Global Research

The United States Is Led by Two Corrupt Establishments

Economists and Financial Experts in Favor of Bernie Sanders’ Wall Street Reforms

By Martin Zeis, March 12 2016

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau completed yesterday a three-day state visit to Washington, which included talks with President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, as well as a state dinner at the White House.

Behind the celebrity-style glitz and fawning media coverage, Trudeau and Obama focused on deepening their countries’ long-standing strategic collaboration. Although the main areas of discussion publicly reported concerned trade, other economic issues and climate change, Ottawa and Washington’s military-security cooperation was central to the Canada-US summit.

At a joint White House press conference Thursday morning, Obama and Trudeau made several policy announcements. Canadian and US intelligence agencies will increase information sharing, with the purported aim of speeding up exit and entry at the border and ensuring the accuracy of no-fly lists. This expands on the already extensive integration of Canada’s intelligence agencies with those of the US, including through the US National Security Agency-led “five eyes” alliance which conducts mass surveillance on the world’s telecommunications and internet use.

The two leaders also committed to increased cooperation in the Arctic on scientific work and in developing new commercial shipping routes, and to a joint plan to reduce methane gas emissions at oil and gas facilities.

Both went out of their way to underscore the strengthening of Canadian-US ties, with Obama declaring, “We have a common outlook on the world, and I have to say I have never seen so many Americans excited about the visit of a Canadian prime minister.” Obama held out the hope that an agreement on the softwood lumber trade dispute will be reached before the expiry next October of the one-year grace period that kicked in when the previous nine-year deal ended last fall.

Trudeau announced he will host a “three amigos” NAFTA summit, with Obama and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto this June, following which Obama will address a joint session of Canada’s two houses of Parliament. Trudeau also indicated his support for Washington’s rapprochement with Cuba—a country with which Canada has extensive economic and diplomatic relations—and discussed working with Washington to bring an end to the decades-long insurgency in the jungles of Colombia. Like the US, Canada has close ties to Colombia’s right-wing government, which behind a thin democratic facade ruthlessly represses social opposition.

“Canada and the U.S. will stand side by side to confront the pressing needs that face not only our two countries, but the entire planet,” Trudeau told the press.

At the state dinner held in the White House later Thursday, Obama and Trudeau both lauded the Canada-US military-security partnership, which goes back to the outbreak of World War II. “[W]e agree that our countries are stronger and the world is safer when we work together,” declared Trudeau.

“For more than half a century, we’ve joined forces to protect our continent. And we’ve been the closest of allies overseas for even longer, fighting together on the beaches of France, standing shoulder to shoulder with our European partners in NATO, and now confronting violent extremism in the Middle East.”

Trudeau won the support of significant sections of Canada’s ruling elite during last year’s election campaign, due in no small part to the Liberals’ commitment to strengthen Canada’s strategic partnership with Washington. This takes place under conditions where US imperialism is the most destabilizing force in world politics, having been waging virtually uninterrupted war for the past quarter-century as it seeks to use its overwhelming military superiority to offset its economic decline.

Trudeau’s predecessor, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, embraced US-led military interventions in Libya in 2011, and Syria and Iraq in 2014, while expanding the Afghanistan deployment launched by the Chretien Liberal government. But sections of big business grew concerned that his government was mismanaging relations with the US by openly aligning with Obama’s Republican opponents over the Keystone XL pipeline and encouraging Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in bucking Washington’s counsel.

Canada is a major partner in all three of the US’s principal military-strategic offensives: its aggressive moves against Russia in Eastern Europe and the Baltic, the war in the Middle East to secure hegemony over the world’s most important oil-producing region and the Obama administration’s “pivot” or “rebalance” to Asia which aims to economically and militarily isolate China in preparation for war. At their first face-to-face meeting on the sidelines of last November’s Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Manila, where Obama heightened his bellicose stance towards Beijing, the US President proclaimed that “there are no closer friends we have than the Canadians.”

On Thursday, the two leaders pledged to work towards implementing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) trade deal, the economic arm of Washington’s geostrategic offensive against Beijing.

The extent of Canadian-US military collaboration was revealed in a CBC report last fall on how in 2013 talks took place at the highest levels of the countries’ militaries about creating a joint expeditionary force capable of offensive deployments around the world. Former Canadian Chief of the Defence Staff General Tom Lawson and the then-head of the US Joints Chief of Staff US General Martin Dempsey considered ways to improve interoperability between the two armed forces, and even floated the idea of fully merging the Canadian and US militaries.

Predictably, the bourgeois press avoided raising such issues during Trudeau’s US visit. Instead, it reported breathlessly on the “warmth” of the relationship between the president and prime minister, their jokes and quips, the menu for Thursday evening’s state dinner and the lavish gowns worn by their wives.

Despite reservations in some quarters about a lack of substance to the leaders’ talks, the media response was overwhelmingly positive. The visit had been a “win for Canada,” Tim Harper wrote in the Toronto Star. “Without being noticed in the United States —politically or culturally—little of substance or positive value for this country will flow.”

The media’s incessant, mind-numbing propaganda serves a definite political purpose: to conceal from the population the real, aggressive character of the discussions that are taking place.

Colin Robertson, a former Canadian diplomat who is now a fellow with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, produced a briefing paper earlier this week that sheds light on the real agenda for Canada-US military-security collaboration being worked out in elite circles.

Robertson urged Canada to intensify security and military cooperation with the US in the Arctic so as to challenge Russia’s growing presence in the far north. To this end, he called on the Canadian government to join the US ballistic missile defence system (BMD)—a highly destabilizing weapons system whose ultimate purpose is to make the fighting and winning of a nuclear war possible.

It is in this context that Obama and Trudeau agreed to step up collaboration in the Arctic, building on the 2012 Tri-Command Framework for Arctic Cooperation agreement, the aim of which is to further integrate the US Northern Command, Canadian Joint Operations Command and the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD). In parallel with the 2012 agreement, a statement of intent was signed on joint military training and exercises in the Arctic region.

Lastly, Robertson demanded that Canada boost its military spending to 2 percent of GDP in line with the commitment made by the NATO alliance in 2014. This would equate to a doubling of the current Canadian Defence Department budget to some $40 billion per year.

A major reason for the Canadian ruling elite’s enthusiasm for an even closer military partnership with US imperialism is its concern over the relative decline of Canada’s economic importance to its southern neighbour. At present, 76 percent of Canadian exports go to the United States, while Canada accounts for 19 percent of all US exports. But growth in Canada-US trade has been slowing for more than a decade and last November Canada was overtaken by China as the US’s largest trading partner. Mexico, whose trade volume with the United States has grown rapidly since the turn of the century, in large measure due to low-wage auto production, is also rapidly closing in on Canada.

Obama’s decision to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline project last year was a major blow to the Canadian bourgeoisie, particularly that section based around the oil and gas industry in Alberta and Saskatchewan. It has intensified the crisis facing western Canadian oil producers, which currently lack any means to transport their product to tidal water, meaning that much of it is sold at substantially below world market prices to US customers.

Several influential think tanks are calling on the Canadian government to press for a “continental energy and climate change strategy” with the dual aim of using the growing energy independence of North America to give the US and Canada greater geo-political leverage and developing green energy technology to give North American capitalism a competitive advantage.

The McDonald-Laurier Institute wrote in a paper on Canada-US relations, published to coincide with Trudeau’s visit, that energy independence is “worthwhile for both Canada and the US in the face of the geopolitical calculations behind production decisions in other energy-producing jurisdictions.” It went on to urge Trudeau to advocate strongly not only for the resurrection of the Keystone project, but an expansion of binational energy and electricity infrastructure.

Image: Police and the lineup for the event

The Republican Party presidential front-runner Donald Trump cancelled his scheduled rally Friday night at the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC), west of downtown Chicago, as violence and scuffles broke out inside.

Thousands of students and workers in the area marched outside the UIC arena to protest Trump’s attendance at the campus, denouncing his extreme right-wing and fascistic political views. Protesters marched from the campus quadrangle along a heavily-barricaded protest route to the UIC Pavilion with a large police and security presence. The protests outside were entirely peaceful.

In canceling the event, Trump’s team cited security concerns over growing protests outside the arena and the highly volatile situation inside. After doors were opened at 3:00 p.m., protesters who attended the rally entered into scuffles and altercations with the rally participants as well as with security.

After significant delay, the announcer told the crowd, “The event is over.” Cheers erupted, as well as more scuffles. Trump’s team told the media in an official statement that “for the safety of all of the tens of thousands of people that have gathered in and around the arena, tonight’s rally will be postponed to another date.”

Prior to the cancellation, Trump’s announcers initially encouraged conflict by telling attendees to inform police of protesters by placing a rally sign over their head and chanting “Trump, Trump, Trump,” according to NBC’s Chicago affiliate.

The events in Chicago followed several incidents of violence directed at protesters from Trump supporters and security, encouraged by the candidate. This included an incident on Wednesday in which a protester was punched in the face as he was escorted out of a rally in North Carolina by police. Trump on numerous occasions has encouraged his supporters to “knock the crap out of” protesters.

Trump responded to the cancellation of the rally on Friday by denouncing protesters for violating “free speech.”

The anti-Trump rally was attended by many thousands of workers and particularly young people of all races and ethnicities. It was originally organized on Facebook by an undocumented UIC graduate student, Jorge Mena Robles. Robles is a member of a newly formed political organization called Mijente, which promotes Latino identity politics and voter mobilization for the Democratic Party.

Image: Demonstrators protesting the Trump event

Support for the demonstration, however, was not limited to such forces. Over 11,000 responded to the Facebook event page by Friday.

Citing the incidents of violence at Trump rallies across the country, UIC students and faculty denounced the administration and Chancellor Michael Amiridis for allowing Trump to host his campaign event on the campus. Amiridis responded to the anger of students and faculty by saying, on the grounds of “free speech,” that Trump had every right to rent a space at UIC. Similar considerations have not prevented the administration from placing enormous obstacles on the promotion of socialist politics on campus.

Reporters from the World Socialist Web Site spoke to students, workers and professionals who attended the protest against the Trump rally.

Adriti, a biology student at UIC, said,

“Trump needs to go. His attacks on Muslims and immigrants are despicable. America is a melting pot. Many people are fleeing countries as refugees and he keeps attacking them. So many immigrants have helped advance our country. What is the point of scapegoating immigrants?”

Image: Tim and Adriti

Tim, a student of computer science, added,

“And then Trump is calling for torture, war and assassinating people. We need to stop doing all that. We need to stop all the wars too, and I realize that both parties are involved in these policies. We need more equality and to move in that direction and away from war and torture.”

Paul, a UIC student, said,

“I think Trump is a fascist and he’s a homophobe and a bigot. He makes me feel really angry and I don’t think he would be good for us as president. I don’t like his ideology or his political proposals. A lot of people want the world collectively to be peaceful and we don’t need to implement war policies. Things are already quite dangerous right now.”

“It really frustrates me that Trump is on the platform,” said Tim, a professional who came to see the protests.

“He’s channelling the frustrations of many people and taking it to a really scary place. As far as Sanders, I like what he is saying. A big reason why I am pro-Sanders, at least among the candidates that can be elected, is because he’s called himself a socialist. I think capitalism is a flawed system and I agree with socialism in general, but I’m not sure if the United States is unified enough right now for that.

“But I would like to see us go towards a more socialist country. I do worry that Sanders may not keep his promises, but right now that’s who I side with. At the same time, I do need to look at his record more closely and make a more educated decision.”

Rachel, a workers compensation paralegal, said,

“I hate Trump. I think that his policies of wanting to build a wall around Mexico are ridiculous. That’s not what America should be about. It’s like the second coming of Hitler. But we also need an alternative that’s not just a Democrat or a Republican. Politicians make promises to us that they won’t keep either. The inequality in this country is extremely awful. America is not a democracy anymore.”

Images: Left, Rachel, right, two of the demonstrators from UIC

Another student, who also works at UIC, said,

“His policies are incoherent. I am here more to protest the fact that UIC is even hosting Trump. We have an incredibly diverse student body and it’s a completely inappropriate place for a Trump rally. He’s condoned violence at his rallies before.

“Trump is also calling for torture, which is an open secret of American politics now. We have an ostensibly democratic system that doesn’t in fact represent people, with our crony capitalism and the outsized power of money and lobbyists. Look at the closure of Chicago State University. We don’t have money for schools in Chicago, but if one of [Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s] buddies wants something, they have the money for it. Even Obama was not as liberal as he claimed to be. He was an idealized candidate.

“If Sanders is elected, it’s going to be really difficult to see how he actually deals with the conflicts that the US is already in. Does he actually stop drone warfare? Given that he’s for it? He’s been able to mobilize grassroots support, but I don’t know how he’s going to govern if he’s elected. I agree with you though that we need deep structural change.”

Anyone tuning into the news headlines yesterday could have been forgiven for doing a swift double take at the calendar to ensure we hadn’t somehow fast forwarded to April 1.

First up we had the outgoing US President Barak Obama writing a magazine article in which he criticised “the US’s oldest allies” Britain and France for their catastrophic imperialist adventurism in Libya saying that they had dragged the US into the folly and then left the country in a mess…

Obama particularly criticised David Cameron for failing to secure parliamentary approval for the debacle and attacked then French president Nicolas Sarkozy for grandstanding and boasting of France’s decisive role when in fact it had been the US who had done the dirty work for him.

Now, on the one hand this is actually an unusually accurate assessment of the situation from a US president, not often known for their grasp of foreign affairs, geography or anything else for that matter.

Dubya wouldn’t even have known where Libya was. He probably thinks Tripoli is an Italian ice-cream flavour.

On the other hand, however, this is the president of a nation which has carpet-bombed over 80 countries around the world, many of which, such as Cambodia and Laos, it wasn’t even at war with.

A country which has illegally subverted, destabilised and overthrown democratic governments across Latin America and beyond funding, arming, training and working alongside death squads responsible for the murders of hundreds of thousands of trade unionists and left wing activists.

A country who fabricated another country’s history to impose the shah on Iran in 1953 and has used the same formula again and again to install and prop up puppet regimes in furtherance of their interests and the fight against “communism.”

A country which has kept Cuba under effective siege for over half a century for having the temerity to overthrow Uncle Sam’s pet dictator Fulgencio Batista and its refusal to bow down before its threats and intimidation.

And that’s before we even get to Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria which, let’s face it, could not be described as unqualified successes.

So, basically we have the US president interfering in other countries’ affairs to lecture those countries for interfering in other countries affairs.

This column yields to no-one in its loathing of Cameron and Sarkozy. Their smug and entirely premature triumphalism in Benghazi was truly repugnant but they were merely aping Bush and his infamous “Mission Accomplished” moment aboard a US aircraft carrier in 2003.

But I’m damned if I’m going to listen to any lectures from a lame-duck president who couldn’t even keep his own house in order, extended the “war on terror” and signally failed to end the torture and illegal imprisonment of innocent detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

Both Downing Street and Washington were apparently rattled by the outspoken criticism with the White House quick to issue a statement praising the “special relationship” and to remind Britain to keep its mouth shut and keep buying their weapons or else.

Oh it’s a special relationship all right, like that between abuser and victim.

Turning closer to home and another unholy alliance was formed this week when Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby gave an interview on the European referendum and the refugee crisis in which he claimed that it was “outrageous” to call members of the public who raise genuine concerns about immigration as racist.

His comments were gleefully seized upon by anti-EU crusader Iain Duncan Smith who seems to have conveniently forgotten that Welby basically called him Satan incarnate over his savage attacks on the poor and vulnerable.

IDS gushingly welcomed the Archbishop’s comments which was quite a U-turn from the Work and Pensions Secretary who had previously suggested that the Church should keep its nose out of the business of government.

He said that for years the “elite” had shut down the debate on immigration and that anyone who raised the issue was portrayed as xenophobic.

Ok, a few points if I may.

First, IDS seems not to have noticed the crucial use of the word “genuine” in the Archbishop’s comments.

That is as opposed to the knee-jerk reactionary scaremongering that the Tories and IDS in particular seem to rely upon in an attempt to justify every act of brutality and sadism they inflict on the undeserving public.

Second, they don’t come much more elite than the mansion-dwelling freeloader and millionaire Duncan Smith.

He’s not exactly Spartacus. More like an onanistic Nero fiddling with himself while the welfare state burns.

And, last but by no means least: the reason that those who continually rail against the evils of immigration are accused of being racist… is because in approximately 99 per cent of cases that’s exactly what they are.

And while IDS may well be part of the 1 per cent in financial terms, when it comes to immigration he’s just a common or garden bigot.

In our view, Sen. Bernie Sanders’ plan for comprehensive financial reform is critical for avoiding another “too-big-to-fail” financial crisis. The Senator is correct that the biggest banks must be broken up and that a new 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act, separating investment from commercial banking, must be enacted.

Wall Street’s largest banks are now far bigger than they were before the crisis, and they still have every incentive to take excessive risks. No major Wall Street executive has been indicted for the fraudulent behavior that led up to the 2008 crash, and fines imposed on the banks have been only a fraction of the banks’ potential gains. In addition, the banks and their lobbyists have succeeded in watering down the Dodd-Frank reform legislation, and the financial institutions that pose the greatest risk to our economy have still not devised sufficient “living wills” for winding down their operations in the event of another crisis.

Secretary Hillary Clinton’s more modest proposals do not go far enough. They call for a bit more oversight and a few new charges on shadow banking activity, but they leave intact the titanic financial conglomerates that practice most shadow banking. As a result, her plan does not adequately reduce the serious risks our financial system poses to the American economy and to individual Americans. Given the size and political power of Wall Street, her proposals would only invite more dilution and finagle.

The only way to contain Wall Street’s excesses is with reforms sufficiently bold and public they can’t be watered down. That’s why we support Senator Sanders’s plans for busting up the biggest banks and resurrecting a modernized version of Glass-Steagall.

Signers (Institutional listing for identification purposes only): 

1. Robert Reich, University of California Berkeley
2. Robert Hockett, Cornell University
3. James K. Galbraith, University of Texas
4. Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Research
5. Christine Desan, Harvard Law School
6. Jeff Connaughton, Former Chief of Staff, Senator Ted Kaufman
7. William Darity Jr., Duke University
8. Eileen Appelbaum, Center for Economic and Policy Research
9. Brad Miller, Former U.S. Congressman and Senior Fellow, Roosevelt Institute
10. William K. Black, University of Missouri-Kansas City
11. Lawrence Rufrano, Research, Federal Reserve Board, 2005-2015
12. Darrick Hamilton, New School for Social Research
…

161. Joseph Persky, University of Illinois-Chicago
162. Julie Matthaei, Wellesley College
163. Peter Spiegler, University of Massachuetts-Amherst
164. James Ronald Stanfield, Colorado State University
165. William D. Pitney, CFP, Director of Advocacy, FPA of Silicon Valley
166. Ora R. Citron, CFP, Oak Tree Wealth Management
167. Susan Webber, Former Associate at Goldman, Sachs & Co.
168. Richard D. Wolff, Democracy at Work and New School for Social Research
169. Mu-JeongKho, University College London
170. Kevin Furey, Chemeketa Community College

Maidhc Ó Cathail: In your latest book, you dub Hillary Clinton the “Queen of Chaos”. Can you explain why you chose this derogatory sobriquet to describe Hillary?

Diana Johnstone: Libya, in a word. Hillary Clinton was so proud of her major role in instigating the war against Libya that she and her advisors initially planned to use it as basis of a “Clinton doctrine”, meaning a “smart power” regime change strategy, as a presidential campaign slogan.

The Libyan catastrophe actually inspired me to write this book, along with the mounting danger of war with Russia.

War creates chaos, and Hillary Clinton has been an eager advocate of every U.S. aggressive war in the last quarter of a century. These wars have devastated whole countries and caused an unmanageable refugee crisis. Chaos is all there is to show for Hillary’s vaunted “foreign policy experience”.

MÓC: What would you say to women who want to see Hillary as president because she’s a woman? You claim that “[a]voiding World War III is somewhat more urgent than ‘proving’ that a woman can be President of the United States.” Why do believe that Hillary is likely to launch World War III?

DJ: There are two questions here. As for the second part, I don’t believe anyone will consciously launch World War III. The situation now is more like the eve of World War I, when great powers were armed and ready to go when an incident set things off. Ever since Gorbachev naïvely ended the Cold War, the hugely over-armed United States has been actively surrounding Russia with weapons systems, aggressive military exercises, NATO expansion. At the same time, in recent
years the demonization of Vladimir Putin has reached war propaganda levels. Russians have every reason to believe that the United States is preparing for war against them, and are certain to take defensive measures. This mixture of excessive military preparations and propaganda against an “evil enemy” make it very easy for some trivial incident to blow it all up.

My answer to the first part of the question is that “voting for Hillary because she is a woman” makes no sense to me at all. Yes, women should get together for causes that affect women in general: equal pay for equal work, equal recognition of abilities, reproductive rights, maternity leave and child care, that sort of thing. But Hillary Clinton is an individual, she is not women in general. Women together might fight for women’s right to be elected President, but that right exists. It cannot be reduced to one particular woman’s right to be President.

The President of the United States is not a purely symbolic position. It involves crucial decision-making powers. Hillary Clinton has demonstrated dangerously poor judgment in fateful questions of war and peace. That should disqualify her.

MÓC: One of your chapters is titled “Libya: A War of Her Own.” Considering the key role of the pro-Israeli Bernard-Henri Lévy in persuading France to support the so-called “rebels,” why do you single out Hillary for blame for NATO’s destruction of the formerly richest country in Africa?

DJ: Bernard-Henri Lévy repeatedly stated that he supported military intervention in Libya “as a Jew”, perhaps meaning that he considered overthrowing Gaddafi to be good for Israel. The French government was perhaps motivated by fear that Gaddafi’s scheme to create a gold-backed African currency might replace the French-backed CFA franc used throughout France’s former African colonies. But neither France nor France and Britain together had the military capacity to carry out the operation that finally overcame Libyan resistance. The U.S. leadership was divided, and it was Hillary Clinton who overcame the reluctance of President Obama and Defense Secretary Gates to enter the war. It was the United States that provided the means to destroy Libya.

MÓC: In the chapter titled “The War Party” you write that “[s]ince the War Party dominates both branches of the Two-Party-System , the recent track record suggests the Republicans will nominate a candidate bad enough to make Hillary look good.” It sounds like you anticipated the incredible rise of Donald Trump, doesn’t it?

DJ: As a matter of fact I didn’t. But I did anticipate the rise of Trump’s main rival, Ted Cruz, who may actually be worse than Trump. As Robert Reich has pointed out, Cruz is a radical right-wing fanatic, with solid reactionary convictions, who is sure to do the wrong thing. Trump shoots off his mouth in all directions, so much so that there’s no telling what he might do. At least he does seem interested in avoiding war with Russia.

Nor did I anticipate the rise of Bernie Sanders, and the enthusiasm he has aroused among young people at the prospect of nominating a decent alternative to Hillary Clinton.

Both phenomena show the deep dissatisfaction among Americans with the country’s dysfunctional political system.

MÓC: In “Queen of Chaos,” you predicted that “[a]s things look now, the 2016 presidential race could be a contest between Haim Saban and Sheldon Adelson. In either case, the winner would be Israel.” Could you elaborate on Saban’s “devotion” to another Clinton presidency and what it would mean for U.S. foreign policy?

DJ: If you think U.S. policy couldn’t be more pro-Israel than it is now, just wait until you see Hillary in the White House. After Haim Saban pledged to spend “as much as necessary” to make her President, Hillary Clinton has pledged to invite Netanyahu to the While House in her first month as President, to use the occasion to “reaffirm the unbreakable bonds of friendship and unity” between America and Israel, and to do everything to destroy the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) movement. She continues to echo Israeli denunciations of Iran as a dangerous “terrorist state”. She has previously equated criticism of Israeli policies with “anti-Semitism” and blamed the people of Gaza for Israeli assaults on their wretched territory.

Previous Presidents, including Obama, have often had their moments of exasperation with Israel’s uncontrollable conduct. With Hillary, it seems that there would be no objections to further Israeli destruction of Gaza or even to attacks on Iran. She is perfectly in line with Israel’s tacit policy to destroy and dismember Syria.

MÓC: When asked which women in the world “inspired” her, Hillary cited Pussy Riot. What does this tell us about Hillary? And what does it mean for U.S-Russia relations?

DJ: Can you imagine Hillary having group sex with Bill in a museum, as radical anarchist Nadezhda Tolokonnikova did in one of her performance art protests against the system? An “inspiration”? As is so often the case, Hillary doesn’t say what is true, but grabs the chance to show how anti-Putin she is. The joke is that Tolokonnikova recently expressed her preference for Bernie Sanders.

MÓC: If the so-called “responsibility to protect,” or R2P, is to be the organizing principle of Hillary’s foreign policy, can you explain why this would be bad for human rights around the world?

DJ: The Libyan disaster proved to most of the world—although not to Hillary—that R2P is a dangerous doctrine. Supposedly to “protect” certain Islamist rebels in Benghazi, the NATO R2P intervention totally destroyed the modern city of Sirte, provided cover for racist lynching of Libya’s black population, killed thousands of civilians and left the country in a shambles.

R2P might make sense if there really existed a neutral, all-knowing world police force to intervene on the basis of solid, unbiased evidence. This is most surely not the case

In the case of Libya, the evidence for the “humanitarian emergency” was manufactured by internal opponents of the regime and relayed to the world by a docile mainstream media. It was almost entirely untrue, but conflicting sources were ignored. (See Maximilian Forte,Slouching Towards Sirte: NATO’s War on Libya and Africa.)

With the current relationship of forces in the world, R2P can only be applied by a great power to a smaller one, according to the great power’s own interpretation of events in the smaller one. In reality, R2P is simply used by the United States against regimes it doesn’t like, period.

MÓC: You write that the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Barack Obama “went on to outdo even his predecessors in useless aggressive war-making—with moments of hesitation, however, which we cannot expect from Hillary”. What makes you believe that a Clinton presidency would be less hesitant than Obama to use U.S. military force?

DJ: Simple: whenever Obama hesitated, Hillary did not. She urged war in Libya, a no-fly zone in Syria, and from all she says, would have been urging stronger action against Russia when her former spokeswoman Victoria Nuland was leading the anti-Russian coup in Kiev. Her chuckling over the bestial murder of Gaddafi shows an absence of any human feeling for her adversaries. She dismisses them as subhuman. In addition to her absence of compassion, she seems to have no doubts about the ultimate ability of the United States to prevail in any armed conflict—and this is most dangerous of all. She is ready to push every adversary as far as possible, apparently certain that the “bad guy” will back down—even if it happens to be nuclear-armed Russia.

Obama apparently lacks Hillary’s assurance. His lavish use of murderous drones reflects the military recognition of the limits of U.S. ground forces. He has been under constant pressure from the War Party. Sometimes he has resisted their pressure, as in the case of chemical weapons in Syria, after Kerry had replaced Clinton as Secretary of State.

MÓC: In your concluding chapter titled “The War Party” you write that “[t]he rise of Hillary Clinton should make clear the total failure of clinging to the Democratic Party as the “lesser evil.” But if the demagogic Donald Trump is running against Hillary, do you think it’s possible to convince voters that she isn’t the lesser of two evils?

DJ: That looks impossible on the face of it. Who knows, perhaps Trump will make the danger of war a major issue. But it seems to me now that an election contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will be decided at the gut level, not on issues. I may be wrong, but foreign policy seems of minor concern in this election, even though it should be a top concern. Trump appalls the elite, but internet comments show that hostility to Hillary is reaching the boiling point. It will be strengthened if Bernie Sanders loses the nomination as a result of what looks like cheating. The way things are going, the November election risks being a race between the two most hated people in America.

MÓC: You propose a “Peace Party” as an alternative to the “War Party” that dominates both branches of the Two-Party-System. You suggest two admirable women to serve as part of a “peace team” to support a “peace candidate”, namely, Cynthia McKinney and Coleen Rowley. They couldn’t be more different from the women with whom Hillary has surrounded herself, such as Madeleine Albright, Suzanne Nossel, Susan Rice, and Samantha Power, could they? Are you optimistic that one day the American people will become sufficiently aware to know the difference?

DJ: By Peace Party, I mean something broader than a political party. I mean a network of knowledgeable, principled people who are intent on saving the country and the world from what has become an insanely arrogant policy of world domination. The difficulty is that the so-called neocons and the liberal interventionists have more or less taken over the State Department and have recently purged the Pentagon. The Peace Party could be made up of diplomats, scholars, military officers, politicians, editors. I would suggest that individuals who want to avoid World War III need to study the example of the neocons, who through a web of think tanks, editorial pages, financial interest and infiltration of the executive branch have seized control of the policy-making apparatus. Can this process be reversed, and if so, how? It is not up to me to answer this question. But it needs to be asked.

At the popular level, the Peace Party could be built on economic demands: cut back the insane military budget in order to finance useful and productive domestic activities, shut down superfluous military bases, stop expanding NATO to conquer the world, stop subsidizing Israel to the tune of three billion dollars per year. American riches, the American people and the American future are being squandered to wage increasingly destructive wars. The real enemy is the U.S. military industrial complex, which survives and expands because the government provides sure profits on financial investment. If the American people were fully aware of this, the Peace Party would grow naturally.

 “There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.”    William Shakespeare

First it was the Fed, then it was the Bank of Japan, now the ECB (and maybe even China).  Mario Draghi finally let loose this morning with everything left in his monetary “bazooka” and gone as far as the Bundesbank will let him. He also has to face the BIS restrictions in the next three weeks which are far from certain to be in favor of his actions.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-03-10/draghi-whips-out-bazooka-ecb-announces-surprise-refi-marginal-lending-rate-cuts-boos

Looking backward first, the Fed unsettled markets in mid December with a rate hike.

Japan lit gold’s fuse in January with the announcement of negative interest rates.

Today, Mario Draghi spent and fired his last shot, it will be seen as a blank.  Now we will get to see what sort of reaction is received from the markets.  Initially the markets went in the “favored” directions, that only lasted for about an hour.  The Euro is again strengthening, gold going higher and stock markets have turned negative as if asking “now what?  Do you have anything else”?

Before going further I want to break down what they are trying to do into its most basic form.  Systemically (including Europe) the world ran into “debt saturation” back in 2007.  The plan was to cure too much debt with …more and more debt.  The “experiment” has not worked and will not work …and Mario Draghi just ran into a wall where this is it, he has no more room to “experiment”.  No doubt this is being done now to try to support the Italian (Spanish and others) debt that has gone bad.

There is another little problem that few are talking about, the BIS.  The Bank for International Settlements has warned Mr. Draghi not to go to this wall of negative interest rates and further outright monetization.  The BIS has the ability to force Draghi to not only stop the madness but also reverse it.  So not only are the markets asking “what’s next?”, it is also wondering whether or not the BIS will step in.

We also have another piece to add to this puzzle, China.  They just announced they will begin to take equity stakes for non performing loans via the banking system.  “Nationalization” no matter what they call it.  It had been speculated China would have to devalue the yuan in an effort to make their massive corporate debt payable and industry more competitive.  I would suggest this is simply wiping out current debt in an effort to make room available to create more debt and to reflate.  We will see how this works out but I do not believe this is any more credible than any of the other “serial reflators”.

Many times it is said “OK, so you see the problem but what’s the answer”?

The answer is obvious and we will get to it after looking at the true problem.  The world hit debt saturation in 2007, sovereign treasuries and central banks stepped in and sacrificed (destroyed) their own balance sheets in an effort to reflate.  We know it has not worked and the global economy (pie) is no longer growing.  The ONLY way for a country or region to “grow” is by taking an inordinate size of the pie and the only way to do this is by devaluing currency faster than your competitors.

The problem today is ALL currencies are competing against each other in debasing (devaluing).  If you devalue too slowly you lose.  If you devalue but not enough, again you lose.  This is the problem with and misunderstanding of the USDX index, the currencies are all valued against each other and NONE OF THEM ARE REAL!  The “answer” as it was back in 2008 is still the same, rather than race “against” each other THEY ALL need to collectively devalue!  The only way to do this is to collectively devalue against “something” …and that something is what it always has been, GOLD!

A collective devaluation will do several things.  First, it will create “inflation” and thus make the existing debt payable if the devaluation is deep enough.  Business will get “reflated” and main street will actually participate in the better business conditions.  Most importantly, for those nations who actually do hold gold, their balance sheet holes will be filled up and patched.  Sovereign treasuries with gold will suddenly see their coffers filled.  There is of course the problem of nations who either do not hold gold or have lied and no longer hold what they said they did.  In this case, these nations become the world’s new “cheap labor” and begin to dig their way out via industrial/commercial production.  This is a very long and hard process which also involves a huge drop in the standard of living.

Do I know what the level needs to be for gold to perform its function as central bank reserve?  No, the number could be $25,000, $50,000 or $5 million or more, I do not have the answer.  The biggest holder(s) of gold on the planet could simply “mandate” a price or do it via the physical markets over a reasonable period of time …but they will do this as it is the only viable solution.

We now have a situation where central banks have lost their credibility.

This will lead to a loss of confidence in all things paper.

Either the central banks revalue their balance sheets with a wildly high gold price or the markets will do this for them by voting with their feet so to speak.  We are on the cusp of absolutely wild market gyrations and obscene price levels for gold.  So obscene you will either be in or you will be out forever.  Do not try to time anything, these last bazookas fired with blanks will be seen as a very large starting gun!

