology of military planners, is to create a “ring of steel,” a “perfect noose” around the large developing country whose very existence is a threat to U.S. global domination.

Aircraft carriers, destroyers, nuclear submarines, jet aircraft, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile batteries and satellite surveillance infrastructures are being moved into place across the Pacific region. The U.S. military presence is, by its very nature, an assault on the sovereignty of the host countries.

On existing U.S. bases, building is underway for additional aircraft parking, hangars, fuel storage tanks and ammunition storage facilities.

Chokehold threat

The realignment of U.S. policy is more than a vast construction project. It also involves constant military operations to demonstrate U.S. power in so-called “freedom of navigation” (FON) operations by aggressively sailing warships, overflights by combat aircraft and positioning troops in China’s territorial waters in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait.

U.S. imperialism has long used blatant and open military threats, economic destabilization and strangulation, along with sanctions and blockades, to impose concessions on targeted countries.

Along with high-tech equipment of death and destruction comes the media barrage of demonization and blatant propaganda. This, in turn, is picked up by politicians, think tanks, social media and well-funded nongovernmental organizations.

A great deal of U.S. strategy is focused on how the Pentagon’s vast military capacity can be used to strangle China by cutting off shipping routes for its export industries as well as blockading its access to needed imports of oil and raw materials.

More than 80 percent of the materials essential for China’s economy come into the South China Sea through the Straits of Malacca, a narrow waterway running between Malaysia and Indonesia that also passes the strategic city-state of Singapore. One U.S. aircraft carrier battle group could choke the Straits closed.

Each FON operation by the U.S. Navy in the South China Sea is a threatening reminder to the Chinese government of its vulnerability.

In what was formerly an impoverished, semicolonized country with uneven development, the People’s Republic of China is still in an intense struggle for survival. Its national sovereignty and continuing development are at stake.

In response to U.S. military threats, China is building its military capability and reinforcing islands it claims in the South China Sea.

But it is also doing something that the U.S. government and its corporate rulers are incapable of doing: conducting vast, unfolding construction and economic integration projects that benefit China as well as many other countries. This coordinated loan and aid program is known as the Belt and Road Project.

Cooperation, not competition

Following the U.S. Pivot to Asia, President Xi Jinping announced China’s Belt and Road Initiative in 2013 as a plan to create an infrastructure corridor linking China to Central Asia and Europe through new rail and road networks as well as shipping routes.

Four years later, at the 2017 Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, Xi described its goal: to build “land, maritime, air and cyberspace connectivity” and create “networks of highways, railways and sea ports.”

Securing sea lanes and developing ports and refueling stations will help China’s exporters reach overseas markets and give China uninterrupted access to energy imports. Establishing overland connections, pipelines, warehouses and roads to the Indian Ocean through Pakistan, Thailand and Myanmar will make China less vulnerable to chokepoints.

This global project is an opportunity for China to put to more active use its large but vulnerable currency reserves, most of which are in U.S. Treasury notes.

Some of China’s currency reserves have been used in the creation of the New Development Bank, which provides funds for the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), as well as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the proposed Shanghai Cooperation Organization Bank.

The construction projects and trade being financed are especially helpful in furthering China’s predominance of state-owned industries. This makes China less dependent on precarious Western investments.

The scale and scope of these initiatives are staggering. Estimates vary, but more than $300 billion has already been spent, and China plans to spend $1 trillion more in the next decade or so.

The vast network of new road, rail and pipeline projects is also a huge boon to development throughout a vast region.

In addition to infrastructure development, the initiative now includes efforts at “financial integration,” “cooperation in science and technology,” “cultural and academic exchanges” and the establishment of trade “cooperation mechanisms.”

Larger than the World Bank

Many developing countries in Africa, Central Asia and Latin America are embracing conscious planning for connective infrastructure as a way to stimulate economic activity in their most remote and rural areas.

Within a few decades, China has gone from being an aid recipient to a donor, following its emergence as the world’s second-largest economy. In the 1980s and 1990s, China was the world’s largest recipient of World Bank and Asian Development Bank loans. Now it makes more loans to developing countries than does the World Bank.

This undermines the ability of U.S. and European banks to impose onerous conditions on developing countries’ financial dealings. China’s loans and development plans are increasingly more popular, because they have fewer strings attached. This has become a growing source of contention with U.S. imperialism, which has had unrivaled dominance over the world’s financial system since World War II.

The top 10 recipients of official Chinese development aid are eight African countries, Cuba and Cambodia. Meanwhile, according to CIA figures, 92 countries counted China as their largest export or import partner in 2015 — far more than the 57 partnering with the U.S.

A fundamental struggle

What should be the attitude of the progressive and working-class movement to this growing confrontation? Is it just a rivalry between two superpowers? Or is there a more fundamental struggle at the root of the confrontation?

Compared to U.S. imperialism’s vast construction projects — which number hundreds of military bases — China’s response to U.S. military encirclement shows a fundamental difference in the character of the two states.

The U.S. capitalist economy is dominated by “defense” contractors and oil industries. These giant corporations have enjoyed the highest rates of profit for decades. They predominate in the U.S. economy.

Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, United Technologies and the banks behind them are assured a guaranteed multibillion-dollar subsidy on military contracts. War is profitable. Arms sales and weapon transfers predominate in U.S. foreign aid.

Trump recently signed legislation establishing the International Development Finance Corporation, with $60 billion in funds to finance investments in developing countries. That amounts to only 6 percent of China’s $1 trillion development project.

U.S. humanitarian aid for famine, earthquakes and other disasters is a meager 14 percent of total U.S. aid. That includes State Department and Defense Department disaster relief efforts, as well as purchases of U.S. agricultural goods and funding for the International Red Cross.

In fiscal year 2019, the total U.S. government spending for defense is budgeted at $952 billion. It is clear what U.S. imperialism’s priority is.

The big problem

U.S. aid is based on war. It generates war and military confrontations, which in turn lead to the sale of more U.S. weapons.

U.S. intelligence agencies and military contractors have a material interest in antagonizing relations with neighboring countries, creating terror threats, coups and civil wars. It’s good for business.

Military aid, advisors and trainers further dislocate the economy and the social fabric of receiving countries. Military aid is designed to strengthen the military and police apparatus and all the most repressive institutions of the receiving country. It enriches the most corrupt individuals and ruling families.

The arms industry invests heavily in an army of well-paid lobbyists. Some 700 to 1,000 each year besiege Capitol Hill to keep the subsidized funds and contracts flowing. Most of the lobbyists are well-connected retired military officers and congressional staffers.

The U.S. infrastructure of bridges, roads, housing, sewage and sanitation is collapsing from neglect and lack of funding for the same reason that U.S. aid is not directed to development or planning infrastructure around the world.

In the U.S. 20 million people a year get sick from contaminated water. Life expectancy is declining. But it is more profitable to bomb sanitation, sewage and irrigation structures than it is to build or repair them, whether in the U.S. or around the world.

Aid and development projects are based on maximizing profits for the largest U.S. corporations. As we have noted, these happen to be military corporations, military services and base support services.

In fiscal year 2016, the Pentagon issued $304 billion in contract awards to corporations. The top five firms grabbed $100 billion in government funds, or about one-third of all contracts. But military spending is also good for lots of other small capitalists. More than 600,000 private contractors receive funds from the military budget.

Korea: Bases or reunification?

Looking beyond the confrontation with China, U.S. imperialism is facing similar problems in Korea.

After 70 years of a state of war, the U.S. military occupation that divides Korea is now confronted by the enormous enthusiasm shown by Koreans, north and south, for trade, exchanges and mutual cooperation. Reunification is the aspiration of millions of Koreans. The last right-wing, pro-U.S. government in South Korea was literally overwhelmed by millions of Koreans who demonstrated every week for a year in order to bring it down and move the country in a new direction. An opening to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the north was unstoppable.

Despite the meeting between President Trump and President Kim Jong Un of the DPRK, the real response of the U.S. to the people of South Korea has been the construction of the largest overseas U.S. military base in the world — Camp Humphreys, just a few miles from Seoul.

The U.S. Army calls Camp Humphreys “the largest power projection platform in the Pacific.” It has the busiest U.S. Army airfield in Asia and a 8,124-foot runway.

More than 650 buildings are being built or renovated across a land area the size of Washington, D.C.

The decade-long expansion project is costing $10.8 billion. When fully operational, the base is expected to house 45,000 troops, contractors and family members.

How to spend $1 trillion

While China plans to spend $1 trillion in the coming years on its Belt and Road development program, the Pentagon’s plan is to spend more than $1 trillion on a whole new generation of nuclear-armed bombers, submarines, and land- and air-based missiles.

The United States has more than 4,000 nuclear warheads in its active stockpile, with 1,700 deployed and ready to be launched at a moment’s notice.

That is a danger to the whole planet.

U.S. imperialism can dump surplus agricultural products or equipment, or it can plunk down factories to take advantage of cheap labor if this is profitable for individual corporations. But the capitalist economy in the U.S. is not geared to developing economic competitors.

The United States today is the world’s largest capitalist economy, but its predatory practices around the world are suddenly being challenged in a wholly unexpected way. New programs coming from China are radically different from the alliances and aid programs coming from the U.S.

In a capitalist economy investment money will overwhelmingly go into producing what will earn the highest rate of profit. This is an inexorable pull. The entire system is based on maximizing profit, not on producing what is needed by society.

While it justifies interventions and sanctions with claims of counterterrorism or just being at odds with the West, the U.S. ruling class will find it harder to impose its will. Because there is now a clear alternative.

State-owned enterprises

China has 150,000 state-owned enterprises, of which 50,000, or one third, are owned by the central government; the remainder are owned by local and state governments. They account for 30 to 40 percent of the gross domestic product, and that is growing.

Twelve of the largest Chinese firms listed on the Fortune 500 are state-owned industries. (“Top Ranks of China’s Fortune 500 Still Dominated by State-Owned Enterprises,” chinabankingnews.com, Aug. 1, 2017)

Nevertheless, it is very obvious that the capitalist market has made enormous inroads into China. China has a mixed economy, which the government calls “market socialism.”  But central planning has been maintained under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. Based on this reality, such leadership is able to make far more rational and planned decisions. The state is able to consciously subsidize the state sector and plan development. This has dramatically improved the lives of hundreds of millions of working people.

China’s foreign loans and infrastructure development are not mainly based on revolutionary solidarity, although Cuba is the largest recipient of Chinese aid. For the most part, economic decisions are pragmatic, spurred by the need to break out of the hostile imperialist encirclement and imposed isolation.

Nevertheless, the development of roads, industries, ports, telecommunications, sanitation and health as interconnected infrastructure across wide regions will enlarge and strengthen the working class in both China and the other countries. This will also break down competition and aid cooperation.

Originally published on Workers World

Throughout the long Cold War Stephen Cohen, professor of Russian studies at Princeton University and New York University was a voice of reason. He refused to allow his patriotism to blind him to Washington’s contribution to the conflict and to criticize only the Soviet contribution. Cohen’s interest was not to blame the enemy but to work toward a mutual understanding that would remove the threat of nuclear war. Although a Democrat and left-leaning, Cohen would have been at home in the Reagan administration, as Reagan’s first priority was to end the Cold War. I know this because I was part of the effort. Pat Buchanan will tell you the same thing.

In 1974 a notorious cold warrior, Albert Wohlstetter, absurdly accused the CIA of underestimating the Soviet threat. As the CIA had every incentive for reasons of budget and power to overestimate the Soviet threat, and today the “Russian threat,” Wohlstetter’s accusation made no sense on its face. However he succeeded in stirring up enough concern that CIA director George H.W. Bush, later Vice President and President, agreed to a Team B to investigate the CIA’s assessment, headed by the Russiaphobic Harvard professor Richard Pipes. Team B concluded that the Soviets thought they could win a nuclear war and were building the forces with which to attack the US.

The report was mainly nonsense, and it must have troubled Stephen Cohen to experience the setback to negotiations that Team B caused.

Today Cohen is stressed that it is the United States that thinks it can win a nuclear war. Washington speaks openly of using “low yield” nuclear weapons, and intentionally forecloses any peace negotiations with Russia with a propaganda campaign against Russia of demonization, villification, and transparant lies, while installing missile bases on Russia’s borders and while talking of incorporating former parts of Russia into NATO. In his just published book, War With Russia?, which I highly recommend, Cohen makes a convincing case that Washington is asking for war.

I agree with Cohen that if Russia is a threat it is only because the US is threatening Russia. The stupidity of the policy toward Russia is creating a Russian threat. Putin keeps emphasizing this. To paraphrase Putin: “You are making Russia a threat by declaring us to be one, by discarding facts and substituting orchestrated opinions that your propagandistic media establish as fact via endless repetition.”

Cohen is correct that during the Cold War every US president worked to defuse tensions, especially Republican ones. Since the Clinton regime every US president has worked to create tensions. What explains this dangerous change in approach?

The end of the Cold War was disadvantageous to the military/security complex whose budget and power had waxed from decades of cold war. Suddenly the enemy that had bestowed such wealth and prestige on the military/security complex disappeared.

The New Cold War is the result of the military/security complex’s resurrection of the enemy. In a democracy with independent media and scholars, this would not have been possible. But the Clinton regime permitted in violation of anti-trust laws 90% of the US media to be concentrated in the hands of six mega-corporations, thus destroying an independence already undermined by the CIA’s successful use of the CIA’s media assets to control explanations. Many books have been written about the CIA’s use of the media, including Udo Ulfkotte’s “Bought Journalism,” the English edition of which was quickly withdrawn and burned.

The demonization of Russia is also aided and abeted by the Democrats’ hatred of Trump and anger from Hillary’s loss of the presidential election to the “Trump deplorables.” The Democrats purport to believe that Trump was installed by Putin’s interference in the presidentail election. This false belief is emotionally important to Democrats, and they can’t let go of it.

Although Cohen as a professor at Princeton and NYU never lacked research opportunities, in the US Russian studies, strategic studies, and the like are funded by the military/security complex whose agenda Cohen’s scholarship does not serve. At the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where I held an independently financed chair for a dozen years, most of my colleagues were dependent on grants from the military/security complex. At the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, where I was a Senior Fellow for three decades, the anti-Soviet stance of the Institution reflected the agenda of those who funded the institution.

I am not saying that my colleagues were whores on a payroll. I am saying that the people who got the appointments were people who were inclined to see the Soviet Union the way the military/security complex thought it should be seen.

As Stephen Cohen is aware, in the original Cold War there was some balance as all explanations were not controlled. There were independent scholars who could point out that the Soviets, decimated by World War 2, had an interest in peace, and that accommodation could be achieved, thus avoiding the possibility of nuclear war.

Stephen Cohen must have been in the younger ranks of those sensible people, as he and President Reagan’s ambassador to the Soviet Union, Jack Matloff, seem to be the remaining voices of expert reason on the American scene.

If you care to understand the dire threat under which you live, a threat that only a few people, such as Stephen Cohen, are trying to lift, read his book.

If you want to understand the dire threat that a bought-and-paid-for American media poses to your existence, read Cohen’s accounts of their despicable lies. America has a media that is synonymous with lies.

If you want to understand how corrupt American universities are as organizations on the take for money, organizations to whom truth is inconsequential, read Cohen’s book.

If you want to understand why you could be dead before Global Warming can get you, read Cohen’s book.

Enough said.

Originally published on PaulCraigRoberts.org

All the pieces were in place for it to happen sooner than later, but striking Syria on Christmas night sent a terrifying message that’s sure to backfire against “Israel” but will probably also get people to wonder why the S-300s didn’t deter this from happening in the first place. 

Reports are streaming in that “Israel” launched an attack against Syria on Christmas night after a brief hiatus of a couple of months following what President Putin previously described as the “chain of tragic circumstances” that led to the downing of a Russian spy plane over the Arab Republic’s airspace in mid-September. Many people are shocked by the audacity of striking Syria on one of the world’s holiest days but a lot of those who have also been following the country’s conflict lately are surprised that it even happened at all.

Certain forces in the Mainstream and Alternative Medias pushed forth the narrative that Russia’s highly publicized dispatch of S-300 anti-air missiles to Syria in the aftermath of the mid-September incident was supposed to have made this scenario impossible, though the reality is that the Russian military has yet to hand control of these systems over to the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and might ultimately never end up doing so as part of a possible backroom deal between Moscow and Tel Aviv in order for “Israel” to continue having the so-called “freedom” to strike IRGC and Hezbollah positions in the country at its convenience.

Those same voices who said that this wouldn’t ever happen again tended to also gloss over the developments of the past few weeks which saw Russia and “Israel” publicly set aside their largely exaggerated differences since September by exchanging high-level military delegations and agreeing to once again cooperate with one another. Coming in the immediate run-up to Trump’s decision to initiate the US’ conventional on-the-ground withdrawal from Syria, the writing was on the wall that “Israel” would soon resume its bombing operations in the country at America’s behest.

One of the Mideast’s worst kept “secrets” is that Russia passively facilitated over 200 of these same bombings from January 2017 to September 2018 by the admission of its own Defense Ministry following the aforementioned midair incident that tragically downed its spy plane, having tacitly done as as part of its regional “balancing” strategy aimed at indirectly creating the conditions for Iran’s military drawdown and ultimate “phased withdrawal” from Syria as one of the main steps in President Putin’s unofficial peace plan for the country. 

All arguments aside that might be made by its lobbyists about “Israel’s” “right to ensure its security”, it’s generally understood in the West that Christmas is supposed to be a time of peace where hostilities between rival parties are unofficially frozen until the celebrations are finally over after sunrise the next day, but Tel Aviv literally blew that presumption to pieces with its latest bombing. Although not a surprise in and of itself and likely to end up being yet another self-inflicted wound to “Israel’s” soft power, the proverbial “sliver lining” might be that people finally begin to wonder why this happened at all in spite of the much-publicized deployment of S-300s to Syria prior to putting the pieces together and eventually understanding the complex reality of contemporary Mideast geopolitics that made it possible.

*

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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.

“In the history of democracy… there isn’t one case in which a country has been attacked on so many different fronts … both from the internal power factors to foreign governments over such an extended period of time as in the case of Venezuela.” – Steve Ellner (from this week’s talk.)

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This week’s Global Research News Hour features a radio version of an October 19 2018 Winnipeg talk, delivered by Steve Ellner.

The presentation, delivered at the historic Fort Garry Hotel to about 100 audience members was entitled What is Really Happening in Venezuela. The main sponsor of the talk was the Winnipeg-based Venezuela Peace Committee, a group which sprang up in 2017 in reaction to the hostile actions, including sanctions, taken by the U.S. and Canadian governments toward the Venezuelan government.

According to a recent report coordinated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN Refugee, the UN Refugee Agency, and the International Organization for Migration, the outflow in recent times of more than 3 million Venezuelans to neighbouring countries and beyond constitutes “the largest in the modern history of Latin America and the Caribbean.” The same report attributes this exodus to “the ongoing political, human rights and socio-economic developments in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.” Based on current trends, fully 5.3 million refugees and migrants will have left the country by the end of 2019. [1][2]

Further, a series of anti-Maduro protests have erupted inside Venezuela in the last four years with efforts to disrupt them being blamed for violence resulting in a death toll exceeding 170. [3]

Critics in the countries like the U.S. and Canada invariably use this crisis to bolster the claim that mismanagement on the part of the Maduro government and President Chavez before him. Nevertheless, such analyses conceivably ignore some of the recent historical and geopolitical context in which the Venezuelan people are now situated. [4]

Steve Ellner, who admits the Venezuelan situation is ‘complex’ attempts to provide that context in this Winnipeg presentation, recorded by Community videographer Paul Graham, and edited for radio by Global Research News Hour host / producer Michael Welch.

The complete unabridged presentation is included below.

Steve Ellner is Professor of Economics at the University of Oriente in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela. His published works include ‘Implications of Marxist State Theory and how they Play Out in Venezuela‘ and an upcoming volume – ‘The Pink Tide Experiences: Breakthroughs and Shortcomings in Twenty-First Century Latin America’ (Rowman and Littlefield, 2019). His blogsite is steveellnersblog.blogspot.com

(Global Research News Hour episode 242)

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

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

Community Radio Stations carrying the Global Research News Hour:

CHLY 101.7fm in Nanaimo, B.C – Thursdays at 1pm PT

Boston College Radio WZBC 90.3FM NEWTONS  during the Truth and Justice Radio Programming slot -Sundays at 7am ET.

Port Perry Radio in Port Perry, Ontario –1  Thursdays at 1pm ET

Burnaby Radio Station CJSF out of Simon Fraser University. 90.1FM to most of Greater Vancouver, from Langley to Point Grey and from the North Shore to the US Border.

It is also available on 93.9 FM cable in the communities of SFU, Burnaby, New Westminister, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Surrey and Delta, in British Columbia, Canada. – Tune in  at its new time – Wednesdays at 4pm PT.

Radio station CFUV 101.9FM based at the University of Victoria airs the Global Research News Hour every Sunday from 7 to 8am PT.

CORTES COMMUNITY RADIO CKTZ  89.5 out of Manson’s Landing, B.C airs the show Tuesday mornings at 10am Pacific time.

Cowichan Valley Community Radio CICV 98.7 FM serving the Cowichan Lake area of Vancouver Island, BC airs the program Thursdays at 6am pacific time.

Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in  Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 10am.

Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday Morning from 8:00 to 9:00am. Find more details at www.caperradio.ca

RIOT RADIO, the visual radio station based out of Durham College in Oshawa, Ontario has begun airing the Global Research News Hour on an occasional basis. Tune in at dcstudentsinc.ca/services/riot-radio/

Radio Fanshawe: Fanshawe’s 106.9 The X (CIXX-FM) out of London, Ontario airs the Global Research News Hour Sundays at 6am with an encore at 4pm.

Los Angeles, California based Thepowerofvoices.com airs the Global Research News Hour every Monday from 6-7pm Pacific time. 

Notes: 

1. https://www.unhcr.org/news/press/2018/12/5c136d834/emergency-plan-refugees-migrants-venezuela-launched.html
2. ‘Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan for Refugees and Migrants in Venezuela: January – December 2019’ (pg. 11, 14), Response for Venezuelans: Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela; https://s3.amazonaws.com/unhcrsharedmedia/2018/RMRP_Venezuela_2019_OnlineVersion.pdf
3. https://in-venezuela.com/killed-during-the-protests/
4. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-36319877

All memorialised events, when passing into mythology, must be seen critically. In some cases, there should be more than a hint of suspicion. The Christmas Truce of 1914 remains one sentimentalised occasion, remembered less to scold the mad mechanised forces of death led by regressive castes than to reflect upon common humanity.

Common humanity, left to be butchered before the next grand stratagem, is the first casualty of the war room and, in many cases, parliaments. These are places where commemoration ceremonies are drafted and encouraged; they are also the places where the common soldier is left for ruin.

The Christmas Truce of the First World War arose out of a blood-bathed irony: the troops from both sides, Allies and German, were not meant to be slaughtering each other at that point. They should have been home to celebrate their respective victories or lick respective wounds. The diplomats and politicians could then celebrate what was meant to be a puerile skirmish waged in conditions more reminiscent of an old cavalry charge than mud-soaked death.

Pope Benedict XV, after his election on September 3, 1914, kept busy attempting to halt a war he deemed “the suicide of civilized Europe.” In December, he attempted, in vain, to persuade the belligerents to halt the murderous party, asking “that the guns may fall silent at least upon the night the angels sang.” This would be a prelude to discussions towards an honourable peace.

The sequence written about and recalled every year with the monotonous reflection of a prayer goes something like this: Stille nacht, heilige nacht comes from the German side of the trenches at the Ypres Salient. (The Hun proved troublingly festive and did not seem up for the killing.) The British, initially wary, show interest. Shots are not fired. The First Noel comes in reply. “Then,” remembered a British soldier, “we started up O Come All Ye Faithful and the Germans immediately joined in singing the same thing to the Latin words of Adeste Fideles.”

The gestures were repeated along the Western Front in pockets of small “truces”. British, German and French soldiers, in open defiance of orders, went to No Man’s Land in a spiritual reclamation of sorts under the pretext of burying the dead. An economy of gifting came to the fore: tobacco and chocolate; beer and pudding; sausage and Christmas trees; badges and buttons. The Allies were astonished by the goods they could receive in the exchange: the German armies were, at that point, better supplied.

Then came the football matches, though the legend here is inflated. Socks wrapping a tin of bully beef, for instance, were substitutes for soccer balls. The scores at these matches remain a subject of conjecture, as do the matches themselves.

Peter Stanley of the University of New South Wales, when asked about the record in 2014, suggested that such matches would have taken place behind the respective lines of the soldiers, if, in fact, they took place at all. The papers of the day ran “pictures of the truces, with lots of photos of men smoking but no photos of soccer matches. So what does that tell you?”

But Stanley’s insistence does not withstand the accounts of some subalterns, who describe scenes, not of 10-a-side but “a question of 70 Germans against 50 Englishmen” involving a ball with an adventurous fate. In January 1, 1915, The Times received a letter from an anonymous major that an English regiment “had a football match with the Saxons, who beat them 3-2.” (At least, mused historian Gerard DeGroot, “it did not end in penalties.”)

The legacy of the truce is somewhat estranged. While it might well have been the last gasp of civility in modern warfare – if you fall for that notion that civility was ever a part of the killing business – the truce has become a matter of commercialisation and celluloid. There are films such as the 2005 French film Joyeux Noel. Then come the commodities.

Supermarket chains such as Sainsbury’s have found the prospect of making money out of the memory irresistible. A 2014 ad, specifically, was reviled and yet admired by The Guardian for its “startling array of emotional depth within a few short minutes” marked by “breathtaking” cinematography. Slaughter might be futile, fought in the name of obscene abstractions, but making money is as clear enough a mission as any.

The truce compelled Arthur Conan Doyle to deem it “one human episode amid all the atrocities which have stained the memory of the war.” But it remains an episode celebrated with lessons to be ignored. The classroom of history troubles the demagogues and political practitioners, as it did those war planners in 1914 alarmed by the loss of faith in killing shown by the truce makers. Political figures and generals could not; soldiers could.

In many instances, the participating units in question were relieved by fresh men untainted by the temptation of mutual respect. As the war wore on in all its barbarity, such truces became infrequent. The enemy had to be hated. Common humanity, so goes that most salient lesson of all, remains a common mineral to be exploited and manipulated rather than revered.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]

Minister for Defence Elisabetta Trenta (5-Star Movement), on the mike of a musical radio station, sang « C’era un ragazzo che come me amava i Beatles e i Rolling Stones », and declared « This song makes me think about the value of peace, a priceless value that we must always preserve ».

Ten days later, in Afghanistan, the military-garbed Minister praised « our armed presence outside of the frontiers of Italy, guided by the values of our Constitution, on a fundamental mission for peace ».

The mission is Resolution Support, initiated by NATO in Afghanistan in 2015, after the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), a United Nations mission of which NATO  had taken command by armed force in 2003.

So the US/NATO war continues in Afghanistan, now in its eighteenth year. It was launched by the USA on 7 October 2001 on the official motive of hunting down Osama Bin Laden, accused of the attacks of 11 September, who was supposedly hiding in an Afghani cave under the protection of the Taliban.

The true reasons were revealed by the Pentagon in a report published one week before the beginning of the war  – « There is a possibility that a military rival is emerging in Asia with a formidable base of resources. Our armed forces must maintain the capacity to impose the will of the United States on any adversary, in order to change the régime of an enemy State  or occupy a foreign territory until US strategic objectives are realised ».

In the period preceding 11 September 2001, there had been strong signals of a rapprochement between China and Russia, which were actualised when the two countries signed the « Treaty of Good Neighbourship and Friendly Cooperation » on 17 July 2001. Washington considered that this rapprochement between China and Russia was a challenge  to US interests, at the critical moment when the USA were trying to fill the void left in Central Asia by the disintegration of the USSR – a region of capital importance both for its geostrategic position in terms of Russia and China, and for its border reserves of oil and natural gas in the Caspian. The key position for the control of this region is Afghanistan.

This explains the headstrong engagement in a war which has already cost the United States alone more than 1,000 billion dollars. The mission which is currently under way is presented by NATO as a « non-combat mission ». But on the basis of official data, in the first ten months of 2018, the US Air Force dropped approximately 6 thousand bombs and missiles on targets over Afghanistan. As well as fighters and armed drones, they used B-52 heavy bombers equipped with rotary launchers, which increase by two thirds the already enormous destructive capacities of the aircraft by enabling it to drop as many as 30 powerful precision-guided bombs in one mission.

Apart from this visible war there is another, hidden, waged by US and Allied Special Forces, with the mission to assassinate Taliban chieftains, or those presumed to be chieftains, and other people who are considered to be dangerous. The result is disastrous for NATO – as the number of civilian victims increases, so the Taliban gain ground.

Italy has been participating in the Afghanistan war for more than 15 years, under US command and in violation of Article 11 of the Constitution. Its contingent is ranked third out of 39 participants, after the United States and Germany. Italian officers are deployed in Tampa, Florida with the USA Command, and in Bahrein as liaison personnel with the US forces there.

And while the war continues to crush its victims, our Minister of Defence declares – at the Herat Orphanage – that Italian soldiers gave about two hundred winter outfits to « young and less fortunate children ».

Translation: Pete Kimberley

Originally published on Il Manifesto (Italy)

According to Bloomberg News, Trump is furious about Powell’s rate hikes while financial markets are slumping badly. More on this below.

In 2016, presidential aspirant Trump said Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen should be “ashamed” of herself for keeping short-term interest rates too low.

Months earlier, he said low rates are “the best thing going for us,” calling any increase “scary.” In December 2008, the Fed cut its benchmark interest rate to near-zero (a range of zero to 0.25%).

From then to December 2015, the Fed funds rate remained at near-zero. After seven years of unprecedented accommodative monetary policy, including a tsunami of quantitative easing (QE easy money) for years, an October 29, 2014 Fed press release said the following:

The Open Market Committee (FOMC) “decided to conclude its (QE) asset purchase program this month.”

It’s “maintaining its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its holdings of agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities in agency mortgage-backed securities and of rolling over maturing Treasury securities at auction.”

“This policy, by keeping the Committee’s holdings of longer-term securities at sizable levels, should help maintain accommodative financial conditions.”

Months earlier, former Reagan-era Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director David Stockman called QE “high grade monetary heroin,” adding “(o)ne day, it’ll “kill the patient,” adding:

Over the last quarter of a century,

“(w)hat has been growing is the wealth of the rich, the remit of the state, the girth of Wall Street, the debt burden of the people, the prosperity of the beltway, and the sway of the three great branches of government which are domiciled there – that is, the warfare state, the (corporate) welfare state and the central bank.”

“What is failing…is the vast expanse of the Main Street economy where the great majority has experienced stagnant living standards, rising job insecurity, failure to accumulate any material savings, rapidly approaching old age and the certainty of a Hobbesian future where, inexorably, taxes will rise and social benefits will be cut.”

“And what is positively falling is the lower ranks of society whose prospects for jobs, income and a decent living standard have been steadily darkening.”

The above remarks describe the dystopian new normal. Wall Street, other corporate favorites, and high-net-worth individuals never had things better – while ordinary Americans struggle to get by, a few missed paychecks from possible homelessness, hunger and despair, what years of thirdworldizing the nation is all about.

Monied interests run things. The president, Congress, and the courts serve them. Until rolling back QE began, along with raising interest rates, years of unrestrained monetary heroin showed how far off the rails the Fed strayed.

Money printing madness doesn’t stimulate growth or create jobs when used for speculative investments, mergers and acquisitions, high salaries, and big bonuses – while wages for ordinary Americans fail to keep pace with inflation and vital benefits erode.

Helicopter Ben Bernanke dropped lots of money on Wall Street and into the pockets of wealthy investors. Virtually none went to  Main Street where it’s vitally needed.

When people have money they spend it. A virtuous cycle of prosperity follows. America once was sustainably prosperous growth. Today the nation is in decline. It’s heading for third world status. It’s more a kleptocracy than democracy.

America’s super-rich got fabulously richer by investing their wealth to create more of it. During the height of the 2008-09 financial crisis, a popular slogan was: “Banks got bailed out.” Ordinary people “got sold out.”

Fed chairmen Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke were maestros of misery, creating financial bubble conditions. America’s 1% profited hugely at the expense of the vast majority of ordinary people.

As Fed chairman, Bernanke handed speculators over $20 trillion, mostly interest-free, amounting to legalized bank robbery, creating unsustainable bubble conditions.

From December 2015 under Fed Chairwoman Yellen to December 19, 2018 under Jerome Powell, succeeding her on February 5, 2018, the Fed raised its benchmark short rate nine times.

It’s currently at 2.25 – 2.50%, historically low, no drag on economic growth. Powell signaled fewer hikes in 2019, perhaps two instead of four this year.

According to Bankrate’s chief financial analyst Greg McBride, “(t)he Fed downshifted (its) projections of 2019 economic growth, inflation, and interest rate hikes – not in a big way but enough to remove the urgency of repeated rate hikes.”

Powell signaled that future moves will be data-dependent. When economic contraction occurs, rates will be cut, perhaps along with resumption of QE.

Trump railed against Powell’s latest rate hike. According to Bloomberg News, he “discussed firing (him) as his frustration with the central bank chief intensified following this week’s interest-rate hike and months of stock-market losses, according to four people familiar with the matter,” adding:

“Advisers close to Trump aren’t convinced he would move against Powell and are hoping that the president’s latest bout of anger will dissipate over the holidays, the people said on condition of anonymity.”

“Some of Trump’s advisers have warned him that firing Powell would be a disastrous move. Yet (he) privately spoke about firing Powell many times in the past few days, said two of the people.”

What unfolds in the post-holiday period remains to be seen. Presidents, congressional members, their appointed bureaucrats, and the courts are servants of money power running America.

The Federal Reserve isn’t federal. It’s privately owned and controlled by major Wall Street bankers. They decide who runs it.

It’s been this way since enactment the 1913 Federal Reserve Act, creating the Fed, a coup d’etat by powerful Wall Street bankers. The same year’s Revenue Act imposed a federal income tax for the public to pay interest on the federal debt.

As long as giant Wall Street banka control the nation’s money, ordinary people will be entrapped in a “web of debt,” Ellen Brown explained – amounting to permanent debt bondage, the national wealth increasingly transferred from the public to private bankers, most people none the wiser.

If Congress controlled the nation’s money as mandated under the Constitution’s Article I, Section 8, none of this would have happened.

Bankers choose Fed chairmen and governors. It’s always been this way. Presidents have no say. They announce pre-selected choices while pretending otherwise.

Wall Street bankers chose Powell as Fed chairman. They’ll decide if he stays, goes, and who’ll replace him one day.

Longterm speculative excess is mainly behind current market turbulence, not current interest rates, still historically low, hugely benefitting investors at the expense of savers, the nation’s elderly harmed most.

It’s unclear whether sharp equity price declines signal a more protracted erosion of valuations, or if the current selloff is short-term – the fullness of time to tell.

What’s going on now will be best be understood in hindsight. Before his untimely passing in June 2012, International Forecaster owner and editor Bob Chapman said America is in terminal decline.

Powerful interests went too fair, and they know it, he stressed, adding they’re waging a losing rear guard action. It never worked before and won’t now.

Money printing madness assures bad endings. Chapman’s advice to investors was sound. He predicted a major day of reckoning ahead, its timing to be determined by events.

If the moment of truth arrived, Chapman’s warning will be borne out. If not now and coming later, the fullness of time will explain what’s only guesswork now.

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.

Two recent reports from the United States strongly suggest the United States is planning a major war with Russia and China, but are far from certain that they could in fact succeed in such a war. The reports also provide insights into how the United States will meet the budgetary demands of such war preparations, but almost zero appreciation of the social and human costs of such policies.

The first of these reports is entitled “Providing for the Common Defence” (November 2018). It is the report prepared for the purpose of assessing the National Defence Strategy document released in early 2018.

It acknowledges that changes “at home and abroad are diminishing US military advantages,” and that this diminution of these “advantages” poses a threat to “vital United States interests.”

Geopolitical shifts in the regional power structures are “undermining deterrence of United States adversaries and confidence of United States allies, thus increasing the likelihood of military conflict”. Should such a conflict eventuate, the United States could “suffer unacceptably high casualties and a loss of major capital assets.”

The report says that “America is losing its advantage in key war fighting areas such as air and missile defence, cyber and space operations, anti-surface and anti- submarine warfare, long range ground-based fires, and electronic warfare”.

It further acknowledges that “America’s edge is diminishing or has disappeared in many key technologies that underpin US military superiority”.

Such frankness is not without precedent in US strategy papers and the implications of the above quotations are a probable reason why the report has received almost zero coverage in the western mainstream media.

Acknowledgements of technological deficiency and strategic disadvantage do not sit comfortably with the image of an all-powerful America willing and able to defeat any threat to its own global interests or those of its allies. The latter prefer the comfortable delusion of an omnipotent US “umbrella.”

