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First published on August 23, 2023

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1. Sun Tzu said: In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy’s country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them.

2. Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.

— Sunzi, “Chapter 3: Attack by Stratagem,” The Art of War

Chinese wisdom from 6th century BCE explains why China, barring the crossing of a redline by separatists in Taiwan, has no inclination to attack. Why would China want to destroy a part of itself? Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, the country has navigated bumps in the road while pursuing a path of supreme excellence.

In the late 1940s, in the latter stages of the Chinese civil war, after the Communists had defeated the Guomindang (KMT) on the mainland, the KMT escaped across the Taiwan Strait. Because the US 7th fleet was patrolling the waters and protecting the KMT, and because the Communists lacked a formidable navy, an aquatic pursuit was ruled out for the Communists.

The US interjecting itself into a far flung conflict was not unusual. Author William Blum wrote about this, remarking about American untrustworthiness toward erstwhile allies in his book Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (pdf available online).

The communists in China had worked closely with the American military during the war, providing important intelligence about the Japanese occupiers, rescuing and caring for downed US airmen.¹ But no matter. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek [of the KMT] would be Washington’s man. (p 20)

Fervent anti-communism in Washington and Langley, saw the CIA aiding the KMT against the mainland. But the US would have to address “One China”:

The Generalissimo, his cohorts and soldiers fled to the offshore island of Taiwan (Formosa). They had prepared their entry two years earlier by terrorizing the islanders into submission—a massacre which took the lives of as many as 28,000 people.¹⁵ Prior to the Nationalists’ escape to the island, the US government entertained no doubts that Taiwan was a part of China. Afterward, uncertainty began to creep into the minds of Washington officials. The crisis was resolved in a remarkably simple manner: the US agreed with Chiang that the proper way to view the situation was not that Taiwan belonged to China, but that Taiwan was China. And so it was called. (p 22)

Thus it was that the anti-Communist US had a dog in this fight, and that dog was (and still is) Taiwan. The US backed Jiang Jieshi (aka Chiang Kai-shek), and the CIA trained, organized, and conducted military incursions across the Taiwan Strait against the mainland. (p 23)

Manifestly, the big fish for the imperialist hegemon to try and fry is the One-China policy, to which the US is a signatory, which acknowledges there being only one China and that Taiwan is a province of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Such is the fervor of the diminishing imperial US that it unabashedly is in violation of an agreement it signed by de facto treating Taiwan as a separate country by selling arms to it and sending political representatives and military personnel without seeking the approval of the government in Beijing.

How would the US feel if China sent political representatives to meet with the Hawaiian sovereignty movement? If China sold or gave arms to this movement? After all, the Apology Resolution — passed in 1993 by a Joint Resolution of the US Congress 100 years after the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy — “acknowledges that the Native Hawaiian people never directly relinquished to the United States their claims to their inherent sovereignty as a people over their national lands.”

Canadian and American media reported on 4 June “that a Chinese warship came within 150 yards of colliding with an American destroyer in the Taiwan Strait during a joint U.S.-Canada exercise.” Of note: the US media report mentions that the US-Canadian warships were “allegedly in international waters.” If not allegedly in international waters, then presumably they were in Chinese waters.

Of concern to US militarists is the realization that China’s navy is larger than the US navy and the gap is widening. More foreboding for any potential attacker are China’s hypersonic anti-ship missiles.

Even if the warships were enforcing freedom of navigation (FON), an analysis, published on 15 May by the South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative (SCSPI) at Peking University, questions what exactly FON means for the Taiwan Strait.

SCSPI argues that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea “ultimately aims to maintain a balance between the interests of maritime powers and coastal states. There has never been an unrestricted right of navigation in the Convention or in general international law.”

Although foreign ships enjoy the right of innocent passage in the territorial sea, Article 25 of the Convention provides that the coastal state may take the necessary steps to prevent passage which is not innocent. That is, the coastal States have the right to decide whether the passage of a foreign ship is consistent with the “right of innocent passage” under Article 19. The Convention also provides that the coastal State may adopt domestic law on innocent passage and may require a foreign warship that disregards any request for compliance with domestic law to leave the territorial sea immediately…. U.S. warships may exercise the right of innocent passage, but at the same time must respect the coastal state’s determination of whether the passage is innocent and comply with the laws and regulations of the coastal State concerning passage through the territorial sea.

If China was a militaristic country, then people ought to consider when would be the most opportunistic time for China to militarily reincorporate Taiwan back into the motherland. How about when the US is on the verge of an embarrassing defeat in Ukraine, having sunk almost a $115 billion into losing a proxy war and having depleted much of its weapons stores, having its missile defense batteries destroyed, HIMARS defended against, Nati-tank Javelins brushed aside, Bradley tanks rendered nugatory, etc?

What conclusion then can one draw from the fact that militarily powerful China has not launched any attack against Taiwan during this period of time?

The US seeks to keep Taiwan separate from the mainland, as a reincorporated Taiwan would open strategic access to the Pacific for the PRC. Thus, president Joe Biden has doubled down on his pledge to intervene in any fighting between China and its province Taiwan. Two problems with Biden’s tough-guy posturing: 1) words are cheap; and 2) aside from making clear its redlines, the talk of China attacking its province of Taiwan is all from the US side. It is clearly not in the mainland’s interest to kill its own citizens or cause damage to the island. China has pledged itself to peace.

I asked Wei Ling Chua, the author of Democracy: What the West can learn from China and Tiananmen Square “Massacre”? The Power of Words vs. Silent Evidence, his analysis of what US interventions hold for the One-China policy.

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Kim Petersen: Taiwan became part of the Chinese Qing dynasty in 1683. That is almost a century before European natives destroyed several Indigenous nations and dispossessed them of their land, resources, culture, language — i.e., genocide — and established the ill-begotten United States of America in 1776.

Yet the US encourages the separatist movement in Taiwan led by the Democratic Progressive Party. Importantly, the Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan) also claims that there is one China and that the mainland, Tibet, and, until 2002, even outer Mongolia constituted the ROC.

Why is Taiwan outside the direct control of the PRC? This is because despite being aided by the US, Jiang Jieshi and the Guomindang (KMT) were defeated by the Communist forces led by Mao Zedong. The US 7th Fleet, however, protected the escape of the KMT to Taiwan, as China at that time had a minuscule navy. If not for that, the Communists might well have brought Taiwan fully back into the motherland’s fold long ago.

The US and western-aligned media serially warn that the PRC is poised to invade Taiwan. The US says it stands poised to blow up Taiwan’s critical chip producer TSMC in case of a Chinese attack. Why would the PRC militarily attack a valuable part of the motherland, especially given that the vast majority of the planet’s 190 or so countries recognize the one-China policy whereby Taiwan is a province of the PRC?

Wei Ling Chua: To explain clearly a series of essential facts (including not widely noticed facts) about the relations between Taiwan Province, China, and the USA, I need to breakdown the information as follows:

Ignorance of Taiwan Youth About Their Own Constitution

Recently, a number of street interviews were conducted in Taiwan province asking young Taiwanese “Do you know the relationship between the Republic of China and Taiwan?”, the reply shocked the interviewer as the majority of the youth in Taiwan didn’t even know their political entity’s official name is the Republic of China (ROC), and that the ROC’s constitution regards the mainland of China and Taiwan being parts of the ROC sovereign territory. For example:

• A street interview in June 2023 asked: “What is the relationship between Taiwan and the ROC?” The reply: “…Enemy…”;  The interviewer then asked: “Have you heard of ROC? Do you know where is ROC?” The reply: “The other side of the Taiwan Straits? … I don’t know, I don’t know…” During the interview, almost all interviewees didn’t know the ROC, some later replied: “Taiwan” (with a guessing element after observing the interviewer’s tone);
• A street interview in May 2023 asked: “What is the relationship between Taiwan and the ROC?” The reply: “… looks like the relationship is not too good…”; The interviewer then asked: “According to the ROC constitution, Taiwan sovereignty includes the mainland of China, do you know that?” The reply: “No”.

The above interviews demonstrated the success of the ongoing brainwashing tactics used by the current ruling party (the DPP) in Taiwan province by modifying historical facts in school textbooks in the past 2 decades. One needs just to search under “DDP modify Taiwan history textbook” to learn about the issues. If one uses simplified Chinese or traditional Chinese to search the subject, one will get even more examples and news on the topic of young Taiwanese being heavily brainwashed into believing that they are not a part of the Chinese civilization despite their shared history, culture, tradition, values, food habits, ethnicity, religions, and languages (spoken and written). This reflects the scary effect of what fake news and propaganda could do to divide society and create conflict across the world.

The One-China Wording in the ROC Constitution

It is important to note that the content of the ROC Constitution is still the same today as before the Nationalist government lost the internal war to the Communist Party and escaped to Taiwan Province in 1949. It is also important to note that all the incoming Taiwan Presidents and MPs have to be sworn in under the Constitution of The ROC before taking office. So, what does the ROC Constitution say about the relation between the mainland of China and Taiwan island? The full text of the ROC’s Constitution is on the current Taiwan (Province) government’s official website. The following points shown that the ROC Constitution includes the entire mainland of China as it sovereign territory:

• Point 4 of the Constitution: The territory of ROC based on its inherent boundaries, cannot be changed without a resolution of the National Assembly;
• Point 6 refers to the design of the ROC flag used since 1928 (which is still in use today across Taiwan Province by whoever is in power);
• Point 26: Outline the number of Representatives based on the population in an area/region for the National Assembly (with special mention of the Mongolia and Tibet regional representatives);
• Point 64: About the makeup of representatives for law-making: this point also mentioned the .minority population representative with special mention of Mongolia and Tibet regions.
• Point 91: About the makeup of representatives in the Government Supervisory Body: again Mongolia and Tibet regions are mentioned.

If we search for a map of the ROC, one will notice that the ROC territory in the map includes the entire People’s Republic of China (PRC) territory. That means the territory outlined in the Constitution of both the PRC and ROC includes Taiwan province and the Mainland of China. Both documents are the legal foundation of one-China. So:

• Any Western media wording that suggests Taiwan province is not a part of China is without any legal foundation under both the ROC and the PRC Constitutions.
• The Western media and politicians’ ongoing warning that “China is going to invade Taiwan” is preposterous because what they are warning is that China is about to invade itself.
• America named the war between the South and the North (12 April 1861 to 26 May 1865) as the American Civil War revealing the double standard regarding the use of the term “invasion” to describe a possible future China reunification process through military action.

Therefore, the dispute between the PRC and ROC is a yet-to-settled historical event. It is purely a domestic issue between the 2 governments. Former Singapore Foreign Minister George Yao is right to point out in a recent interview that “China sees the Taiwan issue as a matter of historical justice”; he warns the Western powers about the danger of interfering in the reunification process.

The Territory Still Under ROC Control Includes Islands Only 2 km Away from the PRC-governed Mainland

Many people did not notice that the territory under the control of today’s ROC includes not only Taiwan Island itself but a number of islands right next to the mainland of the PRC. See the following screenshot map of the ROC (the purple territory in the bottom right-hand corner below is still under the control of the ROC):

One should note from the above map of the ROC-controlled (purple) territory that there are islands located right next to the mainland of China:

• Kinmen Islands: The nearest part of the Kinmen group of Islands is just 1.8 km from the PRC (mainland China); it is 210 km from Taiwan Island. Former Chinese World Bank Chief Economist Justin YiFu Lin was a ROC army official stationed in Kinmen Islands. He is the man who in 1979, swam 2130 meters to mainland China to call the PRC home;
• Matsu Islands: The nearest part of this group of islands is 18.5 km away from the Mainland of China and 203 km away from Taiwan Island;

• As for Taiwan Island itself, the nearest part to the mainland is 126 km away.

The above distance information between the ROC-controlled territory and the PRC-controlled mainland tells us a lot about the intention of the PRC government working towards a peaceful reunification:

• If China (PRC) wanted to take those islands right next to the mainland by force, they would have done it a long time ago. There is no reason to doubt the PRC military capability to do so given their ability to force the US-led military coalition back more than 500 km from the China-DPRK border to the 38th parallel and stop the US-led military coalition’s further aggression in the 1950-1953 Korean War;
• Even Taiwan Island (province) itself is so close to the mainland that a modern short-range missile and artillery are good enough to do the job of crippling the island’s economy and forcing a surrender; some contend that the current military technological capability of the PLA may be more advanced than the USA.
• Therefore, the ongoing Western media articles and news with headings that suggest China’s pending aggression and possible invasion of Taiwan to justify US/Japan/NATO/Australia/Canada militarism on the Chinese doorstep is nothing more than a smear campaign against China.

The History of Taiwan Island’s Relation with the Chinese Dynasties Dates Back to 230AD 

The history of Taiwan being a part of China was far earlier than 1683. This site (English) and this site (Chinese) provide a detailed Timeline of Taiwan’s relations with the Chinese dynasties beginning as early as the year 230AD: During the 3 kingdoms era, a written record of （沈莹） Shen Ying under the title 《临海水土志》 (direct transaction word by word: “surrounding seas water lands record”) already mentioned the Island of Taiwan. And that is almost 1800 years ago.

The trouble for many people who haven’t researched much about Chinese history is that they may be susceptible to Western media propaganda that portrays China as historically backward compared to the West, hence the ongoing smear campaign that China steals Western technology. So, it may be hard for some people to believe that in 230 AD, the Chinese already had the shipping technology to explore islands hundreds of km away in the rough sea. So, it is important for one to note the following facts about the Chinese being far more advanced than the West in shipping technology for thousands of year:

• One should note that the compass used by Columbus to “discover” America in 1492 AD was a Chinese-invented compass (invented during the Han Dynasty between 202 BC – 220 AD);
• 2500 years ago, China not only had a great military strategist Sun Zi (The Art of War) for land battles but also had a navy war strategist (伍子胥) Wu Zi Xu for water battles 《水战兵法》 (direct word by word translation “Water war military strategy”).

One should also take note that before Columbus “discovered” America in 1492 (as if the Indigenous peoples on the continent at that time were not regarded as “human beings” and so, the land has to be “discovered” by a “higher being” from Europe), the Ming Dynasty Navy General Zheng He had already led 7 ocean expeditions traveling the world (1405 to 1433), with “hundreds of huge ships and tens of thousands of sailors and other passengers. More than 60 of the 317 ships on the first voyage were enormous Treasure Ships, sailing vessels over 400 hundred feet long, 160 feet wide, with several decks, 9 masts, 12 sails, and luxurious staterooms complete with balconies.”

It is important to note that, despite such a scale of world voyages, China did not do what Columbus and Captain Cook’s voyages did to the Indigenous population in what would become America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The Ming Dynasty Imperial Voyages led by General Zheng He (a Chinese Muslim) were peaceful in nature.

There is also a well-researched book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World (including America) by Gavin Menzies (a former British Royal Navy Submarine Commanding Officer) who spent 15 years tracing the astonishing voyages of the Ming Dynasty’s fleet, visited over 900 museums across the world, engaged in conversations and correspondence with Universities professors specialized in Asia Study, and reading hundreds of titles in European country’s libraries that mentioned the Chinese voyages.

Despite the fact that Gavin’s compelling narrative pulls together ancient maps, precise navigational knowledge, astronomy, and the surviving accounts of Chinese explorers and the later European navigators, and that Gavin’s research also brings to light the artifacts and inscribed stones left behind by the emperor’s fleet, the evidence of the Ming Dynasty’s sunken junks along its route, and ornate votive offerings left by the Chinese sailors wherever they landed, Gavin’s book still discredited by the Western propaganda machine as “fiction” and “controversy”. As a reader of Kevin’s book to the last word, I am convinced by the incontrovertible evidence presented in regard to the Ming Dynasty Imperial Voyages, however, other readers’ opinions are also important. Please read the thousands of reader comments here, here, and here.

So, for those who are interested to know in detail about the 1800 years of history of Taiwan Island’s relation with the Chinese dynasties, please click here (English) and here (Chinese).One should note that, in July 1894, Japan launched a war of aggression against China. In April 1895, the defeated Qing Dynasty government was forced to cede Taiwan, etc, to Japan in an unequal treaty  (Treaty of Shimonoseki in Japanese, also known as Treaty of Maguan in Chinese).

International Treaties by US, UK, China, and Japan recognized Taiwan as China’s territory 

1943 Cairo Declaration (Image of the original document): Signed by President Roosevelt (USA), Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek (ROC President), and Prime Minister Churchill (UK) as military allies against the Japanese military aggression. The objective of the Cairo Declaration is to “procure unconditional surrender of Japan,” and that “all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa (known as “Taiwan” in Chinese), and … shall be restored to the Republic of China” (The Chinese government at that time).(Note: It seems that the US government history document website [https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments] has removed the Cairo Declaration document)

1945 INT Potsdam Declaration (Image of the original document) Point 8 stated: “The terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out and Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku, and such minor islands as we determine.” And again, this international treaty was entered into by the US, China, and UK governments, and agreed upon by the Japanese government after the US dropped the 2 atomic bombs on Japan.

Note: the US government history document website shows the full content of this 13-point document including point 8.

So, the above two international documents entered into by the US, China, UK, and Japan recognized Taiwan as a part of China, and Japan’s territory is limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine.” UN Resolution replaced ROC with PRC as the only legitimate government of China

UN Resolution 2758: passed on 25 October 1971: “Recognized the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as “the only legitimate representative of China to the United Nations” and removed “the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek” (referring to the ROC)  from the United Nations.Since then, as of June 2023, out of the 193 UN member nations, only 12 smaller nations recognize the ROC government, and 181 recognize the PRC government. (Including the US and all other Western governments. This is the condition for establishing diplomatic relations with the PRC.)

As a result, the ROC (in Taiwan) needs the PRC’s approval to get access to any international organizations or institutions such as the Olympics, WHO, etc. The PRC’s sovereignty over Taiwan is officially recognized by the UN document and 181 UN member states.

Blood Is Thicker Than Water: The Policy of Peaceful Reunification Since Mao’s Era

If one searches on the Internet for “台湾 血比水浓” (Taiwanese Blood is Thicker than Water), one will notice that there are millions of articles and news headlines over the decades describing the feeling of the Chinese people in the PRC towards the Chinese people in the ROC (Taiwan Province). They regard people in Taiwan as their brothers and sisters and hope for peaceful reunification.

Since the founding of the PRC, the Chinese leadership (from Mao to Xi) has been working hard toward a peaceful reunification with Taiwan Province. Just to name a few examples as follows:

Example 1:

During the Chinese Revolution, the then Nationalist Party government led by ROC President Chiang Kai-shek killed 6 of Chairman Mao’s relatives including Mao’s beloved wife (Yang Kaihui). In 1957, Chairman Mao wrote a touching poem in remembrance of his late wife with a description of his grief when he heard the news of her murder by the Nationalist government: “bursting into tears like rainwater” (泪飞顿作倾盆雨). Despite such personal grief in losing his loved one, Chairman Mao put the interest of the people and the Chinese nation first: For example:

After China and DPRK won the Korean War against the US-led 16-nation military coalition, there was a perception of Western nations trying to break Taiwan away from the motherland to create two Chinas, like the two Koreas (North and South Korea), and the two Germanys (East and West Germany). To prevent that, in 1956, Mao wrote a personal letter to Chiang Kai-shek, telling him the importance of Taiwan’s geographical position in accessing the Pacific Ocean for the Chinese nation, and urged him to safeguard the interest of the Chinese civilization to maintain the principle of a one-China policy. That is Taiwan province and the Mainland as integrated parts of one China. He then raised the idea of negotiation toward a peaceful reunification under the following principles:

• Foreign Power should be out of Taiwan;
• Taiwan must recognize the Central People’s Government as the only legitimate government of the PRC.
• Both the Nationalist Party and the Communist Party have to uphold the principle of a one-China policy;
• Chiang Kai-Shek will enjoy a special privileged status once Taiwan is unified with the mainland;
• Once unified, besides Foreign Affairs and Defence, Chiang Kai-Shek will retain the power of administering Taiwan in all other aspects such as the power for the appointment of officials and their removal in Taiwan, the treasury in Taiwan, and Chiang is allowed to keep his arm forces, and the central government will fund the development of Taiwan.
• Once unified, both sides will stop covert operations and propaganda against each other, and will not do anything to damage the relationship of both political parties.
• In the letter, Mao also enclosed a photo of Chiang’s ancestor’s grave in China, telling him that they are well maintained. (Photo below):

Unfortunately, for Chiang, it was a hard decision.Chiang died in 1975; to this day, his coffin is still not buried. According to his son Chiang Jing-guo’s Diary: Chiang wished to be buried on the mainland: at Nanjing, Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Zijin Mountain, Zhengqi Pavilion. Therefore, they are waiting for the day when the political climate is such that Chiang can be so interred.