The current drive to get genetically modified (GM) food crops into India is being spearheaded by GM mustard. However, the decision to sanction the commercialisation of this crop has been delayed due to accusations of  “unremitting fraud” and “regulatory delinquency.”

These accusations are being strengthened with each passing day, as further evidence comes to light about the underhand, deceptive and corrupt tactics that have been used to fudge and manipulate data under a veil of secrecy. It is becoming increasingly clear that GM will not increase yields or have any benefits, especially when compared to current non-GM and traditional, high-yielding varieties. In fact, it would do more harm than good (see this also and this slide show too) and GM mustard would serve only one purpose: it would act as a Trojan horse to open the floodgate to GM food crops being grown in India.

One of the main (bogus) arguments put forward in favour of GM mustard is that India needs to reduce its imports of edible oils and that GM will give an underproductive indigenous edible oils sector a much-needed boost. While it is clear that India’s imports of edible oils have indeed increased, this is not as a result of an underperforming home-grown sector.

In terms of volumes, palm oil, soybean oil and mustard oil are the three largest consumed edible oils in India, with respective shares of 46%, 16% and 14% in total oil consumption (2010 figures). Over the past 20 years, India’s indigenous edible oil output has risen only about a third whereas imports have surged twelve fold, making it the world’s top buyer of cooking oils.

The argument to reduce imports certainly carries weight: overseas purchases of edible oils exceed $10 billion per year, India’s third-highest after oil and gold.

However, Davish Jain, chairman of the Soybean Processors Association of India, targets the heart of the issue when he says:

“India has become the dumping ground for palm oil. Our oil seed and edible oil production will not rise unless we restrict cheaper imports.”

Until the mid-1990s, India was virtually self-sufficient in edible oils. Then import tariffs were reduced, leading to an influx of cheap (subsidised) edible oil imports that domestic farmers could not compete with. This was a deliberate policy that effectively devastated the home-grown edible oils sector.

Aside from one previous occasion (1987), 1996 saw imports of palm oil reach over 1,000 MT (metric ton) and have increased more than nine fold since then. Back in September, with Malaysian palm oil prices near six-year lows, the fear was imports could rise even more.

Palm oil imports (source: US Department of Agriculture)

Supporters of GM mustard now twist this situation to call for the introduction of GM mustard to increase productivity. This is of course erroneous on two counts: first, it was not poor productivity that led to the massive increase in imports; second, GM mustard is even lower yielding that varieties that already exist – no amount of manipulated data can hide this, as we can now see.

However, there has been a big winner in all of this: the palm oil industry in Indonesia and Malaysia. India is now the world’s leading importer of palm oil, accounting for around 15% of the global supply. It imports over two-­thirds of its palm oil from Indonesia.

Indonesia leads global production, but the cheap price is often offset by the destruction of large tracts of tropical forest. Oil palm plantations often replace tropical forests, leading to the killing of endangered species and the uprooting of local communities as well as contributing to the release of climate-changing gases (see this analysis). Indonesia emits more greenhouse gases than any country besides China and the US and that’s largely due to the production of palm oil.

From 2000 to 2009, Indonesia supplied more than half of the global palm oil market at an annual expense of some 340,000 hectares of Indonesian countryside. Planned expansion could wipe out the remaining natural habitat of several endangered species. This is a ludicrous situation considering that Brazil and Indonesia spent over 100 times more in subsidies to industries that cause deforestation than they received in international conservation aid from the UN to prevent it. The two countries gave over $40bn in subsidies to the palm oil, timber, soy, beef and biofuels sectors between 2009 and 2012, some 126 times more than the $346m they received to preserve their rainforests.

If there were ever a case study of how to rundown your own edible oils sector, then India is it. At the same time, in doing so, it has been a main contributor to the growth of Indonesia’s palm oil sector and in the process has fuelled massive environmental damage that is impacting the whole planet.

And now, under pressure from the feed and poultry sector, India could be on the verge of encouraging the flow of soy imports into the country, which would further undermine the indigenous sector. If you can’t fool the nation into growing GM, then at least you can get it to import it from the likes of South America or the US – which could be in the pipeline (see this, page 1).

Just as in Indonesia, this would also fuel massive environmental catastrophe as well as further widespread social devastation and damage to human health (outlined here).

If the American presidential election winds up with Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump, and my passport is confiscated, and I’m somehow FORCED to choose one or the other, or I’m PAID to do so, paid well … I would vote for Trump.

My main concern is foreign policy. American foreign policy is the greatest threat to world peace, prosperity, and the environment. And when it comes to foreign policy, Hillary Clinton is an unholy disaster. From Iraq and Syria to Libya and Honduras the world is a much worse place because of her; so much so that I’d call her a war criminal who should be prosecuted. And not much better can be expected on domestic issues from this woman who was paid $675,000 by Goldman Sachs – one of the most reactionary, anti-social corporations in this sad world – for four speeches and even more than that in political donations in recent years. Add to that Hillary’s willingness to serve for six years on the board of Walmart while her husband was governor of Arkansas. Can we expect to change corporate behavior by taking their money?

The Los Angeles Times ran an editorial the day after the multiple primary elections of March 1 which began: “Donald Trump is not fit to be president of the United States,” and then declared: “The reality is that Trump has no experience whatsoever in government.”

When I need to have my car fixed I look for a mechanic with experience with my type of auto. When I have a medical problem I prefer a doctor who specializes in the part of my body that’s ill. But when it comes to politicians, experience means nothing. The only thing that counts is the person’s ideology. Who would you sooner vote for, a person with 30 years in Congress who doesn’t share your political and social views at all, is even hostile to them, or someone who has never held public office before but is an ideological comrade on every important issue? Clinton’s 12 years in high government positions carries no weight with me.

The Times continued about Trump: “He has shamefully little knowledge of the issues facing the country and the world.”

Again, knowledge is trumped (no pun intended) by ideology. As Secretary of State (January 2009-February 2013), with great access to knowledge, Clinton played a key role in the 2011 destruction of Libya’s modern and secular welfare state, sending it crashing in utter chaos into a failed state, leading to the widespread dispersal throughout North African and Middle East hotspots of the gigantic arsenal of weaponry that Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi had accumulated. Libya is now a haven for terrorists, from al Qaeda to ISIS, whereas Gaddafi had been a leading foe of terrorists.

What good did Secretary of State Clinton’s knowledge do? It was enough for her to know that Gaddafi’s Libya, for several reasons, would never be a properly obedient client state of Washington. Thus it was that the United States, along with NATO, bombed the people of Libya almost daily for more than six months, giving as an excuse that Gaddafi was about to invade Benghazi, the Libyan center of his opponents, and so the United States was thus saving the people of that city from a massacre. The American people and the American media of course swallowed this story, though no convincing evidence of the alleged impending massacre has ever been presented. (The nearest thing to an official US government account of the matter – a Congressional Research Service report on events in Libya for the period – makes no mention at all of the threatened massacre.)

The Western intervention in Libya was one that the New York Times said Clinton had “championed”, convincing Obama in “what was arguably her moment of greatest influence as secretary of state.”  All the knowledge she was privy to did not keep her from this disastrous mistake in Libya. And the same can be said about her support of placing regime change in Syria ahead of supporting the Syrian government in its struggle against ISIS and other terrorist groups. Even more disastrous was the 2003 US invasion of Iraq which she as a senator supported. Both policies were of course clear violations of international law and the UN Charter.

Another foreign-policy “success” of Mrs. Clinton, which her swooning followers will ignore, the few that even know about it, is the coup ousting the moderately progressive Manuel Zelaya of Honduras in June, 2009. A tale told many times in Latin America. The downtrodden masses finally put into power a leader committed to reversing the status quo, determined to try to put an end to up to two centuries of oppression … and before long the military overthrows the democratically-elected government, while the United States – if not the mastermind behind the coup – does nothing to prevent it punish the coup regime, as only the United States can punish; meanwhile Washington officials pretend to be very upset over this “affront to democracy”. (See Mark Weisbrot’s “Top Ten Ways You Can Tell Which Side The United States Government is On With Regard to the Military Coup in Honduras”.)

In her 2014 memoir, “Hard Choices”, Clinton reveals just how unconcerned she was about restoring Zelaya to his rightful office: “In the subsequent days [after the coup] I spoke with my counterparts around the hemisphere … We strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of Zelaya moot.”

The question of Zelaya was anything but moot. Latin American leaders, the United Nations General Assembly, and other international bodies vehemently demanded his immediate return to office. Washington, however, quickly resumed normal diplomatic relations with the new right-wing police state, and Honduras has since become a major impetus for the child migrants currently pouring into the United States.

The headline from Time magazine’s report on Honduras at the close of that year (December 3, 2009) summed it up as follows: “Obama’s Latin America Policy Looks Like Bush’s”.

And Hillary Clinton looks like a conservative. And has for many years; going back to at least the 1980s, while the wife of the Arkansas governor, when she strongly supported the death-squad torturers known as the Contras, who were the empire’s proxy army in Nicaragua.

Then, during the 2007 presidential primary, America’s venerable conservative magazine, William Buckley’s National Review, ran an editorial by Bruce Bartlett. Bartlett was a policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan, a treasury official under President George H.W. Bush, and a fellow at two of the leading conservative think-tanks, the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute – You get the picture? Bartlett tells his readers that it’s almost certain that the Democrats will win the White House in 2008. So what to do? Support the most conservative Democrat. He writes: “To right-wingers willing to look beneath what probably sounds to them like the same identical views of the Democratic candidates, it is pretty clear that Hillary Clinton is the most conservative.”

During the same primary we also heard from America’s leading magazine for the corporate wealthy, Fortune, with a cover featuring a picture of Mrs. Clinton and the headline: “Business Loves Hillary”.

And what do we have in 2016? Fully 116 members of the Republican Party’s national security community, many of them veterans of Bush administrations, have signed an open letter threatening that, if Trump is nominated, they will all desert, and some will defect – to Hillary Clinton! “Hillary is the lesser evil, by a large margin,” says Eliot Cohen of the Bush II State Department. Cohen helped line up neocons to sign the “Dump-Trump” manifesto. Another signer, foreign-policy ultra-conservative author Robert Kagan, declared: “The only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton.”

The only choice? What’s wrong with Bernie Sanders or Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate? … Oh, I see, not conservative enough.

And Mr. Trump? Much more a critic of US foreign policy than Hillary or Bernie. He speaks of Russia and Vladimir Putin as positive forces and allies, and would be much less likely to go to war against Moscow than Clinton would. He declares that he would be “evenhanded” when it comes to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (as opposed to Clinton’s boundless support of Israel). He’s opposed to calling Senator John McCain a “hero”, because he was captured. (What other politician would dare say a thing like that?)

He calls Iraq “a complete disaster”, condemning not only George W. Bush but the neocons who surrounded him. “They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction and there were none. And they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction.” He even questions the idea that “Bush kept us safe”, and adds that “Whether you like Saddam or not, he used to kill terrorists.”

Yes, he’s personally obnoxious. I’d have a very hard time being his friend. Who cares?

CIA motto: “Proudly overthrowing the Cuban government since 1959.”

Now what? Did you think that the United States had finally grown up and come to the realization that they could in fact share the same hemisphere as the people of Cuba, accepting Cuban society as unquestioningly as they do that of Canada? The Washington Post (February 18) reported: “In recent weeks, administration officials have made it clear Obama would travel to Cuba only if its government made additional concessions in the areas of human rights, Internet access and market liberalization.”

Imagine if Cuba insisted that the United States make “concessions in the area of human rights”; this could mean the United States pledging to not repeat anything like the following:

Invading Cuba in 1961 at the Bay of Pigs.

Invading Grenada in 1983 and killing 84 Cubans, mainly construction workers.

Blowing up a passenger plane full of Cubans in 1976. (In 1983, the city of Miami held a day in honor of Orlando Bosch, one of the two masterminds behind this awful act; the other perpetrator, Luis Posada, was given lifetime protection in the same city.)

Giving Cuban exiles, for their use, the virus which causes African swine fever, forcing the Cuban government to slaughter 500,000 pigs.

Infecting Cuban turkeys with a virus which produces the fatal Newcastle disease, resulting in the deaths of 8,000 turkeys.

In 1981 an epidemic of dengue hemorrhagic fever swept the island, the first major epidemic of DHF ever in the Americas. The United States had long been experimenting with using dengue fever as a weapon. Cuba asked the United States for a pesticide to eradicate the mosquito involved but were not given it. Over 300,000 cases were reported in Cuba with 158 fatalities.

These are but three examples of decades-long CIA chemical and biological warfare (CBW) against Cuba.   We must keep in mind that food is a human right (although the United States has repeatedly denied this.

Washington maintained a blockade of goods and money entering Cuba that is still going strong, a blockade that President Clinton’s National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, in 1997 called “the most pervasive sanctions ever imposed on a nation in the history of mankind”.

Attempted to assassinate Cuban president Fidel Castro on numerous occasions, not only in Cuba, but in Panama, Dominican Republic and Venezuela.

In one scheme after another in recent years, Washington’s Agency for International Development (AID) endeavored to cause dissension in Cuba and/or stir up rebellion, the ultimate goal being regime change.

In 1999 a Cuban lawsuit demanded $181.1 billion in US compensation for death and injury suffered by Cuban citizens in four decades of “war” by Washington against Cuba. Cuba asked for $30 million in direct compensation for each of the 3,478 people it said were killed by US actions and $15 million each for the 2,099 injured. It also asked for $10 million each for the people killed, and $5 million each for the injured, to repay Cuban society for the costs it has had to assume on their behalf.

Needless to say, the United States has not paid a penny of this.

One of the most common Yankee criticisms of the state of human rights in Cuba has been the arrest of dissidents (although the great majority are quickly released). But many thousands of anti-war and other protesters have been arrested in the United States in recent years, as in every period in American history. During the Occupy Movement, which began in 2011, more than 7,000 people were arrested in about the first year, many were beaten by police and mistreated while in custody, their street displays and libraries smashed to pieces.   ; the Occupy movement continued until 2014; thus, the figure of 7,000 is an understatement.)

Moreover, it must be kept in mind that whatever restrictions on civil liberties there may be in Cuba exist within a particular context: The most powerful nation in the history of the world is just 90 miles away and is sworn – vehemently and repeatedly sworn – to overthrowing the Cuban government. If the United States was simply and sincerely concerned with making Cuba a less restrictive society, Washington’s policy would be clear cut:

• Call off the wolves – the CIA wolves, the AID wolves, the doctor-stealer wolves, the baseball-player-stealer wolves.
• Publicly and sincerely (if American leaders still remember what this word means) renounce their use of CBW and assassinations. And apologize.
• Cease the unceasing hypocritical propaganda – about elections, for example. (Yes, it’s true that Cuban elections never feature a Donald Trump or a Hillary Clinton, nor ten billion dollars, nor 24 hours of campaign ads, but is that any reason to write them off?)
• Pay compensation – a lot of it.
• Sine qua non – end the God-awful blockade.

Throughout the period of the Cuban revolution, 1959 to the present, Latin America has witnessed a terrible parade of human rights violations – systematic, routine torture; legions of “disappeared” people; government-supported death squads picking off selected individuals; massacres en masse of peasants, students and other groups. The worst perpetrators of these acts during this period have been the military and associated paramilitary squads of El Salvador, Guatemala, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Uruguay, Haiti and Honduras. However, not even Cuba’s worst enemies have made serious charges against the Havana government for any of such violations; and if one further considers education and health care, “both of which,” said President Bill Clinton, “work better [in Cuba] than most other countries”   , and both of which are guaranteed by the United Nations “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” and the “European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms”, then it would appear that during the more-than-half century of its revolution, Cuba has enjoyed one of the very best human-rights records in all of Latin America.

But never good enough for American leaders to ever touch upon in any way; the Bill Clinton quote being a rare exception indeed. It’s a tough decision to normalize relations with a country whose police force murders its own innocent civilians on almost a daily basis. But Cuba needs to do it. Maybe they can civilize the Americans a bit, or at least remind them that for more than a century they have been the leading torturers of the world.

Notes

1. “Libya: Transition and U.S. Policy”, updated March 4, 2016.

2. New York Times, February 28, 2016
3. Mark Weisbrot, “Top Ten Ways You Can Tell Which Side The United States Government is On With Regard to the Military Coup in Honduras”, Common Dreams, December 16, 2009
4. Roger Morris, former member of the National Security Council, Partners in Power (1996), p.415. For a comprehensive look at Hillary Clinton, see the new book by Diane Johnstone, Queen of Chaos.
5. National Review online, May 1, 2007
6. Fortune magazine, July 9, 2007
7. Patrick J. Buchanan, “Will the Oligarchs Kill Trump?”, Creators.com, March 08, 2016

8. William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower (2005), chapter 14

9. Ibid., p.264
10. White House press briefing, November 14, 1997, US Newswire transcript
11. Fabian Escalante, Executive Action: 634 Ways to Kill Fidel Castro (2006), Ocean Press (Australia)
12. Huffington Post, May 3, 2012
13. Miami Herald, October 17, 1997, p.22A

Bribing officials.  Relaying and returning migrants to poor countries without adequate scrutiny or screening. Closing borders.  Setting up camps with appalling conditions.  Barbed wire and armed guards.  Europe now faces the most profound test on the refugee crisis so far: to persist in processing arrivals within its borders, or return them with indifference into unsafe territories. 

This is the Australian model of border control writ large. It enlists and politicises defence forces and border protection behind a veil of military grade secrey.  It shifts the burden of processing asylum seekers and refugees from wealthier states to poorer ones.  It effectively suspends the application of the Refugee Convention and does a good bit of demonising of refugees along the way.

In October last year, before an audience attending the Margaret Thatcher gala dinner,  the sniping and aggressive former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott warned European leaders that embracing his own “turn back the boats” policy was essential for continental stability and the protection of European civilisation.  “The only way to stop people by trying to gain entry is firmly and unambiguously to deny it.”[1]

Critics laughed it off as irrelevant, a political product of a paranoid island continent and a clownish ex-leader.  Landlocked countries, in particular, could hardly impose a return policy en masse given the sprawling trails of humanity coming in. It would entail massive border closures and expulsions, not of boats with dozens of human occupants but convoys of tens of thousands.

Turning back refugees, and cutting off the lines through the Balkans, is exactly what is happening in the pursuit of a rather venal plan of mass deportation with Turkey.  The outlines of it were made at a summit on March 7, where European leaders met the Turkish prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlou.

The Turkish proposal involves accepting the return of all migrants and refugees who cross the Aegean to Greece in return of a resettlement of asylum seekers in EU countries from Turkey itself.  This effectively constitutes a mass removal of individuals, a plan of questionable legality.  Under international refugee law, Turkey would have to be designated a safe haven for asylum seekers.

The summit has invariably spurred countries to close the Balkan route. Macedonia has closed the border with Greece, resulting in the stranding of 15,000 individuals.  Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia have tightened controls, putting on the brakes with heavy feet. Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, has expressed confidence in this new “collective” response to the refugee crisis, claiming that “irregular flows of migrants along western Balkans route have come to an end”.[2]

Some of the press analysis on this sees the European-Turkish deal as “messy but necessary”.  The Economist editorial on this subject is even more chilling in admitting what Turkey has become in this entire farce of human misery.  “Throughout the Cold War, Turkey was one of Europe’s bastions against Soviet armies.  Now it is being turned into Europe’s barrier against the huddled masses of the Middle East.”[3]

This was geographic reality – Turkey being the bridging country between two landmasses.  But, argued The Economist, order had to return, with borders opened, to a certain extent; “the only alternative to chaos is a fair and orderly migration system”. Human flesh has become a measure of grand political bargaining.

The consequence of this haggling has been a trafficking and bartering over human matter in favour of new political realities Turkey wishes to change.  There is the issue of visa liberalisation, which Ankara has been pursuing with some vigour.

The largest matter, one that never goes away, is that of Turkish accession to the EU.  Most striking of all is the refusal on the part of the EU to raise the issue of Ankara’s latest, and very aggressive, assault on press freedoms. President Recep Erdoğan has every reason to be pleased, crushing dissent and scrutiny at hope while pretending to be Europe’s broom of order.

Despite any reservations on the part of the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, his government still signed a readmission agreement for migrants crossing the Aegean to be returned.[4]  This further builds in a regime that promises to be more cruel than fair.

The strong message from Davutoğlou in discussions with Tsipras indicated the determination to shut out third countries and transit points for those using the route through Turkey and effectively the Balkans, to get to EU countries.  The agreements, he argued, sent “a clear message to migrants coming from third countries, rather than countries at war… that there is neither the political will [to allow their passage] nor the ability to cross to Europe.”

Supposedly, that aspect of the deal will cover those migrants who are not deemed to fall within the international regime of protection.  This re-admission into Turkey is problematic on several levels, assuming an orderly and expeditious processing of individual claims. “I am deeply worried,” expressed a concerned UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, “about any arrangement that would involve the blanket return of anyone from one country to another without spelling out the refugee safeguards under international law.”[5]

Such fairness is evidently missing to those who are huddled before the closed borders.  Refugees chant German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s name in desperation and hope.  Merkel in turn had regarded the Balkan closure as an “unsustainable” travesty, an outcome of a failed approach to the issue of dealing with refugees.  But she is wrong to assume that Europe is not acting collectively on this.  A dis-unified position is rapidly forming into a hardened, brutal stance of vicious unity.

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

Notes

[1] http://www.smh.com.au/comment/europe-should-learn-from-australia-how-to-halt-refugees-tony-abbott-20151027-gkkaop.html

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/09/balkans-refugee-route-closed-say-european-leaders

[3] http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21694536-european-bargain-turkey-controversial-offers-best-hope-ending-migrant?force=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/amessybutnecessarydeal

[4] http://www.ekathimerini.com/206786/article/ekathimerini/news/greece-and-turkey-build-on-plan-for-return-of-refugees

[5] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-idUSKCN0WA1D4

If Canada were to support real, productive change, it would support rather than condemn peaceful citizen initiatives such as the Boycott Divest Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

Instead, Canada continues to support international lawlessness abroad, and an on-going domestic policy of police state repression, welded to a nexus of complicit agencies — most notably mainstream media — to stifle our freedom of dissent.

International law presents a powerful case against apartheid Israel.

In an earlier article, for example, this author noted that,

“The International Criminal Court (ICJ) ruled in 2004 that the West Bank wall was ‘illegal in its entirety,’ and that compensation should be paid to those affected. Additionally, the U.N General Assembly passed a resolution supporting the ICJ’s call to dismantle the wall.”

Not only is the wall a breach of international law, but it also represents a “land-grab”.  85% of the wall is located on the occupied West Bank. Upon completion, 46% of the West bank will be locked into ghettos.  Even now, there are separate, apartheid road systems which separate Israeli from Palestinian drivers.

The territory of Gaza is accurately described as an “open air prison”.  The illegal blockade of the land, air, and sea, is itself is a form of collective punishment, and a violation of the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law.

Israel imposes a “diet” on Palestinians.  A 2010 study entitled, Humanitarian Minimum| Israel’s Role in Creating Food And Water Insecurity in the Gaza Strip provides strong evidence that Israel’s imposition of food and water insecurity on Gaza is part of its illegal military strategy of collective punishment.

According to REPORT TO UNRWA: THE GAZA HEALTH SECTOR AS OF JUNE 2014,  90 % of the water in Gaza is unfit for human consumption.  A June, 2006 Israeli airstrike on the Gaza Power Plant contributed to a nexus of health deprivations, one symptom of which is that one third of Gazan households are provided with running (unclean) water for 6-8 hours once every four days.  Whereas an Israeli uses about 300, liters of (clean) water per person, per day, Gazans are restricted to 70 litres (contaminated) water per day.  Again all of these deprivations were pre-planned.

Meanwhile, cement quotas undermine rebuilding efforts: it would take 17 years to adequately rebuild infrastructure.  Despite the fact of power shortages and poor healthcare infrastructure — 50% of Gazan hospitals were damaged in 2008/09 — 21% of medical permits to exit through the Eretz crossing are denied.

Engineered homelessness also adds to the deprivations: In 2014 alone, 18,000 Palestinian housing units were destroyed, and 108,000 Palestinians remain homeless.

Israel also breaches the Fourth Geneva Convention  in terms of its treatment of Palestinian prisoners:

• Whereas prisoners must not be detained outside the territory under occupation, Israel detains all Palestinian prisoners in Israel. There are 6,700 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, but there are no Israelis in Palestinian prisons.
• Whereas prisoners are not to be subjected to torture, Palestinian prisoners are regularly tortured.  200 prisoners have been killed by torture, medical negligence, or the use of fatal force.
• Whereas prisoners are not to be sentenced without a proper trial, since 2000, Israel has placed 20,000 Palestinians under administrative detention – without charge or trial.

The institutionalized racism, the war, the occupation, the imprisonment, and the intentional denial of human rights and freedoms takes a tremendous, sometimes hidden, toll. The United Nations (UN) estimates that about 370,000 children in Gaza require psycho-social support.

The totality of these imposed restrictions amounts to genocide:

The definition of “genocide”, as defined by Articles II and III of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide:

“Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Article III: The following acts shall be punishable:
(a) Genocide;

(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;

(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;

(d) Attempt to commit genocide;

(e) Complicity in genocide. ”

All of this illegality is an outgrowth of a racist settler-colonial dynamic where illegal discrimination is politicized. Political operatives have distorted and degraded the teachings of Judaism and Islam to the point that engineered religious facades are used as instruments of division to wage illegal war and genocide.

The duplicity of the Canadian government in condemning the BDS movement on the one hand, while publically stating on the other that Canada will be a “frank voice in the Middle East” is a symbol of Canada’s duplicity.

The “perception management” wing of our media complex presents Canada in a favourable, judicious light; whereas sustainable evidence demonstrates that our foreign policy is in derogation of international law.

Author’s note: An elaboration of the Israeli-imposed deprivations on the Palestinian population is presented in an extraordinary , data-driven web-site called “Visualizing Palestine”, which also formed the basis of a student presentation at Hamilton’s (ON, Canada) McMaster University.

Information from the site, and the McMaster outdoor presentation, form the basis of much of the information in this article. 

Special thanks to McMaster Muslims For Peace and Justice, and Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights.

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has advanced in the East Ghouta region of Greater Damascus targeting Al Nusra militants and its allies in the area. Following a violate battle with militants, the SAA seized the villages of Bala Al-Jadida and Hatita Al-Jarsh. Thus, the SAA split the militant forces in 2 different pockets. The government forces’ next step will likely be to clear the Northern pocket where the concentration of Al Nusra militants is especially high.

The SAA and its allies are continuing to expand a buffer zone along the Khanasser-Aleppo road advancing to the East in direction of the Raqqa province. The SAA’s mid-term goal in this advance is to capture such strategic points as Tabqa Airbase and Jirah Airbase. In turn, ISIS is strengthening defenses in the area east to the Al Jaboul Lake.

On Mar.10, the Kurdish YPG units continued their advances against al-Nusra in the Ashafiyeh neighborhood of the Aleppo city. Pro-Kurdish sources report that at least 8 militants have been killed in firefights. The clashes are ongoing there.

Meanwhile, heavy clashes reportedly took place between ISIS and other militant groups near Qara Koubri region in the Northern parts of Aleppo.

Iraqi forces have liberated the Zankura area from ISIS in the western province of Anbar, evacuating some 10,000 civilians, Sabah al-Noman, spokesman of the Counter-Terrorism Service, said on Mar.10. According to al-Noman, 80 ISIS militants were killed in the operation and 56 were arrested.

On Mar.9, the Iraqi security forces also retook villages of Hit, Zankura and Qariya Asriya near Ramadi.

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A US judge ordered Iran to pay over $10 billion in damages to families of victims who died on September 11, 2001 – even though there is no evidence of Tehran’s direct connection to the attack. The same judge earlier cleared Saudi Arabia from culpability.

The default judgement was issued by US District Judge George Daniels in New York on Wednesday. Under the ruling, Tehran was ordered to pay $7.5 billion to 9/11 victims’ families, including $2 million to each victim’s estate for pain and suffering, and another $6.88 million in punitive damages. Insurers who paid for property damage and claimed their businesses were interrupted were awarded an additional $3 billion in the ruling.

The ruling is noteworthy particularly since none of the 19 hijackers on September 11 were Iranian citizens. Fifteen were citizens of Saudi Arabia, while two were from the United Arab Emirates, and one each from Egypt and Lebanon.

Saudi Arabia was legally cleared from paying billions in damages to families of 9/11 victims last year, after Judge Daniels dismissed claims that the country provided material support to the terrorists and ruled that Riyadh had sovereign immunity. Saudi attorneys argued in court that there was no evidence directly linking the country to 9/11.

In response to the latest ruling, Hossein Sheikholeslam, a senior aide to Iran’s parliamentary speaker, called the decision “absurd and ridiculous.”

“I never heard about this ruling and I’m very much surprised because the judge had no reason whatsoever to issue such a ruling… Iran never took part in any court hearings related to the events of September 11, 2001,”

he told Sputnik.

“Even if such an absurd and ridiculous decision has been made, the charges simply hold no water because Iran has never been mentioned at any stage of the investigation and the trials that followed.”

While Sheikholeslam argued that Iran didn’t take part in related hearings, that lack of participation may have contributed to the decision. A default judgment is typically issued when one of the parties involved in a case does not respond to court summons or appear in court to make their case.

Judge Daniels found that Iran failed to defend itself against claims that it played a role in 9/11. Iran believes the lawsuit is unnecessary because it says it did not participate in the attack.

Image: Eduardo Munoz / Reuters

In the US, Tehran’s role in 9/11 has been debated heavily over the years. The 9/11 Commission Report stated that some hijackers moved through Iran and did not have their passports stamped. It also stated that Hezbollah, which the US designates as a terrorist organization supported by Iran, provided “advice and training” to Al-Qaeda members.

In a court document filed in 2011 regarding the latest case, plaintiffs claimed Hezbollah “provided material support” to Al-Qaeda, such as facilitating travel, plus “direct support” for the 9/11 attacks. As a result, the plaintiffs argued Iran was liable.

However, the commission report itself found no evidence to suggest Iran was aware of the 9/11 plot, and suggested the possibility that if Hezbollah was tracking the movements of Al-Qaeda members, it may not have been eyeing those who became hijackers on 9/11.

While the report suggested further investigation into the issue, President George W. Bush has said, “There was no direct connection between Iran and the attacks of September 11.”

Iran, inhabited mostly by Shia Muslims, has also denied any connection to Al-Qaeda – a militant Sunni group – and cooperation between the two has been questioned due to religious differences. Al-Qaeda views the Shia as heretics, for example.

“The people who committed those terrorist attacks were neither friends nor allies of Iran,” Iran Press Editor-in-Chief Emad Abshenas told Sputnik.

“They were our sworn enemies, members of Al-Qaeda, which considers Iran as their enemy. Fifteen out of the 19 terrorists were Saudi citizens, which happens to be America’s best friend. The remaining four terrorists lived in Saudi Arabia and enjoyed Saudi support. Therefore the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks had nothing to do with Iran.”

How the case moves forward after Daniels’ ruling is unclear. According to Bloomberg, it can be very hard to obtain damages from another country, but plaintiffs might try to do so by targeting Iranian funds frozen by the US.

The Atlantic publishes Obama’s great whitewashing of his own foreign policy. It is the result of a series of interviews with Jefferey Goldberg written up into one gigantic piece under the headline “The Obama Doctrine”. Throughout the piece Goldberg and Obama touch various foreign policy issues, mainly in the Middle East.

The ostensible purpose is to refute hawkish critics of Obama who say that he has not been militaristic enough or was ‘leading from behind.’ Judging from comments to the piece invarious media the readers seem to fall for that. But the real purpose of the piece is to hide the militaristic, dangerous to catastrophic decision Obama has made on many foreign policy issues.

The real Obama has used the military to wage open or hidden wars in more countries than any president since the second world war. Obama has ordered thousands of unknown people be killed by drone strikes in ten or so countries. He has used clandestine means for illegitimate regime change from Honduras over Ukraine to Iraq where, as he admitted in an earlier interview, let the evil of ISIS grow for the sole purpose of ousting Prime Minister Maliki. Instead of making room for the inevitable growth of China, Obama is preparing to wage a preemptive war against it.

The whitewash includes a lot of juicy, diverting quotes that many people will like. It bitches about foreign paid think tanks in Washington and the Saudis. It lambastes Cameron and Sarkozy. It badmouths his own hawkish advisers.

When it discusses why Obama let his ‘red line’ on chemical weapons in Syria slip and did not bomb the country it tries to paint Obama’s decisions on Syria as sensible and reasoned. But what is sensible or reasoned in ordering the CIA to ship thousands of Jihadis, recycled from his war on Libya and earlier conflicts, to Syria? What is peaceful in arming and paying sectarian “rebels” with billions of dollars to overthrow the legitimate Syrian government? The piece does not mention those facts and the interviewer never touches those questions.

Obama criticizes the Saudis and Iran for waging proxy wars in Syria and Yemen. But Iran came in only after Obama and the Saudis waged war on those countries. Without him Yemen would not be bombed and Syria would be peaceful. It is he who enables the Saudi misdeeds.

