Global Research

What a glorious idea. The Trumpophobic NYT ignored reality claiming it, referring to the Quebec, Canada G7 summit ending acrimoniously, the US president refusing to sign a concluding statement over trade issues.

Post-WW II, Washington constructed a Western alliance, NATO and the CIA-created EU its core elements, the US wanting dominance over their member states, along with all others.

Trump’s policy with Europe and other allies differs from his predecessors in degree, not kind – more aggressively wanting US allies bending to its will, what his so-called “America First” agenda is all about, serving US privileged interests more one-sidedly than earlier, assuring friction with allies.

It showed in Quebec. Summit talks became a G6+1, America the outlier, his counterparts accusing him of protectionism. He roared turning truth on its head, saying

“(w)e’re the piggy bank that everybody’s robbing.”

Reality is polar opposite. Washington demands other nations play by its rules, US policy throughout the post-WW II era, Trump’s agenda more extreme than his predecessors.

According to the Times, America’s alliance with Western Europe “accomplished great things. It won two world wars in the first half of the 20th century.”

“Then it expanded to include its former enemies and went on to win the Cold War, help spread democracy and build the highest living standards the world has ever known. President Trump is trying to destroy that alliance.”

Fact: Responsible Western policy could have avoided both global wars. Militarists and war-profiteers wanted them waged.

Fact: The Cold War never ended. Anti-Russia hostility is at a fever pitch in America, Britain, and elsewhere in the Western alliance.

Fact: Democracy is an anathema notion in the West. The highest ever standard of living is enjoyed by privileged interests exclusively at the expense of most others – poverty, unemployment, underemployment growth industries in America, Britain and other Western countries.

The Times:

“If a president of the United States were to sketch out a secret, detailed plan to break up the Atlantic alliance, that plan would bear a striking resemblance to Trump’s behavior.”

Fact: Trump doesn’t want the alliance dissolved. He and hardliners infesting his regime want greater than ever control over it. That’s part of what his “America First” agenda is all about.

He hasn’t tried “to create conflict for the sake of it,” as the Times claimed. There’s a method to his madness. He has firm aims in mind. He has no “secret plan to break up the West” – an absurd claim.

True enough his behavior in Quebec was unacceptable. Slamming Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly as “very dishonest” and “indignant” was out of line.

So was leaving the summit in mid-session on Saturday, well in advance of Tuesday talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

He engaged in a Twitter spat with French President Macron over trade issues. No bilateral meeting on the sidelines was held with UK PM Theresa May.

Possible trade war with Europe, Canada, China and other nations would be hugely disruptive if disputes aren’t responsibly settled.

Trump’s bluster, bravado and “America First” agenda define his relations with other world leaders.

The Western alliance is far from fractured. Trump wants it reshaped to serve US interests more than ever. What he can achieve remains very much uncertain.

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Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the CRG, Correspondent of Global Research based in Chicago.

The US, Iran and Saudi Arabia have each sent their respective representatives to Iraq to support the re-election of Haidar al-Abadi. This aim, far from achieving a stable Iraq,  will rather keep the country weak and politically divided between the biggest dominating groups.

Moreover, the parliament’s decision to annul the votes overseas from displaced Iraqis, to cancel over 954 ballots covering 10 provinces, and to manually recount the 12 May elections will create a backfire, particularly by the movement led by Moqtada al-Sadr. Al-Sadr, apparently holding the largest number of MPs (54 seats although unofficial), will consider this to be a move directed mainly against him particularly when this same group is accused, among other things, of being responsible for major fraud in Baghdad and in the south of Iraq.

The US representative in Iraq, Ambassador Bret McGurk, the Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and the Saudi unofficial envoy known as Yahya are visiting all parties and groups to promote Haidar Abadi as the future Prime Minister. Although each one has a fundamentally different agenda, they will all achieve one aim: Iraq will remain weak and politically divided, and this under a non-harmonious government and a Prime Minister who will certainly be unable to use force to take the country out of its present pitiful state.

Iraq has fought against and defeated one of the most challenging and dangerous terrorist groups of all time, Islamic State, known as ISIS. It continues to oppose them. ISIS’s main presence was almost entirely in Sunni-dominated provinces in the north. These provinces suffered tremendous destruction which forced tens of thousands of Iraqis to be internally displaced. Moreover, the war against ISIS caused serious damage to the infrastructure, already suffering since the US occupation of Iraq in 2003 and up till now due to the corruption which is rife among the political leadership of the country. The war also emptied the Iraqi central bank’s coffers and increased the foreign loan deficit.

Prime Minister Haidar Abadi – by his nature and personality – seems unable to hold the country with the fist of iron required. He bows to the will of many different political groups, mainly Shia, who have substantial political weight, even bigger than the Da’wa party that Abadi is part of.

Even the Marjaiya in Najaf believes Abadi “should be a prime Minister in a European country but not Iraq, a state in need of determination and the will to stand against corruption and outside interference”. Najaf played an important role in whispering to the population that there is no incentive to vote because “these are the same people returning to power again and again and again”. Actually, even within the same Grand Ayatollah Sistani’s entourage, many said “voting in this election with these candidates is dubious, even from a religious point of view.”.

Despite Parliament’s decision to revoke electronic counting due to fraud in many provinces and abroad, Moqtada al-Sadr signed an agreement of partnership with Sayyed Ammar al-hakim and Ayad Allawi. All of these three groups together do not even form half of the required number of votes (165) even if we consider the seats these groups managed to gather as not void. Therefore, it is going to be very difficult to form a large coalition with the required number within the legal time limit.

In fact, Iraqis disagree on the election results and, by manually counting the votes, Iraq is heading towards the unknown. By the end of this current month of June, the Parliament will be considered dissolved. The constitution doesn’t allow for the parliament to self-renew its mandate. Unless it issues a decree asking the Premier to run new elections within six months or so (my own speculation), the actual government will remain for very long with reduced power and without accountability- and without a legislation entity to control its action. Therefore, in this case, Abadi will remain as a (weak) Prime Minister at the top of a handicapped government.

Moqtada al-Sadr may refuse a new election, he who considers himself to be sitting on the top of the largest group with the biggest number of seats in parliament. Moreover, it seems almost impossible for any coalition to come together and collect more than 165 seats in parliament so as to be able to nominate a prime minister within the time limit. The larger groups are Shia and these are divided among themselves.

It looks like the Iraqi politicians and the US, Iran and Saudi Arabia have agreed to keep Iraq weak, each for various reasons:

• Few Iraqi leaders want power for themselves. Haidar Asbadi won’t join Moqtada al-Sadr because he fears the Sadrist leader. Moqtada has put in prison in al-Hannana (Moqtada’s house in Najaf) the vice Prime Minister, a Sadrist, and there is no guarantee that he would not do the same with Abadi if they joined together in one coalition. Moqtada also asked his group to attack the most guarded “green zone” only to “pull Abadi’s ears” and “teach him a lesson”.  On the other hand, Nouri al-Maliki refused to give up the prime ministership to Abadi who “robbed him of this position with the support of the Grand Ayatollah Sistani and other Shia who conspired against him”, as he himself said.

Also, Hadi al-Ameri is convinced enough today to renounce the prime ministership as long as Nouri al Maliki is content. But that doesn’t fit with promoting Abadi as a Prime Minister.

• The US doesn’t want Iraq to be strong so it can’t support the “Axis of the resistance”. A strong Iraq, in the US view, is under Iran’s control (which is totally wrong).
• A strong Iraq can also represent a menace to Israel and to neighbouring Middle Eastern countries, mainly Saudi Arabia. Iraq should not remain healthy and strong under Shia domination and Iran’s influence (in Saudi’s eyes): it may be more suitable to have a divided Iraq to prevent it from joining Iran and Syria in one axis against the Saudis.
• Iran also fears the Iraqi politicians who are very prone to jump into US arms, considering specially the presence of a strong current of animosity against Tehran among the Marjaiya, among many politicians and ordinary people. There is already a strong Hashd al-Shabi, capable of defending Iraq against any US hegemony.

Thus, given all these elements, it is appears logical to many that Iraq will remain very weak indeed. It seems headed towards a weak government or no election at all. It is already under the control of the militias in parliament and in most key positions, a very suitable scenario that fits most involved foreign players (US, Iran, Saudi Arabia), and is supported by the collaboration of many Iraqis.

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All images in this article are from the author.

Featured image: Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road fracking site near Blackpool, 1 May 2018. Photo: Ros Wills

The scale of harm from shale gas to health is uncertain, but the danger of exacerbating climate change is not, two professors of public health have warned.

In an editorial for this week’s British Medical Journal, David McCoy and Patrick Saunders said:

“Although we can’t be certain about the scale of harm that shale gas production will bring to local communities and the immediate environment, it will exacerbate climate change. And on these grounds alone, the risks clearly and considerably outweigh any possible benefits.”

Dr McCoy, professor of global public health at Barts and London School of Medicine, and Dr Saunders, visiting professor of public health at University of Staffordshire, dismissed industry arguments about the environmental benefits of shale gas in the UK.

They said:

“Although it may offer some environmental benefit if produced and used efficiently, and if it displaces “dirtier” sources of energy like coal from the energy mix, this does not hold true for countries like the UK that have already phased out coal.

“The argument that shale gas is relatively clean and can assist with our transition to a sustainable energy system is thin, if not hollow. It also implies an unacceptable indifference from proponents of the industry to the global threat posed by climate change.”

They added:

“Methane, the main component of shale gas, is a potent greenhouse gas that leaks directly into the atmosphere at different points in the production and supply line, producing an additional global warming effect.”

The academics have previously co-authored two health impact assessments on shale gas for the health charity, Medact.

In this week’s editorial, they said the hazards and effects on health of shale gas developments depended on many factors. These included, they said, how many shale gas wells were drilled and over what land area, the size and proximity of local populations; how the industry behaved and was regulated, as well as local factors.

They conceded that shale gas production may not be a population level health threat on the scale of tobacco, sugar, alcohol, or motor vehicle pollution. But they added:

“Some evidence shows that it increases the risk of negative health and environmental outcomes, including increased risk of cancer, adverse birth outcomes, respiratory disease, and mental wellbeing.”

Public health review

Public Health England (PHE) published a review in 2014 of the potential public health impacts of pollution resulting from shale gas extraction. This concluded:

“The potential risks to public health from exposure to the emissions associated with shale gas extraction will be low if the operations are properly run and regulated.”

This report has been criticised for looking only at emissions from shale gas sites and for failing to take account of the most recent research.

Dr Frank Rugman and Claire Stephenson delivering a petition to Public Health England in August 2017

There have been calls for an updated report, including a petition with nearly 6,000 signatures delivered to PHE in August 2017.

In May this year, the Energy Minister, Lord Henley, said

PHE “continue to review evidence on the potential public health impacts of emissions associated with shale gas extraction and have not currently identified any significant evidence that would make it change its views”.

PHE told DrillOrDrop a team of three-to-four staff focus “part of their time on onshore oil and gas”. They also have responsibility for assessing impacts from chemical incidents, air quality and industrial emissions.

The organisation said there was “an on-going process to identify new peer-reviewed papers” on shale gas health impacts. These were “assessed, summarised and reviewed to identify any new areas of public health concern”.

PHE confirmed that it had not published any further papers but “continues to review the evidence on emissions associated with shale gas extraction.”

The United States has had a policy of imperialism beginning after the Civil War. The US way of war, developed against Indigenous peoples, spread worldwide as the US sought to extend its power through military force, economic dominance and diplomatic hegemony.

Imperialism is driven by what Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. identified at the end of his life, the triple evils of racism, capitalism, and militarism. Lenin described imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism. Imperialism has justified mass slaughter, resulting in the US killing 20 million people since WW II. The People of the United States must say ‘no’ to imperialism.

Advocacy against imperialism is needed to prevent confusion around US militarism. The US disguises imperialism by attacking so-called “dictatorial” leaders who “use violence against their own people.” This results in Orwellian-phrased “humanitarian” wars – violence by US surrogates inside a country, massive funding to create opposition against a government or economic sanctions that cause widespread suffering.

The propaganda justifying these abuses hides the real intent — expansion of US domination so US corporations can profit from resources and cheap labor under a US-friendly government. People confused by this rhetoric sometimes repeat the propagandistic claims of US imperialists and help justify US intervention.

End US Imperialism from PopularResistance.org

Why US Imperialism Must Be Opposed Today

US imperialism is aggressively working on almost every continent through militarism, regime change, corporate trade agreements, economic blockades and creating indebtedness. The destruction of Libya, in an illegal “humanitarian” war, and the destruction of Iraq, in a falsely justified war, where both leaders were brutally assassinated, highlight the necessity of being clearly anti-imperialist.

There are many countries suffering from US imperialism today. Here are just a few:

Syria: Every president since the 1940s has sought to dominate Syria and has had specific plans for regime change. The Syrian conflict, often misdescribed as a civil war, is a war of aggression by the US, Saudi Araba, and Israel. During the George W. Bush administration, documents show plans to undermine the Assad government through terrorism, chaos and other attacks. In 2006, the United States started to finance an external opposition to Assad. In 2007, a plan for regime change in Syria was agreed upon between the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. The US began to use “color revolution” tools, organizing opposition in Syria, training citizen journalists and urging an “insurgency.”

During the Arab Spring-era in 2011, arrests of anti-Assad youth in Deraa resulted in protests. The police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse the crowd, but on the third-day protests turned violent, even though Assad announced the release of the detained youths. The police fought armed protesters, resulting in the deaths of seven police. Protesters torched the courthouse and Baath Party Headquarters. Violent protests continued and escalated and the Syrian government responded with violence.

Robert, the first US ambassador to Syria in five years, marched with the regime change protesters. He traveled through Syria inciting rebellion against Assad, according to this . He had to flee the country out of fear.

The situation escalated into a seven-year war, which has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, mass displacement, war crimes on all sides and unproven accusations against Syria of using chemical weapons. This week, seventy Syrian tribes declared war on the US at a time when Israel and the US are increasing their military campaigns in Syria.

The US has multiple imperialist interests in Syria. The US would like to close Russia’s Navy base in Tartus, Syria on the Mediterranean. A gas pipeline from Qatar to Turkey is competing with one from Iran to Syria. With large finds of methane gas in the coastal waters of Israel and Lebanon, it is likely they also exist in Syrian waters.

Iran: US imperialism in Syria is tied to in Iran. As with Syria, domination has been the goal of the US since the 1950s when the CIA engineered a coup that put in place the Shah, a dictator who ruled until the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The US has long sought to control Iran‘s vast oil resources.

The US used the same tools of regime change as in Syria and other countries, e.g. massive funding to build opposition to the government, supporting, building and manipulating protests, economic sanctions, and threats of militarism. These strategies have caused disruption but have failed to undermine the government.

Sanctions and the US violation of the nuclear agreement may backfire against the US as countries are fighting back against them and the US is being isolated in the UN. The US also conducts a false propaganda campaign, with the media playing along, about a nuclear weapons program that never existed and makes false claims of Iran sponsoring terrorism. And, as it did in Iraq, Libya, and Syria, Israel is urging war on Iran. This may lead to the US creating a Syrian-like war in Iran, threatening world security.

Venezuela: Another country with vast oil resources, Venezuela has been threatened with regime change, coups and war due to US imperialism that is supported by the elites in the US. The US uses the same regime change tools, e.g. a propagandistic barrage of lies about a “dictatorship”, economic sanctions, high-levels of funding to build opposition, violent protests, terrorism and attempts to foment a civil war.

Venezuela has faced a continuous coup since the election of Hugo Chavez. In 2002, a coup against Chavez was reversed by people’s protests. There has been an economic war since then. Wikileaks’ documents show Hillary Clinton sought to undermine and replace the Chavez-Maduro government. A coup in 2016 was foiled. In 2017, there was an embarrassing failed coup supported by the US. Trump is continuing long-term US policies seeking to dominate Venezuela.

The economic war creates challenges for the Venezuelan government. The US economic war blocks food, medicine, and essentials, while traitors inside Venezuela, from the wealthy class, do the same. These internal traitors even call for sanctions and war. The US falsely claims a humanitarian crisis exists in order to justify intervention to steal the nation’s oil and natural resources.

Sadly, this fools too many people who are not clear on opposing US imperialism, while it also unites many in Venezuela against US imperialism. The US-allied internal traitors admitted to 17 years of crimes in a proposed amnesty law in 2016, when they controlled the National Assembly.

In Latin America, particularly in Venezuela, Colombia plays the role of Israel for the US as the point of the US spear threatening war. Colombia has long-worked with the CIA for regime change in Venezuela. Indeed, Colombia just brought the imperialism military tool, NATO, to Latin America. The US and its allies are looking toward war,  making war preparations, conducting military exercises and are calling for a military coup. The world is saying ‘no’ to war against Venezuela as is much of Latin America.

In Venezuela, democratic elections resulted in a landslide victory for President Maduro, which was really a defeat of US imperialism. The election was important as the US, Canada, and the European Union were threatening Venezuela. It was a decisive election for the Bolivarian Revolution, which will continue for now.

And, There Are More: These are three examples of many. In Latin America through non-governmental organizations and US agencies, the US funds oligarchy, opposition to democracy and support for neoliberal policies and has a long history of US coups. In Nicaragua, the same tools of regime change are being used. There has been a US-supported soft coup in Brazil and Honduras.

Coups and militarism are not limited to Latin America. During the Obama era, US coups in Ukraine and attempts in the Middle East occurred. Ukraine deserves special mention as this country, which borders Russia, was a long-term imperial aim of the United States. State Department official Victoria Nuland said the US spent $5 billion to build an opposition to the government and manage a coup. There are now proposals to arm Ukraine against Russia, so the danger is growing.

The dramatic protest against democratically-elected President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014 was a US coup spearheaded by violent neo-Nazis. This Obama-era coup was “the most blatant coup in history,” according to the corporate CIA-firm, Stratfor.  The US has taken over their gas industry, putting Joe Biden’s son and a longtime friend of John Kerry on their board, has taken over agriculture, has a former State Department official serving as finance minister, picked their Prime Minister and put in place the US’s “Our Ukraine Insider” president. In the US, media propaganda is constant, focusing on Crimea returning to Russia and demonizing Putin.

While there are more current examples of US imperialism, we will finish with a brief discussion of Africa, where the US seeks to dominate the land, resources, and labor of a continent which holds natural resources critical to 21st Century technology and oil and where $100 billion in US corporate theft occurs annually. Under Obama, AfriCom greatly expanded and the US now has bi-lateral military agreements across the continent, military bases, drone bases, Special Operations Forces and a military presence in 53 of 54 countries creating an imperial-scale military presence.

The Congo, which has suffered 500 years of European and US imperialism and where four million people have been recently displaced, deserves special focus. The Congo has natural resources more valuable than the entire EU’s GDP. Tech companies violate human rights, such as children as young as seven mining cobalt for lithium batteries.  Africa is shaping up to be the center of 21st Century imperial US wars.

Anti-Imperialism: The Foundation For A Just Foreign Policy

These conflicts are all rooted in resource sovereignty in Latin Ameria, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Do these countries control their natural wealth or will US imperialism steal it from them? Peace and justice movements must build on a foundation of anti-imperialism and not be fooled by the lies of elected officials, militarists, and the corporate media.

Some will attack those clearest on opposing imperialism. At the Left Forum, a small group criticized long-time US human rights and peace advocate, Ajamu Baraka, for his stance opposing US imperialism in Syria.  The previously unknown group, the “League for the Revolutionary Party”,  was made up of a small number of members of the International Socialist Organization and Democratic Socialists of America. They showed how those who do not make opposition to imperialism a foundation of their advocacy are easily confused.

They had to misquote Baraka and take his views out of context to justify their attack. By protesting Baraka, they attacked the leader of the Black Alliance for Peace, making their protest racist. They also protested someone who challenged the war party duopoly, as he was the vice presidential nominee of the Green Party. Their protest not only supported US militarism in Syria but sought to weaken the rebuilding of the black peace movement and challenges to the war parties.

If we ground ourselves in anti-imperialism, we will not be as easily misled. We must respect the sovereignty of other nations and support popular struggles without promoting US intervention.

The people of many countries unite in opposition to US imperialism, economic warfare and threats of militarism. It is our job in the United States to act in solidarity with them and say ‘no’ to US imperialism.

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

What is the significance of G7 summit for hard working families in the U.S. and around the world? The conclusive answer is absolutely nothing!

Would a successful G8 (with Russia) or G6 (without Russia and the U.S.) summit make the lives of ordinary people better? Again the answer is NO.

The G7 is a gathering of the representatives of the world’s richest 1%. This year the G7 summit agenda emphasizes on “economic growth that works for everyone”! Of course that means an economy that is acceptable to the 1% in the U.S., U.K., Germany, France, Canada, Japan and Italy. However this notion was rejected by President Trump. The U.S. break from the group of 7 was not surprising to the other members since tension already existed before the start of the G7 summit. Mr. Trump (by announcing his intention to impose tariffs of up to 25 percent on steel and aluminum imports) already dismissed the European leaders concerns. He even warned the American allies that “if they retaliate, they’re making a mistake”.  President of European Council Donald Tusk complained that

“the rules-based international order is being challenged, not by the usual suspects but by its main architect and guarantor: the United States”.

President Macron (against the “isolationist” American President) said

“we don’t mind signing a 6 country agreement if need be. Because these 6 countries … represent an economic market … which is now a true international force.”

The divorce drama was completed by Mr. Trump tweeting

“After many decades, fair and reciprocal Trade will happen!”

President Trump who ignited a Trade War with his allies left the G7 summit early since he claimed that he was on a “Mission of Peace” with the U.S. long time enemy, North Korea.

Source: author

The 24/7 gossip news networks and their clueless pundits find Mr. Trump’s unorthodox approach toward the G7 summit and American allies, a fascinating TV show. To these “political analysts”, President Trump is either a “Masterful Negotiator” or a “Complete Moron”. The fact is Mr. Trump represents the United States of America who has the support of the 1% and the financial elite; his personality is irrelevant. He is delivering American new policies on Trade and International relationship which are risky and dangerous. These policies are designed to establish an American global hegemony. Today the U.S. is simply asking the sovereign countries to either become subordinate to its rules or face a harsh military retaliation. After World War II, the U.S. as a victor spent some money in Europe and elsewhere to make more money from the global market. Today the U.S. economy is declining; American manufacturers are losing to their foreign competitors. In comparison to other advanced countries, the U.S. looks more like a “third world” country. The ideal of robust production has been diminished by the fictitious financial sectors and Wall Street scam players. Mr. Trump (a con man himself) represents the most corrupt wealthy people in America who want to privatize everything that the public expects from the government. In another words, Mr. Trump wants to feed the hungry billionaires in the very swamp that he promised to drain.

In actuality, the Trump administration is looking backward to govern the nation; all the way back to the Feudalism. A time when Aristocrats demanded of their subjects (the peasants) to simply live and die in debt to their Lords, when peasants had no rights or concept of what it was to be free as a human. After 500 days of the new administration we are already witnessing how the Financial Aristocrats have became a major power in Washington and how the Congress is being pushed back, on the verge of becoming obsolete. While the Republican and Democratic parties are chasing each other in circle, a fascistic minded President has been gathering the reactionary billionaires and hawkish military personalities and warmongers to “Make America Great Again” for the 1% in the U.S. Today average Americans are in financial debt that ties their hands to strike and fight back the social and financial injustice. The majority,  who are considered as the lucky ones, work hard day in and day out for long hours to pay off the heavy burden of a house mortgage or auto loans throughout their lives. The young people who were able to graduate have to pay their heavy student debt on entry level employment pay (if they are lucky enough to find a job at all). However the daylight robbery of Billionaires who are support and make up the Trump administration has brought out working people and youth in large numbers onto the streets and already has caused a new challenge to the 1% and their politicians. President Trump has unleashed the awesome power of American working people internally and on the global scale he has pushed the friends and foes to form new alliances.

Now all eyes are on the U.S./North Korea summit which will be held in 2 days (on June 12th) in Singapore. Mr. Trump in his Press Conference in Canada (before his departure) in response to a question “How long do you think that it will take you to figure out” Kim Jong Un? He arrogantly answered:

“I think within the first minute I’ll know”.

Mr. Trump in advance gave Kim Jong Un a “one time shot” chance! The truth is the question of reunification of South and North Korea and the end of hostilities is supported by the people of both countries and already has progressed. It is not up to President Trump to decide the future of the Korean Peninsula. There are many other factors involved that indirectly shapes the U.S./N.K. summit. China naturally is very concerned about the outcome of summits in Canada and Singapore. In parallel and contrast to the G7 summit, China hosted the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) annual summit to show ‘unity’ among its members (China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan with Iran as an observer and was represented by the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani).

Regardless of the drama that President Trump plays every few minutes, he is not the sole decider and does not have the last word on any national or international issues. In fact the backlash to the U.S. new policies will be severe and unprecedented. For his credulous base, Mr. Trump has created an imaginary world that turns only by his command. The U.S. government through Mr. Trump presidency dangerously has moved the world closer toward a fatal nuclear war. Peace activists and democratic minded people around the world must rise and stand up against Tyranny and War before the first nuclear missile is launched.

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Massoud Nayeri is a graphic designer and an independent peace activist based in the United States. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office website page makes clear what the objectives of the ‘Conflict, Stability and Security Fund’ are. It states that it: “provides development and security support to countries which are at risk of conflict or instability. It’s the only government fund which uses both Official Development Assistance (ODA) spend and non–ODA spend to deliver and support security, defence, peacekeeping, peace-building and stability activity.” In other words, alleviating the pain and suffering of those in countries experiencing a lack of security as a result of conflict. However, taxpayers are becoming increasingly more annoyed that much of the £1billion a year spent ends up supporting terrorism and human rights abuses.

BBC’s “Jihadis’ You Pay For”

Last December, the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund came into sharp focus after the suspension of £12 million to the Access to Justice and Community Security” (AJACS) program in Syria when questions were raised in the British aid community about the opacity of cross-government funds.

It was a community-based programme, an unarmed policing effort in war-torn northern Syria that was suspended after a  BBC Panorama episode aired claims about corruption and aid funds reaching the hands of terrorist groups.

The allegations relate to part of the program managed by the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office; and implemented by British contractor Adam Smith International.

The BBC investigation, “Jihadis You Pay For,” alleged that ASI — backed by U.K. taxpayer funds — knowingly funded terrorist activities. It concluded that U.K.-funded “development efforts have been undermined by mismanagement, waste and corruption,” leading to concern among many in the aid community that the allegations could provoke anti-aid sentiment among the public.

‘White Helmets’ Controversy

Since 2011, the UK has provided £2.71bn in aid to the Syrian humanitarian effort. Of this, £38.4m went through the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund to the White Helmets, a freedom of information request revealed in March this year.

This organisation is mired in controversy.

“The White Helmets brand was conceived and directed by a marketing company named “The Syria Campaign” based in New York. They have managed to fool millions of people. Walt Disney might have made a great movie about this: unarmed volunteers fearlessly rescuing survivors in the midst of war without regard to religion or politics. Like most other “true life” Disney movies, it is 10% reality, 90% fiction.”

Whatever you believe when it comes to the ‘White Helmets’ – if there is any doubt whatsoever as to their activities in the theatre of war, a war Britain is illegally involved in – they should not be funded by taxpayers.

“Funding Torture and Repression“

Mark Curtis, along with Nick Dearden researched and wrote for Global Justice Now a devastating report (HERE) that included case studies of ‘questionable aid projects’ from Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Iraq, East Africa and others. It also highlighted human rights abuses in one section entitled “Funding for torture and repression“- and provided examples in Burma, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, Sudan and other countries.

The report starts with accusations of deliberate dubious involvement clearly stating that the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund:

“is increasingly using aid money to fund military and counter-terrorism projects which do not appear focused on what aid should be about: eradicating poverty and promoting inclusive development. It is funding ‘security’ forces in several states involved in appalling human rights abuses, thus the UK risks complicity in these violations. It is not transparent. Despite some improvements made to the Fund this year, programme details are scant and some appear to be misleading.”

Campaign to close the fund

Global Justice Now has gone one step further in an article last week entitled: “Standing against the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund” – which is now pushing for the fund to be closed:

“On 4 June we handed in a petition from 4,672 UK citizens standing up and calling on Theresa May to close the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF).

The fact that thousands of people felt motivated to call for the fund to close, shows that many are fed up with publically funded aid money being diverted from alleviating poverty. Under the CSSF, which is half funded from the aid budget, money is going towards funding security forces across the world, and what’s worse in some cases the fund supports security forces accused of human rights abuses.  

UK aid has been in the news over and over again in the last few years. Each and every time, the headlines it garners are for the wrong reasons. All over the world, aid is being misused.

The CSSF is supposed to provide “development and security support to countries which are at risk of conflict or instability”. But given the string of scandals, from funding human rights abuses in Bahrain, to funding extremists in Syria, it’s clear that this core objective is often not being met.

Just today, aid made headlines as it was revealed that 20% of projects in China are “explicitly promoting the capabilities of UK entities alone”. Rather than actually reaching and benefiting those most in need of aid, UK companies have funnelled money into, among other things, developing the Chinese film industry, improving the Chinese museum infrastructure and improving the credit bond rating system in China. While this isn’t to say that arts and culture aren’t important, aid money is legally bound to reducing poverty overseas and helping the world’s most vulnerable people. It’s hard to understand how spending in such a manner helps fulfil this aim.

Global Justice Now has a long history of holding the government to account on how aid money is spent. And we will continue to do so until we ensure that it is reaching those that really need it and it makes a long term difference to building a more just, equal and sustainable world.”

The fund itself has an annual value of £1 billion. When taxpayers learn of the malfeasance of government who abuse their position for their own power-play gaming on the world stage, they create an environment where the loss of trust manifests itself as anti-aid sentiment.

This £1bn is enough to pay the salaries of 35,000 fully trained nurses or teachers with 10 years experience or 42,000 police officers every year. Given the scale of austerity cutbacks in health, education and policing, many citizens would probably rather see taxpayers money repatriated to alleviate the pressures on those institutions who support the most vulnerable in society. This is especially so given recent shocking numbers of rising poverty in the UK, threats of tax rises to support the NHS and a general crisis lurking in just about every corner of society in Britain today. Think Housing crisis, health crisis, social care crisis and so on.

One only has to read Britain’s relentless war on the poor and vulnerable to see where £1billion could make a dramatic difference on home territory.

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Featured image is from TruePublica.

The sun rising in the east 

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Qingdao has not formally begun and already the Presidents of China and Kazakhstan have met to discuss deepening trade ties with a particular emphasis on Astana’s participation in the One Belt–One Road trading initiative.  Furthermore, the Vice Foreign Ministers of China, Pakistan and Afghanistan have met to discuss a future road map for regional peace in Afghanistan and beyond while a key point for the summit will be the trilateral discussions between China, Pakistan and India as a means of both harmonising existing trading relations and ironing out disputes between New Delhi and its neighbours. Indeed, any linger worries that there might be tense moments when discussing India’s relationship with fellow SCO members Pakistan and China have already been overshadowed by a conflict ridden summit being held in Canada simultaneous to the SCO meeting in China.

Canadian bacon with a side of tariffs 

In Quebec, the group that used to be called the G8 but since Russia’s 2014 suspension and ultimate withdrawal in 2017 has been the G7, is about to begin a series of meetings that are already revolving around little more than the stand-off between Donald Trump’s pro-tariff administration and the governments of every other nation. With the exception of Trump’s seemingly all-weather friendship with Japanese Premier Shinzō Abe whom he met yesterday in the US, all of the other G7 leaders are upset with Trump over the steel and aluminium tariffs that recently went into effect against the European Union and fellow NAFTA members Canada and Mexico.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been indignant about Trump’s tariffs and has threatened to take action against Washington at the level of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). It is thought that Trudeau will refuse to speak privately with Trump over the issue on the sidelines of the summit, although this could still change, while it is also being reported that a private meeting between Trump and UK Premier Theresa May has been cancelled because of an infamously poor personal relationship.

Tensions between Trump and his EU colleagues including German Chancellor Angela Merkel remain strained over anti-EU tariffs, threats from Trump to ban luxury German car imports from the large US market and moreover the JCPOA (aka Iran nuclear deal). European leaders have insisted that they seek to maintain their economic ties with Iran in an attempt to preserve the JCPOA in spite of the US withdrawal. However, the looming threat of CAATSA sanctions on EU companies who continue do business with Iran has augmented anger in Europe which has only been compounded by the related issue of tariffs.

Apart from Trump’s frequent golfing partner Abe, the G7 leader thought to have the best relationship with Trump is French President Emmanuel Macron. While Trump often shares little other than cold handshakes with Merkel and May, during Macron’s recent visit to the White House the two leaders fondly embraced each other on multiple occasions.

Now though, Macron has become the most outspoken of all the G7 leaders against Trump’s tariffs and his generally unfriendly negotiating position vis-a-vis the EU in a sign that perhaps the political romance between the two is on the rocks. Macron has stated,

“The six countries of the G7 without the United States, are a bigger market taken together than the American market. Maybe the American president doesn’t care about being isolated today, but we don’t mind being six, if needs be.

…I would like to say Mr. Trump that the measures taken are counterproductive. We can’t engage in a trade war against friends”.

While Macron is talking tough and channelling the anti-Atlanticist language of erstwhile Gaullist leaders, in reality for all of the EU’s wealth, because Brussels has been so cautious in forming partnerships with Asian economies including China, Russia, the Eurasian Economic Union as a whole and now because of incredibly poor relations between Turkey and the EU, Brussels has been left with little meaningful leverage to “stand up” to its traditional US partner. If these problems weren’t bad enough for the so-called “western alliance” the arrival of an inexperienced new Italian coalition government presents something of an mystery element to the summit as it is not entirely known if Rome will be siding more with Brussels or Washington in the new plethora of disputes.

For his part, Donald Trump has fired back at both Macron and Trudeau in a series of Tweets that underscore the resentment that is rapidly building among the so-called “western alliance”.

Please tell Prime Minister Trudeau and President Macron that they are charging the U.S. massive tariffs and create non-monetary barriers. The EU trade surplus with the U.S. is $151 Billion, and Canada keeps our farmers and others out. Look forward to seeing them tomorrow.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 7, 2018

Prime Minister Trudeau is being so indignant, bringing up the relationship that the U.S. and Canada had over the many years and all sorts of other things…but he doesn’t bring up the fact that they charge us up to 300% on dairy — hurting our Farmers, killing our Agriculture!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 7, 2018

Why isn’t the European Union and Canada informing the public that for years they have used massive Trade Tariffs and non-monetary Trade Barriers against the U.S. Totally unfair to our farmers, workers & companies. Take down your tariffs & barriers or we will more than match you!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 8, 2018

Canada charges the U.S. a 270% tariff on Dairy Products! They didn’t tell you that, did they? Not fair to our farmers!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 8, 2018

Looking forward to straightening out unfair Trade Deals with the G-7 countries. If it doesn’t happen, we come out even better!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 8, 2018

Clearly, Trump is making the most of the fact that while the EU and Canada represent a large economic area when taken in totality, when it comes to the ability to mount serious pressure on traditional partners, the US remains in a stronger position vis-a-vis the Brussels-Ottawa axis. In a clear sign that Trump is revelling in the fact that his last “friend” in the G7 is the Japanese Premier, has anti-Canada and anti-EU Tweets were preceded by a friendly video montage of his recent discussions with Abe.

Great day of meetings with Prime Minister @AbeShinzo of Japan! pic.twitter.com/uKcdA8RxoN

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 7, 2018

Kim to the rescue? 

Seemingly lost on most observers is the fact that shortly after the G7 summit in Canada which appears to be doomed to failure before it begins, Trump will be shortly travelling to Singapore for his meeting with DPRK head of state Kim Jong-un. Not only is it guaranteed that due to cultural considerations Kim Jong-un and his colleagues will be more respectful than the often loudmouthed and boisterous Europeans, but whilst Trump and his EU/Canadian partners both look hellbent on refusing to make compromises (at least for the moment), Kim’s self-evidently sincere desire for peace and multilateral cooperation likely means that even if no concrete agreements are any closer after the Singapore summit, at least Trump and Kim will likely be cordial to one another which is more than can be said for most Trump’s G7 colleagues with the exception of the lone Asian head of government in attendance.

Russia vindicated by circumstance

All of the above serves to demonstrate that Russia’s dramatic falling out with its former G8 partners after 2014 was a blessing in disguise. Beginning in the 1990s, many contemporary Russian leaders became hellbent on forcibly “westernising” the Russian economy and society with a completely wilful disregard for the realities of Russian economic characteristics, Russia’s important Asian and African allies and a woeful misunderstanding of Russia’s history, the events of recent years which have pushed Russia back to its position as a Eurasian superpower. This has helped to extricate Moscow from the circus that is currently unfolding in Canada.

Russia’s natural position is with her Asian partners in the SCO. Because Russia is now unwanted by the G7 nations who now don’t even agree on a great deal between themselves, it is clear that while Russian leaders in the 1990s and early 2000s failed to make the bold moves necessary to return to Russia’s natural home in Eurasia, circumstance has dictated that Russia’s natural home is now the place where she is most welcome. Furthermore, a recent remark by Trump indicating that he would like Russia to re-join should be read more as a rhetoric device to provoke Washington’s European and Canadian partners, more than an earnest reflection of reality.

Full circle – back to China 

It is virtually guaranteed that the SCO meeting hosted by Xi Jinping will be more objectively successful than the G7 meeting hosted by Justin Trudeau. Furthermore, when it comes to the issue of peace in Korea, here too China along with fellow SCO partner Russia have many more positive contributions to make than any of the G7 who in the case of the EU and Canada remain remote from the issue. In the case of Japan, a difficult history with Korea (to put it politely) means that Tokyo’s role in the peace process will ultimately be less important than that of China, Russia and the two Korean states themselves and less influential in terms of both optics and singing off on a final agreement than that of the United States.

I personally do not doubt that the rows between Washington on the one side and Canada and the EU on the other will eventually subside, but the childish insults being levelled be multiple G7 leaders prove that the SCO is not only a more civilised forum but ultimately a more productive and cohesive one.

The influence of China over the SCO contrasted with the US influence over the G7 goes a long way in explaining the different characteristics of the two summits which in turn goes along way towards explaining how different the outcomes of both summits will be.

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Adam Garrie is Director at Eurasia future. He is a geo-political expert who can be frequently seen on Nedka Babliku’s weekly discussion show Digital Divides, RT’s flagship debate show CrossTalk as well as Press-TV’s flagship programme ‘The Debate’. A global specialist with an emphasis on Eurasian integration, Garrie’s articles have been published in the Oriental Review, Asia Times, Geopolitica Russia, the Tasnim News Agency, Global Research, RT’s Op-Edge, Global Village Space and others.

Standing here at the base of the Grecian columns on the south side of the Lincoln Memorial there will be a very striking view of the funeral procession of Senator Robert Kennedy.

The first sight of the procession will be through the trees as it turns off Constitution Avenue onto Henry Bacon Drive…a short tree lined street. It will then be in full view as it turns into the circle around the Lincoln Memorial. It will pass directly below me between the monuments honouring two great Americans, Washington and Lincoln.

This is truly the scenic heart of this Capitol city.

To the right of the reflecting pool is “Resurrection City” with a slight haze from burning trash hanging over it. Through the trees lining the street I can see the ramshackle plywood huts and the puddles and mud inside the encampment. It’s a blot on this scenic landscape, but it’s the kind Robert Kennedy would approve, for these were the people he worked to lift from the ghettoes they represent from the cities, native peoples reservations and the backwoods of America.

Some 2,000 residents of Resurrection City are lining the street in front of their camp to pay their last respects to a man they considered their champion. A delegation of 25 members of the Poor Peoples March are now meeting their leader Rev. Ralph Abernathy at Union Station to join the funeral procession to the grave.

The funeral cortege is now passing the Lincoln Memorial heading onto the Memorial Bridge that spans the Potomac. As it passes through the great golden Horsemen at the entrance of the bridge, the late Senator’s journey to his grave is almost over.

The Custis-Lee Mansion can be seen directly ahead in Arlington Cemetery. A verdant slope of grass spreads out below the Mansion and from this distance, almost a mile away the grave of President John Kennedy is only a tiny square. Senator Kennedy passed this same location four and a half years ago walking behind the gun carriage carrying his slain brother.

Today there is no gun carriage or riderless horse and no muffled drum beats…but the sadness of that November day is here and the love and respect for a lost leader is also here this afternoon at the Lincoln Memorial.

It’s somehow ironic, but fitting to the memory of Senator Kennedy that this last group of people lining his route to the grave as he leaves the city are largely the poor people of Resurrection City…the very people whose cause he spoke out for so eloquently and whose problems he understood and fought for. From these people he goes to Arlington where his remains will lie beside American soldiers, many the dead of Vietnam, a war Senator Kennedy fought to end.

It brings to mind one of the most moving moments of this sad day when his brother, Senator Ted Kennedy, eulogizing his fallen brother in St. Patricks Cathedral this morning said:

“He saw wrong and tried to right it.

“He saw suffering and tried to heal it.

“Saw war and tried to stop it.”

The hearse has now passed. Robert Kennedy has left Washington for the last time.

He should have died hereafter for he had much to do that may not now be done.

He was killed by hate in Los Angeles. Today, here in Washington he will be buried with love.

Don North ABC News reporting from the Lincoln Memorial on the funeral procession of Senator Robert Kennedy.

Here is an ABC News report from that day of the funeral and procession for Robert Kennedy, from St. Patrick’s Cathedral down the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks and through the streets of Washington to his final resting place in Arlington:

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Don North, a veteran war correspondent who covered the Vietnam War and many other conflicts around the world, is the author of Inappropriate Conduct,  the story of a WW II correspondent whose career was crushed by the intrigue he uncovered.  

In a recent communication between Randy Credico, an Assange supporter, comic and radio producer, and Adam Schiff, the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, Assange’s fear of arrest and extradition to the US was confirmed by the leader of the Russia-gate frenzy.

Credico received the following response from Schiff after meeting the the Congressman’s staff, in which Credico was trying to connect Assange with Schiff: “Our committee would be willing to interview Assange when he is in U.S. Custody and not before.”

Dennis Bernstein spoke with John Pilger, a close friend and supporter of Assange on May 29. The interview began with the statement Bernstein delivered for Pilger at the Left Forum last weekend in New York on a panel devoted to Assange entitled, “Russia-gate and WikiLeaks”.

