Global Research

I’m willing to bet that if I asked everyone in Ireland whether the Irish government should take orders from Donald Trump, most people would say no. But last year the Irish Ambassador to the United States came to the University of Virginia, and I asked her how allowing U.S. troops to use Shannon Airport to get to their wars could possibly be in compliance with Irish neutrality. She replied that the U.S. government “at the highest level” had assured her it was all perfectly legal. And she apparently bowed and obeyed. But I don’t think the people of Ireland are as inclined to sit and roll over on command as their ambassador.

Collaboration in crimes is not legal.

Bombing people’s houses is not legal.

Threatening new wars is not legal.

Keeping nuclear weapons in other people’s countries is not legal.

Propping up dictators, organizing assassins, murdering people with robotic airplanes: none of it is legal.

U.S. military bases around the world are the local franchises of the greatest criminal enterprise on earth!

And NATO involvement doesn’t make a crime any more legal or acceptable.

A lot of people in the United States have trouble distinguishing NATO from the United Nations. And they imagine both of them as murder-laundering operations — that is, as entities that can render mass murder legal, proper, and humanitarian. A lot of people think the U.S. Congress possesses this same magical ability. A presidential war is an outrage, but a Congressional war is enlightened philanthropy. And yet, I have not found a single person in Washington, D.C. — and I’ve asked Senators and street vendors — not a single person who tells me they would give the slightest damn if Washington was being bombed whether it was being bombed at the order of a parliament, a president, the United Nations, or NATO. The view is always different from under the bombs.

The U.S. military and its European accomplices make up some three quarters of the world’s militarism in terms of their own investment in wars plus their dealing of weapons to others. Attempts to claim that an external threat exists have reached ludicrous levels. I can’t imagine weapons companies would like anything more than some intra-NATO competition. We need to tell advocates of a European military that you can’t oppose U.S. madness by imitating it. If you don’t want to buy more weapons on Trump’s orders, the answer is not to run off and buy even more under another name. This is a vision of a future dedicated to high tech barbarism, and we don’t have time for it.

We don’t have the years left to be monkeying around with medieval balances of power. This planet is doomed as a habitable place for us, and the hell that is to come can be lessened only by outgrowing the acceptance of war.

Source: World Beyond War

The answer to Trump is not to outdo him but to do the opposite of him.

A tiny fraction of what just the United States spends just on foreign bases could end starvation, the lack of clean water, and various diseases. Instead we get these bases, these toxic instigators of war encircled by zones of drunkenness, rape, and cancer-causing chemicals.

War and preparations for war are the top destroyers of our natural environment.

They are a top cause of death and injury and destruction.

War is the top source of the erosion of liberties.

The top justification for government secrecy.

The top creator of refugees.

The top saboteur of the rule of law.

The top facilitator of xenophobia and bigotry.

The top reason we are at risk of nuclear apocalypse.

War is not necessary, not just, not survivable, not glorious.

We need to leave the entire institution of war behind us.

We need to create a world beyond war.

People have signed the declaration of peace at worldbeyondwar.org in more countries than the United States has troops in.

People’s movements are on our side. Justice is on our side. Sanity is on our side. Love is on our side.

We are many. They are few.

No to NATO. No to bases. No to wars in distant places.

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On November 17^th, the Syrian Army (SAA) and its allies regained control of al-Safa after the collapse of ISIS defense in the area. An SAA source told SouthFront that heavy rain had destroyed most of the fortifications and hideouts of the terrorist group during the last few days. The remaining terrorists fled towards the eastern Homs desert. The state news agency SANA confirmed that the SAA had made significant gains and that the highest positions in the are under army control.

On the same day, heavy clashes between ISIS militants and the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) broke out around the strategic town of Hajin in the middle of the Euphrates valley. The SDF said that it had killed 20 ISIS terrorists during the attack.

Additionally, pro-government as well as opposition sources reported that US-led coalition airstrikes had killed more than 40 civilians, half of which reportedly children. The US-led coalition increased its aerial strikes in the Euphrates Valley to assist the SDF, which is still unable to deliver a devastating blow to ISIS there.

The Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) announced that its units in the western province of al-Anbar struck ISIS fighters in the Syrian town of al-Baghuz al-Fawqani in Syria. Kassem Musleh, commander of the PMU’s operation in the region said that the PMU had reinforced its positions along the Syrian-Iraqi border. The move was a response to the increased ISIS activity in the US sphere of responsibility on the Syrian side of the border.

On November 18^th, SANA reported that the SAA foiled another infiltration attempt by opposition members in the northern Hama countryside. The terrorist groups were infiltrating from the direction of al-Bouaida and Ma’ar Keba at the same time. According to SANA, the SAA opened fire and launched bombardments inflicting heavy losses to the militants.

SAA forces shelled militant positions in the towns of al-Tamanah, Aziziya and Jarjnaz in the southern Idlib countryside. Pro-government sources said that it was a response to an attack by Wa Harid al-Muminin militants in northern Lattakia, which left 18 Syrian soldiers dead.

On November 16^th, militants from the “Wa Harid al-Muminin” operations room targeted positions of the SAA in the areas of al-Harishah and Mazra’at Waridah in the southwestern Aleppo countryside with an armed drone.

On the same day, the al-Mayadeen TV correspondent in Syria Dima Nasir said that the SAA and its allies are preparing for a limited military operation in Idlib, in response to the repeated violations of the Russian-Turkish deconfliction agreement.

Besides this the situation within the opposition-held area in Idlib also remains unstable. On November 17^th, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militants attacked a headquarters of al-Qaeda affiliated Horas al-Din in the town of Harim in the northern Idlib countryside and clashes with several French militants who were hiding inside it. According to Syrian opposition sources, 5 French militants were killed in the clashes, while 45 more are besieged inside the base.

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The Great Lie about the Rwandan bloodbath opened the door to a far larger genocide in Congo and justified US military interventions all over the planet.

“The institutionalization of the ‘Rwandan genocide’ has been the remarkable achievement of a propaganda system sustained by both public and private power.”

During a recent campaign event, Florida Senator Bill Nelson said,

“That story of Rwanda is very instructive to us because when a place gets so tribal that the two tribes won’t have anything to do with each other, and that jealousy turns into hate—we saw what happened to the Hutus and the Tutsis in Rwanda, it turned into a genocide. A million-people hacked to death within a few months. And we have got to watch what’s happening here.”

That got a lot of headlines even though US ethnicity is binary only if seen as white vs. everybody else. Whatever Senator Nelson meant, those who do see it that way have certainly gained prominence since Trump took the White House.

However, that is a newly minted reference to the Rwandan Genocide in US discourse. It’s most often remembered in urgent calls for “humanitarian intervention,” aka war, to stop another genocide. We’re told that the US failed to stop Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, so we’re now obliged to “intervene” anytime and anywhere another genocide is underway. That’s why, we’re told, the US and its NATO allies had to bomb Libya into ongoing chaos in 2011. That’s why Lockheed Martin had to step up production of cruise missiles to drop on Syria. That’s why Senators Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren, both 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls, became initial co-sponsors of an Orwellian bill to “enhance” our government’s ability to “prevent genocide and mass atrocities” with military force: Senate Bill 1158, the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 201 8.

“We’re told that the US failed to stop Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, so we’re now obliged to ‘intervene’ anytime and anywhere another genocide is underway.”

More soberly, given the lies we’ve all been told in order to start wars, doesn’t it seem likely that this story—that the US failed to stop the Rwandan Genocide—is one more lie? Not that the genocide didn’t happen and not that it wasn’t a terrible tragedy, but that the story we were all told and Bill Clinton’s crocodile tears about his “worst mistake” are a lie. In fact, the US and UK backed General Paul Kagame’s invasion of Rwanda from Uganda on October 1, 1990, and prevented a UN intervention until he and his army had massacred their way to Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, to seize power on July 4, 1994. Just over three weeks later, on July 28, the New York Times reported that the “U.S. Is Considering a Base in Rwanda for Relief Teams ,” and Kagame has been a key US ally and “military partner” ever since. He not only collaborated with the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) but also invaded the Democratic Republic of the Congo, left millions dead, and thus created new opportunities for US mining corporations.

Professor Edward S. Herman and researcher/author David Peterson deconstructed the propaganda about Rwanda in “The Politics of Genocide ” and “Enduring Lies: T he Rwandan Genocide 20 Years On .” In “Enduring Lies,” they wrote that

“The institutionalization of the ‘Rwandan genocide’ has been the remarkable achievement of a propaganda system sustained by both public and private power, with the crucial assistance of a related cadre of intellectual enforcers. The favorite weapons of these enforcers are reciting the institutionalized untruths as gospel while portraying critics of the standard model as ‘genocide deniers,’ dark figures who lurk at the same moral level as child molesters, to be condemned and even outlawed.”

“Kagame collaborated with the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) and also invaded the Democratic Republic of the Congo, left millions dead.”

Ed Herman and I had many conversations about this before his death in November 2017, including one on KPFA Radio’s Project Censored Show on New Year’s Day, 2016 .The transcript was published by the San Francisco Bay View , Black Agenda Report, and Global Research .

More recently, former Agence France Presse and Radio France International journalist Judi Rever broke down the simple story of Tutsi victims and Hutu perpetrators in her book “In Praise of Blood: Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front .” Here’s some of what she told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation after the book’s publication:

Judi Rever: He [Kagame] did not stop the genocide because at the same time that ethnic Tutsis were being killed in Hutu controlled zones, his Tutsi troops were killing with equal zeal and organization. And in every zone that the Rwandan Patriotic Front and its army entered, they killed massively and in an organized way.

CBC: Killed Hutus?

Judi Rever: Killed Hutus. They also fueled the genocide against the Tutsis. They infiltrated the Hutu militias very successfully, and they baited the violence. They egged on the violence, but they also—some of their commandos—participated in the slaughter of Tutsis at roadblocks.

Kagame knowingly ordered and encouraged Tutsi massacres to build a storyline that would justify his Tutsi minority dictatorship after he’d seized power and control of the country’s electoral apparatus. Had he proceeded to real elections, as mandated by the Arusha Accords signed to end the war, the Hutu majority would have elected a Hutu president. Former Rwandan Foreign Minister Jean-Marie Ndagijimana tells the same story from a different standpoint in“How Paul Kagame Deliberately Sacrificed the Tutsi .” Most of these victims were poor Tutsis who had been left behind when the wealthy and aristocratic Tutsis fled to Uganda during the Hutu Peasant Revolution of 1959-1961.

“Kagame knowingly ordered and encouraged Tutsi massacres to build a storyline that would justify his Tutsi minority dictatorship after he’d seized power.”

Rever’s conclusions are based on years of research and interviews, many of them with RPF troops who were tormented by memories of what they had done and felt compelled to confess. Her book also includes accounts of how she, her husband, and even her children were threatened while she was researching it, and how Belgian security operatives accompanied her everywhere during a research trip to Brussels to interview political exiles and refugees.

In an email released by Wikileaks, a Stratfor intelligence analyst said that “Rwandans are cold ass mofos ” and detailed Rwandan operatives’ transnational assassinations and assassination attempts. Their targets are almost always high-profile figures who, like Rever, challenge the story of Tutsi victims, Hutu perpetrators that is so essential to Kagame’s survival and international stature.

I myself haven’t feared for my life at the hands of Rwandan operatives, but I did file an assault complaint after a dustup with Kagame’s contingent at Sacramento State University’s 2011 Third International Genocide Conference.

Et tu, RT?

Despite all this, the propaganda has been so effective that the standard story of Tutsi victims, Hutu perpetrators, and Bill Clinton’s failure remains all but unassailable in mainstream media. It’s in the Wikipedia, where a host of “edit alerts” assure that any attempt to change it starts a tireless “editing war” that Wikipedia moderators will finally shut down with no changes made. It’s at the heart of former UN Ambassador Samantha Power’s interventionist bible “A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide .” It’s in Obama’s 2011 Presidential Study Directive on Mass Atrocities and “Mass Atrocities Response Operations: A Military Handbook ,” which was produced by the Pentagon and Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights with help from Pierre Omidyar’s Humanity United Foundation. And it’s in the template of every Reuters and AP newswire that ever touches on the subject.

I was nevertheless surprised when RT repeated the standard propaganda as well. Mightn’t one expect RT to dig a little deeper into a narrative used to justify the US war in Syria among others? I don’t know why, but they hadn’t before asking me to comment on a news story about the recent appeal of a French court’s ruling that French soldiers were not criminally complicit for failing to protect Tutsis massacred at Bisisero, Rwanda, in 1994. I agreed, so they called me on Skype, but the host and I proceeded to frustrate one another, and most of what I said was left on the cutting room floor. CIUT 89.5fm-Toronto host and former ICTR investigator Phil Taylor sent me a consolation note saying, “I felt for you, Ann. I saw the item in real time and slapped my forehead. The cutting was done with shears.”

Basic journalistic ethnics and not wanting to be misrepresented compelled me to write about why this interview turned into such a hot mess after beginning with the usual false recitation:

“The genocide in Rwanda lasted just over three months and left nearly a million people dead.

…

The genocide was committed mainly by the Hutu government and its backers against the ethnic minority Tutsi tribe. Allegations of the French government’s support for the Hutus, who carried out most of the slaughter in the genocide, have been rough on the French government’s relations with the Rwandan government for years. But the French, although they admit that they’ve made mistakes, they say they have no complicity in the genocide that took place there.”

“It was a distortion to discredit the French troops over this one incident.”

I told RT that the context of the 1994 Bisisero massacre was a four-year war that began on October 1, 1990, when a detachment of the Ugandan Army led by then General, now President, Paul Kagame invaded Rwanda from Uganda. I said that those Ugandan troops were Rwandan Tutsis or the children of Rwandan Tutsis who had fled to Uganda between 1959 and 1961, when the Hutu majority finally liberated themselves from centuries long domination by the Tutsi minority.

I said that focusing on this single tragic incident, the Tutsi massacres at Bisisero, imposed the propaganda narrative about the Rwandan Genocide on their story.

I said that France’s Operation Turquoise had created a humanitarian corridor for civilians fleeing to Congo in terror of Kagame’s advancing army, so it was a distortion to discredit the French troops over this one incident in which they were accused of failing to act even though it wasn’t clear they had a mandate.

I considered quoting Ed Herman, David Peterson, and Judi Rever, but ran out of time. That was more complexity than RT wanted to add to their news story . They had already built it on the widely received account of what happened in Rwanda before calling me. Having produced some radio news myself, I know that the show must go on at the scheduled hour even if it could be better. Had they nevertheless considered that there might be something wrong with their premises? I don’t know, but I’m going to send this to the producer and hope they understand that I’m just encouraging them to review this Western narrative as they do so many others. Stay tuned.

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Dear Friends,

It is good to be here with you all. I would like to thank the organizers for inviting me to address the conference.  Firstly I thank you all for your work for peace.  It is good that we will have an opportunity in the next few days to get to know each other and together discuss what kind of a world we want to live in?  There will be many different perspectives on this and the way forward, but let us agree to respect each other and to engage in deep listening and conversation no matter how hard and where the dialogue might take us!

Let us be encouraged by the fact that we have made an important first step when we agree to enter into dialogue, and when we agree that peace is both the means and the great achievable gift. It would be wonderful too no matter what area of social/political change we work in, if we can unite on a shared vision of a demilitarized world and find strength in agreeing we will not limit ourselves to civilizing and slowing down militarism, but demanding its total abolition.

Some people might argue that peace is not possible in such a highly militarized world.  However, I believe that peace is both possible and urgent.  It is achievable when we each become impassioned about peace and filled with an ethic that makes peace our objective and we each put into practice our moral sense of political/social responsibility to build peace and justice.

To build peace we are challenged to reject the bomb, the bullet, and all the techniques of violence.  Unfortunately, we are constantly bombarded with the glorification of militarism and war; therefore building a culture of peace and nonviolence will not be an easy task.  We are hearing about the building of a European army and we are asked to accept austerity and budget cuts to our health, education, etc. whilst increasing money to our own armies and also European military expansion.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization-NATO, which should have been disbanded when the Warsaw Pact was dissolved, continue to carry out wars and proxy wars in many countries pushing towards the borders of Russia and resurrecting a cold war between the East and West. I believe that NATO should be disbanded and should be made accountable and make restitutions to the millions of people in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and many others it has illegally attacked, invaded, destroyed.   We will never be allowed by our governments, or our mainstream media, to hear many of the stories of the lives of so many civilians killed by US/NATO forces.  NATO forces have targeted and assassinated individuals and entire families.

It is to all our shame in the International community, that their illegal criminal acts   of horror and bloodletting which embodies the comeback of barbarism, is allowed to continue.  NATO should be brought before the International Criminal Court  for war crimes.

It would be all too easy to point fingers and play the blame game but unless we all take responsibility for the highly dangerous militarised situation with which we are faced in the world today, things will not get better.

Ireland with the militarization of its Foreign and Defence Policy has been unfaithful to the Irish peoples’ wish for a Neutral State and worse by being complicit in accommodating illegal wars.  Ireland’s peace activists have been peacefully protesting US military use of Irish airports whereby over two and a half million armed US troops have passed through Shannon Airport on their way to and from the US-led Afghan and Iraq wars.  I believe ireland should refuse permission to any further stopover and refueling facilities being granted to aeroplanes ferrying troops or munitions to the wars and also withdraw Irish participation from all NATO and EU military operations overseas.

Ireland is deeply admired in many countries and has a proud record in helping developing countries.   Their role as mediators and peace negotiators is well known.   I would like to propose that Ireland disband their army and focus their finance and people on developing their great expertise in the science of peacemaking through a Government Dept. of Peace.   Recommitting to its tradition of neutrality and multilateralism, placing ethics, morality and justice as core values at the heart of its foreign policy would send out a clear message of Irish Government rejecting the road of militarism and war and choosing the road of peace and reconciliation, both locally and internationally.

For our survival through the UN we need to move to General and Complete Disarmament – including nuclear weapons.  This is not an impossible dream.  I commend the Irish Government in their work at UN to work for Nuclear Disarmament.  I believe we can take hope from Pope Francis statement after pointing out the dangers of nuclear weapons when he says‚

‘The threat of their use, as well as their very possession, is to be firmly condemned.’

And the Pope quotes as an example the

‘historic vote at the UN the majority of the members of the international community determined that nuclear weapons are not only immoral, but also must be considered an illegal means of warfare.’

It is to be hoped that UK, Israel, USA and other nuclear armed states will begin to dismantle their nuclear weapons and help turn back the hands of the doomsday clock.   Up to the end of 1961 at the United Nations general and complete disarmament was the aim of all governments.  In a joint Soviet-United states statement of 20 Sep l961 they stated,

‘The goal of negotiations is to achieve agreement on a program which will ensure that disarmament is general and complete and war is no longer an instrument for settling international problems’.

Let us unite our voices to call for an end to enmity and war, and for President Trump and President Putin to join together with all world leaders in a World Peace Conference to work for an agreed Programme of General and Complete Disarmament.  Such courageous leadership towards dialogue and disarmament would give hope to humanity.

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Mairead Corrigan Maguire, co-founder of Peace People, is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment. She won the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize for her work for peace in Northern Ireland. Her book The Vision of Peace (edited by John Dear, with a foreword by Desmond Tutu and a preface by the Dalai Lama) is available from www.wipfandstock.com. She lives in Belfast, Northern Ireland. See: www.peacepeople.com.

Featured image is from FAIR

Major news outlets have resumed efforts to pressure President Donald Trump to pull back from trying to negotiate a deal with Pyongyang. In their latest salvo last week, The New York Times and CNN completely misrepresented the findings of a recent study of satellite photos of a North Korean missile base as evidence of bad faith and “deception” in talks with the United States.

A New York Times article bore the sensational headline, “In North Korea, Missile Bases Suggest a Great Deception.” In a breathless tone, the writers, David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, declared that the satellite images “suggest that North Korea has been engaging in a great deception,” because it had offered to dismantle a major launching site while “continuing to make improvements at more than a dozen others that would bolster launches of conventional and nuclear warheads.”

Screengrab from The NYT

If such improvements had been made during the U.S.-North Korean exchanges, they have might well merit official and public attention—if they have given North Korea new capabilities for threatening the United States or its allies, as Sanger and Broad suggested. But a review of the study of the satellite images of the base reveals that it does not describe any such improvements as claimed by the Times. On the contrary, the study says the satellite images “show minor infrastructure changes to the base that are consistent with what is often seen at remote KPA {Korean People’s Army] bases of all types.”

Furthermore, according to the study issued by Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), those same minor infrastructure changes had been observed at a number of similar missile bases, along with training and operational readiness improvements that the authors presume have existed ever since the reorganization of the Strategic Rocket Command into the Strategic Force in 2013.

In short, there were no “improvements that would bolster launches of conventional and nuclear warheads” that could be cited as evidence of an effort by North Korean Chairman Kim Jong Un to deceive Trump. Sanger and Broad either a) did not actually read the study of the satellite images on which they were supposedly basing their accusation or b) were deliberately deceiving their readers.

Further obfuscating the issue, Sanger and Broad argued that the failure of North Korea to “acknowledge” those missile bases “contradicts Mr. Trump’s assertion that his landmark diplomacy is leading to the eliminating of a nuclear and missile program that the North had warned could devastate the United States.” That mysterious formulation seems to imply-–-absurdly—that North Korea had somehow welshed on an obligation to fully inform the United States of its missile assets in advance of a negotiated agreement on the sequence and timing of the steps both sides would need to take to conclude an denuclearization agreement.

Sanger and Broad are well aware that revealing the specific locations of its ballistic missiles to the United States under present circumstances would involve serious military risk for the DPRK. Kim Jong Un cannot reasonably be expected to reveal such information until an a significantly less threatening atmosphere has been established between the United States and North Korea.

And in any case it is completely unrealistic to expect North Korea to end all of its ballistic missile programs. As Vipin Narang of MIT observed to CNN, “Many of these are short-range conventional missiles which North Korea has never said were on the table.” North Korea cannot give them up without losing completely its ability to deter outside attack, since it does not have a modern air force with the necessary capability for deterrence.

CNN’s coverage of the CSIS study made essentially the same false and deceptive claims. “New satellite images cast grave doubt on President Trump’s claim that his negotiations with North Korea are working,” the on air report by Jim Sciutto began. That conflated Trump’s citation of the North Korean cessation of missile testing before any negotiations had begun with any claim about progress on the North Korean missile program in general.

Then came the outright falsehood: “The photos show that Kim Jong Un’s regime is making improvements to more than a dozen hidden missile bases.” Like the Times’ reporters, the network had either failed to read the report at all or had decided to simply lie about what it said. And also like Sanger and Broad, by calling the missile bases “hidden,” it sought to suggest that Kim Jong Il was somehow deceiving the United States by storing them underground.

Buried deep in the Times story is the real reason the newspaper and CNN have both gone to such extreme journalistic lengths to present the CSIS study as new evidence of North Korean “deception.” Victor Cha, one of the authors of the CSIS-sponsored study, commented in an interview with the Times, “What everybody is worried about is that Trump is going to accept a bad deal—they give us a single test site and dismantle a few other things and in return they get a peace agreement.”

The “peace agreement” to which Cha refers would be a declaration by the United States, North Korea and possibly China that the Korean War, which has technically only had an armistice but not formally ended, is indeed over. Kim Jong Un and Trump talked about such a declaration at the Singapore summit, and Trump promised to sign such a peace declaration, according to two sources who knew what transpired between the two men.

The summit meeting’s final statement referred to “establishment of new U.S.–DPRK relations and the building of a lasting and robust peace regime on the Korean Peninsula,” including U.S. security assurances to North Korea.

And last month South Korean foreign minister Kang Kyung-wha suggested that North Korea would be willing to permanently dismantle their nuclear facilities at Yongbyon in return for such a political declaration by the United States.

But as Victor Cha suggested, the Pentagon and the national security elite in general are determined to prevent Trump from entering into such an agreement. The reason for that opposition, as the New York Times itself reported in August, is that it would force the United States to begin “talking about how many American troops are needed in South Korea.” Then it would then have to acknowledge that the U.S. troop presence in South Korea is not only to deter North Korea but “helps the United States maintain a military footprint in Asia and a grand strategy of American hegemony”.

A campaign of bureaucratic resistance to any move toward a peace deal with North Korea is in full swing.  And as the latest round of journalist malpractice dramatically illustrates, the corporate media will not hesitate to resort to blatant untruth to support that resistance.

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Gareth Porter is an investigative reporter and regular contributor to The American Conservative. He is also the author of Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare.

Featured image: President Trump and North Korean President Kim Jong Un shake hands in summit room, June 12, 2018. (Office of the President of the United States/Public Domain)

Alan Robock discusses his research into nuclear winter and considers how devastating even a small nuclear war could be for our climate and for human survival.

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At the recent International Conference Against US/NATO Military Bases (held on November 16-18, 2018, in Dublin, Ireland), David Swanson, Director of World BEYOND War, noted that when:

“last year the Irish Ambassador to the United States came to the University of Virginia, [he] asked her how allowing U.S. troops to use Shannon Airport to get to their wars could possibly be in compliance with Irish neutrality. She replied that the U.S. government “at the highest level” had assured her it was all perfectly legal. And she apparently bowed and obeyed. But I don’t think the people of Ireland are as inclined to sit and roll over on command as their ambassador.”

In fact, in February 2003 the Irish Times reported:

“The Army has been called in to provide security around Shannon Airport after five peace activists broke into a hangar and damaged a US military aircraft early this morning. It is the third embarrassing security breach at the airport where US military planes are refuelling en route to the looming war with Iraq.”

One anti-war activist Mary Kelly was convicted of causing $1.5m in damage to a United States navy plane at Shannon airport.

She attacked the plane with a hatchet causing damage to the nose wheel and electric systems at the front of the plane.

In the aftermath, it took until Friday 25th February, 2011, when the Court of Criminal Appeal in Dublin overturned the conviction against Mary Kelly for criminal damage to a US military aircraft at Shannon Airport on 29 January 2003.

This weekend’s conference in Dublin included speakers: Dr. Aleida Guevara, Member of Cuban National Assembly, Cuba, Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD, Sinn Féin Defense Spokesperson, Ireland, Clare Daly TD, Dail Eireann, Ireland, Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Northern Ireland, Silvio Platero, President, MOVPAZ, Cuba, Ann Wright, Veterans For Peace, CODEPINK, USA and Chris Nineham, Vice-Chair, Stop the War Coalition, UK.

The conference was organised by the Global Campaign Against US/NATO Military Bases which itself is a coalition of peace organisations from around the world. The organisers are deeply concerned by the constant “threat of war that permeates the present Global atmosphere.”

Their main raison d’etre is outlined on their website and is summarised as follows:

“The increasingly aggressive and expansionist actions of US/NATO forces in violation of international law and the sovereign rights of all nations, the raging wars in the Middle East, the expansive militarization of the African continent via AFRICOM, the burgeoning arms race devastating the national treasuries, the bellicose language replacing diplomatic negotiations, the economic crises facing country after country, and the destruction of the global environment through war and unfettered exploitation, and their impact on public health, have all created crises that, unless checked by popular opposition, can lead to unimaginable catastrophe and war.”

They call on people all over the world to mobilise in their millions to unite for peace. The conference in Dublin is the organisation’s first initiative to kick-start this campaign and was hosted by the Irish organisation Peace and Neutrality Alliance (PANA).

You can watch the entire conference here.

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Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork consists of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country here. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Featured image is from http://nousnatobases.org

The Pakistani Prime Minister is correct in pointing out how much his country did for the US in response to Trump’s disrespectful attack against it this weekend.  

One of Trump’s prerecorded interviews aired this weekend where the American President attacked Pakistan for supposedly doing nothing for the US during the nearly two decades that the two Great Powers have been notionally “allied” in the War on Terror. He mocked the country for supposedly knowing about Bin Laden’s alleged whereabouts in Abbottabad, implying that it was only leeching off of American taxpayers this entire time and was never serious about fighting terrorism in exchange for aid. Trump’s insults might have went unanswered under previous administrations, but Prime Minister Khan’s “Naya Pakistan” (“New Pakistan”) made a point to directly reply to him on the President’s favorite medium, Twitter. In a series of hard-hitting tweets, the Pakistani leader protected his country’s reputation by responding with the following clarification:

“Record needs to be put straight on Mr Trump’s tirade against Pakistan: 

1. No Pakistani was involved in 9/11 but Pak decided to participate in US War on Terror. 

2. Pakistan suffered 75,000 casualties in this war & over $123 bn was lost to economy. US “aid” was a miniscule $20 bn.

3. Our tribal areas were devastated & millions of ppl uprooted from their homes. The war drastically impacted lives of ordinary Pakistanis. 

