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UK – 23 year old Chandler Plante, a magazine editor, had “mild COVID” in Dec. 2020, suffered a stroke in March 2021 and lost all vision in her right eye in Nov. 2021. “No one understands why this has happened to me” (source).

This article blames the “mystery illness” on “severe long COVID” which doesn’t make sense. She had mild COVID in Dec. 2020 and then a stroke in March 2021. Chandler is presumed COVID-19 vaccinated (article would focus on her being unvaccinated).

Her illness started as numbness in hands and forearms and she was dismissed as having “anxiety”. By June 28, brain scan showed big ischemic strokes.

By April 2023 she had infusion of a chemo drug rituximab and her side effects are improving significantly.

I suspect she had an autoimmune condition caused by COVID-19 vaccines and her doctors either never figured it out or never told her.

Aug. 24, 2023 – Calamvale, QLD, Australia – Shermayne Peka had headaches and a stroke in Dec. 2022 and her doctors blamed it on a “hole in her heart” which they couldn’t find on later pre-surgery scans. When her headaches returned in July 2023 she was diagnosed with Glioblastoma Grade 4 (TURBO BRAIN CANCER) (source).

Aug. 23, 2023 – Covington, GA – Hailey Sertain had shingles and a stroke. (shingles are a common side-effect of COVID-19 vaccines).

July 17, 2023 – Waukesha, WI – Abelardo Ortega Zarate and his wife Mariana Huerta dreamed of going to Rome, Italy in March 2020 but had to cancel because of COVID-19. They finally went on May 2, 2023 but Mariana suffered a stroke on their first day in Rome and ended up in the ICU. She never recovered and died on July 17. (Source)

July 11, 2023 – Brazil – 24 year old Vanessa Batista dos Santos collapsed and died while exercising in the park, skipping rope (she died of a hemorrhagic stroke).

Click here to view the video

June 13, 2023 – Godfrey, IL – 43 year old Deirdre Copeland had multiple strokes which have been blamed on “an unexpected reaction to rheumatoid medication.”

June 10, 2023 – Brooks, GA – Ashlie Newton had blood clots in her legs and a stroke. She is on the long road to recovery.

April 22, 2023 – Clermont, FL – 34 year old Kaleigh Zimmerman, a nurse and mRNA vaccine activist who fought “vaccine misinformation” suffered a cerebellar stroke. She faces a long road to recovery. The twist: unvaccinated people are donating to her GoFundme to help her recover. (Source)

April 20, 2023 – Atlanta, GA – Zenette Steele suffered a spinal stroke 24 hours after her COVID-19 booster shot. She is now paraplegic (Source).

Dec. 2022 – 45 year old BBC broadcaster Jennie Gow suffered a serious stroke in December 2022. “My speech has been the thing that is most affected”.

June 2022 – 35 year old Irish football player Siobhan McGrath suffered a stroke. “My arms just weren’t functioning properly.

Dec. 26, 2021 – North StaffordShire, UK – 37 year old Charlotte Evans collapsed in the kitchen and had a stroke, she was given 50/50 chance to live.

Nov. 2021 – Sydney, Australia – 37 year old Laura Sharp, stay at home mom of 5, had bad migraines, vision problems, and suffered a stroke. She had no risk factors.

March 2021 – Henderson, NV – 18 year old Emma Burkey had strokes following her one dose of J&J COVID-19 vaccine. She remains confined to a wheelchair in 2023 (Source).

My Take…

It is clear in the early days of COVID-19 mRNA jab rollout, women were collapsing with strokes and their doctors weren’t even considering COVID-19 jabs as a cause.

These “mysterious strokes” in young COVID-19 vaccinated women continue to this day. Women often have other vaccine injuries in addition to their strokes.

UK Govt Disability Data shows how much “clotting disorders” are up in 2022 compared to a pre-pandemic average:

  • age 20-24 is +170%
  • age 25-29 is +278%
  • age 30-35 is +1005%
  • age 35-39 is +700%
  • age 40-44 is +387%
  • age 45-49 is +1427%
  • age 50-54 is +989%

In any COVID-19 vaccinated young woman, any symptoms of a stroke or a TIA (transient ischemic attack) should be considered due to the vaccine until proven otherwise.

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With BRICS set to welcome Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran and the United Arab Emirates to its number, the collaborative group of nations is about to get a major boost in the international arena. 

Not only is Saudi Arabia the world’s top oil exporter, but it’s also the seat of Islam’s holiest sites, making the decision to invite the kingdom an important economic, political and highly symbolic move for the bloc that has so far lacked a Muslim country. 

Egypt, the most populous Arab country, will be another feather in the cap of the BRICS – whose name is an acronym of the current and original members Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Egypt’s presence boosts the bloc’s image as one that is inclusive and representative of various civilisations.

And in a nod to the country’s increasing economic and political influence, the UAE looks set to cement its reputation as a global power broker by joining the group, which will seek to use its influence.

Across the Gulf, Iran’s addition is also meant to carefully manage the power equilibrium between Arab countries and Tehran. China has already signed a 25-year Comprehensive Strategic Partnership agreement with Iran estimated to be worth around $400bn.

And since the Ukraine war, Iran and Russia have drawn closer – united in part by the sanctions levied at them by the West. Tehran’s inclusion also burnishes its global influence, something it has sought to increase.

With Ethiopia and Argentina joining these four Middle Eastern countries as the BRICS’ newest members, a conscious effort to reorganise global leadership is in play. Together they represent about 45 percent of the world’s population and more than a third of global GDP.

As BRICS leaders gathered this week in South Africa’s Johannesburg, a queue of countries from the Middle East and North Africa increasingly expressed a desire to join the group, which is seen as the developing world’s answer to the G7.

Algeria, Bahrain, Kuwait, Morocco and Palestine are just some of the countries that have publicly expressed a desire to join. 

For the Middle East and North Africa, there will likely be political, economic and social ramifications from this realignment, potentially undermining US power in the process.

One Bric at a Time

Evidence of non-western countries playing a decisive role in Middle Eastern diplomatic affairs could already be seen before the BRICS’ expansion.

In March, China brokered a landmark diplomatic breakthrough between Saudi Arabia and Iran, two bitter regional rivals, demonstrating how far the country’s influence in the region has come and taking Washington by surprise in the process.

Notably, the decision to ask Saudi Arabia to become a permanent member of the group was pushed by China in particular, followed by Russia and Brazil, according to reports

“Gulf countries are diversifying their political and economic relations as the world order becomes increasingly multipolar,” Anna Jacobs, a senior Gulf analyst at the International Crisis Group, told Middle East Eye. 

“Economic and political diversification, balancing relations between global powers, and avoiding the pitfalls of great power competition are all essential pillars of Gulf countries’ foreign policies today.”

Increasingly, China exports more to the developing world than to the EU, US and Japan combined, an important shift in global economics that’s also shaping international politics. 

And with the drive towards BRICS including staunch and longstanding US allies such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Arab countries are showing a growing ambition to chart their own path in the world. 

“The US can’t really do much about it,” said Jacobs. “This is a function of the changing multipolar world order and Gulf states are reacting in a way that makes sense for their national interests.”

For the UAE and Saudi Arabia, that has meant forging closer relations with China and Russia where interests converge, much to the chagrin of the US. 

Many in the Global South believe that the US-led international order protects, promotes and enlarges western interests around the world.

For some, including Middle Eastern countries, the BRICS grouping gives hope that they can project their interests in an emerging multipolar order and perhaps even carve out their own sphere of influence.

“Saudi Arabia especially is seeking to become a heavyweight middle power, and increasing ties with both East and West is an important mechanism for doing this,” said Jacobs. 

While Gulf states have made it “clear that the US is their primary external security partner at present” said Jacobs, the reality is that “Gulf states and their economic interests are increasingly in the east and with the developing world”.

A Shift Towards BRICS

The drive to join the BRICS also reflects a nervousness amongst Middle Eastern countries about the power the US exercises over their economic and political development.  

In June, JPMorgan, the biggest US bank, warned that “some signs of de-dollarization are emerging”.

Since 1971, the supremacy of the US dollar system has been a ubiquitous feature of the global financial system, underpinned by a deal between US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and King Faisal of Saudi Arabia that created the petrodollar system.  

“Being married to the dollar means maintaining a dependency upon economic systems that are ultimately controlled by the US and, to a lesser extent, other western nations,” said Jalel Harchaoui, associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. 

The power the US dollar confers on Washington has become increasingly clear in recent years, in particular its use in sanctioning countries and trade wars.  

US weaponisation of the dollar led to Gita Gopinath, the IMF’s first deputy managing director, warning that in time it might erode its role in the world financial system.

“For that reason, many Global South nations are attracted to the concept of belonging to the BRICS club,” said Harchaoui. 

Saudi Arabia’s finance minister, Mohammed al-Jadaan, announced earlier this year that the country was considering trading in other countries alongside the US dollar, something the kingdom hasn’t done in half a century.

“Among Arab nations, Egypt, Algeria and, most recently, Saudi Arabia showed interest in a BRICS currency or currency-swap mechanism that makes it possible to bypass the greenback entirely,” added Harchaoui.

The BRICS countries have already discussed creating a reserve currency that might be backed by gold, which would be a historic return to the gold standard. 

That Saudi Arabia could again be part of this process after helping forge the dollar’s dominance 50 years ago is a tentative indicator that the US-led West may be losing its ability to stamp its authority in the region.

Arab countries joining BRICS, however, does not suggest they are choosing any particular order. 

“Arab and other countries like the idea of not having to choose between the three poles that the world has right now: the US, Russia, and China,” said Harchaoui. 

“Because the US is still extraordinarily powerful, this translates into a shift towards BRICS, even though the reality of all this isn’t quite there yet.”

Countries like Egypt have practical reasons for looking for alternative methods to conduct their trade using currencies and financial systems other than the dollar.

“A country like Egypt sees no reason why it should face great difficulty buying wheat from Russia simply because Putin’s aggression against Ukraine is condemned by Washington,” said Harchaoui.

Algeria faces a similar dilemma, finding it difficult to trade with other developing economies because of the US hold over international trade.

“Algeria would love to purchase weapons or order a nuclear plant from China or Russia without any dollars changing hands,” Harchaoui noted, but “right now, this is not easy at all”.

Post-Ukraine Order

The war in Ukraine might arguably have given BRICS a new burst of energy. 

Many in the Global South, and in particular the Middle East, have either stayed neutral in the conflict or even cooperated with Russia when needed.

But the Arab world is also looking to express disagreements with the US-led western order in ways that might encourage Washington to sit down and listen to those countries’ interests. 

“The hype of Arab countries about joining the BRICS is an extension of a political desire to diversify economic partners in the wake of the Ukraine war,” said Zine Ghebouli, a visiting fellow with the Middle East and North Africa programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“Arab countries want to mark their disagreement with the new emerging Cold War and international hegemony.”

Saudi and UAE leaders are increasingly confident in playing hardball with the US and even diverging from Washington when it doesn’t suit them.

Riyadh even worked with Russia to cut oil production in 2022, in a bid to raise prices that drew an angry response from Washington.

“I think Arab countries’ BRICS candidacy speaks much about a desire to rebalance ties with the overall West and seek alternative partners than just the relationship with the US,” Ghebouli told MEE, adding that “Arab countries are also sending a message to the western world, which could mean rejection of certain development policies.

“However, the BRICS is unlikely to replace western partners. The western status in the Arab region is here to stay even if it is increasingly challenged,” Ghebouli added.

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August 25th, 2023 by Global Research News

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Geopolitics: BRICS De-dollarizing Emerging New World

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Argentina – La política hecha entretenimiento

August 24th, 2023 by Francisco Lemus

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India fully supports the enlargement of the BRICS group and welcomes the progress in this direction, said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi after his arrival in South African Republic to participate in BRICS summit, adding: “We can say that the BRICS group is going to break down barriers, revitalise economies, stimulate innovation, create opportunities and shape the future.”

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa today announced new members of the BRICS group who will officially join the organization on January 1, 2024 –  Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

“We value that BRICS has become a platform for discussing and deliberating on issues of concern for the entire Global South, including development imperatives and reform of the multilateral system,” said Modi a day earlier.

BRICS is not a military alliance and will never become a ‘bloc’ against any other. BRICS’ approach is fundamentally anti-hegemonic and advocates inclusive security and development for all. At the same time, ​multipolarity has spread throughout the Global South, promoting neutrality, strategic autonomy, and resistance to Western pressure. For this reason, many countries have expressed their desire to join BRICS.

The expansion of BRICS will contribute to multipolarity, especially as more countries trade in their national currencies. As more trade occurs outside the dollar zone, alternative currencies will rise, causing the dollar to lose dominance.

The development bank set up by the BRICS countries is planning to issue its first Indian Rupee bond by October. The chief operating officer said the lender is under pressure to make more loans in local currencies appreciating.

“The New Development Bank (NDB) issued its first rand bond in South Africa last week and could consider local currency issuance in members Brazil, Russia and the United Arab Emirates,” said Vladimir Kazbekov, Vice-President and COO of the New Development Bank, ahead of the BRICS Summit.

“We’re going to tap (the) Indian market – rupees – maybe by October in India. Now we start thinking seriously… to use one member country’s currency to finance projects with that currency in another member. Let’s say, a project in South Africa to be financed in CNY (Chinese yuan), not with USD (U.S. dollar),” he added.

At the same time, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is pushing local banks to ask their clients to settle trade between the United Arab Emirates using local currencies – the dirham or rupee. According to five sources speaking to Reuters, this is an effort to reduce US dollar transactions. A government source told Reuters that the RBI may consider setting internal targets for the quantum of India-UAE trade it would like to see moved away from dollars.

After Russia was excluded from the global SWIFT system for money transfers in February 2022, India and Russia decided to settle payments using the Rupee-Ruble route, which has helped circumvent Western sanctions.

In this way, India plays a vital role in de-dollarising the global economy and strengthening multipolarity. Although India has tense relations with China, it has not affected relations with third parties like Russia.

As the Western world became hostile against Russia following the launch of the special military operation, India moved to deepen ties. Russia became India’s third largest trading partner in January-May, marking a new high for bilateral ties between the two countries. Due to New Delhi’s growing energy demand, Russia-India economic ties will continue to expand in the coming years, primarily if subsidised prices are maintained. 

Nearly three-quarters of the growth in crude oil demand between 2022 and 2028 is projected to come from Asia, with India overtaking China as the leading consumer, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a new report. According to IEA, Russia is one of the three largest oil producers in the world. The agency has said oil and gas revenue was to make up 45 per cent of its budget in 2021. According to government data, India will import about 32 million tonnes of crude oil from Russia in 2022-23.

Meanwhile, Russia has emerged as India’s top crude oil supplier. Recently, Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar said that in 2022-23, the trade between India and Russia will exceed $45 billion. This is a phenomenal achievement, considering India has been under immense pressure from the West to join the anti-Russia sanctions.

As Modi said before arriving in South Africa, BRICS will provide opportunities for cooperation in new areas in the Global South. What he did not say, though, but is already expressed in action, is that India will play a pivotal role in providing opportunities for cooperation in the Global South, which begins with the expansion of BRICS.

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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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*** 

On August 23, Serbia officially joined the so-called Crimea Platform, a document propagated by the Kiev regime as the requirement for the “normalization of Russo-Ukrainian relations through the reintegration of Crimea”. The meaninglessness of this word salad is matched only by the prospects of its success. It can be considered a mere formality used by the political West to present the Ukrainian crisis as a “one-sided conflict”. The Crimean Platform also gives a semblance of a supposed diplomatic effort on the part of the United States, but it’s crystal clear that there is no viable way in which it could ever become reality. In simpler terms, the concept is a worthless piece of paper.

Still, the move has been heavily exploited by the Neo-Nazi junta to present a narrative that “even historical Russian allies are turning their back on Moscow”.

It comes a day after a meeting between Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and the Kiev regime frontman Volodymyr Zelensky in Athens, described by both as “good and open”.

Vucic was criticized by many in Serbia for shaking hands with Zelensky, who’s highly unpopular in the country known for being heavily pro-Russian. However, Belgrade is trying to use the opportunity to bolster its Kosovo position. Namely, after the NATO-backed narco-terrorist entity occupying the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohia declared “independence” in 2008, Ukraine never recognized it.

This was always appreciated in Belgrade, although there is no actual continuity of government after the illegal Maidan coup that brought the Neo-Nazi junta to power. The Kiev regime decided not to change this policy for the simple reason that it was not in its interest to demand the “return of Crimea” and the “respect for international law” while supporting the illegal takeover of another country’s territory. For similar reasons, Serbia has officially “condemned” the special military operation (SMO) and it doesn’t recognize Crimea as part of Russia. However, the country has repeatedly refused to impose sanctions on Moscow, despite enormous Western pressure. And indeed, Serbia is the only European country that is yet to do so.

Still, the fact that Belgrade joined the platform has not been taken lightly on the home front. As previously mentioned, President Vucic has been severely criticized for the move, not just by various opposition parties that are looking to profit politically, but by domestic pundits and millions of regular people, many of whom are his supporters. The Serbian people see it as a stab in the back to Russia, a historical ally and a brotherly nation without whom Serbia would’ve never been able to survive centuries of various attacks and invasions from all sides. And yet, there’s no official criticism from Moscow, which might be puzzling for many. In reality, Russia understands Belgrade’s increasingly precarious geopolitical situation.

In addition, some sources are now claiming that under the surface of the largely superficial Athens Declaration that supports and expands the scope of the Crimea Platform, certain key concessions have been made due to Serbian demands. Namely, Belgrade has been dodging attempts to push it into the impotent sanctions coalition that’s been imposed by the US. The political sensitivity of enforcing any sort of restrictions on Moscow, particularly for the sake of the political West, is a red line that the Serbian government doesn’t dare to cross yet. According to Sputnik Globe, President Vucic even insisted that the provision calling for the imposition of sanctions against Russia be removed from the text of the final declaration.

“Due to the resistance of Serbian President Alexander Vucic at an informal dinner for the leaders of the Western Balkans in Athens, the final declaration did not adopt a provision calling for sanctions against Russia,” an unnamed source told Sputnik Globe.

It’s important to note that the consequences of imposing sanctions are not only based on fear of what Moscow might do in response, but also on the reaction of the Serbian people themselves. Although it’s clear that Belgrade is not allowed to show its closeness to the Eurasian giant at this time, it can at least try to maintain a semblance of neutrality or even a mildly pro-Kiev position in order to simply survive. The political West sees Serbs as a pro-Russian element, even a “Trojan horse” of Moscow’s interests in Europe. And indeed, only Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina have not imposed sanctions on Russia. It should be noted that the only reason the latter hasn’t done so is because of Republika Srpska.

Republika Srpska is an effectively independent Serbian entity that’s formally within Bosnia and Herzegovina. It has recently received a lot of flak because its President Milorad Dodik openly stated his support for Russia. All other countries participating in the Athens summit have imposed sanctions against Moscow in one way or the other, many since 2014. The Athens Declaration was signed by presidents of Moldova, Serbia and Montenegro, prime ministers of Romania, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Greece, the narco-terrorist entity in Kosovo and Metohia, as well as Zelensky himself. Needless to say, such a move by the Serbian government is universally disliked at home.

However, it should be noted that it’s more acceptable to sign meaningless declarations that are absolutely inconsequential for Russia than impose sanctions, an unprecedented move that could end up being a political suicide for the current government. In addition, the move also alleviates some of the unrelenting Western pressure on Serbia.

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

Argentina on the Political Brink – Again

August 24th, 2023 by Peter Koenig

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*** 

“Don’t Cry for me Argentina”

Sung by Madonna 

The lyrics:

It won’t be easy, you’ll think it strange
When I try to explain how I feel
That I still need your love after all that I’ve done
You won’t believe me, all you will see is a girl you once knew
Although she’s dressed up to the nines
At sixes and sevens with you
I had to let it happen, I had to change
Couldn’t stay all my life down at heel
 

Looking out of the window, staying out of the sun
So I chose freedom, running around trying everything new
But nothing impressed me at all
I never expected it to

Don’t cry for me, Argentina
The truth is, I never left you
All through my wild days, my mad existence
I kept my promise
Don’t keep your distance

And as for fortune, and as for fame
I never invited them in
Though it seemed to the world they were all I desired
They are illusions, they’re not the solutions they promised to be
The answer was here all the time
I love you, and hope you love me
Don’t cry for me, Argentina

Don’t cry for me, Argentina
The truth is, I never left you
All through my wild days, my mad existence
I kept my promise
Don’t keep your distance

Don’t cry for me, Argentina
The truth is, I never left you
All through my wild days, my mad existence
I kept my promise
Don’t keep your distance
Have I said too much?
There’s nothing more I can think of to say to you
But all you have to do is look at me to know
That every word is true

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These lyrics – melancholic and sad – may have many interpretations. One of them – Eva Peron, who died at the tender age of 33 in 1952, wife of Argentine President Juan Peron (1946 to 1955 and 1973 to 1974). Eva Peron, or Evita, stood by the President’s side. Eva was not only the spiritual leader of Argentina, she also occupied de facto the position of Minister of Labor and Minister of Health.

Eva was a firebrand, a rebel, for those days. Eva revolutionized politics in Argentina. Behind the socialist flavor – as in real social policies – that marked the term Peronism or Peronist Movement, stood Eva Peron.

After President Peron cut off government subsidies to the traditional Sociedad de Beneficencia (Spanish: “Aid Society”), thereby making more enemies among the traditional elite supporters, Eva replaced the subsidies with an Eva Perion Foundation. She received support and donations from labor unions and businesses, as well as substantial contributions from the national lottery and other funds.

Eva used these resources to establish thousands of hospitals, schools, orphanages, homes for the aged, and other charitable institutions.

Eva was also largely responsible for the passage of the women’s suffrage (voting right) and she formed the Feminist Party in 1949.

Eva Peron did all that – she was only 33 years old when she died.

Why is Eva Peron’s story important in the face of the October 2023 Parliamentary and Presidential elections?

This song, Don’t cry for me Argentina – maybe Eva’s spiritual battle song, reminding people, her fellow Argentinians, now that she is here, with them, that she will accompany them through these difficult times and that her heart beats for Argentina, stronger, much stronger than the nefarious beat, attempting once more ruining this Great Country, of educated, smart and willing-to-work people, and resources, for the benefits of a small elite and foreign predators.

The same story, often repeated throughout the world.

Eva’s spirits are here, with the People of Argentina, with this vast and beautiful country – “Don’t Cry for me, I’m with You.”

Flash Forward to 2023

When Argentine Vice-President Cristina Fernandez, wife of the late Nestor Kirchner, officially declared last May that she will not run for the Presidency in October 2023, it sounded like a blow to the Peronist movement. Call it “Kirchner Peronism”. They had done a lot to pull Argentina out from under tons and tons of debt, brought about by US and IMF-inspired President Menem’s 1991 dollarization of Argentina’s economy.

Madame Fernández, who was president in 2007-2015, made her decision public through a statement on her website in which she slammed the judiciary, accusing the courts of trying to forbid her from running for office again, showing the judiciary’s alliance with the opposition.

With her decision, the center-left Fernández throws the ruling Peronist party into disarray amid uncertainty over who could be its candidate in this year’s presidential elections.

The Menem dollarization doctrine was a no-go from the very beginning.

No country can adopt another economy’s currency without an economic failure. It lasted 10 years before 2001 / 2002 the total downfall occurred. Between 40% and 60% of people unemployed, from engineers, to medical doctors, to laborers, all in the streets, some in their finest attires, apologizing that they had to beg for money for survival… it was one of the saddest sights to see.

The Kirchner’s way of Peronism – in the image of Eva – salvaged the country with a 200% devaluation of the Peso – detached from the dollar in 2001. Almost all creditors (97%) participated and finally agreed with the negotiated debt discount. About 75% of the total debt was “forgiven”, including with the blessings of the IMF. Twenty-five percent on average remained to be repaid over a period of ten years.

Argentina was flourishing even through the 2008 / 2010 worldwide economic crisis.

Annual growth fell from an average 10-plus percent to about 4% – 5% during the crisis and then picked up again. Ms. Cristina Fernandez Kirchner, the late Nestor Kirchner’s widow, was elected President carrying out this office until 2015, leaving a recovered country – practically a no-debt country, so to speak – to the next President Mauricio Macri, an extreme right-wing, neoliberal “implant” by the western elite represented by the IMF and the financial cabal behind the IMF.

Mr. Macri, who was Governor of Buenos Aires, won the 2015 election against the pro-Peronist candidate, Daniel Scioli, with the narrowest of margins of 1.4%. Under normal circumstances such a small margin would justify a recount. Election fraud, was in most analysts’ minds. But a recount was not granted. There is a great likelihood that the elections were cooked.

Of course, logical, the IMF and all the western creditors who lost – though by their agreement – large amounts of money during the debt renegotiations – wanted to recover in one way or another their piece of flesh. So, Macri was ideal. He immediately plunged Argentina back into debt, by calling in the IMF, World Bank and all the usual suspicious villains.

In no time, Argentina was back in debt, inflation and unemployment soared, poverty, reduced from close to 70% at the height of the 2001 / 2002 crisis to below 10% when Mme. Cristina Kirchner left the presidency, back to above 40%, in less than two years of Macri regime.

You may call this institutional milking of a nation that worked its way out of a crisis into a comfortable middle-income country… intentional theft by our illustrious, and yes, highly criminal Bretton Woods institutions.

Ms. Cristina being legally pursued – not unlike Donald Trump in the US – so she won’t be seeking the Presidency anymore. Because if she would, chances are she would win by a landslide – and bring her country, Argentina back to the people.

Today, the powers that be, with bought media, is decrying Peronism as populism… like western mainstream bashes everything that distances itself from the hegemonic US-dictated Globalism. Populism is being snubbed by the elite, and by journalists paid to do so, and who have no idea what “populism” really means, namely a political agenda addressing the needs of the people – what better democracy than that!

With Cristina Fernandez out of the way, Peronists were not prepared with an alternative and well-groomed candidate. It comes thus hardly as a surprise that the only real opposition, the ultra-right wing Libertarian party which has an inter-country alliance with the controversial Spanish neonazi Vox party, brings its candidate, Javier Milei to the fore.

Image: Javier Milei in VIVA22. (Licensed under CC0)

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Mr. Javier Milei, is an Argentine politician, calling himself an economist. Since December 2021, Milei has held the position of National Deputy in Buenos Aires. He came literally from nowhere to capture 30% of the electorate in the primaries, and became suddenly the front-runner for the October 2023 Presidential elections. This result has sent shockwaves through the political establishment throughout Latin America.

The Peronists and associated left-leaning parties have vanished; no viable candidates; and the Peronists are not prepared to defeat the neonazi Javier Milei, who has said he would immediately return Argentina to full dollarization, dissolve the Argentine Central Bank – and Argentina would become – again – a full-fledged dollar-economy.

Milei mentioned the ever-troubled Ecuador as a shining example. In January 2000, after a coup, Ecuador’s new ultra-conservative President Gustavo Noboa, with the help of the IMF, adopted as Ecuador’s currency the US-dollar, giving up the Sucre, Ecuador’s real currency. Milei would certainly get the support of the IMF and, naturally, from Washington. They would love the riches of Argentina being dollarized.

Barely 30 years after the disastrous Menem dollarization of 1991 that led to the most catastrophic economic collapse of Latin America’s history – Milei wants to go back, embracing full dollarization. He says it is the only way to fight inflation. Of course not. To the contrary. The cost of living will rise, and so will inflation – and the income, or purchasing power, of the lower income echelons will decline even further.

According to Independent Commodity Intelligence Services (ICIS) which covers worldwide 143 countries, Argentia’s inflation is expected to reach 147% with a decline in GDP of up to 3.5% in 2023. With full dollarization, Argentina may experience a very short decline in inflation (as was the case in the early 1990s), but then – playing with fire – or with the currency of a different economy, the cost of living will likely soar and poverty explode until the economy collapses – when the country is stripped of all her riches.

Reminds – again – of the song by Eva’s spirit,
“Don’t Cry for me, Argentina,
“The truth is, I never left you
“All through my wild days, my mad existence
“I kept my promise…….
“There’s nothing more I can think of to say to you
“But all you have to do is look at me to know
“That every word is true.”

… meaning, “I’m with you, and will not fail you.”

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Latest news, just in from the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa. The BRICS alliance, currently 5 members (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), is inviting 6 new members – Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to join the BRICS group. See this and this.

This is good news for Argentina. Since one of the top priorities of the BRICS, now 11 countries, is de-dollarization. It may be difficult for any president, including the Argentinian presidential candidate Javier Milei to completely dollarize Argentina.

The 11 BRICS members dwarf the G7. The new BRICS comprise more than 50% of the world population and about 40% of the world’s GDP. Compare this to the G7 – 800 million population and 27% of global GDP (2022). How much longer will the G7 continue trying to convince the world that they call the shots?

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Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

Geopolitics: BRICS De-dollarizing Emerging New World

August 24th, 2023 by Prof. Maurice Okoli

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For the five BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) members, de-dollarization has become the latest common buzzword among the English vocabulary. Long before the highly-praised Johannesburg’s 15th BRICS summit, considered as very important step forward on the way to deepening interaction in the sphere of trade and investment with the nations of Global South, all the five BRICS leaders have made it their priority task to find their own common currency so as not to depend on the United States dollar in the emerging new world.

Understandably, the primary reason is to delineate farther away from United States hegemony and global dominance. In fact the BRICS desire to facilitate global de-escalation, provide assistance to each other in solving issues concerning mutual interests and, in future to transact businesses in what they now popularly referred to as BRICS common currency. This question is already enshrined in the final comprehensive document that sets forth the general guidelines and principles of the association after the historic August 22-24 meeting held in South Africa.

South Africa was the summit host. Chinese and Brazilian presidents, the Indian Prime Minister, the Russian Foreign Minister as well as leaders and representatives from some 50 other countries are in attendance. On August 22, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the BRICS business forum, among several significant issues highlighted the accelerating momentum of de-dollarization.

In a virtual address, Putin also criticized the sanctions policy of western states, saying such practice is seriously affecting the international economic situation. He said the unlawful freezing of assets of sovereign states constitutes a violation of free trade and economic cooperation rules.

Putin said that efforts were in progress on creating an international reserve currency based on a basket of currencies of the association’s member-countries. Some experts believe that such a currency may protect the BRICS countries from sanction risks associated with settlements in dollars and euros.

The objective and irreversible process of the de-dollarization of the economic ties is gaining pace. Russia has been working hard to fine-tune effective mechanisms for mutual settlements and monetary and financial control. As a result, the share of US dollar in export and import operations within BRICS is declining: last year it stood at only 28.7 percent, according to the Russian leader.

Russia has always advocated for switching trade between member countries away from the U.S. dollar and into national currencies, a process in which the BRICS’ New Development Bank would play a big role.

“The objective, irreversible process of de-dollarization of our economic ties is gaining momentum,” he said.

He also urged BRICS to increase its role in the international monetary system, and expand the use of national currencies. Noticeably Russia, being one of the founding patrons of BRICS, acts as a unifying force behind and in the organization, and largely determine that its role is strengthened for the future.

President of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping attended the BRICS Summit, for the third time, held in South Africa. The distinctive difference is that, this 2023 summit, the world has entered a new period of turbulence and rapid transformation.

“We gather at a crucial time to build on our past achievements and open up a new future for BRICS cooperation. We should deepen business and financial cooperation to boost economic growth,” he emphasized. “We need to fully leverage the role of the New Development Bank, push forward reform of the international financial and monetary systems, and increase the representation and voice of developing countries.”

In an English version of the article by Chinese President Xi Jinping titled “Sailing the Giant Ship of China-South Africa Friendship and Cooperation Toward Greater Success” widely published ahead of the 15th BRICS Summit in South Africa media including The Star, Cape Times, The Mercury as well as Independent Online, also underlined the practical concept of multilateralism and push for the building of a more just and equitable international order.

South African companies are also racing to invest in the Chinese market to seize the abundant business opportunities, and they have made important contribution to China’s economic growth. The China-South Africa relationship is standing at a new historical starting point. It has gone beyond the bilateral scope and carries increasingly important global influence.

China and South Africa should be fellow companions sharing the same ideals. As an ancient Chinese saying goes, “A partnership forged with the right approach defies distance; it is thicker than glue and stronger than metal and rock.” Therefore, there is the need to increase experience sharing on governance, and firmly support each other in exploring a path to modernization that suits both respective national conditions.

“We should fear no hegemony, and work with each other as real partners to push forward relations amid the changing international landscape. In face of the profound changes unseen in a century, a strong China-Africa relationship will provide more fresh impetus to global development and ensure greater stability of the world. Looking ahead into the next 25 years,” he wrote in the article.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also underlined the current significance of BRICS in dealing with tensions and disputes the world is facing, but most importantly de-dollarization amid economic challenges.

“In 2009, when the first BRICS summit was held, the world was just coming out of a massive financial crisis. At that time BRICS emerged as a ray of hope for the global economy. In the present times, to shape strategies for economic cooperation, in particular ways of increasing trade settlements in local currencies and BRICS expansion.”

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva believes the world will see massive changes in the coming years.

“When we talk about Brazil and BRICS, we are showing that it is possible to create a new world. We don’t want to argue with anyone. We want integration between continents and equal conditions for all,” Lula da Silva said.

According to him, establishing partnerships between private sectors is a very relevant dimension of BRICS that gives life and continuity to the relations between the countries, participation in the global economy has been expanding since the first Summit of Heads of State and Government.

“We have already surpassed the G7, and we now account for 32% of the world GDP in purchasing power parity. Projections indicate that emerging and developing markets will present the highest growth rates in the coming years,” he explained in his speech.

According to the IMF, while growth in industrialized countries is expected to drop from 2.7% in 2022 to 1.4% in 2024, the expected growth for developing countries is 4% this year and the next. This shows that the economy’s dynamism is in the Global South – and BRICS is its driving force. Brazil’s total trade with BRICS increased from US$48 billion in 2009 to US$178 billion in 2022 – a 370% growth since the group was created.

BRICS Direct Foreign Investment stock in Brazil increased 167% between 2012 and 2021, reaching 34.2 billion dollars. Today, almost 400 companies from the bloc operate in Brazil. The decision to establish the New Development Bank was a milestone in effective collaboration among emerging economies. The joint bank must be a global leader in financing projects that address the most pressing challenges.

In arguing, the president pointed to the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) as a way to offer its own financing alternatives, suited to the needs of developing countries. “The creation of a currency for trade and investment transactions between BRICS members increases our payment options and reduces our vulnerabilities”, he said, reinforcing that developing countries need an international financial system that helps implement structural changes, instead of feeding inequalities.

By diversifying sources of payment in local currencies and expanding its network of partners and members, the NDB is a strategic platform to promote cooperation among developing countries. In this strategy, engagement with the African Development Bank will be central. At the multilateral level, BRICS stands out as a force working in favor of a fairer, more predictable, and equitable global trade. As of December, Brazil will occupy the presidency of the G20. The presence of three BRICS members in the G20 Troika will be a great opportunity for us to advance issues that are of interest to the Global South.

Reading through various reports, Peter Koenig, Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) former Senior Economist at the World Bank, convincingly argues that many see the BRICS as the salvation from the West, from sanctions, from the dollar impositions, from debt enslavement – from trading restrictions… from outright theft of their currency reserves in foreign countries.

As a byline to the all too frequent western theft of reserve funds and gold…! But is this the purpose of the BRICS – providing shelter from the last onslaught of the west, led by the United States and her vassals – the Europeans? And is it right – that some of the BRICS leaders are constantly vacillating between the US and the BRICS solid core – China and Russia. Modi, for example, seems to be leaning towards whatever camp – West or East – he feels gives him more advantages.

Koenig further  explained that many BRICS countries still depend on the US-dollar as the bulk of their reserve currency, the main trade currency. De-dollarization for many is not happening overnight. Therefore, a common strategy is needed. To begin with and to avoid the dollar – trading among BRICS members (and even outside BRICS) with local currencies, instead of dollars. This is relatively easy, for example China and Argentina have done it for a log time. In the short-to-medium term – what might help and may become a necessity, is having a common BRICS Trading Currency.

There has been a gradual shift away from trading in US dollars, and instead countries adopted trading in their local currencies, or in a currency of common use by the trading partners, for example the Chinese Yuan. Latin America – especially Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela – are consistently using local currencies or the Chinese Yuan to avoid the dollar. Avoiding the dollar is foremost for own protection from US sanctions. Increasingly more country will use this new mode of trading – equitable and peaceful.

The Turkish edition Dunya notes that since the United States imposed financial sanctions on Russia last year, de-dollarization has gained momentum. The BRICS countries forced transactions using non-dollar currencies. After the start of the Ukrainian conflict, Russia, Iran, Brazil, Argentina and Bangladesh went for broke against the United States, using the Chinese yuan instead of the dollar in trade.

Four Reasons for De-dollarization:

  • Over-reliance on a single currency, changes in US monetary policy, and possible US sanctions or restrictions carry risks. In addition, the US government has run a large budget deficit for many years. And this raises concerns about inflation and the value of the dollar.
  • The United States has been involved in many geopolitical conflicts in recent years, primarily the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These conflicts have resulted in heightened tensions between the US and other countries, making some states less willing to use the dollar.
  • China, the world’s second largest economy and an increasingly influential player in world trade, is encouraging the use of its currency as an alternative to the dollar.
  • Cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, which are not subject to government control, have become attractive to those who are looking for an alternative to the dollar.

There are so many arguments and discussions about the question of global currency. But one more interesting analytical conclusion is here. Michael G. Plummer, Director at SAIS Europe and Eni Professor of International Economics at Johns Hopkins University, believes that the global system gains from having an internationally accepted currency like the US dollar as a medium of exchange, unit of account and store of value. But its role will diminish at the margin at a rate that will be the function of exogenous factors, such as changes in the international marketplace, and endogenous factors, such as how the United States faces its financial and trade challenges.

As widely seen across the world, the BRICS bloc is rapidly gathering a stronger momentum for a more democratic and multipolar world order that respects the sovereignty, equality, and diversity of all nations. The United States and Western allies often deeply underestimate its future growth and role in the global stage, but has heightened interests, shaping its instruments, such as the BRICS Bank which is likened to IMF and the World Bank, becoming the alternative organization especially for the Global South.

Notwithstanding all the arguments, views and observations Russia, isolated by the United States and Europe over its invasion of Ukraine, is keen to show Western powers it still has friends. Brazil and India, in contrast, have both forged closer ties with the West.  There are still justifiable arguments though, that the group’s members have long been thwarted by some internal divisions and, to some extent, a lack of coherent vision.

In Johannesburg, BRICS under the 2023 chairship of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, has achieved an appreciable milestone. As stipulated in the 10-point joint declaration, BRICS will continue, through its collective efforts, working steadily towards shaping an alternative new system across the ASEAN, Africa and Trans-Atlantic. BRICS, with additional six members, now home to more than 40% of the world’s population and more than a quarter of global GDP, the bloc’s ambitions of becoming a global political and economic player. As the new Chair, Russia will hold the next BRICS summit in Kazan in October 2024.

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Professor Maurice Okoli is a fellow at the Institute for African Studies and the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is also a fellow at the North-Eastern Federal University of Russia. He is an expert at the Roscongress Foundation and the Valdai Discussion Club.

As an academic researcher and economist with keen interest in current geopolitical changes and the emerging world order, Maurice Okoli frequently contributes articles for publication in reputable media portals on different aspects of the interconnection between developing and developed countries, particularly in Asia, Africa and Europe. With comments and suggestions, he can be reached via email: markolconsult (at) gmail (dot) com.

He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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Even the fanatical neocon warmonger, the BBC has an article saying that Ukraine is “running out of men”. Young men and old have long been press ganged off the streets into the armed services. The latest arrest of army recruitment personnel by Zelensky is an attempt to step up the draft and prevent the buying of exemption from conscription ($7,500 is apparently the standard price! – about 18 months pay for the average earner.)

Ukrainians have now understood, as cemeteries expand and new ones are laid out, what the insightful have known for 20 years – that Ukraine has been taken over by the West, its elections overturned, its leaders removed and its armed services expanded to be the biggest in Europe – all to be used as a battering ram against Russians (millions of whom live in Eastern Ukraine and who have been dying under Kiev’s shelling for 9 years).

The European Conservative, revealed that an overwhelming majority of Ukrainians deeply mistrust the EU and NATO, with 71% of respondents saying that NATO and the EU only follow self-serving interests and simply use Ukraine for their own purposes. Ukraine is indeed  both a battering ram for American neocon and business/agricultural/defence industry interests and a stage for sending Ukrainians to fight, with the actor Zelensky the most prominent stage presence.

The latest performance is the disastrous “counter offensive” in which some 40,000 troops have been killed or wounded and which is gradually turning into a Russian offensive, especially in the Kharkov area. A CIA source for the US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said that the ill prepared counter offensive was a show put on by Zelensky” and the CIA had warned Blinken about the possibility of failure.

The appalling morale of the poorly trained Ukrainians aged from teenagers to 60 year olds has long been reported with troops refusing to advance and even turning on their commanders. This order for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence warns that mobilised men should not immediately be issued with ammunition in case they commit suicide.

Balitsky, the Russian deputy regional governor of the Zaporozhye region, who cited the low morale and psychological state of the soldiers claimed two Ukrainian airmobile battalions had refused to launch an offensive.

This involves around 500 individuals. They are weary of witnessing the loss of their fellow comrades and are unwilling to serve as mere cannon fodder,

The headline in the American Conservative reads, “Make Peace, You Fools!” Underneath, “America’s proxy war against Russia has turned Ukraine into a graveyard.” Like all US disastrous ventures overseas it takes the American political class a long time to find the fighting on the map, never mind how many they are killing.

If the Ukrainians have any success it is in the south in the area south of Orekhov where they have made progress towards Rabotino but even there the villages they gained cannot be occupied because they are under heavy Russian fire control. And Rabotino is miles from the first Russian line of defence.

Into this area the Armed Forces of Ukraine have sent their last reserves, the western trained 82nd air assault brigade equipped with Challenger tanks and German Marder infantry fighting vehicles. They have suffered heavy losses and have been unable to take Rabotino.

Evacuation Becomes Mobilisation

The Russian advances in the Kharkov region have been impressive and the major town of Kupiansk is under attack. Over 60 settlements are being evacuated in the Kharkiv region.

The desperation of the Ukrainian regime to find more conscripts to replace the horrendous death and wounded toll on the front lines is evident in the cynical use of the evacuation to capture and mobilise the evacuated men:

Particularly, men are not allowed on the evacuation buses, regardless of their age and health condition. Moreover, after bidding farewell to their relatives and friends, several men have already been taken to a medical commission for mobilisation into the AFU (Ukrainian Army).

Another ruse to capture recruits – like the holding in one area of a “how to avoid mobilisation” lecture which turned out to be a trap. Those who turned up were immediately drafted!

Nazi Ukrainian Troops Relax

Zelensky has uploaded a video to his Telegram channel showing him meeting Azov Battalion founder Andriy Biletsky who is on record as claiming to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade…against Semite-led Untermenschen”. Of course the moron Biden is too busy calling Republicans “white supremacists” to notice he is arming and training real Nazi supremacists in Ukraine!

The return of the Nazi Azov battalion to the front lines was announced. Here are some of the allies of the West relaxing! The number of western denials of the widespread Nazism in Ukraine society has I notice decreased – because it is simply undeniable:

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This article was originally published on Freenations.

Rodney Atkinson is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Freenations

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A recent journalistic report revealed that the Ukrainian president bought a luxury villa in Egypt in the region of El Gouna, also known as the “city of millionaires”. More than that, evidence indicates that Zelensky used Western money for the purchase, spending in personal luxury a significant part of the amounts he receives from NATO countries.

