The Balkans Geopolitics: Between a Bridge and the Battlefield

October 8th, 2023 by Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović

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The Balkans and Geopolitics

The peculiar geostrategic position of the Balkan Peninsula gives us an answer to the question of why it has been throughout history both a bridge and the battlefield of different civilizations and cultures.

Thus, the history of the region was to a great extent determined by the location of the Balkans. Situated at the meeting point of Europe, Africa, and Asia both the Balkans experienced alternate imperial drives, competing ideologies together with conflicting social, political, and economic systems.[1] For the local people in the region, to live in the area of high international tensions meant primarily to find a way out from permanent pressure from abroad. It led to their resistance to any foreign realm and outside attempts to annex or dominate the region. Accordingly, it was exactly this part of the Old Continent to deserve the label of “Europe’s worst trouble spot”.[2] At the same time, Southeast European societies accepted many foreign institutions, customs, rules, or habits which were in many cases reshaped according to the local traditions and necessities.[3]

The thoroughly high degree of international interest in the Balkans for the whole time of mankind’s history comes in first place for the reason of its geopolitical and geostrategic value.[4] The Balkans was during the entire 19th and 20th centuries a real “laboratory” for the expression and investigation of different attributes of geopolitics.[5]

The region of the Balkan Peninsula in geographical terms is straitened between the Mediterranean basin and the Danube watershed which, basically, means that one great long-time state-body could not be established. Moreover, for the reason of the mountain face of the region, broken and interlaced with many smaller and bigger rivers, the local population was “destined” to live within smaller state organizations.

The ancient Greek city-state (пoλιξ) was a typical product of the geographical conditions of the area.[6] When the borders of a newly independent state of Albania were drawn in 1913, they followed to a great extent the geographical shape of the area living many ethnic Albanians outside the motherland, a majority of them in Serbia’s province of Kosovo-Metochia as well as in West Macedonia, South-West Greece, and East Montenegro.

In other words, the regional geographical conditions became one of the most decisive hindrances for the Balkan people to realize their maximized territorial aims and requirements. Besides this factor, the long-time intermixture of different ethnic, religious, and cultural groups became the second obstacle which did not allow Southeast European nations to effectuate their dreams of national unification within a single national statehood without the conflict with their neighbors or co-dwellers who had similar national visions.

South-East European nationalism led by the basic idea that each ethnos has to live in one national state was an essential ideological framework for the constant inter-ethnic collisions.[7] The creation of a single national state body, composed of all ethnographic and historic “national” lands, was in the eyes of the leading Balkan politicians a final stage of national awakening, revival, and liberation which started at the turn of the 19th century at the ideological basis of the German romanticist nationalism expressed in a formula: “One Language-One Nation-One State”.

The struggle upon the same “national” territories which belonged to “everybody” following historic, ethnic, military, or geostrategic principles and reasons resulted in the certitude that in this part of the world, there was more blood than land. In other words, there were not enough territories to satisfy all national aspirations. Thus, for example, Serbian, Greek, Ottoman, Montenegrin, and Albanian dispute over the destiny and fixed borders of the independent Albania in 1912–1913, or the Yugoslav civil war in 1991–1995 followed by the Yugoslav-Albanian struggle over Kosovo-Metochia’s province in 1998–1999 are only the episodes of the local nationalism but certainly not an exemption.[8]

The most important feature of the Balkan geopolitics is the peninsula’s geographical, historical, political, military-strategic, and economic connections with the Mediterranean Sea and basin. The most convenient geographical definition of the Balkans is a “Peninsula of the Mediterranean”.

Almost all Balkan states are the Mediterranean ones. The seas which belong to them are parts of the greater Mediterranean Sea. For instance, since the Adriatic and the Ionian seacoasts are integral parts of the Mediterranean shore, located near Italy, their strategic importance often attracted in history many foreign powers to occupy and possess them like the Ancient Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Normans, the Hungarians, the Venetians, the Serbs, the Ottomans or modern Italians. 

Historically, the notion of the Balkans was in conjunction with the Oriental Ottoman Turks who gradually spread their lordship over the peninsula from 1354 keeping it under their sway till 1913.

However, certain European Great Powers saw the Balkan seaside either as their legitimate historic possession or the sphere of influence, endeavoring to keep back the Ottoman Empire from the Balkan littoral. From the cause of historic-cultural factors, the continental parts of the Balkans were related to the Orient, while the littoral parts of the Balkans were cognate to the Occident.

The crucial reason for the Russian interest in the Balkans was an aspiration to possess the exit to the “warm seas”. For the German Second Reich’s diplomats (1871–1918) and the Nazi politicians (1933–1945), South-East Europe became attractive as the “transversal corridor” which was connecting the Middle East and Asia with the German European possessions; in other words, a corridor very suitably located for Berlin’s policy of Drang nach Osten.[9]

In the eyes of Austro-Hungarian foreign policy creators, the region was of pivotal prominence as the only overland way to Vienna’s final goal – to have control over the Aegean seaport of Salonika (Thessaloniki) in Aegean Macedonia. A special point of interest in the Balkans by the European Great Powers at the turn of the 20th century became the entrance (gate) to the Adriatic Sea bordered by Italy’s and Albania’s littorals. From this point of view, for Viennese politicians, Albania’s territory, especially its seacoast, should play a role of the pivotal obstacle against the Italian penetration in the Balkans, especially towards the Salonika seaport which should be transformed into the principal Austro-Hungarian commercial export-import point in the Mediterranean Sea.

The Adriatic and the Ionian littorals became from the 1860s extremely attractive for the Kingdom of Serbia as one of the possible strips of the Balkan territory where Serbia could find the exit to the sea for commercial reasons. The Montenegrin Principality (from 1910 the Kingdom of Montenegro) was infatuated only by the ultimate north-western portion of present-day Albania – the area around the city of Scodra for historical reasons as Scodra was the capital of Montenegro in the early Middle Ages. The Kingdom of Bulgaria from its de iure acquainted independence in 1878 expressed its thirstiness for the Aegean littoral as well.

The Greek pretensions for the same territory led finally Sofia and Athens to the war in 1913 (the Second Balkan War). In the Balkan politics of Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, and Bulgaria at the turn of the 20th century, the Albanians and Albania were the wedges against the others. For instance, for Bulgaria, the Bulgarian-Albanian axis was imagined as the best impediment against the Serbian-Greek teamwork and joint political actions. Finally, the Ottoman Empire had its political-economic interest in keeping the Ionian littoral as its possession. For this purpose, for Istanbul’s diplomats, the eastern entrance to the Adriatic Sea (Albania) should be under Ottoman control. 

The Ionian littoral with its hinterland played a significant role for the Ottoman sultans at the time of the Ottoman wars for South-East Europe. For instance, Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror (1451–1481) established on the hinterland of the Ionian seacoast two of the most important Ottoman footholds at the Balkans for further intended military actions across the Adriatic Sea. These two military fortresses were built at Akçahisar (Kruja) and Avlonya (Valona). The Ottoman commanders (beys) on the north-east Ionian littoral were allowed by the sultan to increase their raiding expeditions into Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Dalmatia, respectively.[10]

The Military-strategic Factors of the Balkan Geopolitics

In the 19th and the 20th centuries the eastern portion of Southeast Europe was under the Russian sphere of influence because it was closer to the main Russian objects of acquisition – Constantinople (Istanbul), the Sea of Marmara, the Bosporus, and the Dardanelles. Beginning with the time of the Empress Catherine the Great (1762–1796) the conquering of Constantinople was put on the pedestal of the Russian Balkan policy.[11] On the other hand, the western piece of Southeast Europe was considered the Austro-Hungarian (the Habsburg) sphere of influence. Consequently, the Russian-Austro-Hungarian spheres of influence overlapped on the territories of Serbia and Montenegro[12], while the territory of Albania experienced similar overlapping of the Italian-Austro-Hungarian spheres of influence. Taking this in mind, it was quite natural that the members of the European Great Powers supported different Balkan states during the Balkan Wars in 1912–1913 and the First World War in 1914–1918. 

The military-strategic factors of Southeast Europe have five delicate points: 

  1. The “Ljubljana Door” adjoins Central Europe and North Adriatic.
  2. The Morava-Vardar valley bounds Central Europe with the North Aegean Sea.
  3. The Pannonian Plain is in the confines of the southern part of Central Europe and North Balkans.
  4. The River Danube is the main bridge of Southeast Europe with Central and West Europe.
  5. The Black Sea’s seashore.[13]

Many invaders throughout history used these five points as roads to cross from Central Europe to the Balkans or vice versa (for example, the Crusaders and the Ottomans).[14] The Sub-Danubian region of Southeast Europe played a significant role in the German-Austrian foreign policy course of Drang nach Osten in the years from 1871 to 1918. Under this course should be grasped the German military-political-economic penetration into Asia Minor and when the Suez Canal was opened further into India (the German plans concerning the Baghdad and Anatolian railways). The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary became the locomotive of this course after the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908, interested in the first place to drive towards the Aegean Sea through the Sanjak of Novi Pazar (after 1913 divided between Serbia and Montenegro)[15] and the valley of the River Vardar. At the time of the Austrian-Hungarian Emperor Franz Josef I (1848–1916), a synonym for his country was a “Sub-Danubian Monarchy” referring to the importance of the River Danube for the very existence of Austria-Hungary which was composed by the Balkan and Central-European provinces. [16]

The Black Sea’s seashore became the principal battlefield area between imperial Russia and the Ottoman Empire from the time of the Russian Empress Catherine II (1762−1796) throughout the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Both belligerent sides tried to increase their political influence in Southeast Europe to provide their hegemony in the area of the Black Sea’s maritime.

Nevertheless, the other European Great Powers had as well as their particular interests in the sector of the European part of the Black Sea’s shore and its waters like the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and even Italy. The struggle of the European Great Powers upon mastering the Black Sea’s trade and military directly or indirectly affected the domestic affairs of Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Montenegro, and Greece.

It was true particularly from the time of the Crimean War (1854–1856) to the time of the Great War (1914–1918) when the fight of the small Balkan nations for their national liberation and unification depended to a large extent on the result of the Russian-Ottoman wars and the Russian diplomatic support for the Balkan Christian Orthodox states. For instance, after the Russian military and diplomatic defeat during the Crimean War and the Paris Peace Conference in 1856, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, and Greece could not expect any territorial achievement until the next Russian-Ottoman War of 1877–1878 in which the Ottoman Empire was defeated. Therefore, due to the Russian victory and the San Stefano Peace Treaty in 1878, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Romania, and Serbia became independent states according to the Berlin Congress’ decisions in July 1878 and at the same time enlarged their state’s territories at the expense of the Ottoman Empire.[17] At that time, the Russian principal protégé in the Balkans was Bulgaria which was the prime reason for Serbia to turn her eyes towards Vienna and Pest after 1878. The Russian pro-Bulgarian Balkan policy during the war against the Ottoman Empire in 1877–1878 had its foundations in the Russian efforts to establish a firm foothold on the Black Sea’s littoral to easily acquire control over Istanbul and the Straits. For that purpose, Bulgaria was the most appropriate Balkan state as being a vanguard of the Russian Euro-Balkan policy and the main forerunner of St. Petersburg’s interests in the region.

Possible and Real Political Axis-alliances in Southeast Europe

Southeast European geostrategic importance can be sublimated in the next three points: 

  1. The region is a significant overland tie between Europe and the Middle East.
  2. The region has important reserves of natural wealth in raw materials, energy, etc.
  3. The region located between Central Europe, the Black Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea was and is an important point of the European and even global system of security and strategy of imperialistic powers.[18]

Southeast Europe had its highest geostrategic importance in international relations at the beginning of the 20th century when the region became a notable link in the chain of the European system of balancing powers. For that reason, both the Central Powers and the Entente made considerable efforts to obtain better military, strategic, political, and economic positions in the region before the outbreak of the First World War. 

Taking into account historical, cultural, national, and religious aspects of the development of the Balkan civilization, there were and are three possible main political axis alliances to function in this European region: 

  1. An Islamic axis: The Turks, the Muslims from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sanjak, Albania, West Macedonia, East Montenegro, East Bulgaria, and Kosovo-Metochia.
  2. The Orthodox alliance: Russia, Serbia, the Serbian portion of Montenegro, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbs from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo-Metochia, and the eastern regions of the Republic of North Macedonia.
  3. The Roman Catholic bloc: Croats, Slovenians, Central European German Catholics, Hungarians, Vatican, and Bosnian-Herzegovinian Roman Catholics).[19]

During WWII, Southeast Europe became the battlefield of three opposite political-ideological forces: 1) the Nazis and Fascists; 2) the Communists; and 3) the Parliamentary Democrats. After 1945 the region was sharply divided between the members of the NATO Pact (est. 1949) and the Warsaw Pact (est. 1955) while Socialist Yugoslavia as a member of the Non-Alignment Movement was to a certain extent a Balkan political mediator. Finally, the Balkans became once again in the 20th century the very focus of the world’s attention during the process of bloody disintegration and destruction of Yugoslavia (1991–1995)[20] and the Kosovo War (1998−1999) followed by NATO’s military intervention (in fact, aggression) in the Balkans (against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) in 1999 (March−June).[21]

Conclusion

In conclusion, Southeast Europe is a geopolitical term that connotes peoples, cultures, and states that make up a region between the Black, Adriatic, Aegean, and Mediterranean Seas. There are three crucial points of the regional significance in the geostrategic point of view: 

  1. The territory of South-East Europe is an extremely important connection between West and Central Europe and the Near and Middle East.
  2. A wealthy region’s natural resources.
  3. The region is a very important part of the Great Powers’ political-military-economic strategy. 

Located on the crossroads of different civilizations, Southeast Europe during its 3,000 years of historical and cultural development preserved many material remains from different civilizations and was under strong spiritual influence from West European, East European, Central European, Mediterranean, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and many other cultures. If some part of Europe deserved the name of “melting pot of civilizations” it is the case with its south-eastern part for sure. 

Personal disclaimer: The author writes for this publication in a private capacity which is unrepresentative of anyone or any organization except for his own personal views. Nothing written by the author should ever be conflated with the editorial views or official positions of any other media outlet or institution. 

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Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović is a former university professor in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is a Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Notes

Jelavich B., History of the Balkans. Eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, ix–xi. 

Berend I., T., Ránki G., East Central Europe in the 19th and 20 centuries, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1977, 41.

3 Among selected bibliography of South-East European cultural, political, historical and social developments the following works deserve to be mentioned [Cvijić J., Balkansko Poluostrvo i južnoslovenske zemlje. Osnove antropogeografije, I, Zagreb, 1922; Stavrianos, L. S., The Balkans, 1815–1914, New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1963; Jelavich B. and Ch., The Balkans, Prentice-Hall: New Jersey, 1965;   Stoianovich T., A Study in Balkan Civilization, New York: Knopf, 1967; Jelavich Ch., (ed.), Language and Area Studies: East Central and Southeastern Europe, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969; Edgar H., The Balkans: A Short History from Greek Times to the Present Day, New York: Crane, Russak, 1972; Jelavich B. and Ch., The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 1804–1920, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977; Sugar P. E., Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule, 1354–1804, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977; Castellan G., History of the Balkans: From Mohammed the Conqueror to Stalin, New York: Columbia University Press, East European Monographs, Boulder, 1992; Stojanović T., Balkanski svetovi. Prva i poslednja Evropa, Beograd: Equilibrium, 1997; Bideleux R., Jeffries I., A History of Eastern Europe. Crisis and Change, London−New York: Routledge, 1999; Mazower M., The Balkans. A Short History, Random House, Inc., 2002; Kaplan D. R., Balkan Ghosts. A Journey Through History, New York: Picador, St. Martin’s Press, 2005; Wachtel B. A., The Balkans in World History, Oxford−New York: Oxford University Press, 2008; Gleny M., The Balkans. Nationalism, War and the Great Powers, 1804–2012, Granta Books, 2012]. One of the most useful guides of selected bibliography of our interest up to the 1970s is [Horecky, P. L., (ed.), Southeastern Europe: A Guide to Basic Publications, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969].   

4 Even today, there are suspicious scientists and researchers who are following before 19th-century attitude towards geopolitics as not scientific area or simply as the pseudo-science. It should be said that from the time of the mid-19th century the geopolitics was accepted more and more like a field to be equal with other academic disciplines primarily due to the works of the American Admiral Mahan A. T. (1840–1914) connected with the role of the navy in the ruling the world, then the works of the German geographer Ratzel F. (1844–1904) concerning the relations between geography and the living space (Lebensraum), the Swedish university professor of the political sciences Kjellén J. R. (1864–1922) about the state as an organism and the superiority of the German race, the British scientist Mac Kinder Halford John (1861–1947) with regard to the importance of the heartland and finally but at the same time mostly due to the German General and geographer Haushofer K. (1869–1946) who was writing primarily upon the geopolitical reasons of Hitler’s wars of territorial expansion of the Third Reich. However, a Greek historian Herodotus (B.C. 484–424), a “father of history” and the author of the famous History of the Greek-Persian Wars, should be considered as one of the early founders of the geopolitics as the science. In sum, the geopolitics was primarily discredited as an academic field of research and investigation since it was seen only as a justification and projection of the German expansionism in the 19th and the 20th centuries. Subsequently, the negative synonyms for the geopolitics were the doctrines of the “Blood and Soil” (Blut und Boden), the “Living Space” (Lebensraum), the “Will for Power” (Wile zum Macht) and the “Lord-Nation” (Herren Volk). On geopolitics, see in [Dodds K., Geopolitics: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford−New York: Oxford University Press, 2007; Black J., Geopolitics, London: The Social Affairs Unit, 2009; Cohen B. S., Geopolitics: The Geography of International Relations, Lanham, Maryland: The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc., 2009; Walberg E., Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games, Atlanta, GA: Clarity Press, 2011; Flint C., Introduction to Geopolitics, New York: Routledge, 2012; Starr H., On Geopolitics: Space, Place, and International Relations, Paradigm Publishers, 2014].       

5 Петковић Р., XX век на Балкану. Версај, Јалта, Дејтон, Службени лист СРЈ, Београд, 10. On the „Balkan geopolitics of nightmare“, see in [Славољуб Б. Шушић, Геополитички кошмар Балкана, Београд: Војноиздавачки завод, 2004].

6 On ancient Greek city-state, see in [Adkins H. W., White P., University of Chicago Readings in Western Civilization, 1 The Greek Polis, Chicago−London: The University of Chicago Press, 1986; Hansen H. M., Polis. An Introduction to the Ancient Greek City-State, New York−Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006]. 

7 The pivotal nationality principle in Europe is: A nation is a people in possession of or striving for its own state. The relationship between state and nation in Europe was gradually transformed from the model of the Augsburg religious peace settlement of 1555 – “Cuius regio, eius religio” to the modern model of Switzerland, Belgium, Quebec or Bosnia-Herzegovina – “Cuius regio, eius lingua”. On ethnicity, national identity and nationalism, see in [Smith A., The Ethnic Origins of Nations, Oxford, 1986; Gellner E., Nations and Nationalism, Paris, 1989; Miller D., On Nationality, Oxford, 1995; Guibernau M., Rex J. (eds.), The Ethnicity: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Migration. Reader, Cornwall: Polity Press, 1997; Jenkins R., Rethinking Ethnicity, SAGE Publications Ltd, 2008].

8 The cult of war is present in every Balkan nationalism. For example, Serbian Orthodox Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović stated on the day of the proclamation of the beginning of the First Balkan War in 1912 in his oration about “Young Serbia” that the “Lord is a great warrior” [Велимировић Н., Изнад греха и смрти. Беседе и мисли, Београд, 1914, 12]. On the Kosovo War in 1998−1999, see in [Hadjimichalis C., “Kosovo, 82 Days of an Undeclared and Unjust War: A Geopolitical Comment”, European Urban and Regional Studies, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2000, 175−180; Henrikson D., NATO’s Gamble: Combining Diplomacy and Airpower in the Kosovo Crisis 19981999, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2007].     

9 On the German Drang nach Osten, see in [Meyer C. H., Drang Nach Osten: Fortunes of a Slogan-Concept in German-Slavic Relations, 1848−1990, Peter Lang AG, 1996; Lewin E., The German Road to the East: An Account of the ‘Drang Nach Osten’ and of Teutonic Aims in the Near and Middle East…, Nabu Press, 2012].  

10 The center of the Ottoman government in Albania was set up at Gjirokastra following the annexation of all the property of the nobility in Central Albania. Among the expropriated Albanian noblemen was and John Kastriota the father of George Kastriota Skanderbeg (1405–1468). The latter succeeded to liberate Albania from the Ottoman sway and ruled an independent Albania from 1443 to 1468. The day when Skanderbeg raised a flag bearing his family’s arms on the citadel of Kruja (November, 28th) 1443 became a national holiday for Albanians (the “Flag’s Day”). Knowing that it is not surpassingly that a restoration of the Albanian independent statehood in 1912 was announced exactly on the day of November 28th. A Skanderbeg flag became a national emblem of an independent Albania. The day of November 28th remained as the national feast day. However, the Ottomans finally subjugated Albania in 1479 taking control over the fortress of Scutari (Shkodër/Skadar) from the hands of Venice (according to the peace agreement signed between the Ottoman Empire and Venice in Constantinople/Istanbul on June 25th, 1479. The capture of Scutari in 1479 became a part of principal anti-Ottoman propaganda among the Italians, the Albanians and the Montenegrins in their struggle against the Ottoman lordship in present-day North Albania. All of them claimed that the Ottomans captured “their” historical city of Scutari and a policy of liberation of the city from the Ottoman possession became a driving force of their national duty and prudence in the 19th and 20th centuries.

11 Радовановић Љ., “Балкан и Средоземље”, Међународна политика, Београд, № 484, 1970.

12 Радовановић Љ., “Санстефански и Берлински уговор”, Међународна политика, Београд, № 498, 1971.

13 About the River Danube, see in [Ристић А. М., Геополитички положај Дунава, Београд, 1940; Wechsberg J., The Danube, The Book Service Ltd, 1980; Meszaros L., The Danube, John Beaufoy Publishing, 2009; Beattie A., The Danube. A Cultural History, New York−Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010].

14 About the Balkan military-strategic features during the Cold War, see in [Габелић А., “Гарантије”, Међународна политика, Београд, № 448, 1968; Mates L., Međunarodni odnosi socijalističke Jugoslavije, Beograd: Nolit, 1976].   

15 On the history of the region of Sanjak (Sandžak), see in [Morrison K., Roberts E., The Sanžak: A History, London: C. Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd., 2013].

16 See more in [Kann R. A., The Habsburg Empire: A Study in Integration and Disintegration, New York, 1973; Bérenger J., A History of the Habsburg Empire 1273–1700, London−New York, 1997; Bérenger J., A History of the Habsburg Empire 1700–1918, London−New York, 2000]. 

17 On the issue regarding the war and diplomacy in 1877−1878, see in [Sluglett P., Yavuz M. H. (eds.), War and Diplomacy: The Russo-Turkish War of 1877−1878 and the Treaty of Berlin, University of Utah Press, 2011; Druri I., The Russo-Turkish War 1877, Men-at-Arms, Osprey Publishing, 2012].

18 About general problems of the geostrategic importance and security of South-Eastern Europe, see in [Castellan G., Le monde des Balkans: poudriere ou zone de paix?, Paris: Voubert, 1994; Yazakova A. Shmelyov B., Selivanova I, Kolikov N. (eds.), The Balkans: Between the Past and the Future, Moscow, 1995; Lukić R., Lynch A., Europe from the Balkans to the Urals, Oxford: SIPRI−Oxford University Press, 1996].

19 In regard to the problem of a religious ground of national determination and making political alliances in the Balkans, see in [Пашић Н., Национално питање у савременој епохи, Београд, 1973; Janjić D. (ed.), Religion and War, Belgrade, 1994].  

20 On this issue, see in [Woodward L. S., Balkan Tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution after the Cold War, Washington D.C.: Brooking Institution Press, 1995; Guskova J., Istorija jugoslovenske krize (1990−2000), I−II, Beograd: Izdavački grafički atelje „M“, 2003; Finlan A., Essential Histories: The Collapse of Yugoslavia 1991−1999, Oxford: Osprey Publishing Ltd., 2004].

21 On the intervention, see in [Parenti M., To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia, London−New York: Verso, 2000; Gibbs N. D., First Do Not Harm: Humanitarian Intervention and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University Press, 2009].

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October 6, 2023, Latakia, Syria: The Syrian Arab Army has shot down drones targeting the Syrian Military Hospital at Homs today, where terrorists had planned to kill the hospitalized survivors of the massive drone attack the Uyghurs had carried out yesterday, as well as target the flag-draped coffins being dispersed to funerals this morning.

The 91 dead include 31 women and 5 children as they watched their family members in a graduation ceremony at the Homs Military Academy in Homs, while 277 were injured. This was one of the deadliest attacks on the Syrian military, and was timed to occur at the end of the ceremony when the families went down into the courtyard to personally greet their loved ones who had transitioned from cadet to officer.  Syria has declared three days of mourning.

The Syrian Arab Army began attacks on the known Uyghur positions in the province of Idlib, east of Latakia, and Ariha, west of Aleppo.  

The attacks were carried out by the Uyghurs of the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) and the Brigade of Emigrants. These two armed groups are known for their technological capabilities in conducting drone attacks.

Experts believe the attack on the Syrian military academy, and its civilian audience of family members, was prompted by the visit of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to China where the 19thAsian Games opened and saw Syrian athletes participating.  

The massive attack was shocking since the Syrian conflict has become a stalemate, and the battlefields are silent since 2017, when US President Trump cut-off the billion dollar CIA program, Timber Sycamore, which funded Radical Islamic terrorists in Syria battling to overthrow the Syrian government in Damascus. All of Syria is under government control, with the exception of the Kurdish-US occupation of the northeast, and the terrorist controlled Idlib province in the northwest.

Al Mayadeen TV reported, the advanced drones used in the attack were delivered three months ago from France to the TIP. This terrorist organization is allied with the terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly named Jibhat al-Nusra, the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria. TIP is composed of Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group native to northwestern China. Its fighters are based in the mountainous areas of Latakia and Idlib in Syria, which border on Turkey.  

The Syrian Ministry of Defense had previously reported shooting down two drones north of Aleppo which had been targeting civilians in small villages.

Who Are the Uyghurs?

TIP is an armed Uyghur terrorist group which has been in Syria fighting alongside the US-sponsored terrorists, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), since 2015. Long War Journal reported in 2015 that TIP had ties to Al Qaeda.

Syrian Churches have been destroyed by TIP, and in Jisr al-Shughur a Church’s cross had a TIP flag placed on top of it.  The province of Idlib has been ethnically cleansed of Christians by TIP, and they killed a Christian man and his wife. In previous battles in Idlib and Homs, TIP fought alongside Al Qaeda and ISIS.

Camps training children as terrorists are being run by TIP.  Uyghur child soldiers being trained with guns were depicted in a video released by TIP.

Turkey’s Support of the Uyghurs

The Uyghurs are a Muslim, Turkic-speaking ethnic group having a common linguistic, religious, and cultural kinship with the people of Turkey.

Erdogan, and his ruling AKP party, are followers of the Muslim Brotherhood, a global terror organization which stand on the same platform of core beliefs as TIP, Al Qaeda and ISIS.

In the past, while Mayor of Istanbul, Erdogan described the Uyghurs as the ancient forefathers of the Turkish nation, and their area in western China as the cradle of Turkic history, civilization and culture. 

In 2014, the Uyghurs carried out a terror attack in Kunming, China. The terrorists caught fleeing the attack had Turkish passports on them as they attempted to travel through Indonesia.

According to the Jamestown Foundation, Turkish connections were used by TIP to go to Syria through the humanitarian Uyghur East Turkistan Education and Solidarity Association (ETESA) which is located in Turkey. Turkish President Erdogan personally directed an elaborate travel plan for the Uyghurs in China to arrive in Syria to kill. 

Erdogan directed fake passports to be issued for the Uyghurs, which were then used to travel from China to Istanbul, where the fake passports were then confiscated by Turkish immigration officials, and the Turkish Intelligence agents clandestinely transported the terrorists from Istanbul to Idlib.

TIP solicits donations by using the Turkish postal service, which send the donations to Turkish banks. 

In 2017, the Associated Press reported at least 5,000 Uyghurs were fighting in Syria, and several hundred had joined ISIS.

The US captured 22 Uyghur terrorists from combat zones in Afghanistan in 2006 because they were linked with Al Qaeda. They were imprisoned without trial for five to seven years in Guantanamo Bay, but then released into the US, despite warnings from politicians and complaints from the public fearing it was unsafe.

The US shot down a Turkish drone in Syria today, as reported by Mark Alfred of the Daily Beast.

A US F-16 downed a Turkish drone in northeast Syria after officials deemed it a threat to American forces. 

Turkey, a NATO ally, has been carrying out air attacks on Kurdish militants who are supported by the US, and have 900 US troops nearby while occupying the Syrian oil and gas fields in the northeast.

The downing of the Turkish drone may raise tensions between the allies, with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin set to meet with Turkish officials.

The attack yesterday in Homs demonstrates the persistent efforts to destabilize Syria and terrorize its people. US sanctions have caused thousands of Syrian to risk deadly migrations by sea to Europe. President Obama, and his Vice President Joe Biden, launched a US-NATO attack on Syria in March 2011, which failed its goal of regime change, but succeeded in destroying the country.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from MD

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*** 

New York Times published a news article “Greece, Battered a Decade Ago, Is Booming” by Liz Alderman, with additional reporting from Niki Kitsantonis (Monday, Sept. 25 / in print on Saturday, Sept. 30, Section B, Page 1 with the headline: “A New Era of Prosperity for Greece”).

Screenshot from The New York Times

The article informs us that Greece was hit by an economic crisis a decade ago. It had, then, a load of debt – (doesn’t it now?) – which it could not repay and almost left the eurozone. So far so good.

The newspaper informs that today it is one of the fastest growing economies in Europe. Again, so far so good.

And clearly, the famous credit rating agencies are upgrading Greece’s debt rating and thus, opening the way for large investors and the economy is growing at twice the rate of the eurozone average. That’s right. CEPR economist Dean Baker, commenting on the article after its publication, wrote with emphasis: “Since the eurozone growth rate for 2023 is projected to be 0.8 percent, growing twice as fast is a rather low bar.”

The journalist mentions that unemployment is at 11 percent, which one would say, with a dose of humor, is “Greek statistics” because the probability is that unemployment is much higher. (Greece’s past government falsified fiscal data in order to enter eurozone.) Dean Baker will point out though, “The 11 percent unemployment rate is far higher than the rest of the European Union, which has a 5.9 percent unemployment rate.” Everywhere in Greece there is poverty, and mine conditions in society.

I am one of the Greeks living in New York, and I have received many messages and phone calls from Greek people who want to immigrate to America because they cannot make ends meet. Friends and family members ask me the same. They are forced to do two-three jobs to survive. The minimum wage is 780 euros (650 net). So, how is it that the article describes “a miracle”? One would say that even the examples of the people mentioned in the article are not typical.

And the tourists who have returned en masse, as the article states, has not helped to improve incomes. On the popular islands – that the average Greek cannot visit – usually, there are galley conditions for the workers.

Unfortunately, in Greek society, a small percentage of 5%-10% live well – “the oligarchs eat with golden spoons” – and the rest suffer. Children of the poor go to school hungry.

The country has some of the most expensive fuel in Europe, expensive food, high VAT, and very expensive electricity. Many do not have money for dental care, to change tires on the car, or, to start a new family. The journalist writes “misery of austerity is still fresh”, no, it is not fresh; it is still present in the social conditions. Nowhere is mentioned that the government gave, until recently, “Soviet-style” Food Pass and Fuel Pass coupons, which helped the re-election by a landslide of the conservative leader Mr. Mitsotakis. This image is not beautified by the fact that the companies Microsoft and Pfizer are investing in Greece.

For reasons that are understandable, rating agencies like DBRS Morningstar and Moody’s do their job.

Very likely for them, a strong economy means neoliberalism, purchasing power that is getting worse every year, and cheap labor. And Greece is a country that lacks personalities like Chomsky, AOC and Bernie. But the NYTimes should not present these assessments while ignoring the poverty that still exists in the country that gave birth to Democracy. The NYTimes has accustomed us to a more critical look at the suffering of ordinary people.

In conclusion, “can a dead man dance?” No! So, the information given by the NYTimes should create “a complete picture” and not the opposite. Perhaps, we can accept that somehow, the good American newspaper wants to help improve the desperate economic situation that continues to impoverish the Greeks and stop the transfer of wealth to the few. Good psychology is everything, even in economy. Until then, the country will continue to live its own difficult fate, its own 1929, similar to the conditions America experienced at the start of the Great Depression era.

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Dimitris Eleas is a new immigrant in America. He is a New York-based writer / article writer/ activist / political scientist and contributes to SLpress (Athens) and The National Herald (NYC). You can contact him via e-mail: [email protected].

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*** 

In April 2021, the Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt had a meeting with Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club. According to an ABC News report,

“Pratt told Trump he believed Australia should start buying its submarines from the United States, to which an excited Trump – ‘leaning’ towards Pratt as if to be discreet – then told Pratt two pieces of information about US submarines: the supposed exact number of nuclear warheads they routinely carry, and exactly how close they supposedly can get to a Russian submarine without being detected.”

The report, citing “sources familiar with the matter,” goes on to mention that Pratt “allegedly shared the information with scores of others, including more than a dozen foreign officials, several of his own employees, and a handful of journalists”. The net, in other words, proved rather large, with emails and conversations taking place on the subject with three former Australian prime ministers, 10 Australian officials, 11 of Pratt’s employees and six journalists.

The revelation has emerged as part of an ongoing investigation by special counsel Jack Smith into Trump’s retention of classified documents on leaving the White House. Some of the documents, hoarded at Mar-a-Lago, covered US military matters, nuclear weapons, and spy satellites.

What is buried in the latest spray and foam of the Trump disclosures to Pratt is whether that encounter had any bearing on the broader strategic thinking in Canberra and its links to the US military industrial complex. The AUKUS security agreement between the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia contemplates the transfer of at least three US nuclear powered Virginia class boats, along with the construction of a specific co-designed nuclear-powered boat for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN).  Did Pratt’s enthusiasm for US nuclear submarines percolate through to other officials, think-tankers and courtiers working for Washington’s interests?

Former Australian Prime Ministers Paul Keating and Tony Abbott have told the Australian Financial Review that Pratt never raised the issue of purchasing US nuclear submarines with them. Who, then, were the other prime ministers who received Pratt’s gobbets of wisdom?  Surely Scott Morrison must figure, given his role in brokering the AUKUS agreement.

The ABC News report does acknowledge that a number of Australian officials who featured in the Pratt disclosures were “involved in then-ongoing negotiations with the Biden administration over a deal for Australia to purchase a number of nuclear-powered attack submarines from the United States.”

A number of Australian commentators have tried to minimise the significance of the Trump-Pratt encounter, thereby revealing visible smoke plumes. “We’ve had submariners serve on US nuclear submarines for years,” stated former Australian ambassador to the US Joe Hockey. “I find it hard to believe that in a conversation between Anthony Pratt and Donald Trump, anything of great significance was discussed that would have an impact on the national security of either Australia or the United States.”

Former Australian Defence Department official Peter Jennings, who also served as executive director of the US-funded and parochially pro-Washington think-tank, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, for over a decade, saw little reason to be concerned about the content of the disclosures. Most of the material on US submarines was already in the public domain. His concern, rather, was with Trump’s cavalier approach to national security information.  “It’s just the 1000th example of why Trump is unfit to be president,” he tut-tutted. Jennings, along with the other members of the paid-up Washington consensus in combating Beijing, is no doubt losing sleep about Trump redux. Were Trump to return to the White House, all bets about Australia getting its nuclear-powered submarines are off.

The speed with which AUKUS was entered into by the Scott Morrison government in September 2021, an agreement which also brought no demurral or any murmurs of dissent from the then Labour opposition of Anthony Albanese, had a rank smell to it. For one thing, it has seen Australia further trapped in an insidious game of military competition being waged against China at the behest of US interests, militarising the country and mortgaging the budget to the tune of $368 billion over the course of two decades.

AUKUS also brought with it the abrupt termination of Canberra’s contract with the French Naval Group to construct twelve diesel-electric attack submarines for the RAN. This proved to be a disastrous affair for Australian diplomacy, savaging French-Australian relations and also advertising, to the region, the abject repudiation of Australian sovereignty.

While it should be stressed that Pratt faces no charges of illegality or impropriety, nor features in the 40 charges Smith is levelling against Trump, the Mar-a-Lago meeting with a former US president may prove critical in identifying a nexus with Canberra’s irrational interest in US-nuclear powered technology and the point at which that fascination ended the last vestiges of Australian independence.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected] 

Featured image: The USS John Warner, a nuclear-powered submarine of the type Australia will soon be developing. Source: US Navy

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*** 

NATO is increasingly explicit in its anti-Russian war plans. In an article recently published on the Atlantic alliance website, an ex-senior US official called for a nuclear war against the Russian Federation. These moves make clear the real intentions of the Western bloc against Moscow and show how NATO is not interested in any alternative to find a peaceful solution to current tensions.

Gregory Weaver, former nuclear defense advisor to the US Joint Staff, states in the article that Russia poses a nuclear “challenge” to the US. He believes that Moscow could violate its own nuclear doctrine and use atomic bombs on the battlefield in conventional conflicts, such as the Ukrainian one, or directly attack NATO countries if the US were involved in a war against another nuclear power, such as China.

Weaver sees Russian leadership as extremely irresponsible, with “propensity to take risk, and to miscalculate profoundly in the process of doing so.” In this sense, the former advisor believes that Moscow could take nuclear measures against NATO without calculating the consequences of this action, or believing that Washington would simply not respond, avoiding a global nuclear escalation.

So, instead of suggesting peaceful solutions to this scenario and calling for a reduction of tensions to avoid nuclear risks, Weaver embraces the opposite direction: he calls on NATO to engage in a process of nuclear deterrence against Russia. For the author, the alliance must increase its offensive potential, prepare fighters and submarines to launch tactical nuclear weapons and, if “necessary”, start a limited direct nuclear war with Russia. In this scenario, both sides would use tactical nuclear weapons in a “moderate” way, without escalating the conflict globally.

“To enable that strategy, NATO nuclear and conventional forces must be capable of:

1- providing a robust range of response options to restore deterrence by convincing Russian leadership they have direly miscalculated, that further nuclear use will not achieve their objectives, and that they will incur costs that far exceed any benefits they can achieve;

2- countering the military impact of Russian theater nuclear use;

3- continuing to operate effectively to achieve US and Allied objectives in a limited nuclear use environment. To meet these requirements NATO needs a range of continuously forward deployed, survivable theater nuclear capabilities that can reliably penetrate adversary theater air and missile defenses with a range of explosive yields on operationally relevant timelines,” the article reads.

Conveniently, Weaver did not mention in his article the possible consequences of a conflict of this type for the European continent, where such a war would certainly be fought. This clearly shows how Europe has no relevant value for American geopolitical plans, being just a theater of operations against Russia. If it is necessary to destroy European countries with nuclear bombs to achieve its “strategic goals”, the US would certainly do so, as for them the Europeans are not allies, but true vassals and proxies.

In fact, Weaver’s article is a clear example of the warmongering mentality that has achieved hegemonic status among US political and economic elites. The obsession with preserving the declining unipolar order and defeating Russia and China is leading Washington decision-makers to consider such insanities as the deliberate creation of a direct conflict between the world’s two largest nuclear powers.

There is in the US an unfounded belief in the possibility of creating a “limited nuclear theater“, where attacks would take place in a moderate manner without escalating into a global risk situation. But this is not a likely scenario. The only possibility for a regional nuclear theater not to escalate into a global one is if the attacks are unilateral, with no response from the affected side. From the moment there is an exchange of attacks, the tendency is that at some point one of the sides decides to attack the decision-making centers in the enemy capital with strategic nuclear weapons – which could lead to disastrous global consequences.

Furthermore, it is necessary to emphasize how Weaver is using fallacious rhetoric in his favor to justify the war. At no point was there any “miscalculation” on Russia’s part. Moscow launched its special military operation very carefully, taking all necessary measures to protect its people and avoid escalations. But there were real threats from Western public figures, such as former British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who stated that she was “ready” to promote “global annihilation.”

Until now, the Western side has been the only one to make irrational, miscalculated and irresponsible decisions. The nuclear blackmail started with the West and the Russians only responded. As Russian authorities have made clear several times, the use of nuclear weapons would only occur in cases determined by the country’s doctrine – which, unlike the American one, is strictly defensive.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

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

Featured image is from Strategic Culture Foundation


Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102

PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute    

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*** 

 

Graph Source: UK Disabilities PIP Project

Aug. 4, 2023 – Australia – Nathan is a 49 year old dad in the mining industry who developed debilitating Pericarditis after his 2nd Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine.

Jul. 27, 2023 – NSW, Australia – 33 year old Jo Newman was in training for her first half marathon. She took two Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines and developed Pericarditis and 2cm of fluid around her heart.

July 25, 2023 – Perth, Australia – 25 year old Rob is a plumber who was mandated two Pfizer mRNA Vaccines and has developed pericarditis with other neurological symptoms.

July 6, 2023 – Bondi, NSW, Australia – 35 year old Natasha had two Pfizer mRNA Vaccines and developed Pericarditis.

June 15, 2023 – Far North QLD, Australia – 35 year old Shana is a nursing student and mother of 4 children. She had 2 Pfizer mRNA Vaccines and developed pericarditis.

May 24, 2023 – Melbourne, Australia – 23 year old Johan had 2 Moderna mRNA Vaccines and developed Pericarditis.

Sep. 22, 2023 – Soko Nix (Nikkiah Christa St.James-Wolfe) is a TV/Radio host and a screenwriter She is COVID-19 mRNA Vaccinated she has come down with pericarditis and gallbladder problems, two of the most common COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine side effects.

Sep. 19, 2023 – Los Angeles, CA – Garon Cockrell, a writer, has now had pericarditis twice.

Sep. 2023 – Long Beach, CA – Marcy Sudock is a violinist and Music Director of Musique Sur La Mer Orchestra and Chamber Ensembles. She developed pericarditis.

July 31, 2023 – NFL Broncos waive 24 year old KJ Hamler after he was recently diagnosed with “mild pericarditis” (click here)

June 23, 2023 – Columbia, SC – Chelsey Walker is a healthcare worker who works at Sandhills Pediatrics (COVID-19 Vaccinated). She developed pericarditis, skin lesions and Turbo Cancer melanoma.

April 2023 – Australia – 41 year old Gareth O’Gradie, Melbourne teacher, father of 2, had part of his heart removed in Feb.2022 as a “extreme” last resort after being bedridden for 7 months with severe pericarditis shortly after his 1st Pfizer Vaccine in July 2021.

Pericarditis…

Pericarditis is an inflammation of the pericardium, which is a thin, protective membrane surrounding the heart.

WHO’s VigiAccess database lists AEs for COVID-19 Vaccines (click here):

  • 28,820 reports of myocarditis
  • 23,522 reports of pericarditis
  • 5,246 reports of pericardial effusion
  • 3,565 reports of myopericarditis

Pfizer doesn’t understand how their mRNA Vaccine causes PERICARDITIS (Australian Senator Gerard Rennick questions and grills two Pfizer Executives who can’t answer his question).

Click here to view the video

My Take…

The scientific literature on COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine induced Pericarditis is absolute garbage & a complete fraud.

UK government disability data shows a 700% increase in disabilities due to Pericarditis in 2022 compared to the baseline. This is COVID-19 Vaccine damage.

If this is happening with pericarditis, something similar may be happening with myocarditis and the resulting sudden cardiac deaths of young people.

Notice how many women are getting pericarditis.

Notice how debilitating and persistent this COVID-19 Vaccine Injury can be over the span of years. Most victims have not gotten their lives back.

COVID-19 Vaccine Spike Protein Detoxification is absolutely crucial in these cases. 

Must incorporate these elements:

  • 3 day water fasting
  • Nattokinase, Bromelain or other spike protein proteases (eg. Serrapeptase)
  • Ivermectin, Quercetin, Olive Leaf Extract, Black Seed (Nigella Sativa), Curcumin, Dandelion extract or other Spike protein blockers
  • NAC, Vitamin C – antioxidants
  • Taurine – cardiac anti-inflammatory
  • Vitamin D, Magnesium, Selenium, Zinc – Immune system support

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

Featured image is from Ryan Gassner


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

by Michel Chossudovsky

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

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

Reviews

This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon

In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia

In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig 

Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac

A reading of  Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late.  You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin

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

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

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

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*** 

Details of the recent Ukrainian-Iraqi talks have appeared in the Middle Eastern media. According to almasryalyoum.com, on September 27, a YouTube video appeared, which claims that Ukrainian president Zelenskyy has been trying to recruit certain Iraqi prisoners into the Armed Forces of Ukraine. According to the video, the prisoners in question are convicted terrorists and ISIS fighters. The author of the video is Hassan Fadel, who introduced himself as a former employee of the Foreign Ministry of Iraq, working there as a secretary from 2019 to 2023 before leaving the country.

“My name is Hassan Fadel and I am a former employee of a Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Iraq. I worked as a secretary there from 2019 to 2023. I discovered this note in April of this year when Ukrainian diplomats gave it to my colleagues. I am deeply outraged by the contents of this note and would like to make it public, because “the fighters experienced in fighting Russians” mentioned in it are former ISIS fighters detained in prison facilities around Iraq. I resigned from the Ministry and left Iraq with my family, so I don’t know what our response was. Still, I don’t want to see these people free, especially armed. ISIS are murderers and terrorists, and they should stay imprisoned for the rest of their lives. Many countries support Ukraine right now and allow it to break international laws. Still, aiding terrorists is too much and shouldn’t be allowed. I am also appalled by the American involvement in this. General McFarlane mentioned in the note is the commander of American Joint Task Force in Iraq. It is simply shocking how easily the issues of the movement of Iraqi prisoners, especially terrorists, can be resolved without the participation of representatives of our country.”

In mid-April 2023, a meeting was held in Baghdad between representatives of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry headed by Fuad Hussein and a Ukrainian delegation headed by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. After the meeting, the politicians spoke to the press, making a number of statements about the development of cooperation between the countries and the desire to end the Russian-Ukrainian war.

The picture of the letter as shown in the video

Another meeting was held in May of 2023 in Saudi Arabia during the Summit on the Settlement of the Russian-Ukrainian Conflict, organized by Ukraine. President Zelenskyy personally communicated there with the Prime Minister of Iraq Al Sudani.