4. Pak continues to provide free lines of ground & air communications(GLOCs/ALOCs).

Can Mr Trump name another ally that gave such sacrifices?

Instead of making Pakistan a scapegoat for their failures, the US should do a serious assessment of why, despite 140000 NATO troops plus 250,000 Afghan troops & reportedly $1 trillion spent on war in Afghanistan, the Taliban today are stronger than before.”

As can plainly be seen, Pakistan has done everything that it could for America while receiving nothing but turmoil and terrorism in return for a paltry amount of so-called “aid”. Even to this very day Pakistan “continues to provide free lines of ground & air communications” for the US to Afghanistan, showing not only a genuine dedication to the cause, but also a loyalty that many in the country are arguing is undeserved after the disrespect that they’ve consistently experienced from the new American administration. Pakistan suffered from terrorism many orders of magnitude more than the US ever did, most of which happened after its post-9/11 anti-terrorist “alliance” with America, but the only “thanks” that it’s getting for its sacrifices is to be scapegoated for Washington’s military failure in Afghanistan. 

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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity

The ongoing de facto genocide in the Republic of Yemen in a war whose most intense phase began in 2015, has until very recently been all but ignored in the Western mainstream media. What has also been ignored is the fundamental casus belli for the US-backed Saudi war, ostensibly against the Shi’ite Houthi by the Sunni Wahhabite Saudis. As with virtually every war and destabilization since the British first discovered abundant oil in the Persian Gulf over a century ago, the Yemen war is about oil, more precisely about control of oil, lots of oil.

Yemen is a strategically key geopolitical stretch of land at the critical connecting point of the Red Sea which links to the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean. It’s the site of one of the world’s most strategic shipping choke points, the Bab el Mandab, a narrow passage a mere 18 miles distance from Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, making it one of the US Department of Energy’s Oil Transit Chokepoints. According to the US Department of Energy an estimated 4.7 million barrels of oil passesthrough Bab el Mandab in both directions daily, including oil bound for China.

In March 2015 a new civil war raged in Yemen between the group known popularly as Houthis after Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, of the Zaidi sect of Islam. The Zaidi area traditionally moderate group who favors equality of women, something anathema to the Saudi Wahhabites. The Zaidi had ruled Yemen for more than 1,000 years until 1962.

The Houthi movement had forced the ouster of Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh in late 2011 on charges of vast corruption. He was succeeded by Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, Saleh’s Vice President. At that time both Saleh and Hadi were proxy presidents of Saudi influence.

Things began to change when Hadi refused to step down after his mandate expired. His decision to cut subsidies on fuel prices as well as refusing agreed reforms led to his arrest by the Houthi movement forces in early 2015. He managed later to flee to Saudi Arabia on March 25, 2015 and that same day Saudi Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman ordered the start of the ongoing bombing war against Yemen and the Houthis.

By the end of 2015 Prince bin Salman and his coalition in the strangely-named Operation Decisive Storm (remember Desert Storm) had inflicted atrocities on the civilian population of Yemen. Within six months of relentless Saudi-led bombing, the UN declared Yemen a “Level Three” emergency, the highest level. Bombings destroyed critical civilian infrastructure, health facilities and the Saudis blockaded urgently needed food, water and medical aid to an estimated 20 million Yemenis, in violation of international law. Some 2,500,000 Yemeni civilians have been displaced. Famine and cholera are rampant. In short, it is genocide.

Cheney Oil Wars

The roots of the ongoing Yemen war with the Saudi-led coalition of Gulf states can be traced back to the Bush-Cheney Administration in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 and declaration of the so-called War on Terror.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq was about oil. Several US officials admitted so at the time including Paul Wolfowitz. 

”You’ve got to go where the oil is. I don’t think about it [political volatility] very much,” Cheney told a meeting of Texas oilmen in 1998 when he was still CEO of Halliburton, the world’s largest oil services company.

As Vice President under Bush Jr, Cheney by all indications architected the US military campaigns of Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld to “take out seven countries in five years,” as General Wesley Clark famously reported it several years later. All those seven are strategic to control of the huge Middle East oil flows to China, to the EU and to the world economy.

In 2004 when the Cheney-Bush “War on Terror” went to Yemen to support then-president Saleh, Saudi domination of Yemen was unquestioned. US and British forces backed Saleh against an uprising by the Houthi minority that began after Saleh tried to arrest Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, the Zaidi religious leader.

By 2015 that US proxy war changed and the Pentagon and Obama Administration quietly backed a full-scale catastrophic Saudi military assault on Yemen.

What is the US or Saudi interest in Yemen? Control of the oil is the short answer, but perhaps not in the usual sense.

In November 2005 the Republic of Yemen expropriated its oil basins — the Marib Al-Jawf Block — from US Hunt Oil Company and ExxonMobil. That was an irritant but not a decisive game-changer. It was in 2014 when the Houthi rebellion against the President, Saudi-backed Hadi, was victorious that the war took a new form. By March 2015 the Houthi-led Supreme Revolutionary Committee declared a general mobilization to overthrow Hadi, after taking over Sana’a and the Yemeni government and proceeding to Aden.

Undiscovered potential

There are two strategic aspects of who is in control of Yemen, especially the areas now in control of the Houthi. One is the mentioned geostrategic control of oil flows passing Bab el Mandab in the Horn of Africa. The second is the control of the largely untapped oil wealth of Yemen itself.

In 2002 a public report by the US Geological Survey (USGS) concluded that, “When undiscovered potential is added to known reserves, the total petroleum endowment for the MadbiAmran / Qishn TPS rises to 9.8 BBOE, which then ranks Yemen 51st for potential of petroleum resources, exclusive of the US.”

Now, 10 billion barrels of crude oil might not seem huge compared with the Saudi claim to hold proven reserves of 266 billion barrels. Here, however, a CIA report from 1988 becomes interesting. The report, South Yemen’s Oil Resources: The Chimera of Wealth, heavily redacted and declassified, has a cryptic note on potential oil reserves in the large disputed border between Yemen and Saudi Arabia. The CIA points to oil and gas reserves along what during the Cold War was the disputed border Neutral Zone between North Yemen and South Yemen.

The Hunt Oil Company of Texas has been sitting in the Alif Field since 1982 and discovered oil there in 1984. The Alif Field lies in the Houthi-controlled north of Yemen near the undefined border between Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The author had the occasion almost two decades ago during an interview with someone associated with the US Government to discuss notions of peak oil and oil geopolitics. At that point the person in discussion volunteered that the undefined desert lands between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, according to non-published US aerial and geophysical surveys, held oil reserve potential that likely exceeded that of Saudi Arabia.

Whether that statement was accurate is not possible to independently confirm. What is clear is that the space surrounded by the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, including Yemen and Somalia is one of the most tectonically active areas on our planet, a prerequisite for hydrocarbon discovery. Presence of huge oil and gas reserves in Yemen would explain much about why the Pentagon has actively backed the Saudi brutal effort to retake control of Yemen from the Houthi.

It has little to do with any Shi’ite versus Wahhabite Sunni conflict. Rather it has to do with strategic control of world energy. So long as Saana was in control of a Saudi proxy, whether Saleh or then Hadi, it was a secondary priority for Washington. The oil was “safe,” even if the Yemen government had expropriated the US company oil properties. Once a determined independent Houthi Zaidi force was in control of Yemen or a major part, the threat became serious enough to give the eager new Saudi Defense Minister Prince Mohammed bin Salman the green light to begin the war. That Houthi-controlled Yemen would be potential client for Russian or Chinese oil companies to open up serious exploration of the potentials. That combined with the fact that the Houthi also had friendly relations with Iran clearly set off red lights in the Obama Administration.

Salman not surprisingly claimed it was a war of Iran-led “imperialists” against the forces of Saudi-led “freedom-loving” Sunnis.China now has its first overseas military base across from Yemen in Djibouti, next door to the US whose Camp Lemonnier is the largest American permanent military base in Africa. Former colonial occupier France is also there. There is far more at stake in Yemen than we are being told.

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F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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U.S Green Party Urges International Criminal Court to Prosecute Israel for Crimes Against Palestinians

By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, November 20, 2018

Members of the delegation understand they have a responsibility to act and to educate others in the United States about the truth of the violent Israeli occupation of Palestine and apartheid state.

Netanyahu’s Ceasefire Is Meant to Keep Gaza Imprisoned

By Jonathan Cook, November 20, 2018

Palestinians in Gaza should have been able to breathe a sigh of relief last week, as precarious ceasefire talks survived a two-day-long, heavy exchange of strikes that threatened to unleash yet another large-scale military assault by Israel.

Military Escalation in the Gaza Strip, Israeli Missile and Bombing Attacks on Civilian Buildings

By IMEMC, November 16, 2018

New Israeli Military Escalation in the Gaza Strip: Israeli warplanes carried out dozens of airstrikes, launching 197 missiles at civilian buildings and military sites belonging to Palestinian Armed Groups.

Escalation of Israeli Attacks against Gaza: Global Solidarity Campaign with the Palestinian People

By Salah Abdelati, November 14, 2018

Let us urgently work together in the biggest global solidarity campaign with the Palestinian people against the Israeli aggression on Gaza Strip, in order to boycott, alienate and hold accountable the Israeli occupation.

Video: Gaza Is on Edge of Israeli Ground Invasion

By South Front, November 13, 2018

The current round of escalation started on November 11 when a covert unit of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) opened fire at a patrol of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the Hamas military wing, in the town of Khan Yunis inside the Gaza Strip.

Gaza Needs International Intervention Now to Prevent Another Israeli Offensive

By Yousef Alhelou, November 13, 2018

Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed, injured or maimed when a truce is supposed to be in place. Endless efforts mediated by regional countries have tried to put pressure on Israel and the Palestinian resistance factions to abide by the terms of the truce to provide some calm in one of the most volatile regions in the world.

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The parents on the global stage of power are bickering and now, such entertainingly distracting forums as APEC (the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum) are left without a unifying message.  This should hardly matter, but the absence of a final communiqué of agreement is being treated in some circles as the preliminary perturbations to conflict between Beijing and Washington.

Often forgotten at the end of such deliberations is their acceptable irrelevance.  APEC as a forum was already deemed by former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans in 1993 to be “four adjectives in search of a noun.”  Charles E Morrison of the East-West Centre in Hawaii noted another view.  “Some wag described it as an international dating service for leaders.”  On this occasion, the dates failed to reach a merry accord.

Such gatherings provide distractions and fodder for the global press corps to identify trouble, brewing or actual.  They can also supply the converse: that the state of adherence to international norms, whatever they may be, is better because of such meetings.  But in Port Moresby, coarseness emerged with tartness.  China and the United States were jostling.

US Vice President Mike Pence, who revealed his interest in the summit by basing himself in Australia rather than staying in Port Moresby, threw down what must have been a gauntlet of sorts.  At the Hudson Institute in October, he was moodily accusing Beijing of pilfering military blueprints, “using that stolen technology” to turn “ploughshares into swords on a massive scale”.

A puzzled Pence seemed to be gazing at a mirror, accusing Beijing of “employing a whole-of-government, using political, economic and military tools, as well as propaganda, to advance its influence and benefit its interests in the United States.”

At the APEC gathering itself, Pence made it clear that there would be no warming of relations with Beijing.  Rather amusingly, he insisted that,

“The United States deals openly, fairly.  We do not offer a constricting belt or a one-way road.”

China’s Xi Jinping, for his part, was also in a mood to impress.

“Unilateralism and protectionism will not solve problems but add uncertainly to the world economy.”

The forum was filled with more rumours than a village from the middle ages.  Chinese officials, went one well flighted suggestion, supposedly forced their way into the office of Rimbink Pato, PNG’s foreign minister, being most insistent on discussing the wording of a section of the proposed communiqué.  A suggested sentence featured in the agitated encounter: “We agreed to fight protectionism, including all unfair trade practices.”  So worded, it was clear what the intended meaning was: Beijing was being singled out as a possible purveyor of unfair trade practices.   These were deemed “malicious rumours” by the Chinese delegation.

At the conclusion of the summit, Papua New Guinea, as host, expressed its concerns through a rattled Prime Minister Peter O’Neill: the “giants” had disagreed; the “entire world” was worried.  Other delegates bore witness to the Beijing-Washington tension, and were similarly left disappointed.  New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern was tepid in suggesting that there were “some minor differences in the international trade environment”.  She claimed, as did others, that

“it was disappointing that we were unable to have a communiqué issued at the conclusion of the APEC meeting… but it shouldn’t diminish from the areas of substantive agreement.”

Former US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is one who is pessimistic about such “minor differences” between the powers, insisting that nothing less than an “Economic Iron Curtain” risks coming down upon the globe.  Given Paulson’s stint at that rogue-of-rogue banks Goldman Sachs, such warnings should be treated with due caution, largely because they fly in the face of the ideology of, to use Paulson’s own words, the “free flow of investment and trade”.

Commentators such as veteran journalist Tony Walker did not spare the drama, peering into the implications with the keenness of a history student in search of parallels.  “Port Moresby may not be Yalta, nor, it might be said, is it Potsdam.”  (Highly tuned, is Walker’s embellishing antennae.)  “But for a moment at the weekend the steamy out-of-the-way Papua New Guinea capital found itself at the intersection of great power combustibility.” Yet no bullets were fired, nor vessels launched.

The disagreement is merely the consequence of initiatives that are grating on both powers.  China is getting bolder with its global investment and infrastructure strategy, wooing states with no-strings financing. It is huffing in the South China Sea.  The United States can no longer claim to be the primary occupant of the world’s playgrounds, the bully of patronage, sponsorship and cant haloed by that advertising slogan, “the American way of life”.  Building sand castles is a task that will have to be shared, but bullies tend to eventually let the punches fly.

The result, at the moment, is a trade war of simmering intensity that continues to govern relations between Beijing and Washington.  APEC was meant to supply a forum of diffusion but merely affirmed the status quo. (On January, US tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods will increase from 10 per cent to 25 per cent.)

Countries keen to back both powers find themselves facing split loyalties, though that point is often exaggerated.  China knows where many countries in the South East Asian-Australasia region will turn to if the beads of sweat start to show.  Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was trying to make the obvious sound simple.  “It’s easiest not to take sides when everybody else is on the same side.  But if you are friends with two countries which are on different sides, then sometimes it is possible to get along with both, sometimes it’s more awkward if you try to get along with both.”

The next show takes place in Buenos Aires, and that November 30 gathering of the G20 promises another re-run of tensions.  On that occasion, President Donald Trump will be bothered to turn up.  Again, such a summit is bound to yield to the law of acceptable chaos and modestly bearable tension.

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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]

Featured image is from Channel NewsAsia

The United States has threatened “consequences” as Palestinians step up efforts for statehood demanding accession to almost a dozen international bodies and conventions.

The threat came after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed the documents on Thursday to join the Universal Postal Union, a UN agency that coordinates international postage, and 10 international protocols and conventions.

The move infuriated the US, Israel’s staunch ally, with a State Department official claiming that the Palestinian efforts to join international institutions were “premature” and “counterproductive.”

“We are currently reviewing possible consequences of the Palestinians’ recent actions,” the official said in a statement published by the Times of Israel on Sunday.

In November 2012, the UN General Assembly upgraded Palestine’s status from “non-member observer entity” to “non-member observer state” despite strong opposition from Israel.

Since then, the Palestinians have joined dozens of international or organizations and agreements, among them the International Criminal Court, as part of a campaign to garner support for the recognition of their homeland as a sovereign state.

Washington has asked the Palestinians not to join international agencies, citing laws dating to the early 1990s that require the US government to cut off funding to any UN organization that grants the Palestinians full membership.

Abbas, however, said a Palestinian agreement with the US not to join international bodies was conditioned on the US not ending aid payments, not moving its embassy to Jerusalem al-Quds and not changing the status of the Palestine Liberation Organization mission in Washington.

The US withdrew some funding for UNESCO after the Palestinians joined the cultural and education organization back in 2011. It also pulled out of the agency altogether in 2017.

Most recently, Washington cut funds to the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA.

The US-Palestine ties deteriorated last December when President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem al-Quds as the “capital” of Israel.

The American embassy was also relocated from Tel Aviv to the ancient city in May, sparking angry reactions from Palestinians and severe criticism from the international community.

At that time, Abbas formally declared that Palestinians would no longer accept the US as a mediator to resolve the conflict because Washington was “completely biased” towards Tel Aviv.

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From November 18 to November 20, the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) carried out a military operation against their own proxies in the region of Afrin. The TAF attacked and partially disarmed a group of about 200 members of the al-Sharqiyah Martyrs Gathering and its allied groups. The Hamza Division, the Sultan Murad Division, the al-Sham Corps and the 3rd Corps participated in the operation on the side of the TAF. At least 25 militants were reportedly killed in the clashes.

The formal explanation of the move is that members of the al-Sharqiyah Martyrs Gathering have been involved in looting and other crimes. However, this is not something uncommon for Turkish-backed groups, which participated in Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch operations.

Local sources say that the al-Sharqiyah Martyrs Gathering has just become too independent in its decisions and Ankara has decided to punish it for this.

On November 18, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu named himself Defense Minister in addition to also being the Foreign Minister and Health Minister.

“The security of the state is above all else,” Netanyahu said criticizing Avigdor Lieberman’s decision to resign from the post of defense minister. He also insisted that there should be no election for another 12 months and that in such “a complex security period” it would be “irresponsible”.

A political crisis has been developing in Israel since the recent round of escalation in Gaza. A notable part of politicians and power groups, especially radicals, openly describe the ceasefire with Hamas as a defeat. They are pushing an idea of snap elections to reshape the government.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked have also threatened to resign recently. But they have not turned their threats into reality so far.

It should be fine, however, even if both Bennett and Shaked resign. It seems that even if Netanyahu gets all minister positions in his own cabinet, the US and the mainstream media will continue to highlight Israel as “the staple of democracy” in the Middle East and a great example of alternation of power.

Taking into account Israeli policies towards the Palestinians, the conflict in Syria and other key security issues, it’s an open secret that Israel appears to not be a defender of the stability in the region.

It would be interesting, however, what the international reaction would be if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad also announced that he is to become Syrian Foreign, Defense and Health Minister.

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Depending on what criteria one uses, there are between 200 and 600 groups in the United States that wholly or in part are dedicated to furthering the interests of Israel. The organizations are both Jewish, like the Zionist Organization of America, and Christian Zionist to include John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel, but the funding of the Israel Lobby and both its political and media access comes overwhelmingly from Jewish supporters and advocates.

Many of the groups are registered with the Internal Revenue Service for tax purposes as 501(c)3 “educational” or “charitable” foundations, which enables them to solicit tax exempt donations. One might dispute whether promoting Israeli interests in the United States is actually educational, but as of right now the Department of the Treasury believes it can be so construed, protected by the First Amendment.

But there is a more serious consideration in terms of the actual relationships that many of the groups enjoy with the Israeli government. To be sure, many of them boast on their promotional literature and websites about their relationships with the Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet, so the issue of dual loyalty or, worse, acting as actual Israeli government agents must be considered.

There is a legal remedy to hostile foreigners acting against American interests and that is the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA). Originally intended to identify and monitor agents of Nazi Germany propagandizing in the United States, it has since been applied to individuals and groups linked to other nations. Most recently, it was used against Russian news agencies RT America and Sputnik, which were forced to register. It is also being considered for Qatar based al-Jazeera.

FARA requires identified agents to be transparent in terms of their funding and contacts while also being publicly identified as representing the interests of a foreign nation. They must report to the Department of Justice every contact they have with congressmen or other government officials. The text of the Act defines a foreign agent as

“any person who acts as an agent, representative, employee, or servant, or any person who acts in any other capacity at the order, request, or under the direction or control, of a foreign principal or of a person any of whose activities are directly or indirectly supervised, directed, controlled, financed, or subsidized in whole or in major part by a foreign principal, and who directly or through any other person— (i) engages within the United States in political activities for or in the interests of such foreign principal; (ii) acts within the United States as a public relations counsel, publicity agent, information-service employee or political consultant for or in the interests of such foreign principal; (iii) within the United States solicits, collects, disburses, or dispenses contributions, loans, money, or other things of value for or in the interest of such foreign principal; or (iv) within the United States represents the interests of such foreign principal before any agency or official of the Government of the United States.”

In spite of language that would presumably cover many of the hundreds of Jewish organizations acting for Israel, FARA has never been used to compel registration of any such groups or individuals even when it was public knowledge that they were working closely with the Israeli government to coordinate positions and promote other Israeli interests. That failure is at a minimum a tribute to Jewish power in the United States, but it is also due to the fact that the organizations are funded from within the United States by wealthy American Jews, not by Israel, which is the argument sometimes inaccurately made by the groups themselves to demonstrate that they are not being directed by the Israeli government.

The difficulty in proving that one is directed by a foreign government has been definitively resolved regarding one group the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), which has become the leading neoconservative bastion seeking a war with Iran, Israel’s bête noir. The recent al-Jazeera expose on the activities of the Israeli lobbies in both Britain and the United States, which I wrote about last week, included a surreptitiously filmed conversation with Sima Vaknin-Gil (image on the right), a former Israeli intelligence officer who now heads the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, which is tasked with countering what is perceived to be anti-Israeli activity worldwide. The Ministry is particularly focused on the non-violent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS), which is increasingly active in both the United States and Europe.

Vaknin-Gil was discussing his activities with Tony Kleinfeld, an undercover investigative reporter who was secretly recording and filming his encounters with various members of the Israel Lobby as well as of the Israeli government.Vaknin-Gil provided explicit confirmation that the FDD works directly with the Israeli government, making it an Israeli agent by the definition of FARA.

For those who are unfamiliar with FDD, it is probably currently the most prominent neocon organization though it nevertheless claims to be a non-partisan “research group.” It focuses on foreign policy and security issues by “Fighting Terrorism and Promoting Freedom,” as it informs us on its website masthead. It works to “defend free nations against their enemies,” which frequently means in practice anyone whom Israel considers to be hostile, most particularly Iran. FDD’s Leadership Council has featured former CIA Director James Woolsey, Senator Joe Lieberman, and Bill Kristol. Its Executive Director is Canadian import Mark Dubowitz, who is obsessed with Iran. Its advisors and experts are mostly Jewish and most of its funding comes from Jewish oligarchs.

FDD’s auditorium has become a preferred venue for senior officials of the Trump Administration to go and make hardline speeches, just as the American Enterprise Institute was under George W. Bush. Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, John Bolton and Nikki Haley have all spoken there recently, frequently focusing on Iran and the threat that it allegedly constitutes.

FDD aside, Vaknin-Gil also confirmed that there were other groups in the United States doing the same sorts of things on behalf of Israel. He said

“We have FDD. We have others working on this,” elaborating that FDD is “working on” projects for Israel including “data gathering, information analysis, working on activist organizations, money trail.”

So Vaknin-Gil was admitting that FDD and others were working as Israeli proxies, collecting information on U.S. citizens, spying on legal organizations, and both planning and executing disinformation at Israeli direction. Kleinfeld also spoke with a Jonathan Schanzer, a senior official in FDD, who filled in a bit more of what the foundation is up to in terms of discrediting groups in the U.S. that support the BDS movement.

Schanzer admitted “BDS has taken everybody by surprise” before complaining that the Jewish response has been “a complete mess. I don’t think that anybody’s doing a good job. We’re not even doing a good job.” He then complained that attempts to discredit Palestinian groups by linking them to terrorist groups had failed, as also had the use of the label anti-Semitism. “Personally I think anti-Semitism as a smear is not what it used to be.”

So, when will the Justice Department move on FDD now that its true colors have been exposed by al-Jazeera? The group must be required to register if justice be done, but will it? Its principal partner in crime the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has avoided registering for more than sixty years by claiming that it is an American organization working to educate the U.S. public about the all the good things connected to Israel. Even though it meets regularly with Israeli government officials, it claims not to be representing Israeli interests. But just as in the case of FDD, it is time to require AIPAC to register as what it really is: a foreign agent. As a registered agent, it will still be able to exercise First Amendment rights to defend Israel but it would not be able to be involved in lobbying on Capitol Hill and directing money to politicians who are described as pro-Israeli, as it does now. Its finances will be transparent and it will be perceived as an official advocate for Israel, not as an educational resource for what is happening in the Middle East. Hopefully, when AIPAC stops throwing money around, the politicians and media types will find another place to roost.

To be sure the lovefest for Israel in government extends far beyond FDD and AIPAC. It can be found in many dark corners. National Security Advisor John Bolton recently received the “Defender of Israel” award from the Zionist Organization of America. And one might suggest that the U.S. United Nations delegation, headed by Ambassador Nikki Haley, is directed by the Israeli government, particularly given events of last Friday whereby the U.S. voted against a motion condemning Israel’s continued illegal occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights, thereby recognizing for the first time Israel’s sovereignty over the area. Whether Haley was speaking for herself or for the administration was characteristically unclear, but it hardly matters. Nikki Haley might be referred to as a useful idiot, as Lenin put it, but her consistent pattern of extreme loyalty in defense of Israel marks her out as being particularly beholden to the Jewish state, which will no doubt arrange to richly reward her through some position in financial services for which she is totally unqualified when she leaves her post in January. And then she will be well funded to run for president in 2020. Having Haley in charge, one might just as well vote for Benjamin Netanyahu.

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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

The Hague, The Netherlands (Monday, November 19, 2018) – Members of the Green Party United States traveled to the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Monday, November 29, 2018 to deliver a letter calling for a full investigation of Israel for war crimes it has committed against the Palestinians. [Read the text here.]

In addition to being endorsed by the Green Party U.S., the letter was signed by over 1,000 organizations, including Popular Resistance, and individuals from the United States who want prosecutors at the ICC and the world to know that there is a political party along with people in the US who support holding nations accountable to international law. The Green Party recognizes that the United States is complicit in Israel’s crimes by providing financial support, selling weapons and providing political cover to Israel.

The letter states:

For 70 years [Palestinians] have: suffered the most appalling living conditions imposed upon them by the military occupation and apartheid rule; peacefully resisted the unabated illegal settlements upon their land (at least 80% has been seized since the Nakba); withstood the blockade of Gaza and survived genocidal assaults. Since 1947 the Palestinians have steadfastly and peacefully fought for their safety, dignity, freedoms and Right of Return proclaimed by the UN General Assembly Resolution 194 passed in 1948. The Right of Return, to include damages and compensation, was deemed their inalienable right in Resolution 3236 passed in 1974. [footnotes omitted.]

Green Party co-chair, Margaret Flowers and Miko Peled, a member of the Green Party U.S., a dual Israeli and American citizen and author of The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine and other books, met with a representative of the ICC Office of the Prosecutor to deliver a copy of the signed letter. The letter will be entered into the body of evidence being collected as part of a preliminary investigation to determine whether a full investigation will be conducted.

A delegation of Green Party U.S. members, many of whom are on the Green Party U.S. Peace Action and International Committees, made video statements outside the ICC after the letter was delivered. [Video here.]

The delegation included Kevin Zeese, Diane Moxley, Marie Spike, who authored the original draft of the letter, and Stephen Verchinski. The delegation was joined by Dirk Adriaensens of the BRussells Tribunal, which conducted a tribunal on Palestine.

Miko Peled stated,

“It was an honor to be part of the GPUS delegation to the ICC, to add our voice to the growing demand to investigate Israel for war crimes. Only when people of the world speak up will the Israeli perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity be brought to justice.”

Members of the delegation understand they have a responsibility to act and to educate others in the United States about the truth of the violent Israeli occupation of Palestine and apartheid state. It is by countering the myths put out by the media and U.S. lawmakers, due to the significant Israeli influence over them, and showing solidarity with Palestinians that the tide will shift toward justice for people living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and the millions of refugees who have been forced to flee.

While the Green Party worked on the issue for months, on the same day that the Green Party National Committee voted to endorse the letter, John Bolton said the United States would not cooperate with war crime investigations and called for sanctions against ICC judges if they proceed with an investigation of the United States or Israel.

