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Sette anni fa, il 19 marzo 2011, iniziava la guerra contro la Libia, diretta dagli Stati uniti prima tramite il Comando Africa, quindi tramite la Nato sotto comando Usa. In sette mesi, venivano effettuate circa 10.000 missioni di attacco aereo con decine di migliaia di bombe e missili.

On 17 March 2018, the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov denounced the presence of the US, British and French Special Forces in Syria; this is something that both London and Paris deny. He drove home the point, insisting: “What this presence means is that the issue is no longer a war by proxy but direct intervention in a war”.

Mr. Lavrov then went on to give a stern warning to Washington, London and Paris, should they take the decision to bomb Damascus. The documents seized by the Syrian and Russian Secret Services confirm the existence of a plan to attack Damascus along similar lines to the plan conceived against Baghdad in 2003. Part of this plan includes killing off President al-Assad. Allied ships have been positioned to enable them to carry out this attack from the Mediterranean.

On 19 March 2018, the Syrian and Russian armies warned of a new chemical attack in Eastern Ghouta instigated by the United Kingdom under a false flag. The Syrian and Russian armies have already seized two chemical laboratories on 12 and 13 March. On 20 March, during a meeting of the Leaders of the Russian Armed Forces, the Russian Minister for Defence, General Sergey Shoygu, referred to three attempts to use these weapons during the week in Eastern Ghouta. While he explicitly avoided inculpating London with backing these attempted bombings, the way his words were couched, removes any possible doubt from his listeners’ minds. He continued:

“We are hoping that in the current situation, our Western Partners will allow good sense to guide their decision-making; that they stop flirting with terrorists and come together with Russia in their peaceful initiatives in Syria”.

In five days, more than 79 000 prisoners of armed groups in the Ghouta have successfully sought refuge in the Syrian Arab Republic. This is thanks to the humanitarian corridors of Muhayam al-Wafedin and Hamouriyah.

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Translation by Anoosha Boralessa

The Globalization of War: America’s “Long War” against Humanity

Michel Chossudovsky

The “globalization of war” is a hegemonic project. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The U.S. military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.

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It’s not just Conservative party donors who are among the investors in the company that spawned the election consultancy at the centre of a storm about use of data from Facebook, embroiled in a scandal over elections and a referendum. Both of these events have changed the course of history, upset the rules based international order and shaken geopolitical alliances the world over. This is more than just a scandal.

On Wednesday, Theresa May faced questions in the House of Commons over Tory links to the company.

“As far as I’m aware the government has no current contracts with Cambridge Analytica or with the SCL Group,” the prime minister said.

“An approach was made and the (Conservative) party decided not to take that forward,” May’s spokesperson said later. Then later again, reported The Guardian, a spokesperson acknowledged that the government had previously held three contracts with SCL Group, the parent company of CA. The Tories are yet again on the back-foot of an emerging war of words, much like their stumbling cover story over Novichoks and an insignificant retired conman called Sergei Skripal.

Then it emerges via The Guardian that former Conservative MPs, and a peer who was a business minister under David Cameron along with Tory party donors were investors in Cambridge Analytica. Lord Marland, a successful businessman who became a minister in 2010, held shares personally. One of Marland’s fellow investors, and the person now registered as having “significant control” over SCL Group, is a big Conservative party donor called Roger Gabb, who has over the years donated over £700,000 to the party.

The Guardian and this interesting blog piece reveals other individuals who are linked to the Royal family, senior members of Britain’s armed forces and other members of high society.

Interestingly, Sir Geoffrey Pattie, a former Conservative defence and industry minister, took a key role in the company for its first three years. This is interesting because SCL, the parent company, uses known military strategies and tactics for its business model and has contracts with the US and UK military establishments and intelligence services. It’s all very fishy isn’t it.

Around the world

On Monday, hidden-camera footage appeared to show Alexander Nix (image on the right), Cambridge Analytica’s CEO, offering to bribe and blackmail public officials around the world. If Nix did so, it would violate not just U.K. laws but many others too. Cambridge Analytica suspended Nix on Tuesday. Presumably the police will be wanting to interview this man quite soon.

India has just shut down the CA website effectively declaring it and its parent SCL an enemy of the state. SCL India, a venture between the SCL group in London and Ovleno Business Intelligence, says both India’s major political parties are its clients. The BBC reports that both the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and main opposition Congress deny links with SCL India but have accused one another of utilising the services of the company.

Another accusation is that SCL/CA was offered material from Israeli hackers who had accessed the private emails of two politicians who are now the heads of state of Nigeria and St Kitts and Nevis. The reality of this story is truly, truly shocking. The Guardian investigation aligns Israeli intelligence, CA, Bell Pottinger and  the Western intelligence operatives of more than one country.

There are multiple wider political questions about what went on in the Nigerian election of 2015 and the role western powers played. The implications go far beyond the simplicities of asking what happens to lucrative Nigerian oil deals.

Christopher Wylie, the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower who revealed all to the Observer, called it “post-colonial blowback”.

The Observer/Guardian investigation interviewed employees of CA with one saying: “Everything the company did after the Mercers got involved was about refining a set of techniques that they would go on to use in the US elections. These campaigns in other countries were experiments. They worked out how to harvest data and weaponise it. And they got steadily better at it.”

“That work seems to have come about through Brittany Kaiser, a senior director at Cambridge Analytica, who would go on to play a public role at the launch of Nigel Farage’s Leave.eu campaign, and a senior strategist on the Trump campaign.”

At TruePublica, we made this connection a year ago, even before the mainstream media scrum of the last few days exposed the activities of SCL/CA.

CA boasted that they ran the successful campaigns of President Uhuru Kenyatta in the 2013 and 2017 Kenyan elections. In a secretly filmed video, Mark Turnbull, the M.D. for Cambridge Analytica and sister company SCL Elections, told a Channel 4 News’ undercover investigative reporting team that his firm secretly stage-managed Kenyatta’s hotly contested campaigns.

CA boasts of manipulating voters’ deepest fears and worries. Last year’s Kenyan election was dogged by vicious online propaganda targeting opposition leader Raila Odinga, with images and films playing on people’s concerns about everything from terrorism to spiralling disease. No-one knows who produced the material. But one can guess.

Bell Pottinger

Another company wrapped up in this saga is the public relations firm, Bell Pottinger. It apologised for stirring up racial hostility in South Africa on behalf of former President Jacob Zuma’s alleged financiers – the Gupta family. Bell Pottinger has, quite rightly, since gone out of business.

But let’s not forget what that this so-called PR firm was involved in. The Pentagon paid half a billion dollars to run a top secret propaganda programme during the Iraq war. They made short TV segments made in the style of Arabic news networks and fake insurgent videos. These were confirmed by Bell Pottinger as “covert” military operations “covered by various secrecy agreements.” Bell Pottinger reported to the Pentagon, the CIA and the National Security Council on its work in Iraq. Bell Pottinger were effectively involved in ‘black ops’ and ‘falsely attributing fake videos’, again, confirmed by Bell Pottinger employees. All of this is now a matter of fact – like Tony Blair’s ‘dodgy dossier’ – made up stories to keep us all paying for yet more war.

Its founder was Tim Bell who is credited with honing Margaret Thatcher’s steely image and helping the Conservative party win three elections. The agency he co-founded has had a roster of clients including a number of repressive regimes around the world.

Mark Turnbull, who joined Alexander Nix at CA, heads up SCL Elections as managing director. His profile at the University of Exeter Strategy and Security Institute boasts of his record in achieving “campaign success via measurable behavioural change” in “over 100 campaigns in Europe, North and South America, Asia, Africa and the Caribbean”.

Turnbull previously spent 18 years at Bell Pottinger, heading up the Pentagon funded PR drive in occupied Iraq which included the production of fake al-Qaeda the aforementioned videos. Obviously, there’s a connection here.

The MOD, SCL, Russia and Prostitutes

A freedom of information request from August 2016, shows that the MOD has twice bought services from Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL)  in recent years.

Bella Caledonia in its report entitled “SCL – A very British Coup” claims that “In May 2015, SLC Defence, another subsidiary of the umbrella organisation, received $1 million (CAD) to support NATO operations in Eastern Europe targeting Russia.”

As recently as July 2017, the website for Cambridge Analytica said its methods has been approved by the “UK Ministry of Defence, the US State Department, Sandia and NATO” and carried their logos on its website.

Then the whole thing gets a bit seedy. A recent Channel 4 news undercover investigation revealed that Alexander Nix offered to use bribery and sex workers – to entrap politicians and subvert elections. The purpose of these tactics would have utilised the finest variations of blackmail to get a result – presumably.

One does not have to imagine that organisations such as these could be at the heart of all sorts of stories, fake news, disinformation and propaganda campaigns that ends up affecting each and every one of us.

Indeed, it is quite evident from reading all this that organisations like SCL and CA are little more than the shadowy alliances formed between extreme neoliberal venture capitalists and ageing elements of former British military and intelligence officers. It should be of no surprise, of course, that there are strong connections to not just ‘the establishment’ but the ruling Conservative party.

These strategies used against citizens of a nation are developed originally by ‘black operations’ in defence and military work. It is described officially as – the fifth dimension of warfare. This definition has been honed and defined by the US military as “information operations” commonly in use in wider society to this very day. The Novichok story would be a classic fit.

However, let’s call this out for what it is. The SCL/CA modus operandi is selling a product that uses systems, procedures, strategies and tactics to illegally usurp democracy – for money.

Is this not neoliberalism’s ultimate humiliation? It is literally eating itself from the inside out like terminal bowel cancer.

Like Bell Pottinger, the operations of SCL and CA need to be shut down and people questioned not by politically motivated commissioners, but by the police. Once done, they should focus their attention on that other extreme capitalist who couldn’t care less about the hard won principles of democracy – the ultimate motherzucker of social media, which is another story.

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Featured image is from TruePublica.

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This article examines the bases of popular support for recently re-elected Russian president Vladimir Putin. Although this support is strenuously “cultivated” by the regime by various illicit means, it nevertheless has a genuine basis that needs to be understood by people on the left who are trying to develop an enlightened position in the escalating confrontation between the “West” and Russia.

Putin’s speeches during his brief electoral campaign did not point to any major changes in domestic and foreign policies. In the international realm, one can expect the continued degradation of relations with the “West,” for which the West is largely responsible. One can also suppose that there will be a significant effort made to prepare Putin’s succession after 24 years in power (starting in 1998 as Security Director to the end of his current presidency in 2022). However, his leaving power is not certain in a system where personal relations of corruption play an important role.

Some spokespersons for the regime have themselves described it as a “managed democracy.” This is a regime that is somewhere between a classic dictatorship (one that tolerates no organized and public opposition) and a capitalist democracy that does tolerate political liberties (but in which the interests of the dominant class are guaranteed by means other than brutal repression). “Managed democracy” tolerates political freedoms, but only to the degree they do not present a serious threat to the continuity in power of the political élite.

Managed Democracy

This said, support for Putin among the people of Russia cannot be explained entirely by the state’s repressive measures or by its abuse of the so-called “administrative resources.” The latter include, among others, its control of the major television networks, severe restrictions on public demonstrations, various illicit pressures exerted on public sector employees, and, when necessary, falsification of electoral results.

Putin’s popularity is clearly cultivated by the regime. But it also finds a real basis in the population, even if that basis is not easily separated from the regime’s efforts to cultivate it.

The first element of that popularity is the profound contrast, especially economic, between the Putin and Yeltsin periods. Even if the younger generation has no direct personal memory of the Yeltsin era, it still looms large in the popular consciousness. The 1990s were a period of very deep and prolonged economic depression, hyperinflation, dramatic impoverishment of the people, mass unemployment, deferred payment of wages and pensions (sometimes many months – with no indexation), massive theft of national wealth, and domination by the mafia of entire sections of the economy.

Even if it is not principally thanks to Putin’s effort but to the rapid increase in the price of oil starting at the end of the 1990s, these processes ended and were largely reversed under Putin. While popular living standards have stagnated, even declined somewhat in the last few years, they saw a rapid rise in the 2000s, and the stark contrast of the present with the 1990s is still very much alive in popular memory. To cite one demographic indicator of popular well-being, life expectancy in 2000 was 65 years (as against 79 in Canada). Today it is 72.

The Mafia, The Oligarchs and The State

As for the suppression of democracy, which is usually attributed wrongly in the West to Putin, it, in fact, already occurred under Yeltsin. Putin at least removed mafia control of the economy and restored the state’s monopoly of violence. And he domesticated the oligarchs, without, however, touching their illicit fortunes, except in the few cases where they persisted in interfering in political affairs. Putin also arrested and reversed the centrifugal tendencies that threatened the integrity of the state, even if he used terroristic methods to achieve that in the case of irredentist Chechnya.

The second factor in Putin’s popularity is his affirmation of Russia’s sovereignty in the face of the West’s actions, which are largely perceived by Russians as aggressive and antagonistic. This popular perception has, in my opinion, a significant basis in reality.

It is no exaggeration to say that the Russia of the 1990s was under the colonial administration of the G-7, in particular of the USA. Shock therapy, concocted by the IMF and World Bank at the request of the G-7, in the course of a few years transformed an industrial giant into a country dependent on the export of natural resources. Adoption of that policy was the condition of G-7 support, which was precious for Yeltsin. The G-7 also encouraged and then approved the violent suppression of democracy by Yeltsin in the fall of 1993 and validated his theft of the 1996 presidential election.

To this one must add the illegal bombardment by NATO in 1999 of Serbia, traditional ally of Russia, the abrogation of the ABM treaty by the U.S. in 2002, the continued expansion of NATO, and, finally, the role played by the West in the armed overthrow of the regime in the Ukraine and in the civil war that followed.

Twelve nations have joined NATO in the past 15 years, bringing it to its current level of 29 member countries.

It is true that the Putin regime has put a lot of effort into cultivating patriotic sentiment. He even had the election date postponed to coincide with the anniversary of the annexation of Crimea, a very popular act. But the regime finds fertile ideological terrain for these efforts in the population – of all political colours, except the most neoliberal. To understand that, one has only to have a passing knowledge of Russian history and to recognize the aggressive nature of NATO policy, particularly of the U.S., in defence of its domination of a unipolar world.

The third factor in Putin’s popularity is the outcome of the so-called “revolution of dignity” of February 2014 in Ukraine – the overthrow of a corrupt, but legally elected government by a movement that was popular in its origins but was soon joined by armed neo-fascist forces and NATO emissaries. While it is true that Russian media, controlled by the government, propagate an image of chaos and disaster in Ukraine, it is the case that they really do not have to exaggerate that reality.

However one looks at it – except from the point of view of the ultranationalists and the oligarchs – the situation of the popular classes in Ukraine has radically deteriorated. And that makes the situation in Russia look so much better. This contrast weighs heavily on the political choice even of people who hate the Putin regime. While it is true that this is aided by the regime’s efforts to prevent the emergence of a credible alternative to Putin, the Ukrainian situation is of great help.

A few words about Russia’s young people. Recent reports cite surveys that show that the youth support Putin even more than the rest of the population. That is perhaps the case – the mass of young people appears even more apolitical than their elders. But 2017 saw some very big protest demonstrations, mainly of people 16-24 years of age. These demonstrations were called – but not organized – by Alexei Navalny, known as an anti-corruption campaigner. These young people came out despite the very real threat of arrest, of which there were hundreds. Having witnessed one of these myself, I can say that what mobilized these young people was less their anger at corruption in high levels than their protest against the arbitrary limits on their freedom. This beginning of an awakening among Russia’s young people perhaps augurs change in that country’s hitherto rather stagnant political scene.

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The EU has set up a military research programme for the first time this year, with the objective of helping to preserve the competitiveness of the arms industry. The so-called Preparatory Action on Defence Research (PADR) allocates a total sum of 90 million euros to military research projects over a three-year period up to 2020.

The EU is prioritising highly controversial research under the PADR, such as the development of robotic weapon systems. Not only will this exacerbate a global race in such technologies, but this could also lead to an increase in arms exports to repressive regimes and fuel conflict. Already EU-made weapons are facilitating violations of international humanitarian law and human rights in a number of conflict zones.

The Preparatory Action is only a first step in paving the way for a full blown European Defence Fund of an estimated 40 billion euros for research and development of military hardware over the next ten years.

We invite all scientists, academics and researchers to sign this pledge and to call on the European Union to stop funding military research programmes.

 Europe has a long tradition of innovation and EU research programmes have been shown to be a powerful policy tool. The EU should continue to invest in civilian research areas that benefit Europeans and the rest of the world, helping to solve health and environmental problems, and contributing to stability and equality in society.

Investing EU funds in military research will not only divert resources from more peaceful areas, but is also likely to fuel arms races, undermining security in Europe or elsewhere. The EU, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012, should instead fund more innovative and courageous research which helps to tackle the root causes of conflict or contributes to the peaceful resolution of conflict.

Therefore, as a scientist, academic and/or researcher I call on the European Union to refrain from any further steps towards the funding of military research and development programmes.

Sign the pledge here.

US soft power is included in US policy papers and promoted by US politicians and diplomats on a regular basis. It is also included as the admitted purpose of US, UK and European international programmes like Chevening and Fulbright scholarships.

Foreign Affairs magazine, published by big-business-funded US policy think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations, would reveal in a review of Joseph Nye’s book, “Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics,” that (my emphasis):

…the term “soft power” — the ability of a country to persuade others to do what it wants without force or coercion — is now widely invoked in foreign policy debates.

The United States can dominate others, but it has also excelled in projecting soft power, with the help of its companies, foundations, universities, churches, and other institutions of civil society; U.S. culture, ideals, and values have been extraordinarily important in helping Washington attract partners and supporters.

And in reality, US domination and its soft power work together to create what is modern day empire and the foundation of US global hegemony.

The United States’ many organisations, from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) to its Young Leaders Initiatives targeting the Americas (Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative/YLAI), Africa (Young African Leaders Initiative/YALI) and Southeast Asia (Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative/YSELAI), all seek to indoctrinate and co-opt the populations of targeted nations to serve the interests of Wall Street and Washington rather than their own.

While the US does this often under the guise of promoting “democracy,” it is clearly engaged in precisely the opposite. While democracy is generally understood as a process of self-determination, through US soft power, the process is co-opted and abused to allow Wall Street and Washington to determine the policies and direction a targeted nation takes rather than its own people.

Often times victims of US soft power are youths who are indoctrinated in university programmes or targeted by US-funded fronts posing as nongovernmental organisations (NGOs). They believe they have arrived at their conclusions and adopted their personal set of principles on their own, unaware of the amount of time, money and energy invested in ensuring they adopt a worldview and a set of political proclivities that serve US interests rather than those of their own nation, people and those of the individuals themselves.

The use of soft power is not new. It is a practice as old as empire itself.

The ancient Romans engaged in sophisticated cultural colonisation we could easily describe as soft power.

Ancient Roman historian Tacitus (c. AD 56 – after 117) would adeptly describe the systematic manner in which Rome pacified foreign peoples and the manner in which it would extend its sociocultural and institutional influence over conquered lands.

In chapter 21 of his book Agricola, named so after his father-in-law whose methods of conquest were the subject of the text, Tacitus would explain (my emphasis):

His object was to accustom them to a life of peace and quiet by the provision of amenities. He therefore gave official assistance to the building of temples, public squares and good houses. He educated the sons of the chiefs in the liberal arts, and expressed a preference for British ability as compared to the trained skills of the Gauls. The result was that instead of loathing the Latin language they became eager to speak it effectively. In the same way, our national dress came into favour and the toga was everywhere to be seen. And so the population was gradually led into the demoralizing temptation of arcades, baths and sumptuous banquets. The unsuspecting Britons spoke of such novelties as ‘civilization’, when in fact they were only a feature of their enslavement.

In a very similar manner, youths today in nations targeted by US soft power describe the notions of “democracy” and “human rights’ as well as Western-style neo-liberal politics and institutions as “civilisation.” They often seek out every opportunity to disparage the culture and institutions of their own nation, describing them as backwards and demanding they be promptly replaced with new notions and institutions modelled after or directly beholden to those in the US and Europe.

We can see across the whole of Asia this full process of soft power coming to fruition. Years and millions of dollars spent in infiltrating universities, indoctrinating youths through programmes like YSEALI or the British Chevening scholarships and funding and directing fronts posing as NGOs has led to the creation of entire political parties contesting power, comprised of indoctrinated youths beholden both to the notions of Western culture and institutions as well as the money and technical support nations like the US and UK directly provide these parties.

Hong Kong’s “Demosisto” political party is made up entirely of youths and NGO representatives that have been created and funded for years by the US, UK and various other European interests.

Myanmar’s ruling National League for Democracy has the top echelons of its party run by former journalists, activists and politicians cultivated, funded and trained by US-funded programmes for decades. This includes the current minister of information, Pe Myint.

Case Study: Thailand

The recently formed “Future Forward” opposition party headed by Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, the heir of a multi-million dollar auto-parts business, has overtly advertised itself as an amalgamation of Western-style neo-liberal political ideology.

While the supposed “founders” of the party appear to fully represent various social issues, the immense amount of money needed to perform “Future Forward’s” campaigning indicates the true founders (and financial sponsors) have chosen to remain behind the scenes.

Reuters in its article, “Thai auto heir launches new party, promises to heal political rift,” would admit:

Thanathorn introduced other party co-founders on Thursday, including a filmmaker and a number of activists involved in LGBT and environment causes, among other issues. 

Party co-founder Piyabutr Saengkanokkul, a law lecturer at Bangkok’s Thammasat University, said the party hopes to transcend Thailand’s political divide, a sentiment echoed by the student-led groups that have held anti-junta protests across Bangkok in recent weeks. 

But some say the party might find it difficult to appeal to grassroots voters. 

“Will they, academics and NGOs … be able to connect with grassroots people, which is a large part of the electoral base?,” asked one Twitter user.

To create that electoral base, the US is currently funding programmes inside Thailand specifically to infiltrate and co-opt local, regional and national concerns. Everything from environmental issues regarding the building of dams and power plants to women’s rights and access to education have been used as vectors by US-funded organisations seeking to co-opt and knit together various genuine individual pragmatic causes into a singular, national political clearinghouse.

Part of this singular front’s responsibilities will be to serve as a voting bloc to place parties like “Future Forward” into power.

NED and YSEALI are two examples of how single US organisations are targeting and cultivating youths much in the way Tacitus described in Agricola. These individuals are cultivated to be “leaders” who then create their own organisations (often US funded) to begin recruiting and indoctrinating additional members.

Like a pyramid scheme, the efforts’ structure enables the US to recruit and indoctrinate Thais faster than any single US organisation could do on its own. While programmes like YSEALI boast of thousands of leaders who undoubtedly have infected thousands more with US-funded indoctrination, its still isn’t likely enough to create a voting bloc big enough to place “Future Forward” into power.

But it doesn’t need to be. The US is still depending on existing political machines of politicians like US proxy Thaksin Shinawatra to create the support needed to propel “Future Forward” and other parties like it politically.

Future Forward: The Evolution of a US Proxy  

While Reuters admits that Future Forward has been accused of ties to US proxy Thaksin Shinawatra, the article fails to mention the substantial evidence those making the accusations are citing.

Piyabutr, mentioned by Reuters as the party’s co-founder, had previously abused his academic credentials to organise and host an indoor event for Thaksin Shinawatra’s United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD) also known as red shirts. The event held at Thammasat University, included Thaksin Shinawatra’s lobbyist Robert Amsterdam given a front row seat during the proceedings.

The red shirts are Shinawatra’s street front whose reputation had become a political liability after back-to-back riots and deadly armed violence the front carried out in 2009-2010.

Piyabutr and fellow academics endeavoured to rehabilitate the UDD’s public image by transforming it into a more academic movement, papering over the crass populism and demagoguery used to create it in the first place. While the “red shirt” street front is still used to give emerging successors to Shinawatra’s political machinery the numbers they need at public events, protests and rallies, this new, more academic face is what is being presented to the public, and the world.

Soft Power’s Final Destination: Consume All, Including Allies  

The US will continue attempting to create a voting bloc independent of traditional political figures like Thaksin Shinawatra and his own networks of patronage. While Thaksin Shinawatra has been a loyal servant of US interests for years, the US would prefer a political party and a voting bloc it controls entirely on its own. By Shinawatra supporting the creation of parties like “Future Forward” he is in reality sealing his own political fate.

Special interests sponsoring “Future Forward’s” political activities are also creating a monster that will eventually consume them both politically and economically in the future. As demonstrated in nations around the world subjected to the full cycle of US meddling, co-opting, infiltration and domination, even those special interests that eagerly assisted US ambitions find themselves unwelcomed competitors once the US finally succeeds.

Those who believe they can “ride the tiger” of US hegemony into power often find themselves the target of the very domestic networks of agitators and activists they helped the US create.

Protecting Against US Soft Power 

Clearly, the soft power process has nothing to do with any genuine interpretation of democracy. It is simply using democratic themes and procedures to lend legitimacy to what is modern day imperialism and the very sort of soft power employed by the Romans against the ancient world centuries ago.

Thailand and other nations targeted by US soft power can only defend themselves by being able to both effectively expose US soft power methods, and by countering them through the work of indigenous institutions and genuine NGOs filling Thailand’s political, activist, educational, information and economic space sufficiently enough so that no room remains for foreign-funded alternatives.

As to why the US is so interested in co-opting and controlling Thailand politically, the answer lies in Washington’s larger Asia-Pacific agenda which includes the encirclement and containment of China with nations that do business with and are entirely under the influence of Washington. A political party run by the products of decades of US cultural colonisation and soft power efforts taking office in Thailand would directly serve Washington’s wider regional ambitions and augment its efforts to co-opt and control Thailand’s Southeast Asian neighbours as well.

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

Featured image is from the author.

Featured image: Before and after picture of building struck during Operation Orchard in Syria (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: 

stephenlendman.org 

(Home – Stephen Lendman). 

Contact at [email protected].

After saying nothing about the incident for over a decade, the IDF falsely claimed it destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007 before it became active.

Israeli and Western media are all over the story, reporting the ruse, what Haaretz called former prime minister Ehud Olmert’s “finest hour” – a shameful perversion of what actually happened.

Syria had no nuclear reactor. Claims otherwise were fabricated. A lawless IDF September 6, 2007 attack indeed occurred on its territory.

At the time, anonymous sources claimed Israel destroyed a partially constructed nuclear reactor.

None existed. The site attacked had nothing to do with nuclear reactor development. Israel committed premeditated aggression. It wasn’t the first or last time.

In February 2008, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh explained what happened, his article headlined “A Strike in the Dark,” saying:

At least four “low-flying” IDF warplanes entered Syrian airspace illegally.

Unprovoked, they “carried out a secret bombing mission on the banks of the Euphrates River, about ninety miles north of the Iraq border.”

Syria denounced the incident. Assad admitted Israeli warplanes struck their intended target – an “unused military building,” he explained, not a “nascent nuclear reactor,” as anonymous sources claimed.

Media reports at the time cited an unconfirmed North Korean connection to an eastern Syrian agricultural area construction site, adding:

Days before the bombing incident, a North Korean ship arrived at Syria’s Tartus port city. Satellite imagery falsely claimed a building under construction “was designed to hold a nuclear reactor when completed,” Hersh explained.

Reportedly, Washington signed off on the Israeli bombing. The Olmert regime and IDF maintained silence about it.

Hersh:

“(I)n three months of reporting” following the incident, “I was repeatedly told by current and former intelligence, diplomatic, and congressional officials that they were not aware of any solid evidence of ongoing nuclear-weapons programs in Syria” – because there was none.

Then IAEA director-general Mohamed ElBaradei issued a statement saying:

“Our experts who have carefully analyzed the satellite imagery say it is unlikely that this building was a nuclear facility.”

Center for American Progress director for nuclear policy Joseph Cirincione said

“Syria does not have the technical, industrial, or financial ability to support a nuclear-weapons program,” adding:

“I’ve been following this issue for 15 years, and every once in a while a suspicion arises and we investigate and there’s nothing.”

“There was and is no nuclear-weapons threat from Syria. This is all political. (S)ome of our best journalists were used.”

Hersh explained similar information came from congressional members weeks after the bombing, following intelligence briefings – including about an alleged North Korean connection.

At the time, an unnamed congressional member said

“(t)here’s nothing that proves any perfidy involving the North Koreans.”

Hersh stressed “serious and unexamined contradictions” in published accounts of the incident.

An unnamed IAEA official mocked the notion that the Syrian building under construction was for a nuclear reactor, saying “(a) square building is a square building” – nothing else, nothing sinister or illegal about it.

Before the bombing, a former State Department intelligence expert told Hersh there was no security around the building in question, adding:

“No barracks for the Army or the workers. No associated complex.”

Nonproliferation expert Jeffrey Lewis said the building wasn’t high enough to house a Yongbyon-size reactor – with enough room to extract control rods.

Nor did satellite imagery indicate major underground construction. Lewis added “(a)ll you could see was a box. You couldn’t see enough to know how big it will be or what it will do. It’s just a box” like countless other buildings.

A former senior US intelligence official with access to current information told Hersh:

“We don’t have any proof of a reactor – no signals intelligence, no human intelligence, no satellite intelligence.”

A Syrian Foreign Ministry official told Hersh the site Israel struck “was an old military building that had been abandoned by the Syrian military. What they targeted was a building used for fertilizer and water pumps.”

Soil samples of the targeted site would have found “only cement.” Hersh believes

“(w)hatever was under construction, with North Korean help, it apparently had little to do with agriculture – or with nuclear reactors – but much to do with Syria’s defense posture, and its military relationship with North Korea,” adding:

According to a former US intelligence official, “America’s involvement in the Israeli raid dated back months earlier, and was linked to the Administration’s planning for a possible air war against Iran.”

Hersh is highly respected, his reports credible. In September 2007, Israeli warplanes did not target and destroy a Syrian nuclear reactor – as reported at the time, what Israel for the first time now falsely claims.

Netanyahu lied tweeting:

“The Israeli government, the Israel Defense Forces and the Mossad prevented Syria from developing nuclear capability,” adding:

“They are worthy of full praise for this. Israel’s policy was and remains consistent – to prevent our enemies from arming themselves with nuclear weapons.”

Israel is the only regional armed and dangerous nuclear power since the atom was split.

Neither Iran, Syria or any other Middle East country pursued development of these weapons earlier or now.

Claims otherwise are bald-faced lies.

*

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

This morning I watched a briefing the Russian Foreign Ministry provided for the diplomatic community where international toxic substances experts presented information concerning the alleged nerve agent used in the alleged attack on Skripal and his daughter. This information has been known for some time, and none of it has been reported in the Western presstitute media.

In the briefing the Russians once again relied on facts and existing agreements that govern the investigation of such events and asked why the British were demanding explanations from Russia when the British refuse to comply with established procedures and refuse to produce any evidence of what the British allege to have occurred.

The response from the US and French embassy representatives was simply to state that they needed no evidence to stand in solidarity with their British friends, that Russia was guilty by accusation alone, and that they would hold Russia accountable.

The benefit of this absurd response, which the Russians declared to be shameful, is to make clear to the Russian government that it is a waste of time to try, yet again, to confront unsupported accusations from the West with facts and appeals to follow the specified legal processes. The West simply does not care. The issue is not the facts of the case. The agenda is to add another layer to the ongoing demonization of Russia.

Sooner or later the Russian government will realize that its dream of “working with its Western partners” is not to be and that the hostile actions and false accusations from the West indicate that the West is set on a course of conflict with Russia and is preparing the insouciant Western peoples to accept the consequences.

The Russian official hosting the briefing compared the Skripal accusation with the Malaysian Airliner accusation and the many others that resulted in instant accusations against Russia and refusal to cooperate in investigations.

The Russian official also drew the parallel of the accusations against Russia with the US and UK false accusations against Serbia, which led to the bombing of Serbia, and to the false accusations against Iraq, for which Colin Powell and Tony Blair had to apologize, that resulted in the destruction of Iraq and the death and displacement of millions of Iraqis.

The Russian official also said, pointedly, that the days were gone when no one challenged statements by the US government. The world, he said, is no longer unipolar. Russia, he said, does not respond to unsupported allegations. He also said that the way the Americans, British, and French are proceeding suggests that the Skripal affair is an orchestration created for the purpose of accusing Russia.

This conclusion is supported by the history of US and UK interventions. In recent times we have seen the West’s orchestrated interventions based on obvious and blatant lies in Serbia, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, and the attempts to destabilize Iran and Venezuela. History provides almost endless examples of the lies used by the US and UK to implement their agendas.

Nothing Washington and London say can ever be believed. Is it possible for Russia or any country to work with “partners” who are shameless, short on integrity and honesty, and have proven themselves unworthy of trust?

*

This article was originally published on Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Most national and international news reported in the US is now an extended Red Scare narrative punctuated by stories about Trump’s unparalleled boorishness and recklessness, which can of course be blamed on Russia since Trump never would have been elected if thirteen Russian trolls hadn’t prowled the Internet for potential Trump voters and targeted them with information about Hillary Clinton’s international crimes and the global influence peddling operation known as the Clinton Foundation.

The new bogeymen blamed for electing Trump—Facebook and Cambridge Analytica—are getting some play, but President Obama’s 2008 campaign won prominent advertising awards for integrating social and traditional media, and Carole Davidson, Obama’s 2012 Obama for America Media Director, just stepped up to say that Facebook allowed them to mine data. That doesn’t mean that rationality will win the day, and so far Russia treachery continues to dominate the news.

Just last night my local community radio station—which prides itself on bringing you the news that no one else will because it doesn’t rely on corporate money—reported at least three Russia-did-it or Russia’s-about-to-do-it stories on its hour-long newscast One was a Feature Story Newswire about Bill Browder, an international investor who gave up his US citizenship to avoid taxes, became the largest foreign investor in Russia, after which he was convicted of tax fraud in Russia, and then testified before the House Intelligence Committee about Russian intervention in the last US presidential election.

Browder now resides in Britain and says he’s likely to be the next target of an international Russian hit squad because he’s been a very vocal public critic of Vladimir Putin. He’s demanding a firm British and international response to Russia’s alleged chemical weapons poisoning of defunct double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in a British cathedral town of 40,000 on March 4. Russia released Skripal from prison and sent him into retirement in Britain in a 2010 spy swap.

The Washington Post speculated at great length about the Russian motive for such an admittedly implausible attack to make it seem less so. Like all the other outlets in control of the American mind, they began with the a priori assumption that “a former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal, was poisoned with Novichok, an extremely toxic Russian nerve agent.”

The Post did not appear to have come across Judith Miller’s May 25, 1999 New York Times report that the Pentagon—in cooperation with the government of Uzbekistan, in the former Soviet Union—would take charge of “demilitarization and decontamination” at the Nukus, Uzbekistan chemical weapons plant. The plant, she wrote, had been the Soviets’ major research and testing site for “a new class of secret, highly lethal chemical weapons called ‘Novichok.’”

However, since the formula for manufacturing Novichok is available in a book for sale on Amazon, we shouldn’t rush to conclude that the US or Russia or any other determinate entity used it in a botched attempt to assassinate the Skirpals.

Corporate press, US and UK state press, and US and UK officialdom nevertheless univocally repeat that since Russia [the Soviet Union] manufactured Novichok, Russia must have been behind the attack. This text from a March 12 ABC News story is just one of many histrionic examples.

ABC News: And today Prime Minister Theresa May told Parliament the weapon was Russian made!!!

Theresa May: It is now clear that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia. It is highly likely that Russia was responsible.

LIONS AND TIGERS AND RUSSIAN BEARS!!! OH MY!!! UK Foreign Minister Boris Johnson was all over US and European airwaves snorting that “the Russian denials grow increasingly absurd,” and that Vladimir Putin had directly ordered this assassination-by-Novichok on British soil.

Craig Murray, former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan, writes on his blog that “The Novichok Story Is Indeed Another Iraqi WMD Scam.” The fifth and last point of his argument is:

“The ‘Novichok’ programme was in Uzbekistan, not in Russia. Its legacy was inherited by the Americans during their alliance with Karimov, not by the Russians.”

Murray continues to post updates on the Novichok scam on his blog, CraigMurry.uk.org. On May 19, he told RT that

“it’s absolutely astonishing that anyone believes this.” He also, said, “The idea that we have an investigative or free journalism in this country has been sadly exposed [as false] by this case.”

*

Ann Garrison is an independent journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2014, she received the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize for her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes Region. She can be reached at @AnnGarrison or [email protected].

Google announced Wednesday that it is partnering with the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Financial Times and other major news outlets to reinforce their monopoly over news coverage by blocking independent news organizations.

The New York Times, whose stock price soared after the announcement, said Google’s initiative was aimed at combatting “the epidemic of false and unreliable information on the internet,” by “pledging to spend $300 million over the next three years to support authoritative journalism.”

In reality, Google’s action is the latest step in a protracted campaign on the part of the major technology companies, working with the Democratic Party and the US intelligence agencies, to censor the Internet.

The campaign for Internet censorship has been spearheaded by the major media outlets, including the Times and the Post, who have seen their subscription base eroded by the growth of oppositional news outlets and “citizen journalism.” By working with the technology giants and intelligence agencies to censor smaller news outlets, the media giants hope to regain the monopoly over the distribution of news they held before the rise of the Internet.

In April of last year, Google announced measures to promote “authoritative content” over “alternative viewpoints,” which led search traffic to left-wing, antiwar, and socialist web sites to plunge by over 50 percent.

After Google’s announcement last year, other major technology companies followed suit in implementing their own measures to censor the Internet. This year, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that it would promote “trusted” news sources, such as the New York Times, over public postings by individuals and independent news agencies. At a congressional hearing this year, Facebook said it had hired some 10,000 content moderators, and would double that number by the end of the year.

But despite Facebook’s moves to rapidly implement the demands of the intelligence agencies for Internet censorship, leading Democrats, including Senator Mark Warner, have called on them to do more to crack down on social opposition.

Amid a growing strike wave by workers all over the world, including struggles this month by teachers in West Virginia and Oklahoma, university lecturers in the United Kingdom, and Amazon warehouse workers in Spain, leading news outlets have repeatedly warned that Facebook was being used to mobilize social opposition outside of the framework of the trade union establishment.

Within this context, the major news outlets have, in pursuit of their own aims, seized upon revelations that the election data firm Cambridge Analytica harvested the personal information of some 50 million Facebook users without their knowledge in 2014. At the time, the firm was owned by Robert Mercer, a billionaire who would later back the Trump campaign, and was headed by Steve Bannon, who would later serve as Trump’s campaign manager.

While the type of data harvesting conducted by Cambridge Analytica raises serious privacy concerns, the media firestorm that has followed the revelations is highly selective.

Cambridge Analytica had access to only a fraction of the data that Facebook itself collects and uses—often in secret—for political purposes. The company’s actions, moreover, are par for the course for the conduct of bourgeois election campaigns, which have come more and more to rely on data analytics and artificial intelligence to assess and impact voters’ political views.

A recent report by Investor’s Business Daily noted

“In 2012, the Obama campaign encouraged supporters to download an Obama 2012 Facebook app that, when activated, let the campaign collect Facebook data both on users and their friends.”

According to the report, up to 190 million people may have “had at least some of their Facebook data vacuumed up by the Obama campaign — without their knowledge or consent.”

Commenting on the Obama campaign’s data mining operation, former campaign director Carol Davidsen tweeted,

“Facebook was surprised we were able to suck out the whole social graph, but they didn’t stop us once they realized that was what we were doing.”

In leaked emails released by WikiLeaks in 2016, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg told Clinton campaign officials that she “badly” wanted Clinton to win, and that she had met with the candidate and campaign officials on multiple occasions.

While the actions taken by Cambridge Analytica point to a substantial violation of users’ privacy, they pale in comparison to the massive surveillance and content harvesting operation carried out by Facebook itself, with the assistance of the leading US intelligence agencies and Democratic Party, which, in the name of fighting “fake news” and extremist content, aim to review and censor everything posted on the social media platform.

Even more importantly, the Democrats’ highly selective outrage over the Cambridge Analytica scandal is being used to hold Facebook’s feet to the fire, with the aim of forcing it to more aggressively censor social opposition in the name of cracking down on Russian “bots and trolls.” Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee and a leading proponent of internet censorship, seized on the scandal to put further pressure on Facebook to declare that it was “misused” by the “Russians” in the 2016 election campaign.

Warner told ABC,

“Facebook, since the beginnings of this investigation, has been reluctant, to say the least, to be fully forthcoming. I think it’s time for the CEO, Mr. Zuckerberg, and other top officials, to come and testify, and not tell part of the story, but tell the whole story of their involvement, not only with the Trump campaign, but their ability to have their platform misused by the Russians.”

In an op-ed entitled “Facebook Doesn’t Get It,” New York Times columnist David Leonhardt claimed that,

“By spreading false news stories and giving a megaphone to Russian trolls, Facebook — a vastly larger social network than Twitter — played a meaningful role in the presidential campaign.”

In fact, the massive data mining operations carried out by both the Democratic and Republican parties render absurd the argument that a few hundred thousand dollars of Facebook advertisements allegedly bought by “Russians” swayed the 2016 election. Both parties spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the type of data operations carried out by Cambridge Analytica, seeking to analyze, quantify, and affect the political viewpoints of hundreds of millions of people.

In fact, undercutting his own argument, Leonhardt called alleged Russian meddling a “scapegoat” for the election of Donald Trump and the electoral defeat of Hillary Clinton. Regardless, the “scapegoat” of “Russian meddling” is being used to fuel an even further crackdown on the Internet, in the name of blocking “fake news” and “divisive content.”

In just one example of the growing crackdown on freedom of expression on the Internet, over the past 48 hours, Facebook deleted a link published by the World Socialist Web Site to its recent review of the Ken Burns documentary on the Vietnam War, allegedly because the posting contained “nudity.” In fact, the article contained well-known images of Vietnamese civilians fleeing the atrocities of the United States and its proxy South Vietnamese forces; photos that have been published in dozens of leading newspapers all over the world.

With the class struggle heating up throughout the world, the US ruling elite is working with ever-greater speed to block the expression of social opposition on the Internet. We urge workers and young people seeking to defend the freedom of expression to contact the World Socialist Web Site and join its campaign against Internet censorship.

America’s ‘news’-media possess the mentality that characterizes a dictatorship, not a democracy. This will be documented in the linked-to empirical data which will be subsequently discussed. But, first, here is what will be documented by those data, and which will make sense of these data:

In a democracy, the public perceive their country to be improving, in accord with that nation’s values and priorities. Consequently, they trust their government, and especially they approve of the job-performance of their nation’s leader. In a dictatorship, they don’t. In a dictatorship, the government doesn’t really represent them, at all. It represents the rulers, typically a national oligarchy, an aristocracy of the richest 0.1% or even of only the richest 0.01%. No matter how much the government ‘represents’ the public in law (or “on paper”), it’s not representing them in reality; and, so, the public don’t trust their government, and the public’s job-rating of their national leader, the head-of-state, is poor, perhaps even more disapproval than approval. So, whereas in a democracy, the public widely approve of both the government and the head-of-state; in a dictatorship, they don’t.