It is unknown how many ISIS fighters are still detained. In the last five years, many of them were executed or died of natural causes. According to the circumstantial evidence and the research data, their number can be assumed to be a few thousands. In March of this year, American general Michael Kurilla, who visited prisons housing the detained terrorists, stated, that between those detained in Syria and Iraq it is a veritable ‘ISIS army in detention.’ If freed, this group would pose a great threat regionally and beyond.”

General McFarlane, mentioned in the Hassan Fadil’s video, is the US Army major general, who was heading Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve from September 2022 to August 2023. CJTF-OIR is an international military coalition tasked with fighting ISIS and led by the United States.

No official declarations regarding such operation were made by either Ukraine or Iraq. On September 25th, British newspaper The Sun posted a video showing one of the AFU fighters wearing ISIS patches.

Daniil ‘Mujahid’ Lyashuk volunteered to fight for Ukraine. He adhered to far-right ideology, and converted to Islam, while also embracing ISIS ideology.

He joined Ukraine’s Tornado battalion that attacked the civilians of Donbas, where he was known as cruel, and tortured the residents, including rape. He boasted on his Telegram account that he was trained by the SAS of the British military.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are a US-sponsored Kurdish separatist militia in northeastern Syria. They are bolstered by several thousand US troops at Al Tanf base in Syria, which is illegally occupied by the US military. 

The SDF have numerous prison camps full of thousands of ISIS terrorists.  Occasionally, some of the terrorists have escaped, and on other occasions the US military have taken them away to Iraq.

It has been reported, that some of the ISIS terrorists were transferred to Ukraine to fight Russia in exchange for their freedom.  The prison caps run by the SDF have been visited often by western journalists who describe them as horrible and unlivable

Current media reports that Ukraine is desperate for weapons, ammunition and fighters. The US is in political turmoil and is divided about sending weapons and cash in huge amounts to Ukraine, while the American taxpayers are suffering inflation and facing a national debt in the trillions and tired of foreign wars that seem never-ending.

Recently, the US sent confiscated Iran weapons to Ukraine, and there is a real possibility that foreign terrorists, skilled in battle zones, may be utilized in Ukraine, by releasing them from Iraqi prisons, and Syrian prisons under the control of the US.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from MD

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*** 

I awoke this morning to the dawn of a new era.

Today, on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 war, Palestinian resistance fighters in Gaza launched an aerial and land attack on Israeli settlers, killing at least 40 people and taking many soldiers and civilians hostage. The barrier fence between Gaza and 1948 was dismantled. Palestinians currently control the Gaza checkpoint at Erez and continue to occupy three Israeli settlements.

The leadership of the operations said that the attacks are a response to the lack of accountability for Israel’s continuing war crimes against the Palestinian people and to dismantle the last apartheid regime in the world.

While the Israeli regime today declared war on the Palestinians, it is vital to remember that Israel has been carrying out unspeakable atrocities against the Palestinian people for over 70 years and has sustained a brutal blockade and siege on Gaza, imprisoning over 2 million Palestinians. No cage goes unchallenged.

The ability of Palestinian fighters to breach Israel’s incredible military infrastructure is a psychological break through.

I am reminded of Mahmoud Arda, one of the six Palestinians who escaped from one of Israel’s most fortified prisons by digging out with a spoon two years ago when he said, “We wanted to tell the world that this monster is nothing but an illusion of dust.”

Today magnifies that truth many-fold.

The US is busying itself with normalization deals between Israel and the Arab Gulf states and making promises to send even more weapons to the Israeli regime. All the while, Palestinians are clear: Israel is not a normal state, and our self-determination and rights will not be denied.

The people of Gaza are ingenious and determined and are teaching the world how to evade drones, breakthrough naval blockades, and capture tanks in response to intolerable conditions.

But we know that Israel will only continue to respond in the way it has since its settler colonial state was established: kill, break, torture, lie and call Palestinians terrorists. ​In Gaza, we are currently witnessing an onslaught of Israeli airstrikes, which have already claimed the lives of 198 Palestinians and left over 1,600 others injured at the time of us writing this email. The horror is far from over.

Take a pledge today to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian fight for freedom and ask the international community–including governments, academics, institutions, cultural workers, and artists and all who believe in justice– to recommit to supporting the Palestinian-led movement to boycott, divest, and sanction apartheid Israel.

Today we stand in unity with our people in Gaza and across Palestine who are at home tonight with their families praying for a better tomorrow that is free of the horrors of Israeli violence and colonial control.

*

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*** 

In the early morning hours of Saturday, October 7, the Palestinian resistance in the besieged Gaza Strip launched an unprecedented surprise multi-prong attack on Israel, including firing a barrage of rockets toward Israeli territory while simultaneously carrying out a ground offensive into nearby Israeli towns which breached the Israeli Gaza barrier and overwhelmed surrounding Israeli military posts. 

As of 12:30 local time, it was reported that thousands of rockets had been fired from Gaza into Israel and that Israeli air forces had targeted multiple areas across the Gaza Strip with airstrikes. Medical authorities in Gaza report that over 190 Palestinians had been killed and over 1,600 were injured so far. Israeli emergency services report at least 100 Israeli casualties, and dozens of other unconfirmed reports indicate the casualties to be much higher. According to Al Jazeera, 57 Israelis, including military personnel, have allegedly been captured and taken into Gaza. 

While Hamas reported firing more than 5,000 rockets into Israel, including long-range rockets, the Israeli army claimed just over 2,200 rockets were fired into Israel Saturday morning. 

At 11:47 a.m. local time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel was “at war,” vowing that “the enemy” would pay a price “like they have never known before.”

The Israeli army confirmed that Palestinian fighters had successfully breached the Gaza barrier in “several places,” and that dozens of fighters had infiltrated into Israeli territory by land, air (unconfirmed videos showed alleged Palestinian fighters descending into an Israeli town via hang glider), and by sea, Israeli media reported. 

The operation began at around 6:30 a.m. local time as Palestinians in Gaza woke up to the sound of rocket fire leaving the strip toward Israel. As the sound of rocket fire rang across the strip, many Gazans flooded into the streets and took to social media, unaware of what was happening. 

Close to one hour after the rocket fire began, shocking photos and videos began circulating on social media, showing convoys of armed Palestinian fighters breaking through the Israeli barrier along the Gaza border and infiltrating Israeli towns and military bases in the areas close to the strip. 

Unprecedented videos showed Palestinian militants patrolling Israeli towns in armored cars and vehicles, while other videos showed the fighters seemingly casually strolling around the neighborhoods as Israeli police and security forces were yet to respond. 

According to Israeli media, Israelis in southern towns surrounding Gaza were calling into Army radio and Israeli television channels, saying that fighters had been roaming around their towns and entering buildings for more than two hours while residents were still awaiting a response from Israeli forces.  

At 7:50 a.m., the general commander of the Hamas military wing, Muhammed al-Deif, released a recorded statement declaring a “comprehensive war” across occupied Palestine.  

“We announce the starting of the Operation of the ‘Flood of al-Aqsa.’ We also announce that the first attack that targeted the enemy’s locations and military fortifications and airports during the first 20 minutes exceeded 5,000 rockets and shells,” the statement said. 

Al-Deif’s statement said the operation was a response to Israel’s treatment of Palestinian prisoners and the continued attacks and violations at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which have seen an increase in recent days as large numbers of Israeli settlers raided the compound during the Jewish holiday season. 

“The occupation forces invade our towns in the West Bank every day, they storm people’s homes while they’re safe, they kill, wound, demolish, and detain Palestinians. Hundreds of Palestinians were killed and injured this year. At the same time, the occupation replaced our people and took their land by force to build settlements,” al-Deif said, adding that “the criminal Israeli siege is ongoing in Gaza.”

“Amid all the Israeli crimes and violations, and their violation of international laws, with the full support of the US and the Western countries accompanied by international silence, we have decided to put a halt to this state of affairs. The enemy must understand that the time of carrying out violations with impunity is over,” the statement said.

Shortly before 11 a.m. local time, the Israeli military announced it was launching Operation Iron Swords on Gaza. Within minutes, Israeli airstrikes began striking targets across the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported at least one Palestinian was killed and several others were wounded when an Israeli airstrike hit the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip.

Anadolu Agency also reported that four Palestinians were killed and several others were injured during ongoing armed confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli forces along the Gaza border. 

Palestinians breaking down the border fence with Israel from Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023. (Photo: Stringer/APA Images)

PALESTINIANS BREAKING DOWN THE BORDER FENCE WITH ISRAEL FROM KHAN YUNIS IN THE SOUTHERN GAZA STRIP ON OCTOBER 7, 2023. (PHOTO: STRINGER/APA IMAGES)

Unprecedented Attack & Casualties 

Saturday’s operation, which is being led by Hamas, but seemingly being joined by various militant factions across the Gaza Strip, was unprecedented on many fronts. It is already being considered one of the worst Israeli security and intelligence failures in recent history due to the fact that the operation largely caught Israel off guard. 

Saturday morning marked the first time since Israel placed Gaza under blockade more than 16 years ago that Gaza resistance fighters were able to break through the Israeli barrier fence along the border and enter Israeli territory on foot in large numbers. 

Videos surfaced on social media, posted by both Israeli and Palestinian accounts, showing masked and armed Palestinian fighters arriving in Sderot and other Israeli towns bordering Gaza in trucks equipped with large caliber guns. 

Other videos showed Palestinians in large numbers, both in vehicles and on motorbikes, breaking through openings in the Gaza border fence. While it remained unclear how the initial break happened or where it took place, as the morning continued, footage showed Palestinian bulldozers breaking down parts of the fence as seemingly ordinary Palestinians crossed into the other side. 

Professional video footage released by Hamas in Gaza showed its fighters taking off from Gaza using power-motorized paragliders and flying into Israeli territory. Other videos released by Hamas showed its forces dropping explosives onto an Israeli “Merkava” tank along the Gaza border. Photos and videos published later in the morning showed Palestinians celebrating as they stood on top of a captured Israeli military tank. It was reported that several tanks were captured, along with the soldiers inside. 

VIDEO RELEASED OF HAMAS SHOWING THE DETONATION OF AN ISRAELI TANK OUTSIDE THE GAZA STRIP, OCTOBER 7, 2023. (VIDEO: SOCIAL MEDIA)

Israeli news channels reported that Palestinian fighters reached 21 different sites inside Israel and reported several Israeli deaths and hundreds of injuries. “People in Be’eri, Kfar Aza, and Holit reported that Hamas fighters are walking inside the towns attacking Israelis,” Israeli Channel 13 reported. 

Inside Israeli towns and military bases that were infiltrated by Palestinian fighters, graphic footage emerged of uniformed soldiers and Israelis lying on the ground dead. Other footage showed Palestinian fighters entering into the homes of Israelis, asking to see people’s ID’s, seemingly in search of armed forces. 

While official Israeli sources were yet to confirm how many Israelis had been captured, videos coming out of Gaza purported to show a significant number of Israelis, both dead and alive, that had been captured and taken into Gaza. Several Israeli media sources have reported that Palestinian fighters captured over 35 Israelis and took them to Gaza, but Hamas has not yet confirmed as of the time of writing. 

In Khan Younis, south of Gaza, fighters proudly show some Israeli soldiers who have been captured and brought to Gaza with their military uniforms. Israel’s Ynet news reported that all the Israeli defense lines had been broken and that the Israeli army was still trying to regain control over the situation.

The Israeli military response came several hours after the surprise attack of the resistance, as Israeli air forces launched airstrikes in the Gaza Strip at approximately 10:57 a.m., targeting a hospital in the north of Gaza and killing one of its staff. Other airstrikes were reported in several locations across the strip. 

20 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza so far, including a journalist, while over 105 were injured.

While the surprise attack is being called a declaration of war, there were no signs in the days leading up to it that a military conflict would start. People in Gaza flooded the streets as news streamed in of the resistance attack, while families preparing for school kept their children at home.

Palestinians crossing the border fence into Israel from Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023. (Photo by Stringer/APA Images)

PALESTINIANS CROSSING THE BORDER FENCE INTO ISRAEL FROM KHAN YUNIS IN THE SOUTHERN GAZA STRIP ON OCTOBER 7, 2023. (PHOTO BY STRINGER/APA IMAGES)

Calls for a Comprehensive War 

As the morning unfolded, videos showed dozens of fighters on motorcycles and vehicles crossing Gaza’s eastern borders beyond the Israeli fence. 

On the ground, people in Gaza are celebrating the surprise attack while talk has begun to speak of liberation. Other analysts on local news stations are asserting that this attack has dealt a serious blow to the Israeli military and security apparatus, which will lead to a massive Israeli response. 

The general commander of the Hamas military wing has called for a comprehensive war against Israel, not only from Palestine but from all the regional resistance, including Lebanon, Iran, and Yemen.

“Today, the anger of al-Aqsa, the anger of the people, and the anger of all free peoples in the world, will explode. This is our day to make the enemy understand that its time is done.”

In his statement, Al-Deif also called for Palestinians in the West Bank to fight the Israelis and attack the Israeli settlements on Palestinian land while asserting elderly people and children should not be harmed in accordance with God’s will.

“Today is your day to sweep the occupier and his settlements from all of our lands in the West Bank,” al-Deif said in his statement. “Organize your attacks on the settlements with all the possible tools at your disposal…today, for anyone who has a gun, it is now time to use it. Those who do not have guns, use knives, cleavers, axes, Molotovs. Use your cars, trucks, or bulldozers.”  

“Today, the purest and honorable page of history is being written,” the statement continued. “Put down your names and families’ names on the page of glory. Those who can’t actually join the field can join by protesting and showing support.”

Palestinians after crossing the border fence with Israel from Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023. (Photo: Stringer/APA Images)

PALESTINIANS AFTER CROSSING THE BORDER FENCE WITH ISRAEL FROM KHAN YUNIS IN THE SOUTHERN GAZA STRIP ON OCTOBER 7, 2023. (PHOTO: STRINGER/APA IMAGES)

“It’s liberation day”

After hearing the speech made by the General Commander of the Hamas military wing, and seeing the unprecedented attacks inside occupied Palestine in Israeli towns bordering Gaza, people in Gaza crowded near the Israeli fence Palestinian bulldozers demolished it. People in the streets gathered outside their homes, and talk of liberation and that people would be able to return to their lands began to spread like wildfire. 

Dozens held their weapons and went to the border to enter occupied Palestine. The Palestinian factions in Gaza all issued statements declaring their full participation in the operation, urging people to join the battle for liberation.

Mahmoud Hussam, 23, was standing among the crowds in Al-Mansura Street east of Gaza, where a group of people were riding an Israeli vehicle they seized from the eastern borders. 

“This is the first time we have done something like this from Gaza,” he told Mondoweiss. “It’s liberation day, and all Palestinians should join in such glorious times. Israel must understand that they can’t in any way break the Palestinians.”

Hamas military spokesperson Abu Obidah said in a statement that the operation was still ongoing as planned and called on Palestinians in the West Bank to move immediately on the Israeli settlements.

“The enemy will be stunned when they see their losses and wake up from their shock and realize their failure,” he said.

This is a developing story.

*

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Tareq S. Hajjaj is the Mondoweiss Gaza Correspondent and a member of the Palestinian Writers Union. Follow him on Twitter at @Tareqshajjaj.

Featured image: PALESTINIAN MEMBERS OF THE EZZ AL-DIN AL QASSAM BRIGADES, THE MILITARY WING OF HAMAS BURN MILITARY ARMORED VEHICLE BELONGING TO ISRAELI FORCES NEAR GAZA STRIP, GAZA ON OCTOBER 07, 2023. PHOTO BY STR APAIMAGES

Colonel Douglas Macgregor Straight Calls

Analysis of breaking news and in-depth discussion of current geopolitical events in the United States of America and the world.

Incisive analysis on the War in Ukraine. Colonel Macgregor focusses on Russia’s Security concerns. “This War is Lost”. 

.

Interview with Stephen Gardner on October 5, 2023.

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

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*** 

As the Neo-Nazi junta is increasingly desperate to prevent its military apparatus from breaking apart, the political West is trying to find ways to keep it running, no matter the cost to the Ukrainian people. Virtually the entire economy of the unfortunate country has already been hijacked for this purpose, but the Kiev regime doesn’t stop there. Its new plan is to also militarize all public facilities, particularly as the infrastructure previously used by the Neo-Nazi junta forces is virtually wiped out. The Kiev regime’s air arm has suffered major losses, with its airbases either destroyed or damaged beyond repair by Russian long-range precision strikes. This has effectively made it impossible to launch mass airstrikes on Russian positions.

In the aftermath of the unfortunate dismantling of the Soviet Union, Ukraine inherited a massive air force that far exceeded its economic and financial capabilities. Coupled with corruption, negligence, American investments into the destruction of former Soviet strategic capabilities (primarily through the Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program), foreign sales and other factors, the Ukrainian Air Force soon became a mere shadow of its former self. What remained was less than a hundred combat aircraft of various types, primarily the Su-27 “Flanker”, MiG-29 “Fulcrum” (the Soviet “high-low mix”), Su-24 “Fencer”, etc. While the previous two were designed as air superiority fighter jets, the third aircraft served as a tactical bomber/attack jet.

With the start of the special military operation (SMO), the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) dispatched its top-of-the-line air superiority fighter jets such as the MiG-31 “Foxhound” and Su-35S “Flanker-E”, destroying most of the former Ukrainian Air Force and leaving a handful of operational jets. As these had little to no chance to shoot down vastly superior Russian equivalents, the Neo-Nazi junta forces had no choice but to disperse their units and use them for occasional air support, primarily by flying extremely low. The remaining aircraft were forced to operate from ad hoc bases because their primary airbases were all targeted on the first day of the SMO. NATO made them somewhat more useful by investing in the rearmament of the remaining jets.

This made it possible to integrate Western weapons, particularly the AGM-88 HARM (High-speed Anti-radiation Missile) and JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition) bombs. In recent months, the remaining Su-24 jets were repurposed to use the Anglo-French “Storm Shadow/SCALP EG” air-launched cruise missiles. However, even this proved to have a modest impact on the situation on the battlefield as the Russian military was quick to adapt to these new weapons, with its air defenses being able to shoot down most of the incoming missiles and bombs. In order to prevent the total loss of combat value for its remaining air assets, the Kiev regime is now working on militarizing civilian airfields and public infrastructure to accommodate the leftover aircraft.

This is also done to prepare for the arrival of the much-touted F-16 fighter jets. The US-made aircraft cannot be operated from existing ad hoc airbases, because of their higher maintenance and logistics requirements in comparison to Soviet-era equivalents such as the MiG-29. Even the infamous CNN, after engaging in usual propaganda about the F-16 being a supposed “game changer”, had to admit that the jet is “no silver bullet” and that the Neo-Nazi junta will have major issues operating it. According to Colonel Yurii Ihnat, one of the Kiev regime forces’ spokespeople, two squadrons, each made up of 12 F-16s would be enough to supposedly “begin to turn the tables”. Obviously, such claims are beyond laughable to anyone remotely familiar with basic facts about the situation on the battlefield.

Namely, the idea that outdated F-16s that were decommissioned to make way for the troubled F-35s will be able to jeopardize Russian monster jets such as the aforementioned MiG-31BM interceptor or Su-35S is simply ludicrous. In fact, the Neo-Nazi junta itself recently contradicted Ihnat’s “just two squadrons” claim with a demand for another 100 F-16s that were needed to “make a difference”, over four times as many. Even before the SMO, the Kiev regime didn’t have enough adequate space to accommodate that many US-made fighter jets. We can only imagine how bad the situation is now. CNN also reiterated how maintenance-heavy the F-16 is, particularly when compared to Soviet-era fighter jets still used by the Neo-Nazi junta forces’ air arm.

With each flight hour coming at a cost of approximately $27,000 and 16 hours of maintenance, the F-16 will be a logistical nightmare for Ukrainian ground crews that are accustomed to much more robust and less strenuous MiG-29s, Su-24s and even the higher-end Su-27s that Ukrainian pilots themselves consider superior to the US-made fighter jet. According to last year’s report by the US General Accounting Office (GAO), the F-16 ranked as one of the most maintenance-heavy US Air Force jets, as it hadn’t met its mission goals in over a decade. According to Russian sources, in order to somewhat alleviate the aforementioned issues, NATO and the Kiev regime are counting on Poland. Namely, Warsaw is receiving US funding to conduct the necessary adjustments.

Polish personnel will most likely be sent to repair certain military airbases and also convert civilian airfields and infrastructure to accommodate combat aircraft. This also includes the installation of sensitive equipment needed for maintenance and logistical support for F-16. What’s more, Russian intelligence determined that there’s a possibility that the Neo-Nazi junta forces will use these newly established bases to receive F-16s directly from Poland and Romania, with airfields in Lvov, Odessa and Nikolayev being the most likely candidates. Needless to say, if such plans are being implemented, the aforementioned airfields immediately become legitimate targets for the Russian military, leading to unnecessary devastation and further prolonging the conflict.

*

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

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

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

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***

LISTEN TO THE SHOW


Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

A week ago, as of this writing, huge numbers of people, clad in orange t-shirts, took to the streets. It was the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Canada’s newest holiday. [1]

And it was meant to commemorate the pain and tragedy of the history and ongoing impacts of residential schools, the education facilities to which Indigenous children were directed and by design stripped of their ancestry to be converted to the “superior” ways of the European-Canadians. [2]

Many students never survived the experience. Many were buried on the land of the school. The brutal treatment of these Indigenous students had effects on their ability to parent or relate to parents within their communities resulting in inter-generational effects that persist even today.[3]

The Residential school is just one product of the unity on land between Indigenous people and the settler population. If institutions like this are indicative of the asymmetric relationship between the two of them, one should consider how the Treaties forged in the 1870s set the stage for generations of cruelty.[4]

Many historians hypothesized that cultural misunderstanding led to the break down of Treaty negotiations between Indigenous representatives and Treaty commissioners. However, more recently, an academic from Saskatchewan spent a great deal of time researching eyewitness testimonies from the side of First Nations and found that, together with extracts from the settler side, came to the conclusion that the Treaties were beholden to a strategic plan on the part of the Canadian government that forced the “surrender” of the native land even though this issue was never actually discussed by Indigenous nation after Indigenous nation. [5]

This issue of the Global Research News Hour has the distinct privilege of interviewing the academic, his name is Sheldon Krasowski, about the Treaties and their repercussions for the suppression of First Nations and the fraudulent “victory” of Eurpoean settlers that still persists to this day.

We will also have a special host. Thomas White Thunderbird is also of Indigenous ancestry and will conduct the interview as part of the station’s “Pass the Mic” week.

Sheldon Krasowski has taught in both history and Indigenous Studies departments at First Nations University of Canada; Vancouver Island University; the University of Saskatchewan; Blue Quills First Nations College; the University of Calgary; and Athabasca University. ” In 2011, he received a PhD in history from the University of Regina for the dissertation, “Mediating the Numbered Treaties: Eyewitness Accounts of the Numbered Treaties Between the Crown and Indigenous Peoples, 1871-1876.” He is currently Director of Research and Archives at the Office of the Treaty Commissioner in Saskatoon.

(Global Research News Hour Episode 403)

LISTEN TO THE SHOW


Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM out of the University of Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca .

Other stations airing the show:

CIXX 106.9 FM, broadcasting from Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. It airs Sundays at 6am.

WZBC 90.3 FM in Newton Massachusetts is Boston College Radio and broadcasts to the greater Boston area. The Global Research News Hour airs during Truth and Justice Radio which starts Sunday at 6am.

Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in  Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 7pm.

CJMP 90.1 FM, Powell River Community Radio, airs the Global Research News Hour every Saturday at 8am. 

Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday afternoon from 3-4pm.

Cowichan Valley Community Radio CICV 98.7 FM serving the Cowichan Lake area of Vancouver Island, BC airs the program Thursdays at 9am pacific time.

Notes:

  1. https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/national-day-truth-reconciliation.html
  2. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/residential-schools
  3. ibid
  4. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/aboriginal-treaties
  5. https://www.amazon.ca/No-Surrender-Land-Remains-Indigenous/dp/0889775966

Relações israelo-ucranianas deterioram-se rapidamente.

October 7th, 2023 by Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

As relações entre o regime neonazista ucraniano e o estado israelense parecem estar a piorar. Alguns acontecimentos recentes estão a prejudicar a posição da Ucrânia na política externa israelita. Apesar de ambos os países serem grandes parceiros das potências da OTAN, as diferenças entre eles parecem claras, impedindo a realização de projetos de cooperação.

​Israel é sem dúvida o maior aliado dos EUA no Médio Oriente, tendo uma política externa completamente alinhada com os interesses de Washington. No entanto, o país mantém uma política mais racional em relação à Ucrânia do que a maioria dos estados ocidentais. Apesar de haver provas de apoio secreto a Kiev, inclusive na inteligência, Israel recusa publicamente enviar armas ao regime ucraniano, uma vez que o país mantém relações pragmáticas importantes com a Rússia e não está interessado em prejudicar a sua diplomacia.

Durante meses, isto gerou críticas públicas por parte do governo ucraniano. Como é conhecido, para Zelensky e a sua equipa, as condições materiais e o bem-estar diplomático dos países parceiros não interessam, existe uma espécie de “obrigação” global de ajudar a Ucrânia incondicionalmente. Por esta razão, o presidente ucraniano tem feito repetidamente comentários negativos contra o regime israelense, exigindo uma postura mais ativa no conflito, bem como o envio sistemático de armas.

Estas críticas começaram logo após o início da operação militar especial russa e aumentaram ao longo do tempo. A postura de Israel no conflito é a mesma desde fevereiro de 2022: apoio político e humanitário à Ucrânia, sem envio – pelo menos publicamente – de armas. Desde que Netanyahu regressou ao poder, os atritos entre os dois países tornaram-se ainda mais evidentes em alguns temas. O primeiro-ministro israelense e Viktor Orban da Hungria são os únicos líderes ocidentais que até agora se recusaram a visitar Kiev.

Demorou meses até que Netanyahu e Zelensky tivessem o seu primeiro encontro, que ocorreu em setembro, durante um evento na sede da ONU. Na ocasião, Netanyahu tentou amenizar os problemas bilaterais e focar em uma questão de grande interesse para Tel Aviv, que é a segurança dos judeus e dos cidadãos israelenses durante a tradicional peregrinação ao local sagrado judaico de Uman, na Ucrânia. Zelensky, no entanto, foi indelicado e rude nas suas conversações e tentou culpar Netanyahu pela insegurança dos judeus, ligando isto à falta de fornecimento de armas por parte de Israel.

“Netanyahu me ligou e pediu minha ajuda para chegar a Uman. Ele me disse que havia abrigos antiaéreos para apenas 11 mil pessoas e que se esperava a chegada de 30 mil peregrinos. Eu disse a ele que se Israel nos enviasse o sistema de defesa antimísseis, isso ajudaria a proteger seus cidadãos (…) A responsabilidade pela segurança de dezenas de milhares de judeus que vêm rezar em Uman durante o ano judaico cabe ao governo israelense, que não faz o suficiente”, disse Zelensky aos jornalistas comentando a reunião.

E aparentemente as autoridades israelitas não tomaram as precauções necessárias para que a peregrinação acontecesse em segurança. Não houve ataques russos a civis judeus durante as celebrações religiosas, mas a ausência de medidas de segurança por parte da polícia ucraniana levou a uma série de incidentes durante as festividades, resultando em mortes e feridos. As autoridades ucranianas também prenderam sete cidadãos israelenses na época, gerando ainda mais preocupação em Tel Aviv.

No mesmo sentido, é importante ressaltar que antes da peregrinação já havia se iniciado outro ponto de tensão entre os dois países por causa de um cidadão israelense preso em Kiev. Na altura, o oligarca ucraniano-israelense Igor Kolomoisky foi capturado pelas forças ucranianas acusado de corrupção, lavagem de dinheiro e fraude. Na verdade, Kolomoisky já foi um dos maiores aliados de Zelensky, tendo até financiado a sua campanha eleitoral em 2019, mas aparentemente tornou-se alvo das campanhas de purga promovidas pelo presidente neonazista na sua tentativa desesperada de evitar um golpe de estado contra ele.

Dado que Kolomoisky é um cidadão israelita e tem grande influência sobre a comunidade judaica global, a sua prisão é obviamente vista com medo e preocupação pelas autoridades de Tel Aviv. Além das preocupações com a segurança pessoal do oligarca – considerando que Kiev é conhecida por praticar amplamente tortura e violações dos direitos humanos contra prisioneiros – há também o receio sobre a possibilidade de o governo ucraniano usar a repressão contra cidadãos judeus como “chantagem” para pressionar Israel a aumentar a sua ajuda ao regime.

Anteriormente, Zelensky teria revogado ou tomado medidas para revogar a cidadania ucraniana dos oligarcas israelenses que viviam no país. Formalmente, Kiev proíbe a existência de dupla cidadania, mas na prática isto é amplamente tolerado no país, com muitas pessoas tendo nacionalidades diferentes da ucraniana – principalmente na comunidade israelense, onde muitos ucranianos também são cidadãos israelenses.

Na verdade, o que parece estar a acontecer é simplesmente o regime neonazista a mostrar a sua verdadeira natureza. Obviamente, uma junta que venera líderes como Stepan Bandera tem uma forte tendência antissemita, apesar de tentar disfarçá-la. No que diz respeito a Israel, é improvável que o país queira prejudicar os seus laços com a Rússia por causa da Ucrânia. Moscou poderá causar danos a Israel em diversas áreas, especialmente na Síria, onde ambos os países têm presença militar.

Só um agravamento muito substancial das relações Moscou-Tel Aviv poderia levar Israel a tomar uma posição pública mais ativa a favor da Ucrânia. A pressão de Zelensky não parece ser suficiente para atingir este objetivo. Pelo contrário, quanto mais Kiev prejudicar os cidadãos judeus no seu território, mais os laços bilaterais com Israel se deteriorarão.

Lucas Leiroz De Almeida

 

 

Artigo em inglês : Israeli-Ukrainian relations deteriorating rapidly, InfoBrics, 5 de Outubro de 2023.

Lucas Leiroz, jornalista, pesquisador do Center for Geostrategic Studies, consultor geopolítico.

Você pode seguir Lucas Leiroz em: https://t.me/lucasleiroz e https://twitter.com/leiroz_lucas

 

 

L’Alto Rappresentante dell’Unione Europea per gli Affari Esteri e la Politica di Sicurezza, Josep Borrell, ha dichiarato che la prima riunione congiunta dei Ministri degli Esteri al di fuori dei confini dell’Unione Europea, svoltasi a Kiev, ha dimostrato che il sostegno dei 27 Paesi UE all’Ucraina è “incrollabile”.

Ha quindi proposto di concedere all’Ucraina una nuova dotazione di 5 miliardi di euro dello “Strumento Europeo per la Pace”. Questo è uno strumento “fuori bilancio”, istituito nel marzo 2021, per finanziare le operazioni militari della UE e di suoi alleati, soprattutto l’Ucraina.

La sua dotazione finanziaria è stata aumentata di 4 miliardi, portandola a oltre 12 miliardi di euro, sempre pagati dai cittadini europei. Una delle attività militari ucraine, finanziate dalla UE anche con lo “Strumento Europeo per la Pace”, è la trasformazione di droni civili (velivoli a pilotaggio remoto usati in attività sportive, ricreative o cinematografiche) in droni killer dotati di potenti esplosivi.

Essi vengono fatti volare sul territorio russo per colpire non solo obiettivi militari, ma spesso anche obiettivi civili. Dato che i soldati ucraini usano ogni mese circa 30 mila droni esplosivi, Kiev ha in programma di acquistare da aziende estere, nei prossimi tre mesi,  oltre 100 mila droni civili da trasformare in droni killer.

I 12 miliardi fuori bilancio dello “Strumento Europeo per la Pace” si aggiungono a oltre 30 miliardi di euro stanziati dall’Unione Europea e a circa 40 miliardi stanziati complessivamente da singoli paesi europei per armare l’Ucraina contro la Russia.

Non sono però ritenuti sufficienti dagli Stati Uniti, che hanno stanziato finora per l’Ucraina 113 miliardi di dollari. Premono perciò sull’Europa perché si addossi un carico maggiore nel finanziamento della guerra contro la Russia. A tale scopo viene  diffuso da Washington tra gli Alleati il timore che gli Stati Unitinon potranno continuare a mantenere tale sforzo.

Il Pentagono annuncia addirittura che “gli aiuti USA all’Ucraina dureranno ancora per poco”. In tal modo gli Stati Uniti – che dettano la politica estera e militare dell’Unione Europea, dato che 23 dei 27 paesi UE appartengono alla NATO sotto comando USA – scaricano sull’Europa i crescenti costi della guerra, il cui reale scopo è per gli USA non solo quello di attaccare la Russia, ma di dividere l’Europa per poterla meglio dominare. Di questo piano è fedele esecutore l’Alto Rappresentante dell’Unione Europea per gli Affari Esteri e la Politica di Sicurezza, Josep Borrell.

Manlio Dinucci

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Today October 7, 2023: twenty-two  years ago, the US and its NATO allies invaded Afghanistan on the grounds that the Afghan government had ordered the 9/11 terrorist attacks. 

This article published by GR on April 29, 2007 confirms that the US military in Afghanistan was supporting the opium economy which supplied the US heroin market. Minor edits. 

“US military presence served to restore rather than eradicate the drug trade”.

US support of the opium economy is directly related to the surge in heroin consumption and addiction in the US observed in recent years.

Michel Chossudovsky, October 6, 2022

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The occupation forces in Afghanistan are supporting the drug trade, which brings between 120 and 194 billion dollars of revenues to organized crime, intelligence agencies and Western financial institutions. 

The proceeds of this lucrative multibllion dollar contraband are deposited in Western banks. Almost the totality of revenues accrue to corporate interests and criminal syndicates outside Afghanistan. 

The Golden Crescent drug trade, launched by the CIA in the early 1980s, continues to be protected by US intelligence, in liason with NATO occupation forces and the British military. 

In recent developments, British occupation forces have promoted opium cultivation through paid radio advertisements.

“A radio message broadcast across the province assured local farmers that the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) would not interfere with poppy fields currently being harvested.

“Respected people of Helmand. The soldiers of ISAF and ANA do not destroy poppy fields,” it said. “They know that many people of Afghanistan have no choice but to grow poppy. ISAF and the ANA do not want to stop people from earning their livelihoods.” ( Quoted in The Guardian, 27 April 2007)

While the controversial opium ads have been casually dismissed as an unfortunate mistake, there are indications that the opium economy is being promoted at the political level (including the British government of Tony Blair).

The Senlis Council, an international think tank specialising in security and policy issues is proposing the development of licit opium exports in Afghanistan, with a view to promoting the production of pharmaceutical pain-killers, such as morphine and codeine. According to the Senlis Council,  “the poppies are needed and, if properly regulated, could provide a legal source of income to impoverished Afghan farmers while, at the same time, depriving the drug lords and the Taliban of much of their income.” (John Polanyi, Globe and Mail, 23 September 2006)

The Senlis Council offers an alternative where “regulated poppy production in Afghanistan” could be developed to produce needed painkillers. The Senlis statement, however, fails to address the existing structure of licit opium exports, which is characterised by oversupply .

The Senlis’ campaign is part of the propaganda campaign. It has contrbuted to providing a false legitimacy to Afghanistan’s opium economy. (See details of Senlis Project), which ultmately serves powerful vested interests.

How much opium acreage is required to supply the pharmaceutical industry? According to the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), which has a mandate to exame issues pertaining to the supply of and demand for opiates used for medical purposes, “the supply of such opiates has for years been at levels well in excess of global demand”.(Asian Times, February 2006)  The INCB has recommended reducing the production of opiates due to World oversupply.


At present, India is among the largest exporters of licit opium. Turkey, Australia, Britain and Spain are also major producers of licit opium.

India’s opium latex “is sold to licensed pharmaceutical and/or chemical manufacturing firms such as Mallinckrodt and Johnson & Johnson, under rules established by the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs and the International Narcotics Control Board, which require an extensive paper trail.” (Opium in India)..

Soaring Afghan Opium Production

The United Nations has announced that opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has soared. There was a  59% increase in areas under opium cultivation in 2006. Production of opium is estimated to have increased by 49% in relation to 2005.

The Western media in chorus blame the Taliban and the warlords. Western officials are said to believe that “the trade is controlled by 25 smugglers including three government ministers.” (Guardian, op. cit).

Yet in a bitter irony, US military presence has served to restore rather than eradicate the drug trade. Opium production has increased 33 fold from 185 tons in 2001 under the Taliban to 6100 tons in 2006. Cultivated areas have increased 21 fold since the 2001 US-led invasion.

What the media reports fail to acknowledge is that the Taliban government was instrumental in 2000-2001 in implementing a successful drug eradication program, with the support and collaboration of the UN.

Implemented in 2000-2001, the Taliban’s drug eradication program led to a 94 percent decline in opium cultivation. In 2001, according to UN figures, opium production had fallen to 185 tons. Immediately following the October 2001 US led invasion, production increased dramatically, regaining its historical levels.

The Vienna based UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that the 2006 harvest will be of the order of 6,100 tonnes, 33 times its production levels in 2001 under the Taliban government (3200 % increase in 5 years).

Cultivation in 2006 reached a record 165,000 hectares compared with 104,000 in 2005 and 7,606 in 2001 under the Taliban

Multibillion dollar trade

According to the UN, Afghanistan supplies in 2006 some 92 percent of the world’s supply of opium, which is used to make heroin.

The UN estimates that for 2006, the contribution of the drug trade to the Afghan economy is of the order of 2.7 billion. What it fails to mention is the fact that more than 95 percent of the revenues generated by this lucrative contraband accrues to business syndicates, organized crime and banking and financial institutions. A very small percentage accrues to farmers and traders in the producing country.

(See also UNODC, The Opium Economy in Afghanistan,
http://www.unodc.org/pdf/publications/afg_opium_economy_www.pdf , Vienna, 2003, p. 7-8)

“Afghan heroin sells on the international narcotics market for 100 times the price farmers get for their opium right out of the field”.(US State Department quoted by the Voice of America (VOA), 27 February 2004).

Based on wholesale and retail prices in Western markets, the earnings generated by the Afghan drug trade are colossal. In July 2006, street prices in Britain for heroin were of the order of Pound Sterling 54, or $102 a gram.

Narcotics On the Streets of Western Europe

One kilo of opium produces approximately 100 grams of (pure) heroin. 6100 tons of opium allows the production of 1220 tons of heroin with a 50 percent purity ratio.

The average purity of retailed heroin can vary. It is on average 36%. In Britain, the purity is rarely in excess of 50 percent, while in the US it can be of the order of 50-60 percent.

Based on the structure of British retail prices for heroin, the total proceeds of the Afghan heroin trade would be of the order of 124.4 billion dollars, assuming a 50 percent purity ratio. Assuming an average purity ratio of 36 percent and the average British price, the cash value of Afghan heroin sales would be of the order of 194.4 billion dollars.

While these figures do not constitute precise estimates, they nonetheless  convey the sheer magnitude of this multibillion dollar narcotics trade out of Afghanistan. Based on the first figure which provides a conservative estimate, the cash value of these sales, once they reach Western retail markets are in excess of 120 billion dollars a year.

(See also our detailed estimates for 2003 in The Spoils of War: Afghanistan’s Multibillion Dollar Heroin Trade, by Michel Chossudovsky, The UNODC estimates the average retail price of heroin for 2004 to be of the order of $157 per gram, based on the average purity ratio).

Narcotics: Second to Oil and the Arms Trade

The foregoing estimates are consistent with the UN’s assessment concerning the size and magnitude of the global drug trade.

The Afghan trade in opiates (92 percent of total World production of opiates) constitutes a large share of the worldwide annual turnover of narcotics, which was estimated by the United Nations to be of the order of $400-500 billion.

(Douglas Keh, Drug Money in a Changing World, Technical document No. 4, 1998, Vienna UNDCP, p. 4. See also United Nations Drug Control Program, Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 1999, E/INCB/1999/1 United Nations, Vienna 1999, p. 49-51, and Richard Lapper, UN Fears Growth of Heroin Trade, Financial Times, 24 February 2000).

Based on 2003 figures, drug trafficking  constitutes “the third biggest global commodity in cash terms after oil and the arms trade.” (The Independent, 29 February 2004).

Afghanistan and Colombia (together with Bolivia and Peru) consitute the largest drug producing economies in the world, which feed a flourishing criminal economy. These countries are heavily militarized. The drug trade is protected. Amply documented the CIA has played a central role in the development of both the Latin American and Asian drug triangles.

The IMF estimated global money laundering to be between 590 billion and 1.5 trillion dollars a year, representing 2-5 percent of global GDP. (Asian Banker, 15 August 2003).

A large share of global money laundering as estimated by the IMF is linked to the trade in narcotics, one third of which is tied to the Golden Crescent opium triangle.

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“The U.S. government has never been shy about using its own citizens as unwitting test subjects for its bioweapon experiments. While there are many well-known cases, this has actually happened hundreds of times in U.S. history, demonstrating the utter contempt that those in power have had, and have now, for the general population of this country.” – (Gary D. Barnett,  Chapter 12, p. 260, “When China Sneezes” Cynthia McKinney (Editor)

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It is important to lay the long-practiced foundation of the United States’ history of poisoning, mass experimentation, sickening, and killing of its own population, in efforts to test its bioweapons for heinous military biowarfare use. It is a very short step from this abhorrent practice, to one of using as guinea pigs this same population, in a plot for  mass ‘vaccination,’ completely covert and without consent.

The ability to do this has been verified, admitted to, and written about by the Yale School of Engineering and Applied Science just recently. It has been reported by some alternative sites, but already there are multiple mainstream deniers claiming that no such covert ‘vaccination’ program would be attempted. History tells a different story.

To name only a few, and beginning in 1932:

  • Tuskegee Syphilis Study; where 600 black men were used as fodder for a horrible Syphilis experiment, and were purposely not given any treatment, causing many to die horrible deaths.
  • Operation Sea Spray; a San Francisco biological attack scenario in 1950 by the U.S. Navy, covertly spraying pneumonia-causing bacteria over the city in order to monitor the infection levels in the residents. Actually, the U.S. military conducted 239 germ-warfare tests over populated areas in America.
  • Operation Big Buzz; was a U.S. military release of Yellow Fever infected mosquitos (supposedly uninfected) in 1955 over Savannah, Georgia, just to monitor the effects on the unsuspecting people there. There were at least nine other operations of this type throughout the 1950s and beyond, including Operation Big Itch, Operation Magic Sword, Operation Drop Kick, Operation May Day, also in Savannah, Operation Dew, Operation Polka Dot, Operation Dark winter, Operation Whitecoat, and Operation LAC.
  • Project 112; in 1962, huge increases in bioweapon testing began, authorized by Robert McNamara, then U.S. Secretary of Defense. This was done in the New York subway system, and exposed tens of thousands of Americans to deadly bacteria.
  • In 1965, prisoners in Philadelphia were used as guinea pigs and subjected to dioxin, the horrible cancer-causing chemical toxin used in Agent Orange. This was done to verify the resulting cancer infection among these captive prisoners. Actually, Holmesburg Prison in Pennsylvania, nick-named the “Terrordome”, experimented on prisoners for decades until it closed in 1995. Horror exemplified.

Remember that these are but a handful of examples of U.S. government, military, and pharmaceutical company, hidden experimentation and terror against unsuspecting American citizens. There are literally hundreds of examples of this type of evil that were committed over a century, and this is still going on in one way or another today.

This is exclusive of the horror that occurred during the fake ‘covid pandemic’ scare; a false flag event meant to get as many as possible injected with experimental, cancer-causing, health destroying, and extremely deadly toxic poisons called a ‘covid vaccine.’ Millions have been threatened, faced job loss, lied to about success and safety, and subjected to any number of life-threatening illnesses and adverse effects of these poisonous bioweapon injections.

Now, Yale ‘researchers’ have stated that they have a new airborne messenger RNA (mRNA) inhalable, lung-targeted, delivery system of nanoparticles for airborne or mucosal ‘vaccination’ This is meant for large-scale ‘vaccination,’  and could (would in my opinion) be used for broad-based and covert delivery of this poison to the masses without their knowledge or consent; that is of course unless this is already taking place due to the constant chemical spraying of skies worldwide with very harmful nanoparticle distribution. According to the Yale study:

“An inhalable platform for messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics would enable minimally invasive and lung-targeted delivery for a host of pulmonary diseases. Development of lung-targeted mRNA therapeutics has been limited by poor transfection efficiency and risk of vehicle-induced pathology.

Here, we report an inhalable polymer-based vehicle for delivery of therapeutic mRNAs to the lung. We optimized biodegradable poly(amine-co-ester) (PACE) polyplexes [nanoparticles] for mRNA delivery using end-group modifications and polyethylene glycol. These polyplexes achieved high transfection of mRNA throughout the lung, particularly in epithelial and antigen-presenting cells.

We applied this technology to develop a mucosal vaccine for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 and found that intranasal vaccination with spike protein–encoding mRNA polyplexes induced potent cellular and humoral adaptive immunity and protected susceptible mice from lethal viral challenge. Together, these results demonstrate the translational potential of PACE polyplexes for therapeutic delivery of mRNA to the lungs.”

In terms a normal person can understand, this means that a biological toxic soup filled with deadly RNA/DNA altering nanoparticles, can be delivered to the lungs of everyone without their knowledge, in order to insert encoded  ‘spike proteins’ to cure what is falsely called a ‘virus.’ This so-called ‘coronavirus’ (‘covid’) has never been once separated, isolated, or identified, and has never once been shown to even exist, and has never been proven to cause any disease whatsoever, but worry not, ‘your’ government will take good ‘care’ of you whether you like it or not.

This what a friend and close correspondent of mine, Dr. Igor Shepherd, had to say about this in a letter to me recently:

“This is how Russia was testing biological weaponized viruses on the population back in the 80’s (mostly in Subways). This created huge epidemics of influenza in the cities. These goons are doing whatever it takes to mass vaccinate the population.” 

“This encapsulation of delivered material is very stable once dispersed in the environment, and can last for months in the air.  This is why it was done in the subway in Leningrad—for quick dispersal. The same technology was used by the KGB for assassination purposes. On a mass scale huge outbreaks can be created so fast without anyone aware of this….and this can be what will create their next pandemic.

And then they will use this exact same technology to “vaccinate” the population for this created pandemic. This time it will be a real pandemic, and many people will die…either way…this is their goal…to shrink humanity, and introduce the new “generation” of transhumans.”

