Global Research

“Um perigo, os mísseis russos” lança o alarme, o Secretário Geral da NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, numa entrevista ao ‘Corriere della Sera’, editado por Maurizio Caprara, três dias antes do “incidente” do Mar de Azov, que lança gasolina sobre a tensão, já incandescente, com a Rússia. “Não há mísseis novos na Europa. Mas mísseis russos, sim”, antecipa Stoltenberg, silenciando dois factos.

Primeiro: A partir de Março de 2020, o Estados Unidos vão começar a instalar em Itália, na Alemanha, Bélgica e Holanda (onde já estão instaladas bombas nucleares B-61), e provavelmente noutros países europeus, a primeira bomba nuclear com orientação de precisão do seu arsenal, a B61-12, principalmente, para utilizá-la contra a Rússia. A nova bomba está dotada de  capacidade penetrante para explodir no subsolo, de modo a destruir os bunkers do centro de comando, num primeiro ataque. Como reagiriam os Estados Unidos se a Rússia instalasse bombas nucleares no México, perto do seu território? Visto que a Itália e outros países, violando o Tratado de Não-Proliferação, colocam à disposição dos EUA, quer as bases, quer os pilotos e os aviões para o acolhimento de armas nucleares, a Europa estará exposta a um maior risco por estar na primeira linha do confronto crescente com Rússia.

Segundo: Em 2016, foi instalado na Roménia um novo sistema de mísseis dos EUA e está em construção, na Polónia, um sistema análogo. O mesmo sistema de mísseis está instalado em quatro navios de guerra que, colocados pela U.S. Navy na base espanhola de Rota, cruzam o Mar Negro e o Mar Báltico, perto do território russo. Quer as instalações terrestres, quer os navios, estão equipados com lançadores verticais MK 41, da Lockheed Martin, os quais – especifica essa mesma empresa construtora – podem lançar “mísseis para cada tarefa: sejam SM-3 contra mísseis balísticos, sejam Tomahawk de longo alcance, para o ataque a alvos terrestres”. Estes últimos, também podem ser armados com ogivas nucleares. Não podendo verificar quais os mísseis que, realmente, estão nos lançadores próximos do território russo, Moscovo considera que sejam mesmo mísseis de ataque nuclear, violando o Tratado INF,  que proíbe a instalação de mísseis de alcance intermédio e de curto alcance, com base no solo.

Stoltenberg acusa a Rússia de violar Tratado INF, lançando o aviso: “Não podemos aceitar que os tratados sejam violados impunemente”. Em 2014, sem apresentar qualquer prova, a Administração Obama acusou a Rússia de ter experimentado um míssil de cruzeiro (SSC-8) da categoria proibida pelo Tratado, anunciando que “os Estados Unidos estão a considerar a instalação, na Europa, de mísseis terrestres”, ou seja, o abandono do Tratado INF. O plano, apoiado pelos aliados europeus da NATO foi confirmado pela Administração Trump: no ano fiscal de 2018, o Congresso autorizou o financiamento de um programa de pesquisa e desenvolvimento de um míssil de cruzeiro lançado do solo, a partir de uma plataforma com mobilidade em estradas. Mísseis nucleares tipo euromísseis, distribuídos pelos USA, na Europa, na década de Oitenta e eliminados pelo Tratado INF, são capazes de atacar a Rússia, enquanto mísseis nucleares semelhantes, instalados  na Rússia, podem atingir a Europa, mas não os Estados Unidos. O mesmo Stoltenberg, referindo-se aos SSC-8 que a Rússia teria instalado no seu território, declara que eles são “capazes de alcançar a maior parte da Europa, mas não os Estados Unidos”. Assim, os Estados Unidos “defendem” a Europa.

Finalmente, a declaração grotesca de Stoltenberg que, ao atribuir à Rússia a “ideia muito perigosa de conflito nuclear limitado”, adverte: “Todas as armas nucleares são arriscadas, mas aquelas que podem diminuir o limiar para a sua utilização são-no particularmente.” É exactamente o aviso emitido pelos peritos militares e pelos cientistas dos EUA, sobre as bombas B61-12, que estão para ser introduzidas na Europa: “Armas nucleares de menor potência e mais precisas, aumentam a tentação de usá-las, até mesmo  num primeiro ataque, em vez de usá-las como retaliação ».

Por que é que ‘o Corriere’ não os entrevista?

Manlio Dinucci

il manifesto, 27 de Novembro de 2018

Artigo em italiano :

Le bugie nucleari di Stoltenberg

Tradução : Luisa Vasconcellos

VIDEO (PandoraTV) :

«Un pericolo i missili russi»: lancia l’allarme il segretario generale della NATO Jens Stoltenberg in una intervista al Corriere della Sera, a cura di Maurizio Caprara, tre giorni prima dell’«incidente» del Mar d’Azov che getta benzina sulla già incandescente tensione con la Russia. «Non ci sono nuovi missili in Europa. Però missili russi sì», premette Stoltenberg, tacendo due fatti.

Primo: a partire dal marzo 2020 gli Stati uniti cominceranno a schierare in Italia, Germania, Belgio, Olanda (dove già sono schierate le bombe nucleari B-61), e probabilmente in altri paesi europei, la prima bomba nucleare a guida di precisione del loro arsenale, la B61-12, in funzione principalmente anti-Russia.  La nuova bomba è dotata di capacità penetrante per esplodere sottoterra, così da distruggere i bunker dei centri di comando in un first strike. Come reagirebbero gli Stati uniti se la Russia schierasse bombe nucleari in Messico, a ridosso del loro territorio? Poiché l’Italia e gli altri paesi, violando il Trattato di non-proliferazione, mettono a disposizione degli Usa sia basi sia piloti e aerei per lo schieramento di armi nucleari, l’Europa sarà esposta a maggiore rischio quale prima linea del crescente confronto con la Russia.

Secondo: un nuovo sistema missilistico USA è stato installati nel 2016 in Romania, e uno analogo è in corso di realizzazione in Polonia. Lo stesso sistema missilistico è installato su quattro navi da guerra che, dislocate dalla U.S. Navy nella base spagnola di Rota, incrociano nel Mar Nero e Mar Baltico a ridosso del territorio russo. Sia le installazioni terrestri che le navi sono dotate di lanciatori verticali Mk 41 della Lockheed Martin, i quali – specifica la stessa società costruttrice –  possono lanciare «missili per tutte le missioni: sia SM-3 per la difesa contro i missili balistici, sia Tomahawk a lungo raggio per l‘attacco a obiettivi terrestri», Questi ultimi possono essere armati anche di testata nucleare.  Non potendo verificare quali missili vi siano realmente nei lanciatori avvicinati al territorio russo, Mosca dà per scontato che vi siano anche missili da attacco nucleare, in violazione del Trattato Inf che proibisce l’installazione di missili a gittata intermedia e corta con base a terra.

Stoltenberg accusa invece la Russia di violare il Trattato INF, lanciando l’avvertimento «non possiamo accettare che i trattati siano violati impunemente» Nel 2014, l’amministrazione Obama ha accusato la Russia, senza portare alcuna prova, di aver sperimentato un missile da crociera (SSC-8) della categoria proibita dal Trattato, annunciando che «gli Stati uniti stanno considerando lo spiegamento in Europa di missili con base a terra», ossia l’abbandono del Trattato INF. Il piano, sostenuto dagli alleati europei della NATO è stato confermato dalla amministrazione Trump: nell’anno fiscale 2018 il Congresso ha autorizzato il finanziamento di un programma di ricerca e sviluppo di un missile da crociera lanciato da terra da piattaforma mobile su strada. Missili nucleari tipo gli euromissili, schierati dagli USA in Europa negli anni Ottanta ed eliminati dal Trattato INF, sono in grado di colpire la Russia, mentre analoghi missili nucleari schierati in Russia possono colpire l’Europa ma non gli USA. Lo stesso Stoltenberg, riferendosi agli SSC-8 che la Russia avrebbe schierato sul proprio territorio, dichiara che sono  «in grado di raggiungere gran parte dell’Europa, ma non gli Stati Uniti». Così gli Stati Uniti «difendono» l’Europa.

Grottesca infine l’affermazione di Stoltenberg che, attribuendo alla Russia «l’idea molto pericolosa di conflitti nucleari limitati», avverte: «Tutte le armi atomiche sono rischiose, ma quelle che possono abbassare la soglia per il loro uso lo sono particolarmente». È esattamente l’avvertimento lanciato da esperti militari e scienziati statunitensi a proposito delle B61-12 che stanno per essere schierate in Europa: «Armi nucleari di minore potenza e più precise aumentano la tentazione di usarle, perfino di usarle per primi invece che per rappresaglia».

Perché il Corriere non li intervista?

Manlio Dinucci

 il manifesto, 27 novembre 2018

VIDEO (PandoraTV) :

Have you heard the expression ‘climate change’? That lovely expression that suggests a holiday in a place with a more pleasant climate.

Unfortunately, only the rarest individual has the capacity to see through the elite-promulgated delusion that generated this benign expression and its twin notions that 1.5 degrees celsius (above the preindustrial level) is an acceptable upper limit for an increase in global temperature and that the timeframe for extinction-threatening outcomes of this ‘climate change’ is the ‘end of the century’.

If you believe that this 1.5 degree increase is achievable or even viable for sustaining life on Earth and that the ‘end of the century’ is our timeframe then you are the victim of your own fear, which is suppressing your capacity to seek out, analyze and comprehend the evidence that is readily available and to then behave powerfully in response to it. For an explanation, see ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’.

Therefore, your fear, rather than the climate catastrophe and other critical assaults on Earth’s biosphere, is the real problem.

The most casual perusal of the evidence in relation to what is happening to Earth’s biosphere – as distinct from the propaganda that is endlessly promulgated in the global elite’s corporate media – clearly indicates that the cataclysmic assault on our biosphere in a wide range of synergistic ways is now driving the sixth mass extinction event in Earth’s history and that, as a direct result of our relentless and rampaging destruction of habitat, it will take down humanity with it. Well within 10 years. See ‘Human Extinction by 2026? A Last Ditch Strategy to Fight for Human Survival’.

Now if your fear hasn’t already been triggered so that you ceased reading this article, let me offer the barest outline of the nature and extent of the assault on Earth’s biosphere and why the climate catastrophe is only one part of it which nonetheless needs to be seriously, rather than tokenistically, addressed, as is usually suggested whether by most climate lobby groups or, of course, elite-controlled governments and the IPCC.

But before ranging beyond the climate to highlight other threats to the biosphere, did you know that governments and corporations around the world are currently planning or have under construction 1,380 new coal plants?That’s right. 1,380 new coal plants. In 59 countries. See ‘NGOs Release List of World’s Top Coal Plant Developers’ and ‘2018 Coal Plant Developers List’.

For just a taste of the detail on this rapid coal expansion, try the report ‘Tsunami Warning: Can China’s Central Authorities Stop a Massive Surge in New Coal Plants Caused by Provincial Overpermitting?’ and ‘The World Needs to Quit Coal. Why Is It So Hard?’

So if we are deluding ourselves about coal, what about oil? Can we expect a dramatic reduction in oil use to compensate for the substantial increase in coal use? Well, according to the just-released report of the International Energy Agency (IEA), while there is some projected improvement in fuel economy for cars and a projected increase in the number of electric vehicles, cars only account for about one-quarter of the world’s oil consumption and there is no projected reduction in the oil used to fuel freight trucks, ships and airplanes; for heating; and to make plastics and other petrochemicals. ‘As a result, the agency expects global oil demand to keep rising through 2040.’

To summarize: the IEA report notes that global carbon dioxide emissions rose 1.6% in 2017 and are on track to climb again in 2018 and, on the current trajectory, emissions will keep rising until 2040. See ‘World Energy Outlook 2018’ and ‘Clean Energy Is Surging, but Not Fast Enough to Solve Global Warming’.

So, given that we are led to believe that there is supposed to be some sort of international consensus to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 (which is far too high in any case) above the preindustrial level, why is this happening? Well, in relation to coal: ‘Powerful companies, backed by powerful governments, often in the form of subsidies, are in a rush to grow their markets before it is too late. Banks still profit from it. Big national electricity grids were designed for it.’ See ‘The World Needs to Quit Coal. Why Is It So Hard?’

And just to illustrate what those of us who are genuinely concerned are up against, if you want to read the latest breathtakingly delusional account of the state of the world’s climate which prodigiously underestimates the nature of the climate catastrophe and utterly fails to consider the synergistic impact of other critical environmental destruction, you can do so in the US government’s just-released report ‘Fourth National Climate Assessment Volume II: Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States’ which is summarized here: ‘Fourth National Climate Assessment Volume II: Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States; Report-in-Brief’.

This report is presented in one of the global elite’s primary propaganda outlets as follows: ‘A major scientific report issued by 13 federal agencies on [23 November 2018] presents the starkest warnings to date of the consequences of climate change for the United States, predicting that if significant steps are not taken to rein in global warming, the damage will knock as much as 10 percent off the size of the American economy by century’s end.’ See ‘U.S. Climate Report Warns of Damaged Environment and Shrinking Economy’.

At this point I must confess that despite my substantial knowledge of human psychology and widespread human insanity (and the fear that drives it), certainly afflicting the global elite, sometimes even I am impressed with the level of delusion that elites can propagate and have so many believe. See ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’.

Image below: Goebbels giving a speech in Lustgarten, Berlin, August 1934. This hand gesture was used while delivering a warning or threat. (Source: CC BY-SA 3.0 de)

Still, as Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment under Adolf Hitler once noted:

‘If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.’

What Goebbels didn’t know is that someone must be terrified – as we terrorize our children – so that they can be so victimized by propaganda as adults.

Anyway, apart from our destruction of Earth’s climate by burning coal and oil, not to mention gas, elites use geoengineering to wage war on Earth’s climate, environment and ultimately us. For the latest update on the geoengineering assault on Earth’s biosphere, listen to Dane Wigington’s latest superb ‘Geoengineering Watch Global Alert News, #172’ and read, watch and listen to the vast documentary record available on the Geoengineering Watch website which remind us how climate engineering is annihilating plants, toxifying soils and water, and destroying the ozone layer among many other outcomes. For a video explaining the role of geoengineering in the latest wildfires in California, see ‘Climate Engineering Total Desperation, Engineering Catastrophic Wildfires To Temporarily Cool Earth’.

All of the above is happening despite the existing temperature increase (about one degree) triggering the now-endless succession of deadly wildfires, droughts, cold snaps, floods, heat waves and catastrophic hurricanes (often in parts of the world where the corporate media can ignore them), as well as the out-of-control methane releases into the atmosphere that are occurring. See ‘7,000 underground gas bubbles poised to “explode” in Arctic’ and ‘Release of Arctic Methane “May Be Apocalyptic,” Study Warns’.

Moreover, these methane releases coupled with other ongoing climate impacts such as sea ice melt and permafrost thawing in the Arctic – summarized in ‘Will humans be extinct by 2026?’– which has led to the ‘Arctic’s strongest sea ice break[ing] up for first time on record’ and the dramatic weakening of the Gulf Stream – see ‘Anomalously weak Labrador Sea convection and Atlantic overturning during the past 150 years’, ‘Observed fingerprint of a weakening Atlantic Ocean overturning circulation’ and ‘Gulf Stream current at its weakest in 1,600 years, studies show’– threaten imminent human extinction.

So do you think we are even trying? Or are we tinkering around the edges of this accelerating catastrophe and deluding ourselves that we are doing enough?

But this is far from the end of it. There are other critical threats to Earth’s biosphere that horribly complicate the nature and extent of this catastrophe. What are these threats?

Well, to leave aside a series of threats only marginally less drastic, here are some of the key ones, all of which seriously degrade (or destroy outright) vital components of the interrelated ecosystems (‘the web of life’) that make life on Earth possible.

Rainforests

We are currently destroying the world’s rainforests, mainly by logging them for timber and burning them down to make way for cattle ranches or palm oil plantations. In an extensive academic study, more than 150 joint authors of a report advised that ‘most of the world’s >40,000 tropical tree species now qualify as globally threatened’. See ‘Estimating the global conservation status of more than 15,000 Amazonian tree species’.

Why are more than 40,000 tropical tree species threatened with extinction? Because ‘Upwards of 80,000 acres of rainforest are destroyed across the world each day, taking with them over 130 species of plants, animals and insects.’ See ‘Half of Amazon Tree Species Face Extinction’ and ‘Measuring the Daily Destruction of the World’s Rainforests’. If you missed that, it was 80,000 acres of rainforest destroyed each day.

Oceans

We are destroying the Earth’s oceans by dumping into them everything ranging from excess carbon dioxide and vast amounts of synthetic poisons to plastic and the radioactive contamination from Fukushima. The oceans absorb carbon dioxide as one manifestation of the climate catastrophe and, among other outcomes, this accelerates ocean acidification, adversely impacting coral reefs and the species that depend on these reefs.

In addition, a vast runoff of agricultural poisons, fossil fuels and other wastes is discharged into the ocean, adversely impacting life at all ocean depths – see ‘Staggering level of toxic chemicals found in creatures at the bottom of the sea, scientists say’– and generating ocean ‘dead zones’: regions that have too little oxygen to support marine organisms. See ‘Our Planet Is Exploding With Marine “Dead Zones”’.

Since the Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster in 2011, and despite the ongoing official coverup, vast quantities of radioactive materials are being ongoingly discharged into the Pacific Ocean, irradiating everything in its path. See ‘Fukushima: A Nuclear War without a War: The Unspoken Crisis of Worldwide Nuclear Radiation’.

Finally, you may not be aware that there are up to 70 ‘still functional’ nuclear weapons as well as nine nuclear reactors lying on the ocean floor as a result of accidents involving nuclear warships and submarines. See ‘Naval Nuclear Accidents: The Secret Story’ and ‘A Nuclear Needle in a Haystack: The Cold War’s Missing Atom Bombs’.

Soil

But not all of our destruction is as visible as our vanishing rainforests and contaminated oceans. Have you considered the Earth’s soil recently? Apart from depleting it, for example, by washing it away (sometimes in dramatic mudslides but usually unobtrusively) because we have logged the rainforest that held it in place, we also dump vast quantities of both inorganic and organic pollutants into it as well. Some of the main toxic substances in waste are inorganic constituents such as heavy metals, including cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, nickel and zinc. Mining and smelting activities and the spreading of metal-laden sewage sludge are the two main culprits responsible for the pollution of soils with heavy metals. See ‘Soil-net’.

Far more common, however, is our destruction of the soil with organic based pollutants associated with industrial chemicals. Thousands of synthetic chemicals reach the soil by direct or indirect means, often in the form of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and other poisons that destroy the soil, by reducing the nutrients and killing the microbes, in which we grow our food (which many people actually eat, at great cost to their health). See, for example, ‘Glyphosate effects on soil rhizosphere-associated bacterial communities’.

Using genetically modified organisms, and the chemical poisons on which they rely, exacerbate this problem terribly. But two other outcomes of the use of such poisons are that the depleted soil can no longer sequester carbon and the poisons also kill many of the beneficial insects, such as bees, that play a part in plant pollination and growth.

And, of course, military contamination and destruction of soil is prodigious ranging from the radioactive contamination of vast areas to the extensive and multifaceted chemical contamination that occurs at military bases.

Partly related to military violence but also a product of using nuclear power, humans generate vast amounts of waste from exploitation of the nuclear fuel cycle. This ranges from the pollution generated by mining uranium to the radioactive waste generated by producing nuclear power or firing a nuclear weapon. But it also includes the nuclear waste generated by accidents such as that at Chernobyl and Fukushima.

Again, for just a taste of the monumental nature of this problem, see ‘Emergency Declared at Nuclear Waste Site in Washington State’, ‘Disposing of Nuclear Waste is a Challenge for Humanity’ and ‘Three Years Since the Kitty Litter Disaster at Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’.

Like destroying the rainforests and oceans, destroying the soil is an ongoing investment in future extinctions. And so is our overconsumption and contamination of the Earth’s finite fresh water supply.

Fresh Water

Whether wetland, river, creek, lake or acquifer, Earth’s fresh water is under siege. Given corporate negligence, this includes all of the chemical poisons and heavy metals used in corporate farming and mining operations, as well as, in many cases around the world where rubbish removal is poorly organized, the sewage and all other forms of ‘domestic’ waste discharged from households. Contamination of the world’s creeks, rivers, lakes and wetlands is now so advanced that many are no longer able to fully support marine life. For one summary of the problem, see ‘Pollution in Our Waterways is Harming People and Animals – How Can You Stop This!’

Beyond this, however, Earth’s groundwater supplies (located in many underground aquifers such as the Ogallala Aquifer in the United States) are also being progressively contaminated by gasoline, oil and chemicals from leaking storage tanks; bacteria, viruses and household chemicals from faulty septic systems; hazardous wastes from abandoned and uncontrolled hazardous waste sites (of which there are over 20,000 in the USA alone); leaks from landfill items such as car battery acid, paint and household cleaners; and the pesticides, herbicides and other poisons used on farms and home gardens. See ‘Groundwater contamination’.

Moreover, while notably absent from the list above, these contaminants also include radioactive waste from nuclear tests – see ‘Groundwater drunk by BILLIONS of people may be contaminated by radioactive material spread across the world by nuclear testing in the 1950s’– and the chemical contamination caused by hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in search of shale gas, for which about 750 chemicals and components, some extremely toxic and carcinogenic like lead and benzene, have been used. See ‘Fracking chemicals’.

By the way, if you didn’t know it, our purchase and use of all of those hitech products – cars, computers, mobile phones, televisions… – coupled with our consumption of intensively-farmed animal products, all of which are produced using huge quantities of fresh, clean water, is rapidly depleting and degrading the remaining fresh water on Earth, as well as savagely exploiting the people from whose countries we take the strategic minerals and water necessary for such production. See, for example, ‘500 Years is Long Enough! Human Depravity in the Congo’.

War

In addition to the above (and many other biosphere-destroying activities not mentioned), relying on our ignorance and fearful complicity, elites have a budget of hundreds of billions of dollars annually – see the US budget for war in ‘Costs of Post-9/11 U.S. Wars to 2019: $5.9 Trillion’– to kill huge numbers of our fellow human beings but also to destroy vast areas of Earth’s biosphere through war and other military violence. See, for example, the Toxic Remnants of War Project and the film ‘Scarred Lands & Wounded Lives’.

Unfortunately, too few activists have the awareness and courage to acknowledge the role that war plays in destroying the climate and environment, and include anti-war efforts in their campaigns. Campaigns that will fail dismally, and spectacularly, if the threatened nuclear war should eventuate. See ‘The War to End War 100 Years On: An Evaluation and Reorientation of our Resistance to War’.

Extinction beckons

In summary, our multifaceted, monumental and unrelenting assault on Earth’s biosphere is generating an extinction rate of 200 species (plants, birds, animals, fish, amphibians, insects and reptiles) each daywith another 26,000 species already identified as ‘under threat’ – see ‘Red list research finds 26,000 global species under extinction threat’– with some prominent scholars explaining how even these figures mask a vital component of the rapidly accelerating catastrophe of species extinctions: the demise of local populations of a species. See ‘Biological annihilation via the ongoing sixth mass extinction signaled by vertebrate population losses and declines’.

For further evidence from the vast literature on this subject touching only on impacts in relation to insects and its subsequent impact on birds, see ‘Death and Extinction of the Bees’, ‘Insectageddon: farming is more catastrophic than climate breakdown’ and ‘“Decimated”: Germany’s birds disappear as insect abundance plummets 76%’.

So severe is this assault on the biosphere that recent research warns that the ‘alarming loss of insects will likely take down humanity before global warming hits maximum velocity…. The worldwide loss of insects is simply staggering with some reports of 75% up to 90%, happening much faster than the paleoclimate record rate of the past five major extinction events’. Without insects ‘burrowing, forming new soil, aerating soil, pollinating food crops…’ and providing food for many bird species, the biosphere simply collapses. See ‘Insect Decimation Upstages Global Warming’.

So what can we do?

If you are genuinely powerful, you can stop lobbying governments to tinker with their policies, for example, in the direction of renewable energy (which, alone, cannot solve the multiplicity of ecological crises).

Governments are not the problem. And they simply do as elites direct them in any case. (If you believe that voters decide governments and their policies, and that lobbying them is effective, then your fear is deluding you again.)

The real problem is you and me.We have swallowed one of the ‘big lies’ that Joseph Goebbels talked about: we have believed and acted on the capitalist imperative to endlessly overconsume so that economic growth can rise perpetually in our finite world: a planet that has ecological limits.

But, as I noted above, the big lie only works because our fear makes us believe delusion. Why? Because we were terrorized as children into accepting material goods as substitutes for our capacity to be our unique and powerful Self. See ‘Love Denied: The Psychology of Materialism, Violence and War’.

The monstrous assault on Earth’s biosphere, that goes far beyond the climate catastrophe, is the outcome of each of us consuming more than we need and then fearfully deluding ourselves that it is necessary (or that the harm it caused was too little to matter or justified by some other consideration). Well, you can delude yourself as much as you like but it is still just that: a fearful delusion.

And the point is simply that you can choose differently and powerfully, if you have the courage. For a start, you can forego all air travel. You can travel without owning your own car. You can eat well without consuming meat or fish (and eating biodynamically/organically grown vegetarian/vegan food instead). In essence: If the demand for planet-destroying products is reduced, corporations will not produce them (and destroy the Earth in doing so).This is how the law of supply and demand works under capitalism.

Beyond these simple but vital measures, you can consider many other powerful options, particularly including (accelerated) participation in the fifteen-year strategy outlined in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’ which provides a simple plan for people to systematically reduce their consumption, by at least 80%, involving both energy and resources of every kind – water, household energy, transport fuels, metals, meat, paper and plastic – while dramatically expanding their individual and community self-reliance in 16 areas, so that all environmental concerns are effectively addressed.

The Flame Tree Project was inspired by Mohandas K. Gandhi who identified the environmental crisis decades before it became an issue in the West, and who lived his own life in extraordinary simplicity and self-reliance, symbolized by his daily spinning of khadi. ‘Earth provides enough for every person’s need but not for every person’s greed.’ He also invited us to powerfully follow our conscience, reminding us that ‘Hesitating to act because others do not yet see the way only hinders progress.’

But, critically important though he believed personal action to be, Gandhi was also an extraordinary political strategist and he knew that we needed to do more than transform our own personal lives. We need to provide opportunities that compel others to consider doing the same.

So if your passion is campaigning for change, consider doing it strategically as outlined in Nonviolent Campaign Strategy. For example, see the Nonviolent Strategy Wheel and the list of strategic goals necessary to halt the climate catastrophe and end war. Choose one or a few goals appropriate to your circumstances and conduct a strategically-oriented nonviolent campaign, as explained on the same website, to achieve those goals.

Sound strategy is vital given the insanity driving elite behaviour (such as planning/building 1,380 new coal plants). As mentioned above, see ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’.

If your fear makes it difficult to do things such as those suggested above, consider healing as explained in ‘Putting Feelings First’.

If you want your children to be able to respond powerfully in the face of the biosphere’s progressive collapse, consider making ‘My Promise to Children’.

And if you want to join the worldwide movement to end all violence against humans and the biosphere, you can do so by signing the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’.

The bottom line is this. You can systematically and rapidly reduce your personal consumption and, one way or another, mobilize others or nonviolently compel them to do the same. Or you can let your fear delude you that the ongoing destruction of Earth’s biosphere is somehow unrelated to your personal choices about consumption and the choices of those around you.

Extinction beckons. The choice is yours.

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Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ His email address is [email protected] and his website is here. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

On Thursday 22 November 2018 Open Doors opened its doors! It is proving to be all that we hoped for. It is not simply that the grocery store has almost sold out after just a few days but it has been the enthusiasm and happiness of the people coming to the shop which has brought us the greatest pleasure.

The fact that we supply quality foods at the cheapest price is clearly crucial. Refugees, local Greeks and the few tourists still around all remark on our (low) prices. It hardly needs to be said that for those with little money this is very important.

But it is not just a matter of prices. We stock food from across the Middle East and beyond which is not available on Samos. It is simply wonderful to see so many of our customers delighting in the availability of foods which they have not seen since they left their homes. Whole families come into share this experience and take photographs of themselves by the shelves with their favourite foodstuffs.

Image on the right: Mohamed (left) from Gaza with Sofiane. Our first customer!

We spent some time considering what we should stock but we knew that we would need help from the users of the shop. We now have a long list of things we need to order! One small but important consequence has been  the presence of older refugee women who are rarely seen in the town centre but who clearly feel comfortable and safe in the shop and who relish the opportunity of being listened to as they tell us of the items we must try to stock.

As many customers have told us the shop is a small oasis of normality and unlike any other store on the island. They talk of the atmosphere of the shop; its welcome not the least for their children who are never hassled.

And of course the shop is beautiful; light and cheerful; paintings and photographs on the walls, plants and flowers. It speaks to dignity, to respect, to humanity, all issues which are almost absent in the Camp.

These are very early days. None of us have done anything like this before. We are facing some issues which are completely new to us like how do we cope with the winter storms that affect the ferries from Athens which carry our supplies? Will our pricing structure meet our overheads? Can we navigate all the bureaucracy of the Greek system which crushes so many small businesses? The months preparing for the opening have been well spent and we feel strong.

Finally, the shop needs to be seen in the context of Samos where the numbers in the camp have swelled to around 4,000. Where hundreds of refugees have been compelled to buy their flimsy tents and find a place in the olive trees around the camp. In the last 10 days the autumn rains have arrived. Already a shit hole of squalor the camp has considerably worsened as the rains and colder weather take effect. Nothing has been done yet again to prepare the Camp for the winter. Nothing has been done about the ongoing water and sanitation problems. Nothing has been done to control the rats and vermin. Nothing has been done about improving the quality of the food. Against this horror Open Doors is like a flicker of light – a candle in the wind- which we will nourish with all our effort.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: Samos Chronicles.

All images in this article are from Samos Chronicles

Hardly anyone noticed. The Trump administration quietly changed America’s long-held position on Syria’s strategic Golan Heights while attention was focused on the raucous political carnival in Washington. Though barely noticed, the policy change had enormous importance and will lead the United States into a lot of future Mideast misery.

The Golan Heights is a volcanic plateau that abuts Syria, Israel, Jordan and Lebanon. The plateau rises abruptly from the plain of Galilee, providing dominance of the entire region. To the north, Mt Hermon rises to over 9,000 feet (2,814 meters); the plateau slopes down at its southern extremity.

Golan provides the headwaters of the Jordan River and 15-20% of Israel’s water from its snow-capped north. Israeli artillery atop Golan can hit Damascus and its airport. Electronic intelligence systems on Golan look down onto southern Syria, intercepting all communications and detecting troop movements.

The plateau is quite fascinating. I have walked most of the Israeli-held side, observing dug-in tanks, artillery and small forts surrounded by anti-tank ditches. Burned out wrecks of Syrian tanks and armor litter the countryside. I’ve also walked the Syrian side and explored the wrecked Syrian town of Kuneitra that was leveled by the Israelis in 1967.

Israel seized Golan in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and annexed the plateau in 1981. Almost all of Golan’s Arab population was driven out by the Israelis. The UN and US demanded that Israel return Golan to its rightful owner, Syria. After 1981, Israel moved over 20,000 settlers onto Golan to cement its control of the strategic heights and its water sources.

During the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, Syrian forces came close to pushing Israeli forces off Golan. Both sides suffered heavy casualties. For still unknown reasons, the Syrian armored offensive abruptly halted just as it reached the western edge of the plateau overlooking northern Israel.

My understanding is that Soviet recon satellites saw Israel deploying its nuclear bombs and missiles from their cave shelters. Moscow warned ally Syria that it risked nuclear attack by Israel unless its forces halted their advance so the Syrian offensive stopped on the verge of tactical success. This allowed Israel to concentrate enough reserve armored divisions to successfully counter-attack and drive Syria from the heights.

Since 1973, America’s policy has been to demand Israel relinquish Golan while quietly allowing US tax deductible funds to expand Jewish settlements on the plateau. Israel even reportedly offered to return Golan in exchange for a peace deal with Syria, but the secret terms of the deal were too onerous for Damascus.

The Trump administration abruptly changed US Mideast policy. First, it announced the US Embassy would move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, meaning that it rejected the idea of a Palestinian state with its capital in the old city of Jerusalem. Now, the White House has quietly accepted permanent Israeli control of Golan, though it violates international law and past US policy.

It’s clear that US Mideast policy is firmly under the control of the neocons aligned to Israel’s expansionist far right parties. In fact, it is impossible to see any difference between the policies of Israel’s hard rightwing leader, Benyamin Netanyahu, and President Donald Trump. They are joined at the hip. A coterie of pro-Israel lawyers and property developers from New York City have completely taken control of Mideast policy.

More important, what the change in US Golan policy means is that Trump & Co are giving a green light to further Israeli territorial expansion. Now that Washington, which decries Russia’s much more justified annexation of Crimea, has approved the illegal annexation of Golan, what could be next? Likely further chunks of southern Syria, an invasion of Lebanon and annexation of its water resources.

Saudi Arabia and its little ally, the United Arab Emirates, have already been given a green light by Washington to carve out strongholds in Yemen and along the strategic Red Sea coast. This is the Mideast ‘peace’ settlement that candidate Trump promised; an increasingly close alliance with the Mideast’s most reactionary states, notably the murderous Saudi regime. This bodes ill for the United States.

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On November 25, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Border Service was forced to open fire on and damage Ukrainian warships, which were carrying out hostile actions and advancing in Russian territorial waters in the Black Sea off Crimea.

After the short close-quarter firefight, two Ukrainian ships were taken towed and one ship escorted by Russian forces to the Russian port of Kerch. The Ukrainian side said that 6 service members had been injured in the incident. The Russian side says that 3 Ukrainian servicemen had been slightly injured. They received medical help and there is no threat to their lives.

The data available from both sides, Ukrainian and Russian, demonstrates that the Ukrainian warships intentionally entered Russian territorial waters and were moving more deeply into them. Such a military action with the to be expected loud political coverage is not possible without a direct order from the Ukrainian top military-political leadership.

From the beginning, the Ukrainian side claimed that it informed the Russian side about the planned displacement of its ships into the Sea of Azov through the Kerch Strait. The Russian side says that there has been no request on this issue.

Even if the Ukrainian side had indeed somehow informed the Russians, it still needed to wait for an answer and permission from the Russian authorities. As the further developments showed, the Ukrainian side had received no answer/permission from the Russian side.

The existence or absence of the Ukrainian request to the Russians is irrelevant. The fact is that the Ukrainian warships violated Russian territorial waters threatening navigation in the area and provoking the Russian side.

For more than 5 hours, the Russian side had been avoiding any action to stop and block warships of the de-facto “unfriendly state” in its territorial waters. Only at about 19:00 local time, the FSB Border Service did employ real measures to put an end to the hostile actions of the warships of the de-facto “unfriendly state” in Russian territorial waters.

Summing up the existing data, it can be concluded that:

• When the Ukrainian warships entered Russian territorial waters, there was an attempt to block the advance of the Ukrainian naval group. One of the ships of the FSB Border Service provoked a maritime collision incident with a Ukrainian ship by putting its own hull on the vector of the Ukrainian warship’s advance.
• Within the next few hours, there was a close escort of the Ukrainian ships by the Russian naval group. Apparently, both the groups were inside or near Russian marginal waters.
• In a couple of hours, there was a firefight incident between the Russian and Ukrainian naval groups.
• The Ukrainian Navy recognizes that the incident happened near the borderline of the Russian 12-nautical miles zone.
• The Ukrainian naval group was completely dominated by the Russian naval group.
• There were casualties among Ukrainian service members.
• Warships of the Ukrainian naval group suffered damages.
• The Ukrainian naval group was blocked and then escorted/towed by the Russian naval group to Kerch.

There is no doubt that the leadership of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, particularly Commander-In-Chief Petro Poroshenko, gave the order to stage an action, which could cause casualties among at least military personnel. The command and servicemen of the Ukrainian Navy made every possible effort to fulfil this order.

The Russian side seemed to try to avoid an armed clash and likely attempted to solve this crisis via military-diplomatic channels for at least several hours. However, it failed to do this.

The existing data allows us to conclude that the current Ukrainian political leadership bears most of the responsibility for the November 25 maritime incident.

