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“Enough is enough! We demand change! Do the right thing! Implement ceasefire in Ukraine! Today! Imagine the collective sigh of relief across the globe! The outpouring of joy! The international joining of voices in harmony singing an anthem to peace!”
– Roger Waters, speaking at the Rage Against the War Machine rally on February 19 [1]
As Professor Michel Chossudovsky has noted in the past, the month of March, is the time chosen by the U.S. and NATO, as the best month to go to war. [2]
The Vietnam War (March 8, 1965), the War on Yugoslavia (March 24, 1999), the Iraq War (March 20, 2003), the Covert War on Syria (March 15, 2011), NATO’s “Humanitarian” War on Libya (March 19, 2011), and the Saudi-led War on Yemen supported by U.S. airstrikes (March 25, 2015), all started in this month. [3]
But, there are also signs that peace movements in the United States and around the world are also preparing their own counterpoint signals to the Roman God of War. It was evident in 2003, twenty years ago when millions took to the streets the month previous for the most massive protests in history. More than ten million people marched and rallied in over 60 countries and over 600 cities, including Melbourne in Australia, New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto, Montreal, Rome, Barcelona, Madrid, London, Glasgow, Berlin, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Vienna, Copenhagan, Athens, and Belfast, as well as scores of cities in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. [4]
In late February, turn-outs at rallies against funding the war in Ukraine, seen by many as a proxy war on Russia by the U.S. and NATO were not as huge as the demonstrations against the Iraq War. They are still significant however, especially considering the way the protests and the participants are completely either ignored or pilloried by Mainstream media personalities. [5]
Democrat darling Rachel Maddow reacted in a far from objective way to the Rage Against the War Machine event on February 19 in Washington DC. She referred to some of the members as “white supremacists,” pro-Russian, and used the words “weird,” “tiny,” and “random” to describe the event. She never mentioned that thousands of people who showed up! [6]
“Tis the season to collectively protest against the Military Industrial Media Complex and the Western Oligarchs that profit from this endeavor! On this week’s Global Research News Hour radio program we will be looking at two troubled situations that worldwide demonstrations are endeavoring to challenge.
In the first half hour, three figures from Toronto, Loloa Alkasawat, Mohammed Boudjenane and Dr. Atif Kubrusi speak to us about a revitalized campaign against the unjust and unilateral coercive economic measures taken by the US and its European allies against Syria, especially at a time when attempts to provide disaster relief is being frustrated by the sanctions. They also discuss the events in Canada, Jordan, the UK, Morocco, Egypt, Ireland, Germany and elsewhere planned for Saturday the 4th as part of an “End the Siege Campaign!” The event in Toronto happens Saturday March 4th at 12pm outside the U.S. Consulate at 360 University Avenue.
In our second half hour, we air energizing speeches from three of many individuals speaking at the Rage Against the Machine event two weeks ago.
Loloa Alkasawat is an architect and an organizer of the Toronto event. She is also a Syrian immigrant.
Mohammed Boudjenane is a Member of the Board of Trustees of the Canadian Arab Federation and a Morrocan Canadian.
Dr. Atif Kubrusi is the past Acting Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission and Professor at McMaster University. He is Lebanese Canadian.
Jimmy Dore is a comedian, political commentator, and host of The Jimmy Dore Show, a YouTube and Rumble show.
Tulsi Gabbard was a U.S Army Reserve officer who served a 12 month tour in Iraq. She was also formerly a U.S. member of Congress and ran against Biden for the nomination as the Democratic Presidential candidate.
CIXX 106.9 FM, broadcasting from Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. It airs Sundays at 6am.
WZBC 90.3 FM in Newton Massachusetts is Boston College Radio and broadcasts to the greater Boston area. The Global Research News Hour airs during Truth and Justice Radio which starts Sunday at 6am.
Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 7pm.
CJMP 90.1 FM, Powell River Community Radio, airs the Global Research News Hour every Saturday at 8am.
Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday afternoon from 3-4pm.
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***
This is a horrific story of a 37 year old UK woman who developed a lump after COVID-19 vaccination (click here):
Katie Pritchard, a 37 year old mom of two went to her family doctor after finding a lump and was told it might have been a side effect of her COVID-19 vaccine.
She was misdiagnosed twice before doctors determined she had cervical cancer.
After she was initially diagnosed, Katie was forced to wait an agonizing three months for her treatment to begin, by which point the cancer had spread.
She began five weeks of grueling radiotherapy, chemotherapy and brachytherapy in April last year and was told the treatment had been a success.
But tragically, in December, after undergoing further scans, she received the devastating news that the cancer had returned and she was given just months to live.
At the start of this year, Katie was diagnosed with lung, shoulder, spine, and pelvic cancer and started palliative chemotherapy three weeks ago.
My Take…
This is not normal behaviorfor cervical cancer and I believe this to be yet another example of “turbo cancer” or rapidly progressive cancer due to severe immune system damage from COVID-19 vaccination.
Look at the high survival of cervical cancer patients in early stages over the course of 10 years (click here). And yet, according to her story, she went from finding a lump to having it metastasize within 3 months while she was waiting for her treatment to start, then it returned a few months after her treatments were completed and metastasized throughout her body.
Symptomatic cervical cancers do NOT behave this way:
US pathologist Dr. Ryan Cole has been discovering COVID-19 mRNA vaccine spike protein in malignant tumours (see short video)
Dr.Cole: “Why aren’t my colleagues doing these same stains on unexpected cancers in young people or any individual who has an unexpected cancer?”
We need pathologists to start testing all unusual or unexpected cancers for the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine spike protein, instead of ignoring these patients until it’s too late.
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Featured image is from the author
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
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***
“We are fighting a war against Russia,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told the Council of Europe on January 24. The next day German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and U.S. President Joe Biden announced plans to send high-powered tanks to Ukraine, in a major escalation of the conflict.
“Germany has really stepped up,” Biden said, “and the chancellor has been a strong, strong voice for unity…and for the level of effort we’re going to continue.”
Biden said nothing about destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines last September, considered by many as a direct attack on its European “ally.” Other voices were not so united. Croatian President Zoran Milanovic commented at the Council of Europe meeting that “The German FM said we must be united because we are at war with Russia. I did not know that. Maybe Germany is at war with Russia again, then good luck to them, maybe it will turn out better than 70 years ago.”
“We are at the brink of a disaster…first and foremost because of the United States which is a major provocateur of this war, and a major threat to peace.” He made an impassioned plea to “get us off this reckless war between Russia and NATO, which is escalating by the day. The Doomsday Clock was moved to 90 seconds to midnight at the same time as the U.S. and Germany agreed to send new highly advanced tanks to Ukraine, in a guaranteed reckless escalation that brings us closer to nuclear war.”
Sachs said the conflict goes back more than 30 years to 1990, when the U.S. began to “pursue its unipolar agenda, moving its systems further east, with the idea of surrounding Russia.”
“Passing Germany the Poisoned Chalice”
A leader of Germany’s Left Party (Die Linke), Sevim Dagdelen said “This is obviously about passing Germany the poisoned chalice. Berlin is to be sent into the line of fire, to conclusively destroy German-Russian relations and turn them into open war for others’ benefit.” Dagdelen is the spokesperson for her party in the German Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Dagdelen’s view echoes economist Michael Hudson, who says the U.S. war against Russia is actually waged against Europe, to keep the European Union (EU) subordinated to U.S. capital. Hudson says the sanctions against Russia and China aim to prevent America’s allies from opening up more trade and investment with Russia and China, to “keep them firmly within America’s own economic orbit.” European industry has been shutting down recently as energy prices soar due to sanctions.
The German Left Party leader said delivering German tanks to Ukraine would “entail the greatest security threat to face the German population since the Second World War.” She added that “many Russians, especially those who lost loved ones in [WWII]…will see in these weapons a renewed German military campaign against their country.”
A large majority of Germans and other Europeans share these concerns. In a recent poll by Project Europe, more than two-thirds of respondents in the 27 countries of the EU think the conflict is “worrisome.”
Across Europe, more than 80% want negotiations, not continued war, the poll said. European public opinion reflects the impact of sanctions against Russia, which have had a “boomerang” effect, with skyrocketing inflation leading to near-depression conditions. Street protests and strikes across Europe have had an impact, as people pressure their leaders to stop doing Washington’s bidding.
Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Washington’s loudest “poodle” in London, was toppled by the crisis, along with Italy’s ex-Prime Minister Mario Draghi; and French President Macron lost his majority in the French National Assembly.
In the United States, people are more divided: A survey completed in late November by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found the U.S. public split 48% to 47% on whether Washington should “support Ukraine as long as it takes,” or “urge Ukraine to settle for peace as soon as possible.”
It is a changing trend: The percentage supporting “as long as it takes” went down ten points from 58% in July; and the “settle for peace” percentage rose from 38% in the same period. During that time there were anti-war protests in dozens of cities and towns across the country. More recently the protests intensified—spreading to more than 90 localities, as major national coalitions joined forces around Martin Luther King’s birthday weekend.
Mission Creep: How the U.S. Role Has Escalated
A January 28 article in Responsible Statecraft by Branko Marcetic says “NATO and the United States are creeping closer to the catastrophic scenario President Joe Biden said ‘we must strive to prevent’ — direct conflict between the United States and Russia….NATO arms transfers have now escalated well beyond what governments had worried just months ago could draw the alliance into direct war with Russia, with the U.S. and European governments now sending armored vehicles and…preparing to send tanks.”
The article adds that,
“[d]espite stressing at the start of the war that ‘our forces are not and will not be engaged in the conflict,’ current and former intelligence officials…[said] ‘there is a much larger presence of both CIA and U.S. special operations personnel’ in Ukraine than there was when Russia invaded, conducting ‘clandestine American operations’ in the country that ‘are now far more extensive.’”
Responsible Statecraft cites a January 18 report in the New York Timesthat U.S. officials are “strongly considering giving Ukraine the green light to attack Crimea, even while acknowledging the risk of nuclear retaliation that such a move would carry. Fears of such an escalation ‘have dimmed,’ U.S. officials told the paper.”
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov is quoted in Newsweek saying that “We have repeatedly warned the U.S. about the consequences that may follow if the U.S. continues to flood Ukraine with weapons. It effectively puts itself in a state close to what can be described as a party to the conflict.”
A “Spanner in the Works”
German Left Party leader Dagdelen says “we must do all we can to put a spanner in the works” – that is, do something that prevents this plan from succeeding (Cambridge Dictionary explanation). “If the German tanks are delivered, the door will be open for more weapons. Calls for combat aircraft have already been voiced…The next thing will be missiles, followed, when that does not work either, by our own soldiers. But a gambler’s mentality, which responds to losses by raising the stakes and eventually betting everything on one play, is a bad guide for any society.”
Dagdelen adds:
“The tank deliveries are today what war loans were in 1914. They lead directly to participation in the war. They cannot be considered in isolation from their purpose—that is, victory in NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. But consideration must also be given to the Russian response. In the end, after all, Western tanks would practically invoke the use of nuclear weapons—against Germany first…
“Why is it in Washington’s interest to send the Germans, of all people, into Russia’s line of fire?…Germany, it appears, is supposed to draw Russia’s counterfire…The United States would thus have achieved one of its long-term strategic objectives, namely to prevent cooperation between Germany and Russia forever.”
It is a reminder of the September 26 explosion of the Nord Stream pipelines, which can be seen as a guarantee, at least for now, that Europe cannot depend on Russian gas. All evidence about who did this has disappeared. But months before, Biden assured reporters the U.S. “has the capacity” to do it.
Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a message to ordinary Germans during his visit to Volgograd—formerly Stalingrad—on February 2, the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s historic and decisive 1943 victory against Nazi Germany in the Battle of Stalingrad. Russia’s official news agency Tass reported that Putin said “they remember it in Germany, that German anti-fascists became the first victims of the German fascism, Nazism. And it is very good that such memory remains in ordinary citizens. Unfortunately, modern elites seem to be losing it.”
He noted that an “ordinary citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany treats Russia and the heroes that defeated Nazism with respect.”
The RAND Corporation, which functions as the Pentagon’s planning agency, released a January 2023 study entitled “Avoiding a Long War,” which concludes that “the consequences of a long war—ranging from persistent elevated escalation risks to economic damage—far outweigh the possible benefits.”
This is not the view of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who declared on January 5 that
“weapons are, in fact, the way to peace.”
Victoria Nuland, along with her bosses, Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, tend to see things more like Stoltenberg than their RAND advisers. “They don’t see the world the way sane people do,” commented Margaret Kimberley, of Black Agenda Report, in a February 1 article. “They have made the Ukraine conflict an existential crisis, and then decide they have no choice but to engage in dangerous actions…The idea of peaceful coexistence is anathema to Nuland, Biden, and Blinken. Blown up pipelines are seen as proof of victory to people who thought they could make dangerous and irrational obsessions come true.”
“Dr. Strangelove Is No Longer Satire”
Roger D. Harris, of the U.S. Peace Council and the SanctionsKill campaign, says “The world was fortunate that the Cuban Missile Crisis ended with both sides willing to seek accommodation rather than victory. In contrast, the currently raging and indeed escalatingUkraine War could be the prelude to World War III because neither side appears to have an exit strategy; one by choice, the other because its back is to the wall.”
“The U.S.’s intent,” Harris further wrote, “is victory by ‘overextending and unbalancing’ Russia,” as a 2019 RAND paper suggested. Harris cites analyst Rick Sterling that “this was the playbook for the U.S. to provoke Russia into the current conflict. Bombers have been repositioned within striking range of key Russian strategic targets, additional tactical nuclear weapons deployed, and U.S./NATO war exercises have been held on Russia’s borders.”
Harris adds that “Now the prevailing propaganda from Washington is that nuclear war can be ‘won.’ Dr. Strangelove is no longer satire. This planning to fight a nuclear war as if it were not an existential threat is institutionalized insanity.”
He cites Robert Kagan, spouse of U.S. Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, asking: “Can America learn to use its power?” He says Kagan “argues in favor of a vigorous nuclear confrontation with Russia on the grounds that Putin will most likely back down.”
Whether Russia will “back down” or not is debatable. But back in December 2021, Russian initiatives might have prevented hostilities and made the region more secure with a reduced likelihood of war. Following are the proposals Russia made then:
Russia and the U.S. shall not use the territory of other countries to prepare or conduct attacks against the other.
Neither party shall deploy short- or intermediate-range missiles abroad or in areas where these weapons could reach targets inside the other’s territory.
Neither party shall deploy nuclear weapons abroad, and any such weapons already deployed must be returned.
Both parties shall eliminate any infrastructure for deploying nuclear weapons outside their own territories.
Neither party shall conduct military exercises with scenarios involving the use of nuclear weapons.
Neither party shall train military or civilian personnel from non-nuclear countries to use nuclear weapons.
When these measures were proposed by Russia in December 2021, they were considered “non-starters” by the U.S. Now the question is whether there is anyone in Washington, D.C., who could convince the Biden administration to reconsider. That is what Jeffrey Sachs is demanding.
Events in Munich and Moscow since Blinken’s late January ‘trial balloon’ clarify that the U.S. is really offering nothing for peace. Instead it continues to escalate the war while attempting to project blame onto both Russia and China.
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Dee Knight is a member of the DSA International Committee’s Anti-War Subcommittee. He is the author of My Whirlwind Lives: Navigating Decades of Storms, soon to be published by Guernica World Editions. Dee can be reached at: [email protected].
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***
Now that www.smotrim.ru is back up and running, I have been immersing myself in Russian news, which in the past couple of days has included an assortment of separate items, or faits divers as the French would have it, which are frankly ominous when taken all together.
Why ominous? Because they fit the description of WWIII that the most recent Russian talk shows say has already begun and is about to transition from hybrid war to hot war.
A couple of days ago Russian news showed images of six Yars ICBMs rolling into Moscow on their self-propelled launchers. Yars, to those who are not familiar with the Russian missile families, are the backbone of the present ground-based Russian strategic nuclear strike force. They date from 2007 and their numbers are listed in the now scrapped New Start arms limitation treaty. These solid fuel three stage rockets have a range of 12,000 km and carry multiple warheads (MIRV). Each launch unit on wheels weighs 100 tons and their route into town was carefully selected accordingly. But what are they doing in Moscow?
The Vesti reporter said they have been brought there in preparation for the Victory in Europe Day parade. However, that takes place on May 9th, so the arrival now two months ahead catches your attention.
Then today Russian news informed us that a United States “Doomsday Plane,” as it is known on the street, officially a Boeing E-4 Advanced Airborn Command Post capable of supervising military operations in case of nuclear war, has landed earlier today in Iceland on its way to Europe. To Europe? Why is a Doomsday Plane going to be stationed here unless a nuclear scenario is being worked out by the US and Allied forces?
It is also worth mentioning something else you will not find in the New York Times or the Frankfurter Allgemeine today: yesterday the air space over Petersburg and within 200 km radius of the city was closed to civilian air traffic. No explanation was given at the time, but today mail.ru briefly ran an article explaining that there had been intelligence reports of a possible Ukrainian drone strike on the city. Meanwhile Moscow today claimed to have recovered fragments of a drone downed in the Moscow Oblast bearing Ukrainian military signs. All such attacks in the very center of European Russia must be seen as a direct provocation.
However, the Russian military yesterday and today came forward with information about far more serious provocations that the Ukrainians have been planning in the Donbas and Transnistrie (Russian patrolled territory in Moldova). The Russian military gave details of the delivery by train into Kramatorsk of cases of poisonous chemicals which, they say, the Ukrainians have planned to release into the atmosphere to poison the population of this city in the Ukrainian occupied portion of the Donetsk Oblast, intending to put the blame for the chemical attack on Russia, just as US and British forces had done in Syria three years ago when they staged and filmed a supposed attack on civilians by the Assad government forces. Only this time the chemicals would be real and many civilians would be endangered. The Russian military also issued a detailed statement today on cases of radioactive materials which the Ukrainians have just now delivered by train to Moldova to stage a similar provocation that could be blamed on the Russians.
It is fairly obvious why these vile attacks were being prepared by Ukrainian military precisely now – to distract from the impending fall of Bakhmut which they have defended in the past several weeks at a cost of more than 20,000 casualties.
The aforementioned intended ‘false flag’ operations approach the realm of the insane. In that sense they reflect perfectly well the mentality of Zelensky and his neo-Nazi collaborators, as well as the madness of Nuland and other sponsors of Zelensky in the U.S. State Department.
As I said at the outset, these assorted facts taken separately are worrisome. Taken all together, they provide compelling reason why this war should be ended by negotiations forced on Zelensky at the earliest opportunity. The Wall Street Journal has in the last few days reported that both Macron and Scholz have, behind closed doors, been telling him it is time to sit down with the Russians.
Perhaps when the Democrats take in the power of Donald Trump’s latest message on Ukraine in a Tweet that has attracted nearly 4 million views in the United States, and reckon how this logic can be used in the 2024 elections, they will also see the wisdom of pressing for talks now, before all hell breaks loose. See:
WATCH: President Trump announces plan for immediate mass firings of "warmonger" bureaucrats at the State Department and Pentagon if he's reelected President in 2024.
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Featured image: A US Army Stryker armored vehicle (Source: Antiwar.com)
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***
A new #TwitterFiles thread will be dropping in a few hours, at noon EST. It follows up the Hamilton 68 story of a month ago with examples of state-funded digital blacklisting campaigns run amok. It’s self-explanatory, but some advance context might help:
In 2015-2016, during the brief, forgotten period when Islamic terrorism was fading as a national obsession and Trumpian “domestic extremism” had not yet become one, Barack Obama made a series of decisions that may yet prove devastating to his legacy.
The short version is he signed Executive Order 13271, establishing a “Global Engagement Center” (“GEC”) to “counter the messaging and diminish the influence of international terrorist organizations.” This act got almost no press and even within government, almost no one noticed.
In the bigger picture, however, a lame duck president kick-started the process of shifting the national security establishment’s focus from counterterrorism to “disinformation.” Whether by malfunction or design, this abrupt course change of Washington’s contracting supertanker would have dramatic consequences. In fact, the tale of how America’s information warfare mechanism turned inward, against “threats” in our own population, might someday be remembered as the story of our time, with collective panic over “disinfo” defining this generation in much the same way the Red Scare defined the culture of the fifties.
This is a complicated story and it would be a mistake to jump to simplistic conclusions, like that the Global Engagement Center (humorously nicknamed “GECK” or “YUCK” by detractors in other agencies) is an evil Orwellian mind-control scheme. It isn’t. But for a few crucial bad decisions, it could have fulfilled a useful or at least logical mission, much as the United States Information Agency (USIA) once did. However, instead of stressing research and public reports, as the USIA did when responding to Soviet accusations that Americans had caused the AIDS crisis, GEC funded a secret list of contractors and employed a more surreptitious approach to “counter-disinformation,” sending companies like Twitter voluminous reports on foreign “ecosystems” — in practice, blacklists.
GEC was not conceived as a partisan mechanism to defang conservative media, despite the recent true and damning series of reports by the Washington Examiner, outlining how a GEC-funded NGO in England used algorithmic scoring to de-rank outlets like The Daily Wire and help papers like the New York Times earn more ad revenue. The blacklisting tales you’ll be reading about later today on Twitter also primarily target American conservatives, though GEC and GEC-funded contractors also target left-friendly movements like the gilets jaunes (yellow vests), socialist media outlets like Canada’s Global Research, even the Free Palestine movement.
The scary angle on GEC is not so much the agency as the sprawling infrastructure of “disinformation labs” that have grown around it.
Underneath America’s love affair with “anti-disinformation” in the Trump years — which expressed itself in the seemingly instant construction of a sprawling complex of disinformation studies “labs” at institutions like Harvard, Stanford, Clemson, UT, Pitt, William and Mary, the University of Washington, and other locations — lay a devastating secret. Most of these “experts” know nothing. Many have skill, if you can call mesmerizing dumb reporters a skill, but in the area of identifying true bad actors, few know more than the average person on the street.
This is described repeatedly in the #TwitterFiles. In one sequence Twitter was contacted by Sheera Frenkel of the New York Times, who was writing a hagiographic profiles of “disinformation” warrior Renee DiResta, who’d achieved some renown as a campaigner against vaccine misinformation. Frenkel wrote Twitter to ask why they hadn’t hired “independent researchers” like DiResta, Jonathan Albright, and Jonathon Morgan — coincidentally, all hired witnesses of the Senate Intelligence Committee — to help Twitter “better understand” its own business.
At the sight of Frenkel’s provocative note, some Twitter execs lost it.
“The word ‘researcher’ has taken on a very broad meaning,” snapped Nick Pickles. “Renee is literally doing this as a hobby… Of those three only [Albright] is the most credible, but… the bulk of his work is Medium blogs.”
“Like CVE before it, misinformation is becoming a cottage industry,” agreed comms official Ian Plunkett, referencing “countering violent extremism,” a.k.a. counterterrorism.
Today’s thread among other things will detail crude digital blacklisting schemes dreamed up by this new cottage industry. Each features the same design “flaw,” in which giant lists of supposed foreign disinformationists somehow also come to include ordinary Americans, often with the same political leanings.
In one ridiculous case, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), a GEC-funded entity, sent Twitter a huge list of people they suspected of “engaging in inauthentic behavior… and Hindu nationalism more broadly.” You’ll see the list to judge. As was the case with the “Hamilton 68” story, in which a spook-laden think tank purported to track accounts linked to “Russian influence activities” while really following the likes of @TrumpDyke and @TimeForTrumppp, this DFRLab list of “Hindu nationalists” is weirdly packed with real septuagenarian Trump supporters.
One, a woman named Marysel Urbanik who immigrated from Castro’s Cuba in her youth, struggled to understand why a Washington think tank had sent Twitter a letter ID’ing her as either “inauthentic” or a Hindu nationalist.
“They say I’m what?”
“A Hindu nationalist,” I said. “Well, suspected.”
“But I’m Cuban, not Indian,” she pleaded, confused. “Hindu? I wouldn’t even know what words to say.”
Such listmakers are either employing extremely expansive definitions of hate speech, extremely inexact methods of identifying spam, or they’re doing both in addition to a third thing: keeping up a busywork campaign for underemployed ex-anti-terror warriors, who don’t mind racking up lists of “foreign” disinformationists that just happen to also rope in domestic undesirables.
In his book Information Wars, the original nominal head of GEC and former Time editor Rick Stengel explained an epiphany he had that allowed him to tie the fight against “foreign” disinformation to matters domestic. It happened when Stengel watched a YouTube video of Russian nationalist Alexander Dugin:
He castigated Hillary Clinton’s campaign as a bunch of ‘“storm troopers.” He lambasted what he called the American “obsession with the fake Russian threat.” He said it was an excuse for losers… The production values were poor, the audience was small, but the video revealed an extraordinary mirroring of language and ideas between Dugin and other Russian voices and candidate Trump… The notion that there was some kind of shared rhetorical playbook just seemed too fanciful to believe. While the messages did not exactly repeat each other, they certainly rhymed.
At the same time as Dugin was uploading his video, according to public U.S. intelligence, the GRU—the Russian military intelligence service—began going through the email accounts of DNC officials…
Stengel didn’t need to prove an actual link between Dugin, Russia, and Trump. It was enough to imply it, by placing stories about the GRU near Trump’s name, while asserting Trump and Dugin’s ideas “rhymed.”
This is probably what’s going on in the DFRLab list: one assumes many BJP supporters have views that “rhyme” with what one might call the American version of nationalism, #MAGA. Similarly, a GEC report sent to Twitter about “Russian Pillars of Disinformation” stressed that even actors who “generate their own momentum” online should be considered part of a propaganda “ecosystem.” Independence, the GEC report stressed, should not “confuse those trying to discern the truth.”
Twitter’s complaints against agencies like GEC and projects like the India list dovetail with what current and former intelligence sources have been calling in to comment on, since the first Twitter Files reports: that though sophisticated methods for detecting true bad actors exist, virtually none of the high-profile “experts” employ those.
Instead, methodologies are often openly absurd. List #1 might target everyone who follows more than one Chinese diplomat on Twitter. List #2 might rope in everyone who’s retweeted a “Peter Douche” video or a “Free Palestine” meme made in Iran. One former GEC staffer laughs about how experts win over the media with impressive-looking “hairball” charts that nearly always come down to some sort of volume or affinity analysis: who retweets whom, whose ideas “rhyme” with whose, etc.
In a key email, OK
“In short, no,” he said, adding that it was really only possible to make “inferences.”
But inferences are enough, for the innumerable “Centers for Countering Whatever” whose real goals may involve deplatforming or disenfranchising domestic groups deemed unworthy of sharing the full benefits of Western civil society (like the unmolested use of PayPal, GoFundMe, Twitter, etc.). With an inference, you can smear, and with a smear, you can do damage.
The Hamilton 68 scam in this sense was perfect. It used digital alchemy to create streams of news stories tying ordinary Americans to “foreign” disinformation. With headlines like CNN’s “Russian bots are using #WalkAway to try to wound Dems in midterms” in hand, a “Disinfo Lab” or a noble journalistic enterprise like the “extremism” desk at USA Today can finish the important work of calling up strings of Internet companies to “ask” why this or that person is still allowed to use credit cards, advertise on Amazon, etc.
What organizations like GEC and subcontractors like DFRLab do are just subtler versions of those same schemes. They make lists and let the increasingly sophisticated machinery of digital deprivation do the rest. It’s bad enough when this dubious activity is private. But paying taxes for the pleasure? This supertanker needs turning around.
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***
The U.S. is an oligarchy. Stating this fact explains events that may seem mysterious if this simple truth is not spelled out. The ruling class are fully in control and ensure that their needs are met. They disregard the public good and any claims of democracy are easily exposed as a cruel hoax. Americans have no representation in congress or the white house and the corporate media are also part of the oligarchic class. They expose nothing that their partners in crime want to hide. Governmental action and inaction if the wake of a freight train derailment exemplify all of these dynamics.
On February 3, 2023 a 150-car Norfolk Southern freight train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio near the Pennsylvania border. Twenty of those cars were carrying chemicals such as vinyl chloride, butyl acrylate, ethylene glycol, isobutylene, and ethylhexyl acrylate. One doesn’t need to be a scientist to figure out that none of these should be in the air or water.
Despite photographic and video evidence of an environmental catastrophe, the accident initially received little media attention. Nothing is covered unless the Biden administration wants it to be and East Palestine didn’t make the cut when there was war propaganda about Ukraine to stir up. In addition, Biden had already made clear that the railroads are in the class of corporate untouchables who are to be placated. They are among those who were promised that “nothing would fundamentally change” and he kept his promise to them by giving the derailment little attention. However he did give these corporations all the attention they demanded.
When railroad unions rejected a contract that didn’t include paid sick leave provisions the Biden administration forbade them to strike. There was a phony show among “progressives” about having made a good deal but they were lying. Barack Obama excluded the railroads from a requirement that federal contractors provide paid sick leave. Biden could have issued an executive order changing that policy. But he had no intention of doing anything that might upset the oligarchs, and the Democratic Party succeeded in presenting a false narrative.
Pete Buttigieg is Secretary of the Department of Transportation (DOT), and is responsible for overseeing railroad safety. But he has made it clear that he follows his boss’s dictate to change nothing that would upset their oligarchic bosses.
As DOT Secretary, Buttigieg has the ability to regulate corporations such as airlines in regard to their public service. When a series of Southwest airlines snafus left thousands of passengers stranded during the holiday season, Buttigieg made a great show of saying his hands were tied. Of course he is the one person who can direct the airlines or levy large fines. Buttigieg was a no-show when the people needed him to act.
It took Buttigieg three weeks to show up in East Palestine and he only did so after Donald Trump visited. The town residents may have been better off without him. When he arrived he whined about railroad companies, “fighting us every time we try to do a regulation.” It is hard to believe that Buttigieg makes any effort to fight back when corporate chieftains tell him what to do.
The duopoly worked together to cover up their mess. Ohio’s republican governor Mike DeWine and Biden’s EPA Administrator Michael Regan took a page out of Barack Obama’s Flint, Michigan book by dramatically drinking East Palestine water . Fortunately the U.S. still has plenty of lawyers, and one of many lawsuits filed in recent days specifically names the stunt as having made a “mockery of Ohio citizens.”
The back and forth over freight train regulations isn’t complicated. Trump undid regulations that Obama enacted but Biden didn’t undo what Trump had done. But even worse, regulations currently on the books allowed Norfolk Souther to get away with not labeling the train as carrying hazardous materials because it also carried wheat and vegetables. All over the country trains go through residential areas carrying hazardous materials but the law doesn’t require anyone to be informed of the dangers. And yes, the oligarchs like it that way.
The Biden administration is siding with Norfolk Southern in a case before the Supreme Court. A worker claims to have developed cancer as a result of exposure to carcinogens without having had the proper protective equipment. Norfolk Southern wants to restrict plaintiffs from choosing the venue in which they file suits, a practice known as forum shopping. Corporations are the biggest proponents of forum shopping, for themselves, but want to restrict where they can be sued. The Biden administration filed a brief in favor of Norfolk Southern. It doesn’t matter if the presidents are democrats or republicans, at the end of the day they end up doing what the oligarchs want.
Next year in 2024 the people will be subjected to the quadrennial political hoax, i.e., a presidential election. Let’s tell the truth before the theater begins anew. The power doesn’t rest with the presidency. It rests with the people who do the presidential hiring, and they don’t care about railroad workers or any other workers or people who have hazardous chemicals traveling through their communities. Should an accident happen, their hirelings will just drink water for the camera.
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***
Ben Hodges, a former commanding general of the USG army in Europe, tweeted a few days ago he believes Ukraine can recapture Crimea by plummeting Sevastopol and Russia’s Black Sea Fleet with long-range missiles.
Priority: use long-range precision strike to isolate Crimea, then make it untenable for Russian forces. Drive Black Sea Fleet from Sevastopol with daily precision strikes. Ditto for Russian Air Force at Saky, etc. Allow no sanctuary for Drone lunches. Land forces can come later. https://t.co/uHGfD0qol6
More than half a million people live in Sevastopol along with the Black Sea Fleet. Saky is located near the settlement of Novofedorivka with a civilian population of around 6.5 thousand.
Russia’s Sevastopol-based fleet was established in 1804. Following Russian “annexation” in response to a USG-orchestrated coup in 2014, the people of Crimea, predominately ethnic Russian, voted in referenda to separate from the illegally installed “Maidan” government in Kyiv. It is dominated in large part by extreme nationalists and neo-nazi brigades known for ethnic violence.
Victoria Nuland was in charge of the US coup d'état in Ukraine. I think it’s fair to say that her diabolical work directly resulted in the deaths of thousands, a devastated EU economy and a significant risk of nuclear war. https://t.co/HZe7o3it9M
Blinken and Nuland never talk about the illegal “annexation” in 2014 of Ukraine by supremacist radicals and Russia haters, back when Nuland passed out USG State Department cookies to cutthroats, known in the “collective West” as “pro-EU protesters.”
The ultranationalist threat in Ukraine (Svoboda, Right Sector) is not Kremlin-contrived propaganda, as the corporate media insists.
Prior to Russia’s SMO, the corporate media often reported on “ultra-right” (anti-Russian) parties and paramilitary brigades in Ukraine. The media went so far as to mention Stepan Bandera, the national hero of Ukraine, a Nazi collaborator and war criminal responsible for killing thousands of innocent civilians.
Stepan Bandera and the OUN were later portrayed as heroes in Ukraine, as liberators from Soviet oppression. But the dark history as Nazi collaborators and agents of ethnic genocide were hidden and erased in a very intentional effort to reform their image to “Hero of Ukraine” pic.twitter.com/N4sq8qwuBW
The “leftist” alternative media in particular documented many of the crimes committed by Ukrainian ultranationalists. Following a significant increase in AFU bombardment of civilians in the Donbas last February, and the Russian response with its SMO, any mention of the genocidal behavior of the post-coup government is now denounced as Russian propaganda.
The Nazi problem in Ukraine, according to the USG-media argument, is insignificant, and cynically exaggerated for propaganda purposes by Putin, the cancer-strickenparanoid cowering in his bunker with a quivering finger on the nuclear button. The Hitler analogies are endless. It’s all nonsense, of course.
The USG and the “collective West” appear to be conflicted on what to do about Crimea. Realists understand an outright invasion will be considered an attack on the Russian Federation.
Despite this, Ben Hodges, while associated with the Center for European Policy Analysis (“re-inventing Atlanticism for a more secure future”), calls for a “precision” attack on a Russian naval base, on Russian territory, the territory where a majority of residents consider themselves to be Russians opposed to the post-coup regime in Kyiv. Many are willing to fight Kyiv in self-defense, the same as the ethnic Russians in the Donetsk and Luhansk republics have done over the last eight years.
NBC News journalist Keir Simmons recently went to Crimea and reported that most Crimeans are pro-Russia. Now, Ukraine has put him on its hit list website for reporting this fact.
What does the U.S. government think about Ukraine adding an NBC journalist to its hit lists? pic.twitter.com/IsaD4ocMKX
— kanekoa.substack.com (@KanekoaTheGreat) March 1, 2023
Biden, Blinken, Sullivan, and Ben Hodges might want to read the Declaration of Independence. It talks about the right to separate from a tyrannical government.
But I guess our “public servants” are not interested in such things these days. In fact, a lot of them believe advocating separation from an abusive and predatory government is domestic terrorism.
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It is worth noting that the protest movement in Israel described in the article does not in any way address the issue of the Rights of Palestinians.
Global research, March 3, 2023
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As Wednesday marked a huge day for protests all over the country decrying the judicial reform, Holon is the latest city to join the list of local municipalities where people, waving flags and chanting aloud, are taking to the streets by the thousands.
Up until now, Israelis, who wanted to make their disapproval of the government’s judicial reform known, traveled to major cities like Tel Aviv, Haifa, Be’er Sheva or Jerusalem, but as the massive nationwide protests enter their third month, smaller municipalities are also having their say.
One such locale is the city of Holon, 190,000 strong, which lies just south of Tel Aviv and where thousands of flag-wielding adults, teenagers and toddlers all turned out Wednesday night, honking their horns, shouting slogans through their loudspeakers, playing their drums, singing songs, dancing or just standing in solidarity with the spirit of the demonstration.
Image: Elderly woman holding sign saying she’s had enough of dictatorships back in Stalin’s time (Photo: Gilad Meiri)
People showed up equipped with some interesting signs. An elderly woman carried a sign that said “I’ve already lived under Stalin”, evoking the Soviet despot in concern the reform might be a step toward absolving the government of all accountability.
A group of young women carried a sign bearing the inscription “They can take our lives, but they will never take our freedom!”, an iconic quote from Mel Gibson’s 1995 epic historical drama Braveheart.
Another sign addressed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directly: “Bibi, you’ll go down in history as the one who ruined Israel!”
The chants, much like the signs, were varied. Some simply shouted “Democracy” over and over while others chanted “havurat mushchatim lo tivhar et hashoftim”, meaning they won’t allow a group of corrupt politicians to pick their judges, eluding to one of the more polarizing provisions in the reform which would give the government greater control over the judge selection process.
One of the reform opponents’ gravest concerns is that Netanyahu would use it to reshape the judiciary in a way that would allow him to avoid his corruption trial.
Shelly David is a 62-year-old Holon native who shares that concern.
“I actually made a sign that urges calm between both sides but my husband didn’t think it’s a good idea for me to bring it,” she said.
“I’m also a bit worried about the idea that Netanyahu is using it to get out of his legal trouble. I don’t have all the proof for this, but it is a concern.”
Image: A sign saying Netanyahu will be remembered as the one who ruined the State of Israel (Photo: Gilad Meiri)
Shelly Atzmon, a 37-year-old mother of two, was more adamant. “We can’t allow this reform to happen. We just can’t.”
What provision from the overall reform package bothers you the most?
“The fact that 61 Knesset members that have a political agenda are going to overrule Supreme Court justices? How can this be? We’re no longer a democracy if we just stand by and let this go on. This isn’t Syria.”
How do you respond to those who want accountability for the Judiciary?
“Don’t make me laugh. Their version of accountability is that they’ll use the status in the Knesset to make their interests the law of the land. That’s not accountability. I don’t trust any of them.”
Regardless of how you feel about it, do you think the reform will pass?
“I don’t know. The only thing I can say is that we’ll keep fighting to the end, and with some help from above, we’ll win in the end.”
And the protest seemed to also erode boundaries between left and right. Mordechai Kirilinsky, 67, is a proud Likud voter. “I’ve always liked Netanyahu.”
How many times did you vote for him?
“Pretty much every time he ran, including when he beat (former prime minister Shimon) Peres after Rabin was assassinated.”
So this really goes back a long time for you.
“Not just for me. My grandfather was in the Haganah (a pre-state Zionist paramilitary that served as a precursor to the IDF) and was a big fan of Menachem Begin. He wouldn’t have stood for this.”
Weren’t there signs before the elections that Netanyahu might be inclined toward supporting such a reform?
“You know what he once said? That the existence of a strong and independent judiciary is the key to all other institutions in a democracy. How could I have known he’d suddenly change his tune like that?”
A politician is a politician, right?
“Sure, but there has to be a limit. This is too big of an issue to flip-flop on.”
Does that mean that in the next elections, you might vote for someone like Lapid?
“I’m disappointed,” he smiled. “Not insane.”
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Featured image: Protesters waving flags in Holon (Photo: Gilad Meiri)
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***
See the interview was first published in Spanish by “elsaltodiario“. It was organized by Julioa Zamarrón in Lima, Peru, with the cooperation of Irene Zugasti He Zugasti Hervás and Pablo Elorduy in Madrid. The German translation was made by Klaus E. Lehmann und Vilma Guzmán and published by the German on-line news “nacheenkseiten“ – see this. For the original Spanish version – see this.
President Castillo: “The US collaborates with the European Union to oppress us.”
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In the runup to Peru’s 2021 General and Presidential elections, Pedro Castillo, a former teacher and farmer, gained strong support in poor rural areas to win the elections for one of Peru’s socialist or left-wing parties, “Peru Libre”. He won in the second round with a razor-thin margin of 50.13% versus 49.87% of his extreme right-wing opponent Keiko Fujimori, daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori (1990 – 2000).
Alberto Fujimori is currently serving a 25-year prison term for embezzlement of public funds, abuse of power, of human rights and of corruption during almost all of his ten years in power.
Before his ascent to the Peruvian Presidency, Alberto Fujimori was Rector of the National Agrarian University “La Molina”, Lima Peru. He was rather unknown as a politician, but received strong support from the United States to run for President.
This narrowest of narrow margin for Pedro Castillo would have more than justified a “recount”, but despite protests and countrywide calls for vote verification, “the powers that be” did not allow it. So, Pedro Castillo was declared President-elect of Peru on 6 July 2021, entering office on 28 July 2021.
Once in office, his approval ratings fell quickly and he faced constant opposition from a fragmented Congress and accusations of “moral incapacity.” This is a vague and “indefinite” description, invented by the Peruvian mainstream media, which – by the way – are the same as in the rest of the western world.
Remember, there are 5 giant media corporations who control more than 90% of the western “news” – news, that are presented in lockstep, same words, same phrases, same ideology – around the globe. Just think back to the “covid plandemic” that started miraculously the same day around the globe in 194 countries – and proceeded in lockstep for the last three years.
The vast majority of the people around the globe are mind-manipulated by sophisticated social engineering. And the media are funded by huge corporate finance. People believe in these media even though logic should relentlessly tell them, there is something badly wrong. See this, Tavistock et al.
The same wanton-bashing methods applied to Russia and China, are also applied on a micro-scale for demoralizing a politician who is destined from the very get-go to be character-assassinated and eventually “removed” from office; the case of Pedro Castillo.
It has become clearer day by day, that somewhat naïve Castillo has been put in the Presidency by “outside forces”, so that he can be demolished and replaced by THE candidate chosen by the Globalist Cult – or more precisely by Klaus Schwab, WEF.
In the case of Castillo, like in a myriad of other cases around the world, his election was a fraud, a disguise to put one of Klaus Schwab’s (WEF) Young Global Leaders (YGL) in charge of Peru, an ultra-rich country, arguably one of the two or three resources-richest countries in Latin America with resources from oil, gas, lithium, uranium, copper, rare earths, gold, other precious metals and more. All resources the west covets for their luxury and ever-more digitized lifestyles.
In that sense, Castillo, when he said, “The US collaborates with the European Union to oppress us”, he may have added “… and usurp us”.
In the interview, President Castillo focuses mostly on his concern for his family, after the Coup, when he was arrested. He was worried about bringing his family in security, especially his children and wife. He said, he never had the intention to flee the country but was adamant to get cover for his family in a secure embassy – in this case the Embassy of Mexico. His family is now living in Mexico, in security.
Castillo told the interview team about the intense and non-stop media smear campaign against him and his family, from the first day of his Presidency forward, or, actually even before he had taken up the lead position of the country. He and his family were put under constant pressure, insulted, denigrated and accused with lies and “fake truths”. He was worried about the impact of such a dirty environment on his family, particularly on his children.
As to carrying out his duties and tasks as President, he said the opposition and their allies in Congress would not let him govern. Castillo mentioned the corruption-driven privatization of mostly everything. For example, about 70% of Lake Titicaca related fishing rights and infrastructure belonged to one corporation. Similar with roads and airports, large expanses of agricultural lands are all owned by transnationals. The country was gradually put into foreign hands – with the local Peruvian oligarchy taking their cuts.
Castillo’s government presented Congress with 76 legislation proposals to take back some of the privatized government properties. They were all rejected. He also wanted to create a Peruvian flag independent airline, building and enlarging three airports – all were blocked. And so were many other initiatives his Government put before Congress for debate and consideration. In brief, after about a year and a half in office, he had achieved virtually nothing. The country was at a standstill. And mind you – this was part of the plan.
On the other hand, out of a long list of mining projects, he blocked more than 40 because they were damaging the environment and especially polluting water resources, aquifers high up in the Andes, vital for downstream populations and agriculture.
Of course, such measures didn’t make him popular among the national and international oligarchy, but he was liked by the peasants as he represented their vital and survival interests. With his origins in Cajamarca, one of the most mined Provinces of Peru, he knows firsthand what he is talking about.
Up to the early 1990s, the city of Cajamarca had plenty of crystal-clear water that needed hardly any treatment. With the installation of the US-American Newmont corporation’s open pit Yanacocha gold mine, the aquifer at an altitude of 4000-plus meters above sea-level, became contaminated with heavy metals and toxic chemicals.