On Libya the president blames France and Britain for dropping the ball after Ghaddafi was killed. But it was the U.S. that enabled and directed the war, flew most attacks, dropped 7,700 bombs and had its people on the ground training and organizing the Jihadis for attacks on government positions. Here the fake ‘leading from behind’ is used to blame the allies when the inevitable consequences of the war, the destruction of the functioning state Libya, appear.

In general the piece is somewhat interesting and shows some insight into Obama’s thinking. But if you take the hour that is at least needed to read it keep in mind that this was published for a purpose. Obama is preparing his next career step. With the Goldberg interviews and this piece he is attempting to wash the blood off his hands and to whitewash his legacy.

Bribing officials.  Relaying and returning migrants to poor countries without adequate scrutiny or screening. Closing borders.  Setting up camps with appalling conditions.  Barbed wire and armed guards.  Europe now faces the most profound test on the refugee crisis so far: to persist in processing arrivals within its borders, or return them with indifference into unsafe territories. 

This is the Australian model of border control writ large. It enlists and politicises defence forces and border protection behind a veil of military grade secrey.  It shifts the burden of processing asylum seekers and refugees from wealthier states to poorer ones.  It effectively suspends the application of the Refugee Convention and does a good bit of demonising of refugees along the way.

In October last year, before an audience attending the Margaret Thatcher gala dinner,  the sniping and aggressive former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott warned European leaders that embracing his own “turn back the boats” policy was essential for continental stability and the protection of European civilisation.  “The only way to stop people by trying to gain entry is firmly and unambiguously to deny it.”[1]

Critics laughed it off as irrelevant, a political product of a paranoid island continent and a clownish ex-leader.  Landlocked countries, in particular, could hardly impose a return policy en masse given the sprawling trails of humanity coming in. It would entail massive border closures and expulsions, not of boats with dozens of human occupants but convoys of tens of thousands.

Turning back refugees, and cutting off the lines through the Balkans, is exactly what is happening in the pursuit of a rather venal plan of mass deportation with Turkey.  The outlines of it were made at a summit on March 7, where European leaders met the Turkish prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlou.

The Turkish proposal involves accepting the return of all migrants and refugees who cross the Aegean to Greece in return of a resettlement of asylum seekers in EU countries from Turkey itself.  This effectively constitutes a mass removal of individuals, a plan of questionable legality.  Under international refugee law, Turkey would have to be designated a safe haven for asylum seekers.

The summit has invariably spurred countries to close the Balkan route. Macedonia has closed the border with Greece, resulting in the stranding of 15,000 individuals.  Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia have tightened controls, putting on the brakes with heavy feet. Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, has expressed confidence in this new “collective” response to the refugee crisis, claiming that “irregular flows of migrants along western Balkans route have come to an end”.[2]

Some of the press analysis on this sees the European-Turkish deal as “messy but necessary”.  The Economist editorial on this subject is even more chilling in admitting what Turkey has become in this entire farce of human misery.  “Throughout the Cold War, Turkey was one of Europe’s bastions against Soviet armies.  Now it is being turned into Europe’s barrier against the huddled masses of the Middle East.”[3]

This was geographic reality – Turkey being the bridging country between two landmasses.  But, argued The Economist, order had to return, with borders opened, to a certain extent; “the only alternative to chaos is a fair and orderly migration system”. Human flesh has become a measure of grand political bargaining.

The consequence of this haggling has been a trafficking and bartering over human matter in favour of new political realities Turkey wishes to change.  There is the issue of visa liberalisation, which Ankara has been pursuing with some vigour.

The largest matter, one that never goes away, is that of Turkish accession to the EU.  Most striking of all is the refusal on the part of the EU to raise the issue of Ankara’s latest, and very aggressive, assault on press freedoms. President Recep Erdoğan has every reason to be pleased, crushing dissent and scrutiny at hope while pretending to be Europe’s broom of order.

Despite any reservations on the part of the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, his government still signed a readmission agreement for migrants crossing the Aegean to be returned.[4]  This further builds in a regime that promises to be more cruel than fair.

The strong message from Davutoğlou in discussions with Tsipras indicated the determination to shut out third countries and transit points for those using the route through Turkey and effectively the Balkans, to get to EU countries.  The agreements, he argued, sent “a clear message to migrants coming from third countries, rather than countries at war… that there is neither the political will [to allow their passage] nor the ability to cross to Europe.”

Supposedly, that aspect of the deal will cover those migrants who are not deemed to fall within the international regime of protection.  This re-admission into Turkey is problematic on several levels, assuming an orderly and expeditious processing of individual claims. “I am deeply worried,” expressed a concerned UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, “about any arrangement that would involve the blanket return of anyone from one country to another without spelling out the refugee safeguards under international law.”[5]

Such fairness is evidently missing to those who are huddled before the closed borders.  Refugees chant German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s name in desperation and hope.  Merkel in turn had regarded the Balkan closure as an “unsustainable” travesty, an outcome of a failed approach to the issue of dealing with refugees.  But she is wrong to assume that Europe is not acting collectively on this.  A dis-unified position is rapidly forming into a hardened, brutal stance of vicious unity.

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

Notes:

As the news broke on March 7, 2016, that US drone strikes had killed 150 people in Somalia, the White House announced it will reveal, for the first time, the number of people killed by drones and manned airstrikes “outside areas of active hostilities” since 2009. The tallies will include civilian deaths. This is a critical first step toward much-needed transparency. But it will not go far enough.

Australians are quite rightly upset because the Catholic Church hierarchy failed to act to expose and stop long-term, egregious child sexual abuse of about 40,000 Australian children by Catholic Church personnel. However look-the-other-way Australia resolutely ignores 4.4 million Australians adults who have been sexually abused as children, and the deaths this century of 11.9 million under-5 year old infants and 15.8 million avoidable deaths (half of children) in war-torn Muslim countries being criminally violated by pro-Zionist, pro-Apartheid Israel, US lackey Australia.

Australia has a long-running, $0.5 billion-cost  Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that has been investigating child sexual abuse by government institutions and by non-government institutions including church organizations. It has recently investigated child sexual abuse by Catholic Church personnel (priests and Christian brothers) in the Victorian city of Ballarat. The Royal Commission demanded the attendance of  Australia’s top Catholic prelate, Cardinal George Pell, who had served in Ballarat,   but when Cardinal Pell (based in the Vatican)  declined for medical reasons,  the Royal Commission permitted him to be questioned at length in Rome via a video link. In short, Cardinal Pell claimed that he didn’t know of these awful crimes, a position that many regard as implausible.

Top Australian ABC TV journalist Leigh Sales interviewing a Catholic priest over the silence of the Catholic Church over egregious child sexual abuse over many years by Catholic Church personnel in Ballarat:

“Let’s start with the first scenario and if I just take the example of Ballarat, where we know there were just so many egregious examples of abuse. How is it that there was not one good man there who was willing to stand up and say – and blow the whistle on this?” [1].

Leigh  Sales, in  articulating this key point in this and related matters of egregious child abuse, has evidently referenced the aphorism attributed to Edmund Burke that “Evil happens when good men do nothing”. While one clearly must approve of the legitimate indignation of Leigh Sales and indeed of Australian Mainstream media in general over Catholic Church inaction over sexual abuse of 40,000 children by Catholic Church personnel, one is obliged “to stand up and say – and blow the whistle on” vastly greater crimes against children that are resolutely ignored by Mainstream media in look-the-other-way Australia, specifically  (1) another 4.4 million Australians adults who have been sexually abused as children, (2) 1.2 million under-5 infant deaths and the avoidable deaths of 1.7 million Iraqis under Sanctions (about half of them children), and  (3) 11.9 million under-5 infant deaths and 15.8 million avoidable deaths (half of children)  this century in Muslim countries being war criminally violated by pro-Zionist, pro-Apartheid Israel, US lackey  Australia.

The cowardly silence of Australian Mainstream media about horrendous and deadly, mass paedocidal US Alliance atrocities against children throughout the world (and currently mostly in the Muslim world) can be explained by the ugly realities that Australian Mainstream media are substantially American-owned and overwhelming US-subservient. Indeed US Mainstream media (and to a slightly lesser extent Western Mainstream media in general) are craven propaganda agents of the war criminal and mass murdering state terrorists running the United States of America (for a cogent scholarly analysis of this  “propaganda model” see “Manufacturing Consent. The Political Economy of the Mass Media” by Professors Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky) [2].

Nevertheless, there are notable exceptions to this Mainstream culture of cowardly silence and none more pertinent here than Lesley Stahl (born December 16, 1941),  an anti-racist Jewish American television journalist. Since 1991, she has reported for CBS on “60 Minute”. A graduate of Wheaton College, her career received a boost from her coverage of the Watergate scandal. In October 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France, war criminal, warmonger and pro-Zionist, stood up and walked away from an interview with Lesley Stahl, because she asked him about his relationship with his soon-to-be estranged spouse [3]. Lesley Stahl is famous for asking then US Ambassador to the UN  (1993-1997) and later US Secretary of State (1997-2001), Madeleine Albright,  on “60 Minutes” in 1996 about the “half a million children” who had died by then under Sanctions on Iraq. On May 12, 1996, Albright defended UN sanctions against Iraq in this  “60 Minutes” segment in which Lesley Stahl asked her “We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?” and Albright obscenely replied “we think the price is worth it”  [4, 5].

Where are the Lesley Stahls today in 21st century  Australia, America or the West?  Indeed a search of the Australian ABC for “Lesley Stahl” gives only 4 results, 3 dealing with her reportage of the US sub-prime crisis and only 1 (a detailed reader comment by me) dealing with her confrontation of Madeleine Albright. I have outlined below some of the most appalling child abuse realities that are ignored by Australian and indeed Western Mainstream media.

(1) 4.4 million adult Australians have been sexually abused as children.

The appalling abuse of 40,000 Australian children by Catholic Church personnel represents the 1% tip of the iceberg of horrendous child sexual abuse which is endemic in Australia [6-14]. Thus psychiatrist Dr Carolyn Quadrio (University of New South Wales School of Psychiatry) advised the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that

“They [child abuse victims] often have unhealthy lifestyles so they’re prone to substance abuse and poverty and unemployment … and all of that adds up to something like 10 to 20 years less life for a child who’s been traumatised”

and estimated that 25- 30% of Australian girls and about 5- 15% of Australian boys suffered some form of sexual abuse, with 30% of girls and 20 % of boys in institutions being  abused [11].

The former Gillard Labor Government instituted a Royal Commission into child sexual abuse that is unfortunately confined to investigating horrendous institutional child sexual abuse (e.g. up to 40,000 cases over the last 40 years by Catholic Church personnel). However both the ultra-conservative Liberal Party-National Party Coalition Government  and the Right-dominated Labor Party Opposition continue to ignore the awful, expert-reported  reality that about 34% of Australian women and 16% of Australian men – 4.4 million Australians in all – have been subject to child sexual abuse i.e. the Coalition and Labor (aka the Lib-Labs)  have ignored huge non-institutional child sexual abuse. This horrendous  child sexual abuse continues unaddressed under the new Coalition Government. Similar estimates of high child sexual abuse have been made for the US and Israel.

Notwithstanding  enormous Government and Mainstream media claims of horrendous Indigenous child sexual abuse (claims that led to a racist military Intervention in Australian Northern Territory Indigenous communities), the subsequent “Little Children are Sacred” Report (p57; [8]) stated that

“As noted previously, it is not possible to accurately estimate the extent of child sexual abuse in the Northern Territory’s Aboriginal communities (see The Extent of Child Sexual Abuse, Part II). However, the Inquiry has found clear evidence that child sexual abuse is a significant problem across the Territory”.

However in contrast to its inability to accurately quantitate the extent of child abuse in Indigenous communities, the “Little Children are Sacred” Report (pp234-236; [8] )  refers to studies in America indicating that 25% of females and 10% of males experience childhood sexual abuse [15] and studies in Australia  indicating that 34% of females and 16% of males today experienced child sexual abuse [9]. The Australian Institute of Criminology determined that in Australia 1 in 3 females and 1 in 6 males will be sexually abused as children [12, 13].

Of course Australia and the US are not  alone in this and child abuse is a horrible international problem,  David Finkelhor finding that

“Surveys of child sexual abuse in large nonclinical populations of adults have been conducted in at least 19 countries in addition to the United States and Canada, including 10 national probability samples. All studies have found rates in line with comparable North American research, ranging from 7% to 36% for women and 3% to 29% for men. Most studies found females to be abused at 1.5 to 3 times the rate for males. Few comparisons among countries are possible because of methodological and definitional differences. However, they clearly confirm sexual abuse to be an international problem” [16]. 

A recent survey of Israeli children found that 50% reported child abuse and 17% reported child sexual abuse [14].

If the upper estimate of 25% of adult Australians have been sexually abused as children, this corresponds to 4.4 million Australians  having been thus abused (as determined from UN Population Division demographic data) [8]. 6.65 per 1,000 Australians die each year  and accordingly, if we ignore child mortality (very low in rich countries like Australia) and apply this figure to adult Australians, then 117,050 adult Australians die each year  and of these 25% (29,000) die prematurely each year  linked to child sexual abuse [10, 11]. However these appalling realities  are utterly ignored by Australian Mainstream media. Of course children are horribly abused in Australia in all kinds of other ways, ranging from the intellectual child abuse of state-subsidized religious schools to the highly abusive imprisonment of refugee children in remote concentrations camps without charge or trial and for the asserted “crime” of being refugees  [17]. While 80% of the Australian electorate vote for such cruel treatment of refugee children by voting for the dominant Lib-Labs (Coalition and Labor Right), there is nevertheless widespread disquiet as reflected in Mainstream media discussion. Nevertheless, while this horrible  maltreatment  of refugee children is widely discussed,  and there is huge public indignation over the rape of 40,000 children by Catholic clergy,  there is virtually  no  Mainstream discussion of the 4.4 million adult Australians who have been sexually abused as children.

(2) 1.2 million under-5 Iraqi infant deaths and 1.7 million avoidable Iraqi deaths under Australia- and US Alliance-imposed Sanctions.

In 1996 Lesley Stahl had read expert reports indicating that by then 0.5 million Iraqi children had died under the war criminal Sanctions applied on Iraq by the US Alliance [3-5]. However the killing of children under Sanctions   continued and it was estimated from UN Population Division demographic data (from before the US installed the Maliki Government in Iraq) that 1.2 million under-5-year old Iraqi children had died under Sanctions in the period 1990-2003, about 90% avoidably and due to war criminal US Alliance   targeting of the civilian population. It could be further estimated that 1.7 million Iraqis (half children) died avoidably from deprivation under Sanctions [18-23].  While these UN-based estimates by me were published by Australasian  Science [21]  and the ABC [22] and broadcast nationwide by the ABC [23],  they were otherwise  resolutely ignored by Australian Mainstream media, politicians and academics.

(3) 11.9 million under-5 infant deaths and about 15.8 million avoidable deaths from deprivation (half of children) this century in Muslim countries being violated by US lackey Australia.

Pro-Zionist, pro-Apartheid Israel and US lackey Australia has been involved in large-scale and deadly child abuse overseas in impoverished countries in which it is still war criminally waging war. US lackey Australia  has variously had its armed  forces or intelligence agencies involved in US wars in a swathe of largely Muslim countries as follows: Afghanistan (variously invasion, occupation, training, guarding; 2001- present; 14.5 years); Iraq (variously sanctions, invasion, occupation, training, guarding, and now renewed training and bombing in Australia’s Seventh Iraq War in 100 years;  1990-present; 25.5 years); and Syria (bombing in Australia’s Third Syrian War in 100 years; September 2015-present; 0.5 years) [18-24 ].

In addition, this century Australian military and intelligence personnel  have been involved in illegal US drone strikes in a swathe of Muslim countries through the critical drone targeting information from the US-Australian electronic spying  facility at Pine Gap [25-27]. In addition some Australian personnel have been seconded to serve with US forces in conducting illegal drone strikes [27]. These Australia-assisted US drone strikes  have been conducted in various Muslim countries as follows: Afghanistan (2008-present; 8 years); Iraq (2008-present; 8 years); Libya (2011-present; 4 years); Pakistan (2004-present; 12 years); Somalia (2007-present; 9 years); and Yemen (2002-present; 14 years) [28, 29].

Finally, Zionist perverted and subverted Australia is arguably only second  to Zionist-perverted and subverted America in its support for nuclear terrorist, racist Zionist-run, democracy-by-genocide Apartheid Israel and hence its ongoing Palestinian Genocide (100% of the ruling Coalition and over 90% of the Labor Opposition support Apartheid Israel; in contrast the decent Australian Greens are opposed to Apartheid, human rights abuse, war crimes and genocide).  Zionist Australians are free to serve and commit war crimes (even against Australians) in the war criminal Israeli Defence Force;  Australian donations towards the Jewish National Fund (and hence the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine) are tax deductible; and there is extensive Israeli-Australia collaboration in the intelligence and  military research and development  areas [30-35].

Australia is involved in war crimes in these wars in 4 major  ways as summarized below.

(1) A nation  can only invade another country if (a) it has UN permission, (b) it has been invited to do so by the government of the country being invaded, or (c) if it has been invaded by the country to be invaded, and then only  after serious negotiations with the country to be invaded. These criteria have not been satisfied by Australia in these late 20th century and 21st century wars against Muslim countries. The sine qua non of Australian politics since the CIA-backed removal of the Whitlam Government in 1975 has been “all the way with the USA” and accordingly the only invitation Australia needs to invade other countries is one from America. The Australian re-invasion of Iraq in 2014 with the bombing of Sunni rebels and training of Iraqi soldiers (Australia’s Seventh Iraq War in 100 years) was requested by the US and “invited” by the Shia-dominated Iraqi Government  that was installed by the USafter US Alliance destruction of secular Iraqi Baathists and others it did not like.

(2) The use of drones and of other high impact, high technology weapon systems necessarily involve the killing of Indigenous inhabitants with major collateral  civilian deaths anywhere on earth that the US chooses [26, 27].

(3) Killing of large numbers of Indigenous people in such wars can violate Article 2 of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention which states that : 

“In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” [36].

(4) The occupation of other countries by such invasions  imposes a crucial obligation on the invaders as set out by Articles 55 and 56 of the  Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War which both declare that an Occupier is obliged to provide the conquered subjects with life-sustaining food and medical requisites  “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” [37]. As described below, the Geneva Convention is being grossly violated by the US Alliance and Australia as revealed by appalling UN Population Division-estimated infant mortality statistics  in  Muslim countries variously attacked and /or occupied by the US and Australia in the 21st century.

The UN Population Division World Population Prospects 2015 Revision provides detailed, year-by-year  information for all countries  of population, births, and under-5 infant deaths [38]. This information has been used to estimate (a) the average annual under-5 infant deaths in the first 15 years of the 21st century, (b) total 21st century under-5 infant deaths (15 x (a)), and (c) total 21st century avoidable deaths from deprivation  [39] for the following countries violated by Australia as part of the US Alliance:

Afghanistan: (a) 132,473 per year, (b)  1,987,000, (c) 2,356,000.

Iraq: (a) 42,744 per year, (b)   641,000, (c) 750,000 [a likely gross underestimate due to US-installed Iraq Government fraudulence].

Libya: (a) 4,007 per year, (b)   60,000, (c) 84,000.

Pakistan: (a) 475,252 per year, (b)   7,129,000, (c) 9,746,000.

Palestine: (a) 3,510 per year, (b)   53,000, (c) 75,000.

Somalia: (a) 61,292 per year, (b)   919,000, (c) 1,285,000.

Syria: (a) 8,685 per year, (b)   130,000, (c) 203,000.

Yemen: (a) 65,513 per year, (b)   983,000, (c) 1,285,000.

We can therefore determine that about 11.9 million under-5 year old infant deaths have occurred this century in Muslim countries violated by Australia as a US lackey. Under-5 year old infant deaths in Apartheid Australia and Apartheid Israel are 1,464 and 740 per year, respectively, or 22,000 and 11,000, respectively, for the 21st century. “Under-5 infant deaths per thousand births” is 5 for Israel and Australia as compared to 112 (for Afghanistan), 39 (Iraq; and possibly higher since there is evidence that   US-installed Iraqi Government is minimizing infant deaths), 29 (Libya), 97 (Pakistan), 27 (Palestine), 147 (Somalia), 17 (Syria) and 83 (Yemen),  this indicating that the under-5 infant deaths in these Australia- and US Alliance-violated countries are about 70-95% avoidable.

However it gets worse. Thus using the latest UN Population Division demographic data (World Population Prospects 2015 Revision) [38] one can estimate that in the 21st century 15.8 million people (about half children) have died avoidably from deprivation in Muslim countries violated by Australia as part of the US Alliance.  This may be underestimated by over 1 million because of evidence that the US-installed Iraq Government is minimizing mortality data – thus, according  to data given to the UN by the US-installed Iraqi Government, the infant mortality rate in Iraq  decreased under the successive burdens of Sanctions and Occupation!

Concluding remarks

Barbara Kingsolver in her great novel “The Lacuna” (lacuna meaning hiatus, blank, missing part, gap, cavity, or empty space) has  Russian Communist revolutionary and theorist Leon Trotsky (Lev) and his assistant Van having the following discussion about media (2009):

“”But newspapers have a duty to truth”, Van said. Lev [Trotsky] clicked his tongue. “They tell the truth only as the exception. Zola [French novelist of “J’accuse” fame] wrote that the mendacity of the press could be could be divided into two groups: the yellow press lies every day without hesitating. But others, like the Times , speak the truth on all inconsequential occasions, so they can deceive the public with the requisite authority when it becomes necessary.” Van got up from his chair to gather the cast-off newspapers. Lev took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. ” I don’t mean to offend the journalists; they aren’t any different from other people. They’re merely the megaphones of other people” … [Trotsky observes to his assistant Shepherd] “Soli, let me tell you. The most important thing about a person is always the thing you don’t know”” [40, 41].

This subtle aspect of Mainstream media lying is well illustrated by both the Murdoch “yellow press” and the “quality press” of White Australia rightly condemning the appalling abuse of 40,000 Australian children by Catholic clergy and the subsequent repugnant inaction of the Catholic Church hierarchy, while utterly ignoring  the appalling realities of (1) 4.4 million adult Australians having been sexually abused as children,  (2) 1.2 million under-5 Iraqi infant deaths and 1.7 million avoidable Iraqi deaths under Australia- and US Alliance-imposed Sanctions, and (3) 11.9 million under-5 infant deaths and 15.8 million avoidable deaths from deprivation (half of children) this century in Muslim countries being violated by US lackey Australia.

It appears that for Mainstream media presstitutes, the greater the crime the greater the silence.

In 1945 many of the defeated Germans declared that “they didn’t know” and adopted a CAAAA (C4A) protocol   involving Cessation and Acknowledgement of the crimes, Apology and Amends for the crimes and Assertion “never again to anyone”. However in US lackey Australia, there is no Cessation,  Acknowledgement, Apology,  Amends or Assertion “never again” in relation to massive endemic child abuse within Australia that has impacted over 4 million now adult Australians,  and the passive mass murder of millions of Muslim children in the  genocidal, Zionist-promoted  US War on Muslims.

Those who ignore, minimize, obfuscate, suggest, support, promote or are otherwise complicit in crimes against children have crossed the line between decent Humanity and Nazi-style barbarism. As they wait in vain for just one more Mainstream journalist to report these horrendous, deadly, Elephant in the Room child abuse  realities, decent people must (a) inform everyone they can,  and (b) urge and apply Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against all those people, politicians, parties , companies, corporations and countries disproportionately involved in crimes against children.

Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at a major Australian university for 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003). 

Notes:

[1]. “Catholic priest says Royal Commission wouldn’t exist if people fulfilled their pastoral duty”, ABC TV 7.30 Report, 3 March 2016: http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2015/s4418285.htm ).

[2]. Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, “Manufacturing Consent. The Political Economy of the Mass Media” , Pantheon, New York, 1988, 2002.

[3]. “Lesley Stahl”, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesley_Stahl .

[4]. Lesley Stahl and Madeleine Albright quoted in “Madeleine Albright”, Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_Albright .

[5]. “STAHL, Lesley. Lesley Stahl to Madeleine Albright: “Half a million [Iraqi] children have died … is the price worth it?”, Iraqi Holocaust, Iraqi Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/stahl .

[6]. Gideon Polya, “Horrendous Australian child sexual abuse”, MWC News, 15 November 2012:http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/22859-gideonpolya-sexual-abuse.html  .

[7]. Gideon Polya, “Horrendous Child Abuse By  Pro-war, Pro-Zionist, Climate Criminal Australian Coalition Governments”,  Countercurrents, 4 December, 2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya041213.htm .

[8]. “Little Children are Sacred” Report:http://web.archive.org/web/20070703014641/http://www.nt.gov.au/dcm/inquirysaac/pdf/bipacsa_final_report.pdf  .

[9]. Dunne, M.P., Purdie, D.M., Cook, M.D., Boyle, F.M. & Najman, J.M.(2003), Is child sexual abuse declining? Evidence from a population-based survey of men and women in Australia , Child Abuse & Neglect, vol. 27 (2), pp141-152).

[10]. Gideon Polya, “Sectarian Australian Mainstream Ignores Horrendous Child Sexual Abuse Of 4.4 Million Australians”,  Countercurrents, 15 November, 2012: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya151112.htm ,

[11]. Jane Lee, “Child abuse victims lead “shorter lives” than other children, royal commission hears”, The Age, 25 May 2015:http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/child-abuse-victims-live-shorter-lives-than-other-children-royal-commission-hears-20150525-gh8y1d.html .

[12].  Australian Institute of Criminology (1993). Second Conference on Violence (June 1993).

[13]. Brave Hearts, “Child sexual assault: facts and statistics”:https://www.bravehearts.org.au/files/Facts%20and%20Stats_updated141212.pdf .

[14]. Gideon Polya, “Horrendous Pro-Zionist, Zionist And Apartheid Israeli Child Abuse Exposed”,  Countercurrents, 21 April, 2014:http://www.countercurrents.org/polya210414.htm .

[15]. Finkelhor, D. (1994), Current information on the scope and nature of child sexual abuse”, Future of Children, 4(2), pp31-53).

[16].  David Finkelhor, “The international epidemiology of child sexual abuse”, Child Abuse & Neglect, Volume 18, Issue 5, May 1994, Pages 409–417: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0145213494900264 .

[17]. Gideon Polya, “Australian Coalition Government & Labor Opposition Trash Human Rights, Child Rights, Free Speech & Medical Ethics”, Countercurrents,  15 July, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya150715.htm .

[18]. “Iraqi Holocaust, Iraqi Genocide”: http://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/ .

[19]. “Muslim Holocaust Muslim Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ .

[20]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, that includes an avoidable mortality-related a history of every country since Neolithic times and is now available for free perusal on the web:  http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/  .

[21]. Gideon Polya, “Iraqi Holocaust”, ConScience column, Australasian Science, 2 June 2004:http://www.shiachat.com/forum/topic/33427-iraqi-holocaust/ .

[22]. Gideon Polya, “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007.

[23]. Gideon Polya, “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality”, ABC Radio National “Ockham’s Razor”, 28 August 2005:   http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/australian-complicity-in-iraq-mass-mortality/3369002#transcript .

[24]. “Afghan Holocaust, Afghan Genocide”: http://sites.google.com/site/afghanholocaustafghangenocide/ .

[25]. Philip Dorling, “Australian intelligence “feeding data” for deadly US drone strikes”, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 May 2014:http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australian-intelligence-feeding-data-used-for-deadly-us-drone-strikes-20140526-38ywk.html .

[26]. Mark Corcoran, “Drone strikes based on work at Pine Gap could see Australians charged, Malcolm Fraser says”, Sydney Morning Herald, 29 April 2014: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-28/australians-could-be-charged-over-us-drone-strikes-fraser/5416224 .

[27]. John Stapleton, “Australia’s dirty secret”, UNSW Canberra, 4 December 2015: https://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/drone-wars-australias-dirty-secret .

[28]. Get the data: drone wars”: https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drones/drones-graphs/ .

[29]. Chris Woods and Alice K. Ross, “US and Britain launched 1,200 drone strikes in recent wars”, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 4 December 2012: https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/12/04/revealed-us-and-britain-launched-1200-drone-strikes-in-recent-wars/ .

[30]. Gideon Polya, “Racist Zionism and Israeli State Terrorism threats to Australia and Humanity”, Palestinian Genocide:https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/racist-zionism-and-israeli .

[31]. Philip Dorling, “ US share raw intelligence on Australia with Israel ”, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 September 2013:http://www.smh.com.au/national/us-shares-raw-intelligence-on-australians-with-israel-20130912-2tllm.html .

[32]. Gideon Polya, “Coalition-Ruled Apartheid Australia Backs Apartheid Israel & Rejects Descriptive “Occupied” For The Occupied Palestinian Territories”,  Countercurrents, 11 June, 2014: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya110614.htm .

[33]. M. Shahid Alam, “Two White sisters in Asia: Israel and Australia ”, Electronic Intifada, 7 November 2006:http://electronicintifada.net/content/two-white-sisters-asia-israel-and-australia/6510 .  

[34].  Gideon Polya, “Australian Universities Complicit With  Pro-Zionist Censorship And Genocidal Israeli  Militarism”, Countercurrents, 24 May, 2012: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya240512.htm .

[35]. “Palestinian Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/ .   

[36]. “Convention on Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide”: http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html

[37]. “GENEVA CONVENTION. Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilians in Time of War: Occupier must supply life-sustaining requisites “To the fullest extent of the means available to it””, Muslim Holocaust Muslim Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/geneva-convention .

[38]. UN Population Division World Population Prospects, the  2015 Revision: http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/ .

[39]. Gideon Polya,“Paris Atrocity Context: 27 Million Muslim Avoidable  Deaths From Imposed Deprivation In 20 Countries Violated By US Alliance Since 9-11”, Countercurrents, 22 November, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya221115A.htm .

[40]. Barbara Kingsolver, “The Lacuna”, Faber & Faber, London, 2009, part 3, p159.

[41]. “Mainstream Media Lying”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammedialying/home .

The World Health Organization (WHO) has just published a clear question and answer form on the toxicity of glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide concoction, Round Up. It leaves no question that the herbicide is truly genotoxic, causing damage to life everywhere.

The report has likely come out due to controversy over the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)’s determination that glyphosate is ‘safe.’ The herbicide is meant to be voted on to reinstate marketability later this month.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a research arm of the WHO, has stated clearly that both formulations containing glyphosate and pure glyphosate pose a grave risk. It is this clear explanation that leaves the EFSA little wiggle-room when trying to downplay glyphosate’s toxicity dependent upon the formulation.

The EFSA has tried to push propaganda that the herbicide is not a carcinogenic hazard to human beings, but multiple other studies say otherwise. It has now come to light that the EFSA has also hidden studies from public view which were used to make this determination.

The IARC, as compared to the EFSA, looked at over 1000 studies which involved glyphosate, including reviews of people exposed through their jobs, such as farmers and agricultural workers. The IARC also looked at experimental studies on cancer and cancer-related effects in experimental systems.

The EFSA did not even publish all the studies they referenced, nor clearly reporting who wrote them. More than 95% of authors for the glyphosate review reportedly refused public scrutiny of their determination.

Some of the Glyphosate Questions and Answers

Just a few of the questions the WHO answered are abbreviated as follows:

Could glyphosate’s toxicity be based on other co-formulants in a weed killer?

Essentially this question targets those who want to pretend that glyphosate isn’t the culprit, but that other adjuvants added to an herbicide or pesticide are to blame. The IARC states clearly that

“the evidence for [glyphosate] causing cancer in experimental animals was ‘sufficient’ and the evidence for causing genotoxicity was ‘strong’. The real-world exposures experienced by human populations are to a variety of formulations of glyphosate with other chemicals, because this is how glyphosate is mainly sold and used. Similar results were reported in studies of different formulations used in different geographical regions at different times.”

Could the co-formulants in the herbicide products be to blame for genotoxic outcomes?

Another nice try by Big Biotech to push the blame on something other than their collectively-favorite weed killer ingredient. (Glyphosate, is the main ingredient in Round Up, which currently forms the backbone of Monsanto’s worldwide billion-dollar sales.) The IARC’s answer again is clear. NO. Glyphosate is toxic all on its own.

There is controversy over whether or not glyphosate causes non–Hodgkin lymphoma based on one study. The IARC makes it clear that hundreds of studies were looked at to draw a link between glyphosate exposure and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Sorry – once again Monsanto, you can’t weasel out of this. Data was collected on over 50,000 farmers for the IARC to come to their determination.

Was it only animals that suffered from cancer due to glyphosate exposure?

The precise answer is, “NO.” I would put an expletive before that monosyllabic response, but you get the idea.

There are many more questions addressed. Here you can read through the WHO’s glyphosate Q & A.

First published in December 17, 2014.

This article by Professor Michel Chossudovsky was granted the 2015 Project Censored Award.

Ranked No. 5 among the 25 most censored news stories.

Nuclear radiation resulting from the March 2011 Fukushima disaster –which threatens life on planet earth– is not front page news in comparison to the most insignificant issues of public concern, including the local level crime scene or the tabloid gossip reports on Hollywood celebrities.

The shaky political consensus both in Japan, the U.S. and Western Europe is that the crisis at Fukushima has been contained. 

The truth is otherwise. Known and documented, the ongoing dumping of highly radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean constitutes a potential trigger to a process of global radioactive contamination. 