As to what developments we should expect in the following days, we can expect that.

The Ukrainian government will employ its propaganda and oppressive power to boost the image of Russia as the aggressive foe of Ukraine. This will lead to the escalation of tensions in the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine as well as tensions in the contact zone between Russian and Ukrainian forces in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.

If this fails, this incident could lead to a full discreditation of the current Ukrainian political leadership, particularly President Poroshenko, and his US supervisors.

It is important to note that overnight on November 26 the situation started escalating in eastern Ukraine  where the Ukrainian Armed Forces opened a massive artillery fire on villages and towns controlled by the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) at 21:48 local time.  This could indicate that the Poroshenko regime is intentionally fueling military tensions in the region in order to start a new conflict.

Overnight on November 26, Poroshenko held a meeting with the military cabinet and announced the introduction of martial law. Furthermore, the Ukrainian Armed Forces were brought to “full” combat readiness.

The introduction of martial law allows the delay of the 2019 presidential election in Ukraine, which is currently set to be held on March 31, 2019. According to polls, Poroshenko would be highly likely to lose his presidential post were the election to take place now. The armed conflict and martial law may allow him to change the situation in his favor.

Such a conflict would also allow Ukraine’s “Western partners” to boost their military presence in the country and nearby regions thus further destabilizing the situation.

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The US and China now approach the cliff of a real trade war. Tariffs in the hundreds of billions of dollars have been announced, but not yet implemented except for $50 billion on carefully selected mutual imports designed to have minimal impact on the economies. That is about to change come January 1, 2019. As the date approaches the China-US pending trade war is taking on elements and appearances of a potential new cold war as well; Technology issues–in particular those impacting new generation military technologies–have come to the fore in the US-China trade negotiations (under the cover phrase of ‘intellectual property’). US hardliners in the negotiations (Lighthizer, Navarro, Bolton) are closely allied with the Pentagon, military contractors, and US companies being challenged by China’s rising competence in AI, cybersecurity, and 5G wireless–i.e. the key military technologies of the future.

The upcoming G20 summit in Buenos Aires will include a meeting one on one between Trump and China’s president, Xi. Will they come to an agreement in principal and turn from the pending trade war and another cold war? Or will the meeting result in a general ‘look good’ announcement for the media as they fail to agree, and as the anti-China neocon-Pentagon-military industrial complex in the US prevail and drive the US in 2019 toward a bona fide trade war and Cold War 2.0 between the US and China.

Listen to my last week’s Alternative Visions radio show of November 26, 2018 during which I dedicate the show to discussing the issues. And listen to my upcoming next show where the Buenos Aires G 20 meeting will be the subject.

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Jack Rasmus is author of the forthcoming 2019 book, ‘The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US Policy from Reagan to Trump’, Clarity Press, and the recently published ‘Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes: Monetary Policy and the Coming Depression’, Clarity 2017. He hosts the Alternative Visions radio show on the Progressive Radio Network. His twitter handle is @drjackrasmus and his website, http://kyklosproductions.com. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Russia has seized three Ukrainian military vessels violating its territory near Russia’s newly completed Crimean Bridge. The incident is a clear provocation carried out by Kiev and possibly engineered by Kiev’s Western sponsors – particularly those in Washington and London.

Ukrainian military vessels are in fact permitted to pass from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov provided they notify Russian authorities beforehand. The Sea of Azov – according to a joint agreement signed by Kiev and Moscow in 2003 – is considered internal waters of both Ukraine and Russia.

With the completion of the Crimean Bridge connecting Russian Crimea to the rest of Russian territory across the Strait of Kerch, security measures have understandably increased.

According to Russian state media, Ukrainian military vessels have previously observed agreed upon protocol when transiting the Strait of Kerch with military vessels. For the sake of provocation, they chose not to this time.

TASS would explain in its article titled, “All three Ukrainian Navy vessels that violated Russia’s border detained in Black Sea,” that:

The FSB [Russian Federal Security Service] stressed that Ukraine was aware of the procedure for warships’ passage through Russia’s territorial sea and Kerch-Yenikale Canal. “They have already used that procedure for innocent passage,” it said.  

This incident is just the latest amid growing tensions in the Sea of Azov.

Tensions in the Sea of Azov are not New 

Tensions have been brewing since Ukraine’s NATO-backed regime seized power in 2014. Articles across the Western media and NATO-sponsored conferences predating the most recent clash near the Strait of Kerch have obsessed over shredding past treaties signed by both Kiev and Moscow regarding the use of the Sea of Azov – as well as Ukraine’s militarization of the Sea particularly in regards to reasserting some illusion of control over Russian Crimea.

In August of this year, US State Department’s Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) in an article titled, “Sea Of Troubles: Azov Emerging As ‘Tinderbox’ In Russia-Ukraine Conflict,” would admit that Ukraine was building up a military presence and not only called the 2003 agreement regarding the joint use of the Sea of Azov “controversial,” but also admitted that there have been calls within Ukraine to “rip it up.”

In October of this year, the “New Europe Center – a US government-funded (pages 32 and 33, .pdf) front that claims to “increase support of Ukraine’s European and Euro-Atlantic prospects among opinion leaders and officials of the EU and the NATO” – held an event titled, “Treaty with Russia on Azov: How Should Ukraine Act?“

The New Europe Center would summarize claiming:

Kyiv should comprehensively explore the issue of denunciation of the Agreement between the Russian Federation and the Ukraine on cooperation in the use of the sea of Azov and the strait of Kerch since 2003, but on the whole this agreement does not correspond to Ukrainian interests.

The consensus among US-funded “experts” was that Kiev should denounce the agreement but had no means to follow through in its desire to pressure Russia out of the the Sea of Azov or change the current status quo in any meaningful way upon denouncing the agreement.

It should be remembered that joint use of the Sea of Azov and all the economic and strategic benefits of doing so were enjoyed by Ukraine fully until the coup in 2014. Through a series of self-inflicted wounds the new regime in Kiev has purposefully driven out Russian business interests, crippled itself as an energy transit point from Russia to the rest of Europe, and has now complicated its own access to the Sea of Azov – all simply to spite Russia for Washington’s sake and to no benefit to either Ukraine or even those ruling from Kiev.

The existence of the Crimean Bridge itself – which is indeed limiting the number and size of cargo vessels able to transit to Ukrainian and Russian ports in the Sea of Azov – would not have been necessary had Kiev not elected to play proxy for Washington, London, and Brussels.

Why is Ukraine Declaring Martial Law Only Now? 

Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko has used the incident to propose martial law. The Guardian in an article titled, “Ukraine president proposes martial law after Russia seizes ships,” would claim:

Ukrainian MPs were to vote on Monday on President Petro Poroshenko’s proposal following an emergency war cabinet on Sunday night. Poroshenko said the move was intended for defensive purposes and would not imply a declaration of war.

It is perplexing – however – as to why Poroshenko is proposing martial law within Ukraine now, for an incident that happened out at sea, and especially so considering Poroshenko, others in Kiev, and their Western backers consistently claiming over the years that Ukraine is already hosting a supposed Russian invasion in its eastern most oblasts.

Poroshenko during his 2018 UN General Assembly speech would go as far as calling for a UN peacekeeping mission to restore Ukraine’s territorial integrity from what he explicitly called “Russian aggression,” RFE/RL would report.

Thus – either Poroshenko is lying about Russian aggression – otherwise why wouldn’t Ukraine already have long been under martial law – or Poroshenko’s government has staged this provocation in the Strait of Kerch specifically to declare martial law for his and his Western sponsors’ own self-serving political reasons.

To What End? 

For Poroshenko, martial law means delaying elections he stands to lose in if held on schedule.

For Kiev’s Western sponsors, such an escalation theoretically places pressure on Moscow particularly at a time when US interests in Syria have suffered permanent setbacks due to Russia’s intervention there. It also invites further excuses to level sanctions against Russia, and possibly even opens the door to a greater US-UK-European military presence within Ukrainian territory itself.

NATO’s corporate-financier funded think tank – the Atlantic Council – in a post titled, “Russia-Ukraine Feud Heats Up the Sea of Azov: Echoes of Russia’s War with Georgia?” would prescribe a list of responses it hoped to see in reaction to what was essentially a Ukrainian provocation.

Such responses included selling Ukraine military hardware – much to the excitement of the Atlantic Council’s many defense industry sponsors including Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, the dispatching of US warships to the Sea of Azov – which is recognized by both Ukraine and Russia as “internal waters,” not “international waters,” and a proposed “complete asset freeze on at least on major Russian bank,” until Ukraine is allowed to carry on with its militarization of the Sea of Azov.

Such provocations – however – are already a sign of supreme weakness both on Ukraine’s part and that of Ukraine’s Western sponsors including NATO.

There is also the fact that the current regime occupying Kiev was brought to power not through elections, but through a violent coup organized and underwritten by Washington, Wall Street, London, and Brussels.

Attempts to claim Russia’s reaction to the 2014 coup is in breech of Ukraine’s sovereignty or that the repatriation of Crimea to Russia is a violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity when regime change in Kiev in 2014 itself already eliminated both – has exhausted the credibility the West needs to complete this latest leg of its agenda in Ukraine.

Washington’s international order – predicated on “might makes right” now backfires as Washington finds it is no longer the “mightiest.” However, a reckless, waning hegemon is the most dangerous variety. Ukraine and its Western sponsors lack the diplomatic, economic, and military means to pressure Russia in any sort of measured, incremental manner – leaving only reckless thrusts and thus the possible provocation of a truly catastrophic conflict as an alternative.

For Russia, time is on its side. More than securing its interests and protecting the people of  the Russian Federation and those using the Sea of Azov, including those residing in Russian Crimea – Moscow faces the full-time occupation of parrying Washington’s wild thrusts and preventing aggressive and increasingly deadly geopolitical competition from transforming into catastrophic 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.

All images in this article are from NEO

Seemingly out of nowhere, Ukraine nearly declared war on Russia over the weekend after a confrontation in the Kerch Strait, which straddles Crimea and the Russian mainland, between Ukrainian naval boats and Russian authorities that resulted in Russia seizing three Ukrainian navy vessels and 24 Ukrainian sailors.

Ukraine has accused Russian ships — with no provocation — of ramming a Ukrainian tugboat and opening fire on Ukrainian gunships, injuring six Ukrainian sailors. Russian authorities have justified those acts by claiming that the ships were illegally in Russian waters at the time, did not follow normal protocols for passing the strait, and made “dangerous maneuvers” in close proximity to Russian vessels. Russia has claimed to have evidence that the incident was a “prepared and orchestrated” provocation on the part of the Ukrainian government and also stated that it would make this evidence public in the near future.

As a result of the incident, an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council was announced by the U.S. ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, which took place early Monday and saw Haley slam Russia for its actions in the Kerch Strait. During the meeting, Haley called Russia’s actions “arrogant” and “outrageous” and said that the event makes the normalization of U.S./Russia ties “impossible.”

In contrast, the European Union called for “restraint” on both sides and urged both Ukraine and Russia to take all steps necessary to “de-escalate” the tense situation. Yet, like the U.S., the EU accused Russia of violating Ukraine’s sovereignty through its recent actions in the Kerch Strait.

In response, Ukraine’s government – which has been supported by the West since it came to power in a 2014 coup – has taken extreme measures and has moved to declare martial law in areas of Ukraine bordering Russia, which will take effect on November 28 and is expected to continue through late January.

The declaration of martial law has been criticized, given that Ukrainian elections are expected to take place this coming March. Current Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is widely expected to lose that election, given his failed economic policies and burgeoning corruption scandals, leading his critics to suggest that the declaration of martial law is a thinly disguised attempt to maintain his hold on power.

This is likely part of the motivation given that Poroshenko is lagging in the polls and several mainstream analysts have noted that the pretext for martial law – the alleged ramming of a tugboat – does not warrant the implementation of such a drastic policy. Furthermore, the text of the decree declaring martial law states that the people’s right to “elect or be elected” could be suspended under martial law if it is still in effect at the time of elections.

The push for martial law in Ukraine was preceded by calls by Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council to declare war on Russia. That council is headed by Oleksandr Turchynov, who played a significant role in the 2014 coup and is closely linked to disgraced former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. He has claimed that Russia is “at war” with Ukraine on several occasions since 2014.

Though Ukraine’s declaration of war on Russia has not yet materialized, it still remains a strong possibility. Indeed, Poroshenko – in his televised address stating his approval of martial law nationwide – said that Ukrainian intelligence services provided him information showing that Russia is preparing a major ground attack targeting Ukraine and that martial law was necessary to ensure security. Poroshenko did not make this intel public or elaborate on it in any way other than waving a small stack of papers he claimed contained written proof of the alleged planned “invasion.”

Ukraine unlikely to be freelancing

This is both important and troubling for several reasons. First, it is widely recognized that Ukraine’s military is poorly equipped to fight a major war against Russia. Ukraine’s government would not declare war over the alleged ramming of a tugboat, particularly if it was widely expected to lose. Thus, if and when Ukraine declares war against Russia, it seems certain that it is counting on other countries to come to its aid and join the fight.

In that event, it is almost certain that the U.S. would aid Ukraine in a future war with Russia, given that the U.S. is largely responsible for putting the current Ukrainian government in power and has poured millions of dollars into funding and training the Ukrainian military and even controversial Neo-Nazi militias that compose part of Ukraine’s National Guard. In addition, Ukrainian politicians have stated in the past that they would expect U.S. military support if Ukraine and Russia ever went to war.

NATO’s involvement in such a war seems likely as well, given that NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg recently warned that “Russia has to understand that its actions have consequences.” Though he did not elaborate specifically on what those consequences would be, his comments come amid NATO’s unprecedented military buildup along Russia’s Western border that followed Crimea’s decision to become part of Russia in 2014.

Furthermore, it has been noted for years that the U.S. and NATO have been preparing for a large-scale war with Russia, a fact supported by the U.S.’ current National Defense Strategy. The U.S./Russia proxy conflicts in both Syria and Ukraine have been cited in the past as likely catalysts for such a war.

U.S. moves its proxy war around

That last point makes the timing of this incident and the ensuing tensions between Ukraine and Russia particularly noteworthy. Indeed, past incidents that have seen tensions surge between Ukraine and Russia over Crimea have been preceded by developments that negatively affected the U.S.’ involvement in its other proxy conflict with Russia in Syria.

For instance, as MintPress reported last August, the Trump administration’s decision to stop arming radical Wahhabist militants in Syria was soon followed by the administration’s decision to provide lethal arms to the Ukrainian government — after it became clear that the U.S.’ likelihood of winning its proxy war in Syria by overthrowing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had become very slim.

MintPress noted at the time:

With the curtain closing in Syria, Washington needs a new proxy war. Given that containing Russia is the ultimate goal –as it is with China– what better way to step up the pressure than by sending lethal arms to a rabidly anti-Russian, U.S.-backed government in Kiev that is determined to ethnically cleanse Russians? Ukraine, after all, is right on Russia’s border; and the Crimea region, which Poroshenko is determined to return to his control, is now a part of Russia.”

Now, we are seeing a repeat of those same circumstances. In Syria, the U.S. has failed in its efforts to prevent a Syrian military operation against the Idlib province, which is now undeniably ruled by Syria’s al Qaeda branch, currently operating under the name Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). With HTS having launched a chemical-weapons attack against Syrian civilians in government-controlled Aleppo this past Saturday, any future U.S. call to threaten the Syrian government over military action in Idlib would stand on even shakier ground.

With the Syrian government now preparing to launch a major assault against the terrorist-controlled province, the U.S. is likely desperate for international attention to be focused on another conflict, particularly one it can use to advance its broader geopolitical goal of “containing” Russia.

Conveniently for the U.S., the recent tensions in Ukraine have taken media attention away from the al Qaeda-launched chemical-weapons attack and allowed the U.S. government to avoid commenting on the issue entirely, as Ukrainian concerns have dominated the UN Security Council’s attention. As has been the case in the past, it seems that the U.S.’ botched proxy war in Syria will see Washington seek to revive the proxy war in Ukraine, given that countering Russia is the focus of the U.S. military’s current National Defense Strategy.

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Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News and a contributor to Ben Swann’s Truth in Media. Her work has appeared on Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has also made radio and TV appearances on RT and Sputnik. She currently lives with her family in southern Chile. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from The Moscow Times

In the fall of 2012, 20-year-old Damian Clairmont of Calgary received a new Canadian passport. He received it despite the fact the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) had been monitoring him and knew he intended to fly to Turkey and then go into Syria to join an armed extremist organization, according to information his mother, Christianne Boudreau, was told by CSIS agents.

In sharp contrast, in the spring of 2016, the Canadian government forced Boudreau to surrender her Canadian passport. Unlike her son, who had been indoctrinated then recruited to join a terrorist group, since her son’s death, Boudreau has worked with other parents internationally to create and promote educational programs to counter extremism.

Dr. Daniel Koehler, director of the German Institute on Radicalization and De-Radicalization Studies, described her role:

“Christianne Boudreau was one of the first mothers to speak out publicly against violent radicalization with her own painful personal experience of losing her son Damian. Together with Christianne, I built up a network of affected parents around the world – the Mothers for Life Network, which currently includes about 150 families from 11 countries. It is the only international parental self-help group addressing the needs of those parents. I also trained Christianne to be a family counsellor to help other parents of children undergoing violent radicalization.”

Mothers for Life works with the important goal of countering extremist ideology and violence that has exploded in the West as well as the Middle East. It uses human connections and sharing among families who have experienced radicalization, not just lectures and lofty seminars.

Boudreau has travelled and spoken at many places across Canada and internationally. She says the problem is not Islam or religion. A writer who covered Boudreau’s visit to the Islamic Institute of Toronto in an article titled “Christianne Boudreau’s visit to Toronto left us inspired,” reported: Chris was asked, “Do you blame Islam and Muslims for the death of your son? Everyone held their breath. I couldn’t look her in the eyes. ‘No, I don’t blame Muslims or Islam for what happened to my son. I blame misguidance and bad choices. It is ideology similar to that of gangs and cults. It is the same. They prey on young impressionable adolescents and exploit them.”

Boudreau has also criticized the intelligence service of her native Canada. When CSIS agents first contacted her in January 2013 and told her they had been monitoring Damian for nearly two years, she asked why they had not warned her about his real intentions. Why did they not prevent him from getting a new Canadian passport?

Blamed CSIS for not doing more 

Image on the right is from National Post

After Damian’s death, Boudreau said she thought CSIS had some responsibility for his actions and death. In May 2014, she wrote a letter to CSIS: “We, as a family, have a right to know what has happened, and how our system has failed us.”

She described her efforts to get answers, how a CSIS agent had asked her to stop speaking out and asking questions. Finally, almost six months later, CSIS director Michel Coulombe responded to her inquiries.

Coulombe did not answer her specific questions, yet concluded that “the service acted professionally and within its legislated mandate.”

Regarding the warning of a CSIS agent, Coulombe evaded the issue, saying: “We have found no indication of an attempt to interfere in your relationship with other parties.”

Regarding the disturbing consequences of radical indoctrination and violence, Coulombe said CSIS “is conducting research to better understand this phenomenon in Canada.”

This “research” is small comfort to a woman whose son was misled into joining a violent terrorist group, perhaps killing innocent Syrians and being killed himself.

Despite the CSIS subterfuge and request that she not speak publicly about the matter, Boudreau continued her work reaching out to other families, speaking out against radical extremism and violence.

Canada takes away Boudreau’s passport

Fifteen months later, in February 2016, Citizenship and Immigration Canada acted in a way that definitely restricted and interfered with “her relationship with other parties.” While Boudreau and her other son, Lucas, were visiting family in France, the Canadian government ordered her to surrender her Canadian passport. Boudreau and her son were stuck in France, dependent on the generosity of family, for the next 18 months.

Finally, in November 2017, when Lucas’s father was dying of cancer, the Canadian embassy in France provided temporary emergency documentation so that Boudreau and her son could return home to Calgary.

The official reason Canada took away her passport

Boudreau has tried repeatedly to get her passport back. The official reason it was taken away and cannot be returned is that she provided “false or misleading information” in the passport application for her son Lucas. The “false and misleading” information was that she did not include the name of Lucas’s father on the passport application and did not disclose court orders from 2004-2007 that defined the father’s visiting rights with the child, who was born in 2004.

Lucas’s birth certificate does not include the father’s name because the father wanted no responsibility, according to Boudreau. The applications for Lucas’ previous passports in 2007 and 2010 were filled out the same way without raising any objection by Citizenship and Immigration Canada. In addition, there was a court order and signed agreement between Boudreau and the father in January 2016 that confirmed a summer visit with the father.

‘Very few people have been denied passports’

Ray Boisvert, former head of CSIS counter-terrorism, was previously asked why CSIS did not prevent Damian Clairmont from receiving a passport if CSIS knew about his radicalization and intentions. Boisvert responded that denying a passport to a Canadian citizen was an infringement on freedom of movement and required solid evidence. “There have been very few people who have been denied passports because the threshold is so high. And rightfully so.”

If Boisvert’s assertion is true, then why has CIC acted so harshly against Boudreau? The violation in the passport application caused little or no harm. The complaint by the biological father was resolved in January 2016 by court order and agreement. This was not an issue of parental joint custody because Boudreau had been the sole parental custodian of the child since his birth.

Boudreau’s effectiveness in countering extremism

This decision is not only harming Boudreau and her children. It is also hurting the international campaign against extremism and violent radicalism.

As Koehler, the director of the German Institute on Radicalization and De-Radicalization Studies stated in correspondence, “(Boudreau)’s work depends on her ability to travel, meet with other parents, participate in workshops, educate about the threat of violent radicalization and help affected families around the world. She was a main driving force behind the Mothers for Life Network and her absence from these important activities have caused serious harm to global issue of helping families in need.”

Dr. Amar Amarasingam, senior research fellow at the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society at University of Waterloo, has said in support of Boudreau:

“Since the loss of her son Damian, Christianne Boudreau has been tirelessly working to try to prevent other young men and women from traveling abroad to fight. She traveled around the world to meet with other parents and families, gave talks and conducted workshops. Especially now, with ISIS fighters and families being captured by Kurdish forces and parents in Western countries trying to get in touch with them, (Boudreau)’s activism is much-needed. She is trusted by families the world over and would be an invaluable resource today. I’m not too familiar with the particulars of her case, but her ability to travel is fundamental to her work and I hope it gets sorted out soon.”

In 2016, as Boudreau was having her Canadian passport revoked, the CBC produced a documentary describing her good work. Producer Gail McIntyre and director/writer EileenThalenberg have recently written, “Christianne Boudreau was the focus of our film, A Jihadi in the Family, which was broadcast on CBC – TV in 2016. Over a period of two years, we covered her important work as founder and driving force behind the movement Mothers for Life. This organization was set up to support families and to inform educators, the public and policy-makers about the early signs of radicalization and how to prevent it. Her work in this area was far-reaching – uniting mothers in North America and Europe…. Without her passport, she is unable to continue with her high-profile work. This not only impacts anti-radicalization efforts, it severely affects her ability to support her herself and her son.”

Public Appeal to return Boudreau’s passport

Boudreau, who was born in Toronto, is still being denied a Canadian passport. She deals with the anguish of knowing her son died in a foreign land. She has the pain of not knowing what he might have done with others in the terrorist group. She has difficulty finding a job when employers easily see and identify her as the “jihadi’s mother.” She was punished by being left in a foreign country without a passport for a year and a half. She has been mentally and emotionally abused by Canadian government authorities. Why is this being done and who is benefiting from this?

A petition to “Return Christianne Boudreau’s Canadian Passport!” has been launched and can be seen here.

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Rick Sterling is an independent journalist based in the San Francisco Bay area of California. He grew up in Vancouver and studied at Simon Fraser University. Since retiring as an engineer at UC Berkeley, he has researched and written about international relations, especially the Middle East. He can be contacted at [email protected].

Featured image is from rabble.ca

It was 2013, in Brazil President Dilma Rousseff was launching the program Mais Médicos (More Doctors) to establish Brazilian doctors and those from other nations in poor areas and remote settlements around the country, an initiative that thousands of Cuban professionals would join.

In Venezuela, at that time, right wing Presidential candidate Henrique Capriles regularly threatened Cuba, saying he would not “finance” our political model or “give” us oil, making the “disinterested” offer to Cuban doctors working there to “become citizens of a country where there is democracy.”

If this script appears familiar, that it has been repeated many times, you are right. What President-elect Jair Bolsonaro has just done – dynamiting the More Doctors program guaranteeing access to quality health care to millions of Brazilians – is no different from all other attacks by the regional right on Cuban international collaboration.

Bolsonaro calls the Cuban government “dictatorial,” while he openly defends the military dictatorship that between 1964 and 1985 ruled Brazil, where memories are still fresh of forced disappearances and assassinations, along with repression of any political opposition whatsoever. Seems like a bad omen for Brazil: A new President who does not understand exactly what a dictatorial regime is.

The déjà vu is confirmed when he says,

“I will offer political asylum to thousands of Cuba doctors who do not want to return to their country.”

It is not surprising that encouraging the desertion of Cuban doctors provides the backdrop to this position, in a context in which a highly qualified workforce is one of the country’s major strengths, and Cuban doctors, along with those from other nations trained here, promote a positive image of the nation and provide an example of South-South cooperation.

President Díaz-Canel congratulates the Latin American School of Medicine in its anniversary. Thousands of doctors from around the world have been trained here – including Brazilians, who face obstacles, created by the Medical Association in their country, like revalidation exams which control access to jobs. Photo: Twitter

This type of sabotage has a strong resemblance to the Parole Program for Cuban Medical Professionals, a migratory scheme cooked up by the U.S. government that was in effect until January 17 of last year. At that time, after a year of negotiations encouraged by the beginning of normalization of relations between Havana and Washington, an agreement was signed to guarantee regular, safe, and orderly migration, eliminating the Parole Program and the “wet foot-dry foot” policy. This was one of the last steps taken by President Barack Obama.

For more than a decade, the Parole Program created in 2006 by George W. Bush, encouraged Cuban health personnel working in third countries to abandon their missions and emigrate to the U.S. – a reprehensible practice that affected not only Cuba but the health programs of countries where they were working.

An Old, Well Known Formula

“The intention was clear: to damage Cuban cooperation with other countries; to reduce income in the form of payments for these programs; and to deprive the country of its the doctors and other medical professionals,” states Ernesto Domínguez López, professor at the University of Havana’s Center for Hemispheric Studies and the United States, in his article “Migration, brain drain, and international relations: The case of the United States and Cuba.”

For the researcher, the years during which these policies were implemented made them two of the most important components of U.S. migration policy toward Cuba, but he goes further.

“When we place this case within the much broader framework of the United States’ general immigration policy, we see that attracting educated foreigners to fill gaps in the U.S. workforce has been a traditional policy, reflected in the existence of the H1B visa. Under this regulation, scientists, engineers, and doctors have gone to work for institutions and companies in the U.S. – helping to maintain their privileged position throughout the world. This reality has become key to the U.S. economy and its universities,” states the researcher in the aforementioned article.

Domínguez reports that there are studies showing that the world’s richest countries have effectively implemented policies to absorb qualified immigrants, although research on the subject is still insufficient. “The area that has received the most permanent attention is the brain drain of medical professionals from poor countries. This is a particularly sensitive issue, due to its ethical and practical implications. In fact, the availability and quality of health care have a significant impact on essential health indicators, which are considered by prominent scholars as a fundamental source of inequality between countries.

“In its current state, the brain drain cannot be completely explained without a global analysis, which considers structural inequalities, migration networks, world politics, especially the asymmetries in the distribution of power, and even the hegemony of Western and cultural media. Industries that create images, perceptions and aspirations, thus distorting social interactions of different types,” writes Domínguez.

According to the researcher, arguments supporting this assertion are based on a fundamental idea: the brain drain, as part of a global migration pattern, is possible due to the levels of inequality between and within countries, as shown in multiple studies. These inequalities are not accidental, but structural components of the modern world order, understood as a result of the global hierarchy in distribution of power, wealth, and development,” he emphasizes in the article.Following this logic, any attempt to undermine and weaken one of the country’s most valuable resources – its professionals – is not fortuitous, or an isolated chance event.

Bolsonaro’s attack was also a clear signal of agreement with U.S. foreign policy, , not according to Cuba, but as noted by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Kimberly Breier, who applauded the position taken by the future Brazilian head of state, which made necessary Cuba’s decision to withdraw its collaborators from the More Doctors program.

In Context

1. The law establishing the More Medical program is clear as to how the licenses of physicians are accredited and the role played by the Pan American Health Organization, the Ministry of Public Health, and Cuban universities of medical sciences in the process. Cuban collaborators took exams before traveling to Brazil and periodic tests during their stay, conducted by Brazil’s Ministry of Health.

2. The offer to revalidate the professional credentials of doctors who stay as individuals are deceptive because the country’s Medical Association opposes this. There are thousands of doctors in Brazil whose licenses have not been revalidated. For every 100 doctors who take the required exam, only eight pass. This is a conscious strategy to keep the private health market controlled, to guarantee enormous incomes – fewer doctors equals more money – hence the opposition from the beginning to the More Doctors program.

3. Cuban doctors provide services in places where Brazilian doctors, and those from other countries, do not want to work. They assume the dangers because of their vocation to save lives. They are in the places of greatest risk, in communities of extreme poverty, in favelas, and violent neighborhoods where even the police do not enter. They are in the 34 indigenous special districts and 700 municipalities that never before had seen a doctor. To date, the people and the government have protected them, but this protection will be withdrawn by the new government.

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Featured image is from PanAm Post

There was a little bit of good news this month for those worried about a tidal wave of McMafia-style financial crime. A new UK government agency tasked with fighting it – the National Economic Crime Centre (NECC) – opened its doors.

I say “little” because financial crime is far more deeply rooted in our financial and political systems than we like to acknowledge.

From the LIBOR-rigging scandal to the offshore secrets of the Panama Papers and ‘dark money’ in the Brexit vote, it is everywhere. In my recent work with anti-corruption group Global Witness, I saw first-hand how ordinary people in some of the world’s poorest countries suffer the consequences of corruption and financial crime. We exposed suspicious mining and oil deals in Central Africa, in which over a billion dollars of desperately-needed public finances were lost offshore. The story is about the West as much as Africa. The deals were routed through a dizzying web of offshore shell companies in the British Virgin Islands, often linked to listed companies in London, Toronto and elsewhere. Even if the NECC is given enough resources and collaborates widely, it has got its work cut out.

One reason all this financial crime is tolerated is that thinkers who shine a light on its systemic nature have been erased from the record. Top of my list of neglected economic superstars is Professor Susan Strange of the London School of Economics, one of the founders of the field of international political economy. In a series of ground-breaking books – States and Markets, The Retreat of the State and Mad Money – Strange showed how epidemic levels of financial crime were a consequence of specific political decisions.

“This financial crime wave beginning in the 1970s and getting bigger in later years is not accidental,” Strange wrote.

It would have hardly been possible to design a system better suited than the global banking system to the needs of drug dealers and other illicit traders.

It would have hardly been possible to design a system, she said, “that was better suited than the global banking system to the needs of drug dealers and other illicit traders who want to conceal from the police the origin of their large illegal profits.”

For Strange, money laundering, tax evasion and public embezzlement were a result of the collapse in the 1970s of the post-war financial order. Here are four ways she showed how politics and the financial crime epidemic were intimately connected.

1) Money is global, regulation is national

There was nothing inevitable about financial globalisation, Strange said. It was born out of a series of political decisions. It means that global money can skip freely across borders beyond the reach of national laws and supervision. For smart operators tax, regulations, and compliance become a choice, not an obligation. Strange argued that international organisations lack the power to control global money, only coordination between the world’s major economies can rein it in.

2) Tax havens are an open invitation to embezzlement

Unless you have somewhere to stash the cash, the looting of public money and state enterprises can only go so far.

Tax havens give “open invitations”, Strange said, to corrupt politicians to steal from their people.

Tax havens give “open invitations”, Strange said, to corrupt politicians to steal from their people.

Banking secrecy in the havens allows money from tax evasion, drug trafficking and public embezzlement to mix together until they become indistinguishable from legitimate business.

3) Extravagant banker bonuses contaminate politics

For Strange the “obscenely large” bonuses paid to those in financial markets leads to a kind of “moral contamination”, she wrote which has “reinforced and accelerated the growth of the links between finance and politics”. Strange recognised that corruption and bribery were a problem in London and New York as well as Asia, Africa and Latin America. “Bribery and corruption in politics are not new at all. It is the scale and extent of it that have risen, along with the domination of finance over the real economy,” she wrote.

4) Money is political power

Globalisation has redefined politics, Strange argued. Political power is not just what happens in governments, but money and markets also have power. As legitimate and illegitimate private operators grow richer, they increase their power to shape the world system. States starved of tax revenues grow weaker and retreat, in a reinforcing spiral. National politics becomes captured by global money markets.

In the twenty years since Susan Strange’s death in 1998, these trends have only bedded down. Bankers’ bonuses have continued to skyrocket and in 2018 reached their pre-crisis peak.

Columbia University professor James S Henry estimates that in 2015 a scarcely imaginable $24 trillion to $36 trillion of the world’s financial wealth was held offshore. Much of that is money from legitimate businesses but contributes to a system where financial crime can prosper.

We cannot hope to get out of the morass of financial crime, and out-of-control financial markets, without understanding how they relate to one another. The genie of globalised money cannot be put back into the bottle, but Strange would argue that we should challenge banking secrecy, and through coordinated action of the world’s large economies close down tax havens.

Finance and crime was only one strand of her work, but it contributed to her unnerving, perhaps prophetic, conclusion that unless we rein in the financial system it could sweep away the entire Western liberal order. One only has to glance at the combination of financial chicanery and violent rhetoric that characterises the Trump presidency to see that her concerns could hardly be more contemporary.

Strange would tell us that we need more than a new government agency to turn back the tide of financial crime. We need nothing less than a new approach to political economy at national and global level.

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The Network GMO Free Regions in Europe, comprised of 64 regional governments, have adopted the Berlin Declaration, that called for a European and global moratorium of Gene Drives and demanded that national governments as well as the EU take on this issue at the upcoming meeting of the 2018 Convention on Biological Diversity.

When presenting the declaration, the network’s President Dr. Beatrix Tappeser, said:

“Let us continue the precautionary approach, and maintain our GMO Free pathway, that has served the European Regions so well over the past decade. There needs to be more public investment in the agriculture people really want.”

The declaration ends:

“Considering the substantial concentration of market and research power in the seed and agrochemical business over the past decades, we see a need to increase the public engagement in maintaining and developing non-GM seed breeding, research and agricultural methods. Germ plasm of all plants and animals should be kept in the public domain and be maintained as one of the most valuable public goods of humankind. Public investment in agricultural research and development should guarantee that the whole range of options needed to address present and future challenges to agriculture, food production and resource management continue to remain at public disposal. We commit to contribute to a renaissance of public research and the development of public goods for future generations”.

The full text may be read here.

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Today, Western Values Project (WVP) submitted a formal comment to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) requesting that they not grant the US Interior Department’s request to delete public records. Interior’s request comes as the department and Secretary Zinke have dragged their feet responding to and in some cases simply failed to provide responses to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Today is the last day for the public to submit comments to NARA on Interior’s request.

Interior is seeking permission from NARA to permanently destroy a range of records relating to oil and gas leases sales, legal matters, mineral exploration permits, and fish and wildlife surveys, among other issues. WVP’s comment asserts that extensive record keeping is essential to holding Interior accountable by ensuring they are doing the public’s work properly and legally.

“This is pretty rich coming from someone who claimed he would run the most transparent Interior Department in his lifetime. But as Ryan Zinke’s future remains in question, we are not surprised by his attempt to rewrite history,” said Chris Saeger, Executive Director of Western Values Project. “It’s unacceptable that Interior is already turning their efforts to destroying documents when they can’t even respond to the public records requests they have coming in. Despite his claims to the contrary, Zinke is trying yet again to pull wool over the eyes of the American people by keeping the public in the dark while his department wages attacks on public lands and wildlife.”

WVP’s comment points out that since the beginning of the Trump administration, Secretary Zinke’s Interior Department has only fulfilled 10.53 percent of FOIA requests that WVP submitted. 132 FOIA requests that WVP has submitted to Interior are still outstanding, including FOIA requests that are 18 months old, dating all the way to May 2017.

