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Israel’s sovereign credit rating on Tuesday was lowered by credit rating agency Morgan Stanley, and Moody’s warned of a “significant risk” that political and social tensions will lead to “negative consequences for Israel’s economy and security situation,” following the Knesset’s vote to pass the first law of its controversial judicial reform on Monday.
Morgan Stanley updated Israel’s sovereign credit to a “dislike stance,” noting that the government has reaffirmed the trajectory of its economy in a direction that is likely to scare off investors.
“We see increased uncertainty about the economic outlook in the coming months and risks becoming skewed to our adverse scenario,” the agency said. “Markets are now likely to extrapolate the future policy path and we move Israel sovereign credit to a ‘dislike stance.’”
They added that recent events indicate “ongoing uncertainty” in Israel and that the shekel is likely to continue depreciating alongside the Tel Aviv Stock Market, which has lost nearly 10% since November of last year.
Screenshot of stock market activity the day after the first law of the judicial reform passed. July 25, 2023 (credit: screenshot)
Shoveling More Problems Onto the Pile
Moody’s warned that there is “a significant risk that political and social tensions over the [judicial reform] will continue, with negative consequences for Israel’s economy and security situation.”
The credit rating agency warned that it believes that “the wide-ranging nature of the government’s proposals could materially weaken the judiciary’s independence and disrupt effective checks and balances between the various branches of government, which are important aspects of strong institutions.”
The agency added that “the executive and legislative institutions have become less predictable and more willing to create significant risks to economic and social stability.”
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Featured image: View of screens showing falling stocks at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, in the center of Tel Aviv, December 23, 2018. (Photo credit: MIRIAM ALSTER/FLASH90)
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Faced with the failure of the overrated Ukrainian “counteroffensive”, Western analysts are trying to find excuses for the humiliation of the neo-Nazi forces. In the opinion of a researcher linked to the Royal United Services Institute, the bureaucracy of NATO states damaged the Ukrainian moves, preventing the counterattack from achieving the desired objectives. In fact, these assessments sound like mere attempts to omit the evident truth that Kiev is militarily collapsed and unable to launch major maneuvers.
Jack Watling in an article for The Observer said that the Ukrainian government has been clear about its needs during dialogue with Western partners, explaining since last year which equipment it would need to win on the battlefield. There was great demand for artillery weapons and anti-aircraft defense systems, as well as for investments in military infrastructure, mobility, and engineering. He said that not all weapons were sent to the regime’s troops, thus weakening the counteroffensive.
“What the Ukrainians would need in order to conduct successful offensive operations was clearly communicated to western capitals from July to September last year (…) But despite the requirement being identified in September 2022, the decision to proceed was not taken until January 2023 and has only been partially implemented. Months of delays gave Russian forces time to build their defences, significantly complicating the task for the Ukrainians. The upshot is that Ukrainian forces had around two months to master a panoply of western systems in varying states of repair, and to take new troops and try to prepare them for some of the hardest tactical tasks that can be demanded of a force”, he said.
Watling believes that this Western bureaucracy also damages NATO itself. He says that the slowness in support for Ukraine increases European insecurity, since Kiev’s forces would be preventing Russia from advancing into western European territory. With this, he endorses the mainstream media’s narrative that Moscow plans to “invade” other countries, needing to be “stopped” through military means.
“These bureaucratic constraints highlight a serious problem for Ukraine’s partners. While not actually fighting a war, the future of European security depends upon the outcome of Ukraine’s struggle. And yet western capitals continue to be process-driven and slow, applying peacetime approaches to much of their activity. Western militaries have made progress in adapting their practice since the start of the war. The rest of government has been slower to realize what must be done”, he added.
Indeed, trying to find “reasons” for the Ukrainian failure seems to have become commonplace both in Kiev and in the West. Some analysts and officials suggest that the lack of weapons is to be blamed, while others suggest that the absence of NATO direct involvement is the real reason. And some others, like Watling, blame the bureaucracy. It is understandable that there is so much effort to “explain” the defeat. Western and Ukrainian media invested heavily on propaganda by predicting a victorious offensive in this year’s spring-summer season, so public opinion’s expectations were simply not met with the results.
The collective disappointment with Kiev simultaneously affects the Ukrainian troops, who have their morale hampered, and the Western governments themselves, which lose popular support for the policy of military assistance to the neo-Nazi regime. Liberal NATO governments “justify” sending arms with the excuse that they are necessary for Ukraine to “win”, but citizens are more and more convinced that Kiev simply cannot win and that this is an already lost war, not worth investing in the delivery of weapons.
The main problem is that all these “explanations” given by Western analysts are wrong. The Ukrainian counteroffensive failed simply because the neo-Nazi regime’s armed forces no longer have significant operational capability, being severely destroyed after one year of persistent fighting. The Ukrainian army is currently represented mostly by inexperienced, poorly trained and forcibly recruited soldiers, without any real motivation or ability to fight. Troops of this type are incapable of being successful in any “counteroffensive” attempt, always tending to lose in clashes against experienced forces.
In the same way that this season’s counterattack was neutralized by Russia, it is most likely that all of Kiev’s future offensive plans fail, since the neo-Nazi forces are evidently weaker day after day. To avoid a new “meat grinder” in the future, the best thing to do is to stop Western interventionism as soon as possible. Contrary to what Watling says, Russia does not pose a threat to western nations and there is no need for NATO to help its proxy with the excuse of ensuring “Europe’s security”. Violence will end and stability will be achieved only when Ukraine stops serving NATO’s interests and accepts Russian peace terms.
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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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Fleet-footed agility and sharp thinking rarely characterise the plodding bureaucrat. An argument can be made that different attributes are prized: cherished incompetence, spells of inattentiveness, and dedication to keeping things secret with severity. What matters is not what you did, but what you pretended to do.
Even with maintaining secrecy, the plodding desk-job hack can face problems, all falling under the umbrella term of “human error”. Papers and files can stray. The occasional USB stick can find its way into unwanted hands. And then there is that damnable business about the cloud and who can access it.
Despite repeated warnings over a decade by the Amsterdam-based Mali Dili, contracted to manage email accounts of the West African state, traffic from the US military continued to find its way to the .ml domain, the country identifier of Mali. (For all we know, this may still be happening.) This arose because of a typing error, with .mil being the suffix for US military email addresses.
Other countries also seemed caught up in the domain confusion. Over a dozen emails intended for the Dutch military also found their way into the Mali Dili net, with .ml being confused with .nl. Eight emails from the Australian Department of Defence, intended for US military consumption, also met the same fate. These include problems about corrosion in Australia’s F-35 and an artillery manual “carried by command post officers for each battery”.
The man most bemused by this is not, it would seem, in the Pentagon, but a certain Dutch entrepreneur who was given the task of managing the domain. Johannes Zuurbier has found himself inconvenienced by the whole matter for some years. In 2023, he decided to gather the misdirected messages. He currently holds 117,000 of them, though he has received anywhere up to 1,000 messages a day. He has been good enough to badger individuals in the US national cyber security service, the White House, and the local defence attaché in Mali.
The Financial Timesreports that the contents of such messages vary. Much of it is spam; a degree of it comprises X-Rays, medical data, identity documents, crew lists for ships, staffing names at bases, mapping on installations, base photos, naval inspection reports, contracts, criminal complaints against various personnel, internal investigations on bullying claims, official travel itineraries, bookings, tax and financial records.
While not earth shaking, one of the misdirected emails featured the travel itinerary of General James McConville, the US Army’s Chief of Staff, whose visit to Indonesia was noted, alongside a “full list of room numbers”, and “details of the collection of McConville’s room key at the Grand Hyatt Jakarta.” Not the sort of thing you necessarily wish your adversaries to know.
Another email from the Zuurbier trove came from an FBI agent and was intended for a US Navy official, requesting personal information to process a visitor from the Navy to an FBI facility.
Lt. Commander Tim Gorman, a spokesperson from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, has put a brave face on it. “The Department of Defense (DoD) is aware of this issue and takes all unauthorized disclosures of Controlled National Security Information or Controlled Unclassified Information Seriously,” he outlined in a statement to The Verge. He further claimed, without giving much away, that emails sent from a .mil domain to Mali are “blocked”, with a notification being sent to the sender “that they must validate the email addresses of the intended recipients.”
To keep things interesting, however, Gorman confesses that there was nothing stopping other government agencies or entities working with the US government from making the mistake and passing on material in error. His focus, rather, was on the Pentagon personnel, who continued to receive “direction and training”. The Defense Department “has implemented policy, training, and technical controls to ensure that emails from the ‘.mil’ domain are not delivered to incorrect domains.”
The whole affair is becoming a thick parody of administrative dunderheadedness. It follows a pattern of inadvertent exposure of data, the sort that would, if published, probably lead to harassment and prosecution by the Department of Justice. But the incompetent are almost never found wanting; only the well-intentioned deserve punishment. Instead, IT misconfigurations are blamed for what happened, for instance, in February, when three terabytes of US Special Operation Command unclassified emails were made available for public consumption for some two weeks.
Even as the typo-leaks continue, the United States has imposed sanctions against, of all individuals, Mali’s own defence officials, including the defence minister, Colonel Sadio Camara. The two other individuals in question are Air Force Chief of Staff Colonel Alou Boi Diarra and Deputy Chief of Staff Lieutenant Colonel Adama Bagayoko. In one of his tedious moral fits, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused the trio of facilitating and expanding “Wagner’s presence in Mali since December 2021”, claiming an increase of civilian fatalities by 278 percent since the Russian mercenary group established itself in the country.
The Mali authorities, as of July 25, should have assumed control of the domain. This worries retired US admiral and former director of the National Security Agency and US Army’s Cyber Command, Mike Rogers. “It’s one thing when you are dealing with a domain administrator who is trying, even unsuccessfully, to articulate the concern. It’s another when it’s a foreign government that … sees it as an advantage that they can use.”
Zuurbier, at the conclusion of his decade-long contract, may still have a few juicy numbers for safe keeping, though he will be mindful about what happens when such contents are published, namely, the Assange-WikiLeaks precedent. Mali’s officials, in the meantime, will simply anticipate the dotty domain business to continue.
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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]
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Michel Chossudovsky’s book is one of the very few solid, i.e. professionally researched and historically contextualized, English-language publications on the Yugoslav conflict in which the author is brave enough to draw honest conclusions about its root causes, narrative repercussions and moral implications.
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Alexander Wolfheze received his MA in Semitic Languages and Cultures in 2004 and his cum laude PhD in the Humanities in 2011, both from Leiden University, Netherlands. With extensive research experience in the fields of Assyriology and Cultural Anthropology, he subsequently authored several publications in the field of Near Eastern cultural history. His current interdisciplinary specializations are pre-modern epistemology and Traditionalist philosophy; his earlier book The Sunset of Tradition and the Origins of the Great War applies these specializations to the cultural-historical background of the First World War.
Book Preface
by Michel Chossudovsky
Twenty-four years ago in the early hours of March 24, 1999, NATO began the bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. “The operation was code-named “Allied Force ” – a cold, uninspired and perfectly descriptive moniker” according to Nebosja Malic.
When Belgrade was bombed, the children’s hospital was the object of air attacks. It had been singled out by military planners as a strategic target.
NATO stated that to “save the lives” of the newly born, they did not bomb the section of the hospital where the babies were residing, instead they targeted the building which housed the power generator, which meant no more power for the incubators. What this meant was that the entire hospital was for all sakes and purposes destroyed and many of the children died.
I visited that hospital, one year after the bombing in June 2000 and saw with my own eyes how they did it with utmost accuracy. These are war crimes using NATO’s so-called smart bombs.
The causes and consequences of this war against the people of Yugoslavia have been the object of a vast media disinformation campaign, which has sought to camouflage NATO and US war crimes.
Today, our thoughts are with the People of Serbia and the Former Yugoslavia.
-Michel Chossudovsky, Belgrade, October 21, 2022
On the 21st of October 2022, the book was launched in Belgrade under the auspices of The Belgrade Forum, Conference Centre of the Moskva Hotel,
The main reason Chossudovsky manages to avoid standard-narrative pitfalls, such as ‘end of history’ teleology or ‘clash of civilization’ schematism, is that he manages to consistently maintain an older and more realistic analytic model, viz. the Marxist model of capital accumulation and imperialist expansion as important geopolitical factors.
Especially useful contributions by Professor Chossudovky are his depth-analyses, case studies of specific episodes from the long-drawn out agony of Yugoslavia, such as the strategic and financial foundations of Camp Bondsteel (appendix to his Ch. 5), the eco-warfare bombing of the Panchevo petrochemical plant (his Ch. 6) and the human impact of NATO’s uses of depleted uranium ammunition in a de facto campaign of low-intensity nuclear warfare (his Ch. 7).
Chossudovsky ruthlessly exposes a number of deeply disturbing – and equally deeply memory-holed – ‘hybrid warfare’ strategies of the West’s war on Yugoslavia, including the West’s deliberate and extensive employment of drug mafias and terror networks, and he shows how the West’s take-down of Yugoslavia was in some ways a ‘test run’, after which they became standard instruments in the globalist cabal’s foreign policy tool kit.
Above all, this review aims to ‘operationalize’ the lessons of Chossudovsky’s book, i.e. to show how they are useful in exposing the main strategies and the overall aims of the West-based globalist cabal in their ‘inverse crusade’ to make the world ‘safe for tyranny’ ever since the end of the Cold War.
The Contemporary Era
If what the West did to Yugoslavia in the ‘90s is taken as a comprehensive ‘test run’ of full-spectrum ‘hybrid warfare’, then what the West is now doing to Russia in the ‘20s may be looked at as the ultimate test of the ‘hybrid warfare’ tools and mechanisms ‘tested’ in Yugoslavia.
It should be noted that this perspective in no way diminishes the sufferings and injustices inflicted upon the people of Yugoslavia: rather, the lessons that can be learnt from the globalist cabal’s successful dismantling and recolonization of Yugoslavia in the ‘90s should be taken to heart by those tasked with preserving the integrity and independence of Russia in the ‘20s – and by all those dedicated to the defence of all authentic forms of state sovereignty and national identity.
Above all, the various means and mechanisms of the globalist cabal’s ‘hybrid warfare’ should be understood as mutually reinforcing, continually improved and carefully selected tools and mechanisms from within a fairly standard ‘tool kit’. Their ultimate aim is nothing less than ‘multi-dimensional’ and ‘full-spectrum’ dominance: not merely the subjugation of nations, groups and individuals and the achievement of political and economic control, but their essential alteration and the utter destruction of their original identities.
The ever more transparently anti-human, trans-human and post-human nature of the globalist hegemon’s policies is explained by the ever more consistent, sophisticated and invasive application of these tools and mechanisms in pursuit of total control.
Currently, the globalist cabal is engaged in a crucial campaign in its quest for world dominance: its ‘Ukraine War’ campaign against Russia aims at taking down its single most important state-sovereign challenger in the international agenda. It cannot afford to lose this campaign and is bound to use its entire ‘multi-dimensional warfare’ arsenal: it is important that those entrusted with the defence of state sovereignty and national identity in the face of the globalist onslaught, now reaching its climax in the West’s war on Russia, a take full cognizance of the precedents and antecedents of the West’s war on Yugoslavia. This applies especially to those operating in the very vanguard of cognitive warfare – above all, the Eurasianist movement.
The lessons to be learnt from the West’s war on Yugoslavia are inevitably shaped by historical and geopolitical settings and well-educated and tradition-informed readers will appreciate the importance of a firm grasp of history and geography as the necessary basis of classical international diplomacy and politics, i.e. the realm of pre-globalist international relations and statecraft. But this appreciation – and this may seem to be a contradiction but is anything but – also constitutes a grave danger in the sense that it may skew the reader’s view, blinding him to the fact that the globalist cabal acts, thinks and feels in direct defiance of history and geography – and of reality itself. It insists upon altering reality, completely and forever: it seeks to rule the world and reshape it, erasing history, overcoming geography and destroying reality.
The more intelligent of the globalist cabal’s puppets and mouthpieces, the Blinkens, the Nulands, the Sunaks, the Macrons, are not blind ignoramuses: they just deliberately chose to ignore history, geography and reality. They are driven by a ‘greater’ vision that is stamped upon them and maintained in the very peculiar ‘cultic bubble’ void in which they ‘live’. Essentially, it is an anti-human, trans-human and post-human vision – a vision that undoubtedly anticipates and prepares the as-yet-unrealized vision of the Antichrist, who long ago deliberately set himself up against the reality of creation. Thus, the tools and mechanisms of the globalist cabal’s arsenals are deliberately applied against history, geography and reality.
The entire package – military aggression (from ‘humanitarian intervention’ to ‘regime change’), economic warfare (from ‘sanction regime’ to ‘market reform’), bio-leninist subversion (from ‘women’s suffrage’ to ‘critical race theory’), psycho-social deconstruction (from ‘MK Ultra’ experiments to ‘transgender’ legislation), biotechnical control (from to ‘morning-after pill’ to ‘vaccination mandate’) – has only one direction and one exit. The anti-globalist East now experiences the ruthless real-world application of these tools and mechanisms to its collective body and mind, but it should know that there is something still worse than being killed and maimed in body and mind. The still-standing East only has to look to the already-fallen West, to look at its zombified masses, and it will know what it means for the soul to be killed and maimed:
fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul
but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell
– Matthew 10:28
Tools and techniques
After showing how the demolition of Yugoslavia was planned by the US-led West as far back as the early ‘80s (tracing such planning back to the Reagan administration’s 1982 National Decision Directive 64), Chossudovsky groups the tools and mechanisms by which this demolition was achieved into two main categories: (1) economic-financial and (2) political-military.
(Ad 1) The West’s economic-financial assault on Yugoslavia involved the ‘opening up’, through a combination of bullying, bribery and blackmail at the highest policy-making levels, of the Yugoslav economy to neo-liberal (‘Reagonomic’/’Thatcherite’) ‘free market’ mechanisms.
The dictates of the high finance-directed ‘international institutions’ (International Monetary Fund, World Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Bank of International Settlement), always imposed with the help of and for the benefit of ‘venture capitalist’ ‘investors’ such as George Soros, resulted in a round of economic ‘shock therapy’ (‘market reforms’, ‘austerity programs’) that destroyed the Yugoslav economy and Yugoslav society as well as – indirectly – the Yugoslav state.
The de-regulation of foreign trade led to grotesque ‘dumping’ practices: markets were flooded with cheaply imported commodities, elbowing out domestic producers. The abolition of protective trade barriers led to the mass insolvency of state- and worker-owned enterprises: these found themselves suddenly and artificially ‘indebted’ and forced into fire-sale liquidation. These state- and worker-owned assets, including real estate, industrial facilities and inventory stocks, were then sold off to foreign ‘vulture fund’ investors at bargain prices: local currency-nominated ‘book values’ were signed off by corrupt bureaucrats and managers who were either bribed or ‘partnered in’. These – largely communist party – apparatchiks were directly complicit in the economic demolition of their own nation’s economy and state.[i] In the course of ‘liberalizing’ foreign investment legislation, state revenue became collateral for foreign debt servicing, which meant that a sovereign economic policy was no longer possible.
At the same time, foreign donor support and international reconstruction loans were made conditional on the implementation of legal and political ‘structural reforms’, allowing foreign powers to effectively impose their legal frames and political ideas on Yugoslavia. Yugoslav federal government control was systematically degraded and thwarted as loan conditions were imposed, credit lines were threatened and budget controls were imposed. Crucially, transfer payments by the federal government funds to Yugoslavia’s constituent republics and autonomous regions were interrupted and federal government tax powers were devolved to these republics and regions: federal government authority was fatally compromised.
At the same time, Yugoslavia’s social fabric started coming apart under sheer economic pressure: plant closure and budget cuts led to mass unemployment, ‘austerity’ imposed wage freezes and ‘privatization’ imposed utility price-rises led to collapsing living standards.
Faced with reform-mandated currency devaluation, shrinking government tax revenue and ballooning foreign currency-denominated external debt the federal government resorted to money printing, leading to skyrocketing inflation. Between 1990 and 1994, Yugoslavia went through five currencies and multiple cycles of hyper-inflation, ending only when the final Yugoslav dinar (Novi Dinar), the YUM, was pegged to the Deutsch Mark, replacing the previous dinar, the YUG at a rate of 1 YUM to 13 million YUG (some months before, the YUG had itself replaced the earlier YUO at a rate of 1 YUG to 1 billion YUO).
Over this time, the destruction of industry, the roll-back of workers’ rights and the dismantling of the welfare state, meant that the mass of people lost their rights and livelihoods: rights and livelihoods that had been carefully built up over decades were erased in the course of a few months. Ordinary people, wage-earners, the unemployed, the sick, and pensioners, were exposed to pre-modern living conditions, often thrown into Dickens-style poverty and squalor. The social fall-out was catastrophic, as evidenced by mass emigration, spiking crime rates, endemic substance abuse and widespread prostitution.
Even today, Yugoslavia’s successor states still struggle to overcome the impact of Yugoslavia’s ‘controlled demolition’: the legacy of mass emigration, the ‘brain-drain’ of young professionals, the exodus from the countryside, the degradation of honest work and dignified retirement, the mafia culture of gangster survivalism and the culture-distorting impact of decades of negative birth-rates are heavy mortgages, weakening the successor states’ social fabric and stunting their socio-cultural development.
As usual, however, history is written by the victors:
Administered in several doses since the 1980s, NATO-backed neo-liberal medicine has helped destroy Yugoslavia. Yet, the global media [and academia] ha[ve] carefully overlooked or denied its central role. Instead, they.. sing.. the praises of the ‘free market’… The social and political impact of economic restructuring in Yugoslavia has been carefully erased from our collective understanding. Opinion-makers instead dogmatically present cultural, ethnic, and religious divisions as the sole cause of war and devastation. …Such false consciousness not only masks the truth, it also prevents us from acknowledging precise historical occurrences. Ultimately, it distorts the true sources of social conflict. When applied to the former Yugoslavia, it obscures the historical foundations of South Slavic unity, solidarity and identity in what constituted a multiethnic society. (p. 43-4) …The eventual ‘reconstruction’ of Yugoslavia formulated in the context of the ‘free market’ reforms and financed by international debt largely purport to create a safe haven for foreign investors rather than to rehabilitate the country’s economic and social infrastructure. The… national economy will be dismantled, [Western] banks will take over financial institutions, local industrial enterprises which have not been totally destroyed will be driven into bankruptcy. The most profitable state assets will be transferred into the hands of foreign capital under the World Bank sponsored privatisation programme. In turn, [this]
‘strong economic medicine’ imposed by external creditors will contribute to further boosting a criminal economy… which feeds on poverty and dislocation. (80-1)
(Ad 2) The West’s initial political-military strategy involved the systematic fostering of secessionist political movements and the undercover organization of armed secessionist militias in the constituent republics and autonomous regions of Yugoslavia, which was a federal state inhabited by a large number of different ethnicities with widely diverging languages, religions and culture. This strategy aimed at undermining Yugoslavia’s relatively young and tenuous state identity, which dated back to the assertion of a common Southern Slav national idea during the weakening and the collapse of the Ottoman and Hapsburg rule throughout the Balkans between the early 19th Century rise of the independent Serbian state and the early 20th Century fall of the Austria-Hungarian state.
Yugoslav state identity was based on the shared history, the common culture and the Serbo-Croatian lingua franca. After Yugoslavia’s liberation struggle during World War II, this state identity was expanded to include a state ideology of moderate ‘market-socialism’ at home and ‘non-alignment’ abroad. As ‘market socialism’ allowed Yugoslav society a balance between the extremes of capitalism’s Darwinist ‘war of all against all’ and communism’s all-levelling ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ domestically, so ‘non-alignment’ allowed the Yugoslav state to balance between the West Bloc and the East Bloc internationally. Thus, Yugoslavia managed to remain truly independent during the Cold War, when almost all of Europe was effectively reduced to vassal status under either the United States or the Soviet Union.
Yugoslavia also gained diplomatic leverage and international prestige as the de facto centre of the Non-Alignment Movement, founded in Belgrade in 1961 at the initiative of President Tito, supported by international heavy-weights such as India’s Nehru, Indonesia’s Sukarno, Egypt’s Nasser and Ghana’s Nkrumah: it effectively led much of the Third World on the ‘third way’ of non-alignment.
As the Cold War drew to a close and as the communist East Bloc started to dissolve, however, Yugoslavia could no longer sustain its ideological and geopolitical balancing act: its sovereignty at home and its status abroad had been a function of the ‘bipolar’ Cold War global balance of power and were no longer sustainable at the start of the ‘unipolar’ era: after the fall of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, Yugoslavia faced the full, unchallenged might of Atlanticist power alone.
The Western purpose was to split Yugoslavia, a medium-size, semi-autarkic state of considerable demographic, economic and military weight, into a patchwork of small-size, import-dependent vassal-states unable to challenge the hegemonic power of Anglosphere-based Atlanticist hegemon. Divide et impera.
Ideally, from an Atlanticist perspective, would be an ex-Yugoslavian space crowded by a maximum number of sub-sovereign successor states, thoroughly alienated from each other and each separately subject to ‘foreign debt rescheduling’ and ‘structural readjustment negotiations’. From a larger historical perspective, the ‘leaders’ of these successor states would be nothing but collaborators with an informal but no less real Atlanticist occupation regime.
As Chossudovsky points out repeatedly, these ‘leaders’ are nothing but vassals in a system of globalist colonial rule imposed on the former Yugoslavia, as proven by the fact that they enthusiastically lined up to join globalist trans-nationalist power structures – EU, NATO – as soon as possible. In those cases where successor states are so grossly artificial that joining these formal structures is problematic, as in Bosnia and Kosovo, openly neo-colonial regimes are imposed, with globalist-written ‘constitutions’, globalist-cloned legal systems and un-elected, non-native UN ‘high representatives’.
The West’s political-military campaign to achieve Yugoslavia’s formal division into successor states, more or less along ethnic and religious lines, began with covert sponsorship of separatist politicians and militias (ranging from intelligence and funding to military training and equipment), it continued with overt propaganda for separatist movements (including ‘atrocity propaganda), it expanded to include diplomatic pressure (newly-united Germany obliged its Atlanticists masters by initiating the ‘diplomatic recognition’ of break-away states) and it finally peaked in direct military intervention (in Bosnia and Kosovo).
Of course, the West’s political-military campaign ran simultaneously with the West’s economic-financial campaign: the latter undermined Yugoslavia’s civilian economy and it destroyed Yugoslavia’s social cohesion to such an extent that its people lost their trust in the old system, the old state and the old leadership, making them susceptible to the Western-sponsored narratives of ‘market reforms’ and ‘national self-determination’.
Even so, the demolition of Yugoslavia was far from easy: the Yugoslav state died hard and it only did so after the application of the full force of Western military might. The greatest challenge to the Western campaign of demolition was Serbian nationalism: in many ways, the first Yugoslav state had been the natural extension and crowning achievement of Serbia’s struggle for independence. After a series of ferocious freedom fights against its old-empire Ottoman and Hapsburg overlords and a series of brutal border wars against its new-nation Italian, Hungarian, Bulgarian and Albanian neighbours, Serbia had effectively created Yugoslavia as the logical expression of its maximal territorial aspirations (the unification of all Serbs and their fellow South Slaves in one state) and its maximal strategic needs (the creation of a land-corridor to allied Greece, broad access to the Adriatic Sea and a territorial buffer around its capital).
The Western demolition of Yugoslavia, however, required more than the mere roll-back of Serbia’s gains: it also required the permanentimpairment of Serbia’s status as a regional power. This means permanently ‘disabling’ and ‘handicapping’ Serbia, which is why it has been reduced to a small land-locked state, why it has been isolated as an island surrounded by a sea of EU-NATO enemies and why it has been made to suffer the amputation of sacred soil in Kosovo – so that it can never recover and stand up again. Aside from the fact that the Serbian state’s tradition of political independence and military prowess was bound to make Serbian revanchism inevitable, the main reason for the West’s implacable animosity towards Serbia was Serbia’s natural alliance with Russia.
Throughout its existence, which overlapped with the late 19th and early 20th Century ‘Great Game’ period and Russia’s expansion towards Tsargrad-Constantinople and the Turkish Straits, the Serbian state had been Russia’s most consistent ally: fellow Slav and fellow Orthodox Russia had been Serbia’s faithful sponsor, ally and protector. It was, in fact, Russia’s commitment to the preservation of Serbian independence in the face of the Hapsburg intervention that triggered the outbreak of World War I. At the level of nationalist sentiment, Serbia’s historically intimate ties to Russia did survive Russia’s switch from devout Orthodoxy to communist atheism: the first Yugoslav state gave shelter to large numbers of White Russian refugees and the second Yugoslav state was founded on the strategic partnership between its founders and the Soviet Union.
After the fall of the Soviet Union and communism, Serbia and Russia are again naturally aligned. This alignment follows from simple geo-political logic: they have a common enemy, viz. the Atlanticist hegemon invading the former Serbian and Russian imperial spaces. But this also follows simple cultural-historical logic: both are crowned with the double-headed eagle of Byzantium and both are called to defend Europe and Christianity against the double-tongued Atlanticist-globalist Empire of Lies:
they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength
they shall mount up with wings as eagles
they shall run, and not be weary
and they shall walk, and not faint
– Isaiah 40:31
Time-lines and fault-lines
This review of Chossudovsky’s book does not need to reconstruct the entire time-line of the prolonged agony of ex-Yugoslavia at the hands of its Atlanticist tormentors. Of course, Chossudovsky’s book focuses on the culminating stage of Yugoslavia’s defeat: the ‘Kosovo War’ of 1999, but he does repeatedly pay attention to its earlier (Slovenian, Croatian, Bosnian) and the later (‘Bulldozer Revolution’, ‘Macedonian Insurgency’) stages.
It is important to note that Chossudovsky does so in terms of ‘parallel viewing’ and ‘pattern recognition’: he clearly shows how it is useful to view the entire process of Yugoslavia’s demolition – spread out over one and half decades if formally defined by the state’s break-up from 25 June 1991 (Slovenian and Croatian independence) to 3 June 2006 (Montenegrin independence) – as one single campaign. Or rather as a coherent ‘rolling operation’ showing consistent strategy patterns:
…Washington’s military-intelligence ploy is… to replicate pattern[s]: …to fracture… territory, foster internal social divisions and fuel ethnic strife. The design is to destroy all social and political ties between [groups], who have coexisted for more than half a century within a multi-ethnic society. These socio-ethnic divisions are deliberately created so as to curb all forms of social resistance [and], more importantly, …to prevent the development of a broader ‘common front’ against the enemy. (p. 139)
One very specific strategy pattern was the re-use of the personnel employed by Atlanticist organizations for the neo-colonial occupation and administration of various parts of Yugoslavia: [NATO] personnel and UN bureaucrats previously stationed in Croatia and Bosnia have been routinely reassigned to Kosovo. (p. 96) Many strategic patterns can be discerned within the domain of ‘information warfare’.
On the one hand, the Western MSM consistently portrayed Atlanticist military aggression as ‘justified’ as a response to refugee crises that were actually deliberately engineered and to atrocity stories that were entirely fabricated. Thus, NATO air strikes against Yugoslav targets were consistently portrayed as ‘humanitarian interventions’ meant to ‘save’ Bosniaks in 1992 and Kosovars in 1999.
On the other hand, the Western MSM consistently ignored the massive refugee crises and very real atrocities caused by Atlanticist-sponsored anti-Yugoslav militias. Thus, the systematic reign of terror unleashed by the KLA (‘Kosovo Liberation Army’, the ethnic Albanian militia set up by Western intelligence services to destabilize south-west Serbia) during the Kosovo crisis was deliberately glossed over. The massacres of civilians in Kosovo [we]re not disconnected acts of revenge by civilians by so-called ‘rogue elements’ within the KLA, as claimed by NATO and the UN. They [we]re part of a consistent and coherent pattern. The intent and result of the KLA sponsored atrocities have been to trigger the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Serbs, Roma and other minorities in Kosovo. (p. 89)
In the reviewer’s opinion, however, the most important strategy pattern distinguished by Chossudovsky is the economic strategy pattern by which Yugoslavia’s successor states were effectively turned into Western colonies, with (‘privatized’) natural resources plundered and (‘debt interest’) tribute extracted to boost the profits of Western ‘venture capital’.
An important part of the Western economic war strategy vis-à-vis Yugoslavia was to let war pay for itself: neo-colonial profits extracted from Western-conquered parts of Yugoslavia were used first to pay for the maintenance of occupation troops, (‘peacekeepers’, ‘security presence’) and then for the build-up of the armed forces of the newly ‘independent’ successor-states, with handsome profits boosting the Western military-industrial complex, including many private military contractors.
Chossudovsky gives a particularly insightful analysis of how Camp Bondsteel (the grande dame in a network of US bases running both sides of the border between Kosovo and Macedonia – p. 106) was funded, making the fortunes of the defence contractors involved, including US Vice President Cheney’s Halliburton company (cf. appendix to his Ch. 5).
In the final analysis, the West managed to make the chunk-by-chunk conquest and occupation of Yugoslavia pay for itself. In passing, Chossudovsky mentions that this very same strategic pattern, virtually ignored by Western historians and journalists, also applies to other – earlier and later – Western wars of aggression: few people realize Vietnam and Iraq were both billed for the West’s war expenses as a condition for the lifting of economic sanctions and the resumption of diplomatic relations.
This review of Chossudovsky’s book does not need to reconstruct all the ethnic, religious and cultural fault-lines that the Western aggressors managed to exploit during their campaign to bring down the Yugoslav state. It is important to note, however, that he sheds light on many frequently overlooked episodes in the long-drawn out Western campaign against Yugoslavia. Thus, he reminds the reader of the true background, the true nature and the true impact of ‘Operation Storm’, i.e. Western-backed Croatian conquest of the internationally unrecognized Serbian break-away proto-state of Kraina in August 1995.
‘Operation Storm’ involved foreign investors (eying newly-discovered coal and oil deposits) guiding Croatian policy making, foreign specialists (including retired US generals and German mercenaries) guiding Croatian military actions and foreign media ignoring massive suffering among the Kraina Serb civilian population (at least 420 killed and up to 180.000 displaced).
Chossudovsky also reminds the reader of the equally overlooked episode of the ‘Macedonian Insurgency’, i.e. the Western-backed terror campaign by the NLA (‘National Liberation Army’, the ethnic Albanian militia set up by Western intelligence services to destabilize Macedonia) between January and November 2001. Similar to the KLA, its equivalent in Kosovo, the NLA was set up by Western intelligence services, funded by Western-facilitated drugs networks, trained by Western military contractors and, once put in action, directly supported by Western armed forces. The NLA’s terror campaign in north-west Macedonia served a similar purpose to the KLA’s terror campaign in south-west Serbia: to create ethnically cleansed base territories for these groups, which are meant to serve as safe zones for criminal activities and Western military bases, to weaken the central government and, last but not least, to generate long-term revenue for the West’s military-industrial complex.
For Western policymakers, the ‘Macedonian Insurgency’ was a far easier operation to pull off than the ‘Kosovo War, because it was aided and abetted by corrupt Macedonian government officials and treacherous Macedonian army officers. The cost in terms of civilian suffering, however, was considerable: at least up to 100 dead and 140.000 displaced, almost all ethnic Macedonians and Bulgarians – this in one of Europe’s smaller countries, inhabited by only 1,8 million people. Once again, the true background, true nature and true impact of this campaign of terror and ethnic cleansing were either entirely ignored or thoroughly distorted in the Western press.
Lest we forget the true depths to which the West’s Empire of Lies has sunken over the last decades, it is only proper that we occasionally remind ourselves of all the injustices and crimes described in Chossudovsky’s book. And of the fact that we should not despair of justice:
the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good
– Proverbs 15:3
Pirates and prostitutes
Over the last four or three decades, under the impact of transnationalist power accumulation covered by liberal-normative ideology, all the formerly sovereign states of the West have undergone a slow but steady – albeit recently ‘reset’-accelerated – process of politicide. The power once vested in these states, and by extension the political power once held by the nations represented by their governments, has been almost entirely erased, to be replaced by a faceless ‘globalist’ power, increasingly overtly totalitarian in character as the ‘reset’ progresses.
The power of the globalist regime ruling the West is financial and economic in nature, it is embodied in international banks and multi-national cooperations, and its interests are served by trans-national institutions, ranging from truly global organizations such as the UN, the IMF and the World Bank to large regional organizations such as the NATO, the EU and the ECB. Under this transnational level, the globalist regime’s political agenda is entirely negative: it aims at preventing, thwarting and undermining all forms of political action that would threaten the maximal exploitation of natural and human resources.
Any exercise of political power that threatens the interests of globalist high finance and globalist big business – effectively the unrestrained and borderless rule of bankster usury and capitalist exploitation – is anathema to the globalist regime: any sovereign state threatening open borders, any religious institution threatening social atomization and any traditional family-structure incompatible with narcissist consumerism is will inevitably find itself the target of globalist demolition.
Under the trans-national level of globalist control, the true aim of the globalist regime is the creation and maintenance of an anarcho-tyrannical anti-order: a permanent ‘free for all’ economic ‘jungle war’ of ‘all-against-all’, creating a ‘market-society’ in which literally everything is for sale, including people and ideas. To put it bluntly: the ideal globalist ‘state’ – referring to the psycho-dynamic ‘state’ of a people rather than a government – would only have gangsters and prostitutes as its inhabitants, with minor variants within the first category (pirates, pimps) as well as the last (pop-stars, porn-stars). Ideally, such a ‘pirate republic’ would be ‘charismatically’ led by the 21st Century equivalent of the 20th Century ‘five family’-style mafia council: a WEF/Davos-style Chief Executive Officer/Public Relation Manager congregation of compradors-in-chief.
In such an ideal ‘state’, which may be provisionally termed the Gangster-Prostitute State (GPS) – of course, Made in USA – any deviation would be considered an anachronism and an obstacle: it would not leave any space for non-materialist vocations and non-hedonistic ideas. In the GPS, there would be no place for martial heroism, knightly honour, priestly piety, monastic celibacy, philosophical contemplation, scholarly wisdom, paternal responsibility, maternal love, marital fidelity or pre-marital chastity. There would be no love of any object except the ‘self’, baby boomer-style inflated into the narcissist stratosphere: no love for nation, tribe, family, spouse – least of all God. To the extent that any such anachronistic notions would still marginally exist, the GPS would be bound to erase them from the public sphere for the sake of the undisturbed ‘bubble life’ of the masses: it would be bound to impose an all-levelling weight of hyper-egalitarian legislation, to instil an anti-meritocratic ethos and to create an all-smothering blanket of perversion-propaganda.
Throughout the Western world, huge strides towards the GPS utopia have already been made on each of these three fronts: tradition-killing matriarchy and xenocracy (the rule of post-gender ‘women’ and post-racial ‘immigrants’), ethos-killing plutocracy and idiocracy (the rule of the corruption-only ‘rich’ and the paper-only ‘higher educated’) and civilization-killing kakocracy and pornocracy (the rule of the lowest and dirtiest) are already facts of life. Throughout the Western world, however, there remains a significant residue of ‘legacy institutions’ (be it monarchic, parliamentary, ecclesiastic, academic, artisanal, entrepreneurial, literary or artistic in nature), delaying the full flowering of the GPS.
Of course, the early ‘20s’ Great Reset has greatly accelerated the take-down of these institutions: ‘Covid’ lockdowns undermined the economically independent small business sector and the cognitively conservative middle class, ‘BLM’ activism undermined public safety and the rule of law, the ‘Biden’ coup undermined representative government and freedom of speech and the ‘Ukraine’ campaign undermined the economic system and global security – but the West has yet to achieve full-blown GPS utopia.
For a sneak preview of GPS utopia in action, it is necessary to look East, to ex-Yugoslavia, where a ‘model GPS’ of sorts has already been created in Kosovo, a.k.a. the ‘black hole of Europe’. In some ways, Kosovo may be considered the geopolitical equivalent of an anti-gravity experiment: within this ‘black hole’ the rules of geopolitics are suspended. The founding of the entirely artificial statelet of Kosovo constitutes the crowning achievement in terms of globalist ‘state building’: it embodies the highest achievemeny of what the globalist ‘rules-based order’ may achieve if left unopposed.
Chossudovsky analyses the genesis of the Kosovo ‘state’ in great detail, describing it as a mafia-run pirate-state ‘safe haven’ for globalism’s many grey and black channels, created as a de facto safe zone for drugs traders, arms dealers, organ traders, people smugglers, money-launderers and terror-funders, and as a ‘safe house’ for compromised, redundant or retired ‘assets’.
It is an arrangement that equally benefits the local mafia underlings, who are promoted to ‘legit’ status and gain legal immunity in charge of their own ‘state’, and their globalist overlords, who can ‘skim’ Kosovo for resource profits and showcase Kosovo as a model achievement of ‘international governance’.
Western big business was able to buy up Kosovo’s mines (copper, zinc, gold, silver, coal) and industry (metal smelting plants, power plants, battery plants) at fire sale prices, Western high finance was able to take-over Kosovo’s currency (imposing the Deutsch Mark and then the Euro) and banks (taking over expropriated and excluded Yugoslav banks) and Western NGOs were able to sign lucrative ‘assistance’ and ‘training’ contracts (as in George Soros’ Open Society branch office in Pristina in support of ‘governance development’.
The vital link between the Kosovo mafia ‘government’ and its globalist overlords is found in the narcotics trade, which started with the KLA being funded from the highly lucrative Balkans narcotics route, linking corrupt Turkish officials to the East with Albanian emigrants to the West:
…the KLA is sustained by organised crime with the tacit approval of the US and its allies. Following the pattern set during the war in Bosnia, public opinion has been carefully misled. The multibillion dollar Balkans narcotics trade has played a crucial role in ‘financing the conflict’ in Kosovo in accordance with Western economic, strategic and military objectives. (p. 48) …Western intelligence agencies have developed a complex relationship to the illegal narcotics trade. In case after case, drug money laundered in the international banking system has financed covert operations. …The pattern in Kosovo is similar to other CIA covert operations in Central America, Haiti and Afghanistan, where ‘freedom fighters’ were financed through the laundering of drug money. (p. 50) …The extensive links of the Kosovo Liberation Army to organized crime and the Balkans narcotics trade were not seen by the ‘international community’ as an obstacle to the installation of ‘democracy’ and ‘good governance’. (p. 41)
The narcotics trade, however, was not the only ‘cash cow’ that was milked to raise the KLA: since the early ‘90s, with the international embargo on Yugoslavia and the Greek blockade of Macedonia, a triangular narcotics-oil-arms trade network had developed in the Balkans, expanded to Western Europe through the increasing corporation between Albanian and Italian crime syndicates in arms smuggling and prostitution racketeering. Soon, not only simple light arms but sophisticated anti-aircraft, anti-armour and electronic surveillance systems (the latter connected to NATO satellites) found their way to the KLA. At the same time, the KLA was provided with professional and motivated cadres through the enlistment of mujahideen fighters, often trained by Al-Qaeda affiliates in secret camps in Afghanistan and Bosnia. All this took place with the full knowledge of, and indeed at the instigation of, Western intelligence services.
The build-up of the KLA, its funding, equipment, intelligence and training were all instigated, funded and facilitated by the West and the same applies to the KLA’s terror campaign: in fact, Chossudovsky states that
“[t]he KLA killings [of civilians] were ordered by NATO. Blamed on Serbian police and armed forces, th[ey] were used as a pretext and justification to wage a ‘humanitarian war’ on Yugoslavia. The ties of the KLA to organized crime were actively fostered by the US and NATO. The result was the formation of what is best described as a ‘mafia state’. (p. 45)
In the aftermath of the NATO air war, the Western occupation powers aided and abetted the KLA’s subsequent reign of terror, protecting KLA commanders responsible for crimes committed against the Serbian, Roma, Gorani and Turkish minorities, under the pretext of suspected collaboration with the Yugoslav authorities but often just as a simple settling of personal scores. Those Western-created organizations that were specifically supposed to uphold law and order, the peace-keeping ‘Kosovo Force’ (KFOR) and the ‘International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia’ (ICTY) above all, consistently turned a blind eye to the systematic campaign of confiscation, looting, arson, abduction, rape and murder by the KLA, with the Western MSM either ignoring or white-washing these atrocities as ‘regrettable but justifiable acts of vengeance’.
Thus, through their direct involvement in NATO’s military action (in a particularly cowardly form, viz. a push-button air war), their indirect involvement in the KLA’s terror campaign and their deliberate inaction in the face of the KLA’s subsequent lawlessness, “Western governments… bear a heavy burden of responsibility in the deaths of civilians, the impoverishment of both the ethnic Albanian and Serbian populations and the plight of those who were brutally uprooted from towns and villages in Kosovo as a result of the bombings.” (p. 56) Thus, the geopolitical void in which the ‘Kosovo’ CPS took shape was created by the West: Chossudovsky’s analyses leave no room for ‘plausible deniability’ cover stories.
After the Kosovo War and the KLA take-over, Chossudovsky describes how Kosovo became a true ‘narco-democracy under NATO protection’ (Chossudovsky, 79):
[n]arcodollars from the multibillion dollar Balkans drug trade [were] recycled towards servicing the external debt as well as ‘financing’ the costs of ‘reconstruction’. The lucrative flow of narcodollars thus ensures that foreign investors involved in the ‘reconstruction’ programme will be able to reap substantial returns. In turn, the existence of a Kosovar ‘narco-state’ ensures the orderly reimbursement of international donors and creditors, [who] are prepared to turn a blind eye [because t]hey have a tacit vested interest in installing [and maintaining] a government which facilitates the laundering of drug money. (p. 99)
Following Chossudovsky’s analysis, Kosovo truly represents a GPS utopia: there, the West has truly created an ‘anti-state’:
While calling for democracy and ‘good governance’ in the Balkans, the US and its allies have installed in Kosovo a paramilitary government with links to organized crime. The… outcome [has been] the outright ‘criminalization’ of civilian state institutions and the establishment of what can be best described as a ‘mafia state’. The complicity of NATO and the alliance governments, namely their relentless support of the KLA, points to the de facto ‘criminalisation’ of KFOR and of the UN peacekeeping apparatus in Kosovo. The donor agencies and governments providing financial support to the KLA, e.g. the funds approved by the US Congress in violation of several UN Security Council resolutions, are in this regard also ‘accessories’ to the de facto criminalisation of state institutions. (p. 96) …Under NATO occupation, the rule of law has visibly been turned upside down. Criminals and terrorists [have] become law enforcement officers. (p. 87)
With the KLA pirate regime in place, the “prostitution” of Kosovo began. Its resources, its industry and its infrastructure were ‘pimped out’ – sold to the lowest foreign bidder. Its Serbian, Roma and Gorani minority communities were ‘shunned’ – demoted to dispossession, displacement and discrimination. Its old and sick, its village folk and its working people were left ‘to fend for themselves’ – exposed to the elements (container ‘housing’, electricity ‘black-outs’), to disease (depleted uranium poisoning, land-mine injury) and to grinding poverty (record unemployment, sky-rocketing prices). Most of the middle-aged population, previously raised, educated and shielded by Yugoslavia’s semi-socialist system, was suddenly thrown into a free-for-all cauldron of b/gangster-style capitalism, mostly suffering utter ruination. Youngsters, to the extent that they did not join, or liaise with, the gangsters and mobsters ruling the streets and the ‘state’, were left waiting on the gangster, doing expat laundry or otherwise ‘servicing’ the NATO-UN-NGO (more specifically: KFOR-UNMIK-OSCE) crowd. To this crowd, the lands, riches and people of Kosovo are nothing but ‘spoils of war’. This is what Kosovo, the ancient cradle of the Serbian state and a model of peaceful multi-ethnic coexistence in the Yugoslav state, was reduced to under Western occupation – a Gangster Prostitute State:
How is the faithful city become a harlot! It was full of judgment, righteousness lodged in it, but now murderers. Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water. Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards. They judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them. Therefore saith the Lord, the Lord of Hosts, the Mighty One of Israel: Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies – Isaiah 1:21-4
Echoes and omens
Undoubtedly, the most powerful message of Chossudovsky’s book is the importance of pattern recognition: readers are bound to be struck by its pin-point accuracy in recognizing certain strategic warfare patterns that recur throughout the West’s campaign against Yugoslavia.