This water contains plutonium 239 and its release into the Ocean has both local as well as global repercussions.  A microgram of plutonium if inhaled, according to Dr. Helen Caldicott, can cause death:

Certain isotopes of radioactive plutonium are known as some of the deadliest poisons on the face of the earth. A mere microgram (a speck of darkness on a pinhead) of Plutonium-239, if inhaled, can cause death, and if ingested, radioactive Plutonium can be harmful, causing leukemia and other bone cancers.

“In the days following the 2011 earthquake and nuclear plant explosions, seawater meant to cool the nuclear power plants instead carried radioactive elements back to the Pacific ocean. Radioactive Plutonium was one of the elements streamed back to sea.” (decodescience.com).

It would appear that the radioactive water has already penetrated parts of the Japanese coastline:

Environmental testing of shoreline around the nuclear plant (as well fish, especially Tuna) showed negligible amounts of Plutonium in the seawater. The Plutonium, from what little is reported, sank into the sediments off the Japanese coast.”  (Ibid)

A recent report suggests that the Japanese government is intent upon releasing the remaining radioactive water into the Ocean. The proposed “solution” becomes the cause of radioactive contamination of both the Japanese coastline as well as the Pacific Ocean, extending to the coastline of North America.

While the chairman of the Nuclear Radiation Authority recognizes that the water in the tanks is heavily “tainted”, a decision has nonetheless been taken to empty the tanks and dump the water into the Ocean:

The head of Japan’s nuclear watchdog said contaminated water stored at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant should be released into the ocean to ensure safe decommissioning of the reactors.

Shunichi Tanaka, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, made the comment Dec. 12 after visiting the facility to observe progress in dismantling the six reactors. The site was severely damaged in the tsunami generated by the 2011 earthquake.

“I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of tanks (holding water tainted with radioactive substances),” Tanaka told reporters, indicating they pose a danger to decommissioning work. “We have to dispose of the water.”

With regard to expected protests by local fishermen over the discharge, Tanaka said, “We also have to obtain the consent of local residents in carrying out the work, so we can somehow mitigate (the increase in tainted water).”

Tanaka has said previously that to proceed with decommissioning, tainted water stored on the site would need to be released into the sea so long as it had been decontaminated to accepted safety standards.

“While (the idea) may upset people, we must do our utmost to satisfy residents of Fukushima,” Tanaka said, adding that the NRA would provide information to local residents based on continuing studies of radioactive elements in local waters.

The inspection tour was Tanaka’s second since he became NRA chief in September 2012. He last visited in April 2013.

During his visit, Tanaka observed work at a trench on the ocean side of the No. 2 reactor building, where highly contaminated water is being pumped out. He also inspected barriers set up around the storage tanks to prevent leaks of tainted water.

Tanaka praised the completion in November of work to remove all spent nuclear fuel from the No. 4 reactor building, as well as changes to work procedures that he said allows for the completion of the work at the No. 2 reactor trench.  Hiromi Kumai , NRA Head Signals Massive Release of Tainted Water to Help Decommission Fukushima Site Asahi Shimbun December 13, 2014

The contradictory statements of  the NRA chief  avoid addressing the broader implications, by giving the impression that the issue is local and that local fishermen off the Fukushima coast will be consulted.

Additional articles and videos on Fukushima and Nuclear Radiation are available at Global Research’s Dossier on The Environment

TEXT BOX

 Nuclear Radiation: Categorization

At Fukushima, reports confirm that alpha, beta, gamma particles and neutrons have been released:

“While non-ionizing radiation and x-rays are a result of electron transitions in atoms or molecules, there are three forms of ionizing radiation that are a result of activity within the nucleus of an atom.  These forms of nuclear radiation are alpha particles (α-particles), beta particles (β-particles) and gamma rays (γ-rays).

Alpha particles are heavy positively charged particles made up of two protons and two neutrons.  They are essentially a helium nucleus and are thus represented in a nuclear equation by either α or .  See the Alpha Decay page for more information on alpha particles.

Beta particles come in two forms:  and .  particles are just electrons that have been ejected from the nucleus.  This is a result of sub-nuclear reactions that result in a neutron decaying to a proton.  The electron is needed to conserve charge and comes from the nucleus.  It is not an orbital electron.  particles are positrons ejected from the nucleus when a proton decays to a neutron.  A positron is an anti-particle that is similar in nearly all respects to an electron, but has a positive charge.  See the Beta Decay page for more information on beta particles.

Gamma rays are photons of high energy electromagnetic radiation (light).  Gamma rays generally have the highest frequency and shortest wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum.  There is some overlap in the frequencies of gamma rays and x-rays; however, x-rays are formed from electron transitions while gamma rays are formed from nuclear transitions. See the Gamma Rays  for more” (SOURCE: Canadian Nuclear Association)

“A neutron is a particle that is found in the nucleus, or center, of atoms. It has a mass very close to protons, which also reside in the nucleus of atoms. Together, they make up almost all of the mass of individual atoms. Each has a mass of about 1 amu, which is roughly 1.6×10-27kg. Protons have a positive charge and neutrons have no charge, which is why they were more difficult to discover.” (SOURCE: Neutron Radiation)

“Many different radioactive isotopes are used in or are produced by nuclear reactors. The most important of these are described below:

1. Uranium 235 (U-235) is the active component of most nuclear reactor fuel.

2. Plutonium (Pu-239) is a key nuclear material used in modern nuclear weapons and is also present as a by-product in certain reprocessed fuels used in some nuclear reactors. Pu-239 is also produced in uranium reactors as a byproduct of fission of U-235.

3. Cesium (Cs-137 ) is a fission product of U-235. It emits beta and gamma radiation and can cause radiation sickness and death if exposures are high enough. …

4. Iodine 131 (I-131), also a fission product of U-235, emits beta and gamma radiation. After inhalation or ingestion, it is absorbed by and concentrated in the thyroid gland, where its beta radiation damages nearby thyroid tissue  (SOURCE: Amesh A. Adalja, MD, Eric S. Toner, MD, Anita Cicero, JD, Joseph Fitzgerald, MS, MPH, and Thomas V. Inglesby MD, Radiation at Fukushima: Basic Issues and Concepts, March 31, 2011)

While the leaders of the Fed and other central banks claim that their extraordinary monetary policies haven’t significantly increased inequality, economists with the world’s most prestigious financial agency, the Bank of International Settlements – known as “the Central Banks’ Central Bank” – just released a report showing otherwise.

BIS notes:

Our simulation suggests that wealth inequality has risen since the Great Financial Crisis. While low interest rates and rising bond prices have had a negligible impact on wealth inequality, rising equity prices have been a key driver of inequality …. Monetary policy may have added to inequality to the extent that it has boosted equity prices.

Inequality is back in the international economic policy debate. Evidence of a growing dispersion of income and wealth within major advanced and emerging market economies (EMEs) has sparked discussions about its economic consequences. Although there is no consensus on the relationship between inequality and growth, there are concerns that rising inequality may become a serious economic headwind. [Right.]

Moreover, the faster rise in remuneration at the very top of the income distribution relative to wage growth in the lower percentiles has been linked both to the rapid growth of the financial sector since the 1980s [correct] and to changes in the social norms that contribute to the determination of executive pay (Piketty (2014)).

The share of securities holdings, equity in particular, tends to be even higher at the top 5% or 1% of the distribution. [Obviously.]

Conversely, housing accounts for a higher share in the lowest net wealth quintile, for which low net wealth is in many cases a reflection of high levels of mortgage debt. In a number of cases, net wealth is negative, suggesting that liabilities, in the form of mortgage, consumer and other debt, exceed assets.

Unconventional monetary policies might have had the most significant effects on the dynamics of wealth inequality through changes in equity returns and house prices. The evidence suggests that unconventional policies had a relatively strong and immediate effect on equity prices (see eg Rogers et al (2014)). As investors reshuffle their portfolios away from assets being purchased by the central bank towards other, potentially riskier, assets, the equity risk premium should decline, boosting equity prices further. And a low interest rate environment is likely to have encouraged a search for yield.

Monetary policy may affect household wealth through different channels. Interest rate changes directly affect the valuation of both financial assets (eg equities and bonds) and real estate as well as the cost of leverage. Conventional easing of monetary policy by lowering short-term interest rates tends to boost asset prices. This works through a lowering of the discount rates applied to future income flows from these assets, and possibly by raising profit expectations and/or reducing risk premia.

Indeed, boosting stock prices has been the Fed and other central banks’ main focus.

In addition, it has been thoroughly documented that quantitative easing.    It’s been known for some time that quantitative easing (QE) increases inequality (and see this and this.)  Many economists have said that QE quantitative easing benefits the rich, and hurts the little guy.   3 academic studies – and thearchitect of Japan’s quantitative easing program – all say that QE isn’t helping the American economy.

Negative interest rates – another increasingly widespread form of extraordinary monetary policy – may increase inequality as well. For example, economist Katie Evans notes:

Negative interest rates could increase inequality. While the experiences of countries who have tried negative rates suggest it wouldn’t lead to a boom in mortgage lending, the cost of borrowing would remain at rock bottom for those who could afford to do so. Those with substantial incomes and existing assets could borrow cheaply and invest in assets like property. Those on lower incomes, meanwhile, would find it even harder to save for a deposit and see house prices rising further out of reach.

Indeed, negative interest rates motivate consumers to hoard cash, rather than spend or invest it, putting in even further behind those who have enough to freely invest.

Other recent central bank policy is also a main driver of inequality.  And see this.

Postscript: Surprisingly – given the arcane nature of central bank policy – the natives are getting restless.

The IDF has a brand new graphic. It appears they’ve embarked on an inflammatory propaganda campaign expunging themselves and Israel’s decades long occupation, apartheid, land theft, extrajudicial executions, administrative detention, home demolitions and systematically institutionalized oppression of Palestinian people, including imprisonment and torture of children, from responsibility for violent Palestinian resistance. In their fairytale world, it is Palestinian society, and not the elephant in the room — Israel’s occupation of Palestine — that “cultivates hate, violence, and a willingness to kill.”

Here’s the graphic:

Graphic: IDF Facebook page

Yep, they blame Palestinians for “institutionalized incitement“.  Needless to say this racist inciting propaganda, in English, implying a bigoted rational for resisting occupation, is directed at the international community. Heck, even Ban Ki-moon knows Palestinian frustration is “growing under the weight of a half century of occupation” and it’s “human nature” to resist occupation.

Update:

British human rights activist Gary Spedding (reference by Haaretz as a “veteran campaigner on Israel-Palestine” in a recent article on allegation of anti-Semitism at Oxford) has written numerous crucial tweets today critical of the IDF graphic. He also posted this 5 step list of intent regarding IDF objectives:

This is how the @IDFSpokesperson propaganda works; fear, hatred, anxiety and murder. pic.twitter.com/YHEGZDkTAc

— Gary Spedding (@GarySpedding) March 10, 2016

In conversation with Mondoweiss, Spedding elaborated:

 This kind of incitement is far more dangerous as it is often overlooked or ignored. We must scrutinize the IDF’s political advocacy with much greater care. We must remember that this is from an official spokesperson for the Israeli military — this is incitement and dehumanisation from an Israeli official.

A great deal of the propaganda that they promote is designed to justify or excuse serious human rights violations and the continued oppression of the Palestinian people. This kind of ‘othering’ is specifically designed for an international audience, encouraging us to be less caring about the systematic violation of Palestinian rights. We are taught that they are undeserving of our sympathy because they’re brought up to be terrorists. That it’s acceptable to kill them, and that we shouldn’t ask questions regarding due process or whether what is happening might be unlawful.

This is how the IDF operates. It convinces us that everything it does is for security – using this narrative it’s possible to justify and normalise just about any heinous act of barbarism or violence. The IDF spokesperson wants us to give them total impunity. We must not allow this to continue. There are valid human rights arguments which unravels this hasbara.

Hat tip Gary Spedding. 

The United States is led by two corrupt establishments, one Democratic and one Republican, both deeply dependent on special-interest money, both sharing a similar perspective on world affairs, and both disdainful toward the American people who are treated as objects to be manipulated, not citizens to be respected.

There are, of course, differences. The Democrats are more liberal on social policy and favor a somewhat larger role of government in addressing the nation’s domestic problems. The Republicans embrace Ronald Reagan’s motto, “government is the problem,” except when they want the government to intervene on “moral” issues such as gay marriage and abortion.

But these two corrupt establishments are intertwined when it comes to important issues of trade, economics and foreign policy. Both are true believers in neo-liberal “free trade”; both coddle Wall Street (albeit seeking slightly different levels of regulation); and both favor interventionist foreign policies (only varying modestly in how the wars are sold to the public).

Because the two establishments have a chokehold on the mainstream media, they escape any meaningful accountability when they are wrong. Thus, their corruption is not just defined by the billions of special-interest dollars that they take in but in their deviations from the real world. The two establishments have created a fantasyland that all the Important People treat as real.

Which is why it has been somewhat amusing to watch establishment pundits pontificate about what must be done in their make-believe world – stopping “Russian aggression,” establishing “safe zones” in Syria, and fawning over noble “allies” like Saudi Arabia and Turkey – while growing legions of Americans have begun to see through these transparent fictions.

Though the candidacies of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have many flaws, there is still something encouraging about Americans listening to some of straight talk from both Trump and Sanders – and to watch the flailing reactions of their establishment rivals.

While it’s true Trump has made comments that are offensive and stupid, he also has dished out some truths that the GOP establishment simply won’t abide, such as noting President George W. Bush’s failure to protect the country from the 9/11 attacks and Bush’s deceptive case for invading Iraq. Trump’s rivals were flummoxed by his audacity, sputtering about his apostasy, but rank-and-file Republicans were up to handling the truth.

Trump violated another Republican taboo when he advocated that the U.S. government take an evenhanded position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and even told pro-Israeli donors that they could not buy his support with donations. By contrast, other Republicans, such as Sen. Marco Rubio, were groveling for the handouts and advocating a U.S. foreign policy that could have been written by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Trump’s Israel heresy brought the Republican foreign-policy elite, the likes of William Kristol and other neoconservatives, to full battle stations. Kristol’s fellow co-founder of the neocon Project for the New American Century, Robert Kagan, was so apoplectic over Trump’s progress toward the GOP nomination that he announced that he would vote for Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Clinton’s Struggles

Clinton, however, has had her own struggles toward the nomination. Though her imposing war chest and machine-driven sense of inevitability scared off several potential big-name rivals, she has had her hands full with Sen. Bernie Sanders, a 74-year-old “democratic socialist” from Vermont. Sanders pulled off a stunning upset on Tuesday by narrowly winning Michigan.

While Sanders has largely finessed foreign policy issues – beyond noting that he opposed the Iraq War and Clinton voted for it – Sanders apparently found a winning issue in Michigan when he emphasized his rejection of trade deals while Clinton has mostly supported them. The same issue has worked well for Trump as he lambastes U.S. establishment leaders for negotiating bad deals.

What is notable about the “free trade” issue is that it has long been a consensus position of both the Republican and Democratic establishments. For years, anyone who questioned these deals was mocked as a know-nothing or a protectionist. All the smart money was on “free trade,” a signature issue of both the Bushes and the Clintons, praised by editorialists from The Wall Street Journal through The New York Times.

The fact that “free trade” – over the past two decades – has become a major factor in hollowing out of the middle class, especially across the industrial heartland of Middle America, was of little concern to the financial and other elites concentrated on the coasts. At election time, those “loser” Americans could be kept in line with appeals to social issues and patriotism, even as many faced borderline poverty, growing heroin addiction rates and shorter life spans.

Despite that suffering, the twin Republican/Democratic establishments romped merrily along. The GOP elite called for evermore tax cuts to benefit the rich; demanded “reform” of Social Security and Medicare, meaning reductions in benefits; and proposed more military spending on more interventions overseas. The Democrats were only slightly less unrealistic, negotiating a new trade deal with Asia and seeking a new Cold War with Russia.

Early in Campaign 2016, the expectations were that Republican voters would again get behind an establishment candidate like former Florida Jeb Bush or Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, while the Democrats would get in line behind Hillary Clinton’s coronation march.

TV pundits declared that there was no way that Donald Trump could win the GOP race, that his high early poll numbers would fade like a summer romance. Bernie Sanders was laughed at as a fringe “issue” candidate. But then something unexpected happened.

On the Republican side, blue-collar whites finally recognized how the GOP establishment had played them for suckers; they weren’t going to take it anymore. On the Democratic side, young voters, in particular, recognized how they had been dealt an extremely bad hand, stuck with massive student debt and unappealing job prospects.

So, on the GOP side, disaffected blue-collar whites rallied to Trump’s self-financed campaign and to his promises to renegotiate the trade deals and shut down illegal immigration; on the Democratic side, young voters joined Sanders’s call for a “political revolution.”

The two corrupt establishments were staggered. Yet, whether the populist anti-establishment insurrections can continue moving forward remains in doubt.

On the Democratic side, Clinton’s candidacy appears to have been saved because African-American voters know her better than Sanders and associate her with President Barack Obama. They’ve given her key support, especially in Southern states, but the Michigan result suggests that Clinton may have to delay her long-expected “pivot to the center” a bit longer.

On the Republican side, Trump’s brash style has driven many establishment favorites out of the race and has put Rubio on the ropes. If Rubio is knocked out – and if Ohio Gov. John Kasich remains an also-ran – then the establishment’s only alternative would be Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a thoroughly disliked figure in the U.S. Senate. It’s become increasingly plausible that Trump could win the Republican nomination.

What a Trump victory would mean for the Republican Party is hard to assess. Is it even possible for the GOP establishment with its laissez-faire orthodoxy of tax cuts for the rich and trickle-down economics for everyone else to reconcile with Trump’s populist agenda of protecting Social Security and demanding revamped trade deals to restore American manufacturing?

Further, what would the neocons do? They now control the Republican Party’s foreign policy apparatus, which is tied to unconditional support for Israel and interventionism against Israel’s perceived enemies, from Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, to Iran, to Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Would they join Kagan in backing Hillary Clinton and trusting that she would be a reliable vessel for neocon desires?

And, if Clinton prevails against Sanders and does become the neocon “vessel,” where might the growing ranks of Democratic and Independent non-interventionists go? Will some side with Trump despite his ugly remarks about Mexicans and Muslims? Or will they reject both major parties, either voting for a third party or staying home?

Whatever happens, Official Washington’s twin corrupt establishments have been dealt an unexpected and potentially lasting punch.

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).

Washington has stepped up threats of new sanctions and retaliation against Iran after its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps carried out a second day of missile tests Wednesday.

The Obama administration has indicated that it will raise the missile tests before the United Nations Security Council, while Vice President Joe Biden, on a state visit to Israel, declared that Washington and Tel Aviv were “united in the belief that a nuclear-armed Iran is an absolutely unacceptable threat to Israel,” adding that the US would “act,” not only if Iran broke the nuclear deal, but in response to “their conventional activity outside of the deal … wherever we can find it.”

Leading the denunciations, and demonstrating once again her determination to run to the right of the Obama administration, particularly on foreign policy, Democratic presidential front-runner and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton issued an immediate call for the imposition of new sanctions against Iran.

Describing herself as “deeply concerned” by the tests, Clinton declared: “Iran should face sanctions for these activities and the international community must demonstrate that Iran’s threats toward Israel will not be tolerated.”

Clinton has long taken a hard-line and militarist position in relation to Iran. During her unsuccessful run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, she threatened that as president she would “totally obliterate” Iran, a country of over 77 million people, if it attacked Israel.

Last year, speaking before the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank with close ties to the Democratic Party, Clinton vowed that as president she would “not hesitate to take military action if Iran attempts to obtain a nuclear weapon” and laid out a detailed strategy for confronting Iran across the Middle East.

In her statement Wednesday, Clinton added, “As president, I will continue to stand with Israel against such threats.” Her campaign has been the first to accept an invitation to address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the right-wing Zionist lobby, later this month.

Clinton’s statement placed her in alliance with Congressional Republicans who opposed the nuclear agreement and are now furiously demanding new sanctions over the missile tests.

The reality is that the Iranian missile tests in no way violate the UN Security Council resolution that was the basis for the nuclear deal reached between the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the council: the US, Russia, China, Britain and France; plus Germany) and Iran last July.

The agreement involves a curtailment of Iran’s nuclear program—which the Iranian government has always insisted was intended for peaceful purposes—and an intrusive inspections regime in return for the lifting of international sanctions.

UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which codifies the deal, states that Iran “is called upon not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology.”

Iran’s position is that it is not now, nor was it ever, developing nuclear weapons, and therefore has never designed ballistic missiles to deliver such weapons.

State Department spokesman John Kirby on Tuesday acknowledged that the missile tests are not a “violation of the Iran deal itself,” but added that Washington would not “turn a blind eye” to them and would employ both “unilateral and multilateral tools” to address them.

Last January, just one day after the nuclear deal went into effect, the US Treasury Department imposed a new set of unilateral US sanctions against Iran over a test launch of a ballistic missile carried out on October 11.

Iranian officials have defended the ballistic missile tests as a defensive measure aimed at deterring aggression by the US and its allies, principally nuclear-armed Israel, together with Saudi Arabia and the other despotic Persian Gulf oil sheikdoms.

The US military has effectively encircled Iran, with large deployments of troops in Afghanistan, on its eastern border, in Iraq on its western border and to the south in Qatar and Bahrain. Meanwhile, the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet has been deployed within sight of Iran’s coastline in the Persian Gulf.

“We are always ready to defend the country against any aggressor. Iran will not turn into Yemen, Iraq or Syria,” said Brigadier General Amirali Hajizadeh, the head of the Aerospace Division of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in response to the Western denunciations of the missile tests.

Hajizadeh warned that the missile program was the target of “infiltration and sabotage,” just as the nuclear program—hit with the assassination of Iranian scientists and the Stuxnet cyber attack—before it. He added, that another danger was that “the enemy might influence political officials through ballyhoo.”

The missile tests have underscored divisions within Iran’s bourgeois-clerical state between so-called “hardliners,” who opposed the nuclear deal and are hostile to the drive to open up Iran’s economy to Western capital, and forces around Iran’s current President Hassan Rouhani, who are eager to cement commercial deals with Europe and the transnational corporations, while seeking to reach a closer alignment with Washington.

While the US ruling establishment sees the deal as means of deepening these divisions, weakening the Iranian state and ultimately bringing about some form of regime change, it continues to pursue more direct methods, with continuing US military threats, the ongoing intervention in Iraq and Syria and the massive arming of Israel and Saudi Arabia.

In the midst of the missile controversy, President Barack Obama signed an executive order renewing for another year the state of “National Emergency” in relation to Iran.

“Despite the historic deal to ensure the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program, certain actions and policies of the Government of Iran continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,”

Obama wrote in a statement announcing the extension.

Meanwhile, citing unnamed US officials, CNN reported Thursday that the Obama administration is preparing to publicly indict Iran for an alleged cyber attack against a dam in New York in 2013. An indictment being prepared by the Justice Department reportedly claims that Iranian hackers were responsible for the incident, which in no way interfered with the dam’s operations, and that they worked for the Iranian government.

The US government itself was directly responsible for far more serious cyber attacks carried out in league with Israel. In 2009 and 2010, US and Israeli agents used a malicious computer bug called Stuxnet to attack the Iranian nuclear facility at Natanz, causing high-speed centrifuges to spin out of control and self-destruct. According to a 2012 report in the New York Times, Obama personally authorized and oversaw these attacks, meeting with the US intelligence officials who organized them in the White House situation room.

In the immediate aftermath of the special summit involving European Union (EU) member states and Turkey last Monday in Brussels, a ruthless policy of sealing the borders against refugees is being initiated. Since Wednesday, the Balkan route has been completely shut to refugees, Hungary has declared a state of emergency and deployed its army on the border, and Bulgaria has put its military on alert to use force against refugees.

With the agreement between the EU and Turkey, the European powers are energetically pressing ahead with the outsourcing of the deterrence of refugees, trampling on fundamental rights enshrined in international law to protect refugees. For years, the EU distanced itself from the concept of a fortress Europe. Now, the protection of the external borders has been elevated to a moral principle, while refugees are being treated like a hostile invading army and deterred by warships, barbed wire fences and soldiers.

On Tuesday, the Slovenian government declared that it would only accept people with valid travel documents. Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia followed suit, as a result of which no refugee can any longer pass through the Balkan route. EU Council President Donald Tusk noted on Wednesday on Twitter that the closure of the Balkan route was by no means a decision taken solely by the government in Ljubljana, but had been supported by all 28 EU member states.

Tusk referred to the summit’s concluding statement, which said, “An end has been put to the irregular flow of migrants along the west Balkan route.” He thereby exposed the false press reports claiming that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had successfully fought against the closure of the Balkan route. This was supported by an interview with Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner with Germany’s Die Welt, in which she declared, “The closure of the Balkan route is taking place according to plan, and the clock will not be turned back.”

The closure of borders in the West Balkans will have catastrophic consequences for refugees, who will now be confined to Greece. More than 14,000 refugees are now waiting to continue their journey in temporary refugee camps at Idomeni on the Greek-Macedonian border. Days of heavy rain have transformed their camp into a swamp, and the small two-man tents, in which six-member families have to suffer, are full of water. The hygienic conditions are horrific. Hundreds of refugees, including many children, are suffering from colds and diarrhoea, doctors from a hospital near Idomeni have reported.

According to the official count, 36,000 refugees are currently stuck in Greece. The country, pushed to the economic and social breaking point due to the austerity dictates of the EU, has capacity for only 25,000. According to Greece’s crisis management centre, around 7,300 refugees are in emergency camps on the Greek islands, around 9,400 in Athens and more than 18,000 in camps in northern Greece.

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias expects that by the end of the month up to 150,000 refugees will be stranded in Greece. So far this year, 131,847 refugees have been registered crossing the Aegean Sea, and at least 347 have drowned during the crossing. The latest 25 died in a boat which sank practically at the same time as the talks were taking place in Brussels.

However, the mounting humanitarian crisis has been met with utter indifference by the political elite in the EU. Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz responded to a question from the Süddeutsche Zeitung last week on whether the pictures from the camps should act as a deterrent: “I have said previously that we had to expect such pictures—even though one cannot feel good about it when one sees such pictures.” But, he added, “there are only two ways. We allow the people through, or we stop them.”

Deal with Turkey

The first place where they are to be stopped is in Turkey. This is at least the intention of the dirty deal made by the EU heads of government with Ankara. The details are to be finalised at another summit next week.

According to the agreement, Turkey will in the future accept the return of refugees who make it across the Aegean Sea to Greece or across the land borders with Greece or Bulgaria. In line with a “one-to-one” principle, the EU will accept a Syrian refugee registered in a camp in Turkey under a “resettlement programme” for every Syrian refugee deported. This will involve only hand-picked refugees, since it is the EU itself who will choose them.

In addition, the EU will increase its financial aid to the Turkish government from €3 billion to €6 billion, which is to be paid by 2018. In addition, Turkey is pushing for the elimination of visa requirements for its citizens to travel within the EU, as well as the opening of further chapters in negotiations to join the bloc.

After hours of talks, Tusk and German Chancellor Merkel spoke of a “breakthrough.” Merkel opined that it “is a qualitatively new proposal which can help us move forward on the issue of how we combat illegality.” It had been, according to Merkel, “possible to map out a perspective to return to orderly relations.”

Regardless of the fact that the alleged “illegality” of the flood of refugees is the result solely of the EU’s policy of sealing the borders, which declares refugees to be “illegal immigrants,” the “orderly relations” will consist of the EU making Turkey the border guard, assuming responsibility for the dirty work of deterring refugees.

Although there are some reservations within the EU about this cynical deceit, these are related only to the question of whether the concessions demanded by Turkey are too great. The French government has expressed reservations about visa-free travel, and the Cyprus government has demanded the recognition by Turkey of the Greek-Cypriot government in Nicosia before negotiations on joining the EU can proceed.

But not a word was mentioned about how Turkey is trampling basic democratic rights underfoot. Immediately prior to the summit, the government violently brought the critical newspaper Zaman under its control, as well as the Cihan news agency. A demonstration on the occasion of International Women’s Day was brutally suppressed by the police. In the country’s east, the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is conducting a bloody war against the suppressed Kurdish minority.

Already prior to the summit, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière made clear that the EU would overlook violations of human rights. “We cannot be the arbitrator on human rights for the entire world,” de Maizière told thePassauer Neue Presse. He was thus defending in advance the crimes and violations of law which will be committed by the EU in its attacks on refugees.

As in a bad film, where a doorman with a dubious past is made to appear even more threatening, the EU is outsourcing the deterrence of refugees to a state which employs extreme brutality against refugees and pays no attention to international norms concerning the protection of refugees.

The deputy director of the international charity Amnesty International, Gauri van Gulik, protested against the agreement, stating, “Using Turkey as a ‘safe third country’ is absurd. Many refugees still live in terrible conditions, some have been deported back to Syria and security forces have even shot at Syrians trying to cross the border.”

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu made clear during his flight back from the summit that Turkey would immediately deport the refugees taken back from Greece. “We will send non-Syrians intercepted in the Aegean Sea back to their home countries,” Davutoglu said. “We will bring the Syrians to camps.”

Turkey is currently negotiating repatriation agreements with 14 states. There can be no doubt that Turkish authorities will ruthlessly deport Afghans, Iraqis, Yemenis, Somalis and Eritreans. Refugees from the Kurdish regions of Syria and Iraq must have the additional fear of being pursued by Turkish security forces as “terrorists.”

Turkey has to date only ratified the Geneva refugee convention with a geographical reservation, so as to recognise only those refugees from Europe. By contrast, the 2.7 million refugees living in Turkey from Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq are tolerated merely as guests. Moreover, Syrian refugees are simply turned away at the border.

But since Turkey has neither fully implemented the Geneva refugee convention nor the ban on repatriating people in search of protection, Turkey can, purely in legal terms, not be declared a “secure third country.” This would not only violate the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), but even the European Union’s own lax asylum regulations. This is the conclusion reached by a number of legal reports conducted by groups such as ProAsyl, Human Rights Watch and Statewatch.

But European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has simply ignored such legal considerations. He was cited in Britain’s Guardian as saying that deporting refugees to Turkey was legal because Greece had declared Turkey to be a “safe third country.” The Greek government was compelled to take this action above all under the pressure of the German interior minister, de Maizière.

According to Merkel, the €6 billion promised to Turkey is “to be spent on supporting the conditions of refugees.” In fact, Turkey is focused on building deportation camps with the assistance of the EU. Markus Ederer, the state secretary in Germany’s foreign affairs department, confirmed in response to a question from the Greens in parliament that the EU was paying Turkey for “the construction and equipping of centres for the reception and repatriation of those from third countries.” The EU is thus in practice financing the deportation of refugees back into war zones.

“There is no work for adults, no school for children–this is the daily norm for many Syrian refugee families in Turkey,” according to a report from Bavarian state radio based on the findings of Turkish migration researcher Murat Erdogan.

“Some refugee families send their children to work in order that there is enough money to survive. And those who want to send their children to school often fail because of the bureaucracy. In reality, only 70,000 Syrian children are integrated into the Turkish education system, so only 8 percent,”

stated Erdogan.

According to a report by the British Independent, Syrian refugees are systematically shot at by Turkish border police. The government in Ankara does not even deny such crimes, but dismisses them as a necessity for self-defence. T he Independent cited a senior government official as saying, “In certain cases, the border patrol has no option but to fire warning shots because they often come under attack from smugglers and terrorist groups on the Syrian side.”

Amnesty International reported in December that at the hospital in Azaz near the Turkish border, an average of two refugees per day arrived with bullet wounds caused by Turkish border guards. Among the arrivals were a ten-year-old girl and one-year-old baby who were essentially executed with head shots. Orthopaedic doctor Ali al-Saloum from Azaz hospital confirmed this report to the Independent. “It used to be much rarer,” he said. “And when it did happen it was people being shot in the leg or the arm. But people started dying.”

By shutting the Balkan route and with the repatriation agreement with Turkey, the EU has very consciously abandoned the remnants of the laws for the protection of refugees. Migration researcher Olaf Kleist told the Schwäbischer Tageblatt that the EU had given Turkey a pay-off. “This policy does not even aim in the most limited way to protect the refugees,” Kleist said.

Kleist added that he feared that many refugees would pay with their lives as they seek alternative routes:

“The first alternative is probably the route across North Africa and the Mediterranean to Italy. A very dangerous route, not only because of the sea, but also the states in between, Egypt and Libya, a dictatorship and a ‘failed state’. In this case there is not only the concern of many deaths, but also because the deal now struck with Turkey will be the model for further migration prevention deals with North African states.”

Without public notification of any kind, the US Navy has secretly been conducting electromagnetic warfare testing and training on public roads in western Washington State for more than five years.

An email thread between the Navy and the US Forest Service between 2010 and 2012, recently obtained via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by Oregon-based author and activist Carol Van Strum in November 2014, revealed that the Navy has likely been driving mobile electromagnetic warfare emitters and conducting electromagnetic warfare training in the Olympic National Forest and on public roads on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula since 2010.

