Australia’s China Syndrome

June 1st, 2018 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

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Malaysia: Debts and the Push for Reforms

June 1st, 2018 by Dr. Chandra Muzaffar

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Steve Bannon – Der ehemalige Stratege von Donald Trump, Theoretiker des Nationalpopulismus, drückte seine enthusiastische Unterstützung für die Allianz mit der 5-Sterne-Liga-Bewegung für “die Regierung des Wandels” aus. In einem Interview (Sky TG24, 26. Mai) sagte er: “Die grundlegende Frage in Italien im März war die Frage der Souveränität. Das Ergebnis der Wahlen war, diejenigen Italiener ins Amt zu bringen, die Souveränität und Kontrolle über ihr Land wiedererlangen wollen. Zieht einen Schlussstrich unter die Regeln, die aus Brüssel kommen “.

Aber das heißt nicht “Schluss mit den Regeln, die aus Washington kommen”.

Es ist nicht nur die Europäische Union, die Druck auf Italien ausübt, um dessen politische Entscheidungen zu lenken, dominiert von den mächtigen Wirtschafts- und Finanzkeisen, insbesondere Deutschland und Frankreich, die einen Bruch der “Regeln” befürchten, die ihren Interessen dienen.

Starker Druck auf Italien wird, in einer weniger offensichtlichen, aber nicht weniger aufdringlichen Art, durch die Vereinigten Staaten ausgeübt, die einen Bruch der “Regeln” fürchten, die Italien ihren wirtschaftlichen und strategischen Interessen unterordnen.

Dies ist Teil der Politik, die Washington durch verschiedene Verwaltungen und mit unterschiedlichen Methoden gegenüber Europa anwendet und das selbe Ziel verfolgt: Europa unter amerikanischem Einfluss zu halten.

Ein grundlegendes Instrument dieser Strategie ist die NATO. Der Vertrag von Maastricht begründet in Art. 42, dass die EU “die Verpflichtungen einiger Mitgliedstaaten achtet, die ihre gemeinsame Verteidigung durch die North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) realisiert sehen. Und das Protokoll 10 zur Zusammenarbeit stellt fest, dass die NATO “die Grundlage der Verteidigung” der Europäischen Union bleibt.

Heute sind 21 der 27 EU-Länder (nach dem Brexit), mit rund 90% der Bevölkerung der Union, Teil der NATO, deren “Regeln” es den USA erlaubt, seit 1949 die Position des Obersten Alliierten Befehlshabers in Europa inne zu halten sowie alle anderen Hauptbefehligungen; sie erlauben den Vereinigten Staaten, die politischen und strategischen Entscheidungen des Bündnisses zu bestimmen, indem Sie unter dem Tisch Vereinbahrungen treffen, insbesondere mit Deutschland, Frankreich und Großbritannien, und Sie dann vom Nordatlantikrat billigen lassen, in dem es nach den «Regeln» der NATO keine Abstimmung oder Mehrheitsentscheidung gibt, sondern in dem Entscheidungen immer einstimmig getroffen werden.

Der Beitritt der osteuropäischen Länder in die NATO – ehemals Mitglieder des Warschauer Pakts, der Jugoslawischen Föderation und auch der UdSSR – hat es den Vereinigten Staaten ermöglicht, diese Länder, denen die Ukraine und Georgien hinzugefügt werden und die faktisch bereits in der NATO sind, mehr an Washington als an Brüssel zu binden.

Washington war somit in der Lage, Europa in einen neuen Kalten Krieg zu drängen und es zur Frontlinie einer zunehmend gefährlichen Konfrontation mit Russland zu machen, die für die politischen, wirtschaftlichen und strategischen Interessen der Vereinigten Staaten von Nutzen ist.

Sinnbildlich ist die Tatsache, dass in der Woche, in der Europa bitter um die “italienische Frage” kämpfte, die erste Panzerbrigade der 1. US-Kavallerie-Division aus Fort Hood in Texas in Anvers (Belgien) gelandet ist, ohne irgend eine nennenswerte Reaktion hervorzurufen. 3.000 Soldaten sind gelandet mit 87 Abrams M-1 Panzern, 125 Bradley Kampffahrzeugen, 18 Paladin Selbstfahrlafetten, 976 Militärfahrzeugen und weiterer Ausrüstung, die in fünf Stützpunkten in Polen stationiert und von hier aus in die Nähe des russischen Territoriums geschickt werden.

Dies “verbessert weiterhin die Bereitschaft und Letalität der US-Streitkräfte in Europa” die ab 2015 16,5 Milliarden Dollar bereitstellen.

Gerade als die aus Washington gesandten Panzer in Europa landeten, drängte Steve Bannon die Italiener und Europäer, “ihre Souveränität » von Brüssel wiederzuerlangen.

Dieser Artikel erschien zuerst am 29.

Mai 2018 in il manifesto

Übersetzung: K.R.

 

Video — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L9qQvg3bYM

 

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The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will hold its 18th annual summit meeting in Qingdao, Shandong Province on June 9-10, barely a few days before the (scheduled) Kim-Trump Summit in Singapore on June 12-14. The SCO meetings will be chaired by China’s President Xi-Jingping.  

There are unconfirmed reports that Kim Jong-un will be invited and that a “secret meeting” between Kim Jong-un, Xi Jinping, and Vladimir Putin, is scheduled to take place in Qingdao on June 9, “on the margin”of the official SCO meeting. At the time of writing the holding of the Singapore Summit is still unconfirmed and could be cancelled by either side.

In all likelihood, the Korean crisis will be on the agenda of the SCO meeting which regroups representatives from SCO member states including China, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, India and Pakistan as well as observers from Iran, Afghanistan, Belarus and Mongolia.

Were Kim to attend the SCO venue, this would be his third meeting with China’s president Xi Jinping in 2018.

It should be mentioned that China was a signatory of the 1953 armistice agreement (U.S., DPRK, China’s Volunteer Army). Legally this 1953 agreement cannot be rescinded without China’s participation in the Korea-US peace process.

An unconfirmed report suggests that Kim Jong-un may also “make a guest appearance” at the SCO meetings:

The China Times reports that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi made a statement about the upcoming SCO Summit, declaring that a “Declaration of Qingdao” is expected to be signed at the meeting, along with 10 other agreements on cooperation in fields of security, the economy, and culture. See Taiwan Times report,

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“The first time it was reported that our friends were being butchered there was a cry of horror. Then a hundred were butchered. But when a thousand were butchered and there was no end to the butchery, a blanket of silence spread. When evil-doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out ‘stop!’ When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer.” ― Bertolt Brecht, Selected Poems

There are days I wake up, and I’m not sure what country I live in anymore.

There are days I wake up and want to go right back to sleep in the hopes that this surreal landscape of government-sanctioned injustice, corruption and brutality is just a really bad dream.

There are days I am so battered by the never-ending wave of bad news that I have little outrage left in me: I am numb.

And then I get hold of myself, shake myself out of the doldrums, and remind myself that it’s not yet time to give up: America needs our outrage and our alertness and our tenacity and our fierce determination to remain a free people in a land where justice matters.

This is still our country.

Don’t just sit there.

Do something.

When you hear that the U.S. government “lost” 1,475 migrant children within its care over a three-month period, in some cases handing them off to human traffickers, don’t just chalk it up to incompetent bureaucrats.

The Trump Administration’s plan to separate immigrant children from their parents at the border should outrage anyone with a moral conscience, especially in light of the government’s latest revelation that it is unable to account for the whereabouts of 1500 of those children.

Mind you, this is not just a Trump problem. A recent report indicates that under President Obama’s watch, migrant children were allegedly beaten, threatened with sexual violence and repeatedly assaulted while under the care of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials. According to Newsweek,

Border authorities were accused of kicking a child in the ribs and forcing a 16-year-old girl to ‘spread her legs’ for an aggressive body search. Other children accused officers of punching a child in the head three times, running over a 17-year-old boy and denying medical care to a pregnant teen, who later had a stillbirth.”

ACT. It doesn’t matter what your politics are or where you stand on immigration issues. There are some lines that should never be crossed—some government actions that should never be tolerated or justified—no matter what the end goal might be, and this is one of them. Demand that Congress stop playing politics and endangering children’s lives.

When you read that Attorney General Jeff Sessions wants police to use stop and frisk tactics randomly against Americans without even the need for reasonable suspicion, don’t just shake your head disapprovingly.

ACT: Call the Justice Department (202-353-1555) and read them the Fourth Amendment:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

After you watch the video of how the Transportation Security Administration, unfailingly tone deaf to the spirit of the Fourth Amendment, subjected a 96-year-old World War II veteran in a wheelchair to a patdown that left no part of her body untouched, don’t just seethe in silence.

ACT: Contact your representative in Congress and file a complaint on the TSA’s egregious practices. When old women and little children are being groped by government agents, things have gone too far. In light of revelations that the TSA “has created a new secret watch list to monitor people who may be targeted as potential threats at airport checkpoints simply because they have swatted away security screeners’ hands or otherwise appeared unruly,” you can expect even more headache-inducing behavior in the near future.

When you find out that Amazon is selling police real time facial recognition software that can scan hundreds of thousands of faces, identify them, track them, and then report them to police, don’t just shrug helplessly.

In this video, Amazon’s Ranju Das demonstrates real-time facial recognition to an audience. It shows video from a traffic cam that he said was provided by the city of Orlando, where police have been trying the technology out. (Amazon Web Services Korea via YouTube/Screenshot by NPR)

ACT: Harness the power of your wallet to urge Amazon to favor freedom principles over profit motives. It’s only a matter of time before these programs are used widely here in the U.S. They are already being used and abused abroad.

For instance, Amazon’s Rekognition software was used by broadcasters to identify attendees at the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Chinese police have used similar facial recognition tools to scan crowds at rock concerts, malls and gas stations in order to catch alleged lawbreakers. Just recently, Chinese police used the technology to capture a suspect who had been living under a pseudonym after he failed to pay for $17,000 worth of potatoes. Chinese schools are even employing the facial recognition cameras in classrooms to alert teachers to students who aren’t paying attention.

When you hear Sessions bragging about how much he loves civil asset forfeiture, which allows the government to seize Americans’ personal property—money, cars, homes and other valuables—without having to first prove that any criminal conduct has taken place, don’t just take his word for it.

ACT: Do your own research. You’ll soon discover that because of the corruption that surrounds this abusive program, countless innocent Americans have been robbed blind by government agents out to get rich at their expense. Billions of dollars have been taken without probable cause. Anthonia Nwaorie, a Texas nurse who had saved up $41,377 to start a medical clinic for women and children in Nigeria, had her life savings seized by Customs Agents who refused to return the money unless she agreed to pay their “expenses.” Six months later, even though Nwaorie was never charged with a crime, she’s still waiting to get her money back.

When you hear about armed Denver police pulling a gun on a school official and conducting a classroom-to-classroom search for a missing student at an area high school, don’t just thank your lucky stars your childhood was more idyllic. Likewise, when you hear that the lieutenant governor of Texas thinks the solution to school shootings is fewer school doors (entrances and exits), don’t just marvel at the short-sightedness of government officials.

ACT: Say “enough is enough” to government-sponsored violence. The systemic violence being perpetrated by agents of the government has done more collective harm to the American people and our liberties than any single act of terror or mass shooting. Violence has become the government’s calling card, starting at the top and trickling down, from the more than 80,000 SWAT team raids carried out every year on unsuspecting Americans by heavily armed, black-garbed commandos and the increasingly rapid militarization of local police forces across the country to the surveillance drones that are already crisscrossing American skies.

When you read about how 28-year-old Andrew Finch of Kansas answered a 5 pm knock on his front door only to be shot in the head and killed ten seconds later by a police sniper because a SWAT team responded to a prank “swatting” phone call with full force, don’t just tsk-tsk over the senseless tragedies arising from militarized and police and overzealous SWAT teams. Not only did police refuse to identify the officer who pulled the trigger, but he was also never charged with Andrew’s death.

ACT: Demand accountability. If any hope for police reform is to be realized, especially as it relates to how SWAT teams are deployed locally and holding police accountable for their actions, it must begin at the community level, with local police departments and governing bodies, where citizens can still, with sufficient reinforcements, make their voices heard.

The rise of SWAT teams and militarization of American police—blowback effects of the military empire—have unfortunately become entrenched parts of American life. SWAT teams originated as specialized units dedicated to defusing extremely sensitive, dangerous situations. As the role of paramilitary forces has expanded, however, to include involvement in nondescript police work targeting nonviolent suspects, the mere presence of SWAT units has actually injected a level of danger and violence into police-citizen interactions that was not present as long as these interactions were handled by traditional civilian officers. Nationwide, SWAT teams have been employed to address an astonishingly trivial array of criminal activity or mere community nuisances: angry dogs, domestic disputes, improper paperwork filed by an orchid farmer, and misdemeanor marijuana possession, to give a brief sampling. In some instances, SWAT teams are even employed, in full armament, to perform routine patrols. All too often, botched SWAT team raids have resulted in one tragedy after another for American citizens with little consequences for law enforcement.

When you find out that police and other law enforcement agencies are accessing the DNA shared with genealogical websites and using it to identify possible suspects, don’t offer up your DNA without some assurance of privacy protections.

ACT: Protect your privacy. It’s not just yourself you have to worry about, either. It’s also anyone related to you who can be connected by DNA. These genetic fingerprints, as they’re called, do more than just single out a person. They also show who you’re related to and how. As the Associated Press reports,

“DNA samples that can help solve robberies and murders could also, in theory, be used to track down our relatives, scan us for susceptibility to disease, or monitor our movements.”

By accessing your DNA, the government will soon know everything else about you that they don’t already know: your family chart, your ancestry, what you look like, your health history, your inclination to follow orders or chart your own course, etc. Capitalizing on this, police in California, Colorado, Virginia and Texas use DNA found at crime scenes to identify and target family members for possible clues to a suspect’s whereabouts. Who will protect your family from being singled out for “special treatment” simply because they’re related to you? As biomedical researcher Yaniv Erlichwarns, “If it’s not regulated and the police can do whatever they want … they can use your DNA to infer things about your health, your ancestry, whether your kids are your kids.”

In the face of DNA evidence that places us at the scene of a crime, behavior sensing technology that interprets our body temperature and facial tics as suspicious, and government surveillance devices that cross-check our biometricslicense plates and DNA against a growing database of unsolved crimes and potential criminals, we are no longer “innocent until proven guilty.”

Finally, when you hear someone talking about how two American citizens in Montana were detained by a Border Patrol agent because he overheard them speaking Spanish at a gas station, don’t just shake your head in disgust.

Screenshot from The Washington Post

ACT: Remind yourself (and those around you) that despite the polarizing, racially-charged rhetoric being tossed about by President Trump, this is still a nation whose strength derives from the diversity of its people and from the immigrants who have been seeking shelter on our shores since the earliest days of our Republic. As President Ronald Reagan recognized in one of his last speeches before leaving office:

“We lead the world because, unique among nations, we draw our people—our strength—from every country and every corner of the world. And by doing so we continuously renew and enrich our nation… Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we’re a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge, always leading the world to the next frontier. This quality is vital to our future as a nation. If we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost… Those who become American citizens love this country even more. And that’s why the Statue of Liberty lifts her lamp to welcome them to the golden door. It is bold men and women, yearning for freedom and opportunity, who leave their homelands and come to a new country to start their lives over. They believe in the American dream. And over and over, they make it come true for themselves, for their children, and for others. They give more than they receive. They labor and succeed. And often they are entrepreneurs. But their greatest contribution is more than economic, because they understand in a special way how glorious it is to be an American. They renew our pride and gratitude in the United States of America, the greatest, freest nation in the world—the last, best hope of man on Earth.”

As I  make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American Peopleif the freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, are to mean anything anymore—if they are to stand for anything ever again—then “we the people” have to stand up for them.

We cannot allow ourselves to be divided and distracted and turned into warring factions.

We cannot sell out our birthright for empty promises of false security.

We cannot remain silent in the face of ugliness, pettiness, meanness, brutality, corruption and injustice.

We cannot allow politicians, corporations, profiteers and war hawks to whittle our freedoms away until they are little more than empty campaign slogans.

We must stand strong for freedom.

We must give voice to moral outrage.

We must do something—anything—everything in our power to make America free again.

As Reagan recognized,

“If we lose this way of freedom, history will record with the great astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening.”

*

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  (SelectBooks, 2015) is available online at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

Featured image is from the author.

President Putin’s surprise announcement that Russia is ready to maintain gas transit through Ukraine has left people wondering whether both sides’ pipeline jostling over the past couple of years was ultimately all for naught if the pre-Maidan status quo ultimately returns.

President Putin took the world off guard by announcing that Russia is “ready to preserve the Ukrainian transit” of gas, instantly provoking a wave of speculation over why both his country and Ukraine would even be interested in this after making many moves over the past couple of years to strategically disengage from one another. The 2014 success of the US-backed urban terrorist movement commonly known as “EuroMaidan” led to a serious security dilemma between Russia and its “revolutionary” neighbor after which both parties simultaneously came to the conclusion that they can’t depend on one another from that point onwards.

Ukraine started exploring “reverse gas flows” through its preexisting pipelines in order to receive supplies from its western neighbors, which then set into motion Poland’s moves to build an expensive LNG terminal along its Baltic coast. The US saw – and some would say, engineered – a perfect opportunity to sell its costly LNG to the EU by hyping up the threat of Russia’s possible “weaponization” of energy supplies, relying on the mid-2000s stereotype that itself was just a media-driven manipulation stemming from Kiev’s own weaponization of its transit state status. Faced with eventually being cut off from its largest customers, Russia endeavored to diversify its export routes and clientele.

The first part of this strategy saw it transforming the stalled South Stream pipeline into Turkish Stream and launching another Nord Stream pipeline, while the second half dealt with Russia’s “Pivot to Asia” and development of LNG exports to faraway markets. Concurrent with this, the US began to court its Croatian ally into footing a large part of the bill for an LNG terminal on Krk island, with the long-term vision being for America to supply the EU with gas through receptacles along the northern and southern Baltic and Adriatic coasts respectively of the Polish-led “Three Seas Initiative”.

As it stood up until the middle of this week, all relevant players were positioning themselves for what would happen when Russia and Ukraine finally decoupled their energy relations with another, but all of that was suddenly thrown into uncertainty after President Putin’s announcement, which was completely unexpected. Taking a stab at what might be on the Russian leader’s mind and extrapolating on the geostrategic implications of this move if both parties end up agreeing to it, here’s what it might mean now that Russia said that it’s willing to maintain its gas transit through Ukraine:

Deal Or No Deal?

It’s hard to tell whether either side was able to wrestle any type of “concession” from the other prior to this announcement. There’s a chance that the past couple of years were mostly just one big bluff, notwithstanding the tangible progress that Russia and the US have already made regarding their European energy infrastructure, and that neither Russia nor Ukraine ultimately got anything from the other so they therefore decided to return to the pre-Maidan status quo. On the other hand, there’s also a very real possibility that some kind of deal might indeed be reached, whether related to the Donbass conflict or Ukraine’s internal stability.

It’s impossible to know with any degree of certainty what kind of political horse trading might have taken place in East Ukraine, but as regards the country’s domestic affairs, Russia would have self-interested reasons in keeping its neighbor’s economy afloat through gas transit and the attendant fees Kiev would levy in order to delay this failing state’s collapse and stave off another migrant wave towards its borders. There are almost half a million Ukrainian asylum seekers in Russia on top of 2.6 million migrantsalready in the country, so Moscow might have decided that enough is enough and that it doesn’t want to potentially host another 3 million Ukrainians.

Are Nord Stream II And Turkish Stream In Danger?

Another possible reason behind Russia’s volte-face on gas transit through Ukraine could be that US sanctions against Nord Stream II might actually be more of a serious threat than either Moscow or Berlin have let on, and that the strategic uncertainty surrounding these threats and what would happen next might have compelled Russia to go ahead with its Ukrainian “backup plan”. It’s not to say that Nord Stream II will be cancelled or its scheduled opening delayed, but just that guaranteeing energy flows through Ukraine might assuage some of the US and Polish resistance to this project by proving to Moscow’s adversaries that the EU’s Russian-sourced supplies won’t be almost totally dependent on Germany and Turkey in the future.

About the latter, the expansion of Turkish Stream into the EU via its proposed “Bulgarian Stream” branch would have to go through the same Brussels bureaucracy that ultimately led to South Stream’s cancellation, which itself was an entirely political decision that had little to do with Russia’s actual adherence to the EU’s many regulations. Although Hungary and the Balkan countries desperately need reliable energy exports from Russia, the EU might be more than willing to sacrifice its vassals’ living standards for the time being in order to indefinitely delay “Bulgarian Stream” just like it did with South Stream, wagering that the Azerbaijani-sourced TANAP-TAP and forthcoming “Israeli”-sourced East Mediterranean Pipeline could replace it in the future.

Should Russia succeed in keeping the tap open through Ukraine, however, then the EU would have less of a reason to fear any strategic “dependence” on Russia’s German and Turkish Great Power energy partners because the “middle way” through Ukraine would still be available in mitigating any fear mongered “weaponization” of transit routes that some countries such as Poland are afraid that either of those two might one day resort to. Keeping things as they were with Ukraine might end up being a necessary “compromise” from Russia in order to receive the EU’s approval for “Bulgarian Stream” and calm Poland’s American-triggered paranoia over Nord Stream II supposedly being a “new Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact”.

Same Route, Same Problems?

The obvious question on most observers’ minds is whether there’ll be a “back to the future” moment in the coming years if Ukraine once again weaponizes its transit status to provoke a Russian energy shutoff and therefore hold European countries hostage at the US’ implicit behest. That’s always a possibility but it appears less likely to happen anytime in the future than in the past. Post-Maidan Ukraine is much weaker than it’s ever been and the economy is literally on the verge of collapse. The country cannot weather any short-term disruption of energy supplies during the winter months in order to please its American patron because this could catalyze uncontrollably chaotic forces that might eventually undermine everything that the US and its on-the-ground allies worked so hard to “achieve” over the past 4 years.

Even in the off-chance that Kiev is compelled to deliver this risky self-inflicted hit to its own very tentative stability, Russia might have already succeeded in diversifying its pipeline routes through Nord Stream II and Turkish/Bulgarian/Balkan Stream by that time, thus mitigating the possible impact of this asymmetrical attack and making it much less dramatic than what happened in 2005-2006. Of course, it can’t be assured that this “back to the future” scenario won’t unfold next winter before either of these two are online, which would in that case make it a deliberate provocation in order to increase the appeal of the US’ LNG and decrease European confidence in these two Russian pipelines, though there are slim odds that this will happen anytime soon just because it might lead to Ukraine’s all-out collapse and remove the present oligarchy from power.

Reflecting on the aforementioned reasons for possibly keeping Ukraine’s pipelines open, Russia might have concluded that this is a necessary and pragmatic “compromise” in order to ensure that the construction of its Nord Stream II and Turkish/Bulgarian Stream pipelines to the EU isn’t disrupted by Brussels’ politicized bureaucracy, wagering that it’s also in Kiev’s self-interest to not interfere with these energy supplies no matter how much Washington might want it to in the future.

*

This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

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

Featured image is from Eurasia Future.

Wednesday, May 30th, was Memorial Day in the United States. The commemoration began in 1868 shortly after the American Civil War, when townsmen in several communities came together to decorate the graves of the fallen on the last Monday in May. The practice began in the northern states but soon spread to the south and the annual remembrance ceremony soon took on the name Decoration Day. As wars proliferated in the twentieth century the commemoration eventually lost its association with the Civil War and was increasingly referred to nationally as Memorial Day, eventually becoming a federal holiday.

The American Civil war killed 655,000 soldiers, more than all other U.S. wars before or since combined. It was the first modern war in that it relied on railroads and steamships. The North also destroyed the livelihoods of and deliberately starved civilian populations to reduce the South’s will to resist. It was a war fought on U.S. soil and experienced first hand by the American people.

Today Memorial Day has largely lost its connection with dead soldiers and is instead best noted for being regarded as the first day of summer for recreational purposes. Beaches open up, the lifeguards come out and the smell of barbecued meat fills the air. The declining number of veterans of World War 2, Korea and Vietnam work hard to remember the dead but there is little interest from a public that has become increasingly detached from its non-conscripted professional army.

There is a certain irony in how a holiday commemorating a war fought 150 years ago that had devastating impact, a memento mori to honor the dead and warn the living about the reality of war, is now little more than a bump in the road on the way to the beach as the United States government is openly contemplating new military initiatives in Asia and possibly even in Europe.

The truth is that Americans have forgotten about the War Between the States and, protected by two broad oceans, have no idea whatsoever about the horrible reality that war represents. They have become addicted to war pari passu without any perception of what that might mean if an adversary were to develop the capability to strike the homeland. For most Americans war is little more than a video game, seen in snippets on the nightly news. It is a peculiar form of cultural blindness, an exercise that involves foreign people in faraway places and is not to be taken seriously. The rest of the world, which has experienced far too much of war’s devastation first hand has quite a different viewpoint, however.

For the past three weeks I have been traveling in Asia and Europe, to include stops in America’s two enemies du jour Iran and Russia. World War 2, ended 73 years ago, is still clearly visible in the ruins and shattered lives. St Petersburg in Russia is still restoring palaces vandalized and burnt by the Germans. In Germany, the historic Medieval Hanseatic port of Rostock was 80% reduced to rubble by U.S. and British bombers. It was a war in which cities burned and 80 million soldiers and civilians died, only one half of one per cent of which were Americans. Russia lost 27 million alone. The continental United States alone among major belligerents was untouched by the fighting.

Iran too bears the scars of the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88, in which Washington supported Baghdad. Half a million Iranians and Iraqis died. In the deliberately never-ending War on Terror 8,000 Americans have lost their lives in places few would be able to find on a map but, by some estimates, so have nearly 4 million Muslims directly and as collateral damage. Three foreign governments have been overthrown and Washington is seeking to add Damascus to that toll, with suggestions that even Moscow is being targeted for change.

All of which led on my recent travels to discussions in which many non-Americans wondered openly “What has happened to the United States?” Most went so far as to opine that Washington is the world’s greatest threat to peace, not China, Russia or Iran. Sadly, I had to agree.

So it behooves all Americans if good will to band together to end the madness. When Memorial Day comes around next year let it again be a commemoration of the horror of war, the death and destruction. With that in mind, all thoughts of confrontation should vanish to be replaced by demands for negotiation and accommodation. And as for the soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen, give them a Memorial Day gift and bring them home. Every one of them.

*

Philip Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from SCF.

Selected Articles: How Do You Get Off the US “Kill List”?

May 31st, 2018 by Global Research News

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Our task as an independent media is to “Battle the Lie”.

“Lying” in mainstream journalism has become the “new normal”: mainstream journalists are pressured to comply. Some journalists refuse.

Lies, distortions and omissions are part of a multibillion dollar propaganda operation which sustains the “war narrative”.

While “Truth” is a powerful instrument, “the Lie” is generously funded by the lobby groups and corporate charities. And that is why we need the support of our readers.

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When the Lie becomes the Truth, there is no turning backwards. 

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How Do You Get Off the US “Kill List”?

By Prof. Marjorie Cohn, May 31, 2018

After the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration created a secret “kill list” to step up the targeting of alleged terrorists for assassination. The criteria for inclusion on the list have apparently morphed over three presidential administrations, yet they remain elusive.

America’s Big-Brother ‘News’ Media

By Eric Zuesse, May 31, 2018

The way it works was well displayed, May 25th, on the opinion page of America’s largest-circulation newspaper, USA Today. Each of the three articles there presumed that the US Government is fighting for the public’s interests, and that the countries it invades or threatens to invade are evil. It is all, and always, propaganda for the US military, which is the reason why the US military is the most-respected institution in the United States, despite being the most wasteful and the most corrupt of all federal Departments.

Denialism: The Historical Denialism of Japan’s Crimes against Humanity

By George Burchett, May 31, 2018

Mass-circulation mainstream newspapers have sections dedicated to denying Japan’s crimes during World War Two and its pre-war colonial occupation of Asian nations, notably Korea and China.

“I Have a Nuclear Button, … And My Button Works” Trump Is Far More Dangerous than Hitler?

By Shane Quinn, May 31, 2018

The decision by America to relentlessly pursue, and use, nuclear weapons started an inevitable proliferation domino effect – of no great concern to Western leaders – with nine countries now possessing nuclear arsenals. This includes nations hostile to each other such as the United States and Russia, while on the other side of the world, old enemies India and Pakistan have nuclear stockpiles, not to mention Israel.

The US Trade War with China. Trump wants to Block Countries from using the Yuan as a Reserve Currency

By Peter Koenig and Press TV, May 31, 2018

As you know, the Yuan has become an official IMF reserve currency about a year ago. That established worldwide trust in the Chinese currency, especially since the Yuan is backed by the Chinese economy plus by gold. Whereas the US dollar has no backing whatsoever; its pure and simple FIAT money. 

RFK’s Son Robert Francis Kennedy Jr: I Don’t Believe Sirhan Did It

By Michael Carmichael, May 31, 2018

The media-driven mantra of ‘conspiracy theory’ has collapsed while the lone gunman theories of these three iconic political assassinations have disappeared under the stark gaze of scientific analysis and the testimony of credible eyewitnesses including Paul Schrade, a genuine American hero who survived a bullet wound to his head at the side of RFK on that fateful evening in the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel half a century ago.

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Syrian President Bashar Assad says Moscow deterred the West from launching a devastating country-wide air strike last month, and believes that Damascus has nearly won the seven-year war, despite continued US “interference.”

“With every move forward for the Syrian Army, and for the political process, and for the whole situation, our enemies and our opponents, mainly the West led by the United States and their puppets in Europe and in our region, they try to make it farther – either by supporting more terrorism, bringing more terrorists to Syria, or by hindering the political process,” Assad told RT correspondent Murad Gazdiev, during a sit-down interview in Damascus, noting that without outside funding his opponents inside the country could be subdued “within a year.”

After having to switch its support between the various anti-Assad factions, and the recapture of the key cities of Aleppo and Deir ez-Zor by government forces over the past two years, Washington, the Syrian leader believes, is “losing its cards” and can be brought to the negotiating table.

“Our challenge is how can we close this gap between their plans and our plans,” Assad said.

‘World didn’t buy US chemical weapons story’

The Syrian leader believes, however, that the closer the deadly conflict comes to an end, the more desperate his opponents’ measures become. He cited the alleged Douma chemical weapon attack (“Is it in our interest? Why, and why now?” he asks) as a last-ditch Western attempt to sway international opinion – one that failed.

“They told a story, they told a lie, and the public opinion around the world and in the West didn’t buy their story, but they couldn’t withdraw. So, they had to do something, even on a smaller scale,” Assad said, referring to the joint airstrikes against purported Syrian chemical weapons facilities, carried out on April 14 by the US, UK, and France.

Assad says Moscow also played a role in restraining Washington’s influence and meddling in the region, both generally since its invitation to aid Damascus in September 2015, and in this particular incident.

‘Russia deterred larger-scale attack on Syria’

“The Russians announced publicly that they are going to destroy the bases that are going to be used to launch missiles, and our information – we don’t have evidence, we only have information, and that information is credible information – that they were thinking about a comprehensive attack all over Syria, and that’s why the threat pushed the West to make it on a much smaller scale,” the Syrian president said.

With Western ‘advisers’ deployed alongside their proxy forces in Syria, Assad also thanked Russia for not triggering face-to-face confrontation with the US, which is operating in close proximity both in the air and on the ground.

“We were close to have direct conflict between the Russian forces and the American forces, and fortunately, it has been avoided, not by the wisdom of the American leadership, but by the wisdom of the Russian leadership,” Assad told Gazdiev. “We need the Russian support, but we need at the same time to avoid the American foolishness in order to be able to stabilize our country.”

‘Either you have a country or you don’t have a country’

Despite praising the diplomatic efforts of the Astana peace process, and emphasizing the government’s own drive to win the hearts and minds by restoring order in liberated areas, and initiating a process of reconciliation, Assad says there are still some victories that will have to be won on the battlefield.

“Factions like Al-Qaeda, like ISIS, like Al-Nusra, and the like-minded groups, they’re not ready for any dialogue, they don’t have any political plan; they only have this dark ideological plan, which is to be like any Al-Qaeda-controlled area anywhere in this world. So, the only option to deal with those factions is force,” Assad said, emphasizing that there is no stepping back now.

“The more escalation we have, the more determined we’ll be to solve the problem, because you don’t have any other choice; either you have a country or you don’t have a country,” the Syrian president told RT.

International migration from sub-Saharan Africa towards Europe and the United States has significantly increased over the past decade. These migration trends, especially towards Europe, directly influence migration patterns to other North African countries.

The specific migration pull and push factors vary depending on each country and individual, but economic reasons remain a primary factor. According to Pew Research Center, in 1990, 40 percent of sub-Saharan African migrants moved for economic reasons, by 2013, this number had increased to 90 percent.

In 2015, the UNHCR gathered that over 1 million refugees, displaced people groups, and migrants fled to the EU in order to escape conflict or seek better economic opportunities. This resulted in further militarization of EU borders in attempts to manage what the European Commision called an “unprecedented displacement crisis.”

They confirmed that EU’s stricter border control initiatives have lowered the number of irregular migrants (those without legal paperwork) entering and have made “transit countries” more permanent residences for many migrants.

The Kingdom of Morocco is one such country.

According to Mehdi Lahlou from Istituto Affari Internazionali, an estimated 5,003 irregular migrants in 2010 used the western Mediterranean route, primarily Morocco, to access Europe. In 2014, this number increased to 7,842. The number of illegal entrances into Europe has decreased since 2015 due to these border restrictions, but migration flows to and from Morocco continue.

Morocco is seen as being one of the few stable and secure countries in the MENA region. With the EU’s tighter security, it is becoming a destination of both passage and residence for many migrants.

Morocco’s long migration history has led to well-established sub-Saharan African migrant communities throughout some of its major cities like Rabat, Casablanca, and Tangier. Germany’s GIZ identified that these established social, religious, and economic networks act as appealing factors for increased settlement in Morocco.

Further signs of Morocco’s growing migration mediary role is reflected by Pope Francis’ planned visit to Morocco, next December, for an international migration conference. The North Africa Post anticipates the formation of an international “global compact” for regularizing migration during his visit.

However, four years after Morocco implemented its more humanitarian migration policy reform, many migrants and refugees continue to live in clandestine conditions, lack working opportunities, face tension within local communities, and remain unaware of their legal rights under Moroccan law.

The students of University Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah (USMBA) in Fez diagnosed the need to help the growing number of refugees and asylum seekers and improve the conditions for their societal integration.

In this way, they desire to launch a Law Clinic to guide civil society by taking a model already established by Hassan II University’s Faculty of Law, Economics, and Social Sciences in Mohammedia––a program for marginalized families funded by the National Endowment for Democracy.

USMBA President Omar Assobhei explained that Fez has become a necessary stop on Morocco’s transportation highways for migrants heading to Tangier, and then potentially Europe. Fez already hosts a large sub-Saharan student population in institutions and higher education, but this increased traffic has created a dire need for legal support for those that fall into precarious situations.

University students propose creating a Law Clinic that aims to: 1) provide leaders of civil society organizations (CSOs) with legal skills to better integrate vulnerable migrants; 2) strengthen the capacity of law students’ as well as those of these vulnerable populations through business development and legal practice; and 3) advance community cohesiveness and sustainability.

University officials would identify 10 CSOs, 40 law students, and 100 migrants and refugees to participate in joint legal workshops covering new migration policies, integration, and entrepreneurial development.

This 1st phase will be followed with specific legal aid given by law students to benefit participating migrants and refugees.

The idea is to bring the students, migrants, and the associations together to assess the situation. The members of each group benefit from the participatory workshops they experience together and from hearing differing perspectives regarding problems facing the community.

Students gain experience interacting with real people requiring legal aid, associations will be better informed on legal aspects of their work and feel empowered to advocate, and migrants are equipped with legal knowledge and entrepreneurial skills.

This Law Clinic’s legal provision will enable more irregular migrants to socially integrate into society, which in turn, will help alleviate tensions between sub-Saharan African and local Moroccan communities.

Using the same participatory development method from the first initiative, this Law Clinic will be sufficiently equipped to tackle all legal concerns presented by the community.

Due to its adaptable nature to different academic institutions and its tendency to spark community involvement, this symbiotic education and learning model holds positive future benefits for surrounding regions and universities.

St. Andrew’s Church in Cairo, Egypt established a similar refugee legal aid program that provides 3,000 refugees annually with everything from referrals, representation, rights advocacy, and education. It is an example that reveals the potential outcomes that can be realized in Morocco.

This Law Clinic’s implementation is a solid bridge for fostering intercultural, societal, and economic dialogue essential for perpetuating a harmonious future of coexistence for Morocco’s growing diversity.

*

Nathan Park is an undergraduate student in his fourth year at the University of Virginia and he is currently interning with the High Atlas Foundation in Marrakech, Morocco.

Russia wants all non-Syrian forces withdrawn from southern areas bordering Israel. More on this below.

The right to self-defense is inviolable under international law, including under Article 51 of the UN Charter. It prohibits one nation from attacking another except in self-defense, stating:

“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.”

Washington, NATO, their so-called “coalition” partners and Israel are waging undeclared war on Syria, clearly violating international law.

Nothing under international law prohibits a nation from requesting and receiving help from other countries, groups, entities or individuals for any lawful purpose, including self-defense when attacked or if aggression is imminent.

There’s nothing civil about war in Syria, correctly explained by Bashar al-Assad in an interview with RT, published on Thursday.

He also explained Iranian military advisors alone are in Syria “which we don’t conceal,” he said, no Islamic Republic combat forces there.

All casualties from US, UK, French and Israeli attacks were Syrian, not Iranian, he stressed, praising vital Russian aid.

In March 2011, Obama launched naked aggression on the country, using ISIS and other terrorists as imperial foot soldiers.

Trump escalated what he began, war in its 8th year with no breakthroughs for resolution because Washington wants endless war and regime change, part of its strategy to replace all sovereign independent governments with pro-Western puppet regimes.

America’s rage for global dominance threatens something far more serious in Syria than already if not challenged with strength and resolve.

Russia’s intervention in September 2015 to help Syria combat terrorism (at its request) was legal and admirable.

Yet Putin hasn’t acted boldly enough to challenge and help defeat the US-supported scourge. True enough he has no obligation to defend Syria or any other country, obligated only to preserve and protect Russia’s security and territorial integrity from foreign or internal threats.

Yet he’s geopolitically savvy, knowing if Syria goes, Iran is next, the prime regional target by Washington and Israel.

If both fall, Russia and China remain the only sovereign independent nations standing in the way of unchallenged US dominance.

Both countries are the key ones on Washington’s target list for regime change by color revolution or war, preceded by economic and financial strangulation on Russia (China likely later) the way Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela are targeted now.

The softer Putin is on US, UK, French and Israeli aggression, the more they’re able to get away with uncontested. Who’ll challenge them in the Middle East if not Russia?

Its super-weapons exceeding America’s best make it the world’s leading superpower, a strength it’s able to use for right over wrong.

Washington is Russia’s sworn enemy, NATO and Israel appendages of its imperial agenda. Cooperating with them in Syria or elsewhere is counterproductive, serving their interests, harming Russia’s, Syria’s, and other independent governments.

On Wednesday, Netanyahu vowed to strike anywhere in Syria nationwide on the phony pretext of targeting Iranian forces in the country. Only military advisors are there, not combat troops.

Netanyahu lied claiming Tehran intends “establish(ing) a military presence in Syria, opposite us, not just opposite the Golan Heights but anywhere in Syria.”

Iranian military advisors are opposite no one there except US and Israeli-supported terrorists. Tehran clearly said it’ll remain in the country as long as Damascus values and wants its presence – operating from Syrian bases, not its own.

The goal of both countries is liberating Syria from ISIS and other terrorists, neither threatening Israel or any other regional nations.

Syrian forces are preparing for a major offensive to free areas bordering Jordan from US/Israeli-supported terrorists – unless they voluntarily agree to surrender their heavy weapons and leave territory they occupy illegally.

Reportedly only government troops will be involved in their southern offensive. It’s their sovereign right to accept help from Iran and Hezbollah. No one may legitimately demand otherwise.

On Wednesday, Sergey Lavrov said all non-Syrian forces should withdraw from areas near Israel’s border with Jordan. It includes illegally occupied Syria’s Golan territory.

Lavrov added withdrawal should be “on a mutual basis…a two-way street” – saying nothing specific about US forces illegally occupying Syrian territory along the Jordanian border. He said the following:

“We have well-known agreements concerning the southwestern de-escalation zone. Those agreements were concluded by Russia, the United States and Jordan.”

“Israel was perfectly aware of them while they were still being drafted. They stipulate that the zone of de-escalation is expected to consolidate stability and that all non-Syrian forces must be pulled out of that area.”

“I believe this must happen as soon as possible. This is precisely what we are busy with now in cooperation with our Jordanian and US counterparts.”

According to Syria’s UN envoy Bashar al-Jaafari, US forces occupy around one-third of northern and southern parts of the country.

Washington and its imperial partners have been terror-bombing Syria since September 2014 – massacring countless thousands of civilians, destroying vital infrastructure, supporting ISIS and other terrorist groups.

By its own admission, Israel terror-bombed Syrian targets countless times throughout much of the war.

NATO nations, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other states are involved in US-led aggression in Syria.

Instead of condemning what’s going on, Russia is largely silent – dealing with Washington and Israel as “partners”, its good will not reciprocated in kind.

The more latitude given regimes running both countries, as well as Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, the more they take advantage, believing Putin shows weakness, not strength.

The only language Washington and Israel understand is force. Diplomacy achieves nothing in dealing with them – not so far so why expect them turning a new leaf ahead.

Passivity in the face of its aggression encourages more of it. Failure to supply Damascus with S-300 air defense systems left it vulnerable to repeated attacks. Syria’s current systems are only effective enough to partially deter terror-bombing of
its territory, unable to stop most or all of it.

The only effective way to deal with US, Israeli and allied aggression is by challenging it forcefully. Six years of Russian diplomatic efforts failed to achieve conflict resolution. Nothing suggests continued efforts can succeed in dealing with nations wanting regime change, deploring peace.

On Thursday, Israeli war minister Avigdor Lieberman met with his Russian counterpart in Moscow, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, tweeting:

Israel’s “primary focus…is preventing the entrenchment of Iran and its proxies in Syria” – initially seeking a “Russian-Israeli agreement” for Iran to be no closer than 60 km from Israeli occupied Golan, ahead of wanting no Iranian military presence in Syria anywhere in the country.

According to AP News, Moscow wants a deal with Israel, involving Russian military police deployed in southern Syria, replacing the presence of foreign forces, along with US/Israeli-supported terrorists surrendering their heavy weapons.

Like Washington and NATO, Israel’s “primary focus” is regime change, wanting a regional rival eliminated, isolating Iran, ahead of a similar strategy against its sovereign government – aiming for regional dominance along with America’s presence.

Confronting Washington and Israel forcefully in Syria is high-risk for Russia – higher risk by not doing it, I believe.

Appeasement doesn’t work with hegemons – never did, never will, a sign of weakness, not strength.

Failure to challenge US/NATO/Israeli aggression risks something far more serious than already.

Continuing what hasn’t worked is counterproductive and defeatist. A show of strength is needed by Russia, a different approach than it’s pursued so far.

Otherwise Syria could become another Afghanistan, a forever war with no end in sight.

*

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

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

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

Featured image: The California state Senate votes Wednesday on SB 822, which would restore net neutrality protections. (Photo: Free Press/ Free Press Action Fund/flickr/cc)

Update: The California state Senate on Wednesday voted to pass a bill restoring net neutrality protections. SB 822 passed 23-12 along party lines, with all Republicans voting against it. 

“Today the State Senate took a huge step towards re-instating net neutrality in California,” said Democratic state Senator Scott Wiener, author of the bill. “When Donald Trump’s FCC took a wrecking ball to the Obama-era net neutrality protections, we said we would step in to make sure that California residents would be protected from having their internet access manipulated. I want to thank the enormous grassroots coalition that is fighting tooth and nail to help pass SB 822 and protect a free and open internet. We have a lot more work to get this bill through the Assembly, but this is a major win in our fight to re-instate net neutrality in California.”

Earlier:

With the California state Senate on the cusp of voting on a net neutrality bill Wednesday, its advocates are urging constituents to grab their phones to demand their legislators stand up for an open internet.

SB 822—a bill deemed the “gold standard for states looking to protect net neutrality” in the face of the federal rollback by the Republican-controlled FCC in December—was authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), and has advanced despite attacks by internet service providers (ISPs).

As Katharine Trendacosta, policy analyst at Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) explains,

the bill “would prevent ISPs in California from engaging in blocking, throttling, paid prioritization, and anti-competitive zero rating. Blocking and throttling are what they sound like: preventing access to or slowing down access to any service or content an ISP chooses.”

“At its core,” a press statement from Weiner’s office says, “SB 822 stands for the basic proposition that the role of internet service providers (ISPs) is to provide neutral access to the internet, not to pick winners and losers by deciding (based on financial payments or otherwise) which websites or applications will be easy or hard to access, which will have fast or slow access, and which will be blocked entirely.”

ISPs aren’t letting up on their fight to defeat the measure.

The Mercury News reported Tuesday:

SB 822 is opposed by the broadband, cable and telecom industries, plus the state’s Chamber of Commerce.

AT&T, Comcast and two major industry trade groups reported spending nearly $1 million on lobbying in Sacramento in the first three months of the year alone—including against SB 822—according to documents filed with the California Secretary of State.

According to Gigi Sohn, a Distinguished Fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy and a Mozilla Technology Policy Fellow, “Cable companies are flooding the California Senate with lobbyists working 24-7 against #SB822.” Demand Progress added: “AT&T is spreading anti-SB 822 propaganda at the state house.”

Weiner, for his part, joined organizations including Color of Change and the Center for Media Justice in Sacramento on Tuesday at a rally in support of SB 822.

“Net neutrality impacts everyone in our state, and we need to do everything we can to ensure that the people of California can decide for themselves whether, when, and for what purpose they are using the internet,” he declared.

If the bill passes the state Senate Wednesday, it then heads to the Assembly.

At the federal level, meanwhile, net neutrality supporters have their sights set on a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to restore open internet protections. The Senate passed the resolution this month, so now its proponents are focused on achieving a similar victory in the House.

“The fight ahead is not going to be easy, ” charged Fight for the Future, “but victory is within reach.”

Featured image: Local activist Tim Tanksley (L) leads Oklahoma gubernatorial candidate Connie Johnson (center) and Johnson’s campaign manager, Charise Walker, to Bokoshe’s fly ash dump.

On the edge of Bokoshe, population less than 500, sits a hill about 60 feet high, covered partly with soil. From a distance, it could be a natural part of eastern Oklahoma’s rolling hills. But this mound isn’t like the others: It’s made of toxic fly ash, a coal byproduct from electricity production, generated by power company AES. The fly ash fills in an unlined, abandoned strip mine at a site also used to dump wastewater from fracking. When it rains, the waste runs into nearby lakes and tributaries of the Arkansas River.

According to Physicians for Social Responsibility, fly ash contains a range of heavy metals, from arsenic to lead to mercury, some of which are linked to cancer.

Residents of Bokoshe have been trying to stop the pollution for years, only to meet with denial at the corporate and state levels. No one in power, it seems, will admit it’s a problem.

That hasn’t stopped Tim Tanksley, 73, a Vietnam vet born and raised in Bokoshe. He and his neighbors call their representatives, file complaints with the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ) and have appeared on state PBS affiliate OETA.

On March 30, he shares a video he’s made with Connie Johnson, a former state senator and Our Revolution-endorsed candidate for governor, showing how, on a windy day, fly ash coats the grass that cattle eat like a blanket of fresh snow.

Also meeting Tanksley and Johnson are half a dozen other Oklahomans, some of whom have driven hundreds of miles to share their own towns’ struggles with pollution. Tanksley drives our group out to the pit entrance, passing two empty fly-ash trucks leaving the site. He points out houses as we pass. “That lady has a lymphoma,” he says, then points to the next house and lists more cancers. When we get to the fly ash hill, he shows how the runoff goes into a lake where cattle drink.

The ranchers sell the cattle at market anyway:

“When we go to the sale barn, we don’t say, ‘Hey people, these cows have been eating grass covered in fly ash,’” says Tanksley. “We’re not gonna kill ourselves.”

AES has been operating the coal-powered Shady Point Generation Plant near Bokoshe since 1992, but it farms out the removal of the fly ash coal waste to “Making Money Having Fun LLC,” a commercial disposal company. The Oklahoma health department says the rate of cancer in Bokoshe is no higher than anywhere else in the state. To residents who have seen their friends and neighbors die, that is hard to accept.

“[The state] structured their research so they didn’t find anything,” Bob Sands, a veteran journalist now at OETA, tells In These Times.

He explains that the state only looked at cancers linked to arsenic and chromium-6, not at those linked to other heavy metals found in fly ash.

While the ODEQ suggests that Bokoshe residents should report problems to it, Sarah Penn, deputy general counsel at the ODEQ, told OETA,

“If it’s not within our jurisdiction… we can’t do anything.”

The problem, says Sands, is that the state’s original deal to bring AES to Oklahoma placed it under the control of the Department of Mines, not ODEQ.

“A lot of the environmental problems we have [were] swept under the rug because of Scott Pruitt,” says Dana Bowling, 52, a resident of Longtown who came to meet Johnson and see the hill of fly ash.

Before he was tapped for EPA chief, Pruitt, as Oklahoma’s attorney general, led an anti-regulation crusade that included eliminating his office’s Environmental Unit. The state has also given coal companies so many tax credits that it provides more state revenue to the industry than it collects, costing the state more than $60 million between 2010 and 2017.

Johnson blames “a system that is heavily influenced by well-connected special interests.” She adds that, as governor, she would work to remediate environmental disasters in Bokoshe and elsewhere.

At the end of the tour, Tanksley takes Johnson and the others to a local cemetery. A number of the graves are fresh. Tanksley points to them one by one and tells life stories that end in cancer.

*

Valerie Vande Panne is an award-winning freelance journalist. She is the former editor-in-chief of Detroit’s altweekly, the Metro Times, and has covered Detroit’s alternative economies for Bloomberg.

How Do You Get Off the US “Kill List”?

May 31st, 2018 by Prof. Marjorie Cohn

After the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration created a secret “kill list” to step up the targeting of alleged terrorists for assassination. The criteria for inclusion on the list have apparently morphed over three presidential administrations, yet they remain elusive.

Last year, two journalists filed a federal lawsuit against Donald Trump and other high government officials, asking to be removed from the kill list until they have a meaningful opportunity to challenge their inclusion. Both men claim to have no association with al-Qaeda or the Taliban, to have no connection to the 9/11 attacks, and to pose no threat to the United States, its citizens, residents or national security.

Kareem and Zaidan Try to Get Off Kill List

Bilal Abdul Kareem, a US citizen and freelance journalist, has survived five attempts on his life from targeted air-strikes. A Turkish intelligence official told Kareem that the US government is trying to kill him.

Ahmad Muaffaq Zaidan, a citizen of Syria and Pakistan, is a senior journalist with Al Jazeera. He interviewed Osama bin Laden twice before the 9/11 attacks. Zaidan learned about his inclusion on the kill list from National Security Agency (NSA) documents leaked by Edward Snowden and published by The Intercept.

The NSA zeroed in on Zaidan as a result of a program called SKYNET. Ars Technica revealed that SKYNET — which uses an algorithm to gather metadata in order to identify and target terrorist suspects in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia — would result in 99,000 false positives.

In their complaint filed in March 2017, Zaidan and Kareem alleged they were included on the kill list as a result of algorithms used by the United States to identify terrorists.

At a May 1 hearing in the case, Judge Rosemary Collyer of the US District Court for the District of Columbia questioned the US government’s assertion of authority to unilaterally kill US citizens abroad. Collyer repeatedly challenged government lawyers to explain why national security considerations outweigh a US citizen’s inclusion on the kill list with no right to notice and an opportunity to respond.

“Are you saying a US citizen in a war zone has no constitutional rights?” Collyer asked Stephen Elliott, a Justice Department attorney. “If a US person is intentionally struck by a drone from the US, does that person have no constitutional rights to due process … no notice, anything?”

Anwar al-Aulaqi Placed on Kill List in 2010, Killed in 2011

Collyer is the same judge who, in 2014, dismissed a lawsuit filed by the families of Anwar al-Aulaqi, his son Abdulrahman al-Aulaqi and Samir Khan — all US citizens who were killed in 2011 US drone strikes. Their families were seeking to hold officials in the Obama administration personally liable for their roles in the strikes.

Nasser al-Aulaqi was the father of Anwar al-Aulaqi, who was placed on the kill list maintained by the CIA and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command in 2010. Later that year, Nasser filed a lawsuit challenging the authorization for Anwar’s killing before he was killed in a US drone strike in Yemen in 2011. Nasser’s lawsuit sought clarification of the scope of the global battlefield, targeting standards and lack of transparency.

US District Judge John Bates, also of the District of Columbia, dismissed Nasser’s suit, ruling that he lacked standing to challenge the violation of Anwar’s constitutional rights because Nasser’s constitutional rights were not violated by the government’s “alleged targeting of [Nasser’s] son” and the alleged targeting was “not designed to interfere with the father-adult son relationship.” Bates concluded,

“[Nasser] cannot show that a parent suffers an injury in fact if his adult child is threatened with a future extrajudicial killing.”

Bates also held that the political question doctrine, based on separation of powers, prevented the judicial branch from reviewing military and foreign affairs decisions made by the executive and legislative branches.

“At its core, the suit sought to exercise a still much-needed check on a dangerous claim of executive power,” Center for Constitutional Rights attorney Pardiss Kebriaei, who filed the 2010 lawsuit on behalf of Nasser, wrote in my collection, Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues.

Like Kareem and Zaidan, Nasser claimed his son had a Fifth Amendment due process right to notice and an opportunity to be heard before being deprived of life, liberty or property.

In the 2014 al-Aulaqi/Khan lawsuit, Collyer considered the plaintiffs’ due process claims, but concluded the families had no remedy for their losses. Collyer noted that the US government had relied on the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force and she found compelling considerations of national security, separation of powers and the risk of interfering with military decisions. Collyer wrote that reviewing those decisions would impermissibly insert the courts into “the heart of executive and military planning and deliberation.”

But on May 1, Collyer distinguished Kareem and Zaidan from al-Aulaqi. Collyer said al-Aulaqi’s case “was more clear to me because he was a terrorist and claimed to be one,” but, “I’m very concerned about the rights of a US citizen who … asserts that he is not a combatant, that he has not taken sides. He is just a journalist doing his job.”