The Commission’s strategy for addressing this perceived falling behind and consequent loss of military omnipotence is however itself fatally flawed. The proposed “solution” is to spend vastly greater sums of money at a rate of 3-5% above inflation.

That means that a significantly greater share of the federal budget would have to be devoted to military spending. The only way that could be achieved, given that the United States government already has a huge growing deficit ($22 trillion and counting) would have to come, the report acknowledges, by cuts to social spending such as pensions, Medicare and social security. The “trade-offs” the report acknowledges will be “difficult”, a statement that seriously under- estimates the social devastation that such cuts would bring about.

This argument is put forward in a society which already spends more on defence than that spent by the next eight national military budgets combined. United States national infrastructure, in everything from bridges to schools is already crumbling; and these proposals will only accelerate that downward trend.

It does not seem to occur to the report writers that the entire premise that the United States should maintain its attempt to control the world for the benefit of the United States is neither desirable nor wanted by the vast majority of the worlds nations as evidenced by multiple UN General Assembly resolutions.

The second report is issued by the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) and is entitled: National Security: Long Range Emerging Threats Facing the United States as Identified by Federal Agencies (December 2018.) It has received even less publicity then the ‘Providing for the Common Defence’ document.

The probable reason for this mainstream media reticence is because the GAO report actually details where the United States is lagging in military capability viz a viz its two perceived principal rivals: Russia and China.

The fact of relative military weakness is not new. Andrei Martyanov in his book Losing Military Supremacy (2018) provided a detailed analysis of why Russian military technology was superior to the United States in several important fields. What Martyanov said about Russia applies with equal validity to Chinese technology.

Martyanov’s argument was dramatically illustrated by President Putin’s 1^st March 2018 address to the Russian Parliament. The initial American reaction was to discount Putin’s claims, although within days the military industrial complex was demanding more funds to counteract the superiority of Russian weaponry outlined in Putin’s speech.

The GAO Report now provides an authoritative acknowledgement that Putin was not bluffing. Under the section of the report headed “Weapons” it has this to say:

Hypersonic weapons. China and Russia are pursuing hypersonic weapons because their speed, altitude, and maneuverability may defeat most missile defence systems, and they may be used to improve long range conventional and nuclear strike capabilities. There are no existing countermeasures.

Missiles. Adversaries are developing missile technology to attack the United States in novel ways and challenge US missile defence, including conventional and nuclear ICBMs, sea launched land attack missiles, and space based missiles that could orbit the earth.

Aircraft. China and Russia are developing new aircraft, including stealth aircraft, which could fly faster, carry advanced weapons, and achieve greater ranges. Such aircraft could force US aircraft to operate at further distances and put more US targets at risk.

There is more in the same vein. The only caveat to add to those points is the use of the conditional tense. The use of such words as “may” or “could” is redundant. That technology is already operational (www.thesaker.is 1 March 2018).

A number of commentators have argued that the technology gap between Russian and Chinese systems and that of United States is now measured in decades. There is no evidence to suggest this gap could be bridged in the foreseeable future. A more likely scenario is that the technological gap could widen.

Although there are powerful voices in the United States administration and ‘deep state’ generally sufficiently delusional and frankly crazy enough to believe that the United States could “win” a nuclear war with Russia and/or China, the GAO report should act as a constraint on their wilder ambitions.

History demonstrates that it is unwise to underestimate the extent to which the United States will go to maintain its self appointed role is the world’s dominant hegemon, (see Michael Pembroke’s Korea (2018). The reality is that the era of United States dominance is now well past.

Rather than risk a nuclear war that would wreak unimaginable losses upon all the world’s peoples, including for the first time the United States, the more likely scenario will be an intensification of what Andrei Korybko calls ‘hybrid warfare.’ A current illustration of this is the campaign being waged against Huawei, ostensibly because of the potential for Chinese cyber espionage but in reality to weaken and undermine China’s 2025 program for leadership in artificial intelligence, quantum information and other sophisticated technologies, and enforce America’s allies to buy their inferior products.

Proxy wars in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America are also likely to increase exponentially.

These two reports demonstrate that the United States has lost its previous technological and military superiority, but equally, that it is willing to go to extraordinary lengths to prevent any further erosion of its world wide role and its replacement by the two emerging countervailing superpowers, Russia and China. Whether or not that American determination will tip the world into a catastrophic nuclear exchange will be one of the major questions for 2019.

James O’Neill, an Australian-based Barrister at Law, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The US war against Syria was one that people almost stopped. President Obama was unable to get Congress to authorize the war in 2013, but the Pentagon and foreign policy establishment, who have long wanted to control Syria, pushed forward with war anyway.

It has been a disaster. The war has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and injuries as well six million people displaced within the country and five million people who have fled the country.

The people were right, and the military was wrong. The war on Syria never should have happened and now must end.

President Trump announced withdrawal from Syria this week. This creates an opportunity to end the war on Syria. We have work to do to make peace a reality.

Image: Peace Insurrection on Capitol Hill 2013, CODE PINK. Photo by Cool Revolution.

The People Almost Prevented the US War in Syria

In 2013, amidst highly-doubted, unproven allegations of a chemical attack by Syrian President Assad (debunked a year later), the threat of war escalated, and so did opposition to the war. Protests against an attack on Syria took place around the world. In the the US, people were in the streets, and speaking out at town halls. Obama was forced to bring the issue to Congress for authorization.

Congress was barraged with a Peace Insurrection encamped outside its doors, sit-ins in Congressional offices, and a massive number of phone calls with 499 to 1 opposing the war. Obama could not get the votes to support the war. Harry Reid surrendered to the public by never holding a vote.

The other superpower, the people, had stopped a war. Obama became the first president to announce a bombing campaign who was forced to back down by the people. But the victory would be temporary, neocons and militarists continued to push for war. Based on new fake terror fears, and false chemical attack allegations, the ‘humanitarian’ destruction of Syria proceeded.

WSWS described how the war escalated under Obama, writing, “The illegal US occupation of Syria, begun under the Obama administration in October 2015 without authorization from either the United Nations or the Syrian government.” There was a shift from CIA support for Al Qaeda-linked militias to war to bring down the Assad government. US troops coordinated a campaign of airstrikes that reduced the city of Raqqa and other Syrian communities to rubble. Amnesty International, after conducting field investigations, reported the US has committed war crimes in Syria. Vijay Prashad described the US creating “hell on Earth” in Syria.

Despite this, the US was losing the war in Syria. With Russia coming to the aid of its ally, Assad was not going to be removed.

Trump escalated and drove the US deeper into the Middle East quagmire betraying the non-interventionist base who elected him. The corporate media praised Trump was as ‘becoming president’ for bombing Syria based on another unproven chemical attack. Later, even General Mattis admitted there was no evidence tying Assad to chemical attacks.

Early this year, the Trump administration was talking about having a permanent presence in one-third of Syria with 30,000 Syrian Kurds as the ground forces, US air support and eight new US bases. Protests continued against the bombing of Syria throughout the spring in the US and around the world.

Now, as Andre Vltchek describes, the Syrian people have prevailed and most of the country is liberated. People are returning and rebuilding.

Image: Boston Anti-War Protest: ‘Hands Off Syria! No War! Nov. 21 2016 by ShaunaDorothy in Socialist.    

Trump Announces Withdrawal

President Trump’s announcement that he is withdrawing from Syria over the next 60 to 100 days has been met with a firestorm of opposition. Trump tweeted on Wednesday, “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.”

Russia is drawing down its military activities with Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu reporting Russia was carrying out 100 to 110 flights per day at its peak and now they do no more than two to four flights per week, chiefly for reconnaissance purposes. Putin agreed that ISIS had been defeated and supported Trump’s decision but cast doubt on Washington’s plans, saying, “We don’t see any signs of withdrawing US troops yet, but I concede that it is possible.”

There has been very little support for withdrawal from elected officials. Many Republicans and the corporate media are criticizing Trump. The first two Democrats to step forward to support the removal of troops were Rep. Ted Lieu, a frequent Trump critic who applauded the action, and Rep. Ro Khanna. But, the bi-partisan war Congress opposes Trump.

Secretary of Defense Mattis resigned after Trump’s announcement. In his resignation, he expressed disagreements with Trump over foreign policy. The media is mourning the exit of Mattis, neglecting his history as a likely war criminal who targeted civilians. Ray McGovern reminds us Mattis was famous for quipping, “It’s fun to shoot some people.”

Mattis is the fourth of “My Generals,” as Trump called them, to leave the administration, e.g. Director of Homeland Security and then Chief of Staff, John Kelly, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, and National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. This leaves neocon extremist John Bolton and pro-militarist Mike Pompeo as the biggest influences on Trump’s foreign policy.

Popular Resistance supports the withdrawal of troops from Syria.

We are not alone in supporting Trump’s withdrawal announcement. Medea Benjamin of CODE PINK described the withdrawal as “a positive contribution to the peace process,” urging “all foreign powers that have been involved in Syria’s destruction, including the United States, take responsibility for rebuilding this nation and providing assistance to the Syrian people, including the refugees, who have suffered so tragically for over seven years.”

Veterans for Peace supports the withdrawal saying the US has “no legal right to be [there] in the first place” and describing the brutal destruction caused by US bombs.

Black Alliance for Peace supports the withdrawal writing  the war”should have never been allowed in the first place.” They denounce the corporate press and members of the political duopoly for opposing the withdrawal. BAP also recognizes that the foreign policy establishment will fight this withdrawal and promises to work to end all US involvement in Syria and other nations.

Image: New York Times reports the coup which overthrew the country’s democratically elected government. Stephen J. Meade, the U.S. assistant military attaché was a CIA officer, worked with the Syrian chief of staff, Husni Zaim, to plan a coup. The US was concerned about Syria’s stance on Israel, border disputes with Turkey, and oil pipelines, and worried that the left was growing in power and that the government was growing friendlier to the Soviet Union. 

Will the Long History Of US Regime Change In Syria End?

Trump is being fought because the US has a long history of trying to control Syria dating back to the 1940s.  CIA documents from 1986 describe how the US could remove the Assad family.

While the bulk of destruction of Syria occurred during the Obama administration, plans for the current war and overthrowing Assad date back to the George W. Bush administration. A State Department cable, “Influencing the SARG In The End Of 2006”, examines strategies to bring about regime change in Syria.

This is not the first time President Trump said the war on Syria would be ending. He did so in March, but in April, Mattis announced expanding the US military in Syria. As Patrick Lawrence writes in Don’t Hold Your Breath on US Troop Withdrawal from Syria, “By September the Pentagon was saying. . .U.S. forces had to stay until Damascus and its political opponents achieved a full settlement.“

In response to Trump’s newest announcement, the Pentagon announced it will continue the air war in Syria. They would do so at least for as long as troops were on the ground, adding “As for anything post-US troops on the ground, we will not speculate on future operations.” The Pentagon has not given any details on a withdrawal timeline, citing “force protection and operational security reasons.”

Trump’s removal of US troops from Syria challenges the foreign policy establishment, which seemed to be planning a long-term presence in Syria.

 Image: Stop Endless Wars from the Anti-War Committee.

The People Must Ensure the End of the War on Syria

The peace movement should do all it can to support Trump’ call for withdrawal because he needs allies. Patrick Lawrence describes the experience thus far during the Trump administration:

“As Trump finishes his second year in office, the pattern is plain: This president can have all the foreign policy ideas he wants, but the Pentagon, State, the intelligence apparatus, and the rest of what some call ‘the deep state’ will either reverse, delay, or never implement any policy not to its liking.”

We saw this scenario play out earlier this month when Trump complained about the Pentagon’s out-of-control budget and pledged to cut it. As Lawrence points out, just days later the president met with Mattis and the chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services Committee and announced that the three had agreed on a 2020 defense budget of $750 billion, a 5 percent increase.

Trump has made no progress on North Korea since their first meeting and has been prevented from making progress on positive relations with Russia. The foreign policy establishment of the Pentagon, State Department, Intelligence Agencies, Weapons Makers and Congressional hawks are in control. Trump will need all the help he can get to overcome them and withdraw from Syria.

We should urge Trump to be clear that ALL troops are leaving Syria. This should include not only the troops on the ground but the air force as well as private contractors. The CIA should also stop its secret war on Syria. And the US should leave the military bases it has built in Syria. Similarly, the movement should support Trump’s calls to withdraw from Afghanistan.

The US has done incredible damage to Syria and owes restitution, which is needed to help bring Syria back to normalcy.

Syria and Afghanistan join the list of failed and counterproductive US wars. These are more signs of a failing empire. The people of the United States must rise up to finish the job we started in 2013 — stop the war on Syria, a war that never should have occurred.

Syrian government and pro-Iranian sources have increased their activity in the eastern part of Syria in response to the announced decision of the US administration to withdraw troops from the country.

On December 22, a spokesperson for Iraq’s Kata’ib Hezbollah, Jafar al-Husseini, told al-Mayadeen TV that the group is ready to coordinate with the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in order to protect Syrian Kurds.

He noted that the U.S. withdrawal had been expected and revealed that Kata’ib’ Hezbollah has “continuous and intensive communications” with Kurdish commanders in northeastern Syria. According to al-Husseini, the U.S. is planning to hand over its role in the country to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

On December 21, reports appeared that the SAA’s Tiger Forces were set to be redeployed from northern Hama to the government-held area on the western bank of the Euphrates. A source in the Tiger Forces confirmed this to SouthFront and said that the redeployment process will take several days. However, he declined to provide further information.

Reports indicate that the Tiger Forces as well as several other pro-government factions will be involved in further operations to eliminate ISIS cells in the Homs-Deir Ezzor desert.

On December 22, US President Donald Trump continued Twitter revelations and said that “ISIS is largely defeated and other local countries, including Turkey, should be able to easily take care of whatever remains. “ The interesting part is that the US president said that the US entered Syria 7 years ago. This contradicts with the official version of the previous US administration that the operation in the country started in 2014 as a campaign to defeat ISIS.

Trump’s decision to pull troops out of Syria has not found support among some members of his administration and US congress members. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and special envoy for the global coalition to defeat ISIS Brett McGurk are resigning as a result of this disagreement.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which mostly consist of Kurdish armed groups, are deeply concerned with a possible US withdrawal. The SDF already blamed Trump for the resumption of ISIS activity in the area of Hajin, called on France to establish a no-fly zone over northeastern Syria and even stated that it does not mind if the Assad government institutions return to Manbij in case if the self-administration is allowed. The SDF also revealed that it is currently engaged in talks with the Damascus government.

The SDF’s main concern that after the withdrawal of the main forces, a limited number of US Special Operations troops will not stop Turkey from launching its operation east of the Euphrates.

France is also going to keep its troops in Syria, but it has only about 200 servicemen and 3 CAESAR self-propelled howitzers deployed. This is not enough to keep the entire contact line between the SDF-held area and the Ankara-controlled territories.

Summing up, it appears clear that even a partial pullout of US troops from Syria will remain a vacuum, which all the sides involved in the conflict will try to fill with own influence.

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The “Gilets Jaunes” will not let go. Not even – or especially not – after Macron‘s half-hearted, rather cynical and grandstanding concessions – of “too little and too late” – which when analyzed constitute a new lie, especially regarding the increase of the minimum wage. It was clear from his face, these concessions, of a President who campaigned on the basis of “never make any concessions”, were fake, as fake as his fake attitude of an apologist could be. Even without listening to his words, his body language of arrogance gives him away.

This past weekend, on Saturday, 15 December, another more than 100,000 Yellow Vests were marching on Paris; countrywide some 200,000. The police to oppress them, as officially reported, was about the same as the weekend before, 8,000 in Paris, close to 90,000 throughout France. Military assistance was not missing. Besides, in a state of emergency, who distinguished between police and military?

Interestingly, the international press – the MSM – is taking it seriously. Why? They fear that this relentless movement may spread to other countries, even countries beyond Europe – like “Trump Land”, the United States of America. And why not. The same malaise of capital being shifted upwards to the detriment of the poor and middle class exists everywhere, may even be most pronounced in the US, but nobody talks about it and pays attention to it, lest the people would have awakened to the growing disparity long ago – and taken to the streets massively – within the inner circles of the Washington Belt Way.

Chapeau to the French. Although their forefathers were among the most vicious and miserable exploiters,  in human history – when they ravaged for hundreds of years West Africa – and the elite still does, unbeknown even to (most) of the Yellow Vets.

Is this movement going to change the future – the future of Europe, the future of the values of the western world, that has been so adamant in propagating neofascist ideas – that they have become the new normal; in most people’s brains? There is a saying: “When fascism comes again, it will not come saying I’m the new Fascism; it will come saying, I’m the Anti-Fascism”.

Isn’t that already true when you look at todays Europe, what is called the EU – The European (non) Union (as I call it)? – And it includes even those countries – Switzerland and Norway – not EU members, but which are ever faster moving to the neoliberal right. Let alone those (still) 28 EU countries, like, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Germany, Holland, where political parties have been divided, splintered to pieces, so that the oddest combinations of ‘coalition’ governments have to govern, mostly in an ungovernable fashion. It’s a success for the over-arching elite, call it the world’s dark and deep state – that is behind it with priceless media lies and propaganda, social media, Cambridge Analytica and the like. Anybody with common sense has no saying, simply because the money is on the other side.

And that money is endless, as it still stems from the FED, or better even, from private banks, that produces it at random with every loan they make, new cash is created. There is enough liquidity, as needed for their purpose, i.e. the propaganda war machine. Though, not much longer. The dollar hegemony is on its last stretch. Yes, we have been saying this for a while – but what is a “while” in geopolitics and in geo-time spans? – A few years, are a few seconds. The alternative – the Eastern Block, SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization), the Eurasian Economic Union, the newly created Caspian Sea Association of the five Caspian riparian nations (Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan). This association just signed an important deal under which they are sharing the tremendous wealth under the sea, i.e. 50 billion barrels of oil and just under 300 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-08-caspian-sea-nations-landmark.html#jCp,

The Eastern Block allies are working on getting their solid act together, mostly based on the little mentioned (in the west) China’s President Xi’s initiative, the New Silk Road, or the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – a China-sponsored economic program that will encircle the globe with infrastructure, research, transport lines, industrial development, cultural exchange, education and friendly trade. But no offensive, war-like industries.

BRI advances are fast and solid. They are unstoppable. Once they are well established and many western countries are highly eager to join the initiative – the western economy will sing its Swan Song.

Seeing Macron from this perspective, he is just a little boy and a little full of himself, having been implanted by the foremost western banking clan, the Rothschild family, to help salvage what can be salvaged, i.e. milk to the bones the French and by association, the European Social system what’s left of it. Greece was a test case. And look at Greece – the Elite is still so greed-driven that they ‘d rather salvage their billions stashed away in Swiss banks, instead of showing some integrity and out of solidarity tell the EU and its fake currency the Euro, to go to hell. No, they won’t. Greece could have been an example for the rest of Europe.

Greece on her own, with their local currency the Drachma, local public banks for the development of the country, would today be on the way to prosperity, with jobs for most people, with an economy that could feed everybody and with a health care and education system that would bring up a new generation of Greek politicians – Greek politicians, who like after WWII displayed a solidarity that made them exemplary for many European countries.

With all the lying, miserably lying European statistics that Greece is now recovering and improving and that Greece is becoming autonomous and can borrow directly from the capital markets again – people are still dying from lack of medication, of medical care, of famine, of lack of shelter, especially in the winter – and of ever-increasing suicide rates. That’s Greece, the Troika’s (EU / EC; ECB, IMF) example of ‘salvation’.– Last Saturday, what looked like an endless crowd of ‘gilets jaunes’ was marching down Champs Elysees, in the front with a huge French flag. Stamped on the left on the blue strip of the flag was “1789”, in the middle white strip was “1968” and in the red strip to the right, was inscribed “2018”. An interesting – and indeed ambitious and bold allegation to the legendary 1789 storm of the Bastille, that changed world history. The current set-up of the EU certainly does not belong to anything called a “revolution”. It rather must be dismantled under a revolution.

These days simultaneous protests take place in Victor Orbán’s Hungary; in Belgium, with the Prime Minister, Charles Michel, having just resigned, leaving again a country without a government. In Germany, Merkel is slowly fading away – but who will follow? – In Italy, Deputy, PM Salvini, of the junior partner of the popular (not the derogatory ‘populist’) coalition, the extreme right-wing Lega Norte, is calling the shots – and they are clearly as anti-EU as can be. At issue is foremost Brussels unilateral meddling in Italy’s budget, while other countries, like France, who have been running budget deficits for years, are getting away with a soft call to attention (Macron naturally is Brussels Holy Child). – Will Italy succeed bringing and end to this unholy non-Union?

Then there is BREXIT, leaving Theresa May hanging on a cliff – of, say, no-return? She may not survive. Who will follow her. The madman Johnson? – The pressure of his rightwing supporters may be such that he has no choice than calling another referendum. And we can only guess with the propaganda of the Washington apologists and Atlantists how that will end. – Would a new no-Brexit vote, reversing the past two years of negotiating to zilch, cause an internal revolution? An internal collapse that could no longer stand up to the demands of Brussels, even with a manipulated “stay” vote?

The likely truth is that the Yellow Vests will mean the end of the very short-lived arrogant Macron era – and – who will replace him? – There is nobody prepared for it. The left-wing Mélenchon, good ideas, but conveys bitterness, has no charisma – and the right-wing Le Pen – is, though joining the left in extremis, aiming at getting out of the EU and of the Euro, but other than that, it’s outright fascism, ready for an alliance with Kiev. – Who else? – Chaos in the making, a good basis for a revolution, a revolution that may bring about more than meets the eye – a Europe-wide upheaval that brings back local sovereign states (whether Greece wants it or not!) with local money and local public banks that work for the public and for the local economy rather than for international profit and greed minded shareholders.

Wouldn’t that be a real revolution? – It would open the gate to Russia, Eurasia, China – the New Silk Road, a gate to a “New Deal” of the 21^st Century, a New Deal of Inclusion from Europe throughout Asia and Africa. Think about it – the map surely shows a super Continent that hardly needs transatlantic relations, especially not those that the masters in Washington propagate – their rules, their guns, their dictate, their monetary hegemony. No thank you, West. And good riddens, Macron.

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.

Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

First published by the New Eastern Outlook – NEO

Quale reazione ha suscitato in Italia l’avvertimento del presidente russo Putin che il mondo sottovaluta il pericolo di guerra nucleare e che tale tendenza si sta accentuando? Significativo il commento de La Repubblica che parla di «toni molto allarmistici». Eloquente il silenzio praticamente assoluto dell’intero arco parlamentare. Come se l’Italia non avesse niente a che fare con la corsa agli armamenti nucleari che, ha avvertito Putin nella conferenza stampa di fine anno, potrebbe portare alla «distruzione dell’intera civiltà o forse dell’intero pianeta». Scenario non allarmistico, ma previsto dagli scienziati che studiano gli effetti delle armi nucleari. 

Un particolare pericolo – sottolinea Putin – è rappresentato dalla «tendenza ad abbassare la soglia per l’uso di armi nucleari, creando cariche nucleari tattiche a basso impatto che possono portare a un disastro nucleare globale». A tale categoria appartengono le nuove bombe nucleari B61-12 che gli Usa cominceranno a schierare in Italia, Germania, Belgio, Olanda e forse in altri paesi europei nella prima metà del 2020. «L’alta precisione e la possibilità di usare testate meno distruttive – avverte la Federazione degli Scienziati Americani – possono portare i comandanti militari a premere perché, in un attacco, si usi la bomba nucleare, sapendo che la ricaduta radioattiva e il danno collaterale sarebbero limitati». L’Italia è corresponsabile del crescente pericolo di guerra nucleare poiché, violando il Trattato di non-proliferazione e non aderendo al Trattato Onu per la proibizione delle armi nucleari, fornisce agli Stati uniti in funzione principalmente anti-Russia non solo basi, ma anche aerei e piloti per l’uso delle bombe nucleari. Ciò avviene con il consenso esplicito o implicito (attraverso la rinuncia a una reale opposizione) dell’intero arco parlamentare.

Conte, Di Maio e Salvini

L’altro pericolo – avverte Putin – è rappresentato dalla «disintegrazione del sistema internazionale di controllo degli armamenti», iniziata con il ritiro degli Stati uniti nel 2002 dal Trattato Abm.  Stipulato nel 1972 da Usa e Urss, esso proibiva a ciascuna delle due parti di schierare missili intercettori che, neutralizzando la rappresaglia del paese attaccato, avrebbero favorito un first strike, ossia un attacco nucleare di sorpresa. Da allora gli Stati uniti hanno sviluppato lo «scudo anti-missili», estendendolo in Europa a ridosso della Russia: due installazioni terrestri in Romania e Polonia e quattro navi da guerra, che incrociano nel Baltico e Mar Nero, sono dotate di tubi di lancio che, oltre ai missili intercettori, possono lanciare missili da crociera a testata nucleare. Anche in questo caso l’Italia è corresponsabile: a Sigonella è installata la Jtags, stazione satellitare Usa dello «scudo anti-missili», una delle cinque nel mondo. La situazione è aggravata dal fatto che gli Usa vogliono ora ritirarsi anche dal Trattato Inf del 1987 (quello che eliminò i missili nucleari Usa schierati a Comiso), così da poter schierare in Europa contro la Russia missili nucleari a raggio intermedio con base a terra. Anche qui con la corresponsablità del governo italiano, che al Consiglio Nord Atlantico del 4 dicembre ha avallato tale piano ed è sicuramente disponibile all’installazione di tali missili in Italia. «Se arriveranno i missili in Europa, poi l’Occidente non strilli se noi reagiremo», ha detto Putin. Avvertimento ignorato da Conte, Di Maio e Salvini* che, mentre battono la grancassa sul «decreto sicurezza» anti-migranti, quando arrivano bombe e missili nucleari Usa mettendo a rischio la vera sicurezza dell’Italia, non vedono, non sentono e non parlano.

Manlio Dinucci   

*Presidente del Consiglio e vicepresidenti dell’attuale governo itaiano.

On December 17, 2018, the UN General Assembly Plenary adopted a series of resolutions, many denounced for their double standards,  with fierce official statements of protest against the “country-specific” resolutions, the most nefarious and hypocritical of all. 

The voting on the morning resolutions is revealing:

Item 74(b) A/73/589/Add2. Draft Resolution VII  “Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order.

The United States voted “No” against the Resolution.  The DPRK voted “Yes,”  in support of the Resolution.

Item 74(b) A/73/589/Add.2  Draft Resolution IX:  “The Right to Food”

The United States voted “No” against the Resolution.  The DPRK voted “Yes,” in support of the Resolution.

Item 74(b) A/73/589/Add.2 Draft Resolution VIII:  “Promotion of Peace as a Vital Requirement For the Full Enjoyment of All Human Rights By All”:

The United States voted “No,” against the Resolution.  The DPRK voted “Yes,” in support of the Resolution

Regarding Draft Resolution XI:  “Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Including the Rights to Peaceful Assembly and Freedom of Association,”  it is interesting to note that the United States voted “Yes,” despite its history of persecuting the millions of Americans who assembled, peacefully, to oppose the US war against Vietnam, the persecution, murder, destruction of families, and harassment of millions of American citizens for their political beliefs and associations during the infamous McCarthy witch hunts, and the criminal FBI Cointelpro program which secretly assassinated peaceful dissenters from official US Government policy and covertly destroyed the families and lives of others, forcing taxed American citizens to support the murderous regimes of Pinochet, Suharto, Geisel, Castelo-Branco, etc. etc,. whose human rights abuses and atrocities were among the most egregious in human history.

The afternoon of December 17 dramatically exposed the chicanery and double standards of the “country-specific” resolutions adopted by the Third Committee on “Human Rights.” Several nations opposed to these resolutions described the notorious methods by which “developed” countries (the US, UK, etc.) threatened and forced more vulnerable countries to support these resolutions, which were, in reality, a violation of the vulnerable country’s own interests.  These threats included cutting funds for development and humanitarian aid to more vulnerable countries, and the weaponizing of food and medicine, which were threatened to be withheld from weaker nations unless they obeyed the commands of the imperial states.

The Resolutions, themselves, and their sponsors would be best described as clowns in a ribald comedy, except that the consequences of the political propaganda the resolutions served resulted in human tragedy, deaths from starvation, deaths from curable diseases, etc., in the nations victimized by this display of crocodile tears in the name of “human rights.”

The climax of absurdity was Japan’s sponsorship of the resolution condemning human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, ignoring the fact that Japan was responsible for the barbaric murder of at least 25 million Chinese citizens during their occupation of China, and had refined biological warfare methods tested on human prisoners, Chinese, Korean and American in their Unit 731, taken over by the United States;  Japan had never fully compensated or taken responsibility for the regime of sexual slavery they enforced upon Korean and Chinese women, and the situation remains virulent today.    Although it was announced that Resolution A/C.3/73/L.40* was adopted by “consensus,” this was a fraudulent “consensus,” as some of the most powerful and principled member states of the UN disassociated themselves from the “consensus,” and required that their statements explicitly stating their reasons for opposition to the resolution be entered into the permanent verbatim record of the General Assembly.

In the Third Committee, the DPRK could have requested a recorded vote on this Resolution, revealing which countries opposed the resolution, and which supported it.  But the DPRK elegantly dismissed the entire travesty of “country-specific” resolutions,  thereby trivializing the propaganda abuse of “human rights” and the entire grotesque performance, intended to hoodwink a gullible public.

Russia spoke first, denouncing the country-specific resolutions, opposing, in particular, the one against the DPRK, and emphatically disassociated Russia from any “consensus” on the Resolution.

China next spoke against the “country-specific” resolutions, and again, disassociated China from any “consensus” on the resolution on the “Situation of Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”

Iran delivered a powerful and eloquent address detailing the criminally unethical methods by which the “developed” nations forced submission of the more vulnerable developing nations, compelling them to support the Resolution against the DPRK, and others.  Iran disassociated itself, in particular, from any “consensus” on that resolution against the DPRK.

The Syrian Ambassador stated unequivocally that his country opposed the gross hypocrisy, and of course disassociated Syria from the ridiculous “consensus” on the Resolution against the DPRK.

The Cuban delegate stated, unequivocally, that Cuba is disassociated from this preposterous “consensus” on the DPRK resolution.

What kind of “consensus” is this, which is publicly and fiercely opposed by nations whose populations compose more than half of humanity?

The Report on the DPRK was based on the discredited UN “Commission of Inquiry,” headed Michael Kirby, who had never set foot in the DPRK, and made reference to the report by Rapporteur Tomas Quintana, who had also never set foot in the DPRK.  (Quintana privately admitted to me that he was well aware that sanctions were deliberately targeting the most vulnerable, and their purpose is “regime change.”) The two reports were based exclusively on the highly paid,  lucrative and subsequently acknowledged to be fabrications by defectors, whose incentive to juice-up their slanders with salacious details was heightened by lots of money paid for their “testimony,” (which, was recognized by Assistant Secretary-General Ivan Simonovic as failing to meet the threshold of proof required to be admitted as evidence in a court of law.)

Nevertheless, perpetrations of falsehoods as UN “Human Rights Resolutions” did not trouble the conscience – or lack of intellectual integrity of those sponsors of these resolutions.  And with stupefying temerity, Saudi Arabia sponsored the resolution against Syria.  This was breathtakingly arrogant:  Saudi Arabia condemned journalist Raif Badawi to ten years in prison and 1000 lashes for his writings critical of the Saudi regime; Saudi Arabia is currently embroiled in the criminal investigation of the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist Kashoggi, and Saudi Arabia is today responsible for, in the words of Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock, the worst humanitarian disaster in the world.

The impact of these defamatory resolutions cannot be overlooked:  this week the DPRK issued a press release stating:

“  Recently, the U.S. is resorting to anti-DPRK human rights plot in such a way that it carries deliberate provocation by adding high-ranking government officials of the DPRK, a sovereign state, to its unilateral sanctions list, while taking issue with the non-existent “human rights issue.” ….If the high-ranking politicians within the US administration including the State Department had calculated that they could drive us into giving up nuclear weapons by way of increasing the anti-DPRK sanctions and pressure and human rights racket to an unprecedented level, which has nothing to do with confidence building, it will count as greatest miscalculation, and it will block the path to denuclearization on the Korean peninsula forever – a result desired by no one.”

In a recent article published on the India-based News18 site (CNN), prominent US biologist Nina Federoff was reported as saying it is time for India to grant farmers access to genetically modified (GM) crops. In an interview with the site, she says there is no evidence that GM crops are dangerous when consumed either by people in food or by animals in feed. Federoff says that the commercial release of various GM crops in India has been halted by the Indian government due to opposition from environmental activists.

She adds that we are rapidly moving out of the climate regime in which our primary crops were domesticated, arguing that that they do increasingly worse and will yield less as temperature extremes become common and pest and pathogen populations change. She says GM will become more or less essential in an era of climate change.

In recent weeks, aside from Federoff’s intervention, GM has been a hot topic in India. In late November, a paper appeared in the journal Current Science which argues that India doesn’t need GM crops and that the track record of GM agriculture is highly questionable. The paper is notable not just because of what it says but because of who is saying it: distinguished scientist P.C. Kesavan and M.S. Swaminathan, renowned agricultural scientist and geneticist and widely regarded as the father of the Green Revolution in India.

I recently spoke with prominent campaigner Aruna Rodrigues about developments surrounding the GM issue in India, particularly the views of Federoff. Rodrigues is lead petitioner in a case before India’s Supreme Court that is seeking a moratorium on GM crops and selective bans.

CT: What do you make of Nina Federoff’s recent comments advocating for GM in India?

AR: Nina Federoff is a long-time supporter of GMOs. The last time she offered advice to India (in her role as scientific advisor to Hilary Clinton) was when Bt brinjal (eggplant) was being pushed for commercialisation. She advised that Bt brinjal would be good for India!

CT: She is a high-profile scientist. Did government officials take her advice?

AR: Her advice was straightforwardly ignored by the then Minister of the Ministry of Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh. He instituted a unique four-month scientific enquiry and public hearings. His decision to reject the commercialisation of Bt brinjal was supported by advice he received from several renowned international scientists. Their collective appraisals demonstrated serious environmental and biosafety concerns, which included issues regarding the toxity of Bt proteins resulting from their mode of action on the human gut system.

CT: What were some of the other reasons they put forward for rejecting Bt brinjal?

AR: Genetic contamination was the outstanding concern. India is a centre of origin of brinjal with the greatest genetic diversity. Contamination was a certainty. In his summing-up of the unsustainability of Bt brinjal and of its implications if introduced, one of the experts involved, Professor Andow, said it posed several unique challenges because the likelihood of resistance evolving quickly is high. He added that without any management of resistance evolution, Bt brinjal is projected to fail in 4-12 years. Jairam Ramesh pronounced a moratorium on Bt brinjal in February 2010 founded on what he called “a cautious, precautionary principle-based approach.” 

CT: So, it is clear that, despite Federoff’s claims, there are valid reasons why GM has not been commercialised in India, aside from cotton that is. Can you say something about the health safety aspects of GM crops? Federoff says GM crops are safe for human and animal consumption. Is she correct?

AR: She is wrong. There are numerous studies that indicate the possibility of harm. All the major scientific bodies of the world, including the US National Academies, the World Health Organisation and the American Medical Association, agree that the potential for adverse effect is real and that these crops, both existing, but especially any new ones, need to be tested more thoroughly than they have been in the past (for example, for long-term toxicity for cancer). Meanwhile, agroecology that minimises the use of pesticides and uses no GMO has a proven safety and nutritional record and out-yields GMOs at a fraction of the cost.

CT: Federoff makes a blanket claim about safety. But each genetic modification poses unique risks and as a technology, according to molecular geneticist Michael Antoniou, GM is fundamentally scientifically flawed. So, it is impossible to say up front that they are all safe – or in fact that the ones on the market have been rigorously tested because they have not. But a food crop isn’t just eaten. There are effects on the environment too.

AR: Federoff fails to address all the ways GM crops can be unsafe. Existing GM crops do not have a history of safe use in the environment. Even a cursory examination of the US cropping system is enough to prove that the legacy of pesticidal GM crops has fuelled the epidemics of herbicide- resistant weeds and emerging insecticide resistant pests. This proves that you cannot rescue scientifically flawed ways to farm by introducing GM technologies that only exacerbate the most damaging farming practices.

CT: Federoff claims that we need GM if we are to mitigate the effects of climate change and produce sufficient food.

AR: This is rubbish. Agroecology has demonstrated far more effectiveness already than even the best hypothetical hopes of GM crops. But more to the point: it is the machine we call industrial agriculture that is a major cause of climate change. Giving that machine more fuel in the form of GM crops is not a solution but a dangerous distraction from what is needed to halt climate change.

