Global Research

Human kind is facing the most formidable threats in all its history

– The planet is going rapidly towards an irreversible climatic disaster, facing simultaneously all sort of threats to its ecosystem

– We are facing again the specter of a possible major nuclear conflict

– The vast majority of the human population lives now in conditions which are, sometimes, even worse than those prevailing 500 years ago

Huge banks, state and “private” secret services are developing like cancer in our societies.

For the first time in human History the development of productive forces has attained the level required to satisfy all “reasonable” human needs and permit a life in dignity to all inhabitans of the planet, but, in the same time, inequality has beaten all historical records.

– Also for the first time in History, the extremely limited minorities, already controlling most of power, money and knowledge, are also in the process of acquiring the technological capacity to impose a totalitarian order which will make Hitler seem a poor boy, an alchemist compared to modern chemists.

But maybe more worrisome than all those, already very worrisome “objective” facts, is the level of discourse emitted by the two persons competing to become Presidents of the most powerful country of the world. They want to rule the superpower and the world. But you will hardly find in the insults they exchange any meaningful idea on what they will do with the formidable challenges in front of their country and the planet.

Words and ideas do matter, even if they are false or ridiculous. Karl Marx used to say that Ideas are in delay compared to the Being and this is quite true. But the opposite is also true. Ideas – or their absence – is also a clear indication where a society is heading, what it chooses to know and what to ignore, what truths it needs and what illusions it prefers.

Our century was announced as a “century of catastrophes” – traditional wars in the Middle East, less traditional in Europe, like the one that destroyed already Greece and it goes on pushing it into the abyss, nuclear disasters like in Fukushima (a clear result by the way of the submission of nuclear industry to the prerogatives of a sick society in general and of the Finance in particular, the consequences of which remain hidden to a great extent). We are living in an era of “end of hope”, of huge crisis or collapse of nearly all the modern projects promising to make Humans subjects of their History (Enlightment and Democracy, Socialism, Welfare Capitalism, blind belief into the automatic social benefits of Science, Psychanalysis etc.).

But humans cannot survive without hope and without meaning (project). The destruction of meaning in the political discourse of the most powerful states of the world, like the USA, is a more than clear sign for the accelerating decomposition of modern capitalism (if capitalism is still the right word for a system which is going into a kind of post-modern feudalism, opening the way to the end of Humans, the destruction of the Planet and a dictatorship of the Machines). The destruction of meaning may announce our own destruction.

It is only normal that people, feeling by instinct the terrible prospects ahead, go back to past identities, like nation or religion, or try to find new hopes (for. ex. the social movement crystallized around Sanders during the US election campaign). Still the “dark” forces seem, for the time being, to dominate the scene.

Coming back to the US elections what we see? One of the candidates seems to represent the end of Rationality, the other the end of Emotion, both the end of any kind of Ethics. But we know from the Ancient times that those three properties, when and only when they coexist, are the ones differentiating Humans from human-like monsters. (The situation in Europe, in particular in France, which is the “mother” of modern Europe, as far as politics and ideas is concerned, is not better. Probably it is even worse than in the American center of the world system).

The characters dominating the political class reflect the illness of the “system”. Maybe this process is old enough. But after the “end” of the Cold War (not ended by the way) and the collapse of the USSR, it has come to the fore nearly everywhere in “Western Democracies”, the United States of America included.

Read the following commentaries on the second Trump-Clinton debate published in the The Nation and the Counterpunch respectively [1,2]. (Or, if you prefer, you may also skip the news and just look again to the films of Stanley Kubrick, especially the last one. His genius will help you discern the nature of forces governing, to a large extent, our world and also their – unannounced – project).

As the great French genetician Albert Jacquard has put it, “the main obstacle to grasp reality consists of the limits of our imagination”.

Dimitri Konstantakopoulos is a journalist and writer. He served as special advisor to the Office of Greek PM Andreas Papandreou (1985-88), working on Arms Control and East-West relations. He has been chief correspondent of the Athens News Agency in Moscow (1989-1999). He has been the Secretary of the Movement of Independent Citizens (2011-12) and a member of the Secretariat and the Central Committee of SYRIZA (2012-13). He left this party in July 2015. A member of the editorial board of the international review of self-management “Utopie Critique”, he is actively involved in the Delphi international Initiative for Democracy. He is the author of three books on relations between CPSU and Greek CP, the Cyprus conflict and US policy in Eastern Mediterranean and on relations between Nation and the Left.

Notes

1. https://www.thenation.com/article/the-strangest-debate-of-the-weirdest-election-ever/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DAILY_2016_10_10&utm_term=daily

2. http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/10/

This article was written in late September 2016

This week’s tempo of news breaking events exposing Hillary and the US government’s aggressive hubris is only accelerating the closer the November election looms.

The globalists are well aware that a growing segment amongst the global masses are on to them and their evil ways. So the elite is growing increasingly desperate trying to plug all the holes of endless false narratives exposing the rampantly corrosive corruption and in-our-face criminality of the entire Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama-Clinton dynasty. Thus, the dangerous treachery of warmongering rhetoric and reckless threats are ratcheting up daily.

But one key development seems to have barely gotten noticed this week. On October 1st Obama took us one enormous step closer to stripping away our free speech and access to accurate news sources via the internet as virtually the only truth disseminator left on the planet that’s not already oligarch owned and controlled by the six mega-media corporations.

As of this last weekend, Obama surrendered US control over important functions of the internet to the United Nations. Tech experts warn that placing internet domain responsibility into the hands of a centralized global bureaucracy like the UN may well lead to widespread censorship and control as just another warning sign plunging humanity towards New World Order totalitarianism.

Of course in recent years the CIA-NSA-Homeland Security apparatchik has co-opted internet giants like Facebook and Google which also controls YouTube, enlisting them as deep state spies invading citizens’ privacy and increasingly censoring the internet according to what deep state dictates as acceptable for consumption by a dumbed down robotic population.

Just as mainstream media is now overwhelmingly viewed by the vast majority of Americans as pure propaganda not to be trusted, by design so will the same oppressive fate soon befall the internet. Again, history keeps repeating itself as truth becomes the enemy in every totalitarian state. The elite plans to shut down any voice of dissent and the truth, thus gaining absolute control over the servile misinformed population. The rise and fall of the US Empire is morphing rapidly into a globalized crime cabal that only a handful of ruling psychopaths could love.

The recently rigged spectacle of a debate [first presidential debate] between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump was just more over-the-top evidence that the elite controls every aspect of this year’s presidential election.

It’s been reported that Hillary received the debate questions a week in advance when an NBC intern was spotted dressed in a Fed Ex uniform delivering a package directly into the hands of her campaign manager.

And it didn’t take a four-time world poker champ to point out that Hillary was obviously in cahoots sending hand signals to MSM moderator Lester Holt every time she wanted to take another cheap shot at the Donald. Her bag of dirty tricks is unending as it’s also gone public that she is paying big bucks for dirty laundry secrets about her opponent. And since Trump’s recent tax return is unavailable due to a pending audit, the Clinton rag the New York Times feebly released a 1995 tax return that only found Trump using the same legal tax code loopholes that every other wealthy American reporting losses exploits in the corrupt US tax law system. But that would-be smoking gun quickly fizzled out.

Less than two months ago on national television Clinton campaign strategist Bob Beckel called for a drone assassination strike on Julian Assange to “illegally shoot the son of a bitch” due to ongoing WikiLeaks’ disclosures incriminating Hillary for her “lost” emails and DNC documents chronicling how she stole the primaries away from Bernie Sanders to cheat her way to the nomination.

Earlier this week because Assange was again threatened with his life, at the last minute he called off his hyped up bombshell disappointing millions who had stayed up late in America. Julian did promise to release within a few days such damaging information on war, arms, oil, Google, the election and mass surveillance that many hope will finally put Hillary behind bars where she belongs once and for all.

Speaking of hard time, the felony blackmail her hubby Bill brazenly committed just prior to the FBI-Justice Department issuing Hillary’s get-out-of-jail card also just surfaced. Journalist-author Edward Klein in his recent book Guilty as Sin wrote that he received some powerfully damaging information from one of Bill Clinton’s closest legal advisors. The anonymous source said that Bill shared with his advisor, “I want to bushwhack Loretta [Lynch],” the sitting US Attorney General.

So Bill Clinton stalked and laid in waiting to pounce on Lynch at the Phoenix airport in July prior to boarding her plane. Bill’s ambush was to blackmail the AG. Afterwards the former president bragged to advisors how he had the Attorney General sweating and shaking, so thoroughly intimidated that she promised not to charge Hillary with any crimes for being guilty of violating national security. On a related side note to Bill’s alleged sex crimes, Hillary’s been labeled his enabler pretending to stand for women’s rights on the one hand while on the other hypocritically intimidating to viciously discredit her husband’s past accusers.

That’s just the way business in Washington DC is done, behaving like criminal thug killers not unlike organized crime. The Clintons have been notoriously aggressive gathering and using the dirt on others in order to get what they want, from Arkansas to the White House. And when others in their path ever resist, a murder trail of dozens of close associates have suspiciously shown up dead, from longtime Clinton family friend-White House Counsel Vince Foster to Commerce Secretary Ron Brown. Three more victims with ties to both the DNC and Clinton this summer are just the latest fatalities. Blackmail and murder pretty much explain Hillary and her husband’s modus operandi that appears immune from any and all accountability. A two-tiered justice system has been operating in the US for a long time where the top 1% continue getting away with murder while the rest of us without constitutional rights get screwed by a grossly unjust, violent police state system.

Assange and WikiLeaks may have deferred their bombshell to Romanian hacker aka Guccifer 2.0 who released over 800 megabytes amounting to 42 pages showing how millions in taxpayer TARP bailout dollars were syphoned off and allegedly laundered illegally through the Clinton Foundation. The hacked documents list a database of “pay-to-play” donors and bribes to selected Congress members as well as on to major banks and large financial institutions. Other documents show kickbacks from banks to Congress members.

Tax dollars allocated to boost the recession-racked US economy ultimately padded the 1%’s deep pockets, compliments of Hillary and Bill’s criminal laundering scheme. If confirmed as legitimate Foundation documents and not the already hacked DNC records released earlier this year, this latest data dump is but one more example demonstrating Bill and Hillary’s “pay-for-play” criminal enterprise. Moreover, additional emails released this week confirm how her State Department and her Clinton Foundation worked hand in glove together to illegally drum up revenue and influence with clear evidence of conflict of interest.

Despite this fact, prior to Hillary even being nominated by Obama to become his Secretary of State, she signed an ethics agreement that was a Memorandum of Understanding as a precondition to taking the job that she would not violate conflict of interest laws by allowing foreign interests undue influence. As soon as she accepted her powerful position, she began violating her White House agreement and compromising national security. In fact over half the private interests (85 out of 154) who met Hillary at her State Department made sizeable donations often into the millions totaling $156 million.

Pathological liar Hillary committed perjury before the Benghazi Congressional hearings and lied hundreds of other times, chief among them claiming she had turned over all her emails to the FBI that later found 17,448 more that she had failed to submit. In early March this year Hillary received a subpoena from the FBI for her emails. So what did she do? Three weeks later she ended up caught deleting 33,000 more emails attempting to destroy critical evidence, yet another crime. Through the watchdog group Judicial Watch, even more emails were procured from the State Department beyond the 55,000 emails she allegedly turned over to the FBI.

Repeatedly Clinton’s unsecured private server account had been used to criminally sell off America and US arms to the highest foreign bidders from places like Saudi Arabia (gave $10 million to Foundation) and Israel on top of her willful destruction of incriminating evidence she tried hiding from authorities to cover up her countless crimes. Throughout her entire 4-year stint as Secretary of State, Hillary Clintonknowingly breached national security allowing foreign nationals and hackers easy access to this nation’s top secret classified information. Anyone else but her would be doing decades inside federal prison.

Because of Hillary’s crimes and FBI Director James Comey’s whitewashed investigation, both the Justice Department and the FBI have been politically and irreparably compromised, causing the public to completely lose confidence in both government and law enforcement. Comey used his red herring smokescreen of “intent” to bogusly justify not pressing charges. Yet violating national security clearly falls under US Code 793 and has nothing to do with Clinton’s intentions but everything to do with her passing at least 22 top secret emailsthrough her unsecured private server. Clearly she broke a federal law that’s among the most serious of all felonies. Yet despite her consistent lying, destruction of evidence and obstruction of justice, she was never even required to take a single polygraph test. Comey’s shoddy farce of a non-investigation indicates that he’d made the political decision from the get-go to not prosecute. At no time did he refer the case to a grand jury. Instead he granted immunity to key witnesses and totally overlooked Hillary’s destruction of evidence.

Because the DC crime cabal works together in the oligarchic interest of the ruling elite, Congress will never dare impeach Hillary Clinton, even though overwhelming evidence of her criminality and immorality make her unfit for president. And as far as Director Comey’s criminal part, the Senate has more than enough grounds to file a resolution of no confidence in his capacity to oversee the FBI. Many FBI personnel working under Comey are now calling him a “traitor” too.

Audited financial records show that both Bill and Hillary Clinton amassed a fortune by diverting millions through their Clinton Foundation into their own private bank accounts. While Hillary headed the State Department, her partner-in-crime husband made a cool $48 millionin speaking fees 215 times that she lent her official stamp of approval. Their combined speaking engagements from 2001 to her presidential bid earned them $153 million. The same Persian Gulf monarchies that overtly support and finance ISIS terrorists that Hillary and Obama created gave the Clintons over $100 million. This unprecedented scale of obscene corruption enabled foreign interests undue influence and control over both the Clintons and US foreign policy as their pay-for-play tax-exempt Foundation profited $2 billion. Since 1997 over $100 billion has been collected by their international criminal charity foundation. The Clinton scheme monetized the White House, using illicit practices no different from the drug cartels to set up multiple shell entities for no other reason but for money laundering purposes.

The Clinton’s post-earthquake Haiti debacle [JH1] starting in 2010 with photo-ops and promises became a disgraceful example among many where 95 cents on each dollar was absconded by the Clintons while the remaining 5 cents trickled down to a few quake victims. An artificially inflated price tag into the hundreds of millions was designated for building a new hospital that was never built. $2 million for housing never got off the ground. A miniscule fraction of what they took in was actually spent on victims in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation. The Clintons greedily self-enriched through their charity fraud off the backs of the destitute, hungry and homeless. Their organization was supposed to create 16,000 jobs but instead created a sweat shop on the north side of the island where the least damage occurred. $13 billion was raised in all. A mining gold contract was secured for Hillary’s brother while her chief of staff Cheryl Curtis made 30 trips to Haiti ostensibly to set up an industrial park and posh hotels that made a killing for the Clintons. To this day Haiti’s earthquake victims have yet to receive their promised assistance from the Clintons.

Getting richer off selling enriched uranium to the so called enemy Putin that’s the essential ingredient for making nuclear weapons allowed Russia to buy up 20% of America’s uranium deposits as yet another flagrant act of treason. And now hypocrite Hillary is resorting to the same kind of cold war witch hunt that Joe McCarthy would be proud of, accusing Donald Trump, Roger Stone and other critics of being un-American, secretly colluding with Russia, implying that they are violating national security, the very same high crime she willfully and recklessly perpetrated herself as the traitor she is. Both the Clintons’ entire public careers have been mired in scandal, controversy, deception, cutthroat criminality and thuggery.

Finally, because on top of everything else Hillary is gravely ill suffering from a host of severe medical and mental health issues, it’s all the more reason to ensure that she does not get elected. WikiLeaks determined that in 2011 Clinton asked her State Department staff to research a commonly prescribed drug for treating Parkinson’s disease. Her poor balance, multiple episodes of falling down, coughing fits, and what appear to be seizures have created a firestorm of speculation.

Joachim Hagopian is a West Point graduate and former US Army officer. He has written a manuscript based on his unique military experience entitled “Don’t Let The Bastards Getcha Down.” It examines and focuses on US international relations, leadership and national security issues. After the military, Joachim earned a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and worked as a licensed therapist in the mental health field with abused youth and adolescents for more than a quarter century. In recent years he has focused on his writing, becoming an alternative media journalist. His blog site is at: http://empireexposed.blogspot.co

Nate Parker has produced a masterpiece which will evoke the legacy of one of the greatest African slave rebellions in the history of the United States.

The Birth of a Nation is a dramatic film which attempts the arduous task of conveying the story of the African known as Nat Turner, who was enslaved and led a rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831. This film is co-written, co-produced and directed by Nate Parker. It stars Parker as Turner, with Armie Hammer, Aja Naomi King, Jackie Earle Haley, Penelope Ann Miller and Gabrielle Union in supporting roles.

In order to launch the project Parker obtained financing to invest in the movie eventually obtaining $10 million in order to start the production filming in May 2015 in Georgia. The film represents a much needed effort aimed at reinterpreting the legacy of resistance among African people in North America as seen through the eyes of the oppressed and their descendants.

This film is being released 185 years after the Nat Turner Rebellion in August 1831 which took place in Southampton County, Virginia but had national ramifications. This former British colony was the entry point of enslaved Africans into the region of North America in 1620.

Some five decades after the much-flaunted 1776 Declaration of Independence of the white settlers, the importation and trade in Africans was growing at a fever pitch. Nonetheless, the economic system of slavery was already beginning to decline as is reflected in the film.

The failure of the slave system to secure a future for the Southern planters created the conditions for the intensification of the exploitation and brutality against Africans. Slave catchers of the period in Virginia and throughout the South are the forerunners of modern-day law-enforcement in their purpose and behavior.

After two centuries of super-exploitation and the development of a system of national oppression based upon institutionalized racism, Nat Turner and his comrades sent a profound warning to the slave masters that their plantations were not secure from unrest in its deadliest form. This episode in U.S. history reminds residents and observers of U.S. society that the plague of racism is very much alive and well in the second decade of the 21^st century.

Parker’s work deliberating utilizes the same title as the notoriously racist silent film released in 1915 under the direction of D.W. Griffith. The cinematic innovation of the film a century ago through close ups and panning, made its propaganda incendiary. Historians say that the release of Griffith’s film just two years prior to the American intervention in World War I under the-then President Woodrow Wilson prompted a revival of the Ku Klux Klan.

Wilson hosted a screening of the film at the White House in part due to his friendship with novelist Thomas Dixon, whose 1905 book, The Clansman, provided the storyline of the 1915 release of The Birth of the Nation. Wilson is noted for his efforts in reinstituting strict segregation in Washington, D.C. Many believe he was an ideological racist and in recent times there have been demonstrations demanding the removal of his name from buildings and institutions at Princeton University, one of the most prestigious institutions of higher learning in the U.S.

In an article published by the New York Times on November 18, 2015, its says

“The students’ demands include the removal of Woodrow Wilson’s name from anything named after him at the university; cultural competency training for the faculty and the staff; the inclusion in Princeton’s core curriculum requirements of a course on the history of a marginalized people; and the creation of a cultural space on campus dedicated to black students. During tense discussions between Mr. Eisgruber (university president) and more than 100 students spilling out of his office, Mr. Eisgruber refused to sign on to the demands. Though he personally agreed that Woodrow Wilson was a racist, he refused to remove his name. He said that Wilson, a former president of the university, had done some things that were honorable and some that were blameworthy. Mr. Eisgruber also said he would not require competency training for all faculty members, even though he and his cabinet had attended such training.”

The Political Economy of Slavery and the Racist Intellectual Culture of Historical Revisionism

In the contemporary The Birth of a Nation from 2016 it reveals the financial unviability of African slavery as an economic system. The protagonist Nat Turner, a preacher, is exploited by the planters in efforts to solve the problems of incorrigibility among the enslaved Africans.

Nat Turner is sent around the area to preach a doctrine of docility and obedience to the master class. Nonetheless, his exposure to the system in its most egregious aspects including horrendous working conditions, the selling of family members by the planters, the mass rape of African women and the deliberate division sewn among the enslaved themselves in order to maintain the dominance of the white slave owners and their functionaries, fueled his anger leading to a historic rebellion resulting in the deaths of many whites and the destruction of their property.

The field of American historical studies has been enriched by scholars such as W.E.B. Du Bois, CLR James, Eric Williams, Herbert Aptheker and others who rejected the notions of the “happy slaves” fostered by the apologist for institutional racism and national oppression such as Ulrich B. Philipps, Walter Lynwood Fleming and William Archibald Dunning. The racist approach to historical studies dominated the major universities in the U.S. during the late 19^th and 20^th centuries.

In taking such an approach to the history of slavery and the failure of Reconstruction, the Southern and indeed the entire ruling class of the post-antebellum period, were provided with a pseudo-scholarly rationale for the maintenance of national oppression and economic exploitation of the former enslaved Africans. This same justification continues into the 21^st century as Africans seek to realize their inherent right to self-determination and national liberation.

The so-called Dunning school of Southern history blamed the Africans themselves for the failure of Reconstruction in the aftermath of the Civil War fought from 1861-65. Fleming, the son of a Alabama slave owner who taught for years at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, was so imbued with racism that he refused to even capitalize the word “Negro”, as Africans were known in the period leading up to the 1960s, when the term was overturned by the Black Power and Pan-Africanist movements.

Fleming wrote in one of his major works that “The [N]egro is the central figure in the reconstruction of the South. Without the [N]egro there would have been no Civil War. Granting a war fought for any other cause, the task of reconstruction would, without him, have been comparatively simple.”

This film by Nate Parker makes an important contribution to rewriting the actual history of the African people in the U.S. and consequently world studies. Without an accurate understanding of the development of America as the leading imperialist nation in the world it is impossible to design a program for transforming the present conditions of colonialism, neo-colonialism and imperialism.

Africans will of course be integral to the reshaping of international affairs amid the decline once again of the dominant economic class within the U.S. As slavery had outlived its usefulness and profitability in the mid-decades of the 19^th century, so has imperialism in the 21^st century. Whether its ultimate decline can be realized in the absence of another world war is largely dependent upon the role of the nationally oppressed in alliance with the working class in the U.S. and around the world.

The email leak reveals why the battle for Aleppo matters so much to Hillary Clinton.

A new Wikileaks email dump released yesterday reveals Hillary’s eight point plan to destroy ISIS, and destroy Syria…in what can only be described as a reckless and naive view of the region that Hillary herself actively destabilized with her support for the Iraq invasion, and as the driving force behind the violent regime change operation in Libya.

The email exchange between Hillary Clinton, and top aide John Podesta, is breathtaking…full of hubris and stupidity.

It portrays a cold and calculating Clinton concerned with destroying ISIS in Iraq, but scheming to help jihadist groups in Syria n order to overthrow Assad with “moderate” forces that cannot be properly vetted.

Let’s not forget that Hillary’s financial conflict of interest runs deep in the troubled region, with Qatar giving between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation, and Saudi Arabia having donated upwards of $25 million dollars to the Clinton Foundation.

Hillary’s 8 point plan is conflicted and personal. Taking on Qatar and Saudi Arabia puts her at odds with big time Clinton Foundation donors.

Things get further complicated when we remember that in 2010, (as reported by The Intercept) Clinton’s top aide said that the up to $60 billion weapons transfer of fighter jets and helicopters to Saudi Arabia was a “top priority.”

On August 17, 2014 Hillary Clinton sent an email to John Podesta (then counselor to President Barack Obama, now current Hillary campaign chairman), where HRC details her roadmap to defeating ISIS, propping up the Kurdish forces in the north, and striking a decisive blow to Assad in Syria.

The complete email exchange can be found on the Wikileaks website. Here is The Duran’s breakdown of the 8 point plan with RED highlighted sections.

The email from John Podesta to HRC begins with a question on an attack in Tripoli, which is worth “analyzing for future purposes”. Podesta may be floating out the idea to communicate with whichever forces initiated the attack on Islamist positions. Maybe the forces can be lumped into the “moderate rebels” bucket.

Podesta reveals his frustration with progress in Syria…describing “elements” as “vexing”.

Hillary Clinton begins to lay out here 8 point plan. Point 1, HRC notes that the “advance of ISIL” provides an “opportunity” for American to reshape how it deals with North Africa and the Middle East.

Hillary closes Point 1 with her belief that Kurdish troops “can inflict a real defeat on ISIL”, and thus need to be supported by the US government.

Point 2 and 3 sees HRC admit that US engagement with ISIL has been “limited”.  She further concludes that with US close air support to Peshmerga fighters, ISIL can be defeated in Iraq and the Sunni “resistance” in Syria can then be supported.

Hillary notes her concern with providing heavy weapons to Peshmerga forces in the fear that those weapons will be used against Turkey by Kurdish forces.  HRC brushes those concerns aside as “obsolete”, with an airlift of heavy weapons solving the Turkey issue.

Point 4. Weaken ISIL in Iraq and Syria with targeted bombings (something Russia is doing at the moment in Syria). The smoking gun, after the targeted bombings “provide the FSA, or some group of moderate forces” with weapons, to not only take on ISIL on the ground in Syria, but to step up “operations against the Syrian regime.”

Then an even bigger revelation that should shock no one, but to have it documented holds weight…Qatar and Saudi Arabia are providing ISIL with financial and logistical support.

“While this military/para-military operation is moving forward, we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.”

“This effort will be enhanced by the stepped up commitment in the KRG [Kurdish Regional Government]. The Qataris and Saudis will be put in a position of balancing policy between their ongoing competition to dominate the Sunni world and the consequences of serious U.S. pressure.”

Point 6 and 7 (Hillary’s numbering is off as she skipped point 5) HRC notes that US interests in the region differ from country to country, with “energy issues in Libya” being a US national interest.

Point 8, HRC reveals that ISIL is growing and entering new markets such as Libya and Egypt..as Hilary alludes to the fact that ISIL can even reach into Lebanon and Jordan.

Point 9, Hillary lays out her grand bargain for the region.

A Kurdish autonomous state, which will work with the Iraqi government to share energy riches in and around Mosel and Kirkuk, while at the same time shifting the fighting to Syria, where the Peshmerga forces (in coordination with FSA troops) carve out the North of Syria, and deal a decisive blow to Assad.

We see why the battle for Aleppo matters so much to Hillary Clinton. Assad taking control of Syria’s main northern city runs counter to HRC’s grand plan, as laid out in this Wikileaks email release.

The fifteenth anniversary of 11 September was featured in the front pages for days. This contrasts with the media blackout for the fifteenth anniversary of the war in Afghanistan, launched on 7 October 2001 through operation «Enduring Freedom».

Article in italian :

Afghanistan occupazione duratura

Translation : Anoosha Boralessa pour le Réseau Voltaire

Picture by the photographer Paula Bronstein, Independent

On October 11, the Syrian army and its allies continued to conduct military operations in Aleppo with the most intense clashes were ongoing south of the Awijah neighborhood and in Sheikh Sa’eed where the army stormed the Sheikh Sa’eed Hill. Since October 10, up to 50 militants have been reported killed in the city.

Turkish-backed militant groups that operate under the brand of the Free Syrian Army, supported by the Turkish Armed Forces, have seized more areas from ISIS in northern Aleppo.

The Ankara-led forces took control of the villages of Yahmul, Jarez, Sheikh Rih, al-Bel, Baraghitah and Tawaqli near the strategic town of Azaz in the province of Aleppo. Now, they are aiming to re-take Sawran. If this is done, the nearby town of Dabiq will likely become the next target of Erdogan’s Operation Euphrates Shield.

The joint forces of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra), Failaq al-Sham, Jabhat Ansar al-Din and a number of less-known militant groups announced on Monday a fresh military operation, called ‘Ashoura Battle’, in northern Latakia. The operation is set to be focused on the Syrian army’s positions in the Kurdish Mountains. Pro-militants sources have already claimed that the so-called “moderate opposition” captured some “strategic points”. Nonetheless, these reports still have to be confirmed. The operation is most likely aimed to draw the Syrian military attention from the city of Aleppo and northern Hama where the militants’ defenses are collapsing under the pressure of the pro-government forces.

Russia is planning to expand its logistic facitiliy in Tartus into a fully-fledged permanent naval base. By now, the facility in Tartus has been used to resupply Russian warships during missions in the Mediterranean and to deliver supplies to the Syrian government forces.

“We have prepared the paperwork, which is now being reviewed by other government agencies. The documents are pretty much ready, so we hope to submit them to you for ratification soon,” Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister, General Nikolay Pankov, told the Russian Senate on October 10.

Last week the Russians confirmed delivery of the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system to Tartus to protect the facility and the naval grouping from potential airstrikes and missile attacks.

Meanwhile, reports have appeared that Russia is in talks with Egypt to lease military facilities, including an air base in the town of Sidi Barrani near the Mediterranean. If the agreement is made, the military base will be ready for use by 2019, according to the reports.

Now, there are no doubts that Washington’s actions to counter the Russian efforts in Syria have only pushed Moscow to expand its military presence in the Middle Eastern region.

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This article was first published by WhoWhatWhy

This presidential campaign has endured debates on a number of mundane issues, including the size of a candidate’s hands, who is more dishonest, and which candidate has the better temperament. One thing nobody is talking about is the staggering outcome of the war in Afghanistan — and that’s probably just the way those profiting from this trillion-dollar fiasco like it.

This month marks the 15th anniversary of the US-led intervention in Afghanistan, making it the nation’s longest war. It now appears, based on evidence gathered by a federal inspector general, that the whole undertaking was, and remains, an incredibly expensive disaster that has actually made Afghanistan more corrupt than it was before the US invasion back in 2001.

In one of his most stunning disclosures yet, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) revealed that, while the US Forces-Afghanistan reported that there were 319,000 Afghan soldiers, the actual number may only be 120,000. “Persistent reports” of discrepancies in Afghan troop strength “raise questions” over whether or not US taxpayers are actually paying for “ghost soldiers,” SIGAR John Sopko said in a letter to the Pentagon.

Bill Goodfellow, the executive director of the Center for International Policy, a nonprofit that promotes US foreign policy accountability and transparency, observes that despite reports like this, as well as the huge price tag and human cost, there’s been no discussion of Afghanistan in the presidential race.

“It doesn’t affect most people because the military is being staffed by economic conscription and the children of think tank analysts and journalists are not being drafted,” Goodfellow told WhoWhatWhy in a phone interview.

In his visits to Afghanistan, Goodfellow says, he has seen little evidence of the $115 billion that’s been appropriated by the US to rebuild that country. “When you go to Kabul you ask where is it? It’s in Dubai and in the pockets of US contractors,” he charged. “We’ve spent $800 billion on the war in Afghanistan and the 8,400 troops we have there now will cost $20 billion per year.”

Goodfellow sees little chances for a peace deal inside Afghanistan. He believes that as long as the US cash faucet remains open, there is just too much money to be made by all of the key players to do anything but prolong the war. “It provides powerful incentive for the elites,” said Goodfellow. “How do you make peace as lucrative as war?”

Developments in Iraq and Afghanistan show that, despite the loss of thousands of American lives,  hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, and the expenditure of trillions of dollars, neither nation had the capability to defend itself once the US left.

This month is also the one-year anniversary of President Barack Obama’s decision to reverse course, ending his planned withdrawal of American troops. This decision may force his successor to continue US involvement in Afghanistan long after Obama leaves the White House.

The White House’s latest about-face came after the Taliban seized the northern city of Kunduz and held it for two weeks, and after the United Nations reported that the Taliban were as prevalent throughout the country as they had been at any time since 2001.

It was only two years ago that President Obama declared that the combat mission in Afghanistan was ending and that the country’s longest war was “coming to a responsible conclusion.”

There was a similar proclamation after the high-profile American withdrawal from Iraq in 2011.

Washington’s renewed troop commitment in Afghanistan comes at the same time the US is, once again, ramping up its presence in Iraq, helping that country take back territory lost to ISIS.

According to the office of the United Nations Secretary General, the first six months of 2016 saw a 4% increase in civilian casualties in Afghanistan compared to the same period in 2015.

As the violence has escalated, the Afghan Investment Support Agency reports a 30% decline in net investments being made in the beleaguered nation from last year. The Asian Development Bank blames “deteriorating security and law and order concerns” for the retrenchment.

So how did this come to pass in Afghanistan?

Americans are fortunate to have a team of 195 civil servants led by Sopko that has been tracking in great detail America’s pricey reconstruction effort there. While SIGAR’s work has been virtually ignored by most news outlets, WhoWhatWhy has covered it extensively. You can find our stories here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Over the arc of his 30-year career, Sopko has worked as a prosecutor and a legislative counsel for Congressional oversight committees, as well as senior federal government advisor. He was an attorney with the Department of Justice’s Organized Crime Task Force.

Since July of 2012 he has served as Special Inspector General for Afghanistan’s Reconstruction. The voluminous quarterly reports that Sopko has filed with Congress provide blow by-blow-details on a reconstruction effort gone badly awry.

So far, SIGAR’s work has resulted in over one hundred convictions of a diverse roster of government contractors, active-duty and retired US military personnel, 91 of whom have already been sentenced.

SIGAR has recovered more than $951 million in criminal fines, restitutions, forfeitures, civil-settlement recoveries, and US government cost savings. Over 400 individuals and 355 companies were referred by SIGAR for suspension or debarment from government contracting.

“We have spent more in Afghanistan than we did on the entire Marshall Plan to rebuild postwar Europe,” Sopko told WhoWhatWhy (you can find the complete interview at the bottom of this article). “The American taxpayer has had to foot that $114 billion bill, so they deserve to know not only the cost but also what it has gotten them.”

Sopko recently released his agency’s first ‘lessons learned’ report entitled “Corruption in Conflict: Lessons from the US Experience in Afghanistan.” It evaluates how the US government viewed the risks of corruption going in, how the US responded to the corruption it encountered, and just how ineffective those responses were.

The SIGAR analysis describes how the pursuit of strategic and military goals all too often trumped concerns about fighting the corruption that US personnel found rampant throughout Afghan society.

According to the report, the United States facilitated “the growth of corruption by injecting tens of billions of dollars into the Afghan economy, using flawed oversight and contracting practices,” while collaborating “with malign power brokers” all in hopes of realizing short-term military goals.

As a consequence, the United States “helped to lay a foundation for continued impunity” for bad actors that ultimately undermined the “rule of law” and actually promoted the kind of corruption that had historically driven the local population away from the central government and “to the Taliban as a way of expressing opposition” to a government they believed to be illegitimate.

The SIGAR report quotes former US Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker making the disconcerting observation that “the ultimate failure for our efforts wasn’t an insurgency. It was more the weight of endemic corruption.”

SIGAR’s investigations documented “poor US oversight, procurement, and contracting practices that were enabling corrupt behavior.” As a result, lacking “sufficient controls on US funds, millions of dollars in US reconstruction funds for Afghanistan were being wasted.”

“The Afghan government was so deeply enmeshed in corrupt and criminal networks that dismantling them would mean dismantling major pillars of support for the government itself,” according to SIGAR’s report. “One part of US policy corrupted Afghan officials while other parts tried to investigate and root out corruption.”

Benchmark studies reviewed by SIGAR’s researchers suggested that a donor nation’s capacity to absorb aid ranges from 15 to 45% percent of the recipient’s GDP. In the case of Afghanistan, too much money was a key problem. SIGAR reported that “US reconstruction assistance to Afghanistan surpassed 45% percent of Afghanistan’s GDP, reaching a high of 105% percent in 2010.”

As the money continued to pour in, SIGAR found “corruption grew so pervasive and entrenched that it came to pose a threat to the entire security and state-building mission.”

SIGAR’s reviews identified “abusive and corrupt warlords” who parlayed their status and acceptance by the US to gain “positions of authority in the Afghan government, which further enabled them to dip their hands into the streams of cash” flooding “into a small and fragile economy.”

SIGAR warned that corruption was “a corrosive acid — partly of our making” which was eating away at the base of “every pillar of Afghan reconstruction, including security and political stability.”

SIGAR concluded: “Failure to effectively address corruption in future contingency operations means US reconstruction programs may, at best, continue to be subverted by systemic corruption, and, at worst, may fail.”

Colonel Andrew Bacevich, a historian and author of several books, including “The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism,” is a West Point graduate who served in the Vietnam War and remained on active duty through the early 1990s. He asserts the US is in deep denial about its failures in prosecuting the war on terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We have not won this war,” Bacevich told a Boston University audience in 2014. “We are not winning this war and simply pressing on is unlikely to produce more positive results this year or the year after.”

“To insist on accountability is to go out on a limb,” said Bacevich, whose son, an Army first lieutenant,  was killed in Iraq in 2007. “You would open yourself up to the charge of not supporting the troops, or of being an isolationist, or of not believing in American global leadership and worst of all, of not believing in American exceptionalism’s unique calling to save the world.”

“The absence of attention to SIGAR’s work is quite telling, in my view,” Bacevich wrote WhoWhatWhy in an email. “Rarely has so much money been squandered to such little effect with so few people taking notice.”

Below, is our complete interview with SIGAR John Sopko:

WWW:What’s the hardest part of your job?

SOPKO: “Maintaining aggressive oversight in an unstable atmosphere comes with a lot of roadblocks. Security concerns, missing documents, and access to decision-makers and implementers involved in decades-old projects can make our job difficult.”

WWW: Do you think that the average American is aware of the scale of the investment their government is making in Afghanistan?

SOPKO: No I don’t, and that is why I take my job so seriously. We have spent more in Afghanistan than we did on the entire Marshall Plan to rebuild postwar Europe. The American taxpayer has had to foot that $114 billion bill, so they deserve to know not only the cost but also what it has gotten them. SIGAR prioritizes transparency and accessibility in our work for that reason.

WWW: What’s the connection between rooting out corruption and the success of the American efforts in Afghanistan?

SOPKO: “A report we recently released found that systemic corruption has corroded US efforts in Afghanistan across nearly every sector. It has undermined support for the Afghan government and funneled money to the insurgency, threatening the stability of the state. US investments depend on Afghanistan remaining secure, stable, and democratically-governed, so our ability to recognize and address the threat of corruption is critical.”

WWW: Is it fair to say that SIGAR’s reports have been prescient in that they identified problem areas that became vulnerabilities that are exploited by the Taliban?

SOPKO: “I hope so, it is certainly our goal. In a war zone like Afghanistan, faulty and fraudulent work can kill people. We take that risk very seriously and it is why we have teams set up to identify and alert Afghan and US officials to immediate threats.”

The Ford Foundation, one of the most powerful private foundations in the world, with close ties to Wall Street and the US government, recently announced that it is overseeing the funneling of $100 million over six years to several organizations that play leading roles in the Black Lives Matter movement.

“We’re eager to deepen and expand this community of social justice funders,” the foundation’s announcement reads. “We want to nurture bold experiments and help the movement build the solid infrastructure that will enable it to flourish.”

Fortune Magazine wrote that the foundation’s announcement “would make anyone sit up straighter if they read it in a pitch deck [a presentation for startups seeking investor capital].” The contribution of such an immense sum of money is a gift from the ruling class that will allow Black Lives Matter to construct a bureaucracy of salaried staff and lobbyist positions. The influx of money will bring the movement greater influence through campaign contributions and integrate it even more closely with the Democratic Party and the corporate media.

The Ford Foundation will also provide various forms of consultancy and advisory assistance to a consortium of 14 groups associated with Black Lives Matter. Both the financing and the auxiliary services are to be organized through a fund called the Black-Led Movement Fund (BLMF), which is being overseen by a firm called Borealis Philanthropy.

The Ford Foundation receives the bulk of its endowment from corporate contributors and very wealthy donors through trusts and bequeathments. Established in 1936 by Ford Motor Company founder Henry Ford and his son, Edsel, it today boasts the third largest endowment of any foundation, valued at roughly $12.4 billion.

The Ford Foundation has for years maintained close ties to US military and intelligence agencies. A British historian of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Frances Stonor Saunders, described the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations in her book The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters as “conscious instruments of covert US policy, with directors and officers who were closely connected to, or even members of American intelligence.”

Today, the foundation is not formally connected to Ford Motor Company, but its board of directors is a “who’s who” of powerful corporate players, including CEOs and Wall Street lawyers. The chairperson of the board of directors is Irene Inouye, widow of deceased Democratic Senator Daniel Inouye.

The $100 million gift is an acknowledgment by a powerful section of the ruling class that the aims of the Black Lives Matter movement are aligned with those of Wall Street and the US government.

In an interview with Bloomberg News in 2015, the Ford Foundation’s current president, Darren Walker, an ex-banker at UBS, spelled out the pro-capitalist perspective underlying the foundation’s decision to bankroll Black Lives Matter:

“Inequality in many ways undermines our vision for a more just and fair world,” he said. “Indeed, the American people, and it’s not just the Trump supporters, are feeling increasingly vulnerable, increasingly insecure, and what that does is it drives wedges in our society, in our democracy. Inequality is bad for our democracy. It kills aspirations and dreams and makes us more cynical as a people… What kind of Capitalism do we want to have in America?”

The foundation’s support for Black Lives Matter is an investment in the defense of the profit system. Black Lives Matter portrays the world as divided along racial lines, proclaiming on its web site that it “sees itself as part of a global black family.”

It claims that black people are “extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, and especially ‘our’ children…” It explicitly rejects the notion that any other section of society has the right to raise grievances of its own. Its group history page notes: “Not just all lives. Black lives. Please do not change the conversation by talking about how your life matters, too.”

The petty-bourgeois leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement are now poised to exercise a significant degree of political influence directed at securing privileges within the political elite. A quick look at the founders of Black Lives Matter gives a sense of the opportunist and self-promotional character of the group as a whole. The official Black Lives Matter organization was founded by three people: Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi. The three met as members of BOLD (Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity). BOLD is one of the 14 organizations now being funded by the Black-Led Movement Fund.

One of these founders, Garza, runs an organization called the National Domestic Workers Alliance, on whose board sits Alta Starr. Starr oversees a fund at the Ford Foundation. She is also on the board of a foundation backed by billionaire George Soros, the Open Society Foundation’s Southern Initiative.

Patrisse Cullers is the director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. This organization was founded by Van Jones, a Democrat who worked under Obama as a special advisor on “green jobs, enterprise and innovation.” He is also a long time contributor to CNN. This organization also receives funds from the Open Society Foundation.

A leaked document from an October 2015 board meeting of the Soros-funded US Programs/Open Society revealed that the organization provided $650,000 “to invest in technical assistance and support for the groups at the core of the burgeoning #BlackLivesMatter movement.” The document notes that the board planned to discuss the difficulty of dealing with a de-centralized movement: “What happens when you want to throw a lot of money at a moment[sic], but there isn’t any place for it to go?” It was also raised that the Soros name could discredit Black Lives Matter if the public became aware of his financial support.

Many of the organizations on the list of Ford recipients are also members of the newly-formed “Movement for Black Lives,” which has published a policy agenda document centered on demands for greater government financing of black-owned businesses and institutions.

In an earlier period, nationalist movements such as the Black Panthers, however politically disoriented, had a genuine element of social struggle and conflict with the state. While their political program was of a petty-bourgeois character, they had a significant base of support among the oppressed. This was the period of the mass civil rights movement against Jim Crow segregation in the South and the urban rebellions in the North.

In response to the upheavals of the late 1960s, a section of the ruling class sought to cultivate a base of support among the more privileged sections of minorities that would be loyal to the status quo. As a result of policies such as affirmative action, social inequality among African-Americans has soared, with a small elite holding positions of power in corporate America and the state. This found its apotheosis in the election of Barack Obama to preside as president over a historic transfer of wealth to the financial aristocracy following the Wall Street crash of 2008.

These social transformations are reflected in the political outlook of the Black Lives Matter movement, which is devoid of any genuine element of social protest or democratic struggle. The agenda of these organizations, as underscored by the support of groups like the Ford Foundation, has nothing to do with the real social and economic grievances of millions of workers and young people of any race or ethnicity. They speak for highly privileged sections of the middle class who are fighting over the distribution of wealth within the top 10 percent of the population.

In the face of rising popular opposition to war, police violence and social inequality, the decision to advance the racialist program of Black Lives Matter is aimed at dividing the working class and preventing the emergence of an independent and unified working class movement against the capitalist system.

 A recent press conference given by US Army General Mark Milley, the present serving army chief of staff reminded me of the fictional character played by Burt Lancaster in the 1964 movie ‘Seven Days in May’. That film posited the scenario of James Scott (the Lancaster character) as a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who, disgruntled about the serving president’s perceived weakness in seeking a treaty with the Soviet Union, plots to overthrow the civilian government.

‘Seven Days in May’ was based on a book that drew its inspiration from real life American political and military figures in the early 1960s during the Cold War. At that time Right-wing, verging on fascist-leaning generals such as Army General Lyman Lemnitzer the supremo at the Pentagon and Air Force Generals Curtis LeMay and Tommy Powers dominated the Pentagon. A Major General named Edwin Walker actually tried to indoctrinate troops under his command with the teachings of the Right-wing John Birch Society.