Inclusion of US Citizens on No-Fly List Also Violates Due Process

In 2014, Judge Anna Brown of the US District Court for the District of Oregon held in Latif v. Holder that plaintiffs’ inclusion on the US “no-fly list” violated their right to due process because it lacked “any meaningful procedures” for them to challenge their placement on the list. As those on the kill list, people on the no-fly list were given no notice or chance to contest the evidence used by the government to watchlist them.

Brown ordered defendants (former Attorney General Eric Holder, FBI Director James Comey and FBI Terrorist Screening Center Director Christopher Piehota) to “fashion new procedures that provide Plaintiffs with the requisite due process … without jeopardizing national security.”

But Brown limited her ruling to international, not domestic, travel. The government did not appeal Brown’s ruling, although there has been further litigation about what process is, in fact, due.

Attorney Steven Goldberg represented the plaintiff in Tarhuni v. Holder, a companion case to Latif. Goldberg told Truthout that when they asked why the government put Tarhuni on the no-fly list, they were informed it was classified.

“National security is always their defense,” Goldberg said.

“The government uses the political question doctrine to avoid litigating these issues. But the cases implicate constitutional rights,” he added.

Goldberg noted that while courts need to be mindful of national security concerns, there are means to address them while permitting litigation of constitutional claims. They are contained in the Classified Information Procedures Act and lawyers can get security clearances with protective orders limiting disclosure.

Regarding placement on the kill list, however, one surefire way to get off is to wait until they kill you. Short of that, litigation and lobbying members of Congress remain less draconian alternatives.

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Copyright, Truthout. Reprinted with permission.

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and an advisory board member of Veterans for Peace. An updated edition of her book, Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues, was recently published. Visit her website: http://marjoriecohn.com. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from JR / TO; Adapted: WindVector, WeAre / Shutterstock.

America’s Big-Brother ‘News’ Media

May 31st, 2018 by Eric Zuesse

The way it works was well displayed, May 25th, on the opinion page of America’s largest-circulation newspaper, USA Today. Each of the three articles there presumed that the US Government is fighting for the public’s interests, and that the countries it invades or threatens to invade are evil. It is all, and always, propaganda for the US military, which is the reason why the US military is the most-respected institution in the United States, despite being the most wasteful and the most corrupt of all federal Departments

The US public don’t think of the military as being driven by the military corporations — Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, etc. — each corporation deriving that multi-billion-dollar profit annually from selling weapons to the US and to its allied governments, but the public are indoctrinated constantly to think of the US military instead in an admiring way, as if it were being led by and represented the US troops who are operating those weapons to kill foreigners in countries that actually never had invaded nor threatened to invade America, and those troops are America’s presumed heroes, when Americans rate the military as America’s best institution.

But this is no longer World War II — it’s a very different time and country — when the US was, at least to a substantial extent, a democracy, and it helped the Soviet and British Governments to defeat the fascist dictatorships, which wanted to become the capitalist global empire that the US aristocracy now wants to be. America, now, is fascist — the country that has invaded Vietnam and Iraq and Libya and Syria and Yemen, and that perpetrated coups in Iran and Indonesia and Chile and Ukraine, and many other countries, though none of those countries had ever invaded or threatened to invade America. Sheer aggression has become America’s bad habit.

Continual wars are needed by Lockheed Martin and the other such government contractors; and, so, ‘enemy’ lands must be targeted by those weapons and those troops, to kill millions of people there, and to destroy the infrastructure that provides the residents there sustenance. Otherwise, why would these weapons even be bought (with taxpayers’ money), at all? America’s international corporations profit from it, but America’s taxpayers pay the immense (over trillion-dollar annual) tab for it.

The market for these weapons cannot continually expand — meet corporate executives’ constant and (in the military field) cancerous growth-addiction — unless new targets for the public to fear and hate (Iran, North Korea, Russia, China, Venezuela, etc.) can be developed and intensified in its public’s deceived mind. America’s ‘news’ media perform that function, for corporate America, to open up extraction-lands (for oil, metals, etc.), and to establish new military anchors there (such as the US now is doing, for example, in Syria’s oil-producing region). This isn’t only for corporations such as Lockheed Martin, which manufacture those weapons, but it is also for corporations such as ExxonMobil, which are extractive industries and require extractions from countries all over the world, not merely within America.

Here, then, is how this mass-indoctrination is done, to “manufacture the public’s consent” for continual invasion-and-occupation:

The lead opinion-piece In the May 25th USA Today was the editorial, “Our View: Donald Trump, deal-breaker in chief”, and it established the tone and theme for the entire page, by mixing together, and confusing readers to apply the same standards to, commercial foreign polices such as tariffs, and military foreign policies such as denuclearizing North Korea (so as ultimately to conquer that nation). Consequently, USA Today’s editorial about Trump’s cancellation of his summit with Kim Jong-un argued: “The list of broken or endangered agreements keeps growing: The Paris climate accord. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement.”

Those multi-national agreements were presented in terms of Democratic-versus-Republican-Party domestic political conflict, as being the sitting Republican US President’s undoing of what the previous Democratic Party President (Obama) had done, and thus repositioned the issue subtly out of either the commercial or the military international field, into the American aristocracy’s domestic squabbles. Here, this major US ‘news’-medium was taking sides in the US aristocracy’s partisan split, and favoring the Democratic Party side of the US aristocracy, against the Republican Party side of the US aristocracy. But what does this intra-aristocratic domestic squabble have to do with US relations with North Korea — the supposed topic here?

America’s aristocracy are united supporting conquest. However, there are differences of opinion about how to go about doing it. Then, the editorial said:

“In other words, Trump’s pretty good at deal-breaking. It’s deal-making where he stumbles: Even as he pulled out of an agreement preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb, Trump pushed for an even more ironclad deal stripping North Korea of the same weapons. As enticements, he promised Kim major US investments (‘His country will be rich’) and safety and security (‘He will be happy’) — strange offerings for a dictator who operates one of the world’s last, brutal gulag systems, imprisoning tens of thousands.”

This editorial took a clearly partisan pro-US-regime, anti-North Korean regime, PR stance, without so much as just mentioning that, even according to pro-US estimates, North Korea’s percentage of population that are in prison is no higher than is America’s percentage who are in prison. So, “one of the world’s last, brutal gulag systems” isn’t clearly a worse one in that regard, than is the US Government itself. All the propaganda (such as this in USA Today) is pure uninformative and misleading indoctrination (PR), instead of being informative and trustworthy journalism. This ‘news’paper sides with America’s aristocracy against North Korea’s aristocracy, and with the Democratic Party faction of the US aristocracy against the Republican Party faction of the US aristocracy; but, this editorial provides no evidence for the particular prejudices it promotes. And it pretends to be about Trump’s cancellation of that summit.

Next on the editorial page was “Donald Trump is onto something” (or, on the printed page, “Opposing view: ‘Today’s failure might be tomorrow’s success’”), in which the editors’ selected Republican Party propagandist, Kenneth Rapoza of Forbes, argued “Trump brought tariffs back to life. … Trump is trying to manage trade outcomes to the benefit of US citizens.” How did Trump’s tariffs-policy relate to the proposed summit between him and Kim Jong-un? Obviously, the editors of USA Today didn’t really care about that. This is how much they insult the intelligence of their readership (if not of themselves). The only difference between the pro and the contra here was the difference between the Democratic and the Republican Parties.

Finally, the third article was “My hope for this Memorial Day”, authored by PBS documentary film-maker Michael Epstein. He opened “The night before I left for Iraq, I put my two young daughters to bed.” Then, after more irrelevancy, he noted that, “I did not go to Iraq as a Marine or a soldier. I went as a filmmaker. Still, as I lay next to my youngest daughter, it struck me that if something were to happen to me in Iraq, …”

Storytelling, like that, engages readers at the surface-level, and presses the buttons of readers’ propaganda vulnerabilities, for the desired atmosphere — here, in order for this non-soldier writer to pretend he understands the problems that America’s troops face. But then he incoherently proceeds to saying, in no relevant context, that he wants “to regularly remind myself of the burden carried by the many for the benefit of the few” — and he provides there no indication as to whom are “the many” and whom “the few.” One might try to guess that “the few” are the small percentage of Americans who are in the military, but that wouldn’t actually fit into the given context, because he’s supposedly discussing instead “the burden carried by the many for the benefit of the few.”

Is he talking there about the burden carried by the many taxpayers, for the benefit of the few troops? But, those troops aren’t actually the people who become enriched by America’s invasions and occupations — the owners of US military contractors such as United Technologies and Lockheed Martin, and of extractive industries, are those people, and they aren’t even peripherally mentioned. Then, he continues this nonsense by saying,

“As a nation we excel at waging war, yet we are criminally indifferent to its costs and consequences.”

But his article makes no mention of the “costs and consequences” to the residents in the lands where these troops invade and occupy, other peoples’ lands — and that’s the vast majority of the “costs and consequences” of these invasions and occupations. His article simply ignores the death and destruction that the troops amongst whom he was embedded, were perpetrating upon the residents; he doesn’t care about those victims, at all; they don’t figure among his concerns; he doesn’t mention them. He then refers to “Sebastian Junger, whose film about the Afghanistan War, ‘Restrepo,’ which he co-directed with Tim Hetherington, is the gold standard for documentary war reporting.” The film-maker of Restreppo was embedded with US troops in 2007 during their occupation of Afghanistan fighting against the Taliban, which (though Epstein makes no mention of the fact) the US and Sauds had created in 1979 in order to defeat the Soviets. US troops were actually fighting against a monster that the US and Sauds had jointly created, with assistance from yet another ally of the US aristocracy: Pakistan’s aristocracy.

Discordantly, another page in that same day’s issue of USA Today headlined “Afghanistan stabilization effort failing after 17 years of US work, watchdog report says”, and reported that:

“The US government’s 17-year effort to stabilize parts of war-torn Afghanistan has mostly failed, according to a report released Thursday by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

The damning report finds that much of the $4.7 billion spent on programs to stabilize areas cleared of insurgents has been largely wasted — some of it siphoned off by corrupt officials, some of it paying for projects that did more harm than good. All told, the US government has appropriated about $126 billion to rebuild the country. … The huge flows of money into the impoverished country had the opposite effect of what was intended, the report says. … ‘By fueling corruption and the population’s disillusionment with its government, the coalition undermined the very government it sought to legitimize and drove support for the insurgency,’ the report says.”

So: who benefited from this death and destruction? Of course, the owners of America’s gigantic weapons-manufacturing firms did. And who suffered? Most of all, the residents in the invaded lands did, and do (though they weren’t even tokens considered in USA Today’s ‘journalism’).

There is nothing unique about USA Today, in any of this. For example, on the day before they ran those articles, the New York Times had bannered “North Korea Says It Will Give Trump ‘Time and Opportunity’ to Reconsider” and reported that “North Korea appeared to shift the blame to the United States” but provided no evidence that the blame belonged to anyone but America’s own President. How could North Korea have “shifted the blame” for Trump’s sudden termination of preparations for that summit? The NYT published that propaganda, treating its readers as fools who wouldn’t notice the ridiculousness of their “shift the blame” accusation against North Korea. Those readers pay subscription-fees to subject themselves to such propaganda as that.

On May 22nd, the independent investigative historian, Gareth Porter, had headlined “How Corporate Media Are Undermining a US-North Korea Nuclear Weapons Deal”, and he described the prior consistent record of US major ‘news’ media, as serving, in the North Korean matter, the function of propaganda agents for the owners of America’s giant weapons-making firms.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from SCF.

This is how Wikipedia defines denialism:

In the psychology of human behavior, denialism is a person’s choice to deny reality, as a way to avoid a psychologically uncomfortable truth. Denialism is an essentially irrational action that withholds the validation of a historical experience or event, when a person refuses to accept an empirically verifiable reality. In the sciences, denialism is the rejection of basic facts and concepts that are undisputed, well-supported parts of the scientific consensus on a subject, in favor of radical and controversial ideas.

In some countries, denying the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity is a crime.

In other countries denialism is part of the official discourse.

One such country is Japan.

Mass-circulation mainstream newspapers have sections dedicated to denying Japan’s crimes during World War Two and its pre-war colonial occupation of Asian nations, notably Korea and China.

One such paper is the Sankei Shimbun, one of Japan’s largest newspapers.

sankei_historywars_e

The Sankei Shimbun has a section called History Wars aimed at challenging the proven history of Japan’s war crimes prior to and during World War Two.

The historical denialism of the Sankei Shimbun – and that of its English language online publication Japan Forward – is mostly focused on denying the existence of comfort women, with titles such as 200,000 South Korean Wartime Sex Slaves is ‘Fake News’. Or denying that the Nanjing Massacre ever happened.

But there is another object of denialism that connects Japanese war crimes to ‘alleged’ American war crimes in Korea. It is the issue of bacteriological warfare and the notorious Unit 731 of Japan’s Kwantung Army, in occupied Manchuria. On this topic, the  Sankei Shinbun and Japan Forward are very discreet.

The crimes committed by Unit 731, led by Surgeon General Shiro Ishii, surpass in sadistic cruelty anything committed by Nazi Germany. Ishii and his men conducted “scientific” and “medical” experiments on prisoners – mostly Chinese “communists”, Soviet POWs and the occasional civilians caught at the wrong place when more human material was needed for the unit’s “experiments.”

Unit 731 had a contract with the local branch of the Kenpeitai, Japan’s Military Police, to supply human guinea-pigs for its experimental work. The people – men, women, children – delivered to the Unit 731 compound in Pingpang, on the outskirts of Harbin, were called maruta, Japanese for log. When the unit’s “scientists” were done with vivisecting, freezing to death, infecting with bacteria such as plague, cholera, typhus, syphilis and other deadly diseases, gassing, mummifying, detonating bombs and conducting other sadistic experiments, the maruta were disposed of as ‘logs’: their remains were burned in a furnace operating 24/7. Thousands of people died in the hands of Unit 731 “experimenters” – the exact number will probably never be known.

But what has been established beyond doubt is that some of the worst war crimes in the history of humankind were committed in occupied Manchuria against Chinese, Korean, Soviet, Mongolian men, women and children – and probably people of other nationalities too, including possibly US and Allied POWs.

Yet these crimes were never punished. In fact, until the 1990s, when stories started to appear in the Japanese media about the infamous unit and its crimes, very few had ever heard of Unit 731.

And with good reason. In 1945, Surgeon General Shiro Ishii’s right-hand man, Lieutenant Colonel Ryoichi Naito negotiated a deal with the American occupying forces. Members of Unit 731 would reveal the results of their research in bacteriological weapons and other experiments on humans in exchange for immunity against prosecution for war crimes. The deal was approved at the highest level, by the White House. The knowledge acquired by Unit 731 through criminal experiments on humans was transferred to the US bacteriological warfare research facility at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

Japan’s evil science became the property of the US military and intelligence services, adding to evil science acquired from Nazi war criminals in Operation Paperclip and other secret deals.

In January 1949, the Soviet Union put 12 members of Unit 731 on trial in Khabarovsk, found them guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and gave them rather lenient sentences. The result of the trial were published in Russian and English under the title Materials on the Trial of Former Servicemen of the Japanese Army: Charged with Manufacturing and Employing Bacteriological Weapons. It is available online. Its 540 pages document in great detail the criminal activities of Unit 731 of Japan’s Kwantung Army. The Americans dismissed the findings as “communist propaganda”. Today it is generally agreed that the findings are factual and conclusive.

Most senior members of Unit 731, including its commander, Surgeon General Shiro Ishii, escaped to Japan. But not one of them appeared before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, also known as the Tokyo Trials or the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, convened by the US and Allies (excluding the USSR) on April 29, 1946.

In fact, one of the main purposes of the trial was not to bring Japanese war criminals to trial, but to shield the Emperor of Japan from being charged with war crimes – including those of Unit 731, the formation of which he personally approved with his Imperial seal.

Former members of Unit 731 went on to occupy prominent positions in post-war Japan’s medical institutions, hospitals, faculties of medicine and various affiliated corporations.

In 1951, Shiro Ishii’s right-hand man and top negotiator with the Americans, Lieutenant Colonel Ryoichi Naito opened Japan’s first blood bank, together with former colleagues from Unit 731. His American “friends” gave him technical advice and support. The company, called Green Cross made a killing supplying blood to the US and Allies during the Korean war. It became one of the great successes of Japan’s post-war economic miracle, until in the 1980s it was charged with supplying blood contaminated with the AIDS virus. Ryoichi Naito’s specialty at Unit 731 was experimenting with blood, including pumping horse blood into live people and watching them slowly die. (See: Green Cross founder tied to Unit 731 preservation, The Japan Times, Aug 14, 1998).

On 22 February 1952, the North Korean Foreign Ministry made a formal allegation that American planes had been dropping infected insects onto North Korea. This was immediately denied by the US government. The accusation was supported by eye-witness accounts by the Australian reporter Wilfred Burchett and others. (Wikipedia).

During the Sino-Japanese war and during World War Two, Unit 731 caused plague epidemics in several regions of China, spreading plague infested fleas. It also triggered outbreaks of cholera, typhoid and other highly contagious and deadly diseases. These are irrefutable and established facts.

In 1945, the USA gave immunity to all members of Unit 731 in exchange for their expertise in bacteriological warfare. That expertise was used by US scientists at Fort Detrick, Maryland, to develop and experiment with bacteriological weapons. These are also irrefutable and established facts.

What is still being debated is whether the United States did or did not conduct bacteriological warfare in Korea and China.

Image below: A still from Wormwood

The issue had been mostly dormant until Errol Morris’ docu-drama Wormwood recently re-ignited the debate. (See: Wormwood and a Shocking Secret of War, CounterPunch, January 12, 2018.) Wormwood alleges that Frank Olson, a leading Fort Detrick scientist and CIA operative was murdered by the CIA because he was about to reveal that the US was conducting germ warfare in Korea. The case for BW in Korea is convincingly argued by Frank Olson’s son, Eric, who dedicated his life to solving his father’s death by defenestration.

The allegations that the US has conducted bacteriological warfare in Korea are backed by an overwhelming body of evidence, including the 650-page-long Report by the International Scientific Commission For The Investigation of The Facts Concerning Bacteriological Warfare In Korea and China. The Commission was led by one of Great Britain’s most prestigious scientists, Joseph Needham.

The US dismissed the report as “communist propaganda” and a “hoax”, just as it had dismissed the evidence collected during the Khabarovsk Trial. All those reporting, investigating and supporting allegation of US BW in Korea were branded “communist propagandists”, “agents of Moscow, Peking and Pyongyang”, “communists”, “dupes”, “useful idiots” and similar dismissive and insulting epithets. (See, Truth or Treason? Dirty Secrets of the Korean War, CounterPunch, 26 January, 2018)

If one believes in America’s exceptionalism and God-given moral superiority, this arguments may hold. But after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the monstrous war crimes committed against the people of Korea before and during the Korean War, in which the northern part of the country was reduced to rubble, after the war in Viet Nam, Agent Orange, the My Lai massacre and countless other war crimes and atrocities, the moral superiority argument is hard to sustain without a huge leap of faith.

In November 1998, Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman published The United States and Biological Warfare Secrets from the Early Cold War and Korea. It is a meticulously researched book.

The United States and Biological Warfare is a major contribution to our understanding of the past involvement by the US and Japanese governments with BW, with important, crucial implications for the future…. Pieces of this story, including the Korean War allegations, have been told before, but never so authoritatively, and with such a convincing foundation in historical research…. This is a brave and significant scholarly contribution on a matter of great importance to the future of humanity.” – Richard Falk, Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice, Princeton University

“The United States and Biological Warfare argues persuasively that the United States experimented with and deployed biological weapons during the Korean War. Endicott and Hagerman explore the political and moral dimensions of this issue, asking what restraints were applied or forgotten in those years of ideological and political passion and military crisis.”

With impeccable timing, “in January 1998 the Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun published excerpts from a collection of documents purportedly obtained from the Russian Presidential Archive (known formally as the Archive of the President, Russian Federation, or APRF) by its Moscow-based reporter, Yasuo Naito. These remarkable documents provide the first Soviet evidence yet to emerge regarding the longstanding allegations that the United States employed bacteriological weapons during the Korean War. Sankei Shimbun subsequently agreed to make the documents available to scholars; a translation of the complete texts is presented below.

“The circumstances under which these documents were obtained are unusual. Because the Presidential Archive does not allow researchers to make photocopies, the texts were copied by hand and subsequently re-typed. We therefore do not have such tell-tale signs of authenticity as seals, stamps or signatures that a photocopy can provide. Furthermore, since the documents have not been formally released, we do not have their archival citations. Nor do we know the selection criteria of the person who collected them.” Kathryn Weathersby, Deceiving the Deceivers: Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang, and the Allegations of Bacteriological Weapons Use in Korea.

The twelve ‘documents’ miraculously produced by Mr. Yasuo Naito, the Moscow correspondent of the denialist newspaper Sankei Shinbun, to coincide with the publication of the Endicott and Hagerman book, were used by Milton Leitenberg, then with the Wilson Centre, to triumphantly declare that the accusations that the US had conducted BW in Korea were an elaborate “hoax” concocted by Stalin, Mao and Kim Il Sung. (See: Milton Leitenberg, New Russian Evidence on the Korean War Biological Warfare Allegations: Background and Analysis, December 1998).

I’ve read and re-read the “copied” Russian documents translated into English by Kathryn Weathersby. They perfectly fit the denialist script. Here’s an extract from Document No. 2 (my comments in brackets):

“The Koreans stated that the Americans had supposedly repeatedly exposed several areas of their country to plague and cholera.  To prove these facts, the North Koreans, with the assistance of our advisers, created false areas of exposure. (Really?)  In June-July 1952 a delegation of specialists in bacteriology from the World Peace Council arrived in North Korea.  Two false areas of exposure were prepared. (Really??) In connection with this, the Koreans insisted on obtaining cholera bacteria from corpses which they would get from China.  During the period of the work of the delegation, which included academician N. Zhukov, who was an agent of the MGB [Ministry of State Security], (How convenient!) an unworkable situation was created for them, with the help of our advisers, in order to frighten them and force them to leave. (Why?) In this connection, under the leadership of Lt. Petrov, adviser to the Engineering Department of the KPA [Korean People’s Army], (as if they needed advisors!) explosions were set off near the place where the delegation was staying, and while they were in Pyongyang false air raid alarms were sounded.” (Why??)

And so it goes. This sounds to me like utter nonsense. I would like Milton Leitenberg, Kathryn Weathersby and others to please explain why after inviting the International Scientific Commission to investigate allegations of germ warfare, the Soviets and Koreans would go out of their way to scare it off by detonating bombs and sounding false air raid alarms?

The documents are so obviously self-incriminating that they are embarrassing to read. I wonder why their authenticity hasn’t been more seriously scrutinized and challenged. Why are they taken at face value when their authenticity is so obviously dubious?

To further complicate matters, according to Russian historian Yuri Vasylievich Vanin (1930-2017), the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation where Yasuo Naito “discovered” the 12 Soviet ‘documents’ in 1998, was donated to the Republic of Korea in 1994 by Boris Yeltsin. Which makes them even more suspect.

And yet, I am informed by highly authoritative sources that Milton Leitenberg’s Stalin, Mao, Kim Il Sung “hoax” theory is the accepted one in “polite circles”. Leitenberg re-iterated it forcefully recently in response to a review of Wormwood by Michael Ignatieff in The New York Review of Books. (No, They Didn’t Milton Leitenberg, reply by Michael Ignatieff, March 22, 2018). Ignatieff swiftly fell into line with Leitenberg on BW. The man seems to hold great powers of persuasion. Or are “polite circles” easily intimidated and swayed?

But I’m not. For as long as Mr. Yasuo Naito, of the denialist Sankei Shimbun and Japan Forward, and Milton Leitenberg, now of the Center for International and Security Studies in Maryland, and their associates are unable to produce the original Soviet ‘documents’, I shall consider them to be rather crude forgeries.

And I consider this statement by Professor Joseph Needham in a letter to my father, Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett, dated 23 February 1969 to be the truth of the matter. Needham writes:

“I agree entirely with your formulation of ‘large scale experimentation in delivery systems’, basically insect vectors, and I have in no way changed my opinion since the report was issued. Nor, so far as I know, has any other member of the International Scientific Commission expressed any doubts about the findings.”

Visitors view the “The Flower That Doesn’t Wilt: I’m the Evidence” exhibition of work on comfort women by Korean comic artists at the Angouleme International Comics Festival in France, Jan. 31. (Yonhap News)

In January 2014, Yasuo Naito was spotted at the Angoulême International Comics Festival in France. Twenty South Korean comics artists were invited by the Festival to present their work on the theme of comfort women. The exhibition was called “The Flower That Doesn’t Wilt: I’m the Evidence”. The Japanese Foreign Ministry Protested. A Japanese publisher, Nextdoor set up a stand at the Festival with banners proclaiming: The Comfort Women Controversy: Sex Slaves Or Prostitutes? And Fabricated Comfort Women Story (in French and English). It had one single manga (comic book) on display titled Facts, ‘debunking’ the ‘myth’ of comfort women. The Japanese stand was run by four people affiliated with the extreme-right wing denialist movement Kofoku no Kagaku.

Allow me to quote from an article in French on the matter (my English translation):

“Alerted to this annoying presence, Nicolas Finet, organizer of 9th Art + and in charge of the festival’s Little Asia section arrives in the afternoon. He observes that the Nextdoor team openly spreads denialist messages that contravene the Gayssot Act by denying crimes against humanity. “These people are denying war crimes. It is serious, in particular for the Japanese authorities, which they pretended to represent,” explains Nicolas Finet.

“Their stand is immediately closed by the organizer and the material is seized. The incident makes a big noise on the web. Nicolas Finet becomes the bête noire of many Japanese Internet users.”

Here’s more from the same article:

“After some research on the Internet, the Japanese journalist Kolin Kobayashi, correspondent in France for the magazine Days Japan informs us that he (Fujiki Shun-Ichi) is a collaborator of the extremist-racist Shuhei Nishimura, leader of a Japanese right-wing group and known for his violent methods.

“Who finances this team capable of publishing in a few weeks a 100 pages manga, of hiring a stand at the Festival by concealing its intentions, of attracting over 10,000 Internet followers and rallying the Japanese media? Kolin Kobayashi finds out that the Sankei Shimbun – Japan’s fifth largest daily – have been keeping its readers informed about the misadventures of Nextdoor Publishing.

Sankei Shimbun is also a revisionist right-wing newspaper,” says the journalist. “They are probably accomplices in this case. They would have coordinated their action in Angoulême. They were probably funded by the religious sect Kofoku no Kagaku which is also a denialist movement, or by other far-right organizations.”

“And as if to confirm Kolin Kobayashi’s suspicions, Yasuo Naito, head of the Sankei Shimbun office in London, is present in Angoulême for the duration of the festival. This courteous English-speaking journalist kept questioning festival-goers about this mini-scandal, operating as a discreet but tenacious advocate of Nextdoor Publishing.”

So here we have it. Japanese ultra-denialists, supported by the denialist paper Sankei Shimbun, can produce a 100 page denialist manga and try to infiltrate and disrupt an International Comics Festival in France with denialist propaganda. What stops them from producing 12 ‘documents’ proving that Chinese, Korean and Soviet allegations that the US (with Japan’s direct or indirect complicity) conducted germ warfare in Korea were a “hoax” concocted by Stalin, Mao and Kim Il Sung?

And while I’m in denialist fantasy land or manga fiction, I’ll even suggest a Russian author for the 12 Soviet ‘documents’ published by Sankei Shimbun in January 1998. I have no proof, but the denialists have no proof either.

In 1991, a group of former Japanese POWs, kept in prison camps in Siberia after World War Two, invited an obscure Russian-Jewish writer to visit Japan. He was treated like royalty. His name in Russian is Вениамин Залманович Додин (1924-2014). In English it would be Veniamin Zalmanovich Dodin. Google has nothing on him in English. But a search in Russian reveals a prolific writer of unpublished books, essays etc. One such publication in two parts is Towards The Sun. (Навстречу солнцу, 2013). It tells of his visit to Japan in 1991.

Dodin was the son of Russian Jews of German origin. His father was an engineer and his mother an army nurse who served in the Japan-Russia war of 1905. Both parents suffered under Stalin and the young Dodin grew up in orphanages and labour camps. His books tell about his horrendous childhood and Stalinist repression. After World War Two he was again in a labour camp in Siberia where he says he befriended some Japanese war prisoners and, according to him, saved their lives, by sharing food and warmth. In 1991, his former Japanese prison camp mates traced him and invited him to Japan. His visit was organized and sponsored by Senkei Shinbum and others, including the founder of Sony Corporation, Masaru Ibuka.

He was treated like a hero. His official escort throughout the trip was Yasuo Naito, of the Senkei Shinbum. Yasuo Naito, then 27, speaks fluent Russian – his father was Japan’s Press attaché in Moscow in the 1970s and young Yasuo attended Russian school there.

Dodin’s hatred of Stalin and the USSR, his literary talents and conspiratorial themes make him an excellent candidate for writing the 12 Soviet ‘documents’ that Yasuo Naito so conveniently ‘discovered’. I can’t prove it. But neither can they prove that their 12 documents are authentic and not clever forgeries.

As far as I’m concerned, my “conspiracy theory” is as good as theirs.

But mine is backed by a huge amount of evidence, including undeniable and unpunished Japanese war crimes. Unpunished because the US traded evil Japanese science for impunity for the perpetrators of the crimes, namely senior members of Unit 731.

Korean, Chinese, Soviet, Russian and other people – men, women, children – have suffered horribly from Japanese war crimes and crimes perpetrated by US led forces in Korea. Including bacteriological warfare conducted by the Japanese and, with little doubt, by the Americans. No maruta or logs survived their captivity at Unit 731. All died as a result of “experiments” or were killed to make sure no witnesses lived to recount the sadistic nightmarish horrors of Japan’s evil science.

The Japanese can no longer deny the crimes of Unit 731. But they can obviously still shield some of the criminals, deeply embedded in Japanese society, and their American benefactors and beneficiaries of their “science”.

No opportunity should be missed to expose them.

Especially today, when accusations of “chemical warfare” allegedly carried by the Russians on British soil and alleged “chemical attacks” in Syria by Assad’s “regime” may very well lead to a war to end all wars and all life on earth.

We must be vigilant and not fooled by dodgy “dossiers” and “documents”.

And denialists should not be allowed to cover the tracks of war criminals and evidence of war crimes, past, current and future.

*

George Burchett is an artist who lives in Ha Noi. He has co-edited Rebel Journalist, The Autobiography of Wilfred Burchett, University of New South Wales Press, 2005 and Rebel Journalism, The Writings of Wilfred Burchett, Cambridge University Press, 2007. He has written for CounterPunch, Japan Focus, Z-Net, The Australian, Viet Nam News and other publications.

In early January this year, American president Donald Trump singled out his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong-un when writing, “…please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger and more powerful one than his, and my Button works!” Before, during his presidential bid, Trump had repeatedly asked a foreign policy advisor regarding nuclear weapons, “If we have them, why can’t we just use them?”

In November 1944, Adolf Hitler had a discussion with his prized SS commander Otto Skorzeny, where the Nazi leader said of atomic bombs:

“No nation, no group of civilized people could take on such a responsibility. The first bomb would be followed by a second, and then humanity would be forced down the road to extinction. Only tribes in the Amazon and the primeval forests of Sumatra would have a chance of survival”.

bombing

Image on the right: Intaglio print by Sarah Churchill/Curtis Hooper

Hitler’s comments have, unfortunately, been telling. One bomb was followed by a second, both of them dropped by the US Air Force upon Japanese cities – after American and British leaders gave the green light to kill tens of thousands of civilians, with Japan’s military long since set in irreversible retreat. In his war memoirs, Winston Churchill wrote of the bombings of Japan:

“The final decision now lay in the main with president [Harry] Truman, who had the weapon; but I never doubted what it would be, nor have I ever doubted since that he was right… There was unanimous, automatic, unquestioned agreement around our table”.

The decision by America to relentlessly pursue, and use, nuclear weapons started an inevitable proliferation domino effect – of no great concern to Western leaders – with nine countries now possessing nuclear arsenals. This includes nations hostile to each other such as the United States and Russia, while on the other side of the world, old enemies India and Pakistan have nuclear stockpiles, not to mention Israel.

Humanity has indeed almost been “forced down the road to extinction” because of these policies – particularly if the atomic scientists running the Doomsday Clock are to be taken seriously. Regarding nuclear weapons in the post-World War II era, there have been a series of nightmarish provocations and false alarms, leaving humanity teetering on the edge. Such have been the risks deliberately imposed on populations by the great powers, who refuse to disarm their nuclear arsenals. The unprecedented dangers of nuclear weapons have been “systematically concealed from the public” by government leaders and mainstream media, as Daniel Ellsberg writes in his recent book The Doomsday Machine.

Ellsberg, a veteran former Pentagon official, author and activist writes that,

 “first-strike nuclear attacks by either side very much smaller than were planned in the sixties and seventies… would still kill, by loss of sunlight and resulting starvation, nearly all the humans on earth, now over seven billion”.

Ellsberg confirms this apocalyptic outcome is firmly supported by “the latest scientific peer-reviewed studies of climatic consequences of nuclear war” – while he insists “basic elements of American readiness for nuclear war remain today what they were almost 60 years ago: Thousands of nuclear weapons remain on hair-trigger alert, aimed mainly at Russian military targets… many in or near cities”.

Today, if America was to begin a nuclear war, as Trump has openly threatened: The resulting nuclear winter effect would destroy all human life within his own country, the United States, along with practically the rest of the world’s population.

Ellsberg notes that,

“What none of us knew at the time [in the 1960s]… not the president or his science advisors… were the phenomena of nuclear winter and nuclear famine, which meant that a large nuclear war of the kind we prepared for then, or later, would kill nearly every human on earth (along with most other large species)”.

Also facing certain extinction would be iconic land animals such as elephants, lions, giraffes, etc., all of whom are heavily reliant in different ways on the life-giver of sunlight.

Critically, Ellsberg writes of nuclear winter:

“It is the smoke, after all (not the fallout, which would remain mostly limited to the northern hemisphere), that would do it worldwide: Smoke and soot lofted by fierce firestorms in hundreds of burning cities into the stratosphere, where it would not rain out and would remain for a decade or more – enveloping the globe and blocking most sunlight, lowering annual global temperatures to the level of the last Ice Age, and killing all harvests worldwide, causing near-universal starvation within a year or two”.

Indeed, before a two-year lapse of time following a nuclear war, perhaps 99% of the now 7.6 billion humans on earth would die of starvation, or extreme cold. Hitler’s prediction of over 70 years before remains increasingly relevant, the only humans that could possibly survive are those such as the “tribes in the Amazon and the primeval forests of Sumatra”. It is certainly the “primitive” peoples, not entirely reliant upon sunlight or food crops, that would have the only chance of lasting out a nuclear Armageddon. Even then, there are few guarantees.

It says much about the morality and psychological state of Western leaders whereby Hitler – a notorious dictator – repeatedly expressed his repulsion regarding nuclear bombs. This was clear from the first moment Hitler’s new armaments minister, Albert Speer, broached the subject of nuclear research with him in the summer of 1942. As the war advanced, no such concerns afflicted US presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Truman, nor British prime minister Churchill. They were all enthusiasts, despite it becoming clear by late 1943 the Nazis had shunned the atomic bomb.

Even more worryingly, the final decision as to who fires the “US nuclear forces has never been exclusively that of the president, nor even his highest military officials”, Ellsberg outlines. The ultimate call in authorizing the use of nuclear weapons reaches down even “to subordinate commanders”. This was the case not only under president Dwight D. Eisenhower in the late 1950s, but later through the administrations of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter. Ellsberg highlights that this is “almost certainly” the case with “every subsequent US president until this day”, noting that such a strategy is “one of our highest national secrets”.

Rather than there being “a nuclear button” as Trump wrote, the great likelihood is there are quite a number of these buttons in the US. Nor are such policies of insanity restricted to US administrations. Ellsberg surmises it is “virtually certain” that “this same secret delegation exists in every nuclear state”.

Further revealed is that, during the Kennedy period, there were planned US nuclear attacks on the USSR and China that would knowingly lead to “the extermination of over half a billion people”. That is, about 100 Nazi Holocausts combined. In fact, such nuclear assaults would have led to the virtual annihilation of the human race – due to the unforeseen nuclear winter effects, which only started becoming clear to scientists from 1983 on.

Though today nuclear winter is widely known in specialist circles, it seems implausible the Trump administration is completely aware of this extinction phenomenon. Otherwise, the president would hardly be undertaking such reckless statements – the atomic scientists specifically noted Trump’s comments while outlining their decision to again advance the Doomsday Clock, in January this year. Even if Trump and associates were briefed of the dire nuclear winter theory, it is probable they would not take it seriously anyway. Scientific certainties are routinely ridiculed by high-ranking Republican Party members, who are scornful of unwanted facts in general.

While running for president in 2016, Trump refused to take “off the table” the use of nuclear weapons in any conflict. Be it against ISIS, in Europe, or whomever it may concern. Elsewhere, it seems unlikely Trump’s counterparts in India, Pakistan, North Korea, and so on, are intimate of the critical facts regarding nuclear weapons.

Combining all of this, one can comfortably arrive at the conclusion that Trump is a far more dangerous figure than Hitler before him. The Fascist dictator was responsible for mass genocide, primarily against Jewish and Slavic populations, killing well over 30 million people. In the West, often forgotten is that over 25 million Soviet citizens were also killed by Hitler’s forces. The total death toll, while horrendous, was a tiny fraction of the global human population at the time, of 2.3 billion people.

Hitler was not undertaking actions that remotely threatened the human race as a whole. The Nazi leader was opposed to nuclear weapons on skewed racial grounds (“Jewish physics”) and because he foresaw that their arrival, from early on, was a severe threat to the planet. However outlandish it may seem, one could argue that a number of post-war leaders in America (and elsewhere) have indeed been more dangerous than Hitler. Rather than leading the way in disarming the unparalleled threat to the earth, nuclear weapons, US leaders have done anything but – often flaunting their arsenals through possible attack, intimidation, while leaving the way open to unforeseen accidents.

Trump’s policies of the continuing provocation of Russia, China and North Korea, three nuclear states, is a game of cat and mouse with the highest possible stakes. For instance in the preceding months thousands of fresh troops from NATO, an expansionist US-led alliance, arrived in Europe, pushing up to Russia’s borders. Three months ago, Vladimir Putin felt compelled to publicly display his country’s nuclear capabilities, such are the threats he understandably discerns.

Trump has further increased American support for Israel, an aggressive nuclear power situated in an especially unstable region, the Middle East. The US president recently pulled his country out of the Iran deal, possibly setting the Islamic republic on the road to developing nuclear bombs. Furthermore, Trump last year withdrew America from the Paris climate agreement – a serious blow to the planet – as his administration continues to ignore, indeed exacerbate, major threat number two: unrestricted climate change.

*

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


Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102
Print Edition: $10.25 (+ shipping and handling)
PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute   

WWIII Scenario

Background

Far-reaching trade policies and sanctions against China are envisaged, According to Reuters:

The United States said on Tuesday that it will continue pursuing action on trade with China, days after Washington and Beijing announced a tentative solution to their dispute and suggested that tensions had cooled.

By June 15, Washington will release a list of some $50 billion worth of Chinese goods that will be subject to a 25 percent tariff, the White House said in a statement. The United States will also continue to pursue litigation against China at the World Trade Organization.

In addition, by the end of June, the United States will announce investment restrictions and “enhanced export controls” for Chinese individuals and entities “related to the acquisition of industrially significant technology,” it said.

In mid-May, China agreed to increase purchases of U.S. Commerce Department told lawmakers it had reached a deal to put Chinese telecommunications firm ZTE Corp back in business.

While the announcements eased worries about the possibility of a trade war between world’s two largest economies, U.S. President Donald Trump also said last week that any deal between Washington and Beijing would need “a different structure,” fueling uncertainty over the talks.

Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on up to $150 billion of Chinese goods to combat what he has labeled unfair trade practices on the part of Beijing. Meanwhile, China has warned of equal retaliation, including duties on some of its most significant U.S. imports, like aircraft, soybeans and vehicles. (Reuters Report)

***

PressTV: What do you make of this so-called Trade War between the US and China?

Peter Koenig: It’s like almost everything by Trump – “on again, off again…” – Will these threats be materialized or just remain threats for propaganda, for public consumption?

The same with the long-sought head-to-head meeting between Trump and Kim Jong-Un on 12 June in Singapore – it was on, then off and now – maybe.

Iran – after 9 years of hard negotiations the 5+1 Nuclear Deal was singed in July 2015 – Trump comes in – of course highly influenced by Netanyahu – the deal is off. But he doesn’t like that the other four will stick to it.

Same with China and the so-called Trade War. China certainly will not like tariff “punishment”. But, I’m sure if it happens, China has many avenues to circumvent dealing and trading with the US. But once that happens, China may be lost for good for the US market. And Trump knows it – hence, a little bit the on-and-off game. He wants to test the waters; see who reacts how.

PressTV: You say China has many avenues to circumvent the US sanctions or retaliate. What can China do?

PK: China can of course also levy import duties on US goods. China doesn’t depend on US imports. China is self-sufficient and has, as it is, a huge trade surplus vis-à-vis the US.

China also controls the Asian market – having over taken the US already a couple of years ago.

But what I really suspect is that Trump wants to discourage the world from using the Yuan as a reserve currency, since as such, it lowers not only the value of the US dollar, but it replaces the US dollar as the de facto reserve currency in the world.

Only 20 years ago, or so, the US dollar figured to 90% as reserve currency in treasuries around the globe. Today that percentage has shrunk to below 60%.

As you know, the Yuan has become an official IMF reserve currency about a year ago. That established worldwide trust in the Chinese currency, especially since the Yuan is backed by the Chinese economy plus by gold. Whereas the US dollar has no backing whatsoever; it’s pure and simple FIAT money. 

Plus, the US is broke. Everybody knows it. The US has a current debt of about 110% of her GDP, more than the Greek debt was in 2008. 

And if counting what the US General Accounting Office calls, “unmet obligations” or “uncovered liabilities” – the US debt is about 7 ½ times the US GDP. 

Of course, such figures do not go unnoticed by the treasurers of the world.

So, Trump’s trade war with China – or the Propaganda for a Trade war, might as well be a Propaganda against the Yuan, diminishing its reputation – so as to deflect from every country’s golden opportunity to use the Yuan to replace the dollar as reserve currency. 

*

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 21st 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.

Featured image is from FinanceTwitter.

As a witness of the broadcast of RFK’s victory speech and the virtually simultaneous announcement of his assassination at the Ambassador Hotel while I was serving as a university coordinator for RFK for President, I feel a heavy sense of duty to support RFK, Jr.’s plea for a fresh official approach to the death of his father. 

With the 50th anniversary of the death of Robert Francis Kennedy approaching on the 6th of June, we must not forget the circumstances of his brutal murder that followed the cruel murder of his brother, JFK, and the vicious murder of MLK, Jr.

Today, RFK’s case rises in importance because his son, RFK, Jr. calls for a new investigation stating that he is not convinced by the original handling of the case and he has lost all confidence in the ‘lone nut’ theory adopted by the prosecution of Sirhan.

In doing so, RFK follows members of the King family who have long called for a new investigation into the facts of the murder of MLK.  For decades public, private and scientific dissatisfaction with the case of JFK remains a massive lacuna in our understanding of the United States of America in the turbulent 20th century.

Finally, the media-driven mantra of ‘conspiracy theory’ has collapsed while the lone gunman theories of these three iconic political assassinations have disappeared under the stark gaze of scientific analysis and the testimony of credible eyewitnesses including Paul Schrade, a genuine American hero who survived a bullet wound to his head at the side of RFK on that fateful evening in the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel half a century ago.

It is worth recalling the history of the initial incursion of ISIS forces (Summer 2014) and the timeline extending from the occupation of Mosul in Summer of 2014 which was covertly supported by the US, to the “Liberation” of Mosul three years later which was also supported by the US and its allies.

We’re dealing with a diabolical military and intelligence agenda. 

Moreover, it was only once the ISIS had captured Mosul and was firmly entrenched inside Iraq, that the US and its allies initiated two months later its  “counter-terrorism” operation, allegedly against the ISIS. 

With the so-called “Liberation” of Iraq (June-July 2017), it is important to reflect on Washington’s diabolical project.

The ISIS, a construct of US intelligence  was dispatched to Iraq in Summer 2014. With limited paramilitary capabilities it occupied Mosul.

What would have been required from a military standpoint to wipe out the ISIS Daesh convoy with no effective anti-aircraft capabilities?

If they had wanted to eliminate the Islamic State brigades, they could have “carpet” bombed their convoys of Toyota pickup trucks when they crossed the desert from Syria into Iraq in June. 

The answer is pretty obvious, yet not a single mainstream media has acknowledged it.

The  Syro-Arabian Desert is open territory (see map right). With state of the art jet fighter aircraft (F15, F22 Raptor, F16) it would have been  –from a military standpoint–  ”a piece of cake”, a rapid and expedient surgical operation, which would have decimated the Islamic State convoys in a matter of hours.

Iraqi forces were coopted by the US to let it happen. The Iraqi military commanders were manipulated and paid off, They allowed the city to fall into the hands of the ISIS rebels without “a single shot being fired”. 

Shiite General Mehdi Sabih al-Gharawi who was in charge of the Mosul Army divisions “had left the city”. Al Gharawi had worked hand in glove with the US military. He took over the command of Mosul in September 2011, from US Col Scott McKean. 

Had he been co-opted, instructed by his US counterparts to abandon his command?

Then in August 2014, Obama launched a so-called “counter-terrorism operation” against the ISIS, namely against terrorists who were supported and financed by the US, UK, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel.

Three years of extensive bombings under a fake counter-terrorism mandate. 

America’s ultimate intent was to destroy, destabilize and fracture Iraq as a nation State.  That objective has largely been achieved. 

The “Liberation” of Mosul constitutes an extensive crime against humanity consisting in actively supporting the ISIS terrorists occupation of Mosul, and then waging an extensive bombing campaign to “liberate” the city.  

 

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, May 30, 2018

Nazli Tarsi‘s carefully documented article below describes the cruel aftermath of the “Liberation” of Mosul

***

Like heavy fog, the stench of death fills the air in Mosul

by Nazli Tarsi

Middle East Monitor 

May 29, 2018

Throughout the nine months from the beginning of military operations to liberate Iraq’s north-western province in October 2016, thousands of men, women and children, as well as fighters, perished. The Pentagon refers to the ancient city of Mosul’s fallen civilian population as “unintentional” casualties, but locally they are still mourned as mothers and fathers, children and grandchildren, all caught in the crossfire of a war outside of their making.

In July last year, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi announced the liberation of the final Daesh stronghold in the ancient city. Another ten months have now passed, yet the corpses of civilians and Daesh fighters still litter the ground in Mosul’s Old City. According to investigator Samuel Oakford of monitoring group Airwars, “There remains no official count of the dead in Mosul.”

Eleven thousand has been the largest figure cited by press agencies, but hundreds who are still missing may yet have to be added to any final total. The tally is likely to grow for at least the next six months, if not longer.

Efforts to dispose of dismembered and mutilated corpses have been as agonisingly slow as efforts to reconstruct a city that endured, according to Airwars, 1,250 air strikes to be liberated. Bodies are collected by Iraq’s Civil Defence teams and death certificates are then issued, but even their efforts have been limited, owing to the lack of funds and human resources to tackle the problem head-on.

The blistering heat of an Iraqi summer threatens to aggravate the adverse health risks associated with rotting corpses. Already, like heavy fog, the stench of death fills the air in Mosul. Greater efforts are needed desperately, but the neglect of the bodies has established itself as the norm; they are simply being left to rot.

The Iraqi authorities, both central and provincial, have defended themselves against allegations of neglect over this issue. Each blames the other for failure to exhume bodies trapped beneath the rubble, as families, offered no support, are left to fill in the blanks over the fate of their missing loved ones. The perceived identify of abandoned corpses has been the excuse that some federal officials have used in defence of their inaction.

Iraq’s Civil Defence teams have, in some instances, refused to clear corpses which they claim belong to “Daesh families”. Nevertheless, on 17 and 18 May alone, Civil Defence responders recovered as many as a 1,000 bodies.

Local volunteers and civil society organisations have explained the dilemma by pointing to the lack of specialist equipment and the means needed to clear the city. Mohammad Dylan, a member of the Wasel Tasel Team distributing relief items and offering support to devastated neighbourhoods and homes in the Old City, expects further delays. “Some of the areas are not safe for volunteer teams to travel to alone,” he told MEMO, “particularly in the Old City District, where the majority of bodies are concentrated.”

In the absence of a coordinated corpse removal campaign, local volunteers from Nineveh and other Iraqi provinces have assumed the responsibility that officials have shrugged off. Despite the slow pace of their work, they are seeing results for the first time since the defeat of Daesh last July.

Fatima Alani, senior researcher at the Amman-based Iraqi War Crimes Centre, cited “multiple reasons” for the situation being as it is. “Safe corridors that could have provided civilians trapped inside the city with a safe escape route were not secured,” she explained. “Moreover, we received evidence that throughout the struggle for the city’s liberation, civilians were obstructed or dissuaded from leaving”.

Last week alone, Alani pointed out, a total of 600 bodies were recovered in the space of 48 hours. She contends that the brutality that visited Mosul could have been avoided if civilian-populated centres were not deliberately hit by overwhelming force.

As buildings crumbled, the face of Mosul was changed beyond recognition. The scale of urban devastation has made it almost impossible for families to locate relatives that they fear are dead, or find out how they died. The pattern of the killing that has emerged suggests clearly that beneath every shattered building rotting corpses remain entombed.

While the River Tigris made it easy for the disposal of bodies, the city’s water supplies are now dangerously polluted. The head of the Nineveh Water Directorate has denied such claims, though, and assured city residents of the periodic testing and sterilisation of potable water. No independent evidence exists to verify his claims.

Mohammad Al-Azzawi, the deputy head of the medical centre in Alam, told state-owned Chinese news agency Xinhua that laboratory tests show the water from the river to be highly contaminated with faecal and intestinal bacteria. “The negligence we see and the abandonment of these corpses will give rise to different diseases,” he said. “It could result in another plague or anthrax. The longer they remain, the more toxic the effects of environmental pollution will be.”

Al-Azzawi added that we should not forget that the prolonged presence of corpses in the rubble and on the streets will affect the health of the residents left behind, and contaminate the city’s water facilities. “The spread of lethal strains of influenza and other deadly pathogens will put civilian lives at greater risk.”

While many questions remain unanswered, the most pressing are linked to the identities of newly-recovered corpses, especially those discovered inside what have been described as “killing rooms”, where countless bodies are layered messily on top of each other. Almost a year after Mosul’s liberation, not all of the bodies are subject to forensic tests to determine the cause of death and their identity.

The stench of death that hangs heavily over the corpse-infested city has arrested optimism about a hopeful future for its remaining residents. They may have lived through one of the ugliest wars in modern memory, but their battle for survival goes on.

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In 2017 the retired US Navy admiral and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander,  t is an attractive read for military professionals, especially those serving in the Navy, as well as for historians, political scientists, and anyone interested in the complex junctures of the geographical landscape and the ways in which power is projected. Of course in this instance we are primarily talking about the environment of the sea.  However, the style of the presentation and the method used to convey the material betrays a certain ideological determinism.  From the very first pages the author proclaims his identity and his devotion to the cult of the sea, just like a Venetian doge presiding over a Marriage of the Sea ceremony — “Like Saint Paul on the road to Damascus, I had an epiphany: I wanted to be a sailor. In all my life, we had not been a family particularly oriented to the water, but the Pacific grabbed me by the throat and said quite simply, ‘You are home.’ I’ve never looked back” (pg. 12) — this is how James Stavridis describes his first ocean voyage in 1972 on the USS Jouett cruiser, when he was a young student at the Naval Academy. She was “beautiful and modern” —  these words, spoken about a warship, are an example of the typical sort of slang used by military professionals who lavish such epithets on their equipment, almost as if they were describing a living creature.

There are nine chapters, seven of which are broken down by region — the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, the Mediterranean and the South China Sea, the Caribbean, the Arctic Ocean, and two chapters with themes on maritime piracy, the fishing industry, ecology, and US Naval strategy for the 21st century.  The political and elective subtext is specified right up front in the table of contents.

Who would have been thinking about the South China Sea 15 years ago? The focus would have more likely been on the Persian Gulf. That trend became an object of particular interest to Washington once China successfully incorporated high-tech military equipment into its arsenal and the country started to take off economically, although run-ins in the South China Sea began to occur in the 1970s.  And isn’t the conceptualization of global maritime piracy just a reason to justify the forward presence of the US Navy in the most far-flung corners of the world, under the pretext of a noble cause?

However, US interests like these are described in the first chapter from a historical perspective — such as the 1898 annexation of Hawaii, because American ships needed refueling (which awaited them at transit points known as coaling stations), and also the dramatic voyage of American Commodore Matthew Perry to Japan in the 1850s (pg. 25), which not only led to that country’s dependence on treaties with the US, but also its rapid modernization in keeping with the Western model. In describing the Russo-Turkish war, Stavridis mentions what he calls an “interesting side note” — some Russian ships surrendered to the enemy. As a result, “[w]hen the commanders came home, they were court-martialed and sentenced to death, ending for all intents and purposes the idea of surrender” (pg. 29). Stavridis claims that the US has a different philosophy — to never surrender one’s ship but rather to fight to the end.

Image: James George Stavridis, a retired United States Navy admiral and the current dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, a graduate school for international affairs in the US.

The USS Pueblo (AGER-2), which was a reconnaissance ship disguised as a scientific vessel, was carrying a crew of over 80 sailors when it was captured by North Korean patrol boats in 1968. No one even attempted to fend off the Koreans (two machine guns remained under wraps). Nor were any of the secret documents destroyed and the equipment continued to operate right in front of the astonished Koreans who descended into the holds.  In 1969 the captain was even subjected to a Naval court of inquiry in the US. That’s no surprise — for the first time in 160 years, an American ship had surrendered to the enemy, and no one had come to its rescue!  But in the end no action was taken against him, since it became clear that the US military system was in such a deep “mess.”

No mention is made of the heroic resistance offered by the Russian cruiser Varyag, which acquiesced to an unequal battle with the Japanese in 1905. Those details are quite worthy of note, however, since in 1907 the commander of that ship, Admiral Vsevolod Rudnev, became the first European to be decorated with Japan’s Order of the Rising Sun, as a sign of Tokyo’s respect for his heroism in that battle.