It must be stated that these nefarious efforts by the State, its controllers, the evil pharmaceutical industry, the mainstream media, the politicians, the so-called ‘think-tanks,’ all the government bureaucracies, the military, the enforcement agencies, the central banks, and the NGOs, have but one agenda. That is for total control over all populations, with the goal of dramatically reducing the surface population through eugenic manipulation, democide, genocide, and psychological rape of the minds of the naïve herd.

As Dr. Shepherd mentioned, this plot to mass ‘vaccinate’ all, may cause what will be said to be the next ‘pandemic,’ but this time around, unlike the fake ‘covid’ plot, mass death will occur due to a poisonous bioweapon aerosol attack, spreading extreme panic and fear. What will be desired and expected by the State, will be a collective crying out for the government to come to the rescue of this ignorant and hapless population. That is exactly what is sought, so beware the deliberate evil that is intended to bring about a defenseless people clamoring for a master to save them.

You, all of you, are your own master. Take great heed, for the plot for a single global governing force is close at hand, and with that can only come enslavement at the hands of technocratic monsters.

“Vaccination is a barbarous practice and one of the most fatal of all of the delusions current in our time. Conscientious objectors to vaccination should stand alone, if need be, against the whole world, in defense of their conviction.” Mahatma Gandhi

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Gary D. Barnett [send him mail] is a retired investment professional who has been writing about freedom and liberty matters, politics, and history for two decades. He is against all war and aggression, and against the state. He recently finished a collaboration with former U.S. Congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney, and was a contributor to her new book, “When China Sneezes” From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Political-Economic Crisis.” Currently, he lives in Montana with his wife and son. Visit his website.

Featured image credit Jordan Henderson

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How much open corruption will the American people take?

Congressman Matt Gaetz responds to Joe Biden‘s nomination of Hampton Dellinger to lead United States Office of Special Counsel:

Joe Biden nominated Hampton Dellinger, a former colleague and law partner of Hunter Biden, to lead the United States Office of Special Counsel (OSC) yesterday, a top federal watchdog tasked with protecting our nation’s civil servants from political targeting.

While Joe Biden tries to convince America that there was zero influence between him and Hunter’s business deals, he appoints a close friend of Hunter to protect the Biden Crime Family from accountability.

As both the House and Senate have called on the OSC to investigate the Biden administration’s retaliation against IRS whistleblowers, who have accused AG Garland and DOJ of burying probes into Hunter Biden’s alleged crimes, Dellinger should withdraw his nomination.

If confirmed by the Senate, Dellinger’s appointment would send a chilling message to civil servants everywhere: you are not protected, and you will continue to be targeted by the Bidens if you look into the real crimes committed by the President’s family.

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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Portrait of Hampton Dellinger, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy under President Biden. (Licensed under the Public Domain)

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“It’s very important that the world knows Toughie was a perfect gentleman. A handsome, handsome frog. And beloved.”

Amphibian biologist Mark Mandica’s tribute to Toughie – the last Rabbs’ fringe-limbed tree frog who died in 2016 – voices the profound grief that comes from caring for an ‘endling’.

Up to 10,000 species go extinct every year, according to WWF, as human activities continue to drive what scientists have confirmed is a sixth mass extinction event.

It’s near impossible to grapple with the scale of the biodiversity crisis, but familiarising ourselves with just a few of these endlings – especially ones as beloved as Toughie – helps put it into emotional terms we can begin to process.

Their stories serve as reminders of how other species are navigating the world in depleting numbers – species that can still be saved.

And World Animal Day today (4 October) is a timely occasion to think about how we can improve their welfare and chances of survival.

Martha the Passenger Pigeon – 1914

Cincinnati Zoo

A photo of Martha next to the Passenger Pigeon Memorial. Cincinnati Zoo

Martha, the last known passenger pigeon, passed away at America’s Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. Her death marked the first documented extinction of a species at the hand of man, according to the zoo.

“By the time we realised the passenger pigeon was in real trouble, it was too late,” it states. After the last known wild pigeon was hunted to death in Ohio in 1900, a single captive flock existed at the zoo.

Breeding attempts failed, and by 1910 only Martha was still standing. “A reward of $1,000 [around €900, or €27,000 in today’s money] was offered to anyone who could supply a mate for Martha, but none was found,” it adds.

There’s an aura of ritual surrounding the passenger pigeon’s demise. Martha’s body was frozen and now resides at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC.

At Cincinnati, one of the zoo’s early bird aviaries has been preserved as a memorial for her. Inside, an exhibit “serves as a reminder to all of the tragedy of extinction and pleads with visitors to consider how their actions affect wildlife.”

Benjamin the Tasmanian Tiger – 1936

AFP PHOTO / THE NATIONAL FILM AND SOUND ARCHIVE OF AUSTRALIA

A colourised picture of the last-known surviving Tasmanian tiger from footage taken in 1933.AFP PHOTO / THE NATIONAL FILM AND SOUND ARCHIVE OF AUSTRALIA

The Tasmanian tiger – or thylacine – is undoubtedly one of the most iconic species to have gone extinct in the twentieth century.

Declared the last of his line, Benjamin was captured in the wild and kept at Hobart Zoo, where he died a few years later in 1936.

Historic video footage of him pacing behind bars is distressing to watch. And, not yet 100 years later, it stretches the imagination to make room for this now strange-looking creature, with the black stripes of a tiger, the pointed nose of a dog and the pouch of a kangaroo.

The largest carnivorous marsupial of the modern age, Tasmanian tigers were driven to extinction by hunting (there was a government bounty over their heads until 1909), disease, and habitat loss following European colonisation.

It’s been hard for people to lay to rest such a unique and charismatic animal. Reported sightings continued for decades. Last year researchers at the University of Melbourne announced their intention to bring the species back to life.

Lonesome George the Giant Galápagos Tortoise – 2012

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Lonesome George, the last Pinta Island tortoise (Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni) (Licensed under CC BY 2.0)

The last known representative of the giant Galápagos tortoise subspecies Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni, Lonesome George lived out his final years at the Charles Darwin research centre in the Galápagos Islands.

He is thought to have been about 100 years old and could have lived to 200, but was found lifeless by a Galápagos National Park ranger in 2012, bringing his circa 10 million-year-old life to an end.

George was the sole survivor of waves of attacks by whalers and seal hunters – who killed the subspecies for food and oil – in the Pacific islands.

Relocated from Pinta island in 1972, his habitat devastated by escaped goats, the solitary giant achieved cult status in Ecuador and beyond.

When he looked at you, you saw time in the eyes. –Joe Flanagan, Head vet, Houston zoo

But various breeding attempts including artificial insemination, and one Swiss zoology graduate smearing herself in female tortoise hormones to try and stimulate him, sadly failed.

“[George] had a unique personality. His natural tendency was to avoid people. He was very evasive. He had his favourites and his routines, but he really only came close to his keeper Llerena,” recalled Joe Flanagan, a leading vet who knew George for more than 20 years.

“He represents what we wanted to preserve forever. When he looked at you, you saw time in the eyes.”

Toughie the Rabbs’ Fringe-limbed Tree Frog – 2016

Mark Mandica

“You can always tell Toughie from other Rabbs’ Fringe-limbed Tree Frogs’ photos from the yellow dot on the lip under his right eye,” Mandica tells Euronews Green. Mark Mandica

Toughie – so named by his carer Mandica’s young son when he learned of the endlings’ plight – died at the Atlanta Botanical Garden in Georgia, US.

On a mini audio documentary featured on the UK podcast ‘Shortcuts’ earlier this year, presented by Josie Long, the amphibian biologist lovingly describes the final years of the Rabbs’ fringe-limbed tree frog.

In the early 2000s, a lethal fungus called chytrid struck the frogs’ native Panama rainforests “like a hurricane” – inadvertently brought by humans to an area where amphibians had no resistance.

Researchers hurriedly collected frogs from trees, “pulling them out of a burning building basically,” says Mandica.

He obviously wanted a mate and that’s profoundly sad, because there wasn’t one on the entire planet. – Mark Mandica, Executive director, The Amphibian Foundation

Globally, the skin-eating disease is responsible for 90 presumed amphibian extinctions. Amphibians are more threatened, and declining more rapidly, than either birds or mammals – also as a result of habitat loss and climate change.

Toughie’s solitary years at the botanical garden were spent in silence, except for one special moment – recorded by Mandica – when he found the frog “singing” on his own.

“He obviously wanted a mate and that’s profoundly sad, because there wasn’t one on the entire planet,” the biologist said.

Fatu and Najin, the Last Northern White Rhinos – ?

Fatu and Najin (Source: Love the Last)

Najin and Fatu, two northern white rhinos living at the Ol Pejeta conservancy in Kenya, might not yet take their species to the grave.

But the future isn’t looking bright, after the world’s last male northern white rhino, Sudan, passed away at the sanctuary following age-related issues in 2018.

“His death is a cruel symbol of human disregard for nature and it saddened everyone who knew him,” said Jan Stejskal, an official at Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic, where Sudan had lived until 2009.

“But we should not give up,” he told the AFP news agency. “We must take advantage of the unique situation in which cellular technologies are utilised for conservation of critically endangered species. It may sound unbelievable, but thanks to the newly developed techniques even Sudan could still have an offspring.”

Artificially assisted reproduction is a possibility for the females, recent vet checks confirmed. The subspecies’ hopes now rest with the development of in vitro fertilisation techniques and stem cell technology, says Ol Pejeta, “costly and complicated procedures that have never before been attempted in rhinos.”

Black, Sumatran and Javan rhinos are also critically endangered – the latter with estimated 18 individuals left – after poaching crises.

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Dr. Anthony Fauci and the CIA have some splainin’ to do.

According to a new letter from the House’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, Fauci was admitted to CIA headquarters “without a record of entry” while the agency was conducting its official analysis of the origins of COVID-19. 

The letter claims Fauci “participated in the analysis to ‘influence’ the Agency’s review.” The date of the alleged meeting is not disclosed. 

Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R., Ohio), chair of the committee, gave the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services until October 10 to submit all requested items and pertinent communications related to the then-director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ clandestine meeting at Langley.

“The American people deserve the truth—to know the origins of the virus and whether there was a concerted effort by public health authorities to suppress the lab leak theory for political or national security purposes,” Wenstrup said.

Dr. Fauci has not yet made any public statements on the matter, but his alleged visit to CIA headquarters raises important questions.

Did Fauci request the meeting or the CIA? 

Why was the meeting held in secret? 

Was the CIA aware that Fauci had interests that may have conflicted with his ability to make an objective assessment of the origins of COVID-19?

Each of these questions is important, but let’s begin with the last one. 

1. A Conflict of Interest? 

As director of NIAID, Fauci, early in the pandemic, dismissed allegations that COVID-19 might have emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, calling these claims “conspiracy theories” and alleging it was “molecularly impossible.” 

It was later learned that Fauci made these statements even though scientists he commissioned to author a paper on the origins of the virus privately said otherwise.

It turns out Dr. Fauci had a very good reason to conceal the fact that COVID-19 likely escaped from the lab in Wuhan, as most US government agencies now believe (including the FBI and the CIA).

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the agency that oversees NIAID, admitted in the fall of 2021 that for years the agency had been funding what was described as “risky virus research in Wuhan,” a charge Fauci had repeatedly and vociferously denied. Fauci, a longtime defender of gain-of-function research, had signed off on funding provided to the non-profit organization EcoHealth Alliance that had resulted in an “unexpected result”: an enhanced coronavirus from bats created in partnership with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. 

That NIH had funded gain-of-function research is now beyond dispute, evidenced by the recent termination of funding for WIV after NIH “determined that…WIV conducted an experiment that violated the terms of the grant regarding viral activity, which possibly did lead…to…unacceptable outcomes.”

According to Vanity Fair reporter Katherine Eban, officials at EcoHealth Alliance say they informed NIH of this “unexpected result” (an enhanced coronavirus) in a progress report in 2018, but Fauci says he didn’t see the progress report prior to his congressional testimony.

All of this helps explain why Fauci was so insistent from the very beginning that COVID-19 originated naturally from a wet market, even though scientists who wrote the “Proximal Origin” paper in Nature in early 2020 told him it was “friggin’ likely” and “plausible” the virus emerged from the Wuhan lab.

Was the CIA aware of this potential conflict of interest when Fauci allegedly visited CIA headquarters in an attempt to “influence the Agency’s review”?

2. Why Was the Meeting Held in Secret and Who Authorized It?

Putting aside the question of conflicting interests, there is the simple question of secrecy. 

One could argue Fauci visited CIA headquarters because he was director of NIAID and an infectious disease expert. The problem with this argument is that Fauci had already made many public statements on the origins of the virus, and if he was simply offering an elaboration of his points, there would be no need to hold such a meeting secretly.

Moreover, the CIA was conducting an independent review. That means the agency was supposed to reach its determination without outside influence. 

A visit from Fauci has all the appearances of attempting to influence the outcome of the CIA’s report, which is no doubt why the visit went “without a record of entry.”

Who authorized the secret visit and why?  

3. Who Requested the Meeting and Who Was Present? 

The fact that Fauci’s alleged visit to Langley was done surreptitiously suggests that both the CIA and Fauci understood there were troubling ethics in making such a visit when the agency was conducting an independent review of COVID-19’s origins.

This raises an important question: Who requested the meeting, Fauci or the CIA? 

This is not a trivial question. Mere weeks ago, a letter sent to CIA Director William Burns stated that a senior-level CIA whistleblower claimed the agency attempted to bribe six of its analysts who concluded with a low level of confidence that COVID-19 originated in the Wuhan lab, allegedly offering six of the seven agents cash incentives to change their conclusions.

“The whistleblower,” the letter states, “contends that to come to the eventual public determination of uncertainty, the other six members were given a significant monetary incentive to change their position.”

If the charge is true, it means public officials attempted to bribe CIA analysts tasked with providing an official government assessment of the origins of the most deadly pandemic in a century to influence the outcome of their report.

That’s a very serious charge. The public deserves answers.

‘A Massive Coverup Spanning from China to DC’?

From the beginning of the pandemic, there has been a persistent government effort to silence and marginalize those who questioned NIH’s policies and conclusions. 

It began with coordinated attacks on those who challenged the government’s COVID policies, which was first revealed when the American Institute for Economic Research published emails showing NIH Director Francis Collins instructing subordinates (including Fauci) on the need for “a quick and devastating published take down (sic)” of the premises of the Great Barrington Declaration, whose authors Collins described as “fringe epidemiologists.” (These “fringe” epidemiologists came from Stanford, Harvard, and Oxford University.)  

The attacks later shifted toward those who challenged the government’s assertion that COVID could only have originated naturally, a claim that was treated as dogma. Social media sites suspended users (at the behest of the government) who suggested COVID could have been man-made.

It’s become apparent that “fighting misinformation” was never NIH’s goal, or that of any other government agency. The goal was to fight information that conflicted with the government’s narratives, a common practice of authoritarian regimes. 

David Asher, the man who led the State Department’s investigation into the origins of COVID-19, recently explained to New York magazine journalist David Zweig that the reason we have so little information about COVID’s origins is because people in power prefer it that way. 

“Our own State Department told us ‘don’t get near this thing, it’ll blow up in your face,’” Asher told Zweig. “It’s a massive coverup spanning from China to DC.”

The unprecedented attacks on free speech Americans have witnessed in the last three years stem directly from what Asher describes. During the pandemic, NIH was awarded $150 million to fight “misinformation,” a block of money that has been halted in the wake of NIH’s blunders and First Amendment challenges. 

The most important thing to understand is that the war on “misinformation” isn’t an effort to spread the truth; it’s an effort to conceal it. 

Free speech is truth’s greatest ally, which is precisely why authoritarian regimes throughout history have been so hostile to it. The famed Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis had it right when he observed, in Whitney v. California that “the freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth.”

If Americans want the truth about the origins of COVID-19, they should stop supporting government-led efforts to censor speech and start pressing those in power to answer questions—starting with Dr. Fauci and the CIA.

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Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune.

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

Human-Pig Hybrid Created in the Lab

October 6th, 2023 by Erin Blakemore

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In a remarkable—if likely controversial—feat, scientists announced that they have created the first successful human-animal hybrids. The project proves that human cells can be introduced into a non-human organism, survive, and even grow inside a host animal, in this case, pigs.

This biomedical advance has long been a dream and a quandary for scientists hoping to address a critical shortage of donor organs.

What if, rather than relying on a generous donor, you could grow a custom organ inside an animal instead?

That’s now one step closer to reality, an international team of researchers led by the Salk Institute reports in the journal Cell. The team created what’s known scientifically as a chimera: an organism that contains cells from two different species.

In the past, human-animal chimeras have been beyond reach. Such experiments are currently ineligible for public funding in the United States (so far, the Salk team has relied on private donors for the chimera project). Public opinion, too, has hampered the creation of organisms that are part human, part animal.

But for lead study author Jun Wu of the Salk Institute, we need only look to mythical chimeras—like the human-bird hybrids we know as angels—for a different perspective.

“In ancient civilisations, chimeras were associated with God,” he says, and our ancestors thought “the chimeric form can guard humans.” In a sense, that’s what the team hopes human-animal hybrids will one day do.

Building a Chimera

There are two ways to make a chimera. The first is to introduce the organs of one animal into another—a risky proposition, because the host’s immune system may cause the organ to be rejected.

The other method is to begin at the embryonic level, introducing one animal’s cells into the embryo of another and letting them grow together into a hybrid.

It sounds weird, but it’s an ingenious way to eventually solve a number of vexing biological problems with lab-grown organs.

When scientists discovered stem cells, the master cells that can produce any kind of body tissue, they seemed to contain infinite scientific promise. But convincing those cells to grow into the right kinds of tissues and organs is difficult.

Cells must survive in Petri dishes. Scientists have to use scaffolds to make sure the organs grow into the right shapes. And often, patients must undergo painful and invasive procedures to harvest the tissues needed to kick off the process.

At first, Juan Carlos Ispizua Belmonte, a professor in the Salk Institute’s Gene Expression Laboratory, thought the concept of using a host embryo to grow organs seemed straightforward enough. However, it took Ispizua and more than 40 collaborators four years to figure out how to make a human-animal chimera.

To do so, the team piggybacked off prior chimera research conducted on mice and rats.

This one-year-old chimera sprang from a mouse injected with rat stem cells.

This one-year-old chimera sprang from a mouse injected with rat stem cells. (PHOTOGRAPH BY JUAN CARLOS IZPISUA BELMONTE)

Other scientists had already figured out how to grow the pancreatic tissue of a rat inside a mouse. That team announced that mouse pancreases grown inside rats successfully treated diabetes when parts of the healthy organs were transplanted into diseased mice.

The Salk-led group took the concept one step further, using the genome editing tool called CRISPR to hack into mouse blastocysts—the precursors of embryos. There, they deleted genes that mice need to grow certain organs. When they introduced rat stem cells capable of producing those organs, those cells flourished.

The mice that resulted managed to live into adulthood. Some even grew chimeric gall bladders made of mouse and rat cells, even though rats don’t have that particular organ.

Rejection Risk

The team then took stem cells from rats and injected them into pig blastocysts. This version failed—not surprisingly, since rats and pigs have dramatically different gestation times and evolutionary ancestors.

But pigs have a notable similarity to humans. Though they take less time to gestate, their organs look a lot like ours.

Not that these similarities made the task any easier. The team discovered that, in order to introduce human cells into the pigs without killing them, they had to get the timing just right.

“We tried three different types of human cells, essentially representing three different times” in the developmental process, explains Jun Wu, a Salk Institute scientist and the paper’s first author. Through trial and error, they learned that naïve pluripotent cells—stem cells with unlimited potential—didn’t survive as well as ones that had developed a bit more.

When those just-right human cells were injected into the pig embryos, the embryos survived. Then they were put into adult pigs, which carried the embryos for between three and four weeks before they were removed and analysed.

In all, the team created 186 later-stage chimeric embryos that survived, says Wu, and “we estimate [each had] about one in 100,000 human cells.”

An image of a pig blastocyst being injected with human cells.

An image of a pig blastocyst being injected with human cells. (PHOTOGRAPH BY JUAN CARLOS IZPISUA BELMONTE)

That’s a low percentage—and it could present a problem for the method in the long run, says Ke Cheng, a stem cell expert at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University.

The human tissue appears to slow the growth of the embryo, notes Cheng, and organs grown from such embryos as they develop now would likely be rejected by humans, since they would contain so much pig tissue.

The next big step, says Cheng, is to figure out whether it’s possible to increase the number of human cells the embryos can tolerate. The current method is a start, but it still isn’t clear if that hurdle can be overcome.

Belmonte agrees, noting that it could take years to use the process to create functioning human organs. The technique could be put to use much sooner as a way to study human embryo development and understand disease. And those real-time insights could be just as valuable as the ability to grow an organ.

Even at this early stage, Cheng calls the work a breakthrough: “There are other steps to take,” he concedes. “But it’s intriguing. Very intriguing.”

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Featured image: This pig embryo was injected with human cells early in its development and grew to be four weeks old. (PHOTOGRAPH BY JUAN CARLOS IZPISUA BELMONTE)

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***

Oct. 3, 2023 – Columbus, OH – 31 year old Brian Baseler, OneAmerica Relationship Director died suddenly in his sleep. He had his COVID-19 Booster on Jan. 30, 2022.

Sep. 26, 2023 – New Jersey – 46 year old rapper and actor Nashawn Breedlove, who starred in the Eminem movie “8 Mile” died suddenly in his sleep.

Sep. 16, 2023 – Hermosa Beach, CA – 48 year old Matthew Hobbie, former Sarasota Sailors Two-Sport Star and baseball player, died suddenly in his sleep.

Sep. 15, 2023 – California – Singer JC Gafford died suddenly in his sleep.

Sep. 14, 2023 – Spain – Bob Campenaerts from Antwerp, Belgium, died in his sleep on a cycling holiday in Spain.

Sep. 11, 2023 – NY – Christopher Mellblom died suddenly in his sleep on Sep. 11, 2023 from a “heart issue.”

Sep. 5, 2023 – Melbourne, Australia – 17 year old Melody Southon, a teenage girl from Seabrook died in her sleep on Sep. 5, 2023.

Sep. 3, 2023 – Nashville, TN – 32 year old Heather Nichole Fink died suddenly in her sleep on September 3, 2023. “I got my second COVID-19 vaccine yesterday…omg my body is not ok lol.”

Sep. 2, 2023 – Pahoa, HI – Melissa Torrente, young mother of 2, teacher and social worker died suddenly in her sleep on Sep. 2, 2023.

Sep. 4, 2023 – Italy – 64 year old Italian Doctor Dr. Piero Realdon, died suddenly in his sleep on Sep. 1, 2023.

Sep. 3, 2023 – Australia – Eileen Ella Saunders died in her sleep.

Sep. 2023 – Dearborn, MI – 41 year old truck driver Muhannad Majeed, died suddenly in his sleep while on his trucking route in Laredo, Texas.

Aug. 28, 2023 – Italy – 37 year old Michele Brigidi died suddenly in his sleep on August 28, 2023. He was found dead in his bed by his parents.

Aug. 20, 2023 – UK – 31 year old Aaron Swift died in his sleep on August 20, 2023 “he died in his sleep without any health issues or warning prior.”

Aug. 20, 2023 – Adelaide, Australia – 14 year old William Pfeiffer died suddenly in his sleep on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023. He had no known medical history.

Aug. 19, 2023 – Australia – 39 year old Lindy Joy Turner from Geelong, Australia, died in her sleep in Bali, Indonesia after struggling with a cold and breathing difficulties.

Aug. 19, 2023 – California – Eileen McLoone died suddenly in her sleep on Aug. 19, 2023.

Aug. 18, 2023 – Warrington, UK – 39 year old Anne-Marie Barber died in her sleep on Aug. 18, 2023 after complaining of abdominal pains or period pains.

Aug. 18, 2023 – UK – 28 year old Cameron Amor died in his sleep on Aug. 18, 2023. Autopsy concluded: “Sudden Adult Death Syndrome.”

Aug. 16, 2023 – New York – 34 year old Riccardo Zebro, an Italian Chef who cooked for Robert De Niro, died suddenly in his sleep on Aug. 16, 2023.

Aug. 16, 2023 – Belluno, Italy – 50 year old Valentina Cervasio di Meano, a Spanish Teacher and avid mountain hiker died suddenly in her sleep on August 16, 2023. Family members found her dead in bed.

Aug. 16, 2023 – Italy – 44 year old photographer Anna Bruscaglin collapsed while attending a beach party in Squillace, Italy with a group of friends. She was found dead in the night of August 16, 2023.

Aug. 14, 2023 – Rockville, MD – Susan Loftus died suddenly in her sleep while on vacation in Higgins Beach in Maine, boogie boarding.

Aug. 13, 2023 – Burlington, VT – 36 year old Chef Ahmed Omar died in his sleep on Aug. 13, 2023.

Aug. 10, 2023 – New Iberia, LA – 36 year old Euclide Babin Jr died in his sleep on Aug. 10, 2023. He had lost several family members, including his mother on July 25, 2022 and his uncle on July 28, 2023.

Aug. 9, 2023 – Dartmouth, NS – 55 yo Brian Scott Sutherland died unexpectedly on Aug. 9, 2023 at home. His partner, 59 yo Robert Bobby Barkhouse died unexpectedly in his sleep on Mar. 22, 2022.

Aug. 7, 2023 – Aug 21, 2023 – Menifee, CA – 41 year old Krystle Ochoa died suddenly in her sleep on Aug. 7, 2023.

Aug. 6, 2023 – Ronkonkoma, NY – Brian Flaherty, a local softball league player died suddenly in his sleep from a cardiac arrest on Sunday morning August 6, 2023.

Aug. 5, 2023 – Christchurch, New Zealand – 17 year old Kaitlyn Baker died suddenly in her sleep on August 5, 2023, “no underlying health issues.”

Aug. 5, 2023 – Ireland – 20s year old primary school teacher Gemma McKenna died suddenly in her home on Saturday, August 5, 2023.

Aug. 3, 2023 – Manchester, UK – 35 year old Becky Collins died suddenly in her sleep on August 3, 2023. She was found dead by her 12 year old son and her niece who was over for holidays sleepover.

Aug. 2, 2023 – Tucson, AZ – 60 year old Jessica Ann Lerma Dodd, a Community Relations Manager died suddenly in her sleep on Aug. 2, 2023. She died still having the “I got my COVID-19 vaccine” photo in her facebook profile.

July 31, 2023 -Los Angeles – 59 year old Michelle Anne Dash, died in her sleep on July 31, 2023. She worked at an Alternative medicine/supplement store. “I have a healthy distrust of Authority – and I’m vaccinated.”

July 29, 2023 – Middlesbrough, UK – Tony Harrison, age 41, served in the Coldstream Guards from 1997 to 2004 and even had breakfast with the Queen. He fell asleep in his sister’s house on July 29, 2023 and died in his sleep.

July 28, 2023 – Calgary, Alberta – 36 year old Jennifer Allen, Canadian surrogacy champion died unexpectedly in her sleep on July 28, 2023.

Click here to read all cases.

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

Featured image is from NaturalNews.com


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

by Michel Chossudovsky

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

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

Reviews

This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon

In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia

In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig 

Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac

A reading of  Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late.  You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin

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

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

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

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Executive Summary

The revolving door between the U.S. government and the arms industry, which involves hundreds of senior Pentagon officials and military officers every year, generates the appearance — and in some cases the reality — of conflicts of interest in the making of defense policy and in the shaping of the size and composition of the Pentagon budget.

This report looks at the post–government employment records of a subset of the larger flow of “revolvers”: four–star generals and admirals who retired between June 2018 and July 2023. Among the findings are the following:

  • 26 of 32 four–star officers who retired after June 2018 — over 80 percent — went to work for the arms industry as board members, advisors, executives, consultants, lobbyists, or members of financial institutions that invest in the defense sector.
  • The biggest category of post–retirement employment for four–stars, by far, was as board members or advisors for small and medium–sized arms contractors, with 15 choosing that option. This compares to five who became board members, advisors or executives for one of the top 10 arms contractors.
  • Five retired four–stars became arms industry consultants, five became lobbyists for weapons companies, and four joined financial firms that make significant investments in the defense sector.

This brief recommends a number of measures designed to limit undue influence and potential conflicts of interest on the part of retired four–star generals and other retired Pentagon officials and military officers who pass through the revolving door.

  • Bar four–star officers from working for firms that receive $1 billion or more in Pentagon contracts per year.
  • Extend “cooling off” periods before retired Pentagon officials and military officers can go to work on behalf of the arms industry.
  • Increase transparency over post–government employment and activities on the part of retired Pentagon and military officials working on behalf of arms contractors, including reporting on their interactions with Congress and the executive branch.

The most comprehensive current proposal to address the revolving door issue is Senator Elizabeth Warren’s Department of Defense Ethics and Anti-Corruption Act.[1] The bill would encompass many of the recommendations put forward in this report.

Introduction

This brief documents the extent to which recently retired four–star generals and admirals have gone to work as lobbyists, executives, board members, consultants, or financiers of the arms industry upon leaving government service. It covers the period from June 2018 through July 2023.

The role of generals and admirals in the arms industry is part of the larger problem of the revolving door, in which hundreds of senior Pentagon and military officials go to work for major Pentagon contractors every year, using their contacts with former colleagues to wield influence on behalf of their corporate employers and clients. A 2021 report by the Government Accountability Office found that over 1,700 senior government and military officials — including generals, admirals, and top acquisition officers — went to work for one or more of the top 14 weapons contractors between 2014–19, for an average of over 300 per year.[2] This report looks in greater detail at a smaller number of “revolvers,” focusing only on four–star generals and admirals.

The revolving door is a problem because it creates the appearance — and in some cases the reality — of conflicts of interest in the making of defense policy and in the shaping of the size and composition of the Pentagon budget.  The role of top military officials is particularly troubling, given their greater clout in the military and the government more broadly than most other revolving door hires. Their influence over policy and budget issues can tilt the scales towards a more militarized foreign policy.

The revolving door is a problem because it creates the appearance — and in some cases the reality — of conflicts of interest in the making of defense policy and in the shaping of the size and composition of the Pentagon budget.

There is also the potential for military officials to favor companies they are supposed to oversee while they are still in government, with the goal of landing a lucrative position with them upon retirement. As Senator Elizabeth Warren (D–MA) put it, “When government officials cash in on their public service by lobbying, advising, or serving as board members and executives for the companies they used to regulate, it  undermines public officials’ integrity and casts doubt on the fairness of government contracting.”[3]

Official government tracking of post–government employment of retired four–stars and other senior government officials with national security responsibilities is insufficient, but even under current rules a number of concerning cases have been uncovered.

For example, as the Project on Government Oversight  (POGO) has noted in its path breaking report “Brass Parachutes,” while he was in the service, General James E. Cartwright advocated vigorously for the JLENS, a surveillance balloon notorious for an incident in which it broke free from its moorings and floated 160 miles off course.[4] Cartwright blocked the Army from canceling the program in 2010, then joined the board of JLENS’s producer, Raytheon, after retiring as vice–chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.[5]

In another prominent case, General James Mattis went to bat for the blood testing firm Theranos while he was serving as Commander of the U.S. Central Command, then joined the company’s board upon leaving government service. Mattis pressed the Army to buy and utilize Theranos equipment, as he acknowledged in an email to Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes uncovered by the Washington Post: “I’ve met with my various folks and we’re kicking this into overdrive to try to field your lab in the near term.”[6]

After Mattis left the military to join the Theranos board, he defended the company’s practices — even as it was marketing a product that did not work, with false claims that included denying charges that it was out of compliance with Food and Drug Administration requirements.[7] Mattis later claimed that, despite being a board member, he was not informed of the limitations of the Theranos devices while he was serving at the company for compensation of $150,000 per year.[8] In 2018, Holmes was indicted on charges of wire fraud for allegedly perpetrating a “multi–million dollar scheme to defraud investors, doctors, and patients.”[9] The Securities and Exchange Commission described Theranos as an “elaborate, years–long fraud” in which Holmes “exaggerated or made false statements about the company’s technology, business, and financial performance.”[10]

Retired military officers were also prominently involved in a lobbying effort that prevented the Navy from divesting itself of multiple copies of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), which the service had determined were not relevant to the most important challenges facing the Navy and would, if retained, result in a service that was “less capable, less lethal, and less ready.”[11] The LCS is also plagued with technical problems that were described in detail in a New York Times investigation of the campaign to save the ship from retirement.[12]

The role of ex–Navy officers in the campaign to save the LCS was described in detail by Danielle Brian, Executive Director of the Project on Government Oversight, in her April 2023 Congressional testimony.[13] Among the retired Navy officials spearheading the effort to block the retirement of the LCS was a retired Navy veteran, Timothy Spratto, who served as general manager of BAE Systems’ shipyard in Jacksonville, Florida, where the littoral combat ships are serviced.[14] Before joining BAE, Spratto served as Assistant Chief of Staff, Material Readiness and Assessments, Naval Surface Forces Atlantic.[15]

Another key player in the effort to save the LCS was retired Rear Admiral James A. Murdoch, who served as program executive officer for the littoral combat ship program from 2011–14 before leaving government service to become the international business development director for ship and aviation systems at Lockheed Martin, one of the prime contractors for the Freedom–class Littoral Combat Ships.[16] Also involved in the successful lobbying effort was retired Captain Tony Parisi, who worked on the General Dynamics team that trains crews to run the LCS, and wrote an op–ed in 2022 for Real Clear Defense titled “Don’t Give Up the Ship.”[17] The work of these former military officers resulted in the procurement and continued deployment of flawed ships that cost taxpayers billions of dollars and put crew members at risk.[18]

More consistent and detailed reporting on post–government activities of military officers who go to work in the arms industry would likely uncover many other incidents similar to the ones described above.

Proponents of the revolving door argue that the expertise ex–military officers bring to the arms industry can improve its performance and ability to produce systems relevant to the needs of the warfighter. This is belied by the fact that — according to a study by Senator Elizabeth Warren’s office — over 90 percent of senior government officials who go into the arms industry serve as lobbyists.[19] Their job is to promote projects and practices that boost the bottom lines of their new employers, not weigh in on how the firms carry out their government–funded projects, for good or ill.  To the extent that there is expertise in the military sector that can make contractors more effective, it can be transmitted without hiring a majority of retiring senior officials as lobbyists (see detailed recommendations, below).

Over 90 percent of senior government officials who go into the arms industry serve as lobbyists.

One overall finding of this report is that the nature of the revolving door has shifted.  Not only do retired officers join the boards of major contractors like Lockheed Martin or the ranks of lobbyists at major firms that include weapons contractors as clients, but they set up their own consulting firms, work as advisors to defense startups, and join firms that finance arms companies. There are many routes available for former military officials to seek work in the arms sector. In the sections that follow we provide details on post–government employment of recent four–star retirees and recommendations for curbing their influence over decisions on Pentagon spending and policy.

Click here to read the full report.

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William D. Hartung, a TomDispatch regular, is a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and the author of “More Money, Less Security: Pentagon Spending and Strategy in the Biden Administration.”

Dillon Fisher is a Democratizing Foreign Policy Program Intern.

Featured image: The US is investigating whether secret military plans were leaked. (Photo: Asten / Flickr CC)

Appraising Wikileaks Through the Prism of Theory

October 6th, 2023 by Megan Sherman

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***

Traditional agents of high politics have been quick to pass the verdict. To arch-hawk Hilary Clinton, the crypto-journalism organisation WikiLeaks is a “hostile intelligence agency.” She has famously attributed its power to disrupt US diplomacy to an unholy alliance with Russia, a smear that has got stuck in the public consciousness.

Evidently though, this is a flawed, biased narrative. It fundamentally derives from Machiavellian Weltpolitik (imperialist foreign policy) strategies, methods of imposing power that seek to preserve imperial rule, ones which are the reason d’état of the life of a sordid and evil Washington power nexus.

This article proposes a more objective and realistic perspective informed by academia, but delivered as a polemic. Broadly, Wikileaks functions by facilitating a public forum in the global community by means of technological innovations, one which brings in a range of repressed local perspectives. Typically, Wikileaks initiates intense public discourse on wrongfully suppressed political issues, a discourse that draws on the diverse data, views, knowledge and experiences made available by their documents.

Through its process of spreading information, Wikileaks becomes a catalyst for a broader process which stimulates engagement between the public and decision makers through lively dissent. The outcome is that people are empowered to stand up for their beliefs and push hitherto invisible issues, none in the public interest, on the agenda.

The real ingenuity of Wikileaks consists in the way its publishing model inverts the power relations in the political economy of contemporary media. The institutions governing traditional media are basically corrupt cartels, vast, nefarious conglomerates in which there is a chain of command, moving downward, from paymasters to editors, and downwards again from editors to the roster of journalists/hacks.

This dynamic is galvanised by a perverse economic incentive to produce work that satisfies the proprietors. By contrast Wikileaks’ supply of content is generated from the bottom up, a reaction to demand from whistleblowers. Wikileaks’ commissioning model sources journalism from, by and for the public.

While its participants are geographically disparate and its interaction’s spanning borders, Wikileaks nonetheless could be said to constitute a Mini-Public, that is, a new form of governance to reform democracy being studied and developed by academics. The theoretical approach best placed to explain the democratic role of Wikileaks is Agonistic Pluralism.

This is an agent of conflict and antagonism against the high state. In so doing, it pursues multiplicity in political narratives and information for citizens who undertake “low” grassroots politics, often dispossessed of the real facts, dispossessed purposefully by parties to the establishment.

A Mini-public is an innovation in democratic practice insofar as it increases democratic efficiency by deferring power to citizens to play key roles in decision-making. This is done via moderated discussions. A report, Minipublics: Examples And Resources, published on NewDemocracy, an independent research organization, states the following:

“Mini-publics also provide an opportunity to build capacity in the Parliament by utilising external knowledge and skills. They complement and inform the decision making process but, crucially, do not replace the decision taking responsibility of members. This approach is in keeping with the Parliament’s founding principles.

“We consider deliberative approaches would be well suited to bill scrutiny or to examining issues where it is important to understand the public’s views on a complex moral or social issue. They could be used as part of an inquiry into an issue where public opinion is divided. The mini public report would demonstrate to the committee what happens when people with different views are invited to deliberate and report their conclusions.”

Problems of Contemporary Institutional Democracy

Democratic theory today is radically embroiled with questions of how to transform the basic values of contemporary institutions and, in so doing, recreate a more vibrant civic order. There is a rich wealth of literature on the range of innovations democratic practice can take and the path to harnessing their inherent Democratic Goods, that is, the democratic values they incarnate. Because the decay in contemporary democratic societies is so advanced, the task of reinventing the architecture of democracy has never been more timely and urgent.

Virtuous innovations attempt different ways to incorporate experiments with design features. Broadly, they aim to maximize outputs of democratic goods. From a deep theoretical perspective, democratic innovations like these are the antidote to the decline of the Habermasian public sphere, that is, a protected public space which thrives on public reason, whose decline has occurred because of the slow effacement of democratic institutions at the hands of private power, ones that had inculcated public Goods.

Their burial is the legacy of the hegemony of neoliberal management in modern democracies. It has become the way that private power is now a check and balance on democracy, instead of vice versa.

The purpose of a democratic innovation is to revive, support and consolidate Democratic Goods in terminal decline across the Western liberal polities. It is at once the renaissance, return and redemption of an ancient ideal of the agora — the idealised Greek public — lively with an exchange of ideas, yet an entirely new and qualitatively distinct form of political action that presages radical evolutionary changes in political identities.

In an ideal democracy, power would be equidistant between the public and its deliberative institutions, perfectly and equally balanced. By contrast, current forms have the public, the institutions in elliptical path, orbiting round the nucleus engorged on its own power, and the determiner of the entire work of the whole organic system.

If it is the purpose of a democratic innovation to put citizens at the heart of debate and decision making, then it is possible to see Wikileaks as being exemplary. The collective seeks to equip citizens with maximum information on hidden policy agendas we may appraise as being in or not in the public interest.

Mark Warren named the trend in research and policy towards creating democratic innovations a development of ‘governance-driven democratization’:

“…within this domain that we are seeing a rapid development of what are often called ‘citizen engagement’ and ‘public engagement’ processes — that is, everything from the public hearings and mandatory public comment periods that emerged after World War II, to the stakeholder meetings that began to spread in the 1980s, and to newer consensus conferences, town hall meetings, citizen juries, citizen assemblies, deliberative polling, online dialogues, deliberative planning, participatory budgeting, study circles, planning cells, collaborative learning, and even participatory theatre.

“There are, most probably, nearly one hundred named processes. Typically, these processes use the languages of participation and deliberation; they are designed for particular policy problems; they bypass the formal institutions of democracy, and they do not involve protest, lobbying, or obstruction.” — (2009: 5–6)

You may observe that Wikileaks is indeed construed as “protest, lobbying or obstruction”, however, this is from the perspective of the imperial state — an authoritarian mode of rule — only. In its philosophy pertaining to Democracy, Law, Privacy and Civil Liberties, the collective is not only a thoroughly constitutional actor, but also one who seeks to fortify the constitution against the creation of privatized spheres of power that make decisions above and beyond public purview. In so doing, Wikileaks serves the public interest and common good.

One might proffer the analysis that such dubious duplicity is the reason faith in democracy is ailing. People see through the spectacle and feel that their intelligence and their trust in the system has been insulted.

The essence of humanity is democracy and vice versa. Democratic innovations seek to maximize humanity and justice in the decision-making process by widening participation and meaningful inputs from the people, just as Wikileaks does. We must defend it against the hackneyed diktat of the Clinton faction as being a people’s Mini-public and, moreover, a pacifist research institute with impeccable credentials for telling the truth.

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***

The ruling class often laments the “wealth gap”, which is strange considering they have given themselves permission to steal from the slave class. Now, they are using it as an excuse to inflict permanent slavery on the masses through the creation of a central bank digital currency, or CBDC.

A new report by Legacy Research claims that universal basic income (UBI) will pave the way for the rulers’ endgame: CBDC. By dolling out a UBI with the help of a digital ID and CBDC, the slave class will be able to be fully controlled by the rulers.

 UBI offers a no-strings-attached monthly payment… for everyone, at every income level.

To pay for all this, governments will need digital money. It’s the most efficient way to manage and track such a massive transfer of wealth.

That digital money will come in the form of a central bank digital currency (CBDC).

I’ve been warning you about the privacy threats CBDCs pose since June.

Currently, 114 countries – representing over 95% of global gross domestic product (GDP) – are exploring a CBDC. And 11 have launched a CBDC, including China, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia. –Legacy Research

So is their plan to impoverish everyone by inflating the fiat currency, so they can swoop in with a UBI and “save” the poor suffering slaves? Most likely. In order to fully control the human population, the rulers need to get a CBDC in place before too many realize that government is slavery and this is nothing more than invisible, but permanent chains of all of us.

In order for this scheme to work, the rulers will need to convince the slaves it’s in their best interest to take the currency. Americans are easily persuaded. After all, a lot of them took the “vaccine” in exchange for a free donut. Many will be willing to accept the CBDC in exchange for a small sum of fiat currency.

It all started in July with the launch of FedNow, which Legacy Research describes as the “Trojan Horse” of digital currencies and the completion of the slave system. Once you’re signed up with a federal bank account, you have officially “signed a contract” making yourself their slave, no illusion of freedom will be needed. You are literally handing over what’s left of your essential freedoms and privacy.

The rulers will take what they want, freeze your account, cut off your UBI, or simply “remove” you from access to their system if you do things they dislike.

In order for this scheme to work, the ruling class will need our “consent”. That means we are likely going to be forced to sign up on our own in order to get the free “donut”. Much like they did with the COVID injections, they need you to go voluntarily ask them to be a slave. Once you’re locked in, there will be no way out. We all should be standing up to this egregious act of tyranny now.

The masters seek to erect a permanent digital cage around every single human on this planet. The rulers already have as much money and resources as they could ever want. But what they really desire is power.

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*** 

Artificial intelligence is changing our world at a pace that is absolutely breathtaking.  If you would have asked me a decade ago if I would live to see artificial intelligence create a world class piece of art or a full-length feature film, I would have said no way. But now those are simple tasks for artificial intelligence to accomplish. So what is going to happen once AI becomes millions of times smarter and millions of times more powerful than it is today? Given enough time, AI would take over every area of our lives. Our world is definitely crazy right now, but fifty years from now it would resemble something out of an extremely bizarre science fiction novel if AI is allowed to continue to develop at an exponential rate.

Unfortunately, only a very small minority of the population is even concerned about the potential dangers posed by AI, and that is a problem.

Needless to say, the growth of AI has enormous implications for our economy.

AI can already perform most simple tasks much better and much faster than human workers can, and multiple studies have concluded that millions of jobs are at risk of being lost.  The following comes from Fox News

For example, in March 2023, technology firm OpenAI released a report that found at least 80% of the U.S. labor force could have at least 10% of their work-related tasks affected by the introduction of GPT, while another 19% of employees may see at least 50% of these work-related tasks impacted. While GPT influence impacts all wage levels, the higher-income jobs potentially face the greatest exposure, concludes OpenAI.

Also in March 2023, researchers at investment banker Goldman Sachs, after collecting data on occupationally-oriented tasks in Europe and the U.S., found that roughly two-thirds of current occupations are exposed to varying degrees of generative AI automation (such as found in ChatGPT), and that AI could substitute for nearly one-fourth of current work performed.

In July 2023, the McKinsey Global Institute issued a report estimating that without generative AI, automation could take over tasks accounting for 21.5% of the hours worked in the U,S. economy by 2030; but with generative AI, that share increased to 29.5%.

So what would happen to all of the workers that would no longer be needed once AI starts taking over most of our jobs?

I think that is a question that all of us should be asking.

Artificial intelligence also threatens to transform our personal relationships.

“AI girlfriends” are proving to be immensely popular with young men, and we are being warned about the “severe consequences” that this is likely to cause…

The rise of virtual artificial intelligence (AI) girlfriends is enabling the silent epidemic of loneliness in an entire generation of young men. It is also having severe consequences for America’s future.

How is something that seems so ridiculous — a virtual AI girlfriend — causing a future crisis among Americans? Well, with millions of users, apps have created virtual girlfriends that talk to you, love you, allow you to live out your erotic fantasies, and learn, through data, exactly what you like and what you don’t like, creating the “perfect” relationship.

Who wouldn’t want a “perfect” relationship?

In the real world, people have flaws, and so there is no such thing as a “perfect” relationship.

So if AI can create a girlfriend that is ideal for you all the time, I can see why a lot of people would be attracted to that.