CT: The paper by Kesavan and Swaminathan coincided with a mass march by farmers in Delhi at the end of November. Farmers in India have a list of grievances, with the effects of Bt cotton being a prominent one. Surely, given the devastation caused by Bt cotton (which these two authors say “has failed in India”), to introduce more GM crops at this time would cause further hardship for farmers. The paper by these two eminent scientists could be seen as a timely intervention.

AR: It is certainly courageous of Nina Federoff, given the failure of Bt cotton and her earlier unfortunate advice, to indulge in yet another round of misconceived guidance to the Indian government. I must also express disquiet and surprise that a bold charge has been levelled against that paper by Prof Vijay Raghavan (Scientific Advisor to the PM), which he says is “deeply flawed”. It is expected that any such statement is buttressed with sound data and science, especially when addressing scientists of the stature of Swaminathan and Kesavan. Therefore, without substantiation, a specific response to Raghavan is not possible.

However, it is relevant to the context to state that Bt cotton has failed and within a time-scale of less than 12 years. We need only look at the work of Dr. K Kranthi, ex Director of the Central Institute for Cotton Research, and Prof Gutierrez et al in the paper ‘Deconstructing Indian cotton: weather, yields, and suicides’.

CT: It was predicted that Bt brinjal would fail within 4-12 years. It seems that’s precisely what has happened to Bt cotton in India. So, the last thing India needs is another ill thought out GM experiment pushed through without proper independent assessments that consider health and environmental outcomes or the effects on farmers’ livelihoods and rural communities. But isn’t this what is on the horizon? You have for many years been highlighting flawed regulatory mechanisms in India where GM is concerned. I have been following the current case concerning herbicide-tolerant (HT) GM mustard. It is disturbing to say the least to read about deep-rooted conflicts of interest across the entire regulatory framework and what you describe as ‘regulatory delinquency’ as well as scientific malfeasance on such a massive scale.

AR: Collective regulatory misadventures with Bt cotton must indict the regulators for ‘connected’ farmer suicides in rain-fed Bt cotton cultivation. They must take responsibility. Despite this history of regulatory adventurism with hybrid Bt cotton and Bt brinjal, this has not deterred our regulators as they attempt to introduce HT GM mustard. It is sobering that documents in the public domain reveal clear cover-up, invalid and even fraudulent field trials, the results of which were nevertheless accepted by the regulators. Perhaps, the greatest regulatory mystery surrounds the fact that the regulators themselves admit that there is no claim made by the government that HT (GMO) hybrid mustard out-performs non-GMO hybrids. Therefore, there is no ‘need’ for this GM Mustard. ‘Need’ must be established as a prior regulatory step in risk assessment.

CT: Nina Federoff says that what is preventing the widespread adoption of GM in India is political disagreement and activists. This is a well-worn tactic: try to cast valid criticisms of GM as ‘unscientific’ and politically motivated. But as you have outlined, there are valid reasons why the introduction of GM food crops is being prevented in India.

AR: It is proven in copious evidence in the Supreme Court in the last 13 years that our regulators are seriously conflicted: they promote GMOs openly, fund them (as with HT mustard and other public sector GMOs) and then regulate them. Truth is a massive casualty. This is not lightly stated. It would also be prudent to recognise that unsustainable HT and Bt crops (Bt maize in industrial systems in the West) and failed hybrid Bt cotton in India serve to put farmers on a pesticide treadmill as increasing levels of pest resistance becomes manifest. In fact, a new paper in the journal Pest Management Science based on research over a seven-year period shows progressive field-evolved resistance of pink bollworm to Bt cotton in India.

We also have a new paper by Prof Andrew Paul Gutierrez in which he concludes that extending implementation of the hybrid GM technology to other crops in India will only mirror the disastrous implementation of Bt cotton in the country, thereby tightening the economic noose on still more subsistence farmers for the sake of profits.

CT: Federoff and others are fond of making claims about what GM has or will achieve. GM crops have been on the market for over two decades. Do you see any validity in these types of claims?

AR: Most GMOs on the market now provide technological fixes to kill weeds or pests. They have no trait for yield. Together, they account for nearly 98% of all GMOs planted worldwide. 25 years of official US data on HT crops show they have led to intractable problems of super weeds, significant increases in herbicide use because of resistant weeds, higher farmer costs and no yield advantage. Claims made for GMOs with various traits, for example, drought or saline resistant or providing yield or nutritional enhancement, are futuristic. The few that have been tested for drought resistance and some other traits are according to prominent scientist Doug Gurian-Sherman out-performed by traditional breeding techniques hands-down.

Colin Todhunter is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Arun Rodrigues is lead petitioner in a case before India’s Supreme Court that is seeking a moratorium on GM crops and selective bans.

I. Introduction

Financial accountability for the government is a cornerstone of a functioning representative democracy. The ability for the people to know where taxpayer money goes to is crucial to having an informed opinion regarding the actions of your representatives and to react accordingly.

Unfortunately, as we’ve discussed in previous articles, the current state of government accounting is far from ideal–often bordering on useless to the public.

This is largely due to lax enforcement of existing laws such as the CFO Act, but also stems from the very real tension between completely transparent government financial disclosure and national security interests. (see The U.S. Statutes Creating Modern Constitutional Financial Management and Reporting Requirements and the Government’s Failure to Follow Them, available here). As of the last few months, this tension has taken the future of government financial disclosure to the public to new levels of opacity. The Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) has released Statement of Federal Financing Accounting Standards 56 (Standard 56); taking government accounting practices from laxly enforced reporting standards to a new benchmark entirely–expressly approved obfuscation of reporting and, in some cases, outright concealing financials.

This sounds fairly alarmist at first blush but, simply put, Standard 56 creates a set of situations where government entities may move numbers around to conceal where money is actually spent or even not report spending outright. Many of the concepts in Standard 56 are not new and have been discussed in FASAB reports for nearly a decade. However, these new changes make a substantial portion of government financial reporting so unreliable as to not be a useful tool to the public. (see FASAB Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards 56, available here).

In order to fully understand Standard 56, we will be taking a fairly deep dive on the new accounting standards it creates. From the history leading up to the new rules, to summarizing the exact changes of Standard 56. We’ve said that Standard 56 isn’t new, and this is true, it has hundreds and hundreds of pages of memorandums and the like which came before it outlining the exact parameters of these new reporting rules. For that reason, a complete summary of what a government entity must report will not be possible–or likely even useful–in an article of this length. That being said, we will explore the role of FASAB itself, the functional changes of Standard 56 and how it will impact the ability of the U.S. taxpayer to see how their money is spent.

II. History of the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB)

FASAB came about as a response to the requirements of the CFO Act. We previously wrote about the CFO Act in (The U.S. Statutes Creating Modern Constitutional Financial Management and Reporting Requirements and the Government’s Failure to Follow Them, available here). Under the act, the individual Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) of covered federal agencies are responsible for preparing financing statements for regular audit in order to ensure accuracy in accounting. The CFOs also were tasked by the Act with integrating accounting and budget information into a form consistent with those used to make budgets, put together a uniform financial management system for their agency, and–perhaps most importantly–make sure that the system they put together allowed for actual useful measurement of the financial performance of the CFO’s agency.

However, the CFO Act was light on the details, and after the Act passed in 1990, there was a need to determine the actual details of the accounting standards required. Therefore, the Treasury, OMB, and Comptroller General signed a Memorandum jointly establishing the FASAB to “consider and recommend the appropriate accounting standards for the federal government.” (History of FASAB, available here). Until 1999, FASAB simply gave recommendations to those three sponsoring entities. Then, in 1999, FASAB was approved to set final generally acceptable accounting practices (GAAP) for the federal government, with only a 90 day review period by the sponsoring entities. In 2002, the Treasury was removed as a sponsoring entity, leaving the OMB and GAO as the only entities able to object to FASAB set standards. (see id.)

III. FASAB and Standard 56

As mentioned above, since 1999, FASAB sets the final GAAP for the federal government. These practices are then used throughout the federal government to determine the content and structure of the financial reports the CFO Act requires federal government agencies, departments, and the like to prepare. While the GAAP are not themselves literally binding law, they do show what the federal government considers to be compliance with the law. As long as an agency follows GAAP, there will generally be a presumption that it is also complying with the federal financial accounting requirements. Therefore, unless the underlying legislation is amended by Congress, FASAB essentially determines the extent of the federal government’s financial transparency. (see id.) With the official adoption of Standard 56 as of October 4, 2018–completely unchanged from the pre-comment period version from July of this year–FASAB has determined that national security concerns essentially trump the need for financial transparency to the public. So how does Standard 56 do this?

A. What does Standard 56 Do?

In the absolute most simple terms, Standard 56 allows federal entities to shift amounts from line item to line item and sometimes even omit spending altogether when reporting their financials in order to avoid the potential of revealing classified information.¹ However, as with all laws, nearly every word in that sentence is a complicated concept to unpack. Who counts as a federal reporting entity? When and how can these entities conceal or remove financial information from their reports? What information can be removed? When does something count as confidential, and who makes that determination? All of these questions have enormous bodies of writing in FASAB memorandums addressing, and sometimes failing to address, their answers.

The simplest place to start with understanding Standard 56 is its scope. It applies to federal entities that issue unclassified general purpose federal financial reports (GPFFR), including where one entity is consolidated with another. This means it only applies to otherwise unclassified financial reports where there is a risk of revealing classified information; classified financial reports are their own can of worms. (see generally FASAB Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards 56, available here) Standard 56 also doesn’t remove the actual requirement to report, it just allows these entities to change their reports in ways that don’t reflect their actual spending. (see id.) However, for the purposes of government transparency, determining who is responsible for classifying information, and/or removing that information from unclassified reports, is quite opaque for the average interested citizen.

B. Reporting Entities Within the Scope of Standard 56

The actual reporting entities empowered by the standards of Standard 56 include organizations which are included in the government wide GPFFR. (see id.) This includes any entities that are (1) budgeted for by elected officials of the federal government, (2) owned by the federal government, or (3) controlled by the federal government with risk of loss or expectation of benefits.” (FASAB Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standard 47, pg. 1, available here).

However, many different departments, bureaus, and agencies prepare their own GPFFRs as well. The various entities that both prepare their own GPFFR, and are within a larger reporting entity are called Component Reporting Entities. This includes executive departments, independent agencies, government corporations, legislative agencies, and federal courts. (id at 7). Their GPFFRs are then consolidated into the government wide GPFFR.

Under the Component Reporting Entities and included in their GPFFRs, are various other organizations, from smaller departments, to government contractors, which are split into two categories: disclosure entities and consolidation entities. (see id.)

Consolidation entities are entities like agencies and departments. A consolidation entity is generally (1) financed through taxes and other non-exchange revenues, (2) is governed by the Congress and/or the President, (3) imposes or may impose risks and rewards to the federal government., and (4) provides goods and services on a non-market basis. (see id. at 16). For instance, a department or corporation established by Congress to perform a government function is a classic example of a consolidation entity. Consolidated entities are reported by a larger entity as part and parcel of their financial reporting–as if they were one economic entity. We will discuss this type of entity later in great depth, as it constitutes one of the largest potential loopholes of Standard 56. (see id.)

Disclosure entities are financially independent organizations. These organizations still need to be included in the government wide GPFFR, but do not fully meet the four characteristics of consolidated entities above. They includes quasi-governmental entities, organizations in receiverships and conservatorships, and organizations owned or controlled through federal government intervention actions. (see id. at 16). A good example would be a government established non-profit that has a significant portion of their board appointed by the President, but are entirely funded by their own activities.

Additionally, there are “related parties,” which are organizations where at least one of the parties involved have the ability to exercise significant influence over the policy decisions of the other party. This significant influence does not need to amount to control, but can include things such a representation on a board of directors, participation in policy making procedures, shared managerial personnel, and things along those lines. The existence of significant influence is generally determined through a full analysis of the particulars of each situation. This classification is usually applied to organizations that do not even rise to the level of a disclosure entity, but nonetheless would be misleading to exclude. Some common examples of related parties are some government sponsored enterprises and organizations governed by representatives from each of the governments that created the organization, including the United States, wherein the federal government has agreed to ongoing or contingent financial support to accomplish shared objectives. Related entities generally do not include government contractors, government vendors, some non-profits, organizations created by treaty, or special interest groups–although they can in the right circumstances. (see id. at 7 and 31-33)

However, there are also certain entities that would probably be consolidation or disclosure entities, but are expressly excluded from the government wide GPFFR: the Federal Reserve System, and bailout entities. (see Financial Report of the United States Government 2016, pg. 227, available here). In particular, this includes entities like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. (see id.) If the government obtains rights in another entity which would give them the sort of control that normally makes a disclosure entity, but gains those rights when it “guarantee[s] or pay[s] debt for a privately owned entity whose failure could have an adverse impact on the nation’s economy, commerce, national security, etc. . .” those rights don’t count for determining a reporting entity. (id).

This means that in addition to consolidation and disclosure entities. the scope of Standard 56 stretches to any organization which it would be misleading to exclude but isn’t otherwise incorporated into their list of covered entities. Because of this, although there is not a exhaustive list of who’s financial reporting is impacted by Standard 56, if you can think of an entity related to the government it is a safe bet they count as a covered reporting entity. This can include publicly traded corporations with significant funding and/or control from the federal government.

C. Changes to Disclosure Standards Under Standard 56

For these covered entities, Standard 56 offers financial reporting exceptions in a few situations for national security purposes. These reporting exceptions are the meat of Standard 56, three rules substantially modifying the reporting requirements of the above discussed entities to varying degrees. (see FASAB Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards 56, pg. 6, available here).

In general, disclosure entities are required to provide their financial reporting in a manner which is clear, concise, meaningful, and transparent (see FASAB Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standard 47, para 71-73,, available here). This is done through a single, integrated report of finances disclosing the relationship of the organization to the the government and related entities, the nature and magnitude of their activity and their financial balances, and a description of financial and non-financial risks, potential benefits and, if possible, the amount of the federal government’s exposure to gains and losses from the past or future operations of the disclosure entity or entities. (see id. At para 74) This generally includes how much control or influence over the entity is exercised, key terms in their contractual agreements, percentage ownership and voting rights, a summary of assets, liabilities, revenues, expenses, gains, and losses, key financial indicators, information on how their reports are stored and can be obtained, and quite a bit more. (see id.) Essentially what is required is a transparent summary of how money is spent to provide accountability to the public. Standard 56 creates three loopholes to this disclosure standard.

D. Modifications to Avoid Disclosure of Classified Information

The first new loophole allows disclosure entities to modify their financial reports to “prevent the disclosure of classified information in an unclassified GPFFR” so long as these modifications do not change the net results of operations and net position. (see FASAB Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards 56, pg. 6, available here).

This ultimately means that, when done to conceal confidential information, entities can–and are essentially required to under the terms of Standard 56–shift money from one line item to another so long as the totals stay consistent. The rule also allows entities to omit the line item entirely while retaining the amounts so as to maintain the same net results. This means that readers of these reports will never know if the amounts reported spent on specific projects or things is an accurate representation. (see id.) As you might expect given the rationale of this being a national security precaution, there will not be any narrative in these reports explaining or revealing where a modification has taken place. (see id.) If they can maintain net position in their reports, an entity can even omit a project entirely by folding it into another department or project within the same entity.

While it could obviously be worse for transparency purposes, the alternative would be that the amounts would just be omitted entirely. That brings us to the next two changes to accounting standards created by Standard 56.

E. Reporting on Consolidation Entities

We briefly discussed consolidation entities above as one of the larger loopholes to reporting within Standard 56. This is because the second change to reporting requirements of Standard 56 allows the reporting entity which the consolidation entity is consolidated with to modify reports to avoid disclosure of confidential information even if that modification changes net results of operations or net position. The reporting entity can move the financials of the consolidation entity or even choose not to include it in its report; full stop. (see FASAB Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards 56, pg. 6-7, available here).

The concept of consolidation entities being incorporated into the reports of a larger reporting entity is far from new. FASAB has memorandums detailing the rules regarding consolidation from as far back as 2012. (see FASAB Federal Reporting Entity Memorandom, November 29, 2012, available here). By itself, it is not a particularly problematic issue. Under FASAB rules, consolidation in financial reporting is appropriate for those organizations financed by the taxpayer, governed by elected or appointed officials, imposing risks and rewards on the taxpayer, and providing goods and services on a non-market basis. However, consolidation is not appropriate for organizations operating with a high degree of autonomy. (see id. At 7).

In general, where an organization is controlled by the federal government and stands to make or lose money, but doesn’t have enough independence for a disclosure entity, it is included somewhere as a consolidation entity. (see FASAB Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standard 47, pg 14-15,, available here). As you’ve seen, the determination of what sort of entity something is hinges a great deal on the level of autonomy of the entity–the greater the control the government has the more likely something will be classified as a consolidation entity. This control doesn’t mean the government has to actively manage on the day-to-day, but does require that an examination of–among other things–whether the government can do things like appoint a majority of board members, dissolve the organization, authorize or deny action within the organization on some or all issues, or direct the policies or use of assets within the organization, and/or direct investment decisions. Consolidation entities are only assigned to one component entity and, in general, where that sort of control exists for a consolidated entity the public would rely on the larger reporting entity for information on the consolidation entity’s financials. (see id.). Under the second accounting standard change within Standard 56, the public can’t even count on these financials being reported in the first place. (see FASAB Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards 56, pg. 6-7).

F. Interpretations Modifying Reporting Standards in the Future

The final change to accounting standards within Standard 56 doesn’t do much at the moment, but has the greatest potential to undermine financial transparency in the future. It allows FASAB to issue Interpretations of Standard 56 in the future which would allow other modifications to financial reports for the purpose of avoiding disclosure of classified information. FASAB can, and likely will, release these Interpretations over time. These Interpretations can allow modifications to reporting without regard for maintaining an entity’s net results or net position in their reporting. Those interpretations may even be classified themselves (Appendix A, A16), resulting in a portion of the federal government’s accountability standards being concealed from the public. (see FASAB Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards 56, pg. 6-7).

Looked at in the most optimistic light, this will allow FASAB to ensure that Standard 56 isn’t abused and issue rulings of when disclosure is necessary in situations not yet considered. Looked at in a less optimistic light, this means that the ability of the government to obfuscate financial records will continue to grow in the coming months and years, without public oversight, as Interpretations add to or clarify these existing loopholes.

IV. Administrative History of Statement 56

Statement 56, and its reporting exceptions, have been in the works within FASAB for months. When an issue is identified, FASAB performs preliminary deliberations, prepares the initial documents, and then releases a review version to the public for comment and public hearings. After the comment period, FASAB enters further deliberations to consider the comments, and make revisions. Then, the Board approves the proposed statement by a two-thirds majority vote, and submits it to the principles (the OMB and the GAO) for review. If neither principle objects to the proposal after 90 days, it is published by FASAB and is added to the GAAP for federal entities. (Definition: FASAB (Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board), available here).

For Standard 56, the exposure draft was published on July 12, 2018, with comments due by August 13, 2018. 17 comments were submitted by various departments, agencies, and accounting firms (see FASAB Classified Activities, available here). The final Statement 56 was published on October 4, 2018, with little if any change from the exposure draft. However, the comments on Statement 56 are themselves interesting and somewhat enlightening.

A. Commentary On Required Disclaimers

FASAB proposed two possible alternatives for disclosure/disclaimer requirements under Standard 56. Either reporting entities could be given a choice in whether or not to consistently disclose that certain presentations may have been modified, or all reporting entities must disclose the possibility that certain presentations may have been modified, regardless of actual modification. (see FASAB Exposure Draft Interpretation of Federal Financial Accounting Standards 56: Classified Activities, available here).

The SEC gave a fairly entertaining comment on Standard 56. After answering “No Comment” to literally every preceding question, the SEC gave it’s thoughts on FASAB’s proposal for how component entities should disclose that they have modified their reports. The SEC, the nation’s foremost agency in the fight against financial fraud, doesn’t think that every component entity should have to disclose that modifications may have occurred, and especially the SEC shouldn’t have to. The reasoning the SEC gave for this position was that they “believe that this would be misleading and likely to cause confusion for financial statement readers, by implying that SEC is involved in classified activities. It’s likely that SEC, as well as other agencies, would receive numerous inquiries from the public and from the media by including such an unexpected disclaimer in its financial statements.” In other words, they’re worried it would look strange to the public if they disclosed that they had modified their financial reporting, despite no such modification. The public may think it odd that component entities such as the SEC would make such a, in their own words, “unexpected disclaimer.” (FASAB Exposure Draft: Classified Activities SEC Comment, available here).

Veterans Affairs and the Association of Government Accountants had a similar stance, and while they commented on other aspects of Standard 56 as well, they joined the SEC in criticizing a mandatory disclaimer, and suggested disclaimers would only be appropriate when GPFFRs were actually modified (see FASAB Classified Activities, available here).

Several other commenting parties had a different take on the required disclaimers. For instance, the Department of Defense’s Office of The Chief Financial Officer and the Department of the Interior, wanted agencies to have the option to give a disclaimer or not, irregardless of whether or not they made changes to classified information under the new standard (id). The Department of Energy’s Office of The Chief Financial Officer even felt it would be appropriate to have no disclaimers whatsoever, even if GPFFRs were materially modified (id).

B. Federal Commentary on Standard 56 Generally

Various government agencies commented on the “meat” of Standard 56, and most were in favor² of FASABs proposals in general. For instance, Housing and Urban Development had fairly positive comments across the board, and deferred greatly to the need to classify information. The organization agreed with all of FASABs methodology and conclusions, and stated the new standards would strike a correct balance between protecting classified information and a commitment to open government.

However, oddly enough, the Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General was particularly concerned with the proposed Statement. They wrote “[t]his proposed guidance is a major shift in Federal accounting guidance and, in our view, the potential impact is so expansive that it represents another comprehensive basis of accounting.” (FASAB Exposure Draft: Classified Activities, Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General Comment, available here). They suggested already existing methods like redaction are sufficient to protect classified information, and stated the FASAB “should clarify whether this proposed standard, or subsequent Interpretations, could permit entities to record misstated amounts in the financial statements to mislead readers with the stated purpose of protecting classified information. We believe that no accounting guidance should allow this type of accounting entry” (id).

Additionally, while not quite as critical as the Inspector General, the Treasury expressed concerns about the modification of net results of operations and net position.

C. Concerns From Accounting Firms

The accounting firm Kearney & Company had a more critical take on the proposed standard as well. They worried that “[t]he FASAB’s proposed approach could result in material omissions in GPFFR. . . If GPFFR can be modified so material activity is no longer accurately presented to the reader of financial statements, its usefulness to public users is limited and subject to misinterpretation.” (FASAB Exposure Draft: Classified Activities, Kearney & Company Comment, available here)

The accounting firm KPMG was more concerned with clarity consistency, stating that because of potential classified interpretations, only some people with clearance will be able to understand the complete set of GAAP. Because of this, “[i]t is not clear how management of each federal entity will be able to assert that their GPFFR have been prepared in accordance with GAAP when management does not have access to all of GAAP.” (FASAB Exposure Draft: Classified Activities, KPMG Comment, available here)

V. The Results of Statement 56 For the Public

There is a legitimate existing tension between the need to protect confidential government information and the public’s interest in financial transparency and accountability. Standard 56 isn’t without possible justification. That being said, the concerns of both the accounting world and many within the federal government itself are extremely valid.

Statement 56 undercuts the reliability of government accounting standards and financial statements to such a degree as to render an already questionably valuable reporting tool virtually useless to the public. The possibility of false or omitted information renders the reports largely unreliable as to actual amounts, as does the fact that even an accurate report is rendered questionable by the very existence of modifications are not necessarily exposed. Classifying portions of the federal GAAP mystifies the process even further, and the fuzzy definitions of reporting entities leaves the potential for this to touch not only direct government entities, but government contractors other private (but federally entangled) entities. The general disclosure of the government–requiring all reporting entities to report the potential of modifications whether or not they actually exist in their report while simultaneously forbidding the actual disclosure of the actual existence of any modifications–is essentially a worst case in terms of transparency for the public.

VI. About Us

This article was written and edited by Michele Ferri and Jonathan Lurie of The Law Offices of Lurie and Ferri for use by the Solari Report. Michele Ferri and Jonathan Lurie and both practicing attorneys out of California. The Law Offices of Lurie and Ferri focus on working with start-up businesses as well as on intellectual property and business law issues. They can be found at http://www.lflawoffices.com/ or contacted at [email protected].

Our thanks to the Solari Report for having sent us this important article for posting on Global Research.

Sources

• FASAB
  • http://files.fasab.gov/pdffiles/handbook_sffas_56.pdf
  • http://www.fasab.gov/documents-for-comment/
  • About: http://www.fasab.gov/mission-objectives/
  • History: http://www.fasab.gov/the-history-of-fasab/
  • General info: https://searchcompliance.techtarget.com/definition/FASAB-Federal-Accounting-Standards-Advisory-Board
  • Reporting Entities
    • http://www.fasab.gov/concepts-federal-entity/
    • http://files.fasab.gov/pdffiles/handbook_sffas_47.pdf

Notes:

^{1 The extent of what qualifies as classified or confidential information is determined by Executive Order 13526 (the most recent standard set back in 2009), changes over time, and could fill a book by itself. (https://www.archives.gov/isoo/policy-documents/cnsi-eo.html).}

^{2 The Departments of Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, Energy, and The Interior, all had agreement with the proposed standard more or less across the board, with a few exceptions for disagreements about the disclaimers.}

Shutdowns occur when Congress fails to pass a measure funding government operations or the president refuses to sign appropriations legislation.

When this happens, non-essential federal personnel are furloughed until the issue is resolved. Under Trump, it happened three times – from January 20 – 22, 2018, on February 9, and again post-midnight December 21.

With Dems controlling the House in January, further shutdowns over the next two years may happen. On Friday, Trump blamed Dems for what both sides of the aisle share blame, DLT most of all.

This time it’s over his fortress America demand along the US southern border with Mexico – wanting over $5 billion wasted on a wall, unable to stem the tide of immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers from coming to America, no matter its length or height if fully built.

Walls don’t work. A previous article explained they’ll be breached, tunneled under, or gone around by water or air to reach America.

The only partially possible way to keep out unwanted aliens is by walling-in the entire country and putting an impenetrable roof over it. Even that won’t likely work. Trump’s scheme is hugely ill-conceived – solely for political reasons, nothing else.

Responsible legislators should overwhelmingly reject his scheme. If money poured down a black hole of waste, fraud, and abuse for walls, militarism, endless wars, and corporate handouts were used for vital homeland needs, especially healthcare, education, and other essentials, America would be safe and fit to live in.

Trump wants lots more than a border wall. He wants nationals from the wrong countries and religions banned from entering America.

He wants the nation more militarized.

He wants over a trillion dollars to upgrade America’s nuclear arsenal – instead of ordering vital denuclearization to save humanity from possible armageddon that may happen as long as these weapons exist, along with long-range ballistic missile delivery systems able to strike anywhere globally with pinpoint accuracy.

His belligerent agenda supported by the vast majority in Washington is polar opposite what just societies cherish. Partially shutting down federal operations is symptomatic of governance thumbing its nose to the citizenry.

Occurring during the holiday season makes Trump, other Republicans, and Dems a collective scrooge – a pox on them all.

The shutdown affects about one-fourth of federal operations. Congressional funding for 75% of the government was already approved.

Yet nine of 15 federal agencies began furloughing employees, hundreds of thousands of workers affected. Over 400,000 essential workers remain on the job.

They include FBI, CIA, NSA, and other intelligence community operatives, personnel involved in special counsel Mueller’s probe, air-traffic controllers, prison guards, weather service forecasters, food-safety inspectors, Forest Service firefighters, border patrol and TSA employees, the postal service, some national parks, federal courts – along with the Education, Health and Human Services, War Department and military forces, the Energy Department, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health.

Federal agencies affected by shutdown include the Treasury, State, Justice, Homeland Security, Commerce, Labor, Interior, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Agriculture Departments.

The IRS will largely shut down, a small percentage of its staff kept on the job.

Shutdown can end if Republicans and Dems agree on some kind of appropriations compromise, pass a continuing resolution to fund government at its current level, or a combination of the two for a stated period, providing more time for final resolution before Congress adjourns sine die.

Otherwise, things could be more uncertain under the new Congress in January – Republicans controlling the Senate, Dems with majority House control, a prescription for more intense wrangling than during Trump’s first two years in office.

As long as he insists on full funding for his border wall Dems reject, shutdown could extend through the holidays, potentially well into the new year.

The longest previous shutdown lasted 21 days in 1996. This one could be resolved quickly or drag on for weeks without compromise – the way most all disagreements are resolved.

*

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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.

Viktor Orbán of Hungary is not to be hectored to.  Arching with fury at the EU’s September motion to sanction Hungary for bad behaviour under the Article 7 process, he was resolved to ratchet things up.  The motion, while getting 448 votes concerned about judicial independence, corruption, freedom of expression, academic freedom, the rights and migrants, amongst others did have 197 opponents. (48 abstained.) Spot, as it were, the east-west European divide. 

There was a time when Hungary was known as the “merriest barracks in the socialist camp” dominated by more tempered form of “goulash communism”.  The merriment, not to mention any gastronomic softness, has long soured, substituted by a more patriotic, state-centred sludge.  Protesters are now being given the treatment that would not have been unseemly in the times of the Cold War.

A week-and-a-half of protests against the overtime law passed by the Fidesz majority yielded the police forces fifty arrests.  Orbán’s ruling party could not see what the fuss was all about.  The law in question increases the number of overtime hours employees can be made to work from 250 to 400, a calculation to be made after three years.  Pity for those workers, given the exodus of Hungarian employees to western Europe.

Opposition members of Parliament keen to get more coverage from the state media on the protests have also been frogmarched out of the broadcaster’s headquarters.  In future, they can expect even less in the way of discussion, given the decree of December 5 exempting the Central European Press and Media Foundation from regulatory oversight.  That particular conglomerate is the result of a merger of some 480 pro-government media outlets.

All strong men need hearty, well-rounded enemies, and the Viktator’s latest efforts also feature a final decision on the subject of the Central European University.  The university’s presence in Budapest offers Orbán a target of lightning rod value, given its link to the wily financier George Soros and US-accredited courses run at the university that has his backing.

In April 2017, a bill was passed imposing a requirement on foreign-funded universities to have a home country campus, and in the capital.  But negotiations between the CEU and the government stuttered and stalled, prompting a move to Vienna effective from September 2019.  “CEU has been forced out,” lamented the university’s president and rector Michael Ignatieff.  “This is unprecedented.  A US institution has been driven out of a country that is a NATO ally.  A European institution has been ousted from a member state of the EU.”

The CEU-Orbán tussle illustrates the convoluted nature of central European politics and its association with US and European political forces.  Fine for Ignatieff to complain about NATO and EU ties being ignored, but the Hungarian leader is a creature of confusing plumage happy to make the necessary, if costly sacrifices.

The confusion was given added succour with the remark made by Hungarian State Secretary Zoltán Kovács that, “The Soros university is leaving but staying.  It’s common knowledge that a significant number of its courses will still be held in Budapest.”  The CEU’s warnings were “nothing more than a Soros-style political bluff, which does not merit the attention of the government.”

While he speaks of a common heritage to be defended against the door banging barbarians from the east, Orbán is also very much the self-proclaimed leader of its protection, something that gives him bullyboy status in such matters as immigration.

Eyeing the Trump administration across the pond on how it would respond to the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, the Hungarian government followed suit and demonstrated cold indifference when the final draft was approved by all UN member states in July 2018.  (In so doing, it also kept company with Israel, Austria, Poland, and Australia, all similarly reluctant to subscribe to its spirit.)

It says much that the GCM could cause such agitation, notwithstanding its non-binding nature.  Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó went so far as to insist that, in exiting the adoption process related to the GCM, “the Global Compact is not binding with relation to Hungary.”  Migration, he suggested, should not be organised but stopped.  “Assistance must be taken to where the trouble is, and people in need must be given support to enable them to remain as close as possible to their homes, and return home at the earliest opportunity.”

It is convenient, more than anything, to assume that the Hungary that emerged from the Cold War thaw was somehow more liberal, hopeful for a caring state of mind open to consultation and deliberation.  Authoritarianism was in retreat; the democrats could finally come out.  More on all fours with reality, it always retained an authoritarian default position, one that makes an Orbán figure less incongruous than imagined.

The first post-communist government was more than accommodating to communists; subsequent political arrangements fed a more nationalist orientation.  Orbán sold himself as the appropriate central force to deal with the lingering ailments of socialism while also curing the problems arising from the post-1989 transition.  Now, he is proving what a certain type of European can do to that oft-misguided notion of “shared values”.  Shared, yes, but by whom?

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

On an Air France flight from Paris to Latin America, the plane is full, mostly with working class Latinos, going home for Christmas to spend a few festive days with their families and friends. They have worked hard to save their money for the trip. The plane is old and decrepit. Has no properly working entertainment system – and that on a trajectory of over 12 hours without interruption.

Who cares. Management knows that the humble passengers won’t complain. Anyway, they are under-people. Let’s reserve the better and newer planes for classier people. They pay better, are better clients. Isn’t that the thinking behind such decisions? – Of course, it is. It’s the greed-driven maximizing profit scheme to the detriment of the population. It’s not just AF, it’s everywhere, everywhere you look and are touched by a corporate giant.

We the people, are not even sheeple anymore; we are silenced. We are not asked, not consulted, whether we agree to be photographed and face-read at every corner. It’s just the way it is. Its intimidation by control – by over-control, and by cattle treatment. In this, the French and the US TSA (Transportation Security Administration) are not far apart.

For airport security, you are pushed through what I call a “naked-machine” – Though they tell you that it’s not true, that nobody sees anything other than potential drugs or weapons hidden in human crevices – well if they see crevices, they must see you naked. Behind the scene hidden away in some dark room are the machine operators, they see every human passing through it naked, balls, vagina, breasts and all. Imagine, the absurdly obscene, pathological imagination of those operators – and those who command them!

A machine, a robot of sort, disposes over you. If you don’t conform, you are just left behind, or harassed no end – you may literally lose your plane or connection. Cases of the US TSA abound – some of them are violent and are brought before a court – but in most cases to no avail. The ‘system’ is always right. And mind you the system, is a private system, its not even state owned, its outsourcing and privatization “Über Alles”. But no protests à la Yellow Vests. We are conveniently silenced. It’s Macron “Über Alles” – sounds like déjà vu? – Well, yes. It is. – Neofascism is undeniable.

Yes, that’s the way the ordeal begins. Actually, it begins earlier – at the check in, for example. AF weigh your luggage by the kilo – and, while some agents are a bit more lenient than others, if you are unlucky it hits you having a kilo in excess. Either you somehow dispose of it or reshuffle it to hand luggage – which also has a limitation of weight, you are charged the fee for an extra luggage. What to do? – You are at the airport. They have a captive “market”, because this money-profit centered “market” system has the power over you. You are at the airport, you have to fly, you charge this horrendous extra fee to your credit card, or else you are left behind; no scruples. That’s Macron 101. No concessions. And the French employees are well trained, lest they may lose their bad paid, but nevertheless vital jobs. You want to survive – bend over. No solidarity, no empathy, just hardball. Le Roi Macron says so. And you better obey —- or else — but the ‘or else’ has now suddenly gotten a yellow face – the Yellow Vests. We can just hope that they will propel the finance-mafia dictator into his overdue abyss.

Next, boarding the plane – an elderly passenger visibly with a hurting leg, kindly asked the flight assistant, alias the “cattle guard”, whether he could go through with the privileged ‘frequent flyers’, those who have given the company enough money to justify an extra discriminatory favor. She refuses. He insists, she refuses – until a man behind tells her, for human’s sake, please let him through. She hesitantly nods, then lets him go through.

What does all that have to do with Macron? – Everything. The sort of de-humanized civil behavior is what he instills in people, in corporations. Greed first, everything else, like solidarity, is not even second, it’s of no value. The young who want so desperately cling to their slave-paid jobs, have to obey, or else, they may lose their employment. But now it’s gone too far. Enough is enough. The Yellow Vests represent every industry, every citizen, every abject Macron law; they want to reverse the wheel, à la French Revolution. Enough is enough. Enough privileges for the rich and powerful. Even on the planes.

In ‘economy’, where the cattle is herded, those who saved hard to afford a trip to see their families, rows are getting narrower and narrower. Over time your legs get cramped; an increased risk of thromboses that can be deadly, especially when it happens on 10,000 meters altitude – far from an airport, above the sea. This, of course is quite different for those on first, business or economy plus class, they have more space, sit comfortably, and their entertainment system works fine even on an old decrepit plane. Proper maintenance for the rich and beautiful, neglect for the “less beautiful” populace.