What’s more, Theodore Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel peace prize for his role in the negotiations between Russia and Japan. When you think about the fact that the Japanese won their victory at Tsushima thanks to their superior ability to communicate by radio — a stumbling block for the Russians — one can also then discern the role played by the US, by that same Commodore Perry who had been the first to introduce Tokyo to Western technology.

Stavridis then argues that “[t]he Pacific Ocean arms race is real and it is dangerous” (pg. 41). But as they say, when you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind.

Next, let’s take a look at the Atlantic Ocean, or the “cradle of our civilization,” as Stavridis calls it.  His brief historical digression into the navigational tactics of the Greeks, the Vikings, and the Irish (St. Brendan) is fairly interesting, and those stories are blended with the admiral’s personal reminiscences. Of course five nations fought a war over the Atlantic: the Portuguese, under the rule of Prince Henry the Navigator and later Christopher Columbus; the Spanish Armada; the “creative geostrategic genius William Pitt” (pg. 60); and also France and the Netherlands, which had their own interests at stake. And then 1773 saw the Boston Tea Party, which resulted in England being stripped of its own colonies. Finally there was the Battle of Trafalgar and the American Civil War, during which both Southerners and Northerners utilized the Atlantic, plus WWI, the Battle of the Atlantic (as Churchill dubbed it), and the Falklands War in 1982 (the last military conflict in this ocean) — our author leads us through each twist and turn. At the end of the chapter he states, “The Atlantic today is, for essentially the first time in its long history, a zone of cooperation and peace from the Arctic Circle to the shores of the Antarctic in the far South” (pg. 84). And here we see the contradiction that emerges at the end of the book. In the section about pirates (pg. 285), he speaks about the Gulf of Guinea and the deltas of the Niger and the Volta where Boko Haram is active, which has forced Western nations to deploy special missions to the coast of West Africa. So we still have a long way to go before we can objectively point to peace and cooperation in the Atlantic.

The chapter on the Indian Ocean also begins with personal impressions, mixed with historical facts. One important observation is that wars have not been fought there as often as in other seas, because of the idiosyncrasies of the strategic geography. The clashes that occurred between the competing powers that bordered the Indian Ocean were primarily conducted on land. Did this predestine these countries to be afterwards partial to Land Power? It is quite possible, although they made good use of their fleets for commercial purposes, making it possible for them to establish a system of communication from China to the east coast of Africa even back in the days of antiquity.

And kudos to Stavridis for bringing up what happened to Iran Air Flight 655 when a missile from the USS Vincennes cruiser shot down an Iranian airliner carrying 290 civilian passengers. Stavridis calls it “a terrible mistake caused by the high state of tension in the region, the confusion and fog of war …” (pg. 99).

But then we get to Vasco da Gama, who is credited with “the most epic and impactful voyage of exploration in world history …” (pg. 101), and the experienced eye of a historian of oceanic exploration will immediately pick up on the omission, for where is the mention of the pilot of his ship, the native of Oman, Ahmad ibn Majid? For without this Arab navigator there would have been no discoveries in the name of Portugal. And why is there no reference to the legend of Sinbad the Sailor, who was based on a real historical figure? Robert Kaplan was more careful in his book, Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and The Future of American Power, and made note of these details.

Instead Stavridis turns his attention to the Suez Canal, although it would be better to have moved that subject to the chapter on the Mediterranean, where it would be a more logical fit.

One can discern recurring value judgments by reading between the lines, such as in reference to the Iranian government of Ayatollah Khomeini, “which truly, madly, deeply, hated the United States” (pg. 115). Such passages clearly help to entrench the negative image of Iran held by American (and other) readers of this book.

The chapter’s conclusions are quite obvious — “we must recognize the vital importance of the Indian Ocean itself … Our strategic and geopolitical mental map reflects this …” (pg. 120). The artificial narrative of the Indo-Pacific region that is promoted by the US represents an incremental realization of these intentions. India is identified as America’s primary partner on this issue. And it’s a sensible idea to bring not only NATO and Washington’s Asian partners on board for the joint fight against piracy, “but also China, India, Pakistan, and Iran.” But that will be difficult if the US continues to act like the world’s policeman, in keeping with its ideas of its own political superiority and exceptionalism.

The chapter on the Mediterranean opens with statistical data and this region’s role in world history: the Minoans, Cretans, Phoenicians, and Carthaginians; the early “clash of civilizations” between the Greeks and Persians; and the transformation of the Mediterranean into a home sea for the Romans. And then, alas, the book blunders and has only a few lines to offer about the Crusades and the Byzantine Empire. After all, Byzantium lasted longer than any other mighty power in that region. Moreover, many historians have dubbed it a “sea empire,” because of its powerful fleet and interest in controlling sea-based communication channels. Under Diocletian, Byzantium possessed several fleets — after the seventh-century reforms, a system of sea themata was established, and the phenomenon of the sea-based droungarios, was in fact, a prototype for the mobile units and interdepartmental cooperation seen today. And, of course, there was the “Greek fire” (or, more precisely, “liquid fire,” as it was called in Byzantium) and the epic naval battles — the Battle of the Masts, the defeat of the Arabs in 747 after their unsuccessful siege of Constantinople, the conquest of Cyprus and Crete from the Muslims in the second half of the tenth century, etc. Nor did the Slavs’ Siege of Constantinople rate a mention (although Ukraine, Crimea, and Russia are referred to quite freely later in the book.).

Is this evidence of his ignorance of historical facts or rather an intentional oversight in order to avoid recognizing the role played by Byzantium for centuries in the region’s maritime policy? The second option is more likely to be correct, since the Ottoman Empire is also discussed rather selectively. Laziness is the only explanation for the omission of the Battle of Lepanto, but why no references to Pasha Hayreddin Barbarossa (Khidr Reis), who inspired fear in every European power in the early 16th century? The Battle of Preveza is also worth describing, in which the Ottoman fleet was far smaller than the combined flotilla of the legendary Admiral Andrea Doria (122 ships vs. 600), yet Doria’s forces ultimately lost and beat an ignoble retreat. And keeping in mind Barbarossa’s  famous saying — “whoever rules the waves rules the world” — was not Halford Mackinder‘s formula for controlling Eurasia merely a restatement of the ideas of ​​that Ottoman admiral?

At the end of this chapter, a number of regional imperatives for NATO are suggested, including finding a solution to the problems of refugees and terrorists, although these are headaches that that organization itself created (through, for example, the destruction of Libya as a sovereign state and its support for the militants in Syria). And of course one mustn’t forget the “Russian threat” —   “Russian adventurism will continue in and around the eastern Med and the Black Sea. It is clear the Med will continue to be a fickle and changing geopolitical body of water …” (pg. 162).

A fairly lengthy chapter on the Caribbean betrays the author’s desire to demonstrate the significance of this region. And how. Back in the era of great geographical discoveries, this was the place where the European empires deployed their most sophisticated resources against one another, and since they were far from the shores of their home countries, this posed certain risks. Only passing mention is made of Guantanamo Bay, which has garnered international notoriety due to the vast number of people who have been held there who were suspected of having links to al-Qaeda. Many were captured in Afghanistan and were kept there for years without ever being charged or tried. Yet these facts are cited as if Gitmo were a legitimate military base for the US Navy, and not a chunk of occupied Cuban territory. And the intervention in Haiti and Grenada is presented as a mere matter of course. Once Reagan decided that the government there posed a threat to the American citizens in that country, orchestrating a coup became a distinct possibility. “That the government also had Marxist tendencies was an additional problem. The United States invaded Grenada …” (pg. 226).

The Arctic chapter is primarily devoted to the territorial disputes of the Arctic nations, the environment, and the natural resources. Somehow the fact was left out that the Arctic is also extremely convenient in a strategic sense — a missile launched from a Russian submarine at the North Pole will fly much faster to the American coastline than one from a land-based installation. And one passage offers evidence of what is clearly a misunderstanding by Stavridis of the mentality of the Russian nation — “The Arctic is also a part of the world that figures deeply in the Russian mind-set and self-image as a nation of rugged individualists who are capable of surviving in the harshest of conditions” (pg. 247). Excuse me, but how could individualists survive in this harsh environment? On the contrary, here we see in action the principle of mutual assistance and support. Even small groups would fare better under such conditions than individualists, who wouldn’t be able to accomplish much, if anything. In this chapter, Stavridis suggests that the US shore up its leadership role in the Arctic Council, construct more icebreakers, and continue to call the shots in the Arctic through NATO, but also to begin a dialog with Russia. Russia is superior to the US in the Arctic both in terms of military and technology, so Washington will not be the one dictating the terms there.

Incidentally, discussions of the Arctic are usually conflated with analysis of the Antarctic.  They’re both mostly water, after all. But Stavridis avoids doing that. The Antarctic, in case you need a reminder, was discovered by Russian navigators. And yes, the idea of maritime law was also a Russian idea — suggested during the era of Catherine II.

US_Military_Strength

The conclusions at the end of the book are entirely predictable — the US needs to preserve its presence and influence wherever possible. In the author’s view, this applies not only to the Navy, but also to all the various installations and elements of the missile defense system. This is the notion behind the global network referred to in the document “A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower,” which was published in 2015, and can also be found in the concept of global alliances and partnerships that was pioneered by Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan.

Therefore, it is quite logical that the final chapter, “America and the Oceans,” discusses the Eurasian continent, Halford Mackinder’s “World Island,” and land-based forces, which (here Stavridis paraphrases Mahan) need to be offset by naval forces acting as a counterweight. But since Mahan’s day there have been significant changes related to military technology and strategy. Russia’s and China’s submarine and surface power is growing, aircraft carriers have become vulnerable to missiles, and command-and-control systems can be subjected to cyberattacks. All this presents different environments and challenges for any sea power. Stavridis suggests supplementing Mahan’s formula (a large fleet, forward deployment, and secure logistics) with cooperation that is international (including through NATO), inter-agency, and public-private in nature. This could create a “smart-power approach for the seas” (pg. 342).

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What Is Meant by Permanent War?

May 30th, 2018 by Dr. Ali Kadri

War is not an anomaly, nor an exception to the rule, it has always been with us and it might always be. Militarism and its practice in war are subcategories of waste (the harmful things we produce such as pollution and bombs) and domains of accumulation themselves. They are also prerequisites for the expansion of capital and its market economy. Much is done to portray war as an inherent attribute of human fallibility or an unintended consequence. However, mainstream concepts associated with the promotion of the market economy are weapons of the ruling class. They are all laced with poison. The facts are such that we have never been without wars. Amongst other economic functions, wars invariably act as measures of depopulation, regulating the supply of global labour. 

My hypothesis is that a market economy requires a permanent state of war. Behind the crocodile tears for the human disasters and ‘white man burden,’ people and nature are of value in themselves and war does a good job at consuming both very quickly.

In a globally integrated production process, all idle assets are legal property and, as such, economic categories, influencing the production process and exchange either by being consumed, set aside or destroyed. Nothing escapes the rule of capital and its guns, which means that man and nature are commodified value, either actively or in suspended animation – the latter because commodities obey the time ordained by capital, abstract time as opposed to conventional time. This latter point is not too abstract if we think about it this way: people in power decide the time to engage and act and so we cannot think of time in terms of a conventional or chronological ordering; after all that is what is meant by totality when we say capital is a totality (I revert to this below). Just as hegemonic imperialism controls space, real time is also at its command. All the pollution humanity already produced, all the waste, has now entered the market to be sold for a price. Pollution was never free of charge. It was something of value whose time to enter the market and exchange for a money price is power derived, or decided by the power of capital. 

To put things differently, to say that the nature and people that white colonists encountered abroad and exterminated had no value because they did not yet exchange for a price, implies that the wars and genocides were not a market that fetched a price for the skins of natives. It implies that destruction is not inherent to capital’s activity, and as such, ‘noble savages’ and their territories were just things whose obliteration did not generate any value. What is wrong with the western theory of value is that it assumes that value is an object or a thing. It omits the subject in value, the power relation in control of time and space, whose most ferocious form is imperialism. 

The third world has somewhat become fortunate as a result of the environmental disasters simply because it entered the discourse as a victim of capital and its imperialism, just like nature. Although capital metabolises both man and nature, bourgeois elements such as those of the British royal family still posit that there are too many humans. It is as if, there is an infestation of some mammal species, which requires culling by Safari hunting trips. At any rate, the industry of war, insofar as it consumes people lives in short spans of time, is an intense surplus value producing activity. And as we know, it takes surplus value to undergird profit rates in a global production. 

Across history, wars were always present, as they would be in class society. However, they acquire a distinctively destructive bent in a market economy dominated by finance-monopoly capital. Prior to the current capitalist mode of production, the one in which our lives came to depend on the market, that is before people started to sell their labour for a wage in highly mechanised factories that produce far in excess of society’s needs, empires, more often than not, did not destroy the peasants and their low-tech tools; obviously they needed them for more tribute. Long periods of stagnation and stability took root, longue duree as they have come to be known, because although political regimes may change, the economic base of society experienced little upheavals. A conquering empire would soon have to repair the irrigation canals and restore stability. Pre-capitalist crises were crises of underproduction and underconsumption, namely caused by nature. 

As capitalism and its free market trade dawned, we began to produce for profits and in excess to existing demand. The regulation of the resources employed by society required the setting aside of people along with some of their outdated technological-means. Moreover, the private mode of appropriating moneyed-profits severed the compatibility between what people need and what people produce. We produced many things we did not need, or we literally produced waste and things that harm us. Waste, militarism and wars are foremost examples of what people do not need, yet society continues to produce. They are said to be alienated processes. 

Although wars have always been with us, they are not the same in terms of their specific historical reasons, their forms are not the same, and the way they are conducted is no longer the same. To be scientific is to go beyond the unchangeable Platonic forms, the transhistorical or that which is true and the same across history; the word war itself may be the same, but its content and determinations are different as time and conditions change. Yes, empires still seek tribute and imperial rents, but one must look further into the shifting content of war under capitalism and its market economy. It is for instance complacent to say that ancient empires fought for power whenever a new empire rose, and so the US and rising China will also engage in war. The condition then are not the conditions now.     

Organised capital requires bigger markets, but also cheaper labour and environmental costs. At first, we see that wars in market economies become regulators of production, which reduce the number of labourers or force more people to become refugees and hence reduce the wage bill. They also pillage nature – the depleted uranium in Fallujah still maims new-borns. Just as important, wars are fields of production themselves. US-imperialist spending on wars is the sort of investment that does not infringe on the market of the private sector. Defence, or more appropriately, offence, is not an area the private sector has taken up yet, whereas health and education are areas, it would like to see privatised. War spending and effort absorb excess profits (the economic surplus of which there are huge piles in the monopoly age) that would otherwise not generate much in returns or fuel demand and other crises.

As I have said, imperialist wars have been with us for long, but most recently one need only look at what has occurred in Yemen, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq to discover the new shape and objectives of war. One observes that countries attempting to control their own resources or assert their sovereignty are liable to fragmentation or to the destruction of their states. These new wars are blatant encroachment wars by which imperialism buttresses its own power standing as it destroys and takes control of the country as it tears it apart. It is almost a return to the colonial age but without the modicum of responsibility colonists assumed for the conquered population. 

At any rate, in times of crisis, militarism and war spending are all the more necessary to take the market out of its slump. In a way, war is awful, but it does wonders for the macroeconomy, and it is the macroeconomy that matters. Tangentially, the case of the war in Syria is of particular interest since the presence of so many super powers there may augur bigger future wars. The latest American bombing of Syria in April 2018 could have been a major catastrophe had Russian forces been hit. We are living in an age, where a human mistake can precipitate a nuclear winter. Although remote, it remains a serious spectre that haunts us. 

The last and this century are particularly significant in terms of the degree, frequency and intensity of wars. Imperialist wars and austerity reduce the population of the planet. They cut short population growth way below its historically determined potential; humans die prematurely. As you read this, there are many wars ongoing, there are many human deaths related to poverty, and many species on the planet are perishing. Around 30,000 people daily succumb to hunger and related causes. Not long ago, the human rights rapporteur on the right to food had said that one child perishes every four or five seconds from hunger and other preventable diseases.

These are manmade disasters, which essentially means class-made, because classes are the state of social being for people. Unfortunately, we have come to learn of wars and to cohabitate with them and, oddly enough, accept them as normal. As a society that lives by the proxy of the spectacle (as per Guy DeBord), we reject the gruesome shows of ISIS, yet we seem to be oblivious to the much bigger crimes committed by the western-suited people in charge of the planet. So long as their crimes are not conveyed to us as a spectacular show, they are out of sight out of mind. To paraphrase the astute activist Roger Waters, ‘we have become comfortably numb.’ 

There is a historically specific reason for the wars as I said and our de-sensitisation to them. We were born into a world whose ideas and institutions remake these disasters on daily basis. Indeed, the interlocutors of capital would have to proclaim that they work for peace and the reduction of poverty, but that is not the tendency under capital, the dominant relationship, because as I have mentioned above, the making of profits requires the setting aside or destruction of resources. These institutions and ideas (ideologies) are there before us and they are real; they are the result of past powers putting them in place to promote their interests. This is the objective and impersonal history, the family, the state, the race the nationality, etc., into which we come into life as living beings. To date, we have not changed that order of things, that history, which dictates our lives and will dictate the lives of future generations – that is if there will be more generations in the future. 

In a sense, history happens against the wishes of most people. As to the question of what this history is? Let us just say it is the totality of the social relations of production, which in our case are capitalist relations. These capitalist relations that command history can be summarized as capital, a totalising relation without limits and with a rationality of its own, which transforms everything social into private class wealth and power. It basically rips apart the peasant from his tools or means of production just as it erect barriers between use and exchange value or between the social and the private. It does so mostly by means of violence. 

As you can see what we call value is this particular relationship in which a labourer, through the labour invested in the commodity, produces things that it does not own or have use for, and that such a contradiction (abstract labour vs. use value) resolves as the commodity exchanges for money, from which the labouring class must earn less than what it takes to acquire a decent standard of living relative to the wealth prevailing at the time. Why relative to the wealth prevailing at the time, or the historically determined level of wealth, because it is absurd to compare someone dying from poverty and depleted uranium exposure at the age of say 43, and at the same time, say he should be happy, because in Sumerian or Neolithic times, he or she would have at best lived to 23 years. Time is also of shifting quality and incoherent. Value is a subject to object relationship, it is the commodity (object) and the people organised in social relationships to produce it (subject). 

This value associated with the market phenomenon only arose as our lives became dependent on the market economy under capitalism. True, markets always existed, but never to the point where all of social life depended on them. We all sell our labour on the market for a wage. Again, one should not be formal or platonic with historical concepts. Things or markets have the same name, but they are different in content as time and their underlying conditions change. Prior to capitalism failures in the markets for long distance trade in luxury goods, which were puny, did not cause unemployment and misery on a large scale, as do market failures today. Markets have come to represent the social foundation of our existence and questions of degree matter for scientific investigations. 

Nearly all commodities are destined for exchange under capitalism. Let us follow the classical Marxist line and propose that in these commodities there is some useful side that serves social ends (the apples and oranges), and an exchange side that serves private ends (the money profits for which they are sold). Although of late, nearly all commodities can be said to be underlaid with an environmentally deleterious content, which is in addition to the fact that commodities contain the child or slave-like labour and the blood of wars; their negative waste side trumps the goodness in them. However, for the sake of argument we say in the commodity as it exists objectively, outside of us, the private (exchange value) is set against the social (use value) and they repulse each other. We are in a world where the commodity we created is at war with itself in order to expand in money form as it sells on the market. All the commodities we create constitute our wealth. The owners of commodities create the conditions for the expansion of the market for commodities and always by means of war. They shape both the conditions for production on the cheap and sale on the dear. Through commodity fetishism or as commodities exchange for each other, driven by their own internal contradiction, these things lay down the conditions for their own expansion and always through violence. Not the profiteers, it is these things, the commodities we created, which order us to go to wars. And this is different from any other time prior to capitalism. 

Commodities are not so useful anymore. Not only bombs, even apples and oranges pollute and poison us. Still, the war outside the commodity, has become a magnification of the contradiction of the value relationship within the commodity; that is so long as the product of labour and its usefulness are forcefully alienated from the direct producer and mediated by exchange, we will experience war. At this historical juncture, instead of just going to war for apples and oranges, we war for waste products. We go to war for the sake of war. This is an immensely powerful state of alienation. Such is the power of the commodity form and commodity fetishism. 

Violence emanates from the very heart of the commodity under capitalism, a condition given its dues in the work of Frantz Fanon. For now, capital is an uncontrollable social relation, it is a process of being as a whole and the social map by which the whole reproduces itself is the simultaneous act of wealth creation and destruction. Evidently, waste in general and, war in particular, fall on the destruction side of the capital relationship as it reproduces itself. 

Put anecdotally in a personal-like structure, for rich people to get richer they must make wars not only because wars make them money, but because wars make things cheap and puts them in control to continue to make money. Even if one tries to simplify reality it remains somewhat convoluted, as it should be, else the answers to everything would be too easy. In the immediate (that is as we observe things that are the products of history now), the interests of the few in leading positions, organised in various social forms, those who inherited the privileges and the wealth from previous generations, they would like to maintain things as they are and continue to expand the markets for more of the private wealth, while at the same time reducing the costs of labour and environmental inputs. The ruling class is the dominant relationship in capital, which in relation to other classes makes history, would not like to keep capital as it is, it would like to expand it. 

Most working people are faced off against their institutions and ideologies (these are the structural forms of history), which like history, exist outside of them and controls them. Naturally enough, these institutions systemically promote the cheapening of labour and the environment by the most gruesome means. Obviously to make people and nature cheap, business and its class must pay people less or put back less into the environment, which means to lessen them in quantity and quality. Militarism as a domain of accumulation and its wars does a great job at both. I will explain why and how briefly.

To give structure to ideas, the world of which I speak is the real world that is governed by huge institutions like the UN the World Bank and the IMF and their mainstream ideologies. To be sure, there is no right or wrong or good and bad in ideology. There are class ideologies, and the ideologies of these institutions serve the imperialist class. These are not democratic institutions. They are principally ruled by the powerful US leading class, which is heir to the colonial European empires and its historically amassed power and wealth. Such a lopsided power structure trailing from the past favouring the western world, western in the ideological not geographic sense, produces game rules and ideas that promote the interest of the Western ruling classes and their allies downstream. It does so by maintaining unequal political, social and trade relations. For instance, heads of states in the powerful nations are the product of such domineering order and they perpetuate such a structure or the status quo. 

That the US holds most power in the most important organisational bodies (the UN, etc.) in the world, is not a conspiracy, it is a fact available for everyone to see. That is, I am not speaking of people conspiring behind closed doors, although that happens too, I am speaking of the obvious: the world has been perpetually made into an uneven power structure, both at the level of institutions and ideas, to promote specific interests, which to date have undermined people and nature. This much we know after the fact, or ipso facto. 

For capital to serve its interest, that is to produce things to sell on a market for profit, it also requires wars to extract raw material, oil extraction that pollutes for example, and union busting to lower wages, etc. Making wars for raw materials is a widely debated point. However, such an imperialist system also has to beautify the ugly reality and to concomitantly initiate ideas that convince even the people that are suffering that this is the best world of all the possible worlds. It cannot just say, we are going to kill the Arabs for their oil. For capital, this is the role of ideological production, which is just as important as commodity production. Capital produces the commodity and, through its schools, temples and media bombardment, etc., it also produces the human being who is submissively adequate for the uncritical consumption of that commodity. 

Capital, that is the beneficial ruling class, would like us to believe that there is no alternative to this system. To this very notion, that there is not alternative, the late professor of logic Istvan Meszaros used to say that he would fail a student who says that there are no alternatives to an existing reality. Yet the catchphrase ‘there is no alternative (TINA)’ and the market economy (capitalism) is progressive still dominate the airwaves. Do not ask me how people can be so ignorant, so as to hear Margaret Thatcher repeat TINA so often. Sections of people can be held hostage to capital for lack of alternatives and fear of transition to a better world. That is a question related to the development of revolutionary consciousness, for which there is not enough space here to address fully.

Is capitalism really progressive? To inculcate such untruthiness, i.e. progressive capitalism, there are so many academic and media apparatuses remaking the language to fit the objectives of history and those of its people in charge. Orientalism, for instance, is one way of depicting the other or the ‘barbarian’ in lesser standing, but demeaning others is standard practice across history and in every class society. The real orientalism, the one that returns further gains to the powerful relationship of capital, to the ruling classes, such as racism, occurs at the juncture where the use of pejorative language can be put to use through a power platform to usurp/undermine the other, as in slavery or colonialism. Only sticks and stones break bones, words alone do nothing.

This orientalism with teeth is different from the salient critique of literature or art. It is based on the violent practice of discrimination in a particular historical phase; in our historical phase, that language and its attendant practice would be for example an R2P to save the Libyans. It is neo-colonial practice, which preserves much of the brutality of colonialism. It deprives the Libyan people from their state as the political platform through which they negotiate better living standards for themselves and, more importantly, from growing and producing in a world that has ‘too many people’ and machines and that already over-produces. Unquestionably, there are never too many people, but the market structures production for profit in such a way that it makes people redundant. It replaces living labour with machines or literally dead labour. That is why only under capitalism, the forcibly unemployed have a right to benefits as opposed to charity. Their unemployment is a constant social handicap, which is historically determined.  

But the reigning ideology is not solely racist or orientalist vis-à-vis the East, it also denigrates and misleads and targets all the working populations east and west. The concepts produced by mainstream social science to convince people of the grandeur of the market economy is quite an insult to peoples’ intelligence and, I think it is a form of class to class racism irrespective of colour or ethnic boundaries. There is also a sort of ‘Occidentalism’ if you like.

For instance, in mainstream academia, the labels conspiracy, determinism and, worse of all, ‘structuralism acts as a god and explains everything’ are levied as derogatory remarks at inquisitive minds and critical students to discipline their thought processes. Let us ask ourselves a few questions to clarify these points. Can there be political action without backdoor negotiations serving disparate interests?

Can there not be determinism in theory; we know history is uncertain, but can we really not be deterministic about laws of development which form a tendency for things to happen? Can any theory be so eclectic to constitute an indefinite collection of facts that does not gel or rely on a specific law of development; or can any theory not be made simple, in the sense that, it can be attributed to the development of a pivotal relationship? Theory is grey, but green is the tree of life, as per Goethe. It is an illusion to amass a multifarious reality in the mind and make it complicated, as in reconstitute all the given phenomena in empirical facts. That is not theory. It is vulgar solipsism. After all, reality is dictated by simple laws and politics.

We as a society follow very simple rules, but the reigning ideology of the marketeers wants to confuse us. We call that method of bamboozling, reification, as in making real, the unreal, and or to separate all things of the social totality and make it look like a salad, instead of the coherent whole, which it is in theory. This is theoretical construction we are talking about and not the absurd enumeration of infinite actuality. That is literally useless, absurd and impossible.

To further illustrate, consider for instance the interrelated concepts of progressive capitalism and its consumer surplus. Capitalism creates wealth, it is progressive, and the consumer surplus is an indication of such improvement. True, capitalism produces wealth, and for a minority on the planet standards of living improve as they buy more things relative to their incomes. But the secular trend is for the majority to suffer and for the environment to bear the brunt of chaotic production. Prices are not innocent, and they allocate resources for a social outcome that serves the people who can manipulate prices. 

Often people confuse prices with the real value of things. Prices are flawed representation of value because value creation is a process of production, or a social relation. Surplus value, which is the source of money profit, is never expressed in prices during its extraction. It is only after its realisation on the market that it assumes a price form determined by the power rapport of that market. For capital, prices/money are a tool, the dollar is a tool, they just need to control/destroy to keep their class power, they use prices to further exploit people by cheapening them and reducing their class power. 

Now most working people can be cordoned off as the inferior others, we can say they do not deserve to share in the wealth because they are too primitive to use advanced machinery, or they are the ‘others’ by their national identity or colour, they can be poor because of constructed labels such as their culture, but not the environment. The degradation of the environment reaches everyone even those behind palace walls. Luckily nature does not belong to a tribe as the American Indian proverb says. And as we live in an age where humans impact the environment most (the Anthropocene) and as the planet under the market/profit way by which we organise to reproduce ourselves may totally become uninhabitable (remember we need to use labour and nature on the cheap), we then ask where is the progress?

Obviously, we must reorganise the way we produce to survive. We must reorganise man and nature. We already produce through social production, that is people getting together and cooperating to produce, and hence, we can cut out the privateers and the private intermediaries. The profit incentive already made extinct more innumerable animal and plant species than ever, and it is putting the planet at risk. There must be a better and more disciplining incentive for humanity in a planned development than otherwise. We must stem the foundational order of the market that requires destruction of nature and people to produce profits, all of this at a time when the very ideology of anything social or socialism, or anything to do with planning, is defunct.  Moreover, rising identity politics divides working people across the globe. The task is daunting, but change is inevitable, because as the market expands and it harms everyone rich and poor. The chance of a turnaround grows as the masters of time, the organised privateers, lose control of social time, or the time it takes to take an initiative and turn things around.  

What is waste-side accumulation?

In my work, I emphasise the intrinsic drive of capital to make wars and destroy people and nature. Of course, killing species including humans is a tragic act, but I look at the value-destruction side of things and how it contributes to production and accumulation. To put things bluntly, killing has always been a part of the market business. I call this side of capitalism the waste side. The market produces trousers and bombs at the same time. The trousers are ok, but the bombs, the pollution, this is the waste side. I think the production of waste has been instituted in forms of organisation and introjected in thought for so long, such that we fail to see it as part of the system. Just like apples and oranges, bombs are also commodities produced and alienated from the labourers who produce them. Just like apple and oranges, they acquire a price determined by the power of monopolists, and as such their exchange price and their money forms, as opposed to what we really need as a society, comes to dictate how we live. What I have added here is that I have just included waste products under what is known as commodity fetishism in political economy. The price or money form of the commodities we produce becomes a weapon against ordinary people, that is, they get less and less in wages in order to leave a higher profit margin. 

It is important to think in holistic terms here. As the products of labour require inputs from all the world, the wages become the wages of all the world’s working people differentially distributed amongst them by the way they construct their own identity or skill differences. The global wage share of total income rises with internationalist solidarity and vice versa. The value, the labour, that society invests in a commodity is like nature: it does not have a tribe.  In a sense, the global business class wins by driving working people apart. So, when one wants to identify capital, instead of pointing out the many rich people who own so much of the global wealth, a real barometer/reflection of the strength of the capitalist class, is how badly working people are divided against each other. The business class can still pay a certain section of working people higher wages, but overall if it destroys or drives hungry many others, it pays less in wages and keeps more for profits. Capital is always aware of the primacy of politics and the social nature of production, that is, the roots of profits are in the control and immiseration of the working class, which also accounts for the severity of inter-imperialist wars.

Like other commodities, bombs are also realised, sold on the market and consumed, but their cycle is an endless cycle engaging labour both as living and as dead people. Militarism unearths the macabre essence of capital. As production stages and areas of production are co-determined, and as capital seeks higher profits or the easy way out via militarism pollution and bombs (waste), wars become a domain of accumulation themselves, sort of like the factory, in its social organisational structure and its industrial culture altogether. Militarism is also an investment area, which unlike other investment areas that dip as time goes on, it always has the potential for growth. Remember states, unlike a single individual, create credit and money as they borrow; imperialist state debt is the credit afforded to growth whereas our debt is debilitating. 

Sadly, war is big business not only for the money it earns as states issue bonds to absorb surpluses, which the financial sector loves by the way, or as private business free-rides on war’s tech-innovation, or as the state invests in the military and leaves health care to the private sector, etc., war is big business because it really lowers the value inherent in human lives, it takes away the will of people by destroying their organisations in order to cheapen them. The modern forms of wars which destroy states are massive forms of enslavement. 

Here war acts as both an adjunct to the capitalist wage system and a wage system in itself. That is to say, it helps lower wages by hijacking the will of people and their states or unions (these are forms of social organisation), and it also employs workers for wages. The state is a form of peoples’ organisation in the third world and its destruction is of use to capital. By way of interjection, the Marxian wage system is far more pessimistic, brutal and aggressive than the Malthusian one. It always requires a diminution of the population because of crisis of overproduction. In my work, I emphasise the point that there are wars to capture natural resources, but what many people fail to recognise is that war is an end in itself. 

It is this bequeathed history, the social relations, the rationality behind doing everything and anything to make profits at any expense and using people who believe in the pre-existing idea that ‘the system is great’ to promote that agenda, is also the overdetermining structure. But these people who take us to war and abuse us are unlike their rational master, history, they are irrational, because in the end, they will be hurting themselves, and they have already done too much damage as it is – most extinct species and people are irrepealable. I argue that history is impersonal, objective and rational insofar as it aligns all forces to serve the market, however, it serves the wrongs ends. I also argue that the waste economy, the wars, the militarism, and the pollution, is bigger than the regular economy, and that if we continue the way we are, the current stage of history may be its last. Evidently, to change the social relations, the classes at the helm of history, working people should, as it always has been, take command of history, foremost, the state.

Why is war more important than trade sometimes? 

Let us just take Iraq’s war. Iraq was willing to negotiate, and it would have continued to sell its oil in the dollar, yet it was invaded, and the costs of its war were around 6 trillion in some estimates (estimates differ). But, these same costs were at the same time the investments in militarism, the credit earned by the financial sector and, in terms of money expansion, these trillions go around to create more credit and induce more investment. In short, the money costs of war were also multiple gains to the financial and military industrial sector – the financial first as it gains most. What were the other gains? Iraq as an opponent semi-sovereign state was destroyed reasserting the US’s lead position in the region and globally and millions of Iraqis died or migrated pressuring downwards the global wage. Moreover, the US’s working class is submissively paying for a war that supposedly saved their way of life; and what a way that is. Now had the US just traded with Iraq, which was a 50 billion US$ GDP country in 1990, it may have made off with say tens or a hundred billion in trade gains. So, without going into details, the trillion gains of war are tremendous in comparison to trading in Iraqi dates and oil. In fact, it is the war that forces oil everywhere to be traded in dollars, and for all the excess dollars to support US debt expansion. This is the new form of tribute or imperial rent. 

The same applies to Syria. Why would the US be interested in a few billion dollar trade with a country whose GDP was around 40 billion US$ in 2007, when the pretext for the war in Syria drives a huge militaristic adventure which will be financed by taxpayers to the benefit of the financial sector. One can hardly see a western academic that does not demonise Assad to save Syria, just as happened with Iraq and Libya. There is no limit to the amount of cash that the US will spend on its war effort in Syria, including bribes to journalists and academics, which are also war effort. In macroeconomics, the capitalist class controls the state and earns what it spends and what the state spends to expand its business, especially militarism. To reiterate, these are war costs only to the working people, but are war gains for the financial class. It is the class as opposed to the fictional national divide that captures the flows of value. 

Come to think of it, all of political Islam has been bred by colonialism and later imperialism. Today the US fights alongside AL Qaeda in Syria. What would it mean to Syrian women if a Salafist group assumes the reins of power in Syria. In Iraq, for instance, some reports about the rights of women after the American occupation and the rise of the Mullahs, rank it below Saudi Arabia. What sort of western liberalism supports American aggression in order to put obscurantists in power? One way to answer this question, and possibly the only way, is that liberals derive their consciousness partly from the imperial rents and privileges associated with imperialist wars. 

*

Professor Ali Kadri teaches at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He was previously a  visiting fellow at the Centre for Human Rights, London School of Economics. He is the author of The Cordon Sanitaire: A Single Law Governing Development in East Asia and the Arab World, Palgrave, 2017. he is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

For almost 20 years, U.S. drone warfare was largely one-sided. Unlike Afghans and Yemenis, Iraqis and Somalis, Americans never had to worry about lethal robots hovering overhead and raining down missiles. Until, that is, one appeared in the skies above Florida.

But that’s a story for later. For now, let’s focus on a 2017 executive order issued by President Trump, part of his second attempt at a travel ban directed primarily at citizens of Muslim-majority nations. It begins: “It is the policy of the United States to protect its citizens from terrorist attacks.”

That sentence would be repeated in a January report from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.” Meant to strengthen the president’s case for the travel ban, it was panned for its methodological flaws, pilloried for its inaccuracies, and would even spur a lawsuit by the civil rights organization, Muslim Advocates, and the watchdog group, Democracy Forward Foundation. In their complaint, those groups contend that the report was “biased, misleading, and incomplete” and “manipulates information to support its anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim conclusions.”

To bolster the president’s arguments for restricting the entry of foreigners into the United States, the DOJ/DHS analysis contained a collection of case summaries. Examples included: the Sudanese national who, in 2016, “pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support to ISIS”; the Uzbek who “posted a threat on an Uzbek-language website to kill President Obama in an act of martyrdom on behalf of ISIS”; the Syrian who, in a plea agreement, “admitted that he knew a member of ISIS and that while in Syria he participated in a battle against the Syrian regime, including shooting at others, in coordination with Al Nusrah,” an al-Qaeda offshoot.

Such cases cited in the report, hardly spectacular terror incidents, were evidently calculated to sow fears by offering a list of convicted suspects with Muslim-sounding names. But the authors of the report simply looked in the wrong places. They could have found startling summaries of truly audacious attacks against the homeland in a collection of U.S. military documents from 2016 obtained by TomDispatch via the Freedom of Information Act. Those files detail a plethora of shocking acts of terrorism across the United States including mass poisonings, the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and that “People’s Armed Liberation (PAL) attack on U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) headquarters in Tampa, Florida, [by] a drone-launched missile.”

That’s right! A drone-launched missile attack! On CENTCOM’s Florida headquarters! By a terrorist group known as PAL!

Wondering how you missed the resulting 24/7 media bonanza, the screaming front page headlines in the New York Times, the hysterics on Fox & Friends, the president’s hurricane of tweets?

Well, there’s a simple explanation. That attack doesn’t actually happen until May 2020. Or so says the summary of the 33rd annual Joint Land, Air, and Sea Strategic Special Program (JLASS-SP), an elaborate war game carried out in 2016 by students and faculty from the U.S. military’s war colleges, the training grounds for its future generals and admirals.

PALing Around with Terrorists

The 2016 edition of JLASS-SP was played out remotely for weeks before culminating in a five-day on-site exercise at the Air Force Wargaming Institute at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. It involved 148 students from the Air Force’s Air War College, the Army War College, the Marine Corps War College, the Naval War College, the Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy, the National War College, and the National Defense University’s Information Resources Management College. Those up-and-coming officers — some of whom will likely play significant roles in running America’s actual wars in the 2020s — confronted a future in which, as the script for the war game put it, “lingering jealousy and distrust of American power and national interests have made it politically and culturally difficult for the United States to act unilaterally.”

Here’s the scene as set in JLASS-SP: while the U.S. is still economically and militarily powerful into the next decade, anxieties abound about increasing constraints on the country’s ability to control, dictate, and dominate world affairs. “Even in the military realm… advances by others in science and technology, expanded adoption of irregular warfare tactics by both state and non-state actors, proliferation of nuclear weapons and long-range precision weapons, and growing use of cyber warfare attacks have increasingly constricted U.S. freedom of action,” reads the war game’s summary.

While the materials used are “not intended to be an actual prediction of events,” they are explicitly meant “to reflect a plausible depiction of major trends and influences in the world regions.” Indeed, what’s striking about the exercise is how — though scripted before the election of Donald Trump — it anticipated many of the fears articulated in the president’s December 2017 National Security Strategy. That document, for instance, bemoans the potential dangers not only of regional powers like Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, but also of “transnational threats from jihadist terrorists and transnational criminal organizations,” undocumented immigrants, “drug traffickers, and criminal cartels [which] exploit porous borders and threaten U.S. security and public safety.”

The JLASS-SP scenario also prefigured themes from that 2018 DOJ/DHS report supporting the travel ban in the way it stoked fears of, above all, a major “foreign-born” — especially Muslim — terror threat in the United States. A 2017 Government Accountability Office report would, however, conclude that, of “the 85 violent extremist incidents that resulted in death since September 12, 2001, far right-wing violent extremist groups were responsible for 62 (73 percent) while radical Islamist violent extremists were responsible for 23 (27 percent).”

Two years after the war game was conducted, in a time of almost metronomic domestic mass killings, President Trump continues to spotlight the supposedly singular danger posed by “inadequately vetted people” in the U.S., although stovetops and ovens, hot air balloons, and burning pajamas are far more deadly to Americans. Indeed, since 9/11, terrorism has been a distinctly low-level risk to the American public — at least when compared to heart disease, cancer, car crashes, fires, or heat waves — but has had an outsized effect on the perceptions and actions of the government, not to mention its visions of tomorrow.

Tomorrow’s Terror Today

An examination of the threats from international and domestic terror groups, as imagined in JLASS-SP, offers unique clues to the Pentagon’s fears for the future. “Increasingly,” reads the war game’s summary, “transnational organizations, businesses, non-governmental organizations, and violent extremist organizations challenge the traditional notions of boundaries and sovereignty.”

That drone-launching terror group, PAL, for instance, is neither Islamist nor a right-wing terror group, but an organization supposedly formed in 2017 in hopes of defeating “globalism and capitalism throughout the world by rallying the proletariat to orchestrate the overthrow of capitalist governments and global conglomerates.” Its ideology, an amalgam of increasingly stale leftist social movements, belies its progressive ranks, a rainbow coalition consisting of “most of the globe’s ethnicities and cultures,” all of whom seem to be cyber-sophisticates skilled in fundraising, recruiting, as well as marketing their particular brand of radicalism.

As of 2020, the audacious drone strike on CENTCOM’s headquarters was PAL’s only terror attack in the tangible world. The rest of its actions have taken place in the digital realm, where the group is known for launching cyber-assaults and siphoning off “funds from large global corporations, banks, and capitalist governments around the world.”

Even though PAL went from a gleam in the eye of its founder, the Bond-villain-esquely named Otto Cyre, to terrorist power-player in just a few short years, the pace of its operations didn’t please its hardest core members who, the war game scenario says, broke away in late 2020 to form yet another organization devoted to even more rapidly eroding “confidence in governmental and institutional bodies by staging events that demonstrate the ‘impotency’ of the establishment.” That splinter group, United Patriots Against International Government (UPAIGO) — in this war game all terror groups have Pentagon-style acronyms — concentrates on “spectacular but deniable actions,” a scattershot campaign of often botched but sometimes lethal efforts that include:

* November 2021: a cyber-attack on the Angarsk Refinery in the Russian Federation, which resulted in a two-week shutdown causing a sharp rise in the price of oil and gas just prior to the 2021-2022 winter heating season.

* April 2022: a failed attempt to assassinate, by IED, the chief of U.S. Pacific Command. Two members of the commander’s security detail and the command’s political advisor were killed in the attack while others, including civilians, were injured.

* January 2022: a failed plot to detonate a dirty [radioactive] bomb, employing medical waste and homemade explosives, at Philadelphia International Airport.

* 2023 fire season: as fires raged in the western United States, UPAIGO established relief efforts designed to compete with the U.S. government’s response, in order to “undermine confidence in government agencies.”

* June 2024: an attack, in coordination with members of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), on a U.S. flagged air carrier transporting U.S. military personnel at Shannon Airport in Ireland. Militants fired two surface-to-air missiles at the aircraft, which was damaged but managed to land successfully.”

PAL and UPAIGO are, however, hardly the only terror threats facing the United States in the 2020s, according to JLASS-SP 2016. PAL’s fellow travelers, for example, include the fictional versions of the real Irish National Liberation Army and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). There’s also the Environmentalists Against Capitalists Organization, or EACO, “a lethal environmental anti-capitalist terrorist group with global connections.” Formed in 2010 (though not in our actual world), EACO, according to the war gamers, evolved into an increasingly violent organization in the 2020s, carrying out not just cyberattacks on corporations but also a full-scale bombing campaign “targeting executive board meetings of large corporations, particularly in industries such as oil, coal, natural gas, and logging.” The group even took to planting IEDs on logging roads and employing tainted food as a weapon. By 2025, EACO was implicated in more than 400 criminal acts in the U.S. resulting in 126 deaths and $862 million in damages.

Then there’s Anonymous. In the Pentagon’s fictional war-game, this real-world hacktivist group is characterized as a “loose organization of malicious black-hat hackers” that employs its digital prowess to “distribute bomb-making instructions, and conduct targeting for options other than planes, trains, and automobiles.” In the past created by the military’s imagineers, Anonymous was declared a terrorist organization after it conducted an August 2015 digital attack on Louisiana’s power grid with something akin to the Stuxnet worm that damaged nuclear centrifuges in Iran. That cyber-assault was meant to protest the state’s restrictions on online gambling — an affront, according to the fictional Anonymous, to Internet freedom. (In the real world, Louisiana lawmakers actually just deep-sixed online gambling without an apparent terrorist response.) Taking down that power grid “resulted in the death of 15 elderly patients trapped in a facility denied air conditioning as a result of the power outage.”

Also included among domestic terror groups is Mara Salvatrucha 13 or MS-13, the Los Angeles street gang, born of the American-fueled Central American civil wars of the 1980s, that was transplanted to El Salvador and has since returned to the United States. This violent American export — the product of deportations in the 1990s — has paradoxically become a key justification for President Trump’s crackdown on immigration. “MS-13 recruits through our broken immigration system, violating our borders. And it just comes right through — whenever they want to come through, they come through,” said Trump earlier this year during a White House roundtable focused on the gang. “We’ve really never seen anything quite like this — the level of ferocity, the level of violence, and the reforms we need from Congress to defeat it.”

In the real world, the U.S. branch of MS-13 operates in loose local cliques under a franchised name, dabbling in small-time drug dealing, gun-running, prostitution, and extortion (primarily of recent immigrants). Many of its crimes are committed against its own affiliates or members of other gangs. The president nonetheless baselessly claimed that MS-13 has “literally taken over towns and cities of the United States.” He also continues to portray the gang, which reportedly makes up less than 1% of the estimated 1.4 million gang members in the U.S., as a sophisticated international cartel.

And that’s precisely how MS-13 was also portrayed in the fantasy world of JLASS-SP. In that war game, Mara Salvatrucha has developed “the resources to wage full-scale insurgent campaigns in Central America and the capability to cause serious disruption in the United States and Canada,” while rumors swirl of contacts between its members and foreign militants. “If cooperation between foreign terrorist groups and MS-13 ever blossomed, the potential for terrorist attacks within the borders of the United States would increase significantly,” the war game scenario warns.

President Trump has been accused of conflating members of MS-13 with undocumented immigrants (and referring to both groups as “animals”). Regardless, there’s no question that he kicked off his presidential run in 2015 by disparaging Mexicans. “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people,” he infamously declared. The JLASS-SP documents reverse Trump’s formula by first noting that “most illegal immigrants crossing into the United States are just trying to make a better life for themselves,” only to suggest that the U.S.-Mexican border also “serves as an infiltration point for terrorists.”

Unlike in the real world, where such fears circulate primarily as a conspiracy theory, in the Pentagon’s future fantasy there is “substantial evidence… that terrorists from the Middle East and North Africa transit the Mexican-U.S. border.” Worse yet, radical Islamists even “camouflage themselves as Hispanics” to cross the border. The military’s fantasists point to “a flood of name changes from Arabic to Hispanic and the reported linking of drug cartels along the Texas border with Middle East and North Africa terrorism.”

That represents a Trumpian-style nightmare-cum-fantasy even the president hasn’t yet dreamed up — a Hispanic-surnamed, cartel-supported group of Islamist terrorists. But by the 2020s, according to the Pentagon’s futurists, such worries are well-founded. And this will occur at the same time that Mexican and South American drug gangs have grown so rich and powerful they can regularly buy protection from U.S. government officials.

“Popular opinion in the United States is beginning to believe the ‘Narco-corruption’ is affecting the ‘rule of law’ north of the border,” according to their scenario, with the cartels spending $20 billion in 2022 alone to buy off U.S. officials or get candidates of their choice elected. That same year, allegations of election tampering in mayoral races across the American South come to light and the number of corruption convictions of U.S. Border Patrol agents and law enforcement officials skyrockets. Perhaps most shocking is the discovery of a “vast irrigated grow site” (evidently a massive marijuana farm) tended by “a dozen Mexican farmers armed with AK-47’s” in — wait for it! — “remote areas of Illinois.”

Mexican farmers, El Salvadoran gang members, Islamists masquerading as Hispanics, eco-terrorists, and anti-globalization militants aren’t the only threats foreseen by the military’s futurists. Much-ballyhooed reports of the defeat of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, like the much-hyped defeat of its predecessor, al-Qaeda in Iraq, turn out to be premature. In the 2020s, the re-re-branded group, now known as the Global Islamic Caliphate, or GIC, draws “support from Sunni-majority regions in Syria and Iraq; refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey; and internally displaced persons in Syria and Iraq,” while continuing to launch attacks in the region.

Meanwhile, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has grown in reach, size, and might. By 2021, the group has 38,000 members spread across Algeria, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger with bases reportedly located in Western Sahara. On May 23, 2023, AQIM carries out the most lethal terror attack in the U.S. since 9/11, detonating massive truck-bombs at both the New York and New Jersey ends of the Lincoln Tunnel, killing 435 people and injuring another 618. The bombing prompts President McGraw — you remember him, Karl Maxwell McGraw, the independent Arizona senator who rode his populist “America on the Move” campaign to victory in the 2020 election — to invade Mauritania and become mired in yet another American forever war that shows every indication of grinding on into the 2030s, if not beyond.

The Age of Terrorism

In the real world, the lifetime odds of an American dying from “walking” are one in 672. The chance of being killed by a foreign terrorist? One in 45,808. By an illegal immigrant terrorist? One in 138 million. And the odds of being killed by a “chain migration” immigrant sometime this year? One in 1.2 billion! In other words, you have a far greater chance of being killed by a dog, a shark, lightning, or the government via legal execution.

This is not to say terrorism isn’t a major threat to others around the world or that terror groups are not proliferating. Since 9/11, the number of terrorist organizations recognized by the U.S. State Department and battled by the Pentagon — from Africa to the Middle East to Asia — has grown markedly.

“States are the principal actors on the global stage, but non-state actors also threaten the security environment with increasingly sophisticated capabilities,” reads an unclassified synopsis of the Pentagon’s 2018 National Defense Strategy. “Terrorists, trans-national criminal organizations, cyber hackers and other malicious non-state actors have transformed global affairs with increased capabilities of mass disruption.”

In the fictional future of the Pentagon’s JLASS-SP 2016, this menace only expands to include various hybrid threats and new homegrown groups with increasing capabilities for death and destruction.

While it may be “the policy of the United States to protect its citizens from terrorist attacks,” as President Trump’s 2017 executive order declares, the Pentagon envisions a future in which such policies are increasingly ineffective. In their dystopian war-game future, more than two decades of fighting “them over there so we do not have to face them in the United States of America” (as former President George W. Bush put it in 2007) proves unequivocally futile. In this sense, the Pentagon’s fantasies bear an eerie resemblance to the actual present. In the dystopian scenario used by the Pentagon to train its future leaders, today’s forever wars have proven ineffective and future threats are to be met with new, similarly ineffective, forever wars.

In his State of the Union address earlier this year, President Trump declared that we’re living in the “age of terrorism.” His solution: wielding “unmatched power,” loosening the rules of engagement, and establishing an unfettered ability to detain, question, and “annihilate” terrorists.

All of these tactics have, however, been part of the Pentagon’s playbook since 2001 and, according to the military’s best guess at the future, will lead to an increase in terror groups and terror attacks while terror networks and terrorist ideologies will grow in strength, resilience, and appeal. Almost two decades in, it seems we’re still only in the opening days of the “age of terrorism” and, if the Pentagon’s war-gamers are to be believed, far worse is yet to come.

Nick Turse is the managing editor of TomDispatch, a fellow at the Nation Institute, and a contributing writer for the Intercept. His latest book is Next Time They’ll Come to Count the Dead: War and Survival in South SudanHis website is NickTurse.com.

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With his reckless support for Kinder Morgan and other oil pipelines, Trudeau has willingly compromised his own commitments to address climate change and pursue reconciliation with Canada’s Indigenous peoples. Now he’s willing to risk billions of public tax dollars as well.

Recently Trudeau’s Finance Minister, Bill Morneau, announced that Canada was willing to write a blank cheque from Canadian citizens to Texas-based oil pipeline company Kinder Morgan to indemnify the company against political risks to the Trans Mountain project. Over the past month, he’s been negotiating behind closed doors to work out some sort of deal to save the project. Canada has repeatedly promised to phase out fossil fuel subsidies and next month is hosting this year’s G7 Summit, where world leaders have already promised to end handouts for oil, gas, and coal. A move to indemnify Trans Mountain from risk would represent a massive new fossil fuel subsidy, breaking the Trudeau government’s commitments.

Amid serious questions about the financial viability of the Trans Mountain project and Kinder Morgan’s inability to finance its more-than-$7.4-billion price tag, few analysts expect Kinder Morgan to actually proceed. In April, the company vowed to walk away if political risks to the project were not eliminated by May 31st, but since then obstacles and opposition have only grown. Canada’s offer to indemnify Kinder Morgan’s risk doesn’t appear to be sufficient to save the project, and no other companies have stepped forward.

That likely leaves only one, crazy option on the table.

Are Canadians about to find themselves shelling out billions of tax dollars to a Texas-based company to buy an unbuildable, financially doomed pipeline? We’re likely to find out before tomorrow, when Finance Minister Bill Morneau plans to speak in downtown Calgary.

Outside Canada’s oil-soaked political bubble, this all sounds completely absurd. It’s baffling to watch a seemingly progressive, stable, wealthy country like Canada twist itself into pretzels, risk billions in public money, and edge towards a constitutional crisis all for the benefit of a handful of private oil interests. With a diversified, service-based economy and a highly educated workforce, Canada has much more to offer than dirty fossil fuels. But oil money buys an awful lot of influence.

Canada’s oil industry is a cornered, wounded animal. Unprecedented opposition to new export routes that would feed tar sands expansion – including Keystone XL, Line 3, and Kinder Morgan, all of which are being heavily resisted by Indigenous peoples and millions more – has blocked all the exits. Investment in new growth has dried up. A coming global energy transition is an existential threat.

As we all know, wounded animals can be dangerous. The oil industry is calling in all of its political favours, and its outsized influence on Canada’s government could lead to crazy things. We’re about find out just how far Prime Minister Trudeau is willing to go to indemnify Big Oil.

Our thanks to Oil Change International for this incisive report

In the weeks and months ahead, there will be many political casualties of the Liberal government’s crisis surrounding the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion. The first of these, however, was the carefully-crafted illusion that the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board’s (CPPIB) investment decisions are free from political influence. Over two decades, the Board had painstakingly constructed the pretence that Board decisions stood above retail politics.