The historical patterns discerned by Chossudovsky in the Atlanticist take-down of Yugoslavia in the ‘90s may be said to constitute direct precursors to the fully-integrated strategy of fully-fledged multi-dimensional warfare waged by the Atlanticist West against the Eurasianist East in the ‘20s.[ii] It takes but a small step to project Chossudovsky’s pattern recognition forward, to the West’s current multi-dimensional ‘Ukraine’ campaign against Russia. As another reviewer of Chossudovsky’s book succinctly put it:
time has confirmed [Chossudovsky’s] fear of the [Western] intervention [in Yugoslavia] being used to set a pattern, establish a principle to be used later on whenever convenient for the US. There have, in fact, ensued preventive and even preemptive wars, so-called ‘humanitarian bombings’ or colored revolutions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, Venezuela, Belarus. …[Chossudovsky] examines the consequences of such approach, and matters that the protagonists do not wish to discuss at all. Underlying the grand ideals of defending the human rights and freedoms of endangered people, are cruel operations which use depleted uranium-filled missiles, ecocides, and pacts with drug cartels or colorful radicals and fundamentalists. …[Chossudovsky’s] monograph, therefore, is more than a testimony in the search of truth, it is also a sort of warning. When the facts are ignored, there remains propaganda whose purpose is to conceal the truth, all that in order to enable various interest groups, be those official or behind the scenes, state, para-state or non-governmental ones, to achieve their goals even if they had, in the process, to violate international law, commit ecocides and war crimes, or cooperate with mobsters and terrorists. (Dushan Prorokovicj apud Chossudovsky, p. 162-3)
Following up on this important point of the West’s ‘information warfare’ – in other words: its war on the truth – it can be argued that the greatest value of Chossudovsky’s book is found in its break-out from the Western MSM ‘narrative bubble’. In the final analysis, the statement of truth about the Western campaign against Yugoslavia will be quite an important nail into the coffin of the Western Empire of Lies: the Yugoslav campaign was an important stepping-stone in the Western MSM’s achievement of ‘disinformation supremacy’ – it was its first systematic application of ‘inverse journalism’. For the first time, Western MSM’s blanket censorship of truthful reporting was systematically combined with deliberate and sustained disinformation: for over a decade, it managed to maintain a constant ‘firehose of falsehood’ on the topic of Yugoslavia, imposing a narrative of falsehood befitting the Western elite’s shift into fully-fledged ‘post-truth politics’.
One of the mechanisms by which the poison of the fork-tongued Western Lügenpresse worked its way into the Western collective psyche was the emotive and seductive use of ‘soothing’ and ‘therapeutic’ language, carefully calibrated to appeal to its key audience: the effeminate and reality-averse Western consumer masses. This sickening jargon, mixing ‘motivational’ management talk with ‘femo-feely’ psycho-babble, was designed to systematically prevent critical thoughts, sabotage realpolitik assessments and deceive gullible (‘midwit’, gutmensch) tv-audiences.
In a mind-bending exercise of truly Orwellian proportions, ‘peace-keeping’ came to mean warfare, ‘good governance’ came to mean mafia rule, ‘confidence building’ came to mean word-breaking and ‘inter-ethnic reconciliation’ came to mean legal discrimination. The Western MSM, supported by well-paid academics and purged of honest journalists, deliberately engineered a ‘consensus’ that was so far removed from the truth that it may perhaps best be described as a ‘reality distortion field’.
This war [wa]s also a war against the truth. …NATO has reinforced its clutch over the mass media. [Alongside] a stylized ‘wag the dog’ media masquerade, a full-fledged ‘cover-up operation’ has been set in motion with a view to thwarting public debate on the war. …[A]nti-war commentators have been carefully removed from mainstream public affairs programmes, TV content is closely scrutinised… [and] journalists are under tight supervision.…Public ‘disapproval’ of NATO bombings is immediately dismissed as ‘Serb propaganda’. Those who speak out against NATO are branded as ‘apologists of Milosevic’. …The hidden agenda is to ‘silence the silent majority’. The Western media heeding to the alliance’s demands has blatantly misled public opinion. (p. 61-3)
By and large, the Western MSM’s ‘information war’ during the Yugoslav campaign achieved its purpose. Undoubtedly, its most drastic cognitive effect was the utter erasure of the last remnants of geopolitical realism in the Western public sphere.
Drowned in the barrage of media images and self-serving analyses, the broader strategic interests and economic causes of the war go unmentioned. The [West’s strategic goals] largely consisted in ‘installing a Western-style regime in Yugoslavia and reducing the geographic areas, power and influence of Serbia to a minimum’. In this context, the installation of American power in southern Europe and the Mediterranean also constitutes a step towards the extension of Washington’s geopolitical sphere of influence beyond the Balkans into the area of the Caspian Sea, Central Asia and West Asia.
In this regard, NATO’s military intervention in Yugoslavia, in violation of international law, also sets a dangerous precedent. To achieve its strategic objectives, national economies are destabilized, regional conflicts are financed through the provision of covert support to armed insurgencies… The conflict in Yugoslavia creates conditions which provide legitimacy to future interventions of the alliance into the internal affairs of sovereign nations. (p. 59)
At the time that this review is written, Chossudovsky’s warning, that the West’s successful demolition of Yugoslavia would create a dangerous precedent in international relations, has been proven most accurate. The West’s ‘getting away’ with the demolition of Yugoslavia has merely whetted its appetite: it has since set its sights on much larger quarry.
In fact, at the time of writing, the West’s multi-dimensional warfare arsenal is fully engaged in an all-out assault on the ultimate geopolitical prize: Russia. In hindsight, the Western campaign to divide and colonize the ex-Yugoslavia in the ‘90s was just a small-scale test run for the division and colonization of the ex-Soviet Union in the ‘20s. Much is at stake now: now in ex-Soviet space, as then in the ex-Yugoslav space:
[i]n the name of global capital, borders [are being] redrawn, legal codes rewritten, industries destroyed, financial and banking systems [are being] dismantled, social programs eliminated. …At stake… are the lives of millions of people. [Globalist] macroeconomic reform combined with military conquest… [is] destroy[ing] livelihoods and [is making] a joke of the right to work. It put[s] basic needs such as food and shelter beyond the reach of many. It [is] degrading culture and national identity. (p. 44)
Now, all the tools and techniques applied in the ex-Yugoslav space of the ‘90s are applied to the ex-Soviet space of the ‘20s, of course with slightly updated technology and on a hugely amplified scale. The same proxy strategy, now with Ukrainian instead of the Kosovar freedom fighter cannon fodder and ‘Azov’ instead of ‘mujahideen’ foreign volunteers. The same undeclared ground war, with the same ‘plausible deniability’ employment of the same ‘advisors’, ‘trainers’ and ‘special forces’. The same atrocity propaganda, now with a ‘Bucha Massacre’ instead of a ‘Ratchak Massacre’. The same ‘international outrage’, now with (cheaper) blue-yellow social media posts instead of Bosnia fundraising dinners. The same ‘international justice’ agenda, now indicting the Russian president instead of the Yugoslav president. The same nauseating self-righteousness, now starring ‘Biden’ and Johnson instead of Clinton and Blair.
But there is a difference: the sheer staleness of the West’s utterly worn-out slogans and the obvious futility of the West’s utterly predictable motions indicate that, after a long string of victories from Yugoslavia to Libya, the West has finally – and fatally – overreached itself. All indications are that it has fallen into the same age-old trap of triumphalist hubris and imperial overreach that finally brought down such once-invincible empires as Napoleon’s and Hitler’s.
The West’s take-down of Yugoslav was possible in the limited regional setting of the Balkans, pitting the then substantial industrial and military resources of the combined West against a vastly outmatched enemy that lacked strategic depth and major power allies. None of these conditions apply now.
Against Russia, the West operates in unlimited space on a global stage, possessing the world’s ultimate strategic depth in the Heartland of the World Island, and it is backed up by an ever-lengthening list of allies, including China, the world’s greatest industrial power.
The West, on the other hand, has ‘outsourced’ its industry, ‘wokefied’ its military and ‘diversified’ its populace. The latter factor, ‘diluting’ the nations of the First World by decades of ‘immigration’ from the Third World, has fatally compromised the internal cohesion and core identity of the West: it is now but a shadow of its former self.
This ex-West is rapidly decomposing in plain sight, transforming into a scary-looking but substance-less vampire, unable to substantially handle anything approaching a substantial ‘reality check’. Those that have to fight the ‘zombified’ ex-West would do well to remember that the ex-West has already largely abandoned actual reality: its people have largely retreated into virtual reality.
The ex-West now bears all the classic hallmarks of the vampire, leading a ghostly existence of ‘virtualized’ experience, shunning the day-light of truth, leaching off the lifeblood of others and preying on the naive and vulnerable. That means, first of all, that the ex-West needs to be exorcized as much as it needs to be fought. For this to be accomplished, the ex-West’s now in-human nature and its now anti-human trajectory need to be properly understood. It needs to be understood that to collectively and consistently indulge in trans-human experiments – infanticidal ‘birth control’, black magic ‘transgenderism’, mRNA ‘gene-therapy’, AI technology ‘second life’ – is to abandon human rationality. It needs to be understood that to collectively and consistently indulge in sub-human experiences – eco-system destroying ‘conspicuous consumption’ gluttony, family-destroying ‘sexual revolution’ lust, society-destroying ‘Wolf of Wallstreet’ greed, world-destroying ‘rules-based order’ pride – is to abandon the human heart. Such things trigger a permanent severance from humanity.
After the ex-West severed itself from the Creator, it was just a matter of time before it severed itself from creation, first from the natural world and then from the human world – and, ultimately, from reality itself. Caught in a downward spiral of evil and madness, the West has now conclusively severed itself from the rest. De facto, the West is now at war with the rest. The rest must allow this harsh reality to sink in: reality must be accepted before it can be handled. The rest must choose – whether or not to follow the West on its chosen path. The echoes of the past and the omens of the present point to the end of that path – the path of
Severance:
the birds of leaving call to us
yet here we stand
endowed with the fear of flight
overland
the winds of change consume the land
while we remain
in the shadow of summers now past
indifference
the plague that moves throughout this land
omen signs
in the shapes of things to come
– Dead Can Dance, ‘Severance’
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This article was originally published on Geopolitica.RU.
Notes
[ii] The Communist Party bureaucracy, most notably its military and intelligence sector, was… specifically… offered political and economic backing on the condition that wholesale scuttling of social protection for Yugoslavia’s workforce was imposed. (Ralph Schumann, ‘Divide and Rule Schemes in the Balkans’, The Organizer, 11 September 1995, apud Chossudovsky, The US-NATO War, 30)
[iii] For an up-to-date assessment of Atlanticist multi-dimensional warfare strategy, cf. Leonid Savin, Ordo Pluriversalis. The End of Pax America and the Rise of Multipolarity (Black House: London, 2020). For an in-depth review of Savin’s book, cf. Alexander Wolfheze, ‘Anima Mundi’, Geopolitica.ru 1 April 2022.
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July 23, 2023 – 54 year old Former Premier League goalkeeper Shaka Hislop dropped in the middle of a live broadcast in California. He began wobbling before falling forward into his ESPN broadcast partner, Dan Thomas.
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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
Sometimes reality surpasses fiction. In a way, this is the case with the Cuban revolution. Seventy years ago, a few dozen young rebels stormed a barracks. Even though the attack failed completely, it was the beginning of a revolutionary process with far-reaching consequences not only in Cuba, but also far beyond.
The damage Israel is causing to its support base in the United States is becoming more apparent. A very bright warning flare went up this weekend, appearing once again in the New York Times. This time, it was columnist Nicholas Kristof who took a much bolder and far less speculative step than his colleague, Tom Friedman did last week by suggesting that the very heart of AIPAC’s mission—annual military aid to Israel—should be phased out.
The ground-breaking movie Oppenheimer, despite its unsympathetic protagonist, packs a powerful anti-nuclear punch that makes it hard, if not impossible, to sleep after watching the film. For this reason alone, the movie should be shown on the floor of Congress and in the White House as required viewing by all in DC bent on spending $1.7 trillion over the next decades to build new nuclear weapons to kill us all.
The Senate version of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which provides funding for the Department of Defense military activities, military construction and the Department of Energy nuclear programs was adopted on July 20th and now needs to be reconciled with the House version.
New developments make it imperative to refocus attention on the predicament of Metropolitan Pavel, a distinguished ecclesiastical figure in Ukraine, a prince, so to speak, of that country’s Orthodox Church and abbot of its most important religious sanctuary, the Kiev Caves Monastery.
Intentional use of the faulty PCR test, intentional false reporting of Covid deaths as a result of World Health Organization guidelines and financial incentives to hospitals to report all deaths as Covid deaths, and prohibited treatment by known cures together produced a high level of fear that drove the masses to accept the Covid “vaccination” that generated huge monetary gains for Big Pharma and associated shills such as Anthony Fauci and massive inroads on civil liberty by governments.
Earlier this month, the 2022 Nobel Physics Laureate Dr. John Clauser slammed the ‘climate emergency’ narrative as a “dangerous corruption of science that threatens the world’s economy and the well-being of billions of people”. Inevitably, the punishments have begun. A talk that Dr. Clauser was due to give to the International Monetary Fund on climate models has been abruptly cancelled, and the page announcing the event removed from the IMF site.
The Fukushima disaster of March 2011 resulted in 16,000 deaths, causing some 165,000 people to flee their homes in the Fukushima area. Both the Japanese and Western media have downplayed the impacts of nuclear radiation which has spread to vast areas in Northern Japan, not to mention the contamination of the food chain.
Due to the CARES act, medicare paid hospitals a 20% “add-on” to the regular payment for COVID-19 patients. Remember that the people who became sick from COVID were generally the elderly and on medicare. Ergo: the incentive to put people on ventilators. There was a financial incentive to put people on ventilators and yet ventilators contributed to many of the COVID-19 deaths.
One might think that since Honest Joe Biden declared his latest war entitled the US National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism in May the media has certainly taken up the task of exposing evil in these United States by reporting every affront to Jewish groups or individuals and to the Jewish state, Israel.
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***
At one time or another, most of us have been subjected to a cornucopia of television commercials, colorful doctor’s office brochures, and physicians “advice” all making grandiose claims about the benefits of the latest-and-greatest pharmaceutical “blockbuster” pills and potions. The TV endorsements trail off with the all-too-familiar auctioneer’s rapid-fire warnings of possible adverse reactions, and the print ads sneak in a few lines of microscopic text alerting us to the panoply of potential “side effects.”
While the monolithic pharmaceutical marketing machine is an acknowledged, impossible-to-ignore presence, the mechanisms that bring to life these well-orchestrated promotional productions are not always understood.
So, to gain a full appreciation of Big Pharma’s maneuverings and machinations—all of which develop into the industry’s “finished products” presented to the public—we will take a close-up look at the ignominious path one prominent drug traveled to “get to market.”
Neurontin, the trade name for Gabapentin, is a popular drug used for the treatment of seizure disorders or to relieve nerve pain. Developed by Parke-Davis, a unit of Warner-Lambert (which Pfizer acquired in 2000), Neurontin was patented in 1977 and approved for use in 1993.
Although it was approved for use in patients with epilepsy, by 2001 “over 80% of its $1.8 billion in sales were for indications unapproved by the FDA.”
How is it possible that the primary purpose for this drug had come to represent only a fraction of its actual usage, whereas unapproved—and presumably illegal—applications had grown to represent the majority of its use? Let us find out.
To tell the story of the illicit practices associated with Neurontin, we must start with the numerous deceptive marketing tactics that are part and parcel of the pharmaceutical industry—an industry that holds the distinction of being the biggest defrauder of the federal government.
This method of marketing Neurontin “helped propel its sales to nearly $3 billion a year before it lost patent protection in 2004.” While off-label prescribing of a drug is allowed; off-label marketing of that same drug is not.
The case of Neurontin came to light when whistleblower David Franklin became concerned that he “was participating in illegal marketing.” On April 16, 1996, at a seminar for “medical liaisons,” Franklin was told that the FDA strictly prohibited the promotion of any drug for off-label uses.
One week later, a Parke–Davis executive reportedly told Franklin:
I want you out there every day selling Neurontin. . . . We all know Neurontin’s not growing for adjunctive therapy, besides that’s not where the money is. Pain management, now that’s money. Monotherapy [for epilepsy], that’s money. . . . We can’t wait for [physicians] to ask, we need [to] get out there and tell them up front. Dinner programs, CME programs, consultantships all work great but don’t forget the one-on-one. That’s where we need to be, holding their hand and whispering in their ear, Neurontin for pain, Neurontin for monotherapy, Neurontin for bipolar, Neurontin for everything. I don’t want to see a single patient coming off Neurontin before they’ve been up to at least 4800 mg/day. I don’t want to hear that safety crap either, have you tried Neurontin, every one of you should take one just to see there is nothing, it’s a great drug.
Three months later, Franklin would leave Parke–Davis and file a lawsuit, United States of America ex rel. David Franklin vs. Pfizer, Inc., and Parke-Davis Division of Warner-Lambert Company, against his former employer, alleging it “engaged in a fraudulent scheme to promote the sale of the drug Neurontin for ‘off-label’ uses.”
The case would be settled in May 2004, when Pfizer unit Warner-Lambert admitted it had “aggressively marketed the epilepsy drug by illicit means for unrelated conditions including bipolar disorder, pain, migraine headaches, and drug and alcohol withdrawal.”
The $430 million settlement was one of the largest False Claims Act recoveries against a pharmaceutical company in U.S. history. The lawsuit also became a landmark case for revealing how publication bias distorts randomized controlled studies conducted by pharmaceutical companies.
Of the many things this case put on full display, perhaps none were more important than the detailed revelations of the “marketing plan” for Neurontin—a plan that, we would discover, utilized every manipulation in the Big Pharma playbook.
A short list of the dirty tricks implemented includes:
promoting Neurontin use among high prescribing physicians;
cultivating thought leaders, recruiting and training local physicians and paying them to serve as speakers in “peer-to-peer selling” programs;
soliciting academic leaders with educational grants, research grants, and speaking opportunities, and paying some of them up to $158,250 over a four-year period;
establishing teleconferences moderated by physicians who were paid as much as $176,100 over a four-year period;
forming speakers bureaus with “strong Neurontin advocates and users to speak locally for Neurontin”;
making “unrestricted educational grants” available to for-profit medical-education companies that produced programs to discuss unapproved uses of Neurontin;
designing a “publication strategy” to increase the use of Neurontin for neuropathic pain and bipolar disorder, both off-label indications with great revenue potential.
Amidst the array of vulpine schemes used to promote Neurontin, perhaps none was quite as insidious as the little-known Pharma ploy of “seeding trials.”
Seeding trials, often designed by marketing departments, “are clinical trials, deceptively portrayed as patient studies, which are used to promote drugs recently approved or under review by the [FDA] by encouraging prescribers to use these medications under the guise of participating as an investigator in a clinical trial.”
In the case of Neurontin, a large seeding trial was conducted, with 772 physicians enlisted as “investigators” for a study ostensibly aimed at determining the efficacy of Neurontin. Precisely 2,759 patients were enrolled in the study. Of them, 11 patients died and 73 others experienced serious adverse events.
These aggressive and dubious marketing tactics would pay dividends:
In 2003, Neurontin accounted for $2.3 billion of Pfizer’s sales and was one of the company’s top-selling drugs. Pfizer said in court papers that more than 78 percent of Neurontin prescriptions in 2000 were written for unapproved uses. [Emphasis added.]
Even after Pfizer pled guilty to charges of falsely marketing Neurontin and defrauding the federal government—and even after fines related to Neurontin escalated to $945 million—the popularity of Neurontin continued, mostly, sad to say, for off-label uses.
In 2020, Neurontin was the 10th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 49 million prescriptions.
Similar marketing tricks and underhanded tactics by other companies have been well documented over the years. A skeptic would be right in calling this “business as usual” for the pharmaceutical industry, as evidenced by:
the $1.4 billion settlement and criminal fines paid by Eli Lilly for illegally marketing Zyprexa in 2009;
the $2.3 billion paid by Pfizer in 2009 for illegally marketing 13 different drugs, including Lyrica, Geodon, and Bextra;
the $3 billion paid by GlaxoSmithKline in 2010 for illegally marketing Paxil, Wellbutrin, and Avandia;
the $2.2 billion paid by Johnson & Johnson for illegally marketing Risperdal in 2013.
Indeed, the significance of the Neurontin case lies not in its singularity but in the graphic images portrayed in the 8,000 pages of corporate documentation that are now in the public record. That documentation is illustrative of the measures pharmaceutical companies take to get their products to market.
The story of Neurontin demonstrates in graphic detail how Big Pharma, with no compunction, will unleash a plethora of unscrupulous tactics in order to get a product to market, and how, once that product hits the market, the industry throws all ethical standards out the window in service to the lords of profit.
Once we understand how the magician does a trick, we are immune to his sorcery. We are no longer spellbound. Similarly, now that we’ve seen a snapshot of the Neurontin saga, we can no longer be fooled by the dark arts of Big Pharma’s marketing machine.
This machine has no interest in creating a cure for disease. Its only desire is to create a customer for life.
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***
The damage Israel is causing to its support base in the United States is becoming more apparent. A very bright warning flare went up this weekend, appearing once again in the New York Times. This time, it was columnist Nicholas Kristof who took a much bolder and far less speculative step than his colleague, Tom Friedman did last week by suggesting that the very heart of AIPAC’s mission—annual military aid to Israel—should be phased out.
Friedman, you might recall, floated the idea that a “reassessment” of the United States’ relationship with Israel might be on the horizon, if not already starting. As I noted, that was meant as a warning to Israel, not a reflection of any actual steps by Joe Biden’s White House to launch a policy process of reassessment. Indeed, as subsequent events confirmed, and as was indicated by the fact that Friedman cited no sources, even anonymous ones, this was the columnist trying to use his column to get Israel to back off because political winds are shifting. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not heed the warning, instead moving forward uncompromisingly on his domestic agenda and misleading the media about his conversation with Biden. Needless to say, that didn’t sit well in Washington.
A Liberal Zionist Argument for Ending Military Aid to Israel
Kristof launched his next volley on Saturday, the Sabbath. That was likely not a coincidence, as it meant that many religious Jews in the U.S. would not see it for a while and Israel would be slower to respond than usual, much like when the U.S. government releases controversial statements late on Friday afternoon.
Kristof’s column strikes at the very heart of the lobbying might of pro-Israel forces, and uses noted liberal Zionists to do it. Former Ambassadors to Israel Dan Kurtzer and Martin Indyk, former diplomat Aaron David Miller, and J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami all chime in on why they think it would be a good idea to stop sending billions of dollars in military aid to Israel every year.
These voices, all appearing in the New York Times under the byline of one of the United States’ most prominent columnists calling for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel is no small thing, although it’s tempered a bit. Kristof is quick to note, “…the reason to have this conversation is that American aid to another rich country squanders scarce resources and creates an unhealthy relationship damaging to both sides.” In other words, it’s not that we don’t still love you, Israel, it’s just that we think you’ve grown up and don’t need the money anymore.
But that is absurd on its face. There’s nothing about this moment that is any different for Israel economically than it’s been for at least the past thirty years. Israel’s economy has been capable of paying for its own military for a very long time.
Kristof also claims that the money sent to Israel each year could instead be used to aid countries in much more dire need. That’s true, but doing so would hardly necessitate cutting aid to Israel. The annual $3.8 billion that Israel gets is a drop in the ocean of annual U.S. spending, which totaled $6 trillion in 2022, and that was a significant downgrade from the $7.25 trillion spent in 2021. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the U.S. ranked 22nd out of 24 developed countries in the amount of aid it gives as a percentage of GDP. So we can, and should, be giving more without cutting anything.
Digging deeper into Kristof’s piece, we see the real reasons behind his thinking. Dan Kurtzer, ambassador to Israel during George W. Bush’s first term, told Kristof, “Aid provides the U.S. with no leverage or influence over Israeli decisions to use force; because we sit by quietly while Israel pursues policies we oppose, we are seen as ‘enablers’ of Israel’s occupation.”
How seriously we oppose those policies is a matter of debate, but Kurtzer is not alone in his concern over how aid to Israel makes the U.S. look to people around the world. Although by now, it is a mundane point, and taken as normal, American officials have voiced such concerns in the past. Still, the relationship has endured for all these decades, and even now, when Israel’s public image in the United States is at a historic low, criticism directed at it is perilous, as Pramila Jayapal saw just last week.
Yet the voices of people like Kurtzer and Martin Indyk, ambassador to Israel under Bill Clinton, might have been mildly critical of Israel in the past, but they had always stopped well short of calling for even slowing U.S. military aid. Obviously, the current far-right government of Benjamin Netanyahu has managed to irritate Israel’s more liberal supporters in Washington in a way Israel has never done before.
Netanyahu Escalates the Insults
The proposed judicial reform is the key reason, of course. Netanyahu’s attempt to render Israel’s judicial system unable to do anything but obey the Knesset’s every word threatens all the propaganda about “democracy” and “shared values” that are the only way Democrats have to justify their lockstep support of Israel regardless of its many crimes. But it is more than that.
Netanyahu has made a mockery of the United States as its patron. While the Biden administration has fallen over itself to keep the cash flowing to Israel; to shield Israel at the United Nations and other international fora; and to promote the truly evil myths that anti-Zionism and BDS are nothing more than forms of antisemitism, Israel has responded by making commitments to Washington it never intended to keep, often abrogating them as soon as the meetings where they were made were over. Netanyahu also misled the media about the phone call the two had last week. That didn’t sit well with Biden at all.
All of this has led these key figures in the liberal Zionist, Washington community to beat the drums on the most sacred of cows on Capitol Hill — U.S. aid to Israel. Yet even there, the calls are tempered with a sense that they don’t believe it to be possible.
Aaron David Miller, who coined the phrase “Israel’s lawyer” in reference to former U.S. “Peace envoy” Dennis Ross, told Kristof, “Under the right conditions and in a galaxy far, far away, with U.S.-Israeli relations on even if not better keel, there would be advantages to both to see military aid phased out over time.” Clearly, he does not believe it to be possible, even if cutting off the aid to Israel might be desirable.
Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street offered a similar sentiment. “There’s a serious conversation that should be had ahead of this next memorandum of understanding about how best to use $40 billion in U.S. tax dollars. Yet instead of a serious national security discussion, you’re likely to get a toxic mix of partisan brawling and political pandering.”
Ben-Ami is certainly correct when it comes to Congress. The shameful display of Israeli President Isaac Herzog addressing a joint session of Congress right after the debacle of Democrats joining Republicans to browbeat Rep. Pramila Jayapal for daring to point out that Israel, which deprives millions of Palestinians of freedom, rights, property, and often their very lives for no reason other than their ethnicity, is a racist state, shows that Congress, with a few notable exceptions, remains unwilling to challenge Israel and its American supporters.
Given the tidal shift the current Israeli government is causing, that can change, but it would require two things. One is time, as that sort of entrenched support doesn’t turn around overnight. The second is leadership, and that must come from the White House. Joe Biden is both personally and politically disinclined to provide that leadership. He’d much rather grit his teeth and bear the humiliations, as he has in the past. But Netanyahu is pushing it so hard he may not leave Biden much choice.
Even as Republicans absurdly blast Biden as “antisemitic” for trying to convince Israel to stop record-setting settlement expansion and expanding its brutal authoritarianism from Palestinians to its own Jewish citizens, they will have a much stronger case in describing him as weak if he continues to allow Netanyahu to spit in his face with only a metaphorical “thank you, sir, may I have another?” in response. They won’t say it directly as that might imply that they think Biden should not do as Netanyahu says. But they will capitalize on Biden’s kowtowing to Netanyahu’s extremism in roundabout ways.
In any case, Biden is not there yet. In a recent speech to the Atlantic Council, his Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the audience that “I think we’ve seen Israeli democracy in all of its vibrancy. It’s telling a remarkable story right now. That’s playing out, and I’m confident the system will be able to deal effectively with it.” As I asked last week, how the mere existence of protests, which are seen frequently in authoritarian states, demonstrates the existence of a “vibrant democracy” is, at best, unclear.
But Blinken is setting up the narrative the Biden administration wants to use if Netanyahu’s judicial reform fails. They will double down on Israel’s democracy, shout to the heavens about the shared values that were demonstrated, and how the bond between us is more “unbreakable” than ever.
Opening the Door to Ending Military Aid to Israel
That might be starting even now. Just hours after I wrote these words on Monday, the Knesset voted on the first major bill in the overhaul process. It passed, and now the Israeli judiciary’s power to check any excesses of the government has been erased. In an effort to stop this, President Herzog tried to broker a compromise with the considerable added leverage of the threat of some 10,000 military reservists refusing duty—an unprecedented threat in Israeli history—along with a planned strike called by a forum of some 150 Israeli businesses. These factors were also bolstered by another public statement from Biden calling for Netanyahu to stop the bill from moving forward.
But still, the bill passed. Now, it must be used by advocates for Palestine in Washington to press forward with calls for the end of aid to Israel.
The current Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which laid down the terms for ten years of aid to Israel, runs through September 2028. The negotiations for the next one will likely start to gather steam in late 2025. Netanyahu has given advocates in the U.S. an opening to build political momentum against a new MOU, and that could have the effect of either diminishing it, placing conditions on it, or even stopping it altogether. The time to start building that momentum is now, taking advantage of the opening this moment provides.
Even if future parts of the judicial reform doesn’t pass, the topic has been broached, and that opening must be exploited. For decades, AIPAC has succeeded in its founding goal, its prime directive: to sustain and maximize aid to Israel. It built an impenetrable wall around that aid.
That wall has finally begun to crack. This is the moment people who want to see that aid stopped have been waiting for. Now is the time to go after U.S. aid to Israel, but not for the reasons Kristof proposes. That aid should stop for one reason above all others: because it is used to fund the oppression of the Palestinians, whether one wants to term that occupation or apartheid. It’s the argument that can’t be countered, and its time has finally come to Washington.
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Featured image: Daniel Kurtzer (Left), Aaron David Miller (Center), and Martin Indyk (Right) (Source: Mondoweiss)
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The Senate version of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which provides funding for the Department of Defense military activities, military construction and the Department of Energy nuclear programs was adopted on July 20th and now needs to be reconciled with the House version.
Some of the more significant amendments included:
Senator Rand Paul (SC) introduced an amendment to the 2024 NDAA (S 2226) that was a “sense of the Senate” in clarifying that “Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty does not supersede the constitutional requirement that Congress declare war before the United States engages in war.”
Article 5 is a key pillar of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty is based on the principle of collective defense. It means that an attack on one member of NATO is deemed to be an attack on all. The Senate vote was 83 – 16 against the amendment with all Democrats voting No and twenty eight Republicans joining the Democrats to vote in favor of NATO and against the Constitution.
Those twenty eight Republican Senators are
Sens. Blackburn (Tenn.)*, Britt (Ala), Boozman (La.) Budd (NC), Graham (SC), Grassley (Iowa), Hoeven (ND), Hyde Smith (Miss.), Ricketts (Neb.), Risch (Idaho), Romney (Utah,)* Round (SD), Scott (SC), Scott (Fl.),* Capito (W.Va.), Collins (Me.), Cornyn (Texas), Cassidy (La.) Crapo (Idaho), Ernst (Iowa), McConnell (Ky,) Fischer (Neb.),* Moran (Kansas), Young (Ind.)*, Wicker (Miss.)*, Tillis (NC), Thune (SD), and Sullivan (Alaska).
The Senators* are seeking re election in 2024. Two days after Sen. Paul offered the amendment, his Kentucky office was firebombed.
Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.) introduced an amendment to require an act of the Senate to suspend, terminate or withdraw from NATO which was adopted 65 – 28 with seven Not Voting. The 65 Aye votes included eighteen Republicans while the 28 Nay votes were all Republican with seven Not Voting.
Sen. Mike Lee (Utah) offered an amendment limiting the availability of financial assistance to Ukraine which failed 71 – 13 with sixteen Not Voting. The Aye vote included forty two Democrats, twenty six Republicans and three Independents. All the Nay votes were Republicans and the Not Voting were six Democrats and ten Republicans.
Final passage vote on the NDAA was 72 – 25 with twenty six Republicans voting Aye. Three Democrats voted Nay along with seventeen Republicans and one Independent.
The Senate’s version of the NDAA must now go to the House in an attempt to resolve differences between the two bills.
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Renee Parsons served on the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and as president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, staff in the Office of the Colorado State Public Defender, an environmental lobbyist for Friends of the Earth and a staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC.
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***
Constitutional expert Jonathan Turley on Sunday weighed in on the FBI document Senator Chuck Grassley released showing Joe Biden was involved in a $10 million bribery scheme with a Ukrainian oligarch.
Grassley on Thursday released the FBI document showing Joe Biden was involved in a $10 million bribery scheme with Burisma CEO Mykola Zlochevsky.
The FD-1023 form alleged then-Vice President Joe Biden FORCED Zlochevsky, a Ukrainian oligarch, to pay himself and his son Hunter Biden a total of $10 million.
According to the document, Biden’s bribery arrangement was described as “poluchili,” which is Russian crime slang for being “forced or coerced to pay.”
Also, according to the document, Zlochevsky claims to have text messages and recordings that show he was FORCED to pay the Bidens to ensure Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was fired.
Zlochevsky also retained two documents, presumably financial records, as evidence of the arrangement, according to the document.
Joe Biden publicly bragged about bribing Ukraine with $1 billion to fire Viktor Shokin, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General who was investigating Burisma corruption.
I “said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. He got fired,” Biden said in 2018.
FLASHBACK to 2018 when Joe Biden bragged about bribing Ukraine with $1 BILLION to fire the prosecutor who was investigating his son, Hunter Biden's company. pic.twitter.com/SKkRGtwQCW
Despite the mountain of evidence showing Joe Biden was involved in a multi-million bribery scheme with a Ukrainian oligarch, the FBI is still stonewalling and protecting the Biden Crime Family.
Fox News host Shannon Bream told Turley she asked IRS whistleblower Joseph Ziegler if he has ever seen the FD-1023 form Grassley released.
“I’d never seen that document before, so I’d never seen that 1023…the form is important because it could further validate some other evidence that we are trying to prove in the case,” Ziegler said.
Bream asked Turley to assess why the FBI document never landed on Joseph Ziegler’s desk.
“It increasingly seems like the FBI is the place where evidence goes to die,” Turley said. “I mean you send evidence to the FBI, if it has the name Biden on it, it dies a very rapid death.”
.@JonathanTurley on the FBI evidence Grassley released showing Biden corruption: “It increasingly seems like the @FBI is the place where evidence goes to die.” pic.twitter.com/FB9ir6WDJw
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***
“Hypocrite” is a concept that is much overworked but lately it has gained a new freshness thanks to the serene indifference of the collective West to the trampling of its most cherished values whenever those it does not favour are affected. It happens, oddly enough, that in the Iranian political lexicon the word “hypocrite” is a favourite expression when referring to Western governments. In Farsi, for all we know, that word may serve as some sort of derogatory epithet with many interesting, culturally conditioned layers. But whatever the subtleties in Farsi, in relation to much of the current public behaviour in the West the English-language equivalent fits the bill perfectly.
New developments make it imperative to refocus attention on the predicament of Metropolitan Pavel, a distinguished ecclesiastical figure in Ukraine, a prince, so to speak, of that country’s Orthodox Church and abbot of its most important religious sanctuary, the Kiev Caves Monastery.
The persecution he has meekly endured has caused not even a ripple in the “city on a hill”, aka the fabled collective West, the promised land of “values” where advocacy of human rights, respect for dignity, and most importantly freedom of belief, are said to be bedrock principles.
Just a few days ago, after being forcibly ejected from the premises of the Kiev Caves Monastery, which on behalf of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church he is charged with supervising and administering, and after spending two months under house arrest at a different location with a humiliating ankle bracelet like a common criminal, the Metropolitan was finally given the semblance of a hearing. He was arraigned on charges that had never been made very clear since the proceedings against him were started, but which vaguely revolve around allegations of provoking religious discord and insinuations of sympathy for Russia.
On 13 July, when he was transferred from home detention in a village near Kiev to a pre-trial detention facility, the Metropolitan’s position deteriorated significantly once he was subjected to a harsh prison regime. His contact with the outside world is now greatly reduced and there is no guarantee that his serious diabetic condition would be medically attended in any meaningful sense. In prison, he is awaiting the filing of further criminal charges that were recently announced by the authorities. In cynical emulation of their Western overlords’ judicial practice, pending trial the Ukrainian judges have generously consented to set bail for the Metropolitan’s provisional release. The amount was fixed at the modest sum of 33 million hryvnias, or nearly $900,000 which, naturally, the prisoner does not have. It is uncertain whether in all of Ukraine there is a bail bond agency or pious oligarch prepared and bold enough to front this amount of cash for a man so deeply in disgrace with the country’s democratic government and its equally irreproachable institutions.
Technically however, and is that not all that counts, all the bases have been covered. In the exemplary rule-of-law democracy that is Ukraine, the presumption of innocence obviously must be fully in effect and the theoretical possibility of mounting a defence while outside prison bars has admirably been affirmed. As in the advanced democracies that stand with Ukraine and serve as its model, until the legal process runs its course there is no necessity for an unconvicted suspect to languish in prison. There is just one catch. It is that notwithstanding the laudable desire to emulate advanced foreign models, Ukrainian judges probably were not properly briefed on what the Eighth Amendment actually holds. It prohibits excessive bail, defined as an imposition disproportionate to the prisoner’s means, and it further mandates that the bail amount be set in relation to evidence of whether or not the prisoner poses a flight risk. It contains also some bizarre language prohibiting “cruel and unusual punishment.” But that should hardly impress officials of a government whose armed thugs routinely and with impunity kneecap war prisoners as well as commit a raft of other unspeakable atrocities, while making video recordings of it for their own entertainment.
Metropolitan Pavel is unlikely to have squirreled under his mattress nearly a million dollars he needs to post bail, never mind the preposterous notion that a man who had to be dragged by the police out of his Kiev Caves monastery refuge should now suddenly be regarded as a flight risk. So it is the faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church who are currently collecting hryvnias on his behalf, in the prayerful hope of at least securing their ailing hierarch’s temporary release.
All this poignantly recalls St. Paul’s “collections for the saints” in Romans 15:26 and elsewhere in the Gospels, but in secular terms it has another profound significance as well. In an epoch less poisoned than our own Metropolitan Pavel’s circumstances would be a human interest story of the first order. A genuinely free mass communication media, which in the collective West does not exist, would run with the story and make sure that everyone on the planet was made aware of the unjustly persecuted Metropolitan and his deplorable predicament. But alas! a thorough internet search fails to disclose any mention of it in that part of the world where human rights and freedom of conscience are so unctuously venerated.
And if, where it is falsely claimed that it flourishes, anything resembling a free press truly existed, this human interest story would be complemented urbi et orbi with the scandalous account of the plunder of holy relics from the Kiev Caves monastery which the incarcerated Metropolitan is unlawfully impeded from administering. That heist is of a magnitude assuredly unseen since the Crusaders’ pillage of Constantinople many centuries ago. Sacred objects from the ancient Ukrainian monastery are now being forcibly expatriated abroad by the Kiev Nazi regime to collective West museums and the Vatican, and it is being done in a manner not witnessed in Ukraine even in the days of German occupation. The official explanation for this outrage is that it is being committed not out of moral turpitude but for the good of the Church. We are asked to believe that the sacred objects are not being brazenly stolen but merely removed far from the perils of war, to “safety” (exactly as Greek artefacts from the Acropolis had been shipped for “safekeeping” to the British Museum).
One wonders if the silent treatment given to the incarcerated Orthodox Metropolitan Pavel would have been different were he of the same persuasion as Cardinal Mindszenty or, closer to home, the Ukrainian Uniate prelate Josyf Slipyj. Would non-entities like Lindsay Graham or Mike Pence then have felt moved to take notice and to make inquiries of their hosts in Kiev about the reasons for his incarceration? Would the media be extolling his innocent suffering and instead of ignoring his plight would dignitaries be singing dithyrambs in his honour?
Quite likely, yes. Except that Metropolitan Pavel refused to heed the threats of regime tormentors as well as the “Christian” entreaties of Epiphanius, the head of the heretical and uncanonical Ukrainian pseudo-church to which the Metropolitan’s monastery will shortly be turned over, both demanding of him just one thing in return for freedom – to betray his Orthodox flock and join the fraudulent outfit. That makes it extremely dubious that Pavel will benefit from good press or enjoy the benevolence of the corrupt dignitaries who personify Western values.
So we return again to the word that is the leitmotiv of this text. Among other foolish things that Mike Pence told Tucker Carlson, he said without batting an eye that recently he had visited Ukraine and was assured by a priest that there was no religious persecution and no imprisoned churchmen in that idyllic land.
Who might have been Pence’s source for this demonstrably false information? Could it perchance be one of Epiphanius’ men?
Pence claims to be a devout Christian so on his next visit to Kiev he would do well to insist that his hosts take him to the Pre-trial Detention Centre, to check for himself.
We really should not bother with the nuances of “hypocrisy” in Farsi. The word as it is used in English will do perfectly, because it hits the nail on the head and with devastating accuracy.
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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.
Featured image: Pavel Lebed, the abbot of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra Monastery and Metropolitan of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, attends a court hearing in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Saturday, where he was accused of being linked to Russia. Photo by Oleg Petrasyuk/EPA-EFE
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Background of Italian Recent Politics
In October 2022 Ms. Giorgia Meloni, became Prime Minister of Italy. Her extreme right-wing party, Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia), won the September 2022 elections with 26% of the vote, even though it had polled only 4.3% four years earlier. Ms. Meloni co-founded the party in 2012 and led it since 2014. See this.
Such an increase in voters meant that Italians were sick and tired from the so-called “democratic” neoliberalism coming out of the EU in Brussels, notably out of the non-elected dictatorial European Commission (EC), known to most serious analyst to be but a lackey of Washington’s.
But Italians had also enough of the steady NATO influence of Italian politics. Italy is currently arguably the country in Europe with most US / NATO military bases. Most Italians are strong NATO opponents.
In brief, Italians welcomed the promising “new wind” coming out of the newly elected right-wing party – expecting a departure from the ongoing US / EU – submissive neoliberal Italian politics.
In October 2022, Italian President Mattarella appointed Giorgia Meloni as Italy’s first female Prime Minister, following the resignation of Mario Draghi amidst a government crisis and as a result of the September 2022 general election. Messrs. Mattarella as well as Draghi are affiliated to the “Independent” party. Mr. Draghi is a former president of the European Central Banks, and a close ally of the WEF’s CEO, Klaus Schwab.
Sergio Mattarella OMRI, an academic and lawyer, has served as President of Italy since 2015. The attribute OMRI stands for Order of Merit of the Italian Republic and might be considered the Italian equivalent of knighthood.
Back to Giorgia Meloni
A clue to her priorities came in an animated speech she gave in Spain last June.
“Yes to the natural family, no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology… no to Islamist violence, yes to secure borders, no to mass migration… no to big international finance… no to the bureaucrats of Brussels!”
In another well-quoted speech from 2019 she said: “I am Giorgia, I’m a woman, I’m a mother… I’m Christian.”
For the role of Italy’s new family and birth rate minister, she has picked Eugenia Roccella who has spoken out against abortion and threatened to reverse recently agreed rights for same-sex parents.
Nevertheless, Ms. Meloni has promised to govern “for everyone”. She had to assure Italy’s allies in both NATO and the EU that there will be no change in direction in foreign policy. This is an important point, as both her coalition partners, Matteo Salvini, heading the League and the late Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right party, Forza Italia, have been strong supporters of Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
“Giorgia Meloni comes from a post-fascist cultural background but recently she’s taken a very moderate position and stated she won’t change [predecessor Mario] Draghi’s policy on Ukraine,” Italian political scientist Prof. Roberto D’Alimonte told the BBC. “She did this because she had to build her credentials to be a legitimate candidate for prime minister.”
Recent – Italy-China Relations
On February 17, 2023, President Mattarella met with China’s Mr. Wang Yi, in Rome. Mr. Wang Yi is a member of the Political Bureau of China’s Communist Party (CPC) Central Committee. He is Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, basically acting as Foreign Minister.
It was a most cordial and what looked like a constructive and productive meeting. They were talking about strengthening their relations through BRI (Memorandum of Understanding [MOU) signed in 2019) and jointly promoting multilateralism.
Conveying President Xi Jinping’s warm greetings to President Mattarella, Wang Yi said that China will bring new opportunities for China-Italy cooperation. He noted that China and Italy should resume exchanges at all levels in an all-round manner, and promote mutually beneficial cooperation across the board. Wang Yi stressed China and Italy are natural partners in Belt and Road, a strong impetus for further development of their bilateral relations.
This left a positive signal for strengthening China-Italian BRI relations – Italy being the only EU and G-7 member as part of the BRI.
Recent Events
At the recent NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania (11/12 July 2023), Ms. Meloni confirmed in a press conference from Vilnius, that at the invitation of President Biden she will travel to Washington to meet with the US President on 27 July 2023.
The Italian PM highlighted Rome’s support to the NATO Alliance and to Kyiv’s accession to NATO. She praised NATO’s “important steps forward [towards Ukraine’s] future accession to the Alliance. She stressed this point by mentioning Italy’s leadership in 2024 of the G7. “NATO mustn’t lose focus on its Southern Flank and the Global South.”
Ms. Meloni went even further in supporting the warrior alliance, NATO, saying that “Our freedom has a cost. What we invest in defense comes back tenfold in terms of defending our national interests.”
She further argued for increased cooperation among NATO Allies, a drive that must extend to Indo-Pacific matters and, most notably, China, noting the importance of tackling the “systemic rival” holistically – i.e., considering issues such as supply chain security, especially in the field of critical raw materials, and safeguarding technological advantage.
These considerations come as her government tends to dropping out of China’s BRI, a matter that will certainly come up in her forthcoming Washington visit. For more details see this (12 July 2023).
This is a 180-degree turn-around from Ms. Meloni’s earlier position on NATO and from President Mattarella’s discussion in February 2023 with Mr. Wang Yi from China. It also demonstrates the US / EU pressure the Italian Government is under.