In a dictatorship, the ‘news’-media hide reality from the public, in order to serve the government — not the public. But the quality of government that the regime delivers to its public cannot be hidden as the lies continually pile up, and as the promises remain unfulfilled, and as the public find that despite all of the rosy promises, things are no better than before, or are even becoming worse. Trust in such a government falls, no matter how much the government lies and its media hide the fact that it has been lying. Though a ‘democratic’ election might not retain in power the same leaders, it retains in power the same regime (be it the richest 0.1%, or the richest 0.01%, or The Party, or whatever the dictatorship happens to be). That’s because it’s a dictatorship: it represents the same elite of power-holding insiders, no matter what. It does not represent the public. That elite — whatever it is — is referred to as the “Deep State,” and the same Deep State can control more than one country, in which case there is an empire, which nominally is headed by the head-of-state of its leading country (this used to be called an “Emperor”), but which actually consists of an alliance between the aristocracies within all these countries; and, sometimes, the nominal leading country is actually being led, in its foreign policies, by wealthier aristocrats in the supposedly vassal nations. But no empire can be a democracy, because the residents in no country want to be governed by any foreign power: the public, in every land, want their nation to be free — they want democracy, no dictatorship at all, especially no dictatorship from abroad.

In order for the elite to change, a revolution is required, even if it’s only to a different elite, instead of to a democracy. So, if there is no revolution, then certainly it’s the same dictatorship as before. The elite has changed (and this happens at least as often as generations change), but the dictatorship has not. And in order to change from a dictatorship to a democracy, a revolution also is required, but it will have to be a revolution that totally removes from power the elite (and all their agents) who had been ruling. If this elite had been the nation’s billionaires and its centi-millionaires who had also been billionaire-class donors to political campaigns (such as has been proven to be the case in the United States), then those people, who until the revolution had been behind the scenes producing the bad government, need to be dispossessed of their assets, because their assets were being used as their weapons against the public, and those weapons need (if there is to be a democracy) to be transferred to the public as represented by the new and authentically democratic government. If instead the elite had been a party, then all of those individuals need to be banned from every sort of political activity in the future. But, in either case, there will need to be a new constitution, and a consequent new body of laws, because the old order (the dictatorship) no longer reigns — it’s no longer in force after a revolution. That’s what “revolution” means. It doesn’t necessarily mean “democratic,” but sometimes it does produce a democracy where there wasn’t one before. The idea that every revolution is democratic is ridiculous, though it’s often assumed in ‘news’-reports. In fact, coups (which the U.S. Government specializes in like no other) often are a revolution that replaces a democracy by a dictatorship (such as the U.S. Government did to Ukraine in 2014, for example, and most famously before that, did to Iran in 1953). (Any country that perpetrates a coup anywhere is a dictatorship over the residents there, just the same as is the case when any invasion and occupation of a country are perpetrated upon a country. The imposed stooges are stooges, just the same. No country that imposes coups and/or invasions/occupations upon any government that has not posed an existential threat against the residents of that perpetrating country, supports democracy; to the exact contrary, that country unjustifiably imposes dictatorships; it spreads its own dictatorship, which is of the imperialistic type, and any government that spreads its dictatorship is evil and needs to be replaced — revolution is certainly justified there.)

This is how to identify which countries are democracies, and which ones are not: In a democracy, the public are served by the government, and thus are experiencing improvement in their lives and consequently approve of the job-performance of their head-of-state, and they trust the government. But in a dictatorship, none of these things is true.

In 2014, a Japanese international marketing-research firm polled citizens in each of ten countries asking whether they approve or disapprove of the job-performance of their nation’s head-of-state, and Harvard then provided an English-translated version online for a few years, then eliminated that translation from its website; but, fortunately, the translation had been web-archived and so is permanent here (with no information however regarding methodology or sampling); and it shows the following percentages who approved of the job-performance of their President or other head-of-state in each of the given countries, at that time:

• China (Xi) 90%
• Russia (Putin) 87%
• India (Modi) 86%
• South Africa (Zuma) 70%
• Germany (Merkel) 67%
• Brazil (Roussef) 63%
• U.S. (Obama) 62%
• Japan (Abe) 60%
• UK (Cameron) 55%
• France (Hollande) 48%

In January 2018, the global PR firm Edelman came out with the latest in their annual series of scientifically polled surveys in more than two dozen countries throughout the world, tapping into, actually, some of the major criteria within each nation indicating whether or not the given nation is more toward the dictatorship model, or more toward the democracy model. The 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer survey showed that “Trust in Government” (scored and ranked on page 39) is 44% in Russia, and is only 33% in the United States. Trust in Government is the highest in China: 84%. The U.S. and Russia are the nuclear super-powers; and the U.S. and China are the two economic super-powers; so, these are the world’s three leading powers; and, on that single measure of whether or not a country is democratic, China is the global leader (#1 of 28), Russia is in the middle (#13 of 28), and U.S. ranks at the bottom of the three, and near the bottom of the entire lot (#21 of 28). (#28 of 28 is South Africa, which, thus — clearly in retrospect — had a failed revolution when it transitioned out of its apartheid dictatorship. That’s just a fact, which cannot reasonably be denied, given this extreme finding. Though the nation’s leader, Zuma, was, according to the 2014 Japanese study, widely approved by South Africans, his Government was overwhelmingly distrusted. This distrust indicates that the public don’t believe that the head-of-state actually represents the Government. If the head-of-state doesn’t represent the Government, the country cannot possibly be a democracy: the leader might represent the people, but the Government doesn’t.)

When the government is trusted but the head-of-state is not, or vice-versa, there cannot be a functioning democracy. In other words: if either the head-of-state, or the Government, is widely distrusted, there’s a dictatorship at that time, and the only real question regarding it, is: What type of dictatorship is this?

These figures — the numbers reported here — contradict the ordinary propaganda; and, so, Edelman’s trust-barometer on each nation’s ‘news’-media (which are scored and ranked on page 40) might also be considered, because the natural question now is whether unreliable news-media might have caused this counter-intuitive (in Western countries) rank-order. However, a major reason why this media-trust-question is actually of only dubious relevance to whether or not the given nation is a democracy, is that to assume that it is, presumes that trust in the government can be that easily manipulated — it actually can’t. Media and PR can’t do that; they can’t achieve it. Here is a widespread misconception: Trust in government results not from the media but from a government’s having fulfilled its promises, and from the public’s experiencing and seeing all around themselves that they clearly have been fulfilled; and lying ‘news’-media can’t cover-up that reality, which is constantly and directly being experienced by the public. 

However, even if trust in the ‘news’-media isn’t really such a thing as might be commonly hypothesized regarding trust in the government, here are those Edelman findings regarding the media, for whatever they’re worth regarding the question of democracy-versus-dictatorship: Trust in Media is the highest, #1, in China, 71%; and is 42% in #15 U.S.; and is 35% in #20 Russia. (A July 2017 Marist poll however found that only 30% of Americans trust the media. That’s a stunning 12% lower than the Edelman survey found.) In other words: Chinese people experience that what they encounter in their news-media becomes borne-out in retrospect as having been true, but only half of that percentage of Russians experience this; and U.S. scores nearer to Russia than to China on this matter. (Interestingly, Turkey, which scores #7 on trust-in-government, scores #28 on trust-in-media. Evidently, Turks find that their government delivers well on its promises, but that their ‘news’-media often deceive them. A contrast this extreme within the Edelman findings is unique. Turkey is a special case, regarding this.)

I have elsewhere reported regarding other key findings in that 2018 Edelman study.

According to all of these empirical findings, the United States is clearly not more of a democracy than it is a dictatorship. This particular finding from these studies has already been overwhelmingly (and even more so) confirmed in the world’s only in-depth empirical scientific study of whether or not a given country is or is not a “democracy”: This study (the classic Gilens and Page study) found, incontrovertibly, that the U.S. is a dictatorship — specifically an aristocracy, otherwise commonly called an “oligarchy,” and that it’s specifically a dictatorship by the richest, against the public. 

Consequently, whenever the U.S. Government argues that it intends to “spread democracy” (such as it claims in regards to Syria, and to Ukraine), it is most-flagrantly lying — and any ‘news’-medium that reports such a claim without documenting (such as by linking to this article) its clear and already-proven falsehood (which is more fully documented here than has yet been done anywhere, since the Gilens and Page study is here being further proven by these international data), is no real ‘news’-medium at all, but is, instead, a propaganda-vehicle for the U.S. Government, a propaganda-arm of a dictatorship — a nation that has been overwhelmingly proven to be a dictatorship, not a democracy.

The American public seem to know this (though the ‘news’-media routinely deny it by using phrases such as ‘America’s democracy’ in the current tense, not merely as referring to some past time): A scientifically designed Monmouth University poll of 803 American adults found — and reported on March 19th — that 74% believed either probably or definitely that “a group of unelected government and military officials who secretly manipulate or direct national policy” (commonly called the “Deep State”) actually exists in America.

The question as asked was: “The term Deep State refers to the possible existence of a group of unelected government and military officials who secretly manipulate or direct national policy. Do you think this type of Deep State in the federal government definitely exists, probably exists, probably does not exist, or definitely does not exist?” 27% said “Definitely”; 47% said “Probably”; only 16% said “Probably not”; and only 5% said “Definitely not.”

In effect, then: 74% think America is a dictatorship; only 21% think it’s not. So: this isn’t only fact; it’s also widespread belief. How, then, can the American Government claim that when it invades a country like Iraq (2003), or like Libya (2011), or like Syria (2012-), or like Ukraine (by coup in 2014), it’s hoping to ‘bring democracy’ there? Only by lying. Even the vast majority of the American public now know this.

So: America’s major ‘news’-media will have to change their thinking, to become at least as realistic as the American public already are. The con on that, has evidently run its course. It simply discredits those ‘news’-media.

*

This article was originally published on Strategic Culture Foundation.

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.

Saif al-Islam alluded to the evidence he gave to European media channel, Euronews in Tripoli in 2011, and lamented that it had taken the French justice system seven years to act on the matter.

An official of the French Judiciary told journalists on Tuesday that Sarkozy was being held in police custody for questioning by magistrates looking into allegations of Libyan funding for his 2007 election campaign.

A judiciary inquiry into the matter had been opened by France in 2013, while in January this year, Britain arrested and charged a French businessman suspected by investigators of funneling money from Gaddafi to finance Sarkozy’s campaign.

Speaking to Africanews, Saif al-Islam mentioned that there are several witnesses willing to testify against Sarkozy, including Abdallah Snoussi, the former director of the Libyan intelligence services and also Bashir Saleh Bashir, the former CEO of Libya Investment.

According to Saif al Islam, Snoussi has a recording of the first meeting between Sarkozy and Gaddafi held in Tripoli before his 2007 election campaign.

Saif al Islam adds that he too can testify, having witnessed the delivery of the first portion of the money to Sarkozy’s former chief of staff, Claude Guant in Tripoli.

He goes on to accuse Sarkozy of being a war criminal who is responsible for the spread of terrorism and illegal immigration in Libya. He urges French president Emmanuel Macron to right the wrongs of his predecessor and prosecute Sarkozy for crimes committed against Libya.

WATCH: During an exclusive interview with Euronews in 2011, Colonel Gaddafi's son demanded Sarkozy to repay Libya the money he took for his 2007 campaign election that helped him become French president.

Read more: https://t.co/JE4l87W762 pic.twitter.com/Mo3SHK2D1V

— euronews (@euronews) March 20, 2018

Saif al Islam who has expressed interest in the Mlibyan presidency also told Africanews that he supports an expeditious organisation of presidential elections in the North African country.

He warned that there are parties in Libya and abroad that seek to maintain the current chaotic situation in Libya, saying an endless war is imminent if elections are not held quickly.

Even as robotics experts, universities and tech luminaries sound the alarm about the potential for a future filled with killer robots powered by artificial intelligence, this technology already has arrived … minus the stringent ethics.

Fox News is reporting that a Tempe, Arizona woman was struck and killed near a crosswalk by an Uber vehicle that was in full autonomous mode at the time of the accident, despite having a human inside the vehicle. Fox stated that this is “an incident believed to be the first of its kind.”

While strictly correct that this is the first pedestrian killed, regular readers of Activist Post might recall that in July, 2016 I warned about some disturbing indications that this would be inevitable.

At the time, I highlighted the failure of Tesla’s autopilot sensors to detect an oncoming tractor trailer, which killed the test driver. Previous to that, there were ominous signs of this potential when Google’s self-driving cars first had failures that resulted in them being hit, but later actually caused an accident with a bus. As I stated then:

These incidents and dilemmas have thus far occurred during training and testing, which might mitigate some of the seriousness, but nonetheless points to some genuine flaws that should preclude these vehicles from being widely employed.

Now that autonomous vehicles have been unleashed upon the public, we are starting to see the unfortunate ramifications. To Uber’s credit, they at least are announcing a halt to all autonomous testing nationwide.

Aside from the technical challenges, questions have been raised about the ethics and morality that will be required in certain fatal situations. That area, too, has raised eyebrows. Is it right to sacrifice the lives of some to save others?

The standards are already becoming morally complex. Google X’s Chris Urmson, the company’s director of self-driving cars, said the company was trying to work through some difficult problems. Where to turn – toward the child playing in the road or over the side of the overpass?

Google has come up with its own Laws of Robotics for cars: “We try to say, ‘Let’s try hardest to avoid vulnerable road users, and beyond that try hardest to avoid other vehicles, and then beyond that try to avoid things that that don’t move in the world,’ and then to be transparent with the user that that’s the way it works,” Urmson said. (Source)

The truth is that researchers are still in the process of developing foolproof sensor systems and artificial intelligence that can properly recognize all surroundings and develop true situational awareness, yet they continue to be deployed into the real world. It’s also worth noting that the general public is overwhelmingly concerned about having A.I. vehicles in public, as Fox News cites a 78% disapproval.

Now we will wait to see if the response to this event will be a technological solution or a political one. As The Daily Sheeple rightly notes, this very well could be a crisis that the government can’t let go to waste. Currently, regulations for autonomous vehicles tend to vary by state. Will this Uber accident spur quick calls for stricter federal oversight?

The fatal crash will most likely prompt an even bigger and overbearing government response complete with regulations for self-driving cars. Legislators are already debating how much freedom the private sector should have.  The proposed bills would preempt states from establishing their own laws overseeing autonomous testing, which could clash with California’s well-established system. But the bill is stalled in the Senate, with several lawmakers “expressing concern about the amount of leeway offered to the private sector.” Translation: the intrusive government is debating how much if any, freedom the private sector deserves. (Repeat: “we are free.”)

Please give us your thoughts about the solutions that are needed as Big Tech is all-in on autonomous vehicles.

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Nicholas West writes for Activist Post. Support us at Patreon for as little as $1 per month. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Steemit, and BitChute. Ready for solutions? Subscribe to our premium newsletterCounter Markets.

Whether it creeps into politics, marketing, or simple profiling, the nature of surveillance as totality has been affirmed by certain events this decade.  The Edward Snowden disclosures of 2013 demonstrated the complicity and collusion between Silicon Valley and the technological stewards of the national security state.

It took the election of Donald J. Trump in 2016 to move the issue of social media profiling, sharing and targeting of information, to another level.  Not only could companies such as Facebook monetise their user base; those details could, in turn, be plundered, mined and exploited for political purpose.

As a social phenomenon, Facebook could not help but become a juggernaut inimical to the private sphere it has so comprehensively colonised.

“Facebook in particular,” claimed WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange in May 2011, “is the most appalling spy machine that has ever been invented.” It furnished “the world’s most comprehensive database about people, their relationships, their names, their addresses, their locations, their communications with each other, and their relatives, all sitting within the United States, all accessible to US intelligence.”

Now, the unsurprising role played by Cambridge Analytica with its Facebook accessory to politicise and monetise data reveals the tenuous ground notions of privacy rest upon.  Outrage and uproar has been registered, much of it to do with a simple fact: data was used to manipulate, massage and deliver a result to Trump – or so goes the presumption.  An instructive lesson here would be to run the counter-factual: had Hillary Clinton won, would this seething discontent be quite so enthusiastic?

Be that as it may, the spoliations of Cambridge Analytica are embedded in a broader undertaking: the evisceration of privacy, and the generation of user profiles gathered through modern humanity’s most remarkable surveillance machine.  The clincher here is the link with Facebook, though the company insists that it “received data from a contractor, which we deleted after Facebook told us the contractor had breached their terms of service.”

Both Facebook and Cambridge Analytica have attempted to isolate and distance that particular contractor, a certain Aleksandr Kogan, the Cambridge University researcher whose personality quiz app “thisisyourdigitallife” farmed the personal data of some 50 million users who were then micro-targeted for reasons of political advertising. 

The sinister genius behind this was the ballooning from the initial downloads – some 270,000 people – who exchanged personal data on their friends including their “likes” for personality predictions.  A broader data set of profiles were thereby created and quarried. 

Kogan claims to have been approached by Cambridge Analytica, rather than the other way around, regarding “terms of usage of Facebook data”.  He was also reassured that the scheme was legal, being “commercial” in nature and typical of the way “tens of thousands of apps” were using social media data. But it took Cambridge Analytica’s whistleblower, Christopher Wylie, to reveal that data obtained via Kogan’s app was, in fact, used for micro-targeting the US electorate in breach of privacy protocols.

Mark Zuckerberg’s response has entailed vigorous hand washing.  In 2015, he claims that Facebook had learned that Cambridge Analytica shared data from Kogan’s app.  

“It is against our policies for developers to share data without other people’s consent, so we immediately banned Kogan’s app from our platform”.

Certifications were duly provided that such data had been deleted, though the crew at Facebook evidently took these at unverified face value.  Not so, as matters transpired, leading to the claim that trust had not only been breached between Facebook, Kogan and Cambridge Analytica, but with the users themselves.

Facebook, for its part, has been modestly contrite.  

“We have a responsibility to protect your data,” went Zuckerberg in a statement, “and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you.”  

His posted statement attempts to water down the fuss.  Data protections – most of them, at least – were already being put in place. He described the limitations placed on the accessing of user information by data apps connected to Facebook friends.

The networked sphere, as it is termed in with jargon-heavy fondness by some academics, has seen the accumulation of data all set and readied for the “information civilisation”.  Google’s chief economist Hal Varian has been singled out for special interest, keen on what he terms, in truly benign fashion, “computer-mediated transactions”.  These entail “data extraction and analysis,” various “new contractual forms” arising from “better monitoring”, “personalisation and customisation” and “continuous experiments”.

Such are the vagaries of the information age. As a user of such freely provided services, users are before a naked confessional, conceding and surrendering identities to third parties with Faustian ease.  This surrender has its invidious by products, supplying intelligence and security services accessible data.

Cambridge Analytica, for its part, sets itself up as an apotheosis of the information civilisation, a benevolent, professionally driven information hitman. “Data drives all we do,” it boldly states to potential clients.  “Cambridge Analytica uses data to change audience behaviour.”

This sounds rather different to the company’s stance on Saturday, when it claimed that,

“Advertising is not coercive; people are smarter than that.”  With cold show insistence, it insisted that, “This isn’t a spy movie.” 

Two services are provided suggesting that people are not, in the minds of its bewitchers, that intelligent: the arm of data-driven marketing designed to “improve your brand’s marketing effectiveness by changing consumer behaviour” and that of “data-driven campaigns” where “greater influence” is attained through “knowing your electorate better”.

On the latter, it is boastful, claiming to have supported over 100 campaigns across five continents. “Within the United States alone, we have played a pivotal role in winning presidential races as well as congressional and state elections.”

CA has donned its combat fatigues to battle critics.  Its Board of Directors has suspended CEO Alexander Nix, claiming that

“recent comments secretly recorded by Channel 4 and other allegations do not represent the values or operations of the firm and his suspension reflects the seriousness with which we view this violation.” 

The comments in question, caught in an undercover video, show Nix offering a range of services to the Channel 4 undercover reporter: Ukrainian sex workers posing as “honey-traps”; a video evidencing corruption that might be uploaded to the Internet; and operations with former spies. “We can set up fake IDs and Web sites, we can be students doing research projects attached to a university; we can be tourists.”

The company has also attempted to debunk a set of what it sees as flourishing myths.  It has not, for instance, been uncooperative with the UK’s data regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office, having engaged it since February 2017.  It rejects notions that it peddles fake news. “Fake news is a serious concern for all of us in the marketing industry.”  (Nix’s cavalier advertising to prospective clients suggests otherwise.)

In other respects, Cambridge Analytica also rejected using Facebook data in its political models, despite having obtained that same data.  “We ran a standard political data science program with the same kind of political preference models used by other presidential campaigns.”  Nor did it use personality profiles for the 2016 US Presidential election. Having only hopped on board in June, “we focused on the core elements of a core political data science program.”

The company’s weasel wording has certainly been extensive.  Nix has done much to meander, dodge and contradict.  On the one hand, he would like to take credit for the company’s product – the swaying of a US election.  But in doing so, it did not use “psychographic” profiles.

Surveillance capitalism is the rope which binds the actors of this latest drama in the annals of privacy’s demise.  There are discussions that political data mining designed to manipulate and sway elections be considered in the same way political donations are.  But in the US, where money and political information are oft confused as matters of freedom, movement on this will be slow.  The likes of Cambridge Analytica and similar information mercenaries will continue thriving.

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

Featured image is from BetaNews.

The week that has just ended was exceptionally rich in events. But no media were able to report it, because they had all deliberately masked certain dimensions in order to protect the story that was being woven by their government. London had attempted to provoke a major conflict, but lost to Russia, President Trump and Syria.

The British government and some of its allies, including US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, have attempted to launch a Cold War against Russia.

Their plan was to fabricate an attack against an ex-double agent in Salisbury and at the same time a chemical attack against the “moderate rebels” in the Ghouta. The conspirators’ intention was to profit from the efforts of Syria to liberate the suburbs of its capital city and the disorganisation of Russia on the occasion of its Presidential election. Had these manipulations worked, the United Kingdom would have pushed the USA to bomb Damascus, including the Presidential palace, and demand that the United Nations General Assembly exclude Russia from the Security Council.

However, the Syrian and Russian Intelligence Services got wind of what was being plotted. They realised that the US agents in the Ghouta who were preparing an attack against the Ghouta were not working for the Pentagon, but for another US agency.

In Damascus, the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Fayçal Miqdad, set up an emergency Press conference for 10 March, in order to alert his fellow citizens. From its own side, Moscow had first of all tried to contact Washington via the diplomatic channels. But aware that the US ambassador, Jon Huntsman Jr, is the director of Caterpillar, the company which had supplied tunneling materials to the jihadists so that they could build their fortifications, Moscow decided to bypass the usual diplomatic channels.

Here’s how things played out:

12 March 2018

The Syrian army seized two chemical weapons laboratories, the first on 12 March in Aftris, and the second on the following day in Chifonya. Meanwhile, Russian diplomats pushed the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to get involved in the criminal investigation in Salisbury.

In the House of Commons, British Prime Minister Theresa May violently accused Russia of having ordered the attack in Salisbury. According to her, the ex-double agent Sergeï Skripal and his daughter were poisoned by a military nerve gas of a type « developed by Russia » under the name of “Novitchok” Since the Kremlin considers Russian citizens who have defected as legitimate targets, it is therefore highly likely that they ordered the crime.

Image on the right: Russian ex-counter intelligence officer Vil Mirzayanov defected to the United States. Now 83 years old, he comments on the Skripal affair from Boston.

“Novitchok” is known by what has been revealed by two Soviet personalities, Lev Fyodorov and Vil Mirzayanov. The scientist Fyodorov published an article in the Russian weekly Top Secret (Совершенно секретно) in July 1992, warning about the extremely dangerous nature of this product, and warning against the use of old Soviet weaponry by the Western powers to destroy the environment in Russia and make it unlivable. In October 1992, he published a second article in the News of Moscow (Московские новости) with a counter-espionage executive, Mirzayanov, denouncing the corruption of certain generals and the traffic of “Novitchok” in which they were involved. However, they did not know to whom they may have sold the product. Mirzayanov was first of all arrested for high treason, then released. Fyodorov died in Russia last August, but Mirzayanov is living in exile in the United States, where he collaborates with the Department of Defense.

Novitchok was fabricated in a Soviet laboratory in Nurus, in what is now Uzbekistan. During the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it was destroyed by a US team of specialists. Uzbekistan and the United States, by necessity, have therefore possessed and studied samples of this substance. They are both capable of producing it.

British Minister for Foreign Affairs Boris Johnson summoned the Russian ambassador in London, Alexandre Iakovenko. He gave him an ultimatum of 36 hours to check if any “Novitchok” was missing from their stocks. The ambassador replied that none was missing, because Russia had destroyed all of the chemical weapons it had inherited from the Soviet Union, as witnessed by the OPCW, which had drawn up a certified report.

After a telephone discussion with Boris Johnson, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in turn condemned Russia for the attack in Salisbury.

Meanwhile, a debate was under way at the UN Security Council concerning the situation in the Ghouta. The permanent representative for the US, Nikki Haley, declared –

“About one year ago, after the sarin gas attack perpetrated in Khan Cheïkhoun by the Syrian régime, the United States warned the Council. We said that faced with the systematic inaction of the international community, states are sometimes obliged to act on their own. The Security Council did not react, and the United States bombed the air base from which al Assad had launched his chemical attack. We are reiterating the same warning today”.

The Russian Intelligence Services handed out documents from the US staff. They showed that the Pentagon was ready to bomb the Presidential palace and the Syrian Ministries, on the model of what it had done during the taking of Baghdad (3 to 12 April 2003).

Commenting the declaration by Nikki Haley, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, who had always called the attack in Khan Cheïkhoun a “Western manipulation”, revealed that the false information which had led the White House into error and triggered the bombing of the Al-Chaayrate air base, had in fact come from a British laboratory which had never revealed how it came to possess its samples.

13 March 2018

The Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs published a Press release condemning a possible US military intervention, and announcing that if Russian citizens were harmed in Damascus, Moscow would riposte proportionally, since the Russian President is constitutionally responsible for the security of his fellow citizens.

Bypassing the official diplomatic channels, Russian Chief of Staff General Valeri Guerassimov contacted his US counterpart General Joseph Dunford to inform him of his fear of a false flag chemical attack in Ghouta. Dunford took this information very seriously, and alerted US Defense Secretary General Jim Mattis, who referred the matter to President Donald Trump. In view of the Russian insistence that this piece of foul play was being prepared without the knowledge of the Pentagon, the White House asked the Director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, to identify those responsible for the conspiracy.

We do not know the result of this internal enquiry, but President Trump acquired the conviction that his Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, was implicated. The Secretary of State was immediately asked to interrupt his official journey in Africa and return to Washington.

Theresa May wrote to the General Secretary of the United Nations accusing Russia of having ordered the attack in Salisbury, and convened an emergency meeting of the Security Council. Without waiting, she expelled 23 Russian diplomats.

At the request of President of the House of Commons Interior Committee Yvette Cooper, British Secretary for the Interior Amber Rudd announced that MI5 (Military Interior Secret Services ) is going to re-open 14 enquiries into deaths which, according to US sources, were ordered by the Kremlin.

By doing do, the British government adopted the theories of Professor Amy Knight. On 22 January 2018, this US Sovietologist published a very strange book – Orders to Kill – the Putin régime and political murder. The author, who is “the” specialist on the ex-KGB, attempts to demonstrate that Vladimir Putin is a serial killer responsible for dozens of political assassinations, from the terrorist attacks in Moscow in 1999 to the attack on the Boston Marathon in 2013, by way of the execution of Alexandre Litvinenko in London in 2006 or that of Boris Nemtsov in Moscow in 2015. However, she admits herself that there is absolutely no proof of her accusations.

The European Liberals then joined the fray. Ex-Prime Minister of Belgium Guy Verhofstadt, who presides their group in the European Parliament, called on the European Union to adopt sanctions against Russia. His counterpart at the head of their British party, Sir Vince Cable, proposed a European boycott of the World Football Cup. And already, Buckingham Palace announced that the royal family has canceled their trip to Russia.

The UK communications regulator, Ofcom, announced that it might ban the channel Russia Today as a retaliatory measure, even though RT has on no occasion violated British law.

The Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs summoned the British ambassador in Moscow to inform him that reciprocal measures would soon be indicated in retaliation for the expulsion of Russian diplomats from London.

President Trump announced on Twitter that he had fired his Secretary of State, with whom he had not yet been in contact. He was replaced by Mike Pompeo, ex-Director of the CIA, who, the night before, had confirmed the authenticity of the Russian information transmitted by General Dunford. On his arrival in Washington, Tillerson obtained confirmation of his dismissal from White House General Secretary General John Kelly.

Ex-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is a product of the Texan middle class. He and his family worked for the US Scouts, of whom he became the National President (2010-12). Culturally close to England, he did not hesitate, when he became President of the mega-multinational Exxon-Mobil (2006-16), not only to wage a politically correct campaign favouring the acceptance of young gays into the Scouts, but also to recruit mercenaries in British Guiana. He is said to be a member of the Pilgrims Society, the most prestigious of Anglo-US clubs, presided by Queen Elizabeth II, a number of whose members were part of the Obama administration.

During his functions as Secretary of State, the quality of his education provided a bond for Donald Trump, considered by US high society to be a buffoon. He was in disagreement with his President on three major subjects which allow us to define the ideology of the conspirators:

• Like London and the US deep state, he thought it would be useful to diabolise Russia in order to consolidate the power of the Anglo-Saxons in the Western camp ;
• Like London, he thought that in order to maintain Western colonialism in the Middle East, it was necessary to favour Iranian President Cheikh Rohani against the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Khamenei. He therefore supported the 5+1 agreement.
• Like the US deep state, he considered that the swing of North Korea towards the United States should remain secret, and be used to justify a military deployment which would be directed in reality against the People’s Republic of China. He was therefore in favour of official talks with Pyongyang, but opposed to a meeting between the two heads of state.

14 March 2018

While Washington was still in shock, Theresa May spoke once again before the House of Commons to develop her accusation, while all around the world, British diplomats spoke to numerous inter-governmental organisations in order to broadcast the message. Responding to the Prime Minister, Blairist deputy Chris Leslie qualified Russia as a rogue state and demanded its suspension from the UN Security Council. Theresa May agreed to examine the question, but stressed that the outcome could only be decided by the General Assembly in order to avoid the Russian veto.

The North Atlantic Council (NATO) met in Brussels at the request of the United Kingdom. The 29 member states drew a link between the use of chemical weapons in Syria and the attack in Salisbury. They then decided that Russia was “probably” responsible for these two events.

Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary General of NATO, and permanent representative for the United Kingdom to the North Atlantic Council Sarah MacIntosh. She is the ex-Director of Defence and Intelligence questions to the British Minister for Foreign Affairs, a post that she handed on to Jonathan Allen, current chargé d’affaires at the UNO.

In New York, the permanent representative of Russia, Vasily Nebenzya, proposed to the members of the Security Council that they adopt a declaration attesting to their common will to shed light on the attack in Salisbury and handing over the enquiry to the OPCW in the respect of international procedures. But the United Kingdom refused any text which did not contain the expression that Russia was « probably responsible » for the attack.

During the public debate which followed, UK chargé d’affaire Jonathan Allen represented his country. He is an agent of MI6 who created the British War Propaganda Service and gives active support to the jihadists in Syria. He declared –

“Russia has already interfered in the affairs of other countries, Russia has already violated international law in Ukraine, Russia has contempt for civilian life, as witnessed by the attack on a commercial aircraft over Ukraine by Russian mercenaries, Russia protects the use of chemical weapons by Assad (…) The Russian state is responsible for this attempted murder.”

The permanent representative for France, François Delattre, who, by virtue of a derogation by President Sarkozy, was trained at the US State Department, noted that his country had launched an initiative to end the impunity of those who use chemical weapons. He implied that the initiative, originally directed at Syria, could also be turned against Russia.

Russian ambassador Vasily Nebenzya pointed out that the session had been convened at London’s request, but that it is public at Moscow’s request. He observed that the United Kingdom is violating international law by treating this subject at the Security Council while keeping the OPCW out of its enquiry. He noted that if London had been able to identify the Novotchik, it’s because it has the formula and can therefore make its own. He noted Russia’s desire to collaborate with the OPCW in the respect for international procedures.

15 March 2018

The United Kingdom published a common declaration which had been cosigned the night before by France and Germany, as well as Rex Tillerson, who at that moment was still US Secretary of State. The text reiterated British suspicions. It denounced the use of “a neurotoxic agent of military quality, and of a type developed by Russia”, and affirmed that it was “highly probable that Russia is responsible for the attack”.

The Washington Post published an op-ed piece by Boris Johnson, while the US Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, established new sanctions against Russia. These are not connected to the current affair, but to allegations of interference in US public life. The decree nonetheless mentions the attack in Salisbury as proof of the underhand methods of Russia.

British Secretary for Defence, the young Gavin Williamson, declared that after the expulsion of its diplomats, Russia should “shut up and go away” (sic). This is the first time since the end of the Second World War that a representative of a permanent member state of the Security Council has employed such a vocabulary in the face of another member of the Council. Sergueï Lavrov commented –

“He’s a charming young man. He must want to ensure his place in History, by making shock declarations […] Perhaps he lacks education”.

Conclusion

In the space of four days, the United Kingdom and its allies have laid the premises of a new division of the world, a Cold War.

However, Syria is not Iraq and the UNO is not the G8 (from which Russia has been excluded because of its adhesion to Crimea and its support of Syria). The United States are not going to destroy Damascus, and Russia will not be excluded from the Security Council. After having resigned from the European Union, then having refused to sign the Chinese declaration about the Silk Road, the United Kingdom thought to improve its stature by eliminating a competitor. By this piece of dirty work, it imagined that it would acquire a new dimension and become the “Global Britain” announced by Madame May. But it is destroying its own credibility.

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Translation by Pete Kimberley

Thierry Meyssan is a political consultant, President-founder of the Réseau Voltaire (Voltaire Network). Latest work in French – Sous nos Yeux. Du 11-Septembre à Donald Trump(Right Before our Eyes. From 9/11 to Donald Trump).

All images in this article are from the author.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: 

stephenlendman.org 

(Home – Stephen Lendman). 

Contact at [email protected].

Pre-trial judicial proceedings in America and elsewhere afford all parties the right to as much information as possible – so nothing is kept secret except for constitutional protection from self-incrimination.

Defendants especially have the right to relevant documents, witness depositions, questions and answers from interrogations, crime scene and other forensic evidence including toxicology results, police reports, “raw evidence,” arrest and search warrants, grand jury testimony, and other relevant data.

The purpose of discovery is to assure judicial fairness, or at least greater fairness than otherwise possible.

Prosecutors are required to provide defendants will all relevant evidence enabling a proper defense.

Criminal legal experts explain that unlike film-portrayed crime dramas, actual ones rarely include surprise evidence by any party during proceedings, especially anything introduced near their conclusion.

Britain accused Russia of poisoning Sergey Skripal, his daughter and police detective Nick Bailey – yet refused to alleged reveal evidence corroborating its charges.

Accusations without evidence are groundless. No legitimate tribunal would accept them. The court of public opinion is another matter entirely – especially when manipulated by one-sided Russophobic finger-pointing.

Moscow justifiably demands release of all relevant information on the Skripal affair – nothing so far presented, indicating nothing incriminating Russia exists.

If otherwise, Britain would have revealed it straightaway to make its case.

Interviewed by RT, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov (image on the right) strongly denied Russian involvement in the Skripal incident. No evidence refutes him or other Russian officials.

Peskov:

“The first accusations came from politicians just a couple of hours after the accident…that ‘highly likely, Russia was responsible of that attempt of murder.’”

“And now we see the words of experts…from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) that say that the preliminary examination of this agent will take about three weeks. Is it contradictory? Yes, it is.”

Skripal is “of zero value…zero importance” to Russia, Peskov stressed.

Separately, Sergey Lavrov slammed Britain for breaching its legal obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention for refusing to provide Moscow with samples of the alleged toxin it claims, along with any other relevant information it has on the Skripal incident.

A statement by Russia’s embassy in Washington said:

“Our efforts to obtain facts on the incident from (Britain) have been in vain. They have been busy accusing Russia without proof of poisoning its citizens and attacking the UK, and feverishly seeking support from its partners without presenting any evidence.”

“We are convinced it is obvious that Russophobes in the hysteria-gripped West have been trying to hide their weakness behind ‘solidarity.’ “

The statement further criticized the Trump administration, blaming Russia for an incident it had nothing to do with.

Britain and Washington should present credible evidence of Kremlin culpability or apologize for their affront, the embassy stressed.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry Department for Nonproliferation & Arms Control director Vladimir Ermokov questioned the unlikely impartiality of the OPCW assessment of toxic samples provided by Britain, saying:

“(A) deeper, (independent) expert assessment (is) needed…for Russia to be able to come to any conclusions.”

The OPCW lost credibility by colluding with the West against Syria in investigating CW incidents.

It’s findings were “a total fake,” Ermakov stressed – notably for the sham Kahn Sheikhoun probe conducted off-site with toxic samples supplied by the anti-Assad al-Qaeda-connected White Helmets.

Clearly, Britain has plenty to conceal about the Skripal affair, nothing to reveal incriminating Russia.

Other Western nations are complicit by going along with the ruse, notably America – instead of forthrightly rejecting it.

A Final Comment

US-led Western nations are hostile Russian adversaries, not Kremlin partners as it persists in claiming. Nothing they say or pledge is credible.

Trusting them is self-defeating – expecting them to change foolhardy, after a century of evidence proving otherwise, punctuated by short-lived periods of improved relations.

Russia’s only sensible option is allying East with reliable partners, abandoning efforts to join the Western community of nations, seeking its transformation into vassalage to their domination, its sovereignty destroyed.

*

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

In testimony before the US Senate Armed Services Committee, StratCom commander Gen. John Hyten struggled to find the right words before admitting that there is nothing in the US arsenal that could stop Russia’s new hypersonic weapons.

“We have a very difficult – well, our defense is our deterrent capability. We don’t have any defense that could deny the employment of such a weapon against us, so our response would be our deterrent force, which would be the triad and the nuclear capabilities that we have to respond to such a threat,” Hyten said, responding to Senator Jim Inhofe’s question about what kind of defense the US could mount against the threat of hypersonic missiles.

Echoing the proposals outlined in February’s Nuclear Posture Review, Hyten said that the US might consider the deployment of sub-launched missiles with low-yield nuclear weapons to respond to Russia’s plans for battlefield nukes.

The commander noted that these weapons, together with the US’s existing nuclear triad of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, strategic bombers and submarine-launched ballistic missiles, would serve as the best deterrent against Russia, China, or North Korea. At the present time, he admitted, while Russia and China are “aggressively pursuing hypersonic capabilities,” the US’s own hypersonic weapons remain either at the concept or testing stage.

Hyten’s startling admission may signal the beginning of a shift in Washington’s nuclear policy of the last decade and a half, which saw the US’ withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the creation of a missile shield on Russia’s Western border. Moscow has repeatedly emphasized that Russia has a nuclear no-first use policy, except in cases where a conventional attack threatens the existence of the Russian state.

Hyten’s concerns were also apparently echoed by the White House. According to the New York Times, in a phone call to President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, President Trump voiced concerns over his Russian counterpart’s recent speech to lawmakers, where Putin had discussed the creation and deployment of unstoppable ultra-long cruise missiles and nuclear torpedoes capable of outsmarting all US strategic defense systems. During the call, Trump also boasted that the US was spending some $700 billion to upgrade its military, and that Russia would lose in any new arms race.

On March 1, Putin announced a series of new Russian weapons systems designed to serve as an asymmetric response to US missile defenses and the deployment of NATO forces on Russia’s borders.

President Erdogan’s regular addresses to the Muslim and Turkish people of the Balkans are a soft power tactic that isn’t any functionally different from the transnational outreach attempts that other forces engage in elsewhere across the world and on different ideological-identity pretexts.

The Alt-Media Community has once again been thrown into hysteria after one of President Erdogan’s latest speeches where he addressed his fellow Muslim co-confessionalists and ethnic Turkish kin in the Balkans on the eve of what ended up being his country’s monumental military victory in the northwestern Syrian town of Afrin. His words were reported on widely in the press and ominously framed in such a way as to imply that a similar operation might be commenced in Southeastern Europe one of these days as well, though nothing could be further from the case. The Balkan people are psychologically scarred by the centuries of Turkish occupation and have a reason to fear Ankara’s aggression against them, but their historical experiences over the previous centuries might be blinding them to how much the world has changed since then.

The World Order

One of the mainstays of post-World War I International Relations, and especially the world order after the conclusion of the Second World War and the Cold War, has been the inviolability of national borders, and it was the Axis’ aggressive undermining of this core tenet of stability that eventually led to the largest bloodletting in history. This is why the global community is so sensitive to anything that could be interpreted as hinting at this goal, and it’s also why the only time that it’s “accepted” is if it pertains to secessionist movements or internationally recognized legal unions of sovereign states. Saddam Hussein’s invasion, occupation, and subsequent annexation of Kuwait was too reminiscent of Hitler for global comfort, while countless double standards have been applied in the cases of Kosovo, the former Georgian Republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and Crimea’s reunification with Russia.

The point being made is that the forceful absorption of one country’s territory into another’s by means of the incorporating state’s conventional military is universally frowned upon and technically illegal under international law, though the latter doesn’t matter much so long as there’s no real political will among the UNSC to collectively enforce this statute against the offending country. Turkey is obviously well aware of this reality and therefore has no intention of waging a massive war against a coalition of Balkan countries like it did a century ago, after which it would probably have to ethnically cleanse the native Christian non-Turkish population from any prospectively conquered regions prior to their annexation by what could then be described as the “Neo-Ottoman Empire”. It doesn’t make sense for Turkey to go through all of this “trouble” in the Balkans if it’s not even interested in doing this through the comparatively easier scenario that just presented itself in northwestern Syrian region of Afrin.

Making Sense Out Of The Syrian Scenario

Turkish armed forces preparing for their Operation Olive Branch in the SDF-controlled Afrin district

The Turkish Armed Forces assisted their FSA proxies in capturing this Kurdish-controlled city, but Ankara has been adamant that it has no desire whatsoever to annex it to Turkey. The government’s statement that it won’t return Afrin to the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) shouldn’t have been surprising because Ankara has always endeavored to carve out a sphere of influence in northern Syria, but this in and of itself doesn’t equate to an “annexation” like its critics have alleged. If Turkey wanted to, though, it could certainly experiment with this scenario prior to perfecting it for use in the Balkans, but it’s clearly abstaining from doing so for reasons that are understandable. No country wants to be bothered by securing newly acquired territory and suppressing a population that doesn’t want to join the neighboring state, nor does that government want to be financially responsibility for their affairs either.

In this day and age, it’s much more effective to leverage soft power and indirect means of influence in exerting one’s sway abroad than to do so directly through military means. This explains why Turkey is resorting to proxy measures for securing northern Syria after driving out the Kurdish terrorists. As it relates to the Balkans and President Erdogan’s regular addresses to its Muslim and Turkish minorities, all that he’s doing is virtue signaling in a way that’s appealing to them and doing his utmost to maximize his country’s soft power. At the end of the day, it needs to be objectively acknowledged that those demographics are in the Balkans as a legacy of the centuries-long Ottoman occupation, and that Turkey rightly recognizes them as key instruments of influence inside of their host countries. Just like the Russian population in the post-Soviet republics, the Muslim-Turkish one shouldn’t be automatically equated with being “fifth columnist”.

Fear Mongering About “Fifth Columnists”

To elaborate a bit more, the post-war division of territory after any given conflict isn’t always “perfect”, especially in the sense of carving out “pure” nation-states, and many countries have “inherited” various ethno-religious and regional minorities through this means. Sometimes an entity embraces its identity diversity like the Russian Empire did (which served as a springboard for geographic expansion further afield at the time) whereas others like post-coup Ukraine have nothing but contempt for its non-titular peoples. The end of World War I saw population exchanges between Greece and Turkey, but not between Turkey and the other Balkan states, which is why some of the remaining Muslims and Turks didn’t leave the new countries that they ended up finding themselves in after this conflict. To be fair, ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia and ethnic Belarussians & Ukrainians in the interwar Second Polish Republic were also in a similar position, et al.