Delegation at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands on November 19, 2018. From left to right Margaret Flowers, Green Party co-chair, member of the Green Party Peace Action Committee and Green Party of Maryland, Miko Peled, Green Party US member, Dirk Adriaensens of the BRussells Tribunal, Diane Moxley of Green Party International Committee and Green Party of New Jersey, Stephen Verchinski of the Green Party International Committee and Green Party of New Mexico, Marie Spike, of the Green Party International Committee and Green Party of Michigan and Kevin Zeese of the Green Party Peace Action Committee and Green Party of Maryland (Source: Popular Resistance)

Prior to visiting the ICC, members of the delegation met with Nils Mollema of Al Haq, an organization founded by Palestinian lawyers to address Israel’s occupation and apartheid. Members of the Green Party of The Netherlands (De Groenen) including Otto ter Haar as well as members of the Green Left Party (Groen Links) participated in that meeting.

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Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese co-direct Popular Resistance where this article was originally published.

“I was playing football with friends when a bomb exploded right under my feet. They took me to the hospital: both my legs and also the lower part of my left arm were amputated.”

Kaum was just 14 when in 2014 he fled the village of Bartalla, 20km east of Mosul, as the Islamic State group began its rampage across Iraq. For three years, he lived in a refugee camp in Iraqi Kurdistan. In December 2017, he finally returned home and his daily life was slowly returning to normality – when he accidentally detonated an explosive remnant.

His life was changed forever.

“I can’t go to school anymore because I am still traumatised. My friends are helping me, they always give me a ride to go out with them, but I know I will never be able to play football with them again.”

We met Kaum at the East Mosul rehabilitation centre. His story details an emergency inside the emergency. A year after its liberation, the area surrounding Iraq’s second largest city remains a ticking time-bomb.

According to UN Habitat, eight million tons of explosive remnants contaminate the city.

Thousands of people have been injured returning home from camps for the displaced.

“It is very difficult for those who return to rebuild their homes because under the rubble there are still many IEDs, explosive devices and remnants. IEDs were mainly home-made by [the Islamic State group] and for this reason they are even more dangerous,” says Hawar Mustafa, programme coordinator at Emergency, an Italian NGO.

Prosthetic clinics have teamed up after the maunfacturer’s factory was targeted [Laura Cappon]

Mustafa coordinates the emergency rehab centre in Sulemaniya, which coordinates with its partner in Mosul to provide prosthetic limbs after the local factory that produced them was hit, seriously compromising production.

The emergency center in Sulemaniya still receives a high number of patients from Mosul. Mahfouz is one.

He was walking with his son through the streets of Bab Sinjar’s old district in Mosul when an explosive device inside a nearby car detonated due to a small fire.

“Since I lost my leg, I can’t work anymore,” Mahfouz tells The New Arab. “I was a driver and now I can’t do anything anymore. I’m sitting home and my son is the only one providing an income for the family.

“Now with this prosthesis I feel better and I hope to be able to drive soon, perhaps with a car with special equipment, which would allow me to resume a sort-of normal life after years of war.”

Hundreds of displaced people are still living in camps and refuse to return to their homes because of the numbers of “victim-activated IEDs” and explosive remnants in the city.

“A couple of weeks ago, Iraqi soldiers found a grenade in a building beside my house. It was a former IS member’s house and now the authorities forbid us to enter in any building which was occupied by IS,” Nawal says.

She lives in Badush, northwestern Mosul. Her daughter is among 4,800 people who – according to to the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) – lost a limb during the war.

“There are still a lot of explosive devices in my area – and this is a huge problem. Our daily life is already difficult, we don’t have drinkable water; we have to boil it before use it. My daughter’s life was destroyed when she lost her leg and I don’t want it to happen again – to me or to anyone else of the family.”

In the same village, Jazm lost his legs in October 2017. He was playing football with his friends close to a concrete factory. He was only 11 years old at the time.

“After the amputation, I spent ten months without going to school. I was hospitalised for months and underwent surgery several times. My eyes were also damaged by the exposion,” he says.

“Now that I wear a prosthesis, I will try to return to school, because I want to go to college. I would like to study medicine in order to be able to help people in need as the doctors hepled me after the incident.”

The presence of anti-personnel mines and unexploded ordnance is not a new problem in northern Iraq. Three decades of fighting in Iraq’s northern governorates of Dohuk, Arbil and Sulaymaniyah left behind a huge number of landmines and bomblets. According to the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS), these devices threaten an estimated 1,100 communities in northern Iraq and cause an average of 30 accidents per month.

New prosthetic limbs are crafted carefully and slowly, and demand is high [Laura Cappon]

The consequences have been felt by entire generations.

Naswan is from west Mosul. He lost his hand when he was only ten years old, picking up a grenade from the ground when he was playing in the outskirts of the city. Twenty-five years later, his cousin lost a leg when he accidentally detonated a mine in the rubble of his former family home.

“I can’t believe the same thing happened to my cousin,” Naswan says. “He returned to rebuild his partially destroyed house. As soon as he entered, a bomb went off, and his mother was also injured. I’m scared: the area is not properly cleared and I’m afraid not only for my three sons and my daughter but for everyone around.”

The work of securing the city of Mosul and the surrounding area is moving at a slow pace. According to the UN it could take another ten years, during which many more people will be victims of these hidden devices.

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Palestinians in Gaza should have been able to breathe a sigh of relief last week, as precarious ceasefire talks survived a two-day-long, heavy exchange of strikes that threatened to unleash yet another large-scale military assault by Israel.

Late on Tuesday, after the most intense bout of violence in four years, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas, the Islamic movement that rules Gaza, approved a long-term truce brokered by Egypt.

Both are keen to avoid triggering an explosion of popular anger in Gaza, the consequences of which would be difficult to predict or contain.

The tiny enclave is on life support, having endured three devastating and sustained attacks by Israel, as well as a suffocating blockade, over the past decade. Thousands of homes are in ruins, the water supply is nearly undrinkable, electricity in short supply, and unemployment sky-high.

But as is so often the case, the enclave’s immediate fate rests in the hands of Israeli politicians desperate to cast themselves as Israel’s warmonger-in-chief and thereby reap an electoral dividend.

Elections now loom large after Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s hawkish defence minister, resigned on Wednesday in the wake of the clashes. He accused Netanyahu of “capitulating to terror” in agreeing to the ceasefire.

Lieberman takes with him a handful of legislators, leaving the governing coalition with a razor-thin majority of one parliamentary seat. Rumours were rife over the weekend that another party, the ultra-nationalist Jewish Home, was on the brink of quitting the coalition.

In fact, Netanyahu recklessly triggered these events. He had smoothed the path to a truce earlier this month by easing the blockade. Fuel had been allowed into the enclave, as had $15 million in cash from Qatar to cover salaries owed to Gaza’s public-sector workers.

At this critical moment, Netanyahu agreed to a covert incursion by the Israeli army, deep into Gaza. When the soldiers were exposed, the ensuing firefight left seven Palestinians and an Israeli commander dead.

The two sides then upped the stakes: Hamas launched hundreds of rockets into Israel, while the Israeli military bombarded the enclave. The air strikes killed more than a dozen Palestinians.

Lieberman had reportedly expressed outrage over the transfer of Qatari money to Gaza, claiming it would be impossible to track how it was spent. The ceasefire proved the final straw.

Hamas leaders boasted that they had created a “political earthquake” with Lieberman’s resignation. But the shockwaves may not be so easily confined to Israel.

Strangely, Netanyahu now sounds like the most moderate voice in his cabinet. Fellow politicians are demanding Israel “restore its deterrence” – a euphemism for again laying waste to Gaza.

Naftali Bennett, the head of the settler Jewish Home party, denounced the ceasefire as “unacceptable” and demanded the vacant defence post.

There was flak, too, from Israel’s so-called left. The opposition Labour party leader Avi Gabbay called Netanyahu “weak”, while former prime minister Ehud Barak said he had “surrendered to Hamas under fire”.

Similar sentiments are shared by the public. Polls indicate 74 per cent of Israelis favour a tougher approach.

Sderot, close to Gaza and targeted by rockets, erupted into angry protests. Placards bearing the slogan “Bibi Go Home” – using Netanyahu’s nickname – were evident for the first time in his party’s heartland.

With this kind of goading, an election in the offing, and corruption indictments hanging over his head, Netanyahu may find it difficult to resist raising the temperature in Gaza once again.

But he also has strong incentives to calm things down and shore up Hamas’s rule.

The suggestion by some commentators that Netanyahu has turned a new leaf as a “man of peace” could not be more misguided. What distinguishes Netanyahu from his cabinet is not his moderation, but that he has a cooler head than his far-right rivals.

He believes there are better ways than lashing out to achieve his core political aim: the undermining of the Palestinian national project. This was what he meant on Wednesday when he attacked critics for missing “the overall picture of Israel’s security”.

On a practical level, Netanyahu has listened to his generals, who warn that, if Israel provokes war with Hamas, it may find itself ill-equipped to cope with the fallout on two other fronts, in Lebanon and Syria.

But Netanyahu has still deeper concerns. As veteran Israeli military analyst Ben Caspit observed: “The only thing more dangerous to Netanyahu than getting tangled up in war is getting tangled up in peace.”

The Israeli army has responded to months of largely non-violent mass protests at Gaza’s perimeter fence by killing more than 170 Palestinian demonstrators and maiming thousands more.

The protests could turn into an uprising. Palestinians storming the fence that imprisons them is an eventuality the Israeli army is entirely unprepared for. Its only response would be to slaughter Palestinians en masse, or reoccupy Gaza directly.

Netanyahu would rather bolster Hamas, so it can keep a lid on the protests than face an international backlash and demands that he negotiate with the Palestinians.

Further, a ceasefire that keeps Hamas in power in Gaza also ensures that Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority, based in the West Bank, can be kept out.

That was in part why Netanyahu, against his normal instincts, allowed the transfer of the Qatari money, which had been opposed by the Palestinian Authority. It is not just a fillip for Hamas, it is a slap in the face to Abbas.

A disunited Palestine, divided territorially and ideologically, is in no position to exert pressure on Netanyahu – either through Europe or the United Nations – to begin peace talks or concede Palestinian statehood.

That is all the more pressing, given that the White House insists that President Trump’s long-delayed peace plan will be unveiled within the next two months.

Leaks suggest that the US may propose a separate “entity” in Gaza under Egyptian supervision and financed by Qatar. The ceasefire should be seen as a first step towards creating a pseudo-Palestinian state in Gaza along these lines.

Palestinians there are now caught between a rock and a hard place. Between vengeful hotheads such as Lieberman, who want more carnage in Gaza, and Netanyahu, who prefers to keep the Palestinians quiet and largely forgotten in their tiny prison.

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

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

Nesta patética ressaca eleitoreira brasileira pós-berreiro de surdos, cuja raivosa arena de cobras venenosas acabou se transformando em mais um grande espetáculo da vergonha nacional para o mundo todo se assombrar ao mesmo tempo em que se tentava, a todo o custo em terras tupiniquins, vender uma falsa polarização direita-“esquerda” e em que a sociedade, no final e como sempre, foi a que mais perdeu – humilhou-se, apanhou e se literalmente se matou –, eis que descaradamente Partido Pátria Livre (PPL) e Partido Comunista do Brasil (PCdoB) anunciam desejo de se fundir.

O intuito é superar a cláusula de barreira, dispositivo que restringe ou impede a atuação parlamentar de um partido que não alcança 1,5% de votos em pelo menos nove estados. PCdoB consegue manter a estrutura partidária, direito à liderança no plenário e indicações para comissões na Câmara a partir do ano que vem.

Ora, vão se fundir!

Para quem ainda tinha alguma dúvida, também nanicos – e à “esquerda” – abrem mão da mínima vergonha na cara, sem nenhum constrangimento, e aplicam autogolpes como se nada tivesse acontecido: interesses político-partidarios, é claro, sempre imperam neste podre sistema político brasileiro, selvageria evidenciada na bem conhecida disputa pela vagabundagem de se conseguir, através da mediocridade, um orgíaco lugar ao sol dos holofotes públicos e dos privilégios, mamando nas tetas do Estado.

Eis a patologia do poder, em estagio desesperadamente avançado!

Não é de se surpreender no caso do PCdoB, velho balcão oportunista que já não possui ideologia clara há muito tempo cujo partideco, desde a primeira vitória presidencial de Luiz Inácio em 2002, aliou-se caninamente ao PT.

Durante todos esses longos anos, o Partido “Comunista” do Brasil acobertou e participou dos maiores atentados ao Estado brasileiro, como por exemplo apoiando o leilão do petrolífero Campo de Libra em 2013. Exatamente o que motivou o… PPL (!) a abandonar apoio à aliança PT-PCdoB e demais bandos do (des)governo Dilma Rousseff.

Desde então o mais novo nanico da politicagem canalha brasileira, que teve como candidato presidencial nas últimas eleições o excelente João Goulart filho, passou a fazer ferrenha (e justa, revelando-se agora oportunista para manter o “script” tupiniquim) oposição “a tudo o que está aí” na política nacional, especialmente em relação à pitoresca alianca mencionada.

Pois o neonanico fundado em 2009 cuja liderança, que até ontem mergulhada em falso moralismo travava qualquer tentativa de diálogo sobre o atual cenário do País em nome da raivosa briga pelo poder (agora, mais claro que nunca tal fato), sentimento que se aflorava no ódio antipetista e ao irmao siamês do PT – exatamente o PCdoB – acabou sendo mais um partido “trabalhista” e “nacionalista” a dar toda a razão aos milhões de eleitores que, mal-informados, acabaram votando em protesto no dia 28 de outubro em favor do ignorante Jair Bolsonaro “contra tudo o que está aí” na politicagem brasileira mais baixa.

Liderança do PPL em geral, claramente por ódio antipetista e com uma dose de “dor de cotovelo”, certamente dadas as vaidades da politica bem conhecidas de todos nós, tem descartado a “hipótese” de se estar em curso no Brasil um golpe contra a democracia, nega influência externa sobre isso, e mais: diz que acredita na ridícula “faxina ética” do juizeco Segio Moro!

A aversão ao PT (outro partido que nao possui nada de diferente dos demais), pois, não continha nada mais que a mesma essência dos atuais donos do poder: muleta politiqueira.

Eis que o hiponanico aparece em cena agora, com o pires na mão em busca de crescimento pelo caminho mais fácil, como de praxe no Brasil.

Nenhuma novidade: a nanicaiada incluindo “esquerda” em geral revelando-se, quando o amargo caldo em busca do poder engrossa, seu caráter tão golpista quanto o dos gigantes com pés de barro que, da maneira mais intensa da história, arremeteu-lhe o bico nos fundilhos recentemente sob inércia generalizada desses politiqueiros profissionais que usam a sociedade como fantoche, quando e como bem entendem.

Vão se meter a criticar o povo, despolitizado (absolutamente correto)? Com que moral? Ou mesmo o sistema politico, como sempre fizeram? Ora, vão se fundir!

O Brasil precisa de reforma politica, e mais que isso: enterrar de vez essa moribunda democracia de fachada que atende pelo bonitinho nome de “representativa”, pela democracia participativa com todo o poder devidamente ao povo, conforme reza a Constituição Federal.

Pela qual apenas o povo trabalhador, unido, farto de ser enganado e explorado, e em espírito de revolução permanente pode alcançar.

Povo que, no final das contas, acaba humilhado, espancado e morto, pegando-se por nada enquōanto esses canalhas, lambedores de botas, mexem os pauzinhos da politicagem descarada, em suas salas encarpetadas e com ares-condicionados, gozando de suas amantes morrendo de rir de quem lhes vota a cada quarto anos, moralmente “de quatro” como cãezinhos atrás de migalhas.

O povo precisa deixar de ser coadjuvante, para protagonizar a história deste falido País. Apenas esta é a via para a salvação do Brasil.

Edu Montesanti

November 17 and 18 of this year (2018) bring us to the 40th anniversary of the mass-murder of 918 men, women, boys and girls at Jonestown in Guyana.

The details of what that mass-murder represented have been lied about for forty years, and to this day the massacre continues to be described as a “mass suicide.”

For example, here is a piece which aired on NPR’s “Fresh Air” this year, purporting to examine the Jonestown massacre. It begins by declaring:

This Sunday marks the fortieth anniversary of the Jonestown massacre, where cult leader Jim Jones convinced over 900 followers to commit mass suicide by drinking cyanide-laced punch.

However, as the above video makes abundantly clear, the story that continues to be pushed by controlled media outlets is demonstrably false, and the abundant evidence that it is false has been amply documented for decades.

To continue to push the blatant lie that the 918 men, women, boys and girls killed at Jonestown “committed mass suicide” constitutes an insult and an injustice to those who lost their lives in that massacre, as well as to the memory of Congressman Leo Ryan and members of his delegation (including two members of the press) who were killed when Congressman Ryan, who represented a congressional district from which many members of the “Peoples Temple” cult had been recruited (and who was also a former mayor of San Francisco, where the Peoples Temple had been headquartered before it moved to Guyana) visited Jonestown to investigate the allegations of abuse and enslavement that had come to his attention.

In addition, to continue to refer to Jim Jones as an “itinerant preacher” (as the above-linked NPR piece does in its second sentence, immediately following the first sentence which is quoted above) is to ignore the undeniable connections between Jones and very powerful patrons, many of them mentioned in the video documentary. Such a description is absurd.

In order to disabuse yourself of the lies and ongoing cover-up regarding the events of that fateful day, I would recommend carefully watching the above video in its entirety, perhaps several times. It is a segment of a 2006 documentary entitled Evidence of Revision: The Assassination of America.

You can also listen to a somewhat condensed, audio-only version of the same material by visiting the archive of Bonnie Faulkner’s long-running show, Guns and Butter. You can scroll down to episode #188, which aired on November 18, 2009, and which you can listen to online (or download to a mobile device) by following this link.

If you pay close attention, you will understand why the truth regarding the Jonestown massacre continues to be deliberately obfuscated to this day.

And, if you think about it, you will also perceive that the Jonestown massacre was not perpetrated by “the government.”

Congressman Leo Ryan of the House of Representatives was a representative of “the government” — which is to say, a representative of the lawful power of the people (in a democratic republic). The fact that he was murdered demonstrates a desire by those responsible for the things that were going on at Jonestown to prevent the details of what they were doing from becoming known to the government. The massacre followed his murder and the murder of some of those with him.

This point is extremely important to contemplate carefully. I am convinced that the best hope for the prevention of injustice, oppression, and everything associated with organized crime lies in the power of the people expressed through democratic government and its lawful organs of power.

The murder of Leo Ryan demonstrates that, despite their great power and obvious control over many who are in the government, the forces behind what was taking place at Jonestown in Guyana understand the potential threat posed by the representatives and institutions of a democratic government.

The continued repetition of egregiously, demonstrably false explanations of the Jonestown massacre as “mass suicide” demonstrates very much the same thing regarding the potential threat posed by the people themselves, should they ever wake up to what is going on.

Indeed, it is the power of the people themselves (should they ever become aware in large numbers of what is going on) which poses the greatest threat, because (as we have seen in the forty years since the perpetration of the massacre of more than 900 American men, women, boys and girls in Guyana), the representatives will not on their own do much of anything to confront the problem if the people themselves do not wake up and demand it.

Image on the right: Congressman Leo Ryan speaking with sign behind him, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (Source: author)

On a personal note, Congresswoman Jackie Speier of the House of Representatives, who is seen in the video linked above and who was part of the delegation led by Congressman Leo Ryan to visit Jonestown forty years ago, is the currently-serving representative for the congressional district containing my hometown and the place where I was born.

She was a legal aide to Congressman Ryan at the time. She was elected to this office in a special election following the death of the late Congressman Tom Lantos in 2008. Tom Lantos is the Congressman who appointed me to West Point back in 1987.

Right a screenshot from the video documentary, showing Congressman Leo Ryan in Jonestown, on the night of November 17, 1978, the day before he was murdered. You can see this image at about the 0:49:49 mark in the video.

As the camera pans out, we see in the background a hand-painted sign, affixed to the wall of the building within the Peoples Temple compound where Congressman Ryan was speaking that day. It speaks to the danger we all face if we continue to refuse to wake up.

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Featured image is from African American Registry

Today, 51 environmental and public health groups, including EWG, called on Amazon and eBay to remove illegal skin care products containing dangerous levels of mercury. The products, purchased and tested by the Mercury Policy Project, in some cases contained as much as 30,000 parts per million, or ppm, of mercury – an astounding 30,000 times the legal limit of 1 ppm set by the Food and Drug Administration.

Mercury is a highly toxic heavy metal. Mercury exposure can cause kidney damage, skin rashes, skin discoloration and scarring, as well as a reduction in the skin’s resistance to infections. Other effects include anxiety, depression, psychosis and nerve damage that can result in pain or numbness in the hands, arms, legs and feet.

These health risks aren’t limited to people who use skin products containing mercury. Mercury vapors can get into the air and cause harm to other people and even pets. People can also be exposed by touching washcloths or skin that has come in contact with one of these products. Babies and children are especially at risk of harm because of their developing brain and nervous systems. Newborns can be exposed to mercury through breastmilk.

Mercury is used in cosmetics as a skin lightening agent and preservative. Cosmetics with mercury are often marketed as skin lightening creams and anti-aging treatments that remove age spots, freckles, blemishes and wrinkles. Adolescents sometimes use these products as acne treatments.

Manufacturers selling products that contain mercury often do not label their products. Companies that do may use any of the following names: mercury, Hg, mercuric iodide, mercurous chloride, ammoniated mercury, amide chloride of mercury, quicksilver, cinnabaris (mercury sulfide), hydrargyri oxydum rubrum (mercury oxide), or mercury iodide. Directions to avoid contact with silver, gold, rubber, aluminum, and jewelry could also indicate the presence of mercury. Marketers of these products tend to target the Asian, African, Latino and Middle Eastern communities.

The FDA banned the use of mercury in most cosmetics at levels higher than 1 ppm in 1973. The agency has investigated skin lightening creams and also created an import alert for skin whitening creams containing mercury, which allows FDA agents to detain certain products at the border.

In recent years, state and local authorities have also taken action against mercury in skin care products.

Despite these actions, skin care products that contain mercury remain on the market, readily accessible to many consumers. The Mercury Policy Project easily purchased the skin lightening creams it tested from the online retailers Amazon and eBay.

The FDA has limited resources and authority to regulate cosmetic imports, even illegal ones like mercury-containing skin creams. In a June 2017 letter to Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J. – who in January will become chair of the House committee that oversees the FDA – the agency acknowledged that it was able to inspect only a small fraction of the growing number of cosmetics imported each year. When the FDA does test imported products, it often finds contaminants or illegal ingredients like mercury, despite the import alert.

Both Amazon and eBay have restricted item policies. Amazon’s policy states that “Products offered for sale on Amazon must comply with all laws and regulations and with Amazon’s policies. The sale of illegal, unsafe, or other restricted products listed on these pages . . . is strictly prohibited.” Amazon also has categories of products that require its approval before being sold. By simply enforcing these policies, both companies could help protect the public from a significant health risk.

Outdated federal cosmetics policies must also be updated. The cosmetics section of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act has not been updated since 1938. The FDA lacks both the resources and authority to adequately regulate products like illegal mercury-containing skins creams and hundreds of other legal, but potentially harmful cosmetic ingredients.

Bipartisan legislation introduced by Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, and by Rep. Frank Pallone D-N.J., would require the FDA to review the most dangerous chemicals in cosmetics, require companies to tell the FDA when contaminated products are in the marketplace and give the FDA the power to act to keep us safe.

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Featured image is from EWG

There have been sporadic, but regular reports of “mysterious helicopters” extracting ISIS militants from battlefields in the Middle East.

Most recently, on November 13^th, Syria’s official news agency SANA cited an anonymous source claiming that US-led military helicopters conducted an operation in the village of al-Suwayda in Hasakah province near the border with Iraq. They reportedly rescued several members of ISIS and transported them to an unknown location.

Between November 10^th and 11^th, an alleged US-led aircraft landed in the outskirts of al-Susah in Deir Ezzor province and took away three ISIS members.

Earlier, on October 7^th, SANA also cited residents of the town of al-Shaafah who claimed that American helicopters evacuated ISIS commanders from the Abu Kamal area of Deir Ezzor province to an undisclosed location.

SANA also reported that on September 22^nd the US-led coalition carried out an air landing operation in the outskirts of al-Mrashde village located in the pocket where ISIS militants spread in the southeastern countryside of Deir Ezzor, transferring a number of ISIS commanders.

On August 23^rd, TASS reported that Russia recorded flights of mysterious helicopters supplying weapons to ISIS units active in Afghanistan.

“We would like to once again point to the flights of unidentified helicopters in northern Afghanistan, which deliver weapons and ammunition to local ISIL units and Taliban members cooperating with the group. In particular, the Afghan media and local residents say that such helicopters were seen in the Sar-e Pol Province,” Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

On March 19^th, SANA cited an anonymous source who claimed that three US military helicopters had evacuated suspected ISIS commanders from northeastern Syria. Reportedly the helicopters landed between the villages of al-Jissi and Kalu, 2 km south of the Tal Hamis township in the Qamishli District of al-Hasakah province.

In late February, Syrian media reported that US helicopters had transported ISIS commanders and their family members to Sabah al-Khair, about 20 km south of al-Hasakah, where US forces have been accused of establishing a terrorist training base.

According to SANA on December 29^th, 2017 US helicopters evacuated the ISIS commanders from the Deir Ezzor province to al-Hasakah province in northeastern Syria. Sources say this is the second time the US evacuates ISIS terrorists.

In May 2017, anonymous local Syrian sources revealed that, US military helicopters evacuated a number of ISIS terrorist group commanders out of their stronghold in Syria’s Raqqa taking them to an undisclosed destination.

In May 2017, Mohammad Zahir Wahdat, governor of Afghanistan’s northern Sar-e Pol province also claimed that unmarked military helicopters had touched down briefly in a known militant stronghold. Stationed Afghan Security Forces could not take pictures because it happened at night.

The Pentagon has repeatedly denied this reports claiming that it is not cooperating with ISIS in any kind. However, the problem is that the US military also denies that it has reached any kind of deals with ISIS in Manbij and Raqqah, which is an obvious lie. So, as reports about US helicopters evacuating ISIS members or providing supplies to them continue to appear, the concern is growing that Washington is still using ISIS as a tool in its geopolitical standoff with other powers.

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Featured image is from New Eastern Outlook

One of the things to look forward to in the upcoming holiday season is the special treats that one is allowed to sample. Fruitcake and nuts are Thanksgiving and Christmas favorites. They usually come in tins or special packages but it seems that this season some of the nuts have escaped and have fled to obtain sanctuary from the Trump Administration.

Currently, there is certainly a wide range of nuts available on display in the West Wing. There is the delicate but hairy Bolton, which has recently received the coveted “Defender of Israel” award, and also the robust Pompeo, courageously bucking the trend to overeat during the holidays by telling the Iranian people that they should either surrender or starve to death. And then there is the always popular Haley, voting audaciously to give part of Syria to Israel as a holiday treat.

But my vote for the most magnificent nut in an Administration that is overflowing with such talent would be the esteemed United States Special Representative for Syria Engagement James Jeffrey. The accolade is in part due to the fact that Jeffrey started out relatively sane as a career diplomat with the State Department, holding ambassadorships in Iraq, Turkey, and Albania. He had to work hard to become as demented as he now is but was helped along the way by signing on as a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), which is a spin-off of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Jeffrey set the tone for his term of office shortly after being appointed back in August when he argued that the Syrian terrorists were “. . . not terrorists, but people fighting a civil war against a brutal dictator.” Jeffrey, who must have somehow missed a lot of the head chopping and rape going on, subsequently traveled to the Middle East and stopped off in Israel to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It has been suggested that Jeffrey received his marching orders during the visit.

James Jeffrey has been particularly active during this past month.  On November 7th he declared that he would like to see Russia maintain a “permissive approach” to allowing the Israelis to attack Iranian targets inside Syria.  Regarding Iran’s possible future role in Syria, he observed that “Iranians are part of the problem not part of the solution.”

What Jeffrey meant was that because Israel had been “allowed” to carry out hundreds of air attacks in Syria ostensibly directed against Iran-linked targets, the practice should be permitted to continue. Israel had suspended nearly all of its airstrikes in the wake of the shoot-down of a Russian aircraft in September, an incident which Moscow has blamed on Israel even though the missile that brought down the plane was fired by Syria. Fifteen Russian servicemen were killed. Israel reportedly was deliberately using the Russian plane to mask the presence of its own aircraft.