The unfulfilled requests have forced WVP to sue the department, with multiplelawsuits still ongoing.

Earlier this year, Interior accidentally released thousands of pages in response to a FOIA request that were supposed to be redacted: the accidentally-revealed documents showed that as Zinke conducted his national monuments review, his staff “rejected material that would justify keeping protections in place” and instead looked for evidence that supported rolling back public lands protections.

Zinke has also kept the public in the dark by using a secret calendar and releasing incredibly vague calendars to the public.

Read Western Values Project’s full email to NARA here.

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The war in Yemen is heading towards its fourth year, its only tangible result so far being the gradual destruction of the country and its people. 

Ostensibly, it is being fought to restore the rule of Yemen’s deposed president, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, who fled to Saudi Arabia in the wake of the 2014 Houthi takeover of Sanaa. The war is also intended to thwart Iran’s alleged plan to spread its control throughout Yemen using the Houthi rebels as proxies.

But the indiscriminate ferocity of the coalition’s onslaught on Yemen cannot be explained by these supposed motives. Why was it necessary to bomb the country back to the stone age and target its civilians, ensuring it will not recover for a century? To answer this question, one must understand Arabian history and Saudi Arabia’s small place in it.

Flourishing civilisations

In ancient times, Yemen was home to several flourishing civilisations. At least six kingdoms developed here from the 12th century BC onwards, based in Ma’in, Qataban, Hadramaut, Ausan, Saba and Himyar. The most prominent was the Sabaean kingdom, which lasted for 11 centuries and was one of the most important in the Near East.

Popular legend identifies it with the Queen of Sheba, and the kingdom of Saba is mentioned in the Quran. Its capital was in Marib, where the Sabaeans built a great dam that was a marvel of ancient engineering. They developed an advanced irrigation system through canal networks and a wealth of farmlands.

By 700 BC, the Sabaeans had spread their rule over most of South Arabia. The splendid civilisation they created was based on the spice trade in frankincense and myrrh, which they expanded through trading networks that reached as far as China, India and the Near East. To facilitate their trade, they built a series of colonies up the Red Sea route to the Near East, and were in control of the Bab al-Mandab exit to the Indian Ocean and the Horn of Africa. Remnants of Sabaean art and architecture have been found as far away as northern Ethiopia.

With the advent of Islam, Yemeni tribes played a major role in the Arab conquests of Egypt, Iraq, Persia and the Levant. By the 13th century, Yemen had a thriving Islamic culture, along with numerous madrassas and centres of Islamic learning. With this came the development of a distinctive architecture based almost entirely on local building materials, unique in the Arab region. Sanaa’s old city, dating from the first Christian century, is a prime example.

Steeped in history

What, in contrast to these legendary Yemeni achievements, did North Arabia, most of which makes up modern Saudi Arabia, have to offer that could remotely compare? Until the arrival of Islam in the seventh century, that part of Arabia was traditionally ruled by tribal chiefs, mostly isolated and obscure, and as such could never have rivalled the kingdoms of Yemen. Even after Islam, the splendours of Islamic civilisation were not created in North Arabia, but outside.

Despite being a modern construction in its current incarnation, Yemen is steeped in history. Today’s Saudi Arabia is a more thoroughly recent creation, only established in the 1930s, and the United Arab Emirates, its fellow coalition war partner, set up even more recently in 1971.

They have little history or secular culture that could hold a candle to the civilisations their bombing war is laying waste to. The Saud family’s Wahhabist-inspired destruction of historical buildings, tombs and monuments in Mecca and Medina set a dangerous precedent for what is happening in Yemen.

The war has led to widespread destitution and disease. The UN estimates that 14 million people, or half of Yemen’s population, are at risk of starvation. According to UNICEF, 1.8 million children are acutely malnutritioned, 400,000 of whom suffer from severe acute malnutrition.

The bombing has killed more than 10,000 people, left 22 million – most of Yemen’s population – in need of international aid, and provoked the largest cholera outbreak ever recorded. Half the country’s medical facilities have been destroyed in a coalition bombing campaign that has targeted civilian infrastructure, and often, civilians themselves.

Irreparable harm

The physical damage to Yemen’s infrastructure – its schools, hospitals and markets – has been severe, but at least they can be rebuilt in a time of peace. The same cannot be said of the irreparable harm done to Yemen’s historic architecture. UNESCO has documented the war’s devastating effects on Sanaa’s Old City, its mosques, bathhouses, and mud-brick houses with their distinctive, arched, gypsum-framed windows.

The same has happened to the Old City of Saada, the ancient Marib dam, the historic city of Baraqish, and Hadhramaut’s irreplaceable ancient tombs. These losses are permanent.

Surveying this disproportionate degree of death and destruction, one must wonder if the real motive for the Yemen war, just like the Saudis’ visceral hostility towards another great civilisation, Iran, is a deep-seated envy of the grandeur of these countries’ place in human history.

If so, bombing Yemen out of existence will not delete its glorious past, nor give Saudi Arabia what it never had.

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Ghada Karmi is a Palestinian doctor, academic and author.

Featured image is from Felton Davis | CC BY 2.0

President Donald Trump’s recent statement on the Jamal Khashoggi killing by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince might well be considered a metaphor for his foreign policy. Several commentators have suggested that the text appears to be something that Trump wrote himself without any adult supervision, similar to the poorly expressed random arguments presented in his tweeting only longer. That might be the case, but it would not be wise to dismiss the document as merely frivolous or misguided as it does in reality express the kind of thinking that has produced a foreign policy that seems to drift randomly to no real end, a kind of leaderless creative destruction of the United States as a world power.

Lord Palmerston, Prime Minister of Britain in the mid nineteenth century, famously said that

“Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.”

The United States currently has neither real friends nor any clearly defined interests. It is, however, infested with parasites that have convinced an at-drift America that their causes are identical to the interests of the United States. Leading the charge to reduce the U.S. to “bitch” status, as Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has artfully put it, are Israel and Saudi Arabia, but there are many other countries, alliances and advocacy groups that have learned how to subvert and direct the “leader of the free world.”

Trump’s memo on the Saudis begins with the headline “The world is a very dangerous place!” Indeed, it is and behavior by the three occupants of the White House since 2000 is largely to blame. It is difficult to find a part of the world where an actual American interest is being served by Washington’s foreign and global security policies. Indeed, a national security policy that sees competitors and adversaries as enemies in a military sense has made nuclear war, unthinkable since the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, thinkable once again. The fact that no one is the media or in political circles is even talking about that terrible danger suggests that war has again become mainstreamed, tacitly benefiting from bipartisan acceptance of it as a viable foreign policy tool by the media, in the U.S. Congress and also in the White House.

The part of the world where American meddling coupled with ignorance has produced the worst result is inevitably the Middle East. Washington has been led by the nose by Israel and Saudi Arabia, currently working in sync, to have the United States destroy Iran even though the Iranians represent no threat whatsoever to Americans or any serious U.S. interests. The wildly skewed view of what is taking place in that region is reflected in Trump’s memo in the first paragraph, which reads:

“The country of Iran, as an example, is responsible for a bloody proxy war against Saudi Arabia in Yemen, trying to destabilize Iraq’s fragile attempt at democracy, supporting the terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon, propping up dictator Bashar Assad in Syria (who has killed millions of his own citizens), and much more. Likewise, the Iranians have killed many Americans and other innocent people throughout the Middle East. Iran states openly, and with great force, ‘Death to America!’ and ‘Death to Israel!’ Iran is considered ‘the world’s leading sponsor of terror.’”

Almost all of that is either patently untrue or grossly exaggerated, meaning that Trump’s profoundly ignorant statement is remarkable for the number of lies that it incorporates into 631 words which are wrapped around a central premise that the United States will always do whatever it wants wherever it wants just because it can. The war being waged by the Saudis against Yemen, which reportedly has killed as many as 80,000 children, is not a proxy struggle against Iran as Trump prefers to think. It is naked aggression bordering on genocide that is enabled by the United States under completely false pretenses. Iran did not start the war and plays almost no role in it apart from serving as a Saudi and Emirati excuse to justify the fighting. Other lies include that Bashar al-Assad of Syria has killed millions of his own citizens and that Saudi Arabia is fighting terrorism. Quite the contrary is true as the Saudis have been a major source of Islamic terrorism. And as for Iran being the “world’s leading sponsor of terrorism,” that honor currently belongs to the U.S., Israel and the Saudis.

The core of Trump’s thinking about Khashoggi and the Saudis comes down to Riyadh’s willingness to buy weapons to benefit America’s defense contractors and this one sentence: “The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region.” Yes, once again it is Israel pulling Trump’s strings, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leading the charge to give Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman a pass on the gruesome murder of a legal resident of the United States who, once upon a time, might have actually had the U.S. government on his side.

The reckless calibrations employed to set American policies in other parts of the world are also playing out badly. Russia has been hounded relentlessly since the 2016 election, wasting the opportunity to establish a modus vivendi that Trump appeared to be offering in his campaign. Russian and American soldiers confront each other in Syria, where the U.S. has absolutely no real interests beyond supporting feckless Israel and Saudi Arabia in an unnecessary armed conflict that has already been lost. There is now talk of war coming from both Moscow and Washington while NATO in the middle has turned aggressive in an attempt to justify its existence. The bilateral relationship between the U.S. and Russia is now worse than it was towards the end of the Cold War while the expansion of NATO up to Russia’s doorstep has threatened the Kremlin’s vital interests without advancing any interest of the United States.

Afghanistan has become the longest war in U.S. history with no end in sight and China too has seen what began as a dispute over trade turned into something more vitriolic, a military rivalry over the South China Sea that could explode. And North Korea? A love fest between two leaders that is devoid of content.

One might also add Venezuela to the list, with the U.S. initiating sanctions over the state of the country’s internal politics and even considering, according to some in the media, a military intervention.

All of the White House’s actions have one thing in common and that is that they do not benefit Americans in any way unless one works for a weapons manufacturer, and that is not even taking into consideration the dead soldiers and civilians and the massive debt that has been incurred to intervene all over the world. One might also add that most of America’s interventions are built on deliberate lies by the government and its associated media, intended to increase tension and create a casus belli where none exists.

So what is to be done as it often seems that the best thing Trump has going for him is that he is not Hillary Clinton? First of all, a comprehensive rethink of what the real interests of the United States are in the world arena is past due. America is less safe now than it was in 2001 as it continues to make enemies with its blundering everywhere it goes. There are now four times as many designated terrorists as there were in 2001, active in 70 countries. One would quite plausibly soon arrive at George Washington’s dictum in his Farewell Address, counseling his countrymen to “observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all.” And Washington might have somehow foreseen the poisonous relationships with Israel and the Saudis when he warned that “…a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.”

George Washington or any of the other Founders would be appalled to see an America with 800 military bases overseas, allegedly for self-defense. The transfer of wealth from taxpayers to the military industrial complex and related entities like Wall Street has been catastrophic. The United States does not need to protect Israel and Saudi Arabia, two countries that are armed to the teeth and well able to defend themselves. Nor does it have to be in Syria and Afghanistan. And, by the way, Russia is no longer the Soviet Union and NATO should be abolished.

If the United States were to withdraw its military from the Middle East and the rest of Asia tomorrow, it would be to nearly everyone’s benefit. If the armed forces were to be subsequently reduced to a level sufficient to defend the United States it would put money back in the pockets of Americans and end the continuous fearmongering through surfacing of “threats” by career militarists justifying the bloated budgets.

Will that produce the peaceable kingdom? Probably not, but there are signs that some in powerful positions are beginning to see the light. Senator Rand Paul’s courageous decision to place a “hold” on aid to Israel is long overdue as Israel is a liability to the United States and is also legally ineligible for aid due to its undeclared nuclear arsenal and its unwillingness to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The hysterical reactions of American Jews and Israel suggest that any redirection of U.S. Middle East policy will produce a hostile reaction from the Establishment, but even small steps in the right direction could initiate a gradual process of turning the United States into a more normal country in its relationships with the rest of the world rather than a universal predator and bully.

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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

GR Editor’s note

This carefully researched article by Arkady Savitsky first published on November 24, (one day before the Kerch Strait Incident) outlines with foresight Britain’s so-called  “hydrographic survey” in the Black Sea which is slated to be carried out as of early next year. The stated objective is to:

“to demonstrate Britain’s support for Ukraine and ensure “freedom of navigation”.

In this regard, the Kerch Strait Incident acts as a pretext in support of an ongoing military project. In all likelihood it will be used to  “justify” US-UK-NATO deployments in the Black Sea Basin.

Is the Kerchen Incident part of a broader US-NATO “Responsibility to Protect (R2P) plan to “militarize the Black Sea”? According to Arkady Savitsky:

In September, Great Britain made known it planned to increase the warships’ presence in the Black Sea next year with increasingly frequent port calls to Odessa.

Ukraine’s government is ramping up tensions because President Petro Poroshenko is running for re-election in March 2019 on a national security platform. So he takes a tougher line on Azov. Those who rush to provide him with military assistance become accomplices in his adventurist actions that could have disastrous consequences.

The UK will bear responsibility for goading Kiev into taking a confrontational approach and turning the Azov Sea into a flashpoint that can spark at any minute.

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, November 27, 2018

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Ukraine’s Constitutional Court green-lighted a bill on amending the country’s main law by enshrining into it the final goal of obtaining NATO and EU membership. The decision was announced the next day after the UK and Ukraine’s defense ministries made a joint statement, stressing the need to expand military cooperation. The defense chiefs agreed that Operation Orbital, the Army training program started in 2015, was a success to be continued at least till 2020. Instructors from the British Army, most of who have significant experience in participating in combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, have trained over 9,500 Ukrainian servicemen. An unspecified number of UK soldiers would be sent to train Ukrainian special forces and marines, in addition to the 100 personnel deployed currently in the country. 

A multi-role hydrographic survey ship will be deployed in the Black Sea next year to demonstrate Britain’s support for Ukraine and ensure “freedom of navigation”. HMS Echo is not a warship but it flies the naval ensign. In September, Great Britain made known it planned to increase the warships’ presence in the Black Sea next year with increasingly frequent port calls to Odessa.

NATO naval presence there is seen as provocative by Russia amid increasing tensions in the Azov Sea. A conflict appears to be imminent and the West has taken the side of Ukraine despite the fact that it was Kiev who has been provoking it. EU High Representative/Vice-President Federica Mogherini believes many vessels flying European Union flags were threatened to make Brussels consider “appropriate targeted measures” to be taken as a signal to Moscow.

The increase in UK military presence goes against the letter and spirit of Minsk accords, which state that the conflict in Ukraine should be managed through diplomatic and political means.

The US military already runs a maritime operations center located within Ukraine’s Ochakov naval facility designed to deliver flexible maritime support throughout the full range of military operations. Hundreds of US and Canadian military instructors are training Ukrainian personnel at the Yavoriv firing range. The US is to transfer two Oliver Hazard Perry-type frigates to Ukraine. The move will actually ensure constant NATO naval presence in the Black Sea going around the restrictions imposed by the Montreux Convention because the vessels will have America sailors onboard carrying out “training missions” and remain under US command, despite official sources saying otherwise. All in all, ten ships of that class are available for export. In September, the US Coast Guard transferred two Island-class cutters, armed with .50-caliber machine guns and 25mm deck guns. The transfers urge Kiev to challenge Moscow militarily.

Nobody in Washington or London asks why an industrialized nation and a large arms exporter, with abundant resources and fertile land should depend on foreign assistance unable to defend itself. Weapons are supplied and training is provided to the country, where corruption is rampant. Even the US State Department’s recent report says it is.  Popular protests are commonplace. The conflict in Donbass is used to distract the people from domestic woes. The frustration with Kiev’s reluctance to introduce much-needed reforms and curtail the political influence of the oligarchs is rapidly growing. The common people of Ukraine need political and economic reforms, not increased foreign military presence on their soil.

The only reason for the West to keep the failed Ukraine afloat is its obsequiousness and readiness to be converted into a springboard to threaten Russia with an aggression. Despite Ukraine’s multiple problems, the country has recently been rewarded with an official status in NATO. The 2018 North Atlantic Alliance’s summit confirmed its support for Ukraine’s full-fledged membership to make a mockery of the so called “NATO standards.”

The UK government is going through hard times. It has just achieved as a draft agreement on post-Brexit relations with the EU. The deal has a little chance to make it through the Commons. Nobody knows exactly how it will end up if the MPs say no. There may be no Brexit at all finally. Chancellor Philip Hammond believes

“If the deal is not approved by parliament, we will have a politically chaotic situation… In that chaos that would ensue, there may be no Brexit.”

Or there may be endless negotiations, reconciliation conferences, delays and postponements. It’ll be a large order for the government to stay. There are supporters of no-confidence vote in parliament. You never know how it’s all going to pan out.

Nothing unites a divided nation better than an [alleged] external threat, such as Russia. The Brexit deadline is March 29 to launch a 21-months transition period with Britain still a member. The events in Ukraine are needed to fuel the fire. Making people think that the UK is lending a helping hand to a poor nation under attack is a way to improve the government’s image and approval ratings. The cabinet members never tell their people that by rendering military assistance to Kiev their country becomes an accomplice to a conflict that has nothing to do with its national security or interests. The UK military aid eggs the Ukrainian government on to seek a military solution.

Russia is not watching idle. If the Minsk accords are washed out, it will have each and every reason to recognize the Lugansk and Donetsk self-proclaimed republics as independent states eligible for military cooperation agreements, including stationing Russian military bases on their soil, if their governments ask for it. No international law would be violated.

Ukraine’s government is ramping up tensions because President Petro Poroshenko is running for re-election in March 2019 on a national security platform. So he takes a tougher line on Azov. Those who rush to provide him with military assistance become accomplices in his adventurist actions that could have disastrous consequences. The UK will bear responsibility for goading Kiev into taking a confrontational approach and turning the Azov Sea into a flashpoint that can spark at any minute.

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Arkady Savitsky is a military analyst based in St Petersburg, Russia.

Featured image is from SCF

Ukraine is a virtual US colony – the way it’s been since the Obama regime’s February 2014 coup, replacing democratic governance with fascist tyranny in Europe’s heartland.

Ukraine shares a near-1,500 mile land and sea border with the Russian Federation, the longest Western frontier with the country.

The regime running things is a hotbed of militarized extremism, waging war on its own people, committing appalling human rights abuses – with full support and encouragement from Washington and key NATO countries.

Stop NATO’s Rick Rozoff earlier explained that Ukraine is “the decisive linchpin in plans by the US and its NATO allies to effect a military cordon sanitaire, severing Russia from Europe” – part of a sinister plot, risking East/West confrontation.

Vladimir Putin earlier said

“(t)he appearance on our borders of a powerful military bloc…will be considered by Russia as a direct threat to our country’s security,” adding:

Russian missiles will target Ukraine if it joins NATO or allows Washington’s (solely for offense) missile defense shield to be installed in the country.

Two important developments are worrisome. US orchestrated and directed Kiev war on Donbass in the country’s southwest since March 2014 intensified.

Ukrainian forces began heavily shelling residential areas of the People’s Republic of Donetsk (DPR) in Donbass, the heaviest aggression in over a year.

It came after Kiev installed S-300 air defense systems along the Donbass border, at the same time as a likely US orchestrated CW false flag occurred in Aleppo, Syria, and a provocation by Ukrainian naval vessels in Russian Black Sea waters.

According to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), three Ukrainian vessels violated Russia’s state border (on Sunday)…another attempt of committing illegal activities in Russia’s territorial sea at 19:00 Moscow time on November 25,” adding:

“They did not respond to legitimate demands by the ships and boats of Russia’s FSB Border Guard Service escorting them to stop immediately and performed dangerous maneuvers.”

“(W)eapons were used to force the Ukrainian warships to stop.” The ships and their crew members were seized and detained. “Three wounded military servicemen of the Ukrainian armed forces received medical assistance.”

The Kremlin initiated a criminal investigation into the incident. Kiev understands proper navigation procedures for passing through Russian territorial waters, including the Kerch-Yenikale Canal.

The US installed Poroshenko regime followed innocent passage procedure before, not on Sunday, committing an unacceptable provocation.

Two more Ukrainian warships headed toward the same area, turning back before improperly and illegally entering Russian waters.

According to the FSB, “before making such dangerous and irresponsible decisions, the Kiev leadership should have thought about possible consequences of its actions.”

Russia has what it calls “irrefutable evidence” of the staged provocation – to be revealed soon.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin slammed Kiev, calling the incident “premeditated.” Its aim was likely all about imposing martial law for 60 days ahead of March 2019 presidential elections, along with a pretext for imposing more illegal US sanctions on Russia.

“Obviously, it is easier for Poroshenko to carry out his election campaign amid this background,” Karasin explained, adding:

“Unfortunately, our worst fears have proved true. Kiev and the West have chosen the Sea of Azov as a region where Ukrainian provocative actions can promptly give results that are required in order to trigger an international scandal.”

Moscow called for an emergency Security Council meeting on Monday to discuss what it called “maintenance of international peace and security” – despite US/UK/French veto power preventing condemnation of what happened.

Russia no doubt will be blamed for the provocation committed against the country, a familiar pattern repeated many times before.

Kiev’s action violated Articles 19 and 21 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea by entering Russian territorial waters without permission, along with failure to respond as required to legal Russian demands and conducting dangerous maneuvers.

Under a 2003 treaty, Russia and Ukraine have freedom of navigation rights in the Kerch Strait – providing defined rules are followed through the narrow waterway.

Requesting and receiving permission to sail through the Strait is required. Kiev acted extrajudicially, according to Moscow.

The Kerch Strait separates the Crimean Republic from the Russian mainland. Russian Federal Security Service forces are responsible for maintaining order along the country’s land and maritime borders.

Its officers repeatedly asked the Ukrainian vessels to leave Russian territorial waters, ignored by their commanders. The maritime area in question was temporarily closed to navigation for security reasons.

Video released by Moscow showed Ukrainian vessels maneuvering provocatively close to Russian ones.

An FSB statement said Russian warships opened fire after Ukrainian vessels repeatedly ignored “legal demands to stop” and leave the area.

They continued “performing dangerous maneuvers” – an illegal breach of required protocol. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed what happened saying:

Kiev “first stages a provocation, then plays power games, and  accuses” Russia for its own unacceptable provocation.

The incident begs the question. Did Trump regime hardliners, together with Pentagon commanders, orchestrate what happened? Was the incident staged as prelude for more tough US actions on Russia?

US forces are in Ukraine, training and directing its military, including its war of aggression on Donbass.

US media reacted to the Sunday incident as expected. The NYT said Ukraine’s navy “left little ambiguity in asserting that its ships had been attacked.”

The self-styled newspaper of record repeated the Big Lie about Russia annexing “the Crimean Peninsula in 2014,” its waterways where the Sunday incident occurred.

The neocon/CIA-connected Washington Post accused Russia of “opening fire on…Ukrainian…vessels…prevent(ing) (them) from entering the (Kerch) strait…injuring six sailors, before seizing two of the ships…”

The Wall Street Journal headlined “Russia Fires on Ukrainian Military Vessel Near Crimea…detain(ing) three Ukrainian naval ships…injuring three crew members.”

The White House has yet to react to the incident. Putin and Trump are expected to meet on the sidelines of this week’s Nov. 30-Dec.1 G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina – the incident surely to be discussed.

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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.

Turkey involved itself in Syria without having properly thought-through all eventualities, and one of these eventualities was Russian military intervention, in support of the Syrian people, which, as we know, materialised in September 2015.

As a result of Moscow having deployed its military forces to Syria, to assist with the liberation of the country from Wahhabist terrorists, this inevitably meant that Russia and Turkey were going to come into conflict with each other because the Turks have played a crucial role in supporting the terrorist groups operating on Syrian soil, including giving support to ISIS and Al-Qaeda.

And it was Turkey who threw the first punch in that face-off between Moscow and Ankara when, in November 2015, it shot down a Russian SU-24 aircraft, close to the Syrian-Turkish border, which was returning to base following a bombing mission against terrorists. However, Turkey punched above its weight and would soon pay dearly for this.

Firstly, Russia imposed biting sanctions on the Turkish economy. But, even more alarming for Ankara, was the Kremlin’s threat, in its private communication with the Turkish Government, to play its Kurdish card against the Turkish state. Turkey’s Achilles heel is the Kurds – those in Turkey, Syria and Iraq – and Moscow has historically maintained close ties with various Kurdish groups, especially the Marxist-Leninist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.

For good measure, at the end of 2015, the Russians began supplying the PKK with even more weapons and, crucially, intelligence on the movements of Turkish army and gendarmerie convoys in south-eastern Turkey.

As a result of a spike in casualties amongst Turkish forces at the hands of the PKK from the end of 2015 to early 2016, on account of Russian actions, Ankara realised that it was at the mercy of Russia and the Kremlin was prepared to go all the way in igniting a war that would pit Turkey against the PKK, the Syrian Kurds and the Iraqi Kurds and which could result in Ankara losing swathes of its territory.

And there was no way for Turkey to strike back at Russia because the card which the Turks had played against the Russians during the 1990s, the Chechen one, was no longer an option, given that the Kremlin has long pacified not just Chechnya but Dagestan and Ingushetia, too.

So that is why Recep Tayyip Erdogan travelled to St Petersburg, in early 2016, and profusely apologised to Vladimir Putin for the shooting down of the Russian military aircraft months before. And ever since then, Russia has used the threat of playing its Kurdish card to force Turkey to scale down its support to the terrorists in Syria, limit its neo-Ottoman ambitions in the region and support Russian peace initiatives aimed at gradually ending the conflict in Syria.

Now, of course, Turkey still harbours ambitions for the north of Syria – namely, partition – and is still supporting the terrorists in Idlib but this is incomparable to Turkish goals and actions in Syria from 2012 to 2015. That is something for the Syrian people to rejoice over. So yes – the Turks still illegally maintain their forces in northern Syria but the Turkish position in the region is gradually weakening on account of Russia’s leverage over Turkey, which Ankara is unable to resist because of the Kremlin’s threat to play its Kurdish card, which would be catastrophic for the Turkish state, should the Russians play it.

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Dr Marcus Papadopoulos is an expert on Russia and a commentator on Syria.

Featured image is from Oriental Review

Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno earlier said Julian Assange must eventually leave the country’s London embassy – at the time indicating it would be through dialogue.

According to an Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruling, asylum granted to anyone is irrevocable under international law. Nations are obliged to uphold asylum rights, including the right of safe passage to the country granting it.

Rule of law principles never stand in the way of US actions and aims.

Assange’s asylum is gravely threatened, ongoing since August 2012. Extradition to America is virtually certain if it’s illegally revoked.

A sealed indictment awaits him, revealed in mid-November. Obama declared him an enemy of the state. So did Trump regime hardliners – wanting him prosecuted for the crime of truth-telling, investigative journalism the way it’s supposed to be.

Whistleblowing, other forms of dissent, and truth-telling on vital issues are the highest forms of patriotism. Washington criminalized speech, media, and academic freedom when exposing major wrongdoing it wants suppressed.

Chelsea Manning, Assange and others like them deserve universal praise and support, including from world community leaders, international courts, and ordinary people everywhere.

Illegally revoking Assange’s asylum ahead of arresting and extraditing him to America could happen any time.

Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, and former AG Jeff Sessions’ claims about Assange greatly harming US national security were fabricated.

So was falsely calling him “a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia,” Pompeo’s earlier remark, adding:

“(W)e can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us” – a flagrant constitutional violation against anyone if enforced.

WikiLeaks publishes material believed to be true, supplied by reliable sources, unidentified for their protection. It’s not an intelligence operation. Nor it it connected to Russia or any other country.

All of the above is widely known – yet ignored by US hardliners and major media, failing to defend Assange’s fundamental rights under international and US constitutional law.

The latest on his status is further cause for concern. Moreno sacked his UK envoy Carlos Abad without explanation. Nor is it known who’s replacing him – WikiLeaks tweeting:

“Ecuador’s president has signed a decree terminating the ambassador to the United Kingdom, Carlos Abad. All diplomats known to Assange have now been terminated…transferred away from the embassy.”

Abad was involved in talks with Theresa May officials on resolving Assange’s situation, achieving nothing. One of his attorneys, Carlos Poveda, believes Ecuador and Britain may have agreed on a deal to extradite him to America.

Things seem inexorably heading in this direction. A tweet to WikiLeaks said

“Moreno has replaced judges and election officials. Anyone still loyal to former President @MashiRafael Correa must be purged. This is a silent pro-US coup.”

Another tweet called surrounding Assange with strangers “psychological torture,” removing people he trusts.

The latest shoe to drop was preventing his lawyers from entering Ecuador’s London embassy, according to WikiLeaks tweeting:

“BREAKING: Ecuador’s government has refused Julian Assange’s lawyers (UK lawyer @suigenerisjen & Spanish lawyer Aitor Martínez) access to him this weekend (although the embassy is manned 24/7) to prepare for his US court hearing on Tuesday.”

“The hearing is…in the national security court complex at Alexandria, Virginia.” It’s to “remove the secrecy order on the US charges against him.”

Chelsea Manning was brutally tortured and otherwise abused from 2010 – 2017 in confinement.

Wrongfully convicted in July 2013 for violations of the long ago outdated (1917) Espionage Act, Obama commuted her 35-year sentence before leaving office on January 18, 2017.

Similar harsh treatment she endured for years awaits Assange if extradited to America – including virtually certain longterm imprisonment.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

The UK’s granting of political asylum to “Balochistan Liberation Army” (BLA) leader Hyrbyair Marri and its hosting of this fugitive means that Britain has blood on its hands for the latest terrorist attack that he masterminded against the Chinese consulate in Karachi, but while Islamabad might seek his extradition, there’s little that it can do to ensure London’s compliance unless it convinces Beijing to discretely support it.

The Pakistani authorities have officially charged “Balochistan Liberation Army” (BLA) leader Hyrbyair Marri and 12 others for last week’s terrorist attack against the Chinese consulate in Karachi, which the group’s fugitive UK-based leader is suspected of masterminding.

Marri received political asylum from the island nation in 2011 and has been living there since then, meaning that Britain has blood on its hands for the crime that he’s accused of cooking up while under their protection. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the British government had a role in carrying it out, but just that they’re nevertheless culpable for at the very least indirectly facilitating it by granting him a safe haven from which to organize it. Understandably, Islamabad might seek his extradition, but there’s little that it can do to ensure London’s compliance.

The UK officially regards the terrorist mastermind as being a “political refugee”, and it’ll probably stick to its guns by refusing to extradite him on that basis. Even though that would expose the West’s double standards towards terrorism, hard power is ultimately more important for its leaders than soft power, and London probably believes that it has more to gain by keeping him on its territory than sending him back home to face justice in Pakistan. In fact, it could be argued that the UK might believe that its non-compliance with Pakistan’s possibly forthcoming request could even improve some of its soft power in regards to strengthening its post-Brexit ties with the US and India, both of which also support the BLA and other anti-Pakistani terrorist groups in their own way.

Speaking of Brexit, it would be too scandalous in terms of the country’s already polarized domestic politics for its leaders to risk appearing as though they’re “accommodating” Pakistan, especially given the existing right-wing fury at the government’s apparent sell-out to Brussels over last weekend’s deal.

If anything, it would make Prime Minister May “look strong” and serve as a “convenient distraction” if her government loudly refuses to comply with any extradition request that Islamabad might make, which could show her constituents and even her Tory rivals that she won’t allow developing nations like Pakistan to “boss” her country around by “taking advantage” of its “perceived weakness” in the run-up to Brexit. One way or another, the British authorities will probably find a way to “justify” their refusal, all the while trying to reap political points at home.

The very high likelihood of this happening means that Pakistan must consider how to creatively respond to the UK’s insistence on hosting Marri and other BLA terrorists, ergo the suggestion to commence a sustained information campaign aimed at raising awareness about this all throughout the island nation and the world at large. The patriotic Overseas Pakistanis residing in the UK could greatly aid these efforts by organizing peaceful protests against the government’s hypocritical and immoral policy, as well as distributing leaflets and buying advertisements on buses and in other public places to inform as many people as possible about the UK’s indirect support of BLA terrorism. Concurrent with this, Islamabad could also raise the issue at the UN, as well as consistently make mention of the UK’s hosting of Marri and other terrorists whenever its media discusses the BLA.

Behind the scenes, Pakistani security officials can hold talks with their Chinese counterparts about the threat that UK-hosted BLA terrorists could pose to CPEC, encouraging Beijing to work through its own channels to pressure London into complying with Islamabad’s possibly extradition request. It can’t be taken for granted that this plan will succeed because China usually shirks away from doing anything that even remotely suggests that it’s “interfering” with its partners’ affairs, but the Marri case might be a notable exception because this terrorist masterminded an attack against its consulate and put its citizens’ lives at risk. If there ever was a reason for China to discretely get involved in a bilateral disagreement between two countries, then this is certainly it, and Beijing’s low-key involvement might actually get London to reconsider its refusal to extradite Marri to Islamabad.

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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.

Michael Hayden, the former director of the CIA and NSA has been hospitalised following a stroke. Predictably, well-wishes and praise has been pouring in from national-security journos, self-proclaimed #resistance members, and other figures from across US ‘liberal’ society:

Olivia Gazis is a producer and national-security ‘journalist’ with CBS:

Very sad news – General Michael Hayden, former head of CIA and NSA, has been hospitalized after suffering a stroke.

Get-well wishes and messages of encouragement are welcome at [email protected]. pic.twitter.com/Mwk6guYUKv

— Olivia Gazis (@Olivia_Gazis) November 23, 2018

Josh Marshall the publisher of the Talking Points Memo news site tweeted:

This is very rough to hear. Had the honor of meeting Hayden and his wife earlier this year when we recorded a podcast episode. Really wish him and his the best. https://t.co/LHFWfFm18c

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) November 23, 2018

David press is a regular commentator in establishment press circles. He is the Chief Operating Officer of the popular Lawfare blog and former CIA intelligence officer:

My heart aches for Jeanine and the Hayden family.

But the many people whose lives are better because of this great man know that his energy and his goodness will fuel his recovery. We’re with you, General, as you’ve been there for us. pic.twitter.com/gPwtVm3eAK

— David Priess (@DavidPriess) November 23, 2018

Even actor Ron Perlman tweeted:

I, along with a grateful nation, pray for Mr Hayden’s speedy and full recovery. https://t.co/yOt6IZF3XB

— Ron Perlman (@perlmutations) November 23, 2018

The list goes on.

Whitewashing Hayden

Meanwhile, ‘liberal’ media outlets such as NBC, Associated Press, MSNBC, ABC, and CBS have all been offering boilerplate statements that ignore the man’s rather nefarious track-record as one of the most powerful people on the planet.

The former four star airforce general served as director of the National Security Agency (NSA) under former presidents Bill Clinton, George Bush and then as director of the CIA under Bush and then president Barack Obama.

As head of the CIA Hayden was totally unrepentant for the CIA torture programme which he inherited and continued, as well as the drone programme which has killed thousands of civilians.

As journalist Glenn Greenwald put it in 2013:

“The person who secretly implemented that illegal domestic spying program was retired Gen. Michael Hayden, then Bush’s NSA director.”

Greenwald continued:

“That’s the very same Michael Hayden who is now frequently presented by US television outlets as the authority and expert on the current NSA controversy – all without ever mentioning the central role he played in overseeing that illegal warrantless eavesdropping program.”

A director of US state terror

The New York Times published a 2,000 word article by Hayden in which he defended the explosion of terror policies by the US government post-9/11. Hayden wrote that:

“I think it fair to say that the targeted killing program has been the most precise and effective application of firepower in the history of armed conflict.”

This would be the same programme that philosopher and activist Noam Chomsky aptly called “the most extreme terrorist campaign of modern times”.

Even Mike Zenko of the hyper-establishment Council on Foreign Relations, found a “few troubling aspects” to Hayden’s continued defence of the drone programme:

“as director of the CIA Hayden personally authorized an estimated 48 drone strikes, which killed 532 people, 144 of whom were civilians.”

Only 2% killed were ‘high value targets’

On top of which, analyst Peter Bergen testified before the US senate in 2013 that only two percent of people killed by drones in Pakistan were senior Al-Qaeda leaders. And only six percent of those killed in Yemen were identified as ‘senior militants’. In other words the vast majority of people killed were either civilians or everyday ‘foot soldiers’ who posed absolutely no threat to the US or its allies.