It’s just as natural for a Turkish leader to address the minority groups in the Balkans who identify more closely with his country (whether right or wrong) as it is for a Russian leader to do the same in the countries of the Near Abroad. Transcending ethnicity, many religious leaders throughout the world do the same thing when speaking to their co-confessionals, whether they’re Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, or Hindus, for example. Not only that, but ideology is also used in soft power outreaches too, such as when communists and capitalists tried to spread their message during the Old Cold War or when proponents of unipolarity and multipolarity attempt to do the same in the New Cold War. Furthermore, the internet has made it much easier to practice soft power than ever before, thereby “decentralizing” it away from its prior state monopoly and enabling a variety of non-state actors to experiment with it.

Debunking The Double Standards

One can argue about whether this is a “good” or “bad” development, but it’s nevertheless indisputable that soft power has become a defining characteristic of the contemporary world order. Every actor engages in this for their own reasons, and in the Turkish case, it may very well be because its government feels like the internationally recognized borders are morally illegitimate because they were imposed after military defeats and enforced by foreign powers. This same argument can be modified in explaining why some Russians feel similarly about how the post-Soviet borders separated them from their ethno-religious kin in the Near Abroad, and the historical extreme of this attitude be seen in Bolivia agitating for the return of its maritime border through what is nowadays northern Chile and Mexican ultra-nationalists claiming that the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo should be scrapped.

The only way that any of this can be changed is through legal means or forceful ones, both of which are difficult to pull off for their own reasons. Exceptions exist, but as the saying goes, “the exception proves the rule”, and that’s why Pandora’s Box has yet to be fully opened in the sense of countries waging Hobbesian “wars of consolidation” against each other. Depending on the historical benchmark that one sets, the case can generally be made that some portion or another of most countries’ territory was previously under the control of another entity, and it’s precisely because of the impossibility of setting a single standard for how far back any territorial revisionism should go that no responsible actor seriously wants to entertain this possibility. That’s not to say that there aren’t any forces who have this goal in mind, but just that it’s not as simple as drawing a line on a map, moving in one’s military and administrative representatives, and seamlessly incorporating the new territory.

Turkey has no desire to try this against the Balkan countries that are mostly comprised of civilizationally dissimilar (i.e. Christian non-Turkish) populations if it won’t even take a shot at doing so against the neighboring Mideast ones where its military forces are already active and which have Muslim Turkish minorities living in the border region. This “inconvenient fact” debunks the “alternative reality” (alt-reality) that some Alt-Media pundits and outlets have been fear mongering about, one which is more influenced by the “populist” “Turkophobia” of their intended Turkish-neighboring audiences (Armenians, Greeks, etc.) and fellow sympathizers abroad than any objective facts or logical thought. The legacy of Turkish rule hangs heavy over the minds of all non-Muslim and non-Turkish Balkan people, which is why it’s very easy for them to be manipulated into thinking that the “Sultan” is just a split-second away from deciding to invade their countries once again and force their people to submit to Islam.

Concluding Thoughts

It’s not the fault of the regional audience for reacting to these scare tactics because the blame lays squarely in the lap of those who invented this narrative for their own purposes,  be it in rallying the targeted population for whatever their reason may be and/or in smearing Turkey as an “aggressive, Hitler-like, Islamo-fascist state”. The topic of territorial revisionism – especially in regards to post-war borders – is an ultra-sensitive one that must be approached with the utmost caution and objectivity, since the subjective judgments of “right/moral” and “wrong/immoral” don’t necessarily apply in a Neo-Realist world where power and interests trump values and ethics. Holding the position that Mexico is entitled to all of the territory that it lost to the US after only a few decades of independence but not feeling the same about the land that Turkey forfeited after centuries of occupation is a red flag that someone is exercising double standards in order to advance an agenda, for example.

In the same vein, supporting secular forces and principles in non-secular countries such as Saudi Arabia or Iran yet condemning Turkey’s soft power outreaches to its ethno-religious supporters abroad is another sign of hypocrisy because it denies Ankara the same right to do what others are in different contexts. The bottom line is that the exercise of soft power is here to stay and that its influence is only growing, and while there are cases where its practice might portend future problems (e.g. NGOs “spreading democracy” inside of China or Wahhabis proselytizing in Europe), there are also others where the actual “threat” is largely imaginary but manipulatively triggered by third-party forces taking advantage of recent history (e.g. fear mongering about President Erdogan’s outreaches to Muslims by invoking the Ottoman occupation of the Balkans, and doing the same with Russians and Russian media in the Near Abroad by obsessing over the Soviet experience).

Turkey isn’t going to invade the Balkans just like Russia won’t invade the Baltics even though both Great Powers have legitimate soft power reasons for interacting with their targeted audiences there, but most of Alt-Media and Mainstream Media respectively are relying on hyped-up threats of an “impending invasion” to advance their own interests, with the common casualty being the objective truth in both infowar instances.

*

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.

Below is a relevant article selected from the GR archive, first published in March 2016.

This is an edited version of an address by John Pilger at the University of Sydney, entitled A World War Has Begun:

I have been filming in the Marshall Islands, which lie north of Australia, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Whenever I tell people where I have been, they ask, “Where is that?” If I offer a clue by referring to “Bikini”, they say, “You mean the swimsuit.”

Few seem aware that the bikini swimsuit was named to celebrate the nuclear explosions that destroyed Bikini island.

Sixty-six nuclear devices were exploded by the United States in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958 — the equivalent of 1.6 Hiroshima bombs every day for twelve years.

Bikini is silent today, mutated and contaminated.  Palm trees grow in a strange grid formation. Nothing moves. There are no birds. The headstones in the old cemetery are alive with radiation. My shoes registered “unsafe” on a Geiger counter.

Standing on the beach, I watched the emerald green of the Pacific fall away into a vast black hole. This was the crater left by the hydrogen bomb they called “Bravo”. The explosion poisoned people and their environment for hundreds of miles, perhaps forever.

On my return journey, I stopped at Honolulu airport and noticed an American magazine called Women’s Health. On the cover was a smiling woman in a bikini swimsuit, and the headline: “You, too, can have a bikini body.”  A few days earlier, in the Marshall Islands, I had interviewed women who had very different “bikini bodies”; each had suffered thyroid cancer and other life-threatening cancers.

Unlike the smiling woman in the magazine, all of them were impoverished: the victims and guinea pigs of a rapacious  superpower that is today more dangerous than ever.

I relate this experience as a warning and to interrupt a distraction that has consumed so many of us.  The founder of modern propaganda, Edward Bernays, described this phenomenon as “the conscious and intelligent manipulation of the habits and opinions” of democratic societies. He called it an “invisible government”.

How many people are aware that a world war has begun? At present, it is a war of propaganda, of lies and distraction, but this can change instantaneously with the first mistaken order, the first missile.

In 2009, President Obama stood before an adoring crowd in the centre of Prague, in the heart of Europe. He pledged himself to make “the world free from nuclear weapons”. People cheered and some cried. A torrent of platitudes flowed from the media. Obama was subsequently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

It was all fake. He was lying.

The Obama administration has built more nuclear weapons, more nuclear warheads, more nuclear delivery systems, more nuclear factories.  Nuclear warhead spending alone rose higher under Obama than under any American president. The cost over thirty years is more than $1 trillion.

A new mini nuclear bomb is planned. It is known as the B61 Model 12. There has never been anything like it. General James Cartwright, a former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said, “Going smaller [makes using this nuclear] weapon more thinkable.”

In the last eighteen months, the greatest build-up of military forces since World War Two — led by the United States — is taking place along Russia’s western frontier.  Not since Hitler invaded the Soviet Union have foreign troops presented such a demonstrable threat to Russia.

Ukraine – once part of the Soviet Union –  has become a CIA theme park. Having orchestrated a coup in Kiev, Washington effectively controls a regime that is next door and hostile to Russia: a regime rotten with Nazis, literally. Prominent parliamentary figures in Ukraine are the political descendants of the notorious OUN and UPA fascists. They openly praise Hitler and call for the persecution and expulsion of the Russian speaking minority.

This is seldom news in the West, or it is inverted to suppress the truth.

In Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — next door to Russia – the US military is deploying combat troops, tanks, heavy weapons. This extreme provocation of the world’s second nuclear power is met with silence in the West.

What makes the prospect of nuclear war even more dangerous is a parallel campaign against China.

Seldom a day passes when China is not elevated to the status of a “threat”.  According to Admiral Harry Harris, the US Pacific commander, China is “building a great wall of sand in the South China Sea”.

What he is referring to is China building airstrips in the Spratly Islands, which are the subject of a dispute with the Philippines – a dispute without priority until Washington pressured and bribed the government in Manila and the Pentagon launched a propaganda campaign called “freedom of navigation”.

What does this really mean?  It means freedom for American warships to patrol and dominate the coastal waters of China.  Try to imagine the American reaction if Chinese warships did the same off the coast of California.

I made a film called The War You Don’t See, in which I interviewed distinguished journalists in America and Britain: reporters such as Dan Rather of CBS, Rageh Omar of the BBC, David Rose of the Observer.

All of them said that had journalists and broadcasters done their job and questioned the propaganda that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction; had the lies of George W. Bush and Tony Blair not been amplified and echoed by journalists, the 2003 invasion of Iraq might not have happened, and  hundreds of thousands of men, women and children would be alive today.

The propaganda laying the ground for a war against Russia and/or  China is no different in principle. To my knowledge, no journalist in the Western “mainstream” — a Dan Rather equivalent, say –asks why China is building airstrips in the South China Sea.

The answer ought to be glaringly obvious. The United States is encircling China with a network of bases, with ballistic missiles, battle groups, nuclear -armed bombers.

This lethal arc extends from Australia to the islands of the Pacific, the Marianas and the Marshalls and Guam, to the Philippines, Thailand, Okinawa, Korea and  across Eurasia to Afghanistan and India. America has hung a noose around the neck of China. This is not news. Silence by media; war by media.

In 2015, in high secrecy, the US and Australia staged the biggest single air-sea military exercise in recent history, known as Talisman Sabre. Its aim was to rehearse an Air-Sea Battle Plan, blocking sea lanes, such as the Straits of Malacca and the Lombok Straits, that cut off China’s access to oil, gas and other vital raw materials from the Middle East and Africa.

In the circus known as the American presidential campaign, Donald Trump is being presented as a lunatic, a fascist.  He is certainly odious; but he is also a media hate figure.  That alone should arouse our scepticism.

Trump’s views on migration are grotesque, but no more grotesque than those of David Cameron. It is not Trump who is the Great Deporter from the United States, but the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Barack Obama.

According to one prodigious liberal commentator, Trump is “unleashing the dark forces of violence” in the United States. Unleashing them?

This is the country where toddlers shoot their mothers and the police wage a murderous war against black Americans. This is the country that has attacked and sought to overthrow more than 50 governments, many of them democracies, and bombed from Asia to the Middle East, causing the deaths and dispossession of millions of people.

No country can equal this systemic record of violence. Most of America’s wars (almost all of them against defenceless countries) have been launched not by Republican presidents but by liberal Democrats: Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, Obama.

In 1947, a series of National Security Council directives described the paramount aim of American foreign policy as “a world substantially made over in [America’s] own image”.  The ideology was messianic Americanism. We were all Americans. Or else. Heretics would be converted, subverted, bribed, smeared or crushed.

Donald Trump is a symptom of this, but he is also a maverick. He says the invasion of Iraq was a crime; he doesn’t want to go to war with Russia and China. The danger to the rest of us is not Trump, but Hillary Clinton. She is no maverick. She embodies the resilience and violence of a system whose vaunted “exceptionalism” is totalitarian with an occasional liberal face.

As presidential  election day draws near, Clinton will be hailed as the first female president, regardless of her crimes and lies – just as Barack Obama was lauded as the first black president and liberals swallowed his nonsense about “hope”. And the drool goes on.

Described by the Guardian columnist Owen Jones as “funny, charming, with a coolness that eludes practically every other politician”, Obama the other day sent drones to slaughter 150 people in Somalia.  He kills people usually on Tuesdays, according to the New York Times, when he is handed a list of candidates for death by drone. So cool.

In the 2008 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton threatened to “totally obliterate” Iran with nuclear weapons.  As Secretary of State under Obama, she participated in the overthrow of the democratic government of Honduras. Her contribution to the destruction of Libya in 2011 was almost gleeful. When the Libyan leader, Colonel Gaddafi, was publicly sodomised with a knife – a murder made possible by American logistics – Clinton gloated over his death: “we came, we saw, he died.”

One of Clinton’s closest allies is Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of State, who has attacked young women for not supporting “Hillary”. This is the same Madeleine Albright  who infamously celebrated on TV the death of half a million Iraqi children as “worth it”.

Among Clinton’s biggest backers are the Israel lobby and the arms companies that fuel the violence in the Middle East.  She and her husband have received a fortune from Wall Street. And yet, she is about to be ordained the women’s candidate, to see off the evil Trump, the official demon. Her supporters include distinguished feminists: the likes of Gloria Steinem in the US and Anne Summers in Australia.

A generation ago, a post-modern cult now known as “identity politics” stopped many intelligent, liberal-minded people examining the causes and individuals they supported — such as the fakery of Obama and Clinton;  such as bogus progressive movements like Syriza in Greece, which betrayed the people of that country and allied with their enemies.

Self absorption, a kind of “me-ism”, became the new zeitgeist in privileged western societies and signaled the demise of great collective movements against war, social injustice, inequality,  racism and sexism.

Today, the long sleep may be over. The young are stirring again. Gradually. The thousands in Britain who supported Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader are part of this awakening – as are those who rallied to support Senator Bernie Sanders.

In Britain last week, Jeremy Corbyn’s closest ally, his shadow treasurer John McDonnell, committed a Labour government to pay off the debts of piratical banks and, in effect, to continue so-called austerity.

In the US, Bernie Sanders has promised to support Clinton if or when she’s nominated. He, too, has voted for America’s use of violence against countries when he thinks it’s “right”. He says Obama has done “a great job”.

In Australia, there is a kind of mortuary politics, in which tedious parliamentary games are played out in the media while refugees and Indigenous people are persecuted and inequality grows, along with the danger of war. The government of Malcolm Turnbull has just announced a so-called defence budget of $195 billion that is a drive to war.  There was no debate. Silence.

What has happened to the great tradition of popular direct action, unfettered to parties? Where is the courage, imagination and commitment required to begin the long journey to a better, just and peaceful world? Where are the dissidents in art, film, the theatre, literature?

Where are those who will shatter the silence? Or do we wait until the first nuclear missile is fired?

This article was first crossposted on GR in October 2015.

Arabesque$: Enquête sur le rôle des États-Unis dans les révoltes arabes (Investigation into the US Role in the Arab Uprisings) is an update of Ahmed Bensaada’s 2011 book L’Arabesque Américaine. It concerns the US government role in instigating, funding and coordinating the Arab Spring “revolutions.”

Most of this history has been carefully suppressed by the western media.The new book devotes much more attention to the personalities leading the 2011 uprisings. Some openly admitted to receiving CIA funding. Others had no idea because it was deliberately concealed from them. A few (in Egypt and Syria) were officially charged with espionage. In Egypt, seven sought refuge in the US embassy in Cairo and had to be evacuated by the State Department.

Democracy: America’s Biggest Export

According to Bensaada, the MENA Arab Spring revolutions have four unique features in common:

• None were spontaneous – all required careful and lengthy (5+ years) planning, by the State Department, CIA pass through foundations, George Soros, and the pro-Israel lobby.¹
• All focused exclusively on removing reviled despots without replacing the autocratic power structure that kept them in power.
• No Arab Spring protests made any reference whatsoever to powerful anti-US sentiment over Palestine and Iraq.
• All the instigators of Arab Spring uprisings were middle class, well educated youth who mysteriously vanished after 2011.

Nonviolent Regime Change

Bensaada begins by introducing non-violent guru Gene Sharp (see The CIA and Nonviolence), his links with the Pentagon and US intelligence, and his role, as director of the Albert Einstein Institution, in the “color” revolutions.²in Eastern Europe and the attempted coup against Hugo Chavez in 2002.))

The US goal in the Arab Spring revolutions was to replace unpopular despotic dictators while taking care to maintain the autocratic US-friendly infrastructure that had brought them to power. All initially followed the nonviolent precepts Sharp outlines in his 1994 book From Dictatorship to Democracy. In Libya, Syria and Yemen, the US and their allies were clearly prepared to introduce paid mercenaries when their Sharpian “revolutions” failed to produce regime change.

Follow the Money

Relying mainly on Wikileaks cables and the websites of key CIA pass through foundations (which he reproduces in the appendix), Bensaada methodically lists every State Department conference and workshop the Arab Spring heroes attended, the dollar amounts spent on them by the State Department and key “democracy” promoting foundations³, the specific involvement of Google, Facebook, Twitter and Obama’s 2008 Internet campaign team in training Arab Spring cyperactivists in encryption technologies and social media skills, US embassy visits, and direct encounters with Hillary Clinton,  Condoleezza Rice, John McCain, Barack Obama and Serbian trainers from CANVAS (the CIA-backed organization that overthrew Slobodan Milosevic in 2000).

Bensaada focuses most heavily on the Tahrir Square uprising in Egypt. TheWashington Post has estimated approximately 10,000 Egyptians took part in NED and USAID training in social media and nonviolent organizing techniques. For me the most astonishing information in this chapter concerned the role of an Egyptian exile (a former Egyptian policeman named Omar Afifi Suleiman) in coordinating the Tahrir Square protests from his office in Washington DC. According to Wikileaks, NED paid Suleiman a yearly stipend of $200,000+ between 2008-2011.

When Nonviolence Fails

Arabesques$ devotes far more attention to Libya, Syria and Yemen than Bensaada’s first book.

In the section on Libya, Bensaada zeroes in on eleven key US assets who engineered the overthrow of Gaddafi. Some participated in the same State Department trainings as the Middle East opposition activists and instigated nonviolent Facebook and Twitter protests to coincide with the 2011 uprisings in Tunisian and Egypt. Others, in exile, underwent guerrilla training sponsored by the CIA, Mossad, Chad and Saudi Arabia. A few months after Gaddafi’s assassination, some of these same militants would lead Islamic militias attempting to overthrow Assad in Syria.

Between 2005 and 2010, the State Department funneled $12 million to opposition groups opposed to Assad. The US also financed Syrian exiles in Britain to start an anti-government cable TV channel they beamed into Syria.

In the section on Syria, Bensaada focuses on a handful of Syrian opposition activists who received free US training in cyberactivism and nonviolent resistance beginning in 2006. One, Ausama Monajed, is featured in the 2011 film How to Start a Revolution about a visit with Gene Sharp in 2006. Monajed and others worked closely with the US embassy, funded by the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI). This is a State Department program that operates in countries (such as Libya and Syria) where USAID is banned.

In February 2011, these groups posted a call on Twitter and Facebook for a Day of Rage. Nothing happened. When Sharpian techniques failed to produce a sizable nonviolent uprising, as in Libya, they and their allies (Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and Jordan) were all set up to introduce Islamic mercenaries (many directly from Libya) to declare war on the Assad regime.

Notes

1. I was astonished to learn that Forum Fikra, a forum for Arab activists working against authoritarian governments, was mainly funded by the Nathan and Esther K Wagner Family Foundation. The latter also funds numerous pro-Israel groups and projects, as well as the Washington Institute for Near East policy (a pro-Israel group with close ties to AIPAC). 
2. The color revolutions were CIA-instigated uprisings that replaced democratically elected pro-Russian governments with equally autocratic governments more friendly to US corporate interests:
   Serbia (2000) – Bulldozer Revolution
   Georgia (2002) – Rose Revolution
   Ukraine (2004) – Orange Revolution
   Kyrgyzstan (2005) – Tulip Revolution 
3. Democracy promoting foundations (as used here, “democracy” is synonymous with capitalism, ie favorable to the interests of US investors). Here are seven of the main ones involved in funding and training Arab Spring activists:
   • USAID (US Agency for International Development) – State Department agency charged with economic development and humanitarian aid with a long history of financing destabilization activities, especially in Latin America.
   • NED (National Endowment for Democracy) – national organization supported by State Department and CIA funding dedicated to the promotion of democratic institutions throughout the world, primary funder of IRI and NDI.
   • IRI (International Republican Institute) – democracy promoting organization linked with the Republican Party, currently chaired by Senator John McCain and funded by NED.
   • NDI (National Democratic Institute for International Affairs) – democracy promoting organization linked with the Democratic Party, currently chaired by Madeline Albright and funded by NED.
   • OSI (Open Society Institute) – founded by George Soros in 1993 to help fund color revolutions in Eastern Europe. Also contributed major funding to Arab Spring revolutions.
   • Freedom House – US organization that supports nonviolent citizens initiatives in societies were liberty is denied or threatened, financed by USAID, NED and the Soros Foundation.
   • CANVAS (Center for Applied Non Violent Action and Strategies) – center originally founded by the Serbian activists of Otpor who the US funded and trained to over throw Slobodan Milosevic and who were instrumental in training Arab Spring activists. Funded by Freedom House, IRI and OSI.  

Dr. Bramhall is a retired American psychiatrist and political refugee in New Zealand. She has published a free, downloadable non-fiction ebook 21st Century Revolution. Her first book The Most Revolutionary Act: Memoir of an American Refugee describes the circumstances that led her to leave the US in 2002. Email her at: [email protected].Read other articles by Stuart Jeanne, or visit Stuart Jeanne’s website.

Relevant article selected from the GR archive, first crossposted on GR in May 2016.

The great investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, in two previous articles in the London Review of Books («Whose Sarin?» and «The Red Line and the Rat Line») has reported that the Obama Administration falsely blamed the government of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad for the sarin gas attack that Obama was trying to use as an excuse to invade Syria; and Hersh pointed to a report from British intelligence saying that the sarin that was used didn’t come from Assad’s stockpiles.

Hersh also said that a secret agreement in 2012 was reached between the Obama Administration and the leaders of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, to set up a sarin gas attack and blame it on Assad so that the US could invade and overthrow Assad. «By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi’s arsenals into Syria». 

Hersh didn’t say whether these «arms» included the precursor chemicals for making sarin which were stockpiled in Libya, but there have been multiple independent reports that Libya’s Gaddafi possessed such stockpiles, and also that the US Consulate in Benghazi Libya was operating a «rat line» for Gaddafi’s captured weapons into Syria through Turkey. So, Hersh isn’t the only reporter who has been covering this. Indeed, the investigative journalist Christoph Lehmann headlined on 7 October 2013, «Top US and Saudi Officials responsible for Chemical Weapons in Syria» and reported, on the basis of very different sources than Hersh used, that «Evidence leads directly to the White House, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, CIA Director John Brennan, Saudi Intelligence Chief Prince Bandar, and Saudi Arabia´s Interior Ministry». 

And, as if that weren’t enough, even the definitive analysis of the evidence that was performed by two leading US analysts, the Lloyd-Postal report, concluded that, «The US Government’s Interpretation of the Technical Intelligence It Gathered Prior to and After the August 21 Attack CANNOT POSSIBLY BE CORRECT». Obama has clearly been lying.

However, now, for the first time, Hersh has implicated Hillary Clinton directly in this «rat line». In an interview with Alternet.org, Hersh was asked about the then-US-Secretary-of-State’s role in the Benghazi Libya US consulate’s operation to collect weapons from Libyan stockpiles and send them through Turkey into Syria for a set-up sarin-gas attack, to be blamed on Assad in order to ‘justify’ the US invading Syria, as the US had invaded Libya to eliminate Gaddafi. Hersh said: «That ambassador who was killed, he was known as a guy, from what I understand, as somebody, who would not get in the way of the CIA. As I wrote, on the day of the mission he was meeting with the CIA base chief and the shipping company. He was certainly involved, aware and witting of everything that was going on. And there’s no way somebody in that sensitive of a position is not talking to the boss, by some channel».

This was, in fact, the Syrian part of the State Department’s Libyan operation, Obama’s operation to set up an excuse for the US doing in Syria what they had already done in Libya.

The interviewer then asked:

«In the book [Hersh’s The Killing of Osama bin Laden, just out] you quote a former intelligence official as saying that the White House rejected 35 target sets [for the planned US invasion of Syria] provided by the Joint Chiefs as being insufficiently painful to the Assad regime. (You note that the original targets included military sites only – nothing by way of civilian infrastructure.) Later the White House proposed a target list that included civilian infrastructure. What would the toll to civilians have been if the White House’s proposed strike had been carried out?»

Hersh responded by saying that the US tradition in that regard has long been to ignore civilian casualties; i.e., collateral damage of US attacks is okay or even desired (so as to terrorize the population into surrender) – not an ‘issue’, except, perhaps, for the PR people.

The interviewer asked why Obama is so obsessed to replace Assad in Syria, since «The power vacuum that would ensue would open Syria up to all kinds of jihadi groups»; and Hersh replied that not only he, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff, «nobody could figure out why». He said, «Our policy has always been against him [Assad]. Period». This has actually been the case not only since the Party that Assad leads, the Ba’ath Party, was the subject of a shelved CIA coup-plot in 1957 to overthrow and replace it; but, actually, the CIA’s first coup had been not just planned but was carried out in 1949 in Syria, overthrowing there a democratically elected leader, in order to enable a pipeline for the Sauds’ oil to become built through Syria into the largest oil market, Europe; and, construction of the pipeline started the following year.

But, there were then a succession of Syrian coups (domestic instead of by foreign powers – 1954, 1963, 1966, and, finally, in 1970), concluding in the accession to power of Hafez al-Assad during the 1970 coup. And, the Sauds’ long-planned Trans-Arabia Pipeline has still not been built. The Saudi royal family, who own the world’s largest oil company, Aramco, don’t want to wait any longer. Obama is the first US President to have seriously tried to carry out their long-desired «regime change» in Syria, so as to enable not only the Sauds’ Trans-Arabian Pipeline to be built, but also to build through Syria the Qatar-Turkey Gas Pipeline that the Thani royal family (friends of the Sauds) who own Qatar want also to be built there. The US is allied with the Saud family (and with their friends, the royal families of Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, and Oman). Russia is allied with the leaders of Syria – as Russia had earlier been allied with Mossadegh in Iran, Arbenz in Guatemala, Allende in Chile, Hussein in Iraq, Gaddafi in Libya, and Yanukovych in Ukraine (all of whom except Syria’s Ba’ath Party, the US has successfully overthrown).

Hersh was wrong to say that «nobody could figure out why» Obama is obsessed with overthrowing Assad and his Ba’ath Party, even if nobody that he spoke with was willing to say why. They have all been hired to do a job, which didn’t change even when the Soviet Union ended and the Warsaw Pact was disbanded; and, anyone who has been at this job for as long as those people have, can pretty well figure out what the job actually is – even if Hersh can’t.

Hersh then said that Obama wanted to fill Syria with foreign jihadists to serve as the necessary ground forces for his planned aerial bombardment there, and, «if you wanted to go there and fight there in 2011-2013, ‘Go, go, go… overthrow Bashar!’ So, they actually pushed a lot of people [jihadists] to go. I don’t think they were paying for them but they certainly gave visas».

However, it’s not actually part of America’s deal with its allies the fundamentalist-Sunni Arabic royal families and the fundamentalist Sunni Erdogan of Turkey, for the US to supply the salaries (to be «paying for them», as Hersh put it there) to those fundamentalist Sunni jihadists – that’s instead the function of the Sauds and of their friends, the other Arab royals, and their friends, to do. (Those are the people who finance the terrorists to perpetrate attacks in the US, Europe, Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, India, Nigeria, etc. – i.e., anywhere except in their own countries.) And, Erdogan in Turkey mainly gives their jihadists just safe passage into Syria, and he takes part of the proceeds from the jihadists’ sales of stolen Syrian and Iraqi oil. But, they all work together as a team (with the jihadists sometimes killing each other in the process – that’s even part of the plan) – though each national leader has PR problems at home in order to fool his respective public into thinking that they’re against terrorists, and that only the ‘enemy’ is to blame. (Meanwhile, the aristocrats who supply the «salaries» of the jihadists, walk off with all the money.)

This way, US oil and gas companies will refine, and pipeline into Europe, the Sauds’ oil and the Thanis’ gas, and not only will Russia’s major oil-and-gas market become squeezed away by that, but Obama’s economic sanctions against Russia, plus the yet-further isolation of Russia (as well as of China and the rest of the BRICS countries) by excluding them from Obama’s three mega-trade-deals (TTIP, TPP & TISA), will place the US aristocracy firmly in control of the world, to dominate the 21st Century, as it has dominated ever since the end of WW II.

Then, came this question from Hersh: «Why does America do what it does? Why do we not say to the Russians, Let’s work together?» His interviewer immediately seconded that by repeating it, «So why don’t we work closer with Russia? It seems so rational». Hersh replied simply: «I don’t know». He didn’t venture so much as a guess – not even an educated one. But, when journalists who are as knowledgeable as he, don’t present some credible explanation, to challenge the obvious lies (which make no sense that accords with the blatantly contrary evidence those journalists know of against those lies) that come from people such as Barack Obama, aren’t they thereby – though passively – participating in the fraud, instead of contradicting and challenging it? Or, is the underlying assumption, there: The general public is going to be as deeply immersed in the background information here as I am, so that they don’t need me to bring it all together for them into a coherent (and fully documented) whole, which does make sense? Is that the underlying assumption? Because: if it is, it’s false.

Hersh’s journalism is among the best (after all: he went so far as to say, of Christopher Stephens, regarding Hillary Clinton, «there’s no way somebody in that sensitive of a position is not talking to the boss, by some channel»), but it’s certainly not good enough. However, it’s too good to be published any longer in places like the New Yorker. And the reporting by Christof Lehmann was better, and it was issued even earlier than Hersh’s; and it is good enough, because it named names, and it explained motivations, in an honest and forthright way, which is why Lehmann’s piece was published only on a Montenegrin site, and only online, not in a Western print medium, such as the New Yorker. The sites that are owned by members of the Western aristocracy don’t issue reports like that – journalism that’s good enough. They won’t inform the public when a US Secretary of State, and her boss the US President, are the persons actually behind a sarin gas attack they’re blaming on a foreign leader the US aristocrats and their allied foreign aristocrats are determined to topple and replace.

Is this really a democracy?

Featured image: Dr. Hasanein Ghali takes temperature of a critically ill boy in Iraq. (Photo: Courtesy of the author)

In the end, help did not arrive.

In 2001, a 10-year old boy sketched this image of his sister, Faiza Amir, in her sick-bed at what is now Children’s Welfare Teaching Hospital (CWTH) in Medical City Baghdad and then, in large letters above the drawing, he made his plea, in English: “Help Cheldrin (sic) in Iraq.” Nearly all the drawings had written messages asking for help. Many asked for God’s help.

Muhanad Shawki directed his plea to a genie floating from a magic lantern: “I want to get out of the hospital,” he wrote on his perfectly rendered Disney-esque drawing of Aladdin.

The message was the drawing by 8-year-old Heerum Ali, terminally ill with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Arabic script in bright orange crayon fills the paper : “I don’t want presents, I want to live.”

But help did not arrive. Not for Faiza, or Muhanad or Heerum; all three children died from childhood cancer.

Faiza died from ALL (acute lymphoblastic leukemia) only days after her brother gave me his drawing as part of the Iraqi Children’s Art Exchange. Muhanad and Heerum relapsed after their treatment and also died. Help did not arrive for children and it did not arrive for the doctors and nurses who struggled to care for them without adequate facilities, drugs or adequately trained personnel in a country devastated by the First Gulf War and isolated from the international community by stringent UN-imposed economic sanctions backed by the U.S. government. Help did not arrive, and the humanitarian crisis continued to deepen.

And then, in March 2003—fifteen years ago this month—the U.S. and a few allies waged yet another brutal war, dealing a further blow to an already devastated country and people. Still, in the months following the invasion, there was some hope in this Baghdad hospital that the worst was over, that the tide would turn, and that Iraq and Iraq’s healthcare system could begin to recover and rebuild.

Dr. Salma, the director of the pediatric oncology unit at CWTH traveled to Jordan in June 2003 for a meeting to discuss the status of children with cancer in Iraq, to strategize and develop a plan of action with the international community. The statistics were terrible. The Under 5 Mortality Rate (U5MR) had tripled in the decade 1990-2000. More than a 500,000 Iraqi children had already died, a fact confirmed by then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in her now infamous 60 Minutes interview with Leslie Stahl in 1998.

Everyone agreed children’s overall health had declined significantly. However, they needed more information and they needed more data. They proposed an international medical team should go to Iraq to conduct a comprehensive, nation-wide health assessment of children which would help determine the needs and where and what resources would be required. “But,” she told me, “nobody came because of security concerns. Nobody came.” That was in 2003.

I was in Baghdad in January of this year, visiting on the pediatric oncology unit at CWTH, the unit where the Iraqi Children’s Art Exchange began in 2001. But help has still not arrived. Aside from a dedicated group in Japan and telemedical-collaboration from an Italian NGO working with a hospital in Rome for a few years, help has not arrived for children with cancer in Iraq. To this day, no one has been willing to come.

This is the unseen cost of three decades of war in Iraq. The health care system is in ruins as are health care facilities. Doctors, especially in a highly specialized field such as oncology, need help after years of isolation created by UN Sanctions, war and violence. They need help from the global health community and from global cancer organizations concerned about the “cancer divide.”

Iraq, once the gold-standard of medical education and care in the Middle East now finds itself on the wrong side of this divide without adequately trained doctors and nurses. And no one is offering to help.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Claudia Lefko, a long-time educator, activist and advocate for children, is the founding director of The Iraqi Children’s Art Exchange and its project, Baghdad Resolve: An International Collaboration to Improve Cancer Care in Iraq.

All images in this article are from the author.

The topic to be addressed in this text is the basic misconception on the question of the Balkan Albanian ethnogenesis [formation of an ethnic group] and national identity that was framed by extremely geo-politically coloured German-based “Illyrian” theory of the Albanian ethnic and cultural origin.

This (quasi) theory, unfortunately, has very deep and negative regional political-security consequences. The implementation of the “Illyrian” theory of the Albanian ethnogenesis was accepted firstly by the Rilindja, (the Renaissance)–the Albanian nationalistic and chauvinistic political movement in 1878–1913 for the sake of creating the ethnically pure Greater Albania as a national state of all Balkan Albanians composed by self-interpreted all ethnographic and (quasi) historical “Albanian” territories at the expense of historical truth, justice as well as the Slavic and the Greek national interest.

The so-called “Illyrian” theory of the ethnic origin of the Albanians (created by the German and the Austrian scholars) became purposely the most popular theory of the Albanian nation’s derivation among the majority of Albanian scholars, politicians, and intellectuals. The crucial and concluding point of this theory (in fact, it is actually a non-provable hypothesis) is that the Albanians are an authentic nation (ethnolinguistic group) of the Balkans, the oldest, aboriginal and autochthonous one in this part of Europe. As a result, the Albanians’ South Slavic neighbours (the Serbs-Montenegrins, and Macedonian Slavs) in contrast to the “indigenous” Albanians are just “newcomers” to the Balkans (who arrived at this peninsula “only” at the turn of the 7^th century AD). Therefore, their ethnicity and nationality are much more recent than that of the Albanians.

Subsequently, “historical rights” of the Balkan (quasi) autochthonous Albanian population on certain disputed Balkan territories (primarily between the Albanians and the South Slavs but also and between the Albanians and the Greeks) are stronger, more justifiable and historically more deeply rooted than the “historical rights” of the Serbs-Montenegrins or Macedonian Slavs. For that reason, it is expected that a “democratic” West will support the “justifiable” Albanian imperialistic territorial claims framed by the nationalistic idea of a united Greater Albania.

Nevertheless, shortly, according to the theory of the Illyrian-Albanian (quasi) ethnolinguistic continuity, the Albanians are descendants of the ancient Balkan population – the Illyrians. The national name of the Albanians has to come from the name of one Illyrian tribe – the Albanoi. Furthermore, the tribal name, Albanoi, was the designation applied to the entire number of the Illyrian tribes around the Ionian Sea.

However, the proponents of the Illyrian theory of the Albanian ethnographic origin built their scientifically unproved hypothesis mostly on the pure speculation that the modern Albanian language is directly descended from the ancient Illyrian one as well as that both of them belong to the same Indo-European language-group.

Nevertheless, this claim is extremely disputed by the contemporary linguistic science. The fact is that the Albanian language as a spoken language of the inhabitants of present-day Albania was not mentioned in any historical source until 1285 when it is for the first time recorded under this name in the manuscripts from Dubrovnik in which the language was referred to as lingua albanesesca. The name for the land – Albanon (the territory on which the Albanian language speakers live) is derived from the name of the language. This term for Albania, according to the supporters of this theory, appears in several 13^th-century Latin dictionaries, as well as in some of the Byzantine historical sources. The medieval sources referred to the region between Mache river on the north and Schumbe river on the south (both in present-day Albania) as Arbanon (or Arber) but without any connection with the Albanian ethnic name. The Serbs who were living there before the Albanians occupied this territory coming from Sicily in the year of 1043 called this region as Raban. According to the 2^nd century Greek geographer Ptolemy, this territory was settled by the Albanoi tribe which was of the Illyrian origin. However, the name of the Balkan Albania and subsequently of the ethnic Albanians is not derived from Albanoi or Arbanon but rather from the town-name of Albanopolis or Albanum (White Town or Belgrade).

The partisans of the Illyrian (quasi) theory of the Albanian origin speak in support of the school of thought on the origin and evolution of the Illyrians, which claims that the ancient Illyrians did not migrate to the Balkans. Instead, they were an autochthonous people in this part of Europe and even one of the oldest settlers in Europe. It has been suggested that the Albanians, as the direct ethnic, political and cultural offspring of the ancient Illyrians, are the original and indigenous inhabitants of the Balkans, even more, aboriginal than the ancient Greeks since the ancient Greeks migrated to the Balkans in two great migration waves: first, around 2000 BC, and secondly (Dorians), around 1200 BC. Clearly, Albanian “historical” rights had to be much stronger, justifiable and historically deeper based in comparison to the Serbian-Montenegrin, Greek or Macedonian Slavs’ and Bulgarian rights with respect to several Balkan territories of doubtful authenticity. In other words, the Albanians are seen as the “hosts” while their all neighbors are the “guests” in the Balkan Peninsula. American medievalist John V. A. Fine simplified the crucial point of the (quasi) theory of the Illyrian-Albanian ethnical-cultural-political continuity, writing that:

“…if the Illyrians were the ancestors of the Albanians, then the Albanians, as original inhabitants, have some historical right to that region and possibly rights to other regions which had been settled by Illyrians. And their Illyrian ancestry has been very important in Albanian nation-building myths”[Fine J., The Early Medieval Balkans, Ann Arbor, 1994, 10].

The pivotal aspect (from a historical-political point of view) of the Illyrian (quasi) theory is the claim that the Illyrian-Albanian tribes withdrew from the vast areas of the Balkans settling in the Balkan coastal towns and in the mountains of present-day Albania, Epirus, Macedonia and Montenegro during the alleged Slavic invasion and occupation of the Balkans in the 6^th and 7^th centuries. However, according to this (quasi) theory, Kosovo-Metochia was the only fertile lowlands in the entire Balkan Peninsula, which were somehow not abandoned by the Romanized Illyrians-Albanians. As a result, the Albanians of the (quasi) Illyrian ethnic origin were and are considered as an autochthonous population of Kosovo-Metochia (in fact, Ancient Serbia) while the Slavonic Serbs-Montenegrins were looked upon as newcomers and occupiers in the region of Kosovo-Metochia. Shortly, the Illyrian-Albanian (quasi) historical and ethnic rights to Kosovo-Metochia – the land claimed by both the Albanians and their Serb-Montenegrin neighbors – had to be some 15 centuries older than the Slavonic Serbian-Montenegrin historical and ethnic claims to the same territories, according to the (quasi) theory of the Illyrian-Albanian ethnogenesis.

This (quasi) theory emphasizes that in present-day North Albania an extensive settlement of old inhabitants emerged after the occupation of the Balkans by the more powerful South Slavonic tribes. There is particular emphasis on this part of the Illyrian (quasi) theory during the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 as a way of refuting Serbia’s claims on the territory of the North Albania – a territory populated by the Serbs before 1043 when the Albanians became a Balkan people. Furthermore, it is claimed that the Illyrian-Albanian population from the lowland of Kosovo-Metochia began to come under the Slavonic political-cultural influence, while the Illyrian-Albanian mountainous tribes from the Albanian highlands, who had fewer contacts with the Slavs, succeeded in maintaining their social system and cultural inheritance without alteration. The defenders of this (quasi) theory claim that the Byzantine province of Theme Dyrrhachium (which was established around 809 and covered the entire present-day Albania’s territory, part of the North Epirus, the West Macedonia and the main part of the Montenegrin littoral with the area of Scodralake) was inhabited by the Albanians who “caused the region to develop a special (Albanian) character”. Charles I of Naples  (1227–1285) established his own feudal domain under the name of the Regnum Albanai, which is tendentiously considered in the Albanian historiography as the first Albanian national state, located on the territory of the Byzantine Theme Dyrrhachium. Its capital became the city of Dyrrhachium (Durazo in the Italian, Durës in the Albanian or Drač in the Serbian).

In essence, an official Albanian (quasi)theory of the Albanian ethnogenesis is heavily politicized and directed to the creation of a Greater Albania which will include among other “Albanian” lands and South Serbia’s province of Kosovo-Metochia – a cradle of the Serbian nation called by the Serbs as Ancient Serbia.

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Prof. Dr Vladislav B. Sotirovic is Founder & Director of the Private Research Centre “The Global Politics” (www.global-politics.eu), Ovsishte, Serbia. Personal web platform: www.global-politics.eu/sotirovic; Contact: [email protected].

Prof. Sotirovic is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

A study has found that some Syrian refugees are returning to their homes despite the ongoing conflict due to difficult conditions that they have met within bordering nations. However, the returnees have found neither security nor decent living conditions on their return. On the basis of studies and interviews conducted by humanitarian organizations and research institutes, most Syrian IDPs and refugees really want the chance to return home but the situation in the country is still dangerous in some provinces due to the ongoing conflict. Nevertheless, a small number of refugees voluntarily return to Syria every month.

This may seem like a positive development. A study by Durable Solutions Platform (DSP), a research initiative led by NGOs, found that these returns are due to unsafe, precarious living conditions in exile first of all. Though some Syrian experts claim this is a kind of a sign that the situation in Syria has improved. This is proved by some German politicians.

According to DPS, refugees face severe challenges in securing decent standards of living in Syria’s neighboring countries. Over half of Syrian refugees in the region live below the poverty line.Barriers to accessing health and education services are leaving an alarming 43 percent of refugee children out of school. The research stressed that many Syrians feel alienated from the communities hosting them and that discrimination is common. The harsh conditions of day-to-day life and the constant feeling of being a burden on host societies makes many refugees lose hope that their situation will improve. The typical Syrian refugee’s daily life in Europe is too bad, in fact.

Meanwhile, refugees say they are happy to be home. Many of them returned to Aleppo. The city is largely at peace now after government forces defeated rebels there in December 2016.