It was in the prevailing atmosphere of fervent anti-communism at the time that these generals sought to undermine and even plot to overthrow the government of President John F. Kennedy. This view was not limited to a few senators and journalists of the time. The Kremlin apparently believed this to the extent that it is claimed to have influenced Nikita Khruschev’s decision to reach the settlement that he did with Kennedy over the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Soviets feared a US military government would make the issue of a nuclear war not merely a possibility, but one of absolute certainty.

Lemnitzer is said to have believed in the theory espoused by military strategist Herman Kahn that the United States could win a nuclear war by a first strike attack.

LeMay, who in 1949 drew up plans to destroy 77 Russian cities in a single day of bombing, was on record as inviting a war with the Soviet Union and admitted that Tommy Powers, to whom he had variously referred to as “not stable” and a “sadist”,  was even more hardline than he was.

All three felt that Kennedy was weak in failing to invade Cuba and giving the Soviets the secret undertaking not to invade the island in return for the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba.

Arthur Schlesinger Jr., one of JFK’s team would later admit that “we did not control the Joint Chiefs of Staff”.

That appears to be the situation today.

There is evidence that President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are being undermined by not only by figures in the present Pentagon such as General Milley and General Joseph Durnford, the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but also by the Secretary of Defence, Ash Carter.

For much of the available evidence points to the recent bombing by United States and NATO forces of Syrian Army placements in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour which killed over 60 and wounded over 100 Syrian soldiers as being far from the officially announced accident, and instead was a deliberate action designed to destroy the Kerry-Lavrov ceasefire and also to enable Jihadist forces to mount an offence against the Syrian Arab Army.

It is a longstanding policy of the United States to use Jihadist groups as proxies against their enemies. This was successfully achieved in securing the withdrawal of Soviet armies from Afghanistan as well as in overthrowing the regime of Colonel Gaddafi in Libya. The government of the United States has been applying the template of this policy in Syria despite its official anti-Jihadist stance and anti-ISIS propaganda. The Russian intervention has shown this to be disingenuous. This is why Russia is an enemy and the United States does not want Aleppo to fall to the Syrian Arab Army.

The US generals are hardly likely to be ignorant of this cynical geo-strategic policy of US covert support for ISIS, Jabhat al Nusra and virtually all the Sunni rebel militias. The ridiculous notion of the existence of ‘moderate’ rebels; one which has been roundly discredited at various intervals since the beginning of the Syrian conflict, was resuscitated recently and formed the basis of US arguments against Russia targeting all rebel positions in the vicinity of Aleppo.

Russian air power has been instrumental in enabling the Syrian Arab Army to reclaim Syrian territory lost to Jihadi groups such as Islamic State and al Nusra. Therefore calls by administration figures such as Carter and politicians such as Senator John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Tim Kaine and Donald Trump’s running mate Mike Pence, for a ‘No Fly Zone’ are an invitation to war with Russia. This was confirmed by General Durnford’s unambiguous statement before a Senate Committee that such a declaration “will mean war with Russia.” It would also serve the interests of Jihadist groups.

But a crucial point which has not received much focus in the American mainstream press is the import to be taken from words uttered America’s most senior general at the aforementioned Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on US strategy in the Middle East which took place on the 22nd of September.

A report by Reuters of the congressional hearing noted that Durnford had stated that it would “be unwise” to share intelligence with Russia, and further, that Durnford had stressed that it would not be one of the military’s missions if Washington and Moscow were to ever work together against Islamist militants in Syria. When asked if he would support the proposal on intelligence sharing with Russia agreed upon by John Kerry and Sergey Lavrov on the 9th of September, Dunford responded “We don’t have any intention of having any intelligence sharing arrangement with the Russians.”

Both Durnford and Carter openly contradicted the official policy at the hearing and General Milley’s recent sabre rattling press briefing which included a not so veiled threat to Russia when he promised to “destroy any enemy, anywhere and anytime”, provides ample illumination on the attitude of US military leaders towards the notion of cooperating with the Russians in Syria or elsewhere. It certainly opens serious questions about the purportedly accidental attack on the Syrian Army which is said to have lasted for over an hour.

If army generals like Durnford and Milley are disobeying orders and policy instructions from the White House, both should be dealt with under the provisions contained within the United States Uniform Code of Justice as pertain to the usurping or overriding of military authority. A strict application of military custom should have had both reprimanded and instructed to disavow their words failing which they should be demoted, court martialed and dismissed from the service. In fact, mutiny is technically punishable by death; presumably in this case execution by firing squad.

Barack Obama did in the past remove generals who disagreed with him, a notable example being that of General Stanley McChrystal. His inaction on this matter may be due to the lame duck status all presidents acquire in the last months of their presidency. While Obama’s policy remains the American position on using Islamist militias to overthrow Arab regimes which do not act in accord with the wishes of the United States and Israel, it is difficult to believe that he would want to go down in history as the president who started World War Three.

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England.

Over the Weekend of 14 – 16 October, South Africans will be joining their voices in a call against Agro chemical Giant Monsanto and others like them, in support of the international Tribunal in the Hague.

With organic markets, seed swaps, garden project initiatives, celebrating organic farmers, talks by doctors in the field, environmental lawyers, practicing permaculture implementers, environmental activists, parents, teachers, farmers, farm workers who have either been drastically effected, seen the effects of or who are working on the solutions to the problems which these agro chemical companies have caused in our country.

The following areas will be holding peoples assemblies as one voice for South Africans who are in want and need of drastic change in our environment, health and food system

Public trial of Monsanto for ecocide and violation of farmers rights at the Monsanto Tribunal and the People’s Assembly in the Hague

Navdanya, the organization founded and led by Vandana Shiva, is co organizing, along with multiple civil society organizations, the Monsanto Tribunal and People’s Assembly to take place at The Hague from 14 to 16 October 2016. The Monsanto Tribunal will hold Monsanto accountable for their crimes against humanity, human rights violations and ecocide, in tandem with the People’s Assembly, a gathering of leading movements and activists working to defend our ecosystem and food sovereignty, to lay out the effects of industrial agrochemicals on our lives, our soils, our atmosphere and climate. Over 800 organizations from around the world are supporting and participating in this process while over 100 people’s assemblies and tribunals are being held across the world.

In the last century, giant agribusiness interests which came out of the war industry, have poisoned life and our ecosystem, are destroying our biodiversity and the lives of small farmers, appropriating their land, in an attempt to control and profit from these essentials for life on earth. The risks keep increasing as these multinationals diminish in number as a result of aggressive takeovers and mega-mergers – such is the case with the recent 66 billion Bayer-Monsanto merger. A merger which serves to further extend the control of these multinationals over agricultural and food production systems. There is only one way to translate this process: maximum focus on potential profit, and a minimal concern towards the environment, to the quality of our food, to consumers and to workers in the sector.

Large multinationals are lobbying democratically elected governments to take on neoliberal policies and international‘free’ trade agreements such a TTIP and TPP: the race towards deregulation is an unprecedented attack on biodiversity and to life itself on Earth. Multinationals like Monsanto have already expanded their control over our seeds, our food and our freedom, depriving us of our basic human rights and our right to democracy. With patents and international property rights (IPRs) as their tools, they have established monopolies and threatened the rights of farmers and consumers.

Participating at the People’s Assembly will be leading representatives of movements and associations, seed custodians, farmers and journalists from all over the world. The aim of the Assembly is to shine the light on crimes against nature and humanity of mega chemical and biotechnological industrial corporations which through patents on seed have opened the doors to the invasion of GMOs. Based on the ecocide and genocide of the past century, the Assembly will lay out the necessary actions for a future based on the rights of small farmers to save and exchange seed, on food sovereignty, on agroecology, the rights of consumers and workers in the sector, on the commons and a sharing economy, as well as on the rights of nature and a true Earth Democracy.” Seed Freedom

Johannesburg – http://tinyurl.com/zqswg7c
Port Elizabeth –http://tinyurl.com/hthjcpk
Durban – http://tinyurl.com/hq2hd9n
Mitchells Plain – http://tinyurl.com/jpv9vyn
Butterworth – http://tinyurl.com/jmsonov
Cofimvaba – http://tinyurl.com/jtarlp8

Resources for journalists

www.peoplesassembly.net
www.monsanto-tribunal.org
www.seedfreedom.info

http://acbio.org.za/

http://www.biowatch.org.za/

For the first time in history, ECOCIDE has been brought to light as a crime.  It is a significant mark in history and the more awareness that can be created regarding, the more hope we have for the future of our earth and people.

In every period of history, there have been secondary governmental structures parallel to primary governments. These alternative power groups, which are also called “deep states” in our time, sometimes act alongside the government, supporting it but sometimes they raise difficulties for the government. In Ancient Rome, the Senate was comprised of nobles and balanced the imperial reign of the Emperors. In the United Kingdom, the Privy Council, which acts above the monarch, has been the highest level of administration since the 12th century.

There are examples of such structures in holy books as well; Pharaoh’s close circle by whom he was advised about his decisions and the Queen of Sheba’s administrators that she consulted about military matters, are examples of this. Throughout history many secret or open societies possessed these traits. There was a period when the Knights Templars or the Rosicrucians, who had the power of sanction over kings or even the Vatican, were influential. With the coming of the 18th century, these parallel governments started to wield constitutional authorities.

Starting with the second half of the 20th century, supranational organizations emerged. For example, countries shared their administrative power with multinational organizations such as the United Nations, NATO, the Warsaw Treaty Organization or an era later, the European Union. The decisions made in Moscow, Brussels, or New York were imposed upon the most of the world.

Following the Cold War, a new model was developed where think tanks came into prominence. It appears that the 21st century will be a period where governments will be directed by think tanks and non-governmental organizations, which are their field branches.

In fact, the CIA is now known to be almost controlled by Stratfor and the Rand Corporation. The UK’s Chatham House or its little American brother, the Council on Foreign Relations, have become the places where the foreign policies of nations are determined. Economic policies are shaped by rating corporations like Moody’s or Standard & Poor’s.

These so-called independent and non-profit organizations are self-authorized. They attained power without any accountability. The Heritage Foundation, which is considered as one of the ten most effective think tanks of the world, develops policies for the Republican governments of the USA. With its Washington, Brussels, Moscow, Beirut, Beijing and New Delhi offices, the Carnegie Endowment is in a position as a worldwide center of influence. Generating ideas was not the only thing think tanks were doing.  Along with the Open Society Foundation in particular, many think tanks have expanded their operations to the field through non-governmental organizations. They exerted actual pressure on governments.  The first activity of OTPOR, the field group supported by foundations as well as the  CIA, was to overthrow Milosevic’s government in Serbia. After that, countries like Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Moldova experienced so-called public movements named “color revolutions”. The Arab Spring which started in Tunisia and spread quickly had a similar foundation.

Through these rebellions, the ideas generated by various think tanks were put into practice in the field. Think tanks also became supranational powers in terms of military capacity. For example, the Atlantic Council became the headquarters where the military strategies of NATO, the organization that has 28 member nations, is determined. NATO, which was initially a defensive pact, is now proceeding to become an offensive power under the Atlantic Council’s guidance. Recently, under the pretense of defense against Russia, NATO has started to deploy offensive forces in the Black Sea and Ukraine regions. In this new military framework, NATO has established new bases in Eastern Europe and redeployed thousands of soldiers. Ariel Cohen from the Atlantic Council, the architect of this new strategy, explained the necessity of NATO’s endeavors to assume control in the Black Sea with the following words:

“The Alliance must focus on a range of actions to address Russia’s rapidly escalating offensive posture in the Black Sea and protect its allies —including reinforcing air, naval, and ground assets; improving space capabilities; cyber security; reconnaissance; intelligence; and creating credible deterrence strategies.”

This aggressive attitude seems like it aims to transform the Black Sea region into a new area of conflict. This kind of mobilization policy will force Russia to take urgent measures, which in turn will turn the Black Sea into a region of tension, or maybe even into a region of hot conflict. In order to understand the influence of the Atlantic Council over the USA’s and NATO’s military policies, it will be enough to look at the key assignments President Obama made after he became the president in 2009. The Chairman of the Council, James Jones, became the National Security Advisor to President Obama. Council member Susan Rice became the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and Richard Holbrooke became the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Council member Anne-Marie Slaughter was appointed as the Director of Policy Planning for the US State Department. Chuck Hagel, who replaced Jones as the Council’s chairman, became the Secretary of Defense after four years.

After the Council’s policies replaced the policies of the US government institutions, civil wars broke out in Syria, Yemen and Ukraine. The intensity of the wars in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan escalated and ultimately, ISIS emerged. A coup attempt was carried out in Turkey. The list can go on for pages.

Today in Washington, D.C., a part of Massachusetts Avenue is called “Think Tank Row”. An unsupervised group of people, who act with ambiguous capacities and is subject to no accountability, has now become the center of world politics. Since these individuals operate with a ‘clash of civilizations’ mindset, they think that solutions can only be achieved through conflict, fragmentation, and causing general disturbance.

A large part of the problem is this flawed mentality. Such global governance can be restructured in a perfect way for the sake of cementing world peace, love and friendship. However, the fact that the aforementioned organizations’ mentality is focused on conflict and war documents that they do not consider it possible yet. Nonetheless, assuming that the power of the deep powers is self-contained can be deceptive; these organizations became successful and took control of many nations only because they look “invincible”.

However, in truth, those who shape their goals upon love and peace are always more powerful. Their ideals are bigger and their goals are righteous. Righteous goals will ultimately prevail. The important thing is that people of peace should unite and act in an alliance. Then those who believe that solutions can only be achieved through conflict will witness the absolute power of peace, change their perspective, and work towards making the world a better place.

As the Syrian army advances in the east of Aleppo with support from Russia, and with the conflict between the US and Russia intensifying dramatically, the German government has hardened its attitude towards Moscow. On Friday, leading German politicians called for fresh sanctions against Russia, the massive arming of the Islamist opposition and even the use of German ground troops.

On the same day, leading German business daily Handelsblatt, reported that Angela Merkel advocated “the withdrawal of Russian troops” from Syria in a speech in Magdeburg. Directly addressing the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, the chancellor declared, “I can again only appeal to Russia, Russia has a lot of influence on Assad: We must end this horrible crime as soon as possible.”

Given the “truly appalling situation” in Aleppo, the German government considers new sanctions against Russia a possible reaction. The German government was “considering all the options,” government spokesman Steffen Seibert said in Berlin.

Beforehand, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Bundestag (parliament), Norbert Röttgen (CDU, Christian Democratic Union), had called for tougher sanctions against Moscow. He told the Süddeutsche Zeitung, “A war crime that had no consequences or sanctions would be a scandal.” At the same time, he also complained that European governments had only done what absolutely needed to be done under their “obligations”.

Speaking on ARD television, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, Elmar Brok (CDU) also called for sanctions, to “put pressure on” Russia and “punish” her. In particular, he called for technological sanctions that inhibited the development of weapons—“as we have done during in the Cold War”.

Brok provided an insight into the far-reaching, aggressive plans that are being discussed in government and military circles behind the backs of the population. “The only option to do something would be to go in,” said Brok. “But who in Germany would be willing to send the army in there?” One must ask, “Are we ready to do something ourselves and go in with the army?”

He added: “Perhaps the only way—if that is possible technically, from the logistics—is to provide some of the rebels […] with ground-to-air missiles”. It had been shown that Russia herself was not prepared to engage in “selective cooperation”. For Russia, it was “just a matter of power, of ruling this country”.

The Social Democratic Party (SPD) is supporting the aggressive war policies of the Christian Democrats. For example, in the Rheinische Post, SPD foreign policy expert Niels Annen said, “Instead of dispatching warships to the region and terminating agreements, for example concerning the destruction of plutonium, Russia should finally assume its responsibilities as a permanent member of the Security Council and respect international humanitarian law”.

In September, Social Democratic Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier had already demanded a no-fly zone to advance the West’s objective of regime change in Syria. Such an action would be the exact opposite of promoting “international humanitarian law”. In March 2011, the establishment of a no-fly zone in Libya was the prelude to a massive NATO bombing campaign against the oil-rich country and the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime by Western-backed Islamist rebels.

Unlike the Libyan war, Germany has been in the vanguard of the imperialist powers against Syria from the beginning. In 2012, the German foreign ministry in cooperation with the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) and parts of the Syrian opposition, brought to life the so-called “The Day After” project to outline its “vision for a post-Assad regime” in Syria. Since the end of 2015, Germany’s Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) have been a direct party to the war in Syria, operating with tornado jets, reconnaissance technology and a warship.

To the extent that the Russian intervention in Syria is thwarting the plans of the German government and has brought the Western-backed Islamist militias to the brink of defeat, the German media has beaten the drum for war and militarism ever more hysterically.

A commentary in the current issue of news weekly Die Zeit, headlined “Can Europe really just look on in Syria”, warns that currently “some 10,000 pro-Assad fighters” are preparing “to storm East Aleppo”. Should the city fall into the hands of the Syrian regime in the next weeks, “this would be a strategic success for Bashar al-Assad”.

The counter-strategy advocated by Die Zeit: “The delivery of weapons with which the insurgents can prevail against the permanent air onslaught”, as a “first military step”. The author of the article, Andrea Böhm, who in an earlier comment had defended Al Qaeda, openly says who should be supported. “The pro- Al-Qaeda Jabhat Fateh al-sham” is “as strong as ever” and has “established itself as the most effective faction defending civilians against IS and against Assad”.

In an editorial in the Süddeutsche Zeitung on Wednesday, Tomas Avenarius mused: “Finally delivering to the rebels the weapons they had long called for after years of reluctance: anti-aircraft missiles, which can bring down Russian jets from the sky. In the Afghanistan war 30 years ago, such US missiles had helped the jihadists inflict a defeat on the Red Army”.

If German politicians and media representatives are now beating the drum for sanctions against Russia, for the massive rearmament of Al Qaeda and the deployment of ground troops to Syria, they do so not as followers of the US government, which is also constantly fuelling the conflict, but as representatives of European and, above all, German imperialism.

“The second step must take place in Brussels and especially in Berlin”, Böhm emphasized in Die Zeit. The war in Syria must “be understood as a matter of supreme national security”. Avenarius is incensed that the US was not able to guarantee “a Russian defeat in Syria”. “Thanks to earlier hesitancy”, the US “no longer” had the power “to prevent” the cementing of Russian power aspirations.

To defend Germany’s geo-strategic and economic interests against Russia, but also increasingly against the United States, the German elites are prepared to foment a conflict which they themselves know could trigger a third world war. The current edition of news magazine Der Spiegel appears with a front page headline reading, “World power struggle: trouble spot Syria—Putin’s work, Obama’s contribution”, and speaks of a “world war for Aleppo”.

Awkward facts that erode the ‘benign humanitarian’ self-image of the West are routinely side-lined or buried by the corporate media. Consider, for example, the severe impact of sanctions imposed on Syria by the United States and the European Union.

An internal United Nations assessment, revealed on September 28 by Rania Khalek in The Intercept, makes clear that the sanctions are punishing ordinary Syrians and preventing vital aid, including medical supplies, from reaching those in dire need.

Access has been denied for blood safety equipment, medicines, medical devices, food, fuel, water pumps and spare parts for power plants, amongst other items.

Khalek notes that the internal assessment, which was prepared for the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, describes:

‘the U.S. and EU measures as “some of the most complicated and far-reaching sanctions regimes ever imposed.” Detailing a complex system of “unpredictable and time-consuming” financial restrictions and licensing requirements, the report finds that U.S. sanctions are exceptionally harsh “regarding provision of humanitarian aid.”‘

US sanctions on Syrian banks have made the transfer of funds into Syria ‘nearly impossible’. This has had a two-fold effect:

1. Aid groups have been unable to pay local staff and suppliers which has delayed or prevented aid from reaching those in need.

2. An unofficial and unregulated financial network has proliferated, making it easier for ISIS and al Qaeda to divert funds undetected.

Khalek also reports that a leaked email from ‘a key UN official’ blamed US and EU sanctions for contributing to food shortages and weakened health care. In particular:

‘sanctions had contributed to a doubling in fuel prices in 18 months and a 40 percent drop in wheat production since 2010, causing the price of wheat flour to soar by 300 percent and rice by 650 percent.’

The UN official cited sanctions as a ‘principal factor’ in the erosion of Syria’s health care system. Khalek adds:

‘Medicine-producing factories that haven’t been completely destroyed by the fighting have been forced to close because of sanctions-related restrictions on raw materials and foreign currency’.

The US first imposed sanctions on Syria in 1979, after designating its government ‘a State Sponsor of Terrorism’. Over time, further sanctions were added with more extreme restrictions imposed in 2011 after it was claimed the Syrian government had initiated violence against peaceful protesters (a claim that has been contested). In 2013, sanctions were eased, but only in areas that opposed President Assad. As Khalek notes:

‘Around the same time, the CIA began directly shipping weapons to armed insurgents at a colossal cost of nearly $1 billion a year, effectively adding fuel to the conflict while U.S. sanctions obstructed emergency assistance to civilians caught in the crossfire.’

When Khalek challenged the US State Department about the devastating impact of sanctions on war-torn Syria, where 13 million people are dependent on humanitarian assessment, she was fed a statement ‘which recycled talking points that justified sanctions against Iraq in [the] 1990s’:

‘U.S. sanctions against [Syrian President Bashar al-Assad], his backers, and the regime deprive these actors of resources that could be used to further the bloody campaign Assad continues to wage against his own people’.

The same specious propaganda arguments were used by the West, notably the United States and Britain, to ‘justify’ barbaric sanctions against Iraq from 1990 to 2003, following the first Gulf War. Leading politicians and officials in the West claimed that the sanctions were aimed at punishing and containing Saddam. But the victims were the Iraqi people themselves. In 1999, the United Nations’ Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that the mortality rate for children under five in Iraq had doubled. In all, half a million young Iraqi children died as a result. Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, infamously declared that ‘the price is worth it’.

Given the terrible consequences in Iraq under the crippling UN embargo, the United States government is no doubt perfectly aware of the impact of sanctions on the Syrian people. Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, observes:

‘Sanctions have a terrible effect on the people more than the regime and Washington knows this from Iraq. But there’s pressure in Washington to do something and sanctions look like you’re doing something.’

Hans von Sponeck, who resigned from his post as the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Baghdad in 2000, accused Washington and London of ‘knowingly maintaining conditions of misery’ in Iraq under sanctions. (Hans von Sponeck, ‘A Different Kind of War: The UN Sanctions Regime in Iraq’, Berghahn, 2006, p. 27). We are not supposed to believe that ‘our’ governments would do such a heinous thing. And, indeed, von Sponeck’s book was essentially ignored by the western media. It has never been reviewed by any major UK newspaper, and has literally been mentioned only once (by Robert Fisk in the Independent).

As well as the current punitive sanctions on Syria, Khalek also notes that:

‘in cities controlled by ISIS, the U.S. has employed some of the same tactics it condemns. For example, U.S.-backed ground forces laid siege to Manbij, a city in northern Syria not far from Aleppo that is home to tens of thousands of civilians. U.S. airstrikes pounded the city over the summer, killing up to 125 civilians in a single attack. The U.S. also used airstrikes to drive ISIS out of Kobane, Ramadi, and Fallujah, leaving behind flattened neighborhoods. In Fallujah, residents resorted to eating soup made from grass and 140 people reportedly died from lack of food and medicine during the siege.’

An honest media would report all this with headline coverage and include much critical analysis in editorials and opinion pieces. They would also ask searching questions of the British Prime Minister and other leading politicians. Needless to say, this has not happened. Indeed, our searches have revealed just one newspaper article covering the report’s assessment that US and EU sanctions are contributing to the terrible suffering of the Syrian people. Patrick Cockburn reported in the Independent:

‘the US and EU sanctions are imposing an economic siege on Syria as a whole which may be killing more Syrians than die of illness and malnutrition in the sieges which EU and US leaders have described as war crimes. Over half the country’s public hospitals have been damaged or destroyed.’

We found nothing on the BBC News website.

Even when the Guardian trumpeted an ‘exclusive’ on September 30 (two days after Rania Khalek’s piece in The Intercept) that more than 80% of UN aid convoys in Syria had been blocked or delayed, there was nothing about the crippling effect on aid by US and EU sanctions. There was a single passing mention to these sanctions, but only in the context of heaping blame on the official enemy Assad:

‘the UN has awarded contracts worth tens of millions of dollars to individuals closely associated with Assad, including businesspeople whose companies are under US and EU sanctions.’

We asked Nick Hopkins, the author of the Guardian article, to explain why his ‘exclusive’ had ignored criticism of US and EU sanctions (here and here). He did not respond. Hopkins, a former BBC journalist, had also remained silent when we challenged him in 2011 about a propaganda piece on Iran. Likewise, he ignored us in 2013 when we challenged him to justify misinforming Guardian readers that merely ‘tens of thousands’ had died in Iraq following the 2003 invasion by US-led forces.

These are just a tiny sample of the myriad examples that reveal the Guardian‘s role as a liberal gatekeeper of acceptable views in the ‘mainstream’. Bear this in mind the next time you see an online Guardian advert pleading:

‘Producing in-depth, thoughtful, well-reported journalism is difficult and expensive – but supporting us isn’t. If you value the Guardian’s international coverage, please help to fund our journalism by becoming a supporter.’

Support journalism that regularly buries Western crimes? Smears Jeremy Corbyn and the public movement behind him? And promotes a ‘liberal’ view of climate-wrecking capitalism? No thanks.

“Just as this country’s obsession with professional hockey does not just happen, Canadians’ opinions about their country’s role internationally is not a historical accident or ‘natural’ occurrence. Rather, it reflects the work of numerous institutions designed to influence public opinion, which together represent a powerful propaganda system.” –Yves Engler, from the 2016 book A Propaganda System

“The question is whether privileged elites should dominate mass communication and should use this power as they tell us they must, namely to impose necessary illusions to manipulate and deceive the stupid majority and remove them from the public arena.” –Noam Chomsky [2]

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Major capitalist societies like the U.S. and Canada are political democracies couched in economic plutocracies. That is, the means of production and the levers of economic control over vast resources lie in the hands of a wealthy elite.

However, the common people have the freedom to organize in their own interests and elect one of their own to high office. There is no totalitarian ruler holding a bludgeon over the heads of the masses controlling what they do, and restricting what they say.

As prominent political dissident and linguistics professor Noam Chomsky has pointed out, however, under such conditions “when the State loses the bludgeon, when you can’t control people by force, and when the voice of the people can be heard…it may make people so curious and so arrogant that they don’t have the humility to submit to a ‘civil rule’ and therefore you have to control what people think.” [3] This is why a propaganda system of national myths and necessary illusions is a consistent and vital component of what is seen as modern democracy.

Chomsky, together with co-author Edward Herman wrote at length about this phenomenon in their 1988 book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. That analysis, however, mostly focused on the mass media communication system within the United States.

This week’s episode of the Global Research News Hour focuses on the system of thought control as it has manifested itself within Canada.

In the first half hour, we hear from John Ahniwanika Schertow, the editor and founder of Intercontinental Cry. Since 2004, IC has been highlighting stories of Indigenous struggle and resistance not just on Turtle Island (North America) but in South America, the African continent, Asia and points around the globe. As Schertow explains in this twenty minute interviewer with special guest host Kimlee Wong, Canadian media, including so-called alternative media, systematically ignore the realities confronting the world’s 5000 Indigenous Peoples. Such omissions have consequences not only for the lives, Indigenous cultures and languages, but also for the ecosystems they fight to protect for future generations.

Intercontinental Cry, like Global Research, depends on donations to carry on its important work. The media platform has just begun a fund-raiser. Please consider an on-line donation at this site:

https://www.patreon.com/indigenousjournalism

In the second half hour, we hear from Yves Engler, prominent Montreal-based writer and Canadian foreign policy critic. In previous books, such as The Black Book on Canadian Foreign Policy, and Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid, Engler confronted the mistaken impression a lot of Canadians have about their country as a positive influence on the world stage. His latest book A Propaganda System: How Canada’s government, corporations, media, and academia sell war and exploitation details exactly how numerous institutions within the nation have been so successful generating this mythology. Yves Engler elaborates on his analysis in the second half hour.

As of Tuesday October 11, Yves Engler is partaking in a cross- Canada book tour. Details available here. 

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The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca . The show can be heard on the Progressive Radio Network at prn.fm. Listen in every Monday at 3pm ET.

Community Radio Stations carrying the Global Research News Hour:

CHLY 101.7fm in Nanaimo, B.C – Thursdays at 1pm PT

Boston College Radio WZBC 90.3FM NEWTONS  during the Truth and Justice Radio Programming slot -Sundays at 7am ET.

Port Perry Radio in Port Perry, Ontario –1  Thursdays at 1pm ET

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

It is also available on 93.9 FM cable in the communities of SFU, Burnaby, New Westminister, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Surrey and Delta, in British Columbia Canada. – Tune in every Saturday at 6am.

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

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

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

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

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

Notes:

1. Yves Engler, 2016: “A Propaganda System: How Canada’s government, corporations, media, and academia sell war and exploitation”, p.186. Fernwood Publishing
2. Excerpt of a speech in the film Manufacturing Consent – Noam Chomsky and the Media (1992) by Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHa6NflkW3Y
3. ibid

The United Nations has never looked more impotent, irrelevant and politically motivated in its actions than it has regarding the ongoing conflict in Syria.

It has categorically failed to take an impartial stance on the conflict which has raged for over 5 years now. This includes a failure to properly identify the conflict as a foreign-funded and backed proxy war rather than a “civil war,” as well as identify and hold accountable those nations fueling anti-government hostilities within and beyond Syria’s borders.

By failing to do so, the UN has undermined its own credibility, credibility required to ensure the Syrian government and its allies adhere to international law and observe human rights as they execute security operations aimed at restoring order and stability across the country.

Quest for “Veto Limits” is Politically Motivated

The most recent and perhaps severe collapse of the UN’s credibility revolves around US-backed calls to “limit veto power” upon the UN Security Council, effectively allowing the council to green-light without opposition any war the US wills predicated on its well-practiced “humanitarian war” rhetoric.

The US State Department’s Voice of America would publish an article titled, “UN Official Calls for Security Council Veto Limit to Halt Syrian Bloodbath,” which claimed:

The United Nations’ top human rights official has called for limits on the use of the veto power by the U.N. Security Council’s five permanent members to halt the tragedy unfolding in east Aleppo in northern Syria. 

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein has called the situation nothing short of calamitous and likened the horrors being inflicted on the citizens of Aleppo to those that occurred in cities such as Warsaw, Stalingrad and Dresden in World War II.

It is no coincidence that Zeid hails from Jordan, one of several nations directly involved in harboring, training, arming and refitting militant groups along Syria’s borders, belying claims that the conflict is a “civil war” rather than a foreign sponsored proxy war.

VOA also claimed:

Russia, often backed by China, has used its veto power in the Security Council to block resolutions it deemed unfavorable to its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The high commissioner’s spokesman, Rupert Colville, said Zeid was calling for bold leadership to end this practice.

And indeed, Russia’s veto is all that prevented a recent French-sponsored resolution aimed at establishing a no-fly-zone and thus impunity for terrorists trapped in the city of Aleppo and surrounding it, prolonging the conflict and suffering of those trapped amid it, not ending it.

It was a US-European sponsored no-fly-zone implemented through the UN Security Council (that Russia failed to veto) that transformed Libya from a functioning nation-state into a divided and destroyed failed state.

The ability for Syria and its allies to continue security operations aimed at reclaiming eastern Aleppo from militant groups admittedly affiliated with terrorist organizations is essential in reestablishing peace and stability and normality for the civilian population of Aleppo, the majority of which already live in relative peace and stability in government-held western Aleppo.

Qatari state media, Al Jazeera, in an article titled, “Syria’s war: UN Security Council votes on Aleppo,” would claim:

Western governments and Russia have clashed at the UN Security Council even while the Syrian government presses ahead with its military offensive against rebel-held areas of Aleppo. 

The UN Security Council voted on Saturday on two rival resolutions on the fighting – one drafted by France calling for an end to air strikes and a second by Russia that urged a ceasefire but made no mention of halting the bombings.

In reality, US and European efforts to end the bombings is based on a necessity to preserve the fighting capacity of militant groups operating in Syrian territory, thus perpetuating the conflict, not ending it — at least not until US and European terms are met regarding regime change and the division and destruction of Syria as a functioning nation-state.

As in Libya, So to in Syria 

Observers should note that similar claims by the US and its allies were made regarding the conflict in Libya in which its UNSC proposals were meant to prevent a “humanitarian crisis” resulting instead in a devastating US-led war that ultimately created by far a vastly larger humanitarian catastrophe than it was allegedly aimed at preventing.

A US-led air campaign destroyed essential infrastructure across Libya, eliminated Libya’s security forces and helped propel extremist militant groups the US and its European and Arab allies armed and supported, into power across the remnants of the North African nation-state.

The collapse of Libya as a nation-state has led to racially motivated attacks and ethnic cleansing by US-European-Arab backed militants, transforming Libya into one of now several epicenters fueling Europe’s ongoing refugee crisis.

It is clear that the US knew its actions would lead to Libya’s collapse, the creation of chaos within Libya and the creation of a refugee crisis that would compromise regional security far beyond Libya’s borders. There is absolutely no reason to believe the US and its political allies vying to push forward yet another resolution within the UN Security Council, are unaware that Syria will suffer a similar, if not worse fate than Libya, should they succeed.

The UN, willfully serving as a medium through which the US openly pursues its self-serving politically objectives behind the letter of international law, cripples its own credibility, preventing it from fulfilling its role as the impartial mediator required to resolve global conflicts, including the Syrian conflict.

It is clear that no solution will be found within the halls of the UN, and instead, it will continue to serve as a stage upon which nations perform public relations stunts rather than carry out genuine diplomacy.

Syria’s fate will ultimately be decided on the battlefield either through continued combat operations, or direct negotiations with those bearing weapons, face-to-face, far from the halls of the impotent and ultimately compromised United Nations.

Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

M.A.D. The concept of ‘Mutually Assured Destruction’ which posited the prospect of a global catastrophe in the event of a nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union was one which permeated the popular consciousness of the people of both nations as indeed it did the rest of the world during the era of the Cold War.

The realisation of Armageddon beckoning, replete with apocalyptic imagery of modern cities being turned into vast swathes of wasteland and of mass human annihilation, informed the policies of the respective superpowers.

Although severely divided by diametrically opposed ideological standpoints and ranged against each other via the military alliances respectively of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact, the leaders of America and the Soviet Union were nonetheless consistently united in the idea of diffusing tension.

While they may have fought proxy wars in far-flung theatres such as Vietnam, Angola and the Ogaden region of the Horn of Africa, the desire to maintain a state of coexistence as well as the prolongation of human existence spurred them to making a succession of treaties which sought to ban or reduce forms of nuclear testing, weapon capabilities and stockpiles of arsenal. Deterrent strategies such as related to ‘first-strike’ and ‘massive retaliation’ doctrines became modified by a flexible response doctrine. However, since the ending of the Cold War, there appears to be little by way of public debate about a clear departure from the modus operandi of the past. Battlefield doctrines of both United States and Russian militaries now permit the deployment of nuclear munitions. Contrary to public perception and even the words uttered during a recent debate between the present contestants for the US presidency, both countries refute a ‘No First Use’ policy and reserve the right to initiate a pre-emptive strike using nuclear weapons.

The period elapsed since the ending of the Cold War has witnessed significant developments that have had an impact on nuclear policy: the expansion of NATO towards the borders of Russia, the abrogation of anti-ballistic missile treaties as well as the development and deployment of so called ‘missile shields’ by the United States around Russia. Yet, these matters have not been made issues of public concern and subjected to a level of scrutiny which they arguably should be. The American public, it appears, remains blissfully unaware or unconcerned about the possibility of nuclear warfare even as tensions between the United States, seemingly resolute in its policy of preserving the unipolar world which succeeded the Cold War, and a resurgent Russia, have steadily increased. This is an unsatisfactory state of affairs; one which given the current tensions between the US and Russia over Ukraine and Syria surely invokes the cautionary adage of death being always present wherever ignorance dominates.

The recent presidential debate held in New York between Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton and her Republican opponent Donald Trump contained an interesting exchange which followed Clinton’s expressing her concerns about Trump’s judgement and temperament in being able to deal with the pressures incumbent on any serving president.

“A man who can be provoked by a tweet should not have his fingers anywhere near the nuclear codes” said Clinton. She claimed that Trump’s public statements on the matter had indicated that he was unconcerned about the proliferation of nuclear weapons among nations in the Middle East and Asia. Trump denied this and at one point replied that “nuclear is the single greatest threat that this country has.”

Then turning to the last segment of the debate which he referred to as “securing America”, the moderator, Lester Holt, a news anchor for NBC News, said the following:

“On nuclear weapons, President Obama reportedly considered changing the nation’s longstanding policy on first use. Do you support the current policy? Mr. Trump, you have two minutes on that.”

What followed was a rambling response with references to old B-52 bombers, China’s potential influence on North Korea and a criticism of President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. Still, Trump did manage to assure the audience that he “would certainly not do first strike”.

For her part Clinton’s response, which contained reassurances to Japan and South Korea on America’s continued commitment to mutual defence treaties and critique of Trump’s allege lack of strategic thinking, did not directly answer Holt’s question. She did however end with the statement that “we cannot let those who would try to destabilize the world to interfere with American interests and security to be given any opportunities at all.”

What was striking in the first place was the limited period of discussion given to both candidates to discuss the matter of nuclear policy. The question lacked the proper degree of scope for an issue of such importance. Further, Holt’s query did not have sufficient clarity. It assumed that the American public was aware of the specificities of the present doctrine on nuclear strategy.

In a 2010 survey conducted by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations (CCFR), just over half -55%- responded that the United States should only use nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear attack. Those who felt that in certain circumstances their country should use nuclear weapons even if it has not suffered a nuclear attack amounted to 21%.

America’s new B61-12 tactical nuclear weapon

A ‘first strike’ may be defined as the initiation of a preemptive surprise attack by one nation upon another by a concentrated and comprehensive utilisation of nuclear weapons. The object of such an action is to destroy the nuclear offensive capability of the opponent to the extent that a response would be either impossible or ineffective. The attacker would thus be put in the position of surviving a war.

It is important to note that the American-led NATO alliance has never adopted a ‘No First Use’ policy. The ‘massive retaliation’ doctrine developed in the 1950s under the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower, allowed for the use of nuclear weapons as a response to any form of military aggression including that of a relatively minor attack using conventional forces. The doctrine succeeding it, namely that predicated on ‘flexible response’, although a modification, did not preclude the United States-NATO from being the first to introduce nuclear weapons into a conflict including one initiated by the use of conventional weapons.

This has continued to be the state of affairs. President Kennedy, who in March of 1961 had raised the issue of a ‘No First Use’ strategic doctrine, dropped the idea after the Cuban Missile Crisis. A call on the eve of NATO’s 50th anniversary summit in 1999 by Germany, Canada and the Netherlands for the alliance to consider a ‘No First Use’ policy was roundly rejected by the administration of Bill Clinton. And when President Obama announced in 2016 that he was considering making good on a pre-election promise in 2008 of adopting the policy, he was met with vociferous opposition by his national security advisers who persuaded him to nix the idea.

On the Russian side, Vladimir Putin in 2000 announced a new military doctrine that replaced the previous one devised in the Soviet era which was committed to ‘No First Use’. This has since been modified. Russia’s official military doctrine published in the latter part of 2014 states that it will not use nuclear weapons in a first strike. Some in the West are quick to doubt the sincerity of the doctrine much in the manner that many refused to believe similar no first strike doctrines announced by China in the 1960s and by the old Soviet Union.

Nonetheless, it is clear that there is much more involved in reassuring national populations than the mere enumeration of nuclear military doctrine. For if the nuanced distinction between having a ‘first strike’ capability and a ‘no first use’ policy may not be readily appreciated by the layperson, what should be apparent to anyone whether of the political classes or of the masses is the importance of the tone of the relations between competing nuclear powers. Mutual security for both is ensured not merely by the expression of doctrine but critically, through the words and deeds of the political and military leaders of the potential antagonists. The quality of diplomacy together with the strategy employed both in the development and the deployment of nuclear weapons is the ultimate guarantor of peace no matter how severe the differences existing between both.

Using this as a standard, it is clear that the contemporary circumstances of the relationship between the United States and the Russian Federation falls short. And dangerously so.

This state of affairs, so markedly different to that which existed during the Cold War, is largely the doing of the policies undertaken by successive administrations of the United States since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent dismantling of the Soviet system in Eastern Europe. But before providing the reasons for this shift, it is useful first to explain the position which previously existed.

Starting with the administration of President John F. Kennedy, and lasting up until the ending of the Cold War, successive American governments consistently sought to achieve the means by which tensions with the nuclear armed Soviet Union could be lessened if not totally diffused.

The potential global catastrophe which could have ensued from the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 served as a catalyst in enabling years of talks to finally conclude with the signing of the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty the following year. A secret protocol accompanying the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba was the withdrawal of US Jupiter ballistic missiles from Turkey. The United States also gave an undertaking not to attempt to invade Cuba in the future.

The following decade, Richard Nixon signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABMT) as well as the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) in 1972. In 1979, Jimmy Carter signed the SALT II treaty. Although not ratified by Congress because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the United States nonetheless abided by it terms until its expiration. The next major agreement was the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INFT) of 1987 signed by President Ronald Reagan just before the Cold War came to an end.

However, there came a shift. The Clinton administration decided on pursuing a policy of absorbing former Soviet satellite states into NATO. Starting in 1997 with Poland, Hungary and the former Czechoslovakia, NATO inaugurated a policy of expansion into eastern Europe, reneging on an agreement, the Russians allege, that had been reached by American and Soviet leaders at the end of the Cold War. This was that in return for allowing a re-unified Germany to join NATO, the American-led alliance would not extend itself “an inch” towards the east.

Then in 2002, the Bush administration withdrew from the ABM treaty and adopted a missile shields policy. It was under President Barack Obama that the first of the anti-ballistic missiles began to be deployed in countries close to the Russian border. The result has been a consistent ratcheting of tension between the Russians and NATO.

To understand the basis of these developments and the attendant antagonisms developed between the United States and the Russian Federation, recourse needs to be made to understanding the guiding canons which have shaped American foreign policy since the ending of the Cold War. These are, respectively, known as the Wolfowitz and Brzezinski doctrines. Each is the creature of the belief that American political and economic global hegemony must remain unassailable.

In 1992, the then secretary of the US Department of Defence, Paul Wolfowitz authored a policy document named the ‘Defense Planning Guidance’, which was to cover the fiscal years of 1994 to 1999. It explicitly called on the present and future political leadership to enforce a global American imperium which would if necessary involve the abrogation of international treaty obligations. It was a call to embrace a new age of American militarism.

Earlier in 1988, Zbigniew Brzezinski’s work, ‘The Grand Chessboard’ theorized in detail a geo-strategy fixated on preventing the rise of a Eurasian power or combination of powers which could challenge the global dominance of the United States. The focus of this doctrine when applied is that the United States needed to militarily intimidate a post-Cold War Russia while working to dismantle it for the purpose of using it as a pliant source of Western energy needs.

Both doctrines reflect a hybrid of the thinking behind the neoconservative philosophy which has been consistently influential on the policies of successive American administrations dating back to that of Bill Clinton.

The notion that the ending of the Cold War was the ‘end of history’, the resultant synthesis of a Hegelian-like dialectical chain, through which the American system had emerged victorious and thus anointed as a nation to impose its will on the rest of humanity resonated with those already imbued with a belief in the messianic aspect of ‘American Exceptionalism’ as well as those of the neoconservative stripe who believe in the aggressive export of American ideas and values.

Thus, America’s embrace of militarism which has been the major stimulant in destroying countries such as Iraq, Libya and Syria, has also put it on a confrontational course with the nuclear armed China. China, with whom Richard Nixon sought a rapprochement in the early 1970s is today being challenged by the United States through its military and diplomatic pivot to Asia. One aspect of this is its insistence on what it terms “freedom of navigation” which the Chinese not unreasonably interpret as a euphemism for American control of the sea lanes which are vital to its trade.

Added to the aforementioned expansion of NATO as well as the withdrawal from the ABM treaty have been the conflicts the United States has encouraged or fomented on Russia’s borders. In Chechnya, NATO provided covert support to Chechen rebels as part of a strategy geared towards controlling the pipeline corridors transporting oil and gas out of the Caspian Sea region. NATO also encouraged Georgia under former president Mikheil Saakashvili to attack South Ossetia which prompted the Russo-Georgian War of 2008. The United States was also behind the coup of February 2014 in the Ukraine using far-Right militias to depose the democratically elected leader under the guise of a popular people’s uprising. Russia’s reaction in annexing the Crimea after a plebiscite, an invocation of its ‘Black Sea doctrine’,  was a measured response to the threat posed by NATO encroaching on its only warm sea port which grants part of its naval fleet access to the Mediterranean Sea.