Clearly, Ms. Meloni is not free to follow her campaign promises and even her party’s ideology – of cooperation for multilateralism, a departure from the neoliberal globalist dominance exerted by Washington, EU, the WEF and the entire bought and corrupted UN system throughout the world.
Italian freedom, national sovereignty – has been flushed down the drain, like that of so many other nations – and that against the will of most of the concerned nations’ people.
To Stay or Not to Stay in the BRI
Ms. Meloni’s government under pressure from the US, but also from the EU, is leaning towards exiting the Belt and Road. In a recent article by the Chinese state-owned Global Times, Beijing expresses its concern about Italy’s abandoning the BRI cooperation agreement with China.
The BRI-Agreement is based on a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) of 2019 which is set to be auto-renewed in March 2024, unless one of the parties resigns from the agreement three months prior to the deadline.
This gives Ms. Meloni enough time to present the case to the Italian Parliament, to transfer this decision and responsibility to the presumably democratic parliamentary body.
When putting this possibility forward, Ms. Meloni also said that one could have “excellent relations with China without being part of a strategic plan” such as the BRI.
To add fuel to the fire, Italy’s Enterprise Minister Adolfo Urso told Radio24 that the Meloni government “is not being pressured by the US, nor China, on the [BRI] Memorandum.” But he added that since the MOU was signed, “our trade with China has worsened considerably, in contrast to what has happened with France or Germany, which have instead implemented [new] business with China. This should give us pause for thought.”
In the meantime, China is seeking alternative means to promote commercial and cooperation opportunities directly with the Italian business community.
Senator Stefania Craxi, member of the governing coalition party Forza Italia and chairwoman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said she would support the full involvement of Parliament on the BRI decision.
She praised PM Meloni’s “institutional” approach, “which recalls the need to involve Parliament on a sensitive issue such as the BRI MOU, whose approval at the time impacted on the dynamics of our country’s strategic alliances”. She remarked that the MOU was not presented to Parliament for approval before signing.
Senator Craxi added that the BRI “clearly doesn’t only have commercial implications” – as some had depicted it when it was signed in 2019. Proof of this is the fact that despite being the only Western European country to have signed it, Italy’s trade with China is less that of other EU nations.” She implied that signing it was a mistake, as it brought only negative consequences.
When PM Meloni recently spoke to Parliament, she reiterated that Italy could have “excellent relations with China, “without being part of a strategic plan”, meaning BRI. But she also said, the decision had not yet been made, that evaluations are under way – and that the final say would be that of the people, “seeking solutions in view of our interests”.
With a significant Parliamentary mandate of her party, Ms. Meloni – leaning towards exiting BRI – would make the decision as one of the Italian people.
In the five months before the deadline to decide on the ceasing or continuing the BRI-MOU, it is time now for the Chinese business community to enter into direct contact with the Italian Business community to either lobby for staying in the BRI, or to establish solid commercial and business relations with Italian entrepreneurs outside of BRI.
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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.
Featured image: Meloni speaking at the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida (Licensed under Vox España , CC0)
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***
Sometimes reality surpasses fiction. In a way, this is the case with the Cuban revolution. Seventy years ago, a few dozen young rebels stormed a barracks. Even though the attack failed completely, it was the beginning of a revolutionary process with far-reaching consequences not only in Cuba, but also far beyond.
The Assault
On July 26, 1953, a hundred young rebels led by Fidel Castro stormed a barracks in eastern Cuba. It was supposed to be the beginning of an armed uprising against the dictatorship. The aim was to obtain weapons and distribute them to the local population. The revolution would then be proclaimed over the radio.
On July 26, 1953, the rebels stormed the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba. The barracks have now been converted into a school and a museum.
In a second phase, the rebel army would retreat to the mountains and start a guerrilla war. The bold plan failed due to setbacks and above all due to lack of experience. Fidel was barely 26 years old. Most of the rebels were brutally slaughtered, only a few managed to escape. Fidel, his brother Raúl and several others were rounded up and put on trial.
Why an Assault?
The rebellion did not come out of the blue. A year before, Fulgencio Batista had staged a coup. Cubans lived under a military dictatorship, inequality between rich and poor was extremely high and the living and working conditions of the majority of the population were miserable.
Moreover, the country was under the control of the US. Officially, the country had gained independence in 1898, but all along the Cuban bourgeoisie had been too weak to establish a stable political system and to chart its own sovereign course, independent of the US. Batista’s increasing grip on society only exacerbated that situation.
Discomfort was very high. Many longed for a different, just society. Fidel Castro was one such person. He was a young lawyer and had been politically active since his student days. Originally, he thought of using parliament as a springboard for a revolution.
Young Fidel during a political speech in 1951. Photo: Cuban government
Together with the most radical persons of the party he belonged to (the Ortodoxos), he would propose a revolutionary program from the parliamentary benches. That would then be the platform for mobilizing the masses to take armed action and to overthrow the government.
However, the coup shattered those plans and it was clear to Fidel that there was no other option than direct armed uprising. Initially, young Castro expected that the revolution would be prepared from various quarters and he intended to join them. But after seeing very little progress he started his own movement.
He built a disciplined, clandestine movement from scratch, without financial resources and without support from any political party. He mainly recruited young people among the Ortodoxos and after a good year he had twelve hundred men at his disposal.
Political Victory
The attack on July 26 failed, but Fidel managed to turn this military defeat into a political victory. The assault of the barracks was the start of a revolutionary process with far-reaching consequences in Cuba, but also in Latin America and Africa.
At his trial, Fidel Castro made an impressive plea that would later be published as History Will Absolve Me.
The trial was a real turning point: his movement gained strong public awareness and recognition. When in prison the revolutionary lawyer consolidated and educated his movement. His popularity gradually increased among the population. When presidential candidate Grau gave a speech in late 1954, Fidel’s name was chanted.
Soon after, a pro-amnesty campaign was launched. There were demonstrations in several cities and the press also called for his release. The call for amnesty increased and on May 15, 1955, Fidel and his comrades were allowed to leave prison.
Once free, Fidel broadened his 26th of July Movement to include a number of key revolutionary leaders. The violence continued and things became too dangerous for him. That was why Fidel decided to go to Mexico to prepare the armed struggle from there.
Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. Photo: Cuban government
In Mexico, Argentine doctor Che Guevara joined the rebel group. The rebels prepared for a protracted guerrilla uprising in the mountains, supported from the towns, with the intention of eliminating the army.
Armed Insurrection
At the end of November 1956, about eighty of them made the crossing with the Granma, a small yacht. The whole operation turned into a complete fiasco. Shortly after landing on December 2, they were spotted, hunted, harassed and beaten apart. In the end they were left with barely sixteen inexperienced and poorly armed comrades-in-arms. Facing them was the best-equipped army in Latin America.
In other words, the situation was hopeless, but they did not give up. They received support from the local farmers and were able to consolidate. They managed to stay out of the grip of the army and after a few weeks they won their first small victories. Herbert Matthews, a top New York Times journalist, was invited to the jungle in mid-February 1957. He was impressed by what he saw there and reported about it in his newspaper. That gave the rebel army’s prestige a huge boost.
The July 26 movement in the Sierra Maestra. Photo: Cuban government
As the rebels achieved military successes, Fidel also gained more political support. In the summer of 1958, dictator Batista launched a summer offensive to deal a final blow to the guerrilla.
The numerical superiority was huge: 300 rebels against 10,000 heavily armed soldiers. After a month of fierce fighting, the rebels managed to beat back the army. That was a decisive turning point in the armed insurrection. With victory in sight, large sections of the national bourgeoisie also sought rapprochement with the 26th of July Movement.
In August, the guerrilla’s final offensive began. Entire parts of the country became ‘liberated territory’. After Che Guevara conquered the city of Santa Clara and destroyed an armoured military train, Batista fled on January 1, 1959. The revolution was a fact.
Washington’s Obsession
A broad transitional government with a moderate program emerged. But even that was not acceptable for Washington. The US controlled important parts of the Cuban economy and it did not want to lose that. But above all, it was inadmissible for a country barely 180 km from the US to take a progressive course. Moreover, that could encourage other countries to follow suit.
That is why this revolution had to be nipped in the bud. In July 1959, six months after taking power, President Eisenhower approved a program to undermine the revolution. This ranged from supporting counter-revolutionary groups, air and sea strikes, assassinations of Fidel, to jamming radio and TV channels and clandestine radio broadcasts.
Meeting in the US between Fidel Castro and Vice President Nixon on April 19, 1959. Photo: Cuban government
But more was needed. A memo in 1960 by Lester D. Mallory, of the US State Department, states:
“The majority of Cubans support Castro … The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship. … every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba.”
According to the memo, the aim was “to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and the overthrow of the government”. Shortly afterwards, the Eisenhower administration imposed an embargo that would later result in an economic blockade (which also puts pressure on third countries to end their economic relations with Cuba).
The first aim of economic sanctions is to overthrow the revolution, and if that fails, to hurt the country as much as possible so that socialism would not be an example for other countries. Chomsky describes this as “Washington’s hysterical dedication to crush Cuba”.
The Role of the Soviet Union
For its economic development and security, Cuba initially sought the support of Western countries which, under the pressure from Washington, refused their support. Given the embargo, the military threat and the reluctance of Western countries, Cuba therefore very quickly relied on the SU for foreign trade and arms purchases.
The cooperation did not always run smoothly and after the missile crisis in 1962 it even came to a real crisis between the two countries. Nevertheless, cooperation with the SU largely compensated for the losses caused by the economic blockade.
Economic Disaster
Hence the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was dramatic for the Cuban economy. In barely thirty years, the island twice lost its privileged economic partner and had to look for new partners.
For any country, such a thing is disastrous, and for Cuba it was compounded by the US tightening the economic blockade in the hope of draining the country economically. Without the blockade and without the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba would have a standard of living comparable to that of Italy.
In socio-economic terms, the 1990s were extremely difficult anyway. But the country trudged through, and from the start of the millennium it could count on the support of Venezuela. That gave the economy a boost. But, unfortunately and not coincidentally, Venezuela was in turn hit by economic sanctions from the US from 2017 onwards.
This situation came on top of the further tightening of the blockade since Trump and the Covid crisis, which hit Cuba hard due to the shutdown of tourism. As a result, the current socio-economic situation is particularly difficult as it was in the 1990s.
Look After the People
It is therefore all the more remarkable that, despite these precarious economic conditions, Cuba has a very high level of social development. The island has a health system that can compete with rich countries, while having a GDP per capita that is at least five times lower. Child mortality is lower than in the US and the education system is the best in Latin America.
“Cuba has become internationally recognized for its achievements in the areas of education and health, with social service delivery outcomes that surpass most countries in the developing world and in some areas match first-world standards. Since the Cuban revolution in 1959, and the subsequent establishment of a communist one-party government, the country has created a social service system that guarantees universal access to education and health care provided by the state.
This model has enabled Cuba to achieve near universal literacy, the eradication of certain diseases, widespread access to potable water and basic sanitation, and among the lowest infant mortality rates and longest life expectancies in the region.”
According to the World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF), Cuba is the only country that has managed to combine an ecologically sustainable footprint per capita with an acceptably high quality of life as measured by the UN Human Development Index. That’s a comforting thought: if Cuba can do that without the latest and most economical technology, how much easier must it be for us?
The Tenderness of the Peoples
Cuba not only cares for its own inhabitants. “Solidarity is the tenderness of the peoples,” said Che Guevara. The Cubans give shape to this in an impressive way. From the beginning of the revolution, Cuba has supported sister countries in the Global South. Since the beginning of the revolution, Cuban medical personnel have treated nearly 2 billion people worldwide.
When Italy was hit very hard at the start of the corona pandemic, they were assisted by a brigade of Cuban doctors. Photo: Italian Development Cooperation Agency
Today, Cuba single-handedly deploys more doctors worldwide than the UN World Health Organization. If the US and Europe made the same effort as Cuba, the shortage of health workers in the Global South would be solved overnight.
Neither did Cuba hesitate to undertake dangerous military missions. For example, there were international missions in Vietnam, Syria, Algeria, Ghana, Congo (Brazzaville), Zaire, Equatorial Guinea, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, South Yemen, Tanzania, Angola, Namibia and Guinea-Bissau and support for various guerrilla movements in Latin America.
On the African continent, tiny Cuba was an important counterweight to the US superpower from the 1970s to the 1990s. The Cuban army dealt a decisive blow to the apartheid regime of South Africa in Angola. Mandela recognized it as “a turning point in the struggle to free the continent and our country from the scourge of apartheid!”
Along with Venezuela, Cuba was the pacesetter for the integration of Latin American countries at the expense of Washington’s hold on the region.
Decision-making
Our economy and political systems are dominated by multinationals and large capital groups. In Cuba, that power was broken and has been replaced by the CTC, the umbrella organization of the various union federations. There is no doubt that decision-making in Cuba is highly streamlined. But that is compensated by a form of direct democracy.
In addition to five-yearly parliamentary elections, there is a fairly unique consultation system. For all important decisions, the population is extensively consulted and a consensus is sought. No measures will be taken in Cuba without broad support.
This explains, among other things, why the Cuban government can count on an enormous popular support despite often very difficult circumstances and the fact that it managed to hold out all these years against the largest and most aggressive superpower ever.
If we had this decision-making system, a wealth tax would have been implemented long ago and pensions would not have been raised to the age of 67.
Errors and Challenges
A revolution is not made by angels. It is evident that mistakes have been made in the past 60 years. Just think of the humiliating treatment of believers and homosexuals at the beginning of the revolution, the failure to diversify the economy and to enhance productivity. The Cubans themselves are the last to claim that their journey has been without problems.
Many weaknesses and problems remain to be addressed. Perhaps the most important challenge is this: the high level of social and intellectual development creates high expectations among the population. But there is no economic basis for this, and that leads to frustration. This problem has become very acute in recent years.
This is closely related to another phenomenon. Due to the collapse of the currency after 1991, wages are no longer sufficient. As a result, there is no longer a real link between labour, salary and purchasing power. This is very detrimental to labour motivation and productivity. It also causes corruption and discontent.
The only answer is accelerated economic growth, but promoting growth is easier said than done, because the foreign context is a strong determinant here. Will Biden ease the blockade for now and who will be the next US president? How is the situation in Venezuela and Latin America evolving? How are economic relations with China, Russia and Europe evolving? What will be the impact of the increasing number of droughts and devastating hurricanes?
The future will show whether Cuba will be able to solve these challenges. In these times, with the rise and spread of alt-right, solidarity with a country that, for 60 years, has demonstrated ‘the tenderness of peoples’ and where the focus is on people, not on profits, is more necessary than ever.
The process that the rebels led by Fidel Castro started 70 years ago with the attack on the Moncada barracks remains a beacon for the world. Hasta la victoria siempre!
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Katrien Demuynck and Marc Vandepitte wrote several books on Cuba.
Featured image: Every year the storming of the Moncada barracks is commemorated in Cuba. (Source: Katrien Demuynck and Marc Vandepitte)
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***
The accumulated evidence is overwhelming that Covid was an orchestrated pandemic.
Intentional use of the faulty PCR test, intentional false reporting of Covid deaths as a result of World Health Organization guidelines and financial incentives to hospitals to report all deaths as Covid deaths, and prohibited treatment by known cures together produced a high level of fear that drove the masses to accept the Covid “vaccination” that generated huge monetary gains for Big Pharma and associated shills such as Anthony Fauci and massive inroads on civil liberty by governments.
Hardly anyone died from Covid itself.They died from lack of treatment.The protocol was that if you became infected and if you worsened after a week, go to the hospital where you were put on ventilators, an incorrect treatment that usually was deadly.
Doctors who saved the lives of their patients with Ivermectin and HCQ were punished.Corporate doctors were fired, and those in private practice suffered attacks on their medical licenses by authorities, resulting in loss of license to practice medicine.Highly distinguished medical scientists who blew the whistle on this death-maximizing approach were demonized, and every effort was made to silence them and to destroy them professionally.
The greatest number of deaths, which continue day by day, is from the Vax. Everywhere every day sports stars and entertainers who served as advertisements for the safety of the Covid “vaccine” are suddenly dropping dead. The corrupt medical establishment turns a blind eye.
The lockdowns, the masks, the “vaccine” did extraordinary harm to people and benefitted no one except Big Pharma’s profits and government’s agenda to weaken civil liberty.
All of this is known, and there has been no accountability.
A program of mass murder and injury to the world population is being ignored.
Medical authorities are still recommending the Death Jab, even for babies.
This guarantees that a second and a third round of death and injury is coming from more orchestrated pandemics.Bill Gates has promised as much. Such gullible populations can expect no less.
Why is this murderous plot against humanity being ignored?
Thousands of medical scientists and doctors are not ignoring it, but the media continues to accuse the leading experts in the world of spreading “misinformation.”Efforts continue to be made to silence science and suppress information.Universities and medical schools themselves are part of the effort to prevent the truth from being acknowledged.
Another part of the problem is that many of those who were deceived and who so adamantly defended the Vax, lockdowns, and masks to family and friends are too embarrassed to admit their mistake.They are too fragile to say:I made a mistake and have destroyed the health of my child and killed my mother.The authorities know the weaknesses of people and use their weaknesses to protect and to further the authorities’ agendas.
The insouciance, gullibility, and weakness of the majority of the population is inconsistent with the continuation of civil liberty.Totalitarianism is setting in, and it is being tolerated by the masses and joyfully welcomed by Democrats and the Left-wing.
Below are more reports of evidence that the Covid “pandemic” was a mass, murderous deception.
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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy. 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 is from NaturalNews.com
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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Earlier this month, the 2022 Nobel Physics Laureate Dr. John Clauserslammed the ‘climate emergency’ narrative as a “dangerous corruption of science that threatens the world’s economy and the well-being of billions of people”. Inevitably, the punishments have begun. A talk that Dr. Clauser was due to give to the International Monetary Fund on climate models has been abruptly cancelled, and the page announcing the event removed from the IMF site.
Dr. Clauser was due to speak to the IMF’s Independent Evaluation Office this Thursday under the title: “Let’s talk – How much can we trust IPCC climate predictions?”
It would appear that “not a lot” isn’t the politically correct answer. Clauser is a longstanding critic of climate models and criticised the award of the Physics Nobel in 2021 for work on them. He is not alone, since many feel that climate models are primarily based on mathematics, and a history of failed opinionated climate predictions leave them undeserving of recognition at the highest level of pure science. Not that this opinion is shared by the green activist National Geographic magazine, which ran an article: “How climate models got so accurate they won a Nobel.”
Last week, Clauser observed that misguided climate science has “metastasised into massive shock-journalistic pseudoscience”. This pseudoscience, he continued, has become a scapegoat for a wide variety of other related ills. It has been promoted and extended by similarly misguided business marketing agents, politicians, journalists, government agencies and environmentalists. “In my opinion, there is no real climate crisis,” he added.
Clauser is the latest Nobel physics laureate to dismiss the notion of a climate crisis. Professor Ivar Giaever, a fellow laureate, is the lead signatory of the World Climate Declaration that states there is no climate emergency. It further argues that climate models are “not remotely plausible as global policy tools”. The 1998 winner Professor Robert Laughlin has expressed the view that the climate is “beyond our power to control” and humanity cannot and should not do anything to respond to climate change.
The Australian climate journalist Jo Nova was in fine form reporting on Clauser’s recent comments. “The thing about sceptical Nobel Prize winners is that they make the name-calling ‘climate denier’ programme look as stupid as it can get,” she observed. She noted the lack of any mainstream media interest in Clauser’s recent comments, asking: “How much damage would it do to the cause if the audience finds out that one of the highest ranking scientists in the world disagrees with the mantra?” A question of course with an obvious answer. Quite a lot.
The same team that tells us that we must ‘listen to the experts’ won’t listen to any experts they don’t like. They rave about ‘UN Experts’ that hide the decline, but run a mile to avoid the giants of science. They’ll ask high-school dropouts about climate change on prime-time TV before they interview Nobel Prize winners. It’s a lie by omission. It’s active deception. And the whole climate movement is built on it.
The IMF is heavily involved in international money flows and one can only hope it shows a greater willingness to ‘evaluate’ this subject matter than it does the predictions of climate models. Dr. Clauser secured his Nobel Prize for groundbreaking work in the field of quantum mechanics – the study of matter and light at a sub-atomic and atomic level. In 2010 he was awarded the Wolf Prize in Physics, considered the second most prestigious physics award after the Nobel. In addition to this work, he has also made suggestions as to how to improve current climate models.
Attempts to model the chaotic and non-linear atmosphere suffer on many fronts. They fail to predict future temperatures with mostly laughably degrees of inaccuracy, and in the process do little more than guess the effect of natural forces such as volcanoes and clouds. In Clauser’s view, climate models greatly underestimate the effect of the clouds that cover half the Earth and provide a powerful – and dominant – thermostatic control of global temperatures. More recently, Clauser also told the Korea Quantum Conference that he didn’t believe there was a climate crisis, noting: “Key processes are exaggerated and misunderstood by approximately 200 times.”
The cynical might add that this degree of exaggerated inaccuracy might be fine in the land of economics, but more robust standards should be encouraged in the world of science.
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Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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For close to a year and a half, the German economy has been going through a sort of unraveling, primarily due to suicidal subservience to its masters in Washington DC. Since the start of Russia’s counteroffensive against NATO aggression in Europe, Berlin has been experiencing a plethora of major economic problems that soon translated to societal and political ones, causing further instability in the country. In turn, this has started causing issues with investments and the overall business climate in Germany, as relevant people and companies started losing confidence in Berlin’s capacity to keep its economy stable.
“The German economy is losing its DNA as a place to do business and foreign investors are keeping their distance, instead focusing their attention on developing markets as a result,” Toralf Haag, the CEO of German Voith Group, warned.
Haag, the head of the German technology company, gave an interview to Die Welt, in which he discussed the rapidly emerging economic problems affecting Germany. He told the newspaper that his Voith Group has been able to weather the storm so far and protect itself from the recession the German economy has been in since the last quarter. However, Haag also expressed worry regarding the German economy’s future, specifically in terms of competitiveness, energy security and foreign investment. He complained about “Germany’s aggressive energy transition away from traditional energy production such as coal and nuclear to renewables”, calling it “problematic”.
“There are ambitious goals, but only insufficient incentives and support to be able to achieve these goals. What we need is less bureaucracy, faster approval procedures and faster implementation. The way it is currently running, it will not work in the long run,” Haag stated.
When asked about the current state of business and investment opportunities in Germany, he wasn’t very optimistic, not only about the prospects for his company (based in Heidenheim, operating primarily in energy, automotive and paper industries), but the overall situation.
“Investment decisions in Germany are becoming increasingly difficult,” Haag said, adding: “To be honest, at the moment we tend to choose Eastern Europe, Asia or the USA when it comes to new production facilities because the costs for energy and personnel are particularly high in Germany while at the same time bureaucracy and regulation are increasing.”
He lamented that the Voith Group was forced to hire another 30 people in the management in the last year or two just to be able to handle all the new regulations and obligations introduced due to the ever-growing red tape.
“I would like to invite the employees from the ministries to check what effect their specifications have directly inside a company – whether they are practicable and sensible. In order for Voith to make significant investments in Germany again, the framework conditions must change fundamentally. Unfortunately, I don’t see that at the moment,” Haag stated.
He said that the danger of Germany’s further deindustrialization is “very great”, primarily because of the reduction of industrial activity due to the tendency of many German companies to relocate to other countries.
“We now see almost every day that industrial companies are no longer investing in Germany but in other regions of the world. Administration and engineering may remain in Germany, but production, which is particularly valuable for an economy, is increasingly taking place elsewhere,” Haag complained, further adding: “As a result, the German economy is not only losing its DNA but also any potential for the future. With its well-paid jobs, industry is the guarantor of prosperity. The prosperity achieved so far cannot be maintained with administrative jobs and the service sector alone.”
Indeed, Germany’s deindustrialization is an ongoing process that is virtually irreversible at this point. Haag’s concerns are backed by the official data and statistics on the actual state of Germany’s economy, particularly its industrial capacity. German industry has always been the main driving force of its economy, particularly its automotive and high-tech industries, all of which are highly dependent on stable energy supplies. However, while Haag blamed the obsessive transition to alternative energy sources (particularly renewables) for the major issues Germany is experiencing, he failed to mention Berlin’s subservience to Washington DC and the resulting halt in Russian energy imports.
By February this year, Germany has experienced a “price shock” of over 40% due to its anti-Russian sanctions policies, in what can only be described as perhaps the worst case of a boomerang effect in the history of Western sanctions warfare against the world. Russian energy imports were probably the best possible energy source for Germany, particularly as Berlin was trying to increase the share of renewables in its energy production. These imports made it possible to rely on natural gas as a relatively clean source, while renewables played an auxiliary role. However, with the suicidal anti-Russian sanctions in place, as well as the US terrorist attack on the Nord Stream pipelines, Germany’s energy security was gone virtually overnight.
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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
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***
Introductory Note
The World is at a critical crossroads. The Fukushima disaster in Japan has brought to the forefront the dangers of Worldwide nuclear radiation.
The crisis in Japan has been described as “a nuclear war without a war”. In the words of renowned novelist Haruki Murakami:
“This time no one dropped a bomb on us … We set the stage, we committed the crime with our own hands, we are destroying our own lands, and we are destroying our own lives.”
More than 12 years later, the evidence amply confirms that the Fukushima disaster has by no means been resolved.
“Unimaginable” levels of radiation still prevail. In the words of Dr. Helen Caldicott, “one millionth of a gram of plutonium, if inhaled can cause cancer”.
Hazardous radioactive elements being released in the sea and air around Fukushima accumulate at each step of various food chains (for example, into algae, crustaceans, small fish, bigger fish, then humans; or soil, grass, cow’s meat and milk, then humans). Entering the body, these elements – called internal emitters – migrate to specific organs such as the thyroid, liver, bone, and brain, continuously irradiating small volumes of cells with high doses of alpha, beta and/or gamma radiation, and over many years often induce cancer”. (Helen Caldicott, Fukushima: Nuclear Apologists Play Shoot the Messenger on Radiation, The Age, April 26, 2011)
The Fukushima disaster of March 2011 resulted in 16,000 deaths, causing some 165,000 people to flee their homes in the Fukushima area.
Both the Japanese and Western media have downplayed the impacts of nuclear radiation which has spread to vast areas in Northern Japan, not to mention the contamination of the food chain.
The continued dumping of highly radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean, which is now envisaged by TEPCO (with the tacit endorsement of of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)) constitutes a potential trigger to a process of global radioactive contamination. In recent developments, TEPCO is planning a release of “1.3 million tons of treated wastewater.
Amply documented the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has been involved in a coverup. And so has the Japanese government. The Abe government had casually pointed to “harmful rumors”. The present government’s stance remains notoriously ambiguous. Already in 2021, TEPCO acknowledged that the decommissioning of the Fukushima facility could last until 2051.
The Worldwide public health impacts which includes the contamination of the Pacific Ocean extending to the Western Hemisphere are incalculable.
The crisis in Japan has also brought into the open the unspoken relationship between nuclear energy and nuclear war.
Nuclear energy is not a civilian economic activity. It is an appendage of the nuclear weapons industry which is controlled by the so-called defense contractors. The powerful corporate interests behind nuclear energy and nuclear weapons overlap.
Michel Chossudovsky, July 25, 2023
Below is the incisive and carefully documented article by Julia Conley
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With the Tokyo Electric Power Company planning to begin a release of 1.3 million tonnes of treated wastewater from the former Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan next month, reports of radioactive fish in the area have raised alarm in recent years—and new reporting on Sunday revealed that the problem is far from mitigated, prompting questions about how dangerous the company’s plan will be for the public.
The plant operator, known as TEPCO, analyzed a black rockfish in May that was found to contain levels of radioactive cesium that were 180 times over Japan’s regulatory limit, The Guardian reported.
The fish was caught near drainage outlets at the plant, where three nuclear reactors melted down in March 2011 during a tsunami.
Rainwater from the areas surrounding the reactors flows into the area where the fish was caught.
The high level of cesium—which, depending on the level of exposure, can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, bleeding, coma, and death in people who eat contaminated food—was discovered as TEPCO prepares to begin the discharge of treated wastewater which has been used to cool fuel from the melted reactors. The wastewater has mixed with rainwater and groundwater since the tsunami.
TEPCO has acknowledged that fish near the drainage outlets have been unsafe for consumption, as the concentration of cesium in seabed sediment in the area has measured more than 100,000 becquerels per kilogram. The maximum legal level is 100 becquerels per kilogram.
“Since contaminated water flowed into the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station port immediately after the accident, TEPCO has periodically removed fish from inside the port since 2012,” an official for the company told The Guardian.
A fish was detected to have high levels of radiation near Fukushima in January 2022, with authorities positing that the fish had escaped from the drainage outlet. Shipments of black rockfish caught off the coast of Fukushima prefecture were promptly suspended and have not been resumed.
More than 40 fish with cesium levels over the legal limit were found in the plant’s port between May 2022 and May 2023, and 90% came from the inner breakwater where water flows from the area around the melted reactors.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority in Japan and the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have both given their approval of TEPCO’s plan to release the wastewater into the Pacific Ocean, which it says it needs to do to secure space for decommissioning the plant. The discharge process, using an Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS), would take decades to complete.
While the IAEA said earlier this month the plan will have a “negligible radiological impact to people and the environment,” Paul Dorfman of Ireland’s Radiological Protection Advisory Committee said Monday that reports like the one about the contaminated rockfish are likely “far from over.”
Fukushima fish with 180 times legal limit of radioactive ceasium fuels water release fears.
“Believing [and] pretending some things are not harmful because it is convenient is literally killing the planet,” said American University sociologist Celine-Marie Pascale, comparing the ecological and climate crisis to authorities’ insistence that the water discharge is safe. “Corporate interests triumph at global expense once again.”
Officials in Hong Kong have said they will ban food imports from 10 prefectures in Japan if the release moves forward in August, and some Chinese wholesalers have stopped accepting seafood imports from the country.
In addition to concerns about cesium, TEPCO has admitted that the ALPS it plans to use may not eliminate isotopes including ruthenium, cobalt, strontium, and plutonium. The system is also not able to remove tritium, the radioactive isotope of hydrogen.
Masanobu Sakamoto, president of JF Zengyoren, Japan Fisheries Cooperatives, said in June that the group “cannot support the government’s stance that an ocean release is the only solution.”
[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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***
With Britain and America supplying the toxic ammunition to Ukraine, Declassified investigates the long-term health impact on one of the few countries where the weapon has been fired in anger.
A convoy of Mercedes with tinted windows speeds down the motorway as drivers rush to cross the border – a gateway to Albania’s stunning Mediterranean beaches. Resisting the temptation to join the sunbathers, I turn off half a mile from the frontier and take a winding mountain road for ten minutes, driving past a glistening lake until I reach a sleepy village.
Jutting up from the roadside are tattered American and NATO flags around a camouflaged stone column bearing the twin headed eagle emblem of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The rebel movement took the territory nearly a quarter century ago, after US jets pummelled Serb soldiers on the surrounding Ceja mountain with at least 286 rounds of depleted uranium – a chemically toxic and radioactive heavy metal made from nuclear waste.
Such airstrikes were repeated all across the border zone in 1999, driving the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army out of Kosovo within 78 days. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair relished the victory, basking in their newfound popularity. Roads and children would bear their names, spelt locally as Klinton and Tonibler. But this “humanitarian intervention” – designed to protect Kosovar Albanians from ethnic cleansing – has left a bitter legacy in the very communities it was meant to save.
Sipping a macchiato at a roadside cafe opposite the KLA monument, Adil is pleasantly surprised when he hears a journalist has come to ask about cancer in the village. “My father has just died from it,” he tells my translator, as he gladly pays for our drinks. “We have 20 to 30 people a year with cancer here.”
Without prompting, he links the illnesses to weapons used in the war. “We had so many bombs dropped here because we are near the border. A small bomb infects the whole surrounding area.” When told Britain is sending depleted uranium tank shells to Ukraine, Adil exclaims: “I feel sorry for them. I wouldn’t want anyone to experience it.”
Our conversation arouses interest from KLA veterans at the cafe. One of them, who normally works abroad, volunteers to show us a bomb crater. The others fear reprisals if they publicly criticise NATO.
Jumping in my rented Vauxhall Corsa, we gingerly head off road through several fields to a heap of soil sprinkled with wild flowers. “This is one of the spots that was hit six times with depleted uranium,” the veteran informs us. “The crater was five or six metres deep and seven metres wide. We brought healthy soil to put on top, in order to reduce radiation for the people.”
Despite a warning from a Danish NGO, villagers were growing vegetables in the vicinity. The veteran puts the number of local cancer cases even higher than Adil – claiming there are 50-60 patients in the village, many of them young people.
At the last census in 2011, Zhur had a population of under 6,000 – suggesting a cancer rate of around 1%. That would be three times the worst rate in the European Union. The veteran had likely made an overestimate, but I was to hear similar disturbing stories throughout this former conflict zone.
Hidden Hazards
NATO’s use of depleted uranium (DU) in Kosovo was not confirmed until the year after the war, amid panic over ‘Balkan syndrome’. Italian peacekeepers who took over many of the bombed out Yugoslav army bases were going down with leukaemia.
In March 2000, NATO’s chief, Labour peer George Robertson, belatedly told the UN’s Kofi Annan that “approximately 31,000 rounds” of DU had been fired “throughout Kosovo during approximately 100 missions”. He said the weapon was deployed “whenever the A-10 engaged armour”, referring to the US air force’s Warthog ‘tankbuster’.
One of the most powerful aircraft ever built, the Warthog’s giant gatling gun can fire a blizzard of 30mm bullets with ultra-dense depleted uranium cores, knocking out tanks in seconds. But its speed is superior to its accuracy. Typically, 90% of rounds miss the target. They spread out over 500 square metres, burying several metres into soft ground.
Upon impact, the rounds partially vaporise and produce a dust that is dangerous for those nearby to inhale, posing a risk to surviving Serb soldiers, local communities and incoming peacekeepers.
The gatling gun on an A-10 Warthog. (Photo: Willard E. Grande II / USAF)
Lord Robertson’s admission that the weapon was used paved the way for the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and World Health Organisation (WHO) to inspect target sites – although scientists struggled to find them.
After months of intense internal chicanery over obtaining more accurate maps, they spent 24 days during 2000-1 surveying Kosovo for the twin threat posed by DU: radiation and heavy metal toxicity – which could cause cancer or birth defects.
Much hinged on their findings. A negative outcome would undermine NATO’s humanitarian credentials and hamper the return of refugees from their temporary asylum in western Europe.
Ultimately, their reports were fairly inconclusive. When the WHO came to where I was now in Zhur and the Ceja mountain, they found the “precise location of the targeted site was difficult to pinpoint since access was restricted due to the presence of unexploded cluster bombs” – another controversial weapon dropped by NATO.
This meant scientists were only able to study an area in which they found just two out of nearly 300 rounds of the depleted uranium ammunition fired here. Based on tests of this small sample, the UNEP dismissed any radiation risk but said “from a toxicological point of view the exposure might be significant.”
The experts lamented: “It is unsatisfactory that the risk cannot be assessed quantitatively because the targeted area could not be investigated in its entirety” and warned “it would be prudent to complete the investigation after the area has been made safe.”
Judging by the agricultural approach towards the blast craters that I found in Zhur, there has been no follow up survey. The UNEP’s press office confirmed to me their organisation had never returned to the site, despite their own recommendation, nor has it done any long term monitoring of the community’s health.
The NATO public affairs office in Kosovo also could not confirm it had followed up on UNEP’s recommendation to reinspect Zhur. Instead, the Atlantic alliance seized on some United Nations documents that suggested “sites with depleted uranium pose no significant health risks to the population”.
NATO told me: “This is the scientific evidence. And it has been consistent.” Yet many of these same reports urge precaution and long term monitoring – something those concerned with “scientific evidence” would surely be keen to undertake?
William Walker Road
Hoping that Zhur’s cancer crisis is a one off, I drove ten minutes down William Walker road – named after a US diplomat who paved the way for NATO’s bombing campaign – towards the mediaeval Ottoman city of Prizren.
Turning off at Rikavac roundabout opposite Kosovo’s answer to B&Q, I parked up on a derelict forecourt that looked like a graveyard for broken down trucks. It was deserted apart from a young man selling watermelons from the back of his orange flapped lorry. He was blissfully ignorant that in the space of a week in June 1999, more than 500 depleted uranium rounds were fired in this location.
The only signs of the war were three crumbling concrete walls that resembled a bombed out Serb barracks. As I stood near the site, a passerby pulled over to talk. Despite being unaware of what was fired here, he explained that 20-30 people a year were dying from cancer in his nearby village. “The state of Kosovo isn’t doing anything to help the community,” he complained, before driving away.
“This happens every time I visit a site where NATO fired depleted uranium,” my interpreter Dzafer Buzoli commented. “In all the villages nearby people will tell you about a high rate of rare cancers.”
Dzafer Buzoli at a site hit by depleted uranium rounds in Rikavac. (Photo: Phil Miller / DCUK)
Buzoli has worked for many of the international NGOs that descended on Kosovo after the war, from the Red Cross to Norwegian Church Aid.
Importantly, he is not from either side of the country’s ethnic conflict. Speaking both Serbian and Albanian, Buzoli is from the Roma minority and was heavily involved in resettling Roma refugees who the UN housed near a former lead mine, a scandal which saw hundreds of people poisoned.
He fears depleted uranium is the next tragedy for Kosovo, ever since his mother died in 2015 from a short battle with cancer aged 52. Buzoli turned to their local oncologist for answers. “He told me very informally it was because of what they had thrown at us during the war,” alluding to depleted uranium.
The doctor then emigrated from Kosovo, concerned for his family’s health.
“I asked myself what this is all about, knowing the Balkans has hard smokers and lignite power plants near our capital,” Buzoli recalled. Two sites on the outskirts of Pristina provide 97% of Kosovo’s electricity by burning ‘brown coal’, creating among the worst sources of air pollution in Europe. After spending just five days in the country, my lungs felt noticeably worse.
But Buzoli believes lignite is not the gravest health risk. “The power plants were operating at full capacity before the war and we never had this number of cancers,” he insists. “I believe depleted uranium is the cause. When you read about how hard it is for the population in Kosovo, southern Serbia and northern Albania – all these towns near the border where the weapon was fired have almost the same problem of high cancer.”
Reliable statistics are hard to obtain as Kosovo’s cancer registry was disrupted for a decade after the war, meaning there’s no accurate data from a crucial time period. The most recent official figures are from 2021 when there were 2,991 cancer patients out of a population of 1,773,971. That would suggest a cancer rate of around 0.17%, which is on par with the global average.
However, these figures do not record cancer cases in Kosovo’s ten municipalities with a Serb majority, which boycott Pristina’s healthcare system. When the population of those municipalities is removed from the total, the cancer rate is slightly higher – at 0.18% – but still not exceptional.
The director of Kosovo’s main oncology clinic in Pristina, Dr Ilir Kurtishi, warned last month that 890 new cases of cancer had been detected already this year, which local media described as “alarming”. Kurtishi was not at the clinic when I called by and did not answer questions I sent him via email. Kosovo’s health minister, Dr Arben Vitia, did not respond to a request for an interview.
A breakdown by village is not available, preventing a precise comparison with somewhere like Zhur. When mapped by municipality, Pristina has the highest number of cancer cases in the country – perhaps due to the lignite plants. Zhur falls under the area of Prizren, which has some of Kosovo’s cleanest air, and yet the second highest number of cancer cases – although when adjusted for population size, Prizren’s cancer rate is below average.
Buzoli believes many people simply don’t report their tumours to national health authorities, and instead seek alternative therapies. He said there’s a regular queue at a fountain in Albania where Kosovars believe the drinking water is particularly pure.
Drenica Valley
The day after visiting Zhur I headed west out of Pristina, leaving Bill Clinton Boulevard behind in exchange for the Drenica Valley. Flanked with forests, this KLA stronghold saw some of the fiercest fighting and earliest rebel victories. After an hour I turned off in the village of Llapushnik, which the KLA liberated from the Yugoslav army a full year before NATO intervened.
Winding through the village, whose main street is named after the rebel movement, I searched in vain for the spot where NATO fired 370 rounds of depleted uranium in June 1999. The map took me into the middle of some fields being used to grow corn.
Britain’s Ministry of Defence, which also tried to find the site, noted the NATO grid references were only accurate to “plus or minus one nautical mile” (1,852 metres). Dejected, I returned to the main road and stopped in a cafe adorned with KLA memorabilia.
Its proprietor, Migjenii, welcomed me inside. I was a little apprehensive. The WHO report said “almost all” ethnic Albanian medics they met in 2001 believed concerns about depleted uranium “were politically motivated and fuelled by those who were against the NATO intervention.”
But Migjenii was visibly relieved to hear someone was investigating cancer cases, just like the people I had met 30 miles away in Zhur. “My father was in the KLA,” he explained, plying me with free coffee. “I was six in 1999 and still remember everything. NATO fired cluster bombs from the sky. Some of the biggest battles with the Serb army were here.”
While proud of his neighbourhood’s rebel past, he was worried about their future health. “My best friend’s mum died last year from a rare lung cancer. She was 56.”
Migjenii continued to unburden: “My sister’s school friend, Labinot, died from a rare diagnosis when he was in his late 20s. And one of my relative’s wife was diagnosed with cancer five months after giving birth.
“I think more and more young people have a problem with rare diseases but the government doesn’t care about it. It’s good you are exploring this issue because we need help from other places.
“Why is cancer spreading so fast?” He asked, before offering his own answers: “This is from the war, the uranium bombs – and probably the water we buy from Serbia,” he mentioned for good measure.
Despite his community fighting so hard to liberate Kosovo, Migjenii lamented the cost of healthcare provided by his government. In communist Yugoslavia, medical treatment was free. But in capitalist Kosovo, chemotherapy is often prohibitively expensive (unless you are one of the few remaining Serbs, whose healthcare is subsidised from Belgrade).
The main clinic in Pristina is a cramped, wedge shaped, double-storey building with blue windows and grubby concrete facade. Money is so tight that when the hospital’s kitchen was renovated last year, it was funded with US military aid.
Migjenii’s friends and family face bills of hundreds of euros for simple appointments, with full treatments running into tens of thousands. They are often told to travel abroad to seek remedies at private clinics where he believes Kosovar doctors earn commission for referrals.
‘Gift that keeps giving’
Parting ways with Migjenii, I drove deeper into the Drenica valley, passing cemetery after cemetery of fallen KLA fighters with elaborate murals or mosques. Eventually I reached the steep slopes around Vraniq, where an estimated 600 kilos of depleted uranium are embedded into a sandy glacial ridge 30 metres above the village.
In June 1999, the US fired more than 2,320 depleted uranium rounds at Serb anti-aircraft batteries on the hill top. When the UN visited nearly 18 months on, their lichen sample did find “clear indications of DU contamination”.
However, they failed to locate any of the ammunition – suggesting it must have burrowed into the soft ground. The scientists suspected “some penetrators ricocheted and came to rest hundreds (or even thousands) of metres away from the top of the hill.”
Vraniq’s mosque and KLA cemetery. (Photo: Phil Miller / DCUK)
I scrambled half way up the ridge, avoiding sections where it looks like a recent landslide occurred. The view was spectacular, panning across to the carefully ploughed fields below. It dawned on me that like in Llapushnik and Zhur, many areas NATO liberated with depleted uranium are where Kosovo now relies upon to grow its food.
The irony of this was pointed out to me later in the day when I visited Decani, a Serb Orthodox monastery in the west of Kosovo surrounded by KLA heartlands. Guarded by Italian peacekeepers to protect it from attack by Albanian arsonists, the UNESCO site has survived since the 14th century.
It had a narrow escape in 1999 when NATO fired an unknown number of depleted uranium rounds at targets about half a mile up the hill from the monastery.
Inside, my guide, Branko, confirmed the monks were concerned about the possible health consequences, which have featured heavily in Serbian media. “Depleted uranium is the gift that keeps giving from the US,” he noted sarcastically. “And now they’re giving it to Ukraine, one of the world’s largest exporters of wheat.”
Gjakova
Leaving the monastery’s fragile rural tranquillity, I meandered south to the city of Gjakova, parking near St Paul’s catholic church with its tall twin spires. Just down the road is a grubby concrete yard used by cheap car washes, tire shops and a disused motor racing track.
An arch-shaped bunker is the only reminder that this was once a Serb garrison and ammunition depot, where NATO fired 300 rounds of depleted uranium.
The WHO said it was “a few hundred metres from the regional hospital and close to the last houses at the end of town. The area was totally destroyed and heavily bombed…There were (and are) people living close to this site. Of all the sites visited this is the one closest to a large populated area.”
Italian peacekeepers had conducted extensive demolition work there after the war, before discovering DU rounds in the wreckage. In the decades since, hundreds of Italian veterans who served in Kosovo have successfully sued their defence ministry for cancers their courts accepted were linked to DU exposure in the Balkans.
A Yugoslav army bunker in Gjakova was hit with depleted uranium. (Photo: Phil Miller / DCUK)
But sitting in a pizza restaurant opposite, the teenage waiters have no idea what happened there in the war. That’s despite the UNEP warning in 2001 “it is advisable to inform people about the possible presence of [DU] penetrators” in case children pick them up as toys.
Outside, workers blast cars with pressure washers, constantly causing water to run off near the site. They seem oblivious to another recommendation in the UNEP report, that the concrete should be covered with a new layer.
This was because “many penetrators may remain hidden in the ground and therefore vulnerable to solution and ultimate dispersal into the groundwater”, creating a risk that “drinking water from some nearby wells could become contaminated in the future”.
The International Campaign to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW), which conducted its own study in the Balkans, said “sites may require ongoing testing of groundwater”, warning that “estimates of how long this may need to be done run into centuries”.
The group believes “no systematic decontamination has been undertaken on any sites in Kosovo”. Even if authorities in Pristina wanted to embark on that route, they may struggle to afford it.
In neighbouring Montenegro, where NATO fired depleted uranium at just one site, the clean up costs are daunting. To decontaminate 480 rounds, which took just 12 seconds to fire, Montenegro spent over a quarter of a million US dollars and devoted 5,000 working person days.
Kosovo has more than 100 such sites.
Radoniq
Six miles north of Gjakova lies Lake Radoniq, a vast reservoir that supplies drinking water for the city and many of southern Kosovo’s 200,000 inhabitants. Yet even this breathtakingly beautiful location was not spared from attack with depleted uranium.
On 7 June 1999, the US fired 655 rounds near its dam, apparently targeting Serb artillery dug into a ridge and a radio mast. When the UNEP went there, they could only recover a single round, noting the “more probable scenario that most of the penetrators are hidden in the ground means that drinking water could possibly become contaminated in the future.”
However, they felt the volume of water in the lake would dilute the uranium enough to make contamination insignificant. Hopefully they are right, because when I visited there was a luxury waterfront hotel built right on top of where the airstrike occurred.
A tourist couple from the Gulf with a young baby parked up next to me and took selfies as the sun began to set. Rather than ruin their holiday with questions about DU, I left them in peace and headed back to Pristina before it got too dark to drive safely on Kosovo’s precarious roads.