In fact, the situation in provinces is improving with every passing day as the Syrian Government is doing its best to develop opportunities for IDPs. Despite the fact that in the cities there are still so many economic and housing problems and many of villages are suffering from the lack of jobs, the government successfully coped with the restoration of water supply and electricity. The security of the locals is now guaranteed by the Syrian Arab army (SAA) and the authorities are currently restoring communications including the airport damaged as a result of the invasion of opposition fighters. The returning families expressed their gratitude to the Syrian Arab Army and the Lebanese resistance for the sacrifices they made to liberate their towns and to restore security and stability to them, which allowed them to return home.

The locals say the Official Government calls its nationals for returning to their homeland more actively. The state makes every effort to rebuild the infrastructure destroyed, to organize uninterrupted food supplies, and to ensure the security of the locals.

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This article was originally published on Inside Syria Media Center.

Featured image is from ISMC.

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, along with 18 members of the House of Representatives—15 Republicans and three Democrats—has sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions demanding that the Qatari-run Al-Jazeera television network register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). The letter was issued after Al-Jazeera said it planned to air a documentary by a reporter who went undercover to look into the Israel lobby in the United States. The action by the senator and the House members follows the decision by the Justice Department to force RT America to register as a foreign agent and the imposition of algorithms by Facebook, Google and Twitter that steer traffic away from left-wing, anti-war and progressive websites, including Truthdig. It also follows December’s abolition of net neutrality.

The letter asks the Justice Department to investigate “reports that Al Jazeera infiltrated American non-profit organizations.” It says that the

“content produced by this network often directly undermines American interests with favorable coverage of U.S. State Department-designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations, including Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria.”

“American citizens deserve to know whether the information and news media they consume is impartial, or if it is deceptive propaganda pushed by foreign nations,” the letter reads.

The ominous assault on the final redoubts of a free press, through an attempt to brand dissidents, independent journalists and critics of corporate power and imperialism as agents of a foreign power, has begun. FARA, until recently, was a little-used regulation, passed in 1938 to combat Nazi propaganda. The journalists Max Blumenthal and Ali Abunimah do a good job of addressing the issue in this clip on The Real News Network.

Those who challenge the dominant corporate narrative already struggle on the margins of the media landscape. The handful of independent websites and news outlets, including this one, and a few foreign-run networks such as Al-Jazeera and RT America, on which I host a show, “On Contact,” are the few platforms left that examine corporate power and empire, the curtailment of our civil liberties, lethal police violence and the ecocide carried out by the fossil fuel and animal agriculture industries, as well as cover the war crimes committed by Israel and the U.S. military in the Middle East. Shutting down these venues would ensure that the critics who speak through them, and oppressed peoples such as the Palestinians, have no voice left.

I witnessed and was at times the victim of black propaganda campaigns when I was a foreign correspondent. False accusations are made anonymously and then amplified by a compliant press. The anonymous site PropOrNot, replicating this tactic, in 2016 published a blacklist of 199 sites that it alleged, with no evidence, “reliably echo Russian propaganda.” More than half of those sites were far-right, conspiracy-driven ones. But about 20 of the sites were progressive, anti-war and left-wing. They included AlterNet, Black Agenda Report, Democracy Now!, Naked Capitalism, Truthdig, Truthout, CounterPunch and the World Socialist Web Site.

PropOrNot charged that these sites disseminated “fake news” on behalf of Russia, and the allegations became front-page news in The Washington Post in a story headlined “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during the election, experts say.” Washington Post reporter Craig Timberg wrote in that article that the goal of “a sophisticated Russian propaganda effort,” according to “independent researchers who have tracked the operation,” was “punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy.”

To date, no one has exposed who operates PropOrNot or who is behind the website. But the damage done by this black propaganda campaign and the subsequent announcement by Google and other organizations such as Facebook last April that they had put in filters to elevate “more authoritative content” and marginalize “blatantly misleading, low quality, offensive or downright false information” have steadily diverted readers away from some sites. The Marxist World Socialist Web Site, for example, has seen its traffic decline by 75 percent. AlterNet’s search traffic is down 71 percent, Consortium News is down 72 percent, and Global Research and Truthdig have seen declines. And the situation appears to be growing worse as the algorithms are refined.

Jeff Bezos, the owner of The Washington Post and the founder and CEO of Amazon, has, like Google and some other major Silicon Valley corporations, close ties with the federal security and surveillance apparatus. Bezos has a $600 million contract with the CIA. The lines separating technology-based entities such as Google and Amazon and the government’s security and surveillance apparatus are often nonexistent. The goal of corporations such as Google and Facebook is profit, not the dissemination of truth. And when truth gets in the way of profit, truth is sacrificed.

Google, Facebook, Twitter, The New York Times, The Washington Post, BuzzFeed News, Agence France-Presse and CNN have all imposed or benefited from the algorithms or filters—overseen by human “evaluators.” When an internet user types a word in a Google search it is called an “impression” by the industry. These impressions direct the persons making the searches to websites that use the words or address the issues associated with them. Before the algorithms were put in place last April, searches for terms such as “imperialism” or “inequality” directed internet users mostly to left-wing, progressive and anti-war sites. Now they are directed primarily to mainstream sites such as The Washington Post. If you type in “World Socialist Web Site,” which has been hit especially hard by the algorithms, you will be directed to the site—but you have to ask for it by name. Searches for associated words such as “socialist” or “socialism” are unlikely to bring up a list in which the World Socialist Web Site appears near the top.

There are 10,000 “evaluators” at Google, many of them former employees at counterterrorism agencies, who determine the “quality” and veracity of websites. They have downgraded sites such as Truthdig, and with the abolition of net neutrality can further isolate those sites on the internet. The news organizations and corporations imposing and benefiting from this censorship have strong links to the corporate establishment and the Democratic Party. They do not question corporate capitalism, American imperialism or rising social inequality. They dutifully feed the anti-Russia hysteria. An Al-Jazeera report on this censorship begins at 14:07 in this link.

The corporate oligarchs, lacking a valid response to the discrediting of their policies of economic pillage and endless war, have turned to the blunt instrument of censorship and to a new version of red baiting. They do not intend to institute reforms or restore an open society. They do not intend to address the social inequality behind the political insurgencies in the two major political parties and the hatred of the corporate state that spans the political spectrum. They intend to impose a cone of silence and the state-sanctioned uniformity of opinion that characterizes all totalitarian regimes. This is what the use of FARA, the imposition of algorithms and the attempt to blame Trump’s election on Russian interference is about. Critics and investigative journalists who expose the inner workings of corporate power are branded enemies of the state in the service of a foreign power. The corporate-controlled media, meanwhile, presents the salacious, the trivial and the absurd as news while fanning the obsession over Russia. This is one of the most ominous moments in American history. The complicity in this witch hunt by self-identified liberal organizations, including The New York Times and MSNBC, will come back to haunt them. When the voices for truth are erased, they will be next.

The steps to tyranny are always small, incremental and often barely noticed, as Milton Mayer wrote in “They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-1945.” By the time a population wakes up, it is too late. He noted:

But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and the worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and the smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked. If, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the “German Firm” stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.

And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying “Jew swine,” collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you lived in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.

Despots, despite their proclaimed ideological, national and religious differences, speak the same language. Amoral, devoid of empathy and addicted to power and personal enrichment, they are building a world where all who criticize them are silenced, where their populations are rendered compliant by fear, constant surveillance and the loss of basic liberties and where they and their corporate enablers are the undisputed masters.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the Qatari government is seeking to improve relations with the Trump administration by forging alliances with right-wing Jewish organizations in the United States. It has promised Jewish leaders, the paper reported, not to air the Al-Jazeera documentary about the Israel lobby. Al-Jazeera in 2016 shut down Al-Jazeera America, which broadcast to U.S. audiences. With no broadcaster in the U.S., the program would have reached few American viewers even if Al-Jazeera had put it on the air.

Haaretz reported that Jewish organizational leaders who have visited Qatar in recent months include Mort Klein of the Zionist Organization of America; Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; Jack Rosen of the American Jewish Congress; Rabbi Menachem Genack of the Orthodox Union; Martin Oliner of the Religious Zionists of America; and attorney Alan Dershowitz.

“What these leaders share is that none of them are considered critics of the right-wing Netanyahu government in Israel or the Trump administration in Washington,” Haaretz correspondent Amir Tibon wrote in the newspaper.

The despotism of the United States and the despotism of Israel have found an ally in the despotism of Qatar. Professed beliefs are meaningless. Israel is bonded with the regime in Saudi Arabia and the Christian right in the United States, each of which is virulently anti-Semitic. Dissidents, including Jewish and Israeli dissidents, are attacked as “self-hating Jews” or anti-Semites only because they are dissidents. The word “traitor” or “anti-Semite” has no real meaning. It is used not to describe a reality but to turn someone into a pariah. The iron wall is rising. It will cement into place a global system of corporate totalitarianism, one in which the old vocabulary of human rights and democracy is empty and where any form of defiance means you are an enemy of the state. This totalitarianism is being formed incrementally. It begins by silencing the demonized. It ends by silencing everyone.

“You walk into the room with your pencil in your hand,” Bob Dylan sang in “Ballad of a Thin Man.” “You see somebody naked and you say, ‘Who is that man?’ You try so hard but you don’t understand just what you will say when you get home. Because something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?”

*

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, New York Times best selling author, former professor at Princeton University, activist and ordained Presbyterian minister.

Featured image is from Mr. Fish.

Feature image: Author Mark Taliano

NATO terrorists have murdered about 10,000[1] civilians in Damascus, in addition to the 40 + civilians that they murdered in SE Damascus on March 20, 2018. Meanwhile, the SAA and allies have lost about 545 soldiers in the last ten weeks trying to liberate East Ghouta, the area from which the terrorists fire missiles at students, men, women, children. And Canadians think Assad is the bad guy.[2]

None of the allegations against Assad and the Syrian government withstand the scrutiny of independent investigations. None.[3]

NATO imperialists create atrocity stories to demonize target leaders and to target prey countries with a view to fabricating consent to commit the Supreme International Crime of war of aggression. They have been fabricating consent and committing war crimes for the past seven years in Syria.  We are accomplices in these crimes when we do not denounce our criminal governments.

Syrians have names and faces.  Terrorists supported by Saudi Arabia, NATO, and most of Western media, murdered the people pictured below.

The Syrian soldiers and their allies, who are fighting international terrorism on behalf of all of us, also have names. These are the names of those who were martyred in the fight to Liberate #EastGhouta from the outset of the campaign in January:

1 – Major General Ahmed Mohamed El Housseynou as say / Idlib-Alzenbaka-population of Latakia
2 – Major: AarimeevV.g / Russia
3 – Major General Vladimir ViniaminovicArrecife / Russia
4 – Dean: Ali Diop / Guard Republican
5 – Brigadier Habib Mehrez Younis / Business Name-Qirdahh
6 – Brigadier: Mahmoud Ahmed Ma’touq / Business Name-Video
7 – Dean: Riaz Mohammad Ahmad / Business Name-protoplasm-Dalia
8 – Brigadier General Ahmad Jaber Al Humaidan / Homs Jpourin
9 – Dean: I Chagain . In / Russia
10 – Brigadier: Mohsen Younis Salem / Business Name-phosphene
11 – Colonel Ibrahim Younis hatched / Homs-Tlklkh-Hudaydah
12 – Colonel Haider Kamel Hassan / h R-experience bathroom
13 – Colonel: Fedun . In S / Russia
14. Colonel: Vladimir Vladimirovich / Russia
15. Colonel: Vyacheslav / Russia
16. Colonel: Mosyev Mikhail / Russia
17. Lieutenant Colonel: Harith Ismail New / Lattakia-Jabla-Bustan El-Pasha
18. Lt. Col. Ali Ahmed Eid / Homs-Zahra
19.
Lead :ShadiAloush / Tartous-HamamQunya 20. Major: Mahmud Muhammed Moulj / Hama-Musayaf-Reef
21. Major: Mohammad BahjatDiop / Lattakia-Beit Yashout
22. Major: Walid Jabbur Khalil / Homs-Hawash
23. Lead: Alexander Morozov / Russia
24. Lead: Smirnov. Russia
27 – Major:
EdekimovVektu / Russia
27. Lead: Alexei NikolaevichGuinayak / Russia
28. Major: Qais Mohammad Omran / Hama-Musayaf-Fendara
29 – Captain: Ahmed Ali Hammad / Tartous – Raml
30 – Captain: Bassel Emad Habib / Tartous – Banias – Tiru
31 – Captain: Mohammed Suhail Medhat / Homs – Kafr Abd
32 – Captain: Hossam Nizar Cross / Hama
– Waseem al-Hussein / Idlib-Maasran
34- Captain: Ali Nader Al-Na’imah / Hama-Salmiya
35- Captain: Mohammed Wassouf / Hama-Musayaf-Dirmama
36- Captain: Raki Abdel Karim Abdo / Homs-Safar
37- Captain: Dator
38 – Captain: KhaldounSulaimanEsber / Business Name-protoplasm-eye rift
39 – Captain: Balennox AA / Russia
40 – Captain: Trovanov a / Russia
41 – Captain: Jurban K / Russia
42 – Captain: Rasputin N.b – Medical Service / Russia
43 – Captain: Sashok AM / Russia
44 – Captain: Shinzift SV / Russia
45 – Captain: Qaiderkhov ESS / Russia
46 – Captain: YazenManhal Ibrahim / Hama – Musayaf – Bird
47 – Captain: Gorban Constantine / Russia
48 – Lieutenant: Abdul Rahim Mohammed Al – Mohammed / Damascus – Barzah Buildings
49 – Lieutenant: Ahmad Munir Alisha / Hama – HoratAmorin
50 – Lieutenant: Ali Yacoub Abu Ali / Lattakia – Qardaha – Dairutan
51 – Lieutenant: Mohammed Suleiman Daghla / Homs
– / Aleppo-Tedef-Abu Jabbar
53 – Lieutenant: Azzam Badi Suleiman / Tartous-Banias-Captain
54 – Lieutenant: Wissam Khaled Rahma / Hama-Barre eastern
55 – Lieutenant: Ali Ibrahim Ismail / Tartous-Anazh nostalgically
56 – Lieutenant: Iyad Ibrahim Al-Shamali / Tartous-Dreikish-Kolaa
57 – Lt. Ali Bilal Aboud / Business Name-protoplasm-Dalia
58 – Lieutenant: Yahya Abdul Karim Qinan / Aleppo
59 – Lieutenant Ali Sulaiman / Homs-short-Haouz
60 – Lt. Bassam Younis / Guard-cycle 71 war
61 – Lieutenant: Hazem Darwish / Guard-cycle 71 war
62 – Lieutenant: Habib news / Guard-cycle 71 war
63 – Lieutenant Khaled Mahfoud / Guard-cycle 71 war
64 – Lieutenant: Zulfiqar Harmoush / Guard-cycle 71 war
65 – Lieutenant: Mohammad Ahmad Haidar / Guard-cycle 71 war
66 – Lieutenant: Muhammad Malik Hassan / Hama-Musayaf-Shiha
67- Lieutenant: Salah Ali Al-Sayyid / Homs-Talkakh-Naara
68- Lieutenant: Majd Mohammed Ahmed / Lattakia-Ain Al-Tinah
69- Lieutenant: Hassan Ahmed Al-Haydar / Hama-Jarjra-
70 – Lieutenant: Ali Sulaiman Mohsen / Hama-Musayaf-Umrah
71 – Lieutenant: Mahmud Muhammad SulaimanAlush / Hama – Wadi Al Oyun – Kasuh
72 – Lieutenant: AlaaNidalHammoud / Tartous – Qadous – Quneya
73 – Lieutenant: MuhannadKasirZidan / Lattakia – Karsana
74 – Lieutenant: Fares Ramadan Al Ali / Hama – Musayaf -bachin
75 – Lieutenant: Yamen Mounir Habib / Business Name-Qirdahh-Msterh character
76 – Lieutenant: Naseem Hohr / Homs-Tlklkh-horsefly
77 – Lieutenant Ahmad Faisal hawks / Business Name-infidel
78 – Lieutenant: Nadeem Nabil Ismail / Tartous-Dreikish -d Mataro
79 – Lieutenant: harmony Mahmoud / Hama-jungle
80 – Lieutenant: Ali Nadeem Shaban / Hama-Salhab
81 – Lieutenant: Ghadeer Fayyad / Tartous-Zarkat
82 – Lieutenant: Wissam Ahmed Yahya / Kenitra-Roma
83 – Lieutenant Ammar Abd al-Karim Muhanna / Hama-Salhab
84 – Lieutenant: Fahd Ghassan Dardar / Hama-Salmiya-Tal New
85 – Lieutenant: Wael Mohammed Sulaiman / Tartous – Safita – HakherZehia
86 – Lieutenant: Salman Yasser Wahabi / Lattakia – Bahlutia
87 – Lieutenant: Jaafar Ahmad Dali / Hama – Rabiah
88 – Lieutenant: Rashid Mahfoud / Lattakia – Jablah
– Lieutenant: Salman prestige / Business Name-Rodo
90 – LT: O.hevchenko / Russia
91 – Lieutenant: AltonenK.n / Russia
92 – Lieutenant: D.savronov / Russia
93 – Lieutenant: Ev_ok of GS / Russia
94 – Lieutenant: M.banov / Russia
95 – Lieutenant: Hassan Khaski Soliman / Business Name-Bhloulih-high
96 – Lieutenant Samer Hussein / Business Name-protoplasm-pine
97 – Lieutenant Haider Ahmed Badran / Hama-appointed chrome-jungle
98 – Lieutenant: Ahmed Suhail We made it Qayat-Bayt Yashout-Kula’a
99 – Lieutenant: Hussam Ostrich / Business Name-protoplasm-Reef
100 – Lieutenant Samer Ali Hussein / Business Name-pine-pools Chamsine
101 – Lieutenant: Abbas Yousef Ramadan / Hama-Misyaf-Kafr colonel
102 – Lieutenant: Yamen honest shepherd / Homs Reeve
103 – Lieutenant: Khalil Mohamed Diop / Homs-openwork-Taldaa
104 – Lieutenant: Mudar Mohammad Macaiduc / Hama-Misyaf-kindergarten
105 – -: Ahmed Ali Eskandrany / Damascus
106 – – Ibrahim Hassan Mustafa / intelligence air
107 – -: Ibrahim Hussein Mohsen / Damascus-Zainab camp
108 – – Ibrahim Diab Abu Khalil / Damascus-Hrnh
109 – -: Ibrahim Taher Yousef / Business Name-protoplasm-cellar Awwamiyya
110 – -: Ibrahim Caesar Shaheen / Kenitra-Arnah
111 – -: Ibrahim Mohammed Ja’wair / Republican Guard
112 – – : Ihsan Da’bil / Swaida – criminal security
113 – -: Ingen Grapovski SV / Russia
114 – -: Ingen Gjujov MA / Russia
115 – -: Ayad Ayman Ibrahim / Hama – Salmiya – Saboura
116 – -: Iyad Jawdat Issa / Tartous
– : Aepfanov / Russia
118 – -: Ihab Abdel Wahed / Damascus-Madaya
119 – -: Abu Sami Mansour / Tartous-Banias-Anazh
120 – -: Ahmed Egyptian / Guard Republican
121 – – Ahmed Ibrahim Mahmoud / Business Name-protoplasm-Muthur
122 – -: Ahmed Ismail El Sayed / Damascus – Derakhbeh
123 – -: Ahmed Hassan Soliman / Tartous – Sheikh Badr – Jabbab
124 – -: Ahmed Hikmat Abu Durra / Tartous – Banias – bee Inventory
125 – -: Ahmed Khader Mehrez / Homs – Gabriya
126 – -: Ahmed Khalil-Hamada Radar / Tartus-Reef
127 – -: Ahmed Rashid Primo / Lattakia-Salm J
128 – -: Ahmed Samir Khatib / endosperm-residents Jaramana
129 – – Ahmed Abdul RazakDa’as / Kenitra-Joppa
130 – – Ahmed Abdullah Sheikh / Kenitra-residents M.allowavdan
131 – – Ahmed Abdul Majid Ismail / Damascus-Jubb’adin
132 – – Ahmed Adnan Ali / Tartous-Banias-Gulwa
133 – -: Ahmed Ali Abdullah / intelligence air
134 – – Ahmed Ali Assaf / Tartous-Banias-Deir inventory
135 – – Ahmad Imad al – Khatib / militia-Arab nationalist Guard
136 – – Ahmed Omar Al Nabhan / Hama – Qamhana
137 – -: Ahmed Majid Akkari / Homs – Akrama
138 – -: Ahmed Mohamed Al Zaher / Damascus – Beit Tema
139 – -: Ahmed Mohammed Yousef / Tartous – Sheikh Badr
– Ahmed Mamdouh Hurnana / air intelligence
141 – -: Ahmed Nadim Salim / Tartous-Sheikh Badr-Nimriya
142 – -: Ahmad Walid buckets / Hama-good forward
143 – -: Ahmed Yacoub Suliman / Business Name-protoplasm-Dalia
144 – -: Adib Adnan Bustami / Homs-Ikrima-saving
145 – -: Osama Almraqbi / Business Name-Qngerh
146 – – Osama Osama Ibrahim / Homs – Almakhram – Jib Abbas
147 – -: Osama Mohammed Khallouf / Hama – Musayaf – Zaghrain
148 – -: Osama Mamdouh Mohammed / Damascus – Solidarity
149 – -: Asad Bashir Shibli / Kenitra
– : Alexander Solubov / Russia
151 – – Amir Saeed Asaad / Hama-Misyaf-Bahra
152 – – Anas OstaHalabi / Damascus-news channel
153 – – Anas Kilani / Damascus-Otaiba
154 – – Oosepkin Alexander / Russia
155 – -: Ayman Nakkari / Homs-capillaries
156 – -: Ayman Saber Diab / Palestine
157 – -: Ayham Ahmad Ajamiyeh / Hama-Misyaf-Shiha
158 – -: Ayham Ayman Bose Honey / Damascus-Zahara
159 – -: Basil rice / Damascus-Guard Republican
160 – -: Basil Okush / Homs-Taldo-Hula
161 – -: Basil Fahd Hamada Hanash / Deir al – Zour
162 – -: Badr al- Din Abdul Latif mays / Damascus-field Hall
163 – -: Badr mays / Guard Republican
164 – -: Badr Abdel – sweet / Damascus-solidarity
165 – – Bassam Abdo Asami / Damascus-Building
166 – – Bassam Gharib Saleh / Hama-eye chrome-tear
167 – -: Bashar Aldndl / Deir al – Zour
168 – -: Bashar al- Khaled Talaa / Deir al – Zour
169 – -: Bashar Salim Aldbesa / endosperm-Arman
170 – – : Bashar Adnan Qatifah / Tartous-Banias-Sindyana
171 – -: Bashar Ali Aboud / Hama-Asilah-Al-Ghab
172 – -: Bashar Ayash / Hama-Salmiya-Khneves
173 – -: Bashar Mohammed Ismail / Hama – Tal Sakin Al-Qahada
174 – -: Bashar Noor Eddin / Idleb – inhabitants of Lattakia
175 – Zama
176 – -: Bashar Haitham Al-Jaban / Damascus-Qatana
177 – -: Bilal Awad / State Security
178 – -: Bahaa Hassan Mohammed Al Mousa / Kenitra – Reconciliation clan
179 – -: BahaaArefDaghman / Lattakia
– : Bogatirov / Russia
181 – – Ponomarev / Russia
182 – – Belov / Russia
183 – – Tamer Jamil Kbathil / Aleppo
184 – – Chapdarov b / Russia
185 – – facilitating Khudair / Damascus-Shia
186 – -: fixed Ahmed Melhem / Lattakia – Jablah – Qatilbba
187 – -: Thaer Khalil Yahya / Damascus-Kabbas
188 – -: Jafar Isa / Tartous-Safita-Kfrakhh
189 – -: Jaafar Mahmoud Suleiman / Tartous-Cadmus- and Yes
190 – – Jamil Musa Bush / Adalb- Foah
191 – -: George Tawfiq Al Nasr / Damascus-drummer
192 – – George Youssef Youssef / Tartous-Banias-Fayha
193 – -: Johnny Samir Esber / Tartous-Safita-Kafroun
194 – -: Hazim Mustafa Mustafa / Aleppo-militia air
195 – -: Hossam AdeebKaddour / Hama-Misyaf-Mushashin
196 – -: Hassan Ramiz Hammad / Tartous-Dreikish-February
197 – – Hassan conciliator Almagdr / Damascus-Zahara old
198 – -: Hassan Aga / Hama-peaceful
199 – -: Hassan Abdullah Ayyash / Homs-Ikrima
200 – – Hassan Abboud / Homs-Zahraa-Abasiya
201 – -: Hassan Ali Badran / Tartous-Dreikish
202 – -: Hassan Mohamed Mohamed / Tartous-net A
203 – -: Hassan Mohammed Mashmash / Damascus – Otaiba
204 – -: Hussein HikmatHarfous / Tartous – Banias – Kurdish
205 – -: Hussein Ali Ali / Aleppo – Militia Albaker
206 – -: Hussein Ali Hassan / Tartous – Sheikh Badr – Hanafiya
207 – -: Hussein Mamdouh Harrabeh / Damascus – Kafr Sousse
208 – -: Hamad Muamen Hassan / Damascus – AshrafiehSahnaya
209 – -: Hamza Samir Ahmed / Lattakia – Jblah – Bastoire
210
– : Haidar SaqrGajmoula / Hama-Misyaf-Mguibrh
212 – -: Haider Ghosn / Guard Republican
213 – -: Haider Faisal Yousef / Business Name-protoplasm-house Yashout
214 – -: Haidar Mahmoud parties / Business Name-protoplasm-Rumeileh
215 – -: Khaled Emad al-Rifai / Damascus – Diretia
216 – -: – Khaled Mahmoud Hamimi / Lattakia – Project B
217 – -: Khader Ahmed Taha / Homs – Ghor
218 – -: Khattar Khaled Younis / Hama-peaceful-Zgran
219 – -: Khalil Shukri Asaad / Business Name-Reef
220 – -: Khalil Mohammed Khrsh / Business Name-protoplasm-Jbebat
221 – -: Daniel Yasin / Tartous-Safita
222 – – : Diab Hussein Hammoud / Homs-Khirbet Ghazi
223 – -: Zulfikar Ibrahim Ahmed / Business Name-protoplasm-Valley uprooting
224 – -: RajehHshehadh / Damascus-livery-Gherkin Dannon
225 – -: Radi Mahmoud Alsnadiqi / Damascus-Gazzar
226 – – Rami Al – Hajji / Idlib-KafrTakharim
227 – – Raed Mohammed Eid / Kenitra-appointed Wit
228 – -: spring Ayman Ali / Tartous-Safita-Haddadiat
229 – -: spring Suleiman Ahmed / Business Name-protoplasm-Bsin
230 – -: Rabea Mohammed Shahin / Hama-Masiaf-Bashneen
231 – -: Rabea Noman / Tartous-Banias-Hareesoun
232 – -: Rajab Haider Jerda / Tartous-Broken Tower-Akkar
233 – – Rajab Mohammad Ali / Homs-Tlklkh-Jbak
234 – -: Radwan Rakan Salman / Tartous-Sheikh Badr-Noihh
235 – – Rana Fayez Hashim / Hama – Salama-Jadouh
236 – -: Rowad Ibrahim / Harass Jomhouri
237 – -: Rawad TawfiqMahfoud / Tartous – Sheikh Badr – Tireani
238 – -: Zakaria Abdullatif Shlash / Raqqa
239
– Samer Adnan Ali / Tartous-Safita
241 – – Samer Mohammed Hassan / Homs-or two – lane
242 – – Samer Hawash / Guard Republican
243 – -: Saad Khalaf Furaih / Deir al – Zour
244 – -: Socrates Hassan Saad / Homs-supervisor
245 – -: Solomon Aotaira / Business Name-Qirdahh-letter Msterh
246 – -: Samir N. Muhanna / Business Name-c A-Body
247 – -: Sommer Ibrahim Badran / Business Name-protoplasm-Valley gouge
248 – -: Sommer Ibrahim Muhanna / Business Name-Qirdahh-MushayrifaSamok
249 – -: SarznkovAa.o / Russia
250 – – Saif Abdul Rahman / Tartous-impregnable sea
251 – -: Shadi Diab Hassan / Homs-Reef
252 – -: Shadi Diab Rabona / Homs-Ikrima-Valley gold
253 – -: Shadi Mohamed Esber / Homs-cases
254 – -: Shadi Mohamed Shuhaiber / Aleppo
255 – -: Shehadeh Zuhair Alloush / Damascus-Otaiba
256 – – Shaaban Mohamed Srith / Homs-Tlklkh-Quriyat
257 – – net Yahya fault / endosperm-residents Jaramana
258 – -: Saleh Hassan Abu Zaher / Aleppo-militia Bagir
259 – -: Saleh Haidar Ahmad / Tartous-Safita-ratio
260 – -: Saleh Majid Akkari / Homs-Reef
261 -: – Stam Saleh insisted Valley / tenderness-clan veterinarians
262 – -: Safwan Hassan Deeb / Idlib-population protoplasm
263 – -: DiaaTurki Please / Deir Zour
264 – -: Tariq Hassan Hassan / Tartous-Sheikh Badr-lacuna is forced
265 – -: Tarek Hamdan / Tartous-suburb lion
266 – – Tariq Fayez Al-Rashwani / Damascus – Def Alsouk
267 – -: Taher Al-Dali-Sourani / Hama – Tire
268 – -: Talal Abdul Aziz Ramadan / Hama – Salmiya – Kitlon
269
– Adel Ghannoum / Hama-peaceful-Khunayfis
271 – -: Adel Mahmoud lack of / Guard Republican
272 – -: Atef al – Hindawi / Damascus-Sasa
273 – -: AmerAlKhozim / Deir al – Zour
t
274 – -: Amer Ali Rajab / Homs-Tlklkh -baaon
275 – -: Amer Ali breaker / Business Name-Qirdahh-Bsin
276 – -: Amer Mahmoud linden / Tartous-Safita-B Flour
277 – -: Abdullah Yassin Aleppo /
278 – -: Abdel Wahab Banat / Aleppo
279 – -: – Abdelhakim Suleiman Al Ajlani / Aleppo – Rural
280 – -: – Abdul Hamid Mohammed Aldafis / Damascus – Def Alsouk
281 – -:
282 – -: Abdulrahman Akkari / Homs-Khirbet figs
283 – – Abdulaziz Mahmoud Assaf / Hama-Misyaf-JubbRamlah
284 – -: Abdel QaderParotja / Aleppo-guard Republican
285 – -: Abdullah Ahmad Abu Aisha / Quneitra-Golan-camp Expats
286 – -: Abdullah Barakat Almrei / Aleppo branch air
287 – -: Abdullah Bilal / Idlib-Sgayn
288 – -: Abdullah Yasser salmon / Tartous-Cadmus-Saadanh
289 – -: Nasser Mohammed Al – Saeed / Hasaka
290 – -: Abdel Nour Ibrahim Peaceful / Daraa
291 – -: Osman Suleiman Sasani / Damascus-Kafr Sousse
292 – -: Adnan Jamal Hawks / Homs-Alsnkera
293 – -: Adnan Fares Khoury / Homs-Kfram
294 – -: loops Ahmed Sakr / Business Name-Reef
295 – -: Azzam Mohammad Ayoub Hassan / Tartous-Zarkat
296 – -: Essam Mohamed Issa / Tartous-Safita-accurate house of
297 – -: Attia Hamad forgetfulness / Hasaka-Ncohg
298 – -: AlaaBadr marrows / Aleppo-residents of Tartous
299 – -: Alaa Abdul Razak falconer / Hama-queso
300 – -: Alaa Abdullah Dawood / Business Name-protoplasm-towers
301 – -: Alaa Aziz Ismail / Business Name-protoplasm-sari character
302 – -: Alaa Mohammed Tahmaz / Homs-basement
303 – -: Alaa Yasser Sakr / Lattakia – Qardaha – Nniti
304 – -: Ali Al – Masri / Republican Guard
305 – -: Ali Ibrahim Hal M / Tartous-Banias – mean
306 -: Ali Abu Ghabra / Tartous – Banias – Blouse
307 – -: Ali Ahmed Al Ali / Homs – Talkel
– Baznaya 308 – -: Ali Ahmed Ismandar / Lattakia – Jblah – Bissein
309 – -: -aan sun
310 – – Ali Badi Hamada / Business Name-protoplasm-Germanic
311 – – Ali Haji Hammadi / Aleppo
312 – – Ali Dove / Hama-Misyaf-residents pISTON
313 – -: Ali Saeed Boyth / Damascus-validity
314 – -: Ali Salameh Salama / Hama – Msaiaf – Bira Inventory
315 – -: Ali Salhab / Jamshuri guards
316 – -: Ali Suleiman Musa / Lattakia – Beit Yashout
317 – -: Ali Samir Merhej / Tartous
– Suhail Wassouf / Lattakia-Jabla-Gniri
319 – -: Ali Abdullatif Safo / Tartous-Banias-Tiru
320 – -: Ali IssamSaqour / Lattakia-Sar Casey
321 – – Ali AlaaEddin / State Security
322 – – Ali Fayez Al Mirza – Hama – HoratAmorin
323 – – Ali Fouad Shama / Tartous – Banias – Rural
324 – – Ali Kasser Al Qabawi – Homs – Qusair
– – Ali Kazemer / Homs – Shiites Kafr Abd
326 – -: Ali Mohsen Mohamed / Tartous – Abu Afsa
327 – -: Ali Mohamed Ahmed – the outskirts / Lattakia – Jibla – Bordan
328 – -: Ali Mohamed Assaad / Tartous
– – Ali Muhammad Mesto / Homs – Shi’a Al Abbasia
330 – -: Ali Mohamed Nasser / Tartous – Safita – Umm Hosh
331 – -: Ali Mahmoud Khalil / Homs – Reef
332 – -: Ali Morshed Ayash / Hama-Masiaf-Bareen
333 – -: Ali Mansur Khaddour / Homs – basement
334 – -: Ali NazihTurkiAkkari / Hama-Salhab
335 – -: Ali Yasser Sultani / Lattakia-Qardaha
336 – -: Ali Yahya Shahoud Al-Shawardi / Hama-Morc
337 – -: Ali Yusuf / Lattakia – Qardaha – Kalmakho
338 – -: Ali Yousef Assaad / Hama – Wadi El Oyoun
339 – -: Emad Ali Ali / Hama-el-Ghab
340 – – Imad Issa Naev Yousef / Homs-Khansa
341 – -: Ammar Khalil Alsalhani / Damascus-validity
342 – -: Ammar Ali Burini / Homs-hidden
343 – -: Omar intruder / Deir Zour
344 – -: Omar Rais / Business Name-Aoanh
345 – -: Omar Ahmed Friday / Kenitra-Khan Arnaba
346 – -: Omar Khaled Houry / Aleppo
347 – -: Omar DerghamAwad / Guard Republican
348 – -: Omar Samir intruder / Deir Zour
349 – -: Imran Khalid Awwad / Damascus – Zabadani
350 – -: Anad Darwish Darwish / Homs-Sweiri
351 – -: Anan Anwar Asad / Business Name-protoplasm-Hrahar
352 – – era AlgelohShalash / Damascus-cotton
353 – -: Issa Hassan Dripati / Business Name-Qngerh
354 – -: Issa wondrous / Hama-Misyaf-Jbesnah
355 – – : 358 – -: Ghassanfar Fahad Shahin / Tartous – Safita – Kfriha
356 – -: Ghareeb Al Mawly / Hama – Salmiya
357 – -: Ghassan Mustafa Rashid / Damascus – Nabek
358 –
endosperm-R’ha
360 – -: Ghyath Mohammed Melhem / Tartous-Sheikh Badr-Dlabh
361 – -: Fadi Amin Younis / Homs-Gananat
362 – -: Fadi Hanna Tohme / Damascus-Dwylah
363 – -: FadiCissé / intelligence air
364 – -: -: -: -: -: -: -: -: FadiAwad al-
‘Ali
366 – -: Fadi Younis Mohammed / Hama-Masiaf – SarayaHazour
367 – -: Fida Hassan Zahlout / Lattakia – Bassa
368 – -: Firas Salah Salama / Hama – Musayaf – Tarmaguia
369 – Carr
Lydia
370 – -: Farhan AbboudShol / Business Name-protoplasm
371 – – Fahd Hassan Hassan / Hama-Misyaf-Dermama
372 – – Fahad Salah Zuayter / tenderness
373 – -: Fawaz Mahmoud Aqraba / Homs-new Oriental
374 – – : Faisal Bassam Macaiduc / Hama-appointed chrome-jungle
375 – -: the struggle of BadiAbdalbagi / endosperm
376 – – Kamal Abdullah Al Hammadi Attar / Homs-JouretShiah
377 – -: Corporal Colomoitsev / Russia
378 – -: Kokothkin LD / Russia
379 – -: Loskov S.vi / Russia
380 – -: Louay Zarif Driossi / Hama-p August-jungle
381 – – Mazen brave column / Hama-peaceful
382 – -: Malik Bassam Nasr / Damascus-Otaiba
383 – -: Maher Star / Hama-peaceful-Khunayfis
384 – -: Maher Chreiba / Business Name-park
385 – – Maher Abdullah – 38
– -: – Maher Merahj
/ Lattakia – Jablah – HarfMtour
388 – -: Maher Masoud / Lattakia – Jablah – Btmana
389 – -: Maher Musa al-Mahmoud / Quneitra-Golan-clan Al-Habul
390- -: Mamoun Mohammed Beqa’i / Damascus – Wadi Bardeh
391 – -: Majd al-Din al-Tahan / Damascus – Nahr Aisha
392 – -: Majd Nasser Yashouti / Tartous
– : Mohsen Mahmoud Mohamed Ali / Aleppo
394 – -: Mohsen Muhanna / Republican Guard
395 – -: Mohammed Hamoud / Ham -ekremh
396 – -: Mohammed Saleh / Guard Republican
397 – -: Muhammad Alkabkulai / Business Name-protoplasm-Kfrdbel
398 – -: Mohammed Ibrahim Ali / Hama-jungle-eye chrome
399 – -: Mohamed Ahmed Sobh / Business Name-protoplasm-appointed Oriental
400 – -: Mohamed Ahmed Silverline / Hama-peaceful
401 – -: Mohamed Ahmed Mohamed / Tartous-Dreikish-Saginaw
402 – -: Mohammad Asaad Ghosn / Damascus-Reef
403 – -: Mohammad Bassam Rajab Osman / intelligence air
404 – -: Mohammed Bakhri / Farka
405 – -: Mohamed Chech / Aleppo
406 – -: Mohammed Juma Al Rumaydeen / Aleppo – inhabitants of Jibla
407 – -: Mohammed Habib Hamdan / Lattakia – Qardaha – Nniti
408 – -: Mohamed Habib Khadour / Tartous-Dreikish-Dairuti
409 – Mohammed Hassan Al-Faqir / Damascus – Herna
410 – -: Mohammed Hassan Haj Hassan / Air Intelligence
411 – -: Mohamed Hassan Gnidi / Homs – Umm al-Dawali
412 – -: Mohammad Hussein Al-Hamdan / Hama-Mahershor
413 – -: Mohammad Hussein Al-Shayeb / Damascus-Otaiba
414 – -: Mohammed Hamami / Tartous – Banias
– Mohammed Khalil Jeroda / Tartous-regiment fasteners
416 – -: Mohammad Dawood / Homs-Alamadaba
417 – -: Mohammed Ibrahim destroyed / Tartous-Dreikish
418 – -: Mohamed Diab high / Damascus-kitten
419 – -: Mohamed Rabie Barakat / Damascus Square
420 – -: Mohammad Reza Mustafa Nasser Al -Shami / Damascus-Shiite neighborhood of the Secretary –
421 – -: Mohammad Saleem Aloguana / Damascus-industrial zone
422 – -: Mohammed Shaheen / Hama-peaceful
423 – -: Mohammad Shamsi Bribery of / Aleppo
424 – -: Mohammed Saleh Al – Ahmad / air intelligence
425 – -: Mohamed Sobhi Ali / endosperm-population offense Us
426 – -: Mohammed Adel Yassin / Tartous-Sheikh Badr-Brachin
427 – -: Mohammed Abdul Ghani / Business Name-protoplasm-Muthur
428 – -: Mohammed Abdul Karim Mohammed / Business Name-protoplasm-Mrdasih
429 – -: Mohamed Abdel – MoneimAbdeen / Guard Republican
430 – -: Mohammed Abdo Diab al – Homsi / Damascus-Qazzaz
431 – -: Mohamed Osman / Business Name-Qirdahh
432 – -: Mohammad Aziz Haddad / Business Name-denied the right-Samndel
433 – -: Muhammad Ali Rahma / Damascus-HeverFawqa
434 – -: Mohammad Ali Suleiman / Homs-Zahraa
435 – -: Mohammad Ali Mohammad Hasan Reza / Damascus-Shiite neighborhood Secretary
436 – -: Muhammad Ali Mamdouh Hawwarnh / intelligence air
437 – -: Mohamed Ammar pOTS / Damascus-Shiite Shaghour
438 – -: Mohammed Malik Rahmoun / Lattakia – Mazira
– Ruwaima 439 – -: Mohammed Mahmoud al-Kurdi / h Sucking – Tlalk – or two
434 – -: Mohamed Mahmoud Oghli / Tartous – Safita – Metras
441 – -: Mohamed Mustafa Houri / Damascus – Qazzaz
442 – -: Mohammed Mahdi Othman / Damascus – Beit Tima
443
– Mohamed Nabil Diop / Hama-jungle-Salhab
445 – -: Mohamed Naguib Omran / Tartous-Sheikh Badr-Alno.h
446 – -: Muhammad Nazar Novell / Business Name-protoplasm-towers
447 – -: Mohamed Noman Darwish / Tartous-Reef
448 – – Mohammad gull Shahin / Hama-peaceful-Jduah
449 – -: Mohammed Nouri Al – Junaid / Brigade Baqir
450 – -: Mohammad Nouri Mohammed / Homs-Al-Shinyah
451 – -: Mohammed Wissam Zakaria / Damascus-Baramkeh
452 – -: Mohammad Waseem Horda / Hama-Morak
453 – -: Muhammad Yasser Al-Khatib / Palestine
454 – -: Mohammed Yasser Battikh / Lattakia-intelligence Air
455 – -: Muhammad Yahya Al-Saheb / Damascus-Qatna
456 – -: Mahmoud Al-Khalaf Dahrouj – Al Bustan Association
457 – -: Mahmoud Bin Fahad Al-Alajati / Damascus – Field
458 – -: Mahmoud TayseerZaarour / Tartous – Rural
459 / Lattakia -DayatourDamsrkhu
460 – -: Mahmoud Saleh Abu Al-Hawa / Damascus – Kafr Sousse
461 – -: Mahmoud Salah Soldiers / Tartous – Khirbat Al-Hamam-Bazir
462 – -: Mahmoud Abdel Aziz Aboud / Lattakia – Jabla – Dalia
463 Ali Mohammed / Tartous-Banias-keen
464 – -: Mahmoud Ghazi Ekhalo / h
sucking cornea-
465 – -: Fayez Mahmoud Suleiman / Idlib-Marhamshh
466 – -: Mahmoud Fahd rig / Damascus
467 – -: Mahmoud Mohammed Barber / Hamah- Misyaf-Baarin
468 – -: Mahmoud Mohamed Hamou / Republican Guard
469 – -: Mourad Shri Daraa-Reef
470 – -: Transmitter guide Ibrahim / endosperm-image
471 – -: Mari Ali Hamidi / tenderness
472 – -: slender Habib Abboud / Homs-oak forest ,
473 – -: Marwan Khaddara / Damascus-Rural
474 – -: Mustafa Saleh / Damascus -mekhem.s.senb
475 – – Fayez Mustafa Murad / Damascus-Yafour
476 – – Matar Ahmed , Secretary / Homs-Furqlus
477 – -: Moataz Kamal Munther / endosperm
478 – -: Ali Mekdad / Damascus meze 86
479 – -: Mamdouh Haytham Abul-Laban / Hama-Reef
480 – -: Munther Ali Hamouda / Lattakia – Qirdaha
481 – -: Mehran Muhammad Hamisho / Lattakia – DaaturDamsrkhu
482 – -: Muhannad Hasan Al – Issa / Homs – Zahra
483 –
Military intelligence 484 – -: مهندعزيزحسن / Lattakia-Fakhoura-Terme
485 – -: مهندعليحسن / Tartous- A row
488 – -: مهندمحمودعز
العدين / دمشق – Solidarity 487 – -: مهندمنصورسليم / لاذقية
– داثور 488 – -: مهيبمحمودعبدالعزيزيوسف / حماة-مسياف-دوير Sheikhs
489 Contact Us Archive Top All times are GMT +4.
490 – -: Mireniukov in / Russia
491 – -: Milad Adnan Khalil / Tartous-Dreikish-Mamoura
492 – -: Nader Faisal Al-Qanabani / Swaida
493 – -: Nasser Darwish / Damascus-Otaiba
494 / Hama-Misyaf-KafrKamra
495 – -: Nizar Abdul Rahman Greens / Hama-peaceful-Alshahyb
496 – -: honest Hisham Sorour / Homs-fortress
497 – -: NasibKamel al – Saadi / endosperm-residents Jaramana
498 – -: Naseem Adnan Awad / Homs-Shin-Jablaya
499 – -: Nassim Ali Sulaiman / Tartous-Safit A-Bchbat
500 – -: Naseem dozy / Tartous-Cadmus
501 – -: Naseem star Alabdo / Damascus
502 – – Nashwan Mohammed oil / Business Name-Video
503 – -: Nidal Ahmed Sheikh Hussein Mana / Hasaka
504 – -: Nidal Ahmed Indian / Damascus
– 505 – -: Noor Adel Khel / Suweida – Residents of Jarmana 508 – -: Hani Ibrahim Salloum /
Hama – 505 – – Nader Mohammed Nader / Lattakia – Nahr al-Bared – الغاب 509 – -: هانيطالبجعفر / حماة-مصياف-بارين 510 – -:: هيثممحمدالريني / Tartous-Reef 511 Contact Us Archive Top All times are GMT +3. 513 – -: Waseem Ibrahim Diop / Lattakia – Kursana 514 -: – Waseem Ahmed Al-Marai / Homs-Shinniyah

515 – -: handsome life peaceful / Dara
516 – -: Wasim Mohammad Yousuf / Hama-Misyaf-Chmish
517 – -: handsome Nawras Ibrahim / Hama-Misyaf-Baarin
518 – -: handsome WafiqZfor / Homs-Fahil
519 – -: – 52 – – -: William Khadr, Hama-Masayaf-Bareen 522 – -: Waleed Mohammed Hijazi / Damascus – Baghdad Street 522
– -: Waleed SulaimanQandouha / Qahtani 520 – Barakat / Hama-Misyaf-Sighata 524 – -: William Essam Khader / Tartous-Banias-Tnita 525 – -: William Ali / Hama-Misyaf-guarded 526 – -: Yasser Hussein Kablawi / Damascus-airport road 527 – -: Yasser Zeravih / 525 – -: – Yasser Mohammed Al-Qasim / Homs – Hamarat 529 – -: Yaseen BahgatTohma / Republican Guard

530 – -: Yamen RajehAscol / Intelligence air
531 – -: Yahya Adel Ghayad / Damascus-Beit Tima
532 – -: Yahya Mohammed Yusuf / Regiment Hadi
533 – -: Weighing Mehrez / Guard Republican
534 – – weighing Nasser Kurd / Homs -ekremh-Valley gold
535 – – expresses Fahd ‘s sons / Hama-Misyaf-Taonh
536 – -: Youssef Habib Ibrahim / Business Name-protoplasm-body
537 – -: Yusuf Khirfan / Hama
538 – -: Youssef Suleiman Barakat / Business Name-Qirdahh -ruizh
539 – -: Youssef EssamDahrooj / Damascus-River Aisha
540 – -: Youssef Mahmoud public / Business Name-protoplasm-Zama
541 – -: Yusuf HashimAbboud / Business Name-protoplasm-Pettmana
542 – -: Yehoshua lion Shaaban / to Azqah- Jiblah-Zuhairat
543 – -: YusehNazihHarfoush / Homs-Al-Sayid
544 – -: Younis Al-Abdullah / Aleppo
545 – – Younis Mohammed Al-Khalil / Hama-El-Ghab-Asilah

*Statistical data from 1-1-2018 until 15-3-2018, by Mona Yocef

*

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

Notes

[1] AlWatan Online. “HIJJ: 35 THOUSAND VICTIMS OF THE SHELLS OF MILITANTS DURING THE CRISIS IN DAMASCUS AND ALEPPO AND HOMS AND LATTAKIA.” (Source) Accessed 21 March, 2018.