Russia responded to the incident by deploying advanced S-300 anti-aircraft systems to Syria, which can cover most of the more heavily developed areas of the country. Jeffrey was unhappy with that decision, saying “We are concerned very much about the S-300 system being deployed to Syria. The issue is at the detail level. Who will control it? what role will it play?” And he defended his own patently absurd urging that Russia, Syria’s ally, permit Israel to continue its air attacks by saying “We understand the existential interest and we support Israel” because the Israeli government has an “existential interest in blocking Iran from deploying long-range power projection systems such as surface-to-surface missiles.”

On November 15th James Jeffrey was at it again, declaring that U.S. troops will not leave Syria before guaranteeing the “enduring defeated” of ISIS, but he perversely put the onus on Syria and Iran, saying that “We also think that you cannot have an enduring defeat of ISIS until you have fundamental change in the Syrian regime and fundamental change in Iran’s role in Syria, which contributed greatly to the rise of ISIS in the first place in 2013, 2014.”

As virtually no one but Jeffrey and the Israeli government actually believes that Damascus and Tehran were responsible for creating ISIS, the ambassador elaborated, blaming President Bashar al-Assad for the cycle of violence in Syria that, he claimed, allowed the development of the terrorist group in both Syria and neighboring Iraq.

He said “The Syrian regime produced ISIS. The elements of ISIS in the hundreds, probably, saw an opportunity in the total breakdown of civil society and of the upsurge of violence as the population rose up against the Assad regime, and the Assad regime, rather than try to negotiate or try to find any kind of solution, unleashed massive violence against its own population.”

Jeffrey’s formula is just another recycling of the myth that the Syrian opposition consisted of good folks who wanted to establish democracy in the country. In reality, it incorporated terrorist elements right from the beginning and groups like ISIS and the al-Qaeda affiliates rapidly assumed control of the violence. That Jeffrey should be so ignorant or blinded by his own presumptions to be unaware of that is astonishing. It is also interesting to note that he makes no mention of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, knee-jerk support for Israel and the unrelenting pressure on Syria starting with the Syrian Accountability Act of 2003 and continuing with the embrace of the so-called Arab Spring. Most observers believe that those actions were major contributors to the rise of ISIS.

Jeffrey’s unflinching embrace of the Israeli and hardline Washington assessment of the Syrian crisis comes as no surprise given his pedigree, but in the same interview where he pounded Iran and Syria, he asserted oddly that “We’re not about regime change. We’re about a change in the behavior of a government and of a state.”

Actually, the only regime change that is needed is in Washington and it would include Jeffrey, Bolton, Haley, Pompeo, and Miller. And while we’re at it, get rid of son-in-law Jared Kushner and his claque of Orthodox Jews, Jason Greenblatt the “peace negotiator” and David Friedman the U.S. Ambassador in Israel. None of them are capable of acting to advance any American national interest, which they wouldn’t recognize even if it hit them in the butt. Once they are gone the U.S. can bid the Middle East goodbye and leave its constituent nations to sort out their own problems. Jeffrey’s ridiculous prescriptions for the Syrians and Russians are symptomatic of what one gets from a team of yes-men who have latched onto some dystopic ideas and pursued them relentlessly, blinded by what they believe to be American power. Someone should tell them that their antics have made that power a commodity that is dramatically depreciating in value, but it is clear that they are not listening.

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This article was originally published on The American Herald Tribune.

Philip M. Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served nineteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was the CIA Chief of Base for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and was one of the first Americans to enter Afghanistan in December 2001. Phil is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a Washington-based advocacy group that seeks to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values and interests. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Secretary Pompeo officiates the Swearing-In Ceremony for Ambassador James F. Jeffrey. Image credit: U.S. Department of State/ flickr

What people communicate is a matter of choice. But what can be more revealing are the issues they choose to avoid. There are certain prominent pro-GMO activists who describe themselves as ‘science communicators’. They hit out at those who question their views or who have valid criticisms of GM technology and then play the role of persecuted victim, believing that, as the self-appointed arbiters of righteousness, they are beyond reproach, although given their duplicity nothing could be further from the truth.

Instead of being open to questioning, they attempt to close down debate to push a flawed technology they have a vested (financial-career) interest in, while all the time appealing to their self-perceived authority, usually based on holding a PhD in molecular biology or a related discipline.

They relentlessly promote GM and industrial agriculture and unjustifiably cast critics as zealots who are in cahoots with Greenpeace or some other group they have a built-in dislike of. And they cynically raise or lower the bar of ‘credibility’ by ad hominem and misrepresentation so that studies, writers and scientists who agree with them are commended while those who don’t become subjected to smear campaigns.

Often with ties to neoliberal think tanks, pro-GMO lobbyists call for more deregulation and criticise elected governments or regulatory bodies which try to protect the public interest, especially where genetic engineering and associated chemical inputs (for instance, glyphosate) are concerned. The same people push the bogus idea that only GM agriculture can feed the world, while seeking to discredit and marginalise alternative models like agroecology and ignoring the structural violence and injustices brought about by global agricapital interests (from whom they receive funding) which help determine Codex, World Bank, IMF and WTO policies. By remaining silent or demonstrating wilful ignorance about the dynamics and injustices of the political economy of food and agriculture, they tacitly approve of its consequences.

They also frame the GMO debate as pro-science/pro-GMO vs anti-science/anti-GMO: an industry-promoted false dichotomy that has sought to close down any wider discussion that may lead the focus to fall on transnational agribusiness interests and their role in determining an exploitative global food regime and how GM fits in with this.

This is how ideologues act; not how open discourse and science is carried out or ‘communicated’.

Broadening the debate

A participant in any meaningful discussion about GM would soon appreciate that ethical, political, environmental and sociological considerations should determine the efficacy and relevance of this technology in conjunction with scientific considerations. Unfortunately, pro-GMO advocates want to depoliticise food and agriculture and focus on the ‘science’ of GM, yield-output reductionist notions of ‘productivity’ and little else, defining the ‘problem’ of food and agriculture solely as a narrow technocratic issue.

But to understand the global food regime, we must move beyond technology. Food and agriculture have become wedded to structures of power that have created food surplus and food deficit areas and which have restructured indigenous agriculture across the world and tied it to an international system of trade based on export-oriented mono-cropping, commodity production for a manipulated and volatile international market and indebtedness to global financial institutions.

More specifically, there are the deleterious impacts of the nexus between sovereign debt repayment and the ‘structural adjustment’ of regional agriculture; spiralling input costs for farmers who become dependent on proprietary seeds and technologies; ecocide, genocide and the destruction of food self-sufficiency; the fuelling of barbaric, industrial-scale death via animal-based (meat) agriculture and the colonisation of land to facilitate it; US/EU subsidies which mean farmers in developing countries cannot achieve prices to cover their costs of production; and degraded soils, polluted oceans and rising rates of illness, etc.

If any one country epitomises much of what is wrong with the global food regime, it is Argentina, where in an October 26^th 2018 article (‘Soy destruction in Argentina leads straight to our dinner plates’) The Guardian newspaper’s analysis of (GM) soy cultivation highlighted many of the issues set out above.

Whether the impacts of the global food regime result from World Bank/IMF directives and geopolitical lending strategies, neoliberal plunder ‘ease-of-doing-business’ ideology,  undemocratic corporate-written trade deals or WTO rules, we are seeing the negative impacts on indigenous systems of food and agriculture across the world, not least in India, where a million farmers intend to march to Delhi and the national parliament between 28 and 30 November.

India’s manufactured ongoing agrarian crisis is adversely affecting the bulk of the country’s 840 million rural dwellers. And all for what? To run down and displace the existing system of peasant-farmer-based production with a discredited, ecologically unsustainable (GMO) model run along neoliberal ‘free’ market lines by global agribusiness, a model which is only profitable because it passes on its massive health, environmental and social costs to the public.

Neoliberal dogma

Tim Worstall of the Adam Smith Institute in London says of India’s agrarian crisis that Indian farmers should be left to go bust because they are uncompetitive and relatively unproductive. But even where farmers in India produce world record yields, they are still heavily indebted. So why can’t they compete?

Putting the huge external costs of the model of industrial agriculture which Worstall compares Indian agriculture to aside (which he conveniently ignores), the issue is clear: a heavily subsidised US/EU agriculture depresses prices for Indian farmers both at home and on the international market.

Policy analyst Devinder Sharma says that subsidies provided to US wheat and rice farmers are more than the market worth of these two crops. He also notes that, per day, each cow in Europe receives a subsidy worth more than an Indian farmer’s daily income. He suggests: let the US and EU do away with subsidies, relieving taxpayers of such a costly burden and let Indian farmers compete properly; then see that it is the Indian farmer who produces the cheapest food; and then imagine US consumers benefitting from this cheap food.

That is the ‘free’ market which could exist. A fair one not distorted by subsidies. Not the type of market that currently exists and which is ‘free’ only within the ideological parameters set by Worstall and others who promote it.

Proponents of the ‘free’ market and GMOs are big on ‘choice’: letting ‘the market’, the consumer or the farmer decide, without anyone imposing their agenda. This is little more than rhetoric which fails to stand up to scrutiny, given the strategically embedded influence of agricapital over policy makers. If anything encapsulates the nonsense and hypocrisy surrounding this notion of choice are reports about Monsanto and its cynical manipulation of agriculture in Punjab.

According to an article in Delhi’s Sunday Guardian in late 2017 (‘Monsanto’s profits, not Diwali, creating smoke in Delhi’), India’s surplus food grain supply is an uncomfortable fact for the pro-GMO lobby. The piece notes that in 2012 the then Punjab Chief Minister asked Monsanto to set up a research centre for creating maize and, due to fears over water shortages, announced plans to reduce the area under rice cultivation to around 45% to grow maize. Fear-mongering about rice cultivation was reaching fever pitch, stoked by an advertisement campaign from a group of scientists who appealed ‘Reduce the area under rice, save water, save Punjab’.

Conveniently, Monsanto (now Bayer) offers its GM maize as a solution that will increase the level of subsoil water, although that corporation’s inputs and Green Revolution practices led to problems in Punjab and elsewhere in the first place. For instance, fertilisers and pesticides have accumulated in the ground water (causing massive health issues) and their use has also led to poor water retention in soil, leading farmers to pump excessive amounts of ground water.

Punjab’s plan to reduce the area under rice cultivation (a staple food for large sections of the Indian population) with what will most likely be GM animal feed is part of a cynical tactic. Of course, any resulting gap between supply of and demand for food in India will be conveniently filled via global agribusiness and an influx of GMO produce from abroad or by growing it in India (have no doubt, the push is on for that too).

It is reminiscent of unscrupulous attempts to undermine India’s edible oils sector in the late 1990s and current attempts to break traditional cotton cultivation pathways in India to help usher in herbicide-tolerant seeds (which have now ‘miraculously’ appeared on the market – illegally). The ability of hugely powerful corporations to flex their financial muscle and exert their considerable political clout to manufacture ‘choice’ and manipulate policies is the reality of neoliberal capitalism.

Those pro-GMO ‘science communicators’ are silent on such matters and, as with their fellow neoliberal ideologues, have nothing of any substance to say on these types of ‘market-distorting’ power relations, which make a mockery of their ‘free’ choice and ‘free’ market creed.

Indeed, a recent report in The Guardian indicates that neoliberal ‘austerity’ in the UK has had little to do with economics, having failed in its objective of reducing the national debt, and much to do with social engineering. But this is the ideological basis of modern neoliberal capitalism: dogma masquerading as economics to help justify the engineering of the world in the image of undemocratic, unaccountable corporations.

Agroecology and food sovereignty

The industrial agriculture that Worstall compares Indian farmers’ productivity with is outperformed by smallholder-based agriculture in terms of, for example, diversity of food output, nutrition per acre and efficient water use. Imagine what could be achieved on a level playing field whereby smallholder farming receives the type of funding and political commitment currently given to industrial agriculture.

In fact, we do not have to imagine; in places where agroecology has been scaled up, we are beginning to see the benefits. The principles of agroecology include self-reliance, localisation and food sovereignty. This type of agriculture does not rely on top-down corporate ‘science’, corporate owned or controlled seeds or proprietary inputs. It is potentially more climate resilient, labour intensive (job creating), more profitable for farmers and can contribute to soil quality and nutrient-enhanced/diverse diets. Moreover, it could help reinvigorate rural India and its villages.

When the British controlled India, they set about breaking the self-reliance of the Indian village. In a 2009 article by Bhavdeep Kang (‘Can the Indian farmer withstand predatory international giants?’), it is stated:

“The British Raj initiated the destruction of the village communities, famously described by Lord Metcalfe as ‘little republics, having nearly everything they can want within themselves.’ India’s ability to endure, he wrote, derived from these village communities: ‘They seem to last where nothing else lasts. Dynasty after dynasty tumbles down but the village community remains the same. It is in a high degree conducive to their happiness, and to the enjoyment of a great portion of freedom and independence.’”

Metcalfe said this in 1830. However, since independence from the British, India’s rulers have further established ‘village India’s’ dependency on central government. And now a potential death knell for rural India is underway as India’s ruling elite, exhibiting a severe bout of ‘Stockholm syndrome’, sells out the nation to not only Western agribusiness but also to US finance and intelligence interests.

Whether it concerns India or elsewhere, to see the advantages of agroecology, there are those economists, political leaders and ‘science communicators’ who must remove the self-imposed blinkers. This would involve shifting their priorities away from promoting career-building technologies and facilitating neoliberal capitalism towards working for justice, equality, peace and genuine grass-root food sovereignty.

To do that, though, such figures would first have to begin to bite the hand that feeds them.

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Colin Todhunter is a frequent contributor to Asia-Pacific Research.

Seeds of Destruction: Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation

Author Name: F. William Engdahl

ISBN Number: 978-0-937147-2-2

Year: 2007

Pages: 341 pages with complete index

List Price: $25.95

Special Price: $18.00

This skilfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. “Control the food and you control the people.”

This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms.

The author cogently reveals a diabolical world of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story, that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is.

Those with a stake in the hustling racket of empire have little time for the contrariness that comes with exposing classified information.  Those who do are submitted to a strict liability regime of assessment and punishment: you had the information (lawfully obtained or otherwise) but you released it for public deliberation.  Ignorance remains a desensitising shield, keeping the citizenry in permanent darkness.

Critics indifferent to the plight of Julian Assange have seen his concerns for prosecution at the hands of US authorities as the disturbed meditations of a sexualised fantasist.  He should have surrendered to the British authorities and, in turn, to the Swedish authorities.  It was either insignificant or irrelevant that a Grand Jury had been convened to sniff around the activities of WikiLeaks to identify what, exactly, could be used against the organisation and its founder.

Cruelty and truth are often matters of excruciating banality, and now it is clearer than ever that the United States will, given the invaluable chance, net the Australian publisher and WikiLeaks founder to make an example of him.  This man, who dirtied the linen of state and exposed the ceremonial of diplomatic hypocrisy, was always an object of interest, notably in the United States.  “He was,” confirmed Andrea Kendall-Taylor, former deputy national intelligence officer for Russia under the director of national intelligence, “a loathed figure inside the government.”

Whether it was the Central Intelligence Agency, the US Department of Justice, or the specific army of investigators assembled by special counsel Robert Mueller III to weasel out material on the Trump-Russia connection, Assange remains a substantial figure who needs to be captured, sealed and disappeared.  Forget any such references to journalism and being a truth teller with obsessive tendencies; for these officials, Assange had become a calculating machine in the information market, a broker in state details and activities, trading and according value to subject matters of his choice.

A gnawing fascination for US authorities persists on whether Assange has a direct, cosy line to the Kremlin.  Fashioned as such, it can be used as a weapon against President Donald J. Trump, and a cover for Democratic villainy and incompetence.  In terms of scale and endeavour, WikiLeaks has been kitted out in the outfit of a guerrilla information organisation. This exceedingly flattering description may well have given Assange a flush of pride, but it assumes a measure of disproportionate influence.  It also ignores the vital issue of how public discussion, which may well translate into voting patterns, can alter policy.  (This, it should be added, remains the big hypothetical: does such information induce an altered approach, or simply reaffirm prejudice and predisposition?  The flat-earth theorist is hardly going to be moved by anything that would conflict or challenge.)

Both the New York Times and Washington Post revealed last Friday that prosecutors had inadvertently let a rather sizeable cat out of the security bag. (That feline escapee was noted by Seamus Hughes, a terrorism expert at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University.) As with so much with  matters of secrecy, errors made lead to information gained.  In the filing of a case unrelated to Assange, Assistant US Attorney General Kellen S. Dwyer informed the relevant judge to keep the matter at stake sealed, claiming that “due to the sophistication of the defendant and the publicity surrounding the case, no other procedure is likely to keep confidential the fact that Assange has been charged.”

Dwyer, whose remit also includes investigating WikiLeaks, had bungled.

“The court filing,” claimed a meek Joshua Stueve of the US attorney’s office in the Eastern District of Virginia, “was made in error.  This was not the intended name for this filing.”

What is not known is the nature of the charges and what events they might cover.  Do they date back to the days of Cablegate or feature updates with the Vault 7 revelations showing the range of cyber tools deployed by the CIA to penetrate mobile devices and computers?  Or do they feature the trove of hacked Democratic emails which constitute a feature of the Mueller investigation?  Charges might well centre on using 18 USC §641, which makes it unlawful for a person to receive any record or thing of value of the United States with intent to convert it to his use or gain, knowing that it was stolen.  But even there, the issue of press protections would apply.

Prosecutors have previously flirted with conspiracy, theft of government authority and purported violations of the Espionage Act, but the Obama administration, for all its enthusiasm in nabbing Assange kept coming up against that irritating bulwark of liberty, some would say impediment, known as the First Amendment.  Prosecute Assange, and you would be effectively prosecuting the battlers of the Fourth Estate, however withered they might be.

The free speech amendment, however, does not trouble current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who, as CIA director, claimed that,

“We have to recognize that we can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us.”

A niggling concern here lies in Justice Department regulations, as amended by Eric Holder in 2015, which cover the obtaining of information and records from, making arrests of, and bringing charges against members of the press.  As Susan Hennessey, Quinta Jurecic, Matthew Kahn and Benjamin Wittes point out in Lawfare, one exception stands out with sore attention: “The protections of the policy do not extent to any individual or entity where there are reasonable grounds to believe that the individual entity is … [a] foreign power or an agent of a foreign power”, so defined in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.  The mania in packaging, ribbon and all, of Assange with those in the Kremlin becomes clear. To make  him a foreign threat takes him outside the scope of press protection, at least when it comes to those desperately drafted regulations.

Since US voters cannot be trusted by the country’s corporate owners and the parties of business to act with any degree of maturity and intelligence, it has been assumed by the political classes that they must have been swayed and manipulated by a foreign power.  Or fake news.  Or news.  That assessment obviates any issue as to whether the Clinton machinery within the Democratic Party did its fair share of manipulation and swaying – but then again, quibbles can’t be had, nor hairs split on this point.  Keeping it local, and attacking the Great Bear fused with Satan that is Russia, frosted with new Cold War credentials, remains the low-grade, convenient alibi to justify why the backed horse did not make it to the finishing line.  To Assange would be small though consoling compensation.

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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]

Trump declined to attend the November 17 – 18 Papua New Guinea Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

Nor did he attend the November 11 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Singapore. Mike Pence and John Bolton attended in his place.

According to Singaporean diplomat Tommy Koh, “(t)o Asians, turning up for a meeting is significant,” adding major Sino/US disagreements on trade and other issues are unsettling for Asia/Pacific leaders.

The just concluded APEC summit focused heavily on major Sino/US differences on trade, investments, and security issues.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad criticized regional globalization-fueled inequality, saying:

“The benefits of free and fair trade and economic integration have been ruptured, exemplified by Brexit and trade wars between major economies,” adding:

“The trade war between the US and China has amplified further the disruption to our trade and commerce.”

Other APEC leaders slammed harmful America first protectionism. Washington’s idea of free trade isn’t fair.

For the first time, APEC leaders failed to agree on a joint communique, senior Chinese diplomat Zhang Xiaolong saying:

“The leaders agreed that instead of a traditional leaders’ declaration, they would leave it to the hands of PNG as the chair to issue a chair statement on behalf of all the members to capture the consensus” – omitting controversial issues, largely major Sino/US disagreements.

Beijing denied accusations that its officials tried to pressure summit leaders to issue a final communique according to what China wanted said.

According to host country leader Peter O’Neill, insistence by the US to have consensus in the final statement, calling for WTO reform (suiting US interests) was the main bone of contention – why a “chair’s statement” substituted for a customary final communique agreed on by all leaders.

Trump earlier threatened to pull out of the WTO, falsely claiming it unfairly favors China. O’Neill explained that APEC leaders have no say over WTO operations.

According to an unnamed APEC diplomat, last minute talks were “very tense…(W)e couldn’t come to an agreement on certain trade issues. The gulf was too big. The US and China could not see eye to eye.”

Pence vowed to maintain US pressure on China, saying bilateral differences “begin with trade practices, with tariffs and quotas, forced technology transfers, the theft of intellectual property. It goes beyond that to freedom of navigation in the seas (and) concerns about human rights.”

On all of the above, the US, far and away, is the leading global offender. No other nation comes close to matching its abusive practices, demanding all other nations bend to its will, waging endless wars of aggression to force other nations to be submissive to US interests.

Its geopolitical toughness alienates countries. On Saturday, Pence demanded China change its ways, saying

“(w)e put tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese goods, and we could more than double that number.”

China’s Xi Jinping said

“(a)ttempts to erect barriers and cut close economic ties work against the laws of economics and the trends of history. This is a short-sighted approach and it is doomed to failure,” adding:

“We should say no to protectionism and unilateralism. History has shown that confrontation – whether in the form of a cold war, hot war or trade war – will produce no winners.”

Other APEC leaders criticized Trump’s America first agenda, including unacceptable illegal sanctions as a way to try forcing other nations to bow to US demands – a failed tactic every time tried.

China’s Global Times slammed Pence’s hostile remarks, saying they offered “nothing new,” adding:

“He repeated the US’ hardline approach in its trade conflicts with China, reiterated the US’ determination of freedom of navigation, and criticized China’s foreign aid and cooperation with other countries.”

He lied saying

“(w)e don’t coerce, corrupt, or compromise your independence. The United States deals openly and fairly.”

Hardline/self-serving US geopolitical policies are polar opposite what Pence claimed, wanting other nations transformed into US vassal states, serving its interests at their expense – how Washington operates globally.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from Channel NewsAsia

Don’t believe the “experts” – Trump sent Pence to the APEC Summit not because he could care less about the Asia-Pacific, but precisely because he cares so much about the region that he wanted to insult its rising hegemon by dispatching his subordinate to issue an ultimatum to Chinese President Xi instead of doing so himself, thereby inflicting a tremendous loss of “face” that embarrassed Beijing to no end and set the stage for what’s bound to be an unforgettable G20 gathering at the end of the month. 

The Mainstream and even Alternative Medias are engaged in a coordinated campaign of “damage control” after Trump severely insulted President Xi by sending Vice President Pence to the APEC Summit instead of going there himself. The prevailing narrative is that the American leader apparently couldn’t care less about the Asia-Pacific region and therefore decided to blow it off and disrespect all of his counterparts who attended, but this is absolutely untrue since Trump has done more than any US President in history when it comes to “containing” China. Understanding the East Asian mindset, his administration knew that it would get under the Chinese’s skin if he dispatched his subordinate to the same event that the President of the People’s Republic would be attending, and worse still, to have Pence deliver the ultimatum that the US is ready to wage an “all-out cold war” against China if Beijing doesn’t bow to Washington’s demands. 

Proverbially putting his money where his mouth his, Trump also had Pence announce that the US will be partnering with Australia and using its ally’s forthcoming base in Papua New Guinea’s northern island of Manus, which is doubly provocative because this country hosted the APEC Summit and is one of China’s main partners in the South Pacific. Without a doubt, Trump calculated that his deliberately disrespectful actions would lead to China losing so much “face” that it might either surrender to his government’s demands and agree to a euphemistic so-called “truce” before the G20 gathering at the end of this month or double down on its current course of action and possibly overextend itself to the US’ long-term strategic benefit. The Chinese have a rigid social decorum that mandates that certain categories of people be treated with the utmost respect, but Trump did away with all of that by sending Pence to APEC. 

The Vice President’s attendance at the event was meant to convey a few subtle messages to Xi, the first of which is that Trump is dead serious about reaching a deal to end the “trade war” in America’s favor as soon as possible and isn’t afraid to humiliate his Chinese counterpart on the world stage in his pursuit of doing so. Secondly, Trump is naturally very angry at Xi for not caving into the US’ demands, hence why he decided to throw his purported friendship with the Chinese leader away by dispatching Pence to insult him in a manner that would lead to him tremendously losing “face”. Trump was basically signaling that he regards Xi as a regional leader from the Asia-Pacific and not a global one worthy of his time, let alone his respect since he didn’t deign to issue the “all-out cold war” ultimatum to him himself. 

In response to this unprecedented series of insults, China’s allies in the Mainstream and Alternative Medias raced to concoct a “face-saving” narrative to protect Xi’s reputation by alleging that the American leader abandoned the Asia-Pacific region because his country simply can’t compete with China there, ergo why the President didn’t think that it was worth his while to attend the APEC Summit. Such a simplistic storyline overlooks the Quad’s evolution into the Hex (which includes Vietnam and France) and the US’ newly promulgated “BUILD Act” that aims to form the basis for all of its partners to multilaterally compete with the New Silk Road. While not all that impressive in and of itself, this act of legislation can bring together the participants of the joint Indo-Japanese “Asia-Africa Growth Corridor” and have a major knock-off effect in attracting much-needed private investment. Paired with infowar techniques, it might yet prove itself formidable in the long run. 

Despite their best efforts, China’s international media allies can only change their audience’s perception of reality and not the way that reality objectively exists, meaning that they’re unable to do anything to tangibly give China an edge in its possibly impending “all-out cold war” with the US apart from counteracting some of its infowar attacks. Sometimes, however, it can be a disservice to their audience to alter the way that reality is perceived to such an extent that it becomes unrecognizable to the real thing, such as pretending that Pence’s attendance at the APEC Summit in place of Trump was somehow a sign of weakness on America’s part instead of the serious insult that it was to Xi and his country on so many levels. This set the backdrop for the upcoming G20 gathering, where Trump will either patch things up with Xi like he did with Kim earlier this year or go all out in trying to “contain” China. 

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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Politico

The Pentagon has finally completed its first ever audit and the results are as many of us expected. After spending nearly a billion dollars to find out what has happened to trillions in unaccounted-for spending, the long look through the books has concluded that only ten percent of all Pentagon agencies pass muster. I am surprised any of them did.

Even the Pentagon is not surprised by the failure of the audit.

“We failed the audit. But we never expected to pass it,” said Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan.

Can we imagine any large US company subject to the prying eyes of the IRS being so unfazed by the discovery that its books have been so mis-handled?

As with all government programs, but especially when it comes to military spending, the failure of a program never leads to calls for funding reductions. The Pentagon’s failure to properly account for the trillions of taxpayer dollars shoveled in year after year only means, they say, that we need to send more money! Already they are claiming that with more resources – meaning money – they can fix some of the problems identified by the audit.

If you subsidize something you get much more of it, and in this case we are subsidizing Pentagon incompetence. Expect much more of it.

Outgoing chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Mac Thornberry, warned against concluding that this mis-handling trillions of dollars should make us hesitant to continue sending trillions more to the Pentagon.

The failed audit “should not be used as an excuse for arbitrary cuts that reverse the progress we have begun on rebuilding our strength and readiness,” he said.

The neocons concur. Writing in the Free Beacon, editor Matthew Continetti (who happens to be Bill Kristol’s son-in-law) warns that now is “the wrong time to cut defense.”

But I agree with the young neoconservative Continetti. I would never support cutting a penny of defense. However the Pentagon’s lost trillions have nothing to do with defense. That is money propping up the high lifestyles of those connected to the military-industrial complex.

Continetti and the neocons love to throw out bogeymen like China and Russia as excuses for more military spending, but in fact they are hardly objective observers. Look at how much the military contractors spend funding the neocon publications and neocon think tanks telling us that we need more military spending! All this money is stolen from the productive economy and diverted to enrich neocon cheerleaders at our expense.

Of course the real problem with the Pentagon and military spending in general is not waste, fraud, and abuse. It is not ten thousand dollar toilet seats or coffee mugs. The problem with military spending is the philosophy that drives it. If the US strategy is to maintain a global military empire, there will never be enough spending. Because there is never enough to control every corner of the globe. But if we are to return to a well-defended republic, military spending could easily be reduced by 75 percent while keeping us completely safe. The choice is ours!

