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Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has compared Qassem Soleimani to a Rembrandt painting and said the “only” civilians endangered by the US drone strike on the Iranian general were those also travelling on his commercial aircraft.

Soleimani, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force and longtime US foe, was killed by a Reaper drone as he left Baghdad airport in the early hours of 3 January 2020.

In his memoir Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love, released on Tuesday, Pompeo says the Trump administration expected Soleimani to be quickly replaced with the next best option, but claims no one could match the general’s “combination of authority, brains, brutality, and public appeal inside Iran”.

“Trying to replace him would be like trying to replace an original Rembrandt. Good luck with that, as there is simply no good substitute,” he writes.

Pompeo, who was head of the CIA before becoming Donald Trump’s secretary of state in 2018, is dismissive of the risk to civilian lives the operation posed. He describes raising the complications surrounding a strike on an international airport “almost as an afterthought”.

“I was comfortable with the risk, as we had a plan for controlling the airspace for the most important five minutes,” Pompeo recalls.

“The only civilians potentially in harm’s way would be those on Soleimani’s commercial aircraft.”

Middle East Eye reported at the time that Soleimani arrived at Baghdad airport on a Cham Wings flight from Damascus after visiting Beirut. His baggage and travel documents were handled by national security officials.

Soleimani was hit by a Hellfire missile as his convoy left the airport. The strike killed the general and nine others, including Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the godfather of Iraq’s Iranian-backed paramilitaries.

“Hellfire missiles came screaming down. American power, American technology, and American justice slammed into his vehicle,” Pompeo writes.

An Iraqi paramilitary leader told MEE at the time that two cars passed Soleimani’s convoy before the strike, briefly jeopardising the operation.

Pompeo describes sending messages to Iran and “the ayatollah”, presumably meaning Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. One said: “This was not an attempt to decapitate the regime.”

He also says the United States’ allies in the Middle East were aware of the impending strike.

“The Israelis also were ready, knowing that Iran could choose to retaliate against them. In the same way, we had worked with our Gulf Arab partners, giving them a heads-up without revealing our specific plans,” he says.

Pompeo, who is expected to declare his intention to be a Republican candidate in the 2024 US presidential election, says he expects retaliation from Iran to this day.

“We know Iran has the capabilities to operate inside the United States, so a year and a half after leaving public service, I still retain a security detail,” he writes.

“Trip to the grocery store? Diplomatic security will shadow me while I evaluate which eggplant looks the ripest. Susan’s going to get her hair done? Let’s hope Hezbollah sleeper agents aren’t casing the salon. Son’s getting marred? Agents will need to send an advance team to the church.”

“I will probably never drive my own car again or enjoy the level of privacy that I once had,” he adds.

Soleimani’s killing, which was preceded by escalating violence between the United States and Iran and its allies, prompted Tehran to fire a barrage of missiles at US targets in Iraq in retaliation, wounding several American soldiers.

Expecting a US attack following the missile strike, Iranian forces mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet, killing all 176 passengers and crew.

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Featured image: The Baghdad murders of anti-ISIS commanders Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al Muhandes triggered an unprecedented Iranian ballistic missile attack on US military bases in Iraq. (Photo Credit: The Cradle)

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***

Leaked documents reviewed by The Cradle reveal that Britain secretly trained Jordanian security services in techniques used by the notorious UK security and cyber agency GCHQ, which provides signals intelligence to the British government and its armed forces.

Over three intensive, week-long, Foreign Office-funded training sessions conducted between June 2019 and March 2020, members of the Public Security Directorate’s shadowy Special Branch, handpicked by the British Embassy in Amman, were taught the finer points of “digital media exploitation.”

In theory, the purpose of the exercise was to assist “evidence gathering agencies in Jordan to effectively extract data from digital devices” to enhance their investigative capabilities, and improve the standard of prosecutions, particularly in the field of terrorism.

This would in turn enable enhanced sharing of evidence between Amman and London, “and lead to increased operational cooperation.”

Tried and tested tactics

As readers of The Cradle will well-know by this point, the officially stated noble objectives of Whitehall’s assorted security support and reform programs in West Asia may not align with the underlying reality of these efforts.

For example, this outlet has previously revealed how British operatives and technology are placed in Lebanon’s intelligence services under the guise of teaching them how to use digital forensic tools. This allows London to closely monitor their activities – and Lebanese citizens.

Those programs are delivered by British government contractor Torchlight, a company staffed by UK military and intelligence veterans with high-level security clearances. The same company was also behind the training provided to Jordan’s Special Branch.

According to its submissions to the Foreign Office, based on a “comprehensive on-site visit” in 2018, the Directorate’s operatives were already “satisfactorily equipped in terms of hardware and software” to conduct “digital media exploitation.”

Spying on citizens

However, Torchlight felt that they were not “adequately trained to fully exploit the potential of the equipment they possess.” Given the resources available to the Directorate, this “potential” could be highly concerning.

For example, Torchlight has noted that Special Branch uses Cellebrite’s suite of digital intelligence products. Cellebrite, an Israeli company with clients including multiple repressive governments, produces technology capable of breaking into encrypted devices and extracting and analyzing all data within it.

While the firm has helped solve murky murder cases, overwhelmingly it is deployed to monitor the activities of human rights activists, journalists and dissidents.

The professional backgrounds of Torchlight staffers involved in the Jordanian training project raise additional concerns. It was led by the company’s Head of Digital Intelligence, Andy Tremlett, a cyber and electronic warfare specialist who spent over a decade in senior positions at GCHQ.

Along the way, he was “charged with the provision of support to the most specialized and discreet areas” of British Special Forces operations, and responsible for expanding the agency’s “overseas footprint” and “potential delivery platform.” These positions granted him “vast experience in how to use and exploit digital material,” and integrating different forms of intelligence in broader espionage operations.

‘Destroy, deny, degrade and disrupt’

Further details of Tremlett’s ability to “exploit” the private data of targets aren’t offered, although he is said to have “spent a significant portion of his career within the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG).” The existence of this unit was exposed by US National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2014, and the details of its operations are truly shocking.

JTRIG’s explicit mission is to employ a variety of dirty tricks to “destroy, deny, degrade and disrupt” enemies and “discrediting” them, by planting “negative information” about them online, and manipulating discussions on internet forums and social networks.

A leaked presentation on JTRIG’s covert activities shows this harassment extends to changing an individual’s social media profile pictures to take their paranoia “to a whole new level” or simply deleting their online presence, writing anonymous blog posts “purporting to be [by] one of their victims” to damage their reputations, emailing and texting their work colleagues, neighbors and friends, and arranging “honey trap” stings.

“A great option. Very successful when it works,” the presentation states in regard to the latter strategy. “Get someone to go somewhere on the internet, or a physical location to be met by a ‘friendly face.’ JTRIG has the ability to ‘shape’ the environment on occasions.”

Writing incriminating blog posts was said to have “worked on a number of different ops,” with “Iran work” cited as a particularly effective example, although this is not expanded upon. Elsewhere, it is disclosed that JTRIG “significantly” disrupted the Taliban’s communications network by bombarding them with phone calls, texts and faxes “every 10 seconds or so.”

Evidently, it was not digital forensics with which Torchlight’s training modules were primarily concerned. In fact, JTRIG operations related to “digital media exploitation” were, per the leaked presentation, primarily concerned with placing information on “compromised” electronic devices, including “damning information, where appropriate.”

Protecting the British-installed monarchy

In Jordan, criticism of King Abdullah II – a member of the Hashemite dynasty installed on thrones across West Asia by the British following World War I, and himself a British Army veteran – and government officials and institutions is a very serious crime.

Journalists are routinely subject to harassment, arrest and prosecution by authorities for even mildly critical reporting or social media posts. And protests over rising hardship among the general population are becoming more frequent.

The prospect of Amman’s secret police being proficient in JTRIG’s malicious methods is therefore disturbing by definition. The ease with which they could be abused to ruin the lives of objectors, and/or jail them on bogus charges, is clear.

Britain’s willingness to export these techniques to Jordan is not surprising. The strict and widely criticized Cybercrime Law, which restricts freedom of expression online and citizens’ right to privacy, makes the country a perfect staging ground for London’s nefarious activities elsewhere in West Asia, and helps keep their presence and intentions secret.

For example, from the early days of the Syrian crisis, Britain operated a site located 45 minutes from Amman where fighters in the proxy war were trained. Leaked files related to the project predicted that some of these individuals would go on to join Al-Nusra and ISIS and that equipment would be stolen and used by them.

Despite this, the Foreign Office was unconcerned about these prospects, likely because there was little risk that they, or the training program more generally, would ever be publicly exposed.

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***

In an effort to combat rampant corruption in Iraq, the US has implemented several strict measures, including sanctions on Iraqi banks and the rationing of dollars. Rather than dissuade smuggling and fraud, the measures are only exacerbating Iraq’s economic crisis.

With every fluctuation in the exchange rate of the Iraqi dinar against the dollar, the political and social situation in the country becomes increasingly complex. The same country that managed to beat back ISIS and color revolutions, today is witnessing turmoil caused by the US.

The US Federal Reserve has imposed strict measures on Iraqi banks under the pretexts of preventing smuggling and money laundering. This prompted the US Treasury Department to ration the dollar payments to Baghdad from Iraq’s own oil revenues, causing the Iraqi national currency to decline from 1,460 (the official rate) to 1,640 dinars overnight.

Implementing US policies

The financial situation is further complicated by the ambiguity of the Iraqi government and the Central Bank over these US measures, which came into effect in late 2022.

Iraq’s Central Bank Governor Mustafa al-Jubouri appears to be convinced uncertain policy that saved him two years ago – when former Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s government raised the official exchange rate for the dollar from 1,182 dinars to 1,460 dinars – will save him again.

Jubouri is handling the current crisis in a cold and calculated manner, constantly reminding Iraqis of the increase in the Central Bank’s dollar reserves – now said to exceed $100 billion – as though it was his personal achievement, and the reason he was named governor years ago.

However, there are some vitally important details that Jubouri chooses to ignore. The Central Bank governor, for instance, has stated that Iraq is implementing the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) – despite the fact that Iraq is not a member of this group.

Jubouri deliberately confuses the aforementioned US group with Iraq’s membership in the Gulf Financial Action Task Force (MENAFATF), which is “of a voluntary and cooperative nature, established by agreement between the governments of its members, and it is independent of any other international body or organization.”

Since 2018, FATF has removed Iraq from the special monitoring process known as the “Continuous Global Compliance Process to Combat Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing,” after Baghdad’s approval of the Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Law.

Despite not being a member of FATF, Iraq has implemented its recommendations to establish an electronic platform for selling dollars linked to the global SWIFT system, the Belgian-based banking messaging system that ties countries to the distinctly western financial system.

According to experts, this platform will be, in the long term, an alternative to the legally stipulated window for selling currency, and is almost completely outside the control of the Iraqi government.

Sanctioning Iraqi banks

The recent crisis began with the imposition of sanctions by the US Treasury Department on three Iraqi banks owned by businessman Ali Muhammad Ghulam al-Ansari, followed by sanctions on 16 further Iraqi banks. Another 23 banks remained operating as clients of the currency window in the Central Bank.

This sudden measure caused a decrease in the central bank’s sales of dollars by about 40 percent, which led to a decline in supply and a surge in demand, resulting in an increase in the price of the dollar to more than 1,550 dinars.

But this is not the whole story. Sources within Iraq’s Central Bank have confirmed to The Cradle that Baghdad had been informed of the US Treasury’s procedures two years ago, but the Kadhimi government and Jubouri chose to ignore them, with the US turning a blind eye due to the special relationship that linked the previous government with Washington.

These sources have also revealed that last July, the US Treasury Department invited the Association of Private Banks, headed by Wadih al-Handal (close to the UAE) and his deputy Tamkeen al-Hasnawi (close to the Sadrist movement) to a training workshop on electronic platform procedures that was held in Istanbul.

Notably, the ministry excluded from the invitation those banks that “happened” to be recently sanctioned.