The data were published by Egyptian investigative journalist Mohammed-Al-Alawi. After in-depth research involving sources familiar with the topic, Mohammed discovered that the Zelensky family acquired a luxury property in Egypt valued at around five million dollars. The place is located in the coastal zone of Egypt, next to the Red Sea, an area famous for having many opulent properties. Not by chance, El Gouna is home to many millionaires interested in having a comfortable place to stay during their non-working time. For example, it is said that next to Zelensky’s villa there is an “estate that belongs to the world-famous Hollywood actress and public figure Angelina Jolie”.

The Egyptian journalist published the documents that prove the purchase of the villa, its price and the contracting parties. Zelensky bought the property through his mother-in-law, Olga Kiyashko, who signed a contract with the Egyptian sellers on May 16, 2023. Analysts who have commented on the case say that the source of the money appears to be none other than the Western financial aid packages that arrive in Kiev, considering the high price of the villa.

Egyptian political scientist Abdulrahman Alabbassy commented on the situation, saying it is “surprising” that Zelensky and his relatives spend fortunes on personal luxuries instead of using Ukraine’s riches for military and humanitarian purposes, considering the time of war. Alabbassy blames Ukrainian corruption for this kind of attitude and reminds how Kiev’s political system is controlled by egocentric officials who prioritize personal gain over care for their own people.

“I am surprised that relatives of top Ukrainian officials began to buy luxury real estate after the start of Ukraine war. I don’t remember anything like this before (…) It is surprising that Ukraine is waging a bloody war with Russia, and relatives of Ukrainian officials are buying up real estate in Egypt instead of donating their riches to the needs of the country. A suspicion is creeping in that Ukrainian bureaucrats, with the help of their relatives, are stealing financial aid to Ukraine from the West. I am quite certain that Zelenskyy’s mother-in–law’s purchase of a villa in El Gouna is the result of corruption and the theft of humanitarian aid to Ukraine. I sincerely sympathize with the Ukrainian people” he said.

In fact, this news just corroborates what has been denounced for a long time about Zelensky’s hypocrisy and his relentless pursuit of luxury and personal benefits. Previously, a case that went viral on the internet and generated popular outrage was the report that the Ukrainian politician had rented his 4 million euros luxury mansion in Italy to a couple of Russian millionaires – while publicly defending the banning of Russians from Europe because of the war. To date, the case has not been fully clarified, having media publications both confirming and denying the news. However, it does not seem to be something surprising for Zelensky, especially considering what happened recently in Egypt.

It is also necessary to remember other selfish attitudes of the Ukrainian president throughout the conflict. For example, in July last year, Zelensky and his wife Olena posed for Vogue magazine at the height of hostilities, showing absolute disrespect for Ukrainian citizens victimized by the conflict. The photos were made in staged scenarios that simulated a battlefield, in a clear attempt to “romanticize” the war to gain the attention of Western readers. At the time, there was a strong criticism and a negative impact on Zelensky’s popularity.

About corruption, it is also possible to say that these attitudes are really expected. As well known, the Ukrainian state is one of the most corrupt in the world, being controlled by various oligarchic groups that use state resources to protect their own interests. This did not change with the arrival of Western military and financial aid. When NATO’s assistance packages arrive in Kiev, they end up in the hands of corrupt politicians who use part of these funds for personal gain. The Zelensky family case is an example of this, but it is expected that many other similar situations will be revealed in the near future.

Western public opinion needs to understand that corruption in Ukraine, widely recognized by mainstream media before the special military operation, will not change just because the country is at war. Corrupts will remain corrupt, in war or peace. In this sense, the more money comes to Kiev with the excuse of “assistance”, the more Zelensky and other politicians and oligarchs will spend these resources on personal luxury.

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Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

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*** 

Military watchdog site TRMLX broke the report based on messages from students, instructors and senior members within the chain of command.

On August 18, the Fort Novosel (formerly Fort Rucker) student suffered a cardiac arrest while flying at a low altitude, according to TRMLX. The student suddenly slumped over the controls and his “stick buddy” had to pull him off. The instructor pilot (IP), according to TRMLX, took over and safely landed the plane onto the stage field and the second student immediately began performing CPR on the incapacitated student.

According to the report, paramedics performed life saving measures and he was medevac’d to the hospital in Dothan with his stick buddy riding along with him. They were able to resuscitate him en route using a defibrillator, TRMLX said.

Because the incident has been labeled a medical event rather than a “precautionary landing,” the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence (USAACE) will reportedly not be launching an investigation.

One of the DACs (civilian) told me “we got a brief today; they aren’t saying heart attack, but he lost consciousness and was air medevac’d to Dothan.

Instructors and cadre told a different story, however. One member of cadre told me, “yes, a student in Common Core had a heart attack. Yes, he was revived after 11 minutes.” A couple of other messages echoed this statement. Then I spoke to a member of the medical response team. This person told me from start to finish, the student was gone for a total of 18 minutes. He was, indeed, revived with a defibrillator, and he factually went into cardiac arrest. This person flat out said he was dead and brought back to life.

Sixth Pilot Incapacitation in Two Weeks, Three Pilot Deaths 

Aug.17, 2023 – IndiGo Flight (NAG-PNQ) Nagpur to Pune, India, pilot 40 year old Manoj Subramanium died after collapsing at the boarding gate, about to board.

Aug.16, 2023 – Qatar Airways Flight QR579 (DEL-DOH) Delhi to Doha, Qatar, 51 year old pilot collapsed as a passenger inflight and died, plane diverted to Dubai.

Aug.14, 2023 – LATAM Flight LA505 (MIA-SCL) Miami to Santiago, Chile – 2 hours into 8hr flight, 56 year old Captain Ivan Andaur collapsed and died in the lavatory – plane diverted to Panama City!

Aug.9, 2023 – United Airlines UAL1309 (SRQ-EWR) Sarasota to Newark, pilot had a heart attack and lost consciousness in flight

Aug.7, 2023 – TigerAIR Flight IT237 (CTS-TPE) Sapporo to Taipei, copilot had a medical emergency after landing plane in Taipei

Recent Pilot Incapacitations 

July 19, 2023 – Eurowings Discover Flight 4Y-1205 (HER-FRA) Heraklion to Frankfurt, pilot incapacitated, first officer took control, landed safely

Jun.7, 2023 – Air Canada Flight ACA692 (YYZ-YYT) Toronto to St.John’s, First Officer became incapacitated, deadheading Captain assumed duties

Jun.4, 2023 – Cessna Citation N611VG flying Tennessee to Long Island, fighter jets spotted pilot slumped over in cockpit unconscious, plane crashed and all onboard died

May 11, 2023 – HiSKy Flight H4474 (DUB-KIV) Dublin to Chisinau (Moldova), 20 min after liftoff pilot became “unable to act”, plane diverted to Manchester

May 4, 2023 – British Charter TUI Airways Flight BY-1424 (NCL-LPA) Newcastle to Las Palmas Spain pilot became ill, plane diverted back to NCL.

April 4, 2023 – United Airlines Flight 2102 (BOI-SFO) – captain was incapacitated, first officer was only one in control of the aircraft.

March 25, 2023 – TAROM Flight RO-7673 TSR-HRG diverted to Bucharest as 30 yo pilot had chest pain, then collapsed

March 22, 2023 – Southwest Flight WN6013 LAS-CMH diverted as pilot collapsed shortly after take-off, replaced by non-Southwest pilot

March 18, 2023 – Air Transat Flight TS739 FDF-YUL first officer was incapacitated about 200NM south of Montreal

March 13, 2023 Emirates Flight EK205 MXP-JFK diverted due to pilot illness hour and a half after take-off

March 11, 2023 United Airlines Flight UA2007 GUA-ORD diverted due to “incapacitated pilot” who had chest pains

March 11, 2023? – British Airways (CAI-LHR) pilot collapsed in Cairo hotel and died, was scheduled to fly Airbus A321 from Cairo to London

March, 3, 2023 – Virgin Australia Flight VA-717 ADL-PER Adelaide to Perth flight was forced to make an emergency landing after First Officer suffered heart attack 30 min after departure.

Recent Pilot Deaths 

Pilot Death July 16, 2023 – 2006 Piper Meridian, flying from Westchester NY, crashed at Martha’s Vineyard Airport after pilot had medical emergency upon final approach and passenger took control of the plane and attempted a landing. Pilot, 79 year old Randolph Bonnist, died later in hospital.

Pilot death – May 2023 – 4 Singapore Airlines pilots died suddenly in May 2023

Pilot death – May 9, 2023 – United Airlines and US Air Force Pilot Lt. Col. Michael Fugett, age 46, died unexpectedly at his home

Pilot death – May 3, 2023 – Air Transat and Air Canada Pilot Eddy Vorperian, age 48, died suddenly during layover in Croatia

Pilot death – April 13, 2023 – Phil Thomas, graduate of Flight Training Pilot academy in Cadiz, Spain (FTEJerez) died suddenly.

Pilot death – March 17, 2023 – 39 year old Westjet Pilot Benjamin Paul Vige died suddenly in Calgary

Pilot death – March 11, 2023 – British Airways pilot died of heart attack in crew hotel in Cairo before a Cairo to London flight (name & age not released

*

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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.


The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0,  Year: 2022,  PDF Ebook,  Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

Price: $11.50 FREE COPY! Click here (docsend) and download.

We encourage you to support the eBook project by making a donation through Global Research’s DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page

The Mexico-US Trade War Over Glyphosate and GM Corn

August 24th, 2023 by Ben Bartee

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*** 

On December 31, 2020. Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador issued a national decree to end the use of glyphosate and genetically modified corn by 2024:

With the objective of achieving self-sufficiency and food sovereignty, our country must be oriented towards establishing a sustainable and culturally adequate agricultural production, through the use of agroecological practices and inputs that are safe for human health, the country’s biocultural diversity and the environment, as well as congruent with the agricultural traditions of Mexico…

In recent years, different scientific investigations have warned that said chemical has harmful effects on health, both in humans and in some animal species, and has been identified as a probable carcinogen in humans by the International Agency for Research on Cancer…

Various countries have banned the use of the aforementioned substance* in agrochemicals and many others are evaluating the implementation of similar and other measures to protect the population

In such circumstances, our country must maintain an active participation in the search for instruments that allow it to have sustainable agricultural production through the use of inputs that are safe for human and animal health and the environment.”

*Glyphosate is currently banned or limited in at least 25 countries as well as localities within the United States.

Subsequently, the agri-chemical industry (which is multinational but based in the US since the end of WWII) went to work on two of the US federal agencies that it controls — the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and the EPA — to turn the screws on Mexico’s government so as to subvert the president’s decree.

Subsequent FOIA requests filed by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) unearthed emails between officials in these agencies and Bayer AG (the manufacturer) describing the glyphosate/GM corn ban as “a big time problem” (here) and plotting to use the multinational trade deal, United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), to “work through these issues.” (here)

On August 17, the USTR official opened a dispute settlement panel to try to force Mexico to submit to the import of GMO corn (which it terms “biotech corn” – mouth-watering, no?).

Via USTR:

United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai* today announced that the United States is establishing a dispute settlement panel under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) regarding certain Mexican measures concerning biotech corn.  The United States is challenging measures set out in Mexico’s February 13, 2023 decree, specifically the ban on use of biotech corn in tortillas or dough, and the instruction to Mexican government agencies to gradually substitute—i.e., ban—the use of biotech corn in all products for human consumption and for animal feed.  Mexico’s measures are not based on science and undermine the market access it agreed to provide in the USMCA.”

*At the risk of coming off as a “conspiracy theorist,” what is the over/under on Katherine Tai going straight to Bayer AG’s board as its newest token minority following her departure from “public service”?

In the event Mexico does not submit to Tai’s threats, we can expect shyster lawyers working on behalf of the US federal government and/or Bayer AG (which, let’s be honest, are one and the same) to go to work on the Mexicans.

They’ll charge $1,000/hr to try their best to contort this or that provision of the USMCA so as to overturn the ostensible popular will of Mexicans via their president – the will to not have cancer-causing chemicals sprayed all over their food supply for the benefit of multinational corporations.

One question, among many, is: why should the US government be spending public resources to force a sovereign country to adopt measures that would not benefit average Americans but rather multinational corporations that, it can’t be emphasized enough, don’t give two shits about anyone or anything other than profit and social control.

RFK Jr. –the only 2024 presidential candidate who appears sincere about challenging the corporate state in earnest — calls this phenomenon “corporate capture,” and it’s a cancer on this world.  

*

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This article was originally published on Armageddon Prose.

Ben Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from New Eastern Outlook

Viruses: Man-Made for Big Pharma Vaccine Profits?

August 24th, 2023 by Helena Glass

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In 1920, Karl Landsteimer, a jewish physician, discovered the infectious character of polio and isolated the virus. In 1923, Landsteiner arrived in New York at the invitation of Simon Flexner, to work at the Rockefeller Institute. It is stipulated that The Rockefeller Institute created a vaccine which caused the Spanish Flu to morph into a bacterial pneumonia killing hundreds of thousands.

In 1950, Polio cases peaked.

In 1940, Hilary Koprowski, a jewish scientist, moved from France to Rio where he worked for the Rockefeller Foundation. In 1950 he developed an oral polio vaccine. His vaccine was tested on a rat despite polio never infecting any animal. His vaccine was not US approved but was used in Africa from 1957 thru 1960.   AIDS arose in Africa in 1960.

In 1984 Robert Gallo claimed to have linked HIV as the cause of AIDS, winning a Lasker Award in 1986 when Fauci became Director at NIH. After it came to light that Gallo had used unauthorized research from France’s Pasteur Institute to make his HIV connection, a lawsuit was settled between NIH and the Pasteur Institute in 1987.

In 1992, Rolling Stone Magazine postured that Koprowski’s polio vaccine caused the Aids Virus in Africa. Gerald Myers worked directly with Fauci and emphatically declared that HIV causes AIDS. He categorically stated that the polio vaccine did NOT cause AIDS – HIV did. The CDC became embroiled at the claim as well and denied it viciously. Because of these stated contradictions, the medical community accepted it and this became the official pronouncement via NIH – aka Fauci.

The first publicized announcement of AIDS in the US was via Rock Hudson. However, he did not die of AIDS, he died of “Kaposi Sarcoma” which is a rare disease of the Herpes virus family.

In 2009, Kary Mullis, a Nobel Laureate biochemist and virologist, claimed there was no proof HIV caused AIDS. He claimed there was no scientific evidence or proof to substantiate the claim. Mullis was the inventor of the PCR test which was used as an amplification of DNA. He emphatically stated throughout his career that the PCR Test could NOT be used to test for any virus.

Mullis was vocally very ‘not fond’; of Fauci.

Mullis died months before Covid was rolled out and Fauci declared the PCR Test would be used to test for the virus. Mullis has since been declared a crack pot by Fauci.

In 1955, Jonas Salk, a jewish medical researcher, developed and released his injectable vaccine for polio. He served on the board of the MacArthur Foundation. The MacArthur Foundation is heavily involved in the promotion of the World Economic Forum and Bill Gates depopulation agenda.

In 1961, Albert Sabin, a jewish medical researcher who worked for the Rockefeller Institute, developed his version of an oral vaccine which hit the market – they claimed polio was completely eradicated in the US by 1986.  Sabin began work for NIH under Fauci in the 1986.

Sabin’s vaccine was ‘tested’ on 100 million people in the Soviet Union, Europe, Mexico and The Netherlands. There were no records or tracking of polio in any of these nations at the time. The first trial in the US was in 1960 on 180,000 school children. It was licensed in 1961. According to WHO, polio was eradicated globally in 1960.

According to the UN, a Global Polio Eradication Initiative was developed in 1988 to vaccinate the globe. They claim that because of this initiative, polio cases were reduced by 99% – despite WHO declaring it was eradicated 27 years earlier.

Between 1998 and 2017, vaccine-associated polio arose.

In 2000, Bill Gates Foundation began unregistered unapproved testing of his oral polio vaccine in India. Vaccine induced polio became the norm. In 2004, Bill Gates Foundation in collaboration with WHO, announced a new polio vaccine that would eradicate all polio from all causes, including vaccine-induced, by 2005.

In 2022, Gates claimed a new polio was on the rise – wild polio. A new campaign in Africa, India, and Pakistan was seeded by WHO. Another new vaccine.

Polio was naturally eradicated in the late 1950’s. Then again via vaccine in 1960’s. Then again in the 1980’s. Then again in the early 2000’s. Then it rose again as Gate’s, WHO and the UN collaborated to vaccinate all of Africa, Pakistan,India, Indonesia, and Afghanistan.

Eradicated: “to do away with completely as from the roots”.

How many viruses are manmade? How many man-made viruses have evolved into the creation of drugs and vaccines?  Designed to keep people sick. For Profit.

The largest Mass Hypnosis imposed on mankind. We have blindly accepted scientific and medical data because this is what we are told to do. Doctors and Pharma were revered as demi-gods. How many times have you heard, “we don’t know what causes disease x – but we can give you a pill …” ?

US Government is poised to initiate new Mandates due to a new CoVid – this September.

*

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Featured image is from Helena

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*** 

Documents recently obtained from the National Institutes of Health suggest public health officials used inaccurate information and misrepresented medical research to advance their policy objective that masks prevent severe COVID-19 and virus transmission—despite opposing scientific evidence received from experts.

In a recently obtained letter (pdf) sent in November 2021 to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), top epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, and seven colleagues informed the agency it was promoting flawed data and excluding data that did not reinforce their narrative.

The letter warned the agency that misrepresenting data on trusted websites such as the CDC and the COVID-19 Real-Time Learning Network—jointly created by the CDC and Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA)—would “damage the credibility of science,” endanger public trust by “misrepresenting the evidence,” and give the public “false expectations” masking would protect them from the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.

“We believe the information and recommendations as provided may actually put an individual at increased risk of becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2 and for them to experience a serious or even life-threatening infection,” Mr. Osterhom wrote.

The authors urged the IDSA to remove the suggestion that masking prevents severe disease from its website and asked the CDC to reconsider its statements about the “efficacy of masks and face coverings for preventing transmission of SARS-CoV-2.”

Osterholm also noted a pattern of selectively choosing data that supported the desired narrative that masks prevent severe COVID-19 disease and transmission—claims he said are unsupported by the scientific evidence provided by the CDC and IDSA on their websites.

The IDSA “Masks and Face Coverings for the Public” webpage appears to “focus on the strengths of studies that support its conclusions while ignoring their shortcomings of study design,” Mr. Osterholm wrote. “Studies that do not support its perspective are similarly downplayed.”

The COVID-19 Real-Time Learning Network was created in 2020 to share “accurate, timely information about COVID-19.” According to its website, the IDSA’s editorial team of infectious disease and public health experts synthesize clinical guidance, identify emerging scientific consensus and areas of ongoing uncertainty, and tackle “misconceptions and disinformation.”

Although partly funded by the CDC, the IDSA collaborates with numerous medical professional organizations that publish medical journals and make recommendations based on agency guidance, including the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Physicians, the Society of Critical Care Medicine, the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, and the Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists.

The letter was sent to CDC officials, the associate medical and associate digital editors of the COVID-19 Real-Time Learning Network, and IDSA board members, which included Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the former director of the CDC during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Experts Ask CDC and IDSA to Address ‘Serious Errors’ on Website

In his letter to the CDC, Mr. Osterholm asked the CDC and IDSA to address the “serious errors” published on its website regarding the efficacy of masks as soon as possible and strongly urged the IDSA to remove the suggestion that masking prevents severe COVID-19 from its website and a podcast where such “irresponsible claims were made.”

Furthermore, Mr. Osterholm recommended the IDSA reconsider statements about the efficacy of masks and coverings for preventing SARS-CoV-2 transmission, noting the IDSA’s website falsely suggests evidence of mask efficacy has strengthened throughout the pandemic.

“We do not agree that the evidence for their efficacy has strengthened throughout the pandemic, as the website suggests,” Mr. Osterholm said. “In fact, contrary to the conclusion on this website, the November 2020 Cochrane Review cited states this: ‘Compared with wearing no mask, wearing a mask may make little to no difference in how many people caught a flu-like illness (9 studies; 3,507 people); and probably makes no difference in how many people have flu confirmed by a laboratory test (6 studies; 3,005 people).’”

Osterholm said he and his colleagues are not “anti-mask” but wanted to see a more careful scientific review of the data showing the role masks may play in preventing SARS-CoV-2 transmission. They offered to help the IDSA update its review of the science. Instead, the IDSA and CDC modified their website to promote masking, stating: “Masking is a critical public health tool for preventing the spread of COVID-19, and it is important to remember that any mask is better than no mask.”

The letter was part of documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by The Functional Government Initiative (FGI), an organization dedicated to “improving the American public’s awareness about the officials, decisions, and priorities of their government.”

“The story of official masking guidance should trouble the American public. Recall that Dr. Fauci at first said there was no need for masks. The cloth masks were all that stood between you and COVID. But as evidence against cloth masks appeared, the premiere scientific health organizations dug in their heels and refused to follow the science or listen to their trusted outside advisors,” FGI said in a statement (pdf).

“That Dr. Osterholm and his colleagues felt compelled to raise concerns about cherry-picked data and the danger it presented to the credibility of public health officials and the health of the public says that something was deeply dysfunctional in these agencies,” FGI stated.

The Epoch Times contacted the CDC for comment but did not receive a response.

*

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Megan Redshaw is an attorney and investigative journalist with a background in political science. She is also a traditional naturopath with additional certifications in nutrition and exercise science. 

Featured image is from Vaccines.news


The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0,  Year: 2022,  PDF Ebook,  Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

Price: $11.50 FREE COPY! Click here (docsend) and download.

We encourage you to support the eBook project by making a donation through Global Research’s DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page

Atlanta Prosecutor Fani Willis Sent Black Educators to Jail

August 24th, 2023 by Margaret Kimberley

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*** 

Atlanta is no mecca for Black people. It is a political plantation where the white overseers rule. Fani Willis’ prosecution of Black teachers was an awful example of the power dynamic in that city. 

“Our children have been cheated by those who have willfully torn apart black communities through displacement and gentrification, underfunded and privatized public schools, and then have criminalized black educators for a dysfunctional system that was designed to fail.” – Shani Robinson , Atlanta teacher prosecuted by Fani Willis 

“So if what I am being criticized for is doing something to protect people that did not have a voice for themselves, I sit in that criticism, and y’all can put it in my obituary.” – District Attorney Fani Willis defending the prosecution and jailing of Black educators

Who was Fani Willis protecting when she used Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) statute to put twelve Black educators on trial in 2015? Atlanta, like other major cities, was not caught up in the corrupt influence of racketeers, but of school test score mania. The No Child Left Behind Act punished school districts with low scores, putting them at risk of state takeovers, or of schools being closed. Educators in Georgia, 38 other states and the District of Columbia , succumbed to these pressures and changed test scores to give the appearance that children had reached educational attainment levels when they hadn’t.

The education prosecutions are but one example of Georgia’s style of politics, wherein white people put Black people in prominent positions but pull strings behind the scenes. Powerful white people demanded the police training center, Cop City, and the Black mayor and city council members go along despite the fact that their constituents don’t want 85-acres of militarized policing that will destroy an old growth forest.

The right wing segregationists in the state government call the shots too, and the fate of the twelve people was sealed after republican Governor Sonny Perdue sent Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents into the schools to investigate problematic test results. Perdue himself applied for a $400 million grant awarded to states that improved test scores. Perdue simultaneously claimed fraud but also got money for his state for improvements that he was investigating as crimes.

Paul Howard, District Attorney at the time of the indictments, is Black, as was his Assistant District Attorney Fani Wilis, but they did what Black leadership in Atlanta do now. They ask, “How high?,” when they are told to jump and in this instance the lives of 12 people were ruined.

Eleven of the twelve were convicted and two of those went to jail after a trial which lasted for eight months. Despite intense pressure to plead guilty, six others did not, but years later Fani Willis is still insisting on sending them to jail too.

The charges against Donald Trump have elevated Wills to demigoddess status as a fighter for democracy, slayer of old racist presidents, and as the old saying goes, a credit to her race. But in reality she is a typical prosecutor, taking orders from the powerful and throwing the prosecutorial book at people who deserve punishment that fits the crime or who may even be innocent.

Shani Robinson is one of those still waiting for vindication. She was a first grade teacher accused by someone else who received immunity from prosecution. Yet she was caught up in the dragnet and has yet to emerge. She refused to plead guilty and is free on appeal but Willis still wants to see her behind bars. She and others were accused of being part of a criminal enterprise because they all received salaries as school district employees. RICO was created to catch mobsters but now is being applied to anyone who is caught up in the criminal injustice system.

Ambitious prosecutors, scapegoated Black defendants, and racist media attention combined to make a tawdry spectacle and a gross injustice. Now Fani Willis has been turned into a hero when she is the latest iteration of the traitorous Black face in a high place, doing the bidding of powerful white people. 

The so-called test cheating scandal was actually a prosecutorial scandal. The Atlanta educators could have lost their jobs and licenses or been sentenced to community service or probation. But Fani Willis and her boss insisted upon the most draconian charges and sentencing. The ongoing scandal is that prosecutors anywhere in this country can make names for themselves by treating anyone they want to prosecute as if they are organized crime bosses, ruining their lives, and putting them in jail.

Willis is now in the news as the person who charged Donald Trump and 18 other people in a 41-count indictment charging them with a conspiracy meant to overturn the 2020 election. But she and other prosecutors must be scrutinized. One must always assume that defendants are being overcharged, and that the RICO statute is being misused so that the state can act with nefarious intent. All skin folk aren’t kinfolk, and the prosecution of Black Atlanta educators is Exhibit A which proves the case.

*

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Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. You can support her work on Patreon   and also find it on the Twitter   and Telegram  platforms. She can be reached via email at margaret.kimberley(at)blackagendareport.com.

Featured image: Credit: Michael Blackshire (Source: The Atlanta-Journal Constitution)

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*** 

 

 

 

 

34 Thought Leaders Demolish the COVID Propaganda Event

The inspired editors of this fascinating collection have managed to gain the confidence and cooperation of 34 thought leaders who have exposed all the elements of the systematic global health propaganda that delivered the drumbeat message:

  1. The pandemic threatens the survival of all humanity
  2. There is no therapy to cure the sick
  3. It is necessary to confine the whole population, and
  4. The delivery will come only from a vaccine

This propaganda and its attendant censorship occurred within the context of a corona cold virus which, according to the World Health Organization, kills only 0.23% of those infected (that’s 1 in 400, mostly elderly. Bull. WHO, Oct. 14, 2020).

The following list of leading public health scholars, whose essays appear in this volume, were censored on media and social media from 2020-2023. This book (one of the best I have read) is their story of Covd-19:

  • Dr. Harvey A. Risch, epidemiologist, Yale School of Public Health (500+ articles in print)
  • Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, epidemiologist, Stanford University (300+ articles), on the backlash and death threats against his orthodox public health recommendations of “focused protection” for the vulnerable
  • Dr. Robert W. Malone, vaccinologist, inventor of mRNA technology platform (155 articles)
  • Dr. Peter A. McCullough, cardiologist, former Vice-Chair Internal Medicine, Baylor Univ. (600+ articles) on “the terrible safety track record and trail of injuries, disabilities and deaths” from the mandated mRNA injections.
  • Dr. Paul Marik, Pulmonary & Critical Care specialist (500 articles, 80 book chapters, 4 textbooks)
  • Dr. Joseph Ladapo, Florida Surgeon General (165 articles)
  • Dr. Norman Fenton, Prof. of Risk, St. Mary’s University, London (343 articles) provides careful interpretation of the number of deaths reported for the Covid-19 injections.

The following eminent physicians and specialists were also silenced by censorship when they sought to protest the unprecedented, unorthodox and counterproductive global Covid pandemic policies whose ultimate origins have yet to be traced:

  • Dr. Pierre Kory, ICU specialist and co-founder of FLCCC (Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance)
  • Dr. Ryan Cole, pathologist and laboratory-owner, who spoke out about disturbing trends in cancers after the vaccine roll-out – and then was punished by his profession and his insurance company
  • Dr. Aseem Malhotra, NHS-trained Consultant Cardiologist, on “How Pharmaceutical Overreach, Corruption and Health System Failures Birthed COVID.” Both Dr. Malhotra and Dr. Harvey Risch contend that evidence-based medicine has been hijacked by powerful vested interests.
  • Dr. James Thorp, Obstetrician and Gynecologist, on “The Most Egregious Violation of Medical Ethics in the History of Medicine.”
  • Dr. George Fareed, a family physician in Southern California early-treated 7000 patients using common repurposed drugs without incurring a single loss, insisting that “Covid is a treatable disease. If we treat Covid early, no one dies. All the patients we treated early and who adhered to our treatments, lived.”
  • He and his colleague, Dr. Brian Tyson, were heavily censored. “Why,” he asks, “Why would anyone want to stop getting the word out when a pandemic that rocked the globe could be effectively treated?”
  • Senator Ron Johnson reports that although the US Government had a stockpile of hydroxychloroquine before the vaccines arrived, even President Trump did not have the power to release it because “the media was so in the tank for Fauci that Trump couldn’t contradict him.”

Johnson reports on vaccinated people “suffering with internal vibrations so severe they’re committing suicide.”

He concludes,

“Right now it’s all of us against the media. It’s all of us against the COVID cartel: the administration, health agencies, big pharma, mainstream media, and big tech social media giants. The body count is so high they can’t afford to admit they’re wrong.”

The courage shown by veteran family physician Dr. Mary O’Connor in protecting, from the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons, the identities and privacy of her patients who had received vaccine exemptions is worth the price of this entire book.

The opposite of courage, fear accompanied by a loss of critical thinking, is explored by novelist Colin McAdam and historian John Leake.

Dr. Peter Breggin, psychiatrist, author of 20 medical books and expert witness at 100+ medial malpractice court appearances, reports that SARS-CoV2 was a gain-of-function lab virus, and that the WHO master plan for pandemics had been created by WHO super-funder Bill Gates and his vaccine development foundation CEPI, in its 2017 Preliminary CEPI Business Plan. Gates has long favoured Pfizer and Moderna.

Therefore Dr. Pierre Kory’s stunning exposé, “The Global Disinformation Campaign Against Ivermectin – The “Fix” at the WHO,” comes as no surprise, with its breath-taking detective work showing how the WHO was insidiously corrupted to recommend against using the almost magically effective antiviral Ivermectin – except in clinical trials.

Journalists speaking out:

In an article titled “The Day Journalism Died,” Canadian veteran CBC/CTV journalist Rodney Palmer describes how the once-legendary CBC frequently resorted to “smear jobs” against investigators who pointed to the Wuhan lab as the source of the virus. CBC was being schooled by the US propaganda outfit “First Draft.” CBC smeared Canadian doctors who had successfully treated Covid patients with ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as spreading “misinformation”. “This is not journalism. It is propaganda…it is largely pharmaceutical marketing disguised as journalism.”

Journalist Dr. Michael Nevradakis, in “Fact-checking the ‘fact-checkers’: Standing up for Truth in the Age of COVID Censorship,” shows, via the Twitter Files and FOIA requests, that White House censorship orders to Twitter, Facebook, and Google, meant that taxpayers “are paying for their own censorship.” Nevradakis also reports on the progress of current lawsuits against Biden and the Trusted News Initiative (which is described in Chapter 6).

Trish Wood, who hosted the Canadian CBC flagship program “The Fifth Estate” for ten years, writes: “The homogeneous media blob that has taken over newsrooms enabled it all by…ruthlessly parroting in unison the same policy talking points no matter how cruel or absurd. Anti-vaxxer. Stay home, stay safe. Safe and effective. All in this together. Follow the science. Media supported and promoted the biggest public policy failure of our lifetime by attacking anyone who called it out, no matter how credentialed.”

Entrepreneur Steve Kirsh recounts the unflagging censorship he encountered via Medium, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Wikipedia for his determined research “on the wrong side of the narrative.”

Emergency medicine physician Dr. Joseph Fraiman explores the forms that self-censorship has taken during the pandemic, thereby stifling productive debate.

A good discussion of YouTube censorship, and of the Canadian Freedom Convoy (“the greatest expression of Canadian patriotism I had ever seen”), is provided by Dr. Sam Dubé.  Dr. Michael Rectenwald asks if enough dissidents have been created by the Covid “pandemic” to prevent a planned recurrence.

Regarding masks and lockdowns, Dr. Paul Marik, founding member and chairman of the FLCCC:

“We know the virus is infinitesimally smaller than the pores or holes in the mask. So to suspect that it would stop viral transmission or protect people is completely absurd. Now we have a Cochrane review study — the gold standard — which definitively and categorically shows that masks simply do not work…

Never have we ever locked people down… The combination of masks, lockdowns and social isolation has had a devastating effect on children. We now have a generation of kids that are cognitively impaired.”

Former UK Senior Supreme Court judge Lord Sumpton discusses the issue of personal liberty in relation to the “spectacular” imposition of the lockdowns.

Law professor Bruce Hardy of Queen’s University, Canada, warned of dire consequences when the lockdowns were imposed in Spring, 2020, and reported the edicts that destroyed lives.

Dr. Marik on vaccine injuries:

“We know from Pfizer’s own data, the spontaneous miscarriage rate in vaccinated women was 84%. So the vaccine was more effective in terminating a pregnancy than the abortion tablet…

The vaccine spike protein goes to every organ in the body. In the vaccine-injured the average number of symptoms is 23. There are treatment protocols for the injured at FLCCC.net.”

Dr. Jessica Rose gives a descriptive analysis of how to interpret the data from the US Vaccine Adverse Effects Reporting System (VAERS) to make it more accessible to the public.

Brianne Dressen, who was injured in an mRNA clinical trial, and prompted by Facebook removing all reports of vaccine injuries, started the patient-advocacy group React19.org, which now has 30,000 members.

Edward Dowd is a former Blackrock manager and numbers specialist. Dowd reports that insurance company and funeral homes statistics show that, in the two years following the vaccine rollout, all-cause US deaths in people age 25-44 increased by 47%. In people aged 45 to 64 the increase was 28%. “I don’t know how this is going to be hidden for much longer. Eventually, the reckoning will come.”

Canadian science Prof. Denis Rancourt emphasizes that all-cause mortality statistics are the most reliable, non-biased data for attributing causes of death, and concludes that there was no excess mortality from the virus itself, but there was excess mortality from the lockdown and vaccination coercion.  Indeed, the vaccine rollouts were synchronous with peaks in all-cause mortality.

Sir Christopher Chope, MP, chair of the UK Parliament All-Party Parliamentary Group on COVID-19 Vaccine Damage, has worked tirelessly to encourage adequate review and compensation for COVID-19 vaccine harms, and also on a proposal “to encourage manufacturers to pay into a redress fund for those harmed, in light of their recent exorbitant profits.”

The first unfortunate truth to be drawn from the above testimonies is that with regard to the COVID-19 operation, Western governments have been more responsive to the welfare of Big Pharma than to the welfare of their voting populations.

The second truth is explained by Dr. Robert W. Malone, who presents us with a definition:

“The basic idea behind 5th generation warfare is that in the modern era, wars are not fought by armies or guerillas, but in the minds of common citizens.”

“The new gradient of warfare uses the internet, social media and the 24-hour news cycle to change cognitive biases of individuals and/or organizations…A key characteristic of 5th-Gen warfare is that the nature of the attack is concealed.”

They not only push false narratives and misinformation, he says. “The most effective strategies mix truth with fiction, and act to increase confusion and disorder in the thoughts and minds of those being targeted, so they are not sure what or whom to believe.

For example, Dr. Malone reports that the 5th-Gen cyberstalking technique has been contracted by the CDC (via its CDC Foundation) to “cyber stalk and gang stalk physicians who spoke counter to the COVID narrative regarding pseudo-MRNA vaccines, mandates, lockdowns and masks.”

Indeed, best-selling author Dr. Naomi Wolf reports she was banished from Twitter by “Former Twitter Head of Trust & Safety” Yoel Roth, because “paradoxically, more speech equals more danger and not more safety for society.”

Finally, some good news, from Dr. Marik:

“Their goal now is to get the Covid shot on the U.S. childhood vaccination program, which is abhorrent… Sweden, Denmark, and even the UK now have banned vaccinating people under the age of 50 because it is so cost ineffective, with so many adverse events.”

Word will spread.

“The truth is the way forward. It just is. The truth has its own power.” – Sen. Ron Johnson

*

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Elizabeth Woodworth is highly engaged in climate change science and activism. She has published 42 articles on Global Research, is co-author of “Unprecedented Climate Mobilization”, “Unprecedented Crime: Climate Science Denial and Game Changers for Survival,” and co-producer of the COP21 video “A Climate Revolution For All.” She is author of the popular handbook on nuclear weapons activism, “What Can I Do?” and the novel, “The November Deep”. For 25 years, she served as head medical librarian for the BC Government. She holds a BA from Queen’s and a Library Sciences Degree from UBC.

She is a regular contributor to Global Research.


Canary In a Covid World: How Propaganda and Censorship Changed Our (My) World: Edited by C.H. Klotz, Various Authors, Malone, Dr. Robert & Jill, Dowd, Edward, Fareed, Dr. George, Kory, Dr. Pierre,Canary In a Covid World: How Propaganda and Censorship Changed Our (My) World

by Various Authors Edited by C.H. Klotz (Author), Dr. Robert & Jill Malone (Author), Edward Dowd (Author), Dr. George Fareed (Author), Dr. Pierre Kory (Author), Dr. Peter McCullough (Author), Dr. Joseph Ladapo (Author), Dr. Peter & Ginger Breggin (Author), Naomi Wolf (Author), Colin McAdam (Author)

Publisher‏:‎ CANARY HOUSE PUBLISHING (August 2, 2023)

Paperback‏:430 pages

ISBN-10: 1739052536

ISBN-13:978-1739052539

Click here to purchase.

The Pacific Is Not a Nuclear Waste Dumping Ground!

August 24th, 2023 by Pacific Elders Voice

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Japan and Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO)’s reckless decision to discharge over 1.3 million tonnes of nuclear-contaminated wastewater into our Blue Pacific is a testimony to the dangers of nuclear power. No Pacific state is reliant on the nuclear power industry The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (NPS) meltdown disaster of 2011 is evidence of the ongoing human, environmental and economic consequences it has upon the health and well-being of people of the Pacific. Now, Pacific Islanders and future generations will have to bear the brunt of Japan’s dependence on nuclear energy as the attempts to stabilise the Fukushima disaster have led to the cost-cutting measure of discharging nuclear-contaminated wastewater from land into Japanese waters, which through the accelerated spread of ocean currents will inevitably be an act of transboundary and transgenerational harm against the pacific peoples and their livelihoods. Starting today, the discharge is slated to last for another thirty years.

We note with disappointment that this brazen act of environmental vandalism will compound the brutal nuclear legacy of over 315 weapons tests in our region for which genuine nuclear justice has not been fully achieved. It furthermore represents a palpable disrespect towards the Pacific region’s historically strong stance against nuclear pollution in all forms and  commitment to a Nuclear Free Pacific, through international and regional agreements such as the London Convention (1972), the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982), the Rarotonga Treaty (1986), the Noumea Convention (1986) and the Waigani Convention (1995). We acknowledge that some of these laws and treaties were designed and agreed to by Pacific states with Japan in mind given its previous attempts to dump nuclear waste into the Pacific Ocean from the late 1970s onwards.

History repeats itself with Japan again testing the limits of the Pacific’s friendship through an absence of consultation, accountability, dialogue and consensus building with Pacific states, NGOs and civil society groups. We believe that this will set a dangerous precedent that breaches the human rights of Pacific peoples, especially by other states who wish to engage with nuclear power and are looking to dispose of any form of toxic waste into the Pacific Ocean. The plan represents an irreversible risk of severe human rights violations, especially those relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment; as well as, many others concerning the rights to an adequate standard of living, physical and mental health, safe food, drinking water and sanitation.

Japan and TEPCO’s reliance on the misguided assumption that “dilution is the solution to pollution” is scientifically and ecologically unsound. We call on the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) to remain opposed to the discharge and committed to the findings of the independent panel of scientific experts that they appointed. The panel found insufficient evidence based on statistically deficient and biased measurement protocols provided by Japan and TEPCO to prove the overall reduction of the concentration of radionuclides through the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS). The panel have voiced concerns with the continued presence of tritium, carbon-14, and likely some other 64 radionuclides including strontium-90, cesium-137 and cobalt-60 from the “treated” water. This will accordingly lead to varying degrees of biological uptake eventually to humans, through oceanic currents, ecosystems and the food chain.

We are equally dismayed by the IAEA’s premature encouragement of the plan from as early as 2013, outdated safety standards and subsequent endorsement of Japan and TEPCO’s discharge plan. There was an opportunity for Japan to be global trailblazers of responsible and ethical nuclear waste disposal with the inclusion of the voices of Japanese fishing communities, as well as, nearby affected coastal Asian and Pacific states. Instead of a United Nations remit concerned with the industry of nuclear energy and the safe use of nuclear power, we acknowledge the need for a truly independent, international and participatory monitoring regime with the close involvement of those likely to be affected states to sufficiently monitor Japan and TEPCO’s environmental and human impact. For now, we stay committed to our previous statements calling for Japan and TEPCO to abandon their plans until genuine consultation is done with Pacific stakeholders. We furthermore call for Japan to be role models for nuclear stewardship in the region and appropriately consider alternatives, instead of generating a culture that lacks trust, dialogue and respect between all parties involved which will cause reputational harm to Japan.

We note with concern, Prime Minister of Japan Fumio Kishida and Japan’s attempts to politically fracture the regional position of a Nuclear Free Pacific. It is disappointing to observe Prime Minister of Fiji Sitiveni Rabuka’s support and other Pacific leader’s backsliding statements over the past couple of months regarding this issue, as well as their refusal to deeply listen to the scientific panel appointed by the PIF, the widespread majority in their own governments and civil society who have voiced concerns over Japan’s plan. We note as well the role of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) by Japan to placate and seduce leaders to approve this ecologically irresponsible plan.

Finally, we endorse the move for international action to be taken to initiate a lawsuit against Japan at the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) and seek provisional measures to protect against the transboundary and transgenerational impacts upon the peoples of the Pacific and the ocean that we all call our home. We also encourage Pacific states to pursue all available legal avenues available to them, with regard to the abuse of the human rights of Pacific peoples by this plan. Furthermore, the convening of the next PIF meeting in Rarotonga as the birthplace of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone presents an opportunity to revisit all current nuclear issues in the region including but not limited to: the Fukushima issue, the AUKUS security pact, and the nuclear tests legacy for survivors with the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

We act in solidarity with coastal fishing communities and civil society across Japan, Korea, and China, as well as the many in Pacific states objecting to this plan. Furthermore, we act in solidarity with the ‘Rally for the health of our oceans’ led by many Fijian NGOs scheduled for Friday morning in Suva and echo their call for international intervention to stop Japan’s planned dumping of nuclear-contaminated wastewater into our Blue Pacific.

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Featured image is from The Millennium Report

La ampliación de los BRICS y un nuevo horizonte global

August 24th, 2023 by Daniel Kersffeld

Russia, Donbass and the Reality of Conflict in Ukraine

By Daniel Kovalik, August 23, 2023

I just returned from my third trip to Russia, and my second trip to Donbas (now referring to the republics of Donetsk and Luhansk collectively) in about eight months. This time, I flew into lovely Tallinn, Estonia, and took what should be about a six-hour bus ride to St. Petersburg. In the end, my bus trip took me about 12 hours, due to a long wait in Customs on the Russian side of the border.

BRICS: A New World Economic and Trading Force?

By Peter Koenig and Press TV, August 23, 2023

The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are holding arguably one of their most important Summits from 22 to 24 August 2023 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Several new countries – up to 40 it is said, including Iran – would like to join the bloc and were invited to attend the South African Summit.