When I complain about the inoperable entertainment system (ES), the chief of cabin arrives. He promises to see what he can do. After a while he returns with a tablet-screen full of my previous AF flights. I’m a good customer. So, he discretely offers me to be placed on an economy-plus seat, where the ES works. He whispers, you are a good customer, so we will do something for you. Amazing in an overcrowded plane he finds an unoccupied seat. I go and look at it – and as soon as they – the flight attendants for the better people – see me, they say, “Sir, the bathrooms are in the rear”. When I tell them that the cabin chief offered me a seat in their section, their tone changes: “Sir, can we offer you a glass of Champaign?” – I’m disgusted, but politely decline, deciding to stay with my kind of ‘cattle’. I prefer reading and writing – like this little essay – among my same-sakes. And am happy about it.

The cabin chief was admittedly nice. He fulfilled his duty, keeping a relatively ‘good customer’ happy, I have to admit. I’m fodder for the ‘maximizing profit’ doctrine. Yet, due to his friendly smile and body language, I give him the benefit of the doubt. Hopefully, not all those who have to make a living off the neoliberal Macron and greed driven money machine, have lost their innermost identity. That’s the cloud’s silver lining. That’s the remaining hope to build on. Hope is the last glow that dies.

Food service, used to be decent with AF. No longer. They don’t have you pay for it yet, but it is almost inedible. – But then, I think of the millions of Yemenis who thanks to the western and Macron-supported killing machine are suffering and dying from famine. So, I eat my portion happily. As a parenthesis, according to the UN, about 85,000 children below age 5 perished through the satanical Saudi-US-UK-French led war of horror. Most of the children died from famine and cholera induced diseases. I was thinking of those big eyed- and skeleton-like bodies, too weak to stand, let alone walk, destroyed for life from famine.

What does that have to do with Macron? – Everything, of course. Macron’s Airforce helped the crime regime of the Saudis bombing Yemen, a poor but proud people, to bits and pieces; to kill possibly hundreds of thousands – nobody counts – mainly children and women. Macron, siding with the elite – he surely has no reason whatsoever to bomb Yemen – helped the ‘allies’ of crime, destroy an entire nation. He of course is not alone, but accompanied by the best and the brightest of the western allies, even Germany – which, according to their non-aggression treaty (remnant of the WWII Armistice arrangement) – is not allowed to participate in any conflict hostility emanating from her territory – except, of course, if the Master of the treaty orders it.

The Yellow Vests want Macron out. Macron has become the enemy of the people. Literally. He is probably proud of it, because that’s testimony enough that he works for the rich and powerful, that he accomplishes the tasks he has been slanted and put in office for, with less the 25% of eligible votes. He lied, promising change, but change that benefitted the people. Change to the detriment of the people is what he implemented. The result is an equation of dynamics, the right has not thought of. Well, thanks god for these dynamics; they brought about the storming of the Bastille in 1789, and a transformation of much of the world. Though, granted, not all that came out of the French Revolution has persevered. The rich and powerful have an unlimited and insatiable stock of wealth to draw upon. Never mind that it’s stolen wealth – as long as they dispose of it and are able to defend it with brute military and police power, they command.

And so, the merry-go-round continues. Air France will play the game; they have to. They are bound into the system, along with French corporatism. The name of the game is intimidation. “Inconvenient”, not-playing-by-the-rules staff are being dismissed. Of the face reading / passport machines, only one out of three is operable, causing long queues. Out of about 20 customs boots, only two are occupied by an agent. Macron saves at the cost of stressed passengers, who have to spend precious time in long lines, risking literally missing their connection planes.

But the Big shots don’t care. The populace’s time is worth peanuts – its like slave time. In any case – you have to go through ‘the system’ – if not, you remain stranded.

Good riddens Mr. Macron, very good riddens – to never appear again on the horizon. – Vivent les “gilets verts”!

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. 

Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Pakistan is the virtual fulcrum around which much of the geopolitical, geostrategic and geo-economic future of the Afghanistan Pakistan Region, (APR), the South-Central Asian Region (SCAR) and largely the Greater Middle East Region (GMER) is now evolving. No power including the US, China or Russia can realistically hope to secure its national interests in these regions without the active and willing support of Pakistan. It now holds the key to peace (by the defeat of terrorism), interconnectivity (massive infrastructure creation across its territories) and economic development and interdependence (trade corridors, special industrial and economic zones) within and between these regions. Its centrality and absolute inevitability in most matters of import in these regions is now unquestionable.

The APR is currently under a massive, two-pronged diplomatic onslaught by the US and China. The US, the global military behemoth, wants to pacify Afghanistan prior to either leaving it or continuing its occupation in more peaceful environments, whereas China, the marauding economic powerhouse, wants to incorporate it into its economic juggernaut that is magnificently sweeping across Euro-Asia.

The moves by both the powers are simultaneous, aggressive and essentially conflicting in nature. If these moves could somehow be made to complement one another it would not only pacify the APR but also bless it with an enormous epoch-making economic bonanza. However, the conflicting nature of US and Chinese national interests precludes any such prospects, at the moment. Both powers have found the incorporation of Pakistan in their respective efforts inescapable.

Can Pakistan possibly help bridge this chasm between them? Or must it secure its interests by managing them simultaneously albeit independent of one another?

President Trump has made his move in Afghanistan. Swallowing his pride, he has requested PM Imran Khan to urge the TTA/HN

(The Taliban and the Haqqani Network)v onto the negotiating table. Pakistan has responded positively. Resultantly, the first two rounds between the US and the TTA/HN were held in Qatar while the next two were held in the UAE. The representatives of the National Unity Government (NUG) however remained on the side lines. Pakistan, the KSA and the UAE were in attendance. The US wanted the TTA/HN to announce a six – month ceasefire, join the NUG that is to be installed in the future and become a willing and proactive part of the political system of Afghanistan. The TTA/HN, on the other hand, demanded the release of all their prisoners, removal of the ban on the movement of their leaders and the announcement of a deadline for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan. The TTA/HN showed an inclination towards a ceasefire, provided Pakistan, KSA and the UAE became the guarantors and a future caretaker government in Kabul was headed by their nominee.

Although the demands of the US and the preconditions laid down by the TTA/HN appear mutually exclusive yet the parleys have produced an early thaw in the icy relations. President Trump has indicated the withdrawal of 7000 US troops from Afghanistan, while the NUG has released nine members of the TTA/HN including Anas Haqqani, Sirajuddin Haqqani’s younger brother. These confidence building measures will lessen the friction and augur well for future negotiations.

President Trump’s compulsion to egressing from Afghanistan needs to be analysed.

One, why does he really want to neutralise the TTA/HN at this point in time?

Two, does he want to get rid of the Afghan albatross around his neck before his re-election bid?

Three, or does he want to declare victory and egress from Afghanistan before the 2020 elections to claim a foreign policy success – the way the OBL drama helped President Obama?

Four, or is it that he just wants Pakistan to pacify and neutralise the TTA/HN by engaging them in unending and fruitless peace talks so that the US can perpetuate its occupation in relative peace? The latter point gains importance because the US stands to lose much more in geopolitical, geo-economic and geostrategic terms by egressing from Afghanistan than it gains by doing so!

On the other hand, China continues to pursue its CPEC – BRI Combine relentlessly. It has now adopted a trilateral approach to the APR by incorporating Afghanistan into the CPEC (China Pakistan Economic Corridor). To that end China needs to foster friendly, cooperative and mutually beneficial relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Terrorism in the APR has to be comprehensively defeated through their coordinated efforts and interconnectivity and economic interdependence enhanced. A Peshawar-Kabul motorway, a railway link from Chaman to Kandahar to Herat and onto Mashhad, Iran, potentially linking up Pakistan-Afghanistan (CPEC) with the Baayannur China – Alamty, Kazakhstan – Tashkent & Samarkand, Uzbekistan – Bayramali, Turkmenistan – Mashhad & Tehran/Chahbahar(?), Iran railway link may be on the cards. This would be interconnectivity at the SCAR-GMER level with enormous connotations for economic interdependency and development. Therefore, parleys between Afghanistan, China and Pakistan (Regional Economic Cooperation Conference in Afghanistan-RECCA) were held recently where it was resolved to fight terrorism together, create further infrastructure for Pak-Afghan connectivity and beyond. China clearly wants Pakistan and Afghanistan to become peaceful, mutually supporting and fully proactive participants in the manifestation and furtherance of its CPEC-BRI Combine.

As the inevitable lynchpin in the region Pakistan is in a very advantageous position. It has engaged the US and China through a sublime two-pronged diplomatic manoeuvre too, as they implement major policy decisions in its neighbourhood. The US needs Pakistan to facilitate its egress, (if required), and/or continuous engagement with the APR and surroundings. China needs Pakistan for its critical link to the Persian Gulf/Arabian Sea/Indian Ocean Region, GMER, Africa, Europe and beyond in furtherance of its CPEC-BRI Combine. However, both US and Chinese efforts are proceeding on parallel streams with no prospects of their ever converging. Pakistan, therefore, must secure its interests by dealing with both separately, albeit simultaneously, without one adversely affecting the other!

The APR is at the cusp of peace, tranquillity, massive foreign direct investments in infrastructure and economy, meaningful interconnectivity, development and genuine progress. The onus is on President Ashraf Ghani and PM Imran Khan now to exploit these opportunities to the abiding benefit of their and other peoples of the region at large.

Imran Malik is a retired Brigadier of the Pakistan Army and the frequent contributor to Global Research. 

Members of the political corps of the U.S. writing about U.S. foreign policy have a particular insider viewpoint that can provide some good insights into how their diplomacy works along with the personal peculiarities of some of the actors involved.  Ronan Farrow’s War on Peace – The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Power works quite well at presenting some of the personalities involved within the U.S. State Department, a perspective gained from his own role within the department.  For how the department actually works the writing is somewhat poorly defined, and while not fully contradictory, does pose some problems with the rationale behind the actual work of the State Department.  

The main idea behind the work is an exploration of the downfall of the State Department and its losing out to the military, the Pentagon, rather than continuing the use of diplomacy to solve global problems.  According to Farrow the U.S. has lost “the kind of thoughtful, holistic foreign policy analysis, unshackled from exigencies, that diplomacy once provided America.”  This is “the story of a transformation in the role of the United States among the nations of the world.”

Along with the missing links in the above rationale Farrow also – not surprisingly – maintains a standard U.S. centric view of events, as he indicates Vietnam was “the first modern attempt at counter-insurgency…securing vulnerable populations while winning its loyalty through social programs.”  If removing peasants from their villages by force, or simply massacring them as in My Lai, and if the Phoenix Program is an example of the “social programs”, then modern counter-insurgency is understandably violent and militarized.  But I cannot be sure if this was being used as a positive example for his argument or a counter indicator.  If diplomacy had been used in Vietnam, the UN sanctioned vote would have been held and Vietnam would have settled into a peaceful socialist state – one that admired the U.S. constitution!

Military threats – the not so hidden fist

From these early positions the argument for the downfall of the State Department wends its way through the various international scenarios common to anyone who has followed the mainstream news.    Richard Holbrooke dominates the first section of the book, and is credited with using strong diplomacy to solve the Yugoslavia mess with the Dayton Accords.  However, “Holbrooke achieved in Dayton only with the backing of the White House and the threat of military strikes he could meaningfully direct.”

Further on, Farrow writes, that Holbrooke “often talked about using the period of greatest military pressure as leverage to bring parties to the table.  It was a tactic he used to great success in the Balkans.”  A logical conclusion to these two statements is that it was the military that provided the success and not the diplomacy.  With an overwhelming preponderance of military force to call upon, Holbrooke’s “diplomacy” was essentially threats to use military force, not exactly diplomacy:  “skill in managing international relations; adroitness in personal relations, tact.” [Oxford English dictionary].

While discussing relationships with Pakistan and the Taliban, Farrow argues that opposition to Holbrooke “may have squandered the United States’ period of maximum potential in the region.  When U.S. troop deployment was high, both the Taliban and Pakistanis had incentives to come to the table and respond to tough talk.”  Okay, once again the argument for diplomacy relies on military power rather than any “adroitness in personal relations.”

Foreign policy objectives?

When presenting his arguments about Trump’s full denial of diplomacy in favour of military solutions  – essentially Trump capitulated responsibility  to the military [hmm, much as Bush capitulated to Cheney and the neocons for government policy] – Farrow cites a State Department  employee  concerned that a military campaign in Syria was “at the expense of the longer term U.S. foreign policy objectives in the region.”  Summarizing a few paragraphs later he argues, “these relationships [with foreign proxy militaries] invariably carry with them acute compromises to human rights and to broader strategic interests.”

What is undefined throughout the work are what are these “broader strategic interests”, what are the “foreign policy objectives in the region”? Democracy?  Freedom?  Rule of law?  Modernization? Containing Russia?  Protecting oil?  Protecting the U.S. petrodollar?  Global hegemony?  Full spectrum dominance?  From what you do speaking so loud I can’t hear what you are saying, I know which of the above would be the answer, yet they remain outside the arguments in the book.

A hint of these objectives is provided in the last chapter where Farrow presents a viewpoint on China’s rising diplomatic power, concluding that, “If China can mature as a diplomatic power as rapidly as it has as a force for economic development, America will have ceded one of the most important ways in which great powers shape the world.”  It is an interesting argument in that it leaves out the military:  China’s economic and diplomatic power across Asia, Africa, and into Latin America does not rely on a military backup as its military reach is only just now pushing back at the U.S. presence in the western Pacific.

State Department policy

When I think of those who have occupied the position of Secretary of State it seldom if ever falls under the rubric of diplomacy.  Hillary Clinton’s diplomacy included a military coup in Honduras overthrowing a democratically elected government attempting land and social reform.  Later she argued her way into Libya to get rid of Gaddafi not because of his lack of democracy or a supposed looming genocide, but in order to prevent the sale of Libya’s oil in other than U.S. dollars to the Chinese.  U.S. diplomacy in Libya’s case was full on military.

The list extends on back.  Condoleezza Rice oversaw the rejection of the democratic elections in Palestine in 2006, leading to Israel’s creation of the Gaza open air prison.  Colin Powell is well known for his false presentation to the UN concerning Iraq and the ignoring of the best intelligence indicating Iraq did not have nuclear or other WMDs.  Madeleine Albright’s brightest comment was her admission that the price of five hundred thousand deaths in Iraq was worth the price of sanctions against Saddam Hussein, a comment worthy of U.S. diplomacy.  James Baker’s diplomacy included a threatened nuclear strike to eliminate Hussein and Iraq during the Kuwait crisis in 1991.  Henry Kissinger played a role in U.S.- Soviet détente, but also supported Pinochet’s military coup against Allende, and supported Argentina’s ‘dirty war’ with its use of U.S. trained death squads.

But it is more than that.  Yes, as Farrow argues, U.S. diplomacy has become weaker and the Pentagon has become dominant.  The reality is that U.S. diplomacy has always relied on U.S. threats of military power, often spoken, often demonstrated.  From its inception, the whole impulse of U.S. expansion has been based on military aggression.  With current events, the façade of diplomacy has simply disappeared, unless one counts Trump’s “Rocket Man” threats as diplomacy, as “adroitness in personal relations”.

What is really happening is the overall loss of U.S. power in all aspects:  economic, diplomatic, and military. The transformation is not just because the Pentagon has overridden the State Department although that is part of it.  The full context of international relations is not discussed, omitting the rise of Russia as a military power, acting independently of U.S. interests, omitting the formal and informal economic and military/security ties between Russia/China and other Asian partners.  It is also the rising awareness globally that U.S. intentions are entirely self centered for hegemonic control, along with the ability of countries to resist that control militarily and economically.  When discussing U.S. diplomatic initiatives that all needs to be presented as context to the overall discussion, and it is not.

The initial premise of “War on Peace” is correct, but the missing contextual information implies that at some point diplomacy actually worked – as it did backed by military threats and actions as presented by Ronan Farrow.  Apart from the logical flaws of the argument which I have dwelled on at length here, “War on Peace” is well enough written in an anecdotal manner that it does present a view of the infighting and manipulations occurring within the government.

Jim Miles is a frequent contributor to Global Research

China’s growth into the world’s second-largest economy is being evaluated by all the corporate media, reflecting debates in U.S. ruling circles and the U.S. top military command.

They are forced to admit that most of their hopes and dreams that the Chinese government could be easily overwhelmed, and that Wall Street would find an open road into China, are now dashed by the reality of a stable government that seems to have wide mass support and growing prosperity.

The New York Times Sunday edition ran a 20-page special supplement titled “China Rules” on Nov. 25. It begins with the admission: “The West was certain China would fail. Government-controlled economies stifle growth. Oppression smothers innovation. The Internet is an untamable force. A new middle class will demand a vote. None of these proved true. China is a superpower and it may soon surpass the United States. This is the story of how it got there.”

Of course the whole supplement is full of self-congratulatory myths about the “democracy and freedom” of imperialist countries. But there is also recognition of 40 years of uninterrupted growth in China and that the country is on track to become the world’s largest economy. “Economic growth in China has been 10 times faster than in the U.S. and it is still more than twice as fast,” the Times states.

It is an incredible accomplishment!

More than 800 million people have been pulled out of dire poverty. This is a measure without precedent in modern history. The rate of extreme poverty in China is now less than 1 percent, according to World Bank studies. Yet China remains a developing country, because its per capita income is still a fraction of that in “advanced” countries.

While opening the country to foreign capital investment, organized and centrally planned attention was focused on raising the economic level of the whole population, especially in rural and most underdeveloped areas.

From an illiteracy rate of more than 80 percent at the time of the Chinese Revolution in 1949, illiteracy is now totally eliminated. China today produces more graduates in science and engineering than the U.S., Japan, South Korea and Taiwan combined.

The billionaire deciders and power brokers of U.S. imperialism are totally hostile to the dramatic improvement in the lives of hundreds of millions of people in China.

Whether this stunning growth will continue, despite U.S. imperialism’s determined effort to stop it with tariffs, a trade war and military encirclement, is now debated in ruling circles. Can they stop China?

As the Washington Post explained: “The trade war isn’t about trade. The trade war is about the United States trying to contain China and counteract its rise.” (Sept. 24)

Every economy in the world will be impacted. The Nov. 16 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Papua New Guinea, with 10,000 delegates and guests, was so riled by the trade war, new tariffs and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence’s arrogant demands that diplomats could not even issue a closing statement. The Nov. 30 meeting of the Group of 20 in Argentina is under a cloud of uncertainty.

Remembering past Western domination and humiliation, China is determined to defend its national sovereignty, both economically and now militarily. China has imposed its own tariffs on U.S. products. Confrontations are accelerating with U.S. warships carrying out aggressive “freedom of navigation” exercises in the South China Sea.

The “pivot to Asia” is a major military reorientation of the Pentagon war machine to focus on China. Aircraft carriers with nuclear weapons, destroyers, nuclear submarines and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile batteries are being moved into place.

U.S. demands

Under the screen of diplomatic negotiations, just what are the fundamental changes in China’s policies that U.S. corporations and banks want?

The Trump administration — and other major imperialist powers — want to reverse China’s industrial and development policies. Their terms seem abstract: ease restrictions on market access, end forced technology transfers for corporations setting up factories in China, respect intellectual property and patents, and weaken currency controls.

For example, Trump accuses China of keeping its currency artificially low in order to boost its export industry. The value of Chinese currency, the yuan, is largely shut off to foreign speculators. Interest rates are set to help guide the economy.

The hostility is sharpening. It is an all-out effort to fundamentally overturn Chinese economic policies put in place starting in 1978.

Market socialism: a compromise

Market socialism, or “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” is the compromise of maintaining a planned economy while opening up a market economy. It is described in China as a primary stage of developing socialism in an underdeveloped country.

Since 1978 China has experimented with ways of attracting foreign investment and different forms of integration into the global capitalist market. They made deals with many Western corporations, while maintaining centralized control of the state apparatus. They also continued many forms of public, cooperative and social ownership.

Special economic zones were established to lure Western technology. These zones, with thousands of labor-intensive factories and millions of workers earning low wages, were centers of capitalist exploitation that reaped enormous profits for the U.S. and other global capitalists. Private minority stakes in state firms were sold. The communes were broken up and land was leased. Many forms of small businesses were allowed.

In recent years, through thousands of strikes and job actions, workers in China have won increased wages, social benefits and improved working conditions.

There are many different views of this process and its future dangers for the socialist organization of society. But in almost all the deals with Western capital, China has insisted on keeping the technology and blueprints and demanded that Chinese workers be trained in operating and running the enterprise. This was a radically different deal than other countries had previously required. And while Western technology and funding of factories were welcomed, Western-funded political ideas, organizations, oppositional political parties and media were tightly monitored by the state and by the Communist Party.

State-owned enterprises predominate

What frustrates the capitalist class, far more than China’s incredible growth, is that the top 12 Chinese companies on the Fortune 500 list are all state owned. They include massive oil, solar energy, telecommunications, engineering and construction companies, banks and the auto industry. They receive state support and subsidies. (fortune.com, July 22, 2015)

Chinese firms filled an unprecedented 115 places on the Fortune Global 500 list for 2017. There were only 10 Chinese firms on the list in 2000. The U.S. has trended in the other direction: from 179 firms in 2000, only 143 U.S. firms were in the top 500 in 2017.

The U.S. is opposed to subsidies to state-owned enterprises and declares the subsidies an “unfair advantage.” They consider SOEs to be squeezing out the profits the global capitalists feel are rightfully theirs. They are enraged that SOE profits are plowed into developing and modernizing China’s most underdeveloped regions. This “unfair advantage” granted to state-owned industries is the primary reason given by the Trump administration for new tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum. (industryweek.com, April 17)

Both the Obama and Trump administrations and the World Trade Organization have opposed subsidies to China’s SOEs.

This is sheer hypocrisy! The largest U.S. corporations are military contractors with billions in federal subsidies, but super-rich investors reap all the profits. Privately owned U.S. agribusiness has received decades of subsidies. Privately owned Wall Street banks received U.S. federal bailouts, a giant subsidy totaling $16 trillion, in the 2008 global financial crisis.

It was during the 2008 crisis that the difference in who controls the state stood out in sharpest contrast. China saved and further strengthened its state-owned enterprises, while letting the privately owned and foreign-owned corporations fend for themselves.

China’s internet is way ahead

An expectation of big capital globally was that the wide use of the internet would forcibly pry China open to Western pressure, ideas and propaganda. But China allowed Chinese innovators to compete in setting up privately owned but monitored internet companies. Today Alibaba, Tencent, Weibo, ByteDance, TikTok and Baidu rival Amazon, Google, Facebook and YouTube.

Tencent, with 647 million active users, is the world largest online community. Alibaba is the largest e-commerce platform in the world.

Smartphone payments in China are years ahead of those in the U.S. Chinese companies operate a cyberspace of creative short videos, podcasts, blogs and streaming TV. For example, WeChat has 889 million users who socialize, play games, pay bills and buy tickets all from the mobile messaging app.

National laws on sexual harassment, workers’ rights

The social gains in China are monumental, especially when compared to no rights, no education and no standing for women, and no rights for any workers or peasants, before the Chinese Revolution. As in every country, social gains, especially for women, are uneven and in continuing struggle.

In China, many gains have been codified into national laws, rather than through piece-by-piece struggles against every corporate boss or laws passed state by state.

The inclusion in China’s civil code of laws to curb sexual harassment in the workplace is ahead of what exists in the U.S. and most other countries.

Included in the draft of the new civil code, presented to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee on Aug. 27, management and employers are responsible to take measures to prevent, stop and deal with complaints about sexual harassment. Victims can demand perpetrators “assume civil liability” for committing sexual harassment through words or actions or by exploiting someone’s subordinate relationship. (reuters.com, Aug. 27)

The China Labour Bulletin states: “China has a comprehensive legal framework that gives workers a range of entitlements and protects them from exploitation by their employer. Workers have the right to be paid in full and on time, a formal employment contract, a 40-hour working week with fixed overtime rates, social insurance covering pensions, healthcare, unemployment, work injuries and maternity leave, severance pay in the event of contract termination, equal pay for equal work, and protection against workplace discrimination.

“Workers also have the right to form an enterprise trade union and the enterprise union committee has to be consulted by management before any major changes to workers’ pay and conditions.” (clb.org.hk)

Belt and Road Initiative threatens U.S. position

China’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative provides infrastructure loans, equipment and training to countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America for a network of trade routes, with new rail lines, ports, highways, pipelines, telecommunications facilities and energy centers linking countries on four continents. It includes financing to promote urban planning, potable water, sanitation and food development. China is calling it the “plan of the century.” It is projected to be 12 times the size of the U.S. Marshall Plan, which rebuilt Western Europe after World War II.

Imperialism is worried that China’s huge, unfolding global infrastructure projects could challenge the U.S.-led world order.

Because the most powerful U.S. corporations are military industries, U.S. aid is built around enormous debt for military equipment purchases that are quickly obsolete. They are not able to match China’s development proposals. But U.S.-funded nongovernmental organizations and media outlets are waging widely publicized scare campaigns against these sorely needed development projects.

Meanwhile, China is reining in a number of projects by Chinese capitalists who were seeking ways to move their profits outside of Chinese government controls through exploitative foreign investment schemes.

Hands off China!

Big debates will continue within the progressive U.S. working-class movement on the social character of the Chinese experiment in “market socialism.”

It is valuable to study the impact of the global and internal capitalist market and a growing consumer society in China. The forms of socialist planning in the economy and in the culture hold lessons for the many developing countries.

The social weight, legal status and inheritance rights of the millionaire, and now even billionaire, capitalists in China should be evaluated.

The Chinese working class now numbers 623 million people. Its social weight and political consciousness are growing. Thousands of strikes and job actions have consolidated new gains in pay and working conditions. Its capacity to organize all future society will be decisive.

There is much we don’t know about the ownership of the productive forces in China — by the state, by Chinese and foreign capitalists, and about the many forms of collective ownership of small industries at the provincial, city and rural township levels. A lot is in rapid transition.

But in the final analysis, clarity and militant working-class solidarity are essential in opposing all threats to China from U.S. imperialism and its giant military machine.

Opposing sanctions, economic threats, trade wars, increasingly hostile media lies and military encirclement by U.S. imperialism is not open to debate.

Hands off China!

Originally published on Workers World

Sara Flounders is a frequent contributor to Global Research

It has become increasingly apparent throughout the past decade that the nation state, and the traditional notion that it represents a culturally cohesive citizen’s platform, is no longer a valid supposition.

In Europe, countries have been stripped of their status as individual nations overseen by elected governments. They have been turned into corporate fiefdoms having their own agendas and their own means of achieving them. The chief amongst these agendas is the domination of all spheres of the market place via overt influencing of government. And the method of achieving this end is extortion – buying one’s way into positions of leverage.

This would not be possible, of course, if parliamentarians refused to bend to the temptation of corruption. But as we now see on a virtually daily basis, the great majority of these ‘representatives of the people’ are themselves severely lacking in moral fiber and only too ready to do what is asked of them, in order to remain in power.

But the problem goes deeper. Other institutions with a remit to inform and educate, such as the media, leaders of national education programmes and the church also appear incapable of realizing a vision of any depth or purpose – equally allowing themselves to be led by the corporatist agenda.

An increasingly significant number of citizens now feel that there is no trust-worthy party to turn to at election time; whereas those who continue to place their faith in one or other party, allow themselves to be swayed by the ubiquitous nature of state propaganda – and not by their better instincts. This propaganda is corporation infused and is tied-into the deliberate promotion of an increasingly “me, me” agenda. Materialistically inclined consumers and many of those reacting to the dog eat dog political agenda of the day, appear to believe that any sort of resistance to the dominant trend is pointless, preferring to think only about their own needs and wishes and how to get the best out of a bad situation.

The corrosive effect of the top down stranglehold on society is undermining the moral fiber once characteristic of independent nations, leading to a state of permanent social unease and deprivation. Throughout Europe, North America and other westernized neoliberal capitalist countries, the corporate deep state driven solution to this widespread sense of dispossession – is war.

The constant hype surrounding war and ‘terrorism’ keeps people in a permanent state of anxiety and placates them into accepting unacceptable solutions to the continuing state of societal malaise. A malaise that goes under the deceptive misnomer of ‘peace’.

Leading the pugilistic charge is the USA. The rhetoric comes from the President, but the heavy guns in the background are the representatives of the military industrial complex with its headquarters in the Pentagon. Behind them, as more people are becoming aware, is the shadow government/deep state which ultimately calls all the shots and masterminds the timing and intensity of the war rhetoric. This war warning siren is at its loudest when there is some particularly unpleasant internal news to keep the issue of war out of the spotlight.

Presently the news is that the US has just run-up its highest trade deficit for a decade – $55.5 billion – and is in a third degree phase of bankruptcy. The economy is slowing. Manufacturing orders are falling and economic conditions are reported to be deteriorating for all but the top earners. The old US pugilistic empire building role is itself under threat and someone has to be blamed for this – so Russia is once again cranked-up as the number one villain.

Owing to the US’ vast military – and the equally vast costs of maintaining its more than 1,000 strategically positioned global military bases – a crisis is looming for The American Dream and the expectations that this dream which have unfolded for the past century.  But a crisis for the US is, as we know, also a crisis for Europe, since their economies are strongly interlinked, with or without TTIP in place.

The ideological battle between capitalism and communism has historically played-out as a ‘cold war’, sucking-in all of Europe in its wake. Now the hidden hands of the shadow government driving the global political and economic agenda are working to ratchet-up the ‘cold war’ agenda, via pumping ever more funds into the propaganda machine whose open belligerence is directed at Putin. Here, we are all led to believe, is the number one threat to the planet and prima causa of the rapidly failing dominance of the neoliberal Western led economic and military agenda.

So important is it for those who pull the strings of world affairs to keep Western populations permanently biased against The Russian Federation – and Putin in particular – that a military strategy has been devised in which NATO has landed the star role as ‘Defender of the West’.

A role that it is hoped will be believed by those at home who worry about the US no longer properly fulfilling its job as the world’s number one despot – and as the global bringer of good tidings via its unsurpassed culinary ambassadors: Coca Cola, McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

With the US emphasis, backed by France and Britain, on a military solution to the long cold war, has come the strategic importance of ensuring the allegiance of Eastern Europe, as Eastern Europe is seen as the battle ground for the perpetually hyped ‘West versus East’ show-down. The ‘war theater’ as military strategists like to call it.

Over the past decade Poland, Romania and Lithuania have become front line nations in relation to what is described – by fake mainstream news – as ‘Russian aggression’ but which is in reality US/NATO hegemonic ambition to advance Eastwards.

Poland, from where I am now writing this article, has recently become the main base of NATO’s Eastern European Command and hundreds of US missiles – under NATO’s command – are stationed at various sites on Polish soil , as well as in Romania, ringing the Western boundary with Russia.

Continued attempts are being made , via the call for further Eastern EU expansion, to also gain a further Western style foothold in the Caucasus, so that yet more US/NATO missiles can be established there, to further encircle the Russian Federation as well as put pressure on China.

The EU plays a central part in the roll-out of this aggressive militaristic strategy – more on this later. But simultaneous to the implementation of its geopolitical role as chief player on behalf of the shadow government, the EU is itself showing evidence of ever deepening fissures in its attempt to hold together ‘the Union’ as the supposed one voice socio-economic unit it was supposed to be. Cracks are appearing everywhere as the European Commission is ever more exposed as the perpetuator of a policy expressly designed for the creation of a supranational superstate; a centralized control system (based in Brussels) established to be the European blueprint of The New World Order. The purveyor of a doctrine of taking unto itself command and control of every significant aspect of the workings of the countries under its flag.

Recent examples of this are the introduction of single point centralization of all member state fiscal arrangements; secret services; banking operations; police forces and now ‘EU military unification’. A programme announced by the head of the European Commission, Donald Tusk, in June 2018. ‘EU military unification’ involves the diverting of the autonomy of each EU nation state to maintain its own independent military – into a collectivized pool under the direct command of EU defence chiefs, with back-up from NATO.

The implications of this military centralization programme also suggest an equally sinister civilian lock-down. In a recent BBC TV interview, EU defence chief Federica Mogherini stated “We need to merge military and civilian policing functions.” This is a much more critical statement of intent that it might seem at first glance. A nation state without full control of its military and with its tax payers contributions being funneled into building an EU based military/police state – will not be able to defend itself without permission from Brussels. This is a key part of New World Order planning – and it is happening.

The fiasco called Brexit is at the centre of this political sell-out to the barely disguised fascistic ambitions of the EU superstate. Under the guise of negotiating an EU exit, the reality is that a covert form of high treason is being enacted right under the eyes of UK citizens. British Prime Minister Theresa May is overseeing a strategy whereby the country’s navy, air force and army are being rapidly run-down to unworkable levels, in lock-step with EU military unification being ramped up.

Britain’s military, the largest independent unit in Europe, is being sold to Brussels – and the price is being kept secret. At the helm of this new EU army will be either a French or German high command.

The ‘centralization of all strategically important elements into a one point control unit, has been given the name ‘The Fusion Doctrine’ by the UK Ministry of Defence. The Fusion Doctrine is supposedly being established in order to counter international terrorism – but actually it is to bring together different professional bodies under a war style footing so as to exert further draconian levels of control over the civilian population. Such strategic thinking comes from Chatham House, the Atlantic Council, the Bilderberger group and other similar secret society operatives.

The implications are, of course, far reaching, but completely in line with the ambitions of the deep state shadow government: all administrative functions key to ensuring the daily functioning of a nation state are to be ‘fused’ into one centralized totalitarian control system, to an agenda overseen by the 0.5% elite banking, military industrial, energy and telecommunication providers. Not forgetting pharmaceutical, agro-industrial behemoths, corporate infrastructure conglomerates, food giants and hypermarket chiefs.

The end result is to be a structure exactly in the mold of Hitler’s proposed Fourth Reich. The founding fathers of the EU always intended their project to be a ‘Federation’ – a supranational superstate run by unelected technocrats. And this is what we’ve got.

Pumping money in behind the scenes are the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, European Central Bank and – taking a leading role – the International Bank of Settlements, based in Basel.

In order for this totalitarian take-over to appear to be sanctioned by the public at large, non governmental organisations (NGO’s) are being enlisted to play an increasingly important role in smoothing the way. There are a plethora of such organisations at work in the UK, all receiving direct (but largely disguised) funding from government and industry. They are involved in military and civilian deception.

For example, UK NGO’s have been revealed to have helped indirectly fund the Middle East rogue ‘peace keepers’ known as the White Helmets, who act in support of ISIS terror squads and anti Assad dissidents. NGO’s have been conscripted to play the role of putting a positive propaganda spin on secret service backed attempts to bring about regime change and similar acts of covert interference in foreign countries, since it is believed that the public will never conceive of ‘charitable’ organisations acting as CIA/MI6 and Mossad sponsored operatives. But they do.

Within UK civilian circles a government and industry supported NGO called ‘Common Purpose’ * has taken on the remit of ‘educating’ various branches of government how to improve their public relations profiles (read: create more authentic spin) and a lot more besides. Common Purpose, like its cousins, is a propaganda machine working to undermine and destroy the traditional functions of national governments and the civil service, often on behalf of the political and economic agenda of super wealthy families and banking groups such as the Rothschilds, Goldman Sachs, Rockefellers. The British Civil Service, once a quite respected body in its own right, has shown signs of itself being corporatised and being open to the influence of major players with ‘an agenda’.

Social engineering has become a critically important tool in spreading disinformation, and mainstream media has become the chief outlet for its dissemination. The BBC, for example, has completely failed to live-up to its reputation as an independent broadcaster of merit, becoming one of the most frequent disseminators of fake news within a veritable hornet’s nest of bought-out media enterprises now towing the toxic globalist imperial agenda.

So tight is the lid being kept on ‘don’t step out of line’ political correctness – within a world of supposed freedom of speech – that transgressing the line can amount to a criminal act; especially if it is seen as ‘dissent’ from key government policies – such as the insistence that Putin is the evil harbinger of death and destruction to the Western World.

Greens can also be found being swept along by a tide of grandiose ‘solutions’ to climate change and other environmental crises. Many buying-in to the Agenda 21 plan of shifting large segments of the population into ‘smart cities’ so as to allow countryside areas to become ‘purified’ zones and wildernesses. What would be left of farming, in this scenario, would consist of vast genetically modified and agrichemical dependent monocultures, coupled to hydroponic and nanotech laboratory food production factories.

Such regimes would supply the ‘hygienic’ staple diets for smart city occupants. Such so called ‘sustainable solutions’ are actually quasi extensions of eugenics programmes popular with Hitler, and have nothing to do with actual solutions to the process of planetary ecocide still being moved forward under the central control system’s totalitarian agenda. Many ‘green’ organisations have also become dependent upon their wealthy financiers, who often harbor strong ulterior motives for supplying their financial support.

