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

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

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

The U.S. got more than it bargained for after instigating the Ukrainian conflict. The Biden foreign policy team grows more desperate and their plans become more dangerous as they reckon with the unintended consequences of their actions.

“Senator Cruz, like you I am and I think the administration is very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea.” — Victoria Nuland

Victoria Nuland is Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. The mouthful of a title doesn’t begin to describe what she actually does on behalf of the U.S. Perhaps Under Secretary for Destabilizing the World would be more accurate. Nuland is one of those persons who is always in the revolving door of foreign policy, destined to return when an election puts her clique back in office. She may be best known for passing out cookies to the mobs in Kiev’s Maidan Square when they overthrew the elected Ukrainian president in 2014. It was clear that the Obama administration had a hand in the coup, but Nuland disabused anyone of doubt when she gabbed on an unsecured phone and discussed who the next president of Ukraine ought to be. In declaring Ukraine’s new reality as a de facto U.S. colony she famously or rather infamously said, “Fu*k the EU!”

Of course she is back with the Biden administration and is the leader of the proxy war against Russia that is taking place in Ukraine. Her most recent infamous remark about the Nord Stream 2 pipeline which would have carried natural gas to Germany, should be seen as an admission of guilt. The September 26, 2022 explosion remains mysterious but only because US vassals like Sweden have not made their investigation findings public. Nuland also said of Nord Stream in January 2022, “We will work with Germany to ensure it does not move forward.” The U.S. is the prime suspect yet again.

Nuland’s bravado is yet another sign of the mess that the Biden administration made for itself in instigating the conflict with Russia. Nothing has gone according to its plans. Biden said that sanctions would, “Turn the ruble to rubble.”  Russia has survived relatively unscathed and the only people suffering from U.S. interference are the EU nations who are supposed to be allies but who are in fact underlings who will never step out of line, even in favor of their own interests.

After nearly a year of conflict, European nations have literally given their all militarily, with very little left in the way of materiel to provide to Ukraine. They have given up cheap Russian natural gas and now purchase US liquified natural gas, which costs more and creates more environmental damage. Now even the Rand Corporation, which is funded by the military industrial complex and fossil fuel companies, and pushed for war with Russia in 2019, is waving red flags about the overreach. In an article entitled Avoiding a Long War, Rand concludes, “In short, the consequences of a long war – ranging from persistent elevated escalation risks to economic damage – far outweigh the possible benefits.” Rand is no peacemaker, believing that challenging China should be the focus and not the Ukraine stalemate. Warnings from a friendly party show that the best laid plans for hegemonic regime change have gone wrong once again.

The U.S. has pumped more than $113 billion into Ukraine, that is to say into the hands of the defense contractors who run Washington. Russian forces continue to advance, and the Ukrainian people who everyone claims to want to help are suffering, as middle aged men are dragooned from their homes, trained for a few weeks, and then sent to the front lines where they face death from well armed Russian forces.

Now tanks are on everyone’s lips, from Leopards in Germany to Abrams in the U.S. Tanks require manpower, highly trained manpower who need months to learn how to use this complicated equipment. Ukraine has neither enough men nor time necessary to make tanks useful to them in battle. Of course, Russia also has tanks and soldiers who already know how to use them. The latest alleged game changer won’t amount to much in the way of assistance for the beatified Ukrainians.

Victoria Nuland and her boss Antony Blinken and his boss Joe Biden are caught in a bind of their own making. They really believed they could wreck Russia’s economy, or get Vladimir Putin out of office, or break that country up into smaller parts ripe for the picking. But fantasy foreign policy is just that. The only thing that makes sense is to talk to the target nation directly. Yet if the past is any indication of future behavior they will probably do something reckless instead.

The Nord Stream explosion points to the danger that the U.S. poses to the whole world. The sabotage was an act of desperation as they sought to make sure that their lap dogs didn’t get any big ideas about acting independently, and so they escalated. In the process they create more dangers to Europe and to the whole world as they amateurishly play a game of chicken with another nuclear power.

Ukraine is losing, dependent upon an unending supply of money from Washington, and suffering after many casualties. President Zelensky will do what Washington tells him and the Biden administration is the wildcard. If they would blow up Nord Stream they would do something else equally foolish and they have plenty of company.

Having had Ukraine blow up in their faces they have turned their attention to China. An Air Force general wrote a memo predicting war by 2025, and exhorted his subordinates to “fire a clip into a 7-meter target with the full understanding that unrepentant lethality matters most. Aim for the head.” Members of congress are still provoking China with visits to Taiwan. The goal is the same as the failed policy in Ukraine. Provoke some sort of incident and then sanction China, or come up with a rationale to sanction China without an incident. The Biden administration turns the old saying on its head. “If at first you don’t succeed, fail, fail again.”

Of course the people lose. They have lost $113 billion while their needs go unmet. But a state that is devoted to creating a proxy war with a nuclear power has no interest in helping its people anyway. Humanity is a hindrance to their grand schemes. They see the welfare state as something to be subverted.

The NATO Secretary General said without any irony, “Weapons are in fact the way to peace.” Of course, only peace is the way to peace. Wars can end with negotiation, but peace is antithetical to their grand plans. Ukraine is not working out the way they hoped. But any change in course is not on their agenda.

They see forever wars as success, or baiting Russia and China as success, regardless of the outcome of their actions. They don’t see the world the way sane people do. They have made the Ukraine conflict an existential crisis, and then decide they have no choice but to engage in dangerous actions. The world is a zero-sum game to them. If Russia and China are independent actors, they believe they lose. 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.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. You can support her work on Patreon and also find it on the Twitter and Telegram platforms. She can be reached via email at margaret.kimberley(at)blackagendareport.com.

Featured image is from  Adobe Stock

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

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

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Hysteria over balloons is a strange thing.  Hot air balloons made their appearance during the Napoleonic era, where they served as delivery weapons for bombs and undertook surveillance tasks.  High altitude balloons were also used by, of all powers, the United States during the 1950s, for reasons of gathering intelligence, though these were shot down by the irritated Soviets.  Somehow, the US imperium and its noisy choristers have managed to get worked up over a solitary Chinese balloon that traversed the United States for over a week before it was shot down by the US Air Force.

On January 28, a device reported to be a “high-altitude surveillance balloon” entered US airspace in Alaska.  It then had a brief spell in Canadian airspace before returning to the US via Idaho on January 31.  On February 4, with the balloon moving off the coast of South Carolina, a decision was made by the US military to shoot it down using a F-22 Raptor from the 1^st Fighter Wing based at Langley Air Force Base.  The Pentagon has revealed that the collecting of debris is underway.

In response, the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a stern note of disapproval, protesting “the US attack on a civilian unmanned airship by force.”  This was “a clear overreaction and a serious violation of international practice.”  Beijing also issued a note of apology, regretting “the unintended entry of the ship into US airspace due to force majeure.”

A US State Department official, while noting the statement of regret, felt compelled to designate “the presence of this balloon in our airspace [as] a clear violation of our sovereignty as well as international law”.

Rumours of a second Chinese balloon flying across Latin America were also confirmed by a spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry on February 6, who described it as being “of a civilian nature and is used for flight tests.”  The instrument had been impaired by weather in its direction, having “limited self-control capabilities”.

The Pentagon’s press secretary, Brigadier General Pat Ryder, also confirmed the existence of the second balloon, reaching the predictably opposite conclusion to his Chinese counterparts.  “We are seeing reports of a balloon transiting Latin America.  We now assess it is another Chinese surveillance balloon.”

This overegged saga has seen much airtime and column space dedicated to those in the pay of the military-defence complex.  Little thought was given about the purpose of such a seemingly crude way of collecting military intelligence.  Timothy Heath of the Rand Corporation went so far as to extol the merits of such cheeky devices.  For one thing, they were hard to detect, making them somehow reliable.

General Glen VanHerck, commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command and US Northern Command, made reference to a number of Chinese spy balloons that supposedly operated with impunity during the Trump administration.  “I will tell you that we did not detect those threats.”  This had resulted in a “domain awareness gap that we have to figure out.”  At this writing, the begging bowl for even larger defence budgets is being pushed around the corridors of power.

Lawyers of international law have also had their say, reaching for their manuals, and shaking their heads gravely.  Donald Rothwell of the Australian National University thought that “the incursion of the Chinese balloon tested the boundaries of international law.”

Thankfully, one or two sober notes of reflection have prevailed, even from within the military-intelligence fraternity.  The Center for Strategic and International Studies has issued a few self-evident truths.  “Balloons are not an ideal platform for spying,” writes James Andrew Lewis.  “They are big and hard to hide.  They go where the winds take them”.  Such instruments “would be a strange choice for a technologically advanced and sophisticated opponent.”

This absurd spectacle has become the stuff of political bricks and straw for a Biden administration keen to push its stuttering election cart. Embroiled in his own classified documents scandal, President Joe Biden was put off his stroke about focusing on any announcement about running for a second term.  Burnishing the China Threat was just the ticket.

In his State of the Union Address, Biden paved the way for a number of rhetorical salvos against the Great Yellow Hordes he finds so threatening to the awesome majesty of US power.  “Today, we’re in the strongest position in decades to compete with China or anyone else in the world.”  In passing reference to the balloon, the president proved entertainingly, if absurdly belligerent: “as we made clear last week, if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country.  And we did.”  Such a response, and such a threat.

The Chinese explanation has been scoffed at and derisively dismissed.  Yet balloons are an almost quotidian feature of scientific and meteorological work, whatever the official explanation offered by Beijing might be.  NASA’s own Scientific Balloon Program, for instance, has been most engaged of late.  The organisation was keen to tout its fall 2022 campaign involving six scientific, engineering and student balloon flights in support of 17 missions.

The scale of any one mission can be sizeable.  “Our balloon platforms,” came the description from NASA’s Scientific Balloon chief Debbie Fairbrother, “can lift several thousand pounds to the edge of space, allowing for multiple, various scientific instruments, technologies, and education payloads to fly together in one balloon flight.”

The disproportionate nature of Washington’s reaction to Beijing over such balloons also looks rather odd in the face of vast surveillance technologies it deploys against adversaries and friends.  But politics is not merely the art of the possible but an opportunity for the absurd to find form and voice.  On this score, the mouse has clearly terrified the elephant.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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

Featured image is from Kurt Nimmo

How the Super-Rich Destroy Our Minds

By Emanuel Pastreich, February 06, 2023

The tools they use to pursue this war against the citizens of the Earth are technology, propaganda and disinformation campaigns, threats against individuals who display leadership skills and massive bribes for the leaders who are allowed to be covered in the media to represent the conservative and the progressive causes.

US Declares War on Turkish Tourism Economy. Ankara Retorts: “Take Your Dirty Hands off Turkey”

By Steven Sahiounie, February 06, 2023

On February 3, the Turkish interior minister, Suleyman Soylu, blasted the US Ambassador to Turkey, Jeffry L. Flake, saying, “Take your dirty hands off of Turkey.” The outrage was prompted after Washington and eight European countries issued travel warnings over possible terror attacks in Turkey.

Video: “Never Again Is Now Global”. Here We Go Again on Steroids. Part 1

By Vera Sharav and Children’s Health Defense, February 06, 2023

“Never Again Is Now Global,” a five-part docuseries highlighting the parallels between Nazi Germany and global pandemic policies. Each one-hour episode focuses on recent testimonies by Holocaust survivors and their descendants who discuss comparisons between the early repressive stages under the Nazi regime that culminated in the Holocaust and global COVID-19 policies.

What Is Anarcho-Tyranny and Are We Living in It?

By Ben Bartee, February 06, 2023

How does one best explain the brutal crackdown on COVID-19 protesters worldwide for the sake of Public Health™ while, at the same time, Black Lives Matter was permitted to run hog-wild on America’s streets? How are elected Democrat leaders allowed to literally incite race riots while those same leaders pearl-clutch about January 6 in never-ending televised witch trials?

Ukraine — The Inevitable War

By Chay Bowes, February 06, 2023

During a recent interview with German magazine Der Spiegel, former Chancellor and European political heavyweight Angela Merkel revealed that the Minsk accords, a comprehensive 2015 diplomatic treaty, agreed by the EU, United States, Russia, and Kyiv to end the civil war in eastern Ukraine, was essentially subverted by the Ukrainians in an attempt to buy time to expand its military capabilities.

America’s Balloon Obsession Is an Attempt to Prevent Detente with China

By Drago Bosnic, February 06, 2023

For the last several days, the mainstream propaganda machine diverted its attention from the mandatory “evil Russia” narrative and focused on 24/7 coverage of a weather balloon. Although the media frenzy was part of the “evil China” narrative, this one is not as omnipresent as that about Russia, at least not yet.

China’s Response to the Balloon Incident. Derailing the Sino-American New Detente

By Andrew Korybko, February 06, 2023

The balloon incident is shaping up to be the most decisive moment in the New Cold War since the start of Russia’s special operation a year ago. The Sino-American New Détente was unexpectedly derailed due to the subversive intervention of their hardline factions that were both opposed to this potentially game-changing rapprochement.

US Sends Long-range Missiles to Ukraine

By Andre Damon, February 07, 2023

The White House announced Friday that it would send long-range missiles capable of striking nearly 100 miles into Russian territory to Ukraine, in one of the most significant escalations of US involvement in the war with Russia to date.

U.S. Act of War Against the European Union: President Biden Ordered the Terror Attack Against Nord Stream. High Treason Against the People of Europe

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, February 07, 2023

In recent developments, German Prosecutor General Peter Frank confirmed “there is no evidence to blame Russia for the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines”. No evidence of foreign sabotage of an act which has created social havoc and hardship in the European Union, with rising energy prices? People are freezing, unable to pay their heating bills.

Is the Trip of the Secretary General of NATO Aimed to Instigate the Creation of the Asian Version of NATO?

By Kim Hoon, February 06, 2023

South Korea and Japan trying to attend to their own business by inviting unbidden guests to the region should be well aware that they are getting closer to the extreme security crisis, far from defusing security uneasiness. It was reported that the secretary general of NATO embarked upon his trip to South Korea and Japan.

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

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

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Note the following sentence in a New York Times news story yesterday by Michael Schwirtz and Anton Troianovski about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: “Mr. Putin’s attempt to put a veneer of nobility on an unprovoked invasion that has killed thousands of civilians and turned millions more into refugees was made in the Russian city once known as Stalingrad, on the 80th anniversary of a victory there against Nazi Germany that changed the course of World War II.” (Italics added.)

The operative word is “unprovoked.” 

First of all, it’s a strange word for news reporters to be using because it’s more in the nature of a commentary or editorial. News reporters are supposed to report the news, and the editorial department of a newspaper is supposed to render opinions and commentary on the news. Schwirtz and Troianovski do both in their news article. 

Second, and more important, for the life of me, I cannot understand how Schwirtz and Troianovski are unable to see that Russia’s invasion was provoked. It was provoked knowingly, intentionally, and deliberately.

Now, one could argue that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine wasn’t justified. That’s a different word from “unprovoked.” An invasion can be “provoked” and “unjustified” at the same time. My hunch is that Schwirtz and Troianovski meant to use the word “unjustified” rather than the word “unprovoked.”

When the Berlin Wall came crashing down in 1989, the Soviet Union withdrew its troops from Eastern Europe, the Warsaw Pact was terminated, and the Soviet Union was dismantled. As far was Russia was concerned, the Cold War was over.

Not so, however, for the United States and, specifically, for the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA. The Cold War had been very beneficial to the U.S. national-security establishment in terms of ever-increasing power within the federal governmental structure and ever-increasing taxpayer-funded largesse to finance America’s Cold War military machine, including its vast army of voracious “defense” contractors who had become dependent on feeding at the public trough. 

Thus, while Russia was ready to move on, the U.S. national-security establishment was not. It was determined to not let go of its Cold War racket.

NATO had been brought into existence after World War II to ostensibly protect Western Europe from an invasion by the Soviet Union. But the notion of such an invasion was ludicrous from the start. Russia had been devastated by the war. As many as 27 million Soviet citizens were killed as a result of the war. That’s 27 million people! That’s a lot of people. Moreover, the entire industrial might of the country had been decimated. 

The Soviets knew that if they started a war with their former World War II partners and allies, the United States would immediately come to their assistance. The United States had not suffered any damage to its industrial capacity and was still fully capable of fielding a massive army. Moreover, the United States had a monopoly on nuclear bombs and had displayed a willingness to use them against people living in populated cities. Thus, there was never any realistic possibility whatsoever that the Soviet Union was going to invade Western Europe. NATO served no purpose whatsoever. 

Recall that one of the major reasons for all the death and destruction that Russia had experienced during the war was Germany’s surprise invasion of the Soviet Union, an invasion that almost resulted in the German conquest of Russia. German troops made it all the way to Stalingrad before they met with defeat, owing to the tenacity of the Russian people and the brutality of the Russian winter. 

Make no mistake about it: Germany’s near-conquest of their country — and the massive death and destruction wreaked by Germany on their country — was seared into the collective conscience of the Russian people. No Russian generation will ever forget it. Thus, when Germany decides to send tanks to Ukraine in the hopes that Ukraine ultimately joins NATO, which would enable German tanks, troops, and missiles to be aligned on Russia’s border, one should be able to at least understand why the Russian people might feel a bit uneasy about that.

In fact, Schwirtz’s and Troianovski’s news article mocked Russian president Vladimir Putin for using the 80th anniversary of Russia’s victory at Stalingrad to deliver a speech about the war in Ukraine. In their mockery, Schwirtz and Troianovski are clearly unable to draw the link between Germany’s near conquest of Russia and Germany’s current thirst to incorporate Ukraine into NATO, which would enable Germany to put its tanks, missiles, and troops along Russia’s border. 

Once the Cold War was over, NATO had fulfilled its ostensible mission. There was no longer any threat of the Soviet Union invading Western Europe. Thus, this old Cold War dinosaur clearly should have gone extinct.

Instead, the Pentagon decided to keep NATO in existence and, even worse, began using NATO to absorb former members of the Warsaw Pact, which was enabling the United States and Germany to move their troops, missiles, bases, and armaments eastward, i.e., ever closer to Russia’s border. 

Throughout this process, Russia was, not surprisingly, vehemently objecting. Russia continuously asked: If the Cold War was really over, then what was the point of doing this? NATO’s answer was that there was nothing to be concerned about. The United States and Germany were both peace-loving nations that would never aggress against Russia. 

That, of course, is a ridiculous notion. For its part, Germany had already aggressed against the Soviet Union in World War II, which had resulted in 27 million Russian deaths, the total destruction of the country, and the near-conquest of Russia. For its part, the United States was, in the words of Martin Luther King, “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.” 

How could anyone not understand why Russia would be concerned about NATO’s expansion toward Russia’s border, especially when there was no good reason to do so?

As Russia continuously objected to NATO’s expansion, Russia made it clear that there was one “red line” that would finally provoke a Russian reaction — the threat to absorb Ukraine into NATO. That would enable Germany and the United States to place their tanks, nuclear missiles, bases, armaments, and troops on Russia’s border. Given Germany’s prior invasion of the Soviet Union and the U.S. propensity for violence, that was unacceptable to Russia.

The United States and Germany, operating through NATO, knowingly, intentionally, and deliberately crossed that “red line,” knowing full well that it was a “red line” for Russia. By threatening to absorb Ukraine into NATO, they knew that Russia would respond because Russian had said that it would respond. 

Thus, when President Biden claimed that his “intelligence” had learned that Russia would invade Ukraine, he was being disingenuous. He knew Russia would invade because Russia had been saying it would invade if the United States, Germany, and other NATO powers crossed its “red line” by threatening to absorb Ukraine into NATO.

Thus, there is no doubt that the Pentagon, operating through NATO, did provoke Russia into invading Ukraine. Again, one can argue that the Pentagon’s action did not justify the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but one cannot rationally say that Russia’s invasion was “unprovoked,” as Schwirtz and Troianovski did yesterday in their news story in the New York Times.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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

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

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Open Letter to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia Regarding a Fine British Columbia Physician:  Dr. Charles Douglas Hoffe

Dr. Charles Hoffe has been a physician in the Lytton community of British Columbia for nearly 30 years, looking after a largely native community after having gained his medical schooling from the University of Witwatersrand, the second ranked clinical medical university in South Africa.

A citation has been issued by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia against Dr. Hoffe for (allegedly) publicly spreading misleading information by:

a)    recommending Ivermectin for Covid-19

b)    saying Covid vaccines can cause microscopic blood clots, and

c)    saying that vaccinated persons can cause harm to unvaccinated persons.

I, Elizabeth Woodworth, a retired health sciences librarian who delivered medical literature to the BC Ministry of Health for 25 years, including the Provincial Health Officer and all the regional health officers and the public health nurses, mental health professionals, nutritionists, dental staff and others, wish to point out some of the peer-reviewed literature that has been tragically overlooked by many public health agencies during this pandemic.  Dr. Hoffe, on the other hand, is aware of this literature.

First, although there has been a sustained Big Pharma and media campaign against Ivermectin, the wonderful multi-faceted anti-viral drug that was awarded a Nobel Prize in 2015, and is on the WHO list of essential medicines, there are currently 95 published studies from 1,023 scientists attesting to its efficacy with regard to Covid-19.

Some 20 countries have included Ivermectin in their COVID-19 management strategies.  It is available over-the-counter in South American countries, and as of now, also in Tennessee.

Seldom if ever mentioned in the media is that the FDA cannot legally grant an Emergency Use Authorization for an experimental drug or vaccine if an “adequate, approved, and available alternative” already exists.

Second, it is now well established in the medical literature that blood clots are caused in some mRNA-injected people for Covid-19.

Third, regarding the question of the vaccinated causing harm, since the mRNA injections do not stop transmission of Covid-19, the vaccinated frequently infect the unvaccinated.

Dr. Hoffe has received thirty-two 5-star ratings from his patients online at

https://www.ratemds.com/doctor-ratings/40188/Dr-Charles-Hoffe-Lytton-BC.html/

Finally, regarding the big money behind some of the Covid-19 strategies, epidemiologist Dr. Harvey Risch, emeritus Prof. of Medicine and Public Health at Yale University, long-time on the editorial board of the Amer. J. Epid., and who has no financial connections to Big Pharma, has written extensively in WSJ, Newsweek, Washington Examiner, Washington Times, and many others about the corruption of the CDC and FDA, who along with the now-corrupted WHO, have led the Covid-19 response.

Elizabeth Woodworth
Head Librarian
B.C. Ministry of Health (1978-2002)
Victoria, BC

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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

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

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

According to Donbass authorities, Russian forces were attacked with chemical compounds by Ukrainian enemies. The denunciation comes as further evidence of the terrorist, illegal and anti-humanitarian practices of the neo-Nazi regime. In addition, Western involvement needs to be investigated, considering that it is possible that the weapons used in the attacks were supplied by Kiev’s NATO allies.

The report was made on February 6 by Denis Pushilin, the acting governor of the Donetsk People’s Republic, during an interview to a Russian TV channel. He said his office has been receiving constant reports of chemical attacks “for at least two weeks”. The weapons are said to be being used by neo-Nazi troops specifically in the Donetsk region and would be making the affected Russian soldiers severely sick.

“According to the statements of our forces, and commanders who came forward with such information, there are facts of the use of chemical compounds causing sickness among our servicemen not only in the Artyomovsk [Bakhmut] direction but also in the Ugledar direction (…) They are dropping [chemical weapons] from drones on the locations of our forces (…) We currently seek to equip our units [with chemical protection suits]. Then again, we have some of the things that we need but it’s not always comfortable to constantly wear chemical protection suits while in position. Certainly, it makes it harder for our forces to perform their missions so we are looking for additional ways to protect our troops (…) They [the affected soldiers] trigger coughing, followed by watery eyes and general discomfort”, the DPR head said.

Other Russian officials declined to comment on the case, just saying that investigations are still ongoing. Dmitry Peskov, the spokesman for the Kremlin, however, made it clear that reports on possible incidents would be passed on to the appropriate authorities at the Ministry of Defense. In this sense, it is likely that investigations will be concluded soon, and official statement will be made in the coming weeks.

In fact, rumors of chemical warfare have been rising since at least mid-January. Many soldiers and civilians in Donbass reported evidence that toxic compounds are being used in the region through specific air-dropped munitions. Although there is still no precise information and investigations continue to take place, it is a fact that in this period in which the rumors have been spreading, many Russian soldiers have shown health symptoms that indicate contamination by toxic compounds, which makes the suspicion very plausible.

In addition, a video is circulating on the internet showing Ukrainian soldiers assembling drones to carry some unknown ammunitions. The shells are shown in the video being removed from a refrigerator. Some experts have assumed that these could be chemical weapons. Although there is still no concrete information about the case, the video has increased suspicion about the use of this type of weapon, in addition to showing a scene consistent with reports by residents of Donbass about air-dropped ammunition, considering the drones.

It is important to remember that chemical warfare is prohibited under international law, in the terms of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) – a treaty established in 1997 and to which both Moscow and Kiev are signatories. The document forbids the use of all types of weapons equipped with toxic chemical compounds, including non-lethal ones. However, constant violations of international norms have already become commonplace among Ukrainian forces, which is why the use of these weapons would not be surprising.

In parallel, it is important to investigate the possible Western participation in this Ukrainian crime. The US is the only country in the world to publicly maintain stockpiles of chemical weapons. On the same day as the Pushilin’s interview, there was a joint statement by the Foreign Ministers of Russia, Sergey Lavrov, and Syria, Dr. Faisal Al-Miqdad, where they condemned Western unsubstantiated accusations that Syria used chemical weapons in the city of Douma in 2018. They recalled the fact that only the US currently has these weapons, which is why the possible incident in Douma appears to be a foreign provocation.

In the same sense, if chemical weapons are being used by Kiev, it is necessary to investigate whether they are provided by international allies of the neo-Nazi regime. Even if the chemical compounds are not imported from NATO countries, the entire military technological chain involved in the alleged attacks needs to be investigated. Considering that the compounds are allegedly being dropped from the air, then it is necessary to find out whether the drones used in these illegal maneuvers are supplied by NATO.

In fact, it is unacceptable that in the face of so much evidence of crimes and violations of international law, the West continues its irresponsible policy of supporting Kiev. With the use of chemical weapons, the Ukrainian neo-Nazi regime reaches new levels of anti-humanitarian practices. Measures are urgently needed to stop Kiev from continuing to promote such practices – and halt the Western sending of arms.

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

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

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

One might actually be willing to consider that there might be some value in the “rules based international order” being promoted by the Joe Biden Administration if such a thing actually existed and was applied equally to all transgressors. Of course, in reality, the “rules” being referred to are neither agreed upon nor driven by any broad international consensus and are merely a trick that is exploited to further the interests of the United States and its closest allies. In fact, the “rules”, such as they are, are most frequently ignored to give a pass to the bad behavior being exhibited by the US and its friends.

If the “rules” were actually intended to place limits on violent interactions among nations, consider for a moment the actual record of the United States in that regard. Recent opinion polls demonstrate that the US by a large margin is considered by other nations to be the most dangerous country in the world. That judgement is based not only on historic memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki but also the Vietnam War and the overthrowing of alleged “leftist” regimes in places like Iran, Chile and Guatemala. Armed interventions on a greater or lesser scale have been a regular features of US initiatives throughout the Caribbean and Latin America ever since the Spanish-American War.

More recently there has been the global war on terror, unleashed on the entire world based on US condemnation of countries that were not perceived to be toeing Washington’s red line on what constitutes terrorism. This has led to pointless and ultimately failed interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Somalia in which, by some estimates millions of civilians have died directly or indirectly, and the US itself has sustained the war-making through the printing of trillions of dollars in essentially fiat currency and running up enormous debts, a chicken that will come home to roost before too long. In Afghanistan, and also in Yemen and Iraq, the US has engaged in targeted assassinations as well as profile killings of civilians using drones.

The most troublesome aspect of all the violence that the US has initiated is that there are no actual rules in sight, apart from the Blinken-Biden-Austin clowns in Washington citing unsubstantiated threats coming from countries incapable of actually doing any harm like Iran or countries like Russia and China that had previously no intention of confronting the American military colossus.

So Washington is the beating heart of policies that have created turmoil worldwide while also moving the Doomsday clock closer to the finality that might well come with a nuclear war. And all the posturing is literally for nothing, for a bad cause supporting a corrupt, autocratic regime in a country that is no democracy with no visible off ramp. The hypocrisy of those in the White House and in Congress, as well as in the media, who are so reckless with the lives and fortunes of their fellow citizens literally defies belief.

If Washington is the first of the three cities that I am considering, Moscow must certainly be number two as it is on the receiving end of the US hypocrisy, being accused of having deviated from the “rules based” international order by invading Ukraine one year ago. Russia, however, sees things differently. The Kremlin has argued that it has repeatedly sought to negotiate a settlement with Ukraine based on two fundamental issues that it plausibly claims threaten its own national security and identity. First is the failure of Ukraine to comply with the Minsk Accords of 2014-5 which conceded a large measure of autonomy to the Donbas region, an area indisputably inhabited by ethnic Russians, as is Crimea.

Recently former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has let slip that there was never any intention to comply with the Minsk Agreement, implying that it was all a charade to enable strengthening Ukraine to join NATO and, if necessary, fight Russia. In fact, the Accords were ignored right from the beginning, with Ukrainian militias and other armed elements using artillery to shell the Donbas, killing an estimated 15,000 mostly ethnic Russian residents, a number which appears to be confirmed by independent sources.

The second vital national security issue for Moscow was over plans to offer NATO membership to Ukraine, which would place a possibly superior hostile military alliance at its doorstep. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly observed that the issues were both negotiable and that Zelensky only had to agree to maintain his country as “neutral,” i.e. not linked to any military alliance, and to honor some reasonable autonomy for Donbas. Reportedly it was the United States and Britain that pushed Ukraine into rejecting any and all of the Russian demands in a bid to initiate a war of attrition using Ukrainian lives to destabilize Putin’s government and reduce its ability to oppose US and Western dominance.

And there is of course the back story, that the United States had long been meddling in Eastern Europe in spite of a pledge not to take advantage of the break-up of the Soviet Union to expand NATO eastwards. The US had brought about “regime change” in Ukraine in 2014 to remove a government friendly to Moscow. But in this case, the increasing involvement of the US and NATO in the fighting has been an extremely dangerous development because it has escalated the conflict and turned it into what might become a devastating nuclear exchange. One would like to see an immediate truce initiated to stop the fighting followed by serious negotiations to come to a settlement of the territorial dispute. But, of course, the United States, which has provided Zelensky with more than $100 billion in aid, has made it clear that it is not interested in a negotiated settlement unless Putin is willing as a confidence building first step to withdraw from all occupied Ukrainian territory, including Crimea. In other words, he must surrender.

So whether Moscow has broken with the “rules based international order” depends very much on how one defines threats. Certainly, at a minimum, Washington has behaved far worse than Russia over the past twenty years, which rather confirms that the “rules” are essentially a convenient fiction. And finally, my third city to consider is Jerusalem, the claimed capital of the state of Israel. As the Jewish state is arguably either Washington’s closest ally or, as many believe, the tail that actually wags the White House dog, it is instructive to look at its behavior to examine whether the US applies a uniform standard to friend and foe alike when it doles out punishment to accused rule breakers.

If the United States is considered by the world community to be the most dangerous “superpower” country, Israel has to be considered the leading pariah among smaller, more regionally focused nations. And its control over the White House, the Congress and the national media in the US is such that it is never held to account for anything. Most recently, there was an attack by Israeli soldiers on a Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin on the West Bank in which ten Arabs were killed. In retaliation, a Palestinian gunman subsequently shot dead seven Israelis in Jerusalem before being killed himself. Speaking from the Oval Office, President Biden only saw fit to mention the Palestinian counter-attack, saying merely that “This was an attack against the civilized world.” The initial Israeli attack which killed ten was not even cited, suggesting that Israeli atrocities killing Palestinians do not bother the civilized world that the Bidens live in.

In another White House demonstration of where its priorities lie, last year’s shooting dead by an Israeli soldier of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh led eventually to a milk-toast call for an inquiry by the White House, even though Biden and company openly bought into the Israeli government lie that it was an accident, likely triggered by a lot of Palestinian terrorist shooting in the area, which was not true. And don’t expect any real pushback against Israel’s policy of shoot-first from Congress, which only last week removed Congresswoman Ilhan Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee because she was “antisemitic” due to her criticism of Israel’s behavior.

The Israeli Defense ministry indicated that it would not cooperate with any inquiry into its behavior and the Abu Akleh story has since disappeared. Israel has also killed other American citizens without any consequences, including Rachel Corrie and 34 sailors on board the USS Liberty naval vessel in 1967. Never before has a government killed Americans only to be rewarded with a $3.8 billion gift from the US taxpayers every year. The Jewish state’s government has also recently indicated that its free-fire policy against Palestinian civilians and their foreign supporters will not be modified. Israeli soldiers and policemen who kill Palestinians, who are routinely described as “terrorists,” are almost never investigated or prosecuted and have been, in some cases, praised in the media and promoted.

And Israeli control over major parts of the US federal government appears to be tightening. In a press conference last week, the United States State Department refused to confirm that Israel is in illegal occupation of large parts of Palestine, nor will it acknowledge that Israel has a nuclear arsenal.

Israel’s track record vis-à-vis its neighbors is somewhat similar to the American pattern of rules enforcement, though it rarely even bothers to excuse its behavior. It even started a major war, having attacked all its neighbors, after complaining falsely that they were “threatening,” in 1967, after which it illegally seized and occupied their territory. It is currently bombing Syria on a regular basis and has also attacked Iran, Lebanon and the Palestinians in Gaza. It has assassinated Iranian scientists and technicians.

Israel has invaded and occupied southern Lebanon and facilitated a massacre of Palestinians settled in camps there. Neither Syria nor Iran has ever attacked Israel or even threatened to do so, but Israel persists in claiming that it is threatened and is trying to convince Biden to join it in attacking the Iranians. The new, extreme racist right-wing government of Prime Minister Benajmin Netanyahu is in particular stepping up the pressure on Palestinians through actions that are illegal under international law without a squeak coming out of the White House. Home demolitions, property seizures, checkpoints and other round the clock harassment of Palestinians also are increasing in frequency as the Israelis expand their occupation of the West Bank. And Israel even sponsors actual terrorists in the form of the weaponized settlers who beat and destroy Palestinians at will with no consequences even when they kill an unarmed Arab or a child.

And some Israelis are also thinking of something grander, in the form of genocide, when it comes to their Palestinian neighbors. A prominent right wing Israeli member of parliament has perhaps suggested what he and many of his colleagues would like to see done to the remaining Palestinians. Zvika Fogel, a member of the governing coalition has called for a “final war” against the Palestinians to “subdue them once and for all”, following international condemnation of security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s incursion into Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, an additional illegal move intended to assert total control over access to Muslim holy sites. Fogel responded to the criticism, saying in an interview that Israel’s policy of going to war with Palestinians “every two or three years” was no longer good enough and that there should be one last war to “subdue them once and for all. It would be worth it because this will be the final war…”

So, it is a tale of three cities. Moscow is engaged in a war that at least has a rationale, even as one should and must oppose armed interventions between two neighboring countries. The Russian operation has been opposed by the United States, which has heedlessly escalated the war and produced a situation that can be devastating for all life on the planet. Washington is also the grand hypocrite in the game in that it has behaved far worse than Moscow over the past twenty years. And then there is Jerusalem, or if one prefers, Tel Aviv. A monstrous Israel is preeminent in how it wins the prize for being the absolute worst in its inhumanity and war crimes, without a rebuke from Washington or Joe Biden ever about “rules based international order” violations.

***

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].

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

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

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

There is a strong possibility of Moldova becoming a conflict hotspot so that the West can maintain maximum pressure on Russia’s periphery and bog the country down in more war. This comes as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the media that the West now has its “eyes” on Moldova and that Moldovan President Maia Sandu is ready to act on any instructions that she receives.

The possibility of Moldova becoming a major European flashpoint has always existed because the Transnistrian conflict has been frozen since July 1992.

If Moldova, in the eyes of officials, becomes even more pro-Western and integrated into Romania, the more likely is that Transnistrians will resolve their right for sovereignty by force. This would turn Moldova into the “next Ukraine”, which will surely see indirect international intervention, and perhaps a direct Russian intervention. Moscow has the ability to support Transnistria, including with financial, diplomatic and military methods to resolve the conflict, and will not hesitate to do so if new provocations emanate from Moldova.

Transnistria, where 60% of the inhabitants are Russian and Ukrainian, had sought to secede from Moldova even before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, fearing that Moldova would join Romania in the face of post-communist nationalism. In 1992, after the Moldovan government failed to resolve the issue by force, Transnistria became an unrecognised territory outside of Chisinau’s control.

Peace in the Transnistrian conflict zone is maintained by a joint peacekeeping force, consisting of 402 Russian servicemen, 492 Transnistrian servicemen and 355 Moldovan servicemen, as well as ten military observers from Ukraine. Peacekeeping forces serve at 15 fixed checkpoints and other checkpoints located in key areas of the security zone.

It is recalled that in late December, Moldova’s Ministry of Defence had to deny claims about a Russian missile being launched in the direction of their country. Several Moldovan media outlets reported that Ukrainian Telegram channels made claims about an alleged Russian missile heading towards Moldova.

“Amid information appearing in the media about a missile that is believed to have flown towards Moldova due to shelling in Ukraine this morning , we announce that the air surveillance systems of the National Army did not record illegal flights in the airspace of the republic,” noted the press service of Moldova’s defence ministry.

This scenario was concocted as part of Kiev’s efforts to draw more countries into the conflict. Moldova is particularly vulnerable considering it is a poor country contending with an internal ideological struggle between Western liberalism and Moldovan sovereignty. Ever since Sandu came to power, Moldova has been integrating deeper into NATO, the European Union and Romania.

“First of all, because they were able to put a president at the head of the country through quite specific methods, far from being freely democratic, who, quite simply, is willing to enter NATO, has Romanian citizenship, is ready to unite with Romania and, in general, is ready for almost anything,” Lavrov explained on February 2.

“I won’t go into details, but this is one of the next countries that the West wants to turn anti-Russia,” Lavrov added.

For his part, Moldovan Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu denied Lavrov’s charges, claiming that

“We categorically reject such insinuations. Such a tone is entirely out of place in a proper relationship between two states. And at the same time, it is absolutely clear what the population of the Republic of Moldova wants. The citizens of the Republic of Moldova want a democratic, prosperous, European country, where corruption is eliminated and which joins the European Union.”

In the same statement, Popescu denied his country’s obvious and open anti-Russia actions, but also claimed that the ruling government is fighting corruption. However, despite Sandu coming to power in 2020, Statista’s “Corruption perception index score of Moldova from 2012 to 2022” found that the “composite indicator that includes data on the perception of corruption in areas such as bribery of public officials, kickbacks in public procurement, embezzlement of state funds, and effectiveness of governments’ anti-corruption efforts” actually worsened in 2021 and 2022.

Therefore, despite the claims by Popescu that Sandu and her government are dealing with corruption, Moldovan perceptions is that corruption has actually deepened under the current pro-Western government.

In fact, even more damning for Popescu’s claims is that on February 3, WatchDog MD announced that a recent survey in Moldova found Russian President Vladimir Putin to have the highest approval rating out of all foreign leaders in the country, with 38% of the vote.

This was followed by Romanian leader Klaus Iohannis in second place with 36.6%, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with 35.3%, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko with 35%, French President Emmanuel Macron with 34%, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with 30.3%, US President Joe Biden with 25.2%, and Chinese President Xi Jinping with 22%.

In this way, the actions of the Moldovan government are actually in opposition to most citizens, despite what Popescu might claim. Although they might deny Lavrov’s charges, it cannot be overlooked that the Moldovan Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration met with the US ambassador in Chisinau on February 3 to discuss the situation in Transnistria. It can be safely assumed that Washington’s interest is not for a successful mediation between Moldova and separatists in Transnistria, but rather to try and create a new flashpoint to distract and waste Moscow’s attention and resources.

Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher

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

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

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

“By an act of April 16, 1862, which abolished slavery in the District of Columbia, Congress made an appropriation of $100,000 for voluntary Negro emigrants at an expense of $100 each; and later, July 16, an additional appropriation of $500,000 was made at Lincoln’s request. The President was authorized ‘to make provision for transportation, colonization, and settlement, in some tropical country beyond the limits of the United States, of such persons of the African race, made free by the provisions of this act, as may be willing to emigrate, having first obtained the consent of the government of said country to their protection and settlement within the same, with all the rights and privileges of freemen.’”

Tenant Agriculture and Racial Terror

Flight as a Form of Resistance to National Oppression

During the period of the 1880s to the early decades of the 20th century, many African Americans migrated to the western states of Kansas and Oklahoma. Nonetheless, the most notable outmigration from the South came with the rapid growth of industrial capitalist production largely centered in Northern cities during the first half of the 20th century.

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

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

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Palestine cannot survive without foreign aid. For several years the EU has been the main donor. However, funding conditions are becoming ever more stringent and are steadily squeezing the Palestinian society to death. Meanwhile, the right to self-determination for Palestine and the Palestinian people is being buried deep underground.

Black Lists and Secret Files

Once again, on the 22^th of October 2021, the solidarity movement with Palestine and the Palestinian people was put into a state of alert. The Israeli Minister of Defense, Benny Gatz, had decided by military decree that another six Palestinian human rights organizations would be added to the list of terrorist organizations. Some European donors decided to temporarily suspend their financial support or simply stopped funding. The Belgian Minister for Development Cooperation, Meryame Kitir, kept cool and decided to wait for the results of further investigation.

It would take nine months, till July 2022, for nine European Member States to agree upon a joint, but brief, press release declaring that Israel failed to sustain the allegations with hard evidence, hence there was no reason not to resume financial support or to end it right away.

The response of Michael Lynk, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Palestine, was much more courageous. He took immediate action and needed only two days to unite other human rights experts in an explicit condemnation of Israel’s decision together with a fierce reminder that counter-terrorism measures cannot be misused to silence human rights organizations.

Earlier upon that same year, in May 2021, the Belgian parliamentary Commission for Foreign Affairs had already summoned Minister Kitir. She had to justify her decision to allocate 8 million euro for humanitarian aid to the Gaza. For eleven days Israel had been serving the Gazans on one of the severest bombings ever.

The reason of the unrest among some of the commission members were not so much the 256 dead nor the 1,700 wounded, nor the 100,000 internally displaced, nor the thousands of homeless people. Their alarm went off because of a “secret file” that the Israeli security services had deposited on the desks of the European embassies in Tel Aviv.

Supposedly the file contained proof of Western funding for development aid that would have been channeled through European donors and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to Palestinian terrorist organizations. Minister Kitir had already ordered an internal inquiry. Just like her colleague in the Netherlands, who had immediately suspended all funding as a matter of precaution, she would come to the conclusion that the evidence submitted by Israel was not convincing.

The Game of the Cat and the Mouse

For years EU aid for Palestine has been snapped on and off like a flash light. Whenever Israel shows up with “incriminating” evidence, aid to Palestinian organizations is being cut or suspended. This was also the experience of the Palestinian Authority.

The EU Directorate-General for Neighborhood and Enlargement Negotiations (NEAR) is the main EU financing instrument for humanitarian aid to Palestine and support to the Palestinian Authority (PA), including the Ministry of Education. Olivér Várhelyi, the EU Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, was not pleased by the content of 156 textbooks and 16 teacher manuals for primary and secondary schools.

He demanded a thorough screening of the text materials. The final report of some 200 pages caused worldwide commotion. It did not contain recommendations, only conclusions. These were interpreted either as very positive, or, on the contrary, as devastating, depending on the political preferences of the reader. Várhelyi belongs to the latter and decided to withhold the remaining funding for 2021 until all anti-Semitic paragraphs were adapted or removed.

The consequences of this measure did not pass unnoticed. The Palestinian Authority was forced to look for budgets elsewhere for paying the salaries and pensions of some 140,000 PA employees, including teachers and health staff, who lost 20% of their income. The hospitals in occupied East-Jerusalem were unable to find the financial resources needed for initiating the cancer treatment of 500 Palestinian patients. Some 115,000 vulnerable families, who try to cope with a monthly income of 231 US dollar or less, did no longer receive additional financial support.

Eventually Várhelyi had to give in. On the 14^th of June 2022 the EU committed to unlocking the remaining 224.8 million euro of the year 2021. The conditionality to change the content of the text books was removed, but no apologies were given for the human suffering inflicted.

The Israeli Master Plan

Ever since 2013 Israel has been continuously reinforcing its campaigns targeting Western donors, and more particularly the EU, against Palestinian organizations from, what Israel calls, “the extreme left”. The European Parliament and the EU Member States are systematically being approached and put under pressure to review their financial support to “the bad civil society”, meaning those NGOs that denounce the Israeli policy with regard to Palestine and hereby “promote violence” and “glorify terrorism”. In doing so Israel focuses particularly, but not exclusively on those organizations that support the worldwide Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

Campaigns are being launched at a steady space: The Money Trail 1 (2018), The Money Trail 2 (2019) and Terrorists in Suits (2019). The Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs (MSA) plays a key-role and uses NGO Monitor as one of its basic tools.

NGO Monitor was created in the year 2002 as a conservative Israeli think tank. Its activities build on the premise that the occupation of Palestine is an Israeli “internal affair”. On its website some 250 Israeli, Palestinian, European and international organizations are blacklisted, allegedly because they constitute a threat for Israel as a sovereign state.

An investigation conducted by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) revealed that NGO Monitor presents its reports as if they were the result of thorough research but lacks all transparency regarding the methods used. NGO Monitor claims to be independent but is actually completely dependent on external funding, particularly from the USA. NGO Monitor also has close ties with the Israeli government, to such an extent even that its reports are published by the Ministry of Strategic Affairs as official documents to which NGO Monitor can refer afterwards as a legitimate and credible source of information.

The way in which the MSA operates definitely bears fruits. Donors are terrified by the idea of being associated with terrorism. In the year 2017 the donor consortium consisting of Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Denmark, took its hands of from the Palestinian Human Rights/International Humanitarian Law Secretariat. The secretariat was created with the aim to strengthen the human rights organizations in Palestine with the support of the University of Bir Zeit. The reason for the closure of the secretariat was the latest NGO Monitor Report entitled “Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat: Abusing Public Funds to Perpetuate Conflict.”

The MSA has also fiercely targeted financial institutions in Europe and North-America. Showing supposedly “hard evidence” it has succeeded in blocking some 50 bank accounts. Even digital platforms such as GoFundMe, PayPal and Venmo, cramped and keep their portals closed.