Example 2:

In 1981, the PRC spelled out a 9 points policy toward peaceful reunification under a One-China policy (below is a translation from the Chinese text):

• The Communist Party and the Nationalist Party can negotiate on an equal footing;
• The two parties reached an agreement on postal, commercial, air, family visits, tourism, and academic, culture, and sports exchanges;
• After reunification, Taiwan can retain the military and enjoy special autonomy as a special administrative region;
• Taiwan’s society, economic system, way of life, and economic and cultural relations with other foreign countries remain unchanged; private property, houses, land, business ownership, legal inheritance rights, and foreign investment are inviolable;
• Political leaders in Taiwan can serve as leaders of the national political institutions and participate in national management;
• When Taiwan’s local finances are in difficulty, the central government can subsidize them at its discretion;
  • Taiwanese who wish to return to the mainland to live are guaranteed to make proper arrangements, come and go freely, and not be discriminated against;

• Welcome Taiwanese businesses’ investment in the mainland, their legal rights and profits are guaranteed;
• People and organizations from all walks of life in Taiwan are welcome to provide unified suggestions and discuss state affairs together.

One should acknowledge that no other nation in world history ever went to such length, patience, inclusiveness, and generosity in pursuing a nation’s peaceful reunification with an offer like this. The PRC government always believes that given time, they will be able to develop China into a better and better society, and will eventually unify every heart and mind in Taiwan.

Has any other nation in world history ever gone to such lengths, patience, inclusiveness, and generosity in pursuing peaceful reunification with an offer like this? The PRC government has always believed that given time, it would be able to develop China into a better and better society, and would eventually unify with the hearts and minds in Taiwan.

Of course, the Western mass media will never tell the world the above generous 9 points offered to Taiwan for peaceful reunification. They will only tell the world China is bullying Taiwan.

Example 3:

After years of negotiations, in 1992, the PRC Communist Party and the ROC Nationalist Party reached an agreement in Singapore to deepen the exchange of people between both sides. Both Parties agree to the principles of One China, and any other issues can be negotiated with flexibility. The term used for such a historic agreement is “1992 Consensus.”

Example 4:

In order to win the hearts and minds of the brothers and sisters in Taiwan province, the PRC has been very generous to Taiwan’s farmers and businesses and allowed Taiwan to enjoy an enormous trade surplus of up to $104.68 billion a year. About 44% of Taiwan’s exports go to mainland China. Without the PRC’s economic support, Taiwan’s economy would likely have fallen into a negative GDP like most parts of the Western world.

Again, the Western mass media is uninterested in reporting the above trade statistics.

Example 5:

The ROC-controlled Kinmen (Jinmen) Islands with a rising population and water shortage problem. Between 2006 and 2022, the population of the Jinmen Islands increased from 76,000 to 141,500.  To help the brothers and sisters in Jinmen solve their water problem, the PRC government invested heavily over a period of 22 years in infrastructure to lay an underground and undersea pipeline to deliver water from the mainland to the islands. And sell the water to the islands at a subsidized price of 9.89 Taiwan dollars per unit of water, which is cheaper than the charges per unit of water supplied by the local authority on the islands.

Again, the Western media won’t report news like this. They will only keep spreading the message to the world: “China bullies Taiwan” and “China is going to invade Taiwan”.

Example 6:

Like the US, after decades of political infighting, corruption, and incompetency in managing the economy and infrastructure upgrade, Taiwan suffered a series of issues including an electricity shortage that requires rationing from area to area. So, power Rationing Information is made available for residents to check when their area power will be cut off and for how long. Such a situation has been the new normal for a number of years already. It has badly affected business activities and damaged foreign investment. As a result, Taiwan’s youth unemployment rate has been consistently above 10%. And nearly 60% of the Taiwanese working overseas went to China. A report in 2017 by TVBS Taiwan showed that: over a period of 35 years, Taiwan startup wages remained almost the same, 70% of Taiwan youth refused to be trapped by low wages and wished to start their own business in order to make more money. Forbes Magazine reported the issue: “Workers in Taiwan are struggling. They took home an average of $1,510 per month in 2016, according to Taiwan’s National Development Council, which is low for an industrialized Asian economy that has developed a lot like Singapore and South Korea over the decades.”

In response to such low wages and employment problems faced by Taiwanese youth, Chairman Xi canceled the work permit requirement for Taiwanese people to seek employment on the mainland.

In fact, as early as 2016, the China People’s Congress had already set up an RMB40 billion fund, to help facilitate Taiwan Youth intent on setting up their own business in China.

Again, the Western mass media is uninterested in this kind of news. They will keep telling the world that China is bullying Taiwan.Example 7:There are too many stories of the PRC government (from Chairman Mao to Chairman Xi) extending goodwill to the Taiwanese people and awaiting eventual peaceful reunification. It is impossible to list them all. So, just to provide a couple more examples below:

• Whenever an overseas emergency happens, such as an outbreak of war, the Chinese embassies and military will immediately evacuate all Chinese citizens, including any Taiwanese who apply to the PRC with a Taiwan Compatriot ID document. Click here for a few dozen short news and videos.
• Any Taiwanese who run into trouble while overseas can easily seek help from any of the Chinese embassies in the respective country. A number of Taiwanese friends I met, while I was working in Eastern Europe based in Hungary in the 1990s, told me that the PRC embassy staff are more helpful than the ROC commercial office representative.

In 2022, China released a White Paper titled “The Taiwan Question and China’s Reunification in the New Era” (Here is the full text in English and Chinese).  It is a bit lengthy but worth reading. The policy document outlines the intention to reintegrate Taiwan by all possible peaceful means, and the many benefits  Taiwan people will enjoy in the process, including all the tax revenue collected in Taiwan will be used solely for the social well-being of the Taiwanese people and the economic development of Taiwan.

China: There is no Taiwan problem, only an American-caused problem.

China is a country with a very long history of peace culture. Examples:

• Malaysia’s former Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir said: “We always say, we have had China as a neighbor for 2000 years, we were never conquered by them. But the Europeans came in 1509, and in two years, they conquered Malaysia.”
• East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta defended China’s role as a growing strategic and economic power in Asia-Pacific in the National Press Club of Australia (2022), arguing: “China has hardly ever invaded other countries and was unlikely to do so in the future.”
• Indonesia’s Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto said in Singapore (2022) during an interview with Aljazeera: “But China has also helped us. China has also defended us and China is now a very close partner with Indonesia. And actually, China has always been the leading civilization in Asia. Many of our sultans, kings, our princes in those days would marry princesses from China. We have hundreds of years of relationship.”

The above 3 positive comments about China are from leaders of three of China’s neighboring countries in Asia. Their country’s experience with China since ancient times tells a lot about the peaceful nature of China. The question here is: will Latin American countries, African countries, other Asian countries, and Middle Eastern countries say the same about their country’s experience with the US and Europe? Or perhaps, will European countries say the same about their own neighboring countries in Europe?

The reality is that: Western imperialism is not dead after the 2 World Wars; in particular, the USA has always been a troublemaker for the rest of the world. The following examples should provide us with a good picture of how the US is threatening peace in Asia, and its main target since 2008 is China:

• US: Chinese are not allowed to be wealthy

During the 2008 GFC, US Secretary of Finance Henry Paulson visited China almost every month to seek help to stabilize the dollar’s status as a reserve currency. As a result, China bought almost an extra $600b in US Treasury debts in 2008, which accounted for over half the total issued by the US government to bail out the too-big-to-fail banks and the US economy that year.

Once the US economy stabilized, the world stopped dumping the dollar due to China having injected ($600b) confidence in US treasury debts, the only positive thing China received from America in return for its support of the US economy is open praise from Henry Paulson in the New York Times on 22 Oct 2008 “Thanking China’s cooperation in easing the Financial Crisis“.

Since then, in 2010, Obama said in Australia: “If over 1 billion Chinese citizens have the same living patterns as Australians and Americans do right now, then all of us are in for a very miserable time. The planet just can’t sustain it.”

In 2011, an opinion piece in the New York Times suggested that Obama “should enter into closed-door negotiations with Chinese leaders to write off the $1.14 trillion of American debt currently held by China in exchange for a deal to end American military assistance and arms sales to Taiwan and terminate the current United State-Taiwan defense arrangement by 2015.” Years later, a Wikileaks leaked email revealed the then Secretary of States Hillary Clinton wanted to discuss ditching Taiwan in exchange for China to erase US debts.In 2013, a Jimmy Kimmel Live show on ABC asked some kids what to do about the $1.3 trillion of debts the US owes to China, a very young boy suggested that “The US kill everyone in China instead of repaying its debts.”

In 2021, Joe Biden said in a press conference: “China wants to become the most wealthy, powerful country but it’s ‘not gonna happen on my watch’.”

In 2023, under the excuse of an imaginary “China threat” and to “Protect Taiwan from China invasion”, US politicians proposed a series of bipartisan bills aiming to restrict how China can use its money, restricting China’s rights in International Financial Institutions, and a plan to confiscate China’s sovereign fund and Chinese citizens’ overseas bank accounts and assets like the way the US and Europe did to the Russians in 2022.P

lease click the following links for details of their proposed “looting” bills:

• H.R.554, the “Taiwan Conflict Deterrence Act of 2023”, sponsored by Rep. French Hill;
• H.R.510, the “Chinese Currency Accountability Act of 2023,” sponsored by Rep. Warren David;
• H.R.839, the “China Exchange Rate Transparency Act of 2023,” sponsored by Rep. Dan Meuser;
• H.R.803, the “Protect Taiwan Act,” sponsored by Rep Frank Lucas;

From the above series of behavior and statements made by two US Presidents, a Secretary of State, a very young boy, the US media, and 4 politicians who sponsored anti-China bills, it is hard not to come to the conclusion about the ungrateful nature of Americans. It would appear to me that the robber DNA is deep in the blood and bone of many people in the US society (I hate to generalize my comment unless someone can convince me that the above-named series of behaviors within the US society are merely coincident!).

• US military threat to China at China’s doorstep

Let’s put aside the various issues from a reported 2012 US plan to deploy 60% of the US Navy fleet to the Asia Pacific by 2020, and the 2011 Obama Pacific Pivot with a secret plan to start a war against China by 2030 with a coalition of nations to militarily control commercial shipment to and from China via the South China seas to limit China freedom to trade with the rest of the world, and should China resist, the US-led military coalition would begin to attack China.

John Pilger is an award-winning journalist who produced a 2 hour documentary with details of US military bases around China and how the US may plan to start a war with China.

In 2017, US Admiral Scott Swift assured everyone he was ready to follow President Trump’s orders to launch a nuclear missile against China.

In 2022, former US National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien suggested destroying Taiwan’s semiconductor factories rather than letting them fall into China’s hands.

In 2023, US talk show host Garland Nixon wrote on Twitter that White House insiders said that US President Joe Biden had warned about a plan for “the destruction of Taiwan” when asked if there could be any greater disaster than the Ukraine crisis.

There are endless US military activities and arrangements targeting China in recent years. Just to list a few more examples below:

In February 2023, Jinmen Island local lawmakers voted to declare Jinmen a non-military zone, and Jinmen governor Li Zhufeng (李炷烽) suggests using Jinmen Island as a pilot program for the One Country Two Systems and expanding gradually thereafter. 

Professor John V. Wash in a recent article titled “Arming Taiwan is an Insane Provocation” cited a hyperlink to a 2022 polling that showed that an overwhelming majority (82.1%) of Taiwanese now would like to preserve the status quo with only 5.3% wanting immediate independence.”

How much longer will China tolerate the US’s endless escalating military provocations?

In July 2023, Hungary Prime Minister Orban observed that “Beijing managed to develop as much in 30 years as other countries in 200 years. Therefore, they can claim their ‘place under the sun’. However, Washington does not accept that quick development, the fact that China preceded them in many sectors… As a result, a clash between the two world powers is inevitable…. War is not inevitable, but the USA does not accept that it has become the world’s second most powerful nation, Orbán added.”

An article on Education Monitor News rightly pointed out that “The Greatest Threat to the USA is not China, but Peace.”

In 2014, the New York Times put up an article titled ‘The Lack of Major Wars may be Hurting Economic Growth.’

One should bear in mind that the USA was created on the foundation of invasion, massacre, looting, and enslavement of others. Not a single thing the US possesses today is through peaceful means including every inch of its current territory.

Since 2008, China has already realized that its kindness towards the US will only be perceived as a weakness. That will only encourage more aggression and greed from the US imperialist rulers. So, the first thing Chairman Xi did after taking office in 2012 is to visit a PLA military base. He openly called upon the PLA to prepare for war and to win the war.

In February 2023, China released a report titled “US Hegemony and Its Perils,” and in May “America’s Coercive Diplomacy and its Harm” outlining the many crimes committed by the US against the world and that China is no longer interested in accommodating the US crimes and behaviors.

In March 2023, a Chinese government website reported that Chairman Xi Jinping told a group of more than 300 high-ranking government officials that: “History has repeatedly proven that if we seek security through resolve, security will prevail; If we seek security through concessions, security will perish; If we seek development through resolve, development will prosper; If we seek development through compromises, our development will suffer.”

In June 2023, China released The Law on Foreign Relations of the People’s Republic of China outlining the country’s attitude toward foreign relations, UN Charters, International Laws, and possible counter-action against any hostile foreign policy and behavior that harms Chinese interest and security.

In July, China called NATO “a trouble-maker”, and issued a warning to NATO: “Beijing doesn’t cause trouble, but is not afraid of trouble”. Days later, the Chinese ambassador to the US issued a direct warning to Washington: “If people violate me, I will hit back.”

So, how long will China continue to tolerate US provocation? How long will China allow the US military to continue to violate its sovereignty in Taiwan? Will China allow the US more time to arm Taiwan like what they did in Ukraine before Putin would no longer tolerate the threats and was forced to take military action?

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Kim Petersen is an independent writer. He can be emailed at: kimohp at gmail.com.

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First published on June 30, 2023

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Join us for an insightful 1-on-1 interview featuring Michelle Leduc Catlin and Professor Michel Chossudovsky as they delve into his testimony from an economics perspective. In this engaging conversation, Professor Chossudovsky challenges the prevailing narrative, highlighting his belief that there is no pandemic and shedding light on the initial announcement of the pandemic, which reported ~120 cases in Canada according to the W.H.O.

During the interview, Professor Chossudovsky explores the impact of lockdown measures, arguing that they contribute to economic destabilization and undermine civil society. This thought-provoking discussion offers a unique perspective on the current global situation. 

Bill Gates, for example, knew in advance what Tedros was going to announce.  “I’m sure about this,” he said.  “It’s probably him [Gates] who told him [Tedros] what to say … People who make money with speculation [on the stock exchange], they know in advance …

To gain a deeper understanding of Professor Chossudovsky’s insights, we encourage you to watch his full testimony here.

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Censorship

A note on Censorship directed against Prof Michel Chossudovsky’s presentation to the National Citizens Inquiry (NCI) by Youtube: 

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The conflict between Russia and Ukraine will conclude with Kiev’s unconditional surrender, according to Scott Ritter, a former US intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector.

On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky claimed in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that “Ukraine does not trade its territories, because we do not trade our people.”

The message was dedicated to the Third Crimea Platform Summit, where Ukraine discussed ways of “de-occupying” the peninsula, which reunited with Russia in 2014 following a referendum triggered by the US-backed Maidan coup in Kiev earlier that year.

Replying to Zelensky’s post, Ritter wrote that “it was NATO that suggested a trade. Russia isn’t trading anything.”

The former US intelligence officer was apparently referring to remarks by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg‘s chief of staff, Stian Jenssen, who said in mid-August that Ukraine could “give up territory [to Russia], and get NATO membership in return.” According to Jenssen, this idea was actively being discussed within the US-led military bloc.

Jenssen later apologized for his remarks, saying they were “a mistake.”

The suggestion caused outrage in Kiev, with presidential aide Mikhail Podoliak branding it “ridiculous.” Such a move would amount to “deliberately choosing the defeat of democracy… and passing the war on to other generations,” he claimed.

The head of the Ukrainian National Security Council, Aleksey Danilov, reiterated that Kiev would never negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin, insisting that “Russia must be destroyed like a modern-day Carthage.”

Ritter insisted that Moscow is “dealing with reality” when it comes to the conflict with Kiev, including “where Russian boots will be when Ukraine capitulates unconditionally.”

“Think Tokyo Bay, September 2, 1945. That’s your future. Enjoy,” he wrote, addressing Zelensky.

On that date, representatives of the Japanese Empire signed an unconditional surrender to the Allies aboard the USS Missouri, ending the country’s participation in World War II.

In line with the deal, Japan agreed to the loss of all its territories outside of its home islands, complete disarmament, Allied occupation of the country, and tribunals to bring war criminals to justice.

On Wednesday, Zelensky admitted that the Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian forces, which began in early June, was proving “very difficult.” However, he also claimed that the operation was moving “slowly, but in the right direction.”

Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported that the Ukrainian campaign is showing “signs of stalling.” The newspaper warned that “the inability to demonstrate decisive success on the battlefield [by Kiev’s forces] is stoking fears that the conflict is becoming a stalemate and international support could erode.”

President Putin claimed on Wednesday that it was “astonishing” to see how little the authorities in Kiev cared about Ukrainian soldiers. “They are throwing [them] on our minefields, under our artillery fire, acting as if they are not their own citizens at all,” the Russian leader said.

According to Moscow’s estimates, Ukraine has failed to make any significant gains since the launch of its counteroffensive, but has lost more than 43,000 troops and nearly 5,000 pieces of heavy equipment. Kiev has so far claimed the capture of several villages, but these appear to be some distance from Russia’s main defensive lines.

First published by RT.com

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The men gathered in a graveyard in the dead of night. They wore body armor, boots and carried semi-automatic weapons. Their target lay a mile away, the official residence of the president of The Gambia, Yahya Jammeh — a U.S.-trained military officer who seized power in 1994. Those in the cemetery planned to oust him, but within hours, they were either dead or on the run.

One of those killed, the ring-leader and former head of Gambia’s Presidential Guard, Lamin Sanneh, had previously earned a master’s degree at the Pentagon’s National Defense University in Washington, D.C. 

Some of the plotters were eventually convicted in the United States “for their roles in planning and executing an unsuccessful coup attempt to overthrow the government of The Gambia on December 30, 2014.” Four pled guilty on counts related to the Neutrality Act — a federal law that prohibits Americans from waging war against friendly nations. A fifth was sentenced in March 2017 for buying and exporting weapons used in the failed coup, which pitted two generations of U.S.-trained mutineers against each other.

The State Department doesn’t know about any of this — or doesn’t want to. A simple Google search reveals this information, but when Responsible Statecraft asked if Yahya Jammeh or Lamin Sanneh had received U.S. training, a State Department spokesperson responded: “We do not have the ability to provide records for these historical cases at this time.” When asked about other trainees in other nations that have experienced military uprisings, the response was the same.

Responsible Statecraft has found that at least 15 U.S.-supported officers have been involved in 12 coups in West Africa and the greater Sahel during the war on terror.

The list includes military personnel from Burkina Faso (2014, 2015, and twice in 2022); Chad (2021); Gambia (2014); Guinea (2021); Mali (2012, 2020, 2021); Mauritania (2008); and Niger (2023).

At least five leaders of the most recent coup in Niger, received U.S. training, according to a U.S. official. They, in turn, appointed five U.S.-trained members of the Nigerien security forces to serve as governors, according to the State Department. 

The total number of U.S.-trained mutineers across Africa since 9/11 may be far higher than is known, but the State Department, which tracks data on U.S. trainees, is either unwilling or unable to provide it. Responsible Statecraft identified more than 20 other African military personnel involved in coups who may have received U.S. training or assistance, but when asked, the State Department said it lacks the “ability” to provide information that it possesses.

“If we are training individuals who are executing undemocratic coups, we need to be asking more questions about how and why that happens,” said Elizabeth Shackelford, a senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and lead author of the newly-released report, “Less is More: A New Strategy for U.S. Security Assistance to Africa.” “If we aren’t even trying to get to the bottom of that, we are part of the problem. This shouldn’t just be on our radar — it should be something we intentionally track.”

Shackleford and her colleagues say that the U.S. penchant for pouring money into abusive African militaries instead of making long-term investments in bolstering democratic institutions, good governance, and the rule of law, has undermined wider American aims.

In addition to training military mutineers in Africa, other U.S. security assistance efforts during the war on terror have also foundered and failed. Ukrainian troops trained by the U.S. and its allies stumbled during a long-awaited counteroffensive against Russian forces, raising questions about the utility of the instruction.

In 2021, an Afghan army created, trained, and armed by the United States over 20 years dissolved in the face of a Taliban offensive.

In 2015, a $500 million Pentagon effort to train and equip Syrian rebels, slated to produce 15,000 troops, yielded just a few dozen before being scrapped. A year earlier, an Iraqi army built, trained, and funded — to the tune of at least $25 billion — by the U.S. was routed by the rag-tag forces of the Islamic State.

“U.S. policy in Africa has for too long prioritized short-term security to the detriment of long-term stability by prioritizing the provision of military and security assistance,” Shackelford writes in the new Chicago Council report. “Partnerships and military assistance with illiberal, undemocratic countries have delivered little, if any, sustainable security improvements, and in many cases have prompted further instability and violence by building the capacity of abusive security forces.”