Yanacocha gold mine near Cajamarca, Peru (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)
Also, gold-mining, the washing process, uses enormous quantities of water. The plentiful flow of drinking-quality water was reduced to a trickle, guaranteeing water supply only for a few hours a day on average in the province’s capital city of Cajamarca.
This is just one example of environment and water resources destroying mining in Peru. There are literally hundreds of ongoing mining projects in Peru that are harmful to the environment, the water and the people, as well as animals, drastically reducing dairy output.
Most of the mining benefits – profits – flow abroad, leaving a pittance for the Peruvians. There is a saying – Peru is one of the richest countries in Latin American, yet the population remains poor. Unfortunately, that is a fact.
Local corrupt oligarchs negotiate resources exploitation contracts with equally corrupt international corporations – and the result is disastrous.
Pedro Castillo, coming from a rural area and being a farmer, knows that Peru would be perfect for agricultural development, highly productive small-holders, as was proven by several small-scale irrigation projects, run by farmer associations.
Peru’s coastal desert is miraculously fertile, as soon as it receives water almost everything grows. There is water available from rivers, underground water sources and springs in the Andes as well as in the valleys. With advanced irrigation technology, Peru could be turned into a highly successful agricultural nation, with modern ag-industry, adding value in the country, creating sustainable jobs and exporting processed ag-products, rather than just raw materials – which is still the case today.
But that’s not the idea of the powerful oligarchy ruling the country since independence 200 years ago, through a five-year term Congress, where Congressmen cannot be re-elected, filling their pockets during their one-term political “highlife”.
President Castillo may have intended to bring change to these corrupt structures. However, he didn’t realize that Peru, like many other resources-rich countries in the Global South, is in control of foreign corporations, foreign politicians, and often, especially in the last two decades, controlled by the World Economic Forum (WEF) which acts as the executing branch for the giant financial, largely invisible Death Cult and for family billionaires.
On December 7, 2021, when President Castillo intended to dissolve Congress, because it didn’t allow him to govern, the “internal Coup” was well prepared by outside forces.
Boluarte with Castillo at Palacio de Gobierno in 2022 (Licensed under CC BY 3.0)
Castillo said in the interview that prior to the 2021 elections he didn’t know his Vice President, Dina Boluarte. She was imposed on him during the second-round voting campaign. She was made a member of the left-wing “Peru Libre” party, and once Castillo was elected with this razor-thin margin, she became his Vice President. Guess, who may have had a hand in this?
During the interview, Castillo didn’t mention that this was all planned ahead of the election, nor that Dina Boluarte was a scholar of Klaus Schwab’s Academy for Young Global Leaders (YGL), either because he didn’t know, or he didn’t want to admit that he was treacherously trapped by local and international capital wanting to take over the riches of Peru.
Preceding the “coup”, the Ambassador of the United States to Peru, Ms. Lisa Kenna, a former 9-year CIA veteran, went to see the Peruvian Minister of Defense telling him not to interfere with the “removal” of Castillo. Normally, the military sides with the sitting President. The Ministry complied. They did not intervene.
Shortly after the coup, with the acting President Boluarte already in office, the same Ambassador went to see her – telling her that she may count on US support, including for whatever strong measures she may have to take to suppress the countrywide protests.
This was a carte blanche for Boluarte to apply an iron fist to all those demonstrators and protesters, most of whom were supporting her adopted party, “Peru Libre”. The result was police shooting from helicopters and other oppressive atrocities, leading so far to more than 50 deaths. See also this.
Ex CIA agent and US ambassador to Peru, Lisa Kenna, meets with its defense minister two days before a coup against its elected left-wing President Castillo (Source: Multipolarista)
Another few days later, the same US Ambassador, Ms. Lisa Kenna, went to see the Peruvian Minister of Energy and Mining to talk about future investments. No further need to elaborate, as to who was behind this “election circus of 2021”. To the detriment, again, of the Peruvian people.
Immediately after Castillo attempted to resolve Congress, presumably to call for new elections, because Congress made his governing impossible, a legal move under these circumstances and within the laws of the Peruvian Constitution – Pedro Castillo was arrested and Ms. Boluarte became “acting” President. She claimed, she would hold the Presidency until the next General and Presidential election in 2026. Great try!
After his arrest, Castillo was put immediately in “preventive” prison, “on guard”, in a high-security prison, for 18 months, WITHOUT TRIAL, WITHOUT DUE PROCESS.
So much for Human Rights – dear Mr. Schwab.
Under the Peruvian Constitution, in such circumstances new elections must be called within 6 months. The Constitutional Court eventually decided on a compromise – holding new elections in April 2024. Under protests from the people in the streets, they wanted Boluarte out and new elections immediately, she proposed new elections in October 2023. That was not accepted by Congress. They wanted to keep their “privileges” as long as possible. She suspected that much, when she “offered” the new date.
Now, new elections are in limbo, no dates set. That’s precisely what Boluarte and Schwab want – maybe she can extend this limbo until 2026? – In the coming three years, she could do horrors to the people of Peru and to the country’s legislation, privatizing state enterprises, licensing indiscriminately all mining, long-term concessions to foreign corporations to exploit Peru’s resources, and not to forget, the coming “health tyranny” through the possible (lets hope not) WHO “Pandemic Treaty”.
She could also tacitly collaborate with those also foreign influenced powers, who want to divide Peru: the resources-rich south from the poorer north – thereby creating lasting internal unrest.
This is an emerging implicit “plan”. Whether it will be implemented, depends on Peru’s internal political dynamics and on the populations state of mind – their love for the country, and to what extent will the politicians forego their personal interests for the interests of the people, defend the rights of the Peruvian citizens, and the rights of Their President.
Peru’s continued corruption scandals, have made the country one of the most unstable nations at least in Latin America. Here is a rundown of Peru’s political turmoil during at least the last 20-plus years, represented by seven (7) dubious Presidents, either in jail, or on escape abroad or being investigated for fraud:
Pedro Castillo (2021-2022) – former teacher and farmer, see above;
Manuel Marino (Nov. 10-15, 2020) – a former head of Congress who led impeachment proceedings against his predecessor Martin Vizcarra; he lasted less than a week;
Martin Vizcarra (2018-2020), who took over from ousted Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. Vizcarra was himself ousted by lawmakers after media reports alleged, he had received some US$640,000 equivalent in bribes from two companies that won a public works tender while he was a regional governor several years earlier;
Pedro Pablo Kuczinsky (2016-2018); prosecutors investigated Kuczynski for favoring contracts with Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht, while he was a minister under former President Alejandro Toledo. Kuczynski resigned from the presidency in 2018 amid pressure from Congress. He is currently under house arrest. He was succeeded by Martin Vizcarra (see above);
Ollanta Humala (2011-2016) – is facing trial over allegations he received $3 million from Odebrecht (Brazilian construction firm) during the 2011 presidential election campaign. Prosecutors have requested 20 years in prison. Humala denies the allegations. The case is apparently still under investigation. Money also buys court proceeding delays;
Alan Garcia (1985-1990 and 2006-2011) – allegedly killed himself when faced with new corruption investigations. He was apparently cremated, within 24 hours after the claimed suicide, without any forensic investigation, very unusual for the death of a former President. It is widely assumed that he organized a well-paid escape, had several esthetic surgeries and lives happily under a different name somewhere in the world, many suspect in Switzerland;
Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006) – is accused of receiving a $20 million bribe from Odebrecht during his tenure. He is free on bail in the United States, but faces extradition proceedings to Peru – proceedings that have been ongoing for a long time.
Peru is just one more example demonstrating Klaus Schwab’s “Pride to infiltrate governments around the world with our Young Global Leaders”.
People, take note and do not allow it to happen any longer, not in Peru – nor anywhere else.
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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
Featured image: Pedro Castillo greets from the balcony of his party’s headquarters, Lima, Peru, June 15, 2021. | Photo: EFE
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“Nicaragua Frees Hundreds of Political Prisoners to the United States,” the New York Times (2/9/23) reported. In an unexpected move on February 9, the Nicaraguan government deported to the United States 222 people who were in prison, and moved to strip them of their citizenship. The prisoners had been convicted of various crimes, including terrorism, conspiracy to overthrow the democratically elected government, requesting the United States to intervene in Nicaragua, economic damage and threatening the country’s stability, most relating to the violent coup attempt in 2018 and its aftermath.
President Daniel Ortegaexplained that the US ambassador had unconditionally accepted an offer to send the 222 “mercenaries” (as Ortega called them) to Washington. Two others opted to stay in prison in Nicaragua, and an additional four were rejected by the US.
Despite the Times’ relatively benign headline, its story was heavily weighted against a country that had “slid into autocratic rule,” and whose government had “targeted opponents in civil society, the church and the news media.” For the Times, the “political prisoners” were not criminals but “opposition members, business figures, student activists and journalists.”
For the Washington Post (2/9/23), they included “some of Nicaragua’s best-known opposition politicians” and “presidential hopefuls.” Their release had “eased one of Latin America’s grimmest human rights sagas.” It added that “several of the prisoners had planned to run against Ortega in 2021 elections, but were detained before the balloting.”
The Guardian (2/9/23) blamed the imprisonments on “Nicaragua’s authoritarian regime” and its “ferocious two-year political crackdown,” intended to “obliterate any challenge” before the last presidential election in 2021.
Bad when they do it
The corporate media were given a second bite of the cherry when the Nicaraguan government announced, six days later, that it was rescinding the citizenship of a further 94 people, most of them living abroad, in some cases for many years. The list included such notable names as authors Sergio Ramírez and Gioconda Belli. The Times (2/17/23) quoted the United Nations refugee agency as saying that international law “prohibits the arbitrary deprivation of nationality, including on racial, ethnic, religious or political grounds.” For the Guardian (2/16/23), “Daniel Ortega’s authoritarian regime has intensified its political crackdown.”
Neither mentioned that law in the US and Britain, and other countries, permits the revocation of citizenship in the US for, among other things, engaging in a conspiracy “to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States,” and in Britain of “those who pose a threat to the country.” The British government has made orders to deprive at least 767 people of citizenship since 2010.
There are other important considerations that apply in Nicaragua’s case, which the media ignore. First, it is a small country, with limited means to defend itself, that has been the subject of US intervention for decades—militarily in the 1980s, politically more recently, and economically since sanctions were imposed in 2018. Those calling for even stronger US pressure (e.g., curbs on trade) are putting the well-being of Nicaraguans at real risk.
Second, there is a precedent for a country’s unelected citizens being recognized as its “real” government by the US and its allies, in the case of self-proclaimed “president” Juan Guaidó in Venezuela, a gambit that successfully stole the country’s assets (Venezuelanalysis, 1/11/22), even though it did not provoke the hoped-for military coup (FAIR.org, 5/1/19). The possibility of similar tactics being used against Nicaragua might well have been a factor influencing the action it took.
The corporate media’s accounts of the Nicaraguan government’s reasons for the deportations and cancellations of citizenship were both perfunctory and disparaging. For example, the Guardian’s second article (2/16/23) said the government “called the deportees, who were also stripped of their citizenship, ‘traitors to the motherland.’” The rest of its article was given over to criticism of the Ortega government.
The New York Times (2/9/23) quoted Nicaraguan journalist Carlos Chamorro, one of the 94, as saying, “All prisoners of conscience are innocent.” It made no assessment of his claim.
The Washington Post (2/9/23) did include Ortega’s criticism of US financing of opposition groups: “These people are returning to a country that has used them…to sow terror, death and destruction here in Nicaragua,” Ortega said. But it went on to report in its own voice that “Ortega crushed a nationwide anti-government uprising in 2018, the beginning of a new wave of repression.”
Three months of January 6
As FAIR has shown in a range of articles, media coverage of Nicaragua consistently presents the image of a country suffering extreme repression. The story of the 222 deportees was a further opportunity to repeat this treatment. For example, included in the Guardian’s coverage (2/16/23) was an official from Human Rights Watch saying, “The country is on the verge of becoming the Western Hemisphere’s equivalent of North Korea.” Whether it is the closure of NGOs, the results of the 2021 presidential election, the reasons for increased Nicaraguan migration to the United States, or the country’s response to Covid-19, corporate media ignore good news about Nicaragua, give prominence to the views of government opponents and, if Daniel Ortega is quoted, this is done in a disparaging way.
The most extraordinary example of this bias is the corporate media’s pretense that the “terror, death and destruction” of the 2018 coup attempt either never occurred or were perpetrated solely by the “authoritarian regime.” Yet there was ample evidence at the time, and since, of horrific acts of violence against police and Sandinista supporters. Examples can be seen in two short videos (warnings about content apply), here and here, which include clips made by opposition protesters themselves and uploaded to social media.
The uprising that shook Nicaragua lasted roughly three months, resulted officially in 251 deaths (including 22 police officers; others put the total deaths as higher) and over 2,000 injured. It allegedly “caused $1 billion in economic damages,” and led to an economic collapse. (After years of growth, GDP fell by 3.4% in 2018).
The coup attempt led to at least 777 arrests, with many of those convicted given lengthy prison sentences. But importantly, and mostly ignored by the corporate media, 492 prisoners were released between mid-March and mid-June 2019.
Nicaragua’s experience in 2018 stands comparison with the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, and the response to it by the US justice system, generally with the corporate media’s support. The siege of the Capitol lasted only a few hours and led to five deaths, about 140 injuries to police and $2.7 million in damage. Reporting uncritically on the sanctions against those responsible, the New York Times (12/19/22) said that more than 900 people had been charged so far, facing prison sentences of up to ten years.
Later, the Times (1/23/23) reported that four culprits had been charged with “seditious conspiracy,” under a statute dating from the civil war period. In words not dissimilar to those used by the Nicaraguan judge who announced the order stripping 94 people of citizenship, one of the prosecutors was quoted as saying that the defendants “perverted the constitutional order.” He added that they “were willing to use force and violence to impose their view of the Constitution and their view of America on the rest of the country.” Unlike the Times’ reports on Nicaragua, there is no hint of criticism of these charges, nor questioning of whether they are justified.
Evidence of wrongdoing
This is the context in which the 222 supposedly “innocent” people released into the United States had been charged and found guilty during 2021 and 2022. Questions about the wrongdoing of the 222 were set aside in corporate media coverage, yet it would have been easy to find evidence of wrongdoing. Here are three examples:
Cristiana Chamorro headed an NGO, the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation, that received $76 million from USAID. This was used to influence Nicaragua’s elections via an array of opposition media outlets, several owned by the Chamorro family. She refused to comply with transparency laws and closed her foundation; she was then convicted of money laundering.
Félix Maradiaga was convicted of treachery because he had pleaded for economic sanctions against Nicaragua.
Medardo Mairena and Pedro Mena had organized a range of armed attacks in 2018, for which they had been pardoned in the 2019 amnesty. These included the siege of the police station in Morrito on July 12, 2018, in which five people were killed. Both were later convicted again for further offenses. In 2020, a large number of victims provided evidence of the violence directed by Mairena and his associates in 2018 in the central region of Nicaragua.
For US corporate media, none of this was relevant. The real reason for the original arrests in 2021 was simple: Ortega expected to lose that year’s election, so he locked up his opponents.
It is true that several of those imprisoned had expressed interest in running. But in a joint post-election analysis with journalist Rick Sterling, I argued that they would have had little chance of taking part, much less of winning.
However, according to the Washington Post (2/9/23), this meant that Ortega, “essentially unopposed, cruised to a fourth consecutive term.” In fact, he won 76% of the vote on a 65% turnout, standing against five others, including two candidates from parties that had been in government in the years before Ortega returned to power.
‘A terrible place’
Why were the prisoners released? The Post admitted that there had been no “quid pro quo,” but then carried a quote claiming that Ortega was “buying some breathing room internationally.”
The New York Times reported that the releases “bolster the argument that sanctions are effective,” linking this to its portrayal of Nicaragua as an authoritarian regime: “The sanctions have also stretched the government’s ability to pay off pro-Ortega paramilitaries or expand the police force to manage dissent.”
Not that sanctions would be relaxed, of course: “Officials…said they would continue to apply pressure to the Ortega administration,” the paper reported, as “the Biden administration does not believe that ‘the nature of the government’ has changed.” Dan Restrepo, President Obama’s national security adviser for Latin America, declared, “Nicaragua remains a terrible place for Nicaraguans, and a lot more has to change.”
Readers of the corporate media who are unfamiliar with Nicaragua receive impressions of the country, reinforced with every news item, that it is a “terrible place,” in the grip of a police state. As someone who lives in the country, I find a huge disjuncture between these descriptions and the reality of Nicaraguan daily life.
Readers of the Times or the Post might be surprised to hear Nicaragua was recently judged to be the place in the world where people are most at peace (CNBC, 1/7/23). InSight Crime (2/8/23) ranked it the second-safest country in Latin America, according to reported data on homicides. It tackled Covid-19 more successfully than its neighbors, and has the highest vaccination rate in the region. Websites devoted to tourism dub it a favorite destination in Central America and extol its friendliness.
Finally, the government’s decision to deport the 222 was popular in Nicaragua itself, at least among government supporters. There were enthusiastic demonstrations in at least 30 cities the following weekend, including the one where I live. Unpersuaded, the British Independent (2/12/23) said that the “Sandinista political machine mobilized a few thousand of its faithful.” They must not have seen the reports from the capital, Managua, where tens of thousands filled the streets.
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Featured image: Tens of thousands march in Nicaragua in support of the government expulsion of people seen as “vende patrias”—country-sellers (TN8, 2/13/23).
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On February 23, 2023, the White House issued astatement: “Today, President Biden announced that the United States is nominating Ajay Banga, a business leader with extensive experience leading successful organizations in developing countries and forging public-private partnerships to address financial inclusion and climate change, to be President of the World Bank.”
Once again, the President of the World Bank is American, he is a man, and he comes from high finance, which seems to be a guarantee of success for Joe Biden:
“Ajay is uniquely equipped to lead the World Bank at this critical moment in history. He has spent more than three decades building and managing successful, global companies that create jobs and bring investment to developing economies, and guiding organizations through periods of fundamental change.”
The CADTM International network condemns this nomination because:
Ajay Banga is once again man. The 14 Presidents of the World Bank since its creation in 1945 have been men.
The appointment of Ajay Banga as the next President of the World Bank is welcomed by the Indian ultra-nationalist right.
The CADTM International network had no illusions: any decision taken by the IBRD (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) must receive 85% of the votes to be adopted. However, the United States has 15.47% of the voting rights for each of the important decisions, so it has a de facto veto right. So there will be no positive change within the World Bank. As long as it continues to exist, it will remain an institution serving the interests of the United States, whether or not it is chaired by a US citizen drawn from big business and finance. It will continue to provide loans, usually onerous, in exchange for conditionalities that reinforce and deregulate capitalism, increase social and gender inequalities and worsen the climate and ecological crisis.
The CADTM International network calls once again:
The strengthening of actions and mobilizations against the Bretton Woods institutions, towards a united front of the countries of the South against the repayment of illegitimate debts, towards the abolition of these institutions and the capitalist, patriarchal and extractivist system.
A counter-summit of social movements to the IMF-WB Annual Meetings to be held in Marrakech from 9 to 15 October 2023.
The cancellation of the debts claimed by the IMF and the World Bank.
The prosecution of the World Bank’s leaders.
The establishment of a new international architecture.
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Introduction
Syria has been at war since 2011. The conflict is in a stalemate. US troops control nearly a third of the country. The US finances the operation and a secessionist army with oil and wheat they take from the area. It funds them and deprives the Syrian government from their own resources. In the northern province of Idlib, the Syrian version of Al Qaeda is in control, receiving the majority of aid from Europe while the 90% of Syrians who live in government controlled areas go hungry and have electricity only three hours per day.
Meanwhile in Ukraine, the bloodshed continues as Russian troops battle Ukrainian soldiers while the US and NATO pour in weapons. Russian troops have taken control of much of the eastern region, the Donbass.
How did we get here and what is driving the process?
The Rise of the US Exceptionalism
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, influential neoconservatives said it was time for US interests and priorities to be dominant. There was only one superpower. This was to be a New American Century with no challengers. This perspective went from being a fringe element to increasingly influential. Over the course of the 1990’s, it took hold and became US foreign policy. They said it explicitly: The US should not permit any country to challenge US supremacy and dominance.
With the Soviet Union gone and Russia in disarray, there was no counter-force in international organizations or the United Nations. The US manipulated existing agencies and created new institutions to its advantage. History and international agreements were rewritten. For example, with US and Israeli pressure, the UN resolution affirming that Zionism is a form of racism was overturned.
US foreign policy became increasingly aggressive. Sanctions on Iraq, aimed to drive the country into total submission, led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Children were especially vulnerable to sickness from contaminated water. Chlorine for purification was prohibited while the US hailed itself a leader in gender equality with the first female Secretary of State, Madeline Albright.
Recalcitrant countries were subject to attack. The multi-ethnic country of Yugoslavia was a prime target. Divisions were promoted while the CIA funded an extremist separatist army. NATO went on the attack, bombing Serbia without authorization from the UN Security Council. The plan was clear: divide and conquer.
Simultaneously, the creation of the European Union in 1993 made it harder for individual countries to act in their own best interests and easier for the US to dominate the whole.
The military alliance binding them together is NATO – the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Although this is a military alliance, there is no doubt which country is paramount. The US spends more than all others combined.
The September 11 attacks in 2001 were a watershed moment. The attacks provided a “Pearl Harbor” moment and justification for increased US aggression abroad. The official explanation of who carried out the attacks and why has been seriously challenged. Whoever perpetrated the attacks, neoconservatives used 9-11 to push their agenda. The US commenced their attack and occupation of Afghanistan.
The next major violation of international law was the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Iraq was devastated, extremism and sectarianism exploded. Today, US troops remain there despite the Iraqi parliament and government requesting they leave.
Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction as claimed by US “intelligence”. Instead, a form of chemical weapons was created in Iraq by the US military. Dust from depleted uranium bullets and missiles vaporized and mixed with the environment. Iraq has experienced a huge increase in birth defects and cancer.
Russia Restabilizes
While this was happening, Russia was starting to restabilize under the Putin administration. After a decade of chaos, corruption and the collapse of the communist safety net, Russia was getting back on its feet in the early 2000s. The standard of living and life expectancy started to increase. Western advisors were no longer in charge. Oligarchs were no longer able to rob at will.
Even though the Warsaw Pact has ceased to exist, NATO refused to disband. On the contrary, despite promises to Russian leaders, NATO expanded in 1999, 2004 and 2009.
When NATO invited Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO in 2008, Russia loudly said NO. They said that would cross a red line for them. NATO was clearly an OFFENSIVE alliance and to permit it on the Ukraine border less than 500 miles from Moscow would jeopardize Russian security. Russia kept asking that security for ALL be considered.
War in Libya and Syria
Unrest in Libya erupted in early 2011. Western media started propagating stories of pending massacres and the UN Security Council, with China and Russia abstaining, authorized a “no fly zone” and “necessary measures to protect civilians”. This became the pretext for the US plus NATO and other allies to attack Libyan government forces. They overthrew the Libyan government and unleashed a civil war that continues to today. Later evidence revealed the sensational claims of rape and pending massacre were falsehoods, just like in the past.
U.S. military vehicle runs past the Tal Tamr area in the countryside of Hasakah province, northeastern Syria, Nov. 14, 2019. | Photo: Str/Xinhua
At the same time, the West and allies Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey were funding, training and supporting extremists and foreigners travelling to Syria. After the overthrow of the Libyan government, the CIA took control of Libyan military arsenals and started sending weapons to jihadists in Syria.
Extremists were trained in camps in Turkey on the Syrian border. Weapons were flown into Incirlik US Air Base in southern Turkey. Thus started the US war on Syria which continues to today.
In the Fall of 2013, a sarin gas attack killed hundreds of civilians in outer Damascus. Neocons were itching to attack Syria as they had attacked Libya and Iraq. President Obama claimed, “We know the Assad regime was responsible.” He also said “I believe we should act. That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional.”
The US attack was deterred after Russia persuaded Syria to give up all their chemical weapons – which had been developed as a deterrent against Israel’s nuclear weapons. Russian Putin praised the agreement but cautioned, “It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.”
Later, Seymour Hersh revealed that the chemical attacks were not carried out by the Syrian government as claimed by Obama. Rather, they had been perpetrated by Syrian extremists with Turkish support. The purpose was to provide a pretext for US and NATO direct attacks on Syria.
War in Ukraine
Meanwhile, 1200 miles north of Damascus, protests in the Maidan main square of Kyiv Ukraine were growing in intensity. There was a combination of peaceful protesters and a small but violent faction of ultra nationalist extremists. Western billionaires and US agencies were instrumental in promoting pro-western organizations and the Ukraine protests. US politicians and officials such as Victoria Nuland and John McCain showed up to offer symbolic and tangible support.
Featured image is from The Unz Review
On Feb 7, 2014 Victoria Nuland and the US Ambassador planned who would take leadership after the pending Ukraine coup. Nuland summed it up: “Yats is the guy” (Arseny Yatsenyuk). Referring to a compromise agreement preferred by European leaders, Nuland said, “Fuck the EU.” From the conversation, we also know that Jake Sullivan (current National Security Advisor) and then Vice President Biden were involved. US neoconservatives were not satisfied with a mixed Ukraine. They wanted an anti Russia Ukraine.
With the Winter Olympics in Sochi Russia drawing toward a close, someone decided to expedite the coup. Timing is important. On Feb 20 snipers killed over 50 protesters and police to ignite the events. Ukrainian-Canadian Professor Ivan Katchanovoski of the University of Ottawa has rigorously researched the events and shows that the shootings were by snipers located in opposition controlled buildings.
On the first day of the coup government, on 27 February, they removed Russian as an official language despite 30% of the population having it as a first language. It would be comparable to a coup in Ottawa Canada with the coup government removing French as an official language of Canada. The new leader was the same Arseny Yatsenyuk as planned by Nuland weeks earlier.
Opponents of the coup government were attacked with 42 killed in Odessa. In Crimea, they quickly organized a referendum on whether to secede from Ukraine. With 83% turnout, 97% of the population said they wanted to join the Russian Federation. In eastern Ukraine north of Crimea, called the Donbas, there was also a majority of the population deeply opposed to the coup and coup government. They confronted the authorities and many military units defected to join the secessionists. The regions were cut off by the Kiev government, with pensioners no longer receiving retirement checks and government services stopped. The Ukrainian Army attacked and thousands died. The regions were excluded from national elections. Eventually they organized themselves as the Donetsk and Lugansk Peoples Republics. Thus the war in Ukraine did not begin one year ago; it began nine years ago, in February 2014.
In late 2014 and again in 2015, peace agreements to resolve the civil war in Ukraine were signed in Minsk. France and Germany were to help insure the implementation. Russia supported this as a way to resolve the conflict. The UN Security Council passed a resolution endorsing the agreement.
Instead of implementing this, Kiev ignored their promises while the US and NATO began arming and training the Ukraine Army. In effect, Ukraine became an unofficial member. The arming and NATO-ization continued and escalated. First it was only “defensive” weapons. Then, under Trump, they began supplying “offensive” weapons.
NATO plans to destabilize and weaken Russia were explicit. The Pentagon thinktank, the RAND Corporation, published reports discussing strategic options to weaken and destabilize Russia. The longer term goal: to break it up as plotted by Brzezinkski in his US foreign policy bible The Grand Chessboard.
It has recently been revealed by the former Ukrainian, French and German leaders that the 2015 MINSK peace agreement was a ruse. By their own statements and admissions, it was never a genuine effort to peacefully resolve the civil war in eastern Ukraine. The goal was to stall for time while NATO trained and equipped the Ukrainian Army, to solidify the anti Russian attitude and crush those not in agreement.
NeoCons do not want peace in Ukraine
The neocons driving Washington’s foreign policy do not want to end the Ukraine war; they want to prolong it. They dream of repeating what happened in the 1980’s when Russian intervention in Afghanistan led to the weakening and ultimate breakup of the Soviet Union. The former boss of Jake Sullivan, Hillary Clinton, said explicitly in March “That [Afghanistan] is the model that people are now looking toward.”
The immorality of US policy is breathtaking. Afghanistan went through hell beginning in 1979 as the US and Saudi Arabia supported and armed religious fanatics to destabilize Afghanistan and create trouble for the Soviet Union. Afghanistan has endured over four decades of conflict and extremism and is still suffering.
Today, US neocons running foreign policy are sacrificing Ukraine with the same goal of undermining Russia. They could not live with a neutral Ukraine and have promoted and allied with ultra-nationalist and neo-Nazi Ukrainian elements. Previously Washington did not want anything to do with the neo-Nazis but this has changed.
NeoCons and Syria
The US has also allied with extremists in Syria. In late 2014 and early 2015, ISIS and Nusra (the Syrian Al Qaeda) made major assaults. Syrian and foreign extremists poured across the Turkish border. There were dozens of Canadians, hundreds of Brits, thousands of Europeans and North Africans. The Canadian and British secret services were well aware of the plans of their citizens who were being recruited by Al Qaeda and ISIS. They did nothing because, as Jake Sullivan said, “AQ [Al Qaeda] is on our side in Syria.”
With weapons and training from western military and intelligence forces, the extremists were able to capture a large area of northern Syria and the outskirts of Damascus.
In September 2015 Russia came to the assistance of the Damascus government. They provided airplanes and pilots to attack the advancing extremists. Uninvited, the US began also overflying Syria and then establishing US bases in the east and south. They rarely attacked ISIS but attacked Syrian troops at critical times. Then they began cultivating Kurdish secessionist elements. They rebranded them as the “Syrian Democratic Forces”. They are still there today – stealing the Syrian nation’s wealth in oil and wheat. The US has imposed draconian sanctions on the majority of the country. The dirty war on Syria continues.
Neoconservative belief in US supremacy and impunity are exemplified by former Deputy Director of the CIA, Michael Morell. In an 2016 interview, he was outraged that Russia supported the Syrian government resisting extremist attacks. In a 2016 interview, Morell publicly suggested “covertly” killing Russians who are on the ground in Syria. “They got to pay a price for what they’re doing. Just like we made the Russians pay a price in Afghanistan …. We have to make them want to go home.”
Russian Intervention in Ukraine
One year ago, Russia troops went into Ukraine with the stated goal of de-nazifying and de-militarizing the country. Many Ukrainian civilians have fled the fighting with more that 3 million going to Russia, by far the most of any country.
Did Russia have a choice? They could have continued waiting, hoping for a change in attitude by the US and NATO. They tried. In December 2021 Russia proposed peace treaties with the US and NATO. Instead of negotiating, the US and NATO dismissed the proposals out of hand.
The US-Ukraine Stategic Partnership, signed in November 2021, made it clear there was no intention to respect the will of the overwhelming majority of people in Crimea or to implement the Minsk Agreement to resolve the eastern Ukraine conflict peacefully. On the contrary, Ukraine with US support was building its forces to attack the Donbass and perhaps Crimea.
After 30 years of NATO provocations and escalating threats, Russia acted. While this has been condemned in the West, there is widespread understanding and support for their position in the Global South. A recent poll indicates that a big majority continue to feel positively about Russia.
What happens in Ukraine will have a profound impact on the globe. The “New American Century” dreamed by US hawks has been challenged.
It is high time to end US delusions of superiority and exceptionalism. The USA should become a normal nation.
We need a multipolar world with respect for the UN Charter and international law.
Let the people in Crimea and the Donbass choose their destinies. Let the war end and Ukrainians recover and prosper in an independent country which is neither a tool of the US or Russia. Let Syria rebuild and recover without the cruel US sanctions.
Let the US turn from fomenting conflicts, undermining and attacking other countries to reforming and improving itself.
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Rick Sterling is an independent journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He can contacted at [email protected]. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image is from Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
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Climate and agricultural policies aimed at bolstering carbon markets will fail to curb planet-heating emissions while enabling powerful agribusiness corporations to greenwash their polluting operations and augment their control over the food system.
That’s according to Agricultural Carbon Markets, Payments, and Data: Big Ag’s Latest Power Grab, a report published Wednesday by Friends of the Earth, an environmental advocacy group, and the Open Markets Institute, an anti-monopoly think tank.
While farmers could play a key role in mitigating the climate crisis by adopting agroecological practices capable of sequestering more carbon in the soil, the report warns that U.S. lawmakers from both major parties have embraced a “market-based” approach—centered around the buying and selling of so-called “carbon offset” credits generated through minor tweaks to industrial monoculture production—that is likely to tighten Big Ag’s chemical-intensive stranglehold on the food system and disenfranchise small-scale farmers, all while failing to reduce greenhouse gas pollution.
“Carbon markets have become a top strategy for agriculture and climate, despite a history of fraud, failure to reduce emissions, and corporate greenwashing,” report co-author Jason Davidson, senior food and agriculture campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said in a statement. “Such corporate schemes will strengthen the power of the largest agribusinesses, hand over private farm data, and fail to address the climate crisis.”
As the report explains: “The idea begins with granting credits to farmers who adopt certain practices, such as planting more trees and cover crops, that are supposed to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Farmers then receive compensation for their efforts by selling these credits to other entities, typically large corporations. These corporations, in turn, use their purchases of such credits to justify claims of environmental responsibility.”
Though these corporations “may still be emitting carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, they claim to have ‘offset’ these emissions by paying others to pollute less or actively sequester carbon, often to the point of asserting that they now have a ‘net-zero’ climate impact,” states the report.
A recent investigation revealed that 94% of the rainforest carbon offsets sold by a leading market player provided no measurable climate benefits, casting further doubt on the very notions of ‘net-zero’ and ‘carbon neutrality’ that corporations promote in a bid to maintain or expand their own polluting activities while portraying themselves as green.
Despite mounting evidence of the ineffective or counterproductive nature of ‘net-zero’ commitments, one-fifth of the world’s biggest corporations have made them, meaning that demand for carbon offsets is growing, the report notes. Meanwhile, the federal government is providing key support to such programs, including indirectly through the Inflation Reduction Act and directly through a pair of bills embedded in the Fiscal Year 2023 Omnibus Appropriations Bill.
The first, the Growing Climate Solutions Act, instructs the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to “list private carbon market facilitators on its website and broadly list protocols for measuring carbon sequestration,” the report explains. The SUSTAINS Act, meanwhile, threatens to lend government legitimacy to “fledgling soil carbon offset schemes,” which “could influence their value in voluntary exchanges” and “fan the flames of a speculative industry that stands to divert resources from effective pollution reduction and regulation.” Moreover, through its so-called Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities pilot program, the USDA is poised to offer more than half a billion dollars in grants to several agribusiness giants.
According to the report:
Big agribusiness corporations are using the system to deepen their own monopolistic power. Programs run by corporations such as Cargill, Bayer, Nutrien, and Corteva pay farmers for adopting specific farming practices that either depend on the companies’ proprietary technologies or require farmers to use their digital agriculture platforms.
[…]
Under these private carbon offset programs, agribusiness giants define climate-smart agriculture and promote large-scale, monoculture, chemical-dependent farming methods that can harm the environment in the long run and further entrench their market power. By controlling the same private, unregulated carbon-offset markets in which they trade on their own account and set their own prices, they are also subject to massive conflicts of interest.
“We can’t trust the very corporations that got us into this climate crisis to get us out of it on their terms and timeline,” said report co-author Claire Kelloway, food program director for the Open Markets Institute. “Corporations are designed to serve their investors, not the public, and that’s exactly what these carbon offsetting schemes will do by locking farmers into their networks, protecting product sales, and stalling meaningful regulation.”
A joint statement from Friends of the Earth and the Open Markets Institute explained three major pitfalls of private soil carbon credit programs:
Agricultural carbon markets are jumping ahead of the science to commodify something that cannot be reliably measured. There is no scientific consensus on how long carbon remains in the soil or under what conditions. Carbon sequestered in the soil can be released by changing land management practices or through severe weather events, which fails to sequester carbon on a meaningful timescale to address climate change. Without basic market fundamentals of information exchange and consistent commodities, selling and buying offsets is little more than speculation.
Carbon sequestration verification programs allow agribusinesses to collect and monetize detailed agronomic data and drive new users to their digital agriculture platforms. This further incentivizes and promotes their products, such as Bayer’s Roundup and genetically engineered seeds, entrenching corporate market power and destructive chemical-intensive industrial monocultures. Yet, use of agrichemicals kills soil organisms that support carbon sequestration.
Carbon payment programs, especially those run by seed and chemical companies, are not designed for smaller and ecologically regenerative farms. Generally, the largest farms stand to profit the most from carbon payments, further marginalizing family-scale farms and driving consolidation. Farmers contractually commit to years, even decades, of more expensive practices that produce credits for Big Ag with minimal payment guarantees.
“There’s no doubt that farmers should be supported in shifting to ecologically regenerative methods,” the report says. “But the evidence shows that using carbon offsets to do so is a counterproductive and inequitable approach that will let big polluters off the hook and fail the needs of family farmers.”
Davidson said that “instead of another handout to Big Ag, the Biden administration and Congress must support farmers in pursuing proven climate solutions.”
As Congress debates the next Farm Bill, the report’s executive summary calls on lawmakers and the USDA to take the following steps:
Ensure that USDA programs do not promote private carbon payment programs and reject corporate contributions to conservation programs that require farmers to share ownership of carbon credits with corporate donors.
Invest in existing programs with a proven track record of funding environmental improvements in agriculture, such as the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP); channel funds toward practices that are demonstrated to enhance on-farm biodiversity, conserve water, improve soil carbon sequestration, reduce the use of synthetic inputs, and enhance farmers’ resilience in the face of droughts and floods.
Encourage tree planting as a part of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP).
Regulate air and water pollution from the largest, most polluting farms, including working with the [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency] to set limits on agricultural greenhouse gas emissions.
Protect farmer data by ensuring the right to port and remove data from digital agriculture platforms. Prohibit the use of farmer data gathered as part of carbon payment programs to speculate in futures markets or target farmers with personalized advertisements.
Notably, a separate report published Wednesday by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy showed that 3 out of every 4 farmers who applied for EQIP and CSP funds in 2022 were denied.
“We do not have time or resources to waste on ineffective approaches to addressing the climate crisis, especially those that greenwash corporate pollution and risk increasing greenhouse gas emissions,” wrote Davidson and Kelloway. “Congress and the USDA must channel the billions of dollars that are being invested in climate-smart agriculture toward proven and transformative solutions.”
From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
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Kenny Stancil is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
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***
NBC News fixture Andrea Mitchell, wife of former Federal Reserve boss Alan Greenspan, has gone against the grain of the Ukraine narrative. In the clip below, she says the people of Crimea are Russian.
BREAKING: NBC News / MSNBC concedes that Zelensky’s goal of retaking Crimea is unrealistic and dangerous.pic.twitter.com/fb2RCRBHOn
So, here we have an admission by corporate media journalist Keir Simmons that it is not only “dangerous” but virtually impossible for Ukraine (that is, the USG) to force the return of Crimea (where a Russian ethnic population has lived for centuries). Russia will defend its naval base in Sevastopol.
An American journalist arrived in Crimea via the Kerch Bridge and learned in Sevastopol that the majority of Crimeans are for Russia and are ready to defend themselves against Ukraine in case of attempts to invade. pic.twitter.com/nl6iJxZUmC
For his reality-based report, Simmons was placed on Ukraine’s Myrotvorets death list.
NBC News journalist Keir Simmons recently went to Crimea and reported that most Crimeans are pro-Russia. Now, Ukraine has put him on its hit list website for reporting this fact.
What does the U.S. government think about Ukraine adding an NBC journalist to its hit lists? pic.twitter.com/bD0ghFsUtf
— kanekoa.substack.com (@KanekoaTheGreat) March 1, 2023
The CIA is an old pro at compiling death lists. Maybe that’s why “Langley, VA, USA” is featured on the death list website (top right corner). I wrote about the CIA’s handiwork and its relation to the Myrotvorets death list in September. The list now includes a number of prominent westerners who dared tell the truth about Ukraine, its rabid ultranationalists, NATO’s encroachment, and the violent 2014 coup that overthrew an elected president and government.
The Myrotvorets now include westerners on their murder list, including the popular former member of the progressive rock band Pink Floyd, Roger Waters. In addition, the Nazis of the Ukraine want to kill Hungary’s Viktor Orban, and Nobel Prize winner Zoran Milanovic. “Ukrainian writer Oles Buzina and former Verkhovna Rada parliamentarian Oleg Kalashnikov” were assassinated after Myrotvorets published their home addresses, reports Debt-Stop.
Andrea Mitchell and NBC may sheepishly admit the retaking of Crimea will not happen, but such reports have not dissuaded Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians.
As I wrote earlier, a retired USG General has the invasion of Crimea all figured out, never mind the immense loss of civilian life that would occur if his plan were to be implemented.
If this happens, count on an escalation, as Crimea is now part of the Russian Federation. In fact, it is already happening, although not to the degree imagined by Ben Hodges.
Following a spate of drone attacks inside Russia, the UK Express reported:
Meanwhile, one of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s top advisers, Mykhailo Podolyak, denied today that Ukraine had used drones to attack Russian territory following official statements from Russia that Ukraine had targeted infrastructure deep inside Russia.
This makes perfect sense. It is likely Ukraine does not have the ability to coordinate attacks deep inside Russia, but the USG, its Pentagon and CIA, have plenty of experience in sabotage. The National Security Archive has a long list of documents exposing the “covert action” of the USG and its CIA.
The Ministry of Defense of the #Russian Federation stated that at night there was a massive attack of drones on objects in the #Crimea. All drones were allegedly shot down. pic.twitter.com/WduNdmeoLi
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***
The US loudly proclaims that large, belligerent powers should listen when the world is united against their hostility toward their smaller neighbors.
The world is united against the US.
In thirty consecutive votes since 1992, the UN General Assembly has overwhelmingly condemned the US embargo of Cuba. In the most recent vote, on November 3, 2022, the world delivered what William LeoGrande, Professor of Government at American University and a specialist in US foreign policy toward Latin America, told me was “the most complete repudiation of the US embargo by the world community since the annual resolution was first introduced 30 years ago.”
The vote was 185-2. Only Israel voted with the US, and only Ukraine and Brazil abstained. The year before, Colombia abstained, but the election of Gustavo Petro as president of Colombia peeled that support away from the US. The recent election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil will see to it that one more anomalous Latin American abstention is lost in this year’s vote.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador recently demanded that the US and the world start acting on the will of the General Assembly. He said that the world must become more “active” and “not only when it comes to voting in the UN, where it is always only one or two countries who vote in support of it, while the vast majority of the countries in the world abstain or vote for the blockade to be eliminated. But when the [General] Assembly is over, it is back to the same old.”
Instead, López Obrador promised that “[w]e are going to continue demanding that the blockade against Cuba be lifted, that it be eliminated. It is inhumane.”
Mexico “has the greatest leverage,” LeoGrande told me, “because Washington needs its cooperation on two pre-eminent issues – migration and narcotics trafficking.” But López Obrador, who has initiated a “new, very close relationship between Mexico and Cuba” and who has signed documents that “formalize” and make the relationship between the two countries “institutional,” is not alone in opposing the blockade and calling it “inhumane.” Belize’s Prime Minister John Briceño, recently condemned the “illegal blockade against Cuba” and called it an “affront to humanity.”
Before López Obrador assumed the mantle of leader of Latin America’s struggle against America’s imposition of its will on the region, that mantle was worn by Lula DA Silva. On January 24, Lula DA Silva met with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel. It was their first meeting since DA Silva returned to the presidency of Brazil. Just prior to their meeting, he had condemned the US embargo.
DA Silva and Díaz-Canel held their talk during the meeting of the Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). In a press conference held with Argentine President Alberto Fernandez the day before the summit, DA Silva asked the members of CELAC to solve the problems of Cuba – and Venezuela – and treat them with “much affection.”
In November 2021, DA Silva told the European Parliament that the embargo is “unacceptable” and “not fair, normal or democratic.” He promised that “[a]s long as I live, I will say that the United States must end its blockade.”
Latin American opposition is swelling not only against the US embargo but also against the US inclusion of Cuba on the list of state sponsors of international terrorism.
In May 2015, the Obama administration took Cuba off the list. Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said US policy on Cuba had become “an albatross” around the neck of the US, crippling their policy in the hemisphere. After reviewing Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, the State Department concluded that it should be removed from the list. The Trump administration put it back on.