Despite occasional whispers of politically-inspired Board investments and industrial policy by stealth, the public position of the Board has been a steadfast insistence on autonomy and independence. For two decades, a parade of faith groups, trade unionists, environmentalists, and mining justice activists beat a path to 1 Queen Street East in Toronto, only to be solemnly informed that shunning tobacco, divesting from fossil fuels, and rejecting labour and human rights violators were incompatible with the CPPIB’s exclusive remit to make profits.

The Board needed only to point to its founding statute. The CPPIB Act carefully specifies that the Board is not an agent of the Crown, and that it stands at arm’s length from the Government of Canada. The Board is mandated to invest its assets with a view to achieving a maximum rate of return, without undue risk of loss, and the Board is expressly prohibited from conducting any business in a manner that is contrary to this principle.

In practice, of course, these strictures proved extremely malleable, and the Board continued to invest in a diverse group of assets offering a wide range of risk-adjusted returns. Nevertheless, the Board stuck to its narrative that the political needs of governments of the day never entered into the equation.

Pretence Laid to Rest

In mid-May, however, this pretence was laid to rest. Canada Finance Minister Bill Morneau pledged to indemnify any investor that takes over Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, and mused that pension funds might be interested if KM stepped away. The same day, CPPIB CEO Mark Machin signaled that the CPP was on board.

Now, the federal government will assume the construction risk of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project, transferring ownership to private investors once the political and first-phase uncertainties are overcome. If the CPPIB is among these investors, there will be no going back to the Board’s guise of a politically-independent global investor.

Since its inception, the CPPIB has been intensely sensitive to the political winds blowing from Ottawa and provincial capitals. What’s changed is that the federal government has embarked on seriously courting pension fund investment. Like many governments around the world, Canada’s response has been to keep public investment carefully limited, while expanding opportunities for private capital to invest. The Liberal’s ‘Bank of Privatization’, the Canada Infrastructure Bank, was conceived precisely to attract Canadian and international pension funds to large-scale infrastructure projects. In practice, this has proved exceedingly difficult in the United Kingdom, the United States, and other countries. Where pension funds and large investors can be persuaded to join in, the result will be far more expensive projects with higher long-term costs to public finances.

Democratically-Controlled Social Investment

In our view, trade unions and the Left should seize on this opportunity by demanding much more than elaborate trappings of socially-responsible investment criteria in Board decision-making. Instead, the Left needs to think much more ambitiously about ways to harness pension funds for democratically-controlled social investment, for several reasons.

First, Canada is not on track to meet even its modest climate commitments made in Paris. Far more ambitious investments in renewable energy, energy conservation, and electrified transit are needed to significantly reduce emissions by mid-century. Hoping that a mix of carbon taxes and inducements will spur private investors to lead this transition is pure fantasy. A major program of public investment is necessary if we are to speed decarbonization, creating decent jobs and reversing insecurity and inequality in the process.

Second, underinvestment in public infrastructure in recent decades is unmistakable. Municipal infrastructure is decaying; transit systems and libraries are shamefully under-resourced; and public housing nearly everywhere is scarce and in disrepair. Hospitals and long-term care need significant investments, and northern and remote communities have vast unmet energy, water and health needs. Canada beyond Quebec continues to have no universal child care system. As even bourgeois economists have been insisting, public infrastructure investments are more likely than ever to pay off in creating jobs and incomes, reducing poverty and improving public health, to say nothing of stimulating productivity growth and private investment.

One solution would be to propose a conditional levy on pension surpluses to finance a fund for economic renewal. This fund could be bankrolled simply through funding excesses generated by pension plans like the CPP. The existing CPP remains a largely pay-as-you-go plan, with current contributions funding current benefits. Since 1997, however, higher contributions have allowed the CPP reserve fund, managed by the CPPIB, to grow to over $350-billion today, before swelling to a projected $6.7-trillion in 2090. Since it began in 1997, the CPPIB’s average return on CPP assets has been well above the necessary minimum long-run real rate of return; current assets are one-third again greater than was projected just ten years ago. Tapping only funding excesses in the CPP would preserve benefit security and leave plan provisions unchanged.

How might a fund for economic renewal work? It could distribute funds to regional sub-funds overseen by local community groups, unions, community economic development associations. Residents could identify urgent local needs – childcare, or school renovations, hospital beds or community care facilities. Investments in basic skills, on-the-job training and apprenticeships would aim at maximizing local employment benefits and developing capacities, especially among disadvantaged groups. Economic renewal funds could be supported by federal, provincial/territorial and municipal investment. A portion of returns on specific investments, for instance from rents on social housing, would flow back to the pension fund.

Nor should a pension levy to support economic development be restricted to the CPP fund (or the Quebec Pension Plan fund in that province). Large public-sector workplace plans in Canada, many of which deliver consistently-high returns and are in positions of funding excesses, should also be levied. These plans hugely benefit from large public subsidies. Canada has by far the greatest tax breaks for private pensions in the OECD. In 2013, Canada reported spending 2.0% of GDP on tax breaks for workplace plans, five times the OECD average. Imposing a levy on workplace plans in the service of social investment could reduce some of the resentment of public-sector pensions, while leaving benefit security untouched.

With the Kinder Morgan fiasco, the Liberal government has spilled the beans about the CPPIB, and reminded the Left to think ambitiously and creatively about socializing investment. Let’s seize the chance.

Bob Farkas is a teacher, union member, and activist living in Toronto, Canada, with a longstanding interest in pension issues.

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Conflict Theory and Biosphere Annihilation

May 30th, 2018 by Robert J. Burrowes

In a recent article titled ‘Challenges for Resolving Complex Conflicts’, I pointed out that existing conflict theory pays little attention to the extinction-causing conflict being ongoingly generated by human over-consumption in the finite planetary biosphere (and, among other outcomes, currently resulting in 200 species extinctions daily). I also mentioned that this conflict is sometimes inadequately identified as a conflict caused by capitalism’s drive for unending economic growth in a finite environment.

I would like to explain the psychological origin of this biosphere-annihilating conflict and how this origin has nurtured the incredibly destructive aspects of capitalism (and socialism, for that matter) from the beginning. I would also like to explain what we can do about it.

Before I do, however, let me briefly illustrate why this particular conflict configuration is so important by offering you a taste of the most recent research evidence in relation to the climate catastrophe and biosphere annihilation and why the time to resolve this conflict is rapidly running out (assuming, problematically, that we can avert nuclear war in the meantime).

In an article reporting a recent speech by Professor James G. Anderson of Harvard University, whose research led to the Montreal Protocol in 1987 to mitigate CFC damage to the Ozone Layer, environmental journalist Robert Hunizker summarizes Anderson’s position as follows: ‘the chance of permanent ice remaining in the Arctic after 2022 is zero. Already, 80% is gone. The problem: Without an ice shield to protect frozen methane hydrates in place for millennia, the Arctic turns into a methane nightmare.’ See ‘There Is No Time Left’.

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

So, if we are in the process of annihilating Earth’s biosphere, which will precipitate human extinction in the near term, why aren’t we paying much more attention to the origin of this fundamental conflict? And then developing a precisely focused strategy for transcending it?

The answer to these two questions is simply this: the origin of this conflict is particularly unpalatable and, from my careful observation, most people, including conflict theorists, aren’t anxious to focus on it.

So why are human beings over-consuming in the finite planetary biosphere? Or more accurately, why are human beings who have the opportunity to do so (which doesn’t include those impoverished people living in Africa, Asia, Central/South America or anywhere else) over-consuming in the finite planetary biosphere?

They are doing so because they were terrorized into unconsciously equating consumption with a meaningful life by parents and other adults who had already internalized this same ‘learning’.

Let me explain how this happens.

At the moment of birth, a baby is genetically programmed to feel and express their feelings in response to the stimuli, both internal and external, that the baby registers. For example, as soon after birth as a baby feels hungry, they will signal that need, usually by crying or screaming. An attentive parent (or other suitable adult) will usually respond to this need by feeding the baby and the baby will express their satisfaction with this outcome, perhaps with a facial expression, in a way that most aware parents and adults will have no difficulty identifying. Similarly, if the baby is cold, in pain or experiencing any other stimulus, the baby will express their need, probably by making a loud noise. Given that babies cannot immediately use a cultural language, they use the language that was given to them by evolution: particularly audibly expressed noise of various types that an aware adult will quickly learn to interpret.

Of course, from the initial moments after birth and throughout the next few months, a baby will experience an increasing range of stimuli – including internal stimuli such as the needs for listening, understanding and love, as well as external stimuli ranging from a wet nappy to a diverse set of parental, social, climate and environmental stimuli – and will develop a diverse and expanding range of ways, now including a wider range of emotional expression but eventually starting to include spoken language, of expressing their responses, including satisfaction and enjoyment if appropriate, to these stimuli.

At some vital point, however, and certainly within the child’s first eighteen months, the child’s parents and the other significant adults in the child’s life, will start to routinely and actively interfere with the child’s emotional expression (and thus deny them satisfaction of the unique needs being expressed in each case) in order to compel the child to do as the parent/adult wishes. Of course, this is essential if you want the child to be obedient – a socially compliant slave – rather than to follow their own Self-will.

One of the critically important ways in which this denial of emotional expression occurs seems benign enough: Children who are crying, angry or frightened are scared into not expressing their feelings and offered material items – such as food or a toy – to distract them instead. Unfortunately, the distractive items become addictive drugs. Unable to have their emotional needs met, the child learns to seek relief by acquiring the material substitutes offered by the parent. But as this emotional deprivation endlessly expands because the child has been denied the listening, understanding and love to develop the capacity to listen to, love and understand themself, so too does the ‘need’ for material acquisition endlessly expand.

As an aside, this explains why most violence is overtly directed at gaining control of material, rather than emotional, resources. The material resource becomes a dysfunctional and quite inadequate replacement for satisfaction of the emotional need. And, because the material resource cannot ‘work’ to meet an emotional need, the individual is most likely to keep using direct and/or structural violence to gain control of more material resources in an unconscious and utterly futile attempt to meet unidentified emotional needs. In essence, no amount of money and other assets can replace the love denied a child that would allow them to feel and act on their feelings.

Of course, the individual who consumes more than they need and uses direct violence, or simply takes advantage of structural violence, to do so is never aware of their deeply suppressed emotional needs and of the functional ways of having these needs met. Although, I admit, this is not easy to do given that listening, understanding and love are not readily available from others who have themselves been denied these needs. Consequently, with their emotional needs now unconsciously ‘hidden’ from the individual, they will endlessly project that the needs they want met are, in fact, material.

This is the reason why members of the Rothschild family, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Amancio Ortega, Mark Zuckerberg, Carlos Slim, the Walton family and the Koch brothers, as well as the world’s other billionaires and millionaires, seek material wealth and are willing to do so by taking advantage of structures of exploitation held in place by the US military. They are certainly wealthy in the material sense; unfortunately, they are emotional voids who were never loved and do not know how to love themself or others now.

Tragically, however, this fate is not exclusive to the world’s wealthy even if they illustrate the point most graphically. As indicated above, virtually all people who live in material cultures have suffered this fate and this is readily illustrated by their ongoing excessive consumption – especially their meat-eating, fossil-fueled travel and acquisition of an endless stream of assets – in a planetary biosphere that has long been signaling ‘Enough!’

As an aside, governments that use military violence to gain control of material resources are simply governments composed of many individuals with this dysfunctionality, which is very common in industrialized countries that promote materialism. Thus, cultures that unconsciously allow and encourage this dysfunctional projection (that an emotional need is met by material acquisition) are the most violent both domestically and internationally. This also explains why industrialized (material) countries use military violence to maintain political and economic structures that allow ongoing exploitation of non-industrialized countries in Africa, Asia and Central/South America.

In summary, the individual who has all of their emotional needs met requires only the intellectual and few material resources necessary to maintain this fulfilling life: anything beyond this is not only useless, it is a burden.

If you want to read (a great deal) more detail of the explanation presented above, you will find it in ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’.

So what can we do?

Well, I would start by profoundly changing our conception of sound parenting by emphasizing the importance of nisteling to children – see ‘Nisteling: The Art of Deep Listening’ – and making ‘My Promise to Children’.

For those adults who feel incapable of nisteling or living out such a promise, I encourage you to consider doing the emotional healing necessary by ‘Putting Feelings First’.

If you already feel capable of responding powerfully to this extinction-threatening conflict between human consumption and the Earth’s biosphere, you are welcome to consider joining those who are participating in the fifteen-year strategy to reduce consumption and achieve self-reliance explained in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’ and/or to consider using sound nonviolent strategy to conduct your climate or environment campaign. See Nonviolent Campaign Strategy.

You are also welcome to consider signing the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’.

As the material simplicity of Mohandas K. Gandhi demonstrated: Consumption is not life.

If you are not able to emulate Gandhi (at least ‘in spirit’) by living modestly, it is your own emotional dysfunctionality – particularly unconscious fear – that is the problem that needs to be addressed.

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

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Brexit: Second EU Referendum Campaign Kicks Off

May 30th, 2018 by True Publica

TruePublica Editor: I spoke to some influential Brexiteers just before the decision was made by the electorate to Brexit. The reasoning by one was not that he thought the EU was bad for Britain but that everybody in the EU thought the EU was bad and when the EU27 started to break down, Britain would be in the premier league once again – on its own to benefit from the fallout.

This may still prove right as the EU is now facing some terrible decisions and dilemma’s as a result of defying an angry electorate across the bloc, especially as 2019 will be holding the EU’s MEP elections. Italy, is just one more of quite a few member states who have spawned anti-EU political parties getting into power. More on that another time.

Since the divisive referendum decision was given by a Conservative party bent on saving itself from implosion, more than thinking of Britain’s economic welfare, there’s been talk of a second EU referendum. Well, now we have confirmation that a real effort is underway.

The campaign for a second Brexit referendum will start next week according to none other than – George Soros, who has pumped £700 million into the ‘Best for Britain’ campaign. Best for Britain is registered with The Electoral Commission.

The campaign starts with demanding that MPs recognise its right to see another vote on EU membership:

Regardless of how people voted in 2016, it’s become clear that there is growing public demand for a new chance to decide our country’s path as new facts come to light.

Speaking at an event held by the European Council for Foreign Relations think tank in Paris on Tuesday, Soros described Brexit as an example of “territorial disintegration” and blamed it for impairing the workings of the EU, according to the Times that is.

Most of the damage is felt right now when the European Union is in an existential crisis, but its attention is diverted to negotiating a separation agreement with Britain. That’s a lose-lose proposition, but it could be converted into a win-win situation,” Soros said.

Got that. The European Union is in an “EXISTENTIAL CRISIS.” The billionaire investor has described the EU as being in disintegration mode.

Soros confirms that Brexit will, and I quote cause a “hard-to-fill hole in the European budget.”

The EU needs to transform itself into an association that countries like Britain would want to join, in order to strengthen the political case,” Soros also said.

Soros has, in no uncertain terms confirmed that without a major political transformation, a massive financial hole is about to appear in the EU’s budget, that the bloc is in disintegration mode and the worst crisis it has ever faced, an existential one, is just months away.

Finally, Soros said:

“The economic case for (Britain) remaining a member of the EU is strong, but it will take time for it to sink in.”

About £700 million he thinks will be needed for that to sink in.

From the man who blatantly attacked Britain’s currency through the raid against the Bank of England in September 1992, that taxpayers had to be replace from the treasury and walked off with the equivalent of one thousand million pounds for personal gain – Isn’t all that a bit contradictory George?

His campaign is not about Britain’s welfare, it’s about the EU’s welfare – clearly.

It’s all very confusing now. Many people I have spoken to have changed their minds in both camps but make no mistake, Soros will be joined by others, £700 million is just the start. By this time next year, could Britain be back in Europe’s biggest club?

In the meantime, as has just been pointed out to me since posting this article, a campaign started a month back to achieve the same – it’s called The People’s Vote and it’s being organised by a coalition of about 9 pro-EU groups (see: this).  They all work closely together and as one group they will NOT work with ‘Best for Britain’ because it is funded by Soros.  That doesn’t mean that ‘Best for Britain’ supporters won’t be welcome to march with the everyone on June 23rd, but they cannot claim it is ‘their’ march.

The People’s Vote campaign has two aims; first, that the people must have a vote on the ‘final’ deal (whatever May’s mess of a government comes up with) and, second, one of the options  must be to remain with the EU.  The plan is to press for the vote first because that will bring those who voted to leave on board (a lot of them aren’t happy with what’s going on) and then insist on the remain option being included.

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Featured image is from TruePublica.

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA), allied Palestinian militias, and the government of Syria deserve high praise for the recent liberation of Yarmouk refugee camp from ISIS.

Anti-war activists took a lot of flak from some people in North America and Europe, describing themselves as Palestine solidarity activists and “leftists”, when, in 2012, Yarmouk was invaded and occupied by proxy armies of western powers and Arab monarchs. Because we condemned the US-led attack on Syria and defended the Syrian government’s resistance to the terrorist occupation of Yarmouk, we were among the activists denounced by the misguided persons above as being “Assad apologists.”

This would be a good time to set the record straight and reaffirm our position that Palestinians and Syrians have strong common national aspirations. The aspiration of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in Palestine is recognized as part of the common struggle of all Syrians. And both nations seek to reclaim from the State of Israel all the territories in Syria and Palestine which it currently occupies.

Background

Yarmouk was originally a refugee camp for Palestinians who had been displaced by the “Nakba”, the catastrophe of the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous people of historic Palestine which accompanied the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. It was a .81 hectare of land which, in 1957, was outside the boundaries of Damascus but which, by 2011, had turned into a lively suburb of the city housing about one million people of whom about 160,000 people were Palestinians. It was the largest and most prosperous settlement of Palestinians anywhere in Syria.

It is important to note that the government of Syria treated its hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees better than most Arab countries and as equals to Syrian citizens themselves. Palestinians in Syria received the same levels of free health care and education as Syrians and were allowed to rise in all areas of employment as high as their abilities carried them. There was only one formal legal distinction between Syrians and Palestinians. Palestinians were not given Syrian citizenship – in order to maintain their internationally-recognized right of return to their homes in Palestine – and therefore were not allowed to participate in Syrian elections.

Finally, the Syrian government, along with Iran and Hezbollah, was part of the Coalition of Resistance against Israel for many years. It was no accident therefore that, before the US-led aggression against Syria in 2011, the Palestinian factions chose to locate their headquarters in Damascus.

In short, the Assad government was a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause.

The proxy war on Syria

In 2011, a group of western countries and Arab monarchies, led by the USA, unleashed scores of proxy armies of terrorist mercenaries on Syria with the purpose of achieving regime change, a scheme clearly illegal under international law. Importantly, the State of Israel participated heavily in this regime change operation, supporting terrorist mercenaries using the illegally-occupied Golan Heights as their base to fight against the Syrian government inside of Syria. Israel also used its air force to bomb Syria more than one hundred times during the course of the seven-year long war and supplied aid and weapons to separatist Kurdish elements in eastern Syria with a view to aid the USA in trying to partition that country.

In this context, negotiations took place for the Palestinians in Syria to remain neutral in the war. The Syrian government supported this view but the terrorists didn’t.

Image result for yarmouk refugee camp

Palestinian refugees in Yarmouk

In 2012, the so-called “Free Syrian Army” (FSA) invaded and occupied Yarmouk. Some Palestinian factions facilitated their entry. The FSA was soon joined by al Qaeda and other militant factions. In 2015, ISIS entered the camp and, after some internecine warfare, drove out the other terrorist factions.

As they did in many other pockets of Syria, the terrorists evicted many Palestinians from their homes, looted and plundered everything of value, arrested anyone with known sympathies for the government and/or religious beliefs different from theirs and proceeded to torture and execute them, sexually assaulted and/or kidnapped women and girls, turned Yarmouk into a fortified camp, and hoarded all the foodstuffs for themselves. As in every other terrorist enclave, the vast majority of the inhabitants promptly fled to government-held areas.

The Syrian government did not directly attack Yarmouk until just a few weeks ago. Instead, it patiently armed and supported the courageous fighters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) who, for many years, led the unremitting struggle against the terrorists inside the camp. In other words, the Syrian government respected the neutrality requested by the Palestinian organizations.

The Syria Solidarity Movement notes,

“the patience of the Syrian hosts in allowing the Palestinian refugee population to try to reconcile its differences and take the lead in expelling ISIS and al-Qaeda and their affiliates from Yarmouk since early in the conflict is especially remarkable. In the end, the SAA took over responsibility for eliminating these terrorist groups from neighbouring Hajar al-Aswad, which allowed the Palestinian militias and their Syrian allies to remove the remainder from Yarmouk, the last remaining source of terror attacks on the civilian population in Damascus. We send our sincerest congratulations to all the people of Damascus and the surrounding metropolitan area for their liberation from fear of such attacks, which they endured for seven long years.” 1

Lies and distortions about Yarmouk

In 2012, certain self-styled Palestine solidarity activists and western “leftists” sought to twist the facts about the second displacement of the Palestinians – this time from their homes in Yarmouk. They sought specifically to lay the blame for this second victimization of the Palestinians in Yarmouk on the Syrian government and effectively gave left cover and support to the western regime-change operation. According to the nay-sayers, the Syrian government was simply to cave in to the armed militants and ignore its duty to protect its citizens and the Palestinian refugees, who lived under its protection, from foreign aggression.

From personal experience in Canada, we can attest to the fact that the Left cover provided by these misguided people for the attempted US regime-change operation in Syria was poisonous to the Canadian anti-war movement. It made it hard to organize people against the illegal war. In fact, it became difficult, thanks to threats by anarchists and other intervenors, even to find a venue to hold a public meeting in Canada for outspoken and courageous opponents of the war on Syria, such as Mother Agnes Mariam and Eva Karene Bartlett. In a few short years, because some of these misguided people, specifically members of the International Socialists (IS), were in positions of authority within the pan-Canadian anti-war movement, the movement dried up and died.

We note that many people got it wrong at the time. It’s heartening that some of them, such as journalists, Max Blumenthal, Rania Khalek, and Ben Norton have publicly acknowledged that their earlier analysis and criticisms were wrong.2 Others, such as UK professor Gilbert Achcar, who travelled to the World Social Forum in Montreal in 2016 to villify the Syrian government, will probably dance to empire’s tune until they die. It has taken seven years but the recent string of victories of the Syrian government over the terrorists have forced many honest people on the left to open their eyes wide and realize that what has transpired in Syria is not a popular uprising and or a “revolution”, but a deadly plan by the US, its western allies, and regional clients criminally to interfere in the domestic affairs of Syria and to target Iran and the Coalition of Resistance.

Thankfully, with the help of its international allies – Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, and several Palestinian popular militias – the Syrian Arab Army and government, after much sacrifice, has finally gained the upper hand and has driven the terrorists out of many of the enclaves they seized and occupied, including Yarmouk, thus defeating the US regime change plan.

In response to the failure of that plan, the USA moved to its Plan B: direct attacks on, and the occupation of, a large swath of Syria with a view to partition the country. On April 13, 2018, in response to a fraudulent “chemical attack” staged by the White Helmets3, the USA, UK, and France launched 100+ missiles against Syria. Interestingly, the Palestinian peak organizations immediately condemned the missile attack, and came out strongly in support of the government in Damascus, thereby abandonning any pretence at neutrality.

Fatah (the majority faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO]) declared that it

“stood unreservedly with the unity of Syrian territory and rejected efforts at destroying it or harming its unity and sovereignty.”

Palestinian Islamic Jihad “condemned the Western aggression against Syria” and “expressed solidarity (to) stand by Syria and its people and with all Arab and Islamic peoples in the face of all threats and challenges to their security, stability and unity.” The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) “considered the aggression of America and its allies on the Syrian territory as a blatant aggression against the nation, aimed at confiscating its lands and destroying its capabilities in order to preserve the existence of the Israeli entity and (to advance) its schemes.” The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) “strongly condemned the American-British-French aggression, which targeted Syria with their missiles.” The Front added that

“the aggression and its objectives will be destroyed on the rock of the steadfastness of the Syrian people and the Syrian state” for whom it expressed its support and solidarity.4

Syrian and Palestinian struggles indivisible

The liberation of Yarmouk and the angry Palestinian reactions to the April 13 missile attacks put a satisfying end to a chapter of disunity in Palestinian and Syrian history. They show that the Palestinian and Syrian struggles are one and the same. There can be no ultimate victory for Palestine if Syria is destroyed. There can be no ultimate victory for the Syrian people without also freeing the Palestinians from the tyranny of occupation in Palestine.

The moral of the Yarmouk story can be summed up thus: if you are for Palestine, you must also be for Syria!

Those self-styled Palestinian solidarity activists and “leftists” in Europe and North America who slammed the Syrian government for resisting the terrorist proxy armies of the West need to reflect on the consequences of their de facto support of the US empire’s meddling in Syria: half a million deaths, millions of injured people (both physically and emotionally), enormous destruction of civilian infrastructure (including housing, schools, and hospitals), the transformation of 12 million Syrians into displaced persons and into a wave of refugees that swept over Europe, the descent of thousands of Syrian women and girls into the international human trafficking trade, and much much more… Will there ever be a day of reckoning for these apologists of empire?

Conclusion

The liberation of Yarmouk refugee camp is a significant milestone in Syria’s struggle to regain its national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Eventually, all of Syria will be liberated from the terrorists and from the direct occupations of the USA (east of the Euphrates), of Turkey (in the north), and Israel (in the south). In the meantime, the Palestinian residents of Yarmouk will soon be able to return to their homes in southern Damascus. And, when Syria is completely liberated, they will be able to organize once again – with the help of the Syrian government – for the Day of Return to Palestine.

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Ken Stone is a veteran antiwar activist, a former Steering Committee Member of the Canadian Peace Alliance, an executive member of the SyriaSolidarityMovement.org, and treasurer of the Hamilton Coalition To Stop The War [hcsw.ca]. Ken is author of “Defiant Syria”, an e-booklet available at Amazon, iTunes, and Kobo. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

Notes

1 “Statement… on the liberation of Yarmouk”, Syria Solidarity Movement, May 27, 2018, syriasolidritymovement.org;

2 Blumenthal and Khalek recant their previously held views on Syria:

https://soundcloud.com/moderaterebelsradio/syria-rania-khalek-episode-17

https://soundcloud.com/moderaterebelsradio/syria-palestine-salafism-wahhabism-islamophobia-rania-khalek-episode-18

Ben Norton recants: http://bennorton.com/syria-war-views/

3 Vanessa Beeley on the Douma incident: http://21stcenturywire.com/2018/05/11/syria-vanessa-beeley-speaks-to-uk-column-about-eastern-ghouta/

4 Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA), April 16, 2018

Contemporary Australia is a case of dependent, high-technology liberal militarization, but with distinctive characteristics pointing to a model that must look beyond standard concerns with increasing national defense budgets, more and better weapons systems, an “exceptionalist” approach to immigration security and a predilection for use of military force in international affairs.

In a world and time where militarization is a global norm embedded in globe-spanning military alliances and world-wide networks of foreign military bases, discerning the lineaments of one particular national instance can be both difficult and potentially misleading. In liberal democracies, national self-conceptions resist identification with the harsh implications of reliance on, or valorization of, military force, unless it can be viably represented as defense of freedom, just war, or wars against unspeakable Others. And in the case of liberal democracies originating in a settler state with ongoing unrecognized conquest of indigenous peoples – think Australia, the United States, Canada and Israel – the racially inflected violence at the foundations of state-formation and national identity continues to ramify through the default settings of contemporary foreign policy. All three qualities distinguish the contemporary pattern of Australian militarization from the standard versions of either exceptionalist or liberal militarization.

US F-35 Joint Strike Fighters in flight testing. The Australian government has approved the purchase of a further 58 of the warplanes at a cost of $12.4bn. Photograph: Lockheed Martin/AAP.

By the standard indices of national-level militarization, Australia is now a serious instance, albeit an unusual one. The world’s sixth-largest arms importer, post-9/11 Australia embarked on a large capital expenditure program on defense that will see virtually all major weapons systems and support platforms replaced or upgraded in the next two decades.

Defense spending has been growing continuously since 2000, reaching $27.3 billion in the current fiscal year, a 6.5 percent increase in real terms over the previous year, including a billion dollars for current overseas deployments in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Current government planning to bring defense spending from 1.9 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to a sustained 2.0 percent in coming years will involve annual real increases of 4.7 percent, meaning that defense spending will have doubled in real terms from 2005-2025, including $153 billion for increased defense materiel capacity.

Over the past half century or more, the standard historical parameters of Australian defense policy have focused on oscillations around a set of policy-polar tensions:

  • self-reliance vs imperial or super-power dependence;
  • confidence in sufficient warning time to prepare for emerging major threats identity rooted in fear of invasion;
  • acceptance of limited resources and influence borrowed grandiosity by association with imperial allies; and
  • force structure designed for the defense of continental Australia and the immediate region “operations in distant theatres.”

These tension-sets derive at root from the anxieties of a small, settler-colonial state, uneasily occupying a conquered continent, identifying deeply with its imperial origins on the other side of the world, and fearfully anxious about its relations with its geographical and cultural environment. Identity powerfully structures how the map is read for strategic interests. On the standard Australian reading, “help” looks far away. Serious pursuit of “self-reliance” is seen as a brave gamble.

With a nod to the shade of past self-reliance policy, the essence of Australian defense policy post-9/11 and in renewed fear of China today is an intensified, broadened and tightened version of the alliance relationship with the United States. Now in its seventh decade, the Australia-US alliance is an historical chameleon, shape shifting from its original rationale as a US guarantee against post-Second World War Japanese remilitarization, to an imagined southern bastion of the Free World in the global division of the Cold War, on to a niche commitment in the global war on terror, and now a new, if slightly hesitant, role in a US-led faux containment revenant against a rising China.

The century-long tradition of deployment of Australian armed forces in distant theaters in service of its alliance protector – first Britain, then the US – continues today, with substantial Australian ground, sea and air force elements still deployed in the US-led wars in Afghanistan (almost continuously since 2001 to the present), Iraq and the Western Indian Ocean (2003-2009; and 2014 – present ) and Syria (2015 – present ), and large support elements in Persian Gulf bases (2002 – present ).

Servicing alliance requirements has meant that Australian force structure reflects these underlying tensions, as can be seen, for example, in the roles assigned in theory and practice to Australia’s range of new major weapons-platforms upgraded in recent years, in all three services.

To take the example of advanced military aircraft, Australian doctrine today still nominally emphasizes the defense of the sea-air gap surrounding the continent, immediate South Pacific and archipelagic Southeast Asia. Accordingly, defense planners have always sought a “knowledge edge” over neighboring armed forces rooted in preferential access to US military technology denied even to other close US allies such as Japan as the “reward” for a US-deputed sheriff role in the region and in constant support for US-led wars.

Accordingly, the Royal Australian Air Force’s large but aging F/A-18 fighter-bomber force, mainly deployed to the continent’s northern approaches, are to be replaced in coming years by more than 70 F-35 Lockheed-Martin Joint Strike Fighters. But RAAF Hornets and Super-Hornets have also long been deployed to Iraq and now Syria in high-tempo alliance operations. For the US, the bombing contribution of the Australian F/A-18s, while politically helpful, has been outweighed by the utility of the accompanying deployment of a technologically advanced US-sourced RAAF Wedgetail E-7 airborne early warning and control aircraft, based on a Boeing 737, and designed to be highly interoperable with US forces.

A similar set of defense doctrine contradictions was embodied in the protracted and intense intra-government debate about replacing an ageing small submarine fleet. This was eventually resolved in 2016 with the decision to commit $39 billion to build 12 4,000 tonne conventional diesel-electric submarines based on a DCNS-Thales design derived from the French Barracuda-class nuclear submarine. Once again, doctrinal concerns for a submarine capability designed for defense of the continental sea/air gap and archipelagic Southeast Asian areas of direct strategic interest to Australia appeared to be trumped by advocacy rooted in alliance concerns for capacity to conduct very long-range coalition-support operations centering on a blockade of Chinese waters – a choice with considerable consequences for design requirements and for the Australian strategic relationship with China.

Antennas of Pine Gap Richard Tanter, “Antennas of Pine Gap image gallery”, Australian Defence Facilities Pine Gap, (Source)

Australia hosts a number of US-related military facilities. Today, none of these are solely US bases, but are joint facilities, each with a greater or lesser extent of US access, although in important cases such as the Joint Defense Facility Pine Gap, the degree of “jointness” is highly asymmetrical, with Australian staff sharing operations of a facility built and paid for by the US and only operating as part of global US space-based surveillance systems.

Outside Australia, perhaps the best-known example involves the initiative of former US President Barack Obama’s administration to deploy up to 2,500 marines to Darwin in the Northern Territory and US Air Force fighters, refueling tankers and B-52 and B-2 bombers to Northern Territory air bases. The Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) is on permanent rotation for half of each year, avoiding the tropical wet season where major military ground activity becomes all but impossible, when its core elements from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit return to Okinawa aboard a US Navy Expeditionary Strike Group. The number of marines in Darwin is small compared with their presence in South Korea, Okinawa and Guam, and in some respects the significance of their Australian presence is as much political as military. However, with their ADF counterparts increasingly highly integrated with US forces through training, doctrine, logistics pre-deployment, interoperability, and combined operational planning, including for coalition operations in Korea, the military significance is becoming clearer. The MAGTF and USAF aircraft utilize large ADF ground and air weapons-training ranges in northern Australia – one of which, Bradshaw Field Training Area, is the size of Cyprus – which are densely electronically connected by optical fiber in real time to both ADF headquarters and Pacific Command in Hawaii to facilitate training activities and evaluation. The clear US intention is to develop the Darwin hub into a combined contribution to US-led regional rapid deployment capability for East and Southeast Asia.

Australia in a networked alliance

To best understand the important implication of not only hosting US facilities in Australia but also the more general Australian national pattern of militarization, a wider vantage point is needed, shifting the focus of militarization from the essentially standalone characteristics of an individual nation-state to the implications of that state’s place in a networked alliance system. These networks involve US and allied military bases and deployed personnel, globally distributed elements of US-controlled but coalition-accessed space and terrestrial surveillance sensor systems, communications and computing systems – all tied to US and coalition military operations.

The physical manifestations of these systems include not only easily recognizable conventional military bases with large numbers of military personnel, logistics and transport facilities and weapons platforms, but also US-controlled but coalition-accessed and hosted bases for space and terrestrial surveillance sensor systems and worldwide communications and computing systems that are essential to US and coalition military operations, and that are technologically dense, but personnel light. These make up a globally distributed, materially heterogeneous landscape of digital technology, much of which exists in an invisible Hertzian landscape constituted by the electromagnetic spectrum operated through all-too-material antennas, advanced computing facilities, sensors, data banks, communications satellites and globe-spanning webs of dedicated optical fiber.

Two essentially US facilities in Australia regarded by both governments as “joint facilities” and governed by agreements under which they operate with “the full knowledge and concurrence of the Australian government” exemplify this alliance-induced global aspect of Australian militarization: the Joint Defense Facility Pine Gap in Central Australia and the Harold E. Holt Naval Communications Station at North West Cape in Western Australia.

Between the two of them, Pine Gap and North West Cape are now operationally closely involved with – and indeed for the most part critical for – US nuclear-war targeting, US-Japanese missile defense, US drone and special forces extra-judicial counter-terrorism killings, the rapidly growing US capacity for space warfare, and direct support for ground and air operations in the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and for US combat operations in any outbreak of armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula.

The idea that an intelligence facility in the center of Australia will be central to US planning and operations for a Korean war, nuclear or conventional, may appear exaggerated from the outside. This is far from the case. Pine Gap’s longstanding primary role involves its massive signals intelligence capabilities in space and on the ground, listening to a vast range of radio signals, cell phones, and radars over more than half the world from the west of Africa to the mid-Pacific, and all areas of current US military interest and operations.

For half a century, one essential role of Pine Gap has been to provide US strategic planners with the locations and characteristics of enemy radars and air defenses, the better to evade, jam, or destroy them as a prelude to airborne nuclear or conventional attack.

In preparation for a possible Korean war, Pine Gap’s signals-intelligence tasking schedules will have been in overdrive contributing to updates to the North Korean Electronic Order of Battle – the key to the effectiveness of US attacks on enemy assets. This will include listing the locations and characteristics of every North Korean radar, missile launcher, command center, tank and artillery array, logistics hub, ship and aircraft, and political leadership cell phones and bolt holes.

Pine Gap’s secondary nuclear role involves downlinking data from US infrared surveillance early-warning satellites detecting enemy nuclear missile launches, giving the US a few minutes of warning of nuclearattack – and also priming a second strike by establishing which enemy ICBM silos have fired, and which remain to be targeted. But beyond this, through these same infrared satellites, Pine Gap detects the first seconds of enemy missile launches and calculates the missiles’ likely trajectories, passing the information to US and Japanese and South Korean missile defense systems, cueing their fire radars to search a tiny portion of the sky where the missiles are gathering enormous speed. If cued by Pine Gap, and if the missile defense system works as the Pentagon and the manufacturers advertise, US missile defenses might, just might, have a chance of firing their own missiles to hit and destroy the enemy missiles. Without Pine Gap’s contribution, at the current stage of US missile defense technology, the chances of successful interception are probably not much more than zero.

North West Cape, once vital for communications with submerged US Polaris nuclear submarines, has a new critical role in an ever-more important area of US military planning, with enthusiastic Australian acquiescence. The US has installed two ground-based space surveillance systems at North West Cape under a Space Surveillance Partnership Agreement with Australia, as part of its worldwide collaborative Space Surveillance Awareness network. A refurbished Cape Canaveral Missile Range C-Band space radarhas been transferred to Australia, now operated by the RAAF to monitor space objects in low earth orbit. And a new highly advanced US space surveillance telescope to take advantage of Australia’s southern location for observation of objects in geosynchronous orbit. Both the radar and the telescope are dual purpose. Great public emphasis is given to their utility as an undoubted global good to track space debris threatening the use of congested space. Rather less publicly, great importance is attached by both the US Space Command and the ADF to the role of both in determining the locations, characteristics and behavior of adversary satellites – a critical requirement for US planning for space dominance. What is striking in this pattern of militarization is the dramatic upgrading of alliance operational integration at the heart of US planning.

A third “joint facility” confirms this pattern of militarization of Australia through its willing insertion into a wider global pattern. The Australian Defense Satellite Communications Station (ADSCS) at Kojarena near Geraldton in Western Australia was originally a solely Australian facility, and still functions together with Pine Gap and a companion Australian satellite communications interception station at Shoal Bay outside Darwin as a major Australian contributor to the US-led Five Eyes global signals intelligence network. However, in the past decade, two new compounds at Kojarena have been constructed to house two ground stations for US global military communications systems. One houses three giant antennas to uplink and downlink to the satellites of the Mobile User Objective System, or MUOS, the US military’s ruggedized 3G smart phone system providing worldwide access for individuals’ narrow-band (limited volume and speed) voice, data and video communications, and military-auspiced internet-capacity military communications. The four worldwide MUOS satellite ground stations, including Kojarena, are linked by a dedicated 18,000 mile-long optical fiber network.

Another new Kojarena compound also houses three antennas as ground terminals for a different kind of US communications system, the equally important Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) system. Australia paid for one of ten WGS satellites to gain global access to the entire WGS network, especially for operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan, and two Australian WGS ground access terminals have been built for ADF use.

Wideband communications networks transport huge amounts of data, and are critical operating and downlinking data from long-range armed and surveillance drone aircraft. In mid-2014, the US Defense Department informed Congress that “warfighters” would be denied access to the WGS system for “months or years” without construction at Kojarena of a communication gateway known as a teleport, for which there was “a desperate need” in the region (in addition to those in Hawaii and Okinawa). A DoD Teleportenables both the WGS and MUOS communications satellites’ ground terminal to connect to the terrestrial optical fiber network known as the Defense Information Systems Network (DISN), and through that to the “network of networks” the US military calls the Global Information Grid (GIG).

Such “joint” facilities indicate a new globalizing dimension to alliance structures and to what had previously been considered as standalone national patterns of militarization, in this case of liberal democratic states. Cooperation with and reliance on US-led planet-wide communications and surveillance systems produce a type of dependent militarization that is rather different from, and deeper than, dependence derived from, say, force structure dependent on imported weapons systems.

“Entanglement” takes on quite new and binding dimensions of linkage multiplicity, complexity andpotentially unavoidable consequences. The implications of such globally organized alliance drivers of national militarization may vary in time and place, but as the Australian case shows, warrant serious consideration as a new dimension of liberal militarization, and its attendant dangers.

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This is a slightly revised version of an article that first appeared in Global Asia, Spring 2018, Vol.13 No.1.

Our thanks to Asia Pacific Journal Japan in Focus for bringing this study to our attention

Richard Tanter is a Senior Researcher at the Nautilus Institute and Honorary Professor in the School of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Melbourne.

Tensions between the local population and the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are growing. Protests against the SDF have recently erupted in the cities of Manbij, Hasakah and Raqqah.

The predominantly Arab local population protested against behavior and policies, including forced conscription, implemented by the SDF. Forces of the US-led coalition were even forced to intervene into the situation in Raqqa in order to stop infighting between the Kurdish YPG and local Arab units.

The SDF and the SDF-held area is de-facto dominated by Kurdish YPG/YPJ militias and their political wing PYD. This is also one of the factors triggering tensions with the local population.

11 militant groups, including Faylaq al-Sham and the Free Idlib Army, have merged in the Syrian province of Idlib forming a new Turkish backed force entitled Jabhat al-Wataniya lil-Tahrir (the National Front for Liberation). According to local observers, the formation of this military group is a part of the Turkish plan to increase its influence in the militant-held parts of the provinces of Idlib, Latakia and Aleppo.

From May 29 to May 30, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) struck at least 65 targets in the Gaza Strip. The targets were allegedly belonging to Hamas and the Islamic Jihad Movement and included facilities allegedly manufacturing rocket launchers and rocket engines. The IDF also claimed that its forces are operating in Gaza.

This round of escalation started with mortar shelling from Gaza early on May 29. Throughout the day, Palestinian forces launched at least 70 mortar shells and rockets at Israeli targets. The situation is developing.

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Today, Canada’s government announced that it will pay $4.5 billion to Kinder Morgan to buy both the 65-year-old Trans Mountain pipeline and the controversial Trans Mountain Expansion Project. The government also announced that it will assume liability for construction costs of the project, which could cost Canadian taxpayers billions more. In response, experts with Oil Change International released the following statements:

Adam Scott, Senior Advisor at Oil Change International, said:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is making a historic mistake in buying the doomed Kinder Morgan project. At a critical moment in history, the government is indeed doing ‘whatever it takes’ to undermine our transition to a safe, clean, renewable energy future.

“Like other proposed export pipeline projects before it, Kinder Morgan will not be built. Public opposition, legal challenges, and failing economics have stopped all new tar sands export to date. This government is using taxpayer money to buy a doomed asset with no value.”

Hannah McKinnon, Director of the Energy Futures and Transitions Program at Oil Change International, said:

“As Maya Angelou said, ‘When people show you who they are, believe them.’ Prime Minister Trudeau is not a climate champion – he is a shill for an industry that knows its days are numbered. This absurd miscalculation threatens the climate, jeopardizes the economy, and strips Canada of its commitment to First Nations rights and any remaining credibility it had on climate. This pipeline will not be built, but Trudeau’s legacy as a disgraced climate leader is set in stone.”

Alex Doukas, Director of the Stop Funding Fossils Program at Oil Change International, said:

“Canada has repeatedly committed to end fossil fuel subsidies alongside other G7 leaders. Now, just days before Canada hosts the G7 Leaders’ Summit, the Trudeau government has wasted billions of dollars in Canadian taxpayer money by taking on a doomed pipeline project and all of the liabilities that come along with it, which is effectively a massive fossil fuel subsidy.

“It’s not surprising that Kinder Morgan – the successor to fraud-plagued Enron – would try to unload this boondoggle onto the shoulders of taxpayers. What’s surprising and disappointing is that the Trudeau government fell for it.”

As we have previously revealed, the Democratic Republic of Congo government is attempting to reclassify swathes of two UNESCO protected World Heritage Sites – Salonga and Virunga National Parks – to allow oil exploration to take place. In our new investigation, we shine a light on the opaque ownership and secret deals of one company that potentially stands to gain from government attempts to open up the area to oil, COMICO, which was allocated an oil block that partially overlaps Salonga National Park.

Download the full briefing here: Not For Sale – Congo’s forests must be protected from the fossil fuels industry.

We expose how individuals involved in the original deal to purchase these controversial oil rights include a politically connected individual, a convicted fraudster, a businessman embroiled in the Brazilian ‘Car Wash’ scandal and mysterious shell companies.

Moreover, the details of the contract remain unknown, in contravention of Congo’s own oil law. The opacity surrounding both the company and the terms of the deal raises serious concerns.

The prospect of oil work represents an urgent threat to Salonga’s important and fragile ecosystem, while the lack of transparency is especially concerning as the country remains embroiled in a political crisis.

World’s second largest tropical rainforest under threat

One of the three oil blocks assigned by the government to COMICO, a part UK-owned company, encroaches on Salonga National Park, the world’s second largest tropical rainforest and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1984. The park is home to up to 40 percent of the world’s Bonobo population and many other endangered and rare species such as forest elephants, Congo peacocks, hippopotamuses and giant pangolins.

At the heart of the Congo basin, Salonga National Park stretches over 36,000 square kilometres – an area larger than Belgium. Its size means it plays a fundamental role in climate change mitigation and carbon storage.

UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee is clear that any form of mineral, oil and gas exploration or exploitation is incompatible with World Heritage status. If even World Heritage status cannot protect fragile ecosystems from oil work, it sends a message that the entire planet is up for sale to the fossil fuels industry, with potentially devastating environmental consequences.

Salonga and COMICO oil blocks

A deal shrouded in secrecy

As well as the huge environmental risks associated with the deal, it is alarming that we don’t know in full who is behind COMICO or the terms of the deal.

At its formation in 2006 COMICO was controlled by two men: Montfort Konzi, a former Congolese politician and businessman, who was a cabinet member of Jean-Pierre Bemba’s Congolese political party Mouvement de Libération du Congo; and Idalécio de Oliveira, a controversial Portuguese businessman linked to the Brazilian Car Wash scandal.

Various companies registered in secrecy jurisdictions appeared to have obtained shares in COMICO just as it was in the process of acquiring Congolese oil permits. We have been able to trace links between two of these companies and Norman Leighton, a former business associate of Oliveira who was previously convicted of playing a part in a fraudulent investment scheme.

Despite our best efforts, we were unable to trace the ownership of one of these offshore companies – Shumba International, which held a 1.5 percent share of COMICO as of 2007. Shumba is now listed as ‘defunct’ on the Mauritius company register.

The adjustment of COMICO’s structure in this way, involving opaque offshore companies picking up shares just as COMICO was in the process of obtaining its contract, raises serious red flags, as does the presence of a former Congolese politician, Konzi, in the historic ownership structure.

Without full disclosure of the owners of these offshore companies we cannot be sure who benefits or has benefitted from this company that now owns controversial oil exploration rights in Salonga National Park. When contacted by Global Witness, lawyers representing the COMICO shareholders we have been able to identify, said the confidentiality around the full ownership of COMICO was for “legitimate commercial reasons unconnected with bribery and corruption or other financial crime”, and they stated “none of the other beneficial owners have been convicted of bribery, corruption, fraud or other financial crime.”

The opacity around COMICO’s ownership is matched by the lack of transparency surrounding the contract.

COMICO’s production sharing agreements (PSAs, i.e. its contract) were initially signed over 10 years ago, but the company was not able to begin exploration until Congo’s President Joseph Kabila signed an ordinance in February this year.

Congo’s oil law, passed in 2015, stipulates that new contracts should be published within sixty days of being approved. However, sixty days after President Kabila gave presidential approval authorising COMICO’s contract, there was – and, as of 28 May 2018, still is – no sign of the contract being made public.

Lawyers for COMICO told Global Witness that a $3 million signature bonus had been made in 2007, but that “no other payment, direct or indirect, have [sic] been made to the Congolese government or its officials or its representatives.” However, as the contract has not been made public, it is impossible to assess the terms of this oil deal, to understand whether it is beneficial for the people of Congo, or to know whether potentially significant payments into government coffers, such as signature bonuses (upfront payments made by companies to governments upon the completion of a contract), have been paid.

Need for transparency more urgent than ever

There is a long history of companies and political elites swooping in at times of crisis to exploit Congo’s natural resources behind closed doors, to the detriment of its people and natural habitats. Now, more than ever, the need for transparency in Congo’s natural resource deals is key.

The Congo still ranks among the poorest countries in the world and is 176th out of 187 on the most recent Human Development Index calculated by the UN. It had the highest number of internally displaced people in Africa last year, with almost 2.2 million people forced from their homes. Furthermore, the country is currently in the midst of an Ebola outbreak and the risk of famine and conflict is looming large.

In such a dire context, and with the Congolese economy depending almost entirely on its natural resource sectors for export revenues, it is vitally important that deals in these sectors are conducted transparently and that the revenues are used for the benefit of Congo’s people.

Moreover, the political climate in Congo is currently very tense as presidential elections due to be held in November 2016 have been repeatedly delayed, sparking widespread protest. Conflicts have been re-erupting across the country and appearing even in a region that had historically been peaceful. President Kabila has overstayed his constitutionally allowed two terms in power and has not ruled out changing the constitution to remove term limits so that he could stand for election a third time.

Congo’s political crisis is likely to worsen as it approaches the new December 2018 deadline for elections. In this atmosphere, opening up Salonga National Park to oil raises the possibility that the Kabila regime is seeking to extract more revenue from the country’s natural resources during this precarious time – possibly to build up a financial war chest for elections.

Our key recommendations

In light of our investigation, we are calling for the relevant actors to take the following key actions:

  • COMICO to commit to keeping out of Salonga National Park and to reveal a complete list of beneficial owners of the company both today and since 2006.
  • The Congolese government should publish its contract with COMICO, as stipulated by the oil law, and all payments made by the company to the Congolese government should also be made public.
  • Governments everywhere should stop allocating natural resource contracts in fragile ecosystems and the integrity of UNESCO World Heritage sites should be respected and preserved.
  • Congo should cancel all oil blocks that overlap or are adjacent to protected areas and national parks.

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Featured image is from Global Witness.

US Sanctions on Iran: The Unraveling of Pax Americana

May 30th, 2018 by Christopher Wood

Amid current news headlines about North Korea and related nuclear issues, it is important not to ignore the potential schism that could occur in the G7 world as a consequence of the practical fallout from Donald Trump’s decision on May 8 to exit the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

What Will Happen to European Investments in Iran?

One practical issue is what is going to happen to European investments in Iran. The most high profile example is French energy company Total’s investment in a giant Iran gasfield. Total said this month it would pull out of Iran and its development of the giant South Pars gasfield unless it is specifically protected from US penalties and related sanctions (see Financial Times article “Total threat to pull out of Iran dents EU hopes of saving accord”, May 17, 2018).

Obviously, some form of compromise may be negotiated. But if Washington takes a hard line, such as claiming US jurisdiction as regards dollar transfers between two sovereign countries as was the case in 2014 with the US$9 billion fine levied on French bank BNP, then a confrontation is seemingly inevitable and, as a result, a growing questioning of the US hegemony implied by the US dollar paper standard, a concern which has long been shared by both China and Russia.

Questioning the US’ Role as the “Economic Policeman of the Planet”

In this respect, the most interesting reaction to the Iran issue since Donald Trump made his announcement on May 8 was that of the French finance minister Bruno Le Maire when he said on May 9 that it was not acceptable for the US to be the “economic policeman of the planet”.

In this respect, France is the European country to watch since it has a history of being willing to stand up to Washington in the post-1945 world. That cannot really be said of Germany and certainly not of Britain.

Pompeo Warns Iran of Escalating Sanctions

Staying on the subject of Iran, US Secretary of State and former CIA boss Mike Pompeo made an ultra-aggressive speech on Monday threatening Iran with escalating sanctions. In his first major foreign policy address as Secretary of State, Pompeo stated:

Sanctions are going back in full effect and new ones are coming… This sting of sanctions will be painful if the regime does not change its course… These will indeed end up being the strongest sanctions in history when we are complete.

The above rhetoric hardly suggests a willingness to compromise with the European position. The significance of all of the above is that Europe and the US remain on a collision course.

Iran’s Exports Booming Since Sanctions Ended

The importance of Europe for Iran can be seen in the fact that Iran’s exports to Europe have surged almost ninefold since the end of sanctions in January 2016.

Thus, Iran’s exports to the EU have risen from US$1.3 billion in 2015 to US$11.4 billion in the 12 months to January, according to the IMF Direction of Trade Statistics (see following chart).

There is also of course the growing trade between Iran and China. Iran’s total trade with China rose by 18%YoY to US$27.5 billion in the 12 months to January (see following chart). All this makes Iran a good example of the increasingly multipolar world where American influence or interests appear to be fading.

Iran Annualized Exports to EU

Iran annualized exports to EU

Source: IMF – Direction of Trade Statistics

Iran Annualized Total Trade with China

Iran annualized total trade with China

Source: IMF – Direction of Trade Statistics

Iran’s Currency Takes a Hit

Meanwhile, Iran’s currency has been hit hard in recent months as a result of the uncertainty created by Trump’s previous repeated earlier threats to pull out of the nuclear deal and now subsequent follow-through decision.

The rial has depreciated in the black market by 33% against the US dollar year-to-date (see following chart). This followed a period of comparative stability where the currency traded in a 13% range for two years, helped by the optimism created by the nuclear deal as well as by very high real interest rates. Iranian treasury bill yields peaked at 27% in early 2017 and bottomed at 16% late last year. They are now back at 19% as a result of the market pressure created by the threat of renewed American sanctions.

Iranian Rial/US$ (Inverted Scale)

Iranian Rial-USD (inverted scale)

Note: Based on black market rate after Iran unified its dual exchange rates on 9 April. Source: Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance, Bonbast.com

Substantial Foreign Investment in Iran

With a classic bullish emerging market demographic profile, in terms of a population of 80 million, 60% of whom are under the age of 35, Iran has, naturally, attracted a lot of foreign direct investment in recent years, most particularly following the 2015 nuclear deal.

The biggest of late was the previously mentioned Total’s US$4.8 billion investment signed in July 2017. But Total says it has only invested under €40 million so far, according to the above mentioned FT article, which is precisely why the French company wants to know if it can get a specific waiver from the sanctions.

In terms of the aggregate data, Iran’s actual FDI inflows surged by 64%YoY to US$3.37 biilion in 2016, according to United Nations data. While an Iranian government report published last year disclosed that Iran has approved US$11.8 billion in FDI during the 12 months to December 2016, with Spain and Germany accounting for US$3.2 billion and US$2.9 billion of that total respectively.

Iran FDI Inflows

Iran FDI Inflows

Source: UNCTAD World Investment Report 2017

Will We See a Retreat from Pax Americana?