To Bend or to Break

The system of “secret files”, “black lists” and “official reports” does not fail to achieve its purpose. European donors are getting nervous and keep on imposing a growing number of administrative and financial monitoring and controlling measures. For some years now, Palestinian organizations that are interested to apply for European governmental or non-governmental aid, have been facing another major hurdle, i.e. the notorious Article 1.5 bis, one more trophy that the MSA proudly claims.

In the year 2019 the EU added Article 1.5 bis to its grant contracts. It is a counter-terrorism clause providing that all organizations granted or contracted by the EU must give proof that they have no links whatsoever with individuals or organizations on the lists of the EU “restrictive measures”.

Not only staff and board members must be screened for potential terrorist relations or sympathies, but also sub-contractors, persons attending activities organized within the framework of the aid programs, people benefiting from financial support and recipients of financial support to third parties. This obligation goes for both development programs and humanitarian aid programs.

The EU defines terrorist offences as acts committed “with the aim to seriously intimidate a population” and/or “to unduly compel a government or international organization to perform or abstain from performing any act” and/or “to seriously destabilize or destroy the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social structures of a country or an international organization”. For the definition of an offence the EU relies on the national legislation of the respective country where the acts are committed. In practice this means that, in the case of Palestine, it is up to Israel to determine what is right and what is wrong. Just for clarification: there is no such thing as an universally agreed definition of terrorism.

It needs no further explanation that a mention on the NGO Monitor list, however fraudulent it may be, is not an advantage. What is worrying the Palestinians even more, though, is that this new condition is the start of a process to gradually exclude all Palestinians who are politically and socially active from foreign aid.

Considering the fact that the EU Member States are increasingly more operating as One Team Europe and that there is a growing tendency within the EU to delegate the execution of its programs to the Member States, this kind of measures gradually grows into a silent killer intoxicating the development cooperation policies of the respective States.

The EU got the inspiration for this clause with the US Agency for International Development, USAID, which had already introduced a partner vetting system in Palestine in the year 2003. The USAID version is even more intrusive. The vetting and screening is not limited to the USAID funded programs. It must be done for all of the grantee’s global sphere of action. On top, USAID demands a retroactive vetting and screening going back ten years in time.

The USAID counter-terrorism obligations also apply to the UN agencies. The USA refuses to rely on the UN counter-terrorism measures and imposes its own rules and regulations.  In July 2021 this became once more evident when the USA decided to resume its aid to UNRWA, the UN agency that was specifically created back in 1949 with the aim to organize the aid to the Palestinian refugees.

Palestine on the Decline

The EU together with the respective EU Member States, Norway and Switzerland is the main donor of Palestine and the Palestinian. The average annual budget amounts to 1.24 billion euro, or 2/3 of the official development aid (ODA) worldwide for Palestine. At the same time, though, there has also been a steep decline in the global budget support of the Palestinian Authority, which since has decreased with 85% from 1.24 billion euro in the year 2008 to a disastrous 191 million euro in the year 2020.

For quite some time the Palestinian authorities are no longer a privileged partner as donor distrust prevails. To a certain extent the Palestinian authorities are still being informed or consulted but donors prefer to maximally assign the execution of the programs to non-Palestinian non-governmental organizations, UN agencies and expensive consultancy bureaus, which have their liaison offices in Brussels, Washington, New York and Geneva where they co-decide on the development agenda.

Palestinian NGOs are increasingly used as mere executors of programs that have been conceived at embassies’ and consulates’ desks or elsewhere in the world. Structural, long-term funding that allowed them to develop their own programs based upon their own priorities, has been replaced by short-term projects with a duration of only a few months and loads of administrative work.

Moreover, this way of operating generates a cascade of both visible and hidden overhead costs. Each organization in the aid-pyramid can charge office, management, administration and logistics costs. These can amount to several dozens of percentages of the total budget, sometimes even up to more than half of it, hereby reducing even further  the amount of resources available for the ultimate beneficiaries, i.e. the Palestinian people.

The Moral Bankruptcy of International Aid to Palestine

All of this is happening against the background of an unscrupulous military occupation and colonization. Some 400 Palestinian organizations are blacklisted. More than 4,000 Palestinian people are detained in Israeli prisons for political reasons. For decades the Gaza has been turned into the biggest open air prison in the world. Eighty percent of the 2 million Gazans are dependent on foreign aid.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were deported from their homes in occupied East-Jerusalem to “behind the Wall”, a monstrous construction with a total length of 712 kilometers enclosing the West Bank. Over time the West Bank has been split up in 165 separate enclaves, which are under continuous military control through 593 road blocks and checkpoints. And all of this is supposedly meant to protect 700,000 Israeli settlers who moved into 300 “legal” and “illegal” settlements all over the West Bank. Poverty among the Palestinian population has never been so appalling.

The “European Joint strategy In Support of Palestine 2021-2024” acknowledges that the situation in Palestine has never been worse. The EU even expresses its concerns about the “de-development” of Palestine and, indeed, recognizes that to a certain extent this is due to the Israeli occupation.

Officially the EU still claims to support the Two State Solution, but a critical reading of the strategy learns that this path was abandoned many years ago. In its strategy 2017-2020 the EU had already moved away from the right to self-determination to replace it by “the quest for self-determination”.

In support of this “quest” the EU focuses on the strengthening the “agency” of the Palestinian civil society. This agency is basically meant to counter radicalization.(1) Respect for and protection of human rights are a main pillar, but the focus is restricted to the role of the Palestinian authorities. It is not about denouncing the role of Israel.

The title of the EU strategy could not be more cynical: “Towards a Democratic, Accountable and Sustainable Palestinian State”. Palestine cannot survive without international support. The Palestinians are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, between resigning and not complaining or keeping their head high up and drowning.

Marleen Bosmans is a political scientist and has been working as a human rights expert in different areas of the Belgian international cooperation (non-governmental, governmental, multilateral and university cooperation) for more than 40 year. She visited Palestine on various occasions as a researcher, an electoral observer and technical expert in charge of the formulation of human rights programmes. This article is the result of her experiences in the field and underpinned by publicly accessible documents.

Translated from Dutch by the author

Original text: Marleen Bosmans. De Wereld Morgen, September 27, 2022. EU-ontwikkelingshulp rampzalig voor Palestina. https://www.dewereldmorgen.be/artikel/2022/09/27/eu-ontwikkelingshulp-rampzalig-voor-palestina/.

(1) The terminology “agency” is used to indicate that the Palestinian grantees are responsible for the execution of the programs and the activities and bear the ultimate responsibility in case of failure.

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

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

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Incisive Report by Market Mania

The Bank of Canada is lying to you.

There is an ugly recession coming and they know it. In this live stream,

I am going to show you using their own words how they know a recession is coming and don’t care one bit.

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

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

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

After the Russiagate Hoax, the Covid hoax, and the Insurrection hoax, We now Have the Chinese Spy Balloon Hoax

According to Washington and the media, China sent a balloon that the Pentagon said “could” be loaded with explosives to spy on America.  A top general said that similar balloons have entered US airspace undetected before.  The balloon is huge–200 feet tall weighing in excess of a couple thousand pounds.  So if such a large object can enter our airspace undetected, does this mean far smaller ICBMs can also? 

Do understand that what is going on here is the purposeful creation of an incident for propaganda purposes to stoke up more animosity against China, and to spend more money on defense in Asia.  We don’t have a Malaysian airliner to blame on China, but we do have a weather balloon.

After receiving a brainwashing by a Pentagon briefing, Rep. Jim Himes (D,Conn.) says that US officials will “learn a lot” from the pieces of the “Chinese spy craft” that was shot down.

Two other House members, one a Republican, one a Democrat declare the blown-off-course weather balloon “a violation of American sovereignty.”  

The Chinese explanation is the only one that makes any sense: 

“It is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes. Affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course.  The Chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the airship into US airspace due to an unforeseen and unintended outcome. The Chinese side will continue communicating with the US side and properly handle this unexpected situation caused by wind and limited steering capability.” (A translation uses the term “force majeure,” an unforeseen event.)

But the spy story continues.  It is needed in order to worsen relations with China, the second nuclear power that Washington is doing everything it possibly can to antagonize.  Keep in mind that in these days spying is done by satellites, not by weather balloons.  If China is using balloons to spy on the US, why did China send a balloon over Columbia.  Why is China spying on South America?  

The Columbian military determined that the balloon posed no threat to national security, defense, or air safety.  Washington lacks the capability of the Columbian military, because Washington is in the business of creating a hoax issue.

Try to think of something the government has told the truth about.  Tonkin Gulf?  Ruby Ridge?  Waco? Oklahoma City Bombing? 9/11? Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction?  Assad’s use of chemical weapons? Gaddafi?  Russiagate?  January 6 insurrection?  Covid?  Covid vaccine?  Ukraine?  Malaysian airliner?   Find one thing that was true.

All the government’s lies, parroted by the press-titutes, are designed to advance secret agendas.  The people are brainwashed with lies so that they go along with the agendas.  That is the way the US government functions.  There is no longer an American media.  Just an indoctrination ministry.  Only official narratives please.  All else is misinformation.

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

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

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Note the numeral footnotes hyperlinks are dysfunctional. Scroll down the notes at the foot of the article

***

From inventing the need for mass-scale baby formula leading to the deaths of infants, to redirecting much needed water from impoverished areas to bottle and sell back to the same communities, to exploiting child labor and slavery, Nestlé will stoop to any moral low to make a buck.

This article inaugurates Ms. Gjovik’s new column for CovertAction Magazine spotlighting the abuses of U.S. multinational corporations worldwide.—CAQ Editors

***

Corporations like Nestlé are essentially doomsday machines: man-made creations that will ultimately destroy humanity if allowed to continue as they are. Multinational corporations are required by law to place the financial interests of shareholders above all other matters, even if that requires them to prioritize the bottom line above the common good. In this nightmare of our own creation, if it is more cost-effective for corporations to commit mass atrocities and pay a fine, than to not commit atrocities, the corporation is compelled to commit atrocities to ensure shareholder returns.

Further, this maximization of profit through unhinged business practices and investment tactics creates a cycle of destruction further fed by governments and institutions relaxing rules to entice companies to do business in ways that financially benefit that government. This enables the businesses to create more profit by cutting corners around labor rights, safety protections, and environmental standards. As negligence is further normalized, governments must entice businesses with more concessions, which encourages even worse behavior from corporations. Governments and business then race each other to the bottom in a destructive spiral that harms everyone.

In the Unites States, corporations claim a legal status as if they were human beings. While this is a fictional concept, if the corporation Nestlé were a person—Nestlé would be the worst kind of person, someone you would never want to be in the same room with. Nestlé is the American Psycho of corporations.

Yet, a company like Nestlé only exists because of the acquiescence and facilitation of its gross misconduct by governments and society. This case study on Nestlé’s business practices highlights some of the most egregious behavior by corporations.

[Source: nstle.cz]

A Corporation Called Nestlé

Founded in 1866 by Henri Nestlé, today the Nestlé corporation owns more than 2,000 brands.^[1] Nestlé is the world’s largest food company and is one of the most multinational of companies, with more than 450 manufacturing facilities in more than 79 countries, sales in 186 countries, and employment of 276,000 workers. In 2021, Nestlé reported $87 billion in sales and $22 billion in global profit. Around 30% of Nestlé’s total sales came from the United States, where Nestlé reported $26 billion in sales. ^[2]

Henri Nestlé [Source: nestle.cz]

The Nestlé name is widely associated with a controversy. Nestlé’s success is arguably due to its incredible brutality—from inventing the need for mass-scale baby formula leading to the deaths of infants, or redirecting much needed water from impoverished areas to bottle and sell back to the same communities, to exploiting child labor and slavery to gather ingredients for consumer products it admits have no nutritional value—Nestlé is an incredibly unethical company.

1911 Nestlé ad in Good Housekeeping magazine. [Source: zmscience.com]

Yet, most of us probably regularly purchase Nestlé products, even if we think we avoid doing so. Nestlé’s owns an impressively extensive list of popular brand names including: Acqua Panna, Alpo, Beneful, Blue Bottle Coffee, Boost, Buitoni, Carnation, Cheerios, Coffee Mate, DiGiorno, Dreyer’s, Fancy Feast, Garden of Life, Gerber, Haagen Dazs, Hot Pockets, Kit Kat, Lean Cuisine, Nature’s Bounty, Nescafe, Nespresso, Nesquik, Ovaltine, Perrier, Purina, Pure Life, Stouffers, Starbucks Coffee at Home, Sweet Earth, San Pellegrino and Tombstone Pizza.^[3]

Nestlé is also a major shareholder in L’Oréal, the multinational cosmetics conglomerate, which Nestlé reports as an “associate” on its financial reports.^[4] L’Oréal itself owns many popular personal care brands like Lancôme, Garnier, Maybelline, Essie, Redkin, NYX, CeraVe, Urban Decay, and Kiehl’s.^[5]

[Source: zmescience.com]

“Nestlé Kills Babies”

Nestlé’s most infamous scandal is around its baby formula products.

If mothers are able to breastfeed their babies, they are advised to provide their babies only breast milk for the first six months of life.^[6] However, in the 1970s, Nestlé began sending representatives dressed as nurses to hospitals in impoverished countries to promote the company’s baby formula as replacement for breast milk, including sending families home with one free can. In these areas, the water that must be used to mix up the formula and clean the bottles was not safe.^[7] Nestlé convinced these mothers to reject their own breast milk in favor of its infant formula.^[8] Then, the mothers could not switch back to breastfeeding because, after one can, it was too late in the lactation cycle.

[Source: theboycottbook.com]

The result was an estimated one million dead babies every year from malnutrition or diseases contracted from dirty water or bottles.^[9] In 1974, a report was published in Switzerland titled “Nestlé Kills Babies.”^[10] All of this led to massive boycotts in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Nestlé insisted that the real problem was only access to water, while at the same time beginning to seize public waters for bottling and polluting the water that remained.^[11]

Protests in 1970s against Nestlé. [Source: listverse.com]

In May 2007, an investigation found evidence Nestlé was still engaging in questionable infant-formula marketing practices in Bangladesh.^[12] Then in 2011, Nestlé was investigated for bribery in the Chinese baby formula market—including bribing medical staff to promote its infant formula to new mothers.^[13]

Undeterred, in April 2012, Nestlé deepened its involvement in the market by purchasing Pfizer’s baby formula business (SMA) for more than $11 billion.^[14] In 2019, Nestléʼs own report still found at least 107 instances of non-compliance with international baby milk marketing rules.^[15]

Last year, the World Health Organization and UNICEF issued a report finding ongoing “extensive and aggressive marketing practices used by the formula milk industry to target new and prospective parents” which “exploit emotions, the fears and the ambitions of women and families at a time they’re potentially most vulnerable.”^[16] Nestléʼs baby formula practices are a stunning example of free-market murder over decades.

Bottling the Commons

In poor regions, Nestlé and others have been taking water from aquifers, springs, rivers and lakes—and putting it in plastic bottles or turning it into flavored and sugary drinks—then dumping their used and dirty water back into water sources. Locals are then not able to drink tap water and end up paying extortionate prices to the European and U.S. corporations for bottled versions of their own previously uncontaminated tap water.^[17] In 2020, Nestlé reported $6.4B in bottled water sales.^[18]

For years, activists have accused Nestlé of lining its own pockets through back-door privatization of public water supplies. Access to water is a human right.

Corporate privatization of the commons seizes a public resource and converts it to a private good, and Nestlé has been implicated in this for decades. In fact, the source of America’s corporate water crisis can be traced back to 1976 when Perrier opened an office in New York.^[19] The firm partnered with a U.S. executive who had recently left Levi Strauss, and they built a marketing campaign to convince Americans to pay for water.^[20]

Source: Council of Canadians (pinterest.com

Nestlé acquired Perrier in 1992 for $2.6B.^[21] At that time, Perrier had issued a recall due to reports of benzene in the bottled water and also faced a fine in New York for false advertising.^[22] Perrier was apparently a culture fit for Nestlé.

By 2016, bottled water sales had surpassed soda as the largest U.S. beverage category, with Americans consuming 12.8B gallons that year.^[23] In addition to seizing public waters, Nestlé’s manufacturing process uses far more water than the output provides (only about 70%). Meanwhile, Nestlé also dumps a significant amount of now polluted water back into water basins and aquifers.^[24]

While other companies moved their operations out of drought-ridden California, Nestlé’s CEO said he would pump more out of the San Bernardino National Forest if he could. Nobody actually knows how much Nestlé extracts from this source—which it has been doing without a permit since 1988—paying only $524 a year to bypass the requirement.^[25] In 2021, California’s Water Resources Control Board asked Nestlé to stop the unauthorized water diversions after a probe revealed multiple violations and depleted resources.^[26]

Nestlé has shown no shame or contrition for any of this. In fact, former Nestlé chief executive and chairman Peter Brabeck called water a “grocery product” that should “have a market value.” He later amended that, arguing water can be a human right, but only 25 liters a day.^[27] Today, Nestlé’s website continues to argue that “non-essential” use of water is not a human right and should “carry a cost.”^[28]

Slavery-made

Nestlé’s unlawful business practices are not limited to fatally unethical marketing. Nestlé has also been implicated in child labor.

The U.S. Department of Labor reports that more than 1.5 million children work in the cocoa industry in Ghana and the Ivory Coast, which produce 60% of the world’s annual cocoa harvest. More than 40% of those children are exposed to dangerous working conditions, including chemical usage, burning fields, swinging machetes, and heavy lifting—activities that international authorities consider the “worst forms of child labor.”^[29]

Nestlé child laborer in the Ivory Coast. [Source: change.org]

In Nestlé USA v. Doe (2021), former child slaves who were trafficked into Côte d’Ivoire to work on cocoa farms filed suit under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) against Nestlé USA.^[30]They accused the corporation of aiding and abetting the illegal enslavement of thousands of children on cocoa farms in Nestlé’s supply chains.^[31]

Nestlé USA effectively controls much of the cocoa production in the Ivory Coast and operates “with the unilateral goal of finding the cheapest source of cocoa in the Ivory Coast,” resulting in a “system built on child slavery to depress labor costs.”^[32] Nestlé knowingly profited from the illegal work of children and Nestlé’s contracted suppliers were able to provide lower prices than if they had employed adult workers with proper protective equipment.^[33]

In Nestlé’s Petition for Certiorari, Nestlé’s lawyers did not deny there was slavery in its supply chain but instead argued, among other things, that corporations cannot be liable for violations of customary international law or human rights violations.^[34] Nestlé lawyers extensively referenced the Nuremberg Trials in their argument for impunity, desperately pleading that even the corporation that supplied Zyklon B gas, which the Nazis used to kill millions, was not convicted during that trial.^[35]

During oral arguments, the U.S. Justice Department, on behalf of the U.S. government, supported Nestlé. Deputy Solicitor General Curtis E. Gannon contended that a new act of Congress would be needed to create liability for domestic corporations under the ATS (liability which the lawyer described as corporations being “discriminated against”).^[36]Gannon, on behalf of the United States, said the case against Nestlé alleging child slavery could “threaten foreign affairs interests” for the U.S. government.^[37]

Upon inquiry from Chief Justice John Roberts as to whether the U.S. government believes a corporation could ever be liable for setting up a U.S. corporation and sending U.S. employees to the Ivory Coast for the express purpose of setting up a cocoa farm that uses child slavery, Gannon responded, “Well, I think that it—it depends on how much conduct happens in the United States and how much conduct happens overseas.” ^[38]

Deputy Solicitor General Curtis Gannon, the U.S. government’s lawyer, famously authored the Justice Department memorandum approving President Trump’s “Muslim Ban” (Executive Order 13769) in 2017, when he was Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel. Before joining the Justice Department, Gannon worked at the infamous union-busting firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.^[39] 

Nestlé USA v. Doe was dismissed in favor of Nestlé.

The decision was the latest in a series of U.S. rulings imposing strict limits on lawsuits brought in federal court based on human rights abuses abroad.^[40] To make matters worse, which is only possible with the depravity of a corporation like Nestlé, the company was also alleged to have orchestrated a chocolate price-fixing conspiracy, violating antitrust laws in the sales of its products manufactured with child slave labor.^[41]

Nestlé’s human slavery supply chain is not exclusive to chocolate. In 2020, a documentary exposed Nespresso’s supply chain use of child labor on Guatemalan farms.^[42] The documentary visited seven farms linked to Nespresso and found children working eight hours a day, six days a week, and who looked as young as eight years old.^[43]

Earlier, investigations also found migrants were lured by false promises to work in Thailand’s seafood sector, then kept in debt bondage and degrading conditions. When workers died on the job, it said the bodies were simply “thrown into the water.” In 2014, Nestlé confirmed the forced labor was part of its supply chain in Thailand.^[44]

Waste… All the Way Down

Nestlé’s misconduct also includes degradation of the environment and a direct role in causing the current climate crisis.

Nestlé’s plastic packaging is produced from plastic resin created by petrochemical companies like Exxon, Total, Aramco and Shell. The process of manufacturing plastic, as well as the extraction of the raw materials for it, releases enormous amounts of carbon dioxide, approximately 108M metric tons per year.^[45]

Plastic also enters into the product. Concentrations of microplastic in bottles of Nestlé Pure Life water were as high as 10,000 pieces of plastic per liter of water, the highest of any brand tested.^[46] Some of the microplastics the researchers found in Nestlé’s water included polypropylene, nylon, and polyethylene terephthalate.^[47] Nestlé was sued in 2018 over the high levels of microplastics, with plaintiffs alleging Nestlé “intentionally, negligently and recklessly concealed and omitted the truth” about the plastic contamination.^[48]

Nestlé released a statement saying that it had “ambitions” for its packaging to be 100% recyclable or reusable by 2025. However, environmental groups and other critics pointed out that Nestlé had not released clear targets or a timeline to accompany its ambitions, nor made additional efforts to help facilitate recycling by consumers. ^[49] Greenpeace released a statement saying,

“Nestlé’s statement on plastic packaging includes more of the same greenwashing baby steps to tackle a crisis it helped to create. It will not actually move the needle toward the reduction of single-use plastics in a meaningful way, and sets an incredibly low standard as the largest food and beverage company in the world.”^[50]

In the organization “Break Free From Plastic”’s 2020 report, Nestlé was named one of the world’s top plastic polluters for the third year in a row.^[51] Nestlé even admitted that most of its bottles are not recycled, even while Nestlé concurrently flooded the market with misleading advertisements claiming the opposite. Only about 31% of plastic bottles end up getting recycled, creating millions of tons of garbage every year, much of which ends up in landfills or the ocean.^[52]

A single plastic bottle can take anywhere from 450 to 1,000 years to decompose in a landfill.^[53]

After so much controversy, Nestlé largely divested from its North American water-bottling hustle, selling most of the business in 2021.^[54] While Nestlé is no longer the face of the U.S. bottled water problem, it is still responsible for the damage to the environment and the terrible systems it put in place.

[Source: boucherie-abolition.com]

Nestlé was also caught purchasing palm oil from mills with reckless means of production, including chopping down millions of hectares of forests and removing Indigenous peoples from their lands.^[55] In 2010, Greenpeace campaigned for Nestlé to end deforestation in its supply chain.

Nestlé promised to do so by 2015, but in 2017 Nestlé noted 47% of its palm oil still came from problematic plantations.^[56] Then in 2019, Nestlé was also accused of sourcing palm oil from producers linked to the forest fires in Indonesia.^[57] A recent Global Witness report documented the still ongoing harm, terror and impoverishment of communities due to corporate pursuit of palm oil, including by Nestlé.^[58] Rest assured, Nestlé still claims to be “working hard” on the issue.^[59]

[Source: palmoildetectives.com]

Further, a former Nespresso executive warned in 2016 that Nespresso pods create extensive waste. Made from a combination of plastics and aluminum, the coffee pods are not biodegradable. It can take between 150 to 500 years for the aluminum and plastic capsules to break down in a landfill. In order to recycle the pods, the aluminum capsules have to be shredded, the coffee has to be taken away with water, the varnish has to be burned and the aluminum has to be re-smelted.^[60]

Nespresso capsules are not pure aluminum due to Nestlé’s intellectual property and anti-competitive interests: The capsules contain silicon as part of a patent which was used to prevent rivals from making their own pods that could work in Nespresso machines.^[61] As of 2019, 70% of Nespresso pods were assumed to be headed to landfills.^[62]

L’Oréal has its own shameful history, starting with the company’s founder, known Nazi sympathizer Eugène Schueller.^[63]

L’Oréal faced protests and boycotts due to testing cosmetics on animals,^[64] suspected use of child labor to obtain mica for cosmetics,^[65] deceptive advertising,^[66]and high levels of lead in lipstick products.^[67]

L’Oréal also allegedly uses carcinogenic and endocrine-disrupting chemicals in its beauty products, including: formaldehyde, PFOAs, carbon black, titanium dioxide, BHA and others.^[68] L’Oréal is currently facing numerous lawsuits over PFAS contents in its beauty products.^[69].  [Source: whathappensinthechairstaysinthechair.blogspot.com]

Nestlé’s food products have also been found to contain not just toxic chemicals, but also low-quality filler products, including a “horsemeat” scandal in one of its pasta brands in 2013.^[70]

A Friend of Paramilitaries

Nestlé apparently does not care who it harms with its supply chain or marketing, so why would labor rights be any different?

In the U.S., the National Labor Relations Board’s public database shows 169 Unfair Labor Practice charges filed against Nestlé (though there may be more under the names of other subsidiaries).^[71]

In one recent case, the NLRB found against Nestlé USA in 2020, issuing an order against the corporation for unfair labor practices at a Wisconsin facility that produces DiGiorno pizza.^[72]

[Source: wpr.org]

The NLRB ordered Nestlé USA to cease and desist from, among other things: coercively interrogating employees about their protected concerted activities, and suspending or discharging employees because they engage in protected concerted activities.” ^[73] The Board ordered Nestlé to post a notice to employees admitting it violated federal labor laws and promising to follow federal labor laws going forward. ^[74]

The year before, a report by AFL-CIO alleged that Nestlé had been involved in several workers’ rights abuses, that Nestlé USA management had continually interfered with workers’ organizing rights, and Nestlé was involved in anti-union campaigning.^[75]

Nestlé’s union busting is deadly in South America. A Colombian trade unionist, Luciano Romero, campaigned for the rights of workers at Nestlé’s factory in Colombia for years, including documenting violations of human rights at the factory. Before his murder, Romero was repeatedly falsely branded as a guerrilla fighter by the local representatives of Nestlé. He was also accused, without grounds, of being responsible for a bombing on the factory premises in 1999. In Colombia, a defamation of this kind can effectively amount to a death sentence.^[76]

In September 2005, Luciano Romero was stabbed 50 times in a murder by paramilitaries.^[77]

In 2006, Nestlé and the paramilitary members were sued for the murder of Romero, as the company had a long-standing relationship with the paramilitary forces and Romero’s widow alleged the murder was in retaliation for his blowing the whistle on Nestlé’s use of expired milk in its popular Milo brand drink.^[78]

[Source: lawanddisorder.org]

In 2007, Romero’s killers were convicted and, while passing sentence, the judge also ordered an investigation into the role of management at the Nestlé subsidiary where Romero worked.^[79] A criminal complaint was filed against Nestlé in Swiss courts in 2012, but then dismissed in 2013 due to the statute of limitations having expired.^[80] The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights then submitted a complaint calling on the European Court of Human Rights to examine the judiciary that dismissed the complaint, which was also promptly dismissed.^[81]

In 2012, a flyer was left at the home of Rafael Esquivel, another Nestlé labor union leader, with a death threat stating “you will have to be exterminated, you have until first December to disappear from Valle, otherwise you will see blood running on second December.”^[82] In 2013, more death threats were sent to dozens of trade union members and human rights defenders, including other members of a Nestlé labor union.^[83]

In 2013, the same trade union Romero had worked with accused Nestlé of ordering the murder of Oscar López Trevino, who had worked for the company for 25 years. Trevino was shot and killed by paramilitaries that year, following the initiation of a hunger strike campaign by workers against Nestlé over unfulfilled labor agreements.^[84]

Oscar López Trevino [Source: teamsternation.blogspot.com]

Today, Nestlé has a page on its website entitled “Does Nestlé allow labor unions?” which Nestlé answers: “Nestlé supports collective dialogue and negotiations with employee unions…wherever local legislation applies…Nestlé suppliers should allow Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining, unless government policies or other norms prevent them from doing so.”

Nestlé’s own website says it does not believe suppliers need to allow for human rights if it is contrary to local “norms.”^[85]

Spying on Critics

Nestlé is just as bad with its critics. In 2003, Nestlé used a private security company to infiltrate the anti-globalization group ATTAC. Nestlé planted a spy who joined ATTAC’s editorial board and monitored ATTAC’s research and drafting of a book criticizing Nestlé’s practices that was published in 2004 (“Attac Contre L’Empire Nestlé”).^[86] The spy even attended workgroup meetings at members’ homes.^[87]

The spy was employed by a company called Securitas and run by a former MI6 officer working for Nestlé. ATTAC took legal action over the breach and expressed concern that trade unionists at Nestlé sites in Colombia who have been targeted by paramilitaries may have been put in danger.^[88] Nestlé was found liable for the spying and a Swiss court ordered Nestlé and its security company to pay compensation .^[89]

Just this year, Nestlé was caught offering “quid pro quos” to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, an influential U.S. policy group.^[90] Nestlé was identified as a top “contributor,” sending the policy group hundreds of thousands of dollars.^[91]

Boycott Nestlé poster from 1978. [Source: zmscience.com]

Taking Until There Is Nothing Left

There appears to be no line that Nestlé is unwilling to cross, with a key example being Ethiopia.

Following 30 years of wars and famines, the people of Ethiopia were suffering terribly in the 1990s.^[92] Nestlé acquired a company whose subsidiary was nationalized by the Ethiopian government in 1975 (decades prior) and then sold in 1998.^[93]

In 2001, despite the struggles in Ethiopia, Nestlé filed a claim for $6 million from the Ethiopian government, “as a matter of principle.”^[94] $6 million is only 0.01% of Nestléʼs annual sales, but would be a devastating loss to an already struggling country.^[95] Nestlé eventually reduced the request to $1.5M following public outrage.^[96]

Conclusion

Nestlé’s rebuttal to most accusations of misconduct is essentially to claim it is an ethical, caring and child-friendly teddy-bear of a transnational corporation which just does not know what goes on in its supply chain and always wants to do better, but is constantly harassed by hateful critics. When caught red-handed, Nestlé is then willing to point to IG Farben and use the legal precedent from the Holocaust to argue why it should be granted impunity for egregious human rights abuses.

Since 2000, only considering the United States, Nestlé and its subsidiaries were cited for more than a hundred legal violations, facing $27 million in fines.^[97] One must ask: Is all of this misconduct and devastation contributing to anything actually beneficial to society? No. Nestlé, a food company, has recently acknowledged that more than 60% of its food and drink products do not meet a “recognized definition of health” and that some products “will never be healthy.”^[98] Nestlé does not even sell food with nutritional value. Nestlé sells terrible ideas and filler, produced through human rights violations, but which drive billions in profit for the soulless corporation.

However, as terrible as Nestlé is, it is only one head of the corporate hydra. There are many others. We can talk about protests and boycotts—we can write exposés and file lawsuits—but this only attempts to hold the line. To actually stop the downward spiral, we must abolish the atrocity of capitalism and globalization that is the multinational corporation.

While claiming corporations have the rights of a human, yet also requiring these corporations to only prioritize shareholder profit and pleasure, we have created a demented Dionysian monster that happily views fiscal opportunity in the destruction of humanity.

We cannot sit back and hope the United States will intervene for the benefit of the common good. When the democratically elected government of Guatemala decided to impose obligations on real estate owned by the United Fruit Company, the U.S. violently overthrew that government. When Chile elected a socialist president who wanted to nationalize copper mines, that democratic government was destroyed by the U.S. and replaced with a dictatorship headed by General Augusto Pinochet.^[99] The U.S. has a long history of siding with corporate interests at all costs.

With Nestlé, the United States has already worked to fight lawsuits and dismiss charges attempting to hold Nestlé accountable for horrendous human rights violations. The U.S. is apparently happy to race to the bottom, hand-in-hand with these monstrous corporations. The corporation and the state have already become one institution, with extensive centralized economic power, and increasingly destructive behavior.

We need a global awakening and revolution by the people. As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said in 1809: “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”

We are not free and together we are our only hope to stop this downward spiral of environmental degradation and human rights abuses.

1. “The Case Against Nestlé,” Lakota People’s Law Project, June 14, 2018, https://lakotalaw.org/news/2018-06-13/the-case-against-Nestlé ↑
2. Nestlé,“Corporate Governance Report 2021; Compensation Report 2021; Financial Statements 2021” (“Corporate Governance Report 2021”), 2022, https://web.archive.org/web/20230106174601/https://www.nestle.com/sites/default/files/2022-03/2021-corp-governance-compensation-financial-statements-en.pdf ↑
3. “Brands,” Nestlé, https://www.Nestle.com/brands; “Brands,” Nestlé USA, https://www.Nestléusa.com/brands ↑
4. Nestlé, “Corporate Governance Report 2021.”. ↑
5. L’Oréal, “Our Global Brands,” https://web.archive.org/web/20230106174728/https://www.loreal.com/en/our-global-brands-portfolio/ ↑
6. World Health Organizattion, “Breastfeeding,” https://www.who.int/health-topics/breastfeeding ↑
7. Stephen Solomon, “The Controversy Over Infant Formula,” The New York Times Magazine, December 6, 1981, https://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/06/magazine/the-controversy-over-infant-formula.html ↑
8. Martha Rosenberg, “Big Food Wants You To Believe Obesity is Caused by Lack of Exercise not Junk Food and the Spin Is Working,” CounterPunch, August 24, 2018, https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/24/big-food-wants-you-to-believe-obesity-is-caused-by-lack-of-exercise-not-junk-food-and-the-spin-is-working/↑
9. Solomon, “The Controversy Over Infant Formula.” ↑
10. “The Build Up to the Nestlé Boycott,” The Boycott Book, http://www.theboycottbook.com/thebuildup.pdf ↑
11. Solomon, “The Controversy Over Infant Formula.” ↑
12. Joanna Moorhead, “Milking It,” The Guardian, May 15, 2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/may/15/medicineandhealth.lifeandhealth ↑
13. Chris Zhang, “Where Is China’s Corruption Crackdown,” The Diplomat, July 21, 2017, https://thediplomat.com/2017/07/where-is-chinas-corruption-crackdown/ ↑
14. Nestlé, “Nestlé completes acquisition of Pfizer Nutrition, enhancing its position in global infant nutrition,” December 1, 2012, https://web.archive.org/web/20230106174831/https://www.nestle.com/media/pressreleases/allpressreleases/pfizer-nutrition-closing ↑
15. Nestlé, ““Leading the Way: Responsible Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes, 2019 Report,” 2020, https://web.archive.org/web/20230106174835/https://www.nestle.com/sites/default/files/2020-08/who-code-compliance-annual-report-2019.pdf ↑
16. World Health Organization, “Ending exploitative marketing of formula milk,” February 23, 2022, https://www.who.int/teams/maternal-newborn-child-adolescent-health-and-ageing/formula-milk-industry; Swissinfo, “WHO Slams Baby Milk Industry,” https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/who-slams-baby-milk-industry-for-rampant–manipulative–marketing/47369706 ↑
17. Tamara Pearson, “The Horrific Scam That Water Billionaires Are Running on Poor Countries,” CounterPunch, March 21, 2022, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/21/the-horrific-scam-that-water-billionaires-are-running-on-poor-countries/ ↑
18. Nestlé, “Corporate Governance Report 2021.” ↑
19. Tom Perkins, “The Fight to stop Nestlé from taking America’s water to sell in plastic bottles,” The Guardian, October 29, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/29/the-fight-over-water-how-nestle-dries-up-us-creeks-to-sell-water-in-plastic-bottles ↑
20. Elizabeth Whitman, “The Ad Campaign that Convinced Americans to Pay for Water,” Priceonomics, June 10, 2016, https://priceonomics.com/the-ad-campaign-that-convinced-americans-to-pay/ ↑
21. George White,“$2.6-Billion Nestle Bid Ends Battle for Perrier,” Los Angeles Times, March 25, 1992, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-03-25-fi-4379-story.html ↑
22. George James, “Perrier Recalls Its Water in U.S. After Benzene Is Found in Bottles,” TheNew York Times, February 10, 1990, https://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/10/us/perrier-recalls-its-water-in-us-after-benzene-is-found-in-bottles.html; “Perrier Pays New York $40,000 in Labeling Inquiry,” The New York Times, August 21, 1991, https://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/21/garden/perrier-pays-new-york-40000-in-labeling-inquiry.html ↑
23. Perkins, “The Fight to stop Nestlé from taking America’s water to sell in plastic bottles .” ↑
24. Pearson, “The Horrific Scam That Water Billionaires Are Running on Poor Countries” ↑
25. Mohammed Hanif, “Let Them Drink Bottled Water,” The New York Times, November 23, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/23/opinion/pakistan-water-contamination-bottled.html ↑
26. “Nestle asked to stop spring water diversions in San Bernardino,” Reuters, April 23, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/nestle-asked-stop-spring-water-diversions-san-bernardino-2021-04-23/ ↑
27. Perkins, “The Fight to stop Nestlé from taking America’s water to sell in plastic bottles.” ↑
28. Nestlé, “Does Peter Brabeck-Letmathe believe that water is a human right?” https://www.Nestlé.com/ask-Nestlé/human-rights/answers/Nestlé-chairman-peter-brabeck-letmathe-believes-water-is-a-human-right ↑
29. Lela Tolajian, “Your Halloween chocolate may have been harvested by children forced to work in Africa,” USA Today, October 29, 2022, https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2022/10/29/halloween-candy-chocolate-may-tainted-forced-child-labor/7896991001/ ; Peter Whoriskey and Rachel Siegel, “Cocoa’s child laborers,” The Washington Post, June 5, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/business/hershey-nestle-mars-chocolate-child-labor-west-africa/ ↑
30. “U.S. Supreme Court Holds Claims Against U.S. Corporations for Aiding and Abetting Child Slavery Impermissibly Extraterritorial, Declines to Resolve Domestic Corporate Liability,” American Journal of International Law, 2021, Vol. 115 Issue 4, pp. 739-44. ↑
31. Oliver Balch, “Mars, Nestlé and Hershey to face child slavery lawsuit in US,” The Guardian, February 12, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/12/mars-Nestle-and-hershey-to-face-landmark-child-slavery-lawsuit-in-us ↑
32. “Nestlé USA v. Doe,” Oyez, 2020, https://www.oyez.org/cases/2020/19-416 ↑
33. Oliver Balch, “Mars, Nestlé and Hershey to face child slavery lawsuit in US.” ↑
34. Nestlé USA v. Doe, On Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (2015). ↑
35. Peter Whoriskey, “Supreme Court weighs child-slavery case against Nestlé USA, Cargill,” The Washington Post, December 1, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/12/01/cocoa-supreme-court-child-labor/; Nestlé USA v. Doe, On Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (2015). ↑
36. Nestlé USA v. Doe, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 19-416, Oral Arguments, December 1, 2020, https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2020/19-416_dc8f.pdf ↑
37. Nestlé USA v. Doe, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 19-416, Oral Arguments, December 1, 2020. ↑
38. Nestlé USA v. Doe, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 19-416, Oral Arguments, December 1, 2020. ↑
39. Ryan J. Reilly, “DOJ Releases Legal Memo That Approved Trump’s Refugee Ban,” HuffPost, February 2, 2017, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/olc-memo-refugee-ban_n_5893ac35e4b09bd304ba74d9 ↑
40. Adam Liptak, “Supreme Court Limits Human Rights Suits Against Corporations,” The New York Times, June 17, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/17/us/supreme-court-human-rights-nestle.html ↑
41. Jeff Gray, “Former Nestlé Canada CEO may face chocolate price-fixing charge ‘shortly,’” Globe and Mail, December 5, 2012, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/the-law-page/former-nestle-canada-ceo-may-face-chocolate-price-fixing-charge-shortly/article6013249/ ↑
42. Nestlé, “What is the response to allegations from the Dispatches TV documentary of child labor on Nespresso-associated farms in Guatemala?” https://web.archive.org/web/20230106180444/https://www.nestle.com/ask-nestle/human-rights/answers/channel-4-dispatches-guatemala-child-labor-allegations-nespresso ↑
43. Jamie Doward, “Children as young as eight picked coffee beans on farms supplying Starbuck,” The Guardian, March 1, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/01/children-work-for-pittance-to-pick-coffee-beans-used-by-starbucks-and-nespresso ↑
44. Katie Nguyen, “Campaigners hope others follow Nestle in admitting and acting on slave labour in its products,” Reuters, November 24, 2015, https://www.reuters.com/article/nestle-seafood-idUSL8N13J3YV20151124; Annie Kelly, “Nestlé admits slavery in Thailand while fighting child labour lawsuit in Ivory Coast,” The Guardian, February 1, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/feb/01/nestle-slavery-thailand-fighting-child-labour-lawsuit-ivory-coast; Kate Hodal, Chris Kelly, and Felicity Lawrence, “Revealed: Asian slave labour producing prawns for supermarkets in US, UK,” The Guardian, June 10, 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/jun/10/supermarket-prawns-thailand-produced-slave-labour ↑
45. SumOfUs, “Nestlé : the 3rd biggest polluter on the planet,” 2022, https://web.archive.org/web/20230106180854/https://actions.sumofus.org/a/nestle-the-4th-biggest-polluter-on-the-planet; Break Free From Plastic, “Branded: Brand Audit Report 2021,” https://www.breakfreefromplastic.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/BRAND-AUDIT-REPORT-2021.pdf; Center for International Environmental Law, “Plastic & Climate: The Hidden Costs of a Plastic Planet,” May 2019, https://www.ciel.org/reports/plastic-health-the-hidden-costs-of-a-plastic-planet-may-2019/ ↑
46. Graham Readfearn, “WHO launches health review after microplastics found in 90% of bottled water,” The Guardian, March 14, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/15/microplastics-found-in-more-than-90-of-bottled-water-study-says ↑
47. Martin Macias, Jr., “Nestle’s ‘Pure Life’ Water Filled With Plastic, Class Says,” Courthouse News, April 13, 2018, https://www.courthousenews.com/nestles-pure-life-water-filled-with-plastic-class-says/ ↑
48. Macias, “Nestle’s ‘Pure Life’ Water Filled with Plastic, Class Says.” ↑
49. Deena Robinson, “10 Companies Called Out For Greenwashing,” Earth, July 17, 2022, https://earth.org/greenwashing-companies-corporations/ ↑
50. Perry Wheeler, “Nestlé misses the mark with statement on tackling its single-use plastics problem,” Greenpeace, April 10, 2018, https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/nestle-aiming-at-100-recyclable-or-reusable-packaging-by-2025/ ↑
51. Break Free From Plastic, “Branded: Global Audit Report.” ↑
52. Bruce Watson, “The troubling evolution of corporate greenwashing,” The Guardian, August 20, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/aug/20/greenwashing-environmentalism-lies-companies ↑
53. Heather Kohlmann, “‘Environmentally friendly’ bottled water? No such thing,” This, May 15, 2009, https://this.org/2009/05/15/environment-water-bottle/ ↑
54. “Groups Challenge Nestlé’s Bottled Water ‘Greenwashing,’” Polaris Institute, December 2, 2008, https://web.archive.org/web/20141022031038/http:/www.polarisinstitute.org/groups_challenge_nestl%C3%A9%E2%80%99s_bottled_water_greenwashing [NOTE: I couldn’t find this under “Polaris Institute” although I did find it under “web.archive” source. However, the “web archive” source is dated 2014 while the original article, which I found under “Common Dreams,” is dated December 2, 2008. I would use the following source rather than “web archive, etc.”: https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2008/12/01/groups-challenge-nestles-bottled-water-greenwashing ] ↑
55. “The Case Against Nestlé,” Lakota People’s Law Project. ↑
56. Arthur Neslen,“Nestlé, Hershey and Mars ‘breaking promises over palm oil use,’” The Guardian, October 28, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/27/nestle-mars-and-hershey-breaking-promises-over-palm-oil-use-say-campaigners ↑
57. “The true price of palm oil,” Global Witness, June 14, 2022, https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/forests/true-price-palm-oil/ ↑
58. Idem. ↑
59. Nestlé, “Human rights issues in palm oil,” https://web.archive.org/web/20230106181912/https://www.nestle.com/ask-nestle/human-rights/answers/amnesty-international-report-labour-abuses-palm-oil-supply-chain ↑
60. Zoe Ferguson and Margot O’Neill, “Former Nespresso boss warns coffee pods are killing environment,” Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), August 24, 2016. ↑
61. Katia Moskvitch, “Turns out coffee pods are actually pretty good for the environment,” WIRED, May 3, 2019, https://www.wired.co.uk/article/coffee-pods-nespresso-recycling↑
62. Ferguson and O’Neill, “Former Nespresso boss warns coffee pods are killing environment.” ↑
63. “Father’s Past Haunts French Billionaire,” Forbes, March 18, 2005, https://www.forbes.com/2005/03/18/cz_sh_0318oreal_bill05.html ↑
64. “Nestle SA,” Ethical Consumer, https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/company-profile/Nestlé-sa ↑
65. Nicole Mowbray, “‘We saw young children clambering out of mines’: The human cost of ‘glowy’ make-up,” The Telegraph, November 19, 2022, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/beauty/make-up/dark-truth-really-inside-make-up/; Doris Rajakumari John, “L’Oréal: On a Mission for Ethical Mica Mining? Case Centre, 2017, https://www.thecasecentre.org/products/view?id=143347 ↑
66. “LOréal Settles FTC Charges Alleging Deceptive Advertising for Anti-Aging Cosmetics,” Federal Trade Commission, June 30, 2014, https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2014/06/loreal-settles-ftc-charges-alleging-deceptive-advertising-anti-aging-cosmetics; Jonathan Stempel, “U.S. lawsuit claims L’Oreal makes up products to appear being from France,” Reuters, February 18, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/us-lawsuit-claims-loreal-makes-up-products-appear-being-france-2022-02-18/ ↑
67. “Limiting Lead in Lipstick and Other Cosmetics,” Food and Drug Administration (FDA), https://www.fda.gov/cosmetics/cosmetic-products/limiting-lead-lipstick-and-other-cosmetics; Dina ElBoghdady, “400 lipsticks found to contain lead, FDA says,” The Washington Post, February 14, 2012, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/400-lipstick-brands-contain-lead-fda-says/2012/02/14/gIQAhOyeDR_story.html ↑
68. “L’Oreal: No More Cancer Chemicals in Cosmetics,” Breast Cancer Prevention Partners, https://www.bcpp.org/resource/loreal-no-cancer-chemicals-cosmetics/ ↑
69. John Gardella, “L’Oreal PFAS Lawsuit Shows the Danger of ESG Marketing,” National Law Review, March 14, 2022, https://www.natlawreview.com/article/l-oreal-pfas-lawsuit-shows-danger-esg-marketing ↑
70. “Nestle withdraws pasta meals as horsemeat scandal spreads,” Reuters, February 18, 2013, https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-nestle-horsemeat/nestle-withdraws-pasta-meals-as-horsemeat-scandal-spreads-idUKBRE91H0R920130219 ↑
71. National Labor Relations Board, https://www.nlrb.gov/search/all/Nestlé?f[0]=case_type:C ↑
72. Nestlé USA Inc and Tou Vang, NLRB, Case Number: 18-CA-231008, Decision and Order, March 11, 2020. ↑
73. Idem. ↑
74. Idem. ↑
75. “Nestle SA,” Ethical Consumer. ↑
76. “Special Newsletter on the Criminal Complaint Against Nestlé in the Case of the Murdered Colombian Trade Unionist Luciano Romero,” European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, https://media.business-humanrights.org/media/documents/files/media/ecchr_-_nestle_special_newsletter.pdf ↑
77. Idem. ↑
78. “ILRF sues Nestle for Complicity in Colombian Union Murders,” International Labor Rights Forum, October 26, 2006, https://laborrights.org/releases/ilrf-sues-Nestlé-complicity-colombian-union-murders ↑
79. Brent Patterson, “Groups Seek Prosecution Of Nestle For Murder Of Colombian Trade Unionist,” The Canadians, May 20, 2013, https://canadians.org/analysis/update-groups-seek-prosecution-nestle-murder-colombian-trade-unionist/ ↑
80. “Nestlé lawsuit (re Colombia),” Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, March 5, 2012, https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/nestl%C3%A9-lawsuit-re-colombia/ ↑
81. “Nestlé precedent case: Murder of trade unionist Romero in Colombia,” ECCHR, https://www.ecchr.eu/en/case/Nestlé-precedent-case-murder-of-trade-unionist-romero-in-colombia/ ↑
82. “Urgent Action: Trade Unionists Receive More Death Threats,” Amnesty International, November 12, 2012, https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/amr230432012en.pdf ↑
83. “Idem. ↑
84. “Three unionised Nestle workers murdered in Valle del Cauca,” Justice for Colombia, May 29, 2018, https://justiceforcolombia.org/news/three-unionised-nestle-workers-murdered-in-valle-del-cauca/ ↑
85. Nestlé, “Does Nestlé allow labor unions?” https://web.archive.org/web/20230106183253/https://www.nestle.com/ask-nestle/human-rights/answers/labour-unions-operations ↑
86. “Swiss food giant Nestlé fined for infiltrating activist group,” Independent, January 31, 2013, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/swiss-food-giant-nestle-fined-for-infiltrating-activist-group-8474189.html ↑
87. James Shotter and Louise Lucas, “Nestlé found liable over spying on NGO,” CNN, January 30, 2013, https://www.cnn.com/2013/01/30/business/swizterland-nestle-spying-civil-case/index.html ↑
88. “Baby Milk Action Update,” Baby Milk Action, Issue 41, November 2008, http://archive.babymilkaction.org/pdfs/update41.pdf ↑
89. James Shotter and Louise Lucas, “Nestlé found liable over spying on NGO,” Financial Times, 2013. ↑
90. Tom Perkins, “Revealed: group shaping US nutrition receives millions from big food industry,” The Guardian, December 9, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/dec/09/academy-nutrition-financial-ties-processed-food-companies-contributions ↑
91. Carriedo, A., Pinsky, I., Crosbie, E., Ruskin, G., & Mialon, M., “The corporate capture of the nutrition profession in the USA: the case of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics,” Public Health Nutrition, 25(12), 2022, 3568-3582. doi:10.1017/S1368980022001835 ↑
92. “Evil Days: 30 Years of War and Famine in Ethiopia,” Africa Watch, A Division of Human Rights Watch, September 1991, https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/Ethiopia919.pdf ↑
93. Nestlé, “Nestlé And Ethiopian Government Reach Settlement,” January 24, 2003, https://web.archive.org/web/20230106184353/https://www.nestle.com/media/pressreleases/allpressreleases/ethiopiangovernmentsettlement-24jan03 ↑
94. Kevin Begley, “The Tale of Nestle and a Nation in Famine,” CounterPunch, December 24, 2002, https://www.counterpunch.org/2002/12/24/the-tale-of-nestle-and-a-nation-in-famine ↑
95. Idem. ↑
96. “Nestle $6 Million Claim Against Ethiopia Provokes Controversy,” Voice of America, December 21, 2002, https://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-a-2002-12-21-8-Nestlé-67414107/383607.html; Nestlé, “Nestlé And Ethiopian Government Reach Settlement,” January 24, 2003; Nestlé, “Nestlé and Ethiopia. A Statement by Nestlé CEO Peter Brabeck,” December 23, 2002, https://web.archive.org/web/20230106184353/https://www.nestle.com/media/pressreleases/allpressreleases/ethiopiastatementbrabeckceo-23dec02; Nestlé, “Nestlé and Ethiopia. A Statement by Nestlé CEO Peter Brabeck,” December 23, 2002, https://web.archive.org/web/20230106184353/https://www.nestle.com/media/pressreleases/allpressreleases/ethiopiastatementbrabeckceo-23dec02 ↑
97. “Violation Tracker: Nestlé,” Good Jobs First, https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/prog.php?parent=Nestlé ↑
98. Judith Evans, “Nestlé document says Majority of its food portfolio is unhealthy,” Financial Times, May 31, 2021, https://www.ft.com/content/4c98d410-38b1-4be8-95b2-d029e054f492 ↑

99. Michael Diamond, “Ending Corporate Tyranny: Solutions to the Plague that Afflicts Us All,” CovertAction Magazine, February 18, 2021, https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/02/18/ending-corporate-tyranny-solutions-to-the-plague-that-afflicts-us-all/ ↑

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.