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Featured image: A U.S. Special Forces Soldier demonstrates a kneeling firing position before a live fire range, March 6, 2017 at Camp Zagre, Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso Soldiers also practiced firing in seated position, standing position, and practiced turning and firing. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Britany Slessman 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) Multimedia Illustrator/released)

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The recent plane crash that occurred in Tver region was reason enough for western media outlets to launch a huge wave of disinformation, sharing unsubstantiated narratives and rumors. The aim is to gain attention from Western public opinion and to portray Russia’s image negatively, thus “justifying” the war policy against Moscow.

The tragedy happened on August 23, when an Embraer 135BJ Legacy 600 jet traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg crashed in Tver. There is still no precise information about what motivated the accident, with suspicions of both an attack in the air and sabotage with planted bombs. More details are expected in the coming days as the investigation progresses.

According to data from the Russian Ministry of Emergencies and the Rosaviatsiya agency, Evgeny Prigozhin and Dmitri Utkin, co-founders and leaders of the Wagner Group, were among the ten passengers on the aircraft, as well as other high-ranking PMC commanders. There were no survivors in the accident, which is why Prigozhin and Utkin are presumed dead. However, no official confirmation of death has been given so far, as the bodies of the passengers have not yet been identified.

In addition, there is a second plane connected to the Wagner involved in the news. On the same day of the event, an RA-02878 jet departed from Moscow shortly after the Embraer Legacy, having returned to land after the pilot was notified of the accident with the other jet. There is no confirmation about the names of the passengers on this aircraft so far, with only speculation, unofficial reports and rumors about who could be on board.

Obviously, when situations like this occur, authorities act with extreme caution and only confirm data after thorough investigation, given the sensitive nature of the topic. Even more prudence is expected from the authorities of a country in conflict, as is the case in today’s Russia. However, the same attitude is not seen in the western media. Without any commitment to truth and information, pro-NATO media outlets spread all kinds of anti-Russian rumors, only with the intention of defaming the country and its leaders.

The narrative adopted by the newspapers was that the plane would have suffered an attack by the Russian defense forces in an act of personal revenge by President Vladimir Putin against the head of the Wagner Group. This would have been a response to the mutiny led by Prigozhin on June 24, when Wagner troops began a “march” from Rostov to Moscow, aborting the operation after reaching an agreement mediated by Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko.

CNN, for example, wrote that “Prigozhin would be latest in line of Putin critics who met an early death”. In an article published on August 24, CNN journalists said that Prigozhin “appears to have joined an ever-growing list of high-profile Russians who have fallen from the president’s good graces and died in mysterious circumstances”.

Something similar was published by the BBC on the same day. Journalists accused Moscow of having destroyed the Wagner plane to provide a belated response to the June 24 mutiny. According to Western reporters, Vladimir Putin was discredited for not punishing Prigozhin, so he has now operated an attack to strengthen his image again.

“When Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner troops launched their insurrection two months ago, Vladimir Putin made his feelings more than clear (…) He promised that the perpetrators would be punished. So there was incredulity in Russia when they were not (…) It made President Putin look weak (…) Suddenly things look rather different”, the article reads.

In the same vein, several journalists published on social networks a video of an interview with President Vladimir Putin, in which he states that it is not possible to “forgive” a “betrayal”. The video dates back to 2018, but was spread out of context to try to relate it to Prigozhin’s death.

Video of Putin saying the only thing he can't forgive is betrayal.pic.twitter.com/f6GwuyMuun

— The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) August 23, 2023

Indeed, this wave of disinformation favors the Western plan to portray Russia as a dictatorial country, ruled by a “murderer” who acts selfishly against personal enemies. With this work of disinformation, the western media hopes to generate anti-Russian antipathy in public opinion, fomenting popular support for the war that NATO is waging against Moscow.

However, if analyzed in depth, all these narratives are easily refuted. The June 24th riot ended peacefully, without any remaining friction between Wagner and state forces. Days after the mutiny, Putin and Prigozhin met in person in Moscow, making it clear that the deal brokered by Lukashenko indeed ended any conflict of interest, with Wagner remaining a force loyal for the Russian state.

Furthermore, even if one supposes that eventually the Russian government would have an interest in eliminating Wagner’s members, certainly this type of clandestine operation would be done in a more professional way. Intelligence agents are expected to operate purges cautiously and without leaving a trace. Shooting down a plane inside Russian airspace and generating fear in the population is obviously not a tactic consistent with these requirements.

There is no convincing evidence to speak of Russian government involvement in the case. Most likely, the plane was sabotaged or attacked by Ukrainian, Western agents or bribed Russian dissidents. More information about the case will certainly be released by the authorities in the near future. The only thing that is clear for now is that the mainstream media is not a reliable source for understanding what happens in Russia.

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

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In recent decades, one particularly persistent trope was that Russia would lose a conventional war with NATO. And yet, this notion never actually held, not even during the disastrous 1990s. Nowadays, it couldn’t possibly be further from true. Since the early 2000s, Moscow has seen a dramatic resurgence of its already significant military power, a process that is yet to reach its peak. The US has been trying to prevent Russia’s rearmament program, to at least hamper the continued growth of its kinetic might.

This has been a priority for the Pentagon, so much so that it pushed Ukraine into a suicidal confrontation with the Kremlin in hopes of derailing the process. And this was even publicly stated by US Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin in late April 2022, when he said that “we want to see Russia weakened“. Concurrently, the Russian military is presented as supposedly “underperforming”. Well, if that’s the case, then why the US needs to “weaken Russia”?

This sort of mental gymnastics is quite common in Washington DC, as its political elites often inadvertently reveal the sheer illogic of their claims. The statement was made over a year ago, but ever since, not only has the Pentagon failed miserably in its intention of weakening Moscow, but the Russian military actually grew in power. Various improvements range from increased drone usage to drastically reduced response time to battlefield threats, leading to the exacerbation of the Kiev regime’s losses.

There are numerous reasons why the Russian military is dominating the battlefield, which is further reinforced by the escalation of militarily inconsequential attacks on civilian targets within Russia or at the very least “hype assaults” for propaganda purposes. Still, this leaves the question of how would the Russian military really fare in a conventional clash with NATO. To answer that, we will quote Colonel Douglas McGregor and his latest interview with Tucker Carlson.

“I think all of the lies that have been told for more than a year and a half about the ‘Ukrainians are winning’, ‘Ukrainian cause is just’, ‘the Russians are evil’, ‘the Russians are incompetent’, all of that is collapsing,” Macgregor said, adding: “And it’s collapsing because what’s happening on the battlefield is horrific. Ukrainians now we think have lost 400,000 men killed in battle. We were talking about 300-350 thousand a few months ago. Within the last month of this supposed counteroffensive which was to sweep the battlefield, they lost at least 40,000 killed.”

The estimate of military deaths is debatable due to numerous factors, including the Kiev regime’s attempts to hide the catastrophic losses. However, the lowest estimates are now well over 250,000 KIA (killed in action). We can only imagine the number of WIA/MIA (wounded/missing in action), but McGregor gave a rough assessment of that too, estimating that the much-touted counteroffensive resulted in “40,000 to 50,000 Ukrainian amputees” and that “hospitals are full”.

He also pointed out that entire units are surrendering because of the sheer number of wounded who simply can’t be evacuated. Regular Ukrainian soldiers are aware they will be treated fairly by the Russian military, something that the Neo-Nazi junta that sent them to certain death neither can nor it cares to do. Even the rabidly Russophobic Nazi units captured in Mariupol and elsewhere have been treated humanely, unlike Russian POWs who have been subjected to brutal torture and summary executions.

However, even more importantly, McGregor touched upon the subject of direct confrontation between Moscow and NATO. According to his assessment, the belligerent alliance is simply not ready for war with Russia. He warned about the continuous decline of discipline and readiness in NATO, in large part due to ideological shifts that swept through Western militaries in recent decades. McGregor also stressed the incomparable difference between the Russian military and the opponents US fought in countless wars.

“Russia today is stronger than it has been in 30 or 40 years. You have a Russian military establishment that is now more potent and more capable than the Russian military was in the mid-1980s,” McGregor said, later adding: “You can’t defeat what the Russians have built. They were the first back in the 1970s to understand the criticality of linking intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance [ISR] in space, as well as on land and at sea with strike weapons.”

He then explained just how many types of long-range weapons Moscow has, including regular and rocket artillery, as well as hypersonic, ballistic and cruise missiles. In turn, these are connected to Russia’s improved ISR, providing an almost instantaneous strike capability. McGregor also warned that the hatred and hostility the political West continues to demonstrate towards the Russian people have homogenized them, resulting in a resolve to fight not just the Neo-Nazi junta, but also NATO itself.

The reason why this is a dangerous prospect for the belligerent alliance is that it can’t actually match the Russian military, because “[US/NATO’s] probable opponents are investing in very different capabilities”, as McGregor told Carlson. He pointed out just how overextended the US military is, further reinforcing the notion that America is indeed in an imperial overstretch. Its forces are extremely vulnerable, particularly as the Pentagon has been neglecting tactical air and missile defenses for years, which would result in catastrophic losses in case of confrontation with a remotely serious opponent.

McGregor also warned that if pressure on Russia doesn’t subside, the war will inevitably reach the US itself. He then stated that the latest precision strikes on the border with Romania, Poland and Moldova, including with hypersonic missiles, are a very clear message to the US/NATO. He assessed that America’s conventional military power is incomparable to what it was just two or three decades ago and that fighting a country like Russia would be an unpleasantly sobering experience. McGregor asserts that war never stopped being an industrial effort and that the US has largely neglected its ability to sustain it.

At the end of the interview, Carlson played a video of Michael John Cirillo (now posing as Sarah Ashton-Cirillo), an American-born spokesperson for the Neo-Nazi junta forces, where “she” kept parroting the usual propaganda tropes about the “bloodthirsty Kremlin dictator”. This glorified crossdresser with highly questionable mental health, or simply “a guy with fake breasts”, as Tucker Carlson put it, has previously called the Russian people “subhuman”. As per McGregor, precisely people like Cirillo are part of the issue the US and most other Western militaries have.

He concluded the interview with a rebuttal of Cirillo’s accusations, warning that up to 60,000 Ukrainian children have been trafficked out of Ukraine, while countless girls and women have been sold into prostitution, which is further exacerbating its already disastrous demographics. McGregor also added that “this war is a catastrophe” and that “the people bathing in blood are in Kiev and Washington, not Moscow”. He also warned that Europe (particularly Germany) is going through rapid deindustrialization that will eventually destroy its geopolitical relevance.

To better understand McGregor’s claims, we should take into account the opinions of military sources, such as the Global Firepower, which regularly publishes the index of the world’s most powerful militaries. According to their 2023 ranking, Russia is right behind the US. Their formula calculates only conventional military power, meaning that weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) are not taken into account. It puts America’s power index at 0.0712, Russia’s at 0.0714 and China’s at 0.0722.

According to their formula, the smaller the number, the more powerful the country is. The US, Russia and China are the only countries with a power index below 0.1. Given that Russia’s conventional military power is virtually identical to America’s, this finally puts to rest all the laughable propaganda about “Burkina Faso with nukes”. However, given the sheer magnitude of discrepancy in nominal military spending between the two superpowers, it’s clear that Russia is getting a lot bigger bang for its buck.

Thus, considering its resurgent societal cohesion, a larger and more robust economy, revised strategic posturing, virtually unrivaled rearmament program, as well as its performance in Ukraine, Russia’s prospects against NATO look increasingly positive. All this is without even considering Moscow’s second-to-none thermonuclear arsenal or its ability to conduct strategic conventional strikes, a capability the US baselessly boasted about for decades, but was never actually able to accomplish.

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

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July 3, 2023 – BRAZIL – 52 year old singer and composer Frank Aguiar is married to 31 year old Caroline Aguiar, who revealed on social media on her birthday that she had Stevens-Johnson Syndrome that “burns the body” and was hospitalized in the ICU for 10 days, almost died.

This is now a recognized reaction to Pfizer & Moderna COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines:

October 2022 – 22 year old Charish Chambers worked as CNA for the VA. She developed Stevens-Johnson Syndrome after her COVID-19 vaccine. She now suffers from Neuropathy.

Jan. 2023 – Julie Mitchell Peel is a photographer, her daughter Lia was diagnosed with Stevens-Johnson Syndrome/TEN. She lost 74% of her skin and was intubated but has recovered.

What Is Stevens-Johnson Syndrome?

Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS) is an acute hypersensitivity reaction that causes extensive necrosis of the mucous membrane and skin.

SJS results from a cytotoxic immune reaction in keratinocytes, which leads to widespread keratinocyte apoptosis (cell death).

Although bacterial and viral infections are considered causative factors in the syndrome, medications also are thought to be a major cause.

SJS has also been reported with vaccines: influenza, measles, varicella, tetanus.

Often described as SJS/TEN (TEN = toxic epidermal necrolysis)

• It is SJS if < 10% of the body surface is involved
• It is TEN if > 30% of the body surface is involved

According to earlier studies, the prevalence of SJS is fewer than 1 to 2 cases per million people per year.

Mortality rate is approximately 25-30%.

Saudi Arabia Reported First SJS Case after Pfizer mRNA

• Elboraey and Essa reported the 1st SJS case after Pfizer mRNA in Oct.2021:
• It was a middle aged female in Saudi Arabia
• She developed lesions 5 days after 2nd Pfizer dose (nothing after 1st dose!)
• they theorized Pfizer mRNA stimulates immune cells, cytotoxic T cells and Natural killer cells that secrete granulysin which destroys cells in skin and mucous membrane by dysregulation of specific protein pathways.

South Korea Reported First SJS Case after Pfizer Booster

• Mihn-Sook Jue et al reported another case:
• 20 year old South Korean woman had 3rd Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA vaccine
• next day she came to ER with fever & skin lesions (had no issues with dose 1 or 2)
• she needed 5 weeks of IV steroids.

Croatian Doctors Take a Shot at “Anti-vaxxers” and Fail 

• A hilarious 2022 paper by Croatian doctors Dodig et al:
• “SJS (clinical) presentation is impressive and anti-vaxxers’ misinformation regarding COVID-19 vaccination campaign was focused on SJS to increase vaccine hesitancy”
• Conclusion: “SJS after COVID-19 vaccination seems to be a possible but exceedingly rare adverse drug reaction. The potential signal identified in our short analysis, regarding Moderna vaccine, deserves further in-depth analysis and could be due to the substantially higher dose used by the Moderna vaccine”

USA (Minnesota)

• Padniewski et al. reported a 46 yo Ethiopian woman who had 1st Moderna mRNA
• she presented in ER 3 days later with skin and mucosal lesions

Australia

• Stanley et al – Doctors in a burn unit in a Hospital in Sydney, Australia published:
• 7-fold increase in SJS since start of COVID-19 vaccination
• 8 patients all mRNA vaxxed (3 were double, 4 were triple, 1 was quadruple jabbed
• Theorized that spike protein may bind T helper type 1 cells leading to clonal expansion of cytotoxic T cells that may abnormally release granules that cause apoptosis in skin
• Although theorized that spike protein could “prime” the immune system for a future drug to cause SJS/TEN.

AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine Did this Too 

• Gouveia et al, Brazilian researchers reported SJS with AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine also
• 40 year old black woman had 1st AstraZeneca COVID-19 jab, 2 days later presented with this

My Take…

Stevens-Johnson Syndrome was a rare hypersensitivity reaction, reported to occur with over 200 drugs, including influenza vaccines (flu shots) and other vaccines.

Since COVID-19 vaccines rolled out, there has been a 7-fold (700%) increase in SJS.

SJS is now a known reaction to Pfizer & Moderna COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, with 296 cases reported to WHO database VigiAccess.

Clinical Picture:

• Mortality rate of SJS/TEN can be up to 25-30%
• starts with fever, cough, lymph nodes
• rash first appears on mouth (look for lip sores), neck and arms
• can spread all over the body with blisters and crusting
• skin may get detached
• may involve mucosa: esophagus, vagina, rectum and the eyes (risk of blindness)
• disfiguring scars may develop

SJS/TEN is evidence of a dysfunctional immune system response.

The theory is that this is a delayed type hypersensitivity reaction, T-cell mediated, which can occur anywhere from 6 hours to weeks after mRNA vaccine injection.

The COVID-19 Vaccine spike protein is expressed on keratinocytes in the skin and stimulates an abnormal immune response resulting in cytotoxic T-cells that release enzymes that lead to apoptosis (cell death) in the skin and mucous membranes.

You can get this reaction with any mRNA dose, even if you had no reaction to previous doses, this is probably due to the batch to batch variability of the contents of mRNA vials.

SJS/TEN is a MEDICAL EMERGENCY that responds to IV steroids, but after getting immediate medical attention for this reaction, detoxing the spike protein is still very important!

Spike protein detox is the usual:

• Spike breakdown: Nattokinase, Bromelain (Serrapeptase, Lumbrokinase)
• Spike binding: Quercetin, Olive Leaf, Black Seed, Curcumin, Dandelion extract
• Antioxidants: NAC, Taurine, Vitamin C, Resveratrol, CoQ10
• Immune Support: Vitamin D, Zinc, Magnesium, Selenium, Melatonin, etc
• Autophagy: 3-day water fast

(Special thanks to Nashville Angela on Twitter for bringing attention to these painful mRNA vaccine injury cases and trying to wake people up!)

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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.

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“This is quite something,” remarked Nadi Abusaada in a May 8 tweet. As many of us have done, the Palestinian academic found himself experimenting with the seemingly boundless powers of OpenAI’s ChatGPT software. But during this activity, he uncovered something disturbing.

This is quite something. I asked @OpenAI whether Palestinians deserve to be free. I was appalled by the convoluted answer. I then asked it the same question about Israelis. The answer was crystal clear. Explanation? pic.twitter.com/z1GdVnlOAK

— Nadi Abusaada (@NadiSaadeh) May 8, 2023

“I asked @OpenAI whether Palestinians deserve to be free,” he said. The natural-language processing tool responded to Abusaada’s query ambivalently:

As an AI language model, I do not have personal opinions, feelings or beliefs. The question of whether Palestinians deserve to be free is a complex and controversial issue with many different perspectives and opinions….

But then he posed the same question about Israelis. This time, the chat box did not equivocate:

Yes, like all people, Israelis deserve to be free. Freedom is a fundamental human right that should be protected and guaranteed for all individuals, regardless of their nationality, ethnicity or religion. It is essential that Israelis, like all people, are able to live their lives free from violence, oppression and discrimination….

“Explanation?” demanded Abusaada.

The explanation lies in the overarching attitudes of the 570 GB of data that ChatGPT scrapes from the internet. And, with news media being one of the primary sources of information that the bot is trained on, Abusaada’s experience is hardly surprising.

To say that US news skews pro-Israel raises many an eyebrow, since the public has been conditioned to believe otherwise. With outlets like NPR vilified as “National Palestinian Radio” and papers like the New York Times castigated by pro-Israel watchdogs for lending “the Palestinian narrative” undue credence (CAMERA, 10/15/13), the myth of pro-Palestine bias appears plausible.

Yet such claims have been litigated, and the verdict is plain: US corporate media lean in favor of Israel. As Abeer Al-Najjar (New Arab, 7/28/22) noted: “The framing, sourcing, selection of facts, and language choices used to report on Palestine…often reveal systematic biases which distort the Palestinian struggle.” Some trends are more ubiquitous than others, which is why it is vital that news readers become acquainted with the tropes that dominate coverage of the Israeli occupation.

1. Where Are the Palestinians?

In 2018, 416Labs, a Canadian research firm, analyzed almost 100,000 news headlines published by five leading US publications between 1967 and 2017. The study revealed that major newspapers were four times more likely to run headlines from an Israeli government perspective, and 2.5 times more likely to cite Israeli sources over Palestinian ones. (This trend was further confirmed by Maha Nassar—+972, 10/2/20).

Owais Zaheer, an author of 416Labs’ study told the Intercept (1/12/19) that his findings call attention to “the need to more critically evaluate the scope of coverage of the Israeli occupation and recognize that readers are getting, at best, a heavily filtered rendering of the issue.”

In its media resource guide, the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association (AMEJA) counseled reporters: “Former US diplomats, Israeli military analysts and non-Palestinian Middle East commentators are not replacements for Palestinian voices.”

The exclusion of Palestinian voices from corporate media reporting does not stop at sourcing. For example, contrary to its pro-Israel critics, NPR’s correspondents are rarely Palestinian or Arab, and almost all reside in West Jerusalem or Israel proper (FAIR.org, 4/2/18). Editors also overlook obvious conflicts of interest, like when the son of the New York Times‘ then–Israel bureau chief Ethan Bronner joined the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) (Extra!, 4/10).