Pilger’s Statement

“There is a silence among many who call themselves left. The silence is Julian Assange. As every false accusation has fallen away, every bogus smear shown to be the work of political enemies, Julian stands vindicated as one who has exposed a system that threatens humanity. The Collateral Damage video, the war logs of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Cablegate revelations, the Venezuela revelations, the Podesta email revelations … these are just a few of the storms of raw truth that have blown through the capitals of rapacious power. The fakery of Russia-gate, the collusion of a corrupt media and the shame of a legal system that pursues truth-tellers have not been able to hold back the raw truth of WikiLeaks revelations. They have not won, not yet, and they have not destroyed the man. Only the silence of good people will allow them to win. Julian Assange has never been more isolated. He needs your support and your voice. Now more than ever is the time to demand justice and free speech for Julian. Thank you.”

Dennis Bernstein: We continue our discussion of the case of Julian Assange, now in the Ecuadorian embassy in Great Britain. John Pilger, it is great to talk to you again. But it is a profound tragedy, John, the way they are treating Julian Assange, this prolific journalist and publisher who so many other journalists have depended on in the past. He has been totally left out in the cold to fend for himself.

John Pilger: I have never known anything like it. There is a kind of eerie silence around the Julian Assange case. Julian has been vindicated in every possible way and yet he is isolated as few people are these days.  He is cut off from the very tools of his trade, visitors aren’t allowed. I was in London recently and I couldn’t see him, although I spoke to people who had seen him. Rafael Correa, the former president of Ecuador, said recently that he regarded what they are doing to Julian now as torture.  It was Correa’s government that gave Julian political refuge, which has been betrayed now by his successor, the government led by Lenin Moreno, which is back to sucking up to the United States in the time-honored way, with Julian as the pawn and victim.

Should be a ‘Constitutional Hero’

But really it comes down to the British government. Although he is still in a foreign embassy and actually has Ecuadorian nationality, his right of passage out of that embassy should be guaranteed by the British government. The United Nations Working Party on Unlawful Detentions has made that clear. Britain took part in an investigation which determined that Julian was a political refugee and that a great miscarriage of justice had been imposed on him.  It is very good that you are doing this, Dennis, because even in the media outside the mainstream, there is this silence about Julian. The streets outside the embassy are virtually empty, whereas they should be full of people saying that we are with you. The principles involved in this case are absolutely clear-cut. Number one is justice. The injustice done to this man is legion, both in terms of the bogus Swedish case and now the fact that he must remain in the embassy and can’t leave without being arrested, extradited to the United States and ending up in a hell hole.  But it is also about freedom of speech, about our right to know, which is enshrined in the United States Constitution. If the Constitution were taken literally, Julian would be a constitutional hero, actually. Instead, I understand the indictment they are trying to concoct reads like a charge of espionage! It’s so ridiculous.That is the situation as I see it, Dennis. It is not a happy one but it is one that people should rally to quickly.

DB: His journalistic brethren are sounding like his prosecutors. They want to get behind Russia-gate freaks like Congressman Adam Schiff and Mike Pompeo, who would like to see Assange in jail forever or even executed.  How do you respond to journalists acting like prosecutors, some of whom used his material to do stories? This is a terrible time for journalism.

JP: You are absolutely right: It is a terrible time for journalism. I have never known anything quite like it in my career. That said, it is not new. There has always been a so-called mainstream which really comes down to great power in media. It has always existed, particularly in the United States. The Pulitzer Prize this year was awarded to The New York Times and The Washington Post for witch-hunting around Russia-gate! They were praised for “how deeply sourced their investigations were.” Their investigations turned up not a shred of real evidence to suggest any serious Russian intervention in the 2016 election.

Like Webb

The Julian Assange case reminds me of the Gary Webb (image on the left) case. Bob Parry was one of Gary Webb’s few supporters in the media. Webb’s “Dark Alliance” series contained evidence that cocaine trafficking was going on with the connivance of the CIA. Later Webb was hounded by fellow journalists and, unable to find work, he eventually committed suicide. The CIA Inspector General subsequently vindicated him. Now, Julian Assange is a long way from taking his own life. His resilience is remarkable. But he is still a human being and he has taken such a battering.

Probably the hardest thing for him to take is the utter hypocrisy of news organizations—like The New York Times, which published the WikiLeaks “War Logs” and “Cablegate,” The Washington Post andThe Guardian, which has taken a vindictive delight in tormenting Julian. The Guardiana few years ago got a Pulitzer Prize writing about Snowden. But their coverage of Snowden left him in Hong Kong. It was WikiLeaks that got Snowden out of Hong Kong and to safety.

Professionally, I find this one of the most unsavory and immoral things I have seen in my career. The persecution of this man by huge media organizations which have drawn great benefit from WikiLeaks. One of Assange’s great tormentors, The Guardian‘s Luke Harding, made a great deal of money with a Hollywood version of a book that he and David Lee wrote in which they basically attacked their source. I suppose you have to be a psychiatrist to understand all of this. My understanding is that so many of these journalists are shamed. They realize that WikiLeaks has done what they should have done a long time ago, and that is to tell us how governments lie.

DB: One thing that disturbs me greatly is the way in which the Western corporate press speculate about Russian involvement in the U.S. 2016 election, that it was a hack through Julian Assange. Any serious investigator would want to know who would be motivated. And yet the possibility that it might be the dozen or so pissed-off people who went to work for the Clinton machine and learned from the inside that the DNC was all about getting rid of Bernie Sanders…this is not a part of the story!

Eight Hundred Thousand Disclosures on Russia

JP: What happened to Sanders and the way that he was rolled by the Clinton organization, everybody knows that this is the story. And now we have the DNC suing WikiLeaks! There’s a kind of farcical element to this. I mean, none of this came from the Russians. That WikiLeaks is somehow in bed with the Russians is ludicrous. WikiLeaks published about 800,000 major disclosures about Russia, some of them extremely critical of the Russian government. If you are a government and you are doing something untoward or you are lying to your people and WikiLeaks gets the documents to show it, they will publish no matter who you are, be they the United States or Russia.

DB: Randy Credico, because of his work and his decision to devote a very high-profile series to the persecution of Julian Assange, recently found himself under attack. He went to the White House Press Roast and, after having a nice discussion with Congressman Schiff, he yelled out “What about Julian Assange?”  The room was packed full of reporters but Randy was attacked and dragged out. It was if everyone there was embarrassed to recognize that one of their brethren was being brutalized.

JP: Randy shouted some truth. It is very similar to what happened to Ray McGovern. Ray is a former member of the CIA but extremely principled. I might suggest he is a renegade now.

DB: It was hysterical to watch these four armed guards who kept shouting “Stop resisting, stop resisting!” and they are beating the hell out of him!

JP: I thought the image of Ray being hauled off was particularly telling. These four overweight, obviously ill-trained young men manhandling Ray, who is 78 years old. There was something highly emblematic about that for me. He stood up to challenge the fact that the CIA was about to hand over leadership to a person who had been in charge of torture. It is both shocking and surreal, which of course the Julian Assange case is as well. But real journalism should be able to get through the shocking and the surreal and get to the truth. There is so much collusion now, with all these dark and menacing developments. It is almost as if the word “journalism” is becoming blighted.

DB: There has certainly been a lot of collusion when it comes to Israel. Then the word “collusion” is quite appropriate.

JP: That’s the ultimate collusion. But that’s collusion with silence. Never has there been a collusion like the one between the U.S. and Israel. It suggests another word and that is “immunity.” It has a moral immunity, a cultural immunity, a geopolitical immunity, a legal immunity, and certainly a media immunity. We see the gunning down of over 60 people on the day of the inauguration of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. Israel has some of the most wickedly experimental munitions in the world and they fired them at people who were protesting the occupation of their homeland and trying to remind people of the Nakba and the right of return. In the media these were described as “clashes.” Although they did become so bad that The New York Times in a later edition changed its front page headline to say that Israel was actually killing people. A rare moment, indeed, when the immunity, the collusion was interrupted. All the talk of Iran and nuclear weapons is without any reference to the biggest nuclear power in the Middle East.

DB: What would you say have been the contributions that Julian Assange has made in this age of censorship and cowardice in journalism? Where does he come into the picture?

JP: I think it comes down to information. If you go back to when WikiLeaks started, when Julian was sitting in his hotel room in Paris beginning to put the whole thing together, one of the first things he wrote was that there is a morality in transparency, that we have a right to know what those who wish to control our lives are doing in secret. The right to know what governments are doing in our name—on our behalf or to our detriment—is our moral right. Julian feels very passionately about this. There were times when he could have compromised slightly in order to possibly help his situation. There were times when I said to him, “Why don’t you just suspend that for a while and go along with it?” Of course, I knew beforehand what his answer would be and that was “no.” The enormous amount of information that has come from WikiLeaks, particularly in recent years, has amounted to an extraordinary public service. I was reading just the other day a 2006 WikiLeaks cable from the U.S. embassy in Caracas which was addressed to other agencies in the region. This was four years after the U.S. tried to get rid of Chavez in a coup. It detailed how subversion should work. Of course, they dressed it up as human rights work and so on. I was reading this official document thinking how the information contained in it was worth years of the kind of distorted reporting from Venezuela. It also reminds us that so-called “meddling” by Russia in the U.S. is just nonsense. The word “meddling” doesn’t apply to the kind of action implied in this document. It is intervention in another country’s affairs.

WikiLeaks has done that all over the world. It has given people the information they have a right to have. They had a right to find out from the so-called “War Logs” the criminality of our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. They had a right to find out about Cablegate. That’s when, on Clinton’s watch, we learned that the NSA was gathering personal information on members of the United Nations Security Council, including their credit card numbers. You can see why Julian made enemies. But he should also have made a huge number of friends. This is critical information because it tells us how power works and we will never learn about it otherwise.  I think WikiLeaks has opened a world of transparency and put flesh on the expression “right to know.” This must explain why he is attacked so much, because that is so threatening. The enemy to great power is not the likes of the Taliban, it is us.

DB: And who can forget the release of the “collateral murder” footage by Chelsea Manning?

JP: That kind of thing is not uncommon. Vietnam was meant to be the open war but really it wasn’t. There weren’t the cameras around. It is indeed shocking information but it informs people, and we have Chelsea Manning’s courage to thank for that.

DB: Yes, and the thanks he got was seven years in solitary confinement. They want to prosecute Assange and maybe hang him from the rafters in Congress, but what about Judith Miller and The New York Times lying the West into war? There is no end of horrific examples of what passes for journalism, in contrast to the amazing contribution that Julian Assange has made.

Click here to listen to this interview.

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Dennis J. Bernstein is a host of “Flashpoints” on the Pacifica radio network and the author of Special Ed: Voices from a Hidden Classroom.  You can access the audio archives at www.flashpoints.net. You can get in touch with the author at [email protected].

Featured image: Houston, Texas pollution [Photo: Michelle Rivera]

At the direction of the Trump administration, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is radically revising its method for determining health and safety risks associated with toxic chemicals, considering only the impact of exposure in the workplace and direct consumption of the toxins, but not the longer-term impact of the diffusion of such substances into the air, water and land.

A report in the Friday edition of the New York Times characterized the decision as “a big victory for the chemical industry,” which effectively guts enforcement of a law passed in 2016 requiring the EPA to evaluate hundreds of chemicals, many of them in common use, and determine if they should face new restrictions or be withdrawn from the market.

According to the Times,

“as it moves forward reviewing the first batch of 10 chemicals, the EPA has in most cases decided to exclude from its calculations any potential exposure caused by the substances’ presence in the air, the ground or water, according to more than 1,500 pages of documents released last week by the agency.”

The agency will consider possible harm caused by workplace exposure—i.e., in the manufacturing of a chemical—and by direct consumption where the chemical is normally used, as with perchloroethylene, a suspected carcinogen widely used in dry-cleaning. But the accumulating runoff of perchloroethylene into rivers and streams, into the air, or into landfills will not be studied, even though 44 states have found the chemical in drinking water.

Two of the senior officials involved in this decision-making come directly from the chemical manufacturing industry. Nancy B. Beck, who oversees the toxic chemical unit of the EPA, was previously an executive at the American Chemistry Council (ACC), an industry lobby. Another official involved is Erik Baptist, a former lawyer for the American Petroleum Institute, which lobbies for the oil and gas companies, many of which have chemical subsidiaries.

According to the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF),

“the Trump administration is systematically weakening the EPA and seeking to dismantle key new authorities and mandates Congress just gave it under the reformed Toxic Substances Control Act.”

The actions taken by EPA include an indefinite delay on bans of high-risk uses of three dangerous chemicals: methylene chloride, N-methylpyrrolidone and trichloroethylene.

The EDF warned of the capture of the EPA by cronies of the polluting industries, giving Nancy Beck as a prime example of “a senior official at the American Chemistry Council—the chemical industry’s primary lobbying arm. In her new job, she is shaping policy on hazardous chemicals, making decisions that directly affect the financial interests of ACC member companies.”

In some cases, Beck has introduced language written by the ACC directly into EPA mandates, the environmental group charged.

Just in its risk analysis for the first 10 chemicals assessed under the Toxic Substances Control Act, the EPA will discount the effect of an estimated 68 million pounds a year of emissions, according to an EDF analysis.

The Times added, based on its review of hundreds of EPA documents, that other changes in the interests of polluters “narrow the definitions of certain chemicals, including asbestos.” The newspaper continued:

“Some asbestos-like fibers will not be included in the risk assessments, one agency staff member said, nor will the 8.8 million pounds a year of asbestos deposited in hazardous landfills or the 13.1 million pounds discarded in routine dump sites.”

All told, more than 70 lawsuits have been filed against EPA regulatory actions, nearly all of them challenging agency actions that were aligned with corporate interests and aimed at increasing the risk to the general population from toxic substances being released into the air and water or dumped into ordinary landfills rather than specially prepared sites.

Also Thursday, the EPA issued an advanced notice of proposed rule-making indicating that it was going to largely scrap any consideration of social costs and social benefits in the formulation of anti-pollution regulations, limiting rules instead to the immediate cost and benefit for the corporations involved.

A few days earlier, on June 1, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced that the agency would no longer evaluate asbestos in homes and businesses as a health risk, even though the death toll from asbestos exposure is estimated at 12,000 to 15,000 people a year in the United States alone.

The EPA has also sought to suppress a study by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that suggested much lower levels of perfluorooctanesulfonic acid and perfluorooctane acid (PFOS and PFOA) for human health and safety than suggested by the EPA. These chemicals are in widely used substances like Teflon.

A coalition of more than 50 public interest groups issued an appeal June 7 for the immediate release of the suppressed HHS study on perfluorinated chemicals in drinking water. In a letter to HHS, the groups wrote that the family of bioaccumulative and persistent chemicals known as PFAS “are potent toxicants linked to cancer, liver and thyroid damage, developmental impacts, and numerous other adverse health effects, including harming our immune systems.” The letter added,

“The government should be sharing information about these dangers, not hiding it.”

Congressional Democrats have made repeated attacks on EPA administrator Pruitt, but these have largely revolved around his evident personal corruption, including accepting gifts from industry lobbyists and other petty transgressions. There has been little effort to highlight the colossal impact on public health of the “get out of jail free” card issued by the Trump EPA to every major corporate polluter.

The Democrats, like the Republicans, do the bidding of corporate America when it comes to any serious threat to their profit interests. While they posture as more environmentally conscious, this has as much substance as their pretense to be pro-worker, while the death toll of workers killed and injured on the job mounted throughout the Obama administration.

And it was under Democrats as well as Republicans that such atrocities as the poisoning of the water supply of Flint, Michigan and other cities took place, all in the service of boosting corporate profits through privatization and the selloff of public assets.

More than 15 years ago, while I was covering one of the annual Munich Forums on Security, as a journalist, I asked Brent Scawcroft, former US National Security Advisor, what should be the relations of the West with China and Russia. He told me:

We have to entertain with both of them better relations than they can have between themselves.

Given our level of ignorance about what is going on behind the scenes around Kim, Trump and their meeting, we must remain very reserved about what is all that about.

But if we ignore what can happen in this summit and most of what made it possible, we can be near to certain as to what are the aims of the Neocon Party of War most probably has contributed to its election and is controlling Mr. Trump.

For them, what is happening with North Korea and its nuclear weapons is important, but it is not the most important. As Mr. Harris, the US envoy to South Korea put it, the real long-term challenge behind North Korea is China and, even Russia, the states but also their regimes. From the imperial point of view the North Korean problem has to be addressed in such a way, as to  facilitate Imperial policy towards China, Russia and the smaller nations-targets, undermining their unity, helping the emergence of pro-western, regime change forces in both countries and in North Korea, changing their regimes and dislocate them.

Why they are so radical? Because of a very, very simple reason, because no center of Western Imperialism is ready to accept such huge relatively independent and strong entities as China and Russia are today. They do not have the slightest wish to just be sitting idle watching China becoming the Global Economic Superpower, adding one Italy every year to its economy. The last thing they would like to see is Russia coming back to the role one had the USSR in world affairs. They cannot sleep at night thinking of half of the Middle East dominated by Iran in alliance with Russian Army!

You may have any opinion you wish about the Chinese or the Russian regimes, how much of “progress” and how much of “reaction” they represent. Still, one would be foolish not to understand that without the mere existence of those two big and relatively independent entities, without their military and, more and more, economic parity of China with the US, the Totalitarian Empire of Finance would already dominate the Planet, in a way it would make extremely difficult any resistance to it. That concerns both nations of the Global South and forces struggling for social and political democracy inside the West, the Global North.

Twenty years ago they were dreaming of a new American Century, meaning not a century, and probably not an American one, but the eternal Kingdom of Money. Now you think they are ready to accept a Chinese-Russian-Iranian century? No, they are not.

Graham Allison, a member of the Trilateral, ex-Dean of the Kennedy School of Government and an authority in US Foreign Policy knows better than me and you how his compatriots who make decisions are thinking. He should have serious reasons to write last year a whole book trying to persuade his fellow Americans not to fall into the “Thucydides’ trap” and not to go easily into the path leading to a World War with China.

The election of Trump in the US is due to various factors. But it could not happen, as we will try to prove, if there would not be a huge and complicated Neocon conspiracy to elect and to use him.  To understand Trump’s conspiracy logic, that is the Neocon strategy behind him, we must forget what he says or what we think he is, and analyze what he and his administration are doing and in which strategic context his doings are getting a meaning and a sense.

Unity between China, Russia and other nation-targets: The main Key of the world situation

Many years after Scawcroft gave me the above answer, not only the United States were unable to entertain with Beijing and Moscow better relations than they can have between themselves, the US has now much worse relations with both China and Russia than China and Russia can even imagine having between themselves.

Beginning with the invasion of Iraq and continuing with the wars in the Middle East, the interventions in ex-USSR and the threats against Korea, the Neocons themselves tough both Chinese and Russians how vitally important is their cooperation. Or at least, it seems to be the case.

Now, it is of utmost importance for the Neocons, who hold power in the US, in Israel and command also much influence in a lot of world capitals, to undermine the alliance between China and Russia, and also the unity between every one of them with the other potential or real targets of Western Imperialism, like North Korea, Iran, Syria etc.

For that reason the level of relations, the unity or disunity between China and Russia, and also with all the other smaller nations-targets of Western Global Imperialism is the key factor, the single most important one for the evolution of the international situation.

The Unity of such a “Resistance Front” is one of the main factors which will decide if the world will evolve towards a more democratic, “multipolar” structure or towards the complete domination of Finance and the destruction of human civilization, if not of life on Earth.

The Global Empire knows that with China, Russia and the smaller nations united, it is near to impossible to win. To win them has to divide its rivals and also to find allies inside the political and social forces in those countries.

 Divide et Impera

Not only Logic and Analysis, History also testifies to the veracity of what we said. We are not going here to debate the root causes of the historic split between Mao’s China and Soviet Russia. But it was that split that made possible Kissinger’s game with Beijing in the ‘70s, which, in its turn, made possible the encirclement of the Soviet Union, an encirclement which was used to encourage the emergence of pro-capitalist, pro-western forces in the kernel of the then Soviet leadership and, finally, the collapse-suicide of the USSR.

History is not easily repeated in the same way, if not for other reasons, because people know what happened in the past, or at least they should know it. But such a huge western triumph cannot but shape the Imperial strategic thinking.

Playing Russia against China or China against Russia remains always one of the main strategies of the Empire. If China and Russia remain united, it is simply impossible for the West to win over them.

Three factors which may threaten such a unity are 1) the existence in both China and Russia of forces which, even if they are not admitting it openly, want their integration and alliance with the West, 2) the lack of equilibrium between an essentially economic and an essentially military superpower, 3) a heritage of animosity and mistrust inherited by past conflicts, 4) the enormous stupidity of the European and in particular German political class and its direct control by the bankers who appoint their people directly as politicians. Mrs. Merkel not only did obey blindly the Americans imposing sanctions to Ukraine, now she defended them against Trump in the G7 meeting. Maybe an IQ test has to be introduced in Europe for people claiming to be elected in public office.

Germany and Europe could reequilibrate the world situation and also add an element of stability in the Resistance Front. There are still some persons who think like that in the European political class like Dominique de Villepin, who proposed recently an axis Paris-Berlin-Moscow-Beijing, but they are by far too few and isolated. Besides, Germany cannot lead internationally Europe, while in the same time destroying and plundering South European nations!

Of course all that won’t be so easy as long as Putin and Xi seem committed to the Russian-Chinese unity.

The danger of Nuclear World War and how to fight against it

We must not underestimate the direct threat out of the nuclear war threats emanating from Washington since the election of Donald Trump. The risk of a Nuclear World War is a very real one and it will remain so, as long as the dominant social, economic, political and cultural system remains what it is in the West.

Every measure which helps diminish the probability of a nuclear conflict by intention, by miscalculation or by accident must be supported and welcomed by any sound person on Earth.

But weapons and threats to use them are symptoms and not the root causes of the problem, as Brzezinski observed during the first years of Gorbachev’s rule in the USSR.

It is imperative to treat those symptoms, but it is advisable to do it in a way removing the underlying disease or, at least, not aggravating it.

The enormous concessions Gorbachev and, even more actively, Yeltsin made afterwards to the West seemed at that time to remove the War danger and, in particular, the Nuclear War danger.

By now, everybody knows that those concessions did only one thing. They permitted more than a dozen catastrophic wars in the Middle East and Africa and they made more probable now the danger of a local or world nuclear conflict than, probably, at every other moment since 1945.

By allowing practically the interventions in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya etc., the so-called “international community” did only one thing, it created more possibilities for new interventions.

This is why it is very important to face simultaneously the threat of a nuclear conflict and the political use of nuclear threats, however difficult it is to combine both.

Trump’s Nuclear threats are probably calibrated (by those able to control him) to help the emergence of pro-Western forces in both China and Russia (and also to the smaller nations-targets) and of course inside North Korea. The sanctions imposed to North Korea are also calibrated in the same logic. To help alienate North Korea, China and Russia, but also to help the emergence in China of those forces which will hide their pro-western policy under the patriotic slogan “We are not going to sacrifice our economic miracles, in order to defend a mad guy and his regime”.

By the way, even if one accepts that, for some reason, China and Russia had to impose sanctions on North Korea, one has a difficulty to understand why they did that not attaching a conditionality term, for instance a clause to review the situation every six months, like it happened with European sanctions against Russia, which have to be readopted every six months, but they preferred to give to the United States an absolute weapon, making necessary the consent of Washington to the lifting of sanctions.

Is it just a lack of imagination of Chinese and Russian diplomacy, or is it reflecting the remaining power of forces which they still believe they can persuade the West of welcoming them as equal, respected partners in the Global West?

President Reagan used probably the same method with nuclear threats already in the ‘80s. By addressing then his mad nuclear threats against Moscow, he probably did exactly that, already knowing the existence of, if not secretly cooperating, with “Soviet reformers” who would use those threats back in Moscow as political weapons to promote their agenda. (By the way, one wonders under what capacity and on whose behalf, Trump wanted to solve the Korean nuclear question in the beginning of the ‘80s?)

Only a level of advanced cooperation between Western circles and some nucleus inside the Soviet State can explain for instance, how a Western aviation hobbyist was able to cross all Soviet air defenses and to land unimpeded at the Red Square. Those who permitted the flight of Mathias Rust have done it to humiliate the leadership of the Red Army permitting to Gorbachev to decapitate it, thus neutralizing “pro-actively” the main opposition to his “reforms”.

And this remark brings us to the question of the Armed Forces and the Globalization

The Armed Forces and the Empire of Finance, Pentagon and the Neocons, Armies in Russia and China

In most countries of the world, including China, Russia but even the United States, the Armed Forces, for sociological, structural, ideological, historical reasons, represent the institution which is more connected to the notions of the State and of the Nation. For this reason and because of the way a military force is constructed, the Army is less influenced than any other institution by the Totalitarian Empire of Finance, which has gradually put its people in all critical points of the western (but not only of the Western) political, media, intellectual and economic power. For this reason, military men are negatively predisposed to the advent of a Totalitarian Empire, for which any strong human identity, like the Nation or the State are enemies. That is also true for every kind of strong ideology, like patriotism, nationalism, traditional religions or any other kind of Ideology, of the Left or of the Right.

If the idea of a war against Iran represented the interests of the US Empire and not the world and regional vision of the Empire of Finance, then we would see the Pentagon and the CIA pushing for war against Iran. The fact that we see those institutions becoming the main resistance points inside the US Establishment to further escalation cannot be easily explained but as a reflection of a strong, behind the scenes, clash between the US Empire and the Empire of Finance, the latter represented in Geopolitics, by the International Neocon Party of War.

The same factors are also in action in both China and Russia, making Chinese and Russian Armed Forces the most resolute institutions in opposing the Global Empire. This is happening much more there as not only both countries are on an open collision course to the Empire, but also the historical origins of their Armed Forces are the revolutionary armies their Revolutions created to defend themselves. The Russian and the Chinese revolutions were not only social ones, they were also national, pro-independence, anti-imperialistic Revolutions, otherwise it would have been impossible for instance for Trotsky to hire 10.000 Tsarist officers to staff the Red Army.  Those historical and social factors explain why Army in China and Russia are among the  main forces opposing pro-capitalist, pro-western and pro-globalization forces in both powers.

But the military also has a big weakness. It knows how to use hard, military power but it is usually very weak in using political power, which is equally, if not more important in both political and military struggles.

To win a nuclear war against China and/or Russia is too difficult. The real aim is to provoke a regime change in one or both of those countries, to split them, to begin isolate the other one. In order to do it, besides trying to oppose Russia to China and vice versa and cultivating their mutual mistrust, you have to undermine the prestige of their Armies and also of their politicians who follow a national agenda.

Mr. Netanyahu for instance, who is a prominent figure of the Neocon current inside the West and, we must admit it, one of the most capable and astute strategists of our times, knows very well that there must be not only a stick, but also a carrot, even if his carrot seems sometimes not very worthy. He has pushed Trump to deliver the Korean speech in the UN last year, but Israel is providing in the same time military technologies to China, Americans do not! He is for much stronger US action in Syria and Iran, but he is simultaneously declaring he is the greatest friend of Moscow. The pro-Israeli lobby in the US was active in promoting US aggression in Ukraine, closing even its eyes to the existence of Neo Nazis in the troops which made the coup in Kiev, but Israel itself refused to oppose openly Crimea’s integration to Russia.

Trump and the example of German National Socialism

It is not a coincidence that the threats of a nuclear war have mainly emanated from Washington after the election of Donald Trump. Of course the Empire pushed Hillary to make comparisons between Putin and Hitler, thus implying the threat of a war against Russia. Hillary and Nuland acting as Neocon agents of influence inside the anti-Netanyahu, Obama administration, were able to advance the anti-Russian agenda and overcome, with the help of Neocon Sarkozy of France, Obama’s objections to the Libyan campaign.

But Hillary had not the political capital to wage war against Russia. The only thing she accomplished was to provide with such capital her opponent, Donald Trump himself!

Of course Trump is not Hitler stricto sensu. But, if we judge him by what he and his administration are doing, forgetting what they say, we see an enormous similarity with the political operation undertaken by National Socialism in Germany:

1. Hitler was able to master the national and social aspirations of the German people, the force of its revolt against the establishment and put them at the service of this same establishment, of the German Big Capital, of German Militarism and of the preparation of the Eastern campaign Drang Nach Osten.

Trump has given all Power to Goldman Sachs on economic matters and to the Neocons in foreign-military policy. He makes from time to time some friendly gestures to Russia, but in practice his administration is pushing NATO in an extremely aggressive posture around Russia and he has provided Ukraine with arms Obama was refusing to provide it. Before elections, Trump has portrayed himself as an anti-war politician, after his election the Neocon war program is very much back in action in both Middle East and Korea.

2. After been elected, Hitler got rid of the “radicals” who have taken seriously the “anti-capitalist” and “socialist” demagogy of the Nazis. Trump did exactly the same. In Germany they killed Rohm and his followers, in USA they pushed aside Bannon. In both cases this was also a condition to become accepted by the ruling class

3. Luring the East about his real intentions. Stalin was not interested inrevolutions abroad, either in Germany or in China. He wanted to build his “Socialism in one country”. He wanted to avoid at any cost the clash with the West. That helped very much Hitler to persuade him that he was or he could become his best friend, or even an ally. Berlin helped even Stalin decapitate the Red Army just before the War, by providing him with false compromising materials about Soviet Generals who were shot. As a result, the USSR was nearly destroyed, with the Soviet troops able to stop the invading Germans only some miles from the Kremlin. The USSR won ultimately over Germany, but only having paid an enormous human cost.

It is an established historical fact that it is impossible to win over Russia in a direct, frontal way (Napoleon, Western intervention in the Russian Civil War, Hitler have proved that). You may win over Russia only by confusing it, and you can confuse it only by looking to satisfy the needs of its politicians or important social forces. It nearly happened in the ‘30s and ‘40s and it finally happened with Gorbachev and the “Soviet reformers”, who have taken their foes for their friends, because they were hoping to integrate, make their country accepted and recognised as part of the “Civilized Western World”. They did not understand that you are usually respected more for what you really are, than for what you pretend to be.

Nevertheless, Gorbachev and Yeltsin did accomplish something very important with their concessions, even if their country was dislocated and the world did pay also a huge price for their policies

They proved, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the “enemy” does not want to take prisoners. Global, Western Capitalism cannot and does not want to accept the existence of any relatively independent entity like Russia or China for that matter. Illusions about that may prove mortal.

The Logic behind Irrationalism

Hitler was never an accident. “Mad”, extreme persons appear in the scene of History, only when its Gods have to realize terrible, horrible missions, most humans would hesitate to accomplish.

Since Humans exist, they build, they destroy, the reconstruct. That way the Cycles in History serve Evolution. But now, we cannot go on like that. With the technologies we dispose we will end as a species and, with us, most other species!

Today, there is a tendency to understand Hitler and Nazism as a kind of extreme aberration of German nationalism.  Even some people believe that his attack against Russia was a strategic mistake, that he should attack Britain and leave Russia aside. It is a pity they were not alive at his time to advise him what to do.

Hitler and Nazism were the loyal children of Capitalism and of its Crisis, they were not an accident. The first time Swastika made its appearance was in the private armies formed to combat revolted workers in Germany, immediately after WWI. Their rise to power became possible because of the huge crisis of Capitalism and of the challenge the European workers movement and the Soviet Union put to western Capitalism.

After 2008, we are very much in the context of an as deep, even deeper, even if less dramatic in its form,  crisis of Capitalism. Western capitalism is not threatened now by Soviet Russia, but it is threatened by the economic rise of China and the military comeback of Russia.

Hitler’s rise was accepted by the German and a large part of the Western ruling classes exactly because his plan was, from the very beginning, German expansion to the East, Drang Nach Osten, the war against Soviet Russia and the European workers and socialist movement, the one being the condition for the other, as today the rise of Totalitarianism in the West is necessary to waging war and the war against terror is justifying measures against political and social dissent in the West. Hitler did not attack Russia by mistake, but as the “vanguard” of Western imperialism, the “War Party” inside the West.

The same role is now played by the Neocon party of the War in the West. They are not just some extremists with huge capacities to organize conspiracies. They do have them but they still represent a minority inside western establishment. If they are so successful in imposing their agenda it is because they dispose a coherent proposal and they are resolute enough to push it. They provide a possibly mad, still clear way out of the crisis of both Capitalism and the West. One can try to reconstruct their argument, inside the Imperial nucleus itself, like that:

“You speak always about the danger of doing this or that. Of course there are dangers. But we have to do something. Are you ready to see China becoming the first economic-technological superpower? Are you ready to accept Russia reoccupying the place the USSR had in the past? Are you ready to see Iran dominating half of the Middle East, in alliance with Russia? If you are not ready to see all that happening (and it is already happening), if you don’t have anything other to propose, then please stop criticizing all the time what we are doing or what we want to do”.

This type of arguments was used by Alcibiades, as described by Thucydides in his classic Peloponnesian War, and it is by using such arguments that he persuaded his fellow Athenians to decide the expedition to Sicily, which sealed the demise of Athens.

This is why we see such astonishing similarities between what function did perform the German National Socialism and which goals the forces controlling Trump are trying to accomplish. In quite different times, the mission to be accomplished remains the same: To promote Totalitarianism and War, in order to confront challenges and to stabilize Western Capitalist Imperialist domination.

There is nothing original here, they did it with Opium Wars, they did it with Hitler’s campaign, they did it every time they could and they had to.

But there is a huge difference also. In the ‘30s, all that seemed much more to be the outcome of objective social processes. Those are also now in action, still a new powerful factor seems to have been added to the equation. The unprecedented, enormous capacity to manipulate persons, small groups or large populations and create even false political realities, by using information technologies, as we have seen in the case of Cambridge Analytica and in other incidents.

For the first time in History, Humanity is now producing the material, scientific and technological tools of a Totalitarianism, which will make Hitler look as an Alchemist, compared to contemporary Chemists. The Empire does not possess only enormous financial means. It can buy also all knowledge, ideas and technologies. It disposes more strategic clarity (smart power) than the other players, it is more resolute than they are and more detached from humanity than any ruling class in Human History. It can use historical examples and try to repeat them in an artificial way. Trump seems to be a kind of Frankestein-President.

A Neocon Conspiracy Behind Trump’s Election

The election of Trump is the result of the convergence of many objective and subjective factors. Still, it is difficult to imagine it possible without a huge Neocon conspiracy. Such a conspiracy was not sufficient, but it was necessary, because without it, it would be just impossible for Trump to overcome the obstacles the US “system” would put to his way to the Presidency. We don’t think that in the country of John Kennedy and his brother or of Martin Luther King, it is possible for somebody to become President only based on popular support, without commanding a strong behind the scenes protection and support. Who, and for what reason, except the Neocons, can be the force which provided Trump with such protection and support?

This huge conspiracy which we believe has existed behind Trump’s election, included also two equally important “sub-conspiracies”: First to make it look as a result of Russian “intervention”, with the results we all know. Second, to persuade Russians Trump is indeed their friend, or at least, his election can help their interests. Especially the forces inside Russia which want desperately to be included in the Global West, but they are unable to find a way. The fact that Trump was probably, in a way, really, a friend of Russia, does not  alter anything to this analysis, because his feelings do not play any role in his policies, on the contrary they make him more vulnerable. The real or supposed friendship of Trump to Russia has in fact helped and is helping the conspiracy to attain its aims, including its anti-Russian ones!

Following G6+1 talks, Trump left early for a Tuesday Singapore summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un – without signing the forum’s eight-page communique, released on Saturday.

It was unjustifiably tough on Russia. In response to Trump’s call for readmitting the country to the G7, making it a G8 once again, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau said

“it is not something we are even remotely interested or looking at this time to have Russia returned to the G7.”

UK PM Theresa May falsely accused the Kremlin of failing to implement the Minsk Agreements on ending conflict in Ukraine.

Russia alone has gone all-out to resolve it, its efforts undermined by Washington and Kiev putschists.

At his annual marathon Q & A days earlier, in response to a Donbass journalist saying Ukrainian forces (armed, trained and supported by US-dominated NATO) are preparing to escalate conflict, Putin said the following:

“I hope it will not reach the point of such provocations. And if this happens, I think it will have very serious consequences for Ukrainian statehood as a whole.”

“It is impossible to intimidate people who live in these areas in Donbass, in the Lugansk People’s Republic, in
the Donetsk People’s Republic.”

“We provide assistance to both unrecognized republics and will continue to do so.”

Russia played the lead role in drafting Minsk, fully observing its provisions, its good faith efforts sabotaged by the Obama and Trump regimes, along with US-installed puppet rule in Kiev.

May said G7 countries “agreed to stand ready to take further restrictive measures against Russia if necessary.”

French President Emmanuel Macron falsely accused Russia of invading Ukraine, annexing Crimea, and violating Minsk.

The G7 statement turned truth on its head claiming Moscow undermines democracies, a notion G7 countries abhor and reject, respected by Russia at home and abroad.

“We urge Russia to cease its destabilizing behavior, to undermine democratic systems and its support of” Syria, said G7 leaders.

Washington and its imperial partners are waging naked aggression in the country, Russia alone among major powers combating the scourge of terrorism in its territory Western G7 countries support.

Their eight-page communique repeated the laundry list of phony accusations against Russia – Big Lies about foreign election meddling, the Skripal incident, Crimea, along with disinformation on other issues.

The statement falsely said G7 nations are committed to combating terrorism they support, falsely accused Syria of CW use, falsely said Iran supports terrorism, falsely accused the country of regional destabilization, falsely called its legitimate ballistic missile program a “threat…to international peace and security.”

Disagreement between Trump and other G7 leaders on trade primarily transformed the forum into a G6+1 – the US president refusing to sign the final communique.

At the June 8 – 10 Security and Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Shanghai, China, (attended by 18 nations including partners and observers, India and Pakistan participating for the first time as full members), Putin explained the alliance’s growing importance, saying G7 countries “are wealthier, but the size of the SCO economies is larger. And the population is of course much bigger – half of the planet.”

Their economic growth is much greater than G7 countries. Their political and defensive military capabilities are strong.

A previous article explained Russia and China wage world peace, stability, and mutual cooperation among all nations – polar opposite US-dominated NATO’s endless wars for conquest and dominance.

Western dominated institutions like the G7 and others are instruments of privilege over governance serving everyone equitably.

No just societies would tolerate them. Globalization is a racket, benefitting privileged interests at the expense of most others – social justice sacrificed for profits.

Disbanding institutions of wealth, power and privilege is an idea whose time has come – along with waging world peace over endless US-led wars of aggression on humanity.

*

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the CRG, Correspondent of Global Research based in Chicago.

US administrations don’t negotiate. They demand, wanting other nations subservient to their interests.

US global political influence is waning, not growing. Yet its military strength is an ominous force to be reckoned with – armed with super-weapons, willing to do whatever it takes to enforce it will on other nations.

Bullying doesn’t win friends and influence people, just the opposite. Carrots work much better than sticks.

Washington consistently reneges on promises. Rare exceptions prove the rule, why it can never be trusted – North Korean leader Kim Jong-un keenly mindful of what he’s up against in dealing with Trump.

His neocon National Security Advisor John Bolton earlier called for preemptive war on the DPRK. Separately he said

summit talks will “foreshorten the amount of time that we’re going to waste in negotiations that will never produce the result we want.”

Above all, Kim seeks world community security guarantees, most of all from Washington, never before gotten, highly unlikely from Trump whatever comes out of summit talks and what follows.

From Truman to Trump, 13 US presidents refused to end an uneasy armistice on the Korean peninsula.

Will summit and follow-up talks change things – given the most ideologically hardline regime empowered in Washington in its history.

It’s foolhardy to believe what hasn’t happened since the late 1940s is possible now – notably with US rage for dominance over all other countries, color revolutions and naked aggression waged against sovereign independent ones not fully bending to Washington’s will.

For decades, US administrations refused to endorse a formal end to the 1950s war, along with guaranteeing North Korean security.

Throughout its history, the DPRK never attacked another nation, victimized by Harry Truman’s aggression devastating the country, turning much of it to rubble, killing millions of its people, a memory seared into the consciousness of its leadership.

North Korea developed nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missile for defensive purposes only – because of feared US aggression, notably with militant Trump regime hardliners in charge of geopolitical policymaking, naked aggression in multiple theaters its most prominent feature, North Korea likely on their target list if summit and follow-up talks fail.

Pyongyang seeks cooperative relations with the West and regional nations. It wants peace, not war, a formal end to the 1950s conflict, its sovereign independence respected, unacceptable sanctions lifted, and firm security guarantees above all else.

If achieved, a nuclear deterrent no longer would be needed. Given Washington’s rage for global hegemony, its longterm hostility toward the DPRK, its aim to transform all sovereign independent nations into US vassal states, and its deplorable history of reneging on promises, it’s pure fantasy to believe bilateral talks will end well.

Whatever is publicly said by both countries following summit and follow-up talks, hostile US policy toward the DPRK is virtually certain to continue over the longterm.

The historical record speaks for itself, Trump the most belligerent of all US administrations, exceeding the worst of his predecessors geopolitically and domestically.

Photo-op handshakes and smiles in Singapore aren’t likely to change a thing.

The threat of war on the Korean peninsula remains as long as US hardliners are in charge of geopolitical policymaking.

I’d love to be optimistic for what lies ahead. No credible evidence justifies it.

*

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the CRG, Correspondent of Global Research based in Chicago.

Background analysis on US-North Korea relations

First published in late February, the following text is the transcript of  Professor Michel Chossudovsky‘s presentation at an event held at the ROK National Assembly, 국회의사당,  Seoul, South Korea, February 21, 2018  (see image below). This text also puts forth a North-South peace agreement proposal which hinges upon the annulment of the US-ROK Joint Forces Command which puts ROK forces under the command of the Pentagon.

The Korean language version of this text has been circulated widely among politicians and activists in the Republic of Korea.

Introduction

Fire and Fury” was not invented by Donald Trump. It is a concept deeply embedded in US military doctrine. It has characterized US military interventions since the end of World War II. 

What distinguishes Trump from his predecessors in the White House is his political narrative.  

We are nonetheless at a dangerous crossroads. Foreign policy miscalculation could lead to the unthinkable. Bear in mind that “MISTAKES” are often what determine the course of World History.

Insanity in US foreign policy, not to mention the fiction that nuclear weapons are an “instrument of peace” as formulated by the Trump administration could lead to the unthinkable. Decision-makers in high office believe in their own propaganda.