The point, therefore, remains that a confrontation between the US and the Eurozone on this issue is potentially a landmark development in the retreat from Pax Americana.

But for now it is probably the case that most of Europe, in the spirit of appeasement, will be content to fudge the issue in the hope that Donald Trump may not be re-elected to the US presidency for a second term and life will return to “normal”.

Iran’s Economy

Turning away from geopolitical issues, Iran’s economy and financial markets spring some positive surprises. The country has an open capital account, while there is no tax on capital gains or dividends. The Tehran Stock Exchange celebrated its 50th anniversary last year.

But if FDI has been coming into the country in recent years, foreign portfolio investment activity has been much more limited, with estimates of only US$100 million invested in aggregate. This is the consequence in terms of equities of both a lack of inclusion in benchmark MSCI indices and, of course, of sanctions.

No Foreign Banks in Iran

There is still no foreign bank in Iran and therefore a lack of familiar custodians acceptable to international portfolio investors. Indeed, despite the 2015 nuclear deal, it is still not possible to use foreign credit cards to pay for hotel bills or any other transaction.

Foreign credit rating agencies are also absent which may not surprise given the three biggest are owned by the Americans. This is a pity for the Iranian Government given that, with minimal foreign currency debt and total government debt to GDP of only 35% of GDP, it would make a lot of sense to do a landmark sovereign bond issue. Total external debt is now only US$10.8 billion or just 2.5% of GDP, according to the Central Bank of Iran (see following chart).

Iran External Debt as % of GDP

Iran external debt as % of GDP

Source: Central Bank of Iran, IMF

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Chris Wood is internationally renowned for his weekly institutional research newsletter GREED & fear. He has correctly identified all major global financial bubbles over the last 3 decades (US sub-prime crisis, Nasdaq technology bubble, Asian financial crisis, and the Japanese financial meltdown). He’s also the author of three highly acclaimed books: Boom and Bust, The Bubble Economy, and The End of Japan Inc.

The recently concluded Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) saw the signing of many major deals with large countries and companies, but it was the lesser-discussed ones with comparatively smaller states that might actually be the real game-changers. During his trip to President Putin’s hometown, Mozambican Foreign Minister Jose Pacheco declared his country’s willingness to boost cooperation with Russia to the point of making Moscow a “strategic partner in different fields”, which includes the military realm as per the two side’s 2015 agreement for a five-year renewable partnership in this field and also the energy one when it comes to clinching gas agreements with Rosneft by yearend.

Russia can greatly assist Mozambique in both of these fields because the Southeast African state has suddenly fallen victim to Islamic terrorism in its northern region that most recently saw the beheading of at least 10 people, which coincidentally or not just so happens to be right where enormous offshore gas deposits were found in the Rovuma Basin. This geographically expansive but moderately populated nation of 30 million is strategically positioned between regional leader South Africa and the promising East African Community of Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, and new member South Sudan which plans to integrate into a political federation sometime in the future, thus making Mozambique the irreplaceable transit state between them.

Image result for Mozambican Foreign Minister Jose Pacheco + Putin

Russian and Mozambican Foreign Ministers, Sergey Lavrov and Jose Pacheco (Source: Tass)

For some background reading about the country’s geostrategic significance, the reader should reference the author’s two previously published pieces about Mozambique:

The main idea is that Mozambique’s pivotal location and copious offshore energy resources enable it to power BRICS member South Africa for years to come through the planned African Renaissance Pipeline, while its coastal position provides the neighboring landlocked states of Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe – as well as nearby Botswana – with access to the sea via the Nacala Development Corridor and Ponta Techobanine Railway projects, all of which could be invested in by China as part of its One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity. Unfortunately, the country is also plagued by off-and-on violence by the Cold War-era RENAMO opposition group’s armed members that makes actualizing this vision very difficult at the moment.

In addition, another major stumbling block is that Mozambique is practically broke right now after a recent scandal unearthed massive corruption surrounding secret loans from unnamed parties, thus making Maputo incapable of funding this multipolar vision without outside help. China could of course come in and “save the day”, but with Mozambique unable to realistically pay back any loans that might be offered, the most foreseeable result would be that Beijing would eventually take full ownership of these projects like it did with the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka for the very same reasons, an outcome that the US would surely object to and do its best to clandestinely offset via the aforementioned Hybrid War tools of Islamic terrorism and RENAMO.

Being caught between the US and China could be enviable if a given country is able to effectively “balance” between these Great Powers and extract the best benefits, but in order to do that, the state itself must be strong enough that it doesn’t get taken advantage of by one or both of them, ergo the interest in seeking Russian assistance just like the Central African Republic recently did. The unexpected introduction of a third party like Russia as a strategic partner for any country – and especially African ones – is meant to boost the host nation’s prospects of “balancing” between the US and China in the New Cold War by shaking up the state of affairs, which fully accords with Russia’s grand strategy as explained in the author’s previous analyses:

In short, Russia is pursuing a variety of non-traditional partnerships all across the world and particularly in the “Global South” with the intent of positioning itself as the multipolar leader of a new Non-Aligned Movement (Neo-NAM) for countries who want to strike a “balance” between the US and China, though it’s being challenged in this regards by India which seeks to become the unipolar-friendly leader of this very same “bloc”. Although Russia and India are engaged in a “friendly competition” with one another in unofficially leading the Neo-NAM, these historical partners are also likely to cooperate from time to time in third countries out of the strategic self-interest that they have in doing so like was elaborated upon in two of the author’s most relevant pieces:

India has its eyes set on “containing” Chinese influence in East Africa through its joint “Asia-Africa Growth Corridor” (AAGC) series of megaprojects with Japan that could possibly be of interest to Mozambique, and it also envisions building a prospective military base in the nearby Seychelles islands as its first step of expansion in the continent. Russia, meanwhile, has a military agreement with India’s close regional partner of eSwatini (formerly Swaziland) nestled between Mozambique and South Africa and from which the two Great Powers could engage in trust-building exercises prior to expanding their strategic coordination throughout the rest of East Africa via Moscow’s potential involvement in the AAGC.

Russia already enjoys excellent relations with Egypt and Sudan in North Africa, the Central African Republic in Central Africa (which could serve as a gateway to the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Ethiopia in East Africa, and South Africa and now Mozambique in South-Southeast Africa, which collectively constitutes an unannounced “African Pivot” that’s strengthened through Maputo’s inclusion because of its energy and commercial transit significance in linking BRICS’ southernmost member with the East African Community. A Russian-stabilized Mozambique could become the pivotal piece of Africa’s developing multipolar framework, though provided that Moscow’s military aid succeeds in protecting it from the new threat of Islamic terrorism and can then be leveraged in a diplomatic dimension to sustain peace between the ruling FRELIMO party and RENAMO armed oppositionists.

In pursuit of this, Russia has no qualms about cooperating with both China and India in spite of their American-provoked rivalry because the essence of Moscow’s grand strategy is to become the crucial third “balancing” force for nations to turn to in seeking a “pressure valve” from any Great Power competition, whether between China and America or China and the US’ Indian proxy. The priceless experience that Russia will gain throughout the course of its dual stabilization-“balancing” mission in Mozambique will enable Moscow to emerge as the undisputed leader of the Neo-NAM if it succeeds with bringing tangible benefits to Maputo just like it seeks to do with Bangui, which will altogether strengthen multipolarity in Africa and give its many countries the credible third partner that they need to become truly independent.

*

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.

Universities, Branding and Saudi Arabia

May 30th, 2018 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

The modern university is a tertiary colonising institution.  Like the old mercantilist bodies – the Dutch East India Company and its equivalents – the educational world is there to be acquired by bureaucrats, teachers and, it is hoped, suitable recruits. 

To that end, a good degree of amorality is required.  Scruples are best left to others, and most certainly not university managers, who prefer counting the sums rather than pondering deontological principles.  Such a point seems very much at the forefront of an arrangement between the Melbourne Graduate School of Education (MGSE) and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.  The MGSE, which seems, in acronym, similar to a salt brand, struck gold in its arrangement to reform the Kingdom’s school curriculum – some 36,000 schools in all comprising 500,000 teachers.

“This project,” stated the Minister for Education Ahmed Bin Mohammed Al-Issa, “will have a significant impact on the development of the new educational process in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”  It will require “patience”, and the contributions of “international experts”.

Irons were already being laid in the fire the previous year, with thirty teachers from Saudi Arabia engaging a six month program “designed,” according to the MGSE dispatch, “to transform their teaching knowledge, skills and attitudes.”

The search for such experts is part of a broader Saudi mission, the “Vision 2030” ostensibly designed to produce a new generation of “critical” thinkers.

“A system of transmitting existing knowledge,” opined Al-Issa to a gathering of education and business figures at the Yidan Prize Summit in Hong Kong last year, “is no longer adequate.  We need to rethink education from preschool through graduate schools and we need to do this urgently.”

Al-Issa has spread matters broadly, with his ministry signing an agreement with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in November 2017 “to explore opportunities to further deepen cooperation on the design and implementation of education reform in Saudi Arabia.”

The Melbourne University newsroom was beaming with remarks sweetened by success. MGSE’s Dean Jim Watterston kept it vague and professional. “We look forward to working with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to deliver evidence-based research methods into classrooms.”  The impression given by Watterston is a system of education that enlightens rather than indoctrinates, something distinct from what passes for Saudi teaching fare.

Which brings us to the sticking, and even fatal point behind the whole ghastly business.  As the chief Sunni state wages remorseless war on Yemen, in the process robbing cradles and breaching human rights in the name of geopolitical goals, business is still to be done.  Australian education envoys, sent by overly managed universities, are the ideally blinkered.  Given that it remains the country’s third largest earner of gross domestic product, principles would be a needless encumbrance.

What gives this whole matter of pedagogical enterprise between the MGSE and Saudi Arabia a good lashing of irony is that the Kingdom is at war with what it deems extremism.  Only its own Wahhabi brand, the same sort that inspired those who flew the murderous missions on September 11, 2001 against US targets, is tolerated.

Saudi Arabia, for one, boasts an education program that lends itself to the standardised, hardened teachings of Wahhabism.  Nina Shea, director of the Centre for Religious Freedom of the Hudson Institute, told the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade in July 2017 how “violent and belligerent teachings” abounded in the curriculum like dandruff.

Two years after the 9/11 hijackers reaped sorrow, the National Dialogue in Saudi Arabia sported the findings of a scholarly panel commissioned by King Abdullah.  The religious studies curriculum, in particular, “encourages violence towards others, misguides the pupils into believing that in order to safeguard their own religion, they must violently repress and even physically eliminate each other.”

According to Shea, not much had changed.  The textbooks authorised by the Ministry of Education still taught “an ideology of hatred and violence against Jews, Christians, Muslims, such as Shiites, Sufis, Ahmadis, Hindus, Bahais, Yizidis, animists, sorcerers, and ‘infidels’ of all stripes, as well as other groups with different believes.”  If you hate, hate well, thoroughly and diligently.

Behind the current agenda of the Ministry of Education is an effort to root out rival Islamic doctrines, a program that is only critical in its evisceration and selective censorship.  In March this year, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told CBS television that the dreaded Muslim Brotherhood had found its way into the Saudi school system, a carcinogenic force that needed a good dose of administrative chemo.

The Kingdom, he promised, will “fight extremist ideologies by reviewing school curricula and books to ensure they are free of the banned Muslim Brotherhood’s agenda”.  This act of pedagogical cleansing was promised to be harsh, seeking to “ban books attributed to the Muslim Brotherhood from all schools and universities and remove all those who sympathise with the group.”

Short shrift, in other words, is being given to the functions of actual critical thinking, the very stuff Watterston boasts about somewhat uncritically.  But that will not bother him, or those who have put their signatures in this particular form of international engagement.  The perks are bound to be endless.  Like the selling of arms, education is a business designed to line pockets, feed the parasites of management, and enhance an empty brand.  Forget the students – they are the last in the dismal food chain. Even more importantly, ignore the politics of it all.

*

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

The Syrian military has concentrated a notable force in the province of Daraa to be able to employ a military option should negotiations with local armed groups fail. Reinforcements from the Tiger Forces, the 4th Armoured Division, the 5th Armoured Division, the National Defense Forces, Liwa al-Quds and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party have recently arrived in the area.

According to local sources, the Syrian-Russian delegation has recently sent militants a final warning providing them with three options:

  • To surrender heavy weaponry and to withdraw to militant-held areas in the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo;
  • To accept a full reconciliation agreement, to surrender weaponry and to normalize their legal status;
  • To face a military operation.

At the same time, armed groups in southern Syria, including the Southern Front, Ahrar Nawa, Al-Maghawir and Ahrar al-Golan, have merged into a new militant formation entitled The Army of Salvation. Syrian experts immediately linked this development with the militants’ preparations to repel the upcoming offensive instead of reaching a peaceful solution with Damascus.

These developments come amid newly surfaced unconfirmed media reports about indirect Iranian-Israeli talks with a Jordanian mediation on the situation in southern Syria. According to these reports, Iran has agreed to stay away from the battle against militants in southern Syria while Israel has pledged not to intervene into clashes near the occupied Golan Heights and near the Syrian-Jordanian border as long as no Iranian forces are deployed there.

Reports of this possibility have immediately become wide spread and popular in the media. However, there is little new about the Iranian attitude in it because Teheran has officially announced that its forces will not participate in the aforementioned operation. As to the Israeli side, according to some experts, it’s hard to believe that Israel will stay away when Syrian government forces crush militants near the Golan Heights. However, Tel Aviv will likely limit its activity to individual strikes justified by some shells falling in the occupied area.

Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman, military intelligence chief Tamir Heiman and other Israeli officials will visit Moscow later this week for meetings with their Russian counterparts. Among other topics, the sides will probably discuss the situation in Syria, including the upcoming military operation in southern Syria.

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The Logic of U.S. Foreign Policy

May 29th, 2018 by Swiss Propaganda Research

The following complex chart was sent to us by the Swiss Propaganda Research.

Click to enlarge 

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How can U.S. foreign policy of the past several decades be explained rationally? The following chart – based on a model developed by political science professors David Sylvan and Stephen Majeski – reveals the imperial logic behind U.S. diplomatic and military interventions around the globe.

 Click to enlarge ?

Literature

Sylvan, David & Majeski, Stephen (2009): U.S. Foreign Policy in Perspective: Clients, Enemies and Empire. Routledge, London.

Related articles

The American Empire and its Media (2017)

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Trump is “Played” by Pence and Bolton, Endangering World Peace:  Attempts to Resolve Crisis in Korea and Northeast Asia, Torpedoed by Militarists in Washington

By Carla Stea, May 28 2018

Evidently, Donald Trump is a political neophyte:  perhaps he succeeds at making business deals, but he is strangely naïve regarding the viciousness of political chicanery and Machiavellian intrigue in Washington.  There is no other explanation for his appointing John Bolton, a notorious hawk, and advocate of pre-emptively attacking the DPRK, to such an influential government position as National Security Adviser.

“Peace Negotiator” Mike Pompeo: There is a CIA Plot to Assassinate Kim Jong-un?

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, May 27 2018

In May 2017, the DPRK accused the CIA (headed by Mike Pompeo) and the ROK’s spy agency, of “a failed plot to assassinate Kim Jong-un. Neither the CIA nor the White House responded to these accusations. While press reports acknowledged the CIA’s “long history” of political assassinations, the DPRK’s accusations were casually dismissed.

Mike Pompeo Challenged at Senate Foreign Relations Committee with regard to North Korea, Iran, Yemen

By Renee Parsons, May 29 2018

Instead of the typically gratuitous compliments and undeserved deference, there was a display (albeit a minority) of some moral courage with a rare slice of truth on Capitol Hill, epitomizing the real-time requirements of a Senator’s job:   to be skeptical, provide oversight and demand accountability from every Federal government witness, no matter the rank – once referred to as ‘grilling the witness.”

 

The Blatant Conspiracy behind Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s Assassination

By Edward Curtin, May 28 2018

Robert Kennedy was a marked man. And he knew it. That he was nevertheless willing to stand up to the forces of hate and violence that were killing innocents at home and abroad is a testimony to his incredible courage and love of country. To honor him requires that we discover the truth about those who killed him.

The Art of War: Italian ‘Sovereignty’ from Brussels, but not from Washington

By Manlio Dinucci, May 29 2018

Strong pressure is exerted on Italy, in a less evident but no less intrusive way, by the United States, which fears a break in the “rules” that subordinate Italy to its economic and strategic interests. This is part of the policies Washington has adopted towards Europe, through different administrations and with different methods, pursuing the same objective: to keep Europe under U.S. influence. NATO is a key instrument of this strategy.

Iran: What Trump Is Not Telling You. What is “The Donald” Concealing?

By J. Michael Springmann, May 25 2018

But there is a dark side to things in Iran, a land with more than 80 million people and a history and culture stretching back 5,000 years. Like the now-destroyed Iraq and Syria, it is a target country. America and Israel want the nation eliminated. It does not toe the Zionist-American line.

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Repeat after me: Canada is seldom a force for good in the world, Canada is seldom a force for good in the world.

Thomas Walkom’s “Canada should board Korean peace train” is yet another example of how the progressive end of the dominant media has been seduced by Canadian foreign policy mythology.

The leftist Toronto Star columnist offers an astute analysis of what’s driving rapprochement on the Korean Peninsula. He points out that the two Koreas are moving the process forward and that Pyongyang believes “complete denuclearization” of the Peninsula includes the US forces in the region aiming nuclear weapons at it.

But, Walkom’s column is cloaked in naivety about Canada’s role in the geopolitical hotspot. He ignores the international summit Ottawa and Washington organized in January to promote sanctions on North Korea. In a highly belligerent move, the countries invited to the conference in Vancouver were those that fought against North Korea in the early 1950s conflict. “We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea,” General Curtis LeMay, head of US air command during the fighting, explained three decades later. “Over a period of three years or so, we killed off … twenty percent of the population of Korea as direct casualties of war, or from starvation and exposure.”

(During another dreadful chapter in Korean history Canada supplied war materials to the Japanese army that occupied Korea before World War II.)

Continuing its aggressive diplomatic posture, Chrystia Freeland brought up North Korea at the Munich Security Conference in Germany in February and the next month Canada’s foreign minister agreed with her Japanese counterpart to send a “strong message” to Pyongyang at the upcoming Group of Seven meetings. In a subsequent get together, Freeland and Japanese officials pledged to maintain “maximum pressure” on North Korea. After “welcoming SouthKorea’s critical role in maintaining diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea” in March, Freeland responded gingerly to Seoul and Pyongyang’s joint announcement last month to seek a formal end to the Korean War and rid the Peninsula of nuclear weapons. “We all need to be careful and not assume anything,” said Freeland.

Walkom also ignores the Canadian Forces currently seeking to blockade North Korea. Three weeks ago Ottawa announced it was a sending a CP-140 Aurora surveillance aircraft and 40 military personnel to a US base in Japan to join British, Australian and US forces monitoring efforts to evade UN sanctions. Earlier in the year a Vancouver Island based submarine was sent across the pond partly to bolster the campaign to isolate North Korea.

Canadians are also part of the UN military mission in Korea. The first non-US general to hold the post since the command was created in 1950, Canadian Lieutenant General Wayne Eyre was recently appointed deputy commander of the UN force stationed there.

(To be fair, Walkom hints at Ottawa’s belligerence, noting that Canada is “still technically at war with North Korea” and is among countries that “traditionally take their cue from the U.S.”)

In my forthcoming book Left, Right — Marching to the Beat of Imperial CanadaI discuss how leftist intellectuals concede a great deal to the foreign policy establishment’s outlook. Laziness is a simple, though not unimportant, reason why these writers mythologize Canadian foreign policy. Buried amidst a mass of state and corporate generated apologetics, critical information about Canada’s role in the world takes more effort to uncover. And the extra work is often bad for one’s career.

A thorough investigation uncovers information tough to square with the narrow spectrum of opinion permitted in the dominant media. It’s nearly impossible to survive if you say Canadian foreign policy has always been self-serving/elite-driven or that no government has come close to reflecting their self-professed ideals on the international stage. Almost everyone with a substantial platform to comment sees little problem with Canadian power, finding it expedient to assume/imply Canada’s international aims are noble.

Rather than a story titled “Canada should board Korean peace train”, Walkom should have written about how “Canada must step off the belligerence bus”. His conscious or unconscious naivety regarding Canada’s role in Korea is part of a mainstream left trend that partly explains why Canadians overwhelmingly believe this country is a benevolent international actor despite a long history of supporting empire and advancing Canadian corporate interests abroad.

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“Hell is Empty, and the Devils are All Here”, …. (William Shakespeare, The Tempest)

And thus I clothe my naked villany, … And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.” (William Shakespeare, in the words of King Richard III)

*

A play on words from the Rolling Stones most pertinent commentary song ‘ Sympathy for the Devil’ circa 1968. The song was on their ‘ Beggars Banquet’ album , which , ironically, was released right after the murders of Martin L. King Jr. and Robert Kennedy.

One stanza of the song rings so true to those of us who believe there is a Deep State which runs our traditional government: ” I shouted out who killed the Kennedys when after all it was you and me!” Now we know that Jagger and Richards, the songwriters, wrote the song from the perspective of the Devil, the narrator. So when they include ‘ it was you and me’ they are intimating that there is more than one devil out there. So it is.

There have always been cabals in perhaps every elected government throughout time in memoriam. These are simply evil and greedy human beings who are obsessed with power and control over the rest of their citizenry… plain and simple. The dictionary defines evil as ‘Morally wrong or wicked’. Well, we can sit and discuss what the extent of evil deeds is all about for hours, even days. The bottom line can be found in the biblical precept ‘ Do unto others as you would have them do unto YOU’ . Thus, when those in positions of power disregard the needs and the will of their people, or other peoples…evil is prevalent. Millions, perhaps billions of spiritual seekers follow the story and precepts  of Jesus of Nazareth. Do they remember this one:

The Rich Man

16 Someone came to Jesus with this question: “Teacher,[a] what good deed must I do to have eternal life?”

17 “Why ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. But to answer your question—if you want to receive eternal life, keep[b] the commandments.”

18 “Which ones?” the man asked.

And Jesus replied: “‘You must not murder. You must not commit adultery. You must not steal. You must not testify falsely.

19 Honor your father and mother. Love your neighbor as yourself.’[c]

20 “I’ve obeyed all these commandments,” the young man replied. “What else must I do?”

21 Jesus told him, “If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

22 But when the young man heard this, he went away sad, for he had many possessions.

23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the truth, it is very hard for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. 24 I’ll say it again—it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!”

The late Kenneth Wapnick, a clinical psychologist and foremost teacher of  A Course in Miracles, wrote a wonderful book ‘ Forgiveness and Jesus ‘ in 1998. His book expounded on the theory that what we call ‘ The Devil ‘ is in reality NOT a being or spirit but the mechanism of our Ego, whenever we allow it to do and think evil. Wapnick expressed his feeling that we are all here in this 3rd dimension and  given ‘ free will ‘ by our creator.

We ALL have, according to his theory, the choice to live in the light of goodness and truth, or that of our ‘ lower, carnal selves, which can be defined as ‘ evil’. Regardless of one’s beliefs in the spiritual or denial of anything of that sort, Wapnick’s understanding of the power of the ego, or ‘ Devil ‘ as many call it, is real. Thus, the ‘ evil ones ‘ follow the path of their ego, or carnal self, and …..

Now here is the kicker. There are always but a few of truly, as defined earlier, evil people compared to the overwhelming majority of the populace in any given area of the world. Yet, what about those of the remaining perhaps ‘ Silent Majority’ who know that evil or wicked deeds are being done and do not really care?

You have heard it before: ” If it doesn’t affect me or my family, or my business, I really am not concerned.” Just like the wealthy out there who have great health and dental coverage, how many of them drop some sweat thinking about their fellow citizens’ healthcare?

The ‘ We are at war ‘ analogy is even better. As long as our 20 something young Americans do not have to serve in the military, many lose any sense of caring about what in the hell is going on overseas! As many should know, during the ( so called ) Vietnam War era, especially as the mood of our populace turned against our involvement, 20 something and even 30 something young men were very keen to keep abreast of things… especially if they had a low draft number.

As far as our new era of ‘ Perpetual War’ this writer has friends who invest in the stock market. Many were and are quite satisfied with our Wars on Iraq and Afghanistan because they had stocks that went up because of them. They will shed crocodile tears for the dead US soldiers and none at all for the ‘ ten times more dead’ A-rabs. Is that evil? Maybe a little bit would you say?

The old adage ( I’m lying. I just made it up ) of ” If you believe there is a devil, then you must believe there is a God too.”

PA Farruggio

May 2018

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] )

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Donald Trump: Is He Too Dangerous to be Head of State?

May 29th, 2018 by Prof Rodrigue Tremblay

This article was first published by Global Research in March 2018

“We [the United States] spent $2 trillion, thousands of lives. … Obviously, it was a mistake… George W. Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes. But that one was a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East…

—They [President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney] lied… They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none. And they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction.”  Donald Trump (1946- ), during a CBS News GOP presidential debate, on Saturday, Feb. 13, 2016.

 “Mental impairment and criminal-mindedness are not mutually exclusive; not only can they happen at the same time, when combined, these two characteristics become particularly dangerous.” Bandy X Lee (1970- ), an internationally recognized psychiatrist at the Yale School of Medicine and editor of the book ‘The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President,’ 2017.

An autocrat in the making is typically an elected outsider who disdains norms, questions the legitimacy of political foes, tolerates violence, and shows a willingness to curtail the free press. Steven Levitsky (1968- ) and Daniel Ziblatt (1972- ), (in their book How Democracies Die, 2018, 312 p.)

…An empire is a despotism, and an emperor is a despot, bound by no law or limitation but his own will; it is a stretch of tyranny beyond absolute monarchy. For, although the will of an absolute monarch is law, yet his edicts must be registered by parliaments. Even this formality is not necessary in an empire.John Adams (1735-1826), 2nd American President, (1797-1801), (in ‘The Political Writings of John Adams: Representative Selections’, 2003)

To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it…

To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality…” George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) (1903-1950), English novelist, essayist, and social critic, (in his book ‘1984’, 1949, chap. 2)

Introduction

US President Donald Trump (1946-), as a politician, has succeeded in attracting voters who are dissatisfied or partially dissatisfied with their economic or social situation, especially working class white voters without college degrees. Income inequality and wealth inequality is growing in the United States, and the balance leans toward the winners, even though the losers are more numerous and have not been compensated through job training or social services. In other words, many Americans are disillusioned regarding their chance of living the American dream and about the way the system and public policies disadvantage them. Trump attracts also single-issue voters.

All this creates a fertile ground for a populist politician. This has happened elsewhere and it is now a political reality in the United States. It is also normal that Donald Trump is strongly opposed by various establishments and attacked by those to whom his populism is repugnant.

But beyond the purely personal considerations people have to support or oppose him, what are the characteristics of this neophyte in politics that many, and not only in the United States, consider scary?

For example, some observers have drawn a parallel between the current occupant of the White House and the decadent emperor Caligula (12-41 CE) of Ancient Rome. Caligula was autocratic, unpredictable, unhinged and a self-conscious populist who lacked self-restraint. He was a sociopath who enjoyed hurting and humiliating people. Moreover, he treated politics like a show. He indulged in pornography and depravity. He was disruptive and contemptuous of existing institutions, and he was a warmonger who courted the military.

A biographer in the know has also linked Trump’s outrageous behavior, as a politician, to Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), the subject of his book ‘Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil’, 1998. Indeed, author Ron Rosenbaum (1946- ) explains how a constant attack on the media and the courts by Trump was also a tactic used by Hitler to gain power, in Germany. History has a way of repeating itself, and no one should think that disastrous past experiences cannot be repeated.

Whether all this is the case or not, what can be safely said is that never in its entire history has the United States faced a president in the White House of the sort that Mr. Trump represents. Persons closed to him have warmed us: Donald Trump is “deeply mentally ill” and “no longer connected to reality” and what is more, he is prone to loose his temper and act in anger, sometimes in pure madness. These are, we will all agree, very dangerous character traits for any U.S. President, if they are true.

It has been observed that the White House under Trump’s direction is often in turmoil, in disarray and sometimes, in complete chaos, and that the American president is mentally unstable and that he is prone to act impulsively, like an unmoored loose cannon, in most anything he does. It is said that Trump often acts in a bluffing and vengeful way, firing people right and left for any motive, sometimes in a most nefarious way. That should certainly be another reason for alarm and consternation.

It may be worth recalling here what the former Director of the CIA under Barack Obama, John Brennan (1955-), said, referring to Donald Trump and his mean dismissal of the FBI’s No. 2, Andrew McCabe (1968-), Friday night, March 16, 2018, a few hours before the latter was to become eligible for a pension:

 “When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America…America will triumph over you.”

Recently, for example, he was reported to want to launch an international trade war for the childish reason that he did not want to be “laughed at”. This is unsettling, because all this is based on faulty economic thinking and wrong facts. A protectionist U.S. President can do great harm to the world economy. —Trump’s top economic adviser Gary Cohn had enough of that craziness, and he resigned. Trump only wants “sycophants” around him.

In the coming months, I fear that American consumers and the world stock markets will give their own assessment of Trump’s economic folly, and it won’t be pretty.

Consequently, many people have concluded that the current occupant of the White House is not mature enough and not competent enough to be president of the United States. In his book, ‘Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House’, author Michael Wolff writes that “Trump lived… as a real-life fictional character”, that he is a man detached and mostly cut off from reality, being comfortable in relying on so-called false and subjective “alternative facts”. For such a person, only appearances matter, not reality.

People who know him well have labeled him unpredictable and inconsistent. Trump is the flip-flopper par excellence. Indeed, Trump’s intellectual inconsistency is beyond comprehension. He can adopt, almost simultaneously, two opposite positions without flinching… and without apology.

And, as if this is not enough, Donald Trump is also besieged by huge conflicts of interest, not the least is a level of nepotism not seen in the White House in modern times.

Let us try to get a more complete picture of the political situation in the United States:

1. The American electoral system favors Republicans

First of all, let us say that it is one of the peculiarities of the American democratic system that it happens quite often that the winning candidate in a presidential election becomes president while receiving fewer votes than the losing candidate. It sometimes happens that the losing candidate receives even a majority of votes, but is still not elected. This happened in the 1876 election.

In fact, American presidential elections are not necessarily decided by the popular vote. According to the rules of the Electoral College, a few hundred “grand electors”, chosen in each of the 50 states, are the ones who elect the U.S. President.

Such a system tends to advantage the Republican candidates and it disadvantages the Democratic candidates, because it gives less weight to the votes in the most populated states than to those cast in the less populated states.

For example, according to the official results of the 2016 election, the Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton received 48.5% of the popular votes (65,953,516 votes) but received the support of only 232 “grand electors” out of a total of 538, or 45.12% of these. However, the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump only collected 46.09% of the national votes (62,984 825 votes), but received 306 or 56.9% of the “grand electors” votes. Consequently, it was Donald Trump who became U.S. president and not Hillary Clinton.

Note that in 2000, Republican candidate George W. Bush also received half a million fewer votes than Democratic candidate Al Gore, but the Electoral College system resulted in electing George W. Bush president. — In 1876 and in 1888, similar results ensued, when a Republican candidate was elected U.S. President, while receiving fewer votes than his Democratic opponent. — It can be said that the system of the American Electoral College tends to favor Republican candidates, who are generally more conservative.

2. Trump is egocentric and authoritarian

The current sitting American president, Donald Trump, does not seem to have deep-seated personal principles. He seems to be egocentric and he is always on the lookout to profit personally from any event: if someone or something gives him pleasure, prestige or money, he is all for it. No American president before him has dared to express openly his feelings or his insults of others, and even state his policies, on a social medium like Twitter, so much so that Donald Trump has been called the “toddler-in-chief”.

That is why Donald Trump is not your normal American president, even for the United States where money plays a larger role than elsewhere in electing public officials. Being a real estate oligarch who owns hotels and casinos, among other properties, he has brought to the White House the authoritarian and plutocratic ethics found in some wheeler-dealer corners of that industry, an ethics of ruthlessness.

Accustomed to running his real estate empire by himself, he was badly prepared to lead a democratic government, which is, by definition, decentralized. However, his authoritarian approach seems to appeal to his supporters. In fact, Trump acts as if he were the representative of rednecks in the White House.

In a new book, with the ominous title of “How Democracies Die”, two political scientists (Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt of Harvard University) compiled four warning signs to determine if a political leader is a dangerous authoritarian:

  1. The leader shows only a weak commitment to democratic rules;
  2. He or she denies the legitimacy of opponents;
  3. He or she tolerates violence;
  4. He or she shows some willingness to curb civil liberties or the media. According to the authors, “a politician who meets even one of these criteria is cause for concern.” Unfortunately, in their eyes, “Donald Trump meets them all!

Regarding violence, Trump did not hesitate to name a torturer to lead the C.I.A. Torture is an immoral practice that he has personally espoused in the past.

Basically, Donald Trump is an unscrupulous demagogue, being both populist and authoritarian, of the type that has become dictator in other countries. This should be a source of preoccupation because for some time now, American presidents have been stretching the law to govern through executing edicts and to keep the United States on a permanent war footing. Donald Trump has expanded that practice and brought it to a new level. In his first year in office, indeed, Trump has issued no less than 58 executive orders and some 30 so-called “proclamations”, without any input from Congress.

Some business leaders can be expected to line up behind the Trump administration, especially if they expect to draw financial benefits from it, when they are at the receiving end of some money largesse (such as huge tax breaks financed with more public debt). The same applies to ambitious politicians who are willing to dance with the devil, if this can advance their career. However, it is another matter when the Trump White House extends its authoritarian cult of personality to American career civil servants, supposedly sworn in to work for the nation and uphold the Constitution, not to hold allegiance to the person temporarily sitting in the White House.

Also, it could be considered odd when Donald Trump applauds himself, but when he requests, in a dictator-like way, to be applauded when he speaks, whether he tells the truth or not, and pretends that it is even ‘un-American’ not to applaud him, this should raise alarm.

It is not at all surprising that there is a widespread distaste in the United States for Trump’s personality and for his obnoxious character. A majority of Americans who cherish their democracy simply cannot stand him. He is an embarrassment even for his supporters.

3. Trump acts and speaks like a sociopath who enjoys making other people miserable 

It would be comical if it were not potentially so tragic. Trump is in a permanent state of self-admiration, constantly relying on exaggerations, on overstatements and on illogical statements. No previous American president could have matched him as an adept of self-congratulation. He shows himself as a self-aggrandizing individual. He seems to be suffering from an advanced case of megalomania. In fact, Trump is an expert in erroneously declaring himself an expert in about everything. And, he does not hesitate to qualify himself a “genius”!

Trump has also confessed that he likes to “make the life of people miserable”, i.e. the life of journalists, authors, competitors and anyone who opposes him. An example, among hundreds if not thousands of frivolous and gagging lawsuits, is his meritless but expensive litigations, in time and money, against author Timothy O’Brien for writing the book “TrumpNation”. After his suit was dismissed in court, because it was a direct attack on the First Amendment, Trump stated to the Washington Post, “I did it to make O’Brien’s life miserable, which I am happy about.” Such is the modus operandi of a very sadistic and malicious person who does not hesitate to attack the free press and the right to free speech in a democracy.

4. Trump is a compulsive liar 

Numerous public allegations have also made the public aware that Trump is obsessed with sex and sex, sex, and sex again. He is also an alleged sex harasser who continually disparages women.

On Tuesday March 20, former Vice-President Joe Biden (1942- ) did not mince his words, while speaking at an anti-sexual assault rally, telling students at the University of Miami what he thought of Donald Trump and the way the latter talks about women:

If we were in high school, I’d take him [Donald Trump] behind the gym and beat the hell out of him”, for disrespecting women.

It is well known now that Donald Trump is a pathological liar who seems to fear the truth like the pest. That is because Donald Trump is fundamentally intellectually dishonest. That is probably the main reason Trump’s lawyers are adamant in not wanting their client to testify alone and under oath, in the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation about his alleged electoral collusion with Russia.

Publicly, Trump pretends to be willing to be questioned under oath by special counsel Robert Mueller, declaring: “I’m looking forward to it, actually”; “I would do it under oath.” This could be another example of a ‘good cop-bad cop’ charade by Trump, because he would never accept to be interviewed alone, without his lawyers, under oath, and he would likely blame his lawyers for another flip-flop of his own.

This is also the reason why Trump has held only one formal press conference since taking office—unlike its predecessors, who held one each month—in order to avoid being questioned by experienced journalists. He prefers partisan political rallies where no one can contradict him or steal his show.

5. Trump is a dangerous man to have control over nuclear arms

Even if it were possible to disprove half of what has been written about Trump’s eccentricities, his laughable theatrics, his twisted logic, and his lies, Donald Trump would still be a monster of a human being. We will never repeat often enough that he is a dangerous person to hold power, especially in a country like the United States, which is loaded with nuclear arms. Trump is indeed an unstable and irresponsible person; he is a person with poor judgment, besides being erratic, reckless and trigger-happy. He also employs constantly a bellicose tone in his relations with foreign leaders. This is a very bad combination for a head of state in today’s complex world.

And to add to that image, Trump would like to return to a bygone era, when well-known totalitarian leaders favored big shows of force. Trump made it known to “his generals” that he wants a large-scale, multi million dollar “beautiful” and pompous military parade, in his honor, in Washington D.C., on Veterans Day, with thousands of soldiers in tight formation, marching down Pennsylvania Avenue, with planes and helicopters buzzing by the Washington Monument and with 70-ton Abrams tanks and Patriot missiles systems rolling down before the President’s stand. Trump seems to have had this idea after attending the French military deployment of July 14th, last summer. It’s a bit as if a childish Trump had seen a toy in the neighbor’s yard and said, “I want one too!

Such a powwow show would gratify Trump’s infatuation with military toys he would like to play with. It would be quite an irony if the United States, which fought fascist Germany during World War II, itself adopted fascist trappings, three quarters of a century later.

Regarding nuclear arms, Tom Collina, policy director of the anti-nuclear Ploughshares Fund, has noted that a recent poll indicates that 60 percent of Americans do not trust Trump with nuclear weapons. Consequently, he concluded: “the public is right to distrust Trump with nuclear weapons, and we all need to speak up and oppose these new, dangerous policies.” — I totally agree.

Trump has not only sociopathic tendencies, being insensitive and having no empathy for anybody else but himself; he could also be considered a would-be genocidal psychopath when he talks freely saying this is the “calm before the storm”, that it (North Korea) “will be met with fire, fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before”, even going as far as threatening to “totally destroy North Korea”, a country of more than 25 million people! This is even more scandalous, considering that Donald Trump uttered that insane threat during a speech at the United Nations, an organization specifically created to avoid war.

Therefore, one cannot completely exclude some foul acts of savagery coming from the Trump administration in the coming months and years. The current disorganization in the Trump White House could lead to inhuman disasters, considering the instability of Trump’s character and the lack of moral fortitude and vision on the part of the current Republican leadership in both the House and the U.S. Senate.

6. Trump can be expected to rely on “wag the dog” tricks to get out of trouble

It is indeed common practice for some American presidents to “wag the dog”, i.e. distract from domestic or personal domestic problems by provoking some conflicts abroad. On this score, since Trump’s domestic problems are presently piling up, with multiple lawsuits launched by women with whom he had sexual affairs in the past, with serious allegations that foreign governments were involved in his election, and with the looming Special Prosecutor’s report possibly raising an accusation of obstruction of justice against him, he could be expected to want to distract attention from his problems and to make dangerous, possibly catastrophic, policy decisions. Indeed, it is a modus operandi for him to attempt to deflect attention from his personal problems by creating problems elsewhere.

Note that Donald Trump is the first person to be elected president of the United States without any political or military experience. Recently, he has surrounded himself with sycophants who are immoral torturers and belligerent advocates of regime change in other countries. The summum of cynicism on his part—considering that he campaigned by repeating constantly that the Bush-Cheney 2003 war of aggression against Iraq was a disaster and a dumb decision—occurred on Thursday March 22, when he named one of the very architects of the Iraq War, in the person of the extremely bellicose John Bolton, as his national security adviser. I think the United States of America has a big problem in having such a person as its president.

Conclusion

Keeping in mind what I wrote in the introduction and the rational motives that motivate his supporters to be behind him, it nevertheless remains that Donald Trump is an emperor with no clothes, and a reliance on cognitive dissonance on the part of his partisans cannot hide that simple fact.

Indeed, when all things are said and considered, it is impossible not to conclude that there is something fundamentally wrong with Donald Trump. Many experts and observers have warned the world that his state of mind is a danger to public safety. The Republicans, in particular, who happen to control the U.S. Congress, have a great responsibility to reflect on and to act upon that information before some irreparable damage is done. If Trump were to do something catastrophic in the coming weeks or months, economically or militarily, those Republicans in Congress will have to share personal and collective responsibility in the disaster.

More than one year ago, because of Trump’s lack of seriousness and preparation, I warned that he was going to be “a threat to American democracy and an agent of chaos in the world”. Unfortunately, every day seems to bring forth new proofs of that assessment.

Therefore, as time goes on, the case for Trump’s impeachment is going to get stronger and stronger. His removal from office will become increasingly urgent and increasingly compelling. It’s a safe bet that credible steps for his impeachment as U.S. President will be taken rapidly, if the Democratic Party regains control of the House of Representatives during this fall election—and possibly faster, if enough Republicans see the light before then.

*

International economist Prof. Rodrigue Tremblay is the author of the book “The Code for Global Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles” and of “The New American Empire”.  

Rodrigue Tremblay is a frequent contributor to Global Research

Dr. Tremblay’s site:

http://www.thenewamericanempire.com.

His multi-language international blog at:

http://www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog.htm.

Who Rules America?

May 29th, 2018 by Prof. James Petras

This incisive article by Prof James Petras was first published by Global Research in September 2017

In the last few months, several competing political, economic and military sectors – linked to distinct ideological and ethnic groups – have clearly emerged at the centers of power.

We can identify some of the key competing and interlocking directorates of the power elite:

1. Free marketers, with the ubiquitous presence of the ‘Israel First’ crowd.

2. National capitalists, linked to rightwing ideologues.

3. Generals, linked to the national security and the Pentagon apparatus, as well as defense industry.

4. Business elites, linked to global capital.

This essay attempts to define the power wielders and evaluate their range of power and its impact.

The Economic Power Elite: Israel-Firsters and Wall Street CEO’s

‘Israel Firsters’ dominate the top economic and political positions within the Trump regime and, interestingly, are among the Administration’s most vociferous opponents. These include: the Federal Reserve Chairwoman, Janet Yellen, as well as her Vice-Chair, Stanley Fischer, an Israeli citizen and former (sic) Governor of the Bank of Israel.

Jared Kushner, (image right) President Trump’s son-in-law and an Orthodox Jew, acts as his top adviser on Middle East Affairs. Kushner, a New Jersey real estate mogul, set himself up as the archenemy of the economic nationalists in the Trump inner circle. He supports every Israeli power and land grab in the Middle East and works closely with David Friedman, US Ambassador to Israel (and fanatical supporter of the illegal Jewish settlements) and Jason Greenblatt, Special Representative for International negotiations. With three Israel-Firsters determining Middle East policy, there is not even a fig leaf of balance.

The Treasury Secretary is Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive, who leads the neo-liberal free market wing of the Wall Street sector within the Trump regime. Gary Cohn, a longtime Wall Street influential, heads the National Economic Council. They form the core business advisers and lead the neo-liberal anti-nationalist Trump coalition committed to undermining economic nationalist policies.

An influential voice in the Attorney General’s office is Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Robert Mueller the chief investigator, which led to the removal of nationalists from the Trump Administration.

The fairy godfather of the anti-nationalist Mnuchin-Cohn team is Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sach’s Chairman. The ‘Three Israel First bankerteers’ are spearheading the fight to deregulate the banking sector, which had ravaged the economy, leading to the 2008 collapse and foreclosure of millions of American homeowners and businesses.

The ‘Israel-First’ free market elite is spread across the entire ruling political spectrum, including ranking Democrats in Congress, led by Senate Minority leader Charles Schumer and the Democratic Head of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff. The Democratic Party Israel Firsters have allied with their free market brethren in pushing for investigations and mass media campaigns against Trump’s economic nationalist supporters and their eventual purge from the administration.

The Military Power Elite: The Generals

The military power elite has successfully taken over from the elected president in major decision-making. Where once the war powers rested with the President and the Congress, today a collection of fanatical militarists make and execute military policy, decide war zones and push for greater militarization of domestic policing. Trump has turned crucial decisions over to those he fondly calls ‘my Generals’ as he continues to dodge accusations of corruption and racism.

Trump appointed Four-Star General James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis (retired USMC) – a general who led the war in Afghanistan and Iraq – as Secretary of Defense. Mattis (whose military ‘glories’ included bombing a large wedding party in Iraq) is leading the campaign to escalate US military intervention in Afghanistan – a war and occupation that Trump had openly condemned during his campaign. As Defense Secretary, General ‘Mad Dog’ pushed the under-enthusiastic Trump to announce an increase in US ground troops and air attacks throughout Afghanistan. True to his much-publicized nom-de-guerre, the general is a rabid advocate for a nuclear attack against North Korea.

Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster (an active duty Three Star General and long time proponent of expanding the wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan) became National Security Adviser after the purge of Trump’s ally Lt. General Michael Flynn, who opposed the campaign of confrontation and sanctions against Russia and China. McMaster has been instrumental in removing ‘nationalists’ from Trumps administration and joins General ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis in pushing for a greater build-up of US troops in Afghanistan.

Lt. General John Kelly (Retired USMC), another Iraq war veteran and Middle East regime change enthusiast, was appointed White House Chief of Staff after the ouster of Reince Priebus.

The Administration’s Troika of three generals share with the neoliberal Israel First Senior Advisors to Trump, Stephen Miller and Jared Kushner, a deep hostility toward Iran and fully endorse Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s demand that the 2015 Nuclear Accord with Tehran be scrapped.

Trump’s military directorate guarantees that spending for overseas wars will not be affected by budget cuts, recessions or even national disasters.

The ‘Generals’, the Israel First free marketers and the Democratic Party elite lead the fight against the economic nationalists and have succeeded in ensuring that Obama Era military and economic empire building would remain in place and even expand.

The Economic Nationalist Elite

The leading strategist and ideologue of Trump’s economic nationalist allies in the White House was Steve Bannon. He had been chief political architect and Trump adviser during the electoral campaign. Bannon devised an election campaign favoring domestic manufacturers and American workers against the Wall Street and multinational corporate free marketers. He developed Trump’s attack on the global trade agreements, which had led to the export of capital and the devastation of US manufacturing labor.

Equally significant, Bannon crafted Trumps early public opposition to the generals’ 15-year trillion-dollar intervention in Afghanistan and the even more costly series of wars in the Middle East favored by the Israel-Firsters, including the ongoing proxy-mercenary war to overthrow the secular nationalist government of Syria.

Within 8 month of Trump’s administration, the combined forces of the free market economic and military elite, the Democratic Party leaders, overt militarists in the Republican Party and their allies in the mass media succeeded in purging Bannon – and marginalized the mass support base for his ‘America First’ economic nationalist and anti-‘regime change’ agenda.

The anti-Trump ‘alliance’ will now target the remaining few economic nationalists in the administration. These include: the CIA Director Mike Pompeo, (right) who favors protectionism by weakening the Asian and NAFTA trade agreements and Peter Navarro, Chairman of the White House Trade Council. Pompeo and Navarro face strong opposition from the ascendant neoliberal Zionist troika now dominating the Trump regime.

In addition, there is Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross, a billionaire and former director of Rothschild Inc., who allied with Bannon in threatening import quotas to address the massive US trade deficit with China and the European Union.

Another Bannon ally is US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer a former military and intelligence analyst with ties to the newsletter Breitbart. He is a strong opponent of the neoliberal, globalizers in and out of the Trump regime.

‘Senior Adviser’ and Trump speechwriter, Stephen Miller actively promotes the travel ban on Muslims and stricter restrictions on immigration. Miller represents the Bannon wing of Trump’s zealously pro-Israel cohort.

Sebastian Gorka, Trump’s Deputy Assistant in military and intelligence affairs, was more an ideologue than analyst, who wrote for Breitbart and rode to office on Bannon’s coat tails. Right after removing Bannon, the ‘Generals’ purged Gorka in early August on accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’.

Whoever remains among Trump’s economic nationalists are significantly handicapped by the loss of Steve Bannon who had provided leadership and direction. However, most have social and economic backgrounds, which also link them to the military power elite on some issues and with the pro-Israel free marketers on others. However, their core beliefs had been shaped and defined by Bannon.

The Business Power Elite

Exxon Mobile CEO Rex Tillerson, (left) Trump’s Secretary of State and former Texas Governor Rick Perry, Energy Secretary lead the business elite. Meanwhile, the business elite associated with US manufacturing and industry have little direct influence on domestic or foreign policy. While they follow the Wall Street free marketers on domestic policy, they are subordinated to the military elite on foreign policy and are not allied with Steve Bannon’s ideological core.

Trump’s business elite, which has no link to the economic nationalists in the Trump regime, provides a friendlier face to overseas economic allies and adversaries.

Analysis and Conclusion

The power elite cuts across party affiliations, branches of government and economic strategies. It is not restricted to either political party, Republican or Democratic. It includes free marketers, some economic nationalists, Wall Street power brokers and militarists. All compete and fight for power, wealth and dominance within this administration. The correlation of forces is volatile, changing rapidly in short periods of time – reflecting the lack of cohesion and coherence in the Trump regime.

Never has the US power elite been subject to such monumental changes in composition and direction during the first year of a new regime.

During the Obama Presidency, Wall Street and the Pentagon comfortably shared power with Silicon Valley billionaires and the mass media elite. They were united in pursuing an imperial ‘globalist’ strategy, emphasizing multiple theaters of war and multilateral free trade treaties, which was in the process of reducing millions of American workers to permanent helotry.

With the inauguration of President Trump, this power elite faced challenges and the emergence of a new strategic configuration, which sought drastic changes in US political economic and military policy.

The architect of the Trump’s campaign and strategy, Steve Bannon, sought to displace the global economic and military elite with his alliance of economic nationalists, manufacturing workers and protectionist business elites. Bannon pushed for a major break from Obama’s policy of multiple permanent wars to expanding the domestic market. He proposed troop withdrawal and the end of US military operations in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, while increasing a combination of economic, political and military pressure on China. He sought to end sanctions and confrontation against Moscow and fashion economic ties between the giant energy producers in the US and Russia.

While Bannon was initially the chief strategist in the White House, he quickly found himself faced with powerful rivals inside the regime, and ardent opponents among Democratic and Republican globalists and especially from the Zionist – neoliberals who systematically maneuvered to win strategic economic and policy positions within the regime. Instead of being a coherent platform from which to formulate a new radical economic strategy, the Trump Administration was turned into a chaotic and vicious ‘terrain for struggle’. The Bannon’s economic strategy barely got off the ground.

The mass media and operatives within the state apparatus, linked to Obama’s permanent war strategy, first attacked Trump’s proposed economic reconciliation with Russia. To undermine any ‘de-escalation’, they fabricated the Russian spy and election manipulation conspiracy. Their first successful shots were fired at Lt. General Michael Flynn, Bannon’s ally and key proponent for reversing the Obama/Clinton policy of military confrontation with Russia. Flynn was quickly destroyed and openly threatened with prosecution as a ‘Russian agent’ in whipped-up hysteria that resembled the heydays of Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Key economic posts in the Trump regime were split between the Israel-Firster neoliberals and the economic nationalists. The ‘Deal Maker’ President Trump attempted to harness Wall Street-affiliated neoliberal Zionists to the economic nationalists, linked to Trump’s working class electoral base, in formulating new trade relations with the EU and China, which would favor US manufacturers. Given the irreconcilable differences between these forces, Trump’s naïve ‘deal’ weakened Bannon, undermined his leadership and wrecked his nationalist economic strategy.

While Bannon had secured several important economic appointees, the Zionist neoliberals undercut their authority. The Fischer-Mnuchin-Cohn cohort successfully set a competing agenda.

The entire Congressional elite from both parties united to paralyze the TrumpBannon agenda. The giant corporate mass media served as a hysterical and rumor-laden megaphone for zealous Congressional and FBI investigators magnifying every nuance of Trump’s US Russia relations in search of conspiracy. The combined state-Congressional and Media apparatus overwhelmed the unorganized and unprepared mass base of Bannon electoral coalition which had elected Trump.

Thoroughly defeated, the toothless President Trump retreated in desperate search for a new power configuration, turning his day-to-day operations over to ‘his generals’. The elected civilian President of the United States embraced his generals’ pursuit of a new military-globalist alliance and escalation of military threats foremost against North Korea, but including Russia and China. Afghanistan was immediately targeted for an expanded intervention.

Trump effectively replaced Bannon’s economic nationalist strategy with a revival Obama’s multi-war military approach.

The Trump regime re-launched the US attacks on Afghanistan and Syria – exceeding Obama’s use of drone attacks on suspected Muslim militants. He intensified sanctions against Russia and Iran, embraced Saudi Arabia’s war against the people of Yemen and turned the entire Middle East policy over to his ultra-Zionist Political Advisor (Real Estate mogul and son-in-law) Jared Kushner and US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman.

Trump’s retreat turned into a grotesque rout. The Generals embraced the neoliberal Zionists in Treasury and the Congressional global militarists. Communication Directory Anthony Scaramucci was fired. Trump’s Chief of Staff General Joe Kelly purged Steve Bannon. Sebastian Gorka was kicked out.

The eight months of internal struggle between the economic nationalists and the neoliberals has ended: The Zionist-globalist alliance with Trump’s Generals now dominate the Power Elite.

Trump is desperate to adapt to the new configuration, allied to his own Congressional adversaries and the rabidly anti-Trump mass media.

Having all but decimated Trump’s economic nationalists and their program, the Power Elite then mounted a series of media-magnified events centering around a local punch-out in Charlottesville, Virginia between ‘white supremacists’ and ‘anti-fascists’. After the confrontation led to death and injury, the media used Trump’s inept attempt to blame both ‘baseball bat’-wielding sides, as proof of the President’s links to neo-Nazis and the KKK. Neoliberal and Zionists, within the Trump administration and his business councils, all joined in the attack on the President, denouncing his failure to immediately and unilaterally blame rightwing extremists for the mayhem.

Trump is turning to sectors of the business and Congressional elite in a desperate attempt to hold onto waning support via promises to enact massive tax cuts and deregulate the entire private sector.

The decisive issue was no longer over one policy or another or even strategy.

Trump had already lost on all accounts. The ‘final solution’ to the problem of the election of Donald Trump is moving foreword step-by-step – his impeachment and possible arrest by any and all means.