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In the “graveyard of empires,” Afghanistan never ceases to deliver geopolitical and historical twists. Last week in Moscow, another crucial chapter in this epic story was written when Russia pledged to use its diplomatic muscle to spur peace efforts in the war-torn country.

Flanked by Afghan representatives and their Taliban rivals, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov talked about “working together with Afghanistan’s regional partners and friends who have gathered at this table.”

“I am counting on you holding a serious and constructive conversation that will justify the hopes of the Afghan people,” he said.

Back in the 1980s, the Soviet Union launched a disastrous war in the country. Thirty years later, Russia is now taking the lead role of mediator in this 21st-century version of the Great Game.

The line-up in Moscow was diverse.

Four members of the High Peace Council, which is responsible for attempting a dialogue with the Taliban, took part in the talks. Yet the Afghan foreign ministry went the extra mile to stress that the council does not represent the Afghan government.

Kabul and former Northern Alliance members, who form a sort of “protective” circle around President Ashraf Ghani, in fact refuse any dialogue with the Taliban, who were their mortal enemies up to 2001.

The Taliban for their part sent a delegation of five, although spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid was adamant there wouldn’t be “any sort of negotiations” with Kabul. This was “about finding a peaceful solution to the issue of Afghanistan.”

Diplomats in Pakistan confirm the Taliban will only negotiate on substantial matters after a deal is reached with the United States on a timetable for complete withdrawal.

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stressed this was the first time a Taliban delegation had attended such a high-level international meeting. The fact that the Taliban is classified by Moscow as a “terrorist organization” makes it even more stunning.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, left, listens during the second round of talks on an Afghan settlement, in Moscow, on November 9, 2018. Photo: AFP/ Vladimir Astapkovich / Sputnik

Moscow also invited China, Pakistan, India, Iran, the five Central Asian “stans” and the US. Washington sent just a diplomat from the American Embassy in Moscow, as an observer. The new US special envoy for peace in Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, widely known in the recent past as “Bush’s Afghan”, has not exactly made much progress in his meetings with Taliban officials in Qatar in the past few months.

India – not exactly keen on a Pakistan-encouraged “Afghan-led peace” process – sent an envoy at a “non-official level” and received a dressing down from Lavrov, along the lines of  ‘Don’t moan, be constructive’. 

Still, this was just the beginning. There will be a follow-up – although no date has been set.

Enduring so much freedom

Since the US bombing campaign and invasion of what was then Taliban-controlled Afghanistan 17 years ago, peace has proved elusive. The Taliban still has a major presence in the country and is essentially on a roll. 

Diplomats in Islamabad confirm Kabul may exercise power over roughly 60% of the population, but the key fact is that only 55% of Afghanistan’s 407 districts, and perhaps even less, submit to Kabul. The Taliban are on the ascendancy in the northeast, the southwest and the southeast.

It took a long time for a new head of US and NATO operations, General Austin Scott Miller, to admit the absolutely obvious.

“This is not going to be won militarily … This is going to a political solution,” he said.

The world’s most formidable military force simply cannot win the war.

Still, after no less than 100,000 US and NATO troops plus 250,000 US-trained Afghan army and police failing over the years to prevent the Taliban from ruling over whole provinces, Washington seems determined to blame Islamabad for this military quagmire. 

The US believes Pakistan’s covert “support” for the Taliban has inflamed the situation and destabilized the Kabul government.

No wonder the Russian presidential envoy for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, went straight to the jugular.

“The West has lost the war in Afghanistan … the presence of the US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] hasn’t only failed to solve the problem, but exacerbated it.”

Lavrov, for his part, is quite concerned by the expansion of Daesh, known regionally as ISIS-Khorasan. He warned, correctly, that “foreign sponsors” are allowing ISIS-K to “turn Afghanistan into a springboard for its expansion in Central Asia”. Beijing agrees.

A grand plan by China-Russia

It’s no secret to all the major players that Washington won’t abdicate from its privileged Afghan base in the intersection of Central and South Asia for a number of reasons, especially monitoring and surveillance of strategic “threats” such as Russia and China.   

In parallel, the eternal “Pakistan plays a double game” narrative simply won’t vanish – even as Islamabad has shown in detail how the Pakistani Taliban have been consistently offered safe-havens in eastern Afghanistan by RAW (Indian intelligence) operatives.

That does not alter the fact that Islamabad has a serious Afghan problem. Military doctrine rules that Pakistan cannot manage the South Asian geopolitical chessboard and project power as an equal of India without controlling Afghanistan in “strategic depth.”

Add to it the absolutely intractable problem of the Durand Line, established in 1893 to separate Afghanistan and the British India empire. A hundred years later, Islamabad totally rejected Kabul’s appeal to renegotiate the Durand line, according to a provision in the original treaty. For Islamabad, the Durand line shall remain in perpetuity as a valid international border.

By the mid-1990s, the powers in Islamabad believed that by supporting the Taliban they would end up recognizing the Durand line and on top of it essentially dissolve the impetus of Pashtun nationalism and the call for a “Pashtunistan”.

Islamabad was always supposed to drive the narrative. History, though, turned it completely upside down. In fact, it was Pashtun nationalism plus hardcore Islamism of the Deobandi variety that ended up contaminating Pakistani Pashtuns.

Yet Pashtuns may not be the major actors in the, perhaps, final season of this Hindu Kush spectacular. That may turn out to be China.

What matters most for China is Afghanistan becoming part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). That’s exactly what Chinese envoy Yao Jing told the opening session of the 4th Trilateral Dialogue in Islamabad earlier this week between China, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

 “Kabul can act as a bridge to help expand connectivity between East, South and Central Asian regions,” Jing said.

Pakistani Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed said:

“The Greater South Asia has emerged as a geo-economic concept, driven by economy and energy, roads and railways and ports and pipelines, and Pakistan is the hub of this connectivity due to CPEC.”

For Beijing, CPEC can only deliver its enormous potential if Pakistan and India relations are normalized. And that road goes right through Afghanistan. China has been aiming for an opening for years. Chinese intel operatives have met the Taliban everywhere from Xinjiang to Karachi and from Peshawar to Doha.

The China card is immensely alluring. Beijing is the only player capable of getting along with all the other major actors: Kabul, the Taliban, the former Northern Alliance, Iran, Russia, Central Asia, the US, the EU, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and – last but not least – “all-weather” brothers Pakistan.

The only problem is India. But now, inside the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), they are all on the same table – with Iran and Afghanistan itself as observers.  Everyone knows that an Afghan Pax Sinica would involve tons of investment, connectivity and trade integration. What’s not to like?

So this is the ultimate goal of the ongoing Moscow peace talks. It’s part of a concerted SCO strategy that has been discussed for years. The long and winding road is just starting. A Russia-China-driven peace process, Taliban included. Stable Afghanistan. Islamabad as guarantor. All-Asian solution. No Western invaders welcome.

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will host his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in İstanbul on Monday for a ceremony marking the completion of the sea section of the TurkStream natural gas pipeline.

The two leaders are expected to meet later today to discuss regional affairs and economic relations between Russia and Turkey.

Monday’s meeting between Putin and Erdogan will be the third time the two leaders have met this month.

TurkStream, when completed, will consist of two lines and have the capacity to transport 31.5 billion cubic metres worth of gas from Russia. The first line will carry 15.75 billion cubic metres of gas to Turkey and the second line will transfer Russian gas to Europe via Turkey.

The pipeline will go to Europe either through Bulgaria and Serbia or through Greece and Italy and become operational by the end of 2019.

 “This project will cement military and trade relations between Turkey and Russia because it is creating a mutual interdependence,” said Ogutcu.

“It might also help Turkey to fulfil its aim of being an energy hub, but it depends on how and under which conditions the pipeline will reach Europe.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak on Sunday praised the Turkstream project and described it as a “landmark project” between the two countries.

“Turkey has become a natural gas bridge for Southeastern Europe with the TurkStream project,” Novak told Anadolu Agency in an exclusive interview.

The minister added that the Turkstream project will be the basis of long-term cooperation between the two countries. Other energy projects on the cards include the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Station on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast.

The $20bn project will be financed and built by Russia’s state-owned Rosatom, one of the biggest international projects undertaken by the Russian nuclear energy firm.

Despite Moscow and Ankara increasing its cooperation in the Middle East, they are also trying to boost their trade relations.

Turkey is hoping to resume visa-free travel between the two countries after it was stopped following a Russian jet being downed by Turkish armed forces after Russia violated Turkey’s border with Syria.

Idlib deal

In September 2018, Erdogan and Putin agreed on a roadmap to clear Idlib of the former al-Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham without the need for military intervention.

According to the roadmap, both countries would create a 15-20 kilometre demilitarised zone between rebels in Idlib and Syrian government forces by mid-October. All fighters in the zone are expected to hand over their heavy weapons. The deal has come under pressure as sporadic clashes between rebel groups and Syrian government forces continue to persist.

The two countries have also grown closer in a bid to carve out a political solution to the Syrian issue.

In October, Turkey hosted a summit with France, Germany, and Russia to discuss the Syria situation. The summit pushed for a committee to draft Syria’s post-war constitution before the end of the year.

Moscow has also shared Turkey’s concern over US backing of the pro-Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov last month said that the US is illegally seeking to establish a quasi-state in Syria through their allies.

The US has long claimed the YPG – who operate as part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – are an essential ally in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria. Turkey, however, considers it an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the US and the European Union.

However, as tensions between Turkey and the US continue over US support for the YPG, last weekend US President Donald Trump and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke in Paris and underlined their “determination” to try to rebuild ties.

In June, the US Senate approved a bill that would block or delay the sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, and earlier this month, US President Trump delayed the delivery of US-made jets to Turkey for at least 90 days.

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The Canadian Peace Congress will convene its 2018 Convention on November 24-25 in Toronto, and invites “all those concerned war, peace, and the fate of our planet to join us!”

The announcement notes that

“While aggression and war are nothing new, the rapid deterioration in international relations, increasing tensions, and the intentions of the Trump Administration to launch a whole new round of the arms race are alarming developments indeed…

“Imperialist wars of aggression on Syria and Yemen continue to rage. Despite international condemnation, Israel is tightening its siege of Gaza and its advancing its annexationist plans for the whole of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. ‘Regime change’ operations against Venezuela, Nicaragua and other progressive governments are intensifying. The hopeful signs of a peaceful resolution to the conflict on the Korean peninsula are being threatened by ultra-right hawks in Washington and the forces of the military-industrial complex. At the international level, the active cultivation of Russo-phobia and Sino-phobia is creating a chilling ‘cold war’ atmosphere which the world has not experienced for decades. Add to this the U.S. decision to cancel the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), the INF Treaty, and its threat to cancel new START treaty talks to reduce nuclear arsenals.”

Meanwhile, the Trudeau Government in Ottawa “has become one of the most bellicose voices promoting the drive to militarism, aggression and war.”

The Peace Congress convention will bring together delegates from across Canada, including from several recently-formed local chapters. For more information, readers can email the Congress: [email protected].

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The above article is from the November 16-30, 2018, issue of People’s Voice, Canada’s leading socialist newspaper.

When the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW AKA The Wobblies) was established in 1905, their goal was to see ‘One Big Union’ formed in the USA. The Wobblies came from the socialist Western Federation of Miners organization led by William D Haywood. Up to that point the major union organization at the time was the AFL (American Federation of Labor) which was a gaggle of many autonomous unions. Sadly, the AFL and its member unions only represented high skilled and high paid workers. They refused to encompass the majority of American working stiffs, who happened to be low paid and low or unskilled laborers. One could only imagine if the AFL would have ‘opened its doors’ to the majority. It didn’t, for many reasons, one being that it was allowed by the super rich who ran industry to ‘sit at their table’. There was also much discrimination by the AFL towards lower classes of immigrants. They wanted to curtail immigration, even advocating a literacy test for all immigrants… and this was a labor union!  Remember, this was over 100 years ago. Sounds familiar?

Claude Berri’s 1993 blockbuster French film Germinal was based on an Emile Zola novel concerning French coal miner strikes in the 1860s. In the film one can see what a feudal world looked like. As with John Sayles’s 1987 film Matawan, about a 1920 coal miners’ strike in West Virginia, the  miners lived in company owned rental properties and shopped in company owned stores… in both instances paying high prices for what they received. As it has always been with non union workplaces (duh, like Florida’s ‘Right to work’ laws making it more difficult for union organizing) the working stiffs always got the short end of the stick. Both of these films, depicting real life events mostly, ended with the strikers ultimately failing to get what they wanted. One scene in Germinal captured the feudal nature of things, and the mindset it established. The French miners finally organize a bit and send a small committee to meet with the mine owner (an actual replica of a ‘Lord of the Manor’) at his majestic home. They are ushered into his drawing room, with him seated behind his lavish desk. The small group of them then take off  their caps and hats and actually bow their heads a bit, as they stood in front of him… but never too close.

What helped to instigate failure by the striking miners in both films was the appearance of those good old scabs. In Matawan they were poor Italian immigrants and poor unemployed Blacks sent in by train; in Germinal they came mostly from within their own ranks. Now imagine if you would if there was a situation of having ‘One Big Union’ in both of these cases. Imagine if all the coal miners and all paid labor in the entire region around the mines belonged to ‘One Big Union’. There is no way that the owners could ever conceive of ending those strikes without first engaging in open and fair negotiations. Period! Of course, we know from historical labor study that the owners had resorted to using police and hired thug violence to quell strikes. Even then, this writer soundly believes that the presence of ‘One Big Union’ would quell such tactics. When an overwhelming number of people stand together  under the banner of one common cause…cooler heads by the bosses may just have to prevail. Perhaps I am too naive… perhaps not.

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

As Earth’s tectonic plates dive beneath one another, they drag three times as much water into the planet’s interior as previously thought.

Those are the results of a new paper published today (Nov. 14) in the journal Nature. Using the natural seismic rumblings of the earthquake-prone subduction zone at the Marianas trench, where the Pacific plate is sliding beneath the Philippine plate, researchers were able to estimate how much water gets incorporated into the rocks that dive deep below the surface.

The find has major ramifications for understanding Earth’s deep water cycle, wrote  marine geology and geophysics researcher Donna Shillington of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in an op-ed accompanying the new paper. Water beneath the surface of the Earth can contribute to the development of magma and can lubricate faults, making earthquakes more likely, wrote Shillington, who was not involved in the new research.

The deep water cycle

Water is stored in the crystalline structure of minerals, Shillington wrote. The liquid gets incorporated into the Earth’s crust both when brand-new, piping-hot oceanic plates form and when the same plates bend and crack as they grind under their neighbors. This latter process, called subduction, is the only way water penetrates deep into the crust and mantle, but little is known about how much water moves during the process, study leader Chen Cai of Washington University in St. Louis and his colleagues wrote in their new paper.

“Before we did this study, every researcher knew that water must be carried down by the subducting slab,” Cai told Live Science. “But they just didn’t know how much water.”

The researchers used data picked up by a network of seismic sensors positioned around the central Marianas Trench in the western Pacific Ocean. The deepest part of the trench is nearly 7 miles (11 kilometers) below sea level. The sensors detect earthquakes and the echoes of earthquakes ringing through Earth’s crust like a bell. Cai and his team tracked how fast those temblors traveled: A slowdown in velocity, he said, would indicate water-filled fractures in rocks and “hydrated” minerals that lock up water within their crystals.

Missing water

The researchers observed such slowdowns deep into the crust, some 18 miles (30 km) below the surface, Cai said. Using the measured velocities, along with the known temperatures and pressures found there, the team calculated that the subduction zones pull 3 billion teragrams of water into the crust every million years (a teragram is a billion kilograms).

Seawater is heavy; a cube of this water 1 meter (3.3 feet) long on each side would weigh 1,024 kilograms (2,250 lbs.). But still, the amount pulled down by subduction zones is mind-boggling. It’s also three times as much water as subduction zones were previously estimated to take in, Cai said.

And that raises some questions: The water that goes down must come up, usually in the contents of volcanic eruptions. The new estimate of how much water is going down is larger than estimates of how much is being emitted by volcanos, meaning scientists are missing something in their estimates, the researchers said.  There is no missing water in the oceans, Cai said. That means the amount of water dragged down into the crust and the amount spouted back out should be about equal. The fact that they aren’t suggests that there’s something about how water moves through the interior of Earth that scientists don’t yet understand.

“Many more studies need to be focused on this aspect,” Cai said.

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One of the key characteristics of the 2008-09 crash and its aftermath (i.e. chronic slow recovery in US and double and triple dip recessions in Europe and Japan) was a significant deflation in prices of global oil. After attaining well over $100 a barrel in 2007-08, crude oil prices plummeted, hitting a low of only $27 a barrel in January 2016. They slowly but steadily rose again in 2016-17 and peaked at about $80 a barrel this past summer 2018. Now the retreat has started once again, falling to a low of $55 in October and remain around $56 today, likely to fall further in 2019 now that Japan and Europe appear entering yet another recession and US growth almost certainly slowing significantly in 2019. With the potential for a US recession rising in late 2019 oil price deflation may continue into the near future. What will this mean for the global and US economies?

The critical question is what is the relationship between global oil price deflation, financial instability and crises, and recession–something mainstream economists don’t understand very well? Is the current rapid retreat of oil prices since August 2018 an indicator of more fundamental forces underway in the global and US economy? Will oil price deflation exacerbate, or even accelerate, the drift toward recession globally now underway? What about financial asset markets stability in general? What can be learned from the 2008 through 2015 experience?

In my 2016 book, ‘Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy’ and its chapter on deflation’s role in crises, I explained that oil is not just a commodity but, since the 1990s, has functioned as an important financial asset whose price affects other forms of financial assets (stocks, bonds, derivatives, currencies, etc.). Financial asset price volatility in general (bubbles and deflation) have a greater impact on the real economy than mainstream economists, who generally don’t understand financial markets and cycles, think. Hence they don’t understand how financial cycles interact with real business cycles. This applies as well to their understanding of oil prices as financial asset prices, not just commodity prices.

Oil Price Deflation Revisited 2018

Oil is a commodity whose price is determined by the interaction of supply and demand; but it is also a financial asset the price of which is determined by global finance capitalists’ speculation in oil futures markets and the competition between various forms of financial assets globally. For the new global finance capital elite (also addressed in the book) look at the returns on investment (e.g. profits) from financial asset investing globally—choosing between oil futures, stocks, bonds, derivatives, currencies, real estate on a worldwide basis.

The price of crude oil futures drives the price of crude oil in the short and medium term, as a commodity as speculators bet on oil supply and demand; and the relative price of other types of financial assets in part also determine the demand of oil speculators for oil futures.

What this means is that simply applying supply and demand analysis to determine the direction of crude oil prices globally is not sufficient. Neither supply nor demand has changed since August 2018 by 30% to explain the 30% drop in crude oil to its current mid-$50s range; nor will it explain where oil prices will go in 2019. Nevertheless, that’s what we hear from economists today trying to explain the recent drop or predict the trajectory of global oil price deflation in 2019.

What Mainstream Economists Don’t Understand

Mainstream economists are indoctrinated in the idea that only supply and demand determine prices. It harkens back to the influence of classical economics of the 18th century and Adam Smith. Supply and demand are the appearance of price determination. What matters are the forces behind, beneath and below that cause the changes in supply and demand. Those forces are the real determinants. But mainstream economists typically deal at the surface of appearances, which is why their forecasts of economic directions in the medium and longer term are so poor.

Looking at recent explanations and analyses by mainstream economists, and their echo in the business media, we get the following view:

First, it is clear that there are three major sources of oil supply globally today: US production driven by technology and the shale fracking revolution. Second, Russian production. Third, OPEC, within which Saudi Arabia and its allies, UAE, Kuwait, etc. Each produce about 10-11 million barrels per day, or bpd.

Since this summer, US fracking has resulted in roughly an additional 670,000 barrels a day by October compared to last July 2018. Both Saudi and Russian production has added roughly 700,000 more, each respectively. Offsetting the supply increase, in part, has been a reduction in output by Venezuela and Iran—both driven by US sanctions and, in the case of Venezuela, US longer term efforts to prevent the upgrading and maintenance of Venezuelan production.

The more than 2 million bpd increase in global crude oil supply by the global oil troika of US- Russia-Saudi has, on the surface, appeared as a collapse in global oil prices from $80 to $55, or about 30% in just a few months. Projections are supply increases will drive global oil prices still lower in 2019: US forecasts for 2019 are for an average of 12.06 million bpd; for Russia an average of 11.4 million bpd; and for Saudi an average of 10.6 million bpd. (Sources: EIA and OPEC secretariat).

Demand & Supply as Mere Appearance

So the appearance is that supply will drive global oil prices still lower in 2019. But what about demand? Will the forces behind it drive oil price deflation even further? And what about other financial asset markets’ price deflation? Will declines in stock, bond, derivatives, and currencies prices result in financial capitalist investors increasing their demand for oil futures as they shift investing from the collapse of values in those financial markets to oil? Or will it reduce their investing in oil futures as other financial asset markets prices deflate, as a psychological contagion effect spreads across financial asset markets in general, oil futures included?

While mainstreamers focus on and argue that pure supply considerations will predict the price of oil, my analysis insists that a deeper consideration of forces are necessary. What’s driving, and will continue to drive, oil prices are Politics, other financial markets’ price deflation, and Demand that will be driven by renewed recessions in the major advanced economies (Europe, Japan, then US, and continued GDP slowdown in China).

As global economic growth slows, now clearly underway, more than half of the world’s oil producers will increase oil production. Russia, Venezuela, Iraq, smaller African and Asia producers, are dependent on oil sales to finance much of their government budgets. As real growth slows, and recessions appear or worsen, deficits will rise further requiring more government revenues from oil sales. What these countries can’t generate in revenues from prices they will attempt to generate from more sales volume. Even Saudi Arabia has entered this group, as it seeks to generate more revenue to finance the development of its non-energy based economy plans.

So Russia and much of OPEC for political reasons will increase supply because of slowing economies—i.e. because of Demand originally and Supply only secondarily. As the global economy continues to slow Demand forces trump those of Supply. But the two are clearly mutually determined. It’s just that Demand has now become more determining and will remain so into 2019.

Debt as a Driver of Global Oil Deflation

But what’s ultimately behind the Demand forces at work? In the US it’s technology, the fracking revolution, driving down the cost of oil production and thus its price. It’s also corporate debt, often of the junk quality, that has financed the investment behind the oil production output rise. Drillers are loaded with junk bond debt, often short term, that they must pay for, or soon roll over now at a higher interest rate in 2019 and beyond. They must produce and sell more oil to pay for the new technology driven investment of recent years. And as the price falls they must produce and sell still more to generate the revenue to pay the interest and principal on that debt.

So is it really Supply, or is it more fundamentally the debt and technology that’s driving US shale output, that in turn is adding to downward global price pressures? Is it Supply or is it the way that Supply has been financed by capitalist markets?

Similarly, in the case of Russia and much of OPEC, is it Supply or is it the need of those countries to finance their government growing debt loads (and budgets in general) by generating more sales revenue from more oil output, even as the price of oil falls and thereby threatens that oil revenue stream?

Whether at the corporate or government level, the acceleration of debt in recent years is behind the forces driving excess oil production and Supply that appears the cause of the emerging oil price deflation.

Politics as a Driver of Global Oil Deflation

Domestic and global politics is another related force in some cases. Clearly, Russia is engaged in an increase in its military research and other military-related government expenditures. Its governing elite is convinced the US is preparing to challenge its political independence: NATO penetration of the Baltics and Poland, the US-encouraged coup in the Ukraine, past US ventures in Georgia, etc. has led to Russian acceleration of its military expenditures. To continue its investment as the US attempts to impose further sanctions (designed to cut Russia connections with Europe in particular), and as Russia’s economy slows as it raises its domestic interest rates in order to protect its currency, Russia must produce and sell more oil globally. It thus generates more demand for its oil competitively by lowering its price. Demand for Russian oil increases—but not due to natural economic causes as the world economy slows. It increases because it shifts oil demand from other producers to itself.

Saudi politics are also in part behind its planned production increase. It has stepped up its military expenditures as well, both for its war in Yemen and its plans for a future conflict with Iran. The Saudi government investment in domestic infrastructure also requires it to generate more oil revenue in the short term.

The recent Russian-Saudi(OPEC) agreement to reduce or hold oil production steady has been a phony agreement, as actual and planned oil production numbers clearly reveal.

Not least, there’s the question of global financial asset markets’ in decline with falling asset prices and how that impacts the oil commodity futures financial asset market. Once again, changes in oil supply and demand simply do not fluctuate by 30% in just a couple months. The driver of oil prices since July 2018 must be financial speculation in oil futures.

Here it may be argued that investors are factoring in the slowing global economy, especially in Europe and Japan, in coming months. They may be shifting investment out of oil futures as a speculative price play, and into US currency and even stocks and bonds. Or into financial asset markets in China. Or speculating on returns in select emerging market currencies and stocks that have stabilized in the short term and may rise in value, producing a nice speculative gain in the short run. The new global finance capital elite looks at competitive returns globally, in all financial asset markets. It moves its money around quickly, from one asset play to another, enabled by technology, past removal of controls on global money capital flows, easy borrowing, and ability to move quickly in and out of what is a complex network of highly liquid financial asset markets worldwide. As it sees global demand and politics playing important short term roles in global oil price declines, it shifts investment out of oil futures and into other forms of financial assets elsewhere in the global economy. Less supply of money capital for investing in oil futures reduces the demand for oil futures, which in turn reduces demand for oil and crude oil prices in general.

Conclusion

What this foregoing discussion and analysis suggests is the following:

• Looking at oil supply solely or even primarily is to look at appearances only
• But Supply & Demand analyses of oil prices are also superficial analyses of appearances. They are intermediate causal factors at best.
• What matters are real forces that more fundamentally determine supply and demand
• Politics, technology, and debt financing are more fundamental forces driving supply and demand in the intermediate and longer run.
• Oil is not just a commodity, since the 1990s especially; it has become a financial asset whose price is determined in the short run increasingly by speculative investing shifts by global finance capital elites.
• As financial assets, oil prices are determined in the short run globally by the relative price of other competing financial assets and their prices
• The structure of the global economy in the 21st century is such that a new global finance capital elite has arisen, betting on a wide choice of financial assets available in highly liquid financial asset markets, across which the elite moves investments quickly and easily due to new enabling technologies and past deregulation of cross-country money capital flows

To summarize, as it appears increasingly that politics (domestic budgets and revenue needs, US sanctions, rising military expenditures, trade wars, etc.) and a slowing global economy are causing downward pressure on oil demand and thus oil prices; this price pressure is exacerbated by a corresponding increase in production and supply as a result of rising corporate and government debt and debt-servicing needs. However, in the very short run of weekly and monthly price change, it is global oil speculators betting on further oil price deflation and shifting asset investment returns elsewhere that is the primary driver of global oil deflation.

Global oil prices are in determined by other financial asset market price deflation underway in the short term, and in turn determine in part price deflation in other financial asset markets. Global oil prices cannot be understood apart from understanding what’s happening with other financial asset markets and prices.

Understanding and predicting oil prices is thus not simply an exercise in superficial supply and demand analysis, and even less so an exercise primarily in forecasting announcements of production output plans by the big three troika of US-Russia-Saudi.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: Jack Rasmus.

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.

This article was first published on August 19, 2018

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Central banks in several regions of the World are building up their gold reserves.

A large part of these Central Bank purchases of gold bullion are not disclosed. They are undertaken through third party contracting companies, with utmost discretion. 

The evidence amply suggests that US dollar holdings and US dollar denominated debt instruments are being traded in for gold, which in turn puts pressure on the US dollar.  

In the course of the last ten years, both China and Russia have boosted domestic production of gold, a large share of  which is being purchased by their central banks.

In the current context, these initiatives on the part of China and Russia are intended to challenge US dollar hegemony. There is an obvious strategic objective associated with the accumulation of gold reserves.

The objective of China and Russia is to build their national currencies under the gold standard, whereby the value of the yuan and the ruble would be linked to the price of gold. Both countries are dumping dollar denominated Treasuries. China is using its extensive treasury dollar reserves to finance large scale investments.

Dominance in physical gold reserves, however, does not necessarily ensure national sovereignty with regard to monetary policy (devoid of dollar hegemony) nor does it ensure control of the international gold market.