A Pre-emptive first strike US nuclear attack against North Korea could potentially precipitate a Third World War.

About-turn in January? President Trump not only confirmed his support for the North-South Pyeongchang inter-Korean dialogue, he also stated his resolve to establish a direct dialogue with Pyongyang. A few weeks later, this peace-making rhetoric was replaced by a new gush of military threats against the DPRK.

From a strategic point of view, the US is intent upon undermining the North-South dialogue. In recent developments, reported by the US media a “powerful military-intelligence faction within the Trump administration is pushing for a pre-emptive military strike on North Korea” to take place during or in the immediate wake of the Winter Olympics. 

The operation is labelled by Washington as a “bloody nose” attack consisting of a either a conventional or low yield tactical nuclear weapon attack against North Korean’s missile facilities. 

Even if nuclear weapons were not immediately used, the death toll in South Korea alone is estimated in the tens of thousands on the first day, in a conflict that could rapidly draw in nuclear-armed powers such as China and Russia.

Yet, such an act of recklessness and savagery is precisely what is being discussed, debated and prepared in the upper echelons of the White House and the US security-intelligence apparatus. Within top military-foreign policy circles, the advanced nature of the plans is so well known that it is generating fears and opposition. (Peter Symonds, Trump Considers “Bloody Nose” Strike on North Korea, wsws.org, February 6, 2018

The “bloody nose” is a “military concept” which is based on the notion that tactical nuclear weapons or mini-nukes are “harmless to civilians”, namely minimal collateral damage.

Meanwhile, the Winter Olympics have been accompanied by a process of inter-Korean dialogue and negotiation which is being boycotted by the US. What is at stake is a US led War against Peace.

The “More Usable “Peace-Making” Nuclear Bombs. The Mini-nukes

B61-12 Tactical Nuclear Bomb

The “more usable” nuclear weapons pertain to the so-called mini-nukes (B61-11, B61-12) with an explosive capacity of one third to up to twelve times a Hiroshima bomb. These “more usable” nukes, i.e. bunker buster bombs with a nuclear warhead, are said to be “harmless to the surrounding civilian population, because the explosion is underground” according to “scientific opinion” on contract the the Pentagon.

It is worth noting that in the wake of the Olympics, large scale joint US-ROK war games are envisaged.

 There is a real danger that these  joint war games could evolve towards active warfare, particularly in view of the pressures exerted within the US military-intelligence establishment to proceed with the so-called “bloody nose” option.

America’s commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula as contained in the 2018 NPR is a smokescreen. The US has been threatening the Korean people with nuclear war for sixty seven years. The denuclearization of the Korean peninsula as formulated in the NPR is directed solely against the DPRK. It does not address the massive build-up of US nuclear capabilities.

It is worth noting, in this regard that the DPRK was the only nuclear weapons state which voted in favor of UN General Assembly resolution L.41 to convene negotiations on a “legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination”.

It is the more useable “peace making” bunker buster mini-nukes which may be contemplated under the “bloody nose” option for use against both North Korea and Iran.

Although the threats emanating from the US military-intelligence pertain to North Korea, under present circumstances, the Pentagon may choose to test the mini-nuke against a non-nuclear state.

The US historically has sought in major military operations to ensure that it’s close allies act on its behalf. Militarily the US  would not act alone against North Korea. In this regard, what is also at stake is the US-ROK Combined Forces Command (CFC) which puts all South Korean Forces under the command of the Pentagon rather than under the jurisdiction of president Moon.

The refusal of South Korea to engage in war games must be categorical; the repeal of the US-ROK Combined Forces Command (CFC) is crucial. Without the ROK’s military engagement, the chances of the US acting unilaterally are significantly reduced.

The Breakdown in Diplomatic Channels

We recall the  circumstances of the Cuban Missile Crisis, fifty-five years ago in October 1962.

What distinguishes October 1962 to today’s realities is that the leaders on both sides, namely John F. Kennedy and Nikita S. Khrushchev were accutely aware of the dangers of nuclear annihilation.

In contrast, president Donald Trump is misinformed regarding the dangers of nuclear war neither does he have concern in avoiding the massive killings of civilians: “We will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea” accusing Kim Jong-un, of being a “rocket man” on “a suicide mission.”

What distinguishes the October 1962 Missile Crisis to Today’s Realities:

• Today’s president Donald Trump does not have the foggiest idea as to the consequences of nuclear war.
• The nuclear doctrine was entirely different during the Cold War. Both Washington and Moscow understood the realities of mutually assured destruction. Today, tactical nuclear weapons with an explosive capacity (yield) of one third to six times a Hiroshima bomb are categorized by the Pentagon as “harmless to civilians because the explosion is underground”.
• The diplomatic  channels have collapsed,
• A 1.2 trillion ++ nuclear weapons program, first launched under Obama, is ongoing. Trump has allocated additional funds to this diabolical project
• Today’s thermonuclear bombs are more than 100 times more powerful and destructive than a Hiroshima bomb. Both the US and Russia have several thousand nuclear weapons deployed.

The positive aspects are that North and South have entered into a constructive dialogue coinciding with the Olympic games. Moreover, president Moon has also entered into meaningful discussions with China’s president Xi Jinping and Russia’s president Vladimir Putin. Beijing is fully aware that the deployment of the THAAD missiles in South Korea are largely intended to be used against China rather than North Korea.

Does the DPRK Constitute a Security Threat to the USA?

What most people in America do not know –and which is particularly relevant when assessing the alleged “threats” of the DPRK to World peace– is that North Korea lost thirty percent of its population as a result of  US led bombings in the 1950s. US military sources confirm that 20 percent of North Korea’s population was killed off over a three period of intensive bombings:

“After destroying North Korea’s 78 cities and thousands of her villages, and killing countless numbers of her civilians, General Curtis LeMay remarked, “Over a period of three years or so we killed off – what – twenty percent of the population.”

Every single family in North Korea has lost a loved one in the course of the Korean War.

The US never apologized for having killed 30 percent of North Korea’s population. Quite the opposite. The main thrust of US foreign policy has been to demonize the victims of US led wars.

There were no war reparations.

The issue of US crimes against the people of Korea was never addressed by the international community.

The atrocities of the Korean War had set the stage for America’s war against the people of Vietnam.

For more than half a century, Washington has contributed to the political isolation of North Korea. Moreover, US sponsored sanctions against Pyongyang were intended to destabilize the country’s economy.

Propaganda has played a key role: The unspoken victim of US military aggression, the DPRK is portrayed as a failed war-mongering “Rogue State”, a “State sponsor of terrorism” and a “threat to World peace”. In the United States and Western Europe these stylized accusations have become part of a media consensus, which we dare not question.

The Lie becomes the Truth. North Korea is heralded as a threat. America is not the aggressor but “the victim”.

Historical Context: Nuclear War, Who is the Aggressor? 

Confirmed by US military documents, both the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea have been threatened with nuclear war for sixty-seven years. 

In 1950, Chinese volunteer forces dispatched by the People’s Republic of China were firmly behind North Korea against US aggression.

China’s act of solidarity with The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was carried out barely a few months after the founding of the PRC on October 1, 1949.

President Harry Truman had contemplated the use of nuclear weapons against both China and North Korea, specifically as a means to repeal the Chinese Volunteer People’s Army (VPA) which had been dispatched to fight alongside North Korean forces. [Chinese Volunteer People’s Army, 中國人民志願軍;  Zhōngguó Rénmín Zhìyuàn Jūn].

It is important to stress that US military action directed against the DPRK was part of a broader Cold War military agenda against the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union, the objective of which was ultimately to undermine and destroy socialism.

It is worth noting in this regard that according to a secret document dated September 15, 1945, “the Pentagon had envisaged blowing up the Soviet Union  with a coordinated nuclear attack directed against major urban areas.

All major cities of the Soviet Union were included in the list of 66 “strategic” targets. The tables below categorize each city in terms of area in square miles and the corresponding number of atomic bombs required to annihilate and kill the inhabitants of selected urban areas.

Six atomic bombs were to be used to destroy each of the larger cities including Moscow, Leningrad, Tashkent, Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa.

The Pentagon estimated that a total of 204 bombs would be required to “Wipe the Soviet Union off the Map”. The targets for a nuclear attack consisted of sixty-six major cities.

The document outlining this diabolical military agenda had been released in September 1945, barely one month after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (6 and 9 August, 1945) and two years before the onset of the Cold War (1947).

The Hiroshima Doctrine” applied to North Korea

US nuclear doctrine pertaining to Korea was established following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, which were largely directed against civilians.

The strategic objective of a nuclear attack under the “Hiroshima doctrine” was to trigger a “massive casualty producing event” resulting in tens of thousands of deaths. The objective was to terrorize an entire nation, as a means of military conquest. In the words of President Harry Truman:

“The World will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians..”(President Harry S. Truman in a radio speech to the Nation, August 9, 1945).

[Note: the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945; the Second on Nagasaki, on August 9, on the same day as Truman’s radio speech to the Nation]

There is a long history of US political insanity geared towards providing a human face to U.S. crimes against humanity. In this same radio address on August 9, 1945 president Truman (image right) concluded that God is on the side of America with regards to the use of nuclear weapons and that

“He May guide us to use it [nuclear weapons] in His ways and His purposes”. 

According to Truman: God is with us, he will decide if and when to use the bomb:

We thank God that it [nuclear weapons] has come to us, instead of to our enemies; and we pray that He may guide us to use it [nuclear weapons] in His ways and for His purposes” (emphasis added)

The Truman doctrine emanating from Hiroshima has set the stage for the deployment of US nuclear weapons in South Korea. Barely a few years after the end of the Korean War, the US initiated its deployment of nuclear warheads in South Korea. This deployment in Uijongbu and Anyang-Ni had been envisaged as early as 1956.

It is worth noting that the US decision to bring nuclear warheads to South Korea was in blatant violation of  Paragraph 13(d) of the 1953 Armistice Agreement which prohibited the warring factions from introducing new weapons into Korea.

The actual deployment of nuclear warheads started in January 1958, four and a half years after the end of the Korean War. Officially the US deployment of nuclear weapons in South Korea lasted for 33 years. The deployment was targeted against North Korea as well as China and the Soviet Union.

South Korea’s Nuclear Weapons Program

Concurrent and in coordination with the US deployment of nuclear warheads in South Korea, the ROK had initiated its own nuclear weapons program in the early 1970s.

The official story is that the US exerted pressure on Seoul to abandon their nuclear weapons program and “sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in April 1975 before it had produced any fissile material.” (Daniel A. Pinkston, “South Korea’s Nuclear Experiments,” CNS Research Story, 9 November 2004, http://cns.miis.edu.]

The ROK’s nuclear initiative was from the outset in the early 1970s under the supervision of the US and was developed as a component part of the US deployment of nuclear weapons, with a view to threatening North Korea.

While the West in chorus accuses the DPRK of developing nuclear capabilities, the development of a nuclear weapons program in South Korea was never an issue. Neither was the ROK designated as an undeclared nuclear weapons state.

Moreover, while this program was officially ended in 1978, the US promoted scientific expertise as well as training of the ROK military in the use of nuclear weapons. And bear in mind: under the ROK-US CFC agreement, all operational units of the ROK are under joint command headed by a US General. This means that all the military facilities and bases established by the Korean military are de facto joint facilities.

The Planning of Nuclear Attacks against North Korea from the Continental US and from Strategic US Submarines

According to official statements, the US withdrew its nuclear weapons from South Korea in December 1991.

This withdrawal from Korea did not in any way modify the US threat of nuclear war directed against the DPRK. On the contrary: it was tied to changes in US military strategy with regard to the deployment of nuclear warheads. Major North Korean cities were to be targeted with nuclear warheads from US continental locations and from US strategic submarines (SSBN)  rather than military facilities in South Korea.

Todays Double standards

While North Korea is said to constitute a nuclear threat, five non-nuclear states including Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Turkey have B61-11 tactical nuclear weapons made in America under national command.

These Five Countries are undeclared nuclear weapons states.

No Trump “Fire and Fury” directed against Holland or Belgium, which possess 40 nuclear weapons under national command. Compare that to the DPRK’s 10 nuclear weapons, heralded as a “threat” to the security of the Western World.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the unspoken victim of US military aggression, has been incessantly portrayed as a war mongering nation, a menace to the American Homeland and a  “threat to World peace”. These stylized accusations have become part of a media consensus.

The threat of nuclear war does not emanate from the DPRK but from the US and its allies. 

These continuous threats and actions of latent aggression directed against the DPRK should also be understood as part of the broader US military agenda in East Asia, directed against China and Russia. In many regards, from a geopolitical standpoint, the US considers the DPRK as a buffer state. The ultimate objective is to threaten Russia and China with the support of ROK forces (under the combined forces command). Needless to say, the reunification of North and South Korea would weaken US hegemony in North East Asia.

Moreover, Washington’s intent is to draw South East Asia and the Far East into a protracted military conflict by creating divisions between China and ASEAN countries, most of which are the victims of Western colonialism and US military aggression: Extensive crimes against humanity have been committed against Vietnam, Cambodia, Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia. In a bitter irony, these countries are now military allies of the United States.

It is important that people across the land, in the US, Western countries, come to realize that the United States rather than North Korea constitute a threat to global security.

Towards a Bilateral North-South Peace Agreement 

The 1953 Armistice Agreement

What underlies the 1953 Armistice Agreement is that one of the warring parties, namely the US has consistently threatened to wage war on the DPRK for more than 60 years.

The US has on countless occasions violated the Armistice Agreement. It has remained on a war footing. Casually ignored by the Western media and the international community, the US has actively deployed nuclear weapons targeted at North Korea for more than half a century. More recently it has deployed the so-called THAAD missiles largely directed against China and Russia.

The US is still at war with North Korea. The armistice agreement signed in July 1953 –which legally constitutes a “temporary ceasefire” between the warring parties (US, North Korea and China’s Volunteer Army)– must be rescinded.

The US has not only violated the armistice agreement, it has consistently refused to enter into peace negotiations with Pyongyang, with a view to maintaining its military presence in South Korea as well as shunting a process of normalization and cooperation between the ROK and the DPRK. At this stage, the solution is for North and South to negotiate a bilateral peace treaty in defiance of the US refusal to enter into peace negotiations.

The avenue to achieving the ROK-DPRK Peace Treaty conducive to reunification requires the Repeal of the ROK-US Combined Forces Command (CFC) and the annulment of OPCON (Operational Control). 

In 2014, the government of  President Park Geun-hye agreed to extend the OPCON (Operational Control) agreement “until the mid-2020s”. What this signified is that “in the event of conflict” all ROK forces would be under the command of a US General appointed by the Pentagon, rather than under that of the ROK President and Commander in Chief. At present the US has 600,000 active South Korean Forces under its command. (i.e. the Commander of United States Forces Korea, (USFK) is also Commander of the ROK-U.S. CFC).

It goes without saying that national sovereignty of the ROK cannot reasonably be achieved without the annulment of the OPCON agreement as well as the ROK – US Combined Forces Command (CFC) structure. And this is something which President Moon’s government should envisage. The repeal of the CFC structure  is a sine qua non to reaching peace and reunification.

As we recall, in 1978 a binational Republic of Korea – United States Combined Forces Command (CFC), was created under the presidency of General Park (military dictator and father of impeached president Park Guen-hye). In substance, this was a change in labels in relation to the so-called UN Command and the combined forces structures negotiated in 1950. During the mandate of President Syngman Rhee,   all ROK forces were put under the command of General MacArthur:

“Ever since the Korean War, the allies have agreed that the American four-star would be in “Operational Control” (OPCON) of both ROK and US military forces in wartime …. Before 1978, this was accomplished through the United Nations Command. Since then it has been the CFC [US-ROK Combined Forces Command (CFC) structure]. (Brookings Institute)

Moreover, the Command of the US General under the renegotiated OPCON (2014) remains fully operational inasmuch as the 1953 Armistice (which legally constitutes a temporary ceasefire) is not replaced by a peace treaty.

If  one of the signatories of the Armistice refuses to sign a Peace Agreement, what should be contemplated is the formulation  of a comprehensive Bilateral North-South Peace Agreement, which would de facto lead to rescinding the 1953 armistice.

What should be sought is that the “state of war” between the US and the DPRK (which prevails under the armistice agreement) be in a sense “side-tracked” and annulled by the signing of a comprehensive bilateral North-South peace agreement, coupled with cooperation and interchange.

This proposed far-reaching agreement between Seoul and Pyongyang would assert peace on the Korean peninsula –failing the signing of a peace agreement between the signatories of the 1953 Armistice agreement.

The legal formulation of this bilateral entente is crucial. The bilateral arrangement would in effect bypass Washington’s refusal. It would establish the basis of peace on the Korean peninsula, without foreign intervention, namely without Washington dictating its conditions. It would require the concurrent withdrawal of US troops from the ROK and the repeal of the OPCON agreement.

Moreover, it should be noted that the militarization of  the ROK under the OPCOM agreement, including the development of new military bases, is also largely intent upon using the Korean peninsula as a military launchpad threatening both China and Russia. Under OPCON, “in the case of war”, the entire force of the ROK would be mobilized under US command against China or Russia.

Moreover, Washington is intent upon creating political divisions in East Asia not only between the ROK and the DPRK but also between North Korea and China, with a view to ultimately isolating the DPRK.

In a bitter irony, US military facilities in the ROK (including Jeju Island) are being used to threaten China as part of a process of military encirclement. Needless to say, permanent peace on the Korean peninsula as well as in the broader East Asia region as defined under a bilateral North-South agreement would require the repeal of both the Armistice agreement as well as OPCOM, including the withdrawal of US troops from the ROK.

It is important that the bilateral peace talks between the ROK with DPRK under the helm of President Moon Jae-in be conducted without the participation or interference of outside parties. These discussions must address the withdrawal of all US occupation forces as well as the removal of economic sanctions directed against North Korea.

The exclusion of US military presence and the withdrawal of the 28,500 occupation forces should be a sine qua non requirement of a bilateral ROK-DPRK Peace Treaty.

Reunification and the Road Ahead: There is Only One Korean Nation

There is only one Korean Nation. Washington opposes reunification because a united Korean Nation would weaken US hegemony in East Asia.

It would also weaken Japan. In this regard it is also important to address the bilateral relationship between the US and Japan, the former colonial power, which is directed against the reunification project.

Reunification would create a competing  Korean nation state and regional power (with advanced technological and scientific capabilities) which would assert its sovereignty, establish trade relations with neighbouring countries (including Russia and China) without the interference of Washington.

It is worth noting in this regard, that US foreign policy and military planners have already established their own scenario of  “reunification” predicated on maintaining US occupation troops in Korea. Similarly, what is envisaged by Washington is a framework which would enable “foreign investors” to penetrate and pillage the North Korean economy.

Washington’s objective is to hinder the process of reunification. Its Plan B would be for the US to impose the terms of Korea’s reunification. The NeoCons “Project for a New American Century” (PNAC) published in 2000 had intimated that in a “post unification scenario”, the number of US troops (currently at 28,500) would be increased and that US military presence would be extended to North Korea.

In a reunified Korea,  the stated military mandate of the US garrison would be to implement so-called “stability operations in North Korea”:

While Korea unification might call for the reduction in American presence on the peninsula and a transformation of U.S force posture in Korea, the changes would really reflect a change in their mission – and changing technological realities – not the termination of their mission. Moreover, in any realistic post-unification scenario, U.S. forces are likely to have some role in stability operations in North Korea. It is premature to speculate on the precise size and composition of a post-unification U.S. presence in Korea, but it is not too early to recognize that the presence of American forces in Korea serves a larger and longer-range strategic purpose. For the present, any reduction in capabilities of the current U.S. garrison on the peninsula would be unwise. If anything, there is a need to bolster them, especially with respect to their ability to defend against missile attacks and to limit the effects of North Korea’s massive artillery capability. In time, or with unification, the structure of these units will change and their manpower levels fluctuate, but U.S. presence in this corner of Asia should continue. 36 (PNAC, Rebuilding America`s Defenses, Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century, p. 18, emphasis added)

Washington’s intentions are crystal clear. They consist in sabotaging the peace process. 

Moreover, it should be understood that a US led war against North Korea would engulf the entire Korean nation.

While Washington claims to be defending South Korea, the US sponsored state of war is directed against both North and South Korea.

It also threatens the ROK which has been under de facto US military occupation since September 1945.

We are dealing with a diabolical military agenda: The US seeks under the Combined Forces Command to mobilize the forces of South Korea against the Korean Nation.

If a war were to be carried out, ROK forces under US command would be used against the Korean people’s reunification project. The annulment of the CDC is therefore crucial. 

Given the geography of the Korean peninsula, the use of nuclear weapons against North Korea would inevitably also engulf South Korea. This fact is known and understood by US military planners.

What has to be emphasized is that the US and the ROK cannot be “Allies” inasmuch as the US threatens to wage war on the Korean Nation.

The “real alliance” is that which unifies and reunites North and South Korea through dialogue against foreign intrusion and aggression.

The US is in a state of war against the entire Korean Nation. It’s a war against peace. And what this requires is:

The extension of the bilateral talks between the ROK and the DPRK initiated on January 9, 2018 with a view to signing a tentative  agreement which nullifies the Armistice agreement of 1953 and sets the terms of a bilateral “Peace Treaty”.

In turn this agreement would set the stage for the exclusion of US military presence and the withdrawal of the 28,500 US forces.

Moreover, pursuant to bilateral Peace negotiations, the ROK-US OPCON agreement which places ROK forces under US command would be rescinded.  All ROK troops would thereafter be brought under national ROK command. 

Bilateral consultations, which are currently ongoing, should also be undertaken with a view to further developing economic, technological, cultural and educational cooperation between the ROK and the DPRK.

Without the US in the background pulling the strings under OPCON, the threat of war would be replaced by dialogue. The first priority, therefore would be to rescind OPCON and the CFC.

Needless to say, the reunification of North and South Korea would weaken US hegemony in North East Asia.

It would also have significant implications with regard to trade and development in North East Asia. 

A united Korean Nation of 80 million people, integrating the scientific and technological capabilities of North and South would inevitably lead to the formation of a powerful, self-reliant and sovereign regional economic power and trading nation. 

A divided Korea serves the geopolitical and economic interests of the US. 

The Olympic Games inter-Korean dialogue have set the Stage for Peace

What is now unfolding in the ROK is public acceptance of  the inter-Korean dialogue.

Moreover, public opinion has become increasingly aware that any action taken by US-ROK forces under the combined forces command  under the command of US General V. Brooks would constitute an attack against the entire Korean Nation.

The Olympics as well as the bilateral North-South negotiations provide an opportunity to eventually repeal the Combined Forces Command.

What is  needed is a mass movement supportive of a government decision to unilaterally withdraw all ROK forces from the Combined Forces Command, namely a unilateral repeal of the CFC (which extends to 2025, signed in 2014, on the orders of Washington by president Park Geun-hye who was subsequently impeached).

The objective is to reinstate President Moon as Commander in Chief of ROK forces as a means to achieving peace. 

This means that if the US still wants to attack the DPRK, it will not be able to rely on ROK forces, and historically the US has always relied on its allies to do the dirty work.

I  think that the US will do its utmost to sabotage the North-South dialogue, while maintaining the combined forces command intact.

First published by Reverb Press and Global Research in November 2015, Is Uncle Sam funding the Islamic State?

Toyota trucks aren’t all ISIS has managed to buy, capture or scavenge from us. In June, CNBC reported that so far we’ve accidentally furnished the Islamic State with at least $219.7 million worth of weapons, vehicles and other military supplies and gear — and that’s just the stuff we know about.

There’s just one problem. If we’re at war with ISIS, why do we keep supplying them with tanks, weapons, Humvees and shiny new Toyota trucks?  CNN reports:

“They’re hard to miss. Packed with ISIS fighters and heavy weapons, Toyota pickup trucks and SUV’s are featured prominently in ISIS propaganda videos.”

According to ABC, the U.S. Treasury Dept.’s Terror Financing unit has finally taken notice of the endless parades of shiny, new Toyota trucks starring in ISIS’s propaganda videos, and they’ve launched an investigation. Toyota’s U.S. spokesman Ed Lewis told reporters this is part of a larger inquiry into supply chains and capital flows in the Middle East. Lewis promised Toyota’s full cooperation, and assures us that they’d never sell to terrorists.

“Toyota has a strict policy to not sell vehicles to potential purchasers who may use or modify them for paramilitary or terrorist activities, and we have procedures and contractual commitments in place to help prevent our products from being diverted for unauthorized military use.”

Whew. What a relief.

Toyota trucks: The jihadists’ truck of choice.

CNN tracked down Jonathan Schanzer — who used to track terrorist finances for the U.S. Treasury Dept. and who’s now with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies — to find out more. Schanzer explained that rugged outdoorsmen and off-roaders aren’t the only ones who love their Toyota trucks:

“Toyotas is the truck that Jihadists choose for when they want to go to war. It’s the same thing with Kalashnikovs [Russian automatic rifles more commonly known in the U.S. as AK-47s].”

And how to these ISIS terrorists get their hands on these bad boys? Schanzer suspects they just boldly walk into the car dealerships and pay cash!

“I think they’re buying them, probably, through formal channels. They’re probably going right into the dealerships and purchasing them, and not identifying as ISIS. Who would?”

Oh, and although Toyotas are the Jihadist’s truck of choice, they won’t object to a Ford or two. We’d love to see the look on this U.S. plumber’s face after seeing what Schanzer suspects ISIS picked up at an auction. As if to thumb their noses at us, they didn’t even bother to remove the former owner’s information from the front passenger side’s door.

Schanzer adds ISIS’s avid Toyota truck acquisition is just one example of how ISIS operates like “a combination of a mafia gang and a major corporation.” In other words, like a major corporation.

Here’s the video with CNN’s report.

ISIS also has tons of U.S. weapons, vehicles and other military gear.

Toyota trucks aren’t all ISIS has managed to buy, capture or scavenge from us. In June, CNBC reported that so far we’ve accidentally furnished the Islamic State with at least $219.7 million worth of weapons, vehicles and other military supplies and gear — and that’s just the stuff we know about.

Based on various reports, CNBC came up with the following laundry list of supplies the U.S. has so kindly provided to ISIS so far.

• 2,300 Humvee armored vehicles at $70,000 each: $16 million
• 40 M1A1 Abram tanks at $4.3 million each: $172 million
• 52 M198 Howitzer mobile gun systems at $527,337 each: $2.7 million
• 74,000 Army machine guns at $4,000 each: $29 million

TOTAL: $219.7 MILLION in military weapons, vehicles, and other supplies and gear for ISIS.

How does the Islamic State get hold of all these U.S. weapons? We deliver them, either directly or through the tattered remnants of Iraq’s military. Jeremy Salt, a political analyst in Ankara, Turkey, gives RT.Com quite the scathing earful:

“Do you think the Islamic State’s advance would have been so successful without access to this U.S. military hardware by mistake, by default? Let me just briefly revise the history of American blunder over the past couple of years with regard to weapons ending up in the hands of Islamic State.”

Salt then reminded us of our nation’s major blunders for supplying weapons to ISIS for the past couple of years.

• Accidental air-dropping of weapons and supplies intended for the Syrian Kurds into Islamic State territory.
• This didn’t just happen once, it happened several times.
• Weapons and supplies seized by ISIS during the falls of Mosul (Iraq), Ramadi (Iraq), AND Palmyra (Syria).

Salt doesn’t even bother explaining how the George W. Bush administration created ISIS by invading Iraq on false pretenses and chasing off all those heavily armed and well-trained Baathist soldiers. But he does ask how it’s even possible that U.S. intelligence and the military — both of which are among the most sophisticated in the world — could have possibly NOT seen what was coming.

What Salt says here about ISIS’s routing of Palmyra also applies to the sack of Mosul and Ramadi.

“Are we seriously to believe the United States couldn’t see them coming? Didn’t see those pickup trucks racing across the Syrian Desert? When they create massive plumes of dust, for one thing? Then they get to Palmyra, and they take over the city.”

Salt has a point. How could we have possibly missed miles of vehicles chock-full of masked ISIS militants waving guns and black flags while churning up choking clouds of desert dust visible from miles around? It’s almost as though we’ve ignored all this on purpose.

As for President Barack Obama, he’s made some smart moves. But how can he slam the brakes on a runaway crazy train that’s been lurching headlong for decades? After all, Reagan’s the one who armed and trained Al Qaeda back when they fought the former USSR as the Mujahideen resistance fighters. Also, we helped Saddam Hussein take power in Iraq in 1963, and Hussein was on the CIA’s payroll since at least 1959. And then we overthrew him and allowed the region to devolve into chaos because George W. Bush isn’t into “nation building.”

Here’s the video with the news report from RT on ISIS’s acquisition of U.S. military supplies, weapons, gear and vehicles.

The announcement by Qatar’s Defense Minister that his tiny but strategically positioned country is considering membership in NATO shouldn’t be taken at face value but instead analyzed for its symbolism in the tense context of contemporary Gulf geopolitics.

The Qatari Defense Minister surprised many observers by announcing that his tiny but strategically positioned is considering membership in NATO, as well as hosting “some unit or special NATO center” on its territory, but before prematurely jumping to any conclusions about the Transatlantic bloc formally expanding into the Persian Gulf, one needs to bear in mind the regional context in which this statement was made. Saudi Arabia had just reportedly threatened Qatar with destruction if it dares to go forward with purchasing Russia’s state-of-the-art S-400 anti-air defense system that would basically neutralize the Wahhabi Kingdom’s airpower leverage against its wayward neighbor, so Doha’s subsequent declaration of interest in NATO membership must be seen as a response to Riyadh’s aggressive reaction to its military partnership with Russia.

All of this is rather curious because Russia and Saudi Arabia are in the midst of a fast-moving and full-spectrum rapprochement with one another that covers all aspects of their bilateral partnership from OPEC+ energy coordination to collaborative efforts in promoting a “political solution” to the Hybrid War of Terror on Syria, but the country’s reaction to Qatar’s potential game-changing purchase of the S-400s is pragmatically separated from its own relationship with Moscow. Furthermore, it’s interesting that Qatar would find it to be productive enough of a deterrent to Saudi Arabia by requesting NATO membership considering that the bloc’s American leader has been de-facto allied with Riyadh for decades, though this historic statement of fact avoids mentioning the Saudis’ multipolar “balancing” act that Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has recently enacted with both Russia and China.

Contributing to the complicated nature of contemporary Gulf geopolitics is the weaponized infowar perception clandestinely cultivated by the UAE that Qatar is “supporting terrorism” and “allying with Iran”, two catchphrases that were impossible for the Trump Administration to ignore during the early days of the Gulf Cold War that began a year ago. Abu Dhabi, eager to formalize its de-facto status as the Arab Peninsula’s hegemon, sought to drag Riyadh into a “blood borders” conflict with Doha per the US’ “Lead From Behind” facilitation in order to “balkanize” its “big brother”into a collection of UAE-affiliated proxy sultanates/emirates just like South Yemen, Socotra, and Somaliland have already become further afield. Though this grand strategy was never fully implemented in practice, the guiding concept remains in effect and has thus far successfully served to manipulate Saudi Arabia into becoming the UAE’s “bulldog” against Qatar.

To review all of the aforementioned insight that might be new for most readers, the Gulf Cold War is a UAE-instigated infowar provocation designed to doom Saudi Arabia to a future of “balkanized blood borders” in order to formalize Abu Dhabi’s new unofficial role as the most powerful Arab country, with the US going along with this both because of the irresistible fake news narrative about Qatar “supporting terrorism” and “allying with Iran” but also due to its own desire to divide and rule the GCC as punishment against bloc leader Saudi Arabia for its multipolar outreaches to Russia and China. Qatar is an object, not a subject, in this asymmetrical conflict that’s fast emerged as one of the flashpoints in the New Cold War between unipolarity and multipolarity, but the fact that it has one foot in each “camp” explains why it’s surprisingly calling on NATO to protect it from Saudi Arabia’s threats against its possible Russian S-400 purchase.

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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

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

The police are wonderful when they control traffic, or rescue a cat from a tree, when they talk to school kids about catching criminals and locking them up, when they talk to teens about the dangers of drunk driving and the new legalities around marijuana.

Crowd control – who benefits?

But give them a G7 summit to watch over and a whole new image emerges. When it takes 8 000 police from various forces, costing an estimated $400 million, to watch over a small set of protesters numbering between 200-300 from various groups, the police are no longer your friend, but the friend of the government and big business.

In Quebec during the recent G7 summit (La Malbaie, Charlevoix) the squads of police wore riot gear with bullet proof vests, face masks, gas masks, equipped with assault rifles, and tear gas launchers. Overhead, drones, helicopters, and dirigible like balloons watched for wandering groups who might be a “threat” to the community. In reality, the only threat came from the militarized police forces, while the security system smiled proudly as the corporate dollars rolled in.

Israel is probably the biggest beneficiary in the monetary sense. The Canadian government is very proud of its support of the colonial-settler state of Israel, and has many trade agreements with them, many dealing with military services and security. Whether all the gear is made in Israel is not apparent, but as Israel demonstrates how its “security” works against the Palestinians then Canada is certainly learning from the best of the oppressors. (It’s only fair, Canada set up a system of racial genocide/apartheid well before Israel did, and both countries are the product of the racist British empire).

Israel cannot take all the credit, as Canada tends to follow trends in the U.S., being about 10 years later on the same path. Now that Canada and the U.S. are entering a trade war scenario, the security “threats” will come from a new economic angle – the U.S. does not need to bluster on about its military prowess to Canada as we are essentially a wholly owned subsidiary of the U.S. anyway, the 51st state at best, a sycophantic foreign policy follower at worst. To control Canada, the U.S. simply needs to close its border to Canadian goods.

The Trump factor

Few have any idea how to deal with Trump. The guy is such a whack-o nutcase narcissistic bully with a fragile ego that rational thought cannot deal with him. Beyond that, the leaders of the G7, and indeed the leaders of all western governments, are held in bondage by the U.S. through their control of the World Bank/IMF/BIS/SWIFT and other related economic institutions commonly known as the Washington consensus.

For Canada to stand up to Trump will probably lead to tariffs accompanied by such idiotic statements from Trump about Trudeau being “very dishonest and weak” (one can almost hear John Bolton whispering into his ear, but this is more than likely true Trump-speak). Trudeau will only be “very dishonest and weak” if he caves in to U.S. demands on trade within NAFTA and outside NAFTA on other issues. As most European leaders appear to have acquiesced to Trump on the Iran deal – not directly, but by not outlining any plan to support their own industries threatened by bank and economic sanctions – it will be tough for Trudeau to stand up to Trump and U.S. economic threats.

Boycott USA

Canada would certainly suffer economically if that happens – so would the U.S. A response that could be made is a grassroots action to boycott Made in USA goods. That is impossible to do in its entirety as Canada is so strongly tied into the U.S. economy, but avoiding some obvious items such as automobiles, electronic goods, and agricultural products would send a strong message to the U.S. and to the world.

It is fully doubtful that any MP in Canada would dare voice such an idea in Parliament, but the challenge is their for them to accept, or, conversely, provide a few weasily words as to why we cannot antagonize our southern neighbour for whatever invented reason.

…and the rest of the world…

What is noticeable by its lack of media attention are the various summits hosted by Russia and China. While the “west” is bickering within itself, mostly kowtowing to U.S. control, the “rest of the world” is getting on with business. The recent St. Petersburg Economic Forum, the more recent Putin – Xi-Jinping summit meeting, the current SCO meeting in Qingdao, have received no coverage in the mainstream media.

Thus the ‘world island’ of Eurasia is arranging itself outside of public awareness in the west, and probably only through highly distorted western deep state awareness in private. Systems are in place for military, financial, and industrial trade within most of the nations and populations of Eurasia, independent of U.S. control.

U.S. eyes will be focused on Trump heading to Singapore to meet Kim Jong-un of North Korea – and while the MSM spins the Trump/US line on denuclearization, Russia and China are getting North and South Korea talking to each other, anticipating their incorporation into the BRI (new Silk Road) and backing North Korea in its ‘negotiations’ with Trump – the ‘art of the deal’ meets Sun Tzu and the traditions of Lao Tzu and Confucius, and contemporary Asian pragmatism.

G7 follies

The G7 is a tired worn structure, ineffective because of its subservience to U.S. interests and its lack of willpower to think/act independently of U.S. desires. Perhaps Trump’s childish tantrums in reaction to Trudeau’s statements will put some spine in somebody’s response. A trade war would do the world a lot of good, revealing the underlying cut and thrust of economic-military policies of the United States within and against its current allies.

It will remain to be seen whether Canada’s government, and the Canadian people, are capable of acting against U.S. wishes and demands, or whether they capitulate and accept their third class status within the empire.

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Jim Miles is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Since 2001, Global Research has been delivering critical analysis to its readers as well as direction for the questions we should be asking.

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Breaking: ISIS Terrorists Are Only Present in US-controlled Areas in Syria – Russian MoD

By Leith Aboufadel, June 10, 2018

The spokesman noted that the Russian Defense Ministry was bewildered by “verbal manipulations” of Mattis regarding the situation in Syria, stressing that the expansion of the Daesh terror group to Syria had become possible due to “criminal omission” of the United States and the international coalition.

Violence with Impunity: The Unending Tragedy of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine

By Michael Welch, Sean Clinton, and Prof. Yakov M. Rabkin, June 10, 2018

The violence endured by the Palestinian population has reached a level of carnage unequaled since the 2014 Gaza War.

This past week, Argentina withdrew its football team from a World Cup warm-up event in protest to Israel’s actions against Palestinians in Gaza.

For Lasting Peace, President Moon Must Lead South Korea Out of America’s Orbit

By Stuart Smallwood, June 09, 2018

It didn’t take much for the leaders of the two Koreas to put an end to the decades-long culture of crisis pervading the Korean Peninsula. With a phone call, a quick drive to the North Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone, and a public embrace, South Korean President Moon Jae-inand North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un emphasized the absurdity of the barrier wedged between a people with a common history, culture and language.

Al Shabaab and ISIS-Daesh: Why Did an American Sacrifice His Life for AFRICOM in Somalia?

By Andrew Korybko, June 09, 2018

Al Shabaab’s killing of an American soldier in southern Somalia brings AFRICOM back into the limelight and restarts the conversation about why US troops are even still there in the first place.

US Challenges Russia to Nuclear War

By Eric Zuesse, June 09, 2018

Now that the United States (with the cooperation of its NATO partners) has turned the former Soviet Union’s states other than Russia into NATO allies, and has likewise turned the Soviet Union’s Warsaw Pact allies into America’s own military allies in NATO, the United States is finally turning the screws directly against Russia itself, by, in effect, challenging Russia to defend its ally Syria. The US is warning Syria’s Government that Syrian land, which is occupied by the US and by the anti-Government forces that the US protects in Syria, is no longer really Syria’s land.

A Better Idea than Russia Returning to the G7

By Stephen Lendman, June 09, 2018

NAFTA and similar trade deals are hugely destructive, eliminating millions of jobs, offshoring countless numbers of them to low-wage countries, notably once-high-wage manufacturing ones, replaced by largely temp employment paying poverty wages.

This article was first published by Global Research in May 2017.

Global Research Editor’s Note

In 2011, with foresight and scientific analysis Dr. Helen Caldicott focused on the implications of the Fukushima disaster at a Press Conference in Montreal organized by Global Research. The 2011 GRTV video presentation featuring Dr. Caldicott tells us the truth. This is the most devastating catastrophe in human history.  And seven years ago Helen Caldicott analyzed in detail the significance of this tragic event. (M. Ch)

Dr Helen Caldicott, explains recent robot photos taken of Fukushima’s Daiichi nuclear reactors: radiation levels have not peaked, but have continued to spill toxic waste into the Pacific Ocean — but it’s only now the damage has been photographed. 

 *    *    *

Recent reporting of a huge radiation measurement at Unit 2 in the Fukushima Daichi reactor complex does not signify that there is a peak in radiation in the reactor building. All that it indicates is that, for the first time, the Japanese have been able to measure the intense radiation given off by the molten fuel, as each previous attempt has led to failure because the radiation is so intense the robotic parts were functionally destroyed.

Satellite image shows damage at Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant (via ecowatch.com).

The radiation measurement was 530 sieverts, or 53,000 rems (Roentgen Equivalent for Man). The dose at which half an exposed population would die is 250 to 500 rems, so this is a massive measurement. It is quite likely had the robot been able to penetrate deeper into the inner cavern containing the molten corium, the measurement would have been much greater. These facts illustrate why it will be almost impossible to “decommission” units 1, 2 and 3 as no human could ever be exposed to such extreme radiation. This fact means that Fukushima Daichi will remain a diabolical blot upon Japan and the world for the rest of time, sitting as it does on active earthquake zones.

Robot image of Fukushima Daiichi Unit 2 reactor (Source: tepco.co.jp)

What the photos taken by the robot did reveal was that some of the structural supports of Unit 2 have been damaged. It is also true that all four buildings were structurally damaged by the original earthquake some five years ago and by the subsequent hydrogen explosions so, should there be an earthquake greater than seven on the Richter scale, it is very possible that one or more of these structures could collapse, leading to a massive release of radiation as the building fell on the molten core beneath. But units 1, 2 and 3 also contain cooling pools with very radioactive fuel rods — numbering 392 in Unit 1, 615 in Unit 2, and 566 in Unit 3; if an earthquake were to breach a pool, the gamma rays would be so intense that the site would have to be permanently evacuated.

The fuel from Unit 4 and its cooling pool has been removed. But there is more to fear. The reactor complex was built adjacent to a mountain range and millions of gallons of water emanate from the mountains daily beneath the reactor complex, causing some of the earth below the reactor buildings to partially liquefy. As the water flows beneath the damaged reactors, it immerses the three molten cores and becomes extremely radioactive as it continues its journey into the adjacent Pacific Ocean.

Six years later, radiation levels at Fukushima are so high not even a robot can survive inside https://t.co/gWuugk2Xqx pic.twitter.com/A7ZB91olvU

— Intl. Business Times (@IBTimes) February 11, 2017

Every day since the accident began, 300 to 400 tons of water has poured into the Pacific where numerous isotopes – including cesium 137, 134, strontium 90, tritium, plutonium, americium and up to 100 more – enter the ocean and bio-concentrate by orders of magnitude at each step of the food chain — algae, crustaceans, little fish, big fish then us. Fish swim thousands of miles and tuna, salmon and other species found on the American west coast now contain some of these radioactive elements, which are tasteless, odourless and invisible. Entering the human body by ingestion they concentrate in various organs, irradiating adjacent cells for many years.