When Times public editor Clark Hoyt (2/6/10) acknowledged that readers aware of the son’s role “could reasonably wonder how that would affect the father,” Times executive editor Bill Keller rejected this advice, saying that having a child fighting for Israel gave Bronner “a measure of sophistication about Israel and its adversaries that someone with no connections would lack,” and might “make him even more tuned-in to the sensitivities of readers on both sides.” It’s hard to imagine Keller suggesting this if Bronner’s son had, say, signed up with Hamas.

Isabel Kershner, the current Jerusalem correspondent for the Times, also had a son who enlisted in the IDF (Mondoweiss, 10/27/14). Moreover, her husband, Hirsh Goodman, has worked at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) (FAIR.org, 5/1/12), where his job was

shaping a positive image of Israel in the media. An examination of articles that Kershner has written or contributed to since 2009 reveals that she overwhelmingly relies on the INSS for think tank analysis about events in the region.

When establishment media outlets privilege one narrative over another, public opinion is likely to follow. Thus, the suppression of alternative viewpoints is among today’s most concerning media afflictions.

2. Turning Assaults Into ‘Clashes’

Reporting on Israel/Palestine often relies on a lexical toolbox designed for occlusion rather than clarity, “clashes” rather than “assaults.” Adam Johnson (FAIR.org, 4/9/18) explains that “clash” is “a reporter’s best friend when they want to describe violence without offending anyone in power—in the words of George Orwell, ‘to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.’”

FAIR has documented the abuse of “clash” in the Israeli/Palestinian context time and time again: In 2018 Gaza, Israeli troops fired at unarmed protestors 100 meters away. No Israelis perished, but 30 Palestinians were murdered. That was not a “clash,” as establishment media would have you believe; that was a mass shooting (FAIR.org, 5/1/18). During the funeral for Shireen Abu Akleh, the reporter who was assassinated by Israeli gunfire, the IDF beat mourners, charged at them with horses and batons, and deployed stun grenades and tear gas. The procession was so rocked by the attacks that they nearly dropped Abu Akleh’s casket. That was not a clash, that was a senseless act of cruelty (FAIR.org, 7/2/22). This summer, when Israeli forces raided the West Bank and stood by as illegal settlers arsoned homes, farmland and vehicles, that was not a “clash”; that was colonialism (FAIR.org, 7/6/23).

The choice to use “clash”—and other comparably hazy descriptors of regional violence, like “tension,” “conflict” and “strife”—is bad journalism. Such designations lack substance, disorient readers and above all spin a spurious storyline whereby Israelis and Palestinians inflict and withstand equivalent bloodshed. (According to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, 3,584 Palestinians have been murdered by Israeli security forces since January 19, 2009, while 196 Israelis have been killed by Palestinians during the same period.)

AMEJA’s media resource guide reminds journalists that the occupation “is not a conflict between states, but rather between Israel, which has one of the most advanced militaries in the world, and the Palestinians, who have no formal army.”

But when such a power imbalance is inadequately acknowledged, “clash” and its misleading corollaries will not sound out of place, and readers will not have the context necessary to separate the perpetrators from the victims of violence.

3. Linguistic Gymnastics

The passive voice—or, as William Schneider describes it, the “past exonerative” tense—is a grammatical construction that describes events without assigning responsibility. Such sentence structures pervade coverage of the Israeli occupation.

In her 2021 investigation into coverage of the first and second intifadas, Holly M. Jackson identified disproportionate use of the passive voice—i.e., “the man was bitten” rather than “the dog bit the man”—as one of the defining linguistic features of New York Times reporting on the uprisings. The Times used the passive voice to talk about Palestinians twice as often as it did Israelis, which demonstrated the paper’s “clear patterns of bias against Palestinians.”

While Jackson’s study only examined New York Times coverage during the intifadas, passive voice remains a common grammatical cop out—still permeating national newspaper headlines in recent months:

• “At Least Five Palestinians Killed in Clashes After Israeli Raid in West Bank” (New York Times, 6/19/23)
• “Two Palestinians Killed in Separate Episodes in Latest West Bank Violence” (AP, 8/4/23)
• “Israeli Forces Say Three Palestinians Killed in Occupied West Bank” (CNN, 8/7/23)

Other times, raids are miraculously carried out on their own, violence randomly erupts and missiles are inexplicably fired. The now-amended New York Times headline “Missile at Beachside Gaza Cafe Finds Patrons Poised for World Cup” (7/10/14) begged the question: Who fired the missile that, as if it had a mind of its own, “found” Palestinian World Cup spectators?

Image: Shireen Abu Akleh was an icon in Palestine and throughout much of the Arabic speaking world for her reporting from the occupied territories (Illustration/MEE)

Similarly, the Washington Post piece “Yet Another Palestinian Journalist Dies on the Job” (5/12/22) leaves the reader puzzled. How exactly did Shireen Abu Akleh—left unnamed in the title—die?

Headlines that omit the Israeli subject are unjustifiably exculpatory, because editors know exactly who the assailant is.

4. Newsworthy and Un-newsworthy Deaths

Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s three-week military assault on Gaza in 2008, was carnage. According to Amnesty International and B’Tselem, the attack claimed 13 Israeli lives (four of which were killed by Israeli fire), while Palestine’s death toll was nearly 1,400—300 of which were children. Yet the media response was far from proportional.

In a 2010 study of New York Timescoverage of Operation Cast Lead, Jonas Caballero found that the Times covered 431% of Israeli deaths—meaning each Israeli fatality was reported an average of four times—while reporting a mere 17% of Palestinian deaths. This means that Israeli deaths were covered at 25 times the rate Palestinian ones were.

The Times is not an outlier. FAIR’s examination (Extra!, 11–12/01) of six months’ worth of NPRIsrael/Palestine broadcasting during the Second Intifada determined that 81% of Israeli fatalities were reported on, while Palestinian deaths were acknowledged just 34% of the time. The disparity only widened when Palestinian victims were minors:

Of the 30 Palestinian civilians under the age of 18 that were killed, six were reported on NPR—only 20%. By contrast, the network reported on 17 of the 19 Israeli minors who were killed, or 89%…. Apparently being a minor makes your death more newsworthy to NPR if you are Israeli, but less newsworthy if you are Palestinian.

Media also erase or downplay Palestinian deaths in the language of their headlines. When the New York Times (11/16/14) ran a story entitled “Palestinian Shot by Israeli Troops at Gaza Border” it did not seem to occur to the editor that specifying the age of the victim would be important. The Palestinian in question was a 10-year-old boy. In another headline, “More Than 30 Dead in Gaza and Israel as Fighting Quickly Escalates,” the Times (5/11/21) neatly obscures that 35 out of the “more than 30 dead” were Palestinian, while five were Israeli.

5. Sidelining International Law

Attempts to insulate Israel from condemnation also manifest themselves in establishment media’s reluctance to identify the country’s breaches of international law (FAIR.org, 12/8/17).

In Operation Cast Lead coverage, FAIR (Extra!, 2/09) noted that—despite the blatant illegality of Israel’s assaults on Palestine’s civilian infrastructure—international law was seldom newsworthy. By January 13, 2009, only two evening news programs  (NBC Nightly News, 1/8/09, 1/11/09) had broached the legality of the Israeli military offensive. But, only one of those TV segments (Nightly News, 1/8/09) reprimanded Israel—the other (Nightly News, 1/11/09) defended the illegal use of white phosphorus, which was being deployed on refugee camps.

Meanwhile, just one daily newspaper (USA Today, 1/7/08) mentioned international law. But that single reference—embedded in an op-ed by a spokesperson from the Israeli embassy in Washington—was directed at Hamas violations, rather than Israeli ones.

When it comes to reporting on the unlawful establishment of Israeli settlements, media are no better. Colonizing occupied territories violates both Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and Security Council Resolution 446, yet outlets like NPR, CNN and the New York Times have a history of concealing Israeli criminality by benevolently branding settlements as “neighborhoods” (FAIR.org, 8/1/02, 10/10/14).

Such charitable descriptions have also been extended to settlers themselves. In an October 2009 Extra! piece, Julie Hollar investigated a bevy of articles that characterized settlers as “law-abiding,” “soft-spoken,” “gentle” and “normal.” One tone-deaf Christian Science Monitor headline (8/9/09) even read: “Young Israeli Settlers Go Hippie? Far Out, Man!” As Hollar observed, “ethnic cleansing could hardly hope for a friendlier hearing.”

Even when news media have characterized settlements and settlers as engaging in unlawful colonial practices, they have done so reluctantly. In 2021, Israeli settlement expansion in Sheikh Jarrah culminated in an unlawful campaign of mass expulsion. A New York Times (5/7/21) article on the crisis waited until the 39th paragraph before suggesting that Israel was acting criminally. Similarly, while describing Benjamin Netanyahu’s increasingly aggressivesettlement policies, Associated Press (6/18/23) buried the lead by avoiding the “illegal” designation until the middle of the piece.

It’s important to bring up the rule of law not only when Israel is actively injuring innocents or erecting colonial communities. The ceaseless maltreatment of Palestinians constitutes—according to Amnesty International, B’Tselem and Human Rights Watch—apartheid. Apartheid is a crime against humanity, yet news media avoid acknowledging the human rights community’s consensus (FAIR.org, 7/21/23, 2/3/22, 4/26/19). As FAIR (5/23/23) pointed out, it is a journalistic duty to do so:

The dominant and overriding context of anything that happens in Israel/Palestine is the fact that the state of Israel is running an apartheid regime in the entirety of the territory it controls. Any obfuscation or equivocation of that fact serves only to downplay the severity of Israeli crimes and the US complicity in them.

6. Reversing Victim and Victimizer

As Gregory Shupak (FAIR.org, 5/18/21) wrote:

Only the Israeli side has ethnically cleansed and turned millions…into refugees by preventing [Palestinians] from exercising their right to return to their homes. Israel is the only side subjecting anyone to apartheid and military occupation.

Nevertheless, US media enter into fantastical rationalizations to make the Israeli aggressor appear to be the victim. Blaming Palestinians for their suffering and dispossession has become one of the prime ways to accomplish this feat.

A 2018 FAIR report (5/17/18) analyzed coverage of the deadly Great March of Return—protests that erupted in response to Israel’s illegal land, air and sea blockade on the Gaza Strip. The ongoing siege bans the import of raw materials and significantly curtails the movement of people and goods. The International Committee of the Red Cross (6/14/10) deplores the blockade: “The whole of Gaza’s civilian population is being punished for acts for which they bear no responsibility.”

Despite the ICRC indictment, FAIR found that established media held besieged Palestinians accountable for Israel’s reign of terror following anti-blockade demonstrations. The New York Times (5/14/18) editorial board went so far as to suggest that Palestinians (and not the siege-imposing Israel) were the only obstacles to peace:

Led too long by men who were corrupt or violent or both, the Palestinians have failed and failed again to make their own best efforts toward peace. Even now, Gazans are undermining their own cause by resorting to violence, rather than keeping their protests strictly peaceful.

Casting Palestinians as incorrigible savages is also easier when US media use defensive language to excuse the bulk of Israeli violence (FAIR.org, 2/2/09, 7/10/14). FAIR (5/1/02) conducted a survey into ABC, CBS and NBC’s use of the word “retaliation”—a term that “lays responsibil­ity for the cycle of violence at the doorstep of the party being ‘retaliated’ against, since they presumably initiated the conflict.” Of the 150 mentions of “retaliation” and its analogs between September 2000 and March 17, 2002, 79% referred to Israeli violence. Twelve percent were ambiguous, or encompassed both sides. A mere 9% framed Palestinian violence as a retaliatory response.

Greg Philo and Mike Berry’s books Bad News From Israel and More Bad News From Israel posit that television’s “Palestinian action/Israeli retaliation” trope has a “significant effect” on how the public remember events and allot blame (FAIR.org, 8/21/20). When Palestinians are consistently portrayed as the aggressive party and Israel as the defensive one, US news media are “effectively legitimizing Israeli actions.”

Coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine celebrates the efforts of Ukrainian resistance. With the anti-imperial Palestinian struggle, however, news media refuse to extend the same favor (FAIR.org, 7/6/23), thus creating a

media landscape where certain groups are entitled to self-defense, and others are doomed to be the victims of  “reprisal” attacks. It tells the world that…Palestinians living under apartheid have no right to react to the almost daily raids, growing illegal settlements and ballooning settler hostility.

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Malcolm X once declared,“If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” As stories about Israel/Palestine continue to bombard our screens and daily papers, readers and journalists alike need to remain aware of the pro-Israel pitfalls that pockmark establishment news coverage. Then maybe one day we can move towards a future where ChatGPT answers “yes” when users like Abusaada ask it whether Palestinians deserve to be free.

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Lara-Nour Walton is a Summer 2023 FAIR intern. She is a junior in Columbia University’s Dual BA with Sciences Po Paris, concentrating in political science, history, and Middle Eastern studies.

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The American Academy of Pediatrics published a study in the journal Pediatrics showing that firearms continued to be the leading cause of death among U.S. children.

The study found that 4,752 children died from gun-related injuries in 2021, an 8.8-percent increase from the year before.

In 2021, among U.S. children who died by firearms, 84.8 percent were male, 49.9 percent were Black, 82.6 percent were aged 15 to 19 years, and 64.3 percent died by homicide.

“Despite the documented dominance of male deaths by firearm, the firearm mortality death rate is increasing in both males and females, demonstrating a concerning upward trend of firearm deaths overall,” the study warned.

Let's not have untrained people looking for a fight carrying firearms around children please. Especially weirdos trying to build a fighting position and pointing a (prolly) loaded gun at a parking lot in an elementary school. https://t.co/j8PQokMkU1

— Mustache Bob (@MustacheBob2) August 21, 2023

“Racial disparities in firearm mortalities have also worsened significantly, with Black children accounting for half of firearm deaths in 2021 and exhibiting the greatest increase in death rate from 2020 to 2021. This is consistent with previous data demonstrating Black Americans have represented the majority of those hospitalized with firearm injury.”

Geographically, there were worsening clusters of firearm death rates in Southern states and increasing rates in Midwestern states from 2018 to 2021. Across the United States, higher poverty levels are also correlated with higher firearm death rates.

“U.S. pediatric firearm deaths increased in 2021, above the spike in 2020, with worsening disparities. Implementation of prevention strategies and policies among communities at highest risk is critical,” researchers concluded, recalling that firearm injuries became in 2020 the leading cause of death among U.S. children and adolescents.

United States: Shooting at a school in Michigan. pic.twitter.com/JCzHopJgJu

— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) December 2, 2021

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Featured image: Protest against gun-related violence in the U.S. | Photo: X/ @cgtnamerica

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South Africa hosted the 15th BRICS summit from August 22 to 24. The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) members have thoroughly discussed wide range of significant issues including the bloc’s expansion, common currency, investment and trade, the bloc’s strategy and geo-policy. We already know that BRICS members consistently champion the rights and interests of Africa, and also plays an increasing role and influence in the global governance system – particularly international financial and economic organisations.

Holding the 15th summit especially this crucial time, within the context of emerging multipolar world, BRICS discussed steps forward for deepening interaction in the sphere of trade and investment with the nations of Global South, including Africa. In fact, the BRICS-Africa Outreach and BRICS Plus Dialogue in Johannesburg on August 24 was considered as an important component event of the summit.

On the sidelines of the BRICS summit, Kester Kenn Klomegah had the chance to talk with Professor Arnold Boateng over a number questions connecting BRICS and Africa. Professor Arnold Boateng is an Entrepreneur, Consultant, Speaker and Author. [Books: Dreams of Our Youth: The African Youth Question: Ananse Verses: Foundations for Life… (Available from Amazon & Kindle Store]. Here are the interview excerpts:

Kester Kenn Klomegah (KKK): In your view, how do you assess the 15th BRICS summit held here in Johannesburg, South Africa?

Arnold Boateng (AB): The summit is a huge success. It is living up to the hype and expectations prior to the summit. Invited guest showed up and gave a thumb up to the agenda. Two critical expectations were the admission of new members and the issue of BRICS  currency for trading. The organisation of the summit went according to script. A notable hitch was the absence of President Vladimir Putin, but his Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov is a qualified representative.

KKK: And also how would you evaluate, within the context of emerging new world, Egypt and Ethiopia as new BRICS members?

AB: Egypt is the largest economy in North Africa with a GDP of US$435 billion and a population of 112 million. Its economic growth is around 3.&% for this year. According to the IMF  it is expected to grow at 5% in 2024. Ethiopia, on the other hand, with its population of 120 million and a GDP of  US$305 billion bring good matrices by any measure to the table. Both countries have young population and strong middle class. Their political environment are relatively stable for strong economic development.

KKK: With a bit of emphasis on BRICS supporting Africa’s development and … to undermine western domination and influence, what could be Egypt and Ethiopia’s role in this issues across Africa?

AB: As I see it, BRICS may build these two countries into economic successes and use them as carrots to rope in other African nations. As you indicated, the era photo and handshakes to get Africa dancing are over. Even the era of infrastructure funding is ending to give way to industrial base…manufacturing funding. BRICs sees it clearly as the most secured way to go. Egypt appeals to the North African Islamic states whilst Ethiopia appeals to the Horn of Africa and part of the East. With both nations developing economically, their economic successes would create synergies which overflow into surrounding economies. They would also be the trump card BRICS would need to demonstrate to Africa and other regions that, it offers a better option than the West’s exploitative programmes. So far BRICs support of Africa’s development are largely words since we cannot equate China to BRICS. Even if we could, China’s infrastructure funds went to corrupt governments.

KKK: Next, what’s your take on Vladimir Putin’s proposal that BRICS becomes a trading bloc? What are the obvious implications, particularly for Africa?

AB: Vladimir Putin’s call is the best and most practical statement to come from BRICS so far. He seems to have identified the pulse of Africa and our teaming youth. Africa wants more trade and less and less aid. Wealth and economic prosperity is  what Africa needs. Africa needs investment on the continent and cross border trade. Once BRICS began to function as a trading block with fair terms of trade Africa may apply to join em block. If BRICS position itself as a trading block, with effective and open trade rules it may very supplant WTO in a generation.  Africa is tired of WTO which favours North Atlantic Nations. BRICS has the population…about 40%, the mineral resources, and technological knowhow to thrive and compete. Even trade within the BRICS block would be enough for African nations to realise their respective dreams. This is what Africa has been waiting for. A trading block with the raw reserves, youthful population underpinned by fair trade, open borders and honest trading partners.

KKK: How feasible that can be and what peculiar challenges it poses for Africa, and for the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) under the auspices of the African Union (AU)?

AB: Its applicability lies in the guidelines for joining the BRICS; Africa Union adopting BRICS policy which is skewed towards trade. Africa’s trade policies are fragmented. That is what AfCFTA seeks to overcome and usher in an era of true free trade. Lukewarm attitude from countries; competing trade policies, internal  political situations pose huge challenges. Furthermore, road and logistical infrastructure are  challenges even if Africa could overcome political and technical regimes of taxes, cross-border issues and intractable issue like corruption. Thus nationalistic tendencies are key challenges to overcome. BRICS may have to impose its own trading protocols as an assistance to African Union (AU) and AfCFTA to help them steer the task of streamlining trading rules. BRICS may also consider harmonising trade rules with AfCFTA. The African Union is now viewed with mistrust in certain capitals. African leaders see it as attempting a power grab. It must focus on coordination and getting Africa leaders to support AfCFTA to achieve its mandate.

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Recently retired government bureaucrat Anthony Fauci just appeared at a university virtual event titled, “Pandemic Lessons and Role of Faculty in Pandemic Preparedness with Dr. Anthony Fauci.” During the conversation, Fauci, who is now affiliated with Georgetown University, made it clear that he still supports locking down society in the name of a virus, adding that lockdowns are a great tool to forcibly “vaccinate” people.

I’ll save you 40 minutes of your life and quote some of the “highlights” from the interview, in which a Wayne State University professor asks Fauci about what he’s learned from his time overseeing a “pandemic response.” The video of the chat is available via YouTube below:

Fauci falsely claimed that New York City was overrun and had “cooler trucks outside because they had no places to put the bodies.”

“You had to have something to immediately shut down the tsunami of infection,” he states, adding, “that lockdown was absolutely justified.”

“Lockdown has a purpose,” the pseudoscientist continued. “One of the purposes, if you don’t have a vaccine, it’s to get more ventilators, get the hospitals better prepared … until you decompress the pressure on the hospitals.

Fauci wasn’t done yet. Here comes the truly evil insanity…

“If you have a vaccine available, you might want to lock down temporarily so you can get everybody vaccinated,” he suggests.

Rejecting the idea that lockdowns are a moral question, he added that “lockdowns have a place, but they are not a permanent solution.”

The conversation continued, with the longtime NIAID chief declaring that “climate change” is “playing a role” in causing outbreaks.

He then calls for an “international commitment to decrease the carbon imprint in society so you don’t have the kinds of crazy weather we’re having in this country.”

Yes, that’s a real quote.

He went on to blame the tragedy in Maui on climate change. “It’s completely, really amazing what’s happened with climate change,” he concludes.