Crippling the economy

A senior Iraqi official revealed to The Cradle that a series of meetings were held in the fourth quarter of 2022 in Amman, Jordan between the Central Bank of Iraq and the US Treasury, during which the latter submitted documents showing clear operations of smuggling of dollars outside of Iraq.

Among the documents submitted by the Americans was evidence of “importing one million refrigerators, at a price of $4,000 each” through Sulaymaniyah – an exaggerated price, given that the Iraqi market does not demand a huge quantity of this durable commodity. The US Treasury alleges that the document was forged and that its intent was instead to obtain a large amount of US dollars illicitly.

A member of the Iraqi parliament’s Finance Committee, who declined to be named, explained to The Cradle that the US Treasury had previously followed a particular schedule in providing Baghdad with dollars – sending $2.5 billion every three months that were transported by five planes.

Since 2018, these funds have begun to feature traceable serial numbers. During the Amman meetings, the US Treasury informed Iraq’s Central Bank that quantities of these dollars were being monitored in a number of regional countries, after their exit from Iraq through the UAE.

Consequently, Washington moved to reduce its dollar transfers by almost half, and to slow down most financial transfer procedures from Iraq – now taking about 15 days to complete – which have paralyzed the Iraqi market and surprised the Baghdad government.

Note that the dollars being transferred to Iraq consist of Iraqi funds deposited in US banks.

A source close to the Central Bank governor, who declined to be named, told The Cradle Arabi that these measures are aimed at preventing the smuggling of dollars to Iran, Syria, and Lebanon.

He reveals that the Central Bank verbally instructed Iraqi commercial banks not to sell dollars to travelers to the three countries. The source adds that the latest development – per US instructions – is to prevent the transfer of dollars from Iraq to Lebanon, even through tourists.

It is important to note that, for years, Iraq has required banks to sell up to $ 5,000 in cash to travelers, providing they produce an entry visa and airline ticket to their destination country.

Why does the US control Iraq’s dollars?

Iraqi financial sources point to the main dilemma: Since 2003, all Iraqi oil revenues have been paid into an account with the US Federal Reserve. Although Iraqis formed a sovereign government after the US invasion and occupation of their state, Iraq is still restricted from opening accounts for its oil earnings outside the United States.

This dilemma is causing an additional problem for Iraq. Its Central Bank funds are deposited in multiple accounts – amounting to about $ 99 billion (November 2022 figures), deposited in central banks in a number of countries ($ 13.8 billion), in securities ($ 52.8 billion), in international banks ($ 8.15 billion), in addition to about $ 7.3 billion in physical gold in Iraq and abroad.

Washington, given its dominance of the global financial system, has the ability to control all funds of Iraq’s Central Bank through threats or sanctions, even though these funds are not deposited exclusively in US banks.

But Iraq’s oil funds, which due to the 2022 global oil price hike also amount to more than $ 90 billion, remain – contrary to any economic, financial, or even accounting principle – in one account in the United States of America.

These funds belong to the Iraqi state and are controlled by the country’s Ministry of Finance, not by the Central Bank. This reality gives Washington greater control over the movement of foreign exchange in Iraq, without even being at the political table in Baghdad.

An Iraqi economic analyst says that successive governments are still subject to the decision of the “first American ruler of Iraq after the occupation,” Paul Bremer, and no one has thought of diversifying the risks by depositing oil money in various banks around the world instead of keeping it in a single US account.

With Washington’s unchallenged ability to control the dollar in Iraq – and thus the value of the Iraqi dinar – even prominent Saudi daily Asharq Al-Awsat published an article in December blaming US political diktats for the recent deterioration of the Iraqi dinar.

Entitled The Iraqi dinar is reeling under the pressure of US measures against “laundry” banks, the article – in a newspaper owned by Saudi royals – writes:

“The crisis began even before the implementation of the new financial system in the [Iraq’s] central bank, when the Americans told Sudani’s government that the rise of the influence of the political wing close to Tehran in state institutions should not reach political financial institutions, along with sensitive security agencies such as the intelligence services.”

No one in Iraq and abroad denied what was published in the Saudi paper. It is hard to conclude that the recent deterioration of Iraqi dinar is due to any other factor than this American political decision.

Yet, even today, not a single Iraqi official has emerged to call for linking the dinar to a basket of currencies – something that would protect Iraq from the dollar weapon. Nor has a single Iraqi official challenged the danger of Iraqi oil revenues being paid into a solitary account in the United States, based on a decision issued when US troops occupied Iraq.

The case of Iraq provides concrete evidence that dollar dependence is detrimental to a country’s economy and monetary policies – particularly one that is heavily reliant on energy exports. For Iraq, which has a history of political instability and economic challenges, the arguments for diversifying its trade and adopting alternative currencies are more compelling than ever.

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The Zelenskyy regime is desperate. It is reportedly losing more than 300 soldiers a day in eastern Ukraine. The latest effort by the doomed regime to throw men and foreign war materiel at a slow and overpowering Russian advance in Donbas will completely fall apart.

The regime is now busy abducting potential bullet stoppers in the Zakarpattia Oblast (Ruthenia), situated in the Carpathian Mountains of southwestern Ukraine, between Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania.

“Due to heavy losses, which exceed all previous ones, radical methods are used to replenish the numbers [of troops]. According to local sources, the Ukrainian authorities plan to call up 10,000 people from Transcarpathia by spring,” Hungarian journalists told EuroWeekly.

The Zelenskyy regime has apparently taken a page from the British Royal Navy during the Age of Sail. The British employed press gangs to crew ships during war and peacetime. Refusal to be impressed resulted in a one-way trip to the gallows.

“Almost every settlement in Transcarpathia has been for several days now undergoing forced conscription into the army. In the area of ​​the city of Berehove, in Nagysholes, on Sunday the market was surrounded. 70 people were taken away from there,” the post continues.

According to the Budapest news outlet’s observations, this forced conscription into the Ukrainian army “can almost be called a kidnapping of people. In addition, the persecution and deprivation of property of the remaining Hungarians have reached an unprecedented cruel level in Transcarpathia.”

“Recently, peasant mothers hailing from largely Hungarian populated villages within Transcarpthia staged protests in support of their sons who had been conscripted into the Ukrainian army,” Denis Pilas, a Transcarpathian activist, told HuffPost after the Maidan coup in 2014. “In the midst of war with Russian separatists in the east, many young men didn’t want to be shipped out… The Hungarians watch Hungarian TV and read Hungarian newspapers. They are only loosely integrated into society and in general they haven’t been very pro-Ukrainian.”

The forced conscription of ethnic Hungarians in Transcarpathia has a political aspect. Viktor Orbán, the PM of Hungary, is a critic of the war in Ukraine.

Hungary's 🇭🇺 PM Viktor Orban concerned over the deaths of Hungarians killed in Ukraine. Ukrainian military has been disproportionately conscripting ethnic Hungarians from the Transcarpathian Oblast, Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/mq5TFKB04F

— Edward Garbarino (@EIGARBARINO) January 21, 2023

In response, the ultranationalists in Ukraine have added Orbán to the Mirotvorets death list. They are now prepared to take revenge on the average Transcarpathian of Hungarian ethnicity by kidnapping and throwing him into the Russian meat grinder.

“There is a sort of purposeful policy, which besides narrowing the rights of all minorities, tries to portray the Hungarian minority as the enemy in Ukrainian public opinion,” Laszlo Brenzovics, the only ethnic Hungarian in the Ukrainian parliament, told the Associated Press in 2018.

The ultranationalists of Ukraine believe all ethnic minorities—Romanians, Belorussians, Crimean Tatars, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Poles, Jews, and Armenians—are untermenschen that must be ethnically cleansed.

“The current situation is clearly among the worst ones,” Tárnok Balázs wrote in 2021, prior to Russia’s SMO.

“Ukraine, by violating the rights of all minorities, is alienating its closest NATO allies in the region, just as it needs them the most. Ukraine is fighting the wrong war – instead of negotiating a closer partnership with NATO, Kyiv is implementing discriminatory policies against its own loyal ethnic minority citizens, and thus, achieving the result that Russia wants: keeping tensions high, staging provocations and dividing Ukrainians along ethnic lines.”

That may have been the case before Russia’s SMO. However, Ukraine’s mistreatment of minorities is now ignored by the USG and its corporate war propaganda media.

The USG, the UK, and the Europeans are not worried about nazi-ultranats persecuting and ethnically cleansing minorities. The USG is obsessively concerned with making sure its crumbling empire and its devalued fiat dollar remains king in a unipolar world. Everything else, including the welfare of the American people, comes in a distant second.

If resisting Russia requires the crime of kidnapping Hungarians by nazi-ultranats in Transcarpathia and shipping them to die in a Russian military “boiler” (a cauldron, or encirclement), that is the price the USG believes innocents must pay for its futile and criminal effort to remain top dog perched on a mountain of rotting corpses.

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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.

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***

In an article published here in November 2018, I referred to the statement of the UK representative of a UN organisation named the International, Impartial, Independent Mechanism to Assist in the Investigation and Prosecution of Persons Responsible for the Most Serious Crimes under International Law Committed in the Syrian Arab Republic since March 2011.

I will repeat that statement because it is relevant to the current situation in Syria. That person stated,

“We must demonstrate that those who have committed the most serious crimes of international concern can have no place to hide. There must be no impunity for the horrendous acts taking place on a daily basis in Syria. There must be justice for the victims.”

The UK representative said this without any sense of irony, without any sense of shame, for, of course, it is the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Canada and their gang who have committed war crimes, and crimes against humanity beyond number in Syria since they instigated the uprisings against the government of Syria, beginning in 2011, supported their allied terrorists groups to attack Syrian armed forces and civilians, and imposed their illegal sanctions on the people of Syria.

The history of the war against Syria by the US and UK, Israel and their allies is well-known, the cruel sanctions, the aerial bombings, the missile attacks, the assassinations, the torture, the illegal occupation of the Golan Heights by Israel with US support, and, finally, the US invasion of Syria that began in 2015 with US special forces raids into its territory on a number of occasions that year and 2016 and the formal entry of US forces on March 8, 2017. Their invasion has continued to this day.

During the summer of 2017 US forces laid waste the city of Raqqa, Their carpet bombing of the city, their heavy artillery strikes and use of white phosphorous shells, banned under international law, killed hundreds of civilians, and today Raqqa lies in ruins.  Their terrorist allies laid waste Aleppo, Damascus and numerous other cities and towns and villages with a savagery as common to US trained groups, as it is to the US forces themselves.

The Americans gave all sorts of pretexts for this invasion, none of which were true and none of which gave them any legal basis for their aggression, for that is what their actions were; direct and brutal aggression against a sovereign nation in violation of the Nuremberg Principles established in 1946, in violation of the Kellog-Briand Pact of 1928, in which all these nations agreed not to attack any other nation, and in violation of the UN Charter, all of which the aggressor nations were subject to as part of international law and their own domestic law.

The invasion ordered by President Obama, making him a war criminal, expanded in scope until President Trump ordered American forces to be pulled out in 2019.  But US forces still remain in occupation of the northeastern parts of Syria. Their exact number is not known but it is at least one thousand and probably higher than that as they continue to build bases controlling the important oil fields that provide much of Syria’s energy needs and cash for exports as well as areas of wheat production vital to the survival of the Syrian state and its people.  The Americans continue to provide their usual pretexts for this, such as “fighting terrorism” “containing Russian influence in the Middle East, or supporting the Kurdish forces opposing both Syria and Turkey.

On January 10, 2023, in the magazine Defense One, William Roebuck, an American with the long title of Former Deputy Envoy for the Global Coalition against ISIS, repeated all these pretexts as justification for the American invasion but added, in calling for the invasion to continue,

“Our presence also blocks Russian consolidation of its military mission in Syria, undercutting one of the key sources of Moscow’s surprisingly resilient prestige in the region and hence lending support to our Ukraine policy efforts,”

thereby linking the US invasion and occupation of Syria to the US-NATO aggression against Russia in Ukraine.