The coup in Ukraine and the belligerence of the succeeding regime whose leaders were handpicked by the United States has provided a means by which tensions between both powers have been escalated. The United States installed a nationalist government which was quick to demonstrate its antipathy to the Russian-speaking eastern part of the country. It is worth reminding how the United States felt threatened by a Soviet backed regime in Cuba and how this led to a crisis which brought both superpowers to the brink of a nuclear showdown. The question then is how would an objective observer appraise the Russian view about a rival power installing a hostile regime right on its border? A useful analogy may be of the Russians or the Chinese instigating a coup in Quebec and installing an FLQ-type regime which was hostile both to English-speaking Canadians and the United States.

While the ongoing conflict in Ukraine has provided the basis for a potential conflict between Russia and NATO, the present Syrian Civil War, the fruits of an American-initiated insurrection to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad currently presents the basis through which an all out war between the United States and Russia may ensue.

The formal Russian intervention that commenced in September of 2015 is based on Russian interests in preserving its naval base in the sea coast town of Tartus and also in putting down the American-sponsored Jihadi militias that are being used as proxies to effect Assad’s overthrow. Russia has a vested interest in preventing the spread of Jihadi militias such as Islamic State and Jabhat al Nusra to the Muslim populations within it and in neighboring states. The Russian action which has enabled the Syrian government to reconquer swathes of territory from Jihadi militias exposed the United States the insincerity behind America’s professed actions against these Islamist groups some of which it disingenuously refers to as ‘moderate’ rebels.

The breakdown of the US-Russian ceasefire over the besieged town of Aleppo as a result of an attack on September 17th by United States and NATO forces on Syrian Army placements in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour has presented another deliberate provocation to the Russians. It is doubtful that the quality of United States intelligence could be so poor as have mistaken Syrian soldiers for Islamic State guerrillas. Rather, it is more believable that the attacks were deliberately carried out to put Islamic State insurgents in a position to mount a ground offensive against the Syrian Army and was aimed at sabotaging the ceasefire worked out by United States Secretary of State John Kerry and the Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov on the 9th of September.

It fits into the pattern of the United States covert support for Jihadi militias. It also, raises the question of whether high-ranking civilian and military officials within the American government are keen to start a war with Russia and risk the full weight of the consequences that may ensue. Recent developments point to what effectively is a mutiny on the part of Ash Carter, the US Secretary of State for Defence, and senior generals including General Joseph Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Chief of Army Staff, Mark Milley. The fatal attack on Syrian Army positions which lasted for over an hour could only have been sanctioned at the highest echelons of the Pentagon.

Russian air power has been instrumental in enabling the Syrian Arab Army to reclaim Syrian territory lost to jihadi groups such as Islamic state and Jabhat al Nusra. Therefore calls by administration figures such as Carter and politicians such as Senator John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Tim Kaine and Donald Trump’s running mate Mike Pence for a ‘No Fly Zone’ are an invitation to war with Russia. On September 22nd, while giving evidence under oath to the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on US strategy in the Middle East, General Durnford explicitly stated that the imposition of a ‘No Fly Zone’ in Syria “will mean war with Russia.”

But while the general mentioned that the actions of the US military would depend on the instructions they received, he gave an extraordinary reply to a question put to him by a senator. Asked if he would support the proposal on intelligence sharing which Russia agreed upon by John Kerry and Sergey Lavrov on the 9th of September, Dunford responded “We don’t have any intention of having any intelligence sharing arrangement with the Russians.” Durnford did not stop at stating that it would be “unwise” to share intelligence with Russia. He stressed that it would not be one of the military’s missions if Washington and Moscow were to ever work together against Islamist militants in Syria.

The threat of a war between the United States and Russia can only be increased if a disobedient faction of the military and government is acting independently of instructions of a serving president. Such a situation is not unheard of in American history. Arthur Schlesinger Jr., a member of the Kennedy administration, would once admit “we did not control the joint chiefs of staff”. It was in the prevailing atmosphere of fervent anti-communism that a group of Right-wing, high-ranking military officers at the Pentagon openly defied Kennedy and constantly called for war against the Soviet Union. Most notable among them were Army General Lyman Lemnitzer, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Air Force Generals Curtis LeMay and Tommy Power. All called for the invasion of Cuba at the height of the missile crisis – a decision which would have almost certainly led to a war and a nuclear catastrophe.

If army generals such as Durnford and Milley are wilfully acting against the instructions of the White House, this would amount to mutinous conduct as defined under the United States Uniform Code of Justice. Barack Obama has in the past removed generals who disagreed with him; General Stanley McChrystal being a case in point. However, it is uncertain as to whether his inaction is due to the ‘lame duck’ status  all presidents acquire in the last months of their time in office or if he tacitly approves of this aggressive course while maintaining a facade of wishing to reach an accommodation with Russia in Syria.

The aggressive tone being struck by senior American military figures is worrisome. On October 4th, General Milley issued a warning that the United States would “destroy any enemy, anywhere and anytime”. His reference to a belligerent statement made by a London-based Russian official along as well as his mentioning of China, Iran and South Korea identified the presumptive foes while his references to tackling enemies both possessing large conventional capabilities or using guerrilla tactics in dense urban populated areas indicate that the United States is preparing for a large scale war.

The Russian leader has raised the issue of the danger of a nuclear conflict in several interviews over the past months. In an impassioned monologue delivered to a gathering of various world news agencies in July of this year, Putin referred to the prevailing mood of insouciance in the Western media and public.

Your people…do not feel a sense of impending danger -this is what worries me. How do you not understand that the world is being pulled in an irreversible direction? While they pretend that nothing is going on. I don’t know how to get through to you anymore.

Putin had reminded the gathered of the expansion of NATO to Russia’s borders, the positioning of missile shields in Europe under the pretext of being a defensive shield to an attack from Iran.

But while Russia’s actions have been demonstrably reactive, it has shown that it is prepared to go on the offensive. While John McCain has suggested a “new strategy” in Syria with a “necessary military component” which would involve attacking the Syrian military and shooting down Russian aircraft, Major General Igor Konashenkov, the spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Defence, warned in early October that Russia will shoot down NATO jets over Syria if airstrikes are launched against the Syrian Arab Army.

Syria currently presents the greatest danger of a full blown conflict developing between the United States and Russia. But the security challenge presented by Ukraine is still ongoing as indeed are the policies respectively of an expanding NATO and encircling Russia with missile shields from Eastern Europe through to Asia and Alaska. Meanwhile, there has been no thorough public examination of the legality of American military involvement in Syria, no public debate on the reasonableness of NATO expansion or the efficacy of the development of a missile shield system.

Those who dispute the veracity of an undertaking by US leaders not to expand its military alliance eastwards because of the absence of an official written document forget that many important bilateral international agreements of the past were undertaken orally and respected by successor governments. For example, the United States undertaking not to mount an invasion of Cuba was never officially reduced to writing. Yet it was respected by succeeding American administrations.

So far as missile defence systems are concerned, the American Union of Concerned Scientists, a non-profit science advocacy organisation, argue that they are “fundamentally ineffective”. Their development, it is further argued, “may actually undermine national security by impeding deep cuts in nuclear weapons, complicating important international relationships and engendering a false sense of security among policy makers.”

Again those who think nothing untoward about the expansion of America’s network of nuclear missile shields should be aware of what it implies. It is sending out a message to potential adversaries that the shield will insulate the owner from nuclear attack thus presenting the United States with a viable first strike option while removing the balance of terror guaranteed by mutual assured destruction. This is why the Soviet Union reacted with alarm at the Reagan administration’s announcement of its Strategic Defence Initiative.

At the same time, a country which is increasingly surrounded by missile defence systems is likely to feel ‘locked in’. And the more it feels that it is reaching the point where its own arsenal will no longer be able to serve as a deterrent to an attack, the more likely that such a country would feel compelled to use a first strike option during an episode of crisis.

This was alluded to back in 2012 by the then Russian Chief of General Staff Nikolay Marakov who stated that Russia would consider a preemptive strike under certain circumstances:

Considering the destabilising nature of the (American) ABM system, namely the creation of an illusion of inflicting a disarming (nuclear) strike with impunity, a decision on preemptive deployment of assault weapons could be taken when the situation gets harder.

The Russians are responding by a programme of modernizing their weapons delivery systems. It is developing a new generation of long-range nuclear bombers and truck-mounted ballistic missiles. Missiles have been placed closer to NATO countries accepting United States shield technology and its ageing Pacific nuclear submarine fleet which is mostly stationed at the Rybachiy Nuclear Submarine Base near Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky is being upgraded with the addition of the new Borei-class submarines.

While the role of its Asian fleet is part of what the Russians refer to as one of ‘strategic deterrence’, soldiers on the Western alliance are prone to interpret these measures as evidence of aggressive intent. Arguing against any modification of NATO’s doctrine to one of ‘No First Use’, General Sir Richard Shirreff, a British former deputy supreme allied commander, told the BBC in 2014 that Russia has hardwired “nuclear thinking and capability to every aspect of their defence capability”.

Comments such as Shirreff’s as well as those by United State’s government officials chiding Russia for allegedly being in violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty fail to take into account Russian grievances related to the United States abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty by NATOs development and deployment of missile shields. At a meeting in November 2015 with high-ranking generals, Vladimir Putin accused the United States of attempting to “neutralize” Russia’s nuclear arsenal through its missile shield project. Russia’s response, he said, would be to “strengthen the potential of its strategic nuclear forces”, including the deployment of “attack systems” capable of nullifying any missile shield.

The global management of nuclear arsenals has always been played as a game of sorts. Within it are strategies and counter-strategies that have taken into account matters such as political gamesmanship, shifting international alliances, geo-political developments and advances in technology. But while the American-Soviet Cold War has long ended and statistics such as those released by the Peace Research Institute Oslo indicate a steady and marked decline since the end of the Second World War in the overall number of deaths sustained globally through wars, the world is a more dangerous place when there are rising tensions between the nuclear armed superpowers.

The recent acrimonious breakdown in US-Russian efforts at cooperating  in Syria as well as Russia’s withdrawal from a nuclear security pact offer clear illustrations of this drift as do the planned extensive troop buildups and massive military exercises on NATO’s eastern flank. Meanwhile in Russia, where public opinion polls suggest the average person believes that a war with the West is inevitable, the government has launched a nationwide civil defence training exercise involving 200,000 emergency personnel and the co-operation of 40 million civilians to ensure that the country is prepared in the event of a nuclear, chemical and biological attack from the West.

Unlike during the Cold War, there are no large, vocal anti-nuclear campaign groups organising demonstrations and making public appeals. While there is a press, the American mainstream media has failed to put these issues squarely into the public domain. The coverage of dangerous Russo-American confrontations such as Ukraine and Syria which ultimately should bring the wider issue of nuclear strategy to the fore is edited, biased and highly compartmentalized. Among America’s political leadership there is silence and incoherence. This state of affairs has resulted in a misdirected discourse and a cruelly misinformed public.

It is a debate which America continues to bypass at its own peril.

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer and law lecturer who is based in London, England.

One of the major email “leak” stories to emerge last week courtesy of the WSJ, was that the White House had intervened on at least one occasion to suppress the story surrounding Hillary’s “Secret Server” scandal, through backdoor channels with the State Department. This is what we noted as per the original piece:

Ten days after the story broke, White House communications director Jennifer Palmieri emailed State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki to ask, “between us on the shows…think we can get this done so he is not asked about email.” That apparently referred to Mr. Kerry, who appeared in an interview on CBS ’s “Face the Nation” three days later.

“Agree completely and working to crush on my end,” wrote back Ms. Psaki.

A day later, Ms. Psaki added, “Good to go on killing CBS idea.” She continued, “And we are going to hold on any other TV options just given the swirl of crap out there.” Mr. Kerry wasn’t asked on CBS about the email server, though it isn’t clear how Ms. Psaki could have guaranteed that.

Teased by Ms. Palmieri about her use of the phrase “swirl of crap,” Ms. Psaki wrote back: “Ha I mean—the challenging stories out there.”

While we are confident there were many other interactions between the White House and the State Department meant to boost the winning odds of the Clinton presidential campaign, this was sufficient evidence to confirm that on at least one occasion, the two entities had colluded.

Now, courtesy of the latest leak by Wikileaks, which earlier today released another 2,000 emails by Clinton campaign chairman, John Podesta, we may have stumbled on evidence of collusion between the State Department and the Clinton Campaign itself. In an email from close Hillary’s confidant Heather Samuelson, also known as “the Clinton insider who screened Hillary’s emails“, we learn the intimate details leaked by Samuelson regarding a FOIA request submitted previously by Judicial Watch regarding Bill Clinton speeches, which shows that virtually entire process was being “translated” over to Hillary’s campaign.

By way of reminder, here is a quick Politico primer on who Heather Samuelson is, from September 2015:

Hillary Clinton chose a former campaign staffer who followed her to the State Department to make the initial determination about which of her emails should be preserved as federal records, according to closed-door testimony by Clinton’s former chief of staff Cheryl Mills, a GOP source told POLITICO.

Heather Samuelson, a lawyer and 2008 Clinton campaign staffer, worked under Mills and Clinton’s attorney David Kendall to sift through her ex-boss’ messages. She helped separate those that were purely personal, which were not turned over to the State Department, from those that were work-related.

THe Daily Caller adds the following:

A longtime Clinton campaign staffer who worked for as White House liaison at Clinton’s State Department and, later, as her lawyer.

As a lawyer, Samuelson led up the 2014 review of Clinton’s emails to determine which ones were work-related and which were personal.

Most importantly, as we reported previously, Samuelson received DOJ immunity in exchange for turning over the laptop she used during the review of Clinton’s emails in 2014. 

Finally, as the NRO wrote over the weekend, “The more information that drips out about the Clinton e-mail investigation, the more we learn that two key subjects, Hillary confidants Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, got extraordinarily special treatment — concessions that would never be given to subjects in a normal investigation. The primary reason for this is that the Obama Justice Department was never going to charge Hillary Clinton and her accomplices with crimes.

The guise under which Mills and Samuelson got the kid-glove treatment was their status as lawyers. Crucially, this status was the Justice Department’s pretext for resolving that potentially incriminating evidence against them, and against their “client,” Mrs. Clinton, had to be shielded from investigators pursuant to the attorney-client privilege.

Except neither Mills nor Samuelson was eligible to represent Clinton in matters related to the e-mails, including the FBI’s criminal investigation. Moreover, even if they had arguably been eligible, attorney-client communications in furtherance of criminal schemes are not privileged.

* * *

Mills and Samuelson were given immunity in exchange for surrendering their laptops not because searching lawyers’ computers is complicated, but because the Justice Department had no intention of prosecuting them. That is also why Justice severely limited the FBI’s search of the laptops, just as it severely limited the FBI’s questioning of Mills. Mills and Samuelson were given immunity because Justice did not want to commence a grand-jury investigation, which would have empowered investigators to compel production of the laptops by simply issuing subpoenas. Justice did not want to use the grand jury because doing so would have signaled that the case was headed toward indictment. The Obama Justice Department was never going to indict Hillary Clinton, and was determined not to damage her presidential campaign by taking steps suggestive of a possible indictment.

Today, we may have stumbled on the real reason why Samuelson got immunity.

In the following email dated March 17, 2015 disclosed today by Wikileaks, we find troubling details of the internal State Department process, which somehow made its way to Samlueson with details so nuanced it may only have come as a result of direct communication between the State Department (or DOS as Samuelson calls it) as Hillary’s young confidant, and which in turn she promptly conveyed to her team, regarding the FOIA request, in what appears to be a material breach of confidentiality. This is what she said :

DOS is soon releasing another round of documents and email traffic (not hers) in response to Judicial Watch’s FOIA request on DOS’s process for reviewing WJC’s speaking engagements.

It’s 116 pages with approx. 50 sponsor/subsponsor requests. No objections by DOS in this batch, but some lengthy internal discussions among DOS officials that I highlighted below.

There is one request where speaking fee would have been paid by Turkish govt — WJC’s office declined this.   And one speaking engagement with fee from Canadian government, which he did do.

Let me know if you have any questions.

We have one question, Heather: is this legal, and are emailed exchanges such as this one why you received DOJ immunity in exchange for “turning over your laptop”?

From the original email, bolding ours.

* * *

From: Heather Samuelson [mailto:[email protected]]

Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 10:53 AM
To: Maura Pally; Craig Minassian; Philippe Reines; Nick Merrill; Jennifer Palmier I
Cc: Cheryl Mills; Tina Flournoy
Subject: JW FOIA | WJC Speeches

All —  DOS is soon releasing another round of documents and email traffic (not hers) in response to Judicial Watch’s FOIA request on DOS’s process for reviewing WJC’s speaking engagements.   

It’s 116 pages with approx. 50 sponsor/subsponsor requests.   No objections by DOS in this batch, but some lengthy internal discussions among DOS officials that I highlighted below.  

There is one request where speaking fee would have been paid by Turkish govt — WJC’s office declined this.   And one speaking engagement with fee from Canadian government, which he did do.  

Let me know if you have any questions.

[Jen — happy to give you more background on prior releases since it’s your first go around]

Thx

1) UNIQFEST/Turkey:  There are 20 pages of internal, heavily redacted email traffic among DOS officials on request for WJC to speak at UNIQFEST in 2009 — a climate change conference sponsored by the Turkish government with Turkish officials as featured speakers.  According to the traffic, WJC would receive compensation from “government and non-government sources.”

— WJC’s office decided to decline the invitation.  There is no final determination in the materials by the Department.

—  Some of email traffic has subject line  “Clinton Foundation” and refers to this as request from “Clinton Foundation.”  I only flag as may be twisted to say DOS did not even understand what they were reviewing for, blurred lines between personal and BHCCF etc…

2)   Canadian National Exhibition:  Email traffic indicates WJC’s compensation for this speaking engagement would come from the Canadian government via their program to promote tourism, “Industry Canada.”  There is heavily redacted email traffic between DOS officials, including our Embassy in Canada, with several emails from WJC’s office asking for status update, at one point saying they only have “about more 30 minutes before we lose the offer.”

— Jim Thessin (Deputy Legal Advisor) responds: “I do not have a problem with this so long as President Clinton is not serving as a U.S. government at the time of his appearance and when he is paid an honorarium.   If not an employee, he may accept reimbursements of expenses and an honorarium for his speech/talk, but he may not receive any gifts from the Canadian government.”

— HRC’s financial disclosure form indicates that WJC received $175,000 from Canadian National Exhibition for this speech on 8/29/09.

3)  CISCO:  Request is submitted for WJC to speak at CISCO two months before HRC awards CISCO the State Department’s Award for Corporate Excellence, holding a ceremony featuring the CISCO’s CEO.    According to HRC’s financial disclosure form, WJC received $255,000 for this speech.

4)  Other notable requests:  

1. Local foreign govt:  Terife Island Council (local government of largest island in Canary Islands)
2. Private Equity Firms/Banks:   ICE Canyon LLC, VISTA Equity, Harris Private Bank, TD Bank Financial, Whitton Investment Groups (London)
3. Foreign Based Organizations:  Etisalat (UAE based telecomm co); Egyptian Junior Business Association; Friends of Cystic Fibrosis (Irish non-profit); Essex Regional Conservation Authority (Essex, Ontario); Wilbros Entertainment (Philippines, event to raise funds for Philippines charity); Miaor Entertainment Ltd (division of Grupo ABC based in Brazil); London Business Forum; Aditya Birla Management (Indian multinational conglomerate)
4. Universities:  Southern Methodist, Tufts, American Jewish University

5)  GWB:   Two requests are for events with Deloitte and Radio City Music Hall that are a joint appearance between WJC and George W. Bush.  WJC did the event with Deloitte, but not Radio City.

In light of the ongoing speculation that there may have been collusion between the DOJ and Bill Clinton (and thus Hillary), following the infamous “tarmac encounter”, where Bill and Loretta Lynch spoke for 40 minutes about “Bill’s gold game and grandchildren”, the discovery that there was collusion between the State Department and Hillary Clinton, who formerly headed it, seems like a potential conflict of interest to us.

The West keeps all of its mercenary terrorists, including its “A -Team”— al Qaeda and ISIS – well equipped with sophisticated weaponry.

In 2014, for example, when Lebanese and Libyan terrorists captured the world-renowned Krak des Chevaliers, a UNESCO world heritage site, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) faced a daunting challenge, not only because the castle is located at about 700 meters above sea level, but also because the terrorists were armed with US-supplied Tow anti-tank missiles launchers, and Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) launchers.

Not only does UN Resolution 2253  specifically prohibit arming terrorists (with good reason), but using the aforementioned terrorists as proxies in a dirty war against a sovereign country constitutes the most egregious of war crimes according to Nuremburg principles.  Consequently, whenever possible, Empire commits its crimes covertly.

Battle damage at the base of the Krak Des Chevaliers, Syria

A Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) document clearly reveals that, in the aftermath of the West’s destruction of that country, the Libyan armouries were looted, and the weapons were sent to Syria, in what intelligence agencies refer to as a “ratline”.

The report confirmed in October 2012 that,

“Weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the Port of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The weapons shipped during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG’s, and 125 mm and 155mm howitzers missiles.

During the immediate aftermath of, and following the uncertainty caused by, the downfall of the ((Qaddafi)) regime in October 2011 and up until early September of 2012, weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles located in Benghazi, Libya were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the ports of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The Syrian ports were chosen due to the small amount of cargo traffic transiting these two ports. The ships used to transport the weapons were medium-sized and able to hold 10 or less shipping containers of cargo.”

The report also details the type of weapons delivered:

“The weapons shipped from Syria during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG’s and 125mm and 155mm howitzers missiles.  The numbers for each weapon were estimated to be: 500 Sniper rifles, 100 RPG launchers with 300 total rounds, and approximately 400 howitzers missiles [200 ea – 125mm and 200ea – 155 mm.]”

Professor Michel Chossudovsky demonstrates in “U.S. ‘Military Aid’ to Al Qaeda, ISIS-Daesh: Pentagon Uses Illicit Arms Trafficking to Channel Enormous Shipments of Light Weapons into Syria”, however, that the aforementioned ratline is the tip of the iceberg.

Chossudovsky explains that since one shipment of light weapons destined for terrorists inside Syria weighs 990 tons, “one can reasonably conclude that the amounts of light weapons in the hands of  ”opposition” rebels inside Syria is substantial and exceedingly large.”

The “packing list” is listed below:

The criminal West also uses its so-called “moderates” as vectors for weapons.  In one instance, for example, the West delivered US anti-tank TOW missiles to the so-called “moderate” Harakat Hazm “rebels”, and within 48 hours the weapons were in the hands of al Qaeda/al Nursra Front.

Mainstream media might paint such transactions as “mistakes”, but the Western war criminals and their msm bullhorns always label their crimes as mistakes.  Or have we forgotten the invasions of Iraq, Libya, Ukraine, and on and on?

All of these Western crimes advance and strengthen the reach of extremist Wahhabi terrorism and assault the very foundations of civilization.

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) alone has lost about 100,000 soldiers thanks to the West, its terror proxies, and their sophisticated weapons.   It is Syria, not the Western governments and their allies, that represents civilization and the rule of law.

The evidence for genetically modified organism (GMOs) safety for human consumption and its environmental risks remains one of the nation’s most contentious, controversial and debated subjects. Throughout the world, governments, national health ministries and their populations have been led to believe that there is no reason to critically object to GMOs. American mainstream media, which have now been fully absorbed into the agendas of large multinational corporate chemical and food sponsors, claim GMOs are completely harmless. We are sold a promise that they are urgently needed for feeding the world. Consequently, in the absence of critical journalism, aside from independent media, the spread of GMOs has become widespread.

Monsanto, Dupont, Syngenta, and Bayer dominate the global GMO market.

Corn is the US’ number one crop with eighty-nine percent being genetically modified. Ninety-three percent of American soybeans are GMO. GM sugar beets, certain squashes, canola, alfalfa, papaya (77% of Hawaii’s crop), and new apple strains are genetically engineered.

Many more GM vegetables and fruits are in the pipeline.

Only during the past 15 years have voices within the environmental and public health movements, and free-thinking scientists and researchers in molecular biology, genetics and agriculture turned vocal to publicly challenge GMO safety and their exaggerated promises. One especially unfounded promise, often promulgated by Monsanto and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the GMO revolution’s ability to feed the world. Yet as a senior economic analyst at the Environmental Working Group in Washington DC has reported, “this is simply a myth adopted and deployed by US agribusiness to distract the public from reality.”[1]

Every leading opponent and critic of GMOs is well known to the chemical industry and its army of public relation provocateurs and internet trolls. Many have been mercilessly attacked, libeled and slandered through a sophisticated network of PR hacks, industry special interest groups, educational and pseudo-scientific organizations and projects, and the mainstream media, publications and lobbying firms. In the wake of the agri-industry’s PR efforts to bolster erroneous favorable images of GMOs and chemical based agriculture, careers have been destroyed. For example, FOX journalists Jane Akre and her husband Steve Wilson were destroyed by Monsanto for providing scientific evidence about the dangers of genetically modified bovine growth hormone in milk.[2] Mainstream media willingly provides a red carpet for GMO advocates to promote the promises of genetic engineering but denies equal time to its scientific critics. So effective have been the chemical industry’s attacks that even peer reviewed research showing GMO risks has been retracted.

Perhaps the most important and damning case of retracted science is that of Eric Gilles Seralini’s studies. Seralini and his colleagues at the University of Caen in France reproduced Monsanto’s own safety trials for GMO maize. However, Seralini continued the study for the entire lifespan of the laboratory animals. Monsanto only published studies conducted over a three month period. Seralini discovered a direct correlation between GM maize consumption with kidney and liver diseases, hormonal disturbance and cancer. Later investigations revealed that a sustained effort by Monsanto lobbyists and the food industry influenced the study’s retraction from the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology. Subsequently, the study was republished by another journal and now remains on the scientific record. Recently, a French court uncovered the original author behind the fraud allegations against Seralini’s research, which led to the retraction. He was identified as Forbes Magazine journalist and former FDA official, Henry I Miller, a former tobacco lobbyist with a history of denying smoking’s association to cancer and heart disease.[3]

Again, on September 22, 2016, a criminal court in Paris found another pro-GMO advocate and former president of the Biomolecular Engineering Commission, which assesses GMO safety in France, guilty of forgery in order to defame and even frame Prof. Seralini of criminal activity.[4]

The entire pseudo-scientism behind corporate sponsored GMO and pesticide trials to twist data results to support Big Ag’s version of safety is an illusion. Even when their own research is proven faulty and corrupt, no explanations are given. Intellectual honesty, courage and integrity are completely absent from not only the large chemical and food companies but from all their supporters in the universities, academies, the scientific blogosphere, and public relations firms and quasi think tanks relied upon for lobbying efforts on behalf of Big Ag.

Today the lesson is clear that money, power and influence sustain the lies and deceit of private industry. Take on any powerful interest and Big Ag will come after you.

Big Ag has turned the clock back to the era of the tobacco industry’s legacy. Decades ago, regardless of how many lawsuits were filed showing tobacco’s causal relationship to cancer, emphysema, heart disease and nicotine addiction, none were won. Years later, and only with the emergence of an executive within the tobacco industry turned whistleblower, Jeffrey Wigand, did the government learn that the heads of the tobacco corporations had lied before Congress. Even the FDA possessed proprietary information from the tobacco industry itself proving smoking’s health risks yet refused to educate the public.

During the past six decades, corporations and their hired lobbyists and PR firms have launched multi-million dollar public campaigns, largely organized and funded in the shadows, to attack critics and activist opponents of DDT, dioxin, saccharine, aspartame, the industrial meat industry, fluoride, psychiatric drugs, hydro-fracking, sugar, vaccines, alcohol, nuclear power, and other toxic substances. Regardless of the health concerns and risks of these chemicals and activities, offensive corporate behavior designed to ridicule, demonize and systematically marginalize opponents is similar and taken from the same playbook. Yet in every case it has been the independent scientific research relied upon by the critics that have been proven correct. Over the decades corporate funded science, the media and the private industries themselves have been proven wrong consistently. The agri-industry’s science is faith based and full of contradictions and unsound claims. Unfortunately government regulators are slow to act on the facts. Dangerous products remain for public consumption for many years before resolute action is taken to ban them. In the meantime, millions of people have been directly harmed or killed by pervasive scientific fraud. Worse, no one in private industry who is caught for perpetuating scientific and medical deception and fraud is held accountable. Corporations settle out of court, pay fines that are a fraction of their revenues, and remain in favor with Wall Street and investors. And those at the federal level are protected and concealed from prosecution altogether.

The history of bad science propagated by private firms has always shown to be profit over health. Inevitably it is self-educated citizens and the victims of corporate greed and profit, not the federal government, who unveil the lies. It wasn’t the federal agencies who raised alarm over DDT’s dangers but a marine biologist, Rachel Carson, acting upon her own convictions, who uncovered the plot in her seminal book Silent Spring. Over the years, many advocates for public safety—Ralph Nader, Jim Turner, Sydney Wolf, Michael Jacobson, Ronnie Cummins, Andrew Wakefield and many others—have battled the righteous struggle to protect consumers against dangerous and unsafe drugs, chemicals and products that the federal government more often than not defends and protects on behalf of corporate interests.

In all such cases, proponents of consumer safety and health have had to struggle against an army of lobbyists, consultants, think tanks, public relations firms and a complicit media with the wealth and influence to convince people that their fears are unfounded and they should wholeheartedly embrace toxic substances. Not unlike the medical establishment, the industrial food industry has created a vast network of allies in all walks of life and within government to promote its cause. Realizing the sheer depth and breadth of this network and the endless money pumped into its public relations machine to keep the myths of GMOs alive and front and center is not only deeply disturbing but also rather impressive. It is a leviathan of enormous scale and influence. And there is little wonder that even with the most damning scientific evidence to discredit anything of long-term value regarding GMOs, virtually nothing is done at the federal level to protect the public.

After reviewing hundreds of research studies and articles, dozens of interviews, and numerous conversations, we are convinced that science overwhelming supports a cautionary position about the safety and promises of GMOs. This research is all in the public domain which begs the questions, why is the federal government reluctant to take action? And why is the chemical agricultural and Big Food industry in complete denial to accept the risks of its products, many which are known carcinogens?

For example, last year, we were made aware of a mother lode of formerly sealed Monsanto documents the EPA was forced to release through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request only after considerable political pressure was applied. The documents, over 10,000 pages worth, provide clear and unequivocal proof that Monsanto has known for many years the serious carcinogenic risks and environmental dangers associated with glyphosate (Roundup) before any GMO seed ever reached the market. Today, approximately 80% of all products with corn and soy on grocery shelves are laced with glyphosate. Monsanto, similar to the tobacco industry, concealed and covered up the health risks about their flagship product for several decades. And even more egregious, the federal EPA has known this for years and still sat on the damning documents.

Our thorough summary about the release of these Monsanto documents was published in The Ecologist. However mainstream media has completely ignored and denied the public urgency in this treasure trove of data that damns practically everything positive Monsanto and the USDA has ever stated about glyphosate’s safety for animal and human consumption and the environment.[5]

Whatever scientific integrity these people may have once held, it has been compromised in a Faustian deal with private financial interests. GMO science has become a mad science, a form of pathology that hides behind the illusion of being objective.

Instead, independent researchers, their citizen supporters and anti-GMO activists are venomously attacked by every means available. Conveniently anonymous Wikipedia editors are clearly advocates of the health and food industries as any alternative doctor or health practitioner can attest when she or he attempts to change false information on their profiles. And now many otherwise independent liberal, independent media sources, such as Mother Jones and Alternet, are increasingly following suit. It pays to play the game with the powers that have money.

So who are these people behind the efforts to suppress opposition? Who are the real trolls doing agribusiness’ dirty work? When we pull back the curtain, the wizards behind the chemical food industry who control the message through the media through a well-oiled public relations network are exposed.

The Genetic Literacy Project and University of California at Davis

The chemical agricultural industry relies upon American universities in many ways. Collaborations between corporations, such as Monsanto, Syngenta and DuPont, and university agricultural departments are common place and this has been the increasing trend in the academic community since the 1980s and the emergence of biotechnology. What is more recent has been a new trend whereby universities across the U.S. participate directly or indirectly in the marketing promotion of GMOs. In effect, some universities now act as private industry’s lobbyists. And this becomes a greater scandal when the university is a public institution receiving public funding. Such is the case of the University of California at Davis and its prestigious agriculture department.

To date, US Right to Know has filed seventeen public records requests, per the California Public Records Act, to receive information about the funding of questionable activities that go beyond serving public education and only benefit private interests such as Monsanto.[6]

Among these lobbying groups operating on the UC campus is the Genetic Literacy Project (GLP).[7] Over the years GLP has gained recognition as a credible and reliable source of information about GMOs. It is one of the most frequently quoted sources of information by pro-GMO advocates and journalists. However in our opinion, GLP is perhaps one of the most spurious, financially compromised and scientifically illiterate organizations, founded and funded for the sole purpose of disseminating false pro-GMO propaganda that distorts peer reviewed literature in order to prop up public support for GMOs and genetic engineering in general.[8]

The Project has become the GMO industry’s clearing house for public relations to spin science into advertising, propaganda and character assassination of GM opponents. It is also the primary site now sourcing the review of 1,700-plus studies favoring GMO safety. This review of over 1,700 studies, also known as the Nicolia Review, is the most cited source making the broadest claims for GMO safety. Yet over the years, many independent, industry free and unbiased researchers have reviewed the Nicolia Review and their conclusions are far from what private industry wants us to believe. Many of these studies are tangential at best and barely take notice of anything related to crop genetic engineering or GMOs. Many are also completely irrelevant from a value-added perspective because they have nothing to do with GMO safety whatsoever. Furthermore, other studies in this collection conclude the exact opposite and prove GMOs environmental and animal and human health risks. When Nicolia published his review, heintentionally omitted and ignored scientifically sound research that directly investigated GMO safety as a prime target that found convincing evidence supporting GMOs risks. For example, one peer-reviewed publication by over 300 independent scientists declared that there is no scientific consensus that GM crops and food are safe. Curiously, there is no mention of this study in the Nicolia Review.[9]

The Genetic Literacy Project is not a scientific project in any proper sense of the term. Its founder and head Jon Entine has no formal academic scientific background. Nor has he ever worked in an academic or corporate research driven environment before crawling up the top of the ladder to become one of the GMO industry’s leading PR gurus and propagandists. GLP will not release its exact funding sources but Entine repeatedly claims that 97% of its funding derives from non-partisan, independent foundations.[10]

This might sound impressive, but lobbying and the channeling of funds has changed dramatically during the past decade. A new and more popular generation of lobbying practices and ways to avoid K Street regulations, has reshaped the means by which public relations, propaganda, and economic and political pressures are enacted. This new model of lobbying has become an ever-spreading fungus of think tanks, foundations, associations, and nonprofit entities, often with impressive names, that serve no other purpose aside from steering funds between various entities as lobbying payoffs. For an excellent understanding about how this new form of shadow lobbying network operates, I would recommend George Mason University Professor Janine Wedel’s publication Unaccountable: How Elite Power Brokers Corrupt Our Finances, Freedom and Security.

It is no secret that Monsanto and Big Ag, and more recently the USDA, have significant undue influence over all of UC-Davis agricultural department and divisions. The bogus economic studies trumped up by the Big Ag cartel to defeat California’s GMO labeling bill Prop 37 were performed at this university. Gary Ruskin who has been filing FOIA requests has publicly expressed deep concerns that UC Davis has been acting as a financial conduit for private corporations and interests to develop and launch PR attacks against academics, professors, activists and other institutions who oppose those same corporate interests. Agro-ecologist Dr. Don Lotter, who was interviewed for our documentary Seeds of Death in 2011, was an employed scientist at UC-Davis’ agriculture school. In 2009, Dr Lotter published a paper in the peer-reviewed Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food that presented a “damning case against genetically modified foods, saying the technology is based on obsolete science, that biotechnology companies such as Monsanto have too much influence on government regulators and “public” universities, and that university scientists are ignoring the health and environmental risks of GM crops.” Lotter was subsequently forced out of the University for his truth telling.[11]

Like many plant scientists who have awakened to the serious risks GMO crops pose to the future food security of the nation and planet, Lotter advocates for agro-ecological methods in farming recommended by the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). Some 60 governments signed IAASTD’s final report in April 2008, in Johannesburg, South Africa. The IAASTD report, the first of its kind ever produced, calls for a fundamental change in farming practices, in order to address soaring food prices, hunger, social inequities, and environmental disasters. It acknowledges that GM crops are highly controversial. IAASTD director, Robert Watson, chief scientist at the UK food and farming department DEFRA, said much more research was needed to prove whether GM crops offer any benefits and do not harm human health and the environment. Biotech companies Monsanto, Syngenta, and BASF withdrew from IAASTD because it did not back GMOs as a solution to reduce poverty and hunger. The comprehensive report was produced by over 400 scientists from around the world over a 3-year period. The study was sponsored by a number of major international organizations, including the United Nations, the World Bank, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, and UNESCO.Not surprisingly and conspicuously, the United States was one of only three nations present at the IAASTD conference that refused to sign the accord.[12]

Jon Entine

Jon Entine is a perfect choice to head up the GLP’s well-funded propaganda operations that specializes in distributing disinformation. He is a former TV news writer and producer for ABC and NBC. Currently this non-scientist is also senior fellow at University of California at Davis’ Institute for Food and Agriculture Literacy (IFAL). IFAL is another entity that has remained secretive and non-transparent, refusing to reveal its funding sources. Freedom of Information Act requests were filed to force the University to reveal its sources. But these FOIA requests continue to be thwarted.[13]

Entine is a shameless hack for mainstream big industry as is demonstrated by his record of being paid to protect dangerous and controversial products. An investigative report in the Boston Globe revealed that Monsanto executives recruited prestigious professors to write favorable papers about their products, namely GMOs and chemical pesticides.[14] Entine publicly admitted to Bloomberg that he has helped edit their work in the past. Yet, Entine doesn’t limit himself to GMOs. He has viciously attacked a prestigious Harvard scientist and climate change expert, Naomi Orestes, who opposes nuclear power. He supports, without reservation, the use of neonicitinoid pesticides that have been repeatedly shown to contribute to honeybee colony collapse. In fact, Entine has written that neonics benefit bees in his attack on European nations that have formally banned neonics. He denies that phthalates, an endocrine hormone disrupter banned in Europe, are health hazards. He has supported another endocrine disruptor BPA, also partially banned in Europe. Entine defends hydraulic fracking and has consistently attacked Cornell University scientists who are perhaps the world’s experts in hydro-fracking’s risks and its most harsh critics. This list goes on and on.[15]

A Case Example of Public Deception about GMOs

In June 2016, 108 Nobel laureates signed a letter against Greenpeace and the international organization’s opposition to genetically engineered Golden Rice. This rice, which has yet to be brought to market, was formulated in the belief that it would significantly reduce illnesses associated with Vitamin A deficiency which is primarily a problem for the poorest people on the planet, primarily Africa and Southeast Asia. There has been considerable criticism s of the letter. On the one hand, the argument doesn’t follow that every one of these laureates supports all GMOs in general. Nevertheless, the Nobel letter has become the gold standard of agribusiness’ industry’s PR machine which propagandized the letter as it fed the letter to the mainstream media. Consequently, the news blared that the laureates are in agreement that all GMOs are safe. But nothing could be further from the truth.[16]

Looking at this more deeply, the Nobel laureates’ letter has an interesting gensis. Its originator was Sir Richard Roberts, who received the Nobel Prize for discovering genetic sequences known as introns. Sir Roberts currently serves as Chief Science Officer at New England Biolabs which is involved in GMO research. Roberts also happens to have earned a somewhat controversial reputation as a leading promulgator of GMOs in India and has been accused of unfounded exaggeration of food shortage threats to the lives of millions of people unless there is wholesale, uncritical adoption of GMOs.[17] At this moment, lawsuits remain pending against Monsanto for violating India’s regulations and the national government is in session to possibly ban Monsanto’s GMO cotton. GMOs have been a nightmare for the Indian subcontinent; Monsanto knows this and is already making efforts to step further away from India as a market for its genetically engineered seeds. Forbes magazine recently profiled Sir Robert’s most recent mission to promulgate GMOs to the world religious leaders including Pope Francis and the Dalai Lama.[18]

For many academics possessing actual experience in agricultural sciences and developmental conditions in third world nations, the laureates’ letter was an outrage. According to professor Devon Pena at the University of Washington, and an expert in indigenous agriculture, the laureates’ letter is “shameful.” He noted that the signatories were “mostly white men of privilege with little background in risk science, few with a background in toxicology studies, and certainly none with knowledge of the indigenous agro-ecological alternatives. All of you should be stripped of your Nobels.” In fact one “signatory”, Alfred Gilman, was already dead. And none of the Nobel signatories have any background in agriculture, which led a professor of physical sciences and statistics at UC-Berkeley to write “Science is supposed to be ‘show me’, not ‘trust me’… Nobel Prize or not.”[19]

So, how did Sir Roberts, gather 107 signatures from Nobel laureates? The press conference that first announced this PR achievement was directly connected to Monsanto’s former PR man, Jay Byrne, now head of the biotech industry PR firm v-Fluence. In addition, the laureates’ letter was originally housed at the website, supportprecisionagriculture.org. Curiously its sister website, supportprecisionagriculture.com finds its home with the Genetic Literacy Project. Jon Entine is a close associate of Byrne, having been the editor of Byrne’s book “Let Them Eat Precaution,” published by the pro-business and conservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute.[20]

And there is one further caveat to the Nobel laureate letter. According to the International Rice Research Institute, Golden Rice is not ready for release. It has yet to be tested for toxicity and has yet to prove efficacy in combating health conditions related to vitamin A deficiency.[21] This was the primary reason behind Greenpeace’s opposition to its release on the market. Greenpeace adopted a precautionary stance. Nevertheless the GMO industry with the assistance of the GLP turned this into an opportunity for a publicity misinformation stunt to silence one of GMOs largest critics.

American Council on Science and Health

The Genetic Literacy Project is a key collaborator with another food industry front organization, the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH). But ACSH has very little do with actual science of health. It has been described by the independent corporate financial watchdog organization Sourcewatch as a thinly veiled corporate front that holds “a generally apologetic stance regarding virtually every other health and environmental hazard produced by modern industry, accepting corporate funding from Coca-Cola, Syngenta, Proctor Gamble, Kellogg, General Mills, Pepsico, and the American Beverage Association, among others.”[22] ACSH is also in favor of toxic pesticides, the use of biphenol A in products and hydrofracking. It is also closely aligned with pseudo-medical front organizations that criticize alternative and natural health modalities. Among ACSH’s board of scientific advisors is controversial Quackbuster founder, Steven Barrett.

The extremist Koch Brother’s American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has also been associated with the ACSH. This information was leaked to Mother Jones and subsequently, ACSH’s executive director Dr. Gilbert Ross did not deny the veracity of the leaked information. Remarkably, Ross was convicted of scamming Medicaid for $8 million in 2005, had his medical license revoked, and served half of a 46 month prison. He now has his license back and is heading one of the more powerful food lobbying organizations in the nation.[23]

Ketchum and GMO Answers

Ketchum is the principle public relations firm for Monsanto, Dow Chemical and mega grocery manufacturers such as Kraft. The GMO and food industries are among Ketchum’s special focus areas. Ketchum is owned by the corporate giant Omnicom and has a checkered history that includes unsavory clients and engaging in questionable legal activities. It spearheaded the public relations efforts to improve the image of Honduras following the Obama administration’s backed coup in 2009. A Mother Jones investigative report in 2010 uncovered Ketchum’s espionage activities targeted against Greenpeace on behalf of Dow Chemical.

In 2013, Ketchum launched GMO Answers, an interactive, personalized website to convince the public to accept GM foods and produce. According to Gary Ruskin’s investigations at US Right to Know, GMO Answers claims the public’s questions and concerns about GMOs are answered by qualified scientists and professors. However it was uncovered that much of the pro-GMO materials is ghostwritten by Ketchum employees or independent contractors.

In an interview with US Right to Know founder, Gary Ruskin, Ketchum was identified as recruiting an army of journalists, trolls and private industry compromised scientists and academics to defend GMOs, pesticides and processed foods containing GMO ingredients.[25]

Cornell Alliance for Science

Many pro-GMO front organizations frame themselves as scientific organizations to seduce people into believing they are engaged in an actual scientific inquiry. In fact, these groups are nothing more than well-funded propaganda machines devoted to the distribution of misinformation and faux research in order to promote the GMO agriculture agenda. Such organizations are now commonplace in the corporate scientific community and medical establishment.