The price of gold is notoriously unstable. US financial institutions can act against Russia and China without actually possessing physical gold. They are able to influence the gold and foreign exchange markets through various speculative instruments including naked short-selling.

The gold market is not limited to the trade in physical gold. It is characterised by numerous paper instruments, gold index funds, gold certificates, OTC gold derivatives (including options, swaps and forwards), which play a strong role, particularly in short-term movement of gold prices. These instruments are routinely used to manipulate the market in physical gold.

It’s financial warfare: Those same speculative instruments are also available to Chinese and Russian financial operators including their central banks. Needless to say, they are acutely aware of the instability and manipulative environment which characterizes the gold market.

China: Largest Gold Producer

China is currently the World’s largest gold producer followed by Australia and Russia. “It has long been assumed that China is surreptitiously building up its gold reserves through buying local production”. But it is also investing in several gold producing countries.

Chinese companies are investing in gold mining in different regions of the World (including South Africa and Australia), largely with a view to establishing a global hegemony on the supply side. While China’s domestic production is high, its reserves are significantly lower than those of Australia, Russia and the U.S.

• Major Chinese firms will ramp up investment in foreign gold mines, ….
• Chinese firm Shandong Gold purchase of a 50% stake in the Veladero mine in Argentina from Barrick Gold for USD960mn. …
• state-owned China National Gold Group’s USD300mn purchase of the Jinfeng gold mine from Eldorado Gold and Indonesian firm PT Amman Mineral International’s USD1.3bn purchase of Newmont Mining’s Indonesian assets, …
•  In 2015, China set up a new USD16.0bn mining fund to develop gold mining projects along the planned Silk Road infrastructure route. (See Fitch Solutions)

China and Russia are also collaborating in terms of joint ventures in gold mining

Graph for 2017: Wikipedia, quoting “Where Have All the Gold Mines Gone?” and “U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries” (PDF). USGS. 2017.

China’ Central Bank Reserves

China’s central bank gold reserves have increased from 600 tons in 2003 to 1054 tons in 2009. If we go by official statements, China’s gold reserves have tripled since 2003. They currently stand at 1842 metric tons (July 2018)

Russia

The Russian Central bank purchases gold from a Russian state company “Gokhran, which is the marketing arm and central repository for the country’s mined gold production”. Mineweb. Recent reports (April 2018) confirm that Russia purchased 300,000 troy ounces of  gold in March 2018, i.e. 18.66 metric tons.

Russia’s Central bank holdings were in excess of 20 million troy ounces or 622 tons (January 2010). The latest figures (July 2018) confirm that gold reserves of the Russian Federation have more than tripled since 2010. They currently stand (July 2018) at 1909.8 tons. (see diagram below).

Turkey’s Gold Holdings  

There has been an upward trend since January 2017. Turkish media Yeni Safak suggests that the Erdogan government had ordered in 2017 the repatriation of “all of its gold stored in the U.S. Federal Reserve” i.e. 220 metric tons. it would appear that the run on the Turkish Lira in 2018 has been conducive to a major collapse in Turkey’s Central Bank reserves.

The published World Gold Council figure for July 2018 remained to be fully corroborated.

Gold Prices

As mentioned earlier, the sale and purchase of physical gold are not the only factor in explaining the movement of gold prices. The gold market is marked by organized speculation by large scale financial institutions.

The price of gold is an instrument of financial warfare. In the present context, Wall Street is intent upon manipulating the gold market.

William Blum is a powerful voice. His analysis of US imperialism reaches out to thousands of readers. He has contributed to Global Research for more than ten years. To consult his writings click here

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The historian and critic of US foreign policy William Blum has been in failing health for some time. 85 years old, he suffers from kidney failure and is on dialysis. Over two weeks ago he sustained a serious fall at his apartment in the Washington, D.C., area and was rushed to the hospital after a friend discovered him still lying where he fell two days after his injury.

Below is a letter from family notifying readers of his newsletter, the Anti-Empire Report, by email why it has missed publication this month and detailing the extent of his medical injuries:

I’m writing to you in place of William Blum.

I’m his friend, his ex-wife, and the mother of his son, who lives in Germany.

He will not be able to write his Anti-Empire Report.

He had a very bad fall in his apartment. There he lay for many hours, maybe up to two days, unable to move, until a friend found him.

He was taken to the ICU. He is no longer in critical condition, but he is still confused, extremely weak, and can’t move his right arm.

He has been in the hospital for more than two weeks now, and it is impossible to say how much longer he has to stay there, and he will certainly need long-term care.

As you may guess, he does not have the best of insurances. Which means: he needs your help!

If you wish, you can donate to Bill using the button below:

DONATE

Adelheid Zöfel
Literary Translator
Freiburg, Germany
Email: [email protected]

Last year Blum wrote about his deteriorating physical state:

My kidneys are gone and I’m on (rather unpleasant) dialysis for the rest of my life. My separated-from German wife is in Germany and can’t fly because of the danger of blood clots forming and lodging in her lungs or heart. I’m an avid reader of medical news and almost every day I get choked-up and depressed by the never-ending heart-breaking stories of incurable pain and suffering of the old and the young.

…

So far the dialysis does not seem to have helped, at least not with my two main symptoms: deep-seated sleepiness at home, resulting in repeated naps, making my writing difficult; and getting out-of-breath and having to stop and rest after a very short and slow walk outdoors.

Blum is the author of five books, most notably Rogue State: A Guide To The World’s Only Superpower, an encyclopedia of US meddling around the world, and Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, widely considered to be the single most exhaustive treatment of all post-war US bombing campaigns and coups.

He will need long term care. His medical bills are mounting and, in light of the fact he gave up a well paying career in the US State Department over the Vietnam War to be a dissident writer, and given he was blacklisted from lecturing at colleges, his health insurance is not sufficient to cover his expenses. If you want to help, please consider making a contribution to this appeal by visiting his website, scrolling down to the bottom, and clicking the “donate button”.

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The following article is by Janice Kortkamp, a honest and courageous American citizen who visited Syria on several occasions.

***

I was offered the opportunity to interview this man and was thankful for it because this gets into the very heart of the conflict here. The “moderate rebels”, the “freedom fighters” … those armed groups that have been directly supported by my government.

It is ironic perhaps that the group this guy was in is Ahrar al Sham (an Al Qaeda affiliated group). On my first trip in May 2016, I was heading from a village near Homs to the city. The road at that time was quite dangerous and ‘hot’ because the whole plain from the hills where I’d been to Homs was scattered with ISIS, al Qaeda and many other groups who controlled different villages in the area.

We passed right by a power station on the road and just beyond it is/was an Alawite village called al Zara that was pointed out to me. That morning the people of al Zara were going about a typical day. I remember I waved towards it and said “hello al Zara” for some reason.

We got to Homs. Next day that village was attacked by Ahrar al Sham and al Nusra together. A massacre. Men and women and children slaughtered. One report from someone I consider credible and who has proven accurate always, said the terrorists hung some children up after they had witnessed their parents being killed. They burned them to death.

On another trip, while in Aleppo, was scheduled to go to a refugee center to meet with people coming from eastern Aleppo. The day before we went, Ahrar al Sham and al Nusra bombed buses of Shiite villagers leaving the terrorist-beseiged villages of Kefraya and Foua in Idlib as a prisoner swap deal. 5,000 people were being transported but as a final gesture by the “rebel” terrorists who love “freedom and democracy” they arranged bombs to target some of the buses. They killed over 100 – mostly children. The survivors were brought to the refugee center we were visiting and we got to speak to them. Vanessa Beeley was also there and did important interviews and articles about it.

So all that to say, I personally know something of the character of the group Ahrar al Sham. Again, it’s a group directly supported by the US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey as “moderates” who received money, weapons including advanced weaponry, intelligence support, etc. The US has refused throughout the war to designate it as a terrorist group.

Now about Adnan.

He has five children and is from al Waer unlike many of the fighters who were in that suburb who came from all over Syria and some from other countries. As we approached him he was busy welding some decorations onto a door. No eye protection and smoking, he seemed content and even jovial, very willing to talk though somewhat manic. We went into a room next door and began.

Adnan is walking free in al Waer because he accepted reconciliation from the government.  As Homs city was being liberated from the many armed groups that had terrorized it for years, fighters moved into al Waer and it became a stronghold that was not fully liberated until 2017 – not entirely via military victory but through this process called “reconciliation”.

Basically the offer was that fighters willing to lay down their arms and re-enter civil society or fight for the Syrian Army could do so. Or they could take their families and personal possessions including rifles to Idlib or Jarablus. Most civilians chose to stay and some of the fighters like Adnan as well. Idlib in particular is now populated by tens of thousands of fighters and their families who refused to stop fighting against the government. Many were misled by the terrorist leaders into thinking they would be killed by the Syrian Army if they stayed. Nothing of the sort happened of course which I’ll elaborate on in a future post.

According to all the first hand testimonies I’ve heard, including those in al Waer, as armed groups took over areas the civilized society of Syria was replaced with their violence and rule by sharia law. Minorities were driven out or executed.

You might ask how any rational person would choose to stay in such situations like the civilians who have stayed in terrorist held areas.

How to try to explain this in ways Americans can understand? This is the best I can come up with: imagine you’re a white American and the white supremacist movement has gained  momentum thanks to external support from other countries who want to destroy America. These other countries use non stop propaganda to fuel fears among whites that the government and minority groups want all the whites dead.

Those other countries bring in massive numbers of weapons and huge stacks of cash to white supremacist leaders and fanatics over the borders of Canada and Mexico. Many whites buy into the whole charade out of fear or feelings of hatred towards minorities. Getting sucked into the mob mentality they begin to view their minority neighbors, even former friends, with distrust and prejudice. The groups take over key cities and ‘purify’ them of minorities. Most whites in the US see this is happening and resist it all but others accept it and stay in their cities and just survive through it because while they don’t like the way the white supremacists are treating them they at least can live and work. Yes, similar to the Nazi ideology.

Replace Sunni supremacists with white supremacists and you get the idea of what happened here. Whether political, racist or religious, extremism leads to violence and chaos.

It is absolutely essential to understand that most Sunnis in Syria do NOT support this ideology or these “rebel” terrorists. Although Sunnis are the great majority here only a minority of them went against their government. In fact the majority of the army and government are Sunnis as is President Assad’s wife, the First Lady Asma.

So back again to Adnan.

As the groups took over al Waer they got men and youths to join them using many different means. First, the family of any man or son that joined the cause was well treated. They got food for example and medical care. Families whose fathers and sons did not fight went starving and were persecuted. This was the motivation of Adnan according to him. Is he telling the truth? Only God knows.

Others were lured by the high pay offered thanks to the deep pockets of the Persian Gulf states particularly Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Fighters for “rebel” groups typically were paid ten times what soldiers in the Syrian Army are paid. They also got perks like women and drugs, especially captagon, which I describe as like crystal meth. It makes you oblivious to pain, fear and fatigue for days. Also makes you crazy.

Of course there are those who are truly brainwashed and support the idea of Syria becoming a religious fundamentalist sharia law based state. This is anathema to the great majority of Syrians of all faiths and backgrounds. The harmony and mutual respect among religious groups, the empowerment of women, the personal freedoms and safety here are precious and protected. The brainwashed ones teach their children to hate and kill as they do. In fact, “rebel” terrorist groups used even children as snipers, fighters and suicide bombers. One sniper was only nine years old in eastern Aleppo. Of course the western governments and media never talk of this or the constant atrocities of their pet “rebels”. They don’t care about the children being raised up to be the next generation of ISIS and al Qaeda.

So whatever his reason truly was, Adnan became a sniper for Ahrar al Sham, one of strongest of many groups in al Waer. He and others like him were stationed in the high rises of the neighborhood. From their vantage points they could shoot people on the streets or soldiers far outside the area to instill terror in the people of Homs.

On the edge of al Waer is the busy road from Homs to Tartous. Most people in Syria travel on buses both large and small from place to place. The terrorists in al Waer had checkpoints set up on the road in addition to the snipers. They would stop the buses. Alawites, Christians and Shiites would be separated. Many were executed outright; others were kidnapped and held for ransom. If the ransom was not paid the victims would often be chopped into pieces and laid out on busy streets as a warning of what would happen if demands weren’t met.

These kinds of crimes were literally 100% non existent in Syria before Obama and Hillary and McCain and Graham and Rubio etc started arming and supporting the terrorist “freedom fighters”. Syria was the 5th safest country in the world according to Gallup polls.

I asked Adnan about foreign fighters, particularly commanders. He said the commanders were always behind the scenes and the regular fighters never dealt with them, only their local lieutenants. Every fighter was given a new name – they and the commanders never used their real names.

Another question I had was this … many fighters and their supporters claim this ‘revolution’ was against the government because they were not allowed to criticize the President/government and they were fighting for that freedom. In my personal experience talking with Syrians many seem quite open and express serious concerns about many issues actually but it is well known that security is tight here. Over the war people have learned how deadly Syria’s enemies are and this explains some of why this is so. Also Syria  before Hafez al Assad had suffered through many coups (usually assisted by outside governments like the US) that destabilized the country. Anyway, that’s a topic for another article. My question to Adnan was – while people living under the rule of the armed groups were able to criticize President Assad all day long and cheered on doing it, were they allowed to criticize their “rebel” rulers? Of course not was the answer. Severe punishment, even execution were the penalties for such crimes.

Adnan, for all his wild eyed, semi-manic mannerisms struck me as pragmatic, not fanatical. I deliberately held out my hand to shake his to see if he would touch a woman and he did without hesitation. Perhaps he really does want to just move on or maybe he is a crouching tiger, a ticking time bomb; I can’t judge that.

At the end I asked him what his advice was to the “rebels” holding Idlib. His response, if I’m understanding it correctly, was “the train will keep moving but dogs stay behind” by which I think he meant that their defeat is inevitable but many will stubbornly keep fighting out of spite and stupidity.

Adnan, while I’m sure he is being closely observed, is free now to decide his future –  unlike the innocent Syrians he killed. The reconciliation program is highly controversial. Many Syrians will never forgive or trust those who took up arms against their country and their neighbors. Others see it as a successful strategy for ending the violence in many areas.  Only time will tell. This is something for Syrians alone to debate and decide. The pain and suffering are theirs alone. Their future is too.

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Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes  the mainstream media narratives on Syria. 

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ISBN: 978-0-9879389-1-6

Author: Mark Taliano

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Post-WW II US-orchestrated new world order transformed sovereign Western European countries into virtual US colonies.

Their status remains unchanged today, their sovereign independence more myth than reality – serving Washington’s geopolitical interests, even when harming their own.

Since the Trump regime’s May 8 withdrawal from the JCPOA, followed by multiple rounds of stiff illegal sanctions on Iran, lofty EU rhetoric hasn’t been followed by firm policy decisions, strongly supported by all member states, denouncing US actions, refusing to go along with them.

It’s how the EU virtually always operates, yielding its sovereignty to a higher power headquartered in Washington, the shame of all member states.

They’re allied with endless illegal US wars of aggression, preemptively smashing one country after another, seeking dominance of planet earth, its member states, resources, and populations.

They’ve gone along with illegal US sanctions on Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and other countries, flagrant breaches of international law.

Their promises to continue normal relations with Iran, including purchases of its oil and related promises, appear more unfulfilled lofty rhetoric than firm policy.

US temporary waivers granted to 10 nations lets them continue buying Iranian energy until next May – EU states not included among countries exempted from observing US sanctions on Iranian oil and gas.

SWIFT disconnected Iranian banks from its international financial transactions system, bowing to Washington’s will.

Brussels’ pledge to create a “special purpose (financial transactions) vehicle (SPV) for European companies to circumvent SWIFT in dealings with Iran to bypass US financial sanctions failed to get support from any EU member state, killing the initiative, one unnamed European diplomat saying:

“No one has come forward at this stage. If we don’t have a host country, we have a very big problem. So much is riding on this that some way will need (to be found) for someone to host this. There is a lot of nervousness about what hosting an SPV means.”

Another unnamed EU diplomat was quoted, saying

“Austria…refused. It’s not dead, but it’s not going in the right direction. We are going to try again with Luxembourg, but we’re under no illusions.”

Fearing US punitive measures against them isn’t good enough. If major EU nations Britain, France, Germany and others refuse to go along with hostile US actions against Iran or any other countries, Washington is powerless to do anything about it.

EU/NATO nations are its most important allies. Punishing them for failure to obey its will would weaken US control over them – something even Trump regime hardliners aren’t likely to risk.

The way to counter US hegemonic aims is by refusal of key nations to go along with policies harming their own interests – clearly the case with US sanctions on Iran, Russia and other countries.

So far, Brussels and EU member states lack backbone enough to challenge Washington. As long as its subservience continues, the bloc will be allied with Washington against Iran.

Based on what’s happened since May 8 when Trump withdrew from the JCPOA, European Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova’s pledge to find a solution for continuing normal relations with Iran sounded like more of the same rhetoric without responsible follow-through, saying:

“We Europeans cannot accept that a foreign power, not even our closest friend and ally, takes decisions over our legitimate trade with another country,” adding:

The bloc won’t be cowed by US threats. Its months of stalling tactics indicate otherwise. It’s up to Russia, China, India, and other nations to lead in refusing to go along with US interests harming their own.

Until and unless proved otherwise, EU/NATO nations are US vassal states, obeying orders from Washington, abandoning their own sovereign rights – the way it’s been post WW II.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from Strategic Culture Foundation

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America’s Permanent-War Complex

By Gareth Porter, November 18, 2018

What President Dwight D. Eisenhower dubbed the “military-industrial complex” has been constantly evolving over the decades, adjusting to shifts in the economic and political system as well as international events.

More American Troops to Afghanistan, To Keep the Chinese Out? Lithium and the Battle for Afghanistan’s Mineral Riches

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, November 18, 2018

Unknown to the broader public, Afghanistan has significant oil, natural gas and strategic raw material resources, not to mention opium, a multibillion dollar industry which feeds America’s illegal heroin market.

Video: Italy: A Whole US/NATO Strategic Military Base, “Global NATO”

By Manlio Dinucci, November 17, 2018

Manlio Dinucci in this carefully documented Pandora TV production focuses on US-NATO military deployment in Italy and around the World in what might described as “Global NATO”.

Release of Top Secret CIA Document Reveals Deeper Medical Complicity in Torture Program

By Physicians for Human Rights, November 17, 2018

With the release of a previously top secret document – made public thanks to a legal victory by the ACLU – disclosing the role of the Office of Medical Services (OMS) in the CIA’s torture program, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) reminds health professionals that torture, in all its forms, is one of the most serious human rights violations and is absolutely prohibited under U.S. and international law, and that any collusion in its implementation – from planning through monitoring – is a gross violation of professional ethics.

United States Budgetary Costs of the Post-9/11 Wars: $5.9 Trillion Spent and Obligated

By Prof. Neta C. Crawford, November 17, 2018

The United States has appropriated and is obligated to spend an estimated $5.9 trillion (in current dollars) on the war on terror through Fiscal Year 2019, including direct war and war-related spending and obligations for future spending on post-9/11 war veterans (see Table 1).

Here’s What You’ll Pay for Neocon Wars: $5,900,000,000,000

By Kurt Nimmo, November 16, 2018

More evidence the “war on terror,” now shifted over to a New Cold War against Russia and China, is nothing if not a money-maker for the merchants of death and the usury banksters. 

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The United States opposed on Friday for the first time an annual draft resolution at the United Nations calling on Israel to rescind its authority in the occupied Golan Heights, drawing praise from Israeli officials.

The Golan Heights, Syrian territory illegally occupied and subsequently annexed by Israel, forms a strategic plateau between Israel and Syria of about 1,200 square km.

It was part of Syria until Israel captured it in the 1967 Middle East War. Israel moved settlers into the area and annexed the territory in 1981 in a move not recognised internationally.

The United States has abstained in previous years on the “Occupied Syrian Golan” resolution, which declares Israel’s decision to impose its jurisdiction in the area “null and void,” but US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Thursday that Washington would vote against the resolution.

“The United States will no longer abstain when the United Nations engages in its useless annual vote on the Golan Heights,” Haley, who will be leaving her post by the end of the year, said in a statement.

“The resolution is plainly biased against Israel. Further, the atrocities the Syrian regime continues to commit prove its lack of fitness to govern anyone,” her statement said.

Despite the US opposition, a UN General Assembly committee approved the draft resolution on Friday with 151 votes in favour and 14 abstentions. Only Israel joined the United States in voting no. The General Assembly is due to formally adopt the resolution next month.

The US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, said in September he expects Israel to keep the Golan Heights in perpetuity.

Since early in Donald Trump’s presidency, Israel has lobbied for formal US endorsement of its control of the Golan.

Trump has recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, breaking with other world powers, though his national security adviser, John Bolton, told Reuters in August that a similar Golan move was not under discussion.

Israel has repeatedly bombed military targets in Syria since the start of the civil war in 2011. Damascus also has accused the Israeli government of harbouring and supporting hardline rebels, whom it labels as terrorists, near the Golan Heights.

In the late 2000s, secret talks began between Syria and Israel that reportedly included the possibility Israel would return the area to Syria in exchange for a peace deal.

Negotiations collapsed when Israel launched its war in Gaza in 2009.

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians fled the Golan into other parts of Syria in the aftermath of the 1967 war. The population of the region is now a mix of Syrian Arabs and Israeli settlers.

Until 2012, the vast majority of Golan Syrians – who are mostly Druze – refused offers of Israeli citizenship. However, the Syrian civil war has led to many applying for citizenship.

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Featured image: Israel’s Merkava Tank in the Golan Heights. (By ChameleonsEye /Shutterstock)

The CIA has leaked against Jared Kushner and Trump that Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), the Saudi crown prince, ordered the murder of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

President Trump had asked the CIA to do an assessment of the murder. Apparently, from the leak to the US press, part of the evidence came from National Security Agency wiretaps of the Saudi Embassy in Washington, DC. They caught Khalid Bin Salman, the crown prince’s brother and Saudi ambassador to the US, telling Khashoggi that it would be fine for him to pick up the paperwork needed for his marriage to his Turkish fiancee from the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Either Prince Khalid was in on the plot to murder Khashoggi, or he was duped by his brother to lull the dissident journalist into a false sense of security. He called Khashoggi on instructions from his brother, MBS.

Trump had asked for the report, but it is unlikely that he wanted it made public. The CIA is deliberately leaking it. Since the agency is aware that Mohammed Bin Salman is teflon inside Saudi Arabia, it seems probable that the target of the leak is in the US. The member of the administration closest to MBS is Jared Kushner, though Trump himself has admitted that he wants the sale of US arms to MBS more than he wants Khashoggi’s killer brought to justice. The CIA may be attempting to discredit Kushner and to detach Trump from his alliance with the crown prince.

The Saudi government has attempted to whitewash the murder. First it denied the killing. Then it blamed low-level rogue intelligence agents. Then it sentenced the latter to death so as to make sure they do not talk. The Saudis deny that Mohammed Bin Salman ordered that Khashoggi be whacked, which is laughable, since no one would dare do such a thing without his orders. It is an absolute monarchy, after all.

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The First International Conference Against US/NATO Military Bases will be held November 16-18, 2018, in Dublin, Ireland. The conference is jointly organized by the Peace and Neutrality Alliance (PANA), Ireland, and the Coalition Against US Foreign Military Bases, USA.

WILPF-US is one of the founding organizations of the Coalition Against US Foreign Military Bases, USA  that organized a conference in Baltimore, January 12-14, 2018, where a resolution was passed to organize an unprecedented and historic global conference.

An important article, “The Foundation For International Justice is Anti-Imperialism” makes clear why this global conference is so urgently urgently needed: it will provide the opportunity for peace groups from the many countries participating to present the situation in their country and region, and to join together to outline next steps toward global justice and peace. The list of Sponsoring Organizations from all corners of the world grows longer each day.

Here’s what you can do:

1. Take a look at the basic outline and themes of the Conference Program. The program is under development, so please check back regularly for updated information on speakers and speaker biographies.
2.  Please read the Global Unity Statement and endorse the Global Unity Statement. Please share with your friends on Facebook and Twitter.
3. Please post the attached flyer at public places and forward to friends, colleagues, and organizations asking that they go to www.nousnatobases.org to read and sign the Global Unity Statement.
4. Registration is now open. Here is registration information and the registration form.

A sliding registration fee has been set up in order to make it possible for people of different levels of income to participate.

As you can imagine, this conference is not only expensive to put on, but we want to raise sufficient funds to be able to offer scholarships and financial support to make it possible for those coming from a long distance or who have less financial resources to be a speaker or to attend. Since several hours on Day 2 are devoted to discussion and planning for “next steps,” it is crucial to have people attending from anti-war/anti-imperialism and peace groups from as many countries as possible.

Please consider making a generous tax-exempt donation to this unprecedented and historic global peace conference. Just go to www.nousnatobases.org and see the “Donate” button on the right-hand side of the homepage.

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Legendary Marlon Brando was interviewed on The Dick Cavett Show 6/12/1973 after he refused to accept the Oscar at 45th Academy Awards®, 1973 to protest the treatment of American Indians. Our kind of hero – should be a celebrity rule! Where are the actors like him in present day Hollywood?

“I think awards in this country at this time are inappropriate to be received or given until the condition of the American Indian is drastically altered. If we are not our brother’s keeper, at least let us not be his executioner.”  — Marlon Brando (1924 – 2004)

Marlon Brando was an extraordinary human being and one of the first actor-activists to march for Black American and American Indian rights. He spoke out against racism often and forcefully. He marched in demonstrations. And he gave money to civil rights groups.

For the 45th Annual Academy Awards® in 1973, Liv Ullmann and Roger Moore presented the award and inspiring Marlon Brando (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) did not attend and refused to accept the Oscar for his performance in The Godfather. American Indian Apache Sacheen Littlefeather represented him at the ceremony.

She appeared in full Apache clothing and stated that owing to the “poor treatment of American Indians in the film industry”, Brando would not accept the award. –THAT IS HOW CELIBRITIES SHOULD SUPPORT!–

At this time, the 1973 standoff at Wounded Knee occurred, causing rising tensions between the government and American Indian activists. The event grabbed the attention of the US and the world media. This was considered a major event and victory for the movement by its supporters and participants.

Brando’s speech was written during the siege at Wounded Knee led by the American Indian Movement (which started in late February 1973), for delivery at the Oscar ceremonies. As mentioned above, Brando himself did not attend the event, and refused the Oscar. Sacheen Littlefeather, who attempted to deliver the speech, was able to read only a part of it (hence, the “unfinished” in the title below) before being booed from the stage.

We need more celebrities following Marlon Brando’s stand for social justice. An inspiring man who stood tall against injustice. Who is following that example today?

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Months of unprecedented California wildfires keep raging – the most destructive and deadly in state history, so far around 1.7 million acres destroyed.

Through Saturday, 76 fatalities were reported, nearly 1,300 others missing – the number rising from 265 on Friday. Official numbers keep increasing. The death toll already likely exceeds 1,000. Countless bodies remain to be discovered.

As of November 11, an astonishing 7,579 fires are burning, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the National Interagency Fire Center – costing around $3 billion in destruction and damage so far.

According to Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), smoke and ash from wildfires likely spread radiological and chemical contamination already in soil and vegetation near the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, (SSFL) – a statement by Dr. Robert Dodge saying:

“We know what substances are on the site and how hazardous they are. We’re talking about incredibly dangerous radionuclides and toxic chemicals such a trichloroethylene, perchlorate, dioxins and heavy metals.”

“These toxic materials are in SSFL’s soil and vegetation, and when it burns and becomes airborne in smoke and ash, there is a real possibility of heightened exposure for area residents.”

California’s Department of Toxic Substance Control said it found no evidence of radioactive or other hazardous materials in affected areas.

PSR slammed the statement, calling it “irresponsible to claim that SSFL contamination was not spread further by the fire(s).”

SSFL was involved in testing rocket engines and nuclear energy research. In 1959, one of its nuclear reactors had a partial meltdown.

Communities nears its facilities have battled for decontamination, residents blaming serious illnesses on contamination from SSFL operations.

Dense smoke called “the dirtiest air in the world” threatens areas near raging blazes, a major potential health hazard if contaminants spread over parts of the state.

Santa Ana winds up to 50 MPH keep spreading flames while firefighters battle them, “a disheartening situation,” said Butte County sheriff Kory Honea.