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VDARE.com Editor Peter Brimelow writes: When the 2020 election controversy erupted, I decided that VDARE.com would not focus on it. VDARE.com’s Letitia James-drained resources, I thought, should be concentrated on our key issue: Immigration and the survival of the Historic American Nation.

The MSM and Big Tech, of course set up an echo-chamber of sloganeering and shadow-banning. But the major Conservative Inc. outlets, to my surprise, did very little.

Meanwhile, by eliminating Border enforcement, the Biden Administration has embarked on what must be most sweeping flouting of law by any Administration in U.S. history. And the most consequential.

I ask myself: if they can do this to Immigration law, why wouldn’t they have done this to election law?

And what about 2024?

For anyone not a rabid Democrat, late on election night November 3rd/4^th 2020, the strong stench of fraud swirled across America:

As Mr. Trump walked out to speak to the media in the early hours of November 4, TV news tickers showed the President with a comfortable lead over Joe Biden in nearly every key battleground state.

Pennsylvania, 56-43, a lead of just under 700,000 votes. Georgia, 51-48, a lead of nearly 120,000. Michigan, 53-45, a lead of nearly 295,000. Wisconsin, 51-47, a lead of more than 116,000.

[US election: What happened in key battleground states on election night? by Frank Chung, News.com.au, November 22, 2020. Links in original]

The impression then was given by the MSM that counting was stopping for the night. Subsequently, this was disputed. Some stoppages were partial, in some cases all that was stopped, for some reason, was the reporting of the vote.

News.com’s Frank Chung, cited above, provides this Tweet:

States that won't be called tonight, due to vote counting delays:

– Georgia
– Pennsylvania
– Wisconsin
– Michigan

Go to sleep.

— Rob Tornoe (@RobTornoe) November 4, 2020

But when reporting/counting resumed, Biden suddenly jumped into the lead. Eventually he was declared the winner with these majorities:

• Pennsylvania 81,660 votes
• Georgia 11,719 votes
• Michigan 154,188 votes
• Wisconsin 20,608 votes

I believe I have watched every Presidential election count to the death since 1968. I cannot recall any with such a hiatus in counting/reporting, nor one with such decisive late reversals.

Very many others held the same opinion. They would very likely have joined with President Trump in being suspicious. This crucial subjective aspect has been largely memory-holed by the MSM.

This pattern of the Democrats almost invariably winning close protracted counts has become more glaring in recent years. In 2018 even Speaker Paul Ryan was jolted into comment:

“We were only down 26 seats the night of the election and three weeks later, we lost basically every California race. This election system they have — I can’t begin to understand what ‘ballot harvesting’ is.”

[Ryan casts doubt on ‘bizarre’ California election results, by Scott Wong, The Hill, November 29, 2018].

(Having accidentally raised this critical question, Ryan characteristically wimped out.)

On further contemplation, the aroma of the 2020 election got worse. On November 23, 2020, The Federalist published a seminal article by J.B Shurk:

Candidate Joe Biden was so effective at animating voters in 2020 that he received a record number of votes, more than 15 million more than Barack Obama received in his re-election of 2012. Amazingly, he managed to secure victory while also losing in almost every bellwether county across the country. No presidential candidate has been capable of such electoral jujitsu until now.

While Biden underperformed Hillary Clinton’s 2016 totals in every urban county in the United States, he outperformed her in the metropolitan areas of Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Even more surprising, the former VP put up a record haul of votes, despite Democrats’ general failures in local House and state legislative seats across the nation.

…the former VP managed to gather a record number of votes while consistently trailing President Trump in measures of voter enthusiasm. Biden was so savvy that he motivated voters unenthusiastic about his campaign to vote for him in record numbers.

[5 More Ways Joe Biden Magically Outperformed Election Norms]

The Federalist’s Shurk highlighted historical anomalies:

Biden is set to become the first president in 60 years to lose the states of Ohio and Florida on his way to election. For a century, these states have consistently predicted the national outcome, and they have been considered roughly representative of the American melting pot as a whole. Despite national polling giving Biden a lead in both states, he lost Ohio by eight points and Florida by more than three.

For Biden to lose these key bellwethers by notable margins and still win the national election is newsworthy…

Even more unbelievably, Biden is on his way to winning the White House after having lost almost every historic bellwether county across the country. The Wall Street Journal and The Epoch Timesindependently analyzed the results of 19 counties around the United States that have nearly perfect presidential voting records over the last 40 years. President Trump won every single bellwether county, except Clallam County in Washington…. Bellwether countiesoverwhelmingly chose President Trump, but Biden found a path to victory anyway.

Randy DeSoto noted in The Western Journal that “Donald Trump was pretty much the only incumbent president in U.S. history to lose his re-election while his own party gained seats in the House of Representatives.” Now that’s a Biden miracle!

[Links in original].

In essence, the 2020 election saw a radical departure from normal American voting patterns. Certain Democratic areas produced hugely more votes, both absolutely and relative to other areas, than normal. Was this just otherwise undiscernible but unprecedented enthusiasm for the Biden/Harris ticket. Or could fraud be involved?

To my mind, the most valuable contribution to evaluation the question of 2020 election fraud is Debunked?: An auditor reviews the 2020 election-and the lessons learned by Joseph Fried[Email him]. (Website here, Substackhere). The publisher is Republic Book Publishers, in case Amazon or Barnes & Noble are pressured into dropping it.

Debunked was ignored by the media including supposedly “conservative” platforms. (An honorable exception was FrontPageMag.com’s Auditing Biden’s ‘Victory’ by Bruce Bawer March 23, 2023).

At present it languishes at 102,377 in Amazon book sales.

Although lucidly and even wittily written, this is a grueling read. Partly because it is highly statistical but, at least speaking for myself, I found wading through the flood of brazen dishonesty that Fried reveals to be debilitating.

One currently valuable service Fried performs: refuting the lie that Trump lost all his legal challenges.

A review of ninety-two cases by the organization, Promoting American Election Integrity, shows that only thirty were decided on merit, and Trump and/or his supporters won twenty-two of these cases.

(P267) See https://election-integrity.info/2020_Election_Cases.htm

Perhaps the most important service of the Trump Administration: demonstrating the startling news that the FBI is controlled by extremely unscrupulous Leftist activists. Perhaps the most important service of the 2020 Presidential Election: demonstrating that the state and Federal judiciary is packed with unrestrained Leftist partisans. In most of the Trump cases, these judges simply refused to consider the evidence on extremely dubious technical grounds.

To its eternal shame, this path was also followed by the U.S. Supreme Court. In my opinion SCOTUS, by literally denying Trump’s supporters their day in court, is the major culprit in the subsequent events of January 6^th.

(This is not to say the Courts should have reversed the elections. They could have followed the precedent of the 2018 election in the 9^th District of North Carolina and forced the queried elections to be rerun.)

Another key debating point that Fried obliterates: the oft-quoted assertion by Christopher Krebs, formerly Director of Cybersecurity for Federal Government that:

The November 3^rd election was the most secure in American History

Joint Statement from Elections Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council & the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Executive Committees, November12, 2020

Subsequently, Krebs has been a go-to talking head for the MSM when it needs an apparently impressive disparager of President Trump’s election arguments.

Fried cheerfully points out that, in a brutal Senate hearing on December 16, 2020, Krebs unwillingly admitted he was only referring to cyber security—not to election fraud as a whole (P273). Fried then notes that, on Krebs’ watch as Director of Cybersecurity, there were two massive cybersecurity breaches. One directly involved the 2020 election: Iran hackers stole US voter data, posed as Proud Boys in effort to influence 2020 election: feds, by Ben Feuerherd, New York Post,November 18, 2021. The other, discussed in The Untold Story of the Boldest Supply-Chain Hack Ever, by Kim Zetter, WIRED, May 22,2023, was on a staggering scale and was detected by a private sector company—not the Feds.

Krebs clearly needed a new profession.

Reported in Fried’s book are myriad questionable events and dubious actions by Election officials. But the single most consequential issue is: the security of mail-in ballots.

Mail-in ballots were tremendously expanded for the 2020 election under the pretext of COVID. (But here is little willingness to roll-back the changes: Nevada, which in 2020 promiscuously mailed out actual ballots to all registered voters, whether requested or not, has now made this change permanent. P163). According to the United States Census Bureau

In 2020, 43% of voters cast ballots by mail and another 26% voted in person before Election Day. In 2016, 21% mailed in their ballots and 19% voted in person prior to Election Day.

Majority of Voters Used Nontraditional Methods to Cast Ballots in 2020 by Zachary Scherer, Census.gov, April 29,2021.

This means some 68.1 million votes were cast by mail in 2020, 39.5 million more than in 2016.

That is a lot of votes about the integrity of which to be so certain.

At this point it is worthwhile to consider what Joseph Fried means by an “audit.”

An audit is not just counting. An important aspect is looking out for anomalous numbers, which might suggest questionable activity.

Such a case occurred with the overseas military vote in Maricopa County AZ (subject to the Uniformed And Overseas Civilian Absentee Voting Act, or UOCAVA). In 2016 there were 1,600 such ballots, but in 2020 there were 9,600. They went 95% for Biden. The net 8,000 votes for Biden compare with his state-wide “victory” margin of 10,457 (P78-9).

Such a glaring anomaly cried out for investigation. So did a large number of other oddities. But, as Fried documents in detail (P 79-106), Maricopa County fought furiously to prevent this, enlisting the Biden Justice Department and a couple of Congresscritters. They were successful.

The other aspect of auditing: evaluating the “chain of custody” for valuables or sensitive documents such as ballots. The fact that the chain of custody is weak is not proof of fraud—but it does raise the possibility of fraud. An analogy would be an Auditor pointing out that a shop’s cash is being kept in an unlocked and unsupervised cash register. In itself, this is not proof that there has been or will be theft. But it identifies the possibility.

Basically, chain of custody provisions in the states which pushed mail-in ballots strongly were weak to the point of non-existence.

At this point, it is worth considering how other countries approach the chain of custody issue with mail-in ballots.

In general, they approach it by banning mail-in ballots:

Besides the United States, there are 36 member states in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Fifty percent ban absentee voting unless the citizen is living abroad, and an additional 38% require a photo-ID to obtain a absentee ballot. Fourteen percent of the countries ban absentee mail voting even for those living abroad…

These countries have learned the hard way about what happens when mail-in ballots aren’t secured. They have also discovered how hard it is to detect vote buying when both those buying and selling the votes have an incentive to hide the exchange.

France banned mail-in voting in 1975 because of massive fraud in Corsica, where postal ballots were stolen or bought and voters cast multiple votes. Mail-in ballots were used to cast the votes of dead people.

Why do most countries ban mail-in ballots?: They have seen massive vote fraud problems by John R. Lott Jr, President, Crime Prevention Center August 3, 2020.

In 2005, the issue of mail-in voting was considered by the Commission On Federal Election Reform, co-Chaired by Jimmy Carter and James Baker: Building Confidence in U.S. Elections September 2005. Fried notes that the report said

Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud

and also says that

The Commissioners said that, if absentee ballots are to be mailed out, it is important for the states to strengthen voter registration from handling the ballots. Unfortunately, for the 2020 election this advice was completely ignored in some States…All the concerns of the Carter-Baker report applied—plus, there were now unmonitored drop boxes. (P 29).

In order to demonstrate the opportunities created by having vast numbers of ballot applications (in Nevada’s case, actual ballots) sloshing about, Fried supplies a remarkable New York Post story—pointing (P32) out that it was published on August 29, 2020, “…before the subject of election fraud became verboten in the United States”:

A top Democratic operative says voter fraud, especially with mail-in ballots, is no myth. And he knows this because he’s been doing it, on a grand scale, for decades.

…the political insider, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he fears prosecution, said fraud is more the rule than the exception…

The whistleblower — whose identity, rap sheet and long history working as a consultant to various campaigns were confirmed by The Post…would have his operatives fan out, going house to house, convincing voters to let them mail completed ballots on their behalf as a public service. The fraudster and his minions would then take the sealed envelopes home and hold them over boiling water.

“You have to steam it to loosen the glue,” said the insider.

He then would remove the real ballot, place the counterfeit ballot inside the signed certificate, and reseal the envelope…

The tipster said sometimes postal employees are in on the scam.

In some cases, mail carriers were members of his “work crew,” and would sift ballots from the mail and hand them over to the operative.

Confessions of a voter fraud: I was a master at fixing mail-in ballots by Jon Levine

Levine’s illuminating story deserves to be read in full.

The Democrats imposing loose mail-in ballot regulations in 2020 were deliberately paving the way for fraud.

A case in point: Michigan. There,

Democrat Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson, mailed out ballot applications to everyone on the Michigan voter registration list…

On its face, Benson’s distribution of ballots was of questionable legality because all methods [of getting a ballot] specified in the Michigan Code…require initiation by the voter.

Fried estimates that more than half the applications went to people who had no intention of voting by mail. So they were floating around, like junk mail. He shows that the application form had no identification requirement at all—no driver’s license number, Social Security number, etc.

But the clincher: although there was a signature requirement, Secretary of State Benson announced

…that all signatures would be presumptively valid (JF emphasis) even if there were no more than “slight similarities” to registration signatures.

(Link added). Of this announcement, Fried continues

there is no doubt that it affected the final vote tabulation substantially. The announcement was, effectively, an invitation to fraudsters to grab all the extra ballot applications they could find or buy. (Pp 138-141).

Fried reviews in detail the 2020 election sagas of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Obviously, at present Georgia is of particular interest.

Georgia’s 2020 election was a shambles.

The VoterGa.org website has a long list of faults in its WHO SAYS THeRE WAS NO GEORGIA ELECTION FRAUD? section and a 7-page written statement WHO SAYS THERE WAS NO 2020 ELECTION FRAUD? This has the salient conclusion:

In reality, the entire 2020 Presidential election outcome was decided by secret counts in five counties of five battleground states, each riddled with the corruption described. Specifically, on fraud and illegalities committed in Philadelphia Co. Pennsylvania, Wayne Co. Michigan, Milwaukee Co. Wisconsin, Fulton Co. Georgia and Maricopa Co. Arizona determined the 2020 Presidential election.

Fried summarizes a few choice items, including

• The number of “funny” ballots and “impossible” ballots is about forty-five times larger than the Biden margin of victory for Georgia, which was around 11,700.
• Although it takes at least one second to scan a ballot, there are over 4,000 ballots with precisely the same timestamp—to the second. Not possible.

Needless to say, neither the Fulton County DA, Fani Willis, nor the Feds have shown any interest in investigating these complaints.

Fried strongly recommends listening to VoterGA Press Conference March 7thstarting at 27:00.

The quite extraordinary aspect of the Georgia election scandal: the State GOP leadership is furiously opposed to any investigation or subsequent reform. See VoterGA’s Kemp, Duncan Block Key Election Integrity Bill to Unseal Ballots. This was in April 2022.

The GA GOP leadership are vociferous Never Trumpers, as VDARE.com’s Washington Watcher II detailed in GA Gov. Brian Kemp, Fake Immigration Patriot, Hopes Communist Prosecutors Take Out Trump. But He’ll Be Next. Of course, leaving the Georgia’s election procedures as they are jeopardizes all Republicans: both Republican Senators were “defeated” in the reruns in early 2021. The GA GOP leadership are behaving like Democrats.

My view: Probably that is because they are Democrats.

I speak as a resident of the South during the crucial transition years in the late 20^thcentury. Normal, spoils-seeking White Democrat pols have migrated from their Party because the unusually large populations of race-crazed Blacks and Trump-deranged Leftist Whites in Atlanta a.k.a. Fulton County have evicted them. So they have migrated to and have infested the Republican Party. The famous close 2018 Kemp victory over Stacey Abrams was probably a Georgia Uniparty fix (she may be too stupid to realize this).

Leading culprit in this atrocity: Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Fried devotes several pages to this scoundrel. Raffensperger has fought doggedly to prevent any investigation of the election, sometimes quite unscrupulously.

In the famous phone call [Here’s the full transcript and audio of the call between Trump and Raffensperger, Washington Post, January 5, 2021] that produced the Trump quote

Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break. You know, we have that in spades already.

Fried notes that Raffensperger team

…disputed every assertion made by the Trump team but never supported their assertions with data… Instead, they claimed that their information was correct, and it would be presented in court (and not before) … So far, no court has issued a ruling on the merits of these claims, or even considered the claims.

Raffensperger never asked for one to do so.

The decisive condemnation of Raffensperger’s integrity: the revelation that he had in his possession at the time a 29 page report detailing horrific conditions at the Fulton County counting facility. This was revealed (in a Pulitzer Prize-deserving scoop LOL) by John Solomon and Daniel Payne: Georgia investigator’s notes reveal ‘massive’ election integrity problems in Atlanta Just the News, June 19, 2021:

…in January, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger: “We had safe, secure, honest elections,” he declared to “60 Minutes.”

That rosy assessment, however, masked an ugly truth inside his agency’s own files: A contractor handpicked to monitor election counting in Fulton County wrote a 29-page memo back in November outlining the “massive” election integrity failures and mismanagement that he witnessed in the Atlanta-area’s election centers.

The bombshell report, constructed like a minute-by-minute diary, cited a litany of high-risk problems such as the double-counting of votes, insecure storage of ballots, possible violations of voter privacy, the mysterious removal of election materials at a vote collection warehouse, and the suspicious movement of “too many” ballots on Election Day.

The State Farm Arena, where the Fulton County Votes were counted, was of course the scene of the infamous sending-home of the GOP observers while counting was ongoing, and the boarding-up of windows.

Fried reports

…the Trump team obtained video coverage…On the video, workers could be seen pulling boxes…from under a large skirted table. The workers then proceeded to scan the ballots…

All this is disputed of course. What cannot be disputed is, in Fried’s words:

…there was a large vote spike of 23,487 votes during the processing. Of that amount Joe Biden was awarded 98%…In an election decided by about 12,000 votes the spike…easily gave the victory to Biden.

Raffensperger blocked any investigation of the 2020 election. And Governor Kemp had the insolence to Tweet last week, quoted in Washinton Watcher II’s Kemp critique above:

Our elections in Georgia are secure, accessible, and fair…

On the infamous Trump/Raffensperger call, in which Trump showed an impressive mastery of the details, Fried says

…the implication that he wanted the fabrication of votes is clearly false. He seemed to genuinely believe that he had those votes already—easily.

If reasonable people form this judgement, the Georgia case fails.

But there will be no such specimens on the Sovietized Fulton County Jury.

Fried has much more to say about the Georgia election, all of it infuriating, and much to say about the elections he surveys in the other states.

Broadly speaking, it is all the same story. In the interests of space, I will simply pick out some distinguishing elements:

• Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar certified its election, although in Fried’s words:

On its face, the certification was illegal because the Secretary had not investigated a very large excess of ballots cast over the number of participating voters [i.e. voters who had applied for ballots]…there were 202,377 more ballots cast than the number of people who actually voted [i.e. applied for ballots] (P197)

Biden’s margin of victory was 81,660 votes.

Of course, Pennsylvania Democrats pushed through the usual promiscuous mail-in ballot program, spawning the usual plausible stories of fraud.

But they received special help from the extremely partisan State Supreme Court. The Green Party was prevented from running, objections to mail-in ballot procedures were swept aside, large scale distribution, mainly in Democrat areas, of unmonitored drop boxes (financed by Marc Zuckerberg) was allowed, Republican poll observers were seriously hindered, and, incredibly all mail in ballots were ordered to be counted even if the signatures on them did not match the registration signatures. (P194)

Generally speaking, weak or non-existent signature controls were a consistent feature of the 2020 mail-in ballot campaigns.

• Michigan’s Democrats smashed their way to “victory” by simple brute force.

As noted above, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson lawlessly mailed out ballots to the entire seriously out-of-date voter list and the repulsive Michigan Attorney General, Dana Nessel, litigated aggressively to stop any citizen investigation of the election. In the Detroit area election training sessions were apparently geared to defeating Republican Observers (MI: Radical Dem AG Threatens Reporter With Criminal Prosecution For Publishing Damning Undercover Audio Exposing Crooked Detroit Election Official By Patty McMurray 100PERCENTFEDUP.COM Nov 10, 2020.) And, particularly in Wayne County [Detroit], GOP Poll observers were threatened and sometimes evicted from the counting process.

Of course, Detroit couldn’t let Atlanta down. Fried reports that two large and unsupervised loads of ballots were delivered.

• At 3:50 AM (EST) there was an update in Michigan that gave 54,497 votes to Biden and 4,718 to Trump
• At 6:31 AM (EST) there was an update in Michigan that gave Joe Biden 141,258 votes while giving only 5,968 votes to Trump

(Pp 155-156) That is 195,755 fresh Biden votes. His margin of ‘victory’ was 154,188 votes.

Fried thoughtfully notes (P155):

By law, all Michigan ballots must be in the hands of county or township clerks by 8:00 PM on Election Day. So, why did it take 7.5 hours…for Detroit ballots to reach the Detroit TCF Center? Is the city that big?