López Obrador has promised “to lead a more active movement” against the inclusion of Cuba on the list of state sponsors of international terrorism that has continued under the Biden administration. He said that “all countries” must “unite and defend the independence and sovereignty of Cuba, and never, ever treat it as a ‘terrorist’ country, or put its profoundly humane people and government on a blacklist of supposed ‘terrorists’.”
And again, the Mexican president is not alone. On October 3, 2022, Colombia’s new president, Gustavo Petro, asked US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to remove Cuba from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism.”
When asked by a reporter at a joint press conference “whether it is possible for the U.S. to remove Cuba . . . from the list of countries promoting terrorism,” Blinken answered, “When it comes to Cuba and when it comes to the state sponsor of terrorism designation, we have clear laws, clear criteria, clear requirements, and we will continue as necessary to revisit those to see if Cuba continues to merit that designation.” Petro disagreed about the merit. “[W]hat has happened with Cuba is an injustice,” he said.
With the recent elections of Gustavo Petro in Colombia and Lula DA Silva in Brazil, López Obrador’s opposition to the US’s hostile Cuba policy has become a powerful front. “With Petro, López Obrador and Lula taking the lead,” LeoGrande told me, “Biden will [face] united opposition to his Cuba policy across Latin America.”
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Ted Snider is a regular columnist on US foreign policy and history at Antiwar.com and The Libertarian Institute. He is also a frequent contributor to Responsible Statecraft and The American Conservative as well as other outlets.
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The war in Ukraine has displayed a fascinating dichotomy that exists within conservatives. They uniformly condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine while, at the same time, steadfastly ignoring the measures that the Pentagon took through NATO to provoke the invasion.
Moreover, while they condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine, they also continue to steadfastly support the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and continue to effusively thank the troops for their service in those two longstanding wars of aggression.
Thus, I wasn’t too surprised to see another conservative dichotomy appear in an article by Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., who serves on the editorial board of the conservative Wall Street Journal.The title of Jenkins’ article is “Putin Is the West’s Target in the Ukraine War.” The subtitle of the article pretty much sums up what it’s about: “A combination of escalation and deterrence must bring Russia to the table.”
What caught my attention, however, was this sentence in Jenkins’ piece: “Mr. Putin is the one abducting their sons and sending them home three weeks later in body bags.”
Abducting? One doesn’t often see conservatives using that word to describe conscription. One usually expects to see conservatives using the word “draft” or the word “serve” to describe conscription.
I found another article in the Journal that Jenkins wrote a few years ago in which he stated the following, “Even in World War II, more than 60% of American participants were drafted.”
Yes, he used the word “drafted.” No mention of the word “abducted.” But then again, this is the U.S. government, not the Russian government, to which he is referring.
In other words, when conservatives are talking about those evil Russkies, officials “abduct” people to fight in their wars. When the good U.S. government does it, it’s just “drafting” people to “serve” their country.
Actually though, Jenkins gets it right with his word “abduct.” That’s what conscription is all about — in both Russia and the United States. Another word that could be used is “slavery.” The best term is the one used in the Thirteenth Amendment — “involuntary servitude.”
The process works as follows: The government embroils people in a war that is not defensive in nature. Many people don’t like fighting and dying in that type of war. They’d be more than willing to fight and die if a foreign army was invading their homeland. But they don’t have much interest in leaving their homes, families, and businesses to go fight and die in some faraway land against an enemy that has not invaded their country.
But such wars are important to public officials. So, after calling for volunteers, the government finds that it still needs soldiers to fight. When no one else will volunteer, that’s when the government commands citizens to report to military installations to “serve” their country by being forced to travel to some foreign land to kill or be killed. If the person refuses, the government sends armed agents to forcibly seize him and take him away to jail. If he still refuses to “serve,” he is tried, convicted, and sentenced to a long term in a federal penitentiary.
Jenkins’ point about World War II is a fascinating one. He points out that 60 percent of American solders were abducted — oh, I’m sorry — I mean drafted — to serve in the war. But how can that be? I thought World War II was supposed to be the “good war.” No doubt inadvertently, Jenkins is telling us that what people describe as the “greatest generation” had to be forced to “serve” in World War II.
What’s up with that? If World War II was so good, how come 60 percent of Americans soldiers had to be abducted — I mean drafted — to fight in it?
Prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the American people were overwhelmingly opposed to entering the war, especially after the horrors of U.S. intervention in World War I. To circumvent opposition to entry into World War II, FDR did everything he could to provoke the Japanese into attacking the U.S., including imposing an oil embargo on Japan as well as leaving American soldiers at Pearl and in the Philippines to serve as bait. (The FDR playbook undoubtedly served as a model that the Pentagon used to provoke Russia into invading Ukraine.)
My hunch is that those 60 percent who had to be abducted — I mean, drafted — knew that President Roosevelt had schemed, plotted, and maneuvered to provoke the Japanese into attacking the United States. They knew that the Japanese attack at Pearl was simply a response to FDR’s provocations and that the aim of the attack was simply to open up supply lines for oil in the Dutch East Indies. They knew that Japan had no military capability or even interest in invading, conquering, and occupying the United States. They also knew that Germany, which could not even cross the English Channel to conquer England, lacked the military capability, supply lines, money, armaments, troops, and even the interest to cross the Atlantic and invade, conquer, and occupy the United States.
Thus, those 60 percent were smart. They weren’t willing to fight and die in another foreign war, one that FDR had provoked and that did not involve the survival of the United States. That’s why they had to be abducted — I’m sorry, drafted — to “serve their country” and “defend our freedoms.”
Of course, the same thing applied to the wars in Korea and Vietnam. Americans understood the same thing about those wars. That’s why they had to be abducted — I mean drafted.” When people said no, like Mohammad Ali, U.S. officials went after them with a vengeance for their cowardice and lack of patriotism, just like Putin is doing to those who resist his draft in Russia.
Oh well, at least the Russian invasion of Ukraine has caused conservatives to confront the evil nature of conscription, even if they are only referring to Russia.
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Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News’ Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s show Freedom Watch. View these interviews at LewRockwell.com and from Full Context. Send him email.
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It looks like there is a concerted effort underway to prepare the public for a “new pandemic”, and here are some of the mainstream media headlines making the rounds this past week:
UK: “Bird flu HAS mutated to infect people…fresh pandemic fears” (click here)
USA: “CDC says it’s in a posture of readiness amid fears H5N1 bird flu is poised to jump to humans – there are several vaccines and drugs in the works” (click here)
China: “A 53 year old woman in eastern China has tested positive for H5N1 avian influenza, (clade 2.3.4.4b), after exposure to poultry (click here)
UK: “Lateral flow tests being prepared for UK outbreaks of avian flu” (click here)
Peru: “At least 3500 sea lions in Peru have recently died of H5N1 bird flu” (click here)
Cambodia: “Young girl dies of H5N1 bird flu in Cambodia” (click here)
Argentina & Uruguay: “Last week, Argentina and Uruguay declared national health emergencies following outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1” (click here)
USA New York Times: “An even deadlier pandemic could soon be here” (click here)
What is H5N1 influenza? CDC experts tell us (click here):
Current clade of H5N1 avian influenza is called 2.3.4.4b, appears well adapted to spread efficiently among wild birds and poultry, was first identified in wild birds in the US in late 2021, and has affected 58 million commercial poultry
Mammals: recent H5N1 infections in wild foxes & skunks in Canada and US, minks in Spain, and sea lions in Peru
CDC recently produced an H5 candidate vaccine virus that can be used to make an H5N1 vaccine and has shared it with vaccine manufacturers
“Case Fatality Rate of 56% in humans”
This is where the fear tactics and propaganda come in.
“In October 2022, the disease began spreading among minks at a mink farm in Spain, marking the first time the virus mutated to favor mammal-to-mammal transmission, according to Science.”
“when humans have been infected by animals, the virus is deadly, as 56% of the reported cases in humans ended in fatality, according to the World Health Organization.” (click here)
“while the World Health Organization (WHO) reports that the mortality rate of avian flu in humans is around 56 percent, many experts believe it’s likely to be much lower if the virus becomes more transmissible. One reason avian flu is so lethal is that it infects the lower respiratory tract, which can lead to respiratory failure” (click here)
Here’s how a human bird flu pandemic could unfold
“If a human-transmissible version of H5N1 does emerge, there is a good chance that it would rapidly spread, as most people have no immunity to this subtype of flu, which could potentially result in a new pandemic.” (click here)
“A pandemic of H5N1 with a 53 per cent fatality rate would be unimaginable; however, some studies have suggested that when the virus switches hosts and adapts to mammals the lethality drops down significantly”
“we have two antivirals that would likely offer some benefit against H5N1 infection and there are several licensed H5N1 vaccines”
“Unfortunately, just like with SARS-CoV-2, the virus keeps evolving and so our existing H5N1 vaccines may not offer robust protection against the current versions of H5N1, though studies suggest they may still work very well and they also give us a very good starting point for making updated versions of the vaccines.”
“WHO-affiliated labs already hold two flu virus strains that are closely related to the circulating H5N1 virus, which could be used by vaccine manufacturers to create a human vaccine if needed” – the second was added this past week to “more closely match the virus spreading among animals” (click here)
H5N1 Gain of Function Research resumed in 2019
“H5N1 influenza virus research was temporarily ceased in January 2012 due to the risks involved with disseminating experimental results that could be used for nefarious purposes.” (click here)
“All research on H5N1 transmission was halted (in 2012) after laboratories at the University of Wisconsin and the Dutch Eramus Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands created mutant forms that could be transmitted directly among ferrets.This was concerning because viruses that are easily transmissible between ferrets are often also easily transmissible between humans.”
H5N1 Gain of Function Research resumed in 2019 (click here)
The H5N1 Wild Rumors…Chris Sky
Chris Sky, who had successful predictions about COVID-19, lockdowns and ineffectiveness of mRNA vaccines in 2020 (click here), put out a video today claiming Chile is having an H5N1 outbreak and will be the first country to sign onto the new WHO Pandemic Treaty (click here).
Chris Sky also put out another video on Feb.28, 2023 claiming that a pilot informed him that two antivirals (Oseltamivir – Tamiflu, Peramivir) are being shipped in large quantities to USA, UK, Australia and Netherlands (click here). He included the following communication:
More H5N1 Rumors in Chile…
“Speculations are adrift that certain clandestine vaccine clinical trials are now being conducted in the vicinity due to an undisclosed outbreak of H5N1 Avian Flu virus affecting many healthy young men in a military camp” (click here)
“During January & February 2023, when carcasses of dead birds and other wild animals were being found in large quantities alongside beaches, besides health personnel, local authorities also used young military trainees to help clear the areas and dispose the animals”
“By late February 2023, news emerged that 25 first year trainees from the military school in Pichicuy commune, in Valparaiso Region had developed acute respiratory illness”
“Subsequent news reported that 12 of these military cadets remain in serious hospitalized condition”
“Chilean health and defense authorities ordered a news blackout but locals and parents on social media posted that more than 67 young cadets were seriously sick”
“The WHO sent teams along with officials from US CDC and NIH to assist”
“Reports have emerged that all military personnel are now receiving some kind of vaccine shots”
H5N1 – timing of outbreak with WHO Pandemic Treaty
The propaganda is really ramping up and we have all the components of the next planned pandemic. This time, it is an H5N1 avian flu with an alleged 50% fatality rate, jumping between mammals, with a few human deaths already. The stage is set with antiviral medications and H5N1 vaccines ready to go.
There is an interesting focus on South America, with Peru, Argentina and Uruguay having H5N1 outbreaks in poultry and mammals. Chris Sky’s rumor centers on Chile. While it’s difficult to verify what is going on in Chile, the rumors about military cadets getting sick, are very interesting.
Dr.Robert Malone has recently warned about a new WHO Pandemic Treaty which would give the WHO complete power over US pandemic response (click here)
UK MP Andrew Bridgen has recently blasted the proposed WHO pandemic treaty as well (click here).
WHO Director Dr.Tedros Ghebreyesus has recently announced: “Next week countries will begin negotiations on a zero draft of the new (WHO) Pandemic Accord” (click here)
Kyle Becker reports that “Biden administration is reportedly poised to sign onto a WHO pandemic treaty.” (click here)
H5N1 antiviral Drugs and neuropsychiatric side effects
There are two classes of antiviral drugs used for the treatment of influenza: M2 ion-channel blockers amantadine and rimantadine which act against influenza A only (not recommended due to widespread natural resistance to those drugs among H1N1 and H3N2 influenza viruses), and neuraminidase enzyme inhibitors which act against influenza A and B.
Oseltamivir (Tamiflu), Peramivir (Rapivab) and Zanamivir (Relenza) are neuraminidase enzyme inhibitors.
Viral neuraminidases are essential for influenza reproduction, facilitating viral budding and release of replicated virus from infected host cells.
Oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and Zanamivir (Relenza) have already been used to treat H1N1 and H3N2 influenza infections and act by inhibiting the release of replicated virus from infected cells.
“Despite demonstration of limited benefit, the drug is widely used, with a total of 48 million patients receiving prescriptions for oseltamivir worldwide since 2006. Approximately 10% of the drug penetrates the blood-brain barrier, which allows for potential neuropsychiatric side effects” (click here)
“The majority of these adverse events have been observed to have occurred in the pediatric population. Neuropsychiatric adverse events include delirium, disturbances in consciousness, perceptual changes, delusions, tremors, anxiety symptoms, seizure disorders, parasomnias, and apocrine and eccrine gland disorders”
“Researchers have found increased propensity for mice to jump from 20-cm high platforms when given oseltamivir.”
“Japan contraindicated its use among individuals aged 10 to 19 due to concerns of abnormal behaviors”
“Children receiving oseltamivir should be monitored for neuropsychiatric side effects”
From a paper titled: “The Tamiflu fiasco and lessons learnt” (click here):
“Serious Adverse Events, especially neuropsychiatric events associated with Tamiflustarted getting reported…recent articles have questioned the risk-benefit ratio of the drug…recommendations for stockpiling the drug as given by WHO have been put to scrutiny…many reviewers have labeled Tamiflu saga as a “costly mistake.”
For those looking for safer alternatives (these were also helpful with COVID-19):
H5N1 could well be the next planned pandemic. The mainstream media are pushing it hard now and we could see it “launched” in the coming weeks. If it hits, it’s going to be a “shock and awe” type of event, meant to catch people off guard.
We’ve been told that the next pandemic would get our attention. An H5N1 avian flu pandemic with a Case Fatality Rate of 56% would fit the bill.
The timing is particularly interesting.
With a new pandemic, the US Public Health Emergency will not end on May 11, 2023 as planned, and we may see the WHO fast-track their new WHO Pandemic Treaty, drafts of which are already being discussed by various countries (click here).
It would take the fear of H5N1’s 50% fatality rate for the public to accept bringing back mandatory masking and perhaps even lockdowns.
Public Health Authorities are likely to lead any H5N1 response with antivirals such as Oseltamivir (Tamiflu), Peramivir (Rapivab) or Zanamivir (Relenza), because H5N1 vaccines won’t be ready right away.
For me, one of the most interesting aspects of all this, is that once these antivirals are rolled out, all COVID-19 mRNA vaccine neurological injuries can then be blamed on the antivirals, as they have very similar, well known neuropsychiatric adverse events.
There will probably be a well-funded campaign to “rehabilitate” the reputation of mRNA vaccines, with Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel having already promised he can have any new mRNA vaccine brought to market in less than 6 months.
Imagine a situation where the public is begging for a new mRNA vaccine. It seems unthinkable right now with the tsunami of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine injuries & deaths, but introduce H5N1 with 50% fatality rate and not enough antiviral medications to go around, and the public will once again demand mRNA.
Imagine the public begging for lockdowns, with the government graciously offering financial support and perhaps even a Universal Basic Income, tied to a digital ID.
As we saw in 2020, the world can change very quickly when a new threat is on the horizon.
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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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Transcript of Interview with Emanuel Pastreich
Sputnik: What is your personal assessment of the new leaks concerning the origins of COVID-19? Specifically, we are referring to the Wall Street Journal article reporting US intelligence sources suspect a leak from a Chinese bio lab. Why this? Why now? Do you see anything special about the timing of these allegations?
Emanuel Pastreich: There are several issues at play here. The first is that the entire COVID-19 project, and the medical and general policy enacted in the United States and around the world using COVID-19 as an excuse is increasingly subject to question. A lot of the policies are now being criticized, and all sorts of legal actions are being taken.
There’s a need to try and pin this mess on somebody. And China, the “rising threat” in Washington establishment chatter, is a perfect place to pin it on.
The second factor is what is happening in Ukraine and the numerous reports about US- funded bio labs. I’m not expert enough to judge the accuracy of those reports, but Russia has released considerable information concerning bio labs in Ukraine that they have captured.
There’s been a lot of discussion out there, the information is not classified, about DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and other private corporations developing both viruses and vaccines, as well as working together, in a corrupt manner, with the World Health Organization and with multinational drug companies.
So clearly there is an incentive to try and pin all of this mess, this transnational global finance mess spilling over from the pandemic, to pin it all on China, and specifically on the Chinese Communist Party.
Sputnik: Michael Gordon played a central role in disseminating false allegations that Iraq possessed the weapons of mass destruction in 2003. Why might it be that the intelligence community turns to him this time again? And how trustworthy, in your view, is his reporting?
Emanuel Pastreich: I am not all that interested in individual operatives. Most of them don’t write the material that they put out. The larger question should be what exactly is this “intelligence community?”
I think there has been some transformation since the Iraq Invasion in 2003. Intelligence is increasingly privatized, run for the profit of multinationals.
Anyone with deep pockets these days can get these organizations to promote their storyline, and they’re extremely closely connected with the media now, even more deeply than was the case before. Intelligence represents multinational pharmaceutical companies and weapons manufacturers, etc.
What specifically was Gordon pushing here? I think there were two goals. To take attention away from the central role of multinational corporations, the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and the United States government in the push for a corona pandemic.
Blaming China is now a popular approach. There’s a recent discussion by Mike Gallagher, a Republican from Wisconsin who sits on the House Intelligence Committee. He wrote at length about how this intelligence report must be credible, that somehow COVID-19 came out of a lab in China, i.e. China is an aggressive power attacking the United States, the leader of democracy.
There is a problem with this argument. I don’t rule out the possibility that China was involved at some level. There’s corruption in China, as there is in the United States, and around the world. But, it’s clear that the push for mandates, for lockdowns, for vaccines, and for masks did not come from China, although China followed the guidelines.
Clearly the United States, led by the nose by the global capital and technology nexus, was at the core of this operation.
I think we can look at Gordon as being the one selected to convey the message.
I wouldn’t blame him personally, but this move is similar, as you suggested, to the buildup for the war with Iraq. They want to create a false narrative.
They express this narrative in every possible media format. Perhaps in the back of the minds of those people deep in DARPA, in DoD, and at Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and military intelligence contractors, they’re thinking they’ll use this as the lead up for some sort of major confrontation with China, which will allow them to kill two birds with one stone.
On the one hand, they will be able to pin all this stuff which originated with American-flavored multinational corporations, private equity, and multinational banks on China.
The second point is use it as a means to create some sort of new Cold War, or even some sort of actual military conflict, with China, which will allow them to stimulate the economy by creating demand for weapons, and that will save the asses of all these people who are potentially risk for how they tore the United States apart, by shifting to a military economy.
Sputnik: Jake Sullivan said on Sunday that there are a variety of views in the U.S. intelligence community about whether or not the virus originated naturally, or in the lab, and that he can’t confirm or deny according to The Wall Street Journal report. What do you think that “variety” could mean?
Why was he so reluctant here, do you think?
Emanuel Pastreich: There’s a variety of these “intelligence” organizations that have been radically privatized over the last 15 years. So, increasingly, it’s not the government that’s engaged in the collection of information, the analysis of the information, and the pushing of information (propaganda).
It’s a for-profit process in most cases. That said, within the larger intelligence community, including the Department of Energy in this case (which is what was quoted by Sullivan), there are individuals, or even groups, who are honestly trying to give an accurate story.
I would not dismiss all intelligence reports as being inaccurate. Sometimes people bravely state truths that have to be said and they can be more accurate than the media.
Not in this case. In this case, I think the “variety” is not a variety of interpretations, but a variety of propaganda strategies.
Different people are thinking, how are we going to solve this problem?
But the “problem” is what to do if the responsibility for the COVID-19 pandemic might ultimately be pinned on American-affiliated multinational corporations and wealthy individuals. So they’re trying to come up with some storyline, but they can’t agree on it.
I think one of the major reasons is that the intelligence community, or the American military, is itself split. We have some Republicans who hate China and push for war with China. We have Democrats who hate Russia and are pushing for war with Russia.
And then we have all sorts of people in between, and people who are at war with everybody. They all have different interests.
I think there’s clearly a split within the establishment, the military defense establishment, as to how to deal with this COVID-19 crisis.
Those looking for a solution ranges from those who want to pin it on the Chinese Communist Party, or who prop up the experts who say we need even more vaccines. And there are other people who are saying on the inside that this story is just not going to hold, that it has come time to clean house.
All of this is going on beneath the surface. There are internal struggles taking place within the Pentagon and the CIA, and elsewhere, that we can’t really see directly.
Sputnik: The intel community is manipulating the public both here and abroad. Who knows what to believe anymore?
Emanuel Pastreich: The first thing I would say to people is be skeptical of everything. I would say that, for that matter, about the alternative media too.
We must be very skeptical about reports from the United States. But the same, about European sources and, for that matter, about Chinese, Russian or Iranian sources. They may be a little bit better, but each one of them has their own biases.
I recommend waiting to make any judgments about what’s an accurate story. I think that the scale of the deception that has taken place, and has involved all national governments in the world, is so large that moving to the next stage of sorting through the facts and finding out what really took place will be extremely difficult for us.
I think there is good reason to believe that there was an initial conspiracy between the United States and China to push in the COVID-19 narrative.
There is a “New Cold War” narrative presented in the media that is not without basis. But, at a higher level, between certain corrupt parts of sort of military industrial complex in the United States and in China, there is collaboration taking place that that is based not on national interest, but on class interest, on the interests of the super-rich and the small groups invested in private equity firms who want to make a fortune and to create a totalitarian system wherein these seemingly legitimate global organizations like the World Health Organization will be able to dictate medical practice for everyone in the entire world.
I think what we’re seeing is that this bid, that incredibly ambitious bid to take over the entire medical system and to corrupt it, although it was remarkably successful the first few years, ultimately was not successful. We are seeing some real push back now.
So Jake Sullivan and that whole team, are running around trying to find something to patch over the extremely high risk position they find themselves in.
There have been several reports out about bio labs found in the Ukraine disclosed. We do not know the details, but the possibility that this “Corona Pandemic” will ultimately come back to bite the United States itself, and for that matter, Israel, the U.K., and other affiliated countries, is quite real.
It’s best to see this move as a proactive attempt to cut off the possibility of a critique of, and investigation of, the United States and its allies, multinational corporations, and multinational global governance organizations. The best way to cut off that possibility is to go on the attack first.
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This article was originally published on Fear No Evil.
Emanuel Pastreich served as the president of the Asia Institute, a think tank with offices in Washington DC, Seoul, Tokyo and Hanoi. Pastreich also serves as director general of the Institute for Future Urban Environments. Pastreich declared his candidacy for president of the United States as an independent in February, 2020.
He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
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At this moment, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Doomsday Clock now stands at only 90 seconds before midnight. Thus, as we move closer and closer to a nuclear World War 3, why not identify the major steps that took us to this dangerously slippery road? Who knows, perhaps this exercise could help to bring some perspective to those who are pushing us into oblivion. They have families and children too. Sometimes even the greatest villains have the moment of repentance.
Here is my take of the ten such major events in the chronological order and those responsible for them:
1. 1998 – Beginning of NATO expansion – Bill Clinton
Many prominent former US government officials, members of Congress, diplomats, and foreign policy experts have objected to this expansion. “We’ll be back on a hair-trigger,” said Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a New York Democrat, during the debates in the Senate. Moynihan continued: “We’re talking about nuclear war. It is a curiously ironic outcome that at the end of the Cold War we might face a nuclear Armageddon.”
Senator Joseph Biden (D-Delaware), while calling Moynihan “the single most erudite and informed person in the Senate,” said he disagreed with him, and pushed for NATO’s expansion.
2. 2004 – Abrogation of ABM treaty – George W. Bush
This is what Bush said in November 2001 following Putin’s support for the Afghan operation a month earlier:
“A lot of people never really dreamt that an American President and a Russian President could have established the friendship …. to establish a new spirit of cooperation and trust so that we can work together to make the world more peaceful….I brought him to my ranch because, as the good people in this part of the world know, that you only usually invite your friends into your house…. a new style of leader, a reformer, a man who loves his country as much as I love mine…. a man who is going to make a huge difference in making the world more peaceful, by working closely with the United States.”
What a spirit of sanity from a man who would oversee a disastrous two terms in office which included the war in Iraq and an abrogation of one of the most strategic anti-nuclear war treaties.
3. 2008 – Push to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO – George W. Bush again
As Professor John Mearshimer stated in New Yorker “I think all the trouble in this case really started in April, 2008, at the NATO Summit in Bucharest, where afterward NATO issued a statement that said Ukraine and Georgia would become part of NATO. The Russians made it unequivocally clear at the time that they viewed this as an existential threat, and they drew a line in the sand.”
4. 2014 – Western backed and US coordinated Coup in Ukraine sets up the cornerstone of the current crisis – overseen by the duo of Joe Biden and Victoria Nuland
After two decades of eastward NATO expansion, this crisis was triggered by the West’s attempt to replace the democratically-elected President Yanukovich and his administration who were against Ukraine joining NATO with the new anti-Russia team that will be for it.
5. 2015 – Minsk Peace Accords are supported by the UN Security Council but sabotaged by the US, EU, and Ukraine – Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and the EU leadership.
As was discovered years later, the premise of the accords was designed as a dishonest fraud to buy time to arm Ukraine and prepare for the future war with Russia.
6. 2016 – Russia is accused of hacking DNC files – Hillary Clinton and the Deep State
7. 2017 – Russiagate scandal is unleashed to derail Trump’s Presidency – Hillary Clinton and the Deep State.
All Russiagate traces lead to Clintonites, who paid Perkins Coie to hire the Beltway smear-specialists of Fusion GPS to draw up and promote the British spy Christopher Steele’s fake allegations.
8. 2018 – Russia is accused of executing operation Hunter’s “Laptop from Hell” – Joe Biden and Deep State
Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said Hunter Biden’s laptop was not Russian disinformation but a “domestic disinformation campaign for political reasons” which in Ratcliffe’s words “is a disgrace.” Joe Biden, his administration, media, and 51 ex-national security officials, lied about this. They included former Obama CIA Director John Brennan, former Obama DNI James Clapper, and former CIA director, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, among others.
9. 2021 – Rejection of Russia’s proposals for the mutual security guarantees – Joe Biden
President Biden didn’t accept Vladimir Putin’s proposals that included a provision denying Ukraine’s entrance into the NATO. There were additional items for negotiation which could lead to the exit from crisis but Biden decided otherwise.
10. 2022 – Destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines – Joe Biden
According to many experts, and the famous Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh who got firsthand information from an insider whistleblower, this destruction was done on the direct order from Biden. He denies it but if you had to choose between constantly lying Joe and the most respected American journalist with a high professional reputation who would you believe?
2023 – Here we are – On the Edge of the Abyss.
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One year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a new report from the Oakland Institute, War and Theft: The Takeover of Ukraine’s Agricultural Land, exposes the financial interests and the dynamics at play leading to further concentration of land and finance.
“Despite being at the center of news cycle and international policy, little attention has gone to the core of the conflict — who controls the agricultural land in the country known as the breadbasket of Europe. Answer to this question is paramount to understanding the major stakes in the war,” said Frédéric Mousseau, Oakland Institute’s Policy Director and co-author of the report.
The total amount of land controlled by oligarchs, corrupt individuals, and large agribusinesses is over nine million hectares — exceeding 28 percent of Ukraine’s arable land. The largest landholders are a mix of Ukrainian oligarchs and foreign interests — mostly European and North American as well as the sovereign fund of Saudi Arabia. Prominent US pension funds, foundations, and university endowments are invested through NCH Capital, a US-based private equity fund.
Several agribusinesses, still largely controlled by oligarchs, have opened up to Western banks and investment funds — including prominent ones such as Kopernik, BNP, or Vanguard — who now control part of their shares. Most of the large landholders are substantially indebted to Western funds and institutions, notably the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the World Bank.
Western financing to Ukraine in recent years has been tied to a drastic structural adjustment program that has required austerity and privatization measures, including the creation of a land market for the sale of agricultural land. President Zelenskyy put the land reform into law in 2020 against the will of the vast majority of the population who feared it would exacerbate corruption and reinforce control by powerful interests in the agricultural sector. Findings of the report concur with these concerns. While large landholders are securing massive financing from Western financial institutions, Ukrainian farmers — essential for ensuring domestic food supply — receive virtually no support. With the land market in place, amidst high economic stress and war, this difference of treatment will lead to more land consolidation by large agribusinesses.
The report also sounds the alarm that Ukraine’s crippling debt is being used as a leverage by the financial institutions to drive post-war reconstruction towards further privatization and liberalization reforms in several sectors, including agriculture.
“This is a lose-lose situation for Ukrainians. While they are dying to defend their land, financial institutions are insidiously supporting the consolidation of farmland by oligarchs and Western financial interests. At a time when the country faces the horrors of the war, the government and Western institutions must listen to the calls made by the Ukrainian civil society, academics, and farmers to suspend the land law and all land transactions. The necessity to prioritize an agricultural model no longer dominated by oligarchy and corruption, where land and resources are controlled by and benefit all Ukrainians, is the way forward for post war reconstruction,” Mousseau concluded.
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Ukraine is the first flashpoint in a great power struggle between the United States and China. After years of shifting its industries to low-wage locations around the world, the US finds itself steadily losing market-share to a faster-growing and more resourceful China. By most estimates, China’s economy will overtake the United States by 2035 at which point, Beijing will be in a much better position to shape international trade relations in a way that promotes its own interests. With growth comes power, and that rule will certainly apply to China as well.
China has emerged as an industrial powerhouse that sits at the very epicenter of the most populous and fastest growing region in the world. It is for that reason that the United States has initiated a series of provocations on the island of Taiwan and in the South China Sea. The US has abandoned all hope of prevailing over China through conventional free market competition. Instead, the US plans to engage China militarily in a desperate attempt to drain its resources, garner broader support for economic sanctions and isolate isolate China from its regional trading partners. It is a risky and disruptive plan that could backfire spectacularly, but Washington is moving forward regardless. US foreign policy mandarins and their globalist allies will not accept an outcome in which China is the world’s biggest and most powerful economy. This is from an article at China Macro Economy:
Although the pace of China’s economic rise has slowed in recent years, it appears on track to end the United States’ lengthy run as the world’s largest economy by around 2035, according to the latest projection by economists at Goldman Sachs.
The new estimate is 10 years later than the investment bank had predicted in 2011. But economists Kevin Daly and Tadas Gedminas said that potential growth in China still remains significantly higher than in the US.
“China has already closed most of the gap with US GDP,” they said in a report published on Tuesday, adding that China’s gross domestic product has risen from 12 per cent of the US’ in 2000 to a little under 80 per cent.
China’s annual economic growth will be around 4 per cent from 2024 to 2029, compared with 1.9 per cent in the US, according to the report, which projects what the global economy will look like through 2075….
The US dollar’s exceptional strength over the past 10 years is another reason for the 10-year revision in when China’s economy will become No 1, Daly added… But the US dollar’s strength versus the Chinese yuan is likely to diminish over the coming decade,providing more ground for China to overtake the US, according to the report.
Naturally, the financialization of the US economy has greatly impacted America’s prospects for the future. The rise of Wall Street has led to a myriad of debt-leveraging scams that have enriched a handfull of wealthy bankers while diverting trillions in capital to unproductive activities. At the same time, the absence of any coherent industrial policy has triggered the flight of tens of thousands of businesses and factories that relocated to countries that offer an endless supply of low-wage labor. The problem, of course, is that mounting policy errors eventually lead to a drop-off in productivity which allows other, more ambitious countries to fill the void. In short, the Chinese Miracle is largely attributable to financialization and the short-sighted policies that allowed US corporations to move their industries elsewhere rather than provide incentives for them to stay in America. Bottom line: China’s economy is overtaking the US and there is nothing short of nuclear war that can reverse that situation.
In recent weeks, there has been a steady uptick in negative coverage of China in the media along with the predictable attacks on President Xi Jinping. Americans have seen this show many times before and should have a clear understanding of what it means. The demonization of foreign leaders is always the first step towards war. The media led the charge against Saddam, Qaddafi, Milosevic, Putin and countless others. Now China’s Jinping is in the imperial crosshairs. The names change, but the process remains the same. Already, the provocations, sanctions and slanders have begun to pile-up even while brainwashed Americans are led by-the-nose to another bloody conflict.
If there is a war between the two countries, the economic fallout is likely to be catastrophic. Consider, for a minute, how many American and European companies would be severely impacted by a US-China conflict. Here’s an excerpt from an article at Registration China:
By the end of 2020, a total of 1,040,480 foreign companies were registered in Mainland China, the Official data was provided by the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM)…. According to the official data, China had established a total of 961,000 Foreign-Invested Enterprises (FIE) until the end of 2018, with the actual use of foreign capital of US $2.1 trillion…. The results show that the number of foreign-invested enterprises is keep on increasing in 2021… (“How many Foreign Companies in China?”, GWBMA
1 million foreign-owned companies in China? That is simply astonishing.
And how do these companies generate their profits?
They generate profits by selling their products to the people back home. Check out this excerpt from an older article at NBC News which explains how it works:
“If the United States does decide to impose tariffs on China, Chen said, American companies operating in China, which account for more than 60 percent of China’s exports to the United States, would surely be hurt the most. ‘In the end,’ Chen said, ‘America is the one that needs to adjust.’
“While some analysts have predicted that China would soon start to let the yuan appreciate, Chen’s interview illustrated the fact that there is a strong lobby in China opposing revaluation. One reason why a revaluation would be dangerous for China, Chen said, is that profit margins for Chinese exporters are tiny — ranging from 1.7 to two percentage points.” (“China’s commerce minister: U.S. has the most to lose in a trade war” NBC News)
“American companies… account for more than 60 percent of China’s exports to the United States”? Is that possible? In other words, US companies that moved to their businesses to China are making money off many of the same people they laid off in order to generate bigger profits.
And, at the same time, the profits for the host-nation (China) are a measly 1.7 percent; hardly enough to make it worth their while. The multinationals are making the windfall, not China. So why is China blamed for America’s shrinking share of global output? As Carolyn Bartholomew said in The American Prospect some years ago:
“China policy has, over the past two decades, been driven by the interests of the multinational corporations, and those global firms have benefited from many of China’s policies.Starting several decades ago, it was a handful of the exporting elite — Boeing, Motorola, and GE among them — who argued persuasively to the Bush, Clinton, and Bush administrations that U.S. economic interests would be served if only these companies had access to the Chinese consumer…… Today, of course, we see the result of that sort of thinking. With the global economic crisis, American workers have ended up without jobs and without pension funds.
“….At the behest of U.S. based multinationals, Washington has championed the causes of corporate interests masquerading as free trade.” (“The Great Industrial Wall of China”, Carolyn Bartholomew, The American Prospect)
So, the question is: Aren’t we blaming China for policies that were pushed through by powerful corporations and their plutocrat bosses?
It certainly looks that way. And, if that is the case, then we can assume that Washington’s drive to war is not fueled by anxiety over which country’s economy will be bigger than the others, but by the Chinese government’s resistence to the political meddling and machinations of foreign oligarchs. That’s what’s really going on. Billionaire elites want to insinuate themselves into the political apparatus just like they have nations across the west, but the Communist government won’t allow it. Take a look at this excerpt from an article that author Ron Unz wrote more than ten years ago:
The rise of China surely ranks among the most important world developments of the last 100 years…. and the Chinese economy poised to surpass our own before the end of this decade...
During the three decades to 2010, China achieved perhaps the most rapid sustained rate of economic development in the history of the human species, with its real economy growing almost 40-fold between 1978 and 2010. In 1978, America’s economy was 15 times larger, but according to most international estimates, China is now set to surpass America’s total economic output within just another few years….
Furthermore, the vast majority of China’s newly created economic wealth has flowed to ordinary Chinese workers, who have moved from oxen and bicycles to the verge of automobiles in just a single generation. While median American incomes have been stagnant for almost forty years, those in China have nearly doubled every decade, with the real wages of workers outside the farm-sector rising about 150 percent over the last ten years alone....
A World Bank report recently highlighted the huge drop in global poverty rates from 1980 to 2008, but critics noted that over 100 percent of that decline came from China alone: the number of Chinese living in dire poverty fell by a remarkable 662 million, while the impoverished population in the rest of the world actually rose by 13 million. ..
Over the last decade alone, China quadrupled its industrial output, which is now comparable to that of the U.S…
Against the backdrop of remarkable Chinese progress, America mostly presents a very gloomy picture. …Over the last 40 years, a large majority of American workers have seen their real incomes stagnate or decline. ...
Decay of Constitutional Democracy
The central theme of Why Nations Fail is that political institutions and the behavior of ruling elites largely determine the economic success or failure of countries. If most Americans have experienced virtually no economic gains for decades, perhaps we should cast our gaze at these factors in our own society….
Our Extractive Elites
When parasitic elites govern a society along “extractive” lines, a central feature is the massive upward flow of extracted wealth, regardless of any contrary laws or regulations. Certainly America has experienced an enormous growth of officially tolerated corruption as our political system has increasingly consolidated into a one-party state controlled by a unified media-plutocracy….
A society’s media and academic organs constitute the sensory apparatus and central nervous system of its body politic, and if the information these provide is seriously misleading, looming dangers may fester and grow. A media and academy that are highly corrupt or dishonest constitute a deadly national peril…. America’s own societal information system is vastly more skilled and experienced in shaping reality to meet the needs of business and government leaders, and this very success does tremendous damage to our country….
… we must admit that Richard Lynn, a prominent British scholar, has been correct in predicting for a decade or longer that the global dominance of the European-derived peoples is rapidly drawing to its end and within the foreseeable future the torch of human progress and world leadership will inevitably pass into Chinese hands.” (“China’s Rise, America’s Fall; Which superpower is more threatened by its “extractive elites”?, Ron Unz, The American Conservative
Prescient words, indeed, but not entirely unexpected given the deep polarization and political dysfunction in the western democracies. If similar divisions exist in China, they certainly aren’t apparent to the outsider. What an objective critic sees is a long-repressed country whose explosive energy has been skillfully harnassed by a ruling body that has raised nearly 800 million people out of poverty (an unprecedented and historic achievement) while– at the same time– creating a socially-unifying goal (The Belt and Road Initiative) that serves as the shared vision for the future.
The Biden administration is commited to containing China in a bid to maintain its predominance in the global order. But Washington has no grand multi trillion-dollar infrastructure plan that would serve as a substitute for China’s Belt and Road project. In fact, Washington has no vision for the future at all. What Washington offers is another century of sanctions, regime change and war. It would be far better for the world if China was allowed to move ahead with its massive global-integration project without the threat of US intervention, meddling or violence. Unfortunately, the Biden team has other things in mind.
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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.
Michael Whitney is a renowned geopolitical and social analyst based in Washington State. He initiated his career as an independent citizen-journalist in 2002 with a commitment to honest journalism, social justice and World peace.
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
All images in this article are from TUR except for the featured image which is from OneWorld
Died suddenly. Horrible breaking news that Dr. Makis just dropped. Many dropped while playing their sports and many died in their sleep. Parents and grandparents must pay close attention to their vaccinated kids.
“Profits in the billions of dollars were the driving-force behind this diabolical agenda. “Killing is Good Business”. What we are witnessing is a crime against humanity on an unprecedented scale, affecting the lives of the entire population of our planet”.
The “covid was a lab leak” story was always a back door official narrative that reinforced the reality of the “pandemic” while appearing to be a suppressed “alternative”.
The US House of Representatives on 27 February approved Resolution 132, which urges the White House to “remain committed” to implementing unilateral economic sanctions on quake-struck Syria.
When it comes to explaining away the single largest ecological catastrophe in the history of America, the EPA and Ohio officials just can’t seem to get their stories straight. Every explanation they offer is a contradiction or cover-up. And they refuse to test for the one thing that poses the greatest health hazard of all: DIOXINS.
Hundreds of schoolgirls in Iran have been hospitalised in recent weeks after being poisoned by what officials have described as an “intentional” gas attack. Although incidents have been reported across the country, the majority of cases have centred around the holy city of Qom.
According to a February 17 Le Devoir calculation, Canada has delivered $2.26 billion in weapons to Ukraine. The paper costed 17 different announcements, which include 4 heavy tanks, 4,200 single-use rocket launchers, an anti-aircraft missile system, 4 howitzers with 27,000 shells, 76 drone cameras, 247 armored vehicles and more.
The escalating violence in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank has been inevitable for a long time. The century-old Zionist project in Palestine has always been colonisation and exclusion or subjugation of indigenous Palestinians. The problem is, of course, that the Zionists and Israel launched their project as European colonisation of Asian, African and American territories was winding down and indigenous independence movements were rising up against colonial masters.
The UN is worried about climate change. As the efforts to reduce CO2 emissions are faltering, the UN is looking for more ways to cool the Earth. The UNEP’s report details ideas called “Solar Radiation Modification,” the gist of which is to reflect sunlight and prevent it from heating the surface of our planet.
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“New York. Protest for medical freedom, outside Pfizer headquarters, with protesters carrying signs for the Vax injured.
The dam is breaking, they have forgotten that they have to answer to the people. And in the end, the people will not be silenced!”
Video in English
New York. Manifestation pour la liberté médicale, devant le siège social de Pfizer, avec des manifestants portant des pancartes pour les blessés du Vax.
Le barrage se brise, ils ont oublié qu'ils doivent répondre au peuple. Et à la fin, le peuple ne sera pas réduit au silence ! pic.twitter.com/9x6NtfpIYf
In solidarity. We are dealing with a criminal entity
Did You Know? Pfizer Has a Criminal Record
Of significance, never mentioned by the media or acknowledged by our governments, Pfizer is the only Pharmaceutical Company which has a criminal record with the US Department of Justice.
How on earth can we trust a Big Pharma vaccine conglomerate which pleaded guilty to criminal charges by the US Department of Justice including “fraudulent marketing” and “felony violation of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act”?
People were never informed. Both the media and the governments “turned a blind eye”.
Today, we are not dealing with an issue of “fraudulent marketing”: The roll out of Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine in December 2o2o is beyond criminality, it’s genocide.
$2.3 Billion Medical Fraud settlement with Pfizer.
Statement by DOJ Associate Attorney General Thomas Perelli (2009)
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Featured image is a screenshot from the video
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
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***
The “covid was a lab leak” story was always a back door official narrative that reinforced the reality of the “pandemic” while appearing to be a suppressed “alternative”.
You know, one of those “suppressed alternatives” that end up in the WSJ.
It’s now going to be used to finally bury any hope that 2020-21 will wake us up to the full modern reality of geopolitics.
Remember the grotesque spectacle of supposedly ideologically opposed world leaders all in lockstep, promoting the non-existent “pandemic”, giving the same advice, talking the same talk?
Yeah, they’d much rather you didn’t remember that…
Do you recall how suddenly it was so obvious what they all were?
Little actors, with their lines carefully written for them, scurrying about doing as they’re bidden by forces we had heretofore barely realized were operational?
They suddenly looked so small & ridiculous didn’t they – in their masks & bio-hazard costumes. Speaking with one voice – that belonged to none of them.
We could see they were just employees toeing some company line.
ALL of them. East & West. Left & Right. Putin & Biden. Trump & Xi. All differences forgotten. All rivalries put aside.
Just to sell a lie.
And kill some people with “solutions” to a problem they knew did not exist.
Remember the shock factor as realization dawned – my God, they are literally all in this together and not even pretending otherwise.
Remember how it started to wake us up – like we had never been before?
We had to abandon all our “heroes” because they all abandoned us. Or made it clear they had never really been with us.
They took the covid shilling & got in line to read from the covid script & forced us to face the fact they had never been what we thought they were.
That the world in fact had never been what we thought it was.
I think covid was supposed to launch a brand new geopolitical narrative. I think it was to be the end of “conflict” and the start of the world “coming together” to face a “common threat”.