An outstanding example of a  grandiose supposed ‘green’ initiative unleashed this year (2018), is the launching of the 5G WiFi and electromagnetic microwave network, by Elon Musk, the entrepreneur behind the electric car. This scheme will up the EMF rate of mobile phone towers and street transmission installations by a drastic magnitude, at huge cost to the health and welfare of peoples, animals and the environment. It will cover every city, town and village – that goes along with it – with thousands of new microwave spewing base stations at intervals of every 5 to 8 houses in urban landscapes.

There can be little doubt that the true role of this falsely touted ‘no lag internet’ is to exert a 100% effective monitoring programme over the entire population of this planet. Not just this, but to also increase the ability to use advanced mind control techniques within areas of mass population density.**

The ubiquitous spread of elctromagnetic microwave technologies over the past two decades provides an essential tool for social control. Closely allied are the extraordinary powers now being held by social media and internet giants like Google and Facebook. The fact that great swathes of the population are addicted to an almost continuous use of hand held ‘smart phone’ technologies has enabled the operatives of the central control system to exert a net like influence on the population from one end of the globe to another.

In very general terms, this provides a further string to the bow of a global dumbing down exercise. An exercise that continues to be applied via the dominance of toxic pharmaceuticals, processed, devitaminised – and genetically modified foods, chemically altered drinking water, sub standard air quality and atmospheric aerosol engineered nanoparticulates, to name a few. Coupled to these are the psychologically destabilising affects of TV fake news and so called ‘entertainment’ shows, general media hype and the huge number of war oriented and generally violent electronic computer games that cover the children’s toy market.

In the background to all this, is the constantly beating war drum, keeping society in a state of perpetual anxiety.

The Fusion Doctrine no doubt intends to take full advantage of artificial intelligence in its delivery of a fully functioning totalitarian take-over. The steady incremental growth of public addiction to electromagnetic microwave mobile phones, smart meters and associated smart technologies, has opened the way for upping the levels and range of control over the daily lives of millions, perhaps billions, of people. The advent of algorithyms in computer software coupled with the multiple neighbourhood transmitter boxes with their millimeter pulsed 5G microwaves, are clear signals of ‘human side-stepping’ and non-human advancement., both in the work place and at home.

The Fusion Doctrine is what stands behind ‘the internet of everything’ and the internet of everything will be powered by 5G and the 20,000 satellites its sponsors aim to launch during 2019/20 so as to cover “every square inch of the planet.”

The breadth of the agenda which I have attempted to encapsulate in this article, is far from complete. However, it is sufficient to reveal that our precious and precarious planet is in the hands of deeply disturbed individuals, exhibiting varying degrees of psychopathic compulsion. We also see, thanks to those at the forefront of exposing the horrific abuse of children by those in positions of power, that the world of politics, religion and other institutions of supposed ‘reputation’ is corrosively flawed. We see that, amongst those we have entrusted with power, are perpetrators of some of the worst crimes against humanity this planet has ever endured.

Given these facts, we cannot but reach the conclusion that, at the top end of the day to day management of this world, are a cabal of deeply psychotic criminals.

Crimes against humanity start with those in power.

Humanity is reaching a breaking point. A point that has come about through many millions, if not billions, of good people suffering untold torment at the hands of oppressors of all that constitutes love, unity, freedom and spiritual radiance. But at this darkest of darkest hours, a great change is in the air.

Those who have maintained a warm hearted humanitarian stance throughout this planetary crisis are rising. Rising more and more everyday.

Are we witnessing the beginning of the end of the materialistic world of cruelty?

We are approaching a major break-through of conscious awareness and actions that come from it.

The tipping point is close at hand as rebellion simmers. Rebellion of the indestructible human spirit.

Let us channel our energies into fully exposing the criminal perpetrators.

Let us get on with the work of celebrating the value of human life.

Let us be united in our determination to succeed, for the destiny of humanity.

*Thanks to UK Column News for bringing this to my attention.

** Julian Rose interviews Barrie Trower on 5G https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLVIbPtNrVo

Julian Rose is an international activist, writer, organic farming pioneer and actor. In 1987 and 1998, he led a campaign that saved unpasteurised milk from being banned in the UK; and, with Jadwiga Lopata, a ‘Say No to GMO’ campaign in Poland which led to a national ban of GM seeds and plants in that country in 2006. Julian is currently campaigning to ‘Stop 5G’ WiFi. He is the author of two acclaimed titles: Changing Course for Life and In Defence of Life and is a long time exponent of yoga/meditation. See Julian’s web site for more information and to purchase his books www.julianrose.info

Believe it or not, but not long ago, Cyprus used to be the only country in the European Union that was governed by a Communist Party. And it was not really too long ago – between 2008 and 2013.

Also, relatively recently, unification of the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish administered northern part of the island, appeared to be achievable.

And when Cyprus, like Greece, almost collapsed financially, it was Russia which offered to bail it out (before the EU did all it could to prevent this from happening).

Now it all seems like ancient history.

The city of Nicosia is still divided, with the Greek Cypriot and the Turkish immigration check-points located right in the middle of an old town. Graffiti painted in ‘no man’s land’ demand an immediate end to the conflict: ‘One country; one nation solution’.

The crossing is busy. And to make it all somehow more colorful, perhaps, there is a huge white Pitbull, phlegmatically hanging around the border area. It does not bark; it is just there. Nobody knows whether he belongs to the Turkish or the Greek side, but it appears that he spends more time with the Turks, as, I suppose, they feed him better.

The Greek-speaking side of Nicosia looks like a slightly run-down EU provincial town. On their flank, Turks are smoking shisha (traditional Middle Eastern waterpipe), and their cafes appear to be more traditional, and the old architecture more elegant. In the southern part, freshly brewed coffee is called ‘Greek’, while a few meters north, you have to order ‘Turkish’, or at least ‘Arabic coffee’. Needless to say, you get the same stuff on both sides.

Otherwise, it is one island, one history and one sad and unnecessary partition.

The division of the nation is not the only madness here. Before you get used to the idea, you may go mental, finding out that there are two British administered territories still engraved into the island.

If you drive around, you will never notice that you are actually leaving Cyprus, and entering the U.K. Some car license plates are different to those regular Cypriot ones, but that’s about it.

You cross an invisible line, and you are in the UK; historically the most aggressive (militarily and ideologically) nation on the face of the earth.

You drive through some agricultural fields, but soon you see something very eerie all around the road: a few kilometers after passing the historic Crusader’s Kolossi Castle, there is an ocean of masts of different heights and shapes, as well as concrete, fortified military installations. The masts are ‘decorated’ with strange looking wires. It all looks like some old Sci-Fi movie.

Of course, if you come ‘prepared’, you know what you are facing: tremendous installations of the BBC propaganda apparatus aimed at destabilizing and indoctrinating the Middle East. But that is not all. This entire enclave – ‘Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri’ (as well as Dhekelia a few dozens of miles to the east) – is here mostly in order to spy on the ‘neighborhood’ of the Middle East. While London is some 4 hours flight away, Syria is just a short distance across the water, and so is Lebanon.

Further south, after you leave the propaganda and spy installations behind, is a small village of Akrotiri; a typical picturesque Cypriot charming settlement, with an old church, narrow streets and humble local cafes. It sits on top of the hill. But you are, actually, inside the U.K. From here, you can see the blue sea, a salt lake and the city of Limassol; but you are on British turf. How come? Simple: after Cyprus achieved independence from the British Empire, in 1960, the Brits ‘were concerned’ that they could lose control over their military bases in Cyprus, and at least partially, influence over the Middle East. As this being unimaginable to the British imperialist mind, the U.K. arm-twisted the Cypriots into this bizarre arrangement which holds to this day.

One more kilometer further south, and you hit the wall and a gate, decorated with threatening warnings. You are at the perimeter of the RAF Akrotiri base. From here, since December 2015, the RAF is carrying out illegal (according to international law) airstrikes against the sovereign Syrian Arab Republic.

According to Jeffrey Richelson & Desmond Ball, The Ties the Bind: Intelligence Cooperation between the UKUSA Countries, (Unwin Hyman, Boston/London and others, 1990, p.194 note 145):

“As of 2010, around 3,000 troops of British Forces Cyprus are based at Akrotiri and Dhekelia. Ayios Nikolaos Station, in the ESBA, is an ELINT (electronic intelligence) listening station of the UKUSA Agreement intelligence network.”

That was then, but now things are getting even deadlier. Practically, the U.K. is at war with Syria. Many in Cyprus are deeply concerned that Syria could retaliate, sending missiles against the RAF bases, from which it is being bombed (legally, independent Syria has the full right to defend itself against the attacks from abroad). Such retaliation could endanger the lives of the inhabitants of Cyprus.

There have been protests and demands for the British forces to return to Cyprus both of the ‘sovereign bases’, but the U.K. shows no interest in ceding what it controls.

As early as in 2008, former left-wing President Demetris Christofias (who was also the General Secretary of AKEL, the Communist Party of Cyprus) tried to remove all British forces from the island, calling them a “colonial bloodstain”. However, he did not succeed, and in 2013 he decided to step down and not to seek re-election.

Dhekelia Base is carved into the eastern part of Cyprus, bizarrely encircling both Turkish-controlled and Greek-speaking villages.

In the past, the Cypriots fought against the British presence. Nowadays, in the era of omnipresent surveillance, sabotages and resistance had been replaced by toothless protests. Still, hundreds of local people have been detained, demanding the departure of British troops from the island.

Cyprus is still divided, although reunification talks began, once again, in 2015. Now it is possible to walk between the Republic of Cyprus and Northern Cyprus (controlled by Turkey).

It was not always this way. As Papadakis Yiannis wrote:

“On 15 July 1974, the Greek military junta under Dimitrios Ioannides carried out a coup d’état in Cyprus, to unite the island with Greece.”

Thousands of Turkish residents were displaced, many killed. Turkey invaded and the island got divided. But inter-cultural violence dated even further back than 1974. The history can be felt on every corner of Nicosia, and in many villages of the island. Northern Cyprus was never recognized by any other country except Turkey, but the division is still there. There are still entire de-populated towns that used to belong to the displaced Turkish and Greek inhabitants.

One of the eeriest is Kofinou, in the south of the island, which suffered on at least two occasions, unprecedented ethnic violence, which could be defined as ‘cleansing’. Once inhabited mainly by the Turkish Cypriots, Kofinou is now a ghost town, dotted with collapsed houses and agricultural structures, with foreign guest workers and farm animals living in appalling conditions.

*

Cyprus has two faces. It is proud to be one of the famous European tourist destinations. It is an EU member.

Simultaneously, it is a symbol of division.

Border fences between the Republic of Cyprus and Northern Cyprus are scarring its beautiful countryside. Deadly British military installations, the air force bases, as well as propaganda warfare and disinformation campaigns are brutalizing, physically and morally, almost the entire Middle East.

Here, in Cyprus, European and Russian tourists coexist, uneasily. The ideological war between the West and the rest of the planet is clearly felt in Pathos and other historic areas of the island.

Some British residents (around 50,000 of them), as well as countless British tourists, often behave insultingly towards the generally humble Russian visitors. Here, the British Empire still appears to be ‘in charge’.

In the port of Pathos, I passed by an elderly Russian couple, who seemed to be simply admiring an old water castle. A British couple was passing by, then looked back and forged sarcastic, rude grimaces: “Those Russians,” uttered the man. This was not the only instance when I witnessed this sort of behavior.

In Cyprus, I drove exactly 750 kilometers, all around the island, trying to understand and define its present position, and its role in the ‘area’ and in the world.

I hoped to find reminiscences of at least some revolutionary spirit of the Communist (AKEL) government. But I almost exclusively found pragmatism, so typical for basically all European Union countries. Only questions like this were common: ‘Would Brexit be good or bad for Cyprus?’ Or: ‘Would the bombing of Syria be dangerous for the citizens of Cyprus?’

Symbolically, near the village of Kofinou, destroyed by the inter-cultural violence several decades ago, I found a tough-looking refugee camp, built mainly for the immigrants coming from the destabilized Middle East. It looks like a concentration camp. Locals call it, realistically, a ‘prison’. Most likely, it is.

As I was driving around the area, I spotted, just a few kilometers from the camp, in front of an eerie and semi-abandoned farm, a huge goat. It was on its side; dying, in agony, in the middle of the road.

Cyprus has become a divided island with some hedonistic resorts, but also with terribly marginalized communities, located all over its territory.

One could easily conclude: this former British colony is still allowing, for a fee, the tremendous presence of the British/NATO military forces, as well as various spy facilities and propaganda outlets. RAF Tornado jetfighters are presently flying their ‘missions’ against Syria. Missiles are being fired from Akrotiri. People fleeing from the destroyed countries of the Middle East, are then detained in Cyprus, like criminals, behind barbed wire.

In the meantime, the people of Cyprus are calculating, whether all this is truly feasible, or not; whether to be an outpost of the empire is a good business, for as long as it pays, they will do very little to change the situation. Despite of its complex past and present, as well as its proximity to the Middle East, Cyprus is, after all, an integral part of Europe, and therefore of the Western empire.

*

[Originally published by NEO – New Eastern Outlook]

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.

There is a military rule that says: if you are facing defeat and want to cut your losses, the shortest way out is to declare victory and promptly retreat.

US President Donald Trump may not be familiar with this dictum, as his expertise is confined to business deals and property brokering. But some of his advisors are most definitely aware of it, as they are of the facts on the ground on the battlefronts where US forces are deployed, especially in the Middle East.

White House Spokeswoman Sarah Sanders announced on Wednesday that all US forces in Syria – comprising some 2,000 Special Forces troops – would be withdrawn within two or three months, while another American official said that all State Department personnel would be pulled out of Syria within 48 hours.

Trump justified this move in a tweet explaining that the war against terrorist groups, which was the only reason for the US forces’ presence in the first place, had achieved its aim with the defeat of the Islamic State (IS) group, so he had decided to bring them all home from Syria.

There is much that is unclear about this decision, in addition to the element of surprise. Just one week ago, the US envoy to the international anti-terror coalition in Syria, Brett McGurk, declared that US forces would be remaining in the country for while. Moreover, Secretary of Defense James Mattis (who recently resigned), has repeatedly warned over the past month against any premature US withdrawal from Syria, on the grounds that this would leave a vacuum which President Bashar al-Assad and his Iranian and Russian allies would fill. This has been reiterated by Trump’s ally Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.

The claim that US forces have eliminated IS, which maintains bases and a military presence in northeastern Syria, is false. The group remains strong, and it poses a threat to the mainly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which the US has been supporting and arming. Two days ago it retook villages it had lost in earlier confrontations between the two sides. So it is hard to accept this explanation.

To understand why Trump took this decision to withdraw from Syria, and to vacate the Middle East conflict zone generally, a number of points need to be considered:

– First: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s repeated warnings over the past ten days to attack the SDF and wipe it out completely in north-eastern Syria, on the grounds that it is an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) — which Turkey designates as a terrorist organisation — and threatens the country’s national security.

– Second: Trump may have taken this decision after reaching a deal with Erdogan aimed at avoiding a military confrontation between their countries and reviving their previous strategic partnership. This is plausible. The two presidents have been in regular contact over the past few days, and Sanders indicated that Trump was considering Erdogan’s demand for the extradition of Fethullah Gulen, the US-based preacher accused of masterminding the failed coup in Turkey.

– Third: The Trump administration may be preparing to ignite a war with Iran, and is pulling its forces out of Syria so they do not become a target for retaliatory attacks by pro-Iranian Iraqi groups. The 5,200 American soldiers in Iraq may also be withdrawn for the same reason. Moreover, talks were held on Wednesday between the US and the Taliban in Abu Dhabi (not Doha), attended by the Pakistanis, Saudis, and Emiratis, about a prospective withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan.

– Fourth: Trump may have agreed with his allies in Saudi Arabia and the UAE – and perhaps Qatar too – to send forces from these countries to replace the US troops, prevent a vacuum from occurring, and bankroll and arm the SDF. News reports have revealed that military experts from these countries have visited the Eastern Euphrates in recent weeks. Saudi Minister of State Tamer as-Sabhan went there several months ago to prepare for the arrival and basing of these forces. Reports in the past few days have suggested that Sudanese troops may be deployed there as well, also in coordination with the US administration.

As usual, it is the Kurds – who banked on American protection, fought under the US banner against Syrian forces and then against IS, defeating the latter and capturing its capital city al-Raqqa – who stand to be the main victims of this American move. They have the most to lose, just like their counterparts in Iraqi Kurdistan.

The Kurds’ problem, especially in Syria, is that they failed to learn from the lessons of history and of their own previous experiences and put all their eggs in the American basket. They are separatists when they have US backing, and Syrians when the Americans let them down or the Turks attack them. This has happened more than once, mot recently last week when they appealed for support from the Syrian army in the face of Turkish threats and accused it of betraying them when it did not immediately comply – as though Damascus is at their beck and call.

It was no surprise to hear Kurdish spokeswoman Ilham Ahmad describe the US decision to withdraw from Syria as a stab in the back. It was a stab with a poisoned dagger, but it was not the first and will not be the last.

The approaching new year will be replete with violent bumps and tremors. We should brace ourselves, and try to read the Middle Eastern scene differently this time, for there is more to come.

The latest bid to keep Washington’s desperate Russiagate conspiracy theory alive has energized distilled segments of the public still convinced of Moscow’s global omniscience and its role in manipulating and undermining virtually every aspect of their daily lives.

But recent “revelations” are simply the same accusations made against a Russian-based click-bait farm, repackaged and respun.

The Washington Post’s article, “New report on Russian disinformation, prepared for the Senate, shows the operation’s scale and sweep,” would in fact present no new report. Instead, it would present repackaged narratives involving “Russia’s disinformation campaign around the 2016 election.” 

The Washington Post would claim:

The report, obtained by The Washington Post before its official release Monday, is the first to study the millions of posts provided by major technology firms to the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), its chairman, and Sen. Mark Warner (Va.), its ranking Democrat. The bipartisan panel also released a second independent report studying the 2016 election Monday. Lawmakers said the findings “do not necessarily represent the views” of the panel or its members.

The two reports were put out by Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Project and New Knowledge. No information is provided by the Washington Post as to what either of these organizations are, who runs them, or who funds them.

Both reports rehash allegations claiming the Russia-based Internet Research Agency (IRA) conducted an extensive influence campaign through social media during the 2016 US elections.

The total amount of money spent on such operations amounted to approximately $100,000 in Facebook ads. To put this amount in context, the very same Washington Post would report in April 2017 that the total amount spent on the 2016 elections amounted to $6.5 billion – in other words – the amount allegedly spent on Facebook ads by IRA was about 0.001% of total US campaign spending.

Both reports cited by the Washington Post and presented to US Congress did not dispute this. Instead, they attempted to claim the impact of IRA’s activities far exceeded this $100,000 in ads.

The New Knowledge report would claim:

The Instagram and Facebook engagement statistics belie the claim that this was a small operation — it was far more than only $100,000 of Facebook ads, as originally asserted by Facebook executives,” the New Knowledge white paper said. “The ad engagements were a minor factor in a much broader, organically driven influence operation.

And to unskeptical, untrained eyes, the figures presented by both Oxford and New Knowledge tabulating millions of views, shares, and likes do appear to “belie the claim that this was a small operation.”

A recent visit to Washington DC by former Brexit secretary, David Davis, was funded by US business interests that want the UK to weaken its food and environment standards after it leaves the EU, according to Unearthed.

Davis visited the US in November 2018, together with former environment secretary Owen Paterson and the Institute of Economic Affairs’ (IEA) controversial trade expert, Shanker Singham, to discuss a post-Brexit US trade deal with the Trump administration.

The group met with senior trade and agriculture officials before travelling to Oklahoma to meet with its Lieutenant Governor, Todd Lamb, and visit agricultural research facilities at Oklahoma State University.

According to the register of MPs interests, funding for the trip was provided by several organisations, including the Institute of Economic Affairs and an Oklahoma business group called the E Foundation.

Earlier this year an undercover investigation by Unearthed found that the E Foundation had agreed to provide tens of thousands of dollars in funding to the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), with the aim of influencing Brexit.

Davis’ entry in the register reveals that the E Foundation paid £5,362 to cover the cost of his flights, accommodation and other expenses; while the IEA paid £1,949. The Chickasaw Nation, a Native American nation whose secretary of commerce, Bill Lance, sits on the E Foundation board of directors, also paid £4,052 to cover the cost of Davis’ flights.

Some of the costs of Paterson’s trip were also covered by the E Foundation and IEA – but the majority came from the Chickasaw Nation (£4,052) and UK2020, a think tank of which Paterson is the sole director (£4,933).

Paterson has frequently used his think tank, which does not disclose its sources of funding, to cover the costs of foreign trips.

Responding to the news, shadow cabinet office minister Jon Trickett told Unearthed: “The public must be wondering why on earth prominent MPs are being funded by opaque ‘charities’ to visit the US to discuss extreme free-trade deals.”

“They are entitled to answers. But to get them we will need to overhaul the way politics in this country works. The rules and regulations on funding, lobbying and transparency are simply not adequate to deal with the increasing complexity and global nature of the relationship between politics and big business,” Trickett continued.

Davis, Paterson and the E Foundation did not respond to requests for comment when contacted last week.

It is at least the second time that Singham has met with US trade officials this year, according to documents obtained by Unearthed under US freedom of information rules.

A spokesperson for the IEA said: “Unearthed’s constant insinuation is that the IEA’s activities and publications only purport certain analysis and views because we are paid to. This is categorically untrue. If anyone really believes that IEA authors and spokespeople are socialist, tax-loving, big-state advocates at heart, who only advocate free-market economics for a pay check, then they are a) badly mistaken and b) we consider such accusations to be slanderous.”

E Foundation donations

During an undercover investigation by Unearthed earlier this year, the E Foundation’s CEO, Michael Carnuccio, said that its work with the IEA offered US businesses the opportunity to ‘get influence’ in the Brexit process.

“If you’re looking for a way to invest resources in the US, to where there’s a tax deduction for the resources and there’s anonymity between it, that will get the resources deployed in the United Kingdom in a way that gets as much influence as close as possible and at the same time, creates a conversation and groundswell, we have the system already set up, that’s what we’re doing,” Carnuccio said.

As part of the collaboration, the IEA arranged a meeting in London between representatives of the Oklahoma group and then Brexit minister Steve Baker. Singham also took them to a meeting of the influential European Research Group, where they addressed MPs and met Jacob Rees Mogg.

In a statement in July, an IEA spokeswoman said the charity takes “no corporate view” on Brexit. She added: “The prospective donors are businesses who stand to benefit from free and open trade in accordance with UK regulations which should be in line with sound science and democratic accountability. UK businesses and consumers will also benefit from this.”

Food standards

One of the key aims of the E Foundation was for the UK to weaken its food standards as part of a post-Brexit US trade deal.

Carnuccio said: “I mean, it’s strategic communications [by the EU] to say that cows are not happy in the United States because of their hormones or that chlorinated chicken is killing people all over the world or something,”

“We quickly figured out that we’re gonna have to have some level of marketing, advertising, communications strategy that is going to impact the consumer in the UK but also from more of a political pressure standpoint, it will challenge the narrative that the EU has always had,” he continued.

To help achieve this, Carnuccio said that a visit of Brexiteer MPs was being planned, which would involve a tour of Oklahoma agricultural facilities to help persuade British shoppers US products were safe to eat.

He claimed that then Brexit minister, Steve Baker, was working with Singham to identify which MPs to take.

Davis, Paterson and Singham’s trip to the US bears a close resemblance to the plan outlined by Carnuccio, involving a tour of agricultural facilities at Oklahoma State University, organised by E Foundation executive committee member and former cattle rancher, Tucker Link.

The two former ministers also met with Syngenta, a major agribusiness firm that manufactures neonicotinoid pesticides and genetically modified seeds.

Responding to a July request for comment by Unearthed, the E Foundation issued the following statement: “The conversations supported the E Foundation’s purpose to explore global business and research opportunities. The informal conversation enlightened us on possible mutually beneficial endeavours in the future between [the] United Kingdom and Oklahoma. Any suggestions the conversations were about something other than constructive business and research pursuits would be completely misguided.”

Charity Commission

The news comes after a Charity Commission investigation forced the IEA to withdraw a high-profile  report on Brexit written by Singham and trumpeted by Davis and Paterson as an alternative to May’s Chequers deal.

The Charity Commission acted after opening up a compliance case looking into allegations of political campaigning by the IEA, which is an educational charity, following the Unearthed undercover investigation.  The IEA has now said it will split into two with a new non-charitable arm.

The Charity Commission’s investigation into the IEA is ongoing.

“Canadians should be angry that these traitors are isolating Canada from China, from Russia, from Iran and their great cultures, and condemning Canada to be nothing more than an outpost of the American empire. For traitors they are as they betray the Canadian people by serving the interests of the Americans and their war machine.” – Christopher Black (Dec. 14, 2018) [1]

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One of the most dramatic diplomatic ruptures in the history of Canada-China relations is taking place as we near the end of 2018. It revolves around Canada’s arrest and detention of Sabrina Meng Wanzhou, a top executive with the Chinese tech company Huawei, in response to an extradition request from the United States.

As explained in British Columbia Supreme Court, days after the December 1st arrest, Ms. Meng was wanted on charges of fraud, including the use of a Huawei subsidiary to conduct business with Iran, in violation of the sanctions the U.S. had imposed on that country.

Ms. Meng was released on a $10 million bail, with additional conditions that she live in one of her two Vancouver homes, restricted to that residence between the hours of 11pm and 6am local time, that she be monitored 24/7, that she surrender all of her passports, and that she wear an ankle bracelet around the clock. [2]

Chinese officials, upset by this state of affairs, threatened “revenge” and “unnecessary troubles” for Canada if it did not release the Chinese CFO. China has since arrested 2 Canadian nationals: entrepreneur Michael Spavor, and former diplomat Michael Korvig. [3]

Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland called these detentions “arbitrary” as opposed to what she called Canada’s “fair, unbiased and transparent legal proceeding with respect to Meng Wanzhou.” Adding that Canada “respects its international legal commitments, including by honouring its extradition treaty with the United States.” As of this writing, the Canadian government’s demand for the release of the two detained Canadians has the backing of both the U.S. State Department and the European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs.[4]

There is an interesting backdrop to this high profile diplomatic dispute getting ignored by most of the major press in Canada. The Australian Press exposed a meeting of the Five Eyes intelligence network with Prime Minister Trudeau at an undisclosed location in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia this past summer. The intelligence chiefs spoke of threats coming from China. Since the meeting, there has been an unprecedented campaign to ban Huawei technology from the emerging 5G networks in the Five Eyes countries, namely Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand. The argument is that Huawei would use advanced capabilities to provide intelligence to the Chinese government, making it a threat to national security.[5]

On this week’s Global Research News Hour, we explore the geopolitical, economic and legal dimensions of the stand-off between the U.S. and Canada and with the world’s most populous nation.

Starting off the discussion, Professor Michel Chossudovsky provides more background on the Western alliance’s concerns about Huawei technology and the stakes for Canada, the US and the world. Later in the program, esteemed international criminal lawyer Christopher Black details the problems with the Canadian government’s arguments that they are acting in accord with the rule of law in the Meng Wanzhou case. Finally, Ron Unz of the Unz review, elaborates on his thesis that there is an achilles heel within the U.S. power structure that the Chinese could easily exploit that would compel the release of Meng Wanzhou from the extradition order.

Professor Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor (Emeritus) of Economics at the University of Ottawa, and Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto. He is known for a number of high-profile war crimes cases and recently published his novel “Beneath the Clouds. He writes essays on international law, politics and world events, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.” He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Trained as a theoretical physicist, Ron Unz has experience in the financial services industry and in politics and in public policy activities. He served as publisher of The American Conservative from 2006 to 2013, and currently serves as Editor-In-Chief and Publisher of the Unz Review.

(Global Research News Hour Episode 241) 

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

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

Community Radio Stations carrying the Global Research News Hour:

CHLY 101.7fm in Nanaimo, B.C – Thursdays at 1pm PT

Boston College Radio WZBC 90.3FM NEWTONS  during the Truth and Justice Radio Programming slot -Sundays at 7am ET.

Port Perry Radio in Port Perry, Ontario –1  Thursdays at 1pm ET

Burnaby Radio Station CJSF out of Simon Fraser University. 90.1FM to most of Greater Vancouver, from Langley to Point Grey and from the North Shore to the US Border.

It is also available on 93.9 FM cable in the communities of SFU, Burnaby, New Westminister, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Surrey and Delta, in British Columbia, Canada. – Tune in  at its new time – Wednesdays at 4pm PT.

Radio station CFUV 101.9FM based at the University of Victoria airs the Global Research News Hour every Sunday from 7 to 8am PT.

CORTES COMMUNITY RADIO CKTZ  89.5 out of Manson’s Landing, B.C airs the show Tuesday mornings at 10am Pacific time.

Cowichan Valley Community Radio CICV 98.7 FM serving the Cowichan Lake area of Vancouver Island, BC airs the program Thursdays at 6am pacific time.

Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in  Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 10am.

Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday Morning from 8:00 to 9:00am. Find more details at www.caperradio.ca

RIOT RADIO, the visual radio station based out of Durham College in Oshawa, Ontario has begun airing the Global Research News Hour on an occasional basis. Tune in at dcstudentsinc.ca/services/riot-radio/

Radio Fanshawe: Fanshawe’s 106.9 The X (CIXX-FM) out of London, Ontario airs the Global Research News Hour Sundays at 6am with an encore at 4pm.

Los Angeles, California based Thepowerofvoices.com airs the Global Research News Hour every Monday from 6-7pm Pacific time.

Notes:

1. https://www.globalresearch.ca/canada-holds-hostage-free-meng-wanzhou/5662877
2. https://globalnews.ca/news/4749540/meng-wanzhou-huawei-bail-hearing-day-3/
3. https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canada-will-pay-chinese-state-media-threaten-repercussions-over-huawei-arrest-1.4216293
4. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/2179193/canada-and-us-demand-immediate-release-canadians-michael-spavor
5. Chris Uhlmann & Angus Grigg (Dec. 13, 2018), ‘How the ‘Five Eyes’ cooked up the campaign to kill Huawei’, Sydney Morning Herald; https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/how-the-five-eyes-cooked-up-the-campaign-to-kill-huawei-20181213-p50m24.html

“…and the ones who call the shots won’t be among the dead and lame; And on each end of the rifle we’re the same” — John McCutcheon

104 years ago this Christmas something happened near the beginning of the “War to End All Wars” that put a tiny little blip of hope in the historical timeline of the organized mass slaughter that is war.

The event was regarded by the professional military officer class to be so profound and so important (and so disturbing) that strategies were immediately put in place that would ensure that such an event could never happen again.

“Christian” Europe was in the fifth month of the war of 1914 – 1918, the so-called Great War that finally ground to a mutually suicidal halt after four years of exhausting trench warfare, with all of the original participants financially, spiritually and morally bankrupt.

British, Scottish, French, Belgian, Australian, New Zealand, Canadian, German, Austrian, Hungarian, Serbian and Russian clergymen from church pulpits in those Christian nations were doing their part in creating a decidedly un-Christ-like patriotic fervor that would result in a holocaust that destroyed four empires, killed upwards of 20 million soldiers and civilians, physically wounded hundreds of millions more and caused the psychological and spiritual decimation of an entire generation of young men whose spiritual care was supposed to be the responsibility of those clergymen.

Christianity, it should be remembered, began as a highly ethical pacifist religion based on the teachings and actions of the nonviolent Jesus of Nazareth (and his pacifist apostles and followers). Christianity survived and thrived despite persecutions until it became the largest religion in the Roman Empire by the time Constantine the Great became emperor (in 313 CE) and usurped the religion’s leaders into becoming OK with the homicidal violence of warfare. Ever since then, the nations that professed Christianity as their state religion have never allowed the mainline churches to truly exercise the radical peacemaking of the original form of Christianity as Jesus had taught.

So, contrary to the ethical teachings of Jesus, most modern Christian churches have refused to become active resisters to its particular nation’s militarist or imperial aspirations, its nation’s aggressive wars, its nation’s war-makers or its nation’s war profiteers. Instead, the church has, by and large, become a bloody instrument of the satanic in support of whatever sociopathic warmongers and sociopathic corporations are in power.

So, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to see that the religious leaders on both sides of World War I were convinced that God was on their particular side and therefore not on the side of those professed followers of Jesus that had been fingered as enemies by their nation’s political leaders. The incongruity of believing that the same god was blessing the lethal weapons and protecting the doomed sons on both sides of No-Man’s Land) failed to register with the vast majority of combatants and their spiritual counselors.

So, early in the war, pulpits and pews all over Europe reverberated with flag-waving fervor, sending clear messages to the millions of doomed warrior-sons that it was their Christian duty to march off to kill the equally doomed Christian soldiers on the other side of the line. And for the civilians back home, it was their Christian duty to “support the troops” who were destined to return home dead or wounded, psychologically and spiritually broken, disillusioned – and faithless.

A mere five months into this frustrating war (featuring trench warfare, artillery barrages, withering machine gun fire, and, soon to come, unstoppable armored tanks, aerial bombardment and poison gas), the first Christmas of the war on the Western Front offered a respite to the exhausted, freezing and demoralized troops.

Christmas was the holiest of Christian holidays and every soldier in the frozen trenches was slowly coming to the abrupt realization that war was NOT glorious (as they had been led to believe). After experiencing death, dying, hunger, frostbite, sleep deprivation, shell shock, traumatic brain injuries and homesickness, the traditional spirit of Christmas and its expectations of peace and love, had a special meaning for the troops.

Christmas reminded the soldiers of the good food, warm homes and beloved families and friends that they had left behind and which – they now suspected – they might never see again. The soldiers in the trenches desperately sought some respite from the misery of the rat, lice and corpse-infested trenches.

Some of the more thoughtful troops had begun to suspect that even if they survived the war physically, they might not survive it psychically or spiritually.

Trench Warfare in 1914

In the excitement leading up to the war, the frontline soldiers on either side had been convinced that God was on their particular side, that their nation was pre-destined to be victorious and that they would be “home before Christmas” where they would be celebrated as conquering heroes.

Instead, each frontline soldier found himself at the end of his emotional rope because of the unrelenting artillery barrages against which they were defenseless. If they weren’t killed or physically maimed by the artillery shells and bombs, they would eventually be emotionally destroyed by “shell-shock” (now known as combat-induced posttraumatic stress disorder – PTSD).

The soldier-victims that witnessed a multitude of examples of battlefield cruelty logically suffered various depths of depression, anxiety, suicidality, hyper-alertness, horrifying nightmares and flashbacks (which was usually misdiagnosed as a “hallucination of unknown cause”, a reality that would condemn millions of future soldiers to be mistakenly diagnosed with schizophrenia and thus mistakenly treated with addictive, brain-altering psych drugs).

Many World War I soldiers suffered any number of traumatic mental and/or neurological abnormalities, including traumatic brain injury (TBI), which only became a diagnosable affliction several wars later.

Among the other common war-induced “killers of the soul” were the starvation, the malnutrition, the dehydration, the infections (such as typhus and dysentery), the louse infestations, the trench foot, the frostbite and the gangrenous toes and fingers. If any of the tormented survivors got back home in one piece, they would not really appreciate being treated as military heroes in memorial day parades staged in their honor. They knew – if they were being totally honest with themselves – that they were not actual heroes, but rather they were victims of a sick, delusional, greedy, militarized culture that glorified war and killing and then abandoned the deceived, wounded survivors that made it home alive. Standard operating procedure in every war.

Poison gas attacks from both sides, albeit begun by the scientifically-superior Germans, began early in 1915, and Allied tank warfare – which was a humiliating disaster for the British innovators of that new technology – wouldn’t be operational until the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

One of the most stressful and lethal realities for the frontline soldiers was the suicidal, misbegotten, “over the top” infantry assaults against the opposition’s machine gun nests. Such assaults were complicated by the presence of shell holes and the rows of coiled barbed wire that often made them sitting ducks. Artillery barrages from both sides commonly resulted in tens of thousands of casualties in a single day.

The “over the top” infantry assaults sacrificed hundreds of thousands of obedient lower-echelon soldiers in the futile efforts to gain ground. Those assaults were stupidly and repeatedly ordered by senior officers such as Sir John French and his replacement as British Commander-in-Chief, Sir Douglas Haig. Most of the old-timer generals who had fought wars in the previous century refused to admit that their outdated “horse and sabre” cavalry charges across the muck of No-Man’s Land were both hopeless and suicidal.

The general staff planners of the various disastrous attempts to end the war quickly (or at least end the stalemate) were safely out of the range of enemy artillery barrages. The national war-planners were safely back in Parliament or hiding in their castles, and their aristocratic generals were comfortably billeted in warm and dry headquarters far from the hot war, eating well, being dressed by their orderlies, drinking their tea and claret – none of them at any risk of suffering the lethal consequences of war.