One such GMO public relations front is the Alliance for Science at Cornell University (AFS). As reported by GM Watch, AFS does not conduct any agricultural research, yet its tentacles reach far and wide largely to attack GMO opponents. Similar to the Genetic Literacy Project at University of California at Davis agriculture department, the AFS makes the unfounded claim to represent “balanced” research about genetic engineered products. One of its missions is to influence the next generation of agricultural scientists to embrace GMO science. For AFS, as for Bill Gates, GMOS are the only food solution for Africa in the future. Recently, organic farmers in New York mobilized to pressure the Trustees of Cornell University to evict AFS’ presence and influence over the school’s prestigious College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.[26]

Several incidents of protest against anti-GMO organizations and activists now reveal that AFS is nothing more than a propaganda campaign to attack and discredit opposition. Two of its most notable targets have been the non-profit organization US Right to Know in Oakland CA and the public appearances by the international organic food activist Vandana Shiva. US Right to Know is devoted to exposing what the food industry and Big Agriculture corporations such as Monsanto don’t want the public to know. AFS waslaunched in 2014 after the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation granted AFS $5.6 million in start-up money.[27]

Conclusions

GMO tobacco science aside, what is most disturbing is that the public has become the victim of one of the greatest deceptions that will have untold detrimental consequences upon future generations. The public has blindly trusted the statements of our government agencies — particularly the FDA and USDA — that have been headed by former Monsanto personnel since the Clinton White House. Our legislators and mainstream media profit from the industrial food firms and their commercial associations, that GMOs are healthy, pose no environmental risks and are saving the planet by reducing hunger. Nothing can be further from the truth as we witness more and more nations, particularly in the developing world, rejecting the GMO agricultural paradigm.

Whenever the truth is told, no matter the amount of prevailing documentation and expert witness presented, there is enormous push back by agriculture industry spin doctors, hired professional PR firms, and internet trolls paid to promulgate lies, misinformation and character assassination of all anti-GMO advocates. There is no honor, no responsibility to accept reliable and trustworthy data or any science contrary to agribusiness interests. These corporations make every effort to reduce the urgency of their products’ health risks in order to protect the guilty.

So far, the war of facts about GMO safety has had little impact on altering or shifting national policy. This is because of the overarching economic interests that must be protected by perpetuating scientific lies by any means possible. The success of Big Agriculture’s public relations strategy and operations has been fear, intimidation, and slander. It has never been a campaign based upon scientific facts, but only scientific deception, spin and outright falsehoods. Unfortunately, mainstream media continually laps up this misinformation while ignoring any contrary independent research.

There must be a public debate, on a nationally recognized level, of independent GMO research, not compromised by commercial or ideological interests, to commence and lay to rest GMO safety issues once and for all. This is the only way that the truth will finally come out and the propaganda control by GMO agribusiness will be broken.

Richard Gale is the Executive Producer of the Progressive Radio and a former Senior Research Analyst in the biotechnology and genomic industries. Dr. Gary Null is the host of the nation’s longest running public radio program on nutrition and natural health and a multi-award-winning director of progressive documentary films, including Seeds of Death about GMOs and Poverty Inc. More at the Progressive Radio Network

Notes

[1] “Despite ‘Cloak of Moral Necessity,’ Report Shows Big Ag Can’t Feed the World” http://commondreams.org/news/2016/10/05/despite-cloak-moral-necessity-report-shows-big-ag-cant-feed-world
[2] “The BGH Scandals” PR Watch. Volume 7, No. 4, 2000. https://www.organicconsumers.org/old_articles/rbgh/akrepart1.php
[3] http://www.gmoseralini.org/seralinis-team-wins-defamation-and-forgery-court-cases-on-gmo-and-pesticide-research/
[4] “Seralini wins again in court against his attackers” GM Watch, Sepetmber 26, 2016. http://gmwatch.org/news/latest-news/17236
[5] Gale R, Null G. “Monsanto Knew All Along. Secret Studies Reveal the Truth of Roundup Toxicity,” The Ecologist. September 18, 2015. http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2985458/monsanto_knew_all_along_secret_studies_reveal_the_truth_of_roundup_toxicity.html
[6] https://usrtk.org/news-releases/uc-davis-sued-for-failing-to-release-public-records-on-gmos-and-pesticides/
[7] https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org
[8] Katherine Paul, “How Monsanto solicited academics to bolster their pro-GMO propaganda using taxpayer dollars,” Alternet. October 15, 2015. http://www.alternet.org/food/monsanto-scandal-biotech-giant-solicited-academics-fight-their-pro-gmo-war
[9] Antoniou M, Fagan M, Robinson C. “GMO Myths and Truths” 2015 second edition. http://earthopensource.org/gmomythsandtruths/download/
[10] Heyes JD. “Who’s funding Jon Entine’s Genetic Literacy Project’s pro-GMO propaganda?” Natural News, April 6, 2016. http://www.naturalnews.com/053565_Jon_Entine_character_assassin_funding_sources.html
[11] see documentary film Seeds of Death. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6OxbpLwEj
[12] “Scientist jeopardizes career by publishing paper criticizing GM foods”. The Organic and Non-GMO Report, 2009. http://www.non-gmoreport.com/articles/nov09/scientists_criticizing_gm_foods.php
[13] http://www.truthwiki.org/Jon_Entine/#exactline
[14] Laura Krantz. “Harvard Professor failed to disclose connection.” Boston Globe. October 1, 2015. https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/10/01/harvard-professor-failed-disclose-monsanto-connection-paper-touting-gmos/lLJipJQmI5WKS6RAgQbnrN/story.html
[15] US Right to Know. http://usrtk.org/hall-of-shame/jon-entine-the-chemical-industrys-master-messenger/
[16] http://www.gmwatch.org/news/latest-news/17077-pro-gmo-campaign-exploits-nobel-laureates-to-attack-greenpeace-and-fool-the-people
[17] Ibid.
[18] “Nobel laureate Sir Richard Roberts to ask religious and government leaders to support GMOs” Forbes. September 21, 2016. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kavinsenapathy/2016/09/21/nobel-laureate-sir-richard-roberts-to-ask-religious-and-government-leaders-to-support-gmos/#695a848e5cc8
[19] http://www.gmwatch.org/news/latest-news/17077-pro-gmo-campaign-exploits-nobel-laureates-to-attack-greenpeace-and-fool-the-people
[20] Ibid.
[21] “Who is to blame for the failure of GMO golden rice?” Independent Science News. August 10, 2016. https://www.independentsciencenews.org/health/millions-spent-who-is-to-blame-failure-gmo-golden-rice/
[22] http://www.truthwiki.org/jon_entine/
[23] Bill Hogan. “Paging Dr. Ross,” Mother Jones. November 2005. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2005/11/paging-dr-ross
[24] James Ridgeway. “Black Ops, Green Groups” Mother Jones. April 11, 2008. http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2008/04/exclusive-cops-and-former-secret-service-agents-ran-black-ops-green-groups?
[25] Interview with Gary Ruskin. Progressive Radio Network. September 27, 2016. http://prn.fm/progressive-commentary-hour-09-27-16/
[26] Ibid.
[27] “Gates Foundation Backed Pro-GMO Cornell Alliance for Science on the Attack,” Corporate Crime Reporter. March 5, 2015. http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/gates-foundation-backed-pro-gmo-cornell-alliance-science-attack/

Note: In its 200 year history, the USA has intervened in, invaded or militarily occupied the following Western Hemisphere nations:

Canada, Confederate States of America, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, Surinam, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Grenada.

While the dates most associated with the Central Intelligence Agency are the 1953 coup against Iran’s Mohammed Mossadeq and the following year against Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz, the world’s most notorious–and possibly ignoble–spy agency actually was chartered on this day, 18 September, in 1947.

Since then, the CIA has played a role in hundreds of assassinations, military coups, and rebellions around the globe, from Argentina to Zaire.

Despite it’s championing of freedom, the CIA’s true objective has always been imperialist in nature. Whether oil in Iran or bananas in Guatemala, the U.S. has a material interest in every country in whose affairs it has meddled.

In order to meet its goals, the CIA recruits influential, intellectual and charismatic personalities. The agency also resorts to threats, kidnappings, torture, enforced disappearances and assassinations. The organization incites violence, uprisings and military rebellion, and causes economic chaos and misery to the people through scarcity of basic foods, etc..

The CIA has been exposed on a number of occasions through documented evidence, leaks of information and whistleblowing by active and former agents.

Che Guevera, the revolutionary face of resistance against U.S. homicidal interventions. Two years after leading a rebellion against Washington’s intervention in Bolivia, Che was murdered.

1. 1954 – Guatemala

In 1944, the violent U.S.-backed dictatorship of Jorge Ubico was overthrown by a popular uprising. The people of Guatemala were sick and tired of the brutal injustices of his regime, although in reality Ubico was merely a puppet of The United Fruit Company, which obeyed Washington’s orders. They basically enslaved the population. They stripped campesinos and Indigenous people of their lands and forced them to work their own parcels and paid them bread crumbs. Those who dared to disobey were brutally punished by a police force working for the U.S. fruit company.

The victory of the uprising brought peace to the country but it only took 10 years for U S President Dwight Eisenhower (and two of Ike’s cabinet members [who were also United Fruit Company insiders] Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and CIA Chief Allen Dulles) to implement a plan to overthrow the government.

In 1954, (US President Dwight Eisenhower’s) CIA launched the so-called Operation PBSuccess. The country’s capital, Guatemala City, was bombed by U.S. warplanes. The young Ernesto “Che” Guevara was there and witnessed the ordeal first hand. Hundreds of campesino leaders were executed and many campesino and Mayan Indigenous communities were completely wiped out. The brutal CIA intervention wasn’t complete until 200,000 had been killed. U.S. companies were again enjoying huge profits in the Central American country and Washington was happy.

U.S.-backed and financed military tyrants of Guatemala 1954

2. 1959 – Haiti

Haiti is equally strategic to the United States as are the Dominican Republic and Cuba. So, Washington doesn’t hesitate when their brutal control appears to wane in the Caribbean. Under no circumstance, would the U.S. allow governments in the region to lean to the left, and if they dare to, (US President Dwight Eisenhower’) CIA steps in to push them back to the right. Of course, Cuba is a rare example of resilience to U.S. efforts to achieve hegemony in the area. Since 1959, the Cuban revolution of Fidel Castro has repealed the relentless U.S. attacks.

But in Haiti, the story is different. In 1959 as well, popular discontent rose against the brutal puppet of the U.S., Francois Duvalier. The CIA stepped in and stopped it immediately. With the help of the intelligence agency, Duvalier wasted no time and created an army to violently repress all those who rose up against him. He and his heir to the regime, Jean Claude Duvalier, ordered massacres that were so horrendous they defy words. Over 100,000 people were murdered. And in 1986, when a new but uncontrollable rebellion took over, a U.S. Air Force plane rescued Jean Claude and took him to France so he could live in peaceful luxury.

U.S. puppet Francois “Papa Doc”  Duvalier—a CIA murderer

3. 1964 – Brazil

The year of 1964 was one of incredible transformation in Brazil. Democratically-elected President Joao Goulart implemented his “Plan of Basic Reforms.” Even though the U.S. had exerted much of its power through ensuring people weren’t lifted from ignorance and illiteracy, Brazil implemented real changes that made Washington very uncomfortable. Firstly, a tax reform was put in place that would hugely carve into the profits of the multinational corporations of the United States and its allies. Washington was also very unhappy with a reform by which land would be given back to their legitimate owners and would redistribute other lands to poor people.

It was now time to send in (US President Lyndon Johnson’s) CIA to take action against the government of Goulart, which they did in 1964. They put in power a brutal dictatorship that lasted 19 years. During this regime, thousands were tortured and hundreds executed. The CIA also made sure all those leaders who had leftist tendencies were eliminated, particularly Marxists.

4. 1969 – Uruguay

During the sixties, revolutionary movements spread through Latin America. Uruguay was drowned in crises. United States saw influential socialist leaders emerge in this South American nation. For example, the urban revolutionary guerrilla known as the Tupamaros. Jose “Pepe” Mujica was part of it, and so was his wife Lucia Topolansky. Washington became obsessed with eliminating them, fearing the influence and power they were achieving.

Nelson Rockefeller went to Uruguay to observe first-hand how they were, generating a growing anti-Yankee sentiment. He returned to Washington to alert authorities that something needed to be done urgently.

Of course, (US President Richard Nixon’s) CIA responded immediately. They sent their special agent Dan Mitrione. He trained security forces in the art of torture and other highly macabre practices that are indescribable in nature. And then the CIA put in power Juan Maria Bordaberry and his military dictatorship. He ruled under direct order from Washington the next 12 years, during which he killed hundreds of people and tortured tens of thousands more. Repression was so brutal and Uruguayans were so traumatized and fearful they no longer carried out their traditional dances, which symbolize happiness and victory.

5. 1971 – Bolivia

The vast Latin American natural resources are the envy of the greedy and powerful politicians of the United States, who resort to any means to control them for their own benefit, and never for the people and countries they brutally exploit. During decades, U.S. multinational corporations enslaved people in vast regions of Chile, Bolivia and Peru. When those living under slavery conditions dared to rebel against their oppressors, they were annihilated in bulk. Che Guevara felt compelled to go to Bolivia and help the people rise in revolution.

This was 1967. By then, U.S. mining companies had enslaved entire communities, including children, who they banned from school. Two years later, Che Guevara was murdered by (US President Richard Nixon’s) CIA. Once out of their way, CIA officials established a military regime.

However, the people again turned on Washington. General Juan Jose Torres took power and implemented reforms to benefit workers and those living in poverty. Hope returned to Bolivia and its people, but the CIA would not allow this to continue. The agency recruited General Hugo Banzer. He led the coup against Torres and in 1971, he kicked off his violent dictatorship. He ordered the torture of a number of opposition leaders and the execution of hundreds of influential political leaders. He sent about 8,000 other leaders to jail. Washington was happy.

6. 1973 – Chile

Chilean President Salvador Allende was just another of the many victims of the many coups on democracy carried out by the United States (Note the date: 9/11/73)

Chile was another country brutally exploited by U.S. corporations.Washington (US President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger) made sure the people lived in utter misery. The CIA used different tactics but the results were the same. The agency led a smear campaign against the government of Chile, as it is currently doing in Venezuela. They used national and international media to demonize President Salvador Allende. They made sure people who had once been loyal to him because of his benevolent way of governing turned on him.

How you ask? The same way they’re doing it in Venezuela. By causing scarcity through extortion, through torture, imprisonment, enforced disappearances and by assassinating all those who refused to bow to them. Washington was irritated beyond control after Allende nationalized natural resources. They were also annoyed because Allende built houses for those who couldn’t afford homes. He made sure his people had access to education. When Allende’s popularity was successfully undermined, the next step was to plan a coup against him. It would now be easy. And on September. 11, 1973, Gen. Augusto Pinochet led the military all the way to the presidential palace with the backing of the CIA, who provided him with all the necessary weapons and armored vehicles.

War planes dropped bombs on the palace. Before he died, Allende told his people: “I will not give up! Placed in a historic transition, I will pay for the loyalty of the people with my life. And I tell you with certainty that that which we have planted in the good conscience of thousands and thousands of Chileans will not be shriveled forever. They are strong and they may be able to dominate us, but the social processes cannot be halted nor with crime nor by force.”

Pinochet ruled for 17 years. He jailed 80,000 people, tortured 30,000 and murdered 3,200.

7. 1976 – Argentina

The Argentine people endured arguably the bloodiest dictatorship of South America. It was so terrible that reading about it can be traumatic. Concentration camps, torture centers, massacres, massive rape of women and children, the beating of pregnant women, and the execution of boys and girls. In total, 30,000 people were executed. Behind it all: the CIA.

In 1973, Argentina was going through a political crisis so grave that President Juan Peron collapsed and ultimately died of a heart attack in 1974. His wife, Isabel Martínez de Perón, took power only to confront conflicts everywhere, even within her own Peronist party.

The CIA waited like a cat hunting its prey until 1976, when the situation they themselves provoked was so bad their intervention would be a walk in the park. Of course, as usual, a key recruitment was in order. The right-wing military dictator-to-be was Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla. The next step – a coup d’etat in yet another Latin American nation, and again another dictatorship at the service of the United States.

This time, (US President Richard Nixon’s) nefarious Henry Kissinger would be in charge of supervising the brutal regime. The rest is history: genocide, massive human rights violations, enforced disappearances, child theft, among other heinous crimes. All this, with the approval of the hypocritical and shameless owners of power in Washington.

8. 1980 – El Salvador

Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero broke with Catholic tradition by caring for the poor. He paid for it with his life.

The people of this Central American country suffered no less than Argentina under the U.S. intervention that was carried out by you know who: the CIA. Washington had already backed a brutal dictatorship that lasted 50 years from 1931 to 1981. Campesinos and Indigenous were smashed without mercy. More than 40,000 were massacred.

Things were so bad a rare incident occurred. The Catholic church tried to intervene in favor of the poor and oppressed. At this point in time, El Salvador was controlled by 13 mafia-style families who had expropriated about half of the national territory. The 13 families were closely linked to Washington. And (US President Jimmy Carter’s and later US President Ronald Reagan’s) CIA, just in case, made sure the military was very well trained in everything horrific.

They were provided with all the right lethal equipment. And when the CIA found out that Jesuits were helping out the masses, they made sure they were killed. They also asked Pope John Paul II to speak to Archbishop Óscar Romero to try to persuade him to desist. Romero refused to comply and so they murdered him when he was officiating mass in 1980. When the U.S. intervention was over, 75,000 people were reported murdered, but the U.S. was at peace.

9. 1989 – Panama

CIA agent and Washington-backed drug trafficker Manuel Noriega enraged the U.S. when he refused to obey their orders, prompting an invasion that left 3,500 innocent civilians dead.

Another unprecedented incident occurs in this Central American country. A (US President George H. W. Bush’s) CIA agent rises to power as a dictator in the form of Manuel “Pineapple Face” Noriega. Washington’s interest here, among others, is the inter-oceanic canal.

When President Omar Torrijos tried to take over control of the Panama Canal, the CIA planted a bomb on his plane and that was the end of that.

In 1983, Noriega took power. He was a drug trafficker for the CIA. He had been for some 30 years. That was fine with Washington. He was of huge service to them. In fact, he was instrumental in the Iran-Contra affair, by which the CIA circumvented Congress’ prohibition to provide the Nicaraguan contras with weapons to be used against the leftist Sandinista movement.

Noriega helped with cocaine to be sent mainly to Los Angeles, California, where it was sold in form of crack and served to poison vast Black communities, another of the devious objectives of the CIA. The money was used to buy arms in Iran to provide the contras with them.

Money and power transforms the weak and devious. Noriega wasn’t exempt. It went to his head. He now believed he was untouchable and felt he could ignore Washington’s orders and instead of helping the U.S. place Guillermo Endara in power in Nicaragua, he decided he would impose a president of his own choosing: Francisco Rodriguez. Noriega also began harassing U.S. military bases in Panama. The U.S. was not about to put up his unruly behavior. Washington deployed troops to invade Panama in December 1989.

They captured Noriega and locked him up in a Miami jail, but before that, they killed 3,500 innocent civilians and displaced 20,000 more… (The CIA called the operation against Panama “Operation Just Cause.”)

10. 1990 – Peru

Finally, we arrive at Peru (and US President George H. W. Bush’s CIA). First we need to understand that this list by no means represents the end of U.S. interventions worldwide. The CIA continues to cause havoc across Latin America and the rest of the world. However, these 10 cases may enlighten those who refuse to believe that the United States is responsible for death and destruction. It also serves to show how they operate and can be easily detected in places where there is instability, hunger and chaos. Instability, hunger and chaos is their specialty.

In Peru another CIA agent rose to power. Alberto Fujimori was elected president in 1990. The reason why his election is highly suspicious is because he was a mediocre person with no education and no charisma. He had no political influence, and he was known to nobody but his family.

But he did show some intelligence when he asked Vladimiro Montesinos to be his associate. Montesinos was a lawyer and a very intelligent person with above average strategic thinking. He was also a CIA man.

Fujimori named him National Intelligence Service director. A paramilitary group was created only to murder leftist and Marxist leaders. Fujimori dissolved Congress and locked up all the members of the Supreme Court of Justice. The CIA helped him with his plan, they financed him and supervised all his atrocities. Today, Fujimori is in jail.

Note: The 10 sovereign Latin American nations that were discussed in some detail above were just the Ten Most Lethal CIA-led Coups. The article did not include the militarily-invaded Latin American nations of Mexico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Venezuela, Surinam, Paraguay, Puerto Rico and Grenada. – GGK

As the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia comes under renewed scrutiny in the wake of the Gulf nation’s weekend bombing campaign in Yemen, a Reuters exclusive published Monday reveals that the Obama administration approved a $1.3 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia last year despite warnings that it could implicate the U.S. in war crimes.

The Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen on Saturday killed at least 140 people and wounded hundreds more, prompting the U.S. to launch a “review” of its support for the kingdom. On Monday, Reuters reported that the U.S. Department of State had already warned the government that “the United States could be implicated in war crimes” for aiding the campaign.

Officials also had doubts that the Saudi military would actually be able to target Houthi militants without hurting civilians or destroying infrastructure, according to department emails and interviews with officials.

However, government lawyers stopped just short of concluding that U.S. support for the campaign would implicate the country in war crimes—which could have opened up the U.S. military to accountability. Reuters writes:

U.S. government lawyers ultimately did not reach a conclusion on whether U.S. support for the campaign would make the United States a “co-belligerent” in the war under international law, four current and former officials said. That finding would have obligated Washington to investigate allegations of war crimes in Yemen and would have raised a legal risk that U.S. military personnel could be subject to prosecution, at least in theory.

The documents, obtained by Reuters through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, shed new light on “how the United States pressed the Saudis to limit civilian damage and provided detailed lists of sites to avoid bombing, even as officials worried about whether the Saudi military had the capacity to do so,” Rueters continues.

American officials were actually well aware that airstrikes in Yemen were killing scores of civilians. Reuters writes:

State Department lawyers “had their hair on fire” as reports of civilian casualties in Yemen multiplied in 2015, and prominent human rights groups charged that Washington could be complicit in war crimes, one U.S. official said. That official and the others requested anonymity.

During an October 2015 meeting with private human rights groups, a State Department specialist on protecting civilians in conflict acknowledged Saudi strikes were going awry.

“The strikes are not intentionally indiscriminate but rather result from a lack of Saudi experience with dropping munitions and firing missiles,” the specialist said, according to a department account of the meeting.

The specialist also noted that “weak intelligence” had contributed to confusion over who was who on the ground.

The investigation comes just after the U.S. approved yet another billion-dollar arms sale to Saudi Arabia. At the time of the authorization in September, Oxfam America president Ray Offenheiser condemned the deal as continued evidence of both nations’ “startling indifference to civilian lives.”

Indeed, as Common Dreams reported over the weekend, the Obama administration’s new review has little credibility among anti-war advocates. Although National Security Council spokesman Ned Price rebuked the airstrikes Saturday night, stating, “U.S. security cooperation with Saudi Arabia is not a blank check,” United Nations-based journalist Samuel Oakford pointed out in response that the government has long been making that empty declaration.

“WH used this ‘not a black check’ language for months,” he tweeted, noting that there is also no deadline for the review and that “refueling continues.”

Various news agencies internationally reported on October 10 that a Pentagon war vessel was threatened by missiles amid an escalating war of imperialist dominance in the Middle Eastern state of Yemen. This ship was reported to have been deployed in the southern Red Sea.

Only a week before another ship from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was struck causing extensive damage in a missile attack said to have also come from inland Yemen.

A Destroyer known as the USS Mason was reportedly not struck in the alleged attack according to Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, who serves as a spokesman for the Department of Defense. Pentagon officials contend the incident took place around 7 p.m. as the ship, which originated from Norfolk, Virginia, was claimed to have been in international waters off the coast of Yemen.

The Pentagon quickly sought to blame the supposed incursion against their ship on the Ansurallah movement (also known as the Houthis) which Washington has targeted as the principal enemy in Yemen since the religious group has made gains in taking control of huge areas of territory in the northern, central and southern regions of the country located near the Gulf of Aden. The Supreme Revolutionary Committee, an alliance led by the Ansurallah, has been targeted in air strikes and ground operations since the withdrawal of U.S. diplomatic and military personnel in early 2015.

Davis told the Washington Post that the U.S. assessed “the missiles were launched from Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen. The United States remains committed to ensuring freedom of navigation everywhere in the world, and we will continue to take all necessary steps to ensure the safety of our ships and our service members.”

The war conducted by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) since March 2015, has resulted in the deaths of more than 10,000 Yemenis. Daily aerial bombardments have sought to neutralize and defeat the Ansurallah movement which is accused of being supported politically by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Supporters of the Ansurallah have been largely the Shite-oriented adherents of Islam in Yemen whom have formed an alliance with the former President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Military units still loyal to Saleh have fought against a coalition of anti-Houthis forces including the ousted Saudi and U.S.-backed President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who has been reinforced by Islamist elements alongside special forces from the GCC countries and their allies.

On October 8, Saudi-GCC air forces struck a funeral in the capital of Sanaa killing over 140 people. There were at least two separate bombings according to eyewitnesses at the scene of the attacks. These air strikes follow a pattern since this phase of the war emerged which targets civilians through the bombing of residential areas, schools, health facilities, mosques and internally displaced persons camps.

There has been the deliberate destruction of power stations and water supply lines in a war of desperation to reclaim control of the country by political interests currently allied with Washington, London, Paris, Brussels and Riyadh. Numerous attempts to negotiate a political settlement involving the major organizations and religious groups inside the Middle East’s most impoverished state have been sabotaged by the Saudi Monarchy supported by the U.S. State Department.

International Outcry Over Funeral Attack

Even the Wall Street Journal reported on October 10 that “With its military campaign in Yemen under renewed international scrutiny, Saudi Arabia said it ‘regretted’ a strike on a funeral that killed 142 mourners but stopped short of accepting responsibility for the attack. In a letter from its United Nations mission to the U.N. Security Council on Sunday, the kingdom promised to release the results of an investigation into Saturday’s airstrike, which Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels blamed on the Saudi-led coalition fighting to unseat them.”

U.S. State Department top envoy Secretary of State John Kerry was said to have made a telephone call to the Saudi leadership expressing Washington’s “grave concern.” Perhaps this particular air strike which received widespread press coverage in U.S. media was a potential political embarrassment to the administration of President Barack Obama. Kerry’s predecessor, Hillary Clinton, is currently seeking the presidency in a hotly-contested race against New York real estate magnate and right-wing demagogue Donald Trump.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also weighed in on the massacre saying “Aerial attacks by the Saudi-led coalition have already caused immense carnage and destroyed much of the country’s medical facilities and other vital civilian infrastructure. Bombing people already mourning the loss of loved ones is reprehensible. This latest horrific incident demands a full inquiry. More broadly, there must be accountability for the appalling conduct of this entire war.”

This same statement went on to emphasize that “The Secretary-General condemns the attack on an event hall in Sana’a where hundreds of people were gathered for a funeral ceremony. Initial reports indicate that the attack, said to have been airstrikes by the Coalition, killed over 140 people and injured hundreds of others. The Secretary-General expresses his sincere condolences and sympathies to the families of the victims and wishes a speedy recovery to those injured. The Secretary-General notes that any deliberate attack against civilians is utterly unacceptable and calls for a prompt and impartial investigation of this incident. Those responsible for the attack must be brought to justice. The Secretary-General once again reminds all parties to abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law – including the fundamental rules of proportionality, distinction and precaution – to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure against attack.”

The Secretary General also noted that he had requested that the UN Human Rights Council establish a team to conduct an independent investigation into the bombings on October 8. He stated as well that these latest attacks represented a continuation of a disaster that has left 80 percent of the 20 million people in Yemen in need of humanitarian assistance.

An Imperialist-engineered Disaster

Many Yemenis have fled to other parts of the country and abroad to avoid the impact of the conflict. The situation has been the subject of numerous reports issued by the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs and other relief organizations.

Spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Jens Laerke, went as far as to say that the bombing and ground war in Yemen has destroyed the economic fabric of the country. Laerke emphasized that the situation has destroyed basic services moving the economy toward near total collapse. This same office noted that children have been the main casualties in the war. (VOA)

The World Food Program (WFP), a UN agency, reported that it has reduced monthly food rations to the people of Yemen due to the lack of funds. Bettina Luescher, a spokeswoman for the WFP, said that agency needs another $145 million to complete its work by the end of 2016. (VOA)

Laerke stressed as well that “Even before the violence and the war in Yemen, the malnutrition rates of children in Yemen were the highest in the world. So you have a little bit of a perfect storm coming together there.”

The port city of Hudaydah has suffered tremendous damage making it difficult to import food and other needed supplies. “Before the war, Yemen was over 90 percent dependent on import of basic food items and medicines,” he said. “Eighty percent of those imports come through Hudaydah port. That gives you an indication of the importance of that lifeline.”

“What is particularly urgent in the port is the rehabilitation and the repair of five cranes, which were damaged in an airstrike in August 2015, so they have been partly out of commission for quite some time,” Laerke noted.

“Half of the children are stunted,” Luescher added, “meaning they are too short for their age because of chronic malnutrition. This year, the nutrition cluster estimates that there are 1.5 million [children younger than 5] who are acutely malnourished, of whom 375,000 are suffering from severe acute malnutrition. There are many, many others suffering from moderate malnutrition, indicative of the gravity and severity of the situation.”

U.S. War Policy Causes Death and Destruction

This is a genocidal war being waged with the support of Washington. It is the Obama administration that has authorized the use of American-made warplanes, bombs and other destructive weapons against the Yemeni people.

The Wall Street Journal reported on October 10 that “The U.S., a top Saudi arms supplier, approved a $1.15 billion sale of tanks and other military equipment to Riyadh in August. Citing Yemen’s high civilian casualty toll, four senators introduced a resolution on the floor of the Senate in September to block the sale, but the measure failed to garner sufficient support in a vote later that month. The U.K. government has approved for the sale of billions of dollars’ worth of British jets, bombs and missiles to the country in recent years.”

Without the diplomatic cover provided by the White House the war waged by the Saudi-GCC coalition could not have been carried out for the last 19 months. The situation in Syria has overshadowed the war in Yemen yet both are a direct result of the failed imperialist policies of the U.S.

As Russia and America creep ever closer to outright conflict, now that the diplomatic facade of the proxy war in Syria falls away with every passing day, one voice if calling for the world to stop and reassess what it is doing. Former USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev warned on Monday that the world has reached a “dangerous point” as tensions between Russia and the United States surge over the Syria conflict; a conflict which if escalated even fractionally further, could result in all out war between the two superpowers according to General Joseph Dunford.

Gorbachev blamed the current state of affairs between Russia and US on the “collapse of mutual trust” and urged the sides to resume dialogue and push towards demilitarization and complete nuclear disarmament.

“I think the world has reached a dangerous point. I don’t want to give any concrete prescriptions but I do want to say that this needs to stop. We need to renew dialogue. Stopping it was the biggest mistake.  Now we must return to the main priorities, such as nuclear disarmament, fighting terrorism and prevention of global environmental disasters. Compared to these challenges, all the rest slips into the background.” Gorbachev said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

Relations between Moscow and Washington, already at their lowest since the Cold War over the Ukraine conflict, deteriorated sharply in recent days as the United States pulled the plug on Syria talks and accused Russia of hacking attacks.

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev (L) and U.S. President Ronald Reagan begin their mini-summit talks in Reykjavik October 11, 1986.

As a result, last week Russia moved nuclear-capable Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, near the hear of central Europe, an indication that a nuclear disarmament is the last thing on the mind of either Putin or Obama; quite the contrary a new nuclear arms race has begun. That, however, did not stop Gorbachev to preach the need for nuclear disarmament.

“Of course, at this moment it is difficult to talk about moving towards a nuclear-free world, we must honestly admit it. But we should not forget: as long as there are nuclear weapons there is the threat of their use. It could be an accident, a technical malfunction of someone’s evil will – a madman or a terrorist,” the former Soviet leader said. Or a perfectly sane, administration official intent on starting a new world war to benefit his or her financial backers.

In the interview, Gorbachev also reminded that in line with the nuclear non-proliferation agreement all of its signatories must hold talks on nuclear disarmament uniting the eventual full destruction of nuclear weapons.

“The nuclear-free world is not a utopia, but rather an imperative necessity. But we can achieve it only through demilitarization of politics and international relations.”

Gorbachev added that veterans of international politics, such as the “council of sages” chaired by former UN leader Kofi Annan, understood these problems and expressed hope that their voices would be heard by modern leaders. At the same time he emphasized that the main responsibility for global security lies on these modern leaders who would make the greatest mistake if they do not use the last chance to return international politics to a peaceful course.

The former Soviet leader’s interview was published on Monday to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the USSR-US summit in Reykjavik, which eventually allowed the nuclear arms race to slow down and greatly contributed to the end of the Cold War. Ironically, it comes out at a time when the nuclear arms race is back front and center.

Looking back to a more sensible time, Gorbachev reiterated that the Reykjavik summit was a major breakthrough. “First, we agreed on many issues and second, we managed to look over the horizon, see the perspective of a nuclear-free world,” he said.

“It was very appealing that in the course of our negotiations President Ronald Reagan sincerely spoke about the necessity to rid the world of the weapons of mass destruction. We shared a common position on this issue.”

Sadly, today that is no longer the case, and as we said over the weekend when we profiled the latest Russian nuclear escalation, the next move will be one by NATO and it will be proportional, as the west delivers even more nuclear weapons in close proximity to Russia in what will become a tit-for-tat “defection” from the game theoretical equilibrium, until the “accident, technical malfunction, madman or  terrorist” emerges and unleashes an unthinkable scenario.

During the sexual scandals of Bill Clinton—the “bimbo eruptions” as Hillary called them—the Democrats and progressive opinion ruled out a person’s sex life as a political factor. Now suddenly nothing more than juvenile locker room banter without the actual sex has become the determinant of political unfitness.

Where did the 11-year old recording of locker room talk between Donald Trump and Billy Bush come from?

Who recorded it and kept it for 11 years for what purpose? Why was it released the day prior to the second debate between Trump and Hillary? Was the recording an illegal violation of privacy? What became of the woman who recorded Monica Lewinsky’s confession to her of sex with Bill Clinton? Wasn’t she prosecuted for wiretaping or some such offense? Why was Billy Bush, the relative of two US presidents, suspended from his TV show because of a private conversation with Trump?

You have to take men’s sexual banter with a grain of salt, just as you do their fish stories. President or candidate Bill Clinton himself publicly engaged in sexual banter. If memory serves, in a speech to blue collar workers, Bill said that the bed of his pickup truck was covered in artificial turf and “you know what that was for.” In the Clinton White House according to reports there were a number of female interns seeking Bill’s sexual attention. The scantily clad young women came to work sans underwear until Hillary put her foot down. One wonders if the Secret Service was told to inspect compliance with the dress code.

The One Percent masquerading as prudes want to remove Trump as the Republican candidate. Just how the people’s choice of presidential candidate is removed in a democracy prior to election, the prudes do not say. No one wanted to remove Clinton from the presidency despite the sexual use of the Oval Office, called at the time the “Oral Orifice.” The House Republicans wanted to remove Clinton not for sex but for lying about it, but the Senate would not go along with it. As senators all lied about their sexual liaisons, they saw no harm in it.

What disturbs me about the importance attributed to Trump’s sexual banter is that we have in front of us the dangerous situation of the neoconservatives pushing for Washington to attack Syrian and Russian forces in Syria and the chief Washington propagandist, neocon Carl Gershman, calling publicly for the US to “summon the will” to bring regime change to Russia.

The tensions between the two nuclear powers are currently at all time highs, and this dangerous situation is not a factor in the US presidential election! And some people wonder why I call Americans insouciant.

The US media, 90% owned by the One Percent, have teamed up with their owners against the American people — the 99 Percent. As Trump observed during the second presidential “debate,” ABC’s Martha Raddatz and CNN’s Anderson Cooper teamed up with Hillary against him: “Nice, three on one,” Trump said.

Do the 99 Percent understand that the anti-Trump hysteria fanned by the presstitutes is intended to keep the people in economic bondage and at war?

https://www.rt.com/usa/362298-media-endorsing-hillary-clinton/ 

We all know that the hysteria over the Trump-Billy Bush locker room banter is orchestrated for political purposes. But consider the absurdity of it all. Trump’s private expression of sexual interest in an attractive member of the opposite sex has been declared by the presstitutes to be “extremely lewd comments about women.”

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-billy-bush-today-show-20161009-story.html 

Is what is going on here the criminalization of heterosexual sex?

Feminist say that women do not want to be regarded as sex objects, but much of womankind disagrees, judging by the provocative way some of them dress. Clothes designers, assuming they are good judges of the apparal market for women, also disagree. At the latest Paris fashion show (October 1) Vivienne Westwood displayed a dress on which the female sexual organs are displayed on the dress.

https://sputniknews.com/photo/201610071046086772-pictures-week-october-07/ 

Vivienne Westwood is a woman, a British fashion designer. She has twice earned the award for British Designer of the Year. The Queen of England awarded her the aristocratic title of Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) “for services to fashion.”

At a ceremony honoring her at Buckingham Palace, Westwood appeared without panties and twirled her skirt in the courtyard of the palace. Photographers caught the event, and in Vivienne’s words, “ the result was more glamourous than I expected.”

As recently as 2012, Vivienne was chosen by a panel of academics, historians, and journalists as one of The New Elizabethans who have had a major impact on the UK and given this age its character.

In 18th century England, if historians are correct, young women would appear at evening social functions in wet gowns that clung to their bodies the better to indicate their charms. Some of them died of pneumonia as a consequence. They did this on their own accord to attract the attention of the opposite sex.

According to reports, robotic sexual partners are being created for men and women that are superior to the real thing. Other news reports are that young Japanese men go on vacation with their sex apps, not with girlfriends. There are indications that as the advancement in social approval of homosexual, lesbian, and transgendered sex progresses, heterosexual sex is acquiring the designation of queer. If Trump had expressed sexual interest in a male or a transgendered person, it would be politically incorrect to mention it. Only heterosexual sexual impulses are a political target.

We have reached that point in which women can appear in high heels with skirts that barely cover their nether parts and their braless breasts exposed, and men are lewd if they notice.

Do women really want it this way?

Is Hillary really going to win the election because Trump is sexually interested in women?

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was removed from office through a well-organized, carefully planned operation among the corrupt Brazilian political elite, closely linked to the stock-market, financial institutions and foreign energy companies.  This ‘legislative coup d’état ’eliminated the democratically-elected ‘political intermediaries’ and installed a regime directly controlled by the CEO’s of leading multi-nationals.  The corporate composition of the post-coup regime insured there would be a radical restructuring of the Brazilian economy, with a massive shift from wage support, social spending and public ownership toward profits, a foreign capital take-over of strategic sectors and  foreign-domestic elite dominance over the entire economy.

This paper will describe the socio-economic dynamics of the coup and its aftermath, as well as the strategy and program that Brazil’s new rulers will pursue.  In the second half of the paper, we will discuss the Workers Party regimes’ policies (under Lulu and Rousseff) that prepared the political and economic ground-work for the right-wing seizure of power.

Socio-Economic Dynamics of the Coup

The overthrow of President Rousseff was organized and implemented by Brazil’s capitalist class for its benefit, even though it had the superficial appearance of a power grab by corrupt politicians.

Rousseff’s Vice-President, Michel Temer (image: above with Dilma), acted as the front-man on behalf of the major investment banks:  They set the agenda; he played his part.

Moreover, the principal beneficiaries of the economic giveaways under ‘President’ Temer, most notably the privatization of the energy sector, are clearly foreign capitalists.  Once the coup makers lined up the votes among Brazil’s notoriously corrupt Congressmen to oust Rousseff, the multinational corporations emerged from the shadow of the stock market to take control over the levers of power.

In the run-up to the coup, when the so-called ‘impeachment’ was gaining momentum, the shares of the largely state-owned oil company sky-rocketed by 70%.  In anticipation of the privatization and sell-off of assets, leading speculators and overseas investment houses seized the moment.

The ‘coup’ was no ‘secretive conspiracy’ – it was an overt, direct capitalist seizure of power.  Once installed, it proceeded to dismantle the public sector economy and transfer the jewels of Brazil’s economy to foreign multi-nationals.

Master of Pillage

To ensure that the coup would not deviate from the course set by the capitalist coup-masters, Pedro Parente, ‘one of their own’ and the former head (CEO) of the giant agricultural trader, Bunge, was put in charge of the economy.  With dizzying speed, Parente imposed the New Order onto the puppet Temer coup regime.  He used a set of phony ‘technocratic’ euphemisms to explain the ongoing plunder of Petrobras, the state oil company.

Parente lowered Petrobras’ public investment sector by 25%, which he called ‘debt reduction’.  The brutal programed sell-off of Petrobras’ most valuable assets was described as a ‘deleverage timetable’.

The unelected ‘Privatization Czar Parente’, in effect, ended the state’s role in the Brazilian economy by placing it under the exclusive dictates of private capitalist.  The primary beneficiaries will prove to be foreign over national capital.

Parente has undermined the competitiveness of the national manufacturing sector and transport system with a hefty increase in domestic fuel prices.  On the surface, he claimed the price increase would ‘raise profits for Petrobras’, obscuring the fact that the oil giant’s public assets had been given over to private capitalists.  Meanwhile, Parente privatized the gas stations, ethanol production and distribution, as well as the billion-dollar fertilizer and petro chemical industry.  Over $15 billion worth of Brazilian prime public assets were sold off to private, mostly foreign capital, in 2015-2016.

Parente’s onslaught deepened. The ‘grand prize’ was access to its rich off-shore oil fields.  By the middle of 2016, a large-scale offshore oil license was sold to the Norwegian multi-national, Statoil, for a mere $2.5 billion.

With Parente in command, the ruling elite is on track to sell-off an additional $20 billion worth of Petrobras assets to foreign capital in 2017-18.  The key goal has been to replace the state sector as lead operator in the deep water oil and gas fields.

The ongoing pillage of the Brazil’s huge state energy sector, is only the first course in an orgy of privatization:  Infrastructure, transport, utilities and basic state-protected industries are on the chopping block.  This private plunder of the state economic jewels accompanies a brutal slashing of public pensions, salaries and wages guarantees as well as public sector budgets for health and education and public workers.  In order to reduce corporate taxes, increase profits and attract capital, the coup regime has ordered the cuts by fiat.

Conclusion:  Challenges to Capitalist Power

The capitalist class seized state power through the corrupt political and judicial machinations of Brazil’s Vice President and Congressional cronies.  The take-over was based on a series of alleged corruption scandals by the Workers Party.  The fact that the entire Brazilian congress, most notably the capitalist operatives behind the coup, has been deeply immersed in the scandal over an alleged $15 billion looted from Petrobras,undermines their credibility.  In fact, the ousted President Rousseff was cleared of all charges of corruption, while her successor faces ongoing investigations.  This tragic comedy exposes that some members of the Workers Party are tiny amateurs in this orgy of capitalist plunder.

The current President Michel Temer is charged with receiving bribes from private contractors.  If these investigations undermine his already dubious leadership, the capitalist coup-masters will be forced to call for early election.   This will introduce considerable uncertainty about the viability of Privatization Czar Parente’scapitalist power grab.

The regime’s ‘slash and burn’ campaign against wages and pensions has heightened class conflicts within Brazil.  The three major labor confederations are preparing for major strikes against a regime of questionable legitimacy.

The business coup has allowed the capitalist class to seize state power and decree its agenda.  However it has yet to show it can directly impose its draconian polices aimed at reconcentrating wealth and income for the top five percent while repressing scores of millions of industrial workers, rural landless laborers and the urban poor.

In addition, while the rulers can offer the jewels of Brazil’s economy to foreign capital, the current low oil prices, ongoing corruption trials at the highest level of elite power and intensifying class conflicts will undermine their ability to implement their agenda.   Indeed the prospect of escalating state repression and criminal gang violence may persuade foreign capitalists to skim off the top of Brazil’s most profitable assets and abandon the ensuing chaos.

Epilogue

After 13 years of Workers Party control of the Brazilian presidency, how did the coup-masters rise so quickly and decisively?   The political leader of the coup was Vice President Michel Tener, who had been selected by the Workers Party (PT) leadership as part of their ‘coalition strategy’ of working with the most corrupt elements of the Brazilian capitalist class.  The members of the Congressional majority, which voted to impeach President Rousseff, were in partnership with the PT, elected in joint election platforms.  The economic decline and recession, which undermined public support for the PT government, was a result of its emphasis on the ‘boom and bust’ commodity strategy.  The strategic role played by the private banking and business sector in the ‘legislative coup’ resulted from the PT’s decision to implement the privatizations started by the previous regime of President Cardoso, thus strengthening this parasitic class.