US jets fired 655 rounds of depleted uranium at this site on Lake Radoniq. (Photo: Phil Miller / DCUK)
Ferizaj
No trip to Kosovo is complete without meeting admirers of Tony Blair. To maximise my chances, one day I headed to Ferizaj, a city south of Pristina where a road is named in his honour. For good measure, the local council upgraded the street to a square.
I fully intended to pay my respects to New Labour’s supremo, but Buzoli suggested a more serious sightseeing spot. This was ten minutes drive east of Tony Blair street/square, where our map of airstrikes suggested NATO unleashed 480 rounds of DU in May 1999.
Today it’s a petrol station, school and plumbing shop. The plumber’s merchant, Bahri Hyseni, who also works as a building inspector, welcomed us inside. He spent the war sheltering in Manchester and is eternally grateful to England, asking me to convey his good wishes – not least to our former prime minister.
But Bahri was suspicious about the conflict’s legacy on local health. “My uncle recently died from a six month battle with lung cancer. He was 67 and quit smoking 15 years ago,” he conveyed. “A teacher at the school has just died from lung cancer. They were 64.”
Bahri estimated that in the last year, his village of around 400 families had lost 12 to 13 people to cancer. While the numbers might not seem exceptional, he worried there could be a connection with depleted uranium.
“NATO knew people lived here,” he pointed out. “Why would they destroy the country and leave people with cancer so long afterwards? Why did they choose Kosovo and not Belgrade?”
Although the US did fire some depleted uranium in Serbia, it was all dropped along the southern border with Kosovo and never in the capital. As a result, Kosovo accounts for the vast majority of DU fired in the Balkans.
“It was better not for NATO to intervene,” Bahri insisted, remarkably. “We would have had more casualties from gun fights, but after the war we would have had fewer people with cancer. Most of us won’t be able to live beyond 60 due to the health conditions and stress from war we lived under.
“Many young people have died from heart attacks and the families didn’t do autopsies to see what the underlying cause of death was. If they did, they might have found some were due to depleted uranium.”
He is also suspicious of what Serb doctors did to ethnic Albanian patients in 1990, finding an archive newsclip on YouTube showing children suffering from poisoning in a hospital ward. “Imagine nine years later NATO bombed us with depleted uranium. It will take decades for our health to recover.”
Keen to show us exactly where the weapon was used, Bahri calls the Hyseni family who live behind his shop. Raif, Hafez and their elderly father Ismet escorted us onto their property. “We fled to another village during the war,” Ismet explained. “When we came back, we found Serb soldiers had slept in our houses.”
The Yugoslav army stationed tanks in the fields between their homes, making them a prime target for the Warthog’s depleted uranium. As I admired his flourishing vegetable patch, Ismet let slip: “This is the spot where NATO fired. I’m very surprised to hear what type of weapon was used in my garden. But fortunately my family haven’t suffered from cancer. I don’t know about other people in the village.”
Such anecdotal evidence is all I had to go on. This site in Ferizaj – marked as target 57 on the NATO strike list – was never inspected by the World Health Organisation or UNEP, which only examined 11 out of around 100 sites in Kosovo where depleted uranium had been fired.
But at least one prestigious person had visited the area, Raif proudly assured me. It had been graced by Tony Blair on his victory lap of Kosovo.
Beau Road
If NATO really wanted to monitor the long-term impact of the weapons they fired in Kosovo, the alliance would not have to go far out of its way. A few miles from the Hyseni’s vegetable patch is the one of the largest US military bases in the world: Camp Bondsteel. Its sprawling barbed wire fences slice the horizon as far as the eye can see.
When Joe Biden called by in 2016, Kosovar authorities renamed the highway leading to the base after his late son, Beau. Meant as a tribute to Biden’s foreign policy and Beau’s stint as an attorney in Kosovo, for me it had other connotations as I drove past.
Beau served as a soldier in Iraq, where he was exposed to US military ‘burn pits’ – vast piles of smouldering trash. He died a few years later, aged 46, from an aggressive brain tumour. Biden has publicly linked his son’s death to burn pits, and passed a law last year to expand health care for millions of other veterans he believes suffer as a result.
If the US commander in chief can accept some of his military’s practices cause cancer, then why won’t he take a closer look at depleted uranium before shipping it to Ukraine?
Kosovo’s cancer cases – if connected – could just be the tip of an iceberg. For the 31,000 rounds of DU fired here, the Warthogs unleashed 783,500 rounds on Iraq in the first Gulf War.
When I told the World Health Organisation about my interviews in Kosovo, they claimed to have been reviewing the health effects of depleted uranium on local communities “for several decades” – but then confusingly said they published their report on Kosovo in 2001. Given that was less than two years after the weapon was fired, the timescales do not add up.
The agency also pointed me to another UN report it said was from 2018, but is actually dated 2016, which “concluded that there was no convincing evidence of an association between exposure to DU and clinical outcomes, including any type of cancer and congenital malformations.”
However, when I read that report, it seems that no one cited has done a long-term study of people’s health in the parts of Kosovo where the weapon was used.
Buzoli is sceptical that these international agencies which rely so much on Western funding can be impartial on such a sensitive subject. He admits he doesn’t have all the answers, but rightly insists that’s not his role.
“If you are a doctor or a scientist, please come to Kosovo to do research,” he appeals. “Take soil samples, take air samples, take water samples, and come out with a neutral report that helps us understand how bad it is.”
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Phil Miller is Declassified UK’s chief reporter. He is the author of Keenie Meenie: The British Mercenaries Who Got Away With War Crimes. Follow him on Twitter at @pmillerinfo
Featured image: A KLA veteran shows where fresh soil was piled on top of land hit by depleted uranium rounds. (Photo: Phil Miller / Declassified UK)
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The Pentagon inspector general found the arms Washington sent to Kiev did not undergo the required inspections. A report from the inspector general found weapons the US sent to Ukraine in the hands of criminals and on the black market.
The Arms Control Act requires the White House to establish an inspection system for weapons the US sells or gifts to third countries. The law mandates the monitoring continues to the end-use of the weapon. In Ukraine, the embassy in Kiev has been assigned responsibility for monitoring the weapons transfers.
The Department of Defense inspector general report on American weapons transfers to Ukraine from February to September of last year found that legally required monitoring was not taking place.
“The DoD is unable to conduct [End Use Monitoring] in Ukraine because completing [End Use Monitoring] in accordance with DoD policy requires in-person access to the defense equipment provided,” it said. “Intelligence methods provide some accountability for observable platforms, such as missiles and helicopters, but smaller items, such as night vision devices, have limited accountability.”
“The DoD OIG found deficiencies in the DoD’s transfer of military equipment to the Government of Ukraine requiring [End Use Monitoring], including Javelin missiles, Javelin Command Launch Units, and night vision devices; and in Ukraine’s security and accountability of US.-provided military equipment requiring [End Use Monitoring],” the report added.
In a section of the report that is heavily redacted, the inspector general listed some cases of American weapons not making it to their intended recipient. The cases that remained unredacted in the report include: a Moscow-influenced criminal organization that procured grande launchers and machine guns, a pro-Kev militia that tried to sell dozens of rifles on the black market, and a group of arms traffickers who were selling weapons and ammunition stolen from the front lines.
In response to questions about the report, a State Department spokesperson admitted that American weapons were being used for illicit purposes in Ukraine. Despite these issues, the spokesperson emphasized that Washington felt the weapons transfers were too important.
“The US government remains keenly aware of the risk of possible illicit diversion and is proactively taking steps to mitigate this risk in close cooperation with the government of Ukraine.” The spokesperson continued, “We are realistic that we are sending weapons to help Ukraine defend itself in an active conflict, and there is a risk these weapons could be captured if territory changes hands – which happens in any war.”
Earlier this month, the White House came out against a provision in the Pentagon funding bill that would create a special inspector general for the Ukraine aid. The inspector general for the Afghan War, John Sopko, has warned that without sufficient oversight of the weapons and money sent to Kiev, Ukraine will face many of the same problems as the Afghan government.
The demand to create an office to oversee the more than $100 billion in aid Congress has authorized sending to Ukraine has been attacked as Russian propaganda. Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the head of the House Armed Services Committee, said in December that calls for more oversight of the billions of dollars the US is spending on Ukraine are “part of Russian propaganda.”
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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.
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The NATO Summit in Vilnius (July 11-12) signalled that there is absolutely no possibility of talks to settle the Ukraine war in a foreseeable future. The war will only intensify, as the US and its allies still hope to inflict a military defeat on Russia although that is clearly beyond their capability.
On July 14, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of US joint chiefs of staff said that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is “far from a failure” but the fight ahead will be “long” and “bloody”. Milley has a reputation for speaking what the White House wants to hear, no matter his professional judgment.
Indeed, on July 19, the Biden administration announced additional security assistance of about $1.3 billion for Ukraine. The Pentagon said in a statement that the announcement “represents the beginning of a contracting process to provide additional priority capabilities to Ukraine.” That is to say, the US will be using funds in its Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative program, which allows the administration to buy weapons from industry rather than pull from US weapons stocks.
According to the Pentagon, the latest package includes four National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) and munitions; 152 mm artillery rounds; mine clearing equipment; and drones.
Meanwhile, in an ominous development, no sooner than Russia let the UN-brokered grain deal expire on July 17, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky disclosed that he had sent official letters to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan suggesting to continue the grain deal without Russia’s participation.
On the very next day, Kiev followed up with an official letter to the UN’s International Maritime Organization spelling out a new maritime corridor passing through Romania’s territorial waters and exclusive maritime economic zone in the north-western part of the Black Sea.
Evidently, Kiev acted in concert with Romania (a NATO member country where the 101st Airborne Division of the US army is deployed). Presumably, the US and NATO are in the loop while the UN’s imprimatur is being arranged.It goes without saying that the NATO has been working on a new maritime route in the Black Sea for sometime already.
This is a serious development, as it seems a precursor to involving the NATO in some way to challenge Russia’s domain dominance in the Black Sea. Indeed, the NATO’s Vilnius Summit Communiqué (July 11) had forecast that the alliance is gearing up for a vastly enhanced presence in the Black Sea region, which has been historically a Russian preserve, where its has important military bases.
The relevant para in the NATO Communiqué said:
“The Black Sea region is of strategic importance for the Alliance. This is further highlighted by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. We underline our continued support to Allied regional efforts aimed at upholding security, safety, stability and freedom of navigation in the Black Sea region including, as appropriate, through the 1936 Montreux Convention. We will further monitor and assess developments in the region and enhance our situational awareness, with a particular focus on the threats to our security and potential opportunities for closer cooperation with our partners in the region, as appropriate.” [Emphasis added.]
Four things need to be noted:
one, the Ukraine conflict has been singled out as the context; the focus is on Crimea;
two, “freedom of navigation” means an assertive US naval presence; reference to the 1936 Montreux Convention hinted at the role of Turkey, both as a NATO member country and the custodian of the Dardanelles and Bosporus straits;
three, the NATO flags its intention to enhance its “situational awareness,” which as a military term involves 4 stages: observation, orientation, decision, and action. Situational awareness has two main elements, namely, one’s own knowledge of the situation and, secondly, one’s knowledge of what others are doing and might do if the situation were to change in certain ways. Simply put, the NATO surveillance of Russian activities in the Black Sea will intensify; and,
four, the NATO seeks closer cooperation with “our partners in the region” (read Ukraine).
Most certainly, a new maritime route in northwestern and western regions of the Black Sea along Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey (all of whom are NATO member countries) will cut off the Russian garrison in Transnistria (Moldava) and would boost Kiev’s capability to strike at Crimea. The NATO involvement would complicate any future Russian operations to liberate Odessa as well, which is historically a Russian city.
Apart from the huge legacy of culture and history, Odessa is a port head for the industrial products of Russia and Ukraine. The Togliatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline (which the Ukrainian saboteurs blew up recently) is one of the best examples. The 2,471 km pipeline, the longest ammonia pipeline in the world, connected the world’s largest ammonia producer, TogliattiAzot, in Russia’s Samara region with Odessa Port.
In strategic terms, without control over Odessa, NATO cannot have force projection in the Black Sea region or hope to resurrect Ukraine as an anti-Russia outpost. Nor can NATO advance toward the Transcaucasus and the Caspian (bordering Iran) and Central Asia without dominating the Black Sea region.
And for the same reasons, Russia cannot afford to cede the Black Sea region to the NATO, either. Odessa is a vital link in any land bridge along the Black Sea coast connecting the Russian hinterland with its garrison in Transnistria, Moldova (which the US is eyeing as a potential NATO member.) In fact, Crimea’s security will be endangered if hostile forces establish themselves in Odessa. (The attack on the Kerch Bridge in October 2022 was staged from Odessa.)
Clearly, the entire US project on the new maritime route is intended to pre-empt Russia from gaining control of Odessa. It factors in the strong likelihood that with the Ukrainian offensive floundering, Russia may soon launch its counter-offensive in the direction of Odessa.
From the Russian perspective, this becomes an existential moment. The NATO has virtually encircled the Russian Navy in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea (with the induction of Sweden and Finland as members). The freedom of navigation of the Baltic Fleet and the dominance in the Black Sea, therefore, become all the more crucial for Russia to freely access the world market round the year.
Moscow has reacted strongly. On July 19, Russian ministry of defence notified that “all vessels sailing in the waters of the Black Sea to Ukrainian ports will be regarded as potential carriers of military cargo. Accordingly, the countries of such vessels will be considered to be involved in the Ukrainian conflict on the side of the Kiev regime.”
Russia has further notified that “the north-western and south-eastern parts of the international waters of the Black Sea have been declared temporarily dangerous for navigation.” The latest reports suggest that the Black Sea Fleet of warships are rehearsing the procedure for boarding foreign ships sailing to Ukrainian waters. In effect, Russia is imposing a sea blockade of Ukraine.
In an interview with Izvestia, Russian military expert Vasily Dandykin said he would now expect Russia to stop and inspect all ships sailing to Ukrainian ports. “This practice is normal: There is a war zone there, and in the past two days it has been the scene of missile strikes. We’ll see how this will work in practice and whether there will be anyone willing to send vessels to these waters, because this is very serious.”
The White House has accused Russia of laying mines to block Ukrainian ports. Of course, Washington hopes that the NATO moving in as the guarantor of the grain corridor, replacing Russia, would have resonance in the Global South. The Western propaganda caricatures Russia as creating food scarcity globally. Whereas, the fact of the matter is that the West didn’t keep its part of the bargain reciprocally to allow the export of Russian wheat and fertiliser, as has been acknowledged by the UN and Turkey.
What remains to be seen is whether beyond the raging information war, any NATO country would dare to challenge Russia’s sea blockade. The chances are slim, the daunting deployment of the 101st Airborne Division in next-door Romania notwithstanding.
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The White House called it “unfortunate” after Israel’s parliament passed a law diminishing the powers of the courts and endorsing comprehensive reforms to overhaul the judicial system.
“As a lifelong friend of Israel, President [Joe] Biden has publicly and privately expressed his views that major changes in a democracy to be enduring must have as broad a consensus as possible,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
“It is unfortunate that the vote today took place with the slimmest possible majority,” she added.
Supported by legislatures from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultra-nationalist coalition government, the “Reasonable Standard Law” was approved with a 64-to-0 vote. Opposition members left the session in protest, shouting “shame” and “government of destruction” before the vote took place.
The new law abolishes Israel’s “reasonableness standard”, eliminating the Supreme Court’s ability to block government decisions it deems unreasonable.
It’s part of a package of bills proposed by the government earlier this year, seeking to overhaul the judicial system in the country.
“We understand talks are ongoing and likely to continue over the coming weeks and months to forge a broader compromise even with the Knesset in recess,” Jean-Pierre said.
“The United States will continue to support the efforts of President [Isaac] Herzog and other Israeli leaders as they seek to build a broader consensus through political dialogue.”
Disappointed Jewish Organisations
The American Jewish Committee expressed its “profound disappointment over the passage of the law”. According to a statement, the organisation said that this deepened the divisions in Israeli society as evidenced by the hundreds of thousands of people who have taken to the streets.
“The continued effort to press forward on judicial reform rather than seeking compromise has sown discord within the Israeli Defense Forces at a time of elevated threats to the Jewish homeland and has strained the vital relationship between Israel and Diaspora Jewry,” the statement read.
“Dramatic changes to Israel’s judicial system should result from a deliberative and inclusive process that upholds the democratic values of maintaining checks and balances, respecting minority rights and civil liberties, and preserving essential judicial independence.”
The National Council of Jewish Women put out a statement saying that for the past six months, Israelis have protested in the streets, culminating in tens of thousands walking from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem over the weekend in a five-day trek.
“We believe in a secure, Jewish, and democratic Israel – and the move to limit the power of the Supreme Court’s abilities to provide checks and balances on the government undermines that vision,” the council wrote on Twitter.
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As “Oppenheimer” begins its run in theaters nationwide this week, the author of the book the film is based on, Kai Bird, and Nobel laureates have joined with survivors of U.S. nuclear weapons testing to urge Congress to rectify the harm this group has suffered.
In a letter to Congress released today, the group called for Congress to strengthen and extend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA)—a program that provides financial support to people suffering from cancers and other illnesses related to exposure to radiation from the testing and production of U.S. nuclear weapons but leaves out people who lived downwind of the Trinity test site in New Mexico, along with others.
Legislation has been introduced in the House and Senate that would for the first time extend healthcare benefits and compensation to communities impacted by the test of the first atomic bomb in New Mexico, as well as downwind communities in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Guam, and cover remaining areas of Nevada, Utah and Arizona.
In addition to Bird, the Pulitzer Prize winning co-author of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, signers include Nobel prize winning scientists Roald Hoffmann, Roger D. Kornberg and Martin Chalfie; Dr. Buu Nygren, President of the Navajo Nation, which is home to many downwinders and former uranium workers; engineer and science educator Bill Nye; groups representing people who lived downwind of nuclear weapons tests; veterans who cleaned up test sites; uranium miners; and leaders in the peace and security field.
The letter was coordinated by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and will continue to collect signatures.
“‘Oppenheimer’ provides an opportunity for some public scrutiny of nuclear weapons’ legacy,” said Lilly Adams, senior outreach coordinator in the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “People who lived downwind of the Trinity test are, right now, fighting for recognition and compensation for the harms they and their loved ones suffered. RECA is a valuable program with bipartisan support, but too many people are left out—Trinity test survivors and many others. These are our neighbors: veterans, farmers, ranchers, miners, families from across the country who have gotten sick or have lost loved ones. Downwinders have been fighting for justice for decades, and they cannot wait any longer. We need Congress to act now.”
RECA currently limits compensation to Downwinders who lived in parts of Nevada, Utah and Arizona when above-ground nuclear tests were conducted between 1945 and 1962, despite studies indicating the radioactive fallout and radiation reached several states in the Mountain West. Many groups of uranium miners are also excluded, including any workers employed after 1971.
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Featured image: A US Air Force commander simulates launching a nuclear weapon during a test. Nuclear command and control systems already incorporate various forms of automation. As countries build new systems, will they insert more artificial intelligence? Credit: US Air Force/Staff Sgt. Christopher Ruano.
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Senator Gerard Rennick is an Australian politician, who is in the Liberal National Party of Queensland since July 2019.
We are all used to the Government lying but in my view this has to be one of the biggest lies of all.
The World Health Organisation has told governments to code deaths to Covid even if the virus was not identified in an autopsy and even if it was not medically correct.
“Although both categories, U07.1 (COVID-19, virus identified) and U07.2 (COVID-19, virus not identified) are suitable for cause of death coding, it is recognized that in many countries detail as to the laboratory confirmation of COVID-19 will NOT be reported on the death certificate. In the absence of this detail, it is recommended, for mortality purposes only, to code COVID-19 provisionally to U07.1 unless it is stated as “probable” or “suspected”.
The international rules and guideline for selecting the underlying cause of death for statistical tabulation apply when COVID-19 is reported on a death certificate but, given the intense public health requirements for data, COVID-19 is not considered as due to, or as an obvious consequence of, anything else in analogy to the coding rules applied for INFLUENZA. Further to this, there is no provision in the classification to link COVID-19 to other causes or modify its coding in any way.
With reference to section 4.2.3 of volume 2 of ICD-10, the purpose of mortality classification (coding) is to produce the most useful cause of death statistics possible. Thus, whether a sequence is listed as ‘rejected’ or ‘accepted’ may reflect interests of importance for public health rather than what is acceptable from a purely medical point of view. Therefore, always apply these instructions, whether they can be considered medically correct or not. Individual countries should not correct what is assumed to be an error, since changes at the national level will lead to data that are less comparable to data from other countries, and thus less useful for analysis.”
Let’s not forget authorities in Australia wouldn’t recognise someone as being vaccinated until 21 days after the jab, meaning that many of the vaccine injured or deaths had their injury correlated to Covid not the jab.
This World Health Organization document quoted above proves that the world public health leadership at the WHO faked death reports during the pandemic. This was designed to overestimate the death rate worldwide.
The document also “teaches” physicians and hospitals to code for COVID-19, even when the cause of death may have been something else. Note that in the WHO examples below, a positive COVID-19 test is not necessary for listing COVID-19 as the cause of death.
The first example from the document shows that if there is a positive test, the death certificate should be labelled as such. Without such labelling, there would not have been a positive test. This is what a positive COVID-19 test would look like on a death certificate.
The example above documents that despite the fact that this patient had Coronary artery disease, type 2 diabetes, and COP – WHO advises that on the death certificate, COVID-19 be listed as the primary cause of death. Even without a positive test.
In another example, the patient had cerebral palsy – a disease that is associated with extremely high childhood death rates, yet without a positive test – that child was listed as a COVID-19 death.
Likewise, this last example shows that a patient with HIV- and no positive test would be listed a COVID-19 death.
In the USA, this appears to get even more nefarious.
Due to the CARES act, medicare paid hospitals a 20% “add-on” to the regular payment for COVID-19 patients. Remember that the people who became sick from COVID were generally the elderly and on medicare. Ergo: the incentive to put people on ventilators. There was a financial incentive to put people on ventilators and yet ventilators contributed to many of the COVID-19 deaths.
It is less clear if hospitals actually received a payment from a government agency for a positive COVID-19 cause of death on the certificate (if anyone can find an actual government document stating that, I would love to see it).
Here is the NIH protocol for treating COVID-19 which hospitals were encouraged not to deviate from:
Note that remdesivir is still considered the main drug of choice for treating COVID-19 by the NIH, even in many patients with mild to moderate disease. Yet this drug is known for causing renal failure and significantly higher rates of death in various patient populations, such as those receiving high flow oxygen. Yet, the NIH guidelines above STILL recommend remdesivir for patients on high flow oxygen.
Do they want to kill people? It sure seems that way.
Revisiting this information is important, given that the WHO was and is encouraging countries throughout the world to code for COVID-19 deaths, even when some of those deaths most likely weren’t caused by COVID.
So, not only was the death rate over estimated worldwide, in the USA at least, ventilation and remdesivir were strongly “encouraged” by the government. The NIH was using treatment protocols that were intentionally or not, designed to kill people. These are strong words. Physicians were not allowed to deviate from these government protocols. Protocols that killed people.
This has led to a general mistrust of public health and rightly so.
It is evil to fake deaths to cause the mortality rates of COVID-19 to spike.
It is evil to force physicians to use protocols that were not clinically tested or proven to be effective.
Our public health system is broken worldwide and it is only getting worse.
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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
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.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
***
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 (click here).
Translation:
Krystal is presumed to have been COVID-19 vaccinated.
She went into premature labor and had a baby 4 weeks before due date (first red flag – vaccinated women have a higher risk of going into premature labor)
She then developed pulmonary embolism (blood clots in her lungs) which caused her cardiac arrest 10 days after delivery (second red flag – too many vaccinated women are developing blood clots after delivery)
In the hospital, she was put on blood thinners and placed into an induced coma (third red flag – the cardiac arrest appears to have been unusually severe)
During her hospital stay, “while her prognosis was initially positive, her health quickly deteriorated before she died in hospital…from blood clots that had formed in her lungs and triggered the cardiac arrest” (fourth red flag – the blood thinners doctors were treating her with didn’t work and she died from the blood clots in the lungs – vaccinated patients have treatment resistant blood clots).
Another news story confirms that doctors were trying to stabilize her and treat her blood clots but were unsuccessful (click here).
Other Cases
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 suddenly during delivery. No explanation. (click here)
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 (click here).
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. (click here)
March 25, 2023 – New York, 28 year old Samantha Dannecker died unexpectedly while giving birth to her first child, a baby girl (click here).
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 died suddenly, while her boyfriend performed CPR on her (click here)(click here).
Nov. 8, 2022 – Newtown, PA – 30 year old teacher Jennifer Krasna died suddenly only days after giving birth to her second son (click here).
Oct. 24, 2022 – Texas – 29 year old Krystina Pacheco suffered septic shock. Two days after giving birth to a girl, she developed shortness of breath, vomiting, stomach pains, was hospitalized with septic shock. Sedated for 2 weeks she nearly died and had to have her hands and feet amputated (click here).
Feb. 1, 2022 – UK – 41 year old Amber Pendlebury delivered a baby boy, then cried out “I can’t breathe”, had two cardiac arrests and died shortly after (click here).
“She was supposed to go in for a c-section in the morning, and when she got there, she decided she wanted to do a natural birth.
“So they induced her, but she’d been on the drip for the inducement for at least ten hours, and she was only 4cm dilated, which is not good. They later said they’d have to do a caesarian section, but said they’d have to put her to sleep while they did it.”
Doctors were bringing the mum round when she had a series of sudden heart attacks and never caught a glimpse of her baby before she collapsed.
Vida added: “Doctors delivered the little baby, who was 6 pounds, 2 ounces. But she never saw him, as when she woke up, she said, ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe! My chest is on fire, my chest is on fire!”
“That’s all her partner heard her say, and then she was whisked away.”
On January 26, the family received the news that Amber was on a life support machine.
Aug. 6, 2021 – Florida – 30 year old Kristen McMullen had an emergency C-section on July 27 and was transferred to ICU. Because she had tested positive for COVID she was placed on ventilator on Aug. 6, 2021 and died the SAME DAY. Killed by hospital protocols? (click here)
I have written two substack articles already on COVID-19 vaccinated women dying shortly after delivery:
May 25, 2023 – Pregnant women continue to die unexpectedly (8 recent deaths)
April 15, 2023 – Pregnant women having heart attacks, strokes and dying (15 cases)
My Take…
US Obstetrician and Maternal Fetal Medicine expert with 44 years experience Dr.James Thorp and I have been raising alarms about the extreme dangers of COVID-19 mRNA vaccination in pregnancy. (click here)(click here)
COVID-19 vaccines ARE NOT SAFE IN PREGNANCY. They were never studied for safety in pregnancy.
COVID-19 vaccines significantly increase risks to the pregnant mother, especially during labor and shortly after giving birth. Some of the outcomes are catastrophic.
In many such cases, these risks are from blood clots – pulmonary embolism, but also cardiac arrests, strokes and infections since COVID-19 vaccines severely damage the immune system of the mother, increasing risks of various infections that could lead to sepsis and septic shock.
These sudden deaths of new mothers are being covered up right now as health authorities continue to lie to pregnant women about COVID-19 vaccines being “safe” at all stages of pregnancy.
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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
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.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
***
One might think that since Honest Joe Bidendeclared his latest war entitled the US National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism in May the media has certainly taken up the task of exposing evil in these United States by reporting every affront to Jewish groups or individuals and to the Jewish state, Israel. The purpose is to invent a narrative suggesting that the world’s richest and most powerful ethno-religious demographic is somehow a perpetual victim and that goes double for Israel, explaining and forgiving the apartheid state’s occupying army’s targeting and killing of 55 journalists and its murder of more than 150 Palestinian civilians so far this year, including the sniper shooting of a Palestinian two-year-old boy in the head. In spite of all that carnage, a wealthy Israel, which can afford to provide free health care and university education to its citizens, continues to receive nearly $4 billion in military aid plus billions more in trade and charitable benefits from the United States taxpayer annually, totaling more than $300 billion since the Jewish state was founded in 1948.
We have lately been treated to a massive propaganda campaign orchestrated by the likes of the notorious American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL). One wonders why organizations like that which work closely with the Israeli government are not required to register with the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), but to question that relationship got John F. Kennedy killed, so it is probably best to look the other way.
The role of organizations like ADL and AIPAC, dedicated to spreading lies about the Middle East and the world in general, is in part to convince the American public that Israel is really a wonderful place that is threatened by the Arab “terrorists,” as they choose to put it for obvious reasons. This grants Israel blanket immunity whenever its government exercises the “right to defend itself” doing whatever it takes, including blowing up schools and hospitals and attacking its neighbors. An astonishing bill being promoted by extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir currently under consideration in Israel’s Knesset would grant complete immunity for soldiers and policemen who shoot dead Palestinians or foreigners, effectively granting “license to kill.” Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Tony Blinken might consider that as “self-defense” if asked and, oh yeah, so might our self-declared Zionist president Honest Joe.
And ADL and AIPAC and all the other groups constantly bleat how there is also a broader threat of surging antisemitism and even the abomination of holocaust denial wherever one chooses to look. Conveniently, Israel, without being held accountable, can imprison, beat, torture, and kill as many Palestinians as it wishes while also stealing their land and other property, depriving them of their livelihoods and of their very right to spend their own lives in peace. The persistent drive to make Israel into an all-Jewish apartheid state that is illegally incorporating what was supposed to have been a Palestinian state is hardly hidden, and, as it includes shooting and making homeless those under occupation who in any way resist, it is actually both a genocide and a war crime.
Virtually every international organization that has looked into the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians, to include Israeli human rights groups, has denounced in the strongest terms the inhuman behavior that has become normal. So why don’t Congress and the American media get it since they are so ready to exploit the essentially bogus narratives of crimes against humanity that are being floated to justify going to war with Russia? If war crimes and crimes against humanity are the metric that one measures by in Biden’s “rules based international order” there is no country on earth that is more deserving of being invaded and sorted out than Israel, unless it is the warmongering United States itself.
Recently we Americans have been treated to several iterations of the “Israel is good” contrived narrative, a tale that includes how both the US and the Jewish state share an “unbreakable bond” because both nations were “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” And the two nations also are allegedly linked by the “shared values” nonsense, which does not apply if one is either a Red Indian, a black slave, or a Palestinian of either Christian or Muslim persuasion. Indeed, even observant Jews in Israel who are not practicing according to the Orthodox beliefs are subjected to various restrictions on their personal lives, including how they must conform to marry, and suffer from an inability to practice their religious choice openly.
We have recently experienced a visit to the White House and an address to a joint session of Congress by Israel’s head of state President Isaac Herzog which was preceded by a vote in Congress on a bill introduced by Republicans declaring that Israel “is not a racist or apartheid state” and adding that the United States “will always be a staunch partner and supporter of Israel.” The vote abjuring Israel of all misbehavior passed by an overwhelming 412-9-1 vote. The nine “no” votes and one abstention were from Progressive Caucus Democrats, which features Pramila Jayapal as the chairwoman: Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Summer Lee, Ilhan Omar, Cori Bush, Andre Carson, Delia Ramirez and Ayanna Pressley. Representative Betty McCollum of Minnesota, who has submitted a bill blocking US aid to Israel that is used to imprison Palestinian children, voted “present.”
Jayapal, who said recently accurately that “Israel is a racist state,” was rewarded with a torrent of criticism from her own party, to include a rare joint statement from House Democratic leadership rejecting her remarks plus also a separate statement signed by 43 Democratic Party colleagues who said they were “deeply concerned” about her “unacceptable” views. She consequently apologized effusively before flipping and supporting the resolution. And every other Democrat and all the Republicans voted “yes.” A day later, three House Republicans filed a censure motion against Jayapal for having the temerity to call Israel “racist.” That basically confirms the hypothesis that Israel could shit on the heads of the clowns in Congress and the recipients would applaud the act and beg for more. Jayapal is now focusing on more congenial issues like climate change.
Of course, the bill in Congress is a lie and a denial of reality. Israel is by self-definition legally a Jewish state which makes it both racist and apartheid in structure towards its non-Jewish citizens and also to the Palestinians who have the misfortune of living in areas under Israeli occupation. The recent atrocities against the Palestinian victims have not passed unnoticed even if the Jewish dominated US media has attempted to mitigate what is reported. In fact, many Democrats no longer buy into the Israel narrative. Mondoweiss reports how “A University of Maryland Critical Issues poll from earlier this year found that 44% of Democratic voters believe Israel is ‘a state with segregation similar to apartheid.’ That survey mirrors a number of public opinion studies that have been released recently… 49% of the Democratic voters polled said they sympathize with Palestinians, compared to just 38% who said they sympathize with Israelis.” Another recent poll indicated that 80% of Democrats and 64% of Republicans, in absence of a two-state solution to Israel-Palestine, “would choose a democratic Israel that’s no longer Jewish, over a Jewish Israel without full citizenship and equality for non-Jewish people living under its authority.”
Attempting to address the growing uneasiness of many Americans over the issue of Israel and Palestinian rights, Herzog basically told congress that criticism of Israel is a freedom of speech right but that it should not veer over into antisemitism. Unfortunately, his logic is a bit on the thin side as the definition of antisemitism used by the US government and the media coined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) includes criticism of Israel, making attacking Israeli regarding its ghastly behavior ipso facto antisemitism.
Herzog also lied his way through his preferred analysis of what drives the bilateral relationship with Washington as well as civil liberties and other rights in his own country, saying “We are proud to be the United States’ closest partner and friend. When the United States is strong, Israel is stronger. And when Israel is strong, the United States is more secure.” How exactly the US is made more secure by Israeli destabilizing of the Middle East was not made clear, but Herzog went on with another series of lies explaining how Israel “takes pride in its vibrant democracy, its protection of minorities, human rights and civil liberties, as laid down by its parliament, the Knesset, and safeguarded by its strong Supreme Court and independent judiciary.”
Nothing Herzog said was actually true and he forgot to mention the political donations from Jewish sources and the friendly Jewish media coverage that binds most American politicians to Israel. In recent electoral cycles, Jewish donations dominated in both parties and candidates were rightfully fearful of not saying and doing enough when it comes to Israel. But to really appreciate the deep hole of corruption that the United States is in with Israel and its friends in The Lobby calling the shots even when the narrative is so transparently false, it is best to quote the New York Timesaccount of the revelry in the House of Representatives Chamber as Herzog spoke: “The reception for Mr. Herzog in the packed House chamber was staunchly supportive, with frequent standing ovations by the assembled lawmakers, including when he decried Palestinians for destroying the prospects for peace by supporting terror attacks against Israel.” Another big lie and the inevitable standing ovations from the Congress critters. We are in deep trouble when our Solons on Capitol Hill cannot appear to discern a series of self- serving lies by a foreign leader which do nothing but impoverish and do damage to the United States and its people. Indeed, the clowns applaud what they are hearing. It is the tragedy of our times, perhaps the final tragedy.
*
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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].
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.
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***
On July 19, several media sources reported that airstrikes were carried out against what was claimed to be the bases of the Islamist group fighting the central government in the Horn of Africa state of Somalia.
The attacks were coordinated and implemented by the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) with the assistance of the western trained forces of the Somalian National Army (SNA).
In a report published by the Voice of America (VOA), it notes that:
“AFRICOM said the strike was in support of Somali National Army forces fighting al-Shabab. The strike came at the request of the federal government of Somalia, the statement added. AFRICOM said it will continue to assess the results of Wednesday’s (July 19) operation and will provide additional information ‘as appropriate.’ The Somali government has been fighting al-Shabab militants since 2006. The group was removed from major cities but continues to control vast areas in the countryside. In August 2022, the Somali army, supported by self-mobilized local fighters, launched a military offensive that seized parts of central Somalia from the militant group. The militants have struck back, raiding military bases and inflicting heavy losses on government forces in the south and central regions.”
Apparently in response to the bombing of the previous week, on July 24, a military training facility of the SNA was attacked by a suicide bomber resulting significant casualties and physical damage. This continuing conflict in Somalia can be traced back to the persistent interference in the internal affairs of the country by successive administrations in Washington and their allies.
President Joe Biden, a Democrat, redeployed hundreds of Pentagon troops from AFRICOM to Somalia during the early phase of his tenure in office. This policy decision was carried out after his predecessor, President Donald Trump, had withdrawn soldiers from Somalia prior to his leaving office in early 2021.
AFRICOM has been operating on the continent for the last 15 years while the level of instability has increased in several geopolitical regions. In West Africa, states such as Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Conakry, Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR) have experienced military coups and insurgencies despite the joint military operations and training programs sponsored by AFRICOM and other NATO countries.
Regarding the latest insurgent attack in Somalia, US News reported:
“A suicide bomber killed at least 30 soldiers and wounded scores more inside a military academy in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu on Monday (July 24), two military sources said, in an attack claimed by the al-Shabaab militant group. A military campaign launched by government forces and allied militiamen last year has forced the al Qaeda-linked group from large swathes of territory in southern Somalia, but the militants have continued to stage deadly raids. In recent weeks, with the military campaign against them stalled as the army prepares a second phase of the offensive, al-Shabaab fighters have stepped up their attacks. In late May, they killed at least 54 Ugandan peacekeepers at a base south of Mogadishu. They laid siege to Baidoa, one of the country’s largest cities for nearly two weeks. And they have staged a series of raids in Mogadishu this month. The bombing on Monday targeted the Jale Siyaad military academy.”
Imperialist Militarism and Food Insecurity
Somalia has been the focus of U.S. foreign policy initiatives going back to the latter years of the 1970s when the administration of former President Jimmy Carter encouraged the-then government of General Mohamed Siad Barre to intervene in the Ogaden region of neighboring Ethiopia. At this time, the U.S. was waging a destabilization campaign against the socialist-oriented administration of Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam in Addis Ababa.
Since the late 1970s, there have been ongoing attempts to remake Somalia and the entire Horn of Africa region in the political image of U.S. imperialism. With the present alarms sounded over threats of hunger and famine, Washington has paid very limited attention to their role in the developing crisis.
In fact, the problems of food deficits have been aggravated by the NATO proxy war in Ukraine against the Russian Federation. The suspended Black Sea grain deal is already negatively impacting the African Union (AU) member-states with their 1.3 billion people.
Although western media reports following the line of the administration in Washington, categorically blames and condemns Russia for the suspension of the Black Sea grain deal, an idea advanced and implemented at the aegis of the AU leadership and the government of Turkey. Contrastingly, President Vladimir Putin of Russia has said that he will continue to supply grain to AU member-states blaming the draconian sanctions imposed by NATO governments for the present situation.
East Africa food insecurity map
Climate change has caused severe weather events including drought, cyclones and flooding in states as far south as Kenya, Malawi, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Madagascar. On an international scale, the western industrialized capitalist governments have attempted to dominate the annual United Nations Climate conferences, blocking key resolutions which would provide assistance for developing regions to transition from a reliance on fossil fuels and other forms of pollutants.
In Kenya recently, the opposition party of former presidential candidate Raila Odinga have staged demonstrations which turned violent prompted by the rise in taxes. Several governments including large oil producers such as Nigeria and Angola have eliminated fuel subsidies causing sharp increases in prices.
However, the acute food deficits have been documented in Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. United Nations agencies and other humanitarian organizations have published several reports on their activities in East Africa.
One organization known as World Vision said in a recent document that it has reached over 10 million people providing food assistance throughout the region, half of whom were children, over the last two years. A combination of climate change, internal and cross-border western-inspired conflicts, the post-pandemic economic crises and the escalating war in Eastern Europe, has resulted in the present conjuncture.
World Vision’s East Africa Hunger Emergency Response Situation Report #23, published in May emphasizes:
“In the face of unprecedented global demands for humanitarian funding, crises in East Africa are receiving limited international attention, despite urgent, growing and life-threatening needs. World Vision is calling on national governments, regional institutions, humanitarian actors and donors to urgently address the hunger crisis in Eastern Africa and more forcefully communicate its breadth and severity. This is not peculiar to this region as the world is facing its worst hunger crisis in modern times. In Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America, there are more than 49 million people at risk of starvation or vulnerable to famine or famine-like conditions.”
The world’s leading capitalist state in Washington is at present preoccupied with its failing proxy war in Ukraine. Biden in his reelection bid for 2024, touts the official low jobless rate and the rising profits of the ruling class.
Nonetheless, there are many people within the U.S. and around the globe plagued by rising prices impacting their capacity to purchase food, energy resources, healthcare and housing. Social programs enacted during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic expanding unemployment payments, Medicaid and housing subsidies have expired. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) allocations have been drastically reduced due to the inaction of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate.
This undeclared war on the impoverished millions within the U.S. and billions throughout the world coincides with the imperialist war drive against Moscow, the People’s Republic of China, the Islamic Republic of Iran and any other state and political entity which does not follow the dictates of the White House. Concerns about the events on the warfront in Ukraine are routinely ignored and dismissed by the Biden administration.
Consequently, the Pentagon war budget represents a major impediment in adopting any real solutions to burgeoning food insecurity in various geopolitical regions of the world. Therefore, the movement to defeat imperialism also represents the struggle to produce and distribute enough food needed for the well-being of people throughout the planet.
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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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***
Author of more than 50 books, Dr. David Ray Griffin has been compared to Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King for his courage and dedication to seeking truth.
Griffin was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace prize, and was named in 2009 by the New Statesman as “one of the 50 people who matter today.”
His final book, a chilling yet deeply moving page-turner with over 500 references, recounts the history of US global domination strategies of “democracy promotion.”
A world-famous theologian, Griffin died in November, 2022, amidst media silence: As seen below, he was far too dangerous to be remembered in an obituary.
“America on the Brink,” which he completed from his death-bed, has now been published six months after his passing.
Its foreword, “In Homage,” by Princeton University Professor emeritus of international law, Dr. Richard Falk, refers to Griffin as “one of the most important thinkers and public intellectuals of our time.”
Falk suggests that the legacy media sadly ignored Griffin’s death because his worldwide stature as a theologian would have given credibility to his 12 scholarly books on 9/11.
One of these, “The New Pearl Harbor Revisited,” was named “pick of the week” by the leading-edge Publishers Weekly in 2008 (only 51 books a year receive this distinction. PW is widely read by most publishers, libraries, and bookstores.) Predictably, all other reviewers remained silent.
Now, while not overly long or complex, Griffin’s readable “America on the Brink” exposes, on one hand, the US propaganda crusades to “protect” sovereign democracies from imagined Communist threats. On the other hand, it reveals the deadly, secret US military coups that have killed untold numbers of civilians while remaining mostly in the shadows. The grisly 2002-03 Bush-Cheney tactics against Saddam Hussein in Iraq (who had been earlier financed by the US) are particularly abhorrent.
Worse was the systematic destruction of successful, bustling Libya in 2011, following the country’s nationalization of its oil industry and its development as a modern, educated nation. (Notably, Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s move towards a gold-backed currency would have weakened the US dollar.)
Not only was Gaddafi shot dead during the US/NATO involvement, but his national man-made irrigation river, which had given all of Libya self-sufficiency in agriculture, was obliterated.
Prior to 1989, before the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of America as the single unipower, US regime-change operations had been limited to sovereign nations such as Cuba, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Brazil, Panama, Vietnam, Greece, and Indonesia (each of which is summarized in this book).
But during negotiations after the fall of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact alliance, Russia stressed that a one-sided expansion of the surviving US-led NATO alliance would constitute a serious existential threat to Russia.
In response, the US promised in 1990 not to extend NATO “one inch eastward” than it was at that time.
However, by 1998, the US Senate had given approval to add Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic to NATO.
Griffin quotes the response of America’s top expert on Russia, historian and diplomat George F. Kennan:
“I think NATO expansion is the beginning of a new cold war…I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else…I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe. Don’t people understand? Our differences in the Cold War were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime. Of course, there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia…”
Heedlessly, however, the United States has sought over time, using Ukraine as its “torpedo,” to engineer regime change militarily via NATO (whose Supreme Commander has always been a 4-star US general) and US weapons:
first, in the violent US-backed coup of 2014
second, in an 8-year war on the two Russian-speaking Donbass republics, and
third, in the US-provoked war of 2022-23.
The US Government/CIA/NATO have also funded and trained the Ukrainian right-wing extremist neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, which carried out the tragic Odessa massacre in 2014.
In 2022, the US pledged to “move heaven and earth” to help Ukraine – yet there has been no diplomacy towards a goal of saving Ukrainian lives during a war in which “Ukraine does the dying; America does the supplying.”
Meanwhile, US-backed television-star-turned-President Volodymyr Zelensky has accumulated millions that are invested in the shadowy Pandora Papers financial system, and owns an 11-bedroom 3-storey mansion in South Florida.
Griffin reports that in March 2022, in a faux pas that made US news, President Biden publicly exclaimed about Putin: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”
It is clear from this evidence of regime change that the American aim has not been “to spare Ukraine, but to ruin Russia.”
Throughout all this, the US information warfare capability (for example, American reporters attending the staged propaganda Bucha massacre in 2022) is unmatched because it controls the Internet gatekeepers of content, such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Wikipedia.
Conversely, omission by Western media of the key causes of the Russian invasion has been likened to “describing a chessboard with only black pieces.”
The full truth can be found in the Global South, where 88% of the world’s population does not align with Washington on the Ukraine issue.
In summary, US unipolar strategy has attempted to run the world from one country, thereby sacrificing vision and support for a collaborative world in which small countries retain individuality and partnerships without interference.
Alternatively, in October 2022, President Putin referred to a “symphony of human civilization,” in which nobody thinks their sound is the best.
Cited independent Australian journalist Caitlin Johnstone puts it best:
The strongest argument for a multipolar world is that maintaining a unipolar one necessarily requires endless violence and continually escalating nuclear brinkmanship. It is literally unsustainable. There’s no valid reason nations can’t just get along and collaborate toward the greater good of humanity without one of them trying to dominate the others. The unipolarist impulse to rule the earth stops this peaceful and collaborative world from emerging. There is no “Pax Americana.” Unipolarism is the opposite of peace.”
Griffin concludes:
“The true story about Ukraine is so terrible that every effort has been made to try to block every avenue of truth which would enable most Americans to see the falsity of Biden’s claims. In short, the American government is resorting to fascism to defend democracy.”
This book review only scratches the surface of the US atrocities abroad that are revealed in Griffin’s final work – about which most Americans (if they were allowed to know about them) would hang their heads in shame.
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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.
America on the Brink: How US Foreign Policy Led to the War in Ukraine
By David Ray Griffin
Publisher: Clarity Press (May 20, 2023)
Paperback: 271 pages
ISBN-10: 1949762726
ISBN-13: 978-1949762723
The American government, through its media, has convinced most Americans to support the Ukrainian government. This books shows why this is a mistake: The United States promised Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand “one inch eastward”; and there had been ample warnings, by George Kennan and others, that moving NATO eastward, especially moving into Georgia and Ukraine, would cause problems for Russia.
In Ukraine prior to 2014, Ukrainian and Russian speakers were coexisting tolerably well. But in 2013 and 2014, neocons in Obama’s administration engineered a coup, with help from neo-Nazis, turning Ukraine into a Russia-hating nation. The war in Ukraine began that year (not in 2022, when Russia attacked in order to protect the Russian-speaking regions under attack by the new coup government in Kiev).