Normalising the abhorrent

As part of The Intercept’s expose – The Drone Papers – award winning journalist Jeremy Scahill explains that Hayden pushed Obama to adopt these policies;

“Soon after he was elected president, Barack Obama was strongly urged by Michael Hayden, the outgoing CIA director, and his new top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, to adopt the way of the scalpel — small footprint counterterrorism operations and drone strikes. In one briefing, Hayden bluntly told Obama that covert action was the only way to confront al Qaeda and other terrorist groups plotting attacks against the U.S.”

It didn’t take Obama long to join the ranks of blood-soaked US presidents. As Scahill explains:

“In December 2009, the Obama administration signed off on its first covert airstrike in Yemen — a cruise missile attack that killed more than 40 people, most of them women and children. “

Zenko is a senior fellow at the CFR and has followed drone policies closely for many years.  Zenko lamented that:

“The Obama administration’s appearance of “reforms” presented in 2013 succeeded in permanently institutionalizing and normalizing what was—under Hayden’s early tenure at the CIA—a rarely used tactic.”

10 times more likely to kill civilians

Unfortunately it didn’t stop there. In a separate article on the ‘drone papers’ journalist at The Intercept Ryan Devereaux writes:

“Research by Larry Lewis, formerly a principal research scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses, supports that conclusion. Lewis spent years studying U.S. operations in Afghanistan, including raids, airstrikes, and jackpots, all with an eye to understanding why civilian casualties happen and how to better prevent them”.

In other words Lewis was working for the US government to assess the nature of the drone programmes that Hayden celebrates.

Deveraux explains that Lewis “uncovered” that US airstrikes:

“delivered by machines thought to be the most precise in the Pentagon’s arsenal… in Afghanistan were 10 times more likely to kill civilians than conventional aircraft”.

 “We assume that they’re surgical but they’re not”…

“Certainly in Afghanistan, in the time frame I looked at, the rate of civilian casualties was significantly higher for unmanned vehicles than it was for manned aircraft airstrikes. And that was a lot higher than raids.”

Far from being “the most precise and effective application of firepower in the history of armed conflict”, what Hayden helped to oversee was the unleashing of a perpetual terror-generating machine. A terror-generating machine that has been part of a wider faux ‘war on terror’ that has destroyed the lives of perfectly innocent hundreds of thousands of men, women and children.

It should then be unsurprising then that confirmed torturer and now director of the CIA Gina Haspel has expressed her well wishes for Hayden:

DCIA Haspel: On behalf of the men & women of CIA, I want to wish Gen. Hayden a speedy recovery. Mike’s long career of public service & commitment to national security continue to be an inspiration to all intelligence officers. Our thoughts are with Mike, Jeanine, & their family.

— CIA (@CIA) November 23, 2018

Embraced by Obama

As a matter of law Obama was obligated to initiated prosecutions against the Bush era war criminals, including those implicated in torture such as Haspel and Hayden. Instead, Obama involved the US in at least five more wars, expanded and institutionalised the National Security-Surveillance state, the drone wars and re-colonised the African continent with an ever expanding number of US military bases, soldiers, and special forces.

It may not be appropriate to celebrate the stroke of Mr Hayden, but nor should he be celebrated by those of us who genuinely support liberty, democracy and the Rule of Law.

A point made by journalists Glenn Greenwald:

I hope @GenMhayden fully recovers. Wishing ill on people is bad in many ways, especially for those who do it. But this event should not be exploited as an opportunity to convert him into an angel or hero. He ran Bush's post-9/11 CIA & NSA & presided over many evil & criminal acts https://t.co/H1SDsIMLeo

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 24, 2018

and Ben Norton:

Liberal journalists are now praising former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden as a "Resistance"™ hero—but his own 2016 book shows his disdain for journos

He called @GGreenwald the devil and attacked Snowden, Seymour Hersh, Laura Poitras, and Jane Mayerhttps://t.co/oAZrNgWl8Y

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) November 23, 2018

#Resistance

The fact that Hayden is described as a ‘patriot’ and a ‘man of honour’  by the ‘liberal’ establishment exposes just how vacuous and shallow the ‘liberal’ establishment and their #hashtag resistance are. This includes the Democratic Party which has either endorsed, or failed to challenge, the worst policies of the Trump administration including its continuation of US imperial wars. Anyone under any illusions as to the nature of the Democratic Party should take a look at the work of journalist Patrick Martin at the World Socialist Website which revealed that the Democratic Party has been recruiting and backing a record number of ex-military and ex-CIA officials to its ranks. In fact, the latest ‘blue wave’ has seen no less than eleven veterans of the US military and the CIA. As journalist Patrick Martin explained to journalist Scott Horton these are merely the candidates who openly advertised their militarist backgrounds. There may be others who didn’t promote it as part of their candidacies. The point is, there are real heroes out there. Everyday men and women who challenge corruption, speak truth to power, and expose waste fraud and abuse. There is no reason to settle for a fake.

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Mohamed Elmaazi obtained his LLB from SOAS and Masters in International and Comparative law from the American University in Cairo. He worked in human rights law for a number of years before shifting to journalism. He occasionally reports for The Real News Network and currently writes for Open Democracy and The Canary.

Canada’s NATO contributions are directly linked to the current diseconomy plaguing this country. Last year alone, Canada spent $32 billion on military spending, according to Public Accounts Canada, largely to bolster US imperialism abroad, to the detriment of humanity.

U.S-led NATO is an aggressive military alliance.  NATO members, including Canada, do not respect the rights of sovereignty and territorial integrity of target countries.  NATO’s negation of international law has been amply demonstrated throughout the “Regime Change” war on Syria, but also in a host of post WW2 invasions, including Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, and beyond.

Canada Peace Conference, November 2018. Presentation by Tamara Lorincz.

On the one hand, NATO membership drains public coffers, while on the other, it advances a criminal, toxic agenda which both restricts public options for a sustainable economy, and our ability to address real dangers facing Canada and humanity.  NATO fabricates the perception that it is ensuring our safety when in reality it is endangering us all.

Canada Peace Conference, November 2018. Presentation by Tamara Lorincz.

Whereas Canada and the world needs to address catastrophic climate change, the military is the top consumer of fossil fuels, and one of the biggest emitters of hazardous wastes.

Whereas Canada and the world needs Peace, NATO membership ensures the opposite.

Canada does need equal access to education and healthcare. We need community hospitals, equal access to affordable medications. We need public housing.  We need improved infrastructure, fast trains, fast ferries, well-paying jobs.  We need alternate energy infrastructure that addresses catastrophic global warming. We do not need war. Excessive military spending precludes our real needs and imposes war needs and the wants of international oligarch classes.

Robin Mathews describes Imperial globalization, a hidden driver behind NATO, in these words:

“ Imperial globalization is criminal manipulation of people and events for the profit of a few. It includes massive ‘disinformation’ about equality, benefits, social development, law, improved standards of living etc. the disinformation is spread by ‘authoritative’ news sources. In the hands of gigantic, wealthy, private corporations, globalization is a , process which works to erase sovereign democracies and replace them with ‘treaties’ sub-states, economic colonies ruled by faceless, offshore, often secret, unaccountable power.”[1]

NATO globalization, then is a cancer devouring us all, predicated on Lies.

We need to say No to globalizing NATO military bases, No to economic straightjackets and diseconomies, and Yes to self-determination and sustainable economies.

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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017.

Note

[1] Robin Mathews, “The Trans Pacific Partnership: Canada and Imperial Globalization – Part one.” American Herald Tribune. 20 May, 2016. (https://ahtribune.com/world/americas/916-ttp-canada.html) Accessed 25 November, 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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Author: Mark Taliano

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Most of those who have had a chance to witness Chinese internationalist mega-projects, clearly understand that the West is near to collapsing; it will never be able to compete with tremendous enthusiasm and progressive spirit of the most populous country on earth, which on top of it, is built on socialist principles (with Chinese characteristics).

Writing this essay in rural Laos, I just saw, literally an entire army of Chinese engineers and workers in action, building huge bridges and tunnels, connecting one of the poorest countries in Asia, to both China and Southeast Asia, erecting hospitals and schools, small factories for the rural population, airports and hydro-electric powerplants or in brief: putting the great majority of Laotian people out of poverty by providing them with both livelihood and infrastructure.

China does precisely this all over the world, from the tiny South Pacific island nations to African countries, plundered for centuries by Western colonialism and imperialism. It helps Latin American nations that are in need, and while it does all that, it is also quickly growing into a middle class, ecologically and culturally responsible nation; a nation which is likely to eradicate all extreme misery very soon, most likely by the year 2020.

The West is horrified!

This could easily be the end of its global order, and it could all actually happen much earlier than expected.

And so, it antagonizes, provokes China, in all imaginable ways possible, from the US military buildup in Asia Pacific, to encouraging several Southeast Asian countries plus Japan to politically and even militarily irritate the PRC. Anti-Chinese propaganda in the West and its client states has lately been reaching a cacophonic crescendo. China is attacked, as I recently described in my essays, from literally all sides; attacked for being ‘too Communist’, or ‘for not being Communist enough’.

The West, it seems, despises all the economic practices of China, be it central planning, ‘capitalist means for socialist ends’, or the unwavering desire of the new Chinese leadership to improve the standard of living of its people, instead of enriching multi-national corporations at the expense of the common citizens of the PRC.

It looks like a trade war, but it actually is not: like the ‘West versus Russia’, the ‘West versus China’ is an ideological war.

China, together with Russia, is effectively de-colonizing part of the world which used to be at the mercy and disposal of the West and its companies (as well as the companies of such client-states of the West as Japan and South Korea).

However it is being labelled, de-colonization is clearly taking place, as many poor and previously vulnerable countries worldwide are now seeking protection from Beijing and Moscow.

But to ‘add insult to injury’, parallel to de-colonialization, there is also ‘de-dollarization’, that is inspiring more and more nations, particularly those that are victims of Western embargos, and the unjust, often murderous sanctions. Venezuela is the latest such example.

The most reliable and stable ‘alternative’ currency that is being adopted by dozens of countries, for international transactions, is the Chinese Yuan (RMB).

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The prosperity of the entire world, or call it ‘global prosperity’, is clearly not what the West desires. As far as Washington and London are concerned, the ‘surrounding’, peripheric world is there predominantly,to supply raw materials (like Indonesia), cheap labor (like Mexico), and guarantee that there is an obedient, indoctrinated population which sees absolutely nothing wrong with the present arrangement of the world.

Image on the right is from Atlanta Black Star

In his recent essay for the Canadian magazine Global Research titled “IMF – WB – WTO – Scaremongering Threats on De-Globalization and Tariffs – The Return to Sovereign Nations” a distinct Swiss economist and a colleague of mine, Peter Koenig, who used to work for the World Bank, wrote:

“As key representatives of the three chief villains of international finance and trade, the IMF, World Bank (WB) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) met on the lush resort island of Bali, Indonesia, they warned the world of dire consequences in terms of reduced international investments and decline of economic growth as a result of the ever-widening trade wars initiated and instigated by the Trump Administration. They criticized protectionism that might draw countries into decline of prosperity. The IMF cuts its global economic growth forecast for the current year and for 2019.

This is pure scaremongering based on nothing. In fact, economic growth of the past that claimed of having emanated from increased trade and investments has served a small minority and driven a widening wedge between rich and poor of both developing and industrialized countries. It’s interesting, how nobody ever talks about the internal distribution of GDP growth…” 

Peter Koenig further argues that globalization and ‘free trade’ are far from desirable for the majority of the countries on our planet. He is giving an example of China:

“Time and again it has been proven that countries that need and want to recover from economic fallouts do best by concentrating on and promoting their own internal socioeconomic capacities, with as little as possible outside interference. One of the most prominent cases in point is China. After China emerged on 1 October 1949 from centuries of western colonization and oppression by Chairman Mao’s creation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Mao and the Chinese Communist party first had to put a devastated ‘house in order’, a country ruined by disease, lack of education, suffering from hopeless famine as a result of shameless exploitation by western colons. In order to do that China remained practically closed to the outside world until about the mid- 1980’s. Only then, when China had overcome the rampant diseases and famine, built a countrywide education system and became a net exporter of grains and other agricultural products, China, by now totally self-sufficient, gradually opened its borders for international investments and trade. – And look where China is today. Only 30 years later, China has not only become the world’s number one economy, but also a world super power that can no longer be overrun by western imperialism.”

To be self-sufficient may be great for the people of every country on our planet, but it is definitely a ‘crime’ in the eyes of the West.

Now China is not only independent, but it dares to introduce to the entire world a totally new system, in which private companies are subservient to the interests of the state and the people. This is the total opposite to what is happening in the West (and its ‘client states’), where the governments are actually indebted to private companies, and where people exist mainly in order to generate huge corporate profits.

On top of it, China’s population is educated, enthusiastic, patriotic and incredibly productive.

As a result, China competes with the West, and it is easily winning the competition. It does it without plundering the world, without overthrowing foreign governments, and starving people.

This is seen by the United States as ‘unfair competition’. And it is being punished by sanctions, threats and provocations. Call it a ‘trade war’, but it actually isn’t.

And why unfair competition? Because China is refusing to ‘join’ and to play by the old imperialist rules dictated by the West, and also readily accepted by countries such as Japan and South Korea. China does not want to rule. And that scares the West.

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In a way, both President Trump and the present leadership of China want to make their countries ‘great again’. However, both countries see greatness differently.

For the United States, to be ‘great’ is to control the world, once again, as it did right after WWII.

For China, to be great is to provide a high quality of living for its citizens, and for the citizens of most of the world. It also means, to have great culture, which China used to have for millennia, before the ‘era of humiliation’, and which was rebuilt and greatly improved from the 1949, onward.

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A leading US philosopher, John Cobb Jr., in a book which we are writing together, recently pointed out:

“Ever since World War II, what the United States has done has been widely copied. Hence this country has had a great opportunity to lead the world.  For the most part, it has led in the wrong direction.  The United States and the whole world, including China, are paying, and will continue to pay, a high price.  But the days of American leadership are ending.  I would still like for the U.S. to engage in major reforms, but it is too late for these to change the world. We can rejoice that the American century is giving way to the Chinese century.”

Many do, but some don’t. The end of the American leadership, or call it the “American Century”, may scare people in various Western countries, particularly in Europe. Rightly so! Those days of unopposed Western economic dictatorship are over. Soon, perhaps, Europeans will have to really compete, and work hard for their money, instead of living high life relying on plunder of natural resources and cheap labor in their semi or neo-colonies.

While many in the West are scared, the situation is simultaneously rising hopes in all other parts of the world.

For China, not to yield to the US pressure, is to show that it is serious when it comes to its independence. The most populous nation on earth is ready to defend its interests, its people and its values.

It is far from being alone. From Russia to Iran, from Venezuela to South Africa, new and newer nations are going to stand by China, and by doing so, they will be defending their own independence and freedom.

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This article was originally published on International Daily News in China.

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

Featured image is from The Bullet

The idea of a standing European army, one dedicated to the specific needs of Europe as opposed to being an annex of another power is far from new.  In gestation alongside notions of European federalism and its defence have come the idea of a force filled with respective nation states that might have aims and ambitions different from those of Washington or Moscow.  Critics of the idea are never far away.

The companion concepts of European integration and defence have not had a smooth ride in transatlantic relations.  The twitchiness shown by various European leaders to the Trump administration’s approach to European defence has become obvious.  Trump’s tactic here has been to pile scorn upon the European army idea while insisting that NATO members pay their dues. He is also counting on the Euro-sceptics who fear that such an army would see Brussels dictating the tune of conscription to member-states.

The Armistice Day commemorations supplied another political opportunity to talk about armies – as if we did not have enough of them already.  Even if war should be avoided, the political leader will often find it irresistible to speak of preparedness for the next one.  The catastrophic freight of the Great War of 1914-1918 is still weighing down nations, but talk of being armed and ready for the next conflict refuses to go away.

France’s Emmanuel Macron, who finds himself in the doldrums of unpopularity at home, has embraced the idea of a continental army.  To Europe 1 radio, he explained that the object of European security had been compromised by decisions made by the Trump White House.

“When I see President Trump announcing that he’s quitting a major disarmament treaty which was formed after the 1980s Euro-missile crisis that hit Europe, who is the main victim?”

The question could have remained rhetorical, but Macron did not want to leave his audience in any nagging doubt:

“Europe and its security.”

The stakes had changed, and the United States had become more unsettling problem than solid protector.

“We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America.”

The comments were less directed at actual physical harm occasioned by traditional military combat than the skirmishes of the Internet waged on the digital frontier.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is of like mind.  To a meeting of the European Parliament, she outlined how a “real, true European army” had to be created “so that we can tackle issues immediately on the ground.”  Other powers could not be relied upon to achieve this task.

 “Only a stronger Europe is going to be able to defend its values and interest worldwide, and the times when when we can rely on others are past.”

These comments might have been ill-advised but entirely logical: the notion of immutable, friendly alliances remains a stretched one, and the interests of states can diverge with violent suddenness.  Where there are problematic lies in the shift being insisted upon by Merkel and Macron: the idea that European “values” and its “identity” needs to be manifested in a standing army that might be both a guarantee of security and a promoter of Europe.

Given that much of Europe is in fractious dispute over the nature of such values, and what imperils them, this project is already stuttering before it finds form, an inchoate aspiration rather than a genuine prospect.  The wisdom of the sometimes sound and often diabolical Austrian diplomat of the Napoleonic era, Klemens von Metternich, comes to mind: coalitions and “all fraternizations” need a “strictly determinate aim” to unite them less they disintegrate.

Trump’s response was predictably adolescent in its fuming quality.  Macron “has just suggested that Europe build its own military in order to protect itself from the US, China and Russia.  Very insulting, but perhaps Europe should first pay its share of NATO, which the US subsidizes greatly!”

The view of shoring up Europe’s own defence in the absence of the United States is viewed as inconceivable for generations of politicians on the continent.  To do so in the absence of the excuse of keeping a US presence in Europe – NATO- is also seen as so improbable as to be unnatural.  Both Merkel and Macron insist that such an armed force would be a “supplement” to NATO, not its replacement nor its counter.

There are also operational matters.  Arguably, only Britain and France have deployable forces in actual instances of conflict, but they are, in the main, annexes of US-led operations.  In a manner heavy with condescension, strategists enthused by a continued role of a large hegemon in European affairs simply insist that Europe cannot go it alone, needing the gusts of wind from across the Atlantic to keep matters flying.  One such member of this fraternity of thought is Michael Shurkin of the RAND Corporation.

“By and large, all of them [the European powers] have militaries designed to work as a coalition run by the US.”

Dependency is, however, a condition that sits uneasily.  It seems an echo of charity; those who receive it are bound to, at some point, seek an alternative.  Even before Trump’s coming to power, thought was being given to the future of European defence.  A collection published in 2016 by the European Union Institute for Security Studies as part of its Chaillot Paper series is one such example.  The authors acknowledge the issues of a common external security policy (CSDP), which sees far more convergence between European states than a common defence policy.  CSDP, in any case, “suffers from a lack of commitment and a lack of resources, within its scope shifting increasingly towards border monitoring and training purposes.” What Merkel and Macron are suggesting is moving Europe towards a previously shunned idea of territorial defence.

Analysts such as James R. Holmes of the Naval War College see a European army as making good sense.  He does so from two perspectives: a suspicion of Russia, to which he attributes jaw dropping powers of embargo in any future conflict with Europe; and the declining influence of the United States.  Numbers of US personnel based in Europe are small relative to the Cold War deployment: some 62,000 or so.  The American merchant fleet has been depleted in terms of numbers.

The structural matters of such an army are so vague as to be considered untenable.  “The EU is not a country, it is not a state” remarks François Heisbourg, an adviser to the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris.  No army, he claims, can exist without an executive branch.  The former British Prime Minister David Cameron has also previously argued that “suggestions of an EU army are fanciful: national security is a national competence”.

But armed forces filled with the nationals of other states have been typical of the Blue helmets of the United Nations, though their deployments a sketchy record.  Given the chaos of a Europe gazing over a yawning chasm, a single army is the last thing on the lips of Europe’s citizenry.  Trump might have to do more to push European leaders towards a more coherent security front.

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

In so far as it may have been assumed that the growing manifestations of global warming through extreme weather events will cause people to realize the reality and the implications of carbon emissions, this is only partly happening, due to ongoing attempts by large part of the mainstream media to attribute these events to natural causes, masking the existential threat posed by global climate disruption.

As conveyed by Noam Chomsky in connection with the US mid-term elections:

“Humanity faces two imminent existential threats: environmental catastrophe and nuclear war. These were virtually ignored in the campaign rhetoric and general coverage. There was plenty of criticism of the Trump administration, but scarcely a word about by far the most ominous positions the administration has taken: increasing the already dire threat of nuclear war, and racing to destroy the physical environment that organized human society needs in order to survive” (Noam Chomsky)

See this and this.

While the cover-up of the global climate and nuclear calamity may reflect pure ignorance, given the overwhelming scientific evidence and the intensifying hurricanes and fires the cover-up of the relations between these events and global warming assumes a criminal dimension unprecedented in human history.

History develops in cycles, wars are followed by periods of rebuilding, and every few decades a new generation forgets the lessons of the last collective bloodshed. As perceived by George Orwell in order to condition peoples’ minds to the next atrocity the language and meaning of words are changed, altering people’s way of thinking, cf. 2 + 2 = 5 if the party says so.

Homo sapiens, so called, is a technical genius with a mythology-possessed mind, believing in spirits, deities, the after-life and flying saucers, a condition possibly stemming as far back as the  mastering of fire by Homo erectus more than a million years ago (see this). Crouched around camp fires over long nights, watching the dancing flames, the species developed senses of imagination and of fear, nowadays equipped with the deadliest weapons.

It is since the dawn of the enlightenment that humanism and science have been rising above prejudices and witchcraft, in some parts of the world. The enlightenment, defined as “ideas centered on reason as the primary source of authority and legitimacy, advancing ideals like liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity, constitutional government and separation of church and state”, is nowadays in full retreat.

Recently messengers of hate and racism have been descending on public forums, while those who try to warn humanity of the climate and nuclear calamities are commonly barred from the mainstream media. As mourned by the late Patrick White, had a fraction of the tens of thousands of those attending sport carnivals participated in peace rallies, perhaps the world would have been different. But such ideas are less in evidence as the world moves back toward totalitarianism, whose basic tenets are expressed by demagogues with mass appeal, hate speech, racial vilification, anti-intellectualism, anti-science, and the promotion of war.

The untruths propagated by advocates of climate denial emerge in context of wider untruths, including pervasive commercial advertising, watched by millions and which nullify what schools and other educational institutions are trying to teach.

Newspeak terms translate for example into:

Truth = When a lie is told enough times

Fake News = The facts they do not want you to know

Democracy = When every dollar has an equal vote

Economic rationalism = When everything has a price, including the Earth

Sustainability = A cover-up term for business-as-usual

Open-ended growth = The psychology of a cancer cell

Morality = Might is right

Security = Multiple rearmament leading to war

Victory = A body bag count

At the heart of fascism is the explicit or inadvertent promotion of demise, of individuals or of collectives, the final stage of the Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva cycle, nowadays manifested by fatal technologies, including atmospheric carbon saturation and nuclear fission. Consciously or subconsciously fascism may not be too worried by the genocidal consequences of its ideology, perhaps assuming they and their rich benefactors may survive the consequences.

One feels a strong temptation to go bush and enjoy what remains of nature.

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Dr Andrew Glikson, Earth and Paleo-climate science, Australia National University (ANU) School of Anthropology and Archaeology, ANU Planetary Science Institute, ANU Climate Change Institute, Honorary Associate Professor, Geothermal Energy Centre of Excellence, University of Queensland. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

A member of Scientists for Global Responsibility has drawn attention to a report by Peter Burt: Off the Leash: The Development of Autonomous Military Drones in the UK.

In a Guardian article, Jamie Doward points out that though the government insists it “does not possess fully autonomous weapons and has no intention of developing them”, since 2015, the UK has declined to support proposals put forward at the UN to ban them.

Israel Defense summarises:

”The report maps out the agencies, laboratories, and contractors undertaking research into drones and autonomous weapon technology in support of the Ministry of Defence, examines the risks arising from the weaponization of such technologies, and assesses government policy in this area”.

“We have already seen the development of drones in Britain which have advanced autonomous capabilities, such as the Taranis stealth drone developed by BAE Systems, and the development of a truly autonomous lethal drone in the foreseeable future is now a real possibility,” Burt said.

A spokesman for the MoD said:

“There is no intent within the MOD to develop weapon systems that operate entirely without human input. Our weapons will always be under human control as an absolute guarantee of oversight, authority and accountability.”

The BBC reported in November that at least 6,660 Yemeni civilians have been killed and 10,560 injured in the fighting, according to the United Nations.

It is hard to imagine fully autonomous weapons inflicting much more death and destruction than current technology under human control.

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Featured image is from Drone Warfare

Barack Obama’s election victory in 2008 received various top public relations awards, including “Best Marketing of the Year”, easily beating Apple.

The reality is Obama and his campaigners conned tens of millions of people, not just in the United States, but throughout the West – by expert propaganda techniques capped by the simple phrase, “Yes we can”. Obama’s popularity in western Europe in particular was remarkable.

Even by late 2016, Obama remained greatly admired in the powerhouse of Europe, Germany, with 86% saying they “had confidence in his leadership”. Going by such polls, it seems large numbers of Germans were unaware of the methods of Obama’s international drone terrorist campaign. The much-maligned ISIS and Al Qaeda could simply not match its destruction.

The drones wiped out thousands of innocent men, women and children, while tearing up the principles of the UN Charter, international law and Magna Carta. The unmanned drone attacks, a particularly cowardly form of warfare, have led more enraged people towards extremist fundamentalist groups.

In late 2014 reports emerged that the Obama administration, in a documented example, had targeted 41 suspected terrorists with drones – killing 1,147 people in the process, including many children. For every possible terrorist killed, an average of 28 people were also wiped out. By October 2015, it emerged that almost 90% of those killed in the drone assaults “were not the intended targets” – therefore innocent civilians.

The decorated former US Army General, Stanley McChrystal, supreme commander of US forces in Afghanistan said, “For every innocent person you kill, you create 10 new enemies”. Further critical of Obama’s foreign policies, McChrystal’s time at the top was brief and he was replaced by General David Petraeus – with the situation in Afghanistan later descending into chaos.

Obama had previously assured,

“Before any [drone] strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured”.

US intelligence describes drone attacks as “precise” and “clinical” while John Kerry as Secretary of State said,

“The only people we fire a drone at are confirmed terrorist targets at the highest level, after a great deal of vetting that takes a long period of time”.

It is safe to say such statements are complete fantasy meant to dupe an unsuspecting public.

On other fronts, Obama’s backing of an overt famine war against Yemen conducted by the US’s major ally, Saudi Arabia, resulted in a long-standing and grave humanitarian crisis that continues. Obama provided $50 billion of military aid to the Saudis, more than any previous American President.

Upon taking office, Obama stepped up the conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, fulfilling promises made during his election campaign. Afghanistan’s then President Hamid Karzai, in a first communiqué with Obama, urged his US counterpart to stop bombing Afghan civilian areas, which went ignored. President Karzai also told a UN delegation he wanted a timetable for withdrawal of American troops from his country. To this day US soldiers remain in the besieged state, with a further surge taking place under current incumbent Donald Trump.

In 2011 Obama performed the lead role in invading Libya, flanked by the two old imperial powers of Britain and France – another tragic Western intervention which left the north African country in ruins. Last year Obama said the Libyan invasion was his “worst mistake”, while at the same time maintaining it was “the right thing to do”. The after-effects for millions of Libyans went unmentioned.

Obama subsequently absolved himself of much of the blame on Libya by castigating David Cameron, Britain’s then Prime Minister, for afterwards being “distracted by a range of other things”. The comment was reported to have strained sensitive nerves in Downing Street.

Nor was the French President at the time spared Obama’s criticism. The US President said Nicolas Sarkozy wanted to “trumpet the role France was playing in the air campaign, despite the fact we [the US] had wiped out all the air defences and essentially set up the entire infrastructure”. It appears Obama wished to take all credit for the illegal intervention.

In Syria, the Obama administration strongly supported terrorist groups in a disastrous conflict against Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian army, later backed by Russia and Iran. As far back as 2012, US officials were already aware that the largest share of American arms was “going to the rapidly growing Al Qaeda presence in the country [Syria]”.

In the middle of Obama’s “global war on terror” the US military was funding Al Qaeda and other offshoots in Syria. In the mainstream press it was widely reported such US aid was going towards “moderates forces” or “Syrian rebels”, interesting descriptions for affiliates of Al Qaeda.

On the domestic front, perhaps the most poignant reflection of Obama’s policies was his “betrayal of African-Americans”, as the journalist Chris Hedges described it. Despite being the first African-American president in history, black people in the US endured higher poverty and unemployment rates under Obama than during his predecessor George W. Bush.

The worst African-American unemployment figure under Bush was 12.1%, while under Obama it soared to 16.8% by 2011 – the highest unemployment rate among black people since 1983 (the Ronald Reagan era). The highest number of black people enduring poverty under Bush was one in four, 25%, but that figure rose to 28% under Obama in 2013.

Andrew Jackson, an African-American and graduate of Louisiana State University, said of Obama’s legacy, “We thought our dreams would be more visible under Obama. They’re not”. Despite today working three different jobs Jackson earns just $22,000 a year, while owing more than $20,000 in school loans.

Jackson is a classic example of the plight of black people in the US. In addition there has been a rise in unlawful killings of black men at the hands of police officers, in what are effectively miniature police states.

In the overall scheme, it would be unfair on Obama to suggest his tenure was as destructive as past presidents like Reagan or Bush II. The Obama era did not bear witness to a widespread terrorist war in Latin America, or a massive land invasion in the form of Iraq. In that regard he was “weak”, as often described by hawkish figures; he certainly was that in his failure to close the US military prison at Guantanamo, which grossly violates human rights.

Yet Obama’s policies of favouring the elite – continuing from those sitting in office during the past four decades – led to disillusioned Americans electing an unknown maverick in Donald Trump.

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Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree. He is interested in writing primarily on foreign affairs, having been inspired by authors like Noam Chomsky. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

In the late hours of November 24^th militants launched several rockets containing chlorine gas at residential areas in the northern part of Aleppo city, according to Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA). 107 civilians reportedly suffered asphyxiation, including many women and children.

These attacks came a few days after SANA reported that French militants [special forces] arrived in Idlib to equip shells and rockets of local groups with toxic gas. They entered the country through the border with Turkey.

In its first response to the chemical attack, the SAA shelled several positions of the militants in the western Aleppo countryside and the southeastern Idlib countryside. It is possible that the chemical attack may become the tipping point which, would force the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) to kick off a military operation in the area.

Furthermore, a Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham unit attempted to attack several SAA positions in northern Hama from the direction of al-Lataminah. However, the SAA repelled the infiltration attempt.

Earlier Syrian and Lebanese sources reported the SAA and its allies are preparing to launch a large-scale military operation against the remaining militants in northwestern Syria. before the end of 2018. Considering the recent escalation, this development has become highly likely.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) also continue their allegedly successful efforts against ISIS in Deir Ezzor province. On November 23^rd, the US-backed group announced that it had repelled ISIS attacks on their positions around the town of Hajin in the Euphrates Valley. US-led coalition warplanes assisted in the repelling and carried out 10 airstrikes on positions, gatherings and vehicles. The SDF media center claimed 27 terrorists were killed.

On November 24^th, ISIS Amaq news agency reported that ISIS militants launched attacks on the SDF between the towns of al-Susah and Hajin. An ISIS commander said that hat more than 32 SDF fighters were killed and many others were captured, a Humvee and loads of weapons were also seized. Syrian outlets reported that ISIS fighters had imposed control of large parts of the town of al-Bahrah during the attack. Despite that, the SDF media center continues to report that all is under control and pretend that the situation around Hajin is in its favor.

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Russia calls for an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council over a recent incident involving three Ukrainian vessels and its own navy and air force to stop the alleged illegal use of international waters. 

Theresa May is under increasing pressure to clarify reports that she blocked an investigation into Brexit bankroller Arron Banks in the run-up to the 2016 referendum after the Home Office refused to reveal information about the controversial Leave.EU and UKIP donor.

In an “extraordinary” response to a freedom of information request from openDemocracy, the Home Office refused to confirm or deny whether it holds any material from 2016 about Leave.EU and Banks. The department said that doing so “would impede the future formulation of government policy”.

Opposition MPs have accused the Home Office of a “major cover-up” and called on the government to “ditch the obfuscation” and “come clean”, amid media reports that May, as home secretary, blocked a proposed probe into Banks ahead of the Brexit vote.

In a letter seen by openDemocracy, Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake has called on the prime minister to “clarify whether you were aware of any concerns regarding Arron Banks’s finances and alleged relationships with foreign states”. The Leave donor is currently under investigation by the National Crime Agency.

Image on the right: Arron Banks

In an effort to ascertain whether there was any truth to the allegations that May vetoed a probe into Banks’s affairs, openDemocracy asked the Home Office for any communications from May’s time as home secretary that referred to Banks or Leave.EU. In response, the department said that even confirming or denying whether it held any information “would impede the future formulation of government policy”.

Yes Minister, the Kafka version

Responding to the Home Office decision – which openDemocracy is challenging – Tom Brake said:

“The government’s lame excuse for failing to respond to an FOI request from openDemocracy combines a touch of Yes Minister with a pinch of Kafka.”

Banks, whose £8.4m gift to Leave campaigns was the single biggest donation in British political history, is facing a criminal investigation over concerns that he was not the “true source” of the money. Questions have also been raised about Banks’s links to Russia. Banks denies any wrongdoing.

The NCA probe followed an Electoral Commission investigation that found evidence that Bank’s Brexit funding had come “from impermissible sources”.

Source: TruePublica

Last weekend, openDemocracy revealed that Banks raised the possibility of fundraising for Brexit in the US while emailing former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. Donations from outside the UK are illegal under British election legislation.

openDemocracy has also revealed that Banks lied to MPs about the political work that his insurance company did for his Leave.EU campaign.

What did May do?

After the NCA investigation was launched, a report in the Daily Mail suggested that Theresa May had previously vetoed a probe into Banks before the Brexit vote took place. “The topic was simply too explosive in the run-up to the referendum,” the newspaper wrote.

In the Commons last week, Labour MP Ben Bradshaw MP asked May whether she had told security services not to investigate Banks when she was home secretary. She replied: “We do not comment, in this House, on individual criminal investigations.”

Bradshaw, who wrote to May asking if she had ever declined a request from the security services to conduct a probe into Banks the day after it was announced that the NCA investigation had begun, said that the Home Office’s response to openDemocracy suggested that “the government is trying to hide behind the form of language usually used to avoid commenting on intelligence matters. This is not an intelligence matter.

“It is a question about whether the government blocked an earlier investigation into someone who, two years later, is finally under criminal investigation.

“This is an extraordinary response from the Home Office and points, I’m afraid, to a major cover-up. How can telling the truth about whether the Home Office blocked an investigation into Banks ‘impede the future development of government policy’? It’s got nothing to do with the future formulation of government policy,” Bradshaw said.

Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake added:

“It is time the government and the PM ditched the obfuscation and came clean with what the PM knew about the Banks allegations when.

“Trust in both politicians and the EU referendum result depend on it.”

In September deputy Labour leader Tom Watson also asked whether May had blocked a possible investigation into Arron Banks before the referendum.

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Featured image is from TruePublica

Lost in much of the media was the fact on Tuesday, the White House signed a memorandum allowing troops stationed at the southern border of the United States to engage in some law enforement roles and use lethal force, if necessary — a move that legal experts have cautioned may run afoul of the Posse Comitatus Act.

As the UN reports year by year a dramatic increase on civilians killings in Afghanistan, and the International Criminal Court does not advance in investigating such crimes by the local government, terrorists and US-led forces, Friba, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan’s representative, states that the US has deliberately destroyed her country. The objective is political domination:  “Such disproportionate use of force can only be titled as intentional attacks on civilian populations.”