Above all, it was the PT’s new reliance on financing their political campaigns through the donation of contractors and the business elites, instead of combining electoral politics with class warfare and mass struggle that opened the Party to the everyday corrupt practices of the capitalist parties.  It is a perverse justice that only the PT newcomers to political corruption would be caught and prosecuted!

In other words’ the PT continued to win elections by becoming a normal bourgeois party with its social welfare agenda reliant on an unstable capitalist growth cycle of commodity exports.  The PT were profoundly mistaken when they saw their alliance with the capitalist class as something permanent rather than an ‘alliance of convenience’  where the business elite would tolerate them until it was in a position to overthrow them.

If the greatest poker game of all times will end by nuclear grand slam, and the survivors will review the causes of WWIII, they will die laughing.

The Third World War had been fought to save al Qaeda. Yes, my dear readers! Uncle Sam invaded Afghanistan in order to punish al Qaeda, and now he started the World War to save al Qaeda. Positively a great ambivalent passionate love/hate relationship between the American gentleman and the Arab girl, from 9/11 to Aleppo.

For the future historians, the WWIII commenced with the US decision to terminate bilateral talks with Russia over Syria. Let the arms do the talking, they said. Here is an exclusive revelation:

The US decided to suspend talks after Russia called for withdrawal of al Qaeda (al Nusra Front etc.) fighters from Aleppo. This was the casus belli.

I have in my possession two war-starting documents:

Document One, headlined October 2 Agreement. This is an American draft of an agreement presented by State Secretary John Kerry to Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Its first line said “The Russian Federation will ensure an immediate halt on October 3 to all offensive military operations etc.”. It is based on the older short-lived Lavrov-Kerry agreement with an important addition: “without the previous requirement for repositioning of forces”.

Document Two, called Reducing violence in Aleppo, full-scale humanitarian assistance to civilian population, setting of “effective Cessation of Hostilities” and separation of moderate opposition forces and Jabhat Al-Nusra. It is subtitled “position document draft”. This is the Russian counter-proposal, confirming the Geneva agreement of September 9, 2016.

Its most important part is the call to separate al-Qaeda fighters (aka terrorists) through pushing the terrorists out of Aleppo via humanitarian corridor to the Castello Road.

This Document has been answered by American termination of talks.

Thus, the Russians wanted to take al-Qaeda out of Aleppo, so the city can be fed and brought back to life. The Americans were ready to start armed hostilities against Russia for the right of Al Qaeda to remain in the city.

In other words, the Americans did not believe in their own myth of moderate opposition. They knew, as well as the Russians, that without “terrorists”, the insurgency in Syria is doomed. They did not want to let Syria be under Assad and with the Russians.

As usual, they made a lot of humanitarian-sounding noise about suffering children of Aleppo. Why Aleppo, and not Mosul with its mounting victims? Just because the killers of Mosul are supported by the US? Why not Yemen, where Saudi troops using American weapons (procured after giving a hefty bribe to Clinton’s war chest) to kill more children than there are in Aleppo? And where is this great sisterly supporter of Mme Clinton, Mrs Albright who famously said “it was worth it” to kill five hundred thousand children of Iraq?

There is no doubt, the Aleppo children and grown-ups suffer, and there is a simple way to stop their suffering: to remove the “terrorists” and to allow more moderate forces to join in the political process. But on this way, Assad and Russians will remain in control of the bulk of Syria.

The insurgency in Syria would have died out long time ago, if the Gulf states and the US did not pump billions of dollars, heaps of weapons and wagonloads of jobless fighters from nearby countries. It would be very sad for many people, but not a terrible disaster for Syrians. Sometimes, rebellions end with defeat. This is not end of the world.

The Irish Rising of 1916 ended in defeat, but Ireland is still there. Tamil Tigers failed to take over Sri Lanka. The suppression of the Confederacy in the American Civil War has been bloody and cruel. Atlanta was burned and its citizens expelled by force. One million dead: much more than in Syria, as mankind was much smaller in those days. One can imagine the European force landing on the American shore and relieving Atlanta in the name of human rights, preserving the Confederacy. But it did not happen. Civil wars have their own logic. A defeat of rebels is not the end of the nation.

As a young idealistic Israeli soldier, I planned to go to Nigeria and join the Biafra rebel army. I thought the Ibo tribe are “Jews of Africa” who had to be protected from a coming genocide. At the end, I was stuck in the Attrition War at the Suez Canal, and the Biafra war ended without my interference. In spite of apocalyptic predictions, Nigeria was reunited, and Ibo reintegrated.

The Syrian war also can end with rebels’ defeat. The government will assume its control, the Syrians will run the elections, and eventually come to a modicum of co-existence. Are you worried the elections under Bashar Assad won’t be fair? The US can loan them Mrs Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to oversee the elections. I am sure, chances of Assad won’t be better or worse than those of Mrs Clinton in the US elections.

The al-Qaeda forces (I keep using this name, for they forever change their official titles; it was Al Nusra, and Ahrar al-Sham, and probably Squirrels’ Union for Syrian Nuts, but they are basically the same good old Al Qaeda that bombed out New York on 9/11 and had been bombed in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya) are on their way to defeat. If the Americans are so keen on them, ship them home to the US on direct flights Aleppo-Washington, as this city seemingly is most pro-Al-Qaeda place beside of the caves of Bora Bora. Probably the Democratic Party will greet them and President Obama will grant them the US citizenship.

The only way to save al-Qaeda (short of the described above) is to start war with Russia. And this is actually the choice the US administration is about to make.

Provided the US can’t be serious planning to destroy mankind while saving Al Qaeda, we are forced to look for a better explanation. I do not want to dwell too much on “conspiratorial” reasoning of “for the sake of Israel”, or for gas pipeline.

These explanations are valid. We know that the US supported Qatari plan to build a pipeline from the Qatari gas field to Europe to undermine the Russian economy and European dependence on Russian gas. We know that Hillary Clinton promised to break up Syria “for the sake of Israel”, as she wrote in a wikileaked email.

And still, these are just rationalisations of the true thing. I’ll tell you the real reason.

Why the war? For the fun of it. American leaders appreciate brinkmanship, I was told by a very prominent American insider. This is a human quality. Young kids like to walk at the edge of the precipice. This is their way of proving they are better than their mates. Grown ups do it too, for the same reason.

Brinkmanship is the practice of causing a situation to become extremely dangerous in order to get the results that you want, says a too-rational dictionary, but in real life of elites, the reason (“in order to get the results that you want”) has been forgotten. It is pure art, brinkmanship for the sake of brinkmanship.

For quite a while, the US leaders competed over who can push the Russian bear further, who will take the world more close to the edge of the abyss. Why? Just because it is there, as Mallory said on climbing Everest. Perhaps, by its size, by its ostensible clumsiness (“giant on clay legs”), by its nearness, Russia wakes up such a suicidal desire in the hearts of powerful leaders, from Napoleon to Hitler.

Practical, quasi-rational reasons were always very weak, and usually included saving the Russian people from their cruel rulers, be it Judeo-Bolsheviks or the Tsardom of Knout (humanitarian intervention is not a new invention!). Now it is saving kids of Aleppo.

True, the kids of Aleppo could be saved by removal of fighters out of the city, but it does not score in the brinkmanship game.

 The Russians understand the game. They are trying to save Syria, and their positions in Syria; previously they tried to protect their positions in their immediate vicinity by taking the Crimea in the wake of the West-arranged Kiev coup. Every time, they tried to be reasonable. They did not like what was done to them, but they lived with it.

Now they have finally come to the conclusion that the US will not stop pushing until the challenge has been met. It is surrender, or war. Even if they were to leave Syria (and they have no such intention), the Americans will find the next reason for pushing them.

This is why Putin published his Plutonium and Uranium decrees. These decrees symbolised the end of Gorbachev-Yeltsin era and undid the “victory in the Cold War” of the US over the USSR. In the 1980s, the two superpowers of the time achieved the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) military potential, but beginning from 1986, Gorbachev, and afterwards Yeltsin surrendered the Russian positions. Many missiles were dismantled, nuclear warheads were broken and shipped to the US to be used as a source of energy for American reactors.

The Russian scientists and experts complained that extremely expensive plutonium and enriched uranium were sold for peanuts, efficient and deadly missiles were broken and Russian ability to fight the enemy had been diminished. But the Russian government said that Russia has no enemies, the US is a friend, and the missiles and the warheads are not needed anymore.

A few years ago Putin began slowly to restore and modernise the nuclear arsenal. This was almost too late, as the American Dr Strangeloves called for a first nuclear strike upon a weak Russia. They said there will be no payback, as the Russian nuclear weaponry is too old and can be intercepted by the newest American anti-missile systems. Anyway, Russia observed the agreements made by Gorbachev and Yeltsin and duly shipped plutonium and enriched uranium to the West. These agreements made the US safe, and kept Russia vulnerable.

If the US would play its cards safely and fairly, this situation could last for a long time. Until now, the Russians meekly responded to the crescendo of NATO threats and accusations. But now, in course of one week, the western mainstream media accused the Russians of multiple war crimes, from downing the Malaysian liner in the Ukraine to bombing a humanitarian convoy in Syria.

The Russians are positive that these accusations are groundless. Less than 8% of Russian responders believe the Russians attacked the liner. They think the liner had been shot down by the Ukrainians who thought they were attacking Putin’s jet. As for the humanitarian convoy, the BBC video clearly shows traces of thermobaric ammo Hellfire, used by the US Predator drone. Such a drone has been observed at the place of the tragedy, they say.

Putin has been demonised as Milosevic and Saddam, compared to Hitler and even (oh, the horror!) Trump. The New York Times editorial described Russia as an outlaw state. This concerted push made an impact. You never know how far you can push until you push too far. The Russians were pushed too far.

They began to dismantle the system of agreements made after the Soviet collapse. So, in a family quarrel, the man being pushed and pronged by his hysterical spouse, lifts a pile of china plates and smashes them on the kitchen floor. Now nuclear war is quite likely, – unless the US leaders will come to their senses.

Russians aren’t worried about the forthcoming war. There is neither panic nor fear, just cool stoic acceptance of whatever comes. This week, some forty million people participated in a huge civil defence exercise. Shelters of Moscow and other cities have been aired and repaired. They do not want war, but if it comes, it will be met. The Russians have fought many wars against the West; they never started a war, but invariably fought to the finish.

An American attack on Syrian or Russian bases in Syria could be a starting point for the avalanche. I am truly amazed by the Russian spirits: they are considerably higher than they were in the days of Korean war, of Vietnam war or the Cuban crisis. Then, they were scared of war and ready for sacrifices to avoid MAD. Not anymore.

This readiness for the Armageddon is the most unexpected and scary feature I observed. It is even more unexpected, as the daily life of an average Russian has greatly improved. Russia probably never lived as good as she does now. They have much to lose; it is only the feeling of being cornered and unjustly so, that makes them to react in such a way.

The audacious demands of Putin: lift all sanctions, pay for damages caused by sanctions and counter-sanctions, remove your troops and tanks from the Baltic states, Poland, other late-joiner NATO states – show that the stakes are indeed high. Not only the US leaders can walk at the edge of the abyss: the Russians can show them the art of brinkmanship. After the utter humiliation of 1990s, Russians are not likely to turn off the road where two nuclear juggernauts are speeding towards each other.

There are some signs of the Americans coming to their senses. “The president has discussed in some details why military action against the Assad regime to try to address the situation in Aleppo is unlikely to accomplish the goals that many envisioned now in terms of reducing the violence there,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Thursday.

And even the warmongers’ best friend The New York Times has published a call: Do Not Intervene In Syria.

So perhaps we shall live a bit longer.

Amid the increasingly hawkish approach the US government has taken towards the Syrian government, it has been clear for its strategists that a no-fly zone over Syria would mean mass civilian casualties, leaked quotes from a 2013 Hillary Clinton speech have shown.

One of the problems with the no-fly zone, which Western hawks have long insisted should be imposed over Syria, would be the need to “take out” the country’s “very sophisticated” air defenses, Hillary Clinton noted in a Wall Street speech posted by WikiLeaks in the latest trove of classified emails.

“To have a no-fly zone you have to take out all of the air defenses, many of which are located in populated areas. So our missiles, even if they are standoff missiles so we’re not putting our pilots at risk – you’re going to kill a lot of Syrians,” Clinton admitted.

WikiLeaks on Friday opened a Pandora’s box of emails leaked from the account of Clinton’s campaign chairman, unleashing thousands of messages with excerpts of her paid speeches for Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and others in between her job as secretary of state and the current presidential campaign.

On October 7, the Syrian army and the National Defense Forces (NDF) launched a major counter-attack on the joint terrorist forces of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), Ahrar al-Sham, Jund al-Aqsa and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra) northeast of the Syrian city of Hama.

Initially, the Syrian army and the NDF took control of the village of Junaynah, then, after a series of firefights, they liberated Sha’atha and Tulaysiyah. On October 8, the pro-government forces freed from terrorists the village of al-Qahira, the al-Shu’tha hills and the nearby agriculture airstrip, Khefseen and checkpoints near al-Khaima and al-Naqra. On October 9, the army and the NDF continued operations in the direction of Tamat al-Khalifah, Qubaybat Abu al-Huda and Kubbariyah. By October 10, they have recaptured the strategic town of Ma’an and the nearby village of Kubbariyah after a series of heavy firefights with terrorists.

Ma’an had been one of the major towns (others are Taibat al-Imam, Al-Lataminah and Kfar Zitam) strategically located near the M5 highway and captured by the joint terrorist forces.

The terrorists’ defenses collapsed due to the ongoing infighting among various factions. Major clashes are ongoing between Ahrar al-Sham and Jund al-Aqsa. Fateh Halab, Liwa al-Haq, Jaish al-Sunna and Ahrar al-Sharqiyah announced a support to Ahrar al-Sham while Fatah al-Sham has played a role of the big brother and made a series attempts to mediate a ceasefire between the groups. On October 9, Jund al-Aqsa gave alliance to Fatah al-Sham. Nonetheless, by October 10, the ceasefire has not been reached. At least 12 military commanders and over 80 militants have been killed in the fighting.

The army, the NDF, Hezbollah, Liwa al-Quds (a Palestinian pro-government militia) and other pro-government units, supported by the Russian Aerospace Forces and the Syrian Arab Air Force, have been developing momentum against the joint terrorist forces of Jaish al-Fatah and Fatah al-Sham in the strategic city of Aleppo. The pro-government forces implement a long-standing strategy aming to take an upper hand on the terrorists, using the advantage in fire power and reinforcements. Terrorists units, encircled in eastern Aleppo, are limited in supplies and the maneuverability.

On October 8, the army and Liwa al-Quds took full control of the Awijah Neighborhood after a series of clashes terrorists. The pro-government forces also seized a strategic hilltop south of the neighborhood and the Jandoul roundabout. On October 9 and 10, the loyalists continued operations in northern Aleppo, trageting Jaish al-Fatah at Manashir al-Breij, southeast of Awijah. The mid-term goal of loyalists in northern aleppo is to seize the Asfar Hill that will allow to secure Majbal Anzarat and take fire control of the northern part of Anzarat. The next strategic hilltop that the army and its allies will need to seize is Ayn Tal, northeast of the Bostan Basha neighborhood, partly sized by the army. If all these are done, the militant-controlled areas in eastern Aleppo will be significantly reduced and the government forces will be able to launch a storm of the main neighborhoods of eastern Aleppo.

In southern Aleppo, the army and Hezbollah continued pressure on terrorist units deployed in the Sheikh Saeed Neighborhood. The Sheikh Saeed road to the central Aleppo will likely become the axis of the main offensive operations of the pro-government forces in the area. In the 1070 Apartment Project no sides has been able to make gains despite the ongoing firefights.

35,000 terrorists were killed in Syria from February 27 to September 1, Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister, Anatoly Antonov announced, adding that 586 settlements and 12,360 square kilometers of the country’s territory were liberated in the same period.

Russian heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser “Admiral Kuznetsov” will depart to the Syrian coast to take part in the ongoing anti-terrorist operation in the period from October 15 to October 20, Interfax news agency reported, citing a source familiar with the situation. A large antisubmarine warfare ship, a big sea tanker and a rescue tug will accompany Admiral Kuznetsov in the campaign, which will last 4-5 months.

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A prominent neocon paymaster, whose outfit dispenses $100 million in U.S. taxpayers’ money each year, has called on America to “summon the will” to remove Russian President Putin from office, reports Robert Parry.

The neoconservative president of the U.S.-taxpayer-funded National Endowment for Democracy [NED] has called for the U.S. government to “summon the will” to engineer the overthrow of Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying that the 10-year-old murder case of a Russian journalist should be the inspiration.

Carl Gershman, who has headed NED since its founding in 1983, doesn’t cite any evidence that Putin was responsible for the death of Anna Politkovskaya but uses a full column in The Washington Post on Friday to create that impression, calling her death “a window to Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin autocrat whom Americans are looking at for the first time.”

Gershman wraps up his article by writing: “Politkovskaya saw the danger [of Putin], but she and other liberals in Russia were not strong enough to stop it. The United States has the power to contain and defeat this danger. The issue is whether we can summon the will to do so. Remembering Politkovskaya can help us rise to this challenge.”

That Gershman would so directly call for the ouster of Russia’s clearly popular president represents further proof that NED is a neocon-driven vehicle that seeks to create the political circumstances for “regime change” even when that means removing leaders who are elected by a country’s citizenry.

And there is a reason for NED to see its job in that way. In 1983, NED essentially took over the CIA’s role of influencing electoral outcomes and destabilizing governments that got in the way of U.S. interests, except that NED carried out those functions in a quasi-overt fashion while the CIA did them covertly.

NED also serves as a sort of slush fund for neocons and other favored U.S. foreign policy operatives because a substantial portion of NED’s money circulates through U.S.-based non-governmental organizations or NGOs.

That makes Gershman an influential neocon paymaster whose organization dispenses some $100 million a year in U.S. taxpayers’ money to activists, journalists and NGOs both in Washington and around the world. The money helps them undermine governments in Washington’s disfavor – or as Gershman would prefer to say, “build democratic institutions,” even when that requires overthrowing democratically elected leaders.

NED was a lead actor in the Feb. 22, 2014 coup ousting Ukraine’s elected President Viktor Yanukovych in a U.S.-backed putsch that touched off the civil war inside Ukraine between Ukrainian nationalists from the west and ethnic Russians from the east. The Ukraine crisis has become a flashpoint for the dangerous New Cold War between the U.S. and Russia.

Before the anti-Yanukovych coup, NED was funding scores of projects inside Ukraine, which Gershman had identified as “the biggest prize” in a Sept. 26, 2013 column also published in The Washington Post.

In that column, Gershman wrote that after the West claimed Ukraine, “Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.” In other words, Gershman already saw Ukraine as an important step toward an even bigger prize, a “regime change” in Moscow.

Less than five months after Gershman’s column, pro-Western political activists and neo-Nazi street fighters – with strong support from U.S. neocons and the State Department – staged a coup in Kiev driving Yanukovych from office and installing a rabidly anti-Russian regime, which the West promptly dubbed “legitimate.”

In reaction to the coup and the ensuing violence against ethnic Russians, the voters of Crimea approved a referendum with 96 percent of the vote to leave Ukraine and rejoin Russia, a move that the West’s governments and media decried as a Russian “invasion” and “annexation.”

The new regime in Kiev then mounted what it called an “Anti-Terrorism Operation” or ATO against ethnic Russians in the east who had supported Yanukovych and refused to accept the anti-constitutional coup in Kiev as legitimate.

The ATO, spearheaded by neo-Nazis from the Azov battalion and other extremists, killed thousands of ethnic Russians, prompting Moscow to covertly provide some assistance to the rebels, a move denounced by the West as “aggression.”

Blaming Putin

In his latest column, Gershman not only urges the United States to muster the courage to oust Putin but he shows off the kind of clever sophistry that America’s neocons are known for. Though lacking any evidence, he intimates that Putin ordered the murder of Politkovskaya and pretty much every other “liberal” who has died in Russia.

It is a technique that I’ve seen used in other circumstances, such as the lists of “mysterious deaths” that American right-wingers publish citing people who crossed the paths of Bill and Hillary Clinton and ended up dead. This type of smear spreads suspicion of guilt not based on proof but on the number of acquaintances and adversaries who have met untimely deaths.

In the 1990s, one conservative friend of mine pointed to the Clintons’ “mysterious deaths” list and marveled that even if only a few were the victims of a Clinton death squad that would be quite a story, to which I replied that if even one were murdered by the Clintons that would be quite a story – but that there was no proof of any such thing.

“Mysterious deaths” lists represent a type of creepy conspiracy theory that shifts the evidentiary burden onto the targets of the smears who must somehow prove their innocence, when there is no evidence of their guilt (only vague suspicions). It is contemptible when applied to American leaders and it is contemptible when applied to Russian leaders, but it is not beneath Carl Gershman.

Beyond that, Gershman’s public musing about the U.S. somehow summoning “the will” to remove Putin might — in a normal world — disqualify NED and its founding president from the privilege of dispensing U.S. taxpayers’ money to operatives in Washington and globally. It is extraordinarily provocative and dangerous, an example of classic neocon hubris.

While the neocons do love their tough talk, they are not known for thinking through their “regime change” schemes. The idea of destabilizing nuclear-armed Russia with the goal of ousting Putin, with his 82 percent approval ratings, must rank as the nuttiest and most reckless neocon scheme of all.

Gershman and his neocon pals may fantasize about making Russia’s economy scream while financing pro-Western “liberals” who would stage disruptive protests in Red Square, but he and his friends haven’t weighed the consequences even if they could succeed.

Given the devastating experience that most Russians had when NED’s beloved Russian “liberals” helped impose American “shock therapy” in the 1990s — an experiment that reduced average life expectancy by a full decade — it’s hard to believe that the Russian people would simply take another dose of that bitter medicine sitting down.

Even if the calculating Putin were somehow removed amid economic desperation, he is far more likely to be followed by a much harder-line Russian nationalist who might well see Moscow’s arsenal of nuclear weapons as the only way to protect Mother Russia’s honor. In other words, the neocons’ latest brash “regime change” scheme might be their last – and the last for all humanity.

A Neocon Slush Fund

Gershman’s arrogance also raises questions about why the American taxpayer should tolerate what amounts to a $100 million neocon slush fund which is used to create dangerous mischief around the world. Despite having “democracy” in its name, NED appears only to favor democratic outcomes when they fit with Official Washington’s desires.

If a disliked candidate wins an election, NED acts as if that is prima facie evidence that the system is undemocratic and must be replaced with a process that ensures the selection of candidates who will do what the U.S. government tells them to do. Put differently, NED’s name is itself a fraud.

But that shouldn’t come as a surprise since NED was created in 1983 at the urging of Ronald Reagan’s CIA Director William J. Casey, who wanted to off-load some of the CIA’s traditional work ensuring that foreign elections turned out in ways acceptable to Washington, and when they didn’t – as in Iran under Mossadegh, in Guatemala under Arbenz or in Chile under Allende – the CIA’s job was to undermine and remove the offending electoral winner.

In 1983, Casey and the CIA’s top propagandist, Walter Raymond Jr., who had been moved to Reagan’s National Security Council staff, wanted to create a funding mechanism to support outside groups, such as Freedom House and other NGOs, so they could engage in propaganda and political action that the CIA had historically organized and paid for covertly. The idea emerged for a congressionally funded entity that would serve as a conduit for this money.

In one undated letter to then-White House counselor Edwin Meese III, Casey urged creation of a “National Endowment,” but he recognized the need to hide the strings being pulled by the CIA. “Obviously we here [at CIA] should not get out front in the development of such an organization, nor should we appear to be a sponsor or advocate,” Casey wrote.

The National Endowment for Democracy took shape in late 1983 as Congress decided to also set aside pots of money — within NED — for the Republican and Democratic parties and for organized labor, creating enough bipartisan largesse that passage was assured.

But some in Congress thought it was important to wall the NED off from any association with the CIA, so a provision was included to bar the participation of any current or former CIA official, according to one congressional aide who helped write the legislation.

This aide told me that one night late in the 1983 session, as the bill was about to go to the House floor, the CIA’s congressional liaison came pounding at the door to the office of Rep. Dante Fascell, a senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a chief sponsor of the bill.

The frantic CIA official conveyed a single message from CIA Director Casey: the language barring the participation of CIA personnel must be struck from the bill, the aide recalled, noting that Fascell consented to the demand, not fully recognizing its significance – that it would permit the continued behind-the-scenes involvement of Raymond and Casey.

The aide said Fascell also consented to the Reagan administration’s choice of Carl Gershman to head NED, again not recognizing how this decision would affect the future of the new entity and American foreign policy.

Gershman, who had followed the classic neoconservative path from youthful socialism to fierce anticommunism, became NED’s first (and, to this day, only) president. Though NED is technically independent of U.S. foreign policy, Gershman in the early years coordinated decisions on grants with Raymond at the NSC.

For instance, on Jan. 2, 1985, Raymond wrote to two NSC Asian experts that “Carl Gershman has called concerning a possible grant to the Chinese Alliance for Democracy (CAD). I am concerned about the political dimension to this request. We should not find ourselves in a position where we have to respond to pressure, but this request poses a real problem to Carl.

“Senator [Orrin] Hatch, as you know, is a member of the board. Secondly, NED has already given a major grant for a related Chinese program.”

Neocon Tag Teams

From the start, NED became a major benefactor for Freedom House, beginning with a $200,000 grant in 1984 to build “a network of democratic opinion-makers.” In NED’s first four years, from 1984 and 1988, it lavished $2.6 million on Freedom House, accounting for more than one-third of its total income, according to a study by the liberal Council on Hemispheric Affairs that was entitled “Freedom House: Portrait of a Pass-Through.”

Over the ensuing three decades, Freedom House has become almost an NED subsidiary, often joining NED in holding policy conferences and issuing position papers, both organizations pushing primarily a neoconservative agenda, challenging countries deemed insufficiently “free,” including Syria, Ukraine (in 2014) and Russia.

Indeed, NED and Freedom House often work as a kind of tag-team with NED financing “non-governmental organizations” inside targeted countries and Freedom House berating those governments if they crack down on U.S.-funded NGOs.

For instance, on Nov. 16, 2012, NED and Freedom House joined together to denounce legislation passed by the Russian parliament that required recipients of foreign political money to register with the government.

Or, as NED and Freedom House framed the issue: the Russian Duma sought to “restrict human rights and the activities of civil society organizations and their ability to receive support from abroad. Changes to Russia’s NGO legislation will soon require civil society organizations receiving foreign funds to choose between registering as ‘foreign agents’ or facing significant financial penalties and potential criminal charges.”

Of course, the United States has a nearly identical Foreign Agent Registration Act that likewise requires entities that receive foreign funding and seek to influence U.S. government policy to register with the Justice Department or face possible fines or imprisonment.

But the Russian law would impede NED’s efforts to destabilize the Russian government through funding of political activists, journalists and civic organizations, so it was denounced as an infringement of human rights and helped justify Freedom House’s rating of Russia as “not free.”

Another bash-Putin tag team has been The Washington Post’s editors and NED’s Gershman. On July 28, 2015, a Post editorial and a companion column by Gershman led readers to believe that Putin was paranoid and “power mad” in worrying that outside money funneled into NGOs threatened Russian sovereignty.

The Post and Gershman were especially outraged that the Russians had enacted the law requiring NGOs financed from abroad and seeking to influence Russian policies to register as “foreign agents” and that one of the first funding operations to fall prey to these tightened rules was Gershman’s NED.

The Post’s editors wrote that Putin’s “latest move … is to declare the NED an ‘undesirable’ organization under the terms of a law that Mr. Putin signed in May [2015]. The law bans groups from abroad who are deemed a ‘threat to the foundations of the constitutional system of the Russian Federation, its defense capabilities and its national security.’

“The charge against the NED is patently ridiculous. The NED’s grantees in Russia last year ran the gamut of civil society. They advocated transparency in public affairs, fought corruption and promoted human rights, freedom of information and freedom of association, among other things. All these activities make for a healthy democracy but are seen as threatening from the Kremlin’s ramparts.

“The new law on ‘undesirables’ comes in addition to one signed in 2012 that gave authorities the power to declare organizations ‘foreign agents’ if they engaged in any kind of politics and receive money from abroad. The designation, from the Stalin era, implies espionage.”

However, among the relevant points that the Post’s editors wouldn’t tell their readers was the fact that Russia’s Foreign Agent Registration Act was modeled after the American Foreign Agent Registration Act and that NED President Gershman had already publicly made clear — in his Sept. 26, 2013 column — that his goal was to oust Russia’s elected president.

In his July 28, 2015 column, Gershman further deemed Putin’s government illegitimate. “Russia’s newest anti-NGO law, under which the National Endowment for Democracy … was declared an “undesirable organization” prohibited from operating in Russia, is the latest evidence that the regime of President Vladimir Putin faces a worsening crisis of political legitimacy,” Gershman wrote, adding:

“This is the context in which Russia has passed the law prohibiting Russian democrats from getting any international assistance to promote freedom of expression, the rule of law and a democratic political system. Significantly, democrats have not backed down. They have not been deterred by the criminal penalties contained in the ‘foreign agents’ law and other repressive laws. They know that these laws contradict international law, which allows for such aid, and that the laws are meant to block a better future for Russia.”

The reference to how a “foreign agents” registration law conflicts with international law might have been a good place for Gershman to explain why what is good for the goose in the United States isn’t good for the gander in Russia. But hypocrisy is a hard thing to rationalize and would have undermined the propagandistic impact of the column.

Also undercutting the column’s impact would be an acknowledgement of where NED’s money comes from. So Gershman left that out, too. After all, how many governments would allow a hostile foreign power to sponsor politicians and civic organizations whose mission is to undermine and overthrow the existing government and put in someone who would be compliant to that foreign power?

And, if you had any doubts about what Gershman’s intent was regarding Russia, he dispelled them in his Friday column in which he calls on the United States to “summon the will” to “contain and defeat this danger,” which he makes clear is the continued rule of Vladimir Putin.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

On Saturday, Russia on one side and the US and its allies on the other clashed at the Security Council over Syria. As expected, the two sides weren’t able reach a compromise. Unfortunately, analysts say, Syria is no longer just a local conflict, and not even just a clash between Russia and the US – but a struggle of entire geopolitical coalitions.

This, experts warn, tremendously increases the risks of a global conflagration sparking off over the conflict in the Middle Eastern country.

On October 8, Russia vetoed a French-drafted Security Council resolution calling for a halt to airstrikes over the city of Aleppo, where the Syrian military is currently engaged in a campaign to liberate eastern sections of the city from a hodgepodge of militant groups.

Syrian pro-government soldiers hold a position as they advance in Aleppo’s restive Bustan al-Basha neighbourhood on October 6, 2016

Soon afterward, Russia introduced its own resolution, based on an idea by UN Special Envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura, to get Nusra Front terrorists to withdraw from Aleppo altogether, thus bringing down the violence and allowing for the resumption of the comprehensive Russian/US-sponsored ceasefire agreement of September 9. Russia’s resolution went to a vote, but was voted down by the US and its allies.

Commenting on the tensions, barely masked, between the two sides over the competing Syria resolutions, Svobodnaya Pressa columnist Andrei Ivanov suggested that “it’s enough,” for a start, “to look at the harsh tone of the statements made by the Russian Foreign Ministry over the French proposal.”

“The coauthors of the French resolution, encouraged by the most rabid critics of Damascus, were not able to show political wisdom,” the Foreign Ministry said. “Instead of negotiations aimed at achieving positive results, they chose an ultimatum – a loud PR campaign, exploiting the humanitarian issue for short-term political purposes removed from the real interests of the Syrian people, and those of other nations in the region,” it added.

The other side too certainly wasn’t afraid of making sharp comments, Ivanov noted. Prior to the vote, President Hollande “threw in a phrase to the effect that any country that vetoes the French resolution would be ‘discredited in the eyes of the world.'”

Ultimately, the journalist suggested, “behind these words is nothing more than another threat to isolate the ‘savage and barbarian Russia’ from the ‘civilized’ world. Frankly speaking, this is the rhetoric of the Cold War…”

“But if we do not hold negotiations, what is left?” the journalist asked. “US generals are ready to bomb Assad’s troops. In response the Russian Ministry of Defense has threatened to shoot down any ‘unidentified objects’ over Syria’s skies. Neither side is prepared to step back. Washington cannot allow Aleppo to be liberated, since it would hearten the Syrian army and be a triumph for Assad. Hence, the US may have to use their aircraft, and Russia cannot just allow the successes of our efforts in Syria to be erased…”

“For now, the worst scenario imaginable – the destruction of US aircraft, has not yet materialized,” Ivanov noted. “But the situation is heating up with each passing day. The termination of nuclear cooperation, the end of business contracts, the veto at the UN – in a calmer period each of these news stories would have been discussed for weeks. Today, analysts can barely keep up with the situation enough to comment.”

An S-400 air defence missile system deployed for a combat duty at the Hmeymim airbase to provide security of the Russian air group’s flights in Syria

Asked to comment on the dangers that the Syrian crisis poses in escalating to a global conflagration, Alexander Krylov, a senior researcher at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations’ Center for Middle Eastern Studies, confirmed that the dangers exist, and they are very pressing.

“The situation is very serious, and looks similar to the Suez Crisis of 1956, or the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis,” the analyst recalled. Accordingly, he suggested, today it is necessary “to understand that the crisis in Syria could lead to far more serious consequences,” thus forcing the parties to make amendments to their calculations.

For now, Krylov explained, Damascus and Moscow can stick to their existing policy, since the US election cycle makes it virtually impossible for US leaders to take any drastic foreign policy decisions. However, with election of a new president, the Kremlin will be forced to exert itself to get the new administration “to understand the complexity of the situation and try to find a diplomatic solution” to the existing problems, including on Syria.

At the same time, the analyst added, as long as the Obama administration is in office, so too will US policy aimed at toppling Assad remain in force, no matter the cost (even if it means cooperating with Islamist terrorists). “Given this approach, resolving this crisis will be impossible. And there won’t be any liberation of Aleppo either, because Washington will do anything and everything in its power to ensure that any Syrian army offensive gets bogged down.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confer at the conclusion of their press conference about their meeting on Syria in Geneva, Switzerland September 9, 2016. The ceasefire that Moscow and Washington eventually agreed to was disrupted after being in force for just over a week.

Ultimately, Krylov suggested, in the current situation, pending the outcome of the November elections, “there is no one with whom to engage in dialogue…It’s another matter that uninvited foreign intervention too certainly isn’t conducive to a settlement. I’m talking specifically about the Turkish invasion, and about the active involvement of the Persian Gulf states, the US, the EU and Israel in the crisis. All this only exacerbates the conflict.”

For his part, political scientist Leonid Kurtakov admitted that a diplomatic solution must continue to be searched for, but work to do so will be difficult given the differing conceptions on how the world should function. “According to the first concept, only one power has the right to determine the values of political, economic and trade relations [around the world]. According to the second concept, justice in international relations is of primary importance, and important decisions must be made by consensus. The two concepts contradict each other – hence this intransigence in the rhetoric of the two sides.”

Kurtakov suggested that for the US, the situation in Aleppo literally could not be more critically important, given its broader significance for US policy worldwide. “As soon as Assad’s army liberates Aleppo and puts an end to Daesh, this will immediately end the US game in the Middle East – along with their effort to stage color revolutions and overthrow legitimate governments; for the US it will mean the end of its current foreign policy, and of the economic model of globalization.” In other words, “this would be an economic and political collapse.”

Ultimately, Kurtakov suggested, “if we recognize that in the world there is only one ‘policeman’ – we can forget about our sovereignty…We can calm geopolitical tensions, kneel down and wait to be forgiven.” However, the analyst noted that in his own time, Mikhail Gorbachev already tried this approach, and it didn’t work. “As Churchill said, those who choose humiliation over war will get both humiliation and war.”

The two most disliked candidates in modern U.S. election history did not disappoint U.S. voters’ low expectations of their performance in the second presidential debate held October 9 in St. Louis.

Both candidates spent most of their time attacking each other as either ‘morally unfit’ to be president, chronically prone to ‘bad judgement’, and habitual liars. Issues of real importance to voters were again, as in the first debate, altogether absent or, at best, were briefly and superficially addressed.

The continued mudslinging was fueled by the release of videos this past week, taken a decade or more ago, showing Trump bragging about his ability to sexually dominate women and making other generally extreme misogynist comments.

The videos set off a firestorm among the Republican elite over the week. Some began calling for Trump to drop from the race. Others talked of ‘pulling the plug’ on Republican Party financial assistance to Trump’s campaign. How Trump performed in this second debate would no doubt determine whether such talk translated into action, as the Republican camp showed signs of splitting down the middle even further and the party’s elite abandoning their candidate.

This potential ‘hard split’ among Republicans in the United States, the party elite vs. a majority of its members, is not unlike similar party developments in Europe, where the British Labour party elites have been attacking their public leader, Jeremy Corbyn, for abandoning their neoliberal policy regime; or in Spain where the Socialist Party leader was recently dumped; or in France where presidential Hollande will soon be.

The economic recovery since 2009 that has benefited only the economic elites—in the United States 95 percent of all the net income gains since 2009 have accrued to the wealthiest 1 percent households—has been translating into a grass roots disaffection from political parties. As one of the press commentators put it after the second U.S. debate, “This election is about the American people vs. the Political Class.” But it’s not just an American phenomenon. The trend is becoming generalized across many of the advanced economies.

Trump fielded the damning video evidence of his misogynist bragging by saying it was only ‘locker room’ talk. Only words. He then went on the offensive against Hillary Clinton, saying that while his were only ‘words’, Hillary’s husband, past president Bill Clinton, engaged in actual sexual abuse and was impeached for it. The Trump camp had brought three women to the debate who were involved in Bill Clinton’s impeachment charges or were subjects of Clinton’s sexual misconduct. Trump further accused Hillary of laughing when, as a prosecuting attorney, she got her client saved from jail time in a rape case involving a 12 year old. Both candidates thus showed they would go to whatever lengths to dredge up decades old evidence to prove their opponent as ‘morally unfit’.

An interesting, related detail to the ‘morality telenovela in real time’ that has become the U.S. presidential election, is that the videos of Trump were released more or less simultaneous with the Wikileaks’ release last week showing Clinton’s plans to run her campaign with one set of proposals and promises communicated to private big banker-corporate donors, while planning to say the opposite to voters. When challenged by Trump to explain the leak and her implied ‘two-faced’ approach to U.S. voters, Hillary hid behind the example of Abraham Lincoln, saying he did the same and the practice was therefore legitimate.

This ascerbic exchange was preceded by Hillary’s reference to Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, accusing them of hacking the Democratic Party and the U.S. election in order to aid Trump. The U.S. media in recent weeks has picked up this idea, for which there is no evidence to date, and has been promoting it widely. It is yet another dimension of the growing shift in U.S. elite toward confronting Russia. Hillary’s implicit suggestion in the debate was the Wikileaks release reflects Putin-Russian interference in the US election to aid Trump. The timing of the release of the Trump videos and the Wikileaks material raises the question whether in coming weeks voters can expect more of the same—i.e. more damaging Trump videos being released, perhaps not coincidentally, as more promised Wikileaks releases appear damning Clinton.

The second debate revealed yet another, even more ominous anti-Russia theme worth noting. In a reply to a question about what would the candidates do about Syria and Aleppo, Hillary declared the Russian air force in Syria is determined to destroy Aleppo. Russia has ‘gone all in’ in terms of ambition and aggressiveness in Syria, she added. Russia’s war crimes should therefore be investigated. Furthermore, a ‘no fly zone’ should be imposed in Syria. What she didn’t explain is if Russian planes ignored the U.S. ‘no fly zone’, would the United States try to shoot them down? And what if U.S. planes were shot down, as Russians retaliated? Clinton’s exchange revealed the U.S. ‘war hawk’ faction’s increasingly desperation concerning the Syria conflict, in which the United States has been increasingly sidelined and Russia has become more influential.

The debate moderator, Martha Radditz, then asked Trump what he would do in Syria, since Trump’s vice-presidential running mate, Pence, had just days before declared, agreeing with Clinton, “the U.S. should be prepared to strike military targets of the Assad regime”, presumably including airfields with Russian planes. Trump replied “I disagree”, and that the focus should be on dealing with ISIS. Trump’s disassociating from his VP, Hillary, and the war hawk faction created some stir and commentary in the post-debate discussion by pundits and talking heads.

Another notable exchange during the debate occurred when Trump attacked Clinton for deleting her emails after receiving a subpoena, when Secretary of State. He then dropped yet another debate bombshell by saying when he’s president he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary’s action. When she rejected the notion as an example of Trump’s ‘imperial presidency’ view, Trump retorted it didn’t matter “because you’ll be in jail”.

Hillary clearly scored points in the debate, however, when the discussion turned, on occasion briefly, to actual policy. Trump noted costs of Obamacare had risen 68 percent, and that voters were drowning under rising costs of premiums, deductibles and copays. He advocated repeal and a total restart. Clinton, however, argued to fix it, and keep the good elements, whereas Trump would return health care to insurance and pharmaceutical companies’ price gouging and coverage denial, as in the past.

Clinton scored points in the exchange on taxes as well, noting that Trump’s plan to reduce taxes from 35 percent to 15 percent would benefit the rich twice as much as had George W. Bush’s tax cuts. She proposed no tax hikes on anyone earning less than US$250,000 a year, with taxation raised only on the wealthy.
The second presidential debate changed little in terms of voter preference, according to post debate polls.

The unfavorability ratings for both candidates were virtually unchanged: Clinton with 45 percent unfavorable rating before the debate and 44 percent after; Trump with 64 percent unfavorable both before and after. In national polls Clinton enjoyed a wide margin of support among women before the debate, which has grown further after events of the past week. This margin may prove significant in the election outcome, providing it carries over to the 8 or 9 swing states where the election will be determined by voter turnout–perhaps even before November since 30 percent vote by mail before and that voting has already begun.

In the second debate, Trump’s strategy was clearly to shore up his conservative base by returning to the extreme anti-Hillary rhetoric that got him the nomination. Themes of Clinton as ‘liar’, ‘devil’, and ‘put her in jail’, were resurrected. He may have restored his base after the events of the past week, and by performing relatively better in the second debate (a very low bar), but that may not prove sufficient to win in November. Clinton has used the events of the past week and the debate to deepen her support among women voters. However, an expected ‘knock out’ debate, where Trump was decisively defeated, did not happen.

But debates and national polls are almost irrelevant at this stage. The outcome will be determined in the eight to nine swing states. With 87 percent of voters decided and neither candidate able to ‘move the needle’ in debates, it’s about whether Trump turns out more of his base in the swings states and whether Hillary can change the minds of millennials, Latinos, and others to turn out to support her after they have felt betrayed by Obama’s second term and its failure to deliver on promises made in 2012.

In the meantime, audiences can just ‘enjoy’ (and weep) the morality telenovela that is the current U.S. presidential election.

Jack Rasmus is the author of the just-released book, “Looting Greece: A New Financial Imperialism Emerges,” and the previous, “Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy.”, both published by Clarity Press, 2016. He blogs at jackrasmus.com.

The generally degraded state of American politics entered a new low this weekend. The entire media and political establishment was consumed with the scandal that erupted in the wake of the release of video of Republican candidate Donald Trump boasting in 2005 of his ability to use his position of wealth and celebrity to assault women with impunity.

Dozens of Republican office-holders and candidates have announced they will not vote for Trump or called for his replacement as the party’s nominee—a practical impossibility, given the widespread distribution of ballots for early, absentee or mail-in voting. Democrats jumped at the chance to denounce Trump. Media commentators, who never fail to cheer on every war launched by the American military, expressed their horrified indignation at Trump’s treatment of women.

As far as Trump’s comments are concerned, there was nothing that would surprise or shock any serious observer of the appalling decay in the political culture of the Republican Party and the capitalist two-party system as a whole. Trump in his persona embodies the backwardness of the American ruling class, a product of the sordid nexus of the New York City real estate market, Atlantic City casinos, Las Vegas and the entertainment industry.

More significant than the comments themselves are the uses to which they are being put. It is clear that a significant section of the ruling class has decided that a Trump presidency cannot be accepted. The scandal is a mechanism for fighting out differences while concealing any discussion of the extremely reactionary character of the Clinton campaign. The Democrats prefer to fight Trump on the most debased level, the politics of pornography.

Sex scandals have become a standard mechanism employed by the US ruling class to regulate its conflicts without alerting the great mass of the population to what the real issues are. Such methods have long been a feature of American politics—FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover notoriously kept folders full of such personal scandals in his desk, for use in blackmailing congressmen, executive branch officials and presidents.