Of course Mr. Roebuck could not cite any legal reasons or justifications as to why the US should be able to continue its occupation, because there are none, but as is common with all American and NATO governments and their officials, they could not care less about the law or morality.

The Syrian government states the situation clearly.

Om January 12, the Syrian Minister of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, Muhammad Hassan Qatana, affirmed that the exceptional circumstances that Syria is passing through because of the terrorist war, instigated by the United States, and unilateral coercive measures have badly affected achievements of many years of sustainable development and caused large losses.

On January 13, Syrian Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister, Bassam Tu’ma, said that the US occupation of parts of the Syrian territory, including oil resources, and the illegal sanctions imposed by Washington on Syria, cause great suffering on the Syrian People.

These statements follow the August 22, 2022, report in Tass that,

“According to the Syrian Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources, U.S.-led entities illegally export up to 66,000 barrels of oil daily, representing 80% of the daily production of hydrocarbons. The scale of Washington’s oil theft has reached a peak. Because of this the humanitarian situation in the country remains difficult, millions of Syrians face energy, food and water shortages and are in need of basic necessities.”

“Russia and Syria strongly condemn the plundering of the natural resources. The US-backed Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces currently control most of Syria’s eastern and northeastern Al-Hasakah, Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa provinces. The US military command has established nine military bases there since 2015. Damascus views the US military presence in Syria as an illegal occupation.”

On December 14, 2022, the Syrian government in a statement to the Security Council stated,

“Syria condemns the actions of the US occupation forces and demands an end to the illegal US military presence on its territory.

“Syria draws the attention of the international community to the systematic plundering of the natural resources of the Syrian people by the United States and associated paramilitary units,” the statement said.

“Damascus,” it said, “demands the return to the Syrian state of the captured oil and gas fields and the payment of compensation for the stolen resources.” The ministry’s statement provides data on the losses that Syria has suffered in recent years from the theft of its oil, gas and other minerals, as well as wheat. They are estimated by Syria at $19.8 billion. In addition, the bombing by the Air Force of the Western coalition caused the country damage worth $2.9 billion.”

The Syrian Foreign Ministry said

“further silence of the UN Security Council on the aggressive policy of the United States and the violation of the principles of international law is unacceptable.”

“It’s impossible to ignore the suffering of Syrians as a result of the sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union, which have disastrous consequences for the daily lives of citizens and don’t allow them to receive the necessary services, fuel, household gas, electricity, especially in winter,” the statement said and concluded with,

 “the blockade and coercive measures of the West against Syria are tantamount to war crimes, they increase the suffering of the people and slow down the process of post-war reconstruction.”

War crimes they are, yet, as the Syrians noted, nothing is said in the collective west in defence of Syria.  Nothing is said about the crimes of the Americans and their allies, either by their governments, or their media. How can we expect them to since they are all complicit in these crimes?

Since the Americans will not leave unless forced to, it will take operations by the Syrian Army to drive out the invader, but that is complicated by the continuing incursions and occupation of parts of northern Syria by the Turks intent on ridding themselves of the Kurdish threat. Hopefully the on-going talks between Turkey and Syria with the participation of Russia will lead to a resolution of that issue so that Syria can, with the help of its allies, finally take action against the invading US forces.

All the while the US and its NATO allies along with their puppets in Kiev rant on about “Russian war crimes” in Ukraine and call for international tribunals.

Yet it is they who should face trial and punishment for the war crimes committed by them over the years, including the nuclear attacks on Japan in 1945 for which the Americans have never been brought to account, a crime which, as President Biden said on January 13, in a surreal meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister, referring to the the use of nuclear weapons, is “a crime against all humanity.”

The world will not forget Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even if the Japanese government pretends to, nor the American and allied crimes and the millions of dead in Korea, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, and all the other crimes, too many to list here, that they have committed around the world to support their interests.

Who will try them? Who will bring them to justice?  Only the future can provide the concrete answer, but the reckoning is coming, of that we can be sure.

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Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto. He is known for a number of high-profile war crimes cases and recently published his novel Beneath the Clouds. He writes essays on international law, politics and world events. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. 

 

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“The Doomsday Clock is sounding an alarm for the whole of humanity,” said the Elders chair. “We are on the brink of a precipice. But our leaders are not acting at sufficient speed or scale to secure a peaceful and liveable planet.”

“We are living in a time of unprecedented danger, and the Doomsday Clock time reflects that reality.”

That’s what Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists president and CEO Rachel Bronson said in a statement Tuesday about the historic symbol being set at 90 seconds to midnight, or global catastrophe, after three years at 100 seconds to midnight.

As the bulletin’s annual statement explains, the clock—created in 1947—has reached its current position due to “an exceedingly dangerous nuclear situation,” largely from Russia’s war on Ukraine; inadequate global action to tackle the climate emergency; a “daunting array” of biological threats, exemplified by the Covid-19 pandemic; and “disruptive” technologies enabling the spread of disinformation.

“90 seconds to midnight is the closest the clock has ever been set to midnight, and it’s a decision our experts do not take lightly,” Bronson noted. “The U.S. government, its NATO allies, and Ukraine have a multitude of channels for dialogue; we urge leaders to explore all of them to their fullest ability to turn back the clock.”

Watch the full announcement:

While the nearly yearlong Russian invasion—with fighting over a nuclear power plant and thinly veiled threats of using weapons of mass destruction—is a primary reason humanity is now closer than ever to apocalypse, experts from across the globe emphasized that it’s far from the only threat.

The Elders chair Mary Robinson, a former president of Ireland and U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, stressed that “the Doomsday Clock is sounding an alarm for the whole of humanity. We are on the brink of a precipice. But our leaders are not acting at sufficient speed or scale to secure a peaceful and liveable planet.”

“From cutting carbon emissions to strengthening arms control treaties and investing in pandemic preparedness, we know what needs to be done,” she said. “The science is clear, but the political will is lacking. This must change in 2023 if we are to avert catastrophe. We are facing multiple, existential crises. Leaders need a crisis mindset.”

From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

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Jessica Corbett is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

Featured image: The Doomsday Clock was set at 90 seconds to midnight on January 24, 2023. (Photo: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)

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Einführung

Am 24 Januar ist: „Internationaler Tag der Erziehung / Internationaler UN-Tag der Bildung / Welttag Bildung“. An diesem Aktionstag, der erstmals 2019 begangen wurde, soll die Rolle der Bildung für Frieden und Entwicklung sowie als öffentliches Gut gewürdigt werden.

Als Pädagoge und Psychologe möchte ich zu diesem Tag den Brief des Nobelpreisträgers Albert Camus an seiner Lehrer Monsieur Germain vom 19. November 1957 und einen Auszug aus der Antwort seines Lehrers am 30. April 1959 zitieren. Beide Briefe wurden im Anhang von Albert Camus‘ Roman „Der erste Mensch“ veröffentlicht (1).

Camus‘ Brief an seinen Lehrer

19 November 1957

Lieber Monsieur Germain,

Ich habe den Lärm sich etwas legen lassen, der in diesen Tagen um mich war, ehe ich mich ganz herzlich an Sie wende. Man hat mir eine viel zu große Ehre erwiesen, die ich weder erstrebt noch erbeten habe. Doch als ich die Nachricht erhielt, galt mein erster Gedanke, nach meiner Mutter, Ihnen. Ohne Sie, ohne Ihre liebevolle Hand, die Sie dem armen kleinen Kind, das ich war, gereicht haben, ohne Ihre Unterweisung und Ihr Beispiel wäre nichts von alldem geschehen. Ich mache um diese Art Ehrung nicht viel Aufhebens. Aber diese ist zumindest eine Gelegenheit, Ihnen zu sagen, was Sie für mich waren und noch immer sind, und um Ihnen zu versichern, dass Ihre Mühen, die Arbeit und die Großherzigkeit, die Sie eingesetzt haben, immer lebendig sind bei einem Ihrer kleinen Zöglinge, der trotz seines Alters nicht aufgehört hat, Ihr dankbarer Schüler zu sein. Ich umarme Sie von ganzem Herzen.

Albert Camus

Antwort des Lehrers (Auszug)

Algier, am 30. April 1959

Mein lieber Kleiner,

(…).

Ich finde keinen Ausdruck für die Freude, die Du mir mit Deiner reizenden Geste und der Art, dich zu bedanken, gemacht hast. Wenn es möglich wäre, würde ich den großen Jungen, der du geworden, und der für mich immer „mein kleiner Camus“ bleiben wird, fest an mich drücken.

(…).

Der Pädagoge, der seinen Beruf gewissenhaft ausüben will, läßt keine Gelegenheit aus, die Schüler, seine Kinder kennenzulernen, und sie bietet sich ständig. Eine Antwort, eine Geste, eine Haltung sind äußerst aufschlußreich. Ich glaube also den netten kleinen Kerl, der Du warst, gut zu kennen, und das Kind enthält im Keim oft den Mann, der es werden wird. Deine Freude an der Schule war überall spürbar. Dein Gesicht verriet Optimismus. Und wenn ich Dich beobachtete, habe ich nie etwas von der wirklichen Situation Deiner Familie geahnt.

(…).

*

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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel ist Schul-Rektor, Erziehungswissenschaftler (Dr. paed.) und Psychologe (Dipl.-Psych.). Nach seinen Universitätsstudien wurde er wissenschaftlicher Lehrer (Professor) in der Erwachsenenbildung: unter anderem Leiter eines freien Schul-Modell-Versuchs und Fortbildner bayerischer Beratungslehrkräfte und Schulpsychologen. Als Pensionär arbeitete er als Psychotherapeut in eigener Praxis. Bei einer Öffentlichen Anhörung zur Jugendkriminalität im Europa-Parlament war er Berichterstatter für Deutschland. In seinen Büchern und Fachartikeln fordert er eine bewusste ethisch-moralische Werteerziehung sowie eine Erziehung zu Gemeinsinn und Frieden. Für seine Verdienste um Serbien bekam er 2021 von den Universitäten Belgrad und Novi Sad den Republik-Preis „Kapitän Misa Anastasijevic“ verliehen.

Noten

1. Camus, Albert (1995). Der erste Mensch. Reinbek bei Hamburg, S. 376ff.

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Introduction

On 24 January is: “International Day of Education / UN International Day of Education / World Day of Education”. This day of action, first observed in 2019, aims to recognise the role of education in peace and development and as a public good.

As an educator and psychologist, I would like to quote on this day the letter of the Nobel Prize winner Albert Camus to his teacher Monsieur Germain on 19 November 1957 and an extract from his teacher’s reply on 30 April 1959. Both letters were published in the appendix of Albert Camus’ novel “The First Man” (1).

Camus’ letter to his teacher

19 November 1957

Dear Monsieur Germain,

I have allowed the noise that has been around me these days to subside somewhat before addressing you most sincerely. I have been paid far too great an honour which I neither sought nor asked for. But when I received the news, my first thought, after my mother, was of you. Without you, without your loving hand extended to the poor little child that I was, without your instruction and example, none of this would have happened. I don’t make much fuss about this kind of tribute. But this is at least an opportunity to tell you what you were and still are to me, and to assure you that your efforts, the work and the generosity you put in are always alive in one of your little pupils who, despite his age, has not ceased to be your grateful disciple. I embrace you with all my heart.

Albert Camus

Teacher’s reply (extract)

Algiers, 30 April 1959

My dear little one,

(…).

I cannot find an expression for the joy you gave me with your lovely gesture and the way you thanked me. If it were possible, I would hug tightly the big boy you have become and who will always remain for me “my little Camus”.

(…).

The teacher who wants to do his job conscientiously never misses an opportunity to get to know his pupils, his children, and it is constantly offered. A response, a gesture, an attitude are extremely revealing. So I think I know well the nice little fellow you were, and the child often contains in its germ the man it will become. Your joy at school was palpable everywhere. Your face betrayed optimism. And when I watched you, I never suspected anything about the real situation of your family.

(…).