What the rise and destruction of economic nationalism in the ‘person’ of Donald Trump tells us is that the American political system cannot tolerate any capitalist reforms that might threaten the imperial globalist power elite.

Writers and activists used to think that only democratically elected socialist regimes would be the target of systematic coup d’état. Today the political boundaries are far more restrictive. To call for ‘economic nationalism’, completely within the capitalist system, and seek reciprocal trade agreements is to invite savage political attacks, trumped up conspiracies and internal military take-overs ending in ‘regime change’.

The global-militarist elite purge of economic nationalists and anti-militarists was supported by the entire US left with a few notable exceptions. For the first time in history the left became an organizational weapon of the pro-war, pro-Wall Street, pro-Zionist Right in the campaign to oust President Trump. Local movements and leaders, notwithstanding, trade union functionaries, civil rights and immigration politicians, liberals and social democrats have joined in the fight for restoring the worst of all worlds: the Clinton-Bush-Obama/Clinton policy of permanent multiple wars, escalating confrontations with Russia, China, Iran and Venezuela and Trump’s deregulation of the US economy and massive tax-cuts for big business.

We have gone a long-way backwards: from elections to purges and from peace agreements to police state investigations. Today’s economic nationalists are labeled‘fascists’; and displaced workers are ‘the deplorables’!

Americans have a lot to learn and unlearn. Our strategic advantage may reside in the fact that political life in the United States cannot get worse – we really have touched bottom and (barring a nuclear war) we can only look up.

Prof James Petras is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

Featured image is from The Unz Review.

For decades Palestinians have lived on the edge of annihilation, their homeland steadily annexed until just a slither of the original remains. It’s a story that just won’t go away, even for those thousands of miles away, who try to cover their ears and eyes from the shame which has befallen the ruthless oppressor of this now tiny peninsular of land and its battle weary people.

In 1975, I worked on a kibbutz called Rosh Hanikra, in Northern Israel. It’s main income was derived from intensive commercial avocado pear production. There were maybe four hundred inhabitants. The social experiment known as kibbutziem grew up after World War Two, when thousands of European Jews,who had survived Hitler’s pogroms, moved to Israel, with the intent of making it their new home.

The kibbutziem movement was developed as a series of agricultural land-based settlements, often established on very poor land which was gradually worked into productivity. At Rosh Hanikra we all ate together in a large dining hall and slept in small houses dotted around the central area. No one ‘owned’ the land or homes, the kibbutz was established as a collective, and those who remained part of the movement for the longest acquired certain privilidges.

That is how it worked, and I was there as a volunteer for a brief period, my interest being directly connected to an exploration of alternative models of land settlement, with a view to the future of the UK country estate I had inherited on the death of my father some years earlier.

One day I left the kibbutz in order to visit a wise elder in Tel Aviv. In the course of our conversations about the land settlements, he told me something of great interest. He said that the word Israel, in the original Hebrew, means ‘to strive with God’ and that this has been covered-up by the extreme right wing Zionist element, who insist that Israel is the name of the country that had been Palestine up until the 1918 Balfour Declaration created the ‘two state’ position that – on paper – remains the reality today.

So perhaps Israel, I thought to myself, was never meant to be ‘a place’ at all, more a way of life – a commitment to ‘work with God’. And if so, what did this mean in the light of the claim that this geographical area of land at the Eastern end of the Mediterranean – is the ‘homeland’ of the Jewish tribes?

This explanation by the wise elder stuck with me; it presented a whole new understanding of – and possibly for – the resolution of the seemingly intractable Palestine/ Israel crisis.

If, by definition, the sons and daughters of Israel have mistaken a ‘material place’ for a ‘spiritual mission’ this would indeed be a profoundly significant misunderstanding. One that, should it be admitted to, could change the course of history.

Three weeks ago I read this headline to a story written by the seasoned journalist Robert Fisk foreign correspondent of The Independent: “How long after the Gaza massacre are we going to continue pretending that the Palestinians are non-people?”

Fisk, who belongs to that rare community of journalists who seek to communicate the truth, exposes the horror of the Gaza front-line massacre of Palestinians who got too close to the security fence that separates Gaza from the Israel border. Sixty men, women – and one child – shot dead in just one day and two thousand four hundred wounded. Not one Israeli suffered even a wound, as Palestinian youths threw stones and launched burning kites against live rounds of ammunition; each round targeted to kill.

As this carnage raged on the Gaza border, Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, was opening the new American Embassy in Jerusalem, amidst a smartly dressed entourage of Zionist evangelicals. Pronouncer’s of the view that this event was a portent and precursor of the great apocalypse and subsequent return of the Saviour. A time when Jews will return to the ‘homeland’, and those who fail to convert to Zionism will meet a fiery fate in the underworld.

Those who gathered inside the new US Embassy in Jerusalem, believe that any amount of cold blooded murders are worth it, in order for Jerusalem to be recognised as the Jewish capital of Israel, to the complete exclusion of Palestinian claims to the same end.

“It’s a great day for peace” declared Benjamin Netanyahu, as unarmed Palestinians were simultaneously being picked-off by the Israeli military on the Gaza border. And Donald Trump no doubt echoed this view, as it is ever more apparent that he walks in Netanyahu’s shoes in every way, other than literally.

It’s been seventy years now that Palestinians have been protesting their dispossession at the hands of those who refused to uphold the land resource split agreed in the Balfour Declaration; itself a compromised piece of legislation. Many Palestinians fled across the border to Lebanon during the vicious pogroms that flared-up in the post World War Two resettlement period. Some no doubt joined Hamas, which was formed to try and protect village communities against the ceaseless land grabs perpetuated by Israeli hard liners.

I remember the occasional missile flying over Rosh Hanikra kibbutz back in 1975, from the Lebanese side of the border – and how no one paid much attention – as any damage done on the Israeli side would be paid back five fold on the Lebanese side. It has been a desperately one sided struggle from the outset. Not surprisingly, when we know that the US Senate approves copious funds to bolster the military cause of the ‘One Israel’ fanatics.

After my work experience on the kibbutz, I journeyed to Jerusalem and then down into Arab Jordan. I remember gaining the distinct impression about the two cultures as, I travelled. The Israelis, being composed mostly of resettled Europeans and Americans, were culturally Westernised and mostly intellectual by disposition. Whereas the Jordanian Arabs, indigenous natives of the Middle East, were openly warm and naturally inclined to expressing emotion, by disposition.

My overriding impression was that the two cultures represent two parts of one whole; both having characteristics that – if put together – would be complementary and form a positive sense of balance. I believe that such a positive resolution would indeed have been the likely outcome if the hard-line Zionist faction had not gained a predominant position of control in Israeli politics from an early point in the history of the Country.

We are forced back into the observation that the Rothschild, Rockefeller, et al dynasties, with their strong affiliation to The Project for the New American Century, The Trilateral Commission and the Bilderbergers, have maintained an as yet unbroken influence on the evolution of Israeli politics. Successfully establishing the old ‘divide and conquer’ technique to ensure that the tunnel vision hard-liners remain in the top seats of power.

This inflames the whole Middle East, as the game plan of this cabal has always been to destroy the indigenous sense of unity of this region and replace it with a form of military dictatorship, funded and directed by the advocates of a totalitarian New World Order, in which the ‘elite-by-blood-line’ remain permanently in the driving seat. A direct extension of the Third Reich, with its openly stated genocidal and eugenics ambitions.

The demographic position of Israel gives it important geopolitical influence over international trade routes using the Suez Canal, as well as to surrounding countries rich in natural resources, especially oil. Keeping the Country firmly locked into serving as an outpost for these, as well as closely related Western hegemonic interests, plays a significant role in the choice of Israel’s leadership, and from where the financial support for this leadership comes.

As the Middle East crisis continues to be fanned by such die-hard despots, people are waking-up and beginning to see through the deception. The affect this is having is to trigger a clamp-down on any criticism of the Zionist cause. For it has suddenly become a weaponized subject, for which even the fundamental right to ‘freedom of speech’ must apparently be curtailed.

We have already witnessed a savage attack on the UK Labour Party and its leader Jeremy Corbyn, for supposedly harbouring anti-semitic sympathies; but in actuality, it is much more likely that certain individuals were simply telling some of the same truths as I attempt to convey in this article. The instigators of this attack were the British Association of Jews and Friends of Israel. The most astonishing aspect of it was a letter sent to Corbyn co signed by the leaders of these organisations, which demanded that he take action to weed-out the supposedly anti-semite trouble makers from his party.

Corbyn was informed that he must supply proof of his complying with this demand within a month, and only after considering this evidence would they decide whether or not to black list his party.

Here we witness all the same symptoms of authoritarian despotism that are behind Netanyahu’s attempts to crush the Palestinian cause and the continued resistance which it so courageously maintains. Aside from the absurdly biased challenge on the British Labour Party, the instigators antagonistically assume the moral high ground that gives them the right to dictate the terms.

Donald Trump’s deliberately provocative decision to move the US Embassy out of Tel Aviv and into Jerusalem, is an action carried out in order to cement continued far right support for Netanyahu’s government and its policy of eradicating any and all opposition to a ‘One State’ Israel. We have thus arrived at an incendiary position of conflict which continues to drag neighbouring countries into the cauldron.

The Gaza killings have provoked the United Nations to call for an independent investigation into war crimes committed by Israeli troops. The only nations to vote against this proposal were the USA and Australia. But such investigations never seem to come to any definitive resolution, as the UN itself has strong links to the global power brokers, and is more ‘a front’ for temporarily defusing conflicts than a genuine arbitrator for justice.

I left Kibbutz Rosh Hanikra in the Summer of 1975 and returned to England to attend an important conference on organic farming methods. The conference was run by the Soil Association and its chairman was Lady Eve Balfour, the grand-daughter of Lord Arthur Balfour who established the 1918 declaration that divided Palestine into two. Although the two state system has – in principle – survived, it has been repeatedly violated by the establishment of illegal Israeli colonies on land appropriated from Arabs who had owned and lived on it for generations.

The seemingly intractable nature of this conflict seems to defy a positive and peaceful resolution. But such situations demand creative solutions – and even if one has to dig deep to find them – the effort must be made.

Could it be that the words of the wise elder I met in Tel Aviv back in 1975, might hold the key to unlocking the truth? Perhaps he was right, and that Israel is not actually a geographical place at all – but an aspiration – a ancient commitment to ‘work with God’. And if this God is the same deity as He who gave birth to the dazzling Universe, then Israel would indeed be a name that many a wise being would cherish and hold in honour. A name that would be the harbinger of peace and reconciliation instead of war and division. A message of deep meaning not just to the Middle East, but to all inhabitants of planet Earth.

Let us meditate on that. Hold that conclusion in our minds and hearts, and thereby play our role in resolving this tragic conflict.

Julian Rose is an early pioneer of organic farming, an international activist, writer and social entrepreneur. He is President of The International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside and is the author of two acclaimed titles ‘Changing Course for Life’ and ‘In Defence of life’ both of which are available via his website www.julianrose.info . His third book ‘Beyond the Mechanistic Mind’ will be out shortly.

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When you hold a baby in your arms for the very first time, overfilled with the power of love, naturally your mind and body is focused (but mindful) on how to protect that precious and delicate living being. A civilized society must do and feel the same way about all the voiceless babies and children in her care. But in reality this rational thought is foreign to the so-called Western civilizations.

In the U.S., the unsettling news of “1500 missing immigrant children” is alarming to American families. Amy Wang of The Washington Post reports that:

“During a Senate committee hearing late last month, Steven Wagner, an official with the Department of Health and Human Services, testified that the federal agency had lost track of 1,475 children who had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border…”. 

Already this troubling issue has turned to another talking point for the TV pundits in America which casually discuss the matter without real interest. Most “officials” are mute and some blame the children who “unaccompanied by adults” had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border on their own! They down play the bad news and claim that their abusive behavior against asylum seekers is “legal”. However they are in contrary to International law. The Non-discrimination article of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) of United Nations clearly states that protection of all children without exception is the governments’ obligation. It reads:

“… every child within a State’s jurisdiction holds all CRC Rights without regard to citizenship, immigration status or any other status. Refugee children, asylum seekers, and rejected asylum seekers are entitled to all the rights of the CRC.”

The “missing” children case is not an exceptional incident, when the U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions in a tyrannous tone warns: “If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and that child will be separated from you as required by law. If you don’t like that, then don’t smuggle children over our border” signifies the dark side of fanatics who are in charge of the “Law of the Land” today.  This should be expected when a group of people constantly are demonized by the “most powerful man” in the U.S. and directly or indirectly are compared to animals. Of course the babies of these “animals” would have no human value for a fascistic minded President and his Attorney General appointee. Sadly, for the narrow-minded politicians, the innocent children of the asylum seekers simply are bargaining chips.

Over all, Mr. Sessions’ warning and the mystery of “missing children” are part of a dangerous shift in the U.S. governance toward an autocracy and undemocratic policies. The new Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Gina Haspel (during her nomination hearing) was unapologetic for her role using enhanced interrogation techniques and boldly refused to acknowledge that torture is immoral. In other words, indirectly Mr. Trump’s nominee told the policymakers that their morality is outdated!

The Democrats and Republicans while are blaming each other for the “wrong” immigration policies, in fact are in agreement to slowly enforce their anti-democratic plots against the American people for the sake of “National Security”.  When it comes to the question of undocumented families and their children, both parties have horrible records. During a 2014 CNN interview, Ms. Hillary Clinton said: “We have to send a clear message, just because your child gets across the border, that doesn’t mean the child gets to stay” , “So, we don’t want to send a message that is contrary to our laws or will encourage more children to make that dangerous journey” (Greg Price, Newsweek – 9/8/2017).

We shouldn’t be surprised if the insane Internment Camps idea of  General Wesley Clark would be implemented in this fearful political environment. In 2014, General Clark in an interview with MSNBC said: “If these people are radicalized and they don’t support the United States and they are disloyal to the United States… it’s our right and obligation to segregate them from the normal community for the duration of the conflict.”* Today, the undocumented immigrants, the asylum seeker and children are treated in inhuman detention centers. ACLU “obtains documents showing widespread abuse of child immigrants in U.S. custody.” Also they have reported detailed instances of holding children past the three-day maximum detainment period. CNN report “Claudia Patricia Gomez Gonzalez traveled 1,500 miles to the United States, hoping to find a job and a better future. Shortly after she set foot in Texas, a Border Patrol agent shot and killed her …” on Wednesday, May 23rd, 2018. Claudia was 20 years old and from Guatemala.

For decades, the heartless narrow-minded politicians in the “civilized” countries through their unnecessary but devastating and deadly wars have been and still are responsible for the death of thousands of children. According to the Annual Report of the Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict, since the start of war in 2015 “In Yemen, a total of at least 1,340 children were killed or maimed.” The children in war torn cities of Afghanistan, Congo, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Palestine and other places suffer the same misery and some share the same frightening death toll number as children in Yemen. Now these atrocities against children are being committed closer to home, near our borders.

But history teaches us the atrocities no matter how grotesque they might be -soon or later- will end by the actions of determined and democratic-minded people. Peace and Justice Activists, Immigrant Advocacy Organizations, Teachers and Students, Workers and Farmers, Progressive Attorneys and Caring Parents must organize and demand:

– End the Inhumane Treatments of the Undocumented and Asylum Seekers and Their Children Now!

– Find Our 1500 “Missing” Children Now and Bring the High Level Responsible People to Justice!

– End the Abusive, Uncivilized Treatment of Women and Children in the Brutal ICE Detention Centers!

– Stop Breaking Up Vulnerable Undocumented Families!

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

Note:

* “General Wesley Clark Calls for Putting ‘Disloyal’ Americans in Internment Camps” by Thomas Gaist – World Socialist Web Site. Reprinted by Global Research, July 21, 2015

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Criticizing Israel Unrelated to Anti-Semitism

May 29th, 2018 by Stephen Lendman

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: 

stephenlendman.org 

(Home – Stephen Lendman). 

Contact at [email protected].

Calling criticism of Zionism and Israel anti-Semitic turns truth on its head. One has nothing to do with the other.

Anti-Semitism reflects hostility or discrimination against Judaism as a religion. Israel is a nation-state. Criticizing its ruthlessness is essential to challenge what’s clearly intolerable. Equating it to anti-Semitism is a bald-faced lie.

On Wednesday, proposed House legislation disgracefully conflating the two was introduced in deference to Israel and its US lobby – called the Anti-Semitism Act of 2018.

It cites Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin.

It says nothing about religion, but that’s not the point. What is relevant is that criticizing Israeli policies has nothing to do with discrimination of any kind.

It’s about supporting right over wrong, about challenging nation-state ruthlessness, unacceptable apartheid contempt for Palestinian rights, holding an entire population hostage under occupation harshness, blockaded Gazans harmed most.

Trump appointed Zionist zealot Kenneth Marcus to head the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights. He’s awaiting Senate confirmation.

As founder and head of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a Washington-based NGO, he supports Israeli policies no matter how lawless and egregious.

The group shamefully calls anti-Semitism and “anti-Israelism” on university campuses the “leading civil and human rights challenge facing North American Jewry.” What rubbish!

It’s silent about longstanding Israeli high crimes of war and against humanity, its ruthless persecution of illegally occupied Palestinians, and its own Arab citizens.

It supports Israeli policies at the expense of equity and justice. Marcus is well-known for “excessive litigation against Palestine solidarity activists,” Mondoweiss earlier explained.

He’s militantly against BDS activism, the most effective initiative to hold Israel accountable for its high crimes.

He uses Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act as a weapon against Israeli criticism, activism for Palestinian rights, and academic freedom.

He aims to use the Anti-Semitism Act of 2018, if enacted into law, to bully and censor Israeli critics, the legislation empowering the office he holds to enforce a law dismissive of persecuted and discriminated against Muslims and Sikhs.

The measure’s purpose is to intimidate, inhibit, and censor Israeli critics, especially on college campuses where activists urge adoption of student council resolutions to boycott Israel for its high crimes.

It’s unconstitutional, a flagrant First Amendment violation, guaranteeing free expression in all forms – no matter how offensive or at odds with the official narrative.

The proposed measure supports Israel uncritically, ignoring its high crimes of war, against humanity, and slow-motion genocide.

No other nation, political entity, or group of any kind is afforded protection from criticism under US law.

Free expression is inviolable, numerous Supreme Court rulings affirming it. The Arab American Institute said the following:

“The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act masquerades as addressing anti-Semitism while shielding Israel from criticism.”

“If passed, the bill would unconstitutionally proscribe legitimate political expression with respect to criticism of foreign governments and does nothing to combat hate in our classrooms” or anywhere else.

ACLU executive director Anthony Romero slammed the proposed measure, saying it “risks chilling the free speech of students on college campuses, and is unnecessary to enforce federal law’s prohibition on harassment in education,” adding:

It’ll “lead colleges to suppress speech, especially if the Department of Education launches investigations simply because students have engaged in speech critical of Israel.”

It’s similar to bills wanting BDS activism outlawed, congressional legislation failing to pass so far.

JewishVoiceForPeace rabbi Joseph Berman tweeted:

“JVP calls on Congress to oppose the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act.”

“It’s not an ‘anti-Semitism awareness act’ – it’s the Silencing Students Act.”

It’s a shot across the bow to silence all justifiable criticism of Israel. Perhaps criminalizing it comes next.

*

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

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

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

Syria has taken the rotating presidency of the United Nations (UN)’s Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, prompting disruptive objection by the United States.

The chairing of the Conference on Disarmament (CD) rotates alphabetically among the body’s 65 members every four weeks, and Syria’s turn came on Monday.

Syrian Ambassador Hussam Edin Aala opened the conference’s latest round on Tuesday.

Image: Syria’s Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) in Geneva Hussam Edin Aala presides over the Conference on Disarmament at the UN in Geneva, Switzerland, May 29, 2018. (Photo by Reuters)

American disruption

The US, opposed to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, objected to Syria’s takeover of the committee’s presidency.

“Syria’s presence here is a travesty… and it is just unacceptable for them to be leading this body,” US Ambassador Robert Wood said just before the session began on Tuesday.

The US delegation — led by Wood — then briefly left the room in protest and returned shortly afterwards.

Back on the floor, Wood voiced Washington’s displeasure.

Image: US Ambassador Robert Wood walks out in protest at Syria’s presidency of the Conference on Disarmament at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, May 29, 2018. (Photo by Reuters)

“Let me be clear: we cannot permit ‘business as usual’ in the CD while Syria presides over this body,” Wood said, referring to potential plans to disrupt upcoming meetings. “During the next four weeks, we will be present in this hall to ensure that Syria is not able to advance initiatives that run counter to the interests of the United States, but we will fundamentally alter the nature of our presence in the plenaries.”

After making that statement, the US ambassador moved to a seat usually reserved for assistants, apparently in protest.

Ahead of the session, Wood had stressed that his country did not plan to boycott the CD during the four weeks of Syrian presidency.

A number of ambassadors from other countries, including Britain, Australia, and France, echoed Wood’s remarks.

He claimed that the US sought to hold Syria to account for its alleged use of chemical weapons.

The Syrian government surrendered its stockpiles of chemical weapons in 2014 to a joint mission led by the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which oversaw the removal and destruction of the weaponry.

Western governments and their allies, however, have continued to accuse Damascus of having conducted chemical attacks on a number of occasions during the conflict in Syria.

The Syrian government has rejected all allegations of chemical attacks and has pointed to the conclusion of the UN-OPCW mission to make the case that it is no more in possession of chemical armaments.

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The commemorative medal had already been cast and published. It depicts profiles of Trump and Jong Un, facing each other, at the 12th June historic meeting – at which Jong Un was supposed to disavow and discard his nuclear armament, irreversibly, and then to accept Trump’s gracious benediction. The meeting now is moot (and, since drafting, has been cancelled, blindsiding both Moon and Abe), leaving in its wake, a frustrated and angry Trump. And, as we prefigured earlier, instead of realising that Team Trump had not been listening adequately to what Jong Un was signalling, Trump now blames Xi for upsetting ‘the deal’ from being struck.

China’s Global Times makes the point:

“The US unilaterally demands prompt peninsular denuclearization before it provides compensation to Pyongyang. China will not oppose such a deal between the US and North Korea. However, can Washington achieve it? Pyongyang has just given an answer … It would be OK if Washington pressures Pyongyang to gain an edge in negotiations, but Washington should think twice about the possibility of pushing the Korean Peninsula back to fierce antagonism.

It is clear from China’s perspective that the US has overestimated its weight in forcing North Korea to accept its demands. The US has forgotten the awkward situation it was in last year when it could not stop North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests, and the difficulty of taking military action against North Korea.

The US has always believed it was duped by North Korea, which is, in fact, far from correct. The US was responsible for the aborted peninsula resolutions, multiple times.”

Irritated too, by harsh comments made by ‘trade hawks’ on the lack of tangible result in trade negotiations with China (Steve Bannon, for example, told Bloomberg that Trump “changed the dynamic regarding China – but in one weekend, Secretary Mnuchin has given it away”), Trump now seems to be set to pivot towards a tougher China trade stance, saying that the talks had not achieved much, and that a new framework might be needed.

The Singapore summit cancellation (blamed in part, on Xi), and the disappointment with trade talks, arrives on the heels of the Pentagon revoking China’s invitation to participate in RIMPAC, ‘the world’s largest naval exercise’, because of Beijing’s “aggressive actions in the South China Sea, which have recently included reports that it quietly installed ‘defensive’ missiles in the Spratly Islands – capable of striking US territory. Undeterred however by Pentagon threats, China responded by warning that its new J-20, fifth generation, stealth fighter, will henceforth be flying patrols in Taiwan’s airspace – a clear signal that Xi wants ‘his island’ back, and plans to get it.

In short, US friction with China is on an upwards trajectory, and may spike further, were Washington now to threaten the Korean peninsula with military action of some nature.

Friction is not confined to the US relationship with China however. Trump’s conversion to full-court ‘neo-Americanism’ (see here), it seems, has put Washington at odds with the World at large: Trade wars (China, Russia, EU & Japan), sanctions (Russia, Iran, et al), currency wars (Turkey, Iran Russia), etcetera, etcetera. This level and breadth of friction is not sustainable. The psychic tension must lead either to something somehow snapping (explosively) to break the tension, or to a marked U-turn in language and behaviour that relieves pressures more gently. At the moment we are still in the updraft. Trump has provoked literally everyone (even the usually compliant Europeans), as never before. And, consequently (and inadvertently), has accelerated markedly, the arrival of the incoming new global order – and, by heightening geo-political tension nearly everywhere, has accelerated further steps towards global de-dollarisation.

Again, even the Europeans are rueing that they chose not to configure the Eurozone, as distinct and separate to the dollar hegemony – when they had the chance. Now they pay the price of their impotence in their – now ‘outlawed’ – trade with Iran. Rather too late in the day, the EU proposes to abandon the petrodollar for Euros in respect to their purchases of Iranian oil; but in all probability, it will be to no avail. EU leaders stand shocked and angered by the ruthlessness by which the US intends to strangle all EU commerce with Iran.

What is interesting here, is how China views the nature of the friction with the US, and its root cause: It – via a Global Times op-ed – starts with a clear warning: “When the second round of trade talks finished last week, a number of [US] media reports were hailing the end of the trade war threat. Some even said that China had won the first round of the negotiations with the US: This conclusion is totally wrong, and the idea that the trade friction has been resolved, is groundless. There hasn’t been a trade war yet, just a series of warnings…”(Emphasis added). The author then goes on to say that US trade deficits are not at the root of the friction between the two states: “The real culprit is the monopoly of the US dollar in the global market”, and the enforced use of the dollar to settle payments. The US must “avoid over-supply of the dollar, and allow greater use of other currencies such as the yuan and the euro to promote more balanced currency supply … [and] the US must amend its currency policy”.

President Putin is saying the same: Addressing the Russian parliament, he said that “the whole world sees the dollar monopoly is unreliable: It is dangerous for many, not only for us”. He added that sanctions, and trade actions via the WTO, are increasingly being improperly used by the US primordially, to secure competitive advantage, or to hold back competitors’ economic development (a principal Chinese complaint).

In other words, they want the ‘US-led global order’ swamp drained, just as much as Trump desires to see the Washington swamp drained.

Trump seems happy however, to use ’swamp’ tactics toward the external world in order to make America Great again (even as he decries the Establishment ’swamp’ at home), but the non-West is as thoroughly disenchanted by the ‘global order swamp’ tactics as is Trump’s base: They want the dollar hegemony gone, their own sovereignties restored – and are re-grouping politically to achieve it. Its parts, though distinct, seem to be coming together.

The mafia-like, Trump ‘shakedown’ of Chancellor Merkel (‘give up Nord Stream II, or we’ll shake you Germans down, in terms of Steel and Aluminum), firstly, is catalyzing the possibility of a major re-orientation of European policy.

The European resolve on Russia sanctions long has been shaky: German and Italian businesses have been hard hit financially, and it has been essentially Merkel who held the European ‘line’. These European sanctions are solely Ukraine-related, and the Chancellor has been talking with Putin in Sochi about Ukraine. There, in Sochi, Putin offered two ideas: a UN peace-keeping force for Ukraine, and continued transit of Russian gas through the Ukraine corridor (a major European point) – if that were to prove commercially viable.

If these thoughts prove to be fecund, it would allow Merkel to front-run ‘the inevitability of an Italian ‘no’ to renewal of Russia sanctions in September’. She could be ‘leading again’: taking forward an initiative of her own – balm to the European ego after the disappointing experience of JCPOA. Soothing the Ukraine irritant, in this way, would also allow a Germany – now, in this new US tariff era, even less open to taking a ‘hit’ on European delinquent debt, or to re–financing French infrastructure – to view Russia as a natural partner. It might also allow her to defuse somewhat the immigration ‘bomb’ by agreeing with Putin a mechanism by which the some of the one million Syrian refugees in Germany, return home. Next week, Merkel goes to China, to see how to finesse US pressure on Europe to side with America – against China. We may find, contrarily, that Germany ends up closer to China, which has been investing heavily in Germany, rather than closer to the US (though Germany cannot easily avoid being pig-in-the middle in this trade fight).

Of course, the Anglo ‘Establishment’ will do almost anything to stop the political centre of gravity shifting from the shores of the Atlantic, eastwards. The head of the British Security Service (MI5) has already been sent on a mission by Washington to hype the Russian ‘threat’ to a gathering of thirty European states; and the US envoy in Kiev, Kurt Volker, declared American military support for retaking the breakaway self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.

At the same time, for Japan, the Korean peninsula has been long viewed as a buffer between it and the mainland. Its division however, and the American presence in the south, had seemed the guarantor of the buffer. But then the South gave Moon a mandate for re-unification – and Jong Un in response, dramatically began his charm offensive. The status quo of the ‘buffer’ that had been a given, evidently was no longer ‘a given’. There might be an agreement and, even potentially, over time, increased Chinese influence there. Professor Victor Teo noted that “Trump’s agreement to meet the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, had sidestepped Abe and “cut him off at his knees”.

Even as a possibility, this was a serious problem for Japan, who would lose its buffer with China – and depending on the extent of any putative US withdrawal from the region – lose its defence umbrella too. Equally unnerving, Politico notes, was “Trump’s apparent U-turn on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In January 2017, three days into his presidency, Trump reneged on Barack Obama’s China-containing, 12-nation trade deal.” “It humiliated Abe, who 67 days earlier hustled to Trump Tower to head off Washington’s TPP exit. Twelve months later, Trump added salt to those wounds by adopting a weak dollar policy and slapping duties on steel and aluminum — 25 percent and 10 percent, respectively. He doled out exemptions to Canada, Mexico and others, but none for best friend Abe. Then came Trump’s proposed $150 billion worth of taxes on goods from China, Japan’s main export market.”

So, not surprisingly then, Abe has reached out to China, both to hedge against the US on tariff worries, and to insert Japan into the strategic discussions on Korea’s future (the Chinese premier Li Keqiang made an official visit to Tokyo on 9 May to participate in trilateral talks with the Japanese and South Korean leaders).

The point here is that this trilateral re-set of relations followed high-level economic talks between China and Japan last month, and recalling China’s clear warning about the dollar problem, and the need to widen the use of the Yuan and other currencies in trade, it is not hard to guess that Chinese-Japanese trade will gradually be de-dollarised, if these talks succeed.

In the same vein, Lawrence Sellin of The Daily Caller reports that:

“Chinese efforts towards Iran-Pakistan cooperation have also borne fruit. In recent months, there has been a flurry of agreements in trade, defense, weapons development, counter-terrorism, banking, train service, parliamentary cooperation and — most recently — art and literature.

Secret security-related discussions among the Chinese, Pakistanis and Iranians military officials have been ongoing for at least a year. A major stimulus for those discussions has been the planned construction of a Chinese naval base on Pakistan’s Jiwani peninsula, immediately west of Gwadar near the Iranian border…

A China-Iran-Pakistan alliance would have sweeping ramifications for U.S. foreign policy. For starters, it would render our current efforts in Afghanistan untenable, most likely provoking an American exit under conditions dictated by the Chinese and Pakistanis. It would initiate the beginning of an anti-access, area denial strategy against the U.S. Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea region, similar to what the Chinese have attempted to implement against the U.S. Pacific Fleet in the South China Sea. Even the mere contemplation of such an alliance could give the Iranians considerable leverage in the face of American sanctions.”

Iran has already joined the East Asian Economic free trade area – and on 9th June, will also be attending the Shanghai Co-operation Council 2018 summit, in China. (It seems that Iran is not exactly being ostracised post-JCPOA.)

What links these many parts to the jigsaw however, is the Chinese (and Russian and Iranian view) that the Yuan and the Euro need to be more readily available as currencies in which trade is conducted – and “that the US must amend its currency policy” (that is to end its oscillation between strong and weak dollar cycles, which has been so profitable for US financial institutions, but lethal to Emerging Markets). Virtually everyone agrees on this now.

For this to happen, China needs to widen and deepen the Yuan base, and to provide a liquid market in Chinese sovereign debt. The Shanghai oil futures market is already making its impact on deepening China’s sovereign bond market (as traders park their Yuan proceeds in it, knowing that ultimately the Yuan may be redeemed for gold). US sanctions on Iran will give this further impetus, as Iranian oil becomes sold in Shanghai. The Chinese-owned London Metal Exchange has lately announced that it will begin trading Yuan currency commodity options, too. Soon we will have Yuan-based commodity benchmarks. All in all, the use of the dollar in non-US trade, is being, step by step, progressively shrunk.

But the second Chinese requirement for resetting the trading world by the US ‘amending its currency policy’, serendipitously seems to be occurring as a result of autonomous domestic financial dynamics: Trump’s ‘weak dollar’ has been giving way to elevated dollar values (for a variety of reasons). It provides the perfect conditions for China gently to devalue the Yuan (which has been appreciating against the dollar over recent months), and for Europe to do the same, in a co-ordinated downward float against a spiking dollar. The lower exchange value of Yuan and Euro simply will partly, or wholly, reverse the impact of US sanctions on exports to the US. Might this currency co-ordination too be on the agenda for Merkel next week in China?

If these US policies are not sustainable, what then? The primal flaw to the neo-con maximum leverage doctrine is its lack of any easy ladder down which to climb that does not appear to be a national US humiliation. Usually, if pressure doesn’t work, it is assumed that it was because there was not enough of it – for example, Trump attributes the weaknesses to the JCPOA to Obama failing to let the Iranians stew in sanctions for long enough. Obama cut the pressures too early in Trump’s view – and hence got a ‘flawed agreement.’

A deeper point – and one made by the Chinese in respect to North Korea – is that others do not think in the way of President Trump. The radical utilitarianism evident when Trump says that Jong Un will be “safer, happier and richer” if he accepts Trump’s ultimatum reflects precisely the shallow materialism, on which the global political tide has turned. The so-called ‘populist’ call for a return to traditional national values precisely is a rejection of JS Mills type of utilitarian politics. It is, as it were, the wish to return to being human, in a rounder way.

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Today, 21 of the 27 countries of the EU (after Brexit), with about 90 percent of the population of the Union, are part of NATO, whose “rules” have allowed the United States to maintain, since 1949, the position of Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and all other key commands; they allow the United States to determine the political and strategic choices of the Alliance, with agreements made under the table especially with Germany, France and Great Britain, and then have them approved by the North Atlantic Council, where according to the “rules” of NATO there is no voting or majority decision, but decisions are always taken unanimously.

Steve Bannon – the former strategist of Donald Trump, theorist of national-populism — expressed his enthusiastic support for the alliance of the Lega with the 5 Star Movement for “the government of change.” In an interview he stated: “The fundamental question, in Italy in March, was the question of sovereignty. The result of the elections was to put in office those Italians who want to regain sovereignty and control over their country. Put an end to these rules coming from Brussels.” (Sky TG24, May 26)

However, it does not say “Put an end to the rules coming from Washington.”

It is not only the European Union that is exerting pressure on Italy to guide its political choices, dominated by the powerful economic and financial circles, especially in Germany and France, which fear a break in the “rules” that serve their interests.

Strong pressure is exerted on Italy, in a less evident but no less intrusive way, by the United States, which fears a break in the “rules” that subordinate Italy to its economic and strategic interests.

This is part of the policies Washington has adopted towards Europe, through different administrations and with different methods, pursuing the same objective: to keep Europe under U.S. influence.

NATO is a key instrument of this strategy. The Treaty of Maastricht establishes, in Art. 42 that the EU “shall respect the obligations of certain Member States, which see their common defense realised in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).” And Protocol 10 on cooperation states that NATO “shall remain the foundation of defense” of the European Union.

Today, 21 of the 27 countries of the EU, with about 90 percent of the population of the Union, are part of NATO, whose “rules” have allowed the United States to maintain, since 1949, the position of Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and all other key commands; they allow the United States to determine the political and strategic choices of the Alliance, with agreements made under the table especially with Germany, France and Great Britain, and then have them approved by the North Atlantic Council, where according to the “rules” of NATO there is no voting or majority decision, but decisions are always taken unanimously.

The entry into NATO of the countries of Eastern Europe – once members of the Warsaw Pact, of the Yugoslav Federation and also of the USSR, has allowed the United States to bind these countries, to which Ukraine and Georgia are added and in fact are already in NATO, more so to Washington than to Brussels.

Washington has thus been able to push Europe into a new Cold War, making it the first line of an increasingly dangerous confrontation with Russia, which functions in the political, economic and strategic interests of the United States.

Emblematic is the fact that, just in the week in which Europe was debating the “Italian question” bitterly, the 1st Armoured Brigade of the 1st U.S. Cavalry Division, coming from Fort Hood in Texas, landed in Antwerp (Belgium), without provoking any significant reaction. Some 3,000 soldiers landed, with 87 Abrams M-1 tanks, 125 Bradley combat vehicles, 18 self-propelled Paladin cannons, 976 military vehicles and other equipment, which will be deployed at five bases in Poland and sent from there close to Russian territory.

This continues to “improve the readiness and lethality of U.S. forces in Europe,” to which $16.5 billion dollars since 2015.

Just as the tanks sent from Washington landed in Europe, Steve Bannon encouraged Italians and Europeans to “recover their sovereignty” from Brussels.

 


This article first appeared in Il Manifesto, March 29, 2018

«Sovranità» da Bruxelles, non da Washington

Translation: John Catalinotto

 

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We bring to the consideration of our readers this incisive and carefully formulated analysis by Canada’s renowned philosopher Professor John McMurtry. 

The complete text published by the Journal of 9/11 Studies can be downloaded in pdf.

This article was first published by Global Research in February 2013

*          *          *

I was sceptical of the 9-11 event from the first time I saw it on television. It was on every major network within minutes. All the guilty partieswere declared before any evidence was shown.The first questions of any criminal investigation were erased.  Who had the most compelling motives for the event? Who had the means to turn two central iconic buildings in New York into a pile of steel and a cloud of dust in seconds?[i]

Other questions soon arose in the aftermath. Why was all the evidence at the crime scenes removed or confiscated?

Who was behind the continuous false information and non-stop repetition of “foreign/Arab terrorists”when no proof of guilt existed? Who was blocking all independent inquiry?

Even 11 years on these questions are still not answered.

But those immediately named guilty without any forensic proof certainly fitted the need for a plausible Enemy now that the “threat of the Soviet Union” and “communist world rule” were dead.  How else could the billion-dollar-a-day military be justified with no peace dividend amidst a corporately hollowed-out U.S. economy entering its long-term slide? While all the media and most of the people asserted the official 9-11 conspiracy theory as given fact, not all did.

A Bay Street broker with whom I was improbably discussing the event in Cuba had no problem recognising the value meaning. When I asked what he thought about the official conspiracy theory, he was frank:

“You can call it what you want, but America needs a war to pull the people together and expand into new resource rich areas. That what it has always done from Mexico on. And that is what it needs now”.  When I wondered why none in the know said so, he smirked: “It would be impolite”, adding, “It affects the entire future prosperity of America and the West”. And all the deaths? “It had to be done –far less than it could have been”. The 19 Arabs with box-cutters reducing the World Trade Center buildings to powder in a few seconds?He shrugged.

Thus everyone since 9-11 is prohibited nail-clippers on planes to confirm the absurd – including 15 of the 19alleged hijackers being from Saudi Arabia and several apparently still alive after crashing the planes into the buildings.[ii]As for the diabolical mastermind Osama bin Laden, he is never linked by credible evidence to the crime and never claims responsibility for the strike since the videos of him are fakes. “Ground Zero” is a double entendre. All doubts are erased apriori.

Decoding the U.S. Theater of Wars and the Moral Driver Behind

One already knew that suspension of belief is the first act of fiction, and that instant culture rules the U.S. One already knew that monster technical events are America’s stock in trade. And one already knew the long history of false U.S. pretexts for war – so well established that a young strategic thinker a decade after 9-11 advises the right-wing Washington Policy Institute on how to create a crisis by deadly planned incident to make war on Iran – “it is the traditional way of getting into war for what is best in America’s interests”.[iii]

One further knew from past research that the U.S.’s strategic leadership since 1945 had been Nazi-based in information and connections and the dominant Central-European figures articulating it ever after across Democrat and Republican lineshave a common cause. For over 40 years, Henry Kissinger as Republican and Zbigniew Brzezinski as Democrat have been protégés of David Rockefeller, selected as Trilateral Commission and Bilderberg Group leaders, and capable of any mass-homicidal plan to advance “U.S. interests”. The banker-and-oil imperial line through David Rockefeller as paradigm case goes back to the Nazi period to John Foster Dulles (an in-law) and his brother Allen Dulles (OSS and then CIA Director), who Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg called “traitors” for their support of the Nazi regime.  The Rockefeller Foundation funded and developed German eugenics programs in the pre-war years, Standard Oil supplied oil in collaboration with I.G. Farben, and so on.[iv]

The supreme moral goal and strategic methods governing U.S. covert-state performance have not only have been very similar in moral principle, but have deeply connected Rockefeller protégés Kissinger and Brzezinski, and more deeply still the theoretical godfather of U.S. covert state policy, Leo Strauss, who was funded out of Germany by David Rockefeller from the start.

The inner logic of covert and not-so-covert U.S. corporate world rule since 1945unified under Wall Street financial management and transnational corporate treaties for unhindered control of commodities and money capital flows across all borders is undeniable if seldom tracked. This architecture of the grand plan for a New World Order is evident in both strategic policy and global political and armed action over decades that have seen the objectives increasingly fulfilled with constructed deadly crises as pretexts for war the standard technique.[v]Behind them as first post-Nazi historical turn lies the 1947 National Security Act (NSA) which created the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)and explicitly licensesdestruction of life, truth and other societies as institutional methods.

The CIA is charged with designing, planning and executing “propaganda, economic war, direct preventive action, sabotage, anti-sabotage, destruction, subversion against hostile States, assistance to clandestine liberation movements, guerrilla murders, assistance to indigenous groups opposed to the enemy countries of the free world”. The linkage back to Nazi methods and world-rule goal as the highest moral objective is not just one of corresponding ultimate principles and strategic policy formation. It relied on Nazi SS intelligence sources and means from the beginning of the covert terror state.[vi]

There is no heinous means that is not assumed as the highest morality by this long-standing covert institutional formation linking to the presidential office.It is an explicitly secret system involving at least the Defense Department and the CIA, the former with many more operatives and offices.

The Special Activities Division (SAD) to carry out NSA criminal operations, for example, also confers the highest honors awarded in recognition of distinguished valor and excellence – as did the earlier SS prototype in Germany. What people find difficult to recognise is that these actions, whether by the SAD or other system operations,are conceived as the highest duty, however life-system destructive and mass murderous they are. All participants are super patriots in their own view, as were the Nazis. Contradiction between declared and actual values, however, is a central mode of the covert system. For example, what can be considered a high duty in the perpetual U.S.“war on drugs”, the most morally obligatory commitment of the U.S. state,is at the same time a war against and with other drug operations to transport illegal hard drugs into the U.S. itself.[vii]

We might see here a parallel between foreign mass murder and domestic mass murder in 9-11, with both regarded as high patriotism in this supreme morality. In the background of America’s Reichstag Fire and likewise disclosing the unlimited geo-strategic action that can be operationalized as necessary and good, the post-1945 U.S. control of international sea-lanes made the covert U.S. state the world’s dominant narcotics controller so as to fund secret criminal war actions from South-East Asia to Latin America, entailing the addiction of its own peoples.[viii]This woeful method has been long known by experts, but came to be public knowledge in the Reagan-state funding of the death-squad Contras of Nicaragua as “the moral equal of our Founding Fathers” (a tribute he is said to have given later to the drug-running warlords and jihadists of Afghanistan).

These moral contradictions seem insane, but this is so only if one does not comprehend the underlying supreme morality of which they are all expressions.

Even U.S.-sponsored death squads torturing and killing tens of thousands of poor people across Latin America before 2000 and their return as direct covert U.S.-state method from Iraq to Syria after 9-11 – called “the Salvador option”[ix] – is regarded as necessary and obligatory to “defend the Free World and our way of life”. They entail ever more total U.S. world rule and self-maximizing position by strategic deduction from the supreme morality’s first premises.

The covert nature of the mass-murderous operationalization is never from moral embarrassment. It is solely to ensure effectiveness of execution against “soft” and “uninformed” public opinion, to terrorize people in situ from continued resistance, and to annihilate its leadership and community agency all the way down. Throughout the deciding moments of execution of the underlying supreme value program, global corporate money demand multiplication is always the ultimate value driver -as may be tested by seeking any covert U.S. action or overt war which is not so regulated beneath saturating propaganda of lawful intentions of peace and freedom.

These lines of underlying moral institution, policy, strategic plan, and massive life destruction at every level are indisputable facts of the covert and official faces of the U.S. state, but are typically not connected to the September 11, 2001 attack. Since most people cannot believe their own government or the “leader of the free world” could execute such a sabotage action as “9-11” in which thousands of American themselves died, these behavioral reminders forge the unifying meaning.

Worse still occurred in the last “war”before 9-11. In the background providing graphic example of how the covert U.S. state apparatus is structured to attack and murder U.S. citizens themselves to strategically maximize implementation of its supreme value program of transnational corporate money sequences over all barriers, there is the now known Operation Northwoods. Very familiar to the 9-11 truth movement, but unpublicized since its release under freedom of information laws, this Department of Defense and Joint Chiefs of Staff plan proposed that the CIA and other operatives covert operatives “undertake a range of atrocities” to be blamed on Cuba to provide pretext for invasion.

“Innocent civilians were to be shot on American streets; boats carrying refugees fleeing Cuba were to be sunk on the high seas; a wave of violent terrorism was to be launched in Washington DC, Miami and elsewhere. People would be framed for bombings they did commit; planes would be hijacked”.[x]

All would be blamed on Castro the Communist in place of bin Laden the Islamicist, and invasion of desired resistant territory would be achieved as a triumph of American freedom and interests over its enemies.

 Operation Northwoods was not, however, okayed by President Kennedy – perhaps another reason for his assassination and replacement by more pliant presidents to represent “America’s interests” in accord with the supreme morality. Underneath the stolen election of George Bush Jr.in contrast – whose family made its money, in part, by serving the covert financial requirements of the Nazi regime before and during the 1939-45 War – was a domestic and foreign administration which would push further than any in the past to advance “U.S. interests”to full-spectrum world rule. Its project included reversing the Roosevelt New Deal and the social state within the U.S. itself – “an anomaly” as Bush Jr. expressed the historical perspective and ethic at work.

This plan was more explicit in the published Project for the New American Century formed from 1997 on. It even supplied the need for a 9-11 event in its 2000 version, the year that Bush Jr. was elected and the year before 9-11. To indicate the “non-partisan” nature of the planning, Democrat National security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski had already hinted at the usefulness of a 9-11-style domestic attack to move policy forward in his 1998 book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives.[xi]

The Moral Compass of 9-11

As a moral philosopher with social value systems as my primary object of analysis, my first thoughts in understanding “9-11” were of the system motives,known methods, and objective interests driving the event which could coherently explain it. Whatever the immediate hold of the official conspiracy theory on the public mind,a rational explanation is required which is consistent with the suppressed facts and the organising geo-strategic plan on both sides of the event.

For over a decade before 9-11, there were three U.S.-propelled global trends that almost never come into the understanding of 9-11 itself. 9-11 truth seekers themselves have focused on the foreground technics and the transparent motive for oil. But these are undergirded by deeper sea-shifts of geopolitical and economic wars of seizure and destruction by other name against which the world’s people were rising. To compel books of analysis into one unifying frame, transnational corporate-rights treaties from NAFTA to the Maastracht Treaty to the WTO overrode all other rights across borders;the private “financialization”stripping of social sectors and welfare states had advanced across the world; and the totalizing movement of the system across all former “cold war” and cultural borders was “the new world order” in formation. Together these vast shifts towards transnational money-sequence rule of all reversed centuries of democratic evolution. And every step of the supreme value program was life blind at every step of its global operationalization.[xii]

Yet states and cultures were so sweepingly re-set into unaccountable transnational corporate and bank rule that few recognised the absolutist value program being imposed on the world.  Fewer still recognised all was unfolding according to plan.

What has been least appreciated about the long-term strategic plan unfolding on both sides of what was immediately called “9-11” – CallEmergency!–is that supreme banker and global money director David Rockefeller had summarized “the plan” to fellow money-party elites across borders at the Bildersberg meeting in Baden Baden Germany in June 1991 -exactly at the same time that the Soviet Union and its resistant barriers fell.[xiii] Bear in mind that Rockefeller among other initiatives appointed both Kissinger and Brzezinski for the lead in both the supranational Bilderberg and Trilateral strategic bodies of which he was the lead patron, not to mention financed the unemployed academic Leo Strauss out of Germany to be the godfather  “philosopher” of the “new world order”. Rockefeller speaks very precisely to his fellow “elite of the elite” of the Western world where only Americans and Europe are invited and reportage excluded:

“A supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries”, Rockefeller said.[xiv]

Observe the foundational new concepts in place of responsible government and democratic accountability. They are now consigned to “past centuries”. A “supranational sovereignty”has replaced them and is morally“preferable”. Rockefeller is not exaggerating. By 1991 a “supranational sovereignty” had already developed in the form of transnational treaties conferring override rights of “profit opportunity” on transnational corporations and private bank rule of government finances across borders – procedurally trumping any elected legislatures and their laws which are inconsistent with their thousands of treaty articles, even when the system eventually leads to world depression as now.[xv] The source of the legitimacy of governments, ultimate sovereignty, has now passed as preferable to “an intellectual elite and bankers”: more exactly, academic strategy servants and transnational money sequences overriding all human and planetary life requirements a-priori by the supreme moral goal.

Ask which function of the world’s people and means of life is not now in debt to Wall Street and the private global banking system it leads. Ask which means of life from food and water to autos and pension cheques is not thus ultimately controlled, or which commodity is not under oligopolist corporate sway. The “surely preferable” objective was already achieved by 1991 or in advanced global institutional motion. Now supreme over all else so that all else is now accountable to it, and it is not accountable to anything above it, “the plan”seemed all but accomplished by Rockefeller’s own considered words.

But what if people resist the new world rule with no life coordinate or constraint at any level of its execution? We may recall that during the death-squad rule of the Argentina generals at this time in which civilians were murdered and tortured in the thousands, National Security Adviser Kissinger congratulated the junta on their “very good results – – The quicker you succeed the better.”Kissinger also heartily approved of the earlier massacres and torture in Chile.

The resistance was in this way pre-empted long before the Soviet Union fell, and after 1990 had no block in the Middle East and Central Asia either. “The plan” has been very long term. Kissinger the geo-executer was originally appointed to high office by Rockefeller (to lead the Council on Foreign Relations back in 1954), and – to give a sense of the long-range trajectory of the plan design –was,incredibly,the U.S. administration’s first choice for an “independent 9-11 Commission”. The obviously not-independent Kissinger was still not a problem for “the free press” and official discourse. But when he was required to disclose his business connections, he withdrew to stay covert in his ongoing backroom capacities and enrichment.

The 9-11 sacrifice is better understood within the deep-structural context of the unfolding plan. Thus David Rockefeller gave special thanks to media like “the New York Times, Washington Post, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion” in co-operating with the plan. Rockefeller was again precise:

This plan for the world would have been impossible for us to develop if we had been subjected to the light of publicity during those years. [xvi]

The plan’s next decisive steps were in fact already in motion as Rockefeller expressed gratitude for the media black-out. A new strategic manifesto from the Pentagon was in preparation entitled “Defense Planning Guidance on Post-Cold- War Strategy,” completed on February 18, 1992.[xvii]Prepared under the supervision of Paul Wolfowitz, then the Pentagon’s Undersecretary for Policy, it was disclosed in March of 1992 by the New York Times.After the first invasion of Iraq, it became known as the Project for the New American Century, publicly released from 1997 to 2000 prior to 9-11.

Again we may note the long arc of planning control, crisis and war as required. Item 6 of the strategic plan defined the agenda in general terms: “In the Middle East and Southwest Asia, our overall objective is to remain the predominant power in the region and preserve U.S. and western access to the region’s oil.”

Oil-rich Iraq had in fact been invaded – not only to privatize its peerlessly high-quality surface oilfields but to destroy its region-leading socialist infrastructure.Iraq became accessible for invasion as the arms-bankrupted Soviet Union was in collapse. We may observe that the covertly genocidal destruction of Iraq bridged Republican and Democrat administrations over three changes of government – disclosing how the covert state operates as a moral constant across party fronts.

The actions confirm and express the one supreme moral goal identified above. They bridge from Saddam himself as CIA-payroll killer and war proxy against Iran to recapture lost Iran oilfields dating from 1980 to 1988 to the fall of the USSR in 1991 as the axis of the long-term strategic plan of global turnaround to “America’s century” still to come before and after 9-11.But between 1990 and 2003 Saddam was transmuted from former ally to aggressor against Kuwait in an invasion given an official green light from the U.S. government, to “mushroom cloud”threat with invented “weapons of mass destruction”.

In fact, National Security Adviser Wolfowitz explained after the invasion found nothing of the kind: “[We had] virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil.”

Observe how the invasion is conceived as obligatory for a reason that expresses the supreme value goal. Observe that it occurs less than two years after 9-11, which gave the open-cheque justification for the bombing and occupation which allowed the expropriation of Iraq’s society’s oil resources.

The problem was not the evil Saddam or the “weapons of mass destruction”, the standard reverse projection.[xviii]The problem was the Iraqi people themselves and their developed oil-funded social life infrastructure between the supreme oil-fields and their U.S. corporate control and privatization. 9-11 was,thus, first the justification for invading Afghanistan – to clear the way for pipelines into the former Soviet republics from the Caspian Sea region– pipelines that prompted the U.S. representative to predictively warn the Taliban:“Either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs.”[xix]9-11 was then the necessary basis of justification for the bombing of Baghdad for the unifying supreme objective.

In fact,seldom published in the corporate media keeping the glare of publicity away from the supreme moral objective, the publicly owned and managed oil revenues of Iraq had been invested since the 1950’s in Iraq’s advanced social infrastructure, leading the Middle East with free higher education, high health standards, and near universal livelihood security. The world’s oldest civilisation was robust in organisational capacities long before the CIA-asset Saddam was installed.

Despite his murdering his way to the top in this function, even Saddam could not destroy the system because socialist government had been achieved decades earlier by a powerful oil-workers’ union base and a population glad to have all education free, an efficient low-cost foods delivery system, and the most advanced public healthcare system in the Middle East. So there was not only the “sea of oil” as a motive to assert U.S. control in the new “supranational sovereignty” of the world. Just as important in this ultimate moral cause, what the U.S. covert state always seeks to destroy by any means, isa successful social infrastructure without private big oil, bankers and transnational corporations free to control it towards higher profit opportunities.