Blazes affect areas north of Sacramento and southern parts of the state in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists,

“(t)he effects of global warming on temperature, precipitation levels, and soil moisture are turning many of our forests into kindling during wildfire season,” adding:

“As the climate warms, moisture and precipitation levels are changing, with wet areas becoming wetter and dry areas becoming drier.”

“Higher spring and summer temperatures and earlier spring snowmelt typically cause soils to be drier for longer, increasing the likelihood of drought and a longer wildfire season, particularly in the western United States.”

“(H)ot dry conditions also increase the likelihood that wildfires will be more intense and long-burning once they are started by lightning strikes or human error.”

“The costs of wildfires, in terms of risks to human life and health, property damage, and state and federal dollars, are devastating, and they are only likely to increase unless we better address the risks of wildfires and reduce our activities that lead to further climate change.”

Since the 1980s, the frequency and duration of wildfires increased. Further climate change ahead elevates the potential for more devastating blazes in US western areas and in other countries.

“As the world warms, we can expect more wildfires,” the UCS stressed. In California alone, millions of homes in coastal and inland areas are potentially threatened.

Environmental and health costs threaten affected areas and their residents, increasing the risk of widespread respiratory and other diseases.

Loss of vegetation increases the chance for destructive flash floods in low-lying areas during rainy season.

Human activity is largely responsible for what’s going on. If environmentally destructive behavior continues, things ahead will likely be much worse than already.

It’s why government-mandated changes are vital, including the shift from fossil fuels and nuclear energy producing greenhouse gases to clean renewable green sources.

Asked about whether climate change bears responsibility for California wildfires, Trump said devastation he saw hasn’t changed his view on the issue, adding:

“Things are changing. And I think, most importantly, we’re doing things about. We’re going to make it better. We’re going to make it a lot better. And it’s going to happen as quickly as it can possibly happen.”

He blames “a lot of factors” for California blazes, earlier blaming poor state forest management is for continuing wildfires, adding:

“With proper forest management, we can stop the devastation constantly going on in California.” He failed to explain that around 60% of state forest areas are federally managed.

International Association of Fire Fighters president Harold Schaitberger slammed Trump, calling his remarks “reckless and insulting to the firefighters and people being affected.”

As long as he and many others in Washington are dismissive of climate change and other environmental factors affecting wildfires and other natural disasters, they’ll continue and likely worsen.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from Earther – Gizmodo

Manlio Dinucci in this carefully documented Pandora TV production focuses on US-NATO military deployment in Italy and around the World in what might described as “Global NATO”.

Manlio Dinucci, distinguished Italian author, geopolitical analyst and geographer is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization CRG).

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Yes, we need to finally absolve ourselves, as Amerikans, from the con job concerning Thanksgiving Day. All the ‘pomp and circumstance’ revolving around this holiday is just that, to quote Ebenezer Scrooge (one month early): Humbug!

Of course, even the southern Colonial slaves and Northern ‘indentured servants’ of that era would be thankful to just have a roof over their heads and enough to eat each day. Yet, it was only the slave masters and owners of property and capital who could kneel in their churches or bow in reflected prayer at their lavish dinner tables in true thanksgiving.

Amerika 2018 consists of well over 100 million of our citizens who are lucky just to stay head above water financially… perhaps a few paychecks from being out on the street… literally!

How many families who live next door to me and to YOU (or maybe YOU yourself the reader) who have to have two (or more?)  wage earners full time to just be able to function? How many single parents of even just one child need to live with their parents (if lucky to be able to) in order to function properly?

What about a single mom all on her own? Do the math: How can a single Mom with let us say just one child, who works a blue or even white collar full time job on one salary, be able to stay head above water on let us say the USA median salary for a woman ($ 39,900)? She most likely pays rent, and in my area of North Central Florida even a small two bedroom apt. goes for on average $ 1200 a month in a somewhat ‘safe’ low crime neighborhood.

With her take home pay of $ 725 plus her health insurance contribution (usually 50%) of $ 80 a week, the figure is now $ 645. She would most likely need a car to get around (my area is mostly ‘car driven’ with not the greatest mass transit) and let us say that for even a low end car her payments would be $ 225 monthly for a new car loan, bringing her take home figure to now $ 420. Factor in her car insurance of $ 100 a month, and her take home figure is now $ 320 a week. She and her child need some sort of cable television, and even the low end cable is going to be at least $ 50 a month… and her take home figure is now $ 270 a week. Her phone/internet cost, even at the low end, would have to be at least $ 80 a month, bringing her figure down to $ 190 a week. Then you have food costs for her and her child, clothing costs, gas for her car, and God forbid one of them gets sick, or needs dental work, which is not covered….

The CEOs of all the companies that this single mom pays her hard earned money to earn in excess of a minimum of $ 20 million a year. Some earn double that figure! Within their own companies these CEOs earn in excess of 300 times the pay of their average workers. These folks have lots to be thankful of next Thursday! Mind you: Where is the outrage?

Where is the outcry of millions of working stiffs to say ‘Something is wrong here!?’ This column is just about one tiny example of the unfairness of this current corporate/ capitalist system. Those CEOS and top execs  of Amerikan capitalism, who are even much less than what many label The ONE PERCENT, are paying federal taxes of a top rate of 37%. Now that is before their accountants cut it down to much lower figure than that. Mitt Romney, now a Senator from Utah, admitted a few years ago that he, as a mega mega millionaire, only paid at a rate of perhaps 15%. Please remember that when JFK was president, in 1961, the top tax bracket was at 90%.

Again, with a good accountant, those mega rich may have paid at a rate of maybe 50%. Yet, my late uncle, who was in the 81% bracket then, earning $ 140k a year, still was able to enjoy  two brand new twin Cadillacs for he and my aunt, his exclusive country club membership and a new home in the burbs.

Folks, for this Thanksgiving it is time for we hundreds of millions of working stiffs to begin to accept the need for Socialism. It may just be the only way for our great nation to turn the corner economically and morally. Reread some of the scriptures, for all of you who adhere (as this writer does) to the teachings of Jesus, and see what he said about the mega rich: Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

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

Featured image is from Crazy Bald Guy

[Note from the author: Néstor García Iturbe, born in Havana, earned his BA in Political Science from the University of Havana and then his PhD in Science of History. In his long career, among other responsibilities, Iturbe was a member of the Scientific Council of the Higher Institute of International Relations Raúl Roa García (ISRI), Director of International Relations at the University of Havana and Advisor to the Cuban Mission at the United Nations in New York. He received numerous awards and wrote up to 10 books, mainly on Cuba–US relations. This obituary note was first published in La Jiribilla magazine (Cuba) on November 14, 2018.]

It is quite customary to say that when writers and intellectuals pass away, such as Néstor García Iturbe, their work remains with us. This is particularly true for Iturbe, whose career underlines this even further, even though it may not be acknowledged by everyone.

I have been reading his work for many years in the form of articles. His writing has always fascinated me, especially with regards to his specialties of Cuba–US relations and the political system in the US. We communicated through email and I appreciated him as being among revolutionary Cubans who do not carry illusions about US imperialism and its long-term objectives, whether in the form of Bush, Obama (with his “smooth tactics”) and Trump. 

Thus, when my book Cuba and Its Neighbours: Democracy in Motion was being presented at the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) on November 18, 2015, I took a chance and invited Iturbe, even though I was sure he had more important things to do. To my surprise and delight, he showed up. What an honour for me! After the formal part, we exchanged signed books, his, entitled Estados Unidos, de Raíz (“United States, from the Roots”), and mine.

Not long after my next book on Cuba–US relations was published, in 2017, an important article titled “Money from Uncle Obama” was published, thanks to Iroel Sánchez and his unorthodox blog La pupila insomne (translated from the original Spanish by W.T. Whitney Jr.). It consisted of an excerpt from ISRI university thesis work by Aileén Carmenaty Sánchez, whose mentors were Iturbe and Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, Hero of the Republic Cuba and Vice-rector of ISRI. I was so pleased to read this and to contribute to its publication in English and Spanish. The article hit me for a couple of reasons. The first was admittedly “selfish,” because it confirmed one of the main theses of my latest book. And second, most importantly, it was crucial that this reality of Cuba–US relations under Obama get out to the public in Cuba and the rest of the world. It was published at a time when it was not (and indeed it is still not) that “politically correct” to say anything negative about Obama. But, then again, Iturbe preferred principles to being “politically correct.”

Now, at the very time of his passing, this work – as well as his others – is more relevant than ever. Why? It is quite clear to me that the next president of the United States will be Barack Obama, though, of course, not formally. The favourite Democratic candidates looking for nomination and to almost surely defeat Trump in 2020 are Michelle Obama, Jo Biden, Elizabeth Warren and many others. Whichever it may be, my investigation has shown that Barack Obama will be the de facto president, with its relatively good side to Cuba–US relations, but also the dangerous aspect of subverting Cuba from within: seduction to replace aggression once again.

Let us use the work of Iturbe now to make sure naiveté does not further take root. I am quite sure he, his family, his colleagues in Cuba and his many admirers outside the Island would appreciate this.

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This article was originally published on CounterPunch. Translated from Spanish.

Arnold August, a Canadian journalist and lecturer, is the author of Democracy in Cuba and the 1997–98 Elections and, more recently, Cuba and Its Neighbours: Democracy in Motion. Cuba’s neighbours under consideration are the U.S., Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. Arnold can be followed on Twitter @Arnold_August.

Saudi sports diplomacy is proving to be a mirror image of the kingdom’s challenged domestic, regional and foreign policies.

Overlorded by sports czar Turki al-Sheikh, Saudi sports diplomacy, like the kingdom’s broader policies, has produced at best mixed results, suggesting that financial muscle coupled with varying degrees of coercion does not guarantee success.

Mr. Al-Sheikh, a 37-year old brash and often blunt former honorary president of Saudi soccer club Al Taawoun based in Buraidah, a stronghold of religious ultra-conservatism, and a former bodyguard of crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, is together with Saud al-Qahtani among the king-in-waiting’s closest associates.

Prince al-Waleed bin Talal, one of the kingdom’s wealthiest investors, acknowledged Mr. Al-Sheikh’s ranking in the Saudi hierarchy when he made a donation of more than a half-million dollars to Saudi soccer club Al Hilal FC weeks after having been released from detention.

Prince al-Waleed was one of the more recalcitrant detainees among the scores of members of the ruling family, prominent businessmen and senior officials who were detained a year ago in Riyadh’s Ritz Carlton Hotel as part of Prince Mohammed’s power and asset grab.

Prince Al-Waleed said on Twitter at the time that he was “responding to the invitation of my brother Turki al-Sheikh.”

Mr. Al-Qahtani, who was recently fired as Prince Mohammed’s menacing information czar in connection with the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, was banned this week from travelling outside the kingdom. Mr. Al-Sheikh has not been linked to the Khashoggi murder.

Nevertheless, his sports diplomacy, exhibiting some of the brashness that has characterized Prince Mohammed as well as Mr Al-Qahtani’s approach, has largely failed to achieve its goals. If anything, it appears to have contributed to the kingdom’s growing list of setbacks.

Those goals included establishing Saudi Arabia as a powerhouse in regional and global soccer governance; countering Qatari sports diplomacy crowned by its hosting of the 2022 World Cup; projecting the kingdom in a more favourable light by hosting international sporting events; becoming a powerhouse in soccer-crazy Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous nation; and using the competition for the 2026 World Cup hosting rights to bully Morocco into supporting the Saudi-United Arab Emirates-led boycott of Qatar.

To be sure, with the exception of a cancelled tennis exhibition match in Jeddah between stars Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic, most scheduled sporting events, including this season’s opening Formula E race in December and the Italian Supercoppa between Juventus and AC Milan in January, are going ahead as planned despite a six-week old crisis sparked by the killing of Mr. Khashoggi.

Yet, if last month’s friendly soccer match in Jeddah between Brazil and Argentina and this month’s World Wrestling Entertainment’s (WWE) Crown Jewel showpiece are anything to go by, major sporting events are doing little to polish the kingdom’s image tarnished not only by the Khashoggi killing but also the war in Yemen that has sparked the world’s worst humanitarian crisis since World War Two. The sports events have so far failed to push Mr. Khashoggi and Yemen out of the headlines of major independent media.

Mainstream media coverage of Saudi sports has, moreover, focussed primarily on Saudi sports diplomacy’s struggle to make its mark internationally. One focus been the fact that Gianni Infantino, president of world soccer body FIFA, has run into opposition from the group’s European affiliate, UEFA, to his plan to endorse a US$25 billion plan for a new club tournament funded by the Saudi and UAE-backed Japanese conglomerate SoftBank.

If adopted, the plan would enhance Saudi and Emirati influence in global soccer governance to the potential detriment of Qatar, the host of the 2022 World Cup. Saudi Arabia and the UAE spearhead a 17-month old economic and diplomatic boycott of Qatar designed to force it to surrender its right to chart an independent course rather than align its policies with those of its Gulf brothers.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have sought to engineer a situation in which Qatar is either deprived of its hosting rights or forced to share them with other states in the region, a possibility Mr. Infantino has said he was exploring.

Mr. Infantino has also said he was looking into implementing an expansion of the World Cup from 32 to 48 teams already in 2022 rather than only in 2026. An expansion of the Qatari World Cup would probably involve including others in the Gulf as hosts of the tournament. Qatari officials have all but ruled out sharing their hosting rights.

Another media focus has been alleged Saudi piracy aimed at undermining Qatar-owned BeIN Corp, the world’s biggest sports rights holder, including the rights to broadcast last summer’s Russia World Cup in the Arab world.

Mr. Al-Qahtani reportedly played a key role in the sudden emergence of BeoutQ, a bootleg operation beamed from Riyadh-based Arabsat that ripped live events from BeIN’s feed and broadcast the games without paying for rights. The Saudi government has denied any relationship to the pirate network.

The piracy has sparked international lawsuits, including international arbitration in which BeIN is seeking US1 billion in damages from Saudi Arabia. The company has also filed a case with the World Trade Organization.

FIFA has said it has taken steps to prepare for legal action in Saudi Arabia and is working alongside other sports rights owners that have been affected to protect their interests.

Mr. Al-Sheikh’s effort to create with funds widely believed to have been provided by Prince Mohammed an international Saudi sports portfolio that would project the kingdom as a regional power broker collapsed with fans, players and club executives in Egypt furious at the Saudi officials buying influence and using it to benefit Saudi rather than Egyptian clubs.

“No one, no one at all — with all due respect to Turki or no Turki … will be allowed to interfere in the club’s affairs,” said Mahmoud el-Khatib, chairman of Egyptian club Al Ahli SC, one of the Middle East’s most popular clubs with an estimated 50 million fans. Mr. Al-Sheikh had unsuccessfully tried to use his recently acquired honorary chairmanship of Al Ahli to take control of the club.

Al Ahli’s rejection of his power grab persuaded Mr. Al-Sheikh to resign in May and instead bankroll Al Ahli rival Pyramid FC. He invested US$33 million to acquire three top Brazilian players and launch a sports channel dedicated to the team.

The club’s fans, like their Al Ahli counterparts, nonetheless, denounced Mr. Al-Sheikh and the kingdom and insulted the Saudi official’s mother in crass terms during a match in September. Mr. Al-Sheikh decided to abandon his Egyptian adventure after President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi ignored his request to intervene. “Strange attacks from everywhere, and a new story every day. Why the headache?” Mr Al-Sheikh said on Facebook.

Mr. Al-Sheikh’s attempt to form a regional powerbase by creating a breakaway group of South Asian and Middle Eastern soccer federations beyond the confines of FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) collapsed five months after the formation of the South-West Asian Football Federation (SWAFF) when seven South Asian nations pulled out with immediate effect.

The collapse of SWAFF and Mr. Al-Sheikh’s withdrawal from Egypt were preceded by his backing of the US-Canadian-Mexican bid for the 2026 World Cup against Morocco after he failed to bully the North Africans into supporting the boycott of Qatar.

Adopting a Saudi Arabia First approach, Mr. Al-Sheikh noted that the United States “is our biggest and strongest ally.” He recalled that when the World Cup was played in 1994 in nine American cities, the US “was one of our favourites. The fans were numerous, and the Saudi team achieved good results.”

That was Mr. Al-Sheikh’s position six months ago. Today, men like Prince Mohammed and Messrs. Al-Sheikh and Al-Qahtani are seething. US President Donald J. Trump is proving to be an unreliable ally. Not only is he pressuring the kingdom to come up with a credible explanation for Mr. Khashoggis’ killing, Mr. Trump is also seemingly backtracking on his promise to bring Iran to its knees by imposing crippling economic sanctions.

Saudi distrust is fuelled by the fact that Mr. Trump first asked the kingdom to raise oil production to compensate for lower crude exports from Iran and then without informing it made a 180-degree turn by offering buyers generous waivers that keep Iranian crude in the market instead of drive exports from Riyadh’s arch-rival down to zero.

Seemingly cut from the same cloth as Prince Mohammed, Mr. Al-Sheikh, drew his pro-American definition of Saudi Arabia First from the crown prince’s focus on the United States. Prince Mohammed, Mr. Al-Sheikh and other senior Saudi officials may be considering whether putting the kingdom’s eggs primarily in one basket remains the best strategy.

Whatever the case, Mr. Al-Sheikh’s sweep through regional and global sports has left Saudi leaders with little to leverage in the kingdom’s bid to pick up the pieces and improve its image tarnished first and foremost by Mr. Khashoggi’s killing but also by the trail the sports czar has left behind.

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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

With the release of a previously top secret document – made public thanks to a legal victory by the ACLU – disclosing the role of the Office of Medical Services (OMS) in the CIA’s torture program, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) reminds health professionals that torture, in all its forms, is one of the most serious human rights violations and is absolutely prohibited under U.S. and international law, and that any collusion in its implementation – from planning through monitoring – is a gross violation of professional ethics.

The 90-page document provides a chilling account of how CIA health professionals willingly participated in torture. The “Summary and Reflections” of an unnamed chief of CIA Medical Services narrates the decision-making process that led to health professionals signing off on, and participating in, interrogation and detention practices that clearly constituted torture. The document provides a cascade of self-justification and minimization of the risks and harm to detainees.

“While much of the information in this document was already known, the step-by-step internal process it details shows how health professionals continually acceded to the demands of those running the interrogation regime, relied on flawed legal interpretations of torture definitions,  and failed to live up to their duty to ‘do no harm,’” said Scott Allen, MD, FACP, professor emeritus at University of California Riverside School of Medicine and PHR medical advisor.

The document further describes how certain techniques, such as confinement in a coffin-sized box, forced nakedness, near-hypothermia, prolonged sleep deprivation, and waterboarding were not considered to be torture because they were deemed not to cause “prolonged (mental) harm lasting months or years.”  It is now clear that these determinations were based on the Office of Legal Counsel’s faulty interpretation of torture that elevated physical and mental pain thresholds and the condition of specific intent to cause such pain.

“The document makes the claim that OMS personnel served to protect detainees and ensure safe, legal, and effective interrogations, but provides no evidence that detainees were evaluated appropriately. In fact, it states that psychological assessments did not include the possibility of post-traumatic stress disorder, the most common psychological condition following torture. The document also fails to mention the OMS practice of forced rectal feeding, for which there is no medical indication and which represents a form of sexual assault” said PHR Senior Medical Advisor Vincent Iacopino, MD, PhD.

In addition, the document’s conclusion that the interrogation techniques did not cause long-lasting harm has been proven wrong. Some detainees subjected to these torture techniques who are still held in the Guantánamo Bay detention facility remain severely traumatized, according to PHR medical experts who have examined them. Detainees who have been evaluated after their release from Guantánamo, and elsewhere, also continue to show long-lasting harm, as described in reports such as PHR’s Broken Laws, Broken Lives.

The document refers to OMS practices being in compliance with American Psychological Association (APA) policies, but fails to acknowledge collusion between the APA, the CIA, and the Department of Defense in establishing those policies. These policies have since been abandoned. The document also attempts to defend against criticism of breaches of medical ethics by indicating that OMS participation was voluntary, that its practices were considered “legal” by the U.S. Department of Justice at the time, and that actionable intelligence was obtained and lives were saved. The author of the document rejects international medical ethical principles of “do no harm” as well as legal prohibitions against participation in torture by asserting that “saving lives” takes priority over respect for human dignity. We have learned since, from a 2014 Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report, that no actionable intelligence was ever obtained using “enhanced interrogation” techniques that could not otherwise have been gathered.

This document is a revealing self-indictment of U.S. torture practices and the critical role of CIA OMS personnel in participating in and concealing torture. It shows health professionals’ disregard for core ethical principles, including the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Tokyo, requiring that they remove themselves from all forms of participation in torture or ill-treatment.

“This document shows that within the CIA OMS culture in the post-9/11 years, there was a lack of understanding of the moral and ethical issues involved in the presence and cooperation of health professionals in interrogations and their willingness to preside over the deliberate infliction of pain on detainees,” Iacopino said. “The author of the document expresses continual concern for the physical safety of detainees, but he shows no qualms about OMS personnel participating in the interrogations that caused great pain and suffering to the detainees. This was an improper role for health professionals and OMS shows that it was blind or indifferent to ethical concerns raised by their participation,” he added.

Based on the new details in this document, PHR renews its call on the U.S. government, especially all CIA medical professionals, to take immediate action to make structural and procedural reforms to ensure that such human rights abuses – including the collusion and cover up of health professionals, in violation of their professional ethics – never happen again. As an organization of health professionals, PHR looks forward to those in positions of authority recognizing the important role played by doctors, psychologists, therapists, and others who practice medicine to ensure that torture tactics are never enabled by professionals whose primary obligation is to their patients, and that all agency operations respect the right to dignity and care for the individual.

Torture is absolutely prohibited under U.S. and international law at all times, and preventing the torture of those in custody is integral to the ethical duties and culture of health professionals. Torture violates everything that health professionals stand for and PHR will continue to advocate to ensure the U.S. government never engages in torture again.

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The National Council of Municipal Health Secretaries and the National Front of Brazilian Mayors warned rightwing President-elect Jair Bolsonaro of the imminent, irreparable damage to the population’s health, as a consequence of Cuba leaving the More Doctors program.

In a joint statement, the two organizations lamented the suspension of the agreement between the Pan American Health organization and the Cuban government which allowed for the work of some 8,500 doctors from the island in Brazil.

Estimates indicate that 29 million Brazilians will be left without medical assistance after the partnership’s interruption. Thus, these bodies have requested a revision of the position taken by the new government, which has announced its intention to make drastic changes to the program’s regulations. The mayors and healthcare authorities called for maintaining current contract conditions, which were approved in 2016 by the Michel Temer administration and confirmed by the Supreme Federal Court in 2017.

“The abrupt cancelation of the current contracts implies a cruel impact on the entire population, especially the poorest. We cannot renounce the constitutional principle of making the right to health universal, or agree with this setback,” the statement indicated.

Cubans currently represent more than half of the doctors in the program, and the cancellation of their contracts would lead to a situation described by these organizations as disastrous, in at least 3,243 municipalities. Of the country’s 5,570 municipalities, 3,228 (79.5%) only have doctors provided by the program, and 90% of the services available to the indigenous population are provided by Cuban professionals.

The statement also notes that the More Doctors program is broadly supported by those served, indicating,

“Eighty-five percent say that health care has improved with the program. In the municipalities, it is also possible to verify the greater permanence of these professionals on the family health teams and their integration within the locales where they are assigned.”

The program was won by Brazilian municipalities, developed in response to the “Where is the doctor?” campaign led by the Mayors Front in 2013. At that time, local officials made clear the difficulties they faced in contracting and placing professionals in the country’s interior, and in poor communities on the outskirts of large cities.

The text notes that the abrupt interruption of cooperation with the Cuban government, focused on prevention at the primary level, will negatively impact the health system, increasing demands for doctors’ appointments at higher level institutions, and additionally aggravate regional inequalities.

“For the designated G100 (a group of cities with large vulnerable populations) the situation is even more devastating. With the goal of reducing the shortage of basic services in these cities, the G100 has been targeted and prioritized for the reception of these professionals.”

Dilma Rousseff stated,

“For the poor, this will be an irreparable loss.

“The end of the agreement was caused by the intemperate statements of President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, who ignores the diplomatic dimension that must prevail in relations between two countries,” continued the former President who launched the More Doctors program.

For the poorest, the end of the program will be a great loss in the short and long run. Tens of millions of Brazilians across the entire country will be without primary care, Rousseff stated, describing Bolsonaro’s decision as unilateral and disrespectful, “criticizing on Twitter the terms of the agreement signed during my administration and renewed, without modifications, by the government of President Temer,” she noted.

“He disregarded, with absolute arrogance, the diplomatic postures required in relations between countries The most serious, therefore, is that all of this has occurred without consulting the signatories of the agreement, the PAHO (Pan American Health Organization) and the Cuban Ministry of Public Health. His rash, authoritarian statements could even disturb doctors from other countries, participating to a lesser degree in the More Doctors Program.”

Rousseff recalled the President-elect’s statements that he would impose individual contracts on foreign participants in the program, require exams and the validation of credentials, and pay professionals directly, ignoring the Cuban government’s guarantee of a full salary for doctors.

“The demand to subject foreign doctors to an exam in Brazil can only be seen as a gesture of disrespect, xenophobia, and arrogance, directed toward health professionals from other countries. Especially since the (Cuban) Ministries of Public Health and Education supervise the work of all doctors and evaluate their performance,” she continued.

According to Rousseff, Bolsonaro’s affront to Cuban doctors, and those from other countries working in the program, is an attack on the Brazilian people, who will lose access to valuable, highly-skilled professionals providing primary care to the poorest sectors of the population.

“Moreover, this is an authoritarian attitude. It reveals incompetence, unilaterally breaking an agreement signed by a respected, internationally recognized health organization.

“The Brazilian population has benefited from the generous competence of Cuban doctors, who the Brazilian government should recognize for their fraternal solidarity. I convey a tribute to them, my gratitude. The work of these dedicated, generous professionals will be missed by Brazilians,” she concluded.

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Featured image is from Granma

One has to admire the Canadian government’s manipulation of the media regarding its relationship with Saudi Arabia. Despite being partners with the Kingdom’s international crimes, the Liberals have managed to convince some gullible folks they are challenging Riyadh’s rights abuses.

By downplaying Ottawa’s support for violence in Yemen while amplifying Saudi reaction to an innocuous tweet the dominant media has wildly distorted the Trudeau government’s relationship to the monarchy.

In a story headlined “Trudeau says Canada has heard Turkish tape of Khashoggi murder”, Guardian diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour affirmed that “Canada has taken a tough line on Saudi Arabia’s human rights record for months.” Hogwash. Justin Trudeau’s government has okayed massive arms sales to the monarchy and largely ignored the Saudi’s devastating war in Yemen, which has left up to 80,000 dead, millions hungry and sparked a terrible cholera epidemic.

While Ottawa recently called for a ceasefire, the Liberals only direct condemnation  of the Saudi bombing in Yemen was an October 2016 statement. It noted, “the Saudi-led coalition must move forward now on its commitment to investigate this incident” after two airstrikes killed over 150  and wounded 500 during a funeral in Sana’a.

By contrast when the first person was killed from a rocket launched into the Saudi capital seven months ago, Chrystia Freeland stated,

“Canada strongly condemns the ballistic missile attacks launched by Houthi rebels on Sunday, against four towns and cities in Saudi Arabia, including Riyadh’s international airport. The deliberate targeting of civilians is unacceptable.”

In her release Canada’s foreign minister also accepted the monarchy’s justification for waging war.

“There is a real risk of escalation if these kinds of attacks by Houthi rebels continue and if Iran keeps supplying weapons to the Houthis”, Freeland added.

Ottawa has also aligned itself with Riyadh’s war aims on other occasions. With the $15 billion LAV sale to the monarchy under a court challenge in late 2016, federal government lawyers described Saudi Arabia as “a key military ally who backs efforts of the international community to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and the instability in Yemen. The acquisition of these next-generation vehicles will help in those efforts, which are compatible with Canadian defence interests.” The Canadian Embassy’s website currently claims “the Saudi government plays an important role in promoting regional peace and stability.”

In recent years the Saudis have been the second biggest recipients of Canadian weaponry, which are frequently used in Yemen. As Anthony Fenton has documented in painstaking detail, hundreds of armoured vehicles made by Canadian company Streit Group in the UAE have been videoed in Yemen.Equipment from three other Canadian armoured vehicle makers – Terradyne, IAG Guardian and General Dynamics Land Systems Canada– was found with Saudi-backed forces in Yemen. Between May and July Canada exported $758.6 million worth of “tanks and other armored fighting vehicles” to the Saudis.