Aid to Ukraine: The Administration Requests More Money and Faces Political Battles Ahead

By Mark F. Cancian, August 23, 2023

President Biden has asked Congress for an additional $24 billion for the war in Ukraine, bringing the total aid to $135 billion. Such aid is critical, not just for military operations but for easing the war’s humanitarian impact.

Cell Phones and The Deadly Risks of Microwave Radiation. “The Zapping of America”. Remembering Paul Brodeur

By New Mexico Chapter of People Without Cell Phones, August 23, 2023

Paul Brodeur, a former staff writer for the New Yorker magazine, died on August 2, 2023. He was the author of the pioneering book, The Zapping of America, which he published in 1977. It was the first book I ever read on the subject of microwave radiation.

Not a Single Court in the Western World Is Willing to Examine the COVID-19 Evidence. “Crimes Against Humanity” Revealed by Dr. Reiner Fuellmich

By Stephen Karganovic, August 23, 2023

Quite some time ago, in 2021 to be precise, we discussed the remarkable phenomenon of the German-American trial attorney Dr. Reiner Fuellmich and his plans to take the pandemic and its instigators to court.

Heavy Losses of Ukraine Armed Forces, Including Many Commanders: Germany’s General A. Marlow

By Ahmed Adel, August 23, 2023

The Armed Forces of Ukraine have lost many commanders, said German Army Lieutenant General Andreas Marlow to Reuters agency. This suggests that Germany’s training of Ukrainian troops makes no difference on the battlefield as these newly trained recruits do not reinforce an experienced leadership.

COVID mRNA and Pregnancy: Skyrocketing Deaths of Vaccinated Pregnant Women. Dr. William Makis

By Dr. William Makis, August 23, 2023

39-year-old Megan McCullah Burrows, a Physician Assistant at Siskin Children’s Institute specializing in Autism and ADHD evaluation, died on July 24, 2023 “after a sudden illness.” She died < 3 months after giving birth (May 1, 2023).

Was There Really a Massacre in Tiananmen Square, Or Was It an Illusion Fabricated by U.S. Politicians and Corporate Media to Make Americans Hate China?

By Jeremy Kuzmarov, August 23, 2023

In 1989, the American public was flooded with iconic images of brave Chinese students standing up to Chinese Communist tanks in Tiananmen Square—students who were then brutally slaughtered by the Chinese military. Or so we were led to believe.

Better Reform ECOWAS Than Embark on Military Adventures in West Africa

By Kester Kenn Klomegah, August 23, 2023

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the 15-member West Africa’s main regional bloc, is seemingly loosing its decades-old credibility in attempts to reinstate Niger’s ousted president, Mohamed Bazoum. The overarching combined narratives of the growing crisis, mass demonstrations in support for the military and the uncoordinated plan for military intervention are explicit signs of weaknesses on the side of ECOWAS.

“The IMF may demand Lebanon normalize with Israel.”

By Alberto Garcia Watson and Steven Sahiounie, August 23, 2023

Lebanon is a failed state economically, politically, and socially. Very little movement has occurred to help Lebanon recover from the depths of hopelessness. Steven Sahiounie of MidEastDiscourse interviewed Alberto García Watson, a Beirut-based expert in the Middle East, terrorism and Islamic radicalism as well as a television correspondent.

BRICS: A New World Economic and Trading Force?

August 23rd, 2023 by Peter Koenig

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Background

The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are holding arguably one of their most important Summits from 22 to 24 August 2023 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Several new countries – up to 40 it is said, including Iran – would like to join the bloc and were invited to attend the South African Summit.

Iran applied for BRICS membership already in 2022. Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi has also been invited to Johannesburg to take part in the summit. BRICS is a consensus-based organization. Every five members must agree on the principle of expansion and criteria for new members.

South Africa’s president has officially opened the 15th annual summit of BRICS, a bloc of five major emerging economies in Johannesburg.

Cyril Ramaphosa made the inaugural address and welcomed the bloc’s members and other world leaders attending the 3-day summit. He called for more cooperation among members, adding that the bloc would continue discussions on practical use of local currencies to facilitate trade and investment flows.

Chinese and Brazilian presidents, the Indian Prime Minister, the Russian Foreign Minister as well as leaders and representatives from some 50 other countries are in attendance.

On Tuesday  (August 22, 2023), the Russian president addressed a business forum of the BRICS grouping. Vladimir Putin highlighted the accelerating momentum of de-dollarization.

In a virtual address, Vladimir Putin also criticized the sanctions policy of western states, saying such practice is seriously affecting the international economic situation. He said the unlawful freezing of assets of sovereign states constitutes a violation of free trade and economic cooperation rules. The Brazilian president addressed the same forum as well. He voiced support for economic cooperation among the bloc’s members.

BRICS is expected to consider granting new memberships during its three-day summit, as over 40 countries have expressed interest in joining it. 

PressTV: The Summit is expected to focus on several key topics, including criteria for BRICS- membership, de-dollarization, a BRICS common currency, challenging global economic hegemony and more. Can you please comment?

Peter Koenig: Let me start by saying, it is high time that the BRICS meet not only to talk about the criteria and rules for the about 20 to 40 new member candidates – including Iran – who want to join this Club of Eastern / Global South economies, but also about other crucial matters – like de-dollarization, a BRICS TRADING CURRENCY, and where to keep their reserves… for sure not in New York, London, or Paris.

Some western countries would not mind joining. They may not dare express their interest, for fear of being castigated by the self-styled masters of the West. But there are several western countries interested. Some of them important ones.

Some of them, even scholars of Klaus Schwab’s academy for Young Global Leaders (YGL), those that are literally at the head of most if not all EU countries, some have become tired of their role, having to follow a dictate that does maybe no longer respond to their own values.

On more than one occasion, Klaus Schwab has boasted how proud he is that the WEF was able to infiltrate “his” YGLs into governments throughout the world.

Well, some of these YGLs may see through the scam and are eager to exit. And some do. But no mention of names would be appropriate here.

Rules of BRICS Membership

So, it is THE opportunity for the original BRICS to lay out their rules, modify them if necessary – so that others can join, but PLEASE, do not water down the BRICS concept, just so that everybody fits into scheme.

Mind you, for many the East is the future. And rightly so. This is true for the world. Many see the BRICS and ultimately the dream of entering the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the SCO – as the salvation from the West, from sanctions, from the dollar impositions, from debt enslavement — from trading restrictions… from outright theft of their currency reserves in foreign countries.

And they are right.

As a byline to the all too frequent western theft of reserve funds and gold…

Think about NOT PLACING your reserves into foreign countries, especially not the west. Why did Russia and Venezuela not keep their gold at home?

But is this the purpose of the BRICS – providing shelter from the last onslaught of the west, led by the United States and her vassals – the Europeans?

And is it right – that some of the BRICS leaders are constantly vacillating between the US and the BRICS solid core – China and Russia. Mr. Modi, for example, seems to be leaning towards whatever camp – West or East – he feels gives him more advantages.

Is this what the BRICS – a solid and potentially expanded BRICS wants and needs?

Rules for BRICS Membership Are Essential

Mr. Putin is of course right – condemning sanctioning and freezing assets of “non-behaving” countries is a crime in the realm of international justice – which, as we all know, has been replaced by the globalist’s “rules of order” — which are being changed as they are needed to fulfill the globalists conditions to rule.

But what to do about it?

De-Dollarization

This is a term high up on the agenda of the BRICS meeting.

But how to do it? Many BRICS countries still depend on the US-dollar as the bulk of their reserve currency, the main trade currency —

De-Dollarization for many is not happening overnight. A common strategy is needed.

Trading in Local Currencies and Creating a Common BRICS Trading Currency

To begin with and to avoid the dollar – trading among BRICS members (and even outside BRICS) with local currencies, instead of dollars. This is relatively easy, for example China and Argentina have done it for a log time.

In the short-to-medium term – what might help and may become a necessity, is having a common BRICS Trading Currency.

But beware – this does not mean having a common BRICS currency – as the European Union does with the Euro – which is a disaster as most serious economists knows.

You cannot have a common currency for a group of politically and geographically diverse countries that do not have a common Constitution and claim instead their financial, economic, and political sovereignty.

Those who created the EU and the Euro – who were not Europeans – knew that exactly.

But what the BRICS should aim at during this meeting, is agreeing on a common trading currency and the format of this trading currency. While every BRICS member country maintains her own sovereign local currency

One option might be – the creation of a virtual currency which is a composite of the weighted average of each member’s own currency, weighted by her economic strength and other parameters – that eventually leads to something representing the currency that all members are part of and could use as a trading instrument – and even reserve currency.

It would be following in a certain way, the principle behind the IMF’s SDR – Special Drawing Rights.

But by NO Means would it be the SDR.

It might be called a BRICS TRADING CURRENCY – or BTC.

And mind you, a BRICS TRADING CURRENCY would not be cast in stone. It might be adjusted as economies of members change and evolve.

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Summary

If these few concepts

  • Rules for BRICS membership; and possibly a preselection;
  • Timelines to achieve these rules for interested countries;
  • De-Dollarization, i.e., trading in local currencies and agreeing on a virtual common trading currency,

could be agreed upon during the Johannesburg BRICS Summit – a great step towards an expanded and unified BRICS may be achieved.

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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

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*** 

This report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) (an establishment think tank) presents relevant information  and analysis on the billions of dollars of so-called “U.S. Aid to Ukraine”, a large percentage of which is diverted to The Depart of Defense, (which transfers funds to The US Army, US Air Force, US Navy), several departments of the U.S. administration including the State Department, The Department of Health and Human Services, as well as The World Bank, in support of loan activities which are totally unrelated to Ukraine, in support of “the IDA’s crisis response window, which provides rapid financing and grants to the poorest countries to respond to severe crises”.

Quotations from the report: 

Thus, “aid to Ukraine” is a misnomer since 40 percent does not go to Ukraine itself. However, all is related to the war.”

“The great fear is a “forever war,” a conflict that goes on indefinitely at a great human and fiscal cost but without a clear outcome.”

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, August 23, 2023

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Emphasis added by Global Research.

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President Biden has asked Congress for an additional $24 billion for the war in Ukraine, bringing the total aid to $135 billion. 

Such aid is critical, not just for military operations but for easing the war’s humanitarian impact. [according to CISIS]

Although most of this request tracks with previous requests, some items are only tangentially related to the war in Ukraine. Furthermore, this request will likely engender more debate than previous requests as concerns about a “forever war” build. Although the administration will likely prevail this time, the next request― which is inevitable―may face a more difficult reception.

Q1: What is in the request?

A1: The $24 billion request for Ukraine aid is part of a larger $40 billion supplemental that also includes domestic disaster relief and border security.

The Ukraine request includes money for both the Department of Defense (DOD) ($13.2 billion) and the Department of State ($10.7 billion), with small amounts going to the Department of Health and Human Services ($100 million) and the Department of Energy ($65 million).

Figure 1 below shows the purpose of the funding. Although attention has focused on military aid (“Military [Ukraine]”), funds for the Ukrainian government to continue regular governmental operations (“Ukrainian Government”) and humanitarian aid (“Humanitarian”) are also significant.

Further, the DOD has received money for its increased military activity in Eastern Europe and for acceleration of munitions production (“Military [United States]”). Most of this goes to the U.S. Army, with lesser amounts to the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force. Finally, other parts of the U.S. government have received money for activities related to the war such as nonproliferation efforts (“U.S. Government and Domestic”). Thus, “aid to Ukraine” is a misnomer since 40 percent does not go to Ukraine itself. However, all is related to the war.

One striking element of the request is that $3.5 billion is, at best, indirectly related to Ukraine and arguably entirely unrelated.

The Department of State would receive $1 billion for “transformative, quality, and sustainable infrastructure projects that align with U.S. strategic interests and support U.S. partners and allies. Funding would allow the United States to provide credible, reliable alternatives to out-compete China.”

The World Bank through the International Development Association would receive $1 billion “to support the IDA’s crisis response window, which provides rapid financing and grants to the poorest countries to respond to severe crises” and another $1.25 billion through the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development for loan guarantees “to provide financing to help countries such as Colombia, Peru, Jordan, India, Indonesia, Morocco, Nigeria, Kenya, and Vietnam build new infrastructure and supply chains.” Finally, $200 million would go to a new fund in the Department of State to counter “Russian malign actors” in Africa.

While all of these uses might be justified, their inclusion in an emergency supplemental was likely opportunistic. The Office of Management and Budget often refers to this as the “Christmas tree” effect, whereby agencies that could not get money through the regular budget try to append the funds to an emergency supplemental.

Q2: Why did this request appear now?

A2: Congress has appropriated a total of $111 billion as a result of the conflict, which was intended to last through the end of the fiscal year (September 30). Because the money will run out soon, the administration needs to ask for more now to give the appropriations process time to play out.

Outside aid is vital for Ukrainian resistance. Militaries in active combat require a constant flow of weapons, munitions, and supplies. Without outside military aid, Ukrainian resistance would collapse in two or three weeks. Thus, the United States, with its allies and partners, needs to provide an uninterrupted flow of military aid. Even a short gap in support would badly undermine Ukrainian resistance. The same is true of humanitarian and economic assistance, though the effects are not as dramatic—human suffering as opposed to battlefield movement.

The administration sent its FY 2024 budget proposal to Congress in March but did not include aid to Ukraine. Rather, the administration has waited until now because it has not been sure how long the war would last or what its nature would be. Waiting has indeed provided more clarity: the war goes on and at the same level of intensity.

Q3: How does this latest request fit into the aid that the United States has provided so far?

A3: CSIS has tracked aid to Ukraine from the beginning of the conflict, publishing analyses in May 2022 (“What Does $40 Billion in Aid to Ukraine Buy?”), November 2022 (“Aid to Ukraine Explained in Six Charts”), and February 2023 (“What’s the Future of Aid to Ukraine?”). Those analyses contain a full description of U.S. aid. Figures 2 and 3 below draw on these previous analyses to put the August request in context.

Figure 2 shows the total amount of aid enacted by Congress: $113 billion, which came in four packages appropriated by Congress: March ($14 billion), May ($40 billion), September ($12 billion), and December ($45 billion). The August package brings the total to $135 billion.

Figure 3 compares the purpose of the funding in the August package with the previous packages as percentages of the whole. The figure shows that the proportion of military aid has stayed about the same. The August proposal has relatively more humanitarian aid and less economic aid to the Ukrainian government.

Q4: How long will this aid last?

A4: This is an interim request. The expectation is that Congress will not have appropriations bills passed by the beginning of the fiscal year on October 1, so there will be a continuing resolution. This aid package will support Ukraine during the time of the continuing resolution. The administration will make another request when the appropriation bills shape up, likely in November or so. That was the pattern last year. The administration asked for enough money to get through the period of a continuing resolution. It later asked for money for the rest of the fiscal year.

The $113 billion of aid approved by Congress averaged over the 583 days of war between February 24, 2022, and September 30, 2023, comes out to $223 million per day or $6.8 billion per month.

Military aid to Ukraine has averaged $86 million per day or $2.7 billion per month. Thus, a $23 billion aid package will last about 100 days, the expected period of the continuing resolution. Indeed, the administration’s documentation sent to Congress cites three months in one program description (“Economic Support Fund” section of the administration’s August request).

Why not ask for a full year of funding now? There are three reasons. First, the administration does not want to ask for a large amount of money―for example, enough to last for the entire fiscal year―because that would generate a lot of attention at a time when the other appropriations bills are not being considered. It is less controversial to put Ukrainian aid funding into the context of the full federal budget when the final budget deal is being made. Second, a full-year funding at this point would imply that the war will continue for another whole year. That is not yet clear. Finally, the administration is unsure about the nature of the war—whether it will continue at the current high level or settle down to a long-term stalemate that entails a lower level of operations.

On the other hand, the administration does not want to ask for too little money and then go back to Congress repeatedly with all the political controversies that go with it. The two-step process, continuing resolution request and then a full-year request as part of the final budget negotiations, is a compromise.

Q5: Will political opposition reduce or even block this proposed aid funding?

A5: Blockage or reduction is unlikely, but a political battle is inevitable, given rising concerns on both the left and the right. Progressives want to use the money for domestic purposes and agonize about the suffering that war entails. The populist right wants to reduce federal spending and avoid foreign entanglements. In the House vote on the National Defense Authorization Act, populists got 70 votes in a failed attempt to strip out $300 million of Ukraine funding. So far, however, the opposition has not stopped or even reduced aid in the face of strong bipartisan support.

What is new is the disappointing results of the Ukrainian counteroffensive so far. Although the counteroffensive began two months ago, Ukrainian forces are still chewing their way through the Russian defensive lines. Even President Zelensky has acknowledged the disappointment. Frustration is building. The great fear is a “forever war,” a conflict that goes on indefinitely at a great human and fiscal cost but without a clear outcome. Ukraine has tried to ease these concerns and has urged patience. However, recent CNN polling in the United States shows a majority saying “the United States has already done enough” (51 percent) and “should not authorize additional funding” (55 percent).

Opposition to aid packages often manifests itself in support for immediate negotiations because they seem to offer a way to end the war without betraying Ukraine. However, given Russia’s recalcitrance, any deal will reflect the situation on the ground. Currently, that would be an armistice with Russia retaining the territories it still occupies.

Economic aid may be most vulnerable as conservatives tend to support military aid and progressives support humanitarian aid. By contrast, economic aid goes to the Ukrainian government. Some on the left and right will argue that U.S. local governments need the money more.

There may also be a push for additional oversight. Although the administration argues that oversight is extensive and no significant problems have yet arisen, this is always a sensitive area. Evidence of widespread abuses would be extremely damaging to outside political support. It is also an area where the administration and congressional skeptics may find common ground.

Q6: What happens next?

A6: The administration will push Congress to act on this aid package. Given the political difficulty surrounding any appropriations action, the package may be attached to the expected continue resolution. Since the continuing resolution is a “must pass” bill, that increases the chances of the aid package getting a vote. If there is a government shutdown, as some deficit hawks are pushing for, there could be a gap in funding. That will not lead to an immediate end of support since Ukraine will continue to receive equipment and supplies that are already in the pipeline. Because previous shutdowns lasted a few weeks at the most, a funding gap would probably stop any offensive actions but not be fatal to Ukrainian resistance.

In the longer term, Ukraine’s success on the battlefield will drive both the need for future aid packages and the political fate of those packages. With both near-term and long-term aid packages in play, the fall could be a time of crisis.

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Mark F. Cancian (Colonel, USMCR, ret.) is a senior adviser with the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. During his time in the Office of Management and Budget his staff helped develop military aid packages for Eastern Europe and Ukraine.

Featured image: An airman loads weapons cargo bound for Ukraine onto a C-17 Globemaster III during a security assistance mission at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, Sept. 14, 2022. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Marco A. Gomez).

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*** 

Paul Brodeur, a former staff writer for the New Yorker magazine, died on August 2, 2023. He was the author of the pioneering book, The Zapping of America, which he published in 1977. It was the first book I ever read on the subject of microwave radiation. Nobody had cell phones at that time. The first personal computers did not come on the market until that year. But Brodeur had bought property on Cape Cod, which he discovered was going to be directly in the path of the most powerful radar facility in the world.

The Zapping of America: Microwaves, Their Deadly Risk, and the Coverup: Brodeur, Paul: 9780393064278: Amazon.com: Books

It was an early warning radar station, and the United States was building two of them, one on the east coast and one on the west. They were called PAVE PAWS (Precision Acquisition of Vehicle Entry Phased Array Warning System).

They were going to emit 3-billion-watt phased array microwave beams that would scan the entire east and west coasts of the country to detect and warn against nuclear missiles. Brodeur did an investigation, and what he discovered about microwave radiation, and what was about to happen to this country, astonished him. Those radar stations were built and are still in operation today. And most people have forgotten they are there. But they emit phased array microwave radiation just like 5G cell phones and antennas.

In 1989, Brodeur wrote another book titled Currents of Death: Power Lines, Computer Terminals, and the Attempts to Cover Up Their Threat to Your Health. Computer screens were causing asthma, cataracts, miscarriages, birth defects, and skin problems. Until 1977, when the first personal computers were sold, rates of asthma had steadily declined year after year in the United States. In 1977, rates of asthma suddenly started to rise, and have been rising ever since. Brodeur exposed the hazards of computer screens in 1989. Most people have forgotten this too.

A new global network of local chapters called People Without Cell Phones has been launched to make sure that Brodeur’s life and work, and the lives and work of other pioneers of his generation, were not in vain. Today, 46 years after The Zapping of America was published, the world is still pretending that radiation is harmless, and that asthma, and brain tumors, and diabetes, and heart disease, and cancer, are caused by something else. And everyone carries around a cell phone, day and night.

We are going to grow a worldwide network of people who are throwing them away. The Earth is dying. Insects have largely disappeared.

Birds are falling dead out of the sky by the millions. The purpose of this network is not to place blame. It is to establish a presence in this world of people living, and teaching others how to live, as if life on Earth will continue. It has been launched together with a Policy Brief on Electrosmog, to which so far 29 organizations in 10 countries have signed on in support — organizations in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, and Tunisia. The time for baby steps is over. It is time to do what is necessary without fear, without reservations, and without accusations.

The New Mexico chapter of People Without Cell Phones had its founding meeting, in person, three days ago, on August 19. It was attended by a medical doctor, several building biologists, a photographer, and others. All but two do not own cell phones, and the others plan to get rid of theirs.

We established a feeling of community which people have been hungering for, and we began to discuss ways to talk about this to others, support one another, and work toward a world with:

  • no more radiation
  • no more brain tumors
  • restored health and vitality
  • birds, bees and butterflies
  • living as if life on Earth will continue

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***

Quite some time ago, in 2021 to be precise, we discussed the remarkable phenomenon of the German-American trial attorney Dr. Reiner Fuellmich and his plans to take the pandemic and its instigators to court. Dr. Fuellmich early on organised a professional investigative committee to gather facts about the galloping pandemic and to elaborate a legal strategy to deal with it in case the evidence convinced the committee   that the global upheaval we all experienced was not a natural phenomenon. He was preparing a legal response in case that everything was not on the up and up (in the American meaning of the phrase) as we were being aggressively directed to believe that it was.

At that time, in 2021, we expressed the somewhat sceptical-sounding view that

“with all the facts and cogent arguments marshalled and at his disposal, in today’s post-everything normal and decent world, Dr. Fuellmich will also need, as the title [Viel Gluck, Dr. Fuellmich] suggests, a massive amount of luck, much more than any tool from the arsenal of his legal profession.”


The plandemic was “fueled by an elaborate psychological operation designed to create a constant state of panic among the world’s population.”

“This agenda has been long planned, it’s ultimately unsuccessful, precursor was the swine flu some 12 years ago, and is cooked up by a group of super-rich psychopathic and sociopathic people who hate and fear people at the same time, have no empathy, and are driven by the desire to gain full control over all of us, the people of the world.” (Dr. Reiner Fuellmich)

Video: Dr. Reiner Fuellmich 


Perhaps it is time now to review briefly the trajectory of Dr. Fuellmich’s legal case in order to check whether in retrospect our scepticism was warranted.

To start off, two and a half years later, what is the status of the Covid controversy?

To begin with the putative “cure,” the highly touted mRNA vaccines that hundreds of millions of people were relentlessly pressured and in some professional milieux imperatively required to take, their overall harmfulness is now well established. Numerous scientific studies amply confirm it. That proposition seems now to be as close to an open and shut case as anything could be.

One specific scientific study aiming “to investigate possible causal links between COVID-19 vaccine administration and excess death using autopsies and post-mortem analysis” had a very curious or perhaps more accurately, disturbing, fate once it was published by the respected British scientific journal, “Lancet.”

Study authors put a rather bland interpretation of the data in their findings, to the effect that

“the consistency seen among cases in this review with known COVID-19 vaccine adverse events, their mechanisms, and related excess death, coupled with autopsy confirmation and physician-led death adjudication, suggests there is a high likelihood of a causal link between COVID-19 vaccines and death in most cases. Further urgent investigation is required for the purpose of clarifying our findings.”

The very discreet suggestions, couched in thick scientific jargon, that there could be a cause-and-effect relationship between the purported Covid prevention panacea and excess death was tolerated on the “Lancet” site for exactly 24 hours.

The subsequent explanation posted by the editors is that the

“preprint has been removed by Preprints with The Lancet because the study’s conclusions are not supported by the study methodology.”

It must be judged very curious that the editors did not notice such a huge and disqualifying flaw when they initially agreed to publish the findings. Or did they receive subsequently a phone call from some higher authority that brooks no contradiction instructing them to immediately remove the tell-tale findings which shake the narrative to its very foundations?

Be that as it may, the problem is that the totality of the many recent rigorously conducted scientific studies about the nature, origin, and “cure” for the pandemic all point to the existence behind it of an agenda that many influential interests involved in the affair would prefer to maintain under wraps.

Who these interests are and the nature of their agenda may be gleaned from statements made by Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, and the world famous “philanthropist” Bill Gates.

It is evident that these kind gentlemen and benefactors of mankind are obsessively preoccupied with a single issue, radical population reduction. Can such an objective be achieved in any other way except by killing masses of people?

As private individuals they are certainly entitled to have an opinion on this matter, as Thomas Malthus did also in his time, but there seems to be a very important difference.

Excess population and policies required to deal with it was something that Malthus merely theorised upon. These gentlemen, on the other hand, have the resources and the means, and judging by the plain significance of their own words also the motivation, to give such theoretical ramblings practical effect.

Considering the quantity of victims publicly contemplated by their genocidal (and incidentally highly profitable) schemes and taking into account the global scope of the carnage they have the means as well as the evident intention to accomplish, the Holocaust and what happened to the Armenians, not to mention Srebrenica, are by comparison mere historical footnotes.

Attorney and insurance executive Todd Callender minces no words about it: “Intentional homicide in large numbers is genocide.” It is worth reminding that while machinations that generated excess morbidity on a global scale were going on, the therapeutic use of effective treatments was strictly prohibited.

But what to a normal mind would appear to be if not an open and shut legal case then at least a strong indication of egregious criminal malfeasance, sufficient to warrant an urgent and thorough global investigation, is not necessarily so. Just ask Dr. Fuellmich.

Since we last wrote about it, Dr. Fuellmich’s and his able investigative team’s noble efforts have borne much fruit, everywhere in fact but in a court of law.

Starting out nearly three years ago with laudable but retrospectively naïve enthusiasm, Dr. Fuellmich and his associates have amassed a vast amount of evidence on every aspect of the pandemic, including what is possibly smoking gun proof of malicious intent.

All of that is readily available online, not any longer on YouTube of course, whence he was expelled some time ago like many others who failed to survive the “fact-checking” gauntlet, but certainly on other, more truth-friendly portals where he has since migrated.

The only arena where so far Dr. Fuellmich has had nothing to show for his valiant efforts is his own professional milieu, the court of law.

And that is not because his case is afflicted with paucity of evidence. It is for a different reason altogether that should unsettle everyone who still retains a modicum of faith in what ought to have remained as the last bastion of institutional probity in an otherwise unashamedly corrupt world, the system of justice.

There has so far been not a single court in the Western world that was willing to examine the evidence of colossal turpitude that Dr. Fuellmich has painstakingly uncovered and assembled, that would consent to do its professional duty by hearing his arguments or render a legal judgment on the merits of his extraordinary and impeccably documented claims.

Consequently, there remains little of the confidence Dr. Reiner Fuellmich initially exuded that with the cooperation of our diligent judiciary the culprits for the events that continue to ruin an untold number of lives would surely be rounded up, tried in a court of law, and following a spectacular Nuremberg II would be put away to expiate their crimes.

The expectation that in the real world anything of the sort could actually occur was in itself a spectacular display of naiveté on his part.

So now, properly educated in the ways of the real world, Dr. Fuellmich has had to drop his ambitious vision of a sequel to the Nuremberg Tribunal, having been obliged to settle for a more modest alternative.

He is still holding a trial of sorts, but that has turned out to be a virtual and unofficial exercise carried by the few remaining platforms where truth may still be uttered with impunity.

His efforts therefore will be accessible only to the disenfranchised multitudes who might happen to stumble upon these largely unpublicised proceedings and who will be expected to act in the politically irrelevant capacity of a citizen jury.

Needless to say, the impressions formed by such an informal jury and the conclusions it draws, based on the evidence heard in Dr. Fuellmich’s virtual courtroom, will be of no practical consequence. They will be contemptuously disregarded by the vile cabal upon whose command the editors of “Lancet” hastened to remove from their journal the peer-reviewed findings that could have given the criminal game away.

Arguably, the adamant refusal of the Western judiciaries to investigate the pandemic and render judgment on it after hearing the evidence could roughly be compared to the refusal of Western public agencies to investigate North Stream II.

The parallel with North Stream, however, goes only so far, being deficient in one critical respect. The impact of the event in the Baltic Sea was serious but mainly economic. The impact of the pandemic, including most importantly the “therapeutic” treatments allegedly developed to cure the victims, is on the existential level incomparably more profound, particularly in light of the publicly admitted homicidal motives of its principal promoters. That puts the urgency of looking into the pandemic, its origins, and the objectives it may have been designed to serve in an entirely different league.

Yet be it noted that an experienced international trial lawyer, after many attempts on two continents to initiate legal proceedings which would appear as much in the public interest as anything could ever be, has gotten exactly nowhere.

What does that tell us about the condition of the judiciary in that part of the world which freely lectures the rest of the planet about the benefits of the rule of law and the blessings of a “rules based order”?

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Stephen Karganovic is president of “Srebrenica Historical Project,” an NGO registered in the Netherlands to investigate the factual matrix and background of events that took place in Srebrenica in July of 1995. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.  


The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0,  Year: 2022,  PDF Ebook,  Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

Price: $11.50 FREE COPY! Click here (docsend) and download.

We encourage you to support the eBook project by making a donation through Global Research’s DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page

Cluster Bombs Are as Outdated as War

August 23rd, 2023 by Khury Petersen-Smith

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*** 

President Joe Biden’s administration has taken a cruel weapon—the cluster bomb—off the shelf and sent it to Ukraine to be used in the war against Russia. Prior to being transferred to Ukraine, cluster bombs made in the United States were used by Saudi Arabia as recently as last year to devastating effect in its war in Yemen. The weapons pose such an extraordinary danger to civilians that—although the U.S. is among a minority of countries that refuses to sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions banning them, and retains such weapons in its arsenal—they have largely been gathering dust because their use and sale are so controversial on the world stage. The White House’s decision to transfer the bombs to Ukraine both escalates the already horrific war and legitimizes a weapon that has no place in our world.

Cluster bombs are large bombs that contain dozens or even hundreds of smaller bombs, or “bomblets.” Cluster bombs are designed to scatter the bomblets over a wide area upon detonation. At a time when the United States and its allies often claim—inaccurately—to carry out precision killing with “surgical strikes,” cluster bombs are imprecise by nature. 

But what makes cluster bombs even worse is the fact that, inevitably, not all of the smaller, scattered bombs explode on impact. The bomblets lie on or below the surface of the ground, potentially for years or even decades, waiting to be detonated when touched. They are, in effect, land mines. As Amnesty International’s Brian Castner concludes, “There’s just not a responsible way to use cluster munitions.”

In Laos, where the U.S. dropped cluster bombs extensively as part of its war in Southeast Asia during the 1960s and ’70s, unexploded bomblets continue to litter the land even today. As veteran foreign correspondent Lewis M. Simons—who covered the war in Southeast Asia—wrote in a piece responding to the news of the weapons transfer to Ukraine, “Less than 1% of the dormant bombs have been cleared since the war ended in Laos. About 20,000 civilians been killed during the same period. Even as the numbers gradually decline, thousands continue to be killed, crippled and disfigured.” He added, “Half the victims are children.”

Well after ceasefires and treaties formally end armed conflicts, cluster bombs continue to threaten civilians in the places where they have been used. In response to the dangers remaining bomblets present to civilians, more than 120 countries have signed the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions.

This means that by transferring cluster bombs to Ukraine, the Biden administration is violating an international law that the majority of U.N. member states are party to.

This is ironic given the attention that the White House has rightfully called to Vladimir Putin’s violations of international law in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. move to send cluster bombs to Ukraine indicts the moral position that it has claimed in the war.

Click here to read the full article.

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Featured image: US personnel load a cluster bomb to a jet during the bombing of Yugoslavia. (Photo: Richard Rosser / US Navy)

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The Armed Forces of Ukraine have lost many commanders, said German Army Lieutenant General Andreas Marlow to Reuters agency. This suggests that Germany’s training of Ukrainian troops makes no difference on the battlefield as these newly trained recruits do not reinforce an experienced leadership. This comes as the popularity of the German government collapses amid a growing economic crisis.

“The training of sergeants and officers is what moves the Ukrainians most because the professional soldiers have been fighting this war for one and a half years now, and many have died or been wounded – so they need a fresh supply of military leaders,” said Marlow to journalists.

The press meeting was held at the Klietz training camp in Germany, where foreign instructors trained the Ukrainian military. The site is used to train Ukrainian service members to operate German Leopard 1 and Leopard 2 tanks, as well as IRIS-T air defence systems. However, as has already been proven, these short training missions make no difference to Ukraine’s war effort as the undertrained soldiers are only fed to the Russian meatgrinder.

Marlow’s revelation that most of Ukraine’s professional soldiers are either exhausted, wounded or dead comes as Gunnar Beck, a member of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in the European Parliament, blasted his country’s policy on Ukraine.

Olaf Scholz’s government members, including Finance Minister Christian Lindner, recently expressed support for sending long-range Taurus KEPD 350 cruise missiles to Ukraine. The German finance minister said a decision would be made “faster, in a shorter timeframe” than in the past. Berlin is pushing ahead with this despite most Germans opposing the step.

A new poll revealed that while 36% favour supplying new military aid, 52% are against it. Support fell to just 21% among residents of eastern Germany.

According to Russian sources, Germany has sent more than 260 Leopard 1 and Leopard 2 tanks, including from its arsenals and other European NATO allies, as well as Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, MARS rocket artillery systems, Panzerhaubitze 2000 self-propelled howitzers, Marder infantry combat, Bergepanzer armoured recovery vehicles, Panzerfaust rocket-propelled grenades, and many other weapons, support equipment, ammunition, and supplies. These weapons are worth about €7.5 billion, all handed to Ukraine over the past year and a half, the second-highest amount after the US.

Although the US and other NATO countries promised that the weapons would not be used against Russian territory, the Ukrainian military used supplied military equipment, including artillery, missiles, and drones, to attack Russian cities and towns. Germans who do not want to be embroiled in the war are especially afraid that Ukraine will use the Taurus cruise missile, a €950,000 481kg warhead with an operational range of over 500km, to use against Russia. Ordinary Germans fear what a Russian response could be.

Berlin would obviously want to prevent Ukraine from using the missiles against Russian territory, but this is wishful thinking. In practice, Germany cannot do anything to prevent Ukraine from using the missiles, which is why the move is so unpopular.

Recently, support for the right-wing AfD, which has been the most critical of Berlin’s anti-Russia policies, has increased, with recent polls indicating the party would get up to 21% of the vote if elections were held today, the same level as Scholz’s Social Democrats. Despite relentless anti-Russian propaganda in the German media, many Germans have lost faith in the Scholz coalition, mainly due to the declining economic situation spurred on by anti-Russia sanctions.

According to the new Insa survey for Bild, 64% of those surveyed found that a change of government would be better for Germany. The survey found that just as many respondents (64%) ​​are dissatisfied with the work of the current federal cabinet. Only 27% are satisfied. There are even more dissatisfied and less satisfied when it comes to Scholz. 70% are dissatisfied with his work, and only 22% are satisfied.

The German economy for two quarters in a row declined, a “technical recession,” as described by economists. Germany’s GDP stagnated at the previous quarter’s level in the last recent quarter, and there is evidently a decline. The IMF predicted in its July estimates that most of the world’s major economies will see growth, except for Germany, which is expected to contract by 0.3% this year. In fact, the financial institution forecasted Germany to do worse than in the last report from April 2023.

Germany is no longer the European economic powerhouse it once was, primarily due to self-sabotaging anti-Russia sanctions, making the country import energy at an inflated price and cut off from Russian markets and businesses. More disturbing is that Germany insists on maintaining the sanctions and continues to train mostly ordinary Ukrainian men knowing they cannot overturn Russian forces.

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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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*** 

Here are 50 deaths of COVID-19 vaccinated pregnant women and new mothers: 

Aug.15, 2023 – Scottsburg, IN – 34 year old Devonnia Tscheulin, a Paramedic and Deputy Chief for Scott County EMS, died from complications during delivery of her third child (photos above).

July 24, 2023 – TN – 39 yo Megan McCullah Burrows, a Physician Assistant at Siskin Children’s Institute, specializing in Autism and ADHD evaluation, died on July 24, 2023 “after a sudden illness” She died < 3 months after giving birth (May 1, 2023).

July 22, 2023 – Perth, Australia – 24 year old Krystal Pitt collapsed while lining up at a local post office just 10 days after giving birth to her 2nd child, and died in hospital a few days later.

July 21, 2023 – Brazil – 26 year old Renata Pereira was 3 months pregnant when she had a cardiac arrest and died.

July 14, 2023 – Lubbock, TX – 19 year old Ariana Nicole Sanchez gave birth to a baby girl who weighed 10 pounds 6 ounces and died unexpectedly during delivery.

June 10, 2023 – South Carolina – Justine Kostenbauder (wife of Connor Cave) delivered a baby girl but died unexpectedly from complications during delivery.

June 2, 2023 – Lafayette, IN – 26 year old Sha’Asia Johnson had a heart attack 2 hours after delivery and died unexpectedly.

May 15, 2023 – Perth, Australia – 36 year old Monika Mann died 7 days after giving birth to twins. She arrived at ER “unresponsive” and was declared dead.

May 11, 2023 – New Zealand – 32 year old Sue Maroroa Jones, International NZ Chess Champion, died suddenly after giving birth to her 2nd child, on May 11, 2023, due to “post natal complications”.

May 2, 2023 – 32 yo Olympic sprinter Tori Bowie was found dead alone in bed after wellness check, was 8 months pregnant and was “undergoing labor” when she was found deceased.

April 27, 2023 – Narrows, VA – 35 year old Crystal Candler, who worked as a Child Care Director, had a medical emergency at 35 weeks pregnancy, and died unexpectedly while her baby Maddox survived.

April 26, 2023 – Boerne, Texas – 34 year old Dr.Sheena Nageli, a pediatric chiropractor, delivered baby Juliette on April 20, 2023 (home birth). On April 24, 2023 she was battling a localized infection “unrelated to her pregnancy”, which inexplicably spread quickly. Despite quick medical intervention she died on April 25, 2023.

April 21, 2023 – Saskatchewan nurse, 29 year old Meaghan Riley Elizabeth Seipp died during delivery on April 21, 2023 from “bleeding complications”.

March 25, 2023 – New York, 28 year old Samantha Dannecker died unexpectedly while giving birth to her first child, a baby girl.

March 25, 2023 – Texas – 29 year old Camylle Bowen-Ables died 2 days after delivering a baby girl (Josephine) via C-section, of unspecified complications.

March 21, 2023 – Brentwood, TN – 32 year old 5th grade teacher Kelsey Holder, died suddenly on March 21, 2023 with her stillborn baby.

March 20, 2023 – Cincinnati, Ohio – 25 year old Jada Arianna Turner (medical assistant in General Surgery at Mercy Fairfield Hospital and 10 days from getting her Licensed Practical Nursing Degree) Jada Arianna Turner died unexpectedly in her sleep at 8 months pregnant on March 20, 2023, baby died also (source).

March 15, 2023 – Guatemala – Pennsylvania mother of two boys, 27 year old Rocio “Rose” Michelle Roberts died suddenly on March 15, 2023, 4 days after giving birth, from a pulmonary embolism.

March 13, 2023 – Detroit, MI – 25 year old Alona White died of brain bleed 5 days after giving birth to her 2nd child on March 13, 2023 (click here).

March 13, 2023 – Brazil, Umuarama – 23 year old Fabianne Vitoria Ramos dos Anjos presented to emergency on March 13, 2023 in cardiorespiratory arrest, she was 3 months pregnant.

March 2, 2023 – Los Angeles, CA – 32 year old Bridgette Cromer, a healthcare worker (CNA) died unexpectedly hours after giving birth to her 5th child.

Feb. 20, 2023 – Warren, AR – Megan Patterson died unexpectedly 10 days after giving birth to her 5th child.

Feb. 7, 2023 – Kettering, UK – 26 year old Zoe Green, mom of 3, was 7 months pregnant when she suddenly felt unwell and died unexpectedly of a sudden cardiac arrest at home on morning of Feb. 7, 2023.

Jan. 10, 2023 – 31 year old April Valentine had an emergency C-section for her daughter on Jan.9, complained of pain the following day and collapsed and died suddenly, while her boyfriend performed CPR on her (click here)(click here).

Dec. 23, 2022 – Detroit, MI – 35 year old Nikita Marie Washington died unexpectedly several hours after delivery due to “excessive bleeding.”

Nov. 8, 2022 – Newtown, PA – 30 year old teacher Jennifer Krasna died suddenly only days after giving birth to her second son.

Oct. 30, 2022 – Puyallup, WA – 44 year old mother of 5 Laura MacDonald Seymour died suddenly and unexpectedly during birth of her 6th child and 1st daughter on Oct.30, 2022. Laura experienced Amniotic Fluid Embolism, collapsed into her husband’s arms and lost consciousness. Her body then went into Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation, and the bleeding never stopped. Every drop of blood from the Pierce County Blood Bank was used, and some from Seattle too, in attempts to save her. Over 70 medical personnel worked seven hours to bring her back. (Source)

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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense


The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0,  Year: 2022,  PDF Ebook,  Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

Price: $11.50 FREE COPY! Click here (docsend) and download.

We encourage you to support the eBook project by making a donation through Global Research’s DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page

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Ukraine is running out of possibilities for a counteroffensive, according to the Washington Post. This report comes as it was recently revealed that cracks are beginning to emerge between Washington and Kiev over the latter’s handling of the war. These cracks will only deepen as we slowly creep towards next year’s US presidential election, where Biden’s unwavering and uncritical support for Ukraine is making him lose support – and at a fast pace.

The Washington Post writes that Ukraine appears to be running out of options in a counteroffensive that officials initially saw as Kiev’s most crucial operation. Although Ukrainian and Western officials call for patience, the newspaper stressed that “the window of time for Ukraine to conduct offensive is limited” because of the “inhospitable weather” in autumn and winter.

“Without more advanced weapons slated to bolster the front line or fully committing forces still being held in reserve, it is unlikely that Ukraine will be able to secure a breakthrough in the counteroffensive, according to analysts,” said the newspaper.

The article also warned that

“the inability to demonstrate decisive success on the battlefield is stoking fears that the conflict is becoming a stalemate and international support could erode.”

According to the newspaper, Western and Ukrainian officials, answering questions about the progress of the counteroffensive, call for patience. They describe the fighting as slower than expected but emphasise that Ukraine is progressing. However, away from the public eye, US officials are expressing their disappointment in Ukraine’s handling of its counteroffensive and doubt Kiev will be able to achieve any significant gains by the end of the year.

The Financial Times claimed that Washington had urged Kiev to push hard on the Zaporozhye region instead of spreading its forces thinly along a lengthy frontline. The British outlet says that rifts between the two countries are beginning to grow. This signals that US President Joe Biden feels pressure for his bungled Ukraine policy.

According to the report, Washington and Kiev planned to launch the counteroffensive in the spring and breach Russian defences to reach the Sea of Azov during the summer. In addition, the Ukrainian military was supposed to employ NATO’s combined arms-manoeuvre tactics, as taught by their Western trainers. However, the Ukrainian military reverted to older Soviet-era tactics due to endless setbacks, which displeased Washington. The outlet reported that more US officials are privately preparing for a “war of attrition that will last well into next year.”