Featured image: Major General Igor Konashenkov (Source: author)

The Islamic State’s (ISIS) last pockets of resistance are located inside areas controlled by the U.S. forces, the Russian Ministry of Defense Spokesperson Major General Igor Konashenkov said this morning.

“As for the current situation in the Syrian Arab Republic, we recommend the Pentagon chief to examine the map showing the situation in this country. All remaining pockets of resistance of Daesh terrorists in Syria are located only in areas controlled by the United States,” Konashenkov said.

The spokesman noted that the Russian Defense Ministry was bewildered by “verbal manipulations” of Mattis regarding the situation in Syria, stressing that the expansion of the Daesh terror group to Syria had become possible due to “criminal omission” of the United States and the international coalition.

The Russian general was responding to U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis’ claims that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad was creating problems in his country by inviting both Iran and Russia to enter Syria.

Furthermore, the Russian MoD’s Spokesperson slammed the U.S.’ ventures in Syria, adding that their weapons often fall into the hands of terrorists.

“All this time Washington focused on financing and direct arms supplies to fictional ‘Syrian opposition’ totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. However, the vast majority of US-supplied arms and ammunition fell into the hands of the Syrian al-Qaeda branch – Nusra Front [terrorist group, banned in Russia] and Daesh, who sought, like Washington, to overthrow the legitimate Syrian government,” Konashenkov said.

Bruce Chatwin considered movement the indispensable feature of the human species.  Sedentary natures killed through asphyxiation; a refusal to move suggested an acceptance of death.  Walking he considered a virtue; tourism the ultimate sin.  For the late Anthony Bourdain, a chef turned walker and explorer, no dish was odd enough or peculiar to be avoided or exiled by palate. 

Bourdain was certainly of similar inclination to Chatwin – in some respects.

“If I’m an advocate of anything, it’s to move.  As far as you can, as much as you can.  Across the ocean, or simply across the river.  Walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food.  It’s a plus for everybody.”

Foods and rites may well be seen as communal acts for the new to be initiated into. But a modern world obsessed with nutritional counters, diet and concerns makes adventurism, quite literally in some cases, hard to stomach. But the wiry Bourdain seemed to have a cast iron stomach, a body impregnable to that various kitchens he sampled.  The only thing he would not have eaten, he once quipped, was a cheese burger from Johnny Rockets.

The world of eating and dining can also be hierarchical and exclusive, pegged against an inverse relationship between diminishing returns on a plate and the amount that is splashed out at the till.  Common dining remains in a titanic struggle with the elite nibblers who would surely die of starvation in the name of impressions and appearances.  While Bourdain was not immune to the Michelin star disease, he was accommodating of a stunning variety of culinary forms.

“Low plastic stool, cheap but delicious noodles, cold Hanoi beer.”

Those were the words former US President Barack Obama in recalling a meeting with Bourdain as part of the Parts Unknown series airing on CNN.

His interest in writing about food was also pointedly against the food snobs and the babbler of high end consumption.  A. J. Liebling’s Between Meals was a favourite of his, describe by Bourdain as an account by “an enthusiastic lover of food and wine, very knowledgeable but never a snob”.

The restaurant is an ideal spectacle for sociological study.

“The man who founded the first restaurant,” observed Brillat-Savarin, “must have been a genius endowed with profound insight into human nature.”

Those manning that haven were the chefs, those gargoyles and creators with the power of creativity – or not – to fashion appearances.  Bourdain, however, never forgot that aesthetics was subordinate to the cravings of the belly.

Such a creature was Bourdain whose quarter century as a New York chef served a plate full of delicious, manic and delightfully crafted experiences in Kitchen Confidential.  In that account published in 2000, Bourdain suggests the aptness of military metaphor in describing the kitchen, a point as sharp as the weapons wielded.  Battles are fought, and lost – most of the restaurants he found himself working for went broke.  Wounds are inflicted, blood shed.

Cooking habits are given colourful description, suggesting that diners should be imperilled by the chef’s all-too-innovative short cuts.

“If you are one of those people who cringe at the thought of strangers fondling your food, you shouldn’t go out to eat.”

Meals on the assembly line will have “dozens of sweaty fingers” poking, prodding, stroking and shaping.  The meal that induces salivation is bound to have a dark, even hideous side.

He also offers the advice that should be part of any diner’s canon: avoid ordering fish on Mondays like the plague, having lingered from the previous Friday.  Most definitely avoid any temptation to get the mussels which “are allowed to wallow in their foul-smelling piss in the bottom of a reach-in”.

Bourdain, according to initial reports, seems to have taken his own life in a hotel near Strasbourg while engaged in making another instalment of Parts Unknown.  The recounting of responses to his death and discussions in tribute pieces inevitably go soppy, drenched by the concerns that the taking of his own life was, essentially, unpardonable.  Or at the very least, he should have been discouraged, the darkness expelled by proper counsel and sagacious words.

“Suicide,” goes a piece in CNN, “is a growing problem in the United States.”

The report cites a survey released on Thursday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that suicide rates have spiked by 25 percent across the country over the two decades ending in 2016.  That his death caused tremors of despair and loss is an entirely sensible reaction: such gourmands should, on some level, be revered for making food, and food chat, a joy. But Bourdain lived his life so utterly chocked with nutrients, experiences and movement, leaving the eater hopeful that the cravings of the belly are universal and, when satiated, give peace, and peace of mind.

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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: German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron at the G-20 leaders summit in Hamburg, Germany, on July 8, 2017

On the eve of his visit to Austria, President Vladimir Putin told the press: Russia has not the least intention of sowing dissent within the European Union. On the contrary, it is in Moscow’s interests that the EU, its biggest trading partner, remain as unified and thriving as possible.

Europeans have long been quite obsessed with the idea that Russia is bent on dividing and weakening Europe. In the most prominent English-language media this is practically presumed to be as obviously true as their claims that Russia killed the blogger Arkady Babchenko, attempted to murder the spy Sergei Skripal, and shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17.

As usual, after the Malaysian government admitted that the evidence of Russian involvement in the downing of flight MH17 was inconclusive, the anti-Russian propaganda campaigns were reduced to slim pickings. It was precisely for this reason that the more cutting-edge Western media were so happy to latch onto the murder of the blogger in Kiev. It was precisely for this reason that the very ones who had so desperately hyped that whole episode were so indignant when they realized that they had fallen victim to a bit of ruthless Ukrainian creative license.

But let’s get back to Russia’s secret plots against Europe. Interestingly, when you trace back the source of most of the warnings about the Russian plots to divide Europe, they seem to emanate from Great Britain. In other words, they are coming from a government that has decided to pull out of the EU but is now trying to direct its foreign policy.

Allegations of Russian plans to fragment Europe have been heard from both the head of Britain’s MI5 intelligence agency as well as from spokesmen from the European Council for Foreign Relations (ECFR). Judging by its name, one might be forgiven for assuming that was supposed to be a pan-European organization. But actually that’s just what’s written on the shingle they hang outside their door, because in fact this “think tank” is headquartered and funded in London.

It turns out that the most prominently schismatic states in Europe also hold wildly anti-Russian stances. Neither Great Britain, nor, shall we say, Poland could be suspected of a dearth of official Russophobia. Both of them, each in their own way, are trying to ruin the lives of those countries that form the core of the EU.  Both have closed their doors to refugees and both are bravely waging war against an “influx” of natural gas that theoretically has nothing to do with them. Poland, which gets 17 billion euros a year from the EU budget, has the audacity to be demanding reparations from Germany. Britain, which slammed its doors shut in order to avoid chipping in to fund the EU, is valiantly battling Brussels in order to hold on to its economic perks in Europe.

And in this context, the EU’s biggest common ally — the US — is becoming an increasingly big problem. Washington has unleashed an economic war, not only against Russia and Iran, but also against the countries of Europe. But in the propaganda being rolled out for the European audience, the picture of the world looks like this:

The European Union’s main enemies are Russia and China. It’s true that they do want to trade with Europe and are offering enticements to encourage this, but one mustn’t believe them. Because it is a known fact that they are conducting a hybrid war — invisibly and unprovably — against Europe. Russia is such a wily combatant that one can’t ever prove anything — but you have to believe that it’s true. The European Union’s biggest friend is still the US. And yes, it’s true that they are currently trying to run their friends out of town in order to make a quick buck. But it’s solely President Trump who is to blame for that. Just be patient: soon the next president will come and fix everything right up. And it’s also true that no one can say when that next president will be in office, or what his name will be, or what he will do. And of course everyone remembers the Obama administration’s ceaseless attempts to foist an entirely colonial “transatlantic partnership” on Europe. But once Trump’s gone everything will be different — you just have to believe.

And this “you just have to believe” has recently become the main leitmotif of all the anti-Russian propaganda. Since the preferred narrative about the spy, the blogger, and airliner haven’t panned out, the proof of Russia’s malice is increasingly being repackaged as a kind of spiritual evidence. As the Guardian put it so aptly —

“We do not need Russia to poison people in a British city to recognise the expanding threat to common values posed by Vladimir Putin’s hostile, corrupt regime.”

But then how can one explain that in reality, the opposite is true, that Russia actually needs a unified, rich and strong European Union? This isn’t rocket science, people — you don’t need to invoke “values” and chant the mantra of “you just have to believe.”

Russia needs a rich EU, because a rich trading partner has a more purchasing power, which gives Russia a positive trade balance with the EU.

Russia needs a unified EU, because a unified Europe that manages its own security issues from a centralized headquarters will present far fewer problems for Moscow than a string of feckless “friends of the US” along Russia’s western borders.

Russia needs a sovereign EU, because the anti-Russian trade sanctions serve no economic purpose for the EU whatsoever — and once Europe establishes sovereignty we will quite likely see those sanctions lifted.

And it is no coincidence that Austria was the first foreign country that Vladimir Putin visited after his inauguration.

Austria’s President Alexander Van der Bellen shakes hands with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in his office in Vienna, Austria June 5, 2018 (Source: Oriental Review)

That country is European, rich, and neutral (therefore not a member of NATO) and has been a staunch advocate for the rollback of Europe’s anti-Russian policy.

In other words, in Austria you can see a potential model for the kind of independent European Union that Russia would like to deal with in the twenty-first century.

And this is why the ones who are now so fervently preaching about “shared values” and “Western unity” when faced with the treachery of those natural-gas pipelines and that Eurasian trade route are actually demanding that Europe do itself a disservice by remaining deferential.

“The conflation of Jews with Israel, and of Judaism with Zionism, is not only intellectually incorrect, but it is politically incorrect, undermining liberal democracy by treating Jewish citizens as though they belong to a different body politic and a different country.” – Yakov M. Rabkin [1]

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With the death of 21 year old Razan Ashraf al-Najjar, the female Palestinian medic killed by Israeli gun fire while attending to injured protesters at the Israeli border fence with Gaza, the focus of the world’s humanitarian concern and outrage has once again fallen on the Israeli-Palestine conflict.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, as of the beginning of June, over 118 people had died in the demonstrations which started along the Israel-Gaza border. The protests, involving tens of thousands, started on Good Friday March 30th . The ‘Great March of Return’ was meant to demand the right of return for Palestinians expelled from their homes and villages in 1948 during what they refer to as the Nakba, or “catastrophe.”

The violence endured by the Palestinian population has reached a level of carnage unequaled since the 2014 Gaza War.

This past week, Argentina withdrew its football team from a World Cup warm-up event in protest to Israel’s actions against Palestinians in Gaza.

A statement from the UK Parliament’s Official Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, condemned the violence and the bystander role played by world governments in the face of this bloodshed.

Unfortunately, the actions of other world leaders was far less inspiring. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, after issuing a statement demanding an “immediate independent investigation” into the killings of protesters in Gaza, found himself, two days later, opposing such an investigation when the suggestion was tabled at the UN Human Rights Council.

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley defended the actions of Israeli Defense Forces saying, “no country would act with greater restraint than Israel.”

And, of course, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu framed Israeli retaliation to the protests as their only recourse against “protesters seeking fatalities.”

As devastating as the well publicized casualties of the last two months may be, there is a serious humanitarian catastrophe playing out within the Gaza Strip. Human rights observers have noted that with dilapidated infrastructure stemming from previous assaults and the ongoing blockade, the strip of land may well be uninhabitable by the year 2020.

This week’s Global Research News Hour radio program explores the dynamics driving Israel’s aggressive occupation of Palestinian land, its brutal treatment of its captive population, and ways in which the situation may be remediated.

We’ll first hear from Ron Rousseau, one of the Canadian travelers on board this year’s Freedom Flotilla to Gaza, about the conditions in Gaza inspiring him and others to engage in solidarity actions. We’ll then hear from Sean Clinton, long time Palestine solidarity activist about Israel’s lucrative diamond industry and why that could prove to be an effective target for a boycott campaign. Finally, historian Yakov Rabkin provides background on the political movement known as Zionism which spawned Israel as an ethnic state, and the forces that continue to uphold and foster Zionism and the violence associated with it.

Ron Rousseau is a postal worker, president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers Whitehorse local, Indigenous Vice President of the Canadian Labour Congress, a father and grandfather, and he lives in the traditional territory of the Carcross Tagish First Nation in Yukon.

Sean Clinton is a long time Palestine solidarity activist. He has written for Electronic Intifada and Global Research. He is the author of the recent article: The Gaza Massacre and Israel’s Thriving “Blood Diamond” Economy. He is based in Limerick, Ireland.

Yakov M. Rabkin is Professor of History at the Université de Montréal and a founding member of Canada’s Independent Jewish Voices; his recent books are A Threat from Within: A Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism (Zed/Palgrave-Macmillan) and What is Modern Israel? (Pluto/University of Chicago Press).

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Transcript- Interview with Yakov Rabkin, June 6, 2018

Part one

Global Research: While the US comes to defense of Israel, successfully blocking a call at the U.N to condemn Israeli actions, other countries have been registering their opposition. Recently, Argentina announced it was canceling a World Cup warm-up match with Israel, apparently having yielded to pressure from its domestic population. To get some insight into the forces driving Israeli violence and where this is all headed, we got in touch with Yakob Rabkin.

Yakov M. Rabkin is Professor of History at the Université de Montréal and a founding member of Canada’s Independent Jewish Voices; his recent books are A Threat from Within: A Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism (Zed/Palgrave-Macmillan) and What is Modern Israel? (Pluto/University of Chicago Press).

Thank you so much for joining us, Professor Rabkin.

Yakov Rabkin: My pleasure.

GR: So, let’s put the history of the events of the last two months within that historical context which you could speak to. Could you outline who is behind the Zionist project? And maybe speak about this… the issues…the factors that have shaped this project that is Israel?

YR: The Zionist project is a political movement that emerged in the end of the 19th century, or to be more precise, it involved Jews at the end of the 19th century. Prior to that time, the idea of ingathering Hebrews into the Holy Land had become rather popular among certain English-speaking Protestant denominations in England and in North America.

And these, that we would call anachronistically Christian Zionists, these Christian Zionists had got quite a bit of popularity, particularly in Britain in the 19th century. Lord Shaftesbury and many other politicians saw an opportunity in creating, so to speak, a Jewish state in a strategically very important region.

However, until the very end of the 19th century, there were no Jewish takers for this project. Why? While the Protestants interpreted the Biblical prophecy literally, which they usually do because they have a direct immediate relationship with Biblical texts, Jewish tradition reinterprets these biblical texts according to tradition. Thus Jews do not take these biblical prophecies literally, and the return to the Holy Land is rooted in Messianic expectation, Messianic yearning, and therefore in political passivity.

What changed at the end of the 19th century, as a result of this Christian Zionist influence, is that some people of Jewish descent embraced the Zionist idea. They were quite removed from the Jewish tradition, and that’s why they, like Herzl and a group of German-speaking intellectuals in Vienna and Germany, engaged in political activism. They created a political movement, with the first Zionist Congress taking place in 1897, in Basel, Switzerland.

It’s interesting also why it took place in Basel, Switzerland, in a small, relatively small, Jewish community. Originally,the first Zionist Congress was to be convened in Munich, but the organized Jewish community of Germany put pressure on the German government to forbid such a meeting. This shows you how much opposition the Zionists had to face, from both assimilated Jews, and of course from more pious, that is Orthodox Jews. This background suggests that Zionism began as a movement of a few intellectuals. But they were, so to speak, generals without an army.

The foot soldiers of Zionism didn’t come from Austria, Germany, or France, for that matter. They came from the Russian Empire, and the importance of the Russian dimension in Zionism is still very great. Jews of the Russian Empire at the turn of the 20th century lived under official discrimination. They could not move around the country, had to live in a certain area (the Pale of Settlement), and this generated a lot of frustration. This frustration expressed itself in various ways. One of them was joining the Zionist movement. And even though the number of settlers from the Russian Empire to Palestine was quite small, they played a crucial role in the realization of the Zionist project in Palestine and determined the direction that it took. Up to this day, all the prime ministers of Israel were either born in the Russian Empire, or their parents were born there.

Their main goal was to occupy a maximum of land with a minimum of Arabs in order to create a separate society, a separate economy, a separate state. It would be new, drastically different from society then existing in Palestine. It was also a radical departure from the Jewish continuity and tradition. So this is the background of the Zionist project.

GR: Could you explain the evolution, because you indicate in your writings, the majority of Jews were opposed to Zionism in the beginning, and yet today, it seems, at least looking in, whether it’s within Israel or even in Canada or the United States, it seems as if people conceive Zionism as a response to the need to protect Jews from anti-Semitic governments, be they Germany or wherever. How did we see that transformation in the popular imagination to the point where anti-Zionism is practically equated with anti-Semitism?

YR: It was a tremendous success of the Zionist movement and later of the state of Israel to conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. The late Abba Eban, a brilliant foreign minister of Israel, considered this conflation very important in order to strengthen and protect Israel’s position in the world. And I think to a great extent it has succeeded.

As I said earlier, the opposition to Zionism was of two varieties. One was from Jews who wanted to integrate and to be part of their country. When the Zionists came and said, well, you don’t really belong here, you belong to a separate nation that should live in Palestine, their message paralleled that of the anti-Semites that Jews don’t belong, that they constitute an alien pernicious element.

That’s why Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, wrote very clearly in his diaries that Anti-Semites will be our best allies and friends. So Jews who wanted to integrate into their society saw Zionism as a threat.

The second kind of opposition came from more Orthodox circles who actually ‘till today are not Zionists, the Zionist project was a profanation of Judaism, a secularization of the heritage of the Bible, which Jews never understood literally. They continue to reject the entire Zionist project. This can be seen in the way the so-called ultra-Orthodox relate to the Zionist state, for example, to the state law obliging them to enroll in the Army.

A few years ago when I went to Israel to promote my book on Jewish opposition to Zionism that was published there in Hebrew, I noticed a big demonstration in Jerusalem. Half-a-million ultra-Orthodox Jews dressed in black and white demonstrated against military draft. They did not want to serve because they rejected the entire Zionist project.

Now, how did it happen that today most Jews except the ultra-Orthodox support Zionism, moreover they see that Israel embodies their Jewishness? Many of them don’t do anything else Jewish. Today a Jew may transgress the Sabbath, eat non-kosher foods, violate all rabbinic commandments, and he would still be accepted as part of the Jewish community. But if he or she criticizes Israel, the community life of that person becomes really difficult.

Now, how did it happen? Well, it happened in stages. Many descendants of Russian Jews, in North America in particular, took control of Jewish organizations which had been in the hands of German Jews who were quite opposed or at least neutral with respect to Zionism. So this Russian dimension of Zionism also permeated Jewish communities in North America. And then in the course of the Second world war the Nazi genocide exterminated millions of Jews. That of course affected many people, including political leaders, who saw in the Zionist project a way of, so to speak, solving Europe’s Jewish problem. But active support for Israel didn’t begin before 1967, before the Six-Day War, when Israel attacked its neighbors, occupied territories, and came out as a valiant, triumphant nation.

It’s after that, that Jewish communities intensified support of Israel, identified with Israel. This resulted, at least partly, from a very important education project conceived in Jerusalem and carried out practically in all non ultra-Orthodox communities around the world: to instill the centrality of Israel into Jewish identity. And this has become a reality. I think today, the vast majority of non ultra-Orthodox Jews in North America, in France and elsewhere identify with Israel as something that constitutes their Jewish identity.

My colleague from Tel Aviv University, Shlomo Sand caustically remarked that 100 years ago, if somebody would say that the French Jew doesn’t belong to the French nation, that person would be considered an anti-Semite. Today, if you say that French Jews do not constitute a separate nation, but belong to the French nation, that would be considered anti-Semitism. That shows how the term anti-Semitism really was turned upside down. While that happened to many terms in history, anti-Semitism came to mean something totally different from what it was at the end of the 19th century when the term anti-Semitism was coined.

GR: So I’m wondering now, in the modern day we have Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and it does seem as if the rhetoric about protecting the Jewish state, and the enemies, and Iran and elsewhere, is certainly up substantially. I’m wondering if his prime ministership, does it represent a particular turning point or is this merely an expansion of a long-standing expansionist project?

YR: No, I think that Prime Minister Netanyahu represents the continuity of Zionism the continuity of the Zionist project. He was quite effective, when he was Israeli representative at the United Nations, , in mobilizing support of Christian Zionists in the United States. Today, Netanyahu is to the left of his own government. He is definitely not the most hawkish member of it.

What he has done, and I think that’s again a standard procedure, is to solidify support for himself and for Israel by insisting that Israel always faces an existential threat. Well, many political leaders have identified or invented threats in order to solidify their support, but Netanyahu has done that quite successfully. And particularly with Iran – he opposed the treaty that was concluded in 2015 between six nations and Iran, and he succeeded. To a large extent, it was his work that the United States recently withdrew from that treaty.

So I think that Netanyahu is a true Zionist in that he positions himself very explicitly, more explicitly than his predecessors, as the leader of the entire Jewish people, not just the people of Israel who elected him. This is something new, and tends to blur distinctions between Jews in other countries and Israelis, which, in turn, endangers Jews who are very often wrongly accused for what Israel does, even though they, however wealthy and however important, have no political influence in Israel whatsoever. Jews have become hostages of what Israel does and is, and so it’s a win-win situation for Prime Minister Netanyahu. He’s been very successful in advancing his agenda.

Intermission

Part two

GR: You mentioned Christian Zionism and that being a factor in some countries like the United States, but Zionist organizations, and Christian Zionist organizations, they’re a minority even within the United States. It seems to me that there has to be some other motivation for the United States, Canada, and other international players to continue endorsing the Zionist project, or at least sort of looking the other way when we’re seeing the kind of violence that we’ve seen recently in Gaza. What are those factors that are contributing to the foreign support for the Israeli actions that we’re seeing?

YR: Well, let me start by correcting what you just said. I don’t think Christian Zionists are a minority or a marginal group. They themselves claim that they are from 50 to 80 million people in the United States. I must remind your listeners that the number of Jews in the entire world is about 14 million, so we’re talking about a much more massive support for Zionism coming from Christians than from Jews. And, consequently, the inauguration of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem included two prominent Christian Zionist leaders. That was clearly a message sent back to the United States that President Trump hears them and is sensitive to their plight.

Now, of course, Christian Zionism does not explain everything. Much more important, in my opinion, is the position that Israel has come to occupy as a purveyor of security know-how and security equipment, as a major source of defense materiel and high-tech surveillance technologies. So Israel has become an indispensable source precisely because of the ongoing oppression of Palestinians that requires Israel to become inventive. They test their new technology on Palestinians, and therefore, their exports, to a large extent, consists of high-tech security and military equipment and know-how.

That is a very important fact that explains the impunity which Israel enjoys in many Western capitals. Another, I think, another important reason is that Israel is seen as an island of Western influence in the Middle East and Western Asia, and this is a function that the Zionist leaders had cherished from the very beginning, to be an island in, as they saw it, in the barbaric region. And so for all these reasons, Israel is very useful to Western governments and particularly in the larger context in which we live.

And the larger context is that of a growing gap between rich and poor, which requires more sophisticated methods of crowd control, of oppression of population, of surveillance, and Israel is very useful as a source of that know-how. So in the larger context of neoliberal economics and the growing frustration of people around the world, including in the Western countries, Israeli means of controlling population are very handy, very useful, and I think that’s a niche that Israel occupies with tremendous success.

GR: Could you comment on the historic significance of the U.S. Embassy move to Jerusalem?

YR: Well, I don’t, I wouldn’t subscribe to it historic significance, I think that it’s a symbolic gesture that consecrates U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. I don’t think that it really changes very much because it had been clear from practically all the previous administrations in Washington for the last 20 years that the U.S. stood behind Israel and vetoed all attempts to criticize Israel, so I think President Trump did something which is perfectly within the logic of U.S. attitudes towards Israel.

Previously the U.S. government spoke on both sides of the mouth. On the one hand, it criticized the expansion of settlements of the West Bank, on the other, it provided Israel with huge amounts of support. So now, that hypocrisy is largely ended, and I think that President Trump, for all his other failings, can be congratulated for being quite honest and direct in what he did.

GR: Now, given the powers that are backing the Israeli government internally and externally, the rise of the non-Jewish population within Israel, and the success of Palestine solidarity movements, where do you see the conflict heading? Possibly a unitary Jewish Palestinian state? A two-state solution? Or will Israel successfully conquer the Golan and continue to expand its territories?

YR: Well, that question should be put to a prophet not to a professor of history.

GR: Based on past trends, you might say, looking at the current trajectory…

YR: Right. What I can’t see is the idea of a two-state, a Palestinian state and an Israeli state. That idea has been dead for quite a while, simply because of the expansion of Israeli settlements around the West Bank. So what other ways… I think there are several scenarios, but looking for the future distracts us from seeing the present. And what we have in the present is the territory from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean entirely controlled by Israel, with Israeli currency, with Israeli economy, and the Israeli Army. So if we don’t look at formalities, we could just see that Israel has become one state. Palestinians, whether Palestinian Authority or Hamas, doesn’t exercise much control over their territory. Any Israeli soldier, any 18-year-old recruit has more power than Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. And we could see that in this recent violence of Israeli troops against Gaza.

What we see today is a territory controlled by Israel in which some people have political rights and others don’t. Some people have more economic privilege than others. So we see, essentially, a perpetuation of a situation that has existed since 1967. And, in fact, had existed before. We shouldn’t forget the Arab population of what became the state of Israel in ’48 lived under military rule for, I think,15 years.

What we see today is a continuous process while the rest of the world, including you, are questioning what is going to be the solution. There may not be any solution. There may be just perpetuation of the current state which is quite comfortable for Israel. Palestinians don’t represent an existential threat. And as I said, they’re also very useful objects for testing new weapons. So I don’t think that Israel is looking for solutions. I think Israel looks rather for a continuation of the current situation.

GR: Just a final thought about what the larger community, what sorts of activities, or what sorts of lobbying should they be enacting in order to realize a more just turn of events?

YR:  There exists a tremendous democratic deficit in the Western support for Israel. In other words, governments support Israel, but the population doesn’t support it to the same extent, or doesn’t support it at all. That is the case in Canada, where the position of the Canadian government on Israel is not supported by the population. However, I don’t expect any government in the world to lose power because it supports Israel. It’s not an electoral issue, so to speak.

There are many Grassroots movements, including the BDS, the boycott, divestment and sanctions; we have demonstrations, we have sometimes cancellation of football matches like you mentioned in the beginning. So these are unpleasant events for the government of Israel and, I think, for Israeli society, but I don’t think it, at this point, affects what Israel is and does.

It actually has provided Prime Minister Netanyahu, at one point, an opportunity to name the BDS as an existential threat to Israel. Honestly, boycotting Israeli oranges is important, but no one is boycotting import of Israeli high-tech military weapons, and they constitute a lot more in the exports of Israel than oranges. So I think that for mobilizing support for Palestinians, for sort of serious critique of Israel, these movements are important; so far they have not changed anything in the behavior of the Israeli government. And I would say that I don’t see in the future that they can. Israeli government is very strong, Israeli society is fully behind it. It’s very important to understand that Israel is a democratic country, and what you see in the behavior of the Israeli government and the Israeli Army is what the Israeli majority, that is the non-Arab majority, want.

So some people argue that the government, Benjamin Netanyahu betray the ideals of Zionism. I don’t think so. I think he is positioned in a straight line from Ben-Gurion and on, and the Israeli society, as I just said, elects him, and elects much more right wing and much more nationalistic parliamentarians. In that sense, Israel is quite consolidated.

GR:I want to thank you very much, Professor Rabkin, for sharing your thoughts and your expertise with our listeners.

YR: Thank you. All the best.

GR: We’ve been speaking with the Montreal-based scholar and author, Yakov Rabkin. Many of his articles are posted at the Global Research website.

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

Community Radio Stations carrying the Global Research News Hour:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notes:

1. https://www.globalresearch.ca/is-it-anti-semitic-to-criticize-and-boycott-israel/5536920

This article was first published in 2016

You don’t have to be a financial genius or have a doctorate in philosophy to know when things are not right. As working stiffs nationwide tightrope on the strings of economic solvency, it is time for a change in mindset. We live in a country that has been hijacked by super rich greedy fiends that have profited from what can be called the Big Con. Bought and paid for politicians and mainstream pundits have done the ‘ water carrying ‘ for their corporate masters, to the detriment of too many of us. Perhaps it is time to send the message to them: ” Enough is enough!” Let’s get to it….

Rebecca Burns has written a well researched and cogent piece on another Wall Street greed fest entitled ‘Too Big Has Failed- and Wall Street is Teetering Once More Toward Collapse’. The newest game in town by the Wall Street wizards of greed is called Rent-backed securities (the film The Big Short captures the original scam). Since the housing bubble crash in 2008, the corporate pigs have bought up tons of single family homes at bargain prices, due to either foreclosures or ‘underwater’ homeowners forced to give them up on the cheap. They then get local management companies to rent out the homes (sometimes to former owners who went bust) in a market that is more ‘demand’ than it is ‘supply’. The rents then go higher and higher and what do these corporate sharks do: They bundle them up and sell them as securities to investors. This is just what was done with sub-prime mortgages helping to create the housing bubble fifteen years ago.

Ms. Burns, much more knowledgeable than this writer, lays it all out for you (the story can be found on the Nation of Change website) in great detail. Bottom line: In far too many instances tens of thousands of these rental units do not get the proper repairs and upkeep necessary for tenants. Plus, they may have contracts that contain room for exorbitant rent increases of 37 to 53 % for lease renewals! Sometimes this includes delivery of eviction notices the same day rent was due! Another fear that has been established is the fact that renters could face mass evictions (even if they never missed a payment) in the event that a rent-secured bond blows up or Wall Street corporate landlords decide to sell the homes to meet obligations to bondholders. Want to solve this mess?

What is needed in this country is a new mindset on housing. There should be a law passed by local governments that make it illegal for rental of housing by absentee landlords. Does anyone remember where the phrase land lord came from? It came from feudalism where the ‘lord of the manor’ rented out housing and use of his land to the serf, who then grew the crops for the lord of the manor, keeping some for himself and giving the majority back as ‘RENT’. NO, the only type of landlord we should have is the old fashioned ‘two family home’ landlord. The home owner lived in one apartment and rented out the other to help with the mortgage and upkeep. Anything else should be outlawed. Through the use of eminent domain, after such a new law would be passed, let local communities own and rent out the apartments and homes in as close to nonprofit  as possible.

The renter is then given the option of being able to buy the place in the future, with a % of the rent held in escrow towards a down payment for the future purchase. In concert with this new idea, let’s institute Community owned and operated NON PROFIT mortgage banks, charging only overhead. Imagine how many renters would be able to afford their own apartment or home if the rates were that low? An example of this would be mortgage rates  becoming less than 50% of the current private mortgage rates. Plus, the mortgage paper would stay right there in the community, like it used to be way back when, as reflected  in the great film It’s a Wonderful Life with the Bailey Savings and Loan. Just these two ideas together would give the greatest shot of economic stimulus one could imagine. With rates that low, and tenants saving so much of their hard earned incomes, we could see consumer spending rising, new housing construction affecting so many ancillary businesses (cabinet makers, kitchens, baths, doors etc), car sales expanding, restaurants busier… on and on. Get it?

One of the great blights to Mom and Pop businesses is the commercial landlord. As a former partner in a cafe business, I can attest to the predatory nature of commercial landlords. They can suck the air out of your lungs and make you pay as much as possible. Then, when things break or systems fail, they expect you to foot the bill in many cases! This is the paramount reason why so many Mom and Pop small businesses fail throughout America. The corporate chains and even the franchises have powerful advertising budgets that their Mom and Pop competitor cannot stand a chance against. Been there, know that folks! So, how to alleviate this situation:

Local communities should do with commercial property what they would do, under the aforementioned idea, to the residential housing market: Use eminent domain and take over private commercial property and run the leasing of space in a non profit manner. One must surmise, without even the need of financial accounting, that the rents would have to be at least 50% less. Imagine how many Mom and Pop businesses could prosper under those terms? And, what really should be done is to have the localities develop the land and create their own commercial space… again using eminent domain to obtain the land, if not already owned by them. Plus, if local communities did this, don’t you think that the private commercial landlords would have no choice but to lower their rental charges?

Now, for these two bold ideas, many out there would shout ” Socialism”. Oh, heaven forbid if I am labeled what I am. So what? We have socialism doing very well in our nation. Our local first providers are run in a socialist manner. Our military ditto. Our great Social Security and Medicare are socialist, to name but a few. The real question is how do we pay for the aforementioned bold ideas? Well, we can start by cutting our obscene military spending, from 50+% of our taxes to maybe 25%, pull back  our overseas Military Empire and send the savings to our states and cities for programs like the ones mentioned. How about a real Fair Tax system? Does anyone out there recall what the top federal tax bracket was in 1960? How about 90%? In 1980 it was 70%. Today it is at 39%. Now we know no one pays at that rate, rather it is the ‘starting point’.

Mitt Romney, a multi millionaire, admitted that he paid less than 20% on his taxes. So, what could and should be done to raise the revenues for many bold ideas like my two ones above is for a 50% FLAT SURTAX on all income over one million dollars annually. The first million would remain taxed as is, but anything over would have half go to WETHE PEOPLE  and half to the rich person. One must ask this philosophical question: How many of you out there could live really well on a couple of $ million annually  AFTER TAXES?

Well, food for thought indeed. When the day comes that many working stiffs realize socialism has nothing to do with small business, especially Mom and Pops, or with individuals being creative to better their lives… Change will finally come, as WE have the numbers, not the greedy super rich!

*

This article was originally published on World News Trust and Nation of Change website in 2016.

Philip A Farruggio is a son and grandson of Brooklyn, NYC longshoremen. He has been a free lance columnist since 2001, with over 300 of his work posted on sites like Consortium News, Information Clearing House,  Global Research, Nation of Change, World News Trust, Op Ed News, Dissident Voice, Counterpunch, 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].

• On June 1, 2018 the President of the USA Donald Trump had a meeting with Kim Yong-chol, the Vice Chairman of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea and the head of the United Front Work Department. He was formerly the Director of the Reconnaissance General Bureau. During the meeting, which lasted 80 minutes, Kim Yong-chol handed Donald Trump a letter from Kim Jong-un. Before the meeting, Kim Yong-chol had a meeting with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Given the high status of its participants, the meeting was as historic as the visit by the head of the South Korean National Intelligence Service to Pyongyang in 1972. That, however, was a secret visit, while Kim Yong-chol’s visit was widely publicized.

Until recently, Kim Yong-chol, more than any other figure in the North Korean regime, was seen by the USA as a political pariah. The South Korean intelligence services accused him of organizing the attack on the Cheonan corvette, which South Korea claims was sunk by an unseen North Korean submarine.

The contents of the letter have not yet been disclosed. The Wall Street Journal, citing a civil servant familiar with its contents, reported that it was “fairly basic” – and that it contained neither any threats nor any signs of a willingness to capitulate. As for the content of the conversation, President Trump described it as “about almost everything”, including sanctions. They did not talk about the human rights situation in North Korea, but in general the meeting went “very well”.

Nevertheless, it seems that this direct contact with a representative of the DPRK leadership has helped make things a bit clearer in Mr. Trump’s head, who had earlier been led to believe by South Korean sources that Kim Jong-un was ready to resign. Immediately after the end of the meeting, Donald Trump announced that the USA and the DPRK had agreed to hold a bilateral summit on June 12 in Singapore, and that he was optimistic about the North Korean leader’s willingness to denuclearize.

Mr. Trump also said that, given the normalization of dialogue, he no longer wanted to use the phrase “maximum pressure” in relation to the DPRK. That does not necessarily mean that the USA’s position has changed, however. As a representative of the White House said,

“We have sanctions on, they are very powerful and we would not take those sanctions off unless North Korea denuclearized.”

However, the American President also stated that he will not initiate any new sanctions against North Korea. That is despite the fact that the USA had “hundreds of sanctions” ready to be imposed on the DPRK.

“But I said, why would I do that when we’re talking so nicely?”, Mr Trump said.

And, most importantly, Mr Trump stated in an interview with Reuters that he had never said that agreement on the denuclearization of the DPRK would be reached in one meeting.

“I think it’s going to be a process – relations are developing, and that’s a very good thing.”

Donald Trump also pointed out that the denuclearization would have an effect on North Korea’s rocket potential.

Finally, the US President said that he does not, as yet plan to sign any documents during the summit.

Image on the right: Donald Trump with Kim Yong-chol

The President of the USA is thus recognizing that the Singapore summit will just be the beginning of the negotiation process, and the question is not going to be resolved in a single meeting. The author of this article agrees – since there is no question of capitulation, a one-day summit is not going to produce many results. The most that can be done in the meeting will be to draft a road map for future cooperation and define the level of reconciliation which the parties will work towards. That is a fairly important reply, which shows that Mr. Trump has taken some steps towards a more pragmatic view of the situation. It seems that the US President understands that “checkmate in one move” is not going to happen, and so he is preparing a safety net for himself. If the first summit is not a complete success then it can at least be stated with confidence that it was just a first step (and in order for it to happen, Kim Jong-un has already made a number of concessions) and that the future meetings may be successful.

It should be noted that on the same day Kim Jong-un met Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, and he reaffirmed his commitment to denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and expressed a hope that, little by little, this issue would be resolved. The leader of the DPRK emphasized that all questions relating to the improvement in relations between North Korea and the USA, and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, would need to be addressed on a stage by stage basis, and that approaches should be found that would be in the interest of both parties in the new conditions.

In Singapore and Panmunjom simultaneous meetings were held between representatives of the USA and the DPRK. In Singapore the parties discussed protocol and security issues, while in Panmunjom they discussed the main questions on the agenda of the summit between the two leaders, which, it has been announced, will start at 9 a.m. in the Capella Hotel on the island of Sentosa, Singapore. At first, many people expected the summit to be held at the Shangri-La hotel, where the Chinese leader Xi Jinping met with his Taiwanese counterpart Ma Ying-jeou in 2015 – the first meeting between the leaders of the two countries since 1949. But, when the choice of venue was being discussed the Capella emerged as the preferred option. This is because access to the site can be completely blocked off by closing the bridge and the other access roads to Sentosa island, where the hotel is located.

At the same time the American intelligence service is compiling a dossier on the leader of the DPRK, by interviewing everyone they can who has met him, but the lack of reliable sources of information is making their task difficult. The collection of information is complicated by the fact that they do not have enough local agents, and by the difficulty of cyber espionage in North Korea, a country where the Internet is virtually non-existent. They see Kim Jong-un as a “rational actor”, whose priority is to ensure the preservation of his own regime and ruling dynasty. He is pitiless enough to have his own relatives assassinated, but now feels that his position is secure and is ready to enter into talks.

According to the Washington Post, citing a source who is familiar with the situation, it is still uncertain who will pay for the North Korean leader’s stay in the Singapore hotel. Apparently, the US wants Singapore to pay his expenses.

On May 21 it was reported that the White House had already commissioned souvenir medallions, bearing the profiles of Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un against the a background of their national flags, in honor of the talks between the USA and North Korea.

What is the meaning of all this? It seems to the present author, in view of Mr. Trump’s aggressive negotiating style and reckless approach to doing business, that he sees the summit as a kind of test of his personal skills, and wants to see if he can push Kim Jong-un around in the context of a one-to-one meeting. The problem is that if he tries to talk to him like one businessman to another then he may find this strategy fails. Kim Jong-un sees himself as an anointed leader and does not make any distinction between his own personal fulfillment and the good of his country.

It seems as if Mr. Trump both believes that the attempt to normalize relations with Pyongyang should have been made 5, 10 or even 20 years ago, and also that, if, in the past, America had been “paying them [the DPRK] extortion money for 25 years” (the present author has questioned this idea in a number of articles on the NEO site) he will not let anyone trick him.

It is also possible that Mr. Trump is thinking about President Nixon’s historic visit to China, which enabled America to bring Mao round onto its side at a time when the USSR and Beijing were at a standoff. The present author considers that the level of tension between the PRC and DPRK is not so high, and he will probably not be permitted to establish diplomatic relations with North Korea, upgrading it from its current status of “currently unrecognized state”, (as the USA did back in the 1970s with Mao’s China).

Mr. Trump is fairly optimistic. On one occasion, when asked whether the DPRK is really committed to the idea of denuclearization, Mr. Trump answered:

“Well, I think they want to do that. I know they want to do that.”

They also want to “develop as a country” and in a press conference held together with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on April 24, Donald Trump said of Kim Jong-un,

“He really has been very open and, I think, very honorable from everything we’re seeing.”

However, on April 19, in a press conference held after a meeting with the Japanese premier Shinzo Abe, Mr. Trump said,

“if the meeting, when I’m there, is not fruitful, I will respectfully leave…”, and the present author was rather surprised at his volte-face in first “cancelling the summit” and then, later, reinstating it.

It is necessary, however to bear in mind how little room for maneuvering Mr. Trump has: if the summit fails to bring satisfactory results this will be used against him by his many opponents, both among his own Republican Party, and among the Democrats. Readers may judge for themselves whether Mr. Trump should have held back from adopting a more pragmatic approach, given that the US Democratic Party had sent him a letter telling him that under no circumstances should the sanctions against North Korea be lifted until it had completely closed its missile and nuclear programs. The members of the Democratic party consider that, before the sanctions can be lifted, North Korea needs to stop producing uranium and plutonium for military purposes, completely close down its nuclear test site and the related infrastructure, and also stop testing ballistic missiles.