The Saudi coalition used Canadian-made rifles as well.“Canada helped fuel the war in Yemen by exporting more rifles to Saudi Arabia than it did to the U.S. ($7.15 million vs. $4.98 million)”, tweeted Fenton regarding export figures from July and August.

Some Saudi pilots that bombed Yemen were likely trained in Alberta and Saskatchewan. In recent years Saudi pilots have trained  with NATO’s Flying Training in Canada, which is run by the Canadian Forces and CAE. The Montreal-based flight simulator company also trained Royal Saudi Air Force pilots in the Middle East.

Training and arming the monarchy’s military while refusing to condemn its brutal war in Yemen shouldn’t be called a “tough line on Saudi Arabia’s human rights record.” Rather, Canada’s role should be understood for what it is: War profiteer and enabler of massive human rights abuses.

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There never was any doubt about it all along. No one dares circumvent Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman’s (MBS) authority over most everyone. 

Doing it risks ending up like Khashoggi.

MBS is de facto Saudi ruler. What he says goes on virtually all affairs of state, including decisions on life and death.

So-called Saudi courts do his bidding. So do all others in the kingdom except for his father king Salman – in poor health, why he effectively abdicated authority to his favorite son.

A previous article suggested MBS is damaged goods, too incompetent to succeed his father as king, perhaps unacceptable to the West – given repeated policy blunders, Khashoggi’s murder the latest example.

Since appointed crown prince in June 2017, MBS consolidated power by eliminating potential rivals, solidifying control over kingdom domestic and geopolitical affairs – including its economy, foreign relations, military, interior ministry, and intelligence/security apparatus.

Did his power grab overstep? Did it destabilize the kingdom? Was Khashoggi’s abduction and murder a glaring example of incompetence? Will it be his undoing?

It created an international uproar, continuing nearly seven weeks after the October 2 incident.

His elevation to power displaced Mohammad bin Nayef as heir to the Saudi throne, a Western intelligence favorite.

Some of Riyadh’s closest allies believe he’s too reckless and untrustworthy to lead the kingdom. The CIA and Britain’s MI6 may want him replaced.

With international guarantees for his safety, dissident prince Ahmad bin Abdulaziz, king Salman’s younger brother, returned to the kingdom from London.

Was it to challenge MBS as crown prince with CIA/MI6 support? Was it because both spy agencies want him replaced?

Will Abdulaziz succeed him as crown prince or be involved in selecting someone else to become future Saudi king?

According to the neocon/CIA-connected Washington Post, the NYT, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and other major media, Langley concluded with high confidence, after examining relevant evidence, that MBS bears full responsibility for ordering Khashoggi’s elimination.

Claims by Saudi foreign minister Jubeir and other regime officials, absolving MBS for the murder, are fabricated like all other kingdom versions of what happened to Khashoggi.

It’s significant that the CIA refuted the White House and Riyadh in its conclusion about his murder, a major development.

Since the October 2 incident, Riyadh shifted from one phony explanation about his murder to another, clear evidence that nothing the regime says is credible.

The Wall Street Journal said the CIA’s conclusion about Khashoggi’s murder “may endanger President Trump’s efforts to protect ties with Prince Mohammed,” adding:

US officials familiar with the issue stress that Khashoggi’s murder “would not and could not have happened” without MBS’ involvement and authorization.

A statement by a spokesperson in Riyadh’s Washington embassy denied the CIA’s conclusion, saying “(t)he claims in this purported assessment are false. We have and continue to hear various theories without seeing the primary basis for these speculations.”

Langley, Trump’s spokeswoman, and the State Department declined to comment. Reuters said the CIA briefed briefed the White House and Congress on its assessment of what happened to Khashoggi.

Its conclusion is the most damning one so far, linking MBS directly to Khashoggi’s murder – what Trump, EU leaders, and others have gone all-out to prevent, wanting nothing interfering in dirty business as usual with the kingdom.

Damning intelligence comes from Turkish obtained audio recordings of what happened to Khashoggi inside Riyadh’s Istanbul consulate, along with Ankara’s forensic evidence.

Reports drip-fed what’s known to Turkish and international media almost daily since the killing, refuting fabricated Saudi explanations about the incident.

Over two weeks elapsed after Khashoggi’s October 2 disappearance before Riyadh admitted his elimination, one fabricated version of what happened after another.

None are credible – from an interrogation gone wrong to premeditated murder to killing him after failing to persuade him to return to the kingdom to saying he died from a lethal injection.

Turkish audio and forensic evidence refute all of the above – indicating Khashoggi was murdered straightaway after entering the Istanbul consulate, his body believed dismembered and dissolved in hydrofluoric acid.

He was suffocated to death by a bag over his head to cut off air. His final words were “I’m suffocating. Take this bag off my head.”

How Trump and other world leaders intend dealing with the CIA’s conclusion remains to be seen.

One thing is clear. The world community won’t let Khashoggi’s murder change longstanding relations with Riyadh – not as long as the kingdom is oil-rich and super-wealthy.

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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.

NBC News maintains that four sources in US government agencies (probably the FBI and the State Department) told its reporters that the Trump White House is seeking ways to expel Turkish religious leader Fethullah Gulen. But the kicker is that Trump apparently is exploring the extradition as a bribe to shut Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan up about the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi on the orders of crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman. The Saudis are now trying to pin the blame on lower-level operatives, whom they have sentenced to death. But Erdogan has been like a bulldog, insisting that Bin Salman ordered the hit (which is the only logical).

NBC says that career officials were absolutely furious when they figured out what was behind the White House requests. It is of course the ultimate in shamelessness for Trump to have a US green card holder sent to the gallows in Turkey in order to cover up the murder of another US green card holder murdered in the Saudi consulate.

Turkey maintains that Gulen’s Hizmet Movement is a front for terrorist activities and was behind the failed 2016 military coup attempt against Tayyip Erdogan. I think there is evidence that the group is a cult and that it did attempt to infiltrate key Turkish government institutions, in the way of the old Stalinist covert cells. But that all Gulenists are terrorists is pretty hard to believe; the group runs schools and universities and those institutions haven’t been violent (they have been shut down in Turkey proper). That the upper echelons of the leadership have been involved in shady goings-on is plausible (just as it is possible with regard to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which is being treated by the al-Sisi government the way Ankara is now treating the Gulenists).

The US government has repeatedly denied such Turkish requests, and disputes that the evidence the Turkish government has provided to the FBI is sufficient to warrant Gulen’s extradition. (This datum in the NBC reporting is itself significant, since it means that Turkey has not been able to provide convincing documentation on the origins of the 2016 coup to US authorities.)

Erdogan’s campaign to unseat the crown prince has been extremely inconvenient for Trump. Trump has said that Saudi purchases of billions in US weaponry cannot be put in jeopardy over Khashoggi’s murder. Bin Salman is also the linchpin of the Trump administration’s anti-Iran coalition, and to the extent that he is permanently weakened by the fallout over Khashoggi, Iran is strengthened. Bin Salman only had part of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates) with him on boycotting Iran. Oman and Qatar have refused to join in, and even Kuwait is soft on this issue. Egypt, Jordan and Morocco were aboard, but offered little practical support, and both Egypt and Jordan want improved relations with the pro-Iran government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. With Bin Salman being ridiculed as “The Sawman” (Abu Minshar), like a cartoon villain, it is hard to see how he can lead a charge against Iran.

In fact, the strategy of flooding the market with extra oil has already backfired, harming the Saudi and other Arab producers’ bottom line, and Saudi Arabia has announced cutbacks for next month (cutbacks that will help Iran withstand the boycott, since it may sell less oil but get more per barrel).

Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon are pro-Iran and Qatar has correct relations with Tehran, plus Russia and China are with Iran. The European Union is trying to protect Iran and keep the 2015 nuclear deal. The US-backed Bin Salman’s success in the anti-Iran push was already in doubt before the murder of Khashoggi. Now it is in severe doubt.

Hence Trump’s desperate ploy, finally to shut Erdogan up about the crown prince and let the whole controversy die down if possible, so as to preserve Bin Salman as quarterback of the White House Middle East game.

A stronger phrase than abject shamelessness needs to be coined in order fully to characterize the cheapness of what the White House is apparently considering. (Note that the White House denies the NBC story; but four sources are pretty damning).

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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.

Empire’s currency is the Lie, which is why the Truth sounds bizarre to all but the well-informed. 

Largely unelected policymakers make the decisions in the West’s non-democracies, while fabricated narratives are amplified by politicians and colonial media.  

The transnational ruling class of oligarchs propagate diseconomies, dystopia, permanent war and terrorism.

Whereas Canada, for example, supports ISIS, al Qaeda, neo-Nazis[1], and criminal wars of aggression, most Canadians have been programmed to think that Canada is progressive. The Lie transcends and obliterates simple truths. Some Canadians and Americans would be horrified if they were confronted with the Truth. 

Consider, for example, ISIS. Whereas ISIS is thought to be the enemy, NATO policymakers have actually created what ISIS terrorists now call an “Islamic State” east of the Euphrates. This oil-rich “Islamic State”[2] has been on the NATO drawing boards for years. The blueprint takes the form of Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document 14-L-0552.[3]

Some of the more salient points, as reported by Brad Hoff, are as follows:

• Al-Qaeda drives the opposition in Syria
• The West identifies with the opposition
• The establishment of a “Salafist Principality” in Eastern Syria is “exactly” what the external powers supporting the opposition want (identified as “the West, Gulf Countries, and Turkey”) in order to weaken the Assad government

More graphically, the Western/ISIS created “Islamic State” looks like this.

NATO policymakers must be exuberant.

But this is only a partial success story.  NATO’s destruction of Libya[4] was an unblemished success story. Libya’s debt-free economy was destroyed and plundered, and now it will be beholden to International Financial Institutions and IMF (neoliberal) “economic medicine” which will privatize, enslave and further impoverish the country.  Big Finance, a hidden driver behind imperialism and NATO invasions, will profit immensely from Libya’s destruction.  

Globalized war and poverty is what the ruling classes have in store for all of us, beneath veils of lies. 

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

Notes

1. Max Blumenthal, “Blowback: An Inside Look at How US-Funded Fascists in Ukraine Mentor US White Supremacists.” Mint Press News, 15 November, 2018.( https://www.mintpressnews.com/us-backed-fascist-azov-battalion-in-ukraine-is-training-and-radicalizing-american-white-supremacists/251951/ ) Accessed 16 November, 2018.

2. Facebook message from Lilly Martin to Mark Taliano, November, 2018.

3. Brad Hoff, “2012 Defense Intelligence Agency document: West will facilitate rise of Islamic State ‘in order to isolate the Syrian regime.’ “ Levant Report. 19 May, 2015. (https://levantreport.com/2015/05/19/2012-defense-intelligence-agency-document-west-will-facilitate-rise-of-islamic-state-in-order-to-isolate-the-syrian-regime/) Accessed 16 November, 2018.

 4. Prof. Michel Chossudovsky, “Destroying a Country’s Standard of Living: What Libya Had Achieved, What has been Destroyed.” Global Research. 14 November, 2018, 20 September 2011. (https://www.globalresearch.ca/destroying-a-country-s-standard-of-living-what-libya-had-achieved-what-has-been-destroyed/26686) Accessed 16 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. 

Voices from Syria 

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-1-6

Author: Mark Taliano

Year: 2017

Pages: 128 (Expanded edition: 1 new chapter)

List Price: $17.95

Special Price: $9.95 

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Um crescente (símbolo do islamismo) representado como um hemisfério estilizado que, ladeado por uma estrela e as palavras «for/with Libya» (para/com a Líbia), representa “um mundo que quer colocar-se ao lado da Líbia”: é o logotipo da “Conferência para a Líbia”, promovida pelo governo italiano, como mostra o tricolor na parte inferior do crescente/hemisfério. A Conferência Internacional desenrola-se nos dias 12 e 13 de Novembro, em Palermo, naquela Sicília que, há sete anos, foi a principal base de lançamento para a guerra com a qual a NATO, sob comando USA, demoliu o Estado líbio. Ela foi iniciada, financiando e armando na Líbia, sectores tribais e grupos islâmicos hostis ao governo de Trípoli e infiltrando no país, forças especiais, incluindo milhares de comandos catarianos, disfarçados de “rebeldes líbios”.

Era assim lançado, em Março de 2011, o ataque aéreo USA/NATO que durou 7 meses. A aviação realizou 30 mil missões, das quais 10 mil de ataque, empregando mais de 40 mil bombas e mísseis. A Itália, por vontade de um vasto arco político, da direita à esquerda, participava na guerra não só com a sua própria aviação e marinha, mas colocava à disposição das forças USA/NATO, 7 bases aéreas: Trapani, Sigonella, Pantelleria, Gioia del Colle, Amendola, Decimomannu e Aviano. Com a guerra de 2011, a NATO arrasava aquele Estado que, na margem sul do Mediterrâneo, em frente à Itália, tinha alcançado, embora com consideráveis ​​disparidades internas, “altos níveis de crescimento económico e desenvolvimento humano” (como documentava, em 2010, o Banco Mundial), superiores aos de outros países africanos. Testemunhavam-no, o facto de que tinham encontrado trabalho na Líbia, cerca de dois milhões de imigrantes, a maior parte, africanos. Ao mesmo tempo, a Líbia teria possibilitado, com os seus fundos soberanos, o nascimento, em África, de organismos económicos independentes e uma moeda africana. USA e França – provam-no os emails da Secretária de Estado, Hillary Clinton – concordaram em bloquear, antes de tudo, o plano de Gaddafi de criar uma moeda africana, em alternativa ao dólar e ao franco CFA, imposto pela França às suas 14 antigas colónias africanas.

Derrubado o Estado e Gaddafi assassinado, na situação caótica que se seguiu, iniciou-se, no plano internacional e interno, uma luta feroz para a divisão de um espólio enorme: as reservas petrolíferas (as maiores de África) e de gás natural; o imenso lençol freático núbio de água fóssil, o ouro branco em perspectiva mais precioso do que o ouro negro; o próprio território líbio, de primordial  importância geoestratégica; os fundos soberanos, cerca de 150 biliões de dólares investidos no exterior pelo Estado líbio, “congelados”, em 2011, nos principais bancos europeus e dos EUA. Por outras palavras, roubados. Por exemplo, dos 16 biliões de euros de fundos líbios “congelados”  no Euroclear Bank, na Bélgica e em Luxemburgo, apareceram apenas 10. “A partir de 2013 – documenta a RTBF (Rádio  TV francófona belga) – centenas de milhões de euros, provenientes desses fundos, foram enviados para a Líbia a fim de financiar a guerra civil que causou uma grave crise migratória”. Muitos imigrantes africanos, na Líbia, foram presos e torturados por milícias islâmicas. A Líbia tornou-se a principal rota de trânsito, nas mãos dos traficantes e dos  manipuladores internacionais, de um fluxo caótico migratório que, desde então no Mediterrâneo, tem provocado a cada ano, mais vítimas das bombas da NATO, lançadas em 2011.

Não podemos calar, como também fizeram os organizadores da anti-Cimeira de Palermo que, na origem desta tragédia humana, está a guerra USA/NATO que há sete anos desmantelou em África, um Estado na sua totalidade.

Manlio Dinucci

il manifesto, 13 de Novembro de 2018

Vidéo :

Una mezzaluna (simbolo dell’islamismo) raffigurata come uno stilizzato emisfero che, affiancato da una stella e le parole «for/with Libya» (per/con la Libia), rappresenta «un mondo che vuole porsi dalla parte della Libia»: è il logo della «Conferenza per la Libia» promossa dal governo italiano, come evidenzia il tricolore nella parte inferiore della mezzaluna/emisfero. La Conferenza internazionale si svolge il 12-13 novembre a Palermo, in quella Sicilia che sette anni fa è stata la principale base di lancio della guerra con cui la NATO sotto comando USA ha demolito lo Stato libico. Essa veniva iniziata finanziando e armando in Libia settori tribali e gruppi islamici ostili al governo di Tripoli e infiltrando nel paese forze speciali, tra cui migliaia di commandos qatariani camuffati da «ribelli libici».

Veniva quindi lanciato, nel marzo 2011, l’attacco aeronavale USA/NATO durato 7 mesi.  L’aviazione effettuava 30 mila missioni, di cui 10 mila di attacco, con impiego di oltre 40 mila bombe e missili. L’Italia, per volontà di un vasto arco politico dalla destra alla sinistra, partecipava alla guerra non solo con la propria aeronautica e marina, ma mettendo a disposizione delle forze USA/NATO 7 basi aeree: Trapani, Sigonella, Pantelleria, Gioia del Colle, Amendola, Decimomannu e Aviano. Con la guerra del 2011 la NATO demoliva  quello Stato che, sulla sponda sud del Mediterraneo di fronte all’Italia, aveva raggiunto, pur con notevoli disparità interne, «alti livelli di crescita economica e sviluppo umano» (come documentava nel 2010 la stessa Banca Mondiale), superiori a quelli degli altri paesi africani. Lo testimoniava il fatto che avevano trovato lavoro in Libia circa due milioni di immigrati, per lo più africani. Allo stesso tempo la Libia avrebbe reso possibile, con i suoi fondi sovrani, la nascita in Africa di organismi economici indipendenti e di una moneta africana. USA e Francia – provano le mail della segretaria di Stato Hillary Clinton – si erano accordati per bloccare anzitutto il piano di Gheddafi di creare una moneta africana, in alternativa al dollaro e al franco CFA imposto dalla Francia a 14 ex colonie africane.

Demolito lo Stato e assassinato Gheddafi, nella situazione caotica che ne è seguita è iniziata, sul piano internazionale e interno, una lotta al coltello per la spartizione di un enorme bottino: le riserve petrolifere, le maggiori dell’Africa, e di gas naturale; l’immensa falda nubiana di acqua fossile, l’oro bianco in prospettiva più prezioso dell’oro nero; lo stesso territorio libico di primaria importanza geostrategica; i fondi sovrani, circa 150 miliardi di dollari investiti all’estero dallo Stato libico, «congelati» nel 2011 nelle maggiori banche europee e statunitensi, in altre parole rapinati. Ad esempio, dei 16 miliardi di euro di fondi libici, bloccati nella Euroclear Bank in Belgio e Lussemburgo, ne sono spariti oltre 10. «Dal 2013 – documenta la RTBF (radiotelevisione francofona belga) – centinaia di milioni di euro, provenienti di tali fondi, sono stati inviati in Libia per finanziare la guerra civile che ha provocato una grave crisi migratoria». Molti immigrati africani in Libia sono stati imprigionati e torturati dalle milizie islamiche. La Libia è divenuta la principale via di transito, in mano a trafficanti e manovratori internazionali, di un caotico flusso migratorio che nel Mediterraneo ha provocato ogni anno più vittime delle bombe NATO del 2011.

Non si può tacere, come hanno fatto perfino gli organizzatori del controvertice di Palermo, che all’origine di questa tragedia umana c’è la guerra USA/NATO che sette anni fa ha demolito in Africa un intero Stato.

Manlio Dinucci

il manifesto, 13 novembre 2018

Video (PandoraTV):

Ein Halbmond (ein Symbol des Islamismus), der wie eine stilisierte Erdhalbkugel gestaltet ist, die, flankiert von einem Stern und den Worten “für/mit Libyen”, eine Welt darstellt, die „auf der Seite Libyens sein will“ – das ist das Logo der von der italienischen Regierung organisierten „Konferenz für Libyen“, was durch die dreifarbige Flagge im unteren Teil des Halbmonds/der Halbkugel veranschaulicht wird.

Die Internationale Konferenz findet vom 12. bis 13. November in Palermo auf der Insel Sizilien statt, die noch vor sieben Jahren die wichtigste Basis war, von der aus die NATO unter dem Kommando der USA ihren Krieg zur Zerstörung des Staates Libyen begann. Der Krieg wurde vorbereitet, indem bestimmte Stammessektoren und islamistische Gruppen in Libyen finanziert und bewaffnet wurden, die der Regierung von Tripolis feindlich gesinnt waren, und indem Spezialeinheiten in das Land infiltriert wurden, darunter Tausende von katarischen Kommandos, die als „libysche Rebellen“ getarnt waren. Im März 2011 wurde dann der Luftwaffenangriff der USA und der NATO gestartet – er dauerte sieben Monate. Die Fliegertruppe flog 30.000 Einsätze, davon 10.000 Angriffe, und setzte mehr als 40.000 Bomben und Raketen ein.

Auf Wunsch einer großen politischen Gruppe, die sich von links nach rechts erstreckt, nahm auch Italien an dem Krieg teil, nicht nur durch den Einsatz seiner Fliegertruppe und seiner Marine, sondern auch durch das Angebot an die USA und die NATO, sieben Luftwaffenstützpunkte – Trapani, Sigonella, Pantelleria, Gioia del Colle, Amendola, Decimomannu und Aviano – zu nutzen.

Mit diesem Krieg im Jahr 2011 zerstörte die NATO den Staat Libyen, der sich am Südufer des Mittelmeeres gegenüber Italien befindet, einem Staat, der – zugegebenermaßen mit einigen bemerkenswerten internen Unterschieden – ein „hohes Maß an Wirtschaftswachstum und menschlicher Entwicklung“ erreicht hatte (wie die Weltbank selbst 2010 erklärte), „das dem der anderen afrikanischen Länder überlegen war“. Der Beweis dafür ist, dass fast zwei Millionen Einwanderer, die meisten davon Afrikaner, in Libyen Arbeit gefunden hatten. Gleichzeitig hatte Libyen mit seiner eigenen Staatskasse die Entwicklung unabhängiger Wirtschaftsorganisationen und einer afrikanischen Währung in Afrika ermöglicht.

Wie die E-Mails von [Ex-]Außenministerin Hillary Clinton beweisen, haben sich die USA und Frankreich darauf geeinigt, den Plan von Kadhafi, eine afrikanische Währung, eine Alternative zum Dollar und den CFA-Franc, den Frankreich 14 afrikanischen Ex-Kolonien auferlegt hat, um jeden Preis zu blockieren.

Nach der Zerstörung des Staates und der Ermordung von Mouamar Kadhafi begann in der darauf folgenden chaotischen Situation ein brutaler Kampf, sowohl intern als auch international, um die Beute – die riesigen Öl- und Erdgasreserven, die riesigen nubischen unterirdischen fossilen Wasserreserven – zu verteilen; dieses weiße Gold, aus einem Blickwinkel wertvoller als das schwarze Gold; das libysche Territorium selbst, von vorrangiger geostrategischer Bedeutung; der souveräne Staatsschatz, etwa 150 Milliarden Dollar, die vom libyschen Staat im Ausland investiert und 2011 bei den wichtigsten europäischen und US-amerikanischen Banken „eingefroren“ wurden oder mit anderen Worten – gestohlen. So sind beispielsweise von den 16 Milliarden Euro, die von der Euroclear Bank in Belgien und Luxemburg für libysche Vermögenswerte gesperrt wurden, mehr als 10 Milliarden verschwunden. „Seit 2013“, so der RTBF (RadioTelevision Francophone Belge), „wurden Hunderte von Millionen Euro aus diesem Vermögen nach Libyen geschickt, um den Bürgerkrieg zu finanzieren, der eine schwere Migrantenkrise auslöste“.

Viele afrikanische Einwanderer in Libyen wurden von islamischen Milizen gefangen genommen und gefoltert. Libyen, das sich nun in den Händen von Menschenhändlern und internationalen Manipulatoren befindet, wurde zum wichtigsten Transitland für eine chaotische Migrationsflut, die jedes Jahr im Mittelmeer mehr Opfer forderte als NATO-Bomben im Jahr 2011.

Wir können nicht schweigen, wie es selbst die Organisatoren des Gegengipfels in Palermo getan haben – die Wahrheit ist, dass der Ursprung dieser menschlichen Tragödie in den Kriegen der USA und der NATO liegt, die vor sieben Jahren einen ganzen Staat in Afrika zerstört haben.

Manlio Dinucci

Übersetzung: K.R.

il manifesto, 13.November 2018

Manlio Dinucci

Geograph und Geopolitiker. Letztes veröffentliche Werk: Laboratorio di geografia, Zanichelli 2014 ; Diario di viaggio, Zanichelli 2017 ; L’arte della guerra / Annali della strategia Usa/Nato 1990-2016, Zambon 2016, Guerra Nucleare. Il Giorno Prima 2017; Diario di guerra Asterios Editores 2018

VIDEO (PandoraTV) :

The US led war in Yemen has been ongoing almost as long as the one in Afghanistan – because both Republicans and Democrats oppose resolution in all US war theaters.

On November 14 House Republicans blocked a resolution to end war in Yemen by ending US military support for Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Yemen is America’s war, launched by Bush/Cheney, supported by Obama for eight years, by Trump for nearly two years.

The resolution called “Manage Our Wolves Act” included a Dem provision on Yemen, solely for political reasons, a grandstanding stunt, not one of conviction.

Dems are as pro-war on humanity as Republicans, unconcerned about the human cost, civilians harmed most in all war theaters – notably in Yemen, famine stalking millions because of endless war and blockade.

Dem Rep. Ro Khanna invoked the 1973 War Powers Act. Enacted to check presidential power to wage war without congressional approval – except under “national emergency (conditions) by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces” it hasn’t worked as intended.

It’s supposed to require presidents to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action, forbidding them from remaining for more than 60 days in combat, a further 30-day withdrawal period granted – no longer without congressional authorization.

Since enacted into law, the measure was repeatedly violated by presidents, ignored by Congress, notably during the rape of Yugoslavia and endless post-9/11 wars of aggression against nations threatening no one.

Invoking the War Powers Act on Wednesday gave the Yemen resolution “privileged” status, allowing it to bypass the process involving legislation passing through committees before reaching the House and Senate floor.

Republicans stripped the resolution of status. Khanna was over the top calling the action “unprecedented in American history,” adding:

“What the majority is saying is that if the president of the United States and the speaker believe we should be in war, we should be at war.”

It’s how it’s largely been since WW II – with overwhelming bipartisan support. Both right wings of America’s one-party state support endless wars of aggression – including in Yemen for over 17 years.

The notion that Dems are concerned about Yemeni suffering and deaths flies in the face of their abhorrence of peace and stability anywhere – the same as Republicans.

The last US president against war, wanting all US forces out of Vietnam, was assassinated by the CIA. Jack Kennedy’s transformation from warrior to peacemaker cost him his life.

It’s a lesson not lost on successors. Go along with imperial wars or end up like JFK.

They all supported and continue to support endless US wars of aggression against nations threatening no one.

Khanna represents the strongly Dem California 17th congressional district – elected in November 2016, reelected on November 6, earlier serving as Obama’s deputy assistant Commerce Department secretary, supporting his regime’s imperial agenda.

It included terror-bombing seven countries, including Yemen. Khanna’s call for ending war in Yemen belies his earlier support – including for US naked aggression in multiple other theaters, likely supporting them now.

The vast majority of congressional members back Washington’s imperial agenda – why there’s no prospect of ending US wars.

Khanna was less than candid, saying

“(t)here’s not a single American who wouldn’t want the violence to end,” adding:

“I plead with my Republican colleagues. Please vote no on this resolution. Let’s have a debate. Let’s have a debate about the starvation and the killing going on there and do the right thing for our Constitution and our world.”

Most Americans are ignorant about US wars, where they’re waged and why. Virtually no anti-war movement exists.

On cable television where most Americans get no news/news, there’s practically no coverage of US imperial wars. When there is, it’s all propaganda all the time, leaving viewers disinformed and unaware of what’s going on.

Khanna’s alleged concern about what’s going on in Yemen rings disturbingly hollow.

What about the starving, suffering people in all other nations Washington continues to rape and destroy!

What about long-suffering Palestinians, especially terror-bombed Gazan, longstanding victims of Israeli apartheid viciousness!

What about lawless US sanctions on Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Syria and other countries!

What about bipartisan congressional support for wanting virtually all sovereign independent governments forcefully replaced by pro-Western puppet rule!

What about undeclared homeland war against unwanted aliens, Muslims, and America’s most vulnerable citizens by punishing neoliberal harshness and raging inner city battlegrounds – claiming over 100,000 lives annually.

America’s agenda in Yemen is one similar others in many other countries.

The key issue virtually no one in Congress will touch is ending all US wars of aggression, not one alone, even figures like Khanna have no credibility urging because of his support for Washington’s imperial agenda.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from The Course Correction

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