At the same time, US officials reportedly “encouraged Ukraine to be less risk-averse and fully commit its forces to the main axis of the counteroffensive in the south” so that Moscow’s land bridge to Crimea could be severed.

A source told the Financial Times that US officials are privately preparing for a war of attrition in Ukraine, which could continue as late as 2024, while they publicly reiterate their support for offensive attempts by Ukrainian troops. It is not understood why the US believes that a war of attrition that hurts Russia can occur since it is Ukraine being demilitarised.

Ukraine launched its much-touted offensive in early June after multiple postponements. Citing its needs, Kiev pressured its Western partners to increase military and financial aid. According to Moscow, as of August 4, the losses of the Ukrainian Army since the start of the counteroffensive were about 43,000 troops and 4,900 units of military equipment, while more than 150,000 Ukrainian servicemen have been killed or wounded since the beginning of the special military operation. This unmitigated disaster also has a significant effect on the US, as Biden’s Ukraine policy, among other reasons, has seen his popularity plummet.

According to a CNN survey released at the beginning of August, 55% of citizens are against the US continuing to send funds to Ukraine, including 38% of Democratic voters, the party that champions the head of the federal executive. The data reflects a growing chorus speaking against Biden’s reckless Ukraine policy.

It is worth remembering that the US has already sent $113 billion of aid to Ukraine since February 2022, when the operation launched by Moscow began, of which $70 billion have been allocated to security. This huge vast sum for no gain is proving disastrous for Biden as Ukraine is effectively a financial blackhole and a source of criticism against the current administration.

The Biden government, Kiev’s main ally, has sent it all kinds of military weapons, humanitarian aid, and intelligence and training contributions for Ukrainian soldiers. This is in addition to leading political efforts worldwide, rejecting peace negotiations and imposing sanctions against Russian citizens and companies. Yet, all these efforts have not been enough to deter the special military operation, thus deepening the emerging cracks between Washington and Kiev.

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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

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In 1989, the American public was flooded with iconic images of brave Chinese students standing up to Chinese Communist tanks in Tiananmen Square—students who were then brutally slaughtered by the Chinese military. Or so we were led to believe.

But a startling new book reveals that the American public may have been deceived. According to A. B. Abrams, author of Atrocity Fabrication and Its Consequences: How Fake News Shapes World Order (Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2023), there were no killings in Tiananmen Square, let alone a massacre. There was just the same old manipulation of public perception by the U.S. government and its echo chamber erroneously known as the free press.

False Atrocity Reporting Is As American As Apple Pie

One by one, Abrams describes and scathingly dissects the many lies fed to the American public, from its earliest days to the present, in order to justify imperial wars of conquest and exploitation as well as to generate multi-billion-dollar profits for the military-industrial complex.

False atrocity reporting was indispensable in perpetrating the Uyghur genocide hoax along with other disinformation campaigns targeting U.S. adversaries like Libya, Syria, North Korea and Russia.

In the case of Tiananmen Square, Abrams emphasizes that most of the protesters who initially occupied the square were not advocating Westernization or the overthrow of the Chinese government, but rather a stronger affirmation of China’s 1949 Communist Revolution and removal of corrupt officials who had betrayed Maoist ideals. Many workers involved in the movement were more anti-CCP compared to the students, and aimed to establish a socialist democracy.

The protests were non-violent and demonstrators left the square peacefully after being dispersed by Chinese police and soldiers who were equipped primarily with anti-riot gear.

A group of tanks driving down a street Description automatically generated with medium confidence

Famous scene from Tiananmen Square in June 1989. [Source: ibtimes.com]

Abrams cites a telling cable from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing published by WikiLeaks in 2016, which reported on the eyewitness account of a Chilean diplomat and his wife who were present when Chinese soldiers moved into Tiananmen Square to disperse protesters.

The diplomat and his wife were able to enter and leave many times, and faced no harassment.

They observed no mass firing of weapons into the crowds and no incidents of lethal force being used by the authorities.

The former Beijing Bureau Chief for The Washington Post, Jay Mathews, conceded in 1998 that “all verified eyewitness accounts say that the students who remained in the square when troops arrived were allowed to leave peacefully.”

Mathews referred to the Tiananmen Square massacre as a “myth,” stressing that it was “hard to find a journalist who has not contributed to the misimpression.” As far as can be determined from the available evidence, no one died that night in Tiananmen Square.

This view was corroborated also by Reuters correspondent Graham Earnshaw, who spent the night of June 3-4 at the center of Tiananmen Square and interviewed many students. He said that most of the students had already left peacefully by this time, and that the remaining few hundred were persuaded to do the same. “There was no violence, let alone a massacre.”

The main source used by Western media claiming a massacre took place was an anonymous Qinghua student that was circulated in the Hong Kong press and widely cited by British sources. Gregory Clark, former Australian diplomat and Tokyo bureau chief for The Australian, was one of many to attribute the dominant narrative to a British black information operation.

Chinese state television showed film of students marching peacefully away from the square shortly after dawn as proof that they were not slaughtered. Even the BBC’s Beijing correspondent, James Miles, confirmed that “there was no massacre at Tiananmen square….Western reporting had conveyed the wrong impression and protesters who were still in the square when the army reached it were allowed to leave after negotiations.”

Hou Dejian, who had been on a hunger strike in Tiananmen Square to show solidarity with the student protesters, recalled: “Some people said that 200 died in the square and others claimed that as many as 2,000 died. There were also stories of tanks running over students who were trying to leave. I have to say that I did not see any of that. I myself was in the square until 6:30 in the morning.”

The people who were killed at Tiananmen Square were killed in street battles between soldiers and anti-government insurgents far from the square. The insurgents violently attacked People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officers—who carried no firearms, according to U.S. State Department reports—with petrol bombs, burning many alive and torturing them in the streets before PLA shooting began.

A group of people watching a band play on a stage Description automatically generated with low confidence

Protesters throwing stones at PLA officers away from the square. [Source: buzzfeednews.com]

According to Abrams, the goal of the violent minority was to provoke a military response against themselves and the peaceful majority, which in turn would provide grounds to vilify the Chinese Communist government and swell the ranks of radical anti-government factions.

Some of the provocateurs may have been trained in Taiwan, possibly by U.S. intelligence assets.[1] The most extreme of the protest leaders, Chai Ling, reportedly worked very closely with Gene Sharp, America’s leading expert on exploiting internal dissent in countries outside the Western sphere of influence to achieve their destabilization.

Sharp worked very closely with the CIA and CIA-linked National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and played an important role in similarly destabilizing efforts in the Warsaw Pact and European regions of the Soviet Union, as well as the Middle East during the Arab Spring.

Uyghur Genocide Hoax

U.S. and Western disinformation about Tiananmen Square set the groundwork for the elaborate disinformation campaign accusing the Chinese Communist government of committing genocide against the Uyghur in Xinjiang.

As Abrams points out, these claims relied overwhelmingly on U.S. government-funded anti-China groups dominated by hard-line Uyghur dissidents with Islamist or separatist positions.

They were heavily funded by the U.S. Congress through the NED, which had been closely affiliated with the CIA since its founding in 1983 and was tasked with carrying out what the Agency had formerly done alone and more covertly.[2]

The dissidents’ testimony was often contradictory and undercut by the fact that the Uyghur population in Xinjiang grew by 25% from 2010 to 2018 (people who are victims of genocide obviously experience a contraction of their populations).

Camps that were labeled as concentration camps in the Western media were actually a logistics park, regular detention center, and elementary and middle school.

A picture containing text Description automatically generated

[Source: shapehistory.com]

Former London Metropolitan Police Officer Jerry Grey, who spent much time traveling in Xinjiang, recalled how Western allegations were totally at odds with his first-hand observations:

“This is absolute rubbish—there are not a million Uyghur in concentration camps, that is just total baloney…The Uyghurs that we spoke to didn’t seem to have a problem. Remember there are 11 to 12 million Uyghurs there. There is absolutely no evidence, no real evidence, to suggest that one million of them are in camps…We went to a restaurant, where they had dancers. This was not a tourist restaurant—this was just a normal restaurant. They sing and they dance. That’s what Uyghurs tend to do when they are having fun. I heard and saw the language is very much alive. People speak their local language. And every shop, every menu, every restaurant had their local language written there, so when I read that the local language was being destroyed, I disagree with that.”

Xinjiang looks good, safe and secure, and all the people I spoke with seem happy about it, Grey concluded.

Daniel Dumbrill, a Canadian businessman and Chinese political analyst who resided in China for more than a decade, noted to similar effect:

“We’re expected to believe that the population of Uyghurs is being eradicated. It’s a ridiculous statement whether it is in a literal sense or even a cultural sense. Uyghurs in China have been growing faster than the majority Han Chinese in part because they weren’t subject to the one-child policy, they have 20,000 mosques built, their script is written on the national currency [something he later noted Canada didn’t do for its indigenous people], the biggest star in China is a Uyghur woman who was recently signed on by Louis Vuitton as their brand ambassador, where Uyghur children can get into top universities easier than Han Chinese, and have halal foods prepared for them in canteens and they have a prayer area on campus.”

In the past, the U.S. had helped to stir unrest in Xinjiang by supporting the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which killed more than 1,000 Chinese civilians in terror attacks carried out between 1997 and 2014 and, with Turkish backing, fought the Bashar al-Assad government in Syria.

ETIM fighters. [Source: archive.shine.cn]

In 2018, Colonel Lawrence B. Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, noted that a primary reason for the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan was its proximity to the Uyghur militants in Xinjiang who could be used to destabilize and weaken Communist China.

From 2017 onwards, the Chinese government took measures to deradicalize the Uyghur population and better integrate those vulnerable to radicalization into society. New centers were established to teach Uyghurs in need of practical skills that would help them gain employment and cope with modern life, and thereby reduce the appeal of criminal activities or terrorism.

These were the much-vilified Chinese Communist re-education camps, which actually were successful in helping to reduce Uyghur crime and terrorism by 2019.

FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds predicted that the West would fabricate allegations of humanitarian abuses in Xinjiang and ensure that its media gave the issue considerable attention to fuel anti-Chinese sentiments, just as the U.S. had previously done in Tibet, where a similar campaign of training militants outside the country had been pursued from the 1950s.

This anti-Chinese sentiment helped to justify a large-scale U.S. military build-up in Southeast Asia and military encirclement of China, which was seen as increasingly threatening because of its growing economic success and challenge to American unipolar power.

Atrocity Fabrication in History

In Atrocity Fabrication and Its Consequences, Abrams writes that “portraying an adversary as committing particularly egregious crimes, especially when one intends to initiate military action or other hostile measures against the adversary, has consistently provided an effective means of moving public and international opinion and justifying [U.S. imperial] actions.”

An important blueprint was established in World War I when the Bryce Committee in Britain spread false atrocity stories in 1915 about German soldiers in Belgium, which moved the British public to support intervention in the Great War and lowered resistance to the war in the U.S.

Chaired by the former British ambassador to the United States, Viscount James Bryce, the committee sensationally described German public rapes and mutilation of Belgian women and girls and the bayoneting of a two-year-old child by eight German soldiers.

The report was based mostly on the testimony of anonymous Belgian refugees, with hearsay evidence being accepted at full value.

A picture containing text, book Description automatically generated

British war propaganda. [Source: reddit.com]

A 1922 Belgian commission of inquiry, which conducted investigations at the scenes of the alleged atrocities, failed to confirm even a single report of German excesses.[3]

The CIA tried to emulate the success of the Bryce Committee as it developed what Abrams calls a “potent global information network to control political narratives” during the Cold War.

Abrams writes that “the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird was one of the more prominent related operations and saw American journalists recruited to publish articles dictated by the Agency—articles which very often vilified the USSR and its allies with totally fabricated information.”

[Source: whatyouthoughtwentaway.wordpress.com]

In 1962, the U.S. Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) proposed an operation to turn public and world opinion against Cuba, which involved staging terrorist attacks in Miami, Florida, that could be blamed on the Cuban government and would justify a U.S. military invasion following the CIA’s humiliation in the Bay of Pigs.

In Vietnam, CIA doctor Tom Dooley followed the Bryce Committee playbook when he invented stories of the Vietminh disemboweling 1,000 pregnant women, beating a naked priest on the testicles with a bamboo club, and jamming chopsticks into the ears of children to keep them from hearing Christian scripture.

The CIA at this time was in the process of installing a client government led by Ngo Dinh Diem, which strove to systematically liquidate the political opposition, with CIA backing.

In 1964, the Johnson administration fabricated the Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which a U.S. naval vessel was allegedly attacked in the South China Sea by the North Vietnamese in order to justify a full-scale U.S. troop invasion and the largest bombing campaign in world history targeting North Vietnam, the National Liberation Front (NLF) in South Vietnam, and supply lines in neighboring Laos and Cambodia.

Despite the magnitude of the response, White House tapes released in 2002 showed that even President Lyndon B. Johnson was highly skeptical of claims that North Vietnam had launched an attack in the Gulf of Tonkin, with the tapes, as well as evidence from the succeeding 38 years, leaving little question that a North Vietnamese attack had not occurred.[4]

As the Vietnam War dragged on throughout the 1960s, the U.S. government and CIA continued to fabricate atrocities to cover up the massive atrocities committed by U.S. troops.

Senator Stephen Young (D-OH) was quoted as saying that, while he was in Vietnam, he was told by the CIA that the Agency disguised people as Viet Cong (Vietnamese Communists) to commit atrocities such as murder and rape in order to discredit them in the eyes of the population.

Abrams writes that this kind of atrocity was far from unusual: In the Philippines, U.S.-aligned government forces disguised as insurgents (Huks) were allowed to pillage villages and murder civilians in order to undermine the public image of the Huks, who wanted to redistribute land and opposed U.S. regional designs.

L. Fletcher Prouty, a U.S. Air Force officer who coordinated operations between the U.S. Air Force and the CIA, said this technique was “developed to a high art form in the Philippines” under the direction of CIA operative Edward Lansdale, and that many of the same methods were used in Vietnam.

The Crime of Korea

Much like the Vietnam War, the Korean War was an atrocity that was framed before the public as a “humanitarian intervention” designed to save the local population from the evil communists.

To help institutionalize this narrative, the Pentagon sponsored a propaganda film, The Crime of Korea, narrated by Humphrey Bogart, which falsely accused the North Koreans of committing atrocities that were actually committed by the South Korean government backed by the U.S.

Abrams writes that, “widely circulated in the U.S. media, [The Crime of Korea] lent considerable moral imperative to the war effort in the public eye.”

So too did a Time magazine column entitled “Barbarity,” which described a large-scale communist massacre at Taejon, that a later investigation determined to have been committed by South Korean troops allied with the U.S.

The Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Korean Atrocities, Charles E. Potter (R-MI), who was appointed by Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI), stressed that U.S. adversaries were guilty of “beast-like acts committed against civilized humanity.”

He claimed that a “Red Chinese” nurse “cut off the toes of a GI with a pair of garden shears, without benefit of anesthesia,” and that American prisoners of war were tortured with bamboo spears and “put into small iron cages and starved to death like animals, with maggots coming out of the eye sockets.”

These claims were inconsistent with the testimonies of American and British POWs who said they were treated decently by their captors, though they complained about having to attend lectures about communism.

Meanwhile, North Korean and Chinese prisoners were subjected to extreme brutalization in U.S.-run POW camps, where inmates were massacred for singing revolutionary songs and violently coerced into renouncing repatriation to their homes.

This was so the U.S. could score propaganda points in the Cold War by claiming that the prisoners wanted to defect to the West because of its allegedly superior political-economic system.

Serious abuses occurred at the Koje-Do prison camp run by the U.S. during the Korean War. [Source: kushibo.org]

The propaganda offensive against North Korea continued into the 21st century where ever-more outlandish stories were invented to demonize it.

Many of these stories were spread by North Korean defectors who were pressured or paid by South Korea, if not the CIA.

One such defector, Shin Dong-hyuk, wrote a best-selling book with a Washington Post correspondent, Blaine Harden, Escape From Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West, that was exposed as a fabrication. Dong-hyuk later recantied much of his story.

Another defector who commanded a $12,500 speaking fee in the West, Park Yeonmi, ridiculously claimed that her friend’s mother was executed for watching a Hollywood movie.[5]

Yet another, Lee Soon-ok testified before a House committee in 2004 that she had witnessed Christians being tortured and burned to death with irons in North Korean political prisons, though the head of the North Korean Defectors’ Association, Chang In-suk said he knew first-hand that Lee was never a political prisoner.

According to Abrams, fabricated reports of North Korean state executions of high profile North Korean figures, from leading pop singers to generals, were frequently followed up by the miraculous reappearance on camera of the supposedly dead figures.

A CNN report in May 2015—which it framed as “revealing the ugly truth about the regime”—alleged that Chairman Kim Jong Un had personally ordered his aunt Kim Kyong Hui to be poisoned and killed, though Mrs. Kim was alive and made a public appearance in January 2020.

According to Abrams, the false defector testimonies and biased media coverage “were highly valued in the West for the self-gratification they provided, appearing to affirm the idea of Western superiority over the world’s least Westernized state, as well as providing pretexts for hostile policies against the East Asian adversary, usually including further economic sanctions.”

Gulf War Fabrications

Perhaps the best known atrocity fabrication occurred on the eve of the first Persian Gulf War, when a fifteen-year-old Kuwaiti girl who identified herself as Nayirah testified live before the U.S. Congressional Human Rights Caucus on October 10, 1990, that Iraqi soldiers invading Kuwait had ripped babies out of their incubators in Kuwaiti hospitals and left them to die on the floor.

As it turned out, Nayirah was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the U.S., Saud al-Sabah, as the Senators who sponsored her hearings well knew, and she had not been in Kuwait since the Iraqi invasion.

[Source: midnightwriternews.com]

The leading orchestrator of the testimony was a Washington, D.C.-based public relations committee, Citizens for a Free Kuwait (CFK), which was funded by the Kuwaiti government and worked closely with the public relations firm Hill+Knowlton to influence world opinion against Iraq, and gain support for U.S. military action against the country.

The Chairmen of the Human Rights Caucus, Tom Lantos (D-CA) and John E. Porter (R-IL), received $50,000 from CFK in donations and were given free office space at Hill+Knowlton’s Washington headquarters.

A decade later, more atrocity stories were spread about Saddam Hussein, who was baselessly accused of feeding his enemies to a human shredder and using the remains as fish food, along with the famous allegation about Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).

Former Wall Street reporter John MacArthur noted in reference to consistencies in fabricated atrocity propaganda between the two Persian Gulf Wars that “these are the same people who were running it more than 10 years ago. They’ll make up just about anything…to get their way.”

Yugoslavia, the Balkans War and Syria

In Yugoslavia in the 1990s, U.S. war propaganda focused on vilifying Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic, and accusing him unfoundedly of committing genocide in Kosovo and elsewhere.

Milosevic was a socialist who had sought to keep Yugoslavia together and prevent its balkanization, which would allow Western countries to expand their regional influence and the U.S. to establish military bases in a key strategic area.

The worst acts of ethnic cleansing in the war were actually carried out by the Croats in Operation Storm, which was planned by the CIA.

The Clinton administration further supported the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which sought to establish an ethnically pure Albanian state, with Serbs and other minorities singled out for targeting.

Heavily reliant on funds from the narcotics trade, the KLA was branded a “terrorist organization” by the State Department, and considered by NATO’s North Atlantic Council to have been the “main initiator of violence” in Kosovo.

Leading efforts to portray the Serbs as the “new Nazis,” reporter Roy Gutman published a front-page article in Newsday alleging that the Serbs ran concentration camps where Croat and other victims were burned in cremation furnaces and turned into animal feed.

The story rested solely on the testimony of one man who himself admitted he had not witnessed any killings, and was disproven when a British journalist visited the alleged death camp only to find that inmates had entered it willingly to find safety from the fighting in nearby villages.

Gutman would later play a major role in a similar campaign to vilify the Bashar al-Assad government in Syria, which by the early 2010s had succeeded Yugoslavia and the Serbs as the primary target for Western fabrications of war-time atrocity stories.

The campaign of vilification included an attempt to blame al-Assad for carrying out chemical gas attacks on his own people which were more likely carried out by U.S.-backed rebel forces or never carried out at all.

Libya—Following an Old Playbook

The lies used to sell U.S. military intervention in Syria were similar to those adopted in Libya against Muammar Qaddafi who was accused of providing his troops with viagra to carry out mass rapes and planning to commit major massacres that had to be stopped.

The only actual massacres in the country, however, were carried out by jihadist rebels financed by the West and Qatar who ethnically cleansed Libya’s Blacks following Qaddafi’s overthrow.

Qaddafi referred to the insurgent forces as “traitors working for the United States and Britain, the colonialists.”

These colonialists committed large-scale war crimes in their attack on Libya in 2011, including bombing the Great Man-Made River, a $27 billion irrigation project initiated by Qaddafi’s government that had eradicated water scarcity in Libya.

Once again fake atrocities were used by the U.S. and its allies to justify actual atrocities and destroy a nation that sought to forge an independent political and economic path.

Additional Case Studies: Rwanda and Russia

Abrams’s book is quite comprehensive, though it leaves out a few key cases. The first is Rwanda, where Hutu extremists were accused of carrying out a one-sided genocide against Tutsi in April 1994 in which around 800,000 people were killed while the world stood by.

However, the 1991 census in Rwanda listed 596,000 Tutsi living in the country, with 300,000 estimated to have survived. That would mean that 296,000 Tutsi were killed by Hutu and that the rest of the dead, over 500,000, were Hutu.[6]

Researchers Allan Stam and Christian Davenport found that Hutu and Tutsi played the roles of both attackers and victims, and that the theatres where the killing was greatest in April 1994 correlated with spikes in military operations carried out by the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), whose invasion of Rwanda from Uganda in May 1990—which triggered the whole conflict—was supported by the U.S. and UK.[7]

Exaggerated claims of Hutu atrocities were later used by the Clinton and Bush II administrations to justify arming Rwanda’s RPF government led by Paul Kagame as it invaded the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), ostensibly to hunt down Hutu genocidaires.

This invasion resulted in millions of deaths and resulted in the plunder of Congo’s natural resources by Rwanda and its ally Uganda, along with U.S.-based multinational corporations.

A final example worth mentioning is Russia, which the U.S. government has been spreading disinformation about for more than 100 years.[8]

Following the October 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the U.S. Congress held inflammatory hearings comparable to the Bryce Commission depicting Soviet Russia as a “kind of bedlam inhabited by abject slaves completely at the mercy of an organization of homicidal maniacs [the Bolsheviks] whose purpose was to destroy all traces of civilization and carry the nation back to barbarism,” as historian Frederick Schuman put it.[9]

William Graves, Commanding General of the U.S. Expeditionary Force which invaded Russia in support of former czarist army officers (“whites”) seeking to overthrow the Bolshevik regime (“reds”), said, however, that for every person the Bolsheviks killed in the Russian civil war, the whites killed one hundred.

Lieutenant Colonel Robert Eichelberger said that the white—and not red—atrocities would have been “shameful in the Middle Ages.”[10]

Today, the Biden administration is following an old playbook in fabricating yet more Russian atrocities to justify the escalation of military support for Ukraine in the proxy war with Russia.

On April 4, 2022, Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal following reports of a mass killing of civilians by Russian forces in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, telling reporters: “You saw what happened in Bucha. This warrants him—he is a war criminal…this guy is brutal, and what’s happening in Bucha is outrageous, and everyone’s seen it.”

Oddly, however, there is not a single piece of video footage of Russian troops in Bucha engaged in civilian killings, and considerable evidence indicates that the majority of people killed in Bucha were killed after Russian troops had left during sweeps by the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion.[11]

The U.S. government had earlier accused Russia of shooting down a Malaysia Airlines plane over eastern Ukraine in July 2014 when crime-scene evidence indicated it was shot down with an air-to-air missile that only the Ukrainian Air Force possessed.

The false accusations directed against Russia have been significant in shaping domestic public support for aggressive military policies that have now placed us on the brink of potential nuclear war. History has many parallels but the dangers today seem even greater than before.

*

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Jeremy Kuzmarov is Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine. He is the author of four books on U.S. foreign policy, including Obama’s Unending Wars (Clarity Press, 2019) and The Russians Are Coming, Again, with John Marciano (Monthly Review Press, 2018). He can be reached at: [email protected].

Notes

  1. A number of these leaders openly endorsed Western colonization of Hong Kong, with one, Liu Xiaobo, who was awarded a Nobel Peace prize in 2010 claiming that China “needed at least 300 years of Western colonialism imposed on it in order to advance.” 

  2. Since 2004, the NED granted $8,758,300 to Uyghur advocacy groups. The Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) was another major source of Xinjiang genocide allegations that was heavily funded by the U.S. Congress through the NED, receiving approximately $500,000 annually. It relied for information on Radio Free Asia, a CIA broadcasting venture with a long history of producing particularly ludicrous fabricated stories to vilify Western adversaries. Another source was German “scholar” Adrian Zenz, who taught exclusively at evangelical theological institutions, and never published in any peer-reviewed journals. 
  3. American correspondent Irvin S. Cobb said that one out of ten atrocities reported in the media may have actually taken place. 
  4. North Vietnam’s innocence was “well established,” according to U.S. Naval Intelligence’s Acting Director of Naval History and senior historian of the U.S. Navy, Dr. Edward J. Marolda. 
  5. Park gained 600,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel, Voice of North Korea, and was publishing new videos several times per week making consistently ludicrous claims and frequently predicting the country’s imminent collapse and leadership’s imminent overthrow. Examples from the first half of 2021 alone include: Kim Jong Un’s sister and many North Korean children being frequent consumers of crystal meth; disabled people and AIDS patients being executed or experimented on with chemical weapons; and Kim Jong Un being secretly gay and having female sex slaves, among hundreds of others. 
  6. Marijke Verpoorten, “Rwanda: Why claim that 200,000 Tutsi died in the genocide is wrong,” African Arguments, October 27, 2014. 
  7. Christian Davenport and Allan Stam, “What Really Happened in Rwanda?” Miller-McCune, October 6, 2009, http://faculty.virginia.edu/visc/Stam-VISC.pdf; Christian Davenport and Allan Stam, Rwandan Political Violence in Space and Time, http://www.cdavenport.com; Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, The Politics of Genocide (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2010), 58, 132, 133. Davenport and Stam suggest only 200,000 Tutsi were killed based on the belief that there were 506,000 Tutsis in Rwanda in 1996, though other researchers like Marijke Verpoorten suggest that the 506,000 figure was too low and that there were around 596,000 Tutsi in Rwanda. However, even accepting her figure, the official total of Tutsi dead would be far less than the official version. 
  8. See Jeremy Kuzmarov and John Marciano, The Russians Are Coming, Again: The First Cold War as Tragedy, the Second as Farce (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2018). 
  9. Kuzmarov and Marciano, The Russians Are Coming, Again, 50. The press afterwards became filled with sensationalistic stories claiming that the Bolsheviks had even nationalized [taken control over] women. 
  10. Kuzmarov and Marciano, The Russians Are Coming, Again, 50. 
  11. Former U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence Officer Scott Ritter extracted from satellite images showing dead bodies lying on the street that the people had been killed 24-36 hours before their discovery—which was after the Russian troops had withdrawn. Many of the bodies had white cloth strips tied to their upper arm, a visual designation which indicated either loyalty to Russia or that the persons did not pose a threat to Russians

Featured image is from blogspot.com

Russia, Donbass and the Reality of Conflict in Ukraine

August 23rd, 2023 by Daniel Kovalik

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I just returned from my third trip to Russia, and my second trip to Donbas (now referring to the republics of Donetsk and Luhansk collectively) in about eight months. This time, I flew into lovely Tallinn, Estonia, and took what should be about a six-hour bus ride to St. Petersburg. In the end, my bus trip took me about 12 hours, due to a long wait in Customs on the Russian side of the border.

Having a U.S. passport and trying to pass the frontier from a hostile, NATO country into Russia during wartime got me immediately flagged for questioning. And then, it turned out I did not have all my papers in order as I was still without my journalist credential from the Russian Foreign Ministry, which was necessary given that I told the border patrol that I was traveling to do reporting. I was treated very nicely, though the long layover forced me to lose my bus that, understandably, went on without me.

However, sometimes we find opportunity in seemingly inconvenient detours, and that was true in this case. Thus, I became a witness to a number of Ukrainians, some of them entire families, trying to cross the border and to immigrate to Russia. Indeed, the only other type of passport (besides my U.S. passport) I saw amongst those held over for questioning and processing was the blue Ukrainian passport. This is evidence of an inconvenient fact to the Western narrative of the war that portrays Russia as an invader of Ukraine. In fact, many Ukrainians have an affinity for Russia and have voluntarily chosen to live there over the years.

Between 2014—the real start of the war when the Ukrainian government began attacking its own people in the Donbas—and the beginning of Russia’s intervention in February 2022, around one million Ukrainians had already immigrated to Russia. The fact that Ukrainians were going to live in Russia was reported in the mainstream press back then, with the BBC writing in September 2014 about some of the refugees while noting that “[s]eparatists in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk declared independence after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine.

Participants at the rally in support of the Donetsk People's Republic on Lenin Square in Donetsk

Partisans fly Donetsk flag. [Source: envoicesevas.ru]

Since the violence erupted, some 2,600 people have been killed and thousands more wounded. The city of Luhansk has been under siege by government forces for the past month and is without proper supplies of food and water.” The number of dead in this war would grow to 14,000 by February 2022, again before Russia’s Special Military Operation (SMO) had even begun.

Around 1.3 million additional Ukrainians have immigrated to Russia since February 2022, making Russia the largest recipient of Ukrainian refugees in the world since the beginning of the SMO.

When I commented to one of the Russian border officials—Kirill is his name—about the stack of Ukrainian passports sitting on his desk, he made a point to tell me that they treat the Ukrainians coming in “as human beings.” When my contact in St Petersburg, Boris, was able to send a photo of my newly acquired press credential to Kirill, I was sent on my way with a handshake and was able to catch the next bus heading to St. Petersburg almost immediately.

Once in St. Petersburg, I went to Boris’s house for a short rest and then was off by car to Rostov-on-Don, the last Russian city before Donetsk. I was driven in a black Lexus by a kind Russian businessman named Vladimir along with German, the founder of the humanitarian aid group known as “Leningrad Volunteers.” The car was indeed loaded with humanitarian aid to take to Donbas. After some short introductions, and my dad joke about the “Lexus from Texas,” we were off on our 20-hour journey at a brisk pace of about 110 kilometers an hour.

We arrived in Rostov in the evening and checked into the Sholokhov Loft Hotel, named after Mikhail Sholokhov, Rostov’s favorite son who wrote the great novel And Quite Flows the Don. We were told that, until recently, a portrait of the titular head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, had adorned the lobby wall. They took this down after members of the Wagner Group invaded Rostov, putting fear in many of the residents. Now, the hotel only has Hollywood movie posters decorating the walls.

In the early afternoon the next day, my translator Sasha arrived from her hometown of Krasnodar, Russia, a seven-hour train ride from Rostov. Sasha, who is 22 years old, is a tiny red-headed woman who quickly turned out to be one of the most interesting people I met on my journey.

As Sasha explained to me, she has been supporting humanitarian work in Donbas since the age of 12. She told me that she derived her interest in this work from her grandmother who raised her in the “patriotic spirit” of the USSR. As Sasha explained, her parents were too busy working to do much raising of her at all. Sasha, who is from the mainland of Russia, attends the University of Donetsk to live in solidarity with the people who have been under attack there since 2014.

At age 22, Sasha, who wore open-toed sandals even when we traveled to the front lines, is one of the bravest people I have ever met, and she certainly disabused me of any notion that I was doing anything especially brave by going to the Donbas. But, of course, as Graham Greene once wrote, “with a return ticket, courage becomes an intellectual exercise” anyway.

We quickly set out on our approximately three or four-hour drive to Donetsk City, with a brief stop at a passport control office now run by the Russian Federation subsequent to the September 2022 referendum in which the people of Donetsk and three other Ukrainian republics voted to join Russia.

I was again questioned by officials at this stop, but for only 15 minutes or so. I just resigned myself to the fact that, as an American traveling through Russia at this time, I was not going to go through any border area without some level of questioning. However, the tone of the questioning was always friendly.

We arrived in Donetsk City, a small but lovely town along the Kalmius River, without incident. Our first stop was at the Leningrad Volunteers warehouse to unload some of the aid we had brought and to meet some of the local volunteers. Almost all of these volunteers are life-long residents of Donetsk, and nearly all of them wore military fatigues and have been fighting the Ukrainian forces as part of the Donetsk militia for years, many since the beginning of the conflict in 2014.

A person holding a rifle in a parade Description automatically generated

Members of the Donetsk militia escort Ukrainian prisoners of war in the Donbas. The militias have been fighting the Ukrainian Army, backed by the U.S., since the war really started in 2014. [Source: medium.com]

This is something I cannot impress upon the reader enough. While we are often told that these fighters in the Donbas are Russians or “Russian proxies,” this is simply not true. The lion’s share of fighters are locals of varying ages, some quite old, who have been fighting for their homes, families and survival since 2014.

While there have been Russian and international volunteers who have supported these forces—just as there were international volunteers who went to support the Republicans in Spain in the 1930s—they are mostly local.

Of course, this changed in February 2022 when Russia began the SMO. Nonetheless, the locals of Donetsk continue to fight, now alongside the Russian forces.

The lie of “Russian proxies” fighting in the Donbas after 2014 is actually one of the smaller ones of the Western mainstream press, for the claim at least acknowledges that there has been such fighting. Of course, the mainstream media have tried to convince us that there was never such fighting at all and that the Russian SMO beginning in February 2022 was completely “unprovoked.” This is the big lie that has been peddled in order to gain the consent of the Western populations to support Ukraine militarily.

What is also ignored is the fact that this war was escalating greatly before the beginning of the SMO and this escalation indeed provoked it. Thus, according to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), a 57-member organization including many Western countries, including the United States, there were about 2,000 cease-fire violations in the Donbas just in the weekend before the SMO began on February 24, 2022.

In a rare moment of candor, Reuters reported on February 19, 2022, “Almost 2,000 ceasefire violations were registered in eastern Ukraine by monitors for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on Saturday, a diplomatic source told Reuters on Sunday. Ukrainian government and separatist forces have been fighting in eastern Ukraine since 2014.”

Jacques Baud, a Swiss intelligence and security consultant and former NATO military analyst, further explains the precipitating events of the SMO:

“[A]s early as February 16, Joe Biden knew that the Ukrainians had begun shelling the civilian population of Donbass, putting Vladimir Putin in front of a difficult choice: to help Donbass militarily and create an international problem, or to stand by and watch the Russian-speaking people of Donbass being crushed.

…This is what he explained in his speech on February 21.

On that day, he agreed to the request of the Duma and recognized the independence of the two Donbass Republics and, at the same time, he signed friendship and assistance treaties with them.

The Ukrainian artillery bombardment of the Donbass population continued, and, on 23 February, the two Republics asked for military assistance from Russia. On 24 February, Vladimir Putin invoked Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which provides for mutual military assistance in the framework of a defensive alliance.

In order to make the Russian intervention totally illegal in the eyes of the public we deliberately hid the fact that the war actually started on February 16. The Ukrainian army was preparing to attack the Donbass as early as 2021, as some Russian and European intelligence services were well aware. Jurists will judge.”

Of course, none of this was news to the people I met in Donetsk, for they had been living this reality for years. For example, Dimitri, a young resident of Donetsk who has been fighting since 2014 along with his mother and father, told me quite exasperatedly as he pointed to some of the weapons and ammunition behind him, “what is all this stuff doing here? Why have we been getting this since 2014? Because the war has been going on since then.”

Dimitri, who was studying at the university when the conflict began, can no longer fight due to injuries received in the war, including damage to his hearing which is evidenced by the earplugs he wears. He hopes he can go back to his studies.

Just a few days before my arrival in Donetsk, Dimitri’s apartment building was shelled by Ukrainian forces, just as it had been in 2016. Like many in Donetsk, he is used to quickly repairing the damage and going on with his life.

Dimitri took me to the Donetsk airport and nearby Orthodox church and monastery which were destroyed in fighting between the Ukrainian military and Donetsk militia forces back in 2014-2015. Dimitri participated in the fighting in this area back then, explaining that during that time, this was the area of the most intense fighting in the world. But you would not know this from the mainstream press coverage that had largely ignored this war before February 2022.

Bridge near the Donetsk airport which was destroyed in 2015 by Donetsk militia forces to prevent Ukrainian troops and tanks from crossing. [Source: Photo courtesy of Dan Kovalik]

One of the first individuals I interviewed in Donetsk was 36-year-old Vitaly, a big guy with a chubby, boyish face who wore a baseball hat with the red Soviet flag with the hammer and sickle. Vitaly, the father of three children, is from Donetsk and has been fighting there for four years, including in the very tough battle for the steel plant in Mariupol in the summer of 2022. He decided to take up arms after friends of his were killed by Ukrainian forces, including some who were killed by being burned alive by fascist forces—the same forces that, we are told, do not exist. Vitaly, referring to the mainstream Western media, laughed when saying, “they’ve been saying we’ve been shelling ourselves for nine years.”

Vitaly has personally fought against soldiers wearing Nazi insignia, and he is very clear that he is fighting fascism. Indeed, when I asked him what the Soviet flag on his hat meant to him, he said that it signified the defeat over Nazism, and he hopes he will contribute to this again.

When I asked him about claims that Russia had intervened with soldiers in the war prior to February 2022 as some allege, he adamantly denied this, as did everyone else I interviewed in Donetsk. However, he has witnessed the fact that Polish and UK soldiers have been fighting with the Ukrainian military since the beginning. Vitaly opined that, given what has transpired over the past nine years, he does not believe that the Donbas will ever return to Ukraine, and he certainly hopes it will not. Vitaly told me quite stoically that he believes he will not see peace in his lifetime.

During my stay in Donetsk, I twice had dinner with Anastasia, my interpreter during my first trip to the Donbas in November. Anastasia teaches at the University of Donetsk. She has been traveling around Russia, including to the far east, telling of what has been happening in the Donbas since 2014 because many in Russia themselves do not fully understand what has been going on. She told me that as she was recounting her story, she found herself reliving her trauma from nine years of war and feeling overwhelmed.

Anastasia’s parents and 13-year-old brother live near the front lines in the Donetsk Republic, and she worries greatly about them. Anastasia is glad that Russia has intervened in the conflict, and she indeed corrected me when I once referred to the Russian SMO as an “invasion,” telling me that Russia did not invade. Rather, they were invited and welcomed in. That does seem to be the prevailing view in Donetsk as far as I can tell.

During my five-day trip to Donetsk, I was taken to two cities within the conflict zone—Yasinovataya and Gorlovka. I was required to wear body armor and a helmet during this journey, though wearing a seatbelt was optional, if not frowned upon.

While Donetsk City, which certainly sees its share of shelling, is largely intact and with teeming traffic and a brisk restaurant and café scene, once we got out of the city, this changed pretty quickly.

Yasinovataya showed signs of great destruction, and I was told that a lot of this dated back to 2014. The destruction going back that far included a machine factory which is now being used as a base of operations for Donetsk forces and the adjacent administrative building which looks like it could have been an opera house before it was shelled.

For its part, the city center of Gorlovka looked largely unmolested with signs of street life and even had an old trolley, clearly from the Soviet era, running through the center of town. But the outskirts of Gorlovka certainly showed signs of war. In both cities, one could frequently hear the sounds of shelling in the distance.

In Gorlovka, we met with Nikoli, nicknamed “Heavy.” Nikoli looks like a Greek god, standing at probably 6 feet, 5 inches, and all muscle. I joked with him while I was standing next to him that I felt like I was appearing next to Ivan Drago in Rocky IV. He got the joke and laughed. While a giant of a man, he seemed very nice and with a strong moral compass.

He led us to a makeshift Orthodox chapel in the cafeteria of what was a school, but which is now the base of operations for his Donetsk militia forces. He told us that, even now after the SMO began, about 90% of the forces in Gorlovka are still local Donetsk soldiers, and the other 10% are Russians. Again, this is something we rarely get a sense of from the mainstream press.

Nikoli, while sitting in front of the makeshift chapel, explained that, while he still considers himself Ukrainian—after all he was born in Ukraine—he said that Donetsk would never go back to Ukraine because Ukraine had “acted against God” when it began to attack its own people in the Donbas. He made it clear that he was prepared to fight to the end to ensure the survival of the people of Donetsk, and I had no doubt that he was telling the truth about that.

At my request, I met with the First Secretary of the Donetsk section of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), Boris Litvinov. Boris, who has also served in the Donetsk parliament, explained that the Communist Party under his leadership had been one of the leaders and initiators of the 2014 Referendum in which the people of Donetsk voted to become an autonomous republic and leave Ukraine.

According to Boris, about 100 members of the Donetsk section of the CPRF are serving on the front lines of the conflict. Indeed, as Boris explained, the CPRF supports the Russian SMO, only wishing that it had commenced in 2014. Boris is clear that the war in Ukraine is one over the very survival of Russia (regardless of whether it is capitalist or socialist) and that Russia is fighting the collective West that wants to destroy Russia.

Boris compares the fight in the Donbas to the fight of the Republicans against the fascists in Spain in the 1930s, and he says that there are international fighters from all over the world (Americans, Israelis, Spanish and Colombians, for example) who are fighting alongside the people of Donbas against the fascists just as international fighters helped in Spain.

The last person I interviewed, again at my own request, was Olga Tseselskaya, assistant to the head of the Union of Women of the Republic of Donetsk and First Secretary of the Mothers’ United organization. The Mothers’ United organization, which has 6,000 members throughout the Donetsk Republic, advocates for and provides social services to the mothers of children killed in the conflict since 2014.

I was excited that Olga opened our discussion by saying that she was glad to be talking to someone from Pittsburgh because Pittsburgh and Donetsk City had once been sister cities.

I asked Olga about how she viewed the Russian forces now in Donetsk, and she made it clear that she supported their presence in Donetsk and believed that they were treating the population well. She adamantly denied the claims of mass rape made against the Russians earlier in the conflict.

Of course, it should be noted that the Ukrainian parliament’s commissioner for human rights, Lyudmila Denisova, who was the source of these claims, was ultimately fired because her claims were found to be unverified and without substantiation, but again the Western media has barely reported on that fact.

When I asked Olga whether she agreed with some Western peace groups, such as the Stop the War Coalition in the UK, that Russia should pull its troops out of the Donbas, she disagreed, saying that she hates to think what would happen to the people of the Donbas if they did.

I think that this is something the people of the West need to come to grips with; that the government of Ukraine has done great violence against its own people in the Donbas, and that the people of the Donbas had every right to choose to leave Ukraine and join Russia. If Westerners understood this reality, they would think twice about “standing with” and continuing to arm Ukraine.

*

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Daniel Kovalik graduated from Columbia University School of Law in 1993. He then served as in-house counsel for the United Steelworkers, AFL-CIO (USW) until 2019. 

Mr. Kovalik received the David W. Mills Mentoring Fellowship from Stanford University School of Law and was the recipient of the Project Censored Award for his article exposing the unprecedented killing of trade unionists in Colombia.

He has written extensively on the issue of international human rights and U.S. foreign policy for the Huffington Post and Counterpunch and has lectured throughout the world on these subjects. He is the author of several books including The Plot To Overthrow Venezuela, How The US Is Orchestrating a Coup for Oil, which includes a Foreword by Oliver Stone.

Daniel can be reached at [email protected].