There is little doubt that the video from the Access Hollywood program on NBC was located and set aside for use at a time when it would do the maximum damage, only 30 days before the election. There is also little doubt that if this particular salvo fails to finally sink the Trump campaign, more torpedoes are in the water.

What the real issues are came out to some extent in Sunday night’s Town Hall debate. Behind the mudslinging and name-calling, Clinton’s agenda was expressed in the limited discussion over foreign policy, during which she repeatedly denounced “Russian aggression” and called for a major military escalation in Syria.

Responding to a question about a leak from WikiLeaks that included excerpts of her speeches to Wall Street banks—including one in which she said that it was necessary to have a “public” and a “private” position on political issues—Clinton quickly shifted to an attack on Russia, charging that it was seeking to influence the elections in favor of Trump. “Our intelligence community has just come out and said in the last few days that the Kremlin, meaning Putin and the Russian government, are directing the attacks [i.e., the exposure of DNC emails], the hacking of American accounts to influence our election. And WikiLeaks is part of that.”

Clinton later added that she supports a “no-fly” zone in Syria—which Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford said last month would mean war with Russia—in order to establish “leverage.” “Russia has decided that it’s all in in Syria,” Clinton said. “And they’ve also decided who they want to see become president of the United States, too, and it’s not me. I’ve stood up to Russia. I’ve taken on Putin and others, and I would do that as president.”

This is what the American ruling class is planning, and indeed already implementing. Clinton was not asked by debate moderators Anderson Cooper or Martha Raddatz how many people she was prepared to sacrifice in the pursuit of this policy.

The American media expresses consternation over Trump’s sexual predations, but does not bat an eyelash over the appetites of an imperialist predator who threatens the lives of thousands, if not millions. There has been no equivalent media furor over Clinton’s television interview where she chortled over the murder of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, declaring, “We came, we saw, he died.”

As far as the outcome of the debate goes, it is evident that it did not go as Clinton and the Democrats had hoped. While they seek to capitalize on hostility to Trump, the Democrats have for their own candidate an individual who is deeply despised, steeped in criminality and corruption. Clinton had no real answer to the right-wing demagogy of Trump, who denounced her as a “liar,” whose words have no relationship to her actions.

The exposure of Trump’s backwardness is obviously revealing, but it points to the illegitimate and fraudulent character of the two-party system and the electoral process as a whole. The Democratic Party, with its nomination of a corrupt political hack and warmonger, is no alternative. Out of a country of 325 million people, the two candidates are the most hated in modern US history, and deservedly so.

The installation of Hillary Clinton in the White House would only insure that the policies that represent the consensus in the American ruling elite—a more aggressive and interventionist foreign policy, directed above all against China and Russia, and a crackdown against democratic rights and working class living standards at home—will be pursued by an experienced and trusted representative of big business, rather than by an erratic billionaire who has served his purpose in pushing the political system further to the right and encouraging the development of extreme-right and fascistic forces.

For many onlookers who reside outside the US, the run-up to that country’s presidential election appears to be some kind of made-for-TV soap opera. Amid evidence of rigging, it seems Bernie Sanders was always destined not to win the Democratic Party nomination. It seemed a sure-fire bet that Clinton would.

Hilary Clinton, a war monger who supported the attack on Libya and the murder of Muammar Gaddafi. Clinton who presses for more attacks on Syria and who sanctions the destabilisation of that sovereign state via the placement of US military personnel there along with the active backing of terror groups. Clinton, the candidate who is on record as stating she would go to war with Iran and whose dodgy emails and Clinton Foundation dealings help demonstrate the corruption at the heart of US politics.

And this doesn’t even account for Trump, someone seemingly so lacking in knowledge of world affairs that much of the rest of the world can only say with more than a hint of trepidation, “Only in America!”

Trump was always destined to be little more than the fall guy to get Clinton elected. While Trump has his loyal followers, the assumption was that the floating voter would never support such a figure and that Clinton would be a relatively safer bet. As Ron Horn on his Surviving Capitalism website argues, Clinton was always the US deep state’s choice and she was always going to win – by hook or by crook.

So what will the US voter give to the rest of the world by voting in a handmaiden of empire? What will we, the global public, have to thank the US voter for? A voter spoonfed and indoctrinated with a diet of CNN/Fox fear-based propaganda about ‘Russian aggression’ and Islamic terror as well as the US’s role in exporting ‘freedom and democracy’ to the smoking ruins it helped create in Syria, Libya, Iraq or Afghanistan?

What we will get is what we already have: a trajectory towards a nuclear precipice and, along the way (maybe a very short way), a continuation of the steely grip of freedom around the necks of weaker states who refuse to bow to US hegemony.

Aside from the unfolding situation in Syria, the US and its client states are to all intents and purposes already at war with Russia. Washington initiated economic sanctions against Russia, has attacked its currency and has manipulated oil prices to try and devastate the Russian economy. It was behind the coup in Ukraine and is now escalating tensions by placing troops and missiles in Europe.

The ultimate aim is to de-link Europe’s economy from Russia and weaken Russia’s energy dependent economy. The ultimate aim is to also ensure Europe remains subservient to Washington, not least via the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and in the long term via US gas and Middle East oil (sold in dollars, thereby boosting the strength of the currency upon which US global hegemony rests).

As with Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and now Syria, or the much less publicised death and plunder in the Democratic Republic of Congo which Washington and London fuels for its corporations, US foreign policy leaves a trail of death and devastation in its wake.

By the 1980s, Washington’s wars, death squads and covert operations were responsible for six million deaths in the ‘developing’ world. An updated figure suggests that figure is closer to ten million. The US is effectively a ‘destroyer of nations‘.

The game plan is to destroy Russia as a functioning state or to permanently weaken it so it submits to US hegemony. Washington believes it can actually win a nuclear conflict with Russia. It no longer regards nuclear weapons as a last resort but part of a conventional theatre of war and is willing to use them for pre-emptive strikes.

The situation in Syria is most worrying of all. Another theatre of conflict instigated by the US that now sees it and Russia facing each other directly, with Moscow warning the US about the consequences of its aggression: possible nuclear war.

Washington presses ahead regardless. Russia and China undermine dollar hegemony by trading oil and gas and goods in roubles and other currencies. And history shows that whenever a country threatens the dollar, the US does not idly stand by.

Unfortunately, most US voters believe the lies being fed to them: a Pavlov’s dog public and media, which respond on cue to the moralistic bleating of politicians who rely on the public’s ignorance to facilitate war and conflict. A public that is encouraged to regard what is happening in Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Afghanistan and Libya, etc, (that is if they are encouraged to think about such things at all) as a disconnected array of events in need of Western intervention based on bogus notions of ‘humanitarianism’ or a ‘war on terror’, rather than the planned machinations of empire.

And what of Europe? Former US government official Paul Craig Roberts says a senior US government official told him in the 1970s, when referring to top European leaders, “we own them, they belong to us.” This has always been the US plan for Europe since 1945. And that ownership is clear to see as Europe’s politicians lie to their public by parroting official Pentagon nonsense about Russia and Syria and drag Europe into conflicts not of its choosing.

Could it be that the US’s first woman president will sleepwalk the world towards humanity’s final war (if it doesn’t reach that point prior to her becoming president)?

Could it be that the hawks in Washington would rather gamble on taking Russia (and China) out while risking all life on the planet?

After all, why would they be any different from their predecessors who appeared to place no value on the lives of hundreds of millions of ordinary people who lived in the former Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe? They were prepared to annihilate vast swaths of humanity with nuclear weapons.

That mindset persists among the modern-day guardians of empire who continue to display no regard for human life whatsoever. We can hope that the US public finally wake up to the situation. But what chance of that? A public fed a prime-time TV soap opera script based on personality politics revolving around Trump’s dodgy past or Clinton’s health or integrity, while remaining blissfully ignorant of the real possibility of nuclear war breaking out in Syria.

We can of course hope that diplomacy and sanity prevails.

Unfortunately, the more likely option at this moment is that, in Syria, Russia offers a sufficient enough deterrent to force the Pentagon and the White House to reconsider the course it is on.

This article was first published by GR in January 2015

Five years after the devastating earthquake, numerous massive protests were held against the UN occupation (MINUSTAH) and for the departure of Haitian President Michel Martelly and Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe. The latter finally resigned in December 2014. 

These demonstrations did not make their way into the mainstream media in 2014.

Why?

When anti-government protests occur in a country which is not led by a U.S. ally, there is extensive coverage. Haiti’s current leaders are “suitable” for Western leaders, most of all for the U.S. since it actually chooses Haiti’s leaders, not the Haitian people.

On January 12 there will be extensive coverage of the 5th anniversary of the devastating earthquake but the major issues and structural problems will either not be addressed or, at best, will be presented in a way that supports the deceitful notion of the white man’s burden. “Haiti needs our help.” Or does it? And what kind of help are we talking about?

“International aid” is nothing but a capitalist, imperial tool designed to keep the South captive of the North’s disastrous neoliberal policies which hinder genuine development and prevent the South’s economic and political sovereignty.

Where does aid money go? In the very pockets of those who pretend to give.

Haiti is probably the best example of the scam international aid really is.

Bush and Clinton the saviors

As a good neoliberal never letting a serious crisis go to waste, Bill Clinton, saw the 2010 earthquake as a great opportunity. As Dady Chery notes:

[At the beginning of the U.S. Occupation in 1915] a treaty was forced on Haiti that created the post of US High Commissioner, to run the country alongside its hand-picked “Haitian” president… Control of the country’s finances, public works, and public health services were transferred to southern US Democrats who had supported Wilson’s campaign, in much the same way that these are transferred today to USAID and non-governmental organizations (NGO). The idea then was the same as now: all Haiti’s economy should serve the US, and nearly all US dollars paid as wages in Haiti should return to the US.

Clinton saw in the earthquake of 2010 his opportunity to become the new US High Commissioner of Haiti… Within four months of the earthquake, he formed the Interim Commission for the Reconstruction of Haiti (CIRH): a strictly pay-to-play group of officials/rich businessmen from the MINUSTAH countries and others who agreed to contribute armed personnel from their countries or money … in return for a piece of the action in Haiti. After some arm twisting and bribery, the Haitian parliament was forced to declare a state of emergency for 18 months during which Clinton and his CIRH gang could do as they pleased with regard to reconstruction, without risk of liability. One year and a half came and went, and when the Haitian Senate observed that nothing much had been accomplished, the state of emergency was not renewed, and the CIRH was alleged to be fraudulent. (Dady Chery, Haiti: Time for Clinton and Co to Pack and Go, News Junkie Post, December 15, 2014)

Bill Clinton’s nefarious influence on the country is not new. A study of the economic liberalization strategies imposed by the U.S. on Haiti in the 1980s and 1990s showed that “President Clinton and other recent White House tenants condemn[ed] Haiti to a future of endemic poverty through a self-serving U.S. rice export policy”:

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), among other agencies, encouraged Haiti to start exporting manufactured and processed agricultural products, in tandem with emphasizing the need to import grain staples on the international market… U.S. experts worked to disassemble Haiti’s rural economy, even though USAID officials recognized that such a move could increase poverty and contribute to a decline in average Haitian income and health standards. By 2003, approximately 80% of all rice consumed in Haiti was imported from the United States.” (Leah Chavla, Bill Clinton’s Heavy Hand on Haiti’s Vulnerable Agricultural Economy: The American Rice Scandal, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, April 13, 2010.)

The business of disaster relief and international aid

Haiti’s earthquake was an opportunity for “business”. Several industries —mining, garment, tourism, only to name a few— profited from the disaster. Donations have favoured businesses in the donor countries more than Haitians themselves and several projects have seen cost overruns and others ended up being useless due to the critical lack of infrastructure.

It is a well-known and documented fact in independent media circles that international aid is nothing but business masquerading as charity. Approximately 80% of the aid money dedicated to developing countries ends up in the coffers of businesses and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from the donor countries. Far from helping, this dynamic only creates a relationship of dependency hampering, even preventing the “recipient” country from developing the very structures which could liberate it from this colonial relationship.

While most people working for Western humanitarian organizations are well-intentioned, Western “humanitarian” policies towards countries like Haiti are deliberately designed to maintain the financial superiority of the North on the South. This has been demonstrated by the disastrous effects of the International Monetary Fund’s infamous Structural Adjustment Programs, focused on massive privatization, free trade and which have destroyed local economies, agriculture and food sovereignty in countries which now rely on “food aid”. That’s what happened in Haiti:

While some U.S. government agencies say their programs have been meant to alleviate hunger and promote agricultural production, other programs have helped pry open Haiti’s market, creating millions of new consumers for U.S. agricultural products like rice, poultry, pork and other products while undermining local agricultural production and changing Haitian eating habits.

Because some 50% to 60% of the population still makes their living in the agricultural sector, these policies have had extremely negative effects on the economy at large. For example, a 2006 study from Christian Aid estimated that 831,900 people had been directly affected by the 1995 lowering of tariffs that once protected Haitian sugar, rice, and chicken.

Haiti now imports at least 50% of its food, mostly from the U.S., and has become the second most important importer of U.S. rice on the planet. (Haiti Grassroots Watch HAITI: Aid or Trade? The Nefarious Effects of U.S. Policies, November 6, 2013)

Western NGOs are an imperial tool, writes Ezili Dantò:

The NGOs carry out US imperial policies in Haiti in exchange for “charity funding” – which means, they money launder US tax payer and donor dollars and put it in their pockets. US imperial policies is about destroying Haiti manufacturing and local economy, expropriating Haiti natural resources and making a larger Haiti market for their subsidized Wall Street monopolies. (Ezili Dantò, Haiti: US to Re-Write Haiti Constitution to Better Service the One Percent, Black Agenda Report, July 2, 2013)

According to the U.S. government’s own data, the top 5 contractors which received funds related to Haiti in the last 5 years were, indeed, American:

1. Chemonics International Inc (U.S. international development company) $118,961,374

2. Development Alternatives INC. (U.S. consultant firm) $67,703,366

3. Cce/Dfs Inc (U.S. consultant firm) $20,551,722

4. Tetra Tech INC (U.S. consultant, engineering, etc., firm). $16,294,596

5. Pathfinder International (U.S. NGO) $16,036,859

The top 5 recipients of federal funds for Haiti for the same period were:

1. Ministry of Health Haiti $137,751,752

2. United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti $117,111,216

3. New York City Office of Emergency Management $36,912,020

4. Miami City of $35,270,000

5. Miami- Dade Fire Rescue Department $34,070,000

Financing the occupation

Following the Ministry of Health, the most important amount spent by the U.S. in Haiti was on military occupation. In 2013, $117,111,216 was allocated by the U.S. Department of State to the so-called United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), for “peacekeeping activities”.

The MINUSTAH was established June 1^st2004 after a coup d’état led by the United States, France and Canada which removed from office the democratically elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide, leader of the most popular political party, Fanmi Lavalas. Fanmi Lavalas, which has largely dominated in both elections it participated in, was banned from the 2010 election, “won” by the U.S.’ favoured candidate Michel Martelly. Dady Chery explains:

“Clinton and his cronies had began to search for another way to continue their economic stranglehold on the country, and this would include a suitable Haitian President: specifically, one who would be popular with the young but lack patriotism. They found their man in the vulgar musician Michel Martelly. His election became a mere formality after an electoral commission excluded from participation the Fanmi Lavalas party, which commanded 80 percent of the electorate. Observers from Caricom and the Organization of American States (OAS) legitimized the results despite countless irregularities and ballots from only about 20 percent of the electorate. Such are the conditions under which Michel Martelly was (s)elected President of Haiti.” (Chery, op. cit.)

The MINUSTAH’s mandate was extended on October 15, 2014. It should be called an occupation force to reflect its true nature. From the outset its “peacekeeping” operations consisted in political repression of Fanmi Lavalas supporters. It recently fired live bullets on protesters:

During these ten years, MINUSTAH has compiled a horrific record of human rights abuses, including but not limited to extrajudicial murder, an epidemic of sexual assault against Haitian men, women and children, the repression of peaceful political protests, in addition to unleashing cholera through criminal negligence which has caused the death of over 9,000 people and infecting nearly a million more. (Dr. Ajamu Nangwaya and Kevin Edmonds, On October 15, the United Nations Will Fail Haiti Once Again, Global Research, October 14, 2014)

The Haitian Police is also trained by the U.S. private military and security contractor (PMSC) DynCorp.

In April 2013, DynCorp received a $48.6 million contract from the US State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, for a one-year base period with three one-year options, for the insertion of its trainees into the UN police force in Haiti. (Dady Chery, Reconstitution of Haiti’s Tontons Macoutes and Their Fusion With MINUSTAH, Haiti Chery, December 24, 2014)

Aid money for luxury hotels and new slums

According to the International Organization for Migration, 80,000 people were still living in camps in December 2014, a 92 per cent decrease since the beginning of the crisis when 1,5 million people were homeless. But the organization does not say where those who left the camps went.

One year ago Haiti Grass Roots Watch wrote that 200,000 earthquake victims had left the makeshift camps for “three large new slums called Canaan, Onaville and Jerusalem.” What about the housing projects paid for by generous donations?

Who lives in them? Who runs them? Can the residents afford the rents or mortgages? Are the residents the earthquake victims?

In total, the new housing projects, with homes for at least 3,588 families, cost US$ 88 million, according to government figures. (In contrast, international donors and private agencies spent more than five times that amount – about US$ 500 million – on “temporary shelters” or T-shelters.) …

On July 21 2011, President Martelly, former US President Bill Clinton and then-Prime Minister Jean Max Bellerive inaugurated the Housing Exposition: a fair featuring about 60 model homes in Zoranje.

Everyone agrees the Expo was a failure. Few visited the site and fewer still chose one of the model homes – many of which were very expensive by Haitian standards – for their project. (HAITI: Reconstruction’s Housing Projects Still Plagued with Problems Four Years After the Earthquake, Haiti Grassroots Watch January 8, 2013)

While hundreds of thousands of people were still living in makeshift camps, large sums of aid money were dedicated to the construction of luxury hotels. As we reported in 2013:

Now, as 300,000 Haitians are still living in camps, a “new Marriott hotel rising from the rubble in Haiti is getting a $26.5 million financial boost” from the International Financial Corporation (IFC), member of the World Bank Group…

The IFC is part of the World Bank Group. The World Bank has been criticized for previous initiatives like the Project for Participatory Community Development (PRODEP). An eight month investigation by Haiti Grassroots Watch found that PRODEP “helped undermine an already weak state, damaged Haiti’s ‘social tissue,’ carried out what could be called ‘social and political reengineering,’… raised questions of waste and corruption… contributed to Haiti’s growing status as an ‘NGO Republic’… damaged traditional solidarity systems and in some cases even strengthened the power of local elites.” (Julie Lévesque, Haiti “Reconstruction”: Luxury Hotels, Sweat Shops and Deregulation for the Foreign Corporate Elite, Global Research, August 16, 2013)

And in 2012:

As part of the country’s “Reconstruction”, The Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund recently invested $2 million in the Royal Oasis Hotel, a deluxe structure to be built in a poverty-stricken metropolitan area “filled with displaced-persons camps housing hundreds of thousands”. (Julie Lévesque, HAITI: Humanitarian Aid for Earthquake Victims Used to Build Five Star Hotels, Global Research, June 28, 2012)

The Royal Oasis, 5 star hotel.

In 2013 it was reported that “Haitians earn less today than they did under the Duvalier dictatorship”. Unless there were any changes within the last year, Haitians who work in the giant Caracol Industrial Park inaugurated in March 2013 end up with a meager US$ 1,36 a day after they paid for food and transportation. If exploitation was not enough, the construction of the giant garment sweatshop kicked farmers off one of the breadbaskets of Haiti when the country is in need of food.

HGW also learned that most of the farmers kicked off their plots to make way for the park are still without land.

“Before, Caracol was the breadbasket of the Northeast department,” said Breüs Wilcien, one of the farmers expelled from the 250-hectare zone. “Right now there is a shortage of some products in the local markets. We are just sitting here in misery.” (The Caracol Industrial Park: Worth the risk? Haiti Grassroots Watch, March 7, 2013)

The anchor tenant of Caracol is Korean apparel manufacturer Sae-A, which provides mass retailers such as Wallmart, and brands including Ralph Lauren, Donna Karen New York, Gap, Zara, Old Navy, H&M.

Haitians have once again been betrayed by the international community:

2015 finds Haitians fighting tooth and nail in renewed political mobilizations to create the nation-building project that big governments and aid agencies pledged but then cruelly betrayed…

[T]he promises of the multi-billion dollar international relief effort and aid which will reach the grassroots have proven largely illusory.

A key admission in the months following the earthquake was that democratic governance and national sovereignty were essential tools for building Haiti on a new and progressive foundation. Today, the lack of democracy and sovereignty is at the epicenter of the political firestorm sweeping the country. (Travis Ross and Roger Annis, Haiti’s Promised Rebuilding is Unfulfilled as Haitians Challenge Authoritarian Rule, Haïti Liberté  January 7, 2015)

Visit our Haiti in-depth report for more information.

 Noted Montreal-based author and Foreign Policy critic Yves Engler released his latest book! 

A Propaganda System — How Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War and Exploitation 

A Propaganda System reveals why most Canadians believe their country is a force for good in the world, despite a long history of supporting empire, racism and exploitation. The book details the vast sums Global Affairs Canada, Veterans Affairs and the Department of National Defence spend articulating a one-sided version of Canada’s foreign policy.

With the largest PR machine in the country, the Canadian Forces promotes its worldview through a history department, university, journals, war commemorations, think tanks, academic programs and hundreds of public relations officers.

A Propaganda System traces the long history of government information control during war, including formal censorship, as well as extreme media bias on topics ranging from Haiti to Palestine, investment agreements to the mining industry.

The book also details the corporate elite’s funding for university programs and think tanks.

Written for ordinary Canadians interested in the structures impeding understanding of this country’s role in the world, the book should be of interest to journalists curious about the institutions seeking to “spin” them, development workers dependent on government funds and academics interested in the foreign-policy establishment’s influence on campus.

For more details and updates, please visit yvesengler.com

*     *     *

Book Launch Tour

The US Department of Justice issues a report on vaccine injuries and deaths every quarter to the Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines (Click on “Meeting Book – PDF – 10.8 MB” for September 3rd meeting). There are 211 cases for vaccine injuries and deaths for the period 5/16/2015 through 8/15/2015.

86 of the settlements were listed in this report, giving the name of the vaccines, the injury, and the amount of time the case was pending before settlement. Three of those settlements were for deaths linked to vaccines, with two deaths related to the flu shot, and one death for the HPV shot. 65 of the 86 settlements were for injuries and deaths due to the flu shot, and the majority of flu shot injuries were for Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS).

These quarterly reports on vaccine injuries and death settlements from the U.S. vaccine court are seldom, if ever, reported in the mainstream media. We report them here at Health Impact News. Here is the September 3rd, 2015 report:

Most of the Public is Unaware that there is a Vaccine Court

In November of 2014 the Government Accounting Office (GAO) issued the first report on America’s “Vaccine Court,” known as the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP), in almost 15 years. Most citizens of the United States are not even aware that there is something called the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, and that if you suffer harm or death due to a vaccine, that you cannot sue the manufacturer of the vaccine, but you must sue the Federal Government and try to obtain compensation from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Trust Fund,which is funded by taxes paid on vaccines.

This is because Congress gave the pharmaceutical companies immunity against lawsuits for injuries or deaths resulting in vaccines in 1986. Prior to this time, there were so many lawsuits pending against pharmaceutical companies for injuries and deaths due to vaccines, that the pharmaceutical industry basically blackmailed Congress and told them that if they did not grant them legal immunity against the liabilities of vaccines, that they would quit making them. These vaccine products cannot survive in a free market, they are so bad.

The November 2014 GAO report criticized the government for not making the public more aware that the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program exists, and that there are funds available for vaccine injuries. Therefore, the settlements represented by vaccine injuries and deaths included in the DOJ report probably represent a small fraction of the actual vaccine injuries and deaths occurring in America today.

Is the US Government Trying to Hide Stats Showing Increase in Vaccine Injuries and Deaths?

The September 3rd, 2015 report published here shows a definite increase in compensations for vaccine injuries from the last report issued on June 4th, 2015, and previous reports before then. You can review previous DOJ reports for vaccine injuries and deaths compensated by the U.S. Government here.

Investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson, a former CBS Evening News correspondent, recently reported that the government has deleted some vaccine data from their websites.

She wrote:

In March, the federal government removed the latest vaccine injury court statistics—more than a year’s worth of data—from one of its publicly reported charts. It was an abrupt departure from the normal practice of updating the figures monthly.

Wiping the latest data means the “adjudication” chart on a government website no longer reflects the recent, sharp rise in court victories for plaintiffs who claimed their children were seriously injured or killed by one or more vaccines.

Since January of 2014, twice as many victims have won court decisions than the previous eight years combined. In these court decisions, a judge ruled the evidence showed vaccines “more likely than not” caused the plaintiff’s injuries.

Also on the rise is the number of vaccine injury cases the government has “conceded”: up 55% in a little over one year.

As a result of the recent website changes, neither of these trends is reflected on the current “adjudication” chart.

Read her full report here:

Recent Rise in Vaccine Victims’ Court Decisions and Concessions Not Reflected in Revised Government Chart

Safety of Flu Shots Not Established

Currently, flu shots are made by multiple drug manufacturers including Flucelvax, FluLaval, Flublok, Fluarix, Afluria, Fluzone, and Fluvirin. Do you know what they all have in common? Each shot listed above states the following on their product insert:

• “Safety and effectiveness have not been established in pregnant women or nursing mothers.”
• “…has not been evaluated for carcinogenic or mutagenic potential.”

Regarding the safety and effectiveness of each vaccine in regards to children, each insert tells a different story. If you are deciding to give a flu shot to your child this year, it is important to understand the safety research, or lack of, for their specific shot.

• Flubok: “Safety and effectiveness in children 3 years to less than 18 years of age have not been established.”
• Flucelvax: “Safety and effectiveness have not been established in children less than 18 years of age.”
• Fluzone: “Safety and effectiveness in children below the age of 6 months have not been established.”
• Fluvirin: “The safety and immunogenicity have not been established in children under 4 years of age.”
• FluLaval: “Safety and effectiveness in children younger than 3 years have not been established.”
• Afluria: “…not approved for use in children less than 5 years of age.”
• Fluarix: “…not approved for use in children younger than 3 years.”
• Fluvirin: “The safety and immunogenicity have not been established in children under 4 years of age.”

Safety data and effectiveness for the flu shots and many others are currently unknown and still being tracked as described in each insert category listed above. Any medical professional that insists on injecting you without full disclosure of these facts could face a suspension or loss of their license to practice.

In the video below, Dr. Mark Geier explains the fraud behind the flu vaccine. Dr. Geier is NOT anti-vaccine. He is an M.D. and has a PhD in genetics. He spent 10 years working at the National Institute of Health, and was a professor at Johns Hopkins University as a geneticist. He is also the author of over 150 peer-reviewed publications.

He worked on vaccine safety and efficacy for more than 30 years. He was one of four scientists that worked to replace the DTP vaccine, a vaccine that caused every child to become sick with a high fever at the time of vaccination, with the DTaP vaccine, which is a more purified vaccine and causes illness due to fever in only 3% of those vaccinated.

In the video above, he explains that the flu shot causes Guillain-Barré Syndrome, and that the flu shot is not very effective in preventing the flu. He also explains that the CDC does not follow the law for vaccines in requiring long-term safety testing for the influenza vaccine like they do with other vaccines, as it is impossible to test a vaccine that changes every year. So the flu vaccine is basically an experimental vaccine that they want to give out to 300 million people every year.

There are also no studies showing the safety of giving the flu vaccine to the same person every single year. However, Dr. Geier points out that the CDC is in the business of distributing flu vaccines, because they represent 300 million doses per year, whereas all the childhood vaccines together only number 20 million.

Dr. Geier goes on to explain that flu is “the wrong thing to vaccinate against” because you have to keep re-vaccinating against it every year, unlike childhood infectious diseases, such as smallpox, that are only vaccinated for once. Dr. Geier points out how ridiculous it is spend billions of dollars on a vaccine that might, at its best, save about 50 lives a year, when there are far more serious problems causing death that are more worthy of that kind of expenditure.

Be informed before you vaccinate, particularly the annual flu vaccine! In general, medical professionals and the federal government cannot be trusted, as they present the extremist position that all vaccines are safe, and they are not a credible source due to their conflicts of interest.

Medical Doctors Opposed to Forced Vaccinations – Should Their Views be Silenced?

One of the biggest myths being propagated in the compliant mainstream media today is that doctors are either pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine, and that the anti-vaccine doctors are all “quacks.”

However, nothing could be further from the truth in the vaccine debate. Doctors are not unified at all on their positions regarding “the science” of vaccines, nor are they unified in the position of removing informed consent to a medical procedure like vaccines.

The two most extreme positions are those doctors who are 100% against vaccines and do not administer them at all, and those doctors that believe that ALL vaccines are safe and effective for ALL people, ALL the time, by force if necessary.

Very few doctors fall into either of these two extremist positions, and yet it is the extreme pro-vaccine position that is presented by the U.S. Government and mainstream media as being the dominant position of the medical field.

In between these two extreme views, however, is where the vast majority of doctors practicing today would probably categorize their position. Many doctors who consider themselves “pro-vaccine,” for example, do not believe that every single vaccine is appropriate for every single individual.

Many doctors recommend a “delayed” vaccine schedule for some patients, and not always the recommended one-size-fits-all CDC childhood schedule. Other doctors choose to recommend vaccines based on the actual science and merit of each vaccine, recommending some, while determining that others are not worth the risk for children, such as the suspect seasonal flu shot.

These doctors who do not hold extreme positions would be opposed to government-mandated vaccinations and the removal of all parental exemptions.

In this eBook, I am going to summarize the many doctors today who do not take the most extremist pro-vaccine position, which is probably not held by very many doctors at all, in spite of what the pharmaceutical industry, the federal government, and the mainstream media would like the public to believe.

Across the country from Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, miles of decrepit pot-holed streets give way to a smooth roadway leading up to the gates of the Caracol Industrial Park, but no further.

The fishing hamlet of Caracol, from which the park gets its name, lies around the bend down a bumpy dirt road. Four years after the earthquake that destroyed the country on January 12, 2010, the Caracol Industrial Park is the flagship reconstruction project of the international community in Haiti. Signs adorn nearby roads, mostly in English, declaring the region “Open for Business.” In a dusty field, hundreds of empty, brightly colored houses are under construction in neat rows. If all goes as hoped for by the enthusiastic backers of the industrial park, this area could be home to as many as 300,000 additional residents over the next decade.

Petrocaribe-financed housing development in Morne Cabrit, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. Photograph: Jake Johnston

The plan for the Caracol Industrial Park project actually predates the 2010 earthquake. In 2009, Oxford University economist Paul Collier released a U.N.–sponsored reportoutlining a vision for Haiti’s economic future; it encouraged garment manufacturing as the way forward, noting U.S. legislation that gave Haitian textiles duty-free access to the U.S. market as well as “labour costs that are fully competitive with China . . . [due to] its poverty and relatively unregulated labour market.”

The report, embraced by the U.N. and the U.S., left a mark on many of the post-earthquake planning documents. Among the biggest champions of the plan were the Clintons, who played a crucial role in attracting a global player to Haiti. While on an official trip to South Korea as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton brought company officials from one of the largest South Korean manufacturers to the U.S. embassy to sell them on the idea. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, having just appointed Bill Clinton U.N. special envoy to Haiti, tapped connections in his home country, South Korea.

Then suddenly, the earthquake presented an opportunity for the Clintons and the U.N. to fast track their plans. The U.S. government and its premiere aid agency, USAID, formed an ambitious plan to build thousands of new homes, create new industries, and provide new beginnings for those who lost everything in the earthquake. Originally the plan was to build the industrial park near Port-au-Prince. But land was readily available in the North, and the hundreds of small farmers who had to be moved from the park’s site were far less resistant than the wealthy land-owners in the capital. So the whole project moved to the Northern Department, to Caracol. Under the banner of decentralization and economic growth, the Caracol Industrial Park, with the Korean textile manufacturer Sae-A as its anchor tenant, became the face of Haiti’s reconstruction.

Now, only 750 homes have been built near Caracol, and the only major tenant remains Sae-A. New ports and infrastructure have been delayed and plagued by cost overruns. Concerns over labor rights and low wages have muted the celebration of the 2,500 new jobs created. For those who watched pledges from international donors roll in after the earthquake, reaching a total of $10 billion, rebuilding Haiti seemed realistic. But nearly four years later, there is very little to show for all of the aid money that has been spent. Representative Edward Royce (R-CA), the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, bluntly commented in October that “while much has been promised, little has been effectively delivered.”

The story of how this came to pass involves more than the problems of reconstruction in a poor country. While bad governance, corruption, incompetent bureaucracy, power struggles, and waste contributed to the ineffective use of aid, what happened in Haiti has more to do with the damage caused by putting political priorities before the needs of those on the ground.

The Housing Crisis and the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission

The earthquake decimated Haiti’s housing stock: 100,000 were destroyed and more were damaged. There were $2.3 billion in damages in the housing sector alone, and 1.5 million people left living in makeshift tent camps. Unplanned and unregulated housing construction made Port-au-Prince, with population at least 3 million, extremely vulnerable to natural disasters. In less than a minute, entire shantytown neighborhoods came crashing down.

The Interim Haiti Recovery Commission was created by the international community to coordinate post-quake aid and align it with Haitian government priorities. Bill Clinton, as the U.N. special envoy and the head of the Commission, was optimistic. “If we do this housing properly,” he affirmed, “it will lead to whole new industries being started in Haiti, creating thousands and thousands of new jobs and permanent housing.”

Like the Caracol Industrial park, the Commission was presented as a response to the devastation of the earthquake. But its basic tenets—and its slogan, “Build Back Better”—were actually agreed upon by the U.S. and U.N. in the year prior. The commission’s formation was handled not by the Haitian government, but by the staff of the Clintons, mainly Cheryl Mills and Laura Graham, as well as a team of U.S.-based private consultants. The commission’s bylaws were drafted by a team from Hogan Lovells, a global law firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. A team from McKinsey and Company, a New York based consultancy firm, handled the “mission, mandate, structure and operations” of the commission. Eric Braverman, part of the McKinsey team, later went on to become the CEO of the Clinton Foundation.

According to Jean-Marie Bourjolly, a Haitian member of the commission, the body’s “original sin” lay in concentrating the decision-making power in the Executive Committee of the Board, made up of Bill Clinton and then–Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive. In October 2010, just six months after its creation, Bourjolly wrote a memorandum to the co-chairs and the rest of the commission’s board. The note cautioned that by “vesting all powers and authority of the Board in the Executive Committee, it is clear that what is expected of us [the rest of the Board] is to act as a rubber-stamping body.” According to Bourjolly, the memorandum was not included in the official minutes of the October meeting at Clinton’s behest, and the document has remained out of the public sphere. But one former commission employee confirmed the commission’s role: he told me that many projects were approved because “they were submitted by USAID and State” and “that as long as USAID is submitting it and USAID is paying for it,” it should be approved.

Bourjolly also contended that the commission was failing to live up to its mission “to conduct strategic planning, establish investment priorities and sequence implementation of plans and projects.” Rather, Bourjolly wrote, “our action has so far been limited to accepting projects that. . . come our way on a first come, first served basis” and that it would result in “a disparate bunch of approved projects. . . that nonetheless do not address as a whole neither the emergency situation nor the recovery, let alone the development, of Haiti.”

Even the Clintons’ supporters conceded that their staff and the foreign consultants did more harm than good. A Haitian government official, who requested her name be withheld because of the power the Clintons continue to wield in Haiti, commented that “they were lucky to get someone as high-profile and experienced as Clinton” but that the staff “had no idea what Haiti was like and had no sensitivity to the Haitians.” “Out of ignorance, there was much arrogance,” the official said. “And who pays the price? The Haitian people, as always.”

Article 22 of the Haitian constitution enshrines “the right of every citizen to decent housing,” and civil society groups have long advocated for the government to protect this right through large-scale, affordable public housing. But in October 2011, the commission quietly closed its doors. Its eighteen-month mandate was not renewed, and little remained of the grand plans to build thousands of new homes. Instead, those left homeless would be given a small, one-time rental subsidy of about $500. These subsidies, funded by a number of different aid agencies, were meant to give private companies the incentive to invest in building houses. As efforts to rebuild whole neighborhoods faltered, the rental subsidies turned Haitians into consumers, and the housing problem was handed over to the private sector.

The number of displaced persons is down to 200,000 from its 1.5 million peak, according to the U.N. But only 25 percent of that decrease has anything to do with official programs to provide housing. Many were given a paltry subsidy and evicted from their camps. The highest profile and most visible camps were closed down, but those tucked in alleys, out of the view of the convoys of aid workers’ vehicles, remain forgotten. Fifty-five thousand Haitians who moved to areas known as Canaan, Jerusalem, and Onaville were recently removed from the “official” list of Internally Displaced Persons camps. Though those who were pushed out of the camps simply returned to their old homes, the international community claims progress. A USAID–sponsored study from the summer of 2011 estimated that over a million Haitians were occupying damaged homes and that nearly half of them were living in “buildings that might collapse at any moment.” In fact, if another quake happened today, they’d be more likely to die than they were living under tents in clearings.

By September 2013, nearly four years after the earthquake, only 7,500 new homes had been built and 27,000 repaired—an incredibly small achievement when set against the billions of dollars and grand plans put together by the international community in the wake of the catastrophe. “Now, we have a return to the status quo, the same situation that was there before the earthquake, with no coordination and each project done haphazardly,” Gabriel Verret, the former executive director of the commission, said.

USAID’s $33,000 House

While the $500 rental subsidies recommended by the Clinton Commission at the end of its tenure became the preferred form of support by the Haitian government and international community, smaller projects to provide permanent housing that had already been approved by the commission were carried through. In December 2010, the commission’s board had signed off on the U.S. government’s “New Settlements Program,” which called for the construction of 15,000 homes in Port-au-Prince and the North Department, where the new industrial park was to be located.

This June, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report revealing that only 900 of those 15,000 homes had been built. The overall goal has been reduced to 2,600. At the same time, costs increased from $53 million to over $90 million. The GAO found that the program suffered from a fatal flaw: original estimates had drastically low-balled how much the houses would cost. The calculation of 15,000 planned houses was based on an estimate of each costing around $8,000. With the cost of preparing the land, the total cost per house was over $33,000.

USAID assembled a team of shelter experts in August of 2010. The goal, according to Duane Kissick, the head of the shelter planning team, was to put the majority of available resources into the damaged communities. The plan they came back with was simple and meant to be implemented quickly. Jerry Erbach, another member of the Shelter Team, recalled that “there was a good deal of pressure to develop a series of projects very quickly and at low cost in order to meet the needs of those households who became homeless after the earthquake.” The plan was to build homes that were simple, modest and small, but that could expand over time.

The narrative put forth by the Shelter Team experts is confirmed by USAID’s Shelter Sector Activity Approval Document (AAD), which I obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. The plan called for construction to be completed by December 2012 and specifically noted that “USAID programs will seek wherever possible to work with local partners.” A USAID-funded study by the International Housing Coalition recommended the same thing, noting that “wherever possible, USAID should utilize Haitian construction contractors.” Letting local companies or individuals handle the work means more money for Haiti, its economy, and its people. It’s also cheaper, and has worked in the past.

Food for the Poor, an NGO that has worked in Haiti for decades, utilizes small local construction teams to build 1,000 homes each year at a cost of just $6,400 each. Brad Johnson, the president of Mission of Hope, another NGO working in Haiti, told the New York Times, “We’re not one of the big groups that sit in Washington, D.C., and get the financing. . . But we’re managing to get it done for $6,000 a house. I don’t understand, for all the money that came into Haiti, why there aren’t houses everywhere.”

But the recommendations for using local contractors and the plan to build $8,000 homes were ignored. More international companies were brought in, additional studies were undertaken, and the first contract to actually build a house was not awarded until April of 2012, nearly two and half years after the quake and eight months after the project was approved. The contracts ended up going not to small local companies but to large international ones. Thor Construction, based in Minnesota, received $18 million, and CEMEX, a Mexican company, got over $7 million. Another $35 million went to two Haitian-American firms based in Maryland for environmental assessments, construction management, site preparation, and other associated projects.

Outsourcing the construction drove the price up, since international companies had to fly in, rent hotels and cars, and spend USAID allowances for food and cost-of-living expenses. To incentivize working in Haiti, the U.S. government also gave contractors and employees “danger pay” and “hardship pay,” increasing their salaries by over 50 percent. With all these costs included in contracts, it’s not hard to see how prices ballooned. Bill Vastine, a long-time contractor and member of the Shelter Team, said, “if the American people saw the true cost of this, they’d say ‘you’ve got to be out of your mind.’” The changing priorities undermined any cohesion in the program.

With 200,000 still homeless and hundreds of thousands more living in grossly inadequate and often structurally unsound buildings, the 900 homes that USAID has built won’t go very far. No current USAID employees agreed to speak about the project on the record, despite repeated requests for comment. In remarks before Congress, USAID administrator Beth Hogan stated that “we were significantly off in terms of what our original estimates were. . . when we got back bids from offerers who were going to actually build these homes. . . the estimates increased even further.”

The Shelter Team also initially planned to build two-thirds of the homes in the Port-au-Prince area. But this has changed: the current plan is to build 75 percent of the homes in the Northern Department of Haiti, all within 13 miles of the new industrial park. Many USAID staffers on the ground wanted to focus on Port-au-Prince, where the damage was greatest. But the State Department had made a commitment to building houses in the North, in support of the Caracol Industrial Park.

The State Department’s political intervention in the project also delayed the process of getting people into the houses that did manage to get built. According to Erbach, who also worked with an international NGO assisting the Haitian Government in selecting households to benefit from the new housing, pressure from the Department of State led to a “significant amount of time and effort being wasted on identifying and vetting workers from the industrial park who were not IDPs.” The internal shelter AAD warned that “if the process is perceived as inequitable, opaque, or led by the United States, the [government] will appear to be ‘choosing winners,’ resulting in political problems.” As Vastine describes it: “Every agency has its own little fiefdom, their own little budgets to protect and their own cadre of people they protect and they don’t work well together; there is no cohesiveness with our own internal bureaucracy in the United States, much less with everything else that’s here, from all the other countries.”

Speaking before Congress, USAID Administrator Hogan conceded that, “what we realized as we were going into this. . . is that new homes isn’t [sic] the solution for Haiti.” USAID is now officially out of the home-building business in Haiti.

As for the 750 houses under construction in Caracol, as the four-year mark comes and goes, the first families are just now starting to move in. Meanwhile, back in Haiti’s capital, at least 200,000 quake victims face another year living under tattered tarps.

Too Big to Fail

Over the last twenty years, the American foreign aid system, much like the military, has become increasingly reliant on private contractors. From 1990 to 2008, USAID experienced a 40 percent decline in staff while funds under their responsibility skyrocketed. A 2008 report from the American Academy of Diplomacy found that “implementation of programs has shifted from Agency employees to contractors and grantees and USAID lacks . . . [the] capacity to provide effective oversight and management.” In her Senate confirmation hearing for Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton said “I think it’s fair to say that USAID, our premier aid agency, has been decimated. . . It’s turned into more of a contracting agency than an operational agency with the ability to deliver.” Billions have been shifted to private corporations and NGOs. Many of those who actually implement foreign aid projects are explicitly for-profit companies, but even top employees at some USAID-funded non-profits earn over $300,000 a year.

Before he became head of the recovery commission, Bill Clinton urged those working in Haiti to ask, “Are we helping [the Haitian people] to become more self-sufficient? Are we building infrastructure in local development plans? Are we creating local jobs? Are we paying salaries for teachers, doctors, nurses, police, civil servants? Are we giving money to support government agencies that provide those services?”

The answers to these questions would seem to be mainly in the negative. In Haiti, a report(which I co-authored) at the Center for Economic and Policy Research revealed that less than 1 percent of the more than $1.3 billion in assistance provided by USAID was awarded directly to Haitian companies or organizations. USAID awarded more money to one Washington D.C.-based for-profit contractor, Chemonics, than to the entire Haitian government since the earthquake.

Haiti is not unique; these problems erode U.S. aid across the globe. A revolving door between NGOs, development companies, and the U.S. government has entrenched the system so deeply that any movement for change will be long and difficult. Fortunately, development agencies are slowly realizing that aid goes much further when more of it stays in the local economy. For its part, USAID has launched an ambitious reform program called “USAID Forward,” which aims to totally overhaul the procurement system, working directly with local institutions.