***

There is a fierce war waging in Ukraine. A war instigated by NATO, as is well known. Nonetheless, a serious and deadly war in which once more the US of A, too cowardly to confront Russia’s military directly, has chosen a proxy partner, the Ukraine whose population is devastated and their infrastructure as well as their lives destroyed.

And to be clear, the infrastructure destruction and killing of Ukraine’s own people was largely done by the Ukraine military, so they may claim Russia for the deaths and devastation. This is well known to western media. But they do not report on it, to the contrary, they support Zelenskyy’s lies.

The colossal corporate “financial cult – some call it the Deep State – has a specific agenda which is not new, fracture and destroy Russia. Before it was destroying the Soviet Union because Russia is by far the world’s largest and resources richest country on the planet. 

Their planned One World Order cannot tolerate the forces of Russia and / or China as independent sovereign nations. And much less so, as an ever-stronger alliance, what they have become during the past decade or so. The diabolical OWO, they believe, will also be much more efficient in running the worldly universe with a massively reduced population.

This war, while dead serious, is largely used by the west to deviate people’s attention worldwide from the diabolical plan being prepared for execution behind the black curtains – see below.

Let’s start with the delivery of German Leopards to Ukraine. What was made to believe a “hard” decision for Chancellor Scholz was, of course, ordered by Washington a couple of weeks ago: deliver 14 German made Leopard II tanks to Ukraine to fight Russia on the ground.

These tanks will have to be delivered by road and rail, most likely through Poland. Any clear-thinking mind would wonder – how stupid! As soon as they are on Ukraine territory, they will be wiped out by Russian precision missiles. And that before Zelenskyy could even start thinking where to begin using them.

Indeed, in a recent interview (video 51 min) with General Douglas MacGregor on the overall interesting topic, “Russia’s Deliberate and Methodical Conquest of Ukraine”, the General explains at 00:25:00 how Russia will destroy the arriving tanks as soon as they enter Ukraine territory. Russia has high-technology precision missiles – so, no problem.

However, according to General MacGregor, Russia will NOT do anything while the tanks are in transit through Poland or any other country. See full video below.

At the same time, Joe Biden promised to deliver 31 M1 Abrams tanks, say, within the next  6 to 8 weeks – see this.

Notwithstanding this generosity, according to CNN, Western allies envisage supplying altogether 321 tanks to Ukraine within the coming few months. See this.

The Russian army better stock up on precision missiles.

*

But now comes the little talked-about hammer and wanted confusion. Shortly after Chancellor Scholz’s “decision” on the 12 Leopards II, the German Ministry of Defense decided to replace the latest technology Leopard II by the older and mostly obsolete Leopard I. According to The Guardian, Germany would deliver a “package” of 29 largely discarded Leopard I. See this.

Ammunition might be a problem because they were not sure whether the shells for the Two model would also be adequate for the One model. What a nonsensical problem being highlighted by the western media! For what? More confusion? More mind-trickery? It’s so obvious that the last deep-sleeper must wake up.

Contradicting or completing The Guardian, Politico reports Germany will send 88 obsolete Leopard I tanks to Ukraine after “repairing” them for about 100 million euros… see this.

The tank story becomes ever more confusing. On purpose, of course.

Deviating people’s attention from more important things because, make no mistake, these tanks will be destroyed almost instantly as soon as they enter the Ukraine. 

Of course, Germany knows that any tanks arriving by land on the territory of Ukraine will be wiped out. That’s probably the reason why they decided shipping the outdated Leopard I’s. It is a cheap way of demolishing and getting rid of them on foreign territory.

In the meantime, the French Ministry of Defense sends signals that President Macron “is not ruling out” “the idea of sending fighter jets to Ukraine”, as Kiev ramps up its campaign to pressure the West into donating combat aircraft to its military. See this.

So, what’s the story? Will French deliver fighter jets or not? And if they do, how long will they be in the air before being “neutralized” by the Russian Air Force?

*

The “Chinese Spy Balloon”

Seemingly unrelated with a huge brouhaha, the US shoots down an alleged Chinese spy balloon which enters the US from the Pacific on the West Coast, crosses the entire US of A from west to east then in North Carolina entering the Atlantic. That’s when it’s finally safe to shoot the balloon down. And this with a fighter jet-launched precision missile under jeering of spectators.

Never mind, whether it was really a Chinese spy balloon or not. We may never know the truth. Because whatever may be the official version may be the biggest lie.

As former CIA Director, William J. Casey, said, “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”

Nothing is coincidence, and everything is connected.

*

Now you may ask yourself, what is this all about?

A Chinese spy balloon over the US of A; maybe French fighter jets for Ukraine, for sure lots-of-lots-of tanks for Ukraine. Where is the logic?

A deviation game for mind-controlling people by BS, à la Tavistock, while in the deep dark back the real diabolical Reset / Agenda 2030 is being advanced without being noticed?

For example, based on a Press Conference journalist Katherine Watt attended on 24 January 2023, she reveals how the US military has subcontracted to the banksters to carry out a ‘global genocide” (see video below)

She sets out how long this has been going on, and all the steps involved up to the present moment.

She says this is not over – this is only the beginning.  But she concludes they will not achieve their criminal objectives as western people and state and country legislators are waking up.

The press conference discussed the ongoing emergency use rollout of bioweapons being marketed as Covid vaccines.

Katherine discussed the legal framework for which this is happening.

She describes the unholy alliance between WHO, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basle, also called the Central Bank of all Central Banks, and the US Department of Defense (DOD); their intent on undermining nations and people’s sovereignty.

Public Health worldwide has been militarized, creating “Kill Zones” for Global Depopulation and Control.

See full video (16 min).

The January 24, 2023 Press Conference seems to indicate that given the ever faster evolving people’s alertness, the Reset and Agenda 2030 plans are being accelerated.

The bulldozer rolls on despite all the awakening. Depopulation must advance. At the same time, new western legislation in the US and European countries are introduced, pressing their sovereignty as nations and for the people.

The race between the tyranny of globalists and the newly perceived and implemented national autonomies and people’s sovereignties, will be won by the People for the People.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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 is a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

Featured image is from South Front

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.

***

GR Editor’s Note

Is this initiative to undermine Turkey’s tourism industry in any way related to the fact that Turkey, which is a “NATO heavyweight” is also a firm ally of the Russian Federation, who is “sleeping with the enemy”. Sounds contradictory. 

Turkey has opted in favor of Russia’s “State of the Art” S-400. That acquisition of Russian military technology is part of a concurrent military cooperation agreement as well an alliance between Turkey and Russia established in the immediate aftermath of the failed July 2016 US sponsored coup d’Etat directed against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Is the destabilization of the tourist industry a preamble to US interference in Turkey’s May elections? 

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, February 6, 2023

 ***

On February 3, the Turkish interior minister, Suleyman Soylu, blasted the US Ambassador to Turkey, Jeffry L. Flake, saying, “Take your dirty hands off of Turkey.”

The outrage was prompted after Washington and eight European countries issued travel warnings over possible terror attacks in Turkey. The US and its western allies have attempted to connect a recent Quran burning in Sweden with travel danger inside Turkey. Muslim countries worldwide have denounced the burning as hate speech, not free speech, but this has no apparent connection to travel safety issues inside Turkey.

The US travel warning is tantamount to a declaration of economic war on Turkey who is in an economic downturn of its tourism sector, which was 11 % of the GDP in 2019, representing $78.2 billion, and rose to $17.95 billion in the third quarter of 2022, of which 85.7 percent came from foreign visitors.  In 2018, tourism directly accounted for 7.7% of total employment in Turkey.

“Every American ambassador wonders how they can hurt Turkey. This has been one of Turkey’s greatest misfortunes over the years. It gathers other ambassadors and tries to give them advice. They are doing the same thing in Europe, the American embassy is running Europe,” said Soylu.

Soylu has criticized the US and blames Washington for the 2016 Turkish regime change attempt, and has accused the US of ruling Europe. In foreign policies, the EU follows US directives implicitly.

“I’m being very clear. I very well know how you would like to create strife in Turkey. Take your grinning face off from Turkey,” said Soylu.

Ankara warned its citizens abroad to be aware of possible anti-Islamic attacks in the US and Europe following the burning of the Quran in Sweden. Turkey later summoned the nine ambassadors, including Flake, for talks over the warnings.

Soylu condemned the European consulate closures in Turkey as an attempt to meddle in campaigning for Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections, which are scheduled for May 14.

Soylu and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have suggested that the western states had issued the security warnings in order to pressure Turkey to tone down its criticism of the Quran burning and resolve the NATO dispute in which Erdogan has voiced opposition to Sweden joining the bloc.

After a right-wing Swedish Radical Christian burned the Quran in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm, Erdogan threatened that he would never consent to Swedish accession.

Sweden previously has refused to extradite the 120 terrorists Turkey has demanded, and the US Senate has made it clear that if Turkey does not approve Swedish accession, arms sales to Turkey, specifically F-16s, will not be authorized.

Turkish elections

Turkish elections are scheduled for May 14, and will be the toughest reelection fight of Erdogan’s career, and he and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) may lose the election.

The six-party opposition coalition, composed of two larger and four smaller parties, has managed to present a unified front. The opposition to Erdogan support the restoration of Turkey’s parliamentary system and the curtailment of presidential powers.

Erdogan’s fear has grown so strong that he used the courts to ban a leading potential opposition candidate, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, from running for the CHP.  However, polls suggest that Ankara’s mayor, Mansur Yavas, could beat Erdogan.

The state has more overtly targeted some political parties, especially the pro-Kurdish, People’s Democracy Party (HDP). This left-leaning party was not invited into the opposition coalition, but HDP supporters will vote against Erdogan.

Biden supports opposition to Erdogan

US President Joe Biden hosted an emergency meeting on Nov. 16 in Bali, Indonesia, with NATO and EU leaders to discuss a response to a missile blast in Poland, but Turkey was not invited.  The meeting was held during the Group of 20 summit, and Turkey was present, but Biden snubbed them from the emergency meeting.

Turkey has been a full-fledged member of North Atlantic Treaty Organization since 1952, commands its second-largest military and has protected the southern flank of the alliance for 70 years.

Erdogan was again snubbed by Biden in December 2021 at the US hosted virtual ‘Summit for Democracy’. In a New York Times interview published in 2020, the then candidate Biden called Erdogan an “autocrat.”

“What I think we should be doing is taking a very different approach to him now, making it clear that we support opposition leadership,” Biden said.

“He has to pay a price,” Biden said, adding that Washington should embolden Turkish opposition leaders “to be able to take on and defeat Erdogan. Not by a coup, not by a coup, but by the electoral process.”

Turkey recognized a clear attack by Biden using election meddling as a tool.

“The days of ordering Turkey around are over. But if you still think you can try, be our guest. You will pay the price.” Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin tweeted.

The analysis of Turkey by @JoeBiden is based on pure ignorance, arrogance and hypocrisy.

The days of ordering Turkey around are over.

But if you still think you can try, be our guest.

You will pay the price.

— İbrahim Kalın (@ikalin1) August 16, 2020

The main opposition CHP party quickly distanced themselves from Biden’s remarks of election meddling, calling for “respect for the sovereignty of Turkey”.

Turkey’s six-party opposition will select its candidate to run against Erdogan on February 13, CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu said.

Obama and Erdogan

When President Obama conceived of his attack in Syria for regime change in 2011, using Radical Islamic terrorists as his foot soldiers, he called upon Erdogan to play a crucial role.  Turkey hosted the CIA office which ran the Timber Sycamore program which trained and provided weapons for the Free Syrian Army.  Erdogan also took in over 3 million Syria refugees fleeing the violence.  Erdogan authorized his security forces to transport weapons to the terrorists in Syria.

Erdogan was a follower of the Muslim Brotherhood who provided the political ideology for the Free Syrian Army (FSA), who were terrorists attacking unarmed civilians, but were reported by the US and western media as ‘rebels’.

However, the FSA disbanded due to lack of public support in Syria, and Al Qaeda stepped in the take its place, and finally ISIS emerged as the toughest terrorist group.

In 2017, President Trump cut off the CIA program in Turkey, and supporting of the Al Qaeda branch in Idlib, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham was left to Erdogan. The US-NATO attack on Syria failed to produce regime change, but the country was partly destroyed in the process.  Now, Erdogan proposes a reset in relations with Damascus, and is on track to establish business and diplomatic ties once more.

The US State Department has issued warnings and threats to Erdogan if he follows through on his plan to have a neighborly relationship with Syria.  Erdogan needs to make peace with Syria to return the 3.6 million Syrian refugees back home, and revive exports to Syria which will be a huge boost to the Turkish economy. If he accomplishes this soon, he has a good chance at winning reelection in May.

Kurds-PKK-YPG

A deadly terrorist bombing of a shopping district in Istanbul last November was carried out by a Syrian Kurd. The message was directed at Erdogan: don’t attack the YPG in north east Syria, or else. Those Kurds are supported by the US military illegally occupying parts of Syria.

The US partnered with the YPG to fight the ISIS, and both Erdogan and the opposition view that as a betrayal of a fellow NATO member, and US ally. The YPG is directly linked with the PKK, an internationally designated terrorist organization and a threat to Turkey’s national security.

Erdogan has threatened a new military operation in Syria to disarm the YPG regardless of their US partnership. The Syrian special enjoy under Trump, James Jeffrey, advised the Kurds to repair their relationship with Damascus, as the US was not going to fight any war to defend them.  The Kurd’s usefulness to the US was over. Recently, the Turkish air force has been bombing them, with shells falling a few hundred feet from US personnel stationed there.

Erdogan has asked Russian President Vladimir Putin for a green light to attack the Kurds in Syria, but was cautioned against it.  However, the time might be ripe for a Turkish attack on the Kurds, which would disarm them and probably would lead to a withdrawal of the 200 American troops.

Turkey removed M4 outpost

On February 2, Turkish troops in Syria evacuated a military outpost near the M4 highway that connects the cities of Aleppo and Latakia. The former Al Qaeda branch in Syria, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), occupy Idlib, the last terrorist controlled area in Syria.

Turkey had been defending the HTS from attacks from Syrian Arab Army, and the Russian military. However, Erdogan has decided to drop his support of the armed opposition as he repairs his relationship with Syria.

On January 31, Ankara informed the HTS leadership of its plan to conduct patrols on the HTS-controlled portion of the M4 (Aleppo-Latakia) road, which “may be followed by joint patrols with Russia, and eventually with Syria.”

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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

Featured image is from the author

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.

***

“Never Again Is Now Global,” a five-part docuseries highlighting the parallels between Nazi Germany and global pandemic policies.

Each one-hour episode focuses on recent testimonies by Holocaust survivors and their descendants who discuss comparisons between the early repressive stages under the Nazi regime that culminated in the Holocaust and global COVID-19 policies.

Watch the trailer of part 1 below. And click here to watch the full episode.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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.

***

Question: How does one best explain the brutal crackdown on COVID-19 protesters worldwide for the sake of Public Health™ while, at the same time, Black Lives Matter was permitted to run hog-wild on America’s streets?

How are elected Democrat leaders allowed to literally incite race riots while those same leaders pearl-clutch about January 6 in never-ending televised witch trials?

Answer: Anarcho-tyranny

The term anarcho-tyranny, on its face, is an oxymoron, a glaring contradiction. Indeed, it’s the biggest possible contradiction of political system descriptors, as anarchy and tyranny occupy diametrically opposite ends of the government force continuum.

So it’s obvious nonsense, right? Well, if we lived in a politically coherent environment, governed by rule of law, it would be. But in a Kafkaesque world of arbitrary exercise of government power, it becomes much more descriptive.

Samuel Francis first coined the term “anarcho-tyranny” in a 1994 essay titled Anarcho-Tyranny, U.S.A., summarized as:

“A concept where the state is more interested in controlling citizens so that they don’t oppose managerial class, rather than tending to real criminals. Laws are argued to be enforced selectively depending on what is beneficial to the ruling elite.”

It essentially describes a situation in which the government has the necessary tools and capabilities to wield oppressive power over its subjects, and does so to further its own interests.

On the other hand, the government actors themselves — and, importantly, their footsoldiers (like Antifa and BLM in the modern American context) — act with impunity, immune from legal consequences.

Exhibit A: the recent hullabaloo over classified documents. When Trump was discovered to have stashed them in his private residence, the full weight of the state fell upon his estate in the dead of night.

“Why [would] anyone be that irresponsible?” an exasperated Biden quipped, his sentiments echoed over and over and over in corporate media.

CNN was suspiciously on the scene with a camera fixed on Trump’s residence, waiting to nab riveting exclusive footage of the FBI raid on the ex-president’s house in the dewy early morning hours before daybreak.

When Biden, the favored son of the corporate state, committed essentially the same offense, no such law enforcement raid commenced, and the corporate press ran to his defense.

There is no substantial difference between the cases. Both men were sheltering classified documents that they were not authorized to possess on private property. But they received different treatment based on the actor, not the actions.

Moving back a little further in recent political history, let’s look at the COVID lockdowns.

They were brutally enforced in the US against all manner of public gatherings – including church ceremonies – until the death of George Floyd. Suddenly, all restrictions went out the window as BLM ravaged cities from coast to coast with carte blanche endorsement by the state.

Suddenly, the BLM rioters became heroes “braving” the coronavirus risk, rather than domestic terrorists targeting grandmothers for euthanization.

There is obviously no legitimate public health rationale to allow street riots involving thousands of people in close quarters while California beaches remain closed and patrolled by agents of the state.

Contradiction is the point, because there are contradictory legal standards of behavior, depending on whether the actor is favored by the political establishment.

Under anarcho-tyranny, inconsistency in the application of the law is the feature, not the bug. And, as Francis further explains, it’s a tool to propagate a never-ending state of “permanent emergency”:

“Under anarcho-tyranny, the state creates a problem, declares an emergency or crisis – the drug war, the carjacking crisis, Islamic fundamentalism – and then exploits that problem as an instrument by which it continues to enhance its power, though neither the fake problem it exploits nor the real problem that exists is affected.”

Fixing COVID isn’t the goal; using it as the pretext to enforce arbitrary social control measures against opponents of the state is. In fact, the SARS-Cov-2 virus itself is a gift to be treasured rather than a problem to be remedied. The powers that be would release a new virus every day of the week if they thought they could get away with it and believed it would further their interests.

Ditto with the War of Terror, which birthed the modern national security state that currently has “domestic terrorists” in its sights, climate change, and virtually every permanent emergency that the social engineers either invent out of whole cloth or exploit.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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, Patreon, Gab, and Twitter. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from TDB

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.

***

During a recent interview with German magazine Der Spiegel, former Chancellor and European political heavyweight Angela Merkel revealed that the Minsk accords, a comprehensive 2015 diplomatic treaty, agreed by the EU, United States, Russia, and Kyiv to end the civil war in eastern Ukraine, was essentially subverted by the Ukrainians in an attempt to buy time to expand its military capabilities.

The fact that the accords, which were widely regarded as a truly workable solution to the conflict, were not prioritized by the U.S. for implementation, speaks volumes when assessing the sincerity of the U.S. position. Just prior to Merkel’s stunning revelations, Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was also covertly recorded admitting that the process was abused by Ukraine and used to prepare for war with Russia.

Given the high level of interface between NATO and Ukraine during this period, it is difficult to imagine that this manipulation of the peace process was not carried out with the full knowledge, and probable assistance, of NATO and the U.S. It is now abundantly clear, at least to all objective observers, that the U.S. never seriously intended to prevent the current conflict in Ukraine. On the contrary, any cursory assessment of their past and contemporary covert and overt involvement in the region suggests they have been working to destabilize Russia via Ukraine for decades.

Facts such as their encouragement, and material assistance, in the building of a huge 250,000-man, NATO-trained and equipped army facing Russia’s border, illustrate the reality of what the U.S. project in Ukraine was about, regardless of their diplomatic pronouncements.

Despite decades of Russian warnings on NATO expansion, and despite the sincere attempts of some European countries, NATO and its U.S. kingpins forged ahead along a path to what would become an inevitable war. Considering this, can any of the numerous U.S./NATO statements suggesting they “exhausted all diplomatic efforts” to prevent this conflict be taken seriously? The facts suggest not.

Source: businessinsider.com

As the second phase of the conflict in Ukraine grinds toward its first bloody anniversary, the first being the post-Maidan civil war which erupted in 2014, the grim realities of this conflict, both economic and human, are now indelibly burned into the global consciousness not only of the Ukrainian and Russian populations, but also the pro-war political aristocracy in the U.S. and their client EU/NATO allies.

In recent weeks, whispers of peace have emerged, uncharacteristically, from the eternally hawkish, “absolute victory” brigade in Washington. It is undeniable that these war hawks wield a disproportionate influence on Zelensky’s government, with many dissenting analysts suggesting it is they who essentially operate the levers of power in his Kyiv palace.

Before accepting this dubious kite flying for peace as genuine, observers would be advised to research the long, determined and cynical march into this inevitable conflict, a clash long predicted by scholars like Mearsheimer and Chomsky, who have persistently highlighted the central role that the United States and its proxies in the EU had in willfully manufacturing its inevitability. Conflicts between great powers tend not to occur overnight, and with this being such a high-stakes game, where the very balance of global power is potentially shifting, nothing happens unless it is supposed to happen. Essentially, when it comes to the conflict in Ukraine, the power bloc that emerges victorious will potentially dominate a new global order; in other words “this game is for all the marbles.”

This conflict has evolved into one unlike any other, the weaponization of social media, of culture, and the revision of history itself, have become second fronts, central to the anti-Russian, pro-Atlanticist narrative at the center of the EU/NATO pro-war rationale. It is critical that the Western public, who have been bombarded 24/7 by a propaganda Leviathan of previously unseen proportions and resources, explore the factual realities of how the “scaffold” that this conflict now burns on was deliberately built, not over a matter of months or years but over a matter of decades.

Source: greenvillepost.com

Of course, having any opinion other than the prescribed Western view is portrayed as dangerous and subversive. Any view, other than the stock mainstream narrative, which alleges that a maniacal imperialist Russia, wishing to regain tracts of previously conquered territory, is cast as Russian propaganda. This authoritarian and dangerous. corporate position has led to people such as your author being labeled as pro-Putin advocates, and paid propagandists for an authoritarian, genocidal and hateful state.

Of course, the opposite is quite true. Your author and many others like me are essentially anti-war advocates, who earnestly seek to challenge the profit-fueled neo-liberal hegemony that has led Europe, blindly, to the brink of a third world war.

The reality that I, and many others have long held these anti-imperialist views, is discarded along with all objectivity, independence and balance. It is now undeniable that the pan-Atlanticist perpetual war cult has gone “all in” on Ukraine. Turning a blind eye to Nazism, gross corruption and human rights abuses, while gleefully depriving American and European populations of their right to dissent, their right to disagree and their right to challenge the rationale for this terrible conflict.

The reality that is consistently hidden is that the only winner, if there is one, is the military industrial complex which is profiting grotesquely from the human misery that abounds in the ditches and trenches of Ukraine today.

It is incumbent on the United States to question the veracity and sincerity of U.S. diplomacy, given that any initial hopes of a negotiated peace in the east, which had erupted into a brutal civil war in 2014, were dashed by the persistent failures of U.S. ally Petro Poroshenko’s government to act on central parts of the Minsk deal, most notably the federalization of Donbas within Ukraine and the preservation of rights for millions of ethnic Russians in the east of Ukraine who had rejected the pro-EU Maidan coup.

Today, an increasingly fractious NATO/EU Washington-led alliance seems determined to compound its continuing foreign policy failures by deeming Russia a “Terrorist State.” It seems that the irony—that recently released U.S. data confirm that America has killed more than 900,000 people in dozens of countries in the past 20 years alone—is seemingly lost on the U.S. State Department.

This escalatory move demonstrates that any semblance of the grudging but mutual respect between U.S. and Russian diplomats during the Cold War is now sadly a romantic memory. It is worth recalling that these official and unofficial diplomatic channels not only steered the U.S. away from nuclear Armageddon, but they also fostered, and indeed encouraged, pragmatism on both sides, with the idea that a deal could be done and had to be done thankfully prevailing. Today, however, diplomatic relations between Russia and the United States are at their lowest point since their establishment in 1933, and that is bad news for almost everyone.

When examining the background to today’s conflict, it is important to interrogate the abject failure of Western diplomacy, firstly to de-escalate the 2014 post-coup civil conflict in eastern Ukraine, and more recently to defuse the standoff which culminated with the Russian military intervention in February. How could such a potentially catastrophic conflict between an increasingly boxed-in Russia and a hawkish NATO/Ukraine have come to this? Surely the many voices of geopolitical realism and restraint were being heard?

If not, maybe the persistent and increasingly resolute warnings of “red lines being crossed” by a concerned Moscow? No? Well then, shouldn’t the U.S./NATO at least have respected the democratic wishes of 73% of the Ukrainian people? After all, they voted Zelensky into power on his promise to “end the war”? It seems none of these crucial realities registered with the ever expanding “freedom machine” that is NATO, most interestingly the mandate of the Ukrainian people for peace in the east was conveniently ignored.

When Moscow deployed its troops to the Ukrainian border in the closing months of 2021, it was seen by many (including your author) as elaborate sabre-rattling to demonstrate the seriousness with which the Russians viewed the situation; of course, it turned out to be quite the opposite.

As the Russian Army crossed the Ukrainian border in the early hours of February 24^th, not only did it spell the end of decades of Russian warnings about NATO’s eastward expansion onto its borders, it may also have marked the end of a global world order dominated by the U.S. and its dollar. When objectively evaluating the global impact of this crisis and the potential spoils to the victor, it becomes increasingly likely that the widely publicized last-minute attempts for peace were mere PR outings, box-ticking for future deniability.

When did the U.S. “project” in Ukraine begin?

When Western narrators insert the now seemingly obligatory phrase “unprovoked invasion of Ukraine” when writing on the crisis, it would be useful to point out that it is undeniable, but not widely known, that the United States has been agitating to wrestle Ukraine away from the influence of Russia since the end of World War II.

Despite the complex demographic and geopolitical realities of the region, and in spite of the deep and ancient social, linguistic, and historical ties between Russia and Ukraine, Uncle Sam has had his eye on Kyiv for a very long time. As far back as 1949 the relatively young Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was a priority target for initially the OSS and then the newly formed CIA, which aimed to exploit the complex ethnic and historic differences in the region to undermine the Soviets.

The long-term U.S. strategy involved overt and covert actions to influence and fund various Ukrainian nationalist and paramilitary organizations. As with innumerable other CIA-led regime-change operations, the morality or political persuasion of their partners mattered not, and they included the openly Nazi collaborators of the ultranationalist OUN and UPA led by recognized mass murderers like Stepan Bandera, a man now widely and openly deified in Zelensky’s Ukraine by recently instituted national holidays and countless statues.

An examination of the recent activities of CIA cut-outs such as the “National Endowment for Democracy,” “Freedom House,” the “National Democratic Institute,” the “International Republican Institute” and the “Eurasia Foundation” confirms the deep-seated persistence of U.S. intelligence-backed subversion in Ukraine. These organizations like to describe their “mission” as “assisting the building of Ukrainian civil society” but, in reality, their multimillion-dollar task is part of a broader U.S. strategy to remove “unfriendly” governments as per the CIA regime-change playbook.

The successful U.S.-sponsored coup d’état against the legitimately elected government of Viktor Yanukovych in 2014 was the culmination of those decades of efforts to install and propagate a pro-Western, anti-Russian, pro-EU government in Kyiv, much as it had worked to do in many post-Soviet republics like Belarus. It was now glaringly apparent that, rather than respecting the very democracy that it selectively supports, the U.S. has preferred an “à la carte” approach to the democracy and freedom it purports to represent: If it is pro-U.S.A., defend it; if it is not, destroy it.

“Maidan” an unmissable opportunity  

The depth of U.S. interference in Ukraine’s internal affairs has been truly astounding. It has also been intentionally overlooked by mainstream media and their client analysts when evaluating the apparent failure of diplomatic attempts to avert today’s conflict in Ukraine.

Instead of accepting the democratic mandate of the imperfect Yanukovych government, the U.S. and its EU allies openly supported the Maidan coup. The U.S. and its European allies even went so far as to brazenly suggest that, if Yanukovych performed an “about face” and accepted the agreement to move closer to the EU economically, he might be permitted to remain in power.

Inevitably, the usual suspects began to queue up to support the nascent “Euromaidan” movement. When the perennially hawkish and boorish Republican Senator John McCain arrived in Kyiv to “show his support” he proceeded to openly wine and dine unsavory key players in the Euromaidan movement. McCain’s newly found friends included the known racist and ultra-fascist Oleg Tyagnibok, leader of the far-right Svoboda party.

McCain even thought it would be a good idea to stand brazenly with Tyagnibok on a stage in Maidan Square, proclaiming to thousands of protesters that “the free world is with you, America is with you, I am with you.”

Incredibly, the United States senator made this speech while the democratically elected government of Yanukovych and the millions of Ukrainians who had legitimately given him their votes looked on in dismay. In the Donbas, millions of ethnic Russians looked on fearfully as the U.S. lit a touch-paper that would ultimately end in a brutal civil war.

If  McCain’s theatrical “freedom-loving war-hero” routine was seen as brazen by the Kremlin, along admittedly by some less hawkish EU observers, it was a model of diplomatic restraint compared to the conduct of Victoria Nuland, the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs and high priestess of American neo-liberal hegemonic foreign policy.

As Ukraine’s political crisis deepened, Nuland and her subordinates became increasingly aggressive in favoring the anti-​Yanukovych demonstrators. Nuland proclaimed in a speech to the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation in December 2013 that she had gone to Ukraine three times in the period following the start of the Maidan demonstrations. On December 5, she handed out cookies to those assembled and doubled down on her support for their cause.

The granular level of the Obama administration’s interference in Ukraine’s internal affairs was indeed incredible. This was confirmed in a crucial phone call intercept by Russia’s FSB security service that was then widely distributed to foreign news services. During the call Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoff Pyatt discuss, in great detail, their preferred leadership choices in a post-​Yanukovych administration. The U.S. plumped for Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who indeed became prime minister once the democratically elected Yanukovych was chased from office.

During the astounding call, Nuland says enthusiastically that “Yats is the guy” who would do the best job. The current Mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko is also featured in the bizarre discussion but is bounced out of the running by Nuland.

Another interesting element of Nuland’s conspiratorial call with Pyatt is her suggestion that Vice President Joe Biden should be dispatched to Kyiv to “get it over the line.” This again illustrates the high-level knowledge, and support within the Obama administration, for this potentially illegal agitation against a democratically elected and sovereign government.

It is critical to point out that Nuland and Pyatt, two senior American government officials, were engaged in such detailed planning to overthrow a legitimate government at a time when Yanukovych was still Ukraine’s lawfully elected president. This is irrefutable evidence, if evidence were required, that the country that persistently lectures the global village on the sacrosanct nature of sovereignty and democracy, was yet again riding roughshod over both. Use of the term “diplomacy” is almost embarrassingly inappropriate to describe the covert, regime-change scheming of Pyatt and Nuland.

It is also important to remember that all of the above took place with the full support and knowledge of those at the highest levels of the U.S. government and the White House, including then-Vice President Joe Biden, now of course President, funder and admirer-in-chief of Volodymyr Zelensky.

America’s behavior not only constitutes interference, but it also constitutes the micromanagement of an anti-democratic coup d’état, regardless of your political opinions about the obviously flawed government of Viktor Yanukovych. That fact is inescapable.

Given the widely documented manipulations and infiltrations of 2014, all sanctioned at the highest levels of the American state, those with any doubt as to the current influence of the U.S. government on the Zelensky regime in Ukraine today should seriously reconsider their view. While a very generous observer might suggest that, despite the level of interference outlined above, the U.S. was at least ostensibly, on the outside pulling the strings during Maidan, today it is undeniably on the inside, steering the Ukrainian ship both militarily and economically. While the conflict may have begun with NATO supporting Ukraine, today the sad reality is that it is Ukraine supporting NATO in a proxy war against its nuclear-armed neighbor.

It is worth considering whether the “diplomacy” which the United States declared to be one of its central pillars of influence for peace in Ukraine prior to the current crisis is the same brand of “diplomacy” it was engaged in prior to the Maidan coup? No objective analysis of this period could, with any seriousness, absolve the United States of a central role in destabilizing and overthrowing the legitimate government of a sovereign state and a democracy to boot.

Can the narrative widely peddled by Western power brokers—that it was Russia and not the West that stymied diplomatic efforts to avert war in 2022—be taken as sincere? Given the Machiavellian machinations of the U.S. security state prior to, during and after the Maidan coup, it is a very hard ask to believe they were sincere during the 11^th hour negotiations to avert this conflict. The dismal reality of this terrible and seemingly inevitable conflict in Ukraine is that it has not dulled the appetite of hawkish perpetual-war advocates in the U.S., and to a lesser extent in Europe.

Ursula von der Leyen, the archetypal bureaucrat and queen of Europe’s woke Eurostocracy, has emerged to epitomize the total victory cult that evangelizes an “absolute truth” regarding Russia. Von der Leyen routinely peddles a factually flimsy and theatrical narrative about an alleged Russian desire to conquer Europe, enslave its peoples and vaporize those who refuse to bend their knees.

Von der Leyen has become a caricature of reverse Euro-racism, turning a blind eye to gross Russophobia, violence and the revision of European history, particularly regarding the reality of the incalculable Soviet sacrifice in the struggle to defeat Nazism. There is also a renewed attempt to diminish the central role Russia has played in the global economic and cultural ecosystem. The EU, and particularly its smaller member states, have enthusiastically made a bonfire of our rights to dissent from their narrative on Russia, banning TV channels, sanctioning journalists and growing increasingly authoritarian in pursuit of their failing econo-cultural war on Russia.

I would suggest that all who value balanced debate, freedom of speech and their right to disagree consider who built the scaffold upon which this war is now blazing? What military-industrial complex stands to benefit from its perpetuation? And how could any diplomatic process that ran alongside the creation of a de facto NATO army in Ukraine be taken as sincere?

Regardless of the above, the potential for catastrophic escalation remains dangerously high, but then again, so do the profits of major American defense contractors and energy companies. Given the dystopian reality we find ourselves in, where truth is an “à la carte” commodity, and mainstream assigned narratives becoming akin to pseudo religious obligations, a battlefield resolution to this conflict sadly seems more and more likely.

In this burgeoning war of attrition, all objective observers and those interested in non-aligned analysis of how this conflict will end should be asking themselves this single, simple question: Which side can in reality afford to lose this conflict in Ukraine, America or Russia? The answer, while obviously eluding ill-advised EU and State Department hawks, is, in my humble view, abundantly clear.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Chay Bowes is a campaigner, for independent journalism, entrepreneur and writer from Ireland. Chay is interested in geopolitics and history and has a masters degree in strategic studies. Chay can be reached at [email protected].

Featured image is from laptrinhx.com

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.

***

For the last several days, the mainstream propaganda machine diverted its attention from the mandatory “evil Russia” narrative and focused on 24/7 coverage of a weather balloon. Although the media frenzy was part of the “evil China” narrative, this one is not as omnipresent as that about Russia, at least not yet. The rather bizarre overfocus on such a trivial matter still has its propaganda purpose, as the “spy balloon”, while insignificant at a glance, fulfilled an important geopolitical goal for the United States.

First, the idea that a superpower such as China needs weather balloons to effectively spy on the US is quite laughable, as the Asian giant has more than enough surveillance satellites for that purpose, both military and civilian, to say nothing of its intelligence services and other means of collecting information. Second, weather balloons are simply too obvious and, thus, too (geo)politically sensitive to be used for that purpose, not to mention they’re not exactly the most steerable aircraft and are also quite slow, meaning they take quite a lot of time to reach the desired location.

Eventually, the US Air Force sent its much-touted F-22 fighter jets to shoot down the balloon. The coverage of the shootdown was quite embarrassing, to say the least, as the F-22 “Raptor” is an extremely expensive aircraft and it made no sense to use it for such a trivial matter. The jet that costs $334 million apiece and nearly $70,000 per flight hour fired a nearly half a million dollar missile to down a weather balloon, but the media presented it as if the target was no less than an alien spacecraft invading the US. There are now even photos of an F-22 with the balloon painted on it as its first air-to-air kill.

The balloon was also presented as some pinnacle of Chinese technology, despite the fact that Beijing operates satellites, hypersonic surveillance drones and other truly high-end technologies, some of which even the US itself lacks. Additionally, according to the US, China suddenly decided to send a weather balloon to spy on America’s “Minuteman 3” ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) silos right after it invited the US Secretary of States Anthony Blinken to visit Beijing. Worse yet, it supposedly did so on the eve of the visit, despite China’s insistence that Blinken also meets President Xi Jinping.

Such diplomatic and (geo)political absurdity can hardly be expected from China, as it simply makes no sense for Beijing to try and make yet another peaceful overture toward the US only to sabotage its own efforts by sending a “spy balloon” over the most obvious spy target in the continental US. Even the Pentagon confirmed that “it had been tracking the balloon for quite some time” and that “it wasn’t the first time such an incident occurred”. So, again, the question is, why did the US military decide to go public with the “spy balloon” story at this exact moment? The fact that Anthony Blinken announced he is postponing his visit to China is quite indicative of America’s goal in this case.

China insists that the weather balloon is indeed just that – a weather balloon that has drifted too far from its course and ended up in US airspace. The Washington Post quoted national security experts who confirmed this and stated that “the craft appears to share characteristics with high-altitude balloons used by developed countries around the world for weather forecasting.” The Pentagon itself also confirmed this and stated that “the payload wouldn’t offer much in the way of surveillance that China couldn’t collect through spy satellites” and that “the balloon posed no serious physical or intelligence threat”.

Again, this begs the question as to why the Pentagon even made the public announcement and why the US corporate and state-run media decided to go for such bizarre coverage. It’s simply impossible not to connect the story to the deteriorating US-China relations and the fact that Washington DC is doing everything in its power (bar direct war, for now, at least) to make sure the relationship between the two global powers stays on the collision course. Blinken’s visit, as previously mentioned initiated by Beijing, could have been a crucial step toward some form of detente between the US and China.

However, with an “evil Chinese spy balloon flying over American ICBM silos” Washington DC has a “perfect” (in reality, ludicrous) excuse to continue its incessant escalation with the Asian giant. The continuous US belligerence can only be explained by the fact that Washington DC is simply afraid to let China develop peacefully, since American political elites are perfectly aware that they are falling behind the Asian giant in virtually every metric, be it economy, technology, military, etc. It’s the only viable explanation for such a sudden obsession with a weather balloon.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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.

***

Whether one regards this stance as innocently optimistic or irredeemably delusional, there’s no denying that President Xi is still clinging to the New Détente, though it might ultimately be for naught.

The balloon incident is shaping up to be the most decisive moment in the New Cold War since the start of Russia’s special operation a year ago. The Sino-American New Détente was unexpectedly derailed due to the subversive intervention of their hardline factions that were both opposed to this potentially game-changing rapprochement. Nevertheless, President Xi still isn’t giving up on his goal of improving ties with the US as evidenced by his country’s reaction to this incident.

It was expected that China would put forth a “plausibly deniable” explanation instead of outright admitting to the reconnaissance that it’s accused of, but it wasn’t foreseeable that it would downplay Blinken’s decision to postpone his trip to Beijing by claiming that it was never confirmed. That narrative was designed to “save face” and leave open the opportunity for rescheduling his visit, which adds credence to the observation that President Xi still hopes to save the New Détente.

Furthermore, he tried to throw a proverbial bone to the Republicans by firing the head of his national weather service in accordance with the “plausibly deniable” narrative that his side put forth alleging that the suspected reconnaissance vehicle was just a wayward civilian airship researching the weather. Nevertheless, CNN noted that this individual was already expected to leave his post sometime soon anyhow after previously being appointed to another position, which thus makes this move ring hollow.

Upon the US finally shooting down the balloon, China warned that it “reserves the right to use necessary means to deal with similar situations”, which can be interpreted in two ways that aren’t mutually exclusive despite appearing so on the surface. It hints that the military’s anti-US hardliners have a free hand to resort to a tit-for-tat response if the opportunity arises, which could also serve the purpose of “escalating to de-escalate” by prompting a call between their leaders, but it also “saves face” too.

To explain, it’s unrealistic to expect that China wouldn’t have conveyed such a warning after what happened since it’s a self-respecting and sovereign state that obviously has the right to react similarly to any US aerial asset that intrudes upon its borders. Should that happen, then there’s no doubt that the military would shoot it down out after the US just shot down China’s balloon instead of letting political officials try to quietly resolve the incident behind the scenes like countries usually do in such situations.

Even so, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng also released a statement shortly after that one where he said that

“What the US did severely impacted and endangered the efforts and process for the two sides to stabilize bilateral relations since the meeting in Bali. China is firmly opposed to and strongly protested US’ actions. China urged the US not to take further moves that violate China’s interests, or to escalate the fraught situation.”