“The lives of Afghans has no value for the US,” Friba says while she is not confident about justice from international organizations in her country. “UNAMA, as the UN in general is a US-dominated entity and a small tool in its hands for its imperialist pursuits. The ICC has yet to earn this unpopular status.”

In the following interview, the brave Afghan activist for human rights also specifies the US-Taliban-ISIS’s Tom & Jerry endless game on the local chessboard. ” ISIS and Taliban serve a dual purpose for the US in Afghanistan,” while Friba observes that, “there are sections of the Taliban and ISIS that have been bought, and are used by Russia and Iran and other countries for their own purposes.”

In the lines below, straight from Afghanistan the voice of the Afghan people, what the mainstream media never tells you – and never will do.

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Edu Montesanti: As UNAMA recently issued reports on the dramatic increase of civilians deaths in Afghanistan, which does not change year by year, the International Criminal Court (ICC) is considering to investigate crimes committed in Afghanistan by the local government, the Taliban and other anti-government forces, and the US-led forces.

Your view on the ICC and Unama, and how much RAWA is confident that the US will be taken to an international court.

Friba: For years, RAWA has made extensive efforts to prosecute fundamentalist criminal warlords through ICC or other courts, but as predictable, it has not borne any result. We all know the reality of these bodies that serve the agenda of imperialist countries, and don’t stand for justice.

UNAMA, as the UN in general is a US-dominated entity and a small tool in its hands for its imperialist pursuits. For decades now, the victims of the US’s wars and interventions have revealed this bitter truth and have no hopes or expectations from the UN, which has openly persecuted the US’s rivals around the world while largely ignoring the US’s own crimes.

Afghan representatives in the UN are also CIA sell-outs who are the mouthpieces of the US, furthering its aims in the UN. This is not to mention the widespread corruption that has hit UN for years.

While the UN’s shameful past is one of a pro-US body, the ICC has yet to earn this unpopular status. The present wars inAfghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria are also testing grounds for the ICC to establish whether it is an impartial body that will go after all war criminals, or just be a pro-US body that ignores the crimes committed by the US and its allies and its puppets, like the UN.

The recent decision by the chief prosecutor of the ICC to seek an investigation into alleged war crimes perpetrated by U.S. military forces and the CIA in Afghanistan is a positive step, despite the fact that many do not see the investigation as yielding any result.

Edu Montesanti: We have recently talked about the old imperialistic strategy, oppress and destroy to dominate a region, as you and I were talking about US killing of civilians increasing year by year, since 2001. The ICC reported that “although these operations [US attacks] resulted in incidental loss of civilian life and harm to civilians, in most incidents the information available does not provide a reasonable basis to believe that the military forces intended the civilian population as such or individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities to be the object of the attack.”, I firmly believe, given the facts regarding these killings and US practices in Afghanistan and all over the world through history, that at least many of these crimes against innocents in your country is intentional to destroy and dominate Afghanistan, as well as a consequence of hatred, discrimination, drug effect on the US military, mentally ill soldiers, revenge for the 9/11 false flag…

What are your thoughts on the killings of civilians in Afghanistan, Friba?

Friba: The lives of Afghans has no value for the US. I agree with all the points mentioned above: hatred, racist discrimination, dehumanization, drug effect, mentally ill, revenge, and most importantly to dominate the region. In Iraq, I especially believe that they bombarded the country and tortured and killed people to dominate it. Afghanistan was already destroyed by 20 years of war when the US came.

“Oppress and destroy to dominate” is a very effective tactic to take over a country or nation, as demonstrated by the US in Iraq and Libya recently. A developed country with an independent government will never accept foreign domination. Driving a country towards poverty and devastation with the utter obliteration of its economic base, basic infrastructure, and state system will oppress its people and destroy the country to the point that it breaks the backbone of the nation and they cannot resist any oppression.

This tactic was effectively implemented by the US’s Jihadi lackeys during the infighting of 1992-1996, when the Northern Alliance’s Pakistani masters ordered the destruction of every basic infrastructure of the country immediately after these Jihadi brutes took power.

Now after more than 20 years of war, the Afghan people are too tired and deprived of a humane life to seek their bigger desires for their country, like indepetndence, freedom, democracy and social justice.

The majority of the attacks by the US are carried out without accurate intelligence and regard to civilian lives, resulting in bloody massacres through airstrikes, drone strikes, night raids, and shootings across Afghanistan.

After all these years, the US understands the fighting tactics of the Taliban very well: they fight guerilla-style and immediately leave an area after carrying out their operation, leaving behind innocent civilians who have nowhere to escape to. Bombarding an area after an operation has been carried out, and has usually only targeted innocent civilians. This well-known pattern has been ignored by the US military. In certain cases, an entire gathering or village has been bombarded to target a few Taliban members or a single Taliban commander.

Such disproportionate use of force can only be titled as intentional attacks on civilian populations. There is overwhelming evidence, in the form of admission by US army members and leaked documents, like The Intercept reported that 90% the people killed in drone strikes were not the target, that most attacks that have caused loss of innocent lives, have either been intentional or highly reckless.

Most of the troops and private company contractors sent in the Afghan war were brainwashed with hatred for Afghans and motivated by revenge for 9/11. This made innocent Afghan civilians easy prey for them to fulfill their sick hatred.

There are numerous examples of murderous, intentional attacks on innocent people by such troops and contractors in Afghanistan, as well as the other US victim, Iraq, where people have been killed, decapitated, and humiliated for fun. The infamous “Kill Team” and the Panjwai massacre are only two incidents that were exposed and investigated. Many incidents, especially in botched raids and night raids, go uninvestigated.

The consistence of these war crimes is not surprising since the US military has avoided investigation and prosecution of war crimes in Afghanistan, providing untrue accounts of events and protecting the troops who are involved in crimes. US troops also have immunity from prosecution in Afghanistan under the Bilateral Security Agreement signed between the traitorous Afghan government and the US in 2014.

The investigations and prosecutions carried out by the US army itself cannot be just and fair which is why US troops guilty of crimes have either escaped punishment or received a slap on the wrist for their heinous crimes. This immunity encourages the US troops and contractors to continue their crimes without worrying about consequences or fear of punishment or accountability. This is why weddings, hospitals and densely populated villages continue to be attacked causing innocent people to die.

If we broadly talk about intention, the US never “intended” to “liberate” our people, restore peace, or fight terrorists in its “war on terror”, in the first place, and the fact that this criminal war took the lives of thousands of innocent women, children, and men,should not escape prosecution and condemnation just because it was not “intentional”.

Can the discussion of “intention” be the answer for the people who have lost their children and family members and are looking for justice? Certainly not. This goes against the very concept of justice, of holding armies and governments accountable for their actions, so as to stop the reoccurrence of such crimes.

The ICC should not deceive itself and the people of the world by turning a blind eye to such war crimes on simply the defense of “intention”. If the ICC is adamant in its pursuit of justice, then it should take some concrete action against the commission of war crimes like the Kunduz hospital attack, the Balabuluk massacre, the Shindand massacare, and countless others that have not even been reported and investigated.

Edu Montesanti: It is said, with strong evidences, that US companies have been extracting rare earth minerals in Afghanistan: Surely not any “new” news, Friba Jan…

Friba: Old news, Edu Jan. When English troops were in Helmand province for years, people reported that they dug up uranium and transported them secretly out of Afghanistan by air. We have so many accounts of such dirty plunders of these countries.

Post-2001, English troops were mainly stationed in that southern province for years. There was not even that much war and insecurity and Taliban presence at that time, so it was very suspicious. Many such suspicious activities have been reported from everywhere.

While such reports are useful to denounce US war (using their own sources against them), I don’t think it paints a true picture of Afghanistan. It makes it appear as though the US is truly fighting terrorism in Afghanistan and really struggling against the Taliban, and that this corruption is the only hindrance. While the corruption part is true, and that many young soldiers have unfortunately been brainwashed into fighting this war, the truth is that the US’s bigger policy in the region is not to fight the Taliban/ISIS, rather to use them as tools for their gains. Such reports only deceive the people of the US and the world into believing this is a “good” war.

Edu Montesanti: How do you describe the 17-year long US occupation of Afghanistan?

Friba: The US’s main interest in Afghanistan is in its geostrategic positioning.

The US’s largest military bases are located in the most geostrategically favorable parts of Afghanistan, it can comfortably place its agents, soldiers and contractors in any number it wishes and, carry out any actions  (like testing of missiles like the MOAB and plundering of natural resources) without fear of prosecution or accountability thanks to its puppet state, all for one purpose:to keep its current arch-rivals – Russia, China, Iran, and to an extent Indian – under its thumb, maintain its sphere of influence in the region, and prevent these rivals from developing further influence in the region.

Afghanistan’s situation is different from the other current US wars because Afghanistan is under the direct occupation of the US, with no other country currently even competing with it, and is dominated in all parts by the US’s Islamic fundamentalist mercenaries, the Afghan puppet government, ISIS and Taliban.

Naturally, our country’s devastation, politically, socially, and economics-wise, is the direct result of this occupation and domination. Our people have tasted the US’s 17-year neo-colonial war and the disasters it has brought upon them. Insecurity, war, killings, torture, violence against women, poverty, mafia, corruption, unemployment, refugee or immigration crisis, drugs, are all gifts of the US occupation to our people.

This reality gets zero coverage around the world and it is painful how people have a distorted picture of the US’s criminal war in Afghanistan and other countries.

Edu Montesanti: If in the past RAWA had to fight three strong enemies, the Afghan puppet government composed by former warlords, the Taliban, and the US military, now ISIS barbarically joins the list of local enemies – or the list to join a “peace process”…?

Specify what the game is on the Afghan chessboard.

Friba: In this imperialist quest, no other force has served the US better than its most loyal, long-term partners, its Islamic fundamentalist mercenaries, including the Jihadis in the government, and Taliban and ISIS.

Today, the ISIS and Taliban serve a dual purpose for the US in Afghanistan: as proxies to hit its rivals, and as an excuse to justify the ongoing Afghan war to its taxpayers and the world. It is no secret that the US is the creator and nurturer of these criminal groups, and actively uses them today as its proxies in Afghanistan and other countries.

But there are sections of the Taliban and ISIS that have been bought and are used by Russia and Iran and other countries for their own purposes, which means that while certain pro-US sections of these groups are supported and protected by the US, the rest are attacked and killed.

The US also has the Afghan army and local militias, highly implicated in gruesome crimes since their creation, at its disposal, as it goes out to eliminate its rivals’ proxies, which adds to the insecurity and crime rate in areas where these battles are taking place.

This proxy war between these countries is what makes up the ongoing battles and bloodshed across Afghanistan. This is also what the complex Afghan war essentially comes down to – a power struggle between the US and its regional rivals.

Every development, big or small, every change in policy and strategy adopted by all these players, has to be seen in this light. The victims of this war and its resulting insecurity and bloodshed, are the innocent people of Afghanistan.

This love-hate relationship between the US and its Islamic fundamentalist mercenaries – that is, where these elements serve them, the US nurtures them and props them up against its rivals and enemies, and where it does not, it annihilates them – has existed throughout history (explained well by Robert Dreyfuss in Devil’s Game) and is manifested in this fashion in Afghanistan.

The US has not just created and supported these reactionary fundamentalist groups in Afghanistan, but in different parts of the world throughout the past century. Since the Second World War, the US has used these bloodthirsty elements against Communism, the left and nationalist elements.

But the US only uses them instrumentally to attain its goals in a certain country or region and then disposes of them like tissue paper. A few years ago, the US created ISIS to defeat Bashar al-Assad, control Iraq and hit Hezbollah – that is Iran – in the region; now ISIS has no further use in the Middle East due to the US’s defeat in the Syrian war, so it is bombing them.

However, ISIS serves US purposes currently in Afghanistan, so we have seen a quick rise of ISIS in Afghanistan (its activities,once limited to the eastern province of Nangarhar, has now spread to all parts of Afghanistan, and some of the bloodiest bombings and massacres this year were carried out by ISIS in different parts of Afghanistan including Kabul).

This quick emergence of ISIS is not possible without the support and protection of the US.

Edu Montesanti: We particularly talked weeks ago on Wali Karzai, a CIA asset who was a drug dealer in Afghanistan. Wali is a key figure to understand the CIA’s role in Afghanistan, and his killing in July 2011 looks something to burn an alive file against the CIA, don’t you think so, Friba?

Friba: We do not have an exact information on Wali Karzai. We know as much as the media exposed.

However, we have several theories, nothing confirmed, as to why he might have been killed and by who. Most probably he was targeted by the US, maybe for many hidden reasons, but mainly because the US is very careful in making sure no figure accumulates too much power in any part of Afghanistan. This is especially true for corrupt warlords who may deviate from serving the US in their pursuit for money and power and that is unacceptable to the US. We have observed this policy of the US here.

Another possibility is that he was simply killed in typical, internal mafia conflicts. In any case, what is a fact is that he was involved in drug trade, money laundering, had a death squad, and most importantly, on CIA payroll.

Edu Montesanti: Gulbuddin is another Uncle Sam’s best friend in this game behind US regional dominance…

Friba: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a fundamentalist warlord and recipient of the highest amount of aid from the US, has been targeted in all our statements to you, as an example of how the US still supports and gives power to the most criminal, traitorous fundamentalist terrorists in Afghanistan.

Gulbuddin is an arch-terrorist and murderer of tens of revolutionaries, intellectuals, and nationalists, as we have discussed it in detail before). RAWA has historically exposed and condemned him and we were targeted and harassed by his criminal party for many years in Pakistan. We will put points on him in the interview as well. The US’s defeat in its wars abroad is just the tip of the iceberg that is its crimes and anti-people activities in other countries.

Edu Montesanti: Please speak a little more about RAWA’s origins, and the movement’s current work.

Friba: RAWA was based in Pakistan during the wars of Afghanistan, 1980s and 90s, when the situation was too difficult for us to carry out our activities. In the 80s, the so-called Communist regime was rabidly after intellectuals and activists, especially revolutionaries and leftists, struggling against it. Then the civil war and Taliban came in the 90s. Even in Pakistan, RAWA was not safe, as our young leader, Meena, was martyred in Quetta by the bloodthirsty Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

Our activities were still largely carried out in Afghanistan, but underground. RAWA’s name had become synonymous with resistance against foreign occupation, the Soviet occupation, and a fierce, relentless struggle against the more dangerous species, the Islamic fundamentalists on the US/Pakistan/Saudi Arabia/Iran’s leash who took power in 1992. While we held demonstrations and functions in Pakistan, and worked extensively among Afghan women through social projects in refugee camps, our publications were distributed secretly all over Afghanistan, and we had underground activities for women all over Afghanistan as well, such as literacy courses and income generating projects.

While RAWA was formed to fight for women’s rights and equality, we simply believe that that goal is unattainable without freedom, from foreign occupation/intervention, democracy, a real democracy achieved by the people’s struggle and not the mockery the US has made out of it since 2001, social justice and secularism. This has been RAWA’s slogan since it was formed in 1977.

RAWA moved back to Afghanistan in 2001 after the relative calm and continues to operate in different parts, but underground. Our enemies, the fundamentalists, are still powerful thanks to the West’s backing, and we still cannot work openly. We do not have an official office or a phone number, we operate under different names and our members use pseudonyms. The situation has not changed much for us, and similar movements in Afghanistan.

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In a recent op-ed in The New York Times, Thomas Friedman criticised former US President Barack Obama‘s bet on Iran and President Donald Trump’s bet on Saudi Arabia, noting that both countries responded with their worst impulses. 

Friedman argues that the Iran nuclear deal was a bet worth making, but like many critics of the deal, he claims that it enabled Iran’s overreach in four Arab capitals: Baghdad, Damascus, Sanaa and Beirut. I believe he is wrong.

In the Iran-US wrangling over the past three decades, Tehran has repeatedly delivered on its promises, while the US has fallen short. In the late 1980s, President George HW Bush asked Iran to help with the release of Western hostages in Lebanon, vowing “goodwill for goodwill”. Iran facilitated the release; in return, the US increased pressure on Iran.

The ‘axis of evil’

In 2001, when the US asked for Iran’s support in its “war on terror” in Afghanistan, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps gave crucial intelligence to the US military. Tehran also played a constructive role in Afghanistan by throwing its full support behind the US-backed president, Hamid Karzai – but President George W Bush responded by putting Iran on the “axis of evil”.

According to Ryan Crocker, the former US ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq, Iranian diplomats were “pragmatic and focused” when it came to assisting in Afghanistan, at one point even producing “an extremely valuable map showing the Taliban’s order of battle just before American military action began”.

That all ended after the infamous “axis of evil” speech, as the Iranian leadership “concluded that in spite of their cooperation with the American war effort, the United States remained implacably hostile to the Islamic Republic”.

Iran also delivered on its promises in the 2015 nuclear deal. The International Atomic Energy agency repeatedly confirmed that Iran was upholding its end of the bargain – but not only did the US withdraw from the deal, it has also since engaged in a maximum pressure policy, aiming to force Iran to capitulate to its demands.

Summary of Trump statement today: If you buy US weapons and if you are against Iran – then you can kill and repress as much as you want. https://t.co/lHLiSuw3DT

— Carl Bildt (@carlbildt) November 20, 2018

In each of the important episodes outlined above, Iran respected the rules of the game, while the US reneged on its promises. It is also important to recall that Iran’s engagements throughout the region predated the nuclear deal. After the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, Iran intervened in Iraq only after a number of US officials openly called for an American invasion of Iran to follow that of Iraq.

In Syria, Iran’s involvement has not happened in a vacuum, either.

Projecting Saudi power

On Saudi Arabia, Friedman argues that Trump vowed to advance US interests in the region by selling $110bn in arms to Saudi Arabia and betting on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – but bin Salman “used his carte blanche” to project power and stretch far beyond his capabilities by intervening in Yemen, blockading Qatar, abducting the prime minister of Lebanon, cracking down on female activists and “permitting, if not ordering, his team to murder moderate Saudi democracy advocate Jamal Khashoggi”.

Friedman is wrong about Saudi Arabia too. The wars in Yemen, Syria and Libya have all been joint Saudi-US campaigns. Moreover, Washington and Riyadh jointly supported Saddam’s invasion of Iran and the use of chemical weapons against Iranians. The US turned a blind eye to Saudi Arabia, even though it was well aware of the latter’s support for extremist groups.

In the 1990s, the Saudis heavily funded madrassas that taught a fundamentalist version of Islam, Obama acknowledged, according to a 2016 Atlantic article. The US-backed Saudi campaign in Yemen has led to the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, and has bolstered extremist groups in the region and beyond. Even after the gruesome murder of Khashoggi, the US imposed severe sanctions on Iran, but did nothing to punish Saudi Arabia.

US domination

There is no doubt that Obama’s strategy was different from Trump’s.

“The competition between the Saudis and the Iranians – which has fuelled proxy wars and chaos in Syria and Iraq and Yemen – requires us to say to our friends as well as to the Iranians that they need to find an effective way to share the neighbourhood and institute some sort of cold peace,” Obama told the Atlantic.

Yet, despite the Khashoggi affair, Saudi Arabia today lies at the centre of Washington’s strategic and political policy in the region.

The Middle East has been dominated by the US for decades. Multiple wars in the region – from Afghanistan, to Iraq, to Libya, to Yemen – are the real source of instability, sectarian conflict and the rise of terrorist groups such as the Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda. “Iran has not launched an aggressive war in modern history (unlike the US or Israel), and its leaders have a doctrine of ‘no first strike’,” notes University of Michigan history professor Juan Cole.

While the West and some regional actors are concerned about Iran’s regional influence, Tehran also has serious and legitimate concerns. As a confidence-building measure, all parties to the nuclear deal – including the US – should respect their obligations to foster peace and stability in the Middle East.

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Seyed Hossein Mousavian is Middle East Security and Nuclear Policy Specialist at Princeton University and a former spokesman for Iran’s nuclear negotiators. His book, The Iranian Nuclear Crisis: A Memoir, was published in 2012 by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His latest book, “Iran and the United States: An Insider’s view on the Failed Past and the Road to Peace” was released in May 2014.

We welcome to the programme the writer and lecturer Edward Curtin, who teaches sociology at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, for a conversation on his research into the subject of September 11, 2001, and in particular his analysis of the language used of that event in terms of a hypothesised deep-state policy of linguistic mind control.

We also discuss the very important book 9/11 Unmasked by David Ray Griffin and Elizabeth Woodworth, recently published by Olive Branch Press, which Edward Curtin particularly recommends for its scholarly approach.

“9/11 Unmasked is the result of a six-year investigation by an international review panel, which has provided 51 points illustrating the problematic status of all the major claims in the official account of the 9/11 attacks, some of which are obviously false. Most dramatically, the official account of the destruction of the Twin Towers and World Trade Center 7 could not possibly be true, unless the laws of physics were suspended that day. But other claims made by the official account—including the claims that the 9/11 planes were taken over by al-Qaeda hijackers, that one of those hijackers flew his plane into the Pentagon, and that passengers on the planes telephoned people on the ground—are also demonstrably false. The book reports only points about which the panel reached consensus by using the “best-evidence” consensus model employed in medical research. The panel is composed of experts about 9/11 from many disciplines, including physics, chemistry, structural engineering, aeronautical engineering, and jurisprudence.”—Interlink Books

Listen to the interview below.

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UK Commits Extra Military Forces to Ukraine: Irresponsible Policy, Dangerous Repercussions

By Arkady Savitsky, November 25, 2018

A multi-role hydrographic survey ship will be deployed in the Black Sea next year to demonstrate Britain’s support for Ukraine and ensure “freedom of navigation”. HMS Echo is not a warship but it flies the naval ensign.

China Denounces UN Security Council’s Promotion of the West’s Political Agenda in Myanmar

By Carla Stea, November 25, 2018

Although China’s statements at the UN Security Council are most often brief and general in content, the afternoon of October 24 China’s Ambassador Ma spoke at length and brilliantly exposed the fraudulent use of “concern for human rights” to conceal the manipulation and abuse of the Security Council to facilitate the political agenda of western imperial interests.

In Historic Move, Sen. Rand Paul Places Hold on $38 Billion to Israel

By Jackson Richman, November 25, 2018

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has a history of being skeptical about U.S. taxpayer funds going towards the Jewish state, has placed a hold on the U.S.-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2018, which provides Israel with $38 billion in military aid over the next decade.

The Yellow Vests Rebellion, Fierce Political Opposition in France. Emmanuel Macron’s Harsh Hikes in Fuel Prices

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, November 25, 2018

Governments and ruling regimes tend to face revolution in the face of harsh hikes in prices. Margaret Thatcher’s rule in Britain was rocked by the poll tax.  In France, the once enthusiastically embraced Emmanuel Macron has decided to leave the ground rich with challenges against his administration. The Yellow Vests, the gilet jaunes, have decided to take up the chance protesting with such intensity it has led to death and serious injury. 

230,000 “Jihadists” in 70 Countries: Since 9/11 the Number of Al Qaeda Affiliated Terrorists Has Quadrupled. Study

By RT News, November 25, 2018

As many as 230,000 jihadists are spread across 70 countries, with the largest concentrations of terrorists located in Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington DC think tank.

US-Israeli Open Secret: Supporting Al Qaeda, Recruiting Jihadists

By Stephen Lendman, November 25, 2018

Washington and Israel partner in each other’s wars of aggression. US use of jihadists goes back to CIA-recruited, armed and supported Al Qaeda mujahideen fighters in the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980s.

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The European Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS) put together a day-long seminar chastising the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Organised by Jonathan Bullock, a UK Independence Party (UKIP) Member of the European Parliament (MEP), it gathered European critics of China’s rise upon the global stage along with US and European-funded agitators active in undermining Chinese-Pakistani relations.

The CPEC is a keystone project amid Chinese-Pakistani ties and an integral part of Beijing’s One Belt, One Road initiative (OBOR). It includes energy and transportation projects developing and connecting Pakistan’s Baluchistan province along the Arabian Sea with Chinese territory along Pakistan and China’s border.

When completed, the projects will increase both Pakistan’s prospects and China’s influence not only in Pakistan, but across the wider region. Together with other OBOR projects, CPEC will be yet another step toward the rise of Eurasia out from under centuries of European domination.

For MEP Jonathan Bullock of UKIP, it is somewhat perplexing to see a politician supposedly concerned with British independence so eager to interfere in the sovereignty of Pakistan and China, thousands of kilometers from British or indeed, all of Europe’s shores.

The EFSAS website included a summary of the CPEC-oriented event:

A high level panel consisting of Members European Parliament (MEPs), Scholars and Academicians spoke at the event and discussed the construction of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and its interrelated legal, geo-strategic, economic and environmental issues, which directly impact the stability of South Asia. 

Participants claimed that China would assume unwarranted influence over Pakistan over the course of the projects’ construction. Concerns related to Pakistan’s Kashmir region and Baluchistan were also brought up by representatives of separatist groups, many of which are funded by the US and Europe specifically to serve as vectors for Western influence in Pakistan and agents of destabilisation not only within Pakistan, but between Pakistan and its immediate neighbours (Afghanistan, India, Iran and China).

The EFSAS’ statement would claim:

Mr. Fernando Burgés, Programme Manager at the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO), provided his perspective on the negative repercussion stemming from the construction of the CPEC, which goes through the disputed territory of Gilgit Baltistan, part of the erstwhile Princely State of Jammu & Kashmir over which Pakistan does not have any legal right.

The UNPO serves as collective representation for myriad separatist groups backed by Western special interests used to agitate around the globe.

They have included or currently include Chechen separatists seeking to carve off territory from Russia’s south, Tibetan separatists backed for decades by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and various groups from Kashmir and Baluchistan. The latter are backed by the US State Department in their bid for independence and the effective end of Chinese access to the Arabian Sea via the recently built Gwadar Port.

It should be noted that Pakistan’s claimed portion of the Kashmir region is its only direct access to the Chinese border in the north. Thus it is especially convenient that here, the UNPO has found yet another group to support which seeks independence and would effectively close Pakistan off from China in the north.

While the European Union’s various MEPs complaining about the CPEC will hardly do anything to slow down its construction let alone stop it, even augmented with US and European funded and backed separatist groups attempting to complicate security on the ground, it is important to understand the persistent imperial chauvinism that still deeply infects many circles of political elite across the West.

It is also important to understand how it manifests itself politically through various but entirely disingenuous and cynically abused “human rights” causes. Likewise, it is important to see how it manifests itself on the ground where these interests seek to disrupt their geopolitical competitors instead of finding common grounds for cooperation and mutual benefit.

Alternative circles of interests both in the US and Europe and elsewhere around the globe will seek common grounds for cooperation and mutual benefit with China and its many Eurasian partners. They will ultimately find themselves in prime seats at the table of emerging multipolarism while the instigators and imperial chauvinists find themselves out in the cold.

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Joseph Thomas is chief editor of Thailand-based geopolitical journal, The New Atlas and contributor to the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Featured image is from NEO

The Trump administration dropped the 1,000-page second volume of a congressionally-mandated study of the impact of the climate crisis on the United States late on Friday of Thanksgiving weekend in order to bury it. This sort of move is designed to make sure the report is not headline news on the networks, newspapers and social media on Monday morning, when big news items are seen by most Americans.

Trump and his cronies– I mean, cabinet– are deeply invested in or beholden to Exxon-Mobil and other Big Carbon firms who stand to lose billions if the public realizes the harm they are inflicting on us.

The problem? If we let them go on pushing out 41 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide a year throughout the world, it is going to cost the US hundreds of billion dollars a year by the end of the century. The economic contribution of entire states could be wiped out.

Unlike the unlamented Scott Pruitt’s EPA, which took down climate crisis web pages, this report is brutally honest:

“Scientists have understood the fundamental physics of climate change for almost 200 years. In the 1850s, researchers demonstrated that carbon dioxide and other naturally occurring greenhouse gases in the atmosphere prevent some of the heat radiating from Earth’s surface from escaping to space: this is known as the greenhouse effect. This natural greenhouse effect warms the planet’s surface about 60°F above what it would be otherwise, creating a habitat suitable for life. Since the late 19th century, however, humans have released an increasing amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels and, to a lesser extent, deforestation and land-use change. As a result, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, the largest contributor to human-caused warming, has increased by about 40% over the industrial era. This change has intensified the natural greenhouse effect, driving an increase in global surface temperatures and other widespread changes in Earth’s climate that are unprecedented in the history of modern civilization.”

The projections of harm also pull no punches. In the worst case scenario of current models, the northeast and the midwest could have an average temperature 8 degrees F. warmer than today, with massive negative impacts on agriculture, diseases, forests and water.

Sea level rise of as much as 4 feet by the end of the century will subtract vast amounts of coastal property from the country, costing billions and displacing potentially millions of people. Storm surges and flooding will damage billions of dollars of infrastructure along the coasts, as well.

The extra heat will interfere with people working outdoors and will reduce man hours worked per year significantly. In other words, America is going to get much poorer, and the poor are going to be disproportionately hurt by the climate emergency.

“Figure 1.21: Annual economic impact estimates are shown for labor and air quality. The bar graph on the left shows national annual damages in 2090 (in billions of 2015 dollars) for a higher scenario (RCP8.5) and lower scenario (RCP4.5); the difference between the height of the RCP8.5 and RCP4.5 bars for a given category represents an estimate of the economic benefit to the United States from global mitigation action. For these two categories, damage estimates do not consider costs or benefits of new adaptation actions to reduce impacts, and they do not include Alaska, Hawaiʻi and U.S.-Affiliated Pacific Islands, or the U.S. Caribbean. The maps on the right show regional variation in annual impacts projected under the higher scenario (RCP8.5) in 2090. The map on the top shows the percent change in hours worked in high-risk industries as compared to the period 2003–2007. The hours lost result in economic damages: for example, $28 billion per year in the Southern Great Plains. The map on the bottom is the change in summer-average maximum daily 8-hour ozone concentrations (ppb) at ground-level as compared to the period 1995–2005. These changes in ozone concentrations result in premature deaths: for example, an additional 910 premature deaths each year in the Midwest. Source: EPA, 2017. Multi-Model Framework for Quantitative Sectoral Impacts Analysis: A Technical Report for the Fourth National Climate Assessment. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA 430-R-17-001.”

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Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment and Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan. He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires. Follow him at @jricole.

All images in this article are from Informed Comment

According to SANA news agency, militant shells containing chlorine-gas were fired at the al-Khalidiye and Al Zahraa neighborhoods causing over 100 civilian injuries.

Shelling allegedly conducted by insurgents wounded more than 100 people in a suspected toxic gas attack in the city of Aleppo, which has been the first-of-its-kind.

According to the Russian government, the chlorine-gas filled shells poisoned 46 people, amongst them eight children now hospitalized for treatment.

It also stated that the shells had been launched from an area in Idlib, which is considered to be a de-escalation zone managed by Nusra Front Militants, according to Reuters.

For its part, Haaretz news agency reported 107 people were injured after the projectile attacks.

The Syrian government is calling for the United Nations Security Council to take action: “calls on the Security Council to immediately and strongly condemn these terrorist crimes …(and take) deterrent, punitive measures against the nations and regimes that support and fund terrorism.”

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Governments and ruling regimes tend to face revolution in the face of harsh hikes in prices. Margaret Thatcher’s rule in Britain was rocked by the poll tax.  In France, the once enthusiastically embraced Emmanuel Macron has decided to leave the ground rich with challenges against his administration. The Yellow Vests, the gilet jaunes, have decided to take up the chance protesting with such intensity it has led to death and serious injury. 

The pretext was an old one.  An increase in carbon taxes was imposed in 2017 as part of a push to support renewables. 

“Support for renewable energy,” announced the environment ministry, “will be increasingly financed by a tax on fossil fuel consumption.”

In 2018, the amount rose from 30.5 euros to 44.6 euros per ton, rising to 55 next year.  Diesel and petrol have been affected, a matter than proves less of a problem for those in city environs, serviced by public transport, than rural areas, where the car remains essential. 

“Macron has to understand,” came the familiar sentiment from demonstrator Patrick Perez, “that Paris is not France.”

Macron is now being accused of being icily out of touch, a self-conscious creature of arrogance who insists on the dignity of his office even as he attempts to dismantle the pride of others.  But his current approval rating – with 25 percent, according to Ifop, is strikingly accurate, given the share of the vote he garnered in the first round of the 2017 presidential elections.  A mere 24.01 percent favoured him, with Marine Le Pen of the National Front breathing down his neck with 21.3 percent, followed by the Republicans choice of François Fillon with 20.01 percent and the left wing Jean-Luc Melenchon with 19.58 percent.

In the second round, France duly divided along the lines of favouring Le Pen or fearing her, hence Macron’s deceptively bolstered victory. The grand centrist was born, a person who had been warned in 2008 by friends that joining the Rothschild investment bank would mar his political prospects.  The “Mozart of finance” is finding the job of governing France a far more complex prospect than the cold business of debt restructuring, mergers and acquisitions.

He has shown himself to be a keen moderniser, if a frustrated one, of the French labour market, earning the ire of unions and the spluttering contempt of the French labour movement.  Like other French leaders, he has also stumbled into observations more fitting to amateur anthropology, suggesting that the French “Gauls”, by way of example, were a stubborn lot resistant to the influence of other labour models. (He is rather keen on the Nordic example.) 

To his Romanian hosts, he explained with the relief of someone away from a troubled home that France was “not a reformable country… because French and women hate reform”.  Many leaders had failed in the effort to buck this trend.  To his Danish hosts, he was similarly heaping upon the French some manured derision while praising his audience in Copenhagen. “What is possible is linked to a culture, a people marked by their own history. These Lutheran [Danish] people, who have lived through the transformations of recent years, are not exactly Gauls who are resistant to change.” 

But part of the issue with tarnished presidential popularity has been a diminishing of a position that always demanded a certain, high-peak majesty.  The French president, gravitas and all, was also a European, if not global statesman.  Macron’s predecessors, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, were also victims of the 2000 referendum which reduced the period of the presidency from seven years to five.  (This is not to say these characters were not, in of themselves, defective in character or policy.) Then, as now, the French authorities also faced a national revolt over high fuel taxes.   

While seen as a necessary mercy for a modern time, le quinquennat had the added effect, according to historian Jean Garrigues, of encouraging the leader to be seen as temporary commodity, easily purchased, irritably used, then disposed of. “Voters no longer believe in ideology, they consume and then reject their elected representatives, including the President of the Republic.”  A clue was in the 2000 referendum turnout: 70 percent preferred to stay away from the polls. “A little yes, but a big slapdown,” came the observation of le Parisien.  As ever, the French, masters of the strike, had initiated something similar at the ballot box. 

The Yellow Vest movement is not a Gallic shrug but a shaking roar.  The initial target was increased fuel taxes, but the indignation has become a broader church of disaffection on living in general.  It is also being given a ringing endorsement by political opportunists who argue that the movement has no political roots.  Le Pen has been there, fanning matters while providing Christophe Castaner, the interior minister, a distracting if shaky alibi. “The ultra-Right is mobilised and is building barricades on the Champs-Elysées.” For him, such protests are the work, not of a broad movement but a few casseurs, or troublemakers.   

Macron is doing his level best to avoid confronting the movement, but his Prime Minister Edouard Philippe is attempting to bribe the protesters into silence, or at the very least a more timorous form of disagreement.  Energy subsidies to 5.6 million households, up from the current number of 3.6 million, are being proposed.  France’s poorest families will also see fuel credits directed to those whose livelihood depends on car travel.  These measures, alone, will be no panacea for Macron’s declining influence.

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

Although China’s statements at the UN Security Council are most often brief and general in content, the afternoon of October 24 China’s Ambassador Ma spoke at length and brilliantly exposed the fraudulent use of “concern for human rights” to conceal the manipulation and abuse of the Security Council to facilitate the political agenda of western imperial interests.

“The International community should devote more attention to helping local authorities and residents eradicate poverty, achieve sustainable development, improve their livelihoods and social and economic conditions, and foster social stability and harmonious coexistence among the people…..

With regard to the report of the independent international fact-finding mission on Myanmar (A/HRC/39/64), the mission did not enter in Myanmar at all.  Its results are based on biased, incomplete information. They are neither objective nor impartial, and therefore not credible.  Its conclusions, suggestions and recommendations constitute willful interference in Myanmar’s internal affairs and are an affront to its sovereignty. The fact-finding mission is not judge.  Such practices are unhelpful to resolving the issue in Rakhine state and can only jeopardize the possibility of internal reconciliation and democratic transition in Myanmar, escalate tensions in Rakhine state and undermine the authority and credibility of the United Nations.”