Unravelling the Supreme Moral Doctrine behind the U.S. Covert State

JPEG - 23.1 kb  The genocide of Iraq, as the long-opposing “evil empire” was in free-fall, is the most important strategic anchoring prior to “9-11”. Covert strategic policy to forward the supreme goal is by now self-evident, but the inner moral logic is assumed not penetrated.  The most influential of Rockefeller’s protégés in this regard is the “philosopher king” of the U.S. covert state, Leo Strauss. While he never worked in a philosophy department or has any training in logic, his concept of “natural right” fits exactly to the “supranational sovereignty” of private money-sequence rule of the world – what “the intellectual elite” Rockefeller refers to invoke as “moral anchor”, “right” and “justice”.

The moral thought system is not unlike that of Mein Kampf without the racist rant, camouflaged everywhere in practice by the method of big lies – “noble lies” as Strauss exalts them.[xx] The innermost value driver is a perpetual war of dispossession of the weaker for the private transnational money-capital multiplication of the rich.

Nothing in this doctrine is too mendacious, greed-crazed and murderous if it fulfills the plan of this limitless private-capital rule as ultimate moral ground and compass. In Strauss’s canonical teaching of U.S. national security advisers and intellectual following, the ruling moral absolute is expressed by the core master idea behind the “supranational sovereignty” of an “intellectual elite and bankers”:

“limitless capital accumulation – — the highest right and moral duty”.[xxi]

This is the ethical absolute of the covert U.S. state and its strategic decision structure. And there is no internal limit within this moral universe to life means seizure from poorer societies and resource looting for the supreme goal.  It is the natural and absolute Good.

To justify its meaning, the Straussian canon adopts a potted reading of Western moral and political philosophy from Plato through Hobbes, Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx and Weber. This impresses American political operatives of the faith, but Strauss is a failed philosopher turned down by Paul Tillich for his post-doctoral Habilitation and only saved from academic ruin in Germany by Rockefeller grant money. While not taken seriously as philosophy anywhere else, it is worth decoding its talmudic involution for the borrowed ideas that drive its covert state disciples and neo-fascist public “intellectuals” in America.

The ultimately organising idea is to commend all forms of conquering and limitlessly expanding private capital as “natural right and law” with genocidal subjugations justified in glowing moral terms. For example, “noble lies” is the moral category for limitless mendacity. One may wonder how educated people can be so bent out of moral shape. So I now concisely provide what cannot be found elsewhere: the inner logic of the supreme doctrine as perversions of great thinkers.

Its framework of meaning and value helps us to understand why the 9-11 event could easily follow for the managers of the covert U.S. state and its Straussian planners as not at all anomalous or evil within their moral logic. 9-11 follows as a maximally rational and unique tool to achieve the objectives in fact achieved by 9-11, and the geo-strategic cabal behind it is servilely linked from the beginning to the dominant private transnational corporate and banking interests exemplified by David Rockefeller.

To understand this brutal moral universe and its connection to 9-11, the 9-11 wars and a globalizing police state, we need to understand the deformations of its basic organising ideas. Plato’s idea of “the noble lie” means, in fact, a myth or parable to communicate an underlying truth about the triadic human soul of reason, spirit and appetite which, Plato argues, should be reflected in the construction of the ideal state (in which the rulers are communist in their common property to keep them uncorrupted and true).

But through the prism of U.S. global money-party rule a la Strauss this idea becomes the principle of lying to the public to keep the vulgar herd – the people themselves – ignorant and obedient. The philosophies of Hobbes and Hegel are also grist for this mill. Hobbes argues that “man is moved by a restless desire for power after power that ceaseth only in death”, but this brute desire in the “State of Nature” is tamed by “the covenant of peace” ordered by the internal sovereign as absolute.

Via Strauss and the U.S. covert state this becomes right is might and the ultimate “natural right” is limitless private capital power and empire with no end of totalization across the peoples and lands of the world. Hegel too suits a fascist-capitalist reading since he argues “the State is the march of God  through the world”, and war itself is history’s test of which State is a higher realisation of “the absolute Idea”. But Hegel still envisaged a “universal state”to supersede the competitive private-property division of capitalism in the “universalization of right and law on earth”.

Once again U.S. private money-capital power with no bound, the supreme moral goal in the Rockefeller-Strauss doctrine, is opposite to the classical philosophy it invokes. Once more dialectical development of reason to more coherently inclusive conception and life is reversed into one-way private money capital sequences maximized to rule the world with the U.S. military as its instrument of force and terror.

However it conceals its meaning, all positions come down to this underlying value code – as may be tested on whatever transnational money-sequence demand, right or war is launched next. 9-11 construction in such a moral world does not violate this value code. It expresses it in self-maximizing strategic turn to achieve the ultimate goal.

Friedrich Nietzsche may provide the best fodder for the doctrine when he advises that “life is essentially appropriation, injury, overpowering of what is alien and weaker, imposing of one’s own forms, and at its mildest exploitation” in his superman vision of “beyond good and evil”. For philosophical Nietzscheans, this is code for the inner meaning of the angst of artistic creation. But this meaning is predictably lost on the U.S. covert-state school seeking the “supranational sovereignty” of “limitless capital accumulation” as the supreme good with the “intellectual elite” as servants to it. Karl Marx’s link of capitalism’s success to productive force development is the ultimate equivocation upon which this ruling doctrine depends – making no distinction between productive capital providing life goods and unproductive money sequencing hollowing out the world by money-capital multiplication. Marx, it must be acknowledged, did not made the distinction himself since this mutation of capital came a century after his death.[xxii]

Finally Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism does not ground this doctrine of “limitless capital accumulation as the highest right and duty” with the state to serve it, as Strauss again torturously suggests. In fact, Weber deplores any such perversion of public authority. His capitalist model is a young Benjamin Franklin speaking of money saved and invested as like having “a breeding sow”, not a transnational money-sequence juggernaut of eco-genocidal expansion.  Revealingly, Benjamin Franklin and “the protestant ethic” in general were most concerned about non-waste, which Strauss explicitly excludes from the meaning of “limitless capital accumulation”. For Leo Strauss and his U.S. “national security” disciples, the capitalist may waste as much as he wants by “natural right”.

Further, in complete inversion of source, the greed worship of the U.S. state, its patrons and its academy disciples reverses the model of the “spirit of capitalism” exemplified by Benjamin Franklin in proprietary claim on knowledge and inventions. He,in fact,refused to patent his famous Franklin Stove because he believed that no innovation or new knowledge from which other people could benefit should be denied them – just as he himself had benefitted from the community of knowledge and science as the distinguishing feature of being a civilised human being.

In short, it is important to recognise how twisted the covertly ruling doctrine is. No element of it is life coherent or true to the classical thinkers in which it costumes itself. In the end, only the transnational U.S. money party has any place in its rights and obligations, and any sacrifice of other life to its supreme goal is legitimate – linking back to the Nazi-U.S. corporate axis that nearly destroyed the civilised world once before.[xxiii]

Money-Capital Power UeberAlles: How Economic Rationality Leads the Plan

The U.S. culture of money-sequence “rationality” is the underlying intellectual and moral disorder which leads to “limitless money capital accumulation” as the supreme moral goal. In formal terms, the equation of rationality to atomic self-maximization is assumed a-prioriacross domains. With globalizing Wall-Street-led “financialization”, this “rationality” becomes equated to private money-sequence multiplication across all borders as the ultimate Good. This is the innermost mutation of value logic and goal, the moral DNA, from which the cancerous world system develops on both sides of 9-11.[xxiv]

This first principle itself is,in fact,built into formal economics, decision and game theory, and strategic science, as I explain step by step in “Behind Global System Collapse: The Life-Blind Structure of Economic Rationality.”[xxv] It is axiomatic but unexamined, life-blindly absolutist but not recognised as morally problematic. To make a long story short, competitive self-maximization in the market is assumed to produce “the best of possible worlds” by mathematical proof. “Pareto efficiency” is believed to demonstrate this by private money exchanges between self-maximizing atoms apriori stripped of all life properties, relations, society, conditions of choice, and all natural and civil life support systems. Pareto himself recognised outside this formula what has since been covered up.

Not only is the formula consistent with most having remaining impoverished by the “optimum” of “no-one worse off”, what none who cite “Pareto efficiency” as a standard academic mantra ever acknowledge or even recognise. Pareto himself is in no doubt of the implication. As the fascist party he belongs to rules Italy and Rockefeller creates the Council of Foreign Relations, he asserts with approval: “Very moral civilized people have destroyed and continue to destroy, without the least scruple, savage or barbarian peoples”.[xxvi]We glimpse here at the roots the supreme morality built into “economic science” itself.

Yet, as demonstrated in “Behind Global System Collapse”, even the most liberal canons of America, including John Rawls’ classic A Theory of Justice, are grounded in the same meta principle.[xxvii] Rationality and value are equated to self-maximizing gain with no limit within game-theoretic interactions as the sole limiting framework of “limitless money capital acquisition”. The generic equation defines, indeed, the dominant intellectual and economic mind-set of America and the global system in action since 1980. The cabal internal to U.S. national security strategic planning follows the moral logic to its most radical conclusions with no constraints by life or law.

The one absolute moral meaning is the spread of U.S. economic, military and political power as good for all, or, more exactly in Straussian language, limitless private transnational money-capital expansion as the highest right and moral duty. Only what is consistent with or serves this supreme morality, it follows, deserves to exist. This is the alpha and omega of the covert doctrine and state, and careful reading can find no disconfirmation beneath the rhetoric of “noble lies”.

The Iraq Paradigm:  Genocide Strategy From 1990 On

The Iraq line of the geostrategic plan from 1990 to 2001 and after is a paradigmatic articulation of the covertly ruling moral logic. It launches into the theatre of war as direct war attack when U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, is instructed to green-light Saddam’s already known plan to invade Kuwait in 1990: “The US. has no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait”, she advises. To formalize the lie as official and traditional, she reports: “Secretary Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America”.[xxviii]

The dispute was, in fact, over Kuwait’s drawing out oil from reserves underlying Iraq as enabled by the colonial split of the oil-rich Kuwait province from Iraq – the classic divide-and-rule policy holding also in the division of oil-rich Kurdistan among four manufactured states. Saddam had good reason to trust the U.S., not only by the long-term official promise of neutrality but as blood-mix ally when he waged a U.S.-supported war of aggression against Iran – which still remains the target. Note the big lie to provoke the supreme crime of war has remained without any glare of publicity that might derail the plan.

When Saddam did exactly as planned by invading Kuwait, Bush Sr. raved about the Nazi-like aggression against a weaker country in the reverse projection that always defines the covert U.S. state before, through and after 9-11. So in the same name of “preventing aggression” U.S. “defense” forces invaded Iraq to destroy any life capacity it had to defend itself – always the strategy since the defeat in Vietnam. The genocide began by the massacre of many tens of thousands of fleeing soldiers. Recall the weeping young woman, the Kuwait ambassador’s daughter, planted next to baby incubators falsely claiming the monster Saddam had murdered the babies. This reverse projection was soon to be made real thousands of times over inside the victim society of Iraq.

Reverse projection of evil is the meta law of U.S. psy-ops propaganda in the deadly conflicts and wars it covertly starts. This is the supreme moral program in action as “noble lies”. In this case, the air-bombing after surrender continued from U.S. and “special ally” Britain as “sanctions of Iraq” to “prevent aggression” – again the reverse projection. In fact the bombs continually fell on the water and electricity infrastructures of the defenceless people and against all lines of repair to restore either – “the line in the sand against Iraq aggression”. We might bear in mind that Wolfowitz was Undersecretary of Defense under Secretary Cheney at this time, their positions not unlike those at the time of 9-11.

Air-bombing, as Bertrand Russell long ago pointed out, is inherently fascist in erasing the killed and maimed from sight while ensuring impunity for the bombers of defenceless people.  But all such mass murder is only collateral damage to the supreme moral goal as “natural right and law”.  The air bombing of Iraq’s water and electricity supplies dressed in one big lie after another continued in slow mass-murderous destruction of the people and their social life infrastructures years on end.

Denis Halliday, United Nations Humanitarian Co-ordinator for the mission finally called it “genocide” (Wikipedia calls it “the Persian Gulf War”) when he resigned in 1998 to protest against “the crimes against humanity”. But no-one knew until the U.S. Department of Defense Intelligence got out that the first sweep of Iraq was planned down to the mass killing of the infants and children. September 11 in 2001 is better understood in this wider context of strategic planning by the covert U.S. terror state. For years the non-stop bombing of the people’s central life-water support system deliberately engineered mass dying from diseases of children in the hundreds of thousands.

What was predicted by Harvard Medical School researchers from the continuous civilian infrastructure bombing by the U.S. military – the deaths of over 500,000 children- was verified by the counts scientifically taken at the risk of researchers as the bombing continued month after month with NATO support.[xxix]

Full-spectrum corporate money-sequencing through Iraq under the Comprehensive Privatization Program would only be enabled by “9-11”down the road. But first the bases of advanced social life organization needed to be destroyed. The later-leaked U.S. Defense Intelligence document entitled “Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities” expresses the moral DNA at work. I cite the key lines of U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency reports because they reveal the character of the supreme moral goal and its strategic planning.“With no domestic sources of water treatment replacement or chemicals like chlorine”and “laden with biological pollutants and bacteria”, the leaked Defense Intelligence Agency report says (italics added), “epidemics of such diseases as cholera, hepatitis, and typhoid” will “probably take six months before the [drinking and sewage water] system is fully degraded”.

The document continues, Conditions are favorable for communicable disease outbreaks [by the one-way air bombing] with the “most likely diseases during next sixty-ninety days of diarrheal diseases (particularly children) acute respiratory diseases (colds and influenza); typhoid; hepatitis (particularly children); measles, diphtheria, and pertussis (particularly children); meningitis including meningococcal (particularly children), cholera”. “Medical Problems in Iraq”, dated March 15, 1991, reports that the “water is less than 5 percent of the original supply – – diarrhea is four times above normal levels – – Conditions in Baghdad remain favorable for disease outbreaks”. The fifth document in June reports “almost all medicines in critically short supply” and “Gastroenteritis killing children – – in the south, 80 percent of the deaths are children”.[xxx]

In short, no limit to covert U.S. planning of indiscriminate mass murder for the supreme goal exists. The number who died in 9-11 suddenly pales in comparison. In all cases, it lets “those inimical to U.S. interests” know that there is no limit to how far the covert terror state will go for the supreme moral code not yet decoded. Combined with wars of aggression before and after 9-11, raining fire and explosions on civilians from the air so that no defense or escape can be made, saturating the fields of public meaning with big lies civilly dangerous to unmask, and bringing vast enrichment and new powers to transnational corporate conglomerates and their past and present CEO’s of the acting U.S. state – all become clear in their ultimate meaning once decoded. As the Democrat U.S. Secretary of State responded to the question of the 500,000 killed children, “we think the price was worth it”. No price is too much to pay for fulfilment of the transcendent project of the global U.S. state and its private capital rule as “the Free World”. “Those inimical to our interests” are those who oppose or are in the way of it, and thus “hate our freedom”.

The  Strategic Logic of Value through 9-11

By 2000 it was very clear to the U.S. strategic planners that the opening up of the Middle East and Central Asia after the fall of the Soviet Union had to be further pursued before it was too late.The great regret for the planning personnel of the coming Bush Jr. administration such as Paul Wolfowitz was that Iraq had not been taken over on the first invasion. The need for “full spectrum dominance” across the Middle East and Central Asia was thus the essential argument of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), with the prescription that no other “regional power”was able to contest this dominance.

The PNAC more explicitly recognised the strategic necessity for what Zbigniew Brzezinski had already called for in 1998 in The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives – namely,“the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat” to ensure public support for “the United States, as the sole and, indeed, the first truly global power”. The now once untouchable Central Asia, formerly of the USSR, was thus targeted as essential not only for its vast oil reserves, but to complete rule of the “first truly global power”.

The Project for the New American Century was more explicit than Brzezinski in 2000, the year before 9-11. As former Defence Minister of Canada, Paul Hellyer, lucidly puts it in a recent address (italics added):

“The authors of this American ‘Mein Kampf’ [the PNAC] for conquest recognized the difficulty of persuading sophisticated Americans to accept such a gigantic change in policy. So they wrote the following (subsequently removed from the record):  ‘Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary changes, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.’”[xxxi]

Excepting the Vietnam War ending in military defeat – but vastly enriched armaments and connected private bank and corporate interests – the hitherto favoured strategic-plan mode had been local death squads along with pervasive American media propaganda against the victims as “communists” and “sponsored by the USSR”. But once there was no remotely equal opponent in mass-kill capacities and transnational trade treaties now bound governments within corporate-rights law as overriding domestic laws and policies, anything became permissible. The plan for the “supranational sovereignty” of “limitless capital accumulation” in “full-spectrum power”required only 9-11 to derail world-wide peace, environmental and anti-corporate globalization movements growing into uncontrollable civilian capacity across borders and continents.

People were waking up to the one-way destruction of life systems at all levels. Iraq was not alone in the genocidal clearance of formersocialist infrastructures uniting peoples across ethnic lines. A far more democratic Yugoslavia was set up and destroyed by financial means in the same year by the 1991 U.S. Foreign Operations Appropriations Law after the 1980’s multiplication of public interest rates to over 20percent primedevoured social life support structures across the world.

This was the unseen financialization base of a global war against public and worker economic and political powers that was reaping a cumulative global civilian reaction of opposition to “the plan”. 9-11 ensured against the fightback of financially dispossessed peoples with the signature reverse operation – diversion to an external “terrorist threat” that stood in the way of more sweeping transnational corporate wars on more peoples being dispossessed. Civil war in Yugoslavia long targeted by Reagan’s secret National Security Directive 133 as early as 1984 was predicted and occurred after the underlying employment and welfare structure of multi-ethnic Yugoslavia collapsed under deliberate financial destabilization. (The villain of the piece, Slobodan Milosevic, was himself a major banker).

In oil-rich Somalia, two-thirds of its territory had been leased out to four transnational oil companies by 1993 – a condition of lost grounds of life for Somalians behind the primeval civil war ever since. These are merely expressions of the underlying logic of value and the plan for its supranational rule beneath the lights of publicity as “discretion”. The examples are myriad from Latin America to South-East Asia to sub-Sahara Africa and the Middle East to Israel and Canada today. But a descriptive law of the supreme moral goal holds across all diverse instances of its expression.

Strategic planning for the destruction of social life infrastructures of peoples for private money capital gain without limit is the ultimate value program throughout from the U.S. to China.

The people of the U.S. are not exempt from their own system of covert state rule, although democratic heroism here joins with the larger world against it. This is the ultimate moral struggle on earth today. The moral politics of the disorder are the enforcement of the descriptive law.  This is the ruling meta program, and it is carcinogenic by its nature. The supreme motive force it multiplies by is privately self-maximizing money possession (individual and corporate)seeking to be limitlessly more.More = Better. Less = Militant Demand for More.

The “9-11” event is the epicentre of the supreme moral objective seated in Wall Street. Itis best understood as an ultimate strategic maximizer of the italicized formula. Exactly expressed, its ultimately regulating axiology is private money inputs through all life to maximally more private money outputs in ad infinitum progression: Money à Life as Means à More Money or, formally, $àLasMà$1,2,3,4— N.

At the highest level of anchoring moral meaning, this private money-demand rule seeks to be absolute and total across borders with no quarter. “Full spectrum dominance” is its military method. Yet what distinguishes it from the Nazi rule it connects with as prior transnational corporate partner in war making is that in the U.S. private money demand multiplication at the top is the only organising value meaning. 97% of its money command is produced by private bank notes of others’ debt to the private bank system centred in Wall Street. Yet despite this very narrow centre of control,almost no global territory or field of life is outside its rule and strategic plan.

The “Trans-Pacific Partnership” is but its latest expression – focusing on private knowledge-patent money sequencing to rule out generic pharmaceuticals and other life-and-death knowledge commons from which higher profits cannot be made. The one underlying common principle throughout all phases is transnational corporate and bank money sequencing to more. Its converse is to overrideall life requirements at all levels, and strategically planned crises and wars are the advancing lines of control and enforcement.

What is not recognized through all the genocidal wars,ecocidal results, collapsing social life support systems and falling wages, however,is that this ruling value sequence rationally leads to9-11” as maximal strategic payoff progression.“Absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event”, the Project for the New American Century declared before 9-11,

“ – – the U.S risks the loss of a global security order that is uniquely friendly to American principles and prosperity”.

Decoded, this meant in theory and practice more transnational private money sequence progression to ever more control over all still-uncontrolled assets for more and richer returns without limit of take or life destruction. But these are unspeakable lines of value meaning, and that is likely why, for example, Wikipedia keeps altering the entry of my name with conspiracy theory attributions and smears to ensure that such deep-structural diagnosis does not gain currency. That is how this system works, and analysis will provide more variations of this gagging method on 9-11 ahead.

The strategic necessity of the 9-11 event for “global security order”can even be asserted by the principal architects of the administration under which it happened, and those who observe this can be dismissed as “conspiracy theorists”. Reverse projection is, as always, the essential psychological operation. The documented but shouted-down logistics included V-P Cheney having control of the air-defence of NORAD six months before the event to manage the relocation of the stand-by fighter jets to Alaska and Canada on September 11, 2001, and more broadly, no jet intervention for almost two hours until the full operation was completed.

The tell-tale signs that it was not the “foreign act of war” which was trumpeted were that President Bush Jr. continued exposed in set-up photo ops with school children during the “attack on the U.S.” Not a wheel turned in U.S. jet intervention or homeland protection. No evident defensive action or response whatever occurred.Until strategic security from public uprising and awareness was established, the blame on foreign terrorists was repeated non-stop around the clock with no-one raising a question.

Weeks thus passed in inaction. As the future director of the 9-11 Commission said years before 9-11: “The effort and resources we devote to averting or containing this threat now, in the ‘before’ period, will seem woeful, even pathetic, when compared to what will happen ‘after’.”[xxxii]And so one war of invasion after another was made upon entirely unproven sources of the “attack” who were, in fact,states and peoples standing in the way of vast publicly owned oil-fields. These had to be taken for control by U.S. and allied state armies for the private transnational corporations employing their leaders in and out of office. Money-sequence oil to quadruple-plus more has been the story ever since.[xxxiii]If 80% of the 19 claimed suicide agents were from oil-ally Saudi Arabia, if none of their identity paperscould have survived the destroyed buildings, and if several of these “hijackers” were apparently still alive, why did none of the vaunted “free press” ever investigate 9-11?  The “noble lie” is built into every step.

The total demolition of the buildings on 9-11 was professionally executed – impossible to manage except by a technologically sophisticated state with intelligence support, as former State Secretary for Defense of Germany, Andreas von Bülow,has concisely observed at the first-order level: “To hijack four big airliners within a few minutes and fly them into targets within a single hour and doing so on complicated flight routes! That is unthinkable, without backing from the secret apparatuses of state and industry”.[xxxiv]Turning huge fireproofed steel-girded buildings in the centre of New York into fuming debris in a few seconds and melting car bodies nearby extends the problem of physical impossibility by jet fires. That is why the firemen were killed by being “falsely told it was a fire, not military ordnance”.The fire-squad commander who told me this asked me not to name him because of the harm that might come to him “from the media” – the 9-11 gag again. Yet the core and deciding issue is strangely avoided by all:

Whatever the technics, every step before and after 9-11 took place in accordance with the supreme moral objective and covert-state strategic methods to execute it.The smoking gun is incinerated buildings. Every step “before” and “after” goes back to the motive, the crime syndicate, the plan, the payoffs, the seizures and dispossessions.

Reducing the Auto-Determination of Nations Requires the Plan

To reduce the “auto-determination of nations practised in past centuries” for the “supranational sovereigntyof an intellectual and banker elite”could only be made possible through “full spectrum dominance” on the groundas the Project for the New American Century had independently explained, and“the catastrophic and catalyzing event” required was “9-11”, however it was accomplished.

Nicholas Rockefeller was already speaking of “the plan”eleven months before the “9-11” call for emergency help when he said to his close friend, Aaron Russo:

“There’s going to be an event Aaron…We are going to go into Afghanistan so we can put a gas pipeline to the Caspian Sea…We are going to go into Iraq to take the oil and to establish a base in the Middle East and we’re going to go into Venezuela and try and get rid of Chávez – – -Through it, you fight the War on Terror and then you go into Iraq – – the media can convince everybody that it’s real – -”[xxxv]

Lest the reader doubt this witness, it has nowhere been disavowed any more than the patriarch’s disclosure of “the plan” itself which is also available on the right-wingCato Institute website. All express the underlying but observable moral law of motion of this ruling value system –to acquire maximally more money demand for private use and control with no public or other barrier across internal and external borders by war, trade treaty or any other means whatever the sacrifice of others’ lives.They do not count in the calculus. All life is an “externality”. There is no step of the covert U.S. state that does not obey the formula.

The legality of international treaty was and remains the transnational legal method already established in the decade before 9-11 to provide the supranational framework of private transnational money-sequence rule as the moral absolute to which all conformed. Coded as “the global free market”, it is neither free nor a market, but oligopolist corporate control of supply, demand, and inert-state policy. In fact, the supreme morality as defined overrides all economic interests themselves by absolute protection of private transnational “profit opportunity” alone -with thousands of regulations across borders governed by this moral absolute. This too is testable by examination of the articles of any transnational trade treaty in the NATO control zone.

Policy structures follow in line. Tax, financial, natural resource and investment policies are structured by law and right to ignore all destruction of social and natural life and life capital bases to grow transnational private money sequences to limitlessly more.This is why the self-multiplying money sequencing with no committed life function has expanded in accordance with this moral absolute through and after “9-11”. Observe how the ultimately regulating principles of value prescription and description all conform to one axiological syntax across controllable theoretical, economic, political, and other levels of the global system.[xxxvi]

Thus whatever the world uprisings against it and however destructive of the planet’s social and ecological life bases, this law of motion remains the ruling constant. Not even the life impoverishment of the growing majority and the collapsing of the biosphere itself are allowed to modify its supranational ruling form. Even a tenth of one percent tax on its ruinous money-sequence tides or fraction of legal tender to back them is off-limits.

Not only 9-11 itself, but global policy locks of every kind are the expressions of this ruling moral absolute as inviolable and supreme, however much they destroy people’s lives without any committed life function – the normalization of private-bank compound-interest debts bleeding peoples dry, destabilizing speculations in sovereign currencies and bonds, asset-stripping buyouts and disemploying mergers, predatory repossessions of homes and loan-shark rates on poor debtors including college students with no limit, endless takeovers of productive firms by foreign multinationals with only banknotes, ecologically devastating mega-projects and loot-mining with no environmental or social criteria, lethal armaments manufacture led by bribery for sales to despots, Wall Street intermediations in every project with no life commitment, huge hauls of financial lifeblood from public privatizations to equity capital multiplying outside of securities regulations, stock-market derivatives exploiting fabricated money-sequence tides and futures at the cost of hundreds of millions more hungry people, and- in general – limitless corporate predation of societies’ domestic resources, home markets, worker pay and benefits, and public tax revenues. 

With all regulating life standards thus erased and repelled,a direct question arises: Why would the sacrifice of a few thousand mixed-nation people and two iconic buildings count against this covert value calculus if it reaped the world in payoff to the under one percent  and could always be blamed on the Enemy to achieve even more full-spectrum dominance of the ultimate objective over all life and life systems that limit its growth and universalization?

Conversely, and in particular at the geostrategic armed force level, if any society does not yet fit into the world system as function of it, armed invasion can now follow as “defense against the terrorists” who have “attacked America” in 9-11. As U.S. General Wesley Clark has also reported for the public record,this strategic line of war has been explicit in “U.S. defense” strategic planning for Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Iran, and Syria since 9-11.

The second part of this essay is forthcoming on Global Research.

The complete text published by the Journal of 9/11 Studies can be downloaded in pdf

Professor John McMurtry is a moral philosopher specializing in social value systems and life-value analysis. His many articles and books have been internationally published and translated, and include multi-volume work for UNESCO’s Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS). He is University Professor Emeritus at the University of Guelph, and an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Notes

[i]Understandably, the improbable physics of the official account of the destruction of the WTC buildings by jet-plane impact and office fires has drawn increasing interest. The ejection outwards of steel columns and assemblies, the severing of fireproofed steel columns, the evidence of molten metal in the building remains, the acceleration rates of the descending buildings, the presence of nanothermite in the dust and the statements of numerous eyewitnesses are some of the obvious signs of controlled demolition. Detailed discussion of these and other difficulties with the official account can be found in the Journal of 9/11 Studies and on the website of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth.

http://www.journalof911studies.com/

http://www.ae911truth.org/

My analysis of the official U.S.National Institute of Technology and Standards (NIST) accounts goes further: I argue that we have been given non-explanationby erasure.

[ii] One of the best sources of critical information about the 9/11 crimes is The 9/11 Toronto Report: International Hearings on the Events of September 11, 2001, edited by James Gourley (International Center for 9/11 Studies, 2012)

 [iii]http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-09-26/guest-post-globalist-think-tank-suggests-using-engineered-event-excuse-war-iran//

 [iv] See Charles Higham, Trading with the Enemy: An Expose of the Nazi-American Money Plot 1933-1949 ( New York: Dell Publishing Co , 1983), the classic documentation and historical account. Transnational corporations involved after war was declared in 1942 included IBM (concentration camp identification system), Dupont (chemical gases), General Motors, Ford (armoured vehicles) and Union Banking (in which George Bush Jr.’s grandfather was a Director, making the family’s fortune). All ended up not only with their property intact or returned, but most with reparations for damages caused to it.

[v] An anonymous reviewer of this journal has kindly pointed out that the concept of “New World Order,” was known in Nazi-occupied Europe as “l’ordre nouveau,” (France and Belgium), “nieuweorde” (Dutch), and “nyordre” (Norwegian) in collaborationist discourses during the early 1940’s.

 [vi] After the massive defeat of the German armed forces in the Battle of Stalingrad in January 1943, Martin Bormann, the Deputy Fuhrer and the main linkage of the Nazi party with the industrial and financial cartels that ran the German economy, conceived a plan for post-War organization of German Nazis in Latin America, South Africa, Egypt and Indonesia called the “Organization of Veterans of the S.S.,” or Odessa by acronym. A main element of the Odessa was led by General ReinhardGehlen who was head of the Foreign Armies East in German Army Headquarters. He was responsible for all intelligence operations through East Europe and the Soviet Union, and in the remaining months of the war deposited the extensive files in a hiding place in the Bavarian Alps. After the war was over, he negotiated a secret treaty to work “jointly with the Americans” on the basis of the detailed files and the services of some 4000 agents. “By one estimate, some 70 per cent of the total intelligence flowing into NATO’s military committee and Allied headquarters (SHAPE) on the Soviet Union, the countries of East Europe, the rest of Europe and indeed the rest of the world was generated [from this source].” (Carl Oglesby, “The Secret Treaty of Fort Hunt”. Covert Action Bulletin, 35, Fall 1990, pp. 8–16.) Corroborating this heavily researched account, Lake Sagaris reports in her detailed study of Pinochet’s Chile (Sagaris, op. cit.) that Nazi activity and influence in Chile was particularly widespread during Pinochet’s military dictatorship from 1973–90 (cited in Graeme Mount, “The Long Shadow of Chile’s Fascism”, Literary Review of Canada, October 1996, pp. 8–10).  Pinochet’s coup occurred on September 11, 1973.

[vii]See note 8, and for ongoing exposure of the moving nexus of narco-terrorist-covert-U.S.-state operations across continents, see continual reports by globalresearch.ca.

[viii]McCoy, Alfred W.; Cathleen B. Read, Leonard P. Adams II.The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia.CIA complicity in the global drug trade. New York: Harper & Row. 1972 and Jonathan Quitny, The Crimes of PatriotsA True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA.New York: Simon and Shuster, 1986.

[ix] See Michel Chossudovsky, “Terrorism with a ‘Human Face’: The History of America’s Death Squads/Death Squads in Iraq and Syria. /The Historical Roots of US-NATO’s Covert War on Syria, http://www.globalresearch.ca/terrorism-with-a-human-face-the-history-of-americas-death-squads/5317564

[x]US Joint Chiefs of Staff, “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba (Top Secret), US Department of Defense, 13 March 1962, published online in a more comprehensive form by the national Security Archive on 30 April 2001, months before 9-11. (I am indebted to James Bamford, Body of Secrets. New York: Doubleday from which the text quotation comes, and to Jeremy Keenan, “How the U.S. Has been sponsoring terrorism in the Sahara”, New Internationalist, December 12, 2013, p. 35). Lest one wonder why this mass-murderous plot to terrorize and kill American and other citizens was not kept secret by the covert U.S. state, and indeed released just before 9-11, one needs to bear in mind that Rockefeller and the Right do not object to elite knowledge of “the plan” to liquidate national sovereignty and self-determination for private banker world rule with the collaboration of the U.S. corporate media in not reporting it. Supreme arrogance and helplessness of opponents to do anything about it are part of the supreme morality, and freedom of information at the top long after the action of seems internal to the design of U.S. supreme power. It validates it as de facto reality.

[xi]Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives. New York: Basic Books, 1998 :“Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.” (p. 211). On the international front, Democrat national security adviser Brzezinski advised : “The defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union was the final step in the rapid ascendance of a Western Hemisphere power, the United States, as the sole and, indeed, the first truly global power.” (p. xiii) and“To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.”(p.40). The 9-11 event managed to fulfil all these objectives at once. 

[xii] I document and diagnose these world trends and their economic value doctrine and its bases in depth in Unequal Freedoms: The Global Market as an Ethical System, Toronto: Garamond/ University of Toronto Press, 1998.

[xiii] While this analysis does track the David Rockefeller thread of “the plan”, it by no means restricts explanation to this dominant thread of moral meaning.  Many other dominant money-sequence interests are in interlocked involvement with the supreme value purpose and its system enactment. In this interlock, for example, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo own Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch/Shell, BP and Chevron Texaco along with Deutsche Bank, BNP, and Barclays, these corporations in turn having heavy involvement in supranational armaments and media systems. We may observe the wider interlocking system of transnational money-sequence control of global industry across domains in the Rockefeller portfolio of Exxon Mobil, Chevron Texaco, BP Amoco, Marathon Oil, Freeport McMoran, Quaker Oats, ASARCO, United, Delta, Northwest, ITT, International Harvester, Xerox, Boeing, Westinghouse, Hewlett-Packard, Honeywell, International Paper, Pfizer, Motorola, Monsanto, Union Carbide and General Foods. (See concise summary at http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-federal-reserve-cartel-the-eight-families/2508). Wherever the U.S. state goes in demand, crime and  war it is to enforce this private transnational money sequence system. 

 [xiv] Cited by <http://freedom Cited by <http://freedomlaw.com/coffee.html> which lists among its sponsors the Cato Institute, the Heritage, and the Mackinac Centre for Public Policy.

 [xv] This complex point is spelled out in the second edition of The Cancer Stage of Capitalism/ From Crisis to Cure. London: Pluto and Palgrave-Macmillan, 2013.

[xvi] The most developed account of this and the above citation and their context is by Daniel Estulin, The True Story of the Bilderberg Group. Walterville:Trine Day. 2007 (also translated in Spanish).  Estulin’s grandfather was a senior KGB agent and his father was expelled from the Soviet Union for his activities on behalf of free speech.

[xvii] I am indebted to Paul Hellyer, former Minister of Defence of Canada, for this fact and its disclosure.

[xviii] I define reverse projection as attributing to others what you are doing yourself as the reason for attacking them.  U.S. foreign policy is defined by this generic reversal operation.  The reversals have five standard operations: i. claiming humanitarian assistance to victims of a regime when in fact bombing or attacking them; ii. standing up to terrorism when by far the greater terrorism is perpetrated by doing so; iii. covertly supporting the very terrorist organisations as a justification for these dominant terrorist activities; iv. imposing the extremest form of terror, torture, to “stop the terrorists”; v. planning, organising and waging the supreme crime of humanity, a war of aggression, to compel the other society to “comply with the laws and norms  of the community of nations”.

[xix] Cited in archive.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=5166United States.

[xx] Social science report of the Leo Strauss school of thought and its national security disciples is provided by Shadia Drury, Leo Strauss and the American Right. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999.

 [xxi] Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953, p. 60.

[xxii]Cancer Stage, ibid, spells out this great aporia in Marx’s theory at both life capital and money capital ends.

[xxiii]Rich introductory overview of these connections is provided by physician Dr. Jim Macgregor, “Fascism in America” http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Neo-fascism_America.html.  I originally spelled out the principles and behaviours in common in “Fascism and Neo-Conservatism: Is There a Difference?” (1983) Praxis International  (1983) 1, 86-102.

[xxiv] This historical pathogenesis is tracked in depth in McMurtry, The Cancer Stage of Capitalism: From Crisis to Cure. Ibid, in both first and second editions, 1999/2013.

[xxv] I spell this meaning out in formal depth in “Behind Global System Collapse: The Life-Blind Structure of Economic Rationality”, Journal of Business Ethics (2012), 108:1, 49-61.

[xxvi] Pareto, Vilfredo, (1971 [1906]), Manual of Political Economy, New York: A.M. Kelley, p. 12.

[xxvii] John Rawls assumes the self-maximizing principle as the ultimately regulating principle of rationality in A Theory of Justice when he says: “From the standpoint of the original position, it is rational for parties to suppose that they do want a larger share – – The concept of rationality invoked here – – is the standard one familiar in social theory” – –  (A Theory of Justice . Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971, p 143).  As to how this first premise shared by “social theory” as “standard” leads to entailments that are not tracked is spelled out step by step in John McMurtry, “Human Rights v. Corporate Rights: Understanding Life-Value, the Civil Commons, and Social Justice,” Studies in Social Justice, 5(1) (Summer, 2011), 11-61.

[xxviii]NYT, Sept 23 1990.

[xxix] The fuller description and documentation of the war crimes and crimes against humanity by the U.S. in Iraq from 1990 on can be found in Value Wars: The Global Market versus the Life Economy . London: Pluto, 2002, pp. 30-36.

[xxx] Originally available on <www.gulflink.osd.mil>, but the information has been since removed from this site since it was cited in Value Wars.   See also:

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/mcs/2004/00000020/00000002/art00002

[xxxi] “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century.  A report of the Project for the New American Century, September 2000.”  The description of this “new Mein Kampf” is from Hon. Paul Hellyer, “The G20 Fiddles While The Planet Burns”, Global Breakthrough Energy Conference, Sunday, November 11, 2012.

 [xxxii] See note 47 and page context for the bright idea from the Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission” long before 9-11.

 [xxxiii] The average price of oil was $24.08 per barrel in August 2001, $28.27 in 2000, and  $10.20 in 1998.

[xxxiv]Tagesspiegel, 13. Jan. 2002.  Andreas von Bulow is an especially relevant analyst on this score as almost uniquely a renowned scholar in covert-state activities and a former minister of defence.

[xxxv]<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGF6DDd8Uto>.  I am indebted to software engineer Kip Warner for this reference.

[xxxvi] This framework of diagnosis of the system 9-11 expresses is spelled out in systematic depth in The Cancer  Stage of Capitalism / From Crisis to Cure forthcoming April 2013, the second edition of the original 1999 study. 

 

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Iran’s radical pseudo-Marxist cult Mohajedeen e Khalq, better known by its acronym MEK, is somewhat reminiscent of the Israel Lobby’s American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in that it operates somewhat in the shadows and is nevertheless able to punch well beyond its weight by manipulating politicians and understanding how American government functions on its dark side. MEK promotes itself by openly supporting a very popular hardline policy of “democratic opposition” advocating “regime change” for Iran while also successfully selling its reform credentials, i.e. that it is no longer a terrorist group. This latter effort apparently convinced then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on 2013 as she and President Barack responded to the group’s affability campaign by delisting MEK from the government list of terrorist organizations.

This shift in attitude towards MEK was a result of several factors. First, everyone in Washington and the Establishment hates Iran. And second, the Executive Order 13224, which designates Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization, ipso facto defines any group fighting against it as one of the good guys, justifying the change

MEK is best described as a cult rather than as a political movement because of its internal discipline. Its members are, according to the testimony of those who have somehow escaped, subjected to considerable indoctrination best described as brainwashing. Though not exactly imprisoned, adherents are kept isolated and separated insofar as possible and cannot contact their families. Their possessions are collectivized so they have no money or other resources. If they are in contravention of the numerous rules that guide the organization they are punished, including physically, and there are reports of members being executed for trying to escape.

The current head of the group is Maryam Rajavi, the wife of the deceased co-founder of MEK, Massoud. She is reported to be politically savvy and speaks excellent English learned in part to enable her to communicate with adoring American politicians. The group itself was founded in 1965. Its name means “People’s Holy Warriors,” derived from its Marxist/populist roots and its religiosity. It was not unlike the Taliban which developed in adjacent Afghanistan. During the 1970’s it rebelled against the Shah and was involved in bombing and shooting American targets. It executed U.S. Army Lt. Col. Lewis Hawkins in 1973 as he was walking home from the U.S. Embassy and in 1975 it killed two American Air Force officers in their chauffer driven car, an incident that was studied and used in CIA training subsequently as an example of how not to get caught and killed by terrorists. Between 1976 and 1978 the group bombed American commercial targets and killed three Rockwell defense contractors and one Texaco executive.

MEK welcomed the Iranian revolution and also the occupation of the U.S. Embassy but soon fell afoul of the Ayatollah Khomeini regime. It eventually moved to join Iran’s enemy Saddam Hussein in Iraq and participated on the Iraqi side in the bloodletting that followed when the two countries went to war in 1980-8. For that reason alone, MEK is particularly hated by most Iranians and the repeated assertion that it is some kind of “Iranian democracy” alternative is ridiculous as the people in Iran would never accept it. In terms of the duplicity surrounding its marketing, it is reminiscent of Iraqi con artist Ahmed Chalabi, who also had little following inside Iraq but was able to convince Pentagon geniuses like Paul Wolfowitz that he represented some kind of democratic movement. At the time Chalabi was also secretly working for Iran.

MEK was protected by Saddam and later by the U.S. invaders who found a weapon to use against Iran useful. They were housed in Camp Ashraf near Baghdad, and later, after Ashraf was closed, at so-called Camp Liberty. In 2013, when the Iraqis insisted that they go elsewhere the President Barack Obama facilitated their removal to Albania under the auspices of the United Nations refugee program, with the $20 million dollar bill being footed by Washington. The organization’s political arm, the National Council of Resistance or Iran (NCRI), meanwhile established itself in Paris under the control of Maryam Rajavi, in part to place it closer to the American and European sources of its political legitimacy and financing. In 2001, to make itself more palatable, the group had renounced violence.

The MEK folks in Albania have become a bit of a problem. Through various additional migrations they have multiplied and now number around 3,000 and have largely adhered to their cultish ways even though one of the original objectives of the move into Europe was to somehow deprogram and “deradicalize” them in an environment far removed from Iran-Iraq. Part of the problem is that the Albanian government likes the U.N. subsidies used to support the MEK associates, but it will not let them work as they have no legal status and they cannot resettle or lead normal lives. So they resort to criminal activity that includes promotion of fraudulent charities, drug trafficking and even a form of slavery in which their own people are sold and traded as laborers. The temporary solution has been to move the MEK out of a rundown university property in the capital Tirana to a more remote site in northern Albania dubbed Ashraf-3, but local people believe that that is just kicking the can down the road and that MEK should be forced to go somewhere else, preferably in the United States, which seems to like them so much.

Also, Albania is majority Muslim and has been subjected to the same Saudi Arabian ultra-conservative wahhabi promotion backed by lots of money that has plagued many states in the Middle East. Albanians accustomed to the mild form of Turkish Islam suddenly found themselves confronting the Sunni-Shia divide and also the MEK as agents of both Saudi Arabia and Israel. Many outraged Albanians see the unreformed MEK in their midst as a terror time bomb waiting to go off, but the government, under pressure from the U.S. Embassy has not sought their removal.

Meanwhile back in the United States everything involving the non-deradicalized MEK is just hunky dory. MEK and the NCRI are enemies of Iran and also seem to have plenty of money to spend, so they buy high ranking American speakers to appear at their events. Rudy Giuliani and John Bolton have appeared regularly, as have Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Jeanne Shaheen. At a 2015 appearance in Paris, Giuliani brought the crowd to its feet by calling for “Regime change!” after shouting out that the “Ayatollah must go!” In August 2017, Senators Roy Blunt, John Cornyn, Thom Tillis and Carl Levin met with Rajavi in Paris. Newt Gingrich also considers himself a friend of the Iranian resistance while Elaine Chao, Secretary of Labor and wife of Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell spoke in Paris for five minutes in 2015 and was paid $50,000. The payments made to the other politicians have not been revealed.

And then there is the Saudi and Israeli angle. Saudi Arabia is now the major funder of MEK/NCRI. It’s intelligence chief Turki al-Faisal spoke before the group in 2017. Israel funded the group in its early days and its external spy service Mossad continues to use MEK stay-behinds in Iran to assassinate scientists and tamper with computer systems. The CIA, which recently expanded its anti-Iran task force, it also working closely with MEK. And Giuliani, Bolton, Chao are all in the White House inner circle, which, not coincidentally, is baying for Iranian blood.

Lost in all of the above is any conceivable American interest. It is difficult to even make the claim that Iran threatens the United States or any vital interest and the drive to decapitate the Mullahs, both literally and figuratively, really comes from Riyadh and Tel Aviv. And there is potential collateral damage where it really might matter as MEK cultists continues to sit and fester in a holding pattern maintained by Washington in the heart of Europe. What comes next? War of some kind with Iran is appearing to be increasingly likely given recent remarks by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, threating to crush the Iranians. Is Washington intending to send the MEK warriors on sabotage missions inside Iran, something like the resistance to the Germans in World War 2? Maybe Giuliani and Bolton know the answer to that question.

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«Soberania» de Bruxelas, não de Washington?

May 29th, 2018 by Manlio Dinucci

Hoje, 21 dos 27 países da União Europeia (depois da Brexit), com cerca de 90% da população da União, fazem parte da NATO, cujas “normas” permitem que os EUA mantenham, desde 1949, a posição de Comandante Supremo Aliado na Europa e de todos os outros comandos-chave; eles permitem que os Estados Unidos determinem as escolhas políticas e estratégicas da Aliança, concordando, em segredo, especialmente com a Alemanha, França e Grã-Bretanha, tornando-as aprovadas pelo Conselho do Atlântico Norte, no qual, de acordo com as “regras” da NATO, não há voto ou decisão maioritária, mas as decisões são sempre tomadas por unanimidade.


Steve Bannon – o antigo estratéga de Donald Trump, teórico do nacional-populismo – exprimiu o seu apoio entusiástico à aliança Lega-Movimento 5 Stelle para «o governo da mudança». Numa entrevista (Sky TG24, 26 maggio)  declarou:«Durante Março, a questão fundamental, em Itália foi a questão da soberania. O resultado das eleições foi ver estes italianos que queriam recuperar a soberania, controlar o seu país. Basta de regras que chegam de Bruxelas».

No entanto, não diz «basta de ordens que chegam de Washington».

Não é apenas a União Europeia que exerce pressão sobre a Itália para orientar as suas escolhas políticas, dominada pelos poderosos círculos económicos e financeiros, especialmente os alemães e os franceses, que temem uma rotura das “normas”, úteis aos seus interesses.

É exercida uma forte pressão  sobre a Itália, pelos Estados Unidos, de maneira menos evidente, mas não menos agressiva, que temem uma ruptura dos “preceitos” que subordinam a Itália aos seus interesses económicos e estratégicos.

Isto faz parte das políticas que Washington adopta para a Europa, através de diversas administrações e com métodos diferentes, perseguindo sempre o mesmo objectivo: manter a Europa sob a influência dos EUA.

A ferramenta fundamental desta estratégia é a NATO. O Tratado de Maastricht estabelece, no art. 42,   que “a União respeita as obrigações de alguns Estados membros, que acreditam que a sua defesa comum é conseguida através da NATO”. E o protocolo n. 10 sobre a cooperação, estabelece que a NATO “continua a ser a base da defesa” da União Europeia.

Hoje, 21 dos 27 países da União Europeia, com cerca de 90% da população da União, fazem parte da NATO, cujas “normas” permitem que os EUA mantenham, desde 1949, a posição de Comandante Supremo Aliado na Europa e de todos os outros comandos-chave; eles permitem que os Estados Unidos determinem as escolhas políticas e estratégicas da Aliança, concordando, em segredo, especialmente com a Alemanha, França e Grã-Bretanha, tornando-as aprovadas pelo Conselho do Atlântico Norte, no qual, de acordo com as “regras” da NATO, não há voto ou decisão maioritária, mas as decisões são sempre tomadas por unanimidade.

A adesão dos países de Leste à NATO – anteriormente membros do Pacto de Varsóvia, da Federação Jugoslava e mesmo da URSS – permitiu aos Estados Unidos ligar esses países (além da Ucrânia e da Geórgia, de facto, já na NATO), mais a Washington do que a Bruxelas.

Washington conseguiu, assim, empurrar a Europa para uma nova Guerra Fria, colocando-a  na primeira linha da frente, de um confronto cada vez mais perigoso com a Rússia, útil aos interesses políticos, económicos e estratégicos dos Estados Unidos.

Típico é o facto de que, na semana em que a Europa se debatia arduamente sobre a “questão italiana”,desembarcava em Antuérpia (Bélgica), a 1ª Brigada Blindada da 1ª Divisão de Cavalaria dos EUA,proveniente de Fort Hood, no Texas, sem causar qualquer reacção significativa. Desembarcaram 3.000 soldados, com 87 tanques Abrams M-1, 125 veículos de combate Bradley, 18 canhões móveis Paladin, 976 veículos militares e outros equipamentos, que serão posicionados em cinco bases na Polónia e enviados daí para contornar o território russo.

Continua-se a “melhorar a prontidão e a letalidade das forças USA na Europa”, destinando 16,5 biliões de dólares  desde 2015.

Assim, enquanto desembarcavam na Europa os tanques enviados por Washington, Steve Bannon incitava os italianos e os europeus a “reconquistar a sua soberania” que se encontra na posse de Bruxelas.

Manlio Dinucci

 

Artigo original em italiano :

«Sovranità» da Bruxelles, non da Washington

Il manifesto, 29 de Maio de 2018

Tradutora: Maria Luísa de Vasconcellos

 

VIDEO por PandoraTV :

 

 

Links:

https://tg24.sky.it/politica/2018/05/26/maria-latella-intervista-steve-bannon.html

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/resource.html?uri=cellar:9e8d52e1-2c70-11e6-b497-01aa75ed71a1.0019.01/DOC_2&format=PDF

https://taskandpurpose.com/army-ironhorse-brigade-deployment-russia/

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[1]

Podemos bombardear o mundo e desfazê-lo em pedaços, mas não podemos bombardear o mundo e construir a paz” (Michael Franti)[2]

 David e Golias num mundo às avessas

O Presidente Donald Trump não parece partilhar da opinião de Georges Clémenceau de que “a guerra é um assunto demasiado sério para ser deixado nas mãos dos militares”. Esta frase talvez adquira um peso ainda maior quando cruzada com o comentário acerbo cunhado pelo mesmo estadista francês, segundo o qual “na História, milagrosamente, a América é a única nação que passou directamente da barbárie para a decadência sem percorrer a habitual etapa da civilização.”

Com efeito, pouco depois da sua tomada de posse enquanto 45º Presidente dos Estados Unidos, em Janeiro de 2017, Trump concedeu poderes acrescidos ao Pentágono e à CIA. Ao fazê-lo, cedeu à pressão militar na esperança de que este acréscimo de poder ajudasse a derrotar mais rapidamente o chamado Estado Islâmico e a enfrentar os seus outros inimigos de forma mais eficiente.

A decisão de Trump depressa se traduziu num aumento dramático de ataques teleguiados com drones levados a cabo no Yemen, no Afeganistão, no Paquistão e na Somália – países com os quais os EUA não estão oficialmente em guerra – e apenas veio exacerbar a devastadora “Guerra contra o Terror”. Segundo o grupo de controlo sem fins lucrativos Airwars[3]não é, assim, surpreendente que Trump apenas precisasse de sete meses para ultrapassar o número de mortes de civis ocorridas ao longo dos oito anos da presidência de Obama. Uma série de documentos fornecidos por um informador e publicados pelo The Intercept[4],, revelou, por sua vez,os mecanismos internos deste programa no Afeganistão, concluindo que perto de nove em cada dez ataques teleguiados com drones causaram a morte de alvos não intencionais. Heather Linebaugh, uma analista do exército americano que trabalhou no âmbito do referido programa, fez um depoimento condenatório[5]neste sentido.

Mais ainda, no dia 13 de Abril de 2017, a força aérea americana largou a bomba convencional mais potente do arsenal dos EUA, alcunhada de “A mãe de todas as bombas” (MOAB), em cima de um complexo de caves do Daesh situado na província afegã de Nangarhar, numa área remota da fronteira com o Paquistão. Enquanto o Presidente Trump se referia ao ataque como a “mais uma missão muito, muito bem sucedida”, o ex-Presidente do Afeganistão e aliado americano, Hamid Karzai, declarou que “isto não é guerra contra o terror, mas o abuso mais desumano e brutal do nosso país enquanto terra para testar armas novas e perigosas”. Em idêntica reacção contra este bombardeamento, Dennis Kucinich, que foi duas vezes candidato à presidência e é representante democrático da Câmara dos Deputados americana, perguntava: “Como é que o Presidente Trump, depois de uma campanha durante a qual questionou repetidamente as aventuras americanas no Iraque e na Líbia e até alertou o Presidente Obama para que não bombardeasse a Síria depois do uso alegado de gás venenoso por parte do governo sírio, caiu na armadilha destas guerras? Como é que Trump, depois de ter questionado os modos de agir do Pentágono e da CIA e tendo ele próprio sido vítima de fugas ao nível do governo, permitiu que fugas de informação e a desinformação nos conduzissem até ao limiar da guerra?” Kucinich alertou ainda para o facto de “os bombardeamentos estarem a aumentar nos vários países e de o número de mortes de civis inocentes continuar a crescer ampliando o ressentimento contra a América. Se não invertermos rapidamente a marcha, haverá um desencadeamento global de forças que poderá ser irremediável.”[6]

Vale a pena sublinhar que esta super bomba foi usada contra uma das milícias mais pequenas que os EUA enfrentam um pouco por todo o lado. Com efeito, estima-se que o ISIS-Khorasan conte 700 combatentes no Afeganistão contra os 8.500 elementos das tropas terrestres dos EUA e os 180.000 elementos das tropas terrestres afegãs que à data combatem no país. Anteriormente a este novo inimigo, 430.000 membros das tropas afegãs e coligadas já se tinham mostrado incapazes de subjugar o inimigo comum mais antigo, os Taliban, cuja força pouco mais representava do que um dozeavo das forças coligadas. E isto sem referir, claro, o imenso desequilíbrio existente entre os adversários em termos de poder de fogo, de tecnologia e dos respectivos comandos.