And I think, like good little actors our global leaders and our tame media were all given new scripts and new motivations. “Ok, guys, in this scene, you’re no longer enemies. You’re seeing that human beings need to work together to overcome terrible existential threats…”
The plan was to get that New Normal communitarian nightmare world all locked in place before we could react – or even get a bead on what was going on.
It was Agenda 2030 in quick time. Six months, not ten years. A bold headlong dash instead of the usual steady creep.
It was crazy.
And it didn’t work.
The fear factor never got high enough. The obvious non-existence of the “threat” became too clear too quickly to too many.
There was pushback. They had to halt and retreat.
And today the New Normal remains just a half-built prison.
They’re still working at it but they have gone back to slow and steady and the 2030 goal. One “shortage”, one act of censorship, one tiny new legislative incursion at a time.
And meanwhile what they REALLY need from us is that we all stop thinking about what we just saw.
It didn’t happen!
You didn’t see supposed autonomous and diametrically oppositional world leaders all suddenly stop being autonomous and oppositional – as if by magic.
You didn’t see them adopt totally new personas on cue and meekly start selling the same pandemic lies, and culling their populations with the same lockdowns & useless toxic vaccines.
It did not look for all the world as if they were all on the same side, working for the same goals.
You didn’t get any kind of glimpse behind the curtain.
You didn’t suddenly get to see how superficial and performative global politics must be.
The New Normal? Please. It was just the old normal, ok? – and frankly we’d be grateful if you’d stop using that particular phrase.
The Great Reset? What even was that? Big ole nothing burger is all.
NO. You were mistaken. Imagining things. Being a conspiracy theorist.
Global politics is NOT performative. Conflicts CAN’T all be turned off in a second when it becomes convenient to do so. And any impression they can was purely accidental/imaginary.
In fact look over there – a war has started! And we can’t stop or prevent it!
See, all nice and old normal.
Oh and ok -sigh… “covid” was a lab leak bioweapon…
We feel forced to admit it.
It was those pesky Russians.
Or maybe those awful Yanks.
Or the Chinese.
Or maybe the Iranians.
Or could be ISIS I guess.
Or Israel.
Pick your side. Any side. We don’t really mind which.
Just so long as you totally forget the most important lesson you are ever going to learn about the nature of geopolitics.
Because if you remember it we are rather screwed, and you will be able to set yourself free.
And we don’t want that do we.
What a dreadful unintended consequence of our crazy little covid gamble that would be!
An awake and free world! – Horrible.
No, boys and girls (and “others”), don’t be playing with any of that nonsense.
Just come back to what you know.
The old show. The familiar songs.
Just keep your seat in our theater.
You know you want to really. It’s warm in here. And kind of reassuring.
Just keep buying our tasty popcorn, keep watching our shows. Cheer your chosen good guys, hiss at your chosen baddies.
All we ask is you never – ever – notice that brick wall at the back.
Or if you do notice it – look away and pretend you don’t.
And by the way, have you ever thought that while prisons might not be free – they are lovely and safe.
Just a thought to leave with you – for future reference.
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This article was originally published on OffGuardian.
Featured image is from OffGuardian
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (desktop version)
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
***
It has been at least a year and a half since the political West drastically intensified its weapons shipments to the Kiev regime. Ever since, the black markets have been flooded with Western-made arms and munitions, some of which have even started running out from NATO stocks. As late as December, top Western officials have complained about this, including the Pentagon’s Deputy Inspector General for Investigations James R. Ives, who admitted that the US is aware of the lack of effective mechanisms to track Ukraine-bound NATO weapons. Several major US media have called for the Biden administration to send investigators to audit and oversee the use of more than $110 billion in US military and economic “aid” to the Kiev regime.
And yet, the true understanding of the massive scale of this is sorely lacking in the political West. Perhaps it is even being ignored, but the consequences are already there. In addition, while the mainstream propaganda machine is lionizing the Kiev regime forces, presenting them as some sort of mythical heroes supposedly “defending” Europe, the West and the so-called “Euro-Atlantic values”, the Neo-Nazi junta troops’ role is crucial in what can only be described as the world’s largest arms smuggling scheme. Also, this certainly doesn’t exonerate the rest of the Kiev regime and the corrupt oligarchs supporting it, as they too are getting their “slice of the cake”.
Corruption is endemic in Ukraine, but ever since the NATO-backed Neo-Nazi coup in 2014, it has worsened dramatically as the political West started showering the already crooked politicians and bureaucrats with tens of billions of dollars. Everyone from the managers of military warehouses, company and battalion commanders, top military officers, directors of the Kiev regime’s military-industrial complex to the defense minister himself, are engaged in essentially stealing NATO-sourced weapons and then reselling them on the Darknet. The list of those involved also includes the office of the president, the cabinet of ministers, security services and military intelligence.
Up until several years ago, the massive stocks of Soviet-era weapons in Ukraine were the main source of smuggled weapons. However, despite inheriting approximately 30% of the Soviet military, Ukraine somehow managed to expend most of it, much of it ending up on the black markets around the globe. The political West was perfectly aware of this, as NATO had a major role in reselling the weapons to terrorist groups they support in many of the targeted countries. And yet, they still went ahead and provided tens of billions in Western weapons and munitions to the same people smuggling their own for decades.
There’s even fierce competition among Kiev regime institutions for the right to control the extremely profitable arms smuggling business. This includes various intelligence services, such as the SBU and GUR. The latter is the main military intelligence agency which is supposed to play a major role in overseeing the transfer and distribution of NATO weapons. Thus, GUR has a substantial headstart in the arms smuggling scheme, which is causing a lot of envy and frustration in the SBU. Since August 2020, Kirill Budanov has been the head of GUR, a close ally of the Kiev regime frontman Volodymyr Zelensky, whose ties to the junta’s top officials allowed him to play a crucial role in the scheme.
On March 5, 2022, mere days after Russia launched its counteroffensive against NATO aggression in Europe, banker Denis Kireev, a member of the delegation for negotiations between Moscow and Kiev, was killed. According to the German publication Bild, Kireev “was shot dead by Ukrainian SBU counterintelligence while trying to avoid arrest.” Two days later, the GUR confirmed that Kireev was their employee, and Budanov himself stated that Kireev had been executed by the SBU, thus confirming that the fierce competition between the two agencies escalated from the very beginning of the special military operation (SMO). It is worth noting that the fact that the SBU and the GUR are “supervised” by various NATO intelligence services also played a major role in the conflict between the agencies.
For instance, the SBU is largely controlled by UK intelligence, primarily the infamous MI6. On the other hand, the GUR has been deeply connected to US services. The looming rivalry erupted after the political West intensified its arms shipments. Budanov’s headstart made it possible for the GUR to oversee the largest contracts for the transfer of Western weapons, further strengthening his position, a state of affairs the SBU didn’t take too kindly. Budanov also worked with intermediaries, such as the Incompass, a company headed by oligarch Sergei Slyusarenko. It is through such companies that GUR manages the supply of weapons from abroad.
Part of the funds embezzled through Incompass ends up in the pockets of Budanov and his associates, with the rest going to the presidential office and even Zelensky himself. In July 2022, the German SWR TV channel reported that Europol had identified “signs” of organized arms smuggling in Ukraine, but gave no further details in order not to incriminate the Kiev regime. The revelation came on the heels of a plane accident that happened in Greece, when a Ukrainian An-12BK aircraft belonging to Meridian, a company registered in Kiev, crashed on July 16, 2022. According to various reports, the airline was working closely with the Kiev regime, including the office of the president and the GUR.
Days before the crash, the plane made several flights to Ostrava (Czechia), Burgas (Bulgaria) and Rzeszow (Poland). The latter is the main NATO transport hub for supplying weapons and other military equipment to the Kiev regime. Each flight included “Stinger” MANPADS, “Javelin” and NLAW ATGMs. In total, approximately 12 tons of missile systems and munitions.
EU politicians, including German officials, also commented on the scandal, with Konstantin von Notz, spokesman for the Bundestag Home Affairs Committee from the “Greens”, acknowledging: “From the experience of the Kosovo war, we learned that weapons from conflict zones often fall into the hands of extremists and organized crime.” Von Notz demanded that the risk of weapons smuggling from Ukraine “be stopped at the international level.”
Additionally, the grain deal was also (ab)used extensively for this purpose, resulting in Russia’s decision to suspend it. The issue was discussed at a meeting of EU interior ministers on July 11, 2022, with Czech Defense Minister Yana Chernokhova admitting that “avoiding arms smuggling will be difficult – we did not achieve this in the former Yugoslavia and certainly will not be able to achieve it in Ukraine”.
This still leaves the question of whether Washington DC is even trying to oversee its massive arms shipments to the Neo-Nazi junta. Many US officials claim they’re unable to audit the weapons once they leave Poland, but the real issue is if they even want to know. Considering the nearly mythical status they’ve given to Zelensky, revealing his involvement with such criminal activities could be rather “uncomfortable” and might even backfire, further exacerbating the growing factionalism within the Neo-Nazi junta.
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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
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***
The US House of Representatives on 27 February approved Resolution 132, which urges the White House to “remain committed” to implementing unilateral economic sanctions on quake-struck Syria.
In a 414-2 vote, lawmakers resolved that Washington must “remain committed to the protection of the Syrian people including by implementing the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019.”
Republican representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie were the only ones to vote against the resolution. While neither has publicly commented on their vote, western media has painted their objection as a refusal to “mourn the victims” of last month’s earthquake.
“I am pleased the House overwhelmingly passed H. Res 132 … [which] urges the administration to remain committed to protecting the Syrian people, including by implementing the Caesar Act,” House Foreign Affairs ChairmanMichael McCaulsaid following Monday’s vote, stressing his “concern” about the growing push by Arab states to normalize ties with Damascus.
McCaul added that enforcing unilateral sanctions on Syria “must include disallowing any energy deal for Lebanon that benefits the Assad regime.”
Lebanon has been waiting since 2021 for Washington to provide Egypt, Jordan, and Syria with sanctions waivers to launch a desperately-needed energy sharing plan that the US embassy in Beirut brokered.
In 2019, the US Congress passed the Caesar Act, which strictly prohibited states, companies, and individuals from doing business with the Syrian government. This crushing sanctions package came on top of existing punitive measures imposed on Damascus since 2011.
US-imposed sanctions on the war-torn nation have contributed to the tragedy of the Syrians at a time when the country is in the midst of a major humanitarian crisis, with the US occupation and the Kurdish Autonomous Administration controlling vast areas of lands rich in oil, gas, and crops in the northeast of the country, in addition to the Turkish occupation of other regions.
Late last year, the US congress approved yet another sanctions regime against Syria with the so-called Captagon Act, which “constitutes an integrated plan, security, political and economic, to penetrate more into the vicinity of Syria and encircle it and prevent access to raw materials,” according to Syrian researcher Bassam Abdullah.
Monday’s resolution came just weeks after the White House was forced to issue a temporary sanctions waiver for Syria to allow the unimpeded entry of humanitarian aid to the country.
It also coincided with the US occupation army’s latest oil smuggling operation in northeast Syria.
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***
When it comes to explaining away the single largest ecological catastrophe in the history of America, the EPA and Ohio officials just can’t seem to get their stories straight. Every explanation they offer is a contradiction or cover-up. And they refuse to test for the one thing that poses the greatest health hazard of all: DIOXINS.
Dioxins are always created when chlorinated compounds are burned within a certain temperature range. They’re also the most deadly chemical compounds known to humankind, and they can be toxic at parts-per-quadrillion concentrations.
Put another way, it seems that they cause toxic effects on the human body at concentrations 100,000 times lower than where glyphosate begins to show toxicity. That’s just an estimate. The real number may be a million times or more.
Yet the EPA — and Ohio authorities — all refuse to test for dioxins. Or, at least, they refuse to release the test numbers publicly. No doubt they already have their own secret dioxin test results, and they are panicked over those numbers, trying to figure out how to sweep this whole problem under the rug without having to face the reality of an evacuation order that will likely soon be necessary.
The entire town of East Palestine may ultimately have to be condemned, razed and decontaminated. Instead, the EPA is spreading the toxic waste across multiple states. The recent effort to ship over a million gallon of this toxic waste to Texas was thwarted over the weekend, with the EPA now redirecting that toxic waste to Indiana and Ohio, the AP now reports.
And then there’s the issue of the tens of thousands of farms downwind from this disaster… and the countless families who depend on those farms for their food and livelihoods. If there really were no dioxins to be found, the EPA should have already conducted tests, found nothing and released the “all clear” test results publicly.
Why haven’t they done that?
It’s obvious: They’re covering up the dioxin contamination nightmare for as long as possible.
Here are just a few of the many contradictions now emerging from the EPA and Ohio government handling of this incident:
#1) Why are we told by the EPA that vinyl chloride toxic ignition fallout fumes are perfectly safe to live with, but carbon dioxide — necessary for all plant photosynthesis and rain forest growth — is a deadly “pollutant” that threatens human civilization?
Because “science.”
#2) Why are we told that the toxic chemical runoff from the firefighting water sprayed on the chemical fire is so toxic that it has to be injected deep underground so that it won’t surface for thousands of years, but also that the land and water where all those chemicals rained down is now perfectly safe and there’s nothing to worry about?
When it falls on your farm, it’s “safe.” When it falls on the sidewalk, it’s a deadly hazardous waste that must be disposed by an EPA-licensed hazardous waste disposal company.
#3) If the Texas-based hazardous waste disposal company Texas Molecular is already licensed to dispose of vinyl chloride, then why didn’t the railroad just mop up the vinyl chloride and send it to Texas Molecular instead of setting it on fire, creating millions of gallons of contaminated firefighting water?
Just think, you would only be dealing with a few hundred thousand gallons of toxins instead of millions of gallons of toxic water (plus the toxic cloud, fallout, etc.). Whatever happened to the idea of “containment?”
#4) Why are both the EPA and Ohio state authorities completely unwilling to test the surrounding farms for dioxins (which are toxic at parts-per-quadrillion exposure concentrations) but they claim everything is safe enough for families, children and pregnant women to return?
It won’t be long before children are born with birth defects and missing limbs. The EPA already knows this. Maybe they plan to “Tiffany Dover” all the deformed babies or call for post-birth abortions to hide the evidence of their crimes against humanity…
#5) Why do people who already left East Palestine and healed from their original exposure start getting sick again when they return to East Palestine?
Breitbart.com reports on this, revealing how people who feel better after they leave the area begin to experience horrible symptoms as they return.
“Maybe it’s something in the air…”
#6) Every decision made by authorities about how to handle the chemicals had the result of SPREADING them, not containing them
You couldn’t write a better script on how to spread toxic chemicals across multiple states, running the toxic water to Texas and Indiana, while unleashing a toxic cloud over multiple northeastern states. If containment was the goal, the EPA failed miserably.
If only they could contain these toxic molecules as effectively as they contained news about Hunter Biden’s laptop…
#7) If East Palestine first responders had 1.8 million gallons of water to spray on the fire that officials ignited, then they also had enough water to put out the initial small fires that they claim placed the tanker cars at risk (which led to them emptying those cars and igniting the vinyl chloride).
Clearly they had millions of gallons of water available to put out fires. So why didn’t they put out the initial fire and stop this entire disaster from the beginning? Which genius came up with the idea, “Hey let’s set fire to these chemicals because that will make them go away…”
#8) We are told that they had to set fire to the vinyl chloride which had been emptied from the rail tanker cars in order to prevent the risk of a tanker car explosion causing shrapnel injuries, but if the vinyl chloride was already emptied from the tanker cars, the shrapnel explosion risk was already eliminated
In other words, the moment the tanker cars were emptied of the chemical, they no longer had any justification for starting any fire at all. So why did they do it, then?
Likely answer: Somebody ordered them to do it, and they needed a cover story.
Straight-up ecological terrorism, disguised as a railroad accident.
We’re not actually being ruled by idiots, you see. We’re being gaslit by terrorists.
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***
Ministers briefly considered ordering all domestic cats in Britain to be killed amid fears they could be spreading Covid, a former health minister has said.
Lord Bethell said the concern about pets underlined how little was known about the disease at the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020.
“What we shouldn’t forget is how little we understood about this disease,” he told Channel 4 News. “There was a moment we were very unclear about whether domestic pets could transmit the disease.
“In fact, there was an idea at one moment that we might have to ask the public to exterminate all the cats in Britain. Can you imagine what would have happened if we had wanted to do that?
“And yet, for a moment there was a bit of evidence around that so that had to be investigated and closed down.”
Lord Bethell was Matt Hancock’s deputy in the Department of Health and Social from 2020 to 2021.
His comments came after The Telegraph began publishing details of tens of thousands of leaked Whatsapp messages exchanged between Mr Hancock and other senior figures during the pandemic.
Mr Hancock is fighting claims he rejected advice while health secretary to give Covid tests to all residents going into English care homes.
Mr Hancock’s spokesman said a report claiming he rejected clinical advice on care home testing was “flat wrong” because he was told it was “not currently possible” to carry out the tests.
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Hundreds of schoolgirls in Iran have been hospitalised in recent weeks after being poisoned by what officials have described as an “intentional” gas attack.
Although incidents have been reported across the country, the majority of cases have centred around the holy city of Qom.
BBC Persian reported that as many as 800 students in Qom had been poisoned so far, and that a number of cases had also been detected in the capital, Tehran. Younes Panahi, a deputy health minister, told media that the poisonings were likely intentional – though he later claimed he was misquoted – while Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, the attorney general, has also described them as “probably intentional”.
A doctor who treated some poisoned students told Middle East Eye the victims had “smelled something like the smell of sewage and salt, and had symptoms of dizziness, nausea and difficult breathing”.
He added that a number of those he treated said they had “seen a suspicious thing thrown inside the school”.
Yet so far, no one has been able to pinpoint who might be responsible, with some suggesting an attempt by ultra-conservatives to disrupt the education of girls and others pointing to anti-government opposition groups.
MEE spoke to a teacher in one of the schools affected by the poisoning. The teacher, who asked to remain anonymous, said two of her colleagues had also been hospitalised.
“The smell of the poison is like a rotten smell, but it is not gas – it is close to gas smell and at the same time it is something like a thick and pungent smell,” she explained.
“The students faced severe coughs and difficulty in breathing and some were hospitalised.”
Iran’s health ministry has been keen to stress that the effects of the poison have been mild, primarily causing “muscle weakness, lethargy, and nausea for a few hours”.
However, the repeated incidents have left parents deeply worried about sending their children to school, with the lack of information about the nature of the poison – and the culprits – further heightening fears.
“Of 550 people, only four students come to the school. The students are also terrified,” said the teacher.
“The poison effects are to the extent that some of the students aren’t able to walk for a few days.”
‘Extremist’ attacks?
A number of theories have spread about the possible motives for the poisoning of schoolgirls. A popular one is that religious fundamentalist groups may be attempting to prevent the education of women and girls.
One conservative cleric based in Qom, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he believed it could be the work of “extremists” inspired by the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan.
“The number of such extremists is not too much and they can mostly be found in Mashhad, Shiraz, Qom and Isfahan, but they are really a little minority,” he said.
He said these groups viewed the education of girls as spreading “corruption” and undermining both family and Islamic values.
“Such persons’ perception of the religion is reactionary, ridiculous and unwise,” he added.
Other religious and political figures concurred with this theory.
Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a cleric who was a senior figure in the reformist government of Mohammad Khatami, compared the possible culprits to the Africa-based militant group Boko Haram.
“Extremism, especially the religious ones, are the biggest danger to all societies,” warned Abtahi, while calling on the security apparatus to identify and arrest the extremists.
Meanwhile, Masoumeh Ebtekar, former vice president for women and family affairs, tweeted that the police and judiciary needed to act “immediately” and compared the incidents to a series of acid attacks in the city of Isfahan in 2014, which allegedly targeted women not wearing “appropriate” hijab.
یکماه است که جنایت مسموم کردن دختران تکرار می شود همه منتظرند بخشهای انتظامی و قضایی فورا اقدام کنند چرا اینهمه تعلل؟ نکندمثل اسیدپاشان اصفهان شود! آیا نسبتی بین عدم تصویب قوانین نفی خشونت علیه زنان و این وقایع وجود دارد؟ یک بار برای همیشه حجت را بر متحجران ضد زن تمام کنید.
A number of people have called on the government to treat the poisoning as terror related and launch counterterrorism investigations.
According to the state-backed Fars News Agency, the security services arrested three suspects on Tuesday in connection with the poisoning.
Fars said there were “unconfirmed” reports linking the poisonings to the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), an Iranian opposition group dedicated to the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.
Although the MEK – who initially supported the 1979 Islamic Revolution, before falling out with the post-Shah administration – carried out numerous deadly bomb attacks in the country in the 1980s, in recent decades they have focused primarily on lobbying foreign governments and campaigning internationally against the Islamic Republic.
On Wednesday, the state-backed Tasnim news agency said there had been another gas attack in the northern city of Ardabil which had forced the hospitalisation of 108 students. The news agency also reported further poisonings at three schools in Tehran.
The ambiguity around the attacks and the lack of information from the government have stoked anger across the country.
Parents have protested outside Qom’s governorate building, calling for more to be done to protect their children.
The poisonings have also come in the wake of months of mass demonstrations that focused on the treatment of women in the country, sparked by the death of Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in custody following her arrest for “inappropriate hijab”.
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***
Over the past year Ottawa has given Ukraine over $2 billion in weapons. The size of the arms donation is unprecedented in Canadian history.
According to a February 17 Le Devoir calculation, Canada has delivered $2.26 billion in weapons to Ukraine. The paper costed 17 different announcements, which include 4 heavy tanks, 4,200 single-use rocket launchers, an anti-aircraft missile system, 4 howitzers with 27,000 shells, 76 drone cameras, 247 armored vehicles and more. On Friday the Liberals announced they were sending four more heavy tanks, an armored recovery vehicle and more than 5,000 rounds of ammunition.
Since World War II, this quantity of arms donations is unprecedented. The only example that may be comparable is the arms Canada transferred through NATO’s Mutual Aid Program in the decade after the alliance was created. Between 1950 and 1958 Ottawa donated $1.53 billion ($9 billion today) in ammunition, fighter jets, military training, etc. to European NATO countries.
Through this program Canada armed France, Belgium and Britain as they violently suppressed independence struggles in Algeria, Congo, Kenya and elsewhere. In reference to France’s bid to suppress the Vietnamese independence movements, external affairs minister Lester Pearson told Parliament in 1953 that “the assistance we have given to France as a member of the NATO association may have helped her recently in the discharge of some of her obligations in Indo-China.” With 400,000 French troops in Algeria in 1956 Canada transferred hundreds of thousands of bullets to that country.
During the 1950s and 60s Ottawa armed the colonial powers rather than the independence movements. In subsequent years it sold significant amounts of weapons to the US, not the Vietnamese resistance. Likewise, it armed the South African apartheid regime in the 1970s, not Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress. During the 1980s Canadian firms sold Indonesia weapons, not the East Timorese independence movement.
Today, Canada is selling weapons to Saudi Arabia, not the Houthis fighting a vicious foreign invasion of their country. Similarly, Canadian firms sell arms to Israel, not the Palestinians resisting an illegal occupation.
Just months before Russia’s invasion last year, Rwanda instigated a new wave of violence in its three-decade long destruction of eastern Congo. Sending a fraction of the weapons Canada has given Ukraine to Congo would likely end Rwanda’s violence. Or Ottawa could halt Kigali’s violence by severing aid to Rwanda and launching a major diplomatic campaign against it.
Similarly, if Canada and Europe announced a boycott of all contacts and trade with Israel until that country ended its system of apartheid and the illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, change would come quickly.
If Ottawa were truly concerned about sovereignty and international law, wouldn’t it send weapons where they would be most effective in ending foreign aggression and the breaking of international law?
The truth is, rather than defend a country invaded by its neighbor, Canada’s massive arms shipments to Ukraine is designed to fuel and escalate an eight-year-old proxy war that Russia massively expanded 12 months ago. Last week foreign affairs minister Melanie Joly declared, “right now, it’s not time to talk about peace, it is time to arm them.”
Joly went on to say, “I never thought as a progressive politician that I would be saying that.” The foreign minister’s claim to be fighting for peace is nonsense. Amidst Russia massing 100,000 troops on its border with Ukraine 13 months ago, Joly traveled to Ukraine to promote NATO expansion, knowing it would increase the likelihood of Russia invading. Additionally, Joly ignored the Minsk II peace accord (the only time she mentioned it was the day after Vladimir Putin recognized the People’s Republic of Luhansk and Donetsk when she could blame Moscow for breaking the accord). Beginning in 2015 Canada’s Operation Unifier military training mission undermined the Minsk peace accord and helped make Ukraine a de facto member of NATO. A year earlier Ottawa helped overthrow elected president Victor Yanukovich who opposed Ukraine joining NATO.
Canada’s open conflict with Russia over the past decade is part of a historic geopolitical struggle to reduce that country’s size and influence. A small number of Canadians fought with the British during the 1850s Crimean war and 6,000 Canadians along with British, American, French and other allied troops invaded Russia in 1918. Afterwards Ottawa refused to recognize the Bolshevik government for more than a decade and promoted Eastern European nationalism during the Cold War. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union Ottawa has devoted significant resources to promoting anti-Russian forces in Ukraine. It immediately began funding anti-Russian Ukrainian civil society groups, which was on display with Canada’s significant role in the 2004 Orange Revolution.
Washington and Ottawa look set to continue fueling the fighting in Ukraine as part of the old geopolitical game. For supporters of the US empire billions of dollars in weapons is a price worth paying to weaken Russia. Hundreds of thousands of lives are not factored into the cost or can be ignored because they are Russians and Ukrainians.
Fortunately, cracks are appearing in the Canadian consensus when it comes to the policy of “fighting to the last Ukrainian”. On CBC The House last week Green party co-leader Jonathan Pedneault criticized “supplying weapons in active conflict areas” while a recent poll suggests the public is becoming increasingly weary of sending ever more arms. Canadians increasingly want peace talks.
Over the weekend, protests critical of Canadian policy were held in a half dozen cities. On Saturday in Montréal 150 rallied in the bitter cold under the banner “No to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. No to NATO’s encirclement of Russia”. They joined over 10,000 in Berlin and thousands in London over the weekend as well as thousands more in Washington DC and Munich the previous weekend.
More and more Canadians of conscience have decided it’s time to stop the madness. Time to end arms shipments now.
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Yves Engler’s latest book is Stand on Guard for Whom?: A People’s History of the Canadian Military.
Featured image: Intertwined flags of the Ukraine and Canada. Image source: Euromaidan Press.
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***
A series of antiwar protests over the weekend saw Western European citizens in mass demanding their governments pursue diplomacy with Russia and halt arms shipments to Kiev. As the current conflict in Ukraine turned one year old, major demonstrations – which saw people united across the political spectrum – were seen in Germany, France, and Italy.
10,000 people gathered in Paris to protest against France’s membership in both NATO as well as the EU. Attendees also demanded an end to the French government’s military aid to Kiev. The demonstration, dubbed the “National March for Peace” was organized by the right-wing Les Patriotes party. According to the group’s leader Florian Philippot – who joined the Paris rally himself – similar but smaller protests were held at 30 other locations throughout the country on Sunday.
On Saturday, thousands of people participated in peace demonstrations in the Italian cities of Genoa and Milan. In Genoa, the rally focused on ending weapons shipments to Ukraine and was organized by union members and left-wing activists, whose slogan was “Lower weapons, raise wages.” 4,000 people from across Italy joined the Genoa protest, along with people from France and Switzerland as well, according to local media reports.
The Collective Autonomous Port Workers (CALP) helped organize the rally with the Italian communist party. They demanded the port of Genoa’s facilities no longer be used to facilitate arms shipments to Ukraine.
CALP’s Riccardo Rudino pointed out that “the conflict in Ukraine did not begin last year” but rather “in 2014, with the massacre of the Russian-speaking population of the Donbass.”
Following the U.S. backed 2014 coup in Kiev – which overthrew the government of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych – Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, while over 14,000 people were killed, including thousands of civilians, in Kiev’s war on the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.
In London, a large group carried out a similar demonstration calling for peace in Ukraine and an end to the British government’s weapons transfers to Kiev. The event was held by Stop the War Coalition at Portland Place in Central London and was attended by former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Many thousands of people participated in a massive protest in central Berlin, where attendees railed against German military aid to Kiev. The protesters, who were massed at the Brandenburg Gate, demanded additionally that their government engage Russia in peace talks and bring the war in Ukraine to an end.
The organizers say as many as 50,000 people joined the “Uprising for Peace” demonstrations. However, the police offered a lower-end estimate of 13,000 people in attendance. The event was organized by Sahra Wagenknecht, a member of the Links Party (the Left Party) in Germany, as well as a feminist author and campaigner Alice Schwarzer.
Wagenknecht declared neo-Nazis were not welcome at the protest, but anyone else who desired peace “with an honest heart” was welcome to attend. During her speech at the event, Wagenknecht declared the creation of a “new, strong peace movement in Germany.”
She also observed that the myriad protestors were united by the fact that they do not feel represented by the government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, in their decision to supply Kiev with weaponry, including main battle tanks.
In a reference to the drastic escalation of Berlin’s involvement in the war since last year, some banners read “Helmets today, tanks tomorrow, the day after tomorrow your sons.”
Other banners carried by the protesters bore such anti war slogans as “Stop the Killing,” “Not My War, Not My Government,” and “Diplomats instead of grenades.”
Two weeks prior to the protest, Wagenknecht and Schwarzer published a “Manifest for Peace” which demanded that Scholz “stop the escalation in weapons deliveries.” The petition has reportedly garnered more than 650,000 signatures, including some prominent intellectuals and political figures.
This weekend’s massive protests in Berlin followed a smaller demonstration at the end of January in Nuremberg, where participants rallied against Scholz’s decision to provide Leopard 2 battle tanks to Kiev. This month, around 10,000 people also protested in Munich during the Munich Security Conference, where Western leaders discussed funding, arming and training Ukrainian forces “as long as it takes” to defeat Russia.
Also on Sunday, in southwestern Germany, protesters gathered at the Ramstein air base – where the Ukraine Defense Contact Group’s meetings on arming Kiev are held – calling for an end to the weapons deliveries while demanding the U.S. Air Force to “go home.”
In Nuremberg, protestors expressed their dire concerns that the German people were being dragged into another war with Russia. As one demonstrator commented “If we Germans get involved in a war, and I personally do not have a war with Russia, then for us Germans, based on history, it is the worst sign that we can send.” The demonstrator continued, “no war must go through Germany, neither with arms deliveries nor anything else, because otherwise, Germany will be in the middle of it again.” He believes this is just what “America wants.”
The latest protests in Germany took place against the backdrop of veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh’s bombshell report “How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline.”
Before the war began, Russia provided roughly a third of Europe’s gas, while Germany depended on Moscow for more than half of its gas supplies. After the Nord Stream pipelines were sabotaged, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to ship gas to Europe via an undamaged line in Nord Stream 2. This offer was quickly rejected by Berlin.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken celebrated the blasts in the Baltic Sea – which, according to Hersh, were caused by explosives planted by U.S. Navy divers and detonated with a sonar buoy dropped by a Norwegian spy plane. Blinken described the attack as a “tremendous strategic opportunity” to wean Europe off its dependency on cheap Russian energy “for the years to come.” Since the attack, which led to possibly the largest ever leak of methane gas, the U.S. and Norway have taken Russia’s place as Europe’s top natural gas suppliers.
As a result of the economic war on Russia led by the U.S., people across Europe have suffered skyrocketing gas prices and inflation, leaving some struggling to heat their homes during the frigid winter months. The strain is beginning to show, likely playing some role in motivating the spate of protest actions in recent days. Last year, tens of thousands attended similar demonstrations in Italy, Germany, France, and the Czech Republic, with many voicing outrage over pricey foreign aid to Ukraine as their living standards continue to plummet.
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Connor Freeman is the assistant editor and a writer at the Libertarian Institute, primarily covering foreign policy. He is a co-host on Conflicts of Interest.
Will Porter is the assistant news editor of the Libertarian Institute and a staff writer and editor at RT.
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***
The escalating violence in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank has been inevitable for a long time. The century-old Zionist project in Palestine has always been colonisation and exclusion or subjugation of indigenous Palestinians. The problem is, of course, that the Zionists and Israel launched their project as European colonisation of Asian, African and American territories was winding down and indigenous independence movements were rising up against colonial masters.
Palestinians can no longer tolerate constant Israeli abuse by settlers who threaten and attack Palestinian children walking to school, farmers harvesting their olive crop, householders in their homes and drivers travelling from one West Bank urban enclave to another. Palestinians are prepared to respond with stones, gun-fire and Molotov cocktails to Israeli military raids on refugee camps, cities, towns and villages. Consequently, at least 65 Palestinians and a dozen Israelis have died violently this year. Last year was the most deadly for both sides since 2005.
Palestinians did not figure in the 120-year-old Zionist campaign to colonise Palestine. The slogan, “A land without a people for a people without a land”, was first adopted by Christian Zionists in 1843 and subsequently by Jewish Zionists although his was a false premise for colonisation. The man who proposed the founding of a “Jewish State”, Theodor Herzl did not use this slogan as he visited Palestine and knew it to be false.
Overtly, he adopted a paternalistic line toward native Palestinians and said they would benefit from contact with European Jewish colonists. However, covertly, he wrote in his diaries that Palestinians could be pushed across the borders of their country “surreptitiously”. This was, in fact, what happened and is happening but not “surreptitiously” — as an existential aspect of Israeli policy. The very reference of the land as “Palestine” and “Palestinians” as its inhabitants challenges Israel’s legitimacy.
But modern-day Israelis cannot deny that Palestine and Palestinians have a long history. There is mention of “Philistines” in the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament. They were a sea-faring people thought to be from Crete who settled in southern Palestine in the 12th century BC about the same time as the Jewish tribes. They battled each other and the Canaanites who were the masters of the land. “Palalestine” rather than the names of the Jewish kingdoms was mentioned by the 5th century BC historian Herodotus to identify the district of Syria located between Egypt and Phoenicia.
Current attitudes toward Palestine and the Palestinian people were formed by British colonial rule of the country. This was rooted in the 1917 Balfour declaration which stated that the British government “viewed with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best efforts to facilitate this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine…” At that time, 92 per cent of the estimated 700,000 people in Palestine were Palestinian, 8 per cent were Jewish. Since then there has been a concerted effort to continue to deny Palestinians their identity as the indigenous people of the land.
At the time of Israel’s 1948 war of establishment, two-thirds of the population of Palestine was Palestinian. Consequently, if there was to be a Jewish state, the Zionists/Israelis had to clear the land they conquered of Palestinians. Of 1.37 million, 750,000 were driven from the 78 per cent of Palestine held by Israel and 150,000 remained in Israel. The former became “Arab refugees” and latter “Arab Israelis”. In the mouths of many if not most Israelis Palestinians became “Aravim”, aliens, inveterate enemies and, when they did not behave, “terrorists”. Their Palestinian origin was dismissed in the West.
The greatest contribution of Fateh’s leader Yasser Arafat was to put Palestine back on the map of the world, thereby propelling the Palestinian people to the forefront of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Arafat proclaimed victory on this issue in this protracted struggle in November 1974 in has address to the UN General Assembly when he proffered the gun or the olive branch as the means of resolving this conflict.
The Israelis chose the gun and colonisation of the 22 per cent of Palestine they conquered and occupied in 1967. Despite two Palestinian uprisings and promises of Palestinian independence in a truncated statelet, Israel has not wavered from this objective and has not been obstructed or sanctioned by the US, its primary sponsor, or complicit Europe and the United Nations.
This has allowed Israeli “settlers”, i.e., colonists to build up their numbers in East Jerusalem and the West Bank and, under Likud chief Binyamin Netanyahu, assume powerful positions in the government. Mainstream Israelis are largely responsible for the rise of the “settlers”, their legitimisation (while breaking international law by colonising occupied territory), and their entry into the mainstream. Before the settlers and the hard right took power, the mainstream majority ignored their ascendancy and did not visit the West Bank, occupied East Jerusalem or Gaza.
Many Israelis opted for “internal exile”, until a serious peace movement emerged during and after Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon with the aim of eliminating Arafat and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. While peaceniks favoured a “two-state solution” involving the emergence of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, their governments, whether Likud or Labour, stepped up colonisation in the land needed for this state. Colonisation continued even after the 1993 Oslo Accords were signed on the White House lawn and there were expectations that a Palestinian state would emerge by 1999. It was hardy surprising that this did not happen. Instead, colonisation has accelerated and under the current settler-friendly Netanyahu government will continue apace.
For him and his ministers, “Aravim” and “terrorists” constitute an obstacle to colonisation and the realisation of the 19th century Zionist project.
The colonists’ storming and burning of the Palestinian West Bank town of Hawara last Sunday was a direct result of Israeli duplicity: Of espousing the “two-state solution” while continuing colonisation. The colonists justify the attack on Hawara and neighbouring towns by calling it “revenge” for the killing of two Israeli brothers earlier in the day. There are likely to be many more Hawaras in the massively one-sided struggle for Palestine. No longer considered by most of the world, including the pro-Israeli Western powers, as a non-people, Palestinians have no choice but to fight for their existence.
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***
Last week I presented our Ban the Jab resolution to the Lee County Florida Republican Party and it passed with 80-90% of the vote. Although, the Lee County GOP has thus far been unable to issue a press release because the wire services are claiming it goes against CDC standards and it incites fear. That’s right, after three years of media hysterics and fear mongering, a press release exposing the C19 injections as bioweapons is inciting fear.
This issue is so popular that it has already started trickling out to become national news without a press release. Last Thursday I was interviewed on Stew Peters, and then Friday, Dr. Francis Boyle was on Stew Peters speaking about the bioweapon. Dr. Francis Boyle was the author of the 1989 Bioweapons and Antiterrorism Act, and is one of the world’s most credible authorities on this topic. Dr. Boyle is clear that the C19 injections meet the legal definition of a biological weapon according to the 1989 bioweapons act that he drafted as well as Florida statute.
The information provided in these interviews lays out the sense of urgency to this issue. The Biden administration is working with the World Health organization to basically over throw the United States government. Essentially, the WHO treaty is written in a way that it will provisionally take effect in May. Naturally, another pandemic is likely planned before the United States Senate would vote down ratification of the treaty. This would mean that WHO could force lockdowns, vaccination, masks, etc.
I know it is not constitutional, but they are doing it. The Supreme Court is compromised. According to Dr. Francis Boyle, they have crossed the Rubicon on this issue. Dr. Boyle is very clear that this is an existential threat to the United States. Most politicians are pretending this treason is not occurring. There are a few things that need to occur. The first is to withdraw from WHO. This is not likely because Biden is collaborating with WHO in this treason and attempt at a global coup.
The Republicans in the House of Representatives need to cut funding for WHO. As much political pressure as humanly possible needs to be put on House members. They need to become afraid of the public if they do not defund WHO.
On the state level, states need to pass simple laws stating that they will not comply with any WHO decisions, and are not under the jurisdiction of WHO. Honestly, secession may need to be on the table.
The other option to save our republic is to get an indictment of Fauci and pharma executives before the coup is completed. Dr. Boyle outlines this in his book Resisting Medical Tyranny. Dr. Boyle argues that the federal government is too corrupt and that it is at the state level that these indictments should be sought.
There are approximately 400 local prosecutors’ offices around the country. A state attorney general, state attorney’s office, which covers several counties, or even a county prosecutor where they have them, could indict Fauci and pharma executives for murder and conspiracy to commit murder. According to Dr. Boyle, once the first indictment is issued the house of cards will fall.
The Ban the Jab Resolution is important. It is an official statement of policy of the Republican Party for Lee County Florida. The resolution states that C19 injections are biological weapons, violate the Nuremberg code, and calls for Governor DeSantis and the legislature to ban the injections, and for the attorney general to confiscate all vials of the bioweapons and conduct a forensic audit.
It also shifts the debate from mandates to banning. Sometimes it is true that the best defense is a good offense. Weapons wise we essentially are using a bottle cap and we moved the needle on this more than our worthless politicians have since the shots came out.
As mentioned, the news wire blocked the Lee GOP press release. It is totally absurd that one of the reasons was that it incited fear. A press release about a vote from one of the major political parties is blocked by a newswire because it incites fear. This is after three years of terrorizing the American public. Is this an illegal in kind donation to the other party?
Still, the word is trickling out and it is having an effect. I was told that the Florida Republican Assembly, which is a statewide conservative organization passed the ban the jab resolution unanimously, they are just waiting for a couple signatures. They may start hitting up the phones once officially passed. Collier County will vote Monday March 6, Santa Rosa County is supposed to take it up Wednesday March 9. Hillsborough County is supposed to take it up in April. This is with censorship. Imagine if a proper press release was allowed.
If a few more counties fall like dominoes then this Ban the Jab movement may take on momentum of its own. If that occurs the governor of Florida will have to act. I also know of people in Georgia and North Carolina that are planning on introducing the Lee GOP Ban the Jab resolution.
The revolt within local Republican parties is the first phase. This will build momentum and pressure will increase on politicians on the local and state level. We punched through in Lee County Florida. If we punch through statewide and ban the jab, other states will follow, and so will indictments.
So back to the question in the title. Did we just start a revolution?
Only time will tell. The answer is, that it depends on you. Don’t ask permission to lead. If we can do it, so can you. If you are a member of a Republican Executive Committee, introduce this resolution. If you are not an executive committee member, call your county GOP and tell them to adopt the Lee County Ban the Jab resolution. This is especially true in Florida, but we wouldn’t be too upset if another state banned it first….
UPDATE: The Patriots of the Florida Republican Assembly, a long standing statewide constitutional conservative organization, passed the ban the jab resolution unanimously, and are burning up the phones to the governor, attorney general, and legislature.
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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (desktop version)
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***
A new report from the UN was just published. It proposes and discusses ways to cool our planet by restricting sunlight and darkening our skies.
Source: UNEP Document
What is this about? Why block sunlight, of all things? Let me explain.
The UN is worried about climate change. As the efforts to reduce CO2 emissions are faltering, the UN is looking for more ways to cool the Earth. The UNEP’s report details ideas called “Solar Radiation Modification,” the gist of which is to reflect sunlight and prevent it from heating the surface of our planet.
Here are the main ideas that the UN will consider:
Injecting reflective nanoparticles/sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere (stratospheric aerosol injection)
Brightening of low clouds over the ocean by seeding ocean clouds with submicron salt particles
Using space mirrors, that is, many giant mirrors launched into outer space to reflect sunlight.
The UN explains that should the “global stakeholders” decide to proceed, the skies could be darkened within only a few years:
SRM is the only option that could cool the planet within years. To be effective at limiting global warming, SRM would need to be maintained for several decades to centuries, depending on the pace of emissions reductions and carbon removal.
The report does pay lip service to what is undeniable:
This is an untested planetary intervention
There could be disparate effects on certain regions
However, you and I can guess we should not expect a careful, conservative review of such proposals by the UN if the “Covid vaccine” experience is any guide.
Injecting Sulfur Dioxide Into the Sky Was Bad for Us – Now It is Good Again
This picture introduces us to the sky-dimming technology being considered:
Source: UNEP Document
The report explains:
Major volcanic eruptions, which introduce large amounts of sulphate particles into the stratosphere, provide a natural analogue for SRM deployment (Figure 4). For example, the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption caused global annual-mean cooling of about 0.3–0.5°C in the following two years. An SAI deployment would inject aerosols continuously into the stratosphere. It is estimated that continuous injection rates of 8–16 Tg of sulphur dioxide (SO2) per year (approximately equivalent to the estimated injection amount of Mount Pinatubo in the single year of 1991) would reduce global mean temperature by 1°C. An operational SAI deployment could be scaled up to produce global cooling of 2–5°C, albeit with diminishing returns at higher rates of injections.
You are probably not a chemist, and neither am I. However, sulfur dioxide was a free byproduct of coal and oil burning, emitted into the atmosphere until recent decades. Environmental activists and authorities concluded that sulfur dioxide was a pollutant gas contributing to the phenomenon of acid rain and causing significant health problems.
Having been assured that sulfur dioxide was bad for us, we spent billions of dollars eliminating it from coal and oil-burning emissions and building sulfur-capture technology tokeep SO2 out of the atmosphere.
Now, it turns out that sulfur dioxide is good for us, and we need to spend even more untold billions to inject it into the atmosphere.
Does this sound stupid to you?
I am sure, however, that investors will earn quite a bit of money from “sulfur dioxide atmospheric injections” right after making billions on “eliminating sulfur dioxide emissions” from coal-burning plants.