[2] Mark Taliano. “Criminal Propaganda of Omission. The West and its Terrorist Proxies do not Seek Peace in Syria.” Global Research. 3 March, 2018. (https://www.globalresearch.ca/criminal-propaganda-of-omission-the-west-and-its-terrorist-proxies-do-not-seek-peace-in-syria/5630802) Accessed 21 March, 2018.

[3] Mark Taliano, Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017

Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.  

Taliano talks and listens to the people of Syria. He reveals the courage and resilience of a Nation and its people in their day to day lives, after more than six years of US-NATO sponsored terrorism and three years of US “peacemaking” airstrikes.

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

Voices from Syria 

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-1-6

Author: Mark Taliano

Year: 2017

Pages: 128 (Expanded edition: 1 new chapter)

List Price: $17.95

Special Price: $9.95 

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Global Research is a small team that believes in the power of information and analysis to bring about far-reaching societal change including a world without war.

Truth in media is a powerful instrument. As long as we keep probing, asking questions, challenging media disinformation to find real understanding, then we are in a better position to participate in creating a better world in which truth and accountability trump greed and corruption.

*     *     *

Iraq and the “Gulf War”: Remembering the 1991 Al-Amiriyah Bombing by the US Air Force

By Felicity Arbuthnot and Radio Islam, March 21, 2018

According to Arbuthnot, the nuclear shelter was built during the Iran-Iraq War by a Finnish company which allegedly shared the map and the design with the United States who later on bombed the shelter through its only vulnerable place which was the ventilation shaft.

The Cambridge Analytica Scandal Could Provide Hard Evidence of “Israeli” Meddling in Trump Election

By Adam Garrie, March 21, 2018

During a statement before a hidden camera, the CEO of the data harvesting firm Cambridge Analytica Alexander Nix boasted of his ability to employ “Israeli companies” to gather intelligence on politicians that the firm is paid to slander, defame and entrap. Nix then went on to praise the ability of “Israeli” intelligence personnel in what can only be described as a power sales pitch to a would-be client.

Another Reason Why Imperialism Wanted Libya Overthrown

By Abayomi Azikiwe, March 21, 2018

Sarkozy wanted the Libyan state eviscerated and Gaddafi assassinated because he had borrowed millions of dollars from the African leader in 2007 to finance his presidential campaign. Rumors and later documented proof surfaced to substantiate these claims.

44 Senators Made History by Voting to End Illegal US War in Yemen

By Kate Gould, March 21, 2018

In first-ever vote on withdrawing U.S. armed forces from an unauthorized war, 44 Senators voted to withdraw U.S. troops from the Saudi-led war in Yemen.

State Power Routinely Shielded From Public Eyes

By Shane Quinn, March 21, 2018

Obama led the way with his March 2011 intervention in Libya, flanked by Britain and France, under the shield of NATO. Gaddafi’s Libya had been the wealthiest nation in Africa, boasting the highest life expectancy on the continent. In the time since, the country has descended into chaos and ruin.

The Mysterious Frank Taylor Report: The 9/11 Document that Launched US-NATO’s “War on Terrorism” in the Middle East

By Prof. Niels Harrit, March 21, 2018

he legal foundation for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 has been challenged in several countries. The best known is the Chilcot Inquiry in the UK, which began in 2009 and concluded in a report in 2016. The inquiry was not about the legality of military action, but the British government was strongly criticised for not having provided a legal basis for the attack.

Why the UK, the EU and the US Gang-Up on Russia

By Prof. James Petras, March 21, 2018

Why do the Western regimes now feel Russia is a greater threat then in the past? Do they believe Russia is more vulnerable to Western threats or attacks? Why do the Western military leaders seek to undermine Russia’s defenses? Do the US economic elites believe it is possible to provoke an economic crisis and the demise of President Putin’s government?

First published on GR on February 20th, 2017

Filmmaker Regis Tremblay states what few others dare to say. Humanity is on the brink of extinction! Nuclear power is not safe. 48 of America’s nuclear power plants are leaking and there is no way to get rid of nuclear waste.

America’s reckless provocations of both Russia and China, two nuclear-armed countries, risk a nuclear holocaust from which no one survives. Climate change and global warming, if not mitigated immediately, will end the human experiment on earth sooner rather than later.

A shocking documentary that traces the origins of U.S. genocides, military interventions and wars from the 15th century when the white, colonial explorers first came to the Americas to the very present. American Exceptionalism, Manifest Destiny, and the right to claim the earth and its resources as their own are the beliefs that are the foundation of American foreign policy in the 21st Century that has humanity on the brink of extinction.

Dr. Helen Caldicott, Ray McGovern, Chris Hedges, Ann Wright, Peter Kusnick, Bill McKibben, David Vine and other activists, scholars, and authors explain and clarify the crisis and threats to life on the planet.

The only real hope lies in the result of the epic battle for humanity’s survival between two contrasting world views. On one side is the unipolar, capitalist world-domination by the U.S. enforced by the most lethal military the world has ever seen.

On the other side is a view held by Russia, China and the BRICS nations built on a multi-polar world based on respect, the sovereignty of all nations, international law, the equal value of all people, and cooperation.

So here we are. Humanity’s epic battle for survival. An old paradigm based on white, colonial domination and empire versus the shared vision of others who are working for a peaceful world based on justice, international law and the prosperity of all people.

The only question is, will the crazed neocons in Washington, realizing they have lost, take the whole world down with them.

In today’s news: War… Poverty… Crimes against humanity… 

To say that the public has become disillusioned and wary of constant doomsday media reports and news coverage that adhere to corporate agendas is a gross understatement — people see their world changing and they want to understand what is happening, and why. They want to be informed and therefore be prepared. They want the freedom to make educated choices instead of being told what to do by the very individuals and institutions that have led them into chaos.

In the face of mainstream media disinformation, Global Research has remained independent and continues to deliver vital and timely information, and we are grateful for the input of our editors, contributors, staff and volunteers in helping to carry out this task. Our reader feedback has been an invaluable source of encouragement, motivation and growth.

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During a statement before a hidden camera, the CEO of the data harvesting firm Cambridge Analytica Alexander Nix boasted of his ability to employ “Israeli companies” to gather intelligence on politicians that the firm is paid to slander, defame and entrap. Nix then went on to praise the ability of “Israeli” intelligence personnel in what can only be described as a power sales pitch to a would-be client.

Even before the depth of Cambridge Analytica’s meddling in the US election was exposed, the Trump campaign’s ties to “Israel” were widely known. Prior to the election, “Israeli” regime leader Benjamin Netanyahu held private meetings with both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. At the time, Trump’s social media supporters boasted of the fact that Netanyahu’s meeting with Trump was far lengthier than his meeting with Hillary Clinton.

Recent months have seen the full scandal of Michael Flynn’s improper behaviour during the interim period between the US election and Donald Trump’s inauguration, fully exposed as “Israelgate”. At that time, Flynn, acting on the orders of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, held conversations with foreign ambassadors, including the then Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak. During his conversation with Kislyak in December of 2016, Flynn lobbied for “Israel” by effectively begging Russia to delay a vote at the UN which ultimately saw Barack Obama’s outgoing administration vote for a pro-Palestinian position.

Kushner was later praised for his lobbying on behalf of a foreign regime by the duel US-“Israeli” citizen Haim Saban. While sitting next to Kushner, Saban spoke cavalierly about how even if Kushner broke US law, Saban nevertheless supported the foreign collusion that Kushner ordered Flynn to commit, on behalf of the Zionist regime.

These personal ties to the “Israeli” regime are not secretive. Far from it, Trump openly paints himself as the most pro-“Israel” President in US history. What remains unknown is what, if anything “Israeli” intelligence officials, either acting in a personal or geopolitical capacity did for the Trump campaign.

It is an established fact that the Trump campaign hired Cambridge Analytica to manipulate (aka brainwash) US voters through a calculated web based campaign that relied heavily on the stolen personal data of 50 million Facebook users. It has also been established, through the hidden camera admission of Cambridge Analytica’s CEO that the firm uses “Israeli intelligence” as part of its data gathering and data manipulating campaign.

The important question for investigators into Cambridge Analytica’s relationship with both Faceboook and the Trump campaign is therefore: Did Cambridge Analytica procure the services of “Israeli” spies or other organisations directly or indirectly related to the “Israeli” regime, in efforts designed to manipulate US voters into voting for Donald Trump? Not only is this foreign meddling a strong possibility, but the fact that Trump promoted himself as a highly pro-“Israel” candidate even by American standards, means that many of these “Israeli” agents of espionage about which Alexander Nix bragged of employing, may have been all to eager to work in the services of Cambridge Analytica’s pro-Trump meddling scheme.

What the world is witnessing is the western elites from Tel Aviv, London and Washington turning against themselves. Cambridge Analytica ought to be classified as a group engaged in the practice of “Information Terrorism”, and like any terrorist group, its primary motivation is money. Therefore Cambridge Analytica seemed and still seems to be willing to work with anyone, representing anything, so long as the price is right.

Many western politicians who themselves have something to hide and who for both personal and financial reasons are on contrasting sides of both the ongoing Brexit debate, as well as debates over Donald Trump’s legitimacy as a US President, are now fighting with each other and may well throw Cambridge Analytica and perhaps Facebook too, under the gilded bus of western elites.

This spectacle of political cannibalism among a neo-liberal cabal who tend to subscribe more to group-think than to anything related to conscience, will not only be doing the world a favour in exposing the dubious practices of Cambridge Analytica and Facebook, but they will be saving many independent journalists a great deal of effort.

In exposing their own as enemies of democracy and political transparency, it will soon become clear not only that many of the biggest elections are rigged, but the extent to which they are rigged by political and corporate elites and the methods they use to do their rigging, may soon see the full light of day – something which is clearly to the benefit of all ordinary people. Crucially, it is not Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela or Syria doing the exposing, something that would have inevitably lead to racist claims of untrustworthiness from the western mainstream media. Instead, the western elites and their associates in the mainstream media re exposing themselves due to their own disunity regarding the issues of Trump, Brexit and their own personal scandals that they are keen to keep away from the hands of info-mercenaries like Cambridge Analytica.

In summary, the current Cambridge Analytica scandal could blow the lid off the nefarious activities of the following actors:

–Donald Trump and his family

–The Trump campaign including and especially Steve Bannon

–The Leave.EU Brexit campaign of which Nigel Farage and his professional acquaintances were deeply involved.

–The current British government

–Alexander Nix and his Cambridge Analytica associates

–Professor Aleksandr Kogan and his employer, Cambridge University

–The “Israeli” regime

–The “Israeli” secret intelligence service known as Mossad

–Other corporate elites across the US, “Israel” and Europe

By contrast, the following have been de-facto exonerated by the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

–The Russian government which has not been shown to have colluded with any American actors in the 2016 election.

–Wikileaks and Julitan Assange who personally refused to cooperate with Cambridge Analytica and by extrapolation the Trump campaign.

–Independent media that have not and in many cases cannot be bought by fiends like Alexander Nix

–Bernie Sanders who has not shown to have colluded with any corporate or state entity

–Jeremy Corbyn whose UK campaigns have been built from grassroots rather than corporate support

Conclusion

With the US Federal Trade Commission set to broke Facebook’s role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal and with Mark Zuckerberg facing calls to testify before the British Parliament, it would seem that as the elites begin fighting among themselves, the truth of their appalling treatment of the ordinary people across the world will become increasingly apparent.

*

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

Featured image is from the author.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: 

stephenlendman.org 

(Home – Stephen Lendman). 

Contact at [email protected].

Bush/Cheney began terror-bombing Yemen post-9/11, waging drone warfare – on the phony pretext of combating al-Qaeda Washington created and supports.

In cahoots with Riyadh, Obama escalated what they began, further escalated by Trump allied with Saudi aggression.

Already the region’s poorest country, years of war caused the world’s severest humanitarian crisis, over 80% of Yemenis dependent on way inadequate amounts of aid to survive.

US-backed Saudi air, sea and land blockades prevent enough essentials to life from entering the country.

Countless numbers of Yemenis perished from war, related violence, untreated diseases, malnutrition and starvation.

Official UN figures way understate the toll from years of war, blockade and deprivation – perhaps hundreds of thousands of Yemenis perishing needlessly post-9/11, notably since March 2015.

According to separate UNICEF figures, at least one Yemeni child under age five dies every 10 minutes from starvation alone.

Famine stalks the country, along with endless aggression – genocide against its people neither the Trump administration or Congress is willing to address.

On Tuesday, Senate members rejected a resolution to end US military support for Saudi Arabia in Yemen – voting 55 – 44 against it.

The vote came while Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) was in Washington meeting with Trump.

During a White House photo-op, Trump boasted about billions of dollars in US weapons sales to the kingdom – ignoring their use for aggression, supporting terrorism and domestic repression.

Crown prince/defense minister MBS orchestrated Saudi aggression on Yemen, supported by Washington, Britain and other nations.

Ahead of Tuesday’s Senate vote, Defense Secretary Mattis wrote GOP Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, turning truth on its head saying:

“(R)estrictions (on) US military support (to Riyadh) could increase civilian casualties, jeopardize cooperation with our partners on counterterrorism and reduce our influence with the Saudis – all of which would further exacerbate the situation and humanitarian crisis.”

MBS is a despotic future Saudi king, a rogue actor, a war criminal – disgracefully invited to Washington, other Western capitals, Wall Street, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Big Oil in Houston, other US corporate headquarters, along with events at Harvard and MIT.

It’s part of his three-week US charm offensive, aiming to improve the image of the Arab world’s most ruthless regime, along with seeking US investments to diversify Riyadh’s economy.

It’s MBS’ so-called Vision 2030, seeking economic modernization, including industrial development and tourism.

The kingdom enlisted Western PR firms and other image-makers to present him as a new breed of future Saudi leader – a similar strategy used during a three-day visit to Britain, meetings arranged with political, military and business officials.

MBS’ March 18 appearance on CBS News’ 60 Minutes preceded the start of his US tour, beginning in Washington with Trump and other administration officials.

He’s no reformer. He’s like his father King Salman and others earlier throughout the kingdom’s sordid history.

Trump strongly supports its regime, ignoring its despotic agenda, Riyadh his first foreign trip destination after taking office, lucrative trade agreements signed during his visit, especially US weapons sales.

Arms and security project director at the Center for International Policy William Hartung said MBS’ policy agenda is polar opposite the “public relations version of who he is and what he’s trying to do,” adding:

During his US visit, “the question is how critical will the media be? Will Yemen be an afterthought, or will it be front and center in the conversation?”

So far, it’s very much the former, not the latter.

*

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

US President Donald Trump brought several pictures of American weapons to a meeting with visiting Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. He boasted of multibillion-dollar sales of arms to the kingdom.

Featured image: Libya leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi along with former French President Nicolas Sarkozy (Source: the author)

Seven years ago this month, beginning on March 19, 2011, the United States Pentagon and NATO began a massive bombing campaign against the North African state of Libya.

For seven months the warplanes flew tens of thousands of sorties over Libya, at the time the most prosperous state in Africa. Nearly ten thousand bombs were reportedly dropped inside the country resulting in an estimated 50,000-100,000 dead, many more injuries and the dislocation of several million people.

On October 20, longtime Libyan leader, Col. Muammar Gaddafi, was driving in a convoy leaving his home area of Sirte when the vehicles were struck. Gaddafi was later captured and brutally executed by counter-revolutionary forces which were led, armed and financed by the U.S., NATO and its allies.

France played an instrumental role in the destruction of Libya as a nation-state. The then President Nicolas Sarkozy praised the overthrow of the Jamahiriya political system and the execution of Gaddafi.

All of the imperialist states and their cohorts told the international community that the counter-revolution in Libya would lead to an era of democracy and prosperity. These proclamations could not have been further from the truth.

Sarkozy wanted the Libyan state eviscerated and Gaddafi assassinated because he had borrowed millions of dollars from the African leader in 2007 to finance his presidential campaign. Rumors and later documented proof surfaced to substantiate these claims.

On March 20, people around the globe awoke to news reports that Sarkozy was in custody and being questioned over financial irregularities involving the Libyan state under Gaddafi. During the period in question, Libya was a leading country within the African Union (AU) where the basis for the revitalized Organization of African Unity (OAU) founded in May 1963, realized its birth. The Sirte Declarations of 1999 led to the creation of the AU in 2002, shifting the focus of the continental body mandating deliberations on the development of viable institutions encompassing more meaningful objectives such as economic integration and regional security.

The spotlight turned on Sarkozy raises again the question of the genocidal war against Libya during 2011 and the subsequent underdevelopment, instability and impoverishment of the country and its implications for North and West Africa along with the continent as a whole. Today Libya is a source of terrorism, enslavement and internecine conflict where there are at least three sources of purported authority.

Despite the efforts of the United Nations Security Council to form a Government of National Accord (GNA), the unity of the country has remained elusive. The UNSC bears responsibility for the Libyan crisis due to the fact that Resolutions 1970 and 1973 provided a pseudo-legal rationale for the blanket bombing and ground operations in the 2011 imperialist war and its brutal aftermath.

According to an article published by France24:

“Agents of France’s office for anticorruption and fiscal and financial infractions are questioning Sarkozy in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, where he has been detained since Tuesday (March 20) morning. It is the first time authorities have questioned Sarkozy in connection with this dossier. They can keep the 63-year-old conservative former head of state in custody for up to 48 hours, after which he could be released without charge, placed under formal investigation or asked to reappear at a later date.”

The Imperialist Camp and Neo-Colonial Rule in Africa

Whether Sarkozy is placed under formal investigation, indicted or imprisoned for his financial crimes, broader issues remain over the outcomes of the war against Libya. The overthrow of a legitimate African government and the targeted assassination of its leader constitute crimes against humanity stemming from the desire to maintain the neo-colonial domination by imperialism over the continent.

The Jamahiriya state prior to the Pentagon-NATO led war represented the aspirations of not only people in Libya notwithstanding the AU member-states as well. Libya was politically stable, owed no money to global financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank and provided assistance to other African nations in the areas of social, technological, monetary and religious affairs.

While serving as chairperson of the AU in 2009, Gaddafi traveled to the UN General Assembly where he presented his vision of continental imperatives and international relations. During this period a campaign of slander and defamation was launched with the assistance of the corporate media in the U.S.

Even though Libya under the Jamahiriya had modified its stance on a number of issues related to its dealing with the U.S. and other imperialist states, the West wanted to overthrow the government to seize its oil fields and foreign reserves amounting to well over $160 billion. A pretext of impending genocide against western-funded rebels whom had sought to remove the Gaddafi government was utilized to justify a war of regime-change.

The rebels could have never overthrown the Libyan government on their own. Therefore, they called in their paymasters in Washington, London, Paris and Brussels to ensure a victory for neo-colonialism. However, this scheme has failed to bring into existence the compliant regime sought in the post-war period.

This crisis extends beyond the legal issues facing Sarkozy. Moreover, it is a problem of modern-day imperialism which is seeking new avenues of conquest for purposes of exploitation and profit-making.

France is a leading capitalist state yet it is in perpetual economic stagnation. Joblessness remains high while a burgeoning population of African, Middle Eastern and Asian immigrants is fueling racial hatred. Notions of egalitarianism and bourgeois democracy must be selectively implemented so that the white ruling class maintains it power at the expense of a darker and growing minority seeking civil and human rights.

Abroad France still maintains its interests throughout Africa and other parts of the world. Paris is in fierce competition with London and Washington for its status within the imperialist matrix related to the control of oil, strategic minerals and essential trade routes.

The Meaning of African Unity

Therefore on the seventh anniversary of the imperialist war against Libya, the need for unity among AU member-states is more important in this period than ever before. African economic growth, development and integration cannot however be looked at separately from the indispensable need for independent security structures to safeguard resources and the sovereignty of the people.

The war against Libya represented the first full-blown campaign of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) which was established under the administration of President George W. Bush in 2008. AFRICOM was strengthened and enhanced under Bush’s successor President Barack Obama.

Three African states, Gabon, Nigeria and South Africa, voting in favor of the UNSC Resolution 1973 was the worse error of the post-independence period. Although the AU sought to bring about a ceasefire after the bombs began to fall, it was to no avail. This proves conclusively that imperialism should never be trusted and peace and security in Africa can only be won with its destruction.

Many Africans both on the continent and in the Diaspora felt that since Obama was a partial descendant of its people that he would develop a more favorable policy towards the continent and Black people inside the U.S. This was a gross miscalculation because the social and economic conditions worsened for Africans all over the world under his leadership on behalf of the imperialist world.

Consequently, it is not the individual which shapes domestic and foreign policy. Imperialism is an exploitative system which arose from the exigencies of slavery and colonialism. In the modern period neo-colonialism is the last stage of imperialism which Dr. Kwame Nkrumah documented as early as 1965, a prediction which cost him his presidency in the First Republic of Ghana at the aegis of Washington, serving as a major setback for the African Revolution as a whole.

Nevertheless, African people must learn from these historical events in order to move forward with a sober mood of determination and fortitude. Self-reliance and an independent national and global policy is the only solution to the crises facing the continent and its people in contemporary times.

*

Abayomi Azikiwe is editor of Pan-African News Wire. He is also a frequent contributor to Global Research.

For every immigrant, speaking about his or her home country can be somewhat emotional and personal. For us immigrants, the experiences of leaving former identities framed in memories of the land, people, smells, tastes, smiles, laughter, tears and other feelings wrapped in the native tongues and rebuilding our own personhoods in foreign words, foreign-scapes, foreign frameworks held together with the values, beliefs and norms of others gives us a special opportunity to see our world dimensionally. Some of us recognize the mechanisms carefully hidden by the very machination of the social structure. The revelation, at the same time, reveals our essential beings hidden in our former-selves.

When I came to the States as an 18 year old young man, I found out that I was a little Asian man. I met enough people in the small town in West Virginia who didn’t bother to hide their feelings when they recognized me as “other”. Although, I must say that there were also plenty of people who expressed generosity and friendliness to me. In addition, after all, I was one of the privileged Asians – a Japanese.

Japan was nuked twice after the humiliating defeat over the imperial struggle for the Asian hegemony (China and associated interests, etc.) (1) Uncle Sam showed off who the top dog was by incinerating two cities worth of people in Japan. The country was at the brink of extinction. But, Japan, after all, was the most prominent capitalist force in Asia. I think the US made a calculated decision to co-opt the Japanese imperial momentum as its Asian proxy in the most effective way–this, by the way, mirrors what happened to Germany and its Nazi elements as well (2). After the war, the new US backed Japanese regime was given a partnership role in the hegemonic rule of the Pacific nations by the US. The one and only viable political party in Japan, the Liberal Democratic Party, got CIA support along with the Imperial Japanese war criminal leaders guiding its trajectory (3)(4). This was–for the US, as well as for the Japanese corporate power–certainly a better option than Japan having a communist revolution of some sort. The US backed Japanese regime totally went along with the US occupational force, and it did extensive work in demonizing the Japanese imperial trajectory of the past (it must have been easy considering the horrendous things they had done to the neighboring countries) while replacing the momentum with the US made “democracy”, “freedom”, “justice” and so on, which of course operate within the framework of corporatism, colonialism and militarism. The process came with demonization of socialist elements, infiltration of socialist elements, and neutralization of socialist elements. As a result, Japan became a formidable capitalist force backed by the US military might against China and Soviet Union (Russia).

This explains the odd subserviency exhibited by the Japanese here and there. My British friend in Japan, for example, was deeply puzzled by people in Hiroshima welcoming Obama’s visit. However, for the Japanese, Obama is a leader of the “free world”. The fact that he was there to whitewash his engagement in expansion of the US nuclear arsenal, global warmongering and so on and so forth was not a problem to most Japanese people. This tendency can be prominent even among those who vehemently oppose the Japanese rightwing establishment that shamelessly glorifies the imperial Japanese past. Just as president Obama’s kill list and violent colonialism against Libya, Syria and so on didn’t register as criminal to many people in the US. In fact the situation sort of parallels Democratic Party members vehemently demonizing the current Republican president for following colonial, corporate and military initiatives begun by the previous Democratic Party administration.

But in any case, for many who see the enormity of the military might possessed by the US, the monstrosity is a necessary evil against the “bad guys” in the world theater. For many who do oppose the war machine, so called US allies are seen as independent countries with their own self-determination, fully capable of making decisions. Therefore, some of us end up wondering why people in Japan or Germany faithfully go along with the US imperial policies even if that might be contrary to their own interests: Like, going along with sanctions against Russia when they might be losing a productive economic relationship with Russia, or provoking Russia or North Korea even if their own counties might be targets of nuclear attacks. Meanwhile, going along with imperial policies is getting more and more debatable: the imperial hegemony seems to be imploding as it desperately attempts to grow, while China enjoys its spectacular economic success in pursuing a Marxist trajectory in its own way.

There is an interesting anecdote revealing the true nature of the imperial relationship between Japan and the US. When three of the Fukushima nuclear plants caused China syndrome in March 2011, Naoto Kan (image on the right), the Prime Minister at the time, warned other Japanese officials that the US might occupy Japan. The remark allowed some to label him as a clueless moron. However, some of us saw in the remark the real position of Japan within the imperial hierarchy shaped by money and violence in which a “sovereign” country exercises its “free will” at imperial economic and military gun point.

The steep imperial hierarchy that imposes the US military bases in Okinawa (for example), which has been dumping agent orange, depleted uranium, and toxic materials (5) while turning pristine rainforest into a jungle warfare training ground, a military aircraft airport, and a shooting range while also creating the grave threat of nuclear war against South Korea, Japan, Europe and so on, extends right onto the US soil as well. The very population that have allowed the empire to grow so much endure mass incarceration, police violence, massive unemployment, blatant lack of social safety nets, poverty, health crisis, education crisis and so on. But the imperial mind trick somehow renders their powerlessness less visible than the powerlessness of the Japanese people or the German people perhaps. An extraordinary case that illustrates my point deals with the USS Reagan aircraft carrier, which was heavily irradiated by radiation plume from the Fukushima disaster. The sailors suffering from radiation diseases have been abandoned by the US government as well as the Japanese government (6). Within the imperial hierarchy, common men and women are powerless and disposable regardless of their nationalities.

JGSDF soldiers at Camp Kinser (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

If the current build up of the US economic/military pressure against pacific countries continues, and if Japan keeps serving its role with re-militarization, the relationship between the US and Japan can more prominently exhibit a neo-colonial relationship. In this scenario, Japan would play an armed guard dog of the empire against China, Russia and so on, while giving an impression that the violence that emerges should be blamed solely on the evil Japanese regime that would surely come to the fore. This gives the US an opportunity to act as the good cop who engages in whatever is necessary to bring about a “peace”–a “peace” under the western capitalist hegemony. Japan can be Asia’s Israel. And Asia can be the Middle East 2.0.

Regardless, militarization will prolong the life of the western war economy while continuing to delegitimize its authority. The illegitimate force will need a bit more iron fist to keep the whole thing in line. The death spiral that devours the capitalist hegemony will exacerbate the hardship of the people in the west while continuing to mess with the rest of the world.

Maybe I’m letting my imagination fly too wild. But as I said, I felt the imperial arrogance of Japan within the framework of western imperialism as I went through the process of perceiving my existence within the larger framework of the global hierarchy. I do not like the dynamics at all. I want the people of Asia stop being a part of the imperial hierarchy. I want the people of Asia to work together to create environment to free their potential in living harmoniously with each other and with the environment.

Every struggle of a people is connected to struggles of others, and each struggle is unique according to their predicaments. For that reason, we must not keep our eyes off of the larger framework of global capitalism and its contradictions. We must not impose the imperial framework onto people of other countries.

I do know that it is much easier to say than to live according to such a perspective. When I see my fellow Asian people or any immigrant bending so far backward to kiss a nefarious backside of the establishment, I feel their urgent need to be accepted in the hierarchy of money and violence.

But still, I desperately feel the need to share what I learned through the eyes of an immigrant. The emotional and personal part of my story also stems from the fact that I could not adjust to the highly structured Japanese atmosphere when I was growing up. I particularly remember the regular corporal punishments I received at school. I developed an extreme aversion toward the authoritative tendency. The process of shedding my former-self slowly taught me how foreign elements can be removed and destroyed within an authoritative hierarchy by imposing obedience or self-destruction. As a young man I chose self-destruction by alcoholism. This continued until I found my expression in art. My studio practice also led me to understand the bits and pieces holding together to show me the larger picture of what I went though as I moved to a different society. Without this experience, I might have followed a different path.

Anyone in the imperial hierarchy can become “other”. I believe our experience as “others” might perhaps inform the true nature of the capitalist hierarchy for those who have a hard time seeing it. After all we are but one species struggling to save ourselves from our collective predicament of the threat of extinction.

*

Hiroyuki Hamada is an artist. He has exhibited throughout the United States and in Europe and is represented by Bookstein Projects. He has been awarded various residencies including those at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, the Edward F. Albee Foundation/William Flanagan Memorial Creative Person’s Center, the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and the MacDowell Colony. In 1998 Hamada was the recipient of a Pollock Krasner Foundation grant, and in 2009 and 2016 he was awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. He lives and works in New York.

Notes

(1) The War Was Won Before Hiroshima—And the Generals Who Dropped the Bomb Knew It

Seventy years after the bombing, will Americans face the brutal truth?

https://www.thenation.com/article/why-the-us-really-bombed-hiroshima/

(2) In Cold War, U.S. Spy Agencies Used 1,000 Nazis

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/us/in-cold-war-us-spy-agencies-used-1000-nazis.html

(3) Nobusuke Kishi

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobusuke_Kishi

(4) C.I.A. Spent Millions to Support Japanese Right in 50’s and 60’s

https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/09/world/cia-spent-millions-to-support-japanese-right-in-50-s-and-60-s.htm

(5) Okinawa: the junk heap of the Pacific

Decades of Pentagon pollution poison service members, residents and future plans for the island

(6) Injustice At Sea: the Irradiated Sailors of the USS Reagan

Featured image: Syrian refugee in Bekaa Valley in Lebanon

“How many years have you been living in Beirut?” I asked my barber, Eyad, after he told me, beaming, that in three months from now, he will be returning home, to Damascus.

Even one year ago, such conversations would not be easy to commence. But now, everything has been changing, rapidly and, one wants to believe, irreversibly.

Although nothing is truly irreversible, the better things are on the ground in Syria, the more threatening the West is becoming, particularly the United States. Now it is, once again, intimidating Damascus, ready to attack the Syrian army, something that could easily drag Russia and others into a lethal confrontation. The war! The West is clearly obsessed with perpetual war in Syria, while most of the Syrian people are passionate about bringing back an everlasting peace.

“6 years,” replied my barber, preparing his razor. I detected sadness and indignation in his voice, “6 years too many!”

“After you go back, then what? Are you going to open your own salon in Damascus?” I was curious. He is the best barber I have ever had, a real master of his trade, quick and confident, precise.

“No,” he smiled. “I never told you, but I’m a mechanical engineer… About being a barber; I learned the trade from my grandfather. In the Arab world now, millions are doing something that is not their main profession… But I want to return home and help to rebuild my country.”

I knew nothing about Eyad’s political affiliations. I used to consider it impolite to ask. Now I sensed that I could, but I didn’t. He was going back, returning home, eager to help his country, and that was all that mattered.

“Come visit me in Damascus,” he smiled, as we were parting. “Syria is a small country, but it is enormous!”

*

On February 24 2017, The New York Times, unleashed its usual vitriolic sarcasm towards the country which hosts enormous number of Syrian refugees – Lebanon:

Syrian refugees Lebanon

“About 1.5 million Syrians have sought refuge in Lebanon, making up about a quarter of the population, according to officials and relief groups, and there is a widely held belief in Lebanon that refugees are a burden on the country’s economy and social structure.

Mr. Tahan, a gregarious man who sought to portray himself as the refugees’ benefactor, dismissed the idea that they are harming the country’s economy and straining social services. He said the government pushed that view to get more money from the United Nations.

Refugees, he said, benefit the Lebanese, from the generator operators providing them with electricity, to the owners of shops where they spend their United Nations food vouchers, to landowners who benefit from their cheap labor. It is an argument often heard from international organizations, which say the burden of hosting the refugees is largely offset by the economic stimulus they provide, not to mention $1.9 billion in international aid in 2016 alone, the United Nations says.

Mr. Tahan said he expected the Syrians to stay for years, based on his experience in Lebanon’s civil war.”

One would hardly encounter such a tone when the New York Times is describing the ‘refugee crises’ in the European Union. There, several super-rich and much more populous countries than Lebanon keep pretending that they simply cannot absorb approximately the same amount of people as has been sheltered by the tiny Middle Eastern nation.

In 2015, which is considered the ‘height of the refugee crises’, much less than 1.5 million people entered the European Union, seeking asylum there. Some of those 1.5 million were actually ‘refugees’ from Ukraine, Kosovo and Albania.

Refugees waiting in Kos, Greece

I covered the refugee crises from Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, but also the so-called ‘crises’ in Greece (Kos) and France (Calais). The West, which by then had already destabilized half of the world and almost the entire Middle East, was demonstrating extreme selfishness, brutal indifference, racism and a stubborn refusal to repent and to comprehend.

Whoever Mr. Tahan of the New York Times is, and whatever his agenda, he was wrong. As this report goes to print, the number of Syrian refugees living in Lebanon is dropping continually, as the Government in Damascus, supported by Russia, Iran, China, Cuba and Hezbollah has been winning the war against the terrorist groups, armed and supported by the West and its allies.

It is actually the West – its NGO’s and even their government agencies – that are “warning” the Syrians not to return home, claiming that “the situation in their country is still extremely dangerous.”

But such warnings can hardly deter the flow of refugees, back to Syria. As CBS News reported on February 2, 2018:

“… The 36-year-old is back home in Aleppo. He returned last summer – depressed, homesick and dreading another winter, he couldn’t bear life in the German city of Suhl.

Germany, he said, “was boring, boring, boring.”

The number of Syrian immigrants on the Lebanese territory has already dropped below 1 million, the first time since 2014, according to UNHCR.

People are returning home. They are going home by the thousands, every week.

They are moving back from Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and even from that once imaginary paradise –the European countries such as Germany – which somehow failed to materialize, and even to impress many people from a country with one of the oldest and greatest histories and culture on Earth.

*

Mohammad Kanaan, an industrial maintenance student at ULF in Lebanon, explains:

“When I was in Syria, I had been studying mechanical design and development for three years… Due to the crises and war I was forced to leave. Afterwards I was forced to stop my education for three more years. Then, thanks to UNESCO initiative, I was accepted to study here in Lebanon… Following the war on Syria, I became more motivated to continue in my field of study. Specifically, since the infrastructure needs restoration and factories will soon be operational. The country needs many people armed with knowledge…”

The West did not expect such determination from the Syrian refugees. It was used to those migrants who have been coming from countless ruined and destabilized countries; people who were able to do just about anything and to say anything, as long as they were allowed to stay in the West.

The West tried to turn Syrians into precisely these kinds of immigrants, but it failed. In December 2014, I reported from Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region:

“Not far from the oilfields, there is a massive refugee camp; this one is for the Syrian exiles.

After negotiating entry, I manage to ask the director of the camp – Mr. Khawur Aref – how many refugees are sheltered here?“14,000,” he replies. “And after it reaches 15,000, this place will become unmanageable.”

I am discouraged from interviewing people, but I manage to speak to several refugees anyway, including Mr. Ali and his family, who came from the Syrian city of Sham.

I want to know whether all new arrivals get interrogated? The answer is – “Yes”. Are they asked questions, about whether they are for or against the President Bashar al-Assad? “Yes, they are: everybody is asked these questions and more…” And if a person – a truly desperate, needy and hungry person – answers that he supports the government of Bashar al-Assad, and came here because his country was being destroyed by the West, then what would happen?”I am told: “He and his family would never be allowed to stay in the Iraqi Kurdistan.”

*

I met Syrian refugees all over the Middle East, as well as in various European countries. Almost all of them felt nostalgic, even desperate, about being away from their beloved land. Most of them wanted to return. Some of them couldn’t wait for the first opportunity.

Syrian refugees in Hatay, Turkey

I knew Syrians who had visas in their pockets, even to such places like Canada, and they decided, at the last moment, not to leave their Motherland.

Syria is truly a unique country.

The West did not expect; it was not used to such determination from the people whose lives it destroyed.

“We are now going West, we have to go,” I was told by a Syrian lady with two children clinging to her, who was waiting in front of the Municipal Building on the Greek island of Kos. “We do it for our children. But mark my words; most of us will soon be going back.”

They are going back now. And the West does not like it; it hates it.

It likes to whine about how it is being used by ‘those impoverished hordes’, but it cannot really live without the immigrants, particularly from such educated countries like Syria.

*

Not only did the Syrian people fight bravely, defeating the brutal invasion of the Western-manufactured, trained, and financed, backed terrorists. But now the refugees are turning back on false and often humiliating comfort of the exile in Europe, Canada and elsewhere.

Such attitude ‘has to be punished’. For such courage, the Syrian cities and victorious Syrian army may be soon bombed and attacked, directly by the US and possibly also by the European forces.

In Beirut, as I was finishing this essay, I was visited, briefly, by two of my friends, Syrian educators, one from Aleppo, and the other, from Damascus.

“It is getting tough again,” I said.

“Yes,” they agreed. “In my neighborhood, in Damascus, two children were killed by the bullets fired by the terrorists, just before I left for this trip.”

“The US is saying it may attack the country, directly”, I uttered.

“They are always threatening,” I am told. “We are not afraid. Our people are determined, ready to defend our nation.”

Despite the new dangers, emboldened, the Syrian people are flowing back to their country. The Empire may try to punish them for their courage, patriotism and determination. But they are not scared and they are not alone. The Russians and other allies are ‘on the ground’ and ready to help defending Syria. The entire Middle East is watching.

*

This article was originally published on New Eastern Outlook.

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are his tribute to “The Great October Socialist Revolution” a revolutionary novel “Aurora” and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”.

Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter. Andre Vltchek is a frequent contributor to global Research.

All images in this article are from the author.

FCNL’s Legislative Director on Middle East Policy Kate Gould has issued the following statement:

“Today, 44 senators made history by supporting the first-ever vote on withdrawing U.S. armed forces from an unauthorized war. While the Senate missed this opportunity to end the war, it is a welcome development that 44 senators took an important step toward restoring congressional authority over decisions on war and peace, as required by the Constitution, and toward ending U.S. collusion in the famine-inducing Saudi-led war in Yemen.