Screams of pain often came from the wounded soldiers who were helplessly hanging on the barbed wire or trapped and perhaps bleeding to death in the bomb craters between the trenches. Often the dying of the wounded would linger for days, and the effect on the troops in the trenches, who had to listen to the desperate, unanswerable cries for help was always psychologically distressing. By the time Christmas came and winter hit, troop morale on both sides of No Man’s Land had hit rock bottom.

Christmas in the Trenches

So on December 24, 1914, the exhausted troops settled down to their meager Christmas meal with, for the lucky ones, gifts from home, special food, special liquor, special chocolate bars and the hope for peace, if even for one night.

On the German side, a magnanimous (and deluded) Kaiser Wilhelm sent 100,000 Christmas trees with millions of ornamental candles to the front, expecting that such an act would boost German troop morale. Using the precious supply lines for such militarily unnecessary items was ridiculed by the most of the hardened officers, and nobody suspected that the Kaiser’s Christmas tree idea would backfire – instead becoming a catalyst for an unplanned-for and unauthorized cease-fire, orchestrated by non-officers and unheard of in the history of warfare. The mutiny was censored out of mainstream history books for most of the next century.

The Christmas Truce of 1914 was a spontaneous, unauthorized event that happened at a number of locations all along the 600 miles of triple trenches that stretched across Belgium and France, and it was an event that would never again be duplicated, thanks to the war-profiteers, professional militarists and saber-rattling wannabes in the media, parliament and Congress who glory in their nation’s “pseudo-patriotic” wars.

Twelve years ago, the movie “Joyeux Noel” (French for “Merry Christmas”) received a well-deserved Academy Award nomination for best foreign film of 2005. Joyeux Noel is the moving story that was adapted from the many surviving stories that had been told in letters from soldiers who had participated in the truce. It was almost a miracle that the truth of that remarkable event survived the powerful censorship.

As told in the movie, in the darkened battlefield, some German soldier started singing the beloved Christmas hymn “Stille Nacht”. Soon the British, French and Scots on the other side of No Man’s Land joined in with their versions of “Silent Night”. Other Christmas songs were sung, often as duets in two tongues. Before long, the spirit of peace and “goodwill towards men” prevailed over the demonic spirit of war, and the troops on both sides began to sense their common humanity. The natural human aversion to killing other humans broke through to consciousness and overcame the fear, patriotic fervor and pro-war brain-washing to which they had all been subjected.

Courageous German soldier Singing in No Man’s Land (image from Joyeux Noel)

Soldiers on both sides courageously dropped their weapons, came “over the top” in peace to meet their former foes face-to-face. To get to the neutral zone, they had to climb over barbed wire, walk around shell holes and over frozen corpses (which were later to be given respectful burials during an extension of the truce, with soldiers from both sides helping one another with the gruesome task of burying their comrades).

The spirit of retaliation had been replaced by a spirit of reconciliation and the desire for real peace. New friends shared chocolate bars, cigarettes, wine, schnapps, soccer games and pictures from home. Addresses were exchanged, photos were taken and every soldier who genuinely experienced the emotional drama was forever changed. Suddenly there was an aversion to killing young men who deserved to be treated as they had been taught in Sunday School: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

And the generals and the politicians back home were appalled at the unexpected Christ-like behavior of the front-soldiers.

Mutinous French, German and Scottish Lieutenants

Fostering Peace on Earth in Times of War Is an Act of Treason for Conscientious Soldiers

Fraternization with the enemy (as well as refusing to obey orders in time of war) is universally regarded by military commanders as an act of treason and a serious crime deserving of severe punishment. In most wars throughout history, such “crimes” were often dealt with by severe beatings and often firing squad. In the case of the Christmas Truce of 1914, most commanding officers feared mutiny if severe punishments were carried out so, instead, not wanting to draw public attention to an incident that was potentially contagious and could stop the war, they censored letters home and tried to ignore the episode.

War correspondents were forbidden to report the incident to their papers. Some commanding officers threatened courts martial if fraternization persisted. They understood that getting to know and befriend a supposed enemy was bad for the carefully-orchestrated killing spirit of war.

There were punishments that were carried out against some of the most conscientious soldiers who refused to fire their rifles. The troops of French Catholic and United Kingdom Protestant persuasion naturally began questioning the moral legitimacy of the decidedly un-Christlike war and so those troops were often re-assigned to different – and less desirable – regiments.

German troops were either Lutheran or Catholic, and the consciences of many of them had been revived by the truce. Refusing to obey their orders to kill, many of them were sent to the Eastern Front where there were much harsher conditions. Separated from their Western Front comrades who had also experienced the true spirit of Christmas, they had no choice but to fight and die in the equally suicidal battles against their Russian Orthodox Christian co-religionists. Very few Allied or German soldiers who experienced the Christmas Truce of 1914 survived the war.

If humanity is truly concerned with the barbaric nature of militarism, and if our modern-era false flag-generated wars of empire are to be effectively derailed, the story of the Christmas Truce of 1914 needs to be retold over and over again – and taken to heart.

The satanic nature of war became obvious to the ones who experienced the Christmas Truce in 1914, but war-mongers and war profiteers have been trying to cover it up ever since. Flag-waving patriotism and telling exaggerated stories of military heroism have worked well to glorify what is blatantly inglorious.

Both ancient and modern wars have been glorified in every nation’s history textbooks but, if civilization is to survive, war needs to be exposed as demonic. Violence begets violence. Wars are contagious, universally futile, and never truly end; and their extremely high costs always results in a very poor return on investment– except for the banks and the weapons-manufacturers.

Modern American wars are now being fought by thoroughly indoctrinated, post-adolescent, Call of Duty-type first person shooter gamers who liked the adrenalin high of killing virtual “bad guys” in a videogame. Sadly, unbeknownst to them, they are at high risk of having their emotional and spiritual lives negatively and permanently altered by the physical, mental and spiritual damage that always comes from participating in actual homicidal violence.

Combat war can easily doom its participants to a life overwhelmed by the wounds of war (PTSD, sociopathic personality disorder, suicidality, homicidality, loss of religious faith, traumatic brain injury, malnutrition from the highly processed military food, autoimmune disorders because of the military’s over-vaccination programs with neurotoxic aluminum-containing vaccines (especially the anthrax series) and addictive drug use [either legal or illegal]). What is most important to realize is that all those lethal effects are totally preventable.

Christian Church Leadership has an Ethical Duty to Warn it’s Prospective Cannon Fodder Soldiers About the Potential for Spiritual Suicide if They Participate in Combat

It seems to me that it would be helpful if moral leadership in America, especially its church leaders and its Christian parents, would discharge their duty to thoroughly warn the children and adolescents in their sphere of influence about all of the serious consequences of being in the killing professions. Jesus, who commanded his followers to “love your enemies”, would surely approve.

Without such countervailing truths being told by a nation’s moral leadership, war planners have an easy time keeping potential soldiers from recognizing the humanity of those that are accused of being enemies, whether they are Syrians, Iranians, Iraqis, Afghanis, Russians, Vietnamese, Chinese or North Koreans. I have been repeatedly told by military veteran friends of mine that military chaplains – who are supposed to be nurturers of the souls of the soldiers that are in their “care” – never bring up, in their counseling sessions, the Golden Rule, Jesus’ clear “love your enemies” commands, his many ethical teachings in the Sermon on the Mount or the biblical commandments that say “thou shalt not kill” or “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s oil”.

The Church’s Theological Blind Spots When the Pro-War Flag-waving Begins

One theological blind spot about war was nicely illustrated near the end of “Joyeux Noel” in a powerful scene depicting a confrontation between the Christ-like, altruistic, antiwar, lowly Scottish chaplain and his pro-war over-privileged Anglican bishop. As the humble chaplain was mercifully administering the “last rites” to a dying soldier, he was approached by the bishop, who had come to chastise the chaplain for fraternizing with the enemy during the Christmas Truce. The bishop summarily relieved the simple pastor of his chaplaincy duties because of his “treasonous and shameful” Christ-like behavior on the battlefield.

The authoritarian bishop refused to listen to the chaplain’s story about his having performed “the most important mass of my life” (with enemy troops participating in the celebration) or the fact that he wished to stay with the soldiers that needed him because they were losing their faith in God. The bishop angrily denied the chaplain’s request to remain with his men.

Christmas Eve Mass, France

The bishop then delivered a rousing pro-war, jingoistic sermon (which was taken word-for-word from a homily that had actually been delivered by an Anglican bishop later in the war). The sermon was addressed to the fresh troops that had to be brought in to replace the veteran soldiers who had suddenly become averse to killing, and were refusing to fire on the “enemy”.

The image of the dramatic but subtle response of the chaplain to his sacking should be a clarion call to the Christian church leadership – both clergy and lay – of every militarized, so-called “Christian” nation. This chaplain, after listening to the bishop’s sermon, simply hung up his cross and walked out of the door of the field hospital.

“Joyeux Noel” is an important film that deserves to be annual holiday viewing. It has ethical lessons far more powerful than the traditional fare of “It’s A Wonderful Life” or “A Christmas Carol”.

One of the lessons of the story is summarized in the concluding verse of John McCutcheon’s famous song about the event: “Christmas in the Trenches”:

“My name is Francis Tolliver, in Liverpool I dwell.

Each Christmas come since World War One, I’ve learned its lessons well:
That the ones who call the shots won’t be among the dead and lame
And on each end of the rifle we’re the same.”

Check out the video of McCutcheon singing his song below.

Here is a critical scene from the movie:

Additional scenes from the movie, with the narration of a letter from one of the soldiers involved can be viewed below.

***

Dr Kohls is a retired physician from Duluth, MN, USA. In the decade prior to his retirement, he practiced what could best be described as “holistic (non-drug) and preventive mental health care”. Since his retirement, he has written a weekly column for the Duluth Reader, an alternative newsweekly magazine. His columns mostly deal with the dangers of American imperialism, friendly fascism, corporatism, militarism, racism, and the dangers of Big Pharma, psychiatric drugging, the over-vaccinating of children and other movements that threaten American democracy, civility, health and longevity and the future of the planet. Many of his columns are archived at 

http://duluthreader.com/articles/categories/200_Duty_to_Warn, 

http://www.globalresearch.ca/authors?query=Gary+Kohls+articles&by=&p=&page_id= or at 

https://www.transcend.org/tms/search/?q=gary+kohls+articles

All images in this article are from the author.

Out of all the crap that we ‘ Who know better’ have to endure with this empire, sometimes we catch a break. For years we had the famous ‘ Two Party Monte’ being played before us. You know, the liberal Democratic Party vs. the conservative Republicans.

Of course, the only consistent drama was about gay rights , abortion rights, entitlements ( of course only for the low class- oh sorry- lowest income and downright BROKE!),  Medicaid  and…. now this is key: whatever party was in the White House, then   their president’s war was supported by his party and criticized severely by the opposition one.

Of course, both parties always voted, in great majorities, for increasingly higher military spending. So, although most Democrats criticized the ‘ War on Iraq’, mostly well after the fact, they always cast their votes for more military spending. Ditto for the Republicans re: The Clinton/ Obama war on Libya. Well, things have changed!

We always knew who the true Neo Cons were by their overt support of our military presence in every country we do NOT belong in. That was easy. Due to their dying support for globalization and trading with ‘ no such enemies ‘, the Neo Cons sucked up to China for a ‘ Back around to ya’ .

Russia, well that got mixed reviews within the Neo Con circles. However, when it came to the Middle East ( and of course Israel, their’ junkyard dog ‘ in that region) the Neo Cons ‘ Want In!!!’ Remember, the Neo Cons care NOT for which of the two parties to sleep with. No, they want a ‘ menage a trois’ ! So, when Trump outflanked the Democratic Left and non Neo Con Dems with his maneuver of pulling the troops out of Syria ( where they have been illegally since the outset) and pondering the same for Iraq and Afghanistan, now he becomes dangerous to the Neo Cons.

All you have to do folks, is sit back in front of your boob tube ( or read in your mainstream paper of choice) and observe the political discussions. Anyone, and I mean anyone, who is coming out in criticism of this policy of disengagement is simply a  NEO CON at worst. At best, they are mouthpieces for those who pay them or keep them funded in office, who happen to be Neo Cons. Period!!

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] )

The December 17 UN Security Council meeting, on the announced creation of a Kosovo armed forces, featured some noticeable contrasts.

In accordance with Kosovo not being a UN member state and the Serb position on UN Security Council Resolution 1244 (recognizing Kosovo as a continued part of Serbia), the disputed former Yugoslav territory wasn’t formally represented at the discussion as a nation. Kosovo’s leader, Hashim Thaci, sat with a nameplate having his name, as opposed to Kosovo. Countries recognizing Kosovo’s independence made it a point to state Thaci as the president of Kosovo and Aleksandar Vučić as president of Serbia. Nations not recognizing Kosovo’s independence referred to Thaci as either Mr. Thaci or Mr. Hashim Thaci and Vučić as the president of Serbia.

The UK was excessively biased against Serbia. Vučić noted the difference between the UK’s stance, versus a comparatively more objective approach among some other countries that recognized Kosovo’s independence. Kosovo’s independence is partly premised on a non-binding 2010 International Court of Justice advisory opinion, which said that Kosovo’s declaration of independence didn’t violate international law, while not saying whether Kosovo is properly independent, or should be independent. Having the right to declare independence doesn’t by itself mean that such a declaration should be fully recognized by others.   

The Serb and Kosovo leaders expressed differences of opinion on the conflict in Kosovo over the years. Vučić was the more even handed. Not mentioned was the casualty figure in Kosovo before the 1999 Clinton administration led NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia (then consisting of Serbia and Montenegro). In that period, the Serbs had the disproportionately greater casualty number. Within a 18 to 24 month period before the NATO action, 1,500-2,000 were killed out of a Kosovo population put at about 2 million. Serb casualties were in the 500-600 range. At the time, Kosovo had an Albanian population that was listed as high as 90%, with Serbs being somewhere around 10%. Serb sources note that their proportionate number in Kosovo has dwindled over the decades for several reasons, which include Albanian nationalist terrorism, some Serbs finding better opportunities elsewhere, a comparatively higher Albanian birthrate and a migration of Albanians from Albania to Kosovo.

Thaci stated a wildly unproven figure of 20,000 raped in Kosovo by Serb forces. In the former Yugoslav wars, the purpose of number trumping casualties was for the losing party/parties to make the suffering look worse than reality, for the purpose of goading foreign military support for their side. In addition to Kosovo, this tactic was evident in the earlier Bosnian Civil War.

In that Bosnian conflict, I very much recall the claims of a 200,000-350,000 casualty figure range, as well as some far fetched rape figures, said without meaning to diminish the seriousness of such a crime, regardless of the ethnicity of the perpetrator and victim. At the end of the Bosnian Civil War, others like myself, deduced that the actual fatality number was somewhere between 75,000-125,000. Years later, there has been a universal acknowledgement that the Bosnian Civil War death toll was in the area of 100,000. Those who wrongly hedged on the higher 200,000-350,000 figure, are nevertheless more likely to get greater Western mass media access, than the ones that got it right from the get go. (A related Bosnian Civil War fatality issue, concerns the different numerical takes of summary executions in and near Srebrenica.)

At 10:00 PM on 15 December 2013 shooting broke out in the barracks of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) Presidential Guard in Juba, capital of the fledgling state of South Sudan, after Nuer soldiers resisted being disarmed by their Dinka colleagues.

Dozens of soldiers were killed before the Nuer soldiers retreated, after which Mathiang Anyoor, a militia loyal to President Salva Kiir made up entirely of Dinka from his home area, began systematically slaughtering unarmed Nuer civilians in the capital.

The num­ber of people killed is unknown because Hilde Johnson, the head of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), the only organization in the country capable of gathering such figures, made an executive decision not to count the dead, although she subsequently said they numbered in the ‘thousands’. The same forces also attacked the house of the country’s Nuer vice president, Dr Riek Machar, who was accused of attempting to carry out a coup and for being responsible for the ensuing killing spree. This was not only belied by the fact that he and his wife, Angelina, were forced to flee the assault in their pyjamas and eight members of their household were killed, but also by an African Union Commission of Inquiry which subsequently concluded that ‘the evidence does not point to a coup’. Instead, the evidence suggested that Riek was the target of an assassina­tion attempt by forces loyal to the president.

Through cell phones and social media knowledge of the Juba killings quickly spread to the global Nuer community and to Greater Upper Nile, where most of the Nuer lived. Thousands of Nuer youth self-organized as a white army mobilized and were joined by Nuer soldiers who had defected from the SPLA. On 18 December – only three days after the Juba killings commenced – they captured the Jonglei state capital of Bor and began marching on Juba. Fearing a humanitarian disaster when the ill-disciplined and revenge-seeking Nuer youth reached Juba, the US and other Western states warned Riek to stop the attack or face charges before the International Criminal Court.

The US also endorsed Ugandan President Yowri Museveni’s decision to send his army to Juba to protect the inhabit­ants and the government. Later, these forces were deployed to government towns across Greater Upper Nile where they fought the rebels. In fact, Museveni was more concerned with ensuring that, given its influence over the Salva-led government, the Islamist government in Sudan did not take advantage of the rapidly deteriorating situation to exert control over the government and pose a threat to Uganda. But Museveni’s fears were over­come when Riek convinced the regular forces under General Peter Gadet to temporarily stop their attack and that of the white army. Museveni’s role in the defence of the Juba regime, the politics surrounding the peace process, and the advance of Uganda’s interests while supposedly playing the cat’s paw for his US sponsors, show a man adept at political manoeu­vres in the region.

Based on the mistaken assumption that Riek was in full control of the various forces that launched the largely spontaneous attacks against government positions across Great Upper Nile, the Western sponsored regional security organization, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), invited him and Salva to participate in a peace process which focused on re-dividing state power among the SPLM elites that caused the war. Instead, the appeal of the common Nuer, which neither IGAD nor its Western backers ever responded to, was the answer to the question of why their people were attacked in Juba. As a result, those who fought the insurgency were never represented in the negotiations and the reason they took up arms against the government – the Juba massacre – was never considered.

For the US, which Secretary of State John Kerry said had ‘midwifed’ the independence of South Sudan only two years previously, after supporting a long peace process and spending enormous amounts of money in the country, the war was both shocking and humiliating. The US had claimed the peace agreement that ended the war in Sudan and granted independ­ence to South Sudan in 2011 was a major foreign policy success at a time when its various political and military involvements in the Greater Middle East had been failures.

Over the next five years almost half of the country’s 11 million peo­ple were displaced or made refugees in neighbouring countries, tens of thousands were killed, the towns of Greater Upper Nile were destroyed as they repeatedly changed hands, and the largely oil-based economy all but collapsed. The first IGAD initiative failed in March 2015, but a second expanded initiative produced an agreement in August 2015 between Riek, who again became the First Vice President, and Salva, who retained his position as president. However, Salva made clear he had only accepted the agreement under duress and threw up numerous obstacles to its imple­mentation which the international peace-makers did nothing to overcome. A resumption of the war was entirely predictable and on 8 July 2016 fight­ing broke out between government soldiers and the handful of Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement – In Opposition (SPLM-IO) fighters in Juba, after which the SPLA attempted to kill Riek, slaughtered many more Nuer civilians in the capital, and forced thousands into UN camps.

Riek and his soldiers were forced to evacuate the capital and began what became a 30-day march to the Congo and safety. Meanwhile, Salva appointed the SPLM-IO’s defecting Taban Deng Gai first vice-president in breach of the peace agreement. And with US support it attempted to isolate Riek in the region and achieve an internal peace. Instead the war intensified and spread from Nuer-inhabited Greater Upper Nile to Western Bahr al Ghazel and the Equatorial states where it increasingly took the form of genocidal attacks by government forces against civilians who in turn launched similar attacks on Dinka civilians.

But behind a tale that could be understood as another African tribal conflict and failed efforts by the US government to stop the killing was a tragedy that was the result of long US support for the SPLM and the Juba government. This despite overwhelming evidence of its administrative incompetence, massive corruption, and systemic abuse of human rights. The US government and various academics and researchers also perpetu­ated the false narrative that Riek Machar was a militarist and the primary cause of the conflict. The negative US role in the conflict reached its peak after it gave up on a peace agreement that it had devoted two years to reaching and another year to implementing in favour of giving tacit support to the Juba SPLM government’s campaign to defeat the rebels militarily, which resulted in the killing of thousands of innocent civilians and the displacement of hundreds of thousands more.

But US hopes that the Salva government could militarily defeat its ene­mies proved misplaced, the war continued and spread, and Riek remained the leader of the largest opposition faction. For the US government the descent of the SPLM regime into war was both an embarrassment and a refutation of the analyses and assumptions upon which Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama based their policies on Sudan and South Sudan. It also represented the collapse of an illusion perpetuated by a host of largely American lobbyists as to the character of the SPLM, the state it dominated, and the conviction that Western liberalism could develop roots in South Sudan.

South Sudan’s Civil War

Violence, Insurgency and Failed Peacemaking

Author: John Young

Publication Date: 15 January 2019

Pages: 264

Product ISBNs

Paperback: 9781786993748

eBook ePub: 9781786993779

eBook Kindle: 9781786993786

Library Edition: 9781786993755

Click here to pre-order.

Christmas is a time of traditions. If you have found time in the rush before Christmas to decorate a tree, you are sharing in a relatively new tradition. Although the Christmas tree has ancient roots, at the beginning of the 20th century only 1 in 5 American families put up a tree. It was 1920 before the Christmas tree became the hallmark of the season. Calvin Coolidge was the first President to light a national Christmas tree on the White House lawn.

Gifts are another shared custom. This tradition comes from the wise men or three kings who brought gifts to baby Jesus. When I was a kid, gifts were more modest than they are now, but even then people were complaining about the commercialization of Christmas. We have grown accustomed to the commercialization. Christmas sales are the backbone of many businesses. Gift giving causes us to remember others and to take time from our harried lives to give them thought.

The decorations and gifts of Christmas are one of our connections to a Christian culture that has held Western civilization together for 2,000 years.

In our culture the individual counts. This permits an individual person to put his or her foot down, to take a stand on principle, to become a reformer and to take on injustice.

This empowerment of the individual is unique to Western civilization. It has made the individual a citizen equal in rights to all other citizens, protected from tyrannical government by the rule of law and free speech. These achievements are the products of centuries of struggle, but they all flow from the teaching that God so values the individual’s soul that he sent his son to die so we might live. By so elevating the individual, Christianity gave him a voice.

Formerly only those with power had a voice. But in Western civilization people with integrity have a voice. So do people with a sense of justice, of honor, of duty, of fair play. Reformers can reform, investors can invest, and entrepreneurs can create commercial enterprises, new products and new occupations.

The result was a land of opportunity. The United States attracted immigrants who shared our values and reflected them in their own lives. Our culture was absorbed by a diverse people who became one.

In recent decades we have lost sight of the historic achievement that empowered the individual. The religious, legal and political roots of this great achievement are no longer reverently taught in high schools, colleges and universities or respected by our government. The voices that reach us through the millennia and connect us to our culture are being silenced by “Identity Politics,” “political correctness” and “the war on terror.” Prayer has been driven from schools and Christian religious symbols from public life. Constitutional protections have been diminished by hegemonic political ambitions. Indefinite detention, torture, and murder are now acknowledged practices of the United States government. The historic achievement of due process has been rolled back. Tyranny has re-emerged.

Diversity at home and hegemony abroad are consuming values and are dismantling the culture and the rule of law. There is plenty of room for cultural diversity in the world, but not within a single country. A Tower of Babel has no culture. A person cannot be a Christian one day, a pagan the next and a Muslim the day after. A hodgepodge of cultural and religious values provides no basis for law – except the raw power of the pre-Christian past.

All Americans have a huge stake in Christianity. Whether or not we are individually believers in Christ, we are beneficiaries of the moral doctrine that has curbed power and protected the weak.

Power is the horse ridden by evil. In the 20th century the horse was ridden hard, and the 21st century shows an increase in pace. Millions of people were exterminated in the 20th century by National Socialists in Germany and by Soviet and Chinese communists simply because they were members of a race or class that had been demonized by intellectuals and political authority. In the beginning years of the 21st century, hundreds of thousands of Muslims in seven countries have been murdered and millions displaced in order to extend Washington’s hegemony.

Power that is secularized and cut free of civilizing traditions is not limited by moral and religious scruples. V.I. Lenin made this clear when he defined the meaning of his dictatorship as “unlimited power, resting directly on force, not limited by anything.” Washington’s drive for hegemony over US citizens and the rest of the world is based entirely on the exercise of force and is resurrecting unaccountable power.

Christianity’s emphasis on the worth of the individual makes such power as Lenin claimed, and Washington now claims, unthinkable. Be we religious or be we not, our celebration of Christ’s birthday celebrates a religion that made us masters of our souls and of our political life on Earth. Such a religion as this is worth holding on to even by atheists.

As we enter into 2019, Western civilization, the product of thousands of years of striving, is in decline. Degeneracy is everywhere before our eyes. As the West sinks into tyranny, will Western peoples defend their liberty and their souls, or will they sink into the tyranny, which again has raised its ugly and all devouring head?

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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.

Featured image is from Boise

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), one of the world’s biggest conservation organizations, is breaking the law in its backing of a conservation zone in the Congo Basin, according to letters released today.

The letters demonstrate that the new protected area, known as Messok Dja, is being created without the free, prior and informed consent of the people who rely on that land for survival, members of the Baka and Bakwele tribes.

The letters also document human rights abuses committed by ecoguards funded and supported by WWF.

According to national and international law, indigenous people must give consent for any project affecting their lands, territories, and resources. Without the consent of the people who rely on the land for survival, the establishment of Messok Dja park is illegal.

Over a hundred people from six villages in Republic of Congo have signed the letters, which also describe horrific violence and abuse by ecoguards funded and supported by WWF.

A Baka woman explains what her community must endure because of the proposed national park, Messok Dja, in Republic of Congo.

One letter states:

“WWF came to tell us that they are going to make a new national park and that we will no longer have the right to go in it. But that is our forest and we do not want this park. We know that it means destruction for us and that ecoguards will come and beat people and burn down houses. Many of us have been beaten with machetes and guns by the ecoguards.”

The ecoguard unit in Sembe was set up with the help of WWF and continues to receive financial and logistical support from WWF.

The letters from the Baka people were released today by Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples. Director Stephen Corry said:

“WWF must withdraw its support for Messok Dja immediately. It claims the government is responsible for assigning protected area status to the Baka’s land, but this excuse will not wash: WWF’s own policy (and international human rights norms) say it cannot support a project that the local indigenous people do not want.”

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Featured image: A man from a village near the proposed Messok Dja national park shows scars from a beating he received at the hands of ecoguards supported and funded by WWF (© Fiore Longo/Survival)

Bahia Amawi, an American citizen of Palestinian descent, lost her job in a Texas school because she refused to sign a pro-Israel oath.

She is now filing a lawsuit in the Federal District Court in Austin.

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Quite a few journalists and analysts in the world emphasize the wealth of political candidates, the millions of dollars required for getting elected, and additional candidates’ and elected Congresspersons’ revenues from lobbying, corruption and the cutthroat rivalry between the two parties. However, almost everyone in the world, including in the U.S., knows this. Why is it harmful to cultivate the notions of candidates rolling in millions of dollars, involvement in corruption and the discredited internecine party squabbling as issues for the people to be concerned about?

By emphasizing these features, the main characteristics of the American political system (which are so important that they constitute a crucial part of its political culture) are covered up. By political culture, I mean the thinking, outlook and activities, in this case regarding the political system, as pursued and propagated by the ruling elites.

What are some of these features that people the world over should be aware of? Regarding money, the more subtle marketing through the media is far more important. For example, the recent mid-term election campaign and the results are presented by the elite media in the North, and in many cases copied in the South, as a battle of the good against the evils represented by Trump. However, how did Trumpism come about? By March 2016, corporate media (especially CNN), under the cover of reports, interviews and endless panels featuring pro-Trump panellists, had already given Trump’s GOP takeover gambit $2 billion in free media.

This accounted for more free “ads” than all the other candidates from the Democratic Party and the GOP combined. By the end of the 2016 presidential general election campaign, corporate media had provided a total of $5 billion in free exposure for Trump. One could not watch CNN at the time without hearing the name “Trump.” Thus, the elite media created Trump and, in the process, increased the number of ads from businesses as well as the rates of these ads.

Given the all-encompassing and overbearing predominance of anti-Trumpism, what better source of revenue for CNN than the Obamas playing the role of the de facto alternative to Trump? Just one week after the October mid-term elections, CNN aired on prime time two of its recent documentaries, one featuring Michelle Obama and the other Barack Obama. The latter documentary is geared to nostalgia focusing on Barack Obama’s last hours in the White House. Thus, in turn, CNN is the non-official spokesperson and promoter of the Democratic Party, fielding Barack Obama as the de facto next president, irrespective of who the actual presidential and vice-presidential candidates will be for 2020.

The two-party system and the lesser of two evils are ingrained in the consciousness of many Americans and others in the West and the South, such as in Latin America, who are inundated with this feature of U.S. political culture. All the American corporate media are united in the ongoing daily cacophony to present one wing of the two-party system as “left” (the Democratic Party) and the other as “right” (the Republicans).

There are not merely a few journalists and analysts who succumb to this. This is being highlighted right now in the wake of the resignation of General Mattis. In his letter to President Trump, he disagrees with the U.S. pulling out of Syria and what Mattis calls Trump’s conciliatory attitude toward China and Russia. This resulted in the Democrats, CNN and the other liberal media gushing over Mattis as an iconic hero of the U.S. and, among other things, as a symbol of stability. Together, they expanded the “left” to include a four-star Army General: another plank in the Democratic Party 2020 presidential elections platform. This example, among many others going beyond the scope of this article, shows that there is basically no difference between the two parties on domestic and foreign affairs.

Electoral fetishism is a hallmark of official American political culture. We are overwhelmed with a virtual international media-imposed “non-stop election campaign.” Just to take the most recent example of the mid-terms, it is in the common political domain that the summer/fall 2018 campaign and the TV ops the night and following days of the results – all combined and accumulated – are considered merely a warm-up and first step toward the 2020 presidential elections. At present, the 2020 campaign is already in full gear.

The main spinoff effect of this does not just mean being burdened and bored. The outcome of this fetish is the daily anti-status quo and progressive (not the self-proclaimed Democratic “progressivism”) actions in the streets, workplaces and educational institutions by the people who are substantially dampened if not virtually smothered. If not so, the corporate media quite deftly coopt many of these grassroots activities into the electoral hype. This is facilitated by some cases wherein these actions – consciously or not – are designed for electoral consumption.

As a direct outcome of this situation lies another feature of American political culture: cooptation. And the powerful role of the media, at once cultivating and profiting from naiveté, is a poison that cannot be underestimated. There are so many examples of how revolutionary or progressive movements in the U.S. are coopted into the dead-end of the two-party system. One key example is dealt with below.

This issue of cooptation leads us to the overriding issue of racist violence against African Americans and Native Americans. This feature of reactionary political culture goes all the way back to the very founding of the Thirteen Colonies in the 17th century and into the 18th century. In fact, history and current events indicate that the American state constitutes a vestige of slavery and genocide against the Native Americans. This realistic appreciation of the state must – or should – permeate the evaluation of the American elites’ imposed political culture. This is far more complex than the superficial corporate news outlets themes concerning financing, corruption and inter-party jungle warfare in the electoral system, the full measure of which is all too evident to the extent that it is normalized: anything goes to cover up the American state as a vestige of slavery and genocide.

African Americans have always been – and are today – at the forefront of revolutionary opposition to the status quo political culture as a necessary and inevitable outcome of their historical condition steeped in revolutionary and Marxist ideologies. To discuss the American electoral process such as the mid-terms without dealing with this historical contradiction of the American state, as a vestige of slavery and genocide as a cornerstone of the dominant political culture, is tantamount to analyzing a long-term political process for example in a Latin American country while refusing to take into account the effects of European colonialism and then U.S. imperialism and their servile local oligarchies in the region.

What then is the current situation of African Americans and Native Americans regarding their historical vocation yet to be fulfilled? African Americans are at the forefront of opposition to the dominant political culture. However, one would never know it by reading and listening to most of the elite journalism and analysis.

Nonetheless, the cruel reality of the two-party system confronting the Black counteroffensive’s journalistic and other activities is that their own movement is blunted and limited by the ability of the Democratic Party to coopt a small section of African Americans into its ranks as it does with other progressive mass movements. Thus, an essential part of the ruling circles’ political culture is that the Democratic Party, far from being left-leaning or at least more progressive than the modern Republican Party, as it is made out to be, is in fact the graveyard for progress and a real left alternative.

The most stunning current example consists in how the Democratic Party and CNN are jumping onto General Mattis’s resignation so as to herd any section of the progressive left that opposes Trump for the right reasons into the Democratic Party. The cruel twist of fate is that, as we see today on the Mattis issue, it confirms what many of us have always claimed: the Democratic Party since World War II is the real party of war and aggression.

Regarding the Democratic Party earning its living as the graveyard for progress and a real left alternative, left-wing revolutionary forces in the U.S. are very familiar with this phenomenon: they have and are suffering tragically and enormously from this grave-digging role of the Democratic Party, especially since World War II.

*This article was originally published in Spanish for the Cuban political/cultural website La Jirabilla in November 2018 (Jirabillano. 850, 22 de noviembre al 27 de diciembre del 2018). It enjoyed unexpectedly wide interest in Cuba and was reproduced on many websites in North America, Ecuador, Venezuela and Europe, including in Global Research. This version in English has been updated, modified and adapted from the original Spanish-language variant for an English-speaking audience.

Arnold August is a Canadian journalist and lecturer, the author of Democracy in Cuba and the 1997–98 Elections, Cuba and Its Neighbours: Democracy in Motion and the recently released  Cuba–U.S. Relations: Obama and Beyond. As a journalist he collaborates with many web sites in Latin America, Europe and North America including Global Research. Twitter, Facebook.www.arnoldaugust.com

Veterans For Peace is pleased to hear that President Trump has ordered a total withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, where they had no legal right to be in the first place. Whatever the reasoning, withdrawing U.S. troops is the right thing to do.

It is incorrect to characterize the U.S. military intervention in Syria as “fighting terrorism,” as much of the media is doing. Although the U.S. fought against the ISIL Caliphate (aka “ISIS”), it also armed and trained Islamist groups, including al-Qaeda aligned forces, who are seeking to destroy the secular, multi-religious Syrian state and establish a harsh fundamentalist order of their own.

Furthermore, the U.S. aerial bombardment of the city of Raqqa, Syria, similar to its bombardment of Mosul, Iraq, was itself terror in the extreme, causing the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. These are huge war crimes.

A continued U.S. presence in Syria would only prolong a policy that has been disastrous for all the peoples of the region, who have already suffered way too much as a result of years of U.S. intervention and occupation on their soil.

It would also be a disaster for the troops who are being asked to carry out this impossible burden. In these moments when those in power advocate for remaining at war, Veterans For Peace will continue holding true to our mission and understanding that war is not the answer.

We sincerely hope that the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria will be total, and will be soon. We hope this will also lead to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, where the U.S. government is currently in talks with the Taliban and an end to U.S. involvement in the Saudi-led war in Yemen, which is causing the death by starvation of tens of thousands of innocent children.

Veterans For Peace knows that the U.S. is a nation ADDICTED To WAR. At this time of uncertainty, it is critically important that we, as veterans, continue to be clear and concise that our nation must turn from war to diplomacy and peace.

It is high time to unwind all these tragic, failed and unnecessary wars of aggression, domination and plunder. It is time to turn a page in history and to build a new world based on human rights, equality and mutual respect for all. We must build momentum toward real and lasting peace. Nothing less than the survival of human civilization is at stake.

Originally published on Veterans for Peace

The most recent gathering of scientists at the American Geophysical Union in Washington, DC, brought deeply troubling news about the Antarctic.

Jeremy Shakun, a paleoclimatologist at Boston College, told Science that the large increase in the loss of ice mass in Antarctica in the last decade or two could already be the beginning stage of the process of collapse of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Ice loss in the Antarctic has tripled in just the last decade alone, and is currently losing 219 billion metric tons of ice annually. That number is up from 73 billion metric tons per year as of a decade ago.

“The big uptick in mass loss observed there in the past decade or two is perhaps the start of” the larger-scale collapse of the glaciers, Shakun told Science.

If that is the case, the world must begin preparations immediately for sea levels that will rise far more abruptly than previously expected, with ocean waters rising as fast as 2.5 meters every one hundred years.

The aforementioned discovery presented at the annual meeting of scientists also revealed that during the last brief warm period between Earth’s ice ages, which took place 125,000 years ago and when global temperatures were barely higher than they are today in our greenhouse-warmed planet, sea levels were six to nine meters (20 to 30 feet) higher than they are right now.