Russian Ambassador Nebenzia stated:

“As for the joint letter to the President of the Security Council from nine member states requesting the holding of this briefing, in our view its very form is what might be termed an innovation in the work of the Security Council. To say it like it is, this is nothing but arm-twisting, in which the authors of the letter show the rest of us that the potential result of a procedural vote on it is for all practical purposes predetermined….The United States delegation, which actively supported the holding of today’s briefing by issuing an invitation to the Human Rights Council briefer, recently announced that it was leaving the Human Rights Council and accompanied the announcement with a good deal of criticism of it.  But now it turns out that the Human Rights Council is useful after all.  Is not clearly a double standard?  We believe that the work of the fact-finding mission on Myanmar is harmful and counterproductive.  It does not have reliable information on what is going on with the Rohingya…In view of the foregoing, therefore, we believe that the report of the Mission is underprepared and one-sided, and the notion of chucking its so-called conclusions at the Security Council is overtly pernicious.”

Following the vote, Ambassador Nebenzia stated:

“After  today’s meeting, no one should be left with any illusions about the fact that its instigators have absolutely no interest in resolving the problems of the Rohingya. They are merely an excuse for putting shameless pressure on the authorities of a sovereign State and forcing it to do what its former colonizer and its allies want.  The logical next step in that direction would be pressure for anti-Myanmar sanctions and corresponding Security Council resolutions, a course of action that we categorically refuse to support. “

Though China and Russia fiercely and eloquently oppose the inclusion of Mr. Marzuki Darusman’s report in the Security Council agenda, this very contentious issue during the Security Council meeting  has a precedent, and a nefarious precedent,  again involving a presentation in which Mr. Darusman was a participant, the infamous “Kirby Report”  the “Commission of Inquiry,”  which China presciently opposed including in the agenda of the Security Council:  the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which was taken up on December 22, 2014. At that time China stated:

 “The Security Council is not a forum designed for involvement in human rights issues, and still less should human rights issues be politicized….The Security Council’s inclusion of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea situation on its agenda in order to involve itself of the situation of human rights in that country will work against those goals and can only do harm rather than good.”

It is unfortunate that Russia and China did not act more forcefully to veto the sanctions against the DPRK, as both countries were aware of the duplicity and double standards underlying those sanctions, imposed by countries whose record of human rights violations are so abhorrent that they themselves should be sanctioned accordingly.  And a Russian-Chinese veto of those savage sanctions  would have prevented the hellish outcome today where the so-called “humanitarian exemptions” are brazenly and promiscuously ignored, violated, and the sanctions are sadistically tightened with the ultimate purpose of strangling a heroic and intellectually and morally advanced people, who should be regarded as a model of social and economic development.  Instead, North Korea is portrayed as a pariah, and the virtually impenetrable propaganda perpetrated by the major media organizations of the West have used this falsification to manipulate public support for crushing the DPRK.

It is interesting that Darusman’s name appears both as the advocate of a bigoted account based on ignorance of the reality within Myanmar, having never actually set foot within the country, and the infamous “Commission of Inquiry” report on the DPRK, in which Darusman also participated, is based, equally on the most scandalously distorted propaganda and ignorance, as neither Michael Kirby, nor the other names associated with that intellectually slothful report have never set foot in the DPRK.

The Kirby report is predominantly based on the highly paid fabrications of the defector Shin Dong-hyuk, who subsequently admitted he had lied and falsified his statements (though he never repaid the huge sums of money he was paid for those lies, which gave birth to the grotesque falsifications of the Kirby report).  Indeed, this fabrication was so disgraceful that the defector community itself disavowed them.   Numerous other highly paid defectors disgorged salacious and gruesome fabrications, the more gruesome the more lucrative.

In contrast to Kirby and Darusman, I, myself was physically present in the DPRK during May, 2017, and I saw zero evidence of human rights abuses. Nevertheless, during the time I was actually, personally in the DPRK, I was told by the director of an important Canadian human rights organization that the Kirby report is a malignancy which is impeding human rights efforts and humanitarian aid to North Korea. But, of course, that is precisely the intent of the sponsors of the UN “Commission of Inquiry.”  It requires repeating that at the stake-out following the iniquitous December 22, 2014 meeting of the Security Council, UN Human Rights coordinator Ivan Simonovic was asked by reporter and attorney Joseph Klein whether the Kirby report met the standard of proof required for admission in a court of law.  Mr. Simonovic stated that he had “mixed feelings” about the entire matter, and that “the threshold used by the Kirby report Commission of Inquiry does NOT meet the threshold of solid evidence required for admission as evidence in a court of law.”  In short, the Kirby report, the UN “Commission of Inquiry” is not based on fact and could not be presented as evidence in a legitimate court of law.

It is imperative to ask who was the midwife of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army which has been involved in terrorist actions in Myanmar, contributing to the current crisis.  Did they appear out of nowhere, or did they have sponsors outside of Myanmar? According to a report from Al Jazeera,” the group may be receiving funds from the Rohingya diaspora in Saudi Arabia.”

China’s Ambassador Ma further explained his fierce, eloquent opposition to the  October 24 Security Council meeting, stating:

“By receiving a briefing from the Fact-Finding Mission, the Security Council will encroach on the mandates of the General Assembly, the Human Rights Council, violate provisions of the Charter and weaken the responsibilities and roles of various United Nations bodies, thereby leading to grave negative consequences.  When it comes to the issue of Rakhine state, the Security Council should play a constructive role, and any action it takes should help to resolve the issue. Pushing for a briefing by the Human Rights Council’s fact-finding mission in the Security Council will disrupt and undermine the ongoing dialogue process.  It does not help to resolve the issue of Rakhine state but will further complicate it, running counter to the process of finding a settlement.  That is why we are opposed to having this meeting and hearing this briefing.”

And that may be precisely the reason why the meeting was so aggressively promoted by certain members of the Security Council.

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

Canadians should express their solidarity with Tanzanians facing politically inspired homophobia. But, we must also be suspicious of journalism that ignores Canadian complicity in the promotion of anti-gay ideology.

Last weekend the Globe and Mail and CBC both reported on a Christian politician in Dar es Salaam who announced a scheme to track down and arrest gays. Titled “Tanzania’s homophobic crackdown casts a shadow on Canadian aid”, the Globe story insinuated that Ottawa should sever assistance to the country in protest while the CBC noted, “official anti-gay prejudice in Tanzania is causing Canadian officials to reassess this country’s relationship with one of Canada’s biggest aid recipients.”

While raising the subject of “Canadian aid”, the Globe and CBC both ignored how this country’s “assistance” to the region has, in fact, fostered the social conservatism that the stories bemoan. For example, while the Stephen Harper Conservative government was in power international aid funding for religious NGOs increased substantially. In an MA thesis titled “Canadian Foreign Aid and the Christian Right: Stephen Harper, Abortion, and the Global Culture Wars in Sub-Saharan Africa, 2006-2015” Erin Jex details Ottawa’s support for socially conservative forces on the continent. In a high-profile example Crossroads Christian Communications, an Ontario group that listed “homosexuality” with pedophilia and bestiality as a “sin” and “perversion”, was granted more than half a million dollars for a project in Tanzania’s neighbour Uganda.

But Canada’s contribution to social conservatism in Tanzania goes back over a century. During the 100th anniversary of Tanzania’s St. Philip Theological College in 2014 Ontario Anglican Reverend Gary Badcock claimed homosexuality was a “first world” problem and that homosexuals would steal their children. A Western University professor, Badcock delivered the keynote speech because St. Philip Theological College was founded by a graduate of Huron College (now part of Western) in London, Ontario. Thomas Buchanan Reginald Westgate was a Canadian missionary who joined the Church Missionary Society in German East Africa (Tanzania) in 1902. With the support of the Ontario branch of the Church Mission Society, Westgate remained in the German colony for over a decade. As I detail in Canada and Africa: 300 years of Aid and Exploitation, Westgate worked with a German colonial administration that killed hundreds of thousands between 1905 and 1907. The Watford, Ontario, born missionary translated parts of the Old Testament into Cigogo, the language spoken by the Gogo nation in central Tanzania. He promoted a Christian ideology antagonistic to homosexuality in what would become a British colony. (Three-dozen former British colonies have some version of the United Kingdom’s 1533 Buggery Act, which makes homosexuality illegal.)

Another Ontario native by the name of Marion Wittich (later Marion Keller) set off with her husband to proselytize in Tanzania in 1913. Her husband died in Tanzania and several years later she remarried a man by the name of Otto Keller, a German-born US émigré, who the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (PAOC) sponsored to set up a mission station in Kenya, which borders Tanzania. In 1914 Otto Keller claimed that “here [Africa] we see the power of the devil in an astonishing form, almost beyond belief. The noise of drunken men and women, fulfilling the lusts of the flesh come to our ears. All seemingly bound and determined to fulfill the cup of their iniquity.” By the time Marion Keller died in 1942, the socially conservative PAOC had over 200 branch churches in Kenya.

PAOC missionaries served in a number of colonies and set up a publishing house in 1928 that distributed Pentecostal literature in numerous African languages. PAOC remains active across the continent and promotes anti-gay views. A registered charity, it has also received substantial sums from Canada’s international development agency.

The first Canadian missionary arrived on the continent in 1860 and by the end of the colonial period as many as 2,500 Canadians were proselytizing across Africa. The largest interdenominational Protestant mission on the continent was founded in 1893 by Torontonians Walter Gowans and Rowland Victor Bingham. The Sudan Interior Mission, which initially focused on Nigeria but operated across Africa, was boldly fundamentalist. In a book about the organization titled Evangelical Christians in the Muslim Sahel, Barbara M. Cooper notes that to be a SIM missionary one had to accept that “the Bible is the ‘inerrant’ word of God (a rejection of historically grounded Biblical criticism); God consists of three persons (father, son, and Holy Spirit); all humans suffer from original sin and must be reborn; humans will go to heaven or hell in the afterlife as a consequence of their spiritual condition (their rebirth or failure to be ‘born again’); Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, he atoned for human sin with his bodily resurrection, and his second coming is imminent; Satan exists literally (not simply figuratively) and acts in the world; the Christian church is the whole body of those who have been reborn (implicitly excluding Christians who are not ‘born again’); and Christ’s great commission was to order his followers to share these ‘truths’ to every people (therefore to be a Christian is to evangelize).” A registered Canadian charity, SIM remains active across the continent.

In addition to its ability to offer tax credits for donations, SIM has received significant sums from Canada’s international development agency.

To support Tanzanians facing politically inspired homophobia Canadians should press Ottawa to re-evaluate its relationship — both charitable status and aid funding —to anti-gay groups. And, to set the record straight, perhaps the Globe and Mail could publish a follow-up piece headlined “Tanzania’s homophobic crackdown casts a shadow on Canadian missionaries in Africa.”

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Rejecting the immunity defense put forth by President Donald Trump‘s lawyers, a New York state judge on Friday ruled that a lawsuit accusing Trump and members of his family of using their “charitable” foundation as nothing more than a personal “piggy bank” can proceed.

Filed in June by New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood, the suit alleges that Trump engaged in “persistently illegal conduct” by using the Trump Foundation as a vehicle to advance his political and business aims. The lawsuit seeks to dissolve the Trump Foundation entirely.

“The Trump Foundation functioned as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump’s business and political interests. There are rules that govern private foundations, and we intend to enforce them—no matter who runs the foundation,” Underwood wrote in a tweet on Friday.

#BREAKING: The New York State Supreme Court just denied the motion to dismiss our lawsuit against the Trump Foundation and its directors: @realDonaldTrump, Donald J. Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump. https://t.co/rYj2I76d22 pic.twitter.com/8wJvy17Gsx

— NY AG Underwood (@NewYorkStateAG) November 23, 2018

The Trump Foundation functioned as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump’s business and political interests. There are rules that govern private foundations, and we intend to enforce them—no matter who runs the foundation.

— NY AG Underwood (@NewYorkStateAG) November 23, 2018

New York’s lawsuit is the product of a two-year investigation into the Trump Foundation, which allegedly uncovered widespread and “knowing” violations of campaign finance laws and other regulations.

Though Trump’s lawyers argued that a “sitting president may not be sued,” but New York state Supreme Court Justice Saliann Scarpulla ruled on Friday that the president’s legal team “failed to cite a single case” supporting its defense.

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Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has a history of being skeptical about U.S. taxpayer funds going towards the Jewish state, has placed a hold on the U.S.-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2018, which provides Israel with $38 billion in military aid over the next decade.

This has caused backlash from organizations such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

“This bipartisan legislation authorizes full funding of security assistance to ensure Israel has the means to defend itself,” AIPAC posted on Facebook with a link to “urge Sen. Paul to stop blocking aid to Israel.”

“We are working hard to gain a final vote on this critical legislation,” AIPAC spokesperson Marshall Wittmann told JNS. “We believe that it will be enacted before Congress adjourns for the year.”

A hold is a procedure where a senator tells his or her floor leader that he or she does not want a specific measure to reach the floor for consideration, and therefore may filibuster any motion to proceed to debate the bill or other measure.

However, in this case, Majority Leader and fellow Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell does not have to abide by Paul’s request.

Paul’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

The Senate and House of Representatives passed a version each in August and September, respectively. The former must pass its final version before U.S. President Donald Trump can sign it into law.

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Despite Washington’s extremely costly worldwide ‘War on Terror’, nearly four times as many Sunni Islamic militants are operating around the world today as on September 11, 2001, a new study has found.

The histories of empires and the histories of war are generally written by the winner to put themselves in a positive light. It has been difficult for the U.S. empire to maintain their facade of goodness for their endeavours after World War II, and even more significantly after 9/11. In Twilight of the American Century, a selection of his own collected writings, Andrew J. Bacevich reveals the contradictions between what is said about U.S. actions – either as anticipation or as definition – and the results of such actions. In essence, the rationalizations, the hubris, and the arrogance do not match up with the lack of accomplishments, the latter themselves ill-defined.

After a short introductory mini-biography, the book is divided into four sections. The autobiography highlights Bacevich’s Roman Catholic middle class military background and the inculcation from Westpoint in which essentially the army equals the nation, but even more importantly, sees promotability as a characteristic – accepting orders, conformity – becoming the main ambition, the main career goal.

The first essay section is a series deconstructing rationalizations for U.S. military actions and deconstructing the histories of some of those who claim authority to define their personal historical involvement. Bacevich does not mince his words, along the way calling George Kennan a “bigoted crank….feeling sorry for himself,” and describes novelist Tom Clancy’s work as “military pop-lit” and Clancy himself as a “hack”. His longest essay of the section deconstructs the arguments of the Wohlstetter School, saying it “does not trouble itself over how the United States got enmeshed in whatever predicament it happens to be facing” and has “produced lubricants that kept the wheels of the national security state turning, while also helping to fuel the military-industrial complex.”

The second and third sections, “History and Myth” and “War and Empire”,examine the differences between rhetorical expectations and the bravado of defeat as compared to the disastrous reality of the outcomes of the various U.S. wars since 2000, with a few dips into earlier history. The essays can be a bit repetitive as they are snapshots of Bacevich’s ideas over a period of time, with the disconcerting reveal as they are placed in a descending timeline with earliest essays presented later in the sections. Regardless, the message is consistent: U.S. military actions are poorly conceived, poorly enacted, poorly explained and produce clearly negative results both overseas and domestically.

The last section “Politics and Culture” is as direct as the title, examining U.S. culture and politics domestically as it developed through the era of a militarized empire. As a baby boomer myself, I had to laugh at his description of the boomer path to liberation as “taking their cues….from rockers, dopers, and other flouters of convention.” I was more of a peace, love, and flowers kind, but the naivety of it all in light of the political power of inculcation overpowering any opposition is all too clear today. A combination of two other essays highlights this.

In the “One Percent Republic”, a contrast of the financial top one percent with the bottom one percent joining the military, and the rest of us in between, Bacevich describes the domestic “expectations of unprecedented material abundance”. When that fails, as it has, people become “accessories” to war through “detachment, neglect, and inattention,” having “forfeited their say”, their “grant of authority” to the state to make war is “irrevocable.” Domestically, he says “Shrugging off wars makes it that much easier for Americans – overweight, overmedicated, and deeply in hock – to shrug off the persistence of widespread hunger, the patent failures of their criminal justice system, and any number of other problems.” In the second rather basic descriptive essay, “Ballpark liturgy”, Bacevich highlights this discrepancy between the two one percenters when viewing the military pregame presentation at a Red Sox baseball game where “America’s civic religion [is] made manifest….support the troops.”

Parochial view

This book is well written and instructive for those wondering about the true state of the U.S. empire. It is a positive read in that a former active military person has taken on in educational role that exposes and highlights the failures of the U.S. empire. I have no doubt that many other military personnel would support his viewpoint from a more hardened experience.

It is somewhat of a parochial view, both in the secular and religious meanings of the word. Bacevich is to be commended for the insights he does have towards the reality of a militarized U.S. society and its effects overseas and domestically. I would have to argue that he has not quite eroded the effects of his Catholic/military upbringing as there are a few misses that need to be more fully considered. Two of them are hidden in passing comments.

Russia

In the 2017 essay “Saving “America First”,” a lament on the Trump era, he simply says of Russia that it is “in decline while still retaining residual importance.” This seems a foreign geopolitical aspect where Bacevich has not truly maintained updated information and is more or less following the mainstream exposition on Russia. And no, I do not mean Russian interference in U.S. elections, a smoke screen in my view, but the overarching aspects of recent Russian strengths. These range from its demonstrated military efficiency in Syria, and its increasing diplomatic influence in Turkey, Egypt, and Libya, all Mediterranean littoral countries. It includes economic strengths ironically given propulsion from U.S. sanctions.

It reaches further into Russian advances in agricultural production, the strengthening of its resource sectors including and beyond oil, its development of ways and means to avoid using U.S. petrodollars including buying tons of gold, developing new money transfer systems, selling U.S. Treasuries, and liaising all these with China and other Eurasian countries. Russia’s “residual importance” probably came from its nuclear capabilities which are still there, enhanced, and now backed by a powerful set of shorter range defensive armaments. It is truly not a unipolar world, and Russia is definitely one of the poles.

U.S. interests and “just wars”

Two other comments that I look on as essentially the same idea concern saving the military for specific actions, “vital U.S. interests [which] are immediately at risk,” and then arguing in a 2006 essay “God forbid the United States should fail.” The first comment needs definition as all U.S. wars are presented as being national and geopolitically strategic wars. The question becomes whose definition of vital interests does one choose? Later in the essays Bacevich discusses the idea of “Just Wars” perhaps serving as a reflection of his earlier Catholic indoctrination, but that becomes another matter of definition – in my opinion, no wars are just, only rationalized as “we” are the good guys, the ‘other’ is simply that, the ‘other’, readily done away with.

The latter comment about God forbidding the U.S. fails in its war to control the Greater Middle East is unfortunate in that it unravels much of the anti-war sentiment expressed throughout this book. Sure it was written in 2006, but common sense would dictate at least a footnote to indicate whether this sentiment still holds, or why it was presented in the first place. Was it because the U.S. needs to control the oil? Well, no because it has many other sources and now is overproducing. And yes, because the US$ is based on the Saudi’s agreeing to sell oil only withy US$ – and look what happened to Iraq, Libya, and Syria who did not want to use the US$. Is it because of Russian influence? Not when contrasted with his previous comment on Russia declining (2017), and Syria had yet come into the mainstream picture. Or is it because of Israel, the U.S. outpost in the region supporting U.S. hegemony?

Israel

At first Israel did not appear to be of much concern in Bacevich’s writing. As the book progressed it became more and more significant but in a contradictory manner. While accaliaming that Israel is a “vibrant, flourishing state” he also recognizes that it is using military power to control the Palestinian population in Israel. He also recognizes the role Britain had in originating the creation of Palestine, even before Balfour, citing Churchill’s comment, “The establishment of a strong, free, Jewish state astride the bridge between Europe and Africa…would not only be an immense advantage to the British Empire, but a notable step towards the harmonious disposition of the world among its peoples.” The latter part of that statement is just gibberish, but overall reflects the ‘civilizational’ hubris of any conquering empire. Israel was to serve as an ‘outpost’ both militarily and civilizationally as described by Leo Amery of the Lloyd George cabinet, saying, “using the Jews as we have used the Scots, to carry the English ideal through the Middle East [Britain could] make Palestine the centre of western influence.”

While describing Israel as vibrant and flourishing, the connection is not directly made to the knowledge that the U.S. became “Israel’s preeminent international supporter and a generous supplier of economic and military assistance.” Without that assistance Israel would not likely be as vibrant and flourishing as imagined, but would appear as Bacevich himself compares it with the U.S. later as using “unambiguous military superiority” to force peace, which has done “little to enhance Israeli security.”

In the essay “How we became Israel” Bacevich again recognizes that Israel wants peace through “military superiority” by using “anticipatory action” and “targeted assassination” [italics in original]. Both countries have normalized the use of force to the extent of using “disproportional deterrence.” He maintains that both have huge problems that will prevent their success: with Israel it is the demographic problem of too many Palestinians, an historical concern from the outset; and with the U.S. it is the enormous debt accrued through military spending. There are other problems beside those, but these two are certainly dominant.

The really big miss concerning Israel is the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). AIPAC signals the powerful control over U.S. foreign policy that Israel exerts, as the creation of chaos by the U.S. military in the Greater Middle East helps propel Israel to military dominance in the region. While U.S. actions in the region are rightly placed as being for control of oil, they also serve as a way of strengthening Israeli attempts at regional hegemony. The power that AIPAC holds over U.S. foreign policy is very strong – a combination of neocon chickenhawk Israeli supporters in unelected power and Congressional supplication to the Israeli cause due to the imagined influence of the Jewish vote in elections, but mostly to Israeli money pumped into the electoral system.

Until this latter discussion is presented more fully, a true understanding of U.S. interests in the region – beyond containment of Russia and maintaining the US$ – will not sufficiently cover the context for U.S. wars in the Greater Middle East.

Overall, Twilight of the American Century is another in the series of strong critical writings by Andrew Bacevich. Perhaps I am putting too much emphasis on what I call the passing comments and misses, but they do signal areas, important areas, in which the author needs to supply more definition and more context. The recognition of U.S. imperial militarism and its influence domestically is strong, the additional definition of “vital interests” placed in context with overall Israeli influence would help round out the discussion. A good read, I highly recommend it for the insights it provides into the overall examination of the U.S. empire.

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Jim Miles is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The US, Israel, and their imperial partners support the scourge of ISIS and other terrorists they pretend to oppose – in all active US launched war theaters.

Washington and Israel partner in each other’s wars of aggression. US use of jihadists goes back to CIA-recruited, armed and supported Al Qaeda mujahideen fighters in the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980s.

Bush/Cheney-created chaos in Afghanistan and Iraq continues endlessly in multiple theaters, including by use of ISIS and likeminded jihadists as imperial foot soldiers.

President Reagan and Mujahideen leaders from Afghanistan

Image: Carter’s National security Advisor Z. Brzezinzki and Osama bin Laden (1980s)

According to a  Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) study, numbers of Islamic terrorists increased fourfold post-9/11 – claiming they number around 230,000 in dozens of countries.

The true number may be double or more this estimate. For decades, Washington and its imperial partners have been recruiting jihadists.

Countless billions of dollars have been spent on funding, arming, training and directing them, mostly for heavy weapons supplied them – countless trillions of dollars spent on post-9/11 Global Wars OF Terror on humanity.

According to retired Israeli General Gershon Hacohen, Moshe Ya’alon met with terrorists operating near Golan while serving as Israeli war minister.

“When I was commanding a corps in the Golan and (Ya’alon) was (war) minister, we sat with three Syrian (jihadists) from the other side, from Syria,” adding:

“They came and (Ya’alon) wanted to understand who they were. He asked one of them, ‘(t)ell me, are you a Salafist?’ And he said, ‘I really don’t know what a Salafist is.”

“If it means that I pray more, then yes. Once I would pray once a week, on Fridays, now I pray five times a day.”

“On the other hand, a Salafist isn’t meant to cooperate with the Zionists. I’m sitting with the (war) minister of the Zionists. So I don’t know.’ This means that identity components are very fluid. They don’t tell you where the person is going.”

The meeting in question took place in September 2014 when US/NATO/Israeli, Saudi supported terrorists controlled southern Syrian territory.

Government forces discovered Western and Israeli weapons and munitions in areas liberated from jihadists numerous times. Ya’alon earlier admitted Israeli support for ISIS and other jihadists – falsely calling them Syrian rebels or opposition forces.

In September 2014, a photo of Netanyahu and Ya’alon visiting terrorists receiving care in an Israeli field hospital went viral online – Netanyahu seen shaking a jihadist’s hand.

Thousands of wounded anti-Syrian terrorists have been treated by Israeli doctors. Ya’alon once turned truth on its head, claiming Israeli policy excludes “getting involved in the Syrian war.”

In September, the IDF admitted conducting over 200 terror-bombing attacks on Syrian targets since early 2017 alone.

In June 2017, the Wall Street Journal headlined “Israel Gives Secret Aid to Syrian Rebels (sic),” saying:

“Israel has been regularly supplying (them with) cash as well as food, fuel and medical supplies for years…payments (going to) commanders…”

A spokesman for one jihadist group said “Israel stood by our side…We wouldn’t have survived without Israel’s assistance” – including weapons the Netanyahu regime supplied.

Throughout the war, Israel has been allied with Washington’s regime change agenda, wanting pro-Western puppet rule replacing Assad, Iran isolated, ahead of a similar campaign to topple its government.

The IDF forced the Jerusalem Post to pull its report hours after publication on weapons, munitions, and money supplied to Syrian jihadists by the Netanyahu regime.

For a while, it was available through Google cache, no longer. Interviewed by RT, Jerusalem Post managing editor David Brinn said “(w)e were told by the army’s military censor to remove” parts of the report the IDF wants suppressed.

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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.

At present, the Facebook pages associated with the fuel tax protests, referring to themselves as “yellow vests,” have defied the government order and are maintaining calls for protests at Place de la Concorde. Tens of thousands of people are expected to take part at the capital from cities and towns across the country for the second successive Saturday. There are growing rumors that railway workers will allow demonstrators to travel by train to the capital for free. They will be met by thousands of riot officers and police dispatched by the government of President Emmanuel Macron.

In a press statement on the protest, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner indicated that he had “excluded the possibility that it will occur at the Place de la Concordes for obvious reasons of security.” The square is next to the US Embassy and the Elysée Palace, which houses the president. Castaner similarly threatened that “the judicial response will be uncompromising in case of trouble.”

The prefect of Bordeaux, Didier Lallement, has issued an interim order outlawing a protest in the center of the city.

The government’s threats have been largely met with anger and rejection by workers in France, in Belgium—where “yellow vest” protests are also taking place—and internationally. Since the first protest on November 17, it has become clear that the movement against Macron’s fuel tax increase was an initial expression of explosive social discontent among broad sections of workers and in the middle class across Europe.

After roadblocks were organized on roadways outside various workplaces, workers have gone on strike in support of the fight against Macron.

While strikes are taking place at Amazon in Germany, Spain and the UK, Amazon workers on strike at Lauwin-Planque in the north of France joined with groups of “yellow vest” protesters near their hub, where traffic had been affected by a roadblock. Truck drivers honked their horns in support of the protest as they drove past.

After police forces shut down roadblocks outside the Esso oil refinery in Fos-sur-Mer, in the south of France, a strike movement has struck six out of seven refineries in the country.

The Stalinist General Confederation of Labor (CGT) unions, whose leadership is openly hostile to the protest movement and has denounced it as neo-fascist, insists that the strikes have nothing to do with the demands of the “yellow vest” protesters against Macron. Yesterday, the head of the CGT, Phillippe Martinez, issued another attack on the protests, warning that they contained “extreme-right elements.”

“The annual industry-wide wage negotiations opened today. This is a day of action across all the sites facing job cuts,” Fabien Cros, a CGT at the La Mede refinery, told AFP. Nonetheless, Cross was forced to admit that around 150 strikers at La Mede had joined a blockade of around 50 “yellow vest” protesters at a roundabout entrance to the refinery, and were distributing leaflets there. “No product is entering or leaving from the depot,” he added.

Contacted by telephone, one striker told AFP:

“We are not against any struggle; everything is good against Macron. We are totally fed up.”

These statements make clear that the trade unions, supported by parties such as the New Anticapitalist Party and Jean-luc Melenchon’s Unsubmissive France, are fighting to protect Macron. But they are being shaken by the rapid entrance of large sections of workers into struggle against the government.

To keep control of the workers’ anger and avoid being pushed aside, some union officials are switching to nominally support the protests. The CGT port and dockworkers unions have declared their support. One official, Herve Caux, explained:

“A lot of our workers are ‘yellow vest’ protesters and the government is indecent. To force it to bend, we have to be together.”

On Reunion Island, where Macron has threatened to dispatch the military against protesters, dockworkers joined the blockade at the East Port, while 16 roadblocks were reported on the principal roads on the island.

At the same time, thousands of protesters continued to organize roadblocks across France and Belgium yesterday. They shut down highways near Montelimar in France’s southeastern Drome department, in Brittany, Normandie, and in the regions of Agen, Toulouse, Narbonne and Beziers. They blocked multiple shopping centres in Carpentras as well as multiple sites in Belgium to mark “Black Friday.”

The decisive question remains to orient the movement against Macron’s austerity measures toward the international working class, and to organize independently of the trade unions. Workers face not merely an economic struggle but a political fight against the Macron government and the entire European Union that stands behind it. It is therefore necessary to build a Marxist leadership of the working class to wage such a fight.

As Macron seeks to suppress the “yellow vest” protests and reinstate the military draft in order to promote nationalism and militarism, the fight for an internationalist, socialist and revolutionary perspective is critical. Against the determination of the financial aristocracy and their political representatives to impose their will upon the whole of society, the development of working-class struggles poses ever-more directly the necessity of taking power into the hands of the working class itself.

The “yellow vest” protests remain at present a politically heterogeneous movement. Tendencies of a right-wing and extreme-right character are seeking to influence it. But as the working class enters into struggle against Macron, the right wing is increasingly abandoning the protests. Laurent Wauquiez, the leader of the Republicans who joined the protest last Saturday, has made clear he will not participate in today’s demonstration.

At the same time, certain figures in the “yellow vest” protest have publicly distanced themselves from the right wing, including Eric Drouet, the truck driver who issued one of the original calls for protests on Facebook.

Drouet wrote in a Facebook post:

“It is important that every person who wishes to participate in this movement be able to do so, no matter their skin color, country of origin, sexual orientation, gender or religion… No, the Yellow Vests are not the sheep of nationalists, fascists and other extremist movements, just as our movement is not represented by any party or union. We denounce the government’s tax on those most in need while it enriches the ultra-wealthy.”

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Featured image is from WSWS

Climate change took a backseat to other issues in this year’s midterm elections, and humanity may end up paying the price. The majority of climate change-related ballot measures failed, many climatedeniers in the Republican party won or kept their seats, and even Democratic winners were not pressed on their commitment to climate change legislation during their campaigns. In their minimal and skewed coverage of climate change issues, the media deserve a share of the blame for these losses.

The biggest failure was the defeat of Initiative I-1631 in Washington state by a margin of 56 percent to 44 percent. The ballot measure would have imposed a fee on emitters of greenhouse gasses, reinvesting the projected $1 billion annual revenues into renewable energy solutions, including clean energy projects, green jobs, and transition assistance to communities in “pollution and health action areas” affected by climate change. While I-1631 was derisively called a carbon tax by opponents, it would more accurately be described as a carbon fee—with revenues reserved for the aforementioned programs, rather than going to the general state revenue pot.

The initiative would have accomplished the first step of what manyclimate scientists and activists say is one of the most effective actions for mitigating climate change: putting a price on carbon dioxide. Prices on carbon ranging from $50–100 per ton have been put forth by the World Bank as reasonable for achieving the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, while a figure of $220 per ton has been found to more accurately represent the actual social costs of carbon. While I-1631 would have priced carbon at only $15 per ton in 2020, with annual increases that would top it out at $55 per ton, it would nonetheless have been the first explicit and substantial statewidecarbon pricing initiative in the United States.

Carbon-pricing initiatives are obviously a major threat to profits of big fossil fuel companies, who in the past have helped kill more comprehensive carbon-pricing initiatives in Washington state, like 2016’s I-732 ballot measure and Gov. Jay Inslee’s attempt to push legislation through the state’s Democratic senate earlier this year. To defeat I-1631 in the most recent election, the fossil fuel groups enlisted corporate media that were all too willing to join in their opposition campaign.

Media Matters (11/2/18) detailed how oil companies like BP, Phillips 66 and Koch Industries gave over $31 million to industry trade groups like Western States Petroleum Association to shoot downthe measure. I-1631’s diverse coalition of advocates raised half that amount. The fossil fuel company’s “No on 1631” campaign also spent $1.1 million on countless Facebook ads and $6.2 million on dozens of local television ads.

The companies benefited from a slew of op-eds and editorials urging voters to vote no on I-1631, including pieces in national newspapers like USA Today (11/4/18) and Wall Street Journal(10/21/18) and local dailies like the Seattle Times (9/21/18, 10/20/18, 10/25/18), Spokane Spokesman Review (10/23/18) and Everett Herald (10/14/18), along with dozens of other opinion pieces in local newspapers. Some of the authors had fossil fuel industry ties.

Other climate initiatives throughout the US also went down, and fossil fuel groups benefited from a plethora of negative articles and ads against the ballot measures. In Arizona, Proposition 127 was voted down by a margin of 69 to 31 percent. The ballot measure would have required power companies to derive half their electricity from renewable energy like solar and wind by 2030, expanding the state’s current law requiring 15 percent renewables by 2025.

The proposition campaign was the most expensive in Arizona history. Billionaire Tom Steyer and other groups spent over $23 million in support of 127, but opponents topped that with $30 million from Arizonans for Affordable Energy, funded by the owners of the state’s largest power provider, the Arizona Public Service Company (APS), and others in the state utility industry.

As Media Matters (10/31/18) pointed out, the initiative’s defeat was assisted by a torrent of negative coverage in national right-wing outlets like the Wall Street Journal (10/19/18), Washington Free Beacon (8/22/18), Washington Examiner (9/21/18) and Daily Caller(8/22/18, 10/17/18, 10/25/18, 10/31/18, etc.), who used combinations of APS-funded studies and scaremongering about Steyer, who, being a Jewish billionaire like his fellow right-wing boogeyman George Soros, is a frequent target of antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Much of the right-wing media campaign against Arizona’s Prop 127 focused on billionaire Tom Steyer (Wall Street Journal, 10/19/18).

Compare this outcome with Nevada: like Arizona, it is a state with high solar potential and high risk of being rendered uninhabitable by rising temperatures. Sixty percent of Nevada voters passed Question 6, a measure that, like Arizona’s Proposition 127, mandates that utility companies get half their energy from renewable sources. Nevada was spared a negative media blitz against Question 6, most likely because the state’s energy monopoly stayed neutral on the measure.

Requirements for leaving fossil fuels in the ground, a necessity for halting the advance of climate change, was also shot down by voters. In Colorado, Proposition 112 (which would have essentially banned fracking by requiring 2,500 foot setbacks for oil and gas drilling operations from schools, homes and waterways) was voted down by a margin of 57 to 43 percent. Oil- and gas-funded industry group Protect Colorado, among others, spent $36 million to oppose the measure, even sponsoring another ballot measure (which also failed) that would have compensated fossil fuel firms for “lost income” from the fracking ban. By comparison, the Proposition 112 supporters, Colorado Rising, spent a meager $800,000.

Despite the public’s apparent support of the measure prior to the election, Proposition 112 received strikingly unified opposition from the state’s newspapers: The measure was attacked and dismissed by the editorial boards of the Denver Post (10/10/18), Colorado Springs Gazette (10/1/18) and Aurora Sentinel (10/1/18), while other anti-112 op-eds appeared in numerous other local papers in the state. Media Matters (11/5/18) noted that none of the newspapers that took a position on 112 mentioned climate change in their editorials, save the pro-112 Boulder Daily Camera (10/2/18).