On the very same day the Saudi Crown Prince visited the White House and Capitol Hill, this historic vote sent a crystal clear message that U.S. complicity in the Saudi-led slaughter of Yemeni men, women, and children must end.

It is fitting that this historic vote occurred on the 15th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, a sobering reminder of the catastrophic consequences of the decision to go to war. Since that fateful day, it is staggering how rarely Congress has voted on or debated U.S. wars around the globe. The Sanders-Lee-Murphy legislation forced the Senate to both debate and vote on a war that the U.S. has waged in the shadows for three years.

Despite Trump’s White House and Saudi-funded lobbyists teaming up to run a full-court press on Capitol Hill, the momentum to end this war continues to build. Opponents of this legislation took to the floor today to argue in favor of ending this famine-inducing war, and justified their vote on the grounds of favoring action in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) over S.J. Res. 54. We look forward to working with SFRC leadership and members to ensure that meaningful action is taken, which the committee has failed to do for more than three years.

Today’s debate, as well as the courageous vote by 44 senators, is owed in no small part to the indomitable power of citizen activists in every state who generated tens of thousands of calls and emails to ensure Yemen topped every senator’s agenda.

The groundswell of grassroots activism to end this war is not going to let up until this illegal war ends, and U.S. pilots stop fueling U.S.-made bombers to rein down U.S.-made bombs on schools, hospitals and neighborhoods. The U.S. must stop literally fueling the deliberate killing and starvation of countless civilians in Yemen, and support a peaceful solution to end this crisis.”

From John Williams proprietary report:

“Subject to Likely Downside Annual Benchmark Revisions this Coming Friday, February Industrial Production Jumped by 1.1% (0.9% Net of Revisions), Reflecting  improbable Strength in Manufacturing and Mining. 

“Despite this perhaps premature report of industrial production gains, Given a Record 122 Months of Non-Expansion, Manufacturing Still Holds Shy of Its Pre-Recession Peak by 3.7% (-3.7%). [That peak was a decade ago!]

“Manufacturing Gains Likely Reflected Some Inventory Rebuilding Against Weakening Sales, As Disaster-Recovery Bloat Passes from the System.

“Continuing in Nonsensical Monthly Booms and Busts, February Housing Starts Activity Fell by 7.0% (-7.0%), Still Shy by 45.6% (-45.6%) of Recovering Its Pre-Recession Peak.

“First-Quarter 2018 GDP Outlook Continued to Weaken.

“Nonetheless, the FOMC Appears Set for a Rate Hike on Wednesday.”

“Underlying Economic Reality/Conditions: Discussed frequently here, what has happened with underlying economic reality is that broad activity had continued to stagnate and to falter anew, before the multiple natural disasters began to hit in late-August 2017, with Hurricane Harvey. The ensuing natural-disaster recovery boosted fourth-quarter economic activity, in areas ranging from retail sales and industrial production to construction spending and housing starts. That background largely was ignored by the hyper-bulls in the financial markets, who touted the rapidly expanding economy. That concept also received massive popular coverage in the headline media.

“Consumer Confidence and Sentiment are booming at multi-year highs, as discussed in the Consumer Liquidity Watch (page 37). The details reflect little more than the tone of the popular press, given how those measures of relative consumer optimism are surveyed. Such was established decades ago by the late Albert Sindlinger, an original consumer pollster, and Dr. David Fan of the University of Minnesota. Restricted consumer liquidity circumstances continue to impair and to constrain broad economic activity.”

John Williams of shadowstats.com has a long-term tradition of trying to hold US government data reporting agencies and financial presstiutes accountable, but as in every aspect of US reporting fantasies prevail over reality.

For example, according to the Federal Reserve and the presstitute financial press, US inflation is less than 2 percent. Here is the Chapwood index, based on actually going out and purchasing items in the inflation basket: see this.

As for the great consumer economy we hear about, here are the IRS statistics of the distribution of wage earners by level of net compensation: see this.

50 percent of wage earners had net compensation less than $30,534 in 2016. The rich are a tiny percent of the population and cannot sustain a consumer economy.

I remember reading many decades ago that in Texas a person was not considered rich unless they were worth at least $50 million dollars. Today you can’t be on the Forbes 400 unless you are a multi-billionaire. In such a system, ordinary people have no voice or influence.  One billionaire can purchase most of the government.  The billions of dollars that the US taxpayers give to Israel each and every year purchases the rest of the government. The military/security complex, the energy, mining, and timber industries, the pharmaceuticals, agri-business, Wall Street, the big banks and all the rest make American democracy a hoax.

As for the full employment claimed by US government reporting agencies, how does full employment coexist with this reported fact from the Dallas Morning News.

Toyota Motor Company advertised the availability of 1,000 new jobs associated with moving its North American headquarters from southern California to Texas and received 100,000 applications. Where did these applications come from when the US has “full employment?”

Clearly, the US does not have full employment. The US has an extremely low rate of labor force participation, because there are no jobs to be had, and discouraged workers who cannot find jobs are not measured in the unemployment rate. Not measuring the unemployed is the basis of the low reported unemployment rate. The official US unemployment rate is just a hoax like Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction,” Assad’s “use of chemical weapons,” Russia’s “invasion of Ukraine,” “Iranian nukes,” and “Russiagate.” The list of hoaxes created by the US government and its presstitute media are endless. And the dumbshit Americans sit in front of CNN, MSNBC, NPR and the rest and absorb the indoctrination to their own peril and insignificance.

Americans live in a fantasy world about their Great Country, their Great Economy, their Great Military System that ensures them Hegemony Over the World even though after 17 years the World’s Greatest Military has been unable to defeat a few thousand lightly armed Taliban in Afghanistan, their Great Everything. But in fact, insouciant Americans live in The Matrix. They have no idea of their real situation.

If Trump names John Bolton National Security Adviser, plan to die.

*

This article was originally published on Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The policy of responding to assassinations on British soil is a near non-existent one.  Her Majesty’s Government is certainly in the habit of huffing, and steam can issue from deliberations in the House of Commons. But substance is often absent.

When Buzzfeed conducted an investigation into the mortuary of incidents in 2017, it found a degree of indifference on the part of British authorities.  Trumpeting findings that fourteen individuals had “been assassinated on British soil by Russia’s security services or mafia groups, two forces that sometimes work in tandem”, the reporters honed in on British sluggishness.  While the Russian bear was busy, Britannia was asleep.

The attempted poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia by a nerve agent is coloured by such a backdrop.  With each day, Downing Street has had to seem to be doing something in linking the attempted killings with identifiable culprits.  Britain is at a low ebb, barely finding its place at the Brexit negotiation table with the European Union.  Weakness and questionable competence is all around. 

While this has happened, President Vladimir Putin has been re-elected.  Russia is revitalised.  The Kremlin comes with conveniently heavy baggage of blame.  A perfect situation, then, to point a distracting finger of accusation, making Britain the first state to accuse another of attacking it with a chemical weapon since the Chemical Weapons Convention came into force in 1997.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has obviously been landed the job of running the accusations which have been beaded together with faux consistency. The case for the prosecution, he argues, is that the nerve agent used in the Salisbury attack was of the Novichok group “according to our scientists at Porton Down.” 

The second point is track record and experience.

“You also have to consider,” he explained to Deutsche Welle, “that Sergei Skripal is somebody who is being identified as a target for liquidation and that Vladimir Putin has himself said that traitors, i.e. defectors such as Mr. Skripal, should be poisoned.”

Let us take the Novichok suggestion.  The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons which oversees the implementation of the CWC, claimed on March 16 that there was “no record of the Novichok group of nerve agents having been declared by a state party to the Chemical Weapons Convention.” 

Where intelligence matters are politicised, links will be forged and tenuous ties made.  The Russian factor, goes the British line, is unmistakable and unimpeachable.  This, despite certification by the OPCW that Russia destroyed its entire stockpile of chemical weapons pursuant to the CWC.  Or that its source of production – the Nukus plant in Uzbekistan – was dismantled and decontaminated with the assistance of the United States in accordance with the Pentagon’s Cooperative Threat Reduction program in 1999. Brows might well crease with suspicion at that very fact. 

Then comes the ease with which Novichok agents can be made.  According to military chemist Vil Mirzayanov, the man who first revealed the existence of the chemical family, making such compounds using commercial ingredients is hardly a herculean task.  This very fact flies in the face of the British claim of Russian exclusivity. 

Despite such spanners being cast into the works, individuals such as John Lamb of Birmingham City University insist that,

“The Novichok family was specifically created by Russia to be unknown in the West and as such it’ll be one of their most tightly guarded secrets.”

Except, of course, when US scientists made contact with the Uzbek plant in question.  Couple this with the throwaway line in a 2007 Stratfor study on makers of Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the singular premise starts to wither:

“Cuba is believed to have developed these chemical weapons: tabun, sarin, soman, yellow rain, novichok, phosgene oxime, arsine trihydride, and hydrogen cyanide.”

The second point – the poisoning of traitors, defectors or the like – only makes sense if Skripal had turned a newly rotten leaf.  Political opponents, dissidents and journalists constitute ongoing threats; a double agent living out his days away from the service in Salisbury – if it can be assumed he ever left it – hardly cuts the mustard.  It would, for one thing, make the largest post-Cold War spy exchange moot.   

“If they really wanted the man dead,” suggests Justin Glyn, “a convenient accident could surely have been arranged while he was still in prison.”  

Yet here was a statement of blatant, open incrimination, delivered with distinctly odd timing.

Even major papers are pondering the sense of targeting Skripal.

“So far,” goes the Financial Times, “the picture that has emerged of Mr Skripal suggests he was living a quiet life and had left his days as a colonel in Russia’s military intelligence arm, the GRU, and as a high-value M16 informant, well behind him.”  

Links to private intelligence firms such as Christopher Steele’s Orbis, the entity behind the Trump-Russia dossier, are also discounted.

That said, the paper goes on to suggest that Skripal had not been fully decommissioned.  A “senior security source” – anonymously cited, naturally – is quoted as claiming that,

“There was interest from friendly foreign services after he was released in the spy swap. He was useful for a limited period.”

Hardly a ringing endorsement for murder.

Putin, however, remains irresistible as the accused. He furnishes Johnson with historical elevation and purpose.  

“We think it overwhelmingly likely that it was his decision to direct the use of a nerve agent on the streets of the UK, on the streets of Europe, for the first time since the Second World War.”

On this occasion, domestic politics, as it often does, is driving the international response.  Diplomats have been expelled from both states.  Harsh words are being traded.  Strikingly, Britain, in defiance of the spirit behind the CWC, has refused to surrender any of the Novichok samples to Russian investigators.  The dense incongruity of it all might, in time, only be illuminated by Skripal himself.  Double agents, let alone ones dedicated to one side, never quite abandon their briefs. 

*

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

Three attempts of usage of chemical weapons were prevented in Syria last week, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said during a video conference on March 20.

“There is a possibility that terrorists will use poisonous substances in order to accuse the Syrian troops of using chemical weapons in the future,” the minister added.

He also drew attention to an increased activity of the US-led coalition and attempts by militants to stage provocations.

HINT: An obvious place for possible militant provocations in the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta where the Syrian Army’s military operation against militant groups is now ongoing.

Shoigu said that over 65% of Eastern Ghouta has been liberated by government forces and 79,655 people have been evacuated from the combat area so far.

“Currently, under the leadership of the Russian Reconciliation Center, an unprecedented humanitarian operation is being conducted in Eastern Ghouta. Over the last 5 days, 79,655 people have been evacuated via the humanitarian corridors,” the minister said. “Despite attempts by militants to disrupt peace initiatives in East Ghouta, we are negotiating with the leaders of the armed groups in order to stop fighting and prevent a humanitarian disaster.“

According to one pro-government sources, the Syrian Army has limited its offensive operations in some areas of Eastern Ghouta amid the ongoing negotiations between the Syrian-Russian-Iranian alliance and local militants. However, if negotiations result in no success, an active phase of the military operation will be resumed.

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Washington D.C. government officials are flocking to doomsday camps around the country.  Which of course begs the question: what do they know that we do not?

According to the Washington Examiner, a building network of backwoods doomsday camps around the country are pulling in members from affluent areas and even Washington national security officials as the threats grow from nuclear war, an EMP (electromagnetic pulse), or virus attack.  Dubbed Fortitude Ranch, the outposts promise protection and a year’s supply of food for those unable to build their own bunker with preparations for a SHTF scenario. What’s more, until a crisis strikes, the doomsday camps are being used for prepper training and vacations.

One of Fortitude Ranch’s members from the Baltimore area said that he and others joined after “waking up” to the potential of a national crisis from an attack, financial meltdown, or political violence. “For most of us, something rattled our cages and woke us up,” he said.

“We’re seeing members from all the three letter agencies,” said Fortitude creator Drew Miller, a retired Air Force colonel, and intelligence officer, in a reference to the Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation and more.  Miller called an attack or even a weather-related electromagnetic pulse shutdown of the electric grid “inevitable,” and a driving force in his project.

Prepping has offered many a sense a freedom none of us have anymore.  No longer needing the government for anything, preppers can survive most scenarios that will leave many others begging for their slavery again and in return, for the government to give them abject poverty in exchange.

Through memberships and his own cryptocurrency called “Fortitudes,” Miller has raised about $400,000 and established a ranch in West Virginia and Colorado with 10 others planned. An open house at the West Virginia ranch is scheduled for April 21-23.

He said that for the West Virginia ranch, “most members are professional Washington area folks. They don’t have time to do this own their own.” The cost is about $1,000 per person per year to join. –Washington Examiner

“You’d have to be an idiot not to think it will happen,” said Miller, author of “Rohan Nation: Reinventing America After the 2020 Collapse.” Miller also said that the camps are nearly as survivable in an attack as the Mt. Weather FEMA site near Virginia’s Shenandoah River where several Washington leaders were housed after the 9/11 attacks.

Each camp has a shooting range and is equipped to handle between 50 and 500 people during any SHTF scenario. The camps will have lodges, underground bunkers, and guard towers. In the event of a social meltdown, members will be responsible for manning those towers.

With all of the high-powered government officials signing up as members at Fortitude Ranch, it’s pretty safe to say that if you are not prepping now, you should probably start. A good reference for those just beginning to tread into the realm of prepping is the book titled The Prepper’s Blueprint.

*

Featured image is from the author.

The American political scientist Samuel Huntington noted that “power remains strong when it remains in the dark; exposed to the sunlight it begins to evaporate”. Huntington further highlighted that “you may have to sell [military intervention] in such a way as to create the misimpression that it is the Soviet Union you are fighting. That is what the United States has been doing ever since the Truman Doctrine”, announced by president Harry Truman himself in 1947.

Huntington wrote the above words in 1981, just as America’s new leader Ronald Reagan was creating his own misimpressions in the self-declared “war against terrorism” in Central America – which quickly became a US-backed terrorist campaign. The Reaganite-sponsored assaults later spread to Asia, the Middle East and Africa, including support for Saddam Hussein‘s Iraq and the South African apartheid regime.

Reagan was adept at hoodwinking the American public – from declaring that Sandinista-led Nicaragua was “just two days’ driving time from Harlingen, Texas”, that Grenada, a tiny island in the Caribbean, was “a Soviet-Cuban colony being readied” before US forces invaded “just in time”, and that the Soviet Union was “the evil empire”. A little over a generation before, the Soviet Union had defeated the Nazis largely on their own, losing over 25 million people in the process. These sacrifices have almost been forgotten about in the West’s narrative. The Third Reich was the undisputed evil empire of modern times and, but for the resilience of the Red Army, the world would have been a much bleaker place.

Half a century later, with the Soviet Union’s demise, the evil empire pretext could no longer be used by Western leaders when undertaking illegal invasions. In order to continue currying public favor, fantasies were conjured such as dictators possessing stashes of lethal weapons (Saddam Hussein) – or those like Muammar Gaddafi that were simply overseeing a “dark tyranny” thwarting “the aspirations of the Libyan people” who sought “freedom, democracy and dignity”, as former president Barack Obama said.

Obama led the way with his March 2011 intervention in Libya, flanked by Britain and France, under the shield of NATO. Gaddafi’s Libya had been the most wealthy nation in Africa, boasting the highest life expectancy on the continent. In the time since, the country has descended into chaos and ruin. The 2018 Human Rights Watch report on Libya states that warring factions there have since “decimated the economy and public services, including the public health system, law enforcement, and the judiciary, and caused the internal displacement of over 200,000 people”.

Such was Obama’s efforts to bring “freedom, democracy and dignity” to Libya. Obama further said,

“for more than four decades the Libyan people had been ruled by a tyrant”.

Obama did not mention that Gaddafi’s regime had numerous ties to the US, including close co-operation with the CIA during George W. Bush’s “global war on terror”.

In March 2006 – exactly five years before Gaddafi’s toppling – the BBC was describing “Libya’s increasing ties with the West”, and how Gaddafi had “renounced weapons of mass destruction in 2003”. Unlike a certain dictator in Iraq, people were told to believe.

In November 2008 a grateful Bush, at the end of his presidency, rang Gaddafi personally “to voice his satisfaction that Libya had settled a long-standing dispute over terrorist attacks, including the bombing of a Pan Am jet over Scotland” (the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, killing 270 people, most of whom were Americans). It was then the first time a US president had ever spoken to Gaddafi – while previously, during his notorious “axis of evil” speech, Bush had not mentioned Gaddafi’s Libya once, while listing off others like North Korea, Iran and Iraq.

Just a single person was convicted for the plane’s destruction, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, a Libyan national and former Libyan Arab Airlines head of security. In late 2008, Gaddafi paid $1.5 billion in compensation, much of which went to US families of the Lockerbie bombing victims. Bush and Gaddafi agreed that this “should help to bring a painful chapter in the history between our two countries closer to closure”. Bush’s White House spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, further said that “the settlement agreement is an important step in repairing the relationship” between the superpower and the north African state.

A little over two years later, the Obama administration offered its thanks to Gaddafi by leading the way in ousting and killing him. Furthermore, the US-led NATO bombardment of Libya killed tens of thousands of civilians in the months following the initial invasion. In 2013, Britain’s then prime minister David Cameron said he was “proud” of his country’s role in introducing a “democratic revolution” to Libya.

While assessing the unfolding invasion of Libya, the Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro wrote,

“What I wish to emphasize is that the United States and its NATO allies were never interested in human rights… The empire is now attempting to turn events around to what Gaddafi has done or not done, because it needs to militarily intervene in Libya, and deliver a blow to the revolutionary wave unleashed in the Arab world”.

The Arab Spring uprisings began just three months before the attack on Libya.

Castro also noted “Libya’s significant and valuable energy resources”. Libya now has the ninth largest oil reserves in the world, ahead of both the US and China. Obama’s concerns for “the urgent humanitarian needs” of Libyans were entirely disingenuous, a smokescreen to avert public eyes from his government’s true intentions, along with its NATO allies.

Obama referred to the Arab Spring as those “who rose up to take control of their own destinies” in Tunisia and Egypt, while in secret the West looked on in horror at the revolts. He neglected to say the uprisings never took off the ground in the oil dictator countries the US supports, such as Saudi Arabia. The Saudis’ human rights record has been abysmal for decades, far worse than Iran, for example – but Saudi Arabia remains a long-held ally. As long as the oil rich Kingdom is amenable to Western business interests, human rights issues can be easily brushed aside by government leaders.

When it comes to shielding state power from scrutiny, preventing its exposure “to the sunlight”, Obama breaks all records. He punished more whistleblowers than all previous US presidents combined, and introduced various legislation (like the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act) that was a severe attack on civil liberties.

What’s more, there was his international drone assassination campaign, which often targeted those simply suspected of being a terrorist (with many civilians also being killed) – an extreme violation of Magna Carta and presumption of innocence. This method of warfare only serves to spawn new terrorists and other enemies.

Worryingly, the Trump administration has since stepped up drone usage, conducting numerous attacks in places like Yemen, Pakistan, Libya and Somalia.

*

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

As the damning details of Facebook’s largest-ever data breach at the hands of pro-Trump data firm Cambridge Analytica continue to pour in—and as the social media giant’s share price continues to plummet as a result—Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on Monday called on CEO Mark Zuckerberg to “testify under oath” before Congress to explain why his company took so long to notify users that their information had been compromised.

“Zuckerberg ought to be subpoenaed to testify if he won’t do it voluntarily,” Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters late Monday, echoing demands of other lawmakers. “He owes it to the American people who ought to be deeply disappointed by the conflicting and disparate explanations that have been offered.”

Blumenthal’s request comes amid growing calls—both in the U.S. and overseas—for Zuckerberg to answer for his company’s failure to ban Cambridge Analytica in 2015, when the platform first discovered that the personal information of millions had been harvested in violation of company policy.

Since details of Cambridge Analytica’s exploitation of Facebook were published by the New York Times and the Observer over the weekend, the social media giant has downplayed the incident, argued that it doesn’t constitute a data breach at all, and maintained that Cambridge Analytica is solely to blame for the improper harvesting of personal data.

But privacy advocates have argued that while Cambridge Analytica should be held accountable for its actions, Facebook cannot be let off the hook.

“Facebook really only has itself to blame for this mess. Even with tweaks, the company has consistently privileged data collection and monetization over user privacy,” argued The New Republic‘s Alex Shephard in an article on Tuesday. “This has allowed it to become one of the most powerful and valuable corporations on the planet. But it has also made it the perfect platform for shady influence campaigns. Of course, the biggest problem with this scandal isn’t that Cambridge Analytica is shady—it’s that Facebook is.”

As the Observer noted in its explosive report on Saturday, Facebook “failed to alert users and took only limited steps to recover and secure the private information of more than 50 million individuals.”

In a letter (pdf) to Zuckerberg—who has yet to make a public statement about the incident—delivered on Monday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) highlighted “the ease with which Cambridge Analytica was able to exploit Facebook’s default privacy settings for profit and political gain” and demanded to know how many similar incidents have occured over the past decade.

This breach, Wyden wrote, “throws into question not only the prudence and desirability of Facebook’s business practices and the dangers of monetizing consumers’ private information, but also raises serious concerns about the role Facebook played in facilitating and permitting the covert collection and misuse of consumer information.”

“With little oversight—and no meaningful intervention from Facebook—Cambridge Analytica was able to use Facebook-developed and marketed tools to weaponize detailed psychological profiles against tens of millions of Americans,” Wyden concluded. “With this in mind, I ask that you provide further information on Facebook’s role in this incident and the overall awareness your company maintains into third-party collection and use of Facebook user data.”

*

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

We call them ‘the 9/11 wars’ – the seemingly unending destruction of the Middle East and North Africa which has been going on for the last seventeen years. As revealed by Gen. Wesley Clark,[1] these wars were already anticipated in September 2001.

The legal foundation for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 has been challenged in several countries. The best known is the Chilcot Inquiry in the UK, which began in 2009 and concluded in a report in 2016. The inquiry was not about the legality of military action, but the British government was strongly criticised for not having provided a legal basis for the attack.

Even though the invasion of Iraq was planned[2] prior to 9/11, most observers note that the attack on Afghanistan in 2001 was a required precursor.

However, the legal basis for attacking Afghanistan has attracted almost no attention. One obstacle in addressing this has been the assumption that the key document was still classified.[3][4]

But as demonstrated below, this document was apparently declassified in 2008.

On the morning of 12 September 2001, NATO’s North Atlantic Council was summoned in Brussels. This was less than 24 hours after the events in USA. The council usually consists of the permanent ambassadors of the member states, but in an unprecedented move, the EU foreign ministers participated as well.[5]

Lord Robertson, Secretary General of NATO, wrote a draft resolution invoking Article 5 in the Washington treaty – the famous ‘musketeer clause’ – as a consequence of the terror attacks. The decision to do so had to be unanimously approved by the governments in all 19 NATO countries. This general agreement was obtained at 9.20 pm and Lord Robertson could read out the endorsements at a packed press conference:[6]

“The Council agreed that if it is determined that this attack was directed from abroad against the United States, it shall be regarded as an action covered by Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, which states that an armed attack against one or more of the Allies in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.”

There was a reservation. Article 5 would not be formally activated before “it is determined that this attack was directed from abroad”.

Apparently NATO had a suspect. But the forensic evidence was still pending, and hence also the formal invocation of Article 5.

Formally, this evidence was provided by Frank Taylor (image on the right), a diplomat with the title of Ambassador from the US State Department. On 2 October he presented a brief to the North Atlantic Council, and Lord Robertson could subsequently conclude:[7]

“On the basis of this briefing, it has now been determined that the attack against the United States on 11 September was directed from abroad and shall therefore be regarded as an action covered by Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, which states that an armed attack on one or more of the Allies in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.”

“Today’s was classified briefing and so I cannot give you all the details. Briefings are also being given directly by the United States to the Allies in their capitals.”

Since the invocation of Article 5 had to be unanimous, Frank Taylor’s report would have been integral in the briefings announced to take place.

In Denmark – the country of the present author – there was a meeting in the Foreign Affairs Committee on 3 October 2001, where parliamentarians were briefed by the government about the proceedings in Brussels.

Parallel briefings must have been given in the 17 other NATO capitals. In each city, the resolution must have been approved, since Lord Robertson could announce NATO’s unanimous adoption of Article 5 and the launch of the war on terror on 4 October.[8]  The first bombs fell in Kabul on 7 October.

Article 5 of the Washington Treaty says:[9]

“The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations,…..”

That is, any military action taken by NATO is confined by the restrictions in Article 51, which emphasises the right to self-defence and reads:

“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations,….”.[10]

That is, military action is forbidden in the absence of an armed provocation, and the legality of the attack on Afghanistan depends exclusively on the evidence presented in Frank Taylor’s report. But it was classified together with the minutes from the pertinent meetings.

However, on 19 May 2008, the US State Department declassified the dispatch which was sent in 2001 to all US representations world-wide, including the ambassadors to NATO headquarters, regarding what to think and say about the 9/11 events.

It is titled: “September 11: Working together to fight the plague of global terrorism and the case against al-qa’ida”.

The text is freely accessible here.

The document is dated 01 October 2001. But as hinted by the URL, it seems to  have been distributed on 2 October five days before the invasion of Afghanistan on October 7, 20101. That is, the day Frank Taylor gave his presentation for the North Atlantic Council and the EU foreign ministers, and the day before the US ambassadors were briefing the governments in the respective NATO capitals.

The text of the dispatch begins by requesting “all addressees to brief senior host government officials on the information linking the Al-Qa’ida terrorist network, Osama bin Ladin and the Taliban regime to the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and the crash of United Airlines Flight 93.”

The document appears to be a set of ‘talking points’. The recipients are instructed to use the information provided in oral presentations only and to never leave the hard copy document as a non-paper. Specifically, there is reference to “THE oral presentation”.

These instructions are followed by 28 pages of the specific text.

Tellingly, a section of this dispatch is copy-pasted into Lord Robertson’s statement on 2 October:⁷

“The facts are clear and compelling[…] We know that the individuals who carried out these attacks were part of the world-wide terrorist network of Al-Qaida, headed by Osama bin Laden and his key lieutenants and protected by the Taliban.”

The conclusion is inescapable – this dispatch IS the Frank Taylor report. It is the manuscript that served not only as the basis for Frank Taylor’s presentation, but also for the briefings given by US ambassadors to the various national governments. Identical presentations were given in all 18 capitals on 3 October, four days before the US-NATO invasion of Afghanistan

Is there any forensic evidence provided in this document to serve as a legal basis for the invocation of Article 5?

Nothing. There is absolutely no forensic evidence in support of the claim that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated from Afghanistan.

Only a small part of the introductory text deals with 9/11, in the form of summary claims like the citation in Lord Robertson’s press release. The main body of the text deals with the alleged actions of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in the nineties.

On 4 October, NATO officially went to war based on a document that provided only ‘talking points’ and no evidence to support the key claim.

We are still at war seventeen years later. Five countries have been destroyed, hundreds of thousands of people killed and millions displaced. Refugees are swarming the roads of Europe, trillions of dollars have been spent on weapons and mercenaries and our grandchildren have been shackled with endless debt.

At the opening ceremony for the new NATO headquarters on 25 May 2017, all the leaders from NATO’s member states attended the inauguration of a ‘9/11 and Article 5 Memorial’.[11]

*

Prof. Niels Harrit is a retired Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Notes

[1] The Plan — according to U.S. General Wesley Clark (Ret.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXS3vW47mOE

[2] Bush decided to remove Saddam ‘on day one’. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jan/12/usa.books

[3] The Unanswered Questions of 9/11. http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-unanswered-questions-of-911/5304061?print=1 

[4] Was America Attacked by Afghanistan on September 11, 2001? https://www.globalresearch.ca/was-america-attacked-by-afghanistan-on-september-11-2001/5307151

[5] Being NATO’s Secretary General on 9/11. https://www.nato.int/docu/review/2011/11-september/Lord_Robertson/EN/ (from which you can deduce that the NATO-ambassadors eat lunch at 3  pm).

[6] Statement by the North Atlantic Council, https://www.nato.int/docu/pr/2001/p01-124e.htm

[7] Statement by NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson. https://www.nato.int/docu/speech/2001/s011002a.htm

[8] Statement to the Press by NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson, on the North Atlantic Council Decision On  Implementation  Of Article 5 of the Washington Treaty following the 11 September Attacks against the United States. https://www.nato.int/docu/speech/2001/s011004b.htm

[9] The North Atlantic Treaty. https://www.nato.int/cps/ic/natohq/official_texts_17120.htm

[10] Article 51, UN charter. http://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/chapter-vii/

[11] Dedication of the 9/11 and Article 5 Memorial at the new NATO Headquarters, 25 May 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=augh1WqTqFs

Since 2014 many energy producing emerging states in Africa and worldwide have fallen into recession resulting in long term financial implications.

Mozambique was declared in default and plans to work out new terms of payment on at least $2 billion in bonds held by western investors. The escalation in national debt is clearly related to the significant decline in commodity prices and the lack of currency reserves to offset the rise in payments demanded by international financial institutions.

It was announced during late February that Mozambique would be in default for another five years. A meeting between Mozambican leaders and International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials on March 5 revealed that its public sector debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was 128 percent.

Economic growth rates have been in decline since 2015 when it was 6.6 percent. In 2016 the growth rate shrunk to 3.7 percent.

IMF executive directors are prescribing the traditional measures related to restructuring. These include the reduction in public spending through the consolidation of government departments along with the shedding of assets through a process of privatization.

The text of the IMF Article IV review says:

“The outlook remains challenging. Absent further policy action, real GDP growth is expected to further decline over time while inflation would remain at current levels. The fiscal deficit would expand, leading to further accumulation of public debt and crowding out of the private sector. Banks’ rising exposure to the government combined with high interest rates, create potential macro-financial vulnerabilities.” (IMF, March 7)

Yet the purported challenges facing the Mozambican economy are the direct result of the western financial system which the IMF represents. This entity based in Washington, D.C. is an outgrowth of the post-World War II monetary system that established the United States as the leading imperialist country internationally.

Measurements of the GDP in this Southern African state are contingent upon its ability to produce and sell its resources within the global market. When prices fall based upon the economic policies within the western nations, Mozambique and other African countries will undoubtedly suffer.

With the decline in foreign exchange earnings inflationary pressure will be brought to bear on the economy. Consequently, current account deficits rise significantly and obligations to both domestic and foreign interests cannot be met in a timely fashion.

In the short-term, the government has indicated that it is seeking international assistance to respond to a threat by pests to its agricultural production. Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism, Ana Comoana, spoke on March 13 about the potential catastrophic impact of these pests if effective measures are not enacted.

Comoana noted that up to 30-40 percent of crops could be destroyed if the problem is not addressed with urgency. Consequently, the government in Maputo needs at least $US2.6 million to take the corrective action aimed at halting the destruction otherwise the financial situation will further deteriorate.

Natural Resources in Abundance

Mozambique has tremendous resources in the agricultural, minerals and energy sectors. This reality illustrates that the character of its relationship with the leading capitalist states is at the source of its historic and contemporary problems.

As a former Portuguese colony beginning in the late 15th century, the country was exploited heavily by what became one of the poorest states in Europe. The African people through the leadership of the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) waged a protracted political and armed struggle during the 1960s and early 1970s which won national independence in June 1975.

Imperialist interests in Portugal withdrew technological resources from the nation during the dawn of freedom. The government of the first President Samora Machel set out to reconstruct society based upon the interests of the masses of workers and peasants.

Nonetheless, the FRELIMO government faced formidable challenges through the deliberate destabilization efforts of the settler-colonial regime in neighboring Rhodesia from 1975-1979, when this former British colony gained its independence and became modern-day Zimbabwe. Later the white-minority apartheid regime in South Africa continued to fund the so-called Mozambique National Resistance (RENAMO) which worked on behalf of imperialism in an attempt destroy the revolutionary process. Both Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa engaged in direct military operations in Mozambique during these periods leaving hundreds of thousands dead and dislocated.

The agricultural sector in Mozambique supplies 90 percent of domestic food products with crops such as cassava, maize, millet, rice, tea, tobacco, sugar and beans. Cotton is the major agricultural export crop in the country. There are attempts underway to rejuvenate textile production utilizing this resource. In addition, fishing is also an important element within the national economy.

However, due to continuing problems within the storage and transportation sectors it is estimated that 30-40 percent of food products rot while waiting to be sent to their market destinations. Harvests and livestock are often endangered as well due to drought and flooding which has dislocated hundreds of thousands of people over the last two decades.

Strategic minerals and energy have been the focus of economic activity in the current period of economic development. An abundance of raw materials are surveyed in an article published by Britannica.

This report says that:

“Key metallic resources include high-quality iron ore and the rare and important mineral tantalite (the principal ore of tantalum), of which Mozambique has what may be the world’s largest reserves. Gold, bauxite (the principal ore of aluminum), graphite, marble, bentonite, and limestone are mined and quarried, and sea salt is extracted in coastal areas. Other development efforts have focused on the production of heavy mineral sands in Zambézia province and on a project to mine ilmenite (a major source of titanium) at Moma in Nampula province. Mozambique’s other mineral deposits include manganese, graphite, fluorite, platinum, nickel, uranium, asbestos, and diamonds.”

Oil and natural gas drilling activity is providing enhanced potential for acquiring the financial means to build Mozambique into a major economic base within the sub-continent where the country plays a significant role in the 16-member Southern African Development Community (SADC). Exploration for oil is a continuing work-in-progress.

However, the advent of enormous natural gas fields in Pande and Temane within Inhambane province could be a mechanism for both external trade and domestic consumption. In February there was the signing of a deal between the Mozambique Council of Ministers and the Houston-based Anadarko Petroleum Corporation said to be worth $20 billion. Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) resources in the country could make Mozambique the fourth largest producer of this energy resource in the near future.

According to an article in Bloomberg:

“Anadarko Petroleum Corporation is in talks to sate China’s increasing appetite for liquefied natural gas from its planned development in Mozambique. It’s in discussions with ‘a variety of Chinese counterparts including national oil companies and emerging independent LNG buyers,’ Anadarko said. Increasing consumption makes China ‘a long-term strategic market for the Anadarko-led Mozambique LNG project.’ China’s record-breaking gas demand could help spur investment decisions on projects to export LNG from East Africa, according to Emma Richards, a senior oil and gas analyst for BMI Research. LNG prices were buoyed as Chinese imports rose almost 50 percent in the first 10 months of 2017, making it the world’s third-largest buyer after Japan and South Korea, according to data compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.”

The Mozambican Crisis and the Broader Pan-African Global Context

A nation with such economic potential should not be in financial default. The only reasonable explanation for this situation is to be found within the international domination by imperialist interests over Africa and other emerging regions of the world.

Mozambique debt graph

Judging from historical fact the capitalist “restructuring” of post-colonial African economies during the period between the late 1960s and the conclusion of the 20th century did not improve the overall standard of living for African workers, farmers and youth. At present there is the re-emergence of the African debt quagmire stemming from the decline in commodity prices and the lack of inter-state continental economic relations.

As long as African Union (AU) member-states remain junior partners within the world capitalist system these problems will continue and hamper the sustainable development and sovereignty of the region. Social by-products of this continuing dependency portend much for the national and continental security of Africa. Hence the rise of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) over the last ten years is providing a military force for the imperialist agenda of institutionalizing neo-colonialism into the indefinite future.

The AU Extraordinary Summit to create an African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA) in Kigali, Rwanda during mid-March 2018 is a positive step in the right direction with a special focus on development for the benefit of the people. However, if this economic integrative effort remains within a global production and trading system led by western imperialist states it can never reach its full potential.

Genuine Pan-Africanism will only be realized within the context of socialist construction where a continental state led by popular forces is empowered to determine the destiny of the people ensuring political and social independence of both domestic and foreign policy. Mozambique is a case in point for a rethinking of the strategic agenda for the AU. Absent of enacting a non-capitalist approach only leads to yet another generation plagued by poverty, uncertainty and underdevelopment.

*

Abayomi Azikiwe is editor of Pan-African News Wire. He is also a frequent contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from the author.

The US Supreme Court on Monday rejected a direct challenge to the the death penalty, refusing to hear an Arizona death row prisoner’s argument that it amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. The court also refused to consider the constitutionality of Arizona’s capital sentencing system, under which nearly all convicted murderers are eligible for the death penalty.  In a statement, Justice Stephen G. Breyer cited insufficient evidence for the court’s ruling.

The Supreme Court’s decision takes on added significance considering the depths of depravity to which various state governments, confronted in recent years with a shortage of lethal injection drugs, have sunk as they seek to dish out the ultimate punishment at any cost.

Just last week, Oklahoma’s Attorney General announced that the state, which has been unable to obtain a fresh supply of lethal injection drugs, will begin using nitrogen gas on prisoners once it finalizes a formal execution procedure.  Nitrogen has never been used for executions in the US, but Oklahoma has decided to make it the state’s primary method. The decision to use nitrogen gas for executions has been roundly condemned by anti-death penalty activists, who’ve pointed out the experimental character of the method.  While supporters of the nitrogen method have claimed that it is painless, the American Veterinary Medical Association has said that nitrogen gas has a “distressing” effect on mammals and that its use on animals other than birds is unacceptable.

Amid the nationwide shortage of lethal injection drugs, a number of states have also sought to railroad prisoners to the death chamber before supplies run out.  For example, earlier this year, officials in Tennessee came up with a plan to execute 8 prisoners by June 1, after which they said availability of lethal injection drugs would be “uncertain.” On March 15, the Supreme Court of Tennessee denied a request by the state’s attorney general to schedule the executions. Arkansas went a step further last year, executing 4 prisoners during the month of April. The state had originally planned to execute 8 prisoners over the span of 11 days as its supply of lethal injection drugs was nearing expiration. However, 4 of the inmates were temporarily spared after their executions were blocked by various courts. Similarly, last May, Alabama enacted a law designed to speed up state appeals in capital cases.  Alabama’s so-called “Fair Justice Act” set tight new deadlines for filing appeals under state law and limited the time available to state courts when deciding on appeals. On the same day the law was enacted, Alabama executed a 75-year-old inmate for a murder committed in 1982. California and Florida have also enacted laws to speed up executions.

Last October, the results of a Gallup poll showed that support for capital punishment among Americans had reached its lowest point since 1972, with 55 percent in favor of the death penalty for those convicted of murder. 1972 was the same year that the Supreme Court officially imposed a moratorium on capital punishment, ruling in Furman v Georgia that the death penalty violated the cruel or unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment due to the “freakish,” “arbitrary” and “capricious” way it was implemented.  The court had imposed the moratorium during a period of social unrest and working-class militancy. Popular movements against social inequality, racism and sexism had spread across the country.  Together with the experience of the Vietnam War, these movements had a deep impact on the consciousness of the masses, inculcating within them a salutary mistrust of the state. Mass opposition to the death penalty during this period had already led to an unofficial moratorium on executions before the Furman v Georgia ruling.  Nevertheless, the death penalty was back in use in just a few years, after 34 states rewrote their capital punishment laws to comply with the Supreme Court ruling.

As was the case decades ago, the death penalty continues to be meted out to the poor and marginalized at disproportionate rates. The cruelty of the state has been felt by black men more than any other group.  According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 34.5 percent of defendants executed in the US since 1976 were black. And while Black people account for just 14 percent of the US population, they constitute 41 percent of the current death row population.  Faced with this reality, black people, who also suffer police killings at disproportionate rates, are far more likely to oppose capital punishment than their white counterparts, as polls have consistently shown.

Since 1973, 161 people have been exonerated and released from death row.  In 2017 alone, 5 death row prisoners were exonerated. This statistic brings up the most pressing reason to oppose capital punishment—the very real possibility that innocent people will be executed.  In 2014, the National Academy of Sciences released a study that found that at least 4 percent of defendants sentenced to death in the US between 1973 and 2004 were innocent. The research team that conducted the study used advanced statistical devices to come up with the 4 percent figure, which it described as “conservative.”

Americans live in a country where the rich dodge taxes and bribe politicians, the police kill with impunity and the military launches wars of aggression against poor and defenseless nations.  Our misnamed justice system continues to maintain and reinforce class and racial hierarchies, making capital punishment all the more sinister. And yet, half the country is still in favor of state-sponsored murder.  There are currently over 2800 people on death row in the US. Can any reasonable person believe they’re all guilty?

*

Ali Mohsin is an independent writer. He can be reached at [email protected].

Introduction

For the greater part of a decade the US, the UK and the EU have been carrying out a campaign to undermine and overthrow the Russian government and in particular to oust President Putin. Fundamental issues are at stake including the real possibility of a nuclear war.

The most recent western propaganda campaign and one of the most virulent is the charge launched by the UK regime of Prime Minister Theresa May. The Brits have claimed that Russian secret agents conspired to poison a former Russian double-agent and his daughter in England , threatening the sovereignty and safety of the British people. No evidence has ever been presented. Instead the UK expelled Russian diplomats and demands harsher sanctions, to increase tensions. The UK and its US and EU patrons are moving toward a break in relations and a military build-up.

A number of fundamental questions arise regarding the origins and growing intensity of this anti-Russian animus.

Why do the Western regimes now feel Russia is a greater threat then in the past? Do they believe Russia is more vulnerable to Western threats or attacks? Why do the Western military leaders seek to undermine Russia’s defenses? Do the US economic elites believe it is possible to provoke an economic crisis and the demise of President Putin’s government? What is the strategic goal of Western policymakers? Why has the UK regime taken the lead in the anti-Russian crusade via the fake toxin accusations at this time?

This paper is directed at providing key elements to address these questions.

The Historical Context for Western Aggression

Several fundamental historical factors dating back to the 1990’s account for the current surge in Western hostility to Russia.

First and foremost, during the 1990’s the US degraded Russia, reducing it to a vassal state, and imposing itself as a unipolar state.

Secondly, Western elites pillaged the Russian economy, seizing and laundering hundreds of billions of dollars. Wall Street and City of London banks and overseas tax havens were the main beneficiaries

Thirdly, the US seized and took control of the Russian electoral process, and secured the fraudulent “election” of Yeltsin.

Fourthly, the West degraded Russia’s military and scientific institutions and advanced their armed forces to Russia’s borders.

Fifthly, the West insured that Russia was unable to support its allies and independent governments throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. Russia was unable to aid its allies in the Ukraine, Cuba, North Korea, Libya etc.

With the collapse of the Yeltsin regime and the election of PresidentPutin, Russia regained its sovereignty, its economy recovered, its armed forces and scientific institutes were rebuilt and strengthened. Poverty was sharply reduced and Western backed gangster capitalists were constrained, jailed or fled mostly to the UK and the US.