Featured image: Cathedral in Donbas destroyed by Ukrainian bombing in 2014. [Source: Photo courtesy of Dan Kovalik]

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***

 

 

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the 15-member West Africa’s main regional bloc, is seemingly loosing its decades-old credibility in attempts to reinstate Niger’s ousted president, Mohamed Bazoum. The overarching combined narratives of the growing crisis, mass demonstrations in support for the military and the uncoordinated plan for military intervention are explicit signs of weaknesses on the side of ECOWAS.

Several narratives further pointed to the fundamental facts that the crisis has the potential to escalate into either a conflict across West Africa, and Niger, situated in the Sahel region, occupies a pivotal position not only in terms of terrorism and violent extremism within western Africa but also within a continent that has emerged as a global focal point for terrorist activities and Islamic extremist violence.

Narratives further described ECOWAS poor knowledge and acceptance of the main objectives of and reasons for the military’s appearance in political scene in the Republic of Niger, a West African States controlled by the United States and France. Ultimate failure to comprehend the neocolonial goals of foreign powers has deep created cracks in ECOWAS.

Abdulsalami Abubakar headed the regional bloc and travelled to Niamey for diplomatic talks to resolve the crisis amicably, but was unsuccessful, but only reiterated it could resort to military intervention as a last resort. Subsequently, Niger has now severed ties with Nigeria, Togo, France, its coloniser, and the United States.

Within the context of the changing political situation, the emerging new order or appropriately the taking just a glimpse of the evolutionary processes and trends, many external leaders have called of modern forms of resolving the crisis, but through military intervention. Besides that, in the academic circles, political scenes and civil society organizations have together strongly condemns ECOWAS’ belligerence in the region.

In the spectrum of Africa’s population,  and of course are still talking the restoring the democracy, about returning civilian head government, about constitution that stipulates the governing principles. These groups of political thoughts have simultaneously condemned the Abdourahamane Tchiani-led coup d’état in Niger that toppled the constitutionally-elected government under the leadership of President Mohamed Bazoum.

Throughout these several years ECOWAS has failed the entire West African region. It is manipulated by external powers and ordered by Washington and what is more executing instructions and directives from imperialists-minded powers who have, so far, imposed their own rules. Instead of waging and further deepening conflicts, the executive leadership of ECOWAS has to focus on its original and core mandate of economic development, regional integration and poverty eradication in West Africa. The region needs sustainable peace, social and economic development and stability.

The West African regional bloc has imposed stringent sanctions, finding a peaceful solution to the deepening crisis, yielded little with no clarity on the next steps. Burkina Faso, Guinea and Mali, supported by Algeria, though mot a member of regional bloc, stand defiantly against any military moves to restore the previous government. France, the United States and other European nations have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into shoring up Niger’s army and the coup has been seen as a major setback.

“ECOWAS and the rest of the international community want to restore President Bazoum and the junta is not on this agenda,” said Seidik Abba, a Nigerien researcher and Sahel specialist and president of the International Center for Reflection for Studies On the Sahel, a think tank based in Paris, France. “The next step will be military confrontation … What we don’t know is when this confrontation will take place, how it will go, and what the consequences will be,” he said.

An in-depth analysis show us that the interim leader Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani and newly appointed Prime Minister  Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine have put forward the proposal to administer Niger for the next three years, a period within which to deal with urgent pressing issues, and possibly do some ‘house-cleaning’ and adequately prepared for handling over. It was, abruptly and fiercely rejected by the ECOWAS.

In a televised address to the nation, General Abdourahamane Tiani re-indicated absolute openness to dialogue, would consult on a transition back to democracy within three years, echoing lengthy timelines proposed by other coup leaders, such as Burkina Faso and Mali, in the Sahel region.

In connection with above points, experts are discussing, offering their view points. Transitions for Niger’s multiple previous coups were shorter, so a three-year timeline is unprecedented said Aneliese Bernard, a former U.S. State Department official who specializes in African affairs and is now director of Strategic Stabilization Advisors, a risk advisory group. “What we’re seeing in the region is the emergence of trends just to military rule,” she said.

“Democracy is what we stand for and it’s what we encourage,” Nigeria’s Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Gwabin Musa said at the start of the two-day meeting in Accra. “The focus of our gathering is not simply to react to events, but to proactively chart a course that results in peace and promotes stability.”

“We are ready to go any time the order is given,” Abdel-Fatau Musah, Сommissioner for Political Affairs and Security at the ECOWAS Secretariat, said on August 18 after the military chiefs’ meeting in Accra, capital of the Republic of Ghana in West Africa. Abdel-Fatau Musah also said 11 of its 15 member states have agreed to commit troops to a military deployment, saying they were ‘ready to go’ whenever the order was given.

Russia and the United States have urged a diplomatic solution to the crisis. The regional bloc has already applied trade and financial sanctions while France, Germany and the United States have suspended aid programmes. The regional bloc’s troops have previously intervened in other emergencies since 1990 including in wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone. We have mentioned that Benin, Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria are expected to contribute troops, but little detail has emerged over a potential Niger operation.

Notwithstanding all that, Burkina Faso has joined voices with Mali and claimed that any intervention in Niger would be a declaration of war on Mali and Burkina Faso. In light of Russia’s increasing influence in west Africa, it is worth noting that Burkina Faso itself had a coup in January 2022 and since then has requested France to fully withdraw its troops while hailing Russia as a strategic ally, thus increasing speculations about Russian presence and influence. In the same vein, Algeria, known for its strong loyalty to Russia, announced its opposition to any intervention in Niger.

In another related development, Mali’s military leader Assimi Goita had spoken on the phone to Russian President Vladimir Putin about the situation in Niger. Putin stressed “the importance of a peaceful resolution of the situation for a more stable Sahel,” according to transcript posted to Kremlin’s website.

Foreign Affairs Ministry’s website says

“ECOWAS takes steps to restore constitutional order in Niger through a political and diplomatic dialogue with the new Nigerien authorities. That a military approach to settling the crisis in Niger risks leading to a protracted standoff in the African country and a sharp destabilization of the situation in the Sahara-Sahel region as a whole.”

Putin has called for a return to constitutional order in Niger, while Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin welcomed the coup. Prigozhin looks to strike business there as massive support for Russia has appeared to surge in Niger since July 26 coup, with junta supporters waving Russian flags at several rallies.

The Kremlin has used the Wagner Group since 2014 as a tool to expand Russia’s presence in Africa. A video in July apparently showed Prigozhin in Belarus but he was photographed on the sidelines during the second Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg. While difficult to verify the authenticity of reports, foreign media and Russian social media channels said Prigozhin was recruiting for Africa and also inviting investors from Russia to put money through its cultural affiliate Russian House.

With reference to Russia’s position as indicated above, some experts still pointed to this complexities: while the United States and Europe particularly support the restoration of the democratic government, Russia carries its anti-Western position and anti-imperialist stand and fiercely encouraging military infiltration into politics in Africa.

With Russia’s support for the emerging military power in the region, Burkina Faso and Mali showing the leeway and offer noticeable sign of encouragement for other to follow such steps aim at kicking out France. In the Russia-Africa summit joint declaration, Russia indicated, as one of its strategic objectives, unreserved and unflinching support for African States to deal drastically with growing United States and Western/European political influence and dominance across Africa.

The African Union’s Peace and Security Council, so far backed sanctions but it rejects the use of force, maintain the position that there are few grounds under which ECOWAS could claim legal justification. Under the circumstances, the main challenges facing Niger and for the matter the entire West African region, and also presents useful lessons for Africa are in two specific areas: politics and economics.

Consider politics in the sense that democracy is threatened, and economics as Niger and other African States have to protect exploitation of resources. The latest flash-points in the struggle by the imperialist powers. Across the West African region, it is a battle between between the Anglophone and the Francophone. But then, there is also the controversial question concerning the construction of the Trans-Saharan pipeline from Nigeria through the region to Europe. Besides that Niger is a landlocked but well known to be a major uranium producer and has 80% impoverished population.

John P. Ruehl, an Australian-American journalist living in Washington, and a Contributing Editor to Strategic Policy, argues in his article titled “Private Military Companies Continue To Expand In Africa” that in the wake of the July 26 coup in Niger, the world’s spotlight has once again turned to the expansion of private military and security companies (PMSCs) across Africa.

As the Sahel region continues to grapple with instability and conflict, the strengthening of PMSCs, both domestic and foreign, will continue to reshape Africa’s security in profound and unpredictable ways. Russia has found an unconventional and effective way to assert influence in Africa’s security landscape, he wrote in the article.

Nonetheless, this raises questions about sovereignty, a recurring issue in a continent where it has consistently been violated since African countries won their independence. As the Nigerien government grapples with its situation, Wagner could again act as a Kremlin surrogate, safeguarding Russia’s interests by filling the security vacuum left by the ousted French military. But Prigozhin’s ongoing role in Africa suggests the Kremlin is relying on smoke and mirrors to obscure its true motivations, according to John Ruehl.

Through similiar microscopic glasses, M.K. Bhadrakumar, a former Indian diplomat writing in the Indian Punchline media, highlighted the deep-seated existing problems in the region and in Africa: while poor governance, rampant corruption, escalating poverty and insecurity have created conditions for the coups in Sahel region, a deeper factor is the geopolitics of resource access and control. Foreign powers are competing to explore and control the abundant mineral resources of West African nations.

Bhadrakumar wrote that the ascendant tensions in Niger and the wider subregion are no doubt exacerbated by the geopolitical and economic rivalry between the East and the West. The spectre that haunts West Africa is that the proxy war between Russia and the US can easily creep into Africa, where Russian mercenaries and Western Special Forces are already stationed for new assignments.

Dr. Scott N. Romaniuk, an International Newton Fellow at the University of South Wales’ Faculty of Life Sciences and Education  and Dr. János Besenyő, Professor at the Óbuda University, Donát Bánki Faculty of Mechanical and Safety Engineering (Hungary), and Head of the Africa Research Institute, both in an opinion article explained the worsening of existing security challenges, and the emergence of new internal and regional threats.

In the framework of what we see as a coup at the crossroads of a potential regional war, a nascent proxy conflict, and the neocolonial goals of foreign powers, at least five possible consequences of the coup and its accompanying events can be postulated.

These are: firstly, there is the possibility of a decline in democratic governance in the region, which is supported by divisions among ECOWAS members and a negative attitude towards the political and economic union of West African states, especially in Niamey, where Nigeriens denounce ECOWAS’ involvement.

Secondly, it is plausible that other governments within the central Sahel region may succumb to the influence of military juntas or experience state failure.

Thirdly, the socioeconomic repercussions of sanctions – a playbook from the Western strategy towards Russia in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine – are likely to have a significantly negative impact on the quality of life for those who live in Niger.

Fourthly, the present conditions may contribute to a schism between Nigeriens’ desire for change and those who would prefer to maintain the current military junta, both of which may manifest through military intervention and the involvement of external actors such as Wagner mercenaries and other foreign forces.

Fifthly, Niger, under the governance of a fragile military junta, might potentially become a breeding ground for extremist activities. This may occur either due to involvement by Western powers with neo-colonialist motives or, conversely, in the absence of Western troops if their absence is perceived as an opportunity to establish operational bases within the nation.

ECOWAS  sanctions will only bite ordinary impoverished millions. The African Union supports all that sharply divides the continent, moving forth and back without any suitable solutions. Both are watching their traditional external forces. Burkina Faso has also agreed to restore civilian rule next year, while Guinea shortened its transition timeline to 24 months. With a flurry of sanctions since the coup, it only goes piling economic pressure on one of the world’s poorest countries.

Niger shares distinctive borders with Burkina Faso and Mali, as well as Chad and Algeria in Sahel region. These States have pledged their support to Niger, as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) continually looks for mechanisms to resolve the crisis. The regional bloc has come under criticisms, it slackens on its primary responsibilities and some have called for staff changes attributing to inefficiency. The bloc’s reputation has been at stake, and most probably, needs new dynamic faces at the Secretariat in Abuja, Nigeria.

The military has been in power since July 26. Mohamed Bazoum’s election in 2021 was a landmark in Niger’s history, ushering in its first peaceful transfer of power since independence from France in 1960. Niger is a landlocked nation located in West Africa and well known to be a major uranium producer but has 80% impoverished population. Niger remains one of the poorest countries in the world, regularly ranking at the bottom of the UN’s Human Development Index.

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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS) and InDepthNews, is now a regular contributor to Global Research. He researches Eurasia, Russia, Africa and BRICS. His focused interest areas include geopolitical changes, foreign relations and economic development questions relating to Africa. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports.

Featured image: Emblem of the Economic Community of West African States (Licensed under Fair Use)

“The IMF may demand Lebanon normalize with Israel.”

August 23rd, 2023 by Alberto Garcia Watson

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Lebanon is a failed state economically, politically, and socially. Very little movement has occurred to help Lebanon recover from the depths of hopelessness. Steven Sahiounie of MidEastDiscourse interviewed Alberto García Watson, a Beirut-based expert in the Middle East, terrorism and Islamic radicalism as well as a television correspondent.

Steven Sahiounie (SS): Finally, after 30 years as head of the Central Bank of Lebanon, Riad Salamah has left office. He left under a cloud of accusations of very serious crimes in Europe, but has not yet been held accountable in Lebanon. In your opinion, will other political elite tied to Salameh be brought down?

Alberto Garcia Watson (AGW):  Lebanon’s financial elites have been fleecing the country, the economic and financial crisis has been intensified by hyperinflation of almost 200% last year, the second highest rate in the world, the sovereign debt default to international lenders in March 2020, the explosion of the Beirut port three years ago or the brutal repercussions of the pandemic, all has contributed to turning Lebanon into a financially failed state.

It would give the impression that the planets have aligned to economically sink a financial system that is trying to save macroeconomic data by further impoverishing the population by implementing harmful fiscal policies for citizens in an attempt to reinforce the country’s religious-sectarian power-sharing system.

The World Bank has called it a ‘deliberate depression orchestrated by an elite that has long taken over the state and lived off its economic rents’.

Lebanon ranks 138th out of 180 on Transparency International’s corruption perception list and this has been particularly contributed to by Riad Salameh who, after three decades as Governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon, is leaving office by the back door, the subject of investigations in France, Germany (which have issued arrest warrants to Interpol), Luxembourg and Lebanon on suspicion of embezzlement (for some $330 million) and of having accumulated a millionaire’s worth of real estate and financial wealth.

SS: Lebanon has been without a President for almost two years. The Parliament has voted numerous times, but no decision taken. In your view, will the Saudi-French effort be successful?

AGW: In Lebanon, this situation of presidential absence is nothing new, Lebanese presidency has been vacant on several occasions since the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990), including for 29 months before Michel Aoun was elected in 2016 in a deal that saw the election of Saad Hariri as prime minister, a historic moment that I as a television correspondent for an Iranian media outlet was assigned to cover and which starred for much of the two years I spent in Beirut.

Frankly, it took me some time to understand how different politico-religious sensitivities with international derivations could politically decide the designs of a sovereign nation and how the influence of regional powers could have so much weight in deciding the election of the head of state in a nation whose presidency plays a symbolic role.

SS: Saudi Arabia, France, the United States, Egypt and Qatar recently met in Paris where they discussed how to end the political impasse in Lebanon, without finally reaching an agreement on who to support, although they do seem to have agreed on who to reject, which is none other than the candidate Suleiman Frangieh, very close to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Lebanese Shiite party Hezbollah.

AGW: However, these countries share the need to exert pressure on the Lebanese political groups so that the constitutional deadlines are met and structural reforms are implemented, an agreement with the International Monetary Fund that will mortgage the Arab country economically for life and that ends up calling into question the Lebanese sovereignty to end up demanding that Lebanon normalize diplomatic relations with the Israeli regime, if it wants to survive, something that does not seem to be going to happen.

SS: There are mounting tensions between Hezbollah and Israel, especially since the statements made by Israeli Minister Gallant and the leader of the Lebanese resistance group. In your opinion, is Lebanon and Israel on the doors of armed conflict?

AGW: Israel has been threatening Lebanon for decades with “wiping it off the map”, “turning the clock back 20 years”, “returning the Arab country to the stone age”, but it does so because it is afraid of Hezbollah, which has already demonstrated in the past the military capacity it has and the support of the majority of political forces in Lebanon, although they may be in permanent disagreement on political issues, but when it comes to preserving national sovereignty, no matter if they are Sunni, Christian, Shiite or Druze, they all support the militia that preserves the borders from the Zionist threat as well as Wahhabi fundamentalism.

Just a few days ago, a new anniversary of the “33 Days War” was commemorated, which in 2006 led to a humiliating defeat of the Israeli army against Hezbollah.

The offensive capacity and the military capabilities that the Shiite militia has acquired through its participation in the war in Syria have provided a very important experience to an army that even the Israeli army leadership pointed out not long ago that if a military confrontation were to take place between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, it would be more than likely that the fighting would take place in Israeli territory.

Israel, frequently attacks the Gaza Strip and Syrian territory because it knows the limitations of the armed forces in both territories, but when it comes to Lebanon, it can only devote its efforts to sending threats that are more aimed at its own public and empty patriotic fervor than at a viable project.

SS: The tension between the US, and Syria and its allies, has hit a very high level after the Syrian resistance group attacked the US military occupation bases in the east of Syria. In your opinion, will we see a military conflict between the US and their Kurdish mercenaries and Syria and its allies, such as Russia and others?

AGW: It is difficult to foresee, but in my humble opinion and since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, the United States has shown great weaknesses in its proxy war with the Russian Federation.

The Russian army has military bases in Syria and Vladimir Putin’s closeness to President Bashar Al-Assad is well known. At this time the hostility of the United States towards Russia will reflect a change in the Syrian military landscape.

Syria is an ally of Russia, which has been invited by the legitimate and sovereign Syrian government. Whoever attacks and plunders Syria’s natural resources as the US military does with Syrian oil and grain, can only expect that the Syrian-Russian capability and alliance will result in military cooperation between the two nations.

Let us hope that this alliance will also take place when it comes to defending Syrian territory from the frequent attacks by the Israeli army and which the International Community shamefully refuses to condemn.

SS: President Erdogan of Turkey has come out with a proposal to include Aleppo with the Al Qaeda occupied province of Idlib in an effort to force Syrian refugees in Turkey back to Syrian soil. In your view, will the international community allow Erdogan to take action on this plan, and will Syrian allies take action to prevent this from happening?

AGW: The Turkish president is absolutely unpredictable, initially maintaining excellent relations with Vladimir Putin and even managing to sign an agreement for the export of Ukrainian grain, and shortly afterwards and surprisingly betraying Russia by releasing military commanders of Ukrainian neo-Nazi battalions responsible for war crimes, who should have remained on Turkish territory until the end of the war.

Subsequently, it acts like the Israeli regime, perpetuating its military occupation of Syrian territory, shielding its brotherhood and cooperation with jihadist terrorist groups, not allowing the Syrian army to liberate the city of Idlib (last stronghold of the Wahhabi militants) that have maintained in favor of the West and the Gulf dictatorships a lethal twelve-year war against the Syrian people.

Very little can be expected from the International Community, because it has never been categorical in condemning the Turkish military occupation of Syrian territory and has shown not the slightest interest in assisting the millions of Syrian refugees of this conflict that has been used with political motivations for a failed approach to its accession to the European Union.

But what is clear to me is that if Erdogan intends to militarily force the incorporation of Aleppo to the province of Idlib to end up annexing more Syrian territory based on the excuse of mobilizing millions of displaced people, Syria will know how to defend its sovereignty with the assistance of Russia, which will not allow Turkey to install a jihadist outpost in northern Syria.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from MD

Looting the Looters: Theft at the British Museum

August 23rd, 2023 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

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*** 

What happens when the looters are looted? Perhaps that strange sense of satisfaction called justice, an offence cancelled by another. One therefore greets the realisation that the British Museum has been suffering a number of such cases with some smugness. What makes them even more striking is the inability of staff to have picked up on the matter in the first place. When they did come to light, the habitual tendency to bury, or deny matters as best as possible, also found form.

On August 16, the British Museum stated in a press release that an independent review into its security was being launched “after items from the collection were found to be missing, stolen or damaged.” The extent of such theft or damage is not clear, though the Museum revealed that one member of staff had been dismissed, with legal action being taken against the unnamed individual.  The Metropolitan Police, through its Economic Crime Command branch, was also investigating the matter.

Led by former trustee, Sir Nigel Boardman, and Lucy D’Orsi, Chief Constable of the British Transport Police, the review is intended to furnish the Museum with “recommendations regarding future security arrangements” while also commencing “a vigorous programme to recover the missing items.”

Short on detail, the Museum gave some sense about the items involved, which were, it was keen to point out, “kept primarily for academic and research purposes.” These included “gold jewellery and gems of semi-precious stones and glass dating from the 15th century BC to the 19th century AD.”

Officials have been keen to contain the scandal, with director Hartwig Fischer insisting that this was “highly unusual”. In apologising for the whole affair, he also assured the public that “we have now brought an end to this – and we are determined to put things right.” Fischer’s own occupancy of the director’s role is also coming to an end in 2024. 

The Chair of the Museum, George Osborne, formerly Chancellor of the Exchequer, even saw an opportunity to weave the theft into a strategy of reforming the institution. “This incident only reinforces the case for the reimagination of the Museum we have embarked upon.”

The person who seems to have spurred such reimagining was subsequently identified as Peter John Higgs, a curator of Greek antiquities of some prominence. There is a delicious irony in this, given the fraught history the Museum has had with the Elgin Marbles, so brazenly taken from the Parthenon in Athens by the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in 1801. 

Much the same could be said about many artefacts housed in the BM’s collections, including the Benin bronzes and the Easter Island Hoa Hakananai’a. As the notable human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson sourly remarked in 2019, “The trustees of the British Museum have become the world’s largest receivers of stolen property, and the great majority of their loot is not even on public display.”

What has since emerged is that the Museum has been less than frank about the spate of pilfering, let alone the number of items missing from its inventory. One report suggests that the number might be anywhere between 1,500 to 2,000, taken over a period of two decades. 

Publicity is being made about the artefacts through official channels without much specificity, which can be taken either as a sign of acute awareness as to where they might be found, or old-fashioned, groping ignorance. Christopher Marinello, lawyer and CEO of Art Recovery International, is of the latter view.

Higgs, it transpires, was sacked on July 5 with barely a murmur, despite having led the 2021 exhibition “Ancient Greeks: Athletes, Warriors and Heroes,” which was received by three Australian museums and slated to arrive in Suzhou Museum in China at the end of the year. The Higgs dismissal took place, it has been reported, for his alleged role behind the disappearance of various gold jewellery, semi-precious stones and glass. 

The suspicion here is that Higgs operated stealthily, removing the objects over a number of years.  Somewhat odder, and less stealthy, was how many of those objects found their way onto eBay.  Prices also dramatically varied, suggesting either a cheeky sense of humour, or the understanding of an untutored eye. One item of Roman jewellery, made from onyx, valued anywhere between £25,000 and £50,000, fetched the less than princely sum of £40. 

In 2016, an unnamed antiquities expert cited in a Telegraph report began noting various listings of glass items and semi-precious gems on the e-commerce site. Pieces from the Townley collection of Graeco-Roman artifacts, which the Museum started purchasing in 1805, were spotted under an eBay seller by the name of “sultan1966”. Sultan1966 proved less than forthcoming to the expert in question when confronted about any link to Higgs.  

In June 2020, the Museum was informed of the matter. In February 2021, the BBC revealed that an art dealer by the name of Ittai Gradel had alerted the institution about some of the items being sold online. Deputy director Jonathan Williams took five months to rebuff the claim: “there was no suggestion of any wrongdoing.” An unconvinced Gradel chased up matters with a museum board member, claiming that Williams and Fischer had swept “it all under the carpet.” In October 2022, Fischer repeated the line that “no evidence” of wrongdoing had been identified. 

The son of the alleged perpetrator, Greg Higgs, is mightily unimpressed, declaring that his father could not have been responsible. “He’s lost his job and his reputation, and I don’t think it was fair. It couldn’t have been (him). I don’t think there is even anything missing as far as I’m aware.” The lamentable conduct by the British Museum, notably in initially insisting that nothing had gone missing, would suggest that someone is telling a glorious fib.

The Economist, in reacting to the affair, suggested that making off with such items from a museum “is easier than you might think.” But what also matters is the museum’s response to alleged claims of theft. As Marinello puts it, instances of pilfering are not unusual, but the British  Museum’s failure to involve the police “right away” was nothing short of “shocking”. The Higgs matter suggests as much and is likely to prove a tonic to those seeking a return of various collections lodged in the British Museum over the years. 

Lina Mendoni, Greece’s Minister of Culture, is one who wasted little time suggesting that the missing objects reinforced “the permanent and just demand of our country for the definitive return” of the Parthenon Marbles. The fact that the incidents had taken place “from within, beyond any moral and criminal responsibility” questioned “the credibility of the organisation itself.” Such theft has somehow put the universe of looted treasures into greater balance.

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

Featured image: Aerial shot of the British Museum, London. (Licensed under CC BY 2.0)

The Worst Conspiracy Theory of Them All: That There Is No Way Out

By Dr. Emanuel Garcia, August 22, 2023

I have been planning to compose a ‘beginner’s guide’ to conspiracy theory, a work that will presumably take some fine thinking and time, given that conspiracy theory and conspiracy theorists, so-called, have been all the rage in our covidian world. 

Cyber Attacks Against Independent Media, Censorship and Double Standards

By Gavin OReilly, August 23, 2023

This deliberate omission of key facts by the mainstream media has allowed for a version of events to take hold where Vladmir Putin is some sort of cartoon character-type villain, a madman that must be stopped at any cost.

We’re All Suspects in a DNA Lineup, Waiting to be Matched with a Crime

By John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead, August 23, 2023

Whatever skeletons may be lurking on your family tree or in your closet, whatever crimes you may have committed, whatever associations you may have with those on the government’s most wanted lists: the police state is determined to ferret them out.

Biden’s Trilateral Camp David Summit: Advanced Preparation for War with China?

By Dr. Joseph Gerson, August 23, 2023

Meeting in a summit at Camp David on August 18, President Joe Biden, President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea, and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan posed for photos that confirmed and broadcast a long-term trilateral alliance designed to reinforce containment of China, Russia, and North Korea.

Republican Party Sets Up Trump for Democrats

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, August 23, 2023

Just think of the many years and the many iterations the Democrats and their FBI and presstitute media have given to their attempts to frame up President Trump beginning with the “Russiagate” hoax in 2016 seven years ago. 

Hawaii State Government Attempts Information Blackout on Maui Fire – Refuses Media Access

By Zero Hedge, August 22, 2023

The West Maui disaster is becoming less about the fire and more about the government’s bizarre response to the aftermath.  Independent media sources and some mainstream media sources have confirmed multiple instances of the Democrat controlled government’s mismanagement that led to the escalation of the tragedy.

Neocons and Other Malignancies in the American Body Politic

By Philip Giraldi, August 22, 2023

It is interesting to observe how, over the past twenty-five years, the United States has become not only a participant in wars in various places on the planet but has also evolved into being the prime initiator of most of the armed conflict.

Why Won’t the US Close Guantanamo?

By Maha Hilal, August 22, 2023

Last month, the US Senate passed the National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) for 2024, an appropriations bill defining military priorities, and one that has consistently placed restrictions on remedies to the abuses at Guantanamo Bay.

Leaked Documents Indicate Zelensky About to be Replaced

By Lucas Leiroz de Almeida, August 22, 2023

It seems increasingly clear that the West wants to replace Zelensky. In addition to several predictions by experts that the Ukrainian president will be removed from power, it is now revealed that some previously leaked Pentagon’s documents expose a plan to make the mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, the new head of state.

Cutting Climate Change Research: Cuts at the Australian Antarctic Division

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, August 22, 2023

On July 10, an email sent to all staff by the head of division, Emma Campbell, claimed that the AAD “won’t be able to afford” all current positions. Since then, the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) has given a flimsy assurance that no jobs will be lost.

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On August 18, 2023, in an egregious act of censorship, the ICANN – a supposedly impartial body responsible for the administration of the world wide web’s domain system – took down the domain name of the well-known website SouthFront, an outlet that has been the previous target of US sanctions and social media censorship owing to its coverage of subjects such as the origins of the wars in Syria and Ukraine; topics which rarely, if ever, are given satisfactory coverage by the mainstream media, with edited versions, beneficial only to corporate interests, presented to western audiences instead.

As a contributor to SouthFront myself since November 2021, I can attest first-hand that it is a platform that has afforded me an opportunity to write on subjects that no mainstream outlet in my own country, Ireland, would dare allow to be covered.

Examples include the Fourth Industrial Revolution intended to be ushered in by the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset initiative, the almost nine years of western-orchestrated provocations that preceded Russia’s intervention in Ukraine in February 2022, and the ongoing protests against the 26 County State’s globalist handling of immigration, with the south of Ireland’s political establishment being fully aligned with the interests of Davos and the US-NATO hegemony.

A website I previously wrote for, the Canada-based American Herald Tribune, suffered a similar fate in November 2020, when, alleging that it was being directed by Iran as part of an influence campaign, the FBI seized the US-based server on which AHT was hosted. Though resurrected on a Canadian server a short while later, American Herald Tribune would once again be seized by the FBI in April 2021, despite its host server being outside US jurisdiction.

Two months later, the US government would go on to seize the website of the Iranian media network Press TV, with the Tehran-based outlet also having to relocate its domain name to a new server to continue operating.

Despite this, and the aforementioned seizures of SouthFront and American Herald Tribune, being blatant acts of cyber-warfare and media censorship, they came in for little to no criticism from the supposed ‘free’ media of the west, the same media that would likely be calling for the triggering of Article 5 had Russia openly seized the domain name of a western website critical of Moscow’s policies, such as Bellingcat.

Indeed, there was little to no criticism from the Western press last year when in the weeks following Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine, RT and Sputnik News were banned across the European Union, ensuring that upwards of 448 million people were hindered in obtaining a balanced intake of media coverage of the conflict.

What was left was a version of events carefully manipulated by the corporate media in order to present the Russian operation as ‘unprovoked’, leaving aside the key fact that the conflict had actually began in 2014, when the western-backed government installed by the Euromaidan coup, attacked the predominantly ethnic-Russian Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in the east of the country.

This deliberate omission of key facts by the mainstream media has allowed for a version of events to take hold where Vladmir Putin is some sort of cartoon character-type villain, a madman that must be stopped at any cost. This, in turn, is used as justification to even further censor media outlets that give a factual and balanced account of events related to the war in Ukraine, thus perpetuating the cycle of propaganda.

A devious method, and one that had it been used in reverse and Russian security services had openly seized the domain name of a western website critical of the Kremlin’s policies, such as the BBC or the aforementioned Bellingcat, would possibly lead to a worldwide military confrontation.

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Gavin O’Reilly is an activist from Dublin, Ireland, with a strong interest in the effects of British and US Imperialism. Secretary of the Dublin Anti-Internment Committee, a campaign group set up to raise awareness of Irish Republican political prisoners in British and 26 County jails. His work has previously appeared on American Herald Tribune, The Duran, Al-Masdar and MintPress News. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. Support him on Patreon. 

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Einleitung  

Zu Beginn des neuen Schuljahres sollten besorgte Eltern dringend über das Erfahrungs-Wissen pädagogisch-psychologischer Tätigkeit und Forschung informiert werden. Aufgrund mangelnder Aufklärung befürchten viele von ihnen, dass ihre Kinder nicht die nötige Intelligenz und Begabung aufbringen würden, um das Schuljahr erfolgreich zu bestehen. 

Aber: Intelligenz und Begabung sind weder angeboren, noch vererbbar, wie so manche Experten aus vorpsychologischen Zeiten den Eltern vermitteln; sie können deshalb zu jeder Zeit gefördert werden.

„Intelligenz“ und „Begabung“

Obwohl die Intelligenzforschung ein florierender Forschungszweig der Psychologie ist, mangelt es an einer verbindlichen, allgemein akzeptierten Definition ihres Forschungsgegenstandes. In der Regel wird „Intelligenz“ als Fähigkeit zur Anpassung an unbekannte Situationen bzw. zur Lösung neuer Probleme definiert (1). Der Begriff umfasst die Gesamtheit unterschiedlich ausgeprägter kognitiver Fähigkeiten zur Lösung eines logischen, sprachlichen, mathematischen oder sinnorientierten Problems.

Sehr oft besteht die Meinung, die Intelligenz sei ein isoliertes seelisches Vermögen, das entweder vorhanden sei oder auch nicht, weil man sich nicht im Klaren darüber ist, von welchen seelischen Voraussetzungen die kindliche Intelligenz und damit die Schulleistung abhängt. In Wirklichkeit sind Klugheit und Lernfähigkeit vielfach determinierte psychische Funktionen. So ist es durchaus möglich, dass ein an sich intelligentes Kind beim Lernen versagt. Der Fehler muss dann im gesamtpsychischen Haushalt gesucht werden. 

Auch der „Begabungsmangel“ ist ein problematischer Begriff, der einen schulischen Misserfolg nicht erklären kann. Wenn ein Schulkind auf einem einzigen Gebiet oder in mehreren Fächern versagt, sprechen Eltern oder andere Erziehungspersonen gerne davon, dass das Kind eben hierin nicht begabt sei. 

Schulversagen ist kein Intelligenz- oder Begabungsmangel  

Die Gründe für das Versagen in der Schule sind mannigfaltig und können hier nicht in der nötigen Breite behandelt werden. Wichtig ist jedoch: Organische Störungen der Intelligenz spielen nur in sehr seltenen Fällen eine entscheidende Rolle, weil organisch bedingter Schwachsinn eine augenfällige Symptomatik hat, sodass diese Kinder stets frühzeitig erfasst und einem eigenen Ausbildungsgang zugeführt werden. 

Pädagogisch-psychologische Schul-Erfahrung und Forschungsergebnisse lehren uns, dass schlechte Schulleistungen oder „Scheindummheit“ in der Regel nicht auf Intelligenz- und Begabungsmangel zurückgeführt werden können, sondern auf erzieherische Fehlhaltungen. Dieser durch die Tiefenpsychologie aufgedeckte Zusammenhang ist bei Schulschwierigkeiten unbedingt in Rechnung zu stellen. 

Schulisches Lernversagen ist also keine Willensfrage oder eine Böswilligkeit des Kindes. Oft werden alle möglichen Faktoren als Ursachen des kindlichen Versagens herangezogen; jedoch ist es unbestritten, dass das erzieherische Milieu für die Bewährung des Kindes in der Schule ausschlaggebend ist. Dies könnte für Eltern ein Anlass sein, sich zu besinnen und zu fragen, ob in der Erziehung der richtige Weg beschritten wurde. 

Als Lehrer kann man immer wieder beobachten, dass ein stabiles kindliches Selbstwertgefühl die eigentliche Voraussetzung für die kindliche Lernfähigkeit ist. Lebensmut und Selbstachtung erwirbt jedoch vor allem jenes Kind, das in geordneten familiären Verhältnissen aufwächst. So lassen schlechte Eheverhältnisse kein kindliches Geborgenheitsgefühl aufkommen und eine autoritäre oder übergewissenhafte Erziehung können dem Kind frühzeitig vermitteln, dass „man es ja doch nie recht machen kann“. Dieses Gefühl übertragen die Kinder dann auch in die Schule und erleben die Lehrkraft ebenso wie die Eltern als verständnislose und uneinsichtige Menschen. 

Dabei ist nicht nur auf die Beziehung zwischen Kind und Eltern zu achten, auch das Verhältnis der Geschwister untereinander ist von ausschlaggebender Bedeutung. Die Eifersucht eines Kindes ist imstande, sein Schulinteresse zu unterbinden, wenn es sich zum Beispiel gegenüber den Geschwistern benachteiligt oder zurückgesetzt fühlt. Damit können Affekte des Neides oder der Verbitterung mobilisiert werden, die das kindliche Gemüt schwer belasten. 

Das eifersüchtige Gebaren, das sich in Zänkereien und Ausfälligkeiten jeder Art äußern kann, zieht oft die ganze Familie in Mitleidenschaft und führt beim Eifersüchtigen selbst zu einem solchen Kräfteverschleiß, dass er für die Schule keine Energie mehr zur Verfügung hat.

 „Intelligenz“ als Funktion der psychischen Aufmerksamkeit  

Indem die Tiefenpsychologie erklärt, dass jede Intelligenzleistung eine Funktion der psychischen Aufmerksamkeit ist, dass intelligentes Handeln also nur möglich ist, wo anhaltendes Interesse entwickelt wird, knüpft sie an die Befunde der berühmten experimental psychologischen Schule des deutschen Physiologen und Psychologen Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (1832-1920) an.

1879 gründete Wundt an der Universität Leipzig das erste Institut für experimentelle Psychologie mit einem systematischen Forschungsprogramm. Deshalb betrachtet man ihn als Begründer der Psychologie als eigenständige Wissenschaft (2). 

Aufgrund von Wundts Befunden muss gefragt werden, unter welchen Bedingungen ein Kind daran gehindert wird, an der Schule und am Lernen echtes Interesse zu entwickeln, woraus sich dann der sogenannte Intelligenzmangel ergibt. Nach Erfahrung vieler Lehrkräfte und Kinderpsychotherapeuten sind vermutlich mehr als dreiviertel aller „dummen“ Kinder solche, die infolge ihrer gesamtpsychischen Konstellation nicht in der Lage sind, die von der Schule geforderte Aufmerksamkeit zu entwickeln.

Angst ist die schlimmste Blockade intelligenten Verhaltens im Seelenleben des Kindes.

Sehr häufig findet man unter sogenannt unintelligenten Schulkindern ängstliche und gehemmte Kinder. Sie fühlen sich durch ihre Schüchternheit in der Schule nicht heimisch. Dadurch erleben sie das schulische Leben als eine derartige Gefahrensituation, dass sie kaum fähig sind, sich ruhig dem Lernpensum zuzuwenden. Wo auch immer Kinder oder Erwachsene in Angstzustände kommen, geraten die psychischen Prozesse aus den Fugen. 

Der ängstliche Mensch ist aber nicht nur in akuten Prüfungs- und Bewährungssituationen ängstlich; er trägt diese Angst ständig mit sich herum. So leben ängstliche Schulkinder zum Beispiel in dauernder Furcht vor dem Aufgerufenwerden und empfinden oft schon den Blick des Lehrers als Tadel und Zurechtweisung.

Selbst dann, wenn sie ihre Sache zuhause gut gelernt und eingeübt haben, können sie im Unterricht versagen, sobald es darauf ankommt, das Gelernte zu präsentieren. Dadurch entsteht eine psychische Lähmung, die auch den Lern-Elan drosselt. Oft stellt sich daraufhin eine Resignation ein, die das schulische Training als aussichtslos ansieht und schließlich in eine „Scheindummheit“ überleitet, welche im Grunde nur eine durch Angst gestörte Aufmerksamkeit ist. 

Verwöhnung und Verzärtelung sind keine gute Voraussetzung für die kindliche Lernfähigkeit 

Andere Formen der „Kinderdummheit“, die Lehrkräfte zunehmend beobachten und deren Pseudocharakter Psychotherapeuten aufdecken könnten, resultieren aus einer verwöhnenden und verzärtelnden Erziehung. Ein solches Erziehungsklima wird von vielen Eltern als wahre Kinderliebe missverstanden. Ein Kind gerne haben heißt aber nicht, es derart mit Zärtlichkeit zu überschütten, dass seine innere Selbstständigkeit erdrückt wird.

Die psychologische Erfahrung lehrt, dass Liebe nicht einfach ein überbordendes Gefühl ist: es ist vielmehr eine ernste und nicht leichte Aufgabe, die sorgfältig erlernt werden muss. Die Liebe zum Kind soll wissend und sehend sein, sie darf dem Kind nicht nur Gutes tun wollen, sie muss dem Kind das Gute auch zur rechten Zeit und in der rechten Art zukommen lassen. 

Verwöhnende Erzieher können sich somit dem kindlichen Selbständigkeitsdrang entgegenstellen, indem sie unbewusst von einer positiven psychischen Entfaltung des Kindes befürchten, dass dadurch das geliebte Kind den Eltern entfremdet wird. Das stark verwöhnte Kind lernt somit nicht, eigene Erfahrungen zu machen und übt dadurch seine vorhandenen Fertigkeiten und Geschicklichkeiten nicht ein. Beim Schulanfang befindet es sich deshalb in einer Gesellschaft von tüchtigeren und rabiateren Gefährten, denen es sich nicht gewachsen fühlt. Bei Kindern, die innerlich von einer Erziehungsperson abhängig gemacht werden, kann dadurch ein Lähmungseffekt eintreten, der die gesamte Schulkarriere über anhalten und letztlich zum Scheitern führen kann, wenn sie etwas alleine und ohne Hilfe fertigbringen sollen. 

Lehrer machen immer wieder die Beobachtung, dass ein stabiles kindliches Selbstwertgefühl die beste Voraussetzung für die kindliche Lernfähigkeit ist.

Die gute Nachricht bietet meist keinen Anlass für einen Prozess der Selbstbesinnung 

So positiv die psychologische Botschaft auch ist, dass „Intelligenz und „Begabung“ keine angeborenen und vererbbaren psychischen Faktoren sind und deshalb zum Positiven hin verändert werden können, so bleibt es jedoch meist dabei, dass die Eltern darin keinen Anlass sehen, mit oder ohne Unterstützung eines Psychotherapeuten einen Prozess der Selbstbesinnung einzuleiten, ob sie in der Erziehung den richtigen Weg beschritten haben – und was eventuell verbessert werden könnte.

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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel ist Schul-Rektor, Erziehungswissenschaftler und Diplom-Psychologe. Nach seinen Universitätsstudien wurde er wissenschaftlicher Lehrer in der Erwachsenenbildung. Als Pensionär arbeitete er als Psychotherapeut in eigener Praxis. In seinen Büchern und Fachartikeln fordert er eine bewusste ethisch-moralische Werteerziehung sowie eine Erziehung zu Gemeinsinn und Frieden. Für seine Verdienste um Serbien bekam er 2021 von den Universitäten Belgrad und Novi Sad den Republik-Preis „Kapitän Misa Anastasijevic“ verliehen.

Er schreibt regelmäßig für Global Research.   

Noten

[1] https://www.spektrum.de/lexikon/psychologie/intelligenz/7263

[2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Wundt 

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“Make no mistake about it…your DNA can be taken and entered into a national DNA database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason… I doubt that the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would have been so eager to open their mouths for royal inspection.”Justice Antonin Scalia dissenting in Maryland v. King

Be warned: the DNA detectives are on the prowl.

Whatever skeletons may be lurking on your family tree or in your closet, whatever crimes you may have committed, whatever associations you may have with those on the government’s most wanted lists: the police state is determined to ferret them out.

In an age of overcriminalization, round-the-clock surveillance, and a police state eager to flex its muscles in a show of power, we are all guilty of some transgression or other.

No longer can we consider ourselves innocent until proven guilty.

Now we are all suspects in a DNA lineup waiting to be matched up with a crime.

Suspect State, meet the Genetic Panopticon.

DNA technology in the hands of government officials will complete our transition to a Surveillance State in which prison walls are disguised within the seemingly benevolent trappings of technological and scientific progress, national security and the need to guard against terrorists, pandemics, civil unrest, etc.

By accessing your DNA, the government will soon know everything else about you that they don’t already know: your family chart, your ancestry, what you look like, your health history, your inclination to follow orders or chart your own course, etc.

It’s getting harder to hide, even if you think you’ve got nothing to hide.

Armed with unprecedented access to DNA databases amassed by the FBI and ancestry website, as well as hospital newborn screening programs, police are using forensic genealogy, which allows police to match up an unknown suspect’s crime scene DNA with that of any family members in a genealogy database, to solve cold cases that have remained unsolved for decades.

As reported by The Intercept, forensic genetic genealogists are “combing through the genetic information of hundreds of thousands of innocent people in search of a perpetrator.”