There were a couple of bright spots for climate in the midterms. Sixty-eight percent of Florida voters chose to ban offshore drilling. Numerous Republican climate deniers like Dana Rohrbacher, Mike Coffman, Jason Lewis, Erik Paulson, Claudia Tenney, John Culberson, Steve Knight and Barbara Comstock lost their House seats.

Democratic control of the House and some key governorships and state houses are potentially positive developments for taking on climate change at the federal and state levels. Some progressive candidates campaigned (and won) on bold climate change-focused platforms advocating for a Green New Deal. Some newcomers like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are already demanding climate action legislative proposals from Democratic leadership.

However, the Democratic Party mostly steered clear of campaigning on climate change during the midterms. While some Democrats receive large campaign contributions from fossil fuel interests, the party’s reluctance to tackle climate change head-on could also be related to apparent lack of voter interest in the subject. While a majority of US voters tend to support climate change policies like carbon pricing, solar subsidies and renewable energy standards, climate change is shockingly low on voters’ list of policy priorities, far below issues like healthcare, gun policy or immigration. A potential reason climate is so low on the totem pole is the fact that climate change is routinely ignored by the media.

Despite the fossil fuel–fueled media blitz in some states, climate change figured little in most pre-election media coverage. Media Matters (11/6/18) found that of 78 major gubernatorial and Senate debates analyzed in the run-up to the November vote, only 23 featured a climate change question. Colorado gubernatorial winner Jared Polis even mentioned that voters asked him more about climate change than reporters did, while the New York Times, Politico and the LA Times seemed surprised that some Democrats were even running ads related to climate issues.

This dissonance on climate issues seems to be the rule rather than the exception. Major cable news networks mentioned climate change a whopping two times during their coverage of the historically deadly 2017 hurricane season, and frequently devoted more airtime to pressing issues like Roseanne Barr’s tweets.

MSNBC host Chris Hayes once noted that climate change is a “palpable ratings killer.” This may or may not be true, but if outlets actually took their duty of public accountability seriously, they would empower journalists and television producers to incorporate climate change into stories that warrant it.

While major newspapers like the New York Times often do solid reporting on climate, cable news networks hardly ever dedicate segments to climate change, and when they do, they are usually within a presidential context. In 2017, almost all of cable news networks’ mere 260 minutes of coverage on climate change revolved around Donald Trump—mostly on his announcement that the US would pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement. In their reporting, those networks often did not even challenge Trump’s frequent claim that climate change is a hoax, a failure that has long plaguedthe major networks. Climate deniers still even get guest spots on networks like PBS and CBS, who actually do better than the other major networks in covering climate change.

Keeping the planet healthy for habitation and saving the world from untold amounts of strife, struggle and conflict as a result of climate change is without a doubt the greatest challenge that the human race has faced thus far. There are many financial interests that run counter to tackling this monumental problem. All told, the fossil fuel industry spent over $100 million opposing climate change ballot initiatives in this year’s midterms, mostly successfully. The media played an active role as middleman in the fossil fuel companies’ propaganda-to-voter pipeline, while failing to do the reporting that might counter that propaganda, and encourage voters to see climate change as the urgent crisis that it is.

It’s hard to remain a neutral party on a sinking ship. The media continue to choose to ignore the severity of climate change in their reporting, while at the same time giving fossil fuel fat cats a megaphone to whip up opposition to solving it.

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Justin Anderson is a writer based in New York City. You can follow him on Twitter at @_JustAndFair.

Neither allied Great Power can admit that their own missteps are the reason for the two major strategic failures that they’re facing, with it being much easier to conveniently blame Pakistan as the regional bogeyman instead of taking responsibility for the blowback that they’re receiving.

It’s old news that the US regularly scapegoats Pakistan for its failings in Afghanistan, with Trump recently resorting to this rhetorical trope once again just the other day during a prerecorded interview that aired over the weekend, but this trend is now spreading throughout South Asia in an unusual direction. India, which has a habit of blaming Pakistan for the Kashmiri National Liberation Movement in spite of its own refusal to hold a UNSC-mandated referendum on the occupied region’s status, has now all of a sudden taken to blaming its Muslim rival for majority-Hindu Nepal’s recent anti-Indian protests. According to a report from DNA India, the country’s intelligence agencies attribute these manifestations to Pakistan’s ISI, which is allegedly operating out of the Pakistani Embassy in Nepal and funding all sorts of anti-Indian behavior in the Himalayan country. As could be expected whenever India brings up the specter of supposed Pakistani involvement anywhere, they also claim that Islamabad is supporting “terrorists” there, too.

What’s really happening, however, is much different than what India says. Pakistan is being used as a scapegoat for covering up New Delhi’s many failings towards its former satellite state just like Washington does in Afghanistan, interestingly representing yet another example of the American hegemon’s influence rubbing off on its new South Asian ally. Left out of the Indian media narrative about Nepal is that New Delhi de-facto blockaded the Himalayan country in 2015 as a form of indirect protest against its promulgated constitution at the time, which India feared would diminish the political influence of the Madhesi people who are considered to be under the sway of their much larger southern neighbor. This unexpectedly aggressive action prevented Nepal from receiving much-needed supplies from the outside world, thereby catalyzing a domestic crisis that dangerously veered on the edge of civil war before China urgently dispatched humanitarian aid to the beleaguered nation, setting into motion Kathmandu’s geopolitical recalibration.

Nepal is now “balancing” between its Indian and Chinese neighbors after finally liberating itself from the former’s neo-imperial grasp following the events of three years ago, though this has undoubtedly caused New Delhi to seethe with jealousy due to the “zero-sum” mentality that dominates its decision makers’ perspective on International Relations. Indian media is full of stories fearmongering about how Nepal is allegedly becoming a Chinese ‘forward-operating base’ that presents a latent threat to the country’s largest province of Uttar Pradesh, with pundits now describing the porous border between the two previously “fraternal” nations as a serious security issue. For as afraid as India is of what it claims is China’s “creeping influence” in Nepal, its leadership is still scratching its head over how this all happened, unable to countenance that their own policies are entirely responsible for this unprecedented pivot in one of the world’s most geostrategically significant states.

Seeing as how India and China are making a public show out of their supposed “rapprochement” with one another for what can be assumed is a mutually agreed-upon bid to increase their respective leverage with the US, New Delhi can no longer obsess over Beijing’s influence in Nepal and accordingly decided to drag China’s all-weather ally Pakistan into this infowar campaign. It’s important to keep in mind that India’s general election is next year and that the ruling BJP Hindutva ideologues plan to play the tried-and-tested card of communal politics in order to win reelection. That’s why the “ModiMobs” (the author’s neologism for BJP-backed rioters) are converging on Karnataka’s Sabarimala temple after the Supreme Court ruling that allowed women of all ages to enter the religious site, as well as why the authorities are preparing to provocatively construct a Hindu temple on the site of a mosque in Faizabad (now renamed to “Ayodhya”) that was destroyed by rioters in 1992.

A thought-provoking but little-noticed observation outside of South Asia is that constitutionally secular India is plagued by Hindutva mob violence much more often – and to a deadlier extent – than Pakistan (a constitutionally Islamic Republic) suffers the same from its Islamist variant, though people outside of the region could be forgiven for not knowing this due to the Mainstream Media’s double standards when it comes to reporting on these two countries’ domestic disturbances. India, by dint of its government’s propagandistic sloganeering about being the “world’s largest democracy” and its recent military-strategic alliance with the US, isn’t held to account for any of this while Pakistan is spit upon by the global press for comparatively more minor incidences. Knowing this, India expects that the anti-Pakistani narrative that it’s propagating in Nepal at this specific time will be picked up by international media to further smear its rival’s reputation, as well as contribute to fanning the flames of communal tension at home that the BJP expects will earn it reelection next year.

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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The real reason the knives have come out for MBS is not a single extrajudicial killing – a practice the Saudis have long used with impunity – but instead the fact that, in the six weeks prior to Khashoggi’s sordid fate, MBS not only managed to anger the entire U.S. military-industrial complex, he also enraged the world’s most powerful financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs and CitiGroup. – Whitney Webb [1]

The October 2 murder of the Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi continues to dominate international headlines nearly two months later, in ways that few stories outside of the United States and Europe ever do.

Grisly as the death evidently was, it is difficult to rationalize the outcry as an outpouring of humanitarian sentiment alone, given the far more significant three years long assault on Yemen has mostly failed to register on the public consciousness until recently.

Whitney Webb revealed in two recent October articles that the Khashoggi murder is being exploited by the US for reasons that have more to do with the US military industrial complex and economic windfalls, than with serious concerns about the kingdom’s human rights record.

In the following exclusive interview for GRTV, Webb talks about MBS’s apparent abandonment of America’s THAAD anti-missile system  in favour of the Russian S-400 system, the reneging on a privatization scheme, and her conjecture about last summer’s Saudi-Canadian spat being rooted in international oil politics.

Whitney Webb is a staff writer with Mint Press News. Her work has appeared on Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has also made radio and TV appearances on RT and Sputnik. She currently lives with her family in southern Chile.

Excerpt: 

Global Research: Something that you raised in your October 15th article, talking about how this murder took place only two days after the expiration of an agreement to purchase a number of THAAD missiles from the United States. Could you maybe help address that link between those two events?

Whitney Webb:  So that report has to do with the fact there was a September 30th deadline for Saudi Arabia to commit to buying $15 billion worth of products from Lockheed Martin, mainly the Terminal High Altitude Air Defense system, or the THAAD system, and that was part of a larger weapons deal that President Trump has promoted really for over a year – the $110 billion weapons deal. But he’s really, you know – weapons sales, Trump has made a cornerstone of his foreign policy as president. And one of the major successes of him selling arms to other countries abroad has sort of been for him in terms of him promoting this – this $110 billion weapons deal.

But it turns out that deal was never finalized. Instead it was a series of letters of intent, letters of interest that the Saudis gave to the US and US arms manufacturers regarding different – different things that they planned to purchase in the future. But however, from that point to the present, what has happened is that the Saudis haven’t really followed through with their previous letters of intent and interest, and this happened in the case of this $15 billion planned purchase. That deadline was on September 30th, and that was two days before Jamal Khashoggi entered the consulate never to leave. Instead of signing on the dotted line on that deadline, they just let the deadline pass.

Subsequently, when it came out that they had not signed the deadline, they tried to say that they – a Saudi official told the Washington Post that they still had … they were highly interested in buying the system still. But, it’s important to point out here that Saudi Arabia last year, after the weapons deal and all these letters of intent and things were signed, that they had made plans and admitted their plans to buy the S-400 – the Russian equivalent of Lockheed’s THAAD, and this was finalized – this was mentioned again in September – earlier in September, around September 20th or 21st that they were planning to follow through with the purchase of the Russian equivalent.

And this is notable because China was recently sanctioned by the US for buying the S-400, and when that happened the Saudi Ambassador to Russia notably brought up that he was concerned that they could face US sanctions over their upcoming and planed purchase of the S-400. Ad what’s interesting here is that part of the consequences that are being promoted in the US mainstream to sort of, you know, punish MBS and Saudi Arabia for Khashoggi’s murder, you know, are sanctions. So it seems that the military industrial complex which – or Lockheed Martin at least, which was obviously disappointed in the Saudis’ decision to not buy American and to buy Russian instead – they may be getting their sanctions after all, but under a very different premise.

GR: I notice also that your – in your subsequent article, you mention the prospect of bin Salman (MBS) having essentially pledged a major privatization scheme that would have been a major windfall for not just the … military contractors, but investors in the US and potentially elsewhere. Could you elaborate on that aspect?

WW: Back before MBS became Crown Prince, which was last June, he had teased in a pretty wide ranging article with The Economist, which the Rothschild banking family for example – they have openly claimed to be custodians of that paper – they own a significant number of the shares. Um, MBS basically announced that he was planning – that he had ambitions to privatize large parts of the Saudi public sector, which basically – if you’re going to put that in The Economist, it makes it pretty clear to the international financial elite that you’re willing to support what your plans are. And this is significant because of the older class of the Saudi royals, including Mohammed bin Nayef who was the Crown Prince MBS eventually deposed. They were against this privatization because they know that it can lead to instability because… such a significant portion of the Saudi population are dependent on welfare from the Saudi State. A lot of them work in public sector jobs. Obviously any cuts or privatization of that would end those cushy public sector jobs, and there’s also all these fuel subsidies, these tax cuts that people there have grown accustomed to.

So basically what has happened is that MBS, when he wasn’t Crown Prince, he sort of may – and his plan for this privatization was called Vision 2030, and it was sort of promoted in at least the Western press as a means to sort of wean off Saudi Arabia of its oil dependency, but it was really a lot more than that. I mean … it’s a neoliberal free-for-all. The mass privatization of Saudi public sector infrastructure and things like that and in addition to partial privatization of the Saudi State oil company Aramco, which was supposed to happen as part of the Saudi Aramco IPO um it’s notable that that  – er Initial Public Offering – and it’s notable that the Initial Public Offering was cancelled just a few weeks – I think around six weeks before Khashoggi’s disappearance – and since then, MBS had tried to sort of assuage a lot of the banks that end up losing out on money as a result of the cancellation on that because they had worked on that Saudi Aramco IPO, planning to be paid when the deal was finalized, as was often the case with these sort of big deals.

So essentially, MBS’s more or less last minute decision to cancel the IPO – well he put it on hold indefinitely, but he basically cancelled it, basically made that all of these banks including Goldman Sachs, CitiGroup and the like had been forced to work for free – which was kind of ironic, considering that these banks … you know have made their fortunes exploiting other people – they themselves sort of became inadvertently exploited because MBS sort of backed out of these privatization plans.

And it’s not really hard to understand why MBS got cold feet, because there’s a reason why, you know, the Saudi royal classes resisted privatization up until this point. Basically this happened earlier this year in January. They tried to sort of begin to implement some of the parts of Vision 2030, which also includes some austerity packages and they got a hugely negative response as a result. And they ended up trying – they were cutting fuel subsidies for example, and they had raised taxes, and they immediately reversed – well not immediately, but within less than a week, they reversed … pretty much all of them and that even reversing them was not enough to quell the public outrage. They eventually fired some government ministers to try and absorb, you know, the public upset as a result. And I think, you know, that really, really must have spooked MBS, because he was, you know, facing the potential for a lot of domestic unrest over these policies that are really popular with the Saudi public. And I think he realized that not only would that put his position as Crown Prince in peril but it could actually potentially damage, you know, the whole of the House of Saud in general, and Saudi Arabia.

Notes: 

1. https://www.mintpressnews.com/the-real-reason-the-knives-are-out-for-mohammed-bin-salman/251051/

The Russian world is caught up in a drama. Its leading Orthodox Church faces a schism over the Ukraine’s drive for its own independent church. If Kiev regime succeeds, the split between Russia proper and its breakaway Western part, the Ukraine, will widen. The Russian Church will suffer a great loss, comparable to the emergence of the Anglican church for the Catholics. However, there is a chance for the Russians to gain a lot from the split, to gain more than to lose.

The Ukraine actually has its own church, and this church is the self-ruling autonomous Ukrainian Orthodox Church, a part of the Russian Orthodox Church. Its autonomy is very broad; it can be considered independent practically in every aspect excepting its nominal recognition of Moscow supremacy. The Ukrainian Church does not pay tribute to Moscow, it elects its own bishops; it has no reason to push for more. No tangible reason, at least.

But in the Ukraine, there was and is a strong separatist tendency, with a somewhat romantic and nationalist tinge, comparable to Scots or Languedoc separatism. Its beginning could be traced to 18th Century, when a Moscow-appointed ruler Hetman Mazeppa rose against Russia’s Peter the Great and allied himself with the Swedish warrior-king Charles XII. A hundred years after the revolt, the foremost Russian poet, Alexander Pushkin, composed a beautiful romantic poem Poltava (following Byron’s Mazeppa) where he gives Mazeppa the following words:

For far too long we’ve bowed our heads,
Without respect or liberty,
Beneath the yoke of Warsaw’s patronage,
Beneath the yoke of Moscow’s despotism.
But now is Ukraine’s chance to grow
Into an independent power. (trans. by Ivan Eubanks)

This romantic dream of an independent Ukraine became real after the 1917 Revolution, under the German occupation at the conclusion of World War One. Within a year or two, as the defeated Germans withdrew, the independent Ukraine became Soviet and joined Soviet Russia in the Soviet Union of equal Republics. Even within the Union, the Ukraine was independent and it had its own UN seat. When Russian President Yeltsin dissolved the Union, Ukraine became fully independent again.

In the 1991 divorce with rump Russia (after hundreds of years of integration), the Ukraine took with her a major portion of the former Union’s physical and human assets. The spacious country with its hard-working people, fertile black soil, the cream of Soviet industry producing aircraft, missiles, trains and tractors, with the best and largest army within the Warsaw Treaty, with its universities, good roads, proximity to Europe, expensive infrastructure connecting East and West, the Ukraine had a much better chances for success than rump Russia.

But it didn’t turn out this way, for reasons we shall discuss elsewhere. A failed state if there ever was one, the Ukraine was quickly deserted by its most-valuable people, who ran away in droves to Russia or Poland; its industries were dismantled and sold for the price of scrap metal. The only compensation the state provides is even more nationalism, even more declarations of its independence.

This quest for full independence has been even less successful than economic or military measures. The Kiev regime could dispense with Moscow, but it became subservient to the West. Its finances are overseen by the IMF, its army by NATO, its foreign policy by the US State Department. Real independence was an elusive goal, beyond the Ukraine’s reach.

A total break of the Ukrainian church with the nominal supremacy of Moscow appealed to President Petro Poroshenko as a convincing substitute for real independence, especially with a view toward the forthcoming elections. He turned to the patriarch of Constantinople, His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew asking him to grant his church its full independence (called autocephaly in ecclesiastical language).

Fine, but what is ‘his church’? The vast majority of Ukrainian Orthodox Christians and their bishops are content with their status within the Russian Church. They have their own head, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphrius, who is also content with his position. They do not see any need for autocephaly. However, the Ukraine has two small splinter orthodox churches, one led by the ambitious bishop Filaret and another by Macarius; both are very nationalist and anti-Russian, both support the regime and claim for autonomy, both are considered illegitimate by the rest of the Orthodox world. These two small churches are potential embryos of a future Ukrainian Church of President Poroshenko.

Now we shall turn to Bartholomew. His title describes him as the patriarch of Constantinople, but in vain you will seek this city on a map. Constantinople, the Christian capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, the greatest city of his time, the seat of Roman emperors, was conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1452 and became Islamic Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire and of the last Muslim Caliphate; since 1920 it has been a city in the Republic of Turkey. The Constantinople Patriarchate is a phantom fossil of a great past; it has a few churches, a monastery and a few ambitious monks located in Phanar, an old Greek quarter of Istanbul.

The Turkish government considers Bartholomew a bishop of the local Greeks, denying his 6^th-century title of Ecumenical Patriarch. There are only three thousand Greeks in the city, so Bartholomew has very small foothold there indeed. His patriarchate is a phantom in the world of phantoms, such as the Knights of Maltese and Temple Orders, Kings of Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia, emperors of Brazil and of the Holy Roman Empire… Phantom is not a swear word. Phantoms are loved by romantics enamoured by old rituals and uniforms with golden aiguillettes. These honourable gentlemen represent nobody, they have no authority, but they can and do issue impressive-looking certificates.

The Orthodox Church differs from its Roman Catholic sister by having no central figure like the Pope of Rome. The Orthodox have a few equal-ranking heads of national churches, called Patriarchs or Popes. The Patriarch of Constantinople is one of these fourteen church leaders, though he has more than his share of respect by virtue of tradition. Now the Phantom of Phanar seeks to make his position much more powerful, akin to that of the Pope of Rome for the Western Church. His organization claims that ”The Ecumenical Patriarchate has the responsibility of being the Church of final appeal in Orthodoxy, and it is the only Church that may establish autocephalous and autonomous Churches“. These claims are rejected by the Russian Church, by far the biggest Orthodox Church in the world.

As the Ukrainian church is a part of the Russian Church, it could seek its full independence (autocephaly) in Moscow, but it has no such wish. The two small splinter churches turned to Phanar, and the Phanar leader was more than happy to get into the game. He had sent two of his bishops to Kiev and started with establishing a united Ukrainian church. This church wouldn’t be independent, or autocephalous; it would be a church under the direct rule of Phanar, an autonomous or the stavropegialchurch. For Ukrainian nationalists, it would be a sad reminder that they have the choice to go with Moscow or with Istanbul, now as their ancestors had four hundred years ago. Full independence is not on the cards.

For the Phanar, it was not a first foray into Russian territory: Bartholomew also used the anti-Russian sentiments of Tallinn and took a part of the Estonian churches and their faithful under his rule. However, then the Russians took it easy, for two reasons. Estonia is small, there are not too many churches nor congregants; and besides, the Phanar had taken some positions in Estonia between the wars, when Soviet Russia did not care much about the Church. The Ukraine is absolutely different. It is very big, it is the heart of Russian church, and Constantinople has no valid claim on it.

The Russians say that President Poroshenko bribed Bartholomew. This is nonsense of very low grade; even if the Patriarch is not averse to accepting gifts. Bartholomew had a very valid reason to accept Poroshenko’s offer. If he would realize his plan and establish a church of Ukraine under his own rule, call it autonomous or stavropegialor even autocephalous, he would cease being a phantom and would become a very real church leader with millions of faithful. The Ukraine is second only to Russia in the Orthodox world, and its coming under Constantinople would allow Bartholomew to become the most-powerful Orthodox leader.

The Russians are to blame themselves for much of their difficulties. They were too eager to accept the Phanar Phantom for the real thing in their insistent drive for external approval and recognition. They could have forgotten about him three hundred years ago instead of seeking his confirmation now and then. It is dangerous to submit to the weak; perhaps it is more risky than to submit to the strong.

This reminds me of a rather forgotten novel by H. G. Wells The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth. It is a story of a wondrous nourishment that allows children to grow into forty-foot-high giants. Society mistreats the young titans. In a particularly powerful episode, a mean old hag scolds the tall kids – thrice her size, and they timidly accept her silly orders. In the end, the giants succeed in standing their ground, throw off the yoke and walk tall. Wells writes about “young giants, huge and beautiful, glittering in their mail, amidst the preparations for the morrow. The sight of them lifted his heart. They were so easily powerful! They were so tall and gracious! They were so steadfast in their movements!”

Russia is a young giant that tries to observe the pygmy-established rules. International organisation called PACE (The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe) where Russia is harshly mistreated and is not even allowed to defend itself, is a good example. International courts where Russia has little chance to stand its ground is another one. President Trump has taken the US out of a few international organisations, though the US has huge weight in international affairs and all states pay heed to the US position. Russia’s voice is not even heard, and only now the Russians begin to ponder the advantages of Ruxit.

The church rules are equally biased as they place the biggest Orthodox state with millions of faithful Christians on the same footing as Oriental phantoms.

In the days of the Ottoman Empire, the Patriarch of Constantinople had real weight. The Sultan defended his position, his decisions had legal implications for the Orthodox subjects of the Empire. He caused many troubles for the Russian Church, but the Russians had to observe his decrees as he was an imperial official. After Ataturk’s revolution, the Patriarch lost his status, but the Russian church, this young giant, continued to revere him and support him. After 1991, when Russia had turned to its once-neglected church, the Russian Church multiplied its generosity towards Phanar and turned to him for guidance, for the Moscow Church had been confused and unprepared for its new position. Being in doubt, it turned to tradition. We can compare this to the English “rotten boroughs” of Dickens novels, towns that had traditionally sent their representatives to the Parliament though they scarcely had any dwellers.

In this search for tradition, the Russian church united with the Russian Church abroad, the émigré structure with its checkered history that included support for Hitler. Its main contribution was fierce anti-Communism and rejection of the Soviet period of the Russian past. However it could be justified by the Russians’ desire to heal the White vs. Red split and restore the émigrés to the Russian people. While honouring the Phanar Phantom as the honorary head of the Orthodox world had no justification at all.

The Phanar had US State Department backing to consider. US diplomacy has had a good hand in dealings with phantoms: for many years Washington supported phantom governments-in-exile of the Baltic states, and this support was paid back a hundredfold in 1991. Now, the US support for Phanar has paid back well in this renewed attack on Russia.

The Patriarch of Phanar, perhaps, underestimated possible Russian response to his Ukrainian meddling. He got used to Russian good treatment; he remembered that the Russians meekly accepted his takeover of the Estonian church. Being encouraged by the US and driven by his own ambitions, he made the radical step of voiding Constantinople’s agreement of transfer of Kiev Metropolitan seat to Moscow, had sent his bishops and took over the Ukraine to himself.

The Moscow Church anathemised Bartholomew, and forbade its priests to participate in service with Phanar priests and (!!!) with priests that accept Phanar priests. While ending communion with Phanar is no pain at all, the secondary step – of ending communion with the churches that refuse to excommunicate Phanar – is a very radical one. Other Orthodox churches are unhappy about Phanar moves. They are aware that Phanar’s new rules may threaten them, too. They are not keen to establish a Pope above themselves. But I doubt they are ready to excommunicate Phanar.

The Russian church can take a less radical and more profitable way. The Orthodox world’s unity is based on two separate principles. One, the Eucharist. All Orthodox churches are united in the communion. Their priests can serve together and accept communion in any recognised church. Two, the principle of canonical territory. No church should appoint bishops on the other church’s territory.

Phanar transgressed against the territorial principle. In response, the Russian Church excommunicated him. But Phanar refused to excommunicate the Russians. As the result, the Russians are forbidden by their own church to accept communion if excommunicated priests participate in the service. But the priests of the Church of Jerusalem do not ban anybody, neither Russians, no Phanariots.

As it happened with Russian counter-sanctions, they cause harm and pain mainly to Russians themselves. There are few Orthodox pilgrims visiting Russia, while there are many Russian pilgrims visiting the Holy Land, Mount Athos and other important sites of Greece, Turkey and Palestine, first of all Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Now these pilgrims won’t be able to receive the holy communion in the Holy Sepulchre and in the Nativity Cathedral, while Russian priests won’t be able to celebrate mass in these churches.

The Russian priests will probably suffer and submit, while the lay pilgrims will probably break the prohibition and accept the Eucharist in the Church of Jerusalem.

It would be better if the Russian church were to deal with Phanar’s treachery on the reciprocity basis. Phanar does not excommunicate Russians, and Russians may go back to full communion with Phanar. Phanar broke the territorial principle, and the Russians may disregard territorial principle. Since the 20th century, canonical territory has increasingly become a violated principle of canon law, says OrthodoxWiki. Facing such major transgression, the Russians may completely drop the territorial principle and send their bishops to Constantinople and Jerusalem, to Rome and Washington, while keeping all Orthodox churches in full communion.

The Russian church will be able to spread the Orthodox faith all over the world, among the French in France, among the Italians in Italy, among Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. The Russian church dos not allow women into priesthood, does not allow gay unions, does not consider the Jews its elder brothers, does not tolerate homosexual priests and allows its priests to marry. Perhaps it has a good chance to compete with other churches for the flock and clergy.

Thus Moscow Church will be free of tenets it voluntarily accepted. Regarding communion, the Russian church can retain communion with Phanar and Jerusalem and with other Orthodox churches, even with splinter churches on reciprocity basis. Moreover, the Russian Church may allow communion with Catholics. At present, Catholics allow Russians to receive communion, but the Russian Church do not allow their flock to accept Catholic communion and does not allow Catholics to receive communion in Russian churches. With all the differences between the churches, we the Christians can share communion, flesh and blood of our Saviour, and this all we need.

All this is extremely relevant for the Holy Land. The Patriarch of Jerusalem, His Beatitude Theophilos does not want to quarrel with Constantinople nor with Moscow. He won’t excommunicate the priests of Phanar despite Moscow’s requests, and I think he is right. Ban on communion in the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem or in the Nativity of Bethlehem would become a heavy unnecessary and self-inflicted punishment for Russian pilgrims. That is why it makes sense to retain joint communion, while voiding the territorial principle.

Russian church may nominate its bishops in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth to attract the flock presently neglected by the traditional Patriarchate of Jerusalem. I mean the Palestinian Christians and Israeli Christians, hundreds of thousands of them.

The Church of Jerusalem is, and had been ruled by ethnic Greeks since the city was conquered by the Ottomans in 16th century. The Turks removed local Arab Orthodox clerics and appointed their loyal Greeks. Centuries passed by, the Turks are gone, the Greeks are loyal only to themselves, and they do not care much about the natives. They do not allow Christian Palestinian monks to join monasteries, they bar them from holding bishop cathedra and do not let them into the council of the church (called Synod). This flagrant discrimination annoys Palestinian Christians; many of them turned to the Catholic, or even Protestant churches. The flock is angry and ready to rise in revolt against the Greeks, like the Syrian Orthodox did in 1898, when they expelled the Greek bishops and elected an Arab Patriarch of Antioch – with Russian support. (Until that time the Patriarch of Antioch had been elected in Istanbul by Phanar monks exclusively from the «Greeks by race», as they said in those days, and as is the custom of the See of Jerusalem now).

Last Christmas, the Patriarch of Jerusalem had been blocked from entering the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem by angry local Christians, and only Israeli army allowed him to get in. If the Russian Church will establish its bishops in the Holy Land, or even appoint her own Patriarch of Rum (traditional name of the Church) many churches of the Holy Land will accept him, and many faithful will find the church that they can relate to. For the Greek leadership of the Jerusalem church is interested in pilgrimage churches only; they care for pilgrims from Greece and for Greeks in the Holy Land.

There are many Russian Orthodox in Israel; the Greeks of the Church do not attend to their needs. Since 1948, not a single new church had been built by the Orthodox in Israel. Big cities with many Christians – Beer Sheba, Afula, touristy Eilat – have no churches at all. For sure, we can partly blame Israeli authorities and their hatred of Christianity. However, the Church of Jerusalem is not trying hard enough to erect new churches.

There is a million of immigrants from Russia in Israel. Some of them were Christians, some want to enter the church, being disappointed by brutal and hostile Judaism. They had some romantic image of the Jewish faith, being brought up in atheist USSR, but the reality was not even similar. Not only them; Israelis of every origin are unhappy with Judaism that exists now in Israel. They are ready for Christ. A new church of the Holy Land established by Russians can bring Israelis, Jews and non-Jews, native Palestinians and immigrants to Christ.

Thus Phanar’s rejection of territorialism can be used for the greater glory of the Church. Yes, the Russian church will change its character and assume some of global, ecumenical function. This is big challenge; I do not know whether the Russians are ready for it, whether the Patriarch of Moscow Kyril is daring enough for it.

His Church is rather timid; the bishops do not express their views in public. However, a Moscow priest Fr Vsevolod Chaplin, who was close to the Patriarch until recently, publicly called for full reformatting of the Orthodox Christianity, for getting rid of rotten boroughs and phantoms, for establishing sturdy connection between laity and Patriarchate. Without great push by the incautious Patriarch Bartholomew, these ideas could gestate for years; now they can come forth and change the face of the faith.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Israel Shamir can be reached at [email protected]. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from The Unz Review

On November 22, ISIS advanced on positions of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) around the al-Tanak oil field in the province of Deir Ezzor. According to reports, the ISIS advance started with an attack by two suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices. Then, ISIS infantry attacked SDF positions penetrating the first line of the group’s defense. However, SDF members supported by US-led coalition aircraft repelled the advance.

According to pro-Kurdish sources, up to 10 ISIS members were killed and at least one VBIED was destroyed in the clashes.

On the same day, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova pointed out that the US is still training militants in the al-Tanf area.

“Under the excuse of fighting against the ISIS and in order to contain Iran, a big US military base was set up there – in a strategically important area adjacent to the borders of Syria, Iraq and Jordan, which is close to the highway connecting Baghdad and Damascus. And there, according to numerous witness accounts, militant training is underway,” she stated during a press briefing.

Syrian and Russian officials have repeatedly accused the US of creating a safe haven for ISIS in al-Tanf. Pro-Syria experts say that the US is using ISIS and other militant groups there as a tool to prevent the Damascus government from restoring a full control of the border and to contain the growing Iranian influence.

This week, the Syrian Air Force Intelligence Directorate has launched a large-scale security operation in the Barzeh area in eastern Damascus. According to reports, security forces detained several former members of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) 1st Brigade, including its former leader Abu al-Tyaib and three field commanders Abu Mahjub, Muru and Abu Fu’ad al-Habashi.

On the same time, reports appeared that the Syrian Army had uncovered a large weapons cache containing assault rifles, rocket propelled grenades, ammunition, explosives, suicide belts and communication systems in the area.

Local sources say that some former members of FSA groups, which reconciled with Damascus, are now involved in a wide range of criminal activities, including weapons trafficking. The government is not going to tolerate this.

The Aerospace Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has released a video of multiple drone strikes on ISIS positions in Syria and Iraq in the period from 2014 to 2017. The strikes were carried by Shahed-129 unmanned combat aerial vehicles, which are the only and main offensive air component used by Iran. The video shows the underreported side of the ongoing conflict.

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Two attacks in Pakistan, including a brazen assault on the Chinese consulate in Karachi, are likely to complicate prime minister Imran Khan’s efforts to renegotiate China’s massive, controversial Belt and Road investments as well as an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout and ensure that Pakistan is shielded from blacklisting by an international anti-money laundering and terrorism finance watchdog.

The attack on the consulate by three members of the Balochistan Liberation Army, a militant nationalist group seeking what it terms self-determination for the troubled, resource-rich, sparsely populated Pakistani province that constitutes the heartland of China’s US$45 billion investment and the crown jewel of its infrastructure and energy generation-driven Belt and Road initiative.

The attack, together with an unrelated suicide bombing by unidentified militants that killed 26 people and wounded 55 others in a market in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, comes at an awkward moment for Mr. Khan.

With Pakistan teetering on the edge of a financial crisis, Mr. Khan has been seeking financial aid from friendly countries like China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as well as a bailout from the IMF.

Responding to widespread criticism of Chinese investment terms that go beyond Baloch grievances, Mr. Khan is seeking to renegotiate the Chinese terms as well as the priorities of what both countries have dubbed the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that will link the crucial Baloch port of Gwadar with China’s troubled north-western province of Xinjiang, the scene of a brutal crackdown on Turkic Muslims.

Mr. Khan last month bought some relief by attending Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s showcase investors conference in Riyadh, dubbed Davos in the Desert, that was being shunned by numerous CEOs of Western financial institutions, tech entrepreneurs and media moguls as well as senior Western government officials because of the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

In talks with King Salman and the crown prince, Saudi Arabia promised to deposit US$3 billion in Pakistan’s central bank as balance of payments support and to defer up to US$3 billion in payments for oil imports for a year. The kingdom this week deposited US$1 billion in Pakistan’s central bank as Mr. Khan was visiting the UAE.

However, Mr. Khan’s visit to Beijing earlier this month was less conclusive. Despite lofty words and the signing of a raft of agreements, Mr. Khan’s visit failed to produce any immediate cash relief with China insisting that more talks were needed.

China signalled its irritation at Mr. Khan’s declared intention to pressure China to change the emphasis of CPEC by sending only its transportation minister to receive the prime minister upon his arrival.

Amid criticism of CPEC by Baloch activists who charge that the province’s local population has no stake in the project and members of the business community who chafe at China importing materials needed for projects from China rather than purchasing them locally and largely employing Chinese rather than Pakistani nationals, Mr. Khan only elicited vague promises for his demand that the focus of CPEC on issues such as job creation, manufacturing and agriculture be fast forwarded.

China’s refusal to immediately bail Pakistan out has forced Mr. Khan to turn to the IMF for help. The IMF, backed by the United States, has set tough conditions for a bailout, including complete disclosure of Chinese financial support.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned in July that any potential IMF bailout should not provide funds to pay off Chinese lenders. US Pakistani relations dived this week with President Donald J. Trump and Mr. Khan trading barbs on Twitter.

The attack on the consulate coupled with Saudi Arabia’s financial support is likely to fuel long-standing Chinese concerns that Pakistan has yet to get a grip on political violence in the country. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said in response to the attack that China had asked Pakistan to step up security. Pakistan has a 15,000-man force dedicated to protecting Chinese nationals and assets.

China also fears that Balochistan could become a launching pad for potential US-Saudi efforts to destabilize Iran by stirring unrest among the Islamic republic’s ethnic minorities.