Russia’s historic recovery under President Putin and its gradual international influence shattered US pretense to rule over unipolar world. Russia’s recovery and control of its economic resources lessened US dominance, especially of its oil and gas fields.

As Russia consolidated its sovereignty and advanced economically, socially, politically and militarily, the West increased its hostility in an effort to roll-back Russia to the Dark Ages of the 1990’s.

The US launched numerous coups and military intervention and fraudulent elections to surround and isolate Russia . The Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Russian allies in Central Asia were targeted. NATO military bases proliferated.

Russia’s economy was targeted : sanctions were directed at its imports and exports. President Putin was subject to a virulent Western media propaganda campaign. US NGO’s funded opposition parties and politicians.

The US-EU rollback campaign failed.

The encirclement campaign failed.

The Ukraine fragmented – Russia allies took control of the East; Crimean voted for unification with Russia. Syria joined with Russia to defeat armed US vassals. Russia turned to China’s multi-lateral trade, transport and financial networks.

As the entire US unipolar fantasy dissolved it provoked deep resentment, animosity and a systematic counter-attack. The US’s costly and failed war on terror became a dress rehearsal for the economic and ideological war against the Kremlin ..Russia’s historical recovery and defeat of Western rollback intensified the ideological and economic war.

The UK poison plot was concocted to heighten economic tensions and prepare the western public for heightened military confrontations.

Russia is not a threat to the West: it is recovering its sovereignty in order to further a multi-polar world. President Putin is not an “aggressor” but he refuses to allow Russia to return to vassalage.

President Putin is immensely popular in Russia and hated by the US precisely because he is the opposition of Yeltsin – he has created a flourishing economy; he resists sanctions and defends Russia’s borders and allies.

Conclusion

In a summary response to the opening questions.

1) The Western regimes recognize that Russia is a threat to their global dominance; they know that Russia is no threat to invade the EU, North America or their vassals.

2) Western regimes believe they can topple Russia via economic warfare including sanctions. In fact Russia has become more self-reliant and has diversified its trading partners, especially China, and even includes Saudi Arabia and other Western allies.

The Western propaganda campaign has failed to turn Russian voters against Putin. In the March 19, 2018 Presidential election voter participation increased to 67% ..Vladimir Putin secured a record 77% majority. President Putin is politically stronger than ever.

Russia’s display of advanced nuclear and other advanced weaponry has had a major deterrent effect especially among US military leaders, making it clear that Russia is not vulnerable to attack.

The UK has attempted to unify and gain importance with the EU and the US via the launch of its anti-Russia toxic conspiracy. Prime Minister May has failed. Brexit will force the UK to break with the EU.

President Trump will not replace the EU as a substitute trading partner. While the EU and Washington may back the UK crusade against Russia they will pursue their own trade agenda; which do not include the UK.

In a word, the UK, the EU and the US are ganging-up on Russia, for diverse historic and contemporary reasons. The UK exploitation of the anti-Russian conspiracy is a temporary ploy to join the gang but will not change its inevitable global decline and the break-up of the UK.

Russia will remain a global power. It will continue under the leadership of President Putin. The Western powers will divide and bugger their neighbors – and decide it is their better judgment to accept and work within a multi-polar world.

*

Prof. James Petras is a Research Associate of the CRG.

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The Red Sea 2015 “Secret Yacht Summit” that Realigned the Middle East

By David Hearst, March 20, 2018

George Nader, the Lebanese-American businessman, who is co-operating with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Donald Trump’s campaign funding, organised a secret summit of Arab leaders on a yacht in the Red Sea in late 2015, Middle East Eye can reveal.

The Geopolitics of Targeting Russia

By Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, March 20, 2018

This projection of Russia as a threat to world peace has intensified in recent days partly because of Putin’s unveiling of Russia’s cutting edge military technologies on 1st March 2018. They include advanced generation missiles with unlimited range and capability that can evade US or NATO anti-missile defences.

Russia’s Presidential Elections: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. How the Novichok Affair Contributed to Putin’s Landslide Victory

By Israel Shamir, March 20, 2018

Theresa May and Boris Johnson were prominent contributors to Vladimir Putin’s landslide victory. Their ultimatum to Russia, their baseless accusations, and their threats mobilised millions of Russians who weren’t inclined to go to the polls at all. Before the Salisbury affair, a lot of Russians were indifferent to the forthcoming elections. They felt it made little sense to take part in the show with predefined results. However, the British hard line regarding the murky story of an assassination attempt changed the public mood.

US Planning a Terrorist False Flag Chemical Attack to Justify Bombing Syria: Russia Says It Will Respond

By Federico Pieraccini, March 20, 2018

Events in Syria increasingly resemble a direct confrontation between major powers rather than a proxy war. Lavrov’s words, delivered a few days ago, reveal the critical phase of international relations the world is going through, with a potentially devastating conflict ready to ignite in the Middle East region.

Pompeo and Haspel Are Symptoms of a Deeper Problem

By Rep. Ron Paul, March 20, 2018

President Trump’s recent cabinet shake-up looks to be a real boost to hard-line militarism and neo-conservatism. If his nominees to head the State Department and CIA are confirmed, we may well have moved closer to war.

In 2014 I wrote an article titled ‘The Global Elite is Insane’. I want to elaborate what I explained in the earlier article so that people have a clearer sense of what we are up against in our struggle to create a world of peace, justice and ecological sustainability.

Of course, as I explained previously, it is not just the global elite that is insane. All those individuals – politicians, businesspeople, academics, corporate media editors and journalists, judges and lawyers, bureaucrats…. – who serve the elite, including by not exposing and resisting it, are also insane. And it is important to understand this if we are to develop and implement effective strategies to resist elite violence, exploitation and destruction but also avert the now-imminent human extinction driven by their insane desire for endless personal privilege, corporate profit and political control whatever the cost to Earth’s biosphere and lifeforms (human and non-human alike).

But first, who constitutes the global elite? Essentially, it is those extremely wealthy individuals – notably including 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. See ‘Bloomberg Billionaires Index’.

Testament to their secretly and long-accumulated wealth and power, a 2012 investigation concluded that rich individuals and their families have as much as $32 trillion of hidden financial assets – which excludes non-financial assets such as real estate, gold, yachts and racehorses – in offshore tax havens. See the Tax Justice Network.

If this sum were devoted to programs of social uplift then starvation, poverty, homelessness and other privations would vanish immediately and environmental restoration projects as well as research, development and implementation of visionary sustainability initiatives would flourish instantly. The idea of an ‘underdeveloped’ or ‘developing’ national economy would vanish from the literature on Africa, Asia and Central/South America.

In addition to these individuals, however, the global elite includes the major multinational corporations, particularly including the following – although, it should be noted, this list simplifies the picture considerably by ignoring the conglomerate nature of many of these corporations and not including many of the (more difficult to identify) private corporations that should be listed in any comprehensive presentation:

• the major weapons manufacturers (such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, BAE Systems, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics)
• the major banks (including Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank, HSBC Holdings, JPMorgan Chase, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and Bank of America) and their ‘industry groups’ like the International Monetary Conference
• the major investment companies (including BlackRock, Capital Group Companies, FMR, AXA, and JP Morgan Chase)
• the major financial services companies (including Berkshire Hathaway, AXA, Allianz and BNP Paribas)
• the major energy corporations including coal companies (such as Coal India, Adani Enterprises, China Shenhua Energy, China Coal Energy, Mechel, Exxaro Resources, Public Power, Glencore and Peabody Energy) as well as the oil and gas corporations (such as Saudi Aramco, Gazprom, Rosneft, PetroChina, ExxonMobil, Lukoil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Petrobras, Chevron, Novatek, Total S.A. and Eni)
• the major media corporations (including Alphabet [Google owner], Comcast, Disney, AT&T, News Corporation, Time Warner, Fox, Facebook, Bertelsmann and Baidu)
• the major marketing and public relations corporations (including Edelman, W2O Group, APCO Worldwide, Deksia, BrandTuitive, Fearless Media, and Citizen Group)
• the major agrochemical (pesticides, seeds, fertilizers) giants (including Bayer, Syngenta, Dow, Monsanto and DuPont)
• the major pharmaceutical corporations (including Johnson & Johnson, Roche, Pfizer, Novartis, Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline)
• the major biotechnology (genetic mutilation) corporations (again including Johnson & Johnson, Roche, Pfizer and Novartis)
• the major mining corporations (including Glencore Xtrata, BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Vale, Anglo American, China Shenhua Energy, Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold, and Barrick Gold)
• the major nuclear power corporations (including Areva, Rosatom, General Electric/Hitachi, Kepco, Mitsubishi, Babcock & Wilcox, BNFL, Duke Energy, McDermott International, Southern, NextEra Energy, American Electric Power, and Westinghouse)
• the major food multinationals (including Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland Company [ADM], Nestlé, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Unilever, Danone, General Mills, Kellogg’s, Mars, Associated British Foods and Mondelez)
• the major water corporations (including Veolia, Suez Environnement, ITT Corporation, United Utilities, Severn Trent, Thames Water, American Water Works).

Of course, the global elite also includes elite fora where various combinations of elite individuals from the corporate, political, media and academic worlds gather to plan their continuing violence against, and exploitation of, the Earth and its inhabitants. This is intended to consolidate and extend their control over populations, markets and resources to maximize their privilege, profit and power at the expense of the rest of us and life generally. Among intergovernmental organizations, it includes the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

A quick perusal of the agenda of such elite gatherings – including the World Economic Forum, the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission – reveals a comprehensive lack of interest, despite rhetoric and the occasional token mention, of pressing issues ranging from the threat of nuclear war and the climate catastrophe to the many ongoing wars, deepening exploitation within the global economy, extensive range of environmental threats and the refugee crisis, each of which they generated and now continue to deliberately exacerbate. See, for example, the agenda of the recent WEF meeting in Davos.

Primary servants of the global elite include political leaders in major industrialized countries (who legislate to progressively expand elite power, profit and privilege, such as Donald Trump’s recent tax cuts for the wealthy at the expense of social programs), the judges and lawyers (who defend elite power using the elite-designed and manipulated legal system: ever heard of a wealthy individual convicted in court and given any serious punishment or of any major corporation genuinely held to legal account for its exploitation of indigenous peoples or destruction of the natural environment?), as well as corporate media editors and journalists, entertainment industry personnel, academics, industry organizations (such as the European Round Table of Industrialists) that represent the interests of major corporations, so-called ‘think tanks’ (such as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution) and ‘philanthropic trusts’ (such as the Rockefeller, Carnegie and Ford foundations) all of which justify, ignore or divert attention from elite violence and exploitation.

Importantly too, primary servants of the global elite include those who work within elite-directed agencies, notably including those in the so-called ‘intelligence community’ (such as the US CIA, British MI6, Russian SVR RF, Chinese Ministry for State Security and Israeli Mossad), who perform elite functions in relation to spying, surveillance and secret assassinations (particularly of grassroots activists), ostensibly under the direction of national governments. But it also includes many lower-level servants such as those who work as political lobbyists or in the bureaucracy as well as the education, police and prison systems.

So why do I claim that the elite and those who serve them are insane?

Any dictionary will offer a simple definition of ‘sanity’ along the lines of ‘soundness of judgment or reason’ and ‘the ability to think and speak in a reasonable way and to behave normally’.

But if we use this definition of sanity then, obviously, ‘sanity’ must be interpreted to mean that it is ‘sound judgment, reasonable and normal’ to further perpetrate the violence and exploitation that are overwhelmingly characteristic of our world. After all, most people powerlessly accept this incredibly violent state of affairs and, if they discuss it, do so in terms of its merits, politically, economically, morally or otherwise. Few people argue, simply, that violence is just insane.

So I would like to propose a more rigorous definition of sanity: Sanity is the capacity to consider a set of circumstances, to carefully analyze the evidence pertaining to those circumstances, to identify the cause of any conflict or problem, and to respond appropriately, both emotionally and intellectually, to that conflict or problem with the intention of resolving it, preferably at a higher level of need satisfaction for all parties (including those of the Earth and all of its living creatures).

Clearly, my proposed definition of sanity is designed to imply that any conceptions we have of ‘sound judgment’, ‘reasonable’ and ‘normal’ mean that they are qualities we associate with individuals who possess the desirable capacity to improve the overall state of human affairs, whether an interpersonal relationship or geopolitically. This means, as an absolute minimum, the capacity to reduce violence or exploitation in one context or another.

You might, of course, accuse me of writing a definition of ‘sanity’ that serves my agenda to dramatically improve world order in the direction of peace, justice and sustainability. And you are right! But whose interest does it serve to have sanity defined as behavior that involves ‘sound judgment’ and is considered ‘reasonable and normal’ in the context of perpetuating extraordinary violence?

Alternatively, you might argue that my definition of insanity is too broad. Surely, you might say, we can account for many of the behaviors outlined above in terms of different belief systems, ideologies and religions. Doesn’t a person who believes in killing people to win wars (or for other reasons) just have a worldview different from those who believe that people should resolve conflict nonviolently? Doesn’t a capitalist just have a worldview different from those who believe that people should share resources equally? Doesn’t a person who believes in the unlimited accumulation of wealth just have a worldview different from those who believe in ecological sustainability?

But there is a more fundamental issue here. As I explained in my original article, cited at the beginning of this one: Do you really believe that someone who is capable of perpetrating extraordinary violence, inequity and biosphere-threatening behavior – and thus clearly incapable of experiencing and expressing the love, compassion, empathy and sympathy that would drive a nonviolent approach to the world – is sane? Given that emotional qualities such as love, compassion, empathy and sympathy are an evolutionary gift to those not seriously damaged during childhood, what happened to those individuals who do not possess them? See ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’.

Or, to explain it based on my longer definition of sanity highlighted above: Casual observation of the state of our world, including the primary threat of near-term human extinction through climate catastrophe or nuclear war – see ‘On Track for Extinction: Can Humanity Survive?’ – clearly reveals that none of the elite is paying considered attention to the perilous state of our world, analyzing the evidence in relation to it, identifying the cause(s) driving it or responding powerfully to end it. Why is this?

Sulfide mining

In essence, it is because one manifestation of their insanity drives them to deny reality to make huge profits from weapons production used to kill people, the burning of climate-destroying fossil fuels, environmental destruction (through, for example, mining and rainforest logging), commercial farming based on the poisoning and genetic mutilation of foods, the mass production and sale of poisoned, processed and nutritionally-depleted foods, the consumption of health-destroying and dependency-creating drugs, and control over the sale of water, once considered a human right. Moreover, insanity makes the elite do everything in its power to maintain this highly profitable state of affairs. See ‘Profit Maximization is Easy: Invest in Violence’.

Moreover, of course, there is no evidence of committed elite engagement in efforts to end the many local wars (from which they make huge profits), end corporate exploitation of human beings (which kills, through starvation alone, 100,000 people every day but from which they make huge profits) and nonhuman beings (which drives 200 species of life to extinction daily but from which they make huge profits) or end local environmental destruction in a myriad ways (from which they make huge profits).

So, in summary, given our ongoing rush to extinction, it is clear that those who exacerbate this threat through failure to consider and act with awareness (as well as encourage aware action by others) fail to satisfy the definition of sanity that I offered above. In short: Gambling on the future of humanity is not sane.

As an aside, it should be noted: Often enough too, the elite can rely on a largely insane population to mindlessly consume the latest consumer product, no matter how unnecessary, or they can rely on their marketing and advertising agents to persuade those of us who show the slightest reluctance to buy the latest inanity.

So with an insane global elite and its many insane servants as well as a largely insane consumer population, what can those of us who have the sanity to respond powerfully to the many threats to our survival do?

Well, if you want a child who is emotionally and intellectually engaged with the world and therefore capable of responding powerfully to their circumstances (which includes being able to resist the lure of serving the elite and being suckered by its marketing), then terrorizing the child into obedience is not the way to go about it. So, you might like to consider making ‘My Promise to Children’.

If you are sane enough to investigate the evidence and to act intelligently and powerfully in response to it, I encourage you to do so. One option you have if you find the evidence in relation to one or more of the threats mentioned above compelling, is to join those participating in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’.

If you are self-aware enough to know that you are inclined to avoid ‘difficult issues’ and to take the action that these require, then perhaps you could tackle this problem at its source by ‘Putting Feelings First’. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, few of us had a childhood that nurtured our sanity.

If you want to mobilize people to campaign effectively on the climate, war, rainforest destruction or any other elite-driven violence that threatens our future, consider developing a comprehensive nonviolent strategy to do so. See Nonviolent Campaign Strategy.

And if you want to participate in the worldwide effort to end the insanity we call violence in all of its manifestations, you are welcome to consider signing the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’.

Elite insanity, if not stopped, will drive us out of existence. If you believe that the elite and their servants will ‘see the light’ before it is too late, I invite you to seek out the evidence to justify your belief. I have found none.

I also see no evidence that individual members of the elite will do the emotional healing necessary to be able to act sanely in response to the extinction-threatening crisis it has generated.

So it is up to those of us who can think and act sanely to stop the rush to extinction before it is too late.

Are you one of those people?

*

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

This article was first published on May 19, 2014.

 Calm Down … You Are Much More Likely to Be Killed By Boring, Mundane Things than Terrorism

McClatchy reported in 2010:

There were just 25 U.S. noncombatant fatalities from terrorism worldwide. (The US government definition of terrorism excludes attacks on U.S. military personnel). While we don’t have the figures at hand, undoubtedly more American citizens died overseas from traffic accidents or intestinal illnesses than from terrorism.

The March, 2011, Harper‘s Index noted:

Number of American civilians who died worldwide in terrorist attacks last year: 8 — Minimum number who died after being struck by lightning: 29.

Indeed, the leading cause of deaths for Americans traveling abroad is not terrorism, or murder … or even crime of any type.

It’s car crashes.

In fact:

With the exception of the Philippines, more Americans died from road crashes in all of the 160 countries surveyed than from homicides.

The U.S. Department of State reports that only 17 U.S. citizens were killed worldwide as a result of terrorism in 2011. That figure includes deaths in Afghanistan, Iraq and all other theaters of war.

In contrast, the American agency which tracks health-related issues – the U.S. Centers for Disease Control – rounds up the most prevalent causes of death in the United States:

Comparing the CDC numbers to terrorism deaths means (keep in mind that – from here to the end of the piece – we are consistently and substantially understating the risk of other causes of death as compared to terrorism, because we are comparing deaths from various causes within the United States against deaths from terrorism worldwide):

– You are 35,079 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist attack

– You are 33,842 times more likely to die from cancer than from a terrorist attack

Wikipedia notes that obesity is a a contributing factor in 100,000–400,000 deaths in the United States per year. That makes obesity 5,882 to times 23,528 more likely to kill you than a terrorist.

The annual number of deaths in the U.S. due to avoidable medical errors is as high as 100,000. Indeed, one of the world’s leading medical journals – Lancet – reported in 2011:

A November, 2010, document from the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services reported that, when in hospital, one in seven beneficiaries of Medicare (the government-sponsored health-care programme for those aged 65 years and older) have complications from medical errors, which contribute to about 180 000 deaths of patients per year.

That’s just Medicare beneficiaries, not the entire American public. Scientific American noted in 2009:

Preventable medical mistakes and infections are responsible for about 200,000 deaths in the U.S. each year, according to an investigation by the Hearst media corporation.

And a new study published in the Journal of Patient Safety says the numbers may be up to 440,000 each year.

But let’s use the lower – 100,000 – figure. That still means that you are 5,882 times more likely to die from medical error than terrorism.

The CDC says that some 80,000 deaths each year are attributable to excessive alcohol use. So you’re 4,706 times more likely to drink yourself to death than die from terrorism.

Wikipedia notes that there were 32,367 automobile accidents in 2011, which means that you are 1,904 times more likely to die from a car accident than from a terrorist attack. As CNN reporter Fareed Zakaria wrote last year:

“Since 9/11, foreign-inspired terrorism has claimed about two dozen lives in the United States. (Meanwhile, more than 100,000 have been killed in gun homicides and more than 400,000 in motor-vehicle accidents.) “

President Obama agreed.

According to a 2011 CDC report, poisoning from prescription drugs is even more likely to kill you than a car crash. Indeed, the CDC stated in 2011 that – in the majority of states – your prescription meds are more likely to kill you than any other source of injury. So your meds are thousands of times more likely to kill you than Al Qaeda.

The number of deaths by suicide has also surpassed car crashes, and many connect the increase in suicides to the downturn in the economy. Around 35,000 Americans kill themselves each year (and more American soldiers die by suicide than combat; the number of veterans committing suicide is astronomical and under-reported). So you’re 2,059 times more likely to kill yourself than die at the hand of a terrorist.

The CDC notes that there were 7,638 deaths from HIV and 45 from syphilis, so you’re 452 times more likely to die from risky sexual behavior than terrorism.

The National Safety Council reports that more than 6,000 Americans die a year from falls … most of them involve people falling off their roof or ladder trying to clean their gutters, put up Christmas lights and the like. That means that you’re 353 times more likely to fall to your death doing something idiotic than die in a terrorist attack.

The agency in charge of workplace safety – the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration – reports that 4,609 workers were killed on the job in 2011 within the U.S. homeland. In other words, you are 271 times more likely to die from a workplace accident than terrorism.

The CDC notes that 3,177 people died of “nutritional deficiencies” in 2011, which means you are 187 times more likely to starve to death in American than be killed by terrorism.

Scientific American notes:

You might have toxoplasmosis, an infection caused by the microscopic parasite Toxoplasma gondii, which the CDC estimates has infected about 22.5 percent of Americans older than 12 years old

Toxoplasmosis is a brain-parasite. The CDC reports that more than 375 Americans die annually due to toxoplasmosis. In addition, 3 Americans died in 2011 after being exposed to a brain-eating amoeba. So you’re about 22 times more likely to die from a brain-eating zombie parasite than a terrorist.

There were at least 155 Americans killed by police officers in the United States in 2011. That means that you were more than 9 times more likely to be killed by a law enforcement officer than by a terrorist.

The 2011 Report on Terrorism from the National Counter Terrorism Center notes that Americans are just as likely to be “crushed to death by their televisions or furniture each year” as they are to be killed by terrorists.

Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control show that Americans are 110 times more likely to die from contaminated food than terrorism. And see this and this.

The Jewish Daily Forward noted last year that – even including the people killed in the Boston bombing – you are more likely to be killed by a toddler than a terrorist. And see these statistics from CNN.

Reason notes:

[The risk of being killed by terrorism] compares annual risk of dying in a car accident of 1 in 19,000; drowning in a bathtub at 1 in 800,000; dying in a building fire at 1 in 99,000; or being struck by lightning at 1 in 5,500,000. In other words, in the last five years you were four times more likely to be struck by lightning than killed by a terrorist.

The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) has just published, Background Report: 9/11, Ten Years Later [PDF]. The report notes, excluding the 9/11 atrocities, that fewer than 500 people died in the U.S. from terrorist attacks between 1970 and 2010.

Scientific American reported in 2011:

John Mueller, a political scientist at Ohio State University, and Mark Stewart, a civil engineer and authority on risk assessment at University of Newcastle in Australia … contended, “a great deal of money appears to have been misspent and would have been far more productive—saved far more lives—if it had been expended in other ways.”

Mueller and Stewart noted that, in general, government regulators around the world view fatality risks—say, from nuclear power, industrial toxins or commercial aviation—above one person per million per year as “acceptable.” Between 1970 and 2007 Mueller and Stewart asserted in a separate paper published last year in Foreign Affairs that a total of 3,292 Americans (not counting those in war zones) were killed by terrorists resulting in an annual risk of one in 3.5 million. Americans were more likely to die in an accident involving a bathtub (one in 950,000), a home appliance (one in 1.5 million), a deer (one in two million) or on a commercial airliner (one in 2.9 million).

The global mortality rate of death by terrorism is even lower. Worldwide, terrorism killed 13,971 people between 1975 and 2003, an annual rate of one in 12.5 million. Since 9/11 acts of terrorism carried out by Muslim militants outside of war zones have killed about 300 people per year worldwide. This tally includes attacks not only by al Qaeda but also by “imitators, enthusiasts, look-alikes and wannabes,” according to Mueller and Stewart.

Defenders of U.S. counterterrorism efforts might argue that they have kept casualties low by thwarting attacks. But invvestigations by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies suggest that 9/11 may have been an outlier—an aberration—rather than a harbinger of future attacks. Muslim terrorists are for the most part “short on know-how, prone to make mistakes, poor at planning” and small in number, Mueller and Stewart stated. Although still potentially dangerous, terrorists hardly represent an “existential” threat on a par with those posed by Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.

In fact, Mueller and Stewart suggested in Homeland Security Affairs, U.S. counterterrorism procedures may indirectly imperil more lives than they preserve: “Increased delays and added costs at U.S. airports due to new security procedures provide incentive for many short-haul passengers to drive to their destination rather than flying, and, since driving is far riskier than air travel, the extra automobile traffic generated has been estimated to result in 500 or more extra road fatalities per year.”

The funds that the U.S. spends on counterterrorism should perhaps be diverted to other more significant perils, such as industrial accidents (one in 53,000), violent crime (one in 22,000), automobile accidents (one in 8,000) and cancer (one in 540). “Overall,” Mueller and Stewart wrote, “vastly more lives could have been saved if counterterrorism funds had instead been spent on combating hazards that present unacceptable risks.” In an e-mail to me, Mueller elaborated:

“The key question, never asked of course, is what would the likelihood be if the added security measures had not been put in place? And, if the chances without the security measures might have been, say, one in 2.5 million per year, were the trillions of dollars in investment (including overseas policing which may have played a major role) worth that gain in security—to move from being unbelievably safe to being unbelievably unbelievably safe? Given that al Qaeda and al Qaeda types have managed to kill some 200 to 400 people throughout the entire world each year outside of war zones since 9/11—including in areas that are far less secure than the U.S.—there is no reason to anticipate that the measures have deterred, foiled or protected against massive casualties in the United States. If the domestic (we leave out overseas) enhanced security measures put into place after 9/11 have saved 100 lives per year in the United States, they would have done so at a cost of $1 billion per saved life. That same money, if invested in a measure that saves lives at a cost of $1 million each—like passive restraints for buses and trucks—would have saved 1,000 times more lives.”

Mueller and Stewart’s analysis is conservative, because it excludes the most lethal and expensive U.S. responses to 9/11. Al Qaeda’s attacks also provoked the U.S. into invading and occupying two countries, at an estimated cost of several trillion dollars. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have resulted in the deaths of more than 6,000 Americans so far—more than twice as many as were killed on September 11, 2001—as well as tens of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans.

***

In 2007 New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that people are more likely to be killed by lightning than terrorism. “You can’t sit there and worry about everything,” Bloomberg exclaimed. “Get a life. Actually, according to Mueller and Stewart, Americans’ annual risk of dying from lightning, at one in seven million is only half the risk from terrorism.

Indeed, the Senior Research Scientist for the Space Science Institute (Alan W. Harris) estimates that the odds of being killed by a terrorist attack is about the same as being hit by an asteroid (and see this).

Terrorism pushes our emotional buttons. And politicians and the media tend to blow the risk of terrorism out of proportion. But as the figures above show, terrorism is a very unlikely cause of death.

Indeed, our spending on anti-terrorism measures is way out of whack … especially because most of the money has been wasted. And see this article, and this 3-minute video by professor Mueller:

Indeed, mission creep in the name of countering terrorism actually makes us more vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

Note: The U.S. is supporting the most extreme and violent types of Muslims. Indeed, the U.S. has waived the prohibitions of arming terrorist groups in order to topple the Syrian government … even though the head of the Syrian rebels has called for Al Qaeda to carry out new attacks on America.

Indeed – as counter-intuitive as it may sound- stupid government policy may be more dangerous than terrorism.

George Nader, the Lebanese-American businessman, who is co-operating with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Donald Trump’s campaign funding, organised a secret summit of Arab leaders on a yacht in the Red Sea in late 2015, Middle East Eye can reveal.

Nader proposed to the leaders gathered on the yacht that they should set up an elite regional group of six countries, which would supplant both the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the moribund Arab League.

Nader said this group of states could become a force in the region “that the US government could depend on” to counter the influence of Turkey and Iran, according to two sources briefed on the meeting.

Nader brought together Mohammed bin Salman, who was then deputy crown prince of Saudi Arabia; Mohammed bin Zayed, crown prince of Abu Dhabi; Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, president of Egypt; Prince Salman, crown prince of Bahrain; and King Abdullah of Jordan onto the yacht.

Their respective states, plus Libya which was not represented at the secret summit, would form the nucleus of pro-US and pro-Israeli states.

Nader is reported to have told the leaders:

“If you agree to this, I will lobby for this in Washington,” two sources with knowledge of the meeting told MEE.

Those who attended liked the idea.

MEE can also reveal that Nader has had frequent contact in the last two years with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, which is the subject of a bill in the US Congress promising a new set of sanctions and blocking Tehran’s entry to the World Trade Organisation.

Nader established this link through the help of the Iraqi Shia leader Ammar al-Hakim and his group. The IRGC is thought to have used Nader to pass messages to Middle East states, sources told MEE.

How Trump was key to plans

The secret summit on the Red Sea took place towards the end of King Salman’s first year in power, when his son MBS was only deputy crown prince.

His chief obstacle to the Saudi throne lay in the form of his elder cousin Mohammed bin Nayef, who was crown prince and a favourite of Washington’s security establishment. MBS would become crown prince in June 2017, only after his father deposed Bin Nayef.

Trump had only announced his candidacy months before in June 2015 when the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton was leading in all the polls. She was thought by the Saudis and Emiratis to be more likely to ring fence the nuclear deal Barack Obama made with Iran, and to be generally more sceptical of their plans for a push back in the region.

Significantly, these Arab leaders decided in late 2015 that a wildcard presidential candidate in the shape of Trump could be the key to their plans to become the new regional hegemons.

Months later, in January 2016, King Abdullah of Jordan briefed US Congressional leaders that Turkey presented the main threat to regional security.

As MEE reported, the king told US congressmen in a closed meeting that Turkey exported terrorists to Europe, comments he was to deny publicly later.

But Jordan then fell out dramatically with the group which had gathered on the yacht: Saudi Arabia decided that Amman did not go far enough in enforcing the blockade against Qatar, which was imposed in June last year.

The split between Saudi and Jordan widened further when Jordan voted against Trump’s move to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, which threatens Jordan’s role as custodian of the Holy Places in the city.

Nader the go-between

Nader has recently emerged as a key back channel between Bin Zayed and Trump. The New York Times has reported that Mueller is actively chasing financial links in order to establish whether the Emiratis illegally contributed funds to Trump’s presidential campaign.

It reported that in recent weeks Mueller’s investigators have questioned Nader and pressed witnesses about any possible attempts by the Emiratis to buy political influence by directing money to Trump’s presidential campaign.

On Friday, reports emerged of a slew of convictions that Nader had on charges of sexually abusing underage boys and possessing child pornography. Newsweek reported that Nader had been sentenced to six months on child pornography charges in Virginia. According to federal court records seen by Newsweek, Nader was convicted of bringing child pornography into the US from Germany.

This was in addition to a conviction on 10 counts of sexually abusing underage boys in the Czech Republic for which he served one year in prison in 2003.

Despite this criminal history, Nader was actively used by Trump. He attended a meeting with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and Steve Bannon, his chief political strategists at Trump Tower in New York in December 2016.

A month later Nader, Erik Prince (image on the right), the former head of Blackwater, and a Russian banker all attended a meeting in the Seychelles with Bin Zayed.

Nader has long-standing connections with Israel. During the presidential elections bin Zayed sent Nader to meet Israeli officials to discuss how the two states can co-operate, a source told MEE. Nader established ties with Israel through an American Jewish fundraiser, Elliott Broidy, who is close to the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

According to the NYT, Broidy owns a private security company with hundreds of millions of dollars of contracts with the UAE.

Broidy was removed as chairman of the Tel Aviv-based Markstone Capital Partners after admitting paying nearly $1m in bribes to pension fund managers in New York State. Broidy became deputy chairman of Trump’s fundraising campaign.

Citing a memorandum made by Broidy, and passed to the newspaper by “someone critical of the Emirati influence in Washington”, the NYT reported that Broidy lobbied Trump to meet Bin Zayed “in an informal setting”, to back the UAE’s policies, and to push him to fire his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson.

In response to the leaking of his memorandum, Broidy accused “registered and unregistered agents of Qatar” for the hacking. Broidy made the accusation through his press spokesman and in a letter to the Qatari ambassador in Washington.

MEE approached Nader, the Saudi and the Emirati embassies in London for comment. No reply was forthcoming.

Sette anni fa, il 19 marzo 2011, iniziava la guerra contro la Libia, diretta dagli Stati uniti prima tramite il Comando Africa, quindi tramite la Nato sotto comando Usa. In sette mesi, venivano effettuate circa 10.000 missioni di attacco aereo con decine di migliaia di bombe e missili.

A questa guerra partecipava l’Italia con cacciabombardieri e basi aeree, stracciando il Trattato di amicizia e cooperazione tra i due paesi. Già prima dell’attacco aeronavale, erano stati finanziati e armati in Libia settori tribali e gruppi islamici ostili al governo, e infiltrate forze speciali, in particolare qatariane. Veniva così demolito quello Stato che, sulla sponda sud del Mediterraneo, registrava «alti livelli di crescita economica e alti indicatori di sviluppo umano» (come documentava nel 2010 la stessa Banca Mondiale). Vi trovavano lavoro circa due milioni di immigrati, per lo più africani. Allo stesso tempo la Libia rendeva possibile con i suoi fondi sovrani la nascita di organismi economici indipendenti dell’Unione africana: il Fondo monetario africano, la Banca centrale africana, la Banca africana di investimento.

Usa e Francia – provano le mail della segretaria di stato Hillary Clinton – si accordarono per bloccare anzitutto il piano di Gheddafi di creare una moneta africana, in alternativa al dollaro e al franco Cfa imposto dalla Francia a 14 ex colonie africane. Demolito lo Stato e assassinato Gheddafi, il bottino da spartire in Libia è enorme: le riserve petrolifere, le maggiori dell’Africa, e di gas naturale; l’immensa falda nubiana di acqua fossile, l’oro bianco in prospettiva più prezioso dell’oro nero; lo stesso territorio libico di primaria importanza geostrategica; i fondi sovrani, circa 150 miliardi di dollari investiti all’estero dallo Stato libico, «congelati» nel 2011 su mandato del Consiglio di sicurezza dell’Onu.

Dei 16 miliardi di euro di fondi libici, bloccati nella Euroclear Bank in Belgio, ne sono già spariti 10 senza alcuna autorizzazione di prelievo. La stessa grande rapina avviene nelle altre banche europee e statunitensi.

In Libia gli introiti dell’export energetico, scesi da 47 miliardi di dollari nel 2010 a 14 nel 2017, vengono oggi spartiti tra gruppi di potere e multinazionali; il dinaro, che prima valeva 3 dollari, viene oggi scambiato a un tasso di 9 dinari per dollaro, mentre i beni di consumo devono essere importati pagandoli in dollari, con una conseguente inflazione annua del 30%.

Il livello di vita della maggioranza della popolazione è crollato, per mancanza di denaro e servizi essenziali. Non esiste più sicurezza né un reale sistema giudiziario. La condizione peggiore è quella degli immigrati africani: con la falsa accusa (alimentata dai media occidentali) di essere «mercenari di Gheddafi», sono stati imprigionati dalle milizie islamiche perfino in gabbie di zoo, torturati e assassinati.

La Libia è divenuta la principale via di transito, in mano a trafficanti di esseri umani, di un caotico flusso migratorio verso l’Europa che, nella traversata del Mediterraneo, provoca ogni anno più vittime dei bombardamenti Nato del 2011.

Perseguitati sono anche i libici accusati di aver sostenuto Gheddafi. Nella città di Tawergha le milizie islamiche di Misurata sostenute dalla Nato (quelle che hanno assassinato Gheddafi) hanno compiuto una vera e propria pulizia etnica, sterminando, torturando e violentando. I superstiti, terrorizzati, hanno dovuto abbandonare la città.

Oggi circa 40.000 vivono in condizioni disumane non potendo ritornare a Tawergha. Perché tacciono quegli esponenti della sinistra che sette anni fa chiedevano a gran voce l’intervento italiano in Libia in nome dei diritti umani violati?

Manlio Dinucci

The escalation of tensions between the United States, Britain and France, on the one hand, and Russia, on the other, should not surprise anyone. In the last few years, the US leadership and mainstream British media have presented Russia as a major threat to global peace and the international order. Russian president Vladimir Putin in particular has been demonised as a ‘war-monger,’ an ‘aggressor,’ an ‘unscrupulous politician’ hell-bent on restoring Russia’s past glory’ at whatever cost.

This projection of Russia as a threat to world peace has intensified in recent days partly because of Putin’s unveiling of Russia’s cutting edge military technologies on 1st March 2018. They include advanced generation missiles with unlimited range and capability that can evade US or NATO anti-missile defences. Apart from the new Sarmat missile, the Russian defence industry has also developed a low-flying stealth missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead with the ability to bypass interception boundaries that is “invincible against all existing and prospective missile defence and counter-air defence systems.”

Putin also revealed that his country has invented “ unmanned submersible vehicles that can move at great depths intercontinentally at a speed multiple times higher than the speed of submarines, … torpedoes and all kinds of surface vessels …“ He also spoke of the Kinzhal or dagger system, “a high-precision hypersonic aircraft missile system… the only one of its kind in the world.” Not only does the missile fly 10 times faster than the speed of sound but it also delivers nuclear and conventional warheads in a range of over 2.000 kilometers. The Russian president also drew attention to the development of Avangard, a hypersonic missile whose gliding cruise bloc engages in intensive lateral and vertical manoeuvring and is therefore “absolutely invulnerable to any air or missile defence system.”

With these military technologies, Russia has effectively brought to an end the US reign as the world’s sole military superpower. If Putin had made this his goal, it is not because of any obsession with military supremacy. As he explained, the strengthening of Russia’s military prowess was his country’s response to the unilateral US withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002 engineered by President George Bush Junior and Vice-President Dick Cheney. As a consequence of the withdrawal, the US and NATO began deploying missile systems to encircle Russia, as observed by veteran analyst, William Engdahl. Countries that were once part of the demised Soviet Union and the dismantled Warsaw Pact in Eastern Europe were drawn into the US-NATO orbit either formally or informally. Anti-ballistic missile bases were built in Romania and Poland. The US global missile defence system now includes destroyers and cruisers deployed “in close proximity to Russia’s borders.”

It is against this backdrop that one should view another major episode that is responsible for the current tension between the West and Russia. It is true that the Russian annexation of Crimea, then part of Ukraine, in early 2014 had incensed the US and European elites and led to the imposition of crippling sanctions against Russia. While the annexation itself in strict legal terms was a violation of international law, an honest analysis of the episode cannot afford to ignore the larger geopolitical concerns that prompted Moscow to act the way it did. By organising a coup against Ukraine’s democratically elected president in February 2014, the US and its local surrogates demonstrated clearly that they intended to tighten their grip over a land that was not only part of the Soviet Union but also integral to Russian history and culture. Crimea with its strategic port was what the US and NATO coveted. It was all interwoven into the US-NATO agenda of expanding eastwards and emasculating Russia. That the overwhelming majority of the citizens of Crimea endorsed in a referendum conducted on the 16th of March 2014 what they viewed as the restoration of Crimea to its Russian fatherland testifies to the actual feelings of the people — feelings informed by a notion of identity and a sense of justice.

There is yet another recent development that has also contributed towards the exacerbation of tensions between the two sides. It is obvious that the rebels and terrorists in Syria fighting the Assad government backed by the centres of power in the West and supported by their allies in the region have been defeated. The concerted drive to crush the Hezbollah-Syria-Iran triumvirate opposed to Israeli occupation and US hegemony in West Asia has been thwarted. Since Russia played a significant role in the defeat of the US and Israel and their partners, the antagonism towards Putin among the elites in Washington and Tel Aviv in particular has heightened. Providing material support to some of the rebels and terrorists holed up in Eastern Ghouta, one of their last few footholds in Syria is a desperate attempt by Washington to ensure that it remains relevant to the emerging post-war political scenario. Highlighting the alleged use of chemical agents by the Syrian Army and the killing of children in government aerial bombardments are tools of propaganda that the Western media have exploited to the hilt in the Syrian war in spite of the effective demolition of some of these lies and half-truths in the past by independent Western journalists themselves reporting and analysing from actual zones of conflict in the country. For Western elites and their media it is not the death of children — after all many children have been killed in Yemen — that is their real concern. It is how Russia has anchored and buttressed its position in Syria and the region as a whole and has challenged American-Israeli hegemony that causes great distress.

The latest manifestation of the incessant manipulation of issues pertaining to Russia is of course the alleged use of a nerve agent, “Novichok” to attempt to murder a Russian double agent, Sergei Skripal and his daughter now living in Salisbury Britain. British authorities have offered no concrete proof that the attempted murder was the work of the Russian state. The Russian government has vehemently denied the allegation.

One should ask, what would the Russian government and Putin gain from killing Skripal a week before the Russian presidential election and in the midst of US sanctions? This is the question that the well-known American columnist, Eric Margolis, poses. A former British diplomat, Craig Murray, also doubts that the Russian government had the motivation to kill a double agent who was part of a spy swap some years ago. He suggests the assassination bid may be linked to an outfit known as ‘Orbis Intelligence’ or to the Israeli Mossad. In Murray’s words,

“Israel has a clear motivation for damaging the Russian reputation so grievously. Russian action in Syria has undermined the Israeli position in Syria and Lebanon in a fundamental way, and Israel has every motive for damaging Russia’s international position by an attack aiming to leave the blame on Russia.”

If Israel’s hand is behind the Skripal episode, the truth will never be known. Neither Britain nor any of the other Western powers, not even the UN, would want to conduct an honest, independent investigation. All that Washington and its allies want to do is to increase and expand the economic and financial sanctions against Russia — using Skripal as the excuse.

The aim is clear. It is to compel Moscow to submit to the hegemonic power of the Washington elite. Anyone who has a rudimentary understanding of Russian history knows that this will not happen. Russia will continue to resist. And Russian resistance may well hold the key to a different future for humankind.

*

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar is the President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST). He is a correspondent for Asia-Pacific Research and a frequent contributor to Global Research. 

The Russian presidential elections are blissfully over, for they were extremely nasty and embarrassing. Mr Putin could have won more modestly and plausibly. The election results would make Turkmenistan proud, if not North Korea. The turnout was quite high, 68%. The incumbent President received almost 77% of the vote, while his main contender Mr Grudinin’s share has been announced at less than 12%.

Theresa May and Boris Johnson were prominent contributors to Vladimir Putin’s landslide victory. Their ultimatum to Russia, their baseless accusations, and their threats mobilised millions of Russians who weren’t inclined to go to the polls at all. Before the Salisbury affair, a lot of Russians were indifferent to the forthcoming elections. They felt it made little sense to take part in the show with predefined results. However, the British hard line regarding the murky story of an assassination attempt changed the public mood.

Were the results falsified? Probably, up to a point, and quite unnecessarily, too.

The first true results coming from the Russian Far East gave over 20% to the Communist, and about 60% to Putin. It seems that the administration overseers who reportedly had backdoor access to the results decided to ‘improve’ them forcefully. The results received after that were already adjusted for desired numbers.