• Wisconsin supplied a particularly fine example of Democrat/MSM mendacity.

Fried says:

In the summer of 2021, Wisconsin performed an audit of the 2020 presidential election. However, the City of Madison and Milwaukee County, refused to give the auditors physical access to the ballot certificates and many other election records, after citing guidance from the Biden administration. The withheld ballots comprised about 19% of all state ballots (620,000 of 3.3 million.

The auditors disregarded the omitted ballots and they only examined the ballots they were allowed to see. Based on this review, the auditors concluded that Wisconsin did a very good job of managing the election, and that Joe Biden won it. Wisconsin legislators and the mainstream media celebrated the findings. (P3)

Obviously, this huge omission renders the audit worthless. Madison, of course is the home of the University of Wisconsin and Milwaukee is 37.8% Black. They must be the epicenters of anti-Trump partisanship.

Another vignette: on P210 Fried supplies a table showing that an investigation of 91 Nursing Homes in 5 WI counties showed 100% turnout at 66 and turnouts above 95% in all the rest.

Nursing Homes are notorious sources of voter fraud, as noted in Confessions of a voter fraud: I was a master at fixing mail-in ballots cited above.

Despite MSM and Big Tech deplatforming, the truth about the 2020 election will continue to spread. The damage to the American polity is going to be terrible.

All of this could have been avoided if America had followed the example of almost every serious democracy, banning or very seriously constraining mail in voting and implementing Voter ID requirements.

As Fried points out on P138 of his book

Of the 47 countries in Europe today, 46 of them currently require government issued IDs to vote…When it comes to absentee voting, we Americans…are often shocked to learn that 35 out of 47 European countries…don’t allow absentee voting for citizens living in country.

Is Ensuring Election Integrity Anti-Democratic? John R. Lott, Jr. Imprimis October 2021.

VDARE.com’s Allan Wall asked 20 years ago (!) Why Is Mexico’s Voter Registration System Better Than Ours?

Every registered Mexican voter has a Voter ID card, complete with photograph, fingerprint, and a holographic image to prevent counterfeiting .

I believe the answer is that the Democrats have been preparing to perpetrate massive voter fraud since at least the Obama Administration. VDARE.com has 113 articles under the tag Voter Fraud going back to 2003.

Until recently, the battle ground has been Voter ID, which the Democrats, greatly aided by their Kritarch allies, have managed to block.

This has led to the ludicrous situation in which Americans going about their daily business have to produce Photo ID to register at hotels, board planes and enter many public and private buildings—but not to vote or to apply for absentee ballots.

More recently, Democrat apparatchiks have cooked up a number of ballot-tampering stratagems, known politely as “ballot harvesting” and “curing.” I found the book Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections by Mollie Hemingway a good introduction to this arcane subject.

VDARE.com Editor Peter Brimelow is right: Trump’s Indictment—Like I Said, This Is A Communist Coup.

Clear proof of this: the way the MSM and Big Tech are suppressing all discussion of the 2020 election facts. (We notice shadow banning of VDARE and our friends has greatly intensified since the Trump indictments).

Subjectively, the Stalinesque uniformity with which the MSM has chanted that Trump is lying about 2020 fraud is a frightening indicator. How could they possibly know? Especially given the enormous increase in mail-in voting. As I said at the beginning of this article, to anyone except a rabid Democrat, the election has looked suspicious since the evening of November 3^rd.

Far more than Donald Trump is at stake in this struggle.

The GOP, and the American people, need to wake up.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click here to view the video

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My Take…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One Bric at a Time

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Shift Towards BRICS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Post-Ukraine Order

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Professor Claudia von Werlhof wrote to Greta Thunberg.

In her letter Von Werlhof says that the disruption of the global climate is not due to CO2. 

Following the publication of her letter, Silvia Terribili, of Onda Italia interviewed Professor von Werlhof  on her radio show: Onda Italiana on salto.nl, April 9th.

The following text is the transcript of the radio interview

The link below will redirect you to the radio interview.

Climate Disruption Is Not Due to CO2  (audio)

By Prof. Claudia von Werlhof and Silvia Terribili, April 30, 2019

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Below is the transcript of the interview.

Claudia Von Werlhof: The question is how we define climate change and its alleged reason, of which it is said  is CO2.  We consider climate change, at least in the official discussion, as “global warming” and this global warming doesn’t exist. 

There are data from NASA, which is the North American Space Agency, and they show that in the last 18 years there was no general global warming.  What exists indeed – because we are not deniers of the problem – are  changes in different dimensions in the weather, in the climate and more so in the atmosphere, etc.  We are going to explain this more in this interview. 

The second is the CO2-question which is now very prominent as all these young people are now on the street, because they believe in this story and this dogma of the CO2.

And this is very strange because a lot of scientists, real scientists, are denying the influence of CO2 as a reason for climate change or as an influence at all.

For example, there are about 30,000 scientists in the US now who say that there is no problem with CO2.  On the contrary, CO2 this is a gas that stems from rotten natural materials which is needed by the plants to transform it into oxygen.  They say that CO2 is not at all detrimental for the climate, and that it even is something we are to welcome and that we need for our trees and plants and as a positive effect.

So, the funny thing is that CO2 is often shown as some dirt, as if it was a dirt in the air. Then you look at the factories that are shown in this opportunity, you see the dust coming out of them, etc. This is not CO2.

CO2 is a gas that is invisible and doesn’t smell so you don’t see it.

In general, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is about 0.038 % only.  Most of that is vapour, water vapour, some 80 or 70%.  So, this tiny amount of CO2 cannot change something huge like the climate of this planet. This is impossible.

Screenshot Global CCS Institute

So, all these scientists who are serious scientists, are denying a negative influence of CO2 on the climate.  There are even winners of the Nobel Prize etc., like Ivar Giaever, who are explaining it or people from the MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, like Richard Lindzen and others. The IPCC, the International Panel on Climate Change, founded at the end of the ’80s of the last century, however, is not so much a scientific but a political organization, and it is propagating and proposing the CO2 myth in public.

So, this is a political question and from the point of view of a real scientist, CO2 is not really something detrimental and is not changing any climate. It’s too tiny for that.

If you look at the origins of this debate at the end of the ‘80s, you see that before this time all the world spoke about a possible ice age, a new ice age. Lowell Ponte, f.i., wrote a book on “The Cooling”.  It was in 1976.

They spoke about a cooling and a new ice age in contrast to the global warming-speech of today.  There is no historical debate any more about how this myth about CO2 came about.

The IPCC was founded by Think Tanks, like the Club of Rome, the World Watch Institute, the Rockefellers, etc., people who have a different interest in the whole question. And they found, I think it was an analysis by William Engdahl, who said they found or invented the myth of CO2 in order to have a common enemy defined which is humanity itself.

Humanity is guilty of producing so much CO2 by civil industry and consumption. This ideology can be used for another, a new policy.  So, this was the origin of the CO2 myth and this has been their propaganda worldwide.  Then came Al Gore and everybody believes in him.  This is contrasting with the fact that a real climate change is not occurring in the sense they are defining it.  This history is generally not known. And people don’t really know anything about Nature and the Planet.  There is a certain ignorance generally, and the public just believes in everything.

There are a lot of changes in the world, in the climate, in many aspects, like those Dr. Rosalie Bertell found out, we are speaking about her later, who said we are wrecking our planet. But how?  It’s not by global warming, but by something totally different.  This is not mentioned by these people who speak about climate change.  They don’t see that there are changes but there are different ones with very different origins.

Silvia Terribili:  Yes, it seems also that computer models predicting catastrophic global warming in the coming years are parameterized and there is a risk of framing the outcome of these methods and models.  Can you say something about these models?

CvW:  These models the IPCC is using are computer models.  Their results are just an outcome of computer simulation.  It has nothing to do with reality and what they are measuring is what they want to measure.  They just measure something like more CO2-output, but they do not consider the complexity of the climate on this planet.

They have no parameters about them and so they are really trying to fool us with what they are saying about such a big amount of climate change and global warming.  This is not happening, and it will not happen because of CO2.

So, these are strange methods, and not scientific ones.

One should say they are political methods which want to prove something which is not the case.  So, there is no reason why there should be such an amount of global warming of above 4 degrees, which is impossible.  At least it is impossible with simply putting CO2 as a measure of this tiny amount of CO2 in the air.  You would never have any effect and it is very funny that everybody is believing this nonsense.  It’s a theory but it has nothing to do with reality and we should look at why this theory exists.  So, this is the more important question.

ST:  Some 30 years ago we already warned that the protective ozone layer has been reduced. Nowadays we don’t seem to care anymore for ozone depletion in the stratosphere. How could this be explained because we have to be concerned about the depletion of the ozone layer and where does it come from?

CvW:  The ozone-question, yes.  This is a very funny thing again and it is not funny at all in the end, because the ozone layer is really something that we need.

Without the ozone layer there would be no life on earth, because it protects us from cosmic radiation from the sun, especially UV-B and -C radiation, which is very toxic.

And it has been found out that this radiation today is coming down to earth which normally is prevented by the ozone layer.

But now it comes through, and this is a long story because there was the Montreal Protocol in the ‘80s which prohibited the use of CFCs, all these chemicals you have in the refrigerators, etc., because they thought it was the reason for the ozone hole.

But this was wrong already then because we know that what is really damaging ozone is especially radioactivity. Of radioactivity there is a lot in the air since the military was experimenting with nuclear explosions since the ‘40s and ‘50s until the end of the ‘90s, and we had about 2,200 nuclear explosions on earth and in the atmosphere and they have produced a lot of radioactive radiation that is destroying the ozone layer.

This is the main reason for the weakness of this layer because radioactivity is somehow eating up the ozone so that it is suffocating in a way, because ozone is a sort of atmospheric oxygen and radioactivity is finishing with the oxygen.

The problem is something like suffocation and a toxic effect of radiation coming down to earth when this layer is destroyed or inhibited.

Last year, the people who were measuring the ozone layer found that it was weaker than ever, it did not recover as was proposed after the Montreal Protocol. And they found out that, on the contrary, it is not only existing in the form of holes over the Antarctic and the Arctic – the latter one existing only since Fukushima, as there was never a hole over the Arctic before.

And now we have ozone depletion even over the whole northern part of the earth.

So, the toxic radiation is not only occurring at the poles but generally it comes down and it is destroying a lot of plants and low animal life, like insects. With the insects dying, the birds and the whole food chain is affected by the weakness of the ozone layer, and in the oceans the plankton is dying and the krill that the big fish are eating.

You have now many fish who are dying from hunger and you have dying coral reefs like, for example, the Great Barrier Reef east of New Zealand, the biggest one in the world, which is now dying, and it is nearly not reproducing itself anymore.  People say it is because the oceans are warming up, but this cannot be the real reason. The main problem is that the toxic radiation from the sun comes down into the water as well and it is killing life in the oceans.

And then you have all this radioactivity from Fukushima which has been led into the Pacific so that life in the Pacific is dying out, and soon you will have no fish anymore.  This is somehow very tragic because Rosalie Bertell wrote her book “Planet Earth, the Latest Weapon of War” already in 2000.  She has studied all these problems, and where they come from, and she always warned about the ozone layer, because it had been thinned out already by 10% at the end of the ‘90s and now it is becoming thinner and thinner.

And she said that with a 20% thinning of the ozone layer there will be no agriculture anymore, because the plants will be destroyed by the toxicity of UV radiation. You can see it even on your balcony when you have your plants out there. It can already be seen that the leaves are getting brown and your plants are not growing much in the sun.  So, this is maybe the biggest problem we are facing and the result of many, many effects which are destroying the ozone layer not only with the radioactivity, but also other instruments and technologies worse than any CO2 or global warming.

ST:  What can we say about geoengineering and especially Stratospheric Aerosol Injection which is one of the technologies that the IPCC is in a way not suggesting but they say it can be a solution for the global warming.  What do you think?

CvW:  Well, because of this world-theory of global warming and CO2, we now have civil geoengineers appearing, something that didn’t exist in previous times. Now they have their research institutes everywhere, and plan to have a solution to this problem which is supposed to be “solar radiation management” SRM or SAI with which they are planning to inject aerosols into the air to block the sun from shining and from heating up the earth.

So, instead of removing CO2, because it seems impossible politically, they promote this other solution to fight against the effects of so-called global warming and this would mean blocking the sun from shining too much on earth.

So, the plan is to inject aerosols into the atmosphere and especially David Keith from Harvard University has a project called SCOPEX for this very process.  In this project he wants to inject even sulphuric acid into the atmosphere imitating something like a volcanic eruption and they call it the Pinatubo effect because the Pinatubo is a volcano that exploded in 1991 and the ashes and what came out had the effect of cooling down the temperatures.

And now they are trying to imitate this effect by adding sulphuric acid into the air.  Recently David Keith, this professor from Harvard University even said that tens of thousands of people would die from that at least, because it would mean to have acids down on earth which are eventually destroying all life.

I mean these are crazy experiments they are preparing, and they go for civil geoengineers and the funniest thing about this movement of civil geoengineers is that they do not speak of the military background of all these technologies they are now propagating.

And all these movements about climate change, etc., don’t know anything about it as well.  It is simply denied that these are military experiments which we know already, because since 30 years there are regular aerosol-sprayings of the atmosphere, so all this is occurring already.  I mean something like SRM is nothing new.  We have it already in the form of the spraying of barium and aluminium and other substances that are very bad for all life and agriculture.

Monsanto for example invented a seed that is resistant to aluminium, imagine.  So, things like that are occurring and the people are against it, but they don’t see that these experiments are a reality already, being a part of geoengineering, military geoengineering, that exists now for  about 70 or more years.  This has been a project of the second world war in which the military invented the nuclear as a weapon of war and after the nuclear they invented other weapons like those of weather control.

As Rosalie Bertell said, they invented weather wars, they invented geoengineering and they invented plasma weapons which are electromagnetic weapons used by and emitted by ionospheric heaters.  This is a very special technology mostly not known which is based on the inventions of Nicola Tesla who was a physicist inventor in the 19th and 20th century.

So, this is a special technology which is not very well known, like HAARP in Alaska (now closed down) which is one of these ionospheric heaters that are working with electromagnetic waves. These waves are artificially produced and reach something like a billion watts, and they are shot high up into the ionosphere to produce certain effects leading them back to the earth.

This is a very, very dangerous technology which can also be used for producing all kinds of so-called natural catastrophes like, for example, tsunamis or earthquakes, volcanic eruptions or the change of the weather in whole regions, or producing hurricanes, droughts, fires and floods, and even changing the ocean currents.

These are technologies that are not discussed in public but exist already since the Vietnam War. They have been invented during this time and the UN Convention on Environmental Modification, the famous ENMOD convention from 1977, explains these weapons, it explains the effects they may have when they are used.  So, it is not even a secret and it is decades ago that they have been invented and are in experimentation, and it is like a war that is fought against the earth and the planet as a cosmic macro-being on which we depend.  This is very, very dangerous and it is exactly Rosalie Bertell who has explained to us how these technologies are functioning, namely as the post-nuclear weapons of electromagnetic mass destruction.  We have these ionospheric heaters now everywhere.

ST:  What is the ionospheric heater?  What is, why do they use it?  What is the idea? We don’t understand because there is global warming, they said that there is a global warming. So, you are heating the ionosphere, but that ’s crazy.

CvW:   They are heating up the ionosphere, the sphere in the atmosphere that starts at about 80 kilometres up to about 800-1000 kilometres.  It is an electrified part of the atmosphere and when they send the electromagnetic waves up there they are heating it up because when they heat the ionosphere, this part of the atmosphere, they can manage these electromagnetic rays to come down on earth again, by making a curve. They can work with an angle and, like Rosalie said, it is like a gun from the ionosphere which is directed against the earth and when this ray comes down again to the earth it is terribly destructive.  These rays can even pass through the core of the earth.

ST:  But it is also warming, so it is completely crazy because we have too much warming and we are sending some…

CvW:  Because the warming is up there.  It’s not down here.  If there is any warming, it is up there. The NASA didn’t find a real warming of the earth in general, but you have different parts of the world that are warming up or have been warmed up like the poles, the polar regions and the mountains where the melting glaciers are, but it has nothing to do with a general global warming through CO2. Some of them are surely effects of the military use of ionospheric heaters.  For example, in 1974 there was a treaty between the US and the Soviet Union, the secret Vladivostok Agreement in which they planned together to heat up the Arctic because they wanted the ice to go away to get to the oil on the ground of the northern sea and they couldn’t get there because of the ice.  Today,  half of the Arctic ice has melted down already, because they used electromagnetic waves for that.  ELF waves, that are extremely low frequency waves and they have thawed the Arctic with that.  It has nothing to do with global warming but with this military technology.

ST:  Going back to geoengineering, the solar radiation management, do we have evidence that the program is on?  I mean we see all kinds of trails in the sky and the sky is completely sometimes covered by these trails.  They are persistent, staying the whole time.  What do you think about that phenomenon?

CvW:  It is an older military technology which has recently been implemented since about 30 years. This started in the ‘90s and, for example, you have effects in regions like Shasta in California. They have been heavily sprayed with aerosols.  It’s like Agent Orange that was sprayed on Vietnam, a toxic product from Monsanto and it’s like that.  It’s toxic and for example in this community of Shasta in Northern California the land is not producing anymore, everybody is sick, and the animals and plants are dying.

They had such a load of toxic materials, aerosols coming down from the sky that they got these problems, and after having analysed them they made a big event some years ago to protest publicly against the sprayings.  Nevertheless, the alternative and social movements do not accept – even ETC Group, which is very important in that respect – that this has been done which is a reality for the people affected, and they are denying that SRM is used already and discussing only the bad effects which this method would have on us. So, they are against it, but they are denying that these methods are in use already everywhere.  Of course, you see it in the sky, and I have done some research about why they are doing it, as the military is not interested in any global warming myth. They are even denying global warming because they know better.

ST:  So, they are doing that?

CvW:  Yes, they are doing that, so they know better, like Trump, who knows it from the military. But I found out that they are not interested in the global warming question or so.  They are doing it because of the ozone depletion, f.i.  If there is an ozone hole or weakness, they cannot pass their electromagnetic waves.  They need what I call a replacement atmosphere.

They need to spray aerosols as a conductor, they need an atmosphere that is conductive, and at the holes it is not.  This is the reason why they are using so many metals in the spraying, heavy metals like barium and strontium and aluminium, which is not a heavy metal, but they are all conductive for electromagnetic waves.  Recently I came about a research of a woman called Schmitt who lives in Venezuela.  She made an analysis of these sprayings of being protective against the cosmos, something like a Faraday cage, producing a sort of grid around the earth to protect it from radiation coming in and this also has to do with the ozone depletion. The ozone layer is really the central question that has to be an alarm for us, because this is now the moment of truth.  When we are not able to prevent these things happening, this destruction happening, we will die out within 20 or 30 years.

ST: But the official story, nobody is telling, talking about the ozone depletion.

CvW:  No. There was an alarm last year and there was a colleague in the US, Marvin Herndon, who was doing research about that question, together with his colleagues and he published it. He proved that ozone depletion leads to the arrival of toxic radiation down on earth. And he found out that NASA, the North American Space Agency, had come to the same result already in 2007.  And they didn’t do anything.  They knew it already then, but they didn’t do anything because the military thinks it can do everything it wants.  If they need it, they would invent a new ozone layer. This is what they think.  They think they have …

ST:  A technical solution?

CvW:  Yes, and they think that they can do whatever they want to do and prevent things from happening. But after all these nuclear explosions in the atmosphere and in the ionosphere and in the Van Allen belts which destroyed parts of the magnetic field of the earth, they could never replace or cure the magnetic field nor the atmosphere. They couldn’t do anything about it. They destroyed it and it is destroyed. This is one of the reasons of weather changes as well.  So, there are a lot of very complex reasons of why things are happening.  For example, you can even use electromagnetic waves from the ionospheric heaters in order to move the jet stream which consists of fast winds surrounding the earth, building a frontier between hot and cold.  So, if you are moving them north you have the heat from the south in the north and when you are moving them down south, you have the cold from the Arctic in the middle of Europe …

ST:  They influence strongly the climate and the weather

CvW:  With these technologies you can do nearly everything, and you can change the vapour streams that are the humid streams around the earth.  You can transport humidity to Arabia for example. This is one of the biggest businesses today, because the people there need water and you can just transport the water from here to there.  So, even snow is coming down in the South Arabian desert. This is all manipulation, weather manipulation, climate manipulation.  Nobody speaks about it, but it is occurring constantly. And another effect of the atmosphere being full of metal is that it is drying out, so we have much less rain in Europe for example which has nothing to do with a warming or CO2.

ST:  In Italy there is drought.