Readers will remember, and it is important to make this clear, that the decision to hold the summit with the North Korean leader was not just a voluntary concession, but was taken in accordance with an established procedure.

That is to say, Mr. Trump is continually having to prove that he is not giving in to Kim Jong-un. Thus, on April 22, he was forced to respond to allegations by certain media outlets that Washington had made important concessions to Pyongyang, and that the latter, in contrast, had not agreed to give anything up. He pointed to North Korea’s announcement that it was releasing 3 US citizens accused of spying, and to the demolition of its nuclear test site, and emphasized that while North Korea had done everything it had been requested to do, the USA had not made any concessions of an equivalent significance.

John Bolton, the United States’ National Security Adviser, is not in favor of holding the summit. According to media reports, he was absent from the meeting between Mr. Trump and Kim Yong-cho because Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, had advised Mr. Trump that his presence would be “counterproductive”. It is therefore likely that some attempt will be made to sabotage the summit or disavow its achievements, by means of ill-considered declarations or actions.

Mr. Trump may find the summit a severe test of his patience: he gets impatient with long briefing sessions, and his suite often has to decide exactly what information to give him, and how to stop him making purely instinctive decisions.

Nevertheless, the present author looks forward to the meeting between the two leaders. On June 5, speaking about the upcoming summit in Singapore, Donald Trump declared that it would be a very important “couple of days”, which led experts from South Korea to speculate that maybe the summit will be extended, or discussions will continue after it has finished. There have even been speculations that Donald Trump may be considering the possibility of holding a three-party summit, between the USA and both Koreas, and even that the end of the Korean war may be officially declared. As for the intended agenda of the summit, and its results, the present author will write about these matters once this long-awaited meeting has taken place.

*

Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History is Leading Research Fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.” 

US and other Western media violate core principles of what journalism is supposed to be – displaying shocking contempt for truth-telling.

Major media press freedom in America and other Western nations is pure fantasy. Journalist AJ Liebling once said it’s “only for those who own one.”

Michael Parenti’s book titled “Inventing Reality” was the first comprehensive critique of the news media, explaining how it “manipulate(s) the public’s perception of reality,” serving wealth and powerful interests exclusively.

In their book titled “Guardians of Power,” David Cromwell and David Edwards said major media today are in crisis.

Free and open Western societies don’t exist. Fiction substitutes for facts. News is carefully filtered, dissent marginalized, silenced in the mainstream. Supporting powerful interests substitutes for full and accurate reporting.

Wars of aggression are called liberation ones, humanitarian intervention, responsibility to protect, and democracy building.

Civil liberties are suppressed for our own good. Patriotism means going along with policies demanding condemnation – harming and exploiting most people so privileged ones can benefit at their expense.

In their book on the media titled “Manufacturing Consent,” Ed Herman and Noam Chomsky explained the propaganda model, saying news and information pass through a set of “filters.”

Unacceptable “raw material” parts are suppressed. “(O)nly the cleansed residue fit to print (and broadcast on-air)” reaches the public.

What the New York Times calls “All The News That’s Fit to Print” isn’t fit to read – sanitized rubbish, what’s most important left out.

The Times and other major media provide gatekeeper services for institutions of power, manipulating the public mind, defending the indefensible, justifying the unjustifiable, treating readers and viewers like mushrooms – well-watered and in the dark.

The Times and CIA house organ Foreign Policy magazine openly called for toppling Venezuela’s legitimate government by coup d’etat.

Regimes in Washington since the Clinton co-presidency have waged undeclared political and economic war on the country, causing enormous hardships for its people in recent years, falsely blaming its democratically elected government for what’s inflicted on the nation from abroad – wanting US sponsored political tyranny replacing the hemisphere’s model social democracy.

Venezuela’s open, free and fair electoral process is the world’s best, shaming America’s sham system, a money-controlled one-party state with two right wings, taking turns governing – deploring democracy, opposing governance serving everyone equitably, waging imperial wars and color revolutions for unchallenged global dominance, supporting corporate empowerment, along with police state harshness on nonbelievers.

In May, Nicolas Maduro won another six-year term overwhelmingly with two-thirds majority support – a process scores of international monitors from 30 countries called open, free and fair.

The Trump regime shamefully rejected the results. So did media scoundrels. New York Times editors called the election a “sham” – a bald-faced lie.

Disgracefully they roared “(t)he question is how to get rid of Mr. Maduro before he completes the destruction of his country” – falsely blaming him for suffocating misery inflicted on its people by US political and economic war.

Instead of denouncing it, Times editors support efforts to topple Venezuela’s democratically elected government. “It’s clear that Mr. Maduro must go,” they roared – added proof that the self-styled newspaper of record is a national disgrace.

Neocon Jose Cardenas was the Bush/Cheney regime’s USAID assistant administrator for Latin America.

In a Foreign Policy op-ed, he openly called for a “coup in Venezuela,” saying “(o)nly nationalists in the military can restore a legitimate constitutional democracy” – code language for wanting money-controlled fascist tyranny replacing Bolivarian social democracy.

Venezuela’s problem is it has too much of what Washington, supportive media scoundrels and hardliners like Cardenas want eliminated, including its sovereign independence US neocons tolerate nowhere.

Falsely claiming Maduro “engineered his re-election,” saying “reasonable observers” called the outcome “a sham vote,” Cardinas urged the Trump regime and its allies to forcibly oust him – wanting Venezuela’s military to do its dirty work.

Bipartisan neocons run America, waging endless wars on humanity at home and abroad, opposing democratic governance, seeking global hegemony, destroying fundamental freedoms, deploring governance serving everyone equitably.

Venezuela and other sovereign independent nations stand in the way of Washington achieving its aims – why they’re targeted for regime change.

In Venezuela, the grand prize is all its oil, the world’s largest reserves, exceeding Saudi Arabia’s, what Washington wants control over to exploit.

Media scoundrels like the NYT and WaPo-owned Foreign Policy support its hegemonic agenda – no matter the human cost, pretending the replacement of Bolivarian fairness serving all Venezuelans equitably with fascist tyranny is democracy building.

US bipartisan rage for global dominance, seeking control over world resources and populations, resembles Nazi Germany’s agenda – wrapped in the American flag, pretending its mission is noble, ignoring enormous harm inflicted on countless millions at home and abroad.

Dark forces run America. Media scoundrels serve their interests – supporting what demands condemnation, a diabolical agenda no just societies tolerate.

Humanity’s greatest threat exists in Washington and capitals of its rogue allies – not in Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, Damascus, Pyongyang, Caracas, or seats of power in other sovereign independent nations.

*

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the CRG, Correspondent of Global Research based in Chicago.

We haven’t seen anything like this since Hawaii first became a state back in 1959. Kilauea began erupting on May 3rd, and it hasn’t stopped rumbling yet. In fact, authorities are telling us that Hawaii has been struck by “over 12,000 earthquakes” during the last 30 days. That is an extraordinary amount of shaking, and many are now becoming concerned that fundamental physical changes are happening to the islands. As one USGS official has noted, we have never seen earthquakes happen on the Big Island with this sort of frequency ever before…

While most of the earthquakes have been relatively mild at magnitude 2 or 3, the largest earthquake was a massive 6.9 magnitude tremor on May 4, along with a 5.5 magnitude quake on June 4.

Brian Shiro, a supervisory geophysicist at the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, said the island was witnessing the highest rate of quakes ever measured at the summit.

On Wednesday, the biggest quake was a massive 5.6 magnitude earthquake that accompanied an eruption that shot rock and ash 10,000 feet into the sky. The following comes from the Washington Post…

A magnitude 5.6 earthquake has struck the summit of Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano summit, sending a plume of ash and rock about 10,000 feet into the sky.

Hawaii County officials said the Wednesday eruption could cause ash to fall over some populated areas, including the towns of Volcano and Pahala.

The temblor came just hours after U.S. Geological Survey scientist Wendy Stovall said another eruption was imminent.

Meanwhile, the lava just keeps flowing. There is nothing that authorities can do to redirect or stop the rivers of lava that are coming from the volcano. All they can do is stop and watch the inevitable destruction.

Over the past few days, lava from the volcano has destroyed hundreds more homes and has completely filled in Kapoho Bay…

On Sunday, the flow crept toward Kapoho Bay, a roughly 1,000-foot-wide ocean retreat. By Tuesday, the lava flow had completely engulfed the bay and surrounding neighborhoods.

“Kapoho Bay is gone. Wiped out. Completely filled in with lava,” wrote Hawaii News Now. The outlet reported that hundreds of homes have been destroyed, including the second home of the Big Island’s mayor. Official counts peg the loss at about 200 structures demolished by the volcano since May, according to Reuters, though they will undoubtedly rise.

You can view aerial images of the devastation right here. Needless to say, many of those that once had oceanfront properties along Kapoho Bay no longer do so.

But there is some potentially promising news. A rainbow was spotted directly over Kilauea, and some are taking that as a good sign.

We shall see.

At the same time, the people of Guatemala are calling the latest eruption of the Fuego volcano “one of the biggest in 500 years”. A colossal avalanche of super-heated mud, rock and ash as hot as 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit caught multitudes of local residents completely off guard. And the volcanic gases coming from the volcano alone were capable of causing rapid asphyxiation. You can see footage of the immense devastation here, and one official is telling the media that they are finding some bodies “totally buried, like you saw in Pompeii”…

Otto Mazariegos, president of the Association of Municipal and Departmental Firefighters, said that bodies had been buried on inaccessible sites on the volcano’s south side, which overlooks the city of Antigua.

“We saw bodies totally, totally buried, like you saw in Pompeii,” he said, according to The New York Times.

There was another huge explosion that followed the initial eruption of the volcano, and at this point the total death toll has reached “at least 99”. The following comes from NPR…

The death toll from Guatemala’s Fuego volcano rose to at least 99 on Wednesday, with many people still missing, after two strong explosions that scattered ash over a wide area and displaced thousands of residents from their homes.

The scenes of devastation were accompanied by heartbreaking stories of entire families devastated by the disaster — the biggest eruption from the mountain in four decades.

Sadly, the death toll will probably end up being much higher.

Entire families were killed instantly by the mud, ash and rock, and many of the bodies may never be found.

The saddest story that I have come across so far is from a woman named Lilian Hernandez. She told reporters that she is missing a total of 36 family members…

Lilian Hernandez wept as she spoke the names of aunts, uncles, cousins, her grandmother and two great-grandchildren — 36 family members in all — missing and presumed dead in the explosion of Guatemala’s Volcano of Fire.

“My cousins Ingrid, Yomira, Paola, Jennifer, Michael, Andrea and Silvia, who was just 2-years-old,” the distraught woman said — a litany that brought into sharp relief the scope of a disaster for which the final death toll is far from clear.

Could you imagine losing 36 members of your family on a single day?

I couldn’t.

As I have written about so many times before, something is happening to our planet. Large earthquakes and major volcanic eruptions are happening with increasing frequency, and this could have dramatic implications for our immediate future.

Despite all of our advanced technology, we are very much at the mercy of these enormous natural disasters, and our best and brightest minds might want to start looking into why our planet is suddenly becoming increasingly unstable.

*

Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. He is frequent contributor to Global Research.

If you are wondering why so little is heard these days of accusations that Russia hacked into the U.S. election in 2016, it could be because those charges could not withstand close scrutiny. It could also be because special counsel Robert Mueller appears to have never bothered to investigate what was once the central alleged crime in Russia-gate as no one associated with WikiLeaks has ever been questioned by his team.

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity — including two “alumni” who were former National Security Agency technical directors — have long since concluded that Julian Assange did not acquire what he called the “emails related to Hillary Clinton” via a “hack” by the Russians or anyone else. They found, rather, that he got them from someone with physical access to Democratic National Committee computers who copied the material onto an external storage device — probably a thumb drive. In December 2016 VIPS explained this in some detail in an open Memorandum to President Barack Obama.

On January 18, 2017 President Obama admitted that the “conclusions” of U.S. intelligence regarding how the alleged Russian hacking got to WikiLeaks were “inconclusive.” Even the vapid FBI/CIA/NSA “Intelligence Community Assessment of Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections” of January 6, 2017, which tried to blame Russian President Vladimir Putin for election interference, contained no direct evidence of Russian involvement.  That did not prevent the “handpicked” authors of that poor excuse for intelligence analysis from expressing “high confidence” that Russian intelligence “relayed material it acquired from the Democratic National Committee … to WikiLeaks.”  Handpicked analysts, of course, say what they are handpicked to say.

Never mind. The FBI/CIA/NSA “assessment” became bible truth for partisans like Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, who was among the first off the blocks to blame Russia for interfering to help Trump.  It simply could not have been that Hillary Clinton was quite capable of snatching defeat out of victory all by herself.  No, it had to have been the Russians.

Five days into the Trump presidency, I had a chance to challenge Schiff personally on the gaping disconnect between the Russians and WikiLeaks. Schiff still “can’t share the evidence” with me … or with anyone else, because it does not exist.

Image on the right below: Rep. Adam Schiff

WikiLeaks

It was on June 12, 2016, just six weeks before the Democratic National Convention, that Assange announced the pending publication of “emails related to Hillary Clinton,” throwing the Clinton campaign into panic mode, since the emails would document strong bias in favor of Clinton and successful attempts to sabotage the campaign of Bernie Sanders.  When the emails were published on July 22, just three days before the convention began, the campaign decided to create what I call a Magnificent Diversion, drawing attention away from the substance of the emails by blaming Russia for their release.

Clinton’s PR chief Jennifer Palmieri later admitted that she golf-carted around to various media outlets at the convention with instructions “to get the press to focus on something even we found difficult to process: the prospect that Russia had not only hacked and stolen emails from the DNC, but that it had done so to help Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton.”  The diversion worked like a charm.  Mainstream media kept shouting “The Russians did it,” and gave little, if any, play to the DNC skullduggery revealed in the emails themselves. And like Brer’ Fox, Bernie didn’t say nothin’.

Meanwhile, highly sophisticated technical experts, were hard at work fabricating “forensic facts” to “prove” the Russians did it.  Here’s how it played out:

June 12, 2016: Assange announces that WikiLeaks is about to publish “emails related to Hillary Clinton.”

June 14, 2016: DNC contractor CrowdStrike, (with a dubious professional record and multiple conflicts of interest) announces that malware has been found on the DNC server and claims there is evidence it was injected by Russians.

June 15, 2016: “Guccifer 2.0” affirms the DNC statement; claims responsibility for the “hack;” claims to be a WikiLeaks source; and posts a document that the forensics show was synthetically tainted with “Russian fingerprints.”

The June 12, 14, & 15 timing was hardly coincidence. Rather, it was the start of a pre-emptive move to associate Russia with anything WikiLeaks might have been about to publish and to “show” that it came from a Russian hack.

Enter Independent Investigators

A year ago independent cyber-investigators completed the kind of forensic work that, for reasons best known to then-FBI Director James Comey, neither he nor the “handpicked analysts” who wrote the Jan. 6, 2017 assessment bothered to do.  The independent investigators found verifiable evidence from metadata found in the record of an alleged Russian hack of July 5, 2016 showing that the “hack” that day of the DNC by Guccifer 2.0 was not a hack, by Russia or anyone else.

Rather it originated with a copy (onto an external storage device – a thumb drive, for example) by an insider — the same process used by the DNC insider/leaker before June 12, 2016 for an altogether different purpose. (Once the metadata was found and the “fluid dynamics” principle of physics applied, this was not difficult to disprove the validity of the claim that Russia was responsible.)

One of these independent investigators publishing under the name of The Forensicator on May 31 published new evidence that the Guccifer 2.0 persona uploaded a document from the West Coast of the United States, and not from Russia.

In our July 24, 2017 Memorandum to President Donald Trump we stated,

“We do not know who or what the murky Guccifer 2.0 is. You may wish to ask the FBI.”

Our July 24 Memorandum continued:

“Mr. President, the disclosure described below may be related. Even if it is not, it is something we think you should be made aware of in this general connection. On March 7, 2017, WikiLeaks began to publish a trove of original CIA documents that WikiLeaks labeled ‘Vault 7.’ WikiLeaks said it got the trove from a current or former CIA contractor and described it as comparable in scale and significance to the information Edward Snowden gave to reporters in 2013.

“No one has challenged the authenticity of the original documents of Vault 7, which disclosed a vast array of cyber warfare tools developed, probably with help from NSA, by CIA’s Engineering Development Group. That Group was part of the sprawling CIA Directorate of Digital Innovation – a growth industry established by John Brennan in 2015. [ (VIPS warned President Obama of some of the dangers of that basic CIA reorganization at the time.]

Marbled

“Scarcely imaginable digital tools – that can take control of your car and make it race over 100 mph, for example, or can enable remote spying through a TV – were described and duly reported in the New York Times and other media throughout March. But the Vault 7, part 3 release on March 31 that exposed the “Marble Framework” program apparently was judged too delicate to qualify as ‘news fit to print’ and was kept out of the Times at the time, and has never been mentioned since.

“The Washington Post’s Ellen Nakashima, it seems, ‘did not get the memo’ in time. Her March 31 article bore the catching (and accurate) headline: ‘WikiLeaks’ latest release of CIA cyber-tools could blow the cover on agency hacking operations.’

“The WikiLeaks release indicated that Marble was designed for flexible and easy-to-use ‘obfuscation,’ and that Marble source code includes a “de-obfuscator” to reverse CIA text obfuscation.

“More important, the CIA reportedly used Marble during 2016. In her Washington Post report, Nakashima left that out, but did include another significant point made by WikiLeaks; namely, that the obfuscation tool could be used to conduct a ‘forensic attribution double game’ or false-flag operation because it included test samples in Chinese, Russian, Korean, Arabic and Farsi.”

A few weeks later William Binney, a former NSA technical director, and I commented on Vault 7 Marble, and were able to get a shortened op-ed version published in The Baltimore Sun.

The CIA’s reaction to the WikiLeaks disclosure of the Marble Framework tool was neuralgic. Then Director Mike Pompeo lashed out two weeks later, calling Assange and his associates “demons,” and insisting; “It’s time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is, a non-state hostile intelligence service, often abetted by state actors like Russia.”

Our July 24 Memorandum continued:

“Mr. President, we do not know if CIA’s Marble Framework, or tools like it, played some kind of role in the campaign to blame Russia for hacking the DNC. Nor do we know how candid the denizens of CIA’s Digital Innovation Directorate have been with you and with Director Pompeo. These are areas that might profit from early White House review.  [ President Trump then directed Pompeo to invite Binney, one of the authors of the July 24, 2017 VIPS Memorandum to the President, to discuss all this.  Binney and Pompeo spent an hour together at CIA Headquarters on October 24, 2017, during which Binney briefed Pompeo with his customary straightforwardness. ]

“We also do not know if you have discussed cyber issues in any detail with President Putin. In his interview with NBC’s Megyn Kelly he seemed quite willing – perhaps even eager – to address issues related to the kind of cyber tools revealed in the Vault 7 disclosures, if only to indicate he has been briefed on them. Putin pointed out that today’s technology enables hacking to be ‘masked and camouflaged to an extent that no one can understand the origin’ [of the hack] … And, vice versa, it is possible to set up any entity or any individual that everyone will think that they are the exact source of that attack.

“‘Hackers may be anywhere,’ he said. ‘There may be hackers, by the way, in the United States who very craftily and professionally passed the buck to Russia. Can’t you imagine such a scenario? … I can.’

New attention has been drawn to these issues after I discussed them in a widely published 16-minute interview last Friday.

In view of the highly politicized environment surrounding these issues, I believe I must append here the same notice that VIPS felt compelled to add to our key Memorandum of July 24, 2017:

“Full Disclosure: Over recent decades the ethos of our intelligence profession has eroded in the public mind to the point that agenda-free analysis is deemed well nigh impossible. Thus, we add this disclaimer, which applies to everything we in VIPS say and do: We have no political agenda; our sole purpose is to spread truth around and, when necessary, hold to account our former intelligence colleagues.

“We speak and write without fear or favor. Consequently, any resemblance between what we say and what presidents, politicians and pundits say is purely coincidental.” The fact we find it is necessary to include that reminder speaks volumes about these highly politicized times.

*

Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Savior in inner-city Washington.  He was an Army infantry/intelligence officer before serving as a CIA analyst for 27 years.  His duties included preparing, and briefing one-on-one, the President’s Daily Brief.

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

It didn’t take much for the leaders of the two Koreas to put an end to the decades-long culture of crisis pervading the Korean Peninsula. With a phone call, a quick drive to the North Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone, and a public embrace, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un emphasized the absurdity of the barrier wedged between a people with a common history, culture and language.

It was the United States’ aversion to diplomacy that encouraged Moon and Kim into one another’s arms on May 26^th, and it may ultimately have been the impetus needed for South Korea to take the lead in ensuring this peace process — a top priority of the current administration — is a success.

Moon’s agreement to meet with Kim so soon after Trump unilaterally called off the Singapore summit was nothing short of an act of defiance against the US administration, something no South Korean president before him would have had the domestic backing to do.

With images of their embrace broadcast around the world, North Korea’s genuine interest in diplomacy became undeniable and the onus was immediately put on the United States to reopen the summit. Failure to do so would throw into stark relief what few politicians, media members or regular South Korean people have been willing to acknowledge — that the United States has been the most to blame for antipathy between the two Koreas since the Korean War.

Forced to follow suit, Trump eventually declared the summit will go ahead after all. Though his decision should be applauded, the process remains a lengthy one with no clear end in sight — at least not a positive ending — if America alone is permitted to determine its outcome. After all, it is extremely risky to trust the United States, and the North Koreans know it.

America: An Unreliable Diplomatic Partner with a History of Duplicity

The stated aim of this whole process is, of course, peace through North Korean denuclearization — something the US establishment remains skeptical Kim will ever do. Yet while the North’s commitment to nukes is often stated as the reason why this initiative won’t end successfully, in truth it is America’s long-standing policy of North Korean regime change as well as its overall record of duplicity, betrayal and general lawlessness around the world that makes it impossible for Kim to completely believe any security guarantees the Trump administration may offer as the process moves forward.

The most recent examples involving Libya and Iran stand as more than enough evidence of this, and North Korea also has its own experience with the US failing to abide by agreements — particularly when the George W. Bush administration was in power. The provocative military drill earlier in May and the aggressive rhetoric of top US officials over the past few weeks leading up to the summit cancellation only served to highlight that the US establishment may be wholly disinterested in making a fair deal and sticking to it.

It therefore makes no sense for Kim Jong-un to simply lay down his nuclear shield for what are likely to be ephemeral security and economic guarantees from the US that can be canceled or obstructed on a whim by a future hostile administration or congress. And if the reaction of the establishment media to the diplomatic process is any indication of a Washington consensus, there’s no reason for North Korea to think any deal dependent on the long-term commitment of the United States will stand the test of time.

So even though the peace process will go nowhere if America is to be the Great Decider, it is safe to assume that Kim Jong-un isn’t just doing this for a lark. Conditions have changed internationally and on the Korean Peninsula since North Korea’s last serious attempt to come in from the cold. Internationally, Kim must be aware that America is bleeding out its influence around the world — a fact that is increasingly obvious as economically powerful nations that normally go along with American sanctions begin to push back when it hurts their own economies. At the same time — and more critically — North Korea finally has a negotiating partner in South Korea that has an unprecedented ability and apparent inclination (proven by Moon and Kim’s impromptu second meeting) to be an independent actor in the peace process.

The Path to the Impossible: How Peace Became an Option in South Korea

The president of South Korea completely flipped the script by agreeing to meet Kim on the North Korean side of the DMZ on May 26^th. In doing so, he proved to the South Korean people that they no longer have to passively accept the foreign policy whims of the United States. As a result, South Koreans woke up to the prospects of peace after going to bed frustrated, disappointed and concerned due to Trump’s abrupt cancellation of the summit.

Moon has been empowered by the rapidly changing political dynamics in South Korea. The entire sequence of diplomatic events between the two Koreas leading up to the significant meeting on May 26^th would have been purely unthinkable little more than a year ago. After all, Moon is the president that wouldn’t have been had the right-wing Park Geun-hye not been impeached in March last year.

As Park Geun-hye’s bizarrely and ineptly corrupt administration collapsed upon itself, it brought down with it the entire political establishment that dominated politics in the country since the age of military dictatorship — an establishment intimately aligned with the United States. The crimes of Park’s predecessor, the hawkish Lee Myung-bak, were also later exposed and he too now sits behind bars waiting for sentencing. With the anti-North Korean old guard suddenly rendered to the fringes of politics, the younger generation has begun to take control of its political fate and won’t be fooled by the classic red-baiting tactics of the past.

Moon Jae-in easily won the subsequent 2017 presidential election and has enjoyed a remarkably high approval rating so far, particularly since the peace process began. The right wing is divided, conquered and completely irrelevant. A high number of South Koreans say they trust the motives of Kim Jong-un and so many approve of the peace process that at least one local politician affiliated with Moon’s party is using it as a backdrop to his campaign in the upcoming local elections. It wouldn’t be a stretch to suggest Moon might just have the most backing a democratically elected leader has ever had to fulfill a key administrative goal — and there are four years remaining on his term. He will need to use every bit of this leverage to see the peace process to a successful end.

Peace Requires South Korean Independence

With the hyenas from within put down, the South Korean president may now focus on the enemies of peace from without — the United States military establishment and, in particular, officials like John Bolton at the very top of a Trump administration that bears an increasingly striking resemblance to that of George W. Bush.

It was the latter administration that oversaw the destruction of the last nuclear agreement, a development that convinced the North to go nuclear and nixed the Sunshine Policy peace initiative Moon played a part in as chief presidential secretary to former president Roh Moo-hyun. President Moon is therefore very aware of what he is up against.

While Moon’s political backing at home will protect his flank, inter-Korean cooperation will serve as the vanguard as the South Korean president advances against these enemies of peace. It’s still early days, but a nascent web of trust is being woven between the Koreas that will be increasingly difficult to break. They won’t stop working together simply because Trump or other American officials say they shouldn’t.

The two Koreas can therefore collaborate to keep the US at the table with a dogged willingness to ignore or overcome the many challenges likely to be mounted by the American establishment — just as they did with the recent meeting in the DMZ. In doing so, they will eliminate any pretext for the US to drop out of the peace process without alienating the South.

The actions of the Trump administration around the world admittedly suggest it cares little about angering allies by starting trade wars or incentivizing them to strengthen their diplomatic and economic ties with supposed American rivals. Yet there may come a point where enough dominant voices in Trump’s inner circle recognize that axing the peace process could push South Korea — a crucial foothold in America’s mission to militarily encircle China — too far beyond US influence for comfort.

Still, even if the US remains sincere, it will take ironclad security guarantees to convince North Korea to denuclearize, as Russian President Vladimir Putin rightly stated in late May. This is where South Korea must take the lead.

A good start might be the South Korean government publicly declaring that, not only does South Korea decide when war happens on the Korean Peninsula (as Moon already asserted last September), its military will never be a part of a preemptive strike on North Korea, and no future invasion of North Korea will be permitted from South Korean soil. They might also unilaterally ban all future military drills near the inter-Korean border that have threatenedKorean stability in the past.

All of these guarantees will require significant changes to the current relationship between the South Korean and American militaries, something Moon can carry through by taking advantage of his political clout at home. He can also use his domestic leverage to work around the US and encourage multilateral security initiatives with China and Russia that, taken as a package, could serve as insurance for North Korea if, or when, the US fails to live up to its side of any future deal.

Could America Backing Out be the Path to True Korean Independence?

However, given the hawkish and domineering nature of the US administration, it seems just as likely that they will refuse anything short of outright North Korean capitulation and eventually back out of talks.

This wouldn’t have to be the end of the game though, because doing so would only confirm to South Koreans that they have little further to be gained by marrying their security to the imperial agenda of the United States. A resulting surge in anti-American sentiment and the continued desire for peace among the South Korean electorate could set the stage for a divorce from America that President Moon alone has the power to lead.

If the US attempts to punish South Korea for their peace initiative and Moon carries his level of public support to a majority victory in the 2020 national assembly elections, it could result in a dramatic departure from America’s shadow — perhaps even the nullification of the US-Korean alliance and the banishing of US troops from South Korean soil.

This may sound like pure fantasy, but consider the possibility that peace with North Korea is Moon’s lifelong goal and something to which he has devoted much of his political career. He already expressed the position during his presidential campaign that South Korea “…should adopt diplomacy in which it can discuss a US request and say no to the Americans.” His statement at the first inter-Korean summit in the DMZ on April 26^th was an even more explicit acknowledgment that the Koreas may inevitably be forced to go it alone for peace:

“Today we have dispersed the dark clouds of war from the Korean Peninsula and opened a new path to peace, prosperity and unification. Though we must move forward with the support and cooperation of the international community, we have both agreed that it is South and North Korea who must take the lead in deciding the fate of the Korean people. We also both agree that the historic duty to create a new global order rests with us.” *(quote translated by author)

Moon may therefore be ready and willing if there comes a point when South Korea is forced to actively work against the US and seek additional help from other emerging global powers to push diplomacy with the North forward.

South Korea’s drift outside America’s orbit could also be expedited by an increasingly desperate US establishment lashing out as it loses its hold on the peace process and South Korea, further exposing itself as a malign force in Northeast Asia.

This would merely be an acceleration of a natural development required of South Korea in the long term. China is by far South Korea’s number one export market (accounting for twice the volume of trade to the US) and its greatest source of tourism revenue. It is becoming increasingly untenable for the South, with a military still under the command of the US in wartime, to continue serving as a bastion in the American containment of China. The US standing in the way of the peace process could be enough to wake up South Koreans to the inevitability of their situation.

The anti-peace right-wing suddenly lost its grip on South Korean politics due to the ineptitude and corruption of the Park Geun-hye administration. In the same sense, the Trump administration appears to be accelerating the decline of American influence around the world with its heavy-handed approach to diplomacy and trade policy. If this trend continues on the Korean Peninsula, the peace process may end up being the most significant chapter yet in the decline of the American empire.

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

An Early Day Motion to condemn the slaughter of 63 Palestinian civilians at the hands of the British-equipped Israeli Defence Force received only 28 signatures in the House of Commons, 3 fewer than a motion to ‘cherish Hedgehogs as a valuable part of native British wildlife’ by regulating various traps taken two days before.

Not a single member of the incumbent Conservative Party signed the motion. Only 18 of 257 Labour Parliamentarians signed it, though Easington MP Grahame Morris sponsored the bill. The Green Party’s only MP Caroline Lucas signed it, with the rest of the signatures representing Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru and Liberal Democrat representatives.

[There were 28 signatures on 08/06/2018, but it remains open at the time of writing and liable to change.]

Though hedgehog solidarity is no doubt a noble cause, it surely pales in comparison to the 10,000 Gazan civilians who were shot during protests over the last three months? Two weeks after this motion failed to gain traction, Netanyahu’s forces – who were unperturbed by cowardly responses from their key Western allies – shot down 21-year-old Palestinian nurse Razan al-Najar as she wore a ‘clearly identifiable medical jacket’ in broad daylight. She leaves behind a fiancé; her cousin was also shot dead by the IDF on the same day.

Israel’s ‘everything I don’t like is Hamas’ approach remains unquestioned; its preferred narrative of a meek and innocuous underdog protecting its borders from terrorists (they aren’t borders, they’re chicken coup fences; Gaza is part of Israel) remains gospel thanks in large part to their US cheerleaders and UK apologists.

Scratch under the surface, and the Conservative Party’s blanket refusal to acknowledge the genocide of Palestinians has a very clear motive: according to a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary 80% of its MPs are tied to the Likud-associated Conservative Friends of Israel; only last November was Priti Patel ousted from Theresa May’s cabinet for failing to declare meetings with Benjamin Netanyahu and lobbyists.

Today PM @Theresa_May hosted Israeli Prime Minister @Netanyahu, where they discussed regional stability, Iran and Gaza. https://t.co/h4mEM2u75l pic.twitter.com/mkY1LacMBH

— UK Prime Minister (@10DowningStreet) June 6, 2018

In 2015, the year David Cameron gained a Conservative majority in parliament for the first time since 1992, the UK sold £20 million worth of weapons to Israel; in 2017 the figure was £221 million, a 1100% increase. Amongst the various crude explosives and more advanced targeting technologies that swapped hands between the two nations were components used in sniper rifles. The British contribution to Israeli long-range anti-personnel weaponry has played an integral part in the picking-off of children, journalists and medics on the Gaza side of the fence by the IDF: ‘the most moral army the world has ever known’ according to  former Commander of British forces in Afghanistan Richard Kemp.

Entrenched interests within the British political system mean that – until the BDS movement is galvanised to stoke real public pressure on our leaders – Palestinian children will remain behind hedgehogs in the pecking order for the foreseeable future.

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Featured image is from the author.

Al Shabaab’s killing of an American soldier in southern Somalia brings AFRICOM back into the limelight and restarts the conversation about why US troops are even still there in the first place.

The news came in on Friday that Al Shabaab terrorists had killed an American soldier in southern Somalia and injured four others during an attack against US troops and some of their African allies near the port city of Kismayo. This isn’t the first time that something like this has happened, and its sporadic occurrence over the years has restarted the conversation about why US troops are still in the Horn of Africa country to begin with despite the highly publicized Mogadishu debacle in 1993 that permanently scarred the American psyche. The official reason is that they’re there at the request of the host government in order to assist in its anti-terrorist operations, but the real explanation has more to do with strengthening the US’ continental-wide network of informal bases and special forces rapid deployment troops that operate under the shadowy aegis of AFRICOM.

Al Shabaab And Daesh: A Specious Comparison

Short for Africa Command, AFRICOM is “Pentagon-speak” for the US military’s operations all across that landmass, and thousands of American troops are already active in dozens of countries and several combat missions at any given time despite there only officially being one US base on the continent in Djibouti. Along with the Sahel region and especially the portion near the Malian–Nigerien border, the Horn of Africa and specifically Somalia occupy the center of the Pentagon’s focus because of the prevalence of terrorist groups there, though the situation in the latter shouldn’t be completely compared to the former. Daesh openly operates in West Africa, whereas it has yet to officially enter into the Somalian battlespace even though its reported Al Shabaab partner is equally as extreme as they are.

The crucial difference, however, is that Al Shabaab has no desire for plotting extra-regional attacks in Europe, for example, but it does endeavor to carve out what could be described as a regional caliphate comprised of the ethnic Somalis living in the borderland regions of Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Kenya, capitalizing as it has on the ethno-nationalism that has an historical tendency of galvanizing the masses. That being said, the group’s mixture of militantly imposed fundamentalist Islam has lost it the appeal that its purely secular nationalist forerunners enjoyed, though that doesn’t make Al Shabaab any less of a regional threat than Daesh. Although they don’t have any global ambitions, Al Shabaab could in theory catalyze an extra-regional crisis if it were to be successful enough in its Horn of Africa campaign that it sparked a large-scale migrant exodus to Europe.

Lead From The Front

That scenario, however, isn’t too likely to ever happen because it would probably be nipped in the bud well before it ever got to that point, as was seen most clearly in 2006 when the US encouraged Ethiopia to invade Somalia in order to dislodge the Islamic Courts Union from which Al Shabaab later emerged in the aftermath. The US’ “Lead From  Behind” proxy management of the region and elsewhere in the world would initially make one wonder why it feels compelled to do the “heavy lifting” directly by putting its own soldiers’ lives on the line if it could just “contract” this task out to others, but that impression overlooks the geostrategic changes that have taken place in the time since, specifically Ethiopia’s de-facto alliance with China in becoming its most important African partner.

Although Addis Ababa will undoubtedly behave proactively to protect its security interests in the future, it’s no longer the regional proxy for the US as it once was, which has changed the entire strategic equation for America. Instead of depending on the Horn of Africa giant, the US has realized that it’s better to engage in “surgical” drone and special forces interventions from time to time as well as cooperate with the rising Arab hegemon of the UAE, which has rapidly established several bases in the region and most notably in the de-facto independent northwestern region of Somaliland. Although Abu Dhabi and Mogadishu don’t’ get along right now precisely because of the aforementioned development, that actually works to America’s advantage because it keeps Somalia weak and therefore dependent on AFRICOM support, which has become all the more important in the context of the African Union’s phased military downscaling in the country.

The Central African Republic Model

Keeping Somalia reliant on US military support is actually advantageous for America because it allows the Pentagon to indefinitely remain in the country and keep an eye on its Turkish partners who have just recently opened up a base outside the capital. Furthermore, the regional ideology of Somali Nationalism is still alive, albeit publicly dormant at the moment and somewhat discredited because of Al Shabaab’s exploitation of it, though it could always be repackaged and rearticulated at a later date by new US proxies if it ever desires to weaponize this for geostrategic purposes in destabilizing the increasingly Chinese-friendly governments of neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya. The “lazy” approach would be to guide Al Shabaab in those two directions just like it did with Daesh against Syria and Iraq, but a more credible and potentially effective approach can’t be discounted in the future.

It should be reminded that this isn’t just groundless speculation about American strategy either but the application of the Central African Republic (CAR) model onto the region. To explain, the “NGO”-driven viral video campaign of “Kony 2012” six years ago created the pretext for AFICOM to hunt down the warlord in the quadri-national space between his native Uganda, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and the CAR, and interestingly enough, by the end of that year Muslim “rebels” were on the warpath rampaging across the last-mentioned country on the way to topple President Bozizie who had just recently signed mining agreements with China. In all likelihood, AFRICOM forces used the cover of “catching Kony” to train these same “rebel” in the eastern CAR just like they could possibly do one day with Somalian ones in Ethiopia and Kenya from bases in their eponymous country.

Concluding Thoughts

AFRICOM’s flexible use of anti-Silk Road Hybrid War instruments all throughout the continent is why the US has surreptitiously deployed its forces in Somalia and many other countries on the landmass, with these soldiers never actually being used so much for strengthening their host governments as they are for keeping them in a weak and dependent relationship on their American overlords. “Anti-terrorist cooperation” is the cover for this vassal-lord relationship, the narrative of which is exploited through decontextualized “victories” from time to time and an over-exaggeration of any given threat’s relevance to the US’ direct national security interests, as is the case in both instances with Somalia. The American who just sacrificed his life for AFRICOM in Somalia didn’t do it save his homeland from an “imminent terrorist plot” or even to prevent a terrorist victory sometime far off in the future that could set off another Migrant Crisis in Europe, but to give his country better Unconventional Warfare leverage against China in the New Cold War.

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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.

Now that the United States (with the cooperation of its NATO partners) has turned the former Soviet Union’s states other than Russia into NATO allies, and has likewise turned the Soviet Union’s Warsaw Pact allies into America’s own military allies in NATO, the United States is finally turning the screws directly against Russia itself, by, in effect, challenging Russia to defend its ally Syria. The US is warning Syria’s Government that Syrian land, which is occupied by the US and by the anti-Government forces that the US protects in Syria, is no longer really Syria’s land. The US is saying that there will be direct war between Syria’s armed forces and America’s armed forces if Syria tries to restore its control over that land. Tacitly, America’s message in this to Moscow is: now is the time for you to quit defending Syria’s Government, because, if you don’t — if you come to Syria’s defense as Syria tries to kill those occupying forces (including the US troops and advisors who are occupying Syria) — then you (Russia) will be at war against the United States, even though the US is clearly the invader, and Russia (as Syria’s ally) is clearly the defender.

Peter Korzun, my colleague at the Strategic Culture Foundation, headlined on May 29^th, “US State Department Tells Syria What It Can and Can’t Do on Its Own Soil” and he opened:

“The US State Department has warned Syria against launching an offensive against terrorist positions in southern Syria. The statement claims that the American military will respond if Syrian forces launch an operation aimed at restoring the legitimate government’s control over the rebel-held areas, including the territory in southwestern Syria between Daraa and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Washington is issuing orders to a nation whose leadership never invited America in the first place! The very idea that another country would tell the internationally recognized Syrian government that it cannot take steps to establish control over parts of its own national territory is odd and preposterous by any measure.”

The pro-Government side calls those “terrorist positions,” but the US-and-allied side, the invaders, call them “freedom fighters” (even though the US side has long been led by Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate and has increasingly been relying upon anti-Arabic Kurds). But whatever they are, the United States has no legal authority to tell Syria’s Government what to do or not do on Syrian land.

Russia’s basic position, at least ever since Vladimir Putin came into power in 2000, is that every nation’s sovereignty over its own land is the essential foundation-stone upon which democracy has even a possibility to exist — without that, a land cannot even possibly be a democracy. The US Government is now directly challenging that basic principle, and moreover is doing so over parts of the sovereign territory of Syria, an ally of Russia, which largely depends upon Russia to help it defeat the tens of thousands of invading and occupying forces.

If Russia allows the US to take over — either directly or via the US Government’s Al Qaeda-linked or its anti-Arab Kurdish proxy forces — portions of Syrian territory, then Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, will be seen as being today’s version of Britain’s leader Neville Chamberlain, famous, as Wikipedia puts it, for “his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the German-speaking Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Germany.”

So: Putin will now be faced with either knuckling under now, or else standing on basic international democratic principles, especially the principle that each nation’s sovereignty is sacrosanct and is the sole foundation upon which democracy is even possible to exist or to evolve into being.

However, this matter is far from being the only way in which the US Government now is challenging Russia to World War III. On May 30^th, the Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak bannered “US trains armed groups at Tanf base for new terror corridor” and reported that:

New terror organizations are being established by the US at the Tanf military base in southern Syria that is run by Washington, where a number of armed groups are being trained in order to be used as a pretext to justify US presence in the war-torn country. …

Military training is being conducted for “moderate” opposition groups in al-Tanf, where both the US and UK have bases.

These groups are made up of structures that have been established through US financing and have not been accepted under the umbrella of opposition groups approved by Turkey and the FSA.

From Deir Ezzor to Haifa

Claiming to be “training the opposition” in Tanf, the US is training operation militants under perception of being “at an equal distance to all groups.”

Apart from the so-called opposition that is linked to al-Qaeda, Daesh [ISIS] terrorists brought from Raqqa, western Deir Ezzor and the Golan Heights are being trained in the Tanf camp. …

The plan is to transport Iraqi oil to the Haifa [Israel] Port on the Mediterranean through Deir Ezzor and Tanf.

Actually, Deir Ezzor is also the capital of Syria’s own oil-producing region, and so this action by the United States is more than about merely a transit-route for Iraq’s oil to reach Israel; it is also (and very much) about America attempting theft of oil from Syrian land.