Volcano Eruptions Were the Nature’s Experiments
The UN document correctly indicates that volcanic eruptions sometimes fill the skies with ash or sulfur, dim the sun for years, and lead to measurable global cooling episodes. The example listed in the report is the above-mentioned Mt. Pinatubo eruption in 1991, which temporarily cooled our planet by 0.5 degrees C.
However, much darker pages of human history were associated with volcanoes causing catastrophic climate changes.
For example, in 1600, the eruption of the Huaynaputina in Peru caused famines in Europe and led to mass deaths.
In Russia, 1601-1603 brought the worst famine in the country’s history, leading to the overthrow of the reigning tsar. Records from Switzerland, Latvia and Estonia record exceptionally cold winters in 1600-1602; in France, the 1601 wine harvest was late, and wine production collapsed in Germany and colonial Peru. In China, peach trees bloomed late, and Lake Suwa in Japan had one of its earliest freezing dates in 500 years.
So, such global sun-dimming projects may indeed cause global cooling at the cost of poisoning the atmosphere, causing acid rain, and leading to the collapse of agriculture in several regions of the world.
In addition, blocked sunlight will prevent the uptake of CO2 by plants because converting CO2 into plant matter and oxygen needs sunlight:
Source: Wikipedia Photosynthesis
Somehow, the dimmed sunlight inhibiting CO2 sequestration (uptake), and lowering food production, does not bother the proponents of Solar Radiation Modification. And how would solar panels run without the sun?
These are not immediately-actionable plans yet. In some ways, the UN report is exploratory. Nobody is building giant sulfur-dioxide-injecting smokestacks or is launching mirrors into space, as of now.
However, the usual stakeholders, such as Bill Gates, are preparing the right conditions for this to happen:
Source: Popular Mechanics
If This Sounds Crazy to You, Do Not Blame Me!
Imagine a hypothetical layperson named Charlie. Charlie is a reasonable, caring, intelligent, but not well-informed individual who has never heard of sky dimming before. Charlie has a friend named Igor, who reads a wide variety of news and uses mostly reliable sources, such as the UN’s official documents from the UNEP or news magazines such as Popular Mechanics.
If Igor informed Charlie that one of the richest men in the world had convinced the United Nations to seriously consider dimming the sky over the entire planet, injecting acid-rain-causing sulfur gas into the atmosphere, andpotentially causing famines in some regions, Charlie would consider the messenger, Igor, a crazy conspiracy theorist.
It is not possible! Charlie would say. Take off your tinfoil hat Igor and get a life.That would be Charlie’s likely answer to such news. Our leading authorities, Charlie would assert, would certainly never consider forcing the entire world to implement such crazy ideas!
The problem is that these disturbing ideas are completely real! This is not even the first time reckless global plans were implemented with the UN backing.
Those same people just made the entire world take unproven Covid vaccines that saw no long-term testing and ended up not working.
Sharing news about these plans is, therefore, a challenge due to the inherent insanity of what the plans propose. I discussed such challenges before, also mentioning sky dimming.
Meanwhile, a path is being laid toward such proposals becoming a reality.
Bill Gates is not messing around. Will his sky-darkening plans come to fruition?
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Odessa Orlewicz has been at the forefront of reporting on Canadian excess deaths, COVID-19 injuries & deaths, and corruption in the Canadian healthcare system.
My other interviews with Odessa Orlewicz at Librti.com:
February 8, 2023 – Excess deaths, COVID-19 Vaccine injuries and deaths being covered up by the Alberta government (click here)
October 17, 2022 – 80 Canadian doctors who died suddenly or unexpectedly since the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines (click here)
September 5, 2022 – 32 Canadian doctors who died suddenly or unexpectedly since the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, and corruption in Canadian healthcare (click here)
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Featured image is a screenshot from the video
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
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Das Erdbeben in der Türkei und Syrien hat wieder einmal Feinde der USA getroffen. Nun wird darüber debattiert, ob das Erdbeben technisch ausgelöst wurde – von Beamten beobachtete Lichterscheinungen sowie die vorausgehende Schließung einiger Behörden sind ein mögliches Indiz dafür. Doch die Faktenchecker dementieren. Wem soll man glauben – wenn man nicht gerade Physiker ist? Rosalie Bertell, die so genannte Umwelt-Nonne, war eine amerikanische Umweltwissenschaftlerin und Preisträgerin des Right Livelihood Award – also eine renommierte Persönlichkeit.
Vor 20 Jahren schrieb sie das Buch «Kriegswaffe Planet Erde», in der sie unter anderem genau diese Möglichkeit und Praxis anprangert: Die militärische Nutzung von Technologien, die das Wetter, Vulkanausbrüche und Erdbeben kontrollieren und auslösen können. Rosalie Bertell starb 2012. Doch sie hat eine Nachfolgerin: Claudia von Werlhof, emeritierte Professorin für Politikwissenschaft und Frauenforschung in Innsbruck, Patriarchatskritikerin und Autorin zahlreicher Bücher, wurde Bertells «Stellvertreterin im deutschsprachigen Raum». Im Telefonat beantwortet sie vier Fragen.
Christa Dregger (CD): Sie sind Feministin, Rosalie Bertell war Biometrikerin – wie kamen Sie zusammen?
Claudia von Werlhof (CVW): Nach dem Erdbeben in Haiti 2010 hörte ich, dass es möglicherweise künstlich erzeugt worden war. Ich habe mich dann reingehängt, Fakten studiert und mich auch öffentlich dazu geäussert – und wurde dafür von allen Seiten angegriffen. Rosalie Bertell hat mich dann angeschrieben und bestätigte, dass es möglicherweise ein künstlich ausgelöstes Erdbeben war. Ich habe dann ihr Buch «Kriegswaffe Planet Erde» gelesen und bin damit in die Hölle gefahren. Und dann habe ich zusammen mit anderen die «Planetare Bewegung für Mutter Erde» gegründet. Wir ließen das Buch auf Deutsch übersetzen und veröffentlichen, inzwischen hat es die 5. Auflage.
Ich habe Rosalie später in Bonn beim 30. Jahresjubiläum des Alternativen Nobelpreises auch persönlich kennengelernt. Sie hatte den Preis 1986 für ihr erstes Buch über die Wirkung von niedrigstrahliger Radioaktivität erhalten. Seitdem bis zu ihrem Tod haben wir zusammengearbeitet. Für sie war unsere «Kritische Patriarchatstheorie» als Erklärungsansatz neu. Damit erklären wir das Gesamtbild, warum überhaupt Waffen entwickelt werden, die den gesamten Planeten betreffen. Warum will man den Planeten unter Kontrolle bekommen und ihn in eine Waffe verwandeln – mit den Gründen dafür habe ich mich in meiner Arbeit auseinandergesetzt. Aber mir war nicht klar, auf welche Weise das überhaupt möglich ist. Und es ist bis heute so, dass die meisten Leute nicht verstehen, dass, wie und warum z.B. solche Erdbeben künstlich hervorgerufen werden.
CD: Denkst du, dass auch das Erdbeben in der Türkei künstlich ausgelöst wurde?
CVW: Rosalie sagte immer, dass es im Einzelfall schwierig ist, die militärischen Geoexperimente von den echten Erschütterungen des Planeten zu trennen. Doch die Möglichkeiten sind spätestens seit 1976 bekannt durch die Enmod-Konvention, die Environmental Modification Konvention der UNO. In ihr wurden bereits all diese Techniken aufgezählt – bis zu Erdbeben, Vulkanausbrüchen, Wetterveränderungen aller Art. Diese Techniken wurden zum Teil im Vietnamkrieg angewandt. Die technischen Grundlagen dafür stammen von Nicola Tesla. Als der 1943 gestorben ist, hat man sich sofort auf sein Material gestürzt – von Ost bis West – und das dann auch für neue Erfindungen verwendet. Es gibt zahlreiche offizielle Patente dazu, die kann man nachlesen. Das ist ja nicht gesponnen, es ist nur eben Militärtechnologie und deshalb teilweise geheim. Die Technologie wird unter andern schon seit 70-80 Jahren entwickelt und ist in Gebrauch. Rosalie sagte immer, dass neue Kriege immer mit neuen Waffen einhergehen. Dass die Militärtechnologie immer einige Jahrzehnte dem voraus wäre, was die Öffentlichkeit weiss. Und dass die Umweltwaffen Bestandteil der neuen Kriege sein werden.
CD: Ich lese Ihnen mal zwei Stellungnahmen im ARD-Faktenchecker zum Thema vor: Laut Oliver Heidbach, Leiter der Arbeitsgruppe Analyse und Modellierung tektonischer Spannungen am Deutschen GeoForschungsZentrum (GFZ), sei es gar nicht möglich, mit Radiowellen Erdbeben auszulösen. «Radiowellen können mit den hohen Frequenzen im Mega- und Gigahertzbereich in der Erdkruste keine Bewegung des Gesteins erzeugen und somit auch keine Spannungsänderungen hervorrufen.» Der Auslöser von Erdbeben wie das in der Türkei und Syrien sei vielmehr das Überschreiten einer kritischen mechanischen Spannung in der Erdkruste. Auch Yuri Shprits, Leiter der Sektion Weltraumphysik und Weltraumwetter am GFZ, sei «fest davon überzeugt, dass durch HAARP erzeugte Modifikationen der Ionosphäre keine Erdbeben verursachen können». Zudem würde das Auslösen eines Erdbebens gigantische Energiemengen erfordern, die von HAARP nicht erzeugt werden könnten. «Außerdem wäre es unmöglich, die Energie aus der Ionosphäre an verschiedene Orte auf der Erde zu übertragen.»
CVW: Das ist die typische naturwissenschaftliche Anti-Erklärung. Sie geben eine alte Weltanschauung wieder, wonach Materie träge ist. Aber du kennst das Phänomen einer Brücke, über die ein Militärtrupp im Gleichschritt marschiert. Sie können die Brücke zum Einstürzen bringen – und das ist das Prinzip der gepulsten Energien. Nicola Tesla, der 1856-1943 gelebt hat, hat als Wissenschaftler ein neues naturwissenschaftliches Weltbild in Gang gesetzt. Er hat die Materie über ihre elektromagnetischen Eigenschaften definiert. Er hat selbst durch den Einsatz von elektromagnetischen Schwingungen um sein Haus herum Erdbeben produziert. Überall befinden sich diese Schwingungen. Er hat sie verstärkt, bis die frei gesetzte Energie ein Erdbeben erzeugte, das sein eigenes Haus fast zerstört hätte. Tesla hat unsere moderne Welt überhaupt erst ermöglicht. Die ganze Elektronik hätte nicht eingeführt werden können ohne seine Naturwissenschaft. Unsere ganze Welt ist eine Tesla-Welt. Aber ihre Bedeutung für Militärtechnologien wird nach wie vor geleugnet, weil Tesla offiziell nicht gelehrt wird. Auch die Haarp-Anlage fußt auf seiner Arbeit.
Die Haarp-Anlage (Hochfrequenz-Aktiv-Auroral-Forschungsprogramm der US-Armee und Navy) in Alaska wurde durch die Energie von Gaskraftwerken gespeist. Jede der Antennen der Anlage hat über 1 Million Watt produziert und an dieselbe Stelle in die Ionosphäre gepulst. Dort verdichtet sich die Energie wie eine Linse, und von dort kann man einen gerichteten Strahl auf die Erde zurücklenken. Wo der dann ankommt, richtet er großen Schaden an. Rosalie sagte, das sei wie ein Gewehrlauf, der auf die Erde schießt.
Die Haarp-Anlage ist 2015 an die Universität übergeben worden. Ich glaube, sie haben sie deshalb angeblich geschlossen, weil man dort im Internet verfolgen konnte, was geschah. Vor dem Erdbeben von Haiti konnte man z.B. sehen, dass sie im erhöhten Einsatz war. Diese Nachprüfbarkeit der Anlage war für sie ein Nachteil. Aber es gibt 2-3 weitere Dutzend ähnlicher Anlagen weltweit.
Laut Rosalie gibt es zwei Erscheinungen, anhand derer man auf ein künstlich ausgelöstes Erdbeben schliessen kann: das eine sind bestimmte Wolkenformationen, die zeigen, dass in der Atmosphäre bestimmte Wellen mit hoher Energie unterwegs sind. Das andere Merkmal sind Lichterscheinungen am Himmel, ähnlich wie kurze Regenbögen, die sog. Plasma-Streifen, die entstehen, wenn die Energien aus der Ionosphäre die Atmosphäre aufheizen. Und das hat man bei vielen Erdbeben gesehen, z.B. in China.
Auch vieles, was die Türken jetzt gesagt haben, entspricht dem. Türkische Beamte haben gesagt, es gab einen Lichteffekt kurz vor dem Erdbeben. Sie sagten auch, dass Amerikaner mit fahrbaren Radaranlagen in dem Gebiet unterwegs waren, die seien daran schuld. Also – ja: es ist theoretisch möglich, dass das türkische Erdbeben, so furchtbar es ist, künstlich ausgelöst wurde. Den Beweis kann man aber nicht führen.
CD: Könnten die Wetterwaffen auf für den Klimawandel verantwortlich sein?
CVW: Ja sicher. Klima ist sowieso das falsche Wort. Klima ist ein weltweites System, das von der Sonne und der Stellung im Sonnensystem abhängt. Klima kann nicht verändert werden. Man kann das Wetter verändern. Mit der vorhandenen Technologie kann man das Wetter ununterbrochen verändern. Durch die Verschiebung des Jetstreams nach Norden wird es in der Nordhalbkugel heiss und mit der Verschiebung nach Süden dort auch im Sommer eiskalt. Dazu kommt das Sterben der Ozonschicht: Das ist die Schicht, die die Erde umhüllt und die elektromagnetischen Wellen abfängt, die von der Sonne kommen. Trotz des Abkommens, die FCKW-Gase zu verbieten, ist die Ozonschicht nach wie vor stark angegriffen. Neue Löcher sind hinzugekommen, auch über dem Nordpol und der ganzen Nordhalbkugel. Dadurch trifft die Strahlung pur und direkt auf den Erdboden, verändert die DNA der Pflanzen, macht Plankton kaputt und die Ernte. Das ist ein Ergebnis der radioaktiven Verseuchung, zuletzt durch Fukushima, und der Wettertechnologien sowie der Raumfahrt. Das wird aber nicht öffentlich diskutiert.
Die US-Air Force schrieb im Jahr 1996 einen Bericht mit dem Titel «Owning the Weather in 2025». Darin heißt es: «Im Jahr 2025 können die US-amerikanischen Luft- und Raumfahrtkräfte das Wetter beherrschen, indem sie sich neue Technologien zunutze machen und die Entwicklung dieser Technologien auf Anwendungen für die Kriegsführung ausrichten. Eine solche Fähigkeit bietet dem Kriegskämpfer Werkzeuge, um das Schlachtfeld in einer Weise zu gestalten, die nie zuvor möglich war.» 2025 – das sind noch zwei Jahre hin. Das sind keine Geheimnisse, das gibt es im Internet. Wir haben ein Buch herausgebracht, das demnächst auch auf Deutsch erscheint, es heisst «Global WAR-NING!» – also nicht «Global Warming». Darin warnen wir: Geo-Engineering macht uns, die Erde und die Menschheit kaputt. Nicht CO2 ist am so genannten Klimawandel schuld, sondern Geo-Engineering. Wir befinden uns in einem Weltkrieg, die Ukraine ist nur ein Teil davon. Die Wettermanipulationen sind Teil eines Weltkrieges gegen die Erde, um die Erde als Planet, als Makrolebewesen in den Griff zu bekommen.
CD: Mir fällt es schwer, das zu glauben. Wer kann denn Interesse daran haben, sich selber zu zerstören?
CVW: Das ist genau das Problem. Zerstörung wird ja immer als Verbesserung ausgegeben. Das, was von Natur aus vorhanden gewesen ist – die Erde, ihre Lebewesen, die Menschen, die Frauen, Tiere, Pflanzen – war im Patriarchat irgendwie nie gut genug. Sie sollten verbessert, umgemodelt und transformiert werden. Auf dieser Ideologie beruht der ganze technische Fortschritt. Und meine Theorie ist, dass Mutter Natur, die weibliche Kraft, die das Leben hervorbringt, von den Männern, die das Patriarchat gebildet haben, abgelehnt wurde. Denn sie haben selbst die Schöpfungs-Macht beansprucht. Alle Naturprozesse sollen deshalb technisch ersetzt werden, und das wird als Verbesserung ausgegeben. Dem geht immer eine Zerstörung voraus. Denn es gilt als besser, die Erde unter Kontrolle zu haben, als sie machen zu lassen, was ihr entspricht.
Bald sind alle Rohstoffe der Erde verbraucht. Die jetzige Industriegesellschaft soll umgebaut werden, das Ziel ist Bevölkerungsreduktion. Denn wir haben kein Coltan für 8 Milliarden Handybesitzer. Und all das andere auch nicht. Die verbliebenen Menschen sollen in eine völlig andere technische Formation eingebunden werden. Die Integration der Menschen in diese Maschinerie: das ist das Projekt des Transhumanismus. Dann werden die Leute auch nicht mehr natürlich geboren, sondern durch synthetische Biologie und Gentechnologie erzeugt. Transhumanismus bedeutet, den Menschen zu «verbessern». Das ist ein Horrorkabinett, aber nachlesbar bei Yuval Noah Harari, Berater von Klaus Schwab. Wenn die Frauen nicht langsam aufwachen – und auch noch andere dazu am besten – sind wir einfach geliefert.
CD: Aussagen aus “Slowly Wrecking Our Planet” von Rosalie Bertell (ihrem letzten Text):
1946 entdeckte die General Electric Company, dass man durch das Fallenlassen von Trockeneis in einem kalten Raum Eiskristalle «erzeugen» konnte, die denen in Wolken ähnelten. Innerhalb weniger Monate nach dieser Entdeckung wurde Trockeneis aus Flugzeugen in Kumuluswolken abgeworfen, wobei die Wassertröpfchen in Eiskristalle umgewandelt wurden, die dann wie Schnee auf die Erde fielen. Bis 1950 hatten Industrieforscher herausgefunden, dass Silberjodid die gleiche Wirkung hat. Die Ära der Wetterbeeinflussung hatte begonnen.
Im Wettlauf zum Mond entdeckten Anfang 1958 sowohl die Kosmonauten der USA als auch der UdssR den Van-Allen-Gürtel, einen Magnetgürtel, der die Erde vor den zerstörerischen geladenen Teilchen des Sonnenwindes schützt. Zwischen August und September 1958 liess die US-Marine im Rahmen des Projekts Argus drei Kernspaltungsbomben 480 km (300 Meilen) über dem Südatlantik im unteren Van-Allen-Gürtel explodieren. Die US-Atomenergiebehörde bezeichnete es als «das grösste wissenschaftliche Experiment, das je unternommen wurde» (Baldwin). Das «Experiment» hatte weltweite Auswirkungen und erzeugte neue künstliche Polarlichter. Die langfristigen Auswirkungen dieser unglaublichen Zerstörung, die stattfand, bevor die schützende Funktion des Van-Allen-Gürtels verstanden wurde, sind nie aufgeklärt worden. 1962 wurde dieses «große» Experiment am 9. Juli über dem Pazifik im Rahmen des Projekts Starfish ein zweites Mal wiederholt. (…) Später im Jahr 1962 unternahm die U.S.S.R. ähnliche planetarische «Experimente» und schuf drei neue Strahlungsgürtel zwischen 7000 und 13000 km (4300 und 8100 Meilen) über der Erde. (…) Die Generalversammlung der Vereinten Nationen war über diese Aktivitäten so beunruhigt, dass sie am 10. Dezember 1976 ein Übereinkommen über das Verbot der militärischen oder sonstigen feindlichen Nutzung von Umweltveränderungstechniken verabschiedete.
HAARP umfasst derzeit 180 Sendemasten, obwohl es 1994 in modularer Form mit einem Netz von 48 Masten in Betrieb genommen wurde. Es besteht Grund zu der Annahme, dass HAARP weiter auf 384 oder 720 Sendemasten ausgebaut werden kann. Dieser leistungsstarke synchronisierte Transformator wird von einer Reihe von Superdarns (Dual Auroral Radar Netzwerk) begleitet, die die Auswirkungen von Haarp-Manipulationen auf die Ionosphäre der Erde auf der Erdoberfläche kontinuierlich überwachen.
Es scheint nun möglich zu sein, den Jetstream zu «steuern», der die Grenze zwischen warmer und kühler Luft in geografischen Regionen bestimmt, oder die grossen Dampfflüsse zu manipulieren, die den Regen von den Tropen in die gemäßigten Zonen leiten und so Dürren oder Überschwemmungen verursachen. Natürliche Ereignisse oder Instabilitäten wie Monsune, Hurrikane, Tornados usw. in der Atmosphäre können durch «Energiezufuhr» verstärkt werden. Das Einbringen von Öl in tektonische Verwerfungen oder das Erzeugen künstlicher Erdschwingungen mit elektromagnetischen Impulsen kann Erdbeben auslösen.
Die Erde ist bereits ein «Forschungsopfer» des Militarismus geworden, und es ist an der Zeit, Geoengineering als grausame Farce und Verbrechen gegen das Leben selbst zu stoppen.
Sollen wir die Heilung unserer Erde in die Hände derer legen, die seit mehr als 65 Jahren die gröbste Vernachlässigung ihres Wohlergehens an den Tag gelegt haben? Sollen wir diesen herrlichen Planeten wegwerfen, wie wir billigen Plastikschmuck wegwerfen? Es ist an der Zeit, den Planeten Erde zu ehren und zu schützen, wie es indigene Völker seit Tausenden von Jahren tun. Wir müssen anerkennen, dass unsere Lebensphilosophie fehlerhaft ist, denn sie hat uns in diese Krise geführt.
Es ist an der Zeit, das Patriarchat in Frage zu stellen, das die Herrschaft über alles Lebendige impliziert, und den rohen Kapitalismus, der exzessive militärische Gewalt erfordert, um seine gierige Anhäufung natürlicher Ressourcen zu schützen. Wir brauchen dringend einen kritischen Plan für eine intelligentere, weiblichere und menschengerechtere Zukunft. Es besteht ein großer Bedarf, einen nüchternen Blick auf unseren globalen Lebensstil, unsere Philosophie und unsere Sozialplanung zu werfen, damit die Menschen, alles Leben und der Planet Erde eine lange und fruchtbare Ära des Friedens und des Wohlstands erleben können. Unsere Sonne hat noch etwa vier bis fünf Milliarden Jahre Zeit, um uns mit ihrer Energie zu segnen – wir sollten sie nicht verschwenden.
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Mit Dank übernommen von zeitpunkt.ch – dort erschienen am 28. Februar 2023
Rosalie Bertell (1929-2912) war eine US-amerikanische Wissenschaftlerin, Autorin, Biometrikerin Umweltaktivistin und katholische Nonne. Seit 1970 arbeitete sie auf dem Gebiet der Umweltgesundheit. Sie war eine Ordensschwester der Grey Nuns of the Sacret Heart, wo sie vor allem für ihre Arbeit in der ionisierenden Strahlung bekannt ist.
Claudia von Werlhof ist Soziologin und Politologin. Sie hatte die erste Professur für Frauenforschung in Österreich inne, angesiedelt am Institut für Politikwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck. Sie gilt als Mitbegründerin der Frauenforschung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Bücher-Auswahl: “Die Verkehrung: Das Projekt des Patriarchats und das Gender-Dilemma” und “Väter des Nichts. Zum Wahn einer Neuschöpfung der Welt” (2 Bände, erscheint 2023, Zeitgeist Verlag, Höhr-Grenzhausen)
Christa Dregger-Barthels (auch unter dem Namen Leila Dregger bekannt). Ich bin Redaktionsmitglied des Zeitpunkt, Buchautorin, Journalistin und Aktivistin. Ich lebte fast 40 Jahren in Gemeinschaften, davon 18 Jahre in Tamera/Portugal – inzwischen wieder in Deutschland. Meine Themengebiete sind Frieden, Gemeinschaft, Mann/Frau, Geist.
Bild im Vordergrund: Retter tragen ein Opfer auf den Trümmern, während die Suche nach Überlebenden nach einem Erdbeben in der von Rebellen kontrollierten Stadt Jindires, Syrien, am 7. Februar 2023 weitergeht. [Quelle: usnews.com]
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Fifteen years ago, on February 17th, 2008, a NATO-sponsored Serbia’s province of Kosovo unilaterally self-proclaimed its (quasi) independence. During the first decade of its NATO-protected and controlled „independence“, Kosovo became the first European legalized narco-state, a leading South-East European zone of human trafficking, a fundamental Balkan (together with Bosnia-Herzegovina) recruiting center of the Jihad Islamic fundamentalists for the ISIS at the Middle East and, above all, the cradle of the destruction of the Christianity in Europe to such extent that the Republic of Kosovo(stan) is, basically, today transformed into the first European Islamic Republic in which the biggest portion of non-Albanians are expelled or murdered, but primarily the Christian Serbs.
However, the (quasi) independence of Kosovo(stan) is only a phase of the 1878 project of the creation of Islamic Greater Albania advocated by the First (pan-Islamic) Prizren League and for the first time realized during WWII when B. Mussolini established a Greater Albania with its capital in Tirana including Kosovo as well (without its northern part predominantly populated only by the Serbs). From the time of NATO’s brutal occupation of southern Serbia’s province of Kosovo (officially, Kosovo-Metochia) in June 1999, the systematic destruction of Christian shrines and monuments became an everyday duty of the local Muslim Albanians followed by the organized Islamization of the province by building a huge number of the mosques on every corner in Kosovo(stan).
Nevertheless, the secession of Islamic Kosovo from Christian Serbia is only a step toward the ultimate political and national goal of Muslim Albanians from the region (85% of all Balkan Albanians) to re-create a Greater Albania from WWII. The political situation in neighboring North Macedonia (the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) is also going to the favor of inclusion of the western portion of the NorthMacedonia, populated by ethnic Albanians, into a Greater (Islamic) Albania. Henceforth, the crucial aim of this text is to analyze the historical and conceptual roots of a Great Albania project with the hope to explain the current events concerning the „Albanian Question“in the Balkans. This text seeks, therefore, to contribute to a better understanding of the foundations of the national project for Great Albania from 1878 onward.
The political program of a Greater Albania
At the first, it has to be stressed that the concept of a greater ethnic Albanian state, different from the other Balkan nations, did not appear originally as an authentic expression of the Albanian national movement itself. In other words, until the beginning of the Great Eastern Crisis (1875-1878, i.e. Serbian uprising in Bosnia and Hercegovina against the Ottoman yoke followed by Serbia‘s, Montenegro‘s, and Russia‘s war against the Ottoman Empire), Albanians, unlike Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians, and Romanians did not attempt to create an independent national state for the reason that a regional and religious identity was dominant among the Albanians for whom basically the Ottoman Empire was national (in the sense of confessional) state. In order to preserve predominance of the Islamic values in the everyday life and social relations, Muslim Albanians opposed by different forms of disobedience to the central authority in Istanbul the sultan‘s reforms which the Ottoman Empire tried to implement during the 19th c., under pressure from the great European powers. Bosnian and Albanian Muslim feudal lords became the strongest defenders, within the European part of the Ottoman Empire, of Islamic theocratic society resisting any attempt from Ottoman central power to introduce some kind of administrative order into the functioning of the state taking into example West and Central European states.
The main power of the expansionist Albanian movement came from Muslim Albanians. With the exception of isolated examples of cultural efforts among the Albanians, mostly those in the Diaspora (Istanbul, Egypt, South Italy), Albanian Muslims have been the most important nation in the Ottoman Empire in its efforts to suppress the Christian movement in the Balkans. With their patriarchal-oriental society of Asian type, they constituted the main obstacle to Europeanization of this part of Europe in the 19th and 20th cc. Exceptions to this were an insignificant catholic minority in the north of Albania, mainly in the region of Skadar, and the more numerous orthodox community in the south of Albania, which was strongly influenced by the Greek cultural orbit.
The first pan-Albanian political organization was founded in 1878 in the Kosovo town of Prizren (at that time with the majority of Serbian population) under the name „First Albanian League“. Today, after studying Ottoman historical sources from Istanbul, it is clear that the birth of this league, together with its political program, was not an expression of Albanian original liberation efforts as the league was, in fact, the only Turkish instrument for the preservation of the Ottoman Empire. According to the reports from Krijevski, a French consul in Thessaloniki, Turkish powers gave weapons to the Albanian leaders. However, very soon the league was abolished by the central Ottoman authorities as it started claiming greater autonomy from Istanbul for the lands inhabited by Albanians. According to Albanian demands, an autonomous province of (united) Albania within the Ottoman Empire had to be twice bigger in comparison with present-day Albania (Albania proper, Kosovo, East Montenegro, parts of Central and Southeast Serbia, West Macedonia, and Northeast Greece).
Obviously, for very practical political reasons the formation of the First Albanian League in Prizren coincided with the preparations for the International Berlin Congress dealing with the so-called Eastern Question or remapping South East Europe after the regional crisis in 1875−1878.
The attempt by Russia to solve the Eastern Question by securing its interests by creating a Greater Bulgaria (as a Slavic Orthodox state), at the peace negotiations in San Stefano (1878) between Russia and Ottoman Empire was finally met with fervent opposition from all other (western) major European powers. Although the project of Greater Bulgaria encompassed a significant part of territory inhabited largely by Serbian and Greek population, the central Ottoman authorities, with crucial support from British diplomacy (as historically the main opponent of Russian foreign policy in the East), convinced all other powers that the Albanians are the best defenders against the Russian and Orthodox “threat” to Western Europe. It is the fact that from that time (1878) until the present day the Albanians have been presenting themselves to the public of Western Europe as major defenders against an alleged expansion of Russian Orthodox pan-Slavism into Southeastern Europe. In fact, the western-made and supported „Greater Albania“ megalomaniac project in the hands of Turkish and other powers was to designed to counteract another equal megalomaniac project (of „Greater Bulgaria“) originating from Russia. It was a clear sign that neither Russia nor Western European great powers cared about a justifiable solution to the Easter Question but in essence only about their strategic interests in the Balkans.
The Greater Albanian political concept from 1878 was imbued with the spirit of pan-Islamism and radical political Islam. Only from time to time did the Albanian political elite try to hide the distinctive Islamic feature of the foundations of their ideology, usually prompted by a desire to secure the support of some western power. A militant form of Islam prevailed in Kosovo and Metohija and in Western Macedonia, brought by the Albanian population from the mountainous parts of North Albania who forcefully descended into the gentle and fertile parts of these Balkan provinces. According to German Albanologist Georg Stadtmuller, the regions of Middle Albania constitute the original centers of the Albanian population. Albanian religious heterogeneity and a distinctive tribal identity have historically always been a permanent source of internal conflicts. This “unstable” condition of the Albanian state (established in 1912/1913) threatens primarily non-Albanian people in Albania itself, but also in the neighborhood. In the territory of Albania, large Slavic and Greek settlements have existed for centuries and Slavic and Greek toponyms have been largely preserved up to the present day. However, from the creation of the first Albanian state in 1912/1913, and especially during the rule of the Albanian communist dictator Enver Hoxha, a large part of non-Albanians, particularly the Slavic population, were assimilated by the means of state repression.
The Ottoman conquest of South East Europe and its consequences
It has to be admitted that the Great Albania project is directly connected with the consequences of the Turkish (Ottoman) conquests in South Eastern Europe, and especially with the wars of European Christian powers against the Ottoman Empire towards the end of the 17th c. It has remained, in a sense, as a long-reaching hand of the Ottoman spirit in Europe, as a vehicle of Oriental kind of life, customs, and mentalities which were characteristic of the territory of South Eastern Europe at the time of Ottoman rule. The Christian population of European Turkey, primarily the Serbs, joined the struggle of the European powers during the Great Vienna War from 1683 to 1699 to expel the Turks from Europe. After the defeat of the Austrian army in 1690 as a reprisal the Serbs have been subjected to massive atrocities and to the first major ethnic cleansing in the region. The Ottoman destructive military campaigns allowed the overflow of Albanian people from their original regions into the countries of their neighbors, both Slavs and Greeks. It was not before the 18th c. that masses of Albanian stock breeders from the hilly regions of North Albania started descending into the fertile lands of Kosovo and Metohija populated by Orthodox Serbs in overwhelming majority, as well as into the regions of Western Macedonia.
Together with massive and regular atrocities which characterized this conquest of Old Serbia, there were also numerous other ways in which the compact Serbian ethnic body was broken followed by forced Islamization, different forms of robbery, plunder, destruction of religious sites, and many other forms of terror. All of such forms of atrocities are documentary testified by many foreign travel writers but in the first place by Roman Catholic missionaries and visitors (for instance in the report by Roman Catholic archbishop of Skoplje Matija Masarek in 1764). A similar process went on in the Albanian-Greek boundary regions. Albanian migration under the Turks went towards Greek lands, particularly Epir. With the strengthening of the Greek liberation movement, Turkey used Muslim Albanians to secure rule over the largest possible parts of Epir and Thesalia. That Kosovo and Metohija, of which Albanian authors often speak as “Albanian land” were irrefutably the central regions of Serbian settlement, is testified to by the fact that the most important monuments of Serbian architecture and Serbian spirituality were erected there. In Kosovo and Metohija alone 1,400 monasteries, churches, and other Serbian monuments were built. The most famous among them are: the Patriarchy church in Peć, monasteries Banjska, Gračanica, Dečani, St. Archangel near Prizren, Bogorodica Ljeviška in Prizren, etc. A logical question is: why would Serbs erect their central church, the Patriarchy in Peć, in the region where they were not in majority and which was not the central point of their national homeland?
Demographic changes in Kosovo and Metohija
The greatest changes in the ethnic structure of the population of this part of Old Serbia occurred from the middle of the 18th up to the middle of the 19th century, and from the time of the Berlin Congress in 1878 up to the liberation of these regions from the Ottoman yoke in 1912 (during the 1912−1913 Balkan Wars). These population changes were, basically, a consequence of the conflict between the Islamic Ottoman-feudal concept on the one hand (supported by Muslim Albanians and Ottoman authority), and the European Christian concept of society on the other hand (favored by Christian Serbs and Serbia’s government). Samuel P. Huntington was quite right when he defined similar processes after the Cold War 1.0 as “conflicts of civilization”. Kosovo and Metohija (Kosovo-Metochia or KosMet) may be the most convincing example of such a conflict today at least in Europe, bearing in mind that the radical Islamic features of the Kosovo Albanian secessionist movement are quite skillfully masked by Western (the USA, the EU and NATO) phraseology and symbols.
Numerous foreign (European) authors testify about the ethnic, political, and religious circumstances in the region of Kosovo and Metohija and around it. These are the works of, for instance, Ami Bue, Joseph Muller, Johan Georg von Han, Ivan Stepanovich Jastrebov, Aleksandar Giljferding, Viktor Berar, Gaston Gravier, and others. For example, Joseph Muller reports the data from 1838 about the religious and linguistic structure of the population in Metohija – in Peć, Prizren, and Djakovica; in Peć, Christian Orthodox and Muslim Serbs were in a majority (92.09%) in relation to the Catholic and Muslim Albanians (4.17%). In Prizren, the percentage of Serbs (Muslims and Christians), from the total population (24.950) amounted to 73.68%, whereas the percentage of Albanians (Muslims and Catholics), amounted to 16.63%. Only Djakovica (a town very close to the border with North Albania) had a clear Albanian majority – the percentage of Albanians (Muslims and Catholics), amounted to 80.76%, whereas the percentage of Serbs (Christians and Muslims), amounted to 18.05%.
The Albanian leagues and their program of Greater Albania
The fact that Prizren, a town in Old Serbia, and on the outskirts of the Albanian ethnic region was chosen as the place for the session of the first Albanian league in 1878 (the Prizren League) testifies to the extremely expansionist nature of the Albanian geopolitical aims of the time. That is exactly where it was necessary to create a strong obstacle to further strengthening the Serbian liberation policy in Old Serbia. And it was not a coincidence that the session of the Albanian league was not held in Albania, like in Durrës, Valona, Tirana, or some other town. From the time of the Great Eastern Crisis (1875−1878) the neighboring regions to Albania such as Kosovo, Metohija, today’s western Slav Macedonia, and northern Epirus, where Albanians had massively settled, mainly in the 18th and 19th century, started being referred to as “Albanian lands”. Therefore, the First Albanian (Prizren) League, created on the eve of the sessions of the Berlin Congress in 1878, assumed the obligation to defend the “Albanian lands” from their annexation by the neighboring Christian nation-states (Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia).
The League’s documents reveal the essence of the Albanian movement of the League. The sessions were held in a Prizren mosque, and the special feature of the Statute (Kararname) was Islam. Albania and Albanians were not explicitly mentioned in any of the 16 articles of the Statute, but instead, they speak in general terms of “nation and motherland”, “country”, “our land”, “Balkan country”, “in the Balkans”, and similar. The political subjects of the League are simply Muslims. Article 7 talks of the need for the League with “our long-suffering fellow countrymen and members of the same faith in the Balkans”, and the last Article 16 qualifies the abandonment of the League as the abandonment “of Islam”. It is also telling that Muslim landowners from the Raška (Sanjak/Sandžak) region (today in Serbia and Montenegro) between Kosovo and Herzegovina, and even from Bosnia-Herzegovina were present at this meeting.
Basically, the same ideas served as a foundation program for the so-called Peć League in 1899 and the so-called Second Prizren League in 1943. After the Ottoman authorities were expelled from Europe in 1912−1913 (as a consequence of the First Balkan War), and after the formation of an independent Albanian state in 1913 (under the umbrella of Austria-Hungary), the program`s aims were adapted to the new geopolitical circumstances and new protecting powers. The insistence on a pure ethnic Albanian state is typical for the conceptual program of Greater Albania, as is the rejection of any multi-ethnic concept at the same time. Following such a program, the organized ethnic cleansing of the non-Albanian population from the regions which were proclaimed as “Albanian lands” started right after the Berlin Congress in 1878. During the period from 1876 to 1912 around 150,000 Christian Orthodox Serbs were forced to leave Old Serbia, which was at that time within the territory of the Kosovo vilayet (the biggest Ottoman administrative province). Similar ideas had and Ismail Kemal Bey Vlora, the president of the first Albanian interim government when required by the great European powers to cleanse “Albanian lands” of Slavs and Greeks and praised Albanians for having ousted “Christian Slavs” with their guns and violence.
Independent Albania and Albanians
After the First Balkan war in 1912−1913, in which the Albanians fought on the Ottoman side, the Conference of Ambassadors in London in 1913 determined the borders of the newly created Albanian state. In November 1921, at the Conference of Ambassadors in Paris, it was agreed to recognize Albania as an independent and sovereign state. The Albanian state encompassed the biggest part of ethnic Albanian territory. It is clear that in the Balkans with its large-scale migrations and mixing of races, languages, and religions, particularly during the centuries-long Ottoman rule, it was not possible to draw clear ethnic borders for any nation-state. Some Albanians who, as has been already mentioned, settled in Old Serbia in the 18th and 19th centuries, remained within the borders of the Kingdom of Serbia (later Yugoslavia), but also tens of thousands of Serbs (Christian Orthodox and Muslim), remained in the newly created Albanian state, as well as a large number of Greeks, who, following the decision of great powers, were left in the Albanian state. The regions that the Greater Albania propaganda claims have never been a part of an Albanian state. However, a certain number of Albanian political leaders from the time of Ottoman rule, who lost their privileges with the disappearance of the Ottoman Empire, did not want to accept the borders of the newly created states in the Balkans, and they immediately started their activity aimed at the breaking up these new states, primarily Serbia and Greece. This activity, particularly strong on the eve of WWII, was directly supported by fascist Italy. The Greater Albanian irredentist activity between the two world wars enjoyed strong support from fascist powers, which were also interested in breaking up the newly created Yugoslav state which, they claimed, was the creation of the Franco-British ”Versailles system”. Italy was in first place, but there was also the Third Communist International (Kominterna) with its headquarters in Moscow. The pro-Greater Albanian “Kosovo Committee” joined the Kominterna in 1920. In December 1921 Bajram Curi, one of the leaders of this organization, visited a Soviet emissary in Vienna and discussed the issue of Kosovo and Metohija with him, having handed him a memorandum on the Committee’s intentions. It is conspicuous that between the two world wars, the leadership of fascists and communist political organizations competed in supporting separatism among the Albanians of Kosovo and Metohija. From 1939 an even stronger and better-organized activity of fascist Italy was directed toward Greece and Yugoslavia. Italy invaded Albania from April 7th to 12th, 1939, and occupied it from 1939 to 1943. Already in July 1939, Count Cano gave instructions to Albanian emigrants for action in Epirus and Kosovo and Metohija. He often repeated that irredentism in Kosovo and Metohija was “a knife aimed at the backbone of Yugoslavia!”
A Greater Albania during WWII
With the beginning of WWI and shortly after, when fascist powers, headed by Germany and Italy, attacked the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, a bloody-style realization of a Greater Albania project started. A larger part of Kosovo and the whole of Metohija were annexed to fascist Greater Albania (under the Italian protectorate), parts of Kosovo were annexed to the newly created Greater Bulgaria, and parts of western today’s North Macedonia also became included in Greater Albania. The Vienna Agreement from April 1941 determined the demarcation line between Greater Bulgaria and Greater Albania, but the Bulgarians were not satisfied in full with such territorial division.
The first official academic-political propaganda of WWII Greater Albania was on May 30th, 1941 when Mustafa Kroja, the president of Greater Albania’s government in Tirana, held a lecture in the Italian Royal Academy on the natural and historical roots of Greater Albania which had the aim to defend an existence of Mussolini-sponsored Greater Albania. In June 1942 he visited Kosovo-Metohija and at the meeting with the local Albanian leaders, he publicly declared that:
“… the Serbian population in Kosovo should be removed as soon as possible… All indigenous Serbs should be qualified as colonists and as such, via the Albanian and Italian governments, be sent to concentration camps in Albania. Serbian settlers should be killed.”
This speech once again simply confirmed that within the project of Greater Albania, it was no place for any other people but only for ethnic Albanians.
When Italy occupied these „Albanian“ territories immediately started both ethnic cleansing and systematic implementation of the Greater Albanian political and cultural program (Albanization) in all spheres of life. A small number of Serbian children who attended schools under Italian occupation were forced to study in the Albanian language like the children in western portions of Yugoslav Macedonia included in Greater Albania. Serbs were massively expelled from Kosovo and Metohija (around 100,000) and tens of thousands of Albanians from Albania settled there (up to 100,000 people). For instance, by April 1942 as many as 60.000 refugees from Metohija and parts of Kosovo arrived in southern parts of Central Serbia which were at that time under German occupation (German protectorate). These events significantly changed the ethnic structure of this part of Serbia. After the capitulation of fascist Italy in September 1943 the infamous “Skanderbeg SS Division”, made up of Albanians from Kosovo and Metohija, was established under the umbrella of the German occupation forces. This military formation pursued the project of Greater Albania until the final liberation of these regions at the end of WWII.
Yugoslav Communists and Albanians
There were many political decisions made by Josip Broz Tito-led Yugoslav communist movement (the Communist Party of Yugoslavia) before and during WWII which show that the leadership of Yugoslav communists and partisan movement in WWII was consistent with their practical strategy of weakening and as possible as minimizing Serbian factor in future post-war socialist Yugoslavia. As a part of the same strategy, the Albanians in Yugoslavia, especially in Kosovo and Metohija, became very important instruments, particularly in a constant process of destabilizing Serbia as one of the six republics within the Yugoslav federation. This strategy was recognized even by foreigners familiar with Yugoslav politics during WWII.
After the war, it was expected that the expelled Serbs would return to their land in Kosovo and Metohija (during the war it is counted that there were up to 20,000 killed Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija) but, however, in 1945 J. B. Tito’s government legally prohibited the return of expelled Serbs to their prie-war houses and land in Kosovo and Metochija. Therefore, the outcomes of the occupation of fascist Italy and Nazi Germany of Kosovo and Metohija in 1941−1944 followed by the sanctioning of these outcomes by the post-war Yugoslav communist authorities, in fact, supported the realization of a Greater Albanian political project formulated for the first time in 1878. In general, all political decisions concerning Kosovo and Metohija and Albanians done in J. B. Tito`s Yugoslavia (1945−1980) directly contributed to the further development and practical realization of Greater Albanian political ideology which in the new political-socialist environment became covered by the policy of Yugoslav “brotherhood and unity”.