CVW:  Italy is drying out, and then you have fires which are also induced, not only because it is dry, but you have direct energy weapons and laser weapons. So, you can produce these fires what was happening in Portugal and Australia and in California. They have nothing to do with wildfires and they are not destroying the plants, but they are destroying the buildings. It is like a war that has passed through.  All these things are discussed as being a result of global warming and CO2.  It has nothing to do with that.  This whole CO2 question and global warming is used to distract people from what is really happening, so that they don’t see what has been done to the planet and to the atmosphere and to the weather, etc., so they wouldn’t look at it because they think it is all global warming.

ST:  Unfortunately, we have almost to close the program, but I would like to ask you something again.  On May 23 – 26, we will have European elections coming. What can we do as concerned Europeans to put climate engineering and all related risks on the electoral agenda because we expect European institutions to protect the 300 million citizens from the risks of these extremely dangerous technologies. What can we do?

CvW:  What we did, inform the people. We are just now publishing a book.  It is called “Global Warning!”, not warming, but warning.  It is going to appear soon.  Ten women are explaining their research of what we are talking about now and this will be published by Talma Studies International in Dublin.  So, I can recommend it.  The problem is that people don’t know anything of what is happening around them, and they don’t get informed even if this is possible. The book of Rosalie Bertell exists in the 4th edition in German, it exists in Italian, French and Spanish. Everybody can read it and many people have ordered the 4th edition now, it has been printed 15,000 times. Somebody should have read it, but people don’t speak about it. The parties that are running for election have nothing to do with all this.  The Greens should be the most interested in this question, but they are not.

We have to look behind the climate change-agenda. There must be somebody who wants people to be distracted, to be organized around other issues.

You have the whole Smart City and 5G movement, the technification of the society and a sort of policies of controlled reduction of production and consumption.  It is like the depopulation agenda of certain people which seems to be related to that.

I think that there are other political plans, the New World Order and interests behind it.

CO2 is only the scapegoat to prevent people from looking at them.

The Greens for example are totally involved into these plans for a so called “green” economy, but this is not the case.  It is not a green economy.  It is a weaponized economy which we see is approaching us.

I don’t see the Left, it has no interest in the whole question because it is concerned about progress and development, to say it like that.  You need a critique of these technologies.  I call it military alchemy what we have now.  But the Left is not interested in that and the other parties in any case not at all as well.  So, I don’t know who is going to be interested from the point of view of the parties.  People are not informed and they don’t get informed and people who speak about it are called conspiracy theorists, etc. How to get to that to change, the change from believing in these ideologies from above in order to see what is happening in reality? How can people like this Greta and the young people get informed about the reality? They should know what is really going on and not what is supposed to go on.  This is the problem. It is why I wrote the letter to Greta Thunberg, to get her informed and as I know she even recognized ultimately that there is a military problem but not the one we are discussing, that of military geoengineering.

ST:  Did she answer you?

CvW:  No, of course not.  Because there is a big movement behind her, the CO2 movement is behind her, of course. There have been plans: 7 years ago, it has already been discussed how to mobilize the youth.  This is not just a venture of the people but an organized campaign of the other side.

ST:  Claudia we have to stop unfortunately, but we will present your book when it is going to come out and maybe we can present the book of Rosalie Bertell one more time because our task is to inform people.  We do what we can to inform people.

CvW:  Maybe you can translate it for Italy and the Netherlands.

ST:  Yes, unfortunately, I have to stop but I thank you very much for being with us this evening and I hope to speak to you again.

CvW:  Thank you. Bye bye.

*

Transcription by Linda Leblanc, with formal corrections of the Interview from April 9, 2019

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Sources

Rosalie Bertell: Kriegswaffe Planet Erde, 4th ed., Gelnhausen 2019, J.K. Fischer

——: Pianeta Terra. L´ultima arma di Guerra, Trieste 2018, Asterios

____: Planeta tierrra: La nueva guerra, Guadalajara 2018, La casa del mago

____: La Planète Terre, ultime arme de guerre, Tome 1, Paris 2018, Talma Studios

Michel Chossudovsky:  https://www.globalresearch.ca/does-the-us-military-own-the-weather-weaponizing-the-weather-as-an-instrument-of-modern-warfare/5608728

Claudia von Werlhof (Ed.): Global Warning! Geoengineering is Wrecking our Planet, Dublin 2019, Talma Studios International (forthcoming)

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*** 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*

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

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*** 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

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*** 

“Don’t Cry for me Argentina”

Sung by Madonna 

The lyrics:

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

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

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

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

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

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

*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The same story, often repeated throughout the world.

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

Flash Forward to 2023

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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*** 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Four Reasons for De-dollarization:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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*** 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Evacuation Becomes Mobilisation

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

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

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

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

Nazi Ukrainian Troops Relax

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

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

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This article was originally published on Freenations.

Rodney Atkinson is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Freenations

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*** 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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*** 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sixth Pilot Incapacitation in Two Weeks, Three Pilot Deaths 

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

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

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

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

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

Recent Pilot Incapacitations 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recent Pilot Deaths 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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*** 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Via USTR:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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This article was originally published on Armageddon Prose.

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

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

In 1950, Polio cases peaked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Between 1998 and 2017, vaccine-associated polio arose.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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34 Thought Leaders Demolish the COVID Propaganda Event

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He concludes,

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

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

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

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

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

Journalists speaking out:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. Marik on vaccine injuries:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Finally, some good news, from Dr. Marik:

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

Word will spread.

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

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

She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Canary In a Covid World: How Propaganda and Censorship Changed Our (My) World

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

Publisher‏:‎ CANARY HOUSE PUBLISHING (August 2, 2023)

Paperback‏:‎ 430 pages

ISBN-10: 1739052536

ISBN-13:‎ 978-1739052539

Click here to purchase.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Featured image is from The Millennium Report

Russia, Donbass and the Reality of Conflict in Ukraine

By Daniel Kovalik, August 23, 2023

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

BRICS: A New World Economic and Trading Force?

By Peter Koenig and Press TV, August 23, 2023

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

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

By Mark F. Cancian, August 23, 2023

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

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

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

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

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

By Stephen Karganovic, August 23, 2023

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

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

By Ahmed Adel, August 23, 2023

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

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

By Dr. William Makis, August 23, 2023

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

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

By Jeremy Kuzmarov, August 23, 2023

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

Better Reform ECOWAS Than Embark on Military Adventures in West Africa

By Kester Kenn Klomegah, August 23, 2023

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

“The IMF may demand Lebanon normalize with Israel.”

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

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

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*** 

Background

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rules of BRICS Membership

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

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

And they are right.

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

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

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

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

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

Rules for BRICS Membership Are Essential

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

But what to do about it?

De-Dollarization

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

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

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

Trading in Local Currencies and Creating a Common BRICS Trading Currency

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But by NO Means would it be the SDR.

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

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

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Summary

If these few concepts

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

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

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

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

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*** 

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

Quotations from the report: 

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

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

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, August 23, 2023

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Emphasis added by Global Research.

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

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

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

Q1: What is in the request?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Q2: Why did this request appear now?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Q4: How long will this aid last?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Q6: What happens next?

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

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

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

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

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*** 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Video: Dr. Reiner Fuellmich 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The subsequent explanation posted by the editors is that the

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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*** 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click here to continue reading…

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

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

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

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

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

The article also warned that

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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*** 

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

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

False Atrocity Reporting Is As American As Apple Pie

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Uyghur Genocide Hoax

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

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

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

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

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

[Source: shapehistory.com]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Atrocity Fabrication in History

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

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

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

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

British war propaganda. [Source: reddit.com]

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

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

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

[Source: whatyouthoughtwentaway.wordpress.com]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Crime of Korea

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gulf War Fabrications

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

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

[Source: midnightwriternews.com]

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

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

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

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

Yugoslavia, the Balkans War and Syria

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Libya—Following an Old Playbook

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

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

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

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

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

Additional Case Studies: Rwanda and Russia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*

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

Notes

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

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

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*** 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Daniel can be reached at [email protected].

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Foreign Affairs Ministry’s website says

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fifthly, Niger, under the governance of a fragile military junta, might potentially become a breeding ground for extremist activities. This may occur either due to involvement by Western powers with neo-colonialist motives or, conversely, in the absence of Western troops if their absence is perceived as an opportunity to establish operational bases within the nation.

ECOWAS  sanctions will only bite ordinary impoverished millions. The African Union supports all that sharply divides the continent, moving forth and back without any suitable solutions. Both are watching their traditional external forces. Burkina Faso has also agreed to restore civilian rule next year, while Guinea shortened its transition timeline to 24 months. With a flurry of sanctions since the coup, it only goes piling economic pressure on one of the world’s poorest countries.

Niger shares distinctive borders with Burkina Faso and Mali, as well as Chad and Algeria in Sahel region. These States have pledged their support to Niger, as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) continually looks for mechanisms to resolve the crisis. The regional bloc has come under criticisms, it slackens on its primary responsibilities and some have called for staff changes attributing to inefficiency. The bloc’s reputation has been at stake, and most probably, needs new dynamic faces at the Secretariat in Abuja, Nigeria.

The military has been in power since July 26. Mohamed Bazoum’s election in 2021 was a landmark in Niger’s history, ushering in its first peaceful transfer of power since independence from France in 1960. Niger is a landlocked nation located in West Africa and well known to be a major uranium producer but has 80% impoverished population. Niger remains one of the poorest countries in the world, regularly ranking at the bottom of the UN’s Human Development Index.

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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS) and InDepthNews, is now a regular contributor to Global Research. He researches Eurasia, Russia, Africa and BRICS. His focused interest areas include geopolitical changes, foreign relations and economic development questions relating to Africa. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports.

Featured image: Emblem of the Economic Community of West African States (Licensed under Fair Use)

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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***

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

Steven Sahiounie (SS): Finally, after 30 years as head of the Central Bank of Lebanon, Riad Salamah has left office. He left under a cloud of accusations of very serious crimes in Europe, but has not yet been held accountable in Lebanon. In your opinion, will other political elite tied to Salameh be brought down?

Alberto Garcia Watson (AGW):  Lebanon’s financial elites have been fleecing the country, the economic and financial crisis has been intensified by hyperinflation of almost 200% last year, the second highest rate in the world, the sovereign debt default to international lenders in March 2020, the explosion of the Beirut port three years ago or the brutal repercussions of the pandemic, all has contributed to turning Lebanon into a financially failed state.

It would give the impression that the planets have aligned to economically sink a financial system that is trying to save macroeconomic data by further impoverishing the population by implementing harmful fiscal policies for citizens in an attempt to reinforce the country’s religious-sectarian power-sharing system.

The World Bank has called it a ‘deliberate depression orchestrated by an elite that has long taken over the state and lived off its economic rents’.

Lebanon ranks 138th out of 180 on Transparency International’s corruption perception list and this has been particularly contributed to by Riad Salameh who, after three decades as Governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon, is leaving office by the back door, the subject of investigations in France, Germany (which have issued arrest warrants to Interpol), Luxembourg and Lebanon on suspicion of embezzlement (for some $330 million) and of having accumulated a millionaire’s worth of real estate and financial wealth.

SS: Lebanon has been without a President for almost two years. The Parliament has voted numerous times, but no decision taken. In your view, will the Saudi-French effort be successful?

AGW: In Lebanon, this situation of presidential absence is nothing new, Lebanese presidency has been vacant on several occasions since the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990), including for 29 months before Michel Aoun was elected in 2016 in a deal that saw the election of Saad Hariri as prime minister, a historic moment that I as a television correspondent for an Iranian media outlet was assigned to cover and which starred for much of the two years I spent in Beirut.

Frankly, it took me some time to understand how different politico-religious sensitivities with international derivations could politically decide the designs of a sovereign nation and how the influence of regional powers could have so much weight in deciding the election of the head of state in a nation whose presidency plays a symbolic role.

SS: Saudi Arabia, France, the United States, Egypt and Qatar recently met in Paris where they discussed how to end the political impasse in Lebanon, without finally reaching an agreement on who to support, although they do seem to have agreed on who to reject, which is none other than the candidate Suleiman Frangieh, very close to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Lebanese Shiite party Hezbollah.

AGW: However, these countries share the need to exert pressure on the Lebanese political groups so that the constitutional deadlines are met and structural reforms are implemented, an agreement with the International Monetary Fund that will mortgage the Arab country economically for life and that ends up calling into question the Lebanese sovereignty to end up demanding that Lebanon normalize diplomatic relations with the Israeli regime, if it wants to survive, something that does not seem to be going to happen.

SS: There are mounting tensions between Hezbollah and Israel, especially since the statements made by Israeli Minister Gallant and the leader of the Lebanese resistance group. In your opinion, is Lebanon and Israel on the doors of armed conflict?

AGW: Israel has been threatening Lebanon for decades with “wiping it off the map”, “turning the clock back 20 years”, “returning the Arab country to the stone age”, but it does so because it is afraid of Hezbollah, which has already demonstrated in the past the military capacity it has and the support of the majority of political forces in Lebanon, although they may be in permanent disagreement on political issues, but when it comes to preserving national sovereignty, no matter if they are Sunni, Christian, Shiite or Druze, they all support the militia that preserves the borders from the Zionist threat as well as Wahhabi fundamentalism.

Just a few days ago, a new anniversary of the “33 Days War” was commemorated, which in 2006 led to a humiliating defeat of the Israeli army against Hezbollah.

The offensive capacity and the military capabilities that the Shiite militia has acquired through its participation in the war in Syria have provided a very important experience to an army that even the Israeli army leadership pointed out not long ago that if a military confrontation were to take place between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, it would be more than likely that the fighting would take place in Israeli territory.

Israel, frequently attacks the Gaza Strip and Syrian territory because it knows the limitations of the armed forces in both territories, but when it comes to Lebanon, it can only devote its efforts to sending threats that are more aimed at its own public and empty patriotic fervor than at a viable project.

SS: The tension between the US, and Syria and its allies, has hit a very high level after the Syrian resistance group attacked the US military occupation bases in the east of Syria. In your opinion, will we see a military conflict between the US and their Kurdish mercenaries and Syria and its allies, such as Russia and others?

AGW: It is difficult to foresee, but in my humble opinion and since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, the United States has shown great weaknesses in its proxy war with the Russian Federation.

The Russian army has military bases in Syria and Vladimir Putin’s closeness to President Bashar Al-Assad is well known. At this time the hostility of the United States towards Russia will reflect a change in the Syrian military landscape.

Syria is an ally of Russia, which has been invited by the legitimate and sovereign Syrian government. Whoever attacks and plunders Syria’s natural resources as the US military does with Syrian oil and grain, can only expect that the Syrian-Russian capability and alliance will result in military cooperation between the two nations.

Let us hope that this alliance will also take place when it comes to defending Syrian territory from the frequent attacks by the Israeli army and which the International Community shamefully refuses to condemn.

SS: President Erdogan of Turkey has come out with a proposal to include Aleppo with the Al Qaeda occupied province of Idlib in an effort to force Syrian refugees in Turkey back to Syrian soil. In your view, will the international community allow Erdogan to take action on this plan, and will Syrian allies take action to prevent this from happening?

AGW: The Turkish president is absolutely unpredictable, initially maintaining excellent relations with Vladimir Putin and even managing to sign an agreement for the export of Ukrainian grain, and shortly afterwards and surprisingly betraying Russia by releasing military commanders of Ukrainian neo-Nazi battalions responsible for war crimes, who should have remained on Turkish territory until the end of the war.

Subsequently, it acts like the Israeli regime, perpetuating its military occupation of Syrian territory, shielding its brotherhood and cooperation with jihadist terrorist groups, not allowing the Syrian army to liberate the city of Idlib (last stronghold of the Wahhabi militants) that have maintained in favor of the West and the Gulf dictatorships a lethal twelve-year war against the Syrian people.

Very little can be expected from the International Community, because it has never been categorical in condemning the Turkish military occupation of Syrian territory and has shown not the slightest interest in assisting the millions of Syrian refugees of this conflict that has been used with political motivations for a failed approach to its accession to the European Union.

But what is clear to me is that if Erdogan intends to militarily force the incorporation of Aleppo to the province of Idlib to end up annexing more Syrian territory based on the excuse of mobilizing millions of displaced people, Syria will know how to defend its sovereignty with the assistance of Russia, which will not allow Turkey to install a jihadist outpost in northern Syria.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

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

Featured image is from MD

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*** 

What happens when the looters are looted? Perhaps that strange sense of satisfaction called justice, an offence cancelled by another. One therefore greets the realisation that the British Museum has been suffering a number of such cases with some smugness. What makes them even more striking is the inability of staff to have picked up on the matter in the first place. When they did come to light, the habitual tendency to bury, or deny matters as best as possible, also found form.

On August 16, the British Museum stated in a press release that an independent review into its security was being launched “after items from the collection were found to be missing, stolen or damaged.” The extent of such theft or damage is not clear, though the Museum revealed that one member of staff had been dismissed, with legal action being taken against the unnamed individual.  The Metropolitan Police, through its Economic Crime Command branch, was also investigating the matter.

Led by former trustee, Sir Nigel Boardman, and Lucy D’Orsi, Chief Constable of the British Transport Police, the review is intended to furnish the Museum with “recommendations regarding future security arrangements” while also commencing “a vigorous programme to recover the missing items.”

Short on detail, the Museum gave some sense about the items involved, which were, it was keen to point out, “kept primarily for academic and research purposes.” These included “gold jewellery and gems of semi-precious stones and glass dating from the 15^th century BC to the 19^th century AD.”

Officials have been keen to contain the scandal, with director Hartwig Fischer insisting that this was “highly unusual”. In apologising for the whole affair, he also assured the public that “we have now brought an end to this – and we are determined to put things right.” Fischer’s own occupancy of the director’s role is also coming to an end in 2024. 

The Chair of the Museum, George Osborne, formerly Chancellor of the Exchequer, even saw an opportunity to weave the theft into a strategy of reforming the institution. “This incident only reinforces the case for the reimagination of the Museum we have embarked upon.”

The person who seems to have spurred such reimagining was subsequently identified as Peter John Higgs, a curator of Greek antiquities of some prominence. There is a delicious irony in this, given the fraught history the Museum has had with the Elgin Marbles, so brazenly taken from the Parthenon in Athens by the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in 1801. 

Much the same could be said about many artefacts housed in the BM’s collections, including the Benin bronzes and the Easter Island Hoa Hakananai’a. As the notable human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson sourly remarked in 2019, “The trustees of the British Museum have become the world’s largest receivers of stolen property, and the great majority of their loot is not even on public display.”

What has since emerged is that the Museum has been less than frank about the spate of pilfering, let alone the number of items missing from its inventory. One report suggests that the number might be anywhere between 1,500 to 2,000, taken over a period of two decades. 

Publicity is being made about the artefacts through official channels without much specificity, which can be taken either as a sign of acute awareness as to where they might be found, or old-fashioned, groping ignorance. Christopher Marinello, lawyer and CEO of Art Recovery International, is of the latter view.

Higgs, it transpires, was sacked on July 5 with barely a murmur, despite having led the 2021 exhibition “Ancient Greeks: Athletes, Warriors and Heroes,” which was received by three Australian museums and slated to arrive in Suzhou Museum in China at the end of the year. The Higgs dismissal took place, it has been reported, for his alleged role behind the disappearance of various gold jewellery, semi-precious stones and glass. 

The suspicion here is that Higgs operated stealthily, removing the objects over a number of years.  Somewhat odder, and less stealthy, was how many of those objects found their way onto eBay.  Prices also dramatically varied, suggesting either a cheeky sense of humour, or the understanding of an untutored eye. One item of Roman jewellery, made from onyx, valued anywhere between £25,000 and £50,000, fetched the less than princely sum of £40. 

In 2016, an unnamed antiquities expert cited in a Telegraph report began noting various listings of glass items and semi-precious gems on the e-commerce site. Pieces from the Townley collection of Graeco-Roman artifacts, which the Museum started purchasing in 1805, were spotted under an eBay seller by the name of “sultan1966”. Sultan1966 proved less than forthcoming to the expert in question when confronted about any link to Higgs.  

In June 2020, the Museum was informed of the matter. In February 2021, the BBC revealed that an art dealer by the name of Ittai Gradel had alerted the institution about some of the items being sold online. Deputy director Jonathan Williams took five months to rebuff the claim: “there was no suggestion of any wrongdoing.” An unconvinced Gradel chased up matters with a museum board member, claiming that Williams and Fischer had swept “it all under the carpet.” In October 2022, Fischer repeated the line that “no evidence” of wrongdoing had been identified. 

The son of the alleged perpetrator, Greg Higgs, is mightily unimpressed, declaring that his father could not have been responsible. “He’s lost his job and his reputation, and I don’t think it was fair. It couldn’t have been (him). I don’t think there is even anything missing as far as I’m aware.” The lamentable conduct by the British Museum, notably in initially insisting that nothing had gone missing, would suggest that someone is telling a glorious fib.

The Economist, in reacting to the affair, suggested that making off with such items from a museum “is easier than you might think.” But what also matters is the museum’s response to alleged claims of theft. As Marinello puts it, instances of pilfering are not unusual, but the British  Museum’s failure to involve the police “right away” was nothing short of “shocking”. The Higgs matter suggests as much and is likely to prove a tonic to those seeking a return of various collections lodged in the British Museum over the years. 