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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel is a school rector, educationalist (Dr. paed.) and psychologist (Dipl.-Psych.). After his university studies, he became an academic teacher (professor) in adult education: among other things, he was head of an independent school model trial and in-service trainer of Bavarian guidance counsellors and school psychologists. As a retiree, he worked as a psychotherapist in private practice. He was rapporteur for Germany at a public hearing on juvenile delinquency in the European Parliament. In his books and articles, he calls for a conscious ethical-moral education and an education for public spirit and peace. For his services to Serbia, he was awarded the Republic Prize “Captain Misa Anastasijevic” by the Universities of Belgrade and Novi Sad in 2021.

Note

(1) Camus, Albert (1995). The first man. Reinbek bei Hamburg, p. 376ff.

Featured image is from ClipartMax

New US Research Finds “Worrying” Evidence Linking Monsanto Weedkiller to Cancer

By Carey Gillam, January 25, 2023

New research by top US government scientists has found that people exposed to the widely used weed killing chemical glyphosate have biomarkers in their urine linked to the development of cancer and other diseases.

Debt Ceiling Hysteria and Hypocrisy

By Rep. Ron Paul, January 25, 2023

House Republicans are demanding that President Biden and Senate Democrats agree to include spending cuts with the debt ceiling increase. However, President Biden and the congressional Democrats are refusing to negotiate with Republicans. Rather, they and their allies in the mainstream media are lambasting Republicans for their “irresponsibility” in seeking to include spending cuts with an increase in the debt ceiling.

Right & Left to Join in D.C. Protest: “Not one more penny for war in Ukraine.”

By John V. Walsh, January 25, 2023

On February 19, Washington, DC, will witness a protest against the war in Ukraine that marks a sharp departure from past demonstrations. The lead demand is simple and direct, “Not One More Penny for war in Ukraine.” It is a demand that emphasizes what we in the US can do to end the war, not what others can do. After all, the only government we have the power to influence is our own.

Egyptian Economic Crisis Has Hit Syrian-Owned Businesses

By Steven Sahiounie, January 24, 2023

When the US-NATO attack on Syria for regime change began in 2011, many Syrians began to leave the country for safer areas. After the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Mursi won in a US manipulated election, many Syrians who were followers of the Muslim Brotherhood, packed up and left for Egypt.

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

By Eric Zuesse, January 24, 2023

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

China’s Economy Outlook 2023 in the Context of the World Economy

By Peter Koenig and CGTN, January 24, 2023

China has entered new partnerships with the BRICS+, as well as a new strong alliance between China, Russia and Iran, as Iran has become a full-fledged member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization – SCO. China has already 2 years ago “discounted” trade and investments with the west, notably with the US and Europe, and instead concentrated on the ASEAN countries.

All Masks Thrown Off. The Euro-Atlantic Elites Meeting in Davos, Profit Driven War on Ukraine

By South Front, January 24, 2023

In January 2023, all masks were thrown off. The Euro-Atlantic elites, motivated after their meetings in Davos, realized that there was no more need to cover their true intentions with hypocritical appeals to “save the young Ukrainian democracy for the sake of world peace.”

Creating a Sacred Unity of Peoples, Cultures and Nature for the Americas

By Emanuel Pastreich, January 24, 2023

The United States of America is a term that contains in it all the hope and all the contradictions of our country, and of the Americas. That hope dates far back in the past, to the inspiring words of the Declaration of Independence that articulated a form of governance that was, at least in terms of its potential, unprecedented.

Russia Preparing New Plan to End War

By Drago Bosnic, January 24, 2023

In the last several months, the Russian military has been conducting intensive training for approximately 300,000 newly mobilized soldiers, in addition to other preparations that would enable it to deliver a final knockout punch and end hostilities in Ukraine.

The Idea of Socialism Can Only Flourish in Peace and Freedom

By Dr. Rudolf Hänsel, January 24, 2023

In modern times, the Age of Enlightenment, people developed new ideas. But the socialist idea, the anti-militarist idea of peace, freedom, equality, justice and solidarity was shipwrecked. It was the hope of the proletarians of the whole world. We have all neglected these beautiful thoughts and thus destroyed them. There is no politics, no explanation of human concerns without knowledge of psychology.

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***

The people in charge have found a term that should at least suggest some meaning: thermal recycling. Four federal states state that they have thermally recycled a total of 17.25 million expired corona masks. Translated this means: They were burned.

This is the result of a WELT survey of all countries. 6.1 million masks were destroyed in Baden-Württemberg, 5.5 million in Saxony, five million in North Rhine-Westphalia and 656,000 in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Eleven federal states announced that they had not yet disposed of any corona masks, but that they were partially planning to do so. Thuringia could not provide any information about the type of recycling.

The Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) in Berlin has also “energetically recycled” masks in the past few months. The number is so far “less than a million pieces,” said a spokesman on request. The destroyed masks were bought at the height of the pandemic. They have passed their sell-by date without a buyer having been found for them beforehand. At federal and state level, the majority were surgical, FFP2 and similar masks.

In October last year it was announced that the federal government wants to dispose of up to 800 million expired masks. According to WELT information, this was taken over by the disposal company Remondis in the Euskirchen warehouse in North Rhine-Westphalia. According to documents, November 11, 2022 to November 30, 2023 was agreed as the period. “Energy recovery” is also to take place at the storage locations in Augsburg, Dresden and Crailsheim in the district of Schwäbisch-Hall.

The federal and state governments are sitting on a mountain of masks worth billions. According to the Federal Ministry of Health from September, there are a total of 3.7 billion masks in the federal inventory, around 20 percent of which are the subject of legal disputes and cannot be handed over. According to a spokesman on Tuesday, 1.4 billion certified surgical masks and 260 million FFP2 masks can currently be delivered. Most of these will last until the end of next year.

“I’m often the only mask wearer in the room”

As a sign that the pandemic is not over, Health Minister Lauterbach also wears a mask at the World Economic Forum. He wants to set an example. So far it hasn’t made school: “I’m often the only mask wearer in the room,” he says in the WELT interview with Jan Philipp Burgard.

In addition, the federal states have a total of 180 million corona masks, as the responsible health and interior ministries announced on request. Bavaria (68.5 million), Lower Saxony (24.6 million) and Hesse (22.6 million) stock the most masks. In twelve federal states, a total of 54.3 million of the masks will expire this year or next. These are mostly medical surgical masks.

You can only burn what you bought yourself

Several ministries want to have more masks destroyed in the future. The problem: So far you can only burn those that you have bought yourself. For masks that were procured by the federal government and then distributed to the federal states, they need the approval of the federal government.

“The Hessian Ministry of the Interior and Sport, together with many ministries from other states, is turning to the federal government with an urgent request to either take back the unusable protective masks from federal deliveries or to agree to their destruction by the states, as ongoing storage costs are incurred,” says a spokesman. Unfortunately, approval has not yet been obtained. “The Federal Ministry of Health refers to open customs issues that have not yet been clarified by the Federal Government.”

The Ministry of the Interior in Saxony also reports that it is waiting for the masks procured by the federal government “until legal questions have been finally clarified”. The Saarland announced that it planned to destroy 1.8 million masks from the federal inventory. A spokesman for the Health Senate in Hamburg says: “The preparations have been made.” When asked when approval can be given, a spokesman for the Federal Ministry of Health answered evasively: “The BMG is in regular contact with both the federal states and the General Customs Directorate.”

Karsten Klein, chairman of the FDP parliamentary group in the budget committee of the Bundestag, criticizes the previous government’s overprocurement: “The traffic light coalition inherited a huge and very expensive mask mountain from Jens Spahn. As important as the federal government’s support for the procurement of masks was at times in 2020, under Spahn it resulted in a real buying spree that completely lost sight of the need,” said Klein about the former Federal Minister of Health from the CDU.

In future crises, procurement must be based on reliable demand forecasts and there must be better coordination between the federal and state governments. “There must be no immense over-procurement and thus a waste of taxpayers’ money.” The Federal Ministry of Health must now “at all costs” look for ways to give away masks before their shelf life expires. Depending on the mask type and manufacturer, this is usually between two and five years.

Kathrin Vogler, health policy spokeswoman for the Left Group in the Bundestag, also criticizes the destruction: “Instead of distributing leftover masks to people free of charge at train and bus stations or in doctor’s offices, the federal states and the Ministry of Health are now destroying millions of masks.” This shows that those responsible have not even begun to understand the social dimension of infection control. “Prevention measures such as masks and tests must be available to everyone with low thresholds and as free of charge as possible.”

Almost six billion euros in procurement costs in the federal government alone

At the beginning of November, the Budget Committee of the Bundestag called on the government to ensure that the personal protective equipment in the federal inventory “is definitely recycled as needed before the expiry date expires” and that options for free and fee-based disposal are also examined in order to ensure disposal “to be avoided due to exceeding the expiry date”.

In addition, masks are stored in addition to the federal inventory as part of the “National Health Protection Reserve”. The establishment of the reserve was decided by the then federal government in mid-2020 in order to prevent future shortages. According to the Ministry of Health, there are currently 245 million masks in reserve, some of which will expire at the end of 2023.

But doubts about the usefulness of the reserve are increasing. In November, the budget committee asked the government to implement a proposal from the Federal Court of Auditors and to examine “whether physical storage for the federal healthcare system is necessary and economical at all” and at which authority this should best be located – as well as what alternatives to one Stockpiling at the federal government may exist.

Overall, mask procurement is a very expensive affair for the taxpayer. The costs at federal level alone have totaled 5.8 billion euros since the beginning of the pandemic. For this purpose, 4.2 billion surgical masks and 1.7 billion FFP2 masks were procured.

In the past, the Federal Court of Auditors has repeatedly criticized that under the leadership of ex-Health Minister Spahn, there was a “massive over-procurement” of masks that would have been “avoidable”.

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A group of 160 mostly American lawyers recently urged President Joe Biden to remove Cuba from the U.S. State Sponsors of Terrorism list, a designation acknowledged as meritless and politically motivated by critics and proponents of the policy alike.

Noting that numerous former Latin American and Caribbean heads of state, as well as “hundreds of civil society organizations and thousands of citizens” have asked the Biden administration to lift Cuba’s State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT) status, the attorneys called on the president “to immediately initiate a review and notification process to remove Cuba from the SSOT list.”

“There is no legal or moral justification for Cuba to remain on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list,” the attorneys argued in an Alliance for Cuba Engagement and Respect (ACERE) letter. “Given the tremendous economic, social, humanitarian, and commercial effect placement on the SSOT list has had for the Cuba people, maintaining it for such pretextual reasons continues to be a stain on U.S. foreign policy.”

There is no legal or moral justification to list Cuba as a state sponsor of terror. This important letter signed by 160 lawyers makes that clear. We’re proud to have helped gather signatures! #LetCubaLive https://t.co/62wLuIn5BH

— CODEPINK (@codepink) January 23, 2023

In 2015, then-President Barack Obama removed Cuba from the SSOT during a promising but ultimately short-lived rapprochement between the two countries that abruptly ended when former President Donald Trump took office in 2017. The lawyers’ letter is a point-by-point refutation of the criteria cited by then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo when the outgoing Trump administration re-listed Cuba as an SSOT in January 2021.

These include Cuba’s refusal to extradite members of the National Liberation Army, a leftist rebel group from Colombia, who traveled to Havana for peace negotiations with the Colombian government. Such an extradition, the lawyers noted, would have violated Cuba’s obligation to ensure the safety and well-being of all participants in the peace talks.

Pompeo also cited the fact that Cuba harbors U.S. fugitives wanted for acts of political violence committed nearly half a century ago, even though no other country has been placed on the SSOT list for such a reason. Aside from ignoring all the Cuban exile terrorists who enjoy not only citizenship but sometimes even heroic status in the United States, the lawyers note that “international law clearly prohibits extradition for acts of political violence.”

As the letter states:

To the extent that the 1904 extradition treaty between Cuba and the United States remains in effect and continues to be honored by both parties, it contains a standard political offense exemption. This exception is premised upon a concept familiar to the United States, which is that “individuals have a right to resort to political activism to foster political change.” Indeed, this is precisely the sort of “activism” that the United States designates millions of dollars to each year for regime change in Cuba.