Assim, após 16 anos de presença americana no Afeganistão – o “túmulo dos impérios” -e nove meses depois de Trump ter inaugurado a presidência, o New York Timesanunciava na primeira página que “dentro em breve, os empregados da Embaixada americana em Cabul deixarão de se deslocar em helicópteros Chinook para atravessarem a estrada que conduz à base aérea situada a menos de 100 jardas fora da actual zona de segurança da Green Zone”[7], dura constatação de que se tornara demasiado difícil defender até mesmo as zonas mais protegidas da cidade, dos ataques dos Taliban.

Na realidade, existem muitos estudos sérios sobre a al-Qaeda e as suas diferentes emanações, incluindo o Daesh, que demonstram que os Estados Unidos e os seus aliados têm seguido cegamente o plano estratégico que estas organizações terroristas desenharam a nível mundial. Ficou claramente provado, sobretudo no livro atribuído a Abu Bakr Naji, intitulado “Gestão da selvajaria: o estado mais crítico pelo qual a nação islâmica deverá passar”, de que o objectivo é “atrair o Ocidente até ao pântano e deixar que se atole nele o mais profunda e activamente possível” e “enervar e envolver duradoiramente os Estados Unidos e o Ocidente numa série de empreendimentos além-mar de longa duração”, que os levam a minar as suas próprias sociedades, a despender os seus recursos e a aumentar o nível de violência. A dinâmica implementada foi amplamente revisitada num dos seus livros[8por William Roe Polk, um especialista americano muito afamado da história das revoltas no Médio Oriente. Polk revelou um padrão constantemente replicado ao longo da história recente. Os invasores são, naturalmente, rejeitados pelas populações invadidas, que lhes desobedecem, primeiro em pequena escala. A desobediência suscita uma resposta vigorosa da parte do invasor e esta, por sua vez, aumenta a oposição e o apoio popular à resistência. O ciclo de violência que se segue começa a escalar até as forças invasoras se verem obrigadas a retirar-se ou a recorrer a métodos e meios equivalentes ao genocídio, para atingirem os seus fins.

Esta dinâmica de violência extrema, em que os EUA e os seus aliados foram inteiramente apanhados, envolveu custos particularmente avultados. Scott Atran, especialista famoso em organizações terroristas, calculou que a execução “dos ataques do 11 de Setembro custaram entre $400,000 e $500,000 ao passo que a resposta militar e as operações de segurança dos EUA e dos aliados representam 10 milhões de vezes mais”. Atran chegou à conclusão evidente de que “se considerarmos exclusivamente o custo-benefício, este movimento violento teve um sucesso enorme, muito superior até àquele que inicialmente havia sido imaginado por Bin Laden, e foi sempre aumentando. Por aqui se mede o arsenal bélico assimétrico do estilo Jujitsu. No fim de contas, quem pode afirmar que hoje estamos melhor do que ontem ou que o perigo generalizado está em declínio?” Este recorde, avisa Atran, “deveria inspirar uma mudança radical ao nível das nossas contra estratégias”.

A razão pela qual a América deixou de ser grande

A postura dos Estados Unidos no mundo não é a mesma de há uns tempos atrás. A sua longa ingerência política e constantes aventuras militares no mundo árabe e muçulmano, bem como o seu suporte cego a Israel[9], em nada a favoreceram. Bem pelo contrário, esta atitude contribuiu, em boa medida, para provocar danos irremediáveis no tocante à supremacia geral dos Estados Unidos no pós-Guerra Fria.

O antigo embaixador dos EUA na Arábia Saudita, Chas W. Freeman Jr.,  relatava em 2014, que “em tempos, os Estados Unidos empenharam-se em reconfigurar o Médio Oriente. Consequentemente, tanto a região como a nossa posição naquela zona estão hoje em ruínas. Se quisermos ser honestos, temos de admitir que o estado deplorável do Médio Oriente não é apenas um produto das dinâmicas da região, mas que também resulta da nossa incapacidade de pensar e agir estrategicamente.”[10]Para Freeman, esta situação decorre, no essencial, do facto de os EUA terem respondido ao fim da era bipolar com um misto de negação, de incoerência estratégica e de inconstância. E “tanto os falsos pressupostos como os objectivos irrealistas dos EUA contribuíram para criar o caos actual no Médio Oriente.”

Mais recentemente[11], Chas Freeman reiterou a sua opinião ao afirmar que “estas guerras infrutíferas e contraproducentes até agora custaram aos Estados Unidos pelo menos $5.6 triliões (…). Pagámos por acompanharmos a nossa intervenção militar no mundo muçulmano com uma combinação de dinheiro emprestado e de desinvestimento nas infra-estruturas locais, físicas e humanas. Daqui não só resulta a imposição de um fardo esmagador da dívida[12]à nossa posteridadecomo também a falta de crescimento e o declínio da competitividade económica dos EUA.” Freeman lamentava ainda o facto de os americanos se terem acostumado à vida sob vigilância e ao estado de apreensão permanente no tocante a possíveis actos de terrorismo. Era previsível que as suas liberdades acabassem por sofrer com esta condição inabitual, que a presidência aumentasse o seu poder, o “Congresso viesse a reforçar instintos cobardes de manada” e a classe média americana empobrecesse “ao mesmo tempo que enriquecia o complexo militar-industrial”. Trata-se, concluía, de “modificações estruturais da república e do modo de vida americanos que afectarão ambos durante décadas”.

De acordo com Philip Alston[13], o relator especial da pobreza extrema e dos direitos humanos das Nações Unidas, “o sonho americano tem vindo a transformar-se rapidamente na ilusão americana” e “em vez de implementarem os compromissos admiráveis dos seus fundadores, os Estados Unidos de hoje têm provado serem excepcionais de um modo problemático que contrasta chocantemente com a sua imensa riqueza e o seu compromisso inicial para com os direitos humanos.” São estas algumas das principais conclusões enunciadas por Ph. Alston em Dezembro de 2017, após uma missão de averiguação de duas semanas nos EUA. O seu relatório final estará disponível na Primavera de 2018 e será apresentado no Conselho dos Direitos Humanos em Genebra, em Junho de 2018.

A América de hoje é de facto uma pálida imagem do modelo de república constitucional com que os pais fundadores sonharam e que implementaram. A 4 de Julho de 1900, dia aniversário da adopção da Declaração de Independência, os representantes do partido democrático dos Estados Unidos reuniram-se em convenção nacional. Criaram uma plataforma[14]através da qual reafirmavam a sua fé na “proclamação imortal dos direitos humanos inalienáveis” e o seu “compromisso para com a Constituição, em harmonia com os pais da República”. Entre vários princípios reiteraram: “Declaramos mais uma vez que os poderes de todos os governos instituídos entre os homens assentam no consentimento dos governados” e “impor a um povo um governo à força, significa substituir métodos republicanos por métodos imperialistas”. “Somos a favor da extensão da influência da república junto de outras nações, mas acreditamos que essa influência não deveria ser exercida através da força e da violência, mas através do poder de persuasão de um exemplo mais nobre e honroso”. “Opomo-nos ao militarismo. Este significa conquista além-fronteiras e intimidação e opressão intra-fronteiras. Significa o braço forte que sempre foi fatal às instituições livres. Foi dele que fugiram milhões de cidadãos na Europa. Ele imporá aos nossos povos amantes da paz um exército armado permanente, impostos que representam um fardo desnecessário e constituirá uma ameaça constante para as suas liberdades.” E “garantimos que nenhuma nação consegue suportar um sistema meio republicano e meio imperialista. Alertamos o povo americano para o facto de que o imperialismo além-fronteiras rapidamente e inevitavelmente  conduzirá ao despotismo intra-fronteiras.” Quem, no mundo e na própria América, acreditaria numa reafirmação desta natureza, mesmo que hoje fosse proclamada pelo Presidente Trump, baseada em metade do povo americano?

Ninguém explicou tão este estado de coisas de forma tão elegante quanto a personagem fictícia da série de televisão HBO chamada “The Newsroom”. Na sequência de abertura aparece um pivô, que participa num painel sobre jornalismo. Quando um estudante lhe pergunta “Pode dizer porque motivo a América é o maior país do mundo?”, o pivô dispara dizendo que “A América não é o maior país do mundo” e inicia um discurso em que explica porque não o é. Indica ao estudante que “caso um dia participe acidentalmente num escrutínio, há certas coisas que deveria saber. Uma delas é: não existem absolutamente provas nenhumas que confirmem que somos o maior país do mundo. Ocupamos o 7º lugar em literacia, o 27º em matemática, o 22º em ciência, o 49º em esperança de vida, o 178º em mortalidade infantil, o 3º em rendimento médio do agregado familiar, o 4º em força de trabalho e o 4º em exportações. Apenas somos líderes mundiais em 3 categorias: no número de cidadãos encarcerados per capita; no número de adultos que acreditam que os anjos são reais; e nos custos de defesa, onde despendemos mais do que os 26 países seguintes todos juntos e dos quais 25 são aliados. Ora, nada disto é culpa de um jovem estudante de 20 anos, embora o senhor pertença, sem sombra de dúvida, a uma das piores gerações de todos os tempos.”

Depois de uma pausa, o pivô acrescenta “Já fomos (o maior país do mundo). Defendemos aquilo que estava certo. Combatemos por razões de ordem moral. Promulgámos leis, anulámos leis, por motivos de ordem moral. Travámos guerras contra a pobreza, não contra os pobres. Sacrificámo(-nos), preocupámo-nos com os vizinhos, cumprimos aquilo que defendíamos e nunca nos vangloriámos disso. Construímos coisas grandes, importantes, conseguimos avanços tecnológicos impensáveis, explorámos o universo, curámos doenças, acarinhámos os maiores artistas a nível mundial e criámos a maior economia do mundo. Chegámos às estrelas, actuámos como homens. Aspirámos à inteligência, não a menosprezámos. Ela não fez sentirmo-nos inferiores. Não nos identificámos com quem elegemos nas últimas eleições e não nos deixámos assustar facilmente. Fomos capazes de ser todas estas coisas e de as fazer porque éramos pessoas informadas… por grandes homens, que eram venerados. O primeiro passo para a resolução de um problema é reconhecer que o mesmo existe. A América já não é o maior país do mundo.”.[15]

Tanto não o é que o inquérito WIN/Gallup International levado a cabo em 65 países apurou que, para as 66.000 pessoas inquiridas, “os EUA representam a maior ameaça para a paz no mundo”.[16]

O Pentágono responde à velha questão “Estará a América em declínio?

Desde que Ibn Khaldun, o grande historiógrafo e historiador[17]– precursor das disciplinas modernas da historiografia, da sociologia, das ciências económicas e da demografia –  criou as bases para este tipo de estudos, a questão do triunfo e da queda de civilizações, impérios e nações tornou-se o tema favorito dos historiadores, passados e contemporâneos. As nações passaram a ter ciclos de vida como os humanos, evoluindo da juventude para a maturidade e da velhice para a morte. Não houve, até à data, nenhuma excepção à regra.

O Secretário de Estado dos EUA, Dean Gooderham Acheson, era conhecido por ter desempenhado um papel fulcral ao redigir a doutrina de Truman, cujo objectivo declarado era contrariar a expansão geopolítica soviética durante a Guerra Fria. Esta doutrina tornou-se depois o fundamento da política externa dos EUA e conduziu, em 4 de Abril de 1949, à criação da OTAN, uma aliança militar de 29 estados, que se mantém activa até hoje. Acheson também é conhecido por ter dito em 1962, que “A Grã Bretanha perdeu um Império e ainda não encontrou outro papel para desempenhar”.

Talvez se possa, hoje, dizer o mesmo dos Estados Unidos, à luz da política externa incoerente, senão caótica, da administração Trump. Paradoxalmente, o uso do slogan “Make America great again” durante a campanha para as eleições presidenciais de 2016 reforça este propósito, uma vez que a frase – regularmente utilizada, tanto por políticos republicanos como democratas, depois de ter sido inicialmente cunhada por Ronald Reagan em 1980 – é uma prima afastada do slogan “Make Britain great again”, utilizado pelo político conservador britânico Disraeli, no século XIX. Claramente, tanto a versão britânica como o seu equivalente contemporâneo americano referem-se à noção de uma “grandeza” perdida ou por recuperar.

De acordo com The American Conservative[18], desde início de 2000 tem havido um diálogo permanente entre académicos, decisores políticos e membros do meio mais abrangente dos negócios estrangeiros americano, no sentido de perceber se o poder americano está em declínio. Na realidade, porém, a questão remonta aos anos 1980, com a edição do livro do historiador da Universidade de Yale, Paul Kennedy, intitulado The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers,e a publicação de outros livros importantes sobre o mesmo tema, da autoria dos académicos David Calleo e Robert Gilpin. Muito embora a controvérsia em torno do declínio se dissipasse quando a União Soviética implodiu e a bolha económica do Japão rebentou, ela “manteve-se dormente durante o ‘momento unipolar’ da década de 1990, tornando a reacender com a rápida emergência da China enquanto grande potência, no início de 2000”, e a consequente deslocação do poder geopolítico e económico do Ocidente para o Oriente.

Contudo, se atendermos ao historiador francês Pierre Melandri[19], o declínio começou muito antes da publicação do livro de  Paul Kennedy, que granjeou um imenso sucesso em 1987, ano em que, pela primeira vez desde 1917, os EUA perderam o estatuto de maior nação credora do mundo. Melandri escreve que o Primeiro ministro japonês já havia diagnosticado o processo de declínio em 1973, comentando que “os Estados Unidos deixaram de ser o Sol rodeado por planetas para passarem a ser apenas um planeta entre outros”.

Em 2002, Andrew J. Bacevich concluiu o seu livro[20], escrito após o 11 de Setembro, com uma observação fundamental. O autor assinalava que a questão que exigia uma atenção imediata e à qual os americanos não podiam continuar a furtar-se, não era saber se os Estados Unidos se tinham tornado um poder imperial, mas que tipo de império pretendiam ser. Porque o facto de os actores políticos persistirem em ocultar esta questão, ou seja “entregarem-se ao mito da inocência americana ou a fantasias quanto ao desbloqueamento dos segredos da história” aumenta a possibilidade de receberem respostas erradas. Assim sendo, “não só se coloca a questão do desaparecimento do império americano, mas também a do grande perigo que paira por cima daquilo que é conhecido como sendo a república americana”.

Em 2011, a blogger chamada Danios[21]inscreveu, ano a ano, as guerras americanas numa linha do tempo revelando assim que, desde a sua fundação, em 1776, os Estados Unidos estiveram em guerra durante 214 dos seus 235 anos de existência. Por outras palavras, só durante 21 anos civis é que os Estados Unidos não estiveram em guerra e o período isolacionista da Grande Depressão foi o único em que o país esteve cinco anos sem guerra (1935-1940)!

À parte a blogoesfera, um editorial do New York Times[22]afirmava que os Estados Unidos estão continuamente em guerra desde o 11 de Setembro e que neste momento têm 240.000 tropas no activo e na reserva, em pelos menos 172 países e territórios. O editorial terminava dizendo que “senadores relutantes em pagar despesas de saúde e de missões diplomáticas básicas do Departamento de Estado tinham aprovado um orçamento da defesa de 700 bilhões de $, para 2017-2018, um valor muito superior ao montante pedido por Trump. Não é certo esta largueza manter-se. Mas aquilo que, na realidade, importa saber é quantas aventuras militares mais o público americano está disposto a tolerar.”

Dentro da mesma veia, Richard N. Haas, presidente do Conselho das Relações Externas – frequentemente descrito como sendo o think tank mais influente dos Estados Unidos em matéria de negócios estrangeiros – argumenta no seu livro mais vendido[23], que as regras, as políticas e as instituições que prevaleceram e dirigiram o mundo desde a Segunda Guerra Mundial se esgotaram no quadro de um mundo “desorientado” que os Estados Unidos não conseguem moldar à sua imagem e aos seus interesses. Haas pensa que os EUA continuam a ser o maior país neste mundo, mas que a sua política externa por vezes o tornou pior – tanto por aquilo que a América fez como por aquilo que não conseguiu fazer.

O mesmo conselho ou antes, alerta, foi dado por Robert Kagan, uma das vozes conservadoras americanas mais poderosas. Num artigo publicado na Brookings[24], afirmou que “a ordem do mundo liberal estabelecida após a Segunda Guerra Mundial poderá estar a chegar ao fim, sendo disputada por outras forças, tanto no interior como no exterior”. Concluiu escrevendo que “se o próximo presidente seguir uma via  destinada a preservar apenas os estritos interesses da América; se se focalizar essencialmente no terrorismo internacional  – o último desafio para a ordem mundial actual (…) – então poderá não estar muito longe o colapso da ordem mundial, com todas as suas implicações”.

Muito significativamente, em Junho de 2017 foi publicado um estudo do Pentágono[25], que fez correr rios de tinta, tanto nos EUA como além-Oceano. Vale a pensa realçar que a encomenda e a preparação deste relatório datam de Junho de 2016 ou seja, seis meses antes do fim da administração Obama, e que o mesmo foi completado em Abril de 2017 ou seja, após quatro meses de administração Trump. No seu âmbito, foram feitas consultas alargadas a vários representantes do Pentágono e a um punhado de think-tanks americanos de tendência mais neoconservadora.

Entre as conclusões mais surpreendentes figura a constatação de que “o statuo quoacalentado e alimentado por estrategas americanos após a Segunda Guerra Mundial e que durante décadas constituiu a ‘batida’ principal do Departamento de Defesa, não só fracassou como está, na verdade, a colapsar. Consequentemente, tanto o papel dos Estados Unidos no mundo como a sua percepção do mesmo também poderão estar a mudar de forma substancial.” Aos olhos da “incontestada liderança americana, a restruturação volátil da segurança internacional aparece cada vez mais como insustentável”. Outra conclusão importante é que os autores do relatório concordam com a declaração da Primeira ministra britânica Theresa May proferida durante o seu discurso em Filadélfia[26], seis dias após a tomada de posse de Donald Trump: “Acabaram-se os dias em que a Grã Bretanha e a América intervinham em países soberanos na esperança de moldarem o mundo à sua própria imagem (…), (doravante) a Grã Bretanha apenas intervirá onde estiverem em jogo os interesses nacionais britânicos”.

Este relatório extraordinário parece soar a toque de finados das duvidosas “coligações dos empenhados” dirigidas pelos EUA e conduzir-nos para uma era irreversível de pós-império.

Depois do império: a caminho de uma grande estratégia colectiva de “Grande Convergência”?

Se formos realistas, é impossível negar os factos, os porquês e as razões que orientam o nosso mundo em transformação acelerada. Já não existem antigos e novos impérios globais, erguem-se nações jovens e os cidadãos comuns cada vez obtêm mais poder.

Mas como se forjou esta realidade sem precedentes? Por que motivos se torna cada vez mais difícil para estados outrora poderosos, instituições, corporações, grupos de interesses, partidos e dirigentes políticos, defender os seus redutos ou impor as suas agendas? E se o mundo actual se afasta, de facto, inexoravelmente da tutela da única super potência – a América – e que nenhuma outra super potência deseja ou se mostra capaz de o dirigir, então que mundo é este? E, acima de tudo, de que modo pode esta “aldeia global” sui generisatender-lhe e gerir não só ameaças e mudanças transnacionais nascentes, mas também as novas oportunidades? Joseph Nye escreveu uma análise abrangente[27]sobre o poder e o seu exercício no decurso dos últimos quinhentos anos. Realçou que, até à data, os tradicionais marcadores do poder estavam conotados com o eixo conquistado por grandes impérios e nações, essencialmente graças a factores como o controlo das colónias, do comércio, da finança e de vastas populações, a primazia na Revolução Industrial, o domínio das rotas de navegação, de armas nucleares e convencionais, e o número de homens armados. Mas, escreve Nye, a idade da informação global do século XXI está a tornar estes parâmetros rapidamente obsoletos e a redesenhar o mapa das relações de poder. Verificam-se principalmente duas deslocações do poder: uma transição do poder entre estados e uma difusão do poder entre actores não estatais. Nye concluiu o seu estudo afirmando que os Estados Unidos precisarão de uma estratégia para lidar com a “ascensão do resto” – tanto entre estados como entre actores não estatais. Para tal, vão necessitar de “uma estratégia de poder inteligente e de uma narrativa que destaque alianças, instituições e redes que respondam ao novo contexto da era da informação global. Em poucas palavras, para terem sucesso no século XXI, os Estados Unidos precisam de descobrir como ser um poder inteligente”.

Examinando mais profundamente as mudanças da natureza do poder neste século, Moisés Naím[28]observa que o poder  está a perder valor desde que “começou a ser mais fácil obtê-lo, mais difícil utilizá-lo e mais fácil perdê-lo.” Hoje já não se compra tanta coisa com o poder como no passado e as batalhas para a sua obtenção compensam cada vez menos. Daqui resulta que o poder se está a espalhar e que os grandes actores há muito estabelecidos tendem a perder cada vez mais terreno a favor de poderes novos e mais pequenos. O poder está a passar “da força bruta para o cérebro, de norte para sul e do ocidente para oriente, de antigos mastodontes corporativos para start-ups ágeis, de ditadores entrincheirados para as pessoas nas praças das cidades e no ciberespaço”. Na realidade, insiste Naím, o poder está a decair. Um dos argumentos mais convincentes que o autor apresenta para demonstrar o quanto o exercício do poder se transformou, prende-se com os conflitos armados. Adaptando uma frase de Churchill, Naím escreve que “nunca no campo do conflito humano houve a possibilidade de fazer tanto contra tantos e a um custo tão baixo”. Contudo, os “micropoderes, embora raramente vençam, tornam a vida mais difícil aos grandes jogadores” negando-lhes a “vitória” na maior parte dos conflitos assimétricos, também conhecidos por guerras da quarta geração.

Pelo seu lado, desafiando a visão partilhada pela maior parte dos estrategas ocidentais – que reconhecem que o domínio do Ocidente tem vindo a diminuir, mas continuam confiantes de que as suas ideias fundadoras como a democracia, o capitalismo e o nacionalismo secular continuarão a expandir-se garantindo que a ordem ocidental prevaleça  – Charles Kupchan[29]argumenta que o mundo está preparado para a diversidade política e ideológica.  Assim, os poderes emergentes “não esperarão pela liderança ocidental nem convergirão para o modo ocidental”. Kupchan sustém que “a ascensão do Ocidente foi o produto de condições sociais e económicas específicas da Europa e dos Estados Unidos”. Explica também que à medida que nascem outras nações, estas “seguem o seu próprio caminho para a modernidade e abraçam as suas próprias concepções quanto à ordem interna e internacional”. O autor termina concluindo que a ordem ocidental não será substituída por um novo grande poder ou por outro modelo político dominante, e que o século XXI não pertencerá à América, à China, à Ásia, nem a nenhum outro país. Ele será o “mundo de ninguém (e), pela primeira vez na História, existirá um mundo interdependente sem centro de gravidade ou guardião global”. Esta situação exigirá uma estratégia para desenhar um acordo histórico entre o Ocidente e o resto emergente “criando novos consensos em matérias como a legitimidade, a soberania e a governança”.

A perspectiva de Kupchan é amplamente partilhada por Kishore Mahbubani, um escritor singapuriano muito respeitado, professor e diplomata. Num dos seus livros[30]afirma que estamos a tornar-nos mais integrados e interconectados e que “o potencial para uma nova civilização global pacífica tem vindo a desenvolver-se debaixo dos nossos olhos sem nos apercebermos disso”. Porém, os desafios mantêm-se e está por resolver um certo número de falhas geopolíticas importantes. Para a sua materialização, Mahbubani é da opinião de que: os políticos devem, ao nível mundial, modificar os seus preconceitos e aceitar que vivemos num só mundo; os interesses nacionais devem ser contrabalançados com os interesses globais; os EUA e a Europa devem ceder algum poder (incluindo no seio do FMI, do Banco Mundial e no Conselho de Segurança das Nações Unidas); a China e a Índia, a África e o mundo islâmico devem ser integrados; e a ordem mundial precisa de ser reconstruída. Para estes e muitos outros autores e comentadores eminentes, a “comunidade internacional” não tem alternativa melhor e mais sábia senão embarcar numa viagem de salvação do “império à comunidade”. Amitai Etzioni[31]advogava ao argumentar que um “choque de civilizações” pode ser evitado e que a nova ordem mundial não precisa de se parecer com a América. Porque, sustenta, “os valores orientais, incluindo a espiritualidade e o Islão moderado, têm um lugar legítimo na filosofia pública global em evolução”.

Ao abordar esta questão numa palestra[32], o Professor Edward Saïd observava que “a parte verdadeiramente mais fraca da tese do choque de culturas e de civilizações é a separação rígida assumida entre elas, contra a evidência avassaladora de que o mundo de hoje é, de facto, um mundo de misturas, de migrações e de cruzamentos, de fronteiras atravessadas. Uma das maiores crises que afectam países como a França, a Grã Bretanha e os EUA deriva da tomada de consciência, que se vem verificando por todo o lado, de que nenhuma cultura ou sociedade é apenas uma coisa. Minorias consideráveis, africanos do Norte em França, afro-caribenhos e populações oriundas da Índia na Grã Bretanha, elementos asiáticos e africanos neste país (isto é, na América), contestam a ideia da persistência de uma civilização que se orgulhava de ser homogénea. Não existem culturas nem civilizações isoladas. Qualquer tentativa feita no sentido de as separar em compartimentos estanques, na perspectiva de Huntington e dos seus congéneres, atenta à sua variedade, diversidade, complexidade de elementos, hibridez radical. Quanto mais insistirmos na separação das culturas, mais imprecisos nos tornamos em relação a nós próprios e aos outros. A noção de uma civilização excludente é, na minha maneira de pensar, uma civilização impossível.”

O professor Saïd depois colocou aquela que considera ser uma “verdadeira questão”: “quer trabalhemos em prol de civilizações separadas, quer trabalhemos no sentido de uma via mais integrativa, e talvez mais difícil, tentando encarar as diferentes civilizações como um todo, nenhum de nós conseguirá compreender os seus contornos exactos, mas podemos intuir, sentir, estudar a sua existência”. Concluiu a sua palestra citando algumas linhas do grande poeta, autor e político da Martinica, Aimé Césaire: “ o trabalho do homem apenas começou restando vencer toda a violência enraizada nas pregas da nossa paixão, nenhuma raça possui o monopólio da beleza, da inteligência, da força e há espaço para todos no momento do nosso encontro com a vitória”.

 

Amir Nour

Notas

  1. Investigador argelino, em relações internacionais, autor do livro “L’Orient et l’Occident à l’heure d’un nouveau Sykes-Picot” (“The Orient and the Occident in time of a new Sykes-Picot”), Edições Alem El Afkar, Argel, 2014: pode ser descarregado gratuitamente em: http://algerienetwork.com/blog/lorient-et-loccident-a-lheure-dun-nouveau-sykes-picot-par-amir-nour/(French)
    http://algerienetwork.com/blog/العالم-العربي-على-موعد-مع-سايكس-بيكو-ج/ (Arabic) 
  2. Canção de Michael Franti & Spearhead, “Bomb the World”: http://youtu.be/ICL-40nkOPA
  3. Ler o artigo de Newsweekhttp://www.newsweek.com/trump-has-already-killed-more-civilians-obama-us-fight-against-isis-653564
  4. Ler The Intercept, “The Drone Papers”: http://theintercept.com/drone-papers/
  5. Heather Linebaugh, “I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes onThe Guardian, 29 Dez. 2013:  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/29/drones-us-military
  6. Ler o artigo de opinião intitulado “Dennis Kucinich: The ‘Mother of All Bombs’ is actually the mother of all warmongering”, Fox News, 14 Abril, 2017. 
  7. Rod Nordland, “S. Expands Kabul Security Zone, Digging In For Next Decade”, The NYT, 16 Set., 2017. 
  8. William R. Polk, “Violent politics: A history of Insurgency, Terrorism, and Guerilla War, From the American Revolution to Iraq”, Harper Perennial, 2008. 
  9. Além de um voto da Assembleia Geral das Nações Unidas (128 a favor, 9 contra, 35 abstenções), que considerou “nula e sem efeito” a declaração deDonald Trumprelativa a Jerusalém como capital de Israel (ler o artigo no The Guardianhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/21/united-nations-un-vote-donald-trump-jerusalem-israel), um inquérito de opinião da  Gallup International Association (GIA) , realizado em Dezembro de 2017 em 24 países, revelou o desacordo generalizado no tocante à decisão do presidente dos EUA: mais de dois terços (71%) discordam do objectivo (59% firmemente). Comentando o inquérito, o presidente do GIA, Kancho Stoychev, declarou: “É raro um inquérito registar uma tal unanimidade relativamente a um único tema, o que revela uma dor profunda no seio do mundo muçulmano, do Médio Oriente à Ásia. Porém, a reacção geral à decisão de Trump também é maioritariamente negativa na Europa. Parece que se evaporaram décadas de confiança no papel equilibrador da diplomacia dos EUA.”
  10. Ver “Obama’s Foreign Policy and the Future of the Middle East”, 21 Julho 2014. 
  11. Chas W. Freeman, “The Middle East in the New World Disorder”, 11 Dezembro, 2017. 
  12. A partir de Novembro de 2017, a dívida pública americana rondava os $20.59 triliões. Os EUA ocupam o primeiro lugar nesta classificação. 
  13. Ler http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22546&LangID=E
  14. Ler a platforma: http://www.presidency.uscb.edu/edu/ws/?pid=29587.Home
  15. Ver o video intitulado “A Great Speech About Why America Isn’t Great Anymore”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=share&v=q49NOyJ8fNA&app=desktop
  16. Ler no New York Post, 5 Janeiro 2014. 
  17. O autor britânico  Arnold J. Toynbeedisse da obra de Ibn Khaldun “Muqaddimah” ou “Prolegomena” (Introdução)— que abrange a história mundial da humanidade até aos dias do autor e levanta a questão das razões que fazem com que nações ascendam ao poder e daquelas que causam a sua queda —: “uma filosofia da história que, até à data, é indubitavelmente a maior obra desta natureza alguma vez criada por uma mente em qualquer momento e num qualquer lugar.” [FonteEncyclopædia Britannica, 15ª ed., vol. 9, p. 148]. 
  18. Christopher Layne, “Is the United States in Decline?”, The American Conservative, Agosto 8, 2017.
  19. Pierre Melandri, “La fin de l’empire américain ? ” (The end of the American Empire?), in “La fin des empires” (The end of Empires), Patrice Guenniffey & Thierry Lentz (dir.), Le Figaro Histoire/Perrin, Paris, 2016. 
  20. Andrew J. BacevichAmerican Empire: The Realities and the Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy”, Harvard University Press, 2002. 
  21. Ver “America Has Been At War 93% of the Time”: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/02/america-war-93-time-222-239-years-since-1776.html
  22. Ler “America’s Forever Wars”, The New York Times, Outubro 22, 2017. 
  23. Richard Haas, “A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order”, Penguin Press, 2017. Ver: https://www.cfr.org/book/world-disarray
  24. Robert Kagan, “The Twilight of the Liberal World Order”, Brookings, Janeiro 24, 2017. 
  25. Ler “At Our Own Peril : DoD Risk Assessment in a Post-Primacy World”: https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=1358
  26. Ler a transcrição official da palestra em: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/prime-ministers-speech-to-the-republican-party-conference-2017, 26 January, 2017. 
  27. Joseph S. Nye, “The Future of Power”, PublicAffairs, New York, 2011. 
  28. Moisés Naím , “The End of Power”, Basic Books, New York, 2013. 
  29. Charles A. Kupchan, “No One’s World: The West, the Rising Rest and the Coming Global Turn”, Oxford University Books, 2012. 
  30. Kishore Mahbubani, “The Great Convergence: Asia, the West, and the Logic of One World”, PublicAffairs, 2013. 
  31. Amitai Etzioni, “From Empire to Community”, Pelgrave Macmillan, 2004. 
  32. Edward Said, “ The Myth of ‘The Clash of Civilizations’”, Media Education Foundation, 1999; Ler a transcrição: http://www.mediaed.org/transcripts/Edward-Said-The-Myth-of-Clash-Civilizations-Transcript.pdf 

[1]Algerian researcher in international relations, author of the book “L’Orient et l’Occident à l’heure d’un nouveau Sykes-Picot”(“The Orient and the Occident in time of a new Sykes-Picot”), Editions Alem El Afkar, Algiers, 2014: downloadable free of charge, by clicking on the following links:

http://algerienetwork.com/blog/lorient-et-loccident-a-lheure-dun-nouveau-sykes-picot-par-amir-nour/  (French)
http://algerienetwork.com/blog/العالم-العربي-على-موعد-مع-سايكس-بيكو-ج/(Arabic)

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Memorial Day Is Based on a Lie

May 29th, 2018 by Jacob G. Hornberger

Today, Memorial Day, Americans across the land will hear the same message: that U.S. soldiers who have died in America’s foreign wars and foreign interventions have done so in the defense of our rights and freedoms. It is a message that will be heard in sporting events, memorial services, airports, churches, and everywhere else that Memorial Day is being commemorated.

There is one big thing wrong, however. It’s a lie. None of those soldiers died protecting our rights and freedoms. That’s because our rights and freedoms were never being threatened by the enemy forces that killed those soldiers.

Let’s work our way backwards.

Syria. The Syrian government has never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights and freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who has died in Syria was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms.

Niger. The Niger government has never invaded the United States and tried to take away our freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who has died in Niger was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms.

Iraq. The Iraq government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights and freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who has died in Iraq was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms.

Afghanistan. The Afghan government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights and freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who has died in Afghanistan was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms. Even al-Qaeda never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights and freedoms. Its terrorist attacks, including the one on 9/11, were retaliation for U.S. interventionism in the Middle East.

Panama. The Panama government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights and freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who died in Panama was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms.

Grenada. The Grenada government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights and freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who died in Grenada was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms.

Vietnam. The North Vietnam government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights and freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who died in Vietnam was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms.

Korea. The North Korean government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights and freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who died in Korea was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms.

World War II.

The Japanese government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights and freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who died in the Pacific theater in World War II was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms. The Japanese attack on U.S. Naval forces on Hawaii was intended solely to prevent the U.S. Navy from interfering with Japanese attempts to acquire oil in the Dutch East Indies in response to President Roosevelt’s oil embargo, whose aim was to provoke the Japanese into attacking the United States so that the U.S. could get into the European part of war.

The German government never invaded the United States and try to take away our rights and freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who died in the European theater in World War II was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms. Germany wasn’t even able to cross the English Channel to invade England, much less the Atlantic Ocean to invade the United States. In fact, the last thing that Germany wanted was war with the United States, as reflected by Germany’s refusal to react to President Roosevelt’s repeated provocations to get Germany to attack the United States. Germany only declared war on the United States after FDR successfully provoked the Japanese into attacking the U.S. Navy fleet at Pearl Harbor, in the hope that this would provide a back door to entry into the war in Europe.

World War I. The German government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights and freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who died in World War I was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms, especially given the ridiculous aims of U.S. intervention into the war: to “end all wars” and to “make the world safe for democracy,” a word that isn’t even in the U.S. Constitution. In fact, it is perversely ironic that it was U.S. interventionism into the conflict that contributed to the rise of Nazi Germany and World War II.

The Spanish-American War. The Spanish government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights and freedoms. Therefore, any soldier who died in the Spanish-American War was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms.

So, why the lie? Why keep saying that U.S. soldiers have died protecting our rights and freedoms?

Because the truth is too embarrassing and too shameful, especially when one is an ardent supporter of all or some of these foreign wars and interventions. It’s easier to salve one’s conscience by simply buying into the lie, a lie, needless to say, that is advanced in every public (i.e., government) school across the land.

The idea is that if everyone is made to believe the lie, then everything is fine.

That’s one big reason why statists resent us libertarians. We don’t countenance the lie. We speak the truth. None of those U.S. soldiers who are being honored today died protecting our rights and freedoms because the forces that killed them were never trying to take away our rights and freedoms.

Libertarians are much like therapists. We cause people to face truth and reality. But the problem is that all too many people don’t want truth and reality. They like living the life of the lie. It’s comfortable. It’s safe. It enables them to continue supporting the foreign wars and interventions and thanking the troops for protecting our rights and freedoms, even if it isn’t so.

Oftentimes, people go a real therapist to figure out why they are feeling depressed, despondent, or anxious. After one or two visits, however, many of them quit and run for the hills. That’s because the therapist is causing them to confront the truth and reality regarding their personal situation. But that’s not what they want. They want to be healed without having to confront their life of the lie and their denial of reality.

It’s the same with so many Americans who continue to support foreign wars and foreign interventions. You can see it especially at big sporting events, where the public-address announcer asks everyone to stand up and honor the troops who are protecting our rights and freedoms. Most everyone immediately rises and, practically with tears in his eyes, begins cheering. The same lie is repeated in church pulpits across the land. The congregation dutifully recites, “Let us pray for the troops, who are protecting our rights and freedoms.”

Meanwhile, there is mass drug addiction and alcoholism across the land. Ever-rising suicide rates. Mass murders for unexplained reasons. All this mostly by people who spent 12 years of their lives, six hours a day, five days a week, being molded and formed by government officials in public schools.

Add to all that the loss of liberty that Americans have suffered at the hands of their own government, which now wields the omnipotent power to assassinate them, incarcerate them without trial, torture them, and secretly spy on them, all with the aim of protecting their rights and freedoms. And with hardly anyone noticing how perversely ironic all this is, especially on Memorial Day, when so many Americans are honoring the troops who, they are convinced, died protecting our rights and freedoms.

It’s what a life of the lie — a life that denies reality — does to a society.

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America’s Incredible Shrinking Influence

May 29th, 2018 by Rep. Ron Paul

Just two weeks after President Trump pulled the US from the Iran nuclear agreement, his Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, issued 12 demands to Iran that could never be satisfied. Pompeo knew his demands would be impossible to meet. They were designed that way. Just like Austria-Hungary’s ultimatum to Serbia in July, 1914, that led to the beginning of World War I. And just like the impossible demands made of Milosevic in 1999 and of Saddam Hussein in 1991 and 2003, and so many other times when Washington wanted war. These impossible demands are tools of war rather than steps toward peace.

Secretary Pompeo raged at Iran. The mainstream news media raged at Iran. Trump raged at Iran. But then a strange thing happened: nothing. The Iranians announced that they remained committed to diplomacy and would continue to uphold their end of the nuclear agreement if the Europeans and other partners were willing to do the same. Iranian and European officials then sought out contacts in defiance of Washington in hopes of preserving mutually-beneficial emerging commercial relations.

Washington responded to the European snub by threatening secondary sanctions on European companies that continued doing business with an Iran that had repeatedly been found in compliance with its end of the bargain. Any independent European relationship with Iran would be punished, Washington threatened. But then, again, very little happened.

Rather than jump on Washington’s bandwagon, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made two trips to Russia in May seeking closer ties and a way forward on Iran.

Russia and China were named as our prime enemies in the latest National Security Strategy for the United States, but both countries stand to benefit from the unilateral US withdrawal from the Iran deal. When the French oil company Total got spooked by Washington threats and pulled out of Iran, a Chinese firm eagerly took its place.

It seems the world has grown tired of neocon threats from Washington. Ironically the “communist” Chinese seem to understand better than the US that in capitalism you do not threaten your customers. While the US is threatening and sanctioning and forbidding economic relations, its adversaries overseas are busy reaping the benefits of America’s real isolationism.

If President Trump’s canceled meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un remains canceled, North and South Korea have shown that they will continue with their peacemaking efforts. As if Washington was no longer relevant.

I’ve often spoken of the unintended consequences of our aggressive foreign policy. For example, President Bush’s invasion of Iraq only helped Iran – our “enemy” – become more dominant in the Middle East. But it seems new consequences are emerging, and for the neocons they must be very unintended: for all of its bellicosity, threats, demands, sanctions, and even bombs, the rest of the world is increasingly simply ignoring the demands of Washington and getting on with its own business.

While I am slightly surprised at this development, as a libertarian and a non-interventionist I welcome the growing irrelevance of Washington’s interventionists. We have a far better philosophy and we must work hard to promote it so that it can finally be tried after neocon failure becomes obvious to everyone. This is our big opportunity!

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Venezuela has warned that neighbouring Colombia’s partnership with NATO represents “a serious threat to peace and regional stability.”

President Juan Manuel Santos announced on Friday that Colombia would be working with the West’s military alliance as a “global partner” from this week, becoming the first Latin American country to do so.

In a statement, Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry said: “Venezuela denounces once more before the international community the intention of Colombian authorities to introduce, in Latin America and the Caribbean, a foreign military alliance with nuclear capacity, which in every way constitutes a serious threat for peace and regional stability.”

Caracas confirmed the historical position of the region in distancing itself from the politics and wars of Nato and from “any other army or military organisation that desires to apply forces to the suffering of the people, to impose and guarantee the hegemony of a particular political and economic model.”

Venezuela has come under intense pressure from foreign powers seeking regime change with a range of sanctions imposed by the US and European Union.

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Trump’s Crude and Idiotic Letter to Kim Jong-un

May 29th, 2018 by Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Below is the text of president Trump’s somewhat crude and idiotic letter to Chairman Kim Jong-un dated May 24, 2018. (It also has some grammatical errors.)

In the word’s of Senator Ed Markey at the Mike Pompeo Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearings:

The Libya model, as Kim Jong Un has been interpreting it, is that the leader of the country surrenders their nuclear capability only to then be overthrown and killed”.

That is the unspoken agenda of US foreign policy. And that is precisely what Trump’s National Security Advisor John Bolton had in mind in relation to North Korea.

Moreover, last October, (former) CIA chief Mike Pompeo (now Secretary of State) intimated the issue of CIA political assassinations with regard to Kim Jong-un.

In the days following the sending of this letter, Trump rectified his position with regard to the Singapore Summit.

At the time of writing, it is still uncertain as to whether the summit will take place.

 

 

«Sovranità» da Bruxelles, non da Washington

May 29th, 2018 by Manlio Dinucci

Oggi 21 dei 27 paesi della Ue (dopo la Brexit), con circa il 90% della popolazione dell’Unione, fanno parte della Nato, le cui «regole» permettono agli Stati uniti di mantenere, sin dal 1949, la carica di Comandante supremo alleato in Europa e tutti gli altri comandi chiave; permettono agli Stati uniti di determinare le scelte politiche e strategiche dell’Alleanza, concordandole sottobanco soprattutto con Germania, Francia e Gran Bretagna, facendole quindi  approvare dal Consiglio Nord Atlantico, in cui secondo le «regole» Nato non vi è votazione né decisione a maggioranza, ma le decisioni vengono prese sempre all’unanimità.


Steve Bannon –  ex stratega di Donald Trump, teorico del nazional-populismo – ha espresso il suo entusiastico sostegno all’alleanza Lega-Movimento 5 Stelle per «il governo del cambiamemto». In una intervista (Sky TG24, 26 maggio) ha dichiarato: «La questione fondamentale, in Italia a marzo, è stata la questione della sovranità. Il risultato delle elezioni è stato quello di vedere questi italiani che volevano riprendersi  la sovranità, il controllo sul loro paese. Basta con queste regole che arrivano da Bruxelles».

Non dice però «basta con queste regole che arrivano da Washington».

Ad esercitare pressione sull’Italia per orientarne le scelte politiche non è solo l’Unione europea, dominata dai potenti circoli economici e finanziari soprattutto tedeschi e francesi, che temono una rottura delle «regole» funzionali ai loro interessi.

Forte pressione viene esercitata sull’Italia, in modo meno evidente ma non meno invadente, dagli Stati uniti, che temono una rottura delle «regole» che subordinano l’Italia ai loro interessi economici e strategici.

Ciò rientra nelle politiche che Washington adotta verso l’Europa, attraverso diverse amministrazioni e con metodi diversi, perseguendo lo stesso obiettivo: mantenere l’Europa sotto l’influenza statunitense.

Strumento fondamentale di tale strategia è la Nato. Il Trattato di Maastricht stabilisce, all’Art. 42, che «l’Unione rispetta gli obblighi di alcuni Stati membri, i quali ritengono che la loro difesa comune si realizzi tramite la Nato». E il protocollo n. 10 sulla cooperazione stabilisce che la Nato «resta il fondamento della difesa» dell’Unione europea.

Oggi 21 dei 27 paesi della Ue, con circa il 90% della popolazione dell’Unione, fanno parte della Nato, le cui «regole» permettono agli Stati uniti di mantenere, sin dal 1949, la carica di Comandante supremo alleato in Europa e tutti gli altri comandi chiave; permettono agli Stati uniti di determinare le scelte politiche e strategiche dell’Alleanza, concordandole sottobanco soprattutto con Germania, Francia e Gran Bretagna, facendole quindi approvare dal Consiglio Nord Atlantico, in cui secondo le «regole»  Nato non vi è votazione né decisione a maggioranza, ma le decisioni vengono prese sempre all’unanimità.

L’ingresso nella Nato dei paesi dell’Est – un tempo membri del Patto di Varsavia, della Federazione Jugoslava e anche dell’Urss – ha permesso agli Stati uniti di legare questi paesi, cui si aggiungono Ucraina e Georgia di fatto già nella Nato, più a Washington che a Bruxelles.

Washington ha potuto così spingere l’Europa in una nuova guerra fredda, facendone la prima linea di un sempre più pericoloso confronto con la Russia, funzionale agli interessi politici, economici e strategici degli Stati uniti.

Emblematico il fatto che, proprio nella settimana in cui in Europa si dibatteva aspramente sulla «questione italiana», è sbarcata ad Anversa (Belgio), senza provocare alcuna significativa reazione, la 1a Brigata corazzata della 1a Divisione statunitense di cavalleria, proveniente da Fort Hood in Texas. Sono sbarcati 3.000 soldati, con 87 carri armati Abrams M-1, 125 veicoli da combattimento Bradley, 18 cannoni semoventi Paladin, 976 veicoli militari e altri equipaggiamenti, che saranno dislocati in cinque basi in Polonia e da qui inviati a ridosso del territorio russo.

Si continua in tal modo a «migliorare la prontezza e letalità delle forze Usa in Europa», stanziando dal 2015 16,5 miliardi di dollari.

Proprio mentre sbarcavano in Europa i carri armati inviati da Washington, Steve Bannon incitava gli italiani e gli europei a «riprendersi  la sovranità» da Bruxelles.

Manlio Dinucci

il manifesto,  29 maggio 2018

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Newly appointed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had every reason to expect that his first official appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would be the usual slam-dunk as mostly obedient, respectful Senators aligned with his testimony.   

Instead of the typically gratuitous compliments and undeserved deference, there was a display (albeit a minority) of some moral courage with a rare slice of truth on Capitol Hill, epitomizing the real-time requirements of a Senator’s job:   to be skeptical, provide oversight and demand accountability from every Federal government witness, no matter the rank – once referred to as ‘grilling the witness.”

Besides fraternizing with America’s most privileged citizens, endless rounds of lavish Capitol Hill receptions, wide ranging international travel opportunities (aka junkets), a liberal vacation  policy and exorbitant benefits out of step for the minimal accomplishments actually achieved, the current Senate paradigm has allowed too many Members to degenerate into a protuberance of greedy, sniveling, weak-minded buffoons with no genuine regard for their constituents or what was once the greatest democracy on the planet.

Days earlier, as the nation’s top diplomat, Pompeo delivered the Trump Administration’s controversial “After the Deal: A New Iran Strategy”  in a decidedly undiplomatic speech to a less than enthusiastic audience at the Heritage Foundation.   That aggressive strategy included a dozen doomed-to-fail, untenable demands  that were little more than a precursor for military intervention and regime change.

Before the hearing began, Pompeo unexpectedly read a crude letter from President Trump to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un cancelling the June 12th summit citing “tremendous anger and open hostility” and concluded with the moronic “If you change your mind …, please do not hesitate to call or write me.”   To date, Trump has softened his stance against a meeting and hints the June summit may occur on schedule.

As the hearing began, most Senators expended their allotted time by steadfastly avoiding the massive foreign policy blunder that had just been dropped in their laps.  The following excerpts focus on two Members, Sen. Rand Paul (R-SC) (1:58) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass) (2:19/3:27) since they had the most extensive dialogue with Pompeo and because they gave Pompeo the most grief.   Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Or) (3:34) and Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) (3:15) questioned implications of the upcoming Authority for Use of Military Force (AUMF).

Sen. Paul launched into a rapid-fire critique exposing the inadequacies of Pompeo’s Iran Plan  with a much needed dose of reality as he methodically decimated the strategy, beginning with the requirement that Iran reveal the ‘military dimensions’ of its nuclear program:

Let’s substitute Israel for Iran.  Does anyone believe that Israel is going to reveal the military dimensions of their nuclear program? ”   Paul inquired whether the Saudi’s would be willing to discuss “anything they’ve done to develop nuclear weapons or reveal the military dimensions of their nuclear program.  So really what you’re asking for is something they (Iranians) are never going to agree to.”

Regarding the requirement that Iran end its proliferation of ballistic missiles , Paul explained that

“.. when we supply weapons, the Saudis buy weapons, the Saudis have a ballistic weapon program, they (Iran) respond to that.   The Saudis and their allies …spend more than eight times Iran so when you tell Iran that you have to give up your ballistic missile program but you don’t say anything to the Saudis, you think they are ever going to sign?”

If you leave Saudi Arabia and Israel out of it and look at Iran in isolation, that’s not how they (Iran) perceive it.   We want Iran to do things that we’re not willing to ask anybody else to do and that we would never do.”

Regarding Pompeo’s demand to end military support for the Houthi rebels:

Once again, you’re asking them to end it but you’re not asking the Saudis to end their bombardment of Yemen.  If you look at the humanitarian disaster that is Yemen, it is squarely on the shoulders of the Saudis.”

Paul then drew attention to the demand for Iran to withdraw all its forces from Syria noting that

ISIS is getting weapons from Qatar and Saudi Arabia” and that “Saudi Arabia and Qatar are ten times the problem.  The people who attacked us came from Saudi Arabia. We ignore all that and lavish them with bombs.”

“It was naïve to pull out of the Iran Agreement and in the end, we’ll be worse off for it.”

Pompeo was Stunned and the Silence was Deafening.   Pompeo had absolutely no reaction to Paul’s devastating analysis of US foreign policy in the Middle East, offering no explanation, no excuse, no correction or thoughtful response; nor did any other Senator present dare step into the swamp.

Next up was Sen. Markey citing Trump’s reference to North Korea’s ‘tremendous anger and open hostility” and inquiring:

How did you expect North Korea to react to comparisons between Libya and North Korea, between the fates of Kim Jong Un and Qaddafi.  Why would you expect anything other than anger and hostility in reaction to these comparisons?”

Markey was referring to Vice President Mike Pence’s  comment that “Kim Jong Un will end up like Qaddafi if he does not make a deal”  and National Security Advisor John Bolton’s  “we have very much in mind the Libya model of 2003-2004.”

As background, in 2003 Libyan President Muammar Qaddafi relinquished his nuclear, biological and chemical weapons allowing inspectors to oversee and verify the process.  By 2011, with US and NATO instigation, Libya experienced a violent overthrow of its government with Qaddafi brutally murdered.   And who can ever forget former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s macabre glee “we came, we saw, he died.”

Pompeo expressed “misunderstanding taking place with this idea of a Libya model” and that he “hadn’t done the work to find out what that was…when Libyans chose to give up their nuclear weapons in 2003.  That’s the Libya model.”

Markey explained:

The Libya model, as Kim Jong Un has been interpreting it, is that the leader of the country surrenders their nuclear capability only to then be overthrown and killed.  Why would you not think that Kim would not interpret it that way as it continued to escalate with Bolton and Vice President talking about the Qaddafi model? .…why would you think there would be any other interpretation at what happened to Qaddafi at the end of his denuclearization which is that he wound up dead?  Why would that not elicit hostility from a negotiating partner three weeks prior to sitting down..”

From there Markey and Pompeo bantered back and forth with Pompeo consistently failing to grasp the connection between Qaddafi’s 2003 disarmament agreement and US military interference in Libya in 2011 that resulted in Qaddafi’s death as sufficient reason for North Korea to feel threatened.   No matter how precise the clarification, Pompeo continued to respond as a dense, one-dimensional thinker unable to wrap his mind around logic that challenged his view of a simulated reality, as if looking at the same object through a different lens.

Committee chair Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn) agreed with Markey.

“I opposed so strongly what the Obama administration did in Libya was exactly the argument you are laying out right now…to have someone like Qaddafi who gave up their nuclear weapons and then go kill him to me sent exactly the signal that you are laying out right now.”

Corker then announced that he

just had discussion with Secretary’s staff and he is now 15 minutes late for a meeting.  I’m going to allow a couple of comments but going to stop it in five minutes.”

 Markey immediately inquired

Who is the meeting with Mr. Secretary.. if you are not going to stay here and answer questions from us.. can you not push that meeting back another 15 minutes…

Corker:

this is getting a little bit, this type of discourse, I’m sorry, I’m the one doing this. I’ve been very generous”

Markey:

“…but  we agreed to two seven- minute question periods and it is being ended here for two members..”

Markey continued until Sen. Corker gaveled his time had expired.

As the Foreign Relations Committee contemplates an upcoming markup and vote on a Forever  AUMF next week, it will be a time for other Committee Senators to step outside the Matrix and dig deep to find their own moral fortitude.

Renee Parsons has been a member of the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist for Friends of the Earth and a staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC. She can be found on Twitter @reneedove31

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The Kim-Trump Singapore Summit, Will it Take Place?

May 29th, 2018 by Prof Michel Chossudovsky

What is unfolding is a process whereby US intelligence is playing a key “behind the scenes” role in setting the stage for the Singapore Summit, with a view to ultimately enforcing and sustaining US hegemony in North East Asia.

The North Koreans are astute strategists. Will they abandon their nuclear weapons program in exchange for  empty “American promises”? 

What the U.S. seeks is to establish a Worldwide hegemony (monopoly) in the ownership and use of nuclear weapons, supported by a 1.3 trillion dollar nuclear weapons program.

Under these circumstances, the unilateral denuclearization of the Korean peninsula does not ensure the security of the Korean nation. Quite the opposite. The power of deterrence has been lost. The US can continue to threaten Korea, it can launch a pre-emptive nuclear attack directed against the Korean peninsula from naval and well as land-based military facilities in different part of the World.

The “denuclearization” of the Korean peninsula concept is being used by Washington to enforce the unilateral abandonment of the DPRK’s nuclear weapons program without any meaningful counterpart obligations by the US including the withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Korea.

Press TV Interview with Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

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