In one of the 2012 emails, Navy contractor Gerald Sodano explained that the Navy “utilized EW [electronic warfare] ranges outside the local vicinity.” But he went on to say that the aim of establishing an electromagnetic warfare range on the Olympic Peninsula would be to conduct all training locally on the Olympic Peninsula, rather than further afield. This means that rather than using expansive training areas the Navy already has access to in Yakima in eastern Washington State, the Navy aims to use the Olympic National Forest and areas adjacent to Olympic National Park instead.

As Truthout previously reported, the Navy itself has produced a medical study showing that exposure to electromagnetic radiation causes a myriad of human health problems, including corneal damage, tubular degeneration of testicles, brain heating, sterility, altered penile function, death, cranial nerve disorders, seizures, convulsions, depression, insomnia, chest pain, and even sparking between dental fillings.

Other reports by the US Air Force, NASA, medical doctors and scientific publications confirm these and other deleterious health effects that would result from the Navy’s electromagnetic weaponry arsenal, in addition to large-scale negative impacts on birds, aquatic life and other biota.

As Truthout previously reported, the Navy intends to conduct widespread electromagnetic warfare training across much of the Olympic Peninsula, which would entail flying as many as 153 jets down to 1,200 feet above ground in some areas, in 2,900 training exercises lasting up to 16 hours per day, 260 days per year, with no end date in sight.

The Navy’s plans also include setting up mobile units on the ground, with towers emitting electromagnetic radiation signals for the planes to locate as part of their exercises. According to an email from Naval Warfare Range Manager Kent Mathes, if the Navy gets its way, there will be 275 “events” per year, between the mobile emitters and ships at sea. (This information is not mentioned in any public documents.) The definition of “event” is not clear, but according to other Navy documents, a single event can last from a few minutes to several days. If combined, the total number of events for the Olympic, Okanogan-Wenatchee and Colville National Forests will be over 5,000.

Sodano also stated the Navy’s intent to drive the mobile emitters “on existing roads and trails throughout the Olympic Peninsula,” and “all through most of the region as well as outside the geographic confines of the MOAs (Military Operating Areas) to optimize and vary training scenarios.”

This means that while the Navy has been under widespread and growing public pressure against its proposed electromagnetic warfare training on the Olympic Peninsula starting this year, it has in fact already been secretly conducting training for at least five years in the Olympic National Forest and on public roads across the entire Olympic Peninsula.

“Tested Well With Aircraft”

Further documentation obtained through FOIA requests makes it clear that the electromagnetic “games” have already been underway for some time. A map from a permit issued by the Forest Service to the Navy in 2011 is labeled “Results of Area Review 14-18 November In Support of Navy Electronic Warfare Training in the Northwest.”

Further along in that document the same map is labeled “Proposed Areas of Review in support of Navy Electronic Warfare Training.” The first shows mobile emitter sites in Olympic National Forest that “tested well with aircraft,” and includes a photo of a truck-and-trailer mobile emitter parked at several sites and a campground area.

Both maps include Hood Canal Road and the entire length of Route 101 on the Olympic Peninsula, which is the most popular tourist route in the area. The public road leading to the world-renowned Hoh Rainforest is also shown as a mobile emitter route. The Hoh Tribe, which has lived there for centuries, was not consulted by the Navy. The tribe’s only notification of the training has been a marked increase in low-flying jet traffic. These public roads are listed as “Areas in Support” in the electromagnetic warfare training maps.

Taken together, these documents are an apparent admission that the Navy has already been conducting electromagnetic warfare training in the area, despite their own claims to the contrary.

Photo: Olympic Park Road via Shutterstock; Edited; LW / TO

The general public remained unaware of the establishment of an electromagnetic warfare range over any portion of the Olympic Peninsula until late September 2014, about six weeks after the Navy’s 15-day comment period on an environmental assessment (EA) closed. The Navy issued a “finding of no significant impact.” A few days later, the subject was closed and no further opportunity forpublic comment was allowed, despite the fact that no comments had ever been received by the Navy from elected officials, Native American tribes or individual residents – because nobody knew about it.

Meanwhile, within the government, the Navy’s plans were not meeting even minimum standards. A little over a month before the short time the Navy’s EA was open for public comment, a Forest Service employee, in a document obtained by Truthout, commented, “This document [the EA] does not meet minimum Forest Service standards for completeness and based on this document the Forest Service could not prepare a Decision that would need to be signed by the Deciding Official prior to issuing a permit.” Another employee comment said, “USFWS [US Fish and Wildlife Service] and USFS will require review of a DRAFT Wildlife Biological Assessment prior to submittal for informal or formal consultation.”

But the Navy replied that it would not do a biological assessment, and instead would “expand the discussion” on threatened and endangered species in the EA itself.

One of the frontline opponents of the Navy’s plans in Washington State is Karen Sullivan, who herself worked for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, in the Division of Endangered Species and External Affairs, for 15 and a half years. Her experience ranges across many locations, from Delaware, to Washington, DC, to Alaska, and she now resides in Port Townsend, on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State.

“Anyone who reads the EA will see that expanded discussion is 100 percent boilerplate and contains no specific information on impacts,” Sullivan told Truthout.

In that EA and at subsequent public information meetings requested by Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-Washington), the Navy stressed that establishing a 100-foot perimeter around each mobile emitter and marking it with hazard tape was sufficient to protect humans and wildlife from any harm. It claimed that any humans or large mammals entering the hazard area would cause the emitter equipment to be shut down for safety reasons.

“Effects on small mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians were completely ignored, despite the fact that all 15 Olympic National Forest and state-owned sites selected by the Navy for the mobile emitters are in critical habitat for endangered species,” Sullivan said. “They even said that amphibians were unlikely to be found at the sites they’d chosen, and the Forest Service did not dispute this. Do they not realize it’s a rainforest?”

Her concerns – and those of a broad swath of the public across the Olympic Peninsula where the Navy’s war games are to occur – are well founded, by the Navy’s own admission. In an interview with the Peninsula Daily News, Sodano admitted that 15 minutes of exposure to the radiation emitted by the Navy’s electromagnetic warfare trucks could damage the liquid tissue of the eye.

Despite all the public outcry, and all the scientific evidence that backs it up, the Forest Service has indicated that it will issue the Navy a permit later this year, to use its forest roads.

Given that the Navy has admitted in emails and other documents that it has already been running its mobile emitters on public roads unbeknownst to the public (with no “hazard zone” in place), how can it possibly propose to safely operate said emitters within a 100-foot hazard exclusion zone?

The Navy’s First Public Admission?

The first hint that the Navy was already conducting electromagnetic warfare training in Olympic National Forest appeared on November 6, 2014, when high levels of public outrage forced Representative Kilmer to urge the Navy to hold public briefings.

Much of the public was already outraged at the Navy’s proposed plans for electromagnetic warfare training, and more than 100 people packed the Port Angeles City Council chambers for a public presentation by Naval Warfare Range Manager Kent Mathes, Forest Service District Ranger Dean Millett and the Navy’s John Mosher.

At this time, the public had no hint that the Navy was already doing this training on public roads.

During the presentation, however, Mathes announced, “The Navy has been doing this sort of training for years.”

Perhaps because no one in the audience knew the Navy was already conducting this training, no one understood what Mathes meant by his overt admission.

An audience member who identified himself as a 24-year veteran of the Army took the microphone during the meeting and told the audience, “He [Forest Service District Ranger Millett] told me he’s issued permits for a few years and that they have these mobile emitter units out there, and I want to know, have they been out there, and if they have, how’d you get consent to do that?”

In response, the Navy’s John Mosher provided a long, obfuscated response:

So no, they’re not out there currently, as a conceptual test prior to environmental assessment we did apply for temporary permits, this was a one-time use to go to those particular sites to determine if they’re feasible for what we’re proposing. So we went there with the equipment, to be able to do the electromagnetic environmental safety surveys that I mentioned so we could conduct those tests, so we went out there with a piece of equipment, with the proper approvals and permits to do it, and we basically used these meters to determine what the distance of effects would be, if it in fact was consistent with the modeling that was done, the industry standards that we mentioned.

Unsatisfied, the Army veteran asked, “Well how long have you been doing that, though, you said about three years at least?”

“No no,” Mosher replied. “I’m not sure what you’re referring to now, the training, the electronic warfare training, that Kent just mentioned, so we’ve been doing that training …”

“You’ve been doing that through the permits,” the veteran asked. “Weren’t you guys?”

“… On the ground … no,” Mosher said. “We have not been doing it for three years, we had that one-time, special-use permit…”

At this point, the audience demanded that Millett comment on having granted the Navy a special-use permit to conduct electromagnetic warfare training.

“As you said, as Mr. Mosher (unintelligible) we did issue a short-term temporary, uh, special-use permit for the, uh, proof of concept,” Millett replied awkwardly. “I can’t remember exactly how many years it … I might have said three years at the time but if it was less than that …”

Mathes interjected at this point in the discussion to tell Millett that the permit was granted in 2011.

“So it was 2011,” Millett said.

After the meeting, Sullivan wrote to the Forest Service asking about the 2011 permit, and the agency replied that it had issued four short-term permits to the Navy for “feasibility tests of the Integrated Air Defense System.”

The letter, of which Sullivan provided a copy to Truthout, continued, “The first of the four temporary permits was authorized in 2010 and the last of the four was authorized at the beginning of 2014.”

FOIA materials revealed that Millett had signed every one of them.

One clear implication of the above remarks by Millett, Mathes and Mosher is that such lies by federal officials are illegal. Under 18 US Code § 1515, “misleading conduct” is described as:

(A) knowingly making a false statement;

(B) intentionally omitting information from a statement and thereby causing a portion of such statement to be misleading, or intentionally concealing a material fact, and thereby creating a false impression by such statement;

(C) with intent to mislead, knowingly submitting or inviting reliance on a writing or recording that is false, forged, altered, or otherwise lacking in authenticity.

(D) with intent to mislead, knowingly submitting or inviting reliance on a sample, specimen, map, photograph, boundary mark, or other object that is misleading in a material respect; or

(E) knowingly using a trick, scheme or device, with intent to mislead.

The officials’ comments and obfuscations fall under several of these categories. The Navy and federal government were plainly denying Washingtonians access to the facts about what was really taking place in their state.

Washington State in the Dark?

Apparently, it was not only the general public that was unaware the Navy had already been conducting electromagnetic warfare on state roads; officials within the state government were also kept in the dark.

In March 2015, Sullivan contacted the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) asking for any records indicating that the Navy had applied for a permit to conduct electromagnetic warfare on public roads. WSDOTresponded immediately, and a phone conversation between Sullivan and WSDOT’s Joni Higgins revealed that WSDOT was shocked that such activity might have been happening on public roads.

Higgins confirmed that no such permit category even existed.

Another WSDOT employee, speaking on condition of anonymity, verified for Truthout that WSDOT had not been consulted or notified by the Navy regarding any electromagnetic warfare training involving roads or highways in the state.

Truthout’s request for comment from Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s office was not replied to at the time of this writing.

Overwhelming Evidence of Harm

How invasive – or downright harmful – are the mobile emitters the Navy is using? The Navy regularly compares these emitters to cellphone towers, but in the aforementioned email thread, Navy representative Sodano said, “This system is the same as, or similar to, civilian navigational aids and radars at local airports and television weather stations throughout the United States.”

If that is true, it contradicts the cell tower analogy: Exposure to radar of any strength is still considered by the radar and electromagnetic radiation equipment manufacturing industry to be harmful, while exposure to cellphones or cell towers is supposedly not.

Yet even if we accept the cell tower comparison, the emitters aren’t off the hook. Any claim that cell towers are completely safe is contradicted by many peer-reviewed studies, as well as a 2014 letter from the US Department of the Interior to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), on its inadequate standards for cellphone towers.

None of the public documents on the Navy’s war games has ever discussed any potential impacts from the downward-directed electromagnetic radiation coming from jets overhead, which are equipped with weaponized lasers and microwaves, as well as a powerful type of radar known as active electronically scanned array.

The Navy’s own web page on radio-frequency hazard avoidance concerns only heat effects, but has a strong requirement that aircraft radars be turned away from personnel areas.

However, the Navy’s response to public concerns about deleterious health effects from its war games has been to point people toward its own inadequate environmental assessment (EA). The military branch continues to claim that “no significant impacts” will result from its electromagnetic war games.

Dr. Martin Pall, a professor emeritus of Washington State University, has written several peer-reviewed papers on how electromagnetic radiation of various levels impacts human beings, and has given international lectures on the subject.

Pall told Truthout that the Navy’s claims of safety are “untrue,” and provided reams of evidence, including his own scientific reports, which document the extremely dangerous impacts of even very low levels of the microwave and electromagnetic radiation that the Navy would be emitting during its war games.

According to Pall, there is ample evidence of biological effects from EMF radiation that are “extremely worrisome.” These include cellular DNA damage that causes cancer and infertility, and, Pall said, “both of these have been repeatedly reported to occur with low-level exposures.”

“What the Navy is doing we have no idea because they don’t tell us,” Pall told Truthout. “But from what little they have told us, they are using a lot of pulse fields in wavelengths that are damaging to us, to biological organisms. They give us not one iota of evidence of what biological effects are produced by those fields, and don’t even tell us what fields they are using. You only find empty statements of ‘don’t worry about these things.'”

An April 1981 NASA study titled “Electromagnetic Field Interactions with the Human Body: Observed Effects and Theories” revealed the significant damage that EMF radiation causes to humans.

As for adverse effects from EMF radiation, the NASA report states, “Some result in death and persistent disease,” with other impacts including “ventricular fibrillation and sudden infant death syndrome,” “cataracts” and “accelerated aging.” It notes that electromagnetic fields “may promote cancer” and cause a “decrease in sex function.”

In fact, the Navy itself has published a medical study warning of the extremely harmful health effects of exposure to even low levels of electromagnetic radiation. The Navy has known about these effects since at least 1971, when the Naval Medical Research Institute published a research report written by Dr. Zorach Glaser, of which Truthout acquired a copy. The title of the report is “Bibliography of Reported Biological Phenomena (‘Effects’) and Clinical Manifestations Attributed to Microwave and Radio-Frequency Radiation.”

Given that the Navy continues to claim that its electromagnetic warfare training exercises will have “no significant impact” on humans, it is interesting to note that its own research paper’s abstract states:

More than 2,000 references on the biological responses to [microwave and] radio frequency and microwave radiation, published up to June 1971, are included in the bibliography. (Three supplementary listings bring the number of citations to more than 2,300.) Particular attention has been paid to the effects on man of non-ionizing radiation at these frequencies.

The Navy’s paper lists well over 100 negative biological effects caused by microwave and radio frequency radiations, including: corneal damage, tubular degeneration of testicles, brain heating, alteration of the diameter of blood vessels, liver enlargement, altered sex ratio of births, decreased fertility, sterility, altered fetal development, decreased lactation in nursing mothers, altered penal function, death, cranial nerve disorders, seizures, convulsions, depression, insomnia, hand tremors, chest pain, thrombosis, alteration in the rate of cellular division, anorexia, constipation, altered adrenal cortex activity, chromosome aberrations, tumors, altered orientation of animals, birds and fish, loss of hair and sparking between dental fillings.

Given all of these severe health impacts, it is clear why so many people in Washington State are now concerned about the fact that the Navy has been secretly conducting electromagnetic warfare training on state roads as well as in the Olympic, Okanogan-Wenatchee and Colville National Forests.

“Chances are that for several years, motorists could have unknowingly encountered mobile emitters while driving, or could have parked near them at campgrounds or roadside pullouts,” Sullivan concluded. “If the mobile emitters are conducting electronic warfare without hazard zones and with jets overhead sending down their own EM radiation, how is that not considered a public health hazard?”

Copyright, Truthout. Reprinted with permission.

Dahr Jamail, a Truthout staff reporter, is the author of The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, (Haymarket Books, 2009), and Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq, (Haymarket Books, 2007). Jamail reported from Iraq for more than a year, as well as from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Turkey over the last ten years, and has won the Martha Gellhorn Award for Investigative Journalism, among other awards.

Iran has one of the Middle East’s largest militaries. While its military is strong enough to prevent any plans of an intervention in the republic, the conditions of the Iranian military equipment and used technologies aren’t the best. The long period of sanctions have prevented Tehran from effectively upgrading its arms and military equipment, leaving it behind regional powers such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates which have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on some of the most advanced weaponry on the international market.

Decades of sanctions have also made it difficult for Iran to source spare parts to repair and maintain its existing military equipment, particularly the air force and navy. According to repots, about 80% of the Iranian Air Force needs repair works, about 20% of the Iranian Air Force isn’t not operationally ready. Tehran has proved remarkably adept at maintaining their weaponry and machinery relying on domestically sourced modifications and upgrades. However, maintaining aging equipment from multiple origins in unfriendly environment has been a complicated task.

In the past Iran has relied on the size of its military and its developed asymmetric capabilities. Now, It is reasonable to expect Iran will seek to restore a more conventional balance of capabilities in its military by procuring better weaponry. Estimating Iran’s domestic industry, Tehran will need outside sources to improve its military capabilities. Even with renewed access to the international market, Iran has a little chance to procure any significant amount of defense equipment from Western countries. Continued policy differences and opposition from regional rivals effectively block Iranian access to U.S. and European defense markets.

Russia and China are the only countries that can provide the advanced weaponry that will compare with that of Iran’s neighbors. And Moscow looks well positioned to become the primary supplier for Iranian defense needs. Russia holds an edge over China in key areas such as surface-to-air missile technology and air superiority fighter aircraft. And in Syria, everybody has seen a live demonstration of Russian equipment in battlefield operations.

Tehran is already in significant negotiations with Moscow. A S-300 surface-to-air missile system deal has recently been made and the system appears to be on the verge of being delivered. There are also reports about the talks between Tehran and Moscow on supplying Russian-made Su-30 fighter jets T-90 tanks to Iran. The both systems are used in Syria.

Both Russia and Iran will benefit from the military cooperation. Iran needs to upgrade its conventional weaponry, and Russia is looking for new arms markets. If a strong relationship between Tehran and Moscow become a fact, rapidly, the technological gap between Iran’s military and its regional rivals will narrow shifting the regional balance of power.

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“I’m not here to announce my candidacy for office…. America will remain, as it is today, the envy of the world…. If we Republicans choose Donald Trump as our nominee, the prospects for a safe and prosperous future are greatly diminished….A person so untrustworthy and dishonest as Hillary Clinton must not become president….I understand the anger Americans feel today…. Mr. Trump is directing our anger for less than noble purposes…. This is the very brand of anger that has led other nations into the abyss.”– Mitt Romney, Hinckley Institute of Politics, Salt Lake City

Mitt Romney, former Republican candidate for president, showed up in public again on March 3 to make a non-announcement announcement of his candidacy before rambling into a semi-coherent, 18-minute speech, the main purpose of which seemed to be to attack Donald Trump – or so it was widely reported: “a detailed, thorough and lacerating assault on Mr. Trump,… a diatribe,” according to the New York Times. Nonsense – Romney’s disjointed comments wandered all over the place, as the brief, condensed version above indicates. Romney had no message, he had several, overt and covert, that all boiled down to a final, political prayer: “God bless us to choose a nominee who will make that vision [of greatness] a reality.” Will we never outgrow American infantile exceptionalism?

In other words, Romney wasn’t engaged in leadership, he wasn’t taking any kind of a stand on any sort of principle, he was just indulging himself in mealy-mouthed pandering rooted in mostly cheap-shot attacks on the scapegoat du jour for his political class. Even granting the accuracy of his Trump trash-talk, it was still just trash-talk. Trumpery remains ascendant and Romney proferred no alternative. As Glenn Greenwald in The Intercept has excellently documented:

… flamboyant denunciations of Trump by establishment figures make no sense except as self-aggrandizing pretense, because those condemning him have long tolerated if not outright advocated very similar ideas…. Trump is self-evidently a toxic authoritarian demagogue advocating morally monstrous positions, but in most cases where elite outrage is being vented, he is merely a natural extension of the mainstream rhetorical and policy framework that has been laid, not some radical departure from it. He’s their id…. [They resent] what he reflects: the unmistakable, undeniable signs of late-stage imperial collapse, along with the resentments and hatreds they have long deliberately and self-servingly stoked but which are now raging out of their control.

Greenwald goes on to cite specific illustrations of the sham horror of establishment Romnoids over Trump’s embrace of stuff like American torture, American war and American war crimes, American assassinations, or American punishment of civilian populations. There is no need to revisit these issues that Greenwald covers in detail very well. (The faux umbrage of establishment moralists reminds one of the scene in Casablanca, in which the corrupt Captain Renault asserts, “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here,” and then accepts his winnings/bribe.) With persuasive precision, Greenwald makes the rational case that we’re swamped with political hypocrisy, but he only hints at another, deeper context for this Romney drive-by shouting.

“the very brand of anger that has led other nations into the abyss”

What did Romney intend to mean by that rather isolated sentence? The apparent antecedent is “the anger Americans feel today.” After several snide asides about Trump, Romney adds: “This is the very brand of anger that has led other nations into the abyss.”

What other nations? What abyss? What is Romney actually talking about? Is he hinting at Nazi Germany? He doesn’t say, he only shakes his fearstick in our faces, then leaves us to scare ourselves into submission with our own paranoid projections. Incredibly, without showing the slightest comprehension, Romney claims: “I understand the anger Americans feel today.” If he did understand even some of the widespread, multi-faceted, innumerable sources for American anger, he would have to be hopelessly obtuse not to understand also that he and most of the people he knows are all causes of that anger, and that the anger is wholly justifiable. Romney is a very rich man who pays a lower tax rate than his secretary and, so far as public policy is concerned, sees absolutely nothing wrong with that, or the special tax break that makes it possible. But Romney is not known for public policy coherence, much less coherence about any looming “abyss.”

Romney doesn’t get it, none of them get it. It’s misleading, irrelevant, stupid, even dishonest to say anything as vapidly portentous as: “This is the very brand of anger that has led other nations into the abyss.” That is not reality. That is a prediction of a future abyss. The reality is that we are already in the abyss, and we’ve been sinking deeper and deeper into the abyss for 35 years or more now: no matter how much any of us scream, no matter what we scream about, we are a psychologically frozen nation locked into a metaphorical silent scream as unchanging and so far immutable as the Edvard Munch 1893 painting, “The Scream,” a version of which sold in 2012 for $119 million, enough to make anyone scream unheard in the deepening abyss.

All our individual screams together only begin to describe the abyss

Here’s my scream (no more rational analysis for now):

It’s just a scream, incomplete, random, subject to change tomorrow, different from yesterday, never comprehensive, never finished, seldom answered, endlessly expanded, like the abyss itself, a Mobius strip of rorschach blots and more deliberate insults to mind – the Supreme Court gets to pick your President – and body – if you’re a woman we don’t care who rapes you as long as you carry his baby to term and stop all this nonsense about controlling your own body, why should you have more rights than poor people who get their bodies sent to pointless wars by rich people who just go on getting richer because you’re using up ammunition and equipment that they get to sell to all the sides fighting over nothing, like in Yemen, where the Saudis have run out of hospitals to bomb so they’re using American cluster bombs on schools and churches, leftovers from Iraq or Syria or Yugoslavia or Flint

– no, wait, they didn’t cluster bomb Flint, they poisoned the water, they’re still pumping poisoned water, and making damn sure the consumers pay for it, some of the highest rates in the country, for poisoned water – that’s value-added! – that’s the Republican way to which Democrats acquiesce, who cares really about Flint or poor people or black people, black lives don’t really matter or someone would listen to them, but not when the leadership class has become the lootership class and even the “political revolutionaries” are more about money out of politics and not about American troops out of more than a hundred foreign countries helping to prop up dictators who will foment terrorists and others who will never know what it’s like to be American and middle class and to go decades without any improvement in living standard, but at least they took away your jobs and your homes and your pensions, or if they didn’t, they will, or they’ll try to – what, are you one of those people who wants bankers to go to prison for stealing your future?

– good luck with that, not to mention your kids over their heads in education debt in a country where education used to try to teach people to think for themselves, not just become dependent profit centers for an ever smaller elite that complains about paying 70% of the country’s taxes when it gets only 95% of the country’s income, how is that fair when we’re the ones maintaining the world’s largest military to preserve the global abyss and here at home cops can’t shoot unarmed black people fast enough to distract them from the celebrity rape-a-thon where Bill Cosby is now the black Bill Clinton on his way back to the White House where opportunity and interns beckon and the abyss abides, and we abide in an abyss so varied and changing we can reassure ourselves it’s really different places and not just one big abyss, but it is.

No wonder the Mitt Romneys of the world can look into the abyss they’ve made and not see themselves, just like they can look in a mirror and not see Donald Trump. That’s an inner abyss.

William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

There can be no denying it: these are exciting and often troubling times, and changes are unfolding at unprecedented rates. Few can claim not to have knowledge of the widespread protests that have been rocking the globe, and indeed the word “revolution” is on many people’s lips. Sadly, the imperial war machine continues to rear its violent head in exponential proportion to worldwide demand for equality, justice and indeed peace itself.

We are witnessing large-scale unrest, entire populations who refuse to continue living in poverty and be exploited at the hands of a small ruling elite, who prosper while their nations flounder.

Does this pattern sound familiar? This, in fact, describes the undercurrents of populations not just in faraway countries; the spirit of resistance is bubbling up in our own backyards and across neighbouring borders. In turn, mainstream media is doing its best to quell the revolutionary tide and keep the populations apathetic or else completely misguided.

So where should we be turning our focus? What possibilities do we have to organize, mobilize and inform ourselves?

6 years ago, Kevin Zeese wrote the following in a Global Research article:

“…We need independent media.  Web based outlets like this one are a critical ingredient to the success of advocacy efforts.  Like so many businesses in the United States, the media is controlled by concentrated group of corporations.  A handful of companies own all the hundreds of television stations on your cable TV.  The same is true of radio stations.  More and more newspapers are part of syndicates. These conglomerates has resulted in homogenized that only reports a concentrated corporate perspective.” (Declare Your Independence! Independent Media, Independent Political Movements, Independent Electoral Activity, Global Research, July 3, 2010)

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An internal Pentagon report made public on Wednesday revealed that the U.S. Department of Defense has been using unarmed drones to conduct surveillance missions over American soil since 2006.

The Pentagon inspector general report, entitled “Evaluation of DoD Use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) for Support to Civil Authorities,” obtained by USA Today through a Freedom of Information Act request, said that “less than 20” such missions occurred between 2006 and 2015, though they anticipate many more in the years to come.

“More than ten years of war in the combat zones of Iraq and Afghanistan have taught a generation of Airmen valuable lessons about the use of Remotely Piloted Airdfta (RPA) and other [Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR)] assets,” the analysis states.

“As the nation winds down these wars,” it continues,

“and USAF RPA and ISR assets become available to support other combatant command (COCOM) or U.S. agencies, the appetite to use them in the domestic environment to collect airborne imagery continues to grow, as does Congressional and media interest in their employment.”

Moreover, “multiple” military units that operate drones expressed interest in having more opportunities to fly them on domestic missions as “opportunities for UAS realistic training and use have decreased.”

The review concludes that all missions were conducted within “full compliance” of the law.

An MQ-9 Reaper drone, also known as a Predator B, is flown by the Department of Homeland Security. (Photo: U.S. Customs and Border Protection, via Wikimedia Commons)

The trouble is, as even the Pentagon analysis notes, at the time there were no standardized, federal statues that “specifically address the employment of the capability provided by a DoD UAS if requested by domestic civil authorities.”

Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), told USA Today that domestic laws often lag behind technological capabilities. “Sometimes, new technology changes so rapidly that existing law no longer fit what people think are appropriate,” Stanley said. “It’s important to remember that the American people do find this to be a very, very sensitive topic.”

USA Today reports that

“Shortly before the inspector general report was completed a year ago, the Pentagon issued a new policy governing the use of spy drones. It requires the defense secretary to approve all domestic spy drone operations. It says that unless permitted by law and approved by the secretary, drones ‘may not conduct surveillance on U.S. persons.’ It also bans the use of armed drones over the United States for anything other than training and testing.”

National Security Agency whistleblower Thomas Drake questioned on Twitter whether these revelations mean that there is “new meaning to ‘rare & lawful’ Posse Comitatus?” referring to a U.S. federal law that limits the powers of the federal government in using military personnel to enforce domestic policies in the U.S..

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is worried that recent ructions in the equities markets could be a sign that another financial crisis is brewing. In a sobering report titled “Uneasy calm gives way to turbulence”  the BIS states grimly: “We may not be seeing isolated bolts from the blue but the signs of a gathering storm that has been building for a long time.”

The authors of the report are particularly concerned that the plunge in stock prices and the slowdown in global growth are taking place at the same time that investor confidence in central banks is waning. The Bank Of Japan’s announcement that it planned to introduce negative interest rates (aka–NIRP or negative interest rate policy) in late January illustrates this point. The BOJ hoped that by surprising the market, the policy would have greater impact on borrowing thus generating more growth. But, instead, the announcement set off a “second phase of turbulence” in stock and currency markets as nervous investors sold off risk assets and moved into safe haven bonds. The BOJ’s action was seen by many as act of desperation by a policymaker that is rapidly losing control of the system. According to the BIS:

“Underlying some of the turbulence of the past few months was a growing perception in financial markets that central banks might be running out of effective policy options.”

This is a recurrent theme in the BIS report, the notion that global CBs have already used their most powerful weapons and are currently trying to muddle-by with untested, experimental policies like negative rates that slash bank profitability while having little impact on lending.

While the BIS report provides a good rundown of recent events in the financial markets, it fails to blame central banks for any of the problems for which they alone are responsible. The sluggish performance of the global economy, the massive debt overhang, and the erratic behavior of the stock market are all directly attributable to the cheap money policies coordinated and implemented by central banks following the Great Recession in 2008.  It’s hard to believe that the BIS’s failure to insert this fact into its narrative was purely accidental.

But the real problem with the BIS report is not that it refuses to assign blame for the current condition of the markets and the economy,  but that it deliberately misleads its readers about the facts. While it’s true that China is facing slower growth, oil prices are plunging, emerging markets have been battered by capital flight, and yields on junk bonds are relentlessly rising, it’s also true that central bank policy is not primarily designed to address these problems, but to ensure the continued profitability of its main constituents,  the big banks and mega-corporations. Keep in mind, the global economy has been sputtering for the last 6 years, but the BIS has only expressed alarm just recently.  Why? What’s changed?

What’s changed is profits are down, and when profits are down,  Wall Street and its corporate allies lean on the central banks to work the levers to improve conditions. Here’s more on the so called “earnings recession” from an article in the Wall Street Journal titled “S&P 500 Earnings: Far Worse Than Advertised”:

“There’s a big difference between companies’ advertised performance in 2015 and how they actually did.

How big? ….S&P earnings per share fell by 12.7%, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. That is the sharpest decline since the financial crisis year of 2008. Plus, the reported earnings were 25% lower than the pro forma figures—the widest difference since 2008 when companies took a record amount of charges.

The implication: Even after a brutal start to 2016, stocks may still be more expensive than they seem. Even worse, investors may be paying for earnings and growth that aren’t anywhere near what they think. The result could be that share prices have even further to fall before they entice true value investors.” ( “S&P 500 Earnings: Far Worse Than Advertised“, Wall Street Journal)

Profits are down and stocks are in trouble. Is it any wonder why the BIS is running around with its hair on fire?

Also, corporate earnings have dropped for two straight quarters which is a sign that the economy is headed for a slump. Take a look at this clip from CNBC:

“Recessions have followed consecutive quarters of earnings declines 81 percent of the time, according to an analysis from JPMorgan Chase strategists, who said they combed through 115 years of records for their findings.”(CNBC)

“81 percent” chance of a recession?

Yep.

This is what the BIS is worried about.  They could are less about China or the instability they’ve created with their zero rates and cheap money policies. Those things simply don’t factor into their decision-making. It’s all just fluff for the sheeple. Here’s more from Jim Quinn at Burning Platform:

“The increasing desperation of corporate CEOs is clear, as accounting gimmicks and attempts to manipulate earnings in 2015 has resulted in the 2nd largest discrepancy between reported results and GAAP results in history, only surpassed in 2008…..Based on fake reported earnings per share, the profits of the S&P 500 mega-corporations were essentially flat between 2014 and 2015…..earnings per share plunged by 12.7%, the largest decline since the memorable year of 2008….

With approximately $270 billion of “one time” add-backs to income used to deceive the public, the true valuation of the median S&P 500 stock is now the highest in history – higher than 1929, 2000, and 2007. Wall Street’s latest con game, with the active participation of corporate CEO co-conspirators, is a last ditch effort to fend off the inevitable stock market crash….All economic indicators are flashing red for recession. Stocks are poised for a 40% decline faster than you can say Wall Street criminal banks.” (“The Great Corporate Earnings Fraud“, Burning Platform)

Get it? When the profitability of the world’s biggest corporations are at stake, the central banks will move heaven and earth to lend a hand. This was the basic subtext of the discussions at the recent G-20 summit in Shanghai, China. The finance ministers and central bankers wracked their brains for two days to see if they could settle on new strategies for boosting earnings. In fact, the austerity-minded IMF even called on the G-20 to support a coordinated plan for fiscal stimulus to  boost activity and decrease the risks to the equities markets. Unfortunately, finance ministers balked because fiscal stimulus puts upward pressure on wages and shifts more wealth to working stiffs. That’s why the idea was shelved, because the oligarchs can’t stand the idea that workers are getting a leg-up. What they want is a workforce that scrapes by on minimum wage and lives in constant fear of losing their job.  The class war continues to be a top priority among the nations voracious CEOs and corporate bigwigs.