Furthermore, on May 23^rd, Joe Gould at Defense News headlined “House rejects limit on new nuclear warhead” and he reported that the US House, in fulfillment of the Trump Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, which seeks to lower the threshold for nuclear war so as to expand the types of circumstances in which the US will “go nuclear,” rejected, by a vote of 226 to 188, a Democratic Party supported measure opposing lowering of the nuclear threshold. President Trump wants to be allowed to lower the threshold for using nuclear weapons in a conflict. The new, smaller, nuclear warheads, a “W76-2 variant,” have 43% the yield of the bomb that the US dropped on Hiroshima, but it’s called a ‘tactical nuclear weapon’ meaning that it is supposedly intended for use in ‘conventional’ wars, so that it is actually designed to eliminate altogether the previous meta-strategic principle, of “Mutually Assured Destruction” pertaining to nuclear war (that nuclear weapons are justifiable only in order to prevent another World War, never in order to win such a war) that successfully prevented nuclear war till now — that once a side has introduced nuclear weapons into a military conflict, it has started a nuclear war and is challenging any opponent to either go nuclear itself or else surrender — America’s new meta-strategic doctrine (since 2006) is “Nuclear Primacy”: winning a nuclear war. (See this and this.)

US President Trump is now pushing to the limit, presumably in the confident expectation that as the US President, he can safely grab any territory he wishes, and steal any oil or other natural resource that he wishes, anywhere he wants — regardless of what the Russian Government, or anyone else, thinks or wants.

Though his words often contradict that, this is now clearly what he is, in fact, doing (or trying to do), and the current US House of Representatives, at least, is saying yes to this, as constituting American values and policies, now.

Trump — not in words but in facts — is “betting the house” on this.

Moreover, as I headlined on May 26th at Strategic Culture, “Credible Report Alleges US Relocates ISIS from Syria and Iraq into Russia via Afghanistan.” Trump is apparently trying to use these terrorists as — again like the US used them in Afghanistan in order to weaken the Soviet Union — so as to weaken Russia, but this time is even trying to infiltrate them into Russia itself.

Even Adolf Hitler, prior to WWII, didn’t lunge for Britain’s jugular. It’s difficult to think of a nation’s leader who has been this bold. I confess that I can’t.

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It’s now more a G6+1, Trump’s America first rage increasingly isolating America.

Before heading to La Malbaie, Quebec, Canada for this year’s G7 summit, he called for Russia’s inclusion again, restoring the G8.

“(W)e should have Russia at the negotiating table,” he said.

Italy’s new Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte tweeted the same message, separately calling for ending sanctions on Russia – illegally imposed, he failed to explain.

The G7, G20, IMF, World Bank, the European, Asian and Latin American Development Banks, the “boss of bosses” Bank of International settlements, the Fed and other major central banks, the UN, OECD, World Trade Organization, and other major international institutions are instruments of privilege over governance serving everyone equitably – an anathema notion to powerful money masters.

A (nonexistent) world of dominant just societies wouldn’t tolerate serving privileged interests exclusively at the expense of most others.

Globalization is a racket, the flip-side of governance the way it should be, a coup d’etat against popular interests, a giveaway to banksters, a neoliberal ripoff, a freedom and ecosystem destroying nightmare.

It’s anti-labor, anti-environment, anti-consumer, anti-sovereign independence of all countries worldwide, one-size-fits-all rules benefitting monied interests exclusively.

They run things, serving corporate predators and high net-worth households, transferring wealth from most people to them, profiting from wars and unfair free trade, carving up continents for control, resource looting, neoliberal harshness, and worldwide exploitation causing appalling human misery.

Michael Parenti earlier called globalization a means of “turning the clock back on many twentieth-century reforms: no freedom to boycott products, no prohibitions against child labor, no guaranteed living wage or benefits, no public services that might conceivably compete with private services, no health and safety protections that might cut into corporate profits.”

Their interests matter most at the expense of consumer rights, democratic values, ecosanity, human health and welfare.

A globalization rule of thumb is whatever government does, business does better so let it – privatization for maximum profits over serving the public welfare.

NAFTA and similar trade deals are hugely destructive, eliminating millions of jobs, offshoring countless numbers of them to low-wage countries, notably once-high-wage manufacturing ones, replaced by largely temp employment paying poverty wages.

Social justice is being sacrificed for profits, New Deal and Great Society programs eroding, heading for elimination altogether, Republicans and hardline undemocratic Dems, supporting the transformation of America into Guatemala, enforced by police state crackdowns on nonbelievers.

The scheme includes cutting, then ending welfare for impoverished households, restricting then eliminating food stamps and housing assistance, destroying the remnants of collective bargaining, turning workplaces into sweatshops, paying workers poverty wages, abolishing benefits, allowing child labor, agricultural and other slave labor more than already, privatizing the remnants of Social Security and Medicare, turning them into a Wall Street profit center, along with other dystopian schemes.

Societies would be far better off without the G7, G20, and other exploitive international institutions, serving privilege over governance for everyone equitably.

Replacing them with social justice institutions is needed, progressivism over governance for the privileged few at the expense of most others, economic development lifting all boats over carving up whole continents for profit, world peace instead of endless wars.

Societies safe and fit to live in are needed, not the way things are in the West and most elsewhere.

A global race to the bottom continues, heading for dystopia worldwide if not challenged and changed.

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Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the CRG, Correspondent of Global Research based in Chicago.

Fifty-one years ago today Israeli fighter aircraft and torpedo boats tried to sink the USS Liberty, a surveillance ship stationed off the coast of Egypt during Israel’s attack on Egypt and Syria. Israel was unable to sink the USS Liberty, but did manage to kill or wound almost the entire crew. Thirty-four Americans were killed and 174 were wounded.

There are two explanations for the attack. As Washington has blocked every attempt at an investigation, we do not know which one is correct. Perhaps both are the reasons for the attack.

One is that Israel, which was committing a war crime by mass execution of Egyptian prisoners of war, was fearful that the USS Liberty’s surveillance had discovered the crime. The other is that Israel fearing an unfavorable outcome of the war that Israel had initiated intended to blame the attack on the USS Liberty on Egypt, thus bringing the US into the war on Israel’s side.

I have written about this attack a number of times, having interiewed sailors and officers on board during the attack, an officer, Captain Ward Boston, who was ordered to produce a cover-up, and Admiral Tom Moorer, former Chief of Naval Operations and Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. Frustrated at Washington’s coverup, indeed, Washington’s complicity in the crime, upon retirement Admiral Moorer convened the Moorer Commission to set the record straight.

The Moorer Commission concluded:

“That there is compelling evidence that Israel’s attack was a deliberate attempt to destroy an American ship and kill her entire crew.

“That fearing conflict with Israel, the White House deliberately prevented the US Navy from coming to the defense of USS Liberty by recalling Sixth Fleet military rescue support while the ship was under attack.

“That surviving crew members were threatened with ‘court-martial, imprisonment or worse’ if they exposed the truth; and [the survivors] were abandoned by their own government.

“That there has been an official cover-up without precedent in American naval history.

“That a danger to our national security exists whenever our elected officials are willing to subordinate American interests to those of any foreign nation.”

You can find my articles on my website or online as well as the proceedings of the Moorer Commission.

The most disturbing thing about the Israeli attack is that when the Liberty’s distress signal reached the fleet commander and US Navy fighters were launched to drive off the Israeli attackers, the White House ordered the fleet commander to recall the American jets. Frustrated by his inability to defend the US Navy from murderous assault, the fleet commander used open radio to scare off the Israelis by announcing that US fighters were on their way to the Liberty’s rescue. This caused the Israelis to immediately call off the attack and to issue an apology that it had mistaken the USS Liberty, which was flying a massive American flag and had USS Liberty in tall letters, as an Egyptian ship.

On orders from the White House, Admiral McCain, Senator McCain’s father, ordered a cover up. The Liberty’s crew were ordered not to mention the event. It was two decades before one of the Liberty’s officers, then retired, wrote the story. American taxpayers, who were shelling out billions of dollars from their desperate needs every year to enable Israel to purchase the US government with the billions of dollars hapless Americans are forced to hand over to Israel, knew nothing about the attack for 20 years.

If 51 years ago Israel had such power over the US government that the White House itself refused to protect an American ship from Israeli attack and then covered up the attack in order to give Israel a free pass, just imagine how much more control Israel has achieved over the US government in the past half century. If you have any doubt that Israel rules America, just look at Nikki Haley’s subservience to Israel in the UN as US ambassador, or at President Trump himself defying the entire world and moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. Just look at Trump, on Israel’s orders, unilaterally disregarding the Iranian nuclear agreement signed by President Obama and upheld by all other signatories, in the hopes of creating a pretext for an American attack on Iran that serves only Israel’s interest. Just look at the extraordinary groveling at Israel’s feet of the entire US Senate and House of Representatives who unanimously pass Israel Lobby sponsored laws and resolutions. Just look at the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, National Public Radio, MSNBC, and so on who serve as megaphones for the voice of Israel.

Every American, especially those superpatriots who wrap themselves in the flag, should be totally ashamed that their government is nothing but an adjunct of Israel.

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This article was originally published on Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy.

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

The current war conflict in Syria and constant warfare between the Israeli state and the Palestinians which recently erupted once again in Gaza strip brought the region of the Middle East to the world attention once again. However, the Middle East is a natural-geographic continuation of the Mediterranean Sea basin and, therefore, it is a part of the broader Mediterranean geopolitical game. Nevertheless, the geopolitical and geostrategic importance of the Mediterranean Sea basin is probably of the highest level from the global perspective.

An importance of the Mediterranean Sea area in geopolitical and geostrategic standpoint one can understand from the very fact that this area is situated at the crossroads between three continents and making de facto a bridge between Europe, Asia, and Africa.[1] The Mediterranean Sea area as well as connects two oceans – the Atlantic and Indian. It is a true fact that the lands around the Mediterranean Sea were the core of the Ancient World culture, civilization, and history which gave a basis for the present-day modernity and especially the background of the Western civilization.[2] An economic importance of the area is in the fact that the Mediterranean was and is on the way of vital world trade routes.

Demarcation Lines

The Mediterranean Sea area is actually the demarcation line between several “worlds”: Judeo-Christian and Islamic; developed and underdeveloped; democracy and authoritarianism, etc. It is important to notice that this area was faced with the highest number of the wars in the whole history. In modern time, the Mediterranean was one of the most significant places of the Cold War (1949-1989), between the NATO and the Warsaw Pact. In addition, the first two post-Cold War crisis all over the world, the First Gulf War (1991)[3] and the dissolution of ex-Yugoslavia (1991-1995) followed by the Kosovo War (1998-1999)[4] involved the Mediterranean Sea area and had direct implications on the political life on the area.

Today, in the area can be distinguished from five military-political-economic influential groups:

1) The European Union, the Council of Europe and the NATO.

2) The Russian Federation.

3) The League of Arab States.

4) Non-allied countries (Israel, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia – FYROM).

5) China.

During the Cold War period, the world security system was grounded on the concept of the “Balance of Fear”.[5] According to the NATO strategy, the main danger was expected in both Central Europe and the “Western Wing” of the NATO.[6]Subsequently, the Mediterranean Sea area, as the “Southern Wing” of the NATO was considered as of a lesser importance in general NATO war strategy during the Cold War time. Further, parts of the area outside the NATO was called as “Out of Area”.[7] The whole region was considered in fact as a part of the key Central-European frontline toward the Warsaw Pact at least till 1960’s when the USSR fleet was present in the Mediterranean Sea. The US “Sixth Fleet” in the Mediterranean Sea was also supposed to symbolize the support to the allies within the global confrontation.[8]

Source: Oriental Review

The fact of importance is that within the NATO Mediterranean segment there were and still are political fragmentations and even the conflicts (ex., the Cyprus crisis in 1974). On the one hand, Turkey, Italy, and Portugal were completely integrated into the NATO while Greece’s involvement into the organization was and is strictly determined by the conflict with Turkey over Cyprus, the Aegean islands and Trace at the Balkan Peninsula. France and Spain do not participate fully in the NATO military structure. In general, the conflict between Greece and Turkey was and is the most significant one within the NATO serving:

1) As the crucial source of fragmentation within the NATO “Southern Wing”.

2) As a source for destabilizing the security of the Mediterranean Sea area.[9]

However, with the dissolution of the USSR, the unification of Germany and the abolishment of the Warsaw Pact (1989-1991) a period of the Cold War became over with a clear Western military-political victory primarily by the USA. The post-Cold War era is firstly characterized by the disappearance of the balance of superpowers, the “clash of civilizations” and with the international relations within the framework of the “West against the rest”.[10] The most significant outcome of those events is the fact that the bloc division of Europe so far disappeared. Moreover, instead of being the main rival to the USA and the NATO, the post-Soviet Russia turned into its main partner (until the Ukrainian crisis started in 2014) in attempts to establish a new global security system known as “The New Order” and led by the US administration.[11] This term was used by the US President George Bush (Senior) in November 1990 in his address to the US Congress. The US is using this maxim in order to inform all the world actors that it has reserved for itself the leading role in the new international relations. The fact is that after the period of bipolar world division, the dominant East-West confrontations now are replaced by crossing and mixing in the Mediterranean Sea area with tensions and conflicts of the North-South relations.

“Grey Zone”

The disappearance of one out of two Cold War superpowers eliminated the “global threat” in the area of the Mediterranean until 9/11 2001. Instead of the bipolar struggles, the Mediterranean Sea area became in a strategic point of view the so-called “Grey Zone”[12] at least until the current war in Syria. Concerning the security of the Mediterranean area, after the removing of the Iron Curtain in 1989/1990 the new challenge reflected through focus shifted from the East-West toward the political, economic even and cultural confrontations and friction between the North and the South, between the developed and underdeveloped areas of the world, with regard to the demographic explosion of the South (i.e., the North and Central Africa in the case of the Mediterranean Sea area) and the problems of an unemployment followed by the illegal migration waves from the South to the North.[13]

NATO’s premier anti-submarine warfare exercise in the Mediterranean Sea, March 2018. (Source: Oriental Review)

A security issue of the last decade of the Cold War period followed by the post-Cold War time in the area of the Mediterranean Sea was and is characterized and challenged by increased regional nationalism in many cases, but not exclusively connected with the Islamic fundamentalism, like during the time of the “Arab Spring” started on December 17^th, 2010.[14] It is important to notice that many Mediterranean countries have almost 100% Islamic population, what means that political life is mainly based on the Islamic (theocratic) values.[15] An influence of Islam on the political life in those countries is day by day in the process of increasing what is very visible, for instance, in Egypt and Libya after the successful street-style revolutions in which Hosni Mubarak and Muammar el Gaddafi lost power or even more visible in the case of the current war in Syria.[16] The objective of Islamic fundamentalists is to establish pure Islamic states based on Koran like it was a case with the Taliban Afghanistan before the US military intervention after 9/11.[17] The model of such kind of a theocratic state offered the Islamic revolution in Persia in 1979 when the pro-Western regime of Shah Reza Pahlavi (directly supported by the US) was abolished and removed with the model of the Islamic fundamentalist regime in the Republic of Iran.[18] This example was and is followed by several ultra- Islamic parties, movements and organizations all over the Islamic world as it is the case, for instance, with the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) in Algeria or with the Bosnian Party of Democratic Action (SDA) in the 1990s.[19]Speaking about the regional nationalism of the Arabic and Islamic countries it is necessary to mention, alongside with Khomeini’s Islamic fundamentalism in Iran, and the pan-Arabism of Gamal Abdel Nasser supported by the society-organization of “Muslim Brothers”[20] or Saddam Hussein’s neo-pan-Arabism, etc.

Conflict Sources

There is no doubt that the Mediterranean region was and is, and probably will be, one of the most conflict-prone areas all over the world. There is virtually no one country in the region whose state boundaries were not or are not questioned by their neighbors or cannot be questioned from a historical point of view. After the end of the bipolar confrontation between the NATO and the Warsaw Pact, there were two military struggles in direct relations with the Mediterranean region. There were the First Gulf War, in which one of the Mediterranean country (Turkey) was strongly involved, and the civil war in the former Yugoslavia as one of the Mediterranean countries. In addition, there are several constant conflict sources in the region. The most important of them are:

1) Israeli-Palestinian friction.

2) The question of the Kurds, who are living in four countries – Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran.

3) Friction between Libya and Egypt and Libya and Algeria.

4) The local conflicts in Sudan, Chad, and South Sahara.

Russian heavy missile cruiser Pyotr Veliky makes port call in Tartus, Syria (Source: Oriental Review)

Concluding Remarks

Finally, its eastern part is of the enormous conflict potential out of the whole area of the Mediterranean Sea region. The area of the Mediterranean Sea was and is one of the key strategic points of interest for the NATO from the very time of creation of this military organization in 1949 during the Cold War in order to challenge the real or potential threats for its own security. Within a global concept of the NATO security system, Turkey, Greece and Italy compose a sub-system of countries which belong to its “Southern Wing”. The main areas of activities by these countries are the Middle East and the Balkans. However, regardless a fact that Turkey, Greece, and Italy belong to the same security umbrella system offering by the NATO, there are serious differences in regard to the NATO regional policy, especially between Turkey and Greece, which brought these two countries almost to the open war conflict in 1974 over the Cyprus question. They also had different policies toward the question of succession of the former Yugoslavia in 1991-1995 followed by the Kosovo War of 1998-1999. The future of their mutual cooperation within security model offered by the NATO primarily depends on the question how Turkey and Greece can settle their bilateral problems in particular connected with the question of the future of Cyprus.

*

Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović is Founder & Editor of POLICRATICUS-Electronic Magazine On Global Politics (www.global-politics.eu). Contact: [email protected].

Notes

[1] On geopolitics, see: Klaus Dodds, Geopolitics: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press, 2007; Jeremy Black, Geopolitics, London: The Social Affairs Unit, 2009; Saul Bernard Cohen, Geopolitics: The Geography of International Relations, Lanham, Maryland: The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc., 2009; Eric Walberg, Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games, Atlanta, GA: Clarity Press, 2011; Colin Flint, Introduction to Geopolitics, New York: Routledge, 2012; Harvey Starr, On Geopolitics: Space, Place, and International Relations, Paradigm Publishers, 2014.

[2] On this issue, see: Robin W. Winks, Susan P. Mattern-Parkes, The Ancient Mediterranean World: From the Stone Age to A.D. 600, New York-Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004; Ralph W. Mathisen, Ancient Mediterranean Civilizations: From Prehistory to 640 CE, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011; Thomas S. Parker (ed.), History of The Ancient Mediterranean World, Kendall Hunt Publishing, 2011.

[3] See: Alastair Finlan, The Gulf War 1991, Osprey Publishing, 2003; Richard S. Lowry, The Gulf War Chronicles: A Military History of the First War with Iraq, Lincoln, NE: Iuniverse, 2008.

[4] See: Tim Judah, Kosovo: War and Revenge, New Haven-London, Yale University Press, 2002; Alastair Finlan, The Collapse of Yugoslavia 1991-1999, Ospray Publishing, 2004.

[5] See: John Lamberton Harper, Cold War, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011; Carole K. Fink, Cold War: An International History, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2014; William T. Walker, America in the Cold War: A Reference Guide, ABC-CLIO, 2014.

[6] On the NATO Cold War strategy, see: Mark Smith, NATO Enlargement During the Cold War: Strategy and System in the Western Alliance, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000.

[7] Luigi Caligaris, “Security Challenges in Alliance: The Southern Periphery”,International Spectator, No. 4, 1992, p. 5.

[8] On the US navy presence in the Mediterranean Sea area, see: Importance of United States Naval Forward Presence in Mediterranean Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School: Pennyhill Press, 2014.

[9] On the post-Cold War Mediterranean security challenges, see: Nikolaos A. Stavrou (ed.), Mediterranean Security at the Crossroads: A Reader, Duke University Press, 1999; Stephen C. Calleya, Security Challenges in the Euro-Med Area in the 21^st Century: Mare nostrum, New York: Routledge, 2013.

[10] Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, New York: Avon Books, Inc., 1992; Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York, NY: Touchstone Rockfeller Center, 1997; Susanne Peters, The “West” Against the “Rest”: Geopolitics After the End of the Cold War, Geopolitics, 1999; Kanayo Nwankwo, The West and the Rest: In the Wells of Hell, Charleston, SC: BookSurge Publishing, 2008; The Clash of Civilizations? The Debate: Twentieth Anniversary Edition, Foreign Affairs, 2013.

[11] Richard Rosencrance: A New Concept of Powers, Foreign Affairs, New York, 1992. However, more accurate term for the post-Cold War international relations framework is “The NATO World Order” (Vladislav B. Sotirović, “The NATO World Order, The Balkans and The Russian National Interest”, Vladislav B. Sotirović, Balcania. Scientific Articles in English, Vilnius: Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences Press “Edukologija”, 2013, pp. 110-129).

[12] Richard Falk: “In Search of a New World Model”, Current History, Philadelphia, April 1993, p. 145.

[13] On the problem of migration and security, see: Elspeth Guild, Security and Migration in the 21^st Century, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009; Thanh-Dam Truong, Des Gasper (eds.), Transnational Migration and Human Security, Berlin-Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 2011.

[14] On the “Arab Spring”, see: Brynen Rex, Pete W. Moore, Bassel F. Salloukh, Marie-Joelle Zahar, Beyond the Arab Spring: Authoritarianism & Democratization in the Arab World, Lynne Rienner Publisher, 2012; Paul Danahar, The New Middle East: The World After the Arab Spring, New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2013; Fawas A. Gerges, The New Middle East: Protest and Revolution in the Arab World, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

[15] Mark Gasiorowski (ed.), The Government and Politics of the Middle East and North Africa, Boulder, Co: Westview Press, 2014.

[16] On this issue, see: Bruce K. Rutherford, Egypt after Mubarak: Liberalism, Islam, and Democracy in the Arab World, Princeton-Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2013; John McHugo, Syria: From the Great War to Civil War, Saqi Books, 2014.

[17] On Taliban case, see: Robert D. Crews, Amin Tarzi (eds.), The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan, Harvard University Press, 2008; Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: The Power of Militant Islam in Afghanistan and Beyond, London-New York: I.B.Tauris, 2010.

[18] On Islamic Republic of Iran and Islamic fundamentalism, see: Ray Takeyh, Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic, New York: Times Books-Henri Holt and Company, 2006; Lawrence Davidson, Islamic Fundamentalism: An Introduction, Santa Barbara, California: Praeger, 2013.

[19] During the time of the civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992−1995), SDA and Muslim Bosnian-Herzegovinian government were getting full diplomatic, financial and material support by Iran.

[20] See: Hesham Al-Awadi, The Muslim Brothers in Pursuit of Legitimacy: Power and Political Islam in Egypt under Mubarak, I.B.Tauris, 2014.

Microwave technology seems to have been around ‘forever’, so that’s probably why very few tech consumers question its safety. However, consumers should know the latest and most ‘coveted’ update to technology is the Internet of Things, which will become “Big Brother Personified.”

Not only will the IoT report back (i.e., spy?) to high-speed computer data centers consumers EVERY activity, IoT will super-saturate your physical body and brain with extremely rapid oscillation Gigahertz (GHz) frequencies needed to implement IoT, which probably will become physically uncomfortable, as being reported by current research studies.

The U.S. military has pressed hard for each generation of microwave updates to the point where 5G is their “war weapon” that will be pressed in to civilian use for higher speed Wi-Fi.

Personally, I’ve been a health issues researcher/writer/author since the late 1970s and the plans for expanded microwave technologies, e.g., 5G and higher, cause me grave concern, especially because of the resolute lack of transparency concerning the harms from its thermal and non-thermal waves, which deliberately have been secreted from consumers—similar to what the tobacco industry and other vested interests have done in order to mainstream technologies harming human health, wildlife, the environment and ruined the Planet’s hydrologic system by implementing Solar Radiation Management, which some refer to as “chemtrails.”

With the last paragraph’s concerns in mind, I’ve gotten together an anthology of probable lesser-known Microwave, ELF, EMF, RFR research I think consumers should know—and save—to understand how the proverbial wool has been pulled over your eyes about a technology you have fallen in love with; become addicted to; and are clamoring for more and higher generation speeds, while really not knowing nor understanding the harm it is doing to you and especially the children, who are the most vulnerable to cellular damage.

A Retrospective Microwave Research Anthology

Biological Effects and Health Hazards of Microwave Radiation, Proceedings on an International Symposium, October, 1973 [October 15-18, 1973, Warsaw, Poland]

Reviewed by Emanuel Landau

Biological Effects and Health Hazards of Microwave Radiation, Proceedings on an International Symposium, October, 1973. Poland Government, WHO and USHEW. Polish Medical Publishers.

347 pp. 1974. $10 U.S.A., $12.50 Foreign. NTIS PB 239-554.

“This volume represents the proceedings of the only truly international symposium on the effects of microwave radiation which was held in Warsaw in October, 1973. In addition to the presented papers of the participants, the work contains succinct summaries of the discussions and a list of sound conclusions and recommendations. Differences in research findings are not glossed over. Particularly impressive to this reviewer is the absence of ideological statements and judgments. It is a “must” book for any serious student of the health effects of exposure to microwave radiation.

“While this publication does not and cannot present definitive findings, it does represent a valuable state of the art review with all the inconsistencies and disagreements noted and discussed.

A special merit is that it makes possible more details of the studies done by the leading research investigators for both high and low level exposure situations than has been previously available. Even more detail is needed for proper assessment, but this symposium clearly will contribute to the necessary reconciliation of the wide divergence of research results reported for cataractogenesis and “microwave neurosis” as well as for other stated adverse effects.”

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1775882/pdf/amjph00794-0077c.pdf
Am J Public Health. 1975 July; 65(7): 751. PMCID: PMC1775882

[CJF emphasis]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1775882/?page=1

Session A. General Effects of Microwave Radiation (80 pages)
https://www.elettrosensibili.it/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/biologic-effects-health-hazards-of-mw-a1.pdf

Session A continued (27 pages)
https://www.elettrosensibili.it/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/biologic-effects-health-hazards-of-mw-a2-1.pdf

Session B. Influence of Microwave Radiation on the Nervous System and Behavior (23 pages)
https://www.elettrosensibili.it/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/biologic-effects-health-hazards-of-mw-b1.pdf

Session B continued (20 pages)
https://www.elettrosensibili.it/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/biologic-effects-health-hazards-of-mw-b2.pdf

Session C. Effects of Microwave Radiation at the Cellular and Molecular Level (40 pages)
https://www.elettrosensibili.it/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/biologic-effects-health-hazards-of-mw-c1.pdf

Session C continued (10 pages)
https://www.elettrosensibili.it/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/biologic-effects-health-hazards-of-mw-c2.pdf

Session D. Measurements of Microwave Radiation (58 pages)
https://www.elettrosensibili.it/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/biologic-effects-health-hazards-of-mw-d.pdf

Session E. Occupational Exposure and Public Health Aspects of Microwave Radiation (48 pages)
https://www.elettrosensibili.it/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/biologic-effects-health-hazards-of-mw-e.pdf

Session F. Presentation and Discussion of Session Reports, Conclusions (Including Future Research Needs) and Recommendations (27 pages)
https://www.elettrosensibili.it/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/biologic-effects-health-hazards-of-mw-f.pdf

Session I. List of Participants (15 pages)
https://www.elettrosensibili.it/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/biologic-effects-health-hazards-of-mw-i.pdf

***

A Mother’s Tragic Story about In-school Wi-Fi Damage to her 15-year-old daughter, who suffered with EHS from Wi-Fi in school, which finally led to the daughter’s eventual suicide: Why Die for Wi-Fi? My Child Did – Will Yours? / Debra Fry, May 3, 2016

***

A pioneer researcher, the late Dr. Ross Adey, in his last publication in Bioelectromagnetic Medicine (P. Roche and M. Markov, eds. 2004) concluded:

“There are major unanswered questions about possible health risks that may arise from exposures to various man-made electromagnetic fields where these human exposures are intermittent, recurrent, and may extend over a significant portion of the lifetime of the individual.”

“Epidemiological studies have evaluated ELF and radiofrequency fields as possible risk factors for human health, with historical evidence relating rising risks of such factors as progressive rural electrification, and more recently, to methods of electrical power distribution and utilization in commercial buildings. Appropriate models describing these bioeffects are based in non-equilibrium thermodynamics, with nonlinear electrodynamics as an integral feature. Heating models, based in equilibrium thermodynamics, fail to explain an impressive new frontier of much greater significance.

….. Though incompletely understood, tissue free radical interactions with magnetic fields may extend to zero field levels.” (2)

Source: BioInitiative 2012*, Section 1 (Summary for the Public), Pg. 7/22 of 1479

***

Children are at increased risks from Radiofrequencies (RFs) emitted by microwaves according to the Presidential Cancel Panel 2010 and the American Academy of Pediatricians.

“There is little doubt that exposure to ELF causes childhood leukemia.”

Source: BioInitiative 2012*, Pg. 8/23 of 1479

***

What is remarkable about studies on DNA, genes and proteins and EMFs is that there should be no effect at all if it were true that EMFs is too weak to cause damage. Scientists who believe that the energy of EMFs is insignificant and unlikely to cause harm have a hard time explaining these changes, so are inclined to just ignore them. The trouble with this view is that the effects are occurring. Not being able to explain these effects is not a good reason to consider them imaginary or unimportant.

Source: BioInitiative 2012*, Section 1, Pg. 16/31 of 1479

***

Sixteen nations: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Namibia, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom have ruled the thermal RF radiation levels set by the National Council of Radiation Protection (NCP), the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), and the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are obsolete and do not adequately protect the public, so they are taking action to mitigate public risks.

Source: BioInitiative 2012

***

“The IARC Monographs classification of Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields (RF-EMF) covers the entire radiofrequency segment of the electromagnetic spectrum (30 kHz-300 GHz). Within this spectrum, the electromagnetic fields around (or the radiation emitted by) mobile telephones represent the most intense and most wide-spread exposure situation, for which a small increase in risk for glioma and acoustic neuroma has been found in the group of ‘heavy users’. Other devices that emit the same type of RF radiation – base-station antennas, radio/tv antennas, WiFi stations, smart meters – fall under the same evaluation. However, because the exposure levels for many of these other devices and exposure situations are so much lower than the exposure to someone who has a functioning cell phone against her/his ear, the risk will be considerably less (although the hazard still exists).” [CJF emphasis]

Source: BioInitiative 2012*, Section 22 (Precaution in Action – Global Public Health Advice Following BioInitiative), Pg. 28/1325 of 1479

***

The US Government Accountability Office published a report in 2012 urging the US Federal Communications Commission to revisit the outdated safety standards for the exposures from wireless devices. (19)

Source: BioInitiative 2012*, Section 22, Pg. 18/1315 of 1479

***

The Report noted that the FCC’s RF energy exposure limit may not reflect the latest research.

Source: BioInitiative 2012*, Section 22 Pg. 19/1316 of 1479

***

Adverse health effects occur at levels much lower than what the FCC claims to be safe.

Non-thermal adverse health effects from microwave RFs have been documented at extremely low power densities in these ranges: microwatt, nanowatt, picowatt and femtowatt.

• A microwatt (µW) equals one millionth of a watt
• A nanowatt (nW) equals one billionth of a watt
• A picowatt (pW) equals one trillionth of a watt
• A femtowatt (fW) equals on quadrillionth of a watt

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt]

“EMF exposure can change gene and/or protein expression in certain types of cells, even at intensities lower than ICNIRP recommended values.” [CJF emphasis]

Source: BioInitiative 2012*, Table 1-1 BioInitiative Report Overall Conclusions, Section 5 Genotoxicity Pg. 2 of 16

***

Dr. Henry Lai, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Bioengineering, University of Washington, discovered in 1995 damage to rat brains at Radiofrequency radiation levels deemed as ‘safe’ by the FCC.

Research scientist George Carlo’s independent research established wireless radiation RAISED the risk of brain cancer, which led the cellular communications industry to discredit Carlo’s work.

The National Toxicology Program (NTP) cell phone radiation study data released in March of 2018 provided evidence that cell phone microwave radiation caused cancers in rats, e.g., rare schwannoma heart tumors and brain tumors.

“The study looked at only 2G and 3G frequencies, which are still commonly used for phone calls. It does not apply to 4G or 5G, which use different frequencies and modulation, he [John Bucher, a senior scientist with NTP] said.” [CJF emphasis]

Source: Reuters

***

Based upon current research findings, the FCC’s 1996 recommended RF limits/safety standard of 0.6mW/cm2 for 30 minutes of exposure time is seriously flawed and must be corrected to reflect dangers inherent from non-ionizing RF radiation.

Proof of the above statement are 27 citations of scientific studies reporting adverse health effects at levels less than 0.00063 m/W/cm2. These studies can be found enumerated at http://www.bioinitiative.org/conclusions/. There are too many to list here, but it is important to list:

DEFINING A NEW ‘EFFECT LEVEL’ FOR RFR

On a precautionary public health basis, a reduction from the BioInitiative 2007 recommendation of 0.1 uW/cm2 (or one-tenth of a microwatt per square centimeter) for cumulative outdoor RFR down to something three orders of magnitude lower (in the low nanowatt per square centimeter range) is justified.

A scientific benchmark of 0.003 uW/cm2 or three nanowatts per centimeter squared for ‘lowest observed effect level’ for RFR is based on mobile phone base station-level studies. Applying a ten-fold reduction to compensate for the lack of long-term exposure (to provide a safety buffer for chronic exposure, if needed) or for children as a sensitive subpopulation yields a 300 to 600 picowatts per square centimeter precautionary action level. This equates to a 0.3 nanowatts to 0.6 nanowatts per square centimeter as a reasonable, precautionary action level for chronic exposure to pulsed RFR.

These levels may need to change in the future, as new and better studies are completed. We leave room for future studies that may lower or raise today’s observed ‘effects levels’ and should be prepared to accept new information as a guide for new precautionary actions.

Source: BioInitiative 2012 “A Rationale for Biologically-based Exposure Standards for Low-Intensity Electromagnetic Radiation” Conclusions

***

However, there are several specific studies performed using various low level µW/cm2 I’d like to bring to your attention:

1 – 0.13 µW/cm2
Radiofrequency radiation from 3G cell towers decreased cognition, well-being. Zwamborn, 2003.

2 – 0.168-1.053 µW/cm2
Irreversible infertility in mice after 5 generations of exposure to Radiofrequency radiation from an ‘antenna park’. Magras & Zenos, 1997.

3 – 0.16 µW/cm2
Motor function, memory and attention span of school children affected in Latvia. Kolodynski, 1996.

Resource: Power Density: Radio frequency Non-Ionizing Radiation [14 pages with hundreds of citations]

4 – 60 to 100 μW/m2
Whole human body chronic exposure to base station Radiofrequencies showed increased stress hormones; dopamine levels were substantially decreased; there were higher levels of adrenaline and nor-adrenaline; and chronic physiological stress was produced in cells after 1.5 years. Buchner, 2012.

Source: Reported Biological Effects of RF & Microwave Radiation Power Density μW/m2

5 – Interestingly, between 2007 and mid-2012, sixty-nine (69) new ELF-EMF study papers were published regarding neurological effects from ELFs-EMFs. Of those 69 papers, 93% (64) show adverse effects, whereas only 5 (7%) show no adverse effects. Lai, 2012.

Source: https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/7520939118.pdf [Pg. 10 of 17 pages]

6 – Numerous sperm studies have been replicated showing the adverse effects on sperm quality, motility and pathology in men who use and wear live cell phones on their bodies, PDA or pagers on their belts or in a pants pocket. Here’s one example:

See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4074720/

CONCLUSIONS

[a] Long–term semen exposure in the area of mobile phone RF–EMR leads to a significant decrease in the number of sperm with progressive movement and an increase in those with non–progressive movement.
[b] Prolonged direct mobile phone exposure may bring about sperm DNA fragmentation
[c] For men readying themselves for fatherhood, especially when registered fertility problems exist, it would be better to avoid holding a mobile phone in a trouser pocket for long periods of time.

Other papers reporting sperm being affected by RFs-EMRs include: Agarwal et al, 2008; Agarwal et al, 2009; Wdowiak et al, 2007; De Iuliis et al, 2009; Feyes et al, 2005; Aitken et al, 2005; Kumar, 2012.

***

There are in excess of 4,000 scientific studies reporting biological and adverse health effects from non-thermal radiation exposure and yet the FCC and microwave trade associations deny them, plus do not factor those findings into establishing correct ELF-EMF-RFR safety guidelines.

Could be it there are no safe parameters that can be met relative to man-made microwaves non-thermal non-ionizing radiation?

The charts below give various interpretations of the Electromagnetic spectrum.

Source

Source

Source

Hat tips and many thanks go to Richard Myers and Casper Gripenberg for their generous sharing of research and information in the preparation of this “anthology” of older and currently-suppressed research regarding microwave radiation effects.

Resource:

*BioInitiative 2012 / A Rationale for Biologically-based Exposure Standards for Low-Intensity

Electromagnetic Radiation BioInitiative Working Group 2012

Catherine J Frompovich (website) is a retired natural nutritionist who earned advanced degrees in Nutrition and Holistic Health Sciences, Certification in Orthomolecular Theory and Practice plus Paralegal Studies. Her work has been published in national and airline magazines since the early 1980s. Catherine authored numerous books on health issues along with co-authoring papers and monographs with physicians, nurses, and holistic healthcare professionals. She has been a consumer healthcare researcher 35 years and counting.

*

Featured image is from Health Impact News.

While President Donald Trump seems intent to make a deal with North Korea seemingly at any cost, the CIA has apparently deployed one of its most hawkish North Korea hands to be at the president’s side during the summit, allowing the intelligence community to rein in any of the president’s excesses as it angles for a historic diplomatic achievement.

In a piece published late Wednesday, Bloomberg profiles Andrew Kim, a CIA officer who first came to prominence when he was photographed sitting alongside Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during Pompeo’s first meeting with Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang.

Source: Zero Hedge

Kim has become an integral part of the White House’s North Korea team – a role that is unusual for an intelligence official.

“It does seem unusual,” said Bruce Klingner, the former CIA deputy division chief for Korea and now a fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

“Just as the policy community isn’t supposed to infect the intelligence community, the intel community provides information to enable policy makers to make the best informed decisions possible but are not supposed to provide advice.”

Born and raised in South Korea, Kim is distantly related through his mother’s side of the family to Chung Eui-yong, South Korea’s national security adviser. He also briefly attended the same prestigious Seoul high school as Suh Hoo, the leader of Korea’s national intelligence service. Somehow, he ended up leading the CIA station in Seoul, and has since become known as the “Grim Reaper” for his extremely hawkish views on North Korea.

Source: Zero Hedge

Pompeo, who led the CIA before becoming Secretary of State, is said to trust Kim so absolutely that he now includes him in in nearly every meeting on North Korea. Kim has directly briefed President Trump, and is set to attend the Singapore summit on June 12. During Pompeo’s meeting with Kim Jong Un, Kim monitored the North Korean translators to make sure they were feeding accurate translations to the North Korean leader.

Fellow North Korea hawks will probably welcome Kim’s presence, given Kim’s proven skepticism.

“The North Korean side regards diplomacy as war by other means,” said Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute. “The North Korean government doesn’t do ‘win-win,’ it doesn’t do ‘getting to yes.'”

Notably, Kim has the approval of both Republicans and Democrats – a rare feat in modern times.

James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence in the Obama administration, waved off questions about Kim during an interview in Washington earlier this week, then relented just a bit.

“He’s excellent, he’s really excellent,” Clapper said. “He’s very realistic about North Korea.”

But Kim has done far more than serve as translator. He’s used his knowledge of North Korean politics to help the White House discern Kim Jong Un’s intentions heading into the Singapore Summit. His elevation has “pushed seasoned diplomats and policy-makers to the sidelines” as he’s become involved in “almost all levels of the government strategy toward North Korea.”

“He is in effect the connective tissue right now across the dialogues with the North Koreans,” said Rexon Ryu, a partner at the Asia Group and former White House official and Pentagon chief of staff. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the reality is Andy is perhaps the most influential player right now.”

The question is: Will having a CIA-trained hawk in the negotiating room be an obstacle to peace? Or will he help Trump strike a better deal?

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Featured image is from Twitter/FMT.

In March 2014, G8 member states expelled Russia over nonexistent “aggression” in Ukraine, along with Crimea’s reunification with the Russian Federation, correcting a historic mistake.

On Monday, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said

“this forum has been losing its importance because given the changing political and economic situation, other platforms, such as the G20, where Russia is an active member, have been becoming more important.”

Last April, Kremlin envoy to the EU Vladimir Chizhov said without Russian involvement,

“the G7 is increasingly irrelevant.”

The self-styled seven major industrialized democracies are profoundly undemocratic. The world’s second largest economy, China, certain to become its dominant one, is denied participation.

Last April, G7 foreign ministers America, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada, along with EU political chief Federica Mogherini, met for two days in Toronto.

Russophobic Big Lies were featured. Host Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland falsely accused Russia of destabilizing activities, adding:

“The G7 countries are committed to preventing, stopping and responding to foreign interference.”

“There are consequences for those who seek to undermine our democracies,” disgracefully pointing fingers at Russia – ignoring US-dominated NATO high crimes of war and against humanity, partnered with Israel and other rogue states.

Russophobic UK Foreign Minister Boris Johnson said

“(w)hat we decided…was that we were going to set up a G7 group that would look at Russian malign behavior in all its manifestations – whether it’s cyber warfare, whether it’s disinformation, assassination attempts, whatever it happens to be, and collectively try to call it out.”

The Tory regime he represents is allied with US aggression in multiple war theaters. So are other G7 members Canada, France, Germany, and Italy.

On June 8 and 9, G7 and EU leaders are meeting in La Malbaie, Quebec, Canada. Because of Trump’s “America first” policies on trade, the JCPOA pullout, hostility toward Russia, climate, and other issues, the forum is increasingly the G6+1.

Traditional US allies are increasingly frustrated in dealings with Washington. Trump’s hardline National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow, tried putting a brave face on forum discord, “regard(ing) this as…a family quarrel,” downplaying increasing US isolation on key world issues.

US-imposed tariffs on Canada and EU countries weigh heavily on talks. Brussels filed legal proceedings against Washington at the World Trade Organization (WTO), arguing that Trump violated trade rules.

European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker called

“unilateral US tariffs…unjustified and at odds with World Trade Organization rules. This is protectionism, pure and simple.”

Because of major G6 disagreements with Trump, a unified final statement may not be signed for the first time ever.

Trump intends cutting short his G7 participation, heading to Singapore on Saturday, ahead of his June 12 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, according to White House press secretary Sarah Sanders.