That amount of sea level rise means that New York, Boston, Miami, Tampa, New Orleans, Jakarta, Singapore, Osaka, Tokyo, Mumbai, Kolkata, Dhaka and Ho Chi Minh City are among the many cities that will, sooner or later, have to be moved or abandoned entirely to the sea.

Eastern Antarctica has always been seen as a place virtually impervious to melting, and has often been referred to as the “last bastion” of stable ice on the planet.

However, recent data has shown that a group of glaciers covering 13 percent of the coastline of that side of the frozen continent are melting from below due to warming oceans.

And disturbingly, 2017 was the hottest year on record for the oceans, and the fifth year in a row that oceans set a record for how warm they had become due to human-caused climate change.

It is already known that the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet is experiencing serious retreat with a three-fold increase in acceleration having been reported in recent years. But NASA scientist Catherine Walker used measurements of ocean temperatures and computer modeling to show that the heat being delivered to certain glaciers in the Eastern Antarctic was coming from warming oceans.

“The finding has very serious repercussions for climate change and particularly sea-level rise,” Chris Fogwill, a professor at Keele University in England told The Guardian. “It has the potential to mean that our sea-level projections could be [in] an order of magnitude higher than we’re anticipating.”

Given the remoteness of the Eastern part of Antarctica, it hasn’t been studied nearly as much as the rest of the Antarctic.
Hence, since there is little data on it thus far, we should expect more bad news of melting as more studies are published on the region.

The NASA data, coupled with the study mentioned at the American Geophysical Union, show that the speed of sea level rise from melting Antarctic glaciers is consistently increasing each year.

At the current trajectory, 17.7 trillion metric tons of ice will be shed in the Antarctic by 2100. This assumes the current rate of loss will remain linear — an unrealistic assumption given that the rate is increasing annually.

Dahr Jamail, a Truthout staff reporter, is the author of The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan (Haymarket Books, 2009), and Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq (Haymarket Books, 2007). Jamail reported from Iraq for more than a year, as well as from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Turkey over the last 10 years, and has won the Martha Gellhorn Award for Investigative Journalism, among other awards. His third book, The Mass Destruction of Iraq: Why It Is Happening, and Who Is Responsible, co-written with William Rivers Pitt, is available now on Amazon. Dahr Jamail is also the author of the book, The End of Ice, forthcoming from The New Press. He lives and works in Washington State.

A real panic among the militarists and flunkeys of the military-industrial complex: They are concerned the U.S. president has gone completely off the ruling-class imperialist script. We find that hard to believe, since a move away from militarism and violence would indicate a fundamental departure from the very essence of the methods and strategy that created the United States. We are on land violently stolen from Indigenous peoples that was then used to execute a brutal super-exploitation of enslaved African labor to amass imperialist wealth. That wealth was used to elevate the United States to a world power after the second imperialist war in 1945.

But with Trump announcing U.S. troops will be pulled out of Syria and troop strength will be reduced in the never-ending war in Afghanistan, the ruling-class propagandists pretending to be journalists at CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the rest, have sounded the alarm of pending doom for the empire. These hacks feign concern that the president is abandoning the bipartisan commitment to international gangsterism.

We in the Black Alliance for Peace don’t praise a U.S. president for ending the illegal subversion, invasion and occupation of a sovereign state that should have never been allowed in the first place by the theoretical representatives of the people who now sit in the U.S. Congress. If the Trump administration is serious about the “full and rapid” withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria, we say it’s about time. We demand a full withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Syria, including the mercenary components referred to as “contractors.” We also say troop reduction is not enough—end the war in Afghanistan with a complete and total withdrawal of U.S. forces.

We denounce those elements in the corporate press, the establishment voices in the duopoly, and liberal and left acolytes of the warmongering ruling class who have taken upon themselves to confuse and manipulate the public into believing that permanent war is both rational and inevitable. The $6 trillion of public resources transferred from the pockets of the people to the military-industrial complex over the last two decades to execute wars and occupations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, have also caused the destruction of ancient cities, unspeakable misery for millions of people that includes but is not limited to the displacement of millions of people and the so-called “refugee crisis”—not to mention the millions of lives that have been eliminated by U.S. bombs, missiles, chemicals and bullets. All who have remained silent or have given direct or even indirect support to these bipartisan war policies are morally culpable.

We are extremely skeptical about the administration’s announcement—we know from painful experience and from our understanding of the history of this state, that the United States has never voluntarily withdrawn from one of its imperialist adventures. Therefore, the Black Alliance for Peace will continue to demand that the United States withdraw from Syria until every U.S. asset is out of the country.

The final resolution of the U.S.-led war in Syria must be determined by Syrians themselves. All foreign forces must recognize and respect the sovereignty of the Syrian people and their legal representatives.

If peace is a real possibility for the people of Syria, it is only the most cynical who would undermine that possibility for partisan political purposes. But we know that the lives of people of color mean nothing for some of the loudest critics of Trump’s decision. Many of those same critics don’t see any contradiction in condemning Putin and the Russians while embracing Netanyahu and the Israeli apartheid state that fires live ammunition into the bodies of unarmed Palestinians.

But in the tradition of our ancestors who understood the infinite connection of all of humanity and who resisted systematic degradation, the Black Alliance for Peace will continue to raise our voice in support of peace. Yet, we know that without justice there can be no peace. We must struggle to obtain justice.

U.S. out of Syria!
U.S. out of Africa!
Shut down AFRICOM and all NATO bases!
Reallocate the people’s resources from funding war to realizing the human rights of all people, not just the 1 percent!

First published in December 2013

104 years ago this month, one of the most unusual aberrations in the bloody history of warfare – never allowed to be repeated again – occurred. Europe was in the fifth month of the 52 month-long World War (the one that was supposed “to end all wars”) that was to end with the armistice four years later on November 11, 1918.

 British, Scottish, French, Belgian, Australian, Canadian, German, Austrian, Hungarian, Serbian and Russian pulpits in those overwhelmingly Christian nations back home (far from the satanic carnage in the trenches) were doing their part in contributing to the un-Christ-like patriotic fervor that was destined to result in a holocaust that destroyed four empires, killed upwards of 20 million soldiers and resulted in the psychological and physical decimation of an entire generation of young men in France, Germany and England.

Tragically, Christianity, which began as a pacifist religion because of the pacifist teachings and actions of the nonviolent Jesus of Nazareth (and his nonviolent apostles), has, for the past 1700 years, been anything but a peacemaking church that follows Jesus by actively resisting its nation’s imperial aspirations, its nation’s wars, its nation’s war-makers and its nation’s war profiteers.

  So, it wasn’t any surprise to note that the religious leaders on every side of that war were convinced that God was on their particular side – and, therefore not on the side of the Christians that they were trying to kill. The obvious contradiction – that both sides were praying to the same god – escaped most of them.

Pulpits and pews all over Europe – with few exceptions – reverberated with flag-waving fervor, sending clear messages to their doomed and baptized warrior-sons that it was their Christian duty to march off to kill, maim and even torture – if necessary – the equally doomed Christian soldiers on the other side.

 Five months into the mass destruction of the perpetually stale-mated war (featuring the indiscriminate slaughter via artillery, machine gun and, eventually, poison gas), the first Christmas of the war on the Western Front was upon the exhausted and demoralized troops.

Christmas was the holiest of Christian holidays for all sides, and in this time of hunger, thirst, sleep deprivation, shell shock, TBIs, mortal wounds and homesickness, Christmas 1914 had special meaning. Christmas reminded the soldiers of the good food, safety, warm homes and beloved families that they had left behind and which they now suspected they might never see again. The physically exhausted, spiritually deadened and combat-traumatized soldiers on both sides of the battle lines desperately sought some respite from the misery of the water-logged, putrid, rat-infested, louse-infested, corpse-infested and increasingly frozen trenches.

The cold reality of trench warfare in 1914

By this time, the frontline soldiers on both sides were probably wondering how they could possibly have believed the ridiculous propaganda from their leaders that had convinced them that their side was pre-destined to be victorious and “home before Christmas” – where they would be celebrated as conquering heroes.

Instead every soldier was at the end of their emotional ropes because of the unrelenting artillery barrages against which they were defenseless. If they weren’t killed or physically maimed by the artillery shells and bombs, they would eventually be emotionally destroyed by “shell-shock” (now known as posttraumatic stress disorder – PTSD), suffering horrifying nightmares, sleep deprivation, suicidality, depression, hyper-alertness and any number of other mental and neurological abnormalities. Other common “killers of the soul” included perpetual hunger, malnutrition, infections such as typhus and dysentery, louse infestations, trench foot, frostbite and gangrenous toes and fingers.

Poison gas attacks wouldn’t appear until 1915, but both British and Germans scientists were working hard to perfect that new technology. Tank warfare – which proved to be a humiliating disaster for the British – wouldn’t be operational until the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

One of the most stressful realities for the frontline soldiers was the suicidal “over the top” infantry assaults against German machine gun nests and the rows of coiled barbed wire that stopped them in their tracks and made them sitting ducks. Artillery barrages commonly resulted in tens of thousands of casualties in a single day.

Over the top infantry assaults were stupidly and repeatedly ordered by senior officers like Sir John French and his replacement as British Commander-in-Chief Sir Douglas Haig (apparently preparing for the classical but hopelessly out-dated horse and sabre cavalry charges across the muck of No-Man’s Land). The general staff planners of those uniformly disastrous attempts to end the war quickly or at least end the stalemate were safely out of the range of enemy artillery barrages. As they made their plans they were comfortably back at headquarters, eating well, being dressed by their orderlies, drinking their tea, none of them at any risk of experiencing the lethality of war themselves.

The frequent shoveling to improve the comfort of the trenches was frequently interrupted by preparations for attack. Screams of pain would often came from the trapped soldiers out in No-Man’s Land who had been wounded by machine gun fire but who were helplessly hanging on the barbed wire or bleeding to death in the bomb craters – their deaths often lingering for days. The effect on the troops in the trenches who had to listen to the desperate, unanswerable pleas for help was psychologically devastating for the troops back in the trenches. By Christmas, the morale of the troops on both sides of No Man’s Land had hit rock bottom.

Christmas in the Trenches

So on December 24, 1914, the exhausted troops settled down to Christmas with gifts from home, special food, special liquor and special rest. A magnanimous (and deluded) Kaiser Wilhelm had ordered 100,000 Christmas trees with millions of ornamental candles to be sent up to the front, expecting that such an act would boost troop morale.  Using the supply lines for such militarily unnecessary items was ridiculed by the most hardened military officers, but nobody suspected that the Kaiser’s Christmas tree idea would backfire and instead be a catalyst for an unplanned-for cease-fire, a singular event previously unheard of in the history of warfare and one that was ultimately censored out of mainstream histories, especially military histories, for most of the last century.

The Christmas Truce of 1914 was a spontaneous event that happened at a multitude of locations all along the 600 miles of trenches that stretched across Belgium and France, and it was an event that would never again be duplicated although an attempt at a Christmas Truce in 1915 was quickly put down by the authorities. Malcolm Brown and Shirley Seaton have written an important book about the 1914 event entitled “Christmas Truce: The Western Front, December 1914”.

The movie Joyeux Noel” (French for Merry Christmas) received an Academy Award nomination in 2005 for best foreign film. It tells the moving tale that has been adapted from the many surviving stories revealed in letters from soldiers who had been there.

One of the stories that emerged from the event was that, in the quiet of Christmas Eve night, some young German started singing “Stille Nacht”. Soon the British, French and Scots on the other side of No Man’s Land (oftentimes measuring only a hundred yards wide) joined in in their own tongues. Before long, the spirit of peace and “goodwill towards men” prevailed over the demonic spirit of war, and the troops on both sides sensed their common humanity. The natural human aversion to killing broke through to consciousness and overcame the patriotic fervor and brain-washing to which they had been subjected.

Once the spirit of peace was felt, soldiers on both sides dropped their weapons and came out of their trenches to meet their former foes face-to-face. To get through to the other side they had to step around shell holes and over frozen corpses (which were soon given respectful burials, soldiers from both sides helping one another with the gruesome task).

The spirit of retaliation had dissipated and the desire for peace on earth emerged. New friends shared chocolate bars, cigarettes, beer, wine, schnapps, soccer games and pictures from home. Addresses were exchanged, photos were taken and every soldier who genuinely experienced the emotional drama was forever changed – and the generals and the gung-ho politicians were appalled.

Fostering Peace on Earth in times of war is treason

Fraternization with the enemy (as in refusing to obey orders in time of war) has historically been regarded by military commanders and politicians as an act of treason, severely punishable, even with death by summary execution. In the case of the Christmas Truce of 1914, most officers tried hard not to draw public attention to the rather wide-spread and therefore potentially contagious incident. Some commanding officers even threatened courts martial if fraternization persisted (it was considered bad for the killing spirit) but relatively few executions took place.

There were still punishments however, including the re-assignment of many of the German “traitors” to the Eastern Front to kill and die on the Eastern Front in the equally suicidal battles against their Orthodox Christian co-religionists from Russia.

This unique story of war resistance needs to be retold over and over again if our modern-era false flag-generated wars of empire are to be effectively de-railed. These futile, unaffordable wars are being fought by thoroughly indoctrinated, macho, pro-war, World of Warcraft expert gamers who, unbeknownst to them, are at high risk of having their lives permanently altered by the physical, mental and spiritual damage from participating in war and violence, after which they might be doomed to a life overwhelmed by the realities of PTSD, sociopathic personality disorder, suicidality, homicidality, loss of religious faith, traumatic brain injury (shell shock), neurotoxic, addictive drug use (from either legal or illegal drugs) and a host of other nearly impossible-to-cure problems that were preventable.

Society’s ethical duty to warn

It seems to me that it would be helpful if moral leadership in America, especially Christian leaders, would discharge their duty to warn the adolescents that are in their spheres of influence about all of the serious consequences that participation in the killing professions can have on their souls and psyches.

War planners do whatever it takes to keep soldiers from experiencing the humanity of their enemies, whether they are Iranians, Iraqis, Afghanis, Pakistanis, Yemenis, Vietnamese, Chinese or North Koreans. I have been told by many military veterans that military chaplains, who are supposed to be nurturers of the souls of the soldiers who are in their “care”, never seem to bring up, in their counseling sessions, Jesus’ Golden Rule, his clear “love your enemies” commands or his ethical teachings in the Sermon on the Mount.

Military chaplains seem to just be another cog in the apparatus of making war maximally effective. Christian chaplains seem to not pay much attention to the Ten Commandments either, especially the ones that say “thou shalt not kill” or “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s oil”. In their defense, military chaplains, in their seminary training and perhaps even in their Sunday School upbringings, may have never been schooled adequately in the profoundly important gospel truths about humility, mercy, non-violence, non-domination, non-retaliation, unconditional love and the rejection of enmity.

Theological blind spots of war

These theological blind spots are illustrated near the end of the “Joyeux Noel” movie in a powerful scene depicting a confrontation between the Christ-like, antiwar Scottish chaplain and his pro-war bishop, just as the chaplain was mercifully administering the “last rites” to a dying soldier. The bishop had come to chastise the chaplain for having been merciful to a wounded soldier in No Man’s Land and for fraternizing with the enemy. The bishop was relieving the chaplain of his duties because of such “treasonous and shameful” behavior on the battlefield.

The authoritarian, German-hating bishop refused to listen to the chaplain’s story about his having performed “the most important mass of my life” (with German troops scandalously participating in the celebration) and that he wished to stay with the troops that needed him because they were losing their faith. The bishop angrily denied the chaplain’s request to remain with his men.

The bishop then delivered a rousing pro-war sermon, taken word-for-word from a homily that had actually been delivered by an Anglican bishop from England later in the war. The sermon was addressed to the fresh troops that had to be brought in to replace the veterans who, because of their consciences having been awakened, had suddenly become averse to killing, and were refusing to shoot their weapons.

The image of the dramatic but subtle response of the chaplain to his sacking should be a clarion call to the Christian church leadership of our militarized, so-called “Christian” America – both clergy and lay. This good man of God hung up his cross and walked out of the field hospital.

“Joyeux Noel” is an important film that deserves to be annual holiday fare. It has ethical lessons far more powerful than “It’s A Wonderful Life” or “A Christmas Carol”.

One of the lessons of the Christmas Truce story is summarized in the concluding verse of John McCutcheon’s famous song about the event, “Christmas in the Trenches”:

“My name is Francis Tolliver, in Liverpool I dwell.

Each Christmas come since World War I – I’ve learned its lessons well:
That the ones who call the shots won’t be among the dead and lame
And on each end of the rifle we’re the same.”

Check out the video of McCutcheon singing his song at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJi41RWaTCs and, for a good pictorial history of the reality of WWI’s  trench warfare, check out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTXhZ4uR6rs

The official trailer of “Joyeux Noel” is available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXcseNVZGRM

First published in March 2015

Prominent academic and author Dr Michel Chossudovsky warned that the so-called war on terrorism is a front to propagate America’s global hegemony and create a New World Order.

Dr Chossudovsky said terrorism is made in the US and that terrorists are not the product of the Muslim world.

According to him, the US global war on terrorism was used to enact anti-terrorism laws that demonised Muslims in the Western world and created Islamophobia.

Elaborating on his argument, Dr Chossudovsky said that NATO was responsible for recruiting members of the Islamic state while Israel is funding “global jihad elements inside Syria”.

Dr Chossudovsky, who is also the founder of the Centre for Research and Globalisation, further emphasised that the global war on terrorism is a fabrication, a big lie and a crime against humanity.

Echoing Dr Chossudovsky’s arguments, Malaysia’s prominent political scientist, Islamic reformist and activist Dr Chandra Muzaffar said that the US has always manipulated religion to further its global hegemony on sovereign states.

 “The Globalization of War is undoubtedly one of the most important books on the contemporary global situation produced in recent years. 

In his latest masterpiece, Professor Michel Chossudovsky shows how the various conflicts we are witnessing today in Ukraine, Syria, Iraq and Palestine are in fact inter-linked and inter-locked through a single-minded agenda in pursuit of global hegemony helmed by the United States and buttressed by its allies in the West and in other regions of the world.”   Dr Chandra Muzaffar, President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST)

The Globalization of War: America’s “Long War” against Humanity

Michel Chossudovsky

$14.00, Save 39%

The Globalization of War, America’s Long War against Humanity  can be ordered directly from Global Research Publishers. 

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” — H. L. Mencken

Cultural Marxism is a strange catch-all term being thrown around a lot these days. Why is it strange? Because if you scratch below its surface all that seems logical melts into air.

The term ‘cultural Marxism’ is used to cover feminism, multiculturalism, identity politics, civil rights, postmodernism and globalism. It has also been used recently to describe multiculturalist curricula in the education system.

Let’s take a look at these concepts in a little more detail:

Feminism

Marxist ideas about women covered ideas of equality and examined the historical and contemporary position and exploitation of women. Marx and Engels wrote about death from overwork, cheap labour, women and children in the mills, etc. They appear to have had a low opinion of feminism. In a letter from Engels to Paul Ernst, Engels writes:

“Furthermore, I am not at all acquainted with what you call the feminist movement in Scandinavia; I only know some of Ibsen’s dramas and have not the slightest idea whether or to what extent Ibsen can be considered responsible for the more or less hysterical effusions of bourgeois and petty bourgeois women careerists.”

Therefore, the inclusion of feminism into the meaning of cultural Marxism is odd.

Multiculturalism

Marxist ideas are based on the idea of citizenship and the state, that all citizens should be treated equally under the law with the common identity of “citizen”. However, it seems that the deeper the political and financial crises of the state and the subsequent whittling down of the rights of the citizen, the more emphasis is put on multicultural policies, as if to provoke the majority population into negative reactions. Marxist ideology was reflected in Article Two of the constitution of the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic of 1918 whereby citizenship was held:

“(22) The Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic, recognizing the equal rights of all citizens, irrespective of their racial or national connections, proclaims all privileges on this ground, as well as oppression of national minorities, to be contrary to the fundamental laws of the Republic.”

One description of multiculturalism in Western countries, notes that multiculturalism “was seen to combat racism, to protect minority communities of all types, and to undo policies that had prevented minorities from having full access to the opportunities for freedom and equality promised by the liberalism that has been the hallmark of Western societies since the Age of Enlightenment.”

If it was necessary for minority groups to fight for rights, “to protect minority communities”, “to undo policies that had prevented minorities from having full access” to opportunities then it seems that this too also has very little to do with Marxist ideology. Being involved in the struggle for basic rights does not necessarily mean you are a Marxist.

Identity politics and civil rights

The same can be said for identity politics whereby people of a particular religion or race form exclusive political alliances and move away from traditional broad-based party politics. It is true that minority cultural groups have experienced exclusion in the past and today, and fight for their rights but Marxist ideas focus on the concept of class, not race, religion or ethnic group. Marxist politics is formulated on the basis of class struggle not the political objectives of individuals or minority groups.

Postmodernism

Strangest of all is the inclusion of postmodernism in descriptions of Cultural Marxism. Postmodernism is a movement characterised by an attitude of rejection of metanarratives such as Marxism. A metanarrative (or grand narrative) is a theory that tries to give a totalizing, comprehensive account of history, culture etc based upon the appeal to universal truth. Postmodernism calls into question various assumptions of Enlightenment rationality, the idea of man free from Church-run society. Yet such Enlightenment ideas form the basis of Marxist philosophy and socialist ideology.

Globalism

Globalism is a word associated with with world-systems or other global trends. The term is associated with “post-war debates debates of the 1940s in the United States. In their position of unprecedented power, US planners formulated policies to shape the kind of postwar world they wanted, which, in economic terms, meant a globe-spanning capitalist order centered exclusively upon the United States.” Again, not very Marxist concepts, cultural or otherwise. You are more likely to find Marxist ideas in anti-globalisation movements.

It can be seen from all of the above that the basic ideas associated with cultural Marxism have more in common with crises of neo-liberalism and international capitalism than with Marxism. It may be true that the origins of ‘cultural Marxism’ lie in the Frankfurt school of the 1930s in the attempts of critics like Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse and Walter Benjamin to mix Marxist ideas with Freud to break down the effects of the church and state on revolutionary consciousness but it seems that later anything not associated with the conservative values of the nationalist “white”  Christian became ascribed to cultural Marxism.

Monolithism

While the neo-nationalist right ascribes many different ideas and movements to cultural Marxism it can be shown that in the main they all actually benefit the political right. This is through monolithism (something having a uniform or inflexible quality or character), an approach that can be used as a sleight of hand to implement other agendas. Below are three different ways monolithism can be used to stifle dissent.

It is in the education system that we can begin to see monolithism being used to appear progressive and concerned with minority issues (multiculturalism) while at the same time implementing a right wing agenda. For example, recent changes in the French education system have been criticised for devoting more time to a 14th century Malian king, Mansa Kankan Mussa, (who was also a great scholar, an economist as well as an art lover!) compared to the study of Napoleon or even replacing French revolution lessons. By treating French history as monolithic (i.e. for the political right the threatening (revolutionary) and non-threatening elements can be treated as one), the baby can be thrown out with the bathwater, and the revolutionary tradition of the French people can be safely removed from the education system. Therefore the progressive parts of French history can be removed while appearing to be concerned about minority history. The added bonus is that non-threatening ethnic historical figures can be chosen too.  (A more subtle approach than in Ireland where the study of History is being made optional at junior cycle in the secondary schools)

The second way dissent can be silenced using monolithism is to portray minority groups as being made up of similar people all sharing similar views. As Kenan Malik writes:

“Multiculturalists tend to treat minority communities as if each was a distinct, singular, homogenous, authentic whole, each composed of people all speaking with a single voice, each defined primarily by a singular view of culture and faith. In so doing, they all too often ignore conflicts within those communities. All the dissent and diversity gets washed out. As a result, the most progressive voices often gets silenced as not being truly of that community or truly authentic, while the most conservative voices get celebrated as community leaders, the authentic voices of minority groups.”

The ‘authentic’ conservative gets privileged over the dissenting critic, once again serving the political right.

A third way monolithism works is in the change from the Marxist idea of class struggle (the proletariat vs the bourgeoisie) to categories of the oppressed vs the oppressor (a postmodern non-class concept). Yet again, we see a non-Marxist idea being ascribed to cultural Marxism. The oppressor is changed from the bourgeoisie to all privileged people. So for example, white people become the ‘oppressor’ and black people become the ‘oppressed’, the privileged vs the underprivileged, despite the fact that white people can have very varied economic backgrounds from very poor to ultra-rich. This way of grouping people (colour, creed, ethnicity) creates identities which are not class-based and therefore, from the perspective of the political right, also non-threatening.

Moving targets

It is ironic that what the main targets described by the term cultural Marxism all have in common is the removal of the class (or individual) dissenting elements, or simply have no connection with Marxist ideology at all. The overriding concern, then, is that politics will be reduced to competing groups realigned along specific cultural boundaries, all blind to clever elite manipulation. Firing the term cultural Marxism at any divergent social, cultural or political activity will not enlighten people about what is really happening under their noses but will send them off tilting at windmills instead.

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Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork consists of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country here. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Myriad agencies, funded by Western governments, foundations, and NATO, continue to erect barriers to freedom of thought and expression in the West’s post-democratic, New Fascist, societies.

The totalitarianism implicit in these restrictions means that colonial media is monochromatic, tightly framed, and ubiquitous. There is no “free exchange” of ideas, a necessary foundation of democratic societies. Hence, messaging that promotes wars of aggression, and dysfunctional economic ideologies remains ascendant in the public sphere.

The public is led to believe that never-ending criminal wars and vast outflows of public monies to the military industrial complex are normal and necessary. Similarly, publicly bailed-out, predatory, diseconomies are presented as the only viable economic models.  Socially-oriented, (democratic) political economies, we are told, “do not work”.  The public remains unaware that Empire wages criminal economic and “kinetic”, terrorist-supporting warfare, against societies that seek to determine their own political economies.  Socially-oriented political-economies in countries such as Libya, Iraq, Syria, Nicaragua, Venezuela and on and on, are constantly under attack, and not allowed to thrive. Empire targets these countries criminally, aggressively, and perpetually.

The covert barriers which create bounded, framed restrictions on freedoms of expression create a “chilling effect” that promotes self-censorship, and disappears evidence-based truths which would otherwise counter-balance narratives from media conglomerates, all of which are unduly impacted, and subservient to “establishment” pressures from Big Oil, Banking, Military Industrial Complex, Big Pharmaceutical, and other monopolies.

Thought leaders who step outside of the confines of Establishment narratives are targeted. The University of Sydney’s warrantless suspension of best-selling author and Senior lecturer, Prof. Tim Anderson[1], from his teaching duties, is a case in point. Not only does his suspension create a “chilling effect”, and a culture of academic self-censorship, but it also restricts the amount of evidence-based research that reaches the public arena.

Military/Intelligence fronts, such as the Integrity Initiative[2]– well-funded by state agencies and even NATO[3]– add to the oppression, not only by targeting individuals for smear campaigns, but also by guaranteeing a non-stop flow of war propaganda.

Time and again, policymakers use Private Intelligence Contractors (PICS) as sources of fake intelligence that they wrap around previously planned policies, to give an air of credibility to war propaganda. Have we forgotten already the lies used to justify the West’s supremely criminal destruction of Iraq? All of the post-9/11 wars (and beyond) were sold to gullible domestic populations by means of well-planned strategies of deception.

It is an unequal battle, but the broad-based public must first free itself from foundational war lies if we are to make transformative changes. Foremost amongst these lies is “The War On Terrorism”. The public needs to understand that this War on Terror myth is cover for criminal wars of conquest. Our governments and their agencies support the terrorists. Pretending that the West is fighting ISIS and other terrorists (i.e al Qaeda) prolongs the suffering of its victims, past, present, and future. It is not a war against ISIS. It never was. The West and its allies support all of the terrorists in Syria, (and beyond), including ISIS.

If the public can be disabused of the “War on Terrorism” myth, then it will be ready for mass social unrest and mobilizations for fundamental reforms.  Incremental reforms only bolster Establishment positions by providing illusions of democratic policymaking.

For starters, Canada needs to leave NATO, cut its military budget, end its “neoliberal” diseconomy, instate a socially-oriented economy, and regain its sovereignty and democracy.

Given all of the structural barriers that we face, these goals may never be achieved, but we still “win” when we at least struggle for justice.

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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017.

Notes

[1] Prof. Tim Anderson, “STEPHEN GARTON’S OVERREACH: INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY.” Avant Garde, 12 December, 2018.( https://avantgarde2009.wordpress.com/2018/12/12/stephen-gartons-overreach-intellectual-freedom-at-the-university-of-sydney/?fbclid=IwAR1MpVAZX-F7LcuwbZvSzHAio1mN-L2BemweI7IVMuBrEGrjRjT-sRSRLpc) Accessed 19 December, 2018.

[2] Mohamed Elmaazi and Max Blumenthal, “Inside The Temple Of Covert Propaganda: The Integrity Initiative And The U.K’s Scandalous Information War.” Gray Zone,17 November, 2018. (https://grayzoneproject.com/2018/12/17/inside-the-temple-of-covert-propaganda-the-integrity-initiative-and-the-uks-scandalous-information-war/) Accessed 19 December, 2018.

[3] George Eliason, “A Crisis in Intelligence: Unthinkable Consequences of Outsourcing U.S. Intel. (Part 3)” Consortium News, 18 February, 2018.( https://consortiumnews.com/2018/02/18/a-crisis-in-intelligence-unthinkable-consequences-of-outsourcing-u-s-intel-part-3/?fbclid=IwAR2DKmAtaSMattb28apQZ-gCJ61stFYP3jem97t93PLm-bSpQLGp-0Z_4No) Accessed 18 February, 2018.

Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.

Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes  the mainstream media narratives on Syria. 

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Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir made a historical visit to Syria, the first for an Arab leader since war was imposed on Syria in 2011. El-Bashir landed onboard a Russian airplane at Damascus airport, an indication of Moscow’s efforts to bring Syria back into the Arab – and international – fold. During seven years of war, Sudan never closed its embassy in Damascus.

El-Bashir was not travelling alone. Sudan would not take such a huge step without the support of its allies. The Sudanese president is a close partner of Saudi Arabia and the Emirates in their destructive war on Yemen. The purpose of his visit is to lay  down the road to Damascus for more Arab leaders, who are expected to pay tribute to president Bashar al-Assad in 2019. Their goal is to elbow aside the Islamic Republic of Iran, the only Islamic country omnipresent with friendly forces on the Damascus scene.

This is not the first contact between Arab countries and Syria since 2011: Egypt maintained its close diplomatic-political-security relationship with Syria throughout the years of war. Bahrain, the Emirates, Oman, Lebanon and Jordan are present today in Syria. On the western front, Italy is preparing to re-open its embassy, while Germany and France were not absent in recent years.

The arrival of el-Bashir onboard a Russian plane indicates the determination of President Vladimir Putin to sew a spider’s web of relationships between the Middle East, the West and Syria. Putin aims to see Syria resume diplomatic relations with Arab and other countries. Russia and Syria dismiss the conditions the US is seeking to impose for reconstruction of the country and would like to see its unwelcome forces leave the Levant.

El-Bashir came to Syria at a time when the Middle Eastern countries acknowledge that their plan to create a failed state in the Levant has failed. Their goal was a failed state, not a new regime; their unlimited support to the Takfiree groups (i.e. the “Islamic State” ISIS and al-Qaeda) was pushing Syria towards total chaos, posing significant dangers to neighbouring countries with the exception of Israel. Tel Aviv welcomed both extremist religious groups, embraced them, and supported their presence on its border throughout the years of war in Syria.

After many years of war, the Syrian president is today harsher in his approach towards Israel, although he does not necessarily intend to initiate an attack to regain Syrian territory  occupied by Israel in the Golan heights. Assad is happy to see a local Syrian resistance, similar to the Lebanese Hezbollah, developing along the borders and in other parts of the country.

Assad has not changed his stand towards Iran. On the contrary, years of war taught him to rely on those, like Iran, who offered billions of dollars to support the Syrian economy and sent tons of weapons and thousands of men to protect Syria’s integrity.

The Syrian president has never flagged in support of Hezbollah. Since 1982 and until today, the Lebanese group received weapons and financial support through Syria. But today the bond is stronger than ever, particularly as Hezbollah offered hundreds of men killed in the battlefield and thousands of wounded for the unity of the Levant.

But yes, Assad’s position towards Hamas has changed. He rejects any mediation from the secretary general of Hezbollah Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and from Iran to bring back Hamas into the “axis of the resistance”. Assad considers the time is not ripe to reconcile with the Palestinian group because hundreds of its members fought within the ranks of ISIS and al-Qaeda and were responsible for the killing of Syrians.

The position of the Syrian president was firm throughout the war, notwithstanding the reach of ISIS (called Jabhat al-Nusra in 2013 before Joulani, its leader, declared loyalty to Ayman Zawaheri) to al-Abbaseyeen square in Damascus, threatening the government and the presidency. Saudi Arabia and the US offered to recognise Assad as the legitimate president of Syria in return for abandoning Hezbollah, Iran, and Hamas. Well aware of the treachery of his interlocutors, Assad refused and instead relied on trustworthy partners, i.e. Hezbollah and Iran (and Russia later on in 2015), to help him win the war imposed on his country.

El-Bashir’s visit expresses the will of his sponsors to recognise Assad’s victory and his leadership of Syria for fear of leaving him in the hands of Russia and Iran, who are reaping the rewards of their victory in Syria.

The young Bashar who became president at the age of 35 is today 53 years old with unparalleled political and war experience. Assad is pragmatic and by no means an ideologue. He will have no problems dealing with Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the US, the countries which spearheaded the war against Syria and caused its destruction. Even more, Assad is ready to welcome these countries and invite them to have a piece of reconstruction even if trust will be absent. That is called the art of the impossible.

Recognition of Assad as president of Syria by the countries responsible for years of war will open the doors of investment for anyone willing to participate even if the US occupies northeast Syria for decades and if Turkey maintains its occupation of north-west of Syria.

El-Bashir wants Damascus to return to the Arab League – who expelled Syria in 2012 – when he is recognised by the Arabs as the legitimate president of the country. Syria is a state and will behave as such, not seeking revenge but offering a part of the Damascene cake to share with everyone prepared to help rebuild the country.

The visit of the Sudanese president was planned for more than a year and was blessed by the countries who took the most radical stand against Assad; these countries have accepted their defeat and recognize that Syria shall not fall. Turkey is also reconsidering its position, as evident from the recent statement of foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu: “if the [Syrian] elections are democratic and trustworthy, we will consider all possibilities [to cooperate with Assad in case of his re-election]”. The Turkish-Syrian relationship is much more complicated than the Arab-Syria relationship. Ankara’s troops occupy a part of Syria and are protecting al-Qaeda and its allies in Idlib, but President Erdogan shares a common goal with Damascus: both seek the withdrawal of the US occupation forces and to prevent the Kurds from protecting US forces and imposing their enclave in north-east Syria.

The door to recognising Assad as the president of Syria is open to all Arabs without exception, along with their investment to rebuild the country. It is time to bury the Arab axe of war in the Levant.

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James Perloff: Cece, I’m so delighted to have a chance to interview you. I should probably start by letting my readers know how I found out about you. The local paper in my town (Burlington, Mass.) had reported that Verizon was planning to build seven new wireless transmitters on utility poles in our neighborhoods. I wrote a letter opposing it to the newspaper and to the town selectmen. Then an “awake” person in Burlington, who had read my letter, alerted me that you would be speaking at the Burlington Public Library on October 16 about the hazards of wireless microwave radiation and how people can protect themselves from it. I attended; you gave an outstanding, science-based talk, and I’m going to embed it at the end of this interview so people can watch for themselves.

Cece Doucette: Thanks, Jim, it’s an honor to do this interview with you.

As you mention, another Burlington resident reached out to see if I could help educate about the risks of today’s wireless technology. She had been to a screening of the new film Generation Zapped earlier this year. It won Best Documentary at the D.C. Independent Film Festival and is a great way to learn about the health effects of wireless technology directly from leading world scientists, doctors, public health experts and patients.

There wasn’t time to schedule in a screening of Generation Zapped at the Burlington Public Library as their sponsored films are set months in advance. So, I agreed to give a talk at the library instead. It was a pleasure to meet you there after reading your letter to the Burlington Small Cell Committee.

JP: Please tell my readers a little about your background, and how you became an activist and educator on the hazards of wireless technologies.

CD: I used to help lead our local education foundation in Ashland, Massachusetts. We kept hearing about the 21st Century Classroom and all the technology that would be needed. Our town doesn’t have budget for that, so I helped run seven campaigns to bring this technology into our schools, and much of it was wireless. Following that, I went to work directly for our schools as our district grant coordinator. In that role I helped secure many grants that also brought wireless technology into our classrooms.

Then, at book group one night, a girlfriend who is an electrical engineer mentioned there could be something up with wireless technology and health. So, I asked our IT director about it, and he didn’t know anything but said he’d check it out. He came back and said the FCC says it’s fine.