By submitting your DNA to a genealogical database such as Ancestry and 23andMe, you’re giving the police access to the genetic makeup, relationships and health profiles of every relative—past, present and future—in your family, whether or not you or they ever agreed to be part of such a database.

Indeed, relying on a loophole in a commercial database called GEDmatch, genetic genealogists are able to sidestep privacy rules that allow people to opt out of sharing their genetic information with police. The end result? Police are now able to identify and target those very individuals who explicitly asked to keep their DNA results private.

In this way, merely choosing to exercise your right to privacy makes you a suspect and puts you in the police state’s crosshairs.

It no longer even matters if you’re among the tens of millions of people who have added their DNA to ancestry databases. As Brian Resnick reports, public DNA databases have grown so massive that they can be used to find you even if you’ve never shared your own DNA.

That simple transaction—a spit sample or a cheek swab in exchange for getting to learn everything about one’s ancestral makeup, where one came from, and who is part of one’s extended family—is the price of entry into the Suspect State for all of us.

After all, a DNA print reveals everything about “who we are, where we come from, and who we will be.” It can also be used to predict the physical appearance of potential suspects.

It’s what police like to refer to a “modern fingerprint.”

Whereas fingerprint technology created a watershed moment for police in their ability to “crack” a case, DNA technology is now being hailed by law enforcement agencies as the magic bullet in crime solving, especially when it helps them crack cold cases of serial murders and rapists.

After all, who wouldn’t want to get psychopaths and serial rapists off the streets and safely behind bars, right?

At least, that’s the argument being used by law enforcement to support their unrestricted access to these genealogy databases, and they’ve got the success stories to prove it.

For instance, a 68-year-old Pennsylvania man was arrested and charged with the brutal rape and murder of a young woman almost 50 years earlier. Relying on genealogical research suggesting that the killer had ancestors who hailed from a small town in Italy, investigators narrowed their findings down to one man whose DNA, obtained from a discarded coffee cup, matched the killer’s.

In another cold case investigation, a 76-year-old man was arrested for two decades-old murders after his DNA was collected from a breathalyzer during an unrelated traffic stop.

Yet it’s not just psychopaths and serial rapists who are getting caught up in the investigative dragnet. In the police state’s pursuit of criminals, anyone who comes up as a possible DNA match—including distant family members—suddenly becomes part of a circle of suspects that must be tracked, investigated and ruled out.

In this way, “guilt by association” has taken on new connotations in a technological age in which one is just a DNA sample away from being considered a person of interest in a police investigation. As Jessica Cussins warns in Psychology Today, “The fundamental fight—that data from potentially innocent people should not be used to connect them to unrelated crimes—has been lost.”

Until recently, the government was required to at least observe some basic restrictions on when, where and how it could access someone’s DNA. That was turned on its head by various U.S. Supreme Court rulings that heralded the loss of privacy on a cellular level.

For instance, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Maryland v. King that taking DNA samples from a suspect doesn’t violate the Fourth Amendment. The Court’s subsequent decision to let stand the Maryland Court of Appeals’ ruling in Raynor v. Maryland, which essentially determined that individuals do not have a right to privacy when it comes to their DNA, made Americans even more vulnerable to the government accessing, analyzing and storing their DNA without their knowledge or permission.

It’s all been downhill since then.

Indeed, the government has been relentless in its efforts to get hold of our DNA, either through mandatory programs carried out in connection with law enforcement and corporate America, by warrantlessly accessing our familial DNA shared with genealogical services such as Ancestry and 23andMe, or through the collection of our “shed” or “touch” DNA.

Get ready, folks, because the government has embarked on a diabolical campaign to create a nation of suspects predicated on a massive national DNA database.

This has been helped along by Congress (which adopted legislation allowing police to collect and test DNA immediately following arrests), President Trump (who signed the Rapid DNA Act into law), the courts (which have ruled that police can routinely take DNA samples from people who are arrested but not yet convicted of a crime), and local police agencies (which are chomping at the bit to acquire this new crime-fighting gadget).

For example, Rapid DNA machines—portable, about the size of a desktop printer, highly unregulated, far from fool-proof, and so fast that they can produce DNA profiles in less than two hours—allow police to go on fishing expeditions for any hint of possible misconduct using DNA samples.

Journalist Heather Murphy explains: “As police agencies build out their local DNA databases, they are collecting DNA not only from people who have been charged with major crimes but also, increasingly, from people who are merely deemed suspicious, permanently linking their genetic identities to criminal databases.”

All 50 states now maintain their own DNA government databases, although the protocols for collection differ from state to state. Increasingly, many of the data from local databanks are being uploaded to CODIS, the FBI’s massive DNA database, which has become a de facto way to identify and track the American people from birth to death.

Even hospitals have gotten in on the game by taking and storing newborn babies’ DNA, often without their parents’ knowledge or consent. It’s part of the government’s mandatory genetic screening of newborns. In many states, the DNA is stored indefinitely. There’s already a move underway to carry out whole genome sequencing on newborns, ostensibly to help diagnose rare diseases earlier and improve health later in life, which constitutes an ethical minefield all by itself.

What this means for those being born today is inclusion in a government database that contains intimate information about who they are, their ancestry, and what awaits them in the future, including their inclinations to be followers, leaders or troublemakers.

For example, police in New Jersey accessed the DNA from a nine-year-old blood sample of a newborn baby in order to identify the child’s father as a suspect in a decades-old sexual assault.

The ramifications of this kind of DNA profiling are far-reaching.

At a minimum, these DNA databases do away with any semblance of privacy or anonymity.

These genetic databases and genomic technology also make us that much more vulnerable to creeps and cyberstalkers, genetic profiling, and those who would weaponize the technology against us.

Unfortunately, the debate over genetic privacy—and when one’s DNA becomes a public commodity outside the protection of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on warrantless searches and seizures—continues to lag far behind the government and Corporate America’s encroachments on our rights.

Moreover, while much of the public debate, legislative efforts and legal challenges in recent years have focused on the protocols surrounding when police can legally collect a suspect’s DNA (with or without a search warrant and whether upon arrest or conviction), the question of how to handle “shed” or “touch” DNA has largely slipped through without much debate or opposition.

As scientist Leslie A. Pray notes:

We all shed DNA, leaving traces of our identity practically everywhere we go… In fact, the garbage you leave for curbside pickup is a potential gold mine of this sort of material. All of this shed or so-called abandoned DNA is free for the taking by local police investigators hoping to crack unsolvable cases… shed DNA is also free for inclusion in a secret universal DNA databank.

What this means is that if you have the misfortune to leave your DNA traces anywhere a crime has been committed, you’ve already got a file somewhere in some state or federal database—albeit it may be a file without a name.

As the dissenting opinion to the Maryland Court of Appeals’ shed DNA ruling in Raynor rightly warned, “A person can no longer vote, participate in a jury, or obtain a driver’s license, without opening up his genetic material for state collection and codification.”

It’s just a matter of time before government agents will know everywhere we’ve been and how long we were at each place by following our shed DNA. After all, scientists can already track salmon across hundreds of square miles of streams and rivers using DNA.

Today, helped along by robotics and automation, DNA processing, analysis and reporting takes far less time and can bring forth all manner of information, right down to a person’s eye color and relatives. Incredibly, one company specializes in creating “mug shots” for police based on DNA samples from unknown “suspects” which are then compared to individuals with similar genetic profiles.

Of course, none of these technologies are infallible.

DNA evidence can be wrong, either through human error, tampering, or even outright fabrication, and it happens more often than we are told.

What this amounts to is a scenario in which we have little to no defense against charges of wrongdoing, especially when “convicted” by technology, and even less protection against the government sweeping up our DNA in much the same way it sweeps up our phone calls, emails and text messages.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, it’s only a matter of time before the police state’s pursuit of criminals from the past expands into genetic profiling and a preemptive hunt for criminals of the future.

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

They are regular contributors to Global Research.

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Meeting in a summit at Camp David on August 18, President Joe Biden, President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea, and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan posed for photos that confirmed and broadcast a long-term trilateral alliance designed to reinforce containment of China, Russia, and North Korea.

The architect of this updated alliance structure was the coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs in President Biden’s National Security Council, Kurt Campbell.

In an earlier incarnation, he served as former President Bill Clinton’s assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs who then led the greatest U.S. post-Cold War foreign and military transition: the pivot to Asia and the Pacific to contain and manage China’s rise.

Now as he has nurtured the consolidation of the U.S.-Japan-South Korea military alliance to reinforce the pivot and to augment the AUKUS (Australia, British-U.S.) and QUAD (U.S., Japan, Australia, India) alliances in Washington’s long march to create a NATO-like Indo-Pacific alliance system. The New York Times headlined that the three-pact way will serve as a “bulwark” against China and North Korea.

Prior to the summit, Campbell announced that the August 18 summit would feature “a very ambitious set of initiatives that seek to lock in trilateral engagement, both now and into the future,” addressing “many sectors—in the security realm, in technology, and education.” In this regard, it should be recalled that the Biden National Security strategy recognizes that the U.S. cannot unilaterally maintain its global dominance, and that doing so requires alliances that integrate military, technological, and economic resources. And while there is anything but equality among the alliance partners, Japanese and South Korean elites enjoy influence and power they would not have on their own.

Little understood across the United States, there are two competing triangular military, economic, and technological pacts in Northeast Asia.

These contending military systems, plus the Taiwan and Korean flash points, make the region, along with Ukraine, the most likely trigger for escalation to regional, and potentially nuclear, war.

Each of these increasingly integrated triangular systems, the U.S.-Japan-Republic of Korea (ROK) alliance and the China-Russia-Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) quasi alliance, has its fault lines. With Japan yet to fully face and apologize for its brutal history of colonial conquest and rule in Korea (think forced labor and systemic military prostitution in the first half of the 20th century), and with widespread resentment over unpopular ROK president Yoon’s kowtowing to Tokyo and Washington, not to mention Seoul being Beijing’s second largest national trade partner, South Korea is the weak link in the U.S.-led alliance.

On the other side, as we see in the Ukraine War, Beijing’s commitment to Moscow is not “unlimited.”

As referenced above, with these military systems in place and the almost daily provocative military “exercises” by all parties involved, an accident or miscalculation on the Korean Peninsula or in relation to Taiwan could easily escalate into a regional, even nuclear, war.

Global and domestic political forces led to transforming what was long a hub (U.S.) and spokes (allied partners) alliance system to the more integrated system it is becoming.

At its heart lies the Biden Administration’s National Security Strategy’s dictat that “the post-Cold War era is definitively over, and a competition is underway between the major powers to shape what comes next.”

Second are fears that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could signal an end to the post World War II/United Nations order in which national boundaries and sovereignty are for the most part respected. (The U.S. invasions of Indochina, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Panama being significant exceptions to the so-called “rules based order!”)

President Biden, President Yoon, and Prime Minister Kishida hold a press conference.

Camp David Summit (Official White House Photo by Erin Scott)

The alliance consolidation also takes place at a time when the Kishida government has opted to totally disregard Japan’s war-renouncing constitution. Being the world’s 10th largest military spender was not sufficient for those who fear China’s rise and North Korea’s missiles and wanted to restore Japan’s military grandeur.

Kishida has committed to doubling the Self-Defense Forces budget. In harmony with U.S. alliance building, and to prepare for a time when the U.S. may reduce its Asia-Pacific commitments, Japan is deepening “security” cooperation with Australia, the Philippines, India, and Taiwan and is engaging in joint military operations as far afield as the South China Sea. That these commitments suggest the possible reprising of Tokyo’s early 20th century history as a major regional military power unsettles Beijing and some Asia-Pacific neighbors.

In Korea, the unpopular President Yoon is ruling in the tradition of Donald Trump, ignoring popular opinion, relying on his narrow but loyal right-wing base, and trading his threats to develop nuclear weapons and swallowing unresolved Japanese abuses to deepen U.S. and Japanese alliance commitments. With North Korea augmenting its nuclear arsenal and increasing the pace of its missile tests—even as the U.N. reports increased starvation in the DPRK—Seoul is hardly alone in accelerating the pace of Korean militarization. Add to this the joint Chinese-Russian naval exercises in the Sea of Japan and Asahi Shimbun’s reports that Beijing is tightening its military encirclement of Taiwan.

Among the trilateral agreements just secured at Camp David are the “commitment to consult” when “something that poses a threat to any one of us poses a threat” to the three nations—just short of NATO’s Article 5 commitment to mutual defense.

Also agreed were greater intelligence sharing, annual military exercises, deepening cooperation and interdependence on missile defenses (which can provide defense but also serve as shields to reinforce first-strike nuclear swords), collaborative technological development, a framework to further integrate Southeast Asian nations into the trilateral military structure, a hotline, and annual trilateral meetings among national security advisors for “institutionalizing, deepening, and thickening the habits of cooperation” among the allies.

The summit’s much ballyhooed commitment to nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation serves more to manufacture consent for preparations for nuclear war than to reduce nuclear dangers.

As we saw in the recent G7 summit, the U.S. and Japan remain committed to “nuclear deterrence.” And the nonproliferation commitment may have more to do with preventing South Korea’s and Japan’s military from becoming nuclear powers than a commitment to fulfilling their Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) commitments. (Article VI of the NPT requires the original nuclear powers to engage in good faith negotiations for the complete elimination of their nuclear arsenals, which they have refused to do for 50 years. And, for 60 years, Japan’s military has asserted its right to possess nuclear weapons, and South Korean polls indicate that a majority support Seoul developing nuclear weapons.)

Decades ago, many of us sang, “When will they ever learn?” When indeed! Former Australian Prime Minister, now ambassador to the United States, Kevin Rudd, warns that we are marching toward a catastrophic and avoidable war.

At the height of the last Cold War, U.S., Soviet, and European elites opted for the paradigm of Common Security diplomacy to halt and reverse the spiraling and increasingly terrifying nuclear arms race.

They ended the Cold War on the basis of the recognition that security cannot be achieved by taking increasingly militarized actions against their rival, that it can only be won through difficult diplomacy that acknowledges each side’s fears and resolves and addresses them with win-win, mutually beneficial compromises and agreements.

Earlier this summer Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen observed that the world is big enough for both the U.S. and China. Let’s build on that insight, press U.S. and other leaders to engage in Common Security diplomacy, and stop wasting trillions of dollars in preparation for apocalyptic war and devote our all too limited resources to meeting human needs, including reversing that other existential threat: the climate emergency.

[From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.]

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Joseph Gerson is President of the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security, Co-founder of the Committee for a SANE U.S. China Policy and Vice President of the International Peace Bureau. His books include Empire and the Bomb, and With Hiroshima Eyes.

Featured image: President Joe Biden poses for an official photo with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and President of the Republic of Korea Yoon Suk Yeol before their trilateral meeting, Friday, August 18, 2023, at Laurel Cabin at Camp David, Maryland. (Official White House Photo by Erin Scott)

Republican Party Sets Up Trump for Democrats

August 23rd, 2023 by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

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Just think of the many years and the many iterations the Democrats and their FBI and presstitute media have given to their attempts to frame up President Trump beginning with the “Russiagate” hoax in 2016 seven years ago. 

After “Russiagate,” which even the Democrat anti-Trump special prosecutor had to dismiss, there were two phoney impeachments, both rejected by the Senate,

  • an “insurrection” hoax which has left 1,000 American patriots and military veterans in prison on false convictions orchestrated by an anti-Trump judge,
  • “strippergate” in which a woman who performs in pornographic films, likely a false charge of an extortion threat, accused Trump of using her services, not to mention
  • documentsgate which brought the absurd charge that the President of the United States stole national security secrets to give to the Russians,
  • and now a racketeering charge under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act that was used to deprive the Mafia of the financial means to defend themselves from charges.

The legally incompetent prosecutor, Fani Willis, thinks that it is racketeering for Trump to question a Democrat election result. That is the state of jurisprudence in Atlanta, Georgia, once a proud city.

The corrupt Democrats, corrupt FBI, and three corrupt and incompetent prosecutors have come up with four fake indictments. At any previous time in American history, the indictments would have been laughed out of court. Why not this time? 

The answer is that the ruling Establishment, both Democrat and Republican, are determined to teach all future candidates for president and to teach all Americans that no one will be tolerated in the Oval Office who does not represent the ruling Establishment.

Think back to Trump’s campaign and to his inaugural address. It was a bold challenge to the ruling Establishment. Trump said he was going to take power away from the ruling elites and give it back to the people where it belongs. 

It is for this challenge and only this challenge that Trump is faced with false indictments in jurisdictions where Democrats, and Democrats alone, control judges, jurors, and prosecutors. This blatantly obvious frame-up of the leading contender for president in the 2024 election is being treated as if it is real by the legal profession, the presstitute media, and both political parties.

Congressman Matt Gaetz makes this clear when he points out that the Republican Establishment is in league with the Democrats and the Democrats’ media to falsely convict President Trump.

On the Charlie Kirk Show on August 18, 2023, Gaetz said the House Republicans could bring President Trump in to give testimony to Congress, and by doing so, immunize Trump from the false charges. Gaetz said:

“There’s different forms of immunity that take place at the committee level. For full immunity, you need a supermajority vote.  Speaker McCarthy could set up a select committee tomorrow that can bring Trump in and immunize him. Then the House could proceed with the very legitimate investigative work that we are doing of the Bidens and the corrupt Department of Justice.  Unfortunately, none of those things are happening. Instead, Congress is not in Washington, not assembled. And I think the timing is on purpose. No timing in DC is ever just a mere coincidence. And so right as Congress is leaving town, right as we are walking away from our responsibility to be just and fair, we see this acceleration of activity against Trump.”

Gaetz says the House’s ability to immunize is laid out in 18 U.S.C. 6002 and 6005. “If President Trump came in and said, ‘I am here to give you testimony about the witch hunt, the abuse of the criminal process, that Congress has legitimate oversight to resolve,’ we could immunize him for the conduct covered by his testimony.”

Instead, the Republican Establishment made certain that the party ran away from the opportunity.

The Republican Party’s big donors are encouraging the abandonment of Trump, a certain winner of the nomination and election.  Why?  Because they don’t, and can’t, control him. The rich don’t give money in order for the people to have their leader instead of the rich’s leader.  

According to axios.com Republican Party top donors are withholding their money in order to encourage Republicans to find a different candidate than Trump. 

Reportedly, the Big Money donors have their eyes on Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul who owns Fox News, is also pushing for Youngkin. The axios article makes it clear that the Republican donors are frustrated by Trump’s electoral strength and don’t know how to get rid of him.  It is clear that the reason they don’t want Trump is not because he can’t win, but because he will.  

It is clear that Republican money is happier with Biden than with Trump and would prefer the party to lose the election than to have Trump in the White House. In other words, there are not two parties. There is a uni-party. The American people are in the way of elite rule.

If the Republican Party was a real party, it would back its voters’ choice, not abandon Trump to a frame-up. But the Republican Party is not a real political party any more than is the Democrat Party. The parties are vehicles for the Ruling Establishment.

Think about it, other than Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., where are the people’s leaders? 

Among the few are Representatives Jim Jordon, James Comer and Matt Gaetz, Senators Rand Paul, Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson, and a governor or two. I suspect that the ruling establishment has placed targets on their backs. Indeed, an effort was already made to frame-up Gaetz.  

Republicans seldom stand by their own. The party abandoned President Nixon to the CIA’s “Watergate” frame-up.

Nixon raised the CIA’s ire by making peace with China and the Soviet Union, thus threatening the CIA’s budget and power.

The CIA couldn’t assassinate Nixon, because the public had grown suspicious that the CIA had assassinated John and Robert Kennedy, so the CIA sent one of its assets to the Washington Post to concoct a scandal with which to remove Nixon.

Republicans failed to stand by House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a successful leader who the ruling Establishment did not want.

Democrats filed 84 ethics charges against Gingrich, all of which were fluff and all but one dropped. The one charge that remained was that Gingrich claimed tax-exempt status for a college course run for political purposes. The IRS cleared Gingrich of the charge, but the Ethics Committee’s Special Counsel claimed that Gingrich had lied to the committee in an effort to get the charge dropped. On this slim reed, the Republicans sacrificed their Speaker to the Democrats.

As all Republican voters know, relying on Republican backbone is pointless. If the Establishment wants a leader’s head, the Republicans deliver. A current case is Ken Paxton, Texas Attorney General since 2015. Last May Paxton launched an investigation of Big Pharma after a judge forced the release of Pfizer’s report on the deaths and injuries of its Covid “vaccine.”

Pfizer tried to have the report locked up for 75 years so no one could find out that Pfizer knew the “vaccine” was too dangerous to release. The same month Paxton began an investigation of Big Pharma, the Texas Republican controlled House impeached Paxton. The trial in the Republican controlled Senate begins September 5.

One charge related to a long-ago charge that Paxton had given investment advice without a license, a fact that had harmed no one and about which nothing had been done for many years. 

The other charge is that Paxton obstructed justice by looking into a supporter’s complaint that the FBI was treating him unfairly. The supporter turned out to be a donor to Paxton’s campaign, and the whore media made it look as if Paxton was using his office for friends and payments. 

In other words, the narrative is that Paxton can use his office to protect Texans but not if he knows them. Such a narrative violates the 14th Amendment, something that Democrats with all their racial quotas and racial privileges no longer believe in.

I am open to the argument that Paxton used poor judgment, had unwise connections to the donor, and went further than prudent in support of a donor, but why did the Republican legislature  have to rush to discredit its attorney general as soon as he opens an investigation of Big Pharma? 

Paxton’s impeachment stops or hampers the investigation of Big Pharma, which seems to be the purpose of the impeachment,  and also serves to confirm the Democrats’ charge that the Republicans are corrupt. It seems that for the Texas Republicans, Big Pharma’s massive crime counts for nothing compared to two small things that have been raised to major crimes by the Democrats’ presstitutes.

I think I can explain why this happens. The smart Big Money doesn’t donate, or donate much, to individual politicians. Big Money donates to the party apparatus. This allows the few party officials to control who gets the money, and in this way they can control the members. The Big Money is thus able to control the party by controlling the few officials. For the same reason Washington prefers the European Union to sovereign European countries. It is easier to control the EU than to control many separate governments.

Consider that the Republican Lt. Governor is serving as the judge of the impeachment of Paxton. In this role, he has the power to set the rules and can legally do so in a way that avoids Paxton’s impeachment. Instead, the Republican Lt. Governor imposed a gag order on the Republican Attorney General to prevent him from speaking out about the case and also forbade Paxton’s wife, a state senator, from voting on the impeachment. The Republican Lt. Governor considers it a conflict of interest for the Attorney General’s wife to vote on impeachment, but it is not a conflict of interest for Paxton’s enemies to vote.  

Recently, I read that it has come to light that the huge financial organization Black Rock has been found using money in investors’ accounts to support the Woke agenda. In response the state governments in Florida and Texas have removed state funds from Black Rock. 

That Black Rock has been found supporting the Woke agenda explains why so many corporations from Disney to Starbucks to Target to Budweiser have harmed their businesses by supporting Woke agendas. Black Rock’s financial power and ownership position in American corporations is so massive that Black Rock controls 90% of Fortune 500 Boards of Directors. Do as we say, says Black Rock, or you are cut off from money.

Does anyone know why Black Rock serves as Woke’s Enforcer?

Of what benefit is this to a huge financial organization? How did anti-white, anti-American woke leftists get control of Black Rock? Another valid question is: why is Black Rock permitted to be such a massive monopoly in violation of all the progressive legislation of the Progressive Era?

The intellectual Irving Kristol gave Republicans their name decades ago–“the stupid party,” and stupid Republicans certainly are. 

Here are the Republicans running away from a chance to restore a rule of law and accountable government, clean up a corrupt FBI, CIA, and Department of Justice, discipline the presstitutes, and adopt a foreign policy independent of the agenda of the military/security complex simply by protecting Trump from false prosecution, and the Republicans refuse to do it. Instead, the Republicans run away from their obligation to our country.  

The unavoidable conclusion is that there is no hope for Americans in either party.

Americans have no idea who their leaders are other than Trump, and they are not capable of organizing and supporting a new party. Their only two options seem to be to submit to tyranny or to revolt.  

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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: President Trump at a July briefing at Southern Command Headquarters in Miami.

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First published on August 17, 2023

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It is perhaps justified that the country which has done most to force the expansion of the EU Eastwards and most loyally followed American neocons in the aggressive expansion of NATO towards (an imperially retreating) Russia – Germany – should now be suffering its biggest economic crisis since the second world war.

NATO/EU’s attack on Russian gas supplies to Europe, the US bombing of the Nordstream pipelines to Germany and trade sanctions against Russia have removed an important German export market and greatly increased the energy costs for German industry which for decades has relied on consistent and reasonably priced energy for its critical industries – chemicals, cars, engineering.

Add to this a big rise in borrowing costs and a fanatical green agenda it is no surprise that the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden announced that nearly a quarter (23.8%) more companies filed for insolvency in July 2023 compared to the same month last year. Steep Surge in Bankruptcies.

When Germany suffers this much, the EU as a whole suffers as well and France’s industrial production has also collapsed:

Even as this economic disaster unfolds the German government (which has already contributed $22bn to Ukraine in finance and armaments) is committing to a further $5bn per annum up to 2027! – thus helping to stoke the war which is leading to their own industrial downfall.

German De-industrialisation

“We are witnessing the beginning of German [and thus European] deindustrialisation”.  said the leading “German Economic Institute”. The same institute also reported that Germany’s ability to attract business investment suffered an “alarming” decline last year, when more than €135bn of foreign direct investment flowed out of the country and only €10.5bn came in. The gap was the largest on record – and that was largely before the new incentives to invest in the USA, following Biden’s grotesque trade distorting green subsidies.

Germany has some of the highest electricity costs in Europe, as the fanatical Greens in the Social Democrat-led coalition demand ever more costly “clean power” just as Germany has closed its remaining nuclear power stations.

Germany is planning to build a vast infrastructure to import hydrogen from countries like Australia, Canada and Saudi Arabia but the technology is not at all assured especially at the levels of imports needed to rescue Germany from its energy crisis.

The German car industry is in crisis, with production of its major manufacturers falling dramatically between 2019 and 2023: VW down 23%. Audi down 8.4%, BMW down 10% and Mercedes down 31%:

Of the total German exports to China of $113bn, $30bn was in cars but those exports face fierce competition from Chinese electric car manufacturers both in China and in Europe. (And the more the Green Party dominated Scholz government pursues “net zero” the more Chinese cars will dominate europe, Germany’s main market) China’s BYD Co overtook VW as the best selling car brand in China with a car which costs one third of that of VW’s electric car.

In Banking Germany’s two biggest listed banks – Deutsche Bank AG and Commerzbank AG have been in crisis for years and their combined market capitalization is less than a tenth of JPMorgan Chase.

Here too there is a lack of new technology compared to its competitors – particularly in FinTech compared to e.g. London.

Digital Technology

Germany’s digital technology infrastructure is poor and ranks the country 51st in the world for fixed-line Internet speeds, with a lack of investment (it had the fourth-lowest spending among OECD countries relative to the economy’s size.)  

Ageing Population

Germany’s ageing population has affected the workforce and surveys have found 50% of firms cut output due to staffing problems, costing the economy as much as $85 billion per year. 

A Litany of Historic Industrial Destruction

The extent to which this German industrial crisis is fundamental and historic, and therefore critical for Germany’s future, can be seen from these reports of the bankruptcy of companies, some of which were over a hundred years old (in one case 600 years!):

Textile company Hofer Spinnerei Neuhof files for bankruptcy after 125 years of spinning mill operations.

One of the country’s largest mail order co.’s, Klingel, from Pforzheim, existing since 1923 is insolvent.

Glass manufacturer Weck GmbH & Co of Dortmund is bankrupt after 120 years in operation. their glass in almost every german home. energy intensive!

Germany’s central bank may need a bailout to cover losses on the debt it hovered up as part of it’s massive €650bn bond-buying programme from the ECB.

Heads of the Employers’ Association in North Rhine-Westphalia are worried the nation is at a dangerous point. Almost one-third of German medium-sized Mittelstand firms are thinking about transferring production and jobs abroad.  

Part 7 – May ’23 – 300-year-old traditional slaughterhouse Röhrs Butchery filed for bankruptcy along with 2 other century old business. 

Part 6 – Mar ’23 – Eisenwerk Erla of Saxony, files for bankruptcy after more than 600 years of existence. Other century old businesses go bankrupt. 

Germany is the geographic, business and financial core of the European Union and the principal guarantor of the Euro currency. As the centre of the clearing system for the currency and its enormous Target 2 claims of over one trillion Euros on other member states (due to its accumulated positive trade and capital balances with them) a crisis for Germany could turn into the collapse of the Euro and the massive costs of unwinding the currency.

The 20 year attack on Russia, the exploitation of Ukraine as a military battering ram against Russia, the ruinous (for the West) trade sanctions, the destruction of the Nordstream pipelines, the growing Russia-China alliance and the rising competitiveness of Chinese industry have all hit Germany and the EU hard. 

Only a negotiated peace with Russia (and a calming of the Taiwan rhetoric) will restore prosperity to Germany, the EU and the West in general.

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This article was originally published on Freenations. Rodney Atkinson is a regular contributor to Global Research

Featured image is from Freenations

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***

Not long ago, President Joe Biden vowed that the U.S. would “counter democratic backsliding by imposing costs for coups” in Africa. But three weeks after a military mutiny in Africa involving U.S.-trained officers, the Pentagon refuses to call the takeover in Niger a coup d’état.

After a Nigerien junta, which calls itself the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Fatherland, seized power on July 26 and detained the democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, France and the European Union immediately called it a coup. But weeks later, in public statements and responses to The Intercept, Pentagon officials have repeatedly stopped short of using that word.

“Not calling a coup a coup not only undermines our credibility but harms our long-term interests in these states,” said Elizabeth Shackelford, a senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and lead author on a forthcoming report on U.S. military aid in Africa. “We have legal prohibitions on providing security assistance to juntas for a reason. It’s not in our long-term national interest to do so.”

U.S. coup legislation, specifically Section 7008 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, specifies that any country whose “duly elected head of government is deposed by a military coup d’état or decree” will be automatically prohibited from receiving a broad package of congressionally appropriated foreign assistance. The Pentagon’s reluctance to call a coup a coup may be aimed at preserving the ability to continue providing security assistance to military-ruled Niger.

Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh was pressed earlier this week about why the United States has not called the takeover a coup.

“It certainly looks like an attempted coup here,” she said. “We have assets and interests in the region, and our main priority is protecting those interests and protecting those of our allies. So a designation like what you’re suggesting certainly changes what we’d be able to do in the region and how we’d be able to partner with Nigerien military.” 

While calling a three-week-old coup no more than an attempt, Singh was clear about why the U.S. might be reticent to sever relations with the junta.

“Niger is a partner and we don’t want to see that partnership go,” she said. “We’ve invested, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars into bases there, trained with the military there.”

Since 2012, U.S. taxpayers have spent more than $500 million on that partnership, making it one of the largest security assistance programs in sub-Saharan Africa. Niger hosts one of the largest and most expensive drone bases run by the U.S. military. Built in the northern city of Agadez at a price tag of more than $110 million and maintained to the tune of $20 to $30 million each year, Air Base 201 is a surveillance hub and the linchpin of an archipelago of U.S. outposts in West Africa. It is home to Space Force personnel, a Joint Special Operations Air Detachment, and a fleet of drones, including armed MQ-9 Reapers.

In the month prior to the coup, the drone outpost was the site of a meeting between Brig. Gen. Moussa Salaou Barmou, the U.S.-trained chief of Nigerien Special Forces and Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga, head of U.S. Army Special Operations Command. Within weeks, Barmou helped topple Bazoum and, according to a U.S. government official, conveyed a threat to Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland to execute the deposed president if neighboring countries attempted a military intervention.

When asked if Singh was equivocating to avoid calling Bazoum’s overthrow a coup, a Pentagon spokesperson passed the buck to the State Department.

“The DoD does not make the determination whether the situation in Niger is a coup,” Maj. Pete Nguyen told The Intercept. “The State Department will make the determination as to whether the situation in Niger is a coup.”

Sarah Harrison, who served four years as an associate general counsel in the Pentagon’s Office of General Counsel, including providing guidance on U.S. activities in Africa, says that there is a popular misunderstanding that failing to call a military takeover a “coup” means that the U.S. government does not have to restrict access. “The Biden administration handwringing over saying ‘coup’ is absurd. The law requires no formal designation and is in force regardless of what officials choose to label events,” says Harrison.

Elias Yousif, a research analyst with the Stimson Center’s Conventional Defense Program, sees the Pentagon equivocations as a “political gesture” of dubious use. “By calling it an ‘attempted coup,’ it implicitly suggests that there is going to be a reversal of it and denies the facts on the ground that the president is under strict house arrest and the military junta is running the show,” he told The Intercept. “There has been a coup in Niger. This is the reality.”

Earlier this month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the “U.S. government is pausing certain foreign assistance programs benefiting the government of Niger.” But the State Department did not respond to The Intercept’s questions about exactly which programs have been paused and if security aid continues to flow to the junta. Just prior to Blinken’s declaration, a State Department spokesperson told The Intercept that there had “been no determination on security assistance at this time.”

U.S. coup restrictions were first imposed in 1984 when the Reagan White House and Congress battled over military assistance to El Salvador. The next year, Congress passed a law that applied the coup restriction to all other countries. Similar restrictions have been included in every State Department annual appropriations bill since. The U.S. has, however, often employed loopholes, workarounds, and exceptionally strict or selective readings of the law to keep military aid flowing when heads of state are deposed, including in Egypt in 2013, Burkina Faso in 2014, and Chad in 2021. Even when aid has been restricted following coups, alternate funding channels have kept U.S. tax dollars trickling into the coffers of juntas. According to State Department responses to questions from The Intercept, security assistance also continues to fund juntas in Mali, which had coups in 2020 and 2021, Guinea (2021), and Burkina Faso (two in 2022).

“We have laws in place to ensure we don’t help prop up those who undermine democracy,” says Shackelford, who formerly served as a foreign service officer in multiple posts in Africa. “When we find ways around enforcing those laws whenever it’s inconvenient, we undermine our own influence and the stability those laws are meant to promote.”

Indeed, Biden has decried Russia’s creation of a “propaganda ecosystem” that “creates and spreads false narratives to strategically advance the Kremlin’s policy goals.” He added, “There is truth and there are lies. And each of us has a duty and responsibility, as citizens, as Americans, and especially as leaders — leaders who have pledged to honor our Constitution and protect our nation — to defend the truth and to defeat the lies.”

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The West Maui disaster is becoming less about the fire and more about the government’s bizarre response to the aftermath.  Independent media sources and some mainstream media sources have confirmed multiple instances of the Democrat controlled government’s mismanagement that led to the escalation of the tragedy. The circus included a woke water management bureaucrat who believes water is “godlike” and that it must be distributed according to the rules of “equity; the same official withheld vital firefighting resources for a day while Maui burned. The state government has been thoroughly embarrassed, but instead of responding with humility, they have doubled down and gone on the attack.

The Governor of Hawaii, Josh Green, took a wild swing at independent reporting, telling people not to listen to information from social media and “influencers.” It’s hard to say what his definition of an “influencer” is, only that he is clearly hostile to anyone reporting news outside of the government narrative. Green’s disapproval of media reporting is not limited to alternative journalists, however. It appears that there is now an information blackout being instituted by the state. Corporate journalists are also being denied access to the area of the fire damage path as well as access to any details surrounding the investigation into how the fires may have started. 

The lockdown is reminiscent of the state’s recent draconian covid response and has undertones similar to the Hurricane Katrina calamity in 2005. It is possible that the Hawaiian government got a taste of ultimate power over the past few years and now they think that 1st Amendment rights no longer apply. The editor of the Maui Times reiterates that the government is shutting out all media inquiries and they are not to blame for the lack of confirmed updates on the situation.

There are a few possible takeaways to be gathered here: First, it’s clear that independent reporting is having an effect in exposing state mismanagement, which is why they are attacking “influencers” and putting access on ice. Second, public pressure must be immense, because even the local media is trying to stave off the torches and pitchforks by reiterating that they have no access. When was the last time you saw the mainstream media calling out information controls instead of working in direct lockstep with officials? Third, there is something going on in Maui beyond bureaucratic hubris.  

Why block the media from going to the site of the fire?

Why try to inoculate the public to any information outside of government sources?

Is there something they are trying to hide beyond incompetence?

There is evidence to suggest that a major land grab is already in progress, with wealthy interests as well as state interests circling the charred Maui carcass ready to feed. There are also questions as to the true source of the fires.      

Frankly, if government policy decisions led to the deaths of hundreds of people then they should pay the price for their blunders. If other shady activities are afoot, then the public has a right to know. The state is not given license to deny media examination of the event. Democrats in Hawaii are trying to turn the tables and make the calamity about who deserves to report the news, when they should be scrambling to save their own skins in the face of intense public scrutiny. These people deserve to be placed under a very large and uncomfortable microscope.       

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It is interesting to observe how, over the past twenty-five years, the United States has become not only a participant in wars in various places on the planet but has also evolved into being the prime initiator of most of the armed conflict. Going back to the Balkans in the nineteen-nineties and moving forward in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon and Somalia there is almost always an American leading role where there is bombing and killing. And where there is no actual war, there are threats and sanctions intended to make other nations come to heel, be they in Latin America like Venezuela, or Iran in the Middle East, or North Korea in Asia. And then there is the completely senseless act of turning major competitors like Russia and China, as we are now seeing, into enemies, with a proxy war raging in Ukraine, threats over Taiwan, and the world moving one step closer to a nuclear disaster.

It seems to me that the transition from an America bumbling its way into war and the current situation where wars are pursued as a matter of course coincides with a certain political development in the United States, which is the rise of neoconservatives as the foreign and national security policy makers in both major parties. This has developed together with the evolution of the view that the United States can do no wrong by definition, indeed, that it has a unique and God-given right to establish and police the globe through something that it invented, exploits and has dubbed the “rules based international order.”

Who would have thought that a bunch of Jewish student-activists, mostly leftists, originally conspiring in a corner of the cafeteria in the City College of New York would create a cult type following that now aspires to rule the world?

The neocons became politically most active in the 1960s and eventually some of them attached themselves to the Republican Party under Ronald Reagan, declaring their evolution had come about because they were “liberals mugged by reality.”

The neoconservative label was first used to describe their political philosophy in 1973. Since that time, they have diversified and succeeded in selling their view to a bipartisan audience that the US should embrace an aggressive interventionist foreign policy and must be the world hegemon. To be sure their desire for overwhelming military power has been strongly shaped by their tribal cohesion which has fed a compulsion to have Washington serve as the eternal protector of Israel, but the hegemonistic approach has inevitably led to expanding conflict all over the world and a willingness to challenge, confront and defeat other existing great powers. Hence the support for a needless and pointless war in Ukraine to “weaken Russia” and a growing conflict with China over Taiwan to do the same in Asia. To make sure that the Republicans do not waver on that mission, leading neocon Bill Kristol has recently raised $2 million to do some heavy lobbying to make sure that they stay on track to confront the Kremlin in Europe.

One of the leading neocon families is the Kagans, who have successfully penetrated and come to dominate the establishment foreign policy centers in both the Republican and Democratic Parties. Victoria Nuland nee Nudelman, the wife of Robert Kagan, is entrenched at the State Department where she is now the Deputy Secretary, the number two position. Up until recently, she was one of the top three officials at State, all of whom were and are Jewish Zionists.

Indeed, under Joe Biden Zionist Jews dominate the national security structure, to include the top level of the State Department, the head of Homeland Security, the Attorney General, the National Security Adviser, the Director of National Intelligence, the President’s Chief of Staff, and the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Nuland’s hawkish appeal is apparently bipartisan as she has served in senior positions under Bill Clinton, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and now Joe Biden. As adviser to Cheney, she was a leading advocate of war with Iraq, working with other Jewish neocons Doug Feith and Paul Wolfowitz at Defense and also Scooter Libby in the Vice President’s office. As there was no actual threat to the US from Saddam Hussein she and her colleagues invented one, the WMD that they sold to the media and to idiots like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Nuland is also considered to be close to Hillary Clinton and the recently deceased ghastly former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. All of her government assignments have included either invading or severely sanctioning some country considered by her and her colleagues to be unfriendly. She particularly hates the Russians and anyone who is hostile to Israel.

Apparently, Nuland’s record of being seriously wrong in the policies she promoted has only served to improve her resume in Washington’s hawkish foreign policy establishment and when Biden came into the presidency she found herself appointed to the number three position at the State Department as the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. Her return to power with the Democrats might also be due in part to the activism of her husband Robert, currently a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, who was one of the first neocons to get on the NeverTrump band wagon back in 2016 when he endorsed Hillary Clinton for president and spoke at a Washington fundraiser for her, complaining about the “isolationist” tendency in the Republican Party exemplified by Trump.

Robert famously has never seen a war he disapproved of and, while urging Europe to do more defense spending, commented that “When it comes to use of military force “Americans are from Mars, and Europeans are from Venus.” Robert’s brother Frederick, a Senior Fellow at the neocon American Enterprise Institute, and Frederick’s wife Kimberly, who heads the bizarrely named Institute for the Study of War, are also regarded as neocon royalty.

Nuland is particularly well known for her being the driving force behind the regime change in Ukraine in 2014 that replaced the fairly-elected but friendly-to-Russia President Viktor Yanukovych with a selected candidate more accommodating to the US and Western Europe. Ukraine, the most corrupt country in Europe, has been unstable ever since and the current war, also initiated by interference from the US and UK, has brought about the deaths and wounding of an estimated half million Ukrainians and Russians.

Nuland was recently in Africa, stirring up developments in Niger, which has experienced a recent military coup that removed a president who was corrupt but also a friend of the US and France, both of which have troops stationed in the country. As I write this, a number of African nations (ECOWAS) friendly to US and French interests in the region are gathering together their own military force to reverse the coup, but there is little enthusiasm for the project. We will see how that turns out, but predictably Nuland is advertising a possible intervention as a “restoration of democracy.”

And there is more over the horizon with neocons like Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Nuland in charge of US foreign policy and supported by most of congress and a Jewish dominated media and entertainment industry. Joe Biden is too weak and too much under the thumb of the Israel Lobby to pursue any policies that would be beneficial to the American people in general, so the course will be set by the current crop of zealots, just as Donald Trump was guided by his Christian Zionist advisers.

If you want to understand just how what remains of our republic is in a bus being driven over the cliff by a group that has no regard for most of the citizens of the country that they reside in, one only has to read some of what passes for neocon analysis of what must be done to make America “safe.” Not surprisingly, it also involves Israel and a war on behalf of the Jewish state.

One astonishingly audacious article that appeared on August 13th in The Hill entitled “If Israel strikes Iran over its nuclear program, the US must have its back,” gives Israel the option of starting a war for any or no reason with the United States compelled to join in in support. It was written Michael Makovsky, a well-known Jewish neocon, and Chuck Wald. Makovsky is President and CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) while Wald is a former general who also is affiliated with that group as a “distinguished fellow,” which means he is getting paid generously to serve as a mouthpiece providing credibility for the group. For those unfamiliar with The Hill, it is an inside the beltway defense contractor funded online magazine that pretends to be serious but which is actually an integral part of the status quo Zionist and war-on-demand network. That the Jewish Institute for National Security is “of America” is, of course, a characteristically clever euphemism.

The article begins with “The Biden administration should learn from its unpreparedness for the Russia-Ukraine war and begin to prepare for a major Israel-Iran conflict. The administration needs to set aside its differences with the Israeli government, overcome its aversion to conflict with Iran, and begin to work closely with Jerusalem to prepare for the growing likelihood that Israel will feel it has no choice but to initiate a military campaign against Iran’s nuclear program. In ‘No Daylight,’ a new report from the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA)…retired senior military officers and national security experts explain that whatever differences the US might now have with Israel over Iran policy, our two countries’ interests will be aligned after an Israeli strike. Consequently, in preparing its response, the U.S. guiding principle should be ‘no daylight with Israel,’ to ensure Israeli military success, mitigate Iranian retaliation and limit the scope of the conflict — vital interests for both countries.”