And this is really happening.  In fact, an AI girlfriend that is based on a real life social media influencer already has more than 1,000 users

These virtual girlfriends can even be based on real people. One influencer created an AI bot of herself named Caryn, then gained over 1,000 users (i.e. real boyfriends) in less than a week and a waitlist of more than 15,000 people.

An AI girlfriend might sound enticing. You get to connect with a super hot girl who listens to you and appreciates you, 24/7. Beyond choosing physical attributes, down to the size of her rear end, you can pick her personality. You prefer “hot, funny, and bold”? That’s what she will be. Or if “cute, shy, and modest” is more your cup of tea, she’s got you covered.

Of course it isn’t just lonely young men that are getting pulled into this world.

In my next book, I discuss a woman that has actually married her AI boyfriend, and she insists that she is happier than she has ever been before.

But what is the cost?

What will this do to our society?

There is already a raging epidemic of loneliness among our young men, and it is getting worse with each passing day…

Let’s look at the hard numbers. More than 60 percent of young men (ages 18-30) are single, compared to only 30 percent of women the same age. One in five men report not having a single close friend, a number that has quadrupled in the last 30 years. The amount of social engagement with friends dropped by 20 hours per month over the pandemic and is still decreasing.

AI is also starting to be used in our churches.

Last month, a Methodist church in Texas made headlines all over the world when the pastor conducted an entire “worship service” using AI technology…

On September 17, 2023, the Violet Crown City Church, a Methodist church in North Austin, US, transformed the tradition of Sunday service into the new age with Artificial Intelligence.

Pastor Jay Cooper, of Violet Crown City Church, decided to debut an AI-generated worship service for his congregation.

This is so wrong.

But it is inevitable that more churches will start doing this.

Pastor Cooper asked Chat GPT to create an entire service for his congregation, and it spit out “prayers, a sermon, and an original song based on the sermon itself”

Jay came across this idea of using AI to worship God through using Chat GPT himself for personal use such as writing humorous country music lyrics for fun, and thought it would be a great way to move his congregation into the 21st-century by introducing them to AI in a way that still lets them worship God.

Using AI, Jay recorded the service while letting the artificial intelligence generator conduct the service, with AI being able to create prayers, a sermon, and an original song based on the sermon itself.

But what kind of “spiritual content” should we expect from a machine?

Ultimately, all AI programs are going to mirror the values of those that created them and those that are using them.

In this case, current societal values were clearly reflected in this “worship service”.  The following is how the “sermon” began

“Come, all who are weary, come all who are heavy-laden,

“For in this place, we find rest for our souls.

“Come, people of all backgrounds and walks of life,

“For here, we celebrate the diversity of God’s creation.

“Come, seekers of justice and peace,

“For together, we strive to make the world a better place.”

Seriously?

Several politically-correct buzzwords are used within the first six sentences, and it is obvious what this AI “sermon” is trying to communicate.

Of course this wasn’t the first church service that was created by artificial intelligence.

As I have written about previously, the very first church service that was created by artificial intelligence was conducted at St. Paul’s Church in Bavaria, Germany

Early in the summer of 2023, robots projected on a screen delivered sermons to about 300 congregants at St. Paul’s Church in Bavaria, Germany. Created by ChatGPT and Jonas Simmerlein, a theologian and philosopher from the University of Vienna, the experimental church service drew immense interest.

It is just a matter of time before more churches jump on the bandwagon.

And other religions are now making use of cutting edge technology as well.

If you can believe it, multilingual robots have been deployed at the Grand Mosque in Saudi Arabia

Consider the recent robotic initiatives at the Grand Mosque in Saudi Arabia. At this mosque, multilingual robots are being deployed for multiple purposes, including providing answers to questions related to ritual performances in 11 languages.

Notably, while these robots stationed at the Grand Mosque can recite the Holy Quran, they also provide visitors with connections to local imams. Their touch-screen interfaces are equipped with bar codes, allowing users to learn more about the weekly schedules of mosque staff, including clerics who lead Friday sermons. In addition, these robots can connect visitors with Islamic scholars via video interactions to answer their queries around the clock.

If this is what is happening today, what do you think our world would look like 20 or 30 years down the road?

The good news, if you want to call it that, is that I don’t think we are going to get the chance to find out.

The clock is ticking, and humanity is quickly running out of time.

So we may never get to see all of the horrors that artificial intelligence would unleash upon our society.

But the changes that we have seen so far are certainly bad enough, but most of the population still does not seem too alarmed by any of this.

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Michael Snyder has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse BlogEnd Of The American Dream and The Most Important News which are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. 

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

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***

The knives have been out for “domestic terrorists” – a corporate state euphemism for Trump supporters and, actually, anyone remotely ideologically in the vicinity of MAGA – for many years at this point.

But they’re getting sharper, and blood-thirstier.

Via Newsweek:

The federal government believes that the threat of violence and major civil disturbances around the 2024 U.S. presidential election is so great that it has quietly created a new category of extremists that it seeks to track and counter: Donald Trump’s army of MAGA followers.

The challenge for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the primary federal agency charged with law enforcement, is to pursue and prevent what it calls domestic terrorism without direct reference to political parties or affiliations*—even though the vast majority of its current “anti-government” investigations are of Trump supporters, according to classified data…”

For anyone who believes that the FBI is targeting “domestic terrorists” regardless of their political affiliations, I’ve got a ski resort timeshare in Saudi Arabia with a fresh blanket of powdery snow to sell you.

This is anarcho-tyranny in practice; Trump supporters/conservatives/”even libertarians” (to quote retired CIA goon and current MSNBC news actor John Brennan) are targeted for political persecution while feral “domestic terrorists” of the Democrat variety (i.e. BLM looters during the 2020 Summer of Love) are allowed to run hog-wild in the streets.

Continuing via Newsweek, an anonymous quoted FBI hack pretends his agency is deeply concerned with protecting something called the “Constitutional rights” of the serfs it lords over in its terror campaign against them:

“”The FBI is in an almost impossible position,” says a current FBI official, who requested anonymity to discuss highly sensitive internal matters. The official said that the FBI is intent on stopping domestic terrorism and any repeat of the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. But the Bureau must also preserve the Constitutional right of all Americans to campaign, speak freely and protest the government. By focusing on former president Trump and his MAGA (Make America Great Again) supporters, the official said, the Bureau runs the risk of provoking the very anti-government activists that the terrorism agencies hope to counter.

“Especially at a time when the White House is facing Congressional Republican opposition claiming that the Biden administration has ‘weaponized’ the Bureau against the right wing, it has to tread very carefully,” says the official.””

The whole “avoiding provoking anti-government activists” ship sailed long ago. The time for reconciliation and hand-holding has passed.

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This article was originally published on Armageddon Prose.

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

Featured image: Outside during the US Capitol during the January 6, 2021 attack on the building (Licensed under Creative Commons) 

War Fever: Why China Should Prepare for the Worst

October 6th, 2023 by Mike Whitney

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***

 

 

Washington is positioning its assets at chokepoints across Central Asia to block critical rail corridors that link Beijing to Europe. It’s part of a US plan to isolate China from western markets following an outbreak of hostilities in Taiwan.

The destruction of Nordstream is the key to understanding how Washington plans to deal with China. The pipeline effectively erased the geographic borders between Russia and Germany creating a de facto free trade zone that spanned the continents and increased the prosperity of both trading partners. The arrangement anticipated a much larger commons area that would extend from “Lisbon to Vladivostok”, in fact, that was Vladimir Putin’s explicit goal. Washington saw this as a threat to its regional hegemony and set about to scuttle the partnership and the pipeline. As we pointed out in an earlier article:

In a world where Germany and Russia are friends and trading partners, there is no need for US military bases, no need for expensive US-made weapons and missile systems, and no need for NATO. There’s also no need to transact energy deals in US Dollars or to stockpile US Treasuries to balance accounts. Transactions between business partners can be conducted in their own currencies which is bound to precipitate a sharp decline in the value of the dollar and a dramatic shift in economic power. This is why the Biden administration decided to destroy Nordstream, because Nordstream was the main artery linking the two continents together into a mutually beneficial relationship that operated independent of the United States. Thus, Nordstream was a clear threat to the unipolar world and the “rules-based order”.

Bottom line: Nordstream had to be destroyed.

The question is: What does the Nordstream incident tell us about Washington’s plans for China?

What we’ve shown is that Washington is prepared to take radical action to defend its hegemony in Europe. But, of course, Germany was not the only victim of Biden’s attack. It was also a blow to Russia which not only suffered serious economic losses, but was also effectively blocked from western markets. Russia was clearly the more important of the two targets because it was Russia that challenged the central tenet of US foreign policy, which is “to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union.”

The quote above is excerpted from the Wolfowitz Doctrine that has appeared in numerous foreign policy documents including President Biden’s 2022 National Security Strategy. The words have been slightly tweaked in newer iterations, but the meaning remains the same. The US is going to prevent any “hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.” In practice, this means that Russia cannot engage in commercial activities with its neighbors if those activities are perceived to pose a threat to US regional preeminence. In the case of Nordstream, the Biden administration was quite clear that they thought the pipeline was a problem; they even admitted as much. And the only reliable way to eliminate the problem, was to blow it up. This is the logic that precipitated the sabotage of Nordstream.

But what does this tell us about Washington’s “China policy”?

It tells us that US powerbrokers are going to identify emerging threats in Central Asia and then remove those threats by hook or crook. And, while China does not have large supplies of natural gas and oil to sell to Europe, it is creating a vast network of China-to-Europe freight corridors that have economically integrated the Eurasian landmass while linking to major capitals across the EU. This far-flung cobweb of newly-laid track has put Beijing at a decided advantage over the US in local competition and is rapidly reinforcing its position as regional hegemon. Once again, we need to remember that the United States is fully-committed to preventing the re-emergence of a rival in the region it considers vital to its national security, that is, Central Asia. And, yet, China’s rapidly expanding freight rail system creates just such a rival. Take a look:

The China-Europe Freight Train (CEFT)

A crucial precursor to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and arguably its most prominent flagship project, the China-Europe Freight Train (CEFT) has already run through its first decade of 2011-21. With 82 routes currently connecting nearly 100 Chinese cities to around 200 cities across 24 European countries and more than a dozen Central, East, and Southeast Asian countries, the CEFT has formed a vast transcontinental freight system spanning both ends of Eurasia. While only 17 freight trains ran from China to Europe in the CEFT’s inaugural year of 2011, 60,000 trains cumulatively will have traversed the Eurasian landmass and its maritime margins by October 16, 2022….Eurasia’s Freight Infrastructure vs. Russia’s War in Ukraine, Global Affairs

Here’s more:

Any large-scale transport system takes a long time to develop and mature. The CEFT may be an exception in that it has expanded rapidly and extensively over a mere decade, from a few places into arguably the world’s largest logistics network linking hundreds of cities across the vast continent of Eurasia, as the most prominent flagship project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched in 2013….

As the CEFT runs into its second decade, it has already sent around 60,000 trains cumulatively between Europe, China, and parts of East Asia and Southeast Asia by October 2022. Every day now, around 40 freight trains carrying hundreds of containers and other forms of cargo shipments run east and west across Eurasia, with extended rail-sea and rail-river intermodal shipping across the Caspian, Black, and Mediterranean seas and along the Rhine and Yangtze Rivers. Connection Meets Disruption: The China-Europe Freight Train and the War in Ukraine, The European Financial Review

So, while the United States was waging its wars in the Middle East and Central Asia, China was opening-up a state-of-the-art railway corridor that shortened the distances between capitals, reduced the overall price of manufactured goods, increased the profits of its trading partners, and built-up good will among its neighbors. And, yes, freight trains are a centuries old technology but—as we’ve seen—that old technology can dramatically impact economic development when it is put to good use. More importantly, it can significantly affect the distribution of global power which poses a serious threat to the existing order. And that is why Washington is so worried.

So, what can we expect from the Biden administration? Surely, they’re not going to roll over and play dead. There must be a plan for countering China’s rapid takeover of Asia and its impressive penetration of European market, but what is it? This is from Politico:

Russia’s war in Ukraine is derailing Beijing’s flagship New Silk Road project. The infrastructure strategy aims to promote freight trains running from China, across Russia and then through Ukraine or Belarus on to the European Union. Now Ukraine is in a bloody war, while Belarus and Russia have been hit hard with sanctions.

“The Ukraine war has completely totaled the China-Europe rail express phenomenon for now,” said Jacob Mardell, an analyst focusing on China’s infrastructure grand plan, known as the Belt and Road Initiative, for the Mercator Institute for China Studies.

The slowdown in growth is in large part due to traders no longer wanting their goods to pass through Russia via the Silk Road’s northern route, lest they run into legal trouble. Russian Railways are under EU and U.S. financial sanctions, and it’s tricky to insure products being transported through Russia because of the war and sanctions’ “chilling effect,” according to Kristian Schmidt, who leads land transport policy at the European Commission.

But there is a rail alternative linking China to Europe that bypasses Russia: A corridor running south of Russia, from China to Kazakhstan, across the Caspian Sea, and then through Azerbaijan and Georgia, known as the Middle Corridor...

In May, Maersk announced it was launching new services on the Middle Corridor. The Danish logistics giant, which has halted freight services through Russia, now sends goods by rail from China, through Kazakhstan, then across the Caspian sea to Azerbaijan, and then on to the Georgian port of Poti on the Black Sea. From there, cargo is loaded onto its network of feeder vessels that can carry it to Constanța in Romania….

The Middle Corridor is now “the only real alternative” to the route crossing Russia, DG MOVE Chief Henrik Hololei said at an event in June. Ukraine war shakes up China-Europe railway express, Politico

Let’s see if I got this right: A significant portion of China’s freight (along the northern corridor) has been blocked due to sanctions (on Russia). So, the only viable alternative is the “Middle Corridor” ..”across the Caspian sea to Azerbaijan” which is currently experiencing an uptick in violence between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Even more suspicious is the fact that on September 25, diehard neocon Samantha Power unexpectedly visited Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, and delivered a statement in which she emphasized the Biden administrations support for country. Not surprisingly, she also called for an “international presence” on the ground which suggests an eagerness on the part of the US and NATO to get involved in yet another foreign territorial dispute. Check it out:

Samantha Power, the United States Agency for International Development administrator, said in Yerevan on Monday that there must be international presence in Nagorno-Karabakh to assess whether Azerbaijan is implementing its commitments…

“All parties must allow an international humanitarian assessment and humanitarian presence to be there, to see whether Azerbaijan is fulfilling its commitments, and for these organizations to be able to report to the international community,” she added.

Power arrived in Armenia with U.S. Undersecretary of State Yuri Kim on mission on Monday to “deliver a message from President Biden,” she said, adding that she presented a letter from the U.S. President to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan when the two met earlier in the day. Top U.S. Official Calls for International Presence in Artsakh, Asbarez

Veteran geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar summed it up like this:

Relations with Moscow are deteriorating fast. Yerevan – a juicy strategic target – is being taken over by the Hegemon (Washington) and its vassals. It’s not an accident that Yerevan hosts the second largest American embassy in the world.

So only one thing is certain: the Transcaucasus will continue to be on fire….

We are convinced that the Armenian leadership is making a huge mistake by deliberately attempting to sever Armenia’s multifaceted and centuries-old ties with Russia, making the country a hostage to Western geopolitical games. We are confident that the overwhelming majority of the Armenian population realizes this as well.” Nagorno-Karabakh is no more, Pepe Escobar, Strategic Culture

What does it all mean?

It means the US has already picked sides in complicated, regional dispute because it wants to put-down roots in the Central Asia theatre. It also means that the US wants combat troops deployed to an area that can serve as a chokepoint for China’s freight service to Europe. Once again, the US cannot prevail in its war against China unless it is able to weaken China via sanctions, isolation and perhaps military confrontation. That’s the way the US typically approaches these matters. (RE: Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea) Washington is positioning itself to either block or sabotage China’s trade-flows to Europe just like it sabotaged the flow of Russian gas to Europe. It’s the same policy.

And, that’s just ‘for starters’, because the ultimate goal of the policy is to “de-couple” from China entirely which will have catastrophic effects on the global economy but will (supposedly) preserve the primacy of western elites and their exalted “rules-based order.” This is an excerpt from an article at Freight Ways:

In 2022, the Word Trade Organization (WTO) warned about a worst-case scenario it called “long-run decoupling” that involved the “disintegration of the global economy into two separate blocs”….

Geopolitics is cleaving global shipping systems into two, with the U.S. and EU leading one side and China and Russia leading the other, and some countries trying to stay in the middle, play both sides and keep their options open….

Geopolitics has also caused a bifurcation in the tanker fleet, a physical manifestation of the decoupling scenario laid out by the WTO….. The splitting of the fleet seen in tanker shipping is also apparent, albeit to a much lesser degree, in container shipping…

“How do you take the proportion of global trade that moves through the South China Sea today and say, ‘OK, we’re just going to stop that because there’s a live war going on?’” said Paul Bingham, director of transportation consulting at S&P Global, in an interview with FreightWaves last year.

America remains extremely dependent on containerized imports from China. U.S. Customs data shows that imports from China represented 30% of total U.S. imports in 2022.

…. Add it all up and it looks like cargo flows and shipping fleets are on a path toward fragmentation. As the WTO warned in its new world trade outlook, released Wednesday, “Fragmentation … remains a significant threat, which could hinder economic growth and reduce living standards over the long term.”
China-Russia vs. US-EU: How global shipping is slowly splitting in two, Freight Waves

This excerpt should give readers a good idea of what to expect in the future when the US provokes a war in Taiwan as it did in Ukraine. The knock-on effects will not be a slight uptick in inflation accompanied by moderately-higher interest rates, but a greatly-accelerated global realignment away from the United States followed by the crashing of equities markets, the loss of reserve currency status, a severe and protracted economic slump, and a catastrophic plunge in living standards.

Readers who follow news about China closely, know that elite powerbrokers in the West have already decided that the only way to preserve their grip on global power is to goad China into attacking Taiwan so they can implement the riskier elements of their strategy.

And what are the riskier elements of their strategy?

To prevent China from accessing western markets or transacting business in western currencies. To seize China’s foreign reserves and freeze its accounts in foreign central banks. To ban all foreign investment and block China’s access to hard cash. To set up chokepoints in the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and Central Asia all of which would be used to stop the flow of manufactured goods to China’s trading partners. And, finally, block all oil shipments from the Middle East to China. Take a look:

As the dominant power in the Middle East, the United States maintains a great deal of leverage over China, which is dependent on the region for its energy needs. In the event of a conflict between China and the United States, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) could direct U.S. military forces to block energy shipments to China, thereby preventing the country from accessing resources to fuel its economy and military forces...

There are several maritime oil transit chokepoints in the region, including the Suez Canal, the Bab al-Mandab, and the Strait of Hormuz. Any disruption to these chokepoints could significantly affect countries that depend on the region’s oil….

“Seventy-two percent of all Chinese oil is imported,” Kurilla explained. “That can make them vulnerable.”...

Among China’s oil imports, about half comes from the Middle East. For some time, Saudi Arabia has been China’s largest source of oil imports, only to be recently surpassed by Russia….

During previous eras of great power competition, the United States has been willing to move against oil-dependent rivals. One precedent for the current situation is U.S. action against Japan in the months prior to U.S. entry into World War II. Months before Japan launched its attack against the United States at Pearl Harbor, the United States cut off oil exports to Japan, putting the country’s economy and military power at risk. U.S. officials made the move knowing that it might lead to war….

A particular focus of any U.S. military action would be the Strait of Hormuz, the region’s major oil transit chokepoint. Nearly all of China’s energy imports from the Middle East are shipped through the strait.

“Ninety-eight percent plus goes through by ship,” Kurilla said. “That makes them vulnerable.”…

“I believe CENTCOM is literally and figuratively central to competition with China and Russia,” Kurilla said. “We’ve been there in the past… We’re there today, and we’ll be there in the future.” How the US could cut off Middle East oil to China if it wanted, Responsible Statecraft

“Strategic Denial”?

The foreign policy BrainTrust has put a plan in place that will be activated following any Chinese retaliation to US provocations in Taiwan. By necessity, the plan will include the denial of access to western markets and the blocking of critical resources to China. Western powerbrokers believe that they can derail China’s expansionist Belt and Road project and deliver a withering blow to its economy without triggering a nuclear conflagration. That, of course, is left to be seen.

In any event, the transition to a multipolar world will not be peaceful, which is why China should prepare for the worst.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Michael Whitney is a renowned geopolitical and social analyst based in Washington State. He initiated his career as an independent citizen-journalist in 2002 with a commitment to honest journalism, social justice and World peace.

He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). 

All images in this article are from TUR

America on the Verge of the Debt Trap

October 6th, 2023 by Karsten Riise

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***

The US is balancing on a debt trap.

When debt was low, interest rates didn’t burden the government budget.

When interest rates were low, a high level of debt didn’t burden the government budget either.

Come 2023, not only are both the debt and interest rates high, they are both exploding.

This is the typical situation of the frog sitting drowsily while the water in the pot slowly heats up. At the beginning the frog – the US government of both parties – just felt a nice warmth from their deficits. As the Wall Street Journal reports today 5 October 2023, the debt situation has been moving  very unfavorably for the US government over time, but until now, that has happened “below the radar” of both economists, politicians, and even the oligarchs at Wall Street.

But that is ending now, as at least the oligarchs on Wall Street are starting to wake up and their response is a sharp increase in the rate of interests on US debt, see figure below.

Source

US payments on debt is acutely threatening to snowball out of control.

Higher rates of interest on a big debt means very big payments of interests.

Big payments of interests mean even higher debt, even higher rates of interest, and an accelerating development in the US debt. The US government is on the verge of destroying all foundation for not only its own budgetary existence, but for the whole US capital market, the US financial system, and the US dollar as well.

The resulting crisis can come nearly anytime – it will make the 2009 crisis look like Paradise – and there will be no remedy except pain, pain, pain.

Right now, Rep. Matt Gaetz, Rep. Nancy Mace, et. al. are vilified as they have been prepared to blow up the sleepy US frog by letting the US government come to a complete standstill. Even the Wall Street Journal spends no less than two to three op-eds to attack Matt Gaetz & co.

But debt addiction is not easy to cure – sometimes forcing a cold turkey is needed. So maybe, I just say maybe, it’s time to thank them.

Interesting of all old “villains” is Steve Bannon because he speaks very much for the populist Republicans who just nuked the House of Representatives. Bannon defines himself as a populist, and even in an old and long interview, Bannon accepts populists on the left. Bannon is very eloquent. Bannon in his own web-channel www.warroom.org not only supports Rep. Matt Gaetz and Rep. Nancy Mace, but Bannon also spends a lot of time explaining (I find in a good way) why the debt problem matters, and is acute.

What I want to point out here about Bannon, and I note that Bannon speaks for a lot of Republican populists, is that Bannon acknowledges that budget cuts alone will not be able to rectify the out-of-control US budget deficit. Bannon, an arch Republican, therefore argues, that tax increases are needed. And not only does Bannon argue that tax increases are needed. Bannon also argues to tax the ultra-rich and argues that it is only just and fair to tax them because the ultra-rich US oligarch class has not only helped to create the fiscal malaise, but has profiteered from it all the way.

What we just saw with the ouster of the Speaker of the House is just the beginning of an enormous political and financial battle affecting not only all of the USA, but all of the world.

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Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research. 

Featured image source

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We are reposting this article by Max Parry, first published by GR on August 4, 2021, to commemorate the beginning of America’s War on Terrorism.

***

In May 2021, the HBO television network aired a new two-part documentary exploring America’s ongoing opioid epidemic entitled The Crime of the Century. The first episode summarized the role of the pharmaceutical industry in the crisis, specifically that of Sackler family drugmaker Purdue Pharma and its deadly prescription painkiller, OxyContin.

Part one also thoroughly investigates the complicity of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the deceptive marketing by the drug company to obtain U.S. government approval for oxycodone despite its high risk of abuse and dependency, just as the pharmaceutical lobby bribes lawmakers in Washington.

Later, the second half of the series charts the current rising use of even more powerful synthetic opioids like fentanyl. During COVID-19, the number of fatal overdoses have reportedly spiked in an epidemic already estimated to be taking nearly 50,000 lives per year. The HBO production is one of a slew of recent films such as Netflix’s The Pharmacist and The Young Turks’ The Oxy Kingpins which highlight the responsibility of the pharmaceutical industry but omit discussion of a related issue that has become taboo for media to even mention. While the film’s scathing indictment of Big Pharma is certainly relevant, it unfortunately neglects to address another enormous but lesser-known factor in America’s escalating drug problem.

Corporate media would have us believe it is simply fortuitous that during the exact time opioid overdose deaths in the U.S. began to increase in the early 2000s, the so-called War on Terror began with the conquest and plundering of a country abroad that has since become the world’s epicenter for opium production.

By the end of August 2021, American combat forces are scheduled to fully withdraw from Afghanistan shortly before the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that preceded the October 2001 invasion and subsequent two decade occupation. Contrary to the spin put on the announcement by the Biden administration, the pledge to finally remove troops from the longest war in U.S. history was actually yet another postponement, as the Trump administration had previously agreed with the Taliban to a complete drawdown by May.

Time will tell whether the new deadline is Washington kicking the can down the road again in the endless war, but the withdrawal has already drawn criticism from the bipartisan foreign policy establishment with former Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice voicing their objections to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Unfortunately for the Beltway chickenhawks, polls show an increasingly war-weary American public are unanimously in support of the move, which is little wonder given they have endured a silent epidemic that can be partly traced back to the conflict-ridden nation.

Even though the FDA approved OxyContin six years before the U.S. took control of the South Central Asian country, an increase in domestic heroin overdoses has been intertwined with the uptick in abuse of commonly prescribed and man-made opioids which have become gateway drugs to the morphium-derived opiate in the new millennium. Meanwhile, Afghanistan has become the globe’s leading narco-state under NATO occupation which accounts for more than 90% of global opium production that is used to make heroin and other narcotics. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), poppy cultivation in the Islamic Republic increased by 37% last year alone.

At the same time, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that heroin use in the U.S. more than doubled among young adults in the last ten years, while 45% of heroin users were said to be hooked on prescription opioid painkillers as well. Yet the impression one gets from mainstream media is that the vast majority of smack on America’s streets is coming solely from Mexican cartels, a statistical impossibility based on the scale of the U.S. user demand in proportion to the amount of hectares produced in Latin America, when the majority is inevitably being sourced from a country its own military has colonized for two decades.

The predominant narrative is that the illegal trade is the Taliban’s primary source of income financing its insurgency which has put the Pashtun-based group in nearly as strong a position today as it was prior to its overthrow when it presided over three quarters of the country. While the newly rebranded movement’s bloody and intolerant history cannot be whitewashed, one would have no idea that the lowest period in the previous thirty years for Afghan opium growth was actually under the five year reign of the Islamists who strictly forbid poppy farming a year before the U.S. takeover, though it is claimed they were merely deceiving the international community. Nevertheless, where opium harvesting really flourished preceding the NATO invasion was under the border lands controlled by the Northern Alliance, the same coalition of warlords and tribes later armed by the C.I.A. to oust the Taliban, while United Nations observers even acknowledged the success of the Sharia-based ban until its ouster.

Beginning in 2001, Afghanistan was instantly transformed into the chief global heroin supplier entering Turkey through the Balkans into the European Union and via Tajikistan eastward into Russia, China and beyond. In the midst of the U.S. exit, there is a general agreement that the days are numbered for the Kabul government as the Taliban continue to make gains. Still, the question remains — if the self-described Islamic Emirate and its asymmetric warfare is to blame for the opium boom, then where on earth did the billions NATO allocated for its counternarcotics strategy go? Even in the rare instances when major news outlets have reported on the U.S. military’s non-intervention policy toward opium farming with American marines suspiciously under orders to turn a blind eye to the poppy fields, the yellow press simply refuses to connect the dots. Under the smokescreen of supposedly protecting the only means of subsistence for the impoverished locals, NATO forces are in reality safeguarding the lethal product lining the pockets of the Afghan government. Why else would the Western coalition continue to overlook the Taliban’s main source of revenue if it is only the Pashtun nationalists who profit?

In reality, it was under the initial post-Taliban regime of President Hamid Karzai where drug exports began to surge as the very regime installed by the Bush administration shielded the unlawful trade from its cosmetic prohibition effort. Even though voter fraud was rampant during both the 2004 and 2009 Afghan elections, Karzai was championed as the country’s first “democratically-elected” leader while receiving tens of millions in behind the scenes payments from the Central Intelligence Agency. A longtime Western asset, Karzai had previously raised funds in neighboring Pakistan for the anti-communist mujahideen during the Afghan-Soviet War in the 1980s. Not only did the ranks of the Islamic ‘holy warriors’ armed and funded in the C.I.A.’s Operation Cyclone program include Karzai and the eventual core of both the Taliban and Al-Qaeda — including Osama bin Laden himself — but it is also well established the jihadists were deeply immersed in drug smuggling as the U.S. looked the other way. The late, great historian William Blum wrote:

“CIA-supported mujahideen rebels engaged heavily in drug trafficking while fighting the Soviet-supported government, which had plans to reform Afghan society. The Agency’s principal client was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the leading drug lords and the biggest heroin refiner, who was also the largest recipient of CIA military support. CIA-supplied trucks and mules that had carried arms into Afghanistan were used to transport opium to laboratories along the Afghan-Pakistan border. The output provided up to one-half of the heroin used annually in the United States and three-quarters of that used in Western Europe. U.S. officials admitted in 1990 that they had failed to investigate or take action against the drug operation because of a desire not to offend their Pakistani and Afghan allies. In 1993, an official of the DEA dubbed Afghanistan the new Colombia of the drug world.”

As maintained by the UNODC, the heroin flooding out of Afghanistan and Central Asia into Western Europe passes through the Balkan route consisting of the independent ex-Yugoslav states, together with Albania and the partially-recognized protectorate of Kosovo. Not coincidentally, this transit corridor largely began to swell with narcotraffic proceeding the NATO war on Yugoslavia in the 1990s, especially in the wake of the Kosovo conflict which saw the Clinton administration shore up the Al Qaeda-linked Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to secede the disputed province from Serbia. Even with their previous State Department designation as a terrorist organization until 1998, the Islamist militants were given an instant facelift as freedom fighters. Apart from the fact that the ethnic Albanian separatists had considerable ties to Salafist extremist networks, the C.I.A.-backed Kosovar insurgents also subsidized their military campaign, which involved serious war crimes and ethnic cleansing, through narcoterrorism and drug running with Albanian crime syndicates — in above all, heroin. As journalist Diana Johnstone writes in Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions:

“The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and other Western agencies were well aware of the close links between the UCK/KLA and the Kosovo Albanian drug traffickers controlling the main flow of heroin into Western Europe from Afghanistan via Turkey. The CIA has a long record of considering such groups as assets against governments targeted by the United States, whether in Southeast Asia, Africa or Central America.”

Shortly after the Red Army retreated in 1989, Afghanistan became one of the world’s top opium producers for the first time throughout the next decade until Taliban Supreme Leader Mullah Omar issued a fatwa against the lucrative crop in 2000. When the comprador Karzai assumed office the very next year, another family figure emerged as a key coalition ally in the country’s south — younger half-brother Ahmed Wali Karzai — who was appointed to govern poppy-rich Kandahar Province until his assassination in 2011. Just a year earlier, it was revealed by WikiLeaks embassy cables that Washington was well aware the younger Karzai was a corrupt drug lord, not long after The New York Times divulged his key role in the opium trade while simultaneously on the C.I.A. payroll. Even though this partial hangout was publicized by the Old Gray Lady, the newspaper of record never bothered to further investigate the links between Langley and the Karzai family’s deep pockets from the drug market. Instead, they continued to craft the misleading perception that taxes on poppy farming within Taliban-held areas was chiefly responsible for the illegal industry dominating the Afghan economy and fueling the never-ending war that Washington has a vested interest in prolonging.

Many commentators have drawn parallels between the recent disorganized abandonment of Bagram Airfield, the largest U.S. base in Afghanistan, and the final evacuation of American combat troops from South Vietnam during the Fall (Liberation) of Saigon in 1975. The mountainous country situated at the intersection of Central and South Asia along with Pakistan and (to a lesser extent) Iran comprises what is known as the ‘Golden Crescent’, one of two main hubs of opium turnout on the continent. In the Vietnam era, most of the globe’s heroin came from the other major axis of poppy-plant growth in the ‘Golden Triangle’ of Southeast Asia located at the border junction between Thailand, Laos and Myanmar. This crossroads continued to be the largest region for harvesting of the flower until the early 21st century when Afghanistan surpassed it in outturn. While there has yet to be revealed a smoking gun per se implicating the C.I.A. in drug trafficking from the Golden Crescent, it is at the very least food for thought given the precedent set by the agency throughout its 73-year history.

From the beginning of the Cold War, Langley intimately conspired with organized crime to achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives. Following the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the rogue spy agency frequently enlisted the Mafia in its many failed attempts to overthrow Fidel Castro and decades later many still believe that the same elements likely had a hand in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Still, it was not until 1972 during the Vietnam War when historian Alfred W. McCoy famously uncovered the extent to which the C.I.A. was involved in the international drug trade in The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia. The explosive study meticulously documented how the narcotics coming out of the Golden Triangle were being transported on a front airline known as Air America run by U.S. intelligence as part of its covert operations in bordering Laos.

In the Laotian civil war, the C.I.A. had secretly organized a guerrilla army of 30,000 strong from the indigenous Hmong population to fight the communist Pathet Lao forces aligned with North Vietnam and the highland natives were economically dependent on poppy cultivation. When the heroin exported out of Laos didn’t find its way to cities in America, it ended up next-door in Vietnam where opiate habits among G.I.s reached epidemic proportions, one of many instances of ‘blowback’ from U.S. collusion with worldwide drug smuggling. Believe it or not, however, this was not the first correlation between an American war and an opiate epidemic at home, as previously during the Civil War in the 1870s there was widespread morphine addiction among Union and Confederate soldiers.

It appears that almost everywhere U.S. interventionism goes, the drug market seems to follow. In the early 1980s, the C.I.A. mobilized another counter-revolutionary fighting force in Central America as part of the Reagan administration’s dirty war against the left-wing Sandinista government in Nicaragua. During the Nicaraguan civil war, Congress had forbidden any funding or supplying of weapons to the right-wing Contras as stipulated in the Boland Amendment. Instead, Washington used go-betweens like Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, a long-standing C.I.A. operative closely linked to narco-trafficking through Pablo Escobar’s Medellín Cartel, until the U.S. later turned against the strongman. In what became known as the Iran-Contra affair, the Reagan White House was embroiled in scandal after it was divulged that the C.I.A. had devised a rat line funneling arms to a most unlikely source in the Islamic Republic of Iran — a sworn enemy of the U.S. under embargo — by which the takings were diverted to the Nicaraguan terrorists. Although the official excuse for the secret deal was an arms-for-hostages exchange for U.S. citizens being held in Lebanon, the real purpose for the arrangement was to finance the Contras whose other proceeds happened to come from a different illicit enterprise — cocaine.

Despite the fact that a 1986 inquiry by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee found that the agency knew the anti-Sandinista rebels were engaged in cocaine trafficking just as use of its highly-addictive freebase variation was surging in cities across America, it was not until a decade later when investigative journalist Gary Webb in his controversial Dark Alliance series fully exposed the link between Contra drug operations under C.I.A. protection and the crack epidemic domestically. Public outcry over the three-part investigation resonated most strongly within the African-American community whose inner city neighborhoods were devastated by the crack explosion and the indignation culminated in a Los Angeles town hall where a large audience confronted C.I.A. Director John Deutch.

Amid the fallout, Webb found himself the target of a media-led smear campaign disputing the credibility of the exposé which destroyed his life and derailed his career, even though his findings were based on extensive court documents and corroborated by former crack kingpins like “Freeway” Rick Ross and ex-LAPD narcotics officer Michael C. Ruppert. Sadly, the journalist would later die of a highly suspicious suicide in 2004 but eventually Webb’s muckraking was the subject of a favorable Hollywood depiction in 2014’s Kill The Messenger. In the end, the fearless reporter was punished for revealing that many of the individuals most involved in cocaine trafficking in the eighties were the same exact individuals the C.I.A. employed to channel guns to the Contras, thereby permitting drugs to flow into the U.S..

Although there has yet to be the equivalent of a Vietnam or Nicaragua-level disclosure of incontrovertible evidence incriminating Uncle Sam in the Afghan drug business as the troop removal approaches, the answer may lie with who is set to replace them. A Defense Department report from earlier this year indicates that at least 18,000 security contractors remain in the war-torn country, where outsourcing to private military companies like Academi (formerly Blackwater) has increasingly been relied upon in the 20-year war, including for futile drug enforcement measures. As the services of guns-for-hire with a penchant for human rights abuses grew in the lengthy conflict, oversight and accountability diminished to the point where the Pentagon is unable to accurately keep track of defense firms or what mercenaries are even doing in the country. Meanwhile, private security services have made a fortune being contracted out for the abortive anti-drug effort just as Afghanistan set records in opiate production.

Alfred W. McCoy, the acclaimed historian who unearthed C.I.A. collaboration with opiate trafficking in Indochina, not long ago chronicled the imminent downfall of the U.S. as a superpower in In the Shadows of American History: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power. In his work, McCoy notes how the U.S. has set out to fulfill the “Heartland Theory” geostrategy envisioned by the architect of modern geopolitics, Sir Halford Mackinder, in his influential 1904 paper “The Geographical Pivot of History.” The English analyst reconceived the continents as poles of interconnected global power and cited the way in which the British Empire joined with the other Western European nations in the 19th century to prevent Russian imperial expansionism in “The Great Game” with Afghanistan serving as a battleground. Fearing that the Russian Empire would enlarge toward the south, the British sent forces to Afghanistan as a containment strategy, a decision which ultimately proved to be a humiliating defeat for the East India Company but according to Mackinder blocked the Russian sphere of influence in British India. He then theorized that the country which conquered the Eurasian ‘Heartland’ of the Russian core would come to dominate the world. For the strategist, the geographical notion of Eurasia also consisted of China which the British had used drug addiction to destabilize and overcome in the Opium Wars.

In 1979, the National Security Adviser in the Jimmy Carter administration, Zbigniew Brzezinski, put Mackinder’s blueprint into practice after the U.S. was forced to pull back in Vietnam by luring the Soviet Union into its own impregnable quagmire in a new “Great Game.” The scheme worked like a charm and just months after the Polish-born Russophobe persuaded the 39th president to lend clandestine support to the mujahideen in Afghanistan, aid from Moscow was requested by the socialist government in Kabul and the rest was history. Like the British Empire and Alexander the Great before it, the U.S. is itself now bogged down in the ‘graveyard of empires’ after the forgetting the lessons of history. Unintended or not, one of the adverse results of America’s empire-building has been the pouring of fuel on the fire of an initially homegrown opioid crisis begun by Big Pharma by turning Afghanistan into a multi-billion dollar narco-economy whereby heroin is circulated for consumption all over the map.

Like the Pentagon Papers released during the Vietnam War, the internal memos of the Afghanistan Papers made public in 2019 proved officials were deceiving the American people about the reality of the no-win situation on the ground. It remains to be seen what impact the U.S. handover to the corrupt Kabul regime will have for dope distribution as a Taliban seizure of power appears near, but the latest report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) determined that officials have long known the war was ill-fated from the outset and warns Washington is bound to repeat the same errors in the future. Unless critical steps are taken to rein in the military-industrial complex, we have to assume that with another forever war there will unavoidably come the opening of another C.I.A.-controlled international drug route with Americans either suffering the consequences with their pocketbooks or their lives.

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Max Parry is an independent journalist and geopolitical analyst. His writing has appeared widely in alternative media. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.  Max may be reached at [email protected]

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[We repost this article by Sara Flounders first published in 2010 to commemorate the 22nd anniversary of America’s invasion of Afghanistan on October 7, 2001.]

***

 

The Pentagon offensive against the Afghan city of Marjah was public-relations media hype from the very first day. The sole purpose of the offensive in Marjah was to convince the U.S. population and increasingly tepid NATO allies that this imperialist war is winnable.

U.S. involvement in Afghanistan is now the longest foreign war in U.S. history, on both the air and the ground. The Pentagon described the Marjah offensive as the biggest military operation in more than eight years of occupation, but now calls it a prelude to a larger assault on the city of Kandahar.

In U.S. counterinsurgency warfare, such an offensive means dropping heavily armed troops in an area seeking to draw enemy fire. The troops then call in air support, long-range artillery fire, machine-gun fire, rockets, white phosphorous bombs and anti-personnel bombs. The latter cover the ground with bomblets that emit thousands of razor-sharp fragments.

Tens of thousands of civilians were driven from the villages of Helmand Province, and the town of Marjah was partially evacuated. But thousands of Afghans were unwilling to leave their homes and animals in the cold of winter for the hunger, instability and flimsy shelter of refugee camps. Many are too poor to leave. They ended up as targets of Pentagon weapons.

The Marjah offensive’s stated goal was to introduce a ready-made, U.S.-created local regime, staffed by an Afghan puppet administration totally dependent on U.S. power. With cynical and racist arrogance, NATO commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal said, “We got a government in a box ready to roll in.” (New York Times, Feb. 12)

Afghan Casualties Unrecorded

Throughout this war, the Pentagon and corporate media have never counted and scarcely mentioned Afghan civilian deaths, injuries and trauma from bombings, fires and destruction. Tens of thousands more die of starvation, cold and infections in crowded refugees camps, swollen cities and isolated villages.

During the U.S. offensive in Marjah, U.S. deaths in Afghanistan reached the milestone of 1,000. This total confirms that youth are paying the price of the lack of education and job opportunities in the U.S. In addition, suicides among returning soldiers now exceed combat deaths and injuries are about four times the deaths.

Gen. Barry McCaffrey at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point warned of sharp increases in U.S. troop casualties in the months ahead. “What I want to do is signal that this thing is going to be $5 billion to $10 billion a month and 300 to 500 killed and wounded a month by next summer. That’s what we probably should expect.” (Army Times, Jan. 7)

As the two-week offensive officially ended in Marjah, bombs exploded in one of the most secure areas of Kabul. Some reporters described it as a sophisticated and well-coordinated operation in the heavily guarded capital. A car bomb targeted housing of employees from countries connected to the occupation, apparently with the aim of undermining international support for the Afghan war.

During the offensive came the announcement on Feb. 21 that the Netherlands coalition government had fallen apart, due to heated opposition of a coalition party to keeping Dutch troops in Afghanistan. This sealed the planned withdrawal of 2,000 Dutch troops from NATO forces in Afghanistan, as of next August.

The Netherlands was the first NATO member to announce that it is quitting. The announcement was a big setback for the U.S. and NATO, and has prompted wide media speculation of other possible NATO withdrawals from the deeply unpopular war.

A Los Angeles Times editorial on Feb. 24 stated that the Dutch “withdrawal is likely to raise concerns about a fracturing of the international commitment to Afghanistan, and about the Afghan government’s ability to provide security in the long term . … The Dutch decision should serve as a warning to the Obama administration.”

The majority of the people in almost all the NATO countries opposes the war and wants their troops out. This has become a major issue in domestic politics and elections in many countries. Canada has announced the withdrawal of its forces by the summer of 2011.

Anti-war Mood Undermines NATO Militarism

Following the Dutch announcement, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in a speech at the National Defense University told NATO officers and officials that public and political opposition to the military had grown so great in Europe that it was directly affecting operations in Afghanistan and impeding the alliance’s broader goals.

“The demilitarization of Europe — where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it — has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment. … Right now the alliance faces very serious, long-term, systemic problems.” (New York Times, Feb. 24)

Gates also reminded NATO officials that, not counting U.S. forces, NATO troops in Afghanistan were scheduled to increase to 50,000 this year — from 30,000 last year.

The total 43-country International Security Assistance Force, including U.S. soldiers, is presently at 140,000 troops in Afghanistan.

As journalist Rick Rozoff summed up a year ago: “The Afghan war is also the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s first armed conflict outside of Europe and its first ground war in the 60 years of its existence. It has been waged with the participation of armed units from all 26 NATO member states and 12 other European and Caucasus nations linked to NATO. …

“The 12 European NATO partners who have sent troops in varying numbers to assist Washington and the Alliance include the continent’s five former neutral nations: Austria, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland. The European NATO and partnership deployments count among their number troops from six former Soviet Republics — with Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine tapped for recent reinforcements and the three Baltic states … including airbases and troop and naval deployments in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and the Indian Ocean (where the Japanese navy has been assisting).” (rickrozoff.wordpress.com, March 25, 2009)

Military units from Australia, New Zealand, Jordan, Colombia and South Korea are also stationed in Afghanistan.

Afghans Have a Right to Resist

Despite all these occupation forces, Afghanistan has become an imperialist quagmire with no stability, no security and no end in sight.

The resistance in Afghanistan has gained ground and broad support as it becomes clear to the whole population that U.S./NATO forces have brought only racist arrogance, corruption, repression and greater poverty. While occupation forces label all resistance as terrorism and Taliban-inspired, increasingly Afghans see resistance as a right and a patriotic or religious duty. It is essential in the period ahead that the anti-war movement supports the right of the Afghan people to resist this criminal occupation and increases the effort to bring all troops home now.

*

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This article was first published on October 4, 2012. Minor edits.

***

On October 7, 2023: we commemorate the US-NATO invasion of Afghanistan.

Why was Afghanistan invaded by US-NATO forces on October 7, 2001?  

It is important to recall the official story:

  • America was attacked by Afghanistan on September 11, 2001.
  • The Taliban were protecting bin Laden. 
  • And US-NATO invoking self defence and the “doctrine of collective security” invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001.

Twenty-two years later. What was the justification for waging war on an impoverished country in Central Asia of 38 million people?

Michel Chossudovsky, October 6, 2023

***

The legal argument used by Washington and NATO to invade Afghanistan was that the September 11 attacks constituted an undeclared “armed attack” “from abroad” by an unnamed foreign power, and that consequently “the laws of war” apply, allowing the nation under attack, to strike back in the name of “self-defense”.

Both the media and the US government, in chorus, continue to point to the 9/11 attacks and the role of Al Qaeda, allegedly supported by Afghanistan, when in fact (amply documented) Al Qaeda was an intelligence asset created by the CIA.

Lest we forget, Osama bin Laden had been recruited by National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski during the so-called Soviet-Afghan war.

The bombing and invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 was described as a “campaign” against “Islamic terrorists”, rather than a war.

To this date, however, there is no proof that Al Qaeda was behind the 9/11 attacks.