Yugoslav communists permanently practiced the prie-war strategy of the Communist International in Moscow to encourage nationalism of “small nations” and reduce the political influence of the most numerous nation. Therefore, since 1945, the Albanian political authorities carried on the policy of suppression and, in fact, the expulsion of Serbs and Montenegrins (a newly proclaimed nation by the Yugoslav communists) in the province of Kosovo and Metohija and thus having to prepare the ethnopolitical conditions for the province to join the projected Greater Albania in the future. For that purpose, it was used all forms of state administration like police, education, judiciary system, cultural institutions, academic platforms, etc.) in Kosovo and Metohija, which as an autonomous province in the Republic of Serbia has been in the hands of Albanians who as a national minority in Serbia had their Academy of Science in Pristina (probably the unique example for minority rights in the world history), the parliament, the government, the president, the university with classes in the Albanian language, and numerous other institutions. Nevertheless, Albanians abused this maximum possible framework of political and national minority autonomy which was at that time above all European standards, and used the total power they had to indoctrinate the Albanian population and particularly young people with the Greater Albanian national ideology propagating separation of Kosovo and Metohija from Serbia and Yugoslavia with the final political aim of the annexation of this province into neighboring Albania.
The Great Albanian secessionist propaganda achieved its greatest success in the period 1974-1981, after the adoption of the new federal Yugoslav constitution in 1974, which gave the provinces in Serbia (Vojvodina and Kosovo) attributes of statehood and federal constituency (basically, two provinces received the equal political status with six republics). As one of the consequences of the new situation, in practice, there was no border between socialist Yugoslavia and socialist Albania. At the time when Stalinism was at its peak in Tirana, inspiring anti-Serbian propaganda, different types of delegations from Albania’s capital have been regularly visiting Pristina (administrative center of Kosovo and Metohija). A lack of fundamental freedom and political democracy in Albania was followed in Kosovo and Metohija with a policy of ethnic cleansing of Serbs and Montenegrins. Pro-Albanian propaganda was constantly promulgated in the education system as, for instance, some 25% of all textbooks used in schools in Kosovo and Metohija, particularly those on social, historical, and ethnocultural subjects, were imported from Albania (published in Tirana and used in the Albanian education system).
The policy of Albanization was parallel in both Albania and Kosovo and Metohija. In other words, together with the processes of denationalization of Serbian, Greek, Montenegrin, and Macedonian enclaves in Albania, the same policy of Albanization was done in Kosovo and Metohija. In the 1970s, for example, the Albanological Institute in Pristina composed a special list of names that would substitute the existing Serbian and Slavic names in order to hide the ethnic origin of these settlements. The Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija have many scientific magazines but they mainly used them for the propaganda of Kosovo’s secession and its Albanization.
Conclusions
It can be concluded that a Greater Albania project with the leading idea of “all Albanians in one state” represents an example of 19th-century national romanticism questioning at the same time the existence of internationally recognized borders, and jeopardizing stability in the region. The program to create an ethnically pure Greater Albania, finally, represents a direct challenge to regional and even European peace.
The paradox of the whole situation lies in the fact that the Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija, who claim to have been systematically repressed and pursued for centuries, have reached such a level of development being part of Serbia, that, actually, today Kosovo’s Pristina instead of Albania’s Tirana is already playing the role of focal propagandist for the creation of a Greater Albania.
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Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović is a former university professor in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is a Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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Nikki Haley wants to be president of the USG. The former South Carolina governor and Trump administration ambassador to the United Nations announced her campaign on February 14.
Haley is the first republican to challenge Donald Trump, while DeSantis and others hedge their bets. According to InteractivePolls, Trump holds the lead, followed by DeSantis. Nikki Haley came in at 1%. Only Chris Christie did worse at 0%.
Now that she’s out there, Haley is shooting at targets.
Nikki Haley says Pakistan doesn't deserve billions of dollars from America while it exports terrorism against the United States and allies like India. 🇮🇳🇺🇸
I have no idea if Haley bothers to read history. If she does, then it stands to reason she understands her remarks are hypocritical.
As a former ambassador, it is reasonable to conclude Haley should be informed on geopolitical issues, for instance, the war in Afghanistan. I believe she knows virtually nothing about the history of Afghanistan and the interactive relationship between the national security state, its CIA, Pakistani intelligence, and the Afghan Mujahideen in the war against the Soviet Union.
On the other hand, if she does know, and decides to blame Pakistan solely for terrorism in America, she is a political opportunist and hypocrite. But then, of course, deceit and lies are normal behavior for the uniparty political class, especially during elections.
I am reminded, once again, of Gore Vidal, who said America is a land of amnesia. How many Americans actually know the truth about Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the CIA? I doubt very many.
Pakistani PM Imran Khan: In 80s we were training these Mujahideen people to do jihad against Soviet when they occupied Afghanistan. So,these people were trained by Pakistan, funded by US's CIA & now a decade later when the Americans come into Afghanistan… (File pic) (1/3) pic.twitter.com/34MQNcnA3X
Prior to September 11, 2001, the corporate media reported on the CIA’s “covert war” in Afghanistan.
“In all, the United States funneled more than $ 2 billion in guns and money to the mujaheddin during the 1980s, according to U.S. officials. It was the largest covert action program since World War II,” reported The Washington Post in 1992, nearly a decade before 9/11. (Steve Coll, Washington Post, July 19, 1992.)
Beginning in 1985, the CIA supplied mujaheddin rebels with extensive satellite reconnaissance data of Soviet targets on the Afghan battlefield, plans for military operations based on the satellite intelligence, intercepts of Soviet communications, secret communications networks for the rebels, delayed timing devices for tons of C-4 plastic explosives for urban sabotage and sophisticated guerrilla attacks, long-range sniper rifles, a targeting device for mortars that was linked to a U.S. Navy satellite, wire-guided anti-tank missiles, and other equipment.
How is it possible Haley knows nothing about the largest and most expensive CIA program in history?
Soon after the USG invaded Afghanistan, Phil Gasper wrote:
With the support of Pakistan’s military dictator, General Zia-ul-Haq, the U.S. began recruiting and training both mujahideen fighters from the 3 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and large numbers of mercenaries from other Islamic countries. Estimates of how much money the U.S. government channeled to the Afghan rebels over the next decade vary, but most sources put the figure between $3 billion and $6 billion, or more. Whatever the exact amount, this was “the largest covert action program since World War II”—much bigger, for example, than Washington’s intervention in Central America at the same time, which received considerably more publicity.
Hillary Clinton admitted the CIA created the Mujahideen and al-Qaeda. “We also have a history of kind of moving in and out of Pakistan,” a CNN transcript quotes the former Secretary of State. “I mean, let’s remember here, the people we are fighting today, we funded 20 years ago. And we did it because we were locked in the struggle with the Soviet Union. They invaded Afghanistan and we did not want to see them control central Asia. And we went to work.”
I don’t claim to know what is bouncing around in Nikki Haley’s head. She is a bellicose neocon, and either knows she is lying or she is ignorant of history. Being well-informed on foreign relations and history should undoubtedly be important to a person who has declared her candidacy for president of the USG.
However, consider the demographic Haley is pandering to: “rightwing,” supposedly conservative Americans, including the “America First” nationalist crowd.
The latter will predictably vote for Trump, that is if the uniparty doesn’t somehow manage to disqualify him. That would leave the unpalatable DeSantis up against whomever the democrat faction runs (it will not be Biden).
From this moment in late February 2023 to the November 2024 election, anything might and probably will happen.
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The future of humanity will be decided on a battlefield in Ukraine. That’s no exaggeration. The conflict between the United States and Russia will determine whether global economic integration will expand within an evolving multi-polar system or if the “rules-based order” will succeed in crushing any opponent to its Western-centric model.
Тhis Scholz-Macron “proposal” is but an ultimatum requiring Serbia to recognize the illegal unilateral independence of the so-called Kosovo, accompanied by a list of threats of what will beset Serbia should she fail to abide.
Did you know there are large anti-NATO protests ongoing in Europe? If you didn’t, it wouldn’t be surprising, as the corporate media, stenographers of war propaganda, have ignored thousands, if not millions, of Europeans, arguing NATO is an aggressive and dangerous anachronism that must be abolished.
‘I apologize on behalf of my profession for refusing to listen to patients with vax injuries’ – Dr. Michael Huang, physician who treated 4000 COVID patients says he’s seen hundreds of COVID-19 vaccine injuries, cancer, pregnancy loss, etc.
Canada’s foreign policy is basically an appendage of U.S foreign policy, and it is utterly barbaric. Consider the example of Syria. Syria, like Turkey, has recently suffered catastrophic earthquakes. Whereas humanitarian aid has justifiably poured into Turkey, it barely reaches the vast majority of Syrians.
In 1975, the Church Committee managed to take a fleeting, if far from complete, snapshot of the netherworld in which agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and National Security Agency (NSA) operate.
In the years between 1910 and 2000, African American farmers and agricultural workers lost over 14 million acres of land. One of the major demands of the post-Civil War era was the allocation of land to the formerly enslaved Africans in order to establish a foundation for building a self-sufficient community.
Libya is among Africa’s biggest countries and it shares a lengthy coastline with the Mediterranean Sea. It was only Gaddafi who had managed to hold together Libya and its fragile national structure, since the state’s independence in the early 1950s. Under Gaddafi, though the country was not a paradise, Libya enjoyed by some distance the best living standards in Africa.
We are currently seeing an acceleration of the corporate consolidation of the entire global agri-food chain. The high-tech/big data conglomerates, including Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Google, have joined traditional agribusiness giants, such as Corteva, Bayer, Cargill and Syngenta, in a quest to impose their model of food and agriculture on the world.
OPS, OPP, RCMP, Canada Border Service Agency and CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) were pointing away from ideologically motivated violent extremist (IMVE) threats. CSIS reported on the afternoon of February 14, “Downtown Ottawa…was actually quite festive—not threatening to a passerby.” CSIS entered as evidence before the Commission that they “had no concern with IMVEs in Ottawa.”
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The increasingly shabby treatment of former US marine Daniel Edmund Duggan by Australian authorities in the service of their US masters has again shown that the Australian passport is not quite worth the material it’s printed on.
In January this year, Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court heard that Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus accepted a request from the US before Christmas to extradite Duggan. Duggan is no longer an Australian citizen, but Canberra has often regarded this as irrelevant when it comes to the US-Australian alliance.
In a 2017 indictment unsealed on December 9, Duggan is accused by prosecutors of using his expertise to train Chinese fighter pilots to land on aircraft carriers along with eight co-conspirators working at a South African flight school. It is also alleged that the US State Department warned him to apply for written authorisation to train a foreign air force in 2008, which is a requirement of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). The allegation here is that he went ahead without securing authorisation, thereby breaching trafficking and arms control laws between 2009 and 2012.
Duggan has been held since October. In the finest traditions of Australian justice, he is being confined in conditions that suggest presumed guilt. His lawyer, Dennis Miralis, has stated at various points with some exasperation that his client is “presumed innocent under US law”. Duggan’s wife, Saffrine, insists that her husband is “a victim of the United States government’s political dispute with China.”
This presumption has also been sorely tested by Duggan’s detention in a two-by-four-metre cell at the Silverwater jail, which also houses convicted terrorists. Miralis can only assume that the New South Wales Department of Directions has been all too willing to follow instructions delivered from on high.
Earlier this month lawyers for Duggan made a submission to the UN Human Rights Committee challenging these conditions. Their submission argues that the authorities have failed to protect Duggan from “inhumane and degrading” treatment, failed to segregate him from convicted inmates, violated his right to adequate facilities to enable him to prepare his legal defence, and denied his right to confidential communications.
The submission also references the assessment of a clinical psychologist who visited Duggan in the Silverwater prison. “The psychologist described Mr Duggan’s conditions as ‘extreme’ and ‘inhumane’. He advised that Mr Duggan was at risk of a major depressive disorder.” Another condition causing him even further discomfort is benign prostatic hyperplasia.
Regarded as nothing more than contingent paperwork, citizenship is feeble in prosecutions of Australians by other allied countries. To the contrary, Canberra has often aided and abetted the undermining of citizens’ rights with a snotty “good riddance” attitude, glad to be rid of supposedly bad apples in the cart.
During the poorly conceived “War on Terror”, a tellingly ghastly response to the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, Australian citizens found themselves captured, rendered and left to decay in detention. Such names should forever be taught in schools. They include the Egyptian-Australian national Mamdouh Habib, and David Hicks.
Habib’s arrest in October 2001 in Pakistan and subsequent detention for three years on suspicion of having prior knowledge of the September 11 terrorist attacks, was a fantasy encouraged by both US and Australian personnel. Despite the US expressing the view in January 2005 that it would not lay charges against Habib, the Australian Attorney-General and Minister for Foreign Affairs were still adamant that Habib had prior knowledge of the attacks, had spent time in Afghanistan, and trained with al-Qaida.
Hicks was sent to the purgatory of Guantánamo Bay in January 2002 after being captured in Afghanistan by forces of the Northern Alliance. He then became something of a judicial guinea pig, the victim of a military commission system initially deemed by the US Supreme Court to be unconstitutional, unfair and illegal.
What was particularly striking here were the instances of premature adjudication and Australian calls that the US authorities do all they could to try and convict Hicks. Prime Minister John Howardworried that Hicks, were he not to face a military commission trial in the US, would escape charges in Australia. He did not “regard that as a satisfactory outcome, given the severity of the allegations that have been made against him.”
Foreign Minister Alexander Downereven dared to claim that Hicks be grateful for not having a longer spell in US captivity. “He would have been there for years if it hadn’t been for our intervention.”
The subsequent Plea Agreement reached in March 2007, under which Hicks pleaded guilty for “providing material support for terrorism”, saw him receive a seven-year sentence, most of it suspended. The remaining seven months of the sentence was served in Australia, which the UN Human Rights Committee held to be a “disproportionate restriction of the right to liberty” in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The HRC also noted that Hicks “had no other choice than to accept the Plea Agreement that was put to him” were he to escape the human rights violations he faced in Camp X-Ray.
On February 18, 2015, the United States Court of Military Commission Review set aside Hicks’ guilty plea and sentence. The judges noted that the charge of providing material support for terrorism should be vacated, given the Supreme Court ruling in 2014 that being tried for such an offence by a military commission was an “ex post facto violation”.
To crown this appalling resume of achievements is the Australian government’s grossly feeble response to Julian Assange’s continued persecution at the hands of the US Department of Justice in the United Kingdom. Facing a preposterously broad application of the Extradition Act of 1917, thereby imperilling national security journalism, Australian calls to drop the case have been weak and lukewarm at best. The trend was set by Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard, whose response to Cablegate in 2010 was to presume Assange was guilty for having breached some regulation, despite failing to identify a single law to that effect.
Given this inglorious record, the Duggan case has an all too familiar feel to it. The training of Chinese pilots by veteran personnel from a Western country would hardly have raised a murmur when relations between Washington and Beijing were less acrimonious. Hicks also found himself in the historical crosshairs, foolishly wishing to throw in his lot with forces that were once the anti-communist darlings of the US intelligence community.
The question here is what Australian citizens can do when providing services for foreign countries. Serving in ultra-nationalist Ukrainian regiments, or moonlighting in the Israeli Defence Force, is unlikely to land you in trouble. But proffering aeronautical expertise in a private capacity while earning some cash on the side? How frightful.
If the fevered assessments from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation are anything to go by, the only thing missing in Duggan’s extradition is the welcome card for the US DOJ. ASIO Chief Mike Burgess, in his annual threat assessment, was eager to justify his agency’s bloated budget. “More hostile foreign intelligence services, more spies, more targeting, more harm, more ASIO investigations, more ASIO disruptions. From where I sit, it feels like hand-to-hand combat.”
Burgess shows a striking inability to understand why much of this is overegging paranoia. Academics, business figures and bureaucrats, in suggesting he ease up on ASIO’s foreign interference and espionage operations, could only offer him “flimsy” justifications, such as “All countries spy on each other” and “We were going to make the information public anyway”.
Facing such a jaundiced worldview, Duggan’s future is bleak. And now that Australia has willingly committed itself to Armageddon in lock-step with US forces in any conflict with the PRC, Canberra is doing everything it can to be an efficient detainer for its enormous and not always considerate friend.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
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ЕУ каже да је статусно неутрална. У сваком случају, ЕУ није објавила да је напустила статус неутралности. Генерална скупштина УН је септембра 2010. поздравила спремност ЕУ да „олакшава дијалог страна“, полазећи управо од декларисане статусне неутралности ЕУ, и ништа више од тога. Та улога „олакшивача“ дијалога довела је до тога да се, најпре, појави Шолц-Макронов «Предлог основног споразума“, да се потом тај «предлог» опрогласи за «нови преговарачки оквир ЕУ, уз подршку САД» да би се испоставило да је у суштини реч о ултиматуму Србији да призна илегалну, једнострану сепаратистичку творевину као себи равног суседа са којим ће сарађивати поштујући суверенитет, интегритет и државне симболе суседа, да «се неће противити његовом чланству у било којој међународној организацији», укључујући и у ОУН. Иза тих «очекивања» ЕУ и Приштине следи листа претњи шта ће се десити уколико Србија то не прихвати.
Истина је, дакле, да је ЕУ на драстичан начин, напустила статусну неутралност, стала уз илегално једнострно отцепљење тзв. Косова и да је најновији папир (когод да га је написао, придружио му се или га «само» подржао) доказ да ЕУ, без објаве, излази из мандата Генералне скупштине Уједињених нација. Убеђен сам да је питање веома важно за Србију и да ничему не служи да се понашамо као да је таква «еволуција» улоге ЕУ нормална по било ком основу – правном, политичком, моралном, цивилизацијском. Јер, уколико се не поштују правно обавезујуће одлуке СБ УН као што је то резолуција 1244, нити политички ставови Генералне скупштине о мандату ЕУ за „олакшавање дијалога страна“, имамо одговорност и обавезу према себи, према «orbi et urbi” да кажемо да то није нормално, да није добро за међусобно поверење и да није прихватљиво за Србију.
Ако смо сагласни да се ради о животним и дугорочним интересима Србије, ако смо уверени у принципијелност, основаност и исправност наших оцена и ставова, а јесмо, па ако се и поред тога и због тога, било ко љути, онда једино можемо рећи да нам је жао, али да се због тога не повлачимо нити одустајемо од принципа, најмање од интереса који су засновани на тим принципима. Не смемо се повести за тренутним стањем односа са ЕУ или било каквим обећањима тзв. бенефита, нити за краткорочним интересима. Поготову што је и сама ЕУ у дубоким превирањима, Европа и свет такође.
Морамо објективно распознавати смерове стратешких токова а оцене на основу којих пројектујемо стратегију и путеве остваривања дугорочних интереса, темељити на сопственим искуствима, лекцијама историје, поузданим партнерствима и ослонцима. Шире трендове од којих се не можемо изоловти морамо сагледавати, не из једног, већ из свих важнијих стратешких углова. Бојим се да сада то није случај зато што смо, као земља и народ, у дужем времену изложени претераном утицају једностране пропаганде Запада, њихових извора, погледа и интереса. То није добро ни онда када то долази као резултат добрих намера, а може бити погубно када стиже упарено са стратегијом хегемонизма и доминације.
Само поштовање основних принципа међународног права, Повеље ОУН као и целовито спровођење резолуције СБ УН 1244 представљају кључ за мир, безбедност и бољи живот свих народа на Балкану, укључујући српски и албански народ.
Ничега од тога нема у тзв. Шолц-Макроновом плану представљеном јавности као некакав „Нови преговарачки оквир ЕУ подржан од стране САД“, или као „Основни споразум“ Србије и тзв. Косова.
Шолц-Макронов тзв. план није никакав оквир за преговоре, праведно или одрживо решење. То је план за дробљење Србије. И то, ако је могуће, уз пристанак Србије.
Ако је тзв. Шолц-Макронов план било какав „кључ“ онда је, то најмање кључ за мир, стабилност и напредак билокојег региона, народа или Европе, као целине. То је план за тоталну доминацију НАТО, на челу са САД, над српским народом и Балкану, за припрему Балкана као стратешког положаја у глобалном рату против Русије и Кине. То је план-млин за настављање дробљења Србије и целог српског народа на Балкану. Уколико би у том плану било иоле добрих намера, они би се бар потрудили да помену гаранције Савета безбедности УН према Србији које су њихови претходници дали 10. јуна 1999. године. Да су принципијелни, да стварно поштују принципе и међународно право, да воде предвидиву политику, као што то од других очекују, зашто би онда бежали од УН и од одлука Савета безбедности! Пошто нису, Србија треба да остане верна себи, свом народу, својим прецима, историјском наслеђу и непролазним тековинама цивилизације.
Зашто им је била била неопходна Мелонијева – да Макрон ублажи на баш часну улогу у „двојцу“ са Шолцем, или да тако проширени ојачају ЕУ димензију „плана“, или да Рим, иако једини сусед, не остане без заслуга за договорену инкарнацију Велике Албаније? У том трију, без обзира на САД као редитеља, ипак, недостаје Риши Сунак у улози Нелвила Чемберлена, како би реприза „спашавања мира“ 1938, у Бертсгардену, била бар приближно уверљиво као и премијера пре 85 година.
„Бриселским споразумом“ од 2013. Србија је повукла свој правни и уставни поредак и институције на Северу Покрајине. За узврат је обезбедила ЗСО са извршниом надлежностима, истина, само на папиру. Изгледа да противници Србије које она третира као „једину алтернативу“ смерају да сада у Брислу, након 10 година затезања „конопца до пуцања“, принуде Србију да поново плати формирање ЗСО, макар и по тзв. уставу тзв. Косова, тако што ће се сагласити да је Шолц-Макронов „план“, или „споразум“, добра основа за настављање преговора који ће водити закључивању „свеобухватног правно обавезујућег споразума о нормализацији“. То да „нормализација“, значи међусобно признање, успостављање „добросуседских односа“, поштовање реципроцитета, суверенитета и територијалног интегритета страна страна“, чланство тзв. Косова у међународне организације, укључујући УН, све то и много другог у истом смислу, ће саопштити САД, ЕУ, НАТО и Приштина. Ако прихвати то што су јој спремили они који одувек Србији само такве ствари спремају, она би могла и другачије интерпретира своју сагласност, само то не би много мењало ток ствари на штету Србије.
Врло је ризично уздати се у гаранције оних који их до сада нису поштовали, а не инсистирати на постојећим гаранцијама Савета безбедности УН и оних који другачије мисле, који подржавају суверенитет и територијални интегритет Србије. То је готово 2/3 света и то оног чија релевантност у глобалним односима расте, не опада. Притисци и тежина ситуације у којој се Србија налази нису оправдање за удаљавање од права, принципа и постојећих гаранција. Напротив. 26.03.2023.9
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НСПМ (Нова српска политичка мисао), 26.фебруар 2023.
Живадин Йованович является президентом Белградского форума “За мир равных”. Он является постоянным автором Global Research.
The EU claims to be neutral [Kosovo] status-wise. Or at least, the EU has not declared parting ways with its status neutrality. Back in September 2019, the UN General Assembly welcomed “the readiness of the European Union to facilitate a process of dialogue between the parties”, on the basis of the EU’s declared status-neutrality. Тhis Scholz-Macron “proposal” is but an ultimatum requiring Serbia to recognize the illegal unilateral independence of the so-called Kosovo, accompanied by a list of threats of what will beset Serbia should she fail to abide. In addition, this ultimatum is declared to be the position of the entire EU. Its true nature is not altered by being presented to the Serbian public as “a US-backed, EU’s new negotiating framework”. An ultimatum will be an ultimatum, whatever the packaging.
We need to vocalize the truth: firstly, that the EU has drastically abandoned its status-neutrality and secondly, that the latest paper (whoever by written, joined, or backed) is proof of the European Union silently stepping out and beyond of the mandate given to it by the United Nations General Assembly.
I have no doubts whatsoever that this matter is of utmost importance for Serbia, and that it is a fool’s errand trying to act as if this is business as usual. Because if faced with the scenario where the legally binding decision of the UN Security Council are not observed, and the UN General Assembly political guidance on mandating the EU to “facilitate the dialogue between the parties” are disregarded, we have responsibility and duty to say out loud that this is not normal, not beneficial for mutual trust, and not acceptable for Serbia. Rather, it should not be normal or acceptable for any bona fide state member to the United Nations.
If we agree that the ongoing events concern the vital and long-term interests of Serbia, if we are confident that our positions and views are righteous, principled, and well-based – which we are – and if any party gets angered by this, we regret but nonetheless we have to stand our ground, and not retreat. We must not get carried away by a current state of play, or get swayed by any short-term interests. We must discern strategic trends and articulate our positions based on our own experiences, lessons taught by history, and overall trends as evaluated from all important aspects instead of any single angle.
I am afraid that, as a country and a nation, we have been continuously exposed to an excessive influence of the West’s one-sided propaganda, views, and interests. This cannot be good for us, not even if stemming from good intentions; when creeping in as a precursor to the strategy of hegemony and domination, it can be plainly disastrous.
The one true key to peace, security, and a better life for all nations in the Balkans, including the Serbian and Albanian people, lies in the observance of the fundamental principles of international law, the UN Charter, and the consistent implementation of UNSC Resolution 1244.
None of the above is to be found in the so-called Scholz-Macron plan, presented to the public as a sort of “EU’s new negotiating framework, US-backed” or a “Basic Agreement” between Serbia and the so-called Kosovo.
The Scholz-Macron plan is not a framework for negotiations, or for any just or sustainable solution. This is a plan to crush Serbia. If possible, with the consent of Serbia.
If the Scholz-Macron plan is the key to anything, the least of all is it a key to peace, stability and progress of any region, nation, or Europe as a whole. It is the plan for the total domination of the USA-led NATO over the Serbian people and the Balkans, and for setting the Balkans as the strategic stage in the global war against Russia and China. It is the juggernaut plant to keep crushing Serbia and the entire Serbian nation in the Balkans. If their plan had had any good intentions, they would have made an effort to at least refer to the UN Security Council guarantees vis-à-vis Serbia, given by their predecessors on June 10, 1999. If they were principled, if they really respected principles and international law, if they pursued a predictable politics as they expect others to do, why would they stay clear from the United Nations and the decisions taken by the Security Council! Since they were not, and did not, Serbia should remain true to herself, to her people, ancestors, historical heritage and enduring achievements belonging to the world civilization.
Why did they need Meloni? To help Macron water down his not-so-honorable role in ‘duet’ with Scholz? Or to jointly bolster the EU dimension of the ‘Plan’? Or maybe help Rome, as a neighbor, claim a piece of merit for the connived incarnation of Greater Albania? Apart from the USA as mastermind, the trio still misses Rishi Sunak to reprise the role ofNeville Chamberlain, so to make rerun of the 1938 “saving the peace” in Berchtesgaden at least as convincing as its premiere was 85 years ago.
Under the “Brussels Agreement” of 2013, Serbia withdrew her legal and constitutional order and institutions in the north of the Province. In turn, albeit in paper only, Serbia ensured the Community of Serbian Municipalities (the CSM) with executive powers. Now, after ten years of ‘stretching the rope’ to the point of snapping, it looks like Serbia’s adversaries, the same one that Serbian leadership swears are the ‘only alternative’, are set on forcing Serbia to pay once more for the establishment of the CSM, that is, an incapacitated CSM fashioned pursuant to the so-called Kosovo Constitution. For this meagre gain, Serbia is expected to agree that the Scholz-Macron plan/agreement is a good basis for the resumption of negotiations that will lead to, and result in, the conclusion of a “comprehensive and legally binding agreement on normalization”.
Then, the USA, the EU, NATO and Priština will proclaim and explain that ‘normalization’ means mutual recognition, establishment of ‘good neighborly relations’, respecting reciprocity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of ‘parties’ and the so-called Kosovo’s full membership in international organizations including the UN, and the like. If Serbia does accept what was devised by those always brewing a same plot for her, she might as well articulate her consent in a different way, but this in itself would not alter the unfolding of events much to the detriment of Serbia.
It is very dicey to rely on the guarantees given by those already proven to have never kept their word, instead of insisting on the existing guarantees given by the UN Security Council and by those who have differing worldviews and who support the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia. The latter comprise almost 2/3 of the world, whose relevance in global relations is increasing, rather than decreasing. The pressures and gravity of the situation in which Serbia finds herself are not and cannot serve as justification for shifting away from the rights, principles and existing guarantees. Quite the contrary.
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Translated by Branislava Mitrovic
Živadin Jovanović is President of the Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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Neuroticism is “a tendency toward anxiety, depression, self-doubt, and other negative feelings,” as succinctly defined by Psychology Today,
One thing you notice living abroad in certain (not all) non-Western countries, coming from the West, is the neuroticism differential.
Westerners in Bangkok, for instance, get super mad when the bus doesn’t come on time. To cope, they verbally berate minimum-wage workers who have no control over the matter whatsoever. In contrast, the locals shrug their shoulders, chalk it up to fate or whatever, and take the punches as they come.
One comes away with the awful impression that the bus tardiness is not, in the ultimate analysis, the source of the farang’s consternation (“farang” being local jargon for “white foreigner”).
Carl Jung, famed psychoanalyst of posterity, agrees.
Per the video, the basic Jungian dilemma goes like this:
An individual encounters a problem/crisis.
The problem or crisis remains unresolved due to an inability or unwillingness to confront it: “If we follow the history of a neurosis with attention, we regularly find a critical moment when some problem emerged that was evaded.” –Carl Jung
The mental discomfort caused by the unresolved problem or crisis is subconsciously repressed by displacing emotions, self-medicating or engaging in ritual distraction. In one case study, Jung notes of a subject: “By suppressing disagreeable thoughts she created something like a psychic vacuum which, as usually happens, gradually became filled with anxiety.”
“I am not altogether pessimistic about neurosis… Neurosis is really an attempt at self-cure…It is an attempt of the self-regulating psychic system to restore the balance, in no way different from the function of dreams – only rather more forceful and drastic.” -Carl Jung, The Symbolic Life
Unfortunately for the prospects of overcoming neurosis, distraction in the civilized world is easier than ever.
“The pervasiveness of the Internet has raised concern about its (problematic) use and the potentially negative impact on people’s health. Neuroticism has been identified as one potential risk factor of Internet and other online addictions… High levels of neuroticism significantly correlated with all measures of problematic Internet activities.”
Another important factor to consider, offered in the above video (which might speak to the modern world’s neuroticism pandemic) is the helicopter-parenting phenomenon. The child remains an infant forever — never exposed to danger or challenge.
As a result of never getting out from under the watchful eye of the parent, the sheltered child simply doesn’t learn through trial and error – the only way to really do it — how to face difficulty and come out on the other side stronger and wiser:
“Though it is a misfortune for a child to have no parents, it is equally dangerous for him to be too closely bound to his family. An excessively strong attachment to the parent is a severe handicap in his later adaptation to the world, for a growing human being is not destined to remain forever the child of his parents.” -Carl Jung
“In 2021 and 2022, the 30 and younger group experienced a significant increase in neuroticism, which is a tendency to see the world as distressing or unsafe, and a decrease in agreeableness and conscientiousness.”
In the future you won't read history books. You'll see a video like this one and go "I got it, I know what 2O2O was like".pic.twitter.com/2A1ripllyo
What we have here is a toxic cocktail of negative social trends and influences that, taken together, seem to dramatically increase neurosis.
Everyone is neurotic to some degree. As Psychology Today annotates in its definition of neurosis, “all personality traits, including neuroticism, exist on a spectrum—some people are just much more neurotic than others.”
So no one is ever going to shirk neurosis totally. But there are ways to conquer it so that it doesn’t hijack your life: face down your fears head-on. Get out of your own headspace. Brave the unknown. Get outside. Ditch the social media. It’s the only way forward.
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This article was originally published on The Daily Bell.
Ben Bartee is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs. Follow his stuff via Armageddon Prose and/or Substack, Locals, Gab, and Twitter. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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Did you know there are large anti-NATO protests ongoing in Europe? If you didn’t, it wouldn’t be surprising, as the corporate media, stenographers of war propaganda, have ignored thousands, if not millions, of Europeans, arguing NATO is an aggressive and dangerous anachronism that must be abolished.
Millions of Europeans also demand their governments stop sending military hardware to Ukraine and get serious about a negotiated peace and the prevention of WWIII and nuclear annihilation.
Anti-NATO protests are hitting Italy. Protesters in Genoa & Rome have taken to the streets against NATO’s WARMONGERING politicians leading Europe into WWIII. Here’s a sample: pic.twitter.com/AMHTZ9LKua
💥🌐💥 Today is a day full of protests around Europe:
Large crowds gather in London to protest for peace and against sending weapons to Ukraine
Anti-NATO Protests taking place across many Europe cities,with citizens fed up support of Kiev taking a toll on their livelihoods. pic.twitter.com/kNuJInHPtG
Activists picket near the Ramstein airbase in Germany, headquarters for the United States Air Forces in Europe – Air Forces Africa and also for NATO Allied Air Command. They protest against further arms supplies to Ukraine and demand peace talks. pic.twitter.com/bgC0UTWVwx
As to be expected, coverage of the demonstrations was virtually nonexistent in the corporate war propaganda media. Reuters reported on the protests, but you will need to get out your wallet or scale a paywall to read what I can only assume is a downplay of growing outrage in Europe.
Politico ignored the protests and focused on Belgians expressing “solidarity with Ukraine for the one-year anniversary of the invasion by Russia.”
The same message was sent out by the CIA’s “RadioFreeEurope” and “RadioLiberty” (sic). “A long Ukrainian flag was spread across at the main Republic Square as people laid flowers in memory of the victims of war in front of the Ukrainian Embassy,” reports the Cold War relic.
I don’t believe the memory of 14,000 ethnic Russians slaughtered in the Donbas and elsewhere in eastern Ukraine by neo-nazi thugs figured into this solemn remembrance.
Public opinion is shifting fast in Germany and recent polls show over half in Germany oppose arming Ukraine further. The protests are now large enough that they cannot be hidden…
The answer is obvious. In the 1950s, the CIA turned corporate media into its “Mighty Wurlitzer” of propaganda. “The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media,” admitted William Colby, former CIA Director, cited by Dave Mcgowan in his book, “Derailing Democracy: The America the Media Don’t Want You to See.”
“By the early 1950s,” writes former Village Voice reporter Deborah Davis in “Katharine the Great,” the CIA “owned… respected members of the New York Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communications vehicles, plus stringers, four to six hundred in all, according to a former CIA analyst.”
Most consumers of the corporate media were – and are – unaware of the effect that the salting of public opinion has on their own beliefs. A network anchorman in time of national crisis is an instrument of psychological warfare in the MOCKINGBIRD media. He is a creature from the national security sector’s chamber of horrors. For this reason consumers of the corporate press have reason to examine their basic beliefs about government and life in the parallel universe of these United States.
Lies of omission are a crucial element of the national security state’s “psychological warfare” against rational thought and the desire for peace. For over a year, the corporate media, long ago twisted into a propaganda tool by the state, have lied repeatedly, in serial fashion, about the nature of the conflict in Ukraine.
In America, antiwar protests were similarly ignored by the corporate war propaganda media.
Thousands of protesters for peace in Ukraine marched through Washington, D.C., over the weekend at the Rage Against the War Machine protests. pic.twitter.com/K5ttcSdDKq
As if on cue, blue-checkers—such as Ford Fischer, an “independent journalist” with White House press credentials—have denounced the effort to end the conflict as a white supremacist conspiracy.
VIDEO THREAD: Yesterday, Matthew Heimbach, one of the most prominent leaders in the American neo-Nazi movement in the mid-2010's, showed up at the "Rage Against the War Machine" rally in DC.
In addition, if you are against war, it means you’re probably a commie.
The organizers of the “Rage against the war machine” rally in the US forgot to tell their minions not to bring the terrorist colors and patches to the protest. You know, because it should have looked as if they were neutral. pic.twitter.com/Dab1kcYZJo
But we should pay attention when a series of senior Western military leaders, active and retired, make urgent calls for diplomacy to reopen peace negotiations, and warn that prolonging and escalating the war is risking a full-scale war between Russia and the U.S. that could escalate into nuclear war
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***
‘I apologize on behalf of my profession for refusing to listen to patients with vax injuries’ – Dr. Michael Huang, physician who treated 4000 COVID patients says he’s seen hundreds of COVID-19 vaccine injuries, cancer, pregnancy loss, etc.
Vaccine injured physicians are starting to speak out…
Dr. Melissa Halvorson Smith MD
Dr. Melissa Halvorson Smith is a gynecologist from North Dakota and heads the Women’s Health Center. She was injured by 2 doses of Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA vaccine. In her words (click here):
Dr. Smith has been shocked by the horrible treatment she has received from her physician colleagues as a COVID-19 vaccine injured patient.
Dr. Shmuel Shapira MD
Dr. Shmuel Shapira MD MPH (Col) led Israel’s effort to develop a coronavirus vaccine and was the Head of the Department of Military Medicine of Hebrew University Faculty of Medicine and IDF Medical Corps (read more here):
“Professor Shmuel Shapira might be the most senior ranking medical-scientist in the world to openly criticize the COVID vaccines.”
On May 13, 2022, Dr.Shapira said: “I received 3 vaccinations (Pfizer), I was physically injured in a very significant way as many others were injured”
Dr. Kerryn Phelps MD
Dr. Kerryn Phelps is the former President of the Australian Medical Association (AMA). She and her partner were COVID-19 vaccine injured. She is the highest ranking Australian medical doctor to admit to being COVID-19 vaccine injured (read more here):
“This is an issue that I have witnessed first-hand with my wife who suffered a severe neurological reaction to her first Pfizer vaccine within minutes, including burning face and gums, paraesethesiae, and numb hands and feet”
“I continue to observe the devastating effects a year-and-a-half later with the addition of fatigue and additional neurological symptoms including nerve pains, altered sense of smell, visual disturbance and musculoskeletal inflammation. The diagnosis and causation has been confirmed by several specialists who have told me that they have seen ‘a lot’ of patients in a similar situation.”
“Dr. Phelps revealed she was also diagnosed with a vaccine injury from her second dose of Pfizer in July 2021, “with the diagnosis and causation confirmed by specialist colleagues”.
“In my case the injury resulted in dysautonomia with intermittent fevers and cardiovascular implications including breathlessness, inappropriate sinus tachycardia and blood pressure fluctuations.”
“Dr. Phelps said both reactions were reported to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) “but never followed up”.
“She revealed she had spoken with other doctors “who have themselves experienced a serious and persistent adverse event” but that “vaccine injury is a subject that few in the medical profession have wanted to talk about”.
Dr. Danice Hertz MD
Dr. Danice Hertz, a 64 year old physician was “horribly ill” and “incapacitated” after getting Pfizer’s COVID-19 mRNA vaccine. Her story is here (click here):
“Dr.Hertz, a gastroenterologist who retired in October, got her first and only dose of Pfizer’s vaccine on Dec. 23, 2020”
“Within 30 minutes, I started experiencing adverse effects”
“Hertz said within 24 hours she developed neurological symptoms, including severe paresthesias in her face, tongue, scalp, chest wall and limbs, as well as tremors, twitching, weakness, headaches, tinnitus and imbalance.”
“I saw six neurologists, five allergists, three rheumatologists, and no one had a clue,” Hertz said.”
“Dr. Danice Hertz said people like her who have been seriously injured by COVID vaccines are being dismissed or ignored, and because health officials won’t research their injuries and potential treatments, they have nowhere to turn.”
“After taking the Pfizer injection Danice got neuropathy, mast cell activation, pericarditis and many other symptoms. She has now seen 22 different doctors and still hasn’t recovered.” (click here)
Dr. Stephen Wright MD
Dr. Stephen Wright (UK) died at age 32, from blood clots caused by the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
Mark Steyn conducted several interviews with the family:
My Take…
It is crucial for doctors who have been COVID-19 vaccine injured to speak up and let the world know what has happened to them and how they have been treated by their colleagues and the medical establishment in general, once they became COVID-19 vaccine injured patients.
It is also important for everyone, vaccinated or unvaccinated to be kind to these doctors as they share their painful stories with us. Their voices will be crucial in turning the tide on the COVID-19 vaccine propaganda, gaslighting and censorship.
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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
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With Russia’s military operation in Ukraine evidently destroying NATO’s ambitions, Washington is becoming increasingly frustrated that Moscow has not been isolated. Russia did not economically collapse, as was predicted in the West, partly because of the robust and longstanding relationship it has with India. It is unsurprising that in only a matter of days, Germany and the US have pressured India to capitulate their sovereignty and serve Western interests instead of their own.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz sought assurances from India on February 25 that it would not only refuse to block, but also support efforts to isolate Russia. Following his talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the chancellor refused to reveal what exactly they discussed in relation to Ukraine.
Although the contents of the discussion were cited as being confidential in nature, it is likely that Scholz did not want to humiliatingly admit that India refused to step back from its tried and tested relationship with Russia. Scholz did reveal though that he and Modi had discussed the war in Ukraine “very extensively and very intensely.”
It is noted that this trip was Scholz’s first official visit to India but his fourth meeting with Modi since taking office in 2021. Although they also discussed ways to boost economic cooperation, including through a free trade agreement between the European Union and India, it cannot be overlooked that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in New Delhi only days after Scholz.
Days before arriving in the Indian capital, Blinken said that countries like India, which have not joined the West in denouncing Russia’s military operation, were on a supposed trajectory away from alignment with Moscow. He stressed that the process would not occur “in one fell swoop.”
“There are countries that have long-standing, decades-long relationships with Russia, with the Soviet Union before, that are challenging to break off in one fell swoop. It’s not flipping a light switch, it’s moving an aircraft carrier,” Blinken said in an interview with The Atlantic on February 24.
However, for all of Blinken’s claims that India is moving away from Moscow, there is no actual suggestion that this is occurring. The US and India cooperate through the QUAD format, a naval bloc aimed against China, but this has not meant India’s submission to Washington, as the Americans evidently anticipated.
Although India has faced sustained and continued pressure from the West to distance itself from Moscow, New Delhi has thus far resisted, citing its longstanding ties with Russia and its economic and oil interests. It cannot be overlooked that Russia has been India’s largest weapons supplier since the Cold War-era, particularly since the US traditionally favoured Pakistan.
However, Washington in recent years has looked to turn New Delhi away from its main military supplier (but without wanting to adjust its policy to Pakistan).
“India for decades had Russia at the core of providing military equipment to it and its defences, but what we’ve seen over the last few years is a trajectory away from relying on Russia and moving into partnership with us and other countries,” Blinken said, without mentioning the fact that India is moving towards home-grown production, something that Russia is playing a key role in.
None-the-less, it is expected that Blinken, in the same way as Scholz, will try and convince India to change course regarding its ties with Russia.
As Bloomberg reported, citing Kpler’s lead crude analyst, Viktor Katona, “India purchased almost no Russian oil a year ago, but has become a crucial market after the US and European Union imposed sanctions on Moscow. The Asian country imported around 1.85 million barrels a day from Russia in February, close to its potential maximum of about 2 million barrels a day.”
The cold hard facts are that Moscow and New Delhi have a longstanding relationship that India will not break just for the sake of serving Western interests. Beyond the time-tested security ties, Russia offers energy hungry India the best deal for oil, something that will not be sacrificed because of a far-off war in Eastern Europe.
According to QUARTZ, India has in less than a year saved an estimated $3.6 billion by increasing Russian oil imports. This is a significant amount for a country that depends on imports to meet 85% of its petroleum needs.
It is recalled that in November 2022, Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar said “Russia has been a steady and time-tested partner. Any objective evaluation of our relationship over many decades would confirm that it has actually served both our countries very, very well.”
With this statement, he effectively confirmed a continuance of the current policy despite sustained pressure – a pressure that Scholz and Blinken are the latest to apply. They are however also the latest that were unable to convince New Delhi to change its policy regarding Russia.
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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
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***
A year ago Canadian mainstream media and politicians described an unruly mob headed for Ottawa.
On January 26, 2022, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Canadians there was a “fringe minority” with “unacceptable views” coming to Ottawa in a “so-called freedom convoy.”[1]
A few protesters arrived in Ottawa on January 28, with the majority coming the next day.
On Valentine’s Day, Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act to crush the protest. Bank accounts of hundreds of protesters were frozen. After the police crackdown on protesters, Bill Blair, the Minister of Emergency Preparedness, said it was “textbook” police action: “It restored my pride in my profession.”