In the far-away Yakut province, with its mind-boggling frost of minus 35 ° below zero, the Communist contender has got almost 30% of the vote. In the Vladivostok province, in the region facing Japan, Grudinin has got over 20%, likewise in the Siberian university city of Omsk. On the other side, in the notoriously dishonest and despotic Muslim republic of Chechnya the contender was given less than 5%.

My guess is that true un-cooked results would be between 18% and 25% for the Communist, and correspondingly, around 60-65% for the incumbent, still good enough for Putin’s outright win, but not good enough for his zealous aides.

The veteran nationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky got less than 6%. So much for the predictions of my esteemed colleague Anatoly Karlin: he quoted VTSIOM’s prognoses of 6% for Grudinin and 7% for Zhirinovsky (or other way around) as reliable numbers. These two men, and these two parties are just not in the same league. Zhirinovsky’s National-Democratic Party is likely to disappear unless radically revamped; the Communists have a solid following. And sociologist prognoses are of little value nowadays: they are tools of psychological warfare against the voter.

Miss Xenia Sobchak, the leading liberal and pro-Western candidate, was treated softly and gently by the state media. She had positive coverage every day of the election campaign. She is supposed to be a godchild of Mr Putin, and a daughter of Mr Putin’s senior colleague, the former Petersburg Mayor, and of Mrs Narusova, a member of the Russian Senate. She got the votes of Mr Navalny who was banned from running due to his criminal conviction. Still she had received one and a half per cent of the vote, showing little support for an active pro-Western agenda.

The remaining candidates were also-run, getting around one per cent or less. However, they played an important role in the Kremlin election strategy of undermining Mr Grudinin’s appeal. The main medium the Russian people have to learn of the candidates is through the state-owned TV, and its two programs: one, reports of the Central Election Board, and the debates of the candidates.

The reports were biased against Pavel Grudinin (image on the right); practically every report contained some negative news about him. The official posters with the names of the contenders issued by the CEB contained a claim that the CEB could not verify Mr Grudinin’s information.

The debates were even worse: Putin was exempt, while the remaining seven contenders were given four minutes each to state their cause and one minute to respond. Thus the real leading contender Mr Pavel Grudinin and a Kremlin spoiler fake “also-communist” Mr Suraykin (he received 0.67% of the vote) were given the same exposure. Mr Suraykin brought to the debates a person who claimed she was cheated by Mr Grudinin, and this person was allowed to participate in the debates (imagine Mrs Clinton bringing Stormy Daniels to the debates with Donald Trump). Mr Zhirinovsky swore freely at Grudinin and at Miss Sobchak, the only female of the lot. All in all, the impression created was that of a pack of clowns in a provincial circus.

The Russians have called this shameful show Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs. Snow White was surely Mr Putin, who didn’t participate in the debates and thus had been projected as one standing above the crowd.

This technique was supplemented by the dominance of pro-Putin trolls in the social networks. They roamed the Russian networks aggressively commenting on posts supporting Putin’s rivals.

It was alleged the administration bought the allegiance of some well-known independent leftists, and they traveled around Russia preaching against Grudinin as “not a real Communist.” These people could hardly afford to fly around those long Russian distances unless somebody were footing the bill.

This dirty campaign was quite unnecessary: Putin would win with less effort and less intimidation, too. I’d guess that zealous Russian officials went into overkill hoping to curry favour with the Commander-in-Chief. Alas, this is typical for Russia: the officials know neither limits nor decency in pursuing the perceived goals of their superiors.

I do not think Mr Putin personally approved, or was aware of these tactics, but that is what happens when every official tries his best (or his worst) to reach and overreach the goal.

The leading contender Mr Grudinin had more problems at home. His party KPRF (the Communist Party) didn’t try hard to help him. He was an outsider, like Mr Trump had been an outsider for the Republicans. I was told that in many cities, the KPRF officials quietly sabotaged the campaign and spent the state-assigned election funds for their own benefits.

The Party leader Mr Zyuganov didn’t want to part with the limelight; he insisted on accompanying the candidate and speaking instead of him. There were very few videos of the campaign free of Mr Zyuganov’s overwhelming presence.

After the elections, Mr Zyuganov expressed satisfaction with the results and called upon Mr Putin to appoint his erstwhile rival Mr Grudinin as a new Prime Minister. Mr Grudinin refrained from seconding this call.

As a part of anti-Grudinin campaign, his Jewish ancestry was addressed in the social networks, even by the “leftists”, though he is not more ‘Jewish’ that John Kerry or Vladimir Lenin. He is not the only candidate with Jewish ancestry: Mr Zhirinovsky has some Jewish blood, too. It doesn’t mean much in Russia, outside ultra-nationalist circles.

A big part of Russian educated classes has some Jewish ancestry: after all, the Soviet Jews freely intermarried with the ethnic Russians for the last hundred years, with majority marrying outside of the community. Children of mixed marriages usually identified themselves as Russians; those who identified themselves as Jewish left for Israel. There they learned that the Jews do not consider them being members of the Chosen People, and many of them trekked back to Russia, cured of their illusions. However, Jewishness or otherwise of the candidates hasn’t been played up much in the course of the elections.

The Russian elections weren’t as bad as in, say, Egypt, where practically all contenders were arrested and jailed; opposition parties banned; exception being made for a candidate personally devoted to the incumbent president. Comparison with Iran is not that clear-cut. In Iran, the contenders are vetted by a board of ayatollas; in Russia, they are vetted by the Presidential Administration, a non-constitutional body that has sweeping powers over the country’s political life. However, in Iran there is a real struggle between the candidates, albeit moderated by the clergy; while in Russia there is no real struggle.

There are historical reasons for it. Russia lacks democratic traditions, but it is not tyrannical, for the Russian people love their rulers, and usually approve of them. The Tsars were loved, the General Secretaries were loved all the way to the last one. Yeltsin was loved at least until 1995. And now the Russians love Putin. He is a legitimate ruler as long as he retains love of his people.

It would be nice to have a less authoritarian model, but perhaps this model fits Russian national character. Amazingly, it could have been different but for the American intervention. In 1991, Russia had a democratic constitution, but after 1993 when Yeltsin shelled the Parliament, the US advisers created a constitution for Russia with its unhindered authoritarian presidential rule in order to prevent the restoration of Communism. Now the Americans have no right to complain: they made it themselves.

It is good that Putin is a rather successful ruler, careful and cautious. Though his last election has not been as fair as one would like, he undoubtedly enjoys massive support. Let us hope he will use this landslide result as an opening for reforming Russia in the right direction for the benefit of the Russian people.

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This article was first published at The Unz Review.

Israel Shamir is a frequent contributor to Global Research. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured image is from the author.

We have witnessed in full view how a shadowy global operation involving dark money, big data and American billionaires influenced the result of the EU referendum. If anyone still thinks that the EU referendum resulting in Brexit was democracy in action – then it’s time to wake up to reality.

Last year, TruePublica published a series of articles on the subject of how Brexit came about, one example being – “How Brexit Was Engineered By Foreign Billionaires To Bring About Economic Chaos – For Profit.” Today, vindication arrives in the form of the mainstream media falling over themselves by covering what this website was saying all along; that unregulated corporations like Facebook and foreign billionaires such as those funding organisations like Cambridge Analytica had an eye on exploiting a new market and in its wake destroyed what was left of democracy in Britain. Don’t think the Conservative party in Britain did not know what was going on – this was an engineered result.

The Verge headlines with: Cambridge Analytica’s use of Facebook data was a ‘grossly unethical experiment.’ The article gives massive wriggle-room to Facebook by saying

“On Friday, Facebook announced that it had suspended Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) and its political data analytics company, Cambridge Analytica, for violating its Terms of Service, by collecting and sharing the personal information of up to 50 million users without their consent.”

This article is one day old and mentions nothing at all about Britain’s EU referendum, which was subject to the same treatment as the US presidential election.

Are FB really trying to tell us that they handed over 50 million customer details to a third party company – no questions asked. With one quick search we found out that SCL specialises in political manipulation using military style tactics and strategies.

Being charitable you could say that FB took the money irrespective of the consequences. But it is far more likely that there is more to this story than meets the eye.

Carole Cadwalladr from the Observer/Guardian is vindicated as well with her Cambridge Analytica Files:

For more than a year we’ve been investigating Cambridge Analytica and its links to the Brexit Leave campaign in the UK and Team Trump in the US presidential election.”

Her latest article confirms what we have been reporting – that the British electorate has been subject to a campaign equivalent to cyberwarfare.

This is confirmed with Cadwalladre writing –

“Its (SCL) defence arm was a contractor to the UK’s Ministry of Defence and the US’s Department of Defense, among others. Its expertise was in “psychological operations” – or psyops – changing people’s minds not through persuasion but through “informational dominance”, a set of techniques that includes rumour, disinformation and fake news. SCL Elections had used a similar suite of tools in more than 200 elections around the world.” 

SCL’s offices are described as being a place of “cutting-edge cyberweaponry.” Russia, Facebook, Trump, Mercer, Bannon, Brexit – every one of these threads runs through Cambridge Analytica says the article.

The Facebook data story along with the threads that left crumbs for us to follow is now out in the open and the damning evidence needs further official scrutiny.

Britain’s Information Commissioner is now forced into seeking a warrant to Cambridge Analytica’s systems. Facebook cannot simply deny its dubious role. If nothing else having $37 billion wiped off the share value of Facebook in little more than one day will worry investors enough to question its CEO as it goes from one crisis to the next in different countries around the world.

The Guardian ends up by quoting Tamsin Shaw, a philosophy professor at New York University, and the author of a recent New York Review of Books article on cyberwar and the Silicon Valley economy. She said she’d pointed to the possibility of private contractors obtaining cyberweapons that had at least been in part funded by US defence and points out that “the whole Facebook project” has only been allowed to become as vast and powerful as it has because of the US national security establishment.

At TruePublica we were able to connect the dots.  That these corporations, their billionaire facilitators, the American ‘deep state’ and certain members of the Tory party effectively attacked Britain by skirting around democracy with new technologies. They have now handed over to the next stage in the campaign to take over Britain. This scandal has since been overshadowed by the current political elite lying though their teeth on the Novichok/Russia scam to divert the story of massive political meddling by our so-called ally from across the pond.

The Brexit negotiations will fundamentally fail, as they have been all along, paving the way for new corporate freedoms not witnessed in Britain by handing them over to American corporations.

As George Monbiot wrote recently –

“When corporations free themselves from trade unions, they curtail the freedoms of their workers. When the very rich free themselves from tax, other people suffer through failing public services. When financiers are free to design exotic financial instruments, the rest of us pay for the crises they cause.”

We have been warned about how food standards will fall, not because of the EU negotiations but because of low American standards.

We have been warned that a US trade deal would be a health and safety disaster.

We have been warned that banned products sold in post-Brexit Britain as a result of doing business the American way will hurt literally everyone in Britain one way or another.

We have been warned that the NHS will be privatised and American corporations given a free trip to new profits at the expense of the nations health. Theresa May has refused to rule out giving US companies full access to NHS contracts as part of a future trade deal with Donald Trump’s White House.

Now that the EU referendum result is what it is – the next attack is coming from within.

An unprecedented drive to lobby ministers to ditch strict EU safety standards in order to secure a US trade deal has ben drawn up by a transatlantic group of conservative thinktanks. The Guardian reported only last month that these “shadow trade-talks” include nearly a dozen leading rightwing and libertarian groups from the UK and the US. They are are preparing to push their “ideal free trade agreement” that would allow the import of US meats, drugs and chemicals banned in Britain.

These often shadowy groups, again funded by dark money, are pushing for, amongst other things, environmental protections to be lifted. The project is being overseen by the Initiative for Free Trade (IFT), an organisation founded by the hard-Brexit advocate and Tory MEP Daniel Hannan.

That deal includes Britain recognising US standards. The Guardian continues:

“US exporters of agricultural produce – beef, for instance – would have a brand new market to sell to, and British consumers a cheaper alternative to the current options.”

That cheaper option as they put it is laced with growth hormones, antibiotics, GMO feed and quite probably other undisclosed chemicals.

Greenpeace UK’s policy director Dr Doug Parr said:

“This network of secretive pressure groups is trying to hijack US-UK trade talks to impose its anti-regulation agenda. They want a free-for-all Brexit that waters down rules on food safety, animal welfare and nature protection. It’s the exact opposite of the green vision promised by Theresa May.”

A spokesperson for the IFT said of the leaked document where this information emanated from –

“If consumers don’t want to buy products made to different standards to our own, they will see the US flag on the packet and not buy it.”

That is exactly the type of response you’d expect from a free marketeer who cares nothing at all for public protection systems built up over the generations.

Professor Luis Suarez-Villa (Social Ecology and of Planning, Policy and Design at the University of California, Irvine) wrote in the FT recently:

“The largest, wealthiest corporations have gained unprecedented power and influence in contemporary life. From cradle to grave the decisions made by these entities have an enormous impact on how we live and work, what we eat, our physical and psychological health, what we know or believe, whom we elect, and how we deal with one another and with the natural world around us.

At the same time, government seems ever more subservient to the power of these oligopolies, providing numerous forms of corporate welfare—tax breaks, subsidies, guarantees, and bailouts—while neglecting the most basic needs of the population.”

This is what America has in store for us – a system of legalised corruption on a grand scale. John W Whitehead, constitutional attorney in the USA writes in his article  “The Government Is Still the Enemy of Freedom‘ –

“Truth be told, we live in a dictatorship disguised as a democracy where all that we own, all that we earn, all that we say and do—our very lives—depends on the benevolence of government agents and corporate shareholders for whom profit and power will always trump principle. And now the government is litigating and legislating its way into a new framework where the dictates of petty bureaucrats carry greater weight than the inalienable rights of the citizenry.”

Having ruined their own country for profit, they are coming to ruin another for profit, but this time, it’s ours. Britain.

As mentioned right at the beginning of this article – If anyone still thinks that the EU referendum resulting in Brexit was democracy in action – then it’s time to wake up to reality.

After all, why would the Government Make It Illegal For Corporations To Speak About Brexit?

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Featured image is from TruePublica.

Events in Syria increasingly resemble a direct confrontation between major powers rather than a proxy war. Lavrov’s words, delivered a few days ago, reveal the critical phase of international relations the world is going through, with a potentially devastating conflict ready to ignite in the Middle East region.

An alarming warning by Sergei Lavrov and Chief of the Russian General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, was announced via the RT broadcaster and several Russian media. The content is explosive and deserving of the widest possible dissemination. Gerasimov claimed that Moscow had “reliable information that fighters are preparing to stage the use by government troops of chemical weapons against the civilian population.” He alleged that the US intends to accuse Assad’s troops of using chemical weapons against civilians, and then “carry out a bombing attack” on Damascus. Gerasimov warned that Russia would “take retaliatory measures” if the US targeted areas where its military are located in the Syrian capital. “Russian military advisers, representatives of the Center for Reconciliation and members of military police” are currently in the Syrian capital, Gerasimov said, adding that in the event that the lives of Russian military personnel are placed in danger, the Russian Armed Forces will respond with certain measure to both “missiles” and their “launchers”. A few hours earlier, Lavrov responded, “criticizing the remarks by the US envoy to the UN, Nikki Haley, about Washington’s readiness to “bomb Damascus and even the presidential palace of Bashar Assad, regardless [of the] presence of the Russian representatives there.” “It is an absolutely irresponsible statement,” the Russian top diplomat added.

The words of Gerasimov (image on the right) are even more dire, since he explains how the United States and its allies are preparing the ground to justify an attack on Syria. According to reports, terrorists stationed in Al-Tanf (an illegal US military base in Syria) received 20 tons of chlorine gas and detonators, disguised as cigarette packs, in order to attack in an area under the control of the terrorists that is densely inhabited by civilians. What would then happen is already obvious, with the White Helmets (AKA Al-Qaeda) and mainstream media ready to broadcast the images of the victims of the attack, tugging at the heartstrings of Western viewers otherwise unaware of the conspiracy being played out. Efforts to frame Russia have already reached the highest alert levels, with the false-flag poisoning of the Russian spy in the United Kingdom. It seems that there is a significant effort by the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany to provoke a military confrontation with Moscow. How else are we able to interpret threats from Macron to strike Damascus, together with his ominous advice to foreign journalists not to go to Damascus in the coming days and, for those already there, to leave the capital immediately? There has even been chatter within diplomatic circles that suggest that UN personnel are leaving Damascus. This could be psychological warfare, or it could be a prelude to war. With the stakes so high, we cannot afford to ignore any detail, even if it may be disinformation. The American attack seems imminent, with mounting signs of movements of American and Russian warships in the Mediterranean in attack formation.

Russian military representatives have reiterated that in the event of an attack, they will respond by hitting both the missiles launched as well as the ships from which the missiles were launched. Things are getting pretty dicey, and the risk of a direct confrontation between the United States and the Russian Federation are rising with every passing hour. The transfer of numerous US aircraft from Incirlik, Turkey, to Al-Azrak, Jordan, is another indication of preparations for an attack, since the forces moved to Jordan are close to the Al-Tanf base. The proposed strategy could involve an assault on the city of Daraa, for the purposes of securing the borders between Syria and Jordan and Syria and Israel.

The warnings raised by Lavrov and Gerasimov appear unprecedented, given that they detail a plan already set in course, evidently approved at the highest levels and aimed at provoking and justifying an attack on Syria; and attack that would encompass the Russian forces in Syria. Tensions continue to grow, following Russia’s shooting down of a drone by two surface-to-air missiles launched from its Hmeimim Air Base. Moscow has even deployed to the Mediterranean the Admiral Grigorovich-class frigate Admiral Essen and the Krivak II-class anti-submarine frigate Pytivyy. Both are prepared for anti-ship and anti-submarine operations. Sources claim that this deployment was planned some time ago and is part of a routine deployment of the Russian navy. But during such a delicate moment, it pays to focus on every detail. Without resorting to excessive alarmism, if Lavrov said that “the movements of the warships of the United States and its allies in the Mediterranean seem compatible with the strategy of using this chemical attack to justify an attack on the Syrian Arab army and government installations”, then it is reasonable to speculate on whether the Russian ships are moving in to the area to counter any provocations.

There are two fundamental flaws in the reasoning of US policy-makers and the US military establishment. They are convinced that an American demonstration of strength (involving a large number of cruise missile launched against Syria through a significant involvement of aircraft carriers as well as bombers) would stun Russia into passivity. Furthermore, US military generals are convinced that Syria and Russia do not have the ability to defend themselves for an extended period of time. They seem to be fooling themselves with their own propaganda. As their Israeli colleagues have already learned, such an assumption is mistaken. While the idea that a high level of firepower would meet with some kind of success, the possibility of a response from Syrian and Russian forces remains. And this possibility seems not to have been given sufficient weight by the US and her allies.

How would the American military and the Trump presidency react to a US warship being sunk by anti-ship missiles? It would only serve to demonstrate how vulnerable American naval forces are when confronted with such advanced weapons. It would represent a tremendous shock for the US military, possibly the biggest shock since the end of WWII. What would Trump and the generals in charge do? They would respond with further bombardment of Russian forces, leaving themselves open to a devastating Russian response. The conflict could escalate within the space of a few minutes, leading to a situation where there could be no possible winners.

The normal reasoning I employ when considering total annihilation is placed to one side when US special forces deliver 20 tons of chlorine gas to Al Qaeda terrorists in Syria order to execute a false flag for the purposes of blaming Damascus and Moscow. If we connect this event to what is currently happening in the United Kingdom, and the hysteria in the United States surrounding alleged Russian hacking during the American elections, we can understand just how much international relations have deteriorated. This situation is reminiscent of Ukraine in 2015. Ukrainian forces suffered repeated defeats at the hands of the Donbass resistance, being contained in the thousands in different “cauldrons“. Within NATO headquarters in Brussels during that time, there were open discussion over sending a contingent to support Ukrainian troops. The plan, however, was never realized, given the possibility of direct confrontation in Ukraine between the Russian Federation and NATO.

In recent months, the possibility of a war on the Korean Peninsula has also been evoked and perhaps simultaneously averted by the unpredictable consequences for both Seoul and the American forces in the region.

In Syria, the approach of Washington and its diplomatic and military emissaries seems more reckless and less tied to a chain of command where the buck stops at the American president. It seems that the US deep state in Syria has a greater and more hidden control over American forces, sabotaging every agreement made between Moscow and Washington. We saw this during the Obama presidency, where the US Air Force bombed government troops in Deir ez-Zor only a few hours after a ceasefire had been reached between Lavrov and Secretary of State Kerry.

The grave circumstance about which we write seem to be without precedent, seeming as they do to lead towards a direct confrontation between nuclear-armed powers. Alas, in such circumstances, we can only hope for the best but prepare for the worst; we can only wait to read on the mainstream media notifications of the latest chemical attack in Syria. We can only hope that there is someone in Washington retaining enough sense to factor in the devastating consequences of an attack on Damascus and the Russian forces in the region.

Never before has the region been on the verge of such an explosion as in the next few hours — as a result of the typically reckless actions of the United States.

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This article was originally published on Strategic Culture Foundation.

Federico Pieraccini is an independent freelance writer specialized in international affairs, conflicts, politics and strategies. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author.

Robert Jackson, the Chief United States Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals, once denounced aggressive war as “the greatest menace of our time.” With much of Europe laying in smoldering ruin, he said in 1945 that “to initiate a war of aggression … is not only an international crime: it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of whole.”

When it comes to the U.S. invasion of Iraq 15 years ago today, the accumulated evil of the whole is difficult to fully comprehend. Estimates of the war’s costs vary, but commonly cited figures put the financial cost for U.S. taxpayers at upwards of a trillion dollars, the cost in Iraqi lives in the hundreds of thousands, and U.S. soldier deaths at nearly 5,000. Another 100,000 Americans have been wounded and four million Iraqis driven from their homes as refugees.

As staggering as those numbers may be, they don’t come close to describing the true cost of the war, or the magnitude of the crime that was committed by launching it on March 19-20, 2003. Besides the cost in blood and treasure, the cost to basic principles of international justice, long-term geopolitical stability, and the impacts on the U.S. political system are equally profound.

Lessons Learned and Forgotten

Although for a time, it seemed that the lessons of the war were widely understood and had tangible effects on American politics – with Democrats, for example, taking control of Congress in the midterm elections of 2006 based primarily on growing antiwar sentiment around the country and Barack Obama defeating Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primaries based largely on the two candidates’ opposing views on the Iraq War – the political establishment has, since then, effectively swept these lessons under the rug.

One of those lessons, of course, was that proclamations of the intelligence community should be treated with huge grain of salt. In the build-up to war with Iraq a decade and a half ago, there were those who pushed back on the politicized and “cherry-picked” intelligence that the Bush administration was using to convince the American people of the need to go to war, but for the most part, the media and political establishment parroted these claims without showing the due diligence of independently confirming the claims or even applying basic principles of logic.

For example, even as United Nations weapons inspectors, led by Swedish diplomat Hans Blix, were coming up empty-handed when acting on tips from the U.S. intelligence community, few within the mainstream media were willing to draw the logical conclusion that the intelligence was wrong (or that the Bush administration was lying). Instead, they assumed that the UN inspectors were simply incompetent or that Saddam Hussein was just really good at hiding his weapons of mass destruction.

Yet, despite being misled so thoroughly back in 2002 and 2003, today Americans show the same credulousness to the intelligence community when it claims that “Russia hacked the 2016 election,” without offering proof. Liberals, in particular, have hitched their wagons to the investigation being led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is widely hailed as a paragon of virtue, while the truth is, as FBI Director during the Bush administration, he was a key enabler of the WMD narrative used to launch an illegal war.

Mueller testified to Congress that “Iraq has moved to the top of my list” of threats to the domestic security of the United States.

“As we previously briefed this Committee,” Mueller said on February 11, 2003, “Iraq’s WMD program poses a clear threat to our national security.”

He warned that Baghdad might provide WMDs to al-Qaeda to carry out a catastrophic attack in the United States.

Mueller drew criticism at the time, including from FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley, for conflating Iraq and al-Qaeda, with demands that the FBI produce whatever evidence it had on this supposed connection.

Today, of course, Mueller is celebrated by Democrats as the best hope for bringing down the presidency of Donald Trump. George W. Bush has also enjoyed a revival of his image thanks largely to his public criticisms of Trump, with a majority of Democrats now viewing the 43rd president favorably. Many Democrats have also embraced aggressive war – often couched in the rhetoric of “humanitarian interventionism” – as their preferred option to deal with foreign policy challenges such as the Syrian conflict.

When the Democratic Party chose Clinton as its nominee in 2016, it appeared that Democrats had also embraced her willingness to use military force to achieve “regime change” in countries that are seen as a threat to U.S. interests – whether Iraq, Iran or Syria.

Hillary Clinton arguing in favor of military action on Oct. 10, 2002.

As a senator from New York during the build-up for military action against Iraq, Clinton not only voted to authorize the U.S. invasion, but fervently supported the war – which she backed with or without UN Security Council authorization. Her speech on the floor of the Senate on Oct. 10, 2002 arguing for military action promoted the same falsehoods that were being used by the Bush administration to build support for the war, claiming for example that Saddam Hussein had “given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al-Qaeda members.”

“If left unchecked,” she said, “Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security.”

Clinton maintained support for the war even as it became obvious that Iraq in fact had no weapons of mass destruction – the primary casus belli for the war – only cooling her enthusiasm in 2006 when it became clear that the Democratic base had turned decisively against the war and her hawkish position endangered her chances for the 2008 presidential nomination. But eight years later, the Democrats had apparently moved on, and her support for the war was no longer considered a disqualification for the presidency.

One of the lessons that should be recalled today, especially as the U.S. gears up today for possible confrontations with countries including North Korea and Russia, is how easy it was in 2002-2003 for the Bush administration to convince Americans that they were under threat from the regime of Saddam Hussein some 7,000 miles away. The claims about Iraq’s WMDs were untrue, with many saying so in real time – including by the newly formed group Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, which was regularly issuing memoranda to the president and to the American people debunking the falsehoods that were being promoted by the U.S. intelligence community.

But even if the claims about Iraq’s alleged stockpiles were true, there was still no reason to assume that Saddam Hussein was on the verge of launching a surprise attack against the United States. Indeed, while Americans were all but convinced that Iraq threatened their safety and security, it was actually the U.S. government that was threatening Iraqis.

Far from posing an imminent threat to the United States, in 2003, Iraq was a country that had already been devastated by a U.S.-led war a decade earlier and crippling economic sanctions that caused the deaths of 1.5 million Iraqis (leading to the resignation of two UN humanitarian coordinators who called the sanctions genocidal).

Threats and Bluster

Although the invasion didn’t officially begin until March 20, 2003 (still the 19th in Washington), the United States had been explicitly threatening to attack the country as early as January 2003, with the Pentagon publicizing plans for a so-called “shock and awe” bombing campaign.

“If the Pentagon sticks to its current war plan,” CBS News reported on January 24, “one day in March the Air Force and Navy will launch between 300 and 400 cruise missiles at targets in Iraq. … [T]his is more than the number that were launched during the entire 40 days of the first Gulf War. On the second day, the plan calls for launching another 300 to 400 cruise missiles.”

A Pentagon official warned: “There will not be a safe place in Baghdad.”

These public threats appeared to be a form of intimidation and psychological warfare, and were almost certainly in violation of the UN Charter, which states:

“All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”

The Pentagon’s vaunted “shock and awe” attack began with limited bombing on March 19-20, as U.S. forces unsuccessfully attempted to kill Hussein. Attacks continued against a small number of targets until March 21, when the main bombing campaign began. U.S.-led forces launched approximately 1,700 air sorties, with 504 using cruise missiles.

During the invasion, the U.S. also dropped some 10,800 cluster bombs on Iraq despite claiming that only a fraction of that number had been used.

“The Pentagon presented a misleading picture during the war of the extent to which cluster weapons were being used and of the civilian casualties they were causing,” reported USA Today in late 2003.

Despite claims that only 1,500 cluster weapons had been used resulting in just one civilian casualty, “in fact, the United States used 10,782 cluster weapons,” including many that were fired into urban areas from late March to early April 2003.

The cluster bombs killed hundreds of Iraqi civilians and left behind thousands of unexploded bomblets that continued to kill and injure civilians weeks after the fighting stopped.

(Because of the indiscriminate effect of these weapons, their use is banned by the international Convention on Cluster Munitions, which the United States has refused to sign.)

Attempting to kill Hussein, Bush ordered the bombing of an Iraqi residential restaurant on April 7. A single B-1B bomber dropped four precision-guided 2,000-pound bombs. The four bunker-penetrating bombs destroyed the target building, the al Saa restaurant block and several surrounding structures, leaving a 60-foot crater and unknown casualties.

Diners, including children, were ripped apart by the bombs. One mother found her daughter’s torso and then her severed head. U.S. intelligence later confirmed that Hussein wasn’t there.

Resistance and Torture

It was evident within weeks of the initial invasion that the Bush administration had misjudged the critical question of whether Iraqis would fight. They put up stiffer than expected resistance even in southern Iraqi cities such as Umm Qasr, Basra and Nasiriya where Hussein’s support was considered weak, and soon after the fall of the regime on April 9, when the Bush administration decided to disband the Iraqi army, it helped spark an anti-U.S. insurgency led by many former Iraqi military figures.

Despite Bush’s triumphant May 1 landing on an aircraft carrier and his speech in front of a giant “Mission Accomplished” banner, it looked as though the collapse of the Baathist government had been just the first stage in what would become a long-running war of attrition. After the Iraqi conventional forces had been disbanded, the U.S. military began to notice in May 2003 a steadily increasing flurry of attacks on U.S. occupiers in various regions of the so-called “Sunni Triangle.”

These included groups of insurgents firing assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades at U.S. occupation troops, as well as increasing use of improvised explosive devices on U.S. convoys.

Possibly anticipating a long, drawn-out occupation and counter-insurgency campaign, in a March 2003 memorandum Bush administration lawyers devised legal doctrines to justify certain torture techniques, offering legal rationales “that could render specific conduct, otherwise criminal, not unlawful.”

They argued that the president or anyone acting on the president’s orders were not bound by U.S. laws or international treaties prohibiting torture, asserting that the need for “obtaining intelligence vital to the protection of untold thousands of American citizens” superseded any obligations the administration had under domestic or international law.

“In order to respect the President’s inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign,” the memo stated, U.S. prohibitions against torture “must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his Commander-in-Chief authority.”

A victim of U.S. torture at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

Over the course of the next year, disclosures emerged that torture had been used extensively in Iraq for “intelligence gathering.” Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh disclosed in The New Yorker in May 2004 that a 53-page classified Army report written by Gen. Antonio Taguba concluded that Abu Ghraib prison’s military police were urged on by intelligence officers seeking to break down the Iraqis before interrogation.

“Numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees,” wrote Taguba.

These actions, authorized at the highest levels, constituted serious breaches of international and domestic law, including the Convention Against Torture, the Geneva Convention relative to the treatment of Prisoners of War, as well as the U.S. War Crimes Act and the Torture Statute.

They also may have played a role in the rise of the ISIS terror group, the origins of which were subsequently traced to an American prison in Iraq dubbed Camp Bucca. This camp was the site of rampant abuse of prisoners, one of whom, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, later became the leader of ISIS. Al-Baghdadi spent four years as a prisoner at Bucca, where he started recruiting others to his cause.

America’s Weapons of Mass Desctruction

Besides torture and the use of cluster bombs, the crimes against the Iraqi people over the years included wholesale massacres, long-term poisoning and the destruction of cities.

There was the 2004 assault on Fallujah in which white phosphorus – banned under international law – was used against civilians. There was the 2005 Haditha massacre, in which 24 unarmed civilians were systematically murdered by U.S. marines. There was the 2007 “Collateral Murder” massacre revealed by WikiLeaks in 2010, depicting the indiscriminate killing of more than a dozen civilians in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad – including two Reuters news staff.

There is also the tragic legacy of cancer and birth defects caused by the U.S. military’s extensive use of depleted uranium and white phosphorus. In Fallujah the use of depleted uranium led to birth defects in infants 14 times higher than in the Japanese cities targeted by U.S. atomic bombs at close of World War II, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Noting the birth defects in Fallujah, Al Jazeera journalist Dahr Jamail told Democracy Now in 2013:

“And going on to Fallujah, because I wrote about this a year ago, and then I returned to the city again this trip, we are seeing an absolute crisis of congenital malformations of newborn. … I mean, these are extremely hard to look at. They’re extremely hard to bear witness to. But it’s something that we all need to pay attention to, because of the amount of depleted uranium used by the U.S. military during both of their brutal attacks on the city of 2004, as well as other toxic munitions like white phosphorus, among other things.”

A report sent to the UN General Assembly by Dr. Nawal Majeed Al-Sammarai, Iraq’s Minister of Women’s Affairs, stated that in September 2009, Fallujah General Hospital had 170 babies born, 75 percent of whom were deformed. A quarter of them died within their first week of life.

The military’s use of depleted uranium also caused a sharp increase in Leukemia and birth defects in the city of Najaf, which saw one of the most severe military actions during the 2003 invasion, with cancer becoming more common than the flu according to local doctors.

By the end of the war, a number of Iraq’s major cities, including Fallujah, Ramadi, and Mosul, had been reduced to rubble and by 2014, a former CIA director conceded that the nation of Iraq had basically been destroyed.

“I think Iraq has pretty much ceased to exist,” said Michael Hayden, noting that it was fragmented into multiple parts which he didn’t see “getting back together.”

In other words, the United States, using its own extensive arsenal of actual weapons of mass destruction, had completely destroyed a sovereign nation.

Predictable Consequences

The effects of these policies included the predictable growth of Islamic extremism, with a National Intelligence Estimate – representing the consensus view of the 16 spy services inside the U.S. government – warning in 2006 that a whole new generation of Islamic radicalism was being spawned by the U.S. occupation of Iraq. According to one American intelligence official, the consensus was that “the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse.”

The assessment noted that several underlying factors were “fueling the spread of the jihadist movement,” including “entrenched grievances, such as corruption, injustice, and fear of Western domination, leading to anger, humiliation, and a sense of powerlessness,” and “pervasive anti-U.S. sentiment among most Muslims all of which jihadists exploit.”

But rather than leading to substantive changes or reversals in U.S. policies, the strategy agreed upon in Washington seemed to be to double down on the failed policies that had given rise to radical jihadist groups. In fact, instead of withdrawing from Iraq, the U.S. decided to send a surge of 20,000 troops in 2007. This is despite the fact that public opinion was decidedly against the war.

A Newsweek poll in early 2007 found that 68 percent of Americans opposed the surge, and in another poll conducted just after Bush’s 2007 State of the Union Address, 64 percent said Congress was not being assertive enough in challenging the Bush administration over its conduct of the war.

January 27, 2007 march on Washington

An estimated half-million people marched on Washington on Jan. 27, 2007, with messages for the newly sworn in 110th Congress to “Stand up to Bush,” urging Congress to cut the war funding with the slogan, “Not one more dollar, not one more death.” A growing combativeness was also on display in the antiwar movement with this demonstration marked by hundreds of protesters breaking through police lines and charging Capitol Hill.

Although there were additional large-scale protests a couple months later to mark the sixth anniversary of the invasion, including a march on the Pentagon led by Iraq War veterans, over the next year the antiwar movement’s activities steadily declined. While fatigue might explain some of the waning support for mass mobilizations, much of the decline can also surely be explained by the rise of Barack Obama’s candidacy. Millions of people channeled their energies into his campaign, including many motivated by a hope that he represented real change from the Bush years.

One of Obama’s advantages over Clinton in the Democratic primary was that he had been an early opponent of the Iraq War while she had been one of its most vocal supporters. This led many American voters to believe in 2008 that they had elected someone who might rein in some of the U.S. military adventurism and quickly end U.S. involvement in Iraq. But this wasn’t to be the case. The combat mission dragged on well into President Obama’s first term.

War, War and More War

After its well-publicized failures in Iraq, the U.S. turned its attention to Libya, overthrowing the government of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 utilizing armed militias implicated in war crimes and backed with NATO air power. Following Gaddafi’s ouster, his caches of weapons ended up being shuttled to rebels in Syria, fueling the civil war there. The Obama administration also took a keen interest in destabilizing the Syrian government and to do so began providing arms that often fell into the hands of extremists.

The CIA trained and armed so-called “moderate” rebel units in Syria, only to watch these groups switch sides by joining forces with Islamist brigades such as ISIS and Al Qaeda’s affiliate the Nusra Front. Others surrendered to Sunni extremist groups with the U.S.-provided weapons presumably ending up in the arsenals of jihadists or sometimes just quit or went missing altogether.

Beyond Syria and Libya, Obama also expanded U.S. military engagements in countries including Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and sent a surge of troops to Afghanistan in 2009. And despite belatedly withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq, with the last U.S. troops finally leaving on December 18, 2011, Obama also presided over a major increase in the use of drone strikes and conventional air wars.

In his first term, Obama dropped 20,000 bombs and missiles, a number that shot up to over 100,000 bombs and missiles dropped in his second term. In 2016, the final year of Obama’s presidency, the U.S. dropped nearly three bombs every hour, 24 hours a day.

President Obama announces the latest U.S. bombing of Iraq on Sept. 10, 2014.

Obama also had the distinction of becoming the fourth U.S. president in a row to bomb the nation of Iraq. Under criticism for allowing the rise of ISIS in the country, Obama decided to reverse his earlier decision to disengage with Iraq, and in 2014 started bombing the country again. Addressing the American people on Sept. 10, 2014, President Obama said that

“ISIL poses a threat to the people of Iraq and Syria, and the broader Middle East including American citizens, personnel and facilities.”

“If left unchecked,” he continued, “these terrorists could pose a growing threat beyond that region, including to the United States. While we have not yet detected specific plotting against our homeland, ISIL leaders have threatened America and our allies.”

Of course, this is precisely the result that many voices of caution had warned about back in 2002 and 2003, when millions of Americans were taking to the streets in protest of the looming invasion of Iraq. And, to be clear, it wasn’t just the antiwar left urging restraint – establishment figures and paleoconservatives were also voicing concern.

Retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, for example, who served as a Middle East envoy for George W. Bush, warned in October 2002 that by invading Iraq,

“we are about to do something that will ignite a fuse in this region that we will rue the day we ever started.”

Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser in the first Bush administration, said a strike on Iraq “could unleash an Armageddon in the Middle East.”

No matter, Bush was a gut player who had made up his mind, so those warnings were brushed aside and the invasion proceeded.

Campaign 2016

When presidential candidate Donald Trump began slamming Bush for the Iraq War during the Republican primary campaign in 2015 and 2016, calling the decision to invade Iraq a “big fat mistake,” he not only won over some of the antiwar libertarian vote, but also helped solidify his image as a political outsider who “tells it like it is.”

And after Hillary Clinton emerged as the Democratic nominee, with her track record as an enthusiastic backer of virtually all U.S. interventions and an advocate of deeper involvement in countries such as Syria, voters could have been forgiven for getting the impression that the Republican Party was now the antiwar party and the Democrats were the hawks.

As the late Robert Parry observed in June 2016,

“Amid the celebrations about picking the first woman as a major party’s presumptive nominee, Democrats appear to have given little thought to the fact that they have abandoned a near half-century standing as the party more skeptical about the use of military force. Clinton is an unabashed war hawk who has shown no inclination to rethink her pro-war attitudes.”

The antiwar faction within the Democratic Party was further marginalized during the Democratic National Convention when chants of “No More War” broke out during former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s speech. The Democratic establishment responded with chants of “USA!” to drown out the voices for peace and they even turned the lights out on the antiwar section of the crowd. The message was clear: there is no room for the antiwar movement inside the Democratic Party.

While there were numerous factors that played a role in Trump’s stunning victory over Clinton in November 2016, it is no stretch of the imagination to speculate that one of those factors was lingering antiwar sentiment from the Iraq debacle and other engagements of the U.S. military. Many of those fed up with U.S. military adventurism may have fallen for Trump’s quasi-anti-interventionist rhetoric while others may have opted to vote for an alternative party such as the Libertarians or the Greens, both of which took strong stances against U.S. interventionism.

But despite Trump’s occasional statements questioning the wisdom of committing the military to far-off lands such as Iraq or Afghanistan, he was also an advocate for war crimes such as “taking out [the] families” of suspected terrorists. He urged that the U.S. stop being “politically correct” in its waging of war.

So, ultimately, Americans were confronted with choosing between an unreconstructed regime-changing neoconservative Democratic hawk, and a reluctant interventionist who nevertheless wanted to teach terrorists a lesson by killing their children. Although ultimately the neocon won the popular vote, the war crimes advocate carried the Electoral College.

Following the election it turned out that Trump was a man of his word when it came to killing children. In one of his first military actions as president, Trump ordered an attack on a village in Yemen on Jan. 29, 2017, which claimed the lives of as many as 23 civilians, including a newborn baby and an eight-year-old girl, Nawar al-Awlaki.

Nawar was the daughter of the al-Qaeda propagandist and American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in a September 2011 U.S. drone strike in Yemen.

Normalized Aggression

2017, Trump’s first year in office, turned out to be the deadliest year for civilians in Iraq and Syria since U.S. airstrikes began on the two countries in 2014. The U.S. killed between 3,923 and 6,102 civilians during the year, according to a tally by the monitoring group Airwars.

“Non-combatant deaths from Coalition air and artillery strikes rose by more than 200 per cent compared to 2016,” Airwars noted.

While this spike in civilian deaths did make some headlines, including in the Washington Post, for the most part, the thousands of innocents killed by U.S. airstrikes are dismissed as “collateral damage.” The ongoing carnage is considered perfectly normal, barely even eliciting a comment from the pundit class.

This is arguably one of the most enduring legacies of the 2003 invasion of Iraq – an act of military aggression that was based on false pretenses, which brushed aside warnings of caution, and blatantly violated international law. With no one in the media or the Bush administration ever held accountable for promoting this war or for launching it, what we have seen is the normalization of military aggression to a level that would have been unimaginable 20 years ago.

President Bill Clinton launched the Operation Desert Fox bombing campaign on Dec. 16, 1998.

Indeed, I remember well the bombing of Iraq that took place in 1998 as part of Bill Clinton’s Operation Desert Fox. Although this was a very limited bombing campaign, lasting only four days, there were sizable protests in opposition to the military action. I joined a picket of a couple hundred people in front of the White House holding a hand-made sign reading “IMPEACH HIM FOR WAR CRIMES” – a reference to the fact that Congress was at the time impeaching him for lying about a blowjob.

Compare that to what we see today – or, more accurately what we don’t see today – in regards to antiwar advocacy. Despite the fact that the U.S. is now engaged in at least seven military conflicts, there is little in the way of peace activism or even much of a national debate over the wisdom, legality or morality of waging war. Few even raise objections to its significant financial cost to U.S. taxpayers, for example the fact that one day of spending on these wars amounts to about $200 million.

Fifteen years ago, one of the arguments of the antiwar movement was that the war on terror was morphing into a perpetual war without boundaries, without rules, and without any end game. The U.S., in other words, was in danger of finding itself in a state of endless war.

We are now clearly embroiled in that endless war, which is a reality that even Senate war hawk Lindsey Graham acknowledged last year when four U.S. troops were killed in Niger. Claiming that he didn’t know that the U.S. had a military presence in Niger, Graham – who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs – stated that “this is an endless war without boundaries, no limitation on time or geography.”

Although it wasn’t clear whether he was lamenting or celebrating this endless and borderless war, his words should be taken as a warning of where the U.S. stands on this 15^th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq – in a war without end, without boundaries, without limits on time or geography.

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All images in this article are from the author unless otherwise stated.