This strongly suggests that China would prefer not to have its hand forced and thus be compelled to go through with the abovementioned scenario of shooting down a US aerial asset in the event that one intrudes upon its borders. Xie’s lamentation of the damage that this incident inflicted upon their leaders’ hoped-for New Détente is yet another signal that President Xi still isn’t giving up on their potentially game-changing rapprochement despite the seemingly insurmountable odds after what just happened.

Quite clearly, improving bilateral relations remains so important for the Chinese leader that he won’t do anything that could further complicate this grand strategic goal that he’s personally invested his reputation into advancing after initiating this process during the G20 Summit in mid-November. Whether one regards this stance as innocently optimistic or irredeemably delusional, there’s no denying that President Xi is still clinging to the New Détente, though it might ultimately be for naught.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author

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.

***

Recently, Maryland swore in its first Black governor, Wes Moore, in a “historic” ceremony cemented with a tearful introduction by Oprah Winfrey and a hand on Frederick Douglass’ Bible. The Black elite flocked to fill the rooms of the inauguration to witness the third elected Black governor in U.S. history. Yet, this “first Black” gubernatorial win is history repeating itself.

African/Black communities have witnessed “first Blacks” consistently continuing over-policing, surveillance, criminalization and austerity policies.

As Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) member organization Ujima People’s Progress Party understands,

“The Black middle-class’ allegiance to capitalism, and not Black liberation, has largely led the Black political leadership class to function as a comprador misleadership class over the Black majority of working peoples on behalf of the capitalist parties, and political machines they are members of.”

For nearly a century, radical African/Black people have criticized elements of the African/Black community as being designed to serve as buffers to ruling class elements. Whether discerned as “neocolonial,” “the comprador class,” or “the Black Misleadership Class,” this sector has evaded accountability to the masses of African/Black people, while using their Black identity as cover for self-serving opportunism.

Moore first became famous for his 2010 bestselling memoir, The Other Wes Moore, an inspirational story of two boys with the same name and ties to Baltimore City. In interviews, Moore is depicted as a Black boy from an economically struggling background who became formally educated, rising to become a U.S. military veteran, and thus a socioeconomically developed Black man. The framing of his “life story,” as told through the book, not only helps manufacture an Obama-like image, politically. But in juxtaposition to the “other Wes Moore,” it leaves room to question how this narrative will affect his policies.

It remains unclear if Moore had been raised in Baltimore City. Yet, as the backdrop of Moore’s life story, the city has been central to his platform on crime. The Public Safety and Criminal Justice page on wesmoore.com states, “Violent crime is on the rise across Maryland and people are dying in our streets.” The solutions presented, however, will be nothing short of a plan to continue what former Governor Larry Hogan started in his campaign to “refund the police,” which increased resources for state law enforcement agencies following the 2020 uprisings.

Citing an “ineffectiveness of leadership,” Moore ignores that not only is Baltimore City already occupied with an array of federally funded police directives, it has just received an additional $7.9 million in federal funds to “fight crime.” This funding is a part of the Biden administration’s $350 million American Rescue plan to “fund the police,” as he enthusiastically announced in his 2022 State of the Union address. Unsurprisingly, in 2022, 1,192 people were killed by police, exceeding any other year in U.S. history. Also, Moore has ignored the existing consent decree issued in 2017, acknowledging the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) engaged in a pattern and practice of conduct that violated the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, and specific provisions of federal statutory law.

“The BPD has access to the Department of Defense (DOD) 1033 program budget. They also train with the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) through the ‘deadly exchange program’ and continue to receive federal agents through Trump’s 2020 Operation Relentless Pursuit policy,” says Petros Bein, member of the Baltimore City Wide Alliance of the Black Alliance For Peace (BAP-Baltimore). “This is in addition to the approved privatized policing for universities, like Johns Hopkins, engulfing Black communities.”

These continued failed approaches to “crime” have only proven that added resources, as well as changes in policy or the law, will not contribute to public safety. Moore cannot “rebuild and strengthen relationships between communities and law enforcement agencies” by “increasing accountability and transparency” in a city in which the police department constantly violates its consent decree. Nor should funding community-policing initiatives that “recruit diverse officers that reflect the diversity of communities they serve” be taken seriously. The recent death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tennessee (a city also operating under Operation Relentless Pursuit) has been the most illuminating example of the fallacy of Black faces occupying these spaces to the benefit of the African/Black community.

Policies that address crime in an over-policed city cannot be presented in the abstract. As the country celebrates a “first Black” governor, Maryland continues to imprison more African/Black people, per capita, than any other state. Moore needs to provide more specifics to explain what will be done and how this builds or departs from existing efforts to return control of the Baltimore City Police Department from the federal government to Baltimore City.

“Wes Moore’s connections with Mayor [Brandon] Scott’s office and the city design/city planning committee will shape or harm what’s happening in Baltimore. With no control over the city’s policing, Moore’s decisions directly affect the most marginalized of us,” acknowledges BAP-Baltimore core member, Kimya Nuru Dennis.

The Democratic Party has been able to  depict Moore as a trusting solution for Maryland, in general, and for African/Black people, specifically. His socioeconomic status, as well as that of his donors, indicates to BAP-Baltimore what will undoubtedly shape whose voices matter most in prioritizing health, education, and safety-based policies and laws.

The lack of equitable housing that causes displacement, as well as food deserts, and low wages, have been pressing issues in Maryland. African/Black elected officials have not resolved the economic and social crisis facing the African/Black working class of Baltimore City. Instead, their lack of solutions have resulted in the overt criminalization and over-policing of African/Black communities. Police are constantly and consistently well-funded and well-resourced. BAP-Baltimore understands police are used to enforce the status quo of white power and colonial control over the lives of African/Black and other oppressed nations of people. This comes as the city has increasingly privatized and priced out our people. More police funding, while ignoring the causes of crime, cannot resolve the ongoing dilemma facing the African/Black working class in Baltimore City.

No Compromise! No Retreat!

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image: Wes Moore with Joe Biden at a gubernatorial campaign rally in Rockville MD, August 2022. (courtesy Dominick Sokotoff/Rex/Shutterstock)

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.

***

Introduction by Colin Todhunter

Dr John Campbell in the UK says vitamin D is more effective than the jabs. It is certainly safer, and he presents several scientific studies that show conclusively it is highly effective in preventing COVID-related hospitalisation/death.

Instead of recommending vitamin D, it was dismissed. Because if proven alternative treatments had been available, the money-spinning jabs could not have been rolled out under emergency use authorisation. The public was locked down, told to wait for the jab and protect the NHS – for which the UK govt now shows utter contempt.

Watch the video below.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from Flickr

Price: $11.50 Get yours for FREE! Click here to download.

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

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.

***

A war between China and Taiwan will be extremely good for business at America’s Frontier Fund, a tech investment outfit whose co-founder and CEO sits on both the State Department Foreign Affairs Policy Board and President Joe Biden’s Intelligence Advisory Board, according to audio from a February 1 event.

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.

***

Some analysts have opined that Lula 3.0 will be a very different Lula, and we should expect a more pro-American and “Atlanticist” turn. They argue the green agenda focused on the Amazon would be the trigger for “reboosting” American-Brazilian bilateral relations – with Western aid becoming a kind of “quid pro quo” for a Brazilian support of Ukraine.

Too much was made of Lula’s recent “condemnation” of Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine. In fact, in the same statement, Lula quoted Pope Francis’ remarks about NATO “barking” at Russia’s door having provoked Moscow into acting. Moreover, the Brazilian leader has rejected sending tank ammunition to Germany over fears it would be transferred to Ukraine.

It is true that Brasilia and Washington seem to share a concern for the rainforest. In November 2022, US special envoy for climate, John Kerry, showed interest in working with Lula “to save the Amazon”. And right now, Lula’s government is actively pursuing partners to help finance a number of projects to save the rainforest.

Germany, for instance, has outlined more than $200 million in contributions for Brazilian environmental programs. The Amazon Fund, which had been frozen since 2019, was reactivated by Brazil’s Environment Minister Marina Silva. It is a billion-dollar initiative funded by Norway and Germany to fight deforestation.

During his visit to Brasilia on January 30, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz talked about the need to help “the lungs of the world”. Scholz was also interested in boosting cooperation with Latin American countries regarding renewable energies, and green hydrogen, as Europe goes through its own (largely self-inflicted) energy crisis.

Lula is visiting the US on February 10, to meet Biden. They will discuss climate change and food security among other issues. It remains yet to be seen what Washington, under Biden’s presidency, can offer, having a Republican Senate.

The US and European powers both weaponize the green agenda against emerging and developing nations. Though it is true that for decades the Brazilian state has been turning a blind eye to illegal deforestation and cattle ranching in the Amazon. This also involves powerful private interests, corruption and even some popular support, as those illegal operations have become a part of local economies.

The situation got even worse under Bolsonaro and he openly supported the aforementioned interests but this, ironically, backfired. The European Union, US and China have been increasingly demanding full traceability of cattle, wood and other items and through different legislations being proposed to obstruct and even ban Brazilian products associated with illegal deforestation and invasion of indigenous lands.

By finally putting the house in order and bringing law and order to the Amazon, Brasilia would “save face” before the international community. This would also empower the country to legitimate and reassert its sovereignty in a region which is so important for the globe. Western powers can help with aid, although often with a veiled agenda.

The Amazon issue does open a window of opportunity for Biden-Lula’s dialogue, but it remains to be seen how much actual cooperation Washington can really offer, beyond the rhetoric and the diplomatic nods, as Biden himself faces a divided country. In any case, Biden will increasingly “court” Lula now, especially after Beijing has done the same, and there are talks about Brazil joining the Chinese  Belt and Road Initiative. China remains Brazil’s main trade partner, followed by the US.

For South American emerging powers, maintaining a good relationship with their northern neighbor is strategic. Even in the early 2000’s, a more left-wing Lula managed to maintain a good relationship with then US President George W. Bush, Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez – at the same time.

Lula now faces a political crisis, in a polarized country, with the specter of domestic terrorism and a new “military question”. The military particularly, due to nationalist ideology, are very suspicious of any international cooperation on the Amazon resulting in a loss of sovereignty. Lula, in turn, does not trust the military over suspicions and an increasingly large body of evidence that point to some military cooperation with the recent Bolsonaro supporters’ attempt at a coup.

No one knows if Lula will achieve “zero deforestation”, but there certainly is much he can do to try and improve the situation. So far concrete international help in that regard came from Europeans, not the US. And it would be too soon to talk about a Lula-Biden alliance of any kind over the rainforest.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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 is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain the West’s unsubstantiated narrative that Russia sabotaged the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines. Now, even some German officials are beginning to admit that there is no evidence to blame Moscow for the crime. Indeed, as the question about the real culprit remains, at some point Berlin will have to investigate the possibility of sabotage by countries it considers as “allies”.

German Prosecutor General Peter Frank during an interview with Die Welt newspaper on February 4 stated that there is no evidence to blame Russia for the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September last year. According to him, the investigation is still ongoing, but so far nothing has been found to blame Russia.

“It currently has not been proven (…) The investigation is ongoing (…) We are currently evaluating all this forensically. [The suspicion] that there had been a foreign sabotage act [in this case], has so far not been substantiated”, he said during the interview.

As we can see, the prosecutor seems to be skeptical about the very possibility of foreign sabotage, which seems irrational, since several experts indicate that the explosions in the two gas pipelines did not occur spontaneously or due to a mere malfunction, but by deliberate interference. This has been confirmed even by Western authorities, such as the Swedish government, which conducted unilateral investigations in November and concluded that sabotage had taken place, although it has not said anything about which country would be the saboteur.

A few days before Frank’s interview, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had refused to comment on the investigation, claiming that he would wait for concrete evidence to be obtained before making any public statements. At the time, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova criticized Scholz’s omission, stating that his lack of transparency on the matter made it appear that “Berlin has something to hide”.

Zakharova’s words indicate a suspicion on the part of the Russians that the Germans could be somehow wanting to forge evidence against Russia to please their NATO partners. Another possibility is that they are preparing a narrative to claim that there was not any sabotage, as the prosecutor seems to have suggested when he said that no evidence of a foreign operation was found so far.

These maneuvers on the part of the German government would be happening because of the absolute impossibility of blaming the Russians for the attack. On the 1st of February, The Times published a report stating that the German investigators are “open to theories that a Western state carried out the bombing with the aim of blaming it on Russia”. Obviously, no Berlin official has confirmed this, but it is possible that this information has leaked and that now the Germans are trying to justify themselves to the West through this statement by Peter Frank, alleging the lack of evidence of foreign attack (Western or Russian).

In fact, this constant repetition of mistakes only undermines the credibility of the German government. Rather than denying that sabotage took place, the best thing to do would be to simply admit that it did happen, and the responsibility was not Russia’s, but some other country’s. If concrete evidence is found that a Western state destroyed the pipelines, Berlin should admit this and publicly condemn the aggressor country, reacting by imposing coercive measures, sanctions and breaking diplomatic relations – just as it certainly would do if Russia were responsible.

It must be remembered that experienced military experts, such as Donald Trump’s ex advisor Colonel Douglas Macgregor, suggested that the US and UK were responsible for the attack. According to Macgregor, only these two countries have naval forces capable of carrying out this type of sabotage. He categorically states that the Russians were not involved in the case, considering the way the operation was carried out.

“You have to look at who are the state actors that have the capability to do this. And that means the [UK’s] Royal Navy and the United States’ Navy (…) I think that’s pretty clear (…) The Russians did not do this”, Douglas Macgregor said in early October.

Admitting that Russia is not involved is an important step, but it is still insufficient. The German government, if it really wants to defend its sovereignty, must continue the investigations, and admit what already seems clear to all specialists: Berlin was the target of sabotage planned by its own “allies”.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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.

***

First, it appears I was wrong about the ability of the USG to shoot down China’s weather balloon. However, there is a persistent caveat here—never take at face value what the government and its propaganda media “report,” especially in regard to manufactured enemies.

🚨#BREAKING: Incredible HD footage of the Chinese surveillance balloon being shot down

🚨#MyrtleBeach l #SC

Watch incredible HD video of the moment when the Chinese surveillance balloon was shot down by a single missile from an F-22 fighter jet from Langley Air Force Base pic.twitter.com/KjwTrgcvcb

— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) February 4, 2023

The above video is very interesting. Notice how the missile apparently hits the payload. Now that the payload was blown to smithereens, there will be no way to verify exactly what the purpose of this balloon was. Anything that remained went into the drink.

Even if the USG navy manages to raise this wreckage from the ocean floor, I would not believe what they’d say about it, considering the long USG history of pathological lies.

I don’t think this thing was a surveillance balloon.

The question is, why would China use a slow-moving and easily detectable balloon for surveillance when it has three Yaogan-31 “observation” satellites in addition to the Jianbing-8 constellation of surveillance satellites? In short, China has the technical capability to put surveillance satellites in orbit. This includes its top-secret, geostationary orbiting Tongxin Jishu Shiyan-1.

In fact, China has a large number of military satellites in orbit. According to Business Standard, “China’s 2015 Defense White Paper described space as a military domain, and China currently has 75+ military satellites operated by the Strategic Support Force of the People’s Liberation Army.”

According to the BBC,

the experts point out that balloons can be fitted with modern technology like spy cameras and radar sensors, and there are some advantages to using balloons for surveillance—chief of which is that it is less expensive and easier to deploy than drones or satellites.

Indeed, and easier to detect and shoot down.

The USG insists—as usual, void of evidence—the balloon was surveilling nuke silos in Montana. This is a load of propagandistic hogwash.

The fact is, we don’t know for sure what the purpose of the balloon was, and we never will. The logical assumption is this was a weather or meteorological research balloon that had blown over USG territory due to prevailing westerlies.

According to the “Sage from South Central,” blue-checker and talk radio host Larry Elder, the balloon had something to do with nukes.

Chinese balloon called 'dry run' for EMP attack
Nuke at altitude could destroy electronics for hundreds of mileshttps://t.co/1xOcYVqRir#ChineseSpyBalloon

— Larry Elder (@larryelder) February 3, 2023

The Washington Examiner, owned by “conservative” billionaire Philip Anschutz (associated with the neocon-infested American Enterprise Institute), is pushing this scary story on largely ill-informed and easily frightened Americans.

High-altitude balloons, such as the one China has floated over mountain state military bases this week, are considered a key “delivery platform” for secret nuclear strikes on America’s electric grid, according to intelligence officials.

Ah, yes, intelligence officials, the same folks who lied America into the Iraq war, claiming Saddam had WMDs and fallaciously warning we were all going to die if we didn’t invade and kill 1.5 million Iraqis.

Of course, when that bogus science fiction story was exposed, it was explained away as an “intelligence failure,” when in fact it was a series of lies told to a compliant stenographic media by pathological neocon liars in the Bush regime.

The EMP “threat” is pushed by the American Leadership & Policy Foundation. Additionally, Congress has established an EMP commission “pursuant to title XIV of the Floyd D. Spence National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001.”

“China’s recent balloon flyover of the United States is clearly a provocative and aggressive act. It was most likely a type of dry run meant to send a strategic message to the USA. We must not take this for granted,” warned Air Force Maj. David Stuckenberg in a 2015 foundation report.

“Not since WWII has North America faced a threat of this nature. Project FuGo in Japan used balloons to float bombs on the trade-winds across the Pacific to the U.S. and Canada.”

Blue checker and former Speaker of the House, the “honorable” Newt Gingrich, also apparently believes the commies want to take down our civilization.

Newt fails to mention the obvious fact China would not attempt this because it would result in USG thermonukes reducing China to a radioactive wasteland. Neocons and their neolib buddies think you’re stupid—and, unfortunately, far too many Americans are.

Defense experts warn that Chinese balloons can be the top ‘delivery platform’ for a nuclear EMP attack @SecretsBedardhttps://t.co/Pv6JFEg4Xk

— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) February 4, 2023

Others are also repeating this paranoiac stupidity to drum up viewers, subscribers, and customers because fear sells:

Alex Jones talks about the Chinese balloon

“could very well be an EMP weapon package or a test package to test an EMP attack. pic.twitter.com/gV2ItCSmD0

— Kali Patriot (@CNNizFakeNewz) February 4, 2023

The Hill division of war propaganda incorporated is more subtle. Note here that, despite a complete lack of supporting evidence, the balloon is described as a surveillance device.

China condemns US "attack" on surveillance balloon as "overreaction" https://t.co/XdZ6HN1U02 pic.twitter.com/Q3Q1yzAOgF

— The Hill (@thehill) February 5, 2023

Bill Clinton’s former Defense Secretary and former Republican senator William Cohen has thrown his weight behind the cynical EMP farce to stir up paranoia and fear. Or maybe, now well into his dotage, he believes this nonsense.

“I think we would have because the first thing we need to do is, number one, is the balloon a military or security threat, but number two, can we get information out of it before we destroy it? We didn’t know, for example, if it could have contained something within the balloon other than helium that could have posed a threat to us. Do we know if it has any kind of biological component to it? So you want to ask those questions.”

Too late, Bill. The remains are on the ocean floor. The payload was targeted and blown up. All that is left is speculation, fear-mongering, and scary stories of lights out and cannibalism.

In other words, political manipulation as usual.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Kurt Nimmo on Geopolitics.

Kurt Nimmo is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author

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.

***

On an official visit to Tripoli, President Meloni committed Italy to “360°all-round cooperation with Libya”. But which Libya? The Libyan “Government of National Unity”, “internationally recognized”, and chaired by Abdul Hamid Dbeibah. It was “elected” in 2021 in Geneva by a Forum of 73 “Libyan representatives” chosen and directed by the UN representative Stephanie Williams, a US State Department official.

Meloni’s meeting with Dbeibah was sealed by an 8 billion dollar agreement between ENI and the Libyan National Oil Corporation for the exploitation of an offshore gas field off the coast of Tripoli. However, this agreement was immediately disavowed by the Minister of Gas and Oil of the Dbeibah government, who declared it “illegal“. At the same time, in Tripolitania protesters occupied the control room of the Greenstream gas pipeline demanding to stop pumping gas to Italy.

This is the result of the fact that Italy does not recognize the real Libyan government: Prime Minister Fathi Bashagha, appointed by the duly elected Parliament, which provisionally operates from the cities of Sirte and Benghazi because the “Dbeibah government” militias prevent him from entering Tripoli. The Bashagha Government, which controls most of Libya’s territory and energy resources, offers Italy oil and gas at very low cost: as Michelangelo Severgnini showed in his reportage on Byoblu, in Benghazi petrol costs 3 cents of euro at the pump per litre. In compliance with NATO and EU directives, Italy refuses this possibility. Italian imports of Libyan gas have dropped from about 8 billion cubic metres per year before the 2011 NATO war to about 2.5 billion in 2022. Even if the agreement concluded in Tripoli becomes operational, Libyan gas imports could not recover to previous levels. Italy thus remains in the pincers of the “energy crisis”, deliberately provoked by the USA and the EU with the blockade of Russian gas supplies to Europe, paid for increasingly heavily by Italian and European citizens.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on byoblu.

Manlio Dinucci, award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image: Abdul Hamid al-Dbeibeh (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)

Pfizer’s Business Model Is Actual Fascism. “The Merger of Corporate Power and State Power”

By Ben Bartee, February 04, 2023

The corporate media and their Antifa footsoldiers bandy about the term “fascism” quite freely. Somehow, through magnificent logic-pretzel contortions, they claim that resistance to government mandates to inject yourself with experimental drugs is not resistance to fascism, but fascism itself.

EU Bureaucrat at Davos Predicted Censorship Is Coming to America

By Kurt Nimmo, February 04, 2023

Last month, at the billionaire confab in Davos, “a European Union official predicted to a U.S. congressman that the U.S. would ‘soon’ enact laws on ‘illegal hate speech’ similar to those in the EU,” according to American Military News.

The Ukraine Conflict. Two Uncommon Perspectives on the Great Tragedy

By Michael Welch and Ajamu Baraka, February 04, 2023

How should you and I and several citizens throughout the Western world react to a war waged because of the coup our own leaders orchestrated? As well, what about individual Ukrainians who don’t quite fit the standard “thank you for helping save us from the Russians!” stereotype? We have taken the time to sample these voices on this week’s show if the legacy media will not!

Propping up the Wobbly Dollar

By Emanuel Pastreich, February 04, 2023

The Federal government gave up all pretensions that money is backed by the gold held at the Federal Reserve, or backed by anything concrete, in 1972. The dollar became a fiat currency, money that is not tied to anything but reputation. Since that fatal day, the powers behind the curtains have maintained the value of the dollar in various ways.

The 239 Year Timeline of America’s Involvement in Military Conflict

By Isaac Davis, February 04, 2023

The American public and the world have long since been warned of the dangers of allowing the military industrial complex to become such an integral part of our economic survival. The United States is the self-proclaimed angel of democracy in the world, but just as George Orwell warned, war is the health of the state, and in the language of newspeak, democracy is the term we use to hide the reality of the nature of our warfare state.

How the U.S. Obtains New NATO Members by Subversion, Followed by Coup, Followed by Ethnic Cleansing

By Eric Zuesse, February 04, 2023

This is the pattern that has been used ever since the Soviet Union ended in 1991 when the ‘anti-communist’ excuse for America’s post-WW-II global imperialism has no longer been available to use (such as had earlier been the case in Korea, and in Vietnam, and in Guatemala, and in Iran, and in Chile and so many other lands), prior to 1991.

Commemorating January 29, 2022: Democracy, Authoritarianism and Canada’s Truckers Movement

By Prof. Anthony J. Hall, February 04, 2023

The US Ambassador to Canada, David Cohen, has characterized the members and supporters of the Canadian Truckers’ Freedom Convoy as “extremists” who are “subverting democratic processes and voices to further the cause of authoritarianism.”

War Fever: After Ukraine, Taiwan?

By Marc Vandepitte, February 03, 2023

In late January, a top US general declared that a war over Taiwan could break out in as soon as two years. Are we shortly to find ourselves confronted with a second flashpoint in Asia after Ukraine? We put the question to China expert Dirk Nimmegeers.

Pfizer Vaccine Bonanza Slows — But Bill Gates Sold Early, Made Huge Profits

By Dr. Brenda Baletti, February 03, 2023

Pfizer on Tuesday announced 2022 profits of $31.4 billion on record sales of $100.3 billion. Sales from its COVID-19 vaccine and Paxlovid, used to treat COVID-19, totaled $56 billion — more than half the vaccine maker’s annual revenue.

Video: 55 Performers Collapsing or Dying on Stage or Live Camera in Late 2022 Through 2023

By Brian Shilhavy, February 03, 2023

There are 55 documented cases of performers collapsing, dying, or falling ill in late 2022 through 2023 in this video. And in almost all of these cases, the media will say: “We don’t know what caused this, but it was definitely not the COVID vaccine.”

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.

***

The European Patent Office (EPO) has revoked an EU patent held by Impossible Foods, maker of the Impossible Burger. In the US, Impossible’s fake meat products are manufactured with GMO yeast-derived soy leghemoglobin, a controversial ingredient that makes the fake meat look as if it’s bleeding, like undercooked real meat, and that we have argued may not be safe to eat.

Following the EPO’s decision, another fake meat company, Motif FoodWorks, has filed a suite of new petitions with the US Patent and Trademark Office challenging US patents held by Impossible Foods over the use of heme proteins (such as that present in soy leghemoglobin) in meat alternatives, as it defends itself against Impossible’s accusations of patent infringement, according to Food Navigator USA.

Fake meat industry “a flop”

The news about Impossible’s patent fights comes in the wake of an article by Bloomberg describing the rapid decline in the fake meat industry, which it branded “a flop”. The article is titled, “Fake meat was supposed to save the world. It became just another fad”.

Impossible shares, the article said, are currently trading at around $12 – about half the price during its last fundraising round. And more recently Bloomberg has reported that Impossible is preparing to lay off about 20% of its staff, following another round of cuts in October when about 6% of its staff got laid off.

The latest patent wars will only add to the industry’s woes.

Impossible patents

Motif FoodWorks said that many of the claimed inventions in Impossible’s patents are obvious and already disclosed in prior art, which means they cannot be patented. Motif added that the EPO’s decision to revoke Impossible’s patent “affirms our belief that Impossible’s patents are invalid and never should have been issued in the first place”.

Impossible Foods told Food Navigator USA that its plans to launch its full range of products in the EU have not changed. Its soy leghemoglobin “fake blood” product is currently being evaluated for EU use by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

The EPO-revoked patent is not on soy leghemoglobin itself. It is a broad patent on food products containing iron complexes such as heme-containing proteins, combined with flavour precursor molecules.

Twisted logic

The EPO’s reasoning has not yet been published online, but GMWatch has long argued that GMO developers cannot tell patent offices that their product is novel, non-obvious, and has an inventive step – all requirements for a patented invention – yet tell regulators and the public that the same product is natural, nature-mimicking, or able to arise in nature or from natural breeding. The GMO developers can’t have it both ways; if one of these statements is true, the other must be false. If it’s patented, it can’t be natural, and if it’s natural, it can’t be patented.

The UK government is currently deregulating a subclass of GMOs that it claims could have arisen through “traditional processes“. Earlier drafts used the wording “natural processes”, but government amendments changed “natural” to “traditional”. It is possible that the change of wording is intended to avoid GMO developers running into difficulties with patent offices over whether their products are genuine inventions.

The opposition to the EU patent, filed by the law firm Reiser & Partner Patentwälte mbB in Germany, alleges that Impossible’s claimed invention is not novel, lacks an inventive step, fails to sufficiently describe the invention, and extends beyond the application as originally filed.

However, a spokesman for Impossible Foods told Food Navigator USA that the EPO’s decision was not made on the basis of lack of novelty and that the review compared Impossible’s patent against its own prior invention. The spokesman is not quoted as addressing the alleged lack of inventive step.

Impossible is appealing against the EPO’s decision.

GMWatch will update readers on the reasoning of the EPO, once it is published, and its potential relevance to GMOs that are claimed to be natural or nature-mimicking.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from GMWatch

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.

***

Turkey‘s interior minister railed against the US ambassador to Ankara on Friday, telling him to take his “dirty hands off of Turkey”. 

Suleyman Soylu, an ardent critic of the United States, whom he blames for the 2016 military coup attempt, has been hitting out at Washington since they issued a travel warning to their citizens of increased risk of attacks in Turkey last week.

The US, along with eight European countries, have either temporarily closed embassies and consulates in Turkey or issued travel warnings after the Quran-burning protests in Europe.

The US consulate in Istanbul, which is located far from the city centre and less vulnerable to attacks, remained open.

Turkish officials say the closures and warnings are an attempt to portray Turkey as an unstable state.

“Every US ambassador who arrives in Turkey is hurrying to find out how to make a coup possible in Turkey,” said Soylu, referring to US Ambassador Jeffry Flake, during an address made at a ministerial event in Antalya on Friday.

“I address the US ambassador from here. I know the journalists you made write articles,” he added.

“Take your dirty hands off of Turkey. I’m being very clear. I very well know how you would like to create strife in Turkey. Take your grinning face off from Turkey.”

Soylu continued by accusing US embassies in Europe of convening together in an attempt to control the continent. He added that US efforts in Turkey were futile thanks to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Diplomatic tensions

The closure of western diplomatic missions has been met with scorn in Turkey.

In response to the initial security alerts issued on Friday, which warned against “possible retaliatory attacks by terrorists against places of worship,” Turkey responded by issuing similar warnings.

Ankara cautioned its citizen against “possible Islamophobic, xenophobic, and racist attacks” in the United States and Europe.

Turkey later summoned the nine ambassadors, including Flake, for talks over the warnings.

On Thursday, Soylu condemned the closures as an attempt to meddle in campaigning for Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections, which are scheduled for 14 May.

He and other officials suggested that the western states had issued the security warnings in order to pressure Turkey to tone down its criticism of the Quran protests and resolve the Nato dispute.

“They are waging psychological war against Turkey,” Soylu told NTV television. “They are trying to destabilise Turkey.”

The Turkish interior ministry earlier this week said authorities had arrested a number of suspects after an allied country passed over a security warning.

“No weapons, ammunition, or signs of action were detected during the searches,” the ministry said. “However, the investigation is carried out meticulously in all aspects, including digital material reviews.”

A total of 15 suspects were detained, Soylu said, but only five of them were kept in custody.

Soylu and Washington have a longstanding animosity. In 2018, the Trump administration temporarily sanctioned Soylu and Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul over the arrest and detention of Pastor Andrew Brunson, a US citizen.

The following year, the US again sanctioned Soylu and other Turkish officials over Turkey’s offensive against US-backed Kurds in northeastern Syria. “There hasn’t been any change in my declaration of property since the last sanction,” he joked at the time. “I don’t have any properties in the US.”

Both designations were short-term and later lifted.

Since Soylu came into office in 2016, he has gradually suspended intelligence sharing between the US and Turkey. He blamed Washington for the deadly Istanbul bombing in November last year.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image: Süleyman Soylu, Turkish Interior Minister (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)

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.

***

Locals and medical personnel from the Syrian city of Douma in the Damascus countryside confirmed on 2 February during a press conference in the country’s Foreign Ministry headquarters that the alleged 2018 chemical attack on the city was, indeed, staged.

This follows the release of a new report by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on 27 January, which once again renewed the accusation that Damascus was behind a 2018 chlorine gas attack on civilians in Douma.

“I live 400 meters from the place of the alleged incident, and I only learned of its occurrence the next day through social media,” Syrian lawyer Muhammad al-Naasan said during the press conference.

Another testimony is that of Dr. Hassan Oyoun, an ambulance worker at Douma Hospital, who claimed that “information was published a day before the alleged incident that it was necessary to prepare for an event that would result in a large number of injuries.”

This confirms that “prior preparations” were underway for the staging of the attack, Oyoun said, referring to the incident as a “fabricated play that was filmed.”

“What the terrorists announced about 800 injuries from chemical substances is incorrect, and the number of people who visited the hospital that day did not exceed 35,” he added.

According to Dr. Mumtaz al-Hanash, a Douma local, Douma Hospital announced just one day after the alleged attack that no chemically induced deaths were recorded whatsoever. He went on to say that the “photographed cases” did not provide evidence that chlorine, or any other weaponized chemical, was used.

An imam and preacher at a local mosque, Sheikh Ratib Naji, said: “We did not see with our own eyes any injured or dead, as they claimed, and those whom the terrorists claimed were dead, their bodies did not appear, and when we demanded them, they assaulted us.”

Syria’s permanent representative at the Hague-based chemical weapons watchdog, Milad Attiya, affirmed that Damascus does not recognize the OPCW investigation team’s third and latest report, as it rejected the last two. Attiya added that the report relies heavily on western sources, as well as groups such as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the White Helmets, an Al-Qaeda affiliated rescue organization with links to organ trafficking networks in Syria.

Since 2013, armed groups in Syria have attempted to pin chemical attacks on the government to instigate internationally-led regime change operations against it. This comes in the form of staged attacks, or actual false-flag chemical attacks which leave many dead and are designed to implicate Damascus – as was the case in Ghouta in 2013 and in Khan Sheikhoun in 2017.

On 28 January, the Syrian government released a statement rejecting the OPCW report, which it said ignored “objective information which was provided by some … experts … and former OPCW inspectors with knowledge and expertise,” referring to the fact that the organization suppressed the findings of its initial report on Douma, as revealed by WikiLeaks in 2019.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from Syria News

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.

***

South Korea and Japan trying to attend to their own business by inviting unbidden guests to the region should be well aware that they are getting closer to the extreme security crisis, far from defusing security uneasiness.

It was reported that the secretary general of NATO embarked upon his trip to South Korea and Japan.

The high-ranking chief of the military organization which turned Ukraine into a theatre of proxy war is flying into the Asia-Pacific region of the eastern hemisphere across the sea and land, which is not even part of its operational sphere. This fact itself gives rise to concern.

It is well known that NATO has long made persistent attempts to expand its sphere of influence, limited to European defense, to the Asia-Pacific region, which rose to be the strategic center of the world.

NATO stages bilateral and multilateral joint military exercises under various titles by introducing armed forces of its member states, including aircraft carriers and fighters, under the pretext of opposing the so-called “change of status quo by force”. It is also mulling extending its influence to the Asia-Pacific region by expanding and strengthening cooperation with such exclusive security allies as AUKUS, Quad and Five Eyes.

In particular, NATO has put unprecedented spurs to the strengthening of bilateral relations with South Korea and Japan in recent years, regarding them as a key link in realizing its ambition for hegemony.

This is proved by the fact that the chairman of the military committee of NATO visited South Korea and Japan, respectively in April and June last year, to discuss closer partnership and military cooperation and, at the end of June, South Korea and Japan participated in the NATO summit in Madrid of Spain for the first time ever.

Meanwhile, in May last year, the Cooperative Cyber Defense Centre of Excellence under NATO registered South Korea as its full memberو and in October a delegation of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly was dispatched to South Korea to discuss the strengthening of bilateral cooperation.

South Korea signed a huge sales contract for arms including heavy tanks, self-propelled guns, and fighters valued at tens of billions of US dollars with Poland, a member state of NATO, and Japan agreed to jointly develop the next generation fighters with Britain and Italy. This clearly proves to what extent NATO’s sinister intention to use South Korea and Japan for expanding its influence has reached.

NATO, which specified Russia as the “greatest and direct threat” and China as a “systematic challenge” in its new “strategic concept” last year, is now openly stretching its long arm to South Korea and Japan. Its aim is quite clear.

It is the general orientation sought by the US-led NATO to cook up an Asian version of NATO to serve the maintenance of its hegemonic position and order in collusion with its vassal forces.

Over the recent worrying moves of NATO, it is quite natural that countries in the region have warned that NATO seeks to apply the method of collective confrontation in Asia-Pacific, which had already been used in Europe, and South Korea and Japan should not introduce NATO forces into the Asia-Pacific region.

It is as clear as noonday that the secretary general of NATO flying to south Korea and Japan, at a time when the Ukrainian crisis has entered a new critical stage with the US and Western decision on supplying tanks, will shore up the “theory of threat from China” to emphasize again the need to build Asian version of NATO and put pressure on them for their passive military support to Ukraine.

Thus, it’s only a matter of time before the military hardware of South Korea and Japan flowing into NATO is seen in the Ukrainian battlefield.

South Korea and Japan trying to attend to their own business by inviting unbidden guests to the region should be well aware that they are getting closer to the extreme security crisis, far from defusing security uneasiness.

It will be nothing good if NATO, a synonym for war and confrontation, puts its military boots on the region.

The trip of the NATO secretary general to South Korea and Japan is a prelude to confrontation and war as it brings the dark clouds of a “new Cold War” to the Asia-Pacific region.

Regional countries and the international community should remain highly vigilant against the frequent footsteps of NATO toward Asia-Pacific.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from Al Mayadeen

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.

***

Apprehension about Russia’s war against Ukraine has produced speculation about the possibility of limited Russian nuclear strikes against targets in that country. Especially worrisome is the danger of a local conflict escalating quickly into a major nuclear exchange between Russia and the United States and other NATO countries. However unlikely that prospect, a large-scale nuclear war involving countries with strategic nuclear forces could cause huge numbers of fatalities and injuries in addition to the losses produced by climactic impacts. A recent study in the journal Nature projects a catastrophic 5 billion deaths.

Once nuclear weapons became a significant element in US military force structures and planning, beginning in the late 1940s, government agencies began estimating nuclear war fatalities. Over the years, fatality estimates—usually classified top secret—were embedded in nuclear war plans, strategic force requirements, strategic balance assessments, and arms control decisions. The estimates, which often left out important effects of nuclear detonations, sometimes conveyed the shifting “balance of strength” between the two superpowers. The magnitude of these numbers sometimes shocked US officials, who eventually sought options intended to make nuclear war less catastrophic.

While a considerable number of important estimates from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s have been declassified, government agencies have refused to declassify other fatality numbers, and estimates from the 1980s and beyond remain unavailable. With the war in Ukraine once again raising the prospect of a nuclear war, accurate estimates of such a war’s human impacts are more important than ever. But it is not even clear whether the US government continues to make such estimates.

Cold War calculations. Casualty estimates were part of the war planning effort from the beginning, a recognizable element of ascertaining the impact of nuclear strikes on a given country or set of targets. Estimates made during the late 1940s projected millions of deaths from atomic bombings. By the mid-1950s, with thermonuclear weapons becoming available, deaths in scores of millions became certain. These hydrogen bombs were “area weapons” that could destroy large cities and their surroundings, or large areas around military targets.

The work of the National Security Council’s highly secret Net Evaluation Subcommittee supported Beckler’s conclusions. As part of its effort to gauge the overall impact of nuclear strikes on each side, the subcommittee prepared casualty estimates. In its 1958 report, the subcommittee imagined a devastating Soviet attack in 1961 involving the detonation on the United States of 553 nuclear weapons with a total yield exceeding 2,000 megatons—more than 130,000 times as powerful as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, which had an estimated yield of 15 kilotons. An estimated 50 million Americans would die, with nine million sick or injured, out of a pre-attack population of 179 million. The US retaliatory attack would include every city in the “Sino-Soviet” bloc with a population of over 25,000. It would completely destroy “command facilities” in Moscow, Beijing, and Pyongyang and kill 71 million people at once; 30 days later, a total of 196 million people would be dead (out of a population of 952 million people in the bloc).

According to the report, the US counterattack “would virtually eliminate [the Soviet Union] as a world power.” As devastating as this picture was, the report nevertheless found that at the end of the nuclear exchange, “[t]he balance of strength would be on the side of the United States.” That confidence would erode as the Soviet Union’s capability to inflict deaths and destruction increased during the 1960s.

Military planning. Estimating of deaths and destruction went hand in hand with US nuclear planning. As the Cold War developed, and atomic weapons became a bigger part of the US arsenal, military planners and civilian authorities began preparing for the possibility of a confrontation. For that worst case, a failure of deterrence in which war was imminent and civilian authorities were ready to authorize nuclear weapons use, military officials developed plans to use these weapons—either in retaliation or preemptively—to destroy the adversary’s key military and industrial installations. In that context, Soviet nuclear weapons sites (delivery systems and stockpiles) became prime targets, as did civilian and military headquarters and key industrial facilities.

Beginning in the late 1940s and early 1950s, target planners developed methodologies to estimate requisite levels of destruction for targets. Usually, explosive blast effects were the chief metric for measuring destruction.

To obtain the desired outcome, target planners assigned warheads and delivery systems, and collaborated with military commanders to develop tactics for optimizing destruction. By 1960, war planning was centralized at the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff, located at the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command in Nebraska. The planning staff had responsibility for preparing the Single Integrated Operational Plan, the US warfighting strategy for the use of nuclear weapons.

A 1961 report by the Joint Chiefs of Staff exemplified the potentially catastrophic impacts of the operational plan’s targeting. The report included estimates of casualties associated with a military conflict over West Berlin. According to numbers drawn from the war plan, a full-force attack on the Soviet Union’s major cities, government control centers, and nuclear threat targets would kill some 50 percent of its total population—some 108 million out of its then-population of 217 million. If the smaller alert force (with bombers on 15-minute to two-hour alert) was used, total Soviet casualties would be 37 percent, or about 80 million.

The total estimated deaths, including Chinese, from a full-force attack, 212 million, were fewer than the estimate of 600 million that the Joint Chiefs provided to the Kennedy White House in 1961, as disclosed in jaw-dropping detail by Daniel Ellsberg. The revelation of these startling numbers was important, but the documentary record is elusive. (Significant Pentagon records from the early 1960s remain unprocessed at the National Archives, so the document may be found someday.)

Estimates of fatalities were also built into decision making on strategic and defensive force levels. For example, in 1962, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara explained to President Kennedy why he rejected Air Force proposals for a first-strike capability. McNamara observed that the latest estimates showed that in a projected 1968 nuclear conflict a strategic strike by the Air Force’s proposed force would leave 100 surviving Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles. If the Soviets targeted those missiles against US cities, “they could inflict roughly 50 million direct fatalities in the United States, even with fallout protection.” That was not an “‘acceptable’ level of damage.” Kennedy let McNamara’s recommendation stand.

McNamara and Kennedy during a 1962 meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council. Credit: Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs

Shifts in strategic balance. Over the years, fatality estimates reflected the changing strategic balance. During the 1950s and the early 1960s, estimated Soviet fatalities were proportionately higher than US fatalities. As Soviet strategic forces caught up in their lethality, however, estimated US fatalities markedly increased, and optimism about a “balance of strength” favoring a post-nuclear-war United States faded.

Exemplifying the catastrophic scale of destruction and the growing numbers of estimated US fatalities was a 1967 interagency report describing the comparative vulnerabilities of the United States and the Soviet Union. According to the report, in 1964 the Soviets could kill 48 million Americans in a preemptive attack; by 1968, with greater numbers of intercontinental ballistic missiles in place, they would be able to kill 91 million.

By contrast, Soviet fatalities remained relatively constant during the decade, because the United States already had large strategic forces by 1964. In a US retaliatory attack on Soviet cities in 1964, some 77 million would be killed, the report estimated. Under the same circumstances, 81 million would be killed in 1967.

A “political-psychological” burden. While all the estimates were conjectural, some admittedly were underestimates. The authors of a 1969 study prepared for strategic arms control talks estimated scores of millions of fatalities on both sides but acknowledged that they “underestimat[ed] the resulting fatalities.” They based their appraisals on fatalities caused by explosive blast damage and did not include impacts such as radiation and mass fires, which were certain to cause many more deaths.

When Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was briefed in 1955 on the destruction that thermonuclear weapons would inflict, he was initially incredulous. Dulles had to be re-briefed before he accepted the analysis.

The prospect that decisions to use nuclear weapons would cause tremendous death and ruin troubled US officials. As Deputy Secretary of State Elliot Richardson put it years later, there was a “political-psychological” issue: “the imbalance between [the] ability to inflict fatalities and [the] reluctance to accept or cause large numbers of deaths.” Well before then, US presidents and their advisers had become strongly averse to nuclear weapons use, with the “nuclear taboo” stigmatizing these weapons because of the terrible and disproportionate dangers that their combat use would cause.

Huge casualty estimates and the enormous scale of nuclear strikes influenced President Richard Nixon to seek alternatives to apocalyptic attacks, eventually leading to a 1974 directive calling for options to control escalation and limit the scope and intensity of destructiveness. During the following years, the Defense Department tried to break down the operational plan into smaller attack options (Major, Regional, and Selective) to give the president and command authorities less destructive and possibly more credible options. But into the 1980s the options developed by the planning staff continued to require large numbers of nuclear weapons, despite attempts by presidents to scale back the plans.

Presidents Carter and Reagan successively levied explicit requirements for reduced “collateral damage”—civilian casualties—in their targeting policy directives (Presidential Directive 59 and National Security Decision Directive 13, respectively). While target planners prepared still-classified studies on collateral damage, their impact is unknown. It was not until the late 1980s, when the Cold War was winding down, that the White House and Pentagon officials induced target planners to produce attack options that could reduce deaths and destruction. What planners actually did—for example, whether they adjusted target planning to reduce “collateral” damage to civilians—is highly secret. In any event, it’s unclear whether any estimates of casualties were produced.

A Presidential Review Memorandum issued during the Carter administration acknowledged that a major nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia would be so devastating that it could never have a “winner.” Source: Jimmy Carter Presidential Library

Secrets and risks. The horrifying scale of fatalities estimated during the 1950s through the 1970s were classified for years, only becoming available through archival releases during the 1990s and later. With rare exceptions, nuclear casualty estimates from the 1980s or later years are unavailable. Indeed, in some instances, the Defense Department has refused to declassify estimates in reports from the 1960s and 1970s.

While non-governmental organizations such as International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and Physicians for Social Responsibility have produced casualty estimates, the degree to which official projections continued into the post-Cold War period is unclear. In 2013, the Obama administration began to apply to nuclear targeting international rules of war presented in the 1977 Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, such as proportionality and civilian-military target distinctions. The adoption of those rules in 2013 may have led to estimates of fatalities under more restrictive targeting options, but that is also unclear.

The dangers of superpower war and nuclear confrontation declined when the Cold War ended, and both the United States and the former Soviet Union/Russia made significant cuts in their strategic forces. In recent years, with tensions increasing and the future of Ukraine and Taiwan in dispute, risks have risen again.

Adding to the danger is the Indo-Pakistan nuclear arms race. Both countries have engaged in risky confrontations with significant escalatory potential; the perils of a nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan are grave, and the overall impact would be disastrous. The recent catastrophic flooding of Pakistan, made all the worse by climate change, may influence that country’s security priorities.

The war against Ukraine presents a newer danger. It can only be hoped that the leaders of nuclear weapon states avoid steps that would make Cold War nuclear casualty estimates more than historical curiosities.