Although this book is primarily about the war in Ukraine, it also shows how, in one sense, the war in Ukraine is simply one more instance in the trajectory of American imperialism. as illustrated by previous US interventions in Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, Brazil, Greece, Dominican Republic, Panama and Iraq.
In another sense, this war reveals just how committed America is to maintaining a unipolar world order: Because this war illustrates that America is willing to threaten nuclear holocaust. it is almost as if people in the U.S. State Department and military believe that life is not worth living unless the US can control the world.
With the seemingly endless fear-generating narratives of the corporate-owned mass media in relation to catastrophic CO2-induced climate change; virus pandemics; nuclear war; or whatever else they can come up with to keep you shivering under your sheets – is it any wonder that stress and so-called mental health issues have been in ‘pandemic’ mode?
Garnet was in need of a kidney transplant, which he was denied due to his vaccination status. Garnet’s referral to a transplant centre was denied, meaning he wasn’t even considered for a place on an organ donation list.
We have to keep in mind that a term and notion of security usually implies a kind of sense of protection and safety from different possible harms coming from “outside”. Therefore, it can be generally acceptable and understandable that the states want to protect their own territories by expanding great resources in making their territorial safe.
A bit over half a century ago, the United States under the Nixon administration sent its then-State Secretary Henry Kissinger to China in order to exploit the infamous Sino-Soviet split that nearly escalated into a full-blown war between Moscow and Beijing.
Already on March 29, Earle Mack, former US ambassador to Finland, writing in a piece for The Hill, described the current confrontation as proxy attrition warfare, that is one which seeks military victory by wearing down the enemy. He worried that Ukraine seemed bound to tire out first. Things have not gotten much better for Kiev, so far.
Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), gathered Saudi journalists in Riyadh in December to say that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had been an ally for decades, but had stabbed Saudi Arabia in the back, and threatened a response.
There is no lack of money in the US movie industry. They constantly make one expensive movie after another. Mission Impossible No. 4002 and counting – Indiana Jones No. 284733 and counting. Super Hero movie no. 3 million and counting. Disney nobody-cares movie number gazillion.
US officials are growing tired of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky making endless demands for Western support, writes Douglas MacKinnon, a former adviser for policy and communications at the Pentagon, in an op-ed for The Hill. Even without MacKinnon’s insight, it is evident that Western leaders are becoming weary of Zelensky’s demands, as seen at the recent NATO Summit in Lithuania and the aftermath of the event.
In the last decades, great power rivalries and competition have characterised contemporary Africa, popularly termed as the new scramble for Africa. Within the context of the emerging multipolar world and the current Russia-Ukraine crisis, majority of African States are seemingly maintaining their strategic autonomy.
The US has created a permanent new pandemic agency called the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy in anticipation of future pandemics and the Decade of Vaccines. President Joe Biden has appointed a retired Air Force general to take charge of spearheading the project.
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This video is from 2021.
Cops in Toronto thrashed homeless people camping in a public park and arrested protesters who supported them. Despite his record of commenting on protests all over the world, PM Justin Trudeau is yet to condemn what happened in Toronto.
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With the seemingly endless fear-generating narratives of the corporate-owned mass media in relation to catastrophic CO2-induced climate change; virus pandemics; nuclear war; or whatever else they can come up with to keep you shivering under your sheets – is it any wonder that stress and so-called mental health issues have been in ‘pandemic’ mode? The modern-day solution to such problems is to go to your doctor, and he prescribes some ‘bio-pharmaceutical pills’ that he probably does not know the actual ingredients of. If the pills do not numb your worries, the doctor will happily send you to ‘mental health services’, where a psychologist or psychiatrist gives you a diagnosis and all the pharmaceutical ‘help’ you need. This ‘pop a pill’ process has become ingrained in modern society.
Even many school kids and students today are on a daily regime of behaviour control pills or antidepressants. God forbid your children display normal behaviour of energetic play and discovery. Now our kids are supposed to be docile automatons of the new world order technocracy – to sit in class and learn nonsense that CO2 is killing the planet, accept fake science and fake history, and that we must be vaccinated to survive the next ‘plandemic’. Such misinformation amounts to child abuse.
The book Godless Fake Science and the previous article Godless Fake Science demonstrate that much of the scientific narrative we have been taught from our school days onwards, is based on falsehood, and that the institution of ‘science’ itself has in many ways been hijacked by financial interests seeking to advance their own narrative and agenda. This article asks the question does modern-day psychiatry belong to the category of fake science?
‘Psyche’ means ‘of the soul’. Therefore, the discipline of psychology should really involve the study or ‘the science of the soul’. The original (not altered versions) of the ancient scriptures of the world have already described the science of the soul in great detail. In contrast to this ancient wisdom for human wellbeing, modern day psychology and psychiatry is steeped in the profit-making and drug-pushing agendas of bio-pharmaceutical corporations. It appears to me modern-day psychiatry has more to do with corporate profits and behaviour control than real science or real mental health.
The reality is that no medical test exists for any so-called “mental disorder”. Psychiatrists, medical doctors, and psychologists worldwide prescribe many different drugs based on same symptoms. This is unscientific.
An example of the potentially detrimental impact of this subjectiveness was recounted to me some years ago when I happened to meet a clearly intelligent man who had worked as a scientist for a state agency of the Government of Ireland. This man had been detained against his will due to a single opinion, that of the family doctor, in circumstances that appeared to be contentious, and was committed as an involuntary patient to a mental institute. He described to me some of the horrors of the experience and that, whilst he was detained, he was force-fed pharmaceutical drugs that he did not wish to take. Note that all such drugs come with potential side-effects that can be mild or serious. Thus, a single doctor’s opinion that you are mentally ill can have major ramifications.
This man later wrote about his horrific experience in a highly critical analysis of Irish psychiatry. His article was published by the Irish Times newspaper, in an article titled Psychiatric diagnosis not scientific but subjective, see Endnote [i]. He pointed out that “psychiatric diagnoses are based on the subjective interpretation of behaviour by third parties”. The person is then seen as a “faulty object”, with a chemical imbalance requiring a certain type of pill. The diagnosis can have a very dehumanising effect on someone, along with the stigma of a mental illness that actually has no scientific basis associated with it. The person is led to believe what these “experts” are saying.
Worse still your children can be taken away by the ‘system’ if they are ‘deemed’ to be suffering from a mental disorder, see Endnote [ii]. A psychiatrist makes the decision as to whether your child is mentally ill or not. For example, the Irish Citizens Information portal states:
“If the voluntary patient is a child and the parents or guardian want to remove them, the professional may have the child detained and placed in the custody of the Health Service Executive (if the professional considers that the child is suffering from a mental disorder).”
Revealing Quotes About Psychiatry and the Controversial DSM-IV Classification System
The following quotations easily sourced online are from academics, psychiatrists, psychology teachers, and doctors, and provide a notable condemnation of modern-day psychiatry:
[Note: DSM-IV codes are the classification found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.]
“There are no objective tests in psychiatry-no X-ray, laboratory, or exam finding that says definitively that someone does or does not have a mental disorder…. there is no definition of a mental disorder…. It’s bull—. I mean, you just can’t define it.” — Allen Frances, Psychiatrist and former DSM-IV Task Force Chairman
“DSM-IV is the fabrication upon which psychiatry seeks acceptance by medicine in general. Insiders know it is more a political than scientific document… DSM-IV has become a bible and a money making bestseller—its major failings notwithstanding.”— Loren Mosher, M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry
“It’s not science. It’s politics and economics. That’s what psychiatry is: politics and economics. Behavior control, it is not science, it is not medicine.”— Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus
“everyone with an interest in mental health should at least be aware of the Szaszian critique of the mental health industry… medicine is a real science that deals with biological phenomena, especially cellular pathology… Now take a look at the DSM and one will immediately note that the DSM is not based at all on cellular pathology… For many of the conditions, organic explanations are to be RULED OUT in order for a DSM diagnosis to be given… Crucial for Szasz is that the attribution of disease then legitimizes in psychiatrists and other mental health professionals the power of social control. By labeling others as “sick”, we can lock them away, force drugs upon them, and separate them from “normal” people like us because there is something fundamentally wrong with them. And we can justify it all in the name of science. But really it is about social control. The mental health industry manufactures illnesses to legitimize and feed itself and it serves those in power via social control of deviants…. according to Szasz, the science of mental sickness is all metaphor and the emperor has no clothes…. while the Emperor might not be completely naked, it seems to me he is often down to his skivvies.” – Gregg Henriques, Ph.D., directs the Combined Clinical and School Psychology Doctoral Program at James Madison University.
“In reality, psychiatric diagnosing is a kind of spiritual profiling that can destroy lives and frequently does.” — Peter Breggin, Psychiatrist
“…modern psychiatry has yet to convincingly prove the genetic/biologic cause of any single mental illness… Patients [have] been diagnosed with ‘chemical imbalances’ despite the fact that no test exists to support such a claim, and…there is no real conception of what a correct chemical balance would look like.” — Dr. David Kaiser, Psychiatrist
“There’s no biological imbalance. When people come to me and they say, ‘I have a biochemical imbalance,’ I say, ‘Show me your lab tests.’ There are no lab tests. So what’s the biochemical imbalance?” — Dr. Ron Leifer, Psychiatrist
“Virtually anyone at any given time can meet the criteria for bipolar disorder or ADHD. Anyone. And the problem is everyone diagnosed with even one of these ‘illnesses’ triggers the pill dispenser.” — Dr. Stefan Kruszewski, Psychiatrist
“No behavior or misbehavior is a disease or can be a disease. That’s not what diseases are. Diseases are malfunctions of the human body, of the heart, the liver, the kidney, the brain. Typhoid fever is a disease. Spring fever is not a disease; it is a figure of speech, a metaphoric disease. All mental diseases are metaphoric diseases, misrepresented as real diseases and mistaken for real diseases.” — Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, best known for coining the term the “myth of mental illness
“It has occurred to me with forcible irony that psychiatry has quite literally lost its mind, and along with it the minds of the patients they are presumably supposed to care for.”— David Kaiser, Psychiatrist
“All psychiatrists have in common that when they are caught on camera or on microphone, they cower and admit that there are no such things as chemical imbalances/diseases, or examinations or tests for them. What they do in practice, lying in every instance, abrogating [revoking] the informed consent right of every patient and poisoning them in the name of ‘treatment’ is nothing short of criminal.”— Dr Fred Baughman Jr., Paediatric Neurologist
“Psychiatry makes unproven claims that depression, bipolar illness, anxiety, alcoholism and a host of other disorders are in fact primarily biologic and probably genetic in origin…This kind of faith in science and progress is staggering, not to mention naïve and perhaps delusional.” — Dr. David Kaiser, psychiatrist
“In short, the whole business of creating psychiatric categories of ‘disease,’ formalizing them with consensus, and subsequently ascribing diagnostic codes to them, which in turn leads to their use for insurance billing, is nothing but an extended racket furnishing psychiatry a pseudo-scientific aura. The perpetrators are, of course, feeding at the public trough.”— Dr. Thomas Dorman, internist and member of the Royal College of Physicians of the UK
“I believe, until the public and psychiatry itself see that DSM labels are not only useless as medical ‘diagnoses’ but also have the potential to do great harm—particularly when they are used as means to deny individual freedoms, or as weapons by psychiatrists acting as hired guns for the legal system.” — Dr. Sydney Walker III, psychiatrist
“The way things get into the DSM is not based on blood test or brain scan or physical findings. It’s based on descriptions of behavior. And that’s what the whole psychiatry system is.”— Dr. Colin Ross, psychiatrist
“No biochemical, neurological, or genetic markers have been found for Attention Deficit Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Depression, Schizophrenia, anxiety, compulsive alcohol and drug abuse, overeating, gambling or any other so-called mental illness, disease, or disorder.” — Bruce Levine, Ph.D., psychologist and author of Commonsense Rebellion
“Unlike medical diagnoses that convey a probable cause, appropriate treatment and likely prognosis, the disorders listed in DSM-IV [and ICD-10] are terms arrived at through peer consensus.”— Tana Dineen Ph.D., psychologist
“The greater the number of treatment facilities and the more widely they are known, the larger the number of persons seeking their services. Psychotherapy is the only form of treatment which, to some extent, appears to create the illness it treats.” – Dr. Jerome Frank of the Johns-Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore
“Psychiatry and psychology are the most lucrative professions in America, and among all professionals, the highest suicide rate is found among psychiatrists and psychologists” – Chaitanya Charan das, Author
Was Psychologist Sigmund Freud a Fraud?
“The entire system of classical psycho-analytical thought rests on nothing more substantial than Freud’s word that it is true. And that is why the late Nobelist in medicine Sir Peter Medawar famously condemned that system as a stupendous intellectual confidence trick.“ – Frederick Crews, Professor Emeritus of English, University of California
Let us consider the work of the famous Jewish psychologist, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), upon which much of modern-day psychiatry and psycho-analysis is based. His ideas have had a significant impact upon modern society. In his writings Freud confesses to a definite sexual longing for his mother, and because of this he assumed that all men did. This unscientific piece of Freudian perversion was promoted to such an extent it became embedded into modern-day psychology. Why should the whole world have to accept this theory based on Freud’s confession of his own perverted state? Throughout human history such thoughts have been considered by traditional society as being preposterous and morally unacceptable, but to Freud it seemed completely natural. Freud said:
“I have found in my own case too, the phenomena of being in love with my mother and jealous of my father, and I now consider it to be a universal event… ”.
Freud’s notion is unscientific and lacking a shred of evidence, yet the entire rest of the world has been painted into the picture of Freudian psychology. Freud also asserted that it would better for people if they had sexual relations with both genders. Again, this was asserted with no evidence. In fact, many scientists and academics have questioned the legitimacy of Freudian psychoanalysis, for example, Frank L. Cioffi of Princeton University author of the book Freud and the Question of Pseudo-science. The following are revealing comments about Freud by prolific academics and notable personalities:
“He [Freud] was for many years an enthusiastic user [of cocaine] to the point where his nose bled and became filled with pus – which he treated with more cocaine…Freud’s friend Ernst von Fleischl-Marxov (1846-1891) had become despairing addict after Freud had prescribed cocaine as medicine for a painful hand tumor. There is no doubt that the addiction brought about his early death…. Freuds neurotic dysfunctions manifested themselves in unusual behavior patterns and in psychosomatic ailments – particularly those affecting the mouth, the genitals and the anus… more often than not he was chronically depressed and bad tempered.” – David McCalden (1951-1991), Writer
“No one has yet evaluated the hallucinatory effects of cocaine on Freuds mind during the formative years of psychoanalysis. Without cocaine, could Freud have created such improbable flights of human fancy?” – Martin L. Gross, writer and former Associate Professor of Social Science at New York University.
“[On Freudian theory] “I think it’s such a narcissistic indulgence that I cannot believe in it” – Sophie Freud, grand-daughter of Sigmund Freud, PhD from Florence Heller School for Social Welfare
“A major contributor to the present-day tendency to accept and encourage homosexuality is Dr. Sigmund Freud… In other words, homosexuality was no longer to be considered an illegal form of debauchery or perversion in which one willingly engaged a person of his own sex…” – Dr. Tim LaHaye, Author
“I don’t want an elderly gentleman from Vienna with an umbrella inflicting his dreams upon me” – Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), novelist, critic, from an aristocratic Russian family
“[Freudian belief and psychoanalysis] were never a science. Freud was a fashion, and then he became unfashionable, completely absurd.” – Sonu Shamdasani PhD, a historian of psychology and a research associate at UCL
“To me, psychoanalysis is a hoax – the biggest hoax ever played on humanity. By showing who analysts are, how they work, what they believe, and what they have done, I hope to show Freud as a fraud. If I succeed, I am idealistic enough to hope that the world may return to the belief in love, ideals, good taste and courtesy – the ‘books’ that have been burned by the Freudian Inquisition.” – Edward R. Pinckney MD
“The seduction stories that provide the proffered empirical basis of the Oedipal complex were in fact a construction by Freud who then interpreted his patients’ distress on hearing his constructions as confirmation. Freud then deceptively obscured the fact that his patients’ stories were reconstructions and interpretations based on his a priori theory. He also retro-actively changed the identity of the fancied seducers from non-family members (servants, etc.) when his oedipal story required fathers instead… What started out as speculation in need of empirical support ended up as a fundamental a priori assumption.
Now 100 years after its inception, the theory of the Oedipal complex, childhood sexuality, and the sexual etiology of neuroses remain without any independent empirical validation…. the idea that children would have a specifical sexual attraction to their opposite sex parent is extremely implausible… Freud has been the most overrated figure in the entire history of science and medicine, one who wrought immense harm through the propagation of false etiologies, mistaken diagnoses, and fruitless lines of inquiry… psycho-analysis has a lot to answer for… since its inception, psycho-analysis has been denounced as a pseudo-science.
By the early 1960s philosophers of science such as Michael Polanyi, Karl Popper, Ernst Nagel and Sidney Hook had noted the self-authenticating nature of psychoanalytical assertion. More recently, highly critical accounts of psychoanalysis from Henri Ellenberger (1970), Frank Sulloway (1992/1979), Adolph Grunbaum (1984), Frank Cioffi (1969, 1970, 1972), and most recently, Malcolm MacMillan (1991) have appeared.”
– Professor Kevin MacDonald PhD, Department of Psychology CSU-Long Beach
“They are translating this Freud’s philosophy, pig civilization.” – Srila Prabhupada, Renowned Spiritual Leader and Vedic scholar
“I think that Sigmund Freud had sexual conflicts within himself which he did not resolve. His belief in constitutional bisexuality, for example, was an excuse for certain personal traits.” – Dr. Harold M. Voth, a Freudian psychiatrist at the Menninger Foundation
“I dimly sensed some slight feminine aspect in his manner and movements.” Modern critics suggest that present-day Freudians are influenced by Freud’s “feminine, passive feelings” so much that they “regard masculine assertiveness and aggression as a neurotic manifestation.” – Freud’s biographer, Ernest Jones
“No one has yet evaluated the hallucinatory effects of cocaine on Freud’s mind during the formative years of psychoanalysis.” – Martin L. Gross, author of The Psychological Society
“Dr. Voth is convinced that Freud displayed ‘a considerable degree of femininity’ in his personality, a trait that has colored the entire profession by making what he calls the ‘neurotically troubled’ Dr. Freud a model… Those driving needs have infiltrated the psyche of millions of individuals as well, remaking much of our personalities in his image. By offering his catalog of foibles as the symbols of normality, Freud achieved immortality…
The portrait that emerges is one of a man driven by the furies of hostility and envy, weighed down by depression, death wishes, phobias and severe debilitating neuroses. He was professionally distorted by his extreme surreptitiousness and gullibility — the antithesis of a man of science. Freud the man is more the unhappy philosopher than the intrepid researcher who society thought would unlock the key to our confused behavior.”
– Jewish author Martin L. Gross and Dr. Harold M. Voth, a Freudian psychiatrist at the Menninger Foundation
“There is little question but that a good deal of the impetus for the discovery of psychoanalysis came from Freud’s general hostility toward Christianity…” – Stanley Rothman, in an article Group Fantasies and Jewish Radicalism published in the Fall 1978 issue of The Journal of Psychohistory
“The psychoanalyst Sandor Ferenczi reports a statement by Freud from 1932 that referred to patients as “rabble” and “only good for money-earning and studying.” From 1884 onward, Freud was in effect a snake-oil salesman. He then began experimenting with cocaine… Michel Onfray, an author who wrote a comprehensive and critical monograph on Freud in 2010, documented deaths from his gross misdiagnosis… Psychotherapy was a potpourri of techniques lifted from previous colleagues, laced with a heavy dose of sexual fixations, most of them exclusively Jewish in nature… Soon using a charade of the scientific method, Freud began to surmise that most of his patients’ problems were sexual in nature…
Freud obviously experienced Oedipal lust… he then suffered the delusion that his abnormality was normal and universal… Freud told his colleague Karl Abraham that “too many of us are Jews. I don’t want Psychoanalysis to become a Jewish national affair…. The Israeli philosophy professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz went even further and held that Freud psychoanalysis was “primarily a Jewish money-making scheme”, and that’s a “bad sign for (us) Jews.” He went on to say that psychoanalysis was “entirely in the hands of the Jews” and has “brought unspeakable suffering to millions of people.”
– Richard Boyden, in an article which he says is based in part on David McCalden’s treatise Exiles From History, see Endnote [iii].
Conclusion: It appears the profession been infected by a disciplic succession of Freudian quackery.
The Sex Delusion
In addition, Freud and his financial backers promoted the concept that orgasm is necessary for health. Such Freudian narratives have proliferated in this current sex-dominated culture, and some people are, thus, under the impression that the more sex, the better it is for their health and wellbeing.
We all have freewill to make our own personal choices, however, it appears to me that this assertion by Freud’s also has no scientific basis. In regard to this I note a book titled Brain Gain by the American writer, academic and spiritual leader, Dr. Dane Holtzman, better known as Danavir Goswami. The book provides evidence that the opposite is the case – that overindulgence in sex can lead to health disorders, including nervous disorders, via loss of vital bodily fluids. It is asserted with references from physicians that wasting vital bodily fluids decreases vitality and immunity because it involves the loss of precious proteins, lipoids, cholesterin, and minerals.
It is cited that dozens of geniuses throughout history practiced celibacy for this reason, including Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Beethoven, Sir Isaac Newton, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Pascal, Spinoza, Kant, Thoreau, Handel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Sidis, Tesla, who all lived celibate lives to transmute their sexual energy into intellectual development. In the spiritual domain, Jesus Christ, Sukadeva Goswami, prophets Elijah and Elisha, John the Baptist, and many more were celibate. Chaste women of prolific fame include, Joan of Arc, Queen Elizabeth I, Florence Nightingale, Draupadi, Sita, Saint Teresa, Emily Dickinson, Mirabai, Saint Catherine, Mother Teresa and the Virgin Mary.
“To control the sexual impulse efficiently has always been and ever will be regarded as the highest test of human wisdom” – Auguste Comte, French Philosopher
Note also that cholesterol is a vital substance in the brain. In fact, the brain has the highest cholesterol content of any organ in the body. Most of the brain’s cholesterol exists in the axons of nerve cells. According to a 2014 study, titled Cholesterol in brain disease: sometimes determinant and frequently implicated, see Endnote [iv].
“Cholesterol is essential for neuronal physiology, both during development and in the adult life… defects in brain cholesterol metabolism may contribute to neurological syndromes.”
It is also commonly known in the sport of boxing that a fighter, in order to retain his strength, should not engage in sexual relations before a fight. It appears there is valid science behind this instruction. If we accept the research detailed in Brain Gain, then Freud’s popularized assertion has most probably resulted in an increase in mental health problems! Could it be that Freud was actually the one with a mental disorder? Why he was compelled to talk endlessly of perversion? Karl Jung, a psychiatrist who founded analytical psychology, noted the following:
“Freud never asked himself why he was compelled to talk continually of sex, why this idea had taken such possession of him. He remained unaware that his monotony of interpretation expressed a flight from himself…” – Carl Jung, Psychiatrist
Freud’s work is also an inversion of original Christian values and of traditional values that existed world-wide for thousands of years, including the values of ancient Vedic cultures.
“… the body is not for fornication… Flee fornication… he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” – (Bible: Book of 1st Corinthians 13, 18, 19)
“The union, then, of male and female for the purpose of procreation is the natural good of marriage. But he who makes a bad use of this good who uses it bestially, so that his intention is on the gratification of lust.” – Saint Augustine, Christian Saint
“The practice of chastity is counselled by Christ, taught by His example, and practiced by the Apostles.” – Saint Francis, Christian Saint
“Adultery and fornication are forbidden for a number of reasons. First of all, because they destroy the soul; “He that is an adulterer, for the folly of his heart shall destroy his own soul.”… which is whenever the flesh dominates the spirit… Thirdly, these sins consume his substance, just as happened to the prodigal son in that ‘he wasted his substance living riotously.” – Saint Thomas Aquinas, Christian Saint
“When veerya [vital fluid] is not used, it is all transmuted into ojas sakti or spiritual energy and stored up in the brain… loss of memory, premature old age, and various nervous diseases are attributable to the heavy loss of this fluid” – His Holiness Sri Swami Sivananda
“… in Vedic times, sex was meant for procreation, not recreation…. We would do well to remember that our so-called primitive ancestors were not brainwashed by the maddening media blitz saturated with covert and overt sexual overtones… Apart from sanctified procreation, the institution of marriage was meant for gratification of the bodily sex drive in a regulated, religious way. This would gradually help both the spouses to realize the futility of all bodily enjoyment and help each other to advance together on the journey back to Krishna (God). “ – Chaitanya Charan das, Author
In contrast to the modern sex-culture, original scriptures inform us that sex should be reserved only for the creation of children. Furthermore, and tragically, the frantic culture of carnal-gratification in modern times seems to have degraded our most precious faculty – love itself. How can young men and young women find a stable path in such an environment? The ephemeral nature of it all is likely to leave a void in the heart.
For example, in ancient Vedic cultures young men were trained as a brahmacarya until the age of 25. Brahmacarya life involved conduct consistent with the divine path of God-consciousness; and becoming expert in learning, military arts, administration, spiritual counselling, etc., according to each man’s individual qualities. By remaining celibate until the age of 25, men became physically and intellectually stronger not weaker – their energy was not wasted on promiscuity and needless sex. At that point many men would then marry and sex was only then for the purpose of raising a (God-conscious) family – it was not to be done needlessly. Vedic culture also utilized specific dietary habits to avoid stimulating sex desire, see Endnote [v] for details.
The Climate Politics of Milk – Seeking Sustenance for a Healthy Brain
In ancient times, cows were revered and they provided the miracle food of high-quality cholesterol-rich milk with all the nutrients the human body needs, and which was beneficial to the brain and higher thinking. Ancient brahmans and sages could live on milk alone. To this day, in Ayurvedic medicine ghee, which is made from milk, it is used to improve memory and reduce mental tension. For thousands of years mankind drank raw milk – any impurities can be eliminated by simply boiling it prior to drinking it and this is the best way to drink milk. The cows were not vaccinated, and the milk did not go through the modern enzyme-destroying process of pasteurization, which can make the milk harder to digest for some people. In ancient cultures worldwide, cows were not regarded as mere commercial commodities to be sold and exploited, rather they were an essential part of a functioning community.
Modern-day commercial dairy farming can involve the use of growth hormones, man-made chemicals, pesticides on the farm, vaccination of the cows, GMOs, etc.; and it appears to me the milk is of poorer quality for it. We have consumed raw milk for at least 5,000 years, but today it is illegal in various countries to sell or produce raw milk – for example, this is the case in Canada, under the Food and Drug Regulations since 1991. I note also that in the US, in 2011, Judge Patrick J. Fiedler made an astonishing unjust ruling, where he judged “no, plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to produce and consume the foods of your choice… no right to contract with a farmer… no right to own a cow”. Three weeks later, he resigned from his position as a judge and joined a law firm that represents Monsanto, a major producer of rBGH growth hormones for commercial dairy cows, see Endnote [vi]. In response to such injustice, some towns in the US have been approving food sovereignty initiatives that allow food producers to sell food without federal or state interference.
I note also the current UN-inspired, plan, voiced by the Irish Department of Agriculture, and the Irish Environmental Protection Agency, to kill 200,000 dairy cows in Ireland in a murderously deluded attempt to stop manmade climate change. The reality is that methane emissions from cows do not cause climate change. See also the book Transcending the Climate Deception Toward Real Sustainability. There are many farmers and independent groups in Ireland that know this, yet the Irish government appears to have shut out all debate on climate change, and it seems will pay 5,000 euros ($5,622) for each cow killed, in this psychotic onslaught. Psychosis being defined as an acute or chronic mental state marked by loss of contact with reality.
What Causes Depression? Links Between Toxicity in the Body and Mental Health Issues
I am not doctor, I am not here to provide medical advice, this article is simply based on my own experience and initial research, yet I note the words of Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus (1920 – 2012) best known for coining the term the “myth of mental illness. He states:
“No behavior or misbehavior is a disease or can be a disease. That’s not what diseases are… All mental diseases are metaphoric diseases, misrepresented as real diseases and mistaken for real diseases.”
Was Szasz correct in his analysis? Tens of millions of people are prescribed bio-pharmaceutical drugs to address so-called mental health issues. such as depression, anxiety etc. However, it appears to me that such drugs do not address the underlying cause of such issues. Furthermore, it seems that no one really knows what exactly causes depression. We hear about factors such as biochemical imbalance, stress, and genetic predisposition, but where is the scientific basis? Could there be another cause not acknowledged by the profession? What about environmental factors?
Consider that industrial globalization has produced many substances that are registered as pollutants, including thousands of new man-made chemical compounds, toxins, nano-particles and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that are in violation of the scientific pre-cautionary principle. Over the past tens of thousands of years, the human body has never been exposed to these new substances so we do not know the long-term effects. UN environmental law instruments are largely impotent in safe-guarding human health and nature from the vast scale of rampant corporate technological pollution. Instead, the UN focuses on the bogus manmade climate change due to CO2, and methane from cows, agenda, see this article.
I note that depression has been linked to the proliferation of toxins that exist in the modern environment that we are exposed to. A study titled Environmental Chemicals and Nervous System Dysfunction published in The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, see Endnote [vii], states:
“The etiology of many neurological and/ or psychiatric disorders is obscure or completely unknown. Affected patients frequently have nonspecific complaints that are easily passed off as being minor, temporary, psychosomatic, due to stress, etc. However, these same subtle symptoms may be the first signs of intoxication with environmental and occupational chemicals. The medical community should become sensitized to considering nervous system toxicants as a source of these otherwise unexplainable symptoms, and evidence for occupational and environmental exposures must be included in the differential diagnosis of neurological diseases. The toxicity of the compounds mentioned in this review is now well known, but they may represent only the “tip of the iceberg.”
Exposure to toxic heavy metals, such as mercury, lead, and arsenic are known to cause anxiety and/or depression. Government literatures do warn us of neurotoxicity, for example, the US National Advisory Neurological Disorders and Stroke Council website, see Endnote [viii], states:
“Neurotoxicity occurs when the exposure to natural or manmade toxic substances (neurotoxicants) alters the normal activity of the nervous system. This can eventually disrupt or even kill neurons (nerve cells) which are important for transmitting and processing signals in the brain and other parts of the nervous system. Neurotoxicity can result from exposure to substances used in chemotherapy, radiation treatment, drug therapies, and organ transplants, as well as exposure to heavy metals such as lead and mercury, certain foods and food additives, pesticides, industrial and/or cleaning solvents, cosmetics, and some naturally occurring substances.”
It appears that the neurotoxic factor is rarely considered by doctors or psychiatrists in relation to mental health and depression. This may be because environmental health is not usually taught in medical education. To make matters even more complicated, a depressed mood is actually a common side effect of the bio-pharmaceutical medications that are prescribed to combat depression, see Endnote [ix].
The Psychology of the Soul
Remember ‘psyche’ means ‘of the soul’. According to psychotherapist Neal M. Goldsmith Ph.D: “Before Wilhelm Wundt opened the first experimental psychology laboratory in 1879, there was no academic discipline of psychology separate from philosophy and biology. Perhaps it should have stayed like that for a while longer at least.”
In conclusion, it appears to me that modern-day psychiatry is fake science and that for our wellbeing we need to re-embrace the true ‘science of the soul’. It can only benefit us to remember our true identity as an eternal soul – as children of God – that is the science of self-realisation. Wellbeing is the natural psychological state of the God-conscious soul, and despite external circumstances, the soul itself is never damaged by external temporalities. In this realization the self is protected from the mental ills of this current topsy-turvy world of chaos, fake science, and greed. Furthermore, a common thread in both the Christian scriptures and the ancient Vedic scriptures is that God protects his sincere devotees.
“We know that God’s children do not make a practice of sinning, for God’s Son holds them securely, and the evil one cannot touch them.” – John 5:18
“this very Supreme Personality of Godhead is the supreme controller, the supremely worshipable, all-cognizant, fully determined, fully opulent, the emblem of forgiveness, the protector of surrendered souls, munificent, true to His promise,” – from the Nectar of Devotion by Srila Prabhupada, Spiritual leader in the tradition of Vedic Vaishnavism
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Mark Keenan is a former scientist at the UK Government Dept. of Energy and Climate Change, and at the United Nations Environment Division. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
He is author of the following books available on Amazon:
[v] The Vedic diet referred to involves the avoidance of meat, fish, eggs, garlic, onions, alcohol, coffee, tea and tobacco, all of which are aphrodisiacal stimulants. Note that eminent Danish nutritionist Mikkel Hindhede (1862-1945), stated “we must conclude that sex in its ordinary manifestation among civilised human beings is not the product of natural instinct that it is generally supposed to be but is a chemotropism evoked or conditioned reflex (in Pavlov’s sense) evoked in response to aphrodisiacal stimulation by foods and beverages, especially animal proteins, alcohol, coffee, and also tobacco. This tropistic reaction, in both its physical and psychical aspects, is subject to voluntary control through diet, an alkaline-forming, low protein vegetable diet reducing it, while an acid-forming high-protein met diet increases it.”
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May 22, 2023 – Sudbury, Ontario – Garnet Harper died after being denied a kidney transplant, leaving behind wife and five children. (click here)
Garnet was in need of a kidney transplant, which he was denied due to his vaccination status. Garnet’s referral to a transplant centre was denied, meaning he wasn’t even considered for a place on an organ donation list.
When he consented to begin dialysis, he was mistreated by the doctors and staff over masking rules, resulting in a botched surgery that landed him with a staph infection. After that, he was never the same. His health quickly deteriorated and he became septic, which in turn caused a serious heart problem, a collapsed lung, and temporary paralysis. He was told he was no longer a transplant candidate due to his poor health.
But Garnet was a fighter. Although 5 different doctors told him on different occasions that he should have died from one or more of those health complications, he overcame them all. He was clawing his way back to health. His lung was drained of fluid (4.5 Liters) and re-inflated to 80% capacity. He taught himself to walk again. He was gaining strength day by day. His kidney specialist was impressed by his progress, enough to prepare him for home dialysis.
Garnet was determined to find a way to get himself an organ, to get the treatment that he needed, and without participating in what he called “The Experiment.” He was fighting for his health, to pave the way for others who may not have been so strong.
Garnet never got to commence home dialysis. He died from a bleeding stroke in the middle of the night. Strokes are among the leading causes of death for people on long-term dialysis, as the treatment is very hard on your cardiovascular system.
Sheila Annette Lewis was denied access to an organ transplant by corrupt Alberta Health Services Executives and Judges in Alberta, Canada (click here).
In 2020, Sheila Lewis was placed on the waitlist for a donor organ, and in 2021, was informed that she had to be vaccinated against COVID-19 as a new requirement.
Having had C19 herself twice, she asked her doctors repeatedly for a C19 antibody test, but they refused. Expecting she had antibodies to C19 and therefore not wanting to subject herself to an unnecessary vaccination , Sheila declined to take the C19 vaccinations and her doctors proceeded to move her to ‘inactive’ status.
She then arranged privately to have C19 antibody testing and was found to have “extremely high” levels of antibodies to C19- higher than many people vaccinated against it. Her doctors, however, continue to refuse to provide Sheila the transplant she needed, still insisting she must be vaccinated.
Notably, the Alberta Transplant Program recently dispensed with C19 vaccination as a requirement for kidney transplantation, and in court, a judge has acknowledged that previous infection with chicken pox, exempts transplant patients from requiring varicella vaccination.
Sheila’s case is subject to a court-imposed gag order which is intended to protect her doctors from reprisal for their decision to deny her a transplant.
July 2022 – Alberta Court of King’s Bench Judge Paul Belzil ruled that state sanctioned murder of the unvaccinated is now legal in Canada, and is fully supported by the Courts.
Alberta Justice Paul Belzil (Court of King’s Bench), lawyer Daniel Morrow who represented corrupt AHS doctors, and AHS lawyer Mark Jackson who represented AHS Executives who authorized the attempted murder of Sheila Lewis:
Nov. 2022 – Alberta Court of Appeal upheld the lower Court’s Decision – Justice Frederica Schutz (Harper appointee Jul. 2015), Justice Michelle Crighton (Trudeau appointee Oct. 2016), Justice Dawn Pentelechuk (Trudeau appointee Nov. 2018) (Court Decision here).
USA Hospital agreed to perform the transplant at a cost: (click here).
Lewis has challenged the vaccine policies of AHS (Alberta Health Services) and her transplant doctors, claiming that they violate her rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench and the Alberta Court of Appeal ruled against her, stating that the Charter does not cover the specific Covid-19 vaccine policies. Her claims under The Alberta Bill of Rights were also dismissed. Recently, the Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear her case, exhausting all her legal options.
According to a GiveSendGo fundraiser, a U.S. hospital has agreed to perform the transplant surgery, but it comes with a significant cost. The fundraiser says Ms. Lewis needs $100,000 for testing before being placed on the donor list, and the surgery itself is estimated to cost an additional $500,000 USD.
After a recent interview on Viva Frei’s Podcast, Alberta Health Services has agreed to a financial settlement with Sheila Lewis, but it may be too late for her to get the transplant:
My Take…
There is an extremist far left activist lawyer in Alberta, in the Faculty of Law at the University of Calgary, Lorian Hardcastle, with whom I’ve had many conversations.
I will let her own words show you just how extreme and violent she is.
This is her take on what happened with the Sheila Lewis case: (source)
Here are her key statements from her published article:
“Court seemed to be VERY persuaded by the EFFICACY OF VACCINATIONS”
Sheila Lewis “seemed to be persuaded by the misinformation regarding COVID-19 vaccines.”
“And the Court didn’t seem to have a lot of patience for some of that misinformation and that may signal an approach that the Courts take in other kinds of cases where people DON’T WANT TO BE VACCINATED, such as the employment context.”
“they are not just going to ENTERTAIN these kinds of arguments at all”.
Conclusion
These 4 Alberta Judges (Belzil, Schutz, Crighton, Pentelechuk) and 2 lawyers (Daniel Morrow – Bennett Jones, Mark Jackson – Field Law LLP), have made murder of the unvaccinated legal in Alberta, as of November 2022.
And far left extremist University of Calgary lawyer Lorian Hardcastle is telling us that they will be coming for thousands more Albertans in the future.
You see, these corrupt extremist Judges and lawyers are VERY PERSUADED by the EFFICACY of Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines and they will literally sentence you to death if you don’t WANT to get vaccinated, because you are MISINFORMED and they’re out of PATIENCE.
I know my history and I know what happens when evil people in positions of power start to talk in these terms.
P.S.: In regards to Trudeau appointee Justice Pentelechuk, who sentenced Alberta transplant patient Sheila Lewis to die, Justice Pentelechuk has recently committed fraud in Court in my case, and has involved herself in a criminal conspiracy with Alberta Health Services Executives Verna Yiu, Francois Belanger and their AHS Lawyer Mark Jackson to threaten me and commit extortion against me and my family, to get me to drop my lawsuit, leave Alberta and sign non-disclosure agreements.
Currently, they are working extremely hard to try and have me silenced permanently.
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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.”
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There is an increasingly widespread view in Russia that the goal of the US – and the “collective West” it leads – is to achieve a “final solution” to the “Russian question.” The goals are believed to be defeating Russia, wrecking its military potential, restructuring its statehood, reshaping its identity and possibly eliminating it as a state, in its current form.
For a long time, this view remained on the periphery of foreign policy thinking. However, much has changed in the past year and a half. Today, this perception of the West’s goals has gone mainstream. Indeed, it seems quite rational, when placed into the proper context.
Meanwhile, Russia itself is pursuing a similar sort of policy towards the Ukrainian state, the existence of which in its former form and borders is perceived in Moscow as a key security challenge.
The historical experience of the last century shows that inflicting total defeat on an enemy and then rebuilding its statehood is the rule rather than the exception in foreign policy practice. There is an important difference to the conflicts of the 18th and 19th centuries, when military defeat of the enemy was seen as a way of extracting concessions from it, but not of rebuilding its very foundations.
The experiences of the 20th and 21st centuries are not always linear, but their repetition is obvious. Germany’s defeat in the First World War led to a palpable reshaping of its statehood, determined more by internal contradictions, which grew from the military loss.
Germany’s surrender after the Second World War had far more radical consequences. The country was divided, stripped of its foreign policy autonomy and almost completely rebuilt. Military defeat and subsequent occupation also led to the reformatting of the other large powers, Japan and Italy. The Soviet Union, as a victorious country, was a key player in resolving the “German question.” The USSR was also active in establishing socialist regimes in countries liberated from the Nazi occupation.
The subsequent Cold War made this redrawing more difficult. Every attempt was met with resistance from the West. Sometimes the battle ended in a draw, as in Korea. Sometimes the Soviet Union got the upper hand – it helped to inflict a painful defeat on the US in Vietnam, for example. In other situations, the US was successful, for example in supporting anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan.
The collapse of the Soviet Union gave Washington a free hand. Despite Moscow’s rhetoric that the Cold War had ended in victory for both sides, the reality was different.
Many of the former socialist countries were quickly integrated into Euro-Atlantic structures with the active help of new local elites and broad public support. Russia itself loudly proclaimed a desire to return to the ‘civilized world.’ The US-led collective West was given carte blanche to reshape a vast area, which they not unreasonably saw as a result of their bloodless victory over the Soviet Union.
In the absence of a counterweight, the US carried out several military interventions, which also resulted in a complete restructuring of the target states. Yugoslavia fell apart. Iraq was occupied, its leader executed and its system of government transformed. There were also failures. In Afghanistan, a quick victory turned into a stubborn guerrilla war and subsequent humiliating withdrawal. A military intervention in Iran did not take place, although it was planned. North Korea became a nuclear power, dramatically reducing the likelihood of external invasion. Successful US interventions provoked Moscow’s displeasure, but this did not translate into real action until a certain point. Domestically, large-scale Western investment, close humanitarian cooperation and Russian society’s interest in the West were encouraged, or at least not condemned, until the late 2010s.
At the same time, two trends led to sustained and growing irritation from the Russian authorities. The first was the increasingly visible attempts by Western countries to bypass the state and engage in direct dialogue with the Russian public. This paradigm pitted a “good” civil society against a “bad” government. Moscow’s growing and understandable annoyance was triggered by the notion that Russia had a “regime.” It hinted, or even directly stated, that the West somehow contrasted civil society with the government and did not see them as part of the same political community. The more conscious and demonstrative this approach was on the part of Western states, the more it was resisted in Moscow.
In the West, such an approach was attributed to the perceived shortcomings of democracy in Russia, which only added to the irritation.
The Russian authorities clearly did not want to depend on external assessments of their state-building. All the more so as the denominator of such assessments was increasingly set not only by the mature democracies, but also by the Eastern European and Baltic countries with their bouquet of historical grievances and complexes. The experience of ‘color revolutions’ in the post-Soviet space only reinforced Moscow’s fears. In Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine, public protests received full moral, political and even material support from Western countries, while the authorities were often demonized.
Revolutionary changes of power, even for the sake of democratization and development, were legitimately perceived in Moscow as a challenge. There was a strong consensus within the Russian elite that state-building should and could only take place through its own efforts. Any form of outside involvement was unacceptable. This consensus began to take shape in the mid-1990s, and by the end of Vladimir Putin’s first term it had become a clear policy point.
The second trend that had a significant impact on changing Russian attitudes was related to US and EU policy in the post-Soviet space. Russia has swallowed the integration of Central and Eastern European countries into Western structures, probably seeing them as toxic assets for itself. Contrary to the common stereotype in the West, which ascribes to Moscow a desire to recreate the USSR, the real goals were far from imperial ambitions.
Russia was not interested in taking on another huge imperial burden, feeding local elites and buying the loyalty of the population. It was quite happy with the neutrality of the former Soviet republics and even with cooperation with the US in the post-Soviet space, provided that such cooperation was on an equal footing. In the early 2000s, Moscow did not object to the American military presence in Central Asia and then helped supply the Western grouping in Afghanistan for a long time. But Moscow was categorically uncomfortable with the prospect of Western projects without Russian participation. Against the background of Vladimir Putin’s active diplomacy to build constructive relations with the US and the EU on all fronts, the hope remained that the area of the ex-USSR would remain a neutral field of cooperation.
But it gradually became clear that there would be less and less inclusiveness towards Russia. The aforementioned ‘color revolutions’ were yet another wake-up call. The growing concerns of the Russian leadership were discussed, but each time they were politely dismissed by Western partners. Apparently, the West simply did not see the need to take Russia’s interests into account. After the 1990s collapse of the economy, a massive brain drain, a series of internal conflicts, rampant crime, corruption, capital flight, the transition – which had begun under Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev – to the status of a commodity appendage, a falling birth rate, alcoholism and an excessively high death rate, Russia was hardly perceived as a serious contender.
The local interests of some post-Soviet elites, who gained political capital by selling the “Russian threat” to the West, also played a role.
Underestimating the Russian leadership’s will to restore statehood and avoid a zero-sum game in the post-Soviet space was a major miscalculation. With each new crisis, the West failed to take into account the real possibility of worst-case scenarios in which Russia would assert its interests by force, leading to a counteroffensive against attempts to reformat the post-Soviet states. The first serious crisis was the five-day war with Georgia, in which the Russian side not only responded violently to an attack on a peacekeeping contingent, but also recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The West had the foresight to realize the Georgian leadership had made major mistakes and to defuse the crisis with Russia. But the price was the precedent of a de facto revision of borders.
Moscow quickly responded to another Ukrainian revolution in 2013-2014 with the “Crimean Spring,” and then with support for the resistance in Donbass. The Minsk agreements left open the possibility of a relatively easy solution to the crisis. However, Russia’s tough and decisive line had already caused alarm in the West.
As a result, the US-led bloc chose a path of containment and opposition to Moscow. Western-Russian relations in the post-Soviet space, and in Ukraine in particular, finally turned into a full-on rivalry, and the Minsk agreements were later openly described by some Western leaders as having been merely a maneuver to prepare for a new fight. Russian support for the Syrian government has shown that Moscow is willing to obstruct ‘social engineering’ outside the post-Soviet space as well.
Despite the expectation of a new crisis, the scenario of a full-scale military operation against Ukraine was considered unlikely by many, including in Russia itself. Moscow was deeply embedded in the Western-oriented global economy. Trade interdependence with the EU remained high. There was no rejection of Western values in Russia, although certain social phenomena and movements were criticized as an affront to traditional values. For Moscow, the key issue remained the security of its western borders. Apparently, the Russian authorities assumed the inevitability of a gradual militarization of both Ukraine and NATO’s eastern flank, followed by a military crisis at an inconvenient moment. Neo-Nazism in Ukraine was not widespread and did not enjoy widespread popular support, but the Kiev authorities’ tolerance of radical movements was strongly resented in Russia.
The decision to launch a pre-emptive military operation was a turning point that radically raised the stakes of the rivalry. The ensuing military conflict has largely undone the legacy of the post-Soviet period.
There will be no return to the reality of 2021. It is clear that Russia will do everything it can to protect the new territorial status quo and to undermine Ukraine’s military potential as much as possible. It is also clear that the West will do everything it can to undermine Russia and, if the circumstances are right, will also use any internal problems to its advantage.
The question remains as to how the current crisis will end.