USAID Administrator Beth Hogan told Congress that in Haiti, the United States is “trying to reach 17 percent of our overall budget to be channeled through local institutions.” But already, for-profit development companies have formed a lobbying group and hired the influential, Democratic party-linked, Podesta Group to get their message out. Their selling point: foreign companies are harder to hold accountable. It’s an argument that rings hollow when you realize that not a single USAID awardee, NGO, or for-profit has been suspended or reprimanded publically for their work in Haiti, despite all the high-profile failures.

The failure of Haiti’s reconstruction is, sadly, another chapter in a long history of poverty perpetuated by outside powers. Bureaucracy, internecine quarrels, moneyed lobbying, waste and inefficiency—these are not monopolies of poor, “developing” countries such as Haiti. They are the problems of the United States and its foreign aid complex.

Matthew barreled through the Caribbean Sea between Haiti and Cuba and slammed into Haiti as a Category 4 Hurricane during the night of Monday to Tuesday, October 3-4, 2016. The hurricane made its first landfall on the westernmost tip of Haiti, near the town of Tiburon, in the southern peninsula, battering the area with the storm’s fiercest winds, waves, and rains.

All of Haiti, however, suffered hurricane-force winds and floods that destroyed crops and swept away much of the livestock.

Furthermore, violent surges of seawater crashed into most of Haiti’s cities, which line the coasts. Even the Dominican Republic, on the eastern side of Hispaniola, well away from the hurricane’s center was so strongly affected by floods and winds that it lost four people.

On Tuesday morning, Haiti’s Pwoteksyon Sivil reported five deaths from the Hurricane, together with the circumstances of each death; later the same day, the number rose to 23.

To those who had been getting their news directly from Haiti, these low, albeit tragic, casualty rates were not surprising, even for the vulnerable cities of Port-au-Prince and Leogane, which had not been rebuilt after the earthquake and hosted about 55,000 homeless people.

For more than 48 hours before the hurricane, Haiti’s presidential candidates for the now-postponed elections of Sunday, October 9, had tried to outdo each other at informing the public of the dangers of the hurricane and directing people to places of safety. The country’s interim President, Jocelerme Privert, made a televised address in which he admonished the population to move away from the coasts. “My fellow citizens, do not be stubborn, do not say ‘God is good and will take care of you.’ You must evacuate the endangered areas.” He further called on Haitians to help each other. Even prisoners were moved to safety this time. Haitians should take a bow for the lives that were saved by their conduct.

None of this news appeared in the Western press, because it does not deal in facts but in poetic truth, which in this case requires the supposed poorest-of-the-poor to perish by the hundreds, if not by the thousands, if they are not helped by foreign humanitarians.

Once the United States military and journalists began to assess the hurricane’s damage by some counting system of their own invention, the number of Haitian casualties skyrocketed, and there were no longer any reports of how the dead met their fates. Indeed, the number of the Haitian dead from Hurricane Matthew has doubled approximately every 12 hours since Tuesday morning and is now estimated to be 800. At this rate, all of Haiti’s population should be dead in about a week.

All joking aside, these casualty counts should be examined carefully and with great skepticism. For one, there no longer appears to be a distinction between the missing and the dead.

For example, the children from a collapsed orphanage are presumed to have died, but no evidence of their deaths has been offered. Such disappearances of children during disasters are often due to human trafficking, and the irresponsible reporters who eagerly repeat these numbers should consider that they might be serving as the unwitting accomplices of criminals. The new numbers of the dead are blamed on the recently discovered damage to Haiti’s southwestern peninsula (Grand Anse, South and Nippes departments), which had been cut off from the rest of the country due to the collapse of a bridge on Route National No. 2 in the city of Petit Goave.

After surveying all the country, the Pwoteksyon Sivil revised its counts for Haiti’s various departments (states) on Thursday, October 6, to a disastrous 108 deaths: 38 deaths in Grand Anse; 26 in the South; 34 in the West; 1 in the Northwest; 3 in the Artibonite; 3 in Nippes; and 3 in the Southwest. These new counts by Haitians, where the number of deaths in the Grand Anse and South departments are similar to those of the West department, imply casualty rates per capita more than 10 times higher for Grand Anse and more than 5 times higher for the South than for the West.

This rings truer than the inflated numbers from the English-language media. One would not expect the Grand Anse and the South alone to have hundreds of casualties simply because they were hit hardest by the storm. First, these areas have not suffered any earthquake damage. Secondly, they lacked a significant population of internally displaced people. Finally, the Grand Anse and South departments, in Haiti’s southwest, have only 5 and 8 percent, respectively, of Haiti’s population, compared to the West department, which includes the capital city of Port-au-Prince with more than 40 percent of the population.

The numbers of deaths were revised on October 8 to look more horrific, but they are no longer credible with regard to the casualty rates per capita for Grand Anse and the South, compared to the West. It is in the interest of the occupying powers to pressure Haiti to exaggerate the human and material costs of the hurricane. Already, the interim government has been forced to delay sin die the non-fraudulent presidential and legislative elections, which Haitians had themselves financed and for which they had fought so long and hard. There is also the expectedgold rush. After the earthquake of 2010, for example, more than 90 percent of the aid funds were laundered through Haiti and into the pockets of politically connected businessmen from the so-called donor countries.

From what one can gather of the reports from the Miami Herald, Reuters, New York Times, The Guardian, and especially the BBC News, they appear to be on a campaign to rehabilitate the non-governmental organizations (NGO) that have been discredited by their conduct after Haiti’s earthquake of 2010. The fear that these NGOs might return has been described by journalistKim Ives.

The United Nations occupying force, which has twice introduced cholera in Haiti, is predicting yet more cholera. The UN is scheduled to leave the country in six months. Nevertheless it is casting itself as an expert on the eradication of cholera epidemics, promoting useless cholera vaccines through articles sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in newspapers like The Guardian, and plotting to stay. At this juncture, it is absolutely critical for the Haitian government to take charge of all emergency water distribution and make sure the water is safe to drink.

After all, if you control the water that people drink, you control cholera, and there is far too much money to be made in a massive cholera epidemic.

The Red Cross, which has never showed much for the nearly $500 million in donations it collected within a year of the earthquake, is again promising relief to Haitians. This charity claimed that it spent about 5 percent of its earthquake funds on 700 homes, which turned out to be only a scandalous 6 houses on closer inspection. To account for the rest of the money, it has made vague claims of building more than 100,000 shelters, signing agreements to spend about one half of its funds, giving away tens of millions of dollars worth of food, and helping more than 4.5 million Haitians, nearly one half of the entire population, get back on their feet. How? By giving them golden slippers?

Evidently it does not trouble some news agencies that none of the Red Cross’ claims is demonstrable. A BBC report on Friday, October 7, which trumpeted that 800 Haitians had died from Hurricane Matthew, turned out to be a carrier for a thinly wrapped call for donations to the Red Cross. “The Red Cross has launched an emergency appeal for $6.9m (£5.6m) ‘to provide medical, shelter, water and sanitation assistance to 50,000 people,’” the article announced. The Miami Herald, for its part, reported 300 deaths and informed its readers: “Obama, in his remarks on Haiti Friday, also asked Americans to help by contributing to the Red Cross and other philanthropic organizations.” Even after keeping its manager and CEO in six-figure salaries for years, the Red Cross should still have more than enough in its interest-bearing accounts to assist the victims of Hurricane Matthew. Give it nothing.

On October 4, Haiti’s Interim Prime Minister, Enex Jean Charles called for all aid to the country from any donor or partner, national or international, to be channeled through the Permanent National Office for Risk and Disaster Relief (Secrétariat Permanent National de Gestion des Risques et des Désastres, SNGRD). It is almost certain that the next elected government will make a similar call. Hang on to your wallets. Give nothing to any organization until it makes clear that it will abide by the wishes of Haitians.

The Western press, which so relishes the sight of dead and disconsolate Haitians, has so far thankfully offered us nothing of this, except for aerial images of the physical devastation of southwest Haiti and one highly republished photograph of two men carrying a coffin. Where are all the dead Haitians? Were they mostly hit by falling trees and flying roof tiles, overwhelmed by mudslides, drowned in their homes, or swept to sea on giant waves or along streets that had turned into rapids? To my knowledge, Cuba is the only country that reports the circumstances of the deaths of all its hurricane casualties, together with their names, gender, and age. It is no doubt this systematic collection of correct information about hurricane deaths that has made Cuba the safest place to be during such storms. Accurate hurricane statistics also help to identify irregularities and protect the vulnerable from criminal elements. But more than anything, the naming of the dead, the refusal to let people die as nameless as livestock, is a necessary show of respect.

Dady Chery is the author of We Have Dared to Be Free: Haiti’s Struggle Against Occupation.

In a sign that the Syrian conflict risks escalating into war between the world’s major nuclear-armed powers, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned yesterday against NATO air and missile strikes on its forces and allies in Syria, stating that Russia would respond militarily.

Lavrov referred to media reports that the United States plans to bomb Syrian or Russian forces inside Syria. “This is a very dangerous game,” he said, “given that Russia, being in Syria at the invitation of the legitimate government of this country and having two bases there, has air defense systems there to protect its assets.”

Moscow also sent nuclear-capable Iskander-M missiles to the Russian Baltic city of Kaliningrad late Friday. From Kaliningrad, the missiles can strike targets, including NATO bases, across Poland and the Baltic republics. Russian Defense Ministry officials said the missiles were loaded onto a freighter in the Baltic Sea “right under a US reconnaissance satellite” to monitor its response and make clear to the US military that the missiles were en route to Kaliningrad.

Leaks to US papers including the Washington Post last week revealed that US officials are discussing launching an attack on Syrian government forces behind the backs of the American people. While a handful of press reports have emerged on the leaks themselves, a deafening silence prevails in American and European media on the danger and the consequences of such an escalation.

On Wednesday, the Post ’s Josh Rogin wrote,

“[O]fficials from the State Department, the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff discussed limited military strikes against the [Syrian] regime … Options under consideration, which remain classified, include bombing Syrian air force runways using cruise missiles and other long-range weapons fired from coalition planes and ships, an administration official who is part of the discussions told me. One proposed way to get around the White House’s long-standing objection to striking the Assad regime without a UN Security Council resolution would be to carry out the strikes covertly and without public acknowledgment, the official said.”

In a 2013 speech to Wall Street bankers leaked by WikiLeaks, Hillary Clinton said imposing such a “no-fly zone” would entail mass civilian casualties: “To have a no-fly zone you have to take out all of the air defenses, many of which are located in populated areas. So our missiles, even if they are standoff missiles so we’re not putting our pilots at risk—you’re going to kill a lot of Syrians.”

After last month’s US bombing in Deir ez-Zor killed at least 62 Syrian soldiers and wounded 100, it must be assumed that US raids would aim to cause massive Syrian military casualties as well.

Even before Lavrov made his remarks, Russian military officials responded to leaks like the Post report by warning US officials that they risked provoking a major war. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman General Igor Konashenkov said his forces would presume US strikes were hostile, and locate and destroy US fighters, including stealth aircraft, over Syria.

“Any missile or air strikes on the territory controlled by the Syrian government will create a clear threat to Russian servicemen,” Konashenkov said. “Russian air defense system crews are unlikely to have time to determine in a ‘straight line’ the exact flight paths of missiles and then who the warheads belong to. And all the illusions of amateurs about the existence of ‘invisible’ jets will face a disappointing reality.”

Addressing “leaks” such as the Post report, he added, “Of particular concern is information that the initiators of such provocations are representatives of the CIA and the Pentagon, who … today are lobbying for ‘kinetic’ scenarios in Syria.”

Konashenkov warned Washington that it should make a “thorough calculation of the possible consequences of such plans.”

This remark is chilling. While Konashenkov did not say it, the significance of Moscow’s remarks is clear: implementing US plans signifies a military clash with Russia, and the possible consequences of such a clash include escalation into a full-blown nuclear war that would kill billions of people. The diplomatic arrangements that for a time stabilized relations between NATO and Russia in the period after the Stalinist bureaucracy dissolved the USSR in 1991 have collapsed.

As Moscow apparently concludes that it has no other option but to prepare for war if Washington and its NATO allies decide to launch it, working people around the world are emerging as the sole social constituency for opposition to a catastrophic war.

The driving force in the war crisis is the aggressive policy of the NATO imperialist powers, led by the US. Russia’s emergence as an obstacle to unrestrained US-NATO wars in the Middle East, opposing a planned NATO war in Syria in 2013, is totally unacceptable to Washington.

Now, as NATO’s Al Qaeda-linked Islamist proxies in Syria face defeat around Aleppo, factions of the American state are openly calling for launching a war to save them. Last month, US General Joseph Dunford indicated his support for imposing a “no-fly zone” over Syria to the US Senate, adding that this “would require us to go to war with Syria and Russia.”

Last week, US Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley mentioned Russia and China as enemies, and directly addressed them, declaring, “I want to be clear to those who wish to do us harm … the United States military—despite all of our challenges, despite our [operational] tempo, despite everything we have been doing—we will stop you and we will beat you harder than you have ever been beaten before. Make no mistake about that.”

While the NATO powers bear central responsibility for the crisis in Syria, the response of Russia’s post-Soviet capitalist oligarchy is also reckless and reactionary. Incapable of and hostile to appealing to international opposition to war in the working class, it aimed to use its military strength to deter US-NATO escalation in Syria and to negotiate a deal with the imperialist powers.

This policy has utterly failed. Instead, the Kremlin’s oscillations between begging Washington for a deal and escalating military action inside Syria have drawn it into a deepening confrontation with NATO that now threatens to unleash a major military conflict.

Russia’s missile deployment to Kaliningrad is a signal to Washington and its European allies that Moscow not only believes that war is a very real possibility, but anticipates that such a war would rapidly spread from Syria to Europe. NATO has deployed tens of thousands of troops near Russia’s borders in Eastern Europe since backing a fascist-led putsch that toppled a pro-Russian regime in Ukraine in 2014.

Lavrov said this posed an intolerable threat to Russian national security. “We have witnessed a fundamental change of circumstances [in] the aggressive Russophobia that now lies at the heart of US policy toward Russia,” he said. “It’s not rhetorical Russophobia, but aggressive steps which really concern our national interests and endanger our security. NATO enlargement, [deployments of] NATO military infrastructure next to our borders … and the deployment of a missile defense system—these are all a display of unfriendly, hostile actions.”

Moscow was outraged in particular by US State Department spokesman John Kirby’s threat that if Russia did not obey US orders to retreat from Syria, Islamist groups could “expand their operations, which could include attacks against Russian interests, perhaps even Russian cities. Russia will continue to send troops home in body bags and will continue to lose resources, perhaps even aircraft.” In this context, Kirby’s subsequent observation that Washington can influence “some” opposition militias in Syria had the character of a threat.

As CIA weapons reach armories of the Al Qaeda-linked Al Nusra front in Aleppo, it is clear that if Moscow simply let the Syrian regime fall to the Islamist opposition, Russia could soon find itself targeted for the type of Islamist operations NATO is currently aiming at Syria. This has apparently persuaded Moscow, at least for now, to risk an all-out confrontation with the US in a desperate attempt to deter NATO military action against Syria and Russia.

The Associated Press (AP) through a procedure it calls “AP FACT CHECK,” claimed after a recent US presidential debate that presidential candidate Donald Trump was untruthful about Syrian President Bashar Al Assad fighting the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (ISIS).

Below is the screenshot of an October 9 report

Followed by an earlier April 2016 report:

AP’s article, “AP FACT CHECK: Trump wrong that Assad fights IS,” claims:

Not true. Syria’s President Bashar Assad considers the Islamic State group to be among numerous “terrorist” groups that threaten his government, but his military is not fighting them. It is focused on combatting Syrian opposition groups, some of which are supported by the United States. The fight against the Islamic State militants is being waged by a U.S.-led coalition, with help from Turkey, by training, advising and equipping Syrian Arab and Kurdish fighters.

However, despite AP’s claims, AP’s own reporting directly contradicts its “AP FACT CHECK,” as pointed out by Syrian activist and geopolitical commentator Mimi Al Laham in a recent Tweet.

In their April 2016 article, “After Palmyra, Syrian troops take another IS-controlled town,” AP would report that:

A week after taking back the historic town of Palmyra, Syrian troops and their allies on Sunday captured another town controlled by the Islamic State group in central Syria, state media reported.

The push into the town of Qaryatain took place under the cover of Russian airstrikes and dealt another setback to the IS extremists in Syria. An activist group that monitors the Syrian civil war said that government forces are in control of most of the town after IS fighters withdrew to its eastern outskirts.

The advance came a week after Syrian forces recaptured Palmyra from IS and is strategically significant for the government side. The capture of Qaryatain deprives IS of a main base in central Syria and could be used by government forces in the future to launch attacks on IS-held areas near the Iraqi border.

Not only does AP directly contradict its own reporting on Syrian forces over the past year with its recent and clearly disingenuous “AP FACT CHECK,” it also contradicts claims that Russia is also uninterested in fighting ISIS – admitting clearly that Syrian government gains against the terrorist organization took place under the cover of Russian airpower.

Also, AP would even report that Russian ground forces were present at Palmyra, directly on the front with ISIS.

AP’s May 2016 article, “Russia builds military camp near ancient site in Palmyra,” would admit:

Russia has built a military encampment inside a zone that holds the UNESCO world heritage site in the ancient Syrian town of Palmyra, where Islamic State militants were driven out recently by pro-government forces.

The Russian military described the camp Tuesday as “temporary,” saying its few housing units were being used by explosives experts who are removing mines left behind by the militants, and that the Syrian government had given approval to build the camp.

It is uncertain why AP has resorted to such blatant, clumsy lies, especially under a series of articles it is boldly calling “AP FACT CHECK.” However, it is clear – based on AP’s own reporting – that they are in fact lying intentionally and in direct contradiction to their own reporting.

It is also interesting how AP boldly titles its recent series as “AP FACT CHECK” yet provides no citations or evidence for its “fact checking.”

AP has perpetuated intentional lies dressed up as news reporting for years, if not from its inception, deceiving global audiences regarding everything from “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq, to the characterization of political conflicts ranging from the so-called “Arab Spring” to political instability in Southeast Asia.

Caught in a blatant lie contradicting its own reporting should put the world on notice that AP is not a legitimate news service, nor should it be trusted as a journalistic source until those responsible for “AP FACT CHECK” are exposed, condemned, and expelled from AP, and AP provides a proper explanation as to how such blatant lies could cross its pages in the first place.

For the Syrian and Russian soldiers and airmen who bravely died fighting ISIS in combat AP itself reported on, no greater disservice could be done than to deny such combat even took place. AP’s recent “AP FACT CHECK” was meant to portray recent political debates in a certain light, but instead, it has only managed to cast AP itself as illegitimate, deceitful, and untrustworthy.

We have put together a short compendium of relevant quotes and links to selected Global Research articles (August-October 2016).

What is likely to happen at the Second Presidential debate tonight Sunday October 9 at 9pm is also examined. 

Who do you vote for? 

The bipartisan system is in crisis. Corruption permeates the US political landscape. The presidential election campaign is rigged.  

Media propaganda prevails. 

There is no choice?  There is no democracy in America.

What will Happen Tonight at the Second Trump-Clinton Debate:

According to Larry Chin:

The Clintons will break all rules and laws to seize White House power. This is amply proven by the manner in which they rigged and stole the first presidential debate.  

The operation appears to have been planned in advance of the September 26, 2016 event, involving the Clintons and their operatives, the debate organizers, the broadcast media (NBC and “moderator” Lester Holt), the managers of the venue, and the security detail at the facility.

The second debate scheduled for October 9, 2016 promises nothing better for Trump. The last debate saw Hillary Clinton and Lester Holt ganging up on Trump. This next time, it will be three against one.

One of the “moderators” is CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who was a CIA intern, who likely still functions as an intelligence asset.

CNN is so heavily skewed to the Clintons, and dominated by former Clintonites, that it is referred to derisively as the “Clinton News Network”. Cooper has pushed the lie that Lester Holt was deferential to Trump, when in fact Holt constantly interrupted Trump and bashed him every time Hillary asked him to. Cooper’s statements  suggest that he will attack Trump even more aggressively than Holt.

The other “moderator” will be ABC’s Martha Raddatz, who was White House correspondent in the George W. Bush administration. Raddatz is further proof that the corporate media is a revolving door through which Washington insiders slither and slime back and forth.

As long as the Clinton operatives continue to be allowed to get away with fraud and criminal shenanigans—-be it rigged podiums, rigged stage props, hidden teleprompters, hidden transceivers, cheat notes, and collusion with “moderators”—and as long as the corporate media continues to conspire with the Clintons without consequences, then Donald Trump will be toast again.

That is what the Clintons are counting on.

“Podiumgate”: How the Clintons Rigged the First Presidential Debate By Larry Chin, October 04, 2016

The Leak of Trump’s Controversial 2005 Video. What will be its impact. 

According to Prof. Michel Chossudovsky:

The release of this 2005 video by the Washington Post containing lewd and sexist statements by the Republican Party’s presidential candidate Donald Trump is likely to play a decisive role. 

It is a victory for the Hillary Clinton campaign. 

We must however beg the question. 

What motivated this carefully timed release, prior to the second presidential candidates’ debate? 

Donald Trump’s lewd and sexist behavior or his foreign policy stance regarding US-Russia relations? Or both?

See: Video: The Release of Lewd and Sexist Comments vs. US Foreign Policy: Donald Trump As a Presidential Candidate is Dead? By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, October 08, 2016

In the words of Prof. Binoy Kampmark:

The loathsome two are moving into full view, mustering weapons and taking aim at each other in a US election campaign that continues to be filled with colourful missives.  

The FBI’s Fake “Investigation” of Hillary Clinton’s Emails By Eric Zuesse, September 18, 2016

According to Dr. Paul Craig Roberts:

We know from their words and deeds and material success that the Clintons are agents for Wall Street, the Big Banks, the military/security complex, Israel, agribusiness, and the extractive industries. 

Trump vs. Hillary: “If Hillary gets into the Oval Office, I Predict Nuclear War before her First term is Over”By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, September 26, 2016

According to Patrick Martin

The most important issue in the US presidential election is the one neither of the two main capitalist candidates, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump, is talking about: the increasing likelihood that the next US president will order direct military action against Russia, China or North Korea, all countries that possess nuclear weapons. 

The Threat of World War III: The Great Unmentionable in the 2016 Campaign By Patrick Martin, September 19, 2016

Stephen Lendman writes in a September 8 article:

Fabricated Claims About Russian “Covert Plot” to Disrupt US Elections By Stephen Lendman, September 08, 2016

Judicial Watch on the Email scandal (August 20, 2016):

We are pleased that this federal court ordered Hillary Clinton to provide written answers under oath to some key questions about her email scandal,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.  “We will move quickly to get these answers. The decision is a reminder that Hillary Clinton is not above the law.  

Federal Court Orders Hillary Clinton to Answer Questions under Oath in Email Scandal By Judicial Watch, August 20, 2016

According to Glen Ford:

 Donald Trump has backtracked — sort of — on his assertion that President Obama and Hillary Clinton are “the founders” of ISIS, or the “most valuable players” on the Islamic State team. “Obviously, I’m being sarcastic,” said the self-styled “America-Firster” – quickly adding, “but not that sarcastic, to be honest with you.” 

Trump cannot articulate or fully grasp the horrific truth of his original statement because that would require a much more fundamental indictment of U.S. imperial policy in the Muslim world since the last days of 1979, when Zbigniew Brzezinski convinced President Jimmy Carter to set the jihadist dogs loose in Afghanistan. 

Yes, Obama and Clinton Created ISIS – Too Bad Trump Can’t Explain How It Happened By Glen Ford, August 19, 2016

Jack A. Smith begs the following question in an August 2016 Global Research article:

Donald vs. Hillary: A Still Uncertain Election. Both Candidates Remain Unpopular with the Majority of AmericansBy Jack A. Smith, August 16, 2016

Once again, Haiti is devastated by a natural disaster, this time by Hurricane Matthew.

Before the hurricane plowed into the southeast U.S. coast, where it caused major flooding and widespread power outages, “Matthew” had struck Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, killing 877 people and displacing tens of thousands.

No doubt, there’ll be a drumbeat asking you to donate to Haiti’s hurricane relief, if it hasn’t already begun.

Don’t!

Below are the reasons why.

“In 2010, a massive 7.0 earthquake devastated Haiti, killing more than 200,000 people, leveling 100,000 homes, and leaving 1.5 million people destitute.”

As Dinesh D’Souza recounts for National Review, July 18, 2016,”countries around the world, as well as private and philanthropic groups such as the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, provided some $10.5 billion in aid, with $3.9 billion of it coming from the United States. But very little of this aid money actually got to poor people in Haiti.”

Bill Clinton & George W. Bush inspected the devastation of the Haiti earthquake, March 22, 2010.

According to the National Review:

“Bill Clinton was the designated UN representative for aid to Haiti. Following the earthquake, Bill Clinton had with media fanfare established the Haiti Reconstruction Fund. Meanwhile, his wife Hillary was the U. S. secretary of state, in charge of U.S. aid allocated to Haiti. Together the Clintons were the two most powerful people who controlled the flow of funds to Haiti from around the world.”

Read more about what the Clintons did with the billions of dollars meant for Haiti’s earthquake relief, here.

In 2015, Vice.com sent an investigative reporter to Haiti, who was shocked to find Haiti still devastated 5 years after the earthquake, with many people homeless or living in self-made shacks, without running water or plumbing, despite the $10 billion in relief aid pledged around the world.

Transcript of the video (selected excerpts):

7:21 mark: “What’s odd is that the Haitians who received little to no foreign aid actually seem to be doing than those in the designated relief areas.

8:06 mark: “But there was one permanent structure that was built here for the earthquake survivors. For some reason the International Olympics Committee [IOC} thought that these people could use an $18 million state-of-the-art soccer field and recreation center [instead of plumbing and running water], adding insult to injury in a community lacking in even the most basic amenities.”

8:32 mark: “But this [the IOC soccer field] wasn’t the only strange reconstruction project we saw foreign aid invested in. Seven hours north of the earthquake, over $300 million of foreign aid was spent in the district of Caracol, [a town that wasn’t affected by the earthquake]…. But even though the town wasn’t affected, it didn’t stop our government aid from being invested in another soccer field [that actually cost $2.9 million to built, not the $300 million spent by the contractor. The State Department’s records say the cost of constructing the Caracol soccer field was even lower — $2.3 million.] And when we looked at the cost of many other projects, we noticed the same contractor kept coming up [– Chemonics, the largest USAID recipient across the world, including in Afghanistan….] There’s been a number of audits that have shown lack of progress, the lack of oversight. Here, this is a contract of Chemonics with USAID. All the cost information throughout the contract, that’s all redacted, and we just have [blank] pink sheet after pink sheet…25 pink sheets [in total].”

11:21 mark: “USAID’s real investment here [in Caracol] is the more than $260 million spent for the Caracol industrial park — the largest U.S. development project in the aftermath of the earthquake…. [T]here’s paved streets, there’s sidewalks, there’s electricity and there’s drinkable running water which is actually unheard of in Haiti. Unfortunately, it only provides roughly only 10% of the jobs it promised. Its main tenant is a South Korean garment manufacturing company which enjoys cheap labor, tax exemptions and duty-free access to the U.S. market. Worst of all, none of the employees we met were earthquake survivors, and the plan for the park was drawn up before the [earthquake] disaster even happened.“

13:17 mark: “While many attempts to reform the system have been made, to date, nothing has changed, and the result is the faileddisaster capitalism we see in Haiti, where aid has become an industry of pro-profit companies. In fact, only a month after the earthquake, our own U.S. ambassador was quoted in a leaked document claiming ‘The gold rush is on.’ And now these same companies are using lobbying groups to ensure reforms never come. It’s often said that waste, inefficiency, corruption, these are problems that are unique to the developing world, that are unique to Haiti. The reality is that these are actually fundamental aspects of the U.S. foreign aid complex. Instead of relying on potentially corrupt money, we simply give it to U.S. companies and allow them to take 25% off the top. It’s a different form of corruption, and without realizing that, we’ll continue to make the same mistakes going forward.”

The standard advice for donating to charities is “Keep it local,” i.e., donate only to local charities where you can keep a better eye on how your donations are spent.

How low the icon has fallen. Angela Davis diminished herself and denounced her own history when she endorsed Barack Obama in 2008 and in 2012, claiming the corporate imperial Democrat was part of the “black radical tradition.” Davis now signals she’s in Clinton’s corner, and smears independent voters as “narcissists.” Who will “Free Angela” from her shameful servitude to the Democratic Party?

One purpose of the show staged by Washington’s political establishment every four years, called “election campaign”, is to demonstrate to the world that the American people democratically decide on the future course of their country.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The decision being made on Tuesday November 8, will only supply the answers to the following three questions:

• Who will be Wall Street’s CEP (chief executive politician) occupying the Oval Office until 2020 in the service of major banks, hedge funds and other financial organizations?
• Who will be in charge of diverting the American people’s attention away from their real problems by engaging in all sorts of sham battles? And last but not least:
• Who will be responsible for ideologically preparing Americans for further wars through targeted manipulation?

The political differences between the candidates only reflect the different points of view presently prevalent in the financial industry. In dealing with Russia and China, for example, Hillary Clinton plans to continue a policy of confrontation and preparation for war, while Donald Trump has obviously decided to follow the course laid out by Zbigniew Brzezinski (right) in his April 2016 paper ‘A New Realignment’.

In it, Brzezinski insists that the US should definitely hold on to its status as the world’s leading power, but acknowledges the fact that it has lost part of its economic strength and can only maintain its role as the world’s hegemon by avoiding a major military conflict with Russia or China.

This strategy by no means signals a turn towards a more peaceful policy. Quite the opposite, a realignment with Russia and China would allow the US to concentrate all their military power on another conflict, which currently has a high priority for Wall Street: The war in Syria.

Contrary to what is being reported in the mainstream media, the US government is not undertaking any measures to end this war. Actually, Washington is doing everything in its power to deepen and widen the conflict, not only because of Syria’s strategically important position (which ignited the conflict), but also for another reason that has become of vital interest to the US financial industry during the past two years.

A Huge Problem for Wall Street: The Oil Price

For several years now the US has attempted to become a global market leader in the oil business and gain independence from oil and gas imports by furthering its shale industry. In the beginning stages, the method of fracking was hardly competitive with classical techniques of oil extraction. However, as technical progress made this mode of production more and more profitable, several hundred large investors developed interest in the business and provided loans of hundreds of billions of dollars to the shale industry.

By now it is clear that most of this investment was based on a massive miscalculation. The oil price has fallen by more than 50 % over the past two years. Although production costs in fracking have been significantly reduced, the price, which has been floating around $ 45.00 for months now, is not nearly enough to generate the profits needed for the shale industry’s survival.

Between January 2015 and July 2016, 90 oil and gas producers have already gone bankrupt and left behind more than $ 66 billion in debt. Since these loans were most certainly reinsured through credit default swaps, they must have left considerable holes in the balance sheets of major US banks.

When the rest of the loans come due at the end of this fall, creditors will be facing enormous problems, as the world economy remains stagnant with no improvement in sight. Above that, the present price of oil is itself the product of massive manipulation: Producers have hired fleets of tankers that are filled to breaking point and storages are almost bursting at the seams. Contrary to media reports there is no chance that production will be significantly cut in the near future, due to the fierce competition between the producing states, some of whom are themselves on the verge of bankruptcy.

The Financial Industry is already preparing for War

By the end of the year the US financial system could thus be threatened by a crisis approximately the size of the Dotcom bubble. However, sixteen years later and eight years after being artificially propped up after the fall of Lehman Brothers, the financial system is more instable than ever. The Fed has pumped trillions of dollars into the system and its interest rate is close to zero. Risk exposure in the derivative markets is at record levels, and excessive speculation has led to huge bubbles in the bond, stock and real estate markets. In an environment like this the problems of the shale industry could very well become the spark threatening to blow up the financial system.

Thus Wall Street finds itself in a position in which an increase of the price of oil is more urgent than ever. However, being unable to jack it up by furthering demand, reducing production or stepping up manipulation, there is only one option left and that is the escalation of the war in Syria and the destruction of a large number of oil wells in the Middle East.

There are indications that a decision has already been made behind the scenes. For one thing, the oil price is above all determined by future contracts. That price being higher than the market would actually suggest, points to big investors expecting a rise in demand. If one takes a look at US shale junk bonds, one will see that there has not only been a rise in demand, but almost a run on these bonds over the summer. For example, PDC Energy whose creditworthiness is four levels beneath ‘creditworthy’, were offered $ 1,5 billion for bonds worth $ 400 million. Also, premiums on credit default swaps for junk bonds have fallen by 30 % since February. Strategists at the Bank of America Meryll Lynch called the summer of 2016 “one of the best as far as high-yield foreign-funded loans were concerned.”

Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump know what the financial industry expects from the next President of the United States. That’s why there are three issues in the ongoing election campaign that the two of them entirely agree upon: The ‘war on terror’, the ‘struggle against radical Islamists’ and the ’destruction of Isis’. All three slogans are nothing but a pretext for putting a fuse to the oil keg, which is the Middle East.

Neither Trump nor Clinton will ever mention the fact that America’s allegedly biggest enemy recruits big parts of its membership from organizations like Al Qaida, Al Nusra and the Free Syrian Army that, for some time, have been supported and supplied with money and weapons by the US.

None of the two will ever mention that no radicalization of Muslims would have occurred had the US and their allies not destroyed whole countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria and brutally terrorized their population. And neither Trump nor Clinton will ever mention that the coming escalation of the war and the human catastrophe it brings with it will be caused for one single purpose only: To once more satisfy the insatiable greed of Wall Street.

Instead, both candidates will use the last three weeks of their campaign to unanimously spread the lie that the United States’ security depends on the ‘War against Terror’ and thus demonstrate to the world that both of them are exactly what their predecessors in the Oval Office were: humble and willing servants of Wall Street.

Ernst Wolff is a freelance journalist and the author of the book ‘Pillaging the World. The History and Politics of the IMF’, published by Tectum-Verlag, Germany.

For the Southeast Asian state of Thailand, overcoming corruption could be one of several essential steps required to fully tap the human and natural resources this already influential ASEAN state has benefited from for centuries. However, to tackle corruption, the nation must first define what it is, and what it hopes to achieve by confronting and overcoming it.

Currently, the focus unfortunately appears to be on addressing Thailand’s score upon the so-called Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) put out by alleged nongovernmental organisation (NGO), Transparency International.

Transparency International Leverages CPI as a Geopolitical Weapon 

Despite describing itself as an NGO, Transparency International’s funding is dominated by the governments of the United States and the European Union.

More specifically, as listed on Transparency International’s own website, its funding comes specifically from the US State Department, the European Commission, the US State Department’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and controversial Open Society, chaired by convicted financial criminal George Soros.

Such funding presents an alarming conflict of interest, considering that these are the same interests who, in Thailand and across the rest of ASEAN, have worked actively to overthrow governments and undermine local institutions, seeking to overwrite them with organisations and institutions promoted by and serving foreign interests via NED and Open Society specifically.

Thus, Thailand’s score on the CPI is more a result of politically-motivated interference in Thailand’s internal affairs than it is an honest appraisal of the nation’s corruption. Thailand’s low score and pressure placed upon it by the West to improve this score results not from genuine concern regarding corruption, but instead from the fact that the current government successfully ousted a regime sponsored by and working for Western special interests.

Attempting to “improve” Thailand’s score on a politically-motivated and thus illegitimate index is, to say the least, an exercise in futility.

Despite this glaring reality, there are some in the government who believe improving the nation’s standings on this index should still be a priority. They do so not because a better score will actually address corruption in Thailand in any meaningful manner, thus giving Thais greater confidence and trust in government institutions, but to instead impress foreign investors who a nation like Thailand should not be depending on to begin with.

It is an approach doomed to fail because it is an approach that fundamentally misdiagnoses the problem and thus prescribes the wrong solution.

Alternative Paths

In reality, corruption in Thailand cannot be defined or addressed by Transparency International’s politically-motivated, thus meaningless metrics. Instead, corruption in Thailand, if understood as unprofessionalism and impropriety among government institutions, hindering both the efficient administration of the nation as well as the government’s interaction with the people and local businesses, must be confronted by local interests for local interests.

The Anti-Corruption Organization of Thailand (ACT) (website in Thai only), comprised of business leaders, local media and activists, seeks to confront corruption in Thailand not to improve the nation’s standings on a meaningless foreign-devised scale, but to improve the efficiency of government institutions to better facilitate their administration of the country, to make doing business easier and fairer as well as to improve faith and confidence across Thai society in the government institutions they depend on for the smooth functioning of society.

As ACT incrementally achieves these goals, it helps improve and strengthen Thailand, even if such efforts are not reflected on meaningless indexes like the CPI.

Their activities include exposing corruption using their ties to the media, holding events to raise public awareness regarding both their rights and how they are being violated by corruption and by working with the government to pass legislation to rein in corruption on various levels of society.

In the end, ACT is attempting to solve corruption for Thailand, with their “index score” determined by the improved efficiency of government institutions and the public’s trust in them.

ACT has so far proven itself impartial, calling out the previous government of Yingluck Shinawatra for its blatant and systemic corruption, as well as condemning impropriety and nepotism amid the current government. Unlike Transparency International and its CPI which only seeks to leverage “corruption perceptions” as a political weapon, ACT is fighting corruption for the sake of fighting corruption, because its membership is comprised of those directly affected by it, regardless of who heads the national government.

The current government should work (and is working) closely with groups like ACT to expose and rein in corruption toward very specific goals such as improving the efficiency of government institutions in the administration of their responsibilities and improving public trust in these institutions. Rather than citing the meaningless CPI devised by the politically-motivated Transparency International, Thailand should develop its own metrics for measuring both the level of corruption and gauge success in confronting it.

Thailand, and other developing nations, must also devise a means of communicating their progress in confronting corruption to the world in order to sidestep the “weaponisation” of indexes like Transparency International’s CPI.

By confronting corruption, nations strengthen themselves not only within by improving the efficiency with which resources are utilised toward the progress of their respective nations, they also strengthen themselves against foreign interests that would seek to exploit “corruption perceptions” and use it to seek leverage over them. In this sense, fighting corruption is not only good for business, it is essential for national security.

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

Very few public intellectuals pull no punches in their analyses of world affairs.  James Petras is one of them.  Possessed of a brilliant and capacious mind that grasps global events in a comprehensive and interconnected way, he also writes with a moral urgency befitting our dangerous historical moment.  He reminds me of C. Wright Mills, another brilliant sociologist whose warnings went unheeded more than fifty years ago.

The End of the Republic and the Delusion of Empire is his 68th book, and one of his most important.  It should be read by anyone concerned with the looming disaster that will eventuate from the upcoming U.S. presidential election, no matter who wins.  While not explicitly stating it, it is clear that Petras expects Hillary Clinton to win, and he finds her far more dangerous than Donald Trump.

To order James Petras’ book from Clarity Press, click image right

If Trump were to be elected by some fluke, he thinks he would “face a massive investment and lending revolt from capitalists and bankers who would be very willing to drive the fragile economy into a major recession, threatening a kind of domestic economic sabotage.”  If Clinton wins, as she surely will, he foresees a much worse outcome: “there is a strong chance the election of Hillary Clinton will drive the world into catastrophic nuclear war.”

Petras, therefore, declares a pox on both their houses.

The book is divided into four parts.  The first deals with the U.S. presidential primaries and election.  It was written before Trump and Clinton secured their parties’ nominations, but Petras assumes they will be the nominees.  Part two, the longest is devoted to what he calls “The Delusions of Empire,” and is a multi-faceted dissection of the American empire and its push toward war with Russia.  Part three is an analysis of the rise and fall of popular insurgencies throughout the world, as they confront bankers, warlords, and their political proxies in the U.S.  The final section concerns the issue of “who rules America and who sets the military agenda in the most contentious regions of the Middle East.”

While all are well done, I think one, two, and four are the strongest and most immediately pertinent.  None are written in a pedantically academic style, though all are informed by an impressive breadth of knowledge.  The book in its entirety is written in a passionate and committed style, while being rooted in facts.

As for the 2016 presidential elections, Petras rightly says that more than half the U.S. electorate views Clinton and Trump “with horror and disdain.”  He argues that Trump, while painted as a fascist by the main stream media (MSM), “lacks the program, organization, and practice that define a fascist politician.”  Nevertheless, he is the “lobotomized” candidate serving as “backdoor backing of political psychopath Hillary Clinton.”

He chronicles Clinton’s record of savage war-making – she “has launched or promoted more simultaneous wars than any Secretary of State in US history.”  He shows how the Democratic Party, while posing as the party of regular people, is actually pro-Wall Street and pro-imperialist.  He skewers the Democratic Party’s “house radicals” – Jesse Jackson, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, and Bernie Sanders – as phony actors, who have betrayed the American people through deceit and hypocrisy in the name of progressivism.

Prof. James Petras (left)

 “The key to understanding why millions of Americans, fed up by 30 years of declining living standards, deepening inequalities and perpetual wars, do not form an alternative party is that they have been repeatedly conned and corralled in the Democratic Party by the house radicals,” all of whom he considers to be charlatans.

While I think it is true that Americans have been conned, I think he is ignoring the American people’s desire to be deceived – their bad-faith.  It takes two to tango.

Hillary Clinton is the great object of Petras’s scorn.  He labels her “pro-Israel, pro-war, pro-Wall Street, the candidate of Plutocratic Zionism …. the marriage of plutocracy and right-wing Zionism,” who is supported by “a vast army of Israel-First ideologues.”  For this, and for naming these ideologues, Petras has been falsely accused of being anti-Semitic.  But his critics do not engage him on the factual and logical accusations of his argument; rather, he is dismissed with a broad brush that equates his ant-Zionist critique with anti-Jewish bias.

When writing about the delusions of empire, Petras examines the issue from multiple angles, deftly flipping from one to another like a prestidigitatorial teenager swiveling a Rubik’s Cubes’ various colors to solve the puzzle.

Look here: this is the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) rogues’ gallery from Michael Camdussus to Christine Lagarde.  See how the IMF fits – “they were selected because they reflect the values, interests, and behavior of the global financial elite.”

Flip to the Anglo-American long-term, large-scale, structural regression.  “For the past three decades, the US and Great Britain have led the global drive to undermine labor’s advances.  First, the economic structure sustaining labor organizations were dismantled and fragmented.  Then organized labor was decimated, co-opted and corporatized.”

Look at this blue cube: It is Barack Obama’s shameful race to establish his imperial legacy, pursuing “wars of unremitting destruction …. partnerships with terrorists and death squads as it seeks short-term imperial victories, which end in dismal failure.  The imperial legacy of this ‘historic’ president is a mirage of pillage, squalor and destruction.”

Ah the red cubes!  Look closely, Petras says, at the bloody “war cycle started in late 2001 with the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.”  Let us count the victims: Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Ukraine.  See how they fit together with the push for war with Russia.

Here are the white cubes, posing as the good guys.  The Harvard boys, “mandarins for the Warlords,” led by Harvard professor Joseph Nye, advising the empire builders.  There the Council on Foreign Relations, with their ignorant advice on how to defeat China, as if the Chinese are stupid Orientals incapable of strategic intelligence.

And see what happens when you align the yellow cubes: Voila, you clearly see the yellow press lined up: The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and the Financial Times (he mistakenly omits The Washington Post), lying and having “systematically engaged in political warfare, acting as virtual propaganda arms of the US and EU imperialist governments in their attempts to maintain and/or impose vassal state status on countries and economies, which are to be regulated according to the needs of Western financial institutions.”

In these nine brief chapters, Petras solves the puzzle, aligns the perpetrators, and deftly reveals a depressing picture of the mad logic of empire. Squared-off, color-coded, and symmetrical, it reveals the handiwork of lunatics, as Chesterton once described: “A madman is not someone who has lost his reason but someone who has lost everything but his reason.”

His third part, wherein he analyzes Latin American revolts and betrayals, and the Islamist State (IS), while complementary and accurate, is far too brief and superficial.

But his concluding section, “Zionism in America,” while also brief, is a hard-hitting final round.  Petras ends by arguing that the “US Zionist Power Configuration which leads President Obama and 430 US members of Congress (to quote Ariel Sharon) …’by the nose!’” is unduly instrumental in controlling U.S. foreign and domestic policies.  He maintains that while this is so, “few progressive websites or even the micro-Marxist journals confront these issues, more out of moral cowardice (self-censorship) than ignorance.  Instead they bleat general clichés and radical rhetoric about US imperialism and the rise of the right without identifying the precise social and political identity of the forces that move national policy.  In a word, the Zionist Power Configuration gets more than a free ride.”