Correction: The Joint Chiefs’ 1961 estimate of total deaths—disclosed in Daniel Ellsberg’s 2017 book The Doomsday Machine—was roughly 600 million, not 275 million as originally published. The latter estimate did not include all deaths in China, the Soviet Union, and Soviet satellites.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

William Burr is a senior analyst at George Washington University’s National Security Archive, where he directs its Nuclear Documentation Project.  He is co-author, with Jeffrey Kimball, of Nixon’s Nuclear Specter: The Secret Alert of 1969, Madman Diplomacy, and the Vietnam War.

Featured image: Mass grave markers in Hiroshima, photographed by Lieutenant Wayne Miller in September 1945. (US Navy / National Archives)

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.

***

First published on January 25, 2023

Introduction

In the course of the last 11 months, I have been reviewing on a daily basis numerous carefully documented articles on the unfolding war in Ukraine,

The evolving consensus — after eleven months which emanates from the senior ranks of the US military and intelligence establishment — is that Ukraine “has lost the war”. 

What strikes me in this ingenuous assessment is something which should have been obvious to analysts from the very outset of Russia’s “Special Operation”. 

Ukraine Had Lost the War Before it Even Started

I will start with the obvious, much of which has been confirmed by official sources and analysis. 

From Day One, Russia was involved as part of it’s “Special Operation” in “precision” attacks against Ukrainian military installations, which commenced hours prior to President Putin’s February 24, TV address:  

“I am referring to the eastward expansion of NATO, which is moving its military infrastructure ever closer to the Russian border. It is a fact that over the past thirty years we have been patiently trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries …In response,  we invariably faced either cynical deception and lies or attempts at pressure and blackmail.”

From one week to the next, Ukraine was without a Navy and without an Air Force, destroyed at the outset in late February, early March 2022.

Part II of this article focusses in detail on another obvious concept, which has not been the object of media coverage or even analysis by the independent media:

Turkey, NATO’s heavyweight is “Sleeping with the Enemy”. It has a military cooperation agreement with Russia

What this means is that under present conditions a US-NATO war against Russia is an impossibility.

The Black Sea is strategic. While the Ukraine coastline is in large part controlled by Russia, Turkey controls the entire Southern coastline of the Black Sea as well as access to the Mediterranean. (under the Montreux protocol) (see map below)

Turkey is playing a double game, it is not acting on behalf of NATO in the war theater. It is “unofficially” collaborating with Russia. The March 2022 failed peace agreements in Istanbul were hosted by the Erdogan government. 

The Obvious: How Could Ukraine Win a War without an Air Force and a Navy? 

According to Russian Sources quoted by B. K, Bhadrakumar (March 25, 2022);

The Russian General Staff disclosed that Ukrainian air force and air defence is almost completely destroyed [March 2022], while the country’s Navy no longer exists and about 11.5% of the entire military personnel have been put out of action.

[Quoting Russian sources] Ukraine has lost much of its combat vehicles (tanks, armoured vehicles, etc.), one-third of its multiple launch rocket systems, and well over three-fourths of its missile air defence systems and Tochka-U tactical missile systems.

Sixteen main military airfields in Ukraine have been put out of action, 39 storage bases and arsenals destroyed (which contained up to 70% of all stocks of military equipment, materiel and fuel, and more than 1 million 54000 tons of ammunition.)

Ukraine had not only lost its naval power in the Black Sea, it had also lost its maritime access to the Sea of Azov and Eastern Ukraine.

That happened in February-March of  last year.

The Kerch strait in Eastern Crimea is controlled by Russia. It constitutes a narrow maritime gateway which links the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov.

All major ports on the Sea of Azov are currently under Russian control.

The Dnieper Seaway

The Delta of Ukraine’s major river-way the Dnieper is controlled by Russia, despite Russia’s withdrawal from Kherson.

The Dnieper is a strategic seaway extending from Belarus, Northern Ukraine and Kiev down to the Black Sea.

The Dnieper is a major corridor for Ukraine grain cargo transportation and maritime commodity trade out of the Black Sea, which is controlled by Russia in collaboration with Turkey. (on Turkey’s role, see Part II)

Part II of this article is entitled:

Unspoken Divisions within NATO. “Sleeping with the Enemy” 

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

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

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

The following article was first published by the Armed Forces Press on January 5, 2022

***

According to congressionally passed statutes, research of active laws, and extra details obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the Department of Defense owns, implements, and oversees the COVID-19 vaccine program as a “Countermeasure” to foreign attack. While the public was bombarded with an orchestrated fear campaign, the U.S. Government managed the Covid response as a national security threat.

The research and documents were obtained by a former executive of a pharmaceutical Contract Research Organization (CRO), Sasha Latypova, and intensive legal researcher Katherine Watt.

The Three-Legged Stool

The undercover operation was orchestrated utilizing three critical legal maneuvers:

1. Emergency Use Authorization EUA.

2. Prep Act,

3. Other Transactions Authority

President Trump declared a Public Health Emergency (PHE) on March 13, 2020, under the Stafford Act, putting the National Security Council in charge of the Covid policy.Covid-19 vaccines are “medical countermeasures” – a grey area of products that are not regulated as vaccines or medicines.

“They put the National Security Council in charge and treated it as an act of war,” said Latypova.

 According to Operation Warp Speed/ASPR reports, the DoD ordered, oversaw, and tightly managed the development, manufacture, and distribution of Covid countermeasures, mainly utilizing the DoD’s previously established network of military contractors and consortia.

Department of Defense, BARDA, and HHS ordered all Covid countermeasures, including “vaccines” as prototype demonstrations of large-scale manufacturing, avoiding regulations and transparency under Other Transaction Authority. As prototypes used under EUA during PHE, Covid countermeasures, including “vaccines,” need not comply with the U.S. laws for manufacturing quality, safety, and labeling.

“The implication is that the U.S. Government authorized and funded the deployment of noncompliant biological materials on Americans without clarifying their “prototype” legal status, making the materials not subject to normal regulatory oversight, all while maintaining a fraudulent pseudo- “regulatory” presentation to the public,” said Latypova.

“Most incredible is the fact that current Laws enacted by the United States Congress appear to make the coverup actions LEGAL!”

Under the PHE, medical countermeasures are not regulated or safeguarded as pharmaceutical products (21 USC 360bbb-3(k).

The American people were led to believe that the FDA, CDC, and figureheads like Anthony Fauci oversaw the COVID-19 vaccine program.

Their involvement was an orchestrated information operation. All decisions concerning the COVID-19 vaccine research, materials acquisition, distribution, and information sharing were tightly controlled by the DoD.

Hundreds of Covid countermeasures contracts have been uncovered. Many disclosures are in redacted form. However, Latypova and Watt have found sources to fill in the details.

A review of these contracts indicates a high degree of control by the U.S. Government (DoD/BARDA). It specifies the scope of deliverables as “demonstrations” and “prototypes” only while excluding clinical trials and manufacturing quality control from the scope of work paid for by the contracts. To ensure that the Pharma is free to conduct the fake clinical trials without financial risk, the contracts include the removal of all liability for the manufacturers and any contractors along the supply and distribution chain under the 2005 PREP Act and related federal legislation.

Why is no action by regulators or courts?

According to Latypova and Watt, a combination of recently passed legislation and executive orders make it LEGAL to LIE! The HHS Secretary is accountable to no one if the Health National Emergency continues to be extended by Congress every three months.

A significant information operation was set in motion the minute COVID-19 hit. The U.S. government, the intelligence community, the media, and Big Tech colluded to orchestrate and implement an intense pressure campaign designed to get the vaccine legally designated under the Emergency Use Authorization Act while vilifying dissenting doctors, critics, and viable alternative treatments. This designation allowed for speedy manufacturing devoid of the standard safety and public health protocols.

For a vaccine to receive designation under the EUA, there can be no other known treatments or cures. Therefore, many proven treatments such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine were blacklisted in the media and dismissed as “horse dewormers” when these cheap, readily available drugs were in the past heralded for their effectiveness.

Eminent COVID-treating doctors such as Peter M. McCullough and Pierre Kory have faced unprecedented attacks on their medical credentials.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from Armed Forces Press

Price: $11.50 Get yours for FREE! Click here to download.

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

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

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

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

First published by GR on January 27, 2022

***

Behind Washington’s desperate appeal for tanks and other lethal weaponry for Ukraine, looms the nagging prospect that Russia’s winter offensive may have already begun in the south where heavy fighting has broken out along the Line of Contact in the Zaporizhia region. While the information from the front remains sketchy, some analysts think that Russia is planning to send its troops and armored units northward in order to block vital supply-lines and trap Ukrainian forces in the east.

A Russian blitz northward would likely be synchronized with the movement of a second large grouping pushing south along the Oskil River. These two dagger-like thrusts would be accompanied by multiple missile strikes aimed at strategic bridges and railway-lines crossing the Dnieper River. If the Russians were able to succeed in such an operation, the bulk of Ukraine’s army would be effectively encircled in the east while Moscow would have regained control over most of its traditional territories. The offensive might not end the war, but it would end Ukraine’s existence as a viable, contiguous state. This is an excerpt from an article at Aljazeera:

Moscow’s forces are pushing towards two towns in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhia region, where fighting intensified this week after several months of a stagnant front… Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-installed official in the region, said offensive actions were concentrated around two towns: Orikhiv, around 50km (30 miles) south of Ukrainian-controlled regional capital Zaporizhzhia, and Hulyaipole, further east….

The Russian army later claimed for a second day in a row that it had taken “more advantageous lines and positions” after “offensive operations” in the Zaporizhia region…. In its daily report on Sunday,the Ukrainian army said “more than 15 settlements were affected by artillery fire” in Zaporizhia…. He also said this week that fighting has “sharply increased” in the southern region.” (“Russia advances towards two towns in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region”, AlJazeera)

Typically, I wouldn’t spend much time on a topic for which there is so little evidence and so much speculation. But people are following events very closely in Ukraine because they want to know what Putin plans to do with the 550,000 combat troops that are presently scattered across the theatre or gathered along the perimeter in Belarus. The assumption is that Putin will use these forces in a winter offensive that could dramatically impact the course of the war. I agree with that assumption, but I’m not entirely convinced that the fighting in the south proves that the offensive has already started. Even so, the buzz on the Telegram channels and Twitter is hard to ignore and could indicate that my skepticism is unwarranted. For example, here are a few blurbs from independent sites that suggest the offensive is already underway:

The Russian Army is still actively advancing in the #Zaporozhye direction, the front has been pressed to a depth of 7km. At the moment our advance in three directions on the #Orekhov section. On the west side there is fighting for #Novoandreyevka and #Shcherbaki, on the east for #Belogorye and Malaya Tokmachka, on the southeast there is fighting for #Novodanilovka, which is only 6.5 km from #Orekhov. A defensive breakthrough here will allow the RF Armed Forces to develop an offensive in several directions at once, literally cutting the AFU grouping into two parts. Telegram

Or this:

Zaporozhye update

The Russian army continues its offensive on the Zaporozhye Front

The troops of the Southern and Eastern military districts are conducting an offensive on a wide front – up to 60 km (in the Vasilyevsky and Pologovsky districts).
The advance of troops is slowed down due to many minefields.

Or this:

The offensive is going according to plan: close fights in several areas. Fortified positions and regions of the enemy are actively treated with bombs, mines, and howitzer shells; only then come armored vehicles with infantry.

According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Zaporozhye direction, the RF Armed Forces are hitting the Armed Forces of Ukraine with all types of weapons in areas of more than 25 settlements, including Olgovskoe, Gulyaipole, Volshebnoe, Novodanilovka, Kamenskoe and Plavni of the Zaporozhye region, Vremovka and Novopol DNR.

This is just a small sampling of the postings that have been flooding various sites for the last few days. A great number of the comments are from people who appear to have first-hand knowledge of events on the battlefield. I can’t speak for their accuracy, but the volume of reports (and their intensity) suggest that something out-of-the-ordinary is taking place.

There’s also a new post at Moon of Alabama in which Bernard states unequivocally that the offensive is already underway. Here’s what he said:

The long expected Russian offensive in Ukraine has begun….

I and others have suggested for quite some time that the Russian forces will use the southern Zaporizhia region for a large thrust into the far back of the Ukrainian forces around Bakhmut…

The Russian moves against the third and fourth Ukrainian defense lines will likely be supported by a move from the south that will liberate the rest of the Zaporiziha and Donetsk oblast…..

There is no Ukrainian artillery brigade in the sector. There are thereby no counter-artillery capabilities available…..The aim of the Russian thrust in the south will not be to take cities like Zaporiziha. The aim is to bring the main transport routes, railways and roads, from west-Ukraine to the front in east Ukraine under Russian artillery fire. This will prevent not only the re-supply for the Ukrainian troops on the eastern front but also their exit from the front line. A 100 kilometer (60 miles) thrust to the north would mostly do that. A complementary thrust from the north towards south, which may or may not be coming, would finally close the cauldron.” (“Ukraine – Russian Army Activates Southern Front”, Moon of Alabama)

Although I’m still not sure that the offensive has actually begun, I entirely agree with MoA that Russia’s plan will be some variation of the strategy he presents in his article. In fact, a similar strategy was laid out by military historian Big Serge in a recent Substack post titled “Russo-Ukrainian War: The World Blood Pump”. The two analysts appear to have drawn similar conclusions as to what we should expect in the weeks to come. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

At the moment, the majority of Russian combat power is uncommitted, and both western and Ukrainian sources are (belatedly) becoming increasingly alarmed about the prospect for a Russian offensive in the coming weeks. Currently, the entire Ukrainian position in the east is vulnerable because it is, in effect, an enormous salient, vulnerable to attack from three directions.

Two operational depth objectives in particular have the potential to shatter Ukrainian logistics and sustainment. These are, respectively, Izyum in the north and Pavlograd in the South. A Russian thrust down the west bank of the Oskil river towards Izyum would simultaneously threaten to cut off and destroy the Ukrainian grouping on the Svatove axis (S on the map) and sever the vital M03 highway from Kharkov. Reaching Pavlograd, on the other hand, would completely isolate the Ukrainian forces around Donetsk and sever much of Ukraine’s transit across the Dneiper.

Both Izyum and Pavlograd are roughly 70 miles from the start lines of a prospective Russian offensive, and thus offer a very tempting combination – being both operationally significant and in relatively manageable reach. Beginning yesterday, we started to see Russian advances on the Zaporozhia axis. While these consist, at the moment, mainly of reconnaissance in force pushing into the “grey zone” (that ambiguous interstitial frontage), RUMoD did claim several settlements taken, which could presage a genuine offensive push in this direction. The key tell would be a Russian assault on Orikhiv, which is a large town with a genuine Ukrainian garrison in it. A Russian attack here would indicate that something more than a probing attack is underway.

It is difficult sometimes to parse out the difference between what we predict will happen and what we want to happen. This, certainly, is what I would choose if I was in charge of Russian planning – a drive south along the west bank of the Oskil river on the Kupyansk-Izyum axis, and a simultanious attack northward past Zaporozhia towards Pavlograd. In this case, I believe simply screening Zaporozhia in the short term is preferable to getting bogged down in an urban battle there.

Whether Russia will actually attempt this, we do not know.Russian operational security is much better than either Ukraine’s or their proxy forces (Wagner and the LNR/DNR Milita), so we know significantly less about Russia’s deployments than we do about Ukraine’s. Regardless, we know that Russia enjoys a strong preponderance of combat power right know, and there are juicy operational targets within range.” (“Russo-Ukrainian War: The World Blood Pump“, Big Serge, Substack)

Not surprisingly, fighting has broken out around Orikhiv which Big Serge says “would indicate that something more than a probing attack is underway.” In other words, this could, in fact, be the opening phase of the winter offensive. And, if it is, then we should assume that there will be a shift away from the ‘positional battles of attrition’ we’ve seen up to this point. The Russia offensive will not face defensive lines of heavily fortified trenches that require weeks of softening with long-range artillery until armored units can be dispatched for mop-up operations. The Big Arrow moves that Serge anticipates suggests that we could see significant territorial gains in lightly-defended areas. That means that things will likely move much faster than they have in the last 11 months. It also means that Ukrainian forces in the Donbass will be effectively cut off from Kiev and left to fend for themselves. Naturally, the casualties are bound to be significant.

According to reports in the media, CIA Director William Burns secretly visited Kiev last week to warn Zelensky about the impending Russian offensive. Burns probably presented a scenario very similar to the strategy laid out by MoA and Big Serge. But whatever Burns may have said to Zelensky, it had no effect on the Ukrainian president at all. Zelensky has continued to send troops to the frontlines (Bakhmut) despite the hopelessness of the situation and despite the fact that the Ukrainian defensive positions are collapsing by the day. There’s no longer any doubt that Russian forces will eradicate pockets of resistance in the east or that the battered remnants of the Ukrainian army will be forced to retreat. It’s only a matter of time.

We’re not saying it’s all going to be “smooth sailing” for the Russians from this point on. No, there are going to be plenty of bumps in the road ahead. But given Russia’s superiority in manpower, firepower and industrial base, we think Russia will undoubtedly win this first phase of the war. The problem is that –even if the Russian army clears all the territory east of the Dnieper River and annexes it into the Russian Federation– that doesn’t mean the fighting will stop. It won’t stop. US-backed forces will continue to launch attacks from across the river, they’ll deploy commandos to strike behind Russian lines, they’ll train paramilitaries to ignite an insurgency, and they’ll fire missiles at Crimea, Russia and, perhaps, even Moscow itself.

Is Putin ready for that?

Washington is not going to throw in the towel because Russia won the first round in a 10-round fight. The United States is still fully committed to its plan to “weaken” Russia in order to become the dominant player in the world’s most promising market, Central Asia. In that regard, the fighting in Ukraine has not dampened Washington’s resolve at all, in fact, we think the conflict is feuling the widespread Russophobia and the relentless cries for revenge. How else do we explain the persistent escalation that has not yet sparked even a peep of public protest? And, keep in mind, the US has already blown up NordStream 2, pushed Europe into a severe Depression, sabotaged global supplylines for the foreseeable future, derailed the 40 year-long “globalization” project, and done everything in its power to goad China into a shooting war. What these incidents show is how much importance the US attaches to its priviledged role in the global order and the risks it is willing to take to preserve that role. In short, the United States will do ‘whatever it takes’ to maintain its iron-grip on power.

If I was Putin, I would prepare myself for a long and bloody struggle. Because that’s what he’s in for.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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

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

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

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

First published by Global Research on Jan 16, 2023

In April 1967,  Martin Luther King Jr. delivered an eloquent and stirring denunciation of the Vietnam war and US militarism. The speech titled “Beyond Vietnam” is relevant to today’s war in Ukraine. 

In the speech at Riverside Church, King talked about how the US had supported France in trying to re-colonize Vietnam. He noted, “Before the end of the war we were meeting 80% of the French war costs.”

Click here to access complete text and audio

When France began to despair in the war, “We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war.”

King went on to recall that after the French finally left Vietnam, the United States prevented the implementation of the Geneva Accord which would have allowed Ho Chi Minh to unite the divided country. Instead, the US supported its preferred South Vietnamese dictator.

The U.S. has played a similar role in blocking compromise solutions and international agreements to the Ukraine conflict.

Following Ukraine protests in February 2014, the European Union negotiated an agreement between President Yanukovich and the opposition to have early new elections. The attitude of lead US official Victoria Nuland was crystallized in her secretly recorded comment,  “F*** the EU!”  Despite the agreement, a violent bloody coup led by ultra-nationalist Ukrainians was “midwifed”.

The ultra-nationalist coup government immediately started implementing policies hostile to the Russian speaking citizens of Ukraine. The coup and the new policies provoked the conflicts and resistance which have led to the situation today. The coup and policies were abhorred by a majority of Ukrainians, especially in eastern Ukraine.  The Russian speaking Ukrainian citizens of Crimea voted overwhelmingly to secede from Ukraine and re-unify with Russia.

The Minsk Accords of 2014 and 2015 were intended to resolve the conflict by granting some autonomy to the the Russian speaking sections in the eastern Donbass but keeping them within Ukraine.  Thanks to the admissions of two prominent former European leaders, Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande, we know that the West and their Ukrainian government puppet never intended to implement the Minsk Agreement.

Like the 1954 Geneva Accords regarding Vietnam, the 2014 and 2015 Minsk Agreements on Ukraine were never implemented because Washington did not want a compromise.

When Ukraine President Zelensky had negotiations with Russians in Turkey at the end of March 2022, UK PM Boris Johnson hurried to Kyiv to dissuade Zelensky from continuing serious negotiations to end the war.

Similarly, the US is providing the big majority of  weapons, military supplies and financial aid to Ukraine just as they did to France and then the puppet government of South Vietnam. And similarly the US and allies do not want a resolution to the conflict which might in any way be seen as win for Russia.

Rationalization vs Reality of  Wars in Vietnam and Ukraine

In April 1965, U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) explained why he was escalating US involvement in Vietnam. With an Orwellian touch, he titled the speech “Peace without Conquest” as he announced the beginning of US air attacks on Vietnam.  He explained that

“We must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny and only in such a world will our own freedom be secure… we have made a national pledge to help South Vietnam defend its independence and I intend to keep that promise. To dishonor that pledge, to abandon the small and brave nation to its enemies and the terror must follow would be an unforgivable wrong…We are also there to strengthen world order… To leave Vietnam to its fate would shake the confidence of all these people in the value of an American commitment and in the value of America’s words.”

Click Link to access video and audio of LBJ’s John Hopkins Speech

President Biden and administration leaders  sound similar to LBJ  in the early stage of the Vietnam War. In his remarks to Congress asking for additional funding for Ukraine, Biden said,

“We need this bill to support Ukraine in its fight for freedom…. The cost of this fight is not cheap, but caving to aggression is going to be more costly if we allow it to happen…Investing in Ukraine’s freedom and security is a small price to pay to punish Russian aggression, to lessen the risk of future conflicts.”

Both Russia and the US now acknowledge that the conflict in Ukraine is between Russia and NATO (led the US). Ukraine is a proxy for the US which promoted the 2014 coup and has been pumping weapons into Ukraine ever since. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has been explicit: “We want to see Russia weakened.” The Ukrainian Defense Chief says they are fighting “to fulfill NATO’s mission.”

These wars are unnecessary

Just as the US could have lived with Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh leadership without the war, the US could live with Ukraine being a neutral country and bridge between east and west, Russia and western Europe.

However, as ML King observed 54 years ago, that was not (and still is not)  US policy.

“The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit.” He went on to name many other countries which are victims of  US intervention and aggression. He said, “And if we ignore this sobering reality we will find ourselves … marching …and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy. Such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam…”

Incrementally Increasing Conflict toward Total War

In 1965, when President Johnson announced the beginning of US air attacks on Vietnam, the war had been going on for many years.  The US kept incrementally increasing its commitment – from political support to advisors and trainers and special operations. In spring 1965 “only” about 400 US soldiers had died in the conflict. The war was not yet  widely unpopular. Americans who protested against the Vietnam War were a small minority.

We may be at a similar or earlier point in the conflict with Russia via Ukraine. While many tens of BILLIONS of dollars has been committed to Ukraine, plus advisors, trainers and other support, the US military has not yet been openly and actively deployed.

The incremental buildup in Vietnam ultimately led to over 58,000 Americans and three million Vietnamese civilians and soldiers being killed.  US prestige and influence was severely damaged.

Martin Luther King Jr said in his 1967 speech [exactly two years after LBG hi,

“We have no honorable intentions in Vietnam …. The world demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people.”

If the incremental buildup toward war with Russia is not stopped, it will be immeasurably worse than Vietnam. Already we are seeing tremendous destruction with Ukrainians and Russians dying by the thousands.  As with Vietnam in 1965, this could be just the beginning.

The costs of war and militarism

Dr King described the negative impact of the Vietnam war at home. He said

“A few years ago there was a shining moment …. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white, through the Poverty Program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the build-up in Vietnam and I watched this program broken and eviscerated … I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.”

Today, with nearly 60% of the federal discretionary budget going to the military, so called intelligence and nuclear weapon modernization, the situation is even more stark.  While US infrastructure corrodes, homelessness, personal debt, suicides and addictions increase. Instead of spending resources improving the lives of ordinary people, the government is pouring borrowed billions into another unnecessary war.

Western Media Distortions

Western media portrayed  the US and South Vietnam winning the war in South East Asia until the 1968 Tet offensive exposed the lies and reality. Similarly,  western media portrays Ukrainians winning the war midst overwhelming Ukrainian public support. In reality, Russia and the  secessionist areas control large areas and will advance in the near future. Ukrainian losses are already huge.

The idea that all Ukrainians love the West and hate Russia is false. As an indication of the  mixed sentiments, the country having received the MOST emigrants from Ukraine is Russia. While a small number continue from Russia to west European countries, the big majority stay in Russia with many awaiting the end of warfare.

Just as South Vietnamese puppet leaders were built up the US for political reasons, so is Ukrainian President Zelensky. His speeches are written by Washington insiders. Largely censored from the media, Zelensky has overseen the imprisonment, torture and killing of opponents. The largest opposition party has been banned.  Many Ukrainians oppose his policy and continuation of the war.

Ukrainians have become cannon fodder for the US geopolitical goals, just as the South Vietnamese were.

Will the US and allies continue to escalate the conflict in Ukraine, to “double down” on an intervention half way around the world with the goal of hurting Russia? Have we learned nothing from Vietnam and subsequent US/Western foreign policy disasters of the past 40 years?

ML King’s Hopes and Death

In his profound speech, Dr King said:

“We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values…When machines and computer, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered… A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death …..The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just… Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out in a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism and militarism.”

Exactly one year after delivering the speech at Riverside Church, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated. 

The Vietnam war continued for another seven years until the Vietnamese finally defeated and expelled the US military and their puppets. The disaster of the Vietnam War will be small compared to the disaster which may befall us all if US policy of attacking Russia through Ukraine is not stopped.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Rick Sterling is an independent journalist based in the SF Bay Area. He can contacted at [email protected]. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: U.S. tanks use flamethrowers in a field during the Vietnam War in 1970. /CFP

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

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

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

CGTN Question: China’s economic performance during the past three years. Why did China outperform major economies including the US and EU?

Peter Koenig: China has entered new partnerships with the BRICS+, as well as a new strong alliance between China, Russia and Iran, as Iran has become a full-fledged member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization – SCO.

China has already 2 years ago “discounted” trade and investments with the west, notably with the US and Europe, and instead concentrated on the ASEAN countries.

In fact, the Chinese initiated the world’s largest trade agreement, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Agreement – ASEAN+plus 5 (Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea) – entered into force on 1 January 2022.

While the RCEP impact on China’s economy may at this point be modest – the future looks extremely good, not only because of a new closer political alliance within the East, but also because it develops trade with China and with and among the RCEP member countries themselves.

Already today China’s trade with the various Eastern Associations has become more important than – and outranked – trade and investment exchange with the “West” – EU and US.

Just before the end of 2022, the special Russia-China strategic partnership, has been enforced by a virtual meeting between Presidents Putin and Xi – strengthening their politico-economic relationship for the future. They projected trade between the two countries to reach some 200 billion dollars equivalent by 2024.

And trade, which means economic growth, has already been enhanced during 2022, as the two countries are massively dedollarizing their economies, and dealing with local currencies, especially the Yuan.

The Yuan will in the future gain in importance due to China’s deal with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – 6 member countries, led by Saudi Arabia. Perhaps, a new “OPEC” is dawning – an eastern oriented hydrocarbon exchange. It may lead to a universal Petro-Yuan.

And finally – the Belt and Road – the BRI – has made a new start, as it is celebrating its 10^th Anniversary this year. Its expansion and new orientation on trade and joint infrastructure, production and investment projects, had already started in 2021/22 – especially with Russia, India and Iran, and in the future direction will include the revived BRICS+….

The BRI will also be an important driver for China’s future economic development – including that of countries that join the BRI, and more in general – countries that join eastern alliances and aim at new associations within a natural Continent – EURASIA – connecting people and countries in peace.

CGTN: How did China escape the global inflation in 2022?

PK: China had a “normal“ economy, over the past few years ever more detached from the western economy. For good reasons – sanctions, China bashing and so on…

Western inflation was manufactured, by the EU Central Bank (ECB) and country central banks, as one of the means to destroy the western economy, especially the European economy – along with artificial energy shortages, and related food shortages – all blamed on Russia’s war with Ukraine.

The purpose being creating poverty, bankruptcies, shifting assets from the bottom and the middle to the top, to the billionaire oligarchy – creating poverty, famine – total destitution and finally death.

Many people in Europe, maybe up to 20% will have to choose between buying food or heating their apartment this winter. Many may lose their living quarters, because they can no longer pay their rent…it’s a way of depopulation – it’s part of the UN Agenda 2030, and the WEF’s Great Reset ….

To answer your question, that’s why China had no inflation, because China has another agenda for her peoples’ development.

CGTN: Decoding latest sets of economic data (up till Nov 2022), what do they tell us?

PK: Well, the reason might be that China’s economy performed so much better than the west projected, despite covid restrictions. And better than western economies.

Some of western countries attempted to restart their economies and relied on trade with China. This is of course never mentioned in the western mainstream media.

What also helped – maybe indirectly – and with a look into the future, the US$ 18 billion equivalent of contracts that German Chancellor Scholz took home from his recent short trip to China.

As a result of this much better-than-expected Chinese performance, the IMF “upgraded” China’s economic growth forecast for 2023, from 4.8% to 5.2%.

In my opinion, that is still an underestimation, given the new alliances and trading and investment potential that China is pursuing with the expanded SCO, with the BRICS-plus and with the new larger alliance – the three letters of the BRICS – Russia – India China – plus Iran.

And of course, with the new Turbo BRI.

CGTN: What had been the major drivers of growth in the past three years?

PK: The short answer – the BRI – which in the future will be revamped into a BRI-plus – as it will focus more on the new and enhanced alliances – Russia, China – and BRICS+.

Also the reorientation away from western markets, towards ASEAN countries, and importantly, China’s “inside look” – concentrating on developing the lesser developed internal and north-western regions.

You may call them investments in internal “equilibrium” – which in themselves will yield economic returns to the nation.

China’s economy, especially the western Provinces, have benefitted from state-sponsored “structural adjustments” at favorable terms, easing infrastructure and industrial development and growth.

CGTN: Debate on Western observations. COVID impact on short term economic activities?

PK: In brief – devastating in Europe and the US; bankruptcies abound, skyrocketing unemployment, rapidly rising poverty – while China’s economy still grew with internal mechanisms of selective structural adjustments, helped ease the covid impact, and at the same time bringing more equilibrium between highly developed Eastern China and middle and western China.

CGTN: Outlook for consumption recovery?

PK: Depends on whether Europe will continue to pursue the UN Agenda 2030 / Great Reset, or whether the European people will come to their senses and reject such nefariously destructive policies.

Both Agenda 2030 / Great Reset are determined to crash the western, foremost the European economy.

The socioeconomic policies of Europe – and partly the US – today look like a suicide pact, both for the economy and the people. An instrument to get there is Russia sanctioning, banning Russia’s gas and oil, creating an artificial energy shortage and blaming Russia for it.

Why the planned destruction? – Because this is the way a Globalist One World Order can be forged, not with two major blocks of functioning economies, the US and the European Union.

In China, consumption is up and running again – soon reaching pre-covid levels.

As far as I can see, China is not following the destructive path of the UN Agenda 2030 which appears to me like the pursuit of a weird and deadly Cult.

CGTN: Housing market named a key driver of recovery in economic conference, will the sector rebound in 2023? What will it mean for consumption?

PK: In Europe, people are very insecure about the economy, especially their own place or home, in an insecure economy. This means, they are hesitant making big investments, and especially debt which in the west is intimately related to housing.

What will happen in the near future, will depend on EU policies – will they detach from the US Hegemon’s dictate?

My vision is that 2023 will be a year of transition, where the people in the west will take back their lives, away from what has become a tyrannical all-controlling governing style.

If We – the People, succeed, there will be a rebound of housing and consumption – of everything.

If not – I don’t even want to think of it.

CGTN: Is export greatly challenged amid a global recession? Is it fair to call the Chinese economy an export-and-investment-driven economy?

PK: Yes, exports are naturally challenged in a recession economy, as consumption is challenged.

The thing is, the western recession is not necessarily a “global” recession.

Much of Asia, especially China and Russia are not in a recession.

The Chinese economy is much more versatile than “export and investment-driven”. Suffice to look at the new initiatives, like the visit by President Xi to Saudi Arabia – the new hydrocarbon deals in Yuan – with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

The ramification of this new relationship is poised to become a generator of a new dimension – a shift from the falling powers of the west to a new growing and more equal and more peaceful – and, thus, more sustainable world economy.

Far from just an export and investment economy – China is already the driver of a new economic concept, based on peace, harmony and stability – back to the true meaning of “trade” which in ancient times had been described as win-win, meaning both parties benefit from it.

This concept is foreign to the west, also the long-term economic concept of “comparative advantage” has largely disappeared from western thinking, let alone from western vocabularies.

These are reasons contributing to the western demise and the unstoppable shift from western power based on conflict, to eastern power based on peace and harmonious cooperation.

CGTN: How will aging affect China’s growth? What are the compensating factors?

PK: In China, as in many eastern cultures, age is considered also wisdom – thus, older people keep an important role in society – as with sharing their experience converting it to advice for younger generations.

Older people’s lesser physical productivity, may be at least partially compensated by ever-updated new technologies.

In short, aging in China may have none, or a much lesser negative impact on the economy.

Whereas in the west, aging may impact societal well-being, because older people are often discriminated and separated from the “working society” – that has a psychological and social cost – and eventually, it also impacts on the welfare system.

CGTN: China’s interaction with global economy. What does China easing COVID policies mean for the world?

PK: It could be very positive, and it will be positive for part of the global economy, namely for the Asian and the Global South socioeconomy.

As to western economy, the west has no shortfall of stalling China – now with travel restrictions, and soon with new sanctions – probably linked to Taiwan…

The west has still not understood that they cannot, never, curtail, control or limit China’s growth, with her 5000 years of history.

It eclipses all of the Global North.

CGTN: Outlook for 2023 growth?

PK: The Outlook for growth in China is good – as mentioned before – the BRI – new and strengthened strategic relations with Russia, and new enhanced association with India and Iran, as well as the BRICS+.

As mentioned before, the IMF forecasts an upward adjusted growth of 5.2%.

CGTN: Does the PBOC (China’s Central Bank) has enough room for policy adjustments and why?

PK: At first sight I would say yes – but cannot substantiate it, other than “structural adjustments” with Chinese characteristics – is a good instrument, as proven in the past.

CGTN: With innovative developments and technological progress, is China becoming a big contributor for a cleaner global economy?

PK: Definitely. As compared with western large powers, like the US and the EU, China is already today contributing more to a cleaner environment. Also, research into alternative sources of energy, are taken seriously in China – less so in the west – and therefore in China they are already much more advanced than in the west.

The west has been captured by a neo-liberal Green Agenda – many have not even noticed it. What used to be a center-left agenda, has become an outright fascist party concept.

The “Green Agenda” in the west is everything else than green and clean. It is a way of oppressing people’s freedom, through new lockdowns and life-restrictions, rather than seeking cooperation in reducing pollution and all levels.

In fact, CO2 is not a pollutant; it’s a vital gas for all life. Without ti, there would be no life on earth.

CGTN: How did the structural adjustments in the last 10 years in China have paved way for a new round of growth?

PK: Structural adjustment – Chinese style – and adapted to local circumstances, has helped shape investment strategies for the interior and western China – thus contributing to people’s well-being, reduction of migration and a better equilibrium with the highly developed eastern China.

CGTN: How will walking out of the pandemic shadow help to accelerate China’s involvement in global economic activities, such as the BRI?

PK: The Chinese easing on covid restrictions is certainly a driver for more connectivity with the “global” economy. Wat will however be the main driver is the “new” BRI.

The re-orientation of the Belt and Road to new or enhanced alliances, like Russia-China, and China-India-Iran — BRICS-plus and SCO — and so on, will be also a potential driver for associated countries’ economies.

This for now will be most visible in Asia, and in a larger sense, EURASIA – with the Middle East, especially the new GCC alliance.

It may be wise to limit the term “global” to Asia, and Asian / Eurasian associations. Unfortunately, the west, as of now, is not trustworthy – and is on a destructive and hostile drive.

CGTN: Uncertainties for China’s growth in 2023?

PK: Considering all the foregoing – especially BRI – my short answer is NO.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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 is a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

Featured image is from Silent Crow News

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

First published by Global Research on November 9, 2022

***

Way back in 2017 I created a country-by-country guide to the biometric ID control grid that was coming into view even then. In that editorial I noted that “it doesn’t take a Nostradamus to understand where this is all heading: From the cashless society and the biometric ID grid to the cashless biometric grid.”

Well, here we are. It’s 2022 and the merger of the cashless society and the biometric ID grid is nearing completion. In fact, the current iteration of this control grid agenda is even worse than predicted. Now known as Central Bank Digital Currency, or CBDC, this programmable digital money offers the banksters numerous options, including the ability to combine the cashless society with the biometric ID grid and even a social credit system. If and when CBDCs replace other payment methods, the banksters’ control over society will be unprecedented.

But however closely you might be following the drive toward the CBDC dystopia, you might be missing the forest for the trees. Although each country’s central bankers talk as if they have come up with the idea for a digital currency all by themselves and that there is no international coordination behind the CBDC agenda, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, as a recent Bank for International Settlements report indicates, 90% of central banks around the world are currently studying the feasibility of issuing their own CBDC.

In the past, I have warned about the coming CBDC nightmare and talked about the numerous ways we can start taking the monetary power back into our own hands.

Today, I am going to drive home the point that the coming CBDC prison is truly global in nature by demonstrating that it is not just being put into place in one or two totalitarian countries, but nearly every country in the world.

Only when we recognize how dire the situation is can we hope to motivate communities to implement the survival currencies that will see us through the controlled demolition of the existing monetary order.

Australia

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has been exploring the possibility of an Australian Central Bank Digital Currency since at least 2019, when its “Innovation Lab” drafted a Submission to the Senate Select Committee on Financial Technology and Regulatory Technology, which states that “the Bank is conducting research on the technological and policy implications of a wholesale CBDC.”

It made good on this threat in November 2020 with the announcement of a partnership between the RBA and Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank, Perpetual, and ConsenSys Software to “explore the potential use and implications of a wholesale form of central bank digital currency.” Philip Lowe, governor of the RBA, has publicly expressed skepticism about the need to implement a retail CBDC in Australia, but the door is still open to the possibility.

The Bahamas

The Bahamas became the unlikely location of the world’s first nationwide CBDC when they launched the “Sand Dollar” back in October 2020. The island archipelago—with one of the highest per capita incomes in the Americas and a 90% mobile device penetration rate—was viewed as an ideal laboratory for the CBDC experiment by central bankers and hyped as a harbinger of a “new world economy” by the global financial press. . . .

But the banksters have not been thrilled with the results so far. The IMF told the Central Bank of The Bahamas earlier this week that it needs to “accelerate its education campaigns and continue strengthening internal capacity and oversight” of the currency.

Brazil

Roberto Campos Neto, president of the Central Bank of Brazil, confirmed last month that the bank will be running a pilot test of its CBDC, the digital real, before the end of the year. “This is a way to create currency digitization without creating a break in bank balance sheets. This project should have some kind of pilot in the second half of the year,” Neto said at the press conference announcing the pilot’s launch.

Canada

This past March, the Bank of Canada (BoC) announced that it had partnered with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to “collaborate on a twelve-month research project on Central Bank Digital Currency.” The project—which the BoC describes as “part of the Bank’s wider research and development agenda on digital currencies and fintech”—will “explore how advanced technologies could affect the potential design of a CBDC.” This will in turn “help inform the Bank of Canada’s research effort into CBDC.”

Chile

Chile’s central bank issued a report this week on its plans for a future Chilean digital currency. Spouting the usual bankster platitudes about how a CBDC “would contribute to achieving a competitive, innovative and integrated payment system that is inclusive, resilient and protects people’s information,” the review ultimately concludes that “a deeper analysis of the benefits and risks” is in order, and promises (or threatens, depending on your perspective) to issue a new report on the subject toward the end of the year.

In the meantime, the Chilean Central Bank governor, Rosanna Costa, has said that Chile’s CBDC “should operate both online and offline” and that it should “allow the authorities to trace the transaction afterwards” while paradoxically “safeguarding personal data.”

China

The digital yuan (as readers of this column will already know) has been in the works for at least five years. It is no surprise, then, that China’s CBDC—already operational in various trials—is seen as one of the most developed CBDC projects in the world and is held up by various Western countries as the bogeyman justifying their own CBDC experimentation (“We can’t let the ChiComs beat us to the punch!”).

As you may or may know (depending how closely you’re tuned in to CBDCInsider and other such sources of info), the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) did a “test rollout” of the currency at the Beijing Olympics this year, offering athletes, attendees and press the chance to use the new CBDC at the Games. That test was deemed a success, with the PBoC later declaring that the digital yuan was used to make 2 million yuan ($315,000) of payments per day during the event.

Now, in the latest move toward full implementation of the Chinese CBDC, three cities across China have declared they will accept the digital yuan for tax payments.

European Union

The EU is currently conducting “in-house experiments” for a digital euro and expects to start working on a prototype next year. As part of its ongoing “research” process, the European Central Bank released a working paper this past week on “The digital economy, privacy, and CBDC.” The paper suggests that a digital euro could strike a happy balance between “inefficient” offline cash transactions that preserve anonymity and “efficient” online bank deposit transactions that do not preserve anonymity.

The best kind of digital currency, the report concludes, is a “CBDC with data-sharing,” a conclusion they arrive at by redefining privacy: “Privacy is not the opposite of sharing—rather it is control over sharing.” Actual Europeans are not buying this self-serving twaddle, but the ECB, unsurprisingly, seems not to be listening to them.

Ghana

The Bank of Ghana was one of the first African countries to announce that it was developing a digital currency. And now, with the release of a design paper for the eCedi—its retail token-based CBDC—it is one step closer to implementing that vision. The bank is currently soliciting feedback on the proposal from the public.

Hong Kong

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has released a number of studies, white papers, proposals and discussion papers surrounding the topic of CBDCs over the past few years, from the 2019 announcement of Project LionRock-Inthanon (a joint project with the Bank of Thailand to study the application of CBDC to cross-border payments) to last month’s “Discussion paper on e-HKD from policy and design perspective.”

This paper invites “views from the public and the industry on key policy and design issues for introducing retail central bank digital currency,” leaving little doubt that the introduction of a digital Hong Kong Dollar is now all-but-inevitable.

Read: Biden is handing over American sovereignty with proposed World Health Organization treaty

India

Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made waves earlier this year by announcing that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) would launch a CBDC sometime in the next fiscal year. Lest there be any doubt about the Indian government’s intention to make good on its digital currency threat, Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar asserted in March that the digital rupee is a “natural progression” of the digital payment ecosystem.

But for those worried about what life in the coming digital dystopia will be like, relax! RBI Deputy Governor T. Rabi Sankar says the bank “will probably go in for a very careful and calibrated, nuanced manner” as it springs its CBDC trap on the Indian public.

Iran

There’s an old canard in conspiracy realist circles that there are only three (?) central banks on the planet that aren’t owned by the Rothschilds. The exact list of these supposedly independent central banks varies in the telling, but Iran is usually included among them. Well, guess what? The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) is all on board with the CBDC revolution!

This past January, Abutaleb Najafi—the head of CBI’s information services company—revealed that, after two years of “continuous work” on the platform, “the infrastructure needed for CBI’s cryptocurrency and now its pilot version is ready.”

Details on the pilot test of the Iranian CBDC are scarce, but Najafi has confirmed that both state-run and private banks in the country will allow customers to open digital wallets for the currency during the trial.

Israel

Generally speaking, central banks are finding CBDCs to be a public relations disaster. In every country they hold “public consultations” about a central bank digital currency and solicit comments from the citizens, but find the overwhelming majority of those responses are negative. As it turns out, people are wary of a government-issued programmable money that could be used to completely exclude them from the financial system itself if they dare engage in activities the government disapproves of.

The Bank of Israel (BoI) has decided to do an end run around this problem by simply declaring (without showing proof) that it has “received public support for its plans to possibly issue a digital shekel on grounds it would help the economy by supporting innovation in the payments system, reducing the amount of cash and bolstering the fintech sector.”

Yes, the banksters actually want you to believe that the majority of Israelis support the idea of a digital shekel because it will reduce the amount of cash. Riiiiiiight. Don’t worry, though. The BoI says it “has still not made a final decision on whether it will issue a digital shekel” even though “all of the responses to the public consultation indicate support for continued research.” Riiiiiiight.

Japan

In March, Bank of Japan (BoJ) Governor Haruhiko Kuroda declared that the BoJ has no plan to issue a digital currency as of yet but that it “will prepare ‘thoroughly’ to respond to changing circumstances that could require it to do so in future.” Last month, BoJ Executive Director Shinichi Uchida clarified that the bank would not introduce a digital yen as a means of achieving negative interest rates, as some have warned.

In a sign that plans for a Japanese CBDC may be further along than publicly acknowledged, however, Kuroda took a moment from fearmongering about decentralized digital assets to state that a CBDC “could be an option to secure a seamless and safe [payment and settlement] infrastructure in Japan.”

Namibia

The Bank of Namibia revealed its plans last month to launch a CBDC. “We cannot ignore CBDC, it is a reality out there and for that reason, the Bank of Namibia has started researching CBDCs and they very soon will go out with consultations,” the Bank of Namibia Governor Johannes Gawaxab said at a press conference announcing the move, adding that a consultation paper on the plan is nearing completion.

Nigeria

As discussed on a recent edition of New World Next Week, Nigeria is one of only two countries in the world with an official, nationwide CBDC (the other being The Bahamas, mentioned above). The eNaira is a stablecoin minted by the Central Bank of Nigeria, making it a true digital version of the fiat currency.

This CBDC has already been declared a success by the bankster class, with the IMF predicting that the eNaira will be adopted by 90 percent of Nigeria’s population. An upgraded eNaira wallet app will be available this coming week that will allow Nigerians to “do transactions such as paying for DSTV or electric bills or even paying for flight tickets.”

Russia

For those who still believe that Vladimir “Get the Vaxx” Putin (and his pals at the WHO) are somehow against the New World Order despite being demonstrably on board with every part of the technocratic agenda, here’s another dose of reality: the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) has been working on its own CBDC project for years.

Last year, the CBR announced the creation of a “pilot group” of 12 banks that will test a version of the digital ruble later this year. According to statements from CBR representatives, citizens will be able to use the CBDC “for purchases, transfers to individuals, firms and the state, tax payments, conversions to foreign currencies in e-wallets and as a store of value.”