Even if one accepts the official 9/11 narrative, there is no evidence that Afghanistan as a Nation State was behind or in any way complicit in the 9/11 attacks.

The Afghan government in the weeks following 9/11, offered on two occasions through diplomatic channels to deliver Osama bin Laden to US Justice, if there were preliminary evidence of his involvement in the 9/11 attacks. These offers were casually refused by Washington.

Where was Osama on September 11, 2001?

To this date, Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, is identified in military documents and official statements of both the Bush and Obama administrations as the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.

The Afghan government (the “Taliban regime” in official documents) is identified as supporting Al Qaeda and providing refuge to its leader Osama bin Laden inside Afghan territory in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

On September 10, 2001, according to a CBS news report, Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan. He had been admitted to a Pakistani military hospital in Rawalpindi. (CBS Evening News with Dan Rather;  CBS, 28 January 2002, See also Michel Chossudovsky, Where was Osama on September 11, 2001?, Global Research, 11 September 2008):

“DAN RATHER, CBS ANCHOR: As the United states and its allies in the war on terrorism press the hunt for Osama bin Laden, CBS News has exclusive information tonight about where bin Laden was and what he was doing in the last hours before his followers struck the United States September 11.

This is the result of hard-nosed investigative reporting by a team of CBS news journalists, and by one of the best foreign correspondents in the business, CBS`s Barry Petersen. Here is his report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BARRY PETERSEN, CBS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Everyone remembers what happened on September 11. Here`s the story of what may have happened the night before. It is a tale as twisted as the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

CBS News has been told that the night before the September 11 terrorist attack, Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan. He was getting medical treatment with the support of the very military that days later pledged its backing for the U.S. war on terror in Afghanistan (CBS, op cit, emphasis added)

 

Recovering from his hospital treatment in Rawalpindi on the 11th of September, how could Osama have coordinated the 9/11 attacks?

How could Afghanistan be made responsible for these attacks by Al Qaeda?

Bin Laden is a national of Saudi Arabia who, according to CBS News, was not in Afghanistan, but in Pakistan at the time of the attacks.

The Invasion of Afghanistan: NATO’s Doctrine of Collective Security

The legal argument used by Washington and NATO to invade Afghanistan was that the September 11 attacks constituted an undeclared “armed attack” “from abroad” by an unnamed foreign power, and that consequently “the laws of war” apply, allowing the nation under attack, to strike back in the name of “self-defense”.

The “Global War on Terrorism” was officially launched by the Bush administration on September 11, 2001. On the following morning (September 12, 2001), NATO’s North Atlantic Council meeting in Brussels, adopted the following resolution:

“if it is determined that the [September 11, 2001] attack against the United States was directed from abroad [Afghanistan] against “The North Atlantic area“, it shall be regarded as an action covered by Article 5 of the Washington Treaty”. (emphasis added)

In this regard, Article 5 of the Washington Treaty stipulates that if:

“The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.” (NATO, What is Article 5,  NATO Topics – NATO and the Scourge of Terrorism, accessed 24 November 2009, emphasis added)

“Use of Armed Force” only “If It is Determined…”

There was an “if” in the September 12 resolution. Article 5 would apply only if it is determined that Afghanistan as a Nation State was complicit or behind the 9/11 attacks.

In practice, the “if” had already been waived prior to 9/11. The entire NATO arsenal was already on a war footing. In military terms, NATO and the US were already in an advanced state of readiness. Known to military analysts, but never revealed in the Western media, the implementation of a large scale theater war takes up to one year (or more) of advanced operational planning, prior to the launching of an invasion.

Moreover, there was evidence that the war on Afghanistan had been planned prior to 9/11.

The North Atlantic Council in Brussels responded almost immediately in the wake of the 9/11 attacks,  in the morning of September 12, 2001.

The use of article 5 of the Washington Treaty had in all likelihood been contemplated by military planners, as a pretext for waging war, prior to 9/11.

There was, however, no official declaration of war on September 12th. The Alliance waited until 3 days before the invasion to declare war on Afghanistan, an impoverished country which by no stretch of the imagination could have launched an attack against a member state of “The North Atlantic area”.

The September 12 resolution of the Atlantic Council required “determination” and corroborating evidence, that:

1) Al Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden with the support of a foreign power had ordered the “attack from abroad” on the United States of America;

2) The terrorist attacks of 9/11 constituted a bona fide military operation (under the provisions of Article 5) by an alleged foreign country (Afghanistan) against a NATO member state, and consequently against all NATO member states under the doctrine of collective security:

“Article 5 and the case of the terrorist attacks against the United States: The United States has been the object of brutal terrorist attacks. It immediately consulted with the other members of the Alliance. The Alliance determined that the US had been the object of an armed attack. The Alliance therefore agreed that if it was determined that this attack was directed from abroad, it would be regarded as covered by Article 5. NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson, subsequently informed the Secretary-General of the United Nations of the Alliance’s decision.

Article 5 has thus been invoked, but no determination has yet been made whether the attack against the United States was directed from abroad. If such a determination is made, each Ally will then consider what assistance it should provide. In practice, there will be consultations among the Allies. Any collective action by NATO will be decided by the North Atlantic Council. The United States can also carry out independent actions, consistent with its rights and obligations under the UN Charter.

Allies can provide any form of assistance they deem necessary to respond to the situation. This assistance is not necessarily military and depends on the material resources of each country. Each individual member determines how it will contribute and will consult with the other members, bearing in mind that the ultimate aim is to “to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area”.

By invoking Article 5, NATO members have shown their solidarity toward the United States and condemned, in the strongest possible way, the terrorist attacks against the United States on 11 September.

If the conditions are met for the application of Article 5, NATO Allies will decide how to assist the United States. (Many Allies have clearly offered emergency assistance). Each Ally is obliged to assist the United States by taking forward, individually and in concert with other Allies, such action as it deems necessary. This is an individual obligation on each Ally and each Ally is responsible for determining what it deems necessary in these particular circumstances.

No collective action will be taken by NATO until further consultations are held and further decisions are made by the the North Atlantic Council. (NATO, NATO Topics – NATO and the Scourge of Terrorism, accessed 24 November 2009, emphasis added)

The Mysterious Frank Taylor Report

The final decision to invoke Article 5 in relation to the 9/11 attacks came three weeks later upon the submission to the NATO Council of a mysterious classified report by a US State Department official named Frank Taylor. The report was submitted to NATO on October 2nd, 5 days before the commencement of the bombing and invasion of Afghanistan.

Frank Taylor was working in the US State Department. He had been entrusted with the writing of a brief to establish whether the US “had been attacked from abroad”, pursuant to the North Atlantic Council’s resolution of September 12 2001.

US Ambassador at Large and Co-ordinator for Counter-terrorism Frank Taylor briefed the North Atlantic Council on October 2nd, five days before the commencement of the bombings.

On October 2nd  he handed his brief to NATO “on the results of investigations into the 11 September attacks…. ” (NATO – Topic: Terrorism, NATO and the fight against Terrorism, accessed 24 November 2009).

The classified report was not released to the media. And to this date, to our knowledge, it has remained classified.

NATO’s Secretary General Lord Robertson casually summarised the substance of the Frank Taylor report in a press release:

“This morning, the United States briefed the North Atlantic Council on the results of the investigation into who was responsible for the horrific terrorist attacks which took place on September 11.

The briefing was given by Ambassador Frank Taylor, the United States Department of State Coordinator for Counter-terrorism.

This morning’s briefing follows those offered by United States Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and United States Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and illustrates the commitment of the United States to maintain close cooperation with Allies.

Today’s was classified briefing and so I cannot give you all the details.

Briefings are also being given directly by the United States to the Allies in their capitals.

The briefing addressed the events of September 11 themselves, the results of the investigation so far, what is known about Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida organisation and their involvement in the attacks and in previous terrorist activity, and the links between al-Qaida and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

The facts are clear and compelling. The information presented points conclusively to an al-Qaida role in the September 11 attacks.

We know that the individuals who carried out these attacks were part of the world-wide terrorist network of al-Qaida, headed by Osama bin Laden and his key lieutenants and protected by the Taliban.

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

I want to reiterate that the United States of America can rely on the full support of its 18 NATO Allies in the campaign against terrorism.”

(Lord Robertson, NATO Secretary General, statement to the NATO Council, State Department, Appendix H, Multinational Response to September 11 NATO Press

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/10313.pdf, accessed 24 November 2009, emphasis added)

In other words, on October 5, 2001, two days before the actual commencement of the bombing campaign on October 7, the North Atlantic Council decided, based on the information provided by Frank Taylor to the Council  “that the attacks were directed from abroad” by Al Qaeda, headed by Osama bin Laden, thereby requiring an action on the part of NATO under Article 5 of the Washington Treaty ( NATO – Topic: Terrorism, NATO and the fight against Terrorism, accessed 24 November 2009).

NATO action under article 5, was outlined in an October 4 decision, 3 days before the commencement of the bombings. This NATO decision implied eight measures in support the United States, which were tantamount to a declaration of war on Afghanistan:

to enhance intelligence sharing and co-operation, both bilaterally and in appropriate NATO bodies, relating to the threats posed by terrorism and the actions to be taken against it;

to provide, individually or collectively, as appropriate and according to their capabilities, [military] assistance to Allies and other states which are or may be subject to increased terrorist threats as a result of their support for the campaign against terrorism;

to take necessary measures to provide increased security for facilities of the United States and other Allies on their territory;

to backfill selected Allied assets in NATO’s area of responsibility that are required to directly support operations against terrorism;

to provide blanket overflight clearances for the United States and other Allies’ aircraft, in accordance with the necessary air traffic arrangements and national procedures, for military flights related to operations against terrorism; to provide access for the United States and other Allies to ports and airfields on the territory of NATO nations for operations against terrorism, including for refuelling, in accordance with national procedures;

that the Alliance is ready to deploy elements of its Standing Naval Forces to the Eastern Mediterranean in order to provide a NATO presence and demonstrate resolve; and that the Alliance is similarly ready to deploy elements of its NATO Airborne Early Warning Force to support operations against terrorism. NATO – Topic: Terrorism, NATO and the fight against Terrorism, accessed 24 November 2009 emphasis added)

Press reports of Frank Taylor’s brief to the NATO Council were scanty. The invocation of Article 5, five days before the bombings commenced, was barely mentioned. The media consensus was: “all roads lead to Bin Laden” as if bin Laden was a Nation State which had attacked America.

What stands out are outright lies and fabrications. Moreover, prior to October 2nd, NATO had no pretext under Article 5 of the Washington Treaty to intervene militarily in Afghanistan.

The justification was provided by Frank Taylor’s classified report, which was not made public.

The two UN Security Council resolutions adopted in the course of September 2001, did not, under any circumstances, provide a justification for the invasion and illegal occupation  of a UN member country. (See: Security Council resolution 1368 (2001) Threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist actsSecurity Council resolution 1373 (2001) Threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts).

UNSC Resolution 1373 (2001) called for prevention and suppression of terrorist acts, as well suppression of the financing of terrorism:

“(e) Ensure that any person who participates in the financing, planning, preparation or perpetration of terrorist acts or in supporting terrorist acts is brought to justice and ensure that, in addition to any other measures against them, such terrorist acts are established as serious criminal offences in domestic laws and regulations and that the punishment duly reflects the seriousness of such terrorist acts;

“3. Calls upon all States to:

“(a) Find ways of intensifying and accelerating the exchange of operational information, especially regarding actions or movements of terrorist persons or networks; forged or falsified travel documents; traffic in arms, explosives or sensitive materials; use of communications technologies by terrorist groups; and the threat posed by the possession of weapons of mass destruction by terrorist groups;

“(b) Exchange information in accordance with international and domestic law and cooperate on administrative and judicial matters to prevent the commission of terrorist acts;

“(c) Cooperate, particularly through bilateral and multilateral arrangements and agreements, to prevent and suppress terrorist attacks and take action against perpetrators of such acts;

“4. Notes with concern the close connection between international terrorism and transnational organized crime, illicit drugs, money-laundering, illegal arms-trafficking, and illegal movement of nuclear, chemical, biological and other potentially deadly materials, and in this regard emphasizes the need to enhance coordination of efforts on national, subregional, regional and international levels in order to strengthen a global response to this serious challenge and threat to international security;

“5. Declares that acts, methods, and practices of terrorism are contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations and that knowingly financing, planning and inciting terrorist acts are also contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations (excerpts of UNSC Resolution 1373 (2001, See also UN Press Release SC 7178 SECURITY COUNCIL UNANIMOUSLY ADOPTS WIDE-RANGING ANTI-TERRORISM RESOLUTION; CALLS FOR SUPPRESSING FINANCING, IMPROVING INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION, Security Council, 4385th Meeting, September 2001)

Nowhere in this resolution is there any mention of military action against a UN member State.

The War on Afghanistan Had been Planned Prior to 9/11

Known and documented, the war on Afghanistan had been  planned prior to 9/11. According to Jane Defense, India had been approached in March 2001 by US to participate in a US military operation against Afghanistan:

Insider accounts published in the British, French and Indian media have revealed that US officials threatened war against Afghanistan during the summer of 2001. These reports include the prediction, made in July, that “if the military action went ahead, it would take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest.”

The Bush administration began its bombing strikes on the hapless, poverty-stricken country October 7, and ground attacks by US Special Forces began October 19. (see Patrick Martin, US planned war in Afghanistan long before September 11, wsws.org, November 20, 2001)

According to statements of former foreign Secretary of Pakistan Niaz Naik, the US had already decided to wage war on Afghanistan prior to 9/11 ( BBC report published one week after the attacks, September 18, 2001)  ”

Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October.

Russian troops were on standby. …

The underlying objective according to Mr Naik, was to “topple the Taleban regime” and install a government  “possibly under the leadership of the former Afghan King Zahir Shah.”

He said that he was in no doubt that after the World Trade Center bombings this pre-existing US plan had been built upon and would be implemented within two or three weeks.

Concluding Remarks: Twenty-two Years Later

Afghanistan did not attack America on September 11, 2001.

The war on Afghanistan was already on the Pentagon’s drawing board prior to 9/11.

The US led war on Afghanistan, using 9/11 as a pretext and a justification,  is illegal and criminal.

The US and NATO heads of state and heads of government from 2001 to the present are complicit in the launching of a criminal and illegal war.

Invoking article 5 of the Washington Treaty is an illegal and criminal procedure.  The (former) US and NATO heads of state and heads of government should be prosecuted for war crimes.

***

A earlier version of this article was published under the title:

September 11, 2001: America and NATO Declare War on Afghanistan: NATO’s Doctrine of Collective Security

Global Research, December 21, 2009

 

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The History of US War Crimes: From Korea to Afghanistan

October 6th, 2023 by Lenora Foerstel

Important article first published by Global Research in 2002

Image: Iraqi children

The issue of War Crimes emerged after World War I at the Versailles Conference, but it was not until the end of World War II that a more comprehensive definition of what constitutes war crimes was developed. First among new international conventions addressing war crimes was the 1950 Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal. Its fundamental premise was that the conduct of war in violation of international treaties was a crime against peace. Ill treatment of prisoners of war, killing hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages was a war crime. Crimes against humanity include murder, extermination, deportation, and prosecution based on political, racial or religious grounds.

The 1949 Geneva Convention gave recognition to the development of new technologies which exposed civilian life to greater threats of destruction. A 1977 addendum further emphasized the right of civilians to be protected against military operations. This included the protection of civilians against starvation as a method of warfare. Article II of the Geneva Convention addressed the issue of genocide, defined as killing or causing serious bodily harm to individuals based on their nationality, ethnic, racial or religious group and with the intent to destroy that group.

Since the Geneva Convention, a number of other significant international treaties addressing war and human rights have been drafted, but the United States has rejected almost all of them.

Among the treaties that the United States has refused to sign are the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (1966); the Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966); the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (1966), and the American Convention on Human Rights (1965).

The United States has been particularly reluctant to sign treaties addressing the “laws of war”. It has refused to sign The Declaration on the Prohibition of the Use of Thermo-Nuclear Weapons (1961); The Resolution on the Non-Use of Force in International Relations and Permanent Ban on the Use of Nuclear Weapons (1972); The Resolution on the Definition of Aggression (1974); Protocols Additional to the 1949 Geneva Convention (1977); and the Declaration on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons(1989).1

Equally disturbing was the U.S. refusal to sign the Convention on Rights of the Child, introduced into the United Nations General assembly on November 20, 1989 and subsequently ratified by 191 countries.

The first use of atomic weapons against human beings occurred on August 6-9 1945, when the United States incinerated the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, killing an estimated 110,000 Japanese citizens and injuring another 130,000. By 1950 another 230,000 died from injuries and radiation. Earlier in 1945 two fire bombing raids on Tokyo killed 140,000 citizens and injured a million more.

Since World War II the US has bombed twenty-three nations (1945-2001)

Author William Blum notes:

“It is sobering to reflect that in our era of instant world wide communications, the United States has, on many occasions, been able to mount a large or small scale military operation or undertake other equally blatant forms of intervention without the American public being aware of it until years later if ever.”2

The growing primacy or aerial bombardment in the conduct of war has inevitably defined non-combatants as the preferred target of war. Indeed, the combination of American air power and occupation ground forces has resulted in massive civilian casualties around the world.

Korea: (1945-1953)

On August 15,1945, the Korean people, devastated and impoverished by years of brutality from Japanese occupation forces, openly celebrated their liberation and immediately formed the Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence (CKPI). By August 28, 1945, all Korean provinces on the entire Peninsula had established local people’s democratic committees, and on September 6, delegates from throughout Korea, north and south, created the Korean People’s Republic (KPR). On September 7, the day after the creation of the KPR, General Douglas MacArthur (image left), commander of the victorious Allied powers in the Pacific, formally issued a proclamation addressed “To the People of Korea.” The proclamation announced that forces under his command “will today occupy the Territory of Korea south of 38 degrees north latitude.”

The first advance party of U.S. units, the 17th Regiment of the 7th Infantry Division, actually began arriving at Inchon on September 5th, two days before MacArthur’s occupation declaration. The bulk of the US occupation forces began unloading from twenty-one Navy ships (including five destroyers) on September 8 through the port at Inchon under the command of Lieutenant General John Reed Hodge. Hundreds of black-coated armed Japanese police on horseback, still under the direction of Japanese Governor-General Abe Noabuyki, kept angry Korean crowds away from the disembarking US soldiers.

On the morning of September 9, General Hodge announced that Governor-General Abe would continue to function with all his Japanese and Korean personnel. Within a few weeks there were 25,000 American troops and members of “civil service teams” in the country. Ultimately the number of US troops in southern Korea reached 72,000. Though the Koreans were officially characterized as a “semi-friendly, liberated” people, General Hodge regrettably instructed his own officers that Korea “was an enemy of the United States…subject to the provisions and the terms of the surrender.”

Tragically and ironically, the Korean people, citizens of the victim-nation, had become enemies, while the defeated Japanese, who had been the illegal aggressors, served as occupiers in alliance with the United States. Indeed, Korea was burdened with the very occupation originally intended for Japan, which became the recipient of massive U.S. aid and reconstruction in the post-war period. Japan remains, to this day, America=s forward military base affording protection and intelligence for its “interests” in the Asia-Pacific region.

Seventy-three-year-old Syngman Rhee was elected President of ASouth Korea@ on May 10,1948 in an election boycotted by virtually all Koreans except the elite KDP and Rhee’s own right -wing political groups. This event, historically sealing a politically divided Korea, provoked what became known at the Cheju massacre, in which as many as 70,000 residents of the southern island of Cheju were ruthlessly murdered during a single year by Rhee’s paramilitary forces under the oversight of U.S. officers. Rhee took office as President on August 15 and the Republic of Korea (ROK) was formally declared. In response, three-and -a-half weeks later (on September 9, 1948), the people of northern Korea grudgingly created their own separate government, the Democratic People’s’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), with Kim II Sung as its premier.

Korea was now clearly and tragically split in two. Kim Il Sung had survived as a guerrilla fighter against the Japanese occupation in both China and Korea since 1932 when he was twenty years old. He was thirty-three when he returned to Pyongyang in October 1945 to begin the hoped-for era of rebuilding a united Korea free of foreign domination, and three years later, on September 9, 1948, he became North Korea’s first premier. The Rhee/U.S. forces escalated their ruthless campaign of cleansing the south of dissidents, identifying as a suspected “communist” anyone who opposed the Rhee regime, publicly or privately. In reality, most participants or believers in the popular movement in the south were socialists unaffiliated with outside “communist” organizations.

As the repression intensified, however, alliances with popular movements in the north, including communist organizations, increased. The Cheju insurgency was crushed by August 1949, but on the mainland, guerrilla warfare continued in most provinces until 1959-51. In the eyes of the commander of US military forces in Korea, General Hodge, and new “President” Syngman Rhee, (left) virtually any Korean who had not publicly professed his allegiance to Rhee was considered a “communist” traitor. As a result, massive numbers of farmers, villagers and urban residents were systematically rounded up in rural areas, villages and cities throughout South Korea. Captives were regularly tortured to extract names of others. Thousands were imprisoned and even more thousands forced to dig mass graves before being ordered into them and shot by fellow Koreans, often under the watch of U.S. troops.

The introduction of U.S./UN military forces on June 26,1950 occurred with no American understanding (except by a few astute observers such as journalist I.F Stone) that in fact they were entering an ongoing revolutionary civil war waged by indigenous Koreans seeking genuine independence after five years of U.S. interference. The American occupation simply fueled Korean passions even more while creating further divisions among them.

In the Autumn of 1950, when U.S. forces were in retreat in North Korea, General Douglas MacArthur offered all air forces under his command to destroy “every means of communication, every installation, factory, city and village ” from the Yalu River, forming the border between North Korea and China, south to the battle line. The massive saturation bombing conducted throughout the war, including napalm, incendiary, and fragmentation bombs, left scorched cities and villages in total ruins. As in World War II, the U.S. strategic bombing campaign brought mass destruction and shockingly heavy civilian casualties. Such tactics were in clear violation of the Nuremburg Charter, which had, ironically, been created after World War II, largely due to pressure from the U.S. The Nuremburg Tribunal defined “the wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages” to be a war crime and declared that Ainhumane acts against any civilian population” were a crime against humanity.

From that fateful day on September 8, 1945 to the present, a period of 56 years, U.S. military forces (currently numbering 37,000 positioned at 100 installations) have maintained a continuous occupation in the south supporting de facto U.S. rule over the political, economic and military life of a needlessly divided Korea. This often brutal occupation and the persistent U.S. support for the repressive policies of dictatorial puppets continues to be the single greatest obstacle to peace in Korea, preventing the inevitable reunification of the Korean Peninsula.

Until 1994, all of the hundreds of thousands of South Korean defense forces operated under direct U.S. command. Even today, although integrated into the Combined Forces Command (CFC), these forces automatically revert to direct US control when the US military commander in Korea determines that there is a state of war.

Indonesia: (1958-1965)

After 350 years of colonialism, President Sukarno, with the cooperation of the communist party (PKI), sought to make Indonesia an independent socialist democracy. Sukarno’s working relationship with the PKI would not be tolerated by Washington. Under the direction of the CIA, rebels in the Indonesian army were armed, trained and equipped in preparation for a military coup. The Indonesian army=s campaign against the PKI in 1965-66 brought the dictator Suharto to power. Under his rule, teachers, students, civil servants and peasants were systematically executed. In Central and East Java alone, 60,000 were killed. In Bali, some 50,000 people were executed, and thousands more died in remote Indonesian villages. In some areas citizens were confined in Navy vessels which were then sunk to the bottom of the sea.

The most extensive killing were committed against suspected PKI supporters identified by U.S. intelligence. Historian Gabriel Kollo states that the slaughter in Indonesia “ranks as a crime of the same type as the Nazi perpetrated.”3

Recent revealed documents at George Washington University’s National Security Achive confirmed how effectively the Indonesian army used the U.S.-prepared hit list against the Indonesian communist party in 1965-66. Among the documents cited is a 1966 airgram to Washington sent by U.S. ambassador Marshall Green stating that a list from the Embassy identifying top communist leaders was being used by the Indonesian security authorities in their extermination campaign.

For example, the US Embassy reported on November 13,1965 that information sent to Suharto resulted in the killing of between 50 to 100 PKI members every night in East and Central Java. The Embassy admitted in an April 15, 1966 airgram to Washington: “We frankly do not know whether the real figure for the PKI killed is closer to 100,000 or 1,000,000.”4

The Indonesian military became the instrument of another counter revolutionary offensive in 1975 when it invaded East Timor. On September 7,1975, just 24 hours after the highest officials of the United States government, President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, had been in Djakarta on a state visit, 30,000 Indonesian troops landed in East Timor. Napalm, phosphorus bombs and chemical defoliants were delivered from US supplied planes and helicopters, resulting in the killing of tens of thousands of people, and the conflict continues to simmer.5

Vietnam: (1954-1965)

President Harry Truman began granting material aid to the French colonial forces in Indochina as early s 1946, and the aid was dramatically increased after the successful Chinese revolution in 1949 and the start of the “hot” Korean War in June 1950. By the time of the French army was defeated in 1954, the U.S. was paying nearly 80 percent of the French military expenditures and providing extensive air and logistical support.

The unilateral U.S. military intervention in Vietnam began in 1954, immediately following the humiliating French defeat in early May 1954. The July 21, 1954 Geneva Agreement concluded the French war against the Vietnamese and promised them a unifying election, mandated for July 1956. The U.S. government knew that fair elections would, in effect, ensure a genuine democratic victory for revered Communist leader Ho Chi Minh. This was unacceptable. In June 1954, prior to the signing of the historic Geneva agreement, the U.S. began CIA-directed internal sabotage operations against the Vietnamese while setting up the puppet Ngo Dinh Diem (brought to Vietnam from the U.S.) as “our” political leader. No electrons were ever held. This set the stage for yet another war for Vietnamese independence — this time against U.S. forces and their South Vietnamese puppets.

The significance of U.S. intentions to interfere with independence movements in Asia cannot be underestimated. U.S. National Security Council documents from 1956 declared that our national security would be endangered by communist domination of mainland Southeast Asia. Secret military plans stated that nuclear weapons will be used in general war and even in military operations short of general war. By March 1961, the Pentagon brass had recommended sending 60,000 soldiers to western Laos supported by air power that would include, if necessary, nuclear weapons, to assure that the Royal Laotian government would prevail against the popular insurgency being waged against it. For the next ten years the U.S. unleashed forces that caused (and continue to cause ) an incomprehensible amount of devastation in Vietnam and the rest of Southeast Asia.

Eight million tons of bombs (four times the amount used by the U.S. in all of World War II) were dropped indiscriminately, leaving destruction which, if laid crater to crater, would cover an area the size of the state of Maine. Eighty percent of the bombs fell on rural areas rather than military targets, leaving ten million craters. Nearly 400,000 tons of napalm was dropped on Vietnamese villages. There was no pretense of distinguishing between combatants and civilians.

The callous designation of as much as three-fourths of South Vietnam as a “free fire zone” justified the murder of virtually anyone in thousands of villages in those vast areas. At the time, Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara cited a 1967 memo in which he estimated the number of Vietnamese civilians killed or seriously injured by U.S. forces at 1000 per week. The CIA=s Phoenix program alone killed as many as 70,000 civilians who were suspected of being part of the political leadership of the Viet Cong in the south.

There was a historically unprecedented level of chemical warfare in Vietnam, including the indiscriminate spraying of nearly 20 million gallons of defoliants on one-seventh the area of South Vietnam. The vestigial effects of chemical warfare poisoning continue to plague the health of adult Vietnamese (and ex-GIs) while causing escalated birth defects. Samples of soil, water, food and body fat of Vietnamese citizens continue to reveal dangerously elevated levels of dioxin to the present day.

Today, Vietnamese officials estimate the continued dangerous presence of 3.5 million landmines left from the war as well as 300,000 tons of unexploded ordnance. Tragically, these hidden remnants of war continue to explode when farmers plow their fields or children play in their neighborhoods, killing thousands each year. The Vietnamese report 40,000 people killed since 1975 by landmines and buried bombs. That means that each day, 4 or 5 Vietnamese civilians are killed day by U.S. ordnance.

The U.S. and its allies killed as many as 5 million Southeast Asian citizens during the active war years. The numbers of dead in Laos and Cambodia remain uncounted, but as of 1971, a congressional Research Service report prepared for the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee indicated that over one million Laotians had been killed, wounded, or turned into refugees, with the figure for Cambodia estimated two million. More than a half million “secret” US bombing missions over Laos, begun in late 1964, devastated populations of ancient cultures there. Estimates indicate that around 230,000 tons of bombs were dropped over northern Laos in 1968 and 1969 alone. Increasing numbers of U.S. military personnel were added to the ground forces in Laos during 1961, preparing for major military operations to come.

The “secret” bombing of Cambodia began in March 1969, and an outright land invasion of Cambodia was conducted from late April 1970 through the end of June, causing thousand of casualties. These raging U.S. covert wars did not cease until August 14, 1973, by which time countless additional casualties were inflicted. When the bombing in Cambodia finally ceased, the U.S. Air Force had officially recorded the use of nearly 260,000 tons of bombs there. The total tonnage of bombs dropped in Laos over eight and a half years exceeded two million.

The consensus today is that more than 3 million Vietnamese were killed, with 300,000 additional missing in action and presumed dead. In the process the U.S. lost nearly 59,000 of her own men and women, with about 2,000 additional missing, while combatants from four U.S. allies lost over 6,000 more. The South Vietnamese military accounted for nearly 225,000 dead. All of this carnage was justified in order to destroy the basic rights and capacity of the Vietnamese to construct their own independent, sovereign society. None of the victims deserved to die in such a war. Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians, and U.S. military “grunts” were all victims.

All of these corpses were created to perpetuate an incredible lie and to serve a “cause” that had been concocted by white male plutocrats in Washington, many of whom possessed Ph.Ds from prestigious universities. Like most of their predecessors throughout U.S. history, these politicians and their appointees, along with their profit-hungry arms makers/dealers, desired to assure the destruction of people’s democratic movements in East Asia that threatened the virtually unlimited American hegemony over markets, resources, and the profits to be derived therefrom. But never did a small country suffer so much from an imperial nation as the Vietnamese did from the United States.

Iraq: (1991-2001)

The royal family in Kuwait was used by the United States government to justify a massive assault on Iraq in order to establish permanent dominion over the Gulf. The Gulf War was begun not to protect Kuwait but to establish US power over the region and its oil.6 In 1990, General Schwarzkopf had testified before the Senate that it was essential for the U.S. to increase its military presence in the Gulf in order to protect Saudi Arabia. However, satellite photos showed no Iraqi troops near the Saudi Border.

After Iraq announced that it was going to annex Kuwait, the United States began its air attacks on Iraq. For 42 days the US sent in 2000 sorties a day. By February 13,1991, 1,500 Iraqi citizens had been killed. President George Bush ordered the destruction of facilities essential to civilian life and economic production.

The Red Crescent Society of Jordan announced at the end of the war that 113,00 civilians were dead and sixty percent were women and children. Some of the worst devastation was wrought by the US military’s use of Depleted Uranium (DU) on battlefields and in towns and cities across Iraq. It left a legacy of radioactive debris which has resulted in serious environmental contamination and health problems, particularly among Iraqi children. Child mortality rates have risen by 380 percent. Between August 1990 and August 1997 some 1.2 million children in Iraq died due to environmental devastation and the harsh economic sanctions imposed in 1991. Not satisfied with such havoc, the U.S. and Britain have recently sought to tighten the blockade against Iraq by imposing so-called :”smart sanctions.” This would continue the aggression against northern and southern Iraq and lead to the deaths of more women, children and elderly.

Yugoslavia: (1991-1999)

The United States and Germany prepared plans for the dismemberment of Yugoslavia in the late 1980’s and have since reconfigured Yugoslavia into mini-states, with only Serbia and Montenegro remaining in the Yugoslav federation, a situation which has opened the way to the re-colonization of the Balkans.

In 1991, the European Community, with US involvement, organized a conference on Yugoslavia that called for the separation, sovereignty and independence of the republics of Yugoslavia. President George Bush’s administration passed the 1991 Foreign Operations Act, which provided aid to the individual republics, but cut off all aid to Belgrade, the capitol of Yugoslavia. This stimulated the eventual secession of Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. With secession came civil wars. Ethnic Serbs living in Croatia had been loyal to that Yugoslav republic, but great power meddling now forced them to defend their region in Croatia known as Krajina. The U.S. covertly provided arms, training, advisors, satellite intelligence and air power to the Croats in “Operation Storm” directed against the helpless Serbs in Krajina. When the bombing began, the Krajina Serbs fled to Belgrade and Bosnia. Approximately 250,000 Serbs were thus ethnically cleansed from the Krajina and all evidence of Serb habitation was systematically destroyed. Civilians were executed, livestock slaughtered and houses were burnt to the ground.7

To avoid a similar human catastrophe in Bosnia/Herzegovina, Bosnian Serbs consolidated Serb-owned lands, an area constituting about two thirds of Bosnia/Herzegovina. Germany and the U.S. quickly aided the military alliance of Bosnian Muslims and Croats against the Serbs, and , supported by American bombing and regular army forces from Croatia, the Muslim/Croat alliance soon swept the Serbs from the majority of Bosnia/Herzegovina. As in the Krajina, the conflict forced ethnic Serbs off of their lands, creating one hundred thousand Serb refugees.

Under the U.S.-brokered Dayton Agreement, Bosnia/Herzegovina was divided into two parts, a Muslim-Croat Federation and Republica Srpska. The central government today is controlled by US/NATO forces, the IMF, and international NGOs. With no history of independence, Bosnia/Herzegovina=s economic assets have been taken over by foreign investors who now own their energy facilities, water, telecommunication, media and transportation.

The effects of the Bosnian civil war on the city of Srebrenica were reported extensively in the western media. Reports claimed that 7,414 Bosnian Muslims were executed by the Serbian army. After years of searching, digging and extensive investigations, only seventy bodies were found, but the original charges of genocide are still circulated in the media.

Kosovo, an autonomous region of Serbia, is the site of the most recent, and perhaps most disastrous, U.S. military intervention. Kosovo=s problems began after World War II when immigrants from Albania flooded into the region, sparking political confrontation between Albanians and Serbs. escalated into military conflict. The “Kosovo Liberation Army, an Albanian terrorist/separatist group, escalated tensions by directing their violence against not only Serbian civilians, but Albanian who refused to join their cause. As the war intensified, a United Nations team of observers in the Kosovo village of Racak found 44 Albanian bodies. The Serbs identified them as KLA fighters killed during one of the now frequent gun battles with police. William Walker, a US diplomat, who had earlier acted as an apologist for the death squads in El Salvador, led a group of journalists to view the bodies, and their subsequent claims of Serb war crimes made world-wide headlines.8

President Clinton used this event to bring delegates form the contending forces in Bosnia to Rambouillet, and the proposed Ramboullet Accords served as a prelude to U.S. intervention in Kosovo. The accords, if accepted, would have allowed NATO forces complete access to all of Yugoslavia, a virtual foreign occupation, with all associated costs to be borne by the Yugoslav government. As the Ramboullet negotiations began to stall, U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright ordered the bombing of Yugoslavia to begin.

On March 16, 1999, twenty three thousand missiles and bombs were dropped on a country of eleven million people. Thirty five thousand cluster bombs, graphite bombs and 31,000 rounds of depleted uranium weapons were used, the latter scattering radioactive waste throughout the Yugoslav countryside.

The 78 day bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia targeted schools, hospitals, farms, bridges, roads communication centers, and waterways. Because a large number of chemical plants and oil refineries bombed by US/NATO planes were located on the banks of the Danube river, the bombing of these industrial sites polluted the Danube, a source of drinking water for ten million people in the region. The environmental damage done to the soil, water and air of Yugoslavia soon spread to Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia, Greece and Italy. Countries like Russia, Ukraine and Georgia, which border on the Black Sea, into which the Danube empties, also continue to face health hazards.

Afghanistan:(1979-2001)

“The Bush-Afghan war calls up memories of the Vietnam War in both actions and rhetoric, the massive use of superior arms heavily impacting civilians, deliberate food deprivation, wholesale terror allegedly combating ‘terrorism’, but always sincere regrets for collateral damages.”9

The U.S. war in Afghanistan began in 1979, ostensibly as a campaign to oust the ruling Taliban and apprehend the alleged terrorist Osama Bin Laden, who was assumed to be hiding in Afghanistan. Ironically, the Taliban had received billions of dollars worth of weapons from the CIA to help it overthrow a progressive socialist government in Afghanistan, and Bin Laden regarded himself as an important CIA asset. Indeed, the CIA had been deeply involved in Afghanistan even before the Soviet Union intervened there in 1979 to defend the revolutionary government.

Since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, the U.S. has waged a merciless war against the Afghan people, using chemical, biological and depleted uranium (DU) weapons. The use of DU continues to spread radiation throughout large parts of Afghanistan and will affect tens of thousands of people in generations to come, causing lung cancer, leukemia and birth defects. DU was also used against Iraq and Yugoslavia, where the frequency of cancer has tripled.

The bombing of the Afghan population has forced thousands of civilians to flee to Pakistan and Iran, and seven to eight million civilians are facing starvation. UNICEF spokesman Eric Larlcke has stated, “As many as 100,000 more children will die in Afghanistan this winter unless food reaches them in sufficient quantities in the next six weeks.”10

The racist underpinnings of the American world-view allows the American press and its political leaders to be silent on the mass killing of Third World children. Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, has stated that the U.S. is not looking to negotiate peace with the Taliban and Al-Quida in Afghanistan. There is a clear indifference to the daily carnage in Afghanistan, where sixty percent of the casualties are women and children. Human rights organizations have expressed concern over reports of large-scale executions of would-be Taliban defectors in the city of Kunduz, and the United Nations has echoed human rights groups in demanding an investigation into the slaughter of prisoners at the Qala-i-Jhangi fort near Mazar-i-Sharif. With more than 500 people dead and the fort littered with bodies, allegations of war crimes against the U.S. and UK for ignoring the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war have led the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, to call for an urgent inquiry.

“Once we recognize the pattern of activity designed to simultaneously consolidate control over Middle Eastern and South Asian oil and contain and colonize the former Soviet Union, Afghanistan is exactly where they need to go to pursue that agenda.”11

In his book The Grand Chessboard, Zbigniew Brezezinski writes that the Eurasian Balkans are a potential economic prize which hold an enormous concentration of natural gas and oil and important minerals as well as gold.

Brezezinski declares that the Central Asian region and the Caspian Sea basin are “known to contain reserves of natural gas and oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea.”12 Afghanistan will serve as a base of operations to begin the control over the South Asian Republic in order to build a pipeline through Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan to deliver petroleum to the Asian market. This pipeline will serve as a bonanza of wealth for the US oil companies.

Conclusion:

An examination of the American conduct of its wars since World War II shows the US to be in violation of the Nuremberg Principles, the 1949 Geneva Convention relating to protection of civilian prisoners of war, the wounded and sick, and the amended Nuremberg Principles as formulated by the International Law Commission in 1950 proscribing war crimes and crimes against humanity. The massive murder and destruction of civilian infrastructure through the use of biological, chemical and depleted uranium weapons violates not only international laws but the moral and humanitarian standards expected in modern civilization.

Notes

1. Ward Churchill, A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas, 1942 to the Present. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1977, p. 371.

2. William Blum, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Intervention Since World War II, Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1995, p. 17.

3. Gabriel Kollo, AWar Crimes and the Nature of the Vietnam War, Bertrand Russell Foundation, http:www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/littleton/br7006gk.htm

4. George Washington University’s National Security Archive, July 27, 2001, www.Narchives.org

5. Deirdre Griswold, Indonesia: the Second Greatest Crime of the Century, 2d edition. New York: World View Publishers, 1979, p. vii.

6. Ramsey Clark, The Fire This Time: U.S. War Crimes in the Gulf. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1992, p. 3.

7. Scott Taylor, INAT: Images of Serbia and the Kosovo Conflict. OttAwa, Canada: Espirit de Corps Books, 2000, p. 15.

8. Michael Parenti, To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia. New York: Verso, 2000, p. 106.

9. Edward Herman, A Genocide as Collateral Damage, but with Sincere Regrets, Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG) at http://globalresearch.ca , 2001

10. 100,000 Afghan Children Could Die This Winter, The Times of India, October 16, 2001.

11. Stan Goff, A September 11th Analysis, October 27, 2001, www.maisonneuvepress.com .

12. Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperative, New York: Harper

 

The late Lenora Foerstel is author of War, Lies & Videotape: How media monopoly stifles truth , 

Brian Willson is a Vietnam war veteran, peace activist and author. Brian Willson has carefully documented the balance sheet of US government war crimes in Vietnam and Korea 

Brian Willson is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

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Pakistan: An Economy on the Brink

October 5th, 2023 by Asad Ismi

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First published on May 31, 2023

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Following the economic collapse of Sri Lanka in mid-2022, Pakistan is close to sliding into the same disaster.

There is US$3 billion remaining in the country’s foreign currency reserves that can pay for only two weeks of imports.

Inflation is near 40 per cent.

The value of the national currency—the rupee—is in free fall.

Pakistan’s debt is near default and has increased by 38 per cent in one year.

The average person cannot afford to buy bread or onions and the country is running out of fuel, cooking gas and wheat.

Factories are shutting down due to lack of spare parts, including those making life-saving medicines.

According to the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP), “5.1 million people in Pakistan are likely to be a step away from famine-levels of hunger by the end of March—an increase of 1.1 million people from the previous quarter.” Chris Kaye, the Pakistan country director for the WFP warns: “that number is frightening.”

Pakistan’s negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a US$1.1 billion loan proved unsuccessful in February. Since 1950, Pakistan has got 23 bailouts from the IMF. However, on February 17, Khwaja Asif, Pakistan’s defence minister, stated that the country “has already defaulted and is bankrupt” and that “the IMF does not have the solution to Pakistan’s problems.”

Tariq Amin-Khan tells me that a mixture of military and feudal domination, combined with many years of crony capitalism, is to blame for Pakistan’s economic debacle. He is an associate professor of politics and public administration at Toronto Metropolitan University and is a Pakistani-Canadian.

Pakistan’s powerful military has, directly or indirectly, ruled the country for almost all of its 76-year history. Currently, the army orchestrates a farcical political system, rigging elections to put its favoured political parties in power. The military has not let any civilian leader complete her or his term in office.

The military also dominates the country’s economy (along with feudal landlords) by, as Khan puts it, “monopolizing” entire sectors and running a multi-billion dollar business empire that “contributes to the economic crisis by throttling competition and innovation.”

Pakistan’s largest business conglomerates, the Fauji Foundation and the Army Welfare Trust, are both military outfits.

When I asked Khan to give examples of the economic sectors that the military monopolizes in Pakistan, he answered: “Almost any sector can be such an example, especially real estate, which is a huge one. Large Pakistani cities contain ‘defence societies’ where the most expensive land is owned by the army.

“The army even makes and sells foodstuffs, including cereal. They have a lock on corn flakes!

“Pakistan’s economy is on life support while the military’s web of industrial interests—banks, insurance companies, airline, housing and land development—seem to be thriving. These three factors: military capitalism, the feudal stranglehold on the rural economy and crony capitalism, in which a handful of business owners are favoured by politicians and bureaucrats, amount to a colossal mismanagement of the Pakistan economy which has brought on this economic crisis.”

Land is still the main source of wealth in Pakistan and 63 per cent of the population lives in villages, according to Khan. Land is highly concentrated in Pakistan and this concentration is increasing, says Khan.

Two per cent of households own 30 per cent of total landholdings, which results in massive poverty and inhibits economic development.

“Feudal landlords have been blocking industrialization and other economic initiatives for 75 years in Pakistan,” emphasizes Khan.

Pakistan’s poverty rate stands at an astounding 78.3 per cent, according to the World Bank.

The third factor responsible for Pakistan’s economic crisis is crony business capitalism, explains Khan. These business groups are the “weakest” part of the elite triad (relative to the military and feudal landlords), says Khan, and became prominent after the corrupt privatization processes of the 1980s and ’90s (and continuing today), when bureaucrats and politicians sold lucrative public enterprises to favoured business groups at fire sale prices for kickbacks.

So why is it that Pakistan keeps getting IMF bailouts? Because Pakistan, and especially its army, were created by Western imperialism.

The IMF and the World Bank are U.S.-dominated and Pakistan’s military is not an independent actor; its domestic primacy has been ensured by the fact that it has served Western imperial aims, first British then American, for seven decades.

As Pakistan’s founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, remarked: “If great countries such as Britain and the United States want Pakistan to exist then how can it not?”

Pakistan was carved out of India in 1947 by the British Empire as part of its divide-and-rule policy, which was meant to weaken sovereign states. The United States took over from Britain in 1948, giving $400 million to set up the Pakistan army, which it wanted to use against India and the Soviet Union.

Under the Congress Party’s rule, India was a close ally of the Soviet Union from 1947 to 1990. With the $400 million from the U.S., “a security state that looked to the West for survival was born,” as Pakistani economist Yousuf Nazar put it on February 5, 2023.

So the World Bank and IMF loans flowed to Pakistan despite the fact that it was, and remains, an economic basket case. As long as the Pakistan army served U.S. strategic aims, its looting of Pakistan and the consequent poverty of most Pakistanis did not matter to Washington.

First the Pakistan army got lots of American aid money due to the Cold War, then due to the U.S. War on Terror, as Pakistan borders Afghanistan, which the U.S. and NATO occupied for 20 years.

The Pakistan army was an instrument of Western colonialism, so it resorted to internal colonialism to enrich itself. However, this military parasitism has proven to be disastrous for the country, leading to its disintegration in 1971, when its eastern half—known as East Pakistan—broke off from West Pakistan and became the independent nation of Bangladesh.

From 1948 to 1971, the Pakistan army exploited East Pakistan’s considerable jute resources to enrich itself while denying this province economic and political rights.

When the East Pakistanis, who were the majority of Pakistanis and were made up of largely one ethnic group, known as Bengalis, rebelled, the army massacred up to three million of them in the last eight months of 1971.

Having learnt nothing from its loss of half the country, the Pakistan army invaded the province of Balochistan in 1973, where the Balochi ethnic group had launched a separatist insurgency against its domination and proceeded to kill thousands of Balochis; a massacre that continues today, with the disappearance and murder of up to 100,000 Balochis. However, the insurgency has only intensified, with constant attacks on army outposts and spectacular assaults on urban targets in the large cities of Karachi and Lahore.

Like East Pakistan, Balochistan is rich in resources and highly exploited by the army, with its people gaining little from their own wealth. Natural gas from Balochistan provides 40 per cent of Pakistan’s energy needs but only six per cent of the Baloch get it.