“Policy—and electoral—concerns appear to have always kept Cuba on the SSOT list, rather than actually meeting the legal requirements to be on there,” the lawyers’ letter contends, citing a former Clinton administration Cuba expert who admitted that “frankly, I don’t know anyone inside or outside of government who believes in private that Cuba belongs on the terrorist list.”

“People who defend it know it is a political calculation,” the expert added. “It keeps a certain part of the voting public in Florida happy, and it doesn’t cost anything.”

Much of that “certain part of the voting public in Florida” consists of Cuban-Americans, who—especially among the older generations—vehemently support isolating Cuba as long as it remains socialist.

“Frankly, I don’t know anyone inside or outside of government who believes in private that Cuba belongs on the terrorist list.”

Earlier this month, Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.)—the daughter of Cuban exiles who believes that even the sort of democratic socialism found in many of the world’s freest and most developed nations brings “misery, oppression, and exile”—introduced the FORCE Act. The proposed legislation would bar Biden from removing Cuba from the SSOT list “until the regime grants basic human rights protections.”

Cuba was first placed on the SSOT list by the Reagan administration in 1982. By that time, the island nation and its socialist government had endured a decadeslong campaign of U.S.-backed exile terrorism, attempted subversion, failed assassination attempts, economic warfare, and covert operations large and small in a fruitless policy of toppling longtime leader Fidel Castro. Cuba says U.S.-backed terrorism has killed or wounded more than 5,000 Cubans and cost its economy billions of dollars.

There is no comparable—or any—history of Cuban terrorism against the United States.

In stark contrast, the Reagan administration removed Iraq, then ruled by the dictator Saddam Hussein, from the SSOT list just days before Cuba was added. This was so that the U.S. could supply Hussein’s forces with weaponry used to kill both Iranians and Iraq’s own restive Kurdish and Shi’a people. Top officials in the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations knew that Iraqi forces were using chemical weapons—some of whose components came from the United States and its allies—against both Iranians and against Iraqi Kurds in the genocidal Anfal campaign, but gave Hussein diplomatic cover until he ordered an invasion of Kuwait in August 1990.

The resolution by the Berkeley City Council (CA) marks 1 of the 65 different docs passed across the US, demanding the withdrawal of #Cuba from the SSOT list & the lifting of the blockade.

We thank the ppl of the US, which each day expresses its solidarity through these efforts. pic.twitter.com/NUdwNCbvj7

— Lianys Torres Rivera (@lianystr) January 3, 2023

More than 100 progressive groups and over 10,000 people have signed petitions and open letters urging Biden to lift Cuba’s SSOT designation.

Last October, leftist Colombia President Gustavo Petro asked U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to end the “injustice” of Cuba being listed as a sponsor of terrorism.

From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

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Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

Featured image: CodePink led a November 2, 2022 rally against the U.S. economic blockade of Cuba outside the White House in Washington, D.C. (Photo: CodePink)

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Bees are likely to be at high risk from exposure to glyphosate, the most widely used weedkiller in the world, via contaminated wildflower nectar and pollen after pre-harvest spraying (desiccation), according to new research from Trinity College Dublin and Dublin City University scientists in Ireland.

Glyphosate is the most frequently used weedkiller within the European Union and is also very common in other parts of the world. The residues the Irish scientists found in nectar in this study exceeded the European maximum permitted levels of glyphosate in honey and honey bee products, which suggests they could be harmful to honeybees and those eating the honey.

Residues of glyphosate have previously been found in nectar and pollen collected by bees foraging on plants that have been selectively targeted with weedkiller, but this is the first time it has been reported in unsprayed wildflowers growing near sprayed fields. Glyphosate is intended to only kill plants but it has been shown to harm the digestive systems of honeybees and bumblebees, which makes them more vulnerable to infections, and it may have other negative consequences.

This is the first time glyphosate has been reported in unsprayed wildflowers under conventional farming conditions and while more research is needed to find how much higher glyphosate concentrations would be in directly sprayed plants, the researchers stated that wild bees and honeybees will visit the contaminated wildflowers to collect pollen and nectar. They will thus be exposed to glyphosate and that could impact their health and the critical pollination service they provide.

In three of the studied locations, glyphosate residues were found in pollen and nectar of the blackberry flowers within a week after spraying took place. When the weedkiller was used as a pre- or post-emergence spray on oilseed rape crops (two months before sampling), no residues were detected. Knowing that bees may be exposed to glyphosate residues in the environment makes it important that more research takes place to assess the glyphosate impact on multiple bee species.

The Trinity College Dublin scientists stated that they recommend the immediate investigation of glyphosate as a desiccant before harvesting crops to better understand how this impacts non-target flowering plants growing near crop fields to enable a greater evidence base for evaluation of the renewal of market authorization for glyphosate in the European Union.

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New research by top US government scientists has found that people exposed to the widely used weed killing chemical glyphosate have biomarkers in their urine linked to the development of cancer and other diseases.

The study, published last week in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, measured glyphosate levels in the urine of farmers and other study participants and determined that the presence of high levels of the pesticide were associated with signs of a reaction in the body called oxidative stress, a condition that causes damage to DNA. Oxidative stress is considered by health experts as a key characteristic of carcinogens.

The authors of the paper – 10 scientists with the National Institutes of Health and two from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – concluded that their study “contributes to the weight of evidence supporting an association between glyphosate exposure and oxidative stress in humans.” They also noted that “accumulating evidence supports the role of oxidative stress in the pathogenesis of hematologic cancers,” such as lymphoma, myeloma and leukemia.

“Oxidative stress is not something you want to have,” said Linda Birnbaum, a toxicologist and former director of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences. “This study increases our understanding that glyphosate has the potential to cause cancer.”

The study findings come after the CDC reported last year that more than 80% of urine samples drawn from children and adults contained glyphosate. The CDC reported that out of 2,310 urine samples taken from a group of Americans intended to be representative of the US population, 1,885 were laced with detectable traces of glyphosate.

Glyphosate is the most heavily applied herbicide in history, both in the US and globally. One of the best-known glyphosate-based products is Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller. Roundup has been used by farmers as well as consumers for more than 40 years. Officials with Monsanto and its German owner Bayer AG have always assured the public and regulators that exposure to the weed killer does not pose a threat to human health.

Bayer said the new NIH study has many “significant methodological limitations that affects its reliability,” and said the results conflict with other government research.

“The increased oxidative stress found in the study could have been caused by any number of non-glyphosate related factors or a combination of them, and the study does not support the conclusion that glyphosate is the cause,” Bayer said in a statement.

People are exposed to glyphosate by using products made with the chemical and also by eating food and drinking water contaminated with the pesticide. Scientists have found glyphosate residues in an array of popular foods and in waterways across the US.

Notably, in the new paper, the NIH and CDC scientists said that while their study focused on farmers who were exposed to glyphosate when they sprayed it on fields, they saw similar results in “non-farmers.”

The findings suggest “these effects may apply more broadly to the general population who are primarily exposed through ingestion of contaminated food and water or residential applications,” the study authors wrote.

The study is so significant that it warrants regulatory attention, said some independent scientists.

“This is a top level team of investigators and a highly credible study to which regulators need to pay attention,” said Phil Landrigan, a pediatrician and epidemiologist who worked for years at the CDC and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and now directs the Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good at Boston College.

Michael Antoniou, a scientist with the department of medical and molecular genetics at King’s College in London who has been researching glyphosate for years, said the results were “worrying,” with “major health implications.”

Critical timing

The new government-funded study comes at a time when both the EPA and European regulators are completing updated assessments of glyphosate safety, and as health advocates are pushing for limits on use of the chemical or requirements that products such as Roundup be labeled with a cancer warning.

A European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) spokesperson said the agency was aware of the study and would consider whether or not the findings add “new evidence” as the agency completes its new glyphosate assessment. EFSA’s conclusions are due in July.

The EPA also said it was looking over the new study and would “carefully review” the findings as it finalizes its assessment.

“EPA takes very seriously our duty to protect human health and the environment,” the agency said in a statement.

The study also comes as Monsanto and Bayer remain mired in litigation brought by tens of thousands of cancer patients who claim exposure to Roundup caused them to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The company has already agreed to pay out more than $11 billion to settle the bulk of the claims – without admitting any liability – but many cases have not settled and civil trials are continuing.

Bayer is also facing a surge in investor unrest and calls for a break-up and the ouster of top leaders after the company lost 40% of its market value following its 2018 acquisition of Monsanto.

Bayer maintains that glyphosate does not cause cancer and that products made with it can be used safety. The company states on its website that EPA and other regulatory reviews provide an “extensive body of research” that back the company’s safety pledge.

Though some countries have moved to ban glyphosate products, regulatory agencies in many countries say there is a lack of evidence connecting glyphosate herbicides to cancer, and that it is one of the safest and most effective herbicides available.

Last year, a risk assessment committee of the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) concluded after reviewing multiple studies that there was no justification for classifying glyphosate as a carcinogen.

Many large US farm groups, including the American Farm Bureau Federation, American Soybean Association, National Corn Growers Association, National Association of Wheat Growers, National Cotton Council, and American Sugarbeet Growers Association, also say that glyphosate doesn’t cause cancer.

The EPA has said for years that it considers glyphosate as “not likely” to be carcinogenic, and in a 2020 updated review, the agency reiterated it saw no “human health risks of concern.” But the agency was forced to withdrawthat safety determination last year after a federal appellate court invalidated the EPA’s assessment.

The court ruling said that the EPA did not properly follow scientific guidelines when it determined glyphosate was not carcinogenic, ignoring expert advice from scientific advisers and using “inconsistent reasoning.”

The EPA now is revisiting its glyphosate evaluation and expects to issue a decision for glyphosate in 2026. 

Cancer not only concern

Debate over the safety of glyphosate has persisted for years and intensified after the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a unit of the World Health Organization, declared it “probably carcinogenic to humans” in 2015.

The new findings are not the first to look at glyphosate and oxidative stress. Animal studies and cellular studies have also found an association. But there are only a handful of such studies in humans.

The NIH study is the “largest investigation to date of the relationship between glyphosate exposure and oxidative stress markers,” said Jonathan Hofmann, an author of the study from the NIH’s National Cancer Institute.

Scientists say it is important to examine substances that may cause oxidative stress because a large body of scientific evidence suggests that long-term oxidative stress contributes to the development not only of cancer but also a range of chronic conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease, and reproductive problems, including male infertility.

One prior human study related to glyphosate and oxidative stress was published last year by a team of scientists specializing in public and environmental health at several US universities.

Those researchers analyzed 347 urine samples collected from pregnant women, finding that higher levels of oxidative stress biomarkers were seen in the samples containing concentrations of aminomethyl phosphonic acid (AMPA), a substance created when glyphosate breaks down in soil and water.

The authors of that paper noted that glyphosate and AMPA have been shown to disrupt hormone function and warned that more research was needed due to glyphosate’s “persistence within the environment, and potential for adverse effects during pregnancy.”

The new NIH study is considered part of the Agricultural Health Study (AHS), a long-term examination of the health impacts of pesticide use on farmers funded by the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in collaboration with the EPA.

Other AHS studies have provided sometimes conflicting findings on the question of whether or not glyphosate can cause cancer, but the scientists authoring the latest research said their study was distinctive for several reasons, including using urinary glyphosate exposure measurements and pesticide exposure histories for study subjects and including people who are not farmers.

The researchers said that though the associations between glyphosate and biomarkers of oxidative stress “mainly appear to reflect effects of recent occupational exposure, there was also some evidence of associations with longer-term exposure.”

Investigators at the NIH are exploring potential opportunities to follow up on these findings and address needs for future research, Hofmann said.

Lorette Picciano, executive director of the Rural Coalition alliance of farm workers, said she hopes the EPA will pay attention to the study.

“People are dying of these cancers,” she said. “This study is very important.”

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This article is co-published with The Guardian.