Blair continued, “what I witnessed [was]…an entirely professional proportional, measured response. They moved slowly, methodically, respectfully….I’ve never seen it done better than what I witnessed here in the City of Ottawa as they…peacefully as possible, brought this to a resolution.”
On February 22 the Liberal-NDP coalition ratified the invocation of the Emergencies Act. But a day later the Act was rescinded. The Emergencies Act legislation of 1988 required that, on the occasion of its use, an inquiry must be held to determine if it was justified.
What Sparked the Protest?
Truck drivers had been designated essential service workers transporting groceries, hospital supplies, factory parts and other critical goods. In March 2021, Trudeau had called them “heroes.” But in November 2021, the government announced that the truck driver exemption from vaccination would end, requiring proof of vaccination in order to cross the Canada-USA border. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Canadian Manufacturing Coalition, Canadian Trucking Alliance and Private Motor Truck Council of Canada were among those urging the government to reverse policy.
The Private Motor Truck Council of Canada (PMTC) warned that “over 31 thousand cross-border truckers will leave the industry.” The Canadian Trucking Alliance had similar estimates of drivers who would exit the industry. The PMTC estimated that, if the government postponed its regulation until at least April 15, 2022, only “22,800 drivers would exit the cross-border industry if given the extra time” to decide whether to get vaccinated.[2]
Image is from Uncancelled
The government did not produce any statistics proving truck drivers, who travel alone in their trucks, were a source of Covid-19 infection in Canada. One could infer, by the government’s hard line, there was a solid basis for fearing truck drivers were spreading Covid-19 when crossing the international border, though not when they traveled interprovincially.
When asked in January 2022 by the House of Commons Health Committee, “Neither Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos nor Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam were able to provide any data about COVID-19 and truck drivers.” [3]
It was not enough for the Public Health Agency of Canada to advise all truck drivers who were ill with any symptoms to stay home. It was not enough to simply require truck drivers to take a PCR rapid test before a trip across the border, allowing drivers who tested negative to proceed. It did not matter that truck drivers were not interacting with retirees or seniors in assisted-living facilities, those most vulnerable. Or that the overall infection fatality rate for Covid-19 was about 0.25% with 99.75% of the population who got Covid surviving.[3]
The new border restrictions for truck drivers at the USA-Canada and USA-Mexico border were outliers. In Africa, Europe, South America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, truck drivers were deemed essential service workers. Concerned about supply chains and economic well-being, other nations gave truck drivers the same exemptions that were suddenly denied them at Canada-U.S. border points.
The Official Story
As truck drivers headed from the British Columbia coast on January 23, 2022, a media narrative instantly emerged. It depicted protesters headed for Ottawa as the worst of the worst. On January 25, a CTV headline screamed: “‘So many angry people’: Experts say online conversation around trucker convoy veering into dangerous territory.” CTV interviewed Kurt Phillips, founder of Anti-Racist Canada, who warned that he had
“seen people online calling the trucker convoy Canada’s version of the U.S. Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, for the truckers to ram their trucks into Parliament, and people encouraging the hanging of politicians.”[4]
The Convoy was next framed as an inspiration of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Russian actors” had instigated the convoy. On January 28, CBC reporter Nil Köksal mused,
“Given Canada’s support of Ukraine in this current crisis with Russia… there is a concern that Russian actors could be continuing to fuel things as this protest grows, perhaps even instigating it from the outside.”
The CBC quietly retracted the statement on February 4th.[5]
On January 29, CTV journalist Mackenzie Gray posted a photo of an individual carrying a Confederate flag. Gray tweeted above the photo, “We’ve got our first [C]onfederate flag of the day here on Parliament Hill.” Florida Governor Ron Desantis’s press secretary, Christina Pushaw, responded on Twitter to Gray’s tweet, observing “You claim to be a journalist, so why don’t you interview him? You can ask him who he is—and why he is flying a Confederate flag. If you just post a picture like this with no context, it looks like you’re implying the entire convoy are racists. How do you know he isn’t a plant?”[6]
The Toronto Star reported
“The appearance of a Nazi flag at the ‘Freedom Convoy’ in Ottawa drew widespread condemnation from across the political spectrum. Opponents of the protest said it was proof of white supremacist sympathies lurking beneath the movement’s surface, while supporters said it was unfair to paint the entire convoy as hateful because of a few bad actors.”[7]
On January 29, it was reported that a woman was yelling “freedom,” and dancing on the tomb of the unknown soldier. The National Observer asked the Chief of the Canadian Defense Staff, General Wayne Eyre, for a comment. He responded,
“I am sickened to see protesters dance on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and desecrate the National War Memorial. Generations of Canadians have fought and died for our rights, including free speech, but not this. Those involved should hang their heads in shame.”[8]
On the morning of February 6, Matias Muñoz alleged two arsonists came to an apartment building lobby in downtown Ottawa at 5:00 a.m. Muñoz tweeted: “One of them taped the door handles so no one could get out.” This apparently included the arsonists. According to the story, a tenant, who saw the arsonists lighting a fire in the lobby, asked if they were truckers. And then decided to go to bed without calling 911. Which is what you would do if you knew you were in a building that was on fire. Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson held an emergency meeting of city council condemning the “malicious intent” of the convoy protesters. “Yesterday we learned of a horrific story that clearly demonstrates the malicious intent of the protesters occupying our city.”[9]
Convoy protesters were also accused of being terrorists. Ottawa City Councillor Diane Deans referred to the protest as part of a “nationwide insurrection,” and the protesters themselves as “terrorists” and “mercenaries.”[10] A repeated talking point was that the protesters intended to orchestrate their own version of the events of January 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C., here on Parliament Hill. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, Justin Trudeau and others in the Liberal cabinet inferred a plot to overthrow the government was in motion.
In early February, Bernie Farber, chair of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, decried an anti-Semitic flyer alleged to be the work of Ottawa protesters titled “Every Single Aspect of the COVID Agenda Is Jewish.” It turned out the offending flyer was from a photo taken in Miami, Florida, two weeks before the Ottawa protest began.
Image is from The Post Millennial
In addition, the truckers were painted as delinquent parents whose children should be taken away from them. “I can only say that there have been ongoing reports regarding child welfare concerns, and that we consider all information received to determine the best response,” said a spokesperson for the Ottawa Children’s Aid Society. After the Emergencies Act was invoked on February 14, bringing children to the demonstrations was prohibited. If a child were in the cab of a truck, it would result in a potential fine of $5,000 or up to five years in prison. Ottawa police said roughly 25% of the vehicles in the blockades had children in them.[11]
In an opinion piece to TheGlobe and Mail, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada Beverley McLachlin wrote “The Ottawa truck convoy has revealed the ugly side of freedom.” McLachlin wondered “what does this vaunted ‘freedom’ mean? The answer is, everything and nothing. Everything: the right not to wear masks in public places; the right not to be vaccinated; the right to hold Ottawa’s downtown residents and businesses hostage; the right to malign public officials and call for the Prime Minister’s death; the right to shout epithets at people of colour.” To date, no protesters connected to the Freedom Convoy have been charged, or face pending legal action, in relation to uttering death threats against Justin Trudeau.[12]
There were also suggestions in the media that protesters threatened to bomb the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario.[13]
Politicians lined up to rebuke a protest they described as “illegal.” Yet, on February 7, 2022, Ontario Superior Court Justice Hugh McLean ruled the protest was legal. He wrote, “the defendants and other persons remain at liberty to engage in a peaceful, lawful and safe protest.” McLean also issued an injunction against honking of horns, with which residents and businesses understandably took issue.
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino stated that “threats of rape” by truckers in Ottawa was one of the catalysts for the Liberal government invoking the Emergencies Act.[14] He also alleged protester trucks in Ottawa contained weapons.
Public Order Emergency Commission Established
For a majority of Canadians following the mainstream news, the Prime Minister had fended off an insurrection. White supremacists, misogynists, and homophobes had been sent packing. Nonetheless, the nation would have to go through the perfunctory exercise of determining if there was anything to tweak regarding the Liberals’ invocation.
Passed in 1988 to replace the War Measures Act, the Emergencies Act legislation states there are unique circumstances by which the act can be invoked. These are that “The emergency must be a ‘national emergency,’ which means an ‘urgent and critical situation of a temporary nature’ that either ‘(a) seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians and is of such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it, or (b) seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada and that cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.’”
A Growing Counter-Narrative
In late April 2022, Justin Trudeau appointed Chief Justice Paul Rouleau to head the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC).
By the time Rouleau was appointed to head the POEC, articles had already appeared in the press calling into question the media narrative about the Freedom Convoy. Indo-Canadian reporter Rupa Subramanya wrote several articles and was interviewed about her experience speaking with the protesters.
“I wanted to go there and make up my own mind. The reality of these protesters, the truckers, starting from Day One, is very different from the received narrative that was already in place—propaganda—because that is really what it amounted to. These people were a cross-section of Canadians. They were mostly working-class. I encountered people of colour. I saw new immigrants. I saw children. I saw women. I saw the old, the young. Franco-Canadians, Anglo-Canadians. A lot of camaraderie. I spent three weeks at the protest every day, several times a day. I didn’t encounter a single racist, white supremacist, or even a misogynist. These were some of the warmest, friendliest, people I’ve ever met in my life [after] two decades here in Canada. It was quite unusual that my perspective, as a person of colour who went into the protests, was so different from the mainstream coverage. There was this total disconnect between what was being said and what I personally experienced.”
The Ottawa Police Service (OPS) held a press conference on February 8 stating that no protester was under suspicion for the attempted arson of a residential building in downtown Ottawa. The OPS subsequently charged two Ottawa-area men with the arson in March 2022.[15]
On March 24, 2022, Interim Ottawa Police Service Chief Steve Bell confirmed there were no weapons in protesters’ vehicles in Ottawa. These and other allegations about the protesters were discredited in the months following the protests. Protesters had not called in bomb threats against hospitals, threatened or committed rape. The woman who danced on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier turned out to be from Quebec and was not involved with the Ottawa protests, despite the good luck of the media to catch her “freedom” yells with the cameras rolling. And video of protesters being beaten with rifles, kicked by police, and trampled by horses, put the lie to Bill Blair’s pride in the “textbook” police action to crush the protest in Ottawa.
But, these news reports challenging the initial headlines dribbled out over weeks and months, and were under-reported. The majority of Canadians were still reeling and felt threatened, disgusted and agitated by the news reports about the Freedom Convoy protesters. Watching the nightly news, the specter of seditionist, violent, racist, white supremacist truckers trying to topple the sitting government set in stone an emotional scar that has yet to heal. For protesters, and those who supported them, however, the news coverage confirmed a slanted mainstream media bias resembling textbook propaganda.
Sensing the historic importance of this unfolding story, I flew from Vancouver to Ottawa to attend hearings one week in mid-November 2022.
“Lack of Violent Crime Was Shocking”
During the Public Order Emergency Commission, numbers of police were called to testify. It was revealed that earlier on the day the Emergencies Act was invoked, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) issued an internal intelligence briefing memo. Titled “Operational Intelligence Report,” it summarized the Ottawa protest, stating,
“The mood today was again calm, festive, and family oriented. Speakers were again telling people to walk away from agitators and thanked the police for remaining calm. Many of the speakers were promoting love and peaceful protest, some even taking quotes from the Bible. Speakers were also wishing everyone a happy Valentine’s.” The memo noted there were “children on Wellington Street playing hockey.”
Superintendent Patrick Morris,
“the foremost authority in the Province of Ontario regarding Intelligence” with the OPP, testified before the POEC. He said of the protest, “the lack of violent crime was shocking….If there was an actual threat, then there would have been an investigation, and if it was an actual threat, I assume the Ottawa Police Service would have laid a charge for uttering threats.” Morris agreed it was “hard to lay a charge” “or even to ascertain if it’s an actual threat if you can’t identify the individual.”
“Comments made…by public figures…the media…were not premised in fact”
Regarding the media coverage and statements by politicians about the protest, Morris stated “I was concerned by the politicization and I was concerned by hyperbole and I was concerned by the affixing of labels without evidence to individuals’ movements et cetera.” In a letter entered as evidence at the Commission, TDF lawyer Alan Honner quoted Morris’s letter where it states, “But now the public discourse is dominated by political figures and the media, and the commentary is providing a very different picture from what law enforcement collectively gathered. It is painting a different picture. It speaks to extremism. It offers parallels to terrorism. It speaks of sedition.”
Morris elaborated in his testimony that his letter reflected his concern about “comments made publicly, by public figures and in the media that I believed were not premised in fact….I was leading the criminal intelligence collection of information and the production of criminal intelligence in relation to these events. So, I believed I was in a unique situation to understand what was transpiring. So, when I read accounts that the State of Russia had something to do with it; Or that this was the result of American influence, either financially or ideologically; Or that Donald Trump was behind it; Or that it was un-Canadian; Or that the people participating were un-Canadian and that they were not Canadian views and they were extremists; I found it to be problematic, because what I ascertained from my role…I did not see validation for those assertions….I did not see information that substantiated what was being said publicly and via the media. And I found that the subjective assertions sensationalized…and exacerbated conflict….So the labelling was problematic to me.”
Morris further stated in a letter, “I do not know where the political figures are acquiring information or intelligence on the extent of extremist involvement.” He was emphatic, “I want to be clear on this. We produced no intelligence to indicate these individuals would be armed. There has been a lot of hyperbole around that.” During his testimony, Supt. Morris confirmed that at no point did he receive any reliable intelligence that there was any risk to national security due to the Freedom Convoy protests.” In cross-examination with Freedom Convoy lawyer Brendan Miller, Supt. Morris confirmed that at no time did any violence against property take place. No arson, no destruction, no vandalism, no bombing.[16]
“The narrative about what was happening in Ottawa was being controlled…”
Ontario Provincial Police Superintendent Carson Pardy, testifying on October 21, 2022, stated that the media depiction of the protest in Ottawa was
“problematic. The narrative about what was happening in Ottawa was being controlled and was one-sided.
There were a lot of good things happening. We heard about the bouncy castles and there were prayer meetings in the morning…. This is a family event. Bring your kids. There’s a bouncy castle. We can have fun.”
Pardy found media rhetoric about protesters being extremists
“problematic…because I’ve been involved in events from the past, G-summits…where we had a lot of extremist views. There was fringes of it…that were not a major concern….The profile of the protester at this event was unlike none that I’ve seen in my 36-year career. We had everything from grandparents. You know, my first day on this assignment, I was shown a picture of two officers that had worked for me in the past, who were retiring, who were in the crowd with the protesters. We saw children. We saw a lot of crestfallen police officers, military, nurses. So it wasn’t your normal group of people that you’re dealing with.”
Margaret Hope Braun, a mother of two from Peterborough, Ontario, was at the protest on Valentine’s Day. During her testimony before the Commission, she recalled: “I witnessed hundreds of roses being offered to the police officers. There was a lot of love. There was a lot of trying to heal the divide…being created between us and the police.…[T]he streets of Ottawa were covered in roses that day.”
OPS, OPP, RCMP, Canada Border Service Agency and CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) were pointing away from ideologically motivated violent extremist (IMVE) threats. CSIS reported on the afternoon of February 14, “Downtown Ottawa…was actually quite festive—not threatening to a passerby.” CSIS entered as evidence before the Commission that they “had no concern with IMVEs in Ottawa.”
In the aftermath of the Valentine’s Day invocation of the Emergencies Act, Supt. Morris reported on February 22 the Freedom Convoy protest was “not comprised of ideologically motivated violent extremists. The actual leaders are not violent extremists with histories of violent criminal acts.”
Former Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly testified before the POEC. He confirmed it was “correct” that at no time before Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act on February 14, 2022, did the OPS issue any form of formal notice to the protesters that they had been designated an unlawful assembly and must disperse. The protests were not a criminal matter under section 63 of the Criminal Code. There was no declaration that the Ottawa protests constituted a riot.
OPP Commissioner Thomas Carrique, with a certificate from the University of St. Andrews in Terrorism Studies, also testified. He agreed that, “based on all OPP intelligence and the intelligence provided by the RCMP and federal intelligence agencies to the OPP…there was no credible threat to the security of Canada.”
Carrique confirmed it “would be my understanding” that in order to invoke the Emergencies Act, there needs to be a “credible threat.” He agreed that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protected citizens’ rights to assemble and protest. He agreed that this includes protesting government policies. Carrique also concurred that the trucks that were arriving in Ottawa in late January 2022 “did so at the direction of police officers.”[17]
If the protest in Ottawa had become unlawful, as determined by the OPS or OPP, the Riot Act could have been enforced and the protest declared a riot. Arrests would have ensued, all under the existing laws of the Criminal Code. But prior to the invocation of the Emergencies Act, not a single charge of unlawful assembly was laid against any protester in Ottawa.
Agreement Between City of Ottawa and Protesters to Remove Vehicles
Serge Arpin, Chief of Staff to the Mayor of the City of Ottawa, testified that, by noon on February 14, 2022, 102 protest vehicles had been moved out of a four-block by five-block area in downtown Ottawa. Most of these had left the city.
The protesters were on schedule to remove 75% of the vehicles from downtown Ottawa, and leave the city by February 16. With so many vehicles scheduled to leave Ottawa voluntarily, the need for tow-truck drivers would be moot. Remaining protest vehicles were to be confined to Wellington Street along Parliament Hill, taking up their complaint with the Trudeau government. [18]
Under testimony, Kim Ayotte, General Manager of Emergency and Protective Services with the City of Ottawa, confirmed that the movement of vehicles onto Wellington Street “got stopped by police.”
Movement out of Ottawa, or over to Wellington Street, was not blocked or abandoned by the protesters. It was the police who blocked the movement of protest vehicles. Freedom Convoy lawyer Brendan Miller pointed out, “the difficulty in moving individuals to Wellington Street after the agreement was announced…was only stopped because the police wouldn’t let them on to Wellington and because the police then also stopped them from leaving the streets they were parked on…”[19]
Emergencies Act Threshold for “threat to national security” Not Met
The government’s justification for invoking the act was not based on any of the tests of the Emergencies Act being met. CSIS Director David Vigneault admitted the four criteria for declaring a public order emergency were not met.
1) Was there espionage? “No,” said Vigneault.
2) Was there foreign interference, sabotage? “No,” said Vigneault.
3) Was there any serious violence associated with the protests? “No actual serious violence,” said Vigneault.
4) Was there a plot to overthrow the government? “No. Didn’t even investigate. It was so nonexistent,” said Vigneault.[20]
RCMP officer emails reflected a lack of urgency. “It would be a stretch to say the trucks barricading the streets and the air horns blaring at whatever decibels for however many days constitute the ‘use of force.’”[21]
“There was no serious violence in Ottawa”
Jody Thomas, the National Security Adviser to the Prime Minister, was appointed on January 11, 2022. A month later she advised Justin Trudeau to declare a national emergency. Canadian Civil Liberties Association lawyer Cara Zeibel asked Thomas at the POEC, “you understand that currently the definition of a Public Order Emergency in the Emergencies Act is tied exclusively and exhaustively to the definition in the CSIS Act?” Thomas testified, “The Federal Government legal opinion is different, and there will be legal arguments to that end.”
Lawyer for the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, Rob Kittredge, took Jody Thomas through the CSIS Act tests for declaring an emergency. She confirmed there was no espionage, no sabotage, no foreign interference.
But what about serious violence? Thomas replied by swapping the word “serious” for “continual.” Said Thomas, “There was continual violence in the streets of Ottawa…” Kittredge asked her to be specific about what she meant by “continual violence.” Thomas identified “harassment, people being followed, people being intimidated, the noise, the pollution…”[22] Yet, incidents of harassment, stalking and physical intimidation are matters police address every day across the nation upon receiving a complaint.
I spoke on the phone with Freedom Convoy protest leader Tom Marazzo. Expanding on his testimony before the POEC, Marazzo told me he was continually in contact with the OPS Police Liaison Teams (PLTs) during the protests in Ottawa. He told me the PLTs would alert him if there was anyone blocking an emergency lane. Protest leaders, police and City of Ottawa officials all agreed that these needed to be cleared.
Yet, on one occasion it turned out an emergency lane in downtown Ottawa was being blocked by the City of Ottawa’s own equipment vehicles. Marazzo confirmed that any protesters intimidating or harassing Ottawa citizens would be counterproductive to the aims of the protest. But the PLTs never brought to any protest leaders’ attention even one instance of a protester intimidating or harassing local residents. The disconnect between the rhetoric of protesters being violent and what was happening on the ground was problematic.
Eventually, Jody Thomas conceded, “No, not serious violence.” In a February 21, 2022, email, RCMP Deputy Commissioner Brian Brennan wrote “There was no serious violence in Ottawa, the main reason for the Emergencies Act.”
Expanding the Definition of Threat
Considering the lack of serious violence, Jody Thomas quickly reframed matters. She stated, “A Public Order Emergency is broader as defined in the CSIS Act.” She elaborated: “There’s a range of threats that need to be considered when you’re talking about this country, economic security; The threat of IMVE; The rhetoric of threats against public figures; The inability to conduct a livelihood in the City of Ottawa—as an example, the Coutts border blockade…; The threat to public institutions and the undermining of the confidence in public institutions.”
Thomas identified “economic security” as a national security threat. Yet, in contrast with the border point blockades in February 2022, the Liberal government dealt with the 2020 protests differently. From January to mid-March 2020, First Nations protesters variously blocked construction of a BC pipeline, disrupted BC Ferry sailings, shut down CN Rail freight and VIA Rail passenger service for over a month, blockaded an Ontario highway and more. Through eleven weeks of economic disruptions, Prime Minister Trudeau maintained the importance of engaging in dialogue with protesters to resolve matters.[23]
The Coutts, Alberta, border blockade and arrests of persons in possession of weapons were handled by the RCMP under existing Canadian law. However, the “threat to national security” was becoming fungible, an elastic term the government could shape for its own purposes in order to invoke the Emergencies Act at will.
Legal Opinion to Expand Definition of “Threat Remains Secret
The Liberals, on a legal opinion to expand the definition of threat, invoked the Emergencies Act. Asked about the basis for the legal opinion, Justice Minister David Lametti, testified, “For reasons of solicitor-client privilege [he] could not describe the various kinds of legal analysis relied upon by cabinet.” Justice Rouleau told Lametti that, by taking this position, the government is asking Canadians to “just assume (it) acted in good faith,” to just “trust us.” Asked if he agreed “that Section 2 of the CSIS Act has a different meaning…a different scope based in its reference in the Emergencies Act,” Lametti responded “I will neither confirm nor deny that.”
In addition to David Lametti and Jody Thomas, another person who recommended that the Prime Minister invoke the Emergencies Act was Janice Charette. Named Interim Clerk of the Privy Council in March 2021, Charette was confirmed in her role in May 2022, three months after the Ottawa protests. She has a B.A. in Commerce and served in a number of capacities as Deputy Minister of Human Resources, as well as for Immigration and Health Canada. However, Charette had no background in national security. She said under oath, “I’m not an expert in any of these domains. My assessment from a layman’s point of view was it [the protest] was not legal.” Charette’s assertion contradicted Ontario court rulings on February 7, and again on February 16, 2022 that the protest was legal.
“A meaning can have different meanings at the end”
Ms. Charette fretted that the government “didn’t really have a full 360-degree view” of the protest. She urged her Incident Response Group to “really think outside the box.” Yet, this did not include meeting with some of the protest leaders. Since early February, protest leaders sought a meeting with senior Public Health Agency of Canada staff and politicians. Still, the government declined to meet with protest leaders, even to gain a more expansive view of the facts on the ground.[24]
Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council, and Associate Secretary to the Cabinet, Nathalie Drouin, explained one of the reasons the Prime Minister was advised to invoke the Emergencies Act. “[We] couldn’t wait to invoke the Emergencies Act because then it would have been a national security threat.” By waiting any longer, Drouin explained, “we would have been in a situation where the threat would have materialized.” By underscoring her panicked reasoning, Drouin made clear no threat to national security had actually materialized. Asked about the definition of “threat” in the Emergencies Act, Drouin stated a “meaning can have different meanings at the end.”[25]
Drouin took part in Justin Trudeau’s February 14, 2022, phone calls with the First Ministers of the Canadian provinces and territories. It was clear to her that a majority of provincial premiers opposed the looming federal government decision. Drouin summed up that viewpoint, “that there is a risk that invoking the Emergencies Act can inflamate [sic] the situation.”
Vulnerable to Challenge
Janice Charette was shown a memo where she commented on the legal advice the government was relying on as a basis to invoke the Emergencies Act. She stated, “In our view, this fits within the statutory parameters of the Emergencies Act, but this conclusion may be vulnerable to challenge.” The Emergencies Act states that it is to be a measure “of last resort” when all other options under the laws of the land are exhausted.
Yet, not all other options had been exhausted. By February 14, OPS, OPP and RCMP did not view the protest as unlawful. Had it been deemed unlawful, the Riot Act could have been used to declare the protest a riot. As well, the OPS had signed off on a detailed 73-page plan with the RCMP and OPP to de-escalate the protest. Under testimony, Prime Minister Trudeau referred to it as a “so-called plan.” When shown the plan during his testimony, Trudeau stated he had never seen the plan. Nonetheless, he asserted he had “no confidence” in the plan.[26]
During Charette’s cross-examination by Canadian Constitutional Foundation lawyer Sujit Choudhry, she confirmed that CSIS Director Vigneault was not asked to speak during the February 13 Liberal cabinet meeting regarding the need to invoke the Emergencies Act.Choudhry said to Charette, “I would like to put this point to you.…[I]n a constitutional democracy, to prevent the abuse of executive powers by an elected government, it is imperative that the views of a professional non-partisan and expert security services be front and center and that they not just be a factor, but that they be at the core of whether a government decides to invoke emergency powers.”[27]
Nathalie Drouin jumped in, responding to Choudhry’s point by stressing other threats to the nation: “We saw kids, you know, being used as [human] shields.” Children were sitting with their parents in their trucks to keep warm. Children were making snow sculptures, playing in bouncy castles and playing hockey.
When pressed under cross-examination to substantiate allegations of rape committed by Ottawa protesters, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said, “The absence of a criminal charge doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.” Freedom Convoy lawyer Eva Chipiuk tweeted in reference to a riot in Vancouver on June 15, 2011, after the Vancouver Canucks lost to the Boston Bruins, “Compare 1 night of Stanley Cup rioting where 268 people were charged with a total of 814 charges to 3 weeks of Freedom Convoy and 11 charges, ZERO hate crimes, and we don’t know how many of those were protesters because @OttawaPolice did not provide those details.”
Preceding the Liberal cabinet retreat on January 24, 2022, Alexander Cohen, Director of Communications to the Minister of Public Safety, and Mary-Liz Power, Issues and Policy Advisor in the Prime Minister’s Office, were sending texts to each other. Their text messages discussed the best ways to exploit a narrative to frame the protest traveling to Ottawa as a “January 6-style insurrection” and as “extremists.”
Vaccine Mandates and Canadian Charter Rights
Justice Rouleau was petitioned to have the Right Honorable Brian Peckford testify. Peckford was one of the speakers at the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa, and the last living person who signed the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which was enshrined in 1982.
Image: Brian Peckford screenshot/YouTube/ CBC NL – Newfoundland and Labrador
The protesters were not only challenging the rationale for the vaccine mandates in Canada, but the infringements on Canada’s charter.
This included the right of all Canadian citizens to mobility. Quoting Section 6 of the Charter, Peckford said to the protesters, “Every citizen of Canada has the right to enter, remain in and leave Canada.”
As stated in all Canadian passports, “The Minister of Foreign Affairs requests…all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer [of the passport] to pass freely, without delay or hindrance, and to afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary.” But the Commission was not interested in having such an eminent person involved with the protest give testimony.
Testifying before the POEC, Prime Minister Trudeau stated,
“We have a robust, functioning democracy and public protests are an important part of making sure…Canadians are getting messages out there and highlighting how they feel about various issues. But using protests to demand changes to public policy is something that I think is worrisome.”[28]
As someone who previously voted for Justin Trudeau in a federal election, I find his apprehension of the right to public assembly and free speech worrisome.
Trudeau is saying Canadians have the right to protest. But if those protests are used to demand changes in government policy, the current Canadian government will tell those protesters that they have crossed a line. It seems the prime minister thinks of democracy as something that citizens engage by keeping their heads down, watching what they say, and not publicly questioning government action. The invocation of the Emergencies Act by Justin Trudeau on February 14, 2022, was political theater.
It was not a last resort. It was a choice made by a government that would not countenance public debate about the basis for its continued pandemic measures. And by January 2022, by expanding pandemic measures, Canada was now an outlier. Where dialogue was the solution to address eleven weeks of national protest in early 2020, Trudeau closed the door to any possibility of discussion with protesters in January 2022 before they arrived. Documents entered as evidence before the POEC suggest the Liberals were restless to invoke the Emergencies Act many days prior to February 14, 2022. When asked under oath at the inquiry “when did the Emergencies Act come into play as a possibility?” Trudeau replied “from the very beginning.”
Under cross-examination by Freedom Convoy lawyer Brendan Miller, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland conceded that the regulation to force cross-border truckers to get vaccinated was to compel “as many Canadians to get vaccinated.” This was the real purpose.
Another indicator of the trajectory Canada is on is the matter of Dr. Jordan Peterson. Back in mid-February 2022, on social media, Peterson questioned the wisdom of interim Ottawa police Chief Steve Bell. At the time, Bell was threatening protesting parents in Ottawa with having their children removed. Peterson commented,
“‘Children removed’ how exactly? Why, exactly? By whom, exactly? Sent to where, exactly? And for how long, exactly? Think this through, Canadians. This is a bad decision.”
For this, and a handful of other political opinions unrelated to his work, it was announced on January 3, 2023, that Dr. Peterson faces a mandatory six-month re-education by the Ontario College of Psychologists. Otherwise, he will lose his license to practice.[29] The message to all Canadians when exercising free speech? Stifle your dissenting political opinions.
Did the Liberal Cabinet Break the Law?
In early February 2023, Attorney General David Lametti lost a key Federal Court ruling on his use of emergency powers against the Freedom Convoy. Justice Richard Mosley ordered internal emails, contradicting Liberal cabinet claims of a national crisis, must be admitted into evidence in a court case with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. Mosley found “Evidence of the cabinet proceedings that led to the decision to invoke the Emergencies Act was not disclosed despite repeated requests.” He concluded the internal emails were “essential to the just and proper determination” of whether cabinet broke the law.[30]
Over the decades, progressive and “classic Liberal” voters in Canada—like myself—have looked over our shoulders nervously at attempts by conservative governments to reign in democratic freedoms. Thirty years after the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was adopted into the Canadian Constitution, Justin Trudeau warned citizens to “listen very carefully to those who choose to divide, or play up fears and insecurities as a way of advancing a political agenda.” Ironically, Trudeau’s present Liberal government in Ottawa offers up a sobering lesson. An autocratic trajectory can also be instigated by political parties in the middle of the political spectrum, as well as on the “left.” This is no time for Canadians to be complacent.
Citizens in other countries should pay attention. What other governments might now feel emboldened by Trudeau’s actions, opt to freeze their citizens’ bank accounts?
Note: Justice Paul Rouleau, a former executive assistant to Liberal Prime Minister John Turner, released his Report on February 17. He concluded, “reluctantly,” that the Trudeau Government was correct in its decision to invoke the Emergency Act.
Rouleau explained
“I do not come to this conclusion easily as I do not consider the factual basis for it to be overwhelming. Reasonable and informed people could reach a different conclusion than the one I arrived at.”
Rouleau recommends the tests named in the existing Emergencies Act for declaring a state of emergency—espionage, sabotage, serious acts of violence, plots to overthrow the government, foreign influence—be omitted.
He recommends that perceived threats be the measure for invoking the Emergencies Act in the future. His report will be considered by the Trudeau cabinet as it crafts revisions to existing legislation.
Global Research Video Produced by Jean Francois Girard
Are the protesters really what he claims them to be?
I was there for four days with my camera, I never saw or witnessed anything close to what he describes.
Is it possible this is all made up? If it is, what is the purpose?
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Ray McGinnis is author of Unanswered Questions: What the September Eleventh Families Asked and the 9/11 Commission Ignored, and Writing the Sacred: A Psalm-inspired Path to Writing and Appreciating Sacred Poetry. Ray attended the Public Order Emergency Commission hearings in November and heard over a dozen witnesses testify. He lives in Vancouver, Canada and can be reached at [email protected].
According to Health Canada, as of January 26, 2023, there were 4,560,962 cases of Covid-19 in Canada with 50,629 total deaths from Covid-19, that is, 1.11% or almost five times what this article states. https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/
Comments Off on Commission Reveals that Trudeau Government Lied About Nature of Truckers Protests in Ottawa Last February to Justify Invocation of Emergencies Act
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***
Activists plastered hundreds of suspected Covid “vaccine” injuries and deaths onto the doors and windows of the CBC building on Front St. early this morning.
The CBC, Canada’s taxpayer-funded media corporation, has been charged by many to be complicit in propagandist lies over the safety of the experimental gene therapies.
Without any critical investigation, the CBC and other mainstream media outlets continue to push the “safe and effective narrative” in spite of overwhelming evidence of catastrophic and unprecedented levels of adverse events.
Seeking to bring attention to the injuries and deaths temporally related to Covid-19 “vaccines,” the activists worked feverishly to get the profiles up. Security guards were present but did not intervene.
CBC building front doors.One of the hundreds of “vaccine” injury and death profiles.After looking at the profiles, security guards return indoors.Charges of “vaccine” adverse events complicity for the CBC and mainstream media.A grim reminder of lives potentially damaged and ended by the mRNA shots.Activists plaster profiles high and low
Activists paste hundreds of suspected Covid-19 “vaccine” injuries and death profiles. “Justice for the Vaccinated” stickers appeared on the doors and windows.
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***
Canada’s foreign policy is basically an appendage of U.S foreign policy, and it is utterly barbaric. Consider the example of Syria.
Syria, like Turkey, has recently suffered catastrophic earthquakes. Whereas humanitarian aid has justifiably poured into Turkey, it barely reaches the vast majority of Syrians.
Why is this? The answer is simple. Criminal unilateral coercive measures levied against Syria and Syrians allow aid to terrorist-occupied areas on the one hand, and deny aid to all areas governed by the democratically-elected, overwhelmingly popular, secular, pluralist government of Syria led by President Bashar al-Assad. (1)
The aid to al Qaeda terrorist-occupied areas such as Idlib is hoarded and controlled (2) by terrorist-warlords as it trickles down to the people. (3) In fact the legitimate Syrian government recently attempted to ship aid into Idlib, but al Julani, former al Qaeda boss, now rebranded HTS boss, refused a convoy of aid coming from Damascus, saying that “he wouldn’t legitimize the internationally recognized Syrian government and he wouldn’t accept the aid.” (4)
Meanwhile, the truth of Canada’s foreign-policy barbarism is concealed by a vast war-propaganda complex which creates false perceptions of Canada’s humanitarianism as it doubles-down on barbarism. The deception is so great that people trying to help Syria are actually helping al Qaeda.
Consider, for example, the case of the Canadian-funded White Helmets. Known and documented, the White Helmets are not the legitimate Syrian Civil Defense. (The real Syria Civil Defense was established in 1953, and is recognized by the International Organization for Civil Defense in Geneva.) They are instead, as pointed out by John Pilger, a “propaganda construct”. They operate solely in terrorist-occupied areas and hence they would be more accurately described as Al Qaeda rescuers.
Vanessa Beeley recently pointed out that the White Helmet brand has been
“extensively damaged by Syrian civilian accusations including theft, murder, torture, detention, being embedded with armed groups dominated by Al-Qaeda, organ trafficking, child abduction for presenting their chemical weapon staged events, and of course they were proven to be staged after the Douma 2018 chemical attack when the OPCW dissident inspectors, who were on the ground, pointed out that the events at the Medical Center in Douma were staged as I had already confirmed visiting the Medical Center days after the alleged attack.” (5)
The plight of Syria and the Syrian people, victimized by Western unilateral coercive measures, by Western-supported terrorists, including ISIS and al Qaeda, and now by hypocritical and toxic earthquake response measures, is yet one more sordid example of the need to honour and enforce international law and the charter of the United Nations. Any so-called “Rules Based Order” as offered by Washington, would surely be more of the same: degenerate barbarism.
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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017. He writes on his website where this article was originally published.
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***
Covid vaccines are linked to a 20 percent rise in new diagnoses for at least three months after vaccination; a second report finds even higher risks for people with preexisting autoimmune problems
Adults have sharply higher risks of being diagnosed with heart, skin, and psychiatric conditions for at least 90 days after they receive Covid jabs, a peer-reviewed study of almost 300,000 people in California has shown.
The researchers examined new diagnoses given to the same people before and after they were vaccinated to see whether the shots changed the risk of new health problems.
They found that people were about 21 percent more likely to receive a new diagnosis in the three months after a shot, compared to the three months before. With almost 240 million American adults jabbed, the rise translates into millions of extra new medical problems found in the months after vaccination, and tens of millions worldwide.
Serious conditions such as hypertension were about 25 percent more likely to be diagnosed in the three months following a shot than the three months before, the researchers found.
Depression, eczema, diabetes, and cellulitis were 10 to 20 percent more likely.
Myocarditis diagnoses had the highest additional risk. They were about 2.6 times as likely overall, with an even higher risk in men. Myocarditis is a known side effect of the mRNAs, so the fact it had a particularly high rate of extra diagnoses provides strong evidence that the signal the researchers found was real.
Overall, the researchers reported that the 284,000 Covid-vaccinated adults they examined received almost 6,000 additional diagnoses of health conditions in the 90 days after being jabbed compared to the 90 days before.
With about 237 million American adults vaccinated, that estimate would translate into about 5 million extra diagnoses for problems like diabetes in the three months following the shots. Worldwide, the number could be up to 25 million.
In the chart below, the blue column is the risk someone will be diagnosed with a new condition following vaccination, compared to the risk before.
For example, about 2,560 out of the 284,000 people were diagnosed with hypertension up to three months after vaccination, compared to 2,080 of the same people up to three months before. The extra 480 cases translated into a 23 percent higher risk of hypertension following vaccination. Because the number of cases was so high, the risk was highly statistically significant, meaning the finding probably was not due to chance.
The study’s researchers are a group from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, a big hospital system in Los Angeles. Their findings were published in Nature Cardiovascular Research in December. But the paper has received almost no attention, a common response to reports that raise questions about the safety of the vaccines.
The researchers also noted that in a smaller sample of adults infected with Covid, new diagnoses for health conditions rose about 40 percent in the three months after infection compared to the three months before.
That fact should come as no surprise. Viral infections are both a marker for and a potential cause of ill-health. Further, people are likely visit their doctors both while they are sick with Covid and shortly after they recover. Those contacts provide a chance for them to receive new diagnoses.
In contrast, people generally receive Covid shots at clinics or pharmacies, not from their doctors, so the chance that the process of receiving a new shot will lead to a diagnosis is minimal.
Thus, if Covid jabs are not harmful, mass vaccinations should not impact the timing of illnesses or their diagnoses. New diagnoses should be scattered randomly before and after the shots.
In fact, people who are feeling ill when they are due for a vaccination may be likely to delay the jab and go to a physician instead. They may then receive a diagnosis that would be counted as occurring before the shot, not after.
This “healthy vaccinee bias” should mean that new illness diagnoses are less likely for a few days after vaccination than before, even if the shots have no effect. As a result, the 20 percent increase in common diagnoses after vaccination is particularly stunning.
Meanwhile, researchers in Hong Kong independently found an even sharper increase in autoimmune “flares” following Covid shots.
The risk of new episodes of lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and other serious autoimmune conditions roughly doubled following the shots in a group of 562 patients with those conditions they followed, compared to 1,055 who did not. The paper was published February 17 in the Journal of Clinical Rheumatology and Immunology.
Only mRNA shots did. Chinese-style inactivated virus vaccines did not. Hong Kong used both types of jabs, making a direct comparison possible. The researchers suggested that the mRNA shots cause the flares by stimulating a specific immune receptor that causes the release of inflammatory cytokines.
“Risk-benefit considerations in patients with active rheumatic disease may favor inactivated virus rather than mRNA vaccines to avoid the risk of flare-ups of any severity,” the researchers wrote.
Americans do not have that option, as the United States does not allow the use of Chinese inactivated Covid vaccines.
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Featured image: NOT a Vaccine: the mRNA COVID vax is a chemical pathogen production device and a technocratic, transhumanistic tool to repgrogram you. Image credit: Jordan Henderson
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
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***
Four days ago, Sameh al-Aqtash returned from Turkey, where he had been supporting earthquake victims as a volunteer. On Sunday evening, the 37-year-old Palestinian was killed by Israeli settlers rampaging through his village, Zatara, in the occupied West Bank.
Zatara is located south of Nablus, near an infamous Israeli military checkpoint where, according to residents, soldiers abuse Palestinians on a daily basis. Only 100 people live in Zatara and they are all members of the same family. Most of them are women and children.
The Israeli settler attacks began after a suspected Palestinian gunman killed two settlers near the town of Huwwara on Sunday afternoon. In response, hundreds of Israelis attacked Palestinian towns and villages, wounding nearly 300 and burning homes to the ground.
Despite Zatara being around six kilometres from Huwwara, where the settlers were killed and the mob violence was at its worst, a group of Israelis attacked the village and began trying to remove its main gate.
Abdel Moneim, Aqtash’s brother, was with him as they rushed to stop the settlers’ vandalism.
“We all hurried, including Sameh, and stopped the settlers at the gate and prevented them from entering,” he told Middle East Eye.
“But after a short period of time, the settlers attacked again, this time with the protection of the Israeli soldiers. Gunfire started targeting us, and then Sameh fell to the ground.”
With Israeli soldiers and settlers blocking roads, no ambulance was able to access Zatara, so Aqtash’s brothers had to use a private vehicle and transport him via a dirt road to the neighbouring town of Beita.
As they raced down the bumpy road, blood poured out of a bullet hole in Aqtash’s abdomen. He began to lose consciousness.
At the Beita medical centre, Aqtash’s siblings broke down in tears when the doctor told them that he had died of his wounds. He left behind three children, the youngest a four-month-old girl.
“There were no clashes when the settlers attacked us. Sameh was a kind person who loved helping people, and two days before he was killed, he spoke with the heads of local councils in our region to collect donations for earthquake victims in Turkey and Syria,” Abdel Moneim said.
Towns burning
The scars of the unprecedented settler attacks on towns and villages south of Nablus will be difficult to erase. Homes, shops, and cars have been smashed and torched. Settlers slaughtered Palestinians’ livestock.
Elias Dmaidi, an eight-year-old resident of Huwwara, said he thought it was going to be the last of his life.
“I have never seen such a major attack, and hundreds of settlers were screaming, insulting, smashing everything in their way, and setting fire to homes while the families were inside,” Dmaidi told reporters.
Huwwara, a town divided by a main road frequented by Israeli settlers and soldiers, has had a growing history of friction.
Most of its lands were confiscated by Israel to build illegal Jewish settlements, with various roads exclusively for Israelis that were constructed to serve them and maintain their security.
As chaos engulfed the town, the Israeli military closed all checkpoints surrounding Nablus, stranding Palestinians inside and outside the area. Despite the settler attacks, residents opened their homes to everyone unable to leave.
As morning broke, the sun revealed the extent of the damage. Black-charred streaks stained houses, shops, and trees. Even the school had been attacked. The students stayed in their homes on Monday, fearing for their lives.
During the riots, medical staff and firefighters were prevented from reaching affected areas, resulting in hundreds of wounded Palestinians being treated long after they were attacked.
Ahmed Jibril, director of the ambulance and emergency department at the Palestine Red Crescent, said medics were subjected to many violations during the attack on Huwwara.
“The paramedics were attacked and prevented from entering the town, and even ambulances were fired at. The attack wasn’t only at the hands of the soldiers, but also by the settlers, who attacked the medical staff while trying to transport a wounded person,” he said.
Targeted at home
Burin, a neighbouring town that rubs shoulders with settlement blocks, was also subject to frenzied attacks.
Ayman Soufan was at home with his wife and children when settlers attacked them and set their home on fire.
“More than 100 settlers attacked us and they divided themselves into two groups, one smashing windows and doors and the other stealing our stuff and sheep from the front of the house,” he told MEE.