There is currently no political solution to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in sight. The sustainability of any peace agreement, even if reached, is highly questionable. The West fears an abrupt military escalation and a war with Russia that could quickly turn into a nuclear exchange. However, NATO’s gradual direct military involvement in the conflict cannot be ruled out.
The prospect of domestic unrest in Russia is widely discussed in Western media and analyzed. So far, such views have clearly not been reflected in official positions. But the transition from musings in the analysts’ community and populist statements by individual politicians to an official position may only be a matter of time. Turmoil in a major nuclear power carries great risks. But in the West they may be perceived as less serious than a direct military confrontation. Meanwhile, an internal political explosion could put Russia out of business for a long time and force it to try to reformat its entire system. In such a development, the preservation of Russia’s statehood and sovereignty will once again become the main stakes of any conflict.
Ukraine’s statehood is also at stake. It is very likely to emerge from the current crisis with diminished capacity, truncated borders and total dependence on external forces.
The US is in a better position. It has been able to discipline its allies against the backdrop of the crisis and does have risks to its own status. However, it has already entered into a rivalry with China and finds itself in a situation of double deterrence. A Russian victory in Ukraine, together a strengthening of relations between Moscow and Beijing, would be a major strategic challenge for the US.
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We have to keep in mind that a term and notion of security usually implies a kind of sense of protection and safety from different possible harms coming from „outside“. Therefore, it can be generally acceptable and understandable that the states want to protect their own territories by expanding great resources in making their territorial safe. Security topics are of very different kinds, ranging from the causes of conflict between states to deterioration in the global climate or women’s rights in global politics.
The Conception of a System
The conception of international systems of states is crucial as an explanatory mechanism of both global politics and global security models. However, in order to understand international systems of states firstly the very notion of a system itself has to be clarified and defined. In this context, it can be said that „a system is an assemblage of units, objects, or parts united by some form of regular interaction“.[i] Any system is necessarily constructed of different members on micro and macro levels which are interacting between themselves from horizontal and vertical perspectives. The member units of a system are of different sizes, capacities, potentials, wealth, might, and therefore of different positions regarding the decision-making procedure and especially power.
For the reason that member units of a system are constantly interacting with each other either from horizontal or vertical perspectives, it is quite natural that in the case of a change in one unit, the reactions to such change are expected by other units. The most expressed examples are the arms race, seeking the balance of power, making political-military blocs with other units, or even in the most drastic cases, committing aggression on the member unit.
Any system with its member units has a tendency to regulate the relations between them and to try to respond by different means if those relations are changed at the expense of the hegemonic unit(s) of the system. It can exist at the same time two or more systems that are separated from each other by regulated boundaries, but different systems very often collaborate across the boundaries, for instance, in the areas of economy, knowledge, or technology exchange as it was the case during the Cold War 1.0 era (1949−1989). Finally, one system can break down for any reason which means that necessary changes within the system were not achieved in order to save it (for instance, the case of the Warsaw Pact in 1990−1991). Subsequently, instead of the old system a new system can emerge or the member units of the old system can be simply absorbed by another one as it happened, for example, with the majority of the Central and South-East European states after the Cold War 1.0.
International Systems of States
It is very difficult to fix the exact date when the global system of international relations (IR) and therefore global security models started to work for the very reason that the process of globalization occurred over many centuries.[ii]However, the modern European system of IR can be traced back up to the time after the 1648 Westphalian Peace Treaty, while the process of globalization of international systems of inter-states relations started to work from the first half of the 19th century.
International systems of inter-state relations and global security became after the WWII investigated as academic subjects within the framework of World Systems Theory (WST) which recognizes that the states are historically playing a fundamental role in IR and they will do that in the future as well but the systems of relations of (nation)-states have to be understood and put in the context of global unity rather than conflicts based on realizations of different national interests. What the theoreticians of WST suggest is that the most meaningful system of global security has to be based on the world-system but not on the nation-states system. Therefore, they believe that international cooperation and order will replace international conflicts and anarchy. However, behind WST is, basically, hidden a system of Capitalist World-Economy(CWE) which is advocating the ideology of globalization as a new form of Western global imperialism based on the international division of labor. Thus, according to CWE, the whole world is divided into three labor and economic zones: the core-states (the Western developed mature economies); the periphery-states (mainly ex-colonies from Africa with still underdeveloped economies); and the semiperiphery-states (mainly East-European ex-socialist states and Middle-East oil-riched states with rising economies and growing infrastructure). The essence of WST/CWE is that globalization has to function to the full benefit of the core-states which are fully exploiting the perifery-states with semiperiphery states as a buffer between core and periphery segments of the world economy which are partially exploited by the core-states (by financial and economic means). In one word, WST/CWE is trying to legitimate the existence and functioning of global Western capitalism and its exploitation of the rest of the world by the promulgation of globalization ideology.[iii] However, the liberal ideology of globalization is advocating in reality the global process of (pervasive) American Westernization from all points of view – from cultural, economic, or political to the issues of values, tradition, and customs.[iv]
Historically, there were three fundamental types of international systems or relations between the states as the crucial actors in global politics even today: 1. Independent; 2. Hegemonic; and 3. Imperial.[v]
The Independent State System (ISS) is composed of the states as political actors and entities and each of them claims to be independent which means both autonomous and sovereign. The fundamental feature of such a state, at least from the very theoretical point of view, is that it has the right and possibility to make its own foreign and domestic policies out of any influence or dependence from the outside. The ISS presupposes that the state territory and its citizens are under full control and governance by the central state authority and that the state borders are inviolable from outside. In other words, any outside actor is not eligible to interfere in the domestic affairs of the state which can be governed only by one „legitimate“ authority that is internationally recognized as such. An independent state has to be as well autonomous which means (as it meant at the time of ancient Greeks wherefrom the term comes) that the legitimate state authorities are adopting their own law and organizing the state activities, political and other types of life of the society according to it but not according to the imposed law, rules or values from the outside. States had to be equally treated and understood in regard to their claims to independence, autonomy, and sovereignty regardless of the very practical fact that not all of them are of the same power, capabilities, and might.[vi]
The Hegemonic State System (HSS) is based on an idea of a hegemon and hegemony imposed by a hegemon in IR which means that one or more states (or other actors in politics) dominate the system of IR or/and regional or global politics. A hegemon is fixing the standards, values, and the „rules of the game“ and having a direct influence on the politics of the system’s members like, for instance, the US in the NATO bloc.
There are three possible types of HSS in global politics:
Unipolar (or Single) hegemony, when a single state is dominating as was the case with the US immediately after WWII.
Bipolar (or Dual) hegemony, when two dominant states exist in global politics as was the case during the time of the Cold War (the USA and the USSR).
Multipolar (or Collective) hegemony, when several or even many states dominate international relations like during the time after the Vienna Congress in 1815 (Russia, Austria, Great Britain, France, and Prussia).
In practice, in any of these three HSS, lesser powerful actors may interact with their powers, but they have to get permission from the hegemon for such action. In HSS, usually, the domestic affairs of the states are left untouched by the hegemon, while their foreign affairs are strictly under the hegemonic control.
The third type of IR, the Imperial State System (ImSS), existed from the ancient time (Assyria, Persia, Macedonia, Rome) and has been dominant in Europe, North Africa, and Asia in the Middle Ages (the Frankish, Holy Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman or Habsburg empires).
The essence of empire as a system is that it is composed of separate societal, ethnic, national, linguistic, or/and confessional parts which are associated by regular interaction. However, within such a multistructural imperial framework it is a regular practice that one unit dominate over others by imposing over the rest its own political supremacy. The rest of the framework units have to accept such reality either by force or by interest while political supremacy by one (ruling) part can be accepted by the others either implicitly or explicitly.[vii]
However, the question arises what is the difference between the Hegemonic and the Imperial State Systems as these two systems seem to be very similar if not even the same? Nevertheless, the fundamental difference is that a dominant unit of an empire is much more able to manage other subjects of the state system in comparison to HSS and especially to force them to work for the central authority (tax collection, recruiting people for the imperial army, appointing local political client leaders, etc.). The empires are usually created and enlarged by military conquest, but also they can be militarily destroyed from the outside or disappear due to the inner revolutions followed by civil wars.
In conclusion, the academic research field of Security Studies is extreme complexity raging from the standpoint that these studies should have a narrow military focus as the fundamental security threat to the territorial integrity of states comes during times of conflict to the view that individuals are the final research object of the studies but not the states themselves. Therefore, many academics focus their research on global security basically on human emancipation which is usually understood as achieving wide scope of freedoms – both individual and group.[viii] They argue that the academic discipline of Security Studies should focus on them but not on the security of the state.
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Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović is a former university professor in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is a Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Notes
[i] Karen A. Mingst, Essentials of International Relations, Third edition, New York−London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, 81.
[ii] On globalization of world politics, see (John Baylis, Steve Smith, Patricia Owens, The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations, Seventh edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 2017).
[iii] On world-system, see more in (Alvin Y. So, Social Change and Development: Modernization, Dependency, and World-System Theories, Newbury Park−London−New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1990; Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction, Fifth edition, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007).
[iv] Jeffrey Haynes, Peter Hough, Shahin Malik, Lloyd Pettiford, World Politics, New York: Routledge, 2013, 715. In one word, WST conceptualizes global order to be structured into developed, underdeveloped and intermediary states and economic systems.
[v] Paul R. Viotti, Mark V. Kauppi, International Relations and World Politics: Security, Economy, Identity, Fourth Edition, Upper Saddle River, New Jersay: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009, 40.
[vi] Sovereignty means that one state (or political territory) has its own government (political ruling establishment) which has both full authority over its own claimed administered territory and the rights and possibility of membership of (at least some) the international political community. However, there are many examples of the so-called “quasi-sovereign states” (like Kosovo, North Cyprus, Transnistria…). On the issue of „quasi-sovereign states“, see (Cynthia Weber, Simulating Sovereignty: Intervention, the State, and Symbolic Interchange, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
[vii] Martin Wight, Systems of States, Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press, 1977, 6.
[viii] Emancipation means, at least by the Westerners, the achievement of independence, i.e., ability to act independently. However, to be emancipated does not automatically mean that the individual is free of all obligations toward others including and those toward the state (military service, taxation…). It means only that the individual is free of those obligations which are considered to be oppressive or inhuman (slavery, serfdom…).
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A bit over half a century ago, the United States under the Nixon administration sent its then-State Secretary Henry Kissinger to China in order to exploit the infamous Sino-Soviet split that nearly escalated into a full-blown war between Moscow and Beijing.
The “cold war” between the two previously closely allied communist powers was a strategic gift to the US-led political West, as the belligerent thalassocracy was terrified of the prospect of facing a giant Eurasian monolith spanning from East Germany to Vietnam. The brewing ideological conflict between the post-Stalinist Soviet Union and Maoist China was heavily (ab)used by the US to somewhat soften the consequences of the humiliating defeat of America’s genocidal aggression in Indochina, where millions were killed in its indiscriminate attacks on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
Henry Kissinger is often credited as the instrumental figure in engineering the Sino-American detente that gave the US much-needed geopolitical breathing room in the late 1970s and much of the 1980s after the belligerent thalassocracy pulled back to “lick its Vietnam wounds”. However, it should be noted that, despite Kissinger’s vast diplomatic experience and knowledge, the very fact that the early 1970s China was still largely isolationist, as well as in the process of recovering from the consequences of WWII and the Cultural Revolution, made his efforts significantly easier. Still, thanks to Kissinger, the Nixon administration achieved a major diplomatic win that lasted until the very end of the Cold War and was completely nullified only by the recent suicidal US foreign policy.
Back in the 1970s, it would’ve been almost entirely unimaginable that Henry Kissinger, quite literally a historical figure at this point, not only due to his Cold War-era achievements, but also his advanced age (now in triple digits), would have to engage in his “shuttle” and “triangular diplomacy” concepts once again. However, precisely this happened last week, culminating with Kissinger’s meeting with Xi Jinping himself on July 20. The Chinese President even called the centenarian “an old friend of China”. Owing to the Asian giant’s great attention to detail, particularly when it comes to diplomatic protocols, the meeting was held at the Villa 5 of the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, the exact same place where Kissinger met the then-Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in 1971.
Precisely that meeting was instrumental in preparing Richard Nixon’s visit to China next year. However, that’s where the historical parallels end. Despite the reputation, influence and respect that he enjoys in China and worldwide, Kissinger went to Beijing in an unofficial capacity. Not representing the US anymore, he was largely relieved of the burden and responsibility for America’s diplomatic standing in China, a far cry from what it used to be during the (First) Cold War. The situation has changed drastically since Kissinger’s tenure, as the Asian giant is anything but a poor, underdeveloped nation with major ideological identity issues that could be exploited to further US interests. On the contrary, precisely Washington DC is the side that’s been going through major internal issues and waning global influence.
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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
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While Western discussions have focused on sending sophisticated weapons to Kiev, Hal Brands, a Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, argues that what Ukraine needs the most, besides air-defense systems, is artillery ammunition. He describes the current conflict as an artillery-centric one: “if Kiev can’t find enough artillery pieces and ammunition, especially 155mm shells, it will be at a dire firepower deficit along the conflict’s front lines.”
Already on March 29, Earle Mack, former US ambassador to Finland, writing in a piece for The Hill, described the current confrontation as proxy attrition warfare, that is one which seeks military victory by wearing down the enemy. He worried that Ukraine seemed bound to tire out first. Things have not gotten much better for Kiev, so far.
A July 23 New York Times story, by former Marine infantryman Thomas Gibbons-Neff, based on “dozens of visits to the front line” quotes a Ukrainian commander: “we’re trading our people for their people and they have more people and equipment.” According to the story, “Ukraine has made marginal progress in its ability to coordinate directly between its troops closest to Russian forces on the so-called zero line and those assaulting forward.” Moreover, the country’s artillery is in short supply, and “a mixture of munitions sent from different countries” is employed. The thing is that accuracy varies greatly between them and the Ukrainians need to use more ammunition. In addition, according to the same news report, “some of the older shells and rockets sent from abroad are damaging their equipment and injuring soldiers.”
Rather than using the complex military communication equipment, Ukraine’s troops employ “less sophisticated, but easier-to-use programs like smartphone messaging apps, private internet chat rooms.” Most of this system is dependent on Starlink satellite internet, and therefore it takes longer to communicate important military information when the units are assaulting and a Wi-Fi router is absent. In this case, unbelievably, “attacking troops have to reach someone with an internet connection to call for support.”
Regarding ammo, the problem is that US authorities themselves estimate that Moscow is capable of producing “1 million rounds of 152mm artillery ammunition per year.” The US, in contrast, produces merely a seventh of that, according to Hal Brands.
Right now, the US itself needs to purchase conventional artillery ammunition from its South Korean ally. In what Brands describes as a “desperate global scavenger hunt for munitions”, Washington has also been seeking ammo from Japan, as well as “repositioning rounds stored in Israel to Ukraine.”
Europe’s stockpiles are in no better shape. According to the International Institute of Strategic Studies, NATO European states armed forces are “hollowed out, plagued by unserviceable equipment and severely depleted ammunition stocks.” Bloomberg’s journalist and military historian Max Hastings writes that, over a year ago, Berlin had committed itself to €100 billion to rebuild its worn out forces. So far, however, only an estimated 1% of that has been spent. The German National Security Strategy, last month, stressed the weakness of Germany’s economy. According to Hastings, the “political will” to strengthen their armed forces is “absent” not only in Germany, but also in other European countries.
As I wrote before, the problem for Europe goes way beyond depleted weapons stockpiles: for it to rearm itself, re-industrialization is badly needed, something which, quite ironically, Washington itself has consistently opposed via its subsidy war against the European bloc. In addition, Europe, with its heavily diffused and fragmented defense, lacks a European Union common defense market and a legal and bureaucratic framework, as Sophia Besch (a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace fellow), and Max Bergmann (former member of the US Policy Planning Staff and Director of the Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies) write.
Britain’s industry today faces many difficulties, and the same thing happens with other European nations – manufacturers badly need funding expansion and governments are increasingly growing “tired” of the conflict’s costs.
As for the US, lecturer in History at Yale Michael Brenes argues that America’s own “war machine” is “broken”, with privatizations and several problems. He paints a picture of “shortages in production”, and “interruptions in supply chains”, all of which have compromised Washington’s ability to “deliver weapons to Ukraine.”
To sum it up, the current state of affairs, with a Western deindustrializations crisis, makes it very difficult for the political West to pursue its proxy attrition war. It simply cannot produce all the weapons it is pledging Ukraine. For the West, in fact, it is already a challenge to provide Kiev with enough ammunition.
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Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.
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In the last decades, great power rivalries and competition have characterised contemporary Africa, popularly termed as the new scramble for Africa. Within the context of the emerging multipolar world and the current Russia-Ukraine crisis, majority of African States are seemingly maintaining their strategic autonomy.
Most of them are now choosing their external partners with solution-based, practical and pragmatic policy which are considered very significant and useful for their economic development. With Africa increasingly becoming the world’s largest geographic free trade area, this creates grounds for concrete and transparent economic partnerships.
While the outlook for Africa in the near future is far from smooth, taking into account their own internal roadblocks and combined with efforts at strengthening bilateral relations and cooperation with external players, leaders of African States and policy-makers must exercise more agency in determining their own affairs.
Samir Bhattacharya, Senior Research Associate at Vivekananda International Foundation and Doctoral Candidate at Jawaharlal Nehru University, in this insightful interview, has further expressed his expert views on the current changing geopolitical situation, with particular reference to Africa, its external relations and key global players. Here are the excerpts.
Kester Kenn Klomegah (KKK): How do you assess the key questions discussed at the Valdai Discussion Club in mid-July?
Samir Bhattacharya (SB): The key questions appear to be well thought-out and timely. However, some new ideas must emerge from the forum. If we keep repeating what has already been thought or said, we cannot solve the current problems. Hence, it will be crucial to think of some out of-the-box ideas and then brainstorm around them to select the best alternative.
For example, the topic of de-dollarisation and what is the alternative is doing the round in multiple forums. My question is, why do we need a single solution? A unipolar world was maintained using a unique currency for the whole world. As the world is getting multipolar, let’s resolve this at a micro level, bilaterally or sometimes regionally.
The idea of BRICS currency and considering it as a replacement of the dollar sounds theoretically perfect, but it won’t be easy to implement. If that were the case, Euro would have become, at least, equivalent to the dollar. Again, the African continent is talking of a common currency. Yet, after almost a decade of discussion, even the West African block ECOWAS or even smaller block WAEMU couldn’t come up of their own. Therefore, the arguments need to be solution-based, practical and pragmatic.
KKK: In your expert view, what are some of Russia’s policy weaknesses toward Africa?
SB: The biggest policy weakness of Russia in its Africa policy is its near absence in Africa for over three decades. During that time, multiple countries, based on their respective strengths, got engaged with Africa. Immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia was not in a position to assist Africa in any way. This was mostly owing to Russia’s faltering economy and international sanctions imposed by the United States and Europe. Meanwhile, the USA was too busy or too happy as Fukuyama declared the “end of history”, and Africa fell from its policy priority. Around that time, only China slowly and steadily made inroads and assisted Africa. Whether China works ethically or if its debt-trap diplomacy is for another debate. The fact remains that China helped Africa when no one did.
The good thing, Russia realised where it went wrong. Concerning the action to rectify its mistake, it may be too little, too late. But these things are evaluated in the longer term. Hence, from 2019, when Russia-Africa relations got another life with its institutionalisation, auditing the performance would be tough, especially in the backdrop of Covid when the whole world came to a pause.
Another policy weakness of Russia is its attempt to work alone. Russia has a good relationship with both India and China. Russia must work in Africa with both of them based on complementarity. The only problem with an equal Russia-China-Africa partnership, China would be more equal than the other two. On the other hand, the Russia-India-Africa partnership could actually be grounded in equality. However, Russia must be clear what it wants to do in Africa, how it will help Africa and what Russia would gain out of it. And to get the right answer, it is important to ask the right questions, which are still elusive.
KKK: What is admirable about the policy approaches adopted toward Africa, for instance, by China and India?
SB: About China, I have already talked briefly. Being an Indian, I am better positioned to speak on India’s approach to Africa. The key pillars of India’s development partnership with Africa have been capacity-building initiatives, lines of credit, grant support, small development projects, technical consultation, disaster relief and humanitarian help, and military cooperation. Similar to Russia, India also had policy paralysis for nearly two decades, up to its economic liberalisation in 1991. Due to its domestic realities, India almost had to pull itself out of the African equation.
Since India is slowly coming back to Africa, and the current dispensation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken it to a new level as his administration has been showing a remarkable determination to fortify India’s historical bonding with the continent. Since his government came to power, there have been over 35 outbound trips to various African nations at the levels of President, Vice President, and Prime Minister. This is unprecedented in the history of India-Africa relations.
The India-Africa Forum Summit (IAFS) has been instrumental in formalising this partnership. Since its inception in 2008, the IAFS has emerged as one of the largest regular diplomatic gatherings of African leaders. There have been three editions of IAFS, held in India in 2008, Ethiopia in 2011, and India again in 2015. Although it is a cause of concern as India has had only three IAFS so far, however, India’s Africa policy is much more than just IAFS.
The principal mode of India’s development relationship with Africa has been capacity building and skill development, and ITEC played a significant role in it. Introduced in 1964, the India Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programme has been an essential aspect of the India-Africa collaboration. In fact, the African continent is now the largest recipient of the ITEC program.
In 2019, India introduced the first pilot e-ITEC course for two African countries. And since the outbreak of the pandemic, the e-ITEC has become the new normal. To respond to the needs of changing times, new and innovative courses such as Big Data Analytics, urban infrastructure management, WTO-related topics, and solar technology were introduced organically.
In the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. 25 African countries received medical assistance from India. Also, India offered an e-ITEC course on “COVID-19 Pandemic: Prevention and Management Guidelines for Healthcare Professionals’ to healthcare workers in Africa. Although, much more can be done, the India-Africa relationship today constitutes a vibrant partnership between the two continents, animated by the spirit of developing together as equals, devoid of colonial or neocolonial baggage. And I think that recognising the African agency is the biggest strength in India’s Africa policy.
KKK: Do you think Russia-Ukraine crisis has impacted on Russia’s relation with Africa?
SB: Following the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the United States and European nations imposed a slew of sanctions on Russia. Despite being geographically distant from the conflict, the African continent is concerned about the spill-over effect and subsequent economic sanctions, which will significantly impact different African countries. The surge in oil, gas, and wheat prices is the war’s most visible and tangible result.
On 2nd March, the United Nations General Assembly in New York voted on a resolution calling for the withdrawal of the Russian military from Ukraine. To the shock of United States and many Western nations, only 27 African countries participated in the United Nations General Assembly vote on the resolution. Several rounds of elections took place in the United Nations. Russia is aware of which are the countries that always stood behind it and going forward, would become the core of Russia’s Africa strategy. Russia is also aware of the countries that never supported it. These votes would actually help Russia to recalibrate its Africa strategy.
On the other hand, the pattern of these votes also indicates that Africans do not see their foreign relationships as a zero-sum game and do not want to become dependent on any foreign power. They have gone hybrid, choosing and mixing from among the various outside parties, be it the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, China, Russia, France, India or Turkey, based on their national interest, and maintaining their strategic autonomy.
KKK: Why Africa is attracting many external players? Is this trend another round of scramble for its resources?
SB: In the last decade, many countries are increasing their presence in Africa: Turkey has opened 16 new missions, Qatar has opened 11 and Japan has opened nine. Brazil, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Germany and Venezuela have also opened five new embassies. It’s like a new Cold War is playing out in Africa, where the rival sides are trying to gain influence. The extent of competition between different traditional and emerging countries to reach out to Africa has made some people term it as new scramble for Africa.
No wonder Africa is heavily rich with natural resources, particularly minerals including cobalt and lithium, essential to the rapidly expanding electric vehicle industry. However, the fight for Africa is much beyond its resources. By 2050, Africa will be home to one-fourth of the world’s population; half of them would be under 25, representing an important market. Africa is already the world’s largest geographic free trade area, and its gross domestic product has been projected to reach as high as $29 trillion by 2050. Africa is also essential to global security due to Islamic terrorist groups such as Boko Haram in West Africa and Al-Shabaab in the Horn of Africa.
The value of Africa is also important geostrategically. In the UN and other multilateral bodies, Africa represents the largest block with 28 per cent of the votes compared to Asia’s 27 per cent, the Americas’ 17 per cent, and Western Europe’s 15 per cent. Indeed, African votes were decisive in the United Nations General Assembly debate 1971 that returned Communist China to the United Nations and expelled Taiwan. Therefore, to reshape global institutions and norms that would reflect today’s reality, Africa will remain central to geostrategic competition.
Therefore, terming this as “scramble for Africa” would be a limited view that ignores the continent’s own agency.
KKK: Can we describe that as neo-colonialism? What do you suggest should be African leaders approach in dealing with external players?
SB: Great power rivalries characterise contemporary Africa, termed the new scramble for Africa. The contest between the three major global powers will increase in the upcoming year as China, the United States and the European Union try to enhance their economic, political, and security ties with Africa. However, as explained earlier, although it has much resemblance with neocolonialism, terming it neocolonialism would be too simplistic.
I’ll explain this with one recent example. The West was alarmed when Africa refused to condemn Russian aggression in Ukraine at the UNGA. However, what West forgot to consider is that despite the worsening humanitarian crisis in Africa, how much help West has extended. Instead of assisting Africa in overcoming the disastrous consequences of food scarcity and price increases, their focus appeared to be on countering Russian influence in Africa. And therefore, the African reaction to the West’s call to condemn Russia demonstrates the emergence of African realpolitik, quite rightfully.
Going forward, African leaders must think strategically, removing emotions and personal gain from policy decisions. Transparency and good governance are going to be paramount for any good to come out of the continent’s bargaining with rich and powerful foreigners or for any good to trickle down to those who need it most.
KKK: What could be the role of Africa in this new reconfiguration often referred to as multipolar world?
SB: The outlook for Africa in the near future is far from smooth. It is not difficult to list the concerns. Issues, including debt, civil war, internal strife, and climate change, present considerable difficulties. The instability brought on by election cycles, geopolitics, war, and the continuing threat of food shortages will remain significant causes for concern. But it also offers opportunities for African nations to rise to the occasion.
Undoubtedly, the world is in the throes of tremendous change. The Breton Woods arrangement and the Pax Americana are slowly but surely declining. And therefore, African countries now have an opportunity to redefine their role in the world order. It is palpable from the fact that they are increasingly looking east to emerging and re-emerging powers for partnerships. But as they do so, they need to ensure they do not move from one unhappy partnership to another.
African policymakers have begun to attend periodic summit-level meetings with new centres of power such as China, India, Russia, and Turkey. They have done so, of course, while continuing to participate in summits with the European Union, the United States, France, and Japan. The countries of the continent must exercise more agency in determining their own affairs.
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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. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports.
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Within the fortified corridors of politico-industrial power in Washington and in the hallowed bastion of the European Commission in Brussels, the same dark plans are being pushed forward: to alter the genetic code of life so as to make both man and nature patentable, controllable and servile to the cause of the techno-industrial god of insentient progress.
The latest manifestation of this process has now emerged within the food and farming sector and strongly threatens the future of all ‘GMO Free’ produce and terrains. It goes under the deliberately innocuous heading ‘New Genomic Techniques’ (NGT).
The US agribusiness industry set the agricultural genetic engineering agenda more than two decades ago, when a judge in a New York court room pronounced GMO and conventionally grown food ‘indistinguishable’. A judgement that went against the essential scientific evidence and played into the gleeful hands of the biotech industry. The precise term used was ‘substantial equivalence’.
This allowed the marketing of US GMO foods to go ahead with no labelling to warn consumers of its composition or provenance, thus denying them the right to choose.
US farmers have been likewise left to fight for the right to sell their seeds and grains as ‘GMO Free’, as the Monsanto corporation gave itself the authority to fine any farmer suffering the misfortune of having their crop contaminated by rogue GM varieties whose pollen was carried by wind or insects onto their farmland. Yes, prosecuted for being found to have a Monsanto patented GM plant growing on their field!
From the outset, European farmers and consumers strongly resisted attempts to get GMO’s into the food chain and onto the fields. Battles to uphold the sovereignty of ‘real foods’ and the right for organic and traditional produce to be legally protected against GM cross contamination, raged throughout the 1990’s and beyond – right the way up to the present day*.
Consequently, in spite of intense GM industry lobbying of the EU Commission in Brussels, less than 2% of European farmland grows GM crops.
Stung by their failure to make progress – and the subsequent collapse of the Monsanto corporation – the wounded GM battleship came up with a guileful sleight of hand to try and beat the regulatory protection of a largely GMO Free Europe.
They invented something called ‘Gene Edited’ crops going under the synonym ‘CRISPR’ (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats). Gene editing, they claim, is not the same as introducing foreign bacteria into the seed genome to make it resistant to an intensive chemical spraying regime.
Gene editing, they posit, simply removes/alters genes to make the plant perform according to the requirements of the biotech control program. A program that exerts sufficient ‘alteration’ to the natural composition of the plant to make it patentable as a ‘novel food’, thus enabling all profits to flow back into the pockets of the ‘designer’ corporations.
Recognising that a particularly cunning Trojan Horse was being designed to get ‘GMO by another name’ into the food chain, activists clubbed together and took the case to the European Court of Justice.
On 25 July 2018, the court rejected the bio-tech industry’s claim that CRISPR was no longer a GMO, clarifying that organisms created by new mutagenesis techniques are subject to existing EU GMO laws. A great victory for the defence of food sovereignty and the preservation of the natural biodiversity of farm crops.
But the GMO and chemical agribusiness behemoth knows no end to its determination to exert its sterile stamp on nature. Just four corporations now own more than 50% of the total world seed market. Their bio-piracy of original seed genomes and subsequent attempt to patent (privatise) ‘living organisms of nature’ has re-emerged in a new attempt to overthrow resistance to gene engineering.
The new deception is called New Genomic Techniques (NGT) and its right to operate is now starting its passage through the legislative assessment process at the European Commission.
WARNING: there is nothing about NGT’s that carries any benefit for the environment or food quality. Quite the opposite, it is a further tinkering with the genetics of life, whose purpose is solely to move living organisms out of traditional cross-breeding practices and into patented laboratory created industrial designer-foods. Foods able to be manipulated to ultimately replace the need for existing soil/field based agricultural traditions practised by millions of farmers throughout the world.
This agenda is a central component of the World Economic Forum programme known as ‘The Great Reset’ and particularly its ‘Green New Deal’ and ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’. Shockingly it is supported by the once ‘green’ King Charles III of England, who operates alongside WEF executive chairman Klaus Schwab and recently gave Royal Assent to new biotech innovations which stand at the opposite end of the spectrum from organic and agro-ecological farming practices.
Consumers in Europe have demanded the ‘right to know’ the provenance and composition of their foods, but the ability to hold onto this right is being undermined even as I write. The new GM legislation has recently been under debate in the European parliament and will later come under the scrutiny of the EU Board of Ministers. Italy, Austria and Holland are strongly opposed, but other countries are yet to show their colours.
GMO ingredients have to be labelled as such within the EU. But NGT’s won’t carry this requirement, if they come into law. A whole range of existing risk assessment precautions will go, as the parameters of what is GMO and what is not, get deliberately blurred and diffused.
There will be no mechanisms for enabling conventional non organic foods staying ‘GMO Free’; farmers and consumers alike will be disenfranchised from their commitment to food sovereignty.
If this agenda is adopted, there will be no detection rules and no methods of monitoring the status of crops.
Now is the moment to DEMAND that the Minister of Agriculture and Minister of the Environment in your country, never allow NGT’s to get onto the statute books during their term of office. Demand that they completely reject the New Genomic Techniques bill which they will be called to vote on in the European Commission.
If you want to retain an element of control over your and your children’s health and over the food you eat, as well as help preserve the vital biodiversity of nature within this planet’s irreplaceable natural environment, then make sure to take this vital step today!
Play your part in overcoming the sick wishes of the cabal that is attempting to subvert the very life support systems which have kept this beautiful living planet in vibrant existence for billions of years.
Let us join together in never allowing the insentient perpetrators of ecocide to play their cold roulette with the fundamental building blocks of life itself.
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Julian Rose and Jadwiga Lopata successfully campaigned to block a big corporate push to get GM seeds and plants into Poland. They succeeded in persuading the Polish government to introduce a national GMO ban in 2006 which still remains in place today.
Julian is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, writer and international activist. See his website www.julianrose.info.
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US officials are growing tired of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky making endless demands for Western support, writes Douglas MacKinnon, a former adviser for policy and communications at the Pentagon, in an op-ed for The Hill. Even without MacKinnon’s insight, it is evident that Western leaders are becoming weary of Zelensky’s demands, as seen at the recent NATO Summit in Lithuania and the aftermath of the event.
MacKinnon, citing sources, points out in his article that US President Joe Biden, in June 2022, “lost his temper and yelled that Zelensky should be showing more gratitude for the billions in aid he was getting from the United States via the American people.”
Asked about Zelensky’s endless demands for US help, a former high-level Pentagon official told MacKinnon that Western support is not endless.
“Zelensky is acting like a spoiled, petulant child who gets everything he wants and it’s still not enough. Many in the U.S. government and many of our citizens are growing tired of his act. I can assure you he is burning bridges in Europe as well,” the former Pentagon official said.
MacKinnon emphasised that more Americans are becoming sceptical of continued US aid to Kiev. This trend will likely grow “as the American people take a harder look at the horrific consequences of the war while also deciding to view Zelensky at ground level instead atop a pedestal.”
“While there is clearly resentment building regarding Zelensky’s perceived lack of appreciation for the money and munitions the West is sending his way, the spigot for those supplies remains wide open,” he added.
On July 21, the Biden administration announced that the US plans a new military assistance package for Ukraine worth up to $400 million, primarily comprised of artillery, air defence missiles and ground vehicles, but no cluster munitions.
According to Reuters, included in the package are several Stryker armoured personnel carriers, mine clearing equipment, munitions for National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS), munitions for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), anti-tank weapons including TOW and Javelin and munitions for Patriot and Stinger anti-aircraft system. However, these are unlikely to make any difference to the war effort since Western equipment is almost immediately destroyed once entering the battlefield.
It was revealed on July 23 that the Russian military had destroyed a record amount of Western-supplied armour to Ukraine in only 24 hours while repelling Kiev’s long-awaited counter-offensive. Russian forces had eliminated at least 15 German-made Leopard tanks and more than 20 US-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicles in just one engagement. At the same time, since the start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the first week of June, Kiev has lost over 26,000 soldiers, confirming that the long-awaited attack was nothing more than a failure.
The New York Times reported on July 15 that the Ukrainian military lost 20% of its battlefield equipment, including many Western-supplied vehicles, in the first two weeks of the offensive. That was preceded by Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu saying on July 11 that there was an estimated Ukrainian loss of 3,000 units of military equipment.
Meanwhile, Western officials have expressed alarm at Ukraine’s slow progress on the battlefield, with a recent Wall Street Journal article claiming that they, too, have been jolted by the rapid loss of military equipment. However, several Ukrainian officials tried to explain the difficulties in the offensive by pointing to delays in Western military assistance.
The media coverage over Biden’s frustration with Zelensky, which has existed since at least June 2022, coupled with reports of the catastrophic loss of equipment and soldiers, has not deterred the West from supporting Ukraine. Despite Biden’s complaints of Zelensky’s spoiled behaviour, it has not deterred the US from pouring billions into Ukraine.
This is the same masochistic behaviour that the UK employs.
It is recalled that British Foreign Secretary Ben Wallace told reporters at the annual NATO summit in Lithuania earlier this month that Kiev should not treat its western partners like “Amazon.”
“I told them that last June. I said to the Ukrainians, when I drove 11 hours to be given a list: ‘I’m not Amazon,’” Wallace said, adding, “Whether we like it or not, people want to see gratitude.”
Ultimately, Zelensky fired his ambassador to the UK on July 21 after the ambassador criticised the president’s “sarcasm” in response to Wallace suggesting Kiev should be more grateful for Western support.
This highlights the spoiled behaviour of Zelensky, but it also demonstrates why he has the audacity to behave in such an entitled behaviour – the Anglo hatred for Russia is so strong that they are willing to be continually humiliated and lambasted by an inferior country, Ukraine.
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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
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Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), gathered Saudi journalists in Riyadh in December to say that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had been an ally for decades, but had stabbed Saudi Arabia in the back, and threatened a response.
According to Gulf experts, the disagreement between MBS and Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ) is because of the competition between the two over geopolitical and economical leadership in the region. The rivalry stems from the question as to who will be in control of the global oil market.
MBS favors lower oil production, in line with OPEC agreed upon levels, which keeps the global oil price higher. US President Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia to personally ask MBS to raise oil production in order to lower the gasoline prices in America, which would be a political plus for Biden and his 2024 re-election campaign while faced with low polling numbers.
However, after the cordial fist-bump the meeting failed to produce the results Biden came for. MBS refused to increased oil production, instead sticking with the previous OPEC agreed upon levels. MBS is the most powerful player in OPEC, and has stepped onto the regional stage as the most powerful political player in the region as well.
MBZ favors increased oil production, which would drop oil prices, but with increased sales, UAE would still have high profits. This strategy is in line with what the White House favors.
The UAE has become an investment and tourism destination for wealthy foreigners, including those from western democracies. Residents of the UAE enjoy a first-class lifestyle, and comparable wages in a cosmopolitan setting.
Not that long ago, Saudi Arabia didn’t even offer a tourist visa. Women had to be covered from head to toe and ‘fashion police’ roamed the streets beating women with canes if not appropriately covered. MBS shelved those antiquated measures and is in the process of turning Saudi Arabia into a tourist destination including the new mega-city Neom, and the new Saudi airlines which will rival the UAE’s Emirates airlines.
The geopolitical landscape of the Middle East is witnessing a subtle but noticeable shift, as cracks begin to emerge in the once unshakeable alliance between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Recent events, ranging from regional disagreements to economic competition, have contributed to a growing strain between these two powerhouse nations.
Yemen and Regional Ambitions
One area that has tested the Saudi-UAE relationship is the ongoing conflict in Yemen. Initially presenting a united front against the Houthi rebels, differing visions on post-war Yemen have caused a rift. While Saudi Arabia portrays itself as the senior custodian of Yemen’s stability, the UAE has often pursued independent ambitions in the south, creating divisions and muddying the waters of coalition efforts. This discord has further complicated reaching a comprehensive peace agreement.
Economic Rivalry
Economic competition has become another catalyst behind the strained Saudi-UAE relationship. Both countries aspire to diversify their economies and reduce dependence on oil, leading to increased rivalry in various sectors such as finance, tourism, entertainment, and technology. These ambitions have occasionally resulted in overlapping interests and rivalries, creating friction between the two nations, as they vie for prominence in the region.
Energy Diplomacy and OPEC
In the realm of energy diplomacy, tensions have recently risen, causing the Saudi-UAE relationship to falter. Disagreements arose within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) regarding production cuts. UAE’s push for higher production quotas to fund its future economic projects clashed with Saudi Arabia’s preference for maintaining market stability. The fallout of these negotiations exposed divisions, sparking resentment and contributing to the widening gap between the two nations.
Qatar and the GCC Crisis
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) crisis, which erupted in 2017, has further strained the Saudi-UAE alliance. While Saudi Arabia led the blockade against Qatar, the UAE took measures to isolate Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorism. However, as regional dynamics have evolved, Saudi Arabia has sought reconciliation, while the UAE remains hesitant. This contrasting approach has caused a rift within the coalition, impacting the shared stance against Qatar and challenging the long-standing regional dynamics.
Regional Influence and Power Struggles
As both Saudi Arabia and the UAE aim to assert their dominance and expand their influence in the wider Middle East, their individual foreign policies frequently collide. Divergent approaches towards Syria, Iran, and Egypt, among others, have strained the alliance. Saudi Arabia’s focus on confronting Iran and maintaining traditional alliances often contrasts with the UAE’s pragmatism and pursuit of calculated regional partnerships. Such divergent strategies have created tensions, potentially altering regional dynamics.
The Saudi-UAE alliance, once hailed as an unbreakable pillar in the region, is experiencing significant strain due to Yemen’s complexities, economic rivalry, energy diplomacy, the Qatar crisis, and power struggles in the region. These contrasting interests and policies have gradually eroded the unity that once defined their partnership. As the Middle East undergoes profound transformations, it remains to be seen how Saudi Arabia and the UAE will navigate these challenges, either rejuvenating their alliance or drifting further apart in pursuit of their own ambitions.
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The more the government of Canada piles on the hocus pocus of climate change/net zero, the more the incentive grows for the Trudeau-Singh regime to shower even more favour on Ontario and Quebec. The brunt of this formula for national disunity continues to be felt most severely by the people of Alberta.
Any security arrangement with too many variables and multiple contingencies, risks stuttering and keeling over. Critical delays might be suffered, attributable to a number of factors beyond the parties concerned. Disputes and disagreements may surface. Such an arrangement is AUKUS, where the number of cooks risk spoiling any meal they promise to cook.
Mirroring meticulous Chinese attention to protocol, they met at Villa 5 of the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse – exactly where Kissinger first met in person with Zhou Enlai in 1971, preparing Nixon’s 1972 visit to China. The Mr. Kissinger Goes to Beijing saga was an “unofficial”, individual attempt to try to mend increasingly fractious Sino-American relations. He was not representing the current American administration.
The chips sanctions are not just about limiting China’s military-industrial potential. It is taking aim a ALL of China’s society. The idea is that AI is about to permeate everything in society, science, diplomacy, politics, economics, trade, finance, military – you name. A country deprived of access to AI will be handicapped. AI needs advanced chips. The chips embargo are the means to secure that all of China will be handicapped.
In June, as soon as the counteroffensive began, Ukraine’s military intelligence claimed that the army had almost run out of its Soviet era 152mm artillery ammunition and was forced to use NATO standard 155mm shells. These claims caused large stir in NATO, which began actively looking for ammunition for poor Ukraine.
Richard Werner, Ph.D., created a monetary policy known as quantitative easing, which is intended to help banks get out of financial crises more rapidly and avoid long-term recession. In 2020, this policy was misused to intentionally create inflation.
In the United States, the word “socialism” has come to have a negative meaning. In that meaning, the word implies the loss of individual sovereignty, rejection of religion and the institution of authoritarian political measures.
Thousands of Israeli citizens are protesting judicial reforms proposed by the extremist government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Street protests against the proposed bill began in January, and are gathering momentum as military units, labor unions, and medical associations join the throng of protesters.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. blew up the Democratic Party yesterday in the House Subcommittee on Weaponization of Government hearing, acting like a normal human while being set upon by a flock of harpies desperately screeching “Russia, Russia, Russia,” as if that means anything anymore. He branded them as worse than the McCarthyites of the 1950s, rebuked their insane scurrilities supporting censorship, and left them in a state of exhausted disgrace.
In fact, the West supports the destruction of Ukraine and its peoples. Amply documented, the West never wanted peace for Ukraine. Instead, Western policymakers seek to “fight to the last Ukrainian” in order to bleed Russia. Ukraine and Ukrainians are being sacrificed, not for “democracy and freedom” which are nothing more than war propaganda slogans, but for nazism, for impoverishment, for economic enslavement, and for colonial status.
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The US is losing culture.
Hollywood is a very vivid symptom of this.
The other day, I revisited an iconic US film distributed by Columbia Pictures – Dr. Strangelove.
One of the best political black-satire movies of all time. I saw it 3 times and still enjoy seeing scenes from it again.
I just came across another iconic film released by Paramount Pictures – Once Upon a Time in the West.
Both movies were provocative – in their story as well as in their cinematography. Both are masterworks.
We don’t see masterworks from Hollywood anymore.
And there is a profound lack of US films with an edge.
What is the reason?
There is no lack of money in the US movie industry. They constantly make one expensive movie after another. Mission Impossible No. 4002 and counting – Indiana Jones No. 284733 and counting. Super Hero movie no. 3 million and counting. Disney nobody-cares movie number gazillion. A lot of ink can be wasted about changes in movie-habits, on-line movie access etc. Is the collapse in US movie quality the consequence of that – or is the collapse in cultural quality of US movies an intrinsic, a deeper US cultural phenomenon? I believe the latter.
Even in the US, there used to be a market for niche films with less viewers – many of which like Pulp Fiction and the first Star Wars movie (yes, both were low-budget) became blockbusters. Earlier, the US was also able to make provocative films even in the high budget range. Apocalypse Now was extremely expensive to make, but the financiers in the movie industry at that time dared to invest in that movie which heavily criticized US behavior in the lost Vietnam war. And that movie became a blockbuster and a classic too. The Godfather series which showed a violent crime family in a somewhat human light was also provocative. Are there any provocations in US movies today? Look to Barbie. Ask Oppenheimer.
Something is lost in the US cultural sphere.
Are there other parts of the US cultural landscape which are blossoming instead? I don’t see signs of that. I also haven’t seen anything really interesting in the New York Times which loves to report on culture (they call it “arts” to be more snobbish). What about music? Rap was provocative – but that was then. Techno was underground and provocative – but that was then. Michael Jackson is outlawed, and there is no new one. There are no new cultural US musical mega-figures with strong personalities – nothing like Michael Jagger, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix. There isn’t even a new Madonna.
It seems like the US society doesn’t further such culture and personalities. The US doesn’t even seem to have a thriving underground environment anymore. The US Left used to support such underground environments, but it seems that the woke US Left is itself becoming the arch enemy of everything “deviant” – the cancel culture of political correctness and artificial pronouns. An artificial “progressive” political movement which has infiltrated, infested, and cut down the productive growth environments of cinema, music, and culture in the US. Diversity, creativity, renewal, and energy come from things growing wild – and that is not allowed in the US anymore.
So maybe there we have it. A key reason for US cultural collapse.
It will have a profound detrimental impact. Both on the US internally – and on the US position in the World.
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Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.
Semiconductors constitute a strategic commodity, used in a variety of sectors including electronics, medical devices, electronic and communications networks etc.
There is evidence of manipulation, which has led to artificial shortages of semiconductors affecting a number of key sectors of the global economy.
There are geopolitical implications: US Confrontation with China engineered by the White House.
The Automobile Industry
From one day to the next starting in 2020, Japan’s automobile industry enters a period of prolonged crisis.
The automobile industry experienced a decline in production of 15% in 2020 largely due to an engineered shortage of semi-conductors. A much larger decline was experienced in 2021, affecting production in Japan, South Korea, China Western Europe and North America.
“Automakers, which rely on dozens of chips to build a single vehicle, have been particularly hard hit, forced to halt production lines globally as they await chip supplies. The debacle is likely to cost the auto industry $450 billion in global sales … In September 2021 Toyota was forced to slash production at 14 factories in Japan over a lack of semiconductors. Some of the cuts will continue into October due to a lack of components from Southeast Asia, Toyota has said.” (Washington Post, September 2021)
Across the entire industry, an estimated 7.7 million fewer vehicles were produced in the same year-on-year period. This corresponds to a monetary value of about 210 million USD. Due to the complexity of the production chains described above, it will take time even after production capacities have recovered until output in the automotive industry is at pre-crisis level once again.
Semiconductor Chips
The World’s largest semiconductor producer –which over the years has been routinely trading and collaborating with China– is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).