Featured image is from SHTFplan.com

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Major US banks, including Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JPMorgan, and others, will push into the digital wallet space in the second half of this year to take on Apple Pay and PayPal. 

Early Warning Services LLC (EWS), the bank-owned company that operates the money-transfer service Zelle, will be managing the new digital wallet, according to WSJ. The wallet has yet to be named but will be separate from Zelle and allow shoppers to pay at merchants’ online checkouts with linked debit and credit cards.

EWS plans to offer the new digital wallet later this year and can handle up to 150 million debit and credit cards during the initial launch. Consumers in good standing with banks will be eligible for the new service.

The purpose of the digital wallet is to take on third-party wallet operators such as Apple and PayPal, according to people familiar with the matter. They said banks are concerned about losing businesses if a digital wallet is not released soon. Even though Goldman Sachs’ consumer unit that manages the Apple Card is a money-losing business, there is a plan to launch a high-yield savings account and buy now, pay later program.

The move towards electronic and contactless payments has been gradual but could soon be thrown into hyperdrive if enough consumers adopt EWS’ new wallet. It was during the Coronavirus pandemic when the government, Federal Reserve, and corporations urged people to avoid unnecessary physical transactions that increased the push toward a cashless society.

Recall the pivot toward a cashless society was clear as day. Perhaps the coin shortage during the pandemic was a test run. And anyone who dared mention a looming cashless society was deemed a ‘conspiracy theorist.’

Just remember who is also shaping the world and influencing politicians and corporations away from a cash economy:

Dethroning cash as king. How digital payments are enabling a shift away from the cash economy https://t.co/FUYE2KHVfn @WEFUpLink pic.twitter.com/QpRmA61JXz

— World Economic Forum (@wef) February 22, 2022

The dystopic view is that a cashless society could mean governments and corporations will have even more control over our wallets — and that’s frightening.

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This week the US government reached its 31.4 trillion dollars borrowing limit, better known as the “debt ceiling.” This led to a showdown among House Republicans, President Biden, and congressional Democrats.

House Republicans are demanding that President Biden and Senate Democrats agree to include spending cuts with the debt ceiling increase. However, President Biden and the congressional Democrats are refusing to negotiate with Republicans. Rather, they and their allies in the mainstream media are lambasting Republicans for their “irresponsibility” in seeking to include spending cuts with an increase in the debt ceiling.

America’s national debt is approximately 122 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), meaning the government owes more than the population produces. Interest payments on the national debt follow in size behind other federal budget big spending areas of Social Security, Medicare, and “defense.” While interest payments are made, the national debt continues to grow each year.

Government spending steals resources from the private sector. Thus, there is less capital available for private businesses to grow and create new jobs. Government spending also contributes to price inflation and the declining value of the dollar as the Federal Reserve monetizes the debt. One reason the Fed cannot allow interest rates to rise anywhere near where they would be in a free market is that it would cause the federal government’s interest payments to rise to unsustainable levels. Considering these facts, it should be clear that the irresponsible ones are those who think the government should increase its credit limit without cutting spending.

This is not to say that establishment Republicans like House Speaker Kevin McCarthy are heroes of fiscal restraint. Rather, McCarthy, like most Republicans, objected neither to increased spending nor to debt ceiling suspensions when Donald Trump was president. Further, any Republican spending plan will likely continue increasing spending on the military-industrial complex while refusing to address the looming cost problems with Social Security and Medicare.

While some Republicans are willing to discuss reforms to Social Security and Medicare, most are still too afraid of the “senior lobby” to support any changes in the programs — even if such changes will not harm current beneficiaries. Consequently, it is unlikely Congress will pass meaningful entitlement reform — at least until it is forced to do so because the Medicare and Social Security Trust Funds run out of money. Insolvency is projected for the Medicare Trust Fund in five years and for the Social Security Trust Fund in 12 years. Of course, Congress may be able to avoid making tough choices since the Federal Reserve will likely cut government benefits, along with workers’ wages and the value of savings, via the inflation tax.

Following early reports that the House Republican leadership was open to supporting cuts in military spending, there arose a predictable cry from Republican hawks that any reduction in spending would leave the US and its allies vulnerable to our enemies. The limited cuts considered, though, would still keep America with a military budget exceeding the combined military budgets of the next nine biggest spending countries. After some pressure from the military-industrial complex’s loyalists and propagandists, most Republicans retreated from supporting defense cuts.

A problem with many fiscal conservatives is they accept the premise of the welfare-warfare statists. Thus, they are unable to make consistent principled arguments supporting spending cuts and opposing spending increases. The key to restoring a free society is for a critical mass of individuals to reject statism.

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A deputy defense minister and the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office both offered their resignations on Tuesday amid allegations of corruption.

The high-level departures came soon after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced changes to personnel at the highest level after the highest-profile allegations of graft since Russia launched its invasion.

Who’s resigned, and why?

The defense ministry carried a statement saying Vyacheslav Shapovalov‘s resignation was “a worthy deed” that would help retain trust in the ministry. Local media have reported that his departure was linked to a scandal involving the purchase of provisions for the Ukrainian military. Food contracts were allegedly signed at inflated prices.

Separately, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said he had asked the president to relieve him of his duties. Tymoshenko was among officials linked last September to the embezzlement of aid earmarked for Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region worth more than $7 million.

Click here to read the full article on DW.

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Featured image: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivers an address in Kiev, Ukraine, April 15, 2022. (Credit: Ukrainian Presidency)

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U.S. foreign policy is a place where logic goes to die.

Antony Blinken, the U.S. Secretary of State, said yesterday that the quickest way to end the Russia-Ukraine War is “to give Ukraine a strong hand on the battlefield,” by which he meant more and more weaponry, including Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles and Patriot missile systems together with Challenger II tanks from Great Britain. Not surprisingly, then, the White House also hinted at yet another aid package for Ukraine, which may be announced “as soon as the end of this week.”

Logic suggests the quickest way to end a war is to stop fighting. Announce a cease fire, negotiate, and find acceptable terms for an armistice or peace treaty. Stop the killing—stop the war.

Of course, the U.S. State Department is really a tiny branch of the Pentagon. It’s been that way for decades. The Pentagon budget, $858 billion for this year, is 14 times greater than the State Department’s at $60 billion. It often seems that a primary mission of the State Department is to market and sell U.S. weaponry overseas. Small wonder that Blinken sees more deadly weaponry in Ukraine as the answer to ending a catastrophic war.

In a way, Blinken’s blinkered thinking is typically American. What’s the quickest way to end a war on crime? A drug war? Or almost any other problem in America? Obviously, more guns, more security cameras, more metal detectors, more body armor, and so on. Think about our “solutions” to gun violence in schools, which include armored backpacks for eight-year-olds and semi-automatic pistols for teachers. Too many Americans look to guns as a “solution” to life’s problems; count Blinken among the gun-lovers, at least when it’s in the form of U.S. arms exports.

While it’s true U.S. arms exports and aid may keep Ukraine from losing quickly, it’s highly unlikely these same weapons will help Ukraine to win quickly and decisively. Russia can and likely will match any escalation to this war, and at a cheaper price than the U.S. taxpayer is currently paying (now over $100 billion and rising).

Blinken’s bloodless language about war is also revealing. It’s all about giving Ukraine “a strong hand on the battlefield,” as if Ukraine and Russia are playing a polite game of poker. More weapons to Ukraine means more bloody death and destruction; attrition or even escalation is far more likely than a quick end in Ukraine’s favor.

Blinken probably knows this, but a large part of his intellectual training was spent at Harvard and Columbia Law, just as Jake Sullivan, his younger counterpart at the National Security Council, trained at Yale and Yale Law. These men aren’t stupid, they’re just narrowly trained and partisan functionaries willing to spout whatever the empire needs them to say in the cause of imperial hegemony.

And so U.S. lawyers continue to send guns and money to Ukraine, especially guns, while saying this is the best and quickest way for Ukraine to beat Putin and end the war with Russia. Logic, however, suggests more fighting and dying and a lack of decision for either side.

Best not confuse a “strong hand” with a dead man’s one.

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Featured image: Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on May 6, 2021. [State Department photo by Ron Przysucha]

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On February 19, Washington, DC, will witness a protest against the war in Ukraine that marks a sharp departure from past demonstrations. The lead demand is simple and direct, “Not One More Penny for war in Ukraine.” It is a demand that emphasizes what we in the US can do to end the war, not what others can do. After all, the only government we have the power to influence is our own.

Above and beyond that demand, the potential power of this unique and promising movement arises from the nature of the sponsoring organizations – The Peoples Party, a progressive new Party, and the Libertarian Party. It is in fact what much of the press would term a “right-left” Coalition, spanning a spectrum broad enough to actually bring the proxy war in Ukraine to an end. Fittingly, the organizers are calling the protest “Rage Against the War Machine.” With the war in Ukraine putting us the precipice of nuclear Armageddon, “rage” might be considered a mild reaction.

A New Right-Left Coalition to Oppose the War.

The Peoples Party is probably the lesser known of the two sponsoring organizations because it’s newer.  Its founder and National Chair is Nick Brana, a lead organizer of the protest.  Brana was the National Coordinator of the Bernie Sanders 2016 campaign but has turned his back on the Democrats in disgust over the failure of progressive Democratic pols to fight for the promises they made.  Among the speakers at the Party’s founding convention in 2020 were Cornel West, Chris Hedges, Jimmy Dore, and Nina Turner (co-chair of the Sanders 2020 campaign).

The Libertarian Party is better known.  It has been around longer and, though small, is the third-largest political party in the US by voter registration.  The present National Chair, Angela McCardle, is the other lead organizer of the DC protest.  In American political life, probably, the best-known representative of libertarian values, most notably a principled anti-interventionist stance in foreign policy, is Ron Paul.

A call for ending US support for the proxy war in Ukraine is realistic; a substantial and growing segment of the American people support this demand.

The lead demand “Not one more penny for war in Ukraine” is finding ever more support among Americans. A survey in November by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs showed that 35% of Americans oppose sending more arms to Ukraine and 34% oppose sending more economic aid. (When it comes to sending US troops, 68% are opposed!) These numbers in grew from the previous survey in July, revealing a growing anti-interventionist sentiment. While this is not a majority, over one-third of the populace is a base substantial enough to build an antiwar majority. Only 16% more needs to be won over to reach a majority. The number one demand of the February demonstration is not utopian -it is realistic!

The Demands of the Demonstration.

It is worthwhile to look at all ten of the demands of the February protest which are found here. But the first four deserve special attention because they spell out the spirit and leading ideas of the movement. Here they are as worded on the website for the protest:

Not One More Penny for War in Ukraine. The Democrats and Republicans have armed Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars in weapons and military aid. The war has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions, and is pushing us toward a nuclear WW3. Stop funding the war.

Negotiate Peace. The US government instigated the war in Ukraine with a coup of its democratically elected government in 2014, and then sabotaged a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine in March. Pursue an immediate ceasefire and diplomacy to end the war.

Stop the War Inflation. The war is accelerating inflation and increasing food, gas and energy prices. The US blew up Russian gas pipelines to Europe, starving them of energy and deindustrializing their countries. End the war and stop increasing prices.

Disband NATO. NATO expansion to Russia’s border provoked the war in Ukraine. NATO is a warmongering relic of the Cold War. Disband it like the Warsaw Pact.

The other six demands are Global Nuclear De-Escalation; Slashing the Pentagon Budget;
Abolish the CIA and Military-Industrial Deep State; Abolish War and Empire; Restore Civil Liberties; and Free Julian Assange.

Make plans now to get to Washington on February 19.  Lend your presence to this potent new coalition of forces.  The demonstration will gather at the Lincoln Memorial and then march to the White House.  Watch for more details, and sign up for updates here in the coming weeks.

Let’s do this. Time is running out as the threat of nuclear war grows with each day and each new escalation in Ukraine. A broad coalition can end it. Enough of the forever wars!