The attack together with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa bombing not only signals a recent spike in political violence in Pakistan but also comes against the backdrop of increased incidents involving Iran’s Kurdish, Iranian Arab and Baloch minorities.

Earlier this month, Pakistan said it had rescued five of 12 abducted Iranian border guards, saying efforts to recover the other captives are ongoing. An anti-Iran Sunni Muslim militant organization, Jaish al-Adl or Army of Justice, kidnapped the guards a month ago in the south-eastern Iranian border city of Mirjaveh and took them to the Pakistani side of the porous frontier between the two countries.

The attack on the consulate as well as the bombing in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are likely to increase pressure from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international anti-money laundering and terrorism finance watchdog, and its Asian counterpart, the Asia Pacific Group (APG) to strengthen Pakistani compliance with international best practices.

An APG delegation expressed its dissatisfaction with Pakistani compliance in October and said it would report its findings to FATF by the end of this month. FATF put Pakistan on a grey list in February, a prelude to blacklisting if the country fails to clean up its act. Blacklisting could potentially derail Pakistan’s request for IMF assistance.

In sum, this week’s attacks put Pakistan between a rock and a hard place. Countering militancy has proven difficult, if not impossible, given the deep-seated links between government, political parties and militants, a web that includes Mr. Khan and many of his associates.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and co-host of the New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast. James is the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title and a co-authored volume, Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa as well as Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa and just published China and the Middle East: Venturing into the Maelstrom. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author

Three Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) members participated in the First International Conference Against U.S./NATO Military Bases, a historic gathering that has elevated the global anti-war movement. BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka introduced attendees to Dr. Aleida Guevara, Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara’s daughter, who is an accomplished medical activist. Attendees praised the AFRICOM plenary chaired by BAP Coordinating Committee member Margaret Kimberley, which was elevated with the expert participation of BAP Coordinating Committee member Paul Pumphrey. Anne Atambo, president of WILPF Kenya and Chris Matlhako of South African Peace Initiative also presented.

The importance of BAP was on full display. We have emerged as a critical leadership force in the global anti-war movement. What we have heard and experienced over our 18-month existence re-affirms the importance of being an autonomous Black organization based in the United States.

While some of us were talking war and peace in Dublin, BAP member Asantewaa Mawusi Nkrumah-Ture represented Saturday at the No White Supremacists in Philly rally. More than 1,000 anti-fascist demonstrators turned out, scaring off the few white supremacists who showed up and enjoyed police protection (as usual). Here are more photos from the event.

This week, we heard something that almost sounded like good news. Almost. The U.S. government announced it is pulling 10 percent of its military out of Africa… to focus on threatening China and Russia. This move demonstrates why our U.S. Out of Africa! campaign to shut down U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has been and remains part of a global campaign to shut down all U.S. and NATO military bases. Please sign our petition and share it online. (We need 19 more signatures to reach the 1,500-signature mark!) If you want to be able to print out and circulate the petition in your communities, universities and elsewhere, click here.

Attend these events:

1. BAP Coordinating Committee member Jaribu Hill has been organizing the Southern Human Rights Organizers’ Conference (SHROC) for 22 years. Join her and activists from the Global South Dec. 7-9 in Atlanta.
2. Celebrate BAP’s second anniversary on April 4 in Washington, D.C., as we demonstrate against the transnational ruling class desecrating the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday by holding a huge party to honor NATO’s 70th anniversary on that day.

No compromise.

No retreat.

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The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP), a founding member of the Global Campaign Against U.S./NATO Military Bases, joined 300 attendees from 36 countries at a historic conference last weekend that re-committed anti-war activists to closing U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military bases throughout the world.

The Global Campaign Against U.S./NATO Military Bases held its first international conference November 16-18 at Liberty Hall in Dublin, Ireland. The conference’s Unity Statement was endorsed by more than 700 individuals and organizations. The Dublin conference convened several months after the U.S.-based Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases held its first conference in Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States. Ireland was chosen because of its neutral position, having never joined NATO.

The United States operates more than 1,000 military facilities on six continents. This enormous presence embodies the U.S. policy of Full Spectrum Dominance, which threatens democracy and self-determination for other nations.

BAP reaffirms our commitment to this world-wide initiative and to our recently launched campaign, U.S. Out of Africa!, to shut down U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). This military program is present in 53 out of 54 African countries. BAP is circulating an online petition that makes these demands:

1. The complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Africa,
2. The demilitarization of the African continent,
3. The closure of U.S. bases throughout the world, and
4. The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) must oppose AFRICOM and conduct hearings on AFRICOM’s impact on the African continent.

After recent U.S. midterm elections, the Democratic Party now makes up the majority of the U.S. Congress and owes that status to Black U.S. voters. As colonized subjects on stolen land, the U.S.-based Black diaspora wants the nations of their ancestral continent to live freely and independently, which means AFRICOM must be dismantled. The BAP petition calls on CBC members to act as true representatives of their constituents, who are among the most peace loving in the country.

There can be no peace or democracy when a group of nations and their proxies can wage violent action against people around the world. BAP’s mission to re-capture and re-develop the historic anti-war, anti-imperialist and pro-peace positions of the radical Black movement will play a crucial part in the Global Campaign Against U.S./NATO Military Bases.

U.S. out of Africa!

Shut down AFRICOM!

Close all U.S. and NATO foreign bases!

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All images in this article are from BAP

On November 11, 2018, I was in Lugansk People’s Republic (LNR) as an election observer for the national election along with people from twenty-two countries. The elections in Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics (DNR) were necessary because of the assassination of DNR’s Head of the Administration Alexandr Zakharchenko and the resignation of LNR’s former Head of the Administration Igor Plotnitsky.

In the run up to the election and in its aftermath, i was able to interview several officials from the Russian Federation and Lugansk People’s Republic. I took statements from the Deputy Foreign Minister in LNR, an OSCE election observer who was on his way to monitor the US mid-terms, and the mayor of Stakhanov which is a city in LNR.

The real questions revolve around what the elections mean to each party in the scope of their work?  And how will this affect the Minsk peace negotiations?

The elections themselves had the power to make or break the new republics. If the turnout had been low, it would have meant that people voted no confidence in the young states and would have signaled they were failing.

Instead, the voter turnout was among the highest recorded anywhere in recent memory. Lugansk People’s Republic had a 77% voter turnout and DNR came in with 80%.

Instead of the election outcome being determined by the results, this election is getting parsed by commas and period placement. While no one is actually arguing whether the election was legal or not, Ukraine is arguing its legitimacy, ie, it may be legal but it’s not right to do.

Ukraine and LDNR (Lugansk and Donetsk Republics) only have one mechanism to communicate and negotiate. The result of that is what the Minsk agreements embody. Minsk II makes reference to elections agreed to by all parties.

Ukraine has the right to regulate local elections in LDNR. This gives the Ukrainian government control over how city and town elections are run inside Lugansk and Donetsk Republics. Ukraine decides what determines a legitimate election (procedure and methodology) and what’s not legal according to Ukrainian law.

Notice the parsing between legitimate (authentic) and legal or according to Ukrainian law. This parsing represents the arguments made about the election.

The principle involved is the same as a government assuming a power because it isn’t forbidden in the Constitution. This is done all the time and is considered normal. It’s also why restrictions are placed on government powers in democratic societies.

Since the Minsk Agreements don’t specify for Ukraine to regulate the national elections, LDNR rightfully assumed the authority to do so. This is against the backdrop of DNR Head Zakharchenko’s assassins admitting they were working for Ukraine.

What does that mean going forward? Well, for international bodies that election and everything resulting from it will mean different things depending on what their mandate is.

I was able to put these questions to an OSCE Election Observer on his way to monitor the US midterm elections. This is what he could say:

“The OSCE can only observe an election if it is invited to do so by an OSCE participating State, so any statements from the OSCE would not comment on any procedural aspects of the elections. The OSCE only observes elections when they are invited by the internationally recognized government, which in this case would be the authorities in Kyiv, and since the Ukrainian government denounces the Donbas elections as illegitimate, it is not inviting the OSCE to observe. Therefore the OSCE will not be monitoring and will not comment on the procedural aspects.”

As you can see, it isn’t legality that is questioned. It’s legitimacy because Kiev questions it. They didn’t cover the point in negotiations with LDNR. It’s procedure, or how the election will be done which is administrative detail. And lastly, it is the lack of an internationally recognized government invitation.

This is important because the same principals apply when I interviewed Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Dimitry Polanskiy and LNR’s Foreign Minister Vladislav Danego.

George Eliason: Ambassador Polanskiy, I would like to have a statement from you about Russia’s official attitude toward what kind of status change this (the election) brings to LDNR? Second, do you see this as a step to (LDNR) normalizing relations with Russia? IE recognition?

Russian UN Deputy Rep Polanski: “Hello once again. I will try to explain our position to you. The leaders of some districts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions were elected on November 11 of this year. The current leaders – Denis Pushilin (Donetsk) and Leonid Pasechnik – were elected to the top positions. The voter turnout was unprecedentedly high – almost 80 percent.

The elections were organized under the universal and equal right to vote as guaranteed by item 7.3 of the 1990 Copenhagen Document of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) and by the basic standards of democracy.

The Kiev authorities do not want to hear this, but we will tell them about the unanimous opinion of the many observers from over 20 countries, including OSCE member states. On the whole, voting took place in a calm atmosphere and without violations. The absence of excesses was reaffirmed by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM). Its personnel did not act as observers at these elections but continued monitoring the situation in the unrecognized republics under their mandate.

Now I would like to say a few words about motives. After the assassination of Alexander Zakharchenko, the potential “vacuum of power” created a real risk of total destabilization in southeastern Ukraine. This could have negatively affected the sustenance of life in Donbass and the process of settlement in general against the backdrop of the Kiev-imposed trade and economic blockade and Kiev’s continuous threats to use force.

The elections made it possible to avoid this scenario. Now the people’s elected officials have a mandate to address the practical goals of supporting a normal life in these regions and carrying out the social functions that have been stubbornly neglected by the Ukrainian authorities. It is essential to approach the results of the election in Donbass with understanding, respect, and consideration for the totality of all factors.

We assume that it was held outside the context of the Minsk Package of Measures, item 12 of which is exclusively devoted to local elections. We hope the newly elected leaders of Donetsk and Lugansk will continue the dialogue with Kiev in the framework of the Contact Group on settling the crisis in southeastern Ukraine in accordance with the Minsk agreements. 

For the second question, we are open for normalization with Ukraine, all the contrary initiatives come from Kiev, not from us. Ukraine has become an “Anti-Russia” from the point of view of its foreign policy.

Instead of looking for alleged Russian aggression and blaming everything on my country Ukraine should better try to find the way to win back the trust of its citizens – those who live in the East and in the South. There is no other way to peace for Kiev but through dialogue with Donbass!

To answer your question about recognition. We do not intend to recognize these two republics, and the elections change nothing in this regard. They create no new status. Previous ones were held 4 yrs ago. According to Minsk agreements someday they will return to Ukraine.

But Kiev needs to implement Minsk agreements for this, create conditions for residents of Donbass to feel at home, speak Russian language and teach their children in it as well as respect their historic figures who fought for the liberation of Ukraine from Nazi Germany. So far it is not being done.”

Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Polanski makes it clear that Russia’s position while supportive, remains within its agreements and international norms regarding LDNR.

Ukraine, on the other hand, has been ramping up the rhetoric and bringing in the machinery of war to the front lines as it continues to shell peaceful civilian homes and apartments. Kiev is now threatening a Blitzkrieg war in a region Ukrainian nationalists assisted Germany with its Blitzkrieg war in WWII.

LNR FM Vladislav Danego on what the results mean going forward

The morning after the election I was lucky enough to catch (LNR)Lugansk People’s Republic Foreign Minister Vladislav Danego in the hotel lobby and he graciously agreed to an interview.

George Eliason: I’m with LNR’s (Lugansk People’s Republic) Foreign Minister Danego. It’s the day after the election and they have a mandate, 77% of voters able to vote; voted.

Foreign Minister Danego, how do you see negotiations, peace negotiations going with Ukraine from this point forward?

LNR Foreign Minister Vladislav Danego: “The result that was shown yesterday, that level of political awareness and desire (aspiration) that people showed with 77% participation (in the election) said that the world needs to respect (honor) the people’s choice and that would also include Ukraine. 

Donbass clearly said, “We are for the republic.” In LNR and DNR it’s absolutely unprecedented (electoral) participation. That level of voter participation is rarely seen anywhere.

In this situation, we will force Ukraine to accept the opinion (choice) of Donbass. And in the talks, first of all, and most of all, it will complicate the talks because Ukraine categorically refuses to hear the people of Donbass. But I hope the international community will make Ukraine open their eyes, and open their ears, and hear what Donbass is saying.

Only under those conditions will there be the possibility of at least some progress in dialogue with Ukraine.  If Ukraine will continue pretending they cannot see or hear Donbass, then accordingly, we will make our decision on whether it’s feasible to try and negotiate with such a country. Or will we need to wait until the government in Ukraine becomes the kind that is willing to talk and negotiate?

And that’s why we had elections because we now have two republics where there are governments acting for the interests of the people who live in Donbass and have to periodically check for the approval of the people.

Right now, first and foremost, people showed their patriotism and responsibility toward their country. The results will be announced shortly. Preliminary results show that interim Head of the Republic Pasichnik is ahead and also results for members of the People’s Council.

People showed a high level of trust in the current leadership of the republic. They showed their desire to move forward. They showed they want to build peaceful lives and count on the help of the Russian Federation. They showed this clearly at the end of the day of the election.”

Every one of Foreign Minister Danego’s  statements is in line with international law and the agreements Lugansk People’s Republic (LNR) has with Kiev.

FM Danego isn’t saying Kiev has to deal with LNR in a different way. He made it clear the people have decided who is representing them at the negotiating table and who is leading them into the future today. The one other thing is Kiev has to start respecting the agreements they are party to.

LNR DFM Anna Soroka on reasons why this election is important

We went to the commemoration at the We will not forgive! We will not forget! Memorial with LNR Deputy Foreign Minister Anna Soroka. For her, this was why the 2018 election was important. The following is the text of what she had to say.

LNR Deputy Foreign Minister Anna Soroka: “This place is where the soul of Lugansk People’s Republic lays. In this place, some of the citizens of Lugansk were killed during the military actions of the summer of 2014. I am the Deputy Foreign Minister of Lugansk People’s Republic. My name is Anna. I, personally was a participant and took part in the events that happened in 2014.

Right now, we’re at the memorial for the burial of the victims. It’s called “Never forget, Never forgive!” Here lies up to 800 citizens of the republic. One hundred nineteen we know the names of. The rest are unknown to us.

I will explain how / why this happened. Aberonnaya Street divides the city (Lugansk) into two parts and it has importance in two wars, the first and the second world wars. As it happened this street historically divides our city into two parts.

The memorial for victims of nineteen forty-two, nineteen forty-three (behind her in the video) is for up to twenty-five thousand war victims of Voroshelovgrad (Lugansk) tortured by the Nazi army and this place where we stand now, the memorial “We don’t forget, we don’t forgive!” is for the victims of Ukrainian aggression of 2014 (to her left in the video).

This is the one place that doesn’t need (more)proof of the guilt of the Ukrainian army of the Kiev regime that unlawfully came to power in February 2014. It, by itself, is the witness that in peaceful normal conditions this kind of mass grave has no place. It cannot happen.

In the summer of 2014, when Lugansk was without lights and water, from the airport and all sides of the surrounding territory (Lugansk) was occupied by Ukraine, mortars were flying from the territory occupied by Ukraine. Civilians were dying everywhere, all over the city, even in the center of Lugansk.

The city was not able to keep up with all the bodies that were coming in because there was no electricity and not enough generators. All four cemeteries of Lugansk were under fire by the Ukrainian army. The decision was made to bury people here. If you can imagine the situation, this was the frontline (points in the middle distance). The airport which was four kilometers from here was under the control of the Ukrainian army. They attacked from there.

It was very difficult to bury people here as well (because it was also under fire). People dug trenches and as we said before (most of those who died) is unknown. We are now working on Identifying the rest of the people buried here.

I don’t want to paint this horrific picture if you could imagine for a minute, no lights, no water, explosions every minute, shells exploding overhead, bodies without heads, legs, or arms. It was very scary, horrific. We didn’t know who they were. That’s why there are so many unknown.

And we want very much for the world to know about the fact this place exists. This precise place is a direct witness to the crimes of Ukraine against our people. And today, when we stand before the choice that we have to make at our election, we would like to know that the world will hear us and understand us.

And understand we are not just trying to show our willfulness (contrariness). We fight for our lives, for peace. We fight for them (points to the mass grave) because we are responsible before them. I propose a moment of silence for all those who have died.”

The following is an interview with Sergey Schevlakov, the Mayor of Stakhanov about why the election is important to Donbass.

Mayor Sergey Schevlakov: “The Ukrainian government started this. None of us, not I, not you wanted to start this war. We didn’t go to Lviv or somewhere else in Western Ukraine to tell them how to run things. We were all friendly, all friends. Our families were friends. It’s them that came to kill us.

It is them that is tearing the country (Ukraine) apart. So, it’s understood the government of Ukraine has different goals. For example, a long time ago in 12th century Great Rus, when it was torn apart into little kingdoms and history is repeating itself.

It happened in the 16th century. It’s repeating again today. Everyone wants to be a little king separating into little kingdoms. Instead of uniting, they tried to be great themselves.”

George Eliason: Will the Moscow Patriarchate be able to mend the breach in Ukrainian Orthodoxy?

Mayor Sergey Schevlakov: ” Let me put it this way, we had one great powerful country. The world had competition. To have someone lose you have to impoverish (bankrupt) them spiritually and economically.

So, the European countries coalition tore apart the Soviet Union and now they are doing it to everything else including Ukraine. The goal is to push away a part of Russiya (greater Russia) that had Ukraine and Belarus together. It used to be one body or one country, they are consciously separating Ukraine and Russiya, pushing them away from each other so they could never unite again.

For a thousand years, Ukraine and Russia were one country and one people. For them not to unite and show that they are different, is why they are consciously forcing the Ukrainian language and won’t have Russian. Although we have one language, they are forcing the concept that we are different people and a different country.

And now to separate us spiritually, they are setting up the Ukrainian Prava Slava (Orthodox Church) so they want to be separate from the Russian Orthodox Church.

To divide the church into parts is to separate part of the people that live in Ukraine. On their own, the western countries and institutes created the separation to divide us so that we could never join again so that we could never become strong again.

So that we will always be poor and miserable. So that we crawl on our hands and knees before those that give welfare handouts or that we have to go to their countries to work on their plantations.

To make us the 21st-century slaves.

In other words, instead of building equality between countries, between different nations and peoples there should be respect and equality to build peaceful and good relationships between countries. But today, unfortunately, a different road is chosen. War, destruction, poverty, sorrow, tears, and so on;

We don’t want this.

We want peace and normal relationships politically, economically, and spiritually. That is why we are against the separation and division in the Church as well.

So, to summarize; we are former Soviet countries, meaning we are one people really. But in Soviet times the Germanies after WWII were separated in two countries. Russia did not fan the flames of division between the two Germanies. Was there a war between the two Germanies? No.

The Soviet Union left everything in Germany (didn’t rob the country) and took the Soviet army out. They allowed the two Germanies to come together without any conflict. But why then is the same Germany that was allowed to unite, the first to interfere in our union?

Instead, they’re causing us to divide instead of uniting so that we are left hungry and without work. That’s why I have this question. How is this a democratic Europe? Just saying, for example.”

Since the election, Ukraine has declared a state of war. They have moved S-300 surface to air missiles into the Donbass conflict zone. Olexandr Turchinov wants to use Blitzkrieg operations which he says will subdue LDNR in one week.

Russia is taking the threat very seriously this time. This is the result of the election on Ukraine’s side. Especially since there is a mandate for the newly elected leaders to continue moving in the direction they are going, Ukraine wants to destroy the new republics, not reintegrate them.

The world community needs to take these threats seriously. The people of the region have suffered enough. If the conflict in Donbass widens at all, ie starts to involve Russian military, it will likely engulf the entire region as well.

In the meantime we get a clear window into the democracy Ukraine is proposing, not just for Donbass, but for the rest of Ukraine that is already under Poroshenko’s wing. It is penury, perpetual escalation, and war for the sake of a comma and the placement of a period.

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George Eliason is an independent journalist based in Donbass. All videos in this article are by Olga Eliason

Featured image is from RT

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The constitutionally communist People’s Republic of China has found itself in a conundrum about what to do with the student activist groups popularly known as “Young Marxists”, since their well-intentioned attempts to carry out grassroots reform of the country’s current variant of communism inadvertently risks destabilizing the entire system.

A seemingly unexpected story is making the rounds on NPR about how the Communist Party of China has supposedly had to crack down on the student activist groups popularly known as “Young Marxists”, with the report stating that their grassroots efforts to reform the country’s current variant of communism have put them on a collision course with the authorities.

This might initially sound surprising to those who don’t have any background knowledge about communism and wrongly assume that its adherents are ideologically homogenous, as well as those who fell for the foreign fearmongering about what China’s system supposedly entails. In truth, while China is a constitutionally communist country run by the Communist Party of China (CPC), its domestic situation and the rapidly changing international environment that it’s operating in have compelled it to move beyond the dogmatic teachings of Engels, Marx, Lenin, and Mao to “flexibly improvise” its socio-economic policies into what has since been described as socialism with Chinese characteristics and Xi Jinping Thought.

Who Are The “Young Marxists”?

Arguments abound about whether this is “real socialism” or just a euphemism for describing “state capitalism”, but officially speaking, China still regards itself as a socialist country that’s on the path towards communism, and the CPC derives its legitimacy from delivering tangible benefits to the population in the name of this ideology. Accordingly, all Chinese students are required to be well-versed in communist thought, with the most zealous among them choosing to join “Young Marxist” activist groups that voluntarily go out to the countryside or spend their vacations working in factories in order to enlighten their compatriots about communism. Oftentimes, these pioneers will teach workers how to organize in protection of their rights, horrified after finding out that many people are still living in what they consider to be more like “feudalism” than the “freedom” that they were taught had spread all throughout the country after the revolution. In their eyes, an increase in material benefits isn’t equivalent to an improvement in real living standards.

The “Young Marxists” are believers in “communist orthodoxy” who think that everything should be done “by the book” and truly regard themselves as bringing “power to the people”, conceiving of their efforts as being part of a bottom-up “course correction” to return the country back to “the right way” after it apparently “lost its ideological bearings” during the three decades of rapid growth that occurred as a result of Deng Xiaoping’s reforms. To the CPC, however, these well-intentioned activities could inadvertently destabilize the country if they popularize the implied notion that the ruling party’s ideological practices aren’t “real socialism”, to say nothing if they succeed in actually returning China back to its immediate post-revolution dogmatic model of Marxism that the government might not consider to be compatible with modern-day conditions in today’s ICT (information and communication technology)-driven world. If more Chinese become convinced that the CPC “isn’t really communist”, then they might question everything else that they were taught and become vulnerable to foreign political suggestions.

Old School vs. New School

Although neither side will ever openly admit it (or at least not yet), the core of the problem is that the CPC and the “Young Marxists” think that the other doesn’t practice “true communism”, with the former taking the implied position that Marxism-Leninism should evolve in the face of changing circumstances while the latter is dead-set on retaining this school of thought in its original form no matter what. As it stands, the “Young Marxists” are currently a statistically insignificant minority, though their ideas had previously been the guiding light that China followed during Mao’s leadership. The country then reconceptualized communism under Deng Xioaping and is once again in the process of reformulating this ideology in the form of Xi Jinping Thought for carrying the People’s Republic through the Silk Road Era. Accordingly, it can be said that the “Young Marxists” actually represent the “original” Chinese communists, thereby making them two “ideological generations” removed from the current “zeitgeist”.

Youth Workers’ Struggles China. Image: CLB

It would be ideal if the CPC and the “Young Marxists” learn from one another and cooperate for the betterment of all Chinese as a whole, the first being reminded of how important labor rights are to the communist ideology while the latter can become aware of the scenarios under which fundamentalist thought might have to become “flexible” in order to best adapt to changing conditions. Regrettably, however, neither of them might come to these understandings. The CPC might be afraid of losing its labor force’s global competitive edge while the “Young Marxists” might be averse to anything even remotely resembling what they’d probably regard as “revisionism”. Furthermore, the state’s relationship with the “Young Marxists” might be influenced by a security-centric approach that could see this youth movement grouped together with other Color Revolution forces in the country irrespective of whether or not there’s any foreign influence or funding connected to their activities.

Security Considerations

What’s worrying is that American information outlets have now begun to cover the “Young Marxists”, which they probably aren’t doing for what some might think are the “right reasons” even if the argument can be made that this movement veritably has some noble and well-intended goals in mind. Whether deliberately or not, this could feed into the CPC’s threat assessment of the group, possibly prompting a more pronounced crackdown against them if some members of the security apparatus come to fear that these students might be misled into sacrificing themselves for the sake of a so-called “Tiananmen Square 2.0”. It wouldn’t matter in this sense that the “Young Marxists” are a statistically insignificant minority of Chinese society because any semi-publicized provocation that they participate in would be decontextualized, misportrayed, and over-amplified by the Western Mainstream Media for the purpose of manipulating perceptions and facilitating more pronounced destabilization, whether domestically or internationally.

It’s therefore difficult to suggest a solution to this conundrum because the fact of the matter is that the “Young Marxists” are the proverbial “ghosts of the CPC’s past”, representing the dogmatic communism of two “ideological generations” ago that defined Mao’s leadership but is no longer being practiced in the same sense. Because the CPC is the supreme political force in the country, all Chinese must learn about the party’s history and how it became what it is today, hence how they become familiarized with this “orthodox” model of thought and might be so inspired by it that they join the “Young Marxists”. This means that the CPC will continually run the risk of being challenged from “below and within” by younger “puritanical” adherents of this ideology regardless of whatever they choose to call themselves unless the state succeeds in convincing them that the party’s evolution into its present form was necessary.

Opening Pandora’s Box

That might be much easier said than done, however, because socialism with Chinese characteristics and Xi Jinping Thought bear little resemblance to the original Marxist-Leninist texts from which they supposedly originated, thus begging the question of whether the communist ideology itself in its original manifestation was “imperfect” in spite of its claims to the contrary or if its second and third “generation” successors are unnecessarily “revising” it for what might be “counter-revolutionary” purposes. Opening Pandora’s Box can be very dangerous and that’s probably why the CPC skirts around the issue, but the growing international attention being given to the “Young Marxists” is designed to eventually reach the Chinese audience behind the “Great Firewall” one way or another, getting them to ask themselves these “subversive” questions that could in turn “naturally” make them susceptible to foreign-promoted anti-government messages aimed at encouraging the creation of “UmbrellaRevolution”-inspired Color Revolution movements.

Compounding the security sensitivities surrounding this sensitive issue, there’s a significant disconnect between traditional Marxist-Leninist teachings and the present state of affairs within the CPC when it comes to the topic of political improvements. The original texts that the “Young Marxists” follow preach the necessity of radical bottom-up change after which the “dictatorship of the proletariat” will theoretically manage the state to the population’s best interests, whereas the sitting “dictatorship of the proletariat” practices top-down reform and is suspicious of any changes suggested by anyone outside of the upper echelons of the CPC. To put it into an ideological context, the CPC emphasizes “responsible reform within the system carried out by qualified individuals” along the lines of what the Stalinist-era USSR at least superficially seemed to practice while the “Young Marxists” are prone to “revolutionary action” that might one day be taken to its “Trotskyist” extreme in believing (or being led to believe) that the CPC is a “counter-revolutionary” institution that “needs to be overthrown”.

Concluding Thoughts

At the present moment, the “Young Marxists” represent a statistically insignificant minority of Chinese society that’s peacefully challenging the CPC from below and within, though the state evidently perceives this movement to be a potentially “latent threat” because of the Western Mainstream Media attention that’s suddenly being paid to it and the possibility that “ideological inconsistencies” within the country could be weaponized from abroad for the purpose of turning this group into violent Color Revolutionary vanguards one day.  Worse still, seeing as how the entire population is familiar with at least the fundamental basics of communist thought and the history of the revolution, countless minds could be manipulated into thinking that the “Young Marxists” are modern-day “revolutionaries” fighting to “liberate” themselves from “capitalist oppressors” just like their forefathers did, especially if this militant narrative somehow seeps through the country’s “Great Firewall”.

China is therefore in a very dangerous conundrum right now because it can’t crack down too harshly on the “Young Marxists” and risk inadvertently catalyzing the infowar blowback that this could inevitably create if the West caught wind of what Beijing was doing but the authorities also can’t sit on their hands and let the situation spiral out of control, ergo why “surgical action” has been undertaken against some of the most active members of the group but in as non-kinetic of a manner as possible to avoid this scenario. Going forward, China needs to prepare itself for the fact that more student-led “reform movements” will probably sprout up as the country’s economy continues transforming throughout the Silk Road Era, and that while some of these groups will probably be Color Revolution fronts or targets of foreign intelligence agencies, a few of them might offer some genuinely constructive ideas for reform that should be seriously pondered.

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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Demonstrators hold banners in support of workers at the Jasic Technology factory in Shenzhen, in China’s Guangdong province, on Aug. 6. (Source: Maine Public)

Curiosity for the undiscovered last tribe, that tantalising moment when eyes are cast upon the previously unseen, remains the anthropological Holy Grail.  But to do so would lead to the natural consequences that come with contact and invasion: the foisting of an alien divinity upon others, most probably a monotheistic Sky God, whose grammatically challenged invocations are found in a holy text.  Then would come the introduction of terminal disease, the mod cons, and ultimate extinction. 

For the inhabitants of North Sentinel Island, part of India’s Andaman and Nicobar islands, isolation is both conservation and vulnerability.  Encounters have been recorded, though these are unflattering for modern audiences reared on sanitised words.  Marco Polo wrote, around 1296, of “a very large and wealthy island called Angaman” populated by men with “heads like dogs, and teeth and eyes also like dogs.  I assure you that, as regards their heads, they all look like big mastiffs”.  An inventive man, was the cheeky Dalmatian. 

 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Sign of Four adds to the exotica of terror, with his Dr. Watson describing a villainous Andaman Islander sporting “murderous darts” and a “face [that] was enough to give a man a sleepless night.”  He had “features so deeply marked with all bestiality and cruelty.”  Never to be outdone, Sherlock Holmes, plucking a volume from his shelf, finds it describing a people, after Polo’s fashion, as “naturally hideous having large misshapen heads, small, fierce eyes, and distorted features.”

Contact with the shy locals has proven fatal, though not always.  In 1867, the passengers and crew of the wrecked Indian merchantman, the Nineveh, managed to survive attacks launched by, in the description of the captain’s report, “perfectly naked” men “with short hair and red painted noses… making sounds like pa on ough”.   

A more recent display was at hand in August 1981, when the crew of the Panamanian-registered freighter, the Primrose, ran aground on a reef near North Sentinel after enduring heavy weather.  Initial relief turned to terror. “Wild men, estimate more than 50, carrying various homemade weapons are making two or three wooden boats,” came the wired distress call from the captain, sent to the Regent Shipping Company’s offices in Hong Kong.  “Worrying they will board us at sunset.  All crew members’ lives not guaranteed.”  The crew, armed with piping, axes and a flare gun – kept up a week long vigil till the arrival of both a tugboat and helicopter, courtesy of the Indian Navy.

In 2006, two apparently intoxicated Indian fishermen, Sunder Raj and Pandit Tiwari, were less fortunate in their poaching ventures, meeting their gruesome end after straying into the island’s proximity.  Efforts by an Indian Coast Guard helicopter to recover the bodies was foiled by Sentinelese armed with bows and arrows. 

The dangers were just as grave to the tribes ringed by the Andaman Sea.  Colonialism, fuelled by the penal experiments pioneered by such vessels as the East Indian Company steamer Pluto, put pay to the culture of the Great Andamanese people, their people perishing to measles and syphilis. 

A British naval officer, Maurice Vidal Portman, gave the world a highly conventional demonstration about how a new civilisation treats another: You kidnap their members, and observe them in captivity.  Essentially incarcerating a select few, adults and offspring, Portman witnessed the adults ail and die.  The orphaned children were returned to their abode.  He did, at least, have the grim sense to observe in 1899 that,

“We cannot be said to have done anything more than increase their general terror of, and hostility to, all comers.” 

Efforts to engage the islanders, propelled by insatiable curiosity, have never stopped.  As late as 1975, the efforts by a documentary maker for National Geographic attempting to cover North Sentinel resulted in an arrow in the leg.  In 2000, historian Adam Goodheart got the bug and ventured to North Sentinel, observing, from a safe distance along the shoreline, figures “facing us, and one of them was holding something long and thin – a spear?  A bow?  Impossible to tell.”  The title of his contribution to The American Scholar was predictably inelegant and suggestive:  “The Last Island of the Savages.”       

The Indian government has banned travel to the island on penalty, a situation that has had the unintended effect of turning the surviving individuals in question into residents of an open air, inaccessible zoo.  That zoo, a natural entrapment of hunter-gatherers, is written about as an existence of finite contingency, a curiosity that must surely meet its demographic, if not cultural reckoning.  Sita Venkateswar, writing in The Scientific American, asks how long this “window to our past” will remain open. 

A degree of added exoticism that accompanies such moves has also been accentuated by a 2017 ban on the taking of photographs or the making of videos of the protected Jarawa and other tribal communities of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, including the Andamanese, Onges, Sentinelese Nicobarese and Shom Pens.  As the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) outlined in a statement last year, “removal of these objectionable video films from YouTube and initiate action on those who uploaded these video clips on social media platforms” was an imperative. Penalties of up to three years imprisonment apply. 

John Allen Chau fell for the temptation, wishing to bring his own variant of the Sky God to this population numbering anywhere between 50 to 150 people.  Had he been a more cognisant student of the island’s history, he would been aware that those bringing gifts, however well intentioned, are bound to be met by more arrows than sympathy.  The crew of anthropologists, armed police and a photographer for National Geographic met just that in 1974 despite, wishing to, according to one of the scientists, “win the natives’ friendship by friendly gestures and plenty of gifts.”  History is replete with instances where the gift-giving foreigner ends up doing far more than simply being generous; disease, alcohol, land theft tend to follow, almost always with the god of Christianity thrown in.  Chau’s own gifts were more modest: a small soccer ball, fishing line, a pair of scissors.

On North Sentinel Island, the hopeful Chau envisaged, according to his notes, a “kingdom of Jesus” springing up in the community, a proselytising language all too reminiscent of those missionary forebears described by Edward Andrews in 2010 as “ideological shock troops for colonial invasion whose zealotry blinded them”.  All Nations, an international Christian missionary group, merely confirmed this sentiment: “John was a gracious and sensitive ambassador of Jesus Christ.”

An unimpressed Dependra Pathak, director general of police of the Andaman and Nicobar islands, steadfastly denied any tourist label for the intrepidly foolish Chau, feeling that he had gotten there under false pretences.  (God bothering types can be economical with motives when required.)

“We refuse to call him a tourist.  Yes, he came on a tourist visa but he came with a specific purpose to preach on a prohibited island.” 

The 26 year old from Washington State became a twenty-first century victim of an old curiosity. He had done so before, some four times, always with the assistance of local fishermen who gave him unheeded warnings.  Accounts of these visits, both in terms of frequency and how he got to the island, vary: he is said to have also ventured to North Sentinel by canoe from November 15 on a few occasions, having made contact with the inhabitants.  On those occasions, he returned safely, though he was attacked.   

Chau showed the quizzical nature of the confused faithful.  Why would these tribesmen be aggressive?  He, as any truly paternalistic invader, had “been so nice to them”.  His faith was sufficiently strong to excuse any death he might suffer. “Do not blame the natives if I am killed.” And killed he was, his dragged body seen on the beach on November 17 by the fishermen who warned him.  With a globe now choked by the mantra of mandatory interconnectedness, being an untouched island community is not only a heresy but a crime for the curious.  “They are not wanting anything from you,” explained the Indian anthropologist T.N. Pandit, who had made visits to North Sentinel between 1967 and 1991.   “They suspect that we have no good intentions.”  How logically prescient.

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