Joe Biden’s intent is to paralyze Taiwan’s trade and investment relations with the PRC. In what amounts to a strategic decision, the White House ordered Taipei to implement the Relocation of the TSMC plant to Arizona.
As the biggest maker of chips that power everything from phones to cars to missiles, the company is strategically important with highly coveted technical know-how. But caught in a deepening battle between the United States and China over technological leadership
In fact there is also an unspoken battle between the Biden Administration and the Taiwan owners of TSMC which started manufacturing in mainland China in 2004.
“Two out of 18 TSMC plants are located in China — the vast majority of the factories are still in Taiwan.”
TSMC is not intent upon reducing its activities in Mainland China.
Joe Biden’s decision to transfer TSMC to Arizona has essentially led to the paralysis of the Arizona plant which is now slated to start production in 2025, while also destabilizing TSMC’s revenues and productive capabilities in Taiwan.
Has this contributed to weakening TSMC’s relations with the PRC?
Chipmaking giant Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC) has delayed the start of production at its factory in the US state of Arizona, in a setback to President Biden’s technology ambitions.
On July 20, 2023, TSMC Chairman Mark Liu said production of advanced microprocessors at its Arizona factory in the south west of the US would now begin in 2025.
The company said its profits fell by around 23% to 181.8bn Taiwanese dollars ($5.8bn; £4.5bn) in the three months to the end of June, compared to the same time last year.
The political standoff between Biden and TSMC, affects supply lines of semiconductors in the US and Worldwide. It potentially destabilizes large sectors of the global economy.
“the world chip shortage has already affected 169 industries, and we’re not talking about electronics anymore. Industries like steel and concrete production and even soap manufacturing are already affected”.
Is there a hidden agenda on behalf of the Financial Establishment?
The March 2020 lockdown measures have been conducive to process of corporate bankruptcies affecting major sectors of the real economy. In turn, the engineered shortage of semiconductor chips has precipitated the decline of major automobile companies, which at some later stage will be appropriated by powerful financial interests.
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It was a photo op for the ages: a visibly well-disposed President Xi Jinping receiving centenarian “old friend of China” Henry Kissinger in Beijing.
Mirroring meticulous Chinese attention to protocol, they met at Villa 5 of the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse – exactly where Kissinger first met in person with Zhou Enlai in 1971, preparing Nixon’s 1972 visit to China. The Mr. Kissinger Goes to Beijing saga was an “unofficial”, individual attempt to try to mend increasingly fractious Sino-American relations. He was not representing the current American administration.
There’s the rub. Everyone involved in geopolitics is aware of the legendary Kissinger formulation: To be the US’s enemy is dangerous, to be the US’s friend is fatal. History abounds in examples, from Japan and South Korea to Germany, France and Ukraine. As quite a few Chinese scholars privately argued, if reason is to be upheld, and “respecting the wisdom of this 100-years-old diplomat”, Xi and the Politburo should maintain the China-US relation as it is: “icy”.
After all, they reason, being the US’s enemy is dangerous but manageable for a Sovereign Civilizational State like China. So Beijing should keep “the honorable and less perilous status” of being a US enemy.
The World Through Washington’s Eyes
What’s really going on in the back rooms of the current American administration was not reflected by Kissinger’s high-profile peace initiative, but by an extremely combative Edward Luttwak. Luttwak, 80, may not be as visibly influential as Kissinger, but as a behind-the-scenes strategist he’s been advising the Pentagon across the spectrum for over five decades. His book on Byzantine Empire strategy, for instance, heavily drawing on top Italian and British sources, is a classic.
Luttwak, a master of deception, reveals precious nuggets in terms of contextualizing current Washington moves. That starts with his assertion that the US – represented by the Biden combo – is itching to do a deal with Russia.
That explains why CIA head William Burns, actually a capable diplomat, called his counterpart, SVR head Sergey Naryshkin (Russian Foreign Intelligence) to sort of straighten things up “because you have something else to worry about which is more unlimited”. What’s “unlimited”, depicted by Luttwak in a Spenglerian sweep, is Xi Jinping’s drive to “get ready for war”. And if there’s a war, Luttwak claims that “of course” China would lose. That dovetails with the supreme delusion of Straussian neocon psychos across the Beltway.
Luttwak seems not to have understood China’s drive for food self-sufficiency: he qualifies it as a threat. Same for Xi using a “very dangerous” concept, the “rejuvenation of the Chinese people”: that’s “Mussolini stuff”, says Luttwak. “There has to be a war to rejuvenate China”.
The “rejuvenation” concept – actually better translated as “revival” – has been resonating in China circles at least since the overthrow of the Qing dynasty in 1911. It was not coined by Xi. Chinese scholars point out that if you see US troops arriving in Taiwan as “advisors”, you would probably make preparations to fight too.
But Luttwak is on a mission: “This is not America, Europe, Ukraine, Russia. This is about ‘the sole dictator’. There is no China. There is only Xi Jinping,” he insisted. And Luttwak confirms the EU’s Josep “Garden vs. Jungle” Borrell and European Commission dominatrix Ursula von der Leyen fully support his vision. Luttwak, in just a few words, actually gives away the whole game: “The Russian Federation, as it is, is not strong enough to contain China as much as we would wish”. Hence the turn around by the Biden combo to “freeze” the conflict in the Donbass and change the subject. After all, “if that [China] is the threat, you don’t want Russia to fall apart,” Luttwak reasons.
So much for Kissingerian “diplomacy.”
Let’s Declare a “Moral Victory” and Run Away
On Russia, the Kissinger vs. Luttwak confrontation reveals crucial cracks as the Empire faces an existential conflict it never did in the recent past. The gradual, massive U-turn is already in progress – or at least the semblance of a U turn. US mainstream media will be entirely behind the U turn. And the naïve masses will follow. Luttwak is already voicing their deepest agenda: the real war is on China, and China “will lose”
At least some non-neocon players around the Biden combo – like Burns – seem to have understood the Empire’s massive strategic blunder of publicly committing to a Forever War, hybrid and otherwise, against Russia on behalf of Kiev. This would mean, in principle, that Washington can’t just walk away like it did in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Yet Hegemons do enjoy the privilege to walk away: after all they exercise sovereignty, not their vassals. European vassals will be left to rot. Imagine those Baltic chihuahuas declaring war on Russia-China all by themselves.
The off-ramp confirmed by Luttwak implies Washington declaring some sort of “moral victory” in Ukraine – which is already controlled by BlackRock anyway – and then moving the guns towards China.
Yet even that won’t be a cakewalk, because China and the about-to-expand BRICS+ are already attacking the Empire at its foundation: dollar hegemony. Without it, the US itself will have to fund the war on China. Chinese scholars, off the record, and exercising their millennia-old analytical sweep, observe this may be the last blunder the Empire ever made in its short history.
As one of them summarized it, “the empire has blundered itself to an existential war and, therefore, the last war of the empire. When the end comes, the empire will lie as usual and declare victory, but everyone else will know the truth, especially the vassals.”
And that brings us to former national security adviser Zbigniew “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski’s 180-degree turn shortly before he died, aligning him today with Kissinger, not Luttwak. “The Grand Chessboard”, published in 1997, before the 9/11 era, argued that the US should rule over any peer competitor rising in Eurasia. Brzezinski did not live to see the living incarnation of his ultimate nightmare: a Russia-China strategic partnership. But already seven years ago – two years after Maidan in Kiev – at least he understood it was imperative to realign the global power architecture”
Destroying the “Rules-Based International Order”
The crucial difference today, compared to seven years ago, is that the US is incapable, per Brzezinski, to “take the lead in realigning the global power architecture in such a way that the violence (…) can be contained without destroying the global order.” It’s the Russia-China strategic partnership that is taking the lead – followed by the Global Majority – to contain and ultimately destroy the hegemonic “rules-based international order”.
As the indispensable Michael Hudson has summarized it, the ultimate question at this incandescent juncture is whether economic gains and efficiency will determine world trade, patterns and investment, or whether the post-industrial US/NATO economies will choose to end up looking like the rapidly depopulating and de-industrializing post-Soviet Ukraine and Baltic states or England.”
So is the wet dream of a war on China going to change these geopolitical and geoeconomics imperatives? Give us a -Thucydides – break. The real war is already on – but certainly not one identified by Kissinger, Brzezinski and much less Luttwak and assorted US neocons.
Michael Hudson, once again, summarized it: when it comes to the economy, the US and EU “strategic error of self-isolation from the rest of the world is so massive, so total, that its effects are the equivalent of a world war.”
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Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil, is a correspondent and editor-at-large at Asia Times and columnist for Consortium News and Strategic Culture. Since the mid-1980s he’s lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Singapore, Bangkok. He has extensively covered Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia to China, Iran, Iraq and the wider Middle East. Pepe is the author of Globalistan – How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War; Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad during the Surge. He was contributing editor to The Empire and The Crescent and Tutto in Vendita in Italy. His last two books are Empire of Chaos and 2030. Pepe is also associated with the Paris-based European Academy of Geopolitics. When not on the road he lives between Paris and Bangkok. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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Few people understand what the US chips sanctions are really about.
This is war!
The US has declared itself at war with China. That is reported in an article in the New York Times (NYT) on 12 July 2023 under the all-revealing title “An Act of War.”
Last October, the United States Bureau of Industry and Security issued a document that — underneath its 139 pages of dense bureaucratic jargon and minute technical detail — amounted to a declaration of economic war on China. The magnitude of the act was made all the more remarkable by the relative obscurity of its source. One of 13 bureaus within the Department of Commerce, the smallest federal department by funding, B.I.S. is tiny: Its budget for 2022 was just over $140 million, about one-eighth the cost of a single Patriot air-defense missile battery. The bureau employs approximately 350 agents and officers, who collectively monitor trillions of dollars’ worth of transactions taking place all around the world. –Alex Palmer, NYT
Fight China to the Death
This is a war of life and death for the US.
The future of chips was life or death for China.
There were a few seconds of silence before Rozman Kendler answered, in a quiet voice. “It’s probably life or death for us too,” she said.
That is the way US officials in the trade department themselves see the chip war against China. This is about life and death – destroy China or be destroyed.
You can easily figure out why US officials sees the chips war against China as a war on life and death: It’s because their politicians tell them that it is ! It doesn’t matter what Blinken officially tells China. It doesn’t matter what Yellen tells China. It doesn’t matter what Biden says about “working together”. What matters is what the US leaders think themselves, what they do, and what they tell their public servants. US leaders see themselves at war to destroy China and tell their officials that is it so.
Anyone who doesn’t understand that the US has started a lethal war for the destruction of China doesn’t understand the leading dynamics of international politics today.
Destroy All of China’s Economy, Science, and Development
The US chip war takes aim at all of China.
We said there are key tech areas that China should not advance in,” says Emily Kilcrease, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a former U.S. trade official. “And those happen to be the areas that will power future economic growth and development”.
“The person with the best supercomputer can do the best science.”
All the US talk about chip restrictions being a “small yard with a high fence” is a lie.
The US wants nothing less than to cripple and destroy all of China’s economy and development.
Handicap China for a Generation
The chips sanctions are not just about limiting China’s military-industrial potential. It is taking aim a ALL of China’s society. The idea is that AI is about to permeate everything in society, science, diplomacy, politics, economics, trade, finance, military – you name. A country deprived of access to AI will be handicapped. AI needs advanced chips. The chips embargo are the means to secure that all of China will be handicapped.
And the US objective is to handicap all of China for a generation.
With the Oct. 7 export controls, the United States government announced its intent to cripple China’s ability to produce, or even purchase, the highest-end chips. The logic of the measure was straightforward: Advanced chips, and the supercomputers and A.I. systems they power, enable the production of new weapons and surveillance apparatuses. In their reach and meaning, however, the measures could hardly have been more sweeping, taking aim at a target far broader than the Chinese security state. “The key here is to understand that the U.S. wanted to impact China’s A.I. industry,” says Gregory C. Allen, director of the Wadhwani Center for A.I. and Advanced Technologies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “The semiconductor stuff is the means to that end.”
If the controls are successful, they could handicap China for a generation.
I wonder if China (or Russia) understand the power and functionality of the chip war.
Push China to Go Backwards
The power of chips technology doubles every 2 years. When China is cut-off from doubling the power of their chips every second year, China will fall backwards. Fast.
But that is not enough for the US war against China.
The US wants to actively reduce even the IT technology which China already has access to.
By squeezing on the industry’s natural choke points, the Biden administration aims to block China from the future of chip technology.
Not only are we not going to allow China to progress any further technologically, we are going to actively reverse their current state of the art.
We currently see the implementation of US pushing China back even from the IT technology they currently have access to. Recently, the US coerced the Netherlands and their company ASML to band China even from DUV chip-making lithography machines. DUV is the previous technology before the current one which is EUV. The US also coerced Taiwan and their company TSMC to not produce chips for China which are fully designed by China with its existing capabilities. The leading US chip developer NVIDIA developed a downgraded “China-version” of the A100 chip, the H100 version. NVIDIA had an agreement with the US government that they could do so. But the US government just changed its mind and has now banned NVIDIA from even exporting the downgraded H100 version of their chip. The US is also banning China from access to US cloud computing centers.
The US goes against China with maximum destruction.
US Repeats Cold War Victory Strategy
The US has a deep understanding of the technology game – and a lot of experience in how to use it to cripple a big adversary, the Soviet Union.
During the height of the Cold War, when export controls to the Soviet bloc were at their strictest, B.I.S. was a critical hub in the Western defenses, processing up to 100,000 export licenses annually.
The US rules in the first Cold War were called COCOM. They banned the Soviet Union from access to chips and computers – and it worked marvelously. The Soviet Union fell completely behind in chips and computing, and never caught up.
Why did the Soviet Union break down? Lack of economic progress and disappointed popular expectations. But how did that happen? One of the big reasons was lack of computing technology. As the Soviet Union never participated in the computer revolution, it was simply incapable of delivering the gains in productivity, living standards, military technology needed to keep up with the USA. The result was an economy and society which fossilized and eventually fell apart from within.
That is the path the US has set China upon now.
And China does nothing about it.
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Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.
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In June, as soon as the counteroffensive began, Ukraine’s military intelligence claimed that the army had almost run out of its Soviet era 152mm artillery ammunition and was forced to use NATO standard 155mm shells. These claims caused large stir in NATO, which began actively looking for ammunition for poor Ukraine.
In fact, Kiev’s Western patrons have been supplying Ukraine with shells nonstop and Kiev even launched its large counteroffensive despite the alleged shortage.
Washington, referring to the depletion of conventional ammunition from the Ukrainian military, sent dangerous cluster munitions to Kiev. However, on July 19, conventional 152-mm artillery shells were already included in the next package of US aid. At the same time, Washington announced that it was going to increase the production of ammunition.
London proudly declared that it had delivered 15 times more “critical” artillery ammunition to Ukraine than it had planned a year ago, more than 200 thousand rounds instead of 16 thousand.
The French Europlasma group’s subsidiary Les Forges de Tarbes has reportedly concluded two contracts with the Ukroboronprom Group for the production of 155-mm artillery shells for Ukraine. In 2022, the capacities of military the industrial facilities in Tarbes were drastically increased with investment of about 15 million euros over three years.
Even Bulgaria, which officially refused to produce shells for Ukraine, claiming that it has no necessary facilities, has been supplying artillery ammunition through the third party countries. According to documents published in the US, it turned out that Sofia had been supplying 155-mm shells to Washington since the very beginning of hostilities.
These are just some of the efforts being made by NATO countries to allegedly support Ukraine.
In its turn, Kiev declares its desires to shoot 18 thousand 152 / 155mm caliber rounds per day; but it only can use 4 thousand.
Despite the loud claims, the pace of production in the US and Europe leaves much to be desired. Currently producing about 20 thousand shells per month, Washington plans to increase this number up to 70 thousand. The EU wants to reach the production goal of one million shells of all calibers per year. These are largely assessed to be pretty odious plans. Moreover, not all shells will be sent to the Ukrainian army.
According to the most optimistic forecasts, NATO will be able to provide Ukraine with a combined total of 130 thousand 152 / 155mm shells per month that is only 10 percent more than Ukraine is shooting now.
The West has no goal to lead Ukraine to victory but rather to only prolong the conflict.
The international hype with the search for shells for Ukraine is aimed not at arming the Ukrainian army, but at strengthening the capacities of NATO itself, which is preparing for war with Russia, since the Ukrainian army has demonstrated its impotence on the battlefield.
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Richard Werner, Ph.D., created a monetary policy known as quantitative easing, which is intended to help banks get out of financial crises more rapidly and avoid long-term recession
In 2020, this policy was misused to intentionally create inflation
Werner’s London-based community interest company, Local First, provides communities with the know-how to set up local community banks
Creating lots of local community banks will decentralize finance, make communities more resilient and help us avoid the implementation of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs)
The intent behind CBDCs is complete control by central banks over populations. The central controllers will decide if, when and how you may spend your money, and can use this monetary control to enforce compliance with any and all global governance agendas
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In the featured video, Ivor Cummins interviews professor Richard Werner, author of “Princes of the Yen — Japan’s Central Bankers and the Transformation of the Economy”1 on “The Fat Emperor Podcast.” Werner has a Ph.D., in economics from Oxford University. He was a visiting scholar with the bank of Japan back in the 1990s.
In 1995, he created a monetary policy known as quantitative easing, which is intended to help banks get out of financial crises more rapidly and avoid long-term recession.
More recently, Werner created a community interest company called Local First, which provides communities with the know-how to set up local community banks. In this interview, he breaks down how the world works from a central banking standpoint, how ordinary people are affected by these policies, what we can expect from central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and more.
How Central Bankers Rule the World
In his book, “Princes of the Yen,” Werner describes how there’s a small group of insiders inside the central bank, running the whole show. While they direct the media’s attention to interest rates, that’s a bit of a decoy. They’re not focused on the price of money but rather the quantity of money, measured in terms of quantity of credit creation.
This tiny core group of insiders are selected in their early 30s when they join the Bank of Japan and told that they will become governor of the bank in 30 years’ time. These are referred to as the “princes.” They control the boom-and-bust cycles in Japan, through their control of the quantity of credit.
Similar factions exist in other central banks as well, Werner says, and these central bankers are not accountable for their actions. They use this power to engineer events that serve their own purposes (typically connected to increasing their own power).
In 2003, Werner warned that the European Central Bank (ECB) was “a monster” that would create bank credit-driven asset bubbles and property bubbles, followed by banking crises and recessions, which is precisely what happened.
The Central Bank Plan to Monopolize Global Finance
Werner points out that while central banks are promoting CBDCs as digital currency, we’ve had digital currency for decades, so there’s nothing new about the digital aspect of this currency. Cash — paper banknotes and coins — are but a small part — about 3% in most countries — of the total money supply. The rest is digital.
Today, central banks are the only ones authorized to issue banknotes, but regular banks create 97% of the money through lending. They’re not allowed to issue paper notes. Instead, they issue deposit entries into your bank account, which is digital. So, Werner notes, you could say we’ve been using bank digital currency (BDC) for decades.
The difference between BDCs and CBDCs is the centralized aspect. So, what’s happening now is that central banks, which are the regulators of banks, are stepping in to directly compete with the banks they’re regulating. Werner likens it to the umpire joining the game. That obviously makes it an unfair game.
“It is a big danger,” Werner tells Cummins.2 “And you can see where this is going. If we allow central bank digital currencies, sooner or later they will drive out the private sector competition. They will drive out the banks.
And, of course, we also have this other problem … that whenever we get a banking crisis and a financial crisis, the regulators get more power because each time they argue, ‘Oh that now happened, it’s different from before and that’s because we still don’t have enough power. We need to have more powers’ …
This is a regulatory moral hazard. If the regulator gets rewarded for failure … you can be sure that we’ll have more crises, because they’ll be given more powers. Now they want to introduce CBDCs, and of course, the best time from their viewpoint is … another banking crisis, so that people want to move their money out of banks …
That’s the easiest way to introduce this, which means we have a massive incentive now for regulators, for central planners, to create another huge financial crisis so that they can then take over.
Of course, then that’s the end of it, because the banking system is not going to recover from this. Now, do we really want this, where essentially the number of banks goes down so much that there’s really only one bank left?
In their 23 years or so of existence, the ECB has killed around 5,000 banks in Europe already, and it wasn’t the big guys … Thousands of banks are gone in America too, and, of course, JP Morgan and the rest are hoovering them up so they’re just becoming big fat mega banks …
It seems the ECB is set up to be the … only bank they want left in Europe, and that’s going to happen if we allow CBDCs. So, we really have to step up now and say, ‘We don’t need this; we already have digital currencies, thank you very much.’”
Perceived Need for CBDCs Must be Fabricated
Indeed, the central bankers know they’re going to have to get creative, because CBDCs have “no convincing value proposition,” meaning there’s no perceived need for them.
So, they have the unenviable task of selling us on a solution for a problem we don’t have, while simultaneously trying to hide the fact that what they’re proposing is a digital slave system, where they will have full control over if, when and where you can spend the money you’ve earned.
As noted in the interview,3 this is also the reason why they haven’t fully rolled out CBCDs yet. They must create or fabricate the need first, and that will likely be a series of financial crises that damage trust in the banks.
There are also technical issues that need to be addressed. If the electricity gets shut off, you can still use cash. Not so with CBDCs. A network of technologies needs to work at the same time in order for CBDCs to function as intended. And, due to the centralization, the system is not only more complex but also far less resilient.
Lastly, there’s the issue of trust. According to a report cited in the interview, European citizens are leery and suspect governments and central banks want CBDCs to monitor, control and restrict transactions. And they’re exactly right. That’s what CBDCs are ultimately for, so the central planners need to figure out how to hide this intention, or somehow sell it as a good thing.
CBDCs Are a Population Control Mechanism
October 19, 2020, Agustin Carstens, general manager for the bank of international settlements (BIS) — the central bank of the central banks — explained the intent behind this new centrally-controlled digital currency:4
“Our analysis on CBDC, in particular for the general use, we tend to establish the equivalence with cash, and there is a huge difference there. For example, in cash we don’t know … who’s using a $100 bill today. We don’t know who is using the 1,000 peso bill today.
A key difference with the CBDC is that Central Bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of Central Bank liability. And also, we will have the technology to enforce that. Those … two issues are extremely important and that makes a huge difference with respect to what cash is.”
Indeed, as explained by Werner, the issuer of the CBDC, the central bank, will have the power to decide whether you can use your own money. You basically must apply for permission to use it for a given purchase, and that request can be denied.
“So, it’s a conditional currency, based on you actually getting that permit,” Werner says.5“Now, if you happen to be some kind of critic of government policy or a critic of central banks, this could be difficult. Or if you dare to step out of the 15-minute city zone, maybe you’ll find that it’s not working.
Of course … they’ll come up with excuses why you can’t do what you want to do. They’ll never tell you the real reason, but the official reason is likely to be something like your carbon footprint, which is another vague concept … For every bank transaction you get a carbon CO2 rating or a quantified number, and then, if you’ve used up your common budget, you can’t use it.
I mean, you can come up with any number of schemes. The point is, the issue of the CBDC is, the central bank has the power — and essentially it’s going to be arbitrary power — to say yes or no to what you want to do with what you thought is your money.”
What’s more, you can be sure there’ll be no one to complain to if your CBDCs get turned off by mistake or if a purchase attempt is denied and you want to appeal. Just look at how difficult it is to get a problem resolved with any of our social media companies.
The CBDC system will be vastly larger, more complex and more automated than any social media company on the planet. Most of it will be run by algorithms and artificial intelligence, without any human input at all. “There’s no real right to appeal,” Werner says. “That’s going to be the reality.”
CBDCs Need Digital ID
Now, for the CBDC superstructure to really work as intended, they also need digital ID, and many suspect the COVID pandemic was an excuse to legitimize the rollout of a digital “vaccine passport” that could then be converted into digital ID.
The World Health Organization is now rolling out an international vaccine passport based on the European Union’s digital health certificate, even though it makes no medical sense, considering the COVID jab can’t prevent infection or transmission, and that that passport will eventually be linked to CBDCs. There’s no doubt about that, Werner says.6
Intentional Inflation
Getting back to finance in general, many people around the world have been affected by inflation. According to Werner, what we’re seeing now mirrors what happened in the 1970s, when hyperinflation covered up another great economic reset, namely the transition from gold-backed currency to a fiat currency backed by thin air.
“The official narrative is once again, just like in the ‘70s … there’s a war, and as a result there’s some kind of energy embargo. In the 70s [it was the] OPEC oil embargo. As a result, energy prices jump up and we get inflation. That’s why we had inflation in the ‘70s and again in 2021, sort of a peaking [at the] end of 2022. That’s the official narrative.
Unfortunately, if you check … the data doesn’t check out this way at all. The inflation essentially peaks in both periods … before the war. In the 70s, the war was in mid-October 1973 [but] oil prices didn’t rise — yet. Henry Kissinger had to fly to Saudi Arabia and arm twist the oil minister to quadruple the oil price, which happened in January ‘74.
In many countries inflation already had peaked by then and was coming down, so the timing doesn’t work out. Similarly, in the recent era, the inflation was already significant before the military action [by] Russia [in] Ukraine, so that doesn’t pan out. And of course, oil prices and energy prices have still been falling and are much lower.
So, why do we have this significant double-digit inflation? It’s much simpler, and it’s true for both the ‘70s and and the recent era. In the ‘70s, what we saw was that suddenly the central banks were forcing the banks in all the major countries to massively expand money creation. Surprise, surprise. What else could create inflation? …
So in in March 2020, the Federal Reserve, and then simultaneously the other key central banks, adopted a very specific policy which is quite unusual. It’s usually only taken once a century, or twice maximum per century, so it’s not something like ‘Oh we accidentally did this.’ It’s very specific. It must be intentional, and there’s evidence, there’s proof, that it’s intentional.”
Quantitative Easing
As explained by Werner, banks create new money through lending. In the 2000s, banks pumped this new money into property markets, which caused house prices to rise. Eventually, a bubble is created, and when it pops, the system crashes and banks stop lending, which results in a slowing of the whole economy.
The monetary policy created by Werner, quantitative easing, has two aspects. The first, called QE1, calls for the central bank to step in and purchase non-performing assets in the banking system at face value. This solves the banks’ problem, returning them to a strong balance sheet.
It’s not enough to get them to increase credit again though, so QE2 allows the central bank to force banks to create more money and push it into the economy. He explains how this works:
“When a central bank buys something from the non-bank sector, the seller, say, of this property, how do they get the money?
Well, the central bank will transfer it to their bank account, which means that suddenly they have money in their bank account, which actually the bank creates because it gets a booking in its reserve account with the central bank. So, that’s that’s how it works and that’s how the central bank can push money into the economy directly.
These were the two forms of QE … In 2008 when [the housing market crashed] in America, Bernanke said ‘Oh, the Werner proposal QE, yeah we’ll do that, and they did it immediately, whereas even in Europe they didn’t understand the finer details. [They thought] just buy assets, anything.
They bought performing assets from banks, which is marginally helpful but it doesn’t really do the job, and so it took much longer in Europe to get out of the 2008 crisis, whereas America was very quickly recovering because … the Fed purchased the non-performing assets close to face value from the bank so the banks were suddenly, in one go, fine.
But they still didn’t do the second recommendation, because they they deemed it not necessary. Fine, it took two years for banks to then increase credit significantly.”
Quantitative Easing Was Intentionally Used Incorrectly
In March 2020, the Federal Reserve adopted QE again, but this time, incorrectly, and according to Werner, intentionally so. He tells Cummins:
“In 2020, March, what happened was the Federal Reserve adopted QE2 at a time when the economy was actually doing fine. Growth was was fine. Bank credit growth was around 5 to 6%. There was no deflation. This was a recommendation for deflation and for a shrinking [the] economy …
They did QE2 and there was a massive expansion, the Federal Reserve buying up private sector assets from non-banks, therefore forcing banks to create credit — totally off the charts, the biggest in the post-war era. At the same time there were government restrictions in 2020.
If you reduce supply but you massively increase the bond through money creation, putting into the economy this money (which in 2008 was just an accounting transaction, there was no new money so it wasn’t going to create inflation) … it’s going to create inflation.
I warned it’s going to [create] inflation. Most commentators thought — because they don’t understand the difference between QE — that it’s going to be fine [as it was in 2008] … No, it’s totally different …
The smoking gun is this. How do we know that this was fully the intention? Well, it’s a very specific policy and is very rarely taken [yet] all the central banks suddenly did it … The the other proof is, just before COVID, in August 2019 … the annual Central Bankers conference invited BlackRock, the biggest asset manager in the world, and BlackRock made a proposal.
They said there will be another crisis … but this time we should create inflation … The insinuation is unspoken. The crisis will be deflationary, therefore we must create inflation … and here’s how we’re going to do it, and they cited my proposal, without mentioning my name …
[They said] we need to back fiscal policy through money creation and get the central bank to directly push money into the economy, which you can do by purchasing assets from the non-bank sector.
And how do we know that this is what the Fed did in March 2020? We’ve got the data. And there’s one more factor. The Federal Reserve hired Blackrock in March 2020 to buy assets …
So, this inflation is entirely intentionally created by the central banks, by the central planners. How are we going to punish them for this? Oh, let’s give them more unprecedented powers over everything, over life on Earth, through central bank digital currencies.”
Recommendations for Moving Forward
According to Werner, in the 1970s, inflation was used to cover up the move from the gold-backed dollar to the petrodollar. Today, he believes the intention for the inflation is to cover up the disintegration of the petrodollar and the move to a new CBDC system.
Unfortunately, they’ll succeed in this if we don’t stop it somehow. To protect your assets from this intentionally created inflation, Werner recommends purchasing physical gold and silver. He also urges everyone to “do more in the local communities.”
“If we work together locally, that can create a very resilient structure, and then we can we can use anything we want as as a means of settlement. We can have a local currency, a gold-based system, silver-based system or we can just have a local community bank … and then you can have your own credit creation locally.
In fact, I think, because the central planners want to centralize, they would reduce the number of banks, now is the time I think for people who have a bit of capital to step forward and say ‘Let’s create community banks. Here’s five million euros, that’s the minimum you need. [My] Local First community interest company has the know-how. We can get the banking license.
We need people to step forward now. We’ll set up Community Banks locally, get the banks authorized. That can be the core of a local economy … Also, it shows that this decentralization system is much more superior, because local banks are accountable locally.
Community Banks can be structured either with a local charity, so all the profits go locally into this geographically restricted area. Germany has been successful for 200 years because 80% of its banks are local not-for-profit Community Banks and they only lend locally …
These small firms are highly productive … they can constantly upgrade because the local bank will always lend to them to get the latest technology.
That’s why productivity is much higher in Germany than in the UK for example but that’s of course under threat by the central planners. They want to force them to merge. But basically, we need to set up new banks and we think we can do that if we act quickly. Now, in the coming two years, we really need to get this going.”
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The communique that emerged from the NATO Summit in Vilnius on July 11 can be seen as a declaration of war on Russia.
But the document has another side.
The North Atlantic Council makes it clear that the injection of radical woke extremism into the main western military alliance is reaching new extremes of absurdity.
It turns out Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been busy behind-the-scenes, to make Montreal NATO’s climate change headquarters. The authors of the Vilnius Communiqué announced,
“We welcome the establishment of a NATO Centre of Excellence for Climate Change and Security in Montreal.”
Here is yet another boondoggle for Quebec. It will be financed with funds extracted in large measure from the much-maligned oil and gas industry of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
The more the government of Canada piles on the hocus pocus of climate change/net zero, the more the incentive grows for the Trudeau-Singh regime to shower even more favour on Ontario and Quebec.
The brunt of this formula for national disunity continues to be felt most severely by the people of Alberta.
Trillions of dollars in natural resource wealth and tens of thousands of Alberta jobs are on the line. Now Albertans have to deal with yet another energy policy “stake holder,” NATO.
The stakes are enormous in navigating energy policy through the rocky perils of climate change/net zero zealotry as well as through the intricacies of federal-provincial relations.
The greater the amplification of Ottawa’s huge bias towards eastern Canada at Alberta’s expense, the straighter becomes the line towards Alberta’s independence.
Let’s be real: Warfare is not green friendly.
The world’s armed forces are by far the most rapacious agents of massive environmental destruction. The ruthless business of warfare will never be rendered green. Nevertheless, the Vilnius Communique is full of woke hallucinations including the following:
Provision 69. “Climate change is a defining challenge with a profound impact on Allied security facing present and future generations. It remains a threat multiplier. NATO is committed to becoming the leading international organization when it comes to understanding and adapting to the impact of climate change on security.”
“We will continue to address the impact of climate change on defence and security, including through the development of innovative strategic analysis tools. We will integrate climate change considerations into all of NATO’s core tasks, adapt our infrastructure, military capabilities and technologies ensuring resilience to future operating environments.”“To contribute to the mitigation of climate change, we are committed to significantly cutting greenhouse gas emissions by the NATO political and military structures and facilities.”
“We will also contribute to combatting climate change by improving energy efficiency, transitioning to clean energy sources, and leveraging innovative next-generation clean technologies, while ensuring military effectiveness and a credible deterrence and defence posture.”
“We will continue to strengthen our exchanges with partner countries, the scientific community, as well as other international and regional organizations that are active on climate change and security.”Woke invocations of political correctness were readily apparent in an early official statement from Montreal’s NATO Climate Change and Security Centre of Excellence.
“Canada and our international partners within and beyond the NATO Alliance recognize that climate change security impacts are experienced disproportionately by women and girls, indigenous peoples and poor, marginalized and vulnerable populations across the globe.”
“Canada and partners are therefore working to ensure that diverse perspectives, needs, and knowledge will be heard and reflected in the CCASCOE’s work.” It is of course, bizarre. In any case however, Canada should withdraw from NATO. The organization currently runs counter to our basic national interests.
What sense does it make for Canada to get more deeply involved in a war with Russia, our northern neighbour?
The circumpolar border between Canada and Russia would be the obvious site of military confrontation if NATO continues to escalate what Russia considers its aggressions.
Canada and Russia are both huge, sparsely-settled countries possessing vast and varied natural resources. We are both champions when it comes to hockey and getting through winter comfortably.
NATO meanwhile, has long ago left behind its original priority of defending the North Atlantic Region. Canada should disengage from all the warmongering rhetoric of the Vilnius document.
Canada Out of NATO or Alberta Out of Canada, say I!
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Dr. Anthony Hallis currently Professor of Globalization Studies at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta Canada. He has been a teacher in the Canadian university system since 1982. Dr. Hall, has recently finished a big two-volume publishing project at McGill-Queen’s University Press entitled “The Bowl with One Spoon”.
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
Featured image: Prime Minister Trudeau visits Canadian troops stationed in Latvia. (Source: Office of the Prime Minister Adam Scotti)
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In the United States, the word “socialism” has come to have a negative meaning. In that meaning, the word implies the loss of individual sovereignty, rejection of religion and the institution of authoritarian political measures.
While denounced as socialist by U.S. propagandists and repeated by the ill-informed media, in fact, Nicaragua has a mixed economy based on traditional humane Christian spiritual beliefs under the concept of Sandinismo. It also encourages multiple political parties in line with genuinely social democratic ideals.
The foreign media denounce the Ortega administration for its alleged oppression though, in reality, the people who have suffered at its hands are individuals and groups who have repeatedly taken part in U.S. regime-change violence against Nicaragua’s government, people and public institutions.
Keep in mind that, in the U.S., domestic terrorism is also unlawful.
Youth celebrate 44th anniversary of Sandinista revolution in Managua on July 19, 2023. [Source: Photo courtesy of Lauren Smith]
On July 19, 1979, the Sandinista People’s Revolution Party, Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN), overcame the U.S.-installed puppet dictator dynasty, headed by the Somoza family. Below is a photo of a U.S. tank taken by the FSLN that hangs in the former torture facility and prison run by Somoza’s death squads in the city of León.
Photo courtesy of Lauren Smith
Former torture facility and prison run by Somoza’s death squads in the city of León. [Source: Photo courtesy of Lauren Smith]
Nicaragua Revolutionary Museum, poster showing students abducted by Somoza’s U.S.-funded death squads. [Source: Photo courtesy of Lauren Smith]
León, Nicaragua Revolutionary Museum. [Source: Photo courtesy of Lauren Smith]
The Sandinista government accepted the election result of 1990 to end the violence caused by the CIA-organized Contras. They ceded control to an opposition party funded by the U.S.
Subsequent right-wing governments ruled Nicaragua from 1990 to 2007, after which the FSLN returned to office upon winning the 2006 election. The FSLN went on to achieve sustained economic and social progress until 2017 and was lauded by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). After the failed 2018 U.S. coup, it became embarrassing for U.S.-funded, non-governmental human rights organizations (NGOs) and international banks to sing Nicaragua’s praises.
Sandinismo under President Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo and the FSLN simply means caring for all of society’s members by providing the necessary infrastructure to ensure an educated, healthy, and economically viable society and a prosperous population and fair elections.
A 2022 survey, conducted by M&R Consultants, confirmed that 70% of Nicaraguans believed its government was leading the country in the right direction. In pitiful contrast, a recent poll found that 71% of Americans believed their country was headed in the wrong direction. The pollsters admitted that they had “never before seen the level of sustained pessimism in the 30-plus year history of the poll.”
President Ortega embraces the concept of good government in the tradition of former U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR). Under FDR, economic relief from the Great Depression involved reforms in industry, agriculture, finance, waterpower, labor and housing.
Today, many of FDR’s accomplishments have been rolled back, either through willful negligence or by federal regulatory agencies being captured by industry and/or censorship. Even funds set aside for Social Security, as explained by Max Blumenthal of The Grayzone Project in his address to the UN Security Council, are now being funneled into covert warfare.
It seems that the only time funds are “found” are for the military-industrial-complex or other mega complexes. What has emerged in the United States is corporate socialism managed by investment funds such as BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard and bailouts in the trillions of dollars to the New York Federal Reserve dealer banks that service the 0.001 percent of the population. Most U.S. residents and citizens experience the “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” form of capitalism (a physical action that is impossible to accomplish) or suffer from declining social indicators such as life expectancy and declining birth rates.
The U.S. dollar is no longer supported by gold or industry and is now losing its value as a transactional currency. The SWIFT banking system and petrodollar are being replaced by alternate Chinese, Russian and BRICS transactional systems as a defense against the illegal and unilateral U.S. economic sanctions and outright theft and piracy.
To make matters worse, profits are extracted from the once great U.S. economy and deposited in overseas accounts. Thus, working capital is no longer working through reinvestment. But that does not stop the Fed’s printing of dollars. Eventually, inflation will make the 1970s’ stagflation look like a walk in the park.
Unlike the U.S., Nicaragua Is Not Talk: It Is Actions and Accomplishments
Nicaragua has free health care for all. Since 2007, 24 hospitals have been built along with 182 maternity homes, 190 natural medicine clinics, 73 pain management clinics, 101 centers for the care of people with disabilities, 52 psychosocial care clinics, a medicinal oxygen plant (the first in Central America), a molecular biology laboratory (only the second in Latin America), and national centers for cardiology, diabetes, chemotherapy, palliative care, audiology and speech therapy.
Additionally, the Ortega administration provides land titles to families, has increased transportation routes, provided potable water and sanitation facilities, and expanded low-cost electricity and free internet in public spaces.
The FSLN government provides micro-loans to encourage the development of small businesses under two programs:
1. Ahead Program: August 2022-May 2023 Loans: 6,758 Amount: U.S. $10,343,890.40
2. Zero Usury Program: 2007-April 2023 Loans: 1,605,827 Amount: U.S. $321,070,539
The FSLN also builds affordable housing, offers free education from pre-school to trade and technical schools, and offers scholarships to university students.
There are currently 51,879 university students with scholarships. The U.S. should take notes and U.S. citizens should not expect less from their elected officials. If little Nicaragua can accomplish these great public feats, so can a superpower like the U.S.
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Lauren Smith is CAM’s correspondent on location. Lauren’s work has been published by the Alliance for Global Justice, Black Agenda Report, Common Dreams, Counterpunch, Global Research, Monthly Review, and Telesur amongst others. She holds a BA in Politics, Economics, and Society from SUNY at Old Westbury and an MPA in International Development Administration from New York University. Ms. Smith is also a member of the Green Party and Sanctionskill.org.
Featured image: Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo give a defiant fist at celebration of Sandinist Revolution in Managua on July 19, 2023. [Source: Photo Courtesy of Lauren Smith]
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Big news from Ukraine today.
One of Ukraine’s leading propaganda outlets came with a most surprising admission about how badly the war is going for Ukraine after 1½ months of “biggest counteroffensive”: morale is suffering with no quick end in sight (see this).
Front-line Ukrainian soldiers told Kyiv Post their units are suffering from poor morale because of constant and accumulating losses, sometimes poor support and limited summer offensive ground gains against a tough and deeply dug-in Russian opponent.
Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) enlisted soldiers in individual interviews said slow, deliberate assault tactics currently used by Ukrainian military that have left individual fighters strongly suspecting they will be hit, and possibly killed, well before a break-through on the front could take place.
“The situation is very hard. The Russians were given too much time to get prepared for the widely announced Ukrainian counteroffensive. It was clear to them that one of the directions of the Ukrainian strike, if not the main one, would be Zaporizhzhia,” a combat medic said. He requested Kyiv Post not make his name public.
That Ukraine admits to faltering morale and invisible gains says all.
Losses of 700 Ukrainian dead wounded for no gain at all is considered a “normal” day for Ukraine at the front. Every day, Ukraine takes unsustainable losses – and gets nowhere. On the contrary, Russia has gradually started to roll-back Ukraine. The American war propaganda like Washington Post keeps lying to the Ukrainians that there is no reason for them to feel gloomy because they can “win” although they lose all the time. But the Ukrainians themselves are about to have had enough. Their morale and will to fight is running out.
While NATO has run out of machines and ammo to send, and Ukraine is running out of ammunition, air defense, and living males to draft, Russia has built up a record supply of machines, air power, artillery, and ammunition and is preparing for a possible new partial mobilization:
“Today, our industry is able to provide the grouping that is located in the NVO. If something is more ambitious, then the possibility of mobilization will be considered.” See this.
Russia is building up, and Ukraine has already depleted most of its offensive potential.
At the end of this year 2023, there will be no Ukraine left the way it used to exist for the past couple of decades.
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Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.
He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: Image of Russian troops in Ukraine. Credit: Ukraine MoD/Facebook
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***
Ariel Sharon, deceased former Israeli Prime Minister, said he was not concerned about Arab countries, or the Palestinians destroying Israel. He said his only fear was that the relationship between Israel and America would change, and the lack of US support for Israel would be the end of the country.
US President Joe Biden has denounced the proposed Israeli bill which, according to Biden, threatens stripping Israel from their coveted status as a democracy.
Thousands of Israeli citizens are protesting judicial reforms proposed by the extremist government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Street protests against the proposed bill began in January, and are gathering momentum as military units, labor unions, and medical associations join the throng of protesters.
Over 500 Israeli airforce pilots have said they will refuse to perform their duties if called on in protest of the bill.
Netanyahu is powerless to stop the protests, or the bill. His personal freedom hangs in the balance and is dependent on the Jewish extremists who brought him to power in the last election. Without their support, his government would collapse, and he would face jail time on corruption charges. In the past, Netanyahu had ridiculed those extremists and maintained he would never give them positions in his government. But, now his freedom and position depend on their support to keep him at the helm of the government.
The controversial bill at the heart of the protests would diminish the power of the judiciary to review and comment on proposed government moves. In the classic ‘checks and balances’ of a modern democracy, one of the ‘checks’ would be made impotent. The extremists in control of the government could railroad bills into law which could strip women of rights, and ethnically cleanse further areas in the Occupied Territory of the Palestinians, making the US and UN supported Two-State-Solution for Palestine impossible.
Elements in the Netanyahu government rebuked Biden for his comments about Israel, saying they would never bow down to US pressure, and that Israel is not a star on the American flag. The Biden government has distanced itself from the extremist Netanyahu government and called on Netanyahu to throw out the proposed bill. Biden has promised to host Netanyahu in a White House visit, but the date has not been set, making media reports rife with commentary on the rocky relationship.
Continuing tensions between Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank Territory and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have seen repeated attacks on Jenin and other hot-spots by the IDF with deaths and injuries sustained by civilians.
The Israeli street protests are not aimed at promoting the freedom and democracy of the 6 million Palestinians under occupation, but are aimed at resisting the judiciary reform bill which will affect the 6 million Jews who live in freedom and have human rights, whereas the Palestinians have neither freedom nor human rights.
When Netanyahu came to power, he promised his priority was to sign up more Arab countries to the Abraham Accords, with the crown prize being Saudi Arabia. However, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia has insisted that the end of the occupation of Palestine must come first before any normalization can begin.
Netanyahu has made a priority of annexing even more occupied lands in the West Bank which house American Jews who are religious extremists and are supporters of the extremist far-right parties in the Netanyahu government alliance.
The northern border of Israel is not secure as Israel has recently begun a process of encroaching further into Lebanon. The Lebanese resistance group is well prepared to launch resistance operations into Israel, and with the IDF and Israeli airforce in disarray from protesting the bill, the security of Israel is hanging in the balance.
Netanyahu is well known for instigating military operations against Gaza and the West Bank in order to divert attention away from his domestic political problems. Netanyahu bets on the unity of the Israeli citizens to ban together in times of a military crisis; however, he might lose that bet now because the Jews are far from united due to the continuing protests against the government. He can’t depend on the military either, as they are taking a political stand against the controversial bill which seems unstoppable. Some analysts have gone so far as to suggest the brewing of civil war in Israel.
The White House has been concerned about the freedoms enjoyed by the Israeli citizens, and the loss of those freedoms presented by the bill if passed into law. Meanwhile, the White House disregards the total lack of human rights and freedom of the Palestinians living under a brutal occupation which shows no sign of changing.
While the Israeli citizens are struggling to retain their freedom and democracy, the Palestinian resistance movement continues to fight for the end of occupation and their human rights. With the US continuing to support the occupation of the Palestinian territories, and refusing to pressure Israel to sit at the negotiation table, the status quo will be maintained. America is complicit in the oppression and suffering of the Palestinian people, and the Israeli citizens are as well.
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***
“If it weren’t for double standards, the Democrats would have no standards at all.” — Jeff Childers of the Coffee and Covid blog
You might not know it these lazy, hazy, muggy days of midsummer, but things are getting pretty wildly out-of-hand in our republic.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. blew up the Democratic Party yesterday in the House Subcommittee on Weaponization of Government hearing, acting like a normal human while being set upon by a flock of harpies desperately screeching “Russia, Russia, Russia,” as if that means anything anymore. He branded them as worse than the McCarthyites of the 1950s, rebuked their insane scurrilities supporting censorship, and left them in a state of exhausted disgrace.
It happens that he is running for the nomination of that very party knocking itself out to destroy him. To win that prize he would have to put a thousand top Democrats through some grueling act of repentance and contrition — and then you’ve got to ask yourself: who would even want to win the support of such vile creatures as Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Jerrold Nadler, and Adam Schiff, let alone be associated with them in the same club?