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John V. Walsh, @JohnWal97469920, until recently a Professor of Physiology and Neuroscience at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, has written on issues of peace and health care for the San Francisco Chronicle, EastBayTimes/San Jose Mercury News, Asia Times, LA Progressive, Antiwar.com, CounterPunch, Consortium News, Scheerpost and others.

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There seems to be no limits to the criminal practices of the Ukrainian neo-Nazi regime. As well known, in addition to deliberately killing civilians in Donbass, Kiev also uses ordinary non-combatant people as human shields. Although the Russian side frequently denounces this reality and is accused of “disinformation” by the West, now even some Western media outlets are starting to admit some of the Kiev’s crimes.

According to the British TV channel Sky News, the Ukrainian forces would be allocating combat equipment in residential areas in the city of Artemovsk (renamed as “Bakhmut” by Kiev after the Maidan Coup) located in the Ukrainian-occupied part of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). Footage of the Ukrainian operations in the region was obtained by Sky News’ correspondent Alex Rossi during an on-the-ground investigation.

According to Rossi, several Ukrainian Soviet-era tanks were positioned among the city’s residential buildings. Armored vehicles and other war equipment have also been placed there. The city’s population has been significantly reduced as a result of the migration and displacement to escape hostilities, which is why Rossi says the streets are deserted. However, the civilians who remained there are currently suffering seriously as they are being held hostage by the Ukrainians and forced to obey their orders, with no possibility of escape.

“Lines of Soviet-era tanks and armored vehicles are concealed amongst the buildings (…) Inside the city, we saw Ukrainian forces laying traps and bringing in reinforcements (…) People have left the city. It’s very scary just being here. The fighting is very, very close”, he said during a recent report to Sky News.

Indeed, Kiev’s practice of using civilians as human shields appears to have become commonplace. Since the beginning of the Russian special military operation, the Ukrainian side has sought “protection” in populated areas, with soldiers hiding in residential buildings. The aim is to discourage the Russians from continuing attacks or, if the attacks occur, to use them as rhetoric to move the global public opinion against Moscow. On the Russian side, however, saving civilian lives is a significant principle. The very main purpose of the special operation is precisely to end the killing of civilians, which had been taking place on a large scale since 2014.

Therefore, Moscow’s forces act strategically, with military advances carefully planned in order to avoid civilian casualties. On the one hand, artillery hits infrastructure and military barracks; on the other, the soldiers on the ground engage in a slow-moving combat, taking the necessary precautions not to cause civilian casualties. Consequently, in regions where there is a human shield, as is precisely the case of Artemovsk / Bakhmut, the battles are particularly intense and prolonged. If it were Russian intention to quickly take control of these regions, it could use heavy artillery and air bombings against Ukrainian forces placed in civilian areas, but this type of attitude is not part of the Russian military doctrine.

The most important thing to do now is to spread the information as much as possible, making public in Western countries aware that Kiev is deliberately inflicting suffering on civilians. The fact that a western media agency has recognized the existence of human shield is important, but there is still more to be done. It is necessary to give more voice to the on-the-ground reporters, who always denounce the Ukrainian reality and most of the time are attended only by the Russian media, while in the West they are seen as “misinformation agents”.

International organizations also play an important role in this regard. For example, Amnesty International has since August 2022 released reports on how Ukrainian forces put civilians at risk. Even so, no action is taken within the scope of the UN, where there seems to be a hegemony of the Western narrative that Kiev is the “invaded” nation, “needing” to use all the necessary means to protect itself from the “invading country”.

“We have documented a pattern of Ukrainian forces putting civilians at risk and violating the laws of war when they operate in populated areas (…) In the cases it documented, Amnesty is not aware that the Ukrainian military asked or assisted civilians to evacuate nearby buildings – a failure to take feasible precautions to protect civilians”, an Amnesty International’s spokesperson stated in August.

The lack of international response to the evidence that Kiev kills civilians only reinforces that NATO’s countries act hypocritically about the current conflict. As far as the military scenario is concerned, however, Ukrainian human shields have already proven to be ineffective, since the Russians do not retreat in the face of this type of obstacle, but engage in slow combats, both avoiding casualties and gaining ground at the same time. With Kiev’s disregard for the lives of Donbass’ citizens and international inertia in trying to resolve the problem, Russian military victory seems to be the only hope of saving the lives of these civilians.

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

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***

Russian forces have gained the tactical initiative on almost all front lines in Ukraine. Amid the breaking victory of Wagner fighters in Soledar and their ongoing advance in Bakhmut, units of the Russian Army launched an offensive in the Zaporozhie region, taking new advantageous positions.

On the northern Luhansk front lines, fierce battle is ongoing for control of Novoselovskoye, most of which remains under Ukrainian control. In its turn, the Ukrainian military is amassing forces in an attempt to attack the neighboring village of Kuzemovka, which remains under Russian control.

In order to push Ukrainian units out from the Svatovo-Kremennaya road, Russian forces launch offensive operations from their positions in Zhitlovka towards the village of Terny.

In the area of Belogorovka and Spornoe infantry of the LPR shackles the Ukrainian units with some advances in forest plantations. Russian military operations in the area threaten the Ukrainian defense in Seversk and prevent the Ukrainian military from attacks on advancing Russian units in the neighboring Soledar region.

One of the most active sections of the front remains Soledar. After the city and the village of Sol came under Russian control, the assault detachments of Wagner continued their offensive to the north. In recent days, Ukrainian units were knocked out of Krasnopolevka, which is located on the highway leading to Seversk. The further Russian assault on Razdolovka and Vesele continues.

Between Soledar and Bakhmut, fighting is ongoing near Blagodatny, Krasnaya Gora and the Stupka district. In Bakhmut, street battles continue in the areas of the Meat Processing plant, Zabakhmutka and Dams.

South of Bakhmut, after the liberation of Kleshcheyevka, Wagner assault units have already taken a number of Ukrainian strongholds on the way to Ivanovskoe.

On January 22, Wagner forces shot down Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopter over the village of Khromovo. As a result, the aircraft crashed at the Bakhmut railway station.

On the Donetsk front lines, Russian troops continue offensive operations near the village of Pobeda. In Maryinka, Ukrainian forces are attempting to counterattack. Russian artillery is heavily shelling their positions in the western part of the city.

In the Zaporozhye region, the Russian army went on the offensive along almost the entire front line. The village of Lobkoye has come under Russian control, and the mop up operations are ongoing in the settlements along the road leading to Orekhov. According to preliminary data, Russian forces entered Kamenskoye, fighting broke out on the streets.

In the Orekhov region, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are securing their positions in previously liberated settlements and are actively scouting for enemy positions. The Ukrainian military, in turn, is transferring additional forces to the area, trying to hold positions on the outskirts of the city.

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***

The joint exercises between the Belarusian and Russian Air Forces, which are currently being held in Belarus, are of a defensive nature and are a response to the collective threat the two countries face from NATO and neighbouring Ukraine. These exercises are being held at a time when the West is pushing Kiev to open a new front against Belarus, which is of particular importance because Poland is massing troops on its eastern border.

Western countries have significantly increased their provocations by conducting military exercises, concentrating its troops, and amassing heavy weapons near the Russian-Belarusian borders. Just as Russia was drawn into conflict with Ukraine because of the country’s unrelenting willingness to carryout Washington’s demands, even if its contrary to its own interests, the West hopes that Belarus can be drawn into the war in a much deeper way.

The joint air force exercises began on January 16 and will last until February 1. The main goal of the exercises is to increase operational compatibility in joint combat tasks, something of critical importance given the war waging in neighbouring Ukraine, and in which Kiev is being financed by the tens of billions of dollars. None-the-less, it must be noted that the deeper integration of the Russian and Belarusian militaries began long before Moscow launched its special military operation in Ukraine.

These military exercises also raise speculation on whether Belarus will enter the Ukrainian conflict. Belarus does not want to be drawn into the conflict if it can be avoided, but President Alexander Lukashenko will certainly not shy away either if it is necessary.

Kiev finds itself in a conundrum. On the one hand, Kiev hopes that a Belarusian military operation would force a direct Western intervention in the war. However, if Ukraine is to provoke Belarus, it also runs the risk of the Belarusian military pouring into Kiev, Zhitomir and Chernigov oblasts, thus forcing Ukrainian troops and resources from other fronts, and with no guarantee of a western intervention. The West is content with seeing Ukraine destroy itself in the attempt of weakening Russia, and hopes that Belarus can also be drawn into this mess.

It is recalled that Ukrainian Deputy Interior Minister Yevhen Yenin already told the BBC in December that Ukraine would be bolstering its border with Belarus by allocating further armed forces and ammunition, something which could be used more effectively on its battlefronts with Russia.

If Ukraine is to provoke Belarus into conflict in the hope that it will lead to Western intervention, and the West does not directly intervene, it would be a major disaster. It is this risk-reward factor that Kiev is still debating. Kiev already frequently complains about the West’s lacklustre support and it is highly unlikely that the West will begin directly intervening in Ukraine because Belarus also entered the conflict and in this case the main repercussion for Minsk will be more sanction packages.

At the same time, considering the deterioration of the situation on the western borders of Russia and Belarus in October last year, Lukashenko approved the deployment of a joint regional military group. With the aim of strengthening border defences, the total contingent of the Russian military in the joint group is about 9,000 soldiers. According to earlier announcements, the group will include about 170 tanks, about 200 armoured fighting vehicles, and 100 artillery pieces and mortars.

Lukashenko previously warned that the West is pushing Ukraine to open a front against Belarus. It cannot be discounted that NATO and some European countries are considering options for aggression against Belarus.

Apart from bordering Russia, Belarus (with an etymology meaning “White Rus”) is sandwiched between the Russophobic countries – Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia. Poland is amassing an army on the eastern border with Belarus, while NATO troops are stationed in the Baltic countries. The latest tanks and planes have arrived in the Baltics, suggesting that there are enough weapons to open another front against Belarus.

It is for this reason that joint air force exercises between Belarus and Russia is critical, especially as the Russian Air Force has a high-level of combat readiness and recent experience (when considering the war in Ukraine, Syria since 2015 and Georgia in 2008), something that the pilots of Ukraine, Poland and the Baltics do not have. For this reason, transferring this combat experience to the Belarusians through joint exercises will also improve the defence and security of Russia.

For now, it is unclear whether Kiev will push ahead in forcing Belarus into conflict. It is highly likely that Washington wants Belarus to be dragged into the war but at the same time it seems to be reluctant to directly intervene if Lukashenko gives the order to attack Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been a useful puppet for the US thus far, however, even he must surely know that forcing Belarus to intervene in the war will only create more problems for the struggling Ukrainian military. At the same time, the Kiev regime since 2014 has been in the habit of serving foreign interests rather than their own, and for this reason, as Ukraine is unpredictable, Belarus must also have high combat readiness in case the Ukrainians do instigate provocations.

*

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

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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***

“I was the CIA Director. We lied. We cheated. We stole. [Laughter, applause] We had entire training courses. [Applause]. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.”¹ – Mike Pompeo, 15 April 2019    

“The Democrats and their FBI Gestapo have brought Nazism to America. There is a revolution underway that is creating a situation for you that is far worse than life in the Third Reich.”2 – Dr Paul Craig Roberts, 6 January 2023    

 

The CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) are the two most notorious of several acronym-named institutions which are nowhere mentioned in the Constitution of the United States of America.

The CIA was established by President Truman under the National Security Act of 1947 to assist in countering the then Soviet threat. Its main purpose was to collect, evaluate and disseminate vital information on economic, military, scientific and other developments abroad in order to safeguard national security, but it developed by stealth into what Ron Unz calls “the gangster enforcement arm of the oligarchy that rules America and its mainstream media”,³ eventually assuming a role parallel to “the secret American Army” akin to the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei), Hitler’s Secret State Police.

Today the CIA is busily eviscerating the US Constitution and has criminalised peaceful public dissent and free speech.⁴ The Natural News website provides evidence that on the international front the CIA is running Ukraine’s war against Russia,⁵ that it is using the pro-vaccine corporate media as a criminal conspiracy to promote the Covid-19 scam,⁶ that it conducted secret torture operations and assassinations,⁷ and that it uses Google as its “information dominance” front.⁸   

The FBI was also subjected to a transformation similar to the CIA’s.