That war with Iran is a “vital interest” for the United States is, of course, not really explained as the point is to let Israel to decide on the issue of war and peace for the United States. The article then trots out the old “credibility” argument, i.e. that if we don’t go to war no one will ever trust our security guarantees: “A US betrayal of its close Israeli ally, at a time of great peril for the Jewish state, would be ‘one of the greatest catastrophes ever,’ an Arab leader told us privately recently. Because Israel is widely perceived as a close American ally, the US stance as Israel risks thousands of casualties in defense of its very existence, will resound broadly. Strong American support will reassure allies from Warsaw to Abu Dhabi and Taipei; American equivocation will shred Washington’s credibility and embolden adversaries from Tehran to Moscow and Beijing.”

One would love to know who the anonymous Arab leader so concerned about Israel is and, of course, the Jewish state is not in fact an American ally apart from in the fertile imaginations of congressmen, the media and the White House. And Israel will, of course, need more weapons and money from the US taxpayer to include “expediting delivery to Israel of KC-46A tankers, precision-guided munitions, F-15 and F-35 aircraft, and air and missile defenses…. Washington should accelerate building integrated regional air, missile and maritime defenses against persistent Iranian threats.” And America must be prepared to expand the war: “Privately, Iranian and Hezbollah leadership should be warned that heavy retaliation against Israel…will prompt severe Israeli and/or American responses that could threaten their very grasp on power. Upon commencement of an Israeli strike, the United States should promptly resupply Israel with Iron Dome interceptors, precision-guided munitions, ammunition and spare parts, and deploy Patriot air defenses to Israel…”

So the United States must be prepared to turn over its national security to Israel in exchange for what gain for Americans? In part it would apparently involve “finding a permanent solution to Iran’s illegal nuclear weapons program” which is based on a lie even if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been repeating for over 20 years that Iran is only six months away from a weapon. Both the CIA and Mossad have confirmed that Iran has no such program while Israel does have a secret illegal nuclear arsenal built using enriched uranium and nuclear triggers stolen from the US. The article concludes with another reference to the non-existing program, claiming “the most effective way to address Iran’s nuclear program already has been articulated by President Biden and communicated by America’s ambassador in Jerusalem: ‘Israel can and should do whatever they need to deal with it, and we’ve got their back.’”

Supporting Israeli war crimes is not the way to go. As Chris Hedges puts it correctly, there is no compelling American interest in damaging itself by supporting Israel blindly, quite the contrary: “The long nightmare of oppression of Palestinians is not a tangential issue. It is a black and white issue of a settler-colonial state imposing a military occupation, horrific violence and apartheid, backed by billions of US dollars, on the indigenous population of Palestine. It is the all powerful against the all powerless. Israel uses its modern weaponry against a captive population that has no army, no navy, no air force, no mechanized military units, no command and control and no heavy artillery, while pretending intermittent acts of wholesale slaughter are wars.”

And, of course, while Israel engages in slaughter and torture it always portrays itself as the victim only engaged in fighting against “terrorists.” I have a better idea for where we should go with all of this. President Joe Biden should be impeached for ignoring war powers legislation and indicating that he is willing to sacrifice US interests and kill American soldiers, few or plausibly none of whom will actually be Jewish since it is not an occupation that attracts them, to please and support a manifestly evil foreign government. And Donald Trump should also be punished for having done much the same type of pandering to a foreign country while in office. Meanwhile, haul Makovsky and Wald together with their buddies at the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) down to the Justice Department and put them in jail for violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA) in that they are willfully acting as agents of a foreign government and are operating corruptly to serve the interests of that government. The criminals at AIPAC are already using their associated PACs to oust targeted members of Congress up for re-election in 2024 who have in any way been critical of Israel or pro-Palestinian. And while you’re at it Mr. Attorney General Merrick Garland nee Garfinkel, please have Mr. Blinken and Ms. Nuland pop by for a chat just for starters and see how far you can make the laws apply to those in power. There is some confusion evident here as Israel is not part of the United States, no matter how politically dominant and wealthy its lobby might be. Time to put an end to this nonsense and call it out for what it is – it is treason.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from US Embassy in Niger

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I have been planning to compose a ‘beginner’s guide’ to conspiracy theory, a work that will presumably take some fine thinking and time, given that conspiracy theory and conspiracy theorists, so-called, have been all the rage in our covidian world. 

Those of us who dared to opine that maybe — just maybe — the virus that took the world by storm in 2020, along with the multiplicity of its variants and the ensuing ‘necessity’ to slow our spinning earth to a halt — wasn’t all that lethal, were, naturally, conspiracy theorists.

Those of us who spoke of natural immunity, informed consent, early treatment — well, we too were thrown into that same basket of deplorables, our shining tin-foil hats on display for the authorities ostentatiously to deride. 

Worse still, we who invoked principles of autonomy, physical and mental and spiritual sovereignty and unalienable rights, we who were mandated out of our livelihoods for speaking out and choosing choice over diktat — we were lumped into that motley crowd as well.

If you think about it long enough you just might come to the conclusion that there was some kind of plan — if not an outright bona fide conspiracy — involving governments around the globe and transnational institutions charged with fostering our economic and physical health — to silence any dissent, what with vast social media censorship, assaults on one’s once-unassailable money in the bank, and outright persecution.

But I am getting far ahead of myself because the matter I wish to focus upon at this very moment is not the obvious one about Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’ or the World Health Organization’s sweeping centralization of pandemic power or the Global Cabal pulling strings or the safe and effective Jab maiming and killing people. These are all, in fact, now fairly obvious realities which even MSM-slurping zombies have begun to acknowledge.

For the record, I have never believed the official accounts of the assassinations of JFK, RFK, MLK or Malcolm X, nor the fairy tale of 9/11 whose purveyors would have us accept that three massive towers came down at nearly free-fall speed as a result of jet collisions or, in the case of WTC 7, office fires. I doubted that Iraq ever had weapons of mass destruction, by the way, even when Colin Powell was shilling shamelessly for the US government at the United Nations — another institutional entity whose beneficence I strongly question.

I’m what many might call a card-carrying conspiracy theorist, though I prefer to consider myself merely a critically questioning thinker who understands that appearances — particularly in the geopolitical arena — can be deceiving. I can sense a hard-sell and I’m apt to balk when stern or smiling authorities try to shove absurdities down my throat.

And it may come as a surprise to my enemies — you know, the ones who supported a Jab apartheid and flaunted their masks as they rode their bicycles and jumped fifteen feet away as I approached on the sidewalk — that there are actually some conspiracy theories I do not accept. For example, the Earth is not flat, even though it seems that way on a baseball diamond or football field, and officials in high places are not actively conspiring to conceal its flatness by promulgating spherical fictions.

But I have become aware of a conspiracy theory whose ramifications are quite dangerous and far more significant than flat-earthing, a conspiracy theory not unlike propaganda insofar as it cannot be rationally disputed. It goes something like this:

The collapse of democracy, signaled by the Deep State murder of JFK and culminating in Covid, is now complete. The Power Elites have won and the American political system is rigged so thoroughly that even candidates espousing constitutionalist principles are merely playing a game — a game determined by a Very Few at the top. In short, anyone with power or aspiring to power by having entered the political arena is thoroughly corrupt, anti-democratic and totalitarian. By extension, this line of thinking applies worldwide so that, in effect, there is and can only be the ‘one ring to rule them all’.

While I myself acknowledge fully and openly that a Global Cabal exists and extends transnationally into finance and government, as Covid has demonstrated, I am not ready to believe in the complete absence of goodness among those who strive for and can wield power.

Yes, politics is dirty, and yes, those who threw their hats into the ring of power politics have had to break eggs and step on toes and learn the finer arts of stabbing a political opponent in the back. It’s an other-worldly realm, to most of us. But in this other world there may yet be virtue.

When a politician comes along and demonstrates through action that he or she abides by unalienable rights, embraces pacifism and calls the Deep State and Fake News out for what they are, are we inevitably to assume that this politician must necessarily be a Deep State puppet?

It is possible that every major politician on the world stage is a Swamp Creature whose only design is to do us underlings in by murder slow or fast, by intruding upon our autonomous rights and impoverishing the masses, with their Resets and Climate Scams and Endless Pandemic Vaccines.

Or not.

A theory that cannot be falsifiable isn’t a viable theory: it’s dogma. I don’t subscribe to dogma, just as I don’t succumb to the nihilistic position that no leader is capable of any good. Yes, we people on the ground must flex our muscles and exert pressure on those, in or out of the shadows, who seek to control and oppress us. But we need help too, from the upper echelons.

I look to America to lead the way to a global renaissance. I look to America because embedded within its founding documents are universal principles that uniquely protect human rights, even if or as those imperfect human beings who sat in government over the years traduced them. I have not given up on the potential for Good among the powerful.

The worst conspiracy theory of them all is the one that tells us there is no way out.

I don’t buy it.

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Dr. Garcia is a Philadelphia-born psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand in 2006. He has authored articles ranging from explorations of psychoanalytic technique, the psychology of creativity in music (Mahler, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Delius), and politics. He is also a poet, novelist and theatrical director. He retired from psychiatric practice in 2021 after working in the public sector in New Zealand. Visit his substack at https://newzealanddoc.substack.com/

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Why Won’t the US Close Guantanamo?

August 22nd, 2023 by Maha Hilal

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Last month, the US Senate passed the National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) for 2024, an appropriations bill defining military priorities, and one that has consistently placed restrictions on remedies to the abuses at Guantanamo Bay.

This year’s bill, like many years prior, includes a prohibition on funds to close the infamous prison camp; a prohibition on funds to transfer the incarcerated men out of the prison; a prohibition on the transfer of detainees to Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and the US; and a prohibition on modifying the prison.

By supporting these measures, federal lawmakers have once again voted to perpetuate the problem of Guantanamo, the violence it is notorious for, and the collective responsibility of the Muslim men detained who have been rendered guilty until proven innocent.

Despite stated opposition from the White House, a veto of the bill seems unlikely.

President Joe Biden, who has made past promises of closing the prison, has taken no action to initiate this process. Rather, he reportedly invested millions of dollars last year in renovating parts of the facility and upgrading its courtroom in a move that The New York Times described as a “retreat from transparency in the already secretive national security cases at the base”.

For the 22nd year, the abuses and lack of accountability at Guantanamo have been codified with no end in sight.

But while the annual passage of the NDAA and its signing by successive presidents have maintained the status quo on Guantanamo, budgetary considerations are far from being the only reason that the forever prison is still in operation and why impunity has reigned.

Ongoing Cruelty

This month marks 21 years since the infamous torture memos were drafted and signed by the US Office of Legal Counsel, effectively sanctioning the use of torture and allowing the US to unabashedly and openly conduct war crimes.

According to one memo, in order for the physical infliction of pain to be considered torture, it would have to be “equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death”.

After the memos were released, former President Barack Obama made sure to announce that no one would be prosecuted for these crimes and would go on to casually remark some years later that “we tortured some folks“.

Yet the effects of that torture, including confessions made under duress and extreme violence, continue to render the remaining prisoners at Guantanamo guilty and perpetuate their ongoing suffering. Obama’s inaction undoubtedly set a precedent of impunity – one that would be justified over and over again.

Mere weeks before US senators voted the NDAA into law, the UN published a report on the abuses at Guantanamo Bay by the special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, Fionnuala Ni Aolain. Ni Aolain was the first independent UN investigator to visit the facility in its nearly 22 years of operation.

The 23-page report, which renewed the global spotlight on Guantanamo, is a scathing critique of the government’s treatment of current and former detainees and a thorough indictment of the US government’s systematic crimes of extraordinary rendition, arbitrary detention, and deliberate and extensive mechanisms to deny individuals their rights.

“Several US government procedures establish a structural deprivation and non-fulfilment of rights necessary for a humane and dignified existence and constitute at a minimum, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment across all detention practices at Guantanamo Bay,” the special rapporteur writes.

With just 30 remaining out of the nearly 800 prisoners the detention centre once held, Ni Aolain is also careful to address post-Guantanamo life for former prisoners, and how their conditions maintain the prison’s cruelty.

“For many former detainees, their current experience in their home or third country merely becomes an extension of arbitrary detention in Guantanamo, with some even expressing that they wish to return,” the report states.

But renewed attention on the crimes at Guantanamo has also meant renewed denials by the US government. Despite the formal critiques, American officials blithely dismissed the special rapporteur’s detailed review in a generic response that could have just as easily been written before her visit.

Thoroughly consistent with all its efforts to deny the violence at Guantanamo, the US’s reply was not just a categorical rejection of the report, but a powerful symbolic refusal – at the highest levels – to pursue any remedies, let alone any semblance of accountability, for its victims.

To this end, the US insisted that it disagreed “in significant respects with many factual and legal assertions”, and that it was “committed to providing safe and humane treatment for detainees at Guantanamo, in full accordance with international and US domestic law”.

Despite testimony by countless former prisoners and even former guards at Guantanamo and CIA black sites, the US government continues to double down on its assertions, demonstrating that no individual, human rights organisation or institutional body – much less one without actual authority over the US – could move the US to respond any differently.

Nevertheless, the US stated that it would be “carefully reviewing” the recommendations and “will take any appropriate actions, as warranted”.

What would actually warrant a change though? The US has been continuously condemned for its operations and treatment of those incarcerated to no avail.

In fact, over the last 13 years, the US has been subjected to three evaluations of its human rights records under the Universal Periodic Review process. Every one of the reports repeatedly called attention to the abusive conditions at Guantanamo and urged its immediate closure. And for every official criticism, the US government issued a response denying allegations of inhumane treatment while justifying its policies at Guantanamo and lack of action.

Not only did the brutality continue under Obama, but since 2010, the restrictions in the NDAA, especially in blocking funds to release and transfer Guantanamo detainees, have increased. Obama, like every other president, elected not to veto the bill.

Facade of Accountability

Although the US finally allowed a UN torture investigator’s visit to Guantanamo without restrictions, it was not to invite accountability. It was instead to promote the facade of accountability after 22 years by allowing the visit in the first place – only to categorically reject any wrongdoing. In other words, the US is not committed to accountability but to the creation of contested narratives that have long outlived the truth. Government impunity, after all, was built into the War on Terr0r’s legal infrastructure.

It is telling that, in the wake of a UN report on Guantanamo, US lawmakers would pass the NDAA once more with bipartisan support and seemingly no debate either on Capitol Hill or in the media about the provisions related to the detention centre. For years, US lawmakers proudly boasted about prolonging the torture at Guantanamo, but now there doesn’t even seem to be a need to address what has become an inevitability.

If the last 20 years have taught us anything, it is that there has never been, nor is there likely ever to be, any accountability for this disastrous and deeply Islamophobic project that has no conceivable end.

As much as the US has claimed to be fighting a war on terror, Guantanamo has always been a site where violence has been inflicted on Muslim men – labelled as irredeemable terrorists, even as most were never charged, let alone convicted – who have been pushed to the edge of life under the nebulous justification of protecting national security.

The US has so effectively rendered the men’s lives meaningless to the point where, as historian Achille Mbembe puts it, “nobody even bears the slightest feelings of responsibility or justice towards this sort of life or, rather, death”.

For a place whose motto is “safe, humane, legal, transparent”, the prison in Guantanamo Bay remains anything but. Created under the guise of the “state of exception”, it is a place built on the transgression of law yet continues to be sanctioned, paradoxically, by the law. A former detainee, Nizar Sassi, described the infamous prison as a place where “you don’t even have the right to have rights”.

Rather than earmark funds to perpetuate the abuses at Guantanamo, US officials should heed the special rapporteur’s calls to provide reparations to its victims. The US must close the prison and own up to the violence it has unleashed there. Until it does, no amount of denials can hide the truth of Guantanamo Bay, which will rightly and deservedly remain a thorn in its side.

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Dr. Maha Hilal is a researcher and writer on institutionalised Islamophobia and author of the book Innocent Until Proven Muslim: Islamophobia, the War on Terror, and the Muslim Experience Since 9/11. Her writings have appeared in Vox, Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye, Newsweek, Business Insider and Truthout, among others. She is the founding executive director of the Muslim Counterpublics Lab, an organizer with Witness Against Torture, and a council member of the School of the Americas Watch. She earned her doctorate in May 2014 from the Department of Justice, Law and Society at American University in Washington, DC. She received her Master’s Degree in Counseling and her Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Featured image: Shepard Fairey Sign at Guantánamo Bay by Justin Norman is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 / Flickr

Leaked Documents Indicate Zelensky About to be Replaced

August 22nd, 2023 by Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

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It seems increasingly clear that the West wants to replace Zelensky. In addition to several predictions by experts that the Ukrainian president will be removed from power, it is now revealed that some previously leaked Pentagon’s documents expose a plan to make the mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, the new head of state.

The documents were leaked months ago when several secret US Department of Defense’s files were exposed by Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old soldier working at the 102nd Intelligence Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard. Being employed in the information technology sector, Teixeira had access to several classified government data, having leaked many of them. In April, Teixeira was arrested and is expected to be sentenced to around 10 years in prison.

What was not known until now is that among the documents there was a letter in which a Pentagon official showed his interest in putting someone more competent than Zelensky to take the presidency in Ukraine. In addition, Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland herself is apparently also involved in this plan, having expressed her personal desire to see Vitali Klitschko as president. In a certain part of the document, there is an open call for “creating conditions” to elect Vitali in 2024.

“The letter, dated February 22, 2023, states that the leadership of the US State Department, as well as top officials of the US Department of Defense, are not happy with Ukrainian President Zelensky and are planning his exchange as President of Ukraine, for the ex-boxer Vitali Klitschko as his replacement in 2024 (…) According to the letter, the leadership of the Pentagon expresses agreement with an opinion of the United States Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland that Zelensky is ‘exhausting his political capacity rapidly’. Judging by the letter, both Department of Defense and Department of State would like to see the former boxer and an active participant of the events of 2014 Maidan coup d’état Vitali Klitschko, now the mayor of Kiev, as the President of Ukraine”, Dutch journalist Sonja van den Ende wrote.

Former boxer and a famous supporter of the neo-Nazi regime, Vitali Klitschko has governed the city of Kiev since the 2014 coup d’état. He gained notoriety in the international media for his “patriotism” after the start of Russia’s special military operation, when he stated that he would “take up arms” with his brother, Vladimir, to defend the Ukrainian capital and repel the Russian “invaders”. Portrayed by Western newspapers as “courageous” and “heroic”, Klitschko has won the sympathy of many Westerners, which explains why some figures now want him as the new head of state.

However, Klitschko is not the only name on the list of predictions to replace Zelensky. There are several reports that point to different people as possible candidates for the Ukrainian presidency. Previously, names like the Commander in Chief of Ground Forces Alexander Syrsky, Ukrainian intelligence head Kirill Budanov and Armed Forces Commander Valeri Zaluzhnyi have been mentioned as possible candidates for Zelensky’s office. More recently, western media outlets have suggested that the Ukrainian president would be replaced, not by another individual head of state, but by a team of officials led by the head of parliament Ruslan Stefanchuck.

Apparently, there is still no consensus on who may be the new president of Ukraine. But the consensus is real about the Western desire to remove Zelensky. For Western authorities and media, Zelensky is already a problematic and negative public figure. As stated in the documents, the Ukrainian president is “exhausting his political capacity rapidly”. This is due to his constant unjustified “beggar” behavior towards his NATO partners, in addition to the repeated military failures and territorial losses.

The possibilities of justifying Zelensky’s actions through mere propaganda are running out, which is why he is likely to be removed. In this sense, Vitali Klitschko seems to sound more interesting to Kiev’s international partners. His image seems more positive than Zelensky’s for public opinion, which tends to legitimize among citizens the continuity of the military assistance policy. In other words, in order to continue to wage the proxy war against Russia, the West needs someone more competent, less criticized than Zelensky.

It remains to be seen how Zelensky would be removed. Being a dictatorial regime under martial law, it is difficult for changes to occur through electoral and democratic means. Recently, in an article published by Politico, it was suggested that Zelensky could be assassinated and some officials have even a “secret plan” to be followed in case this happens. The move looks like an attempt to prepare public opinion for a false flag operation. Zelensky could be killed and his death falsely blamed on Russia, legitimizing a new escalation.

Considering that plans to replace him have been in the works since at least February – as leaked documents show – and that the media is already talking about a possible assassination.

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Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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Australia’s funding priorities have been utterly muddled of late. At the Commonwealth level, there is cash to be found in every conceivable place to support every absurd military venture, as long as it targets those hideous authoritarians in Beijing. It seemed utterly absurd that, even as the Australian federal government announced its purchase of over 200 tomahawk cruise missiles – because that is exactly what the country needs – there are moves afoot to prune and cut projects conducted by the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD).

On July 10, an email sent to all staff by the head of division, Emma Campbell, claimed that the AAD “won’t be able to afford” all current positions. Since then, the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) has given a flimsy assurance that no jobs will be lost. “The focus will be on finding areas where work performed by those on fixed-term contracts can be incorporated into the work of ongoing staff,” stated a spokesperson for the department.

This all seemed an odd state of affairs, given the promise by the previous Morrison government that an additional AUD$804.4 million would be spent over a decade for scientific capabilities and research specific to Antarctic interests.

Unfortunately for those concerned with the bits and bobs at the AAD, the undertaking was not entirely scientific in nature. Part of the package included AUD$3.4 million to “enhance Australia’s international engagement to support the rules and norms of the Antarctic Treaty system and promote Australia’s leadership in Antarctic affairs”.

Australia’s long-standing obsession with claiming 42 per cent of the Antarctic, one that continues to remain unrecognised by other states, has meant that any exploration or claims by others are bound to be seen as threats. In 2021, the People’s Republic of China built its fifth research station base in Australia’s Antarctic environs, sparking concerns that Beijing may be less interested in the science than other potential rich offerings. They are hardly the only ones.

The AAD, however, has shifted its focus to identifying necessary savings amounting to 16% of the annual budget, a crude, spreadsheet exercise that can only harm the research element of the organisation. As Campbell’s staff-wide email goes on to declare, a review of the future season plan is also being pursued, along with the concern about a “budget situation [that] has made the three-year plan process harder than expected.”

A spokesperson for DCCEEW claimed that the resulting AUD$25 million difference in funding could be put down to the planning difficulties around the commissioned Antarctic icebreaker, the Nuyina. Few could have been surprised that the process resulted in delays, leading to the AAD to seek alternative shipping options.

What proved surprising to the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government (when will they ever change such excruciating names?) was that there had been “no cuts to the [AAD] at all”. As Federal Minister Catherine King went on to say, the Australian government had not altered administering “the $804 million budget that is there for the Antarctic Division. There are no cuts, we’re a bit perplexed as to where this story has come from.”

The difference between Canberra’s automatic assumption of reliable finance and delivery has not, it would seem, translated into the individual funding choices made in the ice-crusted bliss of Australia’s southern research stations. According to Nature, two of Australia’s permanent research stations – Mawson and Davis – will not be staffed to their full capacity over the summer period.

The implication for such a budget trim will have one logical consequence. As Jan Zika, a climate scientist working at the University of New South Wales reasons, “When someone says there’s a cut to the AAD, it basically means less science, less understanding of what’s going on.” Zika is unsparing in suggesting that this was “catastrophic” (the word comes easily) given the changes to the sea ice under study. “We’re seeing so little sea ice relative to what we normally see at this time of the year.”

To have such gaps in data collection was also “catastrophic” to scientific and ecological understanding. “If we have data up to a certain date, and then we have a gap for three years, five years, and then we start to get the data again, it doesn’t make it useless. But it makes it really hard for us to get that understanding that we need.”

Zika is certainly correct about the sea ice findings. On June 27, data gathered by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center showed that the sea ice enveloping Antarctica was a record winter low of 11.7 million square kilometres, namely, more than 2.5 million square kilometres below the average for the time between 1981 and 2010.

Other researchers, notably those who collaborate with the AAD, fear the impeding effects of budget cuts. Christian Haas, a sea-ice specialist at the Alfred Wegener Institute of the Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany sees this as inevitable. Nathan Bindoff of the University of Tasmania, who specialises in physical oceanography, has also suggested that such funding cuts would delay investigative procedures with irreversible effect. “We’re probably going to be too late to address some of these questions.”

This hideous disjuncture says it all: climate change research, trimmed and stripped, thereby disrupting the gathering of data; military purchases and procurement, all the rage and adding to insecurity. While such foolish, exorbitant projects as the nuclear submarine plan under AUKUS is seen as an industry, country-wide enterprise that will produce jobs across the economy, the study of catastrophic climate change is being seen as a problem of secondary relevance, ever vulnerable to the financial razor gang.

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

Featured image: Researchers studying penguins while voyaging aboard the Aurora Australis (Licensed under the Public Domain)

No hubo pandemia: Dr. Denis Rancourt

August 22nd, 2023 by Prof Denis Rancourt

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***

The Australian Government’s proposed new laws to crack down on misinformation and disinformation have drawn intense criticism for their potential to restrict free expression and political dissent, paving the way for a digital censorship regime reminiscent of Soviet Lysenkoism.

Under the draft legislation, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) will gain considerable expanded regulatory powers to “combat misinformation and disinformation,” which ACMA says poses a “threat to the safety and wellbeing of Australians, as well as to our democracy, society and economy.”

Digital platforms will be required to share information with ACMA on demand, and to implement stronger systems and processes for handling of misinformation and disinformation.

ACMA will be empowered to devise and enforce digital codes with a “graduated set of tools” including infringement notices, remedial directions, injunctions and civil penalties, with fines of up to $550,000 (individuals) and $2.75 million (corporations). Criminal penalties, including imprisonment, may apply in extreme cases.

Controversially, the government will be exempt from the proposed laws, as will professional news outlets, meaning that ACMA will not compel platforms to police misinformation and disinformation disseminated by official government or news sources. 

As the government and professional news outlets have been, and continue to be, a primary source of online misinformation and disinformation, it is unclear that the proposed laws will meaningfully reduce online misinformation and disinformation. Rather, the legislation will enable the proliferation of official narratives, whether true, false or misleading, while quashing the opportunity for dissenting narratives to compete. 

Faced with the threat of penalty, digital platforms will play it safe. This means that for the purposes of content moderation, platforms will treat the official position as the ‘true’ position, and contradictory information as ‘misinformation.’

Some platforms already do this. For example, YouTube recently removed a video of MP John Ruddick’s maiden speech to the New South Wales Parliament on the grounds that it contained ‘medical misinformation,’ which YouTube defines as any information that, “contradicts local health authorities’ or the World Health Organization’s (WHO) medical information about COVID-19.”

YouTube has since expanded this policy to encompass a wider range of “specific health conditions and substances,” though no complete list is given as to what these specific conditions and substances are. Under ACMA’s proposed laws, digital platforms will be compelled to take a similar line.

This flawed logic underpins much of the current academic misinformation research, including the University of Canberra study which informed the development of ACMA’s draft legislation. Researchers asked respondents to agree or disagree with a range of statements ranging from the utility of masks in preventing Covid infection and transmission, to whether Covid vaccines are safe. Where respondents disagreed with the official advice, they were categorised as ‘believing misinformation,’ regardless of the contestability of the statements.

A screenshot of a survey

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The potential for such circular definitions of misinformation and disinformation to escalate the censorship of true information and valid expression on digital platforms is obvious. 

Free expression has traditionally been considered essential to the functioning of liberal democratic societies, in which claims to truth are argued out in the public square. Under ACMA’s bill, the adjudication of what is (and is not) misinformation and disinformation will fall to ‘fact-checkers,’ AI, and other moderation tools employed by digital platforms, all working to the better-safe-than-sorry-default of bolstering the official position against contradictory ‘misinformation.’ 

But the assumption that such tools are capable of correctly adjudicating claims to truth is misguided. ‘Fact-checkers’ routinely make false claims and fall back on logical fallacies in lieu of parsing evidence. In US court proceedings, ‘fact-checker’ claims are protected under the First Amendment, confirming that the edicts of ‘fact-checkers’ are just opinion.

Recent reporting on the gaming of social media moderation tools, most notably from the Twitter Files and the Facebook Files, shows that they comprise a powerful apparatus for promoting false narratives and suppressing true information, with significant real-world impacts. Take the Russia collusion hoax, which was seeded by think tanks and propagated by social media platforms and news media. The suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal is thought to have swung the 2020 US election outcome. 

ACMA seeks to curtail expression under the proposition that misinformation and disinformation can cause ‘harm,’ but the scope is extraordinarily broad. A shopping list of potential harms includes: identity-based hatred; disruption of public order or society; harm to democratic processes; harm to government institutions; harm to the health of Australians; harm to the environment; economic or financial harm to Australians or to the economy.

The overly broad and vague definitions offered in the bill for ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation,’ and ‘serious harm’ makes enforcement of the proposed laws inherently subjective and likely to result in a litany of court cases – to the benefit of lawyers and the institutionally powerful, but to the detriment of everyone else. 

Moreover, the definition of ‘disrupting public order’ as a serious and chronic harm could be used to prevent legitimate protest, a necessary steam valve in a functioning democracy. 

ACMA says that the proposed laws aren’t intended to infringe on the right to protest, yet the erosion of protest rights during Covid lockdowns proves that politicians and bureaucrats are prone to take great latitude where the law allows it. The right to protest was effectively suspended in some states, with Victorian police using unprecedented violence and issuing charges of incitement to deter protestors. 

In the US, the involvement of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in censoring online speech and, in particular, its framing of public opinion as ‘cognitive infrastructure’ demonstrates how even policies designed to combat ‘threats to infrastructure’ can be subverted as a means clamp down on ‘wrong-think.’

In the past, extreme censorship has led to mass casualty events, such as the Soviet famine of the 1930s brought on by Lysenkoism. Biologist Trofim Lysenko’s unscientific agrarian policies were treated as gospel by Stalin’s censorious Communist regime. It was reported that thousands of dissenting scientists were dismissed, imprisoned, or executed for their efforts to challenge Lysenko’s policies. Up to 10 million lives were lost in the resultant famine – lives that could have been saved had the regime allowed the expression of viewpoints counter to the official position.

History tells us that censorship regimes never end well, though it may take a generation for the deadliest consequences to play out. The draft legislation is now under review following a period of public consultation. Hopefully, the Australian Government will take the historical lesson and steer Australia off this treacherous path. 

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Rebekah Barnett reports from Western Australia. She is a volunteer interviewer for Jab Injuries Australia and holds a BA in Communications from the University of Western Australia. Find her work on her Substack page, Dystopian Down Under.

Featured image is from Shutterstock

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***

 

As we approached August 6 this year, the 78th anniversary of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima, my mind kept going back to the basement of Chugoku Electric Power Company, 800 meters (half a mile) from the hypocenter, where my grandfather was that day. I witness how the force of the nuclear bomb can destroy the human body, how the vacuum of a nuclear explosion can gouge out a child’s eyeballs, how the atomic burns peel the skin, swell and corrode the face in ways humanity had never seen. According to one review, the filmmaker focuses on the face of Oppenheimer rather than showing the carnage of his bomb.

From a few minutes of an interview with the filmmaker, I can see that spectators of his movie will safely assume that the characters have all the possible means to escape to minimize their exposure to radiation. Such a space was never offered to people at ground level in Hiroshima and Nagasaki on those critical days. The mushroom-shaped cloud created by the explosion was depicted over and over again in the trailer for the film. But this is a symbol of ashes to the people of my community. That cloud contained the flesh and bones of our grandparents.

Protestors in Hiroshima before the 2023 G7 Summit. Yukiyo Kawano

The G7 Summit

This past May, I was in Hiroshima, the city where I was born and raised, and witnessed the G7 summit from ground level. Six Western nations–Italy, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, and Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who had survived a murder attempt by a fisherman one month prior, gathered to strengthen their ties. The city was paralyzed. Police from all over Japan were there, schools were closed for five days, and there were so many road closures that people stayed home and watched it on TV.

Biden entered Japan through Iwakuni, a US military base, while others used Japanese airport/gate of the independent nation. Other leaders also stayed in a Japanese hotel in Ujina near the Setouchi sea shore where they had the summit. Biden headed straight to an American-owned hotel (Hilton) in the city center, stopping all the traffic at the center of the city near ground Zero. Local TV camera persons were trying to capture a presidential aide who carried the “nuclear football,” which is always with the US President and enables him to launch a nuclear strike anywhere in the world.

People watched as Prime Minister Kishida spoke of progress in nuclear disarmament talks. Leaders promised the president of Ukraine to provide weapons, including depleted uranium munitions, “for as long as it takes” said Biden, to win the war. This was said in the city of Hiroshima –where people have shared a common understanding for 78 years that they must never betray the hibakushas (atomic bomb sufferers) who pray for World Peace, and live with the fear of radiation illness and dying of cancer with excruciating pain.

During the Summit, Biden paid a visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, known to locals as Atomic Bomb Park, a memorial to those who experienced the massive force of the atomic explosion. It is a landmark of human tragedy and our entering of the nuclear age. Kazumi Matsui, the Mayor of Hiroshima, visited the US Embassy in Tokyo soon after the summit to sign a Sister Parks Agreement between the Atomic Bomb Park and Pearl Harbor National Memorial Park.

Pearl Harbor Memorial Park commemorates the battle between the United States and Japan that began with the attack by Japanese forces on Pearl Harbor. It commemorates the deaths of over 2,000 U.S. sailors and soldiers, as well as 68 civilians caught in the crossfire. The Sister Park Agreement indicates an official consensus between the City of Hiroshima and the United States that the war began with an (unjustified) attack on Pearl Harbor and ended with the (justified) dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Hiroshima Alliance for Nuclear Weapons Abolition (HANWA) is a local group formed by descendants of hibakushas and allies. They warned citizens of Hiroshima, in the midst of the festive G7 Summit, that agreements like this put the city on the fast track to being transformed beyond recognition, with a narrative that lacks historical accuracy, and obliterates the past.

Ms. Haruko Moritaki, a descendant of hibakusha and Executive Director of HANWA facing the final stages of cancer, sat in a HANWA meeting on May 17th, 2023. She commented on President Obama’s remarks during his brief visit to the Atomic Bomb Park in 2016, the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima since the war. Obama delivered a brief speech, saying: Seventy-one years ago, on a bright, cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed. Ms. Moritaki said, “Death didn’t fall from the sky. The death was brought by the United States dropping of the bomb …over human beings.”

President Biden didn’t deliver a speech when he visited the Atomic Bomb Park. He had nothing to say to the people of Hiroshima.

My Role as an Artist

As a visual artist, educator, and a third-generation hibakusha who now lives in the United States, I have visited many nuclear sites in the country over the years to grasp the American nuclear narrative. I have witnessed how development of nuclear technology forever changed the land and continues to divide communities and oppress the vulnerable.

As an artist in the year 2023, I am part of a community asked constantly to address ethical questions regarding what is at stake in a work of art: Who is telling the story? Who is silenced in the process? Who is assumed to be the viewer in a given context? I wonder, was the filmmaker asked, or did he ask himself these same questions?

We have heard enough from those benefiting from the current power structure who can relate to the man responsible for leveling two cities but not to the more than 200,000 people who were killed, along with the rest of the city’s inhabitants who were left injured, facing slow and horrible deaths from radiation exposure.

So again, I ask: What is the framework around the production of a film that constitutes historical suffering? How do you address the issue while being respectful of the difficult and often painful feelings triggered by the film? It is a filmmaker’s moral duty to decide how these images are purveyed without reinstating trauma.

In Solidarity with Those Not Pictured

In an article titled “The Racial Underpinnings of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings,” Elaine Scarry notes that on September 18, 1944, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met at Roosevelt’s Hudson Valley estate. A written recording reveals that Japan had been designated as the target for the bombings nearly seven months before Germany surrendered on May 7,1945. The training taking place in the Pacific for the mission to drop the bomb on Japan was initiated in that same month, which further supports the content of the meeting between Roosevelt and Churchill. The historical records indicate yet again the way nuclear development prevents white nations from becoming victims of nuclear atrocities.

Scarry quotes Langston Hughes, who commented in 1953: (Until racial injustice ceases in the United States),

“it is going to be very hard for some Americans not to think the easiest way to settle the problems of Asia is simply dropping an atom bomb on colored heads there.”

Scarry goes on:

The cruelty daily inflicted on people of color in our own city streets acts as a mental rehearsal for carrying out large-scale slayings abroad. It keeps our capacity for cruelty limber; it dulls the mind and gives us practice in pronouncing the word “expendable.”

My friend Petuuche Gilbert of Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico, who works tirelessly to draw attention to the ongoing contamination of his people from uranium mining, said to me,

“I want to see the film acknowledges [sic] the entire story of the nuclear bomb’s impact not only upon its first victims but upon the lives of indigenous peoples also living with its legacy of development and application. I want the film to mention indigenous peoples whose land was taken to build and test the bomb. I want it to tell and comprehend the tragedies of the nuclear fuel chain.”

He added

“Manifest destiny was necessary to build America and have what it is today—American power and supremacy.”

At the G7, in Obama’s speech, in the Sister Park Agreement, and now yet again in Oppenheimer, we see the erasure of the hibakusha and their experiences, the supremacy of war and national power over the people harmed by that supremacy.

No, I do not need to watch the film and be retraumatized.

My solidarity is with the people not pictured, those who continue to suffer.

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Yukiyo Kawano an artist, activist, and educator. She is a third-generation hibakusha (atomic bomb sufferer) who grew up decades after the bombing of Hiroshima.

Kawano’s art practice is a storytelling about people who are suffering from radiation exposure to connect stories of the hibakusha with the affected communities of Uranium mining and the downwinders of the nuclear power plant disaster in Fukushima, Japan. Kawano teaches through Vermont College of Fine Arts studio mentorship program (Artist Teacher) and is an Oregon Physicians for Responsibility Advisory Board Member.

Featured image: Mass grave markers in Hiroshima, photographed by Lieutenant Wayne Miller in September 1945. (US Navy / National Archives)

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***

 

Millions across the West Africa Sahel region and around the world have loudly objected to the imperialist-instigated threats against the newly installed National Council for the Defense of the Homeland (CNSP) government in Niger.

From left political groupings to more moderate and even conservative forces recognize the grave danger inherent in the proclamations of some members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to stage a military intervention into Niger aimed at restoring the former President Mohamed Bazoum.

In Niger itself, thousands of young people have appeared at the main stadium in the capital of Niamey to sign up as volunteers committed to defend the uranium-rich state in the case of a hostile invasion. Despite the threats issued by ECOWAS Chairperson and Federal Republic of Nigeria President Bola Tinubu, the regional organization seems to be moving towards utilizing a more political approach by engaging the CNSP government.

Rallies held in Niamey since the July 26 change of government have attracted the support of the broad masses of people. Sanctions levelled at the CNSP have not impacted the determination to maintain the course of charting a new direction for the country. Transitional military governments in neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso have joined the CNSP in building an anti-imperialist front in the midst of the military and intelligence units of France and the United States which have drone stations and nearly 3,000 soldiers in Niger.

The August 19 mobilization was designed to create a mass organization among youth who are committed to defending the Nigerien territory. Since the July 26 overthrow of Bazoum the weight of the imperialist states and their allies in ECOWAS has had the effect of building greater animosity against France and the U.S.

A leading Nigerian newspaper, Vanguard, published an article on August 19 on the current situation in neighboring Niger saying:

“Supporters of Niger’s junta were forced on Saturday (Aug. 19) to halt a census of people willing to volunteer for non-military roles in defense against a possible intervention by West African powers, saying they had been overwhelmed by the numbers who turned up. Thousands of mostly young men had massed outside a stadium in the capital Niamey hours before the scheduled start-time of the event – a sign of the strong support in some quarters for the junta, which has defied international pressure to stand down after the July 26 ouster of President Mohamed Bazoum. ‘In all our calculations and our understandings, we never thought we could mobilize (this number of people),” said Younoussa Hima, co-organizer of the initiative dubbed ‘The Mobilization of Young People for the Fatherland’.” 

Any objective observer of the level of enthusiasm displayed by people in Niger, should surmise that any attempted intervention would not be an easy task for the ECOWAS military forces who claim they are prepared to restore the ousted government by force. This position related to threats of military force has been reiterated by ECOWAS defense ministers at a recent meeting in Accra, Ghana, where President Nana Akufo-Addo is a close ally of Washington. The outcome of the Accra meeting was that ECOWAS designated what it described as a “D Day” for the CNSP to leave office and return authority back to Bazoum.

Nonetheless, quotes from youth in Niger reflect a sense of patriotism and hope for a better future. This West African state is categorized as one of the least developed in the world even though the territory is well-endowed with uranium, gold and other valuable natural resources. The current siege against Niger, in part through the imposition of sanctions, will only worsen the social conditions inside the country.

Vanguard in the same above-mentioned report noted:

“Organizers of the Niamey recruitment drive said they did not intend to sign up volunteers for the army, but rather to gather a list of people willing to lend their civilian skills in case ECOWAS attacks. But many of those around the stadium appeared keen to fight. ‘They called on the youth to respond to a possible attack on our soil. And we are ready for any attack,’ said blogger Tahirou Seydou Abdoul Nassirou. ‘My life, I give my life to my country,’ he said, wiping a tear from his eye as other young men nodded and cheered his words…. At the stadium on Saturday, 35-year-old Kader Haliou said patriotism was not the only motivation for those wanting to help the junta. ‘Most of the young people who have come are unemployed. Getting registered is a blessing for us given the idleness and lack of work,’ he said.”

Regional Solidarity

The pledge by neighboring Burkina Faso and Mali to view any attack on Niger as a declaration of war against their states as well has been exemplified by the deployment of fighter jets from Ouagadougou and Bamako to Niamey. Delegations have been travelling between the three West African states in obvious preparation for the possible eventuality of an imperialist-engineered invasion.

TRT World confirmed the sending of military aircraft to Niger in an article which emphasized:

“Mali and Burkina Faso have dispatched warplanes to Niger in a show of solidarity against possible military intervention by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

A report aired on Niger’s state television highlighted joint efforts by Mali and Burkina Faso in support of Niger and the deployment of warplanes within Niger’s borders on Friday (Aug. 18). ‘Mali and Burkina Faso turned their commitments into concrete action by deploying warplanes to respond to any attack on Niger,’ it said, noting the planes were Super Tucano fighter jets.” 

The solidarity with the CNSP in Niger is not only being demonstrated on an official level. Various commentators, journalists, unions and civil society organizations have objected to the course which ECOWAS has taken in alliance with France and the U.S.

Consequently, after repeating threats to intervene at its meeting in Accra, ECOWAS sent a delegation to Niamey on August 18 to discuss the crisis with CNSP leaders. The new government stated that it would implement a three-year transitional process in the country. It also reiterated that Bazoum was not going to be reinstalled and that there is a possibility to place the former president on trial for treason against the Nigerien people.

France, the U.S. and the African Union (AU) Differ on Handling the Crisis

There are reports that Washington and Paris have differences over how to resolve the crisis in Niger. The U.S. is more inclined to engage diplomatically with the CNSP government in order to sustain its military and intelligence operations in West Africa. Whereas the French administration of President Emmanuel Macron wants to limit any discussions between NATO states and the CNSP, thinking that it would eventually break the capacity of the new government to resist the demands of imperialism.

This obstinate position by Paris may complicate efforts by the administration of President Joe Biden to continue its presence in Niger where the Pentagon has two drone bases and the presence of 1,100 soldiers from the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). If the Biden administration can reach a compromise with the CNSP it will not have to take down its drone bases and other intelligence operations in Niger. See this.