The “failed” G-20 summit was clearly a turning point for the markets. Now that the central banks are out of ammo, the only hope to keep stock prices artificially high rested on Keynesian fiscal stimulus injected directly into the real economy. That hope was extinguished at the meetings. The prospect that equities can continue to climb higher in the face of shrinking profits, tighter credit, slower growth and bigger corporate debtloads is unrealistic to say the least. Just check out this excerpt from a recent article at Bloomberg:

“Companies still have a little time before they must pay down the bulk of $9.5 trillion of debt maturing in the next five years….But it’s not getting any easier for these corporations to borrow, at least not in the U.S. In fact, many of these obligations are becoming harder and more expensive to repay at a time when companies face a historic pile of bonds and loans coming due.

It’s not terribly surprising that companies have a bigger debt load to pay down. They borrowed trillions of dollars on the heels of unprecedented stimulus efforts started by the Federal Reserve at the end of 2008 during the worst financial crisis since the Depression. They kept piling on the leverage as central banks around the world doubled down on low-rate policies and kept purchasing assets to encourage investors to buy riskier securities….”(“Scaling the $9.5 trillion debt wall, Bloomberg)

Chart: macronomy.blogspot.com

What the author is saying is that central bank policy seduced corporations into borrowing tons of money that they frittered-away on stock buybacks and dividends, neither of which create the revenue streams necessary to repay their debts. So rather than build their companies for the future, (Business investment is at record lows) corporations have been behaving the same way the Wall Street banks acted before the Crash of ’08. They’ve been borrowing trillions from Mom and Pop investors via the bond market, goosing their share prices through stock buybacks, increasing executive compensation, and dumping the money in offshore accounts. Now the bill is coming due, and they don’t have the money to repay the debt or the earnings-potential to avoid default. Something’s gotta give.

Chart: Burning Platform

Corporate red ink is one of many reasons why the BIS thinks “We may not be seeing isolated bolts from the blue but the signs of a gathering storm that has been building for a long time.” Like the gigantic asset-price bubble in stocks, it’s a sign that the economy and the markets are headed for a long and painful period of adjustment.

As Black Agenda Report makes clear, black voters make electoral decisions primarily based on fear of Republican victory. Nothing else is more terrifying to them than seeing the white people’s party emerge triumphant. The fear is understandable if one thinks there is no other alternative to keeping Democrats in power. Not only are black people convinced of the questionable claim that Hillary Clinton is more electable than Bernie Sanders, but they also fear being “spoilers” who guarantee a Republican victory.

In 2000 Al Gore won the popular vote but lost in the electoral college because of suppression and theft of black votes in Florida. That same year Ralph Nader ran for president as the Green Party candidate and was blamed for Gore’s defeat. Had he not syphoned votes from Gore, as the argument went, George W. Bush would not have become president.

The trauma of this memory keeps black people and other progressives from doing anything which is seen as harming the Democratic party. No matter how many wars Democrats support, no matter how often they fail to help working people, no matter how worthless their pretend efforts to fight Republicans, it seems unthinkable to speak the truth and say that a Democratic loss is no loss at all.

It is time to stop the quixotic search for better Democrats. It is time for a wholesale rejection of the reliance on electoral politics. A rotten system can’t accomplish anything that leftists want to see realized.

The truth is that America is ruled by one far right wing party and another center right party. The Democrats don’t even go through the motions of reaching for low hanging fruit. Bernie Sanders and other Democrats controlled Congress under a Democrat presidency in 2009 and 2010. They could have but chose not to reform immigration laws, end mass incarceration, enact card check legislation or end military occupations and interventions. They did bail out the thieving financial services sector that was responsible for destroying the economy.

The renewed focus on modern day lynching at the hands of police hasn’t resulted in even one federal prosecution under a Democratic Justice Department. Donald Trump is excoriated for saying that he would not only kill terror suspects but their families as well. Barack Obama already did that to Anwar al-Awlaki and his son but Democrats don’t dare mention that inconvenient fact.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself and discredited beliefs in the Democratic Party and in the value of electoral politics. The ballot didn’t win the day in the 1960s and 1970s. Instead it was ordinary people who created the much needed political crises. We have them to thank for the Civil Rights Act and the existence of Medicaid and Medicare. The duopoly tag team and failure to deliver for working people should mean an end to the unending masochistic exercise.

Most Bernie Sanders supporters will not fall in line if the disliked Hillary Clinton is the Democratic presidential nominee. They probably won’t vote for the eventual Republican choice either but they won’t turn obediently to Clinton. They should choose to start over with a new party. That should mean using mass action against their political enemies. Hopefully they recognize that in fact they have political enemies. That level of consciousness won’t emerge from wishy washy liberals who just want someone to love.

The Democratic Party crack up should not be avoided or feared. It must be embraced. But that will only happen if so-called leftists want a victory outside of the voting booth. Too many progressives really yearn for acceptance rather than bringing about systemic change. That is why many of them love Bernie Sanders even though he is as willing to be the drone killing commander in chief as Hillary Clinton.

It isn’t hard to be less repellent than Hillary Clinton. She is such a bad liar and so obviously in bed with banksters that anyone looks better in comparison. Rejecting Hillary Clinton isn’t proof of left wing bona fides. The implosion of the Democrats should not be just about getting Bernie Sanders the nomination. It is an opportunity to break with a system which is incapable of being truly democratic.

The end of the Democratic party as we have known it is inevitable but it isn’t clear if Democrats will learn the right lesson from the fracture. The Sanders people will have wasted a golden opportunity if they do nothing but sulk in the event of a Clinton nomination or try once more to reform the unreformable. They must question themselves too and what they want to change in this country.

Black voters, who have no legitimate reason to prefer Clinton over Sanders, must also do serious self-examination. In their case that will mean asking what the bought off black misleaders have done for them lately. The answer is that they have done nothing except look out for themselves and dredge up the specter of Republican bogeymen and women at opportune moments.

A Republican president would be a political a disaster but so is another Clinton in the White House. Hillary will be even worse than her husband because she will make the case for openly moving to the right in order to defeat Donald Trump or whomever the Republican nominee happens to be. There is no need for black people, the most left wing in the Democratic constituency, to stand aside or to participate in the train wreck.

If Sanders is denied the nomination, a movement based politics ought to emerge from all sectors of the Democratic constituency. That is the only way to take victory from the jaws of defeat.

Margaret Kimberley‘s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.

Ben Rhodes es asistente de Obama y asesor adjunto de seguridad nacional. El ofrece información crítica sobre la nueva hoja de ruta táctica en la política hacia Cuba en lo que atañe a las relaciones Cuba-EE.UU. Rhodes, el redactor oficial de los discursos para el presidente Obama, merece elogios, igualmente como el proprio presidente, por la nueva política hacia Cuba, incluyendo la decisión del presidente de visitar la Isla.

Uno de los documentos más importantes, que sirve de base para esta visita, es la transcripción de la conferencia de prensa (Press Briefing) del 18 de febrero de 2016 de Ben Rhodes y de Josh Earnest, secretario de prensa para la Casa Blanca, que desafortunadamente, no ha sido difundida ampliamente. Durante el curso de ésta, Rhodes tuvo que responder las preguntas de los periodistas, que lo obligaron a explicar el plan de la visita del presidente Obama a Cuba, como parte de las relaciones Cuba-EE.UU..

En esa conferencia quedó evidenciado que Estados Unidos está a la ofensiva en relación con América Latina y el Caribe y que la visita a Cuba forma parte de esta hoja de ruta. Sin embargo, Rhodes, en respuesta a preguntas, tuvo que admitir francamente y reconocer parcialmente, que Cuba tiene su propia posición de principios. En realidad, es mucho más que eso. El gobierno cubano, lejos de bajar la guardia, está también a la ofensiva en lo que respecta a las relaciones entre Cuba y Estados Unidos.

Aun cuando se ventilaron muchos temas durante la conferencia de prensa, solo se tratarán algunos en este artículo.

DISIDENTES

Después de hacer un resumen de la visita de Obama a Cuba, con una breve mención a su viaje a la Argentina, Rhodes respondió las preguntas de los corresponsales. La primera pregunta implicaba a los disidentes:

“Pregunta: ¿Se reunirá el presidente con disidentes durante su visita a Cuba? ¿Y negociaría eso con el gobierno cubano?

“Sr. Rhodes: Sí, él se reunirá con los disidentes, con miembros de la sociedad civil, incluyendo a los que, sin duda, se oponen a las políticas del gobierno cubano”.

El tema volvió a mencionarse. En respuesta a la pregunta de otro reportero: “¿Quién decidirá con qué disidentes se reunirá el presidente?”, Rhodes respondió: “Nosotros decidiremos….y se lo hemos indicado claramente a los cubanos”. En otra pregunta sobre el mismo tema que comparaba a Cuba con otros países donde los Estados Unidos trabaja con los partidos o grupos opuestos a sus gobiernos, Rhodes tuvo que admitir lo siguiente: “ustedes [en Cuba] tienen el sistema del partido-único y también tienen elementos de oposición, pero no es similar [al de otros países]”. Poco después, en defensa de la decisión de la administración de reabrir la embajada de los Estados Unidos en La Habana, dijo que la “embajada nos permite representar mejor nuestros intereses, para entablar mejores vínculos con la sociedad civil”.

BLOQUEO

Uno de los corresponsales mencionó lo siguiente:

“A principios de esta semana, Rodrigo Malmierca, [el ministro de Comercio Exterior e Inversiones de Cuba], recomendó cosas que él cree que la Casa Blanca puede hacer sin necesidad de levantar el embargo, como por ejemplo: permitir el uso del dólar en terceros países y permitir que Estados Unidos importe ron y cigarros”.

Merece ser destacado que solo el Congreso de los Estados Unidos puede levantar completamente el bloqueo, dado que está codificado en la ley. Sin embargo, varios aspectos importantes del mismo pueden atenuarse mediante órdenes ejecutivas de la Casa Blanca. Acerca de la pregunta puntual del periodista sobre el uso del dólar a nivel internacional, se debe tener en cuenta también la reclamación de Cuba: el gobierno cubano desea usar el dólar en transacciones internacionales no solo en terceros países, sino también en el intercambio comercial con los Estados Unidos. A mediados de febrero la delegación cubana liderada por Malmierca visitó Washington D.C. por varios días y fue mucho más allá de “recomendar cosas” en forma suave, como Rhodes pareció insinuar. Malmierca recalcó firmemente la posición del gobierno cubano en presencia de sus contrapartes, políticos y personas de negocios de los Estados Unidos. Se manifestó en desafío a la ofensiva contra el bloqueo y expresó la necesidad de que el presidente Obama use todas las prerrogativas ejecutivas a su disposición para desmantelarlo. En lugar de responder a los ejemplos presentados en las preguntas, como permitir el uso del dólar, Rhodes manifestó:

“[N]uestra posición es que el embargo debe levantarse. Por lo pronto, queremos considerar otros aspectos donde podamos abrir espacios que promuevan el incremento de los viajes y de actividades comerciales, que en definitiva beneficien al pueblo cubano”.

En respuesta a preguntas insistentes sobre el embargo (bloqueo), Rhodes dijo:

“[E]se es un gobierno que por más de cinco décadas estuvo muy a gusto con el embargo y con los Estados Unidos, como la fuente de la legitimidad en la que se basaron, debido a lo que estábamos tratando de hacer a Cuba”.

¿Cómo se puede describir al gobierno de Cuba de estar “muy a gusto” cuando de hecho Cuba batalló valientemente contra el bloqueo por cinco décadas? En la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas realizada en 2015, Cuba obtuvo el apoyo de toda la comunidad internacional de naciones excepto los Estados Unidos e Israel. Sin embargo, las últimas palabras de Rhodes indican que esta hoja de ruta se presenta todavía muy enrevesada cuando se refiere al uso de las prerrogativas ejecutivas para privar de eficacia a la mayor parte del bloqueo. El gobierno cubano está obligado a ir al ataque en relación a esta opción ejecutiva que se encuentra muy cómodamente en las manos de Obama. ¿Constituirá la visita de Obama a Cuba una grieta decisiva en el bloqueo?

PROHIBICIÓN DE VIAJES

Un periodista preguntó si la administración de Obama usará una “orden ejecutiva para levantar la prohibición de viajes hasta donde le es posible”. La respuesta de Rhodes pareció ser evasiva:

“…lo que hemos tratado de hacer es promover más viajes, actividad comercial y económica en Cuba que, repito, creemos beneficia al pueblo cubano”. 

En respuesta a otra pregunta sobre el bloqueo y en el contexto de eliminar la prohibición de los viajes, nuevamente, Rhodes explicó el tema. Según dijo, la administración de Obama sigue permitiendo los viajes solo para “los estadounidenses que deseen viajar a Cuba para vincularse con el pueblo cubano, o para las personas de negocios de los Estados Unidos que quieren vincularse con Cuba, pero además, lo digo francamente, para ayudar los cubanos de a pie”. Uno puede preguntarse entonces, ¿están obligados los estadounidenses que desean visitar Canadá o el Reino Unido a vincularse con canadienses o británicos? O si desean viajar a otros países del Tercer Mundo, ¿están limitados solamente a “ayudar a la gente común y corriente”? ¿Por qué ese doble rasero? El uso de una orden ejecutiva para eliminar la prohibición de los viajes lo más pronto posible, en las palabras del corresponsal, es definitivamente un paso que puede darse en el periodo previo a la visita de Obama.

GUANTÁNAMO

En respuesta a una pregunta sobre Guantánamo, Rhodes manifestó:

“Estoy seguro que formará parte de la conversación. Lo sé, porque he tenido muchas veces esa conversación con mis contrapartes cubanos. Obviamente, ellos insisten en que nuestra presencia allí no es legítima y que las instalaciones les deben ser devueltas. Pero, repito, eso no está sobre el tapete como parte de nuestras conversaciones. Estamos enfocados en una gama amplia de temas que ya he mencionado. Pero, estoy seguro que lo plantearán. Este es un tema que continúa siendo preocupante para ellos”.

En realidad, decir que los cubanos “insisten” que se la devuelvan es una subestimación. Los cubanos han estado y siguen hoy peleando a brazo partido en todos los foros internacionales abogando por la devolución de ese territorio a Cuba. Para ellos esta demanda es un símbolo de orgullo y dignidad nacional, y constituye un obstáculo para la normalización de las relaciones entre Cuba y EE.UU.. En lo concerniente a la política EE.UU.-Cuba, ¿por qué este tema escabroso, que puede resolverse de un plumazo por parte de Obama, no está “sobre el tapete”?

POLÍTICA DE “PIES MOJADOS-PIES SECOS”

El 19 de agosto de 1994, el presidente Bill Clinton anunció su política de “pies mojados-pies secos”: los cubanos que lleguen a suelo de los Estados Unidos (pies secos) podían permanecer en el país aun cuando no ingresaran por los canales normales de la inmigración legal. Sin embargo, los inmigrantes interceptados en el mar por la Guardia Costera de los Estados Unidos (pies mojados) serían devueltos a Cuba. Esta política se aplica solo a los cubanos, lo que fomenta la emigración ilegal y se usan como argumentos políticos contra el sistema económico/social/político de Cuba. El cambio de esta política hacia Cuba es algo que el ala ejecutiva puede hacer de la misma forma como la inició el presidente Bill Clinton.

Una pregunta fue muy directa. Durante la presencia del presidente Obama en Cuba, ¿considerará él la política de “pies secos-pies mojados?” La respuesta de Rhodes fue decepcionante pero clara:

“No estamos tratando de hacer cambios con respecto a la política “pies secos-pies mojados”. Nuestro enfoque es cómo pueden mejorar las condiciones en Cuba para que, con el tiempo, haya mayor oportunidad económica y menos necesidad de que los cubanos tengan que salir a buscar oportunidades en el exterior”.

LA VISITA DE OBAMA A LA ARGENTINA

En las elecciones presidenciales en Argentina del 24 noviembre de 2014, después de una década de gobiernos izquierdistas, la derecha ganó el voto. Durante su campaña electoral, Mauricio Macri, el flamante presidente, prometió, entre otras políticas, realinear las relaciones exteriores de Argentina, distanciándose de Venezuela y acercándose más a los Estados Unidos.

Aun cuando el tema del resumen de prensa de Rhodes era el viaje a Cuba, el agregó además en sus palabras de apertura:

“Después del viaje a Cuba, quiero mencionar que el presidente proseguirá su viaje a la Argentina. Además, la apertura con Cuba ha sido un esfuerzo de los Estados Unidos para incrementar y robustecer significativamente nuestros lazos en el hemisferio. Esta es una región que ha rechazado por largo tiempo nuestra política hacia Cuba. De hecho, aisló más a los Estados Unidos que a Cuba, en el hemisferio. Argentina es un país que hasta recientemente tuvo un presidente, diría yo, con relaciones problemáticas con los Estados Unidos. Su nuevo mandatario ha manifestado su interés en comenzar a restaurar y renovar las relaciones entre los Estados Unidos y Argentina”.

Rhodes es muy directo acerca de cómo la nueva política hacia Cuba está siendo vinculada a la reputación y prestigio de los EE.UU. en América Latina. De hecho, la Casa Blanca, indicó la adopción de esta orientación en varias declaraciones y documentos hechos públicos previamente al discurso de Obama del 17 de diciembre de 2014, para anunciar el nuevo capítulo en la relaciones entre Cuba y Estados Unidos.

Aun cuando la estadía en la Argentina fue relegada a una posición secundaria en el informe de apertura, generó dos preguntas. Las respuestas dan más desarrollo a la hoja de ruta referente a la visita a la Argentina. La primera pregunta expresaba

“…si ellos [el nuevo presidente de Argentina y su esposa] pueden ser aliados. ¿Y qué recibimiento espera recibir el presidente, especialmente, si se considera el que recibió el presidente Bush cuando fue allá?”

El recibimiento a Bush se refiere a la Cumbre de las Américas, llevada a cabo el 4 de noviembre de 20015, en Mar del Plata, aproximadamente 400 kilómetros (250 millas) al sudeste de Buenos Aires, la capital de Argentina. En la cumbre se encontraban los líderes de todos los países del continente americano, excepto Cuba. El plan del presidente George W. Bush para imponer el Acuerdo de Libre Comercio en las Américas (ALCA) fue un rotundo desastre. La arremetida en su contra estuvo liderada por el anfitrión de la reunión cumbre, el presidente Néstor Kirchner de Argentina; el presidente Hugo Chávez de Venezuela, y el presidente Lula da Silva de Brasil.

Es posible, que la respuesta de Rhodes indique hacia donde esta hoja de ruta tiene la intención de guiar:

“Con respecto a Argentina, anticipamos indudablemente que será un socio más cercano en una variedad de temas… El [presidente de Argentina] nos has manifestado que le gustaría una cooperación económica y diplomática más estrecha con los Estados Unidos. De manera que, creemos, este es un nuevo comienzo real y una nueva era en nuestra relación con la Argentina, y refleja el sentimiento que vemos en la región, especialmente desde nuestra apertura con Cuba, donde existe mucha más receptividad de trabajar con los Estados Unidos.”

La última parte de esa cita indica que, según Rhodes, los Estados Unidos, está ya, como es su plan, cosechando el fruto de la apertura con Cuba en América Latina.

En respuesta a la segunda pregunta ampliando su comentario en la visita a la Argentina, Rhodes dijo que el objetivo de la administración de Obama es

“demostrar que la piedra angular del legado del presidente es su acercamiento hacia América Latina que implica la apertura con Cuba…”

CUBA SE AFERRA A SUS PRINCIPIOS

Al jugar la carta Cuba, la ofensiva de EE.UU. en América Latina trata de abrir una brecha entre la Argentina y países como Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia y Ecuador. El plan de acción de EE.UU. marcaría además diferencias entre Cuba y los países con gobiernos de izquierda. Sin embargo, el gobierno revolucionario cubano hace uso de su considerable influencia para apoyar completamente los procesos revolucionarios de dichos países. Además, Cuba es uno de los principales baluartes de la integración regional en la Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños (CELAC) que incluye a todos los países de las Américas excepto EE.UU. y Canadá.

Estados Unidos está usando la política hacia Cuba para trazar el rumbo del camino de la diplomacia, como es el caso de la visita de Obama a la Argentina. Sin embargo, no se ha limitado solo a este camino relativamente pacífico: está al mismo tiempo interfiriendo en los asuntos internos de Venezuela, Bolivia y Ecuador para provocar un cambio de régimen.

Por lo tanto, la situación en Cuba y en América Latina es muy compleja. Ya veremos cómo se desarrolla en el periodo previo a la visita de Obama a Cuba y Argentina, así como sus repercusiones en el 2016.

Arnold August

Fuente original en inglés: Global Research

7 de marzo de 2016- Artículo traducido por Franklin Curbelo

Arnold August, Periodista y conferencista canadiense, el autor de los libros Democracy in Cuba and the 1997–98 Elections y más recientemente, Cuba y sus vecinos: Democracia en movimiento. En Twitter: @Arnold_August Su sitio web: www.lademocracia.com

The International Monetary Fund warned this week of a further weakening of the global economy following the release of figures showing a significant decline in Chinese and global trade.

In a major speech to the National Association for Business Economics in Washington on Tuesday, the first deputy managing director of the IMF, David Lipton, said that it was “most disconcerting” that the rise in “risk aversion” was leading to a “sharp retrenchment in global capital and trade flows.”

He noted that emerging markets experienced a capital outflow of $200 billion last year compared to a net inflow of $125 billion in 2014. “Trade flows meanwhile are being dragged down by weak export and import growth in large emerging markets such as China, as well as Russia and Brazil, which have been under considerable stress,” he said.

Lipton made his remarks following the release of data showing that Chinese exports experienced their biggest contraction since 2009. It was another sign that, far from the world economy being on the road to “recovery,” global demand is continuing to fall.

Chinese exports in February were down by 25.4 percent in dollar terms from a year earlier, after falling by 11.2 percent in January, while imports declined by 13.8 percent, after dropping by 18.8 percent in January. While the figures may have been somewhat distorted because of issues related to the lunar New Year holiday, the combined January and February falls add up to a marked decline over the previous year, and no one is expecting the March data to show any improvement.

The Chinese results are the latest in a series of reports showing a decline in world trade, especially over the past two years, as a result of intensifying recessionary trends. In the years before the financial meltdown, world trade grew at about twice the rate of growth for the world economy. Since 2011, it has been in line with or even below that figure.

Last year, the value of global trade fell by 13.8 percent in dollar terms, the first contraction since 2009. Figures released last week for the US, the world’s largest economy, show the same trend as the second largest economy, China. US exports fell by 2.1 percent, while imports were down by 1.3 percent. The value of goods exports from the US was the lowest since February 2011.

Lipton concluded his speech by repeating the official mantra that “global economic recovery continues.” However, everything that came before showed the opposite to be the case.

“The IMF’s latest reading of the global economy shows once again a weakening baseline,” he said. “Moreover, risks have increased further, with volatile financial markets and low commodity prices creating fresh concerns about the health of the global economy.”

These concerns were being fed by the “perception that in many economies policymakers have run out of ammunition or lost the resolve to deploy it.” Repeating the call issued by the IMF prior to the recent G20 meeting in Shanghai, he said it was “imperative that advanced and developing countries dispel this dangerous notion by reviving the bold spirit of action and cooperation that characterized the early years of the recovery effort.”

He claimed the G20 meeting had recognized that the global economy remained too weak and had provided “some reassurance that countries stand ready to act if necessary.” In fact, such are the divisions within the G20 that proposals for cooperation did not even make it onto the agenda of the meeting. As a number of media reports noted, the gathering was characterised by the efforts of every country to blame every other country for the worsening situation.

Lipton pointed both to what he called “unresolved legacies” and the “emergence of new risks.” In many parts of Europe, government and private debt remained high, as well as banks’ non-performing loans. In the US, unfilled infrastructure needs “diminish economic prospects,” while in Japan, “deflation is putting the recovery at risk.”

On top of these “legacies,” new risks had developed. “The global economic slowdown is hurting bank balance sheets and financing conditions have tightened considerably,” he warned. “In emerging markets, excess capacity is being unwound through sharp declines in capital spending, while rising private debt, often denominated in foreign currency, is increasing risks to banks and sovereign [government] balance sheets.”

Lipton pointed out that the decline in stock market indices for this year implied a loss of market capitalization of more than $6 trillion, equivalent to about half the total losses incurred in the most acute phase of the 2008 financial crisis. While the decline on a global scale was 6 percent, some markets had experienced losses of 20 percent.

He warned that protracted low global demand coupled with financial turbulence created the risk of “negative feedback loops” between the real economy and markets, generating deflation and “secular stagnation”—a situation where the level of savings permanently outstrips the demand for investment funds.

In other words, low global demand, in large measure the result of low investment, leads to financial volatility, which in turn leads to reductions in investment, further lowering demand.

Lipton said commodity exporters had to recognise that commodity prices “may well be permanently lower.” This assessment has also been made by Goldman Sachs, one of the largest banks operating in commodity markets. In a series of reports issued this week, it said the recent spike in prices was likely to be temporary, and the 20-month decline had further to run before supply was cut and markets rebalanced.

Lipton repeated the now obligatory statement from the world’s major economic institutions that the lessons of history had to be learned and zero-sum policies, in which one country attempts to alleviate its position at the expense of others, had to be eschewed, because in the long run, they made all countries worse off.

One of the chief mechanisms of such zero-sum games is competitive currency devaluation. But such measures are being intensified, not reduced. While all central banks insist that their quantitative easing programs, through which they pump money into the financial system, together with negative interest rates are not aimed at lowering the value of their currency, this is their effect.

Following the decision by the Bank of Japan to introduce negative interest rates at the end of January, a further step in this direction is expected today when the European Central Bank governing council meets. It is widely forecast to extend its quantitative easing program and take interest rates further into negative territory, exacerbating the tensions in financial markets.

In the lead up to the fifth anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, three former Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) executives were indicted late last month over their role in the meltdown of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant.

Tsunehisa Katsumata, TEPCO chairman during the accident, and Sakae Muto and Ichiro Takekuro, both former heads of the company’s nuclear division, have all been charged with negligence. It is the first time anyone has been indicted over the nuclear disaster. While the limited charges are largely to deflect continuing public anger, they have been opposed by the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Three out of six nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant went into meltdown after being hit by a tsunami caused by a magnitude-9 earthquake on March 11, 2011. From the outset there has been a conscious and ongoing effort to cover up the gross negligence of the company and the government.

TEPCO only admitted last month that it had known that a meltdown had occurred but waited two months before making the information public. Widespread confusion marked the evacuation process in 2011 and is believed to have caused the deaths of at least 44 people, mostly hospital patients or residents in nursing homes.

In 2008, three years before the disaster, an internal TEPCO document predicted that a 15.7-meter high tsunami could potentially strike the Fukushima plant. These warnings were ignored. TEPCO, the fourth largest power company in the world, did nothing to increase the height of its existing 10-meter seawall, which proved completely inadequate when the 14-meter tsunami struck the plant in 2011.

The government has consistently attempted to protect TEPCO, which has a long record history of covering up safety incidents.

Prosecutors initially declined to bring any charges against TEPCO officials making it likely that the three executives will only receive a slap on the wrist if they are found guilty at all. The three face up to five years’ jail or can pay a paltry fine of one million yen ($8,800). The trial is not likely to start for at least six months.

Ruiko Muto of the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Plaintiffs Group told the media, “This is a relief for the tens of thousands of victims who are still dealing with hardships and anguish.”

Muto’s citizen group was formed to review the prosecutors’ decision after they initially refused to press charges against the TEPCO officials. Under Japanese law, citizen groups can demand such a review.

After the first group’s demand for charges against TEPCO officials was rejected, a second body, known as a Committee of Inquest for Prosecution, was formed. It reached similar conclusions but once again no charges were filed. Another committee was established to demand indictments and while rare, its decision is binding on prosecutors.

The culpability of TEPCO and Japanese governments, present and past, is beyond doubt. A report by the Japanese parliament’s Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission (NAIIC) in 2012 stated that there was a “cozy relationship between the operators, regulators and academic scholars” that “prioritized the interests of their organizations over the public’s safety.”

Over 15,000 people were killed in the earthquake and tsunami in northern Japan. While no deaths have been directly linked to the release of radiation from the reactors, there are widespread concerns that health problems may emerge in the future. It is also unclear what impact the disaster will have on the environment. Greenpeace Japan has stated in a recent report that it had found high concentrations of radiation in new leaves and mutations in fir trees and butterflies.

Five years since the disaster, water continues to flow into the stricken TEPCO plant where it becomes contaminated with radioactivity. The radioactive water is being pumped into tanks with more than 1,000 tanks now full and the number growing. TEPCO has stated that it may take 40 years to complete the complex decommissioning of the reactors and clean-up.

More than 160,000 people were forced to evacuate the area following the Fukushima meltdown and about 59,000 people continue to live in barrack-style temporary homes. While the government has built some public housing, 7 percent of the homes built in the three prefectures of Fukushima, Iwate and Miyagi remain empty, highlighting the refusal of the government to adequately meet the needs of the victims. High rents have prevented some of those in temporary housing from moving.

Nuclear plants in Japan are being brought back online in defiance of public opinion polls which regularly indicate that a majority of those surveyed oppose the use of nuclear power.

Two reactors were restarted last August and October respectively at the Sendai nuclear plant in Kagoshima Prefecture by the Kyushu Electric Power Company. The Sendai plant is just 50 kilometres from the Mount Sakurajima volcano, which erupted on February 5. Kyushu Electric Power management said there was no impact from the eruption and the company would not be taking any special precautions.

In January, Kansai Electric Power Company activated its No. 3 reactor, followed by its No. 4 reactor in late February, at the Takahama plant in Fukui Prefecture. The No. 4 reactor, however, has experienced operating problems on two occasions and has been shut down. Contaminated water was found leaking during tests on February 20. It was reactivated on February 26 but shut down suddenly three days later. The exact cause is still not known.

While these issues continue to fuel popular hostility to nuclear power, the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) is attempting to capitalise on this by placing the blame solely on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Naoto Kan, the DPJ prime minister at the time of the nuclear disaster, pleaded ignorance during a recent interview with the Telegraph. “There was so little precise information coming in,” he cynically told the British newspaper. “It was very difficult to make clear judgments. I don’t consider myself a nuclear expert, but I did study physics at university.”

Kan’s immediate goal is to deflect criticism over the DPJ government’s behavior during the disaster ahead of this summer’s election for the upper house of the Japanese Diet. He criticized Abe’s government for “closing its eyes” to the lessons of the disaster, and warned of the potential for a second, claiming that his previous support for nuclear power had changed “180 degrees.”

The ongoing attempts of Japanese governments to protect TEPCO over the Fukushima disaster are another demonstration that the drive for profits takes precedence over the health and safety of millions of ordinary people.

As the World Socialist Web Site explained in “Nuclear power, private ownership and the profit system” published on March 24 2011, “The problem is not nuclear power per se, but the social and economic order under which it is developed.

“So long as nuclear power remains the province of private corporations and the market, the health of the environment and the safety of humankind will be subordinated to the drive for profit and enrichment of executives and big shareholders. Only under public ownership and democratic control by the working population—i.e., under socialism—is the safe harnessing and development of nuclear power conceivable.”

In 2009, the South African government announced a major energy plan to construct two new coal-fired power stations. The project, which aimed at building the world’s largest coal plants, came under intense criticism by various governments and climate activists, who saw it as a disastrous blow to the fight against climate change.

Yet newly released emails from presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during her time as Secretary of State, reveal that she acted in support of a World Bank loan for the construction of one of the plants.

Furthermore, a DeSmog investigation finds that the other plant, which received funding from a US government agency led by a close Clinton ally and fundraiser, is being built by an American construction firm tied to another associate of the former Secretary.

These actions seem contrary to Clinton’s tough campaign talk on curbing CO2 emissions and investing in renewable energy. They also raise new questions about Clinton’s ties to the revolving door lobbying culture that connects major corporations to top officials in Washington, DC.

The Medupi Plant and World Bank Loan

Following a series of blackouts in 2008 and fears of system incapacity for the upcoming 2010 World Cup, South Africa unveiled in 2009 a plan to increase power generation. Through its state-owned utility, Eskom, the government planned to construct two massive coal-fired power plants.

Located only 50 miles apart in the country’s northeast, the plants – named Medupi and Kusile – were set to each emit a staggering 25 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere a year.

To help finance the Medupi plant, the South African government turned to The World Bank, requesting a $3.5 billion loan. The loan application, coming around the time of the COP15 Copenhagen climate summit, generated an outcry from governments and activists in South Africa and beyond.

To counter the backlash, South Africa lobbied World Bank officials and sought to gain the support of the US government. A series of diplomatic cables from then-US ambassador to South Africa to Washington reveal a number of quiet efforts to persuade the US government to support the loan. The cables, released by Wikileaks, were written in the latter part of 2009 and early 2010, leading up to the decisive vote on the loan in April 2010.

In the cables, Ambassador Donald Gips provided the State Department with background information on the energy project and outlined some of the major environmental and economic concerns surrounding the project. Gips stated that he met with the World Bank team in South Africa, who confidentially shared with him the specifics of the government’s plan. Gips asked that this detail be “protected” by recipients of the cable.