“Then they set it on fire. My brother’s family and I fled to the other side to protect ourselves. My son was hit by a stone in his shoulder after being thrown by settlers.”
Almost every month, they are attacked by settlers who want to take their home and steal their land to expand nearby settlements, and it is under the protection of Israeli soldiers.
“The settlers tried to burn us alive inside our house, and if we hadn’t been able to escape, we would have been dead now. Despite the huge fire, the firefighters were unable to reach us because the soldiers prevented them, and the fire remained burning until it extinguished itself. Since 2000, we have been living in the same spiral of aggression,” Soufan said.
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Featured image: Sameh al-Aqtash supported earthquake victims in Turkey as a volunteer (social media)
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***
Abusive government behavior has again been found to be too sensitive to national security to face legal challenges in the court system. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a lower court’s dismissal of the Wikimedia Foundation’s lawsuit against a National Security Agency surveillance program revealed a decade ago by Edward Snowden. With “state secrets privilege” barring litigation, that leaves upcoming congressional debates over renewal of the law authorizing the program as the only recourse for civil liberties advocates.
“The U.S. Supreme Court today denied the Wikimedia Foundation’s petition for review of its legal challenge to the National Security Agency’s (NSA) ‘Upstream’ surveillance program,” Wikimedia announced February 21. “Under this program, the NSA systematically searches the contents of internet traffic entering and leaving the United States, including Americans’ private emails, messages, and web communications. The Supreme Court’s denial leaves in place a divided ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which dismissed Wikimedia’s case based on the government’s assertion of the ‘state secrets privilege.'”
“This decision is a blow to the rule of law,” commented Alex Abdo, of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which worked with Wikimedia and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). “The government has now succeeded in insulating from public judicial review one of the most sweeping surveillance programs ever enacted. If the courts are unwilling to hear Wikimedia’s challenge, then Congress must step in to protect Americans’ privacy by reining in the NSA’s mass surveillance of the internet.”
The “Upstream” surveillance program at issue collects “communications ‘to, from, or about'” a foreign target designated under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, according the NSA. In the clearer language of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, “upstream surveillance involves collecting communications as they travel over the Internet backbone, and downstream surveillance (formerly PRISM) involves collection of communications from companies like Google, Facebook, and Yahoo.”
As Edward Snowden revealed and the NSA conceded, this broad surveillance may be authorized against foreign targets, but frequently scoops up Americans—often deliberately. “The government is increasingly using these broad and intrusive spying powers in run-of-the-mill criminal investigations against Americans, circumventing their Fourth Amendment rights,” the ACLU warned in 2020.
Wikimedia argues that the NSA’s surveillance discourages people from using Wikimedia’s Wikipedia to research sensitive topics for fear of attracting government attention. The organization points to a 2016 article in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal that reported “a statistically significant immediate decline in traffic for [privacy-sensitive] Wikipedia articles after June 2013, but also a change in the overall secular trend in the view count traffic, suggesting not only immediate but also long-term chilling effects resulting from the NSA/PRISM online surveillance revelations.”
But in court, federal attorneys insisted that the NSA’s surveillance programs are such secret-squirrel stuff that national security would suffer if the nation’s snoops were compelled to explain how their activities can possibly square with constitutional protections for individual rights. The court bought it.
“In a divided ruling on Wednesday, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that the lawsuit must be dismissed after the government invoked the ‘state secrets privilege’, which meant that a full exploration of the issue in a court would damage national security,” Reuters reported in 2021. That decision was left to stand last week by the Supreme Court.
As I’ve pointed out before, state secrets privilege has a sketchy history, evolving from bad official behavior after a 1948 plane crash that killed several civilian observers. When the observers’ widows sued in United States v. Reynolds, the government argued that information about the plane was too super-secret to be revealed in court (a complete lie concealing official negligence, by the way). The Supreme Court agreed that some things are too sensitive to reveal in legal proceedings and gave officialdom a free pass to invoke the phrase “national security” as a shield against accountability. That disturbs even some modern members of the Supreme Court.
While not entirely questioning the existence of state secrets privilege, it “is no blunderbuss and courts may not flee from the field at its mere display,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote last year in a dissent joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor to the majority’s invocation of the privilege in United States v. Zubaydeh. “Recent history reveals that executive officials can sometimes be tempted to misuse claims of national security to shroud major abuses and even ordinary negligence from public view.”
That case involved detention and torture at a black site in Poland under circumstances the government clearly found embarrassing. The Wikimedia lawsuit involves allegations of widespread domestic snooping that also reflect poorly on the powers that be. Political inconvenience is a lousy reason for preventing legal challenges to unconstitutional and criminal government conduct.
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court’s decision leaves little recourse for determining the extent of domestic surveillance by the NSA and seeking its end. The spy agency says it cut back after “inadvertent compliance incidents related to queries involving U.S. person information.” But that leaves the public taking the NSA at its word and wondering just what is going on behind the scenes.
Edward Snowden revealed just how far we should trust the intelligence apparatus.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act‘s Section 702, which authorizes the Upstream surveillance at issue in Wikimedia’s litigation, is up for reauthorization this year, and the NSA very much wants to retain its broad power. It faces calls for reform from civil libertarians outside government, but also from Republicans and Democrats concerned about intrusive spying on Americans.
“While surveilling foreign targets under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the US government collects exabytes of data pertaining to American citizens,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) objected earlier this month. “The Constitution requires a warrant to query that vast database for Americans. End warrantless spying now.”
Similarly, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has long called for the intelligence community to reveal how many Americans it sweeps up, and for curbs on such snooping.
With litigation against domestic spying thwarted by the invocation of “state secrets privilege,” Congress, for all its many faults, may be the last line of defense.
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***
My last-minute trip to Karachi was painful, an 18-hour flight through four countries. But that was before I met with my client, Ahmed Rabbani, and learned how he and his brother, Abdul, had fared on their way back from Guantanamo Bay.
Half a lifetime ago they had both endured their rendition trip to Cuba. Last Friday, after 20 years of detention without charge, now cleared for release as “no threat to the US or their coalition partners”, they flew back home.
It is an illustration of the gulf between Guantanamo and the real world that such flights remain shrouded in secrecy – as if someone might try to waylay the aircraft that was finally delivering liberty. The US government gave me only a few hours’ notice of their departure, so I could not get to Pakistan ahead of them, and was still in Britain.
But this meant I was able to follow their journey across the Atlantic on a plane tracker app. It was thrilling to see them flying to freedom, but I feared that, instead of delivering the apology that was long overdue, the US would take a stab at a final flight of abuse.
Sadly, this came to pass. Ahmed, 53, later described how little had changed in his treatment despite the passing years. Theirs was a 21-hour flight, only three hours longer, but infinitely worse than mine. There were 30 American soldiers on hand to handle two shackled prisoners.
Once more (still presumed innocent of any crime), Ahmed and Abdul, 55, were forced to wear ear-muffs and eye covers lest they might somehow divine their route back to Pakistan. If they wanted to use the toilet they still had to endure the humiliation of having soldiers watch.
One final torment behind them, they landed in Islamabad at noon on 24 February. In that instant, their world changed. The Pakistan Federal Investigation Agency official who greeted them showed respect.
And then came the moment that had eluded Ahmed for so long: there, in front of him, was his 20-year-old son Jawad. Ahmed’s wife had been pregnant when he was abducted on 10 September 2002. Father and son had never before met, never touched.
“Waa-llaah!”said Ahmed, the age-old exclamation.
“We’ve got a lot to catch up on,” said Jawad, hugging his dad for the first time.
A thousand battles
I have often met Jawad. I am keen to support his dream of becoming a human rights lawyer. He will never enjoy another human moment quite like that first meeting. I wish I could have been there for this encounter, but as it happened I was about to leave the UK.
One of a thousand battles we waged at the Cuban prison was over intellectual property: would Ahmed, a talented artist, be allowed to bring his paintings with him when he left his Cuban prison?
Thankfully, with the vigorous aid of the United Nations, we had recently prevailed, and Ahmed arrived with 130kg of his art, along with his legal papers and the only compensation he will likely ever get from the country that tortured him: two dozen plastic bottles of Ensure, the liquid nutrition that the US forced into Ahmed during the seven years of his hunger strike, his peaceful protest against mistreatment.
Forty-five hours later, I landed at Jinnah International Airport in Karachi. I was summoned before an immigration officer.
I was taken aback when he whispered for a bribe to speed up my entry. My path was splendidly rapid anyway – I was off the plane and out with my backpack in just 18 minutes. Not long after I arrived at the local Ramada hotel, my Guantanamo clients arrived.
What a moment! The last time we had shared coffee, I had brought a cup from the Guantanamo Starbucks – tepid before I reached the cell where our legal visits took place. Now we were seated in the Opera Cafe.
In came Saifullah Paracha, at 75 the oldest detainee in the prison, released at the end of October. It was the first time I had seen him back in Pakistan, and he immediately showed me the massive scars from his heart bypass surgery. He had refused medical care in Guantanamo, where the doctors had conspired with the interrogators.
Magical moment
Soon Ahmed and Abdul arrived, each with his son. I squeezed Ahmed’s scrawny body – still only 95lbs (43kg), little over half his original body weight – and we sat down to talk. For two decades the rest of the world had moved on while the brothers sat in Guantanamo stasis.
With his artistic eye for detail, Ahmed was astonished at how the froth on the coffee was patterned as a palm frond, a corporate innovation that took place after he was abducted.
Reunion in Karachi, from L to R, Abdul Rabbani, Clive Stafford Smith, Ahmed Rabbani and Saifullah Paracha (Photo supplied)
Then Ahmed asked Jawad to bring over a tattered cardboard box they had carried into the hotel. I thought for a moment that it was the mandatory gift for me, the visitor. It was not.
He presented the 24 bottles of Ensure to Saifullah, who has been having trouble with digestion since his heart operation. I took a picture (for old-force-feeding-times’ sake, and to memorialise his only compensation from the US government).
Sometimes people ask me how I can go on for 40 years dealing with such emotional, life-and-death issues. My response is always the same: there are not many people who are fortunate enough to meet people in extremis, and help to hand their lives back to them.
This was another such magical moment. Both Ahmed and Abdul have a long climb up from the horrors of 20 years of detention without trial, but at least now they have started their journey.
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Clive Stafford Smith is an Anglo-American lawyer and founder of the non-profit the 3D Centre (3dc.org.uk).
Featured image: Ahmed Rabbani (R) meets his son, Jawad (L) for the very first time in Karachi, after spending 20 years in the US’s Guantanamo Bay detention facility (Photo supplied)
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***
On Monday, State Department Spokesperson Ned Price would not acknowledge Israel’s nuclear weapons arsenal, actually referring questions on the subject to the Israeli government itself. After the briefing, I received a written response to detailed questions regarding Israel’s nuclear weapons arsenal I submitted on Feb. 13, below.
Grant Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, who has closely tracked US policy toward Israel’s nuclear weapons program, said today: “This is a major policy disclosure breakthrough. The State Department is admitting that formal US acknowledgement of Israel’s nuclear weapons program and accountability to U.S. taxpayers who want Arms Export Control Act compliance is Israel’s decision.
“For example, ongoing lack of progress on JCPOA negotiations over Iran’s thus far non-weapons producing program means zero AECA [Arms Export Control Act] enforcement on Israel’s program. Israeli declarations that a rival’s delivery systems are ‘nuclear capable’ means zero AECA enforcement on Israel’s program.
“Israeli ‘discovery’ or suspicion of the existence of any ‘rogue’ nuclear facility such as the one Israel destroyed in Syria in 2018 mandate zero AECA enforcement on Israel’s program. False but enduring US intelligence community 2001 assertions that aluminum tubes bound for Iraq were to be used for centrifuges or that country was determined to procure uranium from Niger mandate zero AECA enforcement on Israel’s program. CD’s seized by Mossad from “Iran’s nuclear archive” reported in 2018 mandate zero AECA enforcement on Israel’s program.
“If such a State Department position and foreign aid law had been in place in 1963, when JFK was fighting to keep the Israelis from producing nuclear weapons at Dimona, Israel could have delayed enforcement. The Israeli government, through publications financed by the Jewish Agency and distributed in the United States, was accusing Egypt of building ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in order to ‘launch a war of extermination against Israel.’” [See graphic below]
”The Department of State’s declared position means that Israel effectively controls when, if ever, the US will uphold AECA. Given Israel’s position of ‘nuclear ambiguity’ over its own weapons and constant generation of often false reports about its regional rivals, AECA enforcement will never happen.”
PRICE: I believe the team provided you some additional background on that. [They emailed me that they would but didn’t give a substantial response until after I asked this question (below)] As in the past, we’re just not in a position to comment specifically on this. Would refer you and any questions you may have on this —
HUSSEINI: But how do you have – how do you expect to have any credibilityon this subject when you can’t even acknowledge that Israel has a nuclear weapons arsenal?
PRICE: Again, I just don’t have anything to offer on this, so we’d refer any questions to the Israeli government. As a practice, when it comes to just about any country, certainly any partner, we don’t speak in detail to the capabilities, to the programs of partners around the world, just as we would expect they would not speak to ours.
Yes.
HUSSEINI: You’re referring me to the Israeli government about their own nuclear program?
QUESTION: (Off-mike.)
PRICE: That’s correct.
HUSSEINI: About their own nuclear program – you can’t acknowledge that Israel has a nuclear weapons program?
After questioning State on Feb. 13, I was asked to submit more information to State, which I did that day:
The Symington and Glenn Amendments in the Arms Export Control Act 22 USC §2799aa-1 forbid US aid to clandestine nuclear weapons state non-NNPT signatories unless presidents obtain a waiver from Congress.
Israel has been acknowledged by the US as a nuclear weapons state.
The 1974 CIA SNIE states “We believe that Israel already has produced nuclear weapons.”
1. The Israelis were “developing the kind of codes which will enable them to make hydrogen bombs. That is, codes which detail fission and fusion processes on a microscopic and macroscopic level.”
2. “The SOREQ and the Dimona/Beer Shiva facilities are the equivalent of our Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge National Laboratories. The SOREQ center runs the full nuclear gamut of activities from engineering, administration and non-destructive testing to electro-optics, pulsed power, process engineering and chemistry and nuclear research and safety. This is the technology base required for nuclear weapons design and fabrication.”
3. “The capability of SOREQ to support SDIO and nuclear technologies is almost an exact parallel of the capability currently existing at our National Laboratories.”
While there are provisions in USC §2799aa-1 for presidents to obtain waivers from the Congress for continued aid, as recently as 2018 a member of congress confirmed that no such waivers had ever been issued. (attached)
My unanswered question remains, specifically, how can past, present and future U.S. foreign aid to Israel be lawful under the Symington Glenn amendment restrictions found currently in USC §2799aa-1 and in force since 1976?
I had some communication but did receive a response until Feb. 27 at 9 p.m. from State, which makes no reference to the law cited. This is especially remarkable since the entire exchange took place because Ned Price, the State Department spokesperson claimed: “We follow the law in every instance.”
U.S. policy on this issue has been consistent for decades. The United States has long supported universal adherence to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and remains firmly committed to the goal of a Middle East free of all weapons of mass destruction and delivery systems. We have urged all states that have not yet done so to accede to the NPT and to accept full-scope IAEA safeguards on all of their nuclear activities.
However, we acknowledge that achieving these goals in the Middle East is a long-term objective that will require essential precursors to be in place, including a comprehensive and durable regional peace and compliance by all regional states with their existing nonproliferation commitments and obligations.
So, Israel has to make peace with everyone before the US will acknowledge it has nuclear weapons.
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Featured image: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a speech on Iran’s nuclear programme at the defence ministry in Tel Aviv on 30 April 2018 (Source: Middle East Eye)
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***
Volodomyr Zelensky has a lot of powerful backers around the world, and from afar, the Ukrainian president seems politically invincible.
He’s got the Uniparty in Washington, D.C. on his side, coupled with the international globalists in the robust World Economic Forum-attached network, along with the public-private asset management behemoth financiers in BlackRock and co, and another heavy line of credit through the IMF-World Bank group.
Domestically, it’s an entirely different story. The Ukrainian people are suffering greatly under Zelensky, with mandatory conscription and half the country’s land mass now exposed to the horrors and bombardment of an indefinite war footing. Kiev once pursued neutrality and embraced its role as a buffer state as the functioning gold standard for geopolitical relations. Now, at the insistence of the western ruling class, Ukraine has committed realpolitik seppuku and has become fiercely antagonistic to its more powerful neighbor.
The corporate press and D.C. institutions have insisted that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s standing is most at risk of a coup or popular overthrow, but there is no evidence for such an assertion. In fact, polling from the independent Levada-Center shows Putin’s approval rating has spiked to over 80 percent since the commencement of the war in Ukraine. Zelensky, on the other hand, is heading in the opposite direction, becoming increasingly unpopular as the war drags on.
The Zelensky government is fighting wars on two fronts, having engaged in ethnic cleansing against large swaths of its own population, especially the third of the country that is now labeled as enemies of the state due to their Russian ethnic and linguistic backgrounds.
Moreover, despite the seemingly endless rounds of Western supplies and money disbursements contributing to the war effort, Ukraine is losing this conflict badly, and their citizens are paying the greatest price for it.
In order to protect his government and his personal standing in office, Zelensky has spent recent weeks and months conducting a Great Purge within Ukraine.
Countless high-ranking ministers, governors, and other Ukrainian bureaucrats have been stripped of authority, of course, without any due process. In recent weeks, Zelensky’s deputy minister of defense, the deputy head of the country’s presidential office, and the deputy prosecutor general are but many of the high-ranking individuals who were removed due to “corruption” allegations. In one such incident, the three highest ranking officials in Zelensky’s interior ministry were killed in a “helicopter accident” over Kiev.
There’s surely a large kernel of truth to the corruption allegations, as Ukraine is regularly ranked as the most corrupt country in Europe. Yet it doesn’t seem to be the motivating force behind the systematic removal of upper management at lightning speed.
Despite facing an ongoing war, Zelensky has been known to take time to engage in very public spats with his political rivals — only those who are still allowed to serve in government, following the Zelensky government’s extrajudicial elimination of their political opposition — over trivial issues. Nonetheless, he’s been publicly beefing with a political rival in the mayor of Kiev, the popular former boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, who has previously been well positioned to throw his hat in the ring for the presidency.
President Zelenskiy fires a top Ukrainian military commander (major general Eduard Moskalyov, commander joint forces of Ukraine), no reason given. https://t.co/c5LHTrJAfIpic.twitter.com/NXj6pFLFQ7
Over the weekend, Ukraine took another series of devastating battlefield losses. On Sunday, Zelensky fired a top general in Eduard Mykhailovich Moskalov, who led Ukraine’s joint forces and was appointed to the post in March of 2022. There was no reason given for the abrupt firing, but in all likelihood it has to do with Ukraine’s struggle to retain Bakhmut, the war-torn city in the country’s east.
Ukraine’s Zelensky is a corrupt authoritarian who narrowly avoided ouster because of the invasion. The truth is beginning to come out – he’s even more ruthless and dangerous than Putin. The US is enabling two monsters – one in Russia and one in Ukraine. https://t.co/0Bda1itNc4
The corporate press has finally started to address the possibility that Zelensky’s Great Purge is not a corruption-busting endeavor, but a power preserving initiative. It is much more likely, in fact, that these officials are being removed because they threaten the integrity of the regime. While Zelensky’s foreign backers can continue to prop him up, the people closest to him must also buy into the mission. As the fog of war clears, so too may the honeymoon period for Zelensky’s unopposed standing as the leader of Ukraine.
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Featured image: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivers an address in Kiev, Ukraine, April 15, 2022. (Credit: Ukrainian Presidency)
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***
“Light at the end of the tunnel” was an iconic phrase used by the warmongers who kept the U.S. in Vietnam long after the War had been lost. The implication was that insiders could see through the fog of war and know that things were getting better. It was a lie.
In January 1966, long before the military height of the War, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara told President Johnson that the U.S. had a one-out-of-three chance of winning on the battlefield. But Johnson, like Eisenhower and Kennedy before him, and Nixon after him, didn’t want to be the first American president to lose a war. So, he ginned up a simplistic lie and “soldiered on.”
The lie was blown by the Tet Offensive in January 1968. More than 100 U.S. military installations were attacked in a simultaneous nationwide assault that stunned the U.S. The broadcaster, Walter Cronkite, then “the most trusted man in America,” bellowed on national television, “I thought we were supposed to be winning this damned thing.” It was the beginning of the end of the U.S.’ murderous and failed occupation.
We’re now facing another light-and-tunnel event, this time in Ukraine. Only now, it’s not the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s the tunnel at the end of the light. What do we mean by that?
Until now, it’s been all light. Remember when the scrappy Ukrainian forces were kicking the barbarian Russian hordes’ asses? When every development betrayed the Russians’ clod-footed strategy, its soldiers’ bad morale, its army’s poor provisioning and worse leadership, and the perilous political situation for Putin back home? The testosterone was flowing. The bravado was intoxicating. The exceptionalism was sublimely seductive. It was only a matter of time and pluck and determination before Ukraine would bloody the bully’s nose and show it what the West was made of.
Remember?
No more.
You can prosecute a war for only so long on the strength of smoke and mirrors, delusions and illusions, lies and press releases. Eventually, however, reality catches up with you. The thuggishly propagandized American citizenry couldn’t know it, but that catching up began in the first weeks of the War and has only accelerated since.
Within the first week of the War, Russia had destroyed Ukraine’s air force and air defenses. By the second week, it had taken out most of Ukraine’s armories and weapons depots. Over following weeks and months, it systematically demolished artillery shipped in from former Warsaw Pact, now NATO, countries in Eastern Europe. It dismantled the country’s transportation and fuel supply systems. It has recently taken out most of the country’s electrical infrastructure.
The Ukrainian army has lost an estimated 150,000 troops, a pace more than 140 times the rate of U.S. losses in Vietnam. This, at a time when 10 million of its formerly 36 million people have fled the country. The military is down to dragooning 16-year-old boys and 60-year-old men to man the barricades. It cannot get replacement ammunition. Russia has knocked out some 90% of Ukraine’s drones, leaving it largely sightless. Delivery times for the tanks that are the hoped-for “game changer” are running into months and years. Not that that will matter.
Remember all the other failed “game changers”? The M777 howitzers and the Stryker armored fighting vehicles? The HIMARS multiple rocket launchers and the PATRIOT air defense systems? All were going to turn the tide at one time. All have proven impotent to stop Russia from seizing 20% of Ukraine’s territory and annexing it and its people to Russia.
The U.S. lost the economic war, as well. Remember Joe Biden’s delusional prediction that the U.S. would see that “the ruble will be reduced to rubble”? And that “the most stringent sanctions regime in history” was going to “weaken” Russia, perhaps even leading to Putin’s overthrow? Most of it backfired, badly. Last year, the ruble reached its highest exchange rate in history. Russia’s 2022 trade surplus of $227 billion was up 86% from 2021. The U.S.’ trade deficit over the same period rose 12.2%, and is approaching $1 trillion.
As a result of all of the above and more, the tide of insider opinion has turned against the War. Senior officials in Europe are talking openly about how the losses are unsustainable and they need to get back to security architectures that prevailed before the poisoned CIA-supported coup in Maidan in 2014. Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently let slip that “It will be very, very difficult to eject the Russians from all of occupied Ukraine in the next year. The Washington Post warned recently that Ukraine faced a “critical moment” in the war, belaboring the fact that U.S. support was not limitless and would soon be reached. Hint. Hint.
The Rand Corporation, one of the U.S.’ best-connected strategic whisperers, just published a report stating that “The consequences of a long war far outweigh the benefits.” It explicitly states that the U.S. needs to husband its resources for its more important upcoming conflict with China. Newsweek headlined that “Joe Biden Offered Vladimir Putin 20 Percent of Ukraine to End War.” It also revealed that “Nearly 90 percent of the world isn’t following us on Ukraine.” Vast swaths of Latin American, Africa, and Asia refuse to support the U.S. in its demand for sanctions against Russia.
These are not “Light at the end of the tunnel” divinations. Quite the contrary. If there’s a common thread running through it all it is the sickening recognition that the war is lost, militarily, economically, and diplomatically, that there is no plausible scenario in which those losses will be turned around by soldiering on, and that what is needed now is a hide-the-loss, get-out-any-way-you-can, face-saving exit strategy.
That will not be available, either. That’s where the tunnel at the end of the light comes into play.
Even before the U.S. and its NATO puppets undertook the War, the rest of the world—and that means most of the world—was congealing itself into an anti-Western economic and security bloc. Led by China and its strategic ally, Russia, that bloc includes more than a dozen trade and security organizations. Those include the BRICS confederation of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, working explicitly to devise multi-polar institutions to stand up to the U.S.’ unipolar hegemonic model.
It includes the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a security compact made up of leading nations from east, central, and south Asia, including China, Russia, India, and soon, Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. It is explicitly working to devise measures to prevent the kind of predatory military assaults the U.S. carried out against Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, and Afghanistan.
The organizing economic engine behind these efforts it is China’s Belt and Road Initiative. BRI is a dizzyingly ambitious plan to connect Asia and more than 100 nations with 21st Century economic infrastructure, everything from highways and high-speed rail lines, to power generation, energy pipelines, communication systems, cities, ports, and more. It is critical to understand why BRI poses such daunting challenges to U.S. supremacy in the world.
Infrastructure is so powerful because it spins off a vast, unimaginable array of secondary, and tertiary economic benefits. It was the railroads in the nineteenth century that bound the U.S. together as the world’s first continental-scale market. Manufacturers could produce for a larger market, and, therefore, at larger scale, and, therefore, at lower cost, than could producers anywhere else on earth.
The railroads made the U.S. the largest market in the world for iron, steel, machine tools, grading equipment, farm equipment, and scores of other commercial and industrial products essential to a modern industrial economy. The U.S. began the 1800s with 1.5% of the world’s GDP. It ended the century with 19% of a four-times larger number, making it the largest economy in the world.
Similarly, automobiles. People think it was Henry Ford and mass production that made the Twentieth Century “The American Century.” In fact, it was the build-out of millions of miles of roads and, later, interstates, without which automobiles would have remained expensive playthings of the wealthy. Those roads stitched the country together into an asphalt network that allowed individual mobility, by virtually anybody, anywhere, down to every street address in the country. The world had never seen anything like it.
The secondary and tertiary economic effects were astounding, everything from the world’s largest markets for steel, glass, plastics, and rubber, to gasoline, diesel, highway construction on a continental scale, repair shops and drive-ins, to the entire panoply of culture we know of as suburbia. The Twentieth Century was the Century of the Automobile. The infrastructure the U.S. built to make it possible was the major reason—at least economically—that the U.S. led the world for most of that century.
China is now proposing to do the same for Asia in the Twenty-First Century, but on a much larger scale. It is leading an infrastructure build-out that will dwarf Eisenhower’s Interstate highway system. It will serve most of the five billion people in Eurasia, thirty TIMES more than the 150 million people Eisenhower’s project helped.
Wisely, China has ensured that all of the 100+ nations joining BRI are enriched by their participation, whether building themselves up domestically, or extending their reach internationally. It is the largest, most compelling, geographically extensive, nationally inclusive, mutually enriching economic enterprise in the history of the world. The U.S. is not part of it.
Finally, there is the matter of the dollar. Since the Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944, the global economy has used the dollar as the primary currency of international trade. This has given the U.S. an “exorbitant privilege” in that it can essentially write an unlimited stream of hot checks to the world, because countries need dollars to be able to conduct international commerce. The U.S. “sells” them dollars by issuing Treasury debt, which is a universally fungible international medium of exchange.
One of the consequences of this arrangement is that it has allowed the U.S. to spend far beyond its means, running up $32 trillion of debt since 1980, when its national debt stood at a mere $1 trillion. The U.S. uses this debt to, among other things, fund its gargantuan military with its 800 military bases around the world, which it uses to do things like destroy Serbia, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, and a host of lesser predations on other countries. All the world sees this and is repulsed by it.
The world sees how dollar hegemony underwrites the U.S.’ ability to carry out or attempt coups in Honduras, Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Myanmar, Belarus, Egypt, Syria, and, of course, Ukraine, among others. And these are just those in the past two decades.
The same dollar hegemony underwrote U.S. predations in the latter part of the Twentieth Century against Iran, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Cuba, Chile, Congo, Brazil, Indonesia, and dozens of other countries. Again, the rest of the world sees this. U.S. citizens, rapturously oblivious in their hermetically sealed media bubble, do not.
The world saw how the U.S. stole $300 billion of Russian funds that were held in Western banks, part of its sanctions regime against Russia for its role in the Ukraine war. They’ve seen how the U.S. has carried out similar thefts against dollar-denominated funds of Venezuela, Afghanistan, and Iran. It sees how the Federal Reserve’s raising of interest rates to take care of U.S. needs makes capital flow out of other countries, and how it makes their currencies fall, forcing inflation on them. Not a single country in the world is left untouched.
The cumulative impact of these facts is that many countries would rather not be held hostage to the implicit and explicit negative consequences of dollar hegemony. They also want to remove the “exorbitant privilege” that they believe the U.S. has abused to their individual and collective detriment.
They have begun—again, led by Russia and China—to build an international finance and trading system that doesn’t rely on dollars, that uses countries’ local currencies, gold, oil, or other assets to trade. This received special impetus last year when Saudi Arabia announced it would begin accepting Chinese yuan in exchange for its oil. Oil is the world’s most valued internationally-traded commodity, so the perception is that a dam is beginning to break.
It will take years before an equally functional substitute for the dollar is devised but what began a few years ago as a trickle has gained momentum and urgency as a consequence of U.S. actions in Ukraine. When the dollar is no longer the world’s international reserve currency and nations don’t need dollars to trade with each other, the U.S. will no longer be able to fund its massive budget and trade deficits by writing hot checks. The withdrawal will be agonizing and will greatly circumscribe the U.S.’ role as global hegemon.
U.S. actions in Ukraine have driven together its two greatest adversaries, Russia and China. They, joined by India, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran and dozens of other countries, are carrying out a Mackinder-feared Eurasian integration that will leave the U.S. outside of the world’s largest and most dynamic trading bloc.
The U.S.’ military failure has advertised, once again (after Iraq and Afghanistan), the relative impotence of U.S. military solutions. Yes, it can still destroy small, defenseless countries like Serbia, Libya, Afghanistan, and Iraq. But against a peer competitor that has chosen to stand up to it, the U.S. has, frankly, been handed its ass. All the world can see it.
Events have shown the hollowness of U.S.-led economic and financial systems, as well, especially compared to China. China’s economic performance has far surpassed that of the U.S. It has lifted more people out of poverty more quickly than any country in the history of the world. Its growth has made it the largest economy in the world in purchasing power parity terms. While average inflation-adjusted incomes in the U.S. are little higher than they were 50 years ago, incomes in China are up more than 10 TIMES over the same period. And it has done this without brutalizing and pillaging other nations that refuse to bend to its hegemonic will.
And, the War has betrayed, as nothing else possibly could, the diplomatic isolation of the U.S., with the vast majority of the world’s people refusing to implement U.S.-demanded sanctions against Russia. Its destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipeline is recognized as the greatest act of state-sponsored terrorism in history, easily surpassing 911 in terms of the hundreds of millions of people it will hurt. And this, to one of its putative allies, Europe. Imagine what happens to its enemies.
This is the tunnel at the end of the light, a multi-polar as opposed to a unipolar world. It means increasing isolation of the U.S. from the rest of the world, the closing in of options, the narrowing of opportunities, the loss of strategic primacy that once graced the greatest power in the history of the world. It will mean dramatically reduced power and influence vis-à-vis the U.S.’ strategic adversaries, and markedly constrained ability to operate militarily, economically and financially in the world, what with the hot checkbook soon to be taken away.
In twenty or thirty years, the U.S. will still be a substantial regional power, perhaps like Brazil in South America, Iran in West Asia, or Nigeria in Africa. But it will not be the global hegemon it once was, able to project and inflict power in the world as it has done for the last century. The U.S. abused its providential anointment as the exceptional nation. That abuse has been recognized, called out, and is now being acted against by most of the other nations of the world. The future will be very different for the U.S. than it has been for the past 80 years, since the end of World War II when it towered over the rest of the world like a giant among pygmies. Ukraine will prove to have been the turning point in this transformation, the tunnel at the end of the light.
From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
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Robert Freeman is Founder and Executive Director of The Global Uplift Project which builds small-scale infrastructure projects in the developing world to improve humanity’s capacity for self-development. Robert taught economics and history at Los Altos High School where he also coached the Speech and Debate team, including producing a national champion in 2006. He has traveled extensively in both the developed and developing world. He is the author of “The Best One Hour History” series which includes “World War I” (2013), “The InterWar Years” (2014), “The Vietnam War” (2013), and other titles.
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In 1946, Albert Einstein shot off a telegram to several hundred American leaders and politicians warning that the “unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” Einstein’s forecast remains prescient. Nuclear calamity still knocks.
Even prior to Vladimir Putin’s bloody invasion of Ukraine, the threat of a nuclear confrontation between NATO and Russia was intensifying. After all, in August 2019, President Donald Trump formally withdrew the U.S. from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, long heralded as a pillar of arms control between the two superpowers.
“Russia is solely responsible for the treaty’s demise,” declared Secretary of State Mike Pompeo following the announcement. “With the full support of our NATO allies, the United States has determined Russia to be in material breach of the treaty and has subsequently suspended our obligations under the treaty.” No evidence of that breach was offered, but in Trump World, no evidence was needed.
Then, on February 21st of this year, following the Biden administration’s claims that Russia was no longer abiding by its obligations under the New START treaty, the last remaining nuclear arms accord between the two nations, Putin announced that he would end his country’s participation.
In the year since Russia’s initial assault on Ukraine, the danger of nuclear war has only inched ever closer. While President Biden’s White House raised doubts that Putin would indeed use any of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists ominously reset its Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds to midnight, the closest since its creation in 1947. Those scientific experts weren’t buying what the Biden administration was selling.
“As Russia’s war on Ukraine continues, the last remaining nuclear weapons treaty between Russia and the United States… stands in jeopardy,” read a January 2023 press release from the Bulletin before Putin backed out of the agreement. “Unless the two parties resume negotiations and find a basis for further reductions, the treaty will expire in February 2026. This would eliminate mutual inspections, deepen mistrust, spur a nuclear arms race, and heighten the possibility of a nuclear exchange.”
Of course, they were correct and, in mid-February, the Norwegian government claimed Russia had already deployed ships armed with tactical nukes in the Baltic Sea for the first time in more than 30 years.
“Tactical nuclear weapons are a particularly serious threat in several operational scenarios in which NATO countries may be involved,” claimed the report. “The ongoing tensions between Russia and the West mean that Russia will continue to pose the greatest nuclear threat to NATO, and therefore to Norway.”
For its part, in October 2022, NATO ran its own nuclear bombing drills, designated “Steadfast Noon,” with fighter jets in Europe’s skies involved in “war games” (minus live weaponry). “It’s an exercise to ensure that our nuclear deterrent remains safe, secure, and effective,” claimed NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, but it almost seemed as if NATO was taunting Putin to cross the line.
And yet, here’s the true horror story lurking behind the war in Ukraine. While a nuclear tit-for-tat between Russia and NATO — an exchange that could easily destroy much of Eastern Europe in no time at all — is a genuine, if frightening, prospect, it isn’t the most imminent radioactive peril facing the region.
Averting a Meltdown
By now, we all ought to be familiar with the worrisome Zaporizhzhia nuclear complex (ZNPP), which sits right in the middle of the Russian incursion into Ukraine. Assembled between 1980 and 1986, Zaporizhzhia is Europe’s largest nuclear-power complex, with six 950-megawatt reactors. In February and March of last year, after a series of fierce battles, which caused a fire to break out at a nearby training facility, the Russians hijacked the embattled plant. Representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were later sent in to ensure that the reactors weren’t at immediate risk of meltdown and issued a report stating, in part, that:
“…further escalation affecting the six-reactor plant could lead to a severe nuclear accident with potentially grave radiological consequences for human health and the environment in Ukraine and elsewhere and that renewed shelling at or near the ZNPP was deeply troubling for nuclear safety and security at the facility.”
Since then, the fighting has only intensified. Russia kidnapped some of the plant’s Ukrainian employees, including its deputy director Valery Martynyuk. In September 2022, due to ongoing shelling in the area, Zaporizhzhia was taken offline and, after losing external power on several occasions, has since been sporadically relying on old diesel backup generators. (Once disconnected from the electrical grid, backup power is crucial to ensure the plant’s reactors don’t overheat, which could lead to a full-blown radioactive meltdown.)
However, relying on risk-prone backup power is a fool’s game, according to electrical engineer Josh Karpoff. A member of Science for the People who previously worked for the New York State Office of General Services where he designed electrical systems for buildings, including large standby generators, Karpoff knows how these things work in a real-world setting. He assures me that, although Zaporizhzhia is no longer getting much attention in the general rush of Ukraine news, the possibility of a major disaster there is ever more real. A backup generator, he explains, is about as reliable as a ’75 Winnebago.
“It’s really not that hard to knock out these kinds of diesel generators,” Karpoff adds. “If your standby generator starts up but says there’s a leak in a high-pressure oil line fitting, it sprays heated, aerosolized oil all over the hot motor, starting a fire. This happens to diesel motors all the time. A similar diesel engine fire in a locomotive was partly responsible for causing the Lac Megantic Rail Disaster in Quebec back in 2013.”
Sadly enough, Karpoff is on target. Just remember how the backup generators failed at the three nuclear reactors in Fukushima, Japan, in 2011. Many people believe that the 9.0 magnitude underwater earthquake caused them to melt down, but that’s not exactly the case.
It was, in fact, a horrific chain of worsening events. While the earthquake itself didn’t damage Fukushima’s reactors, it cut the facility off from the power grid, automatically switching the plant to backup generators. So even though the fission reaction had stopped, heat was still being produced by the radioactive material inside the reactor cores. A continual water supply, relying on backup power, was needed to keep those cores from melting down. Then, 30 minutes after that huge quake, a tsunami struck, knocking out the plant’s seawater pumps, which subsequently caused the generators to go down.
“The myth of the tsunami is that the tsunami destroyed the [generators] and had that not happened, everything would have been fine,” former nuclear engineer Arnie Gunderson told Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! “What really happened is that the tsunami destroyed the [sea] pumps right along the ocean… Without that water, the [diesel generators] will overheat, and without that water, it’s impossible to cool a nuclear core.”
With the sea pumps out of commission, 12 of the plant’s 13 generators ended up failing. Unable to cool, the reactors began to melt, leading to three hydrogen explosions that released radioactive material, carried disastrously across the region and out to sea by prevailing winds, where much of it will continue to float around and accumulate for decades.
At Zaporizhzhia, there are several scenarios that could lead to a similar failure of the standby generators. They could be directly shelled and catch fire or clog up or just run out of fuel. It’s a dicey situation, as the ongoing war edges Ukraine and the surrounding countries toward the brink of a catastrophic nuclear crisis.
“I don’t know for how long we are going to be lucky in avoiding a nuclear accident,” said Rafael Grossi, director general of the IAEA in late January, calling it a “bizarre situation: a Ukrainian facility in Russian-controlled territory, managed by Russians, but operated by Ukrainians.”
Bad Things Will Follow
Unfortunately, it’s not just Zaporizhzhia we have to worry about. Though not much attention has been given to them, there are, in fact, 14 other nuclear power plants in the war zone and Russia has also seized the ruined Chernobyl plant, where there is still significant hot radioactive waste that must be kept cool.
Kate Brown, author of Plutopia, told Science for the People last April:
“Russians are apparently using these two captured nuclear installations like kings on a chessboard. They hold Chernobyl and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power reactor plants, and they are stockpiling weapons and soldiers there as safe havens. This is a new military tactic we haven’t seen before, where you use the vulnerability of these installations, as a defensive tactic. The Russians apparently figured that the Ukrainians wouldn’t shoot. The Russians noticed that when they came to the Chernobyl zone, the Ukrainian guard of the Chernobyl plant stood down because they didn’t want missiles fired at these vulnerable installations. There are twenty thousand spent nuclear fuel rods, more than half of them in basins at that plant. It’s a precarious situation. This is a new scenario for us.”
Of course, the hazards facing Zaporizhzhia and Chernobyl would be mitigated if Putin removed his forces tomorrow, but there’s little possibility of that happening. It’s worth noting as well that Ukraine is not the only place where, in the future, such a scenario could play out. Taiwan, at the center of a potential military conflict between the U.S. and China, has several nuclear power plants. Iran operates a nuclear facility. Pakistan has six reactors at two different sites. Saudi Arabia is building a new facility. The list only goes on and on.
Even more regrettably, Russia has raised the nuclear stakes in a new way, setting a distressing precedent with its illegal occupation of Zaporizhzhia and Chernobyl, turning them into tools of war. No other power-generating source operating in a war zone, even the worst of the fossil-fuel users, poses such a potentially serious and immediate threat to life as we know it on this planet.
And while hitting those Ukrainian reactors themselves is one recipe for utter disaster, there are other potentially horrific “peaceful” nuclear possibilities as well. What about a deliberate attack on nuclear-waste facilities or those unstable backup generators? You wouldn’t even have to strike the reactors directly to cause a disaster. Simply take out the power-grid supply lines, hit the generators, and terrible things will follow. With nuclear power, even the purportedly “peaceful” type, the potential for catastrophe is obvious.
The Greatest of Evils
In my new book Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America, I probe the horrors of the Hanford site in Washington state, one of the locations chosen to develop the first nuclear weapons for the covert Manhattan Project during World War II. For more than 40 years, that facility churned out most of the plutonium used in the vast American arsenal of atomic weapons.
Now, however, Hanford is a radioactive wasteland, as well as the largest and most expensive environmental clean-up project in history. To say that it’s a boondoggle would be an understatement. Hanford has 177 underground tanks loaded with 56 million gallons of steaming radioactive gunk. Two of those tanks are currently leaking, their waste making its way toward groundwater supplies that could eventually reach the Columbia River. High-level whistleblowers I interviewed who worked at Hanford told me they feared that a hydrogen build-up in one of those tanks, if ignited, could lead to a Chernobyl-like event here in the United States, resulting in a tragedy unlike anything this country has ever experienced.
All of this makes me fear that those old Hanford tanks could someday be possible targets for an attack. Sabotage or a missile strike on them could cause a major release of radioactive material from coast to coast. The economy would crash. Major cities would become unlivable. And there’s precedent for this: in 1957, a massive explosion occurred at Mayak, Hanford’s Cold War sister facility in the then-Soviet Union that manufactured plutonium for nukes. Largely unknown, it was the second biggest peacetime radioactive disaster ever, only “bested” by the Chernobyl accident. In Mayak’s case, a faulty cooling system gave out and the waste in one of the facility’s tanks overheated, causing a radioactive blast equivalent to the force of 70 tons of TNT, contaminating 20,000 square miles. Countless people died and whole villages were forever vacated.
All of this is to say that nuclear waste, whether on a battlefield or not, is an inherently nasty business. Nuclear facilities around the world, containing less waste than the underground silos at Hanford, have already shown us their vulnerabilities. Last August, in fact, the Russians reported that containers housing spent fuel waste at Zaporizhzhia were shelled by Ukrainian forces. “One of the guided shells hit the ground ten meters from them (containers with nuclear waste…). Others fell down slightly further — 50 and 200 meters,” alleged Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-appointed official there. “As the storage area is open, a shell or a rocket may unseal containers and kilograms, or even hundreds of kilograms of nuclear waste will be emitted into the environment and contaminate it. To put it simply, it will be a ‘dirty bomb.’”
Ukraine, in turn, blamed Russia for the strike, but regardless of which side was at fault, after Chernobyl (which some researchers believe affected upwards of 1.8 million people) both the Ukrainians and the Russians understand the grave risks of atomically-charged explosions. This is undoubtedly why the Russians are apparently constructing protective coverings over Zaporizhzhia’s waste storage tanks. An incident at the plant releasing radioactive particles would damage not just Ukraine but Russia, too.
As former New York Times correspondent Chris Hedges so aptly put it, war is the greatest of evils and such evils rise exponentially with the prospect of a nuclear apocalypse. Worse yet, a radioactive Armageddon doesn’t have to come from the actual detonation of nuclear bombs. It can take many forms. The atom, as Einstein warned us, has certainly changed everything.
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ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102
PDF Edition: $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)
Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.
Reviews
“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.” –John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University
“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.” -Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations
Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction. –Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute
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