However, contingency plans are underway by AFRICOM to possibly disable the drone bases in Niger. Reports have been published suggesting that the Russian-based Wagner Group has been invited to assist the CNSP government in security matters. An ambush on Niger troops on the border with Mali on August 14 has been blamed on Islamist armed rebels by the western corporate and government-controlled media outlets. Nevertheless, any attack on the new government in Niamey is objectively aiding the imperialist military forces occupying the country.

The 55-member African Union (AU) in a meeting on August 14 rejected the plans for a military intervention by ECOWAS in Niger. Reports emerging from a meeting of the AU’s Peace and Security Council (PAS) revealed that:

“The African Union’s Peace and Security Council, the organ in charge of enforcing the bloc’s decisions, met in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Monday (Aug. 14) for talks on the crisis in Niger that one African diplomat described as ‘difficult’. According to several sources cited by French media, the council rejected an ECOWAS proposal to stage a military intervention unless the Nigerien military junta cedes power and reinstates President Mohamed Bazoum. Bazoum has been under house arrest since the July 26 coup. Speaking to FRANCE 24’s sister station RFI, a diplomat who attended the meeting said many southern and northern African member countries were ‘fiercely against any military intervention’. On Wednesday (Aug. 16) the council had still not issued a joint statement on the bloc’s stance.” 

These responses by governments, political parties and mass organizations across the continent should reinforce the antiwar and anti-imperialist movements in the western countries to categorically oppose any NATO-backed intervention in Niger and other states within the West Africa region. African states have a right to self-determination and sovereignty. Any violations of these rights should be met with fierce resistance both inside and outside the continent of Africa.

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

From the Rule of Law to “Weaponized Law”

August 22nd, 2023 by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

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***

In my book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions (2000), I discussed the weaponization of law in order to easier convict criminals.  Once this process begins, it expands. In the 21st century we have witnessed a remarkable expansion in the weaponization of law. For example, the use of weaponized law against Trump rally attendees and against President Trump himself. The weaponization of law has brought no protests from law faculties, bar associations, Congress, media, or federal judges. 

Consequently, we have become a society in which the function of law is to get someone or to achieve an agenda that cannot be achieved legislatively. The person doesn’t have to be guilty of a crime. Merely being demonized or disapproved of suffices. Law now serves not justice but  political and ideological emotions and the agendas of the powerful. 

That the entire legal profession and all of its institutions have stood aside for this transformation of law indicates that freedom is no longer a value. Consequently, Constitutional protections are less and less enforced. White Americans have suffered discrimination in university admissions, hiring, and promotion for more than a half century. Government and its agencies have used print, TV, and social media to censor and control explanations. Spying on citizens without court approved warrants is widespread. The US has declared its law to be enforceable worldwide, even applicable to foreign national journalists such as Julian Assange, and to the President of Russia. 

Any reader of alternative news can make a long list of arbitrary unaccountable power being used to negate legal and Constitutional protections. Republican President George W. Bush declared he could hold American citizens in prison indefinitely in defiance of habeas corpus. Democrat President Obama declared that he could execute American citizens on suspicion alone without due process of law. Neither were held accountable for these crimes and violations of oath of office. Getting presumed “terrorists” was considered more important than the US Constitution.

Civil liberty and the rule of law that civil liberty requires are always in jeopardy. Lawyers, prosecutors, and judges are poor defenders of a rule of law. Lawyers and prosecutors are always trying to get around the law or to come up with a novel interpretation of what the law means, a new theory of the law’s purpose in order to turn the law to the service of their agendas. Judges welcome novel interpretations as they break up the monotony of the law.  Prosecutors are after convictions–their success indicator–not determination of innocence or guilt. Novel interpretations mean that the defendant finds himself on trial for a crime he didn’t know existed. Even President Trump finds himself in this situation. Trump did not know that it was a felony to doubt the honesty of Biden’s election and attempt to do something about it.

Just the constant additions to law make it unknowable. More than a decade ago Harvey Silverglate, former head of the Massachusetts  ACLU, wrote a book, Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent. Law is so vast and complicated that Americans can easily commit three felonies daily without knowing it.

In America passing a law is the solution to everything. We have all heard the common refrain, “There ought to be a law against it.” The unintended consequences of these laws are never addressed.

Prosecutors are less respectful of law than are criminals. Criminals merely break the law. Prosecutors corrupt it. Prosecutors withhold exculpatory evidence from defendants, bribe witnesses with dropped charges, suspended sentences and money for perjured testimony against the defendant.  

In both New York and Texas, and undoubtedly other states, there have been scandals in which police evidence of illegal drugs used to convict large numbers of people turned out to be ground up wallboard. When the governor or state attorney general attempted to release those falsely convicted people, the prosecutors fought the release. In one case the prosecutors indicted and convicted the governor on false charges.

Prosecutors will simply not admit false convictions. When victims of false convictions are released, prosecutors blame “liberal judges who are soft on crime,” not their own crooked methods of prosecution.

In my opinion, there is seldom a reason to trust a prosecutor’s case. Just look at the railroading of Officer Derek Chauvin.  Chauvin was tried and convicted in the media, not in a court of law. The media insured Chauvin’s conviction by showing repeatedly a video taken by a black teenager from a distance and an angle that resulted in perspective distortion making it appear that Chauvin had his knee on George Floyd’s neck, whereas the close up police videos without perspective distortion showed Chauvin’s knee on Floyd’s shoulder, an approved hold.

Chauvin was holding Floyd still in an effort to save Floyd’s life. Chauvin recognized that Floyd’s life was threatened by overdosing on fentanyl, confirmed by the lab report that Floyd’s blood had more than twice the lethal dose of fentanyl. Chavin or his fellow officers had called emergency ambulance.  As Floyd had complained of breathing difficulties while sitting in the police car and asked to lie down, he was restrained in order to conserve his oxygen from exertion. If Chauvin wanted to kill Floyd, why call emergency ambulance?

The facts were presented at the trial, but by that time the facts were too late. The jurors, even if they were amendable to the facts, knew that Chauvin was already convicted and that if they did not ratify the conviction, they would be denounced as a “racist jury” by the whore American media and have their neighbors, Antifa, and Black Lives Matter on their lawn and no police to protect them.

This is what happens when law is abandoned. And the consequences mount. Today police avoid enforcing law against blacks. So do Democrat cities, such as San Francisco where legislation was passed that freed blacks of felony charges for thefts under $950 per incident. One result has been mass black raids on stores, and the exit from San Francisco of many businesses. At the present time the California legislature is passing a law that blacks must be punished less for the same crimes than whites.

Fentanyl has now become a drug of choice. Police know that arresting a drug user may leave them with a fentanyl death on their hands like George Floyd. Consequently, police shy away from drug arrests. Consequently, from San Francisco to Philadelphia streets are littered with spaced out drug users, an impressive advertisement for “exceptional, indispensable” America.

Today the absence of law in the United States presents the United States to the world as an insane asylum in which either American voters are so incompetent as to elect and reelect a hardened criminal to the Presidency, hardly a recommendation for democracy, or the Democrats are so lawless that they will not permit an honest election to keep them from power and, therefore, weaponize law in order to destroy their political opponent.

Looking at the Democrat operatives and prosecutors, what do you see?  Utterly stupid people, people who believe that the rest of the world will accept their claims that while President of the United States, surrounded by White House Counsel and a Department of Justice, President Trump committed multiple felonies resulting in four felony indictments, including racketeering worthy of a RICO indictment.  A RICO indictment means that the incompetent Fani Willis in Atlanta can seize Trump’s assets and prevent his defense. Fani, of course, is too incompetent to know this, but what about the crook Biden appointed Attorney General of the United States?  

When will we read that Trump’s assets have been seized to prevent his defense?

The most frightening aspect of the Trump indictments is that the legal profession is willing to take them seriously. Perhaps this willingness reflects the bias against Trump. Perhaps it indicates entertainment value in the indictments. Perhaps it is curiosity if prosecutors can create new laws by precedent and get Trump by broadening the interpretation of existing laws. Certainly the First Amendment has been so deprecated and trodden down that it is a weak reed for a defense.

I am amazed that judges overseeing these cases haven’t thrown them out. What it tells us, I think, is that the legal profession prefers a circus to the rule of law.

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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

Introduction

At the beginning of the new school year, concerned parents should urgently be informed about the experiential knowledge of educational-psychological activity and research. Due to a lack of information, many of them fear that their children will not have the necessary intelligence and aptitude to successfully complete the school year.

But: intelligence and aptitude are neither innate nor hereditary, as so many experts from pre-psychological times teach parents; they can therefore be fostered at any time.

“Intelligence” and “Giftedness”

Although intelligence research is a flourishing branch of research in psychology, there is a lack of a binding, generally accepted definition of its object of research. As a rule, “intelligence” is defined as the ability to adapt to unknown situations or to solve new problems (1). The term encompasses the totality of differently developed cognitive abilities for solving a logical, linguistic, mathematical or sense-oriented problem.

Very often there is the opinion that intelligence is an isolated mental faculty that is either present or not, because it is not clear on which mental preconditions the child’s intelligence and thus school performance depends. In reality, intelligence and learning ability are often determined psychological functions. Thus, it is quite possible for an intrinsically intelligent child to fail in learning. The fault must then be sought in the overall psychological household.

The “lack of talent” is also a problematic concept that cannot explain academic failure. If a schoolchild fails in a single area or in several subjects, parents or other educators like to say that the child is not gifted in this area.

School Failure Is Not a Lack of Intelligence or Talent

The reasons for failure at school are manifold and cannot be dealt with here in the necessary breadth. However, it is important to note that organic disorders of intelligence only play a decisive role in very rare cases, because organically caused imbecility has a conspicuous symptomatology, so that these children are always recorded at an early stage and given their own education.

Educational-psychological school experience and research results teach us that poor school performance or “false stupidity” cannot usually be attributed to a lack of intelligence or talent, but to educational misconduct. This connection, revealed by depth psychology, must be taken into account in the case of school difficulties.

School learning failure is therefore not a question of will or malice on the part of the child. Often all kinds of factors are cited as causes of the child’s failure; however, it is undisputed that the educational milieu is decisive for the child’s probation in school. This could be a reason for parents to reflect and ask whether the right path was taken in education.

As a teacher, one can observe again and again that a stable child’s self-esteem is the actual prerequisite for the child’s ability to learn. However, courage to face life and self-esteem are acquired above all by children who grow up in an orderly family environment. Poor marital relations, for example, do not give rise to a childlike feeling of security, and an authoritarian or overly conscientious upbringing can convey to the child at an early age that “you can never do it right”. The children then transfer this feeling to school and experience the teacher as well as the parents as uncomprehending and intransigent people.

It is not only the relationship between child and parents that needs to be considered, but also the relationship between siblings. A child’s jealousy is capable of stopping his or her interest in school if, for example, he or she feels disadvantaged or set back in relation to the siblings. This can mobilise affects of envy or bitterness that weigh heavily on the child’s mind.

The jealous behaviour, which can express itself in quarrels and abusive behaviour of all kinds, often affects the whole family and leads to such a drain on the jealous person’s energy that he or she no longer has any energy left for school.

“Intelligence” as a Function of Psychic Attention

By explaining that all intelligence is a function of mental attention, i.e. that intelligent action is only possible where sustained interest is developed, depth psychology ties in with the findings of the famous experimental psychology school of the German physiologist and psychologist Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (1832-1920).

In 1879, Wundt founded the first institute for experimental psychology at the University of Leipzig with a systematic research programme. He is therefore regarded as the founder of psychology as an independent science (2).

Based on Wundt’s findings, it must be asked under what conditions a child is prevented from developing a genuine interest in school and learning, which then results in the so-called lack of intelligence. According to the experience of many teachers and child psychotherapists, probably more than three quarters of all “stupid” children are those who, as a result of their overall psychological constellation, are not able to develop the attention required by the school.

Fear is the worst blockage of intelligent behaviour in the soul life of the child.

Very often one finds anxious and inhibited children among so-called unintelligent school children. They do not feel at home in school because of their shyness. As a result, they experience school life as such a dangerous situation that they are hardly able to calmly apply themselves to the learning workload. Wherever children or adults get into states of anxiety, the psychological processes get out of joint.

However, the anxious person is not only anxious in acute examination and probation situations; he carries this anxiety around with him all the time. Anxious schoolchildren, for example, live in constant fear of being called on and often perceive the mere glance of the teacher as a reprimand and rebuke.

Even if they have learned and practised their subject well at home, they can fail in class as soon as it is important to present what they have learned. This leads to mental paralysis, which also dampens their enthusiasm for learning. This often leads to resignation, which sees the school training as futile and finally leads to “false stupidity”, which is basically only attention disturbed by fear.

Spoiling and Pampering Are Not Good Prerequisites for Children’s Ability to Learn

Other forms of “child stupidity”, which teachers increasingly observe and whose pseudo-character psychotherapists could uncover, result from a spoiling and pampering upbringing. Such an educational climate is misunderstood by many parents as true love of children. But loving a child does not mean showering it with such tenderness that its inner independence is crushed.

Psychological experience teaches that love is not simply an exuberant feeling: rather, it is a serious and not easy task that must be carefully learned. Love for the child should be knowing and seeing, it must not only want to do good to the child, it must also give the good to the child at the right time and in the right way.

Spoiling educators can thus oppose the child’s urge for independence by unconsciously fearing from a positive psychological development of the child that this will alienate the beloved child from the parents. The strongly spoiled child thus does not learn to make its own experiences and thus does not practise its existing skills and dexterities. When it starts school, it therefore finds itself in the company of more capable and rowdy companions to whom it does not feel equal. For children who are made internally dependent on a guardian, this can lead to a paralysis effect that can last throughout their entire school career and ultimately lead to failure if they are expected to complete something on their own and without help.

Teachers repeatedly make the observation that a stable child’s self-esteem is the best prerequisite for a child’s ability to learn.

The Good News Usually Does Not Provide an Occasion for a Process of Self-contemplation

As positive as the psychological message is that “intelligence and “giftedness” are not innate and hereditary psychological factors and can therefore be changed for the better, it usually remains the case, however, that parents see no reason in it to initiate a process of self-reflection, with or without the support of a psychotherapist, as to whether they have taken the right path in their upbringing – and what could possibly be improved.

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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel is a school rector, educational scientist and qualified psychologist. After his university studies he became an academic teacher in adult education. As a retiree he worked as a psychotherapist in his own practice. In his books and professional articles, he calls for a conscious ethical-moral education in values as well as an education for public spirit and peace. For his services to Serbia, he was awarded the Republic Prize “Captain Misa Anastasijevic” by the Universities of Belgrade and Novi Sad in 2021. 

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Notes

(1) https://www.spektrum.de/lexikon/psychologie/intelligenz/7263

(2) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Wundt

Featured image © iStockphoto | BrianAJackson

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***

The Israeli parliament has been accused of passing a “racist” piece of legislation that would see Palestinian citizens of Israel screened from living in almost half of the country’s small villages and towns.

The so-called “admissions committees” law passed on Tuesday would strengthen a controversial 2011 piece of legislation that allows those same panels – made up of members of the local community – to screen applicants for housing units and plots of land in hundreds of Jewish Israeli “community towns” built on state land.

Human rights campaigners have stressed that this is aimed at giving small Jewish communities the power to prevent Palestinians from buying or renting homes. There are almost two million Palestinian citizens of Israel, who are estimated to make up 20 percent of the country’s population.

The law does not officially allow the committees to reject residential candidates for reasons of race, religion, gender, nationality, disability, class, age, parentage, sexual orientation, country of origin, views or party political affiliation.

However, the wording of the 2011 law allows committees to reject candidates who they deem to be “inappropriate for the social and cultural fabric” of the community.

“In practice, this power has led to the exclusion of Palestinian citizens of Israel from these communities, which are built on state-controlled land,” said Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, in a statement after the legislation was passed.

Hassan Jabareen, Adalah’s founder, is worried by the latest piece of admissions committee legislation and Israel’s judicial reform plans, which are set to open the court to political interference.

“We are now in a very critical situation,” Jabareen told Middle East Eye, adding that there is now a “climate in which Arabs can be easily discriminated against”.

‘Apartheid in Israel’

In 2012, Adalah took the Israeli government to court, arguing that the admissions committees law was a racist piece of legislation that mainly targeted Palestinians.

Four members of Israel’s supreme court agreed, while five members thought it was too soon to rule on the matter.

With the Israeli parliament now expanding the number of towns that can screen who lives in their community, “we are talking about almost half of the towns in the country” that are potentially off limits to Palestinians, Jabareen said.

To date, the law, which previously applied only to the Galilee in northern Israel and the Negev (Naqab) in the south of the country, allowed Jewish communities with up to 400 households to run admissions committees and select who could live in the communities.

The newly passed expansion raises that limit to communities with up to 700 households, and after five years the minister of economy and industry will be able to increase the number of admissions committees to towns with more than 700 households.

It also expands the areas in which the law will be applied beyond the Galilee and the Negev to areas designated as having a national priority regarding housing.

“The area north of Haifa and up to the Galilee, which covers 241 towns or 80 percent of the towns in the north” could now be denied to Palestinians, according to Jabareen.

In the south of the country, in the Negev region, 89 percent of towns could also be considered off-limits to Palestinians.

With a high concentration of Palestinians living in the north and south of the country, it’s hard not to conclude that the law is being carefully targeted to demographically engineer Jewish supremacy.

“We are clearly talking about a country that has decided to be an apartheid state inside the greenline,” Jabareen said, referring to Israel’s pre-1967 borders. “A huge part of this country won’t be allowed for Arab citizens.”

“What’s strange is that this law passed yesterday without any media or public attention [in Israel]. It’s becoming easier to infringe on the rights of Arabs,” Jabareen added. 

‘Palestinians have the right to build homes’

Aside from politicians representing the two Arab parties in parliament, only two opposition Labour parliamentarians voted against the legislation, with all others voting in favour.

Ahmad Tibi, a Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament who voted against the law, told MEE that while Jewish communities continue to receive preferential treatment in housing and land allocation, “a new Arab village has never been established in the Galilee or for that matter any part of Israel”.

“The building planning process in Israel is Zionist and ideological, and thus it alienates and is hostile to the Arab population,” Tibi said.

Over the years Israel has used a number of different instruments to prevent Palestinians from expanding their communities, according to Tibi.

The Kaminitz Law was passed in 2017. It imposed strict penalties on construction work it deemed illegal, but campaigners saw it as penalising the country’s Palestinians, who rarely get permission to expand their homes.

“Arab towns have the right to plan for their future,” Tibi said. “There is a shortage of land for young couples and plots of land are not being made available.”

“Some of the young Arabs go to other towns, mixed cities or Jewish Israeli towns, but this admissions committees law prevents them from entering hundreds of towns and villages with national priority,” he added.

“I am afraid that this ban will be further expanded to mixed cities and there will be Jewish neighbourhoods that ban Arabs.”

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***

July 23, 2023 – 30 year old Grammy winning singer Tori Kelly collapsed at a dinner with friends, and was diagnosed with blood clots near vital organs!

Aug. 19, 2023 – Ryan Crouser wins shot put World Title with blood clots in his leg.

Aug. 17, 2023 – 24 year old Austin Phyfe, basketball player Northern Iowa Panthers forward, missed all of the 2022-2023 season recovering from “blood clots in his lungs and legs”. He just announced his “medical retirement” from basketball.

Aug. 16, 2023 – Lexington, SC – Victoria Hoult developed blood clots in her lungs, one of which collapsed her lung.

Aug. 14, 2023 – Hinckley, UK – Gemma Brookes developed a pulmonary embolism, after having many adverse events to AstraZeneca vaccines.

Aug. 13, 2023 – Hawaii – Dia Sol has an acquaintance, Linda, who had over 40 clots removed in a recent surgery.

Aug. 11, 2023 – 59 year old Tim had blood clots in his heart 4 weeks after his last Pfizer vaccine.

Aug. 3, 2023 – Cleveland, OH – Rick Bub works at the Cleveland Clinic as a Patient Transportation Work Leader. He developed a pulmonary embolism.

Aug. 2, 2023 – Kernersville, NC – Tara Toney Tomlinson is an ICU nurse who believes she got pulmonary emboli after a recent bout with COVID-19.

July 30, 2023 – Steve Buchanan’s wife died unexpectedly on an airplane, because of a blood clot in her lungs.

July 30, 2023 – Summerville, SC – Ashley Thompson developed blood clots in the left leg and then more clots in her lungs. She had an IVC filter put in, in the hopes of stopping more clots traveling to her lungs and heart. She is having many complications.

July 29, 2023 – Wolverhampton, UK – Paul Bell developed massive blood clots in his lungs, heart, brain.

July 28, 2023 – UK – Steve Nicholson developed blood clots in his legs.

July 28, 2023 – Mendon, IL – 50 year old Craig Daugherty, a correctional officer at Western Illinois Correctional Center, died unexpectedly AT WORK from a blood clot.

July 21, 2023 – NFL Cleveland Browns Player WR Marquise Goodwin will miss start of training camp with blood clots in his legs and lungs.

July 23, 2023 – Moscow, ID – 25 year old Vanessa Lopez had bronchitis or COVID and then developed blood clots in her lungs.

July 15, 2023 – Nottingham, UK – Charlotte Hukin who works in the civil service, had shortness of breath and was diagnosed with multiple blood clots in both lungs.

July 9, 2023 – Ackworth, GA – Ashley Langill’s family member “Ally” was 23 years old when she died suddenly. “The coroner is 98% positive that she had a blood clot that traveled to her heart and caused an embolism.”

July 4, 2023 – Victoria, BC – Alyssa Hulbert (a sterile processing technician at Island Health) collapsed in her home on June 26th, 2023, due to a pulmonary embolism that caused her to go into cardiac arrest. Due to lack of oxygen to her brain, she died on July 4.

July 4, 2023 – El Dorado, IL – Ashley Foster is a full time nursing assistant and an LPN nursing student. She was diagnosed with “Phlegmasia Cerulia Dolens” characterized by severe blood clots in the legs and now had clots in the lungs (pulmonary embolism).

Jun. 14, 2023 – Melbourne, FL – Tonya Ingle is suffering from blood clots and a cluster of other symptoms (most likely COVID-19 vaccine related) like brain fog, heart issues and severe fatigue. The treatments for her clots are NOT WORKING.

May 10, 2023 – Iola, KS – 31 year old Tarin Guerrero died suddenly from “massive blood clots in her lungs and what they thought to be a tumor on the lower part of her lung.”

Dec. 21, 2022 – Hilton, NY – 44 year old Jo Lynn Rossman was a registered nurse at Strong Memorial Hospital. She had been struggling to breathe for a week and in the ER they discovered she had “massive blood clots through her pulmonary arteries into every branch/lobe.”

Nov. 8, 2022 – UK Actress, 30 year old Emily Chesterton, had blood clots in her legs, went to see a doctor and was told by a physician associate she had anxiety. She died of pulmonary embolism a week later.

April 1, 2022 – Youtuber iJustine, 38 year old Justine Ezarik, had a blood clot in her shoulder which traveled to her lung.

My Take… 

I have written several substack articles already on blood clots in young people but it is happening more and more frequently now.

I believe clotting is both a short term and long term adverse effect of COVID-19 vaccines.

These clotting problems in the COVID-19 vaccinated are unusually complex – usually involve multiple locations (legs and lungs), and are resistant to medical therapy, requiring surgical removal.

And while Olympic Gold Medalist Ryan Crouser can win the shot put World Title with blood clots in his legs, for most people in some kind of athletics, these mRNA vaccine blood clots are a career ender.

As you can see from many of the cases I have presented here, these COVID-19 vaccine induced clotting problems are often fatal, and therefore CANNOT be underestimated.

NATTOKINASE, an enzyme isolated in Japan and derived from fermented soybeans, has been shown to break down mRNA vaccine spike protein and blood clots in the COVID-19 vaccinated.

This important nutraceutical is saving thousands of mRNA vaccinated lives.  

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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.


The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0,  Year: 2022,  PDF Ebook,  Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

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Many U.S. Presidents Start a War to Get Reelected

August 22nd, 2023 by Chaitanya Davé

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***

“Start a war with a weak country and your chances for reelection are high”—that is what some American presidents learn from U.S. history.

When we look at the US history, it becomes obvious that many American presidents start a war to get reelected.

They check the past history and realize that when a sitting US president starts a war with another country, a majority of Americans get united behind a sitting president. When the next election comes while this war is going on, usually the majority of Americans blinded by massive propaganda vote for the sitting president and the macho looking sitting president gets reelected! There is a close connection between a war president and his chance for reelection. Rarely, has a sitting president been defeated during a war. History proves this. Let’s look at  history:

  • The war of 1812: James Madison gets reelected in 1812
  • The Civil War of 1864: Abraham Lincoln gets reelected in 1864
  • World War-I: Woodrow Wilson was not at war but near it- gets reelected in 1916
  • Spanish-American War’s end in 1900: Willian McKinley reelected 
  • World War-II: Franklin D. Roosevelt, not at war yet but nearing it; gets reelected in 1940. Then at war, gets elected 3rd time in 1944.
  • The Vietnam War: Lyndon B. Johnson: He was supportive of escalation of the Vietnam War. Fake ‘Gulf of Tonkin” incident, gets  reelected in 1964.
  • The Vietnam War: Richard Nixon: was reelected in 1972.
  • Iraq and Afghanistan Wars: George W. Bush: was reelected in 2004.

George H. W. Bush Sr. attacked a small weak country of Panama and started foolish Gulf War on Iraq but lost to Bill Clinton due to bad economy and Ross Perot’s candidacy which took away close to 20% of the Republican votes.

Jimmy Carter, perhaps the most honest president in recent American history, never started a war even though Iran had captured 52 Americans as hostages for many days. Also, he achieved a major peace agreement between Egypt and Israel but peace dividend did not help him in his reelection to the presidency. So, he was depicted as a weak president that destroyed his reelection chances and he lost the reelection to Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Also, the 38th President Gerald Ford was in office from 1974 to end of 1976 never started any foreign war. He too like President Carter was defeated in the next election. Of course, there are other reasons for his defeat. But if he had started a major war, it is likely that the country would unite behind him and vote for him in the next election.

President Barack Obama unnecessarily started a war with Libya on 19th March 2011. There was no legitimate reason for this foolish war. France and Britain (as always) were also complicit in this immoral war that resulted in the death of its leader of many years, Muammar Gaddafi. Today, Libya, once a normal country, is ruined and in chaos. Of course, Obama’s eyes were on his forthcoming reelection of 2012. This attack on Libya turned out to be a disaster but Obama had likely hoped that he would establish a ‘democracy’ in Libya, exploit its vast oil reserves and boast about it in his reelection campaign of 2012.

Recently, why did Joe Biden provoke Russia to start a proxy war between Russia and Ukraine? There was no need for this war. All Russia wanted was for Ukraine not be allowed to join NATO. A very legitimate reason because Ukraine’s eastern border is 10 minutes’ flying time to Moscow for a nuclear armed US supplied missile that NATO would have placed on Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia as a member of NATO. It should be noted that United States had given promises to Gorbachev in 1989-90 by the Bush Sr. administration not to expand NATO “one inch eastward from East Germany’s border after allowing East Germany to join West Germany.

It is quite likely that President Biden wants to look “macho” by cowing down Russia in this manner and get reelected in the coming 2024 election.

American history proves that majority of American presidents start a war with or attack a weak country—where quick victory is assured—and claim ‘victory’ during the reelection campaign. Unfortunately, history repeats itself. Additionally, there are other reasons a US president starts a war or attacks another small and weak country if he is in trouble due to a recession, economic downturn, sex scandal, impeachment, or very low popularity votes.

Bill Clinton is a recent example of this: Did he bomb Sudan and Afghanistan with missile strikes to deflect attention of the American public from his domestic troubles emanating from his sex scandal with Monica Lewinsky—his 22-year-old intern—and forthcoming impeachment? It is quite likely. A pharmaceutical factory—the only one they had–of Sudan was destroyed by this criminal bombing.

For an incumbent American president, it does not cost him anything to attack a weak country. He is immune from prosecution. The American people pay for these illegal, immoral wars. People in the victim country pay heavily for this war. But they have no power or no say. But the dividends are great. He looks strong, macho, and very likely gets reelected.

In conclusion, though other reasons for a president’s defeat or victory do play a part, but on many occasions, a war president in America does get rewarded with getting reelected by a majority of Americans, deluded by massive government propaganda, vote for the running president.

Incumbent American presidents and their administrative cronies don’t care how many innocent civilians they kill by starting a criminal and illegal war against a weak country, as long as they get reelected in the next election. That is the sad story of American Empire.

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Chaitanya Davé is a Chemical Engineer and a businessman. He has authored three books: CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY: A Shocking Record of US Crimes since 1776-2007, COLLAPSE: Civilization on the Brink-2010, CAPITALISM’S MARCH OF DESTRUCTION: Replacing it with People and Nature-Friendly Economy. Author of many articles on politics, history, and the environment. Founder/President of a non-profit charity foundation helping the poor villagers of India, Nepal, Haiti, USA-homeless and other poor countries. He can be contacted at [email protected].

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

¿Qué falta para que Jair Bolsonaro sea encarcelado?

August 22nd, 2023 by Fernando De la Cuadra

The Final Colonial Partition of Africa at the Turn of the 20th Century

By Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović, August 21, 2023

The “Black Continent” of Africa until the end of the eighth decade of the 19th century was not properly known territory, especially its central parts which have been unknown to the Europeans. The West European powers until the 1880s were acquainted mainly with the African littorals and their immediate hinterland.

‘Fight Russia to the Last Ukrainian’ Is Official White House Policy

By Kyle Anzalone, August 22, 2023

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has dragged on with no end in sight. The fighting has ground to a near standstill, with thousands of lives being traded for miles of territory. The situation has delighted the political establishment in Washington, who see throwing hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers into the meatgrinder as a cost-effective method for weakening Russia.

Breaking: US Not in a Position to Send More Missiles to Ukraine

By Lucas Leiroz de Almeida, August 22, 2023

Western criticism of the Ukrainian “counteroffensive” is increasing. In response to Kiev’s unlimited demand for arms, Western media claim that the US is not in a position to send more heavy weapons to the regime. According to a major western outlet, Washington does not produce enough tactical ballistic missiles to send the number that would be needed to guarantee the Ukrainian counterattack’s victory.

Climate Change Litigation: The Montana Precedent

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, August 22, 2023

Climate change litigation is falling into pressing fashion. In Australia, the 2021 case of Sharma, despite eventually failing before three judges in the Federal Court in 2022, suggested that ministers had been put on notice regarding a potential duty of care regarding the consequences of approving fossil fuel projects.

Time for Your Eighth COVID Vaccine Dose: Pfizer Says Latest Booster Won’t be Tested on Humans but It Works Great on Mice!

By Jordan Schachtel, August 22, 2023

Pfizer announced on August 17, 2023 that their new shot, which targets the Eris variant (whatever that is) of the cold/flu rebrand sickness that is commonly referred to as Covid-19, is showing great promise in mice.

The Decline of French Power

By Shane Quinn, August 22, 2023

For generations before the Napoleonic Wars (1803–15), France had been the dominant nation on the western European mainland and was among the world’s most powerful states. At different times, French military forces had occupied almost all of the major capitals of continental Europe.

9/11, Osamagate and the “Blowback”. America’s “Just War” Against Afghanistan

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, August 21, 2023

Within hours of the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden was identified as the architect of the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon, without a shred of evidence. On the following day, the “war on terrorism” was launched. The media disinformation campaign went into full gear.

Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). Message from Afghan Women

By Friba and RAWA, August 21, 2023

First of all, we would like to express our gratitude to our sisters, who took a step-in solidarity with Afghan women on the second anniversary of the seizure of power by the Taliban’s anti-women executioners.

Donald Trump. Will the Country Survive Coordinating Four Indictments? One Defendant

By Renee Parsons, August 21, 2023

It has been a long time coming for an objective dissertation of the 2020 election fraud to be presented publicly in a comprehensive yet logical, easy to follow narrative that millions of Americans will find plausible and convincing. 

YouTube, Censorship, and the American Way of Life. Scott Ritter

By Scott Ritter, August 21, 2023

On Friday, August 11, YouTube shut down the US Tour of Duty channel. The reason cited was “violations of our Community Guidelines,” although no specific example was cited. Neither was a warning issued. Simple termination, with prejudice.

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The Russian invasion of Ukraine has dragged on with no end in sight. The fighting has ground to a near standstill, with thousands of lives being traded for miles of territory. The situation has delighted the political establishment in Washington, who see throwing hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers into the meatgrinder as a cost-effective method for weakening Russia.

Over the past 18 months, the White House policy has become clear: provide Ukraine with just enough arms and money to keep Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from negotiating with Russia.

Prior to the war and within the first two months of the Russian invasion, Washington and Kiev had four opportunities to negotiate with Moscow and end the war on terms that would, today, be considered favorable to Ukraine. At each opportunity, the White House refused to engage in meaningful diplomacy with Moscow and encouraged Kiev to follow Washington’s lead.

Two months into the conflict, The Washington Post frankly reported that Washington and its Western allies preferred war instead of peace in Ukraine.

“Even a Ukrainian vow not to join NATO could be a concern to some neighbors,” the outlet reported. “That leads to an awkward reality: For some in NATO, it’s better for the Ukrainians to keep fighting, and dying, than to achieve a peace that comes too early or at too high a cost to Kyiv and the rest of Europe.”

Joe Biden administration official Derek Chollett, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Ukrainian Pravada and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglul have all independently confirmed that the White House was a barrier to meaningful peace talks that could have prevented the war or brought it to a swift conclusion.

In April 2022, then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson traveled to Ukraine and delivered a message to Zelensky from NATO; even if Kiev is ready to make a deal with Moscow, the West is not. At the same time, leaders of NATO nations announced they would provide “new and heavier” arms to Kiev. That month, Washington would approve over $1.6 billion in weapons transfers to Ukraine.

In the grueling days since talks ended in March 2022, the West has dumped tens of billions in weapons onto the Ukrainian battlefield. Like the NATO-trained Ukrainian conscripts, those weapons have met their fate within days or hours of reaching the frontline.

Throughout the war, Kiev has sought long-range missiles, advanced aircraft, and tanks, and officials in Washington have repeated the catchphrase that Ukraine would be given all of the “weapons it needs” to win the war.

However, Washington has engaged in a gradual escalation of arms transfers to Ukraine. The Biden administration has ensured that Kiev has enough weapons to keep fighting and, at the same time, restrict the arms it sends to Ukraine in an effort not to provoke a direct war with Russia.

The influx of weapons likely helped Ukrainian forces stop Russian advances and even recapture some territory. The West says it supports Kiev’s stated goals, including recapturing all Ukrainian territory, but also refuses to provide Ukrainian forces with the sophisticated arms to recapture the Crimea peninsula.

The Joe Biden administration’s portrayal of Russian President Vladimir Putin as the new Hitler and the claim that any Ukrainian territorial concession would mean the destruction of the “international world order” has placed the White House in two paradoxes it cannot escape.

The first puzzle facing the West is that Kiev says the war can only end after it recaptures Ukraine, including Crimea. The Kremlin, which annexed Crimea in 2014, says the peninsula is a part of Russia and will be defended with Moscow’s full military capabilities.

So, Biden is faced with the options of provoking a nuclear conflict with Russia over control of the Crimea peninsula or telling Zelensky to negotiate with “Hitler” and make territorial concessions.

The second paradox is when, if ever, to talk with Putin. In May, The New York Times reported that debate in the White House had become amorphous and paradoxical. “The debate in Washington over potential peace talks is amorphous and paradoxical. There are even competing arguments based on the same hypothetical outcome,” the Times reported. “If Ukraine makes substantial gains, that might mean it is time for talks, some officials say—or it could mean Ukraine should put diplomacy on the back burner and keep fighting.”

It appears the White House has decided the best option is the status quo, let the fighting go on without allowing either side to prevail. This has required Washington to consistently provide Kiev with increasingly sophisticated military equipment without provoking Russia into a direct conflict with NATO.

The ongoing counteroffensive perfectly illustrates this point. After Kiev’s fall counteroffensive stalled after early successes and the death toll mounted, Washington needed positive news from Ukraine and began talking up the spring counteroffensive.

For months, Western officials publicly sold the idea that Ukrainian forces could retake another chunk of territory. However, Ukrainian and American officials privately acknowledged Ukraine did not have the troops or military assets needed to defeat the fortified Russian defenses.

Still, Washington viewed a successful counteroffensive as politically necessary to continue keeping the American public onboard with sending billions in aid to Ukraine. So, Kiev relented to Washington’s demands and sent hundreds of thousands of poorly trained troops into heavily mined Russian defensive lines.

As retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Daniel Davis explained in a recent article, thousands of Ukrainian troops being sent to their deaths were predictable.

“Ukraine also suffers from a chronic lack of air defense capacity, inadequate numbers of howitzers and artillery shells, insufficient electronic warfare systems, a dearth of missiles, and perhaps most crucial of all, barely 25 percent of the de-mining capacity needed.” He wrote in 19FortyFive, “Thus, when Ukraine launched its offensive across a broad front on June 5th, it should have surprised no one in Kyiv, Washington, or Brussels that they ran into a Russian buzzsaw.”

In April 2022, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Washington elected to wage the proxy war to “weaken” Russia. Since, several administration and elected officials have repeatedly asserted the war has been a boon for America. Last week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called for more aid to Ukraine, explaining how it strengthens America while noting no Americans have died in the war.

Steven Moore, a powerful Republican politico, said he was enlisted by the party’s leadership to convince the caucus that aid to Ukraine was crucial.

“If you’re a fiscal conservative, you know this is a great use of taxpayer dollars. And not one single American soldier has had to die,” Moore argued to the GOP caucus.

There is a near-universal blackout of the mounting death toll among Ukrainian soldiers. During the battle in Bakhmut, former U.S. soldiers fighting for Kiev said new soldiers were dying within hours of reaching the front lines. A Ukrainian citizen recently told The Washington Post that most soldiers from her town die within two or three days of reaching the battlefield.

The massive losses and minimal gains have blunted Ukrainians’ morale. Early in the war, recruitment centers overflowed. However, Kiev is now relying on a general mobilization of nearly all men to fill its ranks.

The conscription program created a plague of corruption, as many young men—hoping to avoid killing and being killed in the war—paid bribes to officials for medical waivers and illegal transportation out of the country. The corruption was so pervasive that Zelensky elected to fire the heads of all local recruitment centers and pressed charges against dozens of officials.

In a recent article, Micheal Vlahos observed,

“Ukraine was a nation of perhaps 33 million in early 2022. Today, a quarter of that already-diminished country’s population has fled to the European Union, and another quarter is in the now-Russian oblasts or residing as new migrants in the Russian Federation itself. Ukraine, at 20 million, ranks somewhat bigger than the Netherlands, and somewhat smaller than Taiwan.” He continues, “Yet in casualties-to-population terms, Ukrainian military losses, after more than 500 days of war, are approaching those sustained by Germany in World War I over more than 1,500 days. This is a catastrophic attrition rate…that can break an army and a nation.”

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Kyle Anzalone is news editor of the Libertarian Institute, opinion editor of Antiwar.com and co-host of Conflicts of Interest with Will Porter and Connor Freeman.

Featured image: Ukraine flag and military uniform of ukrainian soldier. Armed Forces of Ukraine

Breaking: US Not in a Position to Send More Missiles to Ukraine

August 22nd, 2023 by Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

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Western criticism of the Ukrainian “counteroffensive” is increasing. In response to Kiev’s unlimited demand for arms, Western media claim that the US is not in a position to send more heavy weapons to the regime. According to a major western outlet, Washington does not produce enough tactical ballistic missiles to send the number that would be needed to guarantee the Ukrainian counterattack’s victory.

In a recent article for the Financial Times called “US grows doubtful Ukraine counteroffensive can quickly succeed”, Western experts reported that the US does not manufacture enough tactical ballistic missiles to make a difference on the battlefield. The “necessity” to send weapons to Ukraine coexists with the need for internal supply for the arsenal of the American armed forces, with no possibility of accelerating production significantly in the short term.

In addition, the newspaper’s informants allege that Washington is currently “holding back” as many missiles as possible, as Americans are concerned about the possibility of escalation in the conflict. Kiev’s officials blamed the failure of the counteroffensive on the supposed “slowness” in the supply of weapons, mainly high-range missiles capable of reaching the undisputed territory of the Russian Federation. Many American experts, however, seem to disagree with this analysis.

Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at the US think tank Rand Corporation, told Financial Times’s journalists that ballistic missiles are capable of causing damage to Russian logistics, but assessed that this is not the main problem to be solved by Ukrainians to achieve the victory. According to him, there is no “magic wands” able to make the counteroffensive become successful, thus echoing the growing Western pessimism with the Ukrainian military moves.

“I don’t think that you’ll hear an argument from anyone that this [Ukraine’s counteroffensive] is going well right now or that this is heading to a place that people would view as good, but there is not much by way of plan B (…) There’s no magic wands,” Charap said. “It’s hard to make the case that long-range strike [missiles] can fix the problem of minefields or all these defences (…) It will complicate Russian logistics but that’s not the main or the only problem the Ukrainians are facing today”, Charap said.

In fact, this assessment exposes growing dissatisfaction on the part of the West with Ukraine’s progress in the conflict. The strategy used by the Ukrainians – certainly instructed by NATO agents – failed on the battlefield and Kiev quickly lost massive amounts of soldiers and equipment. The Ukrainian defeat was so evident that it was not even possible for the western media to continue doing its propaganda work, which meant that more critical and pessimistic opinions began to be exposed by the newspapers.

For its part, Kiev responds to the criticism by demanding even more weapons. It became commonplace among the regime’s officials and Western warmongers to blame a supposed “failure” in NATO’s aid for the fiasco of the counteroffensive. It is said that the more lethal and long-range weapons Ukraine receives the faster it will achieve victory against Russian forces. But, in practice, this has not been seen so far.

The West sent heavy – and even illegal – weapons to its proxy regime as much as it could. Packages including banned cluster bombs, radioactive depleted uranium ammunition and British long-range missiles arrived in Kiev and were used on the battlefield, not to seek any military victory, but to murder civilians and bomb undisputed demilitarized zones, making “counteroffensive” a mere wave of terrorist attacks.

Apparently, American experts understood that the more lethal weapons they send to Ukraine, the greater the risks of escalation and, consequently, the greater the regime’s losses will be. In this sense, in the Financial Times article, it is also said that until next year, military aid to Kiev is expected to decrease, at least in terms of quality – lethality of the weapons. There is a concern to avoid greater losses in an eventual scenario of escalation by Russia – which is aggravated by the upcoming presidential elections and the inability of the American defense industry to produce arms in even larger quantities.

“Even if Congress authorizes the latest package of Ukraine funding requested by the White House, some US officials and analysts say it is unlikely that Washington will be able to offer the same level of lethal assistance to Ukraine next year, given the looming presidential election and munitions manufacturers’ longer-term schedule to increase production”, the article reads.

This scenario of American disappointment with Ukraine must be analyzed from a realistic point of view. Washington does not want the war to end. On the contrary, it wants to prolong the hostilities in order to generate friction with Russia for as long as possible. And this is precisely why the country is avoiding increasing the deployment of long-range weapons, as it fears that Russian responses to Ukrainian provocations could be strong enough to end the conflict quickly.

For the US and NATO, what matters is to keep Russia fighting on multiple flanks as the alliance prepares for a direct military conflict with China. With no hope of defeating Russia on the battlefield, the US just wants to keep Moscow fighting in various proxy conflicts. Therefore, it is in Washington’s interest to prolong the war in Ukraine as well as to generate provocations in other regions where Russia could be militarily involved.

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Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

Featured image is by Nicholas Pilch/Air Force