Elsewhere around the scene this week, we have the ever more degenerate antics of the FBI on view as whistleblowers pour out of the woodwork disclosing the rot behind Director Chris Wray and his boss AG Merrick Garland. This Deep State Blob of turpitude has been growing and festering with so many overlapping cover-ups that they’ve run out of rugs to sweep their crimes under. The massive moneygrubbing misdeeds of Hillary Clinton from Skolkovo and Uranium One beat a direct path through the Ukraine coup of 2014, to RussiaGate, to the Biden Family’s global influence-peddling operation and every mendacious act in-between including the FISA falsehoods, the J-6 entrapment caper, hundreds of malicious and deceitful prosecutions, the Covid-19 fraud, the censorship and medical tyranny, and God-knows how many ensuing deaths from a poisonous vaccine… and now, a brain-dead government trifling with nuclear war.
And whose brilliant idea was it, anyway, to install this disgusting and incompetent grifter, “Joe Biden,” as our head-of-state? They surely knew well before 2019 that his bag-man son was rooting out bribes in Ukraine, China, and elsewhere, at the same time he was consorting with whores and trafficked children while destroying his brain with crack and downing a fifth of vodka a day. And you’re telling me that the CIA and FBI did not know about any of this, even before October 2019 when Hunter’s laptop stuffed with graphic evidence fell into their hands? If they didn’t know any of this, then what’s the point of having an intel community?
My guess is that it was Barack Obama’s idea to stick “Joe Biden” in the White House in the vain effort to use this captive criminal to stave off any accounting for the aforesaid villainies that occurred during Mr. Obama’s two terms. The mission was originally Hillary Clinton’s — she had plenty at stake herself — but she botched the job in 2016 and allowed the Golden Golem of Greatness to slip into power. It is amazing to look back and see how the mighty Blob congealed after that election — like a giant rogue macrophage — to surround and eliminate Mr. Trump, who apparently did not know for many months what he was up against: the entire permanent bureaucracy. Obviously, the Blob only partly succeeded in deactivating Mr. Trump, who has worked sedulously since 2021 to marshal about half the country militantly against the Blob and Blobism, while he still suffers one rear-guard legal affront after another.
Trouble is, the Blob itself has become an immune disorder for the polity known as the USA, and now threatens to destroy everything the country stands for and all the stuff deployed on the landscape from sea to shining sea, if the hypersonic nukes fly. These are dangerous weeks ahead. The pedal’s on the metal… the rubber’s meeting the road, and we seem to be watching a Thelma and Louise type denouement writ large.
The Blob itself, with the Democratic Party at its nucleus, and evil organelles Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and their like floating in the endoplasmic reticulum, has gone insane trying to protect its Precious, liberalism’s sacred bowling trophy, Barack Obama, from scrutiny. To call Mr. Obama to account, of course, would be viewed as the ultimate act of American “racism,” a place too many will not go. So, he may evade responsibility until he (and the rest of us) are gone and history catches up with him.
But is there any doubt now that “Joe Biden” must go, and as soon as possible? Surely there is enough evidence to mount an impeachment in the House, and rev it up as expeditiously as the Democrats revved up their two Trump impeachments. An impeachment would, of course, force a trial in the Senate. It is probably the one news event that The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN can’t run and hide from — as they have been hiding from this week’s whistleblower hearings and Mr. Kennedy’s sturdy performance against the House censorship activists. In a Senate trial, the rot will finally be laid out before the people to judge, whether the Senate can bring itself to convict “JB” or not. Anyway, it will end this president’s pretense of running for reelection, and on the off-chance he’s convicted, his pardon powers do not extend to that particular extraordinary Senate proceeding. And then we can see about Ms. Harris.
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Misinformed Westerners are led to believe that their governments support Ukraine. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, the West supports the destruction of Ukraine and its peoples. Amply documented, the West never wanted peace for Ukraine(1). Instead, Western policymakers seek to “fight to the last Ukrainian” in order to bleed Russia. Ukraine and Ukrainians are being sacrificed, not for “democracy and freedom” which are nothing more than war propaganda slogans, but for nazism, for impoverishment, for economic enslavement, and for colonial status. People in what was formerly Eastern Ukraine will be the lucky ones.
“It is a profit-driven agenda: ‘Destruction’ leads to ‘Reconstruction’. What is at stake is the engineered economic and social destruction of sovereign nation states. The creditors are there to ‘pick up the pieces’ and ‘appropriate real wealth’“.(2) The diabolical process is already underway.
The weapons being delivered to Ukraine are not free.
Not only do they extend the duration of a war which Ukraine can not win, not only do they increase the mass slaughter of Ukrainians, but they also increase Ukraine’s fiscal indebtedness for the foreseeable future.
Scott Ritter, in his video “A Scott Ritter Investigation: Agent Zelensky – Part 2” (3) explains that Washington has a Lend/Lease program with Ukraine, signed in May 2022, that will contribute to a form of debt slavery for (many) years to come.
Additionally, and contrary to the Ukrainian constitution, moratoriums were lifted (a condition of IMF loans) and lands are being privatized by companies such as Cargill and Monsanto.
The privatization of Ukraine’s rich farmland will not only undermine Ukraine’s food sovereignty, but it will also undermine the European Union’s food security.
Reconstruction contracts will also benefit global corporations as they profit from the destruction caused largely by Western warmongering policymakers. BlackRock stands to make huge profits from Ukraine’s misery.
So again, if you support Ukraine, you should basically support Russia’s conditions: no NATO membership, denazification, demilitarization.
The Western trajectories of weapons deliveries and privatization schemes will do nothing but enslave and destroy what remains of Ukraine.
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Darlington, UK – 53 year old NHS nurse Salote Golightly collapsed at an airport check-in desk at Teesside International Airport at 5am on Jan.25, 2023 and died. “She appeared fine to her mum & husband just an hour before she dropped dead on the floor”. Coroner could not determine a cause of death! (click here)
[For this article I tried to exclude the following sudden deaths: athletes, cardiac arrests in sleep, and aggressively COVID-19 vaccine mandated professions (doctors, nurses, teachers) with a couple of exceptions.]
June 29, 2023 – Fernandopolis, Brazil – 20 year old medical student Dr.Maria Fernanda Roldan died suddenly while having coffee with her parents on the morning of June 29, 2023, from a “massive heart attack.”
June 9, 2023 – Mirfield, UK – 30 year old Fiona Peel died suddenly while staying with a friend in London “she was suddenly found dead, leaving behind 6 year old daughter.”
June 9, 2023 – Minneapolis, MN – 38 year old Katie Allen died suddenly of a cardiac arrest in the morning, at home.
May 21, 2023 – Brisbane, Australia – 26 year old Dani Duchatel collapsed suddenly in front of her family while playing cards after dinner, and had a cardiac arrest.
May 14, 2023 – Fort Lauderdale, FL – 48 year old construction manager Sophia Kokoros Valladares died suddenly late Saturday night from cardiac arrest.
May 9, 2023 – Columbus, OH – 24 year old Annie Nelsonwas found unresponsive in her apartment by her boyfriend. She died suddenly on May 9, 2023.
May 7, 2023 – London, UK – 20 yo Clarissa Nicholls collapsed & died suddenly from cardiac arrest on May 7, 2023 while hiking in France.
May 5, 2023 – Italy – reality TV star 37 year old Monica Sirianni collapsed & died suddenly. She was at a bar with friends when she suddenly fell ill and collapsed. (click here)
April 29, 2023 – UK – 19 year old Durham University first year student Rhea Hourigan was visiting her aunt in Paris when she collapsed in the shower at night & died from “mystery cardiac arrest.”
April 17, 2023 – Columbus, OH – 31 year old business manager Jennifer Stretton died suddenly. “She was at dinner, she felt sick & went to the bathroom. They found her unresponsive on the floor.
April 13, 2023 – Brazil – 24 year old eSports commentator Cecilia Moraes died suddenly. She was hospitalized the day before after “feeling ill at home” and allegedly died of a “heart infection” or heart complications.
March 28, 2023 – UK – 25 year old horsewoman and former beauty queen Jessica Whalley collapsed with cardiac arrest at work at 7:30am. “She had a post-mortem and nothing has shown up” (click here).
Jan. 28, 2022 – 23 year old Argentine TikToker Valeria Silvestre died suddenly from cardiac arrest while travelling on a bus (click here).
My Take…
The key question is: what cardiac risks do WOMEN face with COVID-19 vaccines?
Dr.Christian Muller ran a study on over 800 COVID-19 boosted healthcare workers in University Hospital, Basel, Switzerland called “Incidence, Patient Characteristics and Outcome of Myocarditis after COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine (MACIS)” (click here) (the study name is co-incidental!!)
He found: “there’s slight damage to heart muscle cells in almost 3% of the cases”. That’s about 1 in 30 (click here).
“When we look at our data with mild cases, we see this effect more often in women than in men – and not only at younger ages.”
“We don’t yet know the mechanism for how exactly the booster vaccine damages the heart muscle cells.”
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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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To get more people to accept his chemical injections, billionaire eugenicist Bill Gates in concert with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is working on a new microneedle vaccine patch technology whereby people will be able to peel-and-stick the patches on themselves through the mail service.
We are told that mRNA gene therapy technology can be implemented into these patches, which can theoretically be mailed through the United States Postal Service (USPS) to every household in the country.
The apparent goal is to continually inject people’s bodies with gene therapy chemicals that over time will change their bodily functions and alter their immune systems. It would seem to be some kind of Humanity 2.0 agenda involving transhumanism and other deviousness.
None of this is about health, just to be clear. Gates is interested in just two things: making money and genocide. And his new Big Pharma proposal for microneedle peel-and-stick vaccines through the mail will advance that agenda by leaps and bounds if enough people end up complying with it.
Direct-to-consumer Vaccine Patches Means More Money for Big Pharma
Right now, the only way to get a vaccine is to visit a doctor’s office or the local pharmacy. A consumer cannot just go pick up a vaccine off the shelf and administer it directly – someone else has to do it and sign off on it.
The new peel-and-stick technology bypasses all of that. The goal is to market microneedle vaccine patches directly to consumers, allowing them to order online and have them delivered in the mail.
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the WHO, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and various other globalist groups are all pushing for this technology because, admittedly, it will allow their vaccines to reach “the most remote locations” throughout the world.
By reaching the most remote locations, Gates et al. will be able to rake in more cash while killing millions of additional people. This culling of the herd combined with consolidation of wealth is a globalist dream come true, which is why globalists everywhere are calling the technology “groundbreaking” and a “game changer.”
Eventually, there will not even be any more injectable vaccines of the traditional variety. If vaccine patches are normalized and mainstreamed, then people everywhere will be “jabbing” themselves at will through the mail.
“Whether it is delivered by a needle or a patch, a VMAP is a biological product that atypically manipulates the immune system to provoke strong inflammatory responses that can lead to injury or death for some who receive it,” warns National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) co-founder and president Barbara Loe Fisher about the technology.
“If you look at the medical literature describing microneedle vaccine patches, what you see is a lot of hype about how much easier it will be for the vaccinators to slap a patch on a child’s skin instead of using a needle, and how the ‘painless’ patch can reduce vaccine hesitancy.”
Fisher would go on in a statement to The Defender to explain that it is a misnomer for the globalists to claim that people are vaccine hesitant because of the delivery method rather than because of the product being delivered, which they do not want.
“It has never been about how the product is delivered,” Fisher said. “It has always been about the lack of evidence demonstrating safety.”
Brian Hooker, PhD, PE, the senior director of science and research at Children’s Health Defense, added that calling it a “vaccine patch” is deceptive in that many people will falsely mistake them for nicotine patches like the kind smokers use.
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In 2008 (reposted in 2015), Global Research posted a short Oped article entitled The Irish Slave Trade: The Forgotten “White Slaves”. This article which skimmed the surface of a complex historical process has been the object of critical debate, controversy and confusion. The Article also included a number of factual errors.
In order to promote further discussion concerning the “Irish Slave Trade”, with a view to providing a broader historical background, we bring to the attention of our readers a carefully documented article by Robert E. West.
The Irish slaves were sent to British territories in the Caribbean. They were categorized as “indentured” workers and “servants” of the English colonial elites.
Michel. Chossudovsky, GR Editor, June 9, 2016, July 22, 2023
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Records are replete with references to early Irish Catholics in the West Indies. Gwynn in Analecta Hibernica, states: ‘The earliest reference to the Irish is the establishment of an Irish settlement on the Amazon River in 1612.”(1) Smith, in Colonists in Bondage, reports:
“a Proclamation of the year 1625 urged the banishing overseas of dangerous rogues (Irish Political Prisoners); kidnapping (of Irish) was common.”(2)
Condon states that the first considerable emigration from Ireland to the southern latitudes of America was to Guiana in 1629.(3) Newton declares that Antigua and Montserrat were occupied as early as 1632 and that many emigrant Irish came out among the early planters and servants in these islands.(4) Dunn, in Sugar and Slaves, asserts that, in 1636, Ireland was already a prime source of supply for servants: as early as 1637, on Montserrat the Irish heavily outnumbered the English colonists, and 69 percent of Montserrat’s white inhabitants were Irish.(5) Lenihan writes: in 1650 “25,000 Irishmen sold as slaves in Saint Kitt’s and the adjoining islands, petitioned for a priest…”(6)
In 1641, Ireland’s population was 1,466,000 and in 1652, 616,000.
According to Sir William Petty, 850,000 were wasted by the sword, plague, famine, hardship and banishment during the Confederation War 1641-1652.
At the end of the war, vast numbers of Irish men, women and children were forcibly transported to the American colonies by the English government.(7)
These people were rounded up like cattle, and, as Prendergast reports on Thurloe’s State Papers(8) (Pub. London, 1742),
“In clearing the ground for the adventurers and soldiers (the English capitalists of that day)… To be transported to Barbados and the English plantations in America. It was a measure beneficial to Ireland, which was thus relieved of a population that might trouble the planters; it was a benefit to the people removed, which might thus be made English and Christians … a great benefit to the West India sugar planters, who desired men and boys for their bondsmen, and the women and Irish girls… To solace them.”(9)
J. Williams provides additional evidence of the attitude of the English government towards the Irish in an English law of June 26, 1657:
“Those who fail to transplant themselves into Connaught (Ireland’s Western Province) or (County) Clare within six months… Shall be attained of high treason… Are to be sent into America or some other parts beyond the seas…”(10) Those thus banished who return are to “suffer the pains of death as felons by virtue of this act, without benefit of Clergy.”(11)
The following are but a few of the numerous references to those Irish transported against their will between 1651 and 1660.
Emmet asserts that during this time, more that
“100,000 young children who were orphans or had been taken from their Catholic parents, were sent abroad into slavery in the West Indies, Virginia and New England, that they might lose their faith and all knowledge of their nationality, for in most instances even their names were changed… Moreover, the contemporary writers assert between 20,000 and 30,000 men and women who were taken prisoner were sold in the American colonie as slaves, with no respect to their former station in life.”(12)
Dunn claims in Barbados the Irish Catholics constituted the largest block of servants on the island.(13) Higham estimated that in 1652 Barbados had absorbed no less than 12,000 of these political prisoners.(14) E. Williams reports: “In 1656 Cromwell’s Council of State voted that 1,000 Irish girls and 1,000 Irish young men be sent to Jamaica.”(15) Smith declares:
“it is impossible to say how many shiploads of unhappy Irish were dispatched to America by the English government,” and “no mention of such shipments would be very likely to appear in the State Papers… They must have been very considerable in number.”(16)
Estimates vary between 80,000 and 130,000 regarding the amount of Irish sent into slavery in America and the West Indies during the years of 1651 – 1660: Prendergast says 80,000(17);
Boudin 100,000(18); Emmet 120,000 to 130,000(19); Lingard 60,000 up until 1656(20); and Condon estimates
“the number of Irish transported to the British colonies in America from 1651 – 1660 exceeded the total number of their inhabitants at that period, a fact which ought not to be lost sight of by those who undertake to estimate the strength of the Celtic element in this nation…”(21)
It is impossible to ascertain the exact number of those unfortunate victims of English injustice during this period, but we do know the amount was massive. Even though the figures given above are but estimates, they are estimates from eminent historians.
The flow of the Irish to the American colonies throughout the remainder of the 17th century was large and continuous, but not nearly as massive as between 1651 and 1660.
Some of the many statements by historians give evidence of this Irish tide. Higham reports that in 1664 the Irish took the place of the French on St. Bartholomew’s.(22)
Smith claims that during the four years leading up to 1675, already 500 Irish servants were brought to Jamaica by ships from Bristol, England that stopped in Ireland for provisions.(23)
During 1680 on the Leeward Islands, Dunn posits:
“with so many Irish Catholic servants and farmers… The English planters became obsessed with the fear of popery.”(24)
Dunn also states that in Jamaica in 1685 the 2nd Duke of Aberlmarle, after his appointment by James II, a Catholic, mustered his chief support from the Irish Catholic small planters and servants and that the indentured servants who constituted the island militia were mainly Irish Catholic.(25) In reporting on Father Garganel’s statements, Lenihan claims:
“in 1699 Father Garganel, S.J., Superior of the island of Martinique, asked for one or two Irish Fathers for that and the neighboring isles which were ‘fill of Irish’ for every year shiploads of men, boys and girls, partly crimped, partly carried off by main force for the purposes of slave trade, are conveyed by the English from Ireland.”(26)
Smith has recorded that “Servants sailed from every port in the British Isles, but by far the greater number came from London, Bristol, Liverpool, Dublin and Cork, and, doubtless, it was principally the merchants of Bristol, Whitehaven and Liverpool which conducted trade with Ireland.”(27)
Emmet clarifies Smith’s statement in detail by asserting:
“the early and continued emigration of the Irish to this country during the 17th century has been lost sight of in consequence of this change to English surnames and from the fact that no vessel was knowingly allowed to sail from Ireland direct, but by law was obliged first to visit an English port before clearance papers could be obtained. Consequently, every Irish emigrant (slave, servant, etc..) crossing in an Irish or English vessel from either England or Ireland, appeared in the official records as English, for the voyage did not begin according to law until the ship cleared from an English port, and all passengers on arrival in this country (American Colonies) were rated as English.”(28)
It is also of importance to be aware of the fact, as Dunn confirmed, that most population lists for Barbados, Jamaica and the Leeward Islands concern only parish registers of the Church of England, all other people were essentially ignored in the head count.”(29)
The English government variously referred to Irish to be transported as rogues, vagabonds, rebels, neutrals, felons, military prisoners, teachers, priests, maidens etc. All historians call them servants, bondsman, indentured servants, slaves, etc., and agree that they were all political victims. The plain facts are that most were treated as slaves. After their land was confiscated by England, which drove them from their ancestral homes to forage for roots like animals, they were kidnapped, rounded up and driven like cattle to waiting ships and transported to English colonies in America, never to see their country again. They were the victims of what many called the immense “Irish Slave Trade.”
All writers on the 17th century American colonies are in agreement that the treatment of white servants or white slaves in English colonies was cruel to the extreme, worse than that of black slaves; that inhuman treatment was the norm, that torture (and branding FT, fugitive traitor, on the forehead) was the punishment for attempted escape. Dunn stated:
“Servants were punished by whipping, strung up by the hands and matches lighted between their fingers, beaten over the head until blood ran,” –all this on the slightest provocation.(30) Ligon, an eyewitness in Barbados from 1647-1650 said, “Truly, I have seen cruelty there done to servants as I did not think one Christian could have done to another.”(31)
It is a matter of great importance to realize that most of the white slaves, servants and small farmers abandoned the West Indies for the mainland colonies in America. Dunn reports: “Between 1678 and 1713, Leeward sugar planters became more rich and powerful and controlled all local councils and assemblies so white servants and small farmers abandoned the Leeward Islands.
“(32) Craven said that between 1643 and 1667, about 12,000 left Barbados for other plantations(33) and Dunn said the white population of the Leeward Islands was reduced by 30 percent between 1678 and 1708.(34) According to Craven, in Colonies in Transition, prior to the 1680’s, the hopes which sustained the Carolina venture continued to depend chiefly upon the migration of settlers from the older colonies, especially from the West Indies.(35) Smith asserted that after 1670, the emigration of whites from the smaller islands at least equalled the immigration.(36) Condon declared: “In [the] course of time many of those who had been transported to the West Indies in this manner found their way to the colonies on the continent, in search of greater freedom and a more healthful climate.”(37)
All writers on the 17th century history agree that between one-half and two thirds of white immigrants in the British West Indies and mainland America were servants, most of them severely mistreated.
Most all Irish immigrants were ‘servants.’ Irish were almost exclusively Catholic (at least they were when they left Ireland) and most were of ancient Irish families even though they appeared in English records as English, if recorded at all. After 20,000 Puritans arrived in the American colonies from 1630-1640, migration of English colonists all but subsided. Some writers say after 1640 only a trickle of English colonists arrived. In 1632, many Irish were on Antigua.
In 1637, 69 percent of whites on Montserrat were Irish. In 1650, 25,000 Irish were on St. Kitt’s and Nevis and some were on other Leeward islands. In 1652, prior to the wholesale transportation of Irish, most of 12 thousand political prisoners on Barbados were Irish. From 1651 to 1660, between 80,000 to 130,000 Irish were transported. From 1660-1700, there was a large steady flow of Irish immigrants. Most whites, especially servants, slaves and small farmers went to the American mainland for more freedom, a healthier climate and economic betterment.
There are no verifiable records on the white population of all the American colonies in the 17th century. Some estimates include blacks, some do not. Some list only members of the Church of England. Estimates are made for Barbados for a certain year while estimates are made for the Leeward Islands for other years. The same applies to Jamaica and the mainland colonies. One estimate for the mainland colonies, white and black included, was given at 204,000 in 1689.
In the absence of reliable records, I believe it is necessary to take the following into very serious consideration:
migration trends,
prolificness of people of varying national origin,
laws in effect in the country from which people migrated;
the prevailing conditions in the country undergoing emigration;
the amount of control the emigrating people had over their own destiny;
and the fact that all American colonies both mainland and the West Indies were very intertwined,
Well over one-half of white immigrants to the West Indies during the 17th century were Irish Catholic servants, most whom, in the course of time, abandoned the West Indies for the mainland American colonies.
The source of this article is the newsletter of the: Political Education Committee (PEC), American Ireland Education Foundation, 54 South Liberty Drive, Suite 401, Stony Point NY 10980, first posted in the internet by Eternal Word Television Network
Bibliography
1. Aubrey Gwynn, S.J., Documents relating to Irish in the West, Indies — Analecta HibernicaPage:153, Note:1
3. Edward O’Meagher Condon, The Irish Race in America, New York, A.E. and R.E. Ford, 1887 Page:15 41 38,9, Note:3 21 37
4 Arthur Percoval Newton, The European Nations in the West Indies, 1493-1688, London, J. Dickens & Co, Reprint 1967 Page:163
5 Richard S. Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, Chapel Hill, NC, U of NC Press, 1972, Page:56, 122, 130 ? 133 160, Note:5 13 24 25, Page:327 ? 131 141, Note:29 30 32 34
Maurice Lenihan, History of Limerick, Cork, Mercier, Page:668, 9 669, Note: 6, 26
John P. Prendergast, The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland, Dublin, ?, 1865 Note:9 17
Sir William Petty, Political Anatomy of Ireland, London, ?, 1719, Page:19, Note:7
John Thurloe, Letter of Henry Cromwell, 4th Thurloe’s State Papers, London, 1742, Note:8
Thomas Addis Emmet, Ireland Under English Rule, NY & London, Putnam, 1903, Page:101, vol I 101, vol I 211,2, Note:12 19 28
Joseph J. Williams, Whence the “Black Irish” of Jamaica, NY, Dial, MCMXXXII, Page:17 17, Note:10 11,
Anthony Broudine, Propuguaculum, Pragae Anno, 1669, Note:18
Dr. John Lingard, History of England, Edinburgh, ? ,1902 Page:336, vol X, Note:20
Abbot E. Smith, Colonists in Bondage, 1607-1776, Glouster, Mass, 1965 Page:164 165 334 209 336, Note:2 16 23 27 36
C. S. S. Higham, The Development of the Leeward Islands Under the Restoration, 1660-1688, London, Cambridge, 1921, Page:4 47, Note:14 22
Richard Ligon, A True and Exact History of Barbadoes, London, Cass, 1657, reprinted 1976, Page:44, Note:31
Eric Williams, From Columbus to Castro, 1492-1969, New York, Harper and Roe, 1971, Page:101, Note:15
Wesley Frank Craven, The Colonies in Transition, 1660-1713, New York, Harper and Roe, 1968, Page:55 58, Note:33 35
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Preliminaries
Dedication: This three-fold ‘iconostasis’ is dedicated to an Eagle in the East: the Serbian nation and its courageous freedom fight against truly overwhelming odds.
Part One of this three-part essay gives a written outline of the author’s presentation for the Serbian Eurasianist Movement in May 2023. It serves to remind the international reader of the fact that the anti-globalist struggle, at the highest level of international diplomacy and military effort, not only has an Eastern Front, where a titanic, truly world-changing battle is currently being fought over the Eastern Slav lands, but also a Balkan Front, where a smaller, true David-against-Goliath battle was recently fought over the South Slav lands.
Part Two, the centrepiece of this essay, gives the author’s review of Michel Chossudovsky’s book The US-NATO War of Aggression against Yugoslavia, one of the few impartial English-language treatises on the largely ‘memory-holed’ topic of the West’s ‘controlled demolition’ of Yugoslavia. It serves to remind the reader of the Yugoslav War antecedents of the current Ukraine War: the former prefigures the latter as a stand-off between Western sea-power, which aims at imposing Atlanticist hegemony and globalist uni-polarity, and Eastern land-power, which aims at creating Eurasianist sovereignty and non-globalist multi-polarity.
Part Three concludes this essay with the author’s report on his July 2023 attempt to visit General Ratko Mladic, a long-term political prisoner in a United Nations-sponsored facility located in the author’s old home city of The Hague, the Netherlands. For over twelve years now, General Mladic is serving a life sentence, allegedly for ‘war crimes’ but actually for defending his country and his people against Atlanticist aggression, while people like Clinton and Blair, the actual instigators of the first European war of aggression since 1945, walk free. This third part serves to remind the reader that doing the right thing in the present must start with righting the wrongs of the past.
Acknowledgements:
The author wishes to express his gratitude to Rade Drobats, Deputy President of the Belgrade Forum for Equals, for providing a review copy of Michel Chossudovsky’s book The US-NATO War, to Milorad Djoshic, Editor-in-Chief of publishing house Cirilitsa, for facilitating an important forum discussion, and to Bobana Andjelkovits, Eurasianist Movement representative, for her many useful introductions and good conversations.
*
The first time the author of this essay visited Serbia, then still at the heart of the Yugoslavian state, was in the summer of 2000, a little over a year after NATO’s ‘humanitarian intervention’ and a few months before the colour ‘Bulldozer Revolution’ overthrow of President Slobodan Milosevic.
At that time, Belgrade was undoubtedly one of Europe’s most tourist-proof capital cities: that year, very few visitors from NATO aggressor states were tempted to visit Belgrade.
Admittedly, it was a surreal experience: the city was studded with patches of bombed-out buildings, suffering frequent utility blackouts and many city centre shops and establishments were permanently boarded up. The train connection from Budapest was interrupted at Novi Sad due to the NATO bombing of some bridge – the journey had to be continued by car, with taxis slowly slaloming around bomb-damaged intersections on improvised field roads and endlessly queuing at supply-starved fuel stations.
Although wads of worthless billion-dominated old banknotes still adorned the few tourist kiosks of the near-empty Kalemegdan park avenues, hyperinflation had already given way to the grim austerity of the Deutschmark-pegged last Yugoslav Dinar.
The sanction-struck economy was clearly on its last legs: during that last summer of independent Yugoslavia, scarcity and poverty had already pushed many citizens to the standard responses of ‘disaster capitalism’: the black market, emigration and despair. The vacant stare of young soldiers in well-worn uniforms on the bus stops, the resigned patience of old women in tattered scarves scouring the markets and the paranoid alertness of dark-suited body-guards at Mercedes car doors – all these tell-tale signs pointed to the impending ‘final victory’ of ‘market economy’ and ‘democratic values’. Rump-Yugoslavia, by then reduced to Montenegro and Serbia (minus its NATO-occupied southwest), simply constituted the very last outpost of the doomed Second World, just about to disappear.
Clearly, this was the terminus of the old Eastern Bloc, the very edge of the blank slate that is supposed to come with the ‘End of History’, reached only after a full decade of the West’s full-spectrum assault on the East. The full history of this decade of systematic and coordinated Western infiltration, bribery, sabotage, blackmail, sanctions and violence perpetrated on the then-Eastern Bloc – with multiple variations on the theme of Stunde Null for each of the affected countries – has yet to be written, but it is unlikely to be well-received until some great historical change has occurred within the current Western Bloc.
Any attempt at historical fact-finding regarding the defeat of the Eastern Bloc is, in fact, sure to be carefully censored as long as the victors’ narrative stands – and it will stand as long as its beneficiaries stand: the corrupt sell-outs of the old communist nomenclature, the shameless traitors of the abolished nation-states and the collaborating conmen of the neo-liberal order.
In the widest sense, this beneficiary category includes all those belonging to the nouveau riche ‘money class’ that grew fat on the corpse of the Eastern Bloc during the wild 90’s ‘regime change’ decade – from the handful of oligarch billionaires who came out on top during the ‘privatization’ gold-rush, to the multitudes of now-‘legit’ black market pioneers who pocketed the last savings of the betrayed workers and peasants of East Europe’s former ‘people’s republics’.
And the ex-Eastern Bloc’s successor generation, its present-day gilded youth, comfortably wrapped in a ‘virtual reality’ bubble-life of Western-style materialism and hedonism, is unlikely to be interested in the true story of their parents’ path to status and money. Their parents’ true story, crawling through the ‘90s open sewer of raw gangsterism, naked prostitution and shameless grifting, has been glossed over by a very carefully crafted narrative that permits no substantial questioning of its ideological dogmas – especially any actual content investigation of its ‘freedom’, ‘democracy’ and ‘meritocracy’.
But if it is still too early to write a full history of the fall of the Eastern Bloc and the break-up of its larger states, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, it is not too early to learn some preliminary lessons about the geopolitical strategies by which these larger states were defeated, strategies that allowed the First World West to quite literally devour the Second World East.
Such propaedeutics, a collection of well-researched case studies on the agony of Yugoslavia, are now available in Michel Chossudovsky’s book The US-NATO War of Aggression against Yugoslavia, which is reviewed in Part Two of this essay.
It would be highly perilous for the presently rising Multipolarity and Eurasianist movements to ignore the lessons that can be learnt from Professor Chossudovsky’s historical study because it describes the globalist West’s standard multi-dimensional warfare strategies, strategies by which it not only defeated, divided and enslaved Yugoslavia but by which it exercises hegemonic power all around the world.
Since the Western conquest of Yugoslavia, these same strategies, ranging from media manipulation and economic blackmail to colour revolution and military invasion, have been used against many minor and medium-sized ‘poles’ of resistance to the Western hegemon’s unipolar New World Order project, from Venezuela to Iraq, from Hungary to Hongkong and from Belarus to Yemen.
More importantly, the Western hegemon has recently engaged these same strategies – albeit with ‘updated’ technical instruments and on a much larger scale – in what appears to be meant as a final offensive against the world’s last major sovereign powers, Russia and China. The neocon-created Ukrainian phantom-state – effectively a Neo-Khazarian anti-state, is meant to handicap, challenge and degrade Russian sovereignty, most directly through proxy war, in the same way that the phantom-state of ‘Kosovo’ was (and continues to be) meant to handicap, challenge and degrade Yugoslavian and Serbian sovereignty. Anyone studying Professor Chossudovsky’s work will immediately notice the similarity in the schemes of the Western hegemon: it should be compulsory reading for all those who wish to understand current global geopolitics as well as for all those who are engaged in realpolitik resistance to the Western hegemon’s imperialist agenda.
But before proceeding to the review of Professor Chossudovsky’s book the author, who was born, raised and educated in the West, here wishes to address a few words to his ex-Yugoslav and especially his Serbian audience.
It is only proper to state the obvious: that no words of apology, however well meant, would undo the evil done to Yugoslavia as a whole, and to Serbia in particular, by the Western war-mongers responsible for that evil – such words would neither bring back the dead to life nor undo the tangible (‘depleted uranium’) and intangible (‘guilt narrative’) poison that the West injected into the Balkans during the ‘90s.
But it is also important to state the less obvious: that no such words can be expected to be spoken unless and until the Western Empire of Lies collapses in on itself – an outcome that may be hoped for and striven to, but that only Divine Providence can have the final word on. The burden of guilt and shame, created by the Yugoslav war and many other subsequent wars of aggression farther afield, now accumulated by the collective West, is simply too great. It would require a true revolution of mind and soul (in more archaic words: repentance and atonement) to acknowledge and discharge this burden – and no such revolution is possible as long the key institutions of the Empire of Lies – NATO, EU, IMF, World Bank – endure.
The author’s memory may here serve to illustrate the true weight of this collective burden.
One day during the first week of ‘Operation Noble Anvil’, i.e. the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999, when the author was still employed by a large financial corporation in Amsterdam, during his break, he joined his colleagues in the corporate canteen where a large crowd of office staff watched the TV news on a large screen.
Almost without exception, his colleagues cheered and clapped as they watched a barrage of missiles and bombs hitting Belgrade, much like a crowd of football fans watching an exciting match.
Then and there, the author realized that talking and arguing with such people is useless: these people unthinkingly cheered on the death of innocent people and the destruction of precious work, for reasons that they were too stupid to understand and under pretences that they were too lazy to investigate – all from the safety of their spacy offices and their luxury apartments, filling their fat bellies from their fat paychecks. No meaningful apologies can ever come from such people: these are not merely docile ‘sheeple’ – these are accessories to murder and accomplices to evil.
Since that time, these people and their brood – and there should be no mistake about it: there are still masses of them around the West – have consistently added to the mountain of their collective guilt, now weighing down on the collective West to the point of altering its collective consciousness.
These people are complicit in the reign of terror that the Western ‘rules-based order’ has unleashed on the world and that has, over decades, drowned entire nations in blood, tears and sweat, first far away – Libya, Syria, Yemen and Syria to name but the most obvious places were suffering was deliberately imposed – and then nearer to home, in Ukraine. They have, again and again, swallowed the MSM lies hook and sinker (‘911’, ‘weapons of mass destruction’, ‘Russian collusion’, ‘MH17’, ‘Putin is Hitler’), they have, again and again, voted in obvious cheats, liars and war criminals (Clinton, Blair, Bush, Johnson, Biden), they have, again and again, enthusiastically supported degeneracy exports (‘Femen’, ‘Moscow Pride’, ‘SOVA Centre’) and they have, again and again, generously funded war-mongering puppets (Saakashvili, Guaidó, Zelensky).
By now, the West – one could say: ex-West because it lost the soul that gave it life[i] – is so deeply mired in sin, having deliberately distanced itself from redemption, that the crimes it has committed, and continues to commit, at the collective level have surpassed the level of mere ‘deadly sins’: these sins are now attaining the level of what, once upon a (pre-Vatican II) time, the now effective defunct Catholic Church recognized as peccata clamantia: ‘screaming sins’, i.e. sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance, designed to deliberate provoke the Wrath of the Creator. There is, however, one level of sin deeper still: the unforgivable sin, i.e. the kind of persistence in mortal sin, without penitence, that is inspired by sheer malice.
In the final analysis, this ultimate sin involves the sinner’s self-condemnation, by-passing divine mercy by the sinner’s free and conscious choice, to hell. Of course, hell on earth is exactly what the West’s radical nihilism, taken to its logical consequences, aims at. Within the ex-West, that hell has already been realized in many ways and many spheres. One need only look at the unspeakable filth of the West’s online ‘sexual liberation’, the industrial-scale genital mutilation of its children, the massive child sacrifice resulting from its ‘abortion’ and ‘vaccination’ rituals, the perversely inverted ‘justice system’ that glorifies criminals (‘BLM’) and punishes the innocent (‘J6’), the institutionalized racism that gives preferential treatment of colonizing invaders (represented as being ‘asylum seekers’) while dispossessing innocent natives (represented as having ‘white privilege’) and the shameless lies and false flags by which it justifies its ever-escalating wars of imperialist conquest, aimed at carving up resource-rich states that dare resist its demands (Libya, Syria, Russia).
Once these sins, deadly and screaming to Heaven for vengeance, do finally reach the status of unforgivable sin, a time of reckoning is sure to follow. Without excluding a truly (eschatology-) ‘based’ scenario, in which the ex-West drags all of humanity into a fire-and-brimstone final reckoning, we should remember that it is also possible – and it would not be the first time in human history – that the Wrath of the Creator is channelled through human agents.
Sometimes, the avenging angel is just a man who decides he has had enough. It is not inconceivable that, at some point in the not-too-distant future, enough good men and women will have had enough and decide that they will settle the score once and for all. The Eurasianist mission is to work towards just such a brotherhood: эа вашу и нашу свободу.
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Alexander Wolfheze received his MA in Semitic Languages and Cultures in 2004 and his cum laude PhD in the Humanities in 2011, both from Leiden University, Netherlands. With extensive research experience in the fields of Assyriology and Cultural Anthropology, he subsequently authored several publications in the field of Near Eastern cultural history. His current interdisciplinary specializations are pre-modern epistemology and Traditionalist philosophy; his earlier book The Sunset of Tradition and the Origins of the Great War applies these specializations to the cultural-historical background of the First World War.
Note
[i] Cf. Alexander Wolfheze, ‘Downfall of the West’, Geopolitica 29 October 2020 and Alexander Wolfheze, ‘The White Whale’, Geopolitica.ru 4 November 2022.
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Insightful article with foresight by Peter Koenig first published on September 3, 2022
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The German Government is preparing for a Military Regime for all eventualities. German leaders fear uprisings and they are arming the Bundeswehr for domestic operations. Germany has Europe’s largest Urban Warfare Training Center in „Schnöggersburg“ in Saxony-Anhalt, near Hamburg. It has been under construction since 2012 and was finished – training-ready – by 2020.
Today, the German armed forces (Bundeswehr) along with NATO forces are training for upheavals this fall – in Germany and likely in other major European cities.
It is clear that UN Agenda 2030, aliasThe Great Reset, with all its tyrannical, anti-societal measures to come, was in the plans for many years. In fact, with the 2010 Rockefeller report – see this — the plan for the decade of 2020-2030 was pretty much defined – see the chapters “The Scenario Framework” and the “Scenario Narratives”.
For those who pay attention to the WEF Cult’s warning of what was to come, their agenda was defined and explained way ahead. For more Cult “warnings”, see this.
In preparation of the planned Fall 2022 Epidemics Tyranny, the German government’s Corona Crisis Staff, for example, has already been under military leadership, most recently under Major General Carsten Breuer. He heads the Bundeswehr’s “Territorial Tasks” command in Berlin. Only recently, he boasted about measures and vaccination mandates to the Spiegel with these words:
“We will have to vaccinate up to 60 million people against Corona in the fall.”
This could be sheer bluff, or fearmongering – or it could be the truth. Or at least the plan based on what the German Government foresees. And this always in close collaboration with the World Economic Forum (WEF), and those who command the WEF, the world’s financial giants, what they have in mind for the next steps, to reduce global population and exert their control over the survivors.
The survivors will be those who do not immediately succumb to the next vaxx-drive, or to the economic collapse, i.e., by unemployment, misery and suicide; or unemployment misery, disease and death; or unemployment, poverty famine and death – and you may continue with our own list. There are no boundaries to their goals. Only We, the People, can stop them.
Then there is the risk of war-death. As the Ukraine war could easily escalate into a nuclear catastrophe – and wipe out not only hundreds of millions of people, but also food reserves, leading to famine and more death – death of biblical proportions.
Then, there is the electric grid. Artificially created energy shortages (conveniently blamed on the NATO / West instigated war between Ukraine and Russia), may bring not only darkness to the survivors, but also annihilation to all-digitized amenities that society by now depends on – including people’s bank accounts- meaning no access to survival goods, including food, heating and more. That could create another wave of death.
But don’t worry. “Their” digitized controlled over us will remain intact.
The diabolical plan for this fall, may be the basis for Major General Carsten Breuer’s prediction of 60 million “vaccinations” in Germany alone.
It follows predictions of Bill Gates, and WHO Director General Tedros’s declaration, making monkeypox on July 23, 2022 a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), thus, overriding the WHO Emergency Committee, which decided 9-6 against recommending a PHEIC.
This alone says that there is an agenda behind this decision which Tedros / WHO doesn’t control. Instead, Tedros follows instructions.
How could this all link together, the 60 million vaxxes, the PHEIC, and the German Government’s military preparedness – with other governments probably following Germany’s lead?
The coming fall season may bring one or more new covid variants, then there is Monkeypox, just waiting in the wings to be declared another plandemic – and finally, there is the annual flu-season.
Taken the three together could make for a massive, but massive vaxxing campaign, either individual vaxxes for all of these invented diseases, or one vaxx “covers-all”.
For Covid alone it may be difficult to convince people for more vaxxes. But an immense monkeypox propaganda and a “particularly strong flu season” – which the media could predict – might scare enough people into taking both shots, or if generously proposed as a combined flu-monkeypox shot by one or two of the pharma-giants, people may be happy to get two in one.
Now, how does this work?
With the first rounds of plandemic(s), the Covid kind, including different variants, several vaxxes and boosters were administered to, say 50% to 70% of the population in the Global North, including Europe and the US, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand. It is more difficult to assess the vaxx-ratio in the Global South.
Medical estimates indicate that some 70% of all the vaxxes are placebos, salt water solutions, or the like, doing no harm. But 30% are mRNA-type vaxxes with different type of toxins in them. Different combinations, testing the fields of efficiency. All prone of causing different ailments, from cancers (predominantly affecting both women’s and men’s reproductive systems), leukemia, myocarditis, liver and kidney diseases and so on – an almost endless list.
Dr. Mike Yeadon, former Pfizer VP and Chief Science Officer, mentioned on several occasions, that many of these devastating side effects may appear only after 6 to 24 months, maybe even longer. It will be virtually impossible to trace the effects back to the vaxxes.
Many of these diseases are leading to death, often painful slow deaths. Others may result in different but very painful kinds of disablements – these are wanton killings and sufferings. If we were still living in a system of law, punishment for the perpetrators, those who know exactly what they are doing and those who command and coerce – or worse – the medical establishment to carry out their vaxx tyranny, despite knowing better – well, if we would still have a functioning system of “rule of law” – these individuals would be put on criminal trials, à la Nuremberg 2.0 – on steroids.
But such legal systems have been disabled. Entire national constitutions have been suspended, in order to push this deadly UN Agenda 2030 — the fulfillment of the Great Reset — to completion.
This system of 70% placebos is a great strategy for the “jabbers”. It’s a propaganda tool. Those who get placebos and are fine, no negative effects, will propagate and try to convince vaxx-sceptics, that it’s OK, no risk, they are fine – and why not getting it over with and be “protected”.
So, they do free advertising for the Monster-Cult.
Eurostat has registered an excess Mortality between March 2020 and June 2022 of up to 40%.
There is no other plausible reason than the genocidal vaxxes.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as well as Lancet and the New England Journal for Medicine (NEJM) in their honest research-assessments and statistics, clearly define a mortality for Covid – all variations – of 0.07 to 0.1% and most of the deaths are people above age 70 and with co-morbidities. This is similar to the common flu.
Yet, governments and health authorities keep pushing the “vaxxes”. And “Somebody” pushes the governments and health services. Nobody is strong and bold enough to stop this Monster. No government. Not even the UN system.
To the contrary, the UN system is corrupted and is colluding with the “Evil Masters”. They are all afraid of the potential consequences. So, they bend down. To safe their skin – while the bulldozers ram on – endlessly. Dishing out death potions. No remorse.
Speculatively speaking, in this Fall vaxx-tyranny, the ratio of “real” vs. placebo vaxxes may increase to 50 / 50, which means more fatal diseases – often not immediately, but after one or two years, when it will be hard to trace the death back to the vaxxes . (Mike Yeadon).
Many of those who suspect it, will psychologically not be able to admit to themselves and to others, that ailments, or deaths of loved ones, are due to the poisonous vaxxes. And the placebo guys will again be advertising for the vaxx agenda.
We are still only in the first quarter of the WHO predicted (in 2014) vaxx decade. Just imagine what may follow, if we don’t stop it?
To stop it, we have to conquer our own psychological barriers. Waking up is the first step.
Then, we have to join in solidarity with other people who want to find an alternative lifestyle, an alternative societal wellbeing – and who are not afraid to see reality. The reality as it confronts us today. A reality that cannot – repeat CANNOT – be reformed. Because it is fully in control of those who call the shots, of those with the money leverage, with the power to kill you, if you interfere with their plan.
It begs the question: What the f**k is wrong with this world, with this system?
To survive, we may have to establish a parallel society, one that doesn’t depend on their money, on their values.
As it were, we are sitting in a pothole, to become a dungeon, because our strive for comfort allows it to become a dungeon, slave-barracks.
Ask yourself, what can I and my fellow citizens do to exit this Monster prison?
Finding a solution may not be as difficult as we imagine. Evil cannot ascend from darkness. That’s why they want us to stay with them, so they may draw on our energy. They do that inspiring fear and anger.
Therefore, we have to look up to the light. And as we do, we must not ignore the warnings they give us.
They tell us that there is something wrong. We have to start listening to Klaus Schwab’s Israeli-advisor, Yuval Noah Harari, who shamelessly calls his fellow humans – if he is indeed human – useless and superfluous eaters, no longer needed, because robots and AI will soon take over.
He says it in public, most recently in a TED talk without scruples. See video below. Why don’t we listen to him? What does one do with “useless eaters”, redundant consumers, using up the elite’s natural resources?
They may be slanted for “neutralization”. What better tools than fear of an invisible virus, leading to the administering of toxic vaxxes; artificial inflation, making the rich even richer and enhancing poverty, misery; the collapse of the economy, causing more misery, famine and death. Airlines collapsing, a proxy for travel restrictions – meaning a bar on liberty and freedom.
Then, there is an ever silently encroaching QR Code – eventually controlling everything. It is the instrument to absolute tyranny.
It is applied everywhere and, if not stopped by us, the People, it will become the all-encompassing global ID, with thousands of pieces of information of each and everyone of us. It’s a pre-position to total and absolute enslavement.
For two years, we are inundated with artificially created supply-chain disruptions, and / or shortages of everything, from food to energy. Does anybody ask, “why now”?
And just in case somebody might ask, the culprit is always Russian President Putin. He is the “foreign” media-made villain. It’s a good psychological strategy for the masses, as they don’t have to look for, or even see the Monster in front of them.
We have to start looking at the real causes, at the Cult-Monster – and circumvent it, by creating alternative models of living, by getting together, doing what the financial elites don’t want us to do: Act in solidarity.
No longer bending to mask rules, to social distancing, to lockdowns, to working from home – no complacency.
Togetherness, unification, solidarity are the concepts that allow us to grow out of the dungeons of slavery. The dynamics of this new “togetherness” will enlighten us for the creation of new forms of societal cohabitation, of sharing and developing new sciences.
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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 is a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
Such propaedeutics, a collection of well-researched case studies on the agony of Yugoslavia, are now available in Michel Chossudovsky’s book The US-NATO War of Aggression against Yugoslavia, which is reviewed in Part Two of this essay. 