In another cable, Gips discussed a South African government-sponsored tour of the Medupi site for foreign diplomats, which included the US embassy’s Deputy Chief of Mission. A month later, Gips met with Eskom’s acting Chairperson, Mpho Makwana.

In late March 2010, only days before the crucial vote at the World Bank, lobbying efforts by the South African government intensified.

According to newly released Clinton emails, the South African foreign minister contacted the State Department requesting to speak with the Secretary on the phone. The emails state that the minister was specifically seeking the US government’s “support” for the loan.

An email chain ensued involving Clinton, several of her close aides, and a number of high-ranking officials. It culminated with Clinton speaking with the foreign minister the following day. Though parts of the email chain were redacted, it is still possible to make out some important points.

On March 31^st, 2011, Johnnie Carson, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, first sent a message to Jacob Sullivan, Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff, relaying the request from the South African Foreign Minister, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane. After some back-and-forth between Carson, Sullivan and Huma Abedin, another close Clinton aide, on the scheduling of the call, Sullivan told Abedin he has spoken to US Ambassador Gips.

Sullivan reported heavy “traffic” at the embassy, meaning a large volume of communication between the US and the South African government, saying that the embassy’s Deputy Chief of Mission, Helen La Line, has been “frenetically engaged with the South African MFA [Ministry of Foreign Affairs].” Sullivan added, “Hormats and Lew are negotiating with the Treasury,” referring to Robert Hormats, then Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs, and Jack Lew, at the time Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources.

On the following day, Secretary Clinton joined the email chain, asking “Who is acting for So Africans in response to our mitigation concerns?”, to which Sullivan replied “Their Minister of Finance is their lead interlocutor.”

Two hours later, Clinton wrote to Sullivan again, updating that she has now talked to South Africa’s Foreign Minister. Clinton said: “she made the point that Zuma [several words then redacted] and they intend to use variety of energy sources in the future but this project is essential to deliver electricity – which I think our experts agree is right.” [Emphasis added].“Zuma,” of course, is Jacob Zuma, the President of South Africa.

The closing sentence of the message is redacted.

Seven days later, The World Bank approved the huge loan. The United States, along with the UK and Holland, abstained during the vote.

Climate activists blasted the Work Bank for the loan, but many also criticized the US for abstaining rather than trying to block the decision.

“I am not going to give them points for abstaining. This was totally the easy way out,” said Karen Ornstein of Friends of the Earth. “If the US were to follow its own clean coal guidance for multilateral development banks it would have had to vote no on this loan.”

The Kusile Plant Decision

To construct the Kusile coal plant, South Africa sought a different funding route, now eyeing private capital.

To this end, in 2010 Eskom solicited its main contractor for the plant, Kansas City-based infrastructure engineering and construction company Black & Veatch to apply for financing from the US Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im Bank). As an independent government agency, the bank invests in projects that guarantee the employment of American workers and suppliers.

In April 2011, the Ex-Im Bank approved the $850 million loan for the Kusile plant — again to the great dismay of environmentalists. The decision came despite more than 7,500 public comments in opposition to the project. Activists were baffled as to why the governmental bank approved the loan for the controversial project.

By Leo za1 / © Rute Martins of Leoa’s Photography

Black & Veatch Director Parties with Hillary Clinton 

One of Black & Veatch’s directors, Harold (“H.P.”) Goldfield, wears several other important hats.

A veteran Washington insider, Goldfield is a former Reagan-era administrator and ex-director at the Ex-Im Bank. He is currently the vice chair of Albright Stonebridge, the lobbying and advising firm of longtime Clintonite and former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright. Goldfield is also a Senior International Affairs Advisor at the international law firm Hogan Lovells. One of the firm’s Partners, Howard Topaz, is Bill and Hillary Clinton’s personal tax advisor.

Seven months after the Ex-Im Bank approved Black & Veatch’s financing for the project, Hillary Clinton attended an exclusive 60^th birthday party thrown for H.P. Goldfield at the posh Hamptons home of investor George Hornig. In a photo from the party Clinton is seen in extremely good spirits, glowingly hugging a group that included Goldfield and former US ambassador and State Department official, Richard Haass.

Image credit: Hamptons Magazine

The Albright Stonebridge Connection

During the time Ex-Im Bank considered Black & Veatch’s request, Madeleine Albright’s daughter, Alice Albright, served as the bank’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer.

The released Clinton emails show that at the time the bank was considering the Kusile loan, Clinton and Madeleine Albright maintained a close relationship.

According to a February 2011 email, sent two months before the Ex-Im Bank approved the loan, the two met in person. Then, two weeks prior to the bank’s deliberations, Albright sent a direct email to Clinton, suggesting she hire “Wendy.”

This presumably refers to Wendy Sherman, then Vice Chair at Albright Stonebridge – a title she shared at the firm with H.P. Goldfield – who later that year was appointed by Clinton to serve as Under Secretary for Political Affairs. Albright ended the message with “I’m off to Prague to research new book but always ready to talk. Love, Madeleine.”

According to an email from December 2011, Clinton and Albright met again, this time in Prague. Albright wrote, “Happy to help on whatever you need wherever and whenever.” Six months later, Clinton’s schedule reveals she attended Madeleine Albright’s 75^th birthday party at Alice Albright’s house.

Since the approval of the coal plants, several figures involved in the matter landed positions at Albright Stonebrige. Upon retiring form the Foreign Service in 2013, former Ambassador Don Gips was hired as Senior Counselor. Former State Department official Johnnie Carson, who was part of the Clinton team during South Africa’s lobbying for the World Bank loan, also became Senior Counselor for the firm.

Ex-Im Bank’s Ties to Hillary Clinton

The Ex-Im Bank is headed by Fred Hochberg, a longtime Clinton family associate, financial contributor, and campaign bundler. Hochberg’s partner, Tom Healy, was nominated during Clinton’s tenure as Secretary to the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, a State Department body. Between 2012-2014 Healy served as Chair of the Board.

Hillary’s emails during these years reveal her close connection to both Hochberg and Healy. In February 2012, one of Clinton’s daily schedules includes attending Hochberg’s 60^th birthday party at the upscale DC dining spot, Sidra’s Home Restaurant.

A few months later Hochberg extended a personal invitation to Clinton to attend a friend’s book launch. Hochberg then sent a happy birthday wish to Hillary, signing with “Much love, Fred.” Tom Healy sent his own personal birthday note that year, adding “I didn’t get to say hello in Haiti on Monday because the rain started and we rushed to the airport.”

In 2014, The Ex-Im Bank announced the appointment of new members to its Sub-Saharan Africa Advisory Committee. Former ambassador Gips, and Shahid Qadri, Black & Veatch’s Vice President and Regional Director Africa, were among them.

Two years ago, Mother Jones revealed how under Clinton, the State Department exported oil and gas fracking technologies to the rest of the world.

It’s clear that Clinton’s policy toward coal, the dirtiest of fossil fuels, requires similar scrutiny.

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action.  He can be reached at [email protected]

Cameron’s “moderate rebels” – Saudi supplied Wahhabi jihadists – have this past 48 hours been bombing civilian areas of Aleppo with yellow phosphorus.

The BBC, which went to such extraordinary lengths to fake reports of chemical attacks by Assad, has not reported these genuine chemical attacks at all. Probably because it is too difficult to explain not just why Cameron’s allies are using chemical weapons – and who gave them the chemical weapons – but also why these “friendly” jihadists are attacking Cameron’s other allies, the Kurds, all during a ceasefire.

To take such an extreme measure based on concocted accusations that such media outlets are aiding terrorism and conspiring against the state is nothing short of scandalous, and shows his fear of public criticism despite his bravado. President Erdogan, however, seems completely dismissive of any potential repercussions, as he was emboldened by his past rampage against the press and jailing of scores of journalists on phony charges with impunity.

Although Erdogan knows well that Turkey is far from being a democratic state, he continues to promote the absurd notion that Turkey is indeed a genuine democracy, stating with his usual twisted flare that “nowhere in the world is the press freer than it is in Turkey.”

In fact, Reporters Without Borders’ 2015 World Press Freedom Index ranked Turkey 149 out of 180 countries, between Mexico, where journalists are regularly murdered, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is a failed state.

Perhaps Erdogan should be reminded of what truly constitutes a democracy. Freedom of expression represents one of four critical pillars of any democratic form of government, which also includes the election of a representative government, equality before the law, and strict observance of human rights.

Sadly, Erdogan did not stop at repressing freedom of expression in all forms—he regularly chipped away at the other pillars, which is bound to unravel what is left of Turkey’s democracy.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees “the right to freedom of opinion and expression;” but as Benjamin Franklin warned, “Whoever would overthrow the Liberty of a Nation must begin by subduing the Freeness of Speech”.

Erdogan was highly admired for his impressive socio-political reforms and significant economic development, which made Turkey the 17th largest economy in the world during his first and much of his second term in office. He could have realized much of his ambitions to make Turkey a recognized regional superpower with rallying support of the public with pride.

He would have been able to do so without destroying the principles of Turkey’s foundation as a secular democracy, as was envisioned by its founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and offer a real model of a flourishing Islamic democracy to be emulated by much of the Arab and Muslim world.

Sadly, however, Erdogan ignores the fact that his systematic dismantling of Turkey’s democratic institutions will have the precise opposite effect by directly torpedoing Turkey’s potential as a great power and squandering what the country has to offer.

Time and again, Erdogan demonstrated his lack of tolerance to opposing views and found the press to be a nuisance, as it was generally critical of his Islamic agenda. He understood, as George Orwell aptly put it, “Freedom of the press, if it means anything at all, means the freedom to criticize and oppose”, a freedom which Erdogan is bent on suppressing.

As such, Erdogan has used his strong Islamic credentials to project himself as a pious leader, when in fact he consistently engaged in favoritism, granting huge government contracts to those who supported him and to his family members, irrespective of conflicts of interest and the corruption that ensued as a result.

With a rubber stamp parliament, he has been able to pass any legislation he wished, with the exception of a constitutional amendment that would have granted the President unlimited powers. He subordinated the justice system to his whims and basically became a one man ruler with dictatorial powers, finally doing away with the checks and balances of the government apparatus.

To be sure, Erdogan’s appetite for increasing power, harsh treatment of dissidents, religious zeal, and narcissistic predisposition made him feared by much of Turkish society yet admired by others; he is almost unanimously reviled by the international community, but dealt with out of necessity.

The agreement that was achieved on March 7 between Turkey and the EU in connection with Syrian refugees and asylum seekers is one case in point—he made his move to shut down Zaman around the same time, knowing he would not be severely condemned by either the US or the EU for his actions.

The question is that having been in power for nearly 14 years and amassing so much clout, with or without constitutional amendments, will Erdogan take time as President to contemplate Turkey’s future—a country that has all the elements and resources to become a great and influential power, especially now that the Middle East is awash in unprecedented turmoil?

Being that Turkey now faces a historic crossroad, the choices Erdogan will make in the months and years to come will have a lasting effect on Turkey’s future.

Erdogan will make a grave mistake if he continues to take the Turkish people for granted. The Turks are inventive, industrious, educated, with a long history of achievements, western oriented, and stand for, believe in, and will insist on a democratic way of life.

There are limits as to how much longer the Turkish people will tolerate not only the stifling of free speech, but Erdogan’s draconian style of governing before they rise against him.

Erdogan should know that for Turkey to capture its rightful place among the great powers, he must restore all that was lost in the past few years, especially its democratic foundation. Without such democratic principles, Turkey will be further alienated from the Western countries, the bloc to which Turkey should belong, and will be unable to harness its true potential as a Middle Eastern and European power.

Ironically, Erdogan seems to relish the illusion that he will preside over the 100th anniversary of the Turkish Republic in 2023, and be remembered as the new “Turkish Father,” overshadowing Atatürk.

He desperately wants to restore some of the ‘glory’ of the Ottoman Empire, forgetting however that the then-Empire crumbled partly under its own weight, and became easy prey for the allied forces in the early 20th century because of corrupt and unscrupulous leaders.

Failing to make the right choice, Erdogan will not be remembered as the father of the new democratic and powerful nation, but as the misguided and ambitious dictator who sacrificed Turkey’s potentially glorious future for his religious zeal and burning desire for ever more power.

To listen to an audio version of this article, please click here.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and
Middle Eastern studies.

[email protected]

It was just yesterday when we observed the record collapse across the Japanese curve when first the 10Y JGB plunged to an all time low -0.10%, followed promptly by 30Y yields dropping 21bps – the biggest absolute drop in over 3 years and biggest percentage drop ever – to a record low 47bps following Japan’s 30Year auction on Monday night.

As we further noted, since Kuroda unleashed NIRP, the entire JGB curve has been crushed and the Monday night rush for long duration debt flattened the curve to record lows.

It was just yesterday when we observed the record collapse across the Japanese curve when first the 10Y JGB plunged to an all time low -0.10%, followed promptly by 30Y yields dropping 21bps – the biggest absolute drop in over 3 years and biggest percentage drop ever – to a record low 47bps following Japan’s 30Year auction on Monday night.

As we further noted, since Kuroda unleashed NIRP, the entire JGB curve has been crushed and the Monday night rush for long duration debt flattened the curve to record lows.

Last May, the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) shocked the Syrian government with a large-scale offensive to seize the vast desert area of the Homs Governorate.

The Nation  published an outstanding article on March 9th, by James Carden, which described the remarkable extent to which the Obama government (and virtually all of the Washington Establishment) are supporting (financially and otherwise) fascists who want to destroy Russia. 

One such example was a recent event in Washington. According to Carden:

It featured the deputy speaker of Ukraine’s Parliament, Andriy Parubiy. According to the program bio, Parubiy served as the “commandant” of the Euromaidan (why did an ostensibly peaceful protest require a “commandant” anyway?) and, later, as secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council. The bio provided to attendees might fairly be described as selective. Unmentioned was Parubiy’s role in cofounding the neo-fascist Svoboda party, and his ties to extremist right-wing groups.

After Parubiy’s presentation, which amounted to little more than a recitation of neocon talking points, former US Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst gushed: “That was wonderful.” The Atlantic Council’s Ariel Cohen praised Parubiy’s presentation as “inspiring and impressive.”

Carden unfortunately failed to mention that the Atlantic Council is a PR agency that was established in order to promote NATO, the anti-Russia military alliance, which today’s Ukrainian government wants to join, and which America’s President wants to be in NATO.

Here is how I described Parubiy on 17 February 2015::

Andrey Parubiy, a co-founder of the Social Nationalist Party of Ukraine, which the CIA renamed the “Freedom” Party (“Svoboda”) in order to hide its origin as Ukraine’s nazi party, announced on Sunday February 15th, that he’ll be seeking weapons from the U.S. He had started (but the CIA named) Ukraine’s ‘Anti Terrorist Operation,’ which has been trying to exterminate the residents in Ukraine’s Donbass region, Ukraine’s separatist region. Parubiy’s announcement said, “Next week I’m off to the United States to speak about this very subject,” of getting Washington to supply the weapons necessary to finish that job.

The reason for his visit is: Ukraine is running out of bullets, guns, and other necessary equipment to achieve his goal. It’s a goal he had only begun as the organizer of Ukraine’s ‘Anti Terrorist Operation.’ The ‘ATO’ had commenced soon after the February 2014 coup in Ukraine, and has not been proceeding nearly as quickly as had been planned; it’s way behind schedule.

According to German intelligence sources, no more than 50,000 people have been killed so far in the operation, though more than a million have fled, which also counts as success because the goal is to clear the land there. As a retired Ukrainian general who supports the operation said, “The shelling there is done as intimidation, … not just object destruction, but [also as] intimidation [to get the population to flee to nearby Russia]. The civilian population is intimidated by a chaotic bombardment.” That constant bombardment requires lots of bombs and bullets, which is why Parubiy now needs a big resupply.

Crimea’s Chief Prosecutor, Natalya Poklonskaya, who lived in Kiev and was a criminal prosecutor in Ukraine’s national government until the coup, but who quit because she didn’t want to serve in what she called a “nazi” government which was being established from the coup, says that Parubiy “was the leader of the armed part of Maidan” —  he was the key organizer of the masked snipers who dressed as government forces and shot both the police and the Maidan demonstrators during the coup and so brought down the sitting President of Ukraine. If what she says about his role is correct, then Paribuy was crucial in the success of the 22 February 2014 overthrow of democratically elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and was also crucial to the fulfillment of the appointment that occurred four days later of Yanukovych’s replacement as Ukraine’s leader, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, whom Victorial Nuland of the U.S. State Department had already selected, on 4 February 2014, to become Ukraine’s new leader.

So, Parubiy was crucial in America’s successful take-over of Ukraine, and he will now be coming to Washington to request from Congress and the U.S. President the military support needed to finish the job that he and they had started, by completing the extermination of the residents in the Donbass region, which is the region whose residents had voted 90% for Yanukovych (it’s dark purple on that map) and have refused to accept the legitimacy of the Obama-coup Government.

Then, on 26 February 2015, I reported that,

The Deputy Speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, Andriy Parubiy, who had been the co-founder of the Nazi-inspired Social Nationalist Party of Ukraine, met in Washington on Wednesday, February 25th, with members of the U.S. House and Senate who support his request that the U.S. Government donate weapons to his virtually bankrupt Government. Parubiy also visited with the Pentagon. Weapons are needed by his Government because his Government is engaged in a civil war against the residents in the area of Ukraine that had voted 90% for the former Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych, whom Parubiy himself (when he was called “the Mayor of Maidan”) led to overthrow in a violent February 2014 coup.

According to a recent report by Gabriel Gatehouse of the BBC, witness testimony and photographic evidence both conflict with Parubiy’s account of how the overthrow a year ago occurred. The United States Government strongly supported Yanukovych’s overthrow, and denies that it was a coup. The Obama Administration calls it an expression of Ukrainian democracy, and says that the replacement Government was “duly elected” (though by whom was left unsaid by Mr. Obama), and that when elections for a new Ukrainian President were held in northwest Ukraine on 25 May 2014, in which no one in the rebelling region participated, the residents in the rebelling region were terrorists if they refused to accept the election’s winner as being their President. The residents still refused to accept the winner of that election as being their leader. The Government, on 2 May 2014, massacred an estimated 100+ peaceful demonstrators against the Government, in Odessa, and sent troops into the southeast to take over their local governments, and so the civil war started. Mr. Parubiy was a member of the small team that planned the Odessa massacre.

The residents in the area of Ukraine that is being bombed and even firebombed by Parubiy’s Government had opposed the overthrow, because they had voted 90% for the person who was being overthrown; they did not feel that an imposed new leader would be acceptable to them. The continued bombing of them by the replacement Government has thus-far failed to persuade the residents there to support Parubiy’s Government; and, so, those residents have declared their region to be no longer a part of Ukraine. Ukraine’s President, Petro Poroshenko, disagrees; he says that they have no right to do that and that they are therefore ‘terrorists’ for seceding from Ukraine. The United States Government supports that position, and Congress voted more than 98% for it. However, U.S. President Barack Obama, whose Administration ran that coup and actually selected the leader of the interim government to replace Yanukovych, Ukraine’s current Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, hasn’t yet decided whether to send Ukraine more weapons than he has already sent.

Parubiy was also the founder of Patriot of Ukraine, and this article presents their ideology, which is rabidly anti-Russian, but also anti-Semitic and boldly for ‘White Power,’ while it assumes that pureblood ‘Ukrainians’ are the whitest of the whites. People such as this are now feted in Washington, as if the nazis had won WW II and we were them. Being rabidly anti-Russian gives nazis a pass here. This is the entire Washington Establishment as an extension of Allen Dulles’s CIA, which brought even self-proclaimed Nazis into the U.S. and gave them considerable power both here and abroad, because Dulles had secretly been supporting Hitler’s movement all along. Nazis hated Russia, and this has given them carte-blanche by the Washington Establishment.

James Carden’s article in The Nation  continues:

Writing in Forbes recently, Adam Ereli, State Department official-turned-lobbyist for the Turkish Institute for Progress, warned that Russia is in the process of turning Armenia into a “new satellite state.” …  Ereli is hardly alone is identifying what may be the next front in the new cold war. In a letter to The Washington Post, Andrew Bowen, a Senior Fellow at the Center for the National Interest, decried the growing military ties between Russia and Armenia, which he claims threaten Turkey, “an indispensable US ally and partner in the fight against the Islamic State.”

Leave aside the wholly unsubstantiated — indeed, laughable — claims that Turkey is an “indispensable ally” in the fight against ISIS. The authors simply dismiss the fact that Russian troops are in Armenia at the invitation of the Armenian government. …  Does Russia have any legitimate interests?

Carden’s point is shockingly true: Washington denies the legitimate national-security interest that the Russian people have, to not be surrounded by NATO nations whose militaries have been united, ever since U.S. President George H.W. Bush double-crossed Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990, in a plan to expand NATO right up to Russia’s borders, and then do — in spades — to the Russian people the type of thing that the communist dictator of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, had tried to do to the American people in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. John Fitzgerald Kennedy didn’t accept it in 1962, and Vladimir Putin isn’t accepting it in 2016. For that, Obama calls Russia the world’s most aggressive nation, which is actually what his own government has been and is.

Here is a terrific 1992 BBC documentary that provides the nazi-fascist Allen Dulles CIA organized origin  of G.H.W. Bush’s plan, and its continuation right up to the time when Russia abandoned communism and eliminated its NATO-mirror alliance, the Warsaw Pact, which was the time when Bush’s plan continued  that of Dulles, but after the anti-communist rationalization for it was dead and gone. That documentary enables one to understand not only Parubiy, but also the CIA operation that made him and that prepared him to be a leader in the new, U.S.-fascist-run Ukrainian nation.

On 24 November 2014, I headlined, “U.S. Among Only 3 Countries at U.N. Officially Backing Nazism & Holocaust-Denial; Israel Parts Company from Them; Germany Abstains.” The Obama-appointed U.N. Representative, Samantha Power, formerly a journalist famous for condemning genocide, was now one of only three supporters at the U.N., of ethnic cleansing: “In a U.N. vote, on November 21st, only three countries — the United States, Ukraine, and Canada — voted against a resolution to condemn racist facsism, or “nazism,” and to condemn denial of Germany’s World War II Holocaust against primarily Jews. This measure passed the General Assembly, on a vote of 115 in favor, 3 against, and 55 abstentions (the abstentions were in order not to offend U.S. President Obama, who was opposed to the resolution).”

Now that the aristocrats, who run America, no longer have communism to kick around, they’ve gone whole-hog fascist, themselves; and, yet, they’re still considered by the American people to be not shunned and condemned, but instead elected and (by some) even praised. What’s perhaps yet more ominous is that Europeans don’t condemn them. Though none of the EU nations joined the fascist Obama in that U.N. vote, they all stay in NATO and in the American-run EU. No matter how evil the U.S. Government becomes, it retains a thick coat of Teflon. Seemingly more-appropriate allies for today’s Establishment Washington than Europans are, are the Saud family, the biggest financial backers and arms-suppliers to jihadist groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIS — and, like the American aristocracy, they’re rabidly anti-Russian. That type of aristocrat could be their model. After all, the born Polish nobleman and longtime American, Zbigniew Brzezinski, a co-founder of David Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission, is proud, even today, of having helped create Al Qaeda to defeat the Soviet-supported government of Afghanistan, and he still continues to blame Russia for just about everything — just like Obama does. The U.S. Congress is urging him to do it even more. He’s not enough of a fascist to suit today’s Congress. He’s not doing enough harm to Russia, fast enough to satisfy them. He’s not making the (nazi) ’progress’ that they demand.

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

Paul Street has issues with Bernie Sanders. He is not sure he could vote for the Vermont senator in November were he to win the  Democratic nomination.

But it’s not what you think. It’s not that Street finds Sanders  too far left.

Au contraire. It’s that the Vermont senator is  is not far enough to the left.

It just goes to show that the hoary saying is always true: You can’t please everyone.

***

Senator Sanders has been treated by the media as a polarizing candidate, one that even many on the left see as too extreme to support. But that is not the problem for Paul Street, the author of They Rule: The 1% vs. Democracy.

As someone who describes himself as a “radical socialist,” Street worries that Bernie is far too close to the entrenched power structure.

“I support some of the reforms that he’s for,” Street told WhoWhatWhy. “But he’s not talking about socialism at all, which is public ownership of the means of production, distribution, and finance.”

“From a Marxist perspective, no one that’s just kind of a liberal is going to do enough to get capitalism under control.”

Red-Blooded Socialism

Coverage of Bernie Sanders’ campaign has often focused on his self-applied socialist label. Though the word has long evoked fear in American culture—a recent Gallup survey found that 50% of Americans wouldn’t be willing to vote for a socialist—it has been making real moves into the mainstream, coinciding with the unexpected support of the Sanders candidacy for the Democratic nomination.

“Socialism” was the most looked-up word in Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary for the year 2015, which the site’s editor-at-large Peter Sokolowski said was sparked shortly after Sanders’ rise in the polls in July.

But there are of course people for whom “socialist” is not a word just of 2015: people who identified strongly with the ideology long before Sanders’ ascendancy. And for these die-hards, wanting to burn down the capitalist system is a goal not necessarily compatible with“feeling the Bern.”

At a February 27 Bernie Sanders rally in New York City, above the heads of the people chanting, holding banners, and signing up for phone-bank shifts, a red and black flag — two tessellating triangles — waved proudly in the crisp city air.

“This flag is for libertarian socialism,” said the person waving it, a 24-year-old man who requested to be referred to only by the pseudonym “Paul Astral” — even anarchists have to worry about capitalist concerns, like a day job. “It’s an alternative to capitalism and the socialism of the Soviet Union.”

Anarchist Flag  Photo credit: Kazuki Koikeda / Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Astral did not come to the rally in support of Bernie Sanders’ candidacy or his message. “I’m here to introduce people interested in socialism to true socialism,” he said. “I would like to talk to people. Yes, Bernie Sanders is good, but there are alternatives.”

Astral was not alone in using the Sanders rally as a jumping off point for a discussion of true revolutionary ideology. Tom Trottier, an editor for the Socialist Appeal newsletter, attended the rally in Union Square in hopes of bringing new activists into the socialist movement.

“We support the campaign of Bernie Sanders to raise the idea of socialism and raise the idea of revolution against the billionaire class. We like that,” he told WhoWhatWhy. He took issue with Sanders’ movement into the Democratic party, a political force he views as resistant to change and contrary to socialist ideals.

But he nevertheless said that he would vote Democratic when it comes to Bernie, hoping that this might be the beginning of a tide of change. That is a huge shift for someone like Trottier — he said he had not voted for a mainstream candidate in any of the recent election cycles.

“What we’re in right now — worldwide and in the United States — is a crisis of capitalism,” continued Trottier. “The crisis is not getting better. This is going to open a lot of minds for people looking for an alternative to capitalism.”

“It’s a question of building something for the future.” Voting for Sanders as the “Lesser Evil”.

Paul Street shares this view of the Sanders candidacy, as a possible jumping off point for a new socialist movement among the youth. “It certainly creates an opportunity,” he told WhoWhatWhy. But that doesn’t mean he will vote for the man.

“I would seriously consider making a lesser-evil vote for the Democrats if Sanders was the nominee,” he told WhoWhatWhy. “I say that because I live in a purplish — maybe more blue than red — state [Iowa],” where a Republican candidate, including Trump, has a real shot at winning.

“If I still lived in Chicago, it’d be a no brainer,” he said, meaning that there he could withhold his support for Sanders in good conscience, since deep-blue Illinois has not been heavily contested in a presidential race for years..

“They Rule: The 1% vs. Democracy” by Paul Street  Photo credit: Routledge, PaulStreet.org

While Street is bearish on Sanders’ chances for the nomination, much less on winning the presidency, he is bullish on what his running could mean for the future. “I wouldn’t mind being a history professor right now, and having all of these disappointed Bernie kids and being able to say, ‘Okay, you’re disappointed because he lost. But he used this word “socialism” — let’s talk about what that word really means.’”

The question of what the word “socialism” really does mean is on the minds of many people as Sanders’ candidacy has gained traction.

“I’m concerned that it gets diluted,” says Anthony DiMaggio, a professor of sociology at Lincoln Land Community College in Illinois, who recently published an essay entitled “Sanders’ Socialism: Neutering a Radical Tradition” in the radical magazine Counterpunch. “What he’s really promoting is something we’ve already had in American politics,” he said, comparing Sanders’ ideas — healthcare, education, workers’ rights — with those of the Democratic Party of generations past. “That’s all great, but it’s not bottom-up citizen socialism.”

DiMaggio worries that the rise in support for socialism on paper is actually destructive to the true ideological force of the movement.

“I don’t think that it’s productive to have a discussion about socialism if people don’t know what it is.”

“Seizing the Memes of Production”

There is some evidence of growing support for socialism among young voters. Super Tuesday exit polls showed Sanders doing markedly better than Hillary Clinton among voters aged 18-29, even in states where she beat him overall with Democratic voters.

Of course, if you want to find out what millennials are thinking, check out social media. WhoWhatWhy spoke to the creator of the “Anarchists for Bernie Sanders” Facebook page (who spoke under conditions of anonymity — “even in this ‘free’ age, being pegged an anarchist doesn’t bode well for employment,” he said).

Anarchists for Bernie Sanders has ballooned into a community of more than 14,000 subscribers. The founder believes it to be the largest group on Facebook critiquing Sanders from the left.

Despite its name, the page is far from supportive of the senator. Most of the content consists of memes lampooning his claim of being a socialist or revolutionary — Sanders’s face photoshopped onto the head of a protester clashing with police in riot gear, or quotes from 18th-century French philosophe Denis Diderot, or the French political pamphlet, “The Coming Insurrection” jokingly misattributed to Sanders. The pinned post is a 1986 article bashing Sanders’ election as mayor of Burlington, VT, by the noted socialist writer Murray Bookchin, a fellow Vermont native.

The founder, an Occupy Wall Street activist who had previously organized social media activity against the Keystone XL, says that the page was conceived as “95% a joke.” but he admits that it has become something more than that.

“This page has become a place for radicals skeptical of Bernie’s campaign to congregate,” he told WhoWhatWhy over Facebook. “Bernie supporters who came out of Occupy love the page too. Everyone is bombarded by Bernie on social media all day every day, so people like turning it around.”

“I’m making jokes about how people think Bernie is some sort of radical socialist, when he is obviously not. I make jokes about anarchists, jokes that you would need to be a serious lefty to understand. But mostly this page allows me to take out my frustrations about working with liberals in my organizing. Bernie is not an avatar for anarchism. He is a mass media/social media-created spectacle that anarchists, socialists and communists are attempting to use to spread revolutionary ideas.”

He thinks there is some hope for those ideas to really take hold in the current political climate. “There’s all these polls that say millennials prefer socialism to capitalism, which seems to be pointing in the right direction.”

“If I can make a joke about ‘seizing the memes of production’ and people get it, radical socialism is gaining traction.”

Viva La Revolucion?

To the activists who are fighting for “real” socialism, Sanders’ unexpected success so far may signal a new beginning for their movement.

“There’s real prospects for change there,” Anthony DiMaggio told WhoWhatWhy. “We’ve seen what I think would be the beginnings of the activism that needs to happen in recent years with Occupy Wall Street, and service worker protests, and the Black Lives Matter movement. It’s really just the beginning though, of where we need to go.”

Paul Street agrees that larger forces are at work. “I think that [socialism became acceptable] before Sanders came on the stage as a presidential candidate. I remember polls in 2011 when the Occupy movement was happening, when according to Gallup, young people were responding more to the word socialism than to capitalism.”

“It’s just how badly twenty-first century capitalism has been performing.”

The feeling that the problems of the modern American capitalist system could lead to a rise in revolutionary tendencies among the populace was shared by several of the socialists reached by WhoWhatWhy. They pointed to Syriza — the radical socialist party that won control of the Greek parliament in 2014 in the midst of a debt crisis, as an example of how quickly a system can turn around in the wake of populist revolt.

The founder of the “Anarchists for Bernie Sanders” page sees this moment as an important one for the history of the country and its politics, though he is worried the results will go the wrong way.

“When things get bad, social democracy/liberalism fails. And it can happen very quickly,” he told WhoWhatWhy. He quoted the 20th-century philosopher Walter Benjamin: “Every rise of fascism is witness to a failed revolution.”

“So if we fail to create a radical movement that can win, Trump is only the beginning.”

The state of destruction in Ramadi is the worst than anywhere else in Iraq, a UN team announced. They visited the ravished city for the first time since its recapture from Islamic State [IS] group in December by pro-Baghdad forces.

The damage was described by the group as “staggering” with the city’s central hospital and main train station a pile of rubble, as are thousands of other buildings in the city.

“The destruction the team has found in Ramadi is worse than any other part of Iraq,” said Lise Grande, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq. “It is staggering.”

Nearly every building in the frontline areas had been destroyed, the two-day-assessment found.

In other districts, a quarter or a third of buildings were damaged, the report said.

At least 64 bridges were completely destroyed, locals told the UN team.

The time and cost needed to rebuild Ramadi cannot yet be determined, Grande said.

Iraqi forces declared victory over IS in the Anbar province capital last December, after it was taken over by IS militants in May 2015.

Six months of fighting left the city’s infrastructure shattered. Houses that once homed around half a million people were mostly levelled to the ground.