On June 7, he fired off the following hostile remarks, tweeting:

“Why isn’t the European Union and Canada informing the public that for years they have used massive Trade Tariffs and non-monetary Trade Barriers against the US. Totally unfair to our farmers, workers & companies.” Take down your tariffs & barriers or we will more than match you!”

“Prime Minister Trudeau is being so indignant, bringing up the relationship that the US and Canada had over the many years and all sorts of other things…but he doesn’t bring up the fact that they charge us up to 300% on dairy – hurting our Farmers, killing our Agriculture!”

“Please tell Prime Minister Trudeau and President Macron that they are charging the US massive tariffs and create non-monetary barriers. The EU trade surplus with the US is $151 Billion, and Canada keeps our farmers and others out.”

Many of his tweets combine unacceptable rage with glaring inaccuracies. Most of his remarks combine bluster and bravado. On issues mattering most, his rhetoric lacks credibility.

As commander-in-chief of America’s military with his finger on the nuclear trigger, he may be eager to squeeze it at his discretion.

On trade, it’s unclear what’s bluster and posturing or real. Ahead of G7 talks, he roared:

“Take down your tariffs and barriers or we will more than match you!”

G7 hostility toward Russia, along with Trump’s agenda on trade, the JCPOA, climate, EU collaboration with Moscow on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project Washington opposes, and other issues has driven a wedge between America under Trump and other G7 nations.

Washington is becoming increasingly isolated in dealings with other major world nations over its unacceptable policies. Claiming they’re for national security is bunkum. Alleged threats against the US are invented, not real.

Western unity is frayed. Major differences between the G6 and America are unresolved. New Italian Prime Minister Guisippe Conte called for ending EU sanctions on Russia.

EU Commission president Jean-Claude Junker urged normalizing relations with Moscow somewhat, not entirely.

“This Russia bashing has to be brought to an end…We have to reconnect with Russia,” he said.

At his annual marathon Q & A session on Thursday, Putin called Western containment of Russia wrongheaded.

“So are the notorious sanctions (targeting) Russia’s (economic) development,” he said.

Sounding an optimistic tone, he said nations “eventually develop (the) awareness (that) constructive cooperation” is mutually beneficial, adding:

“You can see what is happening in many countries. At the political level there everybody points to the need for establishing normal relations with Russia.”

Washington remain the major obstacle, militantly hostile to Moscow. Putin’s optimism may be premature.

Nothing ahead suggests positive geopolitical change overall – notably with endless US-led wars of aggression raging in multiple theaters, resolving them nowhere in sight.

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Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the CRG, Correspondent of Global Research based in Chicago.

In the run-up to the June 12 summit with North Korea, a group of prominent physicians today urged Congressional leaders to promote diplomacy and prevent a war that could result in massive casualties. In a sign-on letter organized by Physicians for Social Responsibility and delivered today to key committee chairs and majority and minority leaders in both houses of Congress, the physicians warned about the catastrophic impact of a war on the Korean Peninsula. In the letter, the physicians “welcome the recent diplomatic momentum” but also demand that if diplomacy fails,“as a matter of public health policy…Congress must act to block the path to war.”

“Twenty-five million people on both sides of the Korean demilitarized zone, including at least 100,000 American citizens, are at risk,” the letter said. “In its November, 2017, report: The North Korean Nuclear Challenge: Military Options and Issues for Congress, the Congressional Research Service estimated that any military conflict on the Korean Peninsula would cause mass civilian casualties. And the medical consequences of any use of nuclear weapons would be catastrophic, with no adequate medical response…. It is critical that Congress re-assert its war-making authority, require Congressional approval for any military strike against North Korea, and actively support diplomacy in the region.”

The full text of the letter and list of signers is posted here.

The physicians’ concerns are well founded. Several officials have made statements concurring with the Congressional Research Service report’s finding that if the U.S.goes to war with North Korea, mass casualties are likely. Defense Secretary Mattis said it “would be probably the worst kind of fighting in most people’s lifetimes.”

“We are deeply concerned about the possibility of a war in Korea which would be a humanitarian catastrophe,” said Ira Helfand, MD, one of the signers of the letter.  “The summit can be an important step toward denuclearization, but it is just the beginning of a process. If the summit does not go well—and there is a good possibility that it will not—we cannot use this ‘failure’ as a pretext to go to war.”

Dr. Helfand is co-chair of PSR’s Nuclear Weapons Abolition Committee, and co-president of the global federation International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). PSR is the U.S. affiliate of IPPNW.

If North Korea does not readily abandon its nuclear weapons, the physicians argue it’s all the more critical for Congress to block the path to war to stop a predictable, preventable public health disaster. That position aligns with public opinion: 62% of Americans polled say the U.S. should not threaten military action against North Korea if it does not give up its nuclear weapons.

“Tracking the play-by-play interactions with North Korea, it’s too easy to forget this is not a political football game,” said Lynn Ringenberg, MD, President-elect of PSR and retired U.S. Army Colonel, who also signed the letter. “It’s not simply a matter of the U.S. prevailing and getting North Korea to do what it wants. Literally millions of lives are at stake, which it’s incumbent on policymakers to protect. If the President thinks the U.S. can ‘win’ by going to war and triggering massive casualties, then Congress must exercise its Constitutional authority over war-making to prevent it. No military strike against North Korea should be launched without Congressional approval.”

The 2018 National Defense Authorization Act that recently passed the House contains language stipulating it is not to be construed as authorizing use of force against North Korea. The Senate takes up the measure this week. Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) introduced legislation (H.R. 4837) specifically asserting Congressional authority over an American first-strike on North Korea, with 69 cosponsors. Senators Ed Markey (C-MA) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) have introduced similar legislation in the Senate. (S. 2016 and S. 2047).

“North Korea is wrong if it thinks nuclear weapons are providing security,” said Martin Fleck, Director of PSR’s Nuclear Weapons Abolition Program. “But the same is true for all of the nuclear-armed countries. PSR advocates for the total elimination of nuclear weapons worldwide, and we strongly support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. ‘Denuclearizing’ the Korean Peninsula is imperative to protect public health and safety, and physicians and health professionals recognize that imperative. But we should also recognize we can’t ultimately protect health and safety without global denuclearization.”

A wise person said being attacked by one’s enemies means you have become effective. Events over the last weekend at the Left Forum in New York City prove the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) is now seen as a threat, making our 1-year-old organization a target.

It started with an article circulated against BAP’s national organizer, Ajamu Baraka, calling him an “Assadist” and a Trump supporter for opposing U.S. imperialist intervention in Syria. The weekend ended with a demonstration organized by an obscure group during Ajamu’s presentation at the closing plenary.

We welcome the attacks because we understand why they would see an independent, politically clear formation like BAP as a threat. But we also know that we need to be ready for even more attacks.

A revolutionary formation that upholds peace, social justice, and the struggle against war and militarism within the context of an anti-imperialist frame is a deep threat. But when you consider the base we are attempting to politicize and organize is African/Black working class-oriented activists and organizers, why, that is just too much for the system to handle.

Here are the recorded livestreams of panels we spoke at:

1. A joint UNAC/BAP panel, “Stop the Wars at Home and Abroad”
2. A Black Agenda Report panel, “Russiagate: Muzzling the Black Left and the March to War”
3. “Venezuela Resists the U.S. Empire: Task Force on the Americas”
4. Ajamu’s statement at Sunday’s closing plenary

BAP in Venezuela

BAP member Efia Nwangaza represented BAP as an election observer in the Venezuelan presidential election, which was closely observed around the world as the revolutionary Latin American state faces pressure from the United States to yield to transnational capitalist forces. Efia reported on her trip last week on a national call.

African Liberation Day

BAP commemorated African Liberation Day on May 25 with a statement demanding the United States get out of Africa. We followed up with a call for the Congressional Black Caucus and leaders of the Poor People’s Campaign to demand AFRICOM be dismantled.

Action Teams

We thank our research and Africa teams for meeting and moving the campaign development work forward. If you’d like to join these teams, apply to be a member or supporter.

Research Team:

Work collaboratively with BAP action teams and National Organizer to provide relevant information and analysis related to BAP programmatic work. Team will analyze data and write research findings for BAP public educational and advocacy materials, including policy briefs, blogs, toolkits, petitions and special issue reports. If you are interested, send a message to [email protected] with the subject line “Research Team”.

Social Media and Communications Team:

Provide support for press and social media work. Coordinate with staff to develop and maintain press list and update press sections of website. Press component of team will assist with producing press releases and pitch BAP actions, spokespersons and events to press, with special emphasis on developing contacts and pitching to alternative press. Social media component of team will gather news links for circulation, work with communications consultant to maintain our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube accounts. If you are interested, send a message to [email protected] with the subject line “Social Media and Communications Team”.

We are only able to do this revolutionary work with support from anti-imperialist folks like yourself. Can we count on you to keep building the Black anti-war movement in the United States?

No compromise.

No retreat.

Trump’s withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal actually plays to Pakistan’s strategic advantage and should be silently celebrated by its decision makers.

The whole world is wondering what will happen next after Trump pulled the US out of the Iranian nuclear deal, but while there is a lot of fear mongering in the press about what to expect and plenty of condemnation over what just happened, the reality is that this is a fortuitous move for Pakistan that should be silently celebrated by its decision makers for the following reasons:

Trump’s Attempts To Weaken Iran Might Actually Strengthen It

Provided that Iran understands what just happened in the manner that will be described below and more or less adheres to the following scenario forecast, then the Islamic Republic might actually be strengthened by what Trump just did and not weakened, even if the mainstream media misleadingly portrays it otherwise in its attempts to manufacture a false perception among the global masses.

The US Has Proven Itself To Be Untrustworthy

Unlike it may have been in times past, there is now irrefutable evidence that the US cannot be trusted to honor even public agreements that it helped negotiate, to say nothing of secret ones behind closed doors, which should give pause to any Pakistani representatives the next time that the US approaches them about a so-called “deal”.

Pakistan’s Rapprochement With Russia Is Validated

Now that the US has proven itself to be utterly untrustworthy, Pakistan’s rapprochement with Russia is validated because everyone can now see the wisdom in Islamabad choosing to balance its erstwhile close relationship with Washington through a comprehensive diversification of relations with Moscow.

Indian-Iranian Relations Might Soon Suffer

The US’ re-sanctioning of Iran and threat to do so against any companies that continue to conduct certain types of business with the Islamic Republic might hit Indian infrastructure projects in Chabahar and pertaining to the North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC) especially hard, and New Delhi can no longer be counted on as a reliable long-term purchaser of Tehran’s energy resources.

Iran Now Knows Who Its Real Friends Are, And Pakistan Is One Of Them

After the US expectedly scrapped the nuclear deal and the high probability exists that India might limit its hitherto strategic relations with Iran under pressure from its newfound Washington ally, Tehran finally knows who its real friends are, and this revelation can lead to a renaissance of Iranian-Pakistani relations that prevents third-party provocateurs from sabotaging their relations like they did in the past.

Iran Might Pivot From West Asia to Central-South Asia

Faced with a worsening of full-spectrum pressure against it on the western flank, Iran might seek a “pressure valve” through intensifying its cooperation with Central Asia and Pakistan, particularly as it relates to potentially pairing Chabahar with Gwadar and establishing the tangible infrastructural foundation of CPEC’s western branch, or W-CPEC+.

Pakistan Could Prospectively Play The Central Role In Facilitating Iranian-Chinese Trade

With China’s reported high-speed Silk Road railway plans for Central Asia yet to break ground and CPEC already being open for business, there’s a very real chance that Pakistan can prospectively play the central role in facilitating Iranian-Chinese trade through W-CPEC+ and accordingly boost its Eurasian geostrategic significance in response.

If India Downscales Its Cooperation With Iran, Pakistan Could Replace The NSTC With The RPEC

It remains to be seen, but provided that India downscales its cooperation with Iran in the face of American pressure just like it did in pulling out of the Fifth-Generation Fighter Aircraft agreement with Russia recently, then Pakistan could replace the NSTC with a Russia-Pakistan Economic Corridor (RPEC) that becomes part of the northern vector of CPEC, or N-CPEC+.

The Post-Deal Deepening Of Iran’s Ties With Pakistan-China-Russia Would Strengthen Eurasia

Iran’s unprecedented strategic reliance on neighboring Russia following Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal and the Islamic Republic’s projected pivot towards Pakistan and China could form the integrational basis for the so-called “Golden Ring” of multipolar Great Powers that might naturally extend to include each party’s close Turkish partner as well.

Multipolar Support For Iran Would Weaken The US’ Unipolar Hegemony

The collective support that the aforementioned four Great Powers could provide to Iran during this crucial time would symbolically represent the emergence of a multipolar world order that’s prepared to counter the US’ unipolar hegemony in areas of shared concern, with this possibly being a test run for more sustained cooperation in dealing with other crises such as the long-running one in Afghanistan.

Pakistan Is Slated To Play A Pivotal Role In These World-Changing Processes

Pakistan’s geostrategic position as the Zipper of Eurasia makes it poised to play the pivotal role in these world-changing processes of supercontinental integration and multipolarity, though the next step must be that its leadership reaches out to Iran and makes it aware of this grand vision in order to probe the pace at which Tehran wants to proceed.

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This article was originally published on Pakistan Politico.

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.

Das Ereignis am 2. Juni (der Tag, an dem Italien 1946 eine Republik wurde) war keine Militärparade, nicht einmal eine Parade, sondern ein „Rückblick“, laut dem Verteidigungsministerium, das sie ausgerichtet hat (der letzte Akt von Minister Pinotti).

Die Parade bei den Fori Imperiali – vor der neu eingesetzten Regierung – wurde symbolisch von 330 Bürgermeistern, die die zivile Gesellschaft repräsentieren eröffnet, gefolgt von allen Sektoren der Streitkräfte, um das „Fest der Italiener – vereint für das Land“ zu feiern.

In seiner Botschaft drückte der Präsident der Republik Mattarella den Streitkräften den Dank des  italienischen Volkes aus, für „den wertvollen Einsatz, den sie in vielen Krisenregionen der Welt leisten, um die Bevölkerungen, die unter bewaffneten Konflikten leiden“ zu helfen. Einsätze, die auf „unserer Verfassungsurkunde, Architrav [Stützbalken] der Institutionen und grundlegender Maßstab für alle“ basieren.

Als die Militäreinheiten paradierten, listeten die Ansager die Militäreinsätze auf, an denen italienische Streitkräfte in über 20 Ländern beteiligt sind. Vom Kosovo bis Irak und Afghanistan, vom Libanon bis Lybien und Lettland, von Somalia bis Dschibuti und Niger. Mit anderen Worten, sie führten Kriege und andere Militäroperationen auf, an denen Italien teilgenommen hat und noch immer teilnimmt, in Verletzung seiner eigenen Verfassung, im Rahmen der aggressiven Expansionsstrategie der USA/NATO.

Die Anzahl der Militäroperationen im Ausland, an denen Italien beteiligt ist, wächst ständig. Am 5. Juni begannen italienische Jagdbomber Eurofighter Typhoon, im Namen der NATO, gemeinsam mit Einheiten der griechischen Luftwaffe den Luftraum von Montenegro, dem neuesten Mitglied der Allianz, zu „beschützen“. Italienische Jagdbomber „schützen“ bereits den Luftraum von Slowenien, Albanien und Estland vor der „russischen Bedrohung“.

Italienische Kriegsschiffe bereiten sich darauf vor, in den Pazifik auszulaufen, wo sie  an der RIMPAC 2018, der größten Marineübung der Welt, teilnehmen werden. 27 Länder werden unter dem Kommando der USA mit ihrer Marine an der Übung teilnehmen, die gegen China gerichtet ist (das von den USA der „Expansion und Nötigung“ im Südchinesischen Meer beschuldigt wird).

Italienische Spezialkräfte nahmen in Niger an einer von der Europäischen Union finanzierten Übung des Afrikanischen Kommando der Vereinigten Staaten [AFRICOM] teil, in der ca. 1.900 Soldaten aus 20 afrikanischen Ländern ausgebildet wurden.

In Niger, wo die USA in Agadez einen großen Stützpunkt für bewaffnete Drohnen und Spezialeinheiten aufbaut, bereitet Italien den Bau einer Basis vor, der zunächst 470 Soldaten, 130 Militärfahrzeuge und zwei Flugzeuge aufnehmen soll. Der offizielle Zweck der Operation, die von der Opposition innerhalb der nigerianischen Regierung behindert wird, besteht darin, Niger und seinen Nachbarländern im Kampf gegen den Terrorismus zu helfen. Der wahre Zweck liegt, im Windschatten Frankreichs und der Vereinigten Staaten, in der militärischen Kontrolle über eine rohstoffreiche Region – Gold, Diamanten, Uran, Koltan, Öl und viele weitere – von denen nicht einmal Brosamen an die Bevölkerung gehen, die überwiegend in extremer Armut lebt. Als Ergebnis wächst die soziale Spannung und in der Folge auch der Migrationsstrom in Richtung Europa.

Die neue Regierung beabsichtigt “unsere Präsenz in internationalen Missionen im Hinblick auf ihre tatsächliche Bedeutung für die nationalen Interessen neu zu bewerten”. Dazu ist es jedoch nötig festzulegen, was das nationale Interesse ist.  Das heißt, ob Italien in einem von den USA und den führenden europäischen Mächten dominierten Kriegssystem bleiben sollte, oder entscheidet, ein souveränes und neutrales Land zu sein, das auf den Prinzipien seiner Verfassung basiert. Innenpolitik und Außenpolitik sind zwei Seiten derselben Medaille: Es kann keine wirklich Freiheit zuhause geben, wenn Italien, in Verletzung des Artikels 11, Krieg als Instrument nutzt, um die Freiheit anderer Völker anzugreifen.

Manlio Dinucci

il manifesto, 5. Juni 2018

Artikels 11:

Italien lehnt Krieg als ein Instrument des Angriffs auf die Freiheit anderer Völker und als ein Mittel zur Beilegung internationaler Konflikte ab; es stimmt unter den Bedingungen der Wechselseitigkeit mit den anderen Staaten den Beschränkungen der Souveränität zu, die für eine Ordnung notwendig sind, die Frieden und Gerechtigkeit zwischen den Nationen gewährleistet; es erweckt und begünstigt internationale Organisationen, die dieses Ziel verfolgen.

Übersetzung: K.R.

VIDEO :

The NGO CAGE, which campaigns against discriminatory state policies and advocates observance of due process and the rule of law, reminds readers that in October 2017, US President Donald Trump replaced the Obama rules pertaining to drone strikes with his own ‘rules’ called the “Principles, Standards, and Procedures,” or PSPs.

It reports that according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) these laws “make it easier to kill more people in more places outside recognized battlefields, posing grave risks of death and injury to civilians”:

“They do this by eliminating the requirement that a person must present a “continuing, imminent” threat to the United States before being targeted for killing. There is also no longer a high-level vetting process required for each individual strike. This means strikes can be okayed by other officials of lower rank. This means there are fewer lines of command to follow in the event of deaths, less chance of objectivity, and less likelihood of accountability”.

The current US administration has adopted a more secretive approach to drone strikes

It has denied requests for information or, as in October 2017, halted the reporting of strikes to the Bureau for Investigative Journalism and other NGOs that document drone casualties. Last month, the US Air Force, according to the Bureau, “ordered an overhaul of its public affairs operations aimed at preventing the release of information deemed sensitive”. This is all being done, naturally, for the sake of “practicing sound operational security”.

Case histories

In August last year, a US drone strike near the Somalian town of Jilib killed seven civilians. They were all from the same family and they included women and children. The family was not a prominent (read ‘wealthy’) one, so they had no recourse to justice.

Initially it made local newspapers and pictures of the human remains were circulated on Somali media. Now this information is unavailable.

A local online news report acknowledges the civilian deaths but does not mention the cause as an American drone strike. Rather the ‘planes’ were ‘unidentified’. CENTCOM, the central point for US ‘operations’ in Africa, released a PR, claiming – in contrast to the local media reports – that those killed were al-Shabaab militants. Local officials echoed their paymasters with slightly less severity and insisted those killed were ‘extremists’.

In the same month Reuters reported that Somali government officials said 10 men and boys killed in a joint U.S.-Somali raid were civilians and blood money will be paid to the families. U.S. Africa Command confirmed the presence of U.S. troops in the raid, carried out under the expanded powers that Donald Trump granted to U.S. troops in Somalia in March.

 “The 10 people were civilians. They were killed accidentally… The government and relatives will discuss about compensation. We send condolence to the families,” said lawmaker Mohamed Ahmed Abtidon at a public funeral held for the 10, who were killed in a raid in Bariire village on Friday.

Hina Shamsi (right), Director of the ACLU National Security Project, writes:

“Now, the Trump administration is killing people in multiple countries, with strikes taking place at a virtually unprecedented rate—in some countries the number has doubled or tripled in Trump’s first year in office.

The U.S. is conducting strikes in recognized wars in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, but also in operations governed by the secret rules whose public release our new lawsuit demands — those conducted outside “areas of active hostilities” in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Nigeria, and elsewhere.

Untold, officially unrecognized numbers of civilians have died and continue to die at increasing rates. Most strikes take place in majority-Muslim countries, and most of the civilians killed are brown or Black.”

In such areas, people live in poverty, hunger and a state of perpetual terror wrought by a US-led ‘war’. CAGE observes, “as a result, for some, the lure of fighting back through violent groups (‘blowback’)will be too strong to resist”.

The Washington Post agrees:

“Human rights organizations and even some former U.S. military commanders argue that drone strikes inadvertently increase terrorism by exerting a “blowback” effect. Their logic is simple. Drone strikes kill more innocent civilians than terrorists, which radicalizes affected populations and motivates them to join terrorist groups to retaliate against the United States”.

CAGE also believes that:

“Until we have a global acknowledgement at government level that all lives are equal and precious, and all countries have the right to govern themselves in a manner they see most fit for their people, we – the population of the world – will continue to witness ongoing and increasing cycles of violence”.

CAGE calls for an end to extrajudicial killings by drone or otherwise, in favour of a dialogue-based approach to end violence and full accountability for war crimes for all perpetrators of civilian deaths and terror, adding:

“The people of Somalia and other countries around the world deserve nothing less”.

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All images in this article are from Drone Warfare.

The event on June 2nd (the day in 1946 when Italy became a Republic) was not a military parade, not even a parade, but a “review”, according to the Ministry of Defense that directed it (Minister Pinotti’s final act).

The parade at the Fori Imperiali – in front of the newly-installed government – was symbolically opened by 330 mayors representing civil society, followed by all the sectors of the Armed Forces, to celebrate “Italians’ Day – United for the Country”.

In his message, President of the Republic Mattarella expressed the gratitude of the Italian people to the Armed Forces for “the precious work they carry out in many troubled regions of the world to assist the populations who suffer from armed conflict”, a work based on “our Constitutional Charter, architrave of the Institutions and fundamental benchmark for all”.

As the military units paraded, the announcers listed the military missions in which Italian armed forces are engaged in over 20 countries: from Kosovo to Iraq and Afghanistan, from Lebanon to Libya and Latvia, from Somalia to Djibouti and Niger. In other words, they listed the wars and other military operations in which Italy has participated and is still participating, in violation of its own Constitution, in the framework of the USA/NATO’s aggressive expansionist strategy.

The number of military operations abroad in which Italy is engaged is constantly increasing. On June 5, on behalf of NATO, Italian Eurofighter Typhoon fighter-bombers began, together with units of the Greek airforce, to “protect” the airspace of Montenegro, the latest member of the Alliance. Italian fighter-bombers already “protect” the skies of Slovenia, Albania and Estonia from the “Russian threat”.

Italian warships are preparing to sail to the Pacific, where they will participate in RIMPAC 2018, the largest naval exercise in the world. The military navies of 27 countries will be taking part in the exercise, under US command, directed against China (accused by the US of “expansion and coercion” in the South Chinese Sea).

Italian special forces participated in Niger in an exercise run by United States Africa Command, sponsored by the European Union, in which about 1,900 soldiers from 20 African countries were trained.

In Niger, where the US is building a large base in Agadez for armed drones and special forces, Italy is preparing to build a base that will initially host 470 soldiers, 130 military vehicles and 2 aircraft. The official purpose of the operation, hampered by opposition within the Nigerian government, is to help Niger and its neighbors to fight terrorism. The real purpose is to participate, in the wake of France and the United States, in the military control of a region rich in raw materials – gold, diamonds, uranium, coltan, oil and many others – of which not even crumbs go to the population, who mostly exist in a state of extreme poverty. As a result, social tension is growing, and consequently, also the migratory flow towards Europe.

The new government intends to “re-evaluate our presence in international missions in terms of their effective importance for the national interest”. To do so, however, it is necessary to determine what the national interest is. That is, whether Italy should remain within the war system dominated by the US and by the major European powers, or should decide to be a sovereign and neutral country based on the principles of its Constitution.

Internal policy and foreign policy are two sides of the same coin: there can not be real freedom at home if Italy, subverting Article 11, uses war as an instrument of offense to the freedom of other peoples.

Source: PandoraTV

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This article was originally published on Il Manifesto.

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

Saudi efforts to isolate Iran internationally are producing results in North Africa and Central Asia. Authorities and religious leaders in Tajikistan and Algeria have in recent weeks accused Iran of subversive activity and propagating Shiism while Morocco last month announced that it was breaking off diplomatic relations with the Islamic republic.

While similar accusations have been lobbed at Iran in the past as part of a four-decade-long covert war between Saudi Arabia and the Islamic republic, the more recent incidents suggest that the Saudis are increasingly focussing on isolating Iran diplomatically.

In doing so they are benefitting from ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim Islam’s appeal in North Africa and Central Asia even if Saudi Arabia is believed to have substantially reduced its financial support for Salafi and other groups.

At times, like in the case of Algeria, a country in which Shiites account for at most two percent of the population and that has seen an increase in popularity of Saudi-inspired Salafi scholars, the allegations seem to involve above board Iranian activities that are unlikely to have the alleged effect of fomenting sectarianism.

The anti-Iranian campaign at times also appears to be designed to pressure countries like Algeria, whose relations with the kingdom are strained because of its refusal to adopt anti-Iranian Saudi policies. Algeria supports the embattled 2015 international nuclear agreement with Iran as well as Iran’s presence in Syria and has refused to declare Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia, a terrorist organization.

In the most recent incident, Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat, a pan-Arab, Saudi-owned newspaper, quoted, former Algerian Ministry of Religious Affairs and Endowments official Idah Falahi as demanding the withdrawal of Iranian diplomat Amir Mousavi because of his “extensive contacts with civil society groups, through Facebook and social media” and alleged attempts to meddle in the dispute between Morocco and Algeria over the Western Sahara.

Morocco last month broke off diplomatic relations with Iran, alleging that Tehran had provided financial and logistical support as well as surface-to-air missiles to the Algerian-backed West Saharan liberation movement, Frente Polisario, using Hezbollah as an intermediary. Both Iran and Hezbollah have denied the allegation.

“It…became apparent that Mousavi was in fact an Iranian intelligence agent, whose remit was to interfere in the dispute between Algeria and Morocco over the Western Sahara conflict,” said Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat columnist Tony Duheaume.

The newspaper reported that Iran was seeking to recruit Algerian Shiites who travel to the holy city of Karbala in Iraq and was using Iranian companies as vehicles to promote Shiism.

“With the launching of a production line for Iranian vehicles, plus another for the production of medicines, and with the two countries boosting their cooperation enormously in the private sector, Iran has ensnared Algeria through an ongoing succession of trade deals,” Mr. Duheaume said.

The newspaper quoted Algerian member of parliament Abdurrahman Saidi as charging that Iran was attempting to create a Shiite movement in North Africa.

“The Algerian state is aware today that it faces the risk of sectarianism,” the newspaper asserted.

Algerian minister of endowment and religious affairs Muhammad Issa last year compared Iran to the Islamic State in an interview with a Saudi newspaper amid a growing anti-Iranian sentiment in Algeria.

An international book fair in Algeria banned Iranian books because they “incite sectarianism and violence” after Bou Abdullah Ghulamallah, the head of Algeria’s High Islamic Council, charged that “thousands of imported books carry dangerous thoughts that are aimed at convincing the Algerian people that their Islamic religion is wrong.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani cancelled a visit to Algeria after an Arabic-language hashtag, #No to Rouhani’s visit to Algeria, went viral.

“It is difficult to corroborate allegations made in the Asharq al-Awsat report. It is also unlikely that Tehran would be able to significantly expand its influence in Algeria through the Shiite community,” said Ahmad Majidyar, the director of the Washington-based Middle East Institute’s IranObserved Project.

Its equally difficult to verify a link between Saudi-inspired Salafism’s increased popularity and rising anti-Iranian sentiment, but the development of anti-Shiite sentiment is not dissimilar to growing intolerance, anti-Iranian sentiment and anti-Shiism in countries like Tajikistan, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia where the influence of Saudi-inspired religious ultra-conservatism is expanding.

Developments in Tajikistan, ironically a nation that has linguistic and cultural links to Iran, mirror the growing anti-Iranian sentiment in Algeria. Tajikistan’s Council of Ulema or Islamic scholars, this month accused Iran of trying to destabilize the country. The council charged that Iran was funding Muhiddin Kabiri, head of the opposition Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP), that has been designated a terrorist organization by the government.

The council’s statement came days after anti-Iranian demonstrators in front of the Iranian embassy in Dushanbe demanded the return of Tajik religious students from Iran and accused the Islamic republic of supporting extremists and planning assassinations.

Iran has in recent years suspended charitable operations in the capital Dushanbe, including a hospital managed with Tajik health authorities, and halted its economic and cultural activities in Khujand, Tajikistan’s second largest city, on orders of the government.

“Nowhere is this contrast between the hyped-up Iranian threat and reality more evident than in Tajikistan,” said Eldar Mamedov, who is in charge of the European Parliament’s delegations for inter-parliamentary relations with Iran, Iraq, the Gulf, and North Africa.

Iran helped negotiate an end to Tajikistan’s civil war and an agreement between President Emomali Rahmon, a former Soviet Communist Party official, and the IRP. Mr. Rahmon, determined to demolish any opposition, banned the IRP in 2015.

The stirring of the anti-Iranian pot coincided with a Saudi effort to woo Mr. Rahmon who was invited last year to an Arab-Islamic summit in Riyadh with Donald J. Trump during the US president’s visit to the kingdom despite the fact that he is a bit player on the global stage. Tajikistan was earlier invited to join a Saudi-led Muslim counter terrorism force.

Like in Algeria, it also coincided with rising popularity of Saudi-inspired ultra-conservatism in Tajikistan.

In a move that garners favour in Riyadh, Tajikistan has opposed Iran’s application for membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) that requires approval of membership by unanimous vote. Iran has observer status with the SCO, while Saudi Arabia has yet to establish a relationship.

By stirring the pot, Mr. Rahmon has a vehicle to maintain his iron grip at home and garner investment and financial support from the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia agreed last month to acquire a 51 percent stake, in troubled Tojiksodirotbank (TSB), Tajikistan’s largest bank. The Saudi investment was a life saver after other investors, including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), turned the opportunity down.

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This article was also published on The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, National University of Singapore, 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 as well as Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, co-authored with Dr. Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario,  Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa, and the forthcoming China and the Middle East: Venturing into the Maelstrom

Featured image is from the author.

Syrian government forces have launched a military operation against ISIS cells in eastern al-Suwayda and have already established control of the village of Ashrfya and the area of Beir Aura. Battle tanks, artillery units and warplanes actively supported the advance.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), 15 soldiers and officers of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and 9 ISIS members were killed in the clashes. However, this number of casualties allegedly includes results of the SAA-ISIS clashes near the T2 pumping station near the border with Iraq.

A source in the 9^th Division of the SAA told SouthFront that ISIS members in eastern al-Suwayda are poorly armed. So, no serious ISIS resistance is expected there.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) captured the villages of al-Murjan, Kulib Tahtani, al-Khuirah and seven farms north of the town of Dashisha near the Syrian-Iraqi border.

According to the SDF, its fighters had killed 42 members and 2 commanders of ISIS during their advance towards Dashisha.

The Syrian Liberation Front (SLF) and several Free Syrian Army (FSA) groups, including Jaysh al-Izza, Jaysh al-Ahrar and the Suqour al-Sham Brigades, are planning to merge their forces in order to form a unified group in the province of Idlib. The SLF was established in February after a merger of Ahrar al-Sham and Nour al-Din al-Zenki.

In late May, 11 other FSA groups created the Turkish-backed National Front for Liberation. Idlib militant groups are uniting larger groups in order to strengthen their position ahead of the expected developments after the SAA finishes dealing with militants in southern Syria.

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The US Government’s Labor Department today, June 7, 2018, released a report on the condition of what’s called ‘precarious’ jobs in the US. The meaning of precarious is generally assumed to be contingent labor, alternative work arrangements, and, most recently, ‘gig’ work.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ survey concluded, however, that contingent-alternative work is not a serious problem in the US today; that its survey showed that only 3.8% of the US work force (5.9 million workers) were ‘contingent’ (meaning they didn’t have a permanent relationship of work with their employers). And only another 9.5% were in what’s called ‘alternative work’ arrangements, meaning independent contractors, on-call, or temp help agency employment (about 15.5 million). The BLS then further concluded these numbers showed a decline compared to its previous 2005 report on the topic. (There was no ‘gig’ work in 2005 and the BLS excluded ‘gig’ jobs from its just released report). So only 13-14% of the 165 million US work force were contingent-alternative (e.g. precarious) according to its (BLS) worst case estimate.

What follows is my initial criticism of the BLS supplement report just released today. My comments are in the form of a reply to a noted progressive radio show–blogger, Doug Henwood, who distributed his view on the Report earlier today as well. Doug basically agrees with the BLS report, that it shows precarious work is not a problem. To consider it is so is a distraction, according to Henwood, from the problems faced by the vast majority of US workers still in traditional forms of work.

In my comments below, I disagree with Henwood, and argue the BLS report represents a ‘low-balling’ of the problem of precarious work arrangements (contingent, alternative, gig) that is a consequence of a radical restructuring of labor markets in the US in recent decades–i.e. a restructuring that is destroying jobs, wages, benefits, and working conditions in general. The expansion and deepening of precarious employment is a serious symptom of that restructuring. Moreover, it reflects an intensification of exploitation of workers now accelerating–in both precarious and traditional work.

Here’s my comment-reply to Henwood:

“While I rarely comment on other blogs, I feel it is necessary to do so to Doug’s current commentary on the BLS contingent-alternative survey just released.

I certainly agree with Doug that US workers who are not employed in what’s called ‘precarious’ jobs are being exploited increasingly severely. But that fact is not a justification for arguing that addressing those in precarious employment is a distraction from the conditions of those still in traditional work, as Doug seems to suggest.

Nor do I think that just because the latest BLS supplement survey is not that different from the previously most recent 2005 survey, that it shows contingent-alternative work–which is almost always accompanied by lower pay, benefits, and working conditions–is not a critical issue. If non-contingent labor is being screwed more with every passing year, then contingent is being even more screwed. If American workers are being increasingly exploited (meaning wages stagnating, benefits being taken away or their costs shifting, employment security becoming even more tenuous, etc.) then workers in precarious jobs are super-exploited (wages even lower, benefits virtually non-existent for many, fired at any moment for any reason, exemption from rudimentary legal rights, etc.)

There are serious problems with the BLS supplement survey on contingency to which Henwood refers. One should not simply take the BLS ‘at face value’. What’s behind that ‘appearance’ is important. That’s not to say there’s a conspiracy by government to cook the numbers to reduce the magnitude of the precarious jobs growth problem. It’s all in the definitions, assumptions (overt and hidden), and statistical methodologies that underlay the BLS report.

First of all, the gig economy is excluded by the BLS own admittance (see the BLS Technical note on their website). No Uber, Lyft, Taskrabbit, AirBNB, etc. jobs are included in the BLS survey. They may add it later, but not in these numbers. So we’re talking about contingency and alternative work only. So what’s the definition of these terms, and is the BLS’s the best definition?

Moreover, according to the BLS study, all jobs (whether gig or contingent or alternative) that are second jobs are excluded. Only if the contingent-alternative jobs are the worker’s primary job are they included in the tally. But shouldn’t the BLS be estimating ‘jobs’ that are contingent-alternative, etc., whether primary or secondary, and not just if primary employment only?

Here’s another problem: Contingency refers to a condition that is not permanent in some way. The BLS defines lack of permanency by referring to time–i.e. hours of work and conditions of employment a year or less. A worker is contingent-alternative only if he expects to be employed less than a year. What about those who have been temp or on call or whatever for more than a year? But why the BLS definition based on a time limit? Shouldn’t contingency refer to the existence of a different set of conditions of work–i.e. a different wage structure, a second tiered benefits provisioning, restricted legal rights, other working conditions, or whatever may create a group of workers’ relationship to the employer that is second tier or ‘second class’? Why just time as the key definition; why not working conditions as the basis for defining contingent?

Given the BLS’s actual assumptions and definitions, there are significant problems in what the BLS includes and excludes. Here’s just a few:

First, BLS defines ‘temp’ workers as those employed by Temp Agencies. But there are hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, who are hired direct by employers on a temp basis, not through agencies. The CPS has always ignored temps direct hired. Check out the auto industry where their numbers have been expanding for years.

What about public workers and higher ed teachers? I could not find any verification in the BLS study that they interviewed this sector? Many studies show that 70% of higher ed college teachers are now lecturers. (CHeck out the SEIU study). I suspect they aren’t adequately weighted in the BLS survey if at all. What about, as well, public home health workers, and the growing number of K-12 part timers, especially in charter schools.

And what about the company practice of hiring interns without pay for 3 to 6 months, then let them go and hire another cohort without pay. That’s a growing practice in tech. Aren’t they ‘super-contingent’? One could add the general practice in Tech of requiring skilled tech job candidates to solve a company problem, for which they aren’t paid, and then not hire them. Or the exploitation of young workers in so-called ‘coding academies’, where they do projects for companies in the hope of being hired, and then aren’t.

Another big problem with the BLS survey is it was conducted in May. That’s a big seasonality problem. Other studies. that Doug dismisses, were conducted in October-November. Obviously there would be far more ‘contingent’ workers in retail, wholesale, warehousing, etc. that would show up in November than in May. Remember, BLS findings are ‘statistics’, not raw data. They aren’t actual real numbers but estimates of real numbers (as is all BLS data). Seasonality issues are an important problem in the latest BLS survey.

And what about farm labor. They are certainly contingent. Many are undocumented and are not accurately surveyed (their numbers are plugged in based on assumptions about their numbers and employment). The same could be said for the huge underground economy in the US, now at least 12% of US GDP. Millions of inner city youth are not accurately weighted in CPS surveys in general. The CPS does a phone survey. That survey is biased toward workers who are not transient, who have a landline phone (and only most recently has the BLS been adding cell phones to that phone survey). Inner city youth and undocumented workers do not respond to government phone surveys, if they are even called upon in the first place. These are problems with the BLS-CPS general employment and wage surveys, which they ‘resolve’ by simply assuming an adjustment factor.

The BLS admits it excludes day labor. Does that mean also that the majority of longshore ‘B Men’, casual workers (who fit the BLS definition of contingent) are also not included? And why shouldn’t students working also be considered contingent? It fits the BLS definition. Why exclude that arbitrarily?

In short, there’s a lot of problems with the BLS survey, that in general results in a low balling of the magnitude and growth rate of contingent-alternative work. That low balling is baked into the definitions, assumptions, and methodologies it uses. (And of course the many important occupation categories it excludes). The truth is probably somewhere between the Princeton academics’ and freelancers’ union estimates, and the BLS study. But whatever the numbers, it makes no sense to say that precarious employment is not a growing problem in the US (and elsewhere in the advanced economies). Or that we should ignore it and focus on the ‘real problem’ with noncontingent work. They’re both a problem. We should not ignore the growing exploitation and destruction of noncontingent work; nor should we fall in line with government estimates of the precariate world by simply taking their (BLS) report at ‘face value’.

It’s no service to the US working classes, that have been beaten down in countless ways for more than three decades now, to say that the accelerating capitalist restructuring of labor markets creating gig, contingent, and alternative work (with less pay and benefits) is not a problem. The US government is minimizing the problem. Those who call themselves progressives should not join in.”

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This article was originally published on Jack Rasmus’s website.

Dr. Jack Rasmus is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Alex Stamos, Facebook’s chief security officer, presented an overview of the Orwellian censorship regime implemented by the world’s largest social media company last week at an annual military conference in Tallinn, Estonia.

Speaking before an audience of generals, intelligence agents and US-aligned Eastern European politicians, Stamos warned that millions of “people who feel they have been ignored or oppressed” are using Facebook to “push for radical politics.”

The speech was an account of how the company is partnering with the US and other governments throughout the world to control public discourse online, with the primary but unstated aim of suppressing access to left-wing, anti-war and socialist viewpoints.

Stamos was speaking at CyCon, a conference sponsored by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on cyberwar and psychological operations. The very presence of a social media company at such an event, just a few hundred miles from NATO’s heavily-militarized border with Russia, makes clear the extent to which the US technology giants have been integrated into the US military-intelligence apparatus and its international operations.

Stamos began by pointing to a map of the social connections facilitated by Facebook.

“As the people who have drawn those lines, and given folks the ability to make those connections,” Stamos said, Facebook has the “responsibility to understand and to mitigate” the risks that its platform might be “used for bad,” which he called an attack “against the ideals of Facebook.”

First, Stamos said Facebook is seeking to combat “fake news” through “changes in the news feed that surface this content to people.”

But instead of seeking to determine if a piece of news is “fake,” Facebook is carrying out mass profiling of news sources by “Look[ing] to metadata around the people who have created the account, the news site that’s running it,” to evaluate whether it is “trustworthy.” Through this Orwellian censorship regime, Facebook segregates news organizations into categories and determines how many people are able to view their postings on that basis.

In other words, the company’s evaluation of whether a piece of news is “fake” is determined not by whether it is accurate, factually grounded or verifiable, but rather by who posts it. The logical implication is that if one of Facebook’s “partners” in the establishment media posts a story, no matter how inaccurate, biased, or poorly sourced, the company will still promote it as “trustworthy.”

Facebook’s policy on “fake news,” in other words, is political blacklisting.

In order to block “foreign influence operators,” Stamos said, Facebook is carrying out “manual investigations of organized groups,” and it is using machine learning to find “bad actors” at “scale” across its billions of users.