Rwanda

Rwanda hopped aboard the CBDC bandwagon last June, with John Karamuka, the Director of Payment Systems at the National Bank of Rwanda, telling The New Times that the central bank was “studying the possibilities of issuing its own Central Bank Digital Currency in response to global trends in digital currency.”

Earlier this year, central bank Deputy Governor Soraya Hakuziyaremye confirmed that the bank was still in the investigation phase and that it will reveal its stance on implementing a CBDC by the end of December 2022.

Saudi Arabia

In 2019 Saudi central bank (the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority, or SAMA) announced Project Aber, a partnership with the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates, to determine whether a new, dual-issued digital currency could be used as a unit of settlement between the two countries.

The final report of that project was released one year later, concluding that “a cross-border dual issued currency was technically viable and that it was possible to design a distributed payment system that offers the two countries significant improvement over centralized payment systems in terms of architectural resilience.”

This led to an admission last October by a SAMA official that the central bank is now actively exploring CBDC as a means to digitize payments, with an ambitious target of having 70% of all payments in the country being conducted digitally by 2030.

South Africa

The country’s central bank, the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), revealed in May 2021 that it had commenced a feasibility study for a general-purpose retail central bank digital currency. Earlier this year, it announced that it had completed the second phase of a separate trial, known as Project Khokha 2, focusing on the creation of a wholesale central bank digital currency.

Its project report on the trial concluded that the trial was successful and that the next steps should include further testing and collaboration with other countries on the development of a cross-border digital currency.

To that end, the bank announced in September 2021 that it signed up to a pilot program to develop a shared platform to enable cross-border digital currency transactions with Malaysia, Australia and Singapore.

READ: Trudeau is turning Canada into the world’s most comfortable prison state

South Korea

The Bank of Korea (BoK) launched a “forward-thinking” digital currency pilot program in August 2021 with the aim of exploring the feasibility of a retail CBDC. Selecting Ground X—the blockchain subsidiary of Kakao, Korea’s largest social network—as its blockchain simulation provider and partnering with Samsung to research cross-border payments to other mobile phones or connected bank accounts, the BoK has reportedly invested 5 billion won in the project. Phase 2 of the trial, testing “payments using CBDC, remittances between countries, and applications of privacy technologies,” is slated to wrap up this June.

Switzerland

In December 2020 the Bank for International Settlements launched Project Helvetia, a “proof-of-concept experiment to integrate tokenised digital assets and central bank money” in conjunction with the Swiss National Bank (SNB). In January of this year, the SNB revealed the results of that experiment: Project Helvetia “has successfully used central bank digital currencies to settle transactions with five different commercial banks.”

The results of the test, we are told, will allow the bank to proceed with some of the most advanced CBDC testing in Europe and “could pave the way for the implementation of a digital currency in Switzerland.”

Ukraine

Remember Bitt, the Barbadian fintech firm that helped to develop the eNaira for Nigeria? Well, guess what Bitt’s working on now? An electronic hryvnia for Ukraine. That’s right, the Ukrainian government paved the way for a CBDC last year by announcing a test pilot of the digital currency, which was slated to begin this year.

No word yet on how Russia’s ongoing “special operations” in the country have affected that plan, but so far there has been no formal announcement that the CBDC idea has been scrapped.

United Kingdom

The Bank of England (BoE) has been looking into the possibility of creating a digital currency in the UK since at least 2015. They are still officially in the “research” phase, with the bank releasing “Responses to the Bank of England’s March 2020 Discussion Paper on CBDC” in June 2021. In November 2021, the BoE released a statement that it will “launch a consultation which will set out their assessment of the case for a UK CBDC” sometime in 2022.

United States

As you may have heard by now, the Biden White House issued an Executive Order on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets this past March. Although the order generated a lot of stories about how the administration was clearing the way for the possible introduction of a digital dollar, it should be noted that the Federal Reserve has been actively exploring the concept for some time now; the “go ahead” from Biden was more window dressing than substantial policy shift.

Specifically, the Boston Fed has been collaborating with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Project Hamilton—a “multiyear research project to explore the CBDC design space and gain a hands-on understanding of a CBDC’s technical challenges and opportunities”—since the summer of 2020.

The first fruit of that collaboration—a report on Phase 1 of the project—was released earlier this year, resulting in new “learnings” about the best way to design a CBDC and clearing the way for Phase 2, which, we are told, “will explore new functionality and alternative technical designs.”

Venezuela

Although The Bahamas and Nigeria are now touted as the first countries to have a national CBDC in place, Corbett Reporteers will remember that Venezuela launched its own “cryptocurrency” in 2018.

Of course, as I pointed out at the time, it isn’t really a cryptocurrency; it’s a Central Bank Digital Currency. It’s completely centralized, it’s closed source and there’s only one government-run block explorer and one government-issued official wallet. You might also recall that, in a remarkable coincidence, Venezuela introduced its social credit ID card—the “fatherland card”—later that same year.

Well, in case you were wondering, Venezuelans are continuing to be pushed off the digital cliff into technocratic tyranny. Just this past March, President Maduro announced that the country’s minimum wage would now be pegged to the digital currency.

Day Two of Commie Balloon Madness. The primary feature here is an inflow of “public servant” careerists clogging the interwebs with condemnation of something they hardly understand.

In Neocon slash Neolib Bizarro World, a helium bag the length of three school buses with an unknown payload and solar panels attached has become a declaration of war for the uniparty political class. Consider the former vice president under Orange Man:

.

.

I posted yesterday on the infeasibility of this.

Reality, however, is not a strong suit for “representatives” jockeying for attention, as power-hungry narcissists are wont to do.

Here we have a former CIA boss and a former ambassador to the United Nations venting spleen over them damn Chicoms. Note the stern visage.

New York Post @nypost

Pence, Pompeo and Haley demand Biden ‘shoot down’ Chinese spy balloon trib.al/OMAsSSc

8:06 PM ∙ Feb 3, 2023

.

Pompeo’s Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School is of little help in understanding balloons, missiles, and the Stratosphere.

Politicians and blue-checkers on Twitter are not inclined to compare and contrast. The “threat” posed by what is either an errant weather balloon or a clumsy surveillance device doesn’t hold a candle to the threat of the USG surveillance state.

The National Security Act, signed into law by a nuclear terrorist in 1947, resulted in mass surveillance of the American people. The FBI was established as a political police force, while the CIA concentrated on overthrowing foreign governments (it also violated its supposed charter to spy on domestic antiwar activists).

The Church Committee of the mid-1970s revealed how presidents used the CIA, FBI, and NSA to destroy political enemies (Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon—all employed the FBI to neutralize the opposition). No balloons were required.

The list of subversive, liberty-destroying programs and operations is long and sordid—ECHELON, COINTELPRO, Operation CHAOS, Project Mockingbird, Projects RESISTANCE, MERRIMAC, HT/LINGUAL, and the Cactus program, which tied it all together. This is a short list of known USG anti-liberty programs. No doubt many others remain classified and secret.

Following 9/11, the USG used “terrorism” as an excuse to violate the civil liberties of Americans. The so-called PATRIOT Act was rushed through Congress, resulting in illegal and “warrantless” surveillance of “tens of millions” of Americans.

In 2014, it was revealed the NSA had built a system designed to infect target computers with malware. The USG surveillance state went so far as to masquerade as a Facebook server in an effort to exfiltrate data. The overall objective was to “own the Net.”

The obsessive-compulsive effort by the state to disrupt the constitutionally protected political activity of its subjects—including the destruction of careers, frame-ups, and assassinations—is a topic far too lengthy for this Substack post.

Hypocrisy abounds, even though none of us know for certain what the ominous balloon is meant to do. Regardless, it was exploited to condemn China, resulting in Antony Blinken canceling a trip to the authoritarian crony capitalist “communist” nation.

It should come as no surprise Pence, Pompeo, Haley, and the majority of Congress critters and bureaucrats of the state, not only approve of tyrannical surveillance and “neutralization” of folks not on narrative but also enthusiastically support implanting military bases in foreign lands, thus creating endless tension as it develops and fields ever-evolving mechanics of death and mass murder.

For instance, consider the following:

Imagine the response of the USG if China moved troops near the Canadian and Mexican borders.

The Doomsday Clock would be a nanosecond before midnight.

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

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

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

What do corporations gain from virtue-signaling their support for Social Justice™ pet projects?

The Coca-Cola™ corporation makes sugar water with a splash of carcinogenic industrial food coloring to get the iconic caramel shading.

What on Earth does it have to do with Social Justice™, and why does it send millions of dollars to activist groups?

Indeed, the neoliberal intersection of identity politics and multinational business is, on its face, perplexing. And it’s admittedly a complex phenomenon.

But arguably the most obvious reason: pure profit and market-cornering.

In the 2010s, the Coca-Cola corporation and competing soft drink manufacturers had a big problem. In New York and elsewhere, local governments were considering banning or limiting the sale of soda on public health grounds.

Some were even threatening to remove soda from the accepted foods available for purchase through SNAP programs (publicly funded food assistance, aka “food stamps”).

Via NPR:

“SNAP households spend about 10 percent of food dollars on sugary drinks, which is about three times more than the amount they spend on milk. In New York City alone, as we’ve reported, this translates into more than $75 million in sugary drink purchases each year that are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers…

As Congress debates a new farm bill containing billions in SNAP funding, there’s an increasing appetite to overhaul the program while at the same time preserving the benefits it provides in keeping low-income Americans fed.”

Ten percent of the annual $182 billion SNAP budget is obviously a huge sum of money that Coca-Cola stood to lose.

Removing sodas from the list of acceptable purchases for food stamp holders might have been good for the peasants’ personal health. The proposed changes may have alleviated the public health burdens of obesity and heart disease and diabetes.

But it would have devastated Coke’s bottom line.

So, how best to protect their interests and keep SNAP people hooked on the bottle?

Why not dump some cash into race hustlers’ bank accounts and enlist them to smear their ideological opponents as racist? It works for aspirational politicians (like Kamala Harris) and Person of Color© collegiate athletes and virtually any protected identity in any other context, so why not for a giant corporation? And Coca-Cola™ certainly has the cash on hand to grease the wheels.

.

Coke gave millions to the NAACP and the Hispanic Federation – both directly and through front groups like the American Beverage Association.

This picked up in 2011-2013 – when the Farm Bill and soda taxes were under consideration.https://t.co/6MnVdXQ3Uy pic.twitter.com/oMtgUBAZIE

— Calley Means (@calleymeans) January 2, 2023

.

Via Nutrition Insight:

“According to a new report issued by the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, that case, in which the state chapter of the NAACP and the Hispanic Federation unexpectedly joined Big Soda’s legal fight, is just the latest illustration of the persuasive power of “philanthropic” grants from the sugar-drinks industry.

Both groups received grants from Coca-Cola, with the national NAACP receiving at least $2.1 million from the soda giant since 1986, including $100,000 as recently as December. The Hispanic Federation also lists Coke as a donor, and in February 2012 its president, Lillian Rodriguez Lopez, left the nonprofit group to become director of Latin affairs at the company.”

(The report notes that, beyond civil rights groups, the processed sugar industry “has given money to—and cultivated relationships with—groups representing doctors, dentists, dietitians, anti-hunger advocates, and others.” We’ve previously reported on the collusion between the medical and big food industry to move more product.)

As they were contracted to do on behalf of Coca-Cola™, the NAACP and dozens of other groups funded by the corporation attacked proponents of the proposed SNAP regulations to ban soda as “discriminatory, paternalistic, and ineffective.”

.

Coke gave millions to the NAACP and the Hispanic Federation – both directly and through front groups like the American Beverage Association.

This picked up in 2011-2013 – when the Farm Bill and soda taxes were under consideration.https://t.co/6MnVdXQ3Uy pic.twitter.com/oMtgUBAZIE

— Calley Means (@calleymeans) January 2, 2023

.

The issue here isn’t whether the New York soda ban was ethically justified. Most rational people agree that the role of the state isn’t to protect people from their own destructive decisions that don’t directly affect anyone else.

The key issue is the cynical weaponization of identity politics to enhance market and political power among disingenuous actors.

The result is that liberal/”progressive” actors otherwise ostensibly opposed to big business become the willing tools of profiteering at a cost to the health of the very communities they purport to serve.

The irony can’t be emphasized enough that the ones who disproportionately get hurt by this brand of performative wokeness are the racial minorities who consume high-fructose corn syrup products like Coca-Cola™ at higher rates than their white counterparts.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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, Patreon, Gab, and Twitter. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from TDB

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version). 

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @crg_globalresearch.

***

An increasing number of videos are appearing on social media and confirm that people in Ukraine are being mobilized by force, demonstrating that the Ukrainian army are suffering from heavy losses.

Some of the videos show people being dragged along the ground and thrown into cars so they can be forcibly taken for a medical examination, yet if Western media was to be believed, it is Russians who are facing such a dramatic mobilization.

Videos from Odessa, Krivoy Rog, Dnipropetrovsk, Transcarpathia, and elsewhere show how Ukrainian army officers behave aggressively towards people when they are handing out military summons.

Recently, in the Transcarpathian town of Mukačovo, the entire market was closed and soldiers and policemen forcibly took all men who looked fit for the army onto buses. In Lvov, they handed out recruitment invitations at the funeral of a Ukrainian soldier, several of whom were immediately taken to a military unit. In fact, the Ukrainian military is evidently so desperate that they even gave a military notification to a man in Lvov who was born without his hands.

The situation is so bad for the Ukrainian military that some estimates believe that as many as 85% of soldiers in the Ukrainian army are insufficiently trained. Kiev hoped that foreign mercenaries and an influx of military equipment would help minimize losses. However, this quite obviously did not occur because the Ukrainian military is being crushed.

According to military experts, 157,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died. It can be safely assumed that there are at least three times as many wounded. There is also evidence that over 350,000 people are missing. As for the soldiers who surrendered to the Russian army, they number about 10,000-12,000 people. With the Ukrainian military suffering huge losses, Kiev is desperate to mobilize as many men as possible. 

With the war quickly approaching its one-year anniversary, all Ukrainian men who were willing to fight have already joined the army. The mobilizations are so violent and forceful because the Kiev regime understands that men who are not conscripted already are those who are unwilling to fight.  

A deep scepticism is beginning to set in Ukraine, especially as this has been one of the most difficult winters in living memory. The thought of the next winter being even more difficult is one that worries Ukrainians considering that the economy will be in an even worse situation and more infrastructure will be destroyed.

By the Ukrainian military having to use force, it demonstrates that Kiev no longer has trust in its own citizens. Hungarian media pointed out that the largest mobilizations have been in Transcarpathia, a region with a large Hungarian and Romanian minority. 

According to Hungarian media, the Transcarpathian 128th Mountain Assault Brigade suffered heavy losses near Soledar. They also wrote that the Security Service of Ukraine forbids the relatives of the deceased Transcarpathian Hungarians to search for them on social media and talk about their deaths. In this way, there is clear racism against non-Ukrainians as Transcarpathian Hungarians are forced to fight on the most dangerous fronts.

At the same time, Ukraine Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov claimed on February 2 that Russia had mobilised 500,000 soldiers and is preparing to launch a fresh offensive on February 24, the one-year anniversary of the special military operation.

“We think that, given that they [Russians] live in symbolism, they will try to try something around February 24,” Reznikov told BFMTV.

Ukraine’s Defence Minister used this claim to call for more military assistance from NATO countries, adding that he expects the Russian army to launch an offensive “in two directions: it could be the Donbass, or it could be the south.”

It is recalled that the Ukrainian Commander of the Operational Command South, Major General Kovalchuk, claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin will order millions of soldiers that were only mobilized in January into the war, adding that he needs more weapons to counter Russia. There is little suggestion or evidence that millions of Russians were mobilized in January, and is thus another exaggerated propaganda effort by the Kiev regime to try and secure Western weapons. 

Because of such exaggerations, it could be easy to dismiss Kiev’s claims on when Russia plans to launch a spring offensive and the 500,000 personnel size of its mobilization as another call for immediate Western weapons and/or intervention. However, the rapid and forceful mobilization of men in Ukraine could suggest that Kiev does believe the intelligence to be true and is not just using it for propaganda purposes. 

With a major Russian offensive seemingly inevitable at some point in 2023, Ukraine’s defence minister was in France on February 2 to meet President Emmanuel Macron and secure the purchase of air defence radars and lobby for F-16 fighter jets, something Macron said his country had not ruled out.

“We tell our partners that we too must be ready as soon as possible,” Reznikov told French media. “That’s why we need weapons to contain the enemy.”

Nonetheless, there is very little evidence that weapon deliveries, including the delivery of F-16 fighter jets that would take many months to facilitate and even more to train competent pilots for, could reverse the impending success of Russia’s offensive. With Bakhmut on the verge of collapse, the path to liberate all of Donetsk region will be opened, and unmotivated civilian fighters will not be able to stop it.

Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (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.

***

The corporate media and their Antifa footsoldiers bandy about the term “fascism” quite freely. Somehow, through magnificent logic-pretzel contortions, they claim that resistance to government mandates to inject yourself with experimental drugs is not resistance to fascism, but fascism itself.

.

Truly, they have a wondrous capacity to invert reality.

But, for all the revisionism, fascism as a governing ideology actually means something very specific.

Progenitor of the ideology, Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, infamously defined fascism – or, alternatively, corporatism — as the “merger of corporate and state power.”

Let’s examine true 21^st-century techno-fascism, and how it works in the real world:

The total 2022 US government budget was $6.272 trillion (25.1% of GDP).

A full quarter of the nation’s economic activity is allocated to projects carried out theoretically in the public interest, funded by the public treasury.

As one might expect from the massive bureaucratic infrastructure necessary to administer this activity, these vast resources are frequently abused. On an opaque journey through a series of unseen hands, the funds are redirected into private purses with limited or no benefit to the actual public. Private interests suckling at the teat of power are the biggest beneficiaries.

The most obvious example of the fascist grift in the modern era is the mRNA COVID “vaccines.”

.

The private, for-profit pharmaceutical industry has long abused the public coffers by bribing politicians through campaign donations, who in turn funnel taxpayer money into the subsidy of private “research and development” (called “R&D” in the industry). The COVID-19 pandemic greatly expanded the scope of public funding of the pharmaceutical industry’s projects.

Via the Journal of the American Medical Association:

“There also has been a major shift in the funding of product commercialization during the pandemic. Government agencies and philanthropic organizations are offering large sums not only to support research but to fund late-stage product development, the expansion of manufacturing capacity, and efficient systems for distribution. In the past, these activities have been funded largely by the pharmaceutical industry.”

Pfizer and Moderna pillage the treasury to offset the cost of research and development for their mRNA shots. Then, once they’re developed, they manage to get the government to cover the price for the shots administered to the public.

The shot is then marketed as “free” to the public. But, of course, the public is paying for the shots via the treasury. The problem is that no one sees dollars drained from their personal bank accounts. The cost to the individual, which is filtered through large institutions, seems far-off. To Joe Six-Pack and Sally PTA, they’re just vague digits in some government spreadsheet.

Meanwhile, Pfizer and Moderna reap record profits because their project costs are subsidized on the back end and they get a premium at the point of sale. Pfizer doubled its profits from 2020 to 2021 by selling its COVID shots to the government that paid to develop them in the first place.

Project Veritas recently exposed an undercover meeting with a Pfizer executive in which he admitted that “Pfizer is a revolving door for all government officials.”

He flat out states that individual FDA officials go easy on Pfizer, knowing that they will later receive an extremely lucrative job or consulting gig from Pfizer.

.

Then you have the actual mandate to use the product. You will enrich Pfizer, or the government will use its power of force to make you lose your job.

This fits perfectly the actual definition of fascism.

In the end, the public treasury is bankrupted and the national debt soars, while no one seemingly cares – certainly not the industries that profit of the public dole.

Of course, the pharmaceutical industry is just one head of the private-public hydra.

There is also, for example, the sports industry that manipulates local governments into funding bloated stadiums with empty promises of a return on investment at some future point.

There’s the US war machine that funnels public defense dollars into private weapons contractors.

The Pentagon, for instance, has never once passed an audit. Were it a private entity, with a fiduciary responsibility to stakeholders, its administrators would be on the hook for civil and potentially even criminal penalties for malfeasance. Instead, its incompetent management is rewarded with year-on-year budget increases.

It’s bad enough to be forced to support businesses we don’t want to.

But it reaches another whole level when the fascists force us to inject their product into our bodies, or when they force us into their for-profit wars.

Ben Bartee is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs. Follow his stuff via Armageddon Prose and/or Substack, Patreon, Gab, and Twitter.

CBDC stands for Central Bank Digital Currency, and these are digital versions of a country’s currency. We’ve talked a lot here on the Organic Prepper about digital currencies and the dangers of a cashless society, and if the WEF has its way, we could be looking at just that – and soon. The governments of the world are hard at work creating tunnels and secret routes that all lead to one place – a one-world monetary system. This is all part of the Great Reset they’ve been touting.

The Central Bank has a plan to implement digital currency in the near future.

As always, it will be positioned as something beneficial to get the less critical thinkers on board first.

Then, at some point, it could become the only legal tender that exists, and this will give the powers that be the ability to completely control every financial decision you make.

For the record, governments already have the ability to freeze personal bank accounts. This was tested in Canada last year during the Freedom Convoy when truckers protested Covid regulations. The bank accounts of donors to the cause were frozen without recourse. This actually happened to a friend of mine back in Canada, all because she made a $20 donation to the Go-Fund-Me, which was, incidentally, withheld from its intended recipients.

Anyway, a digital currency could mean such controls as automatic taxation or where and when you’re allowed to make purchases – all at the push of a button. The most likely way this will be rolled out is to “fight inflation” and “fix the economy.” As per the IMF:

A world with lower inflation (and even zero inflation) and no persistent recessions may sound like a pipe dream, but we argue that it is possible by transitioning to an “electronic money standard.” Such a transition requires eliminating the zero lower bound, which central banks can achieve using readily available tools. Breaking the zero lower bound implies that the optimal rate of inflation will be lower than in the presence of the lower bound. This will empower central banks to quickly restore full employment and, over the medium term, possibly move toward targeting full price stability with zero inflation.

Obviously, any kind of manipulation like this is false, and while there may be some temporary relief, it won’t solve the underlying problems with our economy.

(Want to learn more about how you can starve the beast? Check out our free QUICKSTART Guide here.)

What are the details of CBDCs?

Bank for International Settlements wrote a glowing report about the “benefits” of the CBDC system. Here’s what I took away from this:

• Central bankers can execute policy or modify rates instantaneously, at the push of a button.
• Private crypto is bad.
• Central bank digital currency is good.
• CBDCs are better than crypto because they’re trusted.
• CBDCs aren’t “subject to the practical limitations of paper money.” (i.e., they can be tracked.)
• Therefore it protects against “money laundering, proliferation financing, and terrorist financing.”
• It will increase the pool of data generated on users and transactions, thus “helping” the “proper authorities.”
• “Multi-CBDC platforms” aids in decentralization. (i.e., a global economy)
• On a common CBDC platform across multiple central banks, transactions are recorded on one ledger.

Good times.

There’s no anonymity with this system.

With CBDC, you would never, never be able to purchase anything anonymously. Period.

Your identity would be verified for every purchase. So that means no food stockpile would go unnoticed. No ammo purchases. No firearm purchases. No generator or stash of medical supplies. No books on preparedness or off-grid living, or revolutionary philosophies. No lessons on herbalism or self-defense, or firearms.

Every single thing you bought would be able to be pulled up or flagged when the purchase was made, painting a picture of your lifestyle and your personal philosophies. For folks like us, that’s pretty darned uncomfortable. And if we pair this with a social credit system and/or an ESG score, those who buck the system could potentially lose access to their hard-earned money.

And think about the tax collection ramifications. There will be no more yard sales that result in a wad of undeclared cash. If you spend more than the “authorities” feel you should be able to afford, you’ll leave a glowing trail for them to follow. And if they feel you owe more money, they can literally just help themselves or freeze your account until you pony up.

So what can we do?

You may be thinking about immediately shutting down your bank account to dodge this system.  Don’t. It won’t work.

As much as I’d love to think we could opt out of this system, we can’t. At least not completely. Unless you live completely off the grid and produce every single consumer good that you use, including such things as food and sanitation needs, you cannot get away from this system. And even then, property taxes will need to be paid, and if our only legal tender is CBDCs, you’ll have no choice but to use it if you want to keep that off-grid home.

Let’s quickly look at the four functions of money:

• a tool of accounting for measure
• a tool for saving for future use
• a tool of barter for trading
• a store of value for fair payment of labor

Of all these, only precious metals fulfill these functions with your privacy and anonymity intact. And, if enough people switched to gold and silver, this nonsense would be a lot harder to enforce.

Now, I’m not suggesting going out and dealing in only silver dimes if you are in a situation in which you’re living from paycheck to paycheck. If you are in those shoes like so many of us are right now, you don’t have as many options. It isn’t feasible or practical if you’re going to need this money right away for existing expenses.

But if you are trying to protect existing wealth and this is not money you’ll need to access immediately, I urge you to consider investing it into gold or silver to protect your savings during the economic downturn ahead. At the same time, getting your money out of this currency system that may soon be switched to CBDC is the only way to ensure it remains yours. (Remember how I mentioned Canada, when Trudeau locked down accounts for wrongthink?)

I use ITM Trading, out of Phoenix, AZ, for all of my metals purchases. I know there are plenty of good companies out there, but I prefer ITM because of their focus on education. I’ve learned so much in my consultations (which are free, btw). I’ve been very impressed with the access to curated resources, research, and weekly insights on macroeconomics, central banks, currencies, and the global reset that they provide. To me, there’s really no other option for my purchases.

If you want to schedule a strategy session with ITM, it’s absolutely free, and there is no pressure whatsoever. Some folks take weeks or months before investing, and others decide it isn’t for them. But what every single person walks away with is a clearer understanding of the monetary system and what investing in precious metals entails. And you get all of it at no charge. To schedule your own appointment, go here or call this number directly: 1-866-517-1257 – I’ll be really interested to know whether you’re as impressed as I am.

(Want uninterrupted access to The Organic Prepper? Check out our paid-subscription newsletter.)

A CBDC economy is good for governments, not individuals.

I truly want to evade having everything I own put into CBDC that could be taken away or deflated at the push of a button. I’ve worked too hard for too long to have my finances completely at the mercy of a global banking system. I have no desire for my spending data to be used against me. I want privacy and security, and I don’t think I’ll get either with a CBDC system.

What are your thoughts about CBDCs? Do you think that this is coming soon? Is there a timeline on which you expect to see this occur? Are you concerned about it, or do you think it’s a good idea? Let’s talk about it in the comments.

About Daisy

Daisy Luther is a coffee-swigging, adventure-seeking, globe-trotting blogger. She is the founder and publisher of three websites.  1) The Organic Prepper, which is about current events, preparedness, self-reliance, and the pursuit of liberty; 2)  The Frugalite, a website with thrifty tips and solutions to help people get a handle on their personal finances without feeling deprived; and 3) PreppersDailyNews.com, an aggregate site where you can find links to all the most important news for those who wish to be prepared. Her work is widely republished across alternative media and she has appeared in many interviews.

Daisy is the best-selling author of 5 traditionally published books, 12 self-published books, and runs a small digital publishing company with PDF guides, printables, and courses at SelfRelianceandSurvival.com You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, Gab, MeWe, Parler, Instagram, and Twitter.

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

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

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

The death surge in highly mRNA vaccinated countries continues this winter.

Meanwhile, less-vaccinated countries are reporting normal or below normal mortality rates.

The latest bad news for vaccine advocates came from the British government this morning.

The Office of National Statistics said it had registered 17,381 deaths in England and Wales in the week ended Friday, January 13. That figure is about 20 percent more than the five-year average – and 30 percent more than longer-term averages – for the year’s second week.

Only about 650 of the deaths had Covid as an underlying cause, the government said, so most of the excess was not related to Covid.

The British data confirms recent trends all over Western Europe, including the Netherlands and Switzerland.

Most wealthy countries that relied on mRNA Covid shots and boosters had non-Covid deaths well above normal in 2022. The problem has worsened in recent weeks, in the wake of the fall Omicron booster campaigns.

With recent upward revisions, Europe will now probably report more excess deaths in 2022 than either 2020, before Covid vaccines were available, or 2021, before boosters began in earnest.

No connection has yet been proven.

But in contrast, South Africa and Bulgaria – two middle-income countries with much lower levels of Covid vaccinations – have reported normal or below-normal deaths for several months.

*

(TRUTH, DELIVERED AS NEEDED)

While the United States lags substantially in reporting complete death figures, many European countries post them within two to three weeks.

Britain is among the fastest, as well as very highly vaccinated.

About 90 percent of English adults received mRNA Covid jabs from Pfizer or Moderna or AstraZeneca’s DNA shots, according to government data.

About 70 percent of English adults then received a booster, and about 60 percent of those over 50 received the “bivalent” booster against Omicron in fall 2022. (Many adults over 75 also received a spring 2022 booster, meaning they have now taken five shots.) The boosters have been almost exclusively mRNAs.

Yet deaths in Britain have recently soared.

(Deaths registered in England and Wales, by week for the last three years. Deaths are now far above normal, with non-Covid deaths higher than at any point since the epidemic began.)

SOURCE

Bulgaria offers a striking contrast.

Deaths in Bulgaria have fallen far below their 2020 and 2021 levels – and more recently even below the 2015-2019 averages.

Bulgaria had among the lowest vaccination rates anywhere in the world, with only about 30 percent of adults jabbed and under 15 percent receiving even one booster. The country had widespread Covid outbreaks and high Covid deaths in 2020 and 2021.

But – as was widely predicted when Covid began and before the mRNA vaccines were introduced – it now appears to be running a deficit of deaths. The most likely explanation is that many of the people Covid killed were very old and sick and would have died within a year or two.

The Bulgarian data, and similar figures from South Africa, also appear to end “long Covid” as an explanation for the excess deaths in the mRNA countries. Both countries had nearly everyone exposed to the coronavirus.

(Deaths in lightly vaccinated Bulgaria. The red line is 2022: no excess deaths since May, deaths below normal since September)

SOURCE

I normally try to end these pieces with a clever kicker, but I don’t have one. And I want to get this out as quickly as possibly, especially since American public health bureaucrats STILL will not lay off boosters.

So that’s it. Thanks for reading.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from Dr. Rath Health Foundation

Price: $11.50 Get yours for FREE! Click here to download.

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

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version). 

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @crg_globalresearch.

***

On the first anniversary of the Truckers for Freedom Convoy, I must modify somewhat President Lincoln’s Gettysburg address and state quite unequivocally that “the world will continue to take note and long remember what Canadian Truckers did here, and it can never forget what they achieved here.” 

The Convoy has passed through the narrow confines of time and become immortal.

In John Steinbeck’s novel, “The Grapes of Wrath,” (turned into a widely acclaimed film), two Truckers do an enormous good deed to an unsuspecting diner and store keeper.

The very hard times of the great depression (the “Grapes of Wrath”) were of no consequence to the Truckers. With triumphant grace, humble nonchalance, they handsomely reimburse with several dollars, the bewildered store lady for giving two poor kids two nickel-worth of candy, for a penny.

Kris Kristofferson turned this beautiful story into a beautiful song, in which the store lady calls out to the Truckers as they leave – “hey you left too much money.” The Truckers tell her as they pick up their coats to leave, “what’s it to you?” 

Video Below

 

Here’s what the Canadian Trucker’s Freedom Convoy was to us – a reason to hope again, a reason to believe in humanity again, a reason for millions of Canadians to show the world that tyranny has a defined lifespan and that peaceful civil disobedience can shake its fragile foundations.

It was all that and more to us!

In the frigid temperatures of a very cold Canadian winter, we lined the highways and stood with large maple leaf flags waving with a furious indignation at the terrible suffering that the totalitarian tyranny had inflicted upon our people.

On the overpasses across the nation, the very young and the very old and every age in between leaned into the convoy with their flags, willing them forward on their mission of liberty.

It was all that and more to us!

Across the world and over the airwaves of new and dinosaur media the peaceful, powerful Freedom Convoy embarrassed and scared the hell out of our totalitarian Canadian politicians – one went into hiding (Trudeau) and within days of the Freedom Convoy reaching Ottawa, the other (O’Toole) was quickly voted out by his own party!

South of the longest land border in the world, our American cousins held their breath in awe, in admiration and in utter disbelief that the “polite” Canadian masses could rise in their millions in peaceful revolt and challenge a totalitarian tyranny. The roar of the Canadian bear was heard across the world and Trudeau’s fellow tyrants everywhere heard too – and trembled.

Almost exactly a year later, the dictator of the banana republic New Zealand (otherwise called its prime minister) has resigned. Four months ago, the blundering buffoon tyrant in Downing Street (Boris Johnson) was also told he had to go! Without a shot being fired, the Freedom Convoy has dethroned dictators and reminded the world that the sum total of reality is resolutely set against evil.

It was all that and more to us!

It was no accident that during and soon after the Convoy, the mandates started to fall. The science had not changed. The desire of the politicians, corporations, globalists, “experts” and health czars to control, manipulate, abuse and insult the population had not changed. These petty tyrants were made to change – forced to give way to the peaceful assault of a determined, tenacious civil disobedience movement.

The Freedom Convoy literally linked the hands of millions of Canadians and made them dance together; literally increased the hug rate exponentially in Ottawa; literally brought all shades, hues and sizes of Canadians together; and literally did more for French-English unity than decades of political polemics!

It was all that and more to us.

I wrote an essay a few weeks ago about why the Trucker is smarter – than the doctor, the scientist, the lawyer, the philosopher, the college professor, the politician and the bureaucrat!

The Truckers who constituted the Freedom Convoy also possessed that most elusive of all human virtues – humility.

I don’t believe any of the Freedom Convoy Truckers brought about what Mr. Carlson described as “The Single Most Successful Human Rights Protest In A Generation” for selfish reasons. Many of them even today, are unaware of the seismic nature of their collective, peaceful protest. The aftershocks of the earthquake they caused are being felt today in peoples homes, in the places they work and up and down the halls of tyranny – and will be felt long after this generation is gone.

They did what they did for humanity, for the oppressed, for freedom, for liberty, for human rights, for free speech, for our family, for our friends, for us all.

And they did all that with exemplary demonstration of the timeless words of Jesus who said we ought to do our good deeds with humility: “let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.”

This is what the Truckers of the Freedom Convoy did. This is why, “great shall their reward be.”

It’s been approximately three years, three long and wearisome years, since the madness descended upon us.

Some of us thought that the story about a wet-market bat in Wuhan was an obviously deliberate deception.

Some of us thought that the globally-synchronized rush to shut down the world and pursue a single solution – the so-called vaccine – was an omen.

Some of us thought that our medical institutions, by pushing lockdowns for the healthy, masks for everybody, school closures and remote learning and work, among other things, all the while neglecting early treatment and prevention, had betrayed us and themselves profoundly and inexplicably.

Some of us hesitated to believe that the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test for COVID was legitimate.

Some of us, looking around carefully to notice a dearth of dead bodies regularly scooped up off the streets, doubted that we were truly in the midst of a devastating pandemic.

Some of us chose to heed the therapeutic advice of Drs. Vladimir Zelenko, Pierre Kory and Peter McCullough, the epidemiological findings of Dr. John Ioannidis, and the grave warnings about the mRNA inoculation by Drs. Sucharit Bhakdi and Mike Yeadon, and many others.

Some of us simply listened to our own autonomous good sense and reasoned that there was no cause to be hysterically alarmed and no need to receive a newly-introduced injection for which long-term studies were absent.

Some of us were mystified by the increasingly vehement language used to subject us to political and medical dictates.

Some of us wondered why doctors stopped being doctors and instead became meek unthinking servants who forgot all about informed consent, individualized treatment and the principle of not doing harm.

Some of us predicted that the generation of spike proteins and the introduction of messenger RNA into our cells might result in a plethora of devastating consequences for health, consequences that could not be described in their entirety but which could include vascular compromise, strokes, inflammatory autoimmune reactions and a weakening of our immune system’s ability to function properly and robustly.

Some of us were disgusted by the attempt to scapegoat those who refused to be inoculated by an unnecessary and potentially dangerous agent, and to exclude us from the fabric of society.

Some of us bristled at the attempts to deny us the right to congregate, worship, protest and, in countries like New Zealand, even to take a swim.

Some of us didn’t accept that young children having strokes or dropping dead, or super-fit athletes dying on the pitch, or regular folks perishing far sooner than expected was normal.

Some of us gave up our jobs and lost many friendships for making a decision to think for ourselves and reject ill-conceived coercions.

Some of us also saw that the Corona War was the first big battle in a mission to digitize, control and enslave much of the now-depopulating population.

Some of us called a spade a spade and murder, by any other name – such as ‘excess mortality’ – murder. .

Others, now three years down the line, as a mountain of evidence that can no longer be concealed, even by MSM propaganda, accumulates about the serious risks of the jabs, aside from their inefficacy, are beginning to give public mea culpas for their initial and often rabid promotion of the global governmental/media position.

Some of these others have dared to ask how those of us could have been so right so early on:

‘What was our secret?’

They have had the chutzpah to criticize us for not having warned them emphatically enough in the midst of the fear-frenzy:

‘Why hadn’t we pulled them up by the lapels and shaken some sense into them? Why were we so selfish with our knowledge, and so timid in our campaign?’

To all these others, late-comers to the party of truth, standing at the gates on Judgment Day, I have two words, which I will not say.

Instead, I ask:

“Why were you such cowards? Where was your common sense?”

Emanuel E. Garcia, M.D.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version). 

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @crg_globalresearch.

***

It may soon become a punishable offense to speak your mind here on Substack or, for that matter, anywhere else, on or off the internet.

Last month, at the billionaire confab in Davos, “a European Union official predicted to a U.S. congressman that the U.S. would ‘soon’ enact laws on ‘illegal hate speech’ similar to those in the EU,” according to American Military News.

Věra Jourová, the vice president of values and transparency for the European Commission, tapped Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton on the arm and laughed as she made the prediction. It came as she discussed whether AI is capable of moderating online hate speech.

Jourová is a Czech politician and lawyer. She is the Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency. Her personal “values” have been called into question.

Some MEPs (Members of the European Parliament) believe she is too close to the oligarch billionaire and former Czech PM Andrej Babiš. He was implicated in the Pandora Papers.

In 2021, The Guardian ran an article revealing Babiš’ “offshore arrangements,” including “secretive” loans, amounting to €15 million from three different companies via “the British Virgin Islands-based Blakey Finance Limited through a business called Boyne Holding LLC in Washington DC to its subsidiary SCP Bigaud in Monaco.”

Babiš, the second richest man in the Czech Republic, was also involved in subsidy fraud. He used EU funding to finance the construction of a resort and conference center in Bohemia. It was discovered “that the company was originally under Agrofert, the industrial holding that Mr Babiš founded, until it was renamed and transferred to an unknown owner via anonymous shares,” Radio Prague International reported last June.

Thus, if the connection is indeed as close as the MEPs argue, it is nothing less than a sick joke that a woman cozy with a criminal oligarch is permitted to oversee the “core values” of the EU. In 2006, she was brought up on corruption charges of her own (the Budišov Affair), however, thanks to savvy lawyers, she was acquitted and awarded a settlement of 3.6 million Czech korunas as compensation.

Jourová is no stranger to censorship. In 2018, she accused Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, leader of the “far-right” League party, of hate speech against Roma and immigrants. She argued that Salvini should have his speech curtailed. Jourová made the remark after Salvini went on Twitter and accused North Africans of kidnapping a 13-year-old girl.

In 2021, Salvini was put on trial in Palermo, accused of “allegedly illegally blocking over 100 migrants in dire sanitary conditions from disembarking from a rescue ship,“ Al Jazeera reported.

Salvini was a target of opportunity for Jourová and her desire to eradicate all speech she finds objectionable or politically incorrect. “Contrary to what Věra Jourová has said,” the Visegrad Post reported,

she is not only demanding more transparency but is actively seeking to control online content. Her exchange with Matteo Salvini, coupled with her close ties with Soros networks, only further highlight how hypocritical she is and, when the opportunity arises, how she eagerly attacks countries that show the slightest insubordination towards Brussels… she is in reality an agent of George Soros’ Open Society.

For Jourová, censoring critics of the EU and punishing people for not accepting Brussels’ narratives is a form of democracy. “Media are a pillar of democracy,” she argued last January during an open public consultation on the upcoming European Media Freedom Act, a pet project of Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission.

“But today this pillar is cracking, with attempts by governments and private groups to put pressure on the media. This is why the Commission will propose common rules and safeguards to protect the independence and the pluralism of the media. Journalists should be able to do their work, inform citizens and hold power to account without fear or favor. We are now consulting broadly to come with the best proposal.”

Jourová, of course, is not addressing the “independence” of a Substack newsletter like this, or its European counterpart, but rather corporate media, connected to the government, which has come under criticism as people begin to understand they are lied to on a number of important issues. As noted in the following tweet, the proposed law is basically a “media privilege” act.

ARTICLE 19 @article19org

📢We must reject ‘media privilege’ in the Media Freedom Act and protect #FreeSpeech ARTICLE 19 together with 13 other civil society organisations call for the rejection of Article 17 of the European Media Freedom Act #EMFA. Our statement: article19.org/resources/eu-r…

11:09 AM ∙ Jan 24, 2023

---

11Likes6Retweets

“The system of proposed ex-ante notification to self-declared media establishes de facto fast-track, non-transparent procedures to certain privileged actors that will have a major negative impact on the right to freedom of expression and information,” Article 19 argued last month.

Article 19 is an international human rights organization that defends and promotes freedom of expression and freedom of information. It takes its name from the United Nations Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The group notes that the Media Freedom Act’s primary focus is on content moderation. In order to achieve the gargantuan task of scouring the internet in search of content malefactors, a 2019 paper issued by Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, proposes the use of artificial intelligence.

“A key element of this debate” to censor content harmful to the state “has centred [sic] on the role and capabilities of automated approaches (driven by Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning techniques) to enhance the effectiveness of online content moderation and offer users greater protection from potentially harmful material,” states a Cambridge Consultants PDF, “Use of AI in Online Content Moderation.”

According to Ofcom, in addition to “actively moderating harmful content, AI technologies can be used to encourage positive engagement and discourage users from posting potentially harmful content in the first place.” Ofcom believes the problem is “anonymity,” described as “a potential explanation for why some internet users act maliciously online.”

In other words, anonymous debate, as practiced in 1787-88 by “Publius” (Madison, Jay, Hamilton) in the Federalist Papers, would be illegal if this EU bureaucrat has her way. In 1995, the Supreme Court ruled in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission that

Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority…  It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation… at the hand of an intolerant society.

That “intolerant hand” is busy at work in the European Union—an imposed government with unelected bureaucrats who are not answerable to the people—and that intolerance, according to the corrupt sub-czar of European censorship, has informed the Americans that similar tyranny will be coming their way.

I’m not certain that will be the case. However, over the last few years, Congress has worked with social media giants to “moderate” (censor) content the state finds objectionable.

We shouldn’t expect arbitrators in black robes to save us from political censorship. Last year, the Supreme Court blocked a law in Texas that would have prevented social media giants from censoring political content unacceptable to the state.

“The court’s decision to temporarily block the Texas law comes as politicians in Congress and in statehouses across the country look to regulate social media giants like Facebook and Twitter,” CNET reported.

Věra Jourová warned a member of Congress at the elite confab in the Swiss Alps that the EU, and soon the USG, will use the hyped-up phantom of “disinformation and extremism in the media” (that is, media critical of government narratives) to shut down any and all opposition to the state, its financial crimes, and its addiction to forever war.

The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are no longer the law of the land in America.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @crg_globalresearch.a

a

***

“A cloud of confusion has settled on many people, as the lusty calls for war with Russia grow louder and the propagandistic appeals to patriotism, racial nationalism, and the defense of “white civilization” intensify. For BAP, there is no confusion. The conflict in the Ukraine has only exposed the hypocrisy and contradictions of imperialism, war, and militarism – and the demand for peace means to fight against U.S. imperialism and the U.S./EU/NATO axis of domination.

“On this strategic focus, BAP says once again that there will be No Compromise and No Retreat!”

–Black Alliance For Peace [1]

“There’s also other countries that are helping America help Ukraine, however, this help, I don’t think it’s going to the people. It’s going to the army mostly. And if anything, people need to be evacuated and taken somewhere safe.”

– Olya (from this week’s interview)

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

As this introduction is being written, we are approaching the anniversary of the day people of the country of Ukraine were being subjected to a foreign power’s attempt to wrench the country out of the grasp of the democratically assigned leadership. This move resulted ultimately in thousands of dead Ukrainians and major instability in the region.

Am I speaking of the “Special Military Operation” by Russia a year ago this month?

Well, no. I am referring to the events of February 2014, when a coup waged by the United States with the assistance of the European Union, well documented but seldom mentioned in the major media, forced the ousting of democratically elected president Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych with assistance of the NAZI-backed Maidan protests. They then played a role in backing a new leader. [2]

Having witnessed this coup, and then fearing that violence perpetrated by the militant segment of the opposition that has taken over, the populations in the more Russophone areas in the south and east were bracing for upheaval and even calling for secession from Ukraine. [3]

As discussed on the Global Research News Hour and throughout Global Research, it is important to take this information into consideration before coming to the conclusion that Russia blazed into battle a year ago simply as a first step in rebuilding the Soviet Empire.

But this episode takes analysis a bit further. It seeks to look at some of the other alternative voices kept out of mainstream discourse. How should you and I and several citizens throughout the Western world react to a war waged because of the coup our own leaders orchestrated? As well, what about individual Ukrainians who don’t quite fit the standard “thank you for helping save us from the Russians!” stereotype? We have taken the time to sample these voices on this week’s show if the legacy media will not!

In our first half hour, Ajamu Baraka, frequent guest on the Global Research News Hour joins us. As a member of the Black Alliance for Peace, he articulates the message of the war in Ukraine being a proxy war against Russia in several articles over the last year. He joins us to express rejecting the war and NATO as important not only for peace, but as an activist in the Black Liberation Movement.

In our second half hour, we are joined by a Ukrainian named Olya who left the country in 2008. She shares her story, her objections to what media in the West portrays and what it doesn’t portray about her homeland, and the devious role she sees the U.S. playing with her country.

Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report. Baraka serves on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Peace Council and leadership body of the U.S. based United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) and the Steering Committee of the Black is Back Coalition.

Olya came to Canada as an immigrant from Ukraine. She lives in Winnipeg.