Meanwhile, IS militants continue to hold pockets of territory in the northern and eastern outskirts and the fighting there remains intense.

Displaced families made their way back to liberated parts of Ramadi amid UN warnings [Getty]

The UN team worked to identify potential relocation sites for returning residents but the Iraqi government is yet to give the all clear for the civilians to return to their homes.

Some displaced families did make their way back to liberated parts of the city, but the UN warned against the great risks faced from leftover bombs.

Bombs planted by IS militants in streets and buildings have not yet been cleared as the task requires funding the Iraqi government lacks.

The UN assessment team said the greatest concentration of booby traps was in south-central Ramadi.

Last week, the UN reported that eight people were killed while either surveying their homes or attempting to disable an explosive device.

“People who have been displaced want to return home as quickly as possible,” Grande said.

“Making sure they can do so safely is everyone’s responsibility. Booby-traps and IEDs have to be cleared first,” she urged.

Bomb disposal teams defused hundreds of explosive devices across the city.

But the lack of funding has slowed efforts to clear Ramadi of explosives, Anbar’s governor Suhaib al-Raqi said last month.

Iraq’s economic crisis has left the province in debt and entirely reliant on international aid donations to rebuild

An initial assessment of destruction in Ramadi carried out by the UN in January said more than 4,500 buildings have been damaged or destroyed during the battle to reclaim the city.

In Iraq, more than three million people have been forced to flee their homes since January 2014, according to the UN.

It estimates that an additional three million people are living under IS control in Iraq.

In contrast, about 500,000 civilians have returned to their homes following the Iraqi military campaigns to bring areas back under government control.

The Syrian Army supported by the Russian warplanes continued an advance against Al-Nusra and its allies in the province of Latakia liberating Jabal Zuwayqat. The nearby village of Zuwayqat was also liberated. Thus, the Syrian forces are in position to launch and advance on Kabani which is one of the highest points inside the province’s northeastern countryside.

On Mar.8, Kurdish units and its allies took control of the villages of Al-Hamd, Al-Jad’an, Al-Jadou, Al-Badr, Al-Sarad, Delian and Delian Matli in the province of Raqqa after clashes with the ISIS. In a relevant development on Monday, the Kurdish forces liberated the village of al-Makman in the Hasaka province.

A top ISIS emir, Mahmoud Ahmad Al-Kaleezi, has been assassinated by unknown assailants in the Tabaqa Military airport on Mar.8. Al-Kaleezi is the third ISIS emir to be killed in the last 7 days.

On Mar.7, nearly 100 men left ISIS for the Faylaq al-Sham militant alliance in northern Aleppo. The pro-militant sources claimed that defectors had been mistreated at the hands of ISIS, including being repeatedly accused of treason. On the other hand, there are numerous cases of sharing manpower among militant groups in Syria. Faylaq al-Sham has been formed from 19 different Islamist militant groups some of which directly affiliated with the Qatar-backed Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. Considering Qatar’s role in creation of ISIS, it could be suggested that the case of Mar.7 is an attempt to re-brand ISIS militants excluded from the ceasefire supported by the US and Russia.

According to Syrian officials, over 100 villages have agreed on the ceasefire. The majority of the reconciliation agreements have taken place in the province of Hama.

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Palestinians are joining the Middle East exodus to Europe in greater numbers because of the Syrian war and ongoing Israeli occupation, a senior Palestinian official has said.

Saeb Erekat, the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), told EU Observer, from Ramallah, that “thousands” had already left for Europe.

“What other options have they? We have people dying of starvation in al-Yarmouk refugee camp [in Syria], and thousands of Palestinians leaving Syria and Lebanon trying to reach Europe,” he said, according to the PNN.

Palestinians collect their belongings from under the rubble of a residential tower, which witnesses said was destroyed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza City August 24, 2014.

“The UN has said that Gaza will be unfit for human habitation by 2020, but Israel’s siege of Gaza continues.”

The Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza are home to some 4.5 million Palestinians.

Two million more live in refugee camps in Jordan in a legacy of wars in 1948 and 1967. Another 500,000 live in camps in Lebanon and a further 500,000 in Syria.

Frontex, the EU border control agency in Warsaw, said that just six Palestinians were intercepted trying to enter the EU via irregular crossings to Greece in January of last year, but that figure rose to 488 in August. It peaked at 1,747 in October, and stayed high (1,142) in January of this year, despite inclement weather.

The real number is likely to be much bigger because most Palestinians travel without ID papers, making them difficult to count.

Easo, the EU asylum agency in Malta, said that up to 19,000 Palestinians applied for asylum in the EU last year, compared with 15,680 in 2014 and 9,590 in 2013.

It said that most of them were “Palestinian ‘refugees’ or persons of Palestinian origin who were previously long term residents of countries now affected by the Syrian conflict.

It additionally stated that these people have a 53 percent to 87 percent chance of success, depending on which EU state handles their claim.

Israel ‘killing hope’

The number of Palestinians on the move is likely to go up if the spate of knife and car-ramming attacks on Israelis that has been going on since last year escalates into a full-scale uprising.

Erekat blames the instability on the Israeli occupation.

“[Israeli] prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist government have done everything possible to kill hope in the minds and hearts of Palestinians. What they see on a daily basis are more settlements, land grabbing, checkpoints, siege, military raids, settler attacks and systematic denial of their rights,” he said.

He said the Arab-Israeli conflict also contributes to instability in Syria, the main source of the EU refugee crisis.

“You can’t defeat Daesh (ISIL) without ending the Israeli occupation,” he said, using an Arabic name for Islamic State, a jihadist group which controls parts of Syria and Iraq.

“Lack of hope could lead people to commit desperate acts like joining Daesh. Though the numbers of Palestinians joining them are minimal, this is not a situation that can be taken for granted.”

Sanctions call

The 60-year old Palestinian diplomat has served as the PLO’s chief negotiator in Arab-Israeli peace talks for most of the past 20 years.

He welcomed a French project to set a deadline for new peace talks after which France would recognise Palestine in its 1967 borders.

“Recognising Palestine is not going to end the occupation, but it’s a strong message to the Palestinian people in terms of support for their rights. European countries will be investing in peace,” he said.

He also welcomed an EU retail label code on settler food, wine, and cosmetics exports that was published last year. But he advocated tougher action.

“Effective actions against Israeli settlements are banning of settlement products, divestment and sanctions on companies profiting from the occupation,” he said.

Apartheid jibe

The UN and the EU advocate a two-state solution to the conflict.

Erekat said: “I sincerely don’t see any other solution but a two-state solution for the welfare of both Israelis and Palestinians.”

But, he added: “I personally think that Israel doesn’t want a two-state solution. The Israeli government believes in … one state with two systems, which means apartheid.”

He said Israel’s impunity in the EU and US is part of the problem.

“Radicals that could not even get close to the Knesset [the Israeli parliament] 20 years ago are now part of the government coalition. But I also believe that this [Israeli policy] has a lot to do with pragmatism: Israel has the feeling that no matter what, they’ll never be held accountable,” he said.

He said the only “morally acceptable” alternative to two states is “one single, democratic state in all of historic Palestine”.

‘Stop making excuses’

“If they don’t like the idea of two sovereign states living side by side, I call upon them to talk to us and let’s set the terms for a one-state solution. But they should not even dream that our people will accept anything short of … the right to self-determination, freedom,” Erekat said.

The one-state model would imperil Israel’s objective to be a “homeland of the Jews” in demographic terms.

Based on Erekat’s comments, EUobserver asked the Israeli mission to the EU if any models other than the two-state solution would be acceptable to Israel.

The mission asked for its statement to be published in full.

“Israel’s declared and unequivocal position is two states for two people,” the statement said.

“In order to achieve this, Mr. Erekat and his colleagues should engage in direct negotiations and stop making excuses as to why they can’t come to the table. Prime minster Netanyahu has repeatedly stated his willingness to restart direct talks – be it in Jerusalem or Ramallah. All other personal beliefs should be challenged in the negotiation room.”

With the debate going on about whether the UK should renew the Trident missile programme or get rid of it, hardly anything is said about what is happening internationally to rid the world of nuclear weapons – which shows how inward-looking Britain can be, despite claiming a prime position on the world stage.

While national media reported on the Stop Trident demonstration in London, it ignored the discussions taking place in Geneva, or their background including:

• three international, government-level conferences, the last in Vienna, on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons, which produced
• the signing and endorsing of the Humanitarian Pledge by a majority of nations
• a vote in the UN General Assembly (voted against by nuclear-armed states which called the Resolution ‘divisive’) but passed by 135 states, to establish an Open Ended Working Group (OEWG) to take forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations
• the first meeting of which took place in Geneva in February

You’d think that deserved a headline or two, the attention of more than some MPs and loud trumpeting from anti-nuclear campaigners, but no.  At the London demonstration, organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), Labour’s Leader Jeremy Corbyn did speak about the Vienna conference and the humanitarian issues.

And the Green Party’s Caroline Lucas mentioned the OEWG talks in Geneva.  In a New Statesman article  she also urged the UK government to take part in those meetings.  Take part?  They are boycotting them.

But no one mentions that.

Yet the wit, wisdom and yes, the whingeing, displayed in statements from Ambassadors and delegates, the depth of the debates, were in many ways far more worthy of our attention than another march to Trafalgar Square.

The aim was to identify the legal gaps in the nuclear weapons treaties and agreements that prevented genuine progress towards disarmament.  Naturally some states insisted that there were no legal gaps and the old ‘step-by-step’ process was working even though the world is no nearer to disarmament.

Delegates from 90 nations were there, as was civil society.  In a statement delivered by Beatrice Fihn on behalf of ICAN  and its 440 partner organisations, she listed all the legal gaps needing to be filled.  And she reminded all those there that “Non-nuclear-weapon states are not merely encouraged to take positive steps towards nuclear disarmament; they are required to do so – regardless of the continued failure of nuclear-weapon states to act.”

From the start, a treaty banning nuclear weapons was mentioned more than any other legal instrument as a path towards disarmament, even by nuclear-alliance states begging for ‘caution’ and ‘we can’t do this without the input of nuclear states’.  They can; and a ban treaty seems the best way forward.

“States that ‘rely on nuclear weapons in their security doctrines remain reluctant to consider moving ahead without the nuclear-armed states” reported the daily updates from Reaching Critical Will.

So what are the nuclear-alliance states?  They are those states (such as NATO members) which, although they have no nuclear weapons of their own, claim that they base their ‘security’ on those that do.  To quote Reaching Critical Will:

“While many states called for urgent action, others, including Germany, Netherlands, Japan, Canada speaking on behalf of a group of states, and Finland, cautioned that security considerations of states must be taken into account… Bangladesh asked what could be a bigger security concern than being the victim of a nuclear attack.”  Good question.

Does this second-hand security mean that these states are depending on someone else to blow up the world?  Would they not be equally guilty under international humanitarian law?

Still, give these states their due.  They are at least taking part.  The nuclear-armed states are determinedly boycotting the OEWG.  Not being able to control what’s happening, they are relying on their alliance to fling a few spanners into the works for them.

The Netherlands tried.  It argued that the nuclear-armed states should take part in the discussions.  The majority of the world somehow cannot move forward without their willingness to take part.  The OEWG should use its time thinking of ways to tempt the armed states into giving up their toys.  And how was this for a circular argument:

“… the Netherlands is not against a ‘ban’.  We see it as a final element towards a world without nuclear weapons, when nuclear weapons no longer fulfil a function in the security of states.  It is clear that we have not reached this stage yet and that starting negotiations on a ‘ban’ would therefore be premature.”

So we should only have a ban when nuclear weapons are deemed useless anyway.

But as the Irish Ambassador said, in a very quotable speech:

“This is a small planet, getting smaller every day…  In such a world, questions of security impact us all…  And in such a world there is no place for nuclear weapons…  In any area of life, work or governance, if something wasn’t working for 20 years, or indeed for over 70, we would try to fix it.”

As all those taking part in the OEWG wanted a world free of nuclear weapons; that, having signed up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), they seemed to know how to get there; that they were even more aware now of the terrible humanitarian consequences of using such weapons and the inability of any nation to cope with such an event; despite all that, said Ireland:

“… the problem is that we are no nearer multilateral nuclear disarmament now than we were 20 years ago, when the NPT was indefinitely extended.”

Ah, but look at how the non-proliferation part of the NPT has succeeded, was the reply.  South Africa, among those nations that got rid of their nuclear arsenals, made a telling point: “nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation are mutually reinforcing processes — the disregard of one has a direct impact on the advancement of the other.”

Delegates were coming to realise that working for a ban treaty does not exclude other legal processes towards disarmament.  They can work together, but the big gap is the lack of a ban treaty.  By the second day they were agreeing that, given the refusal of nuclear-armed states to take part in the discussions, a ban treaty was perhaps the most sensible way forward.

Malaysia explained that as most legal measures proposed are currently blocked by the nuclear-armed states, three not mutually exclusive options remain: a treaty banning nuclear weapons, a framework convention, and increasing verification capacity. They also pointed out that a ban treaty could be negotiated now and be part of a wider framework later, something the nuclear alliance has difficulty accepting, perhaps because they know their ‘security blanket’ will not approve.

New Zealand’s delegate was quite clear:

“I have heard some recent suggestion that while a legally-binding prohibition may be necessary for maintaining a nuclear weapon-free world, it is not in fact necessary in order to attain one.  However, no clear explanation for why, as a matter of international law, this might be the case has yet to be put forward.”

This is surely part of the ‘smoke and mirrors’ game played by nuclear-armed states.

“We see no reason why the pathway adopted for the elimination of other weapon systems, including the elimination of both other types of WMD – that of a legally binding prohibition – should not equally be applicable as a pathway for the elimination of nuclear weapons… There is no need to reinvent the wheel…”

Indeed no.  But we can make it very, very ornate.  Australia delivered a fascinating working paper on behalf of itself and 17 other countries – fascinating because nowhere does it mention a ban treaty.  Instead it talks of ‘no quick fixes’, ‘addressing the legitimate security concerns’ of nuclear-armed states and ‘incremental but necessary steps that will enhance security for all’.

It is all about ‘means and sequencing’ and identifying “concrete and practical building blocks”.  The NPT is brought into play, as is the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.  There are lists of all the tiny steps we might take, or consider taking, along with a), b), c) and so on to m).  There absolutely must be transparency and… well, think of it all as a trust-building exercise.

Mexico took up the challenge of the ‘legitimate security concerns’.  This concept was not elaborated enough, Mexico argued, as it is not clear whose security these concerns focus on and if states are for or against collective security.  As Austria pointed out, collective security is a very different thing to the security of individual nations.

As for the lack of trust, Austria argued this is due to the failures of states to implement various agreements and commitments that had been agreed to by consensus. The onus is on those countries that have nuclear weapons or rely on them as part of nuclear alliances to diminish that mistrust.

Unable to resist a tiny dig at the pro-nuclear states Mexico pointed out that nuclear-armed states boycotting the meeting would not increase trust.  Rather the reverse, one would think.

Austria, a leading light in these discussions, reminded delegates that in the Humanitarian Pledge (now adopted by the UN) it says:

“We call on all states parties to the NPT to renew their commitment to the urgent and full implementation of existing obligations under Article VI, and to this end, to identify and pursue effective measures to fill the legal gap for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons…”

A large number of states share the belief that such a legal gap exists, something pro-nuclear states try to deny.  Austria’s working paper on this issue is masterly, laying out all the arguments and exposing the legal gaps.  The very structure of the NPT requires additional legal (and non-legal) measures for its full implementation. This applies to Article VI just as much as it applies to the non-proliferation obligations.

(Article VI commits the nuclear armed states to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control,” (emphasis added).

All approaches to implementing Article VI should be followed.  The ‘step-by-step’ method can sit alongside a comprehensive ban treaty.  They are, argues Austria, complementary, and the humanitarian issue is now so serious that all available steps should be taken.  Brazil reminded delegates that provisions under the NPT allowed the Nuclear Weapon States only to hold those weapons temporarily, something constantly ignored.

Austria also ripped up the ‘security’ and ‘deterrence’ arguments used by the USA et al.  Deterrence rests on the threat of readiness to inflict mass destruction on a global scale, and on the awareness this would be suicidal. Thus, explains Austria:

“Ultimately, it is difficult to reconcile this with the underlying foundation of nuclear deterrence that it leads to rational behaviour of all actors involved.  The threat is either credible, which requires – in light of the new evidence – readiness to act entirely irrationally. Alternatively, the threat is non-credible since rational analysis cannot lead to the conclusion of risking the use of nuclear weapons.”

Not for nothing was Mutually-Assured-Destruction considered MAD.

During 5 days of presentations and debate, many states called for a ban treaty.  And key supporters of the Humanitarian Pledge – Mexico, Austria, South Africa, Brazil, and Indonesia – stressed the time has now come to start the negotiations to prohibit nuclear weapons.

The OEWG reconvenes in May for another session.  Dare we hope that we will see them start negotiating and putting together the text for a treaty that bans these weapons?  It’s beginning to look that way.

Lesley Docksey © 09/03/16

(With grateful thanks to Reaching Critical Will)

* See here for an overview of civil society’s campaign which led, finally, to the disarmament talks in Geneva

Tras el agotamiento del modelo de industrialización sustitutivo de importaciones en América Latina, la Teoría Marxista de la Dependencia vio incrementada su influencia. En la fotografía, Theotonio dos Santos (izquierda) acompañado de Vania Bambirra (centro), fallecida el año pasado.

Si hay alguien que ha dejado huella en el pensamiento económico de América Latina es Theotonio dos Santos: científico social brasileño, catedrático de la Universidad del Estado de Río de Janeiro, exponente de la Teoría Marxista de la Dependencia y galardonado con el Premio Economía Marxista 2013 de la Asociación Mundial de Economía Política. Dos Santos dictó a mediados de febrero una serie de conferencias sobre teorías del desarrollo como parte de la Cátedra Maestro Ricardo Torres Gaitán que le fue otorgada por el Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas de la UNAM por sus aportaciones en la materia.

Ariel Noyola Rodríguez, consiguió entrevistar a Theotonio dos Santos durante su estancia en la Ciudad de México y abordó, entre otros temas, las perspectivas de la economía y el sistema mundial, las contradicciones del desarrollo capitalista de China, el ascenso del yuan como divisa de reserva internacional, los desafíos de la integración latinoamericana, el atasco burocrático del Banco del Sur, el reposicionamiento regional de Estados Unidos, la crisis del pensamiento económico y los problemas que enfrenta la izquierda para construir alternativas.

Por su amplia extensión, la publicación de la entrevista se ha dividido en varias partes. En esta tercera y última entrega Noyola Rodríguez explora con dos Santos la crisis del pensamiento económico y los problemas que enfrenta la izquierda latinoamericana para construir alternativas.

Ariel Noyola Rodríguez: ¿Ante el agravamiento de la situación económica mundial y las tensiones geopolíticas, la ofensiva del capital contra la clase trabajadora se ha vuelto cada vez más violenta, nos encontramos entonces ante una re-edición de la disyuntiva entre Socialismo o Fascismo tal como usted lo planteó a finales de la década de 1960?

Theotonio dos Santos: En gran parte sí. Para imponer un sistema como este, Estados Unidos necesita desechar la democracia. Estados Unidos hace un esfuerzo anti-democrático. Pero están aprovechando el sistema electoral aún porque dependen demasiado de los recursos que provee el sector financiero, que es quien ha dirigido a buena parte de la oposición, y hasta a los gobiernos nuestros. Para poder ganar elecciones se tuvo que aceptar ser apoyados por el sector financiero para estar en condiciones de competir.

Y entonces tú no puedes pensar radicalmente las posibilidades de transformación porque estás comprometido también como fuerza política, con intereses que son muy poderosos. Pero esto no impide que se haya desarrollado una forma de gobierno más efectiva para la vida de la gente. Tú no vas a hacer volver atrás tan fácilmente. Ahí está la gente que ha disfrutado de una cierta expansión económica en estos años, toda una generación nueva que ve que es posible alcanzar un nivel de vida superior, como dice el Papa Francisco con mucha razón, no es sólo ganar dinero, hacer buenos negocios, no.

La propia decadencia del sistema te genera una fuerza económica para ciertos grupos que son usados por el gran capital. Pero esta fase de compromiso tan grande con el capital financiero tiene un límite. Y ese límite está dibujado ya. Entonces no confío tanto en esa disyuntiva, no creo que vaya a surgir una ofensiva radical, puedes obtener algunas victorias, como ha pasado en Argentina, Brasil o Venezuela.

Pero hay una ofensiva de intereses muy poderosos, patrocinados muchas veces por los propios regímenes de izquierda. En Brasil subimos la tasa interés de 6 a 14% por estas mismas presiones, transferimos al sector financiero una gran cantidad de recursos. Esto representó 50% del gasto público, la mitad de los ingresos que el Estado brasileño obtuvo a través de diversas formas, los ocupó para pagar intereses al sector financiero, que constituye una minoría que no llega ni siquiera a 1% de la población, pero que tiene el control sobre el sistema.

En 1969 Theotonio dos Santos publicó “Socialismo o fascismo: el dilema latinoamericano”, un texto en donde además de analizar la situación económica mundial de la época, plantea la necesidad avanzar hacia una perspectiva socialista

Y los medios de comunicación son el gran instrumento en este momento. La mente humana está muy dominada por los medios de comunicación. Se pensó que tal vez el uso del Internet iba a transformar las cosas. Pero el Internet está cada vez más dominado por grupos corporativos de la información. Cuando piensas que hay un amateur lanzando información falsa no te das cuenta de que toda esta gente tiene detrás inversiones colosales. Hay un uso de la información extremadamente fuerte y es dominado por el capital financiero.

Estamos trabajando en lo que será mi próximo libro, Desarrollo y civilización, para situarnos en la profundidad de los cambios que están en marcha. La economía mundial está estallando frente a estos cambios. Las clases dominantes están perdiendo peso. Hay muchos compañeros que con una gran simplicidad, dicen bueno, la deuda aumentó, pero Estados Unidos puede seguir imprimiendo dinero. Deuda, deuda, deuda y al mismo tiempo responder a las necesidades de la población ¿Cómo lo van a lograr?

Ellos pensaron que habían tenido una gran victoria contra el socialismo por haber derrumbado el Muro de Berlín. Mira, en primer lugar ellos no lo derrumbaron, quien terminó con el Muro fue la lucha interna, fue una decisión de la Alemania Democrática, que se abrió. Ellos vinieron luego, pero el Muro ya se había venido abajo. En segundo lugar ¿Por qué asociar la idea del Muro al socialismo? ¿Qué relación existe entre ellos? Si es que la hay, entonces Estados Unidos está avanzando mucho en el socialismo por el muro que han levantado en la frontera con México. Cómo puede ser que la izquierda acepte hablar permanentemente de la caída del Muro y la caída del socialismo, asociar esa idea. Y en tercer lugar, lo que ellos llaman la “caída del socialismo” no fue resultado de una estrategia norteamericana, fue resultado de una lucha interna en nuestros países, el surgimiento de una fuerza que controló cada vez más a nuestros países, una gran burocracia, la KGB, que pasó a tener el control de lo que hoy es Rusia y los países de Europa Oriental.

No se trata simplemente de una gran victoria del capitalismo, se trata claro, de uno de los momentos en que el avance pasa a dividir fuerzas que aceptaban una acción común. Es que hay un cierto momento en que un sector de clase media quiere una expansión de su demanda y de su papel dentro de la economía. No fueron pocos, grandes amigos, gente de izquierda. Acá en México por ejemplo, hay profesores que tienen casas enormes, que pueden tener empleados domésticos, que pueden tener todo a su alcance, y además son de izquierda. Y te dicen: “Pero tú puedes tener una casa así, es lo normal que tienen los profesores aquí ¿O acaso mi socialismo me va a impedir disfrutar esta posibilidad?”

En una conversación que tuve con un economista muy importante de la Unión Soviética (URSS) en 1980, me comentó: “Tenemos que terminar con esa mediocridad del trabajo en la URSS, tenemos que generar 30 millones de desempleados para que la gente se someta a las obligaciones del trabajo”. Son declaraciones que vienen de un pensamiento neoliberal muy fuerte, que expresan problemas concretos del proceso de avance del socialismo en una región del mundo en donde no es hegemónico sobre la organización de la economía, del pensamiento, etc.

Los medios de producción deben generar abundancia económica, que es una de las condiciones para que el socialismo pueda avanzar, sin que esté bajo amenaza de extinguirse. Este es un problema de una realidad compleja, que no debe confundirse con el marketing pro-capitalista, que siempre analiza todo a favor del capital. Hay que apartar el pensamiento nuestro de la idea del marketing, nosotros tenemos que pensar verdaderamente para no engañar a las personas.

Ariel Noyola Rodríguez: A propósito de la crisis del pensamiento económico, en América Latina la teoría económica convencional otra vez está en auge, buscan convertirla en hegemónica. De muchas universidades se retiran las asignaturas del pensamiento crítico, la economía política por ejemplo, mientras que se añaden nuevos cursos sobre microeconomía, macroeconomía, etc. ¿Qué perspectivas del pensamiento económico cobran fuerza hoy en América Latina? ¿Cómo podemos construir un pensamiento crítico propio, militante, capaz de impulsar las transformaciones pendientes de nuestra región?

Theotonio dos Santos: Mira, esa ofensiva surge en la década de 1970, y se terminó de consolidar finalmente en 1990. Pero de los años 2000 para acá comienza a erosionarse un poco [el pensamiento hegemónico]. En este momento la Teoría de la Dependencia cuenta con grupos de estudio en universidades, en varias partes, algo que no teníamos en la década de 1960, estaba totalmente cerrado el campo, teníamos muchas dificultades, ahora se está abriendo, a tal punto que físicamente para nosotros es difícil acompañar todas las iniciativas que se están generando.

Porque hay una decepción general en torno al pensamiento económico neoliberal. Sin embargo, tampoco hay una alternativa clara. Aunque la verdad creo que es muy difícil armar una alternativa sin pasar por la Teoría de la Dependencia, su evolución, lo mismo la revisión de la Teoría del Sistema Mundial. Y el marxismo hay que recuperarlo en su capacidad dialéctica realmente, en su verdadera visión, no esa visión estalinista del marxismo. Trotski por ejemplo, a pesar de haber sido muy inteligente, un gran pensador, su lucha lo llevó a crear muchos esquematismos, no pudo profundizar en la parte filosófica, etc.

Una de las ventajas de las décadas de 1960 y 1970 era precisamente la recuperación de Marx mismo, sobre todo de El Capital, y creo que otra vez se vuelve a ellos. Se habla del marxismo incluso en los medios de difusión masiva de corte progresista. En Estados Unidos vuelven los grupos marxistas, generando pensamiento propio. Creo que estamos pasando por una etapa de reestructuración con varias iniciativas paralelas.

Es que no tenemos condiciones de organizar el mundo desde el punto de vista de una transformación social muy radical. Pero sí tenemos que, digamos, unirnos, en torno a una fase intermedia, histórica, que aglutine todos los elementos de esta reestructuración. El respeto a la civilización debe ser lo primero, el marxismo debe tener claridad sobre eso.

Marx propone que la clase trabajadora dirija una nueva sociedad, no es que la clase trabajadora se dirija a sí misma, no. Y esto es un problema complejo, es necesario que el contenido de clase del marxismo se desdoble a favor del desarrollo de la humanidad en su conjunto, valiéndose de lo aprendido en los varios momentos de la historia, de las experiencias, de las diversas tendencias de integración regional, que son realmente importantes.

Yo veo a una izquierda perpleja. La izquierda tiene que entender que no existen los avances sociales permanentes, hay ciclos. Hay avances sucesivos que luego son derrotados. Tuvimos la revolución francesa, fantástica, cambió todo, pero luego fue derrotada. Después tuvimos la restauración de todo el sistema monárquico europeo. No se puede avanzar hacia un sistema social superior sin pasar por diversas fases de avances y retrocesos. Pero si vemos el conjunto de la situación mundial actual, la ofensiva de Estados Unidos está siendo derrotada en todas partes. Estados Unidos no tiene capacidad de sostener una política ofensiva de esa magnitud. Tenemos que prepararnos para enfrentar eso, movilizar a nuestros pueblos.

Tenemos que trabajar muy fuertemente desde el punto de vista de la teoría del Sistema Mundial. Retomar los grandes estudios sobre la economía y la política mundiales. Y entrar a lo que Fidel Castro ha denominado la “batalla de las ideas”, hay que entrar a esa gran confrontación. Me entusiasma que los chinos estén interesados en discutir el tema de la hegemonía cultural. En América Latina, Aníbal Quijano está trabajando mucho sobre eso. Tenemos que crear una base cultural fuerte que nos permita re-orientar la visión del mundo hacia una transformación en el camino del socialismo. Creo que la disolución de la URSS fue negativa en muchos aspectos, pero fue positiva en un sentido: abrió la posibilidad de una perspectiva socialista.

La verdad no esperaba que la cuestión del socialismo apareciera tan rápido otra vez en Estados Unidos. Ahora hay una candidatura que se denomina socialista [Nota: Theotonio dos Santos se refiere a Bernie Sanders, quien compite con Hillary Clinton por la candidatura del Partido Demócrata a la presidencia de Estados Unidos] que tiene una fuerza muy grande dentro del Partido Demócrata, es un fenómeno que va en la dirección de romper la hegemonía del pensamiento neoliberal que, digámoslo con claridad, no tiene condiciones de presentarse ante el mundo como una vía para organizar las cosas de un modo razonable.

Hay además otros aspectos en cuanto a los tipos de confrontación. No sé por qué hay gente de izquierda que cree que podemos plantear algo [radicalmente] diferente. No podemos entrar a una confrontación armada ¿Empezamos una guerra mundial? ¿Una guerra civil? No hay camino. Y el desdoblamiento de esto no sería precisamente pasar al socialismo. Nosotros tenemos que armar una compleja articulación de conocimientos, ideas, modelos de percepción de caminos viables, etc. Hay que reestructurar las organizaciones internacionales, avanzar en el cumplimiento de las grandes metas mundiales.

Está claro que el gran capital tiene muchos recursos, grupos de trabajo de gran calidad incluso, muchos de ellos son capaces de promover ideas a veces absurdas, pero muy bien elaboradas. La ventaja que tienen es que cuentan con un sector privado poderoso, que da dinero a las universidades para formar gente. Lo grave es que mucha de esta privatización se está llevando a cabo con dinero del Estado. En el caso de Brasil hay una fuerte inversión en términos de otorgar exenciones fiscales a las empresas a cambio de becas para estudiantes. Hay una expansión del sector privado en la educación muy grande.

En muchos países de América Latina se libra una batalla contra la privatización de la educación. En la fotografía, tomada en mayo de 2011, estudiantes chilenos recorren la avenida Bernardo O´Higgins, conocida como La Alameda

Ellos tienen mecanismos muy fuertes, apoyados por el gran capital. Y ante eso, la izquierda tiene que intentar descubrir cuáles son las contradicciones, cuáles son los mecanismos de todo esto para entonces poder actuar. Lamentablemente un ala del marxismo se convirtió en un estructuralismo que analiza las formas de funcionamiento del capitalismo como si todo lo que hiciera el capital fuera para recuperar la economía capitalista: el capitalismo funciona para recuperarse a sí mismo. Y no es así. Para recuperarse a sí mismo el capital tiene que ampliar su influencia sobre las clases más productivas de la sociedad, que no piensan el mundo desde el punto de vista del capital, porque tienen intereses que incluso se contraponen a los del capital.

Muchos dicen hoy que el principal problema económico es la cuestión de la distribución del ingreso. Si miras con atención hay investigaciones sobre esto en el mundo entero ¿Y quién está impulsando eso? El gran capital. Nosotros en la izquierda no tenemos recursos para hacer estos grandes estudios. En cambios ellos están entregando datos, publicaciones, porque sienten que tienen que alterar de alguna forma las tendencias básicas del capitalismo ¿Pero es posible alterar eso sin dañar los intereses del gran capital?

En la izquierda debemos estar muy preocupados, tenemos que analizar todo esto y buscar recomponer las fuerzas progresistas del mundo aprovechando las contradicciones que el capital tiene. En eso también creo que la influencia nuestra puede ser más positiva, porque somos parte de los grandes movimientos de masas del mundo no sólo de América Latina, somos parte de proyectos que en cierto momento han tenido una fuerza de movilización bastante grande.

No creo que puedan destruir las fuerzas que se levantan en el mundo en contra de ese 1% que concentra la riqueza. El sentimiento de que vives en una sociedad completamente dominada por fuerzas extrañas a ti, es algo muy fuerte, por eso la gente se está movilizando. Pero también hay una respuesta desde la derecha al mismo fenómeno.

Entonces, tenemos ahí una gran tarea, romper con ese estructuralismo, que es en el fondo un pensamiento reaccionario, no podemos limitarnos a descubrir cómo el capital se recompone permanentemente. La dialéctica nos muestra que el movimiento se da a través de las contradicciones y no a través de estructuras que se mantienen.

Ariel Noyola Rodríguez

Primera parte :

“No es simplemente una crisis, estamos en un momento de reestructuración de la economía mundial”

Segunda parte :

“El gran capital está interesado en destruir la integración latinoamericana”

Ariel Noyola Rodríguez: Economista egresado de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM).