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 Russians have decided there is no way to negotiate an end to this. No one will negotiate in good faith; therefore we must crush the enemy. And that’s what’s coming.” — Colonel Douglas MacGregor (9:35 minute)

“Strictly speaking, we haven’t started anything yet.” — Vladimir Putin

The war in Ukraine is not going to end in a negotiated settlement. The Russians have already made it clear that they don’t trust the United States, so they’re not going to waste their time in a pointless gabfest. What the Russians are going to do is pursue the only option that is available to them: They are going to obliterate the Ukrainian Army, reduce a large part of the country to rubble, and force the political leadership to comply with their security demands. It’s a bloody and wasteful course of action, but there’s really no other option. Putin is not going to allow NATO to place its hostile army and missile sites on Russia’s border.

He’s going to defend his country as best as he can by proactively eliminating emerging threats in Ukraine. This is why Putin has called up an additional 300,000 reservists to serve in Ukraine; because the Russians are committed to defeating the Ukrainian army and bringing the war to a swift end. Here’s a brief recap from Colonel Douglas MacGregor:

Washington’s proxy war with Russia is the result of a carefully constructed plan to embroil Russia in conflict with its Ukrainian neighbor. From the moment that President Putin indicated that his government would not tolerate a NATO military presence on Russia’s doorstep in Ukraine, Washington sought to expedite Ukraine’s development into a regional military power hostile to Russia. The Maidan coup allowed Washington’s agents in Kiev to install a government that would cooperate with this project. PM Merkel’s recent admission that she and her European colleagues sought to exploit the Minsk Accords to buy time for the military building in Ukraine confirms the tragic truth of this matter.” (“US Colonel explains America’s role in provoking Russia-Ukraine conflict“, Lifesite)

This is an excellent summary of the events leading up to the present day although we should spend a bit more time on Angela Merkel’s comments. What Merkel actually said in her interview with Die Zeit was the following:

“The 2014 Minsk Agreement was an attempt to buy time for Ukraine. Ukraine used this time to become stronger, as you can see today.” According to the ex-Chancellor, “it was clear for everyone” that the conflict was suspended and the problem was not resolved, “but it was exactly what gave Ukraine the priceless time.” (Tass News Agency)

Merkel has been sharply criticized for admitting that she and the other western leaders deliberately deceived Russia about their true intentions vis a vis Minsk. The fact is, they had no intention of pressuring Ukraine to comply with the terms of the treaty and they knew it from the very beginning. What we know for a fact is that neither Merkel nor her allies were ever interested in peace.Second, we now know that they maintained the fraud for 7 years before she spilled the beans and admitted what they were really up-to. And finally, we now know from Merkel’s comments that Washington’s strategic objective was the opposite of the Minsk agreement. The real goal was to create a heavily-militarized Ukraine that would prosecute Washington’s proxy-war on Russia. That was the primary objective, war on Russia.

So, why would Putin even consider negotiating with people like that; people who just lied-to-his-face for 7 years while they flooded the country with weapons that would be used to kill Russian servicemen?

And what was the objective that compelled Merkel and her Washington colleagues to lie?

They wanted a war, which is the same reason why Boris Johnson put the kibosh on an agreement that Zelensky had negotiated with Moscow in March. Johnson sabotaged the deal because Washington wanted a war. It’s that simple.

But there is a price to pay for lying, and that price comes in the form of distrust, which is the pernicious erosion of confidence that makes it impossible to resolve issues of mutual concern. Russia’s deputy chair of the national Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, expressed his views on the matter just this week in the bitterest terms. He said:

The behavior of Washington and others this year “is the last warning to all nations: there can be no business with the Anglo-Saxon world [because] it is a thief, a swindler, a card-sharp that could do anything…. From now on we will do without them until a new generation of sensible politicians comes to power… There is nobody in the West we could deal with about anything for any reason.” (Ex-Russian President outlines timeline for reconciliation with the West, RT)

Of course, the Washington warhawks will not be bothered by the prospect of severed relations with Russia, in fact they probably welcome it. But the same cannot be said for Europe.

Europe is going to regret that it tied itself to Washington’s anvil and threw itself into the sea. Sometime in the near future –when they finally realize that their economic survival is inextricably linked to access to cheap fossil fuel– EU leaders will change course and implement a policy that ensures their own prosperity. They will withdraw from NATO’s ‘forever war’ and join the ranks of civilized nations seeking a secure and economically-integrated future. We expect that even NordStream, which was destroyed in the greatest act of industrial sabotage in the modern era, will be reconnected establishing the main energy artery that binds Russia to the EU in the world’s biggest free trade zone. Eventually, common sense will prevail and Europe will emerge from the slump brought on by its alliance with Washington. But, first, the conflagration between Russia and the West must play out in Ukraine, and the “Guarantor of Global Security” must be replaced by the one nation willing to fight Goliath on his own terms in a winner-take-all contest.Ukraine is shaping up to be the decisive battle in the war against the “rules-based system”, a war in which the United States is going to use ‘every trick in the book’ to maintain its grip on power. Check out this short blurb from political analyst John Mearsheimer who explains the means by which the US has preserved its dominant role in the global order:

“You cannot underestimate how ruthless the United States is. This is all covered-up in the textbooks and the classes that we take growing up because it’s all part of nationalism. Nationalism is all about creating myths about how wonderful your country is. It’s America right or wrong; we never do anything wrong. (But) if you really look at the way the United States has operated over time, its’ really amazing how ruthless we’ve been. And the British, the same is true of them as well But we cover it up. So, I’m just saying, if you are Ukraine and you’re living next to a powerful state like Russia Or you’re Cuba and you’re living next to a powerful state like the United States, you should be very, very careful because this is like sleeping in bed with an elephant. If that elephant rolls over on top of you, you’re dead. You’ve got to be very careful. Am I happy about the fact that this is the way the world works? No, I’m not. But it is the way the world works for better or worse.” (John Mearsheimer, “How the World Works“, You Tube; 1 minute)

Source: Multipolarista via The Unz Review

Bottom line: The prospects for peace in Ukraine are zilch. The US foreign policy establishment has decided that the only way it can reverse America’s accelerating decline is through direct military confrontation. The war is Ukraine is the first manifestation of that decision. On the other hand, Russia no longer puts any stock in negotiations with the West, because western leaders cannot be trusted to honor their commitments or fulfill their treaty obligations. The irreconcilable differences of the two main parties makes escalation inevitable. Absent a partner that can be trusted, Putin has just one option for resolving the conflict: Overwhelming military force. That’s why he called up 300,000 reservists to serve in Ukraine, and that’s why he’ll call up 300,000 more if they are needed. Putin realizes that the only way forward is by lowering-the-boom quickly and imposing his own settlement on the vanquished. This is exactly what Mearsheimer predicted just weeks ago when he said this:

“The Russians are not going to roll over and play dead. In fact, what the Russians are going to do is crush the Ukrainians. They are going to bring out the big guns. They are going to turn places like Kiev, and other cities in Ukraine into rubble. They’re going to do Fallujas, they’re going to do Mosuls, they’re going to do Groznys …. When a great power feels threatened…the Russians are going to pull out all stops in Ukraine to make sure they win. …You want to understand that what we are talking about doing here, is backing a nuclear-armed great power– that sees what’s happening as an existential threat– into a corner. This is really dangerous.” (John Mearsheimer, Twitter)

Source: PressTV via The Unz Review

So, if we know that Russia is going to try to end the war by defeating the Ukrainian Army, then what should we expect in the near future?

That’s a question that has been answered by a number of analysts who have followed the war closely from the very beginning. We will provide a few paragraphs from each of them in a minute, but first, here’s a recap of the meetings that took place last week that suggest a major Russian offensive may be just weeks away. The excerpt is from an article at Consortium News by Patrick Lawrence:

Alexander Mercouris… recently listed the exceptional series of meetings Putin has held over the past couple of weeks with the entire…. military and national security establishment. In Moscow, the Russian leader met with all of his top military commanders and national security officials (including) Sergei Surovikan, the general he put in charge of the Ukrainian operation….

Putin subsequently flew to Minsk with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu for exchanges with the Belarus political and military leadership. Then it was onward to meet with the leaders of the two republics, Donetsk and Lugansk, that were incorporated via referenda into the Russian Federation last autumn.

It is impossible to avoid concluding that these back-to-back meetings, barely covered in the Western press, portend a new, near- or medium-term military initiative in Ukraine. As Mercouris put it, “Something very big is on the way.”

Among the most interesting encounters in all of this took place in Beijing last week, when Dmitry Medvedev, currently deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council and long close to Putin, had talks with Xi Jinping….

At some point in the not-distant future, the war of hollow rhetoric in behalf of imperial hubris will weaken and drift toward collapse. This degree of Surreal detachment from reality simply cannot be sustained indefinitely — not in the face of a new Russian initiative, whatever the form it turns out to take.” (PATRICK LAWRENCE: “A War of Rhetoric & Reality“, Consortium News)

Is Lawrence, right? Is “something big on the way”?

It certainly looks like it. In the space below I have transcribed quotes from recent videos with Colonel MacGregor and Alexander Mercouris, two of the best and most reliable analysts of the war in Ukraine. Both agree that a Russian “winter offensive” will take place in the near future, and both agree on the strategic objectives of the operation. Here’s a clip from MacGregor:

“The American people don’t really understand that the Ukrainian Army in the Donbas is on the verge of collapse. They’ve taken hundreds of thousands of casualties… (and) they’re closing in on one hundred and fifty thousand dead. The 93rd Ukrainian Army Brigade was just withdrawn from Bahkmut– which has been turned into a Ukrainian bloodbath by the Russians– and they left after suffering 70 percent casualties. For them, that means that out of 4,000 men… they pulled out with about 1,200 men. That is a catastrophe, but that is what’s really happening. And when the Russians finally launch their offensive, Americans are going to watch this entire house of cards collapse. Then the only question is, will someone finally stand up and put an end to this utterly false narrative.” (“Colonel Douglas MacGregor”, Real America, Rumble; 8:45 min)

And here’s more MacGregor:

It is looking more and more like the Russians would like to complete their task in Donbas first. They want to eliminate all the Ukrainian forces that are in the Donbas… Remember, this was always an economy-of-force measure. It was designed to grind up as many Ukrainians as possible at the lowest possible cost to the Russians. That’s what’s been going on in southern Ukraine (and) it continues. It has worked brilliantly. And Surovikin, the theatre commander, has said that will continue until he’s ready to launch his offensive. When the offensive is launched, it will be a very different battle. But the interesting thing is, that the Ukrainians have taken so many casualties in the South, we are beginning to hear reports that they are on the verge of collapse. And that’s why we’re hearing about teenage boys age 14 or 15 pressed into service. …and we’re getting videos from Ukrainian soldiers saying,”The people in Kiev had better hope that the Russians get to them before we do… because we’ll kill them.” They are talking about people in the government, because they see no evidence that Zelensky’s government …gives a damn about them. They are running out of food and clothes; they are freezing, they are taking heavy casualties, and they are being driven back.” (“Will Ukraine have enough Fire Power?”, Col MacGregor, Judging Freedom, You Tube; 17:35 min)

Both MacGregor and Mercouris appear to agree that the Russian strategy involves “grinding down” the enemy, (killing as many Ukrainian troops as possible) consolidating Russian gains while expanding their control over areas in the east and along the Black Sea, and, eventually, partitioning of Ukraine into 2 separate entities; a “dysfunctional rump state” in the west, and an industrialized, prosperous state in the east. Here’s Alexander Mercouris from a recent update on You Tube:

My strong impression is that ...the focus of the Russian winter offensive –which is indeed coming– will be on ending the battle in Donbas, breaking Ukrainian resistance in Donbas, clearing Ukrainian forces from the Donetsk People’s Republic. It does not look to me as if the Russians are planning some great advance on Kiev or on western Ukraine.That is not what these comments of General Gerasimov say. …the Russians are focusing on Donetsk… It’s ‘low risk’ but it is highly-effective. It is grinding down the Ukrainian Army exactly as General Surovikin said. It is weakening Ukraine’s future ability to continue the war and — at the same time– it fulfills Russia’s primary mission which, from the start, has been the liberation of Donbas.

Now, it is not going to end there. Other Russian officials have been saying that in 2023, we should see the recapture of Kherson region … and there will most surely be other Russian advances in other places. But the main battle was, and remains, Donbas. Once that battle is won, once Ukrainian resistance is broken, the Ukrainian army will be fatally weakened… which means that Ukraine will not only have lost its most heavily industrialized region, and its most heavily fortified zone. It will also mean the Russians will have unimpeded access all the way to the east bank of the Dnieper River. At that point, they will be in a position to cut Ukraine in half. This seems logical to me and it seems clearly to me that this is the Russian plan. They are not making a secret of it, but they are keeping people on-their-toes and guessing about the troops that are in Belarus. But I suspect the primary purpose of those forces is to pin Ukrainian soldiers down …around Kiev from a possible Russian offensive there, and to counter the very big buildup of Polish troops. So that is what Gerasimov has been saying.” (“Alexander Mercouris on Ukraine”, You Tube; 31:35 min)

While no one can predict the future with absolute certainly, it seems that both MacGregor and Mercouris have a good-enough grip on the facts that their scenario cannot be dismissed out-of-hand. In fact, the present trajectory of the conflict suggests that their predictions are probably “dead on”. In any event, we won’t have to wait long to find out. Temperatures are dropping fast across Ukraine which allows for the unencumbered movement of tanks and armored vehicles. Russia’s winter offensive is probably just weeks away.

*

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.

***

Starting on 7 April 2023, a rule that Joe Biden’s U.S. Commerce Department issued on 12 October 2022 will be fully in force, outlawing, by U.S. Executive (President Biden’s) fiat, any U.S.-allied country to engage in any commerce (buying or selling) with China that his Administration considers to be (or potentially to be) related to either artificial intelligence or supercomputing. He’s pretending to be the chief executive officer not ONLY for the U.S. Government but for the entire planet — all nations — the leader of the entire world’s government, replacing any authority that the U.N. or any of its agencies might possess, and with authority to replace international law by whatever he presents as being “international rules.” Finally, his Administration’s many assertions that they represent “the rules-based international order” have clear meaning: that phrase means whatever the U.S. regime wants it to mean. Those “rules” replace whatever is, or might be, international laws (which is the U.N.’s supposed — and exclusive — area of authority); and, (unlike whatever authority the Truman-created version of the FDR-planned “United Nations” might have possessed) this “rules-based international order” is backed up by the U.S. military, which constitutes half of the entire world’s military (with 1,649 military bases throughout the world, of which 900 are in foreign countries) and thus — as the physical enforcer of the U.S. regime’s “international rules” — provides to it the enforcement-power that U.S. President Truman refused to allow the U.N. to possess.

On 14 October 2022, the international law firm of Crowell & Moring headlined “New U.S. Restrictions on Transfers to China for Semiconductor and Advanced Computing Uses”, and reported that

Two new rules announced by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) strive to severely inhibit China’s progress in indigenously producing advanced semiconductors. Although advanced semiconductors are widely used for commercial applications, BIS cited serious concerns regarding China’s use of the technology for WMD and military applications, and enabling human rights violations or abuses. BIS’ announcement follows remarks in September by the U.S. National Security Advisor signaling a shift in the U.S. export control strategy from one of maintaining a “relative” advantage over competitors in certain key technologies, to maintaining “as large a lead as possible.” It remains to be seen if U.S. allies key to the semiconductor supply chain will impose similar export restrictions on transfers to China. Following the announcement of the rules, BIS officials have underscored the importance of multilateral adoption of the new currently unilateral controls, describing engagement with allies as a “priority” for BIS.

“WMD” and “human rights violations and abuses” are the U.S. regime’s standard excuses for its aggressions against other countries, either via sanctions or via coups or via invasions (such as was the case in Iraq), but Crowell was also pointing out, to its clients, the real reason: that “BIS’ announcement follows remarks in September by the U.S. National Security Advisor signaling a shift in the U.S. export control strategy from one of maintaining a ‘relative’ advantage over competitors in certain key technologies, to maintaining ‘as large a lead as possible.’” In other words: this action by Biden is intended to cripple China in artificial intelligence and in supercomputing, so as to lock-in for the indefinite future the U.S. regime’s global dominance, which will be necessary in order for the U.S. to replace the U.N. and its international laws, by America’s (and its military’s) “international rules” — such as by forcing the U.S. regime’s ‘allies’ or vassal-nations to comply with them (in this instance, by dropping China as regards supercomputing and AI).

Just as Biden’s America had forced Russia — when Russia demanded from it., on 17 December 2021, a promise that Ukraine on Russia’s border will never be allowed to join America’s anti-Russian military alliance NATO — to invade Ukraine in order for Russia to be able to prevent Ukraine from ever being able to join NATO, Biden’s America is also now forcing China to either choose to become another U.S. ‘ally’ or else to become “The West’s” ‘enemy’, and for the entire world to be forced to choose sides between the U.S. regime and its ‘enemies’: China and Russia.

Both in regards to Russia, and in regards to China, the U.S. regime is now forcing any remaining “non-aligned” nation to choose a side in what the U.S. regime views as being already WW III (though not YET a nuclear WW III — that is yet to come).

The non-aligned nations are being forced by the United States into needing to be “either for us or against us.” The coming world will be the U.S. and its ‘allies’ against everybody else. And the U.S. and its ‘allies’ will need to pretend that the aggressors here are China and Russia, instead of the U.S. This will be the ‘democracies’ versus the ‘dictatorships’.

The Crowell advisory also pointed out that only starting on 7 April 2023 will the full force of this new means of aggression against China be felt:

Temporary General License

To avoid disruptions of the IC supply chain, BIS has also announced a temporary general license (TGL), effective October 21, 2022 through April 7, 2023, allowing exports, reexports, or retransfers from abroad to or within China by companies not headquartered in an U.S. arms embargoed or sanctioned cy to allow for activity in China involving advanced IC and computer parts now covered by the new controls. The TGL does not authorize transactions with end users or ultimate consignees in China, nor does it allow activities with Entity Listed parties.

Right now, the firms that have relationships with Chinese firms regarding supercomputing and artificial intelligence are either preparing to do without China, or else to do without America, in those fields. So: if a firm will be writing-off China, then here is what they will be writing off:

On 29 August 2022, I headlined “Why RussChina Will Probably Be the Dominant Nation Beyond the Year 2100” and opened by pointing out, about China,

China is already a serious contender to become the world’s dominant nation because of its Governmental system and because that system has produced by far a larger number of highly intelligent and well-educated people than any other nation has. China’s most-basic asset is its having the world’s largest population; and, to this, its Governmental system has increased (added to) the effectiveness of that population, so as to make China already the world’s #1 nation regarding human resources.

Regarding China’s “Governmental system,” I linked there to a recent study titled “China is Fast Outpacing U.S. STEM PhD Growth” by the Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University. In other words: China’s graduate levels of education in Science, Technology, Mathemnatics, and Engineering, already is “fast outpacing” America’s.

Regarding China’s “increased (added to) the effectiveness of that population” I linked to PISA, the global high-school test-results-based comparisons of pre-college education, or “Program for International Student Assessment” and linked there to an article about that from Big Think dot com, titled “China’s schoolkids beat American students in all academic categories”.

Regarding China’s being “the world’s #1 nation” for “human resources,” I linked directly to that PISA study, because it proves that China’s high school students are dreams that America’s colleges and universities can only hope to be bringing here to become, as adults, assets to this nation instead of to any other nation (such as China).

America is living off of what FDR, and, before him, Lincoln, and before him, America’s Founders, did. Truman and his successors have, by now, already wasted it. Biden wants to force the rest of the world not to notice. But, by cutting off China (the world’s leader in human resources) and Russia (the world’s leader in physical resources), he is destroying his nation, forever.

(That last link is to a news-site whose leading contributor — the one having the largest number of high-viewers-per-page articles there — until recently was myself, but the site’s owner was recently threatened by an agent for the U.S. regime and so cancelled me, as a result of which, my articles have been removed from there, so that his business will not be destroyed by any such agent. So, as-of today, here is what is showing at that URL. And here it was before that. And here is why it was done.)

*

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.

Featured image is from Summit News

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 global elites have shown great interest in insects as a source of food.  Not for themselves, mind you, but rather for the rest of us.  It is only incidental that using bugs as a food source would reserve fresh fruits and vegetables, beef, pork and chicken, and other current foodstuffs for those most deserving, such as themselves.  We have to ask, though, is eating bugs really such a good thing for humans?

Catching the bug

Most of the interest around bugs as a food source has centered around such insects as crickets, grasshoppers, cockroaches, and similar insects that reproduce quickly, have relatively large mass, and will eat all sorts of vegetable waste material and convert it into bugs.  While this sounds like a good way to convert organic mass into foodstuff in short order, there are other things to take into account.

The aforementioned insects all have one characteristic in common.  They have exoskeletons.  That is, unlike mammals who have our skeletons on the inside and the soft parts outside, these insects are much more like crabs and lobsters where their shell serves the purpose of our skeletons, and all the soft, nutritious parts are protected inside.  While some might like the crunchy outside, similar in texture to some breakfast cereals, there is a bit of problem – a fly in the ointment, as some might say.

This outer shell is indigestible by humans.  Our digestive system cannot convert the shell material into useable nutrients.  Eating these insects would be like eating a crab whole, shell and all, and not the soft-shell variety either.  Crab shells and insect shells alike use essentially the same indigestible substance that we are not equipped to handle.  Since the shell forms a large portion of the insect, that means that a sizeable portion of the mass has no nutritional value, reducing the food value of these bugs.

It’s a feature…

Fortunately, there is a solution.  Chickens, pigs, cows, many fish, and other animals have the necessary enzymes in their digestive systems to convert the insect shells into useful food materials.  Some, like cows, rely on useful microorganisms in the gut to do the conversion, while others produce the enzymes directly.  In either case, the bugs get converted into digestible animal protein that humans can eat and enjoy.  By passing the bugs through these natural food processing systems, the nutritional value of bugs is greatly improved from a human standpoint.

A bug in the system

Anyone who has spent time on a traditional farm with chickens, pigs, and cows has witnessed firsthand these conversion processes.  One need only witness the delight a chicken takes in hunting down and spearing a tasty cricket to appreciate the gusto with which these tidbits are consumed.  Unlike with humans, a bug diet would make millions of chickens happy.  Happy chickens are productive chickens.

There is even a useful byproduct in the form of biological waste exhaust materials such as guano and dung.  These materials are rich in certain minerals and other plant nutrients and form valuable fertilizer materials for plant growth.  Instead of indigestible waste that would have to be processed in human sewage systems, this biological preprocessing yields recyclable organic material that contributes to sustainable agriculture.

Of course, there is also an industrial solution.  The digestive enzymes can be mass produced in a variety of ways, including in gene modified bacterial fermentation vats.  These enzymes could then be added to a bug mash to convert the indigestible shell material into something humans could use.

The resulting goo would lack somewhat in texture so further processing would be needed to turn what would be a gooey, sticky, paste the consistency of gel toothpaste, into something somewhat palatable.  Various flavorings and # could be added to improve taste, and sawdust or other materials could be added to improve texture and fibre content.  Entire new food processing industries could be created almost overnight.  It would add new meaning to the term “processed food”.

Source: www.saltbushclub.com

Turning the tables

In addition to mashed bug, with or without gravy, the goo could be dried and ground up to make a kind of flour so we could have bug bread, bug cakes, bug petit fours, and bug cookies.  All this would be in addition to crispy deep fried bug, bugburgers, buggybits on salads, bug stew, and many other culinary delights.  An entire new school of bug cuisine would be formed to attempt to make bugs not only palatable, but even pleasant to consume, much to the dismay of the elites who would seek to force their will on us.

Perhaps the bug mash could even be fermented, yielding one or more beverages, and further converting bugs into consumable substances.  It would add an entirely new meaning to the term “bug juice”.  This would be in addition to the already wide array of byproducts of fermentation that already exist.

Don’t bug me

Why bugs?  As is obvious to many of us, this elite fascination with making people eat bugs is not about nutrition or “saving the planet” or any other positive purpose.  Rather, it seems most to be about the demonstration of power and control.  Food production and consumption is fundamental to life, and the history of humanity is in large measure the history of securing and producing food.  Regional cuisines reflect the adaptations people have made to convert the local materials into consumable foodstuffs.

Strongly # foods found in many areas have been developed to disguise the taste of decay where rapid food spoilage is a problem.  Pickling, drying, and other food preservation methods were devised in areas with long periods when food supplies were not readily available.  It is only natural that were our food supply restricted to insect materials, we would find ways to make that food source interesting and even enjoyable.

Sic semper tyrannis

No, it would seem that the push to force us to eat bugs is all about the psychological effect of being forced to consume a foodstuff that until now has largely been the food of lower animals and of desperate people.  It is promoted for its humiliation value, not its nutritional advantages.  Being forced to eat carrion beetles is the next best thing to being forced to eat raw dung.  What becomes manifestly obvious is the contempt the “elites” hold for common humanity.

It is the modern equivalent of “let them eat cake”—an expression that eloquently captured the arrogance of the elites of the time.  We know what happened to that elite aristocracy.  They saw themselves secure in their power and privilege.  It was much to their surprise to find that power to be an illusion, a mist dispelled by the sun of revolution.

This attempt to demonstrate the power to force consumption of an unwanted food on common humanity is ultimately doomed to failure.  Even were they to succeed, common human ingenuity would transform the source into something positive, just as has been done countless times before. We would transform defeat into victory, humiliation into triumph.  It would be the ultimate expression of the invincible human spirit encapsulated in an almost trivial sounding sentence: “When life hands you a lemon, make lemonade.”

Look on our works, ye elite, and weep.

*

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.

David Robb is a practicing scientist and CTO of a small firm developing new security technologies for detection of drugs and other contraband.  Dave has published extensively in TheBlueStateConservative, and occasionally in American Thinker.

Featured image is from Canada Free Press

PfizerGate: Tragic Truth Behind COVID Vaccines in the U.K.: 47,379 Excess Deaths in 8 Months Due to Vaccination

By The Expose, January 02, 2023

As the death toll rises, a dark shadow has been cast over Britain. Official data reveals that since April 2022, 407,910 deaths have occurred, with 47,379 excess deaths against the 2015-2019 five-year average.

Ukraine General Zaluzhny: “God Himself” Is on the Side of the Neo-Nazi Ultranationalists

By Kurt Nimmo, January 02, 2023

In other words, God is a neo-Nazi, an ultranationalist with a visceral, violent hatred of everything Russian (and Polish, Roma, and Jewish). Before dismissing the above headline as hyperbole, consider the following: Vitalii Zaluzhny’s adviser is Dmytro Yarosh, the commander of Right Sector’s Ukrainian Volunteer Corps.

African-American Diaspora Engagement at the Core of US-African Relations in Multipolar World

By Kester Kenn Klomegah, January 04, 2023

The U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit held in Washington has placed African-American diaspora at the core for strengthening multifaceted  relations with Africa. The White House and African leaders have stressed the importance of Africa’s voices, advocated for incorporating Africans distinctively within the institutional structures to deal with various bilateral issues and for making further inroads into Africa. 

Video: Is the Chinese Communist Party a Threat? Emanuel Pastreich

By Emanuel Pastreich, January 03, 2023

It has become common practice in the alternative media, especially those parts of the alternative media that identify themselves with the term “conservative”, to provide detail and often quite accurate data about the manner in which COVID-19 vaccines are employed to kill off the population, and to offer new insights into the enormous frauds, engineered by the corporate elites, using the names of the United Nations and the World Health Organization. But the ultimate responsibility for those actions is attributed by these blogs and reporters to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and to the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Liberty for Julian Assange

By Barbara Nimri Aziz, January 03, 2023

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s vindication seems — maybe, perhaps, imaginably — achievable. It’s enough for me to publish my singular New Year resolution — not a wish, but a firm resolution — to more actively contribute to growing pressure to free Julian Assange, the mistreated, vilified and imprisoned, brave and brilliant founder of WikiLeaks.

Putin Now Has a Likely Successor: Medvedev?

By Eric Zuesse, January 03, 2023

Medvedev has just been promoted to a new and permanent position in Russia as the head of Russia’s military-industrial complex, which (unlike America’s MIC that controls the U.S. Government) is majority-owned by the Russian Government and is therefore the most critically important part of the national-security side of the Government.

COVID Jabs Have Erased 25 Years of Health Gains. Shocking Decline in US Life Expectancy

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, January 03, 2023

In August 2022, provisional life expectancy estimates for 2021 were released, showing Americans had lost nearly three years of life expectancy during 2020 and 2021. In December 2022, the finalized mortality report confirmed these shocking data.

A Gloomy 2023? Here Are Some Bright Spots

By Rep. Ron Paul, January 03, 2023

The prospects for peace, justice, and the advancement of liberty in 2023 may at first seem further away than ever. Washington’s determination to overthrow the Russian government via a proxy war in Ukraine has brought the threat of nuclear war closer than ever in history.

The 10 Most Influential Figures in the History of Oil

By Josh Owens, January 03, 2023

Oil has been the single most influential resource in modern history, driving industrialization, building nations, and deciding the outcome of wars. It has been responsible for raising millions of people out of poverty and for razing entire cities to the ground. From technological advancements to environmental disasters, few, if any, industries have left as large a mark on the earth.

The Big Hoax – From Climate Change to Biodiversity

By Peter Koenig, January 02, 2023

It is amazing that a majority of people of our beloved Mother Earth still haven’t noticed that we are living in an ever-growing tyranny since the beginning of 2020. A dictatorship that has been planned for many decades, if not longer. And it started around the globe, in all 193 UN member countries (194 WHO members) at midnight of December 31, 2019.

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.-Africa Leaders Summit held in Washington has placed African-American diaspora at the core for strengthening multifaceted  relations with Africa. The White House and African leaders have stressed the importance of Africa’s voices, advocated for incorporating Africans distinctively within the institutional structures to deal with various bilateral issues and for making further inroads into Africa. 

Over the years, African leaders have been engaging with their diaspora, especially those excelling in sports, academia, business, science, technology, engineering and other significant fields that the continent needs to optimize its diverse potentials and to meet development priorities. These professionals will primarily leverage into various sectors, act as bridges between the United States and Africa.

As explicitly reiterated at the mid-December African leaders’ gathering, the overarching message was to focus on “deepening and expanding the long-term US-Africa partnership and advancing shared priorities, amplifying African voices to collaboratively meet this era’s defining challenges.”

Corporate Council on Africa is the leading U.S. business association focused on connecting business interests between the United States and Africa. The United States has helped close more than 800 two-way trade and investment deals across 47 African countries for a total estimated value of over $18 billion, and the American private sector has closed investment deals in the continent valued at $8.6 billion since 2021, the White House said.

The United States is not only the undisputed leader of the free world, but also home to the most dynamic African diaspora. The African diaspora ranks amongst the most educated immigrant group and is found excelling and making invaluable contributions in all sectors of life-business, medicine, healthcare, engineering, transportation and more. The contribution of the African diaspora is not negligible, we see more of them appointed to senior government positions by President Biden like Wally Adeyemo, US Deputy Treasury Secretary, and Dr John Nkengasong Global AIDS Coordinator and Special Representative for Health Diplomacy.

U.S. Department of the Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo and Vice President of the United States Kamala Harris during the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, December 13, 2022 (Ben Solomon/U.S. Department of State)

Beyond engagement with the Biden administration, African leaders express the vision, dynamism and humility to engage with their diaspora. They are excelling in sports, academia, business, science, technology, engineering and all those other sectors that the continent needs to beef up to optimize its potential and meet development priorities. In addition, it is in Africa’s high interest to embrace them.

Since its inception more than two decades ago, the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) has offered Africans the opportunity to engage and establish business networks from Africa to the United States and vice versa. It has been one surest way working towards an integrated relations, and in uplifting relations unto a higher appreciable stage.

Speaking at a U.S. Export-Import Bank conference, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai told the gathering there that they needed more investment in addition to market access. The duty-free access for nearly 40 African countries has boosted development, fostered more equitable and sustainable growth in Africa.

The AGOA offered promise as a “stepping stone to address regional and global challenges,” especially with Africa’s young and entrepreneurial population. The future is Africa, and engaging with this continent is the key to prosperity for all of us,” Tai said.

According to World Bank Statistics, remittance inflows to sub-Saharan Africa soared 14.1 percent to $49 billion in 2021 following an 8.1 percent decline in the previous year due coronavirus pandemic. Beyond remittances, Africa stands to benefit largely from the input of its diaspora considered as progressive in the United States.

Welcoming African entrepreneurs, Africa-American and African leaders for a reception, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States was guided by the principle of close overwhelming partnership with Africa.

“We can’t solve any of the really big challenges we face if we don’t work together. So it’s about what we can do with African nations and its people,” Blinken said. “We welcome all other members of the international community, including the United States, to join us in the global efforts to help Africa.”

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken meets with Namibian President Hage Geingob, Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema, and South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor in Washington, D.C. on December 14, 2022. [State Department photo by Freddie Everett/ Public Domain]

In featuring prominently integrative aspects and cultural familiarity within the African diaspora, New York Mayor Eric Adams said that the success of African Americans showed the need for Africans to “walk differently.”

On disapora came Greg Meeks, the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The main strategy was rooted in one key word – partnership – and in recognition of shared priorities and working together. There were also many African and American youth leaders, students in the United States and Africa who are tuning in virtually – most spoke vividly on strengthening the bonds between African countries and the United States.

The strategy recognizes the immense role that the African diaspora members and young people will play in shaping and strengthening that partnership. One young leader, who has mobilized climate finance to make the water sector more resilient in South Africa, is now sharing the lessons that she learned at a U.S. government agency. Another, fresh off her experience fighting infectious disease in Malawi, was sharing her insights with nonprofits and businesses in the United States.  

Others were expanding educational opportunities for children, conducting environmental research, creating job opportunities for youth in both African countries and the United States, and demonstrating exactly why the diaspora is such an unparalleled asset for people on both continents.  It’s these interconnections, the back and forth, and the benefits that flow to Africa and the United States alike that is so incredibly powerful.

The United States practically is committed to ensuring that young people continue to bring their talents and hard work to the tremendous benefit of people across the continent and to the benefit of people in the United States. It has a number of programs that are doing just that – programs like the Young African Leaders Initiative – and through economic development programs, like the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs program.  Now, since its inception in 2019, that program has provided more than 5,400 women throughout Africa with the training and the networks that they need to start and to scale small businesses.

Late December, additional investments were announced to make it easier for students to participate in exchange programs from African countries, to increase trade opportunities for members of the African diaspora, and to support African entrepreneurs and small businesses. Each of these investments is guided by one overarching goal: to continue building partnership so to better address the shared challenges facing Africa.

The adopted strategy reflects diversity, its influence, and the ingenuity of its young people. Those youth are a growing part of the continent’s population – and also the world’s.  Today, more than 60 percent of Africa’s population is under the age of 25.  

By 2030, two in every five people on this planet will be African.  These rising generations are powering dynamic economic growth in their countries and far beyond.  2016 – just a few years ago – African startups raised $350 million dollars in investment; last year, they raised $5 billion in investment – and that’s a curve that’s going to keep going up and up and up. 

An African-American Yvonne Orji once wrote that, “Nigeria made me.  America raised me.”  It is often said that one of America’s greatest strengths is cultural diversity – there are few greater testaments to that than the immense contributions of the African diaspora community. 

The United States is investing in the infrastructure that provides the foundation for African entrepreneurship. That means creating more pathways for the free flow of ideas, of information, of investment, which in the 21st century requires one thing: digital connectivity.

Interestingto note that Africa has around twice as many internet users as the United States, yet the continent has only a fraction of our data center space.  What does that mean?  Slower, less reliable connectivity.  That’s why U.S. Development Finance Corporation is investing $300 million in building data centers across the continent – because there is the need for networks that can keep up with the lightening pace of new ideas.

Second, investing in rising leaders. Since President Barack Obama created the Young African Leaders Initiative, nearly 5,800 trailblazers from every country in sub-Saharan Africa have come to the United States for academic and leadership training – developing skills, relationships that are going to last for a lifetime and to the benefit of their communities.

Many of the Mandela Washington Fellows are entrepreneurs, and has until today thousands of graduates. For example, Abel Hailegiorgis from Ethiopia has a company building bicycles and wheelchairs from bamboo, which is stronger than steel – sustaining the planet, supporting local farmers and local manufacturers. The forthcoming years will involve frequent exchanges directed at contributing substantially to the network of professionals from African countries.

After the U.S.-Africa leaders summit, the National Basketball Association (NBA) has signed agreements to open and further expand American sports across Africa. With its African headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2010, additional offices are planned in Dakar, Lagos, Accra, Nairobi and Cairo in 2023. The league is committed to expanding efforts to make the game of basketball and the NBA more accessible across the continent.

The National Basketball Association (NBA) Africa and the Basketball Africa League (BAL) continue to attract world class marketing partners, including the BAL Foundational Partners Rwanda Development Board (RDB), NIKE, Jordan Brand, and Wilson, alongside NBA Africa’s recent collaborations with ESPN Africa, Afrosport, KFC Africa (Pan-Africa), Africell (Angola), Stanbic Bank (South Sudan), and Maven Developments (Egypt).

That’s not all.  In September, the U.S. African Development Foundation teamed up with the Tony Elumelu Foundation to create a new program to provide financing, technical assistance, and mentorship to emerging young innovators in Africa. He recently launched another initiative to connect up-and-coming climate entrepreneurs with American companies.

President Joseph R. Biden Jr. delivers remarks at the U.S.-Africa Business Forum in Washington, D.C. on December 14, 2022. [State Department photo by Freddie Everett/ Public Domain]

Third, there is a program for fostering greater engagement by American companies. The U.S. private sector already invests more than $4 in Africa for every dollar that the government allocates to the region in foreign assistance – and it wants to do more. That’s the objective of the Office of Global Partnerships, which will take a U.S. private sector delegation to Ghana in February. It’s the goal of the Prosper Africa initiative – which is marshalling agencies from across the government to help more U.S. companies and inventors – investors to do business in Africa, and do it in a way that promotes inclusive growth – growth that’s sustainable for the planet.

Prosper Africa’s institutional investor delegation invests more than $85 million in an African fund that will provide financing to small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Through a partnership with Prosper Africa, Pierre’s company – Yolélé – is distributing fonio and other products made by small farmers in the region to markets in the United States. In a region where it’s getting harder to grow crops due to a warming climate, fonio’s deep roots make it virtually drought-resistant.  Now, in West Africa, it’s said that “Fonio never embarrasses the cook” which is good news. 

President Joe Biden has signed an executive order for the creation of African Diaspora Advisory Council as part of the presidency. According reports, the post-summit large-scale projects and programs will be coordinated, monitored and implemented jointly by the president administration, the White House, State Dept of African Affairs and the African Diaspora.

*

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.

Featured image: A general view during the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, December 13, 2022 (Scott Taetsch/U.S. Department of State)

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.

***

Imagine that you and your spouse have a 14-month-old baby in excellent health. Your child is perfectly responsive to mother and father. His cognitive and social development has hit all milestones. He then receives an MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) combination vaccine. A few hours later he is struck with high fever, seizures, and severe gastrointestinal distress.

You call your pediatrician, who explains that, per the CDC, “There is a small increased risk for febrile seizures after MMR vaccines.” The pediatrician assures you the seizures will soon pass and your baby will be fine. However, following this initial attack, the baby becomes withdrawn and unresponsive to his mother. Instead of his characteristic bright-eyed smile, cheerful babble, and exclamations of delight, his facial affect becomes either blank or highly distressed. He ceases playing interactive games and showing interest in objects that had previously grabbed his attention.

You hope his condition is a passing aberration, but it’s not. Weeks and months go by, but the cheerful and responsive 14-month-old toddler you knew never returns.

As the child grows bigger and stronger, his condition becomes more frightening. He is easily upset at minor changes, throws tantrums, and reacts strangely to the way things look, taste, and smell. At night you and your spouse are tormented by his agonized shrieks and the thudding of his head against the headboard.

You are referred to a developmental pediatrician who diagnoses your child as suffering from autism. Immediately you wonder: Why was our healthy baby suddenly afflicted with this catastrophic social and cognitive impairment?

The pediatrician has no answer. “The cause of autism remains unknown,” he says.

“What about the MMR vaccine administered right before the trouble began?” you ask.

“We know the MMR vaccine doesn’t cause autism?” the pediatrician replies.

“But you just said we don’t know what causes autism?” you say.

“We don’t know what causes autism; we just know that it isn’t caused by the MMR vaccine,” he proclaims.

Your heart sinks with the suspicion that only a moron would dare utter such a patent logical fallacy. And yet, upon further investigation, you learn that your pediatrician is simply parroting the public health agency orthodoxy on MMR vaccines—an orthodoxy established without any comparative study of autism among vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children.

You observe mainstream media pundits parroting the same “safe and effective” mantra. CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent, Sanjay Gupta, asserts on national television, “We don’t know what causes autism, but we do know it’s not caused by the MMR vaccine.”

The situation is analogous to a missing child last seen getting into a brown 1976 Pontiac Firebird. The parents go to the local police station and are told by the missing persons investigator: “We don’t know what happened to your child; we only know his disappearance is not connected with the driver of the brown 1976 Pontiac Firebird, whose identity we don’t know.”

You turn on the television and see Microsoft monopolist Bill Gates aggressively proclaiming there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism. You wonder why Gates is widely regarded as an authority on MMR vaccines and autism, but no explanation is forthcoming. And so, like Captain John Yossarian in Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, you ask yourself: “Am I insane, or is everyone else insane?”

You assume your predicament must be rare, but then you ask around and discover there are tens of thousands of couples who have experienced the same disaster. And yet, virtually no one in the medical science establishment will even acknowledge the connection between your child receiving the MMR injection, his febrile seizures, and the onset of autistic symptoms.

A notable exception is the British gastroenterologist, Andrew Wakefield, who has long been interested in examining this link. Dr. Wakefield is so concerned that he directed the documentary film, VAXXED: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe. Released in 2016 and initially scheduled to be screened at the Tribeca Film Festival, it was cancelled after the organizer, Robert De Niro, came under heavy pressure to ax it. Then as now, those who questioned the safety and efficacy of vaccines were heavily censored and censured.

A major character in the film is senior CDC scientist, William W. Thompson, who, in 2014, contacted the biologist and autism researcher, Dr. Brian Hooker, as well as US Congressmen Bill Posey (R-FL). Thompson stated that his colleagues at the CDC had, in fact, documented evidence of a link between the early administration of the MMR vaccine and autism—especially in African American boys—but had chosen to destroy the evidence. Instead of publishing their true findings, they presented a paper with an altered dataset that concealed the link. Thompson, who was listed as one of the authors, claimed his bad conscience had spurred him to become a whistleblower.

As I watched VAXXED, I was most struck by the parents’ testimony. As producer Del Bigtree pointed out, many of these parents are intelligent and reasonable people who are acutely aware of sudden changes in their children. Mothers are exquisitely sensitive to what is going on with their infants. It is therefore the height of arrogant obtuseness to dismiss their testimony out of hand.

There is now widespread acknowledgement that the global incidence of autism has sharply risen over the last twenty years. According to a recent study published in Autism Parenting Magazine, as many as 1 in 44, or 2.3% of American children, are now suffering from it. This compares to approximately 5 out of 10,000 in the 1970s (when the MMR vaccine was introduced).

Autism is a catastrophe for its victims and their parents. A recent study published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders “following 187 people diagnosed with autistic disorder found their long-term outcomes to be overwhelmingly negative.”

The outcome data was grim, showing pervasive inability to live independently, hold a job, or manage money. Few became independent, with 99% unable to live independently. Of those, 70% lived at home with relatives, 21% lived in disability homes in the community, and 8% in residential facilities.

Given these dire findings, one would think that our public health agencies would regard the high incidence of this terrible syndrome as an emergency and invest billions to investigate ANY and ALL possible causes. And yet, given that these agencies refuse to acknowledge the testimony of tens of thousands of parents, it appears that no serious research is being conducted to examine the possible link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

*

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 Children’s Health Defense

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.

***

As someone who played a minuscule role in a CIA information operation that targeted Soviet military operations in Afghanistan in November 1985, I feel somewhat qualified to comment on the mammoth propaganda campaign the United States and Europe have unleashed on Russia. I have never seen anything so perverse and so dishonest.

Let me give you a recent example. Remember this recent “news” headline? “

DUCKING FOR COVER

‘SICKLY’ PUTIN CANCELS BIGGEST SPEECH OF HIS LIFE AS FIRST RUSSIAN STATE OF NATION SINCE INVASION IS MYSTERIOUSLY AXED

Source: The Sun

This was courtesy of the UK’s SUN. Lacking any reliable source, The SUN opted for speculation:

VLADIMIR Putin has cancelled his state of the nation address fuelling rumours he is in hiding from the Russian people and could be in failing health.

Putin’s spokesman finally confirmed the speech – which would be one of biggest in Vlad’s life – will not go ahead before the New Year. . . .

It comes after the mad tyrant also cancelled his end of year press conference and his annual hockey game.

Got it? Putin is either deathly ill — suffering from Parkinsons, cancer, Irritable Bowel, etc. — or deathly afraid of having to explain the ass whooping that Ukraine is delivering to Russia. You see, Putin can’t handle tough questions. Oops!! Wait a minute. We have breaking news. Turns out that Putin held a 48-minute press conference three days before Western Christmas (does this count as “end of the year”?):

It would appear that Putin delights in trolling the Western pundits and media. Does Putin look like a man suffering from some devastating illness? Does he give off the vibe of a guy who cannot control his bowels and is called Mr. Poopy Pants behind his back? Joe Biden could not pull this off even if he consumed Zelensky’s weekly dose of cocaine. Putin is coherent and in command of facts.

It would be one thing if the Western propaganda effort was focused solely on ridiculing and trying to foment opposition inside Russia to Vladimir Putin. But it is not. Western propaganda is demonizing all things Russian — e.g., literature, art, chess, sports figures, and actors and actresses. This approach is not creating a reservoir of good will towards the West. Just the opposite. It is fortifying Russian nationalism and solidifying support for Putin.

This is just one more piece of evidence that Western intelligence agencies have become a toxic, venal clown show. A professional, competent intelligence agency would use propaganda to support a broader strategic goal. So what is the “strategic goal” in attacking all things Russian? Pissing off the Russian people does not strike me as a recipe for bringing Russia under the control of the West. It also fails to provide the answer to the question, “Who replaces Putin?”

I do not even see a Russian version of the impotent Venezuelan pawn, Juan Guaido, who was tossed into the trash bin of history today by his previous backers:

on Friday, dozens of politicians who once backed Guaidó voted in favor of removing the 39-year-old engineer and replacing his U.S.-supported “interim government” with a committee to oversee presidential primaries next year and protect the nation’s assets abroad.

See this.

The U.S. mojo for overthrowing foreign governments has fallen on hard times. The last successful Western engineered coup was in Ukraine in February 2014. Since then the U.S. efforts to put their own boy in charge of a foreign government have faltered badly. Not just in Venezuela. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, working with the Brits and Turkey and some Gulf States, tried to get rid of Syria’s Bashar Assad and funded a civil war. The attempted coup in Khazakstan in January 2022 was a bust. Syria and Khazakstan shared one thing in common — Russia was their friend and Russia intervened to shore up those governments.

I wonder what the Russia phrase for Mighty Mouse is?

 

Is Russia the new Mighty Mouse? An interesting question to contemplate on the eve of entering 2023.

*

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.

Larry Johnson is a bona fide Son of American Revolutionaries. At least 24 of his ancestors, men and women, fought to free the American Colonies from British rule. Some died for the cause of liberty. 

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.

***

We had just received the news that another shelling had taken place.

To be sure, the school we had just left had been hit for the umpteenth time with a 155 mm NATO-made missile during the morning hours. The quasi-totality of the window frames was covered with wood panels which bore witness to the almost frantic desire of the NATO-supported Kyiv regime not only to target the most vulnerable but also to impede the transmission of remembrance in an attempt to eradicate the future.

In what has become a grim reminder of the daily ordeal suffered by the population of Donetsk these past nine years, we drove to the site of the bombardment only to discover that this time the target had been the football stadium.

Known as the Donbas Arena, this state-of-the-art stadium had been home to the Shakhtar Donetsk (the Donetsk Coal Miners) football team since its inauguration in 2009.

It embodied the vibrant economy of the region and its then-attractiveness to foreign investors. (The structure had been built and completed ahead of schedule by a Turkish consortium and its architectural style was conceived by a famed British designer.) The DONBAS ARENA was selected to host a few games of the 2012 European Football Championships, including a semi-final game featuring future champion Spain.

Photo courtesy of Arnaud Develay

What immediately struck me upon arriving at the site was that it was built adjacent to the city’s war memorial in Lenin Komsomol Park.

Known as the Monument dedicated to the DONBAS Liberators, the site features a towering 18-meter high sculpture depicting a soldier and a miner (Donetsk’s name during the Soviet Era was Stalino and as the symbol of the city’s then-vibrant mining industry, “Stalino” had been named as twin city to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) jointly holding a sword with its edge planted firmly in the ground.

At the foot of the statue stands the entrance to a museum with an eternal flame.

The Monument was dedicated to “the memory of all military units and formations that liberated Donbas during the Great Patriotic War.”

Photo courtesy of Arnaud Develay

The contrast between the gravitas oozing from this place in opposition to the consumerism, almost pagan rituals, symbolized by the stadium situated a stone’s throw away highlights the struggle currently taking place in this part of the world against the unhinged forces of materialism.

World War II memorial. [Photo courtesy of Arnaud Develay]

The cult of money and ephemera-like gratification of supporting football teams stands in stark contrast with the timeless sobriety and dignified undertones emanating from the site where the names of thousands of martyrs are forever etched in dark granite.

In the background, the thundering of artillery resonated sporadically in the grim grey sky as if to remind the visitor that the war is ongoing and that its outcome is still uncertain.

This dichotomy plays out throughout all of the Donbas.

We then drove to a place where the current war might very well have turned out completely differently had it not been for a few soldiers turning the tide of fate against incredible odds back in 2014.

As a place where the forces of nihilism also attempted to eradicate the memory of those who had given their lives in liberating the region, Saur-Mogila was “the focal point of intense fighting, when Soviet troops managed to retake control of the height from German forces in August 1943. In 1963, a memorial complex was unveiled at the top of the hill to honor fallen soldiers, comprising an obelisk with a steel-and-concrete statue of a Soviet soldier, four steel-and-concrete sculptures built along the slope leading up to the obelisk (each memorializing infantrymen, tank men, artillerymen and airmen involved in the battle), and walls inscribed with the names of fallen soldiers in the battle.”^[1]

Photo courtesy of Arnaud Develay

In May 2014, the Kyiv junta launched a massive military attack on this highly strategic hill. They started by bombing World War II war memorials. A few DPR volunteers managed to contain the offensive by calling their artillery gunners to target their own coordinates with the intention of inflicting huge casualties on the enemy.

This tactic succeeded in allowing the Republic of Donetsk time to mobilize in a way conducive to survival in order to prolong the struggle. “Alec,” one of these heroes, was with us and told us about the ferocity of the fighting. He joined the ranks of the volunteers at 48 years old. He is now 57. He testifies that, in the heat of the moment, he called on his commanders “to bomb the Germans.”

Former SBU operative Vassili Prozorov perfectly captured the war for the control of the narrative going in Ukraine for at least 20 years. In his documentary “Culturocide,” he recalls in detail how the school manuals throughout the cities of the Lugansk and Donetsk Republic were aimed at brainwashing children with crude russophobic propaganda and an invented history of Ukraine predicated on an ideology known as “integral nationalism.”^[2]

Oleksii Arestovych, a former intelligence officer now serving as an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, once stated that “Ukraine’s national narrative is predicated on a lie that we tell ourselves and others for if the truth was to come out, the country would cease to exist.”^[3]

These are the stakes of the Special Military Operation.

*

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.

Arnaud Develay is an international lawyer and participated in the defense of former President Saddam Hussein along with Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. In the wake of the Caesar Act, he documented the illegal sanction regime imposed on Syria while living in Damascus. Arnaud is now based in Moscow and can be reached at [email protected].

Notes

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donbas_strategic_offensive_(August_1943) 

2. https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?ei=UTF-8&q=culturocide%2C+you+tube#id=1&vid=0123ba93df81edbd14ba2a6197b63abd&action=click 
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aXu1lYABJI

Featured image: World War II memorial in Saur-Mogila. [Source: Photo courtesy of Arnaud Develay]

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.

***

“Metaphor consists in giving the thing a name that belongs to something else.” – Aristotle, Poetics (1457b)

It all seemed familiar.  Anthropomorphised Mother Nature in vengeful mood; humans wondering if they might meet a frozen demise in trapped vehicles; the planners taking stock as to how best to cope with grim circumstances.  The New York State governor Kathy Hochul was happy to stick her head out in declaring the latest lethal winter storm in Buffalo to be nothing less than a “war with Mother Nature, and she has been hitting us with everything she has.”

Having found her less than imaginative metaphor, the governor ran with it, suggesting that Mother Nature had laid waste to the region around Buffalo.  “It is [like] going to a war zone, and the vehicles along the sides of the roads are shocking.”

Sappy media outlets have also taken up Hochul’s call from the parapets of battle, scouring the record for heartfelt accounts of the human spirit.  The Guardian warmed to “stories of endurance, survival and rescue” – these are the sorts of things you expect when under attack from an omnipotent enemy.  “Good Samaritans took stranded travellers into their homes; strangers worked together to help a snow-trapped expectant mother through some birth.”

Metaphors of war and the environment are rarely helpful.  They conjure up false notions of battle, fictional platoons, ready reserves and resources marshalled against a retributive god or some sentient force of agency.  Unfortunately, they are everywhere, and often conceptually shaky.  “A solidified metaphor, a metaphor accepted unambiguously as truth,” writes Scarlet Marquette with accuracy, “is, in fact, a most pernicious force, inimical to truth.”

Officials have made it a habit to see war everywhere, often involving inanimate and abstract notions that do more to distort than clarify.  They operate as enormous distractions in the service of not making policy.  There are wars on sugar, salt, fat, poverty, homelessness and that colossally failed project known as the “War against Drugs”.

Such tendencies have seen a slew of publications, many of the specialised variety.  One co-authored article in the dedicated journal Metaphor and Symbol argues that “war metaphors are omnipresent because (a) they draw on basic and widely shared schematic knowledge that efficiently structures our ability to reason and communicate about many different types of situations, and (b) they reliably express an urgent, negatively valenced emotional tone that captures attention and motivates action.”

That the action is necessarily well-directed or founded is another matter.  Susan Sontag picked up on this point in examining illness and its various metaphors, writing that “military metaphors contribute to the stigmatizing of certain illnesses and, by extension, those who are ill”.

But the theme of Nature can also be taken from the other side: that humanity has brought wrath against itself for its plundering, fecund, and warring ways.  Nature, in that sense, is the recipient of human bad behaviour, with humans refusing to come to the table and make peace.

The UN environment chief, Inger Andersen, sees much in that comparison.  Unlike Hochul, her concern lies in the concern that human beings have been the unilateral aggressors, exploiters, and marauders.

“As far as biodiversity is concerned, we are at war with nature.  We need to make peace with nature.  Because nature is what sustains everything on Earth … the science is unequivocal.”

Pausing to reflect on the birth of the 8 billionth human being was an occasion to celebrate, but “the more people there are, the more we put the Earth under heavy pressure.”  That pressure came in the form of “the five horsemen of the biodiversity apocalypse”, namely, land-use, overexploitation, pollution, the broader climate crisis, and the spread of invasive species.

The same sentiment is expressed by the United Nations Secretary General António Guterres, who shifts the focus to humanity as the warring problem on Planet Earth.  He puts his hope in the children to save us from this dilemma, hoping the young will be far more sensible in making peace.  “I am continuously inspired by their commitment & leadership in tackling the war against nature.”

If one starts off with the premise that human beings are prone to such innate war making tendencies – and this premise has been challenged – alternatives have been suggested.  The philosopher William James proposed a re-channelling of such desires in his address, “The Moral Equivalent of War.”  Instead of killing each other, humanity might go about other pursuits.

Unfortunately, such redirections bring environmental consequences James could scant see.  “To the coal mines and iron mines, to freight trains … to road-building and tunnel-making, to foundries and stoke holes, and to the frames of skyscrapers, would our gilded youth be drafted off, according to their choice, to get the childishness knocked out of them, and to come back into society with healthier sympathies and soberer ideas.”

Another rechannelling is required, but it will not be found in the exhortations to survival suggested by Hochul. Her language is not that of humans bound to nature as collaborative ecological agents, but warriors besieged.  In that analysis, nature itself is stigmatised.  Like Medea, she will kill her children, and is accordingly to be feared.

*

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: Hochul being sworn in as Governor in 2021 (Licensed under CC BY 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.

***

It has become common practice in the alternative media, especially those parts of the alternative media that identify themselves with the term “conservative”, to provide detail and often quite accurate data about the manner in which COVID-19 vaccines are employed to kill off the population, and to offer new insights into the enormous frauds, engineered by the corporate elites, using the names of the United Nations and the World Health Organization. But the ultimate responsibility for those actions is attributed by these blogs and reporters to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and to the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

The conclusion in most cases is that the US is under assault from communists in China and that the democrats in the US who abet its actions are “leftists”. Concerns about actions of the CCP in the US and globally are not without evidence.

Click the image below to watch the video.

*

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 Fear No Evil.

Emanuel Pastreich served as the president of the Asia Institute, a think tank with offices in Washington DC, Seoul, Tokyo and Hanoi. Pastreich also serves as director general of the Institute for Future Urban Environments. Pastreich declared his candidacy for president of the United States as an independent in February, 2020.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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.

***

Americans had lost nearly three years of life expectancy during 2020 and 2021. In 2019, the average life span of Americans of all ethnicities was 78.8 years. By the end of 2020, it had dropped to 77.0 years and by the end of 2021 it was 76.4

From 2020 to 2021, death rates increased for each age group 1 year and over. The age groups with the highest increases include working age adults, 25 to 54, and children under 4

The leading causes of death in 2021 were heart disease, cancer and COVID-19, all three of which were higher in 2021 than 2020. Unintentional injury and stroke also significantly increased in 2021

Heart disease, stroke and cancer are all now-known side effects of the COVID jabs. Unintentional injuries may also be due to the shots, as you may easily be injured if you pass out or suffer a heart attack or stroke while doing just about anything

If the COVID jabs worked, you’d expect excess mortality to drop, yet that’s not what we’re seeing. We’re also not seeing mass death from COVID. The only clear factor that might account for these discrepancies is mass injection with an experimental gene transfer technology

*

In August 2022, provisional life expectancy estimates^1,2 for 2021 were released, showing Americans had lost nearly three years of life expectancy during 2020 and 2021. In December 2022, the finalized mortality report³ confirmed these shocking data.

Shocking Decline in US Life Expectancy

In 2019, the average life span of Americans of all ethnicities was 78.8 years.⁴ By the end of 2020, it had dropped to 77.0 years⁵ and by the end of 2021, it was 76.4.⁶ As detailed in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s finalized mortality report for 2021:⁷

“In 2021, life expectancy at birth was 76.4 years for the total U.S. population — a decrease of 0.6 year from 77.0 years in 2020 … For males, life expectancy decreased 0.7 year from 74.2 in 2020 to 73.5 in 2021. For females, life expectancy decreased 0.6 year from 79.9 in 2020 to 79.3 in 2021 … From 2020 to 2021, death rates increased for each age group 1 year and over …”

As Virginia Commonwealth University professor of population health Dr. Steven Woolf told USA Today,⁸ “That means all the medical advances over the past quarter century have been erased.”

Life Expectancy Has Dropped Across All Age Groups

Age-specific rates of death increased across all age groups as follows:⁹

As you can see, something very strange is going on here. While life expectancy dropped across all age groups, the age groups with the highest increases in mortality were working age adults, 25 through 54, followed by children between the ages of 1 and 4.

What’s Killing Younger Americans?

The leading causes of death in 2021 were heart disease, cancer and COVID-19, all three of which were higher in 2021 than 2020.¹⁰ Unintentional injury and stroke also significantly increased in 2021.

Heart disease, stroke and cancer are all now-known side effects of the COVID jabs. Unintentional injuries may also be due to the shots, as you may easily be injured if you pass out or suffer a heart attack or stroke while doing just about anything.

Woolf, however, believes low COVID-19 jab rates and general poor health of Americans are to blame for the increased mortality. In addition to disregarding the fact that the primary causes of death are side effects of the COVID shots, working age adults and children are also, comparatively speaking, the healthiest groups in general and ought to have a lower risk of death from any cause, but especially heart disease and cancer.

And, since they have a far lower risk of dying from COVID in the first place (compared to the elderly), a slightly lower COVID jab rate in this age group is unlikely to have made such a huge difference.

According to CDC data,¹¹ 84% of 25- to 49-year-olds got at least one dose and 71% is considered “fully ‘vaccinated.'” In the 50 to 64 year category, it’s 95% and 83% respectively. In the 65 and over category, 95% got at least one dose and 93% are “fully ‘vaccinated,'” so it’s not like there’s a major difference in jab rates.

‘Sudden Death Syndrome’ May Be Driving Down Life Expectancy

COVID-19 is an unlikely cause for the rapid decline in life expectancy for the simple fact that it’s not a major contributor to rising excess mortality. Excess mortality is a statistic that is related to but separate from life expectancy.

It refers to the difference between the observed numbers of deaths (from all causes) during a given time, compared to the expected number of deaths based on historical norms, such as the previous five-year average. (Formula: reported deaths minus expected deaths equals excess deaths.)

Across the world, excess mortality has dramatically risen since the start of the pandemic, and barely a day now goes by without a healthy adult suddenly dropping dead with no apparent cause. People have died during live broadcasts, in the middle of speeches and during dinner.

Clearly, they were feeling well enough to go to work, to an event or a restaurant, and something caused them to instantaneously die without warning. These are the people making up these excess death statistics. They shouldn’t be dead, yet something took them out.

Excess Deaths Took Off After the COVID Jab Rollout

While COVID-positive deaths were part of the equation in 2020, excess deaths really took off after the rollout of the COVID jabs, not during the height of the pandemic as one would expect if COVID-19 was the real killer.¹² Besides, we already know that “COVID-19 death” simply means that the person tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 at the time of death or just prior to it.

For the U.S., there were 3,440,546 deaths of all ages for the year 2020.¹³ The expected numbers were 3,028,959, so that was an excess of 13.6% (411,587 above expected). In 2021, there were 3,459,496 deaths of all ages, which was 16.4% above expectations. As of mid-April 2022, the excess death rate was already at 14.1%, with 1,041,538 reported deaths of all ages.

If the COVID jabs worked, you’d expect excess mortality to drop, yet that’s not what we’re seeing. We’re also not seeing mass death from COVID. The only clear factor that might account for these discrepancies is mass injection with an experimental gene transfer technology.

More Working Age Adults Were Coerced Into Taking the Jab

Life insurance data confirm that it’s working age adults who are dying in record numbers, which is what’s really driving down life expectancy. In the third quarter of 2021, the death rate of working-age Americans (18 to 64) was 40% higher than prepandemic levels, and these deaths were, again, not attributed to COVID.

As noted by Dr. Robert Malone in a January 2022 Substack article,¹⁴ workers were forced to accept the toxic COVID jabs at a higher frequency relative to the general population. This, I believe, is the real answer to why they’re dying at a disproportionate rate.

As for children under 4, well, toxins tend to be more dangerous to younger children, so it’s no great shock that the death rate for children has risen more than the rate of older people. After all, we’re now giving these toxic COVID jabs to babies as young as 6 months old.

Data Manipulation Hides Real Cause of Death

As mentioned, the leading causes of death in 2021 were heart disease, cancer and COVID-19. Data analysis by The Ethical Skeptic¹⁵ — self-described as a former intelligence officer and strategist — shows cancer deaths are now being mislabeled as COVID deaths. The suspicion is that this is an effort to hide the fact that the COVID shots have resulted in soaring cancer rates.

Seven of the 11 International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes tracked by the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics — including cancer — saw sharp upticks starting in the first week of April 2021, which is when large swaths of the American population were getting their first COVID jabs.

According to The Ethical Skeptic’s analysis of U.S. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) data, the CDC has been filtering and redesignating cancer deaths as COVID deaths since Week 14 of 2021 to eliminate the cancer signal.¹⁶

The following two charts illustrate how cancer mortality is being artificially suppressed. As explained by The Ethical Skeptic:^17,18

“The set dynamics are complex, but the principle is straightforward. When a death cert lists Cancer as the UCoD [underlying cause of death] and COVID as MCoD [main cause of death] — the UCoD & MCoD are being swapped, and COVID is being listed as the UCoD 100% (425/wk).

“This results in 20% of all COVID deaths each week, also happening to be persons dying of Cancer — which is egregiously higher than it should be. This is clear over-attribution = equates to exactly the difference between the Cancer and All Other ICD-10 code lag curves.”

The problem facing the CDC, is … What does one do when COVID Mortality is no longer substantial enough to conceal the excess Cancer Mortality?”

So, to rephrase, what The Ethical Skeptic is saying is that 20% of the weekly so-called COVID deaths are cancer deaths, which is rather astounding. Swapping the underlying and main causes of death, listing COVID as the main cause, hides (to some degree) the fact that cancer deaths are going through the roof.

According to his analysis, the COVID shot is killing 7,300 Americans per week. COVID, meanwhile, is killing 1,740 people.¹⁹ What will the CDC blame when COVID disappears, and they can no longer swap the underlying and main cause of death designations? Time will tell.

In the meantime, cancer is already one of the leading causes that is prematurely killing Americans, and uncontrollable turbo-charged cancers only started to occur after the rollout of the COVID jabs.²⁰

Former NIH Director Blames Christian Misinformation

Former National Institutes of Health director Dr. Francis Collins recently suggested misinformation spread by White Evangelical Christians are driving vaccine hesitancy, and that it’s this religious “culture war” that is killing Americans.

Collins either has an agenda or is seriously confused, as statistics show whites in general had the highest COVID jab uptake rates when the jabs came out, and people who took it were far more likely to promote the jab than discourage it. As reported by the Kaiser Family Foundation:²¹

“… federal data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that 78% of the total population in the United States have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine …

Over the course of the vaccination rollout, Black and Hispanic people have been less likely than their White counterparts to receive a vaccine, but these disparities have narrowed over time and reversed for Hispanic people.”

Christians in general also haven’t been particularly “hesitant” about getting the jab. An investigation by the Public Religion Research Institute found²² 56% of white evangelical protestants got jabbed, as did 74% of White mainline protestants and 79% of white Catholics. For some reason, the jab rates among Black religious affiliations were not assessed, so we have no idea whether religion has influenced Blacks to reject the shot.

Bear in mind, the COVID jab rate for the U.S. as a whole (one dose or more) is 79%,²³ so Christians in general are about as average as you can get. Granted, evangelical protestants have a significantly lower rate, but is Collins suggesting white evangelicals are causing Blacks to reject the jab — because Blacks had, and still have, the lowest jab rates.²⁴

The Use of Scapegoats Is a Classic Prejudice Builder

As detailed in “Vaccines Are the New ‘Purity Test,'” the Nazis used a four-step process for dehumanizing Jews,²⁵ — prejudice, scapegoating, discrimination and persecution. By scapegoating Jews as dirty and diseased, the German public was indoctrinated into agreeing with, or at least going along with, the Nazis’ genocidal plan.

Over the past three years, we’ve seen how government officials have repeatedly tried to pin blame for the spread of COVID on one specific group or another. Fortunately, these narratives didn’t stick in the long term, but they did do significant harm for a time.

Collins’ attack on evangelical Christians is just the latest example of how they try to maintain control by seeding division among races, religious and political groups. The more we distrust and fear each other, the less we pay attention to the real criminals.

But, in order for this the division attempt to work, there must be a target, a scapegoat, toward which people can direct their frustration. COVID-19 is now endemic and a rare threat to anyone. COVID narratives are simply being recycled to keep the fear of illness and distrust among people going.

It’s important to realize, though, that fear is the No. 1 destroyer of freedom. The greater your fear, the more you’ll obey, and the more you obey, the more freedom you must give up. And freedoms relinquished are never voluntarily given back by those in power. People throughout the ages have always had to fight to regain freedoms lost.

*

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.

Notes

^1, 6 CDC Provisional Life Expectancy Estimates for 2021, August 2022

² New York Times August 31, 2022 (Archived)

^{3, 5, 7, 9} CDC NCHS Data Brief December 2022

⁴ CDC Press release July 21, 2021

^8, 10 USA Today December 22, 2022

^11, 23, 24 USA Facts COVID Vaccine Tracker

¹² Our World in Data Excess Mortality During COVID Pandemic

¹³ US Mortality

¹⁴ Robert Malone Substack January 2, 2022

¹⁵ The Ethical Skeptic August 20, 2022, Part 1

¹⁶ Gettr The Ethical Skeptic July 16, 2022

¹⁷ Twitter The Ethical Skeptic October 2, 2022, Corrected chart

¹⁸ Twitter The Ethical Skeptic October 1, 2022

¹⁹ Twitter The Ethical Skeptic September 29, 2022

²⁰ Steve Kirsch Substack February 5, 2022

²¹ KFF July 14, 2022

²² PRRI September 22, 2021

²⁵ BahaiTeachings Hitler’s Four-Step Process for Dehumanizing the Jews

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

---

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.

***

As has frequently been the case in America’s recent wars, in Ukraine a largely hidden clandestine conflict is paralleling the actual fighting on the ground. One should assume that a variety of western spies using various kinds of cover are operating at all levels as well as in adjacent areas in Poland and the Baltic states. The Russians certainly have their own informants inside the Ukrainian government itself and Kiev has proven itself capable of carrying out so-called covert actions in Moscow, to include the car bombing assassination of Darya Dugin on August 20^th. At the same time, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Britain’s MI-6 are known to be working assiduously to collect information that suggest vulnerabilities in the Russian offensive capabilities while also seeking to identify those potentially recruitable individuals who do not support President Vladimir Putin’s intervention to liberate Donbas. The activities of spies and the agents that they direct should be considered a major part of the overall war effort by both sides.

Recently there have been some interesting articles revealing what some of the spies and their political masters have been up to over the past six months. Bear in mind, however, that the business of spying is 50% dissimulation to conceal what is actually taking place, so what the various intelligence services have been revealing is more than likely to include at least some deliberate misdirection. One recalls how in February 1981 Bill Casey, the new CIA Director appointed by President Ronald Reagan, famously quipped “We’ll know our Disinformation Program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”

If the quote is accurate, Casey would probably be delighted to see the massive propaganda effort carried out by the Joe Biden White House to initiate and sustain a proxy war against Russia that was completely avoidable and serves no national interest beyond testing how one can restart the Cold War complete with threats of nuclear annihilation. And one should observe that Casey might well have been delivering a subtler message within his apparently off-the-cuff comment. He might have been suggesting that no one should trust anything coming out of the mouth of a high government official, particularly if that official is an intelligence officer.

With that in mind, it was interesting to read an account of some recent remarks delivered in London by the head of MI-5, Ken McCallum. McCallum is no fool and his comments clearly were intended on one level to reinforce the message that the British government is taking good care of national security. In other words, he intended to spin a narrative that would reassure a public that has become increasingly concerned over the course of the Ukraine war and the possible painful consequences derived from British direct involvement in it.

What McCallum is selling is a suggestion that the Ukraine war is actually good for national security because it has enabled the expulsion of hundreds of Russian intelligence officers all over Europe. CNN’s story on MI-5’s annual assessment of the state of Britain’s security describes how the Kremlin’s “…ability to spy in Europe has been dealt the ‘most significant strategic blow’ in recent history after coordinated expulsions of [Russian] diplomats since the invasion of Ukraine, with a hundred diplomatic visa requests refused in the UK alone in recent years.”

McCallum stated that in this year alone 600 Russians officials had been expelled from Europe, 400 of whom were considered to be intelligence officers under cover. He expanded on the details in additional comments after his speech how “We’ve continued to work intensively to make the UK the hardest possible operating environment for Russian covert action. In the UK’s case, since our removal for 23 Russian spies posing as diplomats, we have refused on national security grounds over 100 diplomatic visa applications … the serious point is that the UK must be ready for Russian aggression for years to come.”

What does it all mean? McCallum explained how there has been “a very, very large dent in [Russian intelligence capabilities] across Europe. Since counter-intelligence information is shared throughout NATO it’s not easy for the Russians to cross post [one officer] expelled from country A to Country D… I hope what will continue to be true is that a very large volume of trained, experienced Russian intelligence talent, if I can use that term, will be of far less utility [in] the world for many years to come.”

McCallum concluded his address with some obligatory comments on the threats coming from adversaries like Iran and China. The MI5 tale presumably warmed the hearts of each and every American neocon hoping for some good news for Hanukkah, but there is something big that is missing from the Russia story. That would be that mass expulsions of Russian diplomats and “spies” clearly began long before the Ukraine war was a twinkle in Volodymyr Zelensky’s eye, so it would seem that MI-5 and NATO were planning something well in advance, which is certainly interesting. But more important, is the fact that expulsion of diplomats is reciprocal, meaning that what is being done to the Russians is served up in return by Moscow, which has also been expelling suspected foreign intelligence officers and refusing to accept the credentials of many individuals submitted to the Foreign Ministry as replacements. That means that reducing Russia’s ability to spy through its diplomatic and trade missions also results in reducing your own capabilities.

I do not know if western intelligence has penetrated the Kremlin by recruiting one or more Russian officials within the inner circle of Vladimir Putin’s government, but I would assume that to be the case. Spies at that level are routinely given secure electronic means of communicating with their American or British intelligence handlers, but every case officer knows that the ability to meet personally, even fleetingly in Moscow, produces vastly more directed intelligence than exchanging texts electronically. The Russians are surely aware of that just as they more-or-less know who the diplomat-spies in their midst are. Kick them all out and what do you have left? Which is why the boasting by McCallum reflects something of a Pyrrhic victory at best.

There are other indications that western intelligence is seeking new sources of information, and it is being reported on by the Russians themselves. To be sure, there have been numerous stories in the western media regarding discontent among ordinary Russians over the war, to include suggestions that some senior Putin advisers and military officers have also become highly critical of developments. These stories, leaked from western governments hostile to Russia, may or may not be true, though domestic Russian opinion polls indicate that Putin’s favorability rating continues to be over 70%.

Russia Today (RT), the state-owned media outlet, reports that the CIA is stepping up its efforts to recruit the presumably disgruntled Russians. Relying on coverage of a recent “CIA at 75” event held at George Mason University in Virginia, RT quotes the Agency’s Deputy Director for Operations David Marlowe, who told a “select audience” that CIA officers abroad have recently been engaged in a major effort to exploit “fertile ground” to recruit Russian agents from “among disgruntled military officers, oligarchs who have seen their fortunes thinned by sanctions, and businesspeople and others who have fled the country.”

Marlowe elaborated how it works, saying “We’re looking around the world for Russians who are as disgusted with [the conflict in Ukraine] as we are. Because we’re open for business.” Marlowe did not explain how dissident Russians who have fled the country will be able to provide useful intelligence information on decision making in the Kremlin, but perhaps he is being optimistic. Russia has in fact denounced several overt attempts to recruit its remaining diplomats and military attaches in Europe and the US using what are referred to as “cold pitches,” where someone approaches a target on the street or in a social setting and offers money or other inducements in return for information. Russian reports indicate that American officers have been hanging around Russian Embassies passing out to those leaving or entering the building cards with phone numbers to contact the FBI and CIA. Inevitably, cold pitches very rarely work because even if the target were so inclined, he or she would have to consider the possibility that his or her own loyalty was being tested by the agency that he or she works for.

So, there is a certain inconsistency in McCallum and Marlowe, representing MI-5 and CIA respectively, claiming that they are winning the secret war against Russia by expelling their potential targets to make them go back home to Moscow while at the same time increasing their own efforts to recruit those very people that they just kicked out. Well, espionage is a profession like no other, and what is playing out now in and around and regarding Ukraine tends to prove that axiom. But bear in mind that the CIA is now “open for business.”

*

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.

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]. 

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is 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.

***

With no process or accountability, Sen. Chuck Schumer and Appropriations Chair Patrick Leahy inserted an unprecedented right whale policy rider into the omnibus funding budget released today. Schumer’s measure gives the U.S. lobster fishery six years to delay necessary actions to prevent fishing gear from entangling and killing critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.

With a declining population of 340 individuals and 70 breeding females, the North Atlantic right whale will almost certainly be on an irreversible extinction trajectory if U.S. lobster fisheries are allowed to avoid key conservation measures.

“Schumer and Leahy are extinction Democrats who just heartlessly put special interests above our nation’s beautiful natural heritage,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Right whales have migrated along New York’s coastline for thousands of years, but Sen. Schumer’s action will make this generation the last to witness these remarkable creatures. What a horrific legacy to leave to one’s grandchildren.”

The FY2023 omnibus provides some additional funding to the Environmental Protection Agency, but the funding remains a cut in real dollars after accounting for inflation. It still remains insufficient to address the decade of flat EPA funding and four years of staff attrition during the Trump administration.

Similarly, the Department of the Interior and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service received additional funding compared to FY2022, but these amounts remain well short of what’s needed to address the extinction crisis.

“Sacrificing a great whale to extinction in exchange for funding the government is immoral. Doing so just to give Sen. Schumer another political chit in his pocket is simply pathetic,” said Hartl. “A hundred years from now, no one will remember or care about the trivial victories Democrats will try to claim in this legislation, but they’ll mourn the loss of the right whale.”

*

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: North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis). Credit: NOAA.

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 prospects for peace, justice, and the advancement of liberty in 2023 may at first seem further away than ever. Washington’s determination to overthrow the Russian government via a proxy war in Ukraine has brought the threat of nuclear war closer than ever in history. The mainstream media is even “normalizing” the idea that a nuclear attack on the US is really no big deal. Yahoo News wrote yesterday that a “public health expert” is “concerned” that Americans are not sufficiently prepared for nuclear bombs hitting major US cities!

The Yahoo article even links to a FEMA-authored “nuclear detonation planning guide” to help us better get through a barrage of nuclear missiles. Are they insane? They act as if a nuclear attack on the United States is just another inconvenience to plan for, like an ice storm or a hurricane.

The FEMA guide’s advice on what to do during a nuclear attack is, “Get inside, stay inside, and stay tuned.” Stay tuned to what? Have they not seen the photos from Hiroshima or Nagasaki?

While we are foolishly edging toward war, with the media and Beltway neocons cheering it on, there are still some bright spots we can look to in 2023.

First, polls consistently demonstrate increasing American opposition to US involvement in Ukraine. Republicans are set to take control of the House this week right as Republican voter support for more military aid to Ukraine has seen a dramatic and steady decline. US households continue to struggle under runaway inflation and a looming economic crack-up and more Americans are going to demand answers from their government as to why we have sent more than $100 billion to Ukraine while so many are struggling at home.

Second, a recent Rasmussen poll has revealed that in light of the “Twitter Files” – which showed that the FBI viewed the social media platform as a paid subsidiary of the US government – some 63 percent of likely US voters “believe Congress should investigate whether the FBI was involved in censoring information on social media sites.” A large percentage of those polled believe the FBI has been politicized by the current Administration, which may give incoming Republicans in the House some backbone to launch an actual investigation. Without the First Amendment, the other Amendments are virtually meaningless, and when the US government can strong-arm “private” businesses to attack free speech, freedom has no future.

A third bright point is that the nearly twelve-year war on Syria might finally be closer to settlement. Syrian and Turkish defense ministers held negotiations brokered by Moscow which resulted in an agreement by Turkey to withdraw its military forces from Syrian soil. There are rumors that a meeting between the leaders of Turkey and Syria may come as soon as early this new year.

The destruction of Syria was part of the Obama/Hillary/neocon plan to “remake” the Middle East, but as always these interventionist schemes have only resulted in death and destruction. Washington continues to lecture Russia about occupying Ukrainian soil, yet the US military has for years occupied Syrian territory for the sole purpose of backing extremists and stealing Syrian oil. Turkey leaving Syria will add pressure for the US to leave Syria. That is a good thing.

The new year is upon us. It might be easy to feel dejected. But for we who promote peace, freedom, and justice, there is much to build on. Do not allow your voices to be silenced!

*

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 Mideast Discourse

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.

***

Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, entered Al-Aqsa Mosque‘s courtyards in occupied East Jerusalem on Tuesday, in a move bound to inflame tensions.

A video posted on social media shows Ben-Gvir touring the courtyards with a heavy security detail.

🔴 متابعة صفا | وزير الأمن القومي الإسرائيلي الجديد المتطرف إيتمار بن غفير يقتحم المسجد الأقصى لمدة ١٣ دقيقة برفقة عدد كبير من رجال الشرطة pic.twitter.com/fqWlTDdK2f

— وكالة صفا (@SafaPs) January 3, 2023

On Monday, the Palestinian movement Hamas warned Israel that it “won’t sit idly by” if the new security minister visits Al-Aqsa Mosque, as he vowed to do on Sunday.

Following his visit on Tuesday, Ben-Gvir said:

“Our government will not surrender to threats from Hamas.

“The Temple Mount is the most important place for the people of Israel,” he said, using the Jewish name for the site.

“We maintain the freedom of movement for Muslims and Christians, but Jews also go up to the site, and those who make threats must be dealt with an iron fist.”

Al-Aqsa Mosque is one of the holiest sites in Islam and the site of the Jewish temple destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.

Since Israel occupied the site following the 1967 Middle East war, Jewish prayer at the site has been forbidden, though far-right settlers such as Ben-Gvir (some of whom want to demolish Al-Aqsa and replace it with a third Jewish temple) have frequently prayed there under strict security in recent years.

The Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry, which is run by Hamas’ rival Fatah, said in a statement that it holds Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “responsible for Ben-Gvir’s storming of Al-Aqsa and its consequences”.

It went on to add that it “strongly condemns the extremist minister Ben-Gvir’s storming of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and considers it an unprecedented provocation and a serious threat” to regional stability.

On Monday, Yair Lapid, who Netanyahu last week replaced as prime minister, slammed the planned visit, calling it a “deliberate provocation” that would result in people dying.

Lapid urged Netanyahu to restrain his new national security minister.

Initial reports in the Hebrew media indicated that Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir had agreed to postpone the visit. However, Netanyahu’s Likud party denied that such a request had been made.

International reactions

The United Arab Emirates, which normalised relations with Israel in 2020, released a statement condemning the storming of Al-Aqsa.

“The UAE today strongly condemned the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque courtyard by an Israeli minister under the protection of Israeli forces,” said the statement, avoiding naming Ben-Gvir.

The statement called on,

“Israeli authorities to assume responsibility for reducing escalation and instability in the region.”

It continued:

“Moreover, the Ministry stressed the need to support all regional and international efforts to advance the Middle East Peace Process, end illegal practices that threaten the two-state solution, and establish an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

The French embassay in Israel called for the “preservation of the status quo of the Holy Places of Jerusalem. Any gesture aimed at questioning it carries a risk of escalation and must be avoided.”

Changing the status quo 

Hamas spokesman Abd al-Latif al-Qanua said on Monday that the planned visit was “another example of the arrogance of the settler government and their future plans to damage and divide Al-Aqsa Mosque”.

“The Palestinian resistance will not allow the neo-fascist occupation government to cross the red lines and encroach on our people and our sanctities.”

Netanyahu’s sixth government, the most right-wing administration in Israel’s history, has said that its main guiding policy will be that “the Jewish people have an exclusive and indisputable right to all areas of the Land of Israel”, referring to the concept of “Greater Israel” that includes the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and other foreign lands.

This is not the first time that Ben-Gvir has stormed Al-Aqsa. In May last year, accompanied by his wife and son, Ben-Gvir posted a picture calling for the destruction of the site to “establish a synagogue on the mountain“.

When former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon made a similar trip to the site in 2000, it sparked the Second Intifada Palestinian uprising.

According to data compiled by Middle East Eye, Israeli forces killed more Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in 2022 than in a single calendar year since the Second Intifada.

At least 220 people have died in Israeli attacks across the occupied territories, including 48 children. Of the total death toll, 167 were from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and 53 were from the Gaza Strip.

An additional five Palestinian citizens of Israel have been killed in the same period. Meanwhile, Palestinians have killed at least 29 Israelis, including one child, the highest death toll since 2008.

*

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: Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir visits Al-Aqsa, 3 January (Social Media)

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.

***

Oil has been the single most influential resource in modern history, driving industrialization, building nations, and deciding the outcome of wars. It has been responsible for raising millions of people out of poverty and for razing entire cities to the ground. From technological advancements to environmental disasters, few, if any, industries have left as large a mark on the earth.

While the history of oil can be traced back as far as 3000 BC, when builders in Mesopotamia began to use bitumen to strengthen bricks, the story of the modern oil industry really began in the 1850s. Since then, explorers, investors, kings, journalists, spies, and scientists have all attempted to leave their mark on the industry. This is a list of the ten people who, for better or worse, are responsible for shaping the oil industry as we know it today.

10. Winston Churchill

Churchill may be best known as the stubborn wartime Prime Minister of Britain, but it was in his role as the First Lord of the Admiralty that he transformed the oil industry forever. In 1911, as tensions between Germany and Britain were mounting ahead of the First World War, Churchill made the fateful decision to convert the British fleet from coal power to oil power. While today such a decision may seem an obvious one, at the time it was considered both reckless and wasteful.

The conversion was not only expensive and experimental, but it left the British navy vulnerable as it would now have to rely on oil from Persia rather than coal produced at home. In 1914, in order to secure a reliable oil supply for the navy, Churchill convinced the British Government to buy 51% of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (which would later become BP).

When the First World War broke out in July 1914, Churchill’s decision was vindicated, the new British navy was faster and more efficient than its counterparts. It was now accepted that oil would indeed be the fuel of the future, and securing it was a matter of national security. Thanks to Churchill, the international oil industry would now forever be intertwined with foreign policy. The battle for control over both the production and trade routes of this critical resource continues to this day.

9. T Boone Pickens

 

For the oil industry, the 1980s were a time of great upheaval. In the aftermath of the 1979 oil crisis, Ronald Regan completely deregulated oil, boosting competition and leading to consolidation across the industry. In 1983, the New York Mercantile Exchange introduced a futures contract in crude oil. Up until the creation of a futures market, the price of oil had been set by oil companies like Standard Oil, by regulators such as the Texas Railroad Commission, and by OPEC. Now, the price of oil was decided by traders on the open market. These events combined to mean efficiency and value were the two most important traits for oil companies, and one man more than any other would take advantage of this new age in oil.

T Boone Pickens positioned himself at the intersection of the oil industry and Wall Street, styling himself as a servant of shareholder value. He was a master of mergers and acquisitions in the industry and would play a key role in making the industry leaner and more efficient. His strategy involved finding a company whose stock price did not reflect the value of its oil and gas reserves, acquiring a significant block of its stock, and then forcing the company’s management to act to increase its share value. His most famous deals included Gulf Oil,  Phillips Petroleum, and Unocal. Every corporate raider and activist investor in the industry today owes a debt to T Boone Pickens, the man who showed investors how to take power back from the oil giants.

8. Harry St John Bridger Philby

While he isn’t even the most famous person in his family (his son Kim was the notorious British intelligence officer who acted as a double agent for the Soviet Union), Harry Philby played an integral role in the development of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry, helping to form what would ultimately become the largest oil company on earth, Saudi Aramco.

Philby was born in modern-day Sri Lanka, studied at the University of Cambridge, and in 1915 was recruited to the Indian Civil Service where he helped to organize the Arab Revolut against the Ottoman Empire. This first posting marked the beginning of his life-long obsession with Arabic culture and languages. In 1917, he was chosen to lead a mission to the Arabian Peninsula where he would meet a tribal chieftain by the name of Ibn Saud – the future founder of Saudi Arabia. His meeting with Ibn Saud would ultimately lead Philpy to leave the Indian Civil Service, convert to Islam, and play a central role in negotiating what could be considered the biggest oil deal of all time.

By 1930, Philby was convinced that Ibn Saud and his government were sitting on a great untapped natural resource, but the King was more interested in drilling for water than oil. It was only in 1932 when Standard Oil of California made a discovery in Bahrain that the King began to consider his country’s oil potential. Standard Oil of California had already approached Philby in the hopes of gaining an introduction to the King, but Philby, in order to drive the price up, reached out to Anglo-Persian and started a bidding war. Ultimately, in May 1933, Standard Oil of California managed to outbid Anglo-Persion, marking the United State’s entry into Saudi Arabia, a decision that would have far-reaching consequences for both the oil industry and the geopolitical dynamics in the region.

7. Mohammad Mosaddegh 

The Prime Minister of Iran from 1951-1953, Mohammad Mosaddegh was the first leader of a Middle Eastern oil nation to exercise the ‘nuclear option’ of nationalizing its oil concessions. In response to this nationalization, Britain implemented an embargo on Iranian oil that saw the country’s production plummet from 660,000 barrels per day in 1950 to just 20,000 barrels per day in 1952.

Despite the growing economic pressure, Mosaddegh refused to relent, infuriating negotiators from both Britain and the U.S. In August 1953, the CIA and MI6 initiated Operation Ajax, an operation designed to overthrow Mosaddegh in a coup. The operation was a success, but the dynamics of the oil industry had already changed forever.

Even with the Shah back in power, there was no reversing the nationalistic fervor regarding oil that Mossadegh had fanned. Resentment towards the British government and the Anglo-Iranian oil company was as strong as ever in Iran. Meanwhile, U.S. companies were reluctant to get involved in what they saw as a high-risk venture. Without pressure from governments, it seemed that there was no way back for Iran’s oil industry.

In the midst of the Cold War, the U.S. government was worried that Iran would fall into the Russian sphere of influence if its oil industry wasn’t resurrected by Western companies. In the end, seven companies, supported by the U.S. and British governments, agreed to form a consortium in Iran. Critically, the consortium was forced to acknowledge that the National Iranian Oil Company now owned the country’s oil resources and facilities. Mosaddegh may have been overthrown and would spend the rest of his life under house arrest, but he had earned a vital victory for oil nations. The concept of foreigners owning an oil concession had now changed forever, and the Middle East would never be the same.

6. Wanda Jablonski

Referred to as “the most influential oil journalist of her time” in Daniel Yergin’s The Prize, Wanda Jablonski founded Petroleum Intelligence Weekly, the journal which came to be known as “the bible of the oil industry”. Yet it is not her remarkable journalism nor her legacy as a trailblazer for women in the industry that gets her on this list. ‘Wanda’, as she was referred to in the industry, played a critical role in the formation of one of the world’s most influential oil organizations: OPEC.

The year was 1959, and tensions between international oil companies and oil-exporting countries were soaring. Russia had just returned to international oil markets and supply was climbing faster than demand. This led to a price war that saw oil companies cut the posted price of oil – unilaterally reducing the national revenues of oil-exporting nations. At the same time, the first Arab Oil Congress was taking place in Cairo, with 400 people in attendance, including, of course, Wanda. At the conference, she invited two of the most ardently anti-oil company individuals in the world to her room for a meeting. This was the first time that Saudi Oil Minister Abdullah Tariki met Juan Pablo Perez Alfonso, Venezuela’s Minister of Mines and Hydrocarbons. As Wanda had predicted, the two men immediately established a rapport and went on to organize a secret meeting with other oil ministers on the side of the Cairo conference. It was at this meeting that the concept of an Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was first established.

5. Nick Steinsberger

Now, this could be a controversial one. Frequently, it is George P. Mitchell who is credited with solving one of the most consequential problems in the history of oil: how to economically extract oil and gas from shale rock. But it was Nick Steinsberger, an engineer at Mitchell’s company, who in 1997 first successfully applied the slickwater fracturing technique that ultimately led to the U.S. shale boom. Mitchell already has the moniker “father of fracking”, so it seems only fair that Steinsberger should have his place on this list.

Technically, the fracturing of rock to stimulate oil wells can be traced all the way back to 1864 when Edward A. L. Roberts developed the first torpedo as a way of boosting production. Hydraulic fracturing, using a pressurized liquid to fracture rocks, can be traced back to an experiment in 1947. But it wasn’t until Steinsberger’s 1997 well that it was proven to be economically viable. U.S. oil production, which had been in terminal decline, began to soar on the back of this technological breakthrough. In 2018, thanks in large part to the shale boom, the United States became the largest oil producer in the world. At the same time, fracking came to the attention of environmental groups as it was seen to poison groundwater, induce earthquakes, and emit huge levels of methane. To this day, it remains a controversial topic, with some countries banning fracking altogether while others see it as a path to economic independence. Whatever you think of it, there are few technological breakthroughs that have had the same geopolitical, environmental, and economic impact as hydraulic fracturing.

4. Ida Tarbell

No history of the oil industry would be complete without the woman who took on the wealthiest American of all time, John D. Rockefeller. Ida Tarbell was an investigative journalist, or muckraker as they were then known, who was determined to hold the oil industry to account. Every anti-trust lawsuit or environmental claim that has been brought against the oil industry since her time is building upon her legacy.

In her illustrious career, Tarbell wrote biographies of both Napoleon and Lincoln, but is most famous for her 1904 book titled “The History of Standard Oil”. The book, described by historian J. North Conway as a “masterpiece of investigative journalism”, detailed how Standard Oil would use its wealth, power, and an expansive intelligence network to put immense pressure on independents and other competitors. She wrote that Rockefeller had “systemically played with loaded dice” and painted him, in the words of Daniel Yergen, as an “amoral predator”. Ultimately, Tarbell’s work led to the dissolution of the world’s largest oil company and, in time, the birth of the U.S. oil majors that we know today.

3. John D. Rockefeller

John D. Rockefeller’s career in the oil industry began in 1865 when he bought his business partner out of their produce-shipping firm and slowly but surely refocused it on refining oil. Five years later, in an effort to consolidate the industry during a price crash, he joined with four other oilmen to form what would become the most powerful oil company in history, Standard Oil. In the following years, as kerosene and gasoline became a cornerstone of life in America, Rockefeller used his profits to buy up more and more of the industry – reportedly controlling 90% of U.S. oil by 1880.

Rockefeller’s main goal was to tame the new and out–of–control oil industry in order to ensure it was as efficient and healthy as possible. In pursuing that goal, Rockefeller created the first-ever integrated oil company, initiated price wars to crush competitors, and, as Tarbell uncovered, ultimately built an oil monopoly.

When Standard Oil was broken up in 1911, the sum of its parts ended up being worth more than the company as a whole, and Rockefeller became even wealthier. While his focus largely shifted to philanthropy in the 20th century, the shadow of Rockefeller still looms large over the oil industry. In fact, the modern oil giants Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and Marathon Petroleum can all trace their origins back to the 1911 breakup of Standard Oil.

2. Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo

Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo’s list of achievements in the oil industry is as long as it is impressive. He is perhaps best known as one of the two founders of OPEC, an organization he later described as “my little idea that has changed the history of the world.” But OPEC was simply the logical conclusion of work he had started years earlier.

One of the most intractable problems in the oil industry is the division of ‘rent’. In economic terms, oil rent is the difference between the value of crude oil produced and the total cost of production. From 1943 to 1948, Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo played a key role in shaping what would become the global norm for dividing these rents between companies and countries. Under the 50/50 deal that he helped shape, Venezuela and the international oil companies agreed to divide that rent evenly. The deal resulted in Venezuela’s oil income increasing by 600% between 1942 and 1948.

Yet Perez Alfonzo wasn’t done. He recognized that low-cost producers in the Middle East posed a threat to Venezuela’s market share, and so had the documents translated into Arabic and brought to the Middle East by a Venezuelan delegation. Suddenly, Saudi Arabia wanted a 50/50 split of rents, while Iran’s Mosaddegh wanted to go further still. Once the concept of dividing the oil income equally between countries and companies had been established, it was near impossible for oil companies to fight it. The 50/50 formula remained the global norm until the 1973 oil crisis disrupted markets once again.

In 1948, following the coup that toppled President Rómulo Gallegos, Perez Alfonzo obtained political asylum in the United States and spent years studying the Texas Railroad Commission and how it had dealt with the oil crash of the 1930s. It was during this period that many of his first thoughts of how OPEC should operate were formed, ideas that he then shared with Abdullah Tariki when Wanda introduced them in Cairo.

It may surprise some that a man who was so central to shaping the oil industry considered himself an ecologist and was primarily focused on the conservation of energy. He believed that OPEC would ultimately lower the use of energy around the world.

1.  George Bissell

Commonly referred to as the “father of the American oil industry”, George Bissell was the spark that ignited the inevitable march of oil from a relatively unimportant liquid that oozed from rocks to the most important resource on earth.

Bissell recognized that ‘rock oil’, which he had seen being gathered with rags in order to make medicine, could actually be used as an illuminant. If he and his business partner James Townsend could only extract the liquid in sufficient quantities, it could compete with the whale fat and ‘coal oils’ that were then being used in lamps. After confirming that this ‘rock oil’ had the desired chemical characteristic, Bissel and his business partners launched the first-ever oil company, the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company.

The Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company decided that the best way to go about extracting the oil would be to drill for it using the same technique that had been developed to bore for salt. The company employed Edwin L. Drake, an out-of-work railway conductor who was staying in the same hotel as James Townsend, to carry out the project. Drake traveled to the tiny village of Titusville, secured the title to the land, and employed William A. Smith to help him drill. On August 27th, 1859, the two men hit oil for the very first time in history. Bissell immediately rushed to Titusville to buy up and lease as many farms as he could, becoming the first of many who would make their fortune off an industry that was about to change the world forever.

*

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.

Josh Owens is the Content Director at Oilprice.com. An International Relations and Politics graduate from the University of Edinburgh, Josh specialized in Middle East and U.S. relations. He has written and curated oil, gas, and renewable energy content for oilprice.com for the last six years.

All images in this article are from OilPrice.com

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.

***

Nigel Gould-Davies has penned an op-ed in The New York Times calling for the disregard of Russia’s red lines. He has called for an aggressive push for WWIII and nuclear armageddon.

Gould-Davies is an Oxford academic and member of the shady Integrity Initiative, a British deep state project designed to substitute facts with convenient lies and smear counter-narrative individuals. It is a NATO and Institute for Statecraft project, the latter exposed in 2018 as “a UK deep faction obsessed by permanent war mentality promoting a new cold war against Russia,” according to WikiSpooks.

The registered headquarters of the outfit is an abandoned mill in Fife, Scotland, and its leader, Christopher Nigel Donnelly, a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, served as special adviser to the secretary general of NATO. Donnelly is wedded to the idea of confronting Russia, no matter the prospect of world war and nuclear annihilation.

According to Gould-Davies, Russia’s red lines exist to be violated.

Concerns about Russia’s “red lines” are driven above all by the fear that Russia might resort to nuclear escalation. The West should avert this by deterring Russia rather than by restraining itself — or pressuring Ukraine to do so — for fear of “provoking” Russia. It can do so by communicating the certainty of severe consequences should Russia use nuclear weapons. Russia has tried and failed to impose red lines with nuclear threats several times since the war began — most recently in November, when Ukrainian forces liberated Kherson just six weeks after Vladimir Putin had declared it part of Russia. Ukraine and the West rightly rejected these bluffs, and should continue to do so.

First and foremost, regardless of what the propaganda media claims, Russia was not defeated in Kherson. It decided in early November to pull its troops from the right bank of the Dnieper River and the regional capital of Kherson. “The Defense Ministry explained that it wants to avoid unnecessary losses among its forces and spare the lives of civilians,” RT reported. Russia engaged in a strategic retreat in fear the ultranats would blow up the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric dam and flood the city.

In the West, this was reported as Russia running away with its tail tucked, licking its wounds, frustrated by the loss of Kherson, which the war propaganda media celebrated as a turning point in the war. The Russian-orchestrated humanitarian evacuation of civilians is reported as mass abduction.

Nigel Gould-Davies urges the USG and its partners to march with hobnail boots right over Putin’s red lines.

America should focus on three things. First, it should no longer declare that there are measures it will refrain from taking [violating red lines], and weapons systems it will not provide, to support Ukraine. To signal unilateral restraint is to make an unforced concession. Worse, it emboldens Russia to probe for, and try to impose, further limits on U.S. action—making the war more, not less, risky.

In other words, Gould-Davies is calling for total war, apparently incapable of realizing radical escalation will result in nuclear war, as Russia has said it will resort to the use of nukes if its existence is threatened.  Russia never said it would use nukes in Ukraine. There is no evidence it ever said this. The war propaganda media exists on lies and deception. Donbas and Crimea are no longer part of Ukraine. The people voted to exit the nazified Ukrainian state.

Second, America, with its partners, must make clear that time is working against Russia — not in its favor, as Mr. Putin still believes. The West should demonstrate readiness to mobilize, and quickly, its huge economic superiority to enable Ukraine to defeat Russia and to impose further severe sanctions. The military and economic costs to Russia will drain its far more limited resources and place greater strains on the regime.

In order for this to even approach success (and it does not), the USG would need to mobilize hundreds of thousands of troops and move assets into place, an effort that would take months. As it now stands, the USG can’t provide enough war materiel to match Russia.

As an example of the effectiveness of the USG’s military, consider Afghanistan. Trillions were spent, and the USG is now back to square one with the Taliban resuming power after two decades.

Sanctions are not crippling Russia, never mind war propaganda lies to the contrary.

Anti-Russian sanctions aren’t having the devastating effect the West hoped they would, and haven’t served to collapse Russia’s economy, German media have reported, citing economic data for the current year and projections for 2023.

Deutschlandfunk, the German version of NPR, “expressed hopes that the dragging out of the conflict in Ukraine would cause Russia the economic pain that sanctions apparently haven’t,” according to Russia’s Sputnik International.

More to the point, supposedly public media in Germany looks forward to additional death and misery as a way to punish Russia for its insistence on national security, which an Oxford neocon argues is there to be violated, never mind the risk of thermonuclear war.

It really is a form of mental illness, the inability to perceive what sort of response Russia will take if its national security is violated. If Nigel Gould-Davies believes Putin will be overthrown and Russia will suffer an ignoble defeat—and this is, after all, the primary objective, as stated by sec. of state Blinken—he is seriously out of touch with reality. Russians will defend their homeland, as they did against the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War, at a cost of more than 26 million dead.

The USG and Europe will pursue this war at their own peril. Europe especially, now as it enters winter with an energy crisis, exacerbated by the idiotic decision to not buy Russian natural gas to heat their homes and run their industries.

Of course, it wasn’t the people who made this decision, but their “leaders,” the same sort of sociopaths now running the USG, all seriously deluded by their own hubris and, as is usually the case with careerist politicians, psychopathic belief in an inviolable and “indispensable” state run by a self-serving financial elite.

Here is my New Year’s wish. Gould-Davies and his fellow neocons and humanitarian interventionists—Biden, Blinken, Austin, every member of the uniparty congress, every bureaucrat in the state department and Pentagon—be sent to Donetsk to witness firsthand the relentless, non-stop bombardment by neo-Nazis of civilian neighborhoods. All should be forced to see the shrapnel-mangled bodies of the victims, many of the dead women and children.

*

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

---

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

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

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

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

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

Reviews

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

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

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

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.

***

Read Part I:

Historical Analysis of the Global Elites: Ransacking the World Economy Until ‘You’ll Own Nothing’

By Robert J. Burrowes, December 27, 2022

---

Building on millennia of learning how to structure and manage an economy to accumulate and consolidate control and wealth in particular hands, as explained in Part 1 of this investigation, the Global Elite launched its final coup in January 2020 under cover of the fake Covid-19 ‘pandemic’.

Using the health threat supposedly implied by the existence of a pathogenic ‘virus’, the bulk of the world population was terrorized into submitting to an onerous series of violations of their human rights which was tantamount to a declaration of martial law. See ‘The Final Battle For Humanity: It Is “Now or Never” In The Long War Against Homo Sapiens’.

Under a barrage of propaganda delivered by Elite agents – including organizations such as the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, the World Health Organisation, governments, the pharmaceutical industry and corporate media as well as individuals such as Klaus Schwab, Yuval Noah Harari and Bill Gates – people were compelled to wear masks, use QR codes, stay locked down in their homes and, later, submit to a series of experimental but involuntary gene-altering bioweapons to acquire a ‘vaccine passport’, among other measures.

Particularly importantly, these restrictions effectively shut down the mainstream economy with vast sectors of industry either closed outright or unable to function in the absence of locked-down or, later, bioweapon-injured or bioweapon-killed staff. For just one discussion of the vast evidence available of Covid-19 ‘vaccine’ injuries and deaths, watch ‘3.5 BILLION could be injured or killed by the jab. Are YOU ready?’ which is briefly discussed here: ‘Dr. David Martin blasts health authorities for turning roughly 4 billion people into “bioweapons factories”’.

This inevitably adversely impacted the entire supply chain: That is, the process that connects the production of raw materials, such as food grown on farms and minerals mined from the Earth, to factories that produce everything from canned food to computers, and then to outlets that sell these products to the public. All components of this chain were either shut down completely at one or more times, as part of the imposed restrictions or other policy measures – watch, for example, ‘Biden pays farms to STOP – EU out of Feed – Meat taxes & Chicken permits – Up to you to GROW FOOD!’ – or just substantially curtailed by the unavailability of essential inputs, ranging from replacement parts to competent labour.

To exacerbate matters, the transport industry (trucking, railroads, shipping, airlines) was also effectively shut down, containers became unavailable (because they were in the wrong places) and logistics corporations (that organize the movement of trade goods) were disabled, including by cyber attacks. The airline and tourist industries were just two industries that were profoundly disrupted. But so was much of small business, with many businesses destroyed. As a result, hundreds of millions of people lost employment, many permanently, throughout the industrial economies and millions more were starved to death in Africa, Asia and Central/South America because the day-to-day economy, by which many survive, was shuttered and any ameliorative measures by governments and international organizations were, deliberately, woefully inadequate (or were siphoned into elite wallets).

See ‘The Global Elite’s “Kill and Control” Agenda: Destroying Our Food Security’.

But ‘behind the (obvious) scenes’ outlined above, there has been a great deal more going on that has been deliberately concealed from public view, and this has been considered and discussed by some fine analysts.

According to Catherine Austin Fitts, using ‘national security’ as the justification, the U.S. National Security Act 1947 and the CIA Act 1949 were the basis of a series of Acts and Executive Orders that ‘created a secrecy machinery’ which essentially meant that ‘the most powerful financial interests in the world can keep a whole bunch of money secret’, thus creating a secret black budget.

And, starting in 1998, according to US federal government documentation, huge sums of money were not accounted for while private equity firms began exploding and, despite having no capacity to raise such amounts, were suddenly investing huge sums of money in emerging markets. According to Fitts ‘we are now missing over $US21 trillion’, which she calls a ‘financial coup d’etat’ that is clearly in ‘massive violation’ of the US constitution. The financial value of what has transpired under the Covid-19 narrative is that the ‘magic virus’ can be used to explain, for example, why there is no money for healthcare or pension funds cannot pay on retirement those who paid into them throughout their lives.

Watch ‘We Need to Talk about Mr Global – Part Two’ with a simple summary here: ‘The Real Game of Missing Money’.

But if $US21 trillion missing already sounds like a lot, it doesn’t end there, as Fitt’s recent discussion with Professor Mark Skidmore makes perfectly clear in ‘The Financial Coup: More Missing Money & FASAB Standard 56’. Fitts observes:

We are now over $US100 trillion of undocumentable adjustments if we use their most recent figures and so I would say we are describing a financial system which is completely and utterly out of control…. If any of the allegations about financial fraud in the 2020 [US Presidential] election are true, and I believe that many of them are, we’ve now delinked both the election system and the finances [from] the constitution and the law so we are are now operating both in terms of who governs and how they spend the money completely outside of the law and completely outside of any democratic process. So this is a coup.

To which Professor Skidmore responds:

The reason that I really struggled… watching what was going on during the last financial crisis, [was that] I thought ‘Wow we don’t have the rule of law’. It was so obvious that we didn’t ten years ago and it’s like it’s devolving even more and so I am not sure how much further we can go before we are just completely devoid of the rule of law at least for a subset of the very powerful.

As an aside, while genuinely appreciative of the research of Fitts and Skidmore, as outlined earlier in this article and previously demonstrated, democracy has always been a sham and the Elite has always operated beyond the rule of law, routinely corrupting national political processes in pursuit of Elite ends.

See ‘The Elite Coup to Kill or Enslave Us: Why Can’t Governments, Legal Actions and Protests Stop Them?’

All we are seeing in the current context is Elite corruption being flaunted in a way that reflects the sure knowledge that it can act corruptly, on a global scale, with impunity.

But to return to the subject at hand: In 2019, the central bankers of the G7 countries met for their regular conference at Jackson Hole, Wyoming and agreed to the ‘Going Direct Reset’, a plan devised (and later orchestrated) by BlackRock – see ‘Dealing with the next downturn’ – and, as explained by John Titus, the fundamental purpose of this ‘Reset’ was to orchestrate the largest asset transfer in history under cover of the forthcoming Covid-19 ‘pandemic’. Watch ‘Larry & Carstens’ Excellent Pandemic’ with a summary here: ‘Summary – Going Direct Reset’.

In the words of Titus: ‘In a nutshell, the arrival of the 2020 pandemic was about as accidental as an assassination. The pandemic narrative is nothing but a cover story to conceal from the public what in reality is the biggest asset transfer ever.’ See ‘Summary – Going Direct Reset’.

While you can learn the mechanics of how this was conducted in the excellent documents and videos immediately above, as Fitts points out in relation to the central banks: ‘Controlling and having access to data on fiscal and monetary policy is the basis of huge fortunes.’ And, combined with the secrecy that has protected their manipulations from public view – ‘if you look at all the technology and assets that have been transferred, by questionable means, into private and corporate hands, the liability is over the top’ – it has engendered the view that their only way forward is ‘complete, total central control’.

Central Bank Digital Currencies

How will this ‘total control’ be achieved? One key element will be the introduction of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). According to Fitts: The fundamental value of digitized systems, from the elite perspective, is that they enable centralized control. So, by creating CBDCs the financial transaction control grid becomes the means by which you enable centralized control; that is, slavery. Watch ‘We Need to Talk about Mr Global – Part Two’.

 

How does this work? CBDCs allow the Central Bank to determine exactly what products and services your digital currency can be spent on, when it can spent and where it can be spent. It also allows the issuing authority to freeze, reduce or empty your bank account, and to alter its functionality with the latest ‘update’, based on your ‘social credit score’, political allegiance or if you do not comply with certain directives. But it goes beyond this.

According to the Bank for International Settlements:

The G20 has made enhancing cross-border payments a global priority and has identified CBDC as a potential way forward to improving such payments. A “holy grail” solution for cross-border payments is one which allows such payments to be immediate, cheap, universally accessible and settled in a secure settlement medium. For wholesale payments, central bank money is the preferred medium for financial market infrastructures. A multi-CBDC platform upon which multiple central banks can issue and exchange their respective CBDCs is a particularly promising solution for achieving this vision, and mBridge is a wholesale multi-CBDC project that aims to advance towards this goal. It builds on previous work…. Project mBridge tests the hypothesis that an efficient, low-cost, real-time and scalable cross-border multi-CBDC arrangement can provide a network of direct central bank and commercial participant connectivity and greatly increase the potential for international trade flows and cross-border business at large…. All the while safeguarding currency sovereignty and monetary and financial stability by appropriately integrating policy, regulatory and legal compliance, and privacy considerations. See ‘Project mBridge: Connecting economies through CBDC’.

Apart from the fact that the G20 governments are distinctly unrepresentative of the world’s people, these words are typical of the type usually chosen when the Elite is intent on sugarcoating their lies to conceal their true agenda.

Fortunately, Agustin Carstens of the Bank for International Settlements has been more forthcoming: ‘We don’t know, for example, who’s using a $100 bill today, we don’t know who is using a 1,000 peso bill today. The key difference with the CBDC is the central bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of central bank liability, and also we will have the technology to enforce that.’

Watch ‘Cross-Border Payments: A Vision for the Future’.

And here is the Bank of England advising government ministers in the UK on the issue of programming CBDCs:

‘Bank of England tells ministers to intervene on digital currency “programming”’.

For a more detailed explanation, see ‘What Is Programmable Money?’ And for an update on progress in your country, see ‘CBDC: A Country-by-Country Guide’.

Before proceeding, however, it is worthwhile noting the conflict that is going on between the central banks and the commercial banks (the traditional actors in the retail banking sector, that is, the part of banking where people interact directly with a bank), as well as that between the commercial banks and the big tech companies, such as PayPal, Alipay, Facebook and Amazon that have developed or are developing their own digital currencies and/or payments systems outside the traditional financial system. While non-bank financial institutions long-ago overtook commercial banks in lending, bank influence generally continues to decline and is accelerating in the face of the competition from the technology giants. Why the conflict? Because a CBDC risks collapsing the commercial banking sector completely by eliminating retail banking and thus destabilizing the long-standing financial system. For some discussion of this, watch Alice Fulwood’s presentation ‘Could digital currencies put banks out of business?’ There is no doubt, of course, that this conflict will be resolved and that it will not be in our favour.

In any case, CBDCs are just one feature of their planned technocracy which includes digitizing your identity, issuing you a social credit score, geofencing you in one of the Elite’s ‘smart cities’ and feeding you insects and processed trash, among many other elements. See

‘Digitizing Your Identity is the Fast-Track to Slavery: How Can You Defend Your Freedom?’ and

‘Digital Currency: The Fed Moves toward Monetary Totalitarianism’.

And to elaborate the significance of imprisoning you in a ‘smart’ city, Patrick Wood points out the evidence both in the literature and in practice: The intention is to force us off the land, as is already happening in China, and at gunpoint if necessary, so that ‘vacated farm land’ can be combined ‘into giant factory farms to be operated by advanced technology such as agricultural robots and automated tractors’. Once relocated into the ‘smart’ city of the government’s choice, everyone will be subject to 24 hour surveillance using a plethora of ‘smart’ technologies such as biometric facial scanning, geospatial tracking and CBDCs, forced onto public transport which will not include the option of leaving the city, and confined to those work and other activities approved by the relevant technocrats.

See ‘Day 9: Technocracy And Smart Cities’.

The bottom line, in simple language however, is the same as it has always been: Endlessly acting to consolidate their control over the rest of us, our money is being stolen by the Elite for their own ends and they are not required to report it and they cannot be held accountable, legally or otherwise. The only difference to what has happened historically is that now even the pretense of some form of equity, the rule of law and even the notion of democracy are being abandoned in the final rush to techno-totalitarianism and wealth concentration.

Beyond this, however, other components of the elite program are designed to play a part in destroying human society and the global economy. For a summary of these, see ‘Killing Off Humanity: How The Global Elite Is Using Eugenics And Transhumanism To Shape Our Future’.

Collapsing the Global Economy

Not content with these measures, however, the war in central Asia was precipitated by the Elite to advance key elements of their program. Superficially portrayed by most politicians and corporate media as a war between Russia and Ukraine, many thoughtful analysts perceive some of the deeper strands of what has occurred: Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and NATO commitments made at the end of the Cold War, NATO has consistently violated those commitments and there has been routine Ukrainian attacks on Donetsk and Luhansk over the past eight years. These and other events have ensured a long but steady ‘lead time’ in the final build up to the war, precipitating the military response of Russia, as intended. For just four thoughtful analyses, see

‘Understanding The Great Game in Ukraine’,

‘Ukraine, Russia, and the New World Order’,

‘Some of Us Don’t Think the Russian Invasion Was “Aggression.” Here’s Why.’

and ‘The U.S. Is Leading the World Into the Abyss’.

Obscured by the war, however, the leaderships of both Russia and Ukraine are heavily involved in the World Economic Forum and both have been heavily committed to imposing the elite agenda on their populations. In short, the Russia-Ukraine war serves elite purposes well with consequences including even greater disruption of food and fuel supply chains than the ‘Great Reset’ was able to achieve alone.

See ‘The War in Ukraine: Understanding and Resisting the Global Elite’s Deeper Agenda’.

Similarly, the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 & 2 gas pipelines – see ‘Ukraine War: New Developments’  – might be seen through various lenses but, again, it serves elite purposes well. As Tom Luongo noted: ‘The important thing I keep trying to point out [is] that thinking in terms of “country” is ultimately the wrong lens to view these people’s actions. Factions are the better lens. Factions cross political borders.’ See ‘The Curious Whodunit of Nordstreams 1 and 2’. Given that the sabotage of these two pipelines is seriously exacerbating the energy crisis in Europe, while displacing people’s anger onto one or other parties in the war, as always the elite forces driving destruction of the world economy escape scrutiny.

Beyond this, on 7 October 2022 the Biden Administration dealt a ‘nuclear’ strike to the hi-tech industry by imposing onerous new export rules that cut off supply of essential technology (advanced semiconductors, chip-making equipment and supercomputer components) to China, immediately and adversely impacting Chinese production.

See ‘Implementation of Additional Export Controls: Certain Advanced Computing and Semiconductor Manufacturing Items’.

But whatever pain this will inflict on the Chinese, it will inflict far more pain on ordinary people who will be required to deal with the outcomes of this latest supply-chain disruption: higher prices, more battered household budgets and fewer families able to scrape by on shrinking wages.

See ‘Biden’s Tech-War Goes Nuclear’ and ‘US Economic War on China Threatens Global Microchip Industry’.

In any case, the ongoing destruction of the global economy will continue even while, apparently, considerable effort is being made to restructure key elements of it, such as those in relation to trade relations, trade routes, currencies and international banking being undertaken in various international fora. For one discussion of these ongoing efforts, see‘ Russia, India, China, Iran: the Quad that really matters’.

But, again, how serious are these efforts when all governments are collaborating closely on the fundamental Elite program? At one of these meetings, recently concluded, the G20 Summit in Bali – see ‘G20 Bali Leaders’ Declaration’ – Moscow, Beijing, Washington and all other governments present, agreed to ‘the creation of a global health-preserving Pandemic Fund sponsored by the WHO, the World Bank, Bill Gates, and the Rockefeller Foundation. The fund will ensure there is plenty of money for experimental genetic vaccines in the weeks, months, and decades ahead.’ Beyond this, however, the Declaration contains ‘purple prose’ about ‘digital transformation’, ‘interoperability of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) for cross-border payments’, and other elements of the Elite’s technocratic program. As Riley Waggaman observed: ‘It’s truly heart-warming that even amidst ceaseless geopolitical squabbling, Moscow and the Collective West can sit down at the negotiating table, break bread, and agree to cattle-tag the entire world.’ See ‘World leaders agree to cattle-tag the planet’.

And while a recent World Economic Forum report, based on the views of 50 chief economists from around the world, sanitized economic prospects by simply referring to a likely forthcoming ‘recession’ either in 2022 or 2023, spokesperson Saadia Zahidi couldn’t avoid mentioning the heavy consensus that real wages will decline, poverty will increase and ‘social unrest is expected to continue to rise’ in response to rises in the cost of living, particularly due to production and supply chain disruptions in fuel and food supplies. See ‘Special Agenda Dialogue on the Future of the Global Economy’.

Taking a similarly ‘moderate’ stance, in its recent ‘World Economic Outlook’, the International Monetary Fund warned that ‘More than a third of the global economy will contract this year or next, while the three largest economies – the United States, the European Union, and China – will continue to stall. In short, the worst is yet to come, and for many people 2023 will feel like a recession.’ See ‘World Economic Outlook – Countering the Cost-of-Living Crisis’. At the media briefing to launch the report, the Director of the IMF’s Research Department, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, noted that ‘the global economy is headed for stormy waters’ and ‘Too many low-income countries are close to or are already in debt distress. Progress toward orderly debt restructuring… is urgently needed to avert a wave of sovereign debt crises. Time may soon run out.’ See ‘WEO Press Briefing Annual Meetings 2022’.

But other reports suggest something far worse.

Summarizing his own extensive research on the subject over the past three years, in a recent interview Professor Michel Chossudovsky simply explains what triggered the economic collapse, referring to the origin of the crisis with decisions made in early 2020:

‘This is really Economics 101:… the announcement of the lockdown… implies the confinement of the labor force on the one hand and the freezing of the workplace on the other…. What happens? The answer is obvious: Collapse! Economic and social collapse on an unprecedented basis because it was implemented simultaneously in 190 countries.’

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

Noting the complete failure of authorities to hold even one corporate executive to account for the financial collapse they caused in 2008 – when banking institutions intentionally sold securities they knew were bad to defraud customers and increase their own profits, as carefully reported in a ‘Frontline’ documentary in 2013 – Dr Joseph Mercola argues that the ‘same criminal bankers are now intentionally destroying the global financial system in order to replace it with something even worse – social credit scores, digital identity and Central Banking Digital Currencies (CBDCs), which will give them the ability to control not only your individual finances but also everything else in your life’. Apparently unaware of the extensive lead time on what is happening, he goes on to observe that ‘We’re now at the point where banksters have self-selected themselves to rule the whole world, tossing notions of democracy, freedom and human dignity in the waste bin along the way.’ See ‘Who Is Behind the Economic Collapse?’

As explained above, these ‘banksters’ operate beyond the rule of law too.

According to the Irish economist Philip Pilkington: ‘The Western world today faces a serious risk of slipping into another Great Depression. This risk has arisen… due to global economic relations deteriorating to the point of all out warfare.’ Noting the critical importance of the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, leaving Europe with ‘insufficient access to energy, the price of energy in Europe will remain extremely high for years to come. European industry, for which energy is a key input, will become uncompetitive.’ See ‘The next Great Depression? Economic warfare has severe implications’.

According to former BlackRock manager, Edward Dowd, the outcome of what has been happening, which is being accelerated by the corruption that has plagued Wall Street since the 1990s, is that the forthcoming financial collapse is a ‘mathematical certainty’ and will occur within the next six to 24 months. Watch ‘Ex-BlackRock Manager: Global Financial Collapse a “Mathematical Certainty”’.

Or, in the words of strategic risk consultant William Engdahl: What is coming in the months ahead, barring a dramatic policy reversal, ‘is the worst economic depression in history to date’. See ‘Global Planned Financial Tsunami Has Just Begun’.

After listing a sequence of industry shutdowns and other measures in Europe because of energy shortages, Michael Snyder simply observes that ‘This is what an economic collapse looks like’, notes the prospect (also predicted by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and, as we saw above, the World Economic Forum) of ‘civil unrest’ and warns that ‘Europe is going to descend into “the new Dark Ages” this winter, and the entire world will experience extreme pain as a result.’ See ‘This Winter, Europe Plunges Into “The New Dark Ages”’.

According to Irina Slav, countries of the European Union have suffered a consistent decline in gas and electricity consumption this year amid record-breaking prices. Businesses are shutting down factories, downsizing or relocating, while production of such basic products as steel, zinc, aluminium, chemicals, plastics and ceramics has been cut substantially, if not slashed dramatically. Observing that the European Union is heading for a recession that is ‘quite clear to anyone watching the indicators’ she goes on to state that ‘Europe may well be on the way to deindustrialization’.

See ‘Europe May See Forced De-Industrialization As Result Of Energy Crisis’.

Dr. Seshadri Kumar agrees. He has offered an intensively detailed critique of the economic fallout from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and events such as the sanctions against Russia and the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 & 2 gas pipelines. Following his careful analysis, he notes a series of conclusions including that ‘The scarcity of oil and gas, combined with the scarcity of commodities, will lead to the De-Industrialization of Europe in short order.’

Europe needs what Russia has (and what China has). It cannot do without those things. But Russia (and China) can do without what Europe has. They are self-sufficient. The financial impact of European sanctions on Russia is minimal. Therefore, economic sanctions against Russia (or China) will never work. But, because of the overwhelming dependence of Europe on Russian (and Chinese) goods, sanctions on Russia (or China) will utterly destroy Europe. The only hope for Europe to prevent a total economic catastrophe is to achieve an agreement with Russia that ends the current destructive sanctions as soon as possible, and at whatever political cost, including the abandonment of Ukraine and cession of Ukrainian territory to Russia. The longer this is postponed, the more extensive the permanent economic damage to Europe will be….

A New World Order is taking birth before our eyes….

The sanctions on Russia will be seen in hindsight as Europe’s Stalingrad as well as its Waterloo. See ‘The Coming European Economic Apocalypse’.

Commenting on the banking system, precious metals businessman Stefan Gleason warns that ‘The global fractional-reserve banking system is teetering on the brink of failure. Financial strains are exposing major banks as under-capitalized and ill prepared to weather additional strains from high inflation, rising interest rates, and a weakening economy. Banks operating outside the United States are presently most vulnerable. A spike in interest rates concomitant with a spike in the exchange rate of the Federal Reserve note “dollar” is wreaking havoc in global debt markets and driving capital flight. Many analysts fear bank runs are coming. They are already hitting developing countries.’

See ‘Banks on the Brink: Is Your Money Safe?’

Noting that imposition of technologies associated with the fourth industrial revolution and the war in Ukraine are impacting the labor force, among a wide variety of other impacts on society as a whole, ‘Winter Oak’ observes that while anticipating future employment trends is not easy, ‘the combined threat of pandemics and wars means the labour force is on the brink of an unprecedented reshuffle with technology reshaping logistics, potentially threatening hundreds of millions of blue and white collar jobs, resulting in the greatest and fastest displacement of jobs in history and foreshadowing a labour market shift which was previously inconceivable.’

Furthermore: the nation state model is being upended ‘by a global technocracy, consisting of an unelected consortium of leaders of industry, central banking oligarchs and private financial institutions, most of which are predominantly non-state corporate actors attempting to restructure global governance and enlist themselves in the global decision-making process.’

See ‘The Great Reset Phase 2: War’.

James Corbett simply observes that ‘the financial order we have known our whole lives is slated for destruction’. The demolition of the economy provides cover to conceal implementation of other key elements of the elite plan in which all fit neatly together: ‘vaccine passports introduce the digital ID. The digital ID provides the infrastructure for the CBDCs. The CBDCs provide a mechanism for enforcement of a social credit system.’ As Corbett notes: ‘To see these events as separate events unfolding haphazardly and coincidentally is to miss the entire point.’

See ‘The Controlled Demolition of the Economy’.

And, according to a source cited by Anviksha Patel, executives at the giant hedge-fund firm Elliott Management Corp. recently sent a letter to investors advising that the world is ‘on the path to hyperinflation’ which could lead to ‘global societal collapse and civil or international strife’.

See ‘Hedge-fund giant Elliott warns looming hyperinflation could lead to “global societal collapse”’.

Among many other commentaries offering insight into one or more aspects of what is happening, Oxfam documents the fact that ‘billionaires in the food and energy sectors are increasing their fortunes by $1 billion dollars every two days’ and that a new billionaire is being created every 30 hours while nearly a million people are being pushed into extreme poverty at nearly the same rate.

See ‘Pandemic creates new billionaire every 30 hours – now a million people could fall into extreme poverty at same rate in 2022’.

But perhaps the most evocative account of what is transpiring is offered by Egon von Greyerz, founder and managing partner of Matterhorn Asset Management in Switzerland, a company that has ‘always held a deep respect for analysing and managing risk’: By the end of the 1990s, it was clear ‘that global [financial] risk was growing increasingly apparent as debts and derivative levels rapidly rose’.

See Matterhorn Asset Management: History.

Noting that laws governing the functioning of modern economies ensure that ‘No banker, no company management or business owner ever has to take the loss personally if he makes a mistake. Losses are socialised and profits are capitalised. Heads I win, Tails I don’t lose!’ Greyerz goes on to note that ‘there are honourable exceptions.’ Some Swiss banks still operate in accordance with the principle of unlimited personal liability for the partners/owners which clearly encourages a responsible, ethical approach to the conduct of business.

He observes: ‘If the global financial system and governments applied that principle, imagine how different the world would look not just financially but also ethically.’ If we had such a system, he contends, then human values would come before adoration of ‘the golden calf’. And evaluation of an investment proposal or a loan would be based on a judgment about its soundness economically and ethically, as well as a judgment that the risk of loss was minimal, rather than just the size of the personal profit it might return.

Instead, since 1971 (when President Nixon unilaterally terminated convertibility of the US dollar into gold, effectively ending the 1944 Bretton Woods system) ‘governments and central banks have contributed to the creation of almost $300 trillion of new money plus quasi money in the form of unfunded liabilities and derivatives [‘the most dangerous and aggressive financial instrument of destruction’] of $2.2 quadrillion making $2.5 [quadrillion] in total. As debt explodes, the world could easily face a debt burden of $3 quadrillion by 2025-2030.’ At the same time, ‘Central banks around the world hold $2 trillion [in gold reserves].’

The outcome is inevitable: ‘with over $2 quadrillion (2 and 15 zeros) of debt and liabilities resting on a foundation of $2 trillion of government-owned gold that makes a gold coverage of 0.1% or a leverage of 1000X!… an inverse pyramid with a very weak foundation.’ Noting that a sound financial system ‘needs a very solid foundation of real money’ it is simply the case that quadrillions of debt and liabilities ‘can not survive resting on this feeble amount of gold. So the $2 quadrillion financial weapon of mass destruction is now on the way to totally destroy the system. This is a global house of cards that will collapse at some point in the not too distant future…. No government and no central bank can solve the problem that they have created. More of the same just won’t work.’

See ‘$2 Quadrillion Debt Precariously Resting on $2 Trillion Gold’.

The most likely outcome, according to Greyerz: ‘The dollar will go to ZERO and the US will default. The same will happen to most countries.’ See ‘In the End the $ Goes to Zero and the US Defaults’.

The fundamental summary then, according to Greyerz, is this: ‘This system will start to implode.’… ‘The whole banking system is rotten. With the problems in Europe now it is actually a critical situation…. We have a two tier economy:… the rich are still rich but the poor are really poor. And you see that in every country in the world now… People haven’t got enough money to live…. This is going to be a human disaster of major proportions: it’s so sad and governments will not have any chance of doing anything about it.’ In the US outside the metropolitan areas, ‘the poverty is incredibly high and people live in boxes… poverty is everywhere and sadly, we are only seeing the beginning and there is no solution…. From a human point of view, we are looking at a major disaster.’ Watch ‘$2.5 Quadrillion Disaster Waiting to Happen’.

Will action be taken to halt the collapse? According to alternative economist Brandon Smith, it won’t. Consider this: ‘What if the goal of the Fed is the destruction of the middle class?… What if they are luring investors into markets with rumors of a pivot, tricking those investors into pumping money back into markets and then triggering losses yet again with more rate hikes and hawkish language? What if this is a wealth destruction steam valve? What if it’s a trap? I present this idea because we have seen this before in the US, from 1929 through the 1930s during the Great Depression. The Fed used very similar tactics to systematically destroy middle class wealth and consolidate power for the international banking elites.’

Smith’s conclusion? ‘This is an engineered crash, not an accidental crash.’ See ‘Markets Are Expecting The Federal Reserve To Save Them – It’s Not Going To Happen’.

And that, of course, is the point: the crash has been engineered. Why?

In summarizing the ongoing collapse of European infrastructure and industry, and energy shortages in the USA, Mike Adams notes that the ‘globalists are decimating the pillars of civilization in order to cause collapse and depopulation…. The overarching goal is to exterminate the vast majority of the human population, then enslave the survivors.’ See

‘Dark Times: Industry and infrastructure collapsing by the day across Europe and the USA’.

But this is no surprise. All that any thoughtful observer needs to do is consider history, listen to what the Global Elite is telling us they are doing, observe them doing it, and then simply inform people what is at hand: The destruction of the global economy, as part of the fundamental reshaping of world order.

After all, the Elite has been crystal clear. It’s fundamental aim is to kill off a substantial proportion of the human population and reduce those humans and transhumans left alive to slavery while confined in their technocratic prison; even wealth concentration is anciliary to that, although a product of it. See ‘The Elite Coup to Kill or Enslave Us: Why Can’t Governments, Legal Actions and Protests Stop Them?’ And if you crash the global economy denying people regular food, energy to stay warm and the capacity to communicate effectively, most of those left alive will be inclined to submit to whatever conditions they are offered in order to survive. How bad does your technocratic prison sound now? Even if you are eating insects?

So, to reiterate a vital point, the Elite agenda in relation to the economy is intimately related to its wider agenda in relation to eugenics and technocracy.

In an interview about her recently published book – see One Nation Under Blackmail: The sordid union between Intelligence and Organized Crime that gave rise to Jeffrey Epstein – Whitney Webb simply observes that ‘we are being herded into a technofeudalism, slavery… there’s a lot of different names for it going around but it’s not good and it’s organized crime running the show’…. Elaborating, Webb explained that ‘They’re looking at feudalism and how do you create a class of slaves that cannot even cognitively rebel ever again.’ Watch ‘How Elites Will Create a New Class of Slaves’.

How will this happen? While it will obviously require several of the range of measures being introduced, particularly including the deployment of 5G, the digitization of your identity and the utilization of a range of other technologies such as artificial intelligence and geofencing, here is what Clive Thompson, retired Managing Director of Union Bancaire Privée in Switzerland, believes might happen:

I think its quite likely that the CBDC will arrive and it will also be the subject of the currency reset at the same time. At some point the world is going to go into a crisis or a country is going to go into a crisis…. When that happens I think they will close the banks, you will wake up on a Sunday morning and hear the news that they’ve shut the banks, they’re not going to open on Monday. Then by Monday evening or Tuesday you’ll get the announcement that we’re having a new currency – the CBDC – and don’t worry it will be one-to-one against the old currency but there will be some restrictions on your ability to convert your old money into the new money.

So if you’re poor and you have a small bank account it will be converted one-to-one straight away, and you’ll probably even find that you get a free gift from the government to kickstart the system, maybe three or five thousand pounds will be given to every citizen gratuitiously to kickstart the new system to the new CBDC. But if you have a hundred thousand or a million in the bank you’re going to be told ‘Yes, it’s one-to-one but you’re going to have to wait to convert it to the new currency.’ Now “wait” means “never”, we all know that. But they won’t tell you that. They’ll say it’s a temporary suspension because we’re in the middle of a crisis, the people are rioting in the street, we need to calm the system so ‘Here’s some free money everybody, go and enjoy yourselves.’…

So I think the CBDC will arrive as a consequence of a crisis and when that happens there will be a limitation on how much of your old currency you can convert, at one-to-one, with the new one…. But the advantage of this, from the government’s point of view, is it’s to all intents and purposes wiping the slate clean because all their liabilities will be denominated in a currency that nobody can use, nobody can spend. Watch ‘The Currency Reset Will Wipe Out Creditors and Usher in CBDCs. Part 1’.

In preparing to cope with the disruption this must inevitably cause, among other assets that would be critically useful while retaining value, such as open-pollinated (non-hybrid) seeds, Thompson suggests gold and silver (including gold and silver coins), land, property, equities, collectibles (such as art and rarer coins), machine and other tools, electricity generators, useful items, animals, firewood, washing powder, canned food and house extensions. See ‘The Currency Reset Will Wipe Out Creditors and Usher in CBDCs. Part 2.’

Of course, Thompson might be wrong in his prediction of precisely how the technocratic state will ultimately be imposed. But imposed it will be, one way or another, unless we are effectively resisting the foundational components of the Elite program.

Is cryptocurrency part of the answer?

Many people are suggesting cryptocurrencies as one way around some of the problems we face. However, the very basis of sound economy for any world that is unfolding is self-reliance, particularly in relation to essential needs around food, water, clothing, shelter and energy, within a local, sustainable community that is as self-sufficient as possible, and able to nonviolently defend itself.

Complemented by use of local markets and trading schemes – whether using local currencies or goods and services directly – this will maximise economic survival prospects for those participating (and no doubt some others besides).

Anything that is internet-based will become increasingly vulnerable, and there are definitely plans to shut down some/all of it, depending on the scenario. Cyber Polygon makes that crystal clear.

See ‘Taking Control by Destroying Cash: Beware Cyber Polygon as Part of the Elite Coup’.

And unless a currency is backed by something with genuine value – as currencies were backed by gold or other metals in earlier eras – or there is widespread confidence in a currency for another reason (as currencies around the world have been backed by their governments until now), it can become valueless very quickly.

Moreover, the big banks are heavily invested in cryptocurrencies: Another reason to be wary. See ‘3 Banks That Have Big Plans for Blockchain and Cryptocurrency’.

But for an extremely succinct warning against crypto, check out this brief statement from Catherine Austin Fitts: ‘If you move to crypto, and I just want to really underscore this, crypto is not a currency, it is a control system.’

See ‘The Dangers Of Cryptocurrencies’.

And, perhaps, the recent bankruptcy of the FTX Group is worth considering.

See ‘“This Is Unprecedented”: Enron Liquidator Overseeing FTX Bankruptcy Speechless: “I Have Never Seen Anything Like This”’.

For another of the many critiques of crypto, see retired corporate accountant Lawrence A. Stellato’s ‘The Dangers of Cryptocurrencies’.

Crypto has a high environmental cost too, given the technology it uses and the energy it needs to run.

In essence: Just not part of the future we must work together to build.

The Rothschilds and Transhumanism

Before concluding this investigation, it is worth returning to consideration of the Rothschild family in relation to one final issue: Transhumanism.

Why is this important?

Image is from 21st Century Wire

Throughout this investigation, I have endeavoured to document a few basic facts: The Global Elite is intent on reshaping world order by killing off a substantial proportion of the human population and enslaving those left alive as transhuman slaves imprisoned in ‘smart’ cities. As part of achieving this outcome, the global economy is being ransacked and destroyed: This is intended to deprive people of the sustenance necessary to resist the entire Elite program that, among other outcomes, will concentrate virtually all remaining wealth in Elite hands.

This program has been planned in detail by elite agents in organizations like the World Economic Forum and the World Health Organization and is being implemented by relevant international organizations and multinational corporations (particularly those in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, and the corporate media), as well as national governments and medical organizations.

But, as I have pointed out, every organization, corporation and government is composed of individual human beings who make decisions (consciously or unconsciously) about what they do in any given circumstance. And while structural power is not something that can be ignored, individuals do have agency.

To illustrate this point, I have used the House of Rothschild as one example of a family of individuals who make decisions about how to act in the world and how the decisions of this family exercise enormous influence over world events. Consider another brief example of the decisions made by Rothschild family members and what has transpired as a result.

The Rothschild influence over world banking and the global economy, and thus political systems, is heavily documented and illustrated above. So, given the current Elite push to substantially reduce the human population and introduce a technocratic state populated by transhuman slaves, one question that inevitably suggests itself as worthy of further investigation concerns the possible involvement of the Rothschilds in the research and development of the technologies and biotechnologies that make this all possible.

An investigation soon reveals that Nathaniel Mayer Victor Rothschild, the 3rd Baron Rothschild, was born in 1910 and attended Trinity College, Cambridge, where he read physiology, later gaining a PhD. After working for MI5 during World War II, ‘he joined the zoology department at Cambridge University from 1950 to 1970. He served as chairman of the Agricultural Research Council from 1948 to 1958 and as worldwide head of research at Royal Dutch/Shell [as noted above, a family business] from 1963 to 1970.’ See ‘Victor Rothschild, 3rd Baron Rothschild’.

Beyond this, however, articles in ‘The Financial Times’ in 1982-1983 reveal that N.M. Rothschild, of which the biologist Lord Rothschild was head, had established a venture capital fund called Biotechnology Investments in 1981 to attract £25m investments for biotechnology research. However, the fund, registered in the tax haven of Guernsey, had such exacting scientific and financial standards that it was having trouble identifying companies that could meet those standards despite the rapidly growing field. According to one news report in 1982: ‘City [of London] estimates put the number of new technology companies established in the last five years at about 150, mostly in North America. At least 70 are practising genetic engineering.’ See ‘Newsclippings re. Biotechnology Investments Limited (BIL) owned by N.M. Rothschild Asset Management’.

But lest you are concerned that the Rothschilds failed to establish a firm foothold in this fledgling industry, you might be reassured, but no wiser, to read the entry on the CHSL Archives Repository (that focuses on ‘Preserving and promoting the history of molecular biology’) titled ‘Rothschild Asset Management – Rothschild, Lord Victor’.

You will be no wiser because the archive is marked ‘Closed until Jan 2045 – Suppress all images for 60 years’.

As it turns out, however, the Rothschilds, whose business acumen is never questioned, are still raising funds and investing heavily in biotechnology. See ‘Edmond de Rothschild private equity unit to invest in biotech’. It’s just that, as usual, while you are hearing from elite agents (such as Klaus Schwab, Yuval Noah Harari and Elon Musk) who publicly promote transhumanist endeavours, you are hearing very little from those, like the Rothschilds, who prefer control and profit to publicity.

Consequently, the Rothschilds are playing a key role both in the ongoing ransacking of the global economy and in profiting from the control they are helping to make possible through introduction of transhumanist technologies. It goes without saying that the family has heavy investments in many other technologies too, including those that will be critical to the success of the imminent technocratic world order, such as the Internet of Things. See, for example, Rothschild Technology Limited.

Of course, the Rothschilds and other Elite families with whom they are interconnected in various ways are also heavily involved through investments in major asset management corporations such as Vanguard and BlackRock. But again, it is not just about wealth concentration; it is about control and depopulation too. So, for example, the Rockefellers, another family closely connected to the Rothschilds, are also well-known for their longstanding involvement in social engineering and eugenics.

See ‘Where Did this “New World Order” Coup Come From? The Rockefeller’s “Social Engineering Project”’ and ‘Killing Off Humanity: How the Global Elite is using Eugenics and Transhumanism to Shape Our Future’.

So what can we do about this?

Because it controls the political, economic, financial, technological, medical, educational, media and other important levers of society, the Elite profits hugely from daily human activity. But it can also precipitate an ‘extreme event’ (or the delusion of one) – a war, financial crisis (including depression), revolution, ‘natural disaster’, ‘pandemic’ (if you think that the Covid-19 scam was the last of its kind, see ‘Who’s Driving the Pandemic Express?’ and watch the plan for the next one, already available: ‘Catastrophic Contagion’) – and use its control of the political, economic, technological and other levers mentioned to manage how events unfold while simultaneously managing the narrative about what is taking place so that the truth is concealed.

This means that the Elite’s killing and exploitation of the human population at large is hidden behind whatever ‘enemy’ (human or otherwise) that Elite agents in government and the media direct the attention of the public towards at any given time.

It doesn’t matter whether we all end up blaming Hitler, Saddam or ‘the Russians’, ‘the capitalists’ or ‘Wall Street’, ‘the government’, ‘the climate’ or ‘the virus’, we never blame the Elite. So we never take action that is focused on stopping those individuals and their corporations and institutions that are fundamentally responsible for inflicting unending harm on us all, as well as the Earth and all of its other creatures too.

Fortunately, while the Elite is adept at devising an ever-expanding range of tools that can be used to manipulate events while simultaneously concealing this behind a barrage of propaganda, there is still just enough time to finally recognize what is happening and to end it. Otherwise, just as in the board game ‘Monopoly’, where one player finally owns everything and the other players have been forced out of the game, the Elite will win the ‘final battle’ against humanity, capture all wealth and reduce those humans and transhumans left alive to the status of slaves. See ‘The Final Battle for Humanity: It is “Now or Never” in the Long War Against Homo Sapiens’.

Does this sound insane to you? Of course it is. Do you think the Elite is insane? Of course it is.

See ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’ with further detail in ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’.

But just because someone is insane and their plan is insane, it doesn’t mean they cannot succeed. Remember Adolf Hitler? Idi Amin in Uganda? Pol Pot in Cambodia? Insane violence of unspeakable magnitude can succeed if too many people either cannot perceive the insanity, are afraid of it or simply believe it is too preposterous – ‘It can’t be true.’ – and do nothing about it. Or, in the cases just mentioned, not until it was too late to prevent vast killing.

So here is the summary: Humanity faces the gravest threat in our history. But because our opponent – the Global Elite – is insane, we cannot rely on reason or thoughtfulness alone to get us out of this mess: You cannot reason with insanity. And because the Global Elite controls international and national political processes, the global economy and legal systems, efforts to seek redress through those channels must fail.

See ‘The Elite Coup to Kill or Enslave Us: Why Can’t Governments, Legal Actions and Protests Stop Them?’

Hence, if we are going to defeat this long-planned, complex and multifaceted threat, we must defeat its foundational components, not delude ourselves that we can defeat it one threat at a time or even by choosing those threats we think are the worst and addressing those first.

This is because the elite program, whatever its flaws and inconsistencies, as well as its potential for technological failure at times, is deeply integrated so we must direct our efforts at preventing or halting those foundational components of it that make everything else possible. This is why random acts of resistance will achieve nothing. Effective resistance requires the focused exercise of our power. In simple terms, we must be ‘strategic’.

If you are interested in being strategic in your resistance to the ‘Great Reset’ and its related agendas, you are welcome to participate in the ‘We Are Human, We Are Free’ campaign which identifies a list of 30 strategic goals for doing so.

In addition and more simply, you can download the one-page flyer that identifies a short series of crucial nonviolent actions that anyone can take. This flyer, recently updated and now available in 23 languages (Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Malay, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Slovak and Turkish) with several more languages in the pipeline, can be downloaded from here: ‘One-page Flyer’.

Image is from Children’s Health Defense

If this strategic resistance to the ‘Great Reset’ (and related agendas) appeals to you, consider joining the ‘We Are Human, We Are Free’ Telegram group (with a link accessible from the website).

And if you want to organize a mass mobilization, such as a rally, at least make sure that one or more of any team of organizers and/or speakers is responsible for inviting people to participate in this campaign and that some people at the event are designated to hand out the one-page flyer about the campaign.

If you like, you can also watch, share and/or organize to show, a short video about the campaign here: ‘We Are Human, We Are Free’ video.

In parallel with our resistance, we must create the political, economic and social structures that serve our needs, not those of the Elite. That is why long-standing efforts to encourage and support people to grow their own food, participate in local trading schemes (involving the exchange of knowledge, skills, services and products with or without a local medium of exchange) and develop structures for cooperation, governance, nonviolent defence and networking with other communities are so important. Of course, indigenous peoples still have many of these capacities – lost to vast numbers of humans as civilization has expanded over the past five millennia – but many people are now engaged in renewed efforts to create local communities, such as ecovillages, and local trading schemes, such as Community Exchange Systems. Obviously, we must initiate/expand these forms of individual and community engagement in city neighbourhoods too.

Moreover, as Catherine Austin Fitts reminds us, if we choose that option, there is nothing to stop us having our own decentralised money system, starting with our own local community central bank and our own local community currency. Watch ‘We Need to Talk about Mr Global – Part Two’.

Finally, as noted by Professor Carroll Quigley in the very last words of his nearly-1,000 page epic Tragedy & Hope:

‘Some things we clearly do not yet know, including the most important of all, which is how to bring up children to form them into mature, responsible adults.’ See Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time, p. 947.

Fortunately, the passage of time since Quigley wrote these words has revealed an answer to this challenge. So, if you want to raise children who are powerfully able to investigate, analyze and act, you are welcome to make ‘My Promise to Children’.

Conclusion

Since the dawn of human civilization 5,000 years ago, in one context after another, some people who are more terrified than others in their immediate vicinity have sought what they perceived to be increased personal ‘security’ by gaining and exercising greater control over the people and resources around them.

Progressively, over time, this serious psychological dysfunctionality has been compounding until, today, the degree of ‘security’ and control that some people require includes all of us and all of the world’s resources. For want of a better term, we might call them the ‘Global Elite’ but it is important to understand that they are insane, criminal and ruthlessly violent.

This takeover of all of us and everything on Planet Earth is currently being attempted by this Elite through the ‘Great Reset’ and its related fourth industrial revolution, eugenicist and transhumanist agendas.

In essence, the intention is to kill off a substantial proportion of us, as is now happening, enclose the Commons forever (and force those who live in regional areas off the land) while imprisoning those left alive as transhuman slaves in their technocratic ‘smart cities’ where we will ‘own nothing’ but provide the compliant workforce necessary to serve Elite ends.

Whether wars or financial crises (including depressions), ‘natural disasters’, revolutions or ‘pandemics’, great events are contrived by the Elite to distract attention from and facilitate profound changes in world order and obscure vast transfers of wealth from ordinary people to this Elite.

And this is done with the active complicity of Elite agents – including international organizations such as the United Nations, national governments and legal systems – which is why redress cannot be found through mainstream political or legal channels.

However, distracted by an endless stream of irrelevant ‘news’, superficial debates such as capitalism vs. socialism, monarchy vs. democracy, this political party vs. that political party, or even which football team is better, virtually all people are oblivious to how the world really works and who is orchestrating how history will be written by elite agents.

Is there conflict between individuals, families and groups within the Elite? Of course! But unlike the conflicts they endlessly throw in our faces to distract and manipulate us, the unifying agenda to which they all subscribe is to perpetually restructure world order to expand Elite control and extract more wealth for Elites. 5,000 years of human history categorically demonstrates that point.

Hence, if humanity is to defeat this Elite program, we must do it ourselves.

And if you want your resistance to this carefully-planned Elite technocratic takeover to be effective, then it must be strategic. Otherwise, your death or technocratic enslavement is now imminent.

I thank Anita McKone for thoughtful suggestions to improve the original draft of this investigation.

*

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.

Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ His email address is [email protected] and his website is here. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Dreamstime

Many People Fully Vaccinated for COVID Are Now Going Blind

Ethan Huff, December 26, 2022

Look Up! Wake Up, People! You Are Being “Suicided in Warp Speed”.

Peter Koenig, December 26, 2022

Video: Pfizer’s “Secret” Report on the Covid Vaccine. Beyond Manslaughter. The Evidence is Overwhelming. The Vaccine Should Be Immediately Withdrawn Worldwide

Prof Michel Chossudovsky, December 28, 2022

The Plan. WHO’s Ten Years of Infectious Diseases (2020 to 2030), Leading to World Tyranny

Peter Koenig, December 31, 2022

NATO Decides to Attack Russia in Ukraine

Kurt Nimmo, December 21, 2022

People Died from mRNA-Vaccine-Damaged Hearts, New Peer-Reviewed German Study Provides Direct Evidence

Dr. Jennifer Margulis, December 16, 2022

Where Did this “New World Order” Coup Come From? The Rockefeller’s “Social Engineering Project”

Jens Jerndal, December 5, 2022

Four Minutes of Undiluted Truth on Mainstream TV

Mike Whitney, December 9, 2022

Bill Gates Plans for New Catastrophic Contagion

Dr. Joseph Mercola, December 21, 2022

How Blackrock Investment Fund Triggered the Global Energy Crisis

F. William Engdahl, December 21, 2022

Top Oncologist: Cancer in Patients Exploding After COVID Shots

Art Moore, December 27, 2022

Again, Fear on the Run, “Catastrophic Contagion”

Peter Koenig, December 31, 2022

The Big Lie: Worldwide Energy Shortage Plus Multiple Crises – All Manufactured – Meant for Destruction of Western Civilization

Peter Koenig, December 11, 2022

“Putin Has Misread the West (And) if He Doesn’t Wake Up Soon, Armageddon Is Upon Us”

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, December 20, 2022

Video: Putin Just Scored a Knockout Blow to Europe and the WEF

Clayton Morris, December 6, 2022

Sleeping with the Enemy?

Prof Michel Chossudovsky, December 14, 2022

Murder They Wrought

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, December 29, 2022

The Dark Origins of the Davos Great Reset

F. William Engdahl, December 26, 2022

The WEF Reveals the Agenda for Davos 2023. “Cooperation in a Fragmented World”. Triggering Economic Chaos, Debt, Poverty and Social Tyranny Worldwide…

Sikh for Truth, December 6, 2022

Historical Analysis of the Global Elites: Ransacking the World Economy Until ‘You’ll Own Nothing’

Robert J. Burrowes, December 27, 2022

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.

***

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s vindication seems — maybe, perhaps, imaginably — achievable. It’s enough for me to publish my singular New Year resolution — not a wish, but a firm resolution — to more actively contribute to growing pressure to free Julian Assange, the mistreated, vilified and imprisoned, brave and brilliant founder of WikiLeaks.

It’s a finite issue, unlike negotiations to end a raging war or a global agreement on climate controls. Yet freeing Assange had appeared almost insurmountable not long ago. Whereas, given the painstaking pursuit to free Assange by a pitifully small coterie of determined supporters, some success may be at hand.

Their movement’s goal is clear: the U.S. government must drop its extradition order. Then, Assange should be released from Britain’s notorious Belmarsh prison, where he’s held only on a charge of dodging a bail hearing. Then, if faced with further legal action, his lawyers argue, he should be detained in his own country, Australia.

During these four years in Belmarsh, Assange’s situation looked bleak. Particularly because his struggle for justice was essentially ignored by the press and thereby by the public, including many human rights groups. The very newspapers which so righteously published WikiLeaks’ documents revealing Washington’s criminality in Iraq and elsewhere, maligned him. Then they abandoned the principle of press freedom which he represents. In 2019 when a new Ecuadorian leader revoked Assange’s asylum in their London embassy, British authorities forcibly removed Assange from the embassy and slapped him into Belmarsh prison. Then the U.K. government initiated hearings regarding Washington’s request for his extradition to the U.S. A series of challenges by Assange’s legal team yielded little hope of success.

With diminishing legal options, freedom of journalists and publishers to expose government wrongdoings became an increasingly louder argument for Assange’s release. That seemed to garner new attention. More journalists joined the free-Assange movement, perhaps realizing the implications that a successful indictment of Assange might hold for themselves.

A few weeks ago, the world heard Assange’s name after a decade-long blackout. Unexpectedly, on Nov 28^th those same press giants largely responsible for that blockade and for defaming Assange, decided to speak against his prosecution by U.S. authorities.

Their plea became headline news—as if the case was just discovered. The New York Times, joined by its peers in the U.K., France and Germany, published an open letter headlined “The U.S. government should end its prosecution of Julian Assange for publishing secrets”. Their brief statement made its appeal on the principle of press freedom. “This indictment sets a dangerous precedent, and threatens to undermine America’s First Amendment and the freedom of the press. Holding governments accountable”, it said, “is part of the core mission of a free press in a democracy.”

Too often, the same public who’d cared little about Assange’s fate or interpretations of press freedom which his prosecution raises, suddenly had a change of heart. The voice of those news giants is so frightening in its power to single-handedly transform public opinion and government policies. Although we still don’t know how that appeal will affect Washington’s extradition order.

I will not join those who applaud the media giants’ new posture. What we ought to reflect on is the real source of this ideological change: the quotidian struggle to win his freedom, year-after-year, against seemingly impossible odds. It was not human rights organizations or our supposed-free press who did this. It was individuals. The changed public mood derives from painstaking efforts by a small group of lawyers, family, and media critics who themselves became unpopular and marginalized for their support of the imprisoned man. I have no doubt that the breakthrough represented in that highbrow open letter wouldn’t have been possible without the tireless, persistent educational and legal campaigns by that committed team.

I was aware, having followed their legal appeals and public events for more than a decade, of a remarkable by little publicized October 9^th London protest, perhaps a watershed in the campaign: more than 5,000 individuals linked hands, forming a human chain around the British parliament building to call for Assange’s release. A glowing, living example of support.

Not long before that, the film Ithaka was released – a video document of the campaign led by Assange’s family members, most notably his 76-year-old father John Shipton. (The elder Shipton’s eloquence and compassion are deeply moving.) During the U.S. tour portrayed in Ithaka, Shipton and Assange’s brother Gabriel often drew hardly more than a dozen listeners. (Audiences were larger in Europe and Australia.)

On December 1^st, the Australian government which had hitherto made no effort to aid Assange, indicated a new position. “Enough is enough”, proclaimed Australia’s recently elected Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

In recent weeks, celebrated press freedom campaigners like Daniel Ellsberg announced—“Indict me too”, since he himself had released government secrets. Guests who’d visited Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy learned that their phones and other items submitted to embassy security had been turned over to the CIA; they are now suing former CIA director Pompeo along with others for violating their rights.

How much more is needed to force the U.K. and U.S. governments to reverse their policy and free Julian Assange? Given the apparently successful efforts of that slight but resolute group of supporters, we should be encouraged to personally lend our weight, however modest, for the final push.

The best source on this remarkable effort: I recommend Consortium News, a website founded in 1995 by the late investigative journalist Robert Parry. Thank you and Happy New Year Joe Lauria and the CN team.

*

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.

Barbara Nimri Aziz whose anthropological research has focused on the peoples of the Himalayas is the author of the newly published “Yogmaya and Durga Devi: Rebel Women of Nepal”, available on Amazon. 

She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

---

“Yogmaya and Durga Devi: Rebel Women of Nepal”

By Barbara Nimri Aziz

A century ago Yogmaya and Durga Devi, two women champions of justice, emerged from a remote corner of rural Nepal to offer solutions to their nation’s social and political ills. Then they were forgotten.

Years after their demise, in 1980 veteran anthropologist Barbara Nimri Aziz first uncovered their suppressed histories in her comprehensive and accessible biographies. Revelations from her decade of research led to the resurrection of these women and their entry into contemporary Nepali consciousness.

This book captures the daring political campaigns of these rebel women; at the same time it asks us to acknowledge their impact on contemporary feminist thinking. Like many revolutionaries who were vilified in their lifetimes, we learn about the true nature of these leaders’ intelligence, sacrifices, and vision during an era of social and economic oppression in this part of Asia.

After Nepal moved from absolute monarchy to a fledgling democracy and history re-evaluated these pioneers, Dr. Aziz explores their legacies in this book.

Psychologically provocative and astonishingly moving, “Yogmaya and Durga Devi” is a seminal contribution to women’s history.

Click here to order.

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.

***

Dmitry Medvedev, the prominent Russian lawyer who rose to become Russia’s President during 2008-12, is now even likelier than he was before, to become the successor to Vladimir Putin. Medvedev has just been promoted to a new and permanent position in Russia as the head of Russia’s military-industrial complex, which (unlike America’s MIC that controls the U.S. Government) is majority-owned by the Russian Government and is therefore the most critically important part of the national-security side of the Government. With the steep increases in Russia’s military on account of the war in Ukraine, Russia’s MIC is more important for Russia than ever since WW II (the war against Hitler). Unlike America’s MIC, which exists in order to enrich America’s billionaires by selling their weapons (to the U.S. Government and its ‘allies’), Russia’s exists in order to protect the country — it’s a public, instead of private, asset.

But that’s not the only reason Medvedev is the likeliest person to replace Putin:

On 26 March 2012, during Obama’s campaign for re-election so as to have a second term as America’s President, his opponent, Mitt Romney, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, that “Russia, this is, without question, our number one geopolitical foe.  They — they fight every cause for the world’s worst actors. The I — the idea that he has some more flexibility in mind for Russia is very, very troubling, indeed.”

The ardently pro-Israel Blitzer seems to have been disturbed that Romney hadn’t said Iran was that. Romney’s response to Blitzer (so as not to lose the large pro-Israel/anti-Palestine vote) was “Of course, the greatest threat that the world faces is a nuclear Iran.”

But then he went back to his main argument, which was against Obama’s announced “reset” with Russia, which Obama, speaking confidentially to Medvedev, had promised to do after the election, and was asking Medvedev to pass that message along to Putin; and, on this matter, Romney publicly condemned that Obama statement, and said:

“in terms of a geopolitical foe, a nation that’s on the Security Council, that has the heft of the Security Council and is, of course, a — a massive nuclear power, Russia is the — the geopolitical foe and — and the — and they’re — the idea that our president is — is planning on doing something with them that he’s not willing to tell the American people before the election is something I find very, very alarming.”

Romney was against negotiating with Russia (which would require privacy during such negotiations).

Of course, Romney, when answering about Iran, was talking only about the possibility that Iran might acquire a nuclear weapon (and he said that Iran would be “the greatest threat that the world faces” if Iran gets nuclear weapons, whereas he posed Russia as being “OUR number one foe,” AMERICA’S (not “the world’s”) biggest enemy, without any ifs ands or buts); he said that Russia already IS “without question, our number one geopolitical foe.” Iran was a possible danger to the world, whereas Russia IS America’s #1 enemy (foe).

That’s what he said. Subsequently, on 27 February 2022, CNN bannered “It’s time to admit it: Mitt Romney was right about Russia”, and thereby retroactively backed Romney’s repudiation of the idea that a U.S. President should negotiate with Russia ‘our number one foe’. (Obama had privately promised Russia private negotiations; Romney publicly condemned privacy in such negotiations. However, without privacy, international negotiations are impossible. CNN agreed with Romney; it’s clearly neoconservative, it’s clearly just a marketing organization for firms such as Lockheed Martin — part of the billionaires’ control over their Government, their biggest and most influential market.)

Subsequently, fact-checkers of the final Presidential candidates debate in 2012 gave Romney a pass when he denied, right after the debate, that he had ever said that Russia is America’s #1 geopolitical foe (as-if he hadn’t ever said it) — the ‘fact-checkers’ wanted to be on good terms with the next President regardless of which candidate would win. (Truth didn’t really count with them, but Romney had been clear that nothing should be private about negotiations with Russia, meaning that there shouldn’t BE any negotiations with Russia — and CNN actually backs that view, NOT what had been Obama’s criticism of Romney’s view). (Obama’s criticism of Romney’s view turned out to have been insincere — he privately actually agreed with Romney’s view regarding Russia. He was lying in order to win votes, because he knew that Romney’s position on that polled poorly at that time.)

That Obama-Romney fracas had occurred because on 26 March 2012, Obama had privately told Mevedev to tell Putin that, as I pointed out on 16 May 2016:

“On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved, but it’s important for him [the incoming President Putin] to give me space,” Obama was heard telling Medvedev, apparently referring to incoming Russian president Vladi­mir Putin.

“Yeah, I understand,” Medvedev replied.

Obama interjected, saying, “This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.”

So: Obama was telling Putin there, through Medvedev, that his next Administration would soften its stand on America’s installing in eastern Europe, near and even on Russia’s borders, missiles that are designed to disable Russia’s ability to retaliate against a U.S. nuclear first-strike — the U.S. ABM or anti-ballistic-missile system.

Obama wasn’t lying only to America’s voters [when subsequently criticising Romney’s criticism of what Obama said in this private exchange with Medvedev]; he was shown there privately lying to Putin, by indicating to Medvedev that instead of becoming more aggressive (by his planned ABMs) against Russia in a second term, he’d become less aggressive (by negotiating with Putin about the matter — as you can see there, the nub of it was George Herbert Walker Bush’s lie to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990).

That “nub” was Putin’s demand to cancel the post-1991 additions to NATO’s membership, so that America wouldn’t be allowed to position its weaponry on Russia’s borders — so that America wouldn’t be allowed to repeat Hitler’s 1941 Operation Barbarossa invasion of Russia.

Putin knows that Obama had lied in confidence to Medvedev when Medvedev carried that hopeful message to him from Obama in March of 2012.

How much contempt and anger do both Medvedev and Putin probably feel toward Obama for his having privately promised to them, as he did there; but — as soon as becoming re-elected — did the exact opposite in everything, and especially regarding both Syria and Ukraine?

Unless Medvedev — entirely out of character for him — does something stupid, he will be Putin’s right-hand man until Putin leaves office. I can think of nobody else as having so high a likelihood to take over from Putin, especially because they’re both in the same, United Russia, political Party, and both are politically popular in Russia.

Ever since that 26 March 2012 incident, I have thought that Medvedev is Putin’s likeliest successor, but now I feel he is very likely to be, because he almost already is.

*

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 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.

***

As the death toll rises, a dark shadow has been cast over Britain.

Official data reveals that since April 2022, 407,910 deaths have occurred, with 47,379 excess deaths against the 2015-2019 five-year average.

As the investigation deepens, it has become increasingly clear that the Covid-19 vaccines are the most likely cause of the unprecedented loss of life in Britain. The evidence is damning, with a startling correlation between the rollout of the vaccines and the spike in deaths.

We were told the vaccines would bring hope and healing in the midst of an alleged global pandemic. But now, it seems that they have instead brought even more devastation and pain.

The Office for National Statistics has released weekly figures on deaths registered in England and Wales, and the most recent data reveals a troubling increase.

In the week ending on December 11th, there were 11,694 deaths, with 687 excess deaths against the 2016-2019 + 2021 five-year average and 999 excess deaths against the 2015-2019 five-year average.

While Covid-19 is often blamed for such increases, this time the numbers tell a different story. Out of all the deaths, only 326 were attributed to the alleged disease – a mere 2.8%.

So what is causing this surge in fatalities?

Source

Meanwhile, according to Public Health Scotland (PHS), Scotland suffered 1,257 deaths in the week ending 27th November, resulting in 127 excess deaths.

Source

According to the Office for National Statistics, excess deaths have been occurring in England and Wales on a weekly basis since April 2022. To uncover the full extent of this tragedy, we dug into the data, analyzing the weekly number of deaths over the past six months and comparing them to the five-year average. What we discovered was a disturbing trend, as the chart below reveals.

As we delve deeper into the mystery of the excess deaths occurring in England and Wales, a disturbing possibility comes to light: the Covid-19 vaccines may be to blame.

According to the Office for National Statistics, excess deaths have been occurring on a weekly basis since April 2022, and while the data initially seemed to point to other causes, closer examination reveals a startling correlation between the rollout of the 2021 winter “Booster” shot and the spike in fatalities.

To uncover the full extent of this tragedy, we dug into the data, analysing the weekly number of deaths over the past eight months and comparing them to the 2015-2019 five-year average.

Source

The chart reveals a disturbing trend, with excess deaths occurring in all but two weeks since April 2022. These two exceptions, it turns out, coincide with the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and funeral, which would have caused delays in death registrations due to the bank holidays.

But even taking these weeks into account, the data shows an average of 1,268 excess deaths every single week.

The following chart is taken from Public Health Scotland’s Covid-19 Dashboard, and it shows the weekly number of deaths compared to the 2015-2019 five-year average –

Source

Because the chart doesn’t reveal the true picture, we downloaded the death data from the Public Health Scotland Covid-19 Dashboard, which you can also do so here, and calculated the total number of deaths between week 16 and week 47 of 2022.

According to the data, there were 34,316 deaths during this period in the 2015-2019 five-year average and 38,611 deaths during this period in 2022.

This means Scotland has suffered 4,264 excess deaths against the five-year average over the past 34 weeks.

The following chart shows the overall number of deaths and excess deaths in England, Wales & Scotland –

The five-year average number of deaths in Britain over these 8 months equates to 360,531. Meanwhile, the total number of deaths in 2022 in Britain over these 8 months equates to 407,910. Therefore, Britain has suffered 47,379 excess deaths since the middle of April 2022.

Could it be that the Covid-19 vaccines, which we were told would bring hope and healing, are instead causing unimaginable tragedy?

Well, as our investigation into the excess deaths in the UK deepened, a disturbing pattern emerged.

An analysis of official ONS data reveals that approximately five months after each dose of the Covid-19 vaccine is administered, the mortality rates among the vaccinated rise significantly compared to the unvaccinated in each age group.

The following charts were created using data extracted from table 1 of the Office for National Statistics dataset on ‘Deaths by vaccination status (Jan 21 to March 22)’ which can be accessed on the ONS website here, and downloaded here.

The first chart shows the age-standardised mortality rates per 100,000 person-years by vaccination status between the 1st January 2021 and the 30th April 2021 –

Source Data

As you can see, mortality rates were highest among the unvaccinated each month. However, by the end of April 2021, five months after the first Covid-19 injection was administered in the UK, things started to even out among each vaccination group and the unvaccinated.

But look what happened in the following four months.

The first chart shows the age-standardised mortality rates per 100,000 person-years by vaccination status between the 1st May 2021 and the 30th August 2021 –

Source Data

The mortality rate among the vaccinated began to surpass the mortality rate among the unvaccinated significantly. By the end of August 2022, the mortality rate per 100,000 among the unvaccinated was the second lowest among each vaccination group.

Unfortunately, a follow-up report published by the ONS on 6th July 2022, proves that things did not improve for the vaccinated population.

In fact, things got so bad that by the end of May 2022, mortality rates were lowest among the unvaccinated in every age group in England, and highest among those who received one, two, or three doses of the vaccine.

A more detailed analysis of the data contained in the above charts can be read here,

But the pattern doesn’t stop there. The data shows that not only does this pattern persist in all-cause deaths, but each dose of the vaccine also causes a significant increase in Covid-19 deaths.

Between March and July 2021, the vaccinated accounted for the majority of Covid-19 deaths in England, with the one-dose vaccinated accounting for 66% of those deaths.

Source Data

The pattern repeated itself over the next five months, with deaths nearly tripling, and the two-dose vaccinated accounting for the majority of deaths at 83%.

Source Data

And in the five months between January and May 2022, deaths again increased, with the triple vaccinated accounting for the majority at 82%.

Source Data

The evidence is clear and undeniable: the vaccines have been and are still killing people, with the deadly consequences being fully realised approximately five months after each vaccination.

This is a tragedy of epic proportions.

*

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 The Expose

---

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.

***

 

 

 

 

Joseph Ratzinger passed away at the age of 95. He is best known as the former pope, but his most important achievements can be found during his time as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Catholic Church. In that position he was the architect of one of the most large-scale ideological and anti-leftist campaigns in post-war history, the so-called Restoration.

Neoconservatism

In 1978, Karol Wojtyla is appointed leader of the largest religious community in the world. He finds a post-conciliar[i] church in deep crisis: sharp decline in mass attendance and vocations, high divorce rate among Catholics, rejection of papal authority on birth control, a world full of heresies, …

He wants a radical turnaround. No more risks, no more experiments, done with participation and consultation. The texts of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) are preserved, but the spirit is buried. The pope is preparing for a centralist and orthodox church policy, accompanied by a spiritual and moral rearmament.

He cleverly responds to the political climate of that moment, which, incidentally, shows many similarities with today. In the mid-1970s, a severe economic crisis begins. The optimistic spiritual climate of the 1960s is changing and is characterized by the pursuit of certainty and security, the call to – preferably charismatic – authorities, a renewed ethical revival, the flight into the private sphere or into the irrational, etc.

It is against this background that “neoconservatism” arises. This new conservatism is no longer defensive, but is itself launching a political and ideological offensive. This movement is supported by ‘strong’ individuals such as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

Skillfully capitalizing on the mass media, they express a worldwide missionary urge propagating simplistic worldviews, radiating certainty and optimism, etc.

God’s rottweiler

Another major concern for the pope is the emergence of a thriving progressive popular church in Latin America. Wojtyla is a Pole and an anti-communist through and through. Fighting Marxism and Communism in the world is one of his life goals.

Because the influence of Marxism in the grassroots church and in liberation theology is undeniable, he will do everything he can to restore order to the continent.

He counts on Ratzinger, who in 1981 is appointed Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s ministry of ideology and information. He will hold that office for a quarter of a century, and he will make full use of it to make his mark on world affairs.

Ratzinger becomes the architect of a large-scale ecclesiastical and pastoral offensive, which he himself calls “Restoration.” The aim is to strengthen the central administrative apparatus and to eliminate any form of dissent within the church. Ratzinger quickly emerges as a true grand inquisitor, which will earn him the nickname ‘rottweiler of god’.

The entire Catholic Church is targeted, but the main arrows are directed at Latin America, where the political impact is by far the greatest. We therefore restrict ourselves to this continent in what follows.

The Destruction of the people’s church and liberation theology

The first thing that happens is the creation of databases of Latin American episcopal conferences, liberation theologians, progressive religious, suspicious pastoral projects, etc. Ultra-conservative and outspoken right-wing bishops and cardinals are appointed in almost all ecclesiastical provinces.

In Brazil alone, about fifty conservative bishops are appointed. At the end of the 1980s, 5 of Peru’s 51 bishops are members of Opus Dei. Chile and Colombia are going the same way. Dissident bishops are put under pressure: some receive warning letters, others receive travel bans or are summoned.

This appointment policy is all the worse because the episcopate plays a very important role in this continent. It is in many cases the only possible opposition to military repression, to torture, etc. If the bishops in Brazil and Chile had remained silent as they did in Argentina, the number of victims of the repression would have been much higher.

A great clean-up is also done on the lower levels. The formation of priests is effected by pressuring, reorienting, or closing seminaries or theological institutes. Efforts are being made to better control the religious orders who are often protagonists of the liberation church. Special attention is paid to theologians. They are henceforth kept in line by making them swear the new ‘oath of allegiance’.

In 1984, Ratzinger writes the ‘Instruction on Certain Aspects of the Theology of Liberation.’ It is a frontal attack against liberation theologians, especially those from Latin America. A year later, Leonardo Boff, one of the figureheads of Liberation Theology, is even banned from speaking. The grip on Catholic magazines is being increased: where it is deemed necessary, they are censored, the editorial board is replaced, or they are put under financial pressure.

Progressive pastoral projects are curtailed or even stopped altogether. In 1989, recognition of the international Young Christian Workers (YCW), which was considered far too progressive, was withdrawn by the Vatican. It must make way for the anti-leftist and confessional International Co-ordination of Young Christian Worker Movements (ICYCW).

Besides the destruction of all that is progressive in the Church (?), huge reorientation projects are set up to put the believers back on the right track. Evangelization 2000 and Lumen 2000 are large-scale media evangelization projects aimed at Latin America, which together have no less than three satellites at their disposal.

The projects are set up by right-wing and ultra-conservative individuals and groups: Communione e Liberazione, Maria Action, Catholic Charismatic Renewal, and others. The employees of these media giants compare their work to a kind of new “air force.”

Those who can read are bombarded with cheaply published religious books. Large-scale retreats are financed for priests and religious orders. For these projects, the top of the Catholic Church can always count on the financial support of the business world.

Anti-Communist Crusade

Nothing is left to chance. One by one, all the pillars of the people’s church in Latin America are undermined. Observers refer to this as a “dismantling of a church.” What we are dealing with here is one of the largest ideological and political campaigns in post-war history.

This campaign is part of the anti-communist crusade of the Cold War. It can also be seen as a US revenge campaign for the lost power in the preceding period.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the countries of the Third World strengthen their position on the world market. They force higher prices for raw materials and so increase their purchasing power on the world market. This peaks during the 1973 oil crisis.

In 1975, Vietnam inflicts an ignominious defeat on the US. Shortly thereafter, the White House is humiliated twice: first by the Sandinista revolution in their ‘backyard’ (1979) and then by the hostage drama in Iran (1980). When he takes office, Reagan also feels threatened by an overly independent economic attitude of important countries such as Mexico and Brazil.

The White House does not give in and launches a counteroffensive on several fronts. Liberation theology is one of its main targets. As early as the late 1960s, liberation theology, still in its embryonic stage at that time, is seen as a threat to US geostrategic interests, as evidenced by the Rockefeller report.[ii]

In the 1970s, theological centers are established to engage in ideological combat with liberation theology. However, it is mainly from the 1980s that this counter-offensive reaches cruising speed. The US spends billions of dollars supporting the counter-revolution in Latin America.

This dirty war claims tens of thousands of victims. Death squads, paramilitary groups, but also the regular army does the dirty work. Many martyrs fall in the ranks of the Christian liberation movements. The most famous are Bishop Romero and the six Jesuits in El Salvador.

To combat liberation theology on its own turf, Protestant sects are employed. They receive heavy financial support from the US. By means of cheap slogans and sentimental messages, they try to attract the believers in order to withdraw them from the ‘pernicious’ influence of liberation theology. Expensive electronic means are used.

Religion appears here as the opium of the people in its purest form. The military is also involved in this ‘religious war.’ Top officers of the armies of Latin America draft a document to give more shape to the “theological arm of the armed forces.”

Mission accomplished

The joint efforts of Ratzinger and the White House pay off. In the 1990s, the grassroots church of Latin America is dealt a very severe blow. Many grassroots groups cease to exist or are barely able to function for lack of support from the official church, for fear of repression, because they no longer believe in the hoped-for breakthrough, or simply because they are physically liquidated.

The optimism and activism of the 1970s and 1980s give way to despair and contemplation. Social analysis loses significance in favor of culture, ethics, and spirituality, perfectly tailored to Ratzinger.

Overall, the emphasis shifts from liberation to denunciation, from resistance to comfort, from analysis to utopia, from subversion to survival. The Book of Exodus is traded for the Apocalypse and Ecclesiastes.

By the end of the 1990s, at least, the base church no longer poses a threat to the establishment. Both the Vatican, the Pentagon, and the local elites of Latin America have one less concern at that point. That reassurance quickly turns around, however, with the election of Chávez as president of Venezuela, but that is another story.

In 2005, Ratzinger is rewarded for his successful ‘Restoration’ and elected head of the Catholic Church. But as a manager he shines much less than as an inquisitor. All in all, he is a weak pope.

He leaves behind a weakened institution, plagued by a shortage of priests and empty churches in the West, and ongoing sex scandals. He fails to put things in order in the Vatican. That may be the main reason why he resigns in 2013.

Ratzinger will go down in history primarily as the man who successfully implemented the Restoration in the Catholic Church and defused the people’s church in Latin America. These are no small ‘earnings’.

*

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.

Marc Vandepitte is a Belgian economist and philosopher. He writes on North-South relations, Latin America, Cuba, and China. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Notes

[i] The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, also known as Vatican II, was held from October 11, 1962 to December 8, 1965. It was a church meeting that aimed to modernize the Catholic Church.

[ii] ‘The Rockefeller Report’, a report of the Rockefeller Foundation (1969) identified liberation theology as a threat to the national security of the United States. The Reagan administration heeded the advice.

Featured image: Benedict XVI during the canonization mass (Licensed under GFDL 1.2)

 

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 General Vitalii Zaluzhny, commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s dwindling armed forces, “God himself” is on the side of the ultranationalist crazies.

Ukraine's eminent commander-in-chief General Vitalii Zaluzhny has it just right:
"A nation is born through war."
"We did not chose war. But we took the fight. And God himself is on our side."https://t.co/0Kc4uNB8Ua

— Anders Åslund (@anders_aslund) December 30, 2022

In other words, God is a neo-Nazi, an ultranationalist with a visceral, violent hatred of everything Russian (and Polish, Roma, and Jewish).

Before dismissing the above headline as hyperbole, consider the following: Vitalii Zaluzhny’s adviser is Dmytro Yarosh, the commander of Right Sector’s Ukrainian Volunteer Corps.

“Right Sector is essentially the extremist Banderite cousin of the contemporary OUN-B, having been created by an OUN-B splinter group,” writes Moss Robeson on Substack’s Bandera Lobby Blog. “Basically, if you meshed the IRA and Nazi Germany together, sprinkled a little old fashioned Mussolini fascism and racism on it, and slapped a Ukrainian flag on it, you would have the OUN,” adds Elizabeth The Punisher Dove, a Substack newsletter.

The BBC put it rather mildly:

Dmytro Yarosh calls himself a follower of Stepan Bandera, a nationalist leader who fought Polish and Soviet rule in the 1930s and 1940s but is seen in Russia and eastern Ukraine as a Nazi collaborator.

There is nothing subjective about the historical fact Bandera was a Nazi collaborator.

Of course, the average person knows little of this, if anything at all. The tidal wave of anti-Russian, pro-war propaganda is pervasive. It is now virtually impossible to learn the truth without dedicated research, which is becoming more difficult as corporate-government censorship increases.

The situation is genuinely bizarre. Zelenskyy, a former comedian notorious for playing the piano with his unmentionable, is now a global-reach beggar for Europe’s poorest, most corrupt country. He is surrounded by neo-Nazi OUN-minded ultranats like Yarosh, the sort of people dedicated to ethnically cleansing Russians. This, of course, is now rarely mentioned. Instead, Russia is portrayed as an aggressor, and its SMO is mischaracterized, and usually ignored altogether.

Following the USG-orchestrated coup, the ultranats stepped up a campaign of disappearances, torture, assassination, street beatings, and assaults, the sort of behavior one might attribute to Hitler’s brownshirts in pre-Nazi Germany. Prior to 2014, these violent folks were occasionally criticized, primarily in the leftist “alternative” media. Now there is silence or muted reaction at best. There are notable exceptions, of course—for instance, Consortium News.

It is tragic and dangerous so many people believe supporting Ukraine is a just and noble cause. It’s no such thing. Ukraine is a corrupt post-Soviet hellhole run by ruthless oligarchs and greedy politicians. It allows violent neo-Nazi paramilitaries to roam free, often in concert with Ukraine’s SBU secret police.

The CIA has worked with the ultranats for decades, first during the Cold War, and now in a concerted effort to “weaken” and destroy Russia. NATO has cynically pushed closer to Russia’s borders, despite Clinton and others promising not to do so. It has been known for some time Ukraine’s coveted NATO membership is a bright neon red line for Russia, a serious threat to its national security.

Russia’s recent decision to react to years of provocations has resulted in some of the most transparently obvious USG propaganda in recent history, second only to Bush’s criminal lies about Iraq and WMDs.

In such a polluted climate, it is relatively easy for a guy like General Vitalii Zaluzhny to claim God is on the side of Right Sector, OUN, and genocide. Maybe Zaluzhny and Yarosh are interested in a rewrite of the Old Testament with Stepan Bandera as a Saint.

*

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.

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.

***

Hrvoje Morić: Joining me now is author Mark Taliano, who combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes mainstream media narratives on Syria, any comments on other global issues as well. He’s the author of Voices from Syria, which I highly recommend. I’ve got a copy myself. You can find them at marktaliano.net. Welcome to TNT Radio, Mark.

Mark Taliano: Thank you. Thanks for having me on.

Hrvoje Morić: Thanks for taking the time. And if you could maybe just tell us a bit about yourself and the work you’ve been focusing on over the years.

Mark Taliano: Okay. Well, I taught high school for quite a while. I lose track now. I retired early at age 50. I started teaching young. And then I started branching out and I went to… So I have a background in research, and I went to Syria three times during the war. And as you know, I wrote that book. But I also did a second edition with Basma Qaddour. And so, it’s a revised second edition, and that’s on PDF at the same site, Global Research. And also Kindle, but I prefer the Global Research version, it’s got a lot of nice pictures. But there’s a lot of continuity in this. If people, for example, can understand what did happen and what is happening in Syria, then they will be better equipped to understand what did happen and what is happening in Ukraine because there are extraordinary similarities. I’ll find that-

Hrvoje Morić: Yeah, I would totally…

Mark Taliano: Go ahead.

Hrvoje Morić: No, no, sorry. You go ahead.

Mark Taliano: So yeah, there’s striking similarities between the two. So it becomes a question of historical literacy and how that can… So if you understand one war that Empire is waging, you can understand other wars. If you understand Syria, which many people do not, even though basically everything was admitted by Western sources. But you have to dig a bit deep for it. But anyway, if you understand Syria, you can understand Ukraine. Right now, people in this country, a lot of them do not have an understanding of what is really happening in Ukraine. And it’s a continuum of Empire’s devastation of the world in the name of humanitarian warfare. And of course, there’s no such thing. It doesn’t exist. It’s a big lie. What the politicians are parroting is a lie. And we’ll go into some of those lies, no doubt. But they’re using the same tactics that they use in Syria, and they’re still using them in Syria, and they’re using those same tactics in Ukraine. And what’s happening, vast numbers of people are being slaughtered unnecessarily. Didn’t need to happen.

Hrvoje Morić: Yeah, just going to say, I have the second edition of your book I purchased. [inaudible 00:03:31]

Mark Taliano: Yeah, that’s a good one. Well, they’re both good, but I just… Yeah, it’s an expanded… Yeah.

Hrvoje Morić: I was going to mention as well, I’m a former high school teacher just like you as well. I taught history and politics and I taught this stuff as well. And I totally, I think it’s an important point that you brought up. If you understand the blueprint, the framework of Empire and history and all of this, everything else, then just it is easy to grasp. Well, once you understand, as you said, Syria, then you get create everything else. And let’s get into Syria because it is not something I’ve touched on that often on my show. And so I’ve had on my podcast the former British ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford, I think is his name, a couple years back, I’ve interviewed him. So yeah, he’s good.

I’m a big proponent of sovereignty in a fair world order, just like I believe I should love my neighbors and not break into their home and steal their things and make them subject to me. If anything, I want to serve them. And so I don’t believe any nation or Empire has the right, like the US, to seek to overthrow a country like Syria, as you said, kill the people of Syria. Now they’re stealing 80% of their oil wealth and so forth. And maybe I don’t like my neighbor, let’s just say for example. [inaudible 00:04:46] But I would seek peace with him rather than conspire against him. And so Mark, you’re more of an expert on Syria than me. You’ve been there many times. And I think also in the news cycle, Syria, it has been neglected. And so, where would you begin? I know we have that, I think, CIA declassified memo from 1957 that for many decades the US has been trying to get at Syria. So what’s the story here?

Mark Taliano: Okay, so I was thinking about this today. Now, if we were to use a metaphor about Empire, and Canada’s part of it, but Washington led Empire, it would be if it were distilled into one person, that person would be a mass murdering, drug dealing outlaw. The rules be… And making his or her own rules to suit oligarch interest. So, this rules-based order is absolute nonsense. It’s Empire saying, well, we can do what we want. And what Empire wants to do… And they lie. And Empire is lying to its own people also, because it is impoverishing its own people. What Empire wants to do is just lie about everything so that it can loot and pillage then. So they like to use the word brutal dictator. Every time Empire wants to destroy a prey country so that they can loot and pillage, it presents this image of the leader as a brutal dictator.

I was talking to someone the other day and he said, “Oh, Putin’s a brutal dictator.” I knew for a fact that that person obviously doesn’t understand what’s going on in terms of imperialism. Well, how can we dispel that notion? Well, let’s use a Western source, and I’ll just read it here, NATO in 6th June, 2013, and the war started more or less in 2011. NATO reveals… A NATO survey. Now just read it. It says, NATO reveals 70% of Syrians support  Bashar al-Assad, and that’s from Voltaire Network. Okay, so there goes a story about brutal dictator. Now I met him, and he is not a brutal dictator. He’s very well-spoken, sophisticated. He’s actually an eye doctor. And he has widespread support from Syrian people. And we saw this at the time of the elections.

Eva Bartlett did some videos, and they were in Douma, which previously was terrorist occupied, but now liberated. And the support was palpable. And the media, of course, doesn’t… It gives distorted views of anti-Assad protests prior to the war. But there were people protesting, as they do in any country, that’s what you’re supposed to be able to do. But they were peaceful. But unfortunately… And on the other side, there were pro-Assad rallies, which were huge. But the peaceful protestors were displaced by Empire’s proxies, which wanted to draw  fire from police, and did. Until President Assad said to the police, “Well, you can’t go to these protests anymore armed.” So they were sitting ducks and they were slaughtered. Well, that’s not in the news.

Hrvoje Morić: Yeah Mark, we’re going to have to jump to a break. I just did want to mention, you mentioned Voltaire Network. I love their work. I have interviewed Thierry Meyssan, I think last year on my podcast. Now, I wanted to cite my former professor, you probably know him as well, Alfred de Zayas. He was my dear professor in Geneva. He recently tweeted, “A rules-based international order is yet another scam to meet Western rules, Western imperialism, neocolonialism, hegemony.” And so, I think you and I would agree.

Mark Taliano: Yeah, absolutely.

Hrvoje Morić: So you were talking about Assad, and of course I’ve never believed the stories of Assad being a butcher. He seems reasonable. And I’ve listened to many of his interviews. And he has told more truth in an hour-long interview about the West and the world than what I’ve heard all of my life as a Westerner. And so, he reveals a lot when he speaks. And how was the meeting with him? What was it like? I’m just curious.

Mark Taliano: Well, there were a bunch of us, and we were there in a group and I was able to shake his hand and meet him very briefly. And then actually, Max Blumenthal was there too. And then, okay, so I got a picture of that. And he’s very, he looks in the eye. And sometimes you can tell a person just by meeting them briefly, well, although I’ve known his background for a long time, but he’s very genial. You can tell in the interviews. He is very well spoken, very intelligent. And then we went to a meeting in a large conference room. But I found, I think probably what you found, which you just described, and it was kind of shocking to me, is that he tells the truth. I’m not accustomed to that in Canada where (politicians are lying).

It’s just, it’s disingenuous. But he is telling the truth. And one of the reasons for that is because it’s still a sovereign country. He’s not a part of these transnational globalist alliances or coalitions where you have to go by the party line and the people are left knowing nothing. And yet they call that democracy. And we could tie that into COVID too. So he’s very personable, very intelligent. And this would explain why a NATO survey says 70% of Syrian support him. The number is probably much higher, and I’ll tell you another reason for that. Another reason why he has support by the vast majority of people is that the opposition that Washington wants to install is basically Al-Qaeda/ ISIS. And the Syrians do not want that.

Hrvoje Morić: That was my next-

Mark Taliano: If we… Go ahead.

Hrvoje Morić: That was my next question. And I think this is a key point. And in my decade of teaching history, international relations at the high school level and undergraduate level. I would bang on about this because I thought this was so important, and I would provide declassified documents. Basically, I think one of the key strategies of the Western Empire. And it’s everywhere, you name it, Al-Qaeda, in Afghanistan in the ’80s, they do it in Libya. They do it all over the place. So the West financing, arming and training terrorists,  Salafists, Wahhabists, Al-Qaeda, ISIS. You’ve got that 2012 DIA memo from Michael Flynn. And over the years I’ve collected all of this information from mainstream sources.

Mark Taliano: Good for you. Good for you.

Hrvoje Morić: Yeah. And you see world leaders attest to this. Putin at a UN speech, I think, between the lines talked about this, the former Afghan prime minister, Pakistani officials. I remember reading an article from an Iraqi commander saying that… An Iraqi commander literally said, “If the West stopped financing ISIS tomorrow, there would be no ISIS.”

Mark Taliano: Absolutely.

Hrvoje Morić: And by the West, I understand it’s the United States, it’s various European countries, the GCC, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel, probably. And in your book I read a… You say the ISIS Daesh brigades in both Syria and Iraq are integrated by Western special forces and military advisors. So, if you want to tell us more about how the West supports these jihadi mercenaries all over the world.

Image is from Twitter/The Cradle

Mark Taliano: Yeah, well, it’s true. As you said, it is fully admitted by Western sources. Even Tulsi Gabbard  admitted it. And I could read something that she said, as soon as I find it. But anyway, so it’s a military intelligence operation. In other words, the Empire tries to disguise what it’s doing. So all that nonsense about moderate rebels that they were apparently blabbing about on TV, I don’t watch mainstream anymore, but that was the deal. They said, oh yeah, we’re just arming moderate rebels. Nonsense. There are none. And then Timber Sycamore was very clear and Jeff Sack acknowledged it, you’re giving these weapons to terrorists, Al-Qaeda, ISIS. Okay. So I went to… And here’s another example of the civilization of the Syria versus the barbarism of the West. So my first trip there, we met the Minister of Reconciliation. And his story is similar to many others, and that his son was assassinated.

So, this is absolute barbarism. This is what the West and its proxies do. They try to destroy resistance by destroying powerful people in prey countries. And they also murdered the Grand Mufti’s son. And I met him too, they murdered his son. So a lot of people are not aware of the brutality that our governments are financing and training and supporting. But he (Minister of Reconciliation) said this to us, one of the things he says, well yeah, sure, you give weapons to one group, but the next day they’re in the hands of the other group. So that’s one way in which the West tries to disguise its hand. They call some moderate and some not moderate, even as they support both groups. And the one group will deliver weapons to the other group. Well, that’s just one way. So even Vladimir Putin and every… I know everyone’s vilified him. Personally, I think Russia is lucky to have him. He also… You made reference to that.

He acknowledges that they’re mercenaries. They go where there’s money. And guess who’s got the money? Saudi Arabia. And guess who works for Washington, is Saudi Arabia. And there’s admissions from these sources. Now, where was I going after that? Oh yeah. So one way they… Well okay, so when ISIS was operating and occupying oil fields, where did the oil go? Well, it went to Turkey. Okay? So Turkey, which is a member of NATO, and that’s where all the terrorists came through because it was a big porous border. They came right through Turkey. One journalist was murdered (Serena Shim) because she figured that out. So Turkey’s buying the oil. So, well, if you have a purchaser for ISIS oil, you are supporting ISIS. So that’s one way. Sometimes the support for these terrorist groups is overt. For example, I probably pronounced it wrong, but Prof Tim Anderson, you may have heard of him. He wrote a wonderful book too, a couple books on this. And he went and interviewed a military figure in al-Tharda Mountains.

And he describes in detail how Western military war planes directly supported ISIS, slaughtered Syrian soldiers who were trying to defeat ISIS. And then the ISIS proxies immediately occupied the territory, thanks to the West’s overt support. So sometimes the support is overt, sometimes the support is covert. Always what you’re reading in the mainstream media is a lie. And I’ll get into that in a minute too. So another way that this military intelligence operation works is ISIS will occupy an area, and let’s call them place sitters. And then when they move on, the area is not liberated. And it may be SDF, for example.. It’s not liberated, they’re just taking the place. They’re reoccupying it. Or when ISIS was allowed into Mosul in Iraq, the Empire got to destroy that city, which was part of the plan. But they also got to funnel ISIS out to go to Deir ez-Zor. So they use these terrorists in absolutely vile ways, and that impacts people because the terrorists are… They’re sectarian. Okay? So we’ll get to that in a minute too.

Image: Terrorist damage to Syria’s industrial base, Aleppo, Syria

But I went also to Aleppo into this industrial park. Okay? It was in the [inaudible 00:19:16] of Aleppo. And I hope I don’t make mistakes here, but if I do, I do. Anyway, we went to this industrial park and it was totally destroyed. And we sat down with some business people. And it was totally destroyed. And what happened was the terrorists, Western-supported terrorists, went in there and they stole… Everything that they could steal, they did steal and it ended up in Turkey, and everything else they destroyed. So the goal here is to help Empire destroy infrastructure, destroy the country, to weaken the country. And they’re still doing it. Now Empire’s openly stealing the oil. Trump said, yeah, I like oil. And they’re openly stealing the oil. So Syria is a oil-rich country, but now with the sanctions, they have maybe one or two hours of electricity a day. Most of them, 80 or 90% are living in poverty, and they don’t have enough oil resources. Why? Because it’s being stolen. Why? Because Empire has imposed these unilateral, coercive measures called sanctions, they are criminal, that amount to collective punishment.

Hrvoje Morić: Just on that point-

Mark Taliano: So, another anecdote to tie in with that is the hospitalization. So prior to the war, they had a lot of things that we don’t have. They had free healthcare, free schooling. And now, and this is all by design, they can’t get replacement parts for a lot of the health equipment, for a lot of the advanced medical equipment. So what is the direct result of that? A lot of people died. So this gets back to the psychopath mass murderer, metaphorically this is what Empire is. It’s equivalent to a psychopathic mass murderer making its own rules. Because this is what happens to prey countries. So they bomb infrastructure, they steal, they steal Empire, they steal resources, they destroy water resources through their proxies indirectly. And the proxies are… they’re expendable. Okay? So you might hear stories about, oh, they just killed this ISIS guy. Well, first of all, we don’t know if they did or not. Second of all, well, maybe he was expendable.

Hrvoje Morić: Mark, I’m just going to have to pause you. We’re going to have to jump a break. I just want to read another quote from your book where you write, “The life of a Syrian soldier is so hard. A terrorist paid by the US or Saudi or Qatar makes about three to $400 a month. The Syrian soldier receives one 10th of that.” And on the oil, I’ve been reading reports from The Cradle and from the Syrian SANA, the Syrian agency-

Mark Taliano: The Cradle’s very good.

Hrvoje Morić: And that 80% of Syrian oil is being taken. We got US forces illegally in the northeast of Syria taking 80% of oil, which is insane. Mark, what would you say are the latest developments in Syria? From my vantage point, it seems like there’s a war of attrition. That Syria is between a rock and a hard place. They don’t have enough leverage to do anything. They don’t have enough power themselves, nor from their allies at the moment. So it’s sort of like this waiting game. I did see the, I don’t know, it was a minister or the head of the UAE visit Syria recently. It seems like the UAE maybe is wanting to reconcile with Syria. And I did see just this week that The Cradle reported the Assad refused to meet with that slippery snake, Erdogan. And so what are your thoughts on where we’re currently at with Syria?

Mark Taliano: Well, chaos. But, the legitimate government is still in power so that’s a victory in and of itself. All of the people are suffering from this war being waged on it, this terror war, which is why the war on terror is the opposite. We are not waging war on terror, we are supporting the terrorists. So Erdogan is NATO, but there’s sometimes cross-cutting alliances. He wants land so Bashar is right to reject him. It’s like, how can you make agreements with other countries when they have a proven record of not abiding by agreements? That applies to Washington and Canada as well. So, Russia has played a big factor. The terrorists were increasing continuously until Russia came in.

And then Russia was able to put a stop to it. But as you say, Washington is still occupying oil fields. Washington is still stealing oil fields. The imperial goal is still to partition and hence destroy. But it’s also an information war, because I think that if more people were aware of what’s going on that… Well, there are a lot of people aware of it. So your question is, where are they going now? The sanctions need to be lifted. They’re entirely based upon a fake pretext. The Caesar photos were from Western sources. All the source information that we get is from Western sources. For example, the White Helmets are a propaganda construct. And we get information from Al-Qaeda because White Helmets are Al-Qaeda. And people say, ooh, that can’t be. Well, Tulsi Gabbard admitted it. Do we have time? How much more time do we have?

Hrvoje Morić: We have about eight or nine minutes.

Mark Taliano: Okay. So can I read you briefly what Tulsi said?

Hrvoje Morić: Sure.

Mark Taliano: Because I’m getting back to the notion that everything has been admitted by the West. I mean, John Kirby was caught on tape saying, Well, we were waiting for ISIS to push and maybe ISIS could put pressure on Assad. Well, this is what Tulsi said publicly: “We were all lied to. This is the betrayal, this is the betrayal to the American people, to me, to my fellow service members. We were all lied to, told Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was working with Al-Qaeda and posed a threat to the American people. I enlisted after 9/11 to protect our country, to go after those who attacked us on that fateful day.” That’s another story, 9/11. “And took the lives of thousands of Americans. The problem is that this current president is continuing to betray us.

We were supposed to be going after Al-Qaeda. But over the years, not only have we not gone after Al-Qaeda, who is stronger now today than 9/11, our president is supporting Al-Qaeda.” And I have many other quotes from Western sources. So if people were to understand that Empire uses proxies to prosecute its wars, and that would be a big step forward. And then they could tie it into Ukraine because Empire is using Nazis in Ukraine. Just as they use Isis in Al-Qaeda, in Syria and beyond, Iraq, Libya, wherever they need proxies, the database, they’re using Nazis in Ukraine. And that’s a longstanding CIA project since after the war to foster Nazism. Where there’s a national day to revere Stefan Bandera, who was a villain, a Nazi collaborator, participated in the Holocaust atrocities, as many others did. But that’s a different story, isn’t it?

Hrvoje Morić: Yeah.

Mark Taliano: Go ahead. Go ahead.

Hrvoje Morić: I was going to say, I talked about that with Thierry Meyssan a while back. He was talking about how a third of the military Ukrainian forces are Nazi as of… And I did just want to mention, Francis Boyle, he does good work on the Middle East. I was actually using his book, Destroying Libya and World Order as partial assigned reading in my courses. And in that book, I really like that he details how… I think he’s met Gaddafi. But why Russia, through Libya to the Dogs in 2011. And we had that, I think it was the UN… Was it 1973, the resolution to allow NATO to go in and bomb Libya because Russia back from the-

Mark Taliano: Yeah, with limitations.

Hrvoje Morić: Right. And that Russia was not, and China, in 2011 they were not strong enough. Russia was too weak. They could not do anything. And so they just had to let Libya go. But as you say, by a few years later, Russia was able to build itself up, and look where we are now. And so I thought that was interesting. And you mentioned as well the plan. There’s a 1979 Bernard Lewis plan. He was Council Foreign Relations. He published this map of a dismembered Syria. And there was a NATO war game map from 2004, Ralph Peterson. Also, it shows like Iraq dismembered, Sudan in two parts, Iran Balkanized. And then you’ve got the Clinton emails.

People can go read the declassified from the State Department talking about Libya, how they were discussing in Hillary Clinton’s emails Gaddafi’s wealth, massive oil, his massive gold and silver that they wanted to take. But just, this is from what I’m recalling from memory, but the propaganda, just your thought on that because it’s so bad. [inaudible 00:29:48] I just had a really bad experience. I’ve been attacked by American Christians, they’ve attacked me. And I’m also an American Christian. And these American Christians have called me an anti-American conspiracy theorist for attempting, like in your book, you talk about to defend Syrian Christians. In your book, you tell US-sponsored Jihadis were attempting to kill Syrian Christians. So the propaganda and the information war, it’s so bad.

Mark Taliano: Okay, wakey-wakey Christians. Bashar al-Assad saved Christianity in Syria. Our proxies behead and slaughter Christians. Okay? I went to St Takla, I saw all the damage. They slaughter Christians as policy. They’re sectarian terrorists. And the Christians in Syria wonder why they’re not getting more support from their fellow Christians. And I can guarantee you if President Assad, and this includes most Syrians who support Christianity, it’s not a sectarian country. It’s a very pluralist, democratically- oriented country, which is supportive of all religions. Unlike the opposing terrorists supported by the West, off with their heads, Alawaites to the grave Christians to Beirut. Okay, so the Christians… Sorry, that’s the story. I mean, the West supports sectarian terrorists. ISIS, Al-Qaeda, they slaughter Christians. They have other ethnic groups they slaughter.

They want to clear the land for while they’re working on behalf of Empire, even though some of them probably don’t even realize it. But they’re the worst of the worst. And this is what our countries are supporting beneath this smokescreen of war propaganda, which also is criminal. As it should be. But mainstream is just regurgitating lies that it gets from Al Qaeda because the White Helmets are embedded with Al-Qaeda and ISIS. Whenever a place is liberated, the White Helmets go with the terrorists. They don’t stay with the government. They’re there to spin narratives, but they’re also terrorists. They’re carrying guns and so on. But they’re there to spin narratives, war criminal, war propaganda narrative. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, their primary source of information is Al-Qaeda, White Helmets. Okay? White Helmets also engage in military operations with equipment provided by Canada to detect when planes are coming over. So these people need to understand they’re sectarian terrorists, just like they need to understand there are Nazis in Ukraine, which they don’t understand that.

Hrvoje Morić: And Mark-

Mark Taliano: So you have for… Yeah?

Hrvoje Morić: Just to say we’ve got about a minute and a half left.

Mark Taliano: Okay.

Hrvoje Morić: So if you want to just give us any final thought and then remind us again best places to find your work, to subscribe to your channel and so forth.

Mark Taliano: So you can get the first edition off of Global Research, and also the second edition. But that’s only in PDF, but it’s also in Arabic. If you speak Arabic, you can get it from the co-author, Basma Qaddour. It’s also in German (hard copy). You can get it there. It’s in the German language. The first edition is in German and English. The second edition is in English PDF, and hard copy in Arabic. And one thing is, I talked to a soldier and, we’re wondering how this could ever happen, with the slaughtering of Christians and our governments (Western governments) are supporting it. And he said, and I think he’s right, “We have to teach the children the truth because they’re not getting the truth.” And all this warfare, permanent warfare is also coming back to us in terms of that’s where our money is going. And now more and more, we ourselves are being oppressed and impoverished.

Hrvoje Morić: Yeah, that’s a great…

Mark Taliano: Yeah, we need to teach the children the truth and stop this impoverishing, dysfunctional foreign policy.

Hrvoje Morić: A great final thought. Thank you, Mark, Voices from Syria marktaliano.net. I’m signing off. Keep staying tuned here on TNT.

*

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.

Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017. He writes on his website where this interview was originally published.

Featured image is from Mideast Discourse

---

Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.

**Voices from Syria**

Author: Mark Taliano

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-9-1

Year: 2017

Product Type: PDF File

List Price: $6.50

Special Offer: $5.00 

Click to order.

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.

***

I have pointed out previously that the reason I consider Russian reports on the Ukraine conflict to be more reliable than US media is that I have conducted tests, by reading US forecasts suggesting that Russia will lose in Ukraine because of its “weakness,” and then waiting a few months for the Russian forecasts to come true – which they invariably do.  

I have done this numerous times and the Russians have proven each time that they were telling the truth and the US reports were false.  

Yet, the brain-dead West keeps using this threadbare method of “reporting,” simply making up the stories to suit the official narrative showing that the US is superior and Russia is an unworthy adversary or simply regurgitating the narratives coming out of Kiev. Clearly, if Americans could bring themselves to admit the truth, this childish charade would stop. Further, the Pentagon and all elected officials would be unable to make political hay out of the fakes.  

And if politicians were forced to tell the truth, they would lose elections. In fact, if the US grassroots were half-way intelligent, they would stop believing the BS.  

The best example is the narrative from last March that Russia was “running out of missiles.” I personally believe this story may have been concocted by the CIA or other “intelligence” agency, which have long abandoned their respectable role as intel gatherers and now see their role in support of the desired narrative.  

And sure enough, on October 10, over a half-year later, after the appointment of Gen. Sergey Surovikin, Russia began a massive air strike campaign on Ukrainian power infrastructure and military facilities.  

Obviously, the March narrative that Russia was running out of missiles was a false narrative that could not have been based on any real evidence. Meanwhile, Russia has never issued false statements about US weapons. In fact, when Putin announced on March 1, 2018 in his State of the Nation address to the General Assembly, that Russia now possessed untrackable hypersonic weapons, Western journalists howled that the videos he showed to illustrate this lecture were just silly children’s cartoons. They made it clear they didn’t believe this story and in so doing misled the politicians and Pentagon, and even the NATO brass to treat Russia as a second-rate power.  

If US and European officials had known the truth, they never would have provoked Russia invading Ukraine. They would have pressured Kiev to halt the shelling of Donbass and they would have taken steps to reduce the threatening and provocative actions of NATO at the Russian border. Hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved.  

A glaring example of a lie from Western-backed Kiev was the story that the missile that struck and killed 2 Polish farm workers, which Zelensky immediately blamed on Russia. Shortly thereafter, Biden admitted that the missiles came from Ukraine, and then Polish President Andrzei Duda also admitted this, followed by NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg. Despite this, Zelensky stuck to the story that the missile was fired by the Russians.  

Thus the inveterate habit of journalists, of simply lying about Russian power or adopting the tall tales from Kiev, has prolonged the war and killed thousands of soldiers on both sides and amounted to a crime against humanity.  

*

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.

Don Hank is a professional translator and Russian speaker living now in Panama who studied Russian language and literature at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania and studied at Leningrad University in the early 1970s. Don can be reached at [email protected].

Featured image is from TruePublica

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.

***

On New Year’s Eve, December 31st, Dylan Carter of the Brussels Times reported, Volodymyr Kudrytsky, Chairman of the Management Board of Ukraine’s electricity transmission system operator Ukrenergo, said that

“There is no thermal or hydropower plant that has not been damaged. There is no big important substation that is operated by Ukrenergo that was not damaged. Such a massive scale of destruction means that Ukraine severely needs equipment to replace the damaged equipment.”

Carter reported that “Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy says that it is in desperate need of material support from Western nations to repair this damage.”

The next day, on January 1st, Chris King of Euro Weekly News headlined “Latest wave of Russian attacks caused ‘unprecedented’ damage to Ukraine’s energy infrastructure”, and reported that Kudrytsky said today, Sunday, January 1, that Russia’s latest wave of attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure had reached an unprecedented level.

Speaking with the Rada TV channel, he told them:

“The level of damage is unprecedented. It is clear that a fairly large part of the facilities was either damaged or destroyed. And we are talking here not only about Ukrenergo substations but also power plants – thermal, hydroelectric, and thermal power plants”.

He added: “The damage is significant, and it could take months, if not years, to fully restore the energy system”.

Russia is attacking the electrical system in order to slow up the trains that are supplying American and other NATO-supplied weapons to Ukraine’s forces, because almost all of Ukraine’s trains run on electricity; so, this is a way for Russia to soften up Ukraine’s forces for an expected major Russian offensive, which has long been expected to come at some time during the early months of this new year, 2023.

The U.S. and its allies have made clear to Ukraine’s Government that if Ukraine accepts any of Russia’s demands — such as never to restore Donbass and Crimea to Ukraine — then The West will not provide financial resources for Ukraine’s reconstruction after the war, and will abandon all of its assistance to Ukraine. In other words: either Ukraine will defeat Russia 100%, or else Ukraine will be abandoned by The West. There is a wide expectation that if Ukraine becomes abandoned by The West, then its President, Volodmyr Zelensky, will be overthrown and quite possibly even assassinated. In short: Ukraine is waging The West’s war against Russia; and, if Ukraine fails to win The West’s war, then nothing will protect Mr. Zelensky.

*

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.

Featured image is from The Cradle

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.

***

Climate change and protection of biodiversity are sloganized propaganda expressions that are infiltrated in almost every conversation, news cast, public discussion. They must be omni-present to be made “true”. 

Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, said, “if a lie is repeated enough, it becomes the truth.” And we truly lived this omen of lies for truth for many decades and very intensely throughout the last 3 years.

The climate change and biodiversity loss lies are penetrating our brains, as is the diabolical QR code – a key instrument for our enslavement through total control. Most people, still, seem to be so blinded as to scanning with their smart phones almost any QR code they come across – thereby giving away more and more of their most intimate personal details.

*

It is amazing that a majority of people of our beloved Mother Earth still haven’t noticed that we are living in an ever-growing tyranny since the beginning of 2020. A dictatorship that has been planned for many decades, if not longer. And it started around the globe, in all 193 UN member countries (194 WHO members) at midnight of December 31, 2019.

The transition from 2019 to 2020 – the ringing-in of the New Year, was also the beginning of UN Agenda 2030, earlier called Agenda 21 – WHO’s “Decade of Vaccination”, meaning also a decade of massive population reduction, of a well-planned and orchestrated mass genocide; of the Great Reset, supposedly leading in 10 years to Klaus Schwab’s infamous slogan – “You will own nothing but will be happy”.

The year 2020 is the beginning of a crime that has no name. Its gravity behooves an expression way beyond “atrocity”. Mind you, it was prepared by a long hand.

Those who have not been touched by it, cannot imagine.

Those who are suffering from it, many of them cannot speak or express themselves anymore.

And many who would like to speak out are censored, or otherwise silenced.

That’s the extent of the monstrosity descended on us – humanity.

*

The surviving population may be either chipped by the end of ten years (2030), or otherwise transhumanized, mind manipulable – most likely through the massive introduction of 5G ultra-shortwaves, in combination with the vaxx-injected graphene oxide or other highly magnetic and often deadly concoctions.

That’s the Plan. But, always remember – We, the People, can stop it.

The worldwide 5G network is also a key instrument to develop and advance Klaus Schwab’s 4^th Industrial Revolution, the digitization of everything, including our brains, every record of our most intimated details of our lives, and our money – all, especially the latter, is already in process in most of Europe and to some extent also in the US.

Digitized money is devoid of cash. You will no longer be in control of your money. The plan is to replace “cash” by Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) which will be managed and surveyed, first by national Central Banks, later by a globalized Central Bank, according to the One World Order – with regional subsidiaries.

In which case, our money can be turned on and off, or made to expire, or programmed for purchasing special goods or services, as the Dark Cult feels fit, or as they believe you may deserve it, according your “good” or “bad” behavior.

That’s the direction we are going, if We, the People, do not stop it NOW. There is no time to lose.

For those who are not yet on the bandwagon of awakened people, these are not conspiracy theories but a die-hard reality.

Becoming actively involved in steering the vessel into the direction of light and awareness is urgent.

Call for Resistance

One of the purposes of this article or warning is a call to jump on the train of enlightenment and grow in togetherness into a critical mass to resist this sledgehammer tyranny.

As these lines are written, “their” – the diabolical Clan’s – intent is to enslave and control us all with a full digital identity containing all our medical and other most intimate data. The QR code, already widely in use and activated, is a perfect vehicle for an all-inclusive digital ID.

A digital ID will allow the tyrants to trace your every step, as well as your environmental footprint. If your “e-footprint” is considered too large, you may be warned, and eventually punished – your digital bank account may be turned off, or reduced or blocked. Whatever the “authorities” choose to do to make you submissive.

WHO is also preparing, in a non-transparent onslaught of World Health Assembly Meetings, a so-called Pandemic Treaty – which, if approved, will take control worldwide of all matters concerning “health” – over and above sovereign nations’ Constitutions. We may be force-vaxxed, if WHO so decides – and country governments would have no choice, but going along.

Mind you, the financial powers behind WHO are foremost the pharma-industry and Gates Foundation. WHO, a so-called UN agency, is the epitome of corruption.

The WHO member-governments’ choice is NOW – during the World Health Assembly high-pressure meetings. They could and should, humanely they MUST say NO, to this deadly treaty, of which one of the goals is massive population reduction – from what we have seen in the past three years – WHO is poised to commit a crime and crimes of proportions that have no name.

*

And there is the ever agenda of climate change and biodiversity .

The climate change hoax and depopulation agenda has a long history. It started with the Club of Rome which was created in 1968, basically as a Rockefeller idea, by this trio Aurelio Peccei, Alexander King, and David Rockefeller.

In 1972 – 50 years ago – The Club of Rome published the book, Limits to Growth. The book warned that the Earth’s resources would not be able to support the exponential rates of economic and population growth and would collapse before the end of this century.

Having said this, the last century has come and gone – and the world has not collapsed. Nevertheless, the same people and their successors keep saying today, in 2022, that the message of this book still holds. They pretend that the earth’s interlocking resources – the global system of nature in which we all live – probably cannot support present rates of economic and population growth much beyond the year 2100, if that long, even with advanced technology.

Hardly anybody who lives today will be alive in 2100 to testify whether they are right or wrong. But as past records indicate – they will be dead wrong… and We, the People, have to be aware of the built-in lie, of whatever comes out of the Club or Rome climate and depopulation predictions. Mind you and be aware, such forecasts serve the elite of the rich and powerful.

Such statements are clearly setting the stage for justifying a massive depopulation genocide, the beginning of which we are experiencing since the start of the Decade 2020. Depopulation and massive deindustrialization were the motives for a false pandemic, into which the world has been plunged.

The result is a wave of massive bankruptcies, unemployment misery and death – as well as death from an intense campaign of coercive “vaccination”; not from covid, but from injections that have nothing to do with disease prevention. This, in the meantime, is even admitted by the perpetrators, including the pharma industry which extracted, or stole, billions and billions of dollars from public treasuries for vaxxes that kill.

Amazingly, so far, they have gotten away with it. An extensive world-wide criminal trial à la Nuremberg 2.0 is overdue.

Starting with the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the ‘Earth Summit‘, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the Climate Change hoax began actively to be propagated, and that repeated almost on an annual basis by the so-called Conferences of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or simply called COP.

Image: Venue of COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh. (Licensed under CC BY 2.0)

In November 2022, COP27 took place in Sham El-Sheik, Egypt, with similar results of all the previous ones, zero concrete or binding agreements. Some 35,000 participants flew in from around the globe, many heads of Government or other high-level political, business, or other oligarchy pundits. Hundreds, if not thousands in their fuel-guzzling private jets, for two weeks of wining and dining, leaving behind an environmental footprint, worse than what most medium-sized countries could produce in a year.

Mind you, these monster meetings are for environmental protection. They are to tell the world that our excess energy consumption will lead us soon into Armageddon – unless, we the common people will drastically reduce our standard of living.

Be sure, these life and comfort limitations, never concern the oligarchs and elite industrialists – and always excluded and never to be mentioned is the military, by far the largest single user of hydrocarbons and producer of CO2, so that the war machine can and must roll on, undisturbed.

Again, this points to massive depopulation, to an eugenist agenda, and to a gigantic transfer of resources from the bottom and the middle to the top.

Since more and more people are waking up, as they are smelling the lies, deceptions and cheats behind it all, drastic measures were decided behind closed doors at COP27, to be imposed upon the world as surprises, to make sure there is no escaping.

Climate Change Lockdowns is one of them. Can you imagine? – This follows the Plandemic precedent of 2020, when people were intimidated and locked down with fear, so they would obey – for their own good, of course – all the subsequent orders and mandates, notably being vaxxed with deadly poison injection – trials of DNI-modifying mRNA-jabs, with massive side effects, many of them fatal. The death count will increase, as time goes by. See also several statements to this effect by Michael Yeadon, former VP and Chief Science at Pfizer.

See this, this and this (or watch below).

The climate lockdowns have already started. In the UK, residents of Oxfordshire may soon need a special permit to go from one “zone” of the city to another. Under this “15-minute city” agenda, to travel to another district, requires a special permit. But the permit allows to go from one zone to another only for 100 days a year. If this plan goes through – and We, the People, can stop it – the districts main roads will be equipped with myriads of electronic gates, registering car license plates or other compulsory electronic devises installed on vehicles.

In the same vein, France, literally with the “permission” of Brussels EU dictatorship, has decided to completely ban certain short-haul flights in an attempt to reduce carbon emissions. Such restrictions may soon come to other countries.

We, the common people should take the train rather than the plane – giving a blind eye to all the execs jetting with their private jets from meeting to meeting around the globe. – It is amazing that the French people haven’t stood up yet to protest, for example, to boycott French airlines altogether.

An outright horror scenario is brewing.

But it mustn’t happen, because We, the People can stop it. If in masses we stand up confronting the power, we are more powerful than the dictatorial authorities.

Biodiversity – a parallel and back-up measure of repression

The next step is preventing the human destruction of biodiversity by “excess” emissions of CO2. “The Greens”, who have become the neo-fascists, attempt to make us believe that we are producing so much CO2 that not only changes the climate, but much worse, we are destroying Mother Earth’s biodiversity. We are responsible for the death of millions and millions of plants, insect and animal species.

But nobody tells you that in the same space of time, millions and millions of new species, plants, insects and animals emerge. It’s a constant cycle. Also called the cycle of life. It never stops. It has nothing to do with CO2 – and less so with man-made CO2, which amounts to less than 0.05% of all CO2 generated, mostly by the planet’s oceans and rain forests. Be aware – CO2 is essential for life. Without it, life could not exist.

Our planet Earth is part of the Cycle of Life. Climate is influenced almost exclusively by sun activities. When they stop or slow down, the climate cools down. Most references to this effect were readily available on internet, but in the recent wave of censuring the truth, they have been “fact-checked” away.

The goal is “zero-sum CO2 emissions”. Whatever that means, it is totally senseless. But, again, 24×7 propaganda has people bend over, feel guilty, scared – and ready to obey any oppressive mandates in order to save the planet.

What the Green fascist agenda is actually promoting is exactly the contrary of what they say. Since CO2 is a vital chemical compound for life on earth, eliminating it, is eliminating biodiversity.

*

Time is running fast.

We, the People, have to act fast, in unison, in a critical mass, to stop this ever-stronger emerging tyranny.

We can do it, by starting small again, at the commune level, expanding progressively into groups of communes, trading with each other – and, thus growing slowly, but healthily and freely.

*

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. 

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 United States — as announced last month[1] — began to send new B61-12 nuclear bombs to Italy and other European countries. A U.S. Air Force Department official document confirms this.

The document establishes “safety rules for C-17 airlift operations transporting B61-12 weapons in the U.S. European Command area of responsibility.” That area, in the Pentagon’s geography, includes not only Europe but the entire Russian Federation.

The document specifies which nuclear weapons are carried on C -17 Globe-masters, the largest U.S. military transport aircraft.  The airplane carries the B61-12 nuclear bombs from the United States to Europe and from Europe to the United States the bombs replacing the B61-3, B61-4, and B61-7. In fact, a single B61-12 has four power options depending on the target to be hit. The C-17 Globemasters – the document again specifies – also carry other nuclear weapons: the B61-11, W78, W80-1, B83-1, and W87-0.

The safety standards listed in the document confirm the dangerous nature of loading, transporting, and unloading nuclear weapons. There may be “the likelihood of fire from an aircraft with nuclear weapons on board” and a failure of the aircraft while in. flight that forces “an emergency landing” or the “release of nuclear weapons”.

The deployment on our national territory of the new U.S. nuclear bombs – first-strike weapons with precision guidance and anti-bunker capabilities, with which F-35 fighter jets, in particular, will be equipped – exposes Italy to the front lines of the increasingly dangerous confrontation between NATO and Russia. In doing so, Italy violates the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, ratified in 1975, which states, “Each of the militarily non-nuclear states undertakes not to receive from anyone nuclear weapons, directly or indirectly.”

The episode closes with an interview with Vladimir Kozin, one of Russia’s leading experts on politico-military issues, and historian Franco Cardini on the silence of the Italian government and parliament and the historical phase we are living through.

*

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).

Note

[1] View  November 4 Grandangolo https://www.byoblu.com/2022/11/04/sotto-lalbero-di-natalela-nuova-bomba-nucleare-usa-b61-12-grandangolo-pangea/

New Year in London: Mass Poverty Is Deeply Rooted. Ongoing Praise for NATO Militarization Ukraine

By Kurt Nimmo, January 02, 2023

The traditional London New Year fireworks display last night was dedicated to a dead queen and neo-Nazis on the endangered list in Ukraine. Let’s call it what it is—a perverse acclamation for a dead monarch and genocidal maniacs in Ukraine.

Vivienne Westwood: Activism and the Godmother of Punk

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, January 02, 2023

For Westwood, fashion was always meant to be a spear for change.  But as she noted in her autobiography, one jointly aided by the pen of Ian Kelly, “When I turned around, on the barricades, there was no one there.  That was how it felt.  They were just pogoing.  So I lost interest.” The kids, in other words, just wanted the gear without manifesting any grand idea; this was the confrontation of fashion without any enduring consequences.

New Israeli Government: Far-right or Racist?

By Jamal Kanj, January 02, 2023

Hanukkah 2022 would be remembered as the holiday when Israeli voters snuffed the Menorah candles and welcomed darkness by electing a refurbished Jewish version of the Taliban government. Tel Aviv mayor, Ron Huldai, characterized it as being a shift “from a (Jewish) democracy to a theocracy.”

From Sri Lanka to Salinas

By Thomas Buckley, January 02, 2023

Ah, Sri Lanka. In 2020: a beautiful, agriculturally self-sufficient island nation full of tea and tourists and holder of the highest “Environmental, Social, and Governance” (ESG) investor rating in the world.

Africa in Review 2022: Mounting Challenges Require Long Term Solutions

By Abayomi Azikiwe, January 02, 2023

A report in the Voice of America, the public international news service for the United States State Department, said that there were troop movements by the State of Eritrea from areas in the Tigray province of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia where a war has been waged over the last two years.

Truth, Truths and Consequences: A Happier New Year in the Offing

By Dr. Emanuel Garcia, January 02, 2023

As a new year dawns, these past three years of Covidian deception weigh heavily, and the cumulative weight of this deception is staggering. What have we learned? What have we suffered? What good can come out of this assault upon our rights to our own bodies and mobility and freedom of expression, undertaken globally? What truth – or truths – have emerged from so many lies?

Seventy Years of U.S. Destabilisation in China. U.S. Sponsored Uyghur Insurgency in Xinjiang

By Shane Quinn, January 02, 2023

China’s exit in October 1949, from the sphere of US control, was perhaps the heaviest blow to strike American post-World War II global hegemony. China’s successful drive for independence had been anticipated in Washington for many months.

The 64th Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution: An Unprecedented Chapter in World History

By Dr. Birsen Filip, January 02, 2023

Today, Cubans are commemorating the 64th  anniversary of their independence. On this day in 1959, the Cuban Revolution was successfully conducted by Fidel Castro’s 26th of July Movement and became an enduring symbol of resistance to neo-colonialism, capitalism, and hegemony. As a result, Cuba’s corrupt and brutal dictator, Fulgencio Batista (1901-1973), who had the full backing of the US government, left the island and escaped to the Dominican Republic, along with some of his loyal supporters.

Russia Consolidates in East Mediterranean

By M. K. Bhadrakumar, January 01, 2023

The curtain is coming down on the brutal 11-year old Syrian conflict, which former US President and Nobel Laureate Barack Obama initiated, as the Arab Spring swept through West Asia two decades ago. The United States has suffered yet another big setback in West Asia as the year 2022 draws to a close. The unfolding Turkish-Syrian reconciliation process under Russian mediation is to be seen as a saga of betrayal and vengeance. 

Extremist Christian Militia in Lebanon May Ignite a New Civil War

By Steven Sahiounie, January 01, 2023

In Ashrafieh, the wealthy Christian neighborhood in east Beirut, there is a group of 300 young, muscular, and bearded men patrolling the streets from 6 pm. to 6 am. as part of Neighborhood Watch, but they have an extremist Christian ideology which many have termed neo-fascist. They call the group the Soldiers of God, and its members refer to themselves as the Guardian Angels.

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 was the punk scene, Malcolm McLaren, their racy clothes shop at 430 King’s Road that started out as Let it Rock, the creation of a look, and the gathering of the earth rumbling Sex Pistols.  In fact, the late Dame Vivienne Westwood was already a proven stirrer, suggesting that she, not Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon, a.k.a Johnny Rotten, came up with the title for the barnstorming “Anarchy in the UK”.  Boldly, she claimed that prior to McLaren and herself, there was no punk.

The Westwood look became ubiquitous with enthusiastic teens of the late 1970s, the use of studs, clothes replete with antisocial indignation, and the jarring, spiky hair to match.  In the opinion of Dame Zandra Rhodes, “We’d had flower power… then suddenly you had this very-hard hitting punk.”

In her 2014 memoir, Viv Albertine of Slits fame offered a striking description of aspects of Westwood costumery: “mohair jumpers, knitted on big needles, so loosely that you can see all the way through them, T-shirts slashed and written on by hand, seams and labels on the outside, showing the construction of the piece.”

For Westwood, fashion was always meant to be a spear for change.  But as she noted in her autobiography, one jointly aided by the pen of Ian Kelly, “When I turned around, on the barricades, there was no one there.  That was how it felt.  They were just pogoing.  So I lost interest.” The kids, in other words, just wanted the gear without manifesting any grand idea; this was the confrontation of fashion without any enduring consequences.

Such a pattern would follow through the decades. The activist and designer were not always seen as one.  Instead, Westwood was anointed as a cultural engenderer of daring haute couture rather than activist grenade thrower.  But she made it clear that she was in fashion for only one reason: “to destroy the word ‘conformity’.”  Far from being a mere designer of fashion, she “wished to confront the rotten status quo” via that medium.

The official website draws upon a busy life beyond design, speaking about activism over two decades in support of “hundreds of causes, NGOs, grassroot charities and campaigns, including Amnesty International, War Child and Liberty” in addition to launching the campaigning movement Climate Revolution.

Westwood’s environmental edge impressed PETA’s founder, Ingrid Newkirk.  “She was an early adopter of PETA’s fur-free ethos, choosing to donate her brand’s remaining rabbit fur bags to a wildlife sanctuary, and shed exotic things from her collections years ago.”

In 2013, she told The Daily Mail that she could not talk about fashion.  “I’m too preoccupied with using it as a vehicle for talking about climate change, which is an incredible danger.  Everybody who’s eco-conscious is fighting the revolution and of course we need to get more people involved, to pressure the governments, to sort this out, because we have to sort this out.”

In 2018, on receiving the Excellence Award at the Ischia Film & Music Global Fest, Westwood declared that fashion, in her mind, had ceased being as important as the issue of the day.  At the very least, she was bored with it.  “We have an enormous global problem: our politicians are not listening to our scientists.  We have barely 20 years to stop things, otherwise we shall reach a tipping point and we can draw a line across the earth and everywhere below Paris will be uninhabitable.  By the end of this century we will be only one billion people.”

While eco-guerrilla activism was foremost in her mind, Westwood’s activist tent proved capacious.  WikiLeaks and Assange can certainly express some gratitude for Westwood’s fire-breathing dedication.  After his 40^th birthday celebrations, she would make regular cycle visits to the Ecuadorian embassy, where the WikiLeaks founder remained an asylee tenant for seven years.  As with her other causes, she managed to combine heavy-accented symbolism with a fashion statement, the catwalk repurposed for radical transparency.  In 2012, she created a unisex “I’m Julian Assange” T-shirt, available for purchase for £40.

As extradition proceedings mounted by the United States became ever more serious for Assange, Westwood was again on the scene.  In 2020, during trial proceedings, she spent part of a day suspended in a cage outside the Old Bailey in London, kitted up in a yellow suit to signify the canary in the coalmine.  “If the canary died, they all got out. Julian Assange is in a cage and he needs to get out.  Don’t extradite to America.”

Westwood protests against the extradition of Julian Assange to the US, outside London’s Old Bailey Court in 2020. CREDIT:AP

Little wonder that Assange is now seeking leave from the authorities in Belmarsh Prison to attend her funeral.  Given the practice of UK institutions, specifically regarding Assange, this dispensation is unlikely to be granted.

Westwood also left a touching tribute to Assange’s wife, Stella: a wedding dress.  In of itself, it was a striking statement of fashion and the act of naughty defiance and constant mischief: the publisher’s partner dressed in the activist’s genius.

*

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: Vivienne Westwood (Source: Flickr)

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 a fair world, Aruna Rodrigues would be heralded as an incredible individual for her ongoing struggle to protect the socio-economic and environmental integrity of India. So says respected environmentalist, author and campaigner Leo Saldanha.

He adds:

“Since 2005, she has tirelessly pursued a public interest litigation before the Supreme Court of India, in which she has made a case why India should not yield to pressures from mega agri-transnational corporations and certain sections of the Indian agricultural sector who are keen on promoting genetically modified organisms in farming.”

India’s apex regulatory body, the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee, recently sanctioned genetically modified (GM) mustard for cultivation. This would be India’s first GM food crop, despite a public interest litigation (PIL) before the Supreme Court to prevent cultivation as well as the widespread rejection of GM mustard by farmers’ organisations.

Aruna Rodrigues, the lead petitioner of the PIL, has exposed in her various submissions to court that claims about yield increases through GM mustard to be completely baseless. She indicates how data has been rigged and manipulated and protocols have been severely compromised, and that the government and its regulators are parroting the false claims of the crop developers.

Thanks to the PIL, the Supreme Court stayed the commercial release of GM Mustard on 3 November 2022.

Independent experts who have looked at the biosafety data submitted by the crop developer at Delhi University have clearly pointed out that GM mustard has not been tested rigorously and adequately.

India is a centre for diversity for mustard and several high-level official committees have recommended against transgenic technologies in crops for which the country is the centre of origin or centre of diversity.

Various high-level reports have also advised against introducing GM food crops to India per se. These reports conclude that GM crops are unsuitable for India and that biosafety and regulatory procedures are wholly inadequate.

Rodrigues also played a leading role in preventing commercial cultivation of GM brinjal more than a decade ago. Her tireless efforts have been a thorn in the side of global agritech corporations and seriously compromised regulatory officials who have for the best part of two decades been trying to get GM food crops cultivated in India.

There is much at stake.

India has a lot to lose, not least its food and seed sovereignty and contamination of its crops as well as the risks genetically modified organisms (GMOs) pose to human health.

The industry has much to gain.

Global biotech corporations like Bayer and Corteva are seeking to increase their control over the future of food and farming by extensively patenting plants and developing a new generation of GMOs.

They seek to claim all plants with those genetic traits as their ‘invention’.  Such patents on plants would restrict farmers’ access to seeds and impede breeders from developing new plants as both would have to ask for consent and pay fees to the biotech companies.

According to an October 2022 report, the global GM crop and seed market is projected to reach $46 billion by 2027. That is up from an estimated US$30.6 billion in 2020. The US market is estimated at $8.4 billion, while China is forecast to reach a projected market size of US$10 billion by the year 2027.

Key global players include AgReliant Genetics LLC, BASF SE, Bayer Crop Science, Canterra Seeds Holdings, DLF Seeds & Science and Corteva (Dow/DuPont).

If India succumbs to pressure, that figure of $46 billion by 2027 could be much larger. With 1.4 billion people, India represents a massive financially lucrative cash cow.

For instance, Goldstein Research pushes pro-GM industry talking points and laments about resistance to GM food seeds as it is hindering the growth of India’s GM seed market. Even so, it forecasts that the Indian GM seed market is set to reach US$13.1 billion by 2025 (cotton is the only legally sanctioned GM crop in India at this time).

GM mustard is regarded as a pioneering food crop in India – it would open the floodgates for many other GM food crops that are in the pipeline under a veil of secrecy, including wheat, rice, brinjal and chickpea.

But – it seems – genuine science stands in the way. GM mustard is unwanted, unneeded and fails to stand up to scientific rigour.

Maybe that is why, in December 2020, the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) prevented serving and former public officials from expressing any opinion or writing any article on the approval to release GM mustard. This is a ‘gag order’ and an attempt to close down debate on the matter and to keep the public in the dark on the issue.

Trade and agriculture policy specialist Devinder Sharma says that silencing scientific voices indicates there is more to hide than reveal. He says that every claim that the ICAR makes about GM mustard can be challenged. And it has been – in court. Sharma adds that the US is placing tremendous pressure on India to embrace GM crops.

In finishing, let us turn to where this article began – with Aruna Rodrigues.

Leo Saldanha, who is mentioned at the start of this article, is forthright on the Change.org website in condemning a recent attack on Rodrigues.

Due to Rodrigues, Saldanha says the Supreme Court has time and again questioned the enthusiasm with which the Indian government and several public institutions have collaborated, questionably and controversially, in promoting GM foods and crops.

Just before Christmas, however, Aruna Rodrigues was unexpectedly forcibly evicted from her ancestral home by the Indian army. The Defence Estate Office is the custodian of all military properties of India and is required to secure such properties by following the due process of law.

Saldanha notes that Rodrigues’ home has been with her family from 1892 – legally secured via proper sale deeds. But about 27 years ago, the Defence Estate Office made a claim on the house. This claim was challenged, and the matter has been in court since then. Consequently, any action against the occupant should be only through due process of law.

On 20 December 2022, a court ruled that Aruna Rodrigues has occupation rights to the house. Yet the Defence Estate Officer moved into the house with army personnel – without any court directive – and physically removed her and threw the contents of the house onto the street. Within hours, a court ruled in Rodrigues favour. By then, however, the damage had been done.

As Saldanha says, we can only wonder whether any of this is connected to Rodrigues’ case before the Supreme Court. Given the billions of dollars at stake for the global agritech companies, it would indeed be wise to wonder.

*

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.

Renowned author Colin Todhunter specialises in development, food and agriculture. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) in Montreal.

---

Read Colin Todhunter’s e-Book entitled

Food, Dispossession and Dependency. Resisting the New World Order

We are currently seeing an acceleration of the corporate consolidation of the entire global agri-food chain. The high-tech/big data conglomerates, including Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Google, have joined traditional agribusiness giants, such as Corteva, Bayer, Cargill and Syngenta, in a quest to impose their model of food and agriculture on the world.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is also involved (documented in ‘Gates to a Global Empire‘ by Navdanya International), whether through buying up huge tracts of farmland, promoting a much-heralded (but failed) ‘green revolution’ for Africa, pushing biosynthetic food and genetic engineering technologies or more generally facilitating the aims of the mega agri-food corporations.

Click here to read.

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.

***

Hanukkah 2022 would be remembered as the holiday when Israeli voters snuffed the Menorah candles and welcomed darkness by electing a refurbished Jewish version of the Taliban government. Tel Aviv mayor, Ron Huldai, characterized it as being a shift “from a (Jewish) democracy to a theocracy.”

Benjamin Netanyahu, indicted on bribery and fraud, coalesced with established corrupt politicians to form the most overt Jewish nationalist government.

To win his premiership, Netanyahu had to literary custom design ministerial portfolios to satisfy the insatiable demands of competing eccentric coalition members. On December 27, the Israeli Knesset passed several legislative amendments allowing convicted criminals to serve in the government, and bifurcated the ministry of defense into three offices.

One amendment granted Bezalel Smotrich of the Religious Zionism party―and in addition to his finance ministry― the post of second minister in the defense ministry with administrative role over the expansion of “Jewish only” colonies in the occupied West Bank.

Second, a basic law amendment modified the defense ministry bestowing border police oversight to national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir of the Jewish Power party, Otzma Yehudit.

Then, the “Deri law” allowed Aryeh Deri of Shas party to become interior and health minister despite criminal conviction records. Deri spent 22 months at Ma’asiyahu prison out of a three-year sentence for tax fraud and taking bribes while serving as interior minister in a previous Israeli government.

Throughout history corrupt political demagogues succeed by overindulging self-pride, paranoia, and scapegoating the “other.” The rise of Trumpism in the US was an exemplary illustration of the power of lies to germinate racial division and herd mentality. Narcissist leaders master the concoction of dissatisfaction, racial exceptionalism, constructed tribal insecurity, and blaming the perceived outsider to justify injustice and oppression.

Like Trumpism, from the border wall to sullying Mexicans, blacks and Muslims, the Israeli election was centered on siege mentality galvanizing the crowd’s worst human instinct. Political Israeli pundits competed on a parochial platform to validate their Zionist’s credentials by promising to exact the most hardship on Palestinians and relegate them irrelevant.

For example, the alternating prime minister of the “less” ex-rightwing Israeli government, Naftali Bennett boasted during election campaigns on killing “lots” of Palestinians, and bragging that “there is absolutely no problem with that.“

The outgoing Israeli government of Yair Lapid/Bennet according to a UN report on December 15, 2022, had presided over “the deadliest” year of “settler violence and excessive use of force by Israeli forces against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.”

A murdering wave crowned by the assassination of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, and more than 200 Palestinians, including approximately 50 children.

Nonetheless, Israeli voters opted for the promise of more brazen Zionist credentials instantiated by Netanyahu’s customized coalition.

Lamenting his election loss, Lapid, castigated the new Israeli government as “the most corrupt ever,” accusing the new national security minister, Ben Gvir, as “a violent criminal with 53 indictments and 8 convictions for serious offenses,” and Avi Moaz as “a dark racist, a man who . . . has blacklists of LGBTQ people and activists in women’s organizations.”

Moaz the leader of Noam party, a Jewish version of ISIS, is an admitted homophobe and misogynist who believes woman’s place is at home. Smotrich, like Moaz, is a “Jewish” flip side of diehard white racists, he opposes mixed marriage or selling homes to non-Jew. Ben Gvir, the Jewish Power party and the law minister, espouses analogical racial bigotry embraced by “white power” supremacists in the West.

Despite their flagrant racist platforms, Western media is unwilling to ascribe proper racist adjectives to describe the Israeli government, and instead use euphemistic terms like “far-right,” in an apparent attempt to rehabilitate Israeli racism.

Chuck Tod of NBC Meet the Press, inaugurated Netanyahu’s anticipated US media round on December 4, providing him a stage to explain his new coalition, and deftly avoiding to challenge Netanyahu as he does when he interviews rightwing Republicans.

On December 28, the Wall Street Journal offered its pages to professed “proud homophobe,” Smotrich, to whitewash his bigotry just one day before he was sworn in to be Israeli finance minister.

Western progressives don’t hesitate condemning racist forces in their own governments. Yet, many vacillate when it comes to speaking out against Israeli racism. Most choose to be silenced rather than risking the misused antisemite label. Apologists for bigoted Israeli governments in the US, like AIPAC, ADL et al., should not be allowed to define antisemitism, much as white supremacists could not define racism.

The challenge remains for major American Jewish civil rights organizations to either bluntly accept Israeli racism as a necessary evil for the survival of the only “Jewish” nation, or decouple Jewish values from self-professed misogynists, declared racists, Islamophobes and homophobes. Whereas ADL condemns white supremacism when Jews are in the minority, the same should not be condoned when Zionist parties are in power.

It’s worth noting that the current governing Israeli coalition, which would be labeled racist by any Western standards, embodies the founding principles of political Zionism and the tenets of the Zionist doctrines, not an exception.

*

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.

A version of this article was first published on Middle East Monitor.

Jamal Kanj (www.jamalkanj.com) an author who had written weekly newspaper columns and publishes on several websites on Arab world issues. He is the author of “Children of Catastrophe,” Journey from a Palestinian Refugee Camp to America. His recent co-authored book “Bride of the Sea” was published in Germany and Poland. 

Featured image is from Big News Network

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 traditional London New Year fireworks display last night was dedicated to a dead queen and neo-Nazis on the endangered list in Ukraine.

A huge moment – Ukraine’s winning song Stefania featured in the London firework display. 👏 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/Q5L2qRSFuj

— ESC Conor ☘️ (@ESCConor) January 1, 2023

Let’s call it what it is—a perverse acclamation for a dead monarch and genocidal maniacs in Ukraine.

No word how much this gaudy tribute of support for mass murder and war crimes will cost the average Briton. The state is focused on spending stacks of money on bombs and bullets to be sent to psychopaths in Ukraine. It is far less concerned with the welfare of its own citizens.

“Poverty is deeply rooted in the UK, with a decade of cuts meaning millions of families across the country are struggling through financial hardship,” reports Big Issue. “Many more are being pushed below the breadline as the cost of living crisis hits low-income households the hardest.”

Over 14 and a half million people—more than one in five—live in poverty in the UK, including 4.3 million children, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

The cost of living crisis will worsen poverty rates, with more than one million people set to be plunged into poverty this winter. Many will struggle to afford the basics to live and rely on food banks, and the newly established warm banks, to survive as temperatures plummet.

In May, then Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised “the dispatch of an additional £300 million of military equipment. Within days that has been increased by a further billion pounds to £1.3 billion,” the World Socialist Web Site reports.

By November, that figure had increased to 7.09 billion euros, only overshadowed by the free-wheeling dispensation of truckloads of borrowed fiat currency by the USG and “EU institutions,” according to Statista.

As Russia began its SMO to rid the threat posed by neo-Nazi psychopaths and terminate NATO’s plan to emplace missile batteries and other offensive military equipment on a shared border, the British Ministry of Defense (sic) “announced that it plans to invest 238 billion euros ($270 billion) in state-of-the-art military equipment and necessary support services,” according to TheDefensePost.

“We have entered a new ‘competitive age’ of resurgent authoritarian states and diversifying threats,” UK Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace explained.

“As the threat changes, we must adapt, remaining clear-eyed about what capabilities we need, retire those that are less relevant, and invest in areas that will give us a strategic advantage.”

However, the threat of British subjects enduring malnutrition and freezing to death in the winter does not seem to be a concern for Rishi Sunak, the new Prime Minister, a former Goldman Sachs banker, and Chancellor of the Exchequer (tax enforcement and appropriation).

Sunak is known as the “hedge fund prime minister.” He is worth nearly a billion dollars and is the richest man to hold the office of Prime Minister. He is a cherished member of the financial elite, and as such believes the little people must suffer while the state diverts billions to the purchase of death machinery for Zelenskyy and his neo-Nazis henchmen.

Much of the war materiel sent by Britain, the US, and European “partners,” is targeted and destroyed by Russia before it can reach the front. Additionally, a large percentage ends up in the hands of miscreants in Africa and elsewhere, as Ukraine is run by money-grubbing oligarchs more than willing to steal and sell weapons to terrorists.

As for the fate of the average Briton, The Globalist reports,

But as with all Goldman Sachs-trained bankers, Sunak believes in austerity. He is a continuation of Boris Johnson who believes in cutting public investment and public support for health and poorer areas, while protecting the better off. (Emphasis added.)

In other words, the UK, like the USG, is primarily dedicated to pushing the neoliberal project forward, despite the cost to the majority of the population, which is kept in blinkered ignorance.

Brits continue to vote for and expect to be taken care of by self-serving careerist politicians, many of them professional liars, cheats, and sociopaths. The appointment of a Goldman Sachs banker to act as Prime Minister should be a wake-up call for all British subjects.

Millions of Britons may miss a meal or two while shivering in the cold, unable to pay to heat their homes, but Zelenskyy and his genocidal-minded neo-Nazis will get their blood-stained hands on more missiles, main battle tanks, self-propelled artillery, armored personnel carriers, fighting vehicles, etc., all of it destined to be blown to smithereens by the Russians.

*

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.

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.

***

Ah, Sri Lanka.

In 2020: a beautiful, agriculturally self-sufficient island nation full of tea and tourists and holder of the highest “Environmental, Social, and Governance” (ESG) investor rating in the world.

And then, as part of the larger “green” effort spurred on by international Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), woke capital, and, seemingly, a desire to sit at the big table at the various and sundry global initiative conferences, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa banned the use of manufactured fertilizer in order to create a more climate-friendly sustainable farming sector.  In April, 2021, the country went all-organic overnight.

What could possibly go wrong?

prices for food (especially rice) and fuel and other daily basics skyrocketed, the tea crop – and the hundreds of millions it earns in international trade – was decimated.  The nation defaulted on its foreign debt, had rolling power blackouts, the tourists are staying away in droves, and Sri Lanka,  already wracked by corruption and COVID, spiraled out of control.

The public’s response?  Even though the fertilizer ban had already been partially rolled back, just last month Rajapaksa’s presidential palace was stormed by thousands of everyday Sri Lankans and he had to flee the country – last word was that he was holed up in Singapore.

(Side note to Nancy Pelosi and Liz Cheney – this is what an actual insurrection looks like:)

 

It seems Kermit was right – it ain’t easy being green.

But, considering the state’s claim to be the global leader in fighting climate change, can California – with its extremely powerful “climate lobby” that was able to ban the future sales of new gas-powered vehicles, a concept that would have been unthinkable a very few years ago –  be far behind?

California’s commitment to confronting climate change cannot be underestimated., as proven by the 86 different climate partnerships, or “bilateral and multilateral agreements with national and subnational leaders” the state as entered into.  (The list can be found here)

Additionally, a quick tour of state department websites finds numerous examples of “green,” “sustainability,” and “climate” pages and plans; even the state’s prisons get into the act with its climate change plan: see this.

It should be stressed that California is not above shooting itself in the foot when it comes to climate issues. Thursday, the legislature passed a bill mandating 3,200-foot “buffer zones” around all – new and existing – oil and gas wells, a move which would practically eliminate the industry – and its 13,000 jobs – in the state.

And last week, the plan to completely ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2035 was approved by the state’s Air Resources Board.  Yesterday, with the already strained power grid facing massive heat-related shortfalls, Californians were asked, among other things, to not charge their electric cars (about 11 percent of the cars in the state) when they got home from work.

A fertilizer ban could have similar severe knock-on impacts, and massive unemployment and other serious disruptions akin to those Sri Lanka experienced could follow.

While there is no specific proposed legislation currently, Governor Gavin Newsom often touts his climate bona fides which could leave the door open to future efforts.  “No challenge poses a greater threat to our way of life, prosperity, and future as a state than climate change,” said Newsom on Earth Day in April, more than a year into the Sri Lanka debacle.  “With our rich natural heritage on the front lines of this crisis, California is building on our global climate leadership with bold strategies that harness the power of nature to fight climate change and protect our communities and ecosystems.”

Considering the state’s political landscape, it appears the unthinkable could already starting to be thought.

For background, the push to ban or restrict the use of manufactured fertilizers (in other words, not compost or manure) was formerly mostly tied to waterway protection (as the former Mayor of Lake Elsinore, Cal. I can personally attest to the kind of rapid growth – in our case sadly algae – nitrogen and phosphorus can spur in plants.  PS – since the city and other agencies started large-scale remediation efforts, the lake has been wonderfully clear).

The current push, however, revolves around climate change and is based on the claim that nitrogen is a greenhouse gas so farmers should stop putting it on their plants.  While this claim is misleading – defining nitrogen as a greenhouse gas is rather new and shaky itself, the overwhelming majority of nitrogen in fertilizers is captured by the plant itself or the soil, and modern farming techniques have greatly reduced the problem of “over fertilizing” –  it has not stopped climate change activists from pushing massive restrictions and, in Sri Lanka’s case, outright bans.

It is true, however, that nitrous dioxide – it’s not that stuff you inhale at the dentist’s office – is considered a greenhouse gas and that it can be produced by fertilizer application.  However, since the crops and soil capture so much, it only is produced in significant quantity if far too much fertilizer is used, a practice the majority of farmers eschew because it is usually unnecessary and always more expensive – fertilizer isn’t free and can add up to about 5 percent of a farm’s expenses.  Here is a graph showing the impacts of over-fertilization and the minimal emissions (essentially indistinguishable from the “background noise”) when used typically and properly:

(From the University of California’s Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources and can be found here).

In the Netherlands, farmers have taken to the streets to protest planned government (and European Union) mandated nitrogen use cuts of up to 70 percent.  Such cuts would devastate the agricultural sector, which currently makes the tiny country the second largest exporter of farm products in the world (only the United States exports more food).  Due to the impact on livestock feed costs and availability, it is estimated that – in addition to massive crop losses – about 30 percent of Dutch farm animals would have to be killed to meet the climate change target.

Canada is also proposing nationwide nitrogen cuts of up to 30 percent, leaving farmers there worried about their futures and the continued assurance of the nation’s food supply.

The impact nitrogen fertilizers have on the atmosphere – which is already about 78 percent nitrogen – is so small it cannot be accurately measured (see graph above), said Dr. Jay Lehr, environmental scientist and agricultural economist.

“I can see why certain politicians are attracted to the idea, but it’s just too crazy,” Lehr said, adding that if the United States and/or California were to mimic Sri Lanka it would lead to “starvation and desperation” and the bankrupting of the majority of farmers.  “This movement is trying to roll-back the green revolution.”

The green revolution Lehr referred to has nothing to do with the current political meaning of the term “green,” but the post-World War II movement to increase yields through improved crops, fertilizer use, technological enhancements, irrigation, and scientifically-sound farming practices.  The movement is credited with literally saving more than a billion lives around the globe in the past 70 years and led to one of its chief architects, Norman Borlaug – who famously said “You can’t build a peaceful world on empty stomachs” – to being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Borlaug’s revolution is a very specific target of many climate activists and the various international government agencies and NGOs that support them.

In its position paper entitled “Strengthening agroecology for a fundamental Transformation of agri-food systems,” the World Future Council – a German-based NGO/think tank –  states: “The message has now gotten through: the negative effects of industrial agriculture have long been clear; they include water shortages, species extinction, high greenhouse-gas emissions, soil degradation, and land grabbing. They cause social, economic and ecological damage that harms the livelihoods of peasants.”   (You can visit the website here)

Borlaug may have passed away in 2009, but his quote regarding such groups seems apropos:

“Some of the environmental lobbyists of the Western nations are the salt of the earth, but many of them are elitists. They’ve never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for fifty years, they’d be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things.”

Another international group, the Global Green Growth Initiative (the GGGI, a treaty-based organization that works with the UN where it has “Observer” status, like the Red Cross) praised Sri Lanka two years before its ban went into place for its three-year climate change plan.  To quote the GGGI:

“GGGI welcomed the Government of Sri Lanka as its thirtieth Member in January 2019, committing to support the country as it asserts its commitment to achieving its sustainable development and NDC goals. As Sri Lanka’s delivery partner for the 3-year GCF-National Adaptation Planning (NAP) Readiness Support Program, GGGI will support Sri Lanka’s NDC on adaptation by further strengthening its adaptation planning process and capacity to implement NAP.  It also aims to enhance the country’s access to climate finance for the implementation of its national adaptation plan. Working towards 6 sub-outcomes through 20 key outputs, the project’s target impact is a built resilience of the most vulnerable sectors and communities in Sri Lanka to adverse effects of Climate Change through Sri Lanka’s strengthened capacity to implement National Adaptation Planning.” (note – this quote is repeated in its entirety to give the reader a better flavor of the incomprehensible “citizen of the world/corporate speak” most of these endeavors evince.  For more on the GGGI, you can read its “gender and inclusive development” policy statement here).

The GGGI, like many other NGOs and government agencies – and some very major financial players like BlackRock (the $10 trillion asset management fund) – see “sustainability” and its related ESG rating (like a bond rating except for non-financial aspects of a company or country) as integral components of investing strategies, grant and credit worthiness, and the like.  This pressure to please the international money (and government) people is a significant driver of initiatives such as Sri Lanka undertook and the Netherlands and Canada are currently considering.

‘If the goal is to kill California agriculture, ESG is a very effective way to do it,” said James Taylor, president of the Heartland Institute.

Despite the obvious catastrophe, even Sri Lankan activists are not giving up.  The Green Movement of Sri Lanka – supported internationally by the European Union, etc. – seems to embody much of movement’s zeitgeist and remains committed to the cause, with the website reading, in part:  “Friends, sustainability is complex and requires a fundamental kindness and empathy among its proponents. Therefore, let us not work with the stupidity of industrial age mindsets in our ongoing effort to shift to sustainability.  We do not have to agree but at the very least, let us agree not to disagree.”  This debate-shuttering “agreeing to not disagree” idea is a sentiment shared by much of the activist movement, no matter the country.  (note – you can find out more here)

Back in the United States, American Farm Bureau Federation Chief Economist Dr. Roger Cryan estimates that a Sri Lank-style move would cut domestic grain crop production by about 50 percent within two to four years of implementation, leading to massive price hikes and acute shortages of basic commodities.

“Feeding the world is not an easy thing to do,” Cryan said.  “Sri Lanka was clearly a failure.”

After re-iterating the fact that, given its uptake into plants and the soil “nitrogen and phosphorus do not represent a greenhouse gas problem, Cryan also noted that if Sri Lanka’s overnight organic model were followed that  there is simply “not enough manure and compost on the planet” to make up the difference to keep crop yields steady.

“I’d hate to see something done if they don’t do the math,” Cryan said.  “We shouldn’t be talking about farming less – it can’t be a trade-off.”

The impact in California, home to $50 billion agricultural industry and about 12 percent of the nation’s entire farming output, would be devastating.

A.G. Kawamura, an Orange County farmer, former Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, and co-chair of Solutions From the Land, an international, UN-backed group dedicated to “increasing agricultural productivity (including ecosystem services and societal benefits) and incomes; adapting and building resilience; and reducing and removing greenhouse gas emissions” expressed doubt that many climate activists truly comprehend the complexities of farming.

“It’s the nightmare of the good intentions of the activists who don’t understand how the food supply system works,” Kawamura said.  “They either can’t understand or will not understand because it doesn’t play with the people who pay them.”

Eliminating manufactured fertilizers from the agriculture equation removes a “tool to keep the system robust and when you start taking away tools it becomes challenging if not impractical to continue,” Kawamura said.

With the world’s eight billionth person expected to be born in November, Kawamura strongly believes that protecting the capacity to feed people is paramount.

“Abundance allows for choices,” said Kawamura.  “It allows for organic farming, it allows for ‘laboratory meat,’ it creates the space to innovate.”  But scarcity leads to a mere state of survival, effectively closing off those avenues, he warned.

Kawamura added that a fertilizer ban would  “collapse the production curve” in California within about three years of implementation.

As for the possibility of the enactment of severe restrictions, while Lehr believes California farmers are likely politically powerful enough (unlike Sri Lankan farmers) to forestall such a move, Kawamura is less sanguine.

“The legislature and this governor do not appear to prioritize agriculture,” Kawamura said.  “For years, farmers haven’t been negotiating (in Sacramento) to get more, but just to lose less.”

California growers harvest more than 400 different types of crops – many what are referred to as specialty – that each have differing fertilizer needs and protocols so the impacts of its loss would vary widely, though a flat statewide ban would be catastrophic no matter the crop.  Farmers in other states that concentrate on grain and other staple crops would face yield losses of up to 60 percent across the board if draconian fertilizer restrictions or bans were put in place.

The dream of an organic-only farming world is a chimera anyway, said Bjorn Lomborg, President of the Copenhagen Consensus (a group that acknowledges anthropogenic climate change but believes the approaches being currently taken to combat it are misguided) and Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

“Long simply a fashionable trend for the world’s 1%, environmental activists have increasingly peddled the beguiling idea that organic farming can solve hunger,” Lomborg said.  “However, research conclusively shows that organic farming produces much less food than conventional farming per hectare. Moreover, organic farming requires farmers to rotate soil out of production for pasture, fallow or cover crops, reducing its effectiveness. In total, organic approaches produce between a quarter and half less food than conventional, scientific-driven agriculture.”

Lomborg added that these facts “not only makes organic food more expensive, but it means that organic farmers would need much more land to feed the same number of people as today – possibly almost twice the area. Given that agriculture currently uses 40% of Earth’s ice-free land, switching to organics would mean destroying large swathes of nature for less effective production.”

Should California – or the nation –  take the path of most destruction and implement restrictions or even fertilizer bans, the social and economic impacts would be catastrophic and could hearken back to the conditions during the Great Depression of the 1930s – except this time there wouldn’t be any bread lines because there wouldn’t be any bread.

*

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, The Point. 

Featured image is from Countercurrents

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.

***

Read Part I and II:

Africa in Review 2022: Regional Dynamics and Continental Security

By Abayomi Azikiwe, December 29, 2022

Africa in Review 2022, II: Peacekeeping and the World Economic Crisis

By Abayomi Azikiwe, December 30, 2022

---

A report in the Voice of America, the public international news service for the United States State Department, said that there were troop movements by the State of Eritrea from areas in the Tigray province of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia where a war has been waged over the last two years. 

However, claims of the presence of Eritrean soldiers engaged in the territorial defense of Ethiopia has never been the source of the complete breakdown of relations between the current government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which between 1991 and 2018 ruled the Horn of Africa state through the framework of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).

The EPRDF regime collapsed under the political weight of a national rebellion which brought Abiy to power in April 2018. His administration has faced numerous challenges particularly in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, regional differences with Egypt and Sudan as well as an overall downturn stemming from the impact of the world capitalist crisis spawned by the Russian-Ukraine war in Eastern Europe.

During November, the peace talks which resulted in a landmark accord to demilitarize the Tigray province and reestablish central Ethiopian authority over the northern areas of the country of 122 million people, was brokered by envoys empowered by the African Union (AU) based in Addis Ababa. The first round of the discussions was facilitated by the host Republic of South Africa in Pretoria, under Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Dr. Naledi Pandor, while elder statesmen and former President Olusegun Obasanjo of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Republic of Kenya recently outgoing President Uhuru Kenyatta utilized their diplomatic standing and political experience to secure the agreement.

Later in Nairobi, other aspects were discussed related to the process of military disengagement and the reintegration of Tigray back into the national infrastructure of Ethiopia. In the concluding weeks of 2022 there was the reconnection of phone services and the deployment of police from the federal government into Mekelle, the provincial capital. Flights have resumed between Addis Ababa and Mekelle.

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden would have much preferred the overthrow of the Abiy government in Addis Ababa and the replacement of the ruling Prosperity Party with a TPLF-led regime. Even prior to the removal of former President Donald Trump in 2020, the war had erupted on November 4, 2020, around the time of the contentious elections which aggravated a deeply divided political culture in the world’s leading capitalist and imperialist state.

Nonetheless, when the Biden administration came to power in January 2021 the same antagonistic posture towards Ethiopia continued. It would take a mass campaign led by Ethiopian and Eritrean Americans to defeat a sanctions bill aimed at crippling the economy of two Horn of Africa states. This bill which remains stalled in Congress was drafted over and above the suspension of Ethiopia from the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) trade program which was initiated under the administration of former President Bill Clinton in 2000.

The peace accord if fully implemented will not completely resolve the question of national unity in Ethiopia. Large scale displacement and fighting continues in the southern Oromo province where clashes are taking place on a daily basis. People within the Afar and Amhara provinces and communities were drawn into the war against the TPLF. Over the border with Sudan, there are refugees in need of resettlement inside Ethiopia.

Despite these ongoing monumental problems, the peace accord in Ethiopia and the role of the AU has been hailed as a major achievement in line with the need to find African solutions to African problems. Such an approach could serve as a model for efforts to resolve the national and regional crises of relations which are in large measure prompted by the legacy of imperialism.

COP27: Egypt Provided Platform for African Proposals to Address Climate Change

Another series of extreme weather events in Africa have reemphasized the worsening threat of environmental degradation. In the KwaZulu-Natal region of the Republic of South Africa floods struck the urban areas around the strategic port city of Durban leaving thousands homeless.

Erratic rains and prolonged periods of drought are causing havoc within the agricultural production sector along with manufacturing impacted by  power cuts and the dislocation of work forces. Somalia in the Horn of Africa has been on the verge of famine since the early months of 2022. Disruptions in the agricultural supply chains due to the war in Ukraine and the unprecedented draconian sanctions against the Russian Federation by numerous imperialist states has hampered the importation of grain along with inputs such as fertilizers on the African continent.

Therefore, when the United Nations Climate Conference (COP27) was scheduled to be held at the Egyptian resort area of Sharm-el-Sheikh, this historic site and event fostered the belief among many that the African condition would receive a proper hearing. There were several preliminary meetings which led up to the actual summit.

Nevertheless, the large-scale presence of U.S. diplomatic and corporate representatives placed a damper on the overall tenor of the deliberations. Even though there was momentum for some form of a breakthrough in regard to acknowledging the obligations of the western industrialized capitalist states for the proliferation of greenhouse gas emissions, the resistance from the imperialists was formidable.

Towards the end of the conference there was the announcement of some type of fund which would address the impact of multinational corporations and their governments for environmental damage. However, the details remain murky while many can remember previous promises of compensation within the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) framework a decade or more ago. The character of international finance capital operates within its own self-serving logic. A sharp increase in profits for the oil and natural gas firms based in the industrialized countries coupled with the economic and military conflagration involving the Russian Federation has intensified the scramble for energy resources on a global scale.

Therefore, the focus on halting further environmental degradation caused by climate change represents a major aspect of the struggle between the imperialist states and the majority populations and nations within the Global South. The future of the world will be determined by the outcome of the inevitable clash of the wealthy capitalist and imperialists against the workers, farmers and youth of the world.

African CDC Holds Second Public Health Summit in Kigali

Emerging from the almost exclusive pandemic virtual mode of conferences since early 2020, the Conference on Public Health in Africa held its second gathering in Rwanda in early December 2022. The summit highlighted the work of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an affiliate of the AU located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. (See this)

This meeting mobilized African youth, scientists and medical workers to discuss the public health status within the AU member-states. At present the coronavirus pandemic appears to be lessening although new concerns have arisen in Uganda with the outbreak of the Sudan variant of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). Mpox, which had largely been an infectious disease seen in several West and Central African states, during 2022 made its appearance as a public health concern for people in the Western countries.

The African CDC holds internationally broadcast weekly briefings where data is presented on the number of recorded cases of Covid, Ebola, Mpox, cholera and a host of other diseases which threaten the continent and the international community. Statistics on the number of coronavirus vaccines administered by AU member-states are reported along with the efforts to enhance collaboration among scientists and healthcare professionals.

These briefings are open to members of various media agencies across Africa and throughout the world. Questions are often asked about the effectiveness of data collection and the progress being made in regard to the development of vaccines and other medicinal manufacturing on the continent.

The construction of continent-wide public health infrastructure institutions is vital in the realization of Pan-Africanism in the 21st century. As the population of Africa extends beyond its present 1.4 billion, the need for larger numbers of trained healthcare workers and researchers will grow exponentially. Retaining the workers within the AU member-states is of equal importance in light of the so-called “brain drain” from the continent to the imperialist states which can in many instances offer higher salaries and better employment conditions.

This does not mean that the migration of African technical workers even in the much-demanded healthcare sectors remain absent of difficulties. Inside the U.S. and the United Kingdom, there is much discontent among doctors and nurses who were severely impacted by health  problems and labor distress during the height of the pandemic. Strikes in both the U.S. and UK by healthcare workers illustrates the heightening contradictions manifested by the escalating class struggle.

Africa must rapidly move towards political and economic unification under socialism in order to effectively tackle the problems of inter-continental cooperation, environmental degradation and public health. The role of the people of the continent will inevitably make an enormous contribution to the broader struggle for the achievement of self-determination, economic justice and social emancipation.

*

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.

Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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.

***

Read Part I:

Extremist Christian Militia in Lebanon May Ignite a New Civil War

By Steven Sahiounie, January 01, 2023

---

This is part two of an examination of the current state of Lebanon. In part one, we looked at the Soldiers of God, an extremist Christian militia that pose a threat to the security of Lebanon and could ignite a new civil war.

Lebanon needs up to $15 billion to rise from its present economic collapse which was decades in the making and can be blamed on the corrupt ruling elite who lined their pockets at the expense of the citizens, driving the country into financial ruin and deadly social turmoil.

Despite elections in May, still, no President has been appointed, as various political parties and factions can’t form a consensus on a person to fill the key position.  The post of Prime Minister is filled with a caretaker, Najib Mikati.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported this month, that Lebanon’s national government and the World Bank should take urgent action to implement a social protection system to address the rising extreme poverty which has led to hunger. Lebanon has no welfare system similar to the US and UK.

The economic crisis brought street protests in 2019 calling for the corrupt ruling elite to leave. In the meantime, four out of five households had a member who had lost their job. The devaluation of the Lebanese currency means older people on pensions are now among the extremely poor and are not eating well.  Even those who have a job, have seen salaries cut by the government and private employers.

Lebanon has no free public hospital. Routinely, patients have died outside the door of private hospitals. Many Lebanese have in the past traveled across the border to Syria to obtain free medical services.

Electricity is non-existent in many households, cooking gas is unavailable or too expensive to buy, and medicines in the pharmacies are slowly going out as merchants are unable to pay for imports due to the lack of US dollars at the Central Bank of Lebanon.

Riad Salameh, the Governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon, is under the protection of the US Embassy.  There was a previous arrest warrant issued against Salameh, but he remains free, and owning to his high level of foreign protection, it appears no one can get him out of office. He has been accused by several European countries of money laundering and illegal transactions.  It is generally accepted by financial experts on the case that he has absconded with billions of public funds.

According to the HWR report,

“The median household monthly income reported was just US$122 and inflation has continued to dramatically rise since the survey was taken. The average household size is four people including one child under 18. The share of those households living on extremely low incomes was high: Nationwide, 40 percent of households earned approximately $100 or less per month and 90 percent of households earned less than $377 per month.”

The United Nations estimated in 2020 that by taxing the wealthiest 10 percent in Lebanon the number of those in extreme poverty would be alleviated. But, this action was never taken by the Lebanese government and its wealthy ruling elite. The right to social security is enshrined in both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.

The ruling elite was supported by foreign governments that allowed their corrupt practices to continue for decades. The current poverty and desperation in Lebanon today can be traced back in part to western democratic countries that opposed Hezbollah and supported Israel.

Foreign intervention

The US

For decades, the Lebanese government has been run by policies written by the US Ambassador to Lebanon.  These policies are against Hezbollah, Iran, and Syria, and are pro-Israeli.

In November, the US warned Lebanon that they could fall under US sanctions if they were to accept the gift of fuel from Iran.  Lebanon is a failed state, and electricity is non-existent because there is no fuel to create electricity in the power stations. Lebanon does not have the money to make a fuel purchase, and gasoline stations were drying up.  Iran stepped forward with an offer of charity to benefit the Lebanese people; however, the US threatened Lebanon to not accept the free offer.

Hamed Mousavi, in the Journal of Politics and Law, 2008, wrote “The Israel-Lebanon War of 2006 and the Failure of US Foreign Policy”. Mousavi explains that the US encouraged Israel to attack Lebanon in the summer of 2006. Thousands were killed, maimed, and displaced after Israel carried out airstrikes over all sections of Lebanon. US President Bush wanted to create a new Middle East, but Israel was defeated in the war, and Hezbollah was strengthened.

France

On December 23, French President Emmanuel Macron said “The problem with Lebanon is that we must solve people’s problems and get rid of those who cannot do it.” He added, “Lebanon must change its leadership.”

His statements appear to be a public admission of promoting regime change in a foreign country. However, his sentiments are echoed by the Lebanese people, who took to the streets in 2019 demanding that the corrupt ruling elite leave and make way for fresh faces who are willing to work for the good of the nation. France hosted an international donor conference and raised $370 million for Lebanon.  Macron is keen to organize and promote another conference to help the tiny country which is now called a ‘failed state’.

“I care about Lebanese men and women, not those living off their backs,” Macron said referring to the ruling elite who refuse to step aside.  They have collectively made billions off of corrupt practices which became institutionalized.

Saudi Arabia

Samir Geagea, leader of the Lebanese Forces (LF) is seen as the politician most connected with Saudi Arabia.

Earlier this month, Geagea said, “Saudi Arabia plays a major strategic role in Lebanon.”  He added, “The KSA has openly declared that if a new head of state, who does not inspire confidence, came to power, it would no longer contribute to providing aid to Lebanon”

In September, Geagea met with the Saudi Ambassador to Beirut, Walid Al-Bukhari, and wrote on Twitter that the only salvation for Lebanon is its “Arab depth”, and “adhering to the constitution”. Geagea referred to the need for support from Arab countries, instead of always relying on western countries to come to the aid of Lebanon.

“I noticed that the leadership in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is ready and willing to help Lebanon, but with the presence of a trustworthy president and government. We have the ingredients to raise Lebanon, but these ingredients need someone to implement them,” he added.

Earlier in April, some officials were skeptical of restoring ties with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states after Hezbollah and its allies hold a great deal of political power. In the past, Saudi Arabia had invested billions of dollars in Lebanon and its upscale tourism economy.

Iran

Macron is in favor of including Iran in discussions concerning the rehabilitation of Lebanon.  This would be opposed by the US which has a hostile relationship with Iran. However, Iran is powerful in both Lebanon and Syria and is a country with resources that Lebanon could benefit from.

Iran supports Hezbollah because they are a resistance movement against the Israeli occupation of Palestine, Syria, and the Shebaa Farms region in the south of Lebanon.

Lebanese mass migration

Many of the young professionals who took to the streets and social media in 2019 have by now left the country in a mass migration looking for a job,  a life with electricity 24/7, gasoline to fill a car, and without corrupt leaders who are isolated in their palaces.  The streets in Lebanon are silent now because the energetic youth have moved on and the country is stagnant.

The Israeli occupation of Lebanon

In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon and reached Beirut, but eventually retreated to the southern region which they occupied until 2000. The south was a mixture of Christian and Muslim communities living in small towns and villages with a population estimated at 180,000.  Israel found a willing partner in the Christian militia, the South Lebanon Army (SLA).

Thousands of civilians were imprisoned, tortured, or killed in the Khaim Prison, which was turned into a museum after the liberation.  In the 2006 Israeli attack on Lebanon, Khaim was destroyed by a targeted airstrike by Israeli jets.

On May 24, 2000, the Israeli troops and officers withdrew from Lebanon. However, a border area known as Shebaa Farms remains under Israeli occupation.  Several resistance groups in Lebanon demand the return of Shebaa Farms, such as the Syrian Social National Party founded in 1938.  Hezbollah is the strongest of the resistance groups.  Hezbollah is a political party as well and has won parliamentary elections. The US and Israel are against Hezbollah, but there is no other armed group today that has the capability of protecting Lebanon from a future invasion by Israel. It was their asset as a military force that allowed former President Michel Aoun to ally with them.

Lebanon is at the breaking point economically, and socially it is sitting on a tender box of sectarian issues such as the extremist Christian militia, the Soldiers of God.  Foreign countries, including Israel, may be able to use the vulnerabilities of Lebanon to push their agenda, even if it sets the country on the path to a new civil war.

*

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 Mideast Discourse.

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

Featured image is from MD

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.

***

As a new year dawns, these past three years of Covidian deception weigh heavily, and the cumulative weight of this deception is staggering. What have we learned? What have we suffered? What good can come out of this assault upon our rights to our own bodies and mobility and freedom of expression, undertaken globally? What truth – or truths – have emerged from so many lies?

“Truth” has an interesting etymological lineage, connoting that which is firm, steadfast, strong and accurate, and connected in fact with the word “tree”.  And as I look back over these years and prepare for one which I hope will be an improvement, the single and most significant truth of them all is that those whom we have regarded as having the public welfare at heart – governments, institutions, media, statesmen, healthcare personnel – have betrayed us. They have, in fact, lied through their collective teeth and they have used every means at their disposal to promote their lies,  to foster fear and to pursue their petty goals of control, surveillance and outright murder.

Their campaign has been effective thus far. The majority of the people I know have accepted their absurdities, have tolerated a diminution of their innate rights, have blinded themselves to stark evidence about the fraudulence of the lethality of the Covid virus, about the dangers of the so-called vaccines, about the uselessness of face masks, about the perils of locking people down and grinding the world’s economies to a halt, and about the efficacy of prevention and treatment.

The majority of these people within my ken know next to nothing about the Great Reset and the machinations of the World Economic Forum and its political tentacles around the globe. The attitude of this majority has been monstrously callous towards those who have lost jobs, and monstrously ignorant even in the face of loss of life. They have become experts in the field of  complex medical causality whenever an inconvenient jab-related death crosses their path.

They accept – or profess to accept – a normalization of sudden child deaths, and sudden young athlete deaths and sudden middle-aged deaths, and myocarditis and blood clots and ferocious malignancies; and they refuse to participate in an open debate that would allow a questioning of their assumptions.

Emily Dickinson once cautioned, in one of her memorable poems, “Tell all the truth but tell it slant –/Success in Circuit lies”.

But time is running out: how much caution can we afford when the Powers and Principalities that have orchestrated the genocidal mess we are in keep their foot on the accelerator?  It seems that every time we get a breather, yet another menacing pandemic looms, and the drumbeat of fear starts a new crescendo, and the lapse into the absurd commences yet again.  While shopping recently I chanced to see a former colleague, an experienced psychiatrist, meander through the supermarket with his mask firmly in place, no doubt to render protection against the new waves of Covid that are sweeping through Wellington, New Zealand among the double, triple and quadruple-jabbed.

Elsewhere I have written about the nature of Power, and here I wish to emphasize again that Power invariably seeks to exploit anything it can to enhance its capabilities and to extend its reach. Material truths, such as those that determine computing efficiencies or weaponry, are avidly embraced and arrogated. Truths that pertain to human psychology and behavior, however approximate or incomplete, are recruited for purposes of manipulation.

Starkly and succinctly put, the ideal goal of Power is to accomplish moe and more with less and less effort until there is nothing but Omnipotence, within whose realm a mere wish is enough to effect material change.  We see precursors everywhere – a few keystrokes on a computer can result in a missile strike thousands of miles away, a few swipes on the face of a mobile phone can bring up the image and voice of a friend halfway across the world. For the technocratic cabal behind the Covid Agenda, to be God or god means to have total supreme complete control, notwithstanding the supreme irony of assuming that any God or god worth his or her salt could be so pitifully mundane.

Despite this all I am actually sanguine because we are now a world in transition with respect to communication and journalism. Until recently virtually all of the information we received derived from  the major media outlets and their social media offspring. We know with certainty thanks to Elon Musk that government agencies were in cahoots to censor and regulate Twitter accounts, just as we know with certainty that mainstream media is and has been thoroughly infiltrated by Deep State operatives.

Once we understand that our authorities lie, that these authorities have lied, and these authorities will always lie, then we can embrace our own revolutionary role in reporting news as citizen journalists not beholden to advertising, graft or coercion.

An immense opportunity beckons, perhaps an immeasurably hopeful one. And while truth may always be hard to fathom, we citizens have a much better chance of approximating it than propaganda mouthpieces whose function, even when they get the facts right, is to enhance the status of their paymasters.

Of course at the very core of this hope lies freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and an enthusiasm for open civil debate.   Why should a State or any group seek to censor and attack these liberties unless it or they have something to hide? New World Order puppet governments like New Zealand are now attempting to label those who differ from their (disastrously wrong) Covid policies as “domestic terrorists” – a sure sign that we dissenting underlings are calling their bluff.

It’s about time. Bring on 2023.

*

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. Garcia is a Philadelphia-born psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand in 2006. He has authored articles ranging from explorations of psychoanalytic technique, the psychology of creativity in music (Mahler, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Delius), and politics. He is also a poet, novelist and theatrical director. He retired from psychiatric practice in 2021 after working in the public sector in New Zealand.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

---

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.

***

The Dec. 16 announcement by Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of a new defense strategy, while doubling military spending by 2027 to implement it, is the largest defense shake-up in decades and a wake-up call to the antiwar movement. 

The decision includes openly acquiring offensive weapons and reshaping its military command structure for its expanded armed forces. On Dec. 23, the draft budget was approved by Kishida’s cabinet.

Japan’s dangerous military expansion should set off international alarm bells. This major escalation is taking place based on intense U.S. imperialist pressure. It is the next step in the “Pivot to Asia,” aimed at threatening and surrounding China and attempting to reassert U.S. dominance in the Asia Pacific.

The movements opposing endless U.S. wars must begin to prepare material and draw mass attention to this ominous threat.

The plan to double military spending will add $315 billion to Japan’s defense budget over the next five years and make Japan’s military the world’s third largest, after the U.S. and China. Defense spending will escalate to 2% of gross domestic product, equal to the goal the U.S. sets for its NATO allies. Japan’s economy is the world’s third largest.

The Japanese government plans to buy up to 500 Lockheed Martin Tomahawk missiles and Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSM), procure more naval vessels and fighter aircraft, increase cyber warfare capabilities, manufacture its own hypersonic guided missiles and produce its own advanced fighter jets, along with other weapons. The plan shifts from relying solely on missile defense to also embracing “counterstrike” capabilities.

Three key security documents — the National Security Strategy (NSS), as well as the National Defense Strategy (NDS) and the Defense Buildup Program (DBP) — shed some of the postwar constraints on the Japanese military.

Article 9 – a class struggle against military rearmament

Although the U.S. occupation force, after defeating Japan’s military in World War II, imposed a “pacifist” constitution on Japan, for decades now U.S. strategists have pressured Japan’s government to aggressively rearm, and especially to buy U.S.-made weapons, to act as a junior partner to U.S. efforts to dominate the Asia-Pacific region.

Article 9 of the imposed Japanese constitution prohibits Japan from maintaining an army, navy and air force. To get around this, the “Japanese Self-Defense Forces” (JSDF) have since 1952 been treated as a legal extension of the police and prison system. The U.S. occupiers considered the JSDF an essential repressive tool defending capitalist property relations against the workers’ movement.

The decision for aggressive military expansion is in open violation of Japan’s supposedly pacifist constitution.

The effort to “reinterpret” Article 9 has been a continuing political struggle inside Japan. Mass rallies of hundreds of thousands have mobilized many times in defense of Article 9, which offers a clear prohibition of Japan’s maintaining a military force. The widespread opposition to the Japanese military and to constitutional change comes from working people, mobilized by the unions and the communist and socialist movements.

This movement pointed out to everyone how the wartime militarist regime of the 1930s and 1940s carried out brutal repression and led Japan into WWII. The people know from bitter experience that these ultrarightist forces, whose roots are in historic Japanese colonialism, are the real threat to their rights and the social gains they have made.

The present doubling of the defense budget will be funded by raising taxes. A huge military budget will inevitably mean severe cuts to the country’s limited social spending.

The Liberal Democratic Party, which has held power almost continually since the 1950s, is right-wing, pro-military and allied to U.S. imperialism, especially against China and the DPRK. They have been pushing for an end to the constitutional and legal restrictions on the country’s military.

The assassination of retired President Shinzo Abe on July 8, 2022, just two days before Japan’s election, brought additional votes to the LDP. It was able to win the two-thirds supermajority in Parliament, needed to move forward aggressively with its military plans.

Targeting China

Japan’s military expansion fits in with Washington’s aggression aimed at China, the DPRK and Russia. U.S. strategists’ goal is to use the U.S. alliance with Japan, South Korea and Australia, just as it uses the U.S.-led NATO alliance in Europe.

The doubling of NATO’s membership and NATO’s targeting of Russia have led to war in Ukraine, when the U.S. government imposed thousands of new sanctions against Russia, and the U.S. has ruptured the European Union’s mutually beneficial trade with Russia.

China is Japan’s largest trading partner in both imports and exports. Previous National Strategy Documents said Japan was seeking a “mutually beneficial strategic partnership” with China. Suddenly Japanese strategists started labeling China “the greatest strategic challenge in ensuring the peace and security of Japan.” (U.S. Institute of Peace, Dec. 19)

Japan had expanded trade with Russia in gas, oil, autos and machinery. Previously Japan’s Dec. 17, 2013, National Security Strategy document called for “enhanced ties and cooperation with Russia.” Now Japan considers Russia a “strong security concern.” (USIP, Dec. 19)

A U.S.-Japan alliance is now defined as a “cornerstone” of Japan’s security policy. (Japan Times, Dec. 17)

U.S. praise of Japan’s rising militarism

The U.S. media praised Japan’s new security strategy document as a “bold and historic step.” U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan praised the defense spending hike, which “will strengthen and modernize the U.S.-Japan alliance.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Japan an “indispensable partner” and cheered that the changed security documents reshape the ability to “protect the rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific region and around the world.” (quotes, whitehouse.gov, Dec. 16)

U.S. corporate power is the immediate beneficiary of this sharp turn in policy, built on military threats and economic sanctions.

Foreign Affairs Magazine calls the announcement “a profound transformation” and states: “The new national security strategy, however, represents a stunning change. … [T]he government is enacting policies that have been debated for decades but were always blocked. Until now … Japan’s new national security strategy should be applauded. ” (Foreign Affairs, Dec. 23)

U.S. needs collaborators

U.S. policy toward the defeated capitalist class in Germany, Italy and Japan was remarkably similar. At the end of WWII, many of the industrial leaders who had backed these fascist regimes were quietly protected and rehabilitated in Japan, Germany and Italy, along with the fascist collaborators who fled from workers’ control in Eastern Europe.

The U.S. and later NATO used the rehabilitated fascists against a rising workers movement in West Europe and against socialist construction in Eastern Europe. U.S. corporations, who had aggressively moved into the defeated Axis countries, needed insurance that their investments would be protected from the strike waves.

By 1950 the U.S. was at war on the Korean peninsula and, while using U.S. troops in Korea, needed a military force for “peacekeeping and self-defense” of capitalist property relations in Japan. Germany, Italy and Japan began to rearm during that period.

The impact on Okinawa

A chain of 150 islands called the Ryukyu Archipelago, of which the largest island is Okinawa, 400 miles from the Japanese mainland, is in reality a colony of Japan. Its population of 1.74 million people suffers from Tokyo’s rule and from the occupation by U.S. military bases. Okinawa is geographically closer to Taiwan than it is to the main islands of Japan.

Upgrading and strengthening Japanese ground units on Okinawa is part of the new National Security Strategy (NSS). Other islands, which are part of the chain southwest of Japan, will be further militarized.

Okinawa is the largest of the Ryukyu islands. (Source: Workers World)

Upgrading of Japan’s 15th Brigade on these islands for future electronic warfare, cyber warfare and joint operations of the ground, maritime and air forces are clearly a sign of plans to intervene in the Taiwan Straits.

In recent years, Japan has deployed anti-ship and air-defense missiles on its southwest islands of Amami Oshima, Okinawa Main Island, Miyako Island and a missile base on Ishigaki Island, the island closest to Taiwan.

More than 50,000 U.S. troops remain as an occupying force in Japan, at present the largest U.S. occupation force in any country. More than half of U.S. troops are based on Okinawa.

Okinawa residents, the Indigenous Ryukyu people, have spent decades protesting the constant presence of the U.S. military in their daily lives. There are now 31 U.S. military installations on the island prefecture of Okinawa, which accounts for 74% of the area of all U.S. military bases in Japan, although Okinawa only constitutes 0.6% of Japanese territory.

The U.S. maintains 73 military bases and 28,500 troops in South Korea. Both South Korea and Japan are forced to pay for “hosting” these troops of occupation.

‘Using North Korea threat as cover’

Japan has previously justified its remilitarization by claiming North Korea is a threat. However, retired Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) Admiral Tomohisa Takei told the media that China has been the main target for which Japan has been preparing, “by using North Korea’s threat as cover.” (AP, Dec. 17)

Both Japan and South Korea engage on a regular basis in coordinated military drills under U.S. command threatening Korea DPRK. Massive demonstrations in South Korea and missiles fired from targeted North Korea respond to these military provocations.

This cynical admission of the planning and preparation for war, while claiming self-defense, is similar to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Dec. 8 admission that the signing of the 2014 Minsk Agreement was not a peace treaty with Russia. Merkel confirmed that NATO wanted war from the start but needed time to prepare Ukraine militarily. (interview in Die Zeit, Dec. 7)

Having goaded Russia into an invasion of Ukraine in a bid to weaken and fragment Russia, the U.S. is next seeking to turn Taiwan into a military quagmire for China. The Biden administration is facilitating Taiwan’s purchase of advanced weaponry from the U.S. and greater diplomatic ties with the island.

Part of an effort to focus political attention through fact sheets, talking points, videos and webinars on the growing threat of U.S. pressure for Japan’s rearming is the short video, posted on the International Action Center website titled: “Japan’s constitutional amendment: a dangerous signal.” (tinyurl.com/mwjdt8rm) 

The video was made in China and includes U.S. participation. People from many countries will need to cooperate to confront the growing militarism in Japan, the U.S. and their 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.

This article was originally published on Workers World.

Sara Flounders is an American political writer active in progressive and anti-war organizing since the 1960s. She is a member of the Secretariat of Workers World Party, as well as a principal leader of the International Action Center. Sara can be reached at [email protected].

She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Countercurrents

First published by Global Research on December 23, 2019

China’s exit in October 1949, from the sphere of US control, was perhaps the heaviest blow to strike American post-World War II global hegemony. China’s successful drive for independence had been anticipated in Washington for many months.

In September 1948, the far-sighted American diplomat George Kennan noted that “there are considerable limitations on what we can do to affect the course of events in China”. Over the elapsing seven decades since, the scale of American influence in China’s domestic affairs has been restricted at best, but continues apace nonetheless. Washington has implemented a range of policies in the hope of destabilising and splintering China.

The Pentagon’s strategies towards China have somewhat mirrored those they directed against the USSR: Utilisation of proxy groups, extremists and ethnic minorities, along with client states.

The Turkistan Islamic Party (TIC), a terrorist organisation, was founded by Uyghur jihadists in 1988, just as separatist uprisings were breaking out in Xinjiang province, north-western China. The Turkistan Islamic Party, previously known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, received CIA sponsorship from its early existence.

In contradictory fashion, the Turkistan Islamic Party, which is based largely in north-western Pakistan, is deemed a terrorist organisation by the United States, along with other major countries like Russia, and of course China and its neighbour Pakistan.

By 2001, militant Uyghurs were preparing for guerrilla warfare in the same camps situated in Afghanistan where the CIA and ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence service, had once provided training to Mujahideen extremists – in order to hamper Soviet troops embedded in Afghanistan 40 years ago. Between 1990 and 2001, the Turkistan Islamic Party perpetrated over 200 terrorist acts, including blowing up vehicles, market places and assassinating Chinese government officials.

Following the September 11 attacks on America, Uyghur extremists were seen fighting against US soldiers during Washington’s “war on terror” in Afghanistan. Almost two dozen Uyghurs were sent to the notorious US-run Guantanamo detention camp in south-eastern Cuba, with some Uyghurs held there for as long as 12 years.

High profile Uyghur separatists, like the Xinjiang-born Anwar Yusuf Turani, founder of the East Turkestan Government in exile, is himself living in the state of Virginia, on America’s east coast. Turani has been a willing tool in Washington’s power game with China; in June 1999, he met with president Bill Clinton and asked him to back political movements seeking independence for Xinjiang; and Turani later enjoyed dialogue with Clinton’s successor, George W. Bush, who promised to support the “fundamental human rights” of “Uyghurs and others living in China”.

Further prominent Uyghur exiles living in America have called for Xinjiang’s independence from China, such as Rebiya Kadeer, a five-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, born in Xinjiang, and who also resides in the US state of Virginia.

For 11 years until November 2017, she was the leader of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), headquartered in Munich, and which is partly funded by the National Endowment For Democracy (NED). The NED, partially subsidised by the United States Congress, has a long history of “soft power” interference in sovereign states around the world: China, Nicaragua, the Ukraine, and so on.

The World Uyghur Congress was established in April 2004 by Erkin Alptekin, a former adviser to the CIA.

Kadeer’s husband has previously worked as a commentator for the US government-run broadcaster, Radio Free Asia. Like Turani, Kadeer is something of a pawn for Washington in the growing US-China geopolitical rivalry. In the past, she accepted invitations to meet president George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, so as to seek backing for Uyghur independence from China. During a June 2019 visit to US ally Japan, she called on Tokyo to provide more political support for Xinjiang.

One of the central reasons for Beijing’s strong focus on Xinjiang, is because this region is rich in both oil (21 billion tonnes) and coal deposits (40% of China’s entire reserves). Some Uyghur natives have complained that Beijing simply dispatches the raw materials from Xinjiang directly towards the Chinese capital, and to other relatively affluent cities like Shanghai, without providing adequate compensation in response. Even a small surtax could be enough to significantly improve the living conditions of Uyghurs.

The experienced Brazilian historian, Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira, wrote that Beijing’s vested concerns in Xinjiang are also partly due to its position as a pipeline hub; a territory through which natural resources pour into China from Central Asia, and which Bandeira states “was one of the factors behind the ethnic tensions that erupted over the course of the 1990s, and the beginning of the 21st century, with China investing $15 billion in the region’s infrastructure and development until 2001, including petrochemical plants and gas transports to Shanghai”.

The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), a state-owned company based in Beijing, “sought to transform Xinjiang into the country’s largest oil and gas production base until 2020”. Unsurprisingly, Beijing’s exploitation of Xinjiang’s resources has been increasing, while the province is a focal point too for China’s vast Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) industrial project.

Furthermore, Xi Jinping’s government retains strong ambitions in linking Xinjiang to Gwadar, a strategic port situated in southern Pakistan and which rests on the Arabian Sea. For a number of years, Beijing have been investing heavily in Pakistan, also reaching south to Gwadar, which could provide China’s administration with a field of scope into some of the planet’s most vital oil shipping lanes; with the Gulf of Oman and Persian Gulf waters positioned tantalisingly close to Gwadar.

China is Pakistan’s largest trading partner, and Beijing views its neighbour as an important ally, borne out by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor – an infrastructural program between these two nations valued at tens of billions of dollars.

Focusing on the Pentagon’s efforts again to destabilise China, we turn our attention to Tibet: A glorious region in south-western China whose landscapes are dominated by towering, snow-filled Himalayan mountain tops, vast uninhabited plains, while in size Tibet is almost twice as large as France.

Following China’s 1949 revolution, the American Congress deemed that Tibet had a right to “self-determination”; and Washington gave full support to the Tibetan Government in exile, which was established in 1960 by the current Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso). The Dalai Lama – who has links to the CIA dating to the 1950s – fled to India from Tibet’s capital, Lhasa, following the failed and bloody 1959 Washington-backed Tibetan uprising against Chinese control.

This revolt was partially instigated within the United States itself, under the auspices of CIA officer Bruce Walker at Camp Hale, the US army training facility in Colorado. At Camp Hale from the years 1956 to 1957, the CIA extensively trained 250 to 300 “Tibetan freedom fighters”, all of which was kept secret from the public. The CIA’s training of Tibetans continued at Camp Hale until it was closed in 1964.

Another covert base for US operations against China was established in the Colorado ski resort town of Aspen, where Tibet’s proxy forces were flown over by American aircraft before being dropped by parachutes.

Other CIA training camps were established in separate locations in the south Asian country of Nepal, which borders Tibet to the north. Between 1949 and 1951, the number of CIA operatives engaged in covert actions increased ten times over. The CIA’s budget, for encouraging revolts and social unrest in China, reached 20 times the sum of money allocated for the 1953 overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran. The CIA received assistance in targeting China from the special services of Nepal and India.

The Dalai Lama’s older brother, Gyalo Thondup, was involved in various CIA-sponsored operations against China, which were eventually crushed by Beijing, resulting in many thousands of deaths. Often playing the role of the Dalai Lama’s “unofficial envoy”, Thondup, living in India today and aged in his early 90s, first travelled to the US in 1951. He provided ample information to the US Department of State on all issues concerning Tibet.

A CIA-funded and armed Tibetan army, the Dokham Chushi Gangdruk, continued a guerrilla warfare campaign for years within the frontiers of China. By the mid-1960s, there were almost 2,000 US-supported combatants of Tibetan ethnicity in operation. The Dalai Lama benefited from generous quantities of CIA funds, and in 1964 alone he was subsidised with $180,000.

Until 1975, the Dalai Lama obscured the CIA’s role in the 1959 Tibetan revolt and other activities, at a time when he was in contact with US agents in Tibet. The Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, was furnished with an allowance from the CIA dating to the early 1950s, but perhaps even preceding that.

During an interview with the New York Times in mid-September 1993, the Dalai Lama said, “today, the help and support we receive from the United States is truly out of sympathy and human compassion”. Well into the 21st century, US governments have continued chanelling funds to Tibetan independent causes, through US Department of State branches like the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM).

Elsewhere in China, and in more recent times, Washington has been limited to utilising its “soft power” organisations like the Reagan-era founded NED, which is financially supporting the anti-Beijing protests in Hong Kong. Since 2014, the NED has provided about $30 million to Hong Kong’s pro-Western or independence marchers. The demonstrations have enjoyed large-scale coverage and sympathy from the mainstream press.

It may be apt to highlight the phrase used by the American scholars, Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman, in their book Manufacturing Consent – regarding the case of “Worthy and Unworthy victims”.

In liberal media analysis, there are quite often examples on display of our world’s recognised and unrecognised victims. The typical mass media narrative applies the principles of: Rohingya Muslims, “Worthy victims”. Palestinians, “Unworthy victims”. Hong Kong protesters, “Worthy victims”, Yellow Vest protesters, “Unworthy victims”, etc.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree. He is interested in writing primarily on foreign affairs, having been inspired by authors like Noam Chomsky. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

First published on January 1, 2019, minor edits

Today, Cubans are commemorating the 64th  anniversary of their independence. On this day in 1959, the Cuban Revolution was successfully conducted by Fidel Castro’s 26th of July Movement[i] and became an enduring symbol of resistance to neo-colonialism, capitalism, and hegemony. As a result, Cuba’s corrupt and brutal dictator, Fulgencio Batista (1901-1973), who had the full backing of the US government, left the island and escaped to the Dominican Republic, along with some of his loyal supporters. The victory of the Cuban Revolution meant that January 1, 1959 marked the first time in 467 years that Cubans were not subject to serfdom and exploitation by a foreign power.

Spain was the first country to exercise dominion over Cuba, beginning in 1510. However, Spain’s defeat at the hands of the Americans in the Spanish-American War of 1898 did not bring about the emancipation that Cubans were expecting, as the island was subsequently transformed into a US neo-colony.

In the period between the conclusion of the Spanish-American War in 1898 and the victory of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the US exercised imperial power over Cuba, exploiting its natural and human resources, and dictating its domestic and foreign policies. When Batista, who was supported by Washington since 1933, came to power via coup d’état on March 10, 1952, he and his corrupt associates immediately collaborated with Washington and the American mafia to facilitate the continued exploitation Cuba’s resources.

In particular, he permitted the American mafia to take control of all the casinos on the island in exchange for millions of dollars being deposited into his Swiss bank account (Díaz-Briquets and Pérez-López 2006, 77). Meanwhile, throughout the entire period when Americans exercised imperial power over Cuba, Washington used its authority to advance the interests of American corporations, which ended up controlling all of the economic sectors on the island, in addition to gaining ownership of the best agriculture land, mines and natural resources. In fact, ‘[b]y the 1950s, the U.S. controlled 80 percent of Cuban utilities, 90 percent of Cuban mines, close to 100 percent of the country’s oil refineries, 90 percent of its cattle ranches, and 40 percent of the sugar industry’[ii]. The domination of Cuba at the hands of the Americans was best explained by Fidel Castro (October 10, 1968 in Manzanillo) when he stated:

the Yankees took over our economy. In 1898, US holdings in Cuba amounted to 50 million pesos; in 1906 they amounted to some 160 million; and in 1927, to 1.45 billion…I don’t believe there is another country in which economic penetration has taken place so incredibly quickly, allowing the imperialists to take over our best lands, all our mines, our natural sources. They controlled the public services, the greater part of the sugar industry, the most efficient industries, the electricity industry, the telephone service, the railroads, the most important businesses and the banks.

The island was essentially a playground for Americans, featuring gambling, drug trafficking, the mafia, gangsters, and prostitution, with Batista serving as their loyal puppet. Although Batista’s dictatorial and corrupt regime oppressed the Cuban population, violated human rights and committed countless crimes against democratic principles (equality and freedom), it was never criticized nor condemned by Washington. Batista’s dictatorial rule was accompanied by extreme rural poverty, misery, illiteracy, an increase in the number of sex workers, exploitation, and high unemployment rates. Almost half of Cuba’s adults and 37.5% of the total population were illiterate, and as much as 70% of all children did not have access to a teacher during the period of US dominance. Furthermore, most Cubans could not obtain housing or access decent healthcare services, and electricity and water infrastructure were very limited. These conditions, exacerbated by American domination in all segments of the economy, led to most Cubans experiencing exploitation, racism, police brutality, starvation and humiliation. Women were particularly vulnerable to exploitation, as many girls from urban areas elected to serve as prostitutes for American tourists and businessmen. It did not take very long for the American mafia operating on the island to realize that they could profit from this situation, which eventually led to them operating almost 300 brothels in Havana to supplement the money they earned from selling illegal drugs.

These appalling conditions inspired Fidel Castro and approximately 165 of his compatriots to make an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the Batista dictatorship on July 26, 1953. Following their failed attack against the Moncada military barracks near Santiago de Cuba, Castro was sentenced 15 years in prison, of which he served only two years on account of a strong amnesty campaign that was organized by relatives and colleagues of the prisoners, as well as opponents of the Batista regime. After his release, Castro relocated to Mexico because of threats made against his life by the Batista government. There he organized, trained and armed a new group of revolutionaries that came to be known as ‘the 26th of July Movement’, commemorating the date of his first attempt to overthrow the Batista regime.

Fidel Castro and Camilo Cienfuegos, January 1959

By the time the 26th of July Movement was ready to attempt its overthrow of the Batista regime, it counted a total of 82 revolutionaries within its ranks, including Fidel, as the main organizer, Camilo Cienfuegos (1932-1959), Raúl Castro, Ernesto Ché Guevara (1928-1967), and Juan Almeida Bosque (1927-2009). In November 1956, all 82 of these revolutionaries left Mexico for Cuba on a 10-day voyage aboard a yacht called Granma, which only had the capacity to carry 12 passengers. Upon arriving in Cuba, they advanced to the Sierra Maestra mountain range in order to meet up with other supporters of the revolutionary movement against the Batista dictatorship. However, they were met by many attacks from the Cuban Army, and only 12 of the 82 revolutionaries survived to reach Sierra Maestra. Nonetheless, the survivors of the Granma yacht and supporters of the revolutionary movement on the island continued the guerrilla war by organizing resistance groups in towns and cities across the island. The Batista government responded by arresting and torturing large numbers of civilians in an effort to weaken and eventually defeat the revolutionaries. It was unsuccessful, as the guerrilla war prevailed in 1959, overthrowing one of the most brutal and repressive dictators in Latin American history, who managed to murder more than 20,000 Cubans and transform the country into a police state during his seven years in power, all with the full backing of his supporters in the United States.

Sierra Maestra, 1957, Fidel castro (fourt from left)

After the revolution, Fidel Castro governed Cuba, first as Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976, then as President from 1976 until 2008. From the outset, his government consistently defended and promoted anti-imperialism and instituted measures aimed at ending the colonization, humiliation and exploitation of Cuba at the hands of the United States, which included shutting down all casinos and brothels on the island, marginalizing the mafia, and curtailing international tourism. One of the first acts of the new government was to nationalize foreign enterprises and utilities, including banks and telephone companies, most of which belonged to American companies. Additionally, refineries that were controlled by American corporations such as Shell and Esso were nationalized and Cuba signed a trade agreement to purchase oil from the Soviet Union. The Castro government also instituted a number of land and agrarian reforms, including measures aimed at limiting land ownership and forbidding foreigners from purchasing or possessing land in the country. In an effort to improve Cuban living standards, education and health care were made universally accessible to all citizens without exception. The Castro socialist regime also made large investments in housing construction and infrastructure improvements, which included building 600 miles of roads in six months. Through such actions, Cuba earned the reputation of being ‘the first territory free from imperialist domination in Latin America and the Caribbean’ (Fidel Castro, May 1, 2003 Havana).

American officials were unanimously opposed to the Cuban Revolution and the socialist reforms being implemented by the Castro government, viewing them as direct attacks against US interests in Cuba. President Dwight Eisenhower became furious with Castro’s nationalization process and anti-imperialist policies and retaliated decisively, eventually breaking off diplomatic relations with the island on January 3, 1961. Eisenhower also responded by collaborating with the mafia and approving efforts on the part of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to overthrow Cuba’s socialist government, which came to be known as the ‘Program of Covert Action Against Castro’. These efforts culminated in the invasion at the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961, where approximately 1,400 Cuban exiles that were trained, armed and funded by the CIA attacked Cuba in an attempt to topple Fidel Castro’s socialist regime. Although this failed invasion was executed when John F. Kennedy was President, the CIA began planning this operation in March 1959, when the Eisenhower administration was still in power.

Subsequently, in 1962, the Kennedy government imposed a full commercial, economic and financial embargo on Cuba, which blocked virtually all trade between the two countries and banned U.S. citizens from travelling to the island. Since being instituted, the trade embargo has been accepted as the best mechanism to reverse the socialist revolution by all of the subsequent US administrations. The rationale behind the imposition of the embargo was best explained by Lester D. Mallory, former deputy assistant Secretary of State, on April 6, 1960:

The majority of the Cuban people support Castro. There is no effective political opposition… The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection and hardship… every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba… a line of action which… makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.

The US embargo is widely accepted as the primary obstacle to the development of the Cuban economy since 1962, with the Cuban Foreign Ministry estimating total damages at more than $1.1 trillion as of 2014. Regardless, Washington does not consider the economic embargo to be a violation of human rights and insists that regime change is a prerequisite for lifting it, which runs counter to world opinion.

In addition to the commercial, economic and financial blockade, the Americans also employed a wide variety of other tactics aimed at destabilising and destroying Cuba’s socialist regime, which included funding Cuban exiles to organize terrorist attacks and sabotage the island’s economy, engaging in chemical and biological warfare, imposing economic and political sanctions that inhibited Cuba’s ability to access credit and loans from international banks and prevented free trade, and supporting CIA efforts to assassinate Fidel Castro. Although some estimates put the total number of CIA assassination attempts against Fidel Castro at 638, he has managed to become one of the world’s longest serving leaders of a nation. Interestingly, against the backdrop of all these attacks and efforts to reverse the Revolution, Fidel Castro consistently expressed his willingness to enter into negotiations to normalize relations with the US; however, he made it explicitly clear that while economic problems could be discussed, communism was not on the table. Specifically, Castro (May 1, 1961 in Havana) stated that:

Cuban people are capable of establishing their own government. We have never considered the possibility of discussing this. We will discuss only matters that do not affect our sovereignty.

In 1991, Cuba formally requested UN assistance in ending the blockade. Since then, the UN General Assembly has voted on a non-binding resolution criticizing the ongoing impact of the embargo every year, which has passed with overwhelming support on each occasion. In the most recent vote held in October 2018, 189 of the 193 member states comprising the General Assembly voted for the non-binding resolution, with only the U.S. and Israel voting against it and Moldova and the Ukraine abstaining. In fact, no more than four countries have ever voted against this resolution over its 27-year history, with the U.S and Israel being the only two countries that have opposed it every time. Support for the resolution has grown steadily, as evidenced by the declining number of abstentions since the initial vote, as members of the General Assembly, including many U.S. allies, cannot justify the devastating economic impacts of the embargo on the daily lives of the Cuban people.

The trade embargo targets all Cuban people indiscriminately, which directly violates articles 2[iii], 13[iv], and 25[v]of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). In fact, a thorough investigation conducted by the American Association for World Health[vi]in 1997 declared that ‘the U.S. embargo of Cuba has dramatically harmed the health and nutrition of large numbers of ordinary Cuban citizens…the U.S. embargo has caused a significant rise in suffering-and even deaths-in Cuba. For several decades the U.S. embargo has imposed significant financial burdens on the Cuban health care system…since 1992 the number of unmet medical needs-patients going without essential drugs or doctors performing medical procedures without adequate equipment-has sharply accelerated. This trend is directly linked to the fact that in 1992 the U.S. trade embargo—one of the most stringent embargoes of its kind, prohibiting the sale of food and sharply restricting the sale of medicines and medical equipment-was further tightened by the 1992 Cuban Democracy Act.’[vii]Furthermore, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights also confirmed ‘the impact of such sanctions on the human rights of the Cuban people and, therefore, insists that the embargo be lifted.’[viii]

After enduring significant hardships from repeated attempts to destroy Fidel Castro’s socialist regime on the part of Americans, Cubans were hit particularly hard by the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which produced what came to be known as the ‘special period’ from 1989 to 1995. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba lost its most important trade partner and the large subsidies emanating from the socialist block. Approximately, 80% of Cuban exports were destined for the Soviet Union, while a similar magnitude of imports originated there. As a result, the Cuban economy collapsed, contracting by more than 40% in 1992 alone. This led to severe shortages of basic needs, including food and medication, which resulted in malnutrition and a significant increase serious health problems during the special period. Of course, the US could never pass up such a grandiose opportunity to tighten the screws further by enacting measures to strengthen its embargo against Cuba with the passage of the Cuban Democracy Act in 1992 and the Helms-Burton Act in 1996.

In response to the hardships associated with the special period, Fidel Castro’s government initiated a number of quasi-free market economic reforms and sought foreign investment to reinvigorate the economy, which included permitting small-scale private enterprises, reopening the island to foreign tourism in 1993-94, and investing in biotechnology. In fact, the reforms implemented during the special period are the reason why many of the hotel and resort chains currently operating on the island are actually joint ventures between the Cuban government and foreign companies, primarily from Spain and Canada. That would suggest that Cuba has been trying to rejuvenate its socialist system since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, as opposed to abandoning its ideals in favour of capitalism.

Despite the disastrous economic consequences of the special period and the strengthening of the American embargo that accompanied it, Cuban socialism continued to produce many impressive achievements, including the attainment of full employment, universal access to free education and health care services, and improving social justice. As a result, the island was able to achieve higher literacy rates and life expectancy, and lower child mortality, child malnutrition, and poverty rates compared to any other Latin American country (Navarro, 2014, Vandepitte, 2011). In fact, the World Bank acknowledged that Cuba’s international ‘success in the fields of education and health, with social services that exceeds those of most developing countries and, in certain sectors, are comparable to those of the developed nations.’ Furthermore, according to estimates from the United Nations Development Program, Cuba ranks third in Latin America on the Human Development Index (HDI). More precisely, according to the United Nations Human Development Report 2017, ‘Cuba ’s 2017 HDI of 0.777 is above the average of 0.757 for countries in the high human development group and above the average of 0.758 for countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.’

In addition to its success in areas of human development, Cuba has also been active in providing practical foreign aid in the form of sending highly-trained specialists, such as teachers, doctors, and engineers, to developing countries where they are urgently needed. Since 1959, Cuba has sent more than 300,000 healthcare professionals to various countries in Latin American and Africa that were otherwise unable to meet the health care needs of their citizens on their own. This is a practice for which Cuba is particularly well-regarded.

Currently, around 50,000 Cuban health workers are operating in 66 countries. To put that figure into perspective, in 2014, ‘Cuban medical staff were caring for more than 70 million people in the world, more than the whole G8 plus the World Health Organisation and Médicins Sans Frontières put together.’[ix]Cuba also helps combat doctor shortages by providing free medical school for students from various developing countries. In fact, Havana’s Latin American Medical School is ‘the largest medical school in the world’, producing approximately 29,000 doctors from 90 countries since 2005. The quality of the Cuban health care system has been acknowledged by former US president Jimmy Carter, who stated that: ‘Of all the so-called developing nations, Cuba has by far the best health system. And their outreach program to other countries is unequalled anywhere.’

Castro’s government was also well-known for its commitment to the environment, as demonstrated by the country’s sustainable use of natural resources and its efforts to combat over-consumption and global warming. Since 2006, Cuba was the only country in the world that managed to attain sustainable development, as defined by the United Nations Development Programme. In 2014, Cuba registered a low ecological footprint[x]of less than 1.8 hectares per capita, well below the 2.8 world average.

Outside of the western mainstream press, Cuba is actually widely-renowned for its commitment to peace, social justice, equality, and humanitarian aid since its socialist Revolution in 1959. Nowhere else in the world did the ‘spirit of international solidarity become so deeply rooted’ than in Cuban (Fidel Castro 2003). In 1963, Fidel Castro’s government organized the ‘Committee in Solidarity with Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia’, which sought to provide these countries with assistance during the Vietnam War by sending Cuban medical professionals, engineers and technological advice. Castro’s government was also an enduring supporter of Palestinian liberation, as evidenced by Cuba becoming the first country to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964. In addition to consistently expressing solidarity with the Palestinian cause, Castro permitted numerous Palestinian students to study in Cuba, sent 4,000 Cuban soldiers to defend Syrian territory from invasion by the Israelis during the Yom Kippur War in 1973, and condemned Israel’s sealing off of the Gaza strip in 2012 as a ‘Palestinian Holocaust’. Fidel Castro also condemned the disastrous NATO-led military intervention of Libya that commenced in March 2011. Such actions and strong positions have made Fidel Castro highly-respected throughout the Arab world since the early years of the Cuban Revolution.

Cuba also played a prominent role in liberation movements on the African continent. For example, in 1961, Cuba supported the National Liberation Front in its fight against French colonialism in Algeria. Subsequently, in October 1963, after Algeria had been liberated from France, Cuba sent troops to help safeguard Algeria’s recently acquired independence against Moroccan expansionism during the Sand War (Fidel Castro, May 1, 2003 Havana). Cuba also sent material and military assistance in support of the Marxist Movement for the Liberation of Angola in the late 1960s. After Angola gained independence from Portugal in November 1975, Cuba supported the leftist People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) by sending 25,000 troops to help repel interventions on the part of South Africa and Zaire, which were supported by Washington. After Zaire and South Africa withdrew their forces, Cuban troops remained to support the MPLA government during much of the Angolan Civil War (1975-2002), eventually leaving in 1991.

The impact of the Cuban Revolution was not limited to freeing Cubans from subservience to American domination; it was also viewed as a model for national liberation movements opposing imperialism and colonialism throughout Asia, Africa, and South and Central America. ‘The case of Cuba is not an isolated one. It would be an error to think of it only as the case of Cuba. The case of Cuba is that of all underdeveloped nations. It is the case of the Congo, it is the case of Egypt, it is the case of Algeria, it is the case of Iran, and finally, it is the case of Panama, which wants its canal back. It is the case of Puerto Rico, whose national spirit they are destroying. It is the case of Honduras, a portion of whose territory has been seized. In short, without specifically referring to other countries, the case of Cuba is the case of all underdeveloped and colonized countries…The problems of Latin America are like the problems of the rest of the underdeveloped world, in Africa and Asia. The world is divided up among the monopolies, and those same monopolies that we find in Latin America are also found in the Middle East. Oil in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and in every corner of the earth is in the hands of monopolistic companies that are controlled by the financial interests of the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and France…The monopolistic interests are not concerned with the development of the peoples. What they want is to exploit the natural resources of our countries and exploit the peoples.’[xi]

The Cuban people have been struggling against the ‘most formidable imperial power ever known to humankind’ for 60 years. It could be said that, ‘never has the world witnessed such an unequal fight’ when considering the relative sizes, populations, and military strengths of the two countries (Fidel Castro, May 1, 2003 Havana). However, despite these disparities in favour of the US, ‘Cuba crushed the Bay of Pigs mercenary invasion organized by a US administration, thereby preventing a direct military intervention…In 1962, Cuba confronted with honor, and without a single concession, the risk of being attacked with dozens of nuclear weapons…It stoically endured thousands acts of sabotage and terrorist attacks organized by the US government. It thwarted hundreds of assassination plots against the leaders of the revolution’ (Fidel Castro, May 1, 2003 Havana). Cuba was able to achieve these victories because ‘there is something more powerful than weapons, [no matter how sophisticated and powerful those weapons may be]: ideas, reason and the morality of cause’ (Fidel Castro, May 1, 2003 Havana). These are things that are not ‘born of human beings’ nor do ‘they perish with an individual’ (Fidel Castro, June 23, 2007).

‘Long live free Cuba! Long live the Victorious Revolution!’ (Fidel Castro)

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Global Research contributor Dr. Birsen Filip holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Ottawa.

Notes

[i]The 26th of July Movement became Cuba’s Communist Party in October 1965.

[ii]https://revcom.us/a/056/cubahist-en.html

[iii]‘Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.’ (http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/)

[iv]‘(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state’ and ‘(2) everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.’ (http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/).

[v]‘(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control’ (http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/).

[vi]‘The American Association for World Health (AAWH) was founded in 1953 as a private, non-profit charitable and educational organization, and serves as the U.S. Committee for the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Its purposes are to inform the American public about major health challenges that affect people both here and abroad, and to promote cooperative solutions that emphasize grassroots involvement.’ (http://archives.usaengage.org/archives/studies/cuba.html)

[vii]http://www.medicc.org/resources/documents/embargo/The%20impact%20of%20the%20U.S.%20Embargo%20on%20Health%20&%20Nutrition%20in%20Cuba.pdf

[viii]http://www.amnestyusa.org/pdfs/amr250072009eng.pdf

[ix]http://www.theindependentbd.com/arcprint/details/55858/2016-08-15

[x]An ecological footprint refers to the biologically productive area that is necessary to provide for everything that a person uses including fruits and vegetables, the consumption of energy, fibers, space for buildings and roads, etc.

[xi]Fidel Castro speaking at the United Nations General Assembly in 1960.

All images in this article are from the author.

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 curtain is coming down on the brutal 11-year old Syrian conflict, which former US President and Nobel Laureate Barack Obama initiated, as the Arab Spring swept through West Asia two decades ago. The United States has suffered yet another big setback in West Asia as the year 2022 draws to a close. The unfolding Turkish-Syrian reconciliation process under Russian mediation is to be seen as a saga of betrayal and vengeance. 

Ankara came under immense pressure from the Obama Administration in 2011 to spearhead the regime change project in Syria. Obama blithely assumed that Turkiye would gleefully serve as the charioteer of “moderate” Islamism for the transformation in West Asia. But Ankara took its time to calibrate its foreign policies to adapt to the Arab Spring before responding to the shifting landscape in Syria.

Erdogan was caught unprepared by the uprising in Syria at a juncture when Ankara was pursuing a “zero-problems” policy with Turkiye’s neighbours. Ankara was unsure how the Arab Spring would play out and remained silent when the revolt first appeared in Tunisia. Even on Egypt, Erdogan made an emotional call for Hosni Mubarak’s departure only when he sensed, correctly so, that Obama was decoupling from America’s  staunch ally in Cairo. 

Syria was the ultimate test case and a real challenge for Erdogan. Ankara had invested heavily in the improvement of relations with Syria within the framework of the so-called Adana Agreement in 1998 in the downstream of Turkish military’s massive showdown with Damascus over the latter harbouring the PKK [Kurdish] leader Ocalan. Erdogan initially did not want Bashar al-Assad to lose power, and advised him to reform. The families of Erdogan and Assad used to holiday together. 

Obama had to depute then CIA chief David Petraeus to visit Turkey twice in 2012 to persuade Erdogan to engage with the US in operational planning aimed at bringing about the end of the Assad government. It was Petraeus who proposed to Ankara a covert program of arming and training Syrian rebels.

But by 2013 already, Erdogan began sensing that Obama himself had only a limited American involvement in Syria and preferred to lead from the rear. In 2014, Erdogan went public that his relations with Obama had diminished, saying that he was disappointed about not getting direct results on the Syrian conflict. By that time, more than 170,000 people had died and 2.9 million Syrians had fled to neighbouring countries, including Turkey, and the fighting had forced another 6.5 million people from their homes within Syria. 

Simply put, Erdogan felt embittered that he was left holding a can of worms and Obama had scooted off. Worse still, the Pentagon began aligning with the Syrian Kurdish groups linked to the PKK.  (In October 2014, US began providing supplies to Kurdish forces and in November 2015, US special forces were deployed in Syria.) 

Indeed, since then, Erdogan had been protesting in vain that the US, a NATO ally, had aligned with a terrorist group (Syrian Kurds known as YPG) that threatened Turkiye’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. 

It is against such a backdrop that the two meetings in Moscow on Wednesday between the defence ministers and intelligence chiefs of Turkey and Syria in the presence of their Russian counterparts took place. Erdogan’s reconciliation process with Assad is quintessentially his sweet revenge for the American betrayal. Erdogan sought help from Russia, the archetypal enemy country in the US and NATO’s sights, in order to communicate with Assad who is a pariah in American eyes. The matrix is self-evident. 

On Thursday, Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said:

“At the meeting (in Moscow), we discussed what we could do to improve the situation in Syria and the region as soon as possible while ensuring peace, tranquility and stability… We reiterated our respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty rights of all our neighbours, especially Syria and Iraq, and that our sole aim is the fight against terrorism, we have no other purpose.” 

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been counselling Erdogan in  recent years that Turkiye’s security concerns are best tackled in coordination with Damascus and that Adana Agreement could provide a framework of cooperation. The Turkish Defence Ministry readout said the meeting in Moscow took place in a “constructive atmosphere” and it was agreed to continue the format of trilateral meetings “to ensure and maintain stability in Syria and the region as a whole.” 

Without doubt, the normalisation between Ankara and Damascus will impact regional security and, in particular, the Syrian war, given the clout Turkiye wields with the residual Syrian opposition. A Turkish ground operation in northern Syria may not be necessary if Ankara and Damascus were to revive the Adana Agreement. In fact, Akar disclosed that Ankara, Moscow and Damascus are working on carrying out joint missions on the ground in Syria.

The Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu’s willingness right in the middle of the Ukraine war to take the steering wheel and navigate its reconciliation with Syria adds an altogether new dimension to the deepening strategic ties between Moscow and Ankara. For Erdogan too, Syria becomes the newest addition to his policy initiatives lately to improve Turkiye’s relations with the regional states. Normalisation with Syria will go down well with Turkish public opinion and that has implications for Erdogan’s bid for a renewed mandate in the upcoming elections.

From the Syrian perspective, the normalisation with Turkiye is going to be far more consequential than the restoration of ties with various regional states (starting with the UAE) in the recent years who had fuelled the conflict. Turkiye’s equations with Syrian militant groups (eg., Syrian National Army and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham), its continued occupation of Syrian territory, Syrian refugees in Turkiye  (numbering 3.6 million), etc. are vital issues affecting Syria’s security.    

The US resents Erdogan’s move to normalise with Assad — and that too, with Russia’s helping hand. It is now even more unlikely to give up its military presence in Syria or its alliance with the Syrian Kurdish group YPG (which Ankara regards as an affiliate of the PKK.) 

But the YPG will find itself in a tight spot. As Syria requests Turkiye to withdraw from its territories (Idlib and so-called operation areas) and stop supporting armed groups, Turkiye in return will insist on pushing the YPG away from the border. (The government-aligned Syrian daily Al-Watan reported quoting sources that at the tripartite meeting in Moscow, Ankara has committed to withdrawing all its forces from Syrian territory.) 

Indeed, the replacement of the YPG militia by the Syrian government forces along the borders with Turkiye would lead to the weakening of both YPG and the US military presence. However, the question will still remain unanswered as regards the place of Kurds in the future of Syria. 

The US State Department stated recently,

“The US will not upgrade its diplomatic relations with the Assad regime and does not support other countries upgrading their relations. The US urges states in the region to consider carefully the atrocities inflicted by the Assad regime on the Syrian people over the last decade. The US believes that stability in Syria and the greater region can be achieved through a political process that represents the will of all Syrians.”

Last week’s meetings in Moscow show that Russia’s standing in the West Asian region is far from defined by the Ukraine conflict. Russian influence on Syria remains intact and Moscow will continue to shape Syria’s transition out of conflict zone and consolidate its own long-term presence in Eastern Mediterranean. 

OPEC Plus has gained traction. Russia’s ties with the Gulf states are steadily growing. The Russia-Iran strategic ties are at its highest level in history. And the return of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister means that the Russian-Israeli ties are heading for a reset. Clearly, Russian diplomacy is on a roll in West Asia. 

Conventional wisdom was that Russia and Turkiye’s geopolitical interests would inevitably collide once the floodgates were opened in Ukraine. Herein lies the paradox, for, what has happened is entirely to the contrary. 

*

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: Turkish military convoy in border with Northern Syria (File photo)

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 Ashrafieh, the wealthy Christian neighborhood in east Beirut, there is a group of 300 young, muscular, and bearded men patrolling the streets from 6 pm. to 6 am. as part of Neighborhood Watch, but they have an extremist Christian ideology which many have termed neo-fascist. They call the group the Soldiers of God, and its members refer to themselves as the Guardian Angels.

According to an investigation carried out by Lebanese army intelligence, the Soldiers of God participated in the October 2021 massacre of 7 people, and the injury of 32 others who were Hezbollah and Amal supporters in Tayouneh, a neighborhood in Beirut. The report specified the names of the Soldiers of God members who participated and their connection to the Societe Generale Bank Group (SGBL).  The report also stated the person in charge of coordinating the massacre was Lebanese Forces (LF) leader Samir Geagea’s head of security, Simon Musallam.

Lebanese security has deemed the Soldiers of God as a “Christian extremist group that may pose a danger in the future.”

Who are the Soldiers of God?

They are an armed Christian militia tied to the Kataeb Party and the Lebanese Forces (LF) who have a long history of deadly violence during the Lebanese Civil War 1975-1990.

Some see the Soldiers of God simply as a Christian answer to Hezbollah. Sectarian divisions are dangerous in Lebanon, which is home to many religions and sects that formed the basis of the Lebanese civil war. The Lebanese people are concerned that a possible return to street battles between armed groups divided along sectarian lines might be the latest in a long string of disasters to hit Lebanon since 2019.

The group espouses a right-wing Christian ideology that is against secularism, communism, homosexual lifestyle, drugs, abortion, and civil marriage.  They are active on social media but shy away from media interviews.  While being based in Ashrafieh, they are known to be present in smaller numbers in Zahle, Jal El Dib, and Bourj Hammoud.

Who is funding the annual budget of $330,000?

The Neighborhood Watch is part of the Achrafieh 2020 civil organization, which was founded in 2012 by Member of Parliament, Nadim Gemayel, who is a member of the Kataeb party.  His father was the President of Lebanon, Bashir Gemayel, until his 1982 assassination.

Bashir Gemayel had founded a Christian militia, the LF, which fought in the Lebanese civil war and received their training in Israel. The party is now supported by Saudi Arabia and led by Samir Geagea.  The LF committed a massacre of 3,500 Lebanese citizens in 1982 in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps while their ally, Israel, guarded the perimeters.

Antoine Sehnaoui, (also spelled as Anton Al-Sehnawi) Chairman of the Board of Directors of SGBL, has been linked to the group as a source of funding; however, he has denied this. The Soldiers of God were founded by Joseph Mansour, an employee of SGBL, in 2020 and some of the group work for SGBL as security guards.

Are the Soldiers of God aligned with the ISF?

Representative Paula Yacoubian brought to light the curious case of a woman in Ashrafieh who was the victim of a home robbery. The woman called the local police to report the robbery, but it was the Soldiers of God who showed up at her door in response. The woman was so shocked that she reported the occurrence to her elected representative.

The General Directorate of the ISF issued a statement, in which it said that the matter was investigated and they did not find any interaction between the ISF and the Soldiers of God. The ISF has said they are against any type of vigilante group claiming to be providing security. Lebanon’s public security sector is underfunded and some have tried to justify the Soldiers of God as an additional source of security off the public payroll.

Achrafieh 2020 Secretary, Akram Nehme, said recently “First, we’re not in a war situation. Second, we are in complete coordination with the police, the Mukhabarat (intelligence agencies), and all the necessary authorities that are needed to do our activity.”

The Soldiers of God are supporters of the Kataeb Party and the LF and are opposed to Hezbollah and all refugees in Lebanon, such as Palestinians and Syrians.

Gemayel and Geagea

Samir Geagea is a Lebanese politician and militia commander who now leads the LF as a political party, following its demilitarization in 1986. Recently, Geagea said, “They are saying that they want a president who protects the back of the resistance, but do we need a president who would protect Hezbollah’s back, or do we need him to protect the back of the Lebanese?”

Geagea was referring to criticism directed at Hezbollah which some claim has prevented the election of a new President of Lebanon. The former President, Michel Aoun, had aligned his office with Hezbollah. Aoun was a former General during the civil war, and despite being Christian, he valued Hezbollah’s ability to defend Lebanon’s southern border while the national army was underfunded and lacked the weapons needed for security.

The Soldiers of God are loyal to the parties of Gemayel and Geagea. In the aftermath of the Tayouneh massacre, 68 people have been charged, with 47 of them being charged with “murder, attempted murder, inciting sectarian strife and forming an armed gang,” while 20 others are charged with “murder, attempted murder and possession of weapons without a license.”

The Lebanese Civil War

During the period from 1975 to 1990, an estimated 120,000 people died in the Lebanese civil war, with another 1 million who left the country. Lebanon is very diverse.  There are the Christians: Maronite Catholic, Roman Catholic, Armenian, Greek Catholic, and Syrian Orthodox.  Then the Muslims: Sunni and Shiite.  The Druze are a sizeable community as well. At one time in history, the Christians outnumbered the others, but in recent times the Muslims became the majority.

During the French mandate of 1920-1943, the political system and parliament became sectarian.  This focus on identity-based on religious terms laid the framework for the civil war, where each community had an armed militia and they turned the country into a warzone.

In 1989 the Taif agreement began the process of the end of the civil war. In 1991 all the militias were to be dissolved which the exception of Hezbollah and the Lebanese army was to begin rebuilding itself as the sole non-sectarian armed group. However, this never materialized and the southern border of Lebanon is protected by Hezbollah, much to the dismay of many Lebanese who wish there were only state institutions for defense and security.

The Lebanese people are worried that sectarian violence may be increasing and the flames of civil war may be fanned by the Soldiers of God, and their ties to the warlords, militias, and parties who participated in the Lebanese civil war.  This is part one of a two-part series explaining Lebanon’s position currently as a failed state.

*

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 Mideast Discourse.

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

All images in this article are from MD

 Gli Stati Uniti – come annunciato lo scorso mese* – hanno cominciato in dicembre a inviare in Italia e altri paesi europei le nuove bombe nucleari B61-12. Lo conferma un documento ufficiale del Dipartimento della US Air Force. Esso stabilisce “le norme di sicurezza per le operazioni degli aerei C-17 che trasportano armi B61-12 nell’area di responsabilità del Comando Europeo degli Stati Uniti”. Tale area, nella geografia del Pentagono, comprende non solo l’Europa ma l’intera Federazione Russa. 

Il documento specifica quali armi nucleari vengono trasportate con i C-17 Globemaster, i più grandi aerei USA da trasporto militare.  Essi portano dagli Stati Uniti in Europa le bombe nucleari B61-12 e dall’Europa negli Stati Uniti le bombe che esse sostituiscono: le B61-3, B61-4 e B61-7. Una singola B61-12 ha infatti quattro opzioni di potenza a seconda dell’obiettivo da colpire. I C-17 Globemaster – specifica sempre il documento – trasportano anche altre armi nucleari: B61-11, W78, W80-1, B83-1, W87-0.

Le norme di sicurezza elencate nel documento confermano la pericolosità delle operazioni di carico, trasporto e scarico delle armi nucleari. Vi può essere “la probabilità di incendio di un aereo con armi nucleari a bordo” e un guasto dell’aereo mentre è in. volo che costringe a “un atterraggio di emergenza” o allo “sgancio di un’arma nucleare”.

Lo schieramento sul nostro territorio nazionale delle nuove bombe nucleari USA – armi da first strike con guida di precisione e capacità anti-bunker, di cui saranno dotati soprattutto i caccia F-35 – espone l’Italia in prima linea nel sempre più pericoloso confronto tra NATO e Russia. In tal modo l’Italia viola il Trattato di Non-Proliferazione delle Armi Nucleari, ratificato nel 1975, il quale stabilisce: “Ciascuno degli Stati militarmente non nucleari si impegna a non ricevere da chicchessia armi nucleari, direttamente o indirettamente”. 

La puntata si chiude con una intervista allo storico Franco Cardini sul silenzio del governo e parlamento italiani e sulla fase storica che viviamo.

Manlio Dinucci

 

*Vedi Grandangolo del 4 novembre 

https://www.byoblu.com/2022/11/04/sotto-lalbero-di-natalela-nuova-bomba-nucleare-usa-b61-12-grandangolo-pangea/

 

STASERA ALLE 20:30

SUL CANALE TV 262 BYOBLU

GRANDANGOLO

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.

.

Introductory Note

The WHO’s Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, took the decision unilaterally (without the endorsement of The IHR Emergency Committee) to declare a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). (July 23, 2022)

Conflict of Interest? Multibillionaire philanthropist Bill Gates is Dr. Tedros’ mentor. The WHO is partly funded by the Gates Foundation. 

Bill Gates had envisaged a smallpox pandemic scenario more than five years ago at the Munich Security Conference in February 2017:

“The next epidemic could originate on the computer screen of a terrorist intent on using genetic engineering to create a synthetic version of the smallpox virus … or a super contagious and deadly strain of the flu. 

“An outbreak that is concentrated among men who have sex with men”:

“Although I [Tedros] am declaring a public health emergency of international concern, for the moment this is an outbreak that is concentrated among men who have sex with men, especially those with multiple sexual partners.

Dr. Tedros’ “Aloneness”:

Is this a “legal decision” taken by Dr.Tedros (“Me, Myself and I”) in defiance of the WHO Emergency Committee on behalf of 194 member states of the WHO?

What’s the science behind this far-reaching statement.

Michel Chossudovsky, August 6, 2022

See Video: Michel Chossudovsky and Peter Koenig. The Gates-WHO Monkeypox Crisis

To leave a comment or Access the GRTV Bitchute site click here

With thanks to Dr. Stephen Frost, Webinar presentations, recorded on August 2, 2022

***

Ten Countries, Ten Airports. (That’s Where the Testing Takes Place)

Screenshot of November 4 2021 Article in Evening Standard

 

***

See Related Articles on the WHO’s Monkeypox PHEIC

For further details on the Timeline and the Simulated Scenario of a Monkeypox Epidemic:

Worldwide Monkeypox Health Emergency (PHEIC): For Bill Gates, It’s “Moneypox”: Simulation of Fictitious Monkeypox Virus Pandemic in March 2021, Goes Live in May 2022 

See also article by Michel Chossudovsky

“Factual Chaos” at the WHO? Dr. Tedros: Monkeypox Outbreak Is “Among Men Who Have Sex with Men”

 

 

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.

Latest Update July 23, 2022. First published on May 21, 2022

Author’s Note and Update

The WHO Declares a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

In recent developments,  the WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus  went against the majority vote of the WHO expert committee (9 against 6 in favor): i.e. AGAINST the calling of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PEIC).

“We have an outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly through new modes of transmission,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press briefing in Geneva on Saturday (July 23). “I have decided that the global monkeypox outbreak represents a public health emergency of international concern.”  

The evidence is scanty, the motivation is political.

The unspoken objective is to sustain the fear campaign. 

According to Bloomberg, “The declaration from Tedros … underscores divisions within the organization over the severity of the threat. The pathogen typically causes flu-like symptoms, followed by a rash that often starts on the face and spreads down the belly.  (Bloomberg)

Is Dr. Tedros in conflict of interest, going against a committee of medical doctors and scientists?  The WHO is funded by the Gates Foundation. And Bill Gates is centrefold. He has been pushing for the monkeypox scenario since 2017. (see analysis below). 

And guess what: it’s the Real Time PCR test which the CDC declared invalid for detecting SARS-CoV-2 (effective December 31 2021) which is now being used to “detect the monkeypox pathogen”. 

The July 2021 CDC advisory pertaining to the failures of the RT-PCR test reads as follows:

“CDC encourages laboratories to consider adoption of a multiplexed method that can facilitate detection and differentiation of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza”.

And now the CDC has put forth a procedure “used for the detection of Monkeypox virus DNA in clinical specimens by real-time PCR”: 

“This [RT-PCR] assay detects DNA at varying concentrations, providing a qualitative result of either positive, negative, or inconclusive in the identification of Monkeypox virus infections.” (CDC)

If you test RT-PCR positive for Covid-19, it may be “mistakenly” tabulated as a “positive” Monkeypox virus infection.  

Versatility of the RT-PCR test! Anything Goes. SARS-CoV-2, Influenza, MonkeyPox. It is also being applied to detect the “dangerous” Covid omicron variants and BA 4 and 5 sub-variants. 

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research July 23, 2022

See Related Article on the WHO’s Monkeypox PHEIC

 

“Factual Chaos” at the WHO? Dr. Tedros: Monkeypox Outbreak Is “Among Men Who Have Sex with Men”

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky,

 

Video: Michel Chossudovsky and Peter Koenig on the WHO Monkeypox Agenda

With thanks to Stephen Frost, Webinar presentation, recorded on August 2, 2022

***

Another Chapter of “Fake Science” is Unfolding

Say Goodbye to SARS-CoV-2, Say Hello to the Monkeypox Pathogen

Screenshot of November 4 2021 Article in Evening Standard

Possible “Monkeypox Terror Attacks” Announced by Bill Gates in November 2021

In a TV interview with Jeremy Hunt in early November 2021, Bill Gates warned  governments to prepare for simultaneous smallpox terror attacks in 10 airports:

“You say, OK, what if a bioterrorist brought smallpox to 10 airports? You know, how would the world respond to that? There’s naturally-caused epidemics and bioterrorism-caused epidemics that could even be way worse than what we experienced today”, he said (emphasis added)

Ten Countries, Ten Airports. (That’s Where the Testing Takes Place)

Compare that to the latest news report on May 19, 2022, more than six months later (emphasis added):

An unprecedented outbreak of monkeypox virus has officially spread to 10 countries outside of Africa, with 107 confirmed or suspected cases reported as of this writing, in the United Kingdom (9 cases), Portugal (34), Spain (32), France (1), Belgium (2), Sweden (1), Italy (3), Canada (22), the United States (2), and Australia (1). (WSWS, May 19, 2022)

To watch the video interview with Bill Gates click below

---

Video Interview with Michel Chossudovsky on Monkeypox

click lower right corner for fullscreen

---

Bill Gates’s February 2017 Warning of Bioterrorism: Deadly Strain of Smallpox Virus. Munich Security Conference

This is not the first time that Bill Gates has warned governments of the dangers of a bioterrorist attack involving a deadly strain of the smallpox virus. The following announcement was made at the 2017 Munich Security Conference:

“The next epidemic could originate on the computer screen of a terrorist intent on using genetic engineering to create a synthetic version of the smallpox virus … or a super contagious and deadly strain of the flu.” (Munich Security Conference, February 2017, emphasis added)

Click Screen to access video:

Munich Security Conference, 2017

 “Investing Billions in Research”. For Bill Gates, It’s “Moneypox”

Another Warning by Bill Gates of a Smallpox Terror Attack,  November 2021

On November 4, 2021 Bill Gates warned governments “to prepare for future pandemics and smallpox terror attacks by investing billions in research and development”. 

Mr Gates made the warning during a Policy Exchange interview with the chair of the Health Select Committee Jeremy Hunt.

The Microsoft founder also called for the formation of a new billion-dollar World Health Organisation Pandemic Task Force.  

He said that countries like the US and the UK must spend “tens of billions” to fund the research.

“I’m hoping in five years, I can write a book called, ‘We ARE ready for the next pandemic’, but it’ll take tens of billions in R&D – the US and the UK will be part of that”, he said.

“It’ll take probably about a billion a year for a pandemic Task Force at the WHO level, which is doing the surveillance and actually doing what I call ‘germ games’ where you practise.” (Evening Standard, emphasis added).

But there is more in this unfolding multibillion dollar monkeypox saga.

Is a New Fear Campaign in the Making?

The monkeypox simulation agenda was planned well in advance. It started in December 2020 with a meeting of senior U.S National security officials.

The Monkeypox Time Line

The Time Line is as follow:

• December 2020: US National Security and Biological Weapons Experts’ Meeting under the auspices of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). Planning and Formulation of a Simulation of a Monkeypox Pandemic,
• July 2020: FDA approval of Smallpox and Monkeypox Vaccine, “first permitted commercial marketing or use of the product” in US. (For details see below)
• March 2021 Tabletop Simulation of Fictitious Monkeypox Pandemic at Munich Security Conference 2021
• November 2021. Bill Gates warns governments of the likelihood of a monkeypox terrorist attack (see statements above)
• May 2022. WHO announcement. Towards a Monkeypox Pandemic? Unfolding Fear Campaign.
• Commencing May 2022. The marketing of Smallpox vaccines, effective against monkeypox.
• May 2022- : Ongoing propaganda in support of the WHO Pandemic Treaty (coupled with the QR Code).

December 2020: The Expert Planning of A Tabletop Simulation of a Monkeypox Virus Pandemic

As early as December 2020, a simulation of a monkeypox pandemic had been envisaged by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a nonprofit organization, founded by former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn and philanthropist Ted Turner. 

Ted Turner has a close relationship with Bill Gates. He is a member of The Good Club which includes Warren Buffett, George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Oprah Winfrey and many more. The Good Club is known for its resolve to “Try to Shrink World’s Population” according to the WSJ.

The NTI National Security and Biotechnology Advisory Group

At the December 2020 meeting, the NTI convened a group of experts to “advise” on the tabletop exercise scenario. Among the experts were senior officials, scientists and experts in bioterrorism and national security,  from U.S. entities including the Department of Homeland Security, USAID, State Department, National Defense University, John Hopkins, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health,  Department of Health and Human Services, etc.  (See page 27 of report)

The following NTI report entitled:

Strengthening Global Systems to Prevent and Respond to High-Consequence Biological Threats: Results from the 2021 Tabletop Exercise Conducted in Partnership with the Munich Security Conference,

by Jaime M. Yassif, Ph.D., Kevin P. O’Prey, Ph.D., and Christopher R. Isaac, M.Sc.,

A Note on the History of “Scenario Simulations” of Pandemics

Scenario Simulations of Pandemics were initiated  with Rockefeller’s “Lock Step Scenario” in 2010 which consisted in  the use of “scenario planning” as a means to carry out “global governance”.  In the  Rockefeller’s 2010 Report entitled “Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development Area” scenarios of Global Governance and the actions to be taken in the case of a Worldwide pandemic were contemplated.

More specifically, the report envisaged (p 18) the simulation of a Lock Step scenario including a global virulent influenza strain. The 2010 Rockefeller report was published in the immediate wake of the 2009 H1N1 swine flu pandemic.

And then in 2018, The Clade X Table Top Simulation was conducted under the auspices of the John Hopkins Center for Health Security.

Clade X was described by its organizers as a day-long pandemic tabletop exercise the purpose of which “was to illustrate high level strategic decisions in the United States and the world … to prevent a pandemic”.

It was  “played by individuals prominent in the fields of national security or epidemic response”.

EVENT 201 (October 2019)

Clade X was followed by another tabletop simulation entitled Event 201 (also under the auspices of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in October 2019). Event 201 pertained to a coronavirus epidemic entitled 2019-nCoV. 

Among the 201 John Hopkins table top scenario “players” were key personalities holding advisory and senior positions in a number of core organizations. Less than 3 months later,  these 201 “players” became actively involved in the policy response to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The Monkeypox Scenario Exercise Summary

Below is the executive summary of the March NTI Simulation (emphasis added) followed by relevant excerpts as well as the list of participants.

It is worth noting that while the December 2020 team which formulated the simulation project were exclusively from the US focussing on issues of national security, the participants of the Table Top Scenario were from Big Pharma, the Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, WHO, UN, as well as representatives from the EU, China, Africa. (See list below)

These recommendations (which in all likelihood were discussed in December 2020 by the National Security and Biotech advisors prior to the conduct of the Simulation Scenario) are intended to support the WHO Pandemic Treaty (coupled with the QR Code) which consists in establishing a global digital data bank which derogates the rights of individual member nation states. The pandemic treaty is intent upon establishing the contours of a system of “Global Governance” dominated by the financial establishment.

It should be noted that two key participants of the Monkeypox 2021 NTI simulation were involved in the John Hopkins 201 Scenario (October 2019) which consisted in the simulation of a novel corona virus 2019-nCoV pandemic. These included Dr. George Gao Fu, head of China’s CDC and Dr. Chris Elias, President of the Global Development Division of the Gates Foundation, both of whom played a key role in staging the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in early 2020.

And currently George Fu Gao is playing a key role in the implementation of China’s Zero Covid Strategy which has led to the lockdown of Shanghai in late March 2022, as well as in several other major urban areas.

 

A New Fear Campaign? Pandemic Preparedness in America. The Smallpox Vaccine Effective against Monkeypox

Governments have already placed orders for the delivery of smallpox vaccines effective against monkeypox. 

While there were only two confirmed cases in the US of monkeypox recorded on May 18, the US government had already signed a contract with Bavaria Nordic  consisting of an order of  “millions of doses of a vaccine that protects against the virus” (Forbes).

The terms of this contract were in all likelihood negotiated prior to the announcement of the outbreak of the 92 monkeypox cases by the WHO on May 13.

Bavarian Nordic, the biotech company that makes the vaccine, has announced a $119 million order placed by the U.S., with the option to buy $180 million more if it wants. Should that second option be exercised, it would work out to approximately 13 million doses.

The order will convert existing smallpox vaccines, which are also effective against monkeypox, into freeze-dried versions, which have a longer shelf life.

How long is the “pandemic” slated to last?

“The converted vaccines will be manufactured in 2023 and 2024”, according to Bavaria Nordic (May 18, 2022.

Screenshot from Bavaria Nordic Announcement

The Role of Johnson and Johnson?

What the media has failed to acknowledge is the relationship between Johnson and Johnson and Bavarian Nordic, the Danish Biotech Company.

Bavaria North was a Partner of J and J until May 10, 2022, 3 days prior to the WHO official announcement pertaining to the alleged monkeypox outbreak.

The Global Head of J and J and Jannsen’s Public Health R&D is Dr. Ruxandra Draghia Akli, who participated in the Table Top Simulation on behalf of Big Pharma. (See list of participants above). Was the smallpox monkeypox vaccine developed by Bavaria Nordic in partnership with J and J?

The earlier Patent was registered in the US by Bavarian North. It was reviewed and first permitted for commercial marketing by the FDA on July 14, 2020, nine months prior to the NTI sponsored Scenario Simulation in March 2021 at the Munich Security Conference

Live (U.S. Patent No. 7,335,364) from Bavarian Nordic A/S, and the USPTO requested FDA’s assistance in determining this patent’s eligibility for patent term restoration. In a letter dated July 14, 2020, FDA advised the USPTO that this human biological product had undergone a regulatory review period and that the approval of Smallpox and Monkeypox Vaccine, Live represented the first permitted commercial marketing or use of the product.

As filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on January 11, 2016: Bavaria North acknowledges its relationship to Johnson and Johson. 

 

In China, Social Media has Gone Haywire

According to a Daily Mail Report

 

 

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.

Digital Tyranny: The EU Digital Covid Vaccine Certificate Framework

Prof Michel Chossudovsky, December 26, 2022

Biggest Lie in World History: There Never Was A Pandemic. The Data Base is Flawed. The Covid Mandates including the Vaccine are Invalid

Prof Michel Chossudovsky, December 9, 2022

Dear Friends, Sorry to Announce a Genocide: Dr. Naomi Wolf on the Pfizer “Confidential Report”

Dr. Naomi Wolf, December 14, 2022

Will the Tragic Fate of World Stars like Celine Dion and Justin Bieber Open the Eyes of their Fans? Impacts of Covid-19 Vaccine

Dr. Nicole Delépine, December 8, 2022

Shocking: UK Government Admits COVID Vaccinated Children Are 4423% More Likely to Die of Any Cause & 13,633% More Likely to Die of COVID-19 Than Unvaccinated Children

The Expose, August 13, 2022

Bombshell Document Dump on Pfizer Vaccine Data

Prof Michel Chossudovsky, December 7, 2022

Vladimir Zelenko, The Vaccine Death Report: Evidence of Millions of Deaths and Serious Adverse Events Resulting from the Experimental COVID-19 Injections

David John Sorensen, October 21, 2022

World Economic Forum’s “Young Global Leaders” Revealed

Jacob Nordangard, November 26, 2022

Bombshell: CDC No Longer Recognizes the PCR Test As a Valid Method for Detecting “Confirmed Covid-19 Cases”?

Prof Michel Chossudovsky, April 6, 2022

Graphene COVID Kill Shots: Let the Evidence Speak for Itself

Dr. Ariyana Love, November 24, 2022

The Crisis in Ukraine Is Not About Ukraine. It’s About Germany

Mike Whitney, October 8, 2022

Global Planned Financial Tsunami Has Just Begun

F. William Engdahl, December 21, 2022

Many People Fully Vaccinated for COVID Are Now Going Blind

Ethan Huff, December 26, 2022

PfizerGate: Official Government Reports prove Hundreds of Thousands of People Are Dying Every Single Week Due to COVID-19 Vaccination

The Expose, November 6, 2022

Video: Reiner Füllmich and 50 Lawyers: “Different Batches” and “Lethal Doses”, ”The Vaccines Are Designed to Kill”

Reiner Fuellmich, September 18, 2022

The U.S. Has Killed More Than 20 Million People in 37 “Victim Nations” Since World War II

James A. Lucas, December 26, 2022

“The Numbers Killed by these Vaccines is Much Worse than What We Thought”. Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, Dr. Mike Yeadon

Dr. Mike Yeadon, January 2, 2022

COVID-19 Vaccines: Proof of Lethality. Over One Thousand Scientific Studies

SUN, December 26, 2022

Video: Pfizer’s “Secret” Report on the Covid Vaccine. Beyond Manslaughter. The Evidence is Overwhelming. The Vaccine Should Be Immediately Withdrawn Worldwide

Prof Michel Chossudovsky, December 28, 2022

Boom! Trudeau Reversal Motive Surfaces: Canadian Banking Association Was Approved by World Economic Forum to Lead the Digital ID Creation

Sundance, March 26, 2022

Five Reasons Why Kiev Should Accept the Current Ground Realities & Negotiate Peace with Moscow

By Andrew Korybko, December 29, 2022

These five reasons are being shared for the purpose of hopefully inspiring Kiev to pragmatically reconsider its presently recalcitrant position to peace talks with Moscow. They’re meant to be objective insofar as they acknowledge Kiev’s interests as its leadership understands them to be (despite the author disagreeing with the aforesaid of course) while still attempting to strike a fair balance between those same interests, its patrons’, and Moscow’s.

“It’s the industry, stupid” – Economic Nationalism Is on the Rise, Bringing New Risks

By Uriel Araujo, December 30, 2022

US Representative for Silicon Valley Ro Khana argues that the US should become a manufacturing superpower – again. Writing from an American perspective, Khana remarks that the rising US trade deficit since 1998 has cost the country 5 million well-paying manufacturing jobs, leading to the closure of about 70,000 factories.

Ukraine’s “Neo-Nazi Summer Camp”. Military Training for Young Children

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, December 30, 2022

Unknown to most Americans, the US government is channeling financial support, weapons and training to a Neo-Nazi entity –which is part of The Ukraine National Guard– The Azov Battalion (Батальйон Азов). Canada and Britain have confirmed that they also are providing support to the National Guard.

Africa in Review 2022, II: Peacekeeping and the World Economic Crisis

By Abayomi Azikiwe, December 30, 2022

The-then outgoing Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta through a series of statements provided a clear indication that his country, the largest economy in the East African Community (EAC), would send a military force to the contested areas of the DRC where the credibility of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force (MONUSCO), which has been in the mineral-rich state for nearly two decades, has completely evaporated.

Undisguised Fascists Hold Balance of Power in New Israeli Annexationist Regime

By Richard Becker, December 30, 2022

Agreement on a new Israeli government — a coalition of extreme rightwingers, religious bigots and outright fascists – was announced on Dec. 21. Binyamin Netanyahu will return once again as prime minister. Two open fascists, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Belazel Smotrich, will hold key posts dealing with the West Bank and the occupied Palestinian population, and indeed, hold the balance of power in the new ruling cabinet.

Nuclear Bomb Connection in United States Fusion Breakthrough

By Prabir Purkayastha, December 28, 2022

The Lawrence Livermore Laboratory’s advance in achieving fusion energy using lasers has been splashed as a huge success worldwide. So what is the success all about? The joint press release of the United States Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration says this experiment “will pave the way for advancements in national defence and the future of clean power”. In other words, there is a weapons component to the fusion experiment. The Department of Defence is the Department of War.

As Afghans Suffer, U.S. Stalls on Plan to Return Central Bank Funds

By Sarah Lazare, December 28, 2022

In September, the U.S. created a foundation that was supposed to unfreeze Afghanistan’s foreign assets. Yet, interviews with trustees reveal that, in three months, no funds have been disbursed—or concrete plans made—to help the Afghan people.

Antiwar Activist Faces Repression in Germany

By Phil Wilayto, December 28, 2022

June 22, 2022 was the 81st anniversary of Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, and a prominent German antiwar activist took the occasion to publicly question why the German government is now supporting neo-Nazi organizations in Ukraine.

Bill Gates Granted Authority to Buy 2100 More Acres of North Dakota Farmland

By Steve Watson, December 28, 2022

Bill Gates, who already owns close to 270,000 acres of land in the U.S., has been granted the legal authority to buy another 2100 acres in North Dakota despite protests by local residents. Gates, already the largest farmland owner in the country, has secured the go ahead to buy the land for $13.5 million under his ‘Red River Trust’ company.

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.

***

US Representative for Silicon Valley Ro Khana argues that the US should become a manufacturing superpower – again. Writing from an American perspective, Khana remarks that the rising US trade deficit since 1998 has cost the country 5 million well-paying manufacturing jobs, leading to the closure of about 70,000 factories. This process has destroyed several communities, while wealth has concentrated in large coastal cities. Deindustrialization and its consequences are familiar to people in many countries, and it now haunts post-Nord Stream Europe too, according to  Irish economist Philip Pilkington, as I’ve written.

Although deindustrialization is a fact, there is nothing “inevitable” about it and scholars today question the whole idea that the process is a natural outcome of technological changes that supposedly always lead to the reign of the service sector.

Be it as it may, deindustrialization is real enough and the complex dynamics behind it pertain to policies both at the international and the domestic level.

Globalization, particularly, allows companies to hire highly trained and yet less expensive workforce abroad. The so-called manufacturing sector is not the only one affected: in fact, remote work has opened new opportunities for white-collar workers – and has also made outsourcing more attractive. A estimates that 3.4 million white collar jobs in the US will be sent offshore between 2003 and 2015.

Moreover, Meta itself is reducing headcounts for the very first time ever. As big tech stocks now face high interest rates, Facebook, now Meta, has been overtaken, in terms of market value, by ExxonMobil Corp, as writes journalist Joe Weisenthal. This has been described or even applauded by some analysts as an instance of the so-called “triumph of the real”. The reality shift discourse today also extends to the financial realm, as in Russian President Vladmir Putin’s famous quote about “real reserves” – versus paper and digital assets.

Nothing is simple, though. Economically, in the post-pandemic post-Nord Stream world, amid the Ukraine conflict and the energy crisis, we are right now living peculiar times of intense uncertainty, with high volatility not seen since the 2020 global crisis. Besides that,  the relationship between stock market and the labor market strength is no longer stable, which means that good news are not necessarily good news, and the future of the dollar itself is unclear, as de-dollarization advances globally even though (or precisely because) the rising dollar brings the planet closer and closer to recession.

Re-industrializating the nation resonates everywhere today as a good response to many such ills. While much has been said about the social consequences of deindustrialization and outsourcing in terms of domestic social conflicts and tensions, there is also, from the point of view of the nation-state, an important strategic angle, where geopolitics and geoeconomics converge.

Of course, with the pandemics and the global supply chain crisis, many lawmakers have turned their eyes to the importance of a more resilient economy, in terms of industrial policy. In the US, for instance, different voices have been calling for the re-shoring of supply chains critical to the national interest, including medicines and strategic technology – and this call often employs the language of national security concerns.

In this spirit, Ro Khana, in the aforementioned piece, argues that economic imperatives should drive US foreign policy with regard to its rival China. He also suggests that manufacturing workers are much more likely to join unions, thus benefiting from protections that make them part of the large American “middle class”. This, Khana reasons, make for a more democratic society, with less internal conflict. However, one should add that if such positive outcomes are based on hurting other countries, this can alienate even potential partners and allies.

As I’ve written, it is increasingly difficult to insulate industries from geopolitical disputes in today’s world. For sure, it is only natural that nations seek to defend their own interests and to compete. The problem is that while Beijing, for instance, seems to have turned geoeconomics into the very core of its geostrategic approaches (thereby deriving political power from economic power),  Washington, on the other hand, has been dangerously weaponizing economic policies and in fact its financial system and the very world economy.

Washington seems to already share at least some of Khana’s concerns – at the expense of even its partners and allies, though. One can see this quite clearly with regards to the US chip war (against China), and how it hurts Taiwan itself, as exemplified by the chip giant TSMC’s new plant in Arizona. The American subsidy war against Europe is yet another case in point. Biden’s new subsidies package basically aims at wiping out the rival European industry, and the EU in turn is now preparing a huge subsidy initiative to counter  the American one. Besides the more familiar arms race, we can now witness a peculiar and weaponized industry race.

Industrialization/manufacturing holds the key for the powers and the emerging powers in the 21st century, even when so much is talked about the “post-industrial” world. The hard truth is that neoliberalism is quite dead: subsidies, domestic procurement mandates, and protectionism in general are on the rise. Economic nationalism should thus become increasingly relevant – and, unfortunately, so should trade and industry wars. The dangers of this scenario, to sum it up, involve making economic warfare much more dangerous than it already is, by turning things into an existential challenge for the targets of such warfare, thereby “cornering” them – be they rivals, enemies or even partners and 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.

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.

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 the course of 2022, the security situation in the eastern areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) became a flashpoint for international concern and East African military intervention.

The-then outgoing Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta through a series of statements provided a clear indication that his country, the largest economy in the East African Community (EAC), would send a military force to the contested areas of the DRC where the credibility of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force (MONUSCO), which has been in the mineral-rich state for nearly two decades, has completely evaporated.

Since November 2021, the rebels have escalated their attacks on civilians while fighting several battles with the Congolese military. These M23 fighters are making demands on the DRC government in Kinshasa claiming that the previous administration of President Joseph Kabila had refused to integrate them into the Congolese national defense forces.

The clashes between M23 and the recently arrived EAC peacekeeping forces are ongoing despite the multilateral agreement which was reached in the Republic of Angola during November where the governments of the DRC and Rwanda settled upon a disengagement of forces. M23 was not a part of the negotiations and consequently is not a signatory to the agreement.

Angola and the DRC are member-states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) which encompasses 16 governments from throughout the sub-continent and Indian Ocean island-territories. However, the soldiers involved in the EAC peacekeeping operations are all from East Africa. (See this)

Mass demonstrations have been held in several towns in the eastern DRC against the continuing presence of MONUSCO. Residents of these communities in North Kivu around Goma and other areas say that the UN peacekeepers are not fulfilling their mandate to protect civilians from violent attacks by the M23 rebel organization.

According to a recent report on the situation in eastern DRC:

“Fighting between the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC) and suspected members of the M23 rebel group continues in North Kivu Province as of Dec. 28. Clashes reportedly resumed Dec. 26 in the Bishusha, Tongo, Karenga, and Karuli areas. Around 50 people suspected of collaborating with ethnic Hutu Congolese militias were also reportedly kidnapped by M23 rebels in Rusekera. This comes after forces of the East African Community (EAC) officially took back control of Kibumba, a town located about 20 km (12 miles) from Goma, Dec. 23, after the M23 rebels withdrew from the area following a joint conference between the M23, officials of the EAC regional force and some members of the Joint Verification Mechanism of the Great Lakes region, Dec. 22.”

Neighboring Rwanda has been accused of arming and bankrolling the M23 rebels. Rwandan President Paul Kagame denies backing the rebels despite the allegations being made also by the United States and France.

M23 is reportedly composed of the Tutsi ethnic group which lives in the eastern DRC. The rebels are often described as Rwandans since they come from the same ethnicity as the ruling party in Kigali.

The 1994 genocide in Rwanda remains a cornerstone of Kagame’s domestic and foreign policies. Hutu ethnic leaders who controlled the Rwandan government during the early 1990s coordinated the attempted extermination of the Tutsis. The Rwanda administration accuses the DRC of harboring the same Hutu elements which carried out the mass killings nearly three decades ago. France, which had troops in Rwanda at the time when the genocide which began in April 1994, has had a rocky diplomatic relationship with Kigali.

Until the processes of reconciliation and renewal are satisfactorily completed in regard to the events of 1994, there will continue to be tensions between the two major ethnic groupings in Rwanda. Neighboring states in East and Central Africa cannot avoid being cognizant of this history which is a manifestation of the legacy of German and Belgian colonialism which institutionalized ethnic stratification and animosity during the late 19th century extending well into the conclusion of the 20th century.

SADC, Rwanda and the Security Crisis in Mozambique

Although there are no SADC peacekeeping forces operating in the eastern region of the DRC, they are involved in another member-states’ security crisis, that being the Republic of Mozambique. Interestingly enough, Rwanda, which is considered an aggressor by the DRC administration of President Felix Tshisekedi, is playing an important role in the counter-insurgency efforts in northern Mozambique.

Image: SADC forces in Mozambique

France. which has been reluctant to accept any responsibility for the genocide in Rwanda, appears to be cooperating with Kigali which deployed its military forces operating in Cabo Delgado protecting the natural gas resources being developed by Total, a French-based energy firm.

Over the last several years a group initially calling itself “al-Shabaab” has attacked the massive Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) project now underway in Cabo Delgado province. Mozambique is well-endowed with natural gas resources offshore in the Indian Ocean.

Due to the armed attacks by the Islamist insurgents, which appear to have no connection with the rebels of the same name in the Horn of Africa state of Somalia, the LNG development was suspended during 2020. With the intervention of Rwanda and the SADC Mission to Mozambique (SAMIM), the situation has improved significantly enabling the production and export of natural gas to resume.

SADC on its website says of the mission in Mozambique that:

“The operation of SAMIM is supported by the Regional Coordination Mechanism (RCM) which reports to the Head of Mission and the SADC Executive Secretary. Since its deployment, SAMIM has registered a number of milestones, including recapturing villages, dislodging terrorists from their bases and seizing weapons and warfare material, which has contributed to create a relatively secure environment for safer passage of humanitarian support. Additionally, members of the community have developed confidence in SAMIM forces, feeling more secure and allowing internally displaced persons to return to their normal lives SAMIM comprises troops deployment from eight (8) Personnel Contributing Countries from SADC namely, Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa, United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia, working in collaboration with the Forças Armadas de Defesa de Moçambique (FADM) and other troops deployed to Cabo Delgado to combat acts of terrorism and violent extremism.”

Insecurity and the Anticipated Global Recession

The securing of energy resources during this period is essential in light of a burgeoning economic crisis throughout the AU region and the world. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic three years ago, the capitalist world has undergone tremendous turmoil necessitating the reconfiguration of the production of goods and services.

Compounding the efforts to emerge from the pandemic-induced higher levels of displacement, business closures, supply chain bottlenecks and far higher rates of inflation not experienced in four decades, are undoubtedly, the circumstances which prompted the Russian special military operation in Ukraine. Oil and natural gas became weapons in the war by the U.S. and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies to weaken Russia and even remove the administration of President Vladimir Putin.

As the war approaches its first anniversary, there is no consistent indication that the White House will seek a negotiated settlement between Kyiv and Moscow unless it involves a complete capitulation to NATO. The imperialist military alliance has been expanding its membership and territory since the collapse of the socialist countries in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The administration of President Joe Biden has proven its Cold War credentials by starting a protracted war in Eastern Europe and provoking military operations by the People’s Republic of China involving Taiwan. Outgoing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi led a Congressional delegation to Taiwan making a direct threat to Beijing and repudiating the “One China” policy in effect since the 1970s.

Consumer prices for petroleum, electricity and natural gas have risen substantially since February of 2022. The costs for food, transportation, rents, mortgages and other essential products and services have increased making life even more difficult for billions of people around the world.

Although the Biden administration and NATO has sought to make Moscow appear as the instigator of the Ukraine war, the origin of the current conflagration extends at least back to 2014 when the former President Barack Obama’s White House engineered the overthrow of the Ukraine government and the violent suppression of the Russian population along with anti-fascist forces.

African people must take all of these factors into consideration in formulating domestic and foreign policy imperatives for the coming year and beyond. The scarcity of energy resources within the NATO countries has already resulted in greater demand for the continent’s natural gas and oil. This has been evidenced with the visit by French President Emmanuel Macron to Algeria during 2022 in his campaign to mitigate the negative impact of natural gas shortages stemming from sanctions against Russia.

The AU member-states must leverage this demand from Western Europe to build up its infrastructure in preparation for the coming economic downturns. Consequently, Pan-Africanism is a necessity for the continent in order to achieve sustainability and genuine development.

*

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.

Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Kenya troops deployed to eastern DRC / all images are from the author

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.

***

Agreement on a new Israeli government — a coalition of extreme rightwingers, religious bigots and outright fascists – was announced on Dec. 21. Binyamin Netanyahu will return once again as prime minister. Two open fascists, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Belazel Smotrich, will hold key posts dealing with the West Bank and the occupied Palestinian population, and indeed, hold the balance of power in the new ruling cabinet.

A document issued by Netanyahu on Dec. 28 states that the new government’s first priority is to “advance and develop settlement in all parts of Israel — in the Galilee, the Negev Desert, the Golan Heights and Judea and Samaria [West Bank].” The Galilee and Negev are heavily Palestinian areas inside the 1948 borders of the Israeli state. The illegally annexed Golan Heights are Syrian territory conquered in the 1967 war that also brought the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza under Israeli control.

Without a doubt, a key aim of the new government’s policy is to increase pressure on the Palestinian population everywhere inside historic Palestine to abandon their homeland. Netanyahu announced his intention to annex the West Bank “while choosing the timing and considering the national and international interests of the state of Israel.” The “international interests” here refers to Israel’s indispensable armer, funder and protector, the United States, which fears that outright annexation could lead to new upheavals and instability in the region. In recognition of this factor, the Israeli government is clearly going forward with an accelerated program of de facto annexation while holding back on an official announcement.

The formation of an openly annexationist government represents a logical next step in the ongoing right-wing shift of the Israeli political landscape over the past several decades. But from its very start as a movement in the late 19th century, Zionism was another variant of racist European colonialism. It was in the name of achieving the Zionist objective of an exclusivist Jewish state that 750,000 Palestinians were driven by means of terror from their homeland in 1948, and hundreds of thousands more in the 1967 war when Israel conquered the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

Today, in violation of international law, more than 700,000 settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They are protected by the Israeli “Defense” Forces in a thorough apartheid system that has a separate legal system and separate access to resources for Israelis and Palestinians.

Fascists in the new Israeli cabinet

The latest Israeli election, the fifth in the last four years, took place on Nov. 1. A coalition of five extreme right-wing and racist parties narrowly won a majority, 64 seats in the 120-seat Knesset (parliament). Over the next seven weeks, Netanyahu succeeded in dividing up cabinet ministries among his Likud party and its four partners. Becoming a cabinet minister comes not just with an honorific title, but also with a budget. The more important ones have considerable power over sectors of the state, society and the occupied Palestinian population.

Netanyahu’s Likud party won 32 seats and was supported in forming a government by two rightist religious parties, Shas with 11 seats and United Torah Judaism with seven.

Two parties, Religious Zionism, led by Belazel Smotrich and Oztma Yehudit (Jewish Power), headed by Itamar Ben-Gvir, formed a bloc which won 14 seats, without which the new government could not have come into being. Both have demanded and received key positions.

A new “National Security Ministry” was created by the passage of the “Ben-Gvir bill” on Dec. 27. As minister, Ben-Gvir will have control over the infamous Border Police in the West Bank, one of the key instruments of the repressive colonial apparatus.

As a youth, Ben-Gvir was a follower of the notorious racist Meir Kahane, a Brooklynite who moved to Israel and created the Kach party. Kach was outlawed as a terrorist organization by the Israeli government in the early 1990s based on its virulent racism. So extremely racist were Ben-Gvir’s views and actions that he was refused induction into the Israeli military when he reached the age of induction.

Like Smotrich, Ben-Gvir is a leader of the violent racist settler movement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, a movement which now feels freer than ever to carry out murderous attacks on Palestinians.

Nothing could be more revealing about Ben-Gvir than his hero-worship of Baruch Goldstein. In 1994, Goldstein, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen from New York, murdered 29 Palestinian worshippers and wounded 125, including many children, inside the Mosque of Ibrahim in the West Bank city of Hebron. Ben-Gvir kept a photo of Goldstein on his living room wall until grudgingly taking it down in order to run for the Knesset in 2020, saying, “for the sake of unity and a right-wing victory in the elections, I’m removing the photograph in my living room.” (Times of Israel, Jan. 15, 2020)

Like Ben-Gvir, Smotrich stands for the expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank and inside 1948 Israel. In October 2021, he told Palestinians members of the parliament: “You’re here by mistake, it’s a mistake that Ben-Gurion didn’t finish the job and throw you out in 1948.” Ben-Gurion was Israel’s first prime minister who presided over the mass expulsion of Palestinians.

Joint List MK Aida Touma-Sliman, a Palestinian member of the Knesset, tweeted in response: “We are putting up with this filthy fascism every day at the Knesset.” (Haaretz, Oct. 13, 2021).

Also like Ben-Gvir and several other members of the new government, Smotrich is deeply racist, misogynistic and homophobic. In 2016, he tweeted that he supported the segregation of Palestinian and Jewish women in maternity wards. (Jerusalem Post, April 6, 2016). And in 2015, he said that developers should not have to sell houses to Palestinians (J.Post, July 16, 2015.) In a mockery of a Gay Pride parade in 2006, Smotrich organized a “Beast Parade,” made up of animals. Ten years later he tweeted, “I am a proud homophobe.”

For many years, Smotrich has advocated a “shoot-to-kill” policy for the occupation forces in the West Bank. Asked in 2017 what he would do about a Palestinian child throwing stones at a demonstration, he answered: “Either I will shoot him, or I will jail him, or I will expel him.” (Guardian, Mar. 12, 2017)

Smotrich will be the new finance minister and, more importantly, was made a second minister inside the defense ministry with control over Civil Administration in the West Bank. The position of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich guarantee an escalation of fascist attacks on Palestinians, which are already taking place on more than a daily basis. For example, between just Oct. 10 and 21, 100 such attacks took place in the West Bank. These attacks are generally “observed” and often joined in by the occupation military forces. (Haaretz, Oct. 21)

Liberation photo collage. Binyamin Netanyahu, Belazel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir.

The make-up of the latest and most openly racist government in Israeli history is an embarrassment to supporters of the Zionist state inside and outside Israel. So, too, is the government’s intolerance for any version of Judaism that is not Orthodox. Smotrich said in 2016 that he was “not willing to recognize Reform (Jewish) conversions and their fake religion.”

While the clear aim of the new Israeli regime is to continue the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, the Palestinian people have made it equally clear that they are steadfast in their resistance and have no intention of surrendering their homeland.

*

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 Liberation News.

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

activate 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 the evening of October 29, 130,000 men and women wearing Halloween costumes went to Itaewon area in Seoul to have fun and enjoy the freedom from 3-year COVID-19 confinement.

The joyful laughter, merry songs and cry of freedom suddenly turned into voice of despair, fear, agony and last fading voice of dying children calling for loved family and friends.

On narrow and steep alley, tens of thousands of people were pushing and shoving and the people at the lower part of the alley were crushed to death under the weight of layers of human bodies.

It was a man-made disaster which should not happen, which could not happen. But it happened and it took away 158 precious and young lives including 26 foreign persons and injured 198 people.

The world is asking how such disaster can happen in a country like South Korea which is known as model country for economic development, security, safety and democracy, especially under the liberal government of Moon Jae-in.

The question the world is asking why this man-made disaster happened in South Korea.

What I am going to say may disturb some and even infuriate some others. But, it is about the time that the world should be aware of the disturbing political reality which is, in the final analysis, responsible for the disaster.

I am writing this paper hoping that the world opinion will be formed and put pressure on the South Korean government so that hidden truth be discovered, the responsible people be punished and similar man -made disaster never happens again.

I am offering my sincere condolence to the surviving parents including 26 surviving parents of foreign countries.

I hope also that the surviving parents of foreign countries join Koreans in fighting for the truth of why and how their children died.

This paper examines the following:

• Failure of the Public Safety System
• Reasons for the System Failure
• Impact of the Disaster on Politics of South Korea

Failure of the public safety system

The low priority given to the public safety is responsible for the disaster. It is argued that, in this paper, the public safety failed due to absence of public safety planning.

A good system of public safety planning should include the following: prior safety planning, disaster management, post disaster analysis and judicial measure designed to prevent similar disaster in the future.

But in this section, I will deal with the prior planning and disaster management.

Prior planning: The prior planning for the event of Halloween festivity should be the responsibility of the mayor of Yongsan District where Itaewon is located. But, the mayor for some mysterious reasons failed to do so.

This is difficult to understand in view of the fact that Yongsan District (ward) had undertaken, for years in the past, large scale events in the Itaewon area including the Halloween festivities.

What the Yongsan District government did was the planning only for   traffic ticket control and rubbish collection excluding safety planning for the Halloween crowd.

In other words, there was no prior safety planning at all to protect the young Halloween lovers. This is incomprehensible in view of the fact that a very large crow was expected to converge toward the Itaewon area.

Management of the disaster: In the absence of prior safety planning, it was not easy to conduct properly the crowd management. Before anything else, the communication network did not work.

Somebody should have reported the danger and somebody should have sent help. In this case, the help was the Korean National Police Special Operation Unit (KNPSOU). In fact, somebody reported the danger, but no help came.

On the day of the disaster, October 29, already at 16:00, the Halloween crowd started to increase in size. By 18:00, on a narrow and steep alley, there were so many people that somebody called the 112 emergency call center to explain the situation and asked for help which did not come.

The following is the list of SOS calls: 18:34: 20:09: 20:33: 20:53; 21:00; 21:02; 21:07; 21:10; 21:51; 22:11. There were 11 calls. On this list, one call is missing.

We can see that the calls for help became dramatically more frequent after 21:00. This shows that the number of deaths was increasing rapidly after 21:00.

As the time went by, there were 30 people in a space of 8 m^2.. A large crowd was going up the alley, while equally large crowd was coming down the alley. And somewhere in the alley, the two crowds collided and many people fell and crushed to death by the weight of layers of human bodies. They could not breath, they died.

The hellish drama continued until 22:30 and 158 young lives were sacrificed because of the stupidity, the cruelty and irresponsibility of adults who should have known better.

The deployment of one special operation units of police (KNPSOU) could prevent the disaster. They were near the scene of the disaster, but they did not come, because somebody decided not to send them to the scene of the disaster.

In short, the disaster management went nowhere. Those who could prevent the disaster were not on duty at crucial time.

Park Hee-yong, mayor of Yongsan District government saw the massing crowd, but she was not there to prevent the tragedy.

Lee Jae-hee: Yongsan District Police chief was aware of the crisis and asked Seoul Metropolitan Police agency for the deployment of the KNPSOU specialized in managing large crowd. But no help came.

Ryu Mi-jin, chief of the 112 call center was absent in the room managing the emergency calls.

Kim Gwang-ho Seoul Metropolitan Police chief was not present in his office. He was at home at the night of October 29 and received the report after midnight.

Yoon hee-geun, chief of the National Police Agency went to his home town and camping sight at the night of October 29. He received the report after midnight.

The location of Kim Soon-ho, the chief of the Department of Police of the Ministry of Interior and Public Safety was not known. This department was created illegally to control the police force to be politically used.

On the other hand, the chief of Yongsan fire station, Choi Seon-beon, went to the scene too late to save the lives.

Lee Sang-min, Minister of Interior and Public Safety was nowhere. After all, he is the minister responsible for public safety in Korea.

Nobody knows exactly where the president, Yoon Suk-yeol was during mass killing. In the final analysis, he had the ultimate responsibility of the disaster.

So, there is no doubt that the public safety system failed to save lives. But, we ask questions why the system failed.

Reasons for the Failure of the Public Safety System

We know how the tragedy happened. But, nobody knows why it happened. However, many tend to relate the disaster to unusual and irrational behaviours of the president, Yoon Suk-yeol, his wife, Kim Gun-hee and shaman called, Cheon-gong.

Let me begin by introducing Yoon Suk-yeol, president of South Korea since May 9 this year.

First, he knows very little about economics, national security, international relations and, especially public administration.

Second, he is turning the time machine backward; he is living in Korea of fifty years ago of military dictatorship. He has become a prosecutor and spent all his life of suspecting people as possible criminals, indicting, investigation and sending them to prison.

He looks at the world through the eyes of a prosecutor not through the eyes of a politician.

To make the matter worse, he tries to solve political issues as criminal issue. He lacks the qualities of understanding, communicating and compromising with others, the qualities essential for a good political leader.

Third, he has been a worst biased prosecutor. His mother-in-law is a well established criminal, but she has never been fully punished for her crimes including the embezzlement of public funds.

His wife is notorious for all kinds of illegal and immoral activities including the manipulation of stock prices and the plagiarism of her academic degrees in corrupted ways. She has never been indicted because of the influence of her husband.

Fourth, he is even suspected as alcoholic. He often misses major decision making meetings due, probably, to his alcoholism.

Fifth, this is very serious aspects of Yoon Suk-yeol. In Korea, there is a shaman called Cheon-gong who pretends to be the last saviour of humanity sent by God.

In a country where the freedom of religion is guaranteed, the existence of the shaman Cheon-gong is not a legal problem.

What follows will certainly scandalize the world. It is a sad reality in a country like Korea which is the 10th largest economy in the world.

What I am saying about the shaman, Cheong-gong, is based on several information sources including KBS report, MBC report, the recent Ohmynews report and even the ParisMatch report (November 4) on the Itaewon tragedy.

To be sure, in a democratic country like Korea where religious freedom is guaranteed, shaman can exist.

But, the problem is the fact that the president and his wife are faithful followers of the shaman, who declared that Yoon’s wife, Kim Gun-hee had been attending for years his lectures, while the president meets the shaman often. Therefore, one can say that the shaman and the president’s couple are very close to each other.

To make the matter worse, the shaman can influence the major decisions of the president and his wife. A recent poll (das-bei-da-238) shows that 54.5% of the respondents says that the shaman exert influence on the president’s policy decisions.

The shaman Cheon-gong’s vision is that the world should be ruled by “jung-bop” (rightful laws) which is not spelled out. But, it seems that the shaman wants to rule the world according to his perception of what is right or wrong with the help of somebody. Somebody seems to be Yoon Suk-yeol.

Here are some known cases showing the close relationship between the Shaman and Yoon’s couple.

• The Shaman asked Yoon to leave the position of prosecutor general and run for the presidential candidacy, which Yoon did.
• Cheon-gong asked Yoon to stamp the Chinese figure “king”(王) on the palm of his hands. Yoon showed it during the televised presidential debate. This Chinese figure is supposed to bring good fortune.
• Once Yoon became president, the shaman told Yoon not to move into the Blue House (Korean White House) because evil spirits of many dead people may get into Yoon, which Yoon obeyed.
• The shaman would have asked Yoon to install the president’s office to the Yongsan area (south of Han River). Yoon Suk-yeol moved his presidential office to the Yongsan area.

The Shaman is reported to have said about the Yongsan area.

“The dragon will come to the Yongsan area with precious stones in its mouth.”

The dragon seems to be Yoon and the precious stones are supposed to new order created by Yoon.

Yoon Suk-yeol and his wife went to London on September 18 to attend the funeral ceremony of late Queen Elizabeth II. He is suspected to have not gone to the funeral chapel because Cheon-gong told him that there was evil spirit in the funeral chapel.

We see now that Yoon Suk-yeol makes important decisions which are likely to be suggested (or ordered) by shaman Cheon-gong.

So, we may say that Yoon’s decisions are beyond the usual rational boundary of reasoning.

Coming back to the root cause of the Itaewon disaster, those who should be responsible for the tragedy should admit their responsibility and ask for pardon of the surviving families and friends and to Korean population. But they have not done so.

A recent poll (das-boe-ie-da 238) shows who are responsible for the 10.29 disaster.

• President, Yoon Suk-yeol: 65.0%
• Minister of Interior and Public Safety, Lee Sang-min: 74.3%
• Mayor of Seoul City, O Se-hoon : 71.5%
• Mayor of Yongsan District , Park Hee-yong: 82.4%

However, they have behaved and are behaving in irresponsible manner.

First, the Minister of Interior and Public Safety, Lee Sang-min said this on October 30, the day following the disaster.

Image: The Itaewon alleyway during the week-long national mourning, 31 October 2022 (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)

“Even if we deployed more police forces, we would not be able to save the young victims.”

This sounds as if the minster knew in advance what would happen.

Second, as pointed out above, the four key decision makers were absent from posts during the fatal moment.: Park Hee-young, mayor of Yongsan District; Ryu Min-jin, the person in charge of the 112 call center; Yoon Hee-gun, the National Polive chief and Kim Gwang-ho, Seoul Meropolitan Police chief

Third, the authorities are blaming only those who are not in the position of giving orders; they are not decision makers.

Several of them are indicted for their “negligence” in their duties. But, in reality, they did their best to save the lives.

These individuals are crucified to hide the wrong doings of their superiors In Korea, these immoral and illegal actions of the superiors are called the process of “tail cutting” designed to sacrifice the persons of lower rank in order to save the person of higher rank who has the responsibility of wrong doings.

This shows how hard the responsible people are trying to hide the truth, which enforces the possibility of pre-planned wrong doings.

Fourth, two persons died. One was a key employee of Seoul city involved in the management of public safety. The other was employee (known as Jeong) of the Yongsan Police station who was involved in the management of reports.

They were reported to have killed themselves. But, few believe that they killed themselves.

Unfortunately, in Korea, under the government of pro-Japan conservative government, it is a common knowledge that people at the low level of the decision making process are often forced to kill themselves to protect their superiors. The surviving families cannot protest due to fearful threat by the authorities of power.

Thus, those who should be responsible for the tragedy do everything to hide something important which might have something to do with the tragedy.

Now, what bothers Koreans and the world is some of the troubling statements of the Shaman in connection with the Itaewon tragedy, Cheon-gong. The following are some of these statements:

“The Itaewon disaster is good for Korea.”

“The greater the number of the victims, the better will be for the global reputation of Korea.”

“In order that the sacrifice be worthwhile, the number of the victims should be great.”

“The Itaewon disaster is nobody’s fault.”

So, the shaman’s statements have two messages. One is the idea that the disaster is good for Korea. The other is that nobody’s fault.

The shaman advised also the president family and other high ranking officials of Yoon government to use the Itaewon tragedy for international diplomacy.

All these sound utter nonsense, but there are some people who seem to take this nonsense seriously.

Now, if we relate the shaman’s statement and Yoon’s habit of doing what the shaman says, we have to come to a troubling conclusion that the death of 158 young souls could have something to do with the Yoon-shaman collusive relations.

To be sure, there is no evidence that Cheon-gong is involved in the disaster.

But, many South Koreans suspect that there is relation between the tragedy and the shaman-Yoon relationship.

Witnesses of the tragedy said the ambulance vehicles took away first the dead bodies leaving behind the wounded to die. Why?

One thing obvious is that it is just impossible to find out the real cause of the tragedy. What happened on the alley of Itaewon was how the children died; it was not why they had to die so horribly. We already know how, but we do not know why.

It is hoped that the ongoing parliamentary probe of the tragedy should invite Cheon-gong at all costs to clarify the intention behind his statements related to the Itaewon disaster.

It is hoped also that the coming parliamentary probe will be bold, strong and persistent enough to resist aggressive obstruction by the president and his party, the People Power Party (PPP).

The very belligerent and irrational behaviours of the president and the PPP show strongly that they cannot reveal the true cause of the tragedy which seems to have something to do with the collusion between the president’s family and their spiritual leader, Cheon-gong.

Impact of the 10.29 disaster (Itaewon Disaster)

There will be the external impact and the internal impact. The external impact will be the worsening reputation of South Korea as the safest place in the world.

Candlelight Action vigil-protest for Itaewon disaster, 5 November 2022 (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

Under the 5-year government of Moon Jae-in government of the Democratic Party of Korea, the reputation of South Korea was very high due to successful anti-COVID 19 policy, the adoption of new economic growth policy based on more equal income distribution, productive foreign relations and, above all, three-year peace on the Korean peninsula owing to the North-South peace-process.

But, Yoon Suk-yeol has pulled the reputation of South Korea down to the ground after 6-month government due to restoration of destructive neo-liberal economic policy, disastrous foreign policy and above all the sustained attempt to create the dictatorship of corrupted prosecutors.

Now, the irresponsible attitude of Yoon government concerning the 10.29 tragedy has given the coup-de-grâce to the international reputation of the country of morning calm.

The 10.29 disaster will make South Korea unsafe country and this will hurt the credibility of its government and the tourism will be hit. The damage can go even further. The tragedy may adversely affect South Korea’s international political leadership and even its trade.

But, the internal impact can be even more serious. Yoon Suk-yeol is surely the worst president South Korea has ever had. His approval rate has remained around 30% since 6 months. He has the dubious reputation of receiving the lowest international approval rate after the retired UK prime minster, Liz Truss.

The principal reasons for such poor internal approval rate include his incapacity, stubbornness, uncivilized manner, zero experience in politics, violence, destructive diplomacy, the worst sort of human right violation and, above all, his ambition of implanting prosecutor dictatorship.

It is a known secret that the president’s wife, Kim Gun-hee tells the president, Yoon Suk-yeol what national policies should be and that it is the shaman, Cheon-gong who tells Kim Gun-hee what to tell her husband.

The majority of South Koreans have already given up any hope for Yoon’s presidential leadership and begun massive candle-light demonstration. On October 19, no less than 400,000 people hit the street and shouted “Down Yoon Suk-yeol!” and “To prison Kim Gun-hee!”

The parliamentary probe into the Itaewon disaster is going on. But, I am afraid that it will not be able to find out the real reason of the tragedy, because the government will use every possible means to hide the truth behind the tragedy. It is possible that the real reason of the tragedy is something which cannot be revealed.

In such situation, the Candle-Light movement will increase in volume and intensity leading inevitably the end of Yoon Suk-yeol government.

And, South Koreans may have to see once again the sad scene where president leave the presidential residence and even move, along with his wife, toward the institutions of free means and free boarding.

*

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 of Quebec University in Montreal (UQAM) and member of the Research Center on Integration and Globalization (IEIM) He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image: Itaewon 2022 Halloween (Licensed under CC BY 3.0)

Tucker “Gets It” – Putin Doesn’t Want American Missiles on His Border

By Mike Whitney, December 29, 2022

Tucker Carlson is right about Ukraine. NATO membership for Ukraine was clearly a provocation aimed at luring Russia into an invasion. And, it worked, too. Putin could not take the risk of having “a hostile government next door” or “American missiles on his border,” so he acted to preempt those threats by sending the tanks across the border on Febrary 24, 2021.

Africa in Review 2022: Regional Dynamics and Continental Security

By Abayomi Azikiwe, December 29, 2022

There of course cannot be the realization of the Africa 2063 project until an internal and interstate relations framework between the 55 member-states which makeup the African Union (AU) reach a level of political equilibrium.

Dangers of Pentagon’s ‘Decapitation Strike’ Against Russia

By Drago Bosnic, December 29, 2022

In recent decades, one of the political West’s favorite strategies have been the so-called “decapitation strikes” against various countries or non-state actors. One of the first examples of this happened in the 1990s in Europe, during the US aggression against Yugoslavia.

Blackrock to Take Zelenskyy’s Panhandling Act to the Next Level

By Kurt Nimmo, December 29, 2022

Blackrock is the world’s largest asset management and investment firm. It invests more than $10 trillion in client funds, a mountain of cash that casts a shadow over the GDP of many countries, including Germany, the fourth largest GDP in the world.

2022’s Danger Signs: From Totalitarian Paranoia to Authoritarian Madness

By John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead, December 29, 2022

With every new law enacted by federal and state legislatures, every new ruling handed down by government courts, and every new military weapon, invasive tactic and egregious protocol employed by government agents, we were reminded that in the eyes of the government and its corporate accomplices, “we the people” possess no rights except for that which the Deep State grants on an as-needed basis.

WHO Fraud. There Never Was a Pandemic! February 20, 2020, Dr Tedros Announced an “Expanding Worldwide Epidemic”

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, December 29, 2022

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.

***

These five reasons are being shared for the purpose of hopefully inspiring Kiev to pragmatically reconsider its presently recalcitrant position to peace talks with Moscow. They’re meant to be objective insofar as they acknowledge Kiev’s interests as its leadership understands them to be (despite the author disagreeing with the aforesaid of course) while still attempting to strike a fair balance between those same interests, its patrons’, and Moscow’s.

Zelensky pushed his so-called “peace plan” from last month earlier this week while talking to Indian Prime Minister Modi, which demands that Russia withdraw from the entirety of Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders as a precondition for resuming talks. This politically unrealistic stance confirms that he isn’t serious about ending the UkrainianConflict, but there are five arguments for why Kiev should reconsider its recalcitrant position:

1. The Western Military-Industrial Complex’s Limitations Prevent Kiev From Achieving Full Victory

“Biden Spilled The Beans About Why The West Can Never Fully Satisfy Zelensky’s Begging” during the Ukrainian leader’s trip to DC last week when revealing that the US can’t give Kiev weapons that it hasn’t yet shared with its NATO allies while the latter can’t deplete their stockpiles much more than they already have. Without that happening, which is impeded by the Western military-industrial complex’s limitations, it’s not possible for Kiev to achieve the full victory that Zelensky envisages.

2. Freezing The Line Of Control (LOC) Can Prevent Further Losses In The Event Of Another Offensive

Considering the extreme unlikelihood of Kiev achieving its maximum objectives in the conflict, it therefore follows that the most prudent approach is to secure the gains that it’s already made thus far around Kharkov and Kherson Regions. Failing to freeze the LOC risks the scenario of Russia either achieving a breakthrough somewhere along the existing front or perhaps opening up another one somewhere else entirely, both of which might result in further losses for Kiev.

3. Indefinitely Perpetuating The Conflict Is Mutually Disadvantageous

For as tempting as it might be for Kiev to comply with its Western patrons’ demands to indefinitely perpetuate the conflict and continue fighting “until the last Ukrainian” in order to supposedly degrade Russia’s military capabilities, this is mutually disadvantageous and should thus be avoided. While no one in the West doubts that doing so would impose growing costs on Russia, few realize how much it destabilizes their de facto New Cold War bloc’s socio-economic and ultimately political cohesion.

4. Russia’s Pragmatic Peace Signals In Recent Weeks Suggest The Sincerity Of Its Intentions

All Russian officials without exception, from President Putin on down, have signaled in recent weeks that they’re willing to politically resolve the conflict so long as their country’s reunification with Novorossiya is at the very least tacitly recognized. This suggests that Moscow is indeed sincere, which in turn draws attention both to the many constructive critiques that can be made about its special operation thus far as well as its awareness of the Golden Billion’s own struggles in this proxy war too.

5. Kiev Can Still Remain Committed To Its Maximum Objectives Without Militarily Pursuing Them

And finally, sincerely negotiating at least an indefinite ceasefire with Russia in order to relieve pressure upon itself and its especially its patrons doesn’t by any means suggest that Kiev can’t remain committed to its maximum objectives. Just like India and Pakistan continue putting forth their respective maximum demands vis-à-vis the decades-long frozen Kashmir Conflict without militarily pursuing them, so too can Kiev do the same, with this outcome perhaps even serving to solidify its national unity for years to come.

*

The abovementioned five reasons were shared for the purpose of hopefully inspiring Kiev to pragmatically reconsider its presently recalcitrant position to peace talks with Moscow. They’re meant to be objective insofar as they acknowledge Kiev’s interests as its leadership understands them to be (despite the author disagreeing with the aforesaid of course) while still attempting to strike a fair balance between those same interests, its patrons’, and Moscow’s.

*

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 the author’s blog site, 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 regular 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.

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.

***

“AGENDA 2063 is Africa’s blueprint and master plan for transforming Africa into the global powerhouse of the future. It is the continent’s strategic framework that aims to deliver on its goal for inclusive and sustainable development and is a concrete manifestation of the pan-African drive for unity, self-determination, freedom, progress and collective prosperity pursued under Pan-Africanism and African Renaissance The genesis of Agenda 2063 was the realization by African leaders that there was a need to refocus and reprioritize Africa’s agenda from the struggle against apartheid and the attainment of political independence for the continent which had been the focus of The Organization of African Unity (OAU), the precursor of the African Union; and instead to prioritize inclusive social and economic development, continental and regional integration, democratic governance and peace and security amongst other issues aimed at repositioning Africa to becoming a dominant player in the global arena.” – Quoted from African Union 2063 introductory paragraph.

There of course cannot be the realization of the Africa 2063 project until an internal and interstate relations framework between the 55 member-states which makeup the African Union (AU) reach a level of political equilibrium.

Notions surrounding the 2063 goals envision the greater economic, political and security links among all of the regions and states on the continent.

Image: Kwame Nkrumah threatened MS headline 1962

These ideas are by no means novel since the work of an earlier generation of African leaders such as Dr. Kwame Nkrumah advanced a theoretical program as early as 1945-1947, where in his book “Toward Colonial Freedom”, the future prime minister and president of Ghana placed the struggles for independence and development within a broader Pan-African and anti-imperialist ideology. Although the founding of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) did not meet the criteria established by Nkrumah and other anti-capitalist leaders and organizations as the ultimate expression of unification and socialism, since 1963, the concepts defining African governmental cooperation have advanced.

Recognizing the existential threat of Revolutionary Pan-Africanism to imperialism, the intelligence agencies and military  apparatuses of the western states sought to destabilize and physically remove those political parties and liberation movements which fundamentally attacked the structures of national oppression and economic exploitation. Subsequently, neo-colonialism became the dominant threat to self-determination and unity among the African people and other post-colonial societies globally.

During the OAU period of the armed phase of the African Revolution for the total liberation of Southern Africa and other geo-political regions, the Liberation Committee played an important role in coordinating material assistance to the freedom fighters. This state assistance to the liberation movements in Africa was a reflection of the broad mass sentiment on the part of workers, youth, revolutionary intellectuals, artists and farmers in support of a rapid process of decolonization.

According to Nkrumah in Toward Colonial Freedom:

“That under imperialism war cannot be averted and that a coalition between the proletarian movement in the capitalist countries and the colonial movement, against the world front of imperialism becomes inevitable. It is, therefore, in this alone that the hope of freedom and independence for the colonies lies. But how to achieve this? First and foremost, organization of the colonial masses. The duty of any worthwhile colonial movement for national liberation, however, must be the organization of labor and youth; and the abolition of political illiteracy. This should be accomplished through mass political education which keeps in constant contact with the masses of colonial peoples. This type of education should do away with that kind of intelligentsia who have become the very architects of colonial enslavement.”

These principles articulated during the post-World War II period must be merged with the contemporary existing realities of the African continent and the overall international situation. Therefore, the interference of imperialism into the internal affairs of the African people remains a major source of disunity and displacement among millions across the continent.

Burkina Faso, Ghana and ECOWAS

Image: Ghana President Nana Akufo-Addo

A recent diplomatic row between the West African states of Ghana and Burkina Faso provides an example of the role of imperialism in the 21st century. The current Ghana President Nana Akufo-Addo has been one of the few African heads-of-state who has ventured to criticize the Russian Federation’s special military operation in neighboring Ukraine.

The official position of the AU is characterized by the call for a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis. This view has been a point of disagreement between the White House and the AU member-states since the beginning of the Ukraine conflict in late February 2022 up until the U.S. and African leaders summit held during mid-December.

It is no secret that the political tradition represented by President Akufo-Addo has been the antithesis of that which is represented by Nkrumah and his Convention People’s Party (CPP) which led the former Gold Coast to independence in 1957. At present Ghana has security relations with the Pentagon’s United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) while recently receiving clearance for the acceptance of a multi-billion-dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Since the overthrow of the CPP government in February 1966, the Ghana experience with the IMF and other western-based financial institutions has been marred by the imposition of policies which stifle the growth of state structures and independent economic initiatives. The 600 industrial projects enacted by the Nkrumah-CPP government of the 1950s and 1960s were liquidated by the subsequent military and neo-liberal regimes which  have ruled Ghana for over five decades.

Burkina Faso, which has experienced two military coups during this year, has grown frustrated with the failure of the French military and AFRICOM to defeat the Islamist insurgency which has killed many Burkinabe soldiers and civilians. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced while the economy has not benefited from the close military alliance with  Paris and Washington.

Among the military government and the people, there is a burgeoning political orientation towards the Russian Federation. During the aftermath of the most recent coup which brought Ibrahim Traore to power on September 30, many were seen in the streets flying both Burkinabe and Russian flags. The French embassy was violently attacked by Burkinabe youth and burned along with other symbols of neo-colonialism inside the landlocked West African state.

Could this saber rattling on the part of the Ghana president be a gesture aimed at winning favor from the U.S.? Why would such a statement from Akufo-Addo while representatives from 49 African states were patiently involved in meetings with the White House, the Pentagon and State Department?

Both Ghana and Burkina Faso have gone through revolutionary phases within their post-independence political trajectory. Under Nkrumah between 1948, when he and other leading figures within the United Gold Coast Convention (UGGC) were detained after a national rebellion which swept the country early that year, until he was later imprisoned as leader of the CPP during 1950-1951. The transitional period of 1950-51 marked by the positive action general strike to 1957, the year of independence, remained focused on African unity. After 1957, there was the convening of two major conferences the following year, 1958, which called for the total independence and unification of independent Africa.

In Burkina Faso, Captain Thomas Sankara led a military coup of lower-ranking officers in 1983 which sought to initiate a revolution based upon many of the ideas already advanced by Nkrumah and other socialists namely Fidel Castro and Che Guevara of Cuba and Argentina. However, in October 1987, the Burkinabe Revolution was betrayed by elements within its leadership which fell victim to the machination of France and its allies in the West Africa region.

Sankara’s administration was overthrown at the time of his brutal assassination. A trial of the former leader, Blaise Compaore, who was used in the reversal of the Revolution and the cold- blooded murder of Sankara, has taken place inside the country. Compaore was himself removed from office in 2014 by a national uprising of the people in Burkina Faso. It was this fact of history which occurred decades after the October 1987 imperialist-instigated coup against Sankara.

Burkina Faso, Mali and the Central African Republic (CAR) have all invited the Wagner Group, a Russian-based military services firm, to assist them in countering the rebels which have proved to be a formidable adversary. Why should the security imperatives of modern-day Burkina Faso in regard to relationships with the Wagner Group undergirded by the popular solidarity in the country with the Russian Federation emerge as a cause for concern for the Ghana government?

Relations between West African and all continental states in order to be effective needs to be based upon mutual cooperation, interests and respect. Obviously, since the 1960s, the role of international finance capital has further underdeveloped Africa. These diplomatic confrontations involving the summoning and withdrawal of ambassadors from one African capital to another, does nothing to advance the struggle for actual security and genuine sovereignty.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has a noble mission of building unity among its 15 member-states. Such a conflict between Burkina Faso and Ghana further complicates the already delicate status of ECOWAS in its attempts to reestablish civilian rule in Mali, Guinea-Conakry and Burkina Faso.

To be continued in part II.

*

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.

Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore / all images in this article are from the author

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 recent decades, one of the political West’s favorite strategies have been the so-called “decapitation strikes” against various countries or non-state actors. One of the first examples of this happened in the 1990s in Europe, during the US aggression against Yugoslavia. At the time, NATO forces directly targeted the Serb/Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic. In complete disregard for the safety of his family, NATO destroyed Milosevic’s mansions and residencies, causing casualties among civilians in the process. Although the attacks failed, the Serb/Yugoslav leader was still deposed and later imprisoned in the aftermath of a successful NATO-orchestrated coup.

A similar approach was used against Saddam Hussein in Iraq. These attacks failed, but after the US-led invasion forces occupied most of the country, he was taken prisoner by American troops and after a show trial by the new puppet regime in Baghdad, executed in 2006. A very similar fate awaited the leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, who was also directly targeted during the 2011 NATO aggression on Libya. Unlike Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi never got a show trial, but was instead brutally killed by a mob. Again, in both cases, NATO strikes on the residencies of both leaders resulted in the deaths of their immediate family members and any civilians in their vicinity.

It should be noted that these decapitation strikes brought mixed results. While they did destroy much of the command structure of the targeted country or organization, the ensuing chaos and power vacuum were usually filled by someone with little regard for meaningful dialogue and brought even more suffering to the people of the affected country, causing decades of instability and factionalism. Such strikes were always conducted with impunity, as the targeted countries had no means to respond. It seems this has become such a favorite strategy in the Pentagon, that the US simply forgot that certain countries can “return the favor”, so now they’re suggesting the same against global powers such as Russia.

For months, in complete disregard of reality, some US officials have been calling for the elimination of Russian leadership. Threatening a country incapable of retaliating is one thing, despite how morally and legally reprehensible that is, but threatening a country whose response could quite literally end the world is a clear indicator of just how detached the US establishment has become. And yet, this doesn’t stop the said officials from continued calls for decapitation strikes against Russia, as stated by former CIA head David Petraeus, or direct calls for Putin’s assassination by both former US National Security Advisor John Bolton and a sitting US senator Lindsey Graham.

The comments by these US officials inevitably caught Russia’s attention, including its Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. In an interview with Russia’s TASS news agency published on Tuesday, he condemned that Washington DC obviously doesn’t rule out the assassination of President Vladimir Putin. The foreign minister noted that “some unnamed officials from the Pentagon actually threatened to conduct a ‘decapitating strike’ on the Kremlin… What we are talking about is the threat of the physical elimination of the head of the Russian state.” Moscow’s top diplomat cautioned against such a line of thinking. “If such ideas are actually being nourished by someone, this someone should think very carefully about the possible consequences of such plans,” Lavrov warned.

His comments were most likely directed at a late September article by Newsweek, when several Pentagon officials suggested a “decapitation strike to kill Putin in the heart of the Kremlin.” At the time, Putin stated that Moscow would “use all means necessary to defend Russia and its people”. As per usual, the Western mainstream propaganda machine immediately (and deliberately) took the Russian president’s words out of context and suggested that the remarks are “a clear sign” of Moscow’s planned usage of thermonuclear weapons. However, Russia has repeatedly stated that it doesn’t plan to deploy any of the weapons of mass destruction from its massive arsenal.

Lavrov also warned that some of the US vassals and satellite states are openly embracing this confrontational approach. “They seem to have gone completely beyond the bounds of decency,” he said, referring to a statement by former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss, who “without a shadow of a doubt declared during the election debates that she was quite ready to order a nuclear strike.” Russia’s top diplomat once again cautioned against such statements, but also recalled that they’re even worse in the case of the Neo-Nazi junta. “I am not even mentioning the Kiev regime’s provocations that go off the chart. Volodymyr Zelensky went as far as to demand preventive nuclear strikes by NATO countries on Russia. This is also beyond the bounds of what is acceptable,” he warned.

Indeed, such rhetoric is quite disturbing, to say the least. Given how heavily armed the global powers are, calls for decapitation strikes or assassinations of any of their leaders are extremely dangerous. However, such statements aren’t coming from Moscow or Beijing, as they are aware of the irreversible consequences of such actions. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be the case in Washington DC, where a complete lack of etiquette (diplomatic or otherwise) seems to have become the norm. How exactly this could affect the world remains to be seen, as Russia is exercising restraint for the time being. This approach is the only sensible one, but the issue is that the political West often sees it as a sign of “weakness”.

*

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: America’s biggest threat: The Pentagon (US Department of ‘Defense’ photo)

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.

***

“Getting Ukraine to join NATO was the key to inciting war with Russia. We didn’t get it at the time. (But) Now it’s obvious. Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine because he didn’t want Ukraine to join NATO. Putin certainly had other motives as well; people always do, but that’s the main reason Russia invaded. The Russians don’t want American missiles on their border. They don’t want a hostile government next door. Now that is true, whether you are allowed to say it aloud in public or not. It has been true for a long time. A lot has been written about this over many years by serious people. No one who knows anything and is honest, will tell you Putin invaded Ukraine simply because he is evil. Putin may be evil, he certainly seems to be, but he also has strategic motives for doing that, whether you agree with those motives or not. That is irrelevant. Those are the facts.” Tucker Carlson, Fox News

Tucker Carlson is right about Ukraine. NATO membership for Ukraine was clearly a provocation aimed at luring Russia into an invasion. And, it worked, too. Putin could not take the risk of having “a hostile government next door” or “American missiles on his border,” so he acted to preempt those threats by sending the tanks across the border on Febrary 24, 2021.

Where Carlson is a little off-base, is when he he says that Putin’s actions were prompted by “strategic motives”. That’s not really wrong, it just misses the point. The point is that Washington’s combat troops and missile sites on Russia’s western border would pose a grave threat to Russia’s national security. Putin would have to be out-of-his-mind to allow a development like that. So, he did what any American president would have done if he had been in the same situation. He invaded. This is an excerpt from an article at the World Socialist Web Site:

The narrative in the media, which presents the invasion as an unprovoked action, is a fabrication that conceals the aggressive actions by the NATO powers, in particular the United States, and its puppets in the Ukrainian government.…

In Europe and Asia, the US pursued a strategy aimed at encircling and subjugating Russia. Directly violating its earlier promises that the Soviet bureaucracy and Russian oligarchy were delusional enough to believe, NATO has expanded to include almost all major countries in Eastern Europe, apart from Ukraine and Belarus.

In 2014, the US orchestrated a far-right coup in Kiev that overthrew a pro-Russian government that had opposed Ukrainian membership in NATO. In 2018, the US officially adopted a strategy of preparing for “great power conflict” with Russia and China. In 2019, it unilaterally withdrew from the INF Treaty, which banned the deployment of intermediate-range nuclear missiles. Preparations for war with Russia and the arming of Ukraine were at the center of the Democrats’ first attempt to impeach Donald Trump in 2019.” (“The US-Ukrainian Strategic Partnership of November 2021 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine“, World Socialist Web Site)

This is a brief but excellent summary of events leading up to the Russian invasion on February 24, 2021. Putin and his advisors had been following developments in Ukraine with growing alarm after it became apparent that their worst fears were materializing. The CIA was not only arming and training paramilitaries in the east in preparation for a war against ethnic Russians in the Donbas, the US was also cultivating an explicitly anti-Russia political party –which contained openly fascist elements– that was designated to implement Washington’s proxy-war strategy. In short, the US fanned the flames of ethnic hatred in order to lay the groundwork for its “Great Power” conflagration with Moscow. Here’s more from the WSWS:

The key to understanding this is the US-Ukrainian Charter on Strategic Partnership, signed by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on November 10, 2021..

The Charter endorsed Kiev’s military strategy from March 2021, which explicitly proclaimed the military goal of “retaking” Crimea and the separatist-controlled Donbass, and thereby dismissed the Minsk Agreements of 2015, which were the official framework for settling the conflict in East Ukraine.

The US stated that it would “never recognize Russia’s attempted annexation of Crimea,” and that it “intends to support Ukraine’s effort to counter armed aggression,” including with “sanctions” and “other relevant measures until restoration of the full territorial integrity of Ukraine.”

Washington also explicitly endorsed “Ukraine’s efforts to maximize its status as a NATO Enhanced Opportunities Partner to promote interoperability,” that is, its integration into NATO’s military command structures.

Ukraine’s non-membership in NATO is and was, for all intents and purposes, a fiction. At the same time, the NATO powers exploited the fact that Ukraine is not officially a member as an opportunity to stoke a conflict with Russia that would not immediately develop into a world war.” (World Socialist Web Site)

This, of course, is the critical point: For Russia, Ukraine’s membership in NATO was “the reddest of red lines”. Since the end of WW2, NATO had expanded from 12 to 30 countries almost all of which pushed further eastward towards Russia’s western border. When the United States indicated it would seek NATO membership for Ukraine at the Bucharest Summit in 2008, Putin’s response was uncharacteristically ferocious. Here’s political analyst John Mearsheimer with a brief recap:

“… bringing Ukraine into NATO was fraught with danger. Indeed, at the Bucharest Summit…. both German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicholas Sarkozy, were opposed to moving forward on NATO membership for Ukraine because they feared it would infuriate Russia. Angela Merkel recently explained her opposition. (She said) “I was very sure that Putin is not going to let this happen. From his perspective that would be a Declaration of War.” (John Mearsheimer, “Why 2008 Summit in Bucharest is the main cause of the Ukraine War”, You Tube, 1 minute)

Putin reiterated Russia’s opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine repeatedly in the months leading up to the invasion. Four months prior to the invasion, Radio Free Europe published this report which was a fairly typical expression of Russian concerns:

The Kremlin has reiterated that any expansion of NATO military infrastructure in Ukraine would cross one of President Vladimir Putin’s “red lines”… The latest flare-up in frayed relations among the nations started on September 27 when Lukashenko said the United States is “building up bases” in Ukraine and that he and Putin have “agreed we must do something about it.”...

Russia staunchly opposes the idea of NATO membership for Ukraine and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov added that Putin has repeatedly noted the issue of the potential broadening of NATO infrastructure on Ukrainian territory “would cross red lines.”

Ukraine began joint military exercises with the United States and other NATO member troops last week, while Russia and Belarus held large-scale drills that alarmed the West. (“Kremlin Warns Over NATO Infrastructure In Ukraine”, Radio Free Europe)

The point we’re making is that the current conflict has nothing to do with claims that Putin is “an aspiring imperialist longing to reconstruct the Soviet empire.” There is no evidence for that at all. The real issue is NATO expansion and, in particular, the secret agreements between the United States and Ukraine that made Ukraine a full-fledged member of NATO in everything but name. Take a look at this excerpt from an article by Marcy Winograd:

The September, 2021, Joint Statement on the U.S.-Ukraine Strategic Partnership reaffirmed Ukraine as a de facto NATO partner, “to continue our robust training and exercise program in keeping with Ukraine’s status as a NATO Enhanced Opportunities Partner.”

…. the Partnership Interoperability Initiative (PII) encouraged favored non-NATO nations, then Australia, Finland, Georgia, Jordan and Sweden–the NATO farm team– to share intelligence and participate in NATO-led military interventions, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, and join in euphemistically-labeled “war games.”

For Ukraine’s support of NATO operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, as well as cyber defense and Black Sea maritime maneuvers, NATO in 2020 welcomed Ukraine into the club of favored NATO wannabes, awarding Ukraine special status as the 6th Enhanced Opportunity Partner (EOP) to receive military training and participate in the multinational NATO Response Force (NRF) of land, air, and sea troops and Special Operations Forces to deploy in a flash, wherever commanded. Such B list status allowed Ukraine to integrate into NATO’s military command structures to prepare, plan and conduct joint operations.

The NATO Farm Team

The degree of present-day involvement of “enhanced opportunities partners” in NATO remains a mystery shrouded in secrecy, even as NATO conducts mock nuclear exercises during Europe’s largest war since the second world war. For two weeks in October fourteen NATO countries, most unnamed, participated in the annual training and flying missions commanding fighter jets and B-52 capable nuclear bombers, albeit without live warheads, over Belgium, the United Kingdom and the North Sea in a dress rehearsal for a nuclear attack on Russia.

According to the Federation of American Scientists, Steadfast Noon participants were to practice conducting strikes with US nuclear equipment loaded onto fighter jets of non-nuclear NATO countries–a violation of the spirit of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

One does not need a cinematic Hollywood imagination to envision Ukraine, part of NATO’s farm team, one day agreeing or rather inviting the US and NATO to install nuclear equipment on Ukrainian fighter jets targeting Russia–or go one step further to install nuclear weapons in Ukraine itself, much as the US has installed its nuclear weapons in the NATO countries of Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.

Now the argument that Ukraine was not a NATO country, would never be allowed to join NATO, had nothing to do with NATO and, therefore, posed no existential threat to Russia falls flat. As does the argument that Ukraine posed no nuclear threat to Russia because it had agreed to transfer back to Russia the nuclear weapons left in Ukraine following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Who needs nuclear weapons when you can borrow them like a prom dress or store borrowed nukes in your air base garage?

…“the November 2021 US-Ukraine Charter on Strategic Partnership committed the US and Ukraine to joint defense and security operations “deepening cooperation in areas such as Black Sea security, cyber defense and intelligence sharing ..” (“Letter to the Left on Ukraine”, Marcy Winograd, Code Pink)

Brilliant analysis, and right to the point. Ukraine didn’t need to be formally entered into NATO because the US stealthily bestowed defacto membership on them out of the public eye. Naturally, Putin and his lieutenants knew what was going on, but the media made sure that everyone else remained in the dark. And all of this sleight-of-hand was going on just months before Putin was forced to invade. It’s actually shocking.

Let’s summarize:

Ukraine was being armed and trained by its partners at NATO

Ukraine was participating in military drills and maneuvers conducted by NATO

Ukraine had been “integrated into NATO’s military command structures” including “support of NATO operations… cyber defense and Black Sea maritime maneuvers”

Ukraine was sharing “intelligence and participating in NATO-led military interventions, such as Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Ukraine participated in “mock nuclear exercises” with NATO

Ukraine (and its NATO allies) endorse the retaking of Crimea from Russia (“unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s ….territorial integrity… including Crimea”)

Does it sound like Ukraine snuck into NATO through the back door?

It does.

This summary helps to show that Ukraine’s non-membership in NATO is largely “a fiction.” Ukraine has been fully-integrated into the anti-Russia Alliance in every way except formal approval. Ukraine’s Strategic Partnership with the US, which was signed by both parties in 2021, underscores this point. It also helps “to clarify” –as Marcy Winograd notes– “that the United States and NATO provoked the war.” Indeed, Washington has put a significant amount of time and energy into a project that is aimed at crossing all of Russia’s redlines, directly challenging Russia’s basic security interests, and forcing Russia to invade a neighboring country. Simply put, Washington placed a gun to Russia’s head and threatened to pull the trigger.

Fortunately, Putin responded in the way that best ensured the safety and security of his own government, his own country, and his own people. We would expect any responsible leader to do the same.

*

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.

***

Blackrock is the world’s largest asset management and investment firm. It invests more than $10 trillion in client funds, a mountain of cash that casts a shadow over the GDP of many countries, including Germany, the fourth largest GDP in the world. It is fair to say it controls, or has outsized influence, on the Federal Reserve, Wall Street banks, including Goldman Sachs and Vanguard, the WEF meet and greet at Davos (and its control freak Great Reset), and all that follows, including President Biden and Congress.

Larry Fink, the founder, and CEO of Blackrock has teamed up with the Man in Perpetual Green, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “Specialists of this company are already helping Ukraine to structure the fund for the reconstruction of our state,” said Green Man after a video call with Fink, according to Bloomberg.

Zelenskyy has taken his worldwide panhandling act to the next level. According to Zelenskyy’s government web page—up and running, although average Ukrainians are freezing in the dark—Larry Fink will help drum up the funds to rebuild what will be blown up again. (As for Zelenskyy’s website, it is safe for the moment, hosted as it is in Santa Clara, California.)

In accordance with the preliminary agreements struck earlier this year between the Head of State and Larry Fink, the BlackRock team has been working for several months on a project to advise the Ukrainian government on how to structure the country’s reconstruction funds.

Zelenskyy and Fink “agreed to focus in the near term on coordinating the efforts of all potential investors and participants in the reconstruction of our country, channelling investment into the most relevant and impactful sectors of the Ukrainian economy,” CNBC reports.

Good luck with that. It might be a good idea to glance at Ukraine’s massive corruption before investing a dime in that black hole. According to Transparency International, Ukraine is the second most corrupt country in Europe and ranked 120 out of 182 of the most corrupt countries in the world.

According to Dragon Capital, the richest Ukrainian oligarchs in 2016, two years after the USG-orchestrated coup in Kyiv, have accumulated over $11 billion, almost 13% of Ukraine’s GDP.

Much of the money accrued by Rinat Akhmetov, Ihor Kolomoyskyi, Victor Pinchuk, and former president and confectionary/automotive magnate Petro Poroshenko, was taken through the neoliberal organized theft of public assets, known as privatization. Kolomoyskyi is a major funder of the neo-Nazi group, Right Sector. He is widely seen as the puppet master of the former comedian and current president Zelenskyy. His reach includes business operations in the US.

Ukraine is a money launderer’s dream come true. Its banking sector thrives on Ponzi schemes. Oligarchs reap fortunes skimming billions from government-subsidized gas prices. Corrupt officials collaborate with oligarchs to monopolize business. In 2015, it was determined less than 50 percent of businesses in Ukraine turned a profit, and 9.8 of all business operations were controlled by and benefited corrupt government officials and the oligarchs they work for.

In July, the Associated Press reported,

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s dismissal of senior officials is casting an inconvenient light on an issue that the Biden administration has largely ignored since the outbreak of war with Russia: Ukraine’s history of rampant corruption and shaky governance.

Of course, Biden—or that is, since he is obviously cognitively impaired, his neocon “advisers”—do not give a hoot about the suffering of average Ukrainians victimized by free-hand oligarchs and corrupt government officials. It’s all about Russia, China, and the role of the world hegemon.

Earlier this year, Larry Fink told stockholders “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is reversing the long-running trend of globalization.” Strangely, Fink seems to believe Russia’s effort to keep NATO out of Ukraine and away from its western border has “exacerbated the polarization and extremist behavior we are seeing across society today.” Submit, lest you be tarred and feathered as a polarized extremist.

It now appears Fink’s cherished globalization is headed for the rocks as the growth of capital markets slow and the centrally managed economy pivots toward recession (actually a full-blown depression, but this scary subject is rarely broached in the respectable, misinformation, narrative-strict corporate propaganda media).

Larry’s not alone in his waking nightmare. Oaktree Capital Management founder Howard Marks also loses sleep over the demise of centralized, corporate-driven, neoliberal-infused, government-enforced globalization. Marks and WEF said in April “the war is forcing the pendulum of international affairs to swing away from globalization as companies and governments rethink their interdependence.”

To be sure, authoritarian regimes often cut themselves off from the global market for a host of reasons—Russia’s Vladimir Putin is just one example.

If not for lies, these guys would stand naked. According to the World Economic Forum, Putin is an “authoritarian” because he understands the global elite want to kill him, destroy Russia, and turn its JDAM-blasted smoldering remains into mutually hostile little bantustans, thus easily plundered and controlled. It has nothing to do with interdependence or the joke that is democracy. That’s feel-good PR pablum designed to deceive you.

“The basic problem with globalization is not hard to grasp,” writes Mike Whitney.

“The giant corporations have outsourced millions of high-paying manufacturing jobs to low wage platforms across Asia leaving behind thousands of shuttered factories and broken communities, a sharp spike in opiate addiction, and the steady erosion of living standards.”

Putin argued the elite are oblivious to the effect of their predation. I disagree. Pathocrats enjoy witnessing the misery of millions, that’s how they get their jollies. If they are oblivious to anything, it is that many of them may be swinging from lamp posts before this is over.

It seems like elites don’t see the deepening stratification in society and the erosion of the middle class…(but the situation) creates a climate of uncertainty that has a direct impact on the public mood. Sociological studies conducted around the world show that people in different countries and on different continents tend to see the future as murky and bleak. This is sad. The future does not entice them, but frightens them. At the same time, people see no real opportunities or means for changing anything, influencing events and shaping policy. As for the claim that the fringe and populists have defeated the sensible, sober and responsible minority—we are not talking about populists or anything like that but about ordinary people, ordinary citizens who are losing trust in the ruling class. That is the problem.

Zelenskyy and Fink are preparing to turn a profit on the destruction of Ukraine. “Bringing in BlackRock signals the beginning of the much-anticipated shift from bilking taxpayers to bilking private investors,” writes JD Rucker.

BlackRock will wield its tremendous influence over corporations across the globe to funnel as much private equity into the nation as possible where the money will be distributed to all powerful parties [oligarchs] that need their palms greased.

Corrupt government officials (many of them Ukronazis) and the psychopathic oligarchs they serve will profit from the Zelenskyy-Fink scheme to rebuild what Russia will knock down. Russia is determined, for the sake of its national security, to turn Ukraine into a toothless, nazi- and NATO-free rump state, a former oligarch-dominated state busted up into little harmless and easily controlled remnants.

I don’t have a crystal ball, but I believe Zelenskyy will ultimately flee the country with a proverbial suitcase stuffed with fiat greenbacks and equally devalued paper money of the European Union, following in the footsteps of previous defeated and humiliated autocrats.

Larry Fink will continue to be Larry Fink. He will push “stakeholder capitalism,” squeaky clean window dressing for predatory neoliberalism. Larry knows what side of his bread gets the butter, that’s why he has embraced “woke” politics. “Stakeholder capitalism might just force CEOs to think twice before doing things that hurt the public,” the New York Post surmises.

More PR poison. For “Klaus Schwab and the WEF, the framework of stakeholder capitalism must be globalized,” observes Michael Rectenwald at Mises Wire. Schwab and the WEF have high hopes for rebranded neoliberalism merged with the preposterous “woke” ideology.

Not going to happen. The collective nations of the world, led by the example of Russia, will ultimately pitch neoliberalism into the dustbin of history. The problem is WEF and globalist psychopaths, deluded by mental illness and corrosive hubris. They may indeed begin the process of irradiating the planet and making any sort of social and commercial activity a relic of a forgotten past.

*

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.

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 danger signs were everywhere in 2022.

With every new law enacted by federal and state legislatures, every new ruling handed down by government courts, and every new military weapon, invasive tactic and egregious protocol employed by government agents, we were reminded that in the eyes of the government and its corporate accomplices, “we the people” possess no rights except for that which the Deep State grants on an as-needed basis.

Totalitarian paranoia spiked. What we have been saddled with is a government so power-hungry, paranoid and afraid of losing its stranglehold on power that it has conspired to wage war on anyone who dares to challenge its authority. In a Machiavellian attempt to expand its powers, the government unleashed all manner of dangers on an unsuspecting populace in order to justify its demands for additional powers to protect “we the people” from emerging threats, whether legitimate, manufactured or overblown.

The state of our nation suffered. The nation remained politically polarized, controlled by forces beyond the purview of the average American, and rapidly moving the nation away from its freedom foundation. The combined blowback from a contentious presidential election and the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in Americans being subjected to egregious civil liberties violations, invasive surveillance, martial law, lockdowns, political correctness, erosions of free speech, strip searches, police shootings of unarmed citizens, government spying, and the criminalization of lawful activities.

Thought crimes became a target for punishment. For years now, the government has used all of the weapons in its vast arsenal—surveillance, threat assessments, fusion centers, pre-crime programs, hate crime laws, militarized police, lockdowns, martial law, etc.—to target potential enemies of the state based on their ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and other characteristics that might be deemed suspicious or dangerous. In other words, if you dare to subscribe to any views that are contrary to the government’s, you may well be suspected of being a domestic terrorist and treated accordingly. In 2022, those who criticized the government—whether that criticism manifested itself in word, deed or thought—were flagged as dangerous alongside consumers and spreaders of “mis- dis- and mal-information.”

Speech was muzzled. Those who want to monitor, muzzle, catalogue and censor speech continued to push for social media monitoring, censorship of flagged content that could be construed as dangerous or hateful, and limitations on free speech activities, particularly online. Of course, it’s a slippery slope from censoring so-called illegitimate ideas to silencing truth. Eventually, as George Orwell predicted, telling the truth will become a revolutionary act. If the government can control speech, it can control thought and, in turn, it can control the minds of the citizenry.

Kill switches aimed to turn off more than just your car. Vehicle “kill switches” were sold to the public as a safety measure aimed at keeping drunk drivers off the roads, but they were a perfect metaphor for the government’s efforts to not only take control of our cars but also our freedoms and our lives. For too long, we have been captive passengers in a driverless car controlled by the government, losing more and more of our privacy and autonomy the further down the road we go.

Currency went digital. No matter how much money the government pulls in, it’s never enough, so the government came up with a new plan to make it even easier for its agents to seize Americans’ bank account. In an Executive Order issued in March 2022, President Biden called for the federal government to consider establishing a form of digital money. Digital currency will provide the government and its corporate partners with a mode of commerce that can easily be monitored, tracked, tabulated, mined for data, hacked, hijacked and confiscated when convenient.

The government spoke in a language of violence. Police violence killed three people a day. Warrior cops—trained in the worst-case scenario and thus ready to shoot first and ask questions later—did not make us or themselves any safer. Despite this, President Biden’s pledged to expand law enforcement and so-called crime prevention through a $30 billion “Fund the Police” program.

Cancel culture became more intolerant. Cancel culture—political correctness amped up on steroids, the self-righteousness of a narcissistic age, and a mass-marketed pseudo-morality that is little more than fascism disguised as tolerance—shifted us into an Age of Intolerance, policed by techno-censors, social media bullies, and government watchdogs. Everything has now become fair game for censorship if it can be construed as hateful, hurtful, bigoted or offensive provided that it runs counter to the established viewpoint.

Homes were invaded. Government agents routinely violated the Fourth Amendment at will under the pretext of public health and safety. This doesn’t even begin to touch on the many ways the government and its corporate partners-in-crime used surveillance technology to invade homes: with wiretaps, thermal imaging, surveillance cameras, and other monitoring devices.

Political theater kept the public distracted. Having devolved into a carefully calibrated exercise in how to manipulate, polarize, propagandize and control a population, the political scene provided ample diversions with its televised Jan. 6 committee hearings, the Russia-Ukraine crisis, the Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmation hearings, and more.

Bodily integrity was undermined. Caught in the crosshairs of a showdown between the rights of the individual and the so-called “emergency” state, concerns about COVID-19 mandates and bodily integrity remained part of a much larger debate over the ongoing power struggle between the citizenry and the government over our property “interest” in our bodies. This debate over bodily integrity covered broad territory, ranging from abortion and forced vaccinations to biometric surveillance and basic healthcare. Although the Supreme Court overturned its earlier rulings recognizing abortion as a constitutional right under the Fourteenth Amendment, it did nothing to resolve the larger problem that plagues us today: namely, that all along the spectrum of life—from the unborn child to the aged—the government continues to play fast and loose with the lives of the citizenry.

The government’s fiscal insanity reached new heights. The national debt (the amount the federal government has borrowed over the years and must pay back) hit $30 trillion. That translates to roughly $242,000 per taxpayer. It’s estimated that the amount this country owes is now 130% greater than its gross domestic product (all the products and services produced in one year by labor and property supplied by the citizens). That debt is also growing exponentially: it is expected to be twice the size of the U.S. economy by 2051.

Surveillance got creepier. On any given day, the average American going about his daily business was monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways, by both government and corporate eyes and ears. In such a surveillance ecosystem, we’re all suspects and databits to be tracked, catalogued and targeted. With every new AI surveillance technology that was adopted and deployed without any regard for privacy, Fourth Amendment rights and due process, the rights of the citizenry were marginalized, undermined and eviscerated.

Precrime became more fact than fiction. Under the pretext of helping overwhelmed government agencies work more efficiently, AI predictive and surveillance technologies were used to classify, segregate and flag the populace with little concern for privacy rights or due process. All of this sorting, sifting and calculating was done swiftly, secretly and incessantly with the help of AI technology and a surveillance state that monitors your every move. Where this becomes particularly dangerous is when the government takes preemptive steps to combat crime or abuse, or whatever the government has chosen to outlaw at any given time.

The government waged psychological warfare on the nation. The government made clear in word and deed that “we the people” are domestic enemies to be targeted, tracked, manipulated, micromanaged, surveilled, viewed as suspects, and treated as if our fundamental rights are mere privileges that can be easily discarded. Aided and abetted by technological advances and scientific experimentation, the government weaponized violence; surveillance, pre-crime and pre-thought campaigns; digital currencies, social media scores and censorship; desensitization campaigns; fear; genetics; and entertainment.

Gun confiscation laws put a target on the back of every American. Red flag gun laws (which authorize government officials to seize guns from individuals viewed as a danger to themselves or others) gained traction as a legislative means by which to allow police to remove guns from people suspected of being threats. Red flag gun laws merely push us that much closer towards a suspect society where everyone is potentially guilty of some crime or another and must be preemptively rendered harmless.

The burden of proof was reversed. Although the Constitution requires the government to provide solid proof of criminal activity before it can deprive a citizen of life or liberty, the government turned that fundamental assurance of due process on its head. Each and every one of us is now seen as a potential suspect, terrorist and lawbreaker in the eyes of the government. The groundwork has been laid for a new kind of government where it won’t matter if you’re innocent or guilty, whether you’re a threat to the nation, or even if you’re a citizen. What will matter is what the government—or whoever happens to be calling the shots at the time—thinks. And if the powers-that-be think you’re a threat to the nation and should be locked up, then you’ll be locked up with no access to the protections our Constitution provides.

The Supreme Court turned America into a Constitution-free zone. Although the Court’s rulings on qualified immunity for police who engage in official misconduct were largely overshadowed by its politically polarizing rulings on abortion, gun ownership and religion, they were no less devastating. The bottom line: there will be no consequences for cops who brutalize the citizenry and no justice for the victims of police brutality.

The FBI went rogue. The FBI’s laundry list of crimes against the American people ran the gamut from surveillance, disinformation, blackmail, entrapment, and intimidation tactics to harassment and indoctrination, governmental overreach, abuse, misconduct, trespassing, enabling criminal activity, and damaging private property, and that’s just based on what we know.

The government waged war on political freedom. In more and more cases, the government declared war on what should be protected political speech whenever it challenges the government’s power, reveals the government’s corruption, exposes the government’s lies, and encourages the citizenry to push back against the government’s many injustices.

The military industrial complex waged more wars. America’s part in the showdown between Russia and the Ukraine conveniently followed on the heels of a long line of other crises which have occurred like clockwork in order to keep Americans distracted, deluded, amused, and insulated from the government’s steady encroachments on our freedoms.

The Deep State went global. We’ve been inching closer to a new world order for the past several decades, but COVID-19, which saw governmental and corporate interests become even more closely intertwined, shifted this transformation into high gear. This new world order—a global world order—made up of international government agencies and corporations owes its existence in large part to the U.S. government’s deep-seated and, in many cases, top-secret alliances with foreign nations and global corporations. This powerful international cabal, let’s call it the Global Deep State, is just as real as the corporatized, militarized, industrialized American Deep State, and it poses just as great a threat to our rights as individuals under the U.S. Constitution, if not greater.

Authoritarian madness escalated. You didn’t have to be a conspiracy theorist or even anti-government to recognize the slippery slope that starts with well-meaning intentions for the greater good and ends with tyrannical abuses no one should tolerate. When any government is empowered to adopt a comply-or-suffer-the-consequences mindset that is enforced through mandates, lockdowns, penalties, detention centers, martial law, and an utter disregard for the rights of the individual, there should be reason for concern.

The takeaway: the more things changed, the more they stayed the same.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, if there is any means left to us for thwarting the government in its relentless march towards outright dictatorship, it rests—as it always has—at the local level, with “we the people.”

Unless we work together to push back against the government’s overreach, excesses and abuse, 2023 will be yet another terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year for freedom.

*

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 Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

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.

***

 

As readers know, I am concerned that the neoconservatives’ drive for US hegemony is the road to nuclear war.  But we also face demise from other directions.  In this column I share thoughts on the use of orchestrated pandemics to destroy economic independence and civil liberty and to reduce the world population, a declared goal of Bill Gates and Klaus Schwab.  In subsequent columns I will address other threats that go unattended.

Professor Michel Chossudovsky, emeritus professor at the University of Ottawa and Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization, has made an important point.  The injection of a dangerous substance into a large percentage of the world population was not a mistake, but an intentional act of murder.  

Pfizer and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), charged with protecting public health, knew in February 2021 that the Covid “vaccine” that went into use in mid-December 2020 was deadly and under law should have been recalled. 

Pfizer’s own internal documents recorded 1,200 deaths from the vaccine and tens of thousands of adverse health effects including cardiac disorders and spontaneous abortions over a two month period.  Understand, the report, which was to be locked up for 75 years, was a forced release resulting from a federal court order to the FDA. It is Pfizer’s own internal report.  It is not a report by independent medical scientists that some pretend “fact checker” can label as “misinformation.”

The report is now public.  Under law, as Pfizer and the FDA knew the “vaccine” was dangerous to life and health and did not recall it, they committed murder.  

The issue before us is the missing indictments for murder of the Pfizer executives and FDA officials who are responsible for the deaths and injuries of millions of people.

As the presstitutes are totally complicit in the mass murder, don’t expect any attention from the media to the released Pfizer report, backed up by the extraordinary increase in excess deaths in every vaccinated country following the vaccination campaign.  Dr. Michael Yeadon, formerly Pfizer Vice President and Chief Science Officer has said that in addition to the deaths, infertility, and injuries from the “vaccine,” the effect of the “vaccine” is also to seriously impair the immune system, thereby making everyone injected susceptible to morbidity from diseases.

Don’t expect Congress or the Executive Branch to do anything.  Members of the House and Senate are dependent on campaign contributions, and Big Pharma are heavy contributors. The FDA is a marketing agent for Big Pharma.

Don’t expect the medical profession to do anything. Big Pharma is responsible for 70% of medical research grants.  Medical scientists are not going to bite the hand that feeds them. Former editors of the New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet have said that they have no confidence in the research reported in the journals because 70% of the articles are financed by Big Pharma.  Big Pharma is also a large donor to medical schools.  The FDA, like all regulatory agencies, is captured and run by those they are supposed to be regulating.

Peter Koenig, formerly of the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO) concludes that we are faced with “a clear eugenics agenda, mass depopulation, unprecedented.”  

We should be terrified that Bill Gates, WHO, and the bought-and-paid-for Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security recently completed (October 23, 2022) two months ago a simulation of the next pandemic. See this.  

Remember the “Covid Pandemic” was preceded by a similar simulation just prior to the release of the Covid virus.  A Dutch expert has revealed that the plan is in place for 10 years of infectious pandemics to pave the way for the Great Reset.

Keep in kind that the Covid virus was the product of years of research funded in part by Fauci at NIH.  

Keep in mind that Covid test kits were produced years in advance of the Covid pandemic. Obviously, someone knew in advance that a pandemic was coming.

Keep in mind that Fauci and Bill Gates predicted a couple of years in advance that there would soon be an infectious disease pandemic.  Keep in mind that there is no way of knowing in advance that a new infectious virus is going to appear and be sufficiently contagious to result in a pandemic. 

Before you do what you have been brainwashed to do and dismiss facts as a conspiracy theory, ask yourself how it is possible for so many pieces that fit together to be a coincidence.

As there is no media, few independent politicians, and a gullible and unaware population, what is to stop the coercion by fear of the world’s population into the serfdom and slavery of the Great Reset? Elites committed to an ideology have decided that they have the moral right to take over our lives.  The elites know that the sheeple  will submit. Fear will govern them.

Twitter Prevented Experts From Speaking Against the Disastrous Covid Protocol, see this.

*

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.

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

---

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.