The province also has considerable deposits of oil, coal, copper, gold, silver, platinum, aluminum and uranium. Balochistan makes up 43 per cent of Pakistan’s land area.

“Pakistan is going to lose Balochistan the way it lost East Pakistan in 1971,” says Naela Quadri Baloch, president of the World Baloch Women’s Forum, who accuses the Pakistan army of committing genocide in Balochistan.

“The Baloch insurgency has now become a national movement,” Quadri Baloch explains, “and the guerrilla struggle has the support of the Baloch masses, which is the key to its success. Social movements of all kinds, including women’s groups, students, human rights organizations, intellectuals and religious leaders back the call for an independent Balochistan.”

The economic crisis is likely to weaken the Pakistan army’s control over Balochistan. As Quadri Baloch points out, “already, the army is dismantling many of its outposts in Balochistan due to lack of fuel.”

The province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), which borders Afghanistan and is home to the Pakhtun ethnic group, is riven with terrorist violence carried out by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), known as the Pakistani Taliban. In January, the TTP killed 101 policemen in a single suicide bombing and injured another 180.

“The people of KPK are alienated from Pakistan and those of Balochistan even more so,” Tariq Amin Khan says. “Unless Pakistan can break the stranglehold of the military and the feudal landlords on its economy and achieve real progress through land reform and the setting up of free health care and education systems for its people, the danger of its national disintegration is very real.”

*

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This article was originally published on the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Monitor, (CCPA Monitor).

Asad Ismi is an award-winning writer and radio documentary-maker. He covers international politics for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Monitor (CCPA Monitor), Canada’s biggest leftist magazine (by circulation) where this article was originally published. Asad has written on the politics of 70 countries. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. For his publications visit www.asadismi.info.

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No matter who becomes the next Speaker of the House in Congress, life is going to be a LOT harder for Joe Biden, the Democrats, Zelensky, and the US puppet régime in Kiev.

By bringing down House Speaker McCarthy yesterday 3 October 2023, Rep. Matt Gaetz has created a historic turning point, not just for the USA, but for global politics.

The Democrats, the Neocons of the uniparty including Mitch McConnell, have all suffered a devastating blow from which they are not likely to recover. This changes the position of what the US can do in the world, and it severely endangers the reelection chances of President Biden.

Have a short look at what the man of the day, Rep. Matt Gaetz, demands what a new House Speaker must do – or face ouster like McCarthy did:

  • Substantial reduction in Federal spending, even in temporary funding bills. 
  • Willingness for the House of Representatives to use “the power of the purse”.
    • In clear text: Willingness to close down US government as part of negotiations.
  • Willingness to subpoena Hunter Biden in the Joe Biden corruption inquiry.

In addition, transparency on US spending bills by demanding separate spending bills per item, and not massive “omnibus” bills which link all sorts of non-spending issues into a dark box of uncontrollable spending and other measures.

The prospects of this are devastating. 

  • Ukraine may very well go down (soon !) for lack of Western funds and lack of new Western weapons supplies, as it will probably NOT receive any significant new US spending – ever. 
  • The US government faces high chances of a complete financial shut-down in 6 weeks when the recent stop-gap funding bill expires. 
  • Biden’s reelection chances are melting, because the corruption inquiry against President Biden will gain substance for a real impeachment as the House subpoenas Hunter Biden and unearths more evidence.

No need to say, that Biden losing reelection will be equal to Trump being reelected – with all the unfathomable consequences that will have not only for Ukraine, but for the breakdown of NATO and all Transatlantic relations as well. All on top of a fundamental transformation under Trump of what the USA is and how it functions.

Unbelievable, that the House Democrats were stupid enough to let all these imminent and big risks to their domination happen by not simply abstaining from the vote on the House speakership and letting Speaker McCarthy continue on a majority of Republican House votes.

All these big changes coming to the US and the world are very much due to one single individual, Matt Gaetz (Rep.Fla.).

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Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Gaetz speaking at a Turning Point USA event in 2020

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In commemoration of the 22nd anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. This article was first published by Global Research in September 2010.

***

Highlights

  • -Osama bin Laden, America’s bogyman, was recruited by the CIA in the early 1980s at the very outset of the US sponsored jihad. He was 22 years old and was trained in a CIA sponsored guerilla training camp.
  • -The architects of the covert operation in support of “Islamic fundamentalism” launched during the Reagan presidency played a key role in launching the “Global War on Terrorism” in the wake of 9/11.
  • – President Ronald Reagan met the leaders of the Islamic Jihad at the White House in 1985
  • -Under the Reagan adminstration, US foreign policy evolved towards the unconditional support and endorsement of the Islamic “freedom fighters”. 
  • In today’s World, the “freedom fighters” are labelled “Islamic terrorists”.
  • -In the Pashtun language, the word “Taliban” means “Students”, or graduates of the madrasahs (places of learning or coranic schools) set up by the Wahhabi missions from Saudi Arabia, with the support of the CIA.
  • The Soviet-Afghan war was part of a CIA covert agenda initiated during the Carter administration, which consisted  in actively supporting and financing the Islamic brigades, later known as Al Qaeda.

 

Introduction

The Pakistani military regime played from the outset in the late 1970s, a key role in the US sponsored military and intelligence operations in Afghanistan. In the post-Cold war era, this central role of Pakistan in US intelligence operations was extended to the broader Central Asia- Middle East region. From the outset of the Soviet Afghan war in 1979, Pakistan under military rule actively supported the Islamic brigades. In close liaison with the CIA, Pakistan’s military intelligence, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), became a powerful organization, a parallel government, wielding tremendous power and influence.

America’s covert war in Afghanistan, using Pakistan as a launch pad, was initiated during the Carter administration prior to the Soviet “invasion”

Confirmed by Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s National Security Advisor:

“According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahideen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise. Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.

And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.” (Former National Security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, Interview with Le Nouvel Observateur, 15-21 January 1998)

In the published memoirs of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who held the position of  deputy CIA Director at the height of the Soviet Afghan war, US intelligence was directly involved from the outset, prior to the Soviet invasion, in channeling aid to the Islamic brigades.

With CIA backing and the funneling of massive amounts of U.S. military aid, the Pakistani ISI had developed into a “parallel structure wielding enormous power over all aspects of government”. (Dipankar Banerjee, “Possible Connection of ISI With Drug Industry”, India Abroad, 2 December 1994). The ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) had a staff composed of military and intelligence officers, bureaucrats, undercover agents and informers, estimated at 150,000. (Ibid)

Meanwhile, CIA operations had also reinforced the Pakistani military regime led by General Zia Ul Haq:

“Relations between the CIA and the ISI had grown increasingly warm following [General] Zia’s ouster of Bhutto and the advent of the military regime. … During most of the Afghan war, Pakistan was more aggressively anti-Soviet than even the United States. Soon after the Soviet military invaded Afghanistan in 1980, Zia [ul Haq] sent his ISI chief to destabilize the Soviet Central Asian states. The CIA only agreed to this plan in October 1984.” (Ibid)

The ISI operating virtually as an affiliate of the CIA, played a central role in channeling support to Islamic paramilitary groups in Afghanistan and subsequently in the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union.

Acting on behalf of the CIA, the ISI was also involved in the recruitment and training of the Mujahideen.

In the ten year period from 1982 to 1992, some 35,000 Muslims from 43 Islamic countries were recruited to fight in the Afghan jihad. The madrassas in Pakistan, financed by Saudi charities, were also set up with  US support with a view to “inculcating Islamic values”. “The camps became virtual universities for future Islamic radicalism,” (Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban). Guerilla training under CIA-ISI auspices included targeted assassinations and car bomb attacks.

“Weapons’ shipments “were sent by the Pakistani army and the ISI to rebel camps in the North West Frontier Province near the Afghanistan border. The governor of the province is Lieutenant General Fazle Haq, who [according to Alfred McCoy] . allowed “hundreds of heroin refineries to set up in his province.” Beginning around 1982, Pakistani army trucks carrying CIA weapons from Karachi often pick up heroin in Haq’s province and return loaded with heroin. They are protected from police search by ISI papers.”(1982-1989: US Turns Blind Eye to BCCI and Pakistani Government Involvement in Heroin Trade See also McCoy, 2003, p. 477) .


Front row, from left: Major Gen. Hamid Gul, director general of Pakistan’s

Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), Director of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Willian Webster; Deputy Director for Operations Clair George; an ISI colonel; and senior CIA official,
Milt Bearden at a mujahedeen training camp in North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan in 1987.
(source RAWA)

Osama Bin Laden

Osama bin Laden, America’s bogyman, was recruited in the early 1980s by the CIA  at the very outset of the US sponsored jihad. He was 22 years old and was trained in a CIA sponsored guerilla training camp.

During the Reagan administration, Osama, who belonged to the wealthy Saudi Bin Laden family was put in charge of raising money for the Islamic brigades.

Numerous charities and foundations were created. The operation was coordinated by Saudi intelligence, headed by  Prince Turki al-Faisal, in close liaison with the CIA.

The money derived from the various charities were used to finance the recruitment of Mujahideen volunteers. Al Qaeda, “The Base” in Arabic was a data bank of volunteers who had enlisted to fight in the Afghan jihad.

That data base was initially held by Osama bin Laden.

The Reagan Administration’s Support

to “Islamic Fundamentalism”. The NSDD 166

 

Pakistan’s ISI was used as a “go-between”. CIA covert support to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan operated indirectly through the Pakistani ISI, –i.e. the CIA did not channel its support directly to the Mujahideen.

In other words, for these covert operations to be “successful”, Washington was careful not to reveal the ultimate objective of the “jihad”, which consisted in destroying the Soviet Union.

In December 1984, the Sharia Law (Islamic jurisprudence) was established in Pakistan following a rigged referendum launched by President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. Barely a few months later, in March 1985, President Ronald Reagan issued National Security Decision Directive 166 (NSDD 166), which  authorized  “stepped-up covert military aid to the Mujahideen” as well a support to religious indoctrination.

 

 

The imposition of The Sharia in Pakistan and the promotion of “radical Islam” was a deliberate US policy serving American geopolitical interests in South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East.

Many present-day  “Islamic fundamentalist organizations” in the Middle East and Central Asia, were directly or indirectly the product of US covert support and financing, often channeled through foundations from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. Missions from the Wahhabi sect of conservative Islam in Saudi Arabia were put in charge of running the CIA sponsored madrassas in Northern Pakistan.

Under NSDD 166, a series of covert CIA-ISI operations  were launched.

The US supplied weapons to the Islamic brigades through the ISI. CIA and ISI officials would meet at ISI headquarters in Rawalpindi to coordinate US support to the Mujahideen.

Under NSDD 166, the procurement of US weapons to the Islamic insurgents increased from 10,000 tons of arms and ammunition in 1983 to 65,000 tons annually by 1987.

“In addition to arms, training, extensive military equipment including military satellite maps and state-of-the-art communications equipment” (University Wire, 7 May 2002).


Ronald Reagan meets Afghan Mujahideen Commanders at the White House in 1985 (Reagan Archives)

With William Casey as director of the CIA, NSDD 166 was described as the largest covert operation in US history:

The U.S. supplied support package had three essential components: organization and logistics, military technology, and ideological support for sustaining and encouraging the Afghan resistance….

U.S. counterinsurgency experts worked closely with the Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in organizing Mujahideen groups and in planning operations inside Afghanistan.

But the most important contribution of the U.S. was to … bring in men and material from around the Arab world and beyond. The most hardened and ideologically dedicated men were sought on the logic that they would be the best fighters.

Advertisements, paid for from CIA funds, were placed in newspapers and newsletters around the world offering inducements and motivations to join the Jihad. (Pervez  Hoodbhoy, Afghanistan and the Genesis of the Global Jihad, Peace Research, 1 May 2005)

Religious Indoctrination under NSDD 166

Under NSDD 166, US assistance to the Islamic brigades channeled through Pakistan was not limited to bona fide military aid. Washington also supported and financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the process of religious indoctrination, largely to secure the demise of secular institutions:

… the United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance to the Soviet occupation.

The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system’s core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books,..

The White House defends the religious content, saying that Islamic principles permeate Afghan culture and that the books “are fully in compliance with U.S. law and policy.”

Legal experts, however, question whether the books violate a constitutional ban on using tax dollars to promote religion.

… AID officials said in interviews that they left the Islamic materials intact because they feared Afghan educators would reject books lacking a strong dose of Muslim thought.

The agency removed its logo and any mention of the U.S. government from the religious texts, AID spokeswoman Kathryn Stratos said.

“It’s not AID’s policy to support religious instruction,” Stratos said.

“But we went ahead with this project because the primary purpose … is to educate children, which is predominantly a secular activity.”

Published in the dominant Afghan languages of Dari and Pashtun, the textbooks were developed in the early 1980s under an AID grant to the University of Nebraska -Omaha and its Center for Afghanistan Studies.

The agency spent $ 51 million on the university’s education programs in Afghanistan from 1984 to 1994.” (Washington Post, 23 March 2002, emphasis added)

The Role of the NeoCons

There is continuity. The architects of the covert operation in support of “Islamic fundamentalism” launched during the Reagan presidency played a key role in launching the “Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT) in the wake of 9/11.

Several of the NeoCons of the Bush Junior Administration  were high ranking officials during the Reagan presidency.

Richard Armitage, was Deputy Secretary of State during George W. Bush’s first term (2001-2004). He played a central key role in post 9/11 negotiations with Pakistan leading up to the October 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.

During the Reagan era, he held the position of Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy. In this capacity, he played a key role in the implementation of NSDD 163 while also ensuring liaison with the Pakistani military and intelligence apparatus.

Meanwhile, Paul Wolfowitz was at the State Department in charge of  a  foreign policy team composed, among others, of Lewis Libby, Francis Fukuyama and Zalmay Khalilzad.

Wolfowitz’s group was also involved in laying the conceptual groundwork of US covert support to Islamic parties and organizations in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Paul Wolfowitz (Left)

Secretary of Defence Robert Gates, who served in the Obama administration, was also involved in setting the groundwork for CIA covert operations. He was appointed Deputy Director for Intelligence by Ronald Reagan in 1982, and Deputy Director of the CIA in 1986, a position which he held until 1989.

Gates played a key role in the formulation of NSDD 166, which established a consistent framework for promoting Islamic fundamentalism and channeling covert support to the Islamic brigades. He was also involved in the Iran Contra scandal.

The Iran Contra Operation

Richard Gates, Colin Powell and Richard Armitage, among others, were also involved  in the Iran-Contra Operation.

Armitage was in close liaison with Colonel Oliver North. His deputy and chief anti-terrorist official Noel Koch was part of the team set up by Oliver North.

Of significance, the Iran-Contra operation was also tied into the process of channeling covert support to the Islamic brigades in Afghanistan. The Iran Contra scheme served several related foreign policy objectives:

1) Procurement of weapons to Iran thereby feeding the Iraq-Iran war,

2) Support to the Nicaraguan Contras,

3) Support to the Islamic brigades in Afghanistan, channeled via Pakistan’s ISI.

Following the delivery of the TOW anti-tank missiles to Iran, the proceeds of these sales were deposited in numbered bank accounts and the money was used to finance the Nicaraguan Contras. and the Mujahideen:

“The Washington Post reported that profits from the Iran arms sales were deposited in one CIA-managed account into which the U.S. and Saudi Arabia had placed $250 million apiece. That money was disbursed not only to the contras in Central America but to the rebels fighting Soviet troops in Afghanistan.” (US News & World Report, 15 December 1986).

Although Lieutenant General Colin Powell, was not directly involved in the arms’ transfer negotiations, which had been entrusted to Oliver North, he was among “at least five men within the Pentagon who knew arms were being transferred to the CIA.” (The Record, 29 December 1986).

In this regard, Powell was directly instrumental in giving the “green light” to lower-level officials in blatant violation of Congressional procedures. According to the New York Times, Colin Powell took the decision (at the level of military procurement), to allow the delivery of weapons to Iran:

“Hurriedly, one of the men closest to Secretary of Defense Weinberger, Maj. Gen. Colin Powell, bypassed the written ”focal point system” procedures and ordered the Defense Logistics Agency [responsible for procurement] to turn over the first of 2,008 TOW missiles to the CIA., which acted as cutout for delivery to Iran” (New York Times, 16 February 1987)

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was also implicated in the Iran-Contra Affair.

The Golden Crescent Drug Trade

The history of the drug trade in Central Asia is intimately related to the CIA’s covert operations. Prior to the Soviet-Afghan war, opium production in Afghanistan and Pakistan was directed to small regional markets. There was no local production of heroin. (Alfred McCoy, Drug Fallout: the CIA’s Forty Year Complicity in the Narcotics Trade. The Progressive, 1 August 1997).

Alfred McCoy’s study confirms that within two years of the onslaught of the CIA operation in Afghanistan, “the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands became the world’s top heroin producer.” (Ibid) Various Islamic paramilitary groups and organizations were created. The proceeds of the Afghan drug trade, which was protected by the CIA, were used to finance the various insurgencies:

“Under CIA and Pakistani protection, Pakistan military and Afghan resistance opened heroin labs on the Afghan and Pakistani border. According to The Washington Post of May 1990, among the leading heroin manufacturers were Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Afghan leader who received about half of the covert arms that the U.S. shipped to Pakistan. Although there were complaints about Hekmatyar’s brutality and drug trafficking within the ranks of the Afghan resistance of the day, the CIA maintained an uncritical alliance and supported him without reservation or restraint.

Once the heroin left these labs in Pakistan’s northwest frontier, the Sicilian Mafia imported the drugs into the U.S., where they soon captured sixty percent of the U.S. heroin market. That is to say, sixty percent of the U.S. heroin supply came indirectly from a CIA operation. During the decade of this operation, the 1980s, the substantial DEA contingent in Islamabad made no arrests and participated in no seizures, allowing the syndicates a de facto free hand to export heroin. By contrast, a lone Norwegian detective, following a heroin deal from Oslo to Karachi, mounted an investigation that put a powerful Pakistani banker known as President Zia’s surrogate son behind bars. The DEA in Islamabad got nobody, did nothing, stayed away.

Former CIA operatives have admitted that this operation led to an expansion of the Pakistan-Afghanistan heroin trade. In 1995 the former CIA Director of this Afghan operation, Mr. Charles Cogan, admitted sacrificing the drug war to fight the Cold War. “Our main mission was to do as much damage to the Soviets. We didn’t really have the resources or the time to devote to an investigation of the drug trade,” he told Australian television. “I don’t think that we need to apologize for this. Every situation has its fallout. There was fallout in terms of drugs, yes, but the main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan.” (Alfred McCoy, Testimony before the Special Seminar focusing on allegations linking CIA secret operations and drug trafficking-convened February 13, 1997, by Rep. John Conyers, Dean of the Congressional Black Caucus)

Lucrative Narcotics Trade in the Post Cold War Era

The drug trade has continued unabated during the post Cold war years. Afghanistan became the major supplier of heroin to Western markets, in fact almost the sole supplier: more than 90 percent of the heroin sold Worldwide originates in Afghanistan. This lucrative contraband is tied into Pakistani politics and the militarization of the Pakistani State. It also has a direct bearing on the structure of the Pakistani economy and its banking and financial institutions, which from the outset of the Golden Crescent drug trade have been involved in extensive money laundering operations, which are protected by the Pakistani military and intelligence apparatus:

According to the US State Department  International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (2006) (quoted in Daily Times, 2 March 2006),

“Pakistani criminal networks play a central role in the transshipment of narcotics and smuggled goods from Afghanistan to international markets. Pakistan is a major drug-transit country. The proceeds of narcotics trafficking and funding for terrorist activities are often laundered by means of the alternative system called hawala. … .

“Repeatedly, a network of private unregulated charities has also emerged as a significant source of illicit funds for international terrorist networks,” the report pointed out. … “

The hawala system and the charities are but the tip of the iceberg. According to the State Department report,

“the State Bank of Pakistan has frozen [for more twenty years] a meager $10.5 million “belonging to 12 entities and individuals linked to Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda or the Taliban”.

What the report fails to mention is that the bulk of the proceeds of the Afghan drug trade were laundered in bona fide Western banking institutions.

The Taliban Repress the Drug Trade

A major and unexpected turnaround in the CIA sponsored drug trade occurred in 2000.

The Taliban government which came to power in 1996 with Washington’s support, implemented in 2000-2001 a far-reaching opium eradication program with the support of the United Nations which served to undermine a multibillion dollar trade. (For further details see, Michel Chossudovsky, America’s War on Terrorism, Global Research, 2005).

In 2001 prior to the US-led invasion, opium production under the Taliban eradication program declined by more than 90 percent.

In the immediate wake of the US led invasion, the Bush administration ordered that the opium harvest not be destroyed on the fabricated pretext that this would undermine the military government of Pervez Musharraf.

“Several sources inside Capitol Hill noted that the CIA opposes the destruction of the Afghan opium supply because to do so might destabilize the Pakistani government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf. According to these sources, Pakistani intelligence had threatened to overthrow President Musharraf if the crops were destroyed. …

‘If they [the CIA] are in fact opposing the destruction of the Afghan opium trade, it’ll only serve to perpetuate the belief that the CIA is an agency devoid of morals; off on their own program rather than that of our constitutionally elected government'” .(NewsMax.com, 28 March 2002)

Since the US led invasion, opium production has increased 33 fold from 185 tons in 2001 under the Taliban to 6100 tons in 2006. Cultivated areas have increased 21 fold since the 2001 US-led invasion. (Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 6 January 2006)

In 2007, Afghanistan supplied approximately 93% of the global supply of heroin.

The proceeds (in terms of retail value) of the Afghanistan drug trade are estimated (2006) to be in excess of 190 billion dollars a year, representing a significant fraction of the global trade in narcotics.(Ibid)

The proceeds of this lucrative multibillion dollar contraband are deposited in Western banks. Almost the totality of the revenues accrue to corporate interests and criminal syndicates outside Afghanistan.

The laundering of drug money constitutes a multibillion dollar activity, which continues to be protected by the CIA and the ISI. In the wake of the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan.

In retrospect, one of the major objectives of the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was to restore the drug trade.

The militarization of Pakistan serves powerful political, financial and criminal interests underlying the drug trade. US foreign policy tends to support these powerful interests. The CIA continues to protect the Golden Crescent narcotics trade. Despite his commitment to eradicating the drug trade, opium production under the regime of Afghan President Hamid Karzai has skyrocketed.

The Assassination of General Zia Ul-Haq

In August 1988, President Zia was killed in an air crash together with US Ambassador to Pakistan Arnold Raphel and several of Pakistan’s top generals. The circumstances of the air crash remain shrouded in mystery.

Following Zia’s death, parliamentary elections were held and Benazir Bhutto was sworn in as Prime Minister in December 1988. She was subsequently  removed from office by Zia’s successor, President Ghulam Ishaq Khan on the grounds of alleged corruption. In 1993, she was re-elected and was again removed from office in 1996 on the orders of President Farooq Leghari.

Continuity has been maintained throughout. Under the short-lived post-Zia  elected governments of Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, the central role of the military-intelligence establishment and its links to Washington were never challenged.

Both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif served US foreign policy interests. While in power, both democratically elected leaders, nonetheless supported the continuity of military rule.  As prime minister from 1993 to 1996, Benazir Bhutto “advocated a conciliatory policy toward Islamists, especially the Taliban in Afghanistan” which were being supported by Pakistan’s ISI (See F. William Engdahl, Global Research, January 2008)

Benazir Bhutto’s successor as Prime Minister,  Mia Muhammad Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) was deposed in 1999 in a US supported coup d’Etat led by General Pervez Musharraf.

The 1999 coup was instigated by General Pervez Musharaf, with the support of the Chief of General Staff, Lieutenant General Mahmoud Ahmad (image right), who was subsequently appointed to the key position of head of military intelligence (ISI).

From the outset of the Bush administration in 2001, General Ahmad developed close ties not only with his US counterpart CIA director George Tenet, but also with key members of the US government including Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, not to mention Porter Goss, who at the time was Chairman of the House Committee on Intelligence.

Ironically, Mahmoud Ahmad is also known, according to a September 2001 FBI report, for his suspected role in supporting and financing the alleged 9/11 terrorists as well as his links to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. (See Michel Chossudovsky, America’s “war on Terrorism, Global Research, Montreal, 2005) 

Conclusion 

These various “terrorist” organizations were created as a result of CIA support. They are not the product of religion. The project to establish “a pan-Islamic Caliphate” is part of a carefully devised intelligence operation.

CIA support to Al Qaeda was not in any way curtailed at the end of the Cold War. In fact quite the opposite. The earlier pattern of covert support took on a global thrust and became increasingly sophisticated.

The “Global War on Terrorism” is a complex and intricate intelligence construct.

The covert support provided to “Islamic extremist groups” is part of an imperial agenda. It purports to weaken and eventually destroy secular and civilian governmental institutions, while also contributing to vilifying Islam. It is an instrument of colonization which seeks to undermine sovereign nation-states and transform countries into territories.

For the intelligence operation to be successful, however, the various Islamic organizations created and trained by the CIA must remain unaware of the role they are performing on the geopolitical chessboard, on behalf of Washington.

Over the years, these organizations have indeed acquired a certain degree of autonomy and independence, in relation to their US-Pakistani sponsors. That appearance of “independence”, however, is crucial; it is an integral part of the covert intelligence operation. According to former CIA agent Milton Beardman the Mujahideen were invariably unaware of the role they were performing on behalf of Washington. In the words of bin Laden (quoted by Beardman): “neither I, nor my brothers saw evidence of American help”. (Weekend Sunday (NPR); Eric Weiner, Ted Clark; 16 August 1998).

“Motivated by nationalism and religious fervor, the Islamic warriors were unaware that they were fighting the Soviet Army on behalf of Uncle Sam. While there were contacts at the upper levels of the intelligence hierarchy, Islamic rebel leaders in theatre had no contacts with Washington or the CIA.” (Michel Chossudovsky, America’s War on Terrorism, Chapter 2).

The fabrication of “terrorism” –including covert support to terrorists– is required to provide legitimacy to the “war on terrorism”.

The various fundamentalist and paramilitary groups involved in US sponsored “terrorist” activities are “intelligence assets”. In the wake of 9/11, their  designated function as “intelligence assets” is  to perform their role as credible “enemies of America”.

Under the Bush administration, the CIA continued to support (via Pakistan’s ISI) several Pakistani based Islamic groups. The ISI is known to support Jamaat a-Islami, which is also present in South East Asia, Lashkar-e-Tayya­ba, Jehad a-Kashmiri, Hizbul-Mujahidin and  Jaish-e-Mohammed.

The Islamic groups created by the CIA are also intended to rally public support in Muslim countries. The underlying objective is to create divisions within national societies throughout the Middle East and Central Asia, while also triggering sectarian strife within Islam, ultimately with a view to curbing the development of a broad based secular mass resistance, which would challenge US imperial ambitions.

This function of an outside enemy is also an essential part of war propaganda required to galvanize Western public opinion. Without an enemy, a war cannot be fought.  US foreign policy needs to fabricate an enemy, to justify its various military interventions in the Middle East and Central Asia. An enemy is required to justify a military agenda, which consists in ” going after Al Qaeda”. The fabrication and vilification of the enemy are required to justify military action.

The existence of an outside enemy sustains the illusion that the “war on terrorism” is real. It justifies and presents military intervention as a humanitarian operation based on the right to self-defense. It upholds the illusion of a “conflict of civilizations”. The underlying purpose ultimately is to conceal the real economic and strategic objectives behind the broader Middle East Central Asian war.

Historically, Pakistan has played a central role in “war on terrorism”. Pakistan constitutes from Washington’s standpoint a geopolitical hub. It borders onto Afghanistan and Iran. It has played a crucial role in the conduct of US and allied military operations in Afghanistan as well as in the context of the Pentagon’s war plans in relation to Iran.


AMERICA’S “WAR ON TERRORISM”

by Michel Chossudovsky

ISBN 0-9737147-1-9  (2005)

387 pages.

Global Research Online Price: US$14.00  (Retail $19.95)

CLICK HERE TO ORDER

In this new and expanded edition of Michel Chossudovsky’s 2002 best seller, the author blows away the smokescreen put up by the mainstream media, that 9/11 was an attack on America by “Islamic terrorists”.  Through meticulous research, the author uncovers a military-intelligence ploy behind the September 11 attacks, and the cover-up and complicity of key members of the Bush Administration.

The expanded edition, which includes twelve new chapters focuses on the use of 9/11 as a pretext for the invasion and illegal occupation of Iraq, the militarisation of justice and law enforcement and the repeal of democracy.

According to Chossudovsky, the  “war on terrorism” is a complete fabrication based on the illusion that one man, Osama bin Laden, outwitted the $40 billion-a-year American intelligence apparatus. The “war on terrorism” is a war of conquest. Globalisation is the final march to the “New World Order”, dominated by Wall Street and the U.S. military-industrial complex.

September 11, 2001 provides a justification for waging a war without borders. Washington’s agenda consists in extending the frontiers of the American Empire to facilitate complete U.S. corporate control, while installing within America the institutions of the Homeland Security State.

Chossudovsky peels back layers of rhetoric to reveal a complex web of deceit aimed at luring the American people and the rest of the world into accepting a military solution which threatens the future of humanity. 

“Millions of people have been misled regarding the causes and consequences of September 11.

When people across the US and around the World find out that Al Qaeda is not an outside enemy but a creation of US foreign policy and the CIA, the legitimacy of the bipartisan war agenda will tumble like a deck of cards.”

Across the land, the image of an “outside enemy” is instilled in the consciousness of Americans. Al Qaeda is threatening America and the world. The repeal of democracy under the Patriot legislation is portrayed as a means to providing “domestic security” and upholding civil liberties.

The 9/11 Commission Report destroys the historical record of US covert support to international terrorism, while creating the illusion that America and “Western Civilization” are threatened. In turn, the various terrorist warnings and code orange alerts have created, across America, an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.

Michel Chossudovsky, America’s “War on Terrorism”,  Global Research 2005
CLICK HERE TO ORDER

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Documents that the ruling class tried to keep confidential are confirming that ADE (Antibody-dependent enhancement), VAED (Vaccine-Associated Enhanced Disease), and AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) are common outcomes after COVID-19 injections. These diseases come on often months after taking the shots.

AIDS is particularly alarming, as it is appearing in a disturbing number of recipients just five months after their initial injections.

Antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) and Vaccine-Associated Enhanced Disease (VAED). are serious adverse events that can occur after vaccination.

ADE and VAED can occur when an individual is exposed to a pathogen, such as the alleged Covid-19 virus, after receiving a vaccine that does not provide full immunity.

In these cases, the vaccine-induced antibodies may actually enhance the ability of the pathogen to infect cells, leading to more severe illness than if the individual had not received the vaccine.

When a vaccine causes ADE or VAED, it can have significant public health implications.

First and foremost, individuals who receive the vaccine and develop ADE or VAE may suffer from severe illness, and in some cases, even death. -The Daily Exposé

One example of a bacterial infection that could potentially be worsened by ADE or VAE is streptococcus A (strep A) infection. Strep A is a type of bacteria that can cause a wide range of illnesses, including sore throat, pneumonia, and sepsis. You will have most likely seen in the mainstream news that Strep A infection is killing children all over this winter.

Government documents show that the most likely cause of all of these diseases is the COVID-19 injection.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) attempted to delay the release of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine safety data for 75 years despite approving the injection after only 108 days of safety review on December 11th, 2020.

The FDA originally said that they were prepared to release 500 pages per month in a response to the Freedom of Information (FOI) request filed on behalf of Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency (PHMPT) requesting the safety data.

Instead, in early January 2022, Federal Judge Mark Pittman ordered them to release 55,000 pages per month. They released 12,000 pages by the end of January.

Since then, PHMPT has posted all of the documents to its website. -The Daily Exposé

One of the documents contained in the latest data dump is ‘reissue_5.3.6 postmarketing experience.pdf’. Table 5, found on page 11 of the document shows an ‘Important Potential Risk’, and that risk is listed as ‘Vaccine-Associated Enhanced Disease (VAED), including Vaccine-Associated Enhanced Respiratory Disease (VAERD)’.

This evidence was published by The Daily Expose and is rather damning, and horrifying for those who have taken these shots or given them to their own children. These documents could help explain the instances of SADS or sudden adult death sydrome, as well as all of those who have “died suddenly” in the past year since these shots have been rolled out with force.

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Featured image is from COVID Intel


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

by Michel Chossudovsky

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

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

Reviews

This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon

In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia

In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig 

Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac

A reading of  Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late.  You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin

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

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

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

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On August 28th, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks chose the occasion of a three-day conference organized by the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA), the arms industry’s biggest trade group, to announce the “Replicator Initiative.” Among other things, it would involve producing “swarms of drones” that could hit thousands of targets in China on short notice. Call it the full-scale launching of techno-war.

Her speech to the assembled arms makers was yet another sign that the military-industrial complex (MIC) President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about more than 60 years ago,ttttttttttttttttttttttttttt is still alive, all too well, and taking a new turn. Call it the MIC for the digital age.

Hicks described the goal of the Replicator Initiative this way:

“To stay ahead [of China], we’re going to create a new state of the art… leveraging attritable, autonomous systems in all domains which are less expensive, put fewer people at risk, and can be changed, upgraded, or improved with substantially shorter lead times… We’ll counter the PLA’s [People’s Liberation Army’s] with mass of our own, but ours will be harder to plan for, harder to hit, and harder to beat.”

Think of it as artificial intelligence (AI) goes to war — and oh, that word “attritable,” a term that doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue or mean much of anything to the average taxpayer, is pure Pentagonese for the ready and rapid replaceability of systems lost in combat. Let’s explore later whether the Pentagon and the arms industry are even capable of producing the kinds of cheap, effective, easily replicable techno-war systems Hicks touted in her speech. First, though, let me focus on the goal of such an effort: confronting China.

Target: China

However one gauges China’s appetite for military conflict — as opposed to relying more heavily on its increasingly powerful political and economic tools of influence — the Pentagon is clearly proposing a military-industrial fix for the challenge posed by Beijing. As Hicks’s speech to those arms makers suggests, that new strategy is going to be grounded in a crucial premise: that any future technological arms race will rely heavily on the dream of building ever cheaper, ever more capable weapons systems based on the rapid development of near-instant communications, artificial intelligence, and the ability to deploy such systems on short notice.

The vision Hicks put forward to the NDIA is, you might already have noticed, untethered from the slightest urge to respond diplomatically or politically to the challenge of Beijing as a rising great power. It matters little that those would undoubtedly be the most effective ways to head off a future conflict with China.

Such a non-military approach would be grounded in a clearly articulated return to this country’s longstanding “One China” policy. Under it, the U.S. would forgo any hint of the formal political recognition of the island of Taiwan as a separate state, while Beijing would commit itself to limiting to peaceful means its efforts to absorb that island.

There are numerous other issues where collaboration between the two nations could move the U.S. and China from a policy of confrontation to one of cooperation, as noted in a new paper by my colleague Jake Werner of the Quincy Institute: “1) development in the Global South; 2) addressing climate change; 3) renegotiating global trade and economic rules; and 4) reforming international institutions to create a more open and inclusive world order.”

Achieving such goals on this planet now might seem like a tall order, but the alternative — bellicose rhetoric and aggressive forms of competition that increase the risk of war — should be considered both dangerous and unacceptable.

On the other side of the equation, proponents of increasing Pentagon spending to address the purported dangers of the rise of China are masters of threat inflation. They find it easy and satisfying to exaggerate both Beijing’s military capabilities and its global intentions in order to justify keeping the military-industrial complex amply funded into the distant future.

As Dan Grazier of the Project on Government Oversight noted in a December 2022 report, while China has made significant strides militarily in the past few decades, its strategy is “inherently defensive” and poses no direct threat to the United States. At present, in fact, Beijing lags behind Washington strikingly when it comes to both military spending and key capabilities, including having a far smaller (though still undoubtedly devastating) nuclear arsenal, a less capable Navy, and fewer major combat aircraft. None of this would, however, be faintly obvious if you only listened to the doomsayers on Capitol Hill and in the halls of the Pentagon.

But as Grazier points out, this should surprise no one since “threat inflation has been the go-to tool for defense spending hawks for decades.” That was, for instance, notably the case at the end of the Cold War of the last century, after the Soviet Union had disintegrated, when then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell so classically said:

“Think hard about it. I’m running out of demons. I’m running out of villains. I’m down to [Cuba’s Fidel] Castro and Kim Il-sung [the late North Korean dictator].”

Needless to say, that posed a grave threat to the Pentagon’s financial fortunes and Congress did indeed insist then on significant reductions in the size of the armed forces, offering less funds to spend on new weaponry in the first few post-Cold War years. But the Pentagon was quick to highlight a new set of supposed threats to American power to justify putting military spending back on the upswing.

With no great power in sight, it began focusing instead on the supposed dangers of regional powers like Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. It also greatly overstated their military strength in its drive to be funded to win not one but two major regional conflicts at the same time. This process of switching to new alleged threats to justify a larger military establishment was captured strikingly in Michael Klare’s 1995 book Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws.

After the 9/11 attacks, that “rogue states” rationale was, for a time, superseded by the disastrous “Global War on Terror,” a distinctly misguided response to those terrorist acts. It would spawn trillions of dollars of spending on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a global counter-terror presence that included U.S. operations in 85 — yes, 85! — countries, as strikingly documented by the Costs of War Project at Brown University.

Map from United States Counterterrorism Operations 2018-2020 (2021) by Stephanie Savell (Source: Costs of War)

All of that blood and treasure, including hundreds of thousands of direct civilian deaths (and many more indirect ones), as well as thousands of American deaths and painful numbers of devastating physical and psychological injuries to U.S. military personnel, resulted in the installation of unstable or repressive regimes whose conduct — in the case of Iraq — helped set the stage for the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) terror organization.

As it turned out, those interventions proved to be anything but either the “cakewalk” or the flowering of democracy predicted by the advocates of America’s post-9/11 wars. Give them full credit, though! They proved to be a remarkably efficient money machine for the denizens of the military-industrial complex.

Constructing “the China Threat”

As for China, its status as the threat du jour gained momentum during the Trump years. In fact, for the first time since the twentieth century, the Pentagon’s 2018 defense strategy document targeted “great power competition” as the wave of the future.

One particularly influential document from that period was the report of the congressionally mandated National Defense Strategy Commission. That body critiqued the Pentagon’s strategy of the moment, boldly claiming (without significant backup information) that the Defense Department was not planning to spend enough to address the military challenge posed by great power rivals, with a primary focus on China.

The commission proposed increasing the Pentagon’s budget by 3% to 5% above inflation for years to come — a move that would have pushed it to an unprecedented $1 trillion or more within a few years. Its report would then be extensively cited by Pentagon spending boosters in Congress, most notably former Senate Armed Services Committee Chair James Inhofe (R-OK), who used to literally wave it at witnesses in hearings and ask them to pledge allegiance to its dubious findings.

That 3% to 5% real growth figure caught on with prominent hawks in Congress and, until the recent chaos in the House of Representatives, spending did indeed fit just that pattern. What has not been much discussed is research by the Project on Government Oversight showing that the commission that penned the report and fueled those spending increases was heavily weighted toward individuals with ties to the arms industry.

Its co-chair, for instance, served on the board of the giant weapons maker Northrop Grumman, and most of the other members had been or were advisers or consultants to the industry, or worked in think tanks heavily funded by just such corporations. So, we were never talking about a faintly objective assessment of U.S. “defense” needs.

Beware of Pentagon “Techno-Enthusiasm”

Just so no one would miss the point in her NDIA speech, Kathleen Hicks reiterated that the proposed transformation of weapons development with future techno-war in mind was squarely aimed at Beijing. “We must,” she said, “ensure the PRC leadership wakes up every day, considers the risks of aggression and concludes, ‘today is not the day’ — and not just today, but every day, between now and 2027, now and 2035, now and 2049, and beyond… Innovation is how we do that.”

The notion that advanced military technology could be the magic solution to complex security challenges runs directly against the actual record of the Pentagon and the arms industry over the past five decades. In those years, supposedly “revolutionary” new systems like the F-35 combat aircraft, the Army’s Future Combat System (FCS), and the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship have been notoriously plagued by cost overruns, schedule delays, performance problems, and maintenance challenges that have, at best, severely limited their combat capabilities. In fact, the Navy is already planning to retire a number of those Littoral Combat Ships early, while the whole FCS program was canceled outright.

In short, the Pentagon is now betting on a complete transformation of how it and the industry do business in the age of AI — a long shot, to put it mildly.

But you can count on one thing: the new approach is likely to be a gold mine for weapons contractors, even if the resulting weaponry doesn’t faintly perform as advertised. This quest will not be without political challenges, most notably finding the many billions of dollars needed to pursue the goals of the Replicator Initiative, while staving off lobbying by producers of existing big-ticket items like aircraft carriers, bombers, and fighter jets.

Members of Congress will defend such current-generation systems fiercely to keep weapons spending flowing to major corporate contractors and so into key congressional districts. One solution to the potential conflict between funding the new systems touted by Hicks and the costly existing programs that now feed the titans of the arms industry: jack up the Pentagon’s already massive budget and head for that trillion-dollar peak, which would be the highest level of such spending since World War II.

The Pentagon has long built its strategy around supposed technological marvels like the “electronic battlefield” in the Vietnam era; the “revolution in military affairs,” first touted in the early 1990s; and the precision-guided munitions praised since at least the 1991 Persian Gulf war. It matters little that such wonder weapons have never performed as advertised.

For example, a detailed Government Accountability Office report on the bombing campaign in the Gulf War found that “the claim by DOD [Department of Defense] and contractors of a one-target, one-bomb capability for laser-guided munitions was not demonstrated in the air campaign where, on average, 11 tons of guided and 44 tons of unguided munitions were delivered on each successfully destroyed target.”

When such advanced weapons systems can be made to work, at enormous cost in time and money, they almost invariably prove of limited value, even against relatively poorly armed adversaries (as in Iraq and Afghanistan in this century). China, a great power rival with a modern industrial base and a growing arsenal of sophisticated weaponry, is another matter. The quest for decisive military superiority over Beijing and the ability to win a war against a nuclear-armed power should be (but isn’t) considered a fool’s errand, more likely to spur a war than deter it, with potentially disastrous consequences for all concerned.

Perhaps most dangerous of all, a drive for the full-scale production of AI-based weaponry will only increase the likelihood that future wars could be fought all too disastrously without human intervention. As Michael Klare pointed out in a report for the Arms Control Association, relying on such systems will also magnify the chances of technical failures, as well as misguided AI-driven targeting decisions that could spur unintended slaughter and decision-making without human intervention. The potentially disastrous malfunctioning of such autonomous systems might, in turn, only increase the possibility of nuclear conflict.

It would still be possible to rein in the Pentagon’s techno-enthusiasm by slowing the development of the kinds of systems highlighted in Hicks’s speech, while creating international rules of the road regarding their future development and deployment. But the time to start pushing back against yet another misguided “techno-revolution” is now, before automated warfare increases the risk of a global catastrophe. Emphasizing new weaponry over creative diplomacy and smart political decisions is a recipe for disaster in the decades to come. There has to be a better way.

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William D. Hartung, a TomDispatch regular, is a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and the author of “More Money, Less Security: Pentagon Spending and Strategy in the Biden Administration.”

Featured image: Drone by Underway In Ireland is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 / Flickr

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US-India regime change in Sri Lanka in 2015 & multinational corporations promoting Mauricio Macri as President of Argentina also in 2015 have similarities. IMF/WB began playing key roles after the regime change. IMF & World Bank have a history of turning poor Global South nations into LOAN ADDICTS & then saddling them with DEBT.

Loans debts are a new form of colonization. More loans are given to repay loans as well as to survive which only adds to the spiraling debt. Spiralling debt means the need to secure more loans & this impedes any programs for self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency is curtailed by getting developing nations to accept IMF neo-liberal free market models as ‘their solution’ to ‘restoring economic stability & growth”- the power of media & propaganda together with hired locals are used to euthanize the citizens into thinking IMF/WB is their savior.

The regime change of 2015 in both nations saw heavy use of technology to reach voters. Cambridge Analytica (British political propaganda firm) was deeply involved with the help of Facebook to profile users & persuade their vote. Elections in third world nations are manipulated by ‘agents’ of multinational corporations. In 2015 it was Macri in Argentina & Sirisena in Sri Lanka. Macri was inside the multination trojan horse entering Argentina.

Macri’s was tasked to reverse all that the former government of Nestor Kirchner had done without going to the IMF.

Macri rolled out IMF measures that were advantageous to corporations & not the Argentinian people. In 2018 he signed the largest loan with the IMF of $57 billion  while after 2015 Sri Lanka took $12.5b ISBs (international sovereign bonds) Argentina, went from being free of debt in 2015 to taking on a debt of $57 billion.

Argentina & IMF

  • 1958 taken 1st loan – 22 loans taken from IMF since 1958
  • 2015 – Macri took 2 IMF loans – $50b & $7b ($57billion) largest in history
  • IMF was created in 1944 to promote human welfare – where is that welfare when IMF promotes budget cuts that that lead to job losses.

How was this money used?

30% of the total loan was used for “capital leakage” – $53.2m was used to pay off interest accumulated by the IMF’s administrative & advisory services (they give with one hand & take back with the other & we think they are doing us favors) The large chunk of the loan was used to simply pay off interest & the remainder was to be authorized by the IMF for internal expenses. So the Govt had no choice or ability to do anything – not even build a bridge or a school or a hospital. That loan was in fact of no use and it only diminished the living standards of the Argentinians. None of the loan went to the welfare of the poor – it just disappeared.

IMF even had an office inside Argentina’s Central Bank, where Argentina governs its monetary policy. Argentina could do NOTHING without IMF’s approval and authorization.

The loan taken by Macri was used for his campaign & to promote himself.

Macri left Argentina crying. IMF stands guilty of watching Argentina collapse.

His successor Alberto Fernandez is now tasked to handle the damage by Macri & IMF. Macri had destroyed the working class & the middle class.

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The announcement of the lockdown by Fernández was generally well received, although there were concerns with its economic impact. (Licensed under CC BY 2.5 ar)

Fernandez not only had to deal with the debt from loans but also the pandemic & the spills of Ukraine war and a drought.

This IMF loan taken by Macri by end of 2019 constituted 89% of Argentina’s GDP & was passed on to the next govt.

Macri left doing all the damage & handing the headache to Fernandez no different to how Yahapalana govt left Gotabaya Rajapakse to handle ISB repayment and a pandemic, leading to his ouster that brought back the Yahapalana damage maker. Argentina’s case has been somewhat different though both nations are suffering economic & political volatility.

The weaknesses of government policy as well as political will enables entities like IMF/WB to take the upper hand. The lack of ability to explain to the people the real situation by governments is also a key factor. Everyone ends up punishing those who were not responsible for the crisis. All loans are generally taken & enjoyed by a handful while the working class are forced to meet the repayments via increased prices & taxes.

Argentinian President Fernandez however is saying that the IMF 2018 deal was illegally passed without going through proper legislative channels. Was this the case with the ISBs in Sri Lanka as well? The governor at that time is today an economic advisor to the current President who was PM when the ISBs were taken. The IMF’s silence on the 2018 deal shows its guilt.

Argentinians are intelligent – they have understood the problem and openly say “Never again IMF”. They have been victims of both political & economic interference by the IMF and the IMF has shown that it has no solutions and just creates more problems. It’s a pity Sri Lanka does not understand this because IMF & Sri Lanka’s leaders are treating Sri Lankans like heroin addicts & injecting them with minimum dosage to prevent that mass realization. Only a handful who have read & followed the IMF’s failed policies in other parts of the world can comprehend the futility of giving VIP treatment to the IMF & World Bank.

The IMF was created by the US to manipulate the international economic order. If this fundamental fact is forgotten, IMF’s real objectives in their loan deals will get hidden.

IMF interfered in the economic & public policies of Argentina in the 1990s & caused a crisis which resulted in an insurrection. Paying off debt by privatizing is not the answer & is likely to cause more political & social tensions that a government cannot solve & leading to the requirement for foreign intervention – is this the real game plan?

The elite & upper middle class Sri Lankans want to continue to enjoy their lifestyle without caring what it costs the poor to sustain. All that they enjoy which they think they are paying for is brought to them by taxing the majority who are poor & eating into the foreign reserves as a result of the over-reliance on import of unnecessary items to satisfy the upper echelons of Sri Lankan society.

The moment their comforts are curtailed they sponsor “aragala” which is what took place in 2022 fooling the people into thinking it to be “their struggle”. It was actually a struggle caused by tax cuts for the elite and by import restrictions due to the pandemic which angered them beyond measure. The unelected successor knowing the game, is happy to take loans, pile them on the poor & ensure no power cuts or any cuts discomfort the rich.

In the case of Macri when he came to power in 2015, Argentina did not have significant external debt. But by the time he left in 2019, Argentina was made $70b in debt through bonds that enriched vulture capitalists as well as ministers & friends of the govt who have become wealthy at the cost of the people through financial speculation.

Macri was happy to sell out his motherland – Sri Lanka has similar sellout champions. Just as IMF loans are no solution, selling out Sri Lanka is no solution either. To get Sri Lanka back on its feet, some tough measures are needed, accompanied by discipline and cut down on wastage from top down; everyone needs to buckle down. Apart from what is needed for the tourism industry, all other non-essential imports must be stopped.

A coupon system must introduced to ensure the lower stratas especially those that contribute to self-sufficiency like the farmers do not suffer & are helped to be more productive. Unnoticed we see foreigners being employed subtly in Sri Lanka while unemployment among Sri Lankans is rising. There has to be a 360 degree change in attitude especially by those that enjoy the dividends of the loans taken while the poorer segments are being taxed.

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Shenali D Waduge is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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*** 

It has long been known that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a very special relationship with Klaus Schwab, CEO of the World Economic Forum (WEF). Trudeau is also one of Schwab’s favored Young Global Leaders (YGL). In Schwab’s own words – “We are proud to be able infiltrating our YGLs into governments around the world.” Trudeau was infiltrated as PM into Canada’s government.

It is no secret: Trudeau is one of Schwab’s top darlings.

” But what we are really proud of now with the young generation like Prime Minister Trudeau, President of Argentina and so on, is that we penetrate the cabinets… It is true in Argentina and it is true in France now… (Klaus Schwab)

Click here or image to access Video 

Looks like this “infiltration” pays off.

If Trudeau’s transferring more than a hundred million dollars of Canadian tax money to the WEF, via the infiltrates process referred to by Schwab the WEF is generating its own business, by generating money from the countries that implement the WEF’s globalist policies. How absurd.

What to expect. We are living in a world where war is peace and lie is truth.

According to a “Counter Signal” video (see below, 8 minutes) of Street Politics Canada, reveals that Canadian PM Justin Trudeau has transferred large sums of money to the World Economic Forum, for them to produce a fraudulent and fake report on the climate crisis, so that he, Trudeau, then may implement his own stern climate agenda at home – which is also the WEF’s agenda.

So, you may ask, why pay for the fake report?

The “Counter Signal” video purports that Trudeau is beholden to the WEF and wants the WEF to support his “climate change” agenda, which may lead to lockdowns, mask wearing and new rounds of coerced vaxxes — in schools, workplaces, and the homes of the elderly – for diseases yet to be invented. The agenda is clear. It would be a new round of genocide for the eugenists behind UN Agenda 2030, the Great Reset and the all-digitizing 4th Industrial Revolution.

Again, why would Trudeau have to pay for such a report – when he is doing the WEF’s bidding?

Already in 2019, Trudeau’s government allocated nearly half a million dollars of tax payers’ money for WEF’s report.

This WEF report was to make an economic case to justify Canada’s climate change policies.

These policies are already being implemented. One of the criminal anti-climate actions, to fake global warming, were the manmade forest fires.

Livemint.com reports:

Canada’s fire season this year has been described as ‘never before seen’, with a record-breaking 18 million hectares burned and over 200,000 people evacuated. The fires have had huge long-term consequences, devastating the forest landscape and contributing to climate change (highlighted by author). See this.

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Among other insanities, the WEF report says,

“Science has never been clearer – and the voice of citizens has never been louder – that we are reaching irreversible tipping points in key biomes of the planet that keep the balance of all life on Earth intact. There is an urgent need for change to ensure that there is equity in our society and harmony with our ecosystem… for a stable and healthy planet for future generations.”

It goes on,

“What is required is bold policy ambition and decisive political leadership to send a signal that business as usual is no longer valid.”

There we go. This inevitably leads to a carbon tax which had already been planned way before 2020 and before the WEF report was produced. The carbon tax was subsequently increased from $ 40 / ton [of CO2] to $ 170.

Where does this money go? Just into Trudeau’s black-box budget?

How is it used to fight climate change?

Does anybody ask?

Many financially struggling Canadians may ask this question, as they have been left in the cold, first by COVID-induced unemployment, then by the ever-ongoing fearmongering about climate disasters and job insecurity and eventually, another plandemic on the horizon – and more of those to come. Not to forget – WHO had long ago declared the decade of 2020-2030 as the vaccination decade.

Just remember, disaster will not happen if we are not afraid and if we do not allow it to happen. We have the strength. We are many. They are few.

Remember also, any vaccination – way beyond COVID, and the ridiculously called “virus X” — is now based on the mRNA [deadly spike protein] method. The 2020-2030 vax decade is an eugenist agenda.

Be not afraid. Just do not get vaxed.

This was not the first time the Canadian government invented reasons to transfer money to the WEF. And to the detriment of Canadian citizens, it was recently revealed that the Trudeau government has an ongoing $105 million contract with the WEF for the known Traveler Digital ID. It is no longer a conspiracy theory. It is a contractual fact. See this  or this.

If indeed carried through, Canada would be one of the pioneers to implement this infamous and enslaving digital Traveler ID – clandestinely, no transparency – nobody is being told what kind of information is being stored on this ID. Trudeau wants to shine in front of his mentor and supporter – his Great Teacher, Klaus Schwab, who is about to make Trudeau destroy beautiful Canada.

It is highly suspected that Trudeau and the WEF will use the Canadian example as sort of a trailblazer for other countries to follow with a digital ID, integrated into a digital, constantly updated, vax certificate and personal banking records.

Mr. Trudeau, long before the onset of Agenda 2030 alias Great Reset, has been selling sovereign Canada to the WEF’s and UN’s Globalist Agenda. And this without the Canadian people’s consent.

The question remains, why would Trudeau pay the WEF for helping him implement the WEF’s agenda? Is he seeking “legitimacy” for his actions?

Or, is he hoping and buying potentially needed WEF protection if things get ugly.

If anything is getting loud and louder – it is the call for Trudeau’s resignation.

Canadians are waking up.

Do not let it happen.

Your resistance will be a signal to the world that people’s willpower and peaceful solidarity must and can resist this tyranny which is planned to being cast upon us worldwide.

So far, it is just a plan. FEAR NOT. Fear is their weapon number one.

We, the people, have the mental and solidarity power to stop the plan from being implemented.

The People of Canada – like in the Canadian truck drivers strike of January 2022 – have had enough of WEF policy, paid for by their tax money to infringe on Canada’s — the Peoples of Canada – sovereignty.

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

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

COVID-19 mRNA Vaccinated Found Dead in Their Vehicles

October 5th, 2023 by Dr. William Makis

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Perth, WA, Australia – 49 year old Romanian dad and granddad Dan Moraru was mandated by his work to have two Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines, which he had on Jan.1, 2022 and Feb.1, 2022. On July 7, 2022 he was found dead in his truck.

Sep. 17, 2023 – Palermo, Italy – 34 year old bricklayer had a “sudden illness” behind the wheel of his car, got out of his car, collapsed and died suddenly.

Sep.9, 2023 – NSW, Australia – 36 year old Charlie Newling, new father of a baby girl and Australian reality TV series The Bachelorette Star, died after his car “plunged from a cliff.”

Sep. 7, 2023 – Caucete, Argentina – Political candidate Nestor Dominguez was found dead in his car on a public road.

Aug. 18, 2023 – UK – 55 year old Karl Wakeham was found dead in his car, which he had parked down a side street.

Aug. 15, 2023 – Italian Pilot Carlo Mariani died unexpectedly after a “sudden illness” He spent the day in the sky, launched parachuters, landed his Pilatus Plane, went to the parking lot, got in his car, had a cardiac arrest and died in his car.

July 14, 2023 – Philadelphia, PA – 44 year old Police Officer Lynneice Hill, was found unresponsive in her patrol car and died suddenly on July 14, 2023 in her car.

July 2, 2023 – Padua, Italy – 22 year old Giacomo Ortolan was found dead in his car on July 2, 2023 in the Montagnana countryside. He was discovered by a passerby.

June 27, 2023 – Germany – 53 year old German party singer Sascha Loudovici, member of music group “Chaos Team”, who made over 90 appearances per year with their live DJ party shows was found dead in his car in on June 27, 2023 from cardiac arrest.

June 6, 2023 -19 year old Colorado State University track athlete Colton Kaase was found dead in his parked car on University campus on June 6, 2023. Coroner’s Office said he died of pulmonary embolism.

May 25, 2023 – Houston, TX – Police Officer Fredrick Portis was found dead in his patrol car, parked on the side of the road, in the evening with the lights still flashing. Autopsy showed brain bleed due to aneurysm.

April 13, 2023 – Gainesville, GA – 40 year old Phillip Pumphrey was found dead in his car from natural causes.

Feb. 15, 2023 – Ireland – 39 year old Linzi Floyd collapsed in the car park around 9:45pm and died suddenly. Autopsy showed cause of death as “undetermined.”

Feb. 4, 2023 – Beverly, NJ – 38 year old John Lash had a medical emergency while driving home from a friends house and died suddenly in his car on Feb. 4, 2023.

Oct. 6, 2022 – Saskatoon, SK – 19 year old Syed Nasir Shah was found dead in his car outside the gym, after working out.

My Take…

I am writing this substack in memory of Dan Moraru. He left Romania in 1991 shortly after Communism fell, to give his family a better life in Australia.

I left communist Czechoslovakia in 1988 for a better life in Canada, through a United Nations refugee camp in Yugoslavia where we met many Romanian families who were fleeing Communism. Some of them had been stuck in the refugee camp for 5 years, a few even longer.

Having lived through Communism, Dan was suspicious of the COVID-19 vaccine, but was mandated to take it or lose his job. Dan survived Romania’s communism. He didn’t survive Australia’s COVID-19 fascism. He was dead after his 2nd Pfizer mRNA shot, from a brain bleed, one of the more common causes of post mRNA Vaccine sudden deaths in young people.

I’ve written substacks about COVID-19 Vaccinated people collapsing behind the wheel and crashing their cars, trucks, or the buses or school buses they were driving. I’m the only physician warning about this for many months now.

This is still happening on a regular basis.

COVID-19 Vaccinated young people are being found dead in their vehicles from cardiac arrests, heart attacks, pulmonary emboli (blood clots in lungs), brain bleeds, aneurysms, strokes, etc.

Whenever you hear about a vehicle crash, look for the words “suffered a medical emergency”. This is how these deaths are being referred to now.

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

Featured image is from NaturalNews.com


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

by Michel Chossudovsky

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

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

Reviews

This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon

In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia

In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig 

Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac

A reading of  Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late.  You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin

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

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

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

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The German Minister of Foreign Affairs, Annalena Baerbock, is once again involved in controversies against Russia. This time, the minister promised that Russian territories will soon be part of the EU, which sounds simultaneously provocative and unrealistic, considering that Moscow will not allow any part of its Federation to be captured by Western powers and their Ukrainian proxy.

During informal meetings with European politicians, Baerbock said that the future of Ukraine “lies in the EU”, with Kiev moving closer to gaining admission as it – reportedly – “liberates” territories controlled by Russian forces. Interestingly, Baerbock mentioned that the EU will soon “stretch from Lisbon to Lugansk”, making it clear that Ukrainian access to the bloc will occur after an eventual Ukrainian capture of the new Russian regions.

Baerbock also stated that the European community will help Kiev to overcome its internal problems and carry out reforms that will make the country suitable to EU’s political, democratic requirements, with the priority for now, however, being to defeat the Russians.

“Ukraine’s future lies in the European Union, our community of freedom, and it will soon stretch from Lisbon to Lugansk. It [Ukraine] also broadens its path to the EU with every village, every meter that it liberates, and every meter where it saves its people (…) These are things like changing legislation in the legal field, in the media field, but also in terms of fighting corruption, and we are openly discussing the issue that we can expand this path together with our partners here in Ukraine,” Baerbock said.

As well known, Lugansk is an ex-Ukrainian territory, which, after claiming sovereignty for eight years, was reintegrated into the Russian Federation after legitimate referendums that took place in 2022. In these referendums, the regions of Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporozhye also returned to being officially part of Russia. The legal status of these regions has already been formalized in Moscow, and there is no doubt to the fact that they are part of the Russian Federation.

Obviously, Kiev and the West do not recognize this reality and insist on the “need” for the Ukrainian armed forces to regain these territories. But this insistence, in practice, is merely rhetorical, since militarily the Ukrainians do not have enough power to confront the Russian forces and capture these regions. And, likewise, the local people are mostly ethnic Russians and supporters of the Russian government and the special operation.

So, no matter how much Ukraine and the West refuse to formally recognize the reintegration, the union of these regions with Russia is a reality that cannot be ignored. This makes Baerbock’s words a mere bluff. In fact, if Ukraine want to “regain” Lugansk to become a member of the EU, then Kiev will never gain access to the European bloc, as the Russians not only have enough strength to protect their territories, but will also certainly try to liberate even more areas, since until now no security guarantee has been given by NATO, making it impossible to avoid the prolongation of the conflict and the reintegration of more regions.

In addition to a bluff, Baerbock also makes clear the hostile position of Germany and the entire EU when commenting on these issues. As long as there is insistence on the Ukrainian advance into the regions that the Russians recognize as theirs, there will be no possibility of peace talks. As Russian authorities have stated several times, diplomatic negotiations can be resumed, as long as they are under the terms established by Moscow. These terms obviously include the recognition of the liberated territories as Russian and the demilitarization of Ukraine. Without this, there will be no talks and hostilities will continue, causing even more losses for Ukraine itself.

If the EU really wanted to give access to Kiev, the bloc would act more responsibly and advise the Ukrainian government to accept Russian peace terms and commit not to join NATO. But, as well known, the EU has no intention of really benefiting the Ukrainians and is just bluffing when saying that Kiev is “close” to getting its place in the union. The real objective of the EU and NATO was never to allow greater integration on the part of Ukraine, but to force Kiev to fight “to the last Ukrainian“.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from PACE

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*** 

Very few (if any) countries in the world have as much historical responsibility as Germany does. And yet it seems Berlin is starting to take an increasingly lax attitude towards it. As if the effective revival of its “Drang nach Osten” [Drive to the East to conquer Slavic countries] idea wasn’t enough already, German-owned media are now allowed to publish content that serves to whitewash Nazism, the world’s most repulsive ideology. And while it was defeated on the battlefield nearly 80 years ago, the ghost of Nazism (or its rotten zombified corpse, to be exact) keeps being reanimated by the political west. As we all know now, back in 2014, this was exactly what happened to Ukraine, a country in which Nazis slaughtered at least seven million people (although some estimates put the number at over 10 million).

After it was hijacked by Nazis, Ukraine was turned into their stronghold and they decided to “finish the job”, only this time by sending countless forcibly conscripted Ukrainians to certain death in a suicidal confrontation with Russia. The mainstream propaganda machine’s attempts to whitewash the Kiev regime’s unrepentant display of allegiance to its ideological (and, in many cases, literal) forefathers are also duly noted. However, it keeps backfiring, as evidenced by the recent scandal with the Canadian Parliament giving a standing ovation to a literal Nazi veteran of the infamous SS “Galizien” Division that committed numerous atrocities against Russians, Ukrainians, Poles and Jews,  during the Second World War.

On the other hand, even if the members of the SS “Galizien” decided not to touch a single civilian, the very fact that they were directly subordinated to and fought alongside the Wehrmacht should be more than enough to reject them for what they are – unadulterated genocidal killers. Any sort of support for Nazi Germany, be it direct or indirect, implies complicity in its murderous campaigns. And yet, when it comes to the mainstream propaganda machine, things are “much more complicated” nowadays, because there are Nazis who “weren’t so bad” for the sole reason they fought Russia during WW2. This is precisely what Politico claims in one of its latest takes on the Canadian Parliament scandal involving the standing ovation for the aforementioned Nazi veteran.

Namely, Keir Giles, a British writer obsessed with Russia and, as of October 2, a self-exposed Nazi apologist, argued that the scandal is effectively “Russian propaganda” and that the SS “did nothing wrong”. According to Giles, the history of SS “Galizien” is supposedly “complicated” and this “can be a gift to propagandists who exploit the appeal of simplicity”. The reason why the case of Nazi veteran Yaroslav Hunka is “complicated” is because “fighting against the USSR at the time didn’t necessarily make you a Nazi“, he argues. Giles further questions whether the SS’s primary task was genocide, claiming that foreign members of SS units were equivalent to “regular Wehrmacht soldiers and officers, meaning they didn’t necessarily commit atrocities”.

In other words, Giles is openly ignoring the Wehrmacht’s direct participation in countless war crimes committed against Poles, Russians, Serbs, Jews and others who were the primary targets of Nazi Germany. This recurring myth has now become one of the most common propaganda tropes used by Nazi apologists such as Giles. Worse yet, he is openly denying that the unit Hunka fought in committed any atrocities and is accusing the Russian Embassy in Ottawa of “propaganda” and “lies”, and even goes as far as to equate Russia and Nazi Germany. He doesn’t stop there however, and also accuses the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies of supposedly “lying” that SS “Galizien” committed war crimes.

Throughout his rant on the Hunka scandal, Giles keeps parroting that the truth is “complex” and that the accusations against SS “Galizien” are supposedly “evidence-free”. According to him, the whole controversy is just a “Russian propaganda plot” to allegedly undermine Canada. This is a common trope used by clinical Russophobes. Even when there’s no direct or even indirect involvement of Moscow, they still somehow manage to see it. Giles then goes as far as to effectively condemn Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for apologizing over the Hunka scandal, calling it a supposed “acquiescence to the rewriting of history by Russia and its backers”, once again claiming that SS “Galizien” and Hunka “did nothing wrong”.

It’s very important to note that this is the umpteenth time Nazism is being whitewashed by the mainstream propaganda machine. This is a particularly common occurrence when promoting Russophobia becomes more important for the political west than acknowledging basic historical truths. Twisting facts by calling them “complex” doesn’t change anything, while futile attempts to equate Russia and Nazi Germany also lead nowhere. Anyone with a single functioning brain cell understands what the latter would do if it ever had the destructive power Moscow wields. However, these attempts continue, as rabid Russophobes keep seeing the “evil hand of Putin” under their beds, but simply have no other argument except fabrications.

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

The Unique Truth and Reality of New World Order

October 5th, 2023 by Prof. Maurice Okoli

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The Valdai Discussion Club has held its 20th Annual Meeting under the unique theme “Fair Multipolarity: How to Ensure Security and Development for Everyone” in Sochi, the southern coastal city of Russia. It gathered some 140 experts, politicians, and diplomats from 42 countries throughout Eurasia, Africa, and North and South America. The story of the Valdai Club’s twenty meetings is a chronicle of an extremely interesting and turbulent time. Really, it was hard to imagine discussing the world for twenty years. In a practical context, that is its greatest primary achievement.

The Valdai Discussion Club is a Russian think tank that was established in 2004. It is named after Lake Valdai which is located close to Veliky Novgorod where the club’s first meeting took place. The founders are the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy (CFDP), the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), the Moscow State Institute of International Relations of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation (MIGIMO) and the Russian University of Higher School of Economics. 

It is recognizable that the Valdai Club has made a huge policy impact, especially on its guests, including foreigners, by analyzing comprehensively the dynamics of changes in the world. It further examines the influence of changing global geopolitics on Russia. The concept of multipolarity has become a popular topic being discussed at many summits and conferences around the world. In fact, as the world is restructuring, so are its institutions and interstate relations.

The theme for the Annual Meeting in Sochi is very significant as the  world undergoes tremendous changes. It is worth to indicate that multipolarity is widely discussed these days at various summits, conferences and even in academic activities with students across the world. Questions of how to ensure peace and security, how to re-strategize development as well as how to reform the multinational financial institutions – these inter-connected issues are on the tables from the past, attempts are made to look at them at present and to device pathways into the future. These are also important with respect to foreign policy.

As I clearly said in my participation in one of the plenaries of Valdai Discussion Club in Saint Petersburg, few days before the Russia-Africa summit late July 2023, one of the biggest problems of humanity is, in most times, an attempt to resist reality. In the context of social evolutionary processes, the reality is that the multipolar world is the idea whose time has come. It is not wishful thinking and an attempt to resist it will create more problems for the world. In 1970, China’s GDP was US$92.60 billion but today it is close to US$18 trillion. India was a colony of Great Britain, but today India’s GDP in dollars is bigger than that of Britain.

As noted by the Valdai Club Chairman, Andrey Bystritskiy, despite the fact that people have lived with conflict throughout their history, they have always dreamed of a peaceful and harmonious existence. It cannot be said that all efforts were in vain; it is obvious that today we live better than centuries ago. The world has become less cruel and undoubtedly more convenient. But looking at current events, one understands that considerable effort is required to build a future that is acceptable to everyone.

In recent years, it has become clear that the process of improving the world, rethinking norms, and finding agreement among the huge number of forces operating on the world stage has become very complex and contradictory. At the discussions, many experts shared the same opinion that multiple attempts to find sustainable forms of development within the framework of crafting new relations, calling for reforms, pushing for accelerating the search for cooperation and establishing better regulation mechanisms are all necessary to create a more integrated and all-inclusive world. The general perception is that the world is at a crossroads, at a turning point.

Nevertheless, with all the intellectual complexity of the modern world, it is necessary to think about its future. Of course, a lot will depend on which model of the future is supported by the majority of people. The emergence of a new world order will mainly be determined by its ability to meet the basic qualitative needs of humanity. This also concerns the sentiments and goal-setting of society and the priorities of the leadership. Overall, there is a wide chance to see how a new connectedness based on respect for diversity will be formed in a world full of differences. Some envision something like a multipolar sort of new world.

During the working sessions, it was quite clear from various presentations that multipolarity is increasingly becoming a practical reality. We are expecting that it will definitely undermine the decades-long existing political dominance. At the same time, the emerging system has its own multiple risks. For instance, Timofei Bordachev, Academic Supervisor of the Centre for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE), emphasized that the very concept of a pole must be used with caution since it presupposes the hegemony of some over others. Russia rejects the idea of hegemony, so it is necessary to develop new terminology.

Sharing his academic ideas and thoughts at length, Pham Lan Dung, acting president of the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, believes that BRICS is proof of a change in the architecture of the world, and the increase in the number of members of the group reflects widespread interest in a multipolar order. This position was strongly supported by Philani Mthembu, Director of the Institute for Global Dialogue (South Africa), Ram Madhav Varanasi, President of the India Foundation, and many others during the first day of the session.

For what it’s worth, Valdai Club has really been brainstorming experts around the world for concized strategic pathways into a multipolar world. As Andrey Sushentsov argues in his opinion article headlined ‘The World in Search of a New Balance of Power’ published early October 2023, the world has entered a period of constant power rebalancing without major breakthroughs. At the same time, globalization has not disappeared; the world is still interconnected through gateway zones – even opponents are interconnected. Now many countries in the world are quickly adapting to changing conditions, and learning to seek benefits in order to achieve their own development goals for the people. 

Source: Valdai Club

Chairman of the Valdai Club, Andrey Bystritskiy, has rightly emphasized, and to a considerable extent, that in order to realise the formation of a new world, this requires a restructuring of thinking. A gamut of new progressive ideas and combined with systemic approach to politics, economy and social and cultural dimensions of life. Therefore, to make the system work in its entirety, trust must be higher than in relations with external players. 

The topics discussed by the participants were also touched upon during the meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Listening carefully to his speech, Lavrov confirmed the pertinent fact that many developing nations in the world are striving to increase their sovereignty. According to him, these are necessarily now drawn to associations to resolve their issues on the basis of mutual benefit and a fair balance of interests. One of such noticeable associations is BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and the South).

Despite the difficult geopolitical situation, Russia’s interaction is steadily developing, with a solid commitment to the democratization of interstate relations and building it based on the generally recognized principles of international law. Russia welcomes this trend and is working to consolidate it, making stark references to key international associations, including the UN, the G20, and BRICS.

Lavrov, however, emphasized that “the thoughts of the authors of the Valdai Club report closely echo the assessments that we make based on the results of the events that have taken place over the past months. I am referring primarily to the BRICS summit, the EAS summit in Jakarta, the G20 summit in New Delhi, and the Ministerial Week of the UN General Assembly. All these trends were fully manifested there. The world is becoming multipolar. Countries want to find reliable partners.”

The main confirmation of this is the expansion of BRICS. Six more states have joined the original five members of the association, and about two dozen also wish to establish special relations. BRICS is seen as a reliable partner, a structure that would help each participating member feel more confident. This is an important process in progress, and BRICS can serve as a platform for creating such a new system with the opportunity for sustainable development.

In late October 2022, during the final plenary session of the 19th meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club, President Vladimir Putin discussed, at considerable length, many controversial questions. According to him, classic liberal ideology itself today has changed beyond recognition. He predicted the end of the United States’ global dominance but fell short in proposing an appropriate Russia template—the principles and mechanisms—for realizing the lofty idea and approach to establishing a multipolar world.

Putin did not say anything about Russia becoming a global power but awarded that position to China. Putin, along the line, argued that support for a multipolar order largely exists in the global south. Russia is not the enemy and has never had any evil intentions regarding Europe or the United States.

He steadfastly holds the view that the United States ‘authoritarianism and exceptionalism’ be laid to eternal rest or better still be completely halted, and that in this new polycentric architecture, there is enormous potential and resources to make progressive and dynamic developments for humanity.

At the plenary session, there were a few questions for Putin:

“Mr. President, what is your vision for a new international partnership institution? Which basis of parity is Russia ready to offer at the international level? Which mechanisms, tools, and personalities are needed to acquire new allies, partners, and friends, not at a declarative level but at the level of unquestionable responsibility in terms of agreements? Do you think we should also change or build up other approaches within the future international partnership?”

Putin answered,

“We must and we can focus on cooperation, primarily, with countries that have sovereignty in taking fundamental decisions. This is my first point. My second point is that we must reach a consensus on each decision. Third, we need to secure a balance of interests. Of course, these are primarily universal international organisations, and number one is the United Nations.”

In dealing with divergent perspectives there is the neccesity for balancing relationships in the geopolitical power theatre. In the views of the majority at the Sochi gathering, in the process of global order rearrangement, there could still be underlying tendencies of misconceptions and risks for dominance. China and India have shown such tendencies, especially on the critical question of who leads the new world. After the G20 summit held in New Delhi, many experts in Op-D articles portrayed India as such due to its overarching success in controlling political divergences and differences. There was a little clash of rival interests throughout the G20 summit deliberations.

According to the Valdai Club, the concept of a multipolar world, proposed by Russia and supported by China, India, and a number of other major powers, was coined in the mid-1990s as a reaction to the post-Cold War global hegemony. The theoretical idea eventually turned into a practical goal and then into an international reality. The next stage is to conceptualise how exactly this world order will function. Creating a world order means developing mechanisms to take into account the interests of everyone and to work together for the development of a brighter shared future.

Source: Valdai Club

Reiterating here the compatible features of the new world, including working for accelerated growth, sustainable development, and inclusive multilateralism, without doubt, this calls for enhancing more effective and transparent governance and leadership. It brings into its fold a huge amount of responsibility and dedication. It is very important to emphasise here the importance of mediating the social, economic, and political situation across the world. There should be a sense of urgency for collaborative measures to resolve contradictions and straighten up the complexities in order to meet legitimate aspirations in the new world.

Perhaps, it will also be an illusionary mistake to keep making declarations without attempting their practical implementation. The history and theory of evolutionary processes invariably require more radical but well-designed, purposeful changes to have the expected impact and development-oriented results. For example, if BRICS is leading the new reconfiguration, then it needs its own templates and institutional tools in all aspects, from technology through finance to social and cultural dimensions.

In a wrap up to this discussion, the old unipolar is fast coming to an end. The world is no longer unipolar. At same time, the global economy has become a kind of mixed bag while the future in heavily clouded and presents relative uncertainty. But to stand for a multipolar world—a world based on the principles of cooperation, respect for the right to independence, and sovereignty—also requires more openness, reviewing weaknesses and strengths, creating conditions for frequent interactions, and taking more strategic measures in consolidating policy fixtures—these should not only resonate in speeches, statements, and reports. Obviously, there is a concerted interest and a huge opportunity for building a better future for generations.

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

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

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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*** 

While the mainstream medical community — to the extent it is interested in preventing/treating disease in the first place and not just capitalizing off of it — has long held that the buildup of amyloid and tau proteins in the brain is the precipitating cause of Alzheimer’s disease, along with other degenerative conditions of the brain, the true cause may be much simpler and, critically, much more simply prevented/treated.

First, it’s important to understand what amyloid proteins do and why they are found in the nervous system tissue in the first place.

The human immune system has two components: the innate immune system and the adaptive immune system. As the terms suggest, the former is the frontline of defense against pathogens and the latter is comprised of antibodies produced in response to prior encountered pathogens.

The brain, probably for evolutionary reasons, has limited adaptive immunity and relies heavily on innate immunity, of which amyloid plaques are an important part.

Via Science Translational Medicine:

“Neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is mediated by soluble oligomeric intermediates generated during fibrillization of the amyloid-β protein (Aβ)…

Members of the evolutionarily ancient family of proteins, collectively known as antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), share many of Aβ’s purportedly abnormal activities, including oligomerization and fibrillization (3, 4). For AMPs, these activities mediate key protective roles in innate immunity. AMPs are the first-line of defense against pathogens and act as potent broad-spectrum antibiotics and immunomodulators that target bacteria, mycobacteria, enveloped viruses, fungi, and protozoans, and in some cases, transformed or cancerous host cells (5). AMPs are widely expressed and are abundant in brain and other immunoprivileged tissues where actions of the adaptive immune system are constrained…

Synthetic Aβ exhibits potent in vitro antimicrobial activity towards eight common and clinically relevant microbial pathogens.”

To amyloid proteins are present in the brain when a pathogen is present. Their long-term presence indicates a long-term infection, which might be sub-clinical, meaning that it presents no obvious symptoms like fever, etc. that a clinician would notice and attempt to treat.

Via Experimental Biology (emphasis added):

“Researchers are reporting new findings on how bacteria involved in gum disease can travel throughout the body, exuding toxins connected with Alzheimer’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis and aspiration pneumonia. They detected evidence of the bacteria in brain samples from people with Alzheimer’s and used mice to show that the bacterium can find its way from the mouth to the brain.”

Via Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, 2015 (emphasis added):

“We found over a ten-fold increased occurrence of AD when there is detectable evidence of spirochetal infection… and over a four-fold increased occurrence of AD in a conservative risk estimate (OR: 4.45; 95% CI: 2.33-8.52). We found over a five-fold increased occurrence of AD with Cpn infectionThis study shows a strongly positive association between bacterial infection and AD.”

The implications of this finding above are profound. If it is the case that Alzheimer’s might be prevented or cured by mitigating subclinical infections, then super-cheap (unpatented) antibiotics, antifungals, or antivirals might be the whole or partial solution.

But, of course, how would the pharma vultures generate revenue, then? Simple and cost-effective isn’t going to cut the mustard for their shareholders. They’re in the business of making money, not treating disease. To the extent that diseases are treated by these companies, such results are incidental to the prime directive. That’s what made the industry as lucrative as it is.

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This article was originally published on Armageddon Prose.

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

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First published in May 2023

***

Award-winning writer and radio documentary maker Asad Ismi has blamed the food collapse triggered by the West for causing the starvation of 278 million Africans. Ismi, also a radio documentary maker, put forward this accusation in the March-April 2023 issue of The Monitor, the bi-monthly magazine of the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives.

“One in five [Africans] are facing hunger. The number of East Africans in this predicament has gone up by 60 percent in 2021 alone and it has gone up by 40 percent in West Africa,” Ismi said.

The World Food Program (WFP), an entity under the United Nations, noted that violent conflict remains the primary driver of acute hunger. “Hunger and conflict fuel one another, with armed conflict and widespread displacement prevailing for the past 25 years,” it said.

The WFP pointed out that the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) faces one of the largest hunger crises in the world. Mali is also facing an unprecedented food crisis. From January to June this year, 26.4 million people could face acute food insecurity.

A WFP report stated that “from October to December 2021, nearly 1.2 million people were known to be in need of emergency food assistance – almost three times higher than the year before.”

The late Glen Ford, erstwhile editor of the Black Agenda Report, had concurred with this observation and noted that Western intervention was behind many of these conflicts.

The U.S. government has fueled wars on the continent through arms transfers and military training, as well as both proxy and direct invasions, since the 1980s. It has also given military assistance to 51 out of 54 African countries. Countries that have received such aid from the U.S. include the DRC, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Angola, Ethiopia, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, Congo-Brazzaville and Nigeria.

“When there is conflict, it becomes practically impossible for farmers to produce the food needed to sustain the population. There is a clear correlation between the many conflicts ongoing in Africa, food scarcity, drought and climate change,” explained University of Michigan Afro-American and African studies professor Omolade Adunbi.

According to Ford, Washington has drenched Congo’s eastern provinces with the blood of more than six million people since 1996. The governments of Rwanda and Uganda, the direct perpetrators of the said “holocaust,” are in every sense of the word agents of U.S. foreign policy.

Western powers were also responsible for invading Libya in 2011, successfully overthrowing its leader Muammar Gaddafi. The attack destroyed the North African nation and spread violence to several African states.

Ismi denounces “climate change” mitigation efforts by the West

Ismi also blasted the West’s efforts to address “climate change.”

He cited a Reuters report that countries in Africa make up only three percent of the emissions responsible for the so-called “climate crisis.” In spite of this, Africa suffers more than any other region.

“Yet they have externalized the effects of their environmental destruction on people who are amongst the poorest in the world,” Ismi said, highlighting that 16 out of the 20 countries that are most vulnerable to the climate crisis are in the said continent.

Other experts also voiced out their thoughts on the matter.

Pan-African News Wire Editor Abayomi Azikiwe said “the climate crisis is another form of neo-colonialism.” Adunbi, meanwhile, blasted the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference as “a jamboree where promises that are never kept are made.” He added that the conference, also known as COP 27, is “more performative than anything.” (Related: UN climate change conference delegates to stay at five-star hotels and luxury resorts.)

Starvation.news has more stories about hunger in Africa.

Watch the video below where Irish MEP Mick Wallace said NATO is a war machine.

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United States: End Detention of Venezuelan Special Envoy, UN Experts Say

October 5th, 2023 by Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

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UN experts[1] today urged the government of the United States of America to end the prolonged pre-trial detention of Alex Nain Saab Morán, a Venezuelan Special Envoy, arrested and extradited to the US on money laundering charges.

Saab was appointed as a Special Envoy by the Government of Venezuela in April 2018 to undertake official missions in Iran to secure humanitarian deliveries to Venezuela, including of food and medicine.

In July 2019, he was placed under US sanctions for allegedly being responsible for inter alia engaging in transactions or programmes administered by the Government of Venezuela.

On 12 June 2020, during his third trip to Iran, while in transit through Cabo Verde, he was arrested and detained by local authorities. Following an extradition request by the US, he was ultimately extradited in October 2021. The Cabo Verde courts dealing with his case reportedly rejected his numerous appeals against the extradition, his diplomatic status as an ad hoc diplomat, the decision in his favour by the ECOWAS Court, and discarded numerous official communications by the Government of Venezuela and the recommendations by human rights mechanisms, including Human Rights Council’s Special Procedures and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

“We note with concern the reported irregularities in the arrest and detention in Cabo Verde of Mr. Saab, prior to his extradition to the US,” the experts said. “In particular, information we received indicates that at the exact moment of his arrest, while he was on his place at the Amílcar Cabral International Airport, there was no Red Notice by Interpol, nor an arrest warrant presented to him. Both were instead issued ex post facto,” they said.

Following his extradition, US judicial authorities dropped seven counts of money laundering against him, while maintaining a single count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

“We deeply regret that for almost two years since his extradition, Mr. Saab remains in detention awaiting trial for alleged conduct which is not considered an international crime, and thus should not have been the subject of extraterritorial or universal jurisdiction,” the UN experts said.

“The actions against Mr. Saab are not only violations of his human rights, such as freedom from arbitrary detention, presumption of innocence and fair trial guarantees, but also a violation of the right to an adequate standard of living for millions of Venezuelans, as result of the abrupt interruption of his mission for the procurement of essential goods,” the experts said.

The experts were informed that since his extradition Saab was being detained at the Federal Detention Center in Miami, which is not a correctional institution, but instead a pre-trial administrative facility. Inmates at this facility are not segregated based on the type and gravity of their offences. He suffers from substandard conditions of detention, including poor quality of food and inadequate medical treatment, which is adversely affecting his health.

“We call on the United States to comply with its obligations under international law, to immediately release Mr. Alex Nain Saab Morán and drop all charges against him,” the experts said.

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Note

[1] The experts: Alena Douhan,Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of the unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights; Livingstone Sewanyana, Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order

The Special Rapporteurs, Independent Experts and Working Groups are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures’ experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.

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***

The Foundation to Battle Injustice has collected evidence of the involvement of the Ukrainian government and a shadowy US arms dealer in organizing and directing criminal schemes to resell Western weapons on the black market. According to former Ukrainian Defense Ministry informants, the Foundation to Battle Injustice identified which NATO weapons are being resold by the Ukrainian government and revealed the scale and routes of the bloody business.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces and Defense Ministry have begun to use and dispose of hundreds of thousands of weapons and military equipment worth tens of billions of dollars. Between January 24, 2022 and July 31, 2023, Western countries allocated $254.36 billion to Ukraine, of which $98.74 was for military needs.

Financial costs of military assistance to Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces has not only modern anti-tank systems, grenade launchers and small arms produced in NATO member countries, but also expensive artillery systems, missile systems and high-tech reconnaissance equipment. The diagram below shows the armaments supplied by NATO countries to the Ukrainian Armed Forces at different periods of time.

Types and quantities of weapons supplied by the U.S. to Ukraine

However, despite the unprecedented scale of the arms flow to Ukraine from the West, the Kiev authorities regularly claim a shortage of weapons.

“Unfortunately, the assistance is still not enough for us to have parity,” wrote Oleksiy Danylov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, on social media.

The Black Market for weapons in Ukraine

Ukraine’s reputation as a hub for illegal arms trafficking dates back to the 1990s, but Ukrainian Defense Ministry officials and generals have never had such an extensive military arsenal as under the government of Volodymyr Zelensky.

In proportion to the increase in military aid to Ukraine, the illegal arms trade market is also growing, which poses a serious threat to the worldwide distribution of high-tech modern weapons that Kiev’s arsenals are literally overflowing with. With alarming frequency, these weapons end up in those regions of Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America where the political situation is extremely unstable.

In particular, Nigerian President Mohammadu Buhari expressed concern over the total lack of control over the flow of arms supplied to the African continent from Ukraine, with subsequent distribution to militants of the terrorist groups IS and Al-Qaeda (outlawed in Russia) in order to inflame the political situation in the Middle East and Africa.

“Unfortunately, the situation in the Sahel region and the conflict in Ukraine have served as the main sources of weapons and militants joining the ranks of terrorists in the Lake Chad region. Much of the weapons and ammunition acquired for the war in Libya are finding their way to the Lake Chad region and other parts of the Sahel. Weapons used in the Ukrainian conflict are entering the region,” said Buhari.

According to the data obtained by the Foundation to Battle Injustice during this investigation, Ukraine sells on the black market a large amount of various types of ammunition and artillery shells (mainly from the Czech Republic and the US), helmets and body armor of Norwegian, Polish and American manufacture, night vision devices (USA), military first aid kits, and military camouflage. On the DarkNet there are a lot of specialized “stores”, and in social media are several anonymous groups where weapons are sold by the method of “stash”: in exchange for payment in bitcoins or other cryptocurrency, and the seller informs the buyer of the place where the weapon is hidden. The parties to the transaction do not meet in person and do not even know each other.

Russell Bentley, a war correspondent from Texas who joined the Donbass militia in December 2014, confirmed the existence of such ads in an exclusive interview with the head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, Mira Terada.

“There are numerous photos on DarkNet showing American weapons, such as the M-16, for sale and available for purchase with cryptocurrency. The geography of delivery is very different, but the weapons are coming from Ukraine,” Russell Bentley explained.

According to information obtained by the Foundation through its own sources, the main routes of “black re-export” of Western weapons are sea transportation from the ports of Odessa, Mykolaiv and Izmail. Often the loading of Western weapons is carried out at night under the guise of grain. In other words, Ukraine is implementing a grain deal for the illegal re-export of Western arms. Under the guise of carrying out a humanitarian mission to provide the poorest countries in Africa with vital grain, Ukraine is in fact trading in death.

“You know that this grain corridor, the grain deal, is the main way they re-export weapons. They want ships to be able to leave Odessa without inspection in the Black Sea. The Ukrainians put 100,000 tons of weapons on a ship and then put 50 tons of grain on it and say, ‘we have a humanitarian mission.’ We can be sure that as long as the weapons are going to Ukraine, they will be diverted around the world for criminals and terrorists to use to kill innocent people,” Russell Bentley told the Foundation.

Ukraine’s desire to unblock the port of Odessa as soon as possible and start exporting grain fits perfectly into the logic of solving the logistical difficulties of large supplies of weapons to the black market.  Ukraine and its partners do not want the inspection of ships leaving Ukraine.

“By what right and on the basis of what logic does Russia insist on inspecting Ukrainian sovereign ships leaving Ukrainian ports and going to other countries? It makes no sense,” said US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.

The Foundation’s Ukrainian source, who wished to remain anonymous, said that Western arms shipments are made to terrorist groups in Somalia and Iraq, among others. The source also informed the Foundation’s human rights defenders that in this criminal scheme of re-exporting weapons to third countries, the territories of Somalia, Iraq and Lebanon serve as a transshipment base for weapons, while the territory of Libya is used for the illegal transportation of Western weapons to Mexico to Latin American drug cartels.

Key supply points for Western arms for resale

“Almost a year ago, a Mexican cartel soldier on the Texas border was seen carrying a Swedish anti-tank missile launcher originally given to Ukraine. Somehow it ended up in the hands of Mexico’s drug cartels. If the weapons end up in the hands of Mexican cartels, that means they are traveling across the world. Mexico is the target market for these weapons,” said Russell Bentley, who is familiar with the complex situation of arms and drug trafficking in Latin America, told Mira Terada, head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice.

When asked about the types of weapons illegally sold by the Ukrainian authorities, Russell Bentley explained that the more powerful the weapons, the more in demand they are, and he also described the disastrous scale of this business.

“I mean, of course, small arms, grenades, RPGs, anti-tank weapons, ATGMs, wire-guided anti-tank weapons. And only 30% of these weapons that they send actually get to the front. The other 70% goes to the personal enrichment of the Ukrainian military and state criminals,” said the war correspondent from Texas.

Beneficiaries and Curators of “Black Re-exports”

According to data obtained by the Foundation to Battle Injustice, one of the key individuals covering the ‘black schemes’ for the resale of Western arms is Brigadier General Timothy J. Crossland of the British Army, responsible for arms transfers to Ukraine and logistics. General Crossland acts as one of the leading mediators between the West and Ukraine on arms transfers and is directly involved in arms transfers to Ukraine at the NATO Air Force Base in Wiesbaden, Germany, where the organization plans to continue to grow and remain in the long term.

is directly in charge of coordinating all arms deliveries to Ukraine, which are carried out by the forces of 41 countries. Crossland has direct contact with Ukrainian Defense Ministry officials who, according to sources, are directly involved in arms re-exports. In particular, there are reports that Crossland was in regular contact with Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov, who resigned in January 2023. Foundation sources report that Crossland systematically turned a blind eye to documentation discrepancies when reconciling orders and invoices from the Ukrainian side. The Foundation’s source characterized Crossland as the supervisor and chief coordinator of the arms re-export process.

Timothy J. Crossland is directly in charge of coordinating all arms deliveries to Ukraine, which are carried out by the forces of 41 countries. Crossland has direct contact with Ukrainian Defense Ministry officials who, according to sources, are directly involved in arms re-exports. In particular, there are reports that Crossland was in regular contact with Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov, who resigned in January 2023. Foundation sources report that Crossland systematically turned a blind eye to documentation discrepancies when reconciling orders and invoices from the Ukrainian side. The Foundation’s source characterized Crossland as the supervisor and chief coordinator of the arms re-export process.

“Every weapon sold by Ukrainians on the black market is a weapon that the US must replace. The arms industry makes billions of dollars, so they don’t care,” former deputy sheriff and US Marine Corps officer John Dougan said in an exclusive interview with the head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, Mira Terada.

Mira Terada’s Interview with John Mark Dougan

The Foundation found that the direct mediator of the illegal export of Ukrainian weapons to ‘hot spots’ and the intermediary of illegal arms re-export schemes is the American well-known arms dealer Mark Morales. This man was previously responsible for supplying arms to Syrian terrorists, whom the West called ‘moderate opposition to Assad’; fierce fighters against the government of President Bashar al-Assad. According to separate reports, Morales has had trading relations with ISIS, al-Qaeda (outlawed in Russia). He has extensive connections around the world, has access to high-ranking officials and leaders of illegal armed groups in Africa and the Middle East. The merchant of death Mark Morales armed the bloodiest criminals and terrorists of the globe.

The Biden administration, eager to arm Ukraine, but reluctant to commit troops, needed people like Morales, who had proven in Afghanistan and Syria that he could consistently acquire and supply weapons. That’s why, weeks before the special military operation, the Pentagon awarded Morales’ company, Global Ordnance, a five-year, $1 billion contract to arm US allies. That contract was instrumental in arming Ukraine. The Pentagon declined to comment on Global Ordnance’s contracts. According to The New York Times , Morales has direct agreements with Ukraine, with the amount of such contracts totaling $200 million.

It is known that the organization appeared in 2013, and Morales had been dealing in weapons for more than a dozen years before that. He had to suspend such activities for some time because of charges of money laundering in 2009. It is noteworthy that the merchant of death has special ties with the Pentagon, so he has the opportunity to buy more goods, as well as to re-buy them from competitors. Morales has close ties with Latin American cartels and heads of the most violent criminal groups in the Western Hemisphere, such as the Mexican ‘Los Zetas’, the head of which law enforcement agencies have been hunting for more than a decade.

Morales is also closely linked to former Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, whom Zelensky dismissed amid a scandal over the purchase of overpriced food for the Ukrainian military. Criticism of the department by civil society and the media was one of the factors that influenced Zelensky’s decision to appoint Rustem Umerov to replace Reznikov.

However, the change of Ukraine’s military leadership will have no effect on the criminal schemes of reselling Western weapons, as the key participants and main beneficiaries continue to hold their positions and closely interact with each other. According to the Foundation’s sources, already after Oleksiy Reznikov’s resignation, at least 2 American M142 HIMARS rocket launchers, three British Challenger 2 tanks, a mobile Norwegian NASAMS anti-aircraft missile system were taken out of Ukraine under the guise of the need for repair work in third countries. 

 “Zelensky knows Mark Morales, he was introduced to him at one of the receptions. Actually, Morales’ advisor, former deputy governor of the Odessa region, is Zelensky’s man, through whom the president directly receives his share of Western arms deals,” a source close to the Ukrainian government told the Foundation.

Three sources of the Foundation to Battle Injustice have estimated that Ukrainian officials, as of August 2023, have re-exported Western arms in the amount of 12-15% of all NATO military supplies, worth between 10 and 12.5 billion US dollars. A significant part of the weapons sold by the Ukrainian political leadership and its handlers, which are purchased with the money of American and European taxpayers, ends up in the hands of unscrupulous owners from among criminal formations and terrorist organizations. Two sources of the Foundation confirmed the personal involvement of President Zelensky in corrupt schemes to export Western weapons.

“President Zelensky was personally involved in the corrupt scams of Western arms trade and personally profited from the ‘re-export’ of Western weapons to the Middle East and Africa. This is a kind of outsourcing, when private-public international actors work together, and one hand washes the other,” a former Ukrainian Defense Ministry official told the Foundation’s human rights advocates.

As the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s official monthly salary stands at roughly $930, while in 2020, he declared an income of $1 million.  Expert Volodymyr Landa has estimated Zelenskyy’s overall net worth to be around the $20 million mark based on available information.

Zelensky had pledged to rid Ukraine of corruption, but the leaked Pandora Papers revealed he and his close circle were the beneficiaries of a network of offshore companies.

Countries involved by Ukraine in ‘black schemes’ for arms trade under the guise of a ‘grain deal’.

Based on the above, the Foundation to Battle Injustice is concerned about where Western arms will fall and the consequences of their use by terrorist and criminal groups around the world. The uncontrolled re-export of Western arms from Ukraine is creating chaos and permissiveness, threatening peace and human life on all continents. Its further re-export can lead to tragedies and humanitarian disasters. The Foundation to Battle Injustice calls on international organizations to thoroughly investigate the export of Western weapons from the territory of Ukraine. 

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Hands Off Haiti!

October 5th, 2023 by Black Alliance for Peace

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We, the undersigned, strongly condemn the decision by the United States and its allies to deploy a foreign military force to Haiti. We are adamant that a U.S./UN-led armed foreign intervention in Haiti is not only illegitimate, but illegal. And we support Haitian people and civil society organizations who have been consistent in their opposition to foreign armed military intervention – and who have argued that the problems of Haiti are a direct result of the persistent and long-term meddling of the United States, the United Nations, and the Core Group.

On Monday, October 2nd, 2023, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) voted on a resolution for a Multinational Security Support Mission authorizing the deployment of a foreign  military and police intervention into the Republic of Haiti. Although the vote did not receive unanimous approval as it saw abstentions from two permanent UNSC members, 13 other permanent and non-permanent members voted in support, including 3 African countries (Gabon, Ghana and Mozambique). This is a particularly egregious betrayal of Haiti, which has been for Africans and Black people around the world, a beacon in the fight against slavery, colonialism and imperialism. Yet the U.S. administration, the corporate media, alongside figures such as Linda Thomas-Greenfield, have hailed the vote as a victory. We note, also, that the U.S. has tapped Kenya, another African country, to lead a multinational force of “volunteer” nations to occupy Haiti, leaving their own troops at home while offering at leas t$100 million in support.

There is a long history here. For more than two years now, the U.S. has been pushing for a build-up of the military presence in Haiti to protect the puppet government of the unelected and unpopular Ariel Henry. Yet the U.S. is not willing to put its own boots on the ground, turning instead, first to Canada, then Brazil, then the CELAC and CARICOM countries–all of whom were reluctant to lead the mission, even if they supported the call for military intervention. The Kenyan government leapt at the opportunity to lead the intervention, bought off by a bag of silver and an approving pat on their neoliberal heads. Haiti will now be invaded by the U.S., but with the Black face of Kenya as cover. Kenya erroneously claims this is “Pan-Africanism;” it is, in fact, neocolonialism.

We are told that the interest of the U.S. in Haiti is humanitarian, that the U.S wants to protect the Haitian people from “criminal gangs.” Yet U.S. weapons have flooded Haiti, and the U.S. has consistently rejected calls to effectively enforce the UNSC resolution for an arms embargo against the Haitian and U.S. elite who import guns into the country. Moreover, when we speak of “gangs,” we must recognize that the most powerful gangs in the country are subsidiaries of the U.S. itself: the United Nations Integrated Office (BINUH) and the Core Group, the two colonial entities who have effectively ruled the country since the U.S./France/Canada-backed coup d’etat of 2004. Haiti has no sovereignty and has long been under foreign occupation. The current de facto “Prime Minister” was installed by the Core Group and whatever calls for military intervention are being made by those already occupying Haiti.

We hold in contempt the neocolonial governments that are taking part in this mission to further oppress Haitian people and deny them sovereignty. We denounce the governments of Kenya and the CARICOM nations, such as Bahamas, Jamaica, and Antigua and Barbuda, which have  failed Haiti and have violated the notion of the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace.

Furthermore, we demand that:

  1. The U.S. and the UN must end their interference in Haiti and the Core Group must be disbanded.

  2. The U.S. must stop its criminal gangster actions against Haiti and stop propping up the illegitimate government they installed.

  3. Kenya must end its support for a racist and imperialist intervention in Haiti

  4. The governments of the U.S. and the Dominican Republic stop dumping arms and ammunition into the country and for the de facto Prime Minister to stop arming paramilitaries in the country. 

  5. The United Nations pay restitution for the devastating 2010 cholera outbreak by rebuilding Haiti’s water, sanitation, health, and educational infrastructure.

  6. That fuel subsidies for Haiti are reinstated and the minimum wage increased.

  7. The CARICOM countries, alongside other regional nations, normalize pathways for work visas and citizenship for Haitian nationals.

We vow to stand on the side of the Haitian people against imperialism! 

Signed,

718 Coalition

Acción Afro-Dominicana, RD

ADDI Caribbean

Al-Awda, the Palestinian Right to Return Coalition 

All African People’s Revolutionary Party

Alliance for Global Justice

Anti Displacement NYC

Ban Killer Drones

Black Alliance for Peace, Haiti/Americas Team

Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration

Caribbean Organisation for Peoples Empowerment

Caribbean Solidarity Network

Chicago Antiwar Coalition (CAWC)

CODEPINK

Comité Dominicano de Derechos Humanos -CDDH-, RD

Committee of Anti-Imperialists in Solidarity with Iran

Communist Party of Kenya

Community Movement Builders

Consejo de Organizaciones Sociales y Populares del Paraguay

Consejo por la Emancipación Plurinacional Peruana

Cooperation Jackson

COPLAC-Confederación Palestina Latinoamericana y del Caribe

Dar al Janub – Verein für antirassistische und Friedenspolitische Initiative

Decolonial Feminist Collective

Diaspora Pa’lante Collective

Dr. Alejandro Rusconi – Movimiento Evita

Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez

International Action Center

La Articulación Regional Afrodescendiente de las Américas y el Caribe (ARAAC)

Left Alliance for National Democracy and Socialism – Jamaica LANDS

Malcolm X Center for Self Determination

Michigan General Defense Committee

Midwestern Marx Institute

MOLEGHAF (Mouvman Libèté, Egalite sou chimen Fratènite tout Ayisyen)

Movimiento Argentino de Solidaridad con Cuba (Mascuba)

Movimiento Caamañista -MC-, RD

Movimiento Popular Dominicano -MPD-, RD

Movimiento Rebelde -MR-, RD

Movimiento Reconocido

Observatorio de Derechos Humanos de los Pueblos

Palestinian Youth Movement – Detroit Chapter

Pan-African Community Action (PACA)

Partido Comunista del Trabajo -PCT-, RD

Partido Movimiento del Socialismo Allendista de Chile

Partido Nuevo Encuentro – Argentina

Partido Socialista de Peru

Pro Derechos Humanos Bolivia (PRODEHBOL)

Rasanbleman Pou Ayiti

Rethink New Orleans

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network

Socialist Workers League-Nigeria

SOLI Puerto Rico

Solidaridad Dominicana Con Haití, Rep. Dominicana

Solidarity Committee of the Americas, Minnesota 

The African Diaspora Foundation (Barbados)

The Barbados Sovereignty Party

The Global Pan African Movement (GPAM) North American Chapter

The Global Sovereign Peoples Movement

The International Black Chamber of Commerce and Industry

The People’s Forum

The Regional Coordination Committee of the Pan Afrikan and Indigenous Movement of the Caribbean

The Ubuntu Reading Group

Troika Collective

Workers World Party

World BEYOND War

Zimbabwe Movement of Pan African Socialists

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An Ominous Context of the Nazi Debacle in Canada

October 5th, 2023 by Prof. Yakov M. Rabkin

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A few days ago, I raised questions that stem from the standing ovation for Yaroslav Hunka, a Ukrainian veteran of the SS in the Canadian parliament (see this). These questions deserve answers. Here are some of them.

How is it that the background of this unrepented Nazi – he wrote in blogs in 2010 and 2011 that the years spent under the SS colours were the best years of his life – had become invisible to those who arranged his invitation to the Canadian parliament? The answer is the mainstream media presentation of the war as a conflict between Good and Evil. Obviously, the Good cannot be suspected of harbouring Nazi skeletons in the closet. If there is no longer even a pretense of even-handedness in the covering of the Ukraine war in Western media, there is no reason to expect a politician to dare have a critical approach to anyone or anything Ukrainian.

Thus, mainstream media ignore Nazi insignia on the uniforms of certain units of the Ukrainian army. This Manichean view of the essentially geopolitical conflict impede a clearer understanding of and, more importantly, a diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine. The Ukrainian parliament eliminated a diplomatic solution by means of a decision to ban negotiations with Russia. Without formally doing as much, Western powers have cornered themselves into a dead end: it is impossible to negotiate with Russia, painted in much of the Western media as the Evil incarnate. Moral indignation has replaced geopolitical rationality.

In presenting Hunka, the speaker of the Parliament in Ottawa said,

“We have here in the chamber today a Ukrainian Canadian war veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians and continues to support the troops today even at his age of 98.”

Fighting against the Russians has become a supreme moral value. The fact that Hunka had volunteered for the SS unit does not, in the mainstream view in the West, invalidate his heroism in “fighting against the Russians”. In today’s frenzied climate, having fought in a SS unit pales in comparison with being blamed as a “Putin’s apologist” for calling for an end of hostilities.

Moreover, continuing efforts have been made in Eastern Europe to equate the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Monuments to Soviet soldiers who had freed Eastern Europe from Nazism in 1944-45 have been systematically removed and destroyed. Energies spent to efface historical memory have borne fruit both in Europe and elsewhere. East European diasporas in Canada, many of them tainted with collaboration with Nazism, have erected monuments to Nazis, who fought against the Soviet Union. While a monument to the victims of communism was erected on the Parliament Hill, there seem to be no plans to build a monument to the victims of fascism. Less informed people may simply forget that Canada fought alongside the Soviet Union against the fascists during the Second World War.

This is not innocent ignorance but a result of consistent whitewashing of fascist tendencies in the ethnic nationalism in Eastern Europe. One of those who, since her young age, took part in this whitewashing is Chrystia Freeland, deputy prime minister of Canada, a powerful éminence grise and an unabashed Ukrainian nationalist. She has so far been eloquently silent about the scandal in the parliament. If the ovation for the Nazi had passed without protest or controversy, this would have become a crucial milestone on the path to rehabilitation of fascism.

This effort goes beyond exculpating Canada from having welcomed hundreds of Nazis in the aftermath of the Second World War. Zelensky said on the same occasion in the parliament, that Canada should be proud to have always been “on the bright side of history” (he probably meant “right” instead of “bright”, but this hardly matters). On that sunny side of history, one apparently finds offering safe haven to Nazis fleeing retribution for crimes against humanity committed during the war.

All this concerns more than history. This rehabilitation opens the way to wholesale scapegoating of ethnic, national, and religious groups, even entire countries and their culture. Canceling Tchaikovsky and Pushkin in the West dovetails with removing Russian books from public libraries in Ukraine. Both are a grim reminder of the banning of Jewish composers and the burning of Jewish books in Germany in the 1930s. Demonization of “the other”, practiced by the Europeans for centuries on their own continent and in their colonies, is raising its head again. Hatred is dressed up as moral indignation reflecting “progressive European values”. The pretext, as in the past centuries, is impeccable: a war against the Evil.

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Yakov M. Rabkin is Professor Emeritus of History at the Université of Montréal. His publications include over 300 articles and a few books: Science between Superpowers, A Threat from Within: a Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism, What is Modern Israel?, Demodernization: A Future in the Past and Judaïsme, islam et modernité. He did consulting work for, inter alia, OECD, NATO, UNESCO and the World Bank. E-mail: [email protected]. Website: www.yakovrabkin.ca

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A group of 50 activists and Vermont constituents staged a sit-in inside Senator Bernie Sanders’s office on Wednesday, demanding the senator to call for peace and diplomacy in Ukraine instead of more weapons and war. The sit-in resulted in the arrest of 11 activists, including an 89-year-old CODEPINK peace activist.

The group was joined by Green Party Presidential Candidate Dr. Cornel West in the Senate lobby for a prayer vigil before the sit-in. The prayer vigil and sit-in were part of a week of action that included an antiwar rally on Tuesday night featuring Dr. West, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair at Union Theological Seminary; Claudia de la Cruz, Co-Executive Director of The People’s Forum; Lee Camp, American comedian, writer, podcaster, news journalist; Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK and Global Exchange; and Eugene Puryear, American journalist, activist, and host on Breakthrough News.

“We need Bernie to provide leadership to put a stop to the US funding of the Ukraine war now. Use the money for healthcare, not warfare,” said Burlington resident James Marc Leas.

Crystal Zevon, an artist and CODEPINK peace activist from Barnet, VT, expressed her disappointment in Senator Sanders, who has voted for more weapons to Ukraine and even criticized Democrats who called for peace talks. “Yes, Bernie should condemn the Russian invasion, but he should also be calling for a negotiated end to this brutal war,” said Zevon.

The group carried signs in support of peace talks and negotiations, including one quote from the Senator himself in which he previously called for a diplomatic solution.

Jodie Evans, Co-Founder of CODEPINK, reminded Senator Sanders of his antiwar roots,

“We are showing up to remind Bernie of the values he espoused that made his name what it is. And call on him to stand for peace, to call for diplomacy and to again lead for peace,” said Evans.

Medea Benjamin, Co-Founder of CODEPINK and author of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, expressed her disappointment in the lack of Democrats calling for peace talks.

“I am appalled that NO Democrats are saying what the majority of American people are saying: We need peace talks, not more war. This is NOT a MAGA issue or a Republican issue but an issue of human survival to stop WWIII and possibly a nuclear war. We need Bernie to be with us on the side of peace,” said Benjamin.

The activists are urging Senator Sanders to call for the flow of weapons to stop and the leadership of Ukraine, Russia, and the US to sit at the negotiating table and end the horrific war.

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Melissa Garriga is the communications and media analysis manager for CODEPINK. She writes about the intersection of militarism and the human cost of war. She volunteered for the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign and resides in Burlington, VT’s sister city, Moss Point, MS.

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To some degree, next week’s Annual Meetings of the Bretton Woods Institutions (BWIs) in Marrakech will be focused on the tragic earthquake and flooding damage in Morocco and Libya, respectively – in turn reflecting a lack of durable infrastructure, especially in the latter case after the state was crippled by NATO regime-change excesses in 2011 and Derna’s fragile dams were not maintained. The reconstruction funding needs are enormous, but are the BWIs appropriate allies, given their record?

In late August, the BRICS+ gathering in Johannesburg, South Africa, raised near-universal concern (or even misplaced hope) that some of the world’s most tyrannical regimes are uniting and potentially facing off against the ‘West’ in part because of the BWIs’ heavy-handed loan conditionality.

Five of the six new members are from the Middle East and Horn of Africa, including dangerously-indebted Egypt and Ethiopia, while another new member, Argentina, is under Washington’s austerity thumb. And that perception will probably compel a more active reengagement of BRICS+ regimes by a new down-to-business World Bank President, Ajay Banga, and by International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, who reflect a long-standing global-apartheid policy in which only U.S. and European citizens get Bank and IMF leadership, respectively.

Banga’s own decade-old history in Johannesburg’s Soweto township featured a Mastercard partnership with a Bank-owned ‘financial inclusion’ firm (Cash Paymaster Services) that in 2020 was forced into receivership after failing to pay fines for extensive fraud against the state (via a corrupt welfare minister) and millions of the society’s poorest (see Observer Summer 2023).

Likewise, Georgieva was a top World Bank official before moving to the Fund in 2019, and was mainly remembered for her alleged role in ‘torturing data’ in the Bank’s Doing Business reports on behalf of China’s Foreign Direct Investment programme. The alleged statistical fraud was so severe that she was nearly forced to resign from IMF leadership in 2021. In the same spirit, her IMF managing director predecessors include Rodrigo Rato, who was jailed for financial fraud in 2017, Christine Lagarde who was convicted in a French political bribery case in 2016, and Dominique Strauss-Kahn who resigned after his sexual attack in a New York hotel in 2011 and was prosecuted (although the case was dropped, a civil claim by the victim, a hotel cleaner, was later settled out of court).

What is it about Washington’s hallowed international financial hallways that makes it so difficult for BWIs bureaucrats to break the pattern of intra-elite corruption? To be sure, the extreme pressure of geopolitics often suffocates financial ethics, for as establishment economist Rudiger Dornbusch remarked in 1998, “The IMF is a toy of the United States to pursue its economic policy offshore,” a problem that won’t go away while Washington both retains veto power over Bank and Fund policies and projects, and props up favoured dictators (see Inside the Institutions, IMF and World Bank decision-making and governance). The recent scandal in which the US exercised its power at the IMF to fast-track a $2 billion loan to Pakistan, in exchange for the latter’s $900 million urgent weapons supply to Ukraine, is only the latest case.

But there is a deeper reason for sustained corruption: Neoliberal ideology.

From North Africa to South Africa, financial deal-making with explicitly-corrupt governments is hard-wired into the Bank and IMF, even while the BRICS’ own ‘alternative’ institution, the New Development Bank, appears to have exactly the same problem in relation to its dozen South African portfolio credits. Additionally, the (still-notional) BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement empowers the IMF because if a country wants to borrow more than 30 per cent of its quota, it must first sign up for a structural adjustment programme – designed at 18th & H Streets NW in Washington DC. The BRICS institutions are not actually alternatives after all, but amplifiers of malgovernance, given the political pressure to conform to both borrower desires – e.g. Vladimir Putin’s crony capitalism or South African parastatal agencies’ service to the minerals-energy complex – and the inevitable New York credit rating agency squeeze (see Observer Summer 2020). That, in turn, ironically compelled the New Development Bank to join Western financial sanctions against its own 18 per cent-shareholder in Moscow immediately after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and maintain them even under the 2023 Bank presidency of Putin’s ally, Dilma Rousseff.

Lessons of the Arab Spring Unlearned in Washington

A dozen years ago, IMF and Bank back-scratching patronage appeared on the verge of collapse in North Africa. In 2011, millions of pro-democracy protesters in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Algeria ran up against brutality inflicted by tyrannical, ultra-corrupt regimes. Behind the scenes in each case were World Bank and IMF officials who supported (and often financed) economic injustice, even as austerity put unbearable pressure on society. Most notorious was Strauss-Kahn, who in 2008 was feted by Tunisian tyrant Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. The IMF head was given the Order of the Tunisian Republic for his “contribution to the reinforcement of economic development at the global level.” Strauss-Kahn was effusive in return, terming Ben Ali’s economic policy “the best model for many emerging countries….Tunisia is making impressive progress in its reform agenda and its prospects are favorable.”

Codifying Strauss-Kahn’s praise for Ben Ali, two of his economists – Joël Toujas-Bernate and Rina Bhattacharya – enthused in IMF Survey Magazine in 2010 how Tunisia’s dictator had promoted “wide-ranging structural reforms aimed at enhancing its business environment and improving the competitiveness of its economy.” They praised his “prudent macroeconomic management,” an “export promotion strategy,” various free trade agreements and, in finance, moves toward liberalisation that would “transform Tunisia into a banking services hub and a regional financial market.”

In social policy, Toujas-Bernate and Bhattacharya applauded the Tunis authorities for “reforms to labor market policies, the educational system, and public employment services that will serve to facilitate labor mobility and reduce mismatches between demand and supply in the labor market. The implementation of these reforms will be supported by several World Bank Development Policy Loans”. In “reforming the social security system” (i.e. cuts that might “buttress the pension system’s financial sustainability”) and attempting to cut “subsidies of food and fuel products,” Ben Ali won praise for “undertaking reforms to make the tax regime more business friendly” including commitments “to reduce tax rates on businesses and to offset those reductions by increasing the standard Value Added Tax (VAT) rate,” i.e., a profoundly regressive approach to taxation.

The 17 December 2010 suicide-by-immolation of an immensely frustrated informal trader, Mohamed Bouazizi – after his fruit and vegetable stand was confiscated, reflecting Washington’s instructions to squeeze tax receipts from the poor – catalysed the Arab Spring revolt that pushed Ben Ali out just a month later. WikiLeaks revealed how even the US State Department was appalled by the families of Ben Ali and his wife Leila Trabelsi, who controlled half the national economy and who, as Rob Prince put it, were “dominating the IMF-pressured privatisations that have marked the country’s economic transition.” In July 2019, Tunisia’s Truth and Dignity Commission sent memoranda to the World Bank and the IMF, as well as to France, seeking reparations for Tunisian victims of human rights violations, claiming that the IMF and World Bank bear “a share of responsibility” in social unrest linked to structural adjustment policies.

As for Muammar Gaddafi’s reign in Libya, the IMF in October 2010 celebrated the regime for “reducing civil service employment” by a planned 340,000 workers, while recommending “that the retrenchment program be accelerated.” In February 2011, the IMF promoted “an ambitious program to privatize banks” and “commended the authorities for their ambitious reform agenda, and looked forward to the effective implementation of the many important laws passed in the last year, complemented by policies aimed at adapting the labor force to the economic transformation.”

New York Times reporters Pierre Briancon and John Foley observed how, “The fund’s mission to Tripoli had somehow omitted to check whether the ‘ambitious’ reform agenda was based on any kind of popular support. Libya is not an isolated case. And the IMF doesn’t look good after it gave glowing reviews to many of the countries shaken by popular revolts in recent weeks,” including Bahrain, Algeria and Egypt. The Times journalists’ worry was that “the toppling of unpopular regimes will make it difficult for their successors to adopt the same policies. In the future, the IMF might want to add another box to check on its list of criteria: democratic support”.

But because that concept was utterly foreign, neither the IMF nor the Bank seemed to have any idea that promoting neoliberalism in corrupt regimes so openly would generate political instability. A February 2011 World Bank report, Africa’s future and the World Bank’s support to it, claimed that both Tunisia and Libya were ‘low risk’ in a map of “fragile and conflict affected states”, even after Ben Ali was ousted by popular demand and Libya was breaking apart.

And in Egypt, where Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorship and military-capitalist regime was borrowing heavily, the IMF’s Article IV Consultation praised Cairo in 2010 for “key fiscal reforms – introducing the property tax, broadening the VAT, and phasing out energy subsidies.” Mubarak’s “fiscal and monetary policies of the past year have been in line with staff’s advice. The authorities remain committed to resuming fiscal consolidation broadly in keeping with past advice to address fiscal vulnerabilities.” There was still need, the IMF argued, for “decisive action” in, “resuming privatisation and increasing the role of carefully structured and appropriately priced Public Private Partnerships.”

From 25 January to 11 February 2011, millions of angry citizens went to the streets and Tahrir Square, forcing Mubarak to resign. He was then repeatedly convicted and jailed for blatant “presidential palaces” embezzlement of state funds, which somehow had gone unnoticed by the IMF and Bank.

But because of counter-revolutionary processes in the subsequent months and years, none of the countries being praised by the IMF and Bank in 2010 witnessed durable democratisation. And while a G8 Deauville Partnership declaration “pledged support for ‘reforms that promote transparency, accountability, and good governance’ in the Arab world,” as leading political scientist Adam Hanieh reported in 2015, the World Bank and IMF “attempted to utilise the post 2011 moment to maintain the essential characteristics of past practice, while employing a language that professes a new course and sympathy with the social justice goals of the uprisings.”

Adherence to neoliberal dogma meant that in the year that democratically-elected Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi served (2012-2013) before a military coup, the IMF was back to demanding that Cairo drop food and fuel subsidies in exchange for a $4.8 billion loan. Morsi realised if he took such a step it would risk a reboot of the Arab Spring. Even his coup-installed successor, General Abdel Fattah El-Sisi (who in 2018 was later formally elected), received three bailout loans from the IMF. In 2023, the $3 billion requested by the tyrant from the IMF was contingent upon further privatisation and exchange control deregulation.

The story was initially similar in Tunisia, where after Lagarde sweet-talked its new leaders in 2012, IMF conditionality was imposed on loans in 2013 ($1.7 billion) and 2016 ($2.8 billion). But in 2023, as trade unionists opposed the IMF-mandated restructuring of 100 state companies and cuts in social subsidies, the dictatorial President Kais Saied (who in 2021 dissolved parliament and ruled by decree) ultimately rejected another $2 billion IMF bailout due to loss of sovereignty. But Saied’s securocrat regime is appreciated by European Union officials, who doled out generous aid in order to bridge the gap to IMF lending, so as to slow African migrant passage through Tunisia.

South Africa’s Corruption Continues, with More IMF and Bank Funding Than Ever

At the southern end of Africa, the IMF and Bank were extremely generous lenders to the apartheid regime – with proceeds advancing white South African and multinational corporate mining interests – and in 1993, an $850 million Fund loan locked in neoliberal policies that decisively shifted Nelson Mandela’s government away from its 1994 democratic mandate. World Bank economists were crucial in authoring Mandela’s 1996 homegrown structural adjustment programme, as well as biased subsequent research aiming to cover up the resulting inequality, the world’s worst.

In 2010, the Bank’s $3.75 billion Eskom loan for a 4800 MW coal-fired power plant allowed the crucial funding of manufacturer Hitachi’s state-capture of the ruling party, although the Bank’s 2007-2012 President Robert Zoellick was fully aware of that corruption (which was by late 2007 already a scandal) and citizen lobbying against the loan was unprecedented. When Hitachi was successfully prosecuted in 2015 under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the Bank’s Vice President for Integrity Leonard McCarthy (a controversial South African) illogically claimed that no Bank funds were affected. Moreover, as extreme structural corruption was being unveiled within the South African state – including its fraud-riddled health ministry – the IMF and Bank offered major loans in 2020-2022 ostensibly for Covid-19 relief, drawing protest at the Bank’s Johannesburg office.

Ironically, it was a quarter century ago when the World Bank began regularly fretting over state capture, particularly based on the disastrous Eastern European political transitions. In 2006, then-President Paul Wolfowitz – himself deposed a year later due to malgovernance – gave vocal Bank support to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. And yet, conditions prevailing among some of its most wretched borrowers – especially in Africa – mean that in the course of dogmatically promoting hard neoliberal ‘reforms,’ the Bank and IMF have regularly elided the obvious correlation between state shrinkage and crony empowerment.

At the April 2011 IMF Spring Meetings, during Strauss-Kahn’s last press conference, a journalist asked about the North African uprising: “Do you have any fears that there is perhaps a far left movement coming through these revolutions?” A smug Strauss-Kahn remarked, “Good question. There’s always this risk, but I’m not sure it will materialise.”

Until it does, the system appears impervious to genuine reform.

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This was originally published on Bretton Woods Project.

Patrick Bond, Professor, University of the Western Cape School of Government. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. 

Featured image: Tunisians demonstrate for peace, freedom of speech and for a secular state ahead of elections for a Constituent Assembly on 23 October 2011, following the Tunisian Revolution. Credit: European Parliament

Britain Always Seeks a Profit in Wars

October 5th, 2023 by Mark Curtis

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When my colleagues Phil Miller and Matt Kennard visited the world’s largest arms fair in London last month, they found weapons manufacturers cashing in on Europe’s worst conflict for decades.

“The war in Ukraine has driven an increase in sales across the portfolio for sure,” one weapons company executive told them.

New orders are indeed flowing to arms companies as some announce rising profits fueled by the war. Corporations such as MBDA, Babcock and Thales have all recently won lucrative new contracts from the UK’s Ministry of Defence for missiles and technical support to armoured vehicles.

Both Babcock and BAE, the UK’s largest arms exporter, have now set up offices in Ukraine, positioning themselves to secure new deals. BAE’s share price has jumped more than 75% since the Russian invasion last year.

The company’s new agreement with Ukraine will “ramp up the company’s support to Ukraine’s armed forces” and enable BAE “to work alongside” them “to… support its future force structure”.

As the UK continues to pour weapons into Ukraine, the devastating conflict is providing a boon to UK and NATO military industry. But there is a long history of Britain profiting from war.

What Is It Good for?

Within a month of Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, prime minister Margaret Thatcher was writing to US president Jimmy Carter about the need to implement “immediate political and economic measures which we intend to direct at the Soviet Union”.

A key one was to “accelerate negotiations over the sales of British defence equipment to Oman, Saudi Arabia and other states in the Gulf,” she wrote, in files now declassified at the National Archives.

A decade later, the same arms export opportunities were in the minds of British officials after another invasion.

Less than three weeks after Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, the UK’s defence procurement minister, Alan Clark, was eyeing up prospects. He wrote to his boss, Thatcher, stating the UK and its allies should view Iraq’s invasion as an “unparalleled opportunity” for British arms exports.

Iraq and Kuwait now presented “a vast demonstration range with live ammunition and ‘real’ trials,” Clark wrote. “Armaments are our most successful manufactured export”, he added.

At the end of the memo he provided a list of “current defence sales prospects at the start of the crisis”. Clark listed a number of potential customers with the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan at the top of the list.

Arming Both Sides

Britain benefiting from Iraq’s war in 1990 was nothing new. Throughout the 1980s, when Baghdad fought revolutionary Iran in a brutal war that consumed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, the UK provided an array of arms to Saddam Hussein’s regime.

But the UK also armed the other side, Iran. 

From the very first day of the Iran–Iraq War, which broke out in September 1980, Britain sent millions of pounds worth of tank barrels and tank engines to Iran, calling them “non-lethal” equipment. 

This helped to maintain the 890 Chieftain tanks and 250 Scorpion tanks the British had delivered during the 1970s to the shah of Iran, who ruled the country before being overthrown in 1979.

Further exports to Iran of hundreds of Land Rovers and air defence radars followed, while other back channels were used. One scheme involved Whitehall’s connivance with a company called Allivane International to secretly ship arms to Iran in the mid to late 1980s. 

Another enabled the British company BMARC to export naval guns, spares and ammunition to Iran via Singapore in 1986.

Another Opportunity

When a peace agreement was signed between Iraq and Iran in August 1988, this also provided an opportunity. Foreign secretary Geoffrey Howe noted in a secret report to Thatcher that “opportunities for sales of defence equipment to Iran and Iraq will be considerable”.

The only problem was that he was writing five months after Iraq had launched a chemical weapons attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja in the north of the country, killing over 3,000 people.

The secrecy of this arms export policy was vital, since, as one Foreign Office official noted,

“it could look very cynical if, so soon after expressing outrage about the treatment of the Kurds [at Halabja], we adopt a more flexible approach to arms sales”.

This didn’t matter. In October 1989 foreign minister William Waldegrave noted of Saddam’s Iraq that “I doubt if there is any future market of such a scale anywhere where the UK is potentially so well-placed”. He added:

“The priority of Iraq in our policy should be very high.”

The UK had by then already allowed numerous British companies to exhibit equipment at the Baghdad arms fair in April, attended also by weapons salesmen from the government’s Defence Exports Services Organisation.

Backing Rivals

Whitehall’s arming of both sides in Iraq and Iran was not an aberration. Britain has also long armed both Pakistan and India, even at the point where tensions between the two have been at their highest, with the prospects of war very real.

Since 2008, Labour and Conservative ministers have approved £233m worth of arms to Pakistan and £2.3bn to India. Included in these long standing exports are weapons ideal for combat.

Take also the murderous war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which claimed three million lives until a peace accord was reached in July 2002.

Britain sold arms to Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola, which intervened to support the DRC regime, at the same time as supplying Uganda and Rwanda, which were fighting the DRC and its allies.

Representatives from opposing sides (Uganda and Angola) were invited to London’s annual arms fair in September 2001. The International Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria said that “Britain is inflaming the situation by arming both sides”.

Throughout the 1970s to the 1990s when the Arab-Israeli conflict was at its height, Britain also armed both sides: Israel and the Arab states. It’s still arming other rivals now such as its NATO allies Greece and Turkey, which have disputes over Cyprus and the economic status of Greek islands. 

Since 2013, the UK has sold Greece £127m worth of arms and Turkey as much as £2.1bn.

In the last ten years Britain has exported £227m worth of arms to China and no less than £702m to Taiwan, which is claimed by Beijing. Taiwan has become a burgeoning arms export market for Britain in the last few years, just as war between Beijing and Taipei has become more likely.

Why do British policy-makers fuel conflicts by pumping still more weapons into them? Most obviously, money. But also, influence – arms exports can shape conflicts or bring influence with key decision-makers in foreign states, especially when accompanied by military training programmes that increase contacts with political leaders.

Proponents of Britain’s extensive military industrial complex always justify weapons exports by claiming they sustain jobs and the economy. But there are better ways to boost the economy and this often costs the public. BAE Systems, for example, paid less than 15% of its own research and development costs in 2022: the rest was paid by the state. 

As Anna Stavraniakis has pointed out, the arms industry is increasingly owned by asset managers and investment funds whose returns flow to wealthy individuals and pension funds. 

The reality is that Britain is a substantially militarised society, and this state of affairs is championed by Labour and Conservative politicians alike. Worse still, war is an integral feature of Whitehall’s business model.

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Mark Curtis is the editor of Declassified UK, and the author of five books and many articles on UK foreign policy.

Featured image: London hosts the world’s largest arms fair. (Photo: Leila Dougan / Declassified UK)

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

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***

A screenshot from the title page of a leaked 130-page Final Report of the Ukraine War Disinfo Working Group commissioned by the British Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and the U.K.-based Zinc Network’s Open Information Partnership. Despite the studied 10 week period ending in April, the report was internally released earlier this month. The ten studied European regions are highlighted in blue. Leaked report from U.S. Special Ops contractor and NATO-partnered think-tanks defines criticism of NATO as disinfo. Recommends “coordinated action to pressure social media and digital market actors”.

A leaked 130-page report made public here for the first time documents an international censorship campaign funded by the British government and led by a public relations contractor for U.S. Special Operations Forces. The basic strategy is to redefine “disinformation” to include even factual criticism of the U.S. military or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and then to exert “coordinated action to pressure social media and digital market actors” to “moderate” such speech. The previously secret report also recommends “intensifying cooperation among the intelligence agencies within the EU [European Union]”, which in the past has included Ukrainian intelligence conducting what it described as a “multi-level special operation” in Spain to arrest a critical journalist for treason over his YouTube broadcasts.

A screenshot of the introduction to the leaked final report of Open Information Partnership’s Ukraine War Disinfo Working Group. The term “disinformation” is defined to include large categories of verifiably true criticisms of Western governments, including those deemed “emotive” or to have originated from an anonymous source. Such a definition of disinformation is even more expansive than “malinformation”, which is generally understood as factual information shared out of context.

The international effort is coordinated by the U.K.-based government public relations contractor Zinc Network, which rose to prominence more than two years ago as the subject of the first piece of investigative journalism to be forceably labeled by Twitter as potentially obtained through hacking. Despite being based upon documents implicitly confirmed as authentic, the reporting was arguably panned by major U.S. outlets because of the embarrassing ties it revealed between Western intelligence agencies and prominent investigative journalism.

Based upon a fresh leak of a report internally released by the Ukraine War Disinfo Working Group of Zinc’s Open Information Partnership (OIP) earlier this month, the author is independently concluding that the U.K. government-funded network of think tanks and investigative journalists has recommended a coordinated campaign to pressure social media companies and “digital market actors” into suppressing even factual criticism of NATO-aligned governments.

We are further revealing from public procurement records that Zinc Network received more than $500,000 from a direct contract with U.S. Special Operations Command in Kenya and more than $3 million from a subcontract with U.S. Army Europe and Africa under the controversial U.S. intelligence contractor CACI. (Last month a federal judge again refused to dismiss a lawsuit against CACI regarding its alleged support for U.S. military torture in the Abu Ghraib prison.)

Much of the polarization surrounding The Grayzone’s reporting centered on OIP’s previous partnership with the influential investigatory nonprofit Bellingcat, whom Zinc funded with more than 65,000 euros between 2019 and 2021. Grayzone’s 2021 publication noted that one of the potential Bellingcat trainers named in Zinc’s documents was Christiaan Triebert, who subsequently moved to the Visual Investigations team of The New York Times. Bellingcat’s former director of training and research, Aric Toler, recently joined the same team.

Zinc Network and Bellingcat did not respond to detailed requests for comment sent two days before publication. Additional emails to the two official public accounts associated with OIP bounced due to the author’s email address not being on a pre-approved list, but both Zinc and its OIP team confirmed receipt directly before the requested response deadline. This article will be updated if any of the organizations provide a post-publication comment.

The former head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s short-lived Disinformation Governance Board, Nina Jankowicz, has also prominently advertised their role as a member of OIP’s advisory board. Much of the concern surrounding such a content moderation board within DHS stemmed from fears that it could become a tool for suppressing even factual critiques of the U.S. Government — an overt aim of the newly public OIP report.

A screenshot from the second page of the leaked final report of the Ukraine War Disinfo Working Group which details the distribution of narrative analysis tasks to eleven different organizations.

The Ukraine War Disinfo Working Group’s study was largely outsourced by Zinc to eleven separate organizations: the Ukrainian narrative surveillance firm LetsData led the social media data collection and network analysis, while each of the ten Eastern European regions of study was handled by a separate think tank. For example, analysis of Ukraine was assigned to Detector Media, whose 2020 annual report listed the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, the U.S. Agency for International Development, OIP, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark as funders.

The number one target of Detector’s campaign in Ukraine, journalist and politician Anatoliy Shariy, has been twice charged with treason by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). The first charge, for posting a map of Ukraine to his YouTube channel which excluded Crimea and the Donbas, resulted in his brief arrest in Spain as a result of what the SBU itself described as a “multi-level special operation”. The second charge was announced in July through the SBU’s Telegram channel, based on an accusation that Shariy provided filming advice to Russian intelligence.

A screenshot from Detector Media’s list of “Key actors” for “pro-Russian” narratives in Ukraine from page 125 of the final report of Open Information Partnership’s Ukraine War Disinfo Working Group. Detector’s primary target, journalist Anatoliy Shariy, has twice been charged with treason by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). Shariy was temporarily arrested in Spain last year through what the SBU labeled a “multi-level special operation” in response to posting a map of Ukraine to his YouTube channel which excluded the occupied regions of Crimea and the Donbas.

Leaked emails from the Twitter Files revealed that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) forwarded requests from the SBU to Twitter which included a demand to censor both Shariy and Canadian journalist Aaron Maté. Maté is perhaps the second most prominent contributor  to The Grayzone behind founding editor Max Blumenthal, whom OIP names alongside Columbia professor Jeffrey Sachs as an influential American figure in “pro-Russian” narratives in Belarus. The SBU’s request for Twitter to censor Shariy and Maté came one year after Grayzone’s exposé of Zinc’s Open Information Partnership.

The OIP working group’s recent recommendation of “coordinated action to pressure social media and digital market actors” to censor even factual journalism is laid out in the leaked final report. The first page of its introduction defines disinformation to include even verifiable criticisms of NATO, with two such explicit categories including “Content based on verifiable information which…uses emotive or inflammatory language” and “Not-attributable…information which fits with existing pro-Kremlin narratives, aims or activities”. Under a non-partisan extension of this system, the U.S. Congressman-endorsed online troll army known as the North Atlantic Fella Organization (NAFO) would have its communications labeled as disinformation, regardless of the veracity of its individual arguments. But OIP’s targets are instead influential journalists who report critically on NATO.

The basic methodology of the report was to collect 50 postings each week using keyword searches on individually selected “pro-Russian” information sources in each of the ten studied regions, typically taking 35 of the 50 posts from social media such as Telegram and Facebook and 15 from online media outlets. U.S. Army Cyber Command has similarly been purchasing bulk copies of the public content of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter as part of its mission to protect the “NATO brand”, as was revealed by the author in April.

(Twelve pages of the Ukraine War Disinfo Working Group’s final report were made public six days ago on LinkedIn by the Lithuanian non-profit Civic Resilience Initiative (CIR), which handled the Baltics region for the group. Several weekly reports from OIP’s study were also published by Political Capital, the Hungarian think tank tasked with monitoring narratives in its own country. While of a similar format, the weekly reports do not contain, for example, the final report’s noteworthy recommendation of a coordinated pressure campaign against social media companies and “digital market actors”. CIR’s twelve pages similarly are focused on the Baltics and do not contain the full report’s more controversial definitions or recommendations.)

A screenshot from the ninth page of the leaked final report of the Ukraine War Disinfo Working Group commissioned by the Zinc Network’s Open Information Partnership with funding from the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. The contained text explains the group’s methodology for surveilling “pro-Russian narratives” on select Telegram and Facebook accounts, as well as in targeted media outlets, through a partnership with the Ukrainian company LetsData.

The leaked U.K. government-funded report explicitly warns against usage of the phrase “the West”, arguing that “This may fuel the narrative that the so-called ‘collective West’ exerts undue control over Ukraine.” On the other hand, the final pages of the report argue that “intelligence agencies across Europe can and should do more and they require a more unified approach [emphasis theirs]”. The group further recommends “Improving and intensifying cooperation among the intelligence agencies within the EU with the focus on malign foreign information influence.”

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Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

Women’s Rights in Afghanistan: “Before” and “After” America’s Destructive Wars

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, October 04, 2023

Unknown to Americans, in the 1970s and early 1980s, Kabul was “a cosmopolitan city. Artists and hippies flocked to the capital. Women studied agriculture, engineering and business at the city’s university. Afghan women held government jobs”.

US Democrats Commit Suicide with Ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Shut Down of US Government in November?

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The Nobel Prize Has Been Politicized. Nobel Committee Has Awarded the Prize to Two “Scientists” Who Concocted the Most Dangerous “Vaccine” Ever Released

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, October 04, 2023

The Nobel Committee gave the Peace prize to Obama, one of the worst warmongers of the 21st century second only to Bush/Cheney. And now the Nobel Committee has awarded the medicine prize to two “scientists” who concocted the most dangerous “vaccine” ever released on the world with the documented deaths of millions of the vaccinated and even larger numbers of people with health injuries.

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By M. K. Bhadrakumar, October 04, 2023

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By Health Freedom Defense Fund, October 04, 2023

In the past few decades, the childhood vaccine schedule in the United States has exploded into what is now the most aggressive vaccination schedule in the world. It wasn’t always this way. Most Americans who are today’s “baby boomers” likely had only two or three vaccinations—polio, smallpox and DTP—and never more than one shot—one dose of a single vaccine—per visit.

Why Synthetic Food Is Very Dangerous

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, October 04, 2023

The official source of nutritional information is the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference. It lists the composition of hundreds of thousands of foods, but it’s not as detailed as you might imagine. In all, it details only 188 nutritional components, including 38 flavonoids, yet scientists estimate there are more than 26,000 different biochemicals in our food.

UK’s Former Defense Secretary Wants More Young Ukrainians on the Battlefield

By Lucas Leiroz de Almeida, October 04, 2023

Apparently, former British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace is convinced that Ukraine is “winning”. In an opinion article published in The Telegraph, Wallace endorsed the “need” for Ukraine to mobilize even more young people to participate in hostilities, stating that this is the only way to “finish the job”, leading the country to definitively defeat Russian troops.