What Petras terms a Zionist elite, many others call “neoconservatives.”  These neoconservatives are widely accepted by leftist – and even liberal – analysts to be a powerful force driving U.S. policies.  Petras claims that the neoconservatives are composed of a large number of Israel-first Zionists.  He names names – e.g. Wolfowitz, Abrams, Pritzker, Nuland-Kagan, Chertoff et al. – and shows their linkages.  It is time his claims were openly discussed in left-wing publications.  Name calling will resolve nothing; nor will avoidance of his argument.  That is intellectual and moral dishonesty.

Petras is a very brilliant and prolific thinker who deserves intellectual debate.  With The End of the Republic and the Delusion of Empire he again throws down the gauntlet and challenges conventional thinking.  He ends by asking, “Don’t the deaths and maiming of millions of Iraqis, Palestinians, Syrians and Libyans, and the tens of millions of desperate refugees, resulting from their foreign policies, warrant a pause in their continued hold on power and prestige, if not outright condemnation for crimes against humanity?”

As we slide cataleptically toward global war, a book like this can help snap us out of this hypnotic trance that dooms us to disaster.  It should be widely read and engaged

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The Oxford Martin School is based at Oxford University in the UK. In what seems to be a laudable aim, the school has set up the ‘Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations’ (OMC), which has brought together 19 international leaders from government, business and civil society to address the growing short-term preoccupations of modern politics and business and identify ways of overcoming today’s gridlock in key international negotiations.

These prominent figures include Lord Chris Patten, Arianna Huffington and Lionel Barber from the British media. The OMC’s website says that a diverse group of highly respected global leaders has called for a radical shake-up in politics and business to deliver progress on climate change, reduce economic inequality, improve corporate practices and address the chronic burden of disease. There is also talk of working for a sustainable future and promoting inclusiveness.

Toxic agrochemicals, disease and the environment

Rosemary Mason is a prominent figure who campaigns against the use of toxic agrochemicals and has just written an 18-page, 9,200-word open letter to Achim Steiner, Director Oxford Martin School. Steiner is the former United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Director General. Much of what follows is a summary of some the letter’s key points. Readers can consult the original document for all of Mason’s supporting evidence, including links to papers, documents and reports: open-letter-to-the-director-of-the-oxford-martin-school.

Click above Screen shot access full document in pdf

If there is one area of business and politics that requires a “radical shake up,” it is food, agriculture and the agrochemicals sector. Mason opines that humans and the environment are silently being poisoned by thousands of untested and unmonitored chemicals, which are highly profitable for big corporations that have a vested interest in keeping their toxic products on the commercial market.

With the OMC’s desire to ensure a healthy and sustainable future in mind, Mason expresses concern about the agrochemicals industry’s impacts on pollinators (bees), biodiversity and human health and reminds Steiner about the introduction to the UNEP report on ‘Global Bee Colony Disorders and Other Threats to Insect Pollinators’, which he launched in March 2011.

It says: “Current evidence demonstrates that a sixth major extinction of biodiversity event is underway. The earth is losing between 1 and 10% of its biodiversity per decade, mostly due to habitat loss, pest invasion, pollution, over-harvesting and disease. Certain natural ecosystem services are vital for human society.”

The report mentions both chemical spray drift from agricultural spraying and systemic neonicotinoid insecticides, and Mason is particularly concerned about neonicotinoids, which several papers show act on mammalian nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. Given the quantity neonicotinoids that are being applied to seeds or sprayed on crops, Mason is left in no doubt that humans are being adversely affected.

In 2011, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) held a conference on pollinators. Three crucial admissions were made that had not been made before, either by industry or by the EPA: neonicotinoid pesticides are harmful to bees; tests and protocols that had allowed registration of these pesticides were not adapted to assess potential hazard and risk from this type of pesticide; and despite knowing all this, the protection agencies have allowed the pesticides industry to keep the neonicotinoids on the market.

Systemic neonicotinoid insecticides are still on the market, apart from those on flowering crops attractive to bees that were banned by EFSA in 2013. And new ones are being authorised by the European Commission. Mason notes that the quantities used after the ban stayed at the same level and the quantities exported by German companies even increased significantly.

While some parties say a ban would harm agriculture, Mason notes that Italy’s partial ban on systemic neonicotinoid insecticides in 2008 has been successful. After seven years, crop yield is within the expected range. It is also worth noting the results of the two-year Pan-European epidemiological study on honeybee colony losses. This was a landmark study that revealed the UK was suffering one of the worst rates of honeybee colony deaths in Europe. In the winter of 2012-13, 29% of honeybee colonies in the UK died, with only Belgium suffering a higher rate of losses (34%) of the 17 countries surveyed. By contrast, only 5% of colonies in Italy were lost.

Mason indicates that Bayer and Syngenta have concealed unpublished field trials with the US EPA. She also notes that field trials on neonicotinoid insecticides showed Syngenta’s thiamethoxam and Bayer’s clothianidin caused serious harm to honeybees at high levels. Yet in August 2016, Syngenta had told Greenpeace that: “none of the studies Syngenta has undertaken or commissioned for use by regulatory agencies have shown damages to the health of bee colonies.”

In response, Prof Dave Goulson, a UK bumblebee researcher at the University of Sussex, said: “That clearly contradicts their own study”. Goulson & Nicholls have just published a paper: ‘The canary in the coalmine; bee declines as an indicator of environmental health’. Goulson states, “We argue that bee declines are indicators of pervasive and ongoing environmental damage that is likely to impact broadly on biodiversity and the ecosystem services it provides.”

According to Mason, Industry pays about 60% of UK Chemicals Regulation Directorate budget. She argues that the loyalty of the staff must lie with the industry that pays them and asks is the directorate a safety agency or a corporate service agency? She implies it is the latter.

What is also of great concern is that the UK Food and Environment Research Agency (FERA) survey of pesticides 1988 to 2014 confirms that pesticide residues on British food are increasing annually. Moreover, there is strong evidence of increased bee population extinction rates in response to neonicotinoid seed treatment use on oilseed rape and that, overall, biodiversity has crashed.

In what is a long and well-researched letter, Mason goes on to make many more points. For those who have read any of Mason’s previous papers and correspondence with officials, they will be familiar her overall theme of powerful corporations using their financial clout and political leverage to co-opt officials, undermine regulatory integrity and distort science to serve their interests at the expense of public health and the environment.

Why is Mason writing to the OMC and Steiner?

The OMC says it wants to facilitate a radical shake-up in politics and business to deliver progress on various pressing issues affecting humanity. To ensure maximum impact, it could start by focusing on the links between politics and business and the capture of international bodies, national governments and regulatory agencies by big business, which Mason has outlined (see previous link) as have various others (for example see this, which contains relevant links to illustrate the point). These corporations are driven by one thing alone: the compulsion to make profits and the obligation to deliver on shareholder dividends. The public interest is not their concern – that is left to public institutions – which big business has compromised. And Mason implies that the OMC may be no different in terms of certain commissioners’ conflicts of interest and their ideological commitment to corporate power.

Any institution committed to radically shaking up politics and business should be both willing and able to call to account powerful private interests and not be compromised by ideology or conflicts of interest. However, Rosemary Mason argues that both ideology and conflicts of interest severely undermine the OMC and its stated aims. For example, in the 2013 report of the OMC ‘Now for the Long Term’, compiled by Pascal Lamy, former Director General of the World Trade Organisation, 63% chronic diseases were mostly attributed to lifestyle choices and there was no mention of pesticides.

Mason argues it is highly convenient to associate chronic disease with ‘lifestyle choices’. This neatly draws attention away from structural determinants of poor health that are embedded in society as a result of the political power and everyday products and practices of powerful industries, not least the agrochemicals sector.

In a previous document, Mason has indicated how ‘lifestyle choice’ and alcohol consumption have become convenient scapegoats; she provides evidence to indicate that agrochemicals, not alcohol, are largely responsible for various cancers. In effect, the pesticides industry is being let off the hook by the lifestyle choice/alcohol narrative which emphasises individual responsibility not corporate culpability.

In her open letter to Achim Steiner, Mason pulls no punches when going through a list of OMC commissioners to illustrate individual commissioner’s conflicts of interest and allegiances.

Commissioners with allegiances to global corporations and corporate power

The Chairman of the Oxford Martin Commission is Pascal Lamy, Former Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO). In a case brought by the US, Canada, and Argentina in 2006, the WTO ruled that the European moratorium on genetically modified (GM) crops was illegal. The relevance of GM crops to this discussion should be made clear: the GM issue is closely aligned with Mason’s concerns about the indiscriminate use of toxic agrochemicals (not least glyphosate – Monsanto’s Roundup and its Roundup Ready GM seeds). Moreover, the GM model of agriculture is fraudulent (having been corrupted by corporate interests) and is being driven by governments that collude with powerful corporations, which in turn have a stake in denigrating and displacing more sustainable, appropriate and effective models of farming.

Sir John Beddington is Professor of Natural Resources Management for the OMC. He was made Chief Scientific Adviser to the British Government in 2007. In 2012, he declared his faith in GM technology. “And among those scientific wonders, the use of genetically modified crops has a particularly rich potential”. Beddington added. “Just look at the problems that the world faces: water shortages and salination of existing water supplies, for example. GM crops should be able to deal with that.”

Beddington would do well to look elsewhere for solutions to water shortages and salinization. More sustainable solutions already exist. Indeed, GM belongs to a corporate-driven ‘Green Revolution’ model of agriculture that has seriously adversely impacted food security as well as the environment, farmers’ livelihoods,  and traditional farming practices that were highly productive and ecologically friendly.

Lionel Barber is editor of The Financial Times, a very business-orientated UK paper. According to Colin Macilwain, “the British press – led by the BBC, which treats the Confederation of British Industry with the deference the Vatican gets in Rome – is overwhelmingly conservative and pro-business in its outlook. It is quite unperturbed by the fact that the UK Science Media Centre’s sponsors include AstraZeneca, BP, Coca-Cola, L’Oreal, Monsanto, Syngenta (as well as Nature Publishing Group) but not a single environmental non-governmental organization (NGO) or trade union.”

Another member of the OMC is Julia Marton-Lefèvre. She has just left her post as Director-General of IUCN. She serves as environmental advisor for Dow Chemical Company and The Coca-Cola Company, two companies with dubious track records.

Then there is Lord Chris Patten, Chancellor, University of Oxford and former Chairman of the BBC Trust. Mason notes that the BBC is a strong supporter of the agrochemical industry and GM crops. Many people have complained that BBC coverage is completely unbalanced but each time the BBC Complaints Unit dismisses their claims.

A BBC Panorama programme on GM Crops was also widely condemned. Mason notes that ‘GM Food – Cultivating Fear’ was selective and prejudicial and resembled little more than the most clichéd corporate press release.

While the OMC states that GM is not a magic bullet (p. 27) and should be discussed along with other options, Mason is correct to flag up what seem to be some clear allegiances in favour of this technology.

OMC: the solution or the problem?

In its document ‘Now for the Long Term‘, the OMC talks a lot about ‘growth’ and sustainable development. However, the question is: how can figures with deep connections to corporations, which have a vested interest in maintaining a financially lucrative status quo, bring about the much-needed radical changes that are required to deal with, for instance, climate change, rising inequality or an unsustainable and damaging model of chemical-intensive agriculture?

They cannot. In fact, Mason argues that the OMC resembles ‘an all the year round’ Bilderberg Group from the higher echelons of big business. Ultimately, corporate imperialism is the problem and not the solution. The institutions of international capitalism – from the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO to the compliant bureaucracies of national states or supranational unions – facilitate private capital’s ability to appropriate wealth and institute everyday forms of structural violence (unemployment, bad housing, poverty, disease, toxic chemicals, environmental destruction, etc) that have become ‘accepted’ as necessary and taken for granted within mainstream media and political narratives.

Therefore, if we are to have genuinely effective solutions for the world’s most pressing problems, there must be a deep commitment to reigning in corporate power; not extending it by handing over policy-making to ‘free’ market ideologues or corporate missionaries. Solutions involve challenging a dominant narrative that is not prepared to question or is incapable of questioning a corrupt neoliberal capitalism and which privileges private interests and the private ownership of key industries and resources ahead of public need.

As for addressing the agrochemicals issue that Mason discusses, if we are to have a radical shake-up, this should be based on the recommendations of numerous high-profile reports. It should entail making a fundamental shift towards a more democratic, less chemical-intensive model of food production. This would be rooted in investing in ecologically sustainable practices, supporting the bedrock of global food production – small farms (and thus rural communities and jobs) – and encouraging climate-resilient and climate-friendly practices: in other words an agriculture rooted in human need and not corporate greed.

The leader and co-head of the Syrian – Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), Salih Muslim, said Turkey is blocking the anti ISIS operation in Mosul, Iraq. The PYD leader’s statement on Friday coincided with the northern Iraqi Kurdish Democratic Party’s call to arrange a post-ISIS settlement between the federal government of Iraq and the semi-autonomous Kurdish northern Iraq.

PYD co-head Salih Muslim stressed that Turkey first blocked the liberation of Raqqa by invading Jarablus in Syria and that Turkey now is blocking the liberation of Mosul in Iraq by deploying Turkish troops into the Bashiqa district near the city of Mosul.

PYD leader and co-chair Salih Muslim.

Earlier this month the Turkish parliament, unilaterally and without authorization from the Iraqi or Syrian government, prolonged the authorization of the deployment of Turkish forces to Syria and Iraq for another year.

Salih Muslim accused Turkey of cooperating with ISIS, saying that “The main goal of the Turkish move in Syria and Iraq is to support Daesh” (a.k.a. ISIS, ISIL, or Islamic State).

Forces of the armed wings of the PYD, the YPG and the all female YPJ, reportedly won’t head for Raqqa until the road to the besieged enclave of Efrin in northwestern Syria is open. The PYD maintains that neither Turkey, Islamist militants nor the Syrian government is currently interested in YPG / YPJ forces fighting ISIS in Efrin.

The PYD co-leaders statement comes against a complex backdrop involving various Kurdish parties and militants in the greater region as well as their respective allies. The PYD is being supported by the United States. The PYD is, however, also an ally of the Russian and Iranian – backed Turkish Kurdistan Worker’s Party – PKK, which is outlawed in Turkey, the USA and the EU.

Neither the PYD nor the PKK are closely allied to the northern Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) which is backed by the USA, nor of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Iran (KDP-I) which is a close ally of the Iraqi KDP. PYD leader Salih Muslim’s statement about Turkey’s obstructions of the liberation of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa coincided with demands by the KDP to reach a post-ISIS agreement between the federal government of Iraq and the Kurdish northern Iraq before the launch of the liberation of Mosul.

KDP leader and northern Iraqi Kurdish “president” Masoud Barzani, in August, said that Kurdish independence was the only remaining option. Clashes between the KDP-I and the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard in Iran have also increased significantly over the past months. The situation in Mosul, for its part, potentially pits not only Turkish troops and ISIS against each other, it also pits the KPP’s Peshmerga fighters against federal Iraqi troops and, maybe more importantly, Iranian-backed Iraqi militia.

“Last Wednesday, at a Deputies Committee meeting at the White House, officials from the State Department, the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff discussed limited military strikes against the (Assad) regime … One proposed way to get around the White House’s long-standing objection to striking the Assad regime without a U.N. Security Council resolution would be to carry out the strikes covertly and without public acknowledgment.” – Washington Post

Call it stealth warfare, call it poking the bear, call it whatever you’d like. The fact is, the Syrian war has entered a new and more dangerous phase increasing the chances of a catastrophic confrontation between the US and Russia. This new chapter of the conflict is the brainchild of Pentagon warlord, Ash Carter, whose attack on a Syrian outpost at Deir Ezzor killed 62 Syrian regulars putting a swift end to the fragile ceasefire agreement. Carter and his generals opposed the Kerry-Lavrov ceasefire deal because it would have required “military and intelligence cooperation with the Russians”. In other words, the US would have had to get the greenlight from Moscow for its bombing targets which would have undermined its ability to assist its jihadist fighters on the ground. That was a real deal-breaker for the Pentagon. But bombing Deir Ezzor fixed all that. It got the Pentagon out of the jam it was in, it torpedoed the ceasefire, and it allowed Carter to launch his own private shooting match without presidential authorization.

Mission accomplished. So what sort of escalation does Carter have in mind, after all, most analysts assume that a direct confrontation between the United States and Russia will lead to a nuclear war. Is he really willing to take that risk? Heck no, but not everyone agrees that more violence will lead to a nuclear exchange. Carter, for example, seems to think that he can raise the stakes considerably without any real danger, which is why he intends to conduct a low-intensity, stealth war on mainly Syrian assets that will force Putin to increase Russia’s military commitment. The larger Russia’s military commitment, the greater probability of a quagmire, which is the primary objective of Plan C, aka–Plan Carter. Take a look at this clip from an article in Tuesday’s Washington Post which helps to explain what’s going on:

“U.S. military strikes against the Assad regime will be back on the table Wednesday at the White House, when top national security officials in the Obama administration are set to discuss options for the way forward in Syria… Inside the national security agencies, meetings have been going on for weeks to consider new options to recommend to the president to address the ongoing crisis in Aleppo,…A meeting of the National Security Council, which could include the president, could come as early as this weekend. Last Wednesday, at a Deputies Committee meeting at the White House, officials from the State Department, the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff discussed limited military strikes against the regime… The options under consideration… include bombing Syrian air force runways using cruise missiles and other long-range weapons fired from coalition planes and ships… One proposed way to get around the White House’s long-standing objection to striking the Assad regime without a U.N. Security Council resolution would be to carry out the strikes covertly and without public acknowledgment, the official said.” (Obama administration considering strikes on Assad, again, Washington Post)

Don’t you think the Washington Post should have mentioned that Carter’s sordid-little enterprise is already underway? Consider the bombing of Deir Ezzor, for example. Doesn’t that meet the Post’s standard of “U.S. military strikes against the Assad regime”? Sure, it does. And what about the two Syrian bridges US warplanes took out over the Euphrates last week? (making it more difficult to attack ISIS strongholds in the eastern quadrant of the country) Don’t they count?Of course, they do. And let’s not forget the fact that Carter’s jihadist buddies on the ground launched a mortar attack on the Russian embassy in Damascus on Tuesday. That’s another part of this low-intensity war that’s already underway. So all this rubbish about Obama mulling over these “new options” for “military strikes” is complete hogwash. Plan Carter is already in full swing, the train already left the station. The only thing missing is presidential authorization which probably isn’t necessary since Il Duce Carter decided that it was his turn to run the country. Now check out this clip from a Memo to the President from a group of ex-U.S. intelligence agents who compelled to warn Obama about (among other things) “asserting White House civilian control over the Pentagon.” Here’s an excerpt:

“In public remarks bordering on the insubordinate, senior Pentagon officials showed unusually open skepticism regarding key aspects of the Kerry-Lavrov deal. We can assume that what Lavrov told his boss in private is close to his uncharacteristically blunt words on Russian NTV on Sept. 26: “My good friend John Kerry … is under fierce criticism from the US military machine. Despite the fact that, as always, [they] made assurances that the US Commander in Chief, President Barack Obama, supported him in his contacts with Russia… apparently the military does not really listen to the Commander in Chief.” Lavrov’s words are not mere rhetoric … Policy differences between the White House and the Pentagon are rarely as openly expressed as they are now over policy on Syria.” (Obama Warned to Defuse Tensions with Russia, Consortium News)

How shocking is that? When was the last time you read a memo from retired Intel agents warning the president that the Pentagon was usurping his Constitutional authority? That sounds pretty serious, don’t you think? Bottom line: The Pentagon is basically prosecuting their own little war in Syria and then chatting up the policy with Obama when they damn-well feel like it. Here’s more from the Washington Post:

“The CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff … expressed support for such “kinetic” options, the official said … That marked an increase of support for striking Assad compared with the last time such options were considered.” (Washington Post)

Of course they want to bomb Assad. They’re losing! Everyone wants to bomb someone when they’re losing. It’s human nature. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. It’s a very bad idea. Just like supporting Sunni extremists is a bad idea. Just like giving shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles (MANPADS) to fanatical crackpots is a bad idea. How crazy is that? And how long before one of these religious nutcases use their new toys to take down an Israeli or American jetliner? Not very long, I’d wager. The idea of doubling-down on homicidal maniacs (By providing them with more lethal weapons) is really one of the dumbest ideas of all time, and yet, the Pentagon and CIA seem to think that it’s tip-top military strategy. Here’s one last blurb from the WA Post article:

“Kerry’s deputy, Antony Blinken, testified last week that the U.S. leverage in Russia comes from the notion that Russia will eventually become weary of the cost of its military intervention in Syria. “The leverage is the consequences for Russia of being stuck in a quagmire that is going to have a number of profoundly negative effects,” Blinken told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.” (Washington Post)

See? There it is in black and white. “Quagmire”. The new “Plan C” strategy is designed to create a quagmire for Putin by gradually ratcheting up the violence forcing him to prolong his stay and deepen his commitment. It’s a clever trap and it could work, too. The only hitch is that Putin and his allies appear to be making steady headway on the battlefield. That’s going to make a lot harder for Syria’s enemies to continue the provocations and incitements without triggering massive retaliation. But maybe Carter hasn’t thought about that yet. NOTE: Russia issues warning to Pentagon; Hostile aircraft that threatens Syrian troops will be shot down This is from a Thursday report on Sputnik International:

“The Russian Minister of Defense said “that “Russian S-300, S-400 air defense systems deployed in Syria’s Hmeymim and Tartus have combat ranges that may surprise any unidentified airborne targets. Operators of Russian air defense systems won’t have time to identify the origin of airstrikes, and the response will be immediate. Any illusions about “invisible” jets will inevitably be crushed by disappointing reality.” No More Deir ez-Zors “I point out to all the ‘hotheads’ that following the September 17 coalition airstrike on the Syrian Army in Deir ez-Zor we took all necessary measures to exclude any similar ‘accidents’ happening to Russian forces in Syria,” Konashenkov said. (Sputnik)

Mike Whitney  lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at [email protected].

The tensions between Russia and the USA have reached an unprecedented level. I fully agree with the participants of this CrossTalk show – the situation is even worse and more dangerous than during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Both sides are now going to the so-called “Plan B” which, simply put, stand for, at best, no negotiations and, at worst, a war between Russia and the USA.

The key thing to understand in the Russian stance in this, an other, recent conflicts with the USA is that Russia is still much weaker than the USA and that she therefore does not want war. That does not, however, mean that she is not actively preparing for war. In fact, she very much and actively does. All this means is that should a conflict occur, Russia you try, as best can be, to keep it as limited as possible.

In theory, these are, very roughly, the possible levels of confrontation:

1. A military standoff à la Berlin in 1961. One could argue that this is what is already taking place right now, albeit in a more long-distance and less visible way.
2. A single military incident, such as what happened recently when Turkey shot down a Russian SU-24 and Russia chose not to retaliate.
3. A series of localized clashes similar to what is currently happening between India and Pakistan.
4. A conflict limited to the Syrian theater of war (say like the war between the UK and Argentina over the Malvinas Islands).
5. A regional or global military confrontation between the USA and Russia.
6. A full scale thermonuclear war between the USA and Russia

During my years as a student of military strategy I have participated in many exercises on escalation and de-escalation and I can attest that while it is very easy to come up with escalatory scenarios, I have yet to see a credible scenario for de-escalation. What is possible, however, is the so-called “horizontal escalation” or “asymmetrical escalation” in which one side choses not to up the ante or directly escalate, but instead choses a different target for retaliation, not necessarily a more valuable one, just a different one on the same level of conceptual importance (in the USA Joshua M. Epstein and Spencer D. Bakich did most of the groundbreaking work on this topic).

The main reason why we can expect the Kremlin to try to find asymmetrical options to respond to a US attack is that in the Syrian context Russia is hopelessly outgunned by the US/NATO, at least in quantitative terms. The logical solutions for the Russians is to use their qualitative advantage or to seek “horizontal targets” as possible retaliatory options. This week, something very interesting and highly uncharacteristic happened: Major General Igor Konashenkov, the Chief of the Directorate of Media service and Information of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, openly mentioned one such option. Here is what he said:

“As for Kirby’s threats about possible Russian aircraft losses and the sending of Russian servicemen back to Russia in body bags, I would say that we know exactly where and how many “unofficial specialists” operate in Syria and in the Aleppo province and we know that they are involved in the operational planning and that they supervise the operations of the militants. Of course, one can continue to insist that they are unsuccessfully involved in trying to separate the al-Nusra terrorists from the “opposition” forces. But if somebody tries to implement these threats, it is by no means certain that these militants will have to time to get the hell out of there.”

Nice, no? Konashenkov appears to be threatening the “militants” but he is sure to mention that there are plenty of “unofficial specialists” amongst these militants and that Russia knows exactly where they are and how many of them there are. Of course, officially, Obama has declared that there are a few hundred such US special advisors in Syria. A well-informed Russian source suggests that there are up to 5’000 foreign ‘advisors’ to the Takfiris including about 4’000 Americans. I suppose that the truth is somewhere between these two figures.

So the Russian threat is simple: you attack us and we will attack US forces in Syria. Of course, Russia will vehemently deny targeting US servicemen and insist that the strike was only against terrorists, but both sides understand what is happening here. Interestingly, just last week the Iranian Fars news agency reported that such a Russian attack had already happened:

30 Israeli, Foreign Intelligence Officers Killed in Russia’s Caliber Missile Attack in Aleppo: “The Russian warships fired three Caliber missiles at the foreign officers’ coordination operations room in Dar Ezza region in the Western part of Aleppo near Sam’an mountain, killing 30 Israeli and western officers,” the Arabic-language service of Russia’s Sputnik news agency quoted battlefield source in Aleppo as saying on Wednesday. The operations room was located in the Western part of Aleppo province in the middle of sky-high Sam’an mountain and old caves. The region is deep into a chain of mountains. Several US, Turkish, Saudi, Qatari and British officers were also killed along with the Israeli officers. The foreign officers who were killed in the Aleppo operations room were directing the terrorists’ attacks in Aleppo and Idlib.”

Whether this really happened or whether the Russians are leaking such stories to indicate that this could happen, the fact remains that US forces in Syria could become an obvious target for Russian retaliation, whether by cruise missile, gravity bombs or direct action operation by Russian special forces. The US also has several covert military installations in Syria, including at least one airfield with V-22 Osprey multi-mission tiltrotor aircraft.

Another interesting recent development has been the Fox News report that Russians are deploying S-300V (aka “SA-23 Gladiator anti-missile and anti-aircraft system”) in Syria. Check out this excellent article for a detailed discussion of the capabilities of this missile system. I will summarize it by saying that the S-300V can engage ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, very low RCS (“stealth”) aircraft and AWACS aircraft. This is an Army/Army Corps -level air defense system, well capable of defending most of the Syrian airspace, but also reach well into Turkey, Cyprus, the eastern Mediterranean and Lebanon.

The powerful radars of this system could not only detect and engage US aircraft (including “stealth”) at a long distance, but they could also provide a tremendous help for the few Russian air superiority fighters by giving them a clear pictures of the skies and enemy aircraft by using encrypted datalinks. Finally, US air doctrine is extremely dependent on the use of AWACS aircraft to guide and support US fighters. The S-300V will forces US/NATO AWACS to operate at a most uncomfortable distance. Between the longer-range radars of the Russian Sukhois, the radars on the Russian cruisers off the Syrian coast, and the S-300 and S-300V radars on the ground, the Russians will have a much better situational awareness than their US counterparts.

It appears that the Russians are trying hard to compensate for their numerical inferiority by deploying high-end systems for which the US has no real equivalent or good counter-measures.

There are basically two options of deterrence: denial, when you prevent your enemy from hitting his targets and retaliation, when you make the costs of an enemy attack unacceptably high for him. The Russians appear to be pursuing both tracks at the same time. We can thus summarize the Russian approach as such

1. Delay a confrontation as much as possible (buy time).
2. Try to keep any confrontation at the lowest possible escalatory level.
3. If possible, reply with asymmetrical/horizontal escalations.
4. Rather then “prevail” against the US/NATO – make the costs of attack too high.
5. Try to put pressure on US “allies” in order to create tensions inside the Empire.
6. Try to paralyze the USA on a political level by making the political costs of an attack too high-end.
7. Try to gradually create the conditions on the ground (Aleppo) to make a US attack futile

To those raised on Hollywood movies and who still watch TV, this kind of strategy will elicit only frustration and condemnation. There are millions of armchair strategists who are sure that they could do a much better job than Putin to counter the US Empire. These folks have now been telling us for *years* that Putin “sold out” the Syrians (and the Novorussians) and that the Russians ought to do X, Y and Z to defeat the AngloZionist Empire. The good news is that none of these armchair strategists sit in the Kremlin and that the Russians have stuck to their strategy over the past years, one day at a time, even when criticized by those who want quick and “easy” solutions. But the main good news is that the Russian strategy is working. Not only is the Nazi-occupied Ukraine quite literally falling apart, but the US has basically run out of options in Syria (see this excellent analysis by my friend Alexander Mercouris in the Duran).

The only remaining logical steps left for the USA in Syria is to accept Russia’s terms or leave. The problem is that I am not at all convinced that the Neocons, who run the White House, Congress and the US corporate media, are “rational” at all. This is why the Russians employed so many delaying tactics and why they have acted with such utmost caution: they are dealing with professional incompetent ideologues who simply do not play by the unwritten but clear rules of civilized international relations. This is what makes the current crisis so much worse than even the Cuban Missile Crisis: one superpower has clearly gone insane.

Are the Americans crazy enough to risk WWIII over Aleppo?

Maybe, maybe not. But what if we rephrase that question and ask

Are the Americans crazy enough to risk WWIII to maintain their status as the “world’s indispensable nation”, the “leader of the free world”, the “city on the hill” and all the rest of this imperialistic nonsense?

Here I would submit that yes, they potentially are.

After all, the Neocons are correct when they sense that if Russia gets away with openly defying and defeating the USA in Syria, nobody will take the AngloZionists very seriously any more.

How do you think the Neocons think when they see the President of the Philippines publicly calling Obama a “son of a whore” and then tells the EU to go and “f*ck itself”?

Of course, the Neocons can still find some solace in the abject subservience of the European political elites, but still – they know that he writing is on the wall and that their Empire is rapidly crumbling, not only in Syria, the Ukraine or Asia, but even inside the USA. The biggest danger here is that the Neocons might try to rally the nation around the flag, either by staging yet another false flag or by triggering a real international crisis.

At this point in time all we can do is wait and hope that there is enough resistance inside the US government to prevent a US attack on Syria before the next Administration comes in. And while I am no supporter of Trump, I would agree that Hillary and her evil cabal of russophobic Neocons is so bad that Trump does give me some hope, at least in comparison to Hillary.

So if Trump wins, then Russia’s strategy will be basically justified. Once Trump is on the White House, there is at least the possibility of a comprehensive redefinition of US-Russian relations which would, of course, begin with a de-escalation in Syria: while Obama/Hillary categorically refuse to get rid of Daesh (by that I mean al-Nusra, al-Qaeda, and all their various denominations), Trump appears to be determined to seriously fight them, even if that means that Assad stays in power. There is most definitely a basis for dialog here. If Hillary comes in, then the Russians will have to make an absolutely crucial call: how important is Syria in the context of their goal to re-sovereignize Russia and to bring down the AngloZionist Empire? Another way of formulating the same question is “would Russia prefer a confrontation with the Empire in Syria or in the Ukraine?”.

One way to gauge the mood in Russia is to look at the language of a recent law proposed by President Putin and adopted by the Duma which dealt with the issue of the Russia-US Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement (PMDA) which, yet again, saw the US yet again fail to deliver on their obligations and which Russia has now suspended. What is interesting, is the language chosen by the Russians to list the conditions under which they would resume their participation in this agreement and, basically, agree to resume any kind of arms negotiations:

1. A reduction of military infrastructure and the number of the US troops stationed on the territory of NATO member states that joined the alliance after September 1, 2000, to the levels at which they were when the original agreement first entered into force.
2. The abandonment of the hostile policy of the US towards Russia, which should be carried out with the abolition of the Magnitsky Act of 2012 and the conditions of the Ukraine Freedom Support Act of 2014, which were directed against Russia.
3. The abolition of all sanctions imposed by the US on certain subjects of the Russian Federation, Russian individuals and legal entities.
4. The compensation for all the damages suffered by Russia as a result of the imposition of sanctions.
5. The US is also required to submit a clear plan for irreversible plutonium disposition covered by the PMDA.

Now the Russians are not delusional. They know full well that the USA will never accept such terms. So what is this really all about? It is a diplomatic but unambiguous way to tell the USA the exact same thing which Philippine President Duterte (and Victoria Nuland) told the EU.

The Americans better start paying attention.

Just as this article was ready to go to print, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Juan Manuel Santos, President of Colombia. This is what the Official website of the Nobel Prize reports:

“The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2016 to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos for his resolute efforts to bring the country’s more than 50-year-long civil war to an end, a war that has cost the lives of at least 220 000 Colombians and displaced close to six million people.”

The announcement was made on Friday 7 October, 11:00 a.m., well after the rejection of the gratuitous plebiscite by less than 0.5% of less than 40% of eligible voters, and after President Santos had already decided and declared to extend the ceasefire to 31 October 2016 until which date a renegotiated arrangement had to be found with the FARC ‘rebels’ – a virtually impossible task. –

This is so reminiscent of another Peace prize award, namely the one to President Obama in 2009, in the hope that he would  bring Peace to the world. At that time the US of A was involved in two wars, Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, almost 8 years later Obama boasts of being involved in seven wars around the globe. Bravo! For the Nobel Committee.

Does this award mean that indeed Mr. Santos may disregard the highly questionable referendum result in the name of Peace, as was suggested by the Nobel Committee, or will he go back to war on a new page and under new premises, =i.e. with a largely disarmed FARC in the name of continuous fear, conflict and killing in his country?

We will soon see where his alliances are, with the People of Colombia – or with his North American Masters of Chaos and Destruction.

Colombia apparently voted against Peace with a margin of less than 0.5%, to be exact 0.43%, with a voter participation of only 40%. Can you imagine! This looks, first, like a boycott, as many people didn’t believe in the process and didn’t believe that the results would be adhered to; and, second, it smells of fraud. For example, with most of the ballots counted, the Choco region which suffered heavily from the war, voted with 80% yes. An overwhelming ‘yes’ also came from the Caribbean areas.

Who was counting? All pre-plebiscite opinion polls indicated an overwhelming ‘yes’ for Peace.

Exit polls indicated a comfortable win for Peace.

Why is nobody asking for a recount? Or maybe they do, but we don’t hear about it.

Why could that be? – Maybe because Peace was never on the Colombian cum US Governments agenda. It was just a manipulation of the public mind; planting an illusion, as any hope for Peace these days, any Peace, anywhere in the world, is an illusion. But an illusion deviates people’s attention from reality. That was certainly achieved.

The 4-year Peace process, initiated by President Santos (image left) started on 19 November 2012 and ended on 24 August, 2016. It was facilitated and formally sponsored by Norway and Cuba. Talks were held in Havana and co-sponsored by Venezuela and Chile. The deal was signed in Havana with big fanfare on 26 September 2016.

For many, Santos’ initiative to have the Peace Treaty ratified by a referendum, came as a surprise. In any case, the outcome of the plebiscite is not legally binding. Under the circumstances and with such a small margin, even if it was not manipulated, any healthy and peace loving government would dismiss the narrow outcome and adhere to and promote the implementation of the Peace Agreement.

During 52 years the 7,000 to 10,000 strong leftist FARC militia fought in defense of the rural poor against an elite of the rich, mostly urban dweller and latifundios, against government forces with support of the US military stationed in Colombia. The official death toll of 200,000 to 300,000 may in reality be at least double that number, not mentioning the millions of uprooted people who had to flee and lost their homes and land. Reaching a Peace deal would be a welcome and well-deserved achievement. Indeed, the signature event was celebrated throughout Latin America and the world (FARC-EP stands for Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo / Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – The People’s Army).

Instead of following the overwhelming people’s desire for Peace – I repeat, after 52 years! of bloody war – President Santos announced last Tuesday to extend the ceasefire until 31 October 2016, saying he hoped that renegotiations with FARC would lead to ‘arrangements’ to find a solution to this conflict. Wasn’t the solution already found when the Peace Agreement was signed on 26 September?

Immediately after the plebiscite’s ‘rejection’ light (very light), Santos met with his predecessor, Alvaro Uribe, who campaigned against the Agreement. That in itself is strange.

Two Presidents from the same party, friends, and on the payroll of the same masters, the CIA, were leading two different campaigns. While Juan Manuel Santos, the current President, was waving the Peace flag, Uribe drove a fear-mongering campaign especially focusing on the general amnesty concession that FARC got out of the deal.

Before Uribe became President in 2002, he formed the ‘Colombia First’ movement. His growing so-called independent party grew even stronger with political elitists and plutocrats to bring him to a second term in 2006. This new coalition of right-wing parties, called the ‘Urbistas’, eventually was the platform on which Juan Manuel Santos was elected in 2010. The current government has amassed a right-wing alliance of conservatives and liberals that at one point controlled 94% of Congress. In the meantime, Alvaro Uribe formed another right-wing Centro-Democratic party. Under two different flags but the same ideology – and less obvious – they control now Congress as a political “Cartel”, as Harvard academic James Robinson, puts it, to prevent any other political force to rise and challenge the exclusive power of the Right – which, needless to say, works in close collaboration with Washington’s interests.

It is therefore all the stranger that the two presidential buddies work for different outcomes of the plebiscite. It looks more like a maneuver to deviate and confuse public opinion. Can you imagine, that the US of A, with seven military bases – and more to come – will want Peace?

Colombia is THE strategic corner of Latin America, hub of multibillion dollar drug trade, adjacent to two non-compliant nation states Venezuela and Ecuador, from where they plan to reconquer the sub-continent, their ‘Backyard’, as Obama put it so undiplomatically insulting, yet adroitly, as it reflects the mindset of Washington and its citizenry.

In the fall of 2009, US and Colombian officials signed an agreement, granting the US armed forces access to seven Colombian military bases for ten years. These are two quotes from a US Air Force document about the bases:

“Opportunity for Full Spectrum Operations throughout South America, against threats not only from drug trade, but also from ‘anti-US governments’ in the region.”

“The agreement operates from the same (failed) mindset that has given rise to the School of the Americas (SOA / WHINSEC). The purpose of the bases is to ensure US control of the region through military means.”

Why would they want Peace now, when chaos and war helps to divide and conquer? But then why carry the Peace process all the way to signature, just to be undone by a phony referendum? – It’s part of propaganda, brainwashing and numbing peoples’ minds. The four years of ‘negotiations’ which made the world believe that Peace was a seriously option, offered the government also a state of semi-ceasefire, a time during which they could regroup, strategize and especially disarm the FARC rebels, defenders of the poor rural workers and of democracy. The FARC in good fate participated in this gambit. The masters of deception once more succeeded with the help of Washington, the Pentagon and the CIA.

What is amazing though, is that Latin America, the world, including the four sponsors and co-sponsors, are rather silent about the outcome of the referendum that came out of the blue. It must be the sense of ‘democracy’ that lays behind the referendum. It deserves support, no matter how narrow the margin and how obvious the manipulation of results. How naïve! – The referendum was not needed, since during the four years of ‘negotiations’ the crucial points of discussion and eventually of agreement, were vetted sufficiently with Congress to not pose a problem for ratification; and this especially since the result of the plebiscite has by Colombia’s Constitution no legal binding. The FARC now largely disarmed, will give the government a clear advantage, hoping to eradicate a weakened movement of rebellion for justice.

Remember, this is a lesson practiced many times by the empire (and passed on to its vassals), not last in Iraq, when first the country was weakened with the so called Gulf War, 1990-1991, and the ensuing ten years of murderous sanctions imposed by the US and its ‘coalition of the willing’ (and spineless), including the most horrendous bombing campaigns under Clinton – of which the mainstream media reported next to nothing – disabling much of the Iraqi armed forces. Hence, the 2003 totally illegal Bush-Blair Shock and Awe campaign could inflict maximum damage and chaos on one of the most progressive Middle Eastern countries. The NO PEACE dictum in Colombia follows a similar pattern.

Peter Koenig is an economist, and water resources and environmental specialist. He has worked for over 30 years with the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the Swiss Development Cooperation, in Africa, Middle East, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, East and South East Asia and Latin America. Peter is also a geopolitical analyst for Global Research, Information Clearing House, RT, PressTV, Sputnik, TeleSUR and The 4th Media, China. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.

In political terms, most people might tend to associate the word ’occupation’ with a (foreign) military presence that controls a region or country. Any such occupation may not necessarily imply troops visibly patrolling the streets. It can be much subtler. Take Britain, for instance. The Guardian journalist Seumas Milne says that the US’s six military bases, dozens of secretive facilities and 10,000 military personnel in Britain effectively tie the country’s foreign policy into the agenda of the US empire and its endless wars.

The vast majority of Brits do not regard this as an ‘occupation’. They might feel they are being ‘protected’ by the US with which Britain has a ‘special relationship’. Such is the Stockholm syndrome.

The population is spun a yarn that the US, Britain and the wider NATO project are in any case forces for good in an unpredictable and dangerous world (despite the actual reality which suggests the complete opposite). With the US having a strong military presence in so many other countries across the world, that’s certainly a lot of very ‘special relationships’.

But occupation can take many forms. It does not necessarily imply a military presence or military domination. For example, in India right now, there is a drive to get genetically modified (GM) mustard sanctioned for commercial cultivation; this would be the first GM food crop to be grown in the country. Unfortunately, this push for GM is based on a flawed premise and an agenda steeped in fraud and unremitting regulatory delinquency, and any green light to go ahead would open the floodgates for more unnecessary and damaging GM food crops.

The arguments being put forward to justify the entry of GM food crops is that they would enhance productivity, make a positive contribution to farmers’ livelihoods and be better for the environment. All such claims have been shown to be bogus (with the opposite being true in each case) or at the very least are highly questionable.

GM mustard in India is ultimately a Bayer construct, and, given the proposed takeover/merger with St Louis-based Monsanto, US interests would benefit from its commercialisation. The Monsanto-Bayer marriage would not only be convenient for the US in Europe (providing it with a much improved strategic foothold there, given that Bayer is Swiss based), but it would also (through Bayer’s GM mustard) provide it with the opportunity to further penetrate Indian agriculture.

Monsanto already has a firm strategic presence in India. It has to an extent become the modern-day East India company. The Bayer merger can only serve to further the purposes of those in the US who have always regarded GM biotechnology in more geopolitical terms as a means for securing greater control of global agriculture (via patented GM seeds and proprietary inputs) in much the same way the ‘Green Revolution’ did.

In broad terms, US geopolitical strategy has seen the exporting of a strident neoliberalism across the globe underpinned by a devastating militarism. For example, aside from Monsanto’s well-documented links to the US military, its seeds conveniently followed hot on the heels into Ukraine on the back of a US-instigated coup and into Iraq after Washington’s invasion. The reality behind the globalisation agenda (that transnational agribusiness drives and exploits) is an imposed form of capitalism that results in destruction and war for those who attempt to remain independent or structural violence (poverty, inequality, ‘austerity’, etc) via privatisation and deregulation for millions in countries that acquiesce.

Part of this structural violence involves the toxic inputs of transnational agribusiness and the imposition of an unsustainable model of Green Revolution farming. The result is huge profits for the agritech/agribusiness cartel and a public burdened with massive environmental, social and health costs. As if that isn’t bad enough, it must be remembered that the Green Revolution (of which GM represents phase two) is ultimately based on the pilfering of peasants’ seeds that were developed over generations.

Once a country loses control of its seeds and thus its food and agriculture to outside forces, it becomes more deeply integrated into a globalised system of dependency (in some instances, ensuring they become complete basket cases dependent on the US), a process that could be accelerated by trade deals like the TTIP (Europe), TPA (Asia) and KIA (India), which would allow Washington to extend and further cement its political and economic influence over entire regions.

India’s apparent willingness to hand over its seeds and thus its food sovereignty to foreign interests is steeped in its acceptance of the West’s neoliberalism. Whether this entails complying with ‘enabling the business of agriculture’, an unremitting faith in ‘foreign direct investment’ (displacing its existing model of production with a destructive model that would benefit foreign corporations) or complying with the criteria for ‘ease of doing business‘, it is ironically being carried out under the auspices of a ruling BJP whose nationalistic rhetoric helped it gain power.

Report after report has indicated that small farmers using low-input, ecologically-friendly methods are key to feeding populations in countries like India. And a series of high-level reports (listed here) in India have advised against adopting the GM route.

Given the hold that the World Bank has on India, the revolving door between the WB/IMF and India’s institutions and the influence of foreign interests and corporations within the agriculture sector, it all begs the question: are sections of the Indian political elite suffering a severe bout of Stockholm syndrome?