However, he added,

“The biggest growth category of information operations that we’re going to see over the next couple of years is domestic influence operations”—that is, political organizations who are seeking to “influence” politics in their own countries.

Facebook is targeting groups of “people who feel they have been ignored or oppressed,” whose “goal” is to “push for radical politics,” he said. These groups, he noted, can be “quite large.” As an example, Stamos mentioned Anonymous, a “hacktivist” group that supported the Occupy Wall Street protests against social inequality and was associated with support for the online journalism group WikiLeaks.

Alex Stamos speaking at CyCon

Numerically, however, the largest target of Facebook’s censorship measures consists of “individual participants,” who are often motivated by “legitimately held beliefs” to become “partners in information operations.” That is, millions of people who are not part of any organized political group, but who voice their agreement with the political views promoted by groups targeted by Facebook by sharing their content or voicing their support.

A “domestic operator,” he said, can have “thousands and thousands of people who believe in your cause.” The effect of “these people should not be understated,” he said.

To stifle the political statements of the broader public is open political censorship. For that reason, Facebook must be careful not to appear to stifle public discourse, but to block the “effectiveness” of the public in participating in “organized campaign[s].”

Stamos stated,

“Our response here has to be very, very careful because part of free expression means that sometimes people are going to say stuff you don’t agree with, right? Part of freedom is the freedom for people individually to be wrong, and we have to allow people to be wrong and to say things that while they don’t fall afoul of our hate speech standards or standards meant to ensure safety, but that are considered inappropriate, those are the kinds of things that open societies have to accept. But we do want to implement product enhancements to make sure that we are reducing the effectiveness of these people to be part of, unwittingly part of, an organized campaign.”

These “product enhancements” include redirecting users to content that Facebook approves of and providing “educational cues” informing them that their views are “disputed.”

Under American law, Facebook is regulated like a communications utility, similar to a phone company or a package delivery service. It has neither the “responsibility” nor the right to impose its “ideals” onto its users.

In the company’s view, however, the fact that it acts as a communications platform gives it the paternalistic obligation to police what its users say and block their speech if the company disagrees with it.

The social content of these “ideals” is made clear by the military-intelligence audience Stamos was speaking before. Over the course of the past two years, Facebook has come under relentless pressure from the US government to serve as an agent of the state intelligence forces to censor and suppress oppositional views on its platform. Leading advocates of censorship, including Democratic Senator Mark Warner and Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, have made clear that the company will face intense regulatory and public pressure if it does not comply with their demands to stifle political opposition online.

In so doing, Facebook is acting as an agent of the American state, doing its dirty work to subvert the public’s constitutionally-protected freedoms of speech and assembly.

In perhaps his most ominous statement, Stamos concluded by calling for broader social changes in line with the measures Facebook has already taken. “Our societies overall are going to have to start to adapt to the idea that not all information is created equal,” he concluded. His conclusion harkens to the motto of the pigs in George Orwell’s Animal Farm:

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

With the vast majority of written communication taking place online, Facebook’s actions, together with other technology companies, constitute the largest, most comprehensive regime of censorship in human history. Outside of and in contradiction to fundamental constitutional and human rights, Facebook claims the right to determine what hundreds of billions of people read and say.

The World Socialist Web Site is fighting to expose the effort by Facebook, Google and other technology giants to censor the internet, which is the spearhead of a drive to dismantle the freedoms of association and expression across the world. We urge all of those who want to take up this struggle to contact us.

Former President Jimmy Carter has called U.S. politics a system of “legalized bribery” in which powerful interests spend billions of dollars on lobbying and campaign funding to ensure that members of Congress pay more attention to them than to the general public. With the upcoming midterm elections, we will see the full force of this tsunami of cash washing over our electoral system.

The human cost of this corrupt system has been searingly rammed home since the Parkland school shooting, as grieving high school students determined to curb America’s gun violence have found themselves in a pitched battle with the “gun lobby,” led by the National Rifle Association (NRA), one of the most entrenched and powerful interest groups in the country.

The gun lobby has already spent over $12 million on lobbying and given at least $1.1 million to members of Congress in this election cycle, 98% of it to Republicans.  The gun lobby also wields power over Democrats through lobbying and public relations, and the threat of targeting individual Democrats who take a public stand for gun control.

But what about the even greater violence of America’s wars and the record military budget that makes them possible?  U.S. weapons makers spend far more money on lobbying and campaign contributions than the domestic gun lobby: $162 million on lobbying and tens of millions in direct funding for members of Congress so far in the 2017-18 election cycle.

There is a strong correlation between campaign contributions from the companies that build America’s warships, tanks and warplanes, and critical votes in Congress to keep the guns firing, the missiles flying, the bombs falling and the cash flowing to the military-industrial complex.

When an evenly-divided Senate voted to confirm Gina Haspel as CIA Director, six Democrats joined 48 Republicans to vote for her confirmation.  But it was not just any six Democrats. In the 2018 election cycle, those six – Senators Nelson (FL), Donnelly (IN), Manchin (WV), Heitkamp (ND, Shaheen (NH) and Warner (VA)– have received an average of $170,220 each in campaign cash from the war industry, while the 43 Democrats who voted against Haspel took in an average of only $91,409 each.

Four of the Haspel Six (Nelson, Donnelly, Manchin and Heitkamp) also recently cast critical votes to confirm Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State and to continue the murderous U.S.-Saudi war on the people of Yemen.

U.S. weapons companies have traditionally treated the Republican Party as their base in Congress, and they still contribute more to Republicans than Democrats. But as we can see in these three recent votes, hawkish Senate Democrats play a critical role as swing votes to keep the country at war and to ensure that the lion’s share of tax revenues keep flowing to the military-industrial complex.

The support of these hawkish Senate Democrats for endless war and record military spending stands in sharp contrast to the concerns of grassroots Democrats and Independents and even many Republicans, who are sick of the intractable cycle of violence and chaos that U.S. militarism has unleashed around the world since 2001.

The Haspel Six, who voted for a woman who oversaw horrific forms of torture, are not the only Democrats corrupted by the war industry.  Many more regularly vote for record military budgets that hand over the lion’s share of U.S. tax revenues to war profiteers.

Thirteen Senate Democrats have already raked in more than $200,000 each in contributions from the war industry in this election cycle: Durbin (IL); Reed (RI); Kaine (VA); Schumer (NY); Nelson (FL); Leahy (VT); Murray (WA); Shaheen (NH); Warner (VA); Blumenthal (CT); Schatz (HI); Donnelly (IN); and Heinrich (NM). Of these, only Leahy had the integrity to vote against final passage of the $700 billion FY2018 military budget.

In this election cycle, the 49 Democrats and Independents in the U.S. Senate have raised $5 million dollars in direct campaign contributions from the war industry, plus an additional $2.3 million for their “Leadership PACs,” from which they distribute funds to other corporate politicians and candidates.  That amounts to 44.5% of the war profits Lockheed Martin and other weapons makers have reinvested in the U.S. Senate in this election cycle, compared with $9.1 million, or 55.5%, to the 51 Republicans.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee may soon take up the Corker-Kaine Bill for the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), which would be an even more explicit blank check for endless war than the 2001 AUMF, which only authorized

“…all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons (the president) determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons….”

Three successive U.S. administrations have interpreted that language to justify wars that have destroyed several countries, and killed and maimed millions of people who had nothing to do with the crimes of September 11th. Now we face the even greater danger that, instead of simply repealing the serially-abused 2001 AUMF, a Congress bought and paid for by the war industry will explicitly authorize endless war.

How can we, the public, make our voices heard by a Congress corrupted by war profiteers, when the war industry can buy a bipartisan majority for war and militarism in the U.S. Senate with such a tiny fraction of its profits?

How can we bring the same good sense and common humanity to America’s bomb problem that the students from Parkland have brought to our domestic gun problem?

CODEPINK and other groups of concerned citizens have started a campaign called Divest from the War Machine. We ask elected officials to refuse contributions from the NRA and the top five weapons manufacturers: Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Boeing and General Dynamics. Since these officials are constantly voting on issues related to military spending, these decisions must not be tainted by the corrupting influence of weapons lobbyists. Check out the list of those who signed the pledge and help us get more officials on board.

Learn more about the campaign and join us in building an economy that is not dependent on killing and maiming people to boost the profits of weapons manufacturers.

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This article was originally published on Common Dreams.

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace, is the author of the new book, Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Her previous books include: Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection; Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control; Don’t Be Afraid Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart, and (with Jodie Evans) Stop the Next War Now (Inner Ocean Action Guide). Follow her on Twitter: @medeabenjamin

Nicolas J. S. Davies is the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq. He also wrote the chapters on “Obama at War” in Grading the 44th President: a Report Card on Barack Obama’s First Term as a Progressive Leader.

Venezuela is a champion in democracy, in democratic elections, as proven twice within the last twelve months and more than a dozen times since 1999. Never mind that the lunatic west doesn’t want to accept it – simply because the west – the US and her handlers – and her European vassals, cannot tolerate a socialist country prospering – one that is so close to the empire’s border and on top of it, loaded with natural riches, like oil and minerals. Venezuela’s economic success could send intellectual “left-wing” shock waves to the dumbed and numbed American populace, with shrapnel ricocheting all the way to blindfolded Europe.

That would be terrible. That’s why Venezuela must be economically strangled, literally, by illegal sanctions, by totally unlawful outside interventions within sovereign Venezuela, by corrupting internal food and medicine distribution, literally buying off bus drivers to stay home rather than driving their assigned routes to take people from home to work and vice-versa; and corrupting truck drivers not to deliver the merchandise, so that supermarket shelves are empty. They can be photographed, to make the world believe that Venezuela is at the brink of collapse. Those who are not too young, may recall exactly the same pattern of outside (CIA) interference on the Chilean system in 1973, leading up to the CIA instigated coup that killed the democratically elected President, Salvador Allende and put hard-core neonazi Augusto Pinochet in power. Outside interference – CIA and other State Department funded secret services – was also widely responsible for trying boycotting and influencing the Venezuelan democratic election process. To no avail. They did not succeed.

A similar situation exists with Iran, a mighty powerful nation with a high level of intellect, research, industrial and agricultural potential and – foremost – with a collective mindset that does not want to be trampled by the west, let alone by Washington. Iran is the leader in the Middle East and eventually will be the pillar of stability of the region. No Israel Government would dare to mess with Iran. Netanyahu’s threats are just empty saber-rattling. Iran has also strong and reliable allies, like China and Russia. China is buying the bulk of Iran’s hydrocarbon production and would not stand idle in an Israel-US confrontation with Iran. Hence, Iran doesn’t need to submit to the dictate of Washington. Iran is a sovereign nation, having already embarked on a path of ‘Resistance Economy’ – meaning, a gradual decoupling from the western fraudulent dollar-based monetary system. Iran is considering launching a government-owned and managed cryptocurrency which would be immune from western sanctions – same as is the Venezuelan oil-backed Petro.

If Venezuela was allowed by the west to prosper, the people of North America could wake up. And, for example, demand explanations why their government is actually so undemocratic as to interfering in other countries affairs around the world, overthrowing other sovereign governments – killing millions, who do not want to bend to the rules of the US dictator; and at home planting fear through false flags and staged terror acts, i.e. multiple school shootings, sidewalk car rampages (Manhattan) and Marathon bomb attacks (Boston).

Never mind whether the US Presidents behind such terror are called Trump, Obama, Bush, or Clinton – and the list doesn’t end there. One could go way back to find the same pattern of attempted submission through fear, propaganda, acts of terror. They are all pursuing the same sinister agenda, world hegemony at any price.

Venezuela – and Iran for that matter – are in a totally different league. Venezuela voted on 29 July 2017 for the National Constituent Assembly, an elaborate, transparent process to establish a true People’s Parliament. The idea is brilliant, but was, of course, condemned by the west as fraud – because the reigning elite of the west could and will not allow the people to be in power.

When Iran’s President Rouhani was re-elected in May 2017, Washington was happy, believing Rouhani would bend to the rules of the west. He didn’t. In fact, he stood his course, though trying to maintain friendly – and business – relations with the west, but at Iran’s terms. As this doesn’t seem to be possible, specially after Trump’s unilateral stepping out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also called the Nuclear Deal, and re-imposing “the strongest sanctions the world has ever seen”, what is there left, other than decisively detaching from the west and joining the eastern alliances, the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). This is precisely what Venezuela is doing, calling her losses, but moving on to more friendly pastures – and to certainly a more prosperous future.

Western parliaments have become smoke screens, for hiding financial dictatorships, and lately worse, police and military oppression for fear people might stand up — which they actually do, right now in France against Macron’s new labor law, intent of stripping workers of their benefits acquired through decades of hard work. Basically, since last February, people take to the streets of Paris, fearless, despite France being the most militarized country of Europe. They are exposed to tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets, but do not give up defending not only their labor rights but also defending theirs and the peoples of France’s democratic right of freedom of expression – which in most EU countries has died a silent dead.

On 20 May 2018 Venezuela held another peaceful and absolutely democratic Presidential Elections, witnessed by international observers from more than 40 countries, including former President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, and former President of Spain, José Luis Zapatero. They all have confirmed the transparency of the Venezuelan electoral system and called upon the international community to respect the election results. Indeed, the United States as well as Europe could learn a lot from the Venezuelan electoral process and from Venezuelan democracy.

Washington, its European Union vassals and the Organization of American States (OAS), again – what else – condemned the elections as a fraud before they actually took place, urging President Maduro to cancel them (what an abject arrogance!). Similarly, the so-called Lima Group – a collective of 14 Latin American nations – has accused the Maduro Administration of manipulating the elections, declaring the results “illegitimate“, also before the ballots were cast. But former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, founder of the Carter Center, said:

“Of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored, I would say that the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.”

Zapatero said at a press conference that the EU, who was invited directly by President Nicolas Maduro to join international election observers, didn’t send delegations because of “prejudice”. Zapatero said,

“There is prejudice, and life and political experience consists of banishing prejudices and getting to know the truth firsthand.”

He also pointed to the OAS’s double standards against Venezuela:

“What are they saying about what’s happening in Brazil and Honduras?” –

And allow me to add,

“and currently in Nicaragua”?

Correa doubled up, saying,

“No one can question the Venezuelan elections… in the world there is no election as monitored as Venezuelan elections.” –

The absolute correctness of the Venezuelan election was further confirmed by CEELA, the Latin American Council on Electoral Experts. Mr. Moscoso, the head of CEELA, stated that the CEELA delegation has met with experts and candidates ahead of last Sunday’s [20 May 2018] elections and confirmed “harmony in the electoral process.”

There is no doubt by any member of the high-powered and professional electoral observation delegations that the Venezuelan elections were correct and that Nicolas Maduro has legitimately been re-elected with 68% of the votes for the next 6 years – 2019 to 2025. The “low” turn-out of 54% is blamed by the west on Venezuela for barring the opposition candidates and opposition parties from voting. In fact, the turn-out is “low”, because of the west (EU and US) instigating the opposition to boycotting the elections. Under these circumstances, 54% is a great turnout, especially when compared to the only slightly higher numbers – 55.7% – of   Americans who went to the polls in 2016, when Trump was elected; and 58% in 2012, for Obama’s second term.

It is actually a horrendous shame that we, independent journalists and geopolitical analysts, have to spend time defending the transparency and correctness of the Venezuelan elections and democratic system – the best in the world – in the face of governments where fraud and lies are on their every-day menu – and where initiation of conflict and wars – mass killings – is their bread and butter. Yes, bread and butter, because the economy of the United States could not survive without war, and the elite puppets in Europe might be trampled to mulch, if they had not become militarized oppressive police states.

That’s the state of the neoliberal / neofascist world of the 21^st Century – defending the honest and correct from accusations by the criminal lying hooligans – is what the west has become, a bunch of mafia states without ethics, where laws are made by white collard criminals for their corporate dominated governments.

There are other reasons why Venezuela has become a vanguard of a new emerging world – a world that is separating itself gradually from the west. Other than China and Russia, Venezuela is among the first countries to abandon the US dollar as trading currency. Caracas has been selling its hydrocarbons to China for gold-convertible Yuan. Venezuela is also the world’s first country to introduce a government controlled, petrol backed cryptocurrency, the Petro which will soon be enhanced by the Petro-Oro, another government-controlled cryptocurrency, based on gold and other minerals.

None of the other, privately launched blockchain currencies, like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Monero, Ripple – and literally more than 3,000 digital blockchain currencies, have any backing. They can be considered similar to fiat money, highly speculative, lending themselves to money-laundering and other fraud.

When the Petro was launched in March 2018 it attracted presale interests from 133 countries of US$ 5 billion equivalent. The first day presale raised US$ 735 equivalent; impressive record figures indicating a huge interest of the world at large to find an alternative to the US currency dominated western monetary system – the one and only tailored to hand out sanctions, block international monetary transfers and confiscate foreign funds abroad. And this is because all international dollar transactions have to transit through a US bank either in London or in New York.

Without divulging many details about the Petro – for good reasons – President Maduro has praised the Petro as a key weapon in his fight against what he describes as an “economic war” led by the United States. The oil-backed digital cryptocurrency is convertible into: yuan, rubles, Turkish liras and euro – all of which is indicative that the world wants an alternative – and Venezuela has initiated this alternative.

In the meantime, Russia and Iran have also announced the introduction of a government owned cryptocurrency. They are formidable shields against US-dollar intrusion and interference. Government owned and managed cryptocurrencies are in fact master tools for an approach of “Economic Resistance” against economic sanctions. Russia is way ahead of the pack. As President Putin said already two years ago, the sanctions were the best thing that could have happened to Russia, which was economically devastated after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Sanctions allowed Russia to promote self-sufficiency, rebuild agriculture and her outdated industrial park, put new energy and savvy into research and development – and actually become in the last three years the world’s first wheat exporter.

Similar approaches are already happening large-scale by other nations, subject to Washington’s sanctions regime, i.e. Iran, Cuba, North Korea and of course China. Independence from the western economy also means moving away from globalization and especially the globalized US-dollar hegemony. – Venezuela is the vanguard of a slowly growing movement of countries that have already abandoned the use of the US-dollar for international trade, like India, Pakistan, Iran. This growing trend may become a groundswell of independent nations, that may bring the US economy to its knees. It is a war without aggression, but with alternatives for circumventing economic hostilities from Washington, from the US led attempts to subjugate the world to the dollar dictate – i.e. to US-dollar hegemony. The resistance movement shall overcome.

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This article was also published on New Eastern Outlook.

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

The Democratic Party has made a strategic decision to bypass candidates from its progressive wing and recruit former members of the military and intelligence agencies to compete with Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections. The shift away from liberal politicians to center-right government agents and military personnel is part of a broader plan to rebuild the party so it better serves the interests of its core constituents, Wall Street, big business, and the foreign policy establishment. Democrat leaders want to eliminate left-leaning candidates who think the party should promote issues that are important to working people and replace them with career bureaucrats who will be more responsive to the needs of business. The ultimate objective of this organization-remake is to create a center-right superparty comprised almost entirely of trusted allies from the national security state who can be depended on to implement the regressive policies required by their wealthy contributors. Here’s more background from Patrick Martin at the World Socialist Web Site:

“An extraordinary number of former intelligence and military operatives from the CIA, Pentagon, National Security Council and State Department are seeking nomination as Democratic candidates for Congress in the 2018 midterm elections. The potential influx of military-intelligence personnel into the legislature has no precedent in US political history.

If the Democrats capture a majority in the House of Representatives on November 6, as widely predicted, candidates drawn from the military-intelligence apparatus will comprise as many as half of the new Democratic members of Congress. They will hold the balance of power in the lower chamber of Congress….

… it should be noted that there would be no comparable influx of Bernie Sanders supporters or other “left”-talking candidates in the event of a Democratic landslide. Only five of the 221 candidates reviewed in this study had links to Sanders or billed themselves as “progressive.” None is likely to win the primary, let alone the general election.” (“The CIA Democrats, Patrick Martin, The World Socialist Web Site)

The world is riven with class conflicts in Latin America, political conflicts between the Anglo-Americans and Russians, and economic conflicts between Washington against Europe and Asia.

The conflicts have called into question the capacity of ruling elites to promote growth, to secure international stability and to foster global as co-operation.

To understand the underlying source of conflicts it is essential to identify and unmask the underlying political and economic interests which spread and deepen class, regional and global confrontations.

Latin America: Reforms Which Deform

In recent decades throughout Latin America, rulers have spoken and demanded ‘reforms’ as essential to stimulate and sustain growth and foster equity and sustainability. The ‘reforms’ involve implementing ‘structural changes’ which require large scale privatization to encourage entrepreneurship and end state corruption; deregulation of the economy to stimulate foreign and domestic investment; labor flexibility to ‘free’ labor markets and increase employment; and lower business taxes. According to the reformers all this will lead to free markets and promote democratic values.

Over the past thirty years, ruling elites in Latin America have carried out IMF and World Bank structural reforms in two cyclical periods: between 1989-1999 and more recently between 2015-2018. In both cases the reforms have led to a series of major economic, political and social deformations.

During the first cycle of ‘reforms’, privatization concentrated wealth by transferring public means of production to oligarchs, and increased private monopolies, which deepened inequalities and sharpened class divisions.

Deregulation led to financial speculation, tax evasion, capital flight and public- private corruption.

‘Reforms’ deformed the existing class structure provoking social upheavals, which precipitated the collapse of the elite led ‘reforms’ and the advent of a decade of nationalist populist governments.

The populists restored and expanded social reforms but did not change the political and economic ‘deformations’, embedded in the state.

A decade later (2015) the ‘reformers’ returned to power and restored the regressive free market policies of the previous neo-liberal ruling elite. By 2018 a new cycle of class conflicts flared throughout Brazil and Argentina, threatening to overturn the existing US center free market order.

Anglo America Russophobes as Fake Miracle workers; the Post Christ Resurrections

As part of the propaganda campaign to discredit and isolate Russia, the UK and the Ukraine, stalwart flunkies of Washington, accused Moscow of assassinations by poison and bullets. Both alleged victims appeared live and well in due time!

On March 4, 2018, the Prime Minister of the UK Theresa May claimed that Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned by Russian secret agents. Foreign Secretary Boris “Bobo” Johnson called the poison, ‘the most-deadly agent known to man’ (sic) – Novichok. According to “Terry and Bobo” the poison kills in 30 seconds. Two months later Sergei and Yulia were seen taking a stroll in a park.

The fake charges were promoted by the entire Anglo-Americans mass media. The UK proceeded to charge Putin with ‘crimes against humanity’ , backed additional diplomatic and economic sanctions, increased military spending for homeland defense and urged President Trump to take forceful action. Once the ‘victims’ ‘rose from the dead’ the media never questioned the regime’s claim of a Russian conspiracy planned at the highest level.

The UK scored a few trivial merit points from Washington, which, however, did not prevent President Trump from slapping a double-digit tariff on British steel and aluminum exports (with more to come)!

The Ukraine joined the line of toadies trying to secure President Trump’s approval by cooking up another Russian murder plot. This time Ukraine leaders claimed Kremlin agents assassinated one Arkady Babchenko, an anti-Russian journalist and self-proclaimed exile in Kiev.

On May 29, 2018, Arkady was found ‘murdered’ or so said the Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko and repeated, embellished and circulated by the entire western mass media.

On May 31, a wide-eyed ‘Arkady’ turned up alive and claiming his ‘resurrection’ was a planned plot to catch a Russian agent!

Western regimes systematic use of lies, plots and conspiracies are central to the imperial drive for world power.

In Syria, the US accused Damascus of using poisonous gas against its own people in order to justify NATO’s terror bombing of Aleppo’s civilian population!

In Libya, Obama and Clinton claimed President Gaddafi distributed Viagra to his armed forced to rape innocent civilians, precipitating the US-EU terror bombing of the country and rape and murder of President Ghaddafi.

The question is whether western leaders will seek papal recognition of CIA directed resurrections to coincide with Easter?

Appeasement and Trump’s ‘Triumph of Will’

EU kowtowing to President Trump’s grab for global power, has only aroused his desire to dominate their markets, dictate their trade relations and defense spending. Trump tells the EU that his enemies are theirs.

Trump believes in the doctrine of unilateral trade and ‘deals’ based on the principle that the US decides what you sell, how much you pay, and what you buy. The giant French oil multinational, Total, which had promised to invest in Iran, submitted to Trump and withdrew from its agreement and turned a deaf-ear to the French President.

President Macron facing US tariffs on French exports bent his knee to Trump. Paris would support ‘joint efforts to reduce overcapacities, regulate subsidies and protect intellectual property’. Trump heard the ring of the EU begging cup and imposed tariffs and demanded more.

The EU ‘vowed’ to retaliate to Trump’s tariffs by . . . sucking up to Trump’s trade war with China. The European Commission (EC) announced it was launching a case against . . . China! Echoing Trump’s allegations that Beijing was committing the ‘crime’ of insisting (‘forcing’ in EU rhetoric) foreign investors transfer technology as part of the basis for doing business.

Trump turned on Mexico and Canada, his flunky allies in NAFTA by slapping both with tariffs.

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was ‘dismayed’ after wining and dining Trump in an embarrassing charm offensive, Trump ate, drank, and slapped a tariff on steel and aluminum and threatened to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement.

In response Trudeau cited Canada’s century and a half military support for US imperial wars. To no avail!

For Trump, the past is the past. It’s time to move ahead and for Canada to ‘buy American’.

And when Trudeau talked of imposing reciprocal tariffs on US exports, Trump countered by threatening to break all trading agreements. At which point Trudeau proposed ‘further’ negotiations.

Trump’s tariff on Mexican steel and aluminum exports evoked the robust response of a true Treaty lackey – the Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto claimed negotiations were ‘continuing’ and US companies were ‘involved’!

The harder Trump pushed, the greater the retreat of his EU and North American ‘allies’. Facing rhetorical retaliation from the EU, Trump tweeted German Prime Minister Merkle’s nose out of shape, by threatening to slap Germany with car tariffs worth $20 billion dollars.

The German Prime Minister and the head of Volkswagen broke ranks with the EU, and forgot all talk of retaliation and EU ‘unity’. They embraced negotiations and proposed ‘bilateral trans-Atlantic agreements based on Trump’s terms!

Trump is not improvising’, nor is he ‘erratic’. He wields power; he knows that his competitors’ spinelessness is accompanied by mutual back-stabbing and he is exploiting their appeasement, by encouraging their belly crawling.

President Trump exhibits a ‘will to power’.

Appeasement in the nineteen thirties allowed Germany to defeat and occupy Europe. President Trump ,in the 21st century. is defeating the EU and conquering its markets.

Conclusion

The language of politics is the politics of dominant world powers. Trump’s ‘reforms’ have deformed all past and present treaties, alliances and agreements in his drive for world domination.

While the UK and the Ukraine run errands, fabricating Russian assassinations and resurrecting victims, Trump has his eyes on the prize; the world’s biggest markets — the EU and China.

Yes, Trump may thank the Canadians for dying for US wars in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, but he tells Prime Minister Trudeau, ‘Business is business Justin, now bend over and sing, ‘God Bless America’.

The same goes for Theresa May and Boris Johnson: Close your eyes and enjoy watching our tariffs close steel mills now and auto plants tomorrow.

Trump knows his prostrate allies. He moralizes: ‘the more you screw them the better they like it’!

That’s the Trump doctrine. And it’s not only his personal views: the stock market loves it; the Silicon billionaires and the manufacturers are cashing in on protection at home and free markets overseas.

Trump will be entertained by the quartet of Trudeau, Macron, Merkel and May who will perform an original composition; “Making America Strong in a World of Wimps”.

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Prof. James Petras is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

One might well think that the only serious foreign policy imperative of the Donald Trump administration is to defend Israel. A president elected because he promised to put United States’ interests first has turned out to be little different than his predecessors, bowing to the power of various lobbies and constituencies to carry out their wishes while simultaneously pretending to be serving poorly defined policies to promote the security and well-being of the American people.

Israel possesses, to be sure, the most powerful foreign policy lobby operating not only in the United States but as well in Western Europe and Australasia. When Israel makes its incessant demands, politicians from Washington to Canberra and Wellington pause to listen. In Britain, fully 80% of Conservative parliamentarians are members of the Conservative Friends of Israel.

Israel benefits from a large, influential and wealthy community of diaspora Jews that is willing to do its bidding and which also possesses easy access to the media and to politicians, many of whom are more than willing to be corrupted by money. This has led to the creation of an “Israeli narrative,” most particularly in the United States, which glamorizes the state of Israel through the incessant reiteration of expressions like “the only democracy in the Middle East” and “America’s best friend and closest ally,” both of which assertions are completely false.

It should surprise no one that the Trump administration is packed with Israel-firsters from top to bottom. Those who deal with Israel directly – Ambassador David Friedman, Chief Middle East Negotiator Jason Greenblatt, and Special Envoy and son-in-law Jared Kushner are all Orthodox Jews with long standing ties to Israel and its leadership. They are major financial supporters of Israeli “charities,” to include projects on the occupied West Bank, which are both illegal under international law and contrary to long established U.S. policy. It would seem, without being too hyperbolic, that Israeli interests are at least as important to them as are the American interests that they ostensibly represent and are being paid by the taxpayer to support.

Within the White House, there is virtually no pushback against Israeli pretensions even when American interests are being damaged. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has repeatedly voiced his support of the Jewish state and his animosity towards that state’s enemy of choice Iran. National Security Adviser John Bolton, a long-time neoconservative, has never distanced himself in any way from complete identification with the policies being promoted by Israel and its increasingly right wing and racist governments. Donald Trump himself has declared that he will be the best president for Israel ever, a pledge that he has worked to honor by moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in spite of the damage that it does to actual regional American interests.

But the most vocal advocate for Israel within the Administration is Nikki Haley, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, who has consistently taken the hardest of all possible lines against Israel’s claimed enemies while also fully endorsing the most brutal actions undertaken by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Haley’s most recent action reveals that the United States has truly lost its sense of direction and moral compass. If one were religious, it might be suggested that it has lost its soul.

Haley’s most recent foray into her own style of what she might refer to as statesmanship came on June 1^st. Kuwait had brought a resolution to the United Nations Security Council to call on it to fulfil its responsibility to help protect the people of Gaza, who were being bombed, gassed and shot dead by Israeli Army sniper fire. Nikki Haley, however, was thinking of something quite different, a resolution she had drafted to denounce Hamas for the alleged volleys of rockets that were launched into adjacent Israeli controlled areas in response to the Israeli gunfire and bombings. Votes on the two resolutions followed, with Haley failing to obtain any votes on her resolution except her own.

Haley again voted alone when she vetoed the Kuwaiti resolution to protect the Palestinian people. And it was not Haley’s first such bit of unilateralism. She had walked out of a previous Security Council meeting on Israel’s killing of Palestinian protesters as a deliberate insult to their representative who had risen to begin to speak. Haley unfortunately represents America. America the home of the free and brave? Bullshit.

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Philip Giraldi, Ph.D., Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Instead of looking at Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran deal as being solely motivated against the US’ top Mideast foe, it’s worthwhile to consider whether it was also a preplanned power play against the EU.

There’s been plenty of analysis put out over the past month since Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran deal about the many angles from which this will affect the Islamic Republic and its ties with the US, and most observers consensually agree that the President’s motivation for taking this step was to intensify the ongoing Hybrid War against his country’s chief Mideast foe. That’s certainly true, but there’s also another dimension to all of this that warrants examination too, which is whether it was partially a preplanned power play against the EU, which is now bearing the brunt of the US’ sanctions weaponization.

Trump, being the alpha male that he considers himself on the world stage, was eager to force his EuroLiberal socialist counterparts whom he already views with contempt into a humiliating submission after their media’s participation in the “deep state’s” fake news infowar against him for the last three years. Not only that, but in his quest to “Make America Great Again”, he wanted to reassert the US as the undisputed Western hegemon capable of inflicting serious pain on all of those opposed to it, including its nominal “allies” who have attempted to defy its unipolar power through their recent foreign policy and economic diversifications.

The Europeans are now groveling before Trump’s feet and literally begging him in a letter written by the EU, British, French, and German Foreign Ministers to exempt their companies from the US’ anti-Iranian sanctions, fearing that the effect of so-called “secondary sanctions” on their companies for their lack of compliance will shut them out of the American marketplace for good, catalyze another economic crisis, and consequently deal a deathblow to the EU. The threat of that happening, however, is precisely one of the reasons why Trump withdrew from the Iranian deal in the first place.

Of the many words that can be used in describing Trump, a few are indisputably accurate, and it’s that he’s a ruthlessly calculating businessman who knows how to twist his opponents’ arms in coaxing concessions out of them, which is exactly what he’s doing with the EU countries through the threats of excluding their sanctions-violating companies from its profitable marketplace.  Trump wants to inflict maximum soft power pain on them in order to teach his counterparts a lesson that they’ll never forget, punishing America’s vassals for daring to be insubordinate and holding out the potential for dealing heavy economic damage against them if they don’t renounce their independent ways.

With their reputations ruined both in the eyes of their populations and also the world, Trump has successfully asserted himself as the alpha male and is now in a better position to extract further concessions from his opponents, eventually compelling them to go along with his new trade policies and continue contributing more to NATO. The first-mentioned could have the point pressed further home if Trump proactively intensifies the so-called “trade war” with China and deliberately makes the EU collateral damage like he’s doing with the Iran deal, while the second one is already occurring through the fake news-driven “Russia threat”.

All in all, what the US is basically doing is re-monopolizing its influence over the West through the weaponization of “secondary sanctions” in order to roll back multipolar progress in what it considers to be its natural sphere of influence, openly treating its “partners” like the neo-colonial vassals that they are by forcing them to pay tribute (in the case of trade, quite literally) to their geopolitical lord. The Iran deal can therefore be seen as being just as much of an attack against the EU as against the Islamic Republic itself, with the key difference being that many people still can’t countenance the concept of the US purposely engaging in “friendly fire” against its supposed “allies” for Machiavellian purposes.

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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: Yuli-Yoel Edelstein and Benjamin Netanyahu (Source: Liberation News)

Israeli leaders and their supporters in the U.S. never tire of proclaiming Israel to be the “only democracy in the Middle East,” while vehemently denying that it is an apartheid state.

But on June 5, the leadership of the Knesset (parliament) voted to not allow even the discussion of a bill calling for equal rights and status for the “Arab and Jewish nationalities” inside the 1948 borders of the Israeli state.

The bill, titled, “State of All Its Citizens,” was introduced by three members of the Balad party, Jamal Zahalka, Haneen Zoabi and Jouma Azbarga.  Balad is one of the parties representing the approximately 1.5 million Palestinians living inside Israel.

Speaker of the parliament, Yuli-Yoel Edelstein, an immigrant to Israel from Ukraine, called the bill “absurd,” and explained why the indigenous Palestinian population must not, from his point of view, be accorded equal rights:

“We cannot allow a proposal whose goal is to gnaw away at the foundations the State of Israel is built upon to be on the Knesset’s agenda.”

Most of Edelstein’s colleagues were in full agreement. Knesset Legal Adviser Eyad Yinon, stated:

“As a matter of principle and in its details, it’s hard not to see this proposal as seeking to negate the State of Israel’s existence as a state of the Jewish people.”

The admissions that a law calling for equal rights for all would “negate” or “gnaw away at the foundations” of Israel are very revealing, reconfirming the racism and exclusivism that has always characterized Zionism, the ideological foundation upon which the state of Israel was constructed.

While the bill would have been overwhelmingly defeated had it come to the Knesset floor, that was an eventuality that Israeli political leaders sought to head-off at all costs. Such a vote would have struck a devastating blow at the much-promoted fiction that Israel is both a democratic and Jewish state.

The contortions needed to maintain this position are illustrated by a June 4 headline in the right-wing Jerusalem Post: “Knesset Refuses to Put Bill Rejecting Jewish, Democratic Israel to a Vote.” In other words, in order to maintain Israel’s “democratic” character,” voting on – or even discussing – such issues as equal rights must be avoided

The corporate mass media in the U.S. “solved” the problem of how to cover this story by simply ignoring it.

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies have reportedly started deploying forces for a military operation against ISIS in eastern al-Suwayda. The villages of Tell Sa’d, Tamutha, Ashrfya and Aura are the target of the expected advance.

At the same time, the Tiger Forces have also continued deploying their units in southern Syria in a clear signal that a military action is near.

On June 6, the SAA artillery shelled several positions of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, the  Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) and its allies in the area of Khirbat Marata in southwestern Aleppo and in the district of al-Zahra west of the city.

Russian warplanes also reportedly carried out strikes on positions of al-Qaeda-affilated Horas al-Din in the areas of Urum al-Jawz, Bsheiriyeh and Ariha in northwestern Idlib.

According to some sources, these actions were a response and an additional warning to militant groups that had recently participated in attacks on government positions in Aleppo and Latakia.

On the same day, the Syrian government reopened the Hama-Homs highway for civilian traffic for the first time in seven years. The reopening of the highway is a part of the reconciliation agreement in the northern Homs countryside.

Government forces also continued its security operations in northern Homs where they found a weapons cache that included Grad rockets, mortar shells, heavy machineguns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

Additionally, Mays al-Kareidi, a spokeswoman for the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), made an official statement announcing that the SDC is ready for direct negotiations with Damascus. According to the statement, SDC Co-Chair Ilham Ehmed declared its readiness for negotiations with the Syrian government without any preconditions.

The SDC is another brand created to hide the YPG/YPD dominance within the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces. Ilham Ehmed is a senior member of the Democratic Union Party (PYD).

The SDC’s announcement came just a day after the withdrawal of the YPG from Manbij and two days after the announcement that Turkey and the US had endorsed the roadmap for the area.

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The United States committed war crimes of staggering proportions last year during its four-month-long siege of the Syrian city of Raqqa, demolishing up to 80 percent of the city with an unrelenting blitzkrieg of bombs and artillery shells that killed hundreds of civilians.

The devastation left behind by the US military and its proxy troops in the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces was detailed in a damning report published this week by Amnesty International grimly titled “War of Annihilation.” Defense Secretary James “Mad Dog” Mattis routinely used the phrase when describing the effort to take control of the city from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The US dropped thousands of bombs on Raqqa and shelled the city with 30,000 artillery rounds in just five months. The population of Raqqa and its surrounding villages have been reduced from a pre-war total of 340,000 to less than 100,000. Most of those who fled the city are unable to return as most homes and critical infrastructure have been damaged or destroyed. Those who have returned face the prospect of being blown apart by unexploded bombs and missiles dropped by the US and its allies or landmines set by ISIS.

While the US has been officially waging war in Syria to defeat ISIS, the report notes that artillery and airstrikes continued to pound civilian areas even as a deal was struck which allowed thousands of the group’s members to evacuate the city. With at least 2,000 US troops currently illegally occupying Syria, Washington’s ultimate aim is to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad and install a regime which is more pliant to the needs of American imperialism.

Amnesty’s researchers interviewed more than 100 survivors and surveyed the sites of 42 US airstrikes across the city, providing a sense of the death and destruction wrought by last year’s onslaught. The human rights group spoke to the Badrans, a family that lost 39 of its members, most of them women and children, to four separate US air strikes as they scrambled to find shelter.

The commander in charge of the assault boasted at its height that the attack on Raqqa was “the most precise air campaign in history.” The Pentagon has absurdly claimed that it killed fewer than 500 civilians in 2017 in all its various military operations across the globe, admitting to just 32 civilian deaths in Raqqa.

A report by the Associated Press in April found that close to 500 corpses had been pulled from the rubble and that hundreds of bodies were still being uncovered many months after the siege had ended. Airwars, which closely tracks airstrikes by the US and its allies in Syria and Iraq, has documented 1,400 civilian casualties resulting from US airstrikes in Raqqa.

Unlike the hysteria generated over the fake gas attack in Douma earlier this year, the revelations of widespread war crimes carried out by the US and its allies in Raqqa, as with the assault itself, have been treated as a non-event by the corporate media. Neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post, the political establishment’s two main newspapers of record, carried any mention of the Amnesty report in their print editions.

Times columnists Nicholas Kristof and Thomas Friedman, who both jump at any opportunity to denounce with the utmost moral outrage alleged atrocities carried out by the Assad regime or Russian forces in order to clamor for an escalation of US “humanitarian” intervention, apparently caught a joint case of writer’s block.

The editorialists and commentators in the American media, by and large, argue that Trump has not gone far enough in Syria, and that the US wars and occupations which have been raging for more than 15 years must be expanded to counter any challenge by Russia and Iran to US domination over the Middle East.

Amid the never-ending mudslinging over Trump’s supposed collusion with the Russians to win the 2016 election, all sides agree that the wars for complete control over the region’s oil reserves must continue and in fact be expanded, regardless of the cost in civilian lives.

The media’s failure to report on the atrocities in Raqqa and its coverup of Amnesty’s findings make them complicit in these crimes. They have made a deliberate decision to conceal from the American people the scope of the crimes carried out in their name in an effort to block the development of broad antiwar sentiments into a politically conscious movement against imperialist war.

A critical role in this effort is played by the pseudo-left, including organizations calling themselves “socialist” who work tirelessly to justify imperialist intervention. The International Socialist Organization has routinely attacked those who oppose the US war in Syria and Washington’s so-called “rebel” proxy forces. They have responded to the repeated illegal missile strikes by President Trump on the Assad government, which could have sparked a war with nuclear-armed Russia, by charging that they did not go far enough, while complaining that both Obama and Trump have failed to do enough to arm the Al Qaeda-linked “rebels” unleashed upon Syria.

Similarly, the Pabloite International Viewpoint published a statement this week calling for a renewal of the war for regime change in Syria, claiming that the US and its imperialist allies have “refused to allow the democratic components of the uprising to defend themselves…,” meaning that the US has not bombed Syria enough or delivered a sufficient amount of weaponry to their proxy forces.

The ever-compliant media has worked with the Pentagon to falsely portray its wars as bloodless surgical operations in which terrorists are being killed with precision bombs, while in fact the bodies of the innocents continue to pile up. The US effort to retake Mosul in Iraq from ISIS in 2016 and 2017 killed as many as 40,000 civilians, according to an estimate by Iraqi Kurdish intelligence, while more than a million people were displaced. The three-year-old Saudi-led war in Yemen, backed by US special forces on the ground, has killed over 13,000 civilians and threatens more than 18 million with starvation.

And now the Trump administration is considering more directly joining the Yemen war, while preparing for a far more dangerous military confrontation with Iran, placing millions more civilians in the crosshairs.