(Global Research News Hour Episode 378)

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

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

Other stations airing the show:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notes:

1. https://www.globalresearch.ca/african-colonized-peoples-understand-ukraine-de-center-europe-focus-imperialism/5772591
2. https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-road-to-moscow-goes-through-kiev-how-the-protests-in-ukraine-transformed-into-a-coup-that-could-target-russia/5370479
3. ibid

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version). 

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @crg_globalresearch.

Our thanks to the Daily Mail for having brought this article to our attention.

***

• Ihor Kolomoisky was raided at his hunting lodge residence near Dnipro
• The warlord tycoon is accused of embezzlement and corruption

A ‘James Bond villain’ oligarch who is said to keep sharks in his office to intimidate his enemies has had his mansion raided in Ukraine as part of a sweeping anti-corruption clampdown.

Ihor Kolomoisky, a warlord who helped Volodymyr Zelensky‘s rise to power, was targeted by the SBU, Ukraine‘s security service yesterday.

The 59-year-old tycoon was pictured standing in his hunting lodge residence near Dnipro wearing tracksuits and slippers as he was confronted by the agents.

nvestigators are probing claims Kolomoisky embezzled around £1billion from two oil companies where he was previously the majority shareholder, Ukrainian media says.

The Ukrainian government seized stakes in the energy companies, oil producer Ukrnafta and refiner Ukrtatnafta, as part of moves to consolidate the war effort.

Ihor Kolomoisky is pictured during the raid by Ukrainian security services at his Dnipro lodge yesterday

The oil baron, who was named in the Panama Papers, is accused of dodging customs duties to rack up his huge fortune, which included owning the TV channel that launched Zelensky’s comedy career.

He backed the then-actor during his 2019 presidential bid with his media empire, although Zelensky has distanced himself from the billionaire businessman.

The mogul, who has been sanctioned by the US, also ‘laundered $5.5billion through a tangle of shell companies, purchasing factories and commercial properties across the U.S. heartland,’ the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists claims.

He is accused of heading up one of the biggest ever Ponzi schemes in the US and is one of the biggest real estate landlords in the US midwest.

Kolomoisky was born into a Jewish family in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, when it was part of the Soviet Union.

After the collapse of the USSR, he started making a fortune importing foreign goods, and trading local metals on the international market.

Investigators are probing claims Kolomoisky embezzled around £1billion from two oil companies where he was previously the majority shareholder, Ukrainian media says

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version). 

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @crg_globalresearch.

***

The Federal government gave up all pretensions that money is backed by the gold held at the Federal Reserve, or backed by anything concrete, in 1972. The dollar became a fiat currency, money that is not tied to anything but reputation. Since that fatal day, the powers behind the curtains have maintained the value of the dollar in various ways.

The legitimacy of the dollar was tied to the legitimacy of the United States and its strength as a cultural, educational, scientific, technological, and sadly military, power. This approach worked until the 1990s, but the decay of the angel was inevitable.

As the value of the United States decreased because of corruption and decadence, and because of the inevitable rise of the other nations devastated in the Second World War, increasingly devious means were employed to assure dollar’s value.

Covert efforts were launched to undermine the authority of other nations, whether Russia and China, or Germany and Japan. Perhaps it seemed like a good idea on Wall Street, but the result was the creation of a brutal winner-takes-all global economy—and the same covert means would be used finally against Americans themselves to keep them addicted to the dollar economy as it collapsed.

The United States slipped into a malignant culture. The decadence of wealth and power meant that innovation was stifled by conceited men like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates who pretended to be the inventers of things they stole and were enshrined in a handful of paralyzed institutions.

The quality of literature and art, of film and music, declined. American universities ceased to strive for truth and for science. Instead they crawled into bed with private equity and billionaire philanthropists, using advertising, rather than education, to prop up their global status. The strategy of using culture to hold up the value of the dollar ceased to be effective.

Another approach was to tie the dollar’s value to the sale of petroleum, a product that everyone needs in our over-industrialized society.

The United States used its diplomatic, financial and military power to make sure that petroleum was only sold in dollars, thereby establishing a clear value for that fiat currency—that almost was equal to being backed by gold. But that value was added to the dollar at a horrific price.

Many nations saw the value of selling petroleum in their own currencies, and they tried to do so. Those countries had to be infiltrated, undermined, intimidated, or bought off. In some cases, they had to be invaded and overthrown. The process has reached a crescendo in recent months, auguring for world war as the final consequence of this crusade to save the dollar.

You see, the United States had to control the Middle East, and to have its long fingers deep in the politics of nations around the world, in order to keep this petroleum system going. The cost of holding up the dollar was horrific, and bit by bit, the United States was corrupted beyond recognition.

Wars for oil, and other natural resources, became the primary concern in foreign policy, not peace. As a result, militarism sunk its roots deep in the economy, deep into the very spirit of the nation. There was no space left to seek for cooperation and accommodation. Any threat to the dollar had to be beaten down brutally.

At the same time, it was necessary to promote petroleum, and a consumer culture that demanded petroleum usage, at every level in America, and around the world. Automobiles were glorified, cities were designed to make automobiles necessary, oil-based fertilizers, and pesticides were sprinkled on industrialized farms. Oil companies and auto makers became all powerful because they helped to prop up the value of the dollar and forced petroleum on the common man.

The other device for backing the dollar was the promotion of global free trade, asystem where in products that could be made locally by neighbors are shipped half way around the world, burning fuel all the way,so as to make sure thatmoste very thing on your plate, on your table, on your back, has passed through the logistics monopolies who take their cut. This global “free” trade destroys local economies and renders citizens dependent on multinational corporations like Walmart and Amazon that take their money and do nothing to help the local economy.

The dollar was placed at the center of this closed trade system—anything but “free.” Average Americans were impoverished even as the dollar was promoted in our name. Our republic was transmogrified into a ruthless empire that demanded everything be bought and sold in dollars.

The cancerous military economy also served a critical role in propping up the dollar as the other source of power faded in the 1990s. Nations could be invaded, or sanctioned if they did not accept the dollar as the global currency.

Military equipment became a form of meta-currency—nations were compelled to purchase overpriced, and often worthless, military systems for billions of dollars as a way of propping up the dollar. Those designated as allies of the United States were expected to purchase fighter planes and tanks, drones and missiles at exorbitant prices. The most notorious example is the F-35 stealth fighter which costs around 80 million US dollars each and is barely functional. These devices, bulky tokens, force the large transfer of foreign capital into dollars in the name of security.

With trillions of dollars unaccounted for, the Pentagon has become the primary money laundering operation for the world, taking in money from billionaires, drug dealers, and just about anyone else and paying them off with money from the defense budget, and from weapons purchases from around the world.

Of course the threat of force makes the fiat currency stronger—but the cost is endless war.

Another ingenious way of propping up the dollar is to force debt on our citizens, making them scramble to obtain the dollars to pay off debts incurred in the process of trying to stay alive and meet the criteria demanded by corporations for employment.

The cost of healthcare has skyrocketed, as has the cost of education. We find ourselves hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt just for being born, educated, treated for illness, and buried—let alone more serious challenges. And the banks drive up the cost of a home through their endless speculation with the fraudulent money they have printed up.

Chase Manhattan and Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and BlackRock using their pay-to-play authority figures who appear on TV, or at Harvard University, set the value of everything in society, justifying why it must be so expensive.

How many times have you heard your friends talking about money, about how much money they have in their pensions, how much their houses are worth, and how much they spend on their children’s educations? Money has been made the primary topic of discussion for our people because the media, the entertainment complex, and the educational system make it that way. The questions: How can I be a good person? What is the truth? What is justice? What does the Constitution say? These questions have disappeared from our discourse.

The Bretton Woods complex, centered around the World Bank and the IMF, and linked to central banks around world, was flawed from the start, but recently it has degenerated much further into a Disneyland of make-believe value wherein human endeavors can only be assessed according to the Procrustean metrics of growth, production, consumption, exports and imports. The rise and fall of the stock market, the bond market, and other fantastic ephemera is considered the determining factor for the well-being of mankind by every newspaper or magazine from the fascists to the socialist, and these metrics of growth and consumption are cited in the university, the government, and the corporation.

In a horrific farce, the fundamental values of humanity: modesty, honesty, sincerity, chastity and humility are treated as at best as hobbies for the leisure class after they have accumulated wealth, but are frequently presented as obstacles to economic growth that requires waste and impulse.

Frugality, is the greatest sin, believing that one can live a spiritually and mentally healthy life without waste is an insult to the beastly ritual of consumption that is held up for all to worship. Caring for your ill parents, helping your neighbor to repair her window, growing potatoes, or teaching your children to be ethical and to distinguish the truth from falsehood, all these actions are negatives for the gross domestic product, negatives for your standing in society.

Along the way, we drifted from a cooperative economy into a predatory economy, into a parasitic economy.

That process was linked to the two most horrific traumas that shook us to the core. The only way to cover up the frauds of 9.11 and of COVID-19 over the last twenty years is to silence citizens by making them an offer they cannot refuse: chose money or truth.

The truth is that the billionaires own nothing except a bankrupt and covetous ideology of money. The purchase of farmland by Bill Gates, the paving over of priceless farmland to erect pointless shopping malls, highways, and highrises by construction firms and real estate speculators, all this was done using the bogus money printed for them by their lackeys at the Federal Reserve.

Click screen or link to Access Video

That land belongs to all of us. The parasites who have murdered our people so viciously with COVID-19 weapons, poisonous processed foods, or chemicals dumped in our rivers and lakes, those parasites shall hold no dominion.

The first step in addressing the money issue is to give the land back to the people and allow them to grow their own food, make their own furniture, and be independent of the covert stranglehold of the multinationals.

Similarly, we can write our own music, hold our own concerts, make our own art, put on our own theatre, and thereby leave behind the decadent Hollywood culture of sexual titillation and momentary narcissism.

Take away the imperative to collect money at all costs so as to meet artificially created need to consume, and many social ills will be cured.The institutions regulating money have been turned against the citizens whom they should be protecting.

Multinational corporations, and their puppets, flush with our money, lecture us about recycling and sustainability, about how we must tighten our belts, but they will pull every punch to make sure that no one threatens the plastic and paper packaging systems they have set up to extract profit from us at every turn.

We are not citizens empowered by a contractual relationship with each other using money as determined by Constitution, but rather we have been reduced to consumers who can conceive of value only in terms of dollars because Madison Avenue advertising and public relations firms have indoctrinated us to embrace the false values of the cult of the self.

Because we have been reduced from citizens of a republic with a sense of civic responsibly to consumers of the gaudy wares laid out to distract us, we are led forward not by a clarion call, but by a ring through the nose. We are not masters of our fates; we are no captains of our souls. We are but products to be processed and then disposed of like the ragdolls littering the squalid cage of an idle ape.

No! Our eyes must turn to the hope of a new nation coming.

We must trample those hideous grapes of wrath, unloosing the terrible swift sword of truth; like lightening, that the truth may go marching on.

First published by Global Research on December 20, 2015

***

I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one. – President Theodore Roosevelt

The American public and the world have long since been warned of the dangers of allowing the military industrial complex to become such an integral part of our economic survival. The United States is the self-proclaimed angel of democracy in the world, but just as George Orwell warned, war is the health of the state, and in the language of newspeak, democracy is the term we use to hide the reality of the nature of our warfare state.

In truth, the United States of America has been engaged in some kind of war during 218 out of the nation’s total 239 years of existence. Put another way, in the entire span of US history, this country has only experienced 21 years without conflict. For a sense of perspective on this sobering statistic, consider these 4 facts about the history of US involvement in military conflict:

• Pick any year since 1776 and there is about a 91% chance that America was involved in some war during that calendar year.
• No U.S. president truly qualifies as a peacetime president.  Instead, all U.S. presidents can technically be considered “war presidents.”
• The U.S. has never gone a decade without war.
• The only time the U.S. went five years without war (1935-40) was during the isolationist period of the Great Depression.

As the world moves closer and closer to an official beginning to world war III, and as many people are seeking opportunities to de-escalate the situation in the Middle East, it is important to realize that the US state and the American people are simply not equipped or conditioned to pursue and realize peace. War is indeed the health of our state.

Here is a year-by-year timeline of America’s involvement in military conflict, as compiled by Danios ofLoonwatch.com. It is noted that this list is not exhaustive, but rather a compilation of events that fit the definition of ‘war,’ excluding acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing such as were carried out against Native American populations during the establishment of the empire, and also excluding foreign interventions by America’s covert security agencies such as the CIA:

Year-by-year Timeline of America’s Major Wars (1776-2011)

1776 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamagua Wars, Second Cherokee War, Pennamite-Yankee War

1777 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Second Cherokee War, Pennamite-Yankee War

1778 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War

1779 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War

1780 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War

1781 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War

1782 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War

1783 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War

1784 – Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War, Oconee War

1785 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War

1786 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War

1787 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War

1788 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War

1789 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War

1790 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War

1791 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War

1792 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War

1793 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War

1794 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War

1795 – Northwest Indian War

1796 – No major war

1797 – No major war

1798 – Quasi-War

1799 – Quasi-War

1800 – Quasi-War

1801 – First Barbary War

1802 – First Barbary War

1803 – First Barbary War

1804 – First Barbary War

1805 – First Barbary War

1806 – Sabine Expedition

1807 – No major war

1808 – No major war

1809 – No major war

1810 – U.S. occupies Spanish-held West Florida

1811 – Tecumseh’s War

1812 – War of 1812, Tecumseh’s War, Seminole Wars, U.S. occupies Spanish-held Amelia Island and other parts of East Florida

1813 – War of 1812, Tecumseh’s War, Peoria War, Creek War, U.S. expands its territory in West Florida

1814 – War of 1812, Creek War, U.S. expands its territory in Florida, Anti-piracy war

1815 – War of 1812, Second Barbary War, Anti-piracy war

1816 – First Seminole War, Anti-piracy war

1817 – First Seminole War, Anti-piracy war

1818 – First Seminole War, Anti-piracy war

1819 – Yellowstone Expedition, Anti-piracy war

1820 – Yellowstone Expedition, Anti-piracy war

1821 – Anti-piracy war (see note above)

1822 – Anti-piracy war (see note above)

1823 – Anti-piracy war, Arikara War

1824 – Anti-piracy war

1825 – Yellowstone Expedition, Anti-piracy war

1826 – No major war

1827 – Winnebago War

1828 – No major war

1829 – No major war

1830 – No major war

1831 – Sac and Fox Indian War

1832 – Black Hawk War

1833 – Cherokee Indian War

1834 – Cherokee Indian War, Pawnee Indian Territory Campaign

1835 – Cherokee Indian War, Seminole Wars, Second Creek War

1836 – Cherokee Indian War, Seminole Wars, Second Creek War, Missouri-Iowa Border War

1837 – Cherokee Indian War, Seminole Wars, Second Creek War, Osage Indian War, Buckshot War

1838 – Cherokee Indian War, Seminole Wars, Buckshot War, Heatherly Indian War

1839 – Cherokee Indian War, Seminole Wars

1840 – Seminole Wars, U.S. naval forces invade Fiji Islands

1841 – Seminole Wars, U.S. naval forces invade McKean Island, Gilbert Islands, and Samoa

1842 – Seminole Wars

1843 – U.S. forces clash with Chinese, U.S. troops invade African coast

1844 – Texas-Indian Wars

1845 – Texas-Indian Wars

1846 – Mexican-American War, Texas-Indian Wars

1847 – Mexican-American War, Texas-Indian Wars

1848 – Mexican-American War, Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War

1849 – Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians

1850 – Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Yuma War, California Indian Wars, Pitt River Expedition

1851 – Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, Yuma War, Utah Indian Wars, California Indian Wars

1852 – Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Yuma War, Utah Indian Wars, California Indian Wars

1853 – Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Yuma War, Utah Indian Wars, Walker War, California Indian Wars

1854 – Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians

1855 – Seminole Wars, Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Yakima War, Winnas Expedition, Klickitat War, Puget Sound War, Rogue River Wars, U.S. forces invade Fiji Islands and Uruguay

1856 – Seminole Wars, Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, California Indian Wars, Puget Sound War, Rogue River Wars, Tintic War

1857 – Seminole Wars, Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, California Indian Wars, Utah War, Conflict in Nicaragua

1858 – Seminole Wars, Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Mohave War, California Indian Wars, Spokane-Coeur d’Alene-Paloos War, Utah War, U.S. forces invade Fiji Islands and Uruguay

1859 Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, California Indian Wars, Pecos Expedition, Antelope Hills Expedition, Bear River Expedition, John Brown’s raid, U.S. forces launch attack against Paraguay, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1860 – Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Paiute War, Kiowa-Comanche War

1861 – American Civil War, Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Cheyenne Campaign

1862 – American Civil War, Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Cheyenne Campaign, Dakota War of 1862,

1863 – American Civil War, Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Cheyenne Campaign, Colorado War, Goshute War

1864 – American Civil War, Texas-Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Cheyenne Campaign, Colorado War, Snake War

1865 – American Civil War, Texas-Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Colorado War, Snake War, Utah’s Black Hawk War

1866 – Texas-Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Snake War, Utah’s Black Hawk War, Red Cloud’s War, Franklin County War, U.S. invades Mexico, Conflict with China

1867 – Texas-Indian Wars, Long Walk of the Navajo, Apache Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Snake War, Utah’s Black Hawk War, Red Cloud’s War, Comanche Wars, Franklin County War, U.S. troops occupy Nicaragua and attack Taiwan

1868 – Texas-Indian Wars, Long Walk of the Navajo, Apache Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Snake War, Utah’s Black Hawk War, Red Cloud’s War, Comanche Wars, Battle of Washita River, Franklin County War

1869 – Texas-Indian Wars, Apache Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Utah’s Black Hawk War, Comanche Wars, Franklin County War

1870 – Texas-Indian Wars, Apache Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Utah’s Black Hawk War, Comanche Wars, Franklin County War

1871 – Texas-Indian Wars, Apache Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Utah’s Black Hawk War, Comanche Wars, Franklin County War, Kingsley Cave Massacre, U.S. forces invade Korea

1872 – Texas-Indian Wars, Apache Wars, Utah’s Black Hawk War, Comanche Wars, Modoc War, Franklin County War

1873 – Texas-Indian Wars, Comanche Wars, Modoc War, Apache Wars, Cypress Hills Massacre, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1874 – Texas-Indian Wars, Comanche Wars, Red River War, Mason County War, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1875 – Conflict in Mexico, Texas-Indian Wars, Comanche Wars, Eastern Nevada, Mason County War, Colfax County War, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1876 – Texas-Indian Wars, Black Hills War, Mason County War, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1877 – Texas-Indian Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Black Hills War, Nez Perce War, Mason County War, Lincoln County War, San Elizario Salt War, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1878 – Paiute Indian conflict, Bannock War, Cheyenne War, Lincoln County War, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1879 – Cheyenne War, Sheepeater Indian War, White River War, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1880 – U.S. forces invade Mexico

1881 – U.S. forces invade Mexico

1882 – U.S. forces invade Mexico

1883 – U.S. forces invade Mexico

1884 – U.S. forces invade Mexico

1885 – Apache Wars, Eastern Nevada Expedition, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1886 – Apache Wars, Pleasant Valley War, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1887 – U.S. forces invade Mexico

1888 – U.S. show of force against Haiti, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1889 – U.S. forces invade Mexico

1890 – Sioux Indian War, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Ghost Dance War, Wounded Knee, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1891 – Sioux Indian War, Ghost Dance War, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1892 – Johnson County War, U.S. forces invade Mexico

1893 – U.S. forces invade Mexico and Hawaii

1894 – U.S. forces invade Mexico

1895 – U.S. forces invade Mexico, Bannock Indian Disturbances

1896 – U.S. forces invade Mexico

1897 – No major war

1898 – Spanish-American War, Battle of Leech Lake, Chippewa Indian Disturbances

1899 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1900 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1901 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1902 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1903 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1904 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1905 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1906 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1907 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1908 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1909 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1910 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1911 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1912 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars

1913 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars, New Mexico Navajo War

1914 – Banana Wars, U.S. invades Mexico

1915 – Banana Wars, U.S. invades Mexico, Colorado Paiute War

1916 – Banana Wars, U.S. invades Mexico

1917 – Banana Wars, World War I, U.S. invades Mexico

1918 – Banana Wars, World War I, U.S invades Mexico

1919 – Banana Wars, U.S. invades Mexico

1920 – Banana Wars

1921 – Banana Wars

1922 – Banana Wars

1923 – Banana Wars, Posey War

1924 – Banana Wars

1925 – Banana Wars

1926 – Banana Wars

1927 – Banana Wars

1928 – Banana Wars

1930 – Banana Wars

1931 – Banana Wars

1932 – Banana Wars

1933 – Banana Wars

1934 – Banana Wars

1935 – No major war

1936 – No major war

1937 – No major war

1938 – No major war

1939 – No major war

1940 – No major war

1941 – World War II

1942 – World War II

1943 – Wold War II

1944 – World War II

1945 – World War II

1946 – Cold War (U.S. occupies the Philippines and South Korea)

1947 – Cold War (U.S. occupies South Korea, U.S. forces land in Greece to fight Communists)

1948 – Cold War (U.S. forces aid Chinese Nationalist Party against Communists)

1949 – Cold War (U.S. forces aid Chinese Nationalist Party against Communists)

1950 – Korean War, Jayuga Uprising

1951 – Korean War

1952 – Korean War

1953 – Korean War

1954 – Covert War in Guatemala

1955 – Vietnam War

1956 – Vietnam War

1957 – Vietnam War

1958 – Vietnam War

1959 – Vietnam War, Conflict in Haiti

1960 – Vietam War

1961 – Vietnam War

1962 – Vietnam War, Cold War (Cuban Missile Crisis; U.S. marines fight Communists in Thailand)

1963 – Vietnam War

1964 – Vietnam War

1965 – Vietnam War, U.S. occupation of Dominican Republic

1966 – Vietnam War, U.S. occupation of Dominican Republic

1967 – Vietnam War

1968 – Vietnam War

1969 – Vietnam War

1970 – Vietnam War

1971 – Vietnam War

1972 – Vietnam War

1973 – Vietnam War, U.S. aids Israel in Yom Kippur War

1974 – Vietnam War

1975 – Vietnam War

1976 – No major war

1977 – No major war

1978 – No major war

1979 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan)

1980 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan)

1981 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan and Nicaragua), First Gulf of Sidra Incident

1982 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan and Nicaragua), Conflict in Lebanon

1983 – Cold War (Invasion of Grenada, CIA proxy war in Afghanistan and Nicaragua), Conflict in Lebanon

1984 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan and Nicaragua), Conflict in Persian Gulf

1985 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan and Nicaragua)

1986 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan and Nicaragua)

1987 – Conflict in Persian Gulf

1988 – Conflict in Persian Gulf, U.S. occupation of Panama

1989 – Second Gulf of Sidra Incident, U.S. occupation of Panama, Conflict in Philippines

1990 – First Gulf War, U.S. occupation of Panama

1991 – First Gulf War

1992 – Conflict in Iraq

1993 – Conflict in Iraq

1994 – Conflict in Iraq, U.S. invades Haiti

1995 – Conflict in Iraq, U.S. invades Haiti, NATO bombing of Bosnia and Herzegovina

1996 – Conflict in Iraq

1997 – No major war

1998 – Bombing of Iraq, Missile strikes against Afghanistan and Sudan

1999 – Kosovo War

2000 – No major war

2001 – War on Terror in Afghanistan

2002 – War on Terror in Afghanistan and Yemen

2003 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, and Iraq

2004 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen

2005 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen

2006 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen

2007 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen

2008 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen

2009 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen

2010 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen

2011 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen; Conflict in Libya (Libyan Civil War)

Isaac Davis is an outspoken advocate of liberty and an honest society from the top down. He is a contributing writer for WakingTimes.com. Follow him on Facebook, here.

Image Credit: Anthony Freda “Endless War”

Sources:

• http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2320.htm
• http://www.loonwatch.com/2011/12/we-re-at-war-and-we-have-been-since-1776/
• http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html

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

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

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

This is the pattern that has been used ever since the Soviet Union ended in 1991 when the ‘anti-communist’ excuse for America’s post-WW-II global imperialism has no longer been available to use (such as had earlier been the case in Korea, and in Vietnam, and in Guatemala, and in Iran, and in Chile and so many other lands), prior to 1991. However, the pattern for this subversion and ultimate conquest was created back in 1965 in Indonesia (if not earlier, in other “banana republics”); and, so, we shall start here by describing that landmark earlier case, in Indonesia, which set the pattern that now is routine for the U.S. Government to use post-1991:

The October 1965 through March 1966 Indonesian government extermination of anywhere from 500,000 to two million Indonesian supporters of communism and of any other left-wing political party — including supporters of Indonesia’s leader, General Sukarno, who had some leftist supporters — was probably masterminded, ordered, by U.S. President Lyndon Johnson, on behalf of the owners of the mega-corporations who were backing the Democratic Party. Certainly, LBJ was behind this ‘ethnic cleansing’, even well before it began.

As early as March 1965, Johnson’s people were privately vitriolic against Sukarno, who was making noises about land-reform and possibly nationalizing natural resources. For example, on 18 March 1965, “118. Memorandum From the Under Secretary of State (Ball) to President Johnson” opened:

“Our relations with Indonesia are on the verge of falling apart. Sukarno is turning more and more toward the Communist PKI.

The Army, which has been the traditional countervailing force, has its own problems of internal cohesion. Within the past few days the situation has grown increasingly more ominous. Not only has the management of the American rubber plants been taken over, but there are dangers of an imminent seizure of the American oil companies.”

The coup started on 1 October 1965; General Suharto was installed to replace Sukarno, and promptly began the extermination-campaign. But he didn’t know whom to slaughter; so, as one excellent review of Vincent Bevins’s excellent book about the slaughters, The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World, succinctly put the matter,

“The US provided arms, training, communication equipment and lists of thousands of real and alleged leftists to be killed. US-owned plantations furnished lists of ‘troublesome’ employees. US officials repeatedly sent cables to the leader of the butchery, General Suharto, to kill the leftists faster.”

Other fine reviews of this book are here and here. However, like the other books that have been published about that extermination-campaign, Bevins’s focus isn’t on the masterminds who planned and bribed to get it done (its beneficiaries), but instead on the physical perpetrators and their victims. The coup-and-extermination’s ultimate beneficiaries aren’t named, nor identified. The U.S. did that in conjunction with other members of the American gang, mainly in Europe. The Judge in the International People’s Tribunal stated that “the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Australia were all complicit to differing degrees in the commission of these crimes against humanity.” It was a Rhodesist operation, done for the U.S.-and-allied (especially Netherlands) aristocracies.

Now, in the post-Soviet era, Ukraine and the U.S. Government’s aim to get its nuclear-warheaded missiles into that closest nation of all to Moscow (just 300 miles away), by admitting Ukraine into NATO, here is the sequence of events:

During 2003-2009, only around 20% of Ukrainians had wanted NATO membership, while around 55% opposed it. In 2010, Gallup found that whereas 17% of Ukrainians considered NATO to mean “protection of your country,” 40% said it’s “a threat to your country.”

Ukrainians predominantly saw NATO as an enemy, not a friend. But after Obama’s February 2014 coup in Ukraine, “Ukraine’s NATO membership would get 53.4% of the votes, one third of Ukrainians (33.6%) would oppose it.”

However, afterward, the support averaged around 45% — still over twice as high as had been the case prior to the coup. Ukrainians became switched regarding that matter, favoring NATO instead of opposing it, because the billionaires who fund the winning political candidates and who control the media in the U.S. and in Ukraine had propagandized there heavily after the coup, and those governments and media have been portraying Russia as being Ukraine’s enemy, and America and the EU and NATO (which, prior to the coup, were viewed by Ukrainians as being their enemy) as being instead Ukraine’s friends. So: Ukrainians, after the U.S. coup, wanted to join the EU, and to join NATO.

Immediately after Obama’s coup that grabbed Ukraine, his installed new government there promptly began its ethnic-cleansing so as to get rid of enough millions of Ukrainians who had voted for the neutralist (neither pro-American nor pro-Russian) Ukrainian President whom Obama had overthrown, in order to enable the new, pro-U.S.-Government regime in Ukraine to be able to continue on through ‘democratic’ elections in which all candidates would be anti-Russian. And that has brought us to today in Ukraine.

What that showed was the extreme effectiveness of the regime’s propaganda after the coup had been prepared and had used the media during 2014, and even more so after the coup was perpetrated and the U.S.-junta regime and its controlled ’news’-media drenched the public with anti-Russian propaganda after the coup, so that that nation, which only a year or two after its public had viewed NATO as being their enemy, prior to 2013, switched to instead viewing NATO as their craved-for protector, against what most Ukrainians, only a year or two before, had been viewing to be their protector. (Of course, after Russia ultimately responded to America’s grab of Ukraine and invaded Ukraine in 2022, vast majorities of Ukrainians now view the invading country, Russia, as being their enemy.)

Key here is the fact that by taking over a country — first by subverson (which in the case of Ukraine was being called “The Orange Revolution” and installed the pro-U.S. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko into power in 2004) — and later by means of an outright coup to finish the job; public opinion can thus be effectively turned upside-down.

The political analyst Walter Lippmann in 1922 introduced the phrase “the manufacture of consent” as referring to how an aristocracy in the modern age controls its public by means of those aristocrats (now a country’s billionaires) owning, founding, and hiring media and think tanks and universities in order for these billionaires, in this age of hired ‘experts’ about public affairs, to shape their public’s opinion to become what that aristocracy (the nation’s billionaires) wants it to become. What happened in Ukraine is an excellent example of this pattern.

Another example of this, which is now in the cooker and just being prepared, is Moldova. On 6 December 2022, Russia’s Tass News Agency headlined “Majority of Moldovans consider Russia country’s best partner — opinion poll”, and reported that the Institute of Marketing and Polls in Moldova (a polling organization that mainly serves not news-outlets but corporations that market to Moldovans and which therefore need to know privately what Moldovans want) had privately reported the prior day their findings about Moldovans’ views regarding the country’s international relations. Tass reported that:

Most Moldovans consider Russia to be their country’s best partner in the spheres of economy, politics and security, according to the results of a public opinion poll released by the Institute of Marketing and Polls (IMAS) on Tuesday.

“As many as 38% of those polled spoke in favor of partnership with Russia in the economic sphere, 30% opted for the European Union, and 12% – for Romania. Only four percent chose partnership with the United States, and two percent favored China and NATO each. In the sphere of politics, Russia was chosen by 37% of the respondents, the European Union – by 29%, Romania – by 11%, the United States – by 5%, China – by 1%, and NATO – by 3%. In the sphere of security, 36% of the polled said they considered Russia a reliable partner. The European Union scored 21%, Romania and NATO – 10% each, the United States – 5%, and China – 1%,” the pollster said.

The poll involving 1,100 people in 90 settlements was conducted from November 10 to 29. The margin of error is three percent.

According to poll results, 62% of respondents think that Moldova should have close relations with Russia, 21% want neutral relations, 10% want remote relations, and only five percent spoke in favor of severing relations with Russia.

On 21 January 2023, Russia’s RT News bannered “Moldova considers joining ‘larger alliance’: Under President Maia Sandu, the country has pursued deeper integration with the West”. Sandu is to Moldova what President Viktor Yushchenko was to Ukraine — a key agent of U.S. subversion of her country, to serve her U.S. masters. She was referring to either the EU or NATO, but didn’t name either of them, because both are unpopular in Moldova, just as both had been unpopular in Ukraine before America’s successful coup in Ukraine in 2014.

If she succeeds, then she won’t likely be the leader of her country when the U.S. coup occurs there, but her leadership of Moldova will have helped to lead her country to the coup, and to the ethnic cleansing, and to the popularity there of the EU and of NATO, and, perhaps, also to becoming invaded by Russia before Moldova will have applied to and been accepted into those anti-Russia economic and military organizations. Just as Yushchenko was a crucial steppingstone to Ukraine’s post-2013 destruction, she will then be a crucial steppingstone to Moldova’s destruction.

The public can be manipulated, and this can produce a country’s ultimate destruction, by means of not merely deceit, but, also, by subversion, followed by coup, followed by ethnic cleansing, followed by military invasion of that country.

No public learns from history. That might be the reason why history constantly repeats itself, as it has done for all of these thousands of years, though the methods change. Understanding history’s patterns ought to be taught in pre-college grades, but aristocracies have never wanted it to be publicly taught at all; and, so, even at the Ph.D. level, it’s more of an orphan topic than any kind of academic mainstream.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on The Duran.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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

Visit and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

First published by GR on June 28 2022

***

The US Ambassador to Canada, David Cohen, has characterized the members and supporters of the Canadian Truckers’ Freedom Convoy as “extremists” who are “subverting democratic processes and voices to further the cause of authoritarianism.”

As reported by Canada’s Global News, Cohen elaborated,

“China and Russia are among the actors involved in those attempts to subvert democracy, but also domestic forces including elements in the trucker convoys that blockaded the Canadian capital and border crossings for three weeks earlier this year.”

This intervention in domestic politics by the Biden administration’s top emissary to Canada should not go unnoticed. Quite clearly, it is the Canadian Truckers and many of their supporters who are victims, rather than perpetrators, of multiple forms of authoritarianism.

The federal governments on both sides of the Canada-US border continue to attack the proponents of a working class movement that won global headlines in mid-winter 2022. The Truckers did not “blockade the Canadian capital” as Cohen alleges. Rather the leadership of the Trucker’s movement responded assertively in good democratic fashion to a wrongheaded set of COVID policies.

When they got to Ottawa, the Truckers teamed up with their invited experts to mount many public education events. These widely-viewed webcast events dealt with many aspects of the COVID fiasco hidden from wide public view. The Ottawa event also involved public demonstrations to help illuminate widespread grievances. In spite of the barrage of provocations and insults hurled at the protesters, they remained basically peaceful, disciplined and upbeat.

This peaceful application of democratic pressure caused government, law enforcement agencies and media to react in ways that well illustrate the anti-democratic bent of authority these days. The hostility to democratic ideals is especially evident in the executive branches of the intertwined Liberal Party and Democratic Party governments that together currently dominate federal authority in North America.

The Freedom Convoy transported their grievances literally to the front door of the Canadian Parliament, an institution that increasingly symbolizes Canada’s failing democracy. Rather than storm Parliament, the Truckers parked their large vehicles in front of the Parliament seeking an audience with federal officials.

No smear campaign like those presently being piled on the Truckers’ movement can ever supplant the heart-warming imagery of the Freedom Convoy’s pilgrimage to Ottawa in mid-winter of 2022. Who can forget the moving pictures of large groups of patriotic Canadians coming out into the arctic deep freeze to wave the Canadian flag in support of the Freedom Convoy’s journey across a massive snowbound landscape?

Video

From the perspective of those running the US and Canadian governments, the main sin of the Canadian Truckers was the effectiveness of their introduction to the public of the scale and destructive impact of the COVID scam.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Parliament’s top political officer, did not attempt even a rudimentary greeting of these emissaries of political change from all over Canada. Instead, Trudeau immediately slammed the doors shut to even the possibility of face-to-face exchanges between the Trucker leadership and officers of the Canadian Crown.

On February 2  ” Prime Minister Justin in a rather unusual and RIDICULOUS “twit” made the following declaration (allegedly adopted by a unanimous vote of the House of Commons). REALLY?

The following video refutes Trudeau’s accusations 

.

After uttering a now-notorious litany of slurs against the Truckers, the petulant Trudeau went into hiding where he busied himself with preparing to invoke the Canadian version of martial law. Among the immediate goals of Trudeau’s suspension of constitutional government was to seize the bank accounts of individual Truckers and those who contributed to the Trucker’ collective organization through Internet donation platforms.

Another goal was to unleash violent state repression of peaceful protests in Ottawa. Those who eventually carried out this crackdown seemed to include some sort of globalist police force. Some connected the presence of untagged and unnamed police officers in unfamiliar uniforms to the presence of a UN aircraft at a nearby airport in North Bay. See this.

The Events at Coutts, Alberta

The authoritarianism pointed against Truckers and their supporters continues in Trudeau’s Canada in many forms. For instance the impositions of authority include the continued incarceration without bail of some individuals picked out for unusual punishment.

The victims of the federal authoritarianism include four men who are currently jailed in southern Alberta even though they haven’t been convicted of anything. Their names are Anthony Olienick, Chris Carbert, Christopher Lysak, and Jerry Morin. They were arrested in mid-February and will remain under government lock and key until their forthcoming joint trial to take place in October at the earliest. See this.

The charges arise from the participation of the accused in demonstrations in Coutts Alberta. These demonstrations ran parallel with the parking of thousands of trucks in Canada’s national capital. The events at Coutts involved a complex series of negotiations involving the RCMP, the Truckers as well as their supporters including elected MLA’s in Alberta’s fractious provincial legislature. The back-and-forth between these parties led to sporadic openings and closings of vehicle movement across the Alberta-Montana border.

On or around 14 Feb., 13 protestors, sometimes dubbed “the Coutts 13,” were charged by the Crown with crimes said by the RCMP to have taken place during the on-again-off-again blockade near Coutts and Sweetgrass Montana.

The four men facing the most serious allegations are charged with the unusual and problematic crime of  “conspiracy to commit the murder” of RCMP officers. Are there political factors behind the decision to create a murder trial of Trucker supporters based on an event where no murders took place? See this.

There are unusually high levels of secrecy permeating the conduct of this complex case. This secrecy led to the decision by several prominent media outlets in Canada to intervene with the presiding court in a failed attempt to “unseal” crucial information in the genesis of the “conspiracy to commit murder” charges.” See this.

From the bail hearings in the Lethbridge courthouse, a vague picture is emerging of what the Crown is trying to prove. It seems that special units of the heavily politicized Royal Canadian Mounted Police developed some facets of their accusations on the basis of recorded private phone conversations as well as on the claims of infiltrators hired by police to pretend to be protesters. Local hearsay is that these infiltrators were largely attractive young women who may have been encouraged to entrap their targets.

A suspicious element of the Crown’s case against the Coutts 13 is that the charges materialized only after police failed in their concerted efforts to find weapons in the possession of the Ottawa Truckers and their supporters.

News reports of the Coutts charges put emphasis on a photo of a weapons cache laid out in front of a polished RCMP vehicle.

This photo has been the subject of much sceptical speculation especially among the many thousands of Albertans, including sitting MLAs, who took part in the Coutts demonstrations over almost three weeks. As reported by the Western Standard, the photo in question is not accompanied by credible RCMP explanations of how it is connected, if at all, to the largely peaceful protests at Coutts.

Photo of items seized as a result of last night’s search warrants at the Coutts border blockade. https://t.co/Rve2jtvVX0 pic.twitter.com/3szbXlKrJl

— RCMP Alberta (@RCMPAlberta) February 15, 2022

What is to be said about the timing of the Coutts arrests just hours before Prime Minister Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland invoked the revised version of Canada’s War Measures Act? The revised version is known as the Emergency Act.  See this.

The Toronto Sun has tried to dismiss the possible significance of this timing of the arrests in the immediate prelude to the Emergency Act’s invocation. The Sun’s pundit observed that the “charges [at Coutts] were made through normal police investigation procedures unrelated to the act.” How could any police procedures be “normal” during the climax of what was in mid-February one of the hottest political news stories in the world?

The Sun’s editorial does not consider that the timing and content of the charges might be part of a larger political scheme to win public acceptance for the Emergence Act, a de facto trigger of martial law.

The arrest of the Coutts 13 seemed to provide last-minute backing for the Feb. 14 presentation of Chrystia Freeland and Justin Trudeau. Deputy Prime Minister Freeland highlighted Canada’s Terrorism Financing Act in publicly explaining the seizure without court order of Trucker-related bank accounts and donations.

The resort by Trudeau and Freeland to terrorist laws required some indication that a terrorist plot had been discovered and apprehended. How convenient that the RCMP provided the Trudeau-Freeland Team with just such a propaganda gift just before the top representatives of Canada’s government stepped in front of the cameras.

Were the members of the Coutts 13 set up to provide a media spectacle of a supposedly-apprehended-domestic-terrorist-event, in order to justify the Trudeau government’s further lockdowns of citizen’ rights and freedoms? See this.

Systematic Evidence Denial 

Most of the jailed Truckers and Trucker supporters have been released from Ottawa-area detention centres. Like Olienick, Carbert, Lysak and Morin, however, Pat King remains in prison. One might ask if there is already justification enough for considering these five incarcerated men as political prisoners in Canada?

Like the “conspiracy to commit murder” charges, the accusations against King seem to emerge from what some prosecutor’s anticipation of what might happen rather than what did happen. King is facing charges “for mischief, counselling to commit mischief, counselling to commit the offence of disobeying a court order, and counselling to obstruct police.” See this.

The incarcerated King has been described as “beaten down” by an Ottawa pastor who visited him in jail. This characterization is at odds with the usual quixotic optimism of this former oil-rig worker. King came to broad attention when he made a widely-publicized breakthrough of sorts by ably representing himself on a COVID-related matter in an Alberta court. See this.

With his plain-spoken working class directness, King took to the Internet where he was instrumental in calling the Freedom Convoy into existence. Once the Convoy embarked on its journey, King reported regularly in webcasts from along the Trans-Canada Highway and then from within the Trucker’s Ottawa stand. See this.

Since the Truckers made their mark last winter, the large mass of COVID evidence continues to grow. In more and more depth and detail, this evidence chronicles the zealous incursions by many governments, including those of Canada and the United States, into the physical, mental, economic, and societal wellbeing of abused and traumatized citizens.

In the summer of 2022 it is more evident than ever that the manufactured COVID crisis is an ongoing disaster of monumental magnitude. What began as a “hallucinatory hijacking” committed by “lunatics who grabbed ahold of the asylum,” continues to unfold. An integral aspect of the fiasco is what el gato malo describes as systematic “evidence denial.”

Like thousands of expert observers of the huge and growing travesty of widespread deaths and injuries caused by the toxic COVID injections, malo predicts, “it’s going to end in show trials, massive lawsuits, recrimination and accusation… we cannot un-ring the bell, but we can prevent if from ever taking such a toll again.” See this. On evidence denial see this.

 The Presumption of Guilt Until Innocence Is Proven

It is highly possible that some political exploitation of law enforcement agencies in Canada is replicating aspects of the well-documented role of FBI agents and assets in steering the course of election-fraud protests that took place at the Capitol Building in Washington DC on January 6, 2021.

In Canada, the United States and many other countries, it is becoming almost axiomatic that federal agents are covertly deployed to help realize the political projects of ruling parties and dominating lobbies.

The record is clear that law enforcement and intelligence agencies are ordered in some instances to intervene maliciously with the goal of creating public fears by targeting enemies representative of larger constituencies about to be demonized, dehumanized and attacked. Another frequent scenario is to covertly inject government-instigated violence in order to deny public sympathy to the honest organizers of law-abiding public protest.

As Glenn Greenwald explains below, it is well documented that police officers, agents and assets influenced events at the Capitol protests in Washington DC during the opening days of 2021. A key goal was to help along the Democratic Party’s agenda of creating a spectacle to illustrate the existence of “domestic terrorism.”

Greenwald emphasizes that the covert manipulation of the election-fraud protests constitute a domestic variation of the initiation of the War on Terror. He doesn’t explain, however, how 9/11 was engineered and spun to create massive public fear of Islamic terrorism to help win public support for future invasion of Muslim-majority countries. See this.

In the name of the War on Terror, the principles of habeas corpus have been gradually put aside. This tendency started immediately after 9/11 when random Muslims were rounded up and jailed to finesse the fiction being hysterically reported in the news. A theatrical display was dramatized to promote the fiction that large numbers of Muslims were taken into custody to prevent these terrorists from committing future jihad.

In this way a pattern was initiated as law enforcement agencies began to normalize presumptions of guilt until innocence is proven. No longer does the presumption of innocence prevail as a matter of course except when tainted justice is purchased by those with the financial means to buy it.

A good example of the way the post-9/11 terrorist laws have overturned the principles of habeas corpus is on public display in the treatment of the four men charged in Coutts with conspiracy to commit murder. They will probably be held in jail for well over a year before there is any assignment of guilt or innocence in their cases.

By keeping the men in prison without bail, the government prejudices public perceptions. A public presumption develops that the accused must be so dangerous that it is necessary to lock them up. The plan is to convict them in the court of public opinion before they ever get to trial.

Did the RCMP allow itself to be enlisted in a government-backed plan to poison public perceptions of the Canadian Truckers? In real democracies many honest journalists would by now be skeptically looking into this question especially given the RCMP’s history of dishonesty and corruption. Many past examples as well as current breaking-news stories can be cited to show the RCMP giving over its criminal justice functions in order to advance the partisan objectives of ruling politicians. See, for instance, this and this.

Killing Off the Last Remnants of Democracy and Protection for Human Rights

The real crime of the Canadian Truckers was to have highlighted so effectively the gross malfeasance of Canada’s federal government in dealing with the COVID crisis. The Truckers helped catalyze a trajectory of independent inquiry and public education among the general public that is still gathering momentum. Only now is a significant portion of humanity beginning to grapple with the revelation that the destruction wrought by the manufactured COVID crisis is nothing like what has been presented by COVID Officialdom.

The growing complex of crimes against humanity has its origins not in the onslaught of a virulent pathogen but rather in a worldwide power grab by those already in possession of the greatest concentrations of entitlement on earth. The power grab is based on the quest to eliminate, enfeeble, disempower, and dispossess average people by killing off the last remnants of democracy, self-determination, and the protection for human rights.

There still has been no real reckoning with the tremendous destruction done by the so-called Lockdowns, the most devastating element of the COVID restrictions. More devastating yet are the widely-mandated COVID injections that seem to have been designed in bioweapon labs to impose widespread injury and death.

The range of maladies caused by the injections is extensive. One group of maladies has behind it, massive replications of pathogenic spike proteins stimulated by the clot shots. This outcome seems not to be inadvertent. As COVID sage, Dr. Mike Yeadon, recently declared to the world, “they did it on purpose, knowing it would hurt you.” See this.

From the perspective of those running the US and Canadian governments, the main sin of the Canadian Truckers was the effectiveness of their introduction to the public of the scale and destructive impact of the COVID scam.

The raw drama of the Truckers’ quest for justice caused many media outlets in Canada and throughout the world to briefly mitigate their unrelenting hostility towards any public criticism of COVID Officialdom. In the light of future history, this early crack in the thick wall of COVID-related  censorship, propaganda, and disinformation may prove to have larger consequences that cannot yet be fully understood.

Diagolon, The Anti-Hate Network, and the Coutts 13

Some of the media’s effort to discredit the Truckers’ movement was published by CTV News during the 10-day period when Canada was under martial law. One of the items cited in CTV’s report included words attributed to Barbara Perry, Director of the Centre for Bias, Hate and Extremism at the Ontario Tech University.