Lina Mendoni, Greece’s Minister of Culture, is one who wasted little time suggesting that the missing objects reinforced “the permanent and just demand of our country for the definitive return” of the Parthenon Marbles. The fact that the incidents had taken place “from within, beyond any moral and criminal responsibility” questioned “the credibility of the organisation itself.” Such theft has somehow put the universe of looted treasures into greater balance.

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

Featured image: Aerial shot of the British Museum, London. (Licensed under CC BY 2.0)

The Worst Conspiracy Theory of Them All: That There Is No Way Out

By Dr. Emanuel Garcia, August 22, 2023

I have been planning to compose a ‘beginner’s guide’ to conspiracy theory, a work that will presumably take some fine thinking and time, given that conspiracy theory and conspiracy theorists, so-called, have been all the rage in our covidian world. 

Cyber Attacks Against Independent Media, Censorship and Double Standards

By Gavin OReilly, August 23, 2023

This deliberate omission of key facts by the mainstream media has allowed for a version of events to take hold where Vladmir Putin is some sort of cartoon character-type villain, a madman that must be stopped at any cost.

We’re All Suspects in a DNA Lineup, Waiting to be Matched with a Crime

By John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead, August 23, 2023

Whatever skeletons may be lurking on your family tree or in your closet, whatever crimes you may have committed, whatever associations you may have with those on the government’s most wanted lists: the police state is determined to ferret them out.

Biden’s Trilateral Camp David Summit: Advanced Preparation for War with China?

By Dr. Joseph Gerson, August 23, 2023

Meeting in a summit at Camp David on August 18, President Joe Biden, President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea, and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan posed for photos that confirmed and broadcast a long-term trilateral alliance designed to reinforce containment of China, Russia, and North Korea.

Republican Party Sets Up Trump for Democrats

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, August 23, 2023

Just think of the many years and the many iterations the Democrats and their FBI and presstitute media have given to their attempts to frame up President Trump beginning with the “Russiagate” hoax in 2016 seven years ago. 

Hawaii State Government Attempts Information Blackout on Maui Fire – Refuses Media Access

By Zero Hedge, August 22, 2023

The West Maui disaster is becoming less about the fire and more about the government’s bizarre response to the aftermath.  Independent media sources and some mainstream media sources have confirmed multiple instances of the Democrat controlled government’s mismanagement that led to the escalation of the tragedy.

Neocons and Other Malignancies in the American Body Politic

By Philip Giraldi, August 22, 2023

It is interesting to observe how, over the past twenty-five years, the United States has become not only a participant in wars in various places on the planet but has also evolved into being the prime initiator of most of the armed conflict.

Why Won’t the US Close Guantanamo?

By Maha Hilal, August 22, 2023

Last month, the US Senate passed the National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) for 2024, an appropriations bill defining military priorities, and one that has consistently placed restrictions on remedies to the abuses at Guantanamo Bay.

Leaked Documents Indicate Zelensky About to be Replaced

By Lucas Leiroz de Almeida, August 22, 2023

It seems increasingly clear that the West wants to replace Zelensky. In addition to several predictions by experts that the Ukrainian president will be removed from power, it is now revealed that some previously leaked Pentagon’s documents expose a plan to make the mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, the new head of state.

Cutting Climate Change Research: Cuts at the Australian Antarctic Division

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, August 22, 2023

On July 10, an email sent to all staff by the head of division, Emma Campbell, claimed that the AAD “won’t be able to afford” all current positions. Since then, the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) has given a flimsy assurance that no jobs will be lost.

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On August 18, 2023, in an egregious act of censorship, the ICANN – a supposedly impartial body responsible for the administration of the world wide web’s domain system – took down the domain name of the well-known website SouthFront, an outlet that has been the previous target of US sanctions and social media censorship owing to its coverage of subjects such as the origins of the wars in Syria and Ukraine; topics which rarely, if ever, are given satisfactory coverage by the mainstream media, with edited versions, beneficial only to corporate interests, presented to western audiences instead.

As a contributor to SouthFront myself since November 2021, I can attest first-hand that it is a platform that has afforded me an opportunity to write on subjects that no mainstream outlet in my own country, Ireland, would dare allow to be covered.

Examples include the Fourth Industrial Revolution intended to be ushered in by the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset initiative, the almost nine years of western-orchestrated provocations that preceded Russia’s intervention in Ukraine in February 2022, and the ongoing protests against the 26 County State’s globalist handling of immigration, with the south of Ireland’s political establishment being fully aligned with the interests of Davos and the US-NATO hegemony.

A website I previously wrote for, the Canada-based American Herald Tribune, suffered a similar fate in November 2020, when, alleging that it was being directed by Iran as part of an influence campaign, the FBI seized the US-based server on which AHT was hosted. Though resurrected on a Canadian server a short while later, American Herald Tribune would once again be seized by the FBI in April 2021, despite its host server being outside US jurisdiction.

Two months later, the US government would go on to seize the website of the Iranian media network Press TV, with the Tehran-based outlet also having to relocate its domain name to a new server to continue operating.

Despite this, and the aforementioned seizures of SouthFront and American Herald Tribune, being blatant acts of cyber-warfare and media censorship, they came in for little to no criticism from the supposed ‘free’ media of the west, the same media that would likely be calling for the triggering of Article 5 had Russia openly seized the domain name of a western website critical of Moscow’s policies, such as Bellingcat.

Indeed, there was little to no criticism from the Western press last year when in the weeks following Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine, RT and Sputnik News were banned across the European Union, ensuring that upwards of 448 million people were hindered in obtaining a balanced intake of media coverage of the conflict.

What was left was a version of events carefully manipulated by the corporate media in order to present the Russian operation as ‘unprovoked’, leaving aside the key fact that the conflict had actually began in 2014, when the western-backed government installed by the Euromaidan coup, attacked the predominantly ethnic-Russian Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in the east of the country.

This deliberate omission of key facts by the mainstream media has allowed for a version of events to take hold where Vladmir Putin is some sort of cartoon character-type villain, a madman that must be stopped at any cost. This, in turn, is used as justification to even further censor media outlets that give a factual and balanced account of events related to the war in Ukraine, thus perpetuating the cycle of propaganda.

A devious method, and one that had it been used in reverse and Russian security services had openly seized the domain name of a western website critical of the Kremlin’s policies, such as the BBC or the aforementioned Bellingcat, would possibly lead to a worldwide military confrontation.

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Gavin O’Reilly is an activist from Dublin, Ireland, with a strong interest in the effects of British and US Imperialism. Secretary of the Dublin Anti-Internment Committee, a campaign group set up to raise awareness of Irish Republican political prisoners in British and 26 County jails. His work has previously appeared on American Herald Tribune, The Duran, Al-Masdar and MintPress News. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. Support him on Patreon. 

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Einleitung  

Zu Beginn des neuen Schuljahres sollten besorgte Eltern dringend über das Erfahrungs-Wissen pädagogisch-psychologischer Tätigkeit und Forschung informiert werden. Aufgrund mangelnder Aufklärung befürchten viele von ihnen, dass ihre Kinder nicht die nötige Intelligenz und Begabung aufbringen würden, um das Schuljahr erfolgreich zu bestehen. 

Aber: Intelligenz und Begabung sind weder angeboren, noch vererbbar, wie so manche Experten aus vorpsychologischen Zeiten den Eltern vermitteln; sie können deshalb zu jeder Zeit gefördert werden.

„Intelligenz“ und „Begabung“

Obwohl die Intelligenzforschung ein florierender Forschungszweig der Psychologie ist, mangelt es an einer verbindlichen, allgemein akzeptierten Definition ihres Forschungsgegenstandes. In der Regel wird „Intelligenz“ als Fähigkeit zur Anpassung an unbekannte Situationen bzw. zur Lösung neuer Probleme definiert (1). Der Begriff umfasst die Gesamtheit unterschiedlich ausgeprägter kognitiver Fähigkeiten zur Lösung eines logischen, sprachlichen, mathematischen oder sinnorientierten Problems.

Sehr oft besteht die Meinung, die Intelligenz sei ein isoliertes seelisches Vermögen, das entweder vorhanden sei oder auch nicht, weil man sich nicht im Klaren darüber ist, von welchen seelischen Voraussetzungen die kindliche Intelligenz und damit die Schulleistung abhängt. In Wirklichkeit sind Klugheit und Lernfähigkeit vielfach determinierte psychische Funktionen. So ist es durchaus möglich, dass ein an sich intelligentes Kind beim Lernen versagt. Der Fehler muss dann im gesamtpsychischen Haushalt gesucht werden. 

Auch der „Begabungsmangel“ ist ein problematischer Begriff, der einen schulischen Misserfolg nicht erklären kann. Wenn ein Schulkind auf einem einzigen Gebiet oder in mehreren Fächern versagt, sprechen Eltern oder andere Erziehungspersonen gerne davon, dass das Kind eben hierin nicht begabt sei. 

Schulversagen ist kein Intelligenz- oder Begabungsmangel  

Die Gründe für das Versagen in der Schule sind mannigfaltig und können hier nicht in der nötigen Breite behandelt werden. Wichtig ist jedoch: Organische Störungen der Intelligenz spielen nur in sehr seltenen Fällen eine entscheidende Rolle, weil organisch bedingter Schwachsinn eine augenfällige Symptomatik hat, sodass diese Kinder stets frühzeitig erfasst und einem eigenen Ausbildungsgang zugeführt werden. 

Pädagogisch-psychologische Schul-Erfahrung und Forschungsergebnisse lehren uns, dass schlechte Schulleistungen oder „Scheindummheit“ in der Regel nicht auf Intelligenz- und Begabungsmangel zurückgeführt werden können, sondern auf erzieherische Fehlhaltungen. Dieser durch die Tiefenpsychologie aufgedeckte Zusammenhang ist bei Schulschwierigkeiten unbedingt in Rechnung zu stellen. 

Schulisches Lernversagen ist also keine Willensfrage oder eine Böswilligkeit des Kindes. Oft werden alle möglichen Faktoren als Ursachen des kindlichen Versagens herangezogen; jedoch ist es unbestritten, dass das erzieherische Milieu für die Bewährung des Kindes in der Schule ausschlaggebend ist. Dies könnte für Eltern ein Anlass sein, sich zu besinnen und zu fragen, ob in der Erziehung der richtige Weg beschritten wurde. 

Als Lehrer kann man immer wieder beobachten, dass ein stabiles kindliches Selbstwertgefühl die eigentliche Voraussetzung für die kindliche Lernfähigkeit ist. Lebensmut und Selbstachtung erwirbt jedoch vor allem jenes Kind, das in geordneten familiären Verhältnissen aufwächst. So lassen schlechte Eheverhältnisse kein kindliches Geborgenheitsgefühl aufkommen und eine autoritäre oder übergewissenhafte Erziehung können dem Kind frühzeitig vermitteln, dass „man es ja doch nie recht machen kann“. Dieses Gefühl übertragen die Kinder dann auch in die Schule und erleben die Lehrkraft ebenso wie die Eltern als verständnislose und uneinsichtige Menschen. 

Dabei ist nicht nur auf die Beziehung zwischen Kind und Eltern zu achten, auch das Verhältnis der Geschwister untereinander ist von ausschlaggebender Bedeutung. Die Eifersucht eines Kindes ist imstande, sein Schulinteresse zu unterbinden, wenn es sich zum Beispiel gegenüber den Geschwistern benachteiligt oder zurückgesetzt fühlt. Damit können Affekte des Neides oder der Verbitterung mobilisiert werden, die das kindliche Gemüt schwer belasten. 

Das eifersüchtige Gebaren, das sich in Zänkereien und Ausfälligkeiten jeder Art äußern kann, zieht oft die ganze Familie in Mitleidenschaft und führt beim Eifersüchtigen selbst zu einem solchen Kräfteverschleiß, dass er für die Schule keine Energie mehr zur Verfügung hat.

 „Intelligenz“ als Funktion der psychischen Aufmerksamkeit  

Indem die Tiefenpsychologie erklärt, dass jede Intelligenzleistung eine Funktion der psychischen Aufmerksamkeit ist, dass intelligentes Handeln also nur möglich ist, wo anhaltendes Interesse entwickelt wird, knüpft sie an die Befunde der berühmten experimental psychologischen Schule des deutschen Physiologen und Psychologen Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (1832-1920) an.

1879 gründete Wundt an der Universität Leipzig das erste Institut für experimentelle Psychologie mit einem systematischen Forschungsprogramm. Deshalb betrachtet man ihn als Begründer der Psychologie als eigenständige Wissenschaft (2). 

Aufgrund von Wundts Befunden muss gefragt werden, unter welchen Bedingungen ein Kind daran gehindert wird, an der Schule und am Lernen echtes Interesse zu entwickeln, woraus sich dann der sogenannte Intelligenzmangel ergibt. Nach Erfahrung vieler Lehrkräfte und Kinderpsychotherapeuten sind vermutlich mehr als dreiviertel aller „dummen“ Kinder solche, die infolge ihrer gesamtpsychischen Konstellation nicht in der Lage sind, die von der Schule geforderte Aufmerksamkeit zu entwickeln.

Angst ist die schlimmste Blockade intelligenten Verhaltens im Seelenleben des Kindes.

Sehr häufig findet man unter sogenannt unintelligenten Schulkindern ängstliche und gehemmte Kinder. Sie fühlen sich durch ihre Schüchternheit in der Schule nicht heimisch. Dadurch erleben sie das schulische Leben als eine derartige Gefahrensituation, dass sie kaum fähig sind, sich ruhig dem Lernpensum zuzuwenden. Wo auch immer Kinder oder Erwachsene in Angstzustände kommen, geraten die psychischen Prozesse aus den Fugen. 

Der ängstliche Mensch ist aber nicht nur in akuten Prüfungs- und Bewährungssituationen ängstlich; er trägt diese Angst ständig mit sich herum. So leben ängstliche Schulkinder zum Beispiel in dauernder Furcht vor dem Aufgerufenwerden und empfinden oft schon den Blick des Lehrers als Tadel und Zurechtweisung.

Selbst dann, wenn sie ihre Sache zuhause gut gelernt und eingeübt haben, können sie im Unterricht versagen, sobald es darauf ankommt, das Gelernte zu präsentieren. Dadurch entsteht eine psychische Lähmung, die auch den Lern-Elan drosselt. Oft stellt sich daraufhin eine Resignation ein, die das schulische Training als aussichtslos ansieht und schließlich in eine „Scheindummheit“ überleitet, welche im Grunde nur eine durch Angst gestörte Aufmerksamkeit ist. 

Verwöhnung und Verzärtelung sind keine gute Voraussetzung für die kindliche Lernfähigkeit 

Andere Formen der „Kinderdummheit“, die Lehrkräfte zunehmend beobachten und deren Pseudocharakter Psychotherapeuten aufdecken könnten, resultieren aus einer verwöhnenden und verzärtelnden Erziehung. Ein solches Erziehungsklima wird von vielen Eltern als wahre Kinderliebe missverstanden. Ein Kind gerne haben heißt aber nicht, es derart mit Zärtlichkeit zu überschütten, dass seine innere Selbstständigkeit erdrückt wird.

Die psychologische Erfahrung lehrt, dass Liebe nicht einfach ein überbordendes Gefühl ist: es ist vielmehr eine ernste und nicht leichte Aufgabe, die sorgfältig erlernt werden muss. Die Liebe zum Kind soll wissend und sehend sein, sie darf dem Kind nicht nur Gutes tun wollen, sie muss dem Kind das Gute auch zur rechten Zeit und in der rechten Art zukommen lassen. 

Verwöhnende Erzieher können sich somit dem kindlichen Selbständigkeitsdrang entgegenstellen, indem sie unbewusst von einer positiven psychischen Entfaltung des Kindes befürchten, dass dadurch das geliebte Kind den Eltern entfremdet wird. Das stark verwöhnte Kind lernt somit nicht, eigene Erfahrungen zu machen und übt dadurch seine vorhandenen Fertigkeiten und Geschicklichkeiten nicht ein. Beim Schulanfang befindet es sich deshalb in einer Gesellschaft von tüchtigeren und rabiateren Gefährten, denen es sich nicht gewachsen fühlt. Bei Kindern, die innerlich von einer Erziehungsperson abhängig gemacht werden, kann dadurch ein Lähmungseffekt eintreten, der die gesamte Schulkarriere über anhalten und letztlich zum Scheitern führen kann, wenn sie etwas alleine und ohne Hilfe fertigbringen sollen. 

Lehrer machen immer wieder die Beobachtung, dass ein stabiles kindliches Selbstwertgefühl die beste Voraussetzung für die kindliche Lernfähigkeit ist.

Die gute Nachricht bietet meist keinen Anlass für einen Prozess der Selbstbesinnung 

So positiv die psychologische Botschaft auch ist, dass „Intelligenz und „Begabung“ keine angeborenen und vererbbaren psychischen Faktoren sind und deshalb zum Positiven hin verändert werden können, so bleibt es jedoch meist dabei, dass die Eltern darin keinen Anlass sehen, mit oder ohne Unterstützung eines Psychotherapeuten einen Prozess der Selbstbesinnung einzuleiten, ob sie in der Erziehung den richtigen Weg beschritten haben – und was eventuell verbessert werden könnte.

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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel ist Schul-Rektor, Erziehungswissenschaftler und Diplom-Psychologe. Nach seinen Universitätsstudien wurde er wissenschaftlicher Lehrer in der Erwachsenenbildung. Als Pensionär arbeitete er als Psychotherapeut in eigener Praxis. In seinen Büchern und Fachartikeln fordert er eine bewusste ethisch-moralische Werteerziehung sowie eine Erziehung zu Gemeinsinn und Frieden. Für seine Verdienste um Serbien bekam er 2021 von den Universitäten Belgrad und Novi Sad den Republik-Preis „Kapitän Misa Anastasijevic“ verliehen.

Er schreibt regelmäßig für Global Research.   

Noten

[1] https://www.spektrum.de/lexikon/psychologie/intelligenz/7263

[2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Wundt 

Ausgewähltes Bild © iStockphoto | BrianAJackson

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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“Make no mistake about it…your DNA can be taken and entered into a national DNA database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason… I doubt that the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would have been so eager to open their mouths for royal inspection.”—Justice Antonin Scalia dissenting in Maryland v. King

Be warned: the DNA detectives are on the prowl.

Whatever skeletons may be lurking on your family tree or in your closet, whatever crimes you may have committed, whatever associations you may have with those on the government’s most wanted lists: the police state is determined to ferret them out.

In an age of overcriminalization, round-the-clock surveillance, and a police state eager to flex its muscles in a show of power, we are all guilty of some transgression or other.

No longer can we consider ourselves innocent until proven guilty.

Now we are all suspects in a DNA lineup waiting to be matched up with a crime.

Suspect State, meet the Genetic Panopticon.

DNA technology in the hands of government officials will complete our transition to a Surveillance State in which prison walls are disguised within the seemingly benevolent trappings of technological and scientific progress, national security and the need to guard against terrorists, pandemics, civil unrest, etc.

By accessing your DNA, the government will soon know everything else about you that they don’t already know: your family chart, your ancestry, what you look like, your health history, your inclination to follow orders or chart your own course, etc.

It’s getting harder to hide, even if you think you’ve got nothing to hide.

Armed with unprecedented access to DNA databases amassed by the FBI and ancestry website, as well as hospital newborn screening programs, police are using forensic genealogy, which allows police to match up an unknown suspect’s crime scene DNA with that of any family members in a genealogy database, to solve cold cases that have remained unsolved for decades.

As reported by The Intercept, forensic genetic genealogists are “combing through the genetic information of hundreds of thousands of innocent people in search of a perpetrator.”

By submitting your DNA to a genealogical database such as Ancestry and 23andMe, you’re giving the police access to the genetic makeup, relationships and health profiles of every relative—past, present and future—in your family, whether or not you or they ever agreed to be part of such a database.

Indeed, relying on a loophole in a commercial database called GEDmatch, genetic genealogists are able to sidestep privacy rules that allow people to opt out of sharing their genetic information with police. The end result? Police are now able to identify and target those very individuals who explicitly asked to keep their DNA results private.

In this way, merely choosing to exercise your right to privacy makes you a suspect and puts you in the police state’s crosshairs.

It no longer even matters if you’re among the tens of millions of people who have added their DNA to ancestry databases. As Brian Resnick reports, public DNA databases have grown so massive that they can be used to find you even if you’ve never shared your own DNA.

That simple transaction—a spit sample or a cheek swab in exchange for getting to learn everything about one’s ancestral makeup, where one came from, and who is part of one’s extended family—is the price of entry into the Suspect State for all of us.

After all, a DNA print reveals everything about “who we are, where we come from, and who we will be.” It can also be used to predict the physical appearance of potential suspects.

It’s what police like to refer to a “modern fingerprint.”