However, by that point I’d already begun my own investigation and found, literally, thousands of peer-reviewed published studies from all over the world showing wireless technology is biologically hazardous.

I began sharing my findings with our school administrators and upon reading the legal fine print that comes with wireless devices, they started taking precautions. Little did we know at the time in 2014, Ashland became the first public school district in the U.S. to do so.

JP: You know, Cece, before doing this interview, I downloaded and watched Generation Zapped. And I have to say that, one of the things that really struck me about that film is the number of credentialed scientists, from around the world, who are speaking out about these issues. This really puts it out of the realm of what some might call “tin foil hat conspiracy theories.”

CD: Indeed, the industry would prefer that we keep this issue on the fringe using terms like “tin foil hat conspiracy” so the public won’t take it seriously. Once you hear there is harm from wireless though, you can find the credible science very easily. All you have to do is look. The BioInitiative Report is a compendium of the studies, and shows what the harm is. If you’re more of an audio/visual learner, Generation Zapped allows you to hear directly from some of the world’s leading researchers, doctors and public health experts.

JP: In fact, one of the things that impressed me during your live presentation was how professional it was. It was the sort of talk I would expect at a corporate executive briefing—and by that I don’t mean dull, I mean professional. You are in fact a tech writer by trade, are you not?

CD: Thank you, Jim. Yes, I earned a Master of Technical and Professional Writing from Northeastern University, as well as a Bachelor’s degree in Communication.

JP: When I was watching Generation Zapped, I asked myself why these scientists were willing to be so outspoken, and my own conclusion is this: the risk of harm from wireless radiation not only threatens humanity, these scientists know it threatens their own health and that of their families. And what’s that compared to perhaps a little ridicule from a few mercenary quarters of the media? No one wants to get sick, period. And that’s a consideration that overrides politics, theology, or anything else that might divide us. Microwave radiation doesn’t discriminate.

CD: Indeed, our scientists take a significant risk in speaking out about the harm from wireless radiation as the industry has been known to makes large donations to their research institutions, and then their research labs are closed down if they report negative findings. However, many scientists have courageously banded together and authored international appeals to protect the public. More than 240 experts from around the world have submitted the International EMF Scientists Appeal to the United Nations, World Health Organization, and all its member states calling for public protections.

JP: When people go online, and find reports that say wireless technology is harmless or “there is no evidence of harm,” they are normally looking at industry-sponsored studies, isn’t that correct? Not unlike the studies that the cigarette industry once funded saying there was no link between smoking and cancer.

CD: That is correct. Harvard put out a report called Captured Agency: How the Federal Communications Commission is Dominated by the Industries it Presumably Regulates. In it they indicate the wireless industry has commandeered the FCC and is using the big tobacco playbook to suppress evidence of wireless harm while promoting their toxic products.

JP: Actually, Cece, before we go any further, I’d like to define some of our terms: “microwave,” “electromagnetic field (EMF),” and “radiation,” because some people, myself included, feel challenged when trying to understand phenomena that are not visible to the naked eye. So, if you would, please define these terms on a lay level, and let us know if there is any distinction between the microwaves used by Wi-Fi and those used by microwave ovens.

CD: I was initially confused too. All of our digital technology sends data packets back and forth using invisible microwave radiation signals. These are also known as radiofrequency radiation (RF) signals or electromagnetic fields (EMFs). With a microwave oven, you have very high power for a short amount of time. With today’s wireless technology, you have lower power but it’s pulsing all the time unless you know to turn it off when not in use. Otherwise every device, router, access point and cell tower sits there pulsing radiation at you whether you need to communicate with it or not.

The science now shows that it is the nature of the signal that is harming us. Wireless antennas send a spiked, erratic pulse that is disrupting our own biological signals at billions of cycles per second. Over time, the cumulative effects add up, so it is best to reduce wireless exposures and choose hard-wired technology.

JP: Now in your talk you referred to the vast number of peer-reviewed scientific studies that have documented the health issues being caused by wireless technologies. Could you give us a sampling of some of these health problems, and identify some of the major studies that have shed light on them?

CD: In November 2018, the U.S. National Toxicology Program’s $30M study found clear evidence that wireless radiation causes tumors in the Schwann cells lining the hearts of male rats. They also found some evidence of brain tumors and DNA damage among other findings. Another large 2018 study at the Ramazzini Institute in Italy also reported similar cancer and DNA findings.

This is just the tip of the iceberg though. Other studies link wireless radiation to infertility, autism, Alzheimer’s, neurotoxicity, genotoxicity and more.

In the short-term, many adults and children experience symptoms that neither they nor their doctors have been educated to recognize as microwave sickness. This might include insomnia, headaches, nose/ear bleeds, dizziness, fainting, seizures, skin heating/rashes/tingling, nausea, anger, anxiety, depression, fatigue, cognitive impairment, suicidal ideation, addiction and more.

JP: And it’s my understanding that even some insurance companies are starting to recognize these risks and refusing to insure against illness induced by Wi-Fi?

CD: Yes, Lloyd’s of London, Swiss Re and others recognize wireless radiation as a leading risk and have put exclusions in their policies. The industry is not insured so they pass those liabilities onto the consumer in their fine print warnings, or onto our states and towns in the contracts they sign for equipment installations.

JP: You have put together a huge online information repository so that people can readily access facts about wireless dangers. Would you please give us that link?

CD: I’m happy to; folks are welcome to peruse my research repository as a launch point into their own investigations: https://sites.google.com/site/understandingemfs

JP: During your presentation, one of the things that jumped out at me—perhaps because I’m not a smartphone user—is that these devices don’t merely receive EMFs, they transmit EMFs. So it’s a two-edged sword—it’s not just the radiation people are absorbing from cell towers, it’s the devices that they carry on them. You mentioned that these phones usually have multiple transmitter antennae—can you identify some of these by function?

CD: That’s right, our devices are two-way transmitters. They are sending out signals to make a handshake with the nearest cell tower or router, and are receiving data from those outside antennas.

A cell phone has multiple antennas. There are separate ones for cell calls, data, Bluetooth, wi-fi, locator and by now a public hotspot antenna as the industry is using us as their network. Each independently pulses radiation all the time unless we know to turn them off when not in use. If we don’t, we risk harming ourselves by using and storing them on our bodies.

In Generation Zapped, we see a woman who developed several different cancer tumors in the footprint of where she carried the cell phone in her bra for years.

We also know our sperm counts as a nation are down 50%, and the science shows wireless radiation mutates the DNA of sperm, causes fewer sperm to be viable, and slows the motility of the sperm in just four hours.

The American Cancer Society reports colon and rectal cancers are doubling and quadrupling among our young adults.

JP: As a matter of fact, during my service as a registered nurse, I helped take care of a popular young man who died from a brain tumor, which originated right next to where he chronically held his cell phone on his job. And then, of course, the same thing happened to Senator Ted Kennedy, who came from our home state.

CD: Yes, and Senator John McCain too. He died of a brain tumor on the left side of his head. He was left-handed and that’s where he held the cell phone to his head. He’d already had other types of tumors removed from that side of his neck and throat too.

JP: Also, a certain small percentage of the public has developed personal sensitivity to EMFs, have they not? I think a medical analogy might be when an individual develops an allergic reaction to a particular antibiotic. Even though most people don’t get the same reaction, for that person it’s very real. And unfortunately, when people develop the symptoms of EMF sensitivity, they are often dismissed as imagining things and having a “psychological” problem.

CD: It’s like where we were with Lyme Disease a decade ago. Doctors haven’t been trained on electrical sensitivities, so some will infer that it’s all in the patient’s mind when in fact it is caused by environmental triggers of wireless radiation. Environmental health doctors, however, are aware and treating patients for this. The American Academy of Environmental Medicine, in fact, put out a position statement to school superintendents indicating our schools should use hard-wired technology and not expose children to wireless radiation.

Another group, Physicians for Safe Technology, offers A Clinical Approach to Electrohypersensitivity including insurance codes. See this.

JP: There seems to be an assumption amongst the public that if a product is on the market, it must be safe. In the case of wireless devices, I was shocked to learn from you that the industry did only one very limited safety test.

CD: There was no safety testing done. They used an untested theory that you must have heat from a device to have harm, and they simply put gel into a mannequin’s head to see how much heat it would take to raise the temperature of the gel. The FCC set the public radiation exposure limits based on that heat model, with no regard for the thousands of studies that show harm at the non-thermal level. They never tested their exposure limits to see if they cause biological harm.

JP: I think we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention Smart Meters. What can you tell us about these devices?

CD: These are digital devices replacing the mechanical analog devices we have at our homes and offices to measure consumption of electricity, gas, water and solar power. They have a wireless transmitter to capture usage data and send it off to the utility company, thereby eliminating the need to pay a meter-reader to walk the neighborhoods.

While only one reading a month is needed for billing, the “smart” meters actually pulse radiation all day and night with no informed consent by the consumer. That can be very dangerous if someone is sleeping right on the other side of the wall, or if the utility company installs a bank of these on a multi-unit dwelling.

The “smart” meters usually aren’t grounded either, so the radiation can hop onto the home’s electrical wiring and water pipes, in essence turning the home into a toxic radiation antenna.

Some utility companies offer an opt-out so you can retain the safer analog meters, but others don’t.

JP: You know, I get the impression that the word “smart” has been hit upon as a way to market wireless devices, similar to when, decades ago, Madison Avenue discovered they could sell products more easily by using the phrase “new and improved.” Naturally, everyone wants to be “smart.” But putting one’s health at risk is not smart at all.

CD: No, it’s not, but marketing influences are very strong, so it’s up to each of us to learn about this and make truly smart choices for ourselves and our loved ones.

JP: Now we have 5G being planned for, which is a radically different form of wireless, and yet—surprise, surprise—no safety testing has been done on it. Could you break down for us just what 5G is, and how they plan to implement it?

CD: 5G means fifth generation technology. Even though the NTP and Ramazzini studies determined in 2018 that wireless causes cancer and DNA damage, the industry and the FCC are pushing hard and fast to put in toxic infrastructure throughout our towns for 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT).

They’ve maximized profits in the portion of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum that carries 4G and the earlier generations’ data signals (2G, 3G). What’s left of the spectrum is poor quality short millimeter waves that can’t carry signals very far.

So their solution is to put up more infrastructure for shorter data hops to connect to. That means more cell towers at closer range, every 2 to 12 houses, inside our neighborhoods, right on poles in the public access right of way outside our bedrooms. This will severely harm our children, making it very difficult to be able to focus at school.

As happens to some when “smart” meters go in, many near these new 5G “small cell” installations may begin to experience headaches, insomnia, skin abnormalities, irregular heartbeats, nosebleeds, anxiety, depression, anger, cognitive impairment and more.

The 5G little waves can’t go through buildings very well, so 5G will also incorporate the signals from the many cell towers and antennas we currently have for the earlier generations of technology. All so they can put toxic radiation antennas in everything you own and connect it to your phone: your appliances, games, baby diapers, etc., to gather your data and sell it to product manufacturers.

The industry and FCC are pushing right now at the federal and state levels to take away home rule rights from our towns so they can force in this toxic infrastructure.

They have already submitted applications for “small cell distributed antenna systems” in many of our communities, so it would behoove us to educate our towns quickly in hopes of establishing local by-laws to forbid any kind of wireless communication facility anywhere near our homes or schools. Your readers should feel free to share the pages from my research repository with their town leaders, who likely have no idea this is happening: For Municipal Leaders; 5G & IoT; Cell Towers. Once they learn, many begin to push back on industry as your town did in Burlington, Massachusetts.

JP: OK, next I’d like to talk about what people can do to protect themselves, their families and their communities. Let’s start on a personal level—what can folks do right in their homes to reduce wireless risks?

CD: I’d suggest folks get ahold of a wireless radiation detection meter; otherwise it’s easy to miss signals.

In my home, we use hard-wired computers, mice and keyboards. Our printer is hard-wired too with an Ethernet cable, and we simply turn off the antennas in each device once we’re hooked up with Ethernet.

We swapped out the DECT cordless phones for regular phones. We bought a TV that has an Ethernet jack, and hard-wired that too, then turned off the wireless signals in the settings.

We figured out how to hard-wire my daughter’s iPhone too with an adapter. She was very excited to have the faster speeds, and was especially happy to realize that by using hard-wiring, it isn’t eating into her data plan – which we make her pay for out of pocket if she goes over her monthly allocation of minutes.

JP: A friend of mine called my attention to a website called Antenna Search which enables people to locate cell towers and antennae that are in the proximity of any address. This could help people who, for example, are making decisions on buying a home. Any thoughts on this site?

CD: Yes, it is a good resource to know what is near you. That said, there is no guarantee the industry won’t put up a new one near you, especially if the town allows 5G antennas to be put up inside our neighborhoods. So, it’s best to educate yourself and your town administrators on the risks of wireless.

JP: When you gave your presentation, you had an Acoustimeter with you. Could you briefly explain what these are, and how they are useful?

CD: The Acoustimeter is a wireless radiation detection device that shows with green/yellow/red light indicators what your levels of exposure are. I use it to ensure my home is as safe as I can make it, and to teach others with.

JP: I have to admit, I had long resisted buying an Acoustimeter, partly because of the expense, and partly from resistance to having to learn how to use another tech device. But after your talk, I did purchase one. They can be on the expensive side—please tell us what Ashland has done to make these freely accessible.

CD: It took me three tries, but eventually, after I educated our Selectmen and our Library Trustees on wireless risks, I was awarded a $400 grant by our town to put an Acoustimeter on loan in our public library for our residents to borrow.

Our local cable station, WACA-TV, was kind to help me do a public service video to teach people how to use it to identify common exposures in our homes and suggestions for remediation.

JP: That is such a great idea. And what is the Ashland public school system doing to help safeguard its students?

CD: When our schools learned about the fine print warnings that come with each device and tell us not to use them on our bodies, we became the first in the nation to begin taking precautions.

We have a sign hanging in our classrooms with guidance to turn off the wi-fi when not in use, to turn off the devices when not in use, and to never use a device on one’s body. Our administrators are waiting for higher authorities, however, to tell them to turn off the wi-fi and choose hard-wired connections instead.

JP: It’s my understanding that the Massachusetts State Legislature now has as many as nine bills concerning wireless safety under consideration, and that you’ve played a role in generating some of them. Please tell us about some of these bills, and how they came about, because I think it would be an inspiration to some of my readers.

CD: When I realized our schools were not actually turning off the wireless and that the children are still exposed, I met with my State Senator Karen Spilka. I educated her and measured her cell phone and her district director’s laptop. Both devices went off the charts with radiation exposure.

Senator Spilka introduced a bill on my behalf to form a commission to get the right bright minds together at the state level to address wireless radiation and public health. Others around the state have done the same and we have bills to give people a choice for safer utility meters, provide safe technology in schools, raise the fine print and give the public the right to know wireless is hazardous at the point of sale, label wireless products with warnings, train our medical community, and protect the public from high voltage power lines (another form of toxic man-made radiation). Your readers can see the bills here, and perhaps share them with their own legislators to emulate.

Residents are working with their legislators on proactive bills in Michigan, Maryland and New Hampshire too, so others should be encouraged to follow suit.

JP: Cece, I’d like to mention a recent victory we had over a wireless threat in my own hometown, something you and I both contributed something to. It’s an example of how local action and networking can succeed.

As I mentioned at the top, our local paper had reported Verizon was planning to build seven new wireless transmitters in our neighborhoods. This seemed to be moving us in the direction of 5G. One was slated to go up just a couple of blocks from my home, right by a preschool. I wrote a letter opposing it to the newspaper and to the town selectmen. Then an “awake” person in Burlington, who had read my letter, alerted me that you would be speaking at the town library on the hazards of microwave radiation. I attended, and so did one of the town selectmen.

On the following Monday, the selectmen met to decide on the proposal; Verizon had their attorney there. The selectmen announced they had just received what amounted to an ultimatum from the FCC, basically ordering them to accept the transmitters.

I think at this point I should make reference to the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which states:

 “No State or local government or instrumentality thereof may regulate the placement, construction, and modification of personal wireless service facilities on the basis of the environmental effects of radio frequency emissions to the extent that such facilities comply with the Commission’s regulations concerning such emissions.”

Cece, the telecommunications industry is using this law as a gun to the head of local governments, forcing them to accept wireless installations regardless of any safety concerns, just so long as the installations conform to the standards of 1996. That was back when cell phones were “2G.” But as we know, wireless technology has vastly evolved since 1996, and thousands of new studies have documented the harm being done by wireless. Clearly, the safety standards of 1996 are an outdated dinosaur. Would you comment?

CD: I agree. In 2012 the U.S. Government Accountability Office instructed the FCC to “formally reassess the current RF energy exposure limit, including its effects on human health.” Although hundreds of expert testimonies were submitted, the FCC has failed to respond.

We need to be calling and/or writing to our federal legislators to let them know that is not okay, and remind them it is their duty to protect public health over corporate profits.

Connecticut’s Senator Blumenthal recently asked the FCC to substantiate their claim that 5G is safe, and we should encourage each of our legislators to do the same: provide the studies they say indicate wireless radiation is safe.

JP: Getting back to what happened in my hometown, Verizon’s attorney spoke. Then the public was heard. The only citizens at the meeting who spoke against the proposal were myself and this one other “awake” person. After we commented, we shook our heads and looked down, as we were sure we had no chance against Verizon.

However, the selectmen informed the attorney that they would comply and accept the transmitters provided Verizon met certain conditions, such as annual recertification of the devices. The Verizon attorney then said he had no choice but to withdraw the proposal. Apparently he didn’t want a precedent set where Verizon could be regulated by a town.

Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point Verizon returns with the proposal, perhaps armed with some ruling that the town’s actions were illegal—but in the meantime we were rejoicing; we literally hugged the selectman who stymied Verizon. I think the selectman who attended your talk had gotten the word out. I hope I haven’t misrepresented anything, so I’m going to link to a local article about the meeting.

CD: That is a great example of how civic involvement is important. I suspect the Selectmen had already drafted their small cell policy before I spoke at the library since they had been meeting on this for the better part of a year, but perhaps they also benefited by learning from my talk what the biological risks are.

JP: Well, in any event, I think the make-break point here was that our local officials had become educated about wireless hazards. You found this to be vital in your own dealings with the Massachusetts legislature, did you not?

CD: I did. The industry has been so effective at promoting the benefits of technology and suppressing evidence of harm, that it is not reasonable to expect that anyone would know there are serious risks. So, it takes education to bring them up to speed before we can expect them to take action to protect their constituents.

When the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure learned about this issue, they assigned a research analyst to investigate. After reading the published science showing biological effects, they wrote their own bill in April to address wireless radiation.

JP: Looking at this more globally, I learned from your presentation that the European Parliament is taking these issues very seriously.

CD: Yes, the film Generation Zapped indicates this too. Several countries are way ahead of us on this issue. France has a national law banning wireless around small children, and in the upper grades, the default is that wireless is turned off except when needed. Cell phones are banned from schools.

The Mediterranean country of Cyprus has issued an EMF Declaration with a 16-point fact sheet to educate and protect the public.

JP: And you also mentioned that India has reduced the limits on EMFs astronomically below the levels allowable in the U.S.

CD: Yes, their limits used to be where ours still are in the U.S., and they have set new limits with a 90% reduction.

JP: Would you say that American citizens should be urging their representatives in Congress to revise the 1996 Telecommunications Act, so that it conforms to current scientific safety research?

CD: Definitely. There is a government website that makes it easy to contact your elected officials at all levels: local, state and federal. A simple phone call by many can make a difference as the offices log in how many calls they are getting on different issues and respond accordingly.

JP: Another encouraging thing I learned from your talk is that in 2018 the United States Conference of Mayors issued a statement strongly opposing the FCC’s allowing the telecommunications industry to intrude on the rights of local government.

CD: That’s true. The FCC and industry are trying to take away local home rule rights from our towns so they can force in toxic infrastructure for 5G. They are also looking to low-ball our towns with a cap on how much a municipality can charge the industry for rental space to put up the antennas. As municipalities catch on, they are fighting back as the Conference of Mayors did.

JP: Earlier you mentioned a Harvard study called “Captured Agency” that documented how the FCC is dominated by the telecommunications industry. As a medical professional, it reminds me of the CDC and FDA, some of whose top personnel have had “revolving door” relationships with Big Pharma corporations.

CD: Unfortunately, that is true. The Environmental Health Trust has documentation that shows the CDC and FDA have acted in less than honorable fashion with wireless radiation too.

JP: Before we wrap up, Cece, any last thoughts?

CD: We are fortunate to have quick ways today to come up to speed on this issue. Folks can now purchase Generation Zapped on-line, and the non-profit Wireless Education has half-hour on-line training courses that quickly distill the science, risks, what other countries are doing, and medically recommended best practices for safe technology use.

There is a Schools & Families Course, as well as a Corporate Induction Safety Course. Each provides a handy tip sheet at the end, and are ready to train entire schools and workforces for a small licensing fee to help cover overhead expenses.

I recommend folks get educated, then educate loved ones and colleagues before going to public servants for policy changes. If you go it alone, you may be easily dismissed. A group of well-informed citizens, however, can help bring important change.

JP: How can people best get in touch with you?

CD: Via email at [email protected].

JP: Cece, I want to thank you for a very informative interview, and for the time you generously gave me. It’s been a delight to speak with you.

CD: You’re very welcome, Jim; thank you for learning about the risks of wireless radiation and encouraging others to do the same. I realize this issue will be new to many of your readers, but I hope they won’t take too long before investigating and taking action. We are all at risk of serious harm from wireless radiation and the sooner we use our voices for change, the safer our world will be for our children and theirs.

Here is Cece Doucette’s October 2018 talk at the Burlington, Massachusetts Public Library, where I first made her acquaintance. It was recorded by BCAT, the local public television station. The talk was followed by an informative Q & A session, which was unfortunately not recorded:

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This was originally published on James Perloff.

According to various news reports, the validity of which is always questionable, US President Donald Trump has ordered the withdrawal of all US troops from the portion of Syria illegally occupied by US troops.

This report is surprising as only a few days ago the US Department of Defense declared that any Syrian, Russian, or Iranian action against ISIS in the part of Syria occupied by US troops was “unacceptable.” See this.

In other words, the Pentagon declared that the part of Syria still in ISIS’s hands was under US protection and was not to be attacked by Syria and its allies.

The question before us: Is Trump’s reported order of withdrawal going to happen?

It is too soon to say. As I write no support for Trump’s withdrawal order has been reported in the media. Even the official statement by the White House’s own spokesperson, Sarah Sanders, is unclear:

“We have started returning United States troops home as we transition to the next phase of this campaign.” See this.

In other words, the campaign against Syria is not over, but “the next phase” apparently doesn’t need US troops. What is the next phase? Until we know the answer, we do not know whether Washington’s campaign against Assad is over.

Perhaps a decision has been made to bypass Syria for now and to knock out Iran before the Russians can intervene there.

The presstitutes, at home and abroad, who serve Israel and the Military/Security Complex and never the Truth, are opposed to ending the campaign against Syria.

The Guardian, once a legitimate working class newspaper, but now to all appearances a CIA asset, writes that Trump’s “walking away now is a remarkable gift for ISIS.”

Bloomberg, continuing its campaign against Trump, reported that Trump’s withdrawal order “left Washington’s Kurdish allies in the lunch,” subject to Turkey’s disposal. Even worse, according to Bloomberg, Trump’s withdrawal “leaves Syria’s future in the hands of Moscow and Tehran, allies of President Bashar al-Assad whose intervention in the conflict averted his potential defeat.”

Warmonger US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a total disgrace to the electorate who put and keeps this fool in office, quickly demurred from Trump’s sensible decision. War forever is Graham’s policy. It proves he is a tough guy who stands up for America.

Mark Dubowitz, chief exercutive officer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (an extinct political species in the West), who “has closely advised the Trump administration,” said that “pulling U.S. troops out of Syria would be a gift to Putin and to the mullahs in Tehran. And it would be a disastrous gift for the region.” See this.

Brett McGurk, Trump’s special envoy to the fake “global coalition to defeat ISIS,” an organization created and financed to create deceptive cover for the support of ISIS, disavowed Trump’s reported decision:

“Enduring defeat of a group like this means you can’t just defeat their physical space and then leave.”

Israel, which has reduced the President of the United States to a two-bit Israeli puppet, as it intends to do also to President Putin of Russia, is unlikely to permit Trump to withdraw US troops from Syria.

Why? The answer is that Syria and Iran, which is also on the Trump/Israeli hit list, support the only army in Lebanon worthy of the name—the Hezbollah militia that prevents Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanan.

Israel’s goal of occupying southern Lebanon is part of the Zionist plan for Greater Israel—from the Nile to the Euphrates. There is also the issue of the water resources in southern Lebanan, which Israel covets. If Syria and Iran can be reduced to the chaos, death, and destruction that Israel has caused in the Middle East through their neoconservative agents in Washington, Hezbollah would be left without any financial and military support, enabling Israel to seize southern Lebanon.

Many in the Western world have never heard of Israel’s interest in Lebanon. With the extraordinary control that the elite have established over communications and explanations, people are unaware that the American assault on the Middle East began with the neoconservatives’ published agenda of overthrowing the Middle East including Saudi Arabia, whose leadership saw the writing on the wall and went over to the Israeli side. The neoconservative agenda, as General Wesley Clark made clear, was handed to the Pentagon and became official US policy. 

Israel operating through their neoconservative agents successfully used the United States to destroy Iraq, Libya, Somalia, almost Syria until the Russians intervened, and to demonize Iran and set Iran up for attack. The cost to the US taxpayers runs in the trillions of dollars. Americans also paid the costs in the deaths and maiming of relatives and loved ones, and in the sullied reputation of their country, now widely regarded as a war criminal government.

Despite these massive blows Israel has delivered against the United States, blows unmatched by those of any enemy, Israel has gone on to compromise the independence of 26 US state governments, with another 13 up for grabs. See this.

How do we explain the capture of the mighty United States by a tiny numerically insignificant people who are isolated in the world?

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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.

Featured image is from International News

The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) makes the point in their most recent report that trade deals outside of the EU are unlikely to make Brexit worth it on economic terms. Trade agreements with countries from the U.S. to China would only mitigate Brexit’s impact on U.K. GDP by 0.2 percentage points.

However, the trade deal that the Brexiteers want is achieved through a hard Brexit. This means predominantly doing a deal with America. From the statistics we do have, there’s no point in signing a trade deal with Donald Trump’s finger lickin chlorine soaked chick’n arrangement. Britain exports £100 billion to the USA annually. We import about £60 billion from the USA. Donald Trump will demand a halt to the USA/UK trade deficit of £40 billion (as he has with other trading partners) and whatever deal is done, it has no way to fill the void left by the reduction of GDP with the current Brexit plan, let alone a hard Brexit.

The scenarios being published as we get closer to the 29th March are starting to point in one direction and one direction only – to a recession. The depth of that recession will be a point of discussion over the coming years. And as our article says in “The real cost of Brexit” the numbers look absolutely horrific – worse than expected on all fronts.

The NIESR report makes no statistical reference to what might happen under a scenario that sees Britain crashing out the EU without a deal, which the Bank of England said could be as bad as a 7.7 per cent hit to GDP. To put that in context, assuming this fall in economic activity as predicted by the BoE, Britain would face the pound dropping by about 25 per cent – forcing a spike in inflation, property prices would plunge probably by about the same and unemployment would rise to 7.5 per cent or thereabouts.

In recent days, four very specific reports evaluating the long-term economic impact of Brexit have been published. The interesting point to note here is that they all agree on two key points, that

A) Theresa May’s deal will definitely hurt the economy over the next decade or longer, and

B) exiting with no deal would be significantly worse.

To make matters worse, the U.K. government’s own study, also published last week, found that GDP would be as much as 10.7 per cent lower in 15 years in the worst-case scenario. But that would still be in excess of 7 per cent over 10 years, which falls in line with the other reports including the BoE.

From parliament.uk comes a report dated 11th December from the Treasury Committee that clearly states the government is at best concealing the truth about the outcomes of Brexit by simply not modelling the obvious.

Commenting on the Report, Nicky Morgan MP, Chair of the Treasury Committee, said:

“Despite differing views on Brexit between members of the Treasury Committee, our report on the economic analysis of the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration has been agreed unanimously.

“The aim of this report is not to recommend how MPs should vote, but to ensure that MPs are as informed as possible when it comes to choosing a division lobby.

“Yet the Government has made this difficult to achieve. The Committee is disappointed that the Government has modelled its White Paper, which represents the most optimistic reading of the Political Declaration, rather than a more realistic scenario.

“The Committee is also disappointed that the Treasury has not analysed the backstop and fails to include short-term analysis of any of the scenarios, including impacts on public finances and on regional and sectoral job losses or gains.

In other words, the government are not providing statistics based on realistic outcomes, only those that make the government argument for Theresa May’s Brexit look more optimistic. There are no estimates provided for a disorderly or unmanaged no-deal scenario.

In the meantime, Bloomberg reports that British hopes for a sweeping post-Brexit trade deal with the U.S. are nothing more than a pipe dream, a senior U.K. official said, dismissing a key argument put forward by supporters for leaving the European Union. If this is the case, Liam Fox who said signing these deals would the easiest thing in the world is also hiding the truth.

“Even Prime Minister Theresa May’s closest allies realize any agreement with Donald Trump’s administration will be lopsided and prioritize the interests of the world’s biggest economy, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because a U.S. trade accord remains a top government priority.”

Bloomberg reported last October that the U.S. is threatening to block Britain from joining a 46-nation public procurement agreement when it leaves the EU in March, a move that would deny British companies access to a near $2 trillion marketplace in order to force Britain into a deal it does not want.

The idea that a protectionist Trump administration would offer the U.K. anything other than unfavourable terms is completely unrealistic, the senior British official said. The government would be forced into accepting U.S. demands on agriculture, completely open up the NHS and other markets such as chemicals, cosmetics and the like.

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Featured image is from TP

While the White House has still provided no comprehensive details on the real form of the so-called US troops withdrawal from Syria, the move has already had impact on the development of the conflict.

Early on December 20, Turkish media released several reports several reports and a video claiming that about 150 US trucks with weapons and equipment had been moved from Syria to Iraq late on December 19.

Reports in the mainstream media citing various sources suggest that the US-led coalition is also going to evacuate its base in the area of al-Tanf and to halt an aerial campaign in the country. If these reports are confirmed, militant groups operating in the area could find themselves abandoned in face of superior forces of the Damascus government.

According to pro-government sources, the Syrian Arab Army and Iranian-backed militias are currently deploying reinforcements to eastern Syria. Earlier reports appeared that the Russian military had set up several positions near the al-Tanf zone.

The so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which are now the main US proxy in northeastern Syria, condemned Trump’s decision to reduce the US military involvement in an official statement. The statement claimed that the decision would have “dangerous consequences” to international security and that it is “disappointing the hopes of the peoples of the region for security and stability.”

The SDF still hopes that if the US withdraws, France and the UK, two other countries that have special forces deployed in the war-torn country, would help it to keep the seized territories under control. However, its representatives have already initiated negotiations with Damascus.

According to the existing data, one of the suggestions is that the SDF would transfer control over oil and gas fields on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River to the Damascus government. In response, the Syrian Arab Army would have to set up a network of checkpoints on the border between Turkey and the SDF-held part of Syria.

Meanwhile, the security situation continues to remain complicated in the Idlib demilitarization zone where members of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and other militant groups have carried out several attacks on SAA positions.

If the situation, by some reason, escalates in eastern Syria, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its allies will likely use it to increase military pressure on the SAA in northern Hama and northern Latakia.

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Did Mattis quit or was he pushed? He once said he wouldn’t resign as war secretary. He’d have to be sacked.

According to major media reports, he clashed with Trump over his announced pullout of US forces from Syria and Afghanistan.

On Thursday, the NYT, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and other US media reported that President Trump ordered around half of the 14,000 US forces in Afghanistan to return home in the coming weeks – on top of his announced pullout of US forces from Syria.

Whether what’s coming sticks to what he announced remains very much in question. More on this below.

In his “resignation” letter, Mattis said

“(b)ecause (Trump has) the right to have a secretary of (war) whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position.”

“The end date for my tenure is February 28, 2019, a date that should allow sufficient time for a successor to be nominated and confirmed…”

Mattis turned truth on its head claiming “the US remains the indispensable nation in the free world…”

Freedom, other democratic values, and rule of law principles are rejected by bipartisan US hardliners. Comprising a dominant majority of America’s ruling class, their goal is achieving and maintaining control over all other nations, premeditated war their favorite strategy.

Mattis lied pretending Pentagon forces are used “for the common defense.” Washington’s only enemies are invented ones. No real existed since WW II ended.

Yet endless US wars rage, notably post-the 9/11 mother of all false flags, a pretext for maintaining a permanent war footing at home and abroad.

Police state laws target ordinary Americans, increasingly enforcing totalitarian rule. Invented enemies unjustifiably justify smashing one nation after another, wanting all sovereign independent governments eliminated, risking nuclear war with Russia, China, and/or Iran.

Ruling authorities in NATO member states oppose what democratic governance is supposed to be all about, what’s true about the US most of all. Mattis lied pretending otherwise.

He lied claiming Washington aims to defeat ISIS – the scourge it created and supports, along with al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, and other terrorist groups in the Middle East and elsewhere.

They’re used as proxy US forces, supported by Pentagon-led terror-bombing, massacring civilians most of all, along with destroying vital infrastructure – what Mattis directed as US war secretary.

His predecessors operated the same way. So will his successor. Peacemakers aren’t considered for the job. Advancing America’s imperium prioritizes waging endless wars of aggression.

All political and military officials involved in US warmaking are unindicted war criminals, including congressional members for authorizing naked aggression funding – most of all US presidents as commander-in-chief of the nation’s armed forces.

Mattis lied claiming “China and Russia…want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model (sic) — gaining veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic, and security decisions — to promote their own interests at the expense of their neighbors, America and our allies.”

All of the above claims apply to the USA most of all, along with its key NATO allies and partnered countries, including Israel, the Saudis, Egypt, Japan, South Korea, and many others.

The “common defense” Mattis referred to involves endless wars of aggression against one sovereign independent nation after another, what he signed on to as war secretary, the way he operated when heading field commands – the highest of high crimes gone unpunished.

Advancing America’s imperium through endless wars of aggression and other hostile actions won’t change under his successor.

Nor will Trump’s announced troop pullouts from Syria and Afghanistan change a thing. French European Affairs Minister Nathalie Loiseau said “we are staying in Syria” to fight ISIS, the Macron regime supports along with Washington, Britain, Israel, the Saudis, Turkey, and other key US imperial partners.

French Defense Minister Florence Parly tweeted:

“ISIS has been weakened more than ever, but it has not been wiped from the map nor has its roots. It is necessary that the last pockets of this terrorist organization be definitively defeated militarily,” – a pretext for continuing endless war in Syria for regime change, using ISIS jihadists, not combatting them.

Will troops from France and perhaps other US allies replace Pentagon forces in Syria and Afghanistan, leaving the status quo in both countries unchanged?

Will Trump about-face on his announced pullouts from both countries? Time and again, he says one thing and does another.

Jack Kennedy’s announced pullout of US forces from Vietnam by end of 1965 led to his state-sponsored assassination.

Will a sinister plot be hatched against Trump if he follows through on withdrawing all Pentagon forces from Syria, Afghanistan, and perhaps other US war theaters?

Reportedly he wants aerial operations in Syria ended along with withdrawing US forces on the ground from northern and southern parts of the country.

According to USCENTCOM (the command Mattis earlier headed),

“(a)s long as there are US troops (in Syria), we will conduct air and artillery strikes in support of our forces. We will not speculate on future operations.”

Separately, so-called Syrian Democratic Forces, largely comprised of Kurdish YPG fighters, may relinquish control of northern parts of the country they hold in return for military help from Damascus against a Turkish offensive on their positions.

Assad officials have yet to comment on this issue. On Thursday, Syrian UN envoy Bashar al-Jaafari dismissed Trump’s pullout announcement unless and until “we…see if this decision is genuine or not.”

Despite earlier announced US troop pullouts, Pentagon forces remain in all countries Washington attacked post-9/11.

If past is prologue, expect no change in Washington’s imperial agenda ahead, including where US forces are deployed.

At most, perhaps a change in tactics alone may follow Trump’s announcements – in pursuit of longstanding objectives for unchallenged global dominance.

A Final Comment

At his annual marathon Q&A session on Thursday, Putin responded to a question on whether Russia aims to achieve control over other countries, saying:

“When it comes to ruling the world, we know very well where those who are trying to do exactly that have their headquarters,” adding “it’s not in Moscow.”

There’s no ambiguity about Washington’s aim, what Putin clearly meant, what everyone everywhere paying attention understands.

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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.