Parry referred the Truckers  movement being riddled with people she describes as “accelerationists.” In Parry’s conception of the world, “accelerationists” are violent extremists who are trying to speed up the pace of the radical alteration of society.

According to Parry, many “accelerationists” want “all-out civil war that would delegitimize and destabilize the current regime.” Parry reported that some of the supposed accelerationists she links to the Canadian Truckers’ movement “celebrated the events of January 6 as the onset of this civil war, hence the calls…. for the Freedom Convoy to be our January 6.”

Click here to watch.

The Canadian Anti-Hate Network is one of the lead agencies in the spin doctoring aimed at criminalizing the Truckers’ movement generally and the Coutts protest particularly. No doubt discussions are already underway to determine if this so-called network will provide “expert witnesses” in the trial of four men waiting in jail to meet the charge that they conspired together with the intention of killing RCMP officers. According to “Post-Millennial,” the Anti-Hate network receives $250,000 in annual grants from the Trudeau government. See this.

The Chair of the Anti-Hate Network is Bernie Farber, well known in Canada for his efforts at the Canadian Jewish Congress to silence, isolate, deplatform and ruin designated targets. Many of those targeted dared criticize the policies and actions of the Israeli government as well its Canadian networks of supporters.

Bernie Farber has been described “as Canada’s most zealous supporter of speech censorship laws.” Ezra Levant marks his contempt for Bernie Farber’s defamatory projects by referring to him as “Burnie.” See this and this.

Farber and Parry are prominent “anti-hate” advocates in a government-subsidized smear campaign designed to discredit the Truckers’ movement generally and the Coutts 13 particularly. This “anti-hate” witch hunt is to arouse public anxieties by connecting the Truckers to a recently-invented term, Diagolon.

Global News introduced to its audience the concept that the arrest of the Coutts 13 is connected to Diagolon. Recall that it was Global that hosted the highlighted interview with the US Ambassador to Canada.

In its introduction to Diagolon, Global News also highlighted the Canadian Anti-Hate Network and its campaign to cause a crackdown on “the intertwined membership” of the “anti-vaxx and far-right movement.” See this.

The extreme partisanship of Global News is well illustrated in the commentary by Paula Tran dated 15 Feb., just one day after Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland invoked martial law in Canada. Global News reported:

“Anti-hate experts are raising concerns after a picture of weapons, ammunition and body armour seized at the border protest at Coutts, Alta. showed patches belonging to a neo-nazi group in Canada.

The Canadian Anti-Hate Network tweeted on Monday that gear seized by police at Coutts includes a plate carrier with Diagolon patches. According to the network, Diagolon is an accelerationist movement that believes a revolution is inevitable and necessary to collapse the current government system. It wants to build its ideal nation-state, which runs diagonally from Alaska through the western provinces down to Florida.

It is also a neo-fascist militia with a sizeable support base across the country, said the network.” See this.

Jeremy MacKenzie of Pictou Nova Scotia actually invented the idea of Diagolon along with its flag. A veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces, MacKenzie is a skilled satirist and pundit who holds forth in the “Raging Dissident” webcast.

In the following video, MacKenzie explains how he conjured up his fantasy of a new polity stretching diagonally across North American from Alaska to Florida. MacKenzie explains further how a network of ADL-approved  “anti-hate” propagandists seized on his tongue-in-cheek concept to express their own bizarre theories about Diagolon as a terrorist threat to the national security of Canada. See this and this.

Sacrificing Truth and Honesty in News Reporting

Justin Trudeau was unceasingly referring to swastikas intimating that the Freedom Convoy organizers are not only supportive of  Nazi symbols but are anti-Semitic.  And on February 16,  he directed these wild accusations against the Conservative Party of Canada:

“Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was cautioned against using “inflammatory” language by the Speaker of the House of Commons on Wednesday after he told Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman, who is Jewish, that her party stands with “people who wave swastikas.”

In substance, Trudeau is accusing Conservative Party members of being Neo-Nazis.

Video: Is Justin Trudeau anti-semitic?? 

In turn, Bernie Farber was involved in smearing the Canadian Truckers’ during their Ottawa stand, portraying them as anti-semitic. Farber publicized a controversial flier that he claimed was sent to him by a friend that had obtained it at the “Ottawa Occupation.”

This flier was widely publicized by reporters as part of their ongoing project to find dirt on the protestors in order to publicly demean them. The provocative headline of the document in question proclaimed “ Every Single Aspect of the Covid Agenda is Jewish.” See this and this.

Farber’s misrepresentation was discovered and explained by Jonathan Kay, a journalist who, like Ezra Levant, Farber’s other outspoken critic, are committed supporters of Israel. In a Tweet Kay exclaimed,

“Wow Bernie, isn’t it incredible that the picture ‘your friend in Ottawa at the Occupation’ sent you is identical to the photo posted on Twitter two weeks ago by someone in Miami, right down to the ceramic design in the background.”

NDP MP Charlie Angus fell for it, of course.https://t.co/BhCOv4OzF4 pic.twitter.com/f0Gfqxi6So

— Jonathan Kay (@jonkay) February 6, 2022

The exposure of Farber’s dubious tactics in his campaign to generate bad publicity for the Canadian Truckers’ points to a phenomenon with implications that transcend the details of this particular case. The unscrupulous zeal of Farber’s intent  to smear the Truckers helps shed light on a key facet of our present crisis when it seems there are no checks against giving over the media to power-serving lies and distortions calculated to favour authority by sacrificing truth and honesty in news reporting.

In the present context, the influence of trials-by-media can be decisive in setting the outcome of real trials as well as policy decisions adopted by government. Accordingly, the victims of malicious smear campaigns can include large segments of the public along with individuals actually targeted for attack.

The Global News Story of 15 Feb. provides a good case study of how history is being shaped these days by bathing the public in illusion while concurrently starving them of honest and balanced reporting which citizens need to fulfill their democratic responsibilities.

A Neo-Fascist Militia?

Global News and many other media featured the picture of the arms’ cache in introducing the RCMP’s arrest of the Coutts 13. What does this picture actually prove? What does it prove when the photographed cache is said to be located in southern Alberta where a large percentage of the population owns registered and unregistered firearms which they often use for a variety of reasons including hunting for sport and food as well as protecting farm animals from predators.

It’s a pretty big leap to connect the Coutts arrests to the unexplained picture of firearms gathered who knows how, where, and when? Is it mere coincidence that reports of the Coutts arrests all highlighted the supposedly incriminating picture published simultaneously with Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergency Act?

What is being conveyed by keeping four men in jail on the basis of the still-unproven claim that RCMP officers unearthed a cell of wannabee cop killers said to be on their way to attempting a violent overthrow of the Canadian and US governments? Did Bernie Farber play a role in prepping Justin Trudeau to see the Truckers as a “fringe minority” permeated with racism, anti-Semitism, and accelerationist extremism? Who is in the best position to politically manipulate the public fears aroused by the official narrative of what the Coutts 13 and their peers are supposed to represent and be?

At the top of the Global story of 15 Feb. story is the RCMP’s trophy photo including the image of an army green item possibly combining the function of a packsack and bullet shield. On this device are two very small badges presenting images of Jeremy MacKenzie’s Diagolon flag. This flag is composed of a single white line on a black background.

Photo of items seized as a result of last night’s search warrants at the Coutts border blockade. https://t.co/Rve2jtvVX0 pic.twitter.com/3szbXlKrJl

— RCMP Alberta (@RCMPAlberta) February 15, 2022

On the basis of all sorts of assumptions about what is behind the Dialogon image, the Global New story declared that the Coutts 13 are part of a “neo-fascist militia,” a “neo-nazi group in Canada.” How ironic it is that in the days following the concurrent declaration of the Emergency Act and the arrest of the Coutts 13, Freeland and Trudeau rushed into a prominent role offering on behalf of the Canadian government and people, substantial backing to the Ukraine government that includes significant Nazi elements. See this.

Censorship of the Media to Prevent Many Lords from Being Unseated from Their Ill-Gotten Thrones

The ongoing slide into a global war has at its core a clash between the United States and Russia, countries that have the largest nuclear arsenals on earth. The war started when Vladimir Putin declared Russia’s intention to “demilitarize” and “denazify” Ukraine. The declaration came one day after the Trudeau government withdrew the Emergency Act on 23 Feb.

In the developing conflagration the US government and its NATO allies including the government of Canada are characterizing the conflict as a fight between democracy and authoritarianism. This meme is well reflected in the content of Global News’ interview with Ambassador Cohen.

What does “democracy” really mean these days and where is it be to be found amidst all the corruption, fraud, and misrepresentation running rife throughout the countries of US-dominated NATO?

The relevance of this question is well illustrated by the absurdity of Ambassador Cohen’s claim that Canada and the US embrace democracy whereas Russia, China and the Canadian Truckers embrace authoritarianism.

The constant spin doctoring swirling around the word, “democracy,” has made it a heavily weaponized term often deployed with a propagandistic edge similar to that invoked by, say, “terrorism,” “hate speech,” “conspiracy theory,” and “neo-nazi.”

If “democracy” continues to have any meaning of its own outside the sphere of propaganda, it surely includes the principle that the legitimacy of governments comes from the consent of the governed. Moreover, democracy surely has something to do with the capacity to conduct conscientiously free, fair and honest elections. Elections are basically useless, however, if voters lack access to accurate reporting bringing forward the full array of information required by conscientious citizens to make sound decisions at the ballot box.

None of these electoral conditions come anywhere close to being met in the so-called “democracies” of the so-called “West.” Right now, especially as the manufactured COVID crisis continues to unfold, most of the media are in the front lines of an unrelenting assault that is killing democracy by starving it of the oxygen of full disclosure and honest reporting.

In Canada the assault on democracy is being pushed ahead by legislation providing the means for yet more vandalizing of the Internet to censor voices that do not conform with the dominant official narratives of power. Bill C-11 and Bill C-36 in Canada are legislative instruments of the drive to bludgeon those flows of information with the capacity to unseat many Lords of the Manor from their ill-gotten thrones.

The Israel Lobby in Canada and throughout the NATO countries is a major and consistent proponent of more censorship and more laws to constrain freedom of expression especially on the Internet. The Israel Lobby’s heavy influence on the content of much of the media helps shape what politicians say or don’t say in their quest to be elected and re-elected.

Global News and the Canadian Museum of Human Rights

Especially since the onset of the manufactured COVID crisis, big media outlets like the Washington Post and CNN have confirmed their role as propagandists of power. The spin doctoring at publicly-owned Crown corporations like the BBC, CBC and the Australian ABC seems to be as biased as the commercial media giants. This development is effectively nuking the viability of public broadcasting.

The biggest and most far-reaching media venues have been sharply chastised by those in the know. Much less attention has been paid, however, to the hundreds and thousands of smaller venues that regularly replicate the centrally-scripted disinformation of the COVID scam.

The COVID lies have been accompanied by ferocious media censorship of news on, for instance, Hunter Biden’s Laptop from Hell, the US election fraud, and the superpower conflict increasingly permeating the war in Ukraine. The Global television network is one of those smaller venues peddling uncritically the full array of official narratives on these and many other stories.

I’ll conclude with a short narrative on Global News that sheds added light on a number of issues addressed in this essay. Beginning in the mid-1970s, the trajectory of the creation and development of Global Television was largely the work of a Winnipeg tax-lawyer named Israel Asper. See this.

Asper injected his own politics into what became CanWest Global Communications. In 2000 his company purchased Conrad Black’s Hollinger Corporation that owned 60 Canadian newspapers, This media network included Black’s own creation and flagship, the National Post.

Asper died in 2003. His descendants, including Gail Asper, sold many of their newspapers in 2009 when the Internet was stealing many readers and advertising dollars from print media.

It was Izzy Asper’s dream to found a Canadian Holocaust Museum modelled on the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. Israel Asper’s daughter, Gail, took over the leadership role in the creation of the museum when her father died in 2003.

When Gail Asper sought federal backing for this project, she was told that she and her colleagues, including her brothers, would have to widen the museum to become a more inclusive in its subject matter. As part of this response I travelled to Winnipeg frequently to sit on the Content Advisory Board of the Canadian Museum of Human Rights.

Click here to watch the video.

This Museum currently sits on a historic site at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers in Winnipeg, the spiritual home of the Metis nation. The museum is presently pictured on the Canadian $10 bill along with a passage from the Canadian Charter of Human Rights. Canada’s Charter of Rights was badly transgressed in the process of imposing many COVID restrictions and injection mandates on Canadian citizens. These transgressions became integral to core contentions in the controversies aroused by the arrival of the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa in the winter of 2022. See this.

So far neither the Canadian government nor Canada’s judiciary have seen fit to force the legal question of whether the integrity of the rule of law requires that terms of the Charter, part of Canada’s “supreme law,” should be made to prevail over the COVID restrictions and injection mandates. This failure means Canadians have no way of knowing for certain if the government actions done in the name of fighting COVID are consistent with the Canadian constitution or not.

Not surprisingly, Global News has not accompanied its stories about Diagolon, the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, the arrest of the Coutts 13, and the words of the US Ambassador with commentary about the wholesale denial of human rights and civil liberties that the Canadian Charter is supposed to protect. Nor has there been coherent comments emanating from within the Canadian Museum of Human Rights on the manufactured COVID crisis and its role in the denigration of human rights and democracy itself in Canada.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Dr. Anthony Hall is editor in chief of the American Herald Tribune. He is currently Professor of Globalization Studies at University of Lethbridge in Alberta Canada. He has been a teacher in the Canadian university system since 1982. Dr. Hall, has recently finished a big two-volume publishing project at McGill-Queen’s University Press entitled “The Bowl with One Spoon”.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from OffGuardian

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

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

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

First published on January 26, 2023

Introduction

The Juche is certainly the most debated ideology but the least understood and it is even the target of hostile attack. It has been perceived in the Western media and the mainstream academics as an ideology poorly conceived and badly structured. Indeed it has been regarded even as an ideology designed to justify perpetual dictatorship of Kim’s family.

In short, Juche is presented as something negative and even harmful. But, Juche has been playing the vital role in sustaining the integrity of North Korea as sovereign country.

It is possible that its negative image is attributable to the lack of understanding of North Koreans’ mentality on the one hand and, on the other, the prejudice against the North Korean regime which is different from the regimes of the western world, especially the American regime.

But, there is another possible factor responsible for the projection of negative image of Juche. It is the trend that the media and the mainstream academics look at only segments of Juche. There is no doubt that to better understand Juche, it is necessary to examine the whole of Juche system. In other words, we need general theory of Juche.

To produce a general theory of Juche, we may need a book of several hundreds of pages or books. This paper does not offer   general theory. What it proposes is to identify issues which should be dealt with in the general theory of Juche.

This paper identifies questions related the Juche issues and tries to provide answers to these questions, which should be explored more fully in the more elaborated version of the general theory. The following are the seven questions examined in this paper.

• What is Juche?
• Why Juche?
• What are the objectives of Juche?
• How does Juche socialism operate?
• How has Juche socialism evolved?
• How should we evaluate the performance of Juche socialism?
• What are the impacts of Juche socialism?

What is Juche (主體:주체)?

There are two ways of understanding Juche: the general concept of Juche and the North Korean concept of Juche.

To begin with, in Korea, as the Chinese character above indicates, Juche means chief decision maker of event such as “initiator,” “promoter,” “organiser,” and so on. For instance if I organize a seminar, I am the Juche of the seminar. The Juche of national policies is the national government. The Juche of the UN General Assembly is the UN.

In the general concept of Juche, the autonomy of the Juche is not considered; the Juche may accept the interference of outside force. For example, South Korea being vassal country of the U.S., its foreign policy is not autonomous; Washington may give directives of South Korea’s foreign policy.

On the other hand, in North Korea, Juche means something which has strong political connotation. Juche must be autonomous and independent. The Juche must think, plan and do things with little or no external interference. This does not means that the Juche ignores the external factors, which may have to be considered, but the final decision must be autonomous. It is of paramount importance to note that Juche does not mean intended isolation.

Applied to national policies, the North Korean Juche in politics is independence (ja-ju: 自主); Juche in economics is self-sufficiency (ja-jok:自足); Juche in national defence is auto-defence.(ja-wi:自衛). We will see below how these North Korean national Juche policies have been successful.

Tribute plaques to Juche from foreign delegates, contained in the interior entrance of the Juche Tower (Licensed under CC BY 2.0)

Why Juche?

The notion of Juche was conceived by Kim Il-sung, the founder of the North Korea (DPRK). In 1930, at the age of 18, Kim Il-sung made a speech in front of the communist organization of the Korean Youth.

The young patriot insisted on the need for the solution of Korean problems by Koreans themselves without the intervention of foreign powers. Thus, already in 1930, the future leader of North Korea had the idea of Juche.

“North Koreans are masters of North Korean people’s revolution. The North Korean revolution must be carried out by its own people and based on the country’s own situation. Experience proves that we must go to masses to materialize and organize them in order to lead revolution to success. We should not rely on others to solve all problems during the revolution. Instead, we should rely on ourselves and address all problems in accordance with our situation.” (Kim Il-sung Speech made in front of North Korean Youth Communist organizations, 1930)

The feeling of nationalism and the desire to solve Korean problems by Koreans themselves are shared by both South Koreans and North Koreans. In fact, the complaint and even the anger against foreign intervention in domestic affairs are common in the North and the South.

It is important to remember that during the 500-years ruling by Lee Dynasty (1392-1910), Korea (Chosun) was the humiliating vassal country of China because of the weakness of Juche of the Chosun government.

In 1910, Korea was annexed to Japan. It was the result of selling Korea to Japan free of charge by the traitor, Lee Wan Yong and his pro-Japan gang for their personal financial and political interests. The Juche of Korea was given to Japan.

During the 4-year American military government (1945-1948), there was no Korean Juche. The Juche of South Korean affairs was the American military government.

During 75 years (1948-2023), South Korean was an American vassal country and at the same time, a Japanese neo-colonial country. During this period, the Juche of South Korea was shared among the three countries South Korea, Japan and the U.S.

As for North Korea, the post-WWII era was the period in which Pyongyang fought hard to repatriate its Juche from South Korea, Russia and China.

What are the Objectives of Juche?

The objective of Juche is the creation of socialism with North Korean characteristics, namely, the Juche Socialism.

How does Juche Socialism Operate?

The construction of Juche socialism is based on the “Juche relationship” among the three composing groups of the regime, namely, the people, the nation and the leader.

In the Juche relations, the people are the most important element of the trilateral relations. Man is master of himself and he is free, but he freely identifies himself with the nation; he becomes the nation; the nation is man.

This way of looking at man and the nation is well expressed by Kim Jung-il, son of Kim Il-sung.

“Juche is based on philosophical principle that man is the master of everything and decides everything, the man is master of everything means that he is the master of the whole world and his destiny; that man decides everything means that he plays decisive role in transforming the world and shaping destiny.” Kim Jung-il, On Juche, 1982.

In this speech, we see that man is the master of himself and at the same time, he is the master of the nation. Therefore, the man and the nation are one. The happiness of man is the happiness of the nation; the happiness of the nation is the happiness of man. This way of thinking is, in fact, the most extreme way of looking at collectivism.

In a way, North Koreans find their salvation in his or her devotion to the wellbeing of the society, which is the wellbeing of the people.

In other words, the interests of individual are “melted” into or “infused” with those of the society.

We must recognize that this part of Juche socialism is almost a religious concept. This concept may be inspired from Christian doctrine where “man is in God and God is in man.”

To be sure, such way of thinking is difficult to grasp for westerners who are used to the idea of individual freedom and the value of individualism. But, the idea of unity of individual values and collective values has become a reality in North Korea. It has become a reality due to intensive education which became the national policy priority since Kim Jung-il took over, in 1972, the responsibility of education and propaganda.

The third component of the Juche socialism is the place of the leader. In fact, the success and the failure of the Juche socialism depends on how the leader leads the nation and how the people accept the leadership. Kim Il-sung and Kim Jung-il have something to say about the leader.

“The people must be melted into the leadership in a revolutionary way so that they can play the role required by their duty for the revolution and such role needs leadership.” (Kim Il-sung, Treaties, 1982)

“In our society, the leader, the political party and the people must be melted altogether in their destiny and they constitute a single political organization. Moreover, they are united and consolidated into blood relations owing to a singular and unified ideology.” (Kim Jung-il, On Juche, 1982)

“The way people awake themselves and organize themselves in a revolutionary way and the way they do their duties for socio-economic development depends only on the leadership of the Workers Party of Korea (WPK).” (Kim Jung-il, On Juche, 1982)

In these quotations, the key word is the people who are melted into the nation and the nation is melted into the leader. In other words, the people, the nation and the leader are the same; they are one. So we have perfect political trinity. This is something which is not easy to understand. But, this doctrine is what makes North Korea what it is.

North Koreans are taught to believe that their leader is clean; he is not corruptible; he never makes errors; he is benevolent; he is magnanimous.

Visitors of the Mansu Hill Grand Monument in Pyongyang bow to massive bronze statues of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

But, the leader imposes a monolithic and unitary regime in such a way that no dissidence is tolerated.

It is true that Kim Il-sung is known for personality cult like Joseph Stalin and so many other authoritarian leaders.

But, I am asking myself if the North Korean regime could have survived decades-long sanctions and endless annual threatening U.S.-ROK joint military exercises. Under such situation, it is doubtful if North Korea could have maintained stability without the absolute authority of their national leaders.

Besides, North Koreans worship Kim Il-sung for other reasons apart from his exercise of personality cult; it is the genuine Confucian relation between the leader and the people.

It is true that Kim Il-sung enjoyed a quasi-religious status motivating North Koreans to obey him even worshiping him. It is possible that Kim Il-sung thought that he had status similar to that of the Japanese emperor. As a matter of fact, in Japan, the emperor-people relations are governed by Shinto which is in fact a religion. In North Korea, the leader-people relations are governed by Juche socialism which has religious dimension.

What is important is the reality in which the people of North Korea believe in the super-human capacity of Kim Il-sung in economics, politics science, business and international relations. At least, they are educated to so believe.

One thing interesting to know is the fact that Kim Il-sung spent four days a week in the farm land, in factories and constructions sites to learn better know the people, learn what the people want and integrate the people’s desire in national policies.

It is true that the world think that the North Korean regime is brutal, exploit people, violate human rights and force the people to live in fear and agony. In such situation, the people would have revolted. But, there has been no major revolt of the people all these years.

True, North Korea has had a very bad image, particularly for the alleged violation of human rights. This has been the chief source of North Korea demonization.

But, nobody provides the evidence of the human right violation except the witness by the defectors who are often made to lie for money. The sensational story of North Korean human right violation provided by two North Korea defectors, Shin Dong Hyuk and Park,  yeonmi were fund to be a made up stories for money. (See the Book, North Korea 70-year War with American power, Chapter 19, Clarity Press, 2020 by A.B. Abrams)

For decades, the intelligence communities, diplomats, think tanks and even religious groups in the West used these made-up stories for the demonization of North Korea.

Besides, we should remember that there are three types of major human rights approved by the UN, namely, the civil and political rights defined by the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) of 1966, the economic, social and cultural rights defined by the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Human Right (ICESCR) of 1966 and several other rights including collective human rights (CR).

When we talk about human rights, we should say which human right in question. True, if the absence of popular political demonstration is due to government’s coercive policy, then, there is the violation of political human rights. But, if it is due to the people’s decision not to make political demonstration, there is no violation of the political human rights.

In North Korea, the people do not demonstrate against the government not because of the fear of government oppression but probably because of their respect and even their love for the national leaders.

Now, the economic, social and cultural human right is violated when the government fails to provide the daily necessities. On this round North Korea has been doing much better job than some highly developed countries.

Once again, the leader-population relations in North Korea are different, in nature from the leader-population relations in the West.. On this aspect, I may report on a peculiar incident happened long time ago in South Korea.

In 2002, there were Asian Games in the city of Pusan, South Korea. A group of North Korean cheer group girls came to Pusan. One rainy day, in the street of the city, the portrait of Kim Jung-il was wet in the rain.

On TV, the girls were seen crying in front of their leader’s wet portrait. The people thought that they were acting to display their devotion to their leader. But, it turned out that they were sincere.

This episode shows that there is something deep in the relations between the North Korean leader and the people. This reality can be explained by the following factors.

First of all, in the Kim regime, as it was seen above, the people, the government and the leader are the same. Hence, the joy and the pains of the leader are the joy and the pains of the people.

Secondly, North Koreans have been subject to rigorous and effective education so that they believe in the super-capability of their leaders on the one hand and, on the other, they thank their leaders for taking care of them.

Lastly, the constant threat by South Korea, Japan and the U.S. made North Korans to unite around the national leader.

In reality, the North Korean society is a huge family where the leader is the Confucian father looking after the people, while the people are the Confucian children obeying the leader through filial piety.

It is interesting to notice that some researchers see the North Korean society as a human body of which the leader is the brain, while the people are various body parts performing various functions needed for the normal living of the body.

How has the Juche socialism evolved?

The North Korean Juche socialism has evolved through the adaptation of Marxism-Leninism to local conditions of North Korea on the one hand and, on the other, through the purge of dissidents’ leaders.

Periods of the evolution of Juche socialism

The North Korean Juche socialism has evolved by different periods as shown below. And, the goal of the evolution of the Juche socialism was the adaptation of Marxism-Leninism to North Korean local conditions.

1948-1954: This was period of the complete application of Marxism-Leninism in North Korea. This was the period when Joseph Stalin was alive dictating the North Korean regime. In 1948, the Russian military government left North Korea leaving Kim Il-sung to run the civil government. In 1953, Joseph Saline died to be succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev in 1954.

1954-1964: This period was the beginning of the “koreanization” of Marxism-Leninism. Nikita Khrushchev took power in 1954 and his top priority was the process of de-Stalinization designed to discredit Stalin’s personality cult. As far as Khrushchev was concerned, Kim Il-sung was also practicing personality cult. The Pyongyang-Moscow relation changed from bad to worse during the whole period of Khrushchev’ presidency of the Soviet Union.

The Kim-Khrushchev dispute was wide open at the 20th Congress of the communist parties of the Soviet Union in Moscow in 1956. Khrushchev openly criticised Kim’s personality cult as well as the personality cult of Mao Zedong.

There was another source of the Kim-Khrushchev dispute, namely, Khrushchev’s ambition of globalizing the Moscow version of Marxism-Leninism so that it will be adopted in the whole communist world. Kim Il-sung thought that the whole idea was not realistic.

In 1955, Kim Il-sung announced the necessity of applying the principle of “innovative change” of Marxism-Leninism to North Korean situation. The innovative change meant the adaptation of Marxism-Leninism to North Korean local cultural, economic political and social situation.

In 1959, Kim Il-sung defined the nation as an entity which is created on the basis of community of language, history, economic life, physical formation which are translated into a cultural community. Based on this principle, Kim Il-sung has demonstrated the necessity of adapting the Moscow version of Marxism-Leninism to the local conditions of North Korea.

1965-1998: this was the third period of “koreanization” of Marxism-Leninism. In this period, the Juche socialism was more structured. And, Kim Il-sung did his best to allocate available resources for the adaptation of Marxism-Leninism to the local conditions of North Korea.

In 1965, Kim Il-sung did not go to the world congress of communist parties. In the same year, he announced the three policies of Juche socialism, namely, political independence, self-sufficient economic system and self-reliable national defence.

In August 1966, Kim Il-sung took a neutral position vis-à-vis the Soviet Union and China by criticizing their revisionism. To justify his position, he did not attend the international meeting of communist parties of 1966. Moreover, in the 1970s, Kim took distance from the Sino-Soviet hegemonic war in the communist world.

In 1970, Kim Jung-il already announced the formation of Kimilsungism. In 1976, Kim Jung-il explained that kimilsungism included the Juche philosophy and that it was new theory of revolution. For Kim Jung-il, kimilsungism was a new doctrine and it cannot be explained in the framework of Marxism-Leninism.

Now, the year, 1982, was a special year, because it was the year when Kim Jung-il presented, through a series of lectures, the finished version of the doctrine of Juche socialism. Also, that year was the year when the Juche Tower was erected.

The construction of the Juche Tower meant, symbolically, the victory of Juche socialism and the global recognition of Juche. On the Juche Tower, we find many blocs built and funded by foreign countries where Juche Study Groups were active.

This period was also the period of widening distance between Kim Il-sung and Mao Zedong. Kim Il-sung did not like the Cultural Revolution in China, because, for Kim, the conservation of traditional values was the core of Juche socialism.

Furthermore, the visit of Henri Kissinger in 1970 and that of Richard Nixon to Beijing in 1972 displeased Kim Il-sung, because, for him, the rapprochement of China with the U.S. was a sign of revisionism.

This period was also the time when the status of Kim Il-sung was elevated to “Supreme Leader” by virtue of the Constitution of 1972 to become “Eternal Leader” in 1998 in accordance with the constitution of 1998. Kim Il-sung is still the living president of North Korea, constitutionally speaking.

In short, this period was marked by North Koreans efforts to preserve some part of Marxism-Leninism and develop new ideas for Juche socialism.

1999-2009: This was the fourth period of koreanization of Marxism-Leninism. This period was the last step of the koreanization of Marxism-Leninism. Kim Il-sung died in 1994.

In the Constitution of 1998, Marxism-Leninism was not mentioned for the first time. And, by virtue of the constitution of 2009, North Korea’s official ideology became kimilsungism-kimjungilism which was Juche socialism.

The interesting question is whether or not Marxism-Leninism was completely discarded in the kimilsungism-kimjungilism. In reality, Marxism-Leninism is still a part of Juche socialism.

Marxism-Leninism and Juche socialism have one thing in common. It is the belief that capitalism will fail and socialism will win. Under capitalism, the wealth, the income and the privileges are concentrated in the hand of few powerful capitalists, while in socialism, the wealth and income will be distributed more equally. But there are fundamental differences between these two ideologies.

Difference between Juche socialism and Marxism-Leninism

First, there is a difference in the concept of the evolution dynamics of the society. In Marxism-Leninism, the evolution of the society takes place by the principle of historical materialism by which the superstructure of the society is determined by the infrastructure. By infrastructure, we mean the economic system, while by superstructure we mean non-materialistic life including religion culture, the judicial system and so on.

In Marxism-Leninism, man’s capacity to determine the revolutionary course of human society is undervalued, while in the Juche socialism, man is the master of the evolutionary process of the society. Man can determine both the superstructure and the infrastructure.

Second, in Marxism-Leninism, the society evolves through Hegelian dialectics by the process of anti-thesis, thesis and synthesis. Thus, society evolves in systemic and logical fashion.

On the other hand, in Juche socialism, the society evolves in “natural way” not logical way; it evolves in “pragmatic way.” This is inspired by Daoism where the natures changes in function of the positive (yang陽) energy (ki氣) and negative (um 陰) energy (ki氣). The inter-energy evolution is not in conflict but in harmony.

Third, there is another difference between Marxism-Leninism and Juche socialism. The difference is in the way of looking at the class struggle. In Marxism-Leninism, the inter-class relation is one of conflict in which the proletarian class will defeat the bourgeois class ending by the dictatorship of the proletarian class.

Now, in the case of Juche socialism, the inter-class relations are characterised by harmony and unity. It may be difficult for Westerners to understand this, but they should understand that the harmony in everything is highly valued in Asian value system.

Fourth, there is also eschatological difference between these two doctrines. In Marxism-Leninism, there is the end of the evolution of the society, that is, the ultimate end of the evolution of the society is the communism with no government and with no classes. On the other hand, in Juche socialism, there is no end in the evolution of the society; the society changes in function of the conditions requiring changes.

Lastly, there is difference in leadership style. In Marxism-Leninism, the leadership is the collective leadership of the proletariat. But in Juche socialism, the leadership is provided by one leader inspired by Confucian notion of national leadership. The Confucian leader takes care of the people, while the people respect and obey the leaders in the Confucian way.

In 1990, Kim Jung-il said this: “the socialism has its roots in the philosophy of Juche.” According to him, the failure of East European communism is attributable to the fact that it imitated the Soviet version of Marxism-Leninism.

According to Kim Jung-il, Juche is the most developed revolutionary theory favouring the promotion of ordinary people’s welfare.

Purge of dissidents

The purge of dissidents was one of the conditions needed for the koreanization of Marxism-Leninism. It is inspired by the principle of monolithic regime requiring zero tolerance of dissidence against the regime.

In 1948, North Korea became a sovereign country. In that year, there were four different groups of communists, namely, the group representing Soviet communism, the group representing Chinese communism, the group representing South Korean communism and, finally the Kapsan group representing communists who had fought with Kim Il-sung against the Japanese army during the Japanese occupation of Korea.

Each group wanted to establish a communist regime of the version of their adopted country. The Soviet group wanted to transplant the Soviet version; the Chinese group, Mao’s version; the South Korea version, South Korean version of communism. The most reliable group was the Kapsan groupe composed of comrades-in arm of Kim Il-sung who had fought against the Japanese army.

The inter-group fight was so bad that Kim Il-sung decided to apply his monolithicism and he undertook the purge of dissident leaders.

In May 1953, the court was open to judge the following dissidents: Pae Sun-choo, Li Kang-kuk, Yun Sun-tel, Li Wang-cho, Cho Yong-pok, Mueng Chung-ho, Sol Chang-sik who were accused of espionage or poor military performance during the Korean War and other crimes. They were expulsed or executed.

In December, 1953, Park Han-young was purged; he was the leader of the South Korean group. Ho Kia, leader of the Soviet group, Kwon O-chik, another leader of the South Korean group and Mu Chong, leader of the Chinese group were all purged.

Moreover, in 1956 a great number of civil servants were purged for their espionage for the benefit of South Korea.

How should we evaluate the performance of Juche socialism?

The best way of evaluating Juche socialism is to see how well North Korea has dealt with its three pillars of Juche socialism, namely, political independence (정치적 자주 政治的 自主), economic self-sufficiency (경제적 자족 經濟的自足) and self reliant national defence. (국방자위 國防自衛) 

Political Independence: North Korea has done well as far as its political independence was concerned. Despite its status of shrimp surrounded by powerful whales, China and Russia, the country of Juche was able to maintain its political independence by taking advantage of the Sino-Soviet hegemonic rivalry for international communism.

Moreover, North Korea was able to get economic and military aids from both China and Russia by capitalizing on its geopolitical situational advantage.

Moreover, during the period, 1998-2008 (period of Sunshine policy), North Korea could get significant economic aid for its brother country to the South without conceding its political independence, despite the pressure of regime change planned by Washington and Japan.

North Korea has remained Juche country; it was never vassal nation of any big country; it was a shrimp capable of biting whales and defending itself.

Economic Self-sufficiency: One of the remarkable achievements of North Korea is its economic resilience. Washington’s idea of changing the North Korean regime so that it becomes client country of the U.S. and work for the promotion of American interests has failed.

Despite 70-year of UN sanctions, American sanctions and secondary sanctions in addition to deliberate restriction of humanitarian aids during the Long Arduous March of the 1990s, North Koreans are not starving to death. In fact, they are reasonably well fed; the Juche economy is sound. Moreover the marginal impact of economic sanctions has been declining as the Pyongyang’s capability to increase the domestic production of goods and services rises.

The resilience of the Juche country facing the murderous sanctions may be attributable to several factors which may be summarized as follows: the increase of domestic production of goods and services, the decreasing dependence on foreign goods and services due to the sanctions, the development of private sector production of daily necessity goods, the expansion of underground trade with China and Russia, the positive economic impact of the production of nuclear weapons and sound macroeconomic policies of the government.

I have no space to go further with this issue due to the limited scope of this paper. But, I add one more word on the impact of the production of nuclear weapons on the economy. The production of nuclear weapons means the reduction of cost of the conventional weapon production on the one hand, and on the other, it has considerable multiplier effect on job creation and income generation.

Self-Reliant National Defence: To tackle the question of self-reliant national defence, we should begin our discussion by looking at the evolution of North Korean’ the national defence.

Nobody would deny the terror and the horror of the US air power. During the Korean War, the U.S. air force killed more than 20% of the whole population of North Korea and flattened every possible standing structure. The North Koreans remember the use of biological and chemical weapons use by American to kill more North Koreans. The world remembers the harsh, violent and beastly treatment of North Korean women by GIs during their occupation of North Korea.

Moreover, ever since the armistice of the Korean War in 1953, the U.S. constantly threatened North Korea with nuclear weapon. In fact, until 1991, there were 150 nuclear war heads deployed in South Korea. Starting with Bill Clinton, every American president planed to attack DPRK with nuclear bombs. Every year, ROK-U.S. joint military exercises have made North Koreans to tremble with fear and to live underground.

In 1994, Pyongyang was glad to give up its nuclear projects in return of the supply of crude oil and the construction of light-water nuclear plants. But U.S. and South Korea betrayed the 1994 Framework Agreement. This is why North Korea needed strong national defence.

In 2003, North Korea was ready to abandon once again nuclear program in return of peace and economic aid. The 6-party talks were organized for Washington to buy time. But, in 2007, the hope of North Korea evaporated in thin air.

Pyongyang knows too well that it is the frightening reality where  the U.S. wants, along with Japan and the South Korea’s pro-Japan conservatives, the reunification of Koreas by force so that the whole of Korea (unified Korea) become under Washington’s rule. So, to survive, North Korea must defend itself; there is no foreign country which can help.

In this situation DPRK has only one alternative, that is, it has to fight alone to survive as a country. The only way of surviving has been the nuclear deterrence. In other words, the nuclear self-defence was the only way out.

The DPRK finally found the way to defend itself. In 2017, it tested with success the ICBM, Hwasong-14 capable of hitting the U.S. main land with nuclear bombs. Some prominent observer of Washington-Pyongyang war said “game is over”. The Juche country’s self-defence has been successful.

What are the impacts of Juche socialism?

There are internal impacts and external impacts.

There are many types of internal impacts. But I would point out that the most meaningful internal impact of Juche socialism is its contribution to the formation of the North Koreans’ character and the leader-people relations.

It appears that the Juche doctrine has made North Koreans resilient facing difficulties and the courage needed to find solution without external help. For example, when the Government Supply System failed in 1992, North Koreans found solution in Jang-teu (private market) and underground cross-border trade.

Moreover, despite hardship, the people of North Korea do not revolt against the government with rare exception. The Juche socialism has produced particular leader-people relations in which the leader looks after the people as Confucian benevolent father, while the people respect and obey the leader with filial piety.

In the West, the leader-people relations in North Korea are regarded as despotic relations where the leader is devilish dictator who rules with merciless iron-fist, while the people obey out of fear. This shows to  what extent, the political leaders, media and even academics in the West ignore the Asian values, which govern the leader-people relations in the Juche country.

The international impact of Juche socialism is seldom mentioned in the Western media perhaps due to fear of exposing the positive side of Juche.

The most important external impacts of Juche socialism are felt in developing countries, especially in Africa.

In 1978, the International Institute of Juche was established in Tokyo. In the 1960s and 1970s, Juche had significant impact on African countries as well as on the Black Panther Group in the U.S.

In the period, 1972-1989, as many as 33 African countries created the Juche Study centers. By the end of the 1970s, as many as 1,000 organizations were established to study Juche.

These periods were marked by the wide spread fight against colonialism and neo-colonialism. It appears that Juche socialism was a model for these former colonized countries in their fight for independence and self- development of their countries.

However, in the 1990s, the popularity of Juche spcialism fell due to the collapse and the destruction of the Soviet bloc and the losing popularity of socialism. Another reason was the fact that most of the former colonized countries became independent.

Nevertheless, the Juche study centers are still active in a good number of African countries including Benin, Congo, Egypt, Guinea, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia and Uganda.

Conclusion

To conclude this rather long article, I have tried to see Juche socialism through objective eye and present North Korea as it was and as it is. What I have tried to do in this article was to see North Korea, as much as possible, through North Korean eyes and not the pro-West and anti-North Korea eyes.

I have examined as much as I could Western academic papers and Western media reports. I have had the impression that the these papers and these reports are doing their best to look for defects of North Korea ignoring constructive aspects of the country of Juche socialism.

This could be attributable to the scarcity of data and information provided by the North Korean government, over-reliance of the witness statements of North Korean defectors, prejudice against Asian values, ideological stance and blind trust in anti-Pyongyang propaganda materials.

However, if one looks at North Korea with ideological neutrality, we find some answers to relevant questions. I have asked several questions to have some idea on the overall picture of the Juche socialism.

One of the defects of the existing literature on North Korea is the fact that it has been limited to analyse of those parts of the regime which are easy to attack. Another short coming of the Western perception of North Korea is the tendency to understand North Korea through the Western value framework.

What we need a general theory of Juche system which explains as much as possible various aspects of Juche system and relations among these parts.

I gave, for this paper, the title “General Theory of Juche” to show that to understand Juche system, we have to tackle the questions I asked in this paper.

This article is far from being the general theory of Juche, but what it shows are the issues which should be dealt with in the general theory.

In a way, this paper offers only the preface of the general theory of Juche system.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Dr Joseph H. Chung is Professor of Economics at Quebec University in Montreal (UQAM) and member of the Research Center on Integration and Globalization (CEIM) of UQAM. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). 

Featured image: Torch at the top of the Juche Tower in Pyongyang, North Korea (Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)

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

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

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Between Italy and Algeria – declared Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni – “an extraordinary bridge has been built which might be useful to the whole of Europe, especially in terms of energy supply”. However, there is one fact that the Italian Government seems to ignore: Algeria has officially requested to be part of the BRICS (the grouping of five countries including Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa).

The BRICS – whose total population (3.3 billion inhabitants) constitutes over 40% of the world’s – are not only strengthening their mutual economic ties. They are building an alternative system of international economic relations to the one dominated by the West. Iran and Argentina have also applied to be admitted to the BRICS, while Egypt, Turkey and others are moving forward. All of this is seen by the United States and the European powers as a threat to their fundamental interests. Above all, Washington fears the BRICS plan to undermine the hegemony of the dollar by creating a new currency or a basket of currencies for international trade whose value is based on gold and other raw materials.

US and EU sanctions against Russia are largely offset by the fact that Russia is supplying China with growing quantities of natural gas under a 30-year contract worth hundreds of billions of dollars. India is also importing increasing quantities of gas and oil from Russia. The EU countries are mainly harmed by the sanctions against Russia,   while cutting cheap energy imports from Russia, they import Russian liquefied gas from China and diesel extracted by Russian oil from India, all at a much higher price.

Against this background, Algeria’s accession to the BRICS is viewed by the US and the EU as a hostile act towards them. The US Congress is being asked for sanctions against Algeria, since “its growing relationship with Russia, from which Algeria has purchased fighter planes, poses a threat to all the nations of the world“. A similar request to the European Parliament comes from European Deputies asking to review the EU-Algeria Association Agreement since “Algeria provides political, logistical and financial support to Russia in the war against Ukraine”. What will the Italian government do if Algeria is admitted to the BRICS, and will US-EU sanctions apply to its dealings with Russia?

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on byoblu.

Manlio Dinucci, award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image: Meloni speaking at the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida (Licensed under Vox España, CC0)

La Presidente Meloni, in visita ufficiale a Tripoli, ha impegnato l’Italia a una “cooperazione a 360 gradi con la Libia”. Ma con quale Libia? Il “Governo di Unità Nazionale” libico, “internazionalmente riconosciuto”, presieduto da Abdul Hamid Dbeibah. Esso è stato “eletto” nel 2021 a Ginevra da un Forum di 73 “rappresentanti libici” scelti e diretti dalla rappresentante ONU Stephanie Williams, funzionaria del Dipartimento di Stato USA.

L’incontro della Meloni con Dbeibah è stato suggellato da un accordo da 8 miliardi di dollari tra l’ENI e la National Oil Corporation libica per lo sfruttamento di un giacimento di gas offshore di fronte alla costa di Tripoli. Tale accordo è stato però subito dopo sconfessato dal Ministro del Gas e del Petrolio dello stesso governo Dbeibah, che lo ha dichiarato “illegale”.  Contemporaneamente, in Tripolitania, manifestanti hanno occupato la sala di controllo del gasdotto Greenstream chiedendo di smettere di pompare gas verso l’Italia.

Questo è il risultato del fatto che l’Italia non riconosce il vero Governo libico: quello del primo ministro Fathi Bashagha, nominato dal Parlamento regolarmente eletto, che opera in maniera provvisoria dalle città di Sirte e Bengasi dato che le milizie del “governo Dbeibah” gli impediscono di entrare a Tripoli. Il Governo Bashagha, che controlla la maggior parte del territorio e delle risorse energetiche della Libia, offre all’Italia petrolio e gas a bassissimo costo: come ha mostrato Michelangelo Severgnini nel suo reportage su Byoblu, a Bengasi la benzina costa alla pompa 3 centesimi di euro al litro. Ossequiente alle direttive NATO e UE, l’Italia rifiuta tale possibilità.

Le importazioni italiane di gas libico sono calate da circa 8 miliardi di metri cubi annui prima della guerra NATO del 2011 a circa 2,5 miliardi nel 2022. Anche se l’accordo concluso a Tripoli divenisse operativo, le importazioni di gas libico non potrebbero risalire ai livelli precedenti. L’Italia resta così nella tenaglia della “crisi energetica”, volutamente provocata da USA e UE con il blocco delle forniture di gas russo all’Europa, pagata sempre più pesantemente dai cittadini italiani ed europei.

Manlio Dinucci

Vidéo :

https://www.byoblu.com/2023/02/03/cooperazione-a-360-con-la-libia-ma-con-quale-libia-grandangolo-pangea/

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

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

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

In this interview Michel Chossudovsky explains why A US- NATO war against the Russian Federation is an impossibility.

As part of it’s “Special Operation”, Russia launched “precision” attacks against Ukrainian military installations, which commenced hours prior to President Putin’s February 24, 2022 TV address.

From one week to the next, Ukraine was without a Navy and without an Air Force, destroyed at the outset in late February, early March 2022.

The war was lost by Ukraine before it started.

The interview also  focusses on another strategic issue, which has not been addressed by military analysts. 

There are unspoken divisions within NATO. Turkey is both a “NATO Heavyweight” as well as  a firm ally of the Russia Federation. 

You cannot win a war against Russia when the second largest military power member state of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is “sleeping with the enemy”. 

A fractured NATO cannot under any circumstances wage war on Russia when its military heavyweight on the Southern coastline of the Black Sea is “Sleeping with the Enemy”, i.e. collaborating with Moscow coupled with a close personal relationship between Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Vladimir Putin. 

What this means is that under present conditions a US-NATO war against Russia is an impossibility.  

VIDEO. Click Link or Image to Access Lux Media Video 

Video, Interview. Michel Chossudovsky and Caroline Mailloux

click lower right corner of video to access full screen