Originally known as simply the ‘Bureau of Investigation’, the FBI was created on 26 July 1908 by the then Attorney General Charles J Bonaparte, grandson of Napoleon’s brother, despite objections by some members of Congress.

It was intended to be the investigative arm of the US Department of Justice and was a fact-finding agency responsible for all Federal criminal statutes except those delegated to other Federal agencies.

It since morphed in stages into America’s domestic “Surveillance State”, which it led, together with the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the CIA, to “run roughshod over tech companies”, placing staff agents at Twitter and other key tech companies in order to influence censorship policy”.⁹ Like the CIA, the FBI is thus rightly accused of “Gestapo tactics”.¹⁰ As early as 12 May 1945 President Harry Truman already wrote of it: “We want no Gestapo or Secret Police. FBI is tending in that direction. […] The Courts should be strictly judicial and not dabble in policy – except interpretation of the Constitution.”¹¹ Today the majority of Americans consider the use of the FBI as “Biden’s personal Gestapo”.¹² The Russia Today website calls the FBI a “jackbooted Gestapo”, “criminal” and “rotted at its core”.¹³ The Natural News website put it bluntly: “The FBI overthrew America.”¹⁴   

WikiLeaks has exposed the CIA   

On 14 March 2017 WikiLeaks released thousands more documents and files revealing the “entire hacking capacity of the CIA”. Even the first one percent of the batch, known as “Vault 7”, contains over 8,000 pages and already reveals that the CIA, which fabricated stories of Russian hacking of US and EU elections with zero proof, was itself hypocritically spying on the entire world, including American politicians, businesses and individuals. It describes the CIA as “a hotbed of corruption and espionage”.

The Vault 7 documents also disclose that the CIA purchases software exploits from other intelligence agencies, including Britain’s MI5. For years the West and its subservient mainstream media, backed by the CIA, the White House, the State Department, and the sixteen other US intelligence agencies, have been doing their utmost to demonize Russian President Vladimir Putin with hysterical and emotional accusations based on absolute fiction. WikiLeaks exposed the CIA for hypocrisy in doing precisely what the CIA itself has been accusing others of doing.   

Vault 7 describes the CIA as not only “illegal”, but also “incompetent”. The CIA is legally prohibited from conducting electronic surveillance on Americans. Its activities are supposed to be subject to rigorous oversight to ensure that they comply fully with US law and the Constitution. Nevertheless, it has consistently breached its legal brief and violated the separation of powers principle embodied in the US Constitution. Itsincompetence surfaced when it actually lost its arsenal of hacking tools, resulting in a call for an immediate Congressional investigation into itshacking activities, which for obvious reasons apparently never took place.   

On 4 May 2012 former CIA Director William Casey also admitted its involvement in a campaign of deliberate lies: “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”¹⁵ 

That is largely the situation today. Recent revelations also prove that the CIA was involved in the assassination of President Kennedy and illegally tapped the Trump election campaign in 2016.¹⁶   

FBI ‘weaponised against the people’   

A Global Research website article by Joseph Mercola, published on 17 January 2023, states:

“We now have proof that the FBI has been acting as the key instigator and implementer of the Government’s illegal censorship of Americans. The FBI has also actively interfered in multiple elections – all while inventing the narrative that foreign nations were interfering. Twitter has worked hand in hand with the US Department of Defence to aid US intelligence agencies in their efforts to influence foreign governments using fake news, computerized deep-fake videos and bots.”¹⁷   

Judging by the documentation obtained through a recent lawsuit against the White House and the Twitter files released by Elon Musk it has become clear, says Musk, that: 

“every facet of the US Government, including its intelligence agencies, are [sic, for ‘is’] involved in illegal and unconstitutional censorship”.¹⁸ 

Noting that Twitter was: 

“paid to censor Americans and promote US [Government] propaganda, and that Members of Congress have done likewise”, 

Musk reminds us that (as in the case of the CIA which I mentioned above) the First Amendment bars Government from engaging in viewpoint-based censorship, and he quotes US Senator Josh Hawley’s grave warning that these kinds of activities are

“the biggest threat to our Constitutional democracy today”.   

*

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Notes

1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUAe35IunXc   

2 https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2023/01/06/the-democrats-and-their-fbi-gestapo-have-brought-nazism-to-america/   

3 https://www.unz.com/kbarrett/rogue-elephants-can-elon-tucker-and-ye-trample-the-ringmasters-and-tear-down-the-big-top/   

4 https://www.unz.com/article/the-secret-american-army/   

5 https://naturalnews.com/2022-07-04-confirmed-cia-running-ukraine-fight-against-russia.html   

6 https://naturalnews.com/2021-03-02-pro-vaccine-media-a-front-for-cia.html   

7 https://naturalnews.com/049673_torture_CIA_American_Psychological_Association.html; see also the New York Times report: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/us/report-says-american-psychological-association-collaborated-on-torture-justification.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1   

8 https://naturalnews.com/2017-02-26-bombshell-investigation-google-an-information-dominance-front-for-the-cia.html   

9 https://www.globalresearch.ca/surveillance-state-what-twitter-files-mean-america-ukraine-libertarianism/5803696   

10 Read the superb in-depth analysis of FBI activity in the Global Research website’s article “The FBI’s Gestapo tactics: Hallmarks of an authoritarian regime”: https://www.globalresearch.ca/fbi-gestapo-tactics-hallmarks-authoritarian-regime/5790936   

11 https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/truman-papers/longhand-notes-presidential-file-1944-1953/may-12-1945   

12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VRjE6IGgfM   

13 https://www.rt.com/news/562538-bannon-fbi-raids-trump-supporters/; https://crimereads.com/the-cias-dark-history-of-employing-former-nazis-in-postwar-europe/   

14 https://www.naturalnews.com/2022-12-21-ben-armstrong-fbi-overthrew-america-stole-elections.html   

15 https://twitter.com/drtcp/status/1389614459287752705; Italics mine for emphasis   

16 https://www.foxnews.com/video/6317311778112; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LRArfyjK1Y   

17 https://www.globalresearch.ca/every-facet-government-censorship-business/5804929; Italics mine for emphasis   

18 See Musk: “Dems freed the War Machine”: https://takecontrol.substack.com/p/twitter-files  

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***

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***

Bush’s delayed actions point to failure of government response.

9/11 families are at the forefront in pressing for a new congressional investigation which could help unravel many mysteries about deadly terrorist attacks.

*

Newly released documents from the National Archives detail how President George W. Bush authorized the shootdown of hijacked airplanes at 10:00 a.m. EDT on 9/11 after Bush had learned that two had already crashed into the World Trade Center towers.

But these orders were too late to save the people who died in the Twin Towers or 183 people who died when the western side of the Pentagon was struck by American Airlines Flight 77 at 9:37 a.m. (the fourth hijacked plane, Flight 93, crashed southeast of Pittsburgh in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, at 10:03 a.m. after passengers reportedly took over the plane).

The sixty-four thousand dollar question is why Bush did not order the shootdown of the planes earlier—when it could have saved people’s lives.

Bush had been alerted just minutes after a hijacked plane crashed into the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m., while he was on a visit to schoolchildren in Sarasota, Florida.

After an aide whispered news of the second attack on the Twin Towers, President Bush continued reading a children’s book, The Pet Goat, and then at 9:30 a.m. addressed Americans at a press conference in which he said that “terrorism against our nation will not stand,” before being whisked away and stopped at about seven locations that were reported, including Barksdale Air Force Base.

Bush’s orders authorizing the shooting down of hijacked aircraft were revealed in a meeting that he held on April 29, 2004, with members of the 9/11 Commission, which was established to investigate the 9/11 attacks.^[1]

In the meeting, President Bush claimed that he wanted to convey an aura of calm in the face of the attacks and so continued with the reading to the schoolchildren in Florida.

Bush said that it was when he got aboard Air Force One and began speaking to Dick Cheney that he gave Cheney authorization to shoot down any hijacked aircraft.

Bush said that he told Cheney that, as a veteran of the Texas National Guard (during the Vietnam War), he had been trained to shoot down planes and understood how this worked—one plane woud identify the target and another would lock onto it.

But why hadn’t Bush ordered the hijacked planes to be shot down an hour earlier, when he was first informed about the World Trade Center attacks and lives could have been spared?

Fire from crashing of American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. on September 11, 2001. [Source: history.com]

Failings of 9/11 Commission

Coinciding with the 20^th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Ray McGinnis published an important book, Unanswered Questions: What the September Eleventh Families Asked and the 9/11 Commission Ignored (Vancouver, Canada: NorthernStar Publications, 2021), which spotlights the efforts of 9/11 families to uncover the truth about the 9/11 attacks and to demand a new government inquiry.

A Canadian who wrote a previous book on the psalms, McGinnis emphasizes the failure of the 9/11 commission, which was staffed by Bush administration insiders and yes men, and spent only $14 million investigating the 9/11 attacks when $80 million had been spent in the 1990s investigating Bill and Hillary Clinton’s involvement in assorted scandals.

A group of 9/11 families gave the commission a D-grade, stating that it “did not carry out the necessary hard-hitting questioning, cross-examination and crucial follow-up questioning all of which are critical in unearthing the truth.”

The credibility of the Commission was undercut by the fact that it published the names and photos of hijackers, eight who according to media reports were found to be alive after September 11—and so not all of these could actually have been the hijackers.^[2]

40 percent of the accused hijackers were found to be alive and living in the Middle East after 9/11. [Source: history.com]

Chairman Thomas Kean, the former governor of New Jersey, and Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton, a former congressman from Indiana (1965-1999), admitted that the commission had been “set up to fail.”

Fitting the precedent of the Warren Commission investigating the JFK assassination, and Roberts Commission investigating Pearl Harbor, Max Cleland said that the 9/11 Commission [which Cleland served on] had been “compromised.”

Lee Hamilton tellingly was a firm believer in “executive privilege” who was not considered much of an investigator in Congress. He admitted that he did not “go for the jugular” and had been “gullible” in accepting official government claims during the Iran-Contra investigation.

When others wanted to issue subpoenas to North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) officers, Hamilton characteristically voted no, stating: “I’ve known Don Rumsfeld [Defense Secretary] for twenty, thirty years. When he said ‘I’m going to get that information for you,’ I took him at his word.”^[3]

Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission had been on President Bush’s foreign intelligence advisory board and on the Council of Foreign Relations, and was a key contributor to a policy paper advocating preemptive war, which laid the intellectual groundwork for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.^[4]

Zelikow’s bias was apparent when the 9/11 Commission solicited the testimony of Dr. Laurie Mylroie, author of the book, Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein’s Unfinished War Against America, who claimed that Iraq had attacked the U.S. on 9/11.

Lorie Van Auken, whose husband was killed on 9/11, told New York Times reporter Philip Shenon that “it took a lot of nerve putting someone like that on the panel. Laurie Mylroie? This is supposed to be an investigation for September 11. This is not supposed to be a sales pitch for the Iraq War!” Van Auken continued: “He knew exactly what he was doing. He was selling the war.”

Unaddressed Questions

McGinnis summarizes some of the main question marks about 9/11 that families of the survivors had which the 9/11 Commission never addressed:

These questions include:

1. How did the FBI amass complete biographies of the alleged terrorists and their accomplices in such a short time after the attacks? Did the intelligence agencies have open files on these men? Were they already under investigation and, if so, could the attacks have been prevented?
2. How come Osama bin Laden appeared to be healthy and with a brown beard in a November 9, 2001, “confession” video, when he appeared to be frail, gaunt and pale with a white beard in other videos purportedly taken on November 3 and November 16?
3. How come the doors to the roofs of the World Trade Center North and South Towers were locked, preventing people in the buildings from being rescued by helicopter—as they had been after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing?
4. Why did George Tabeek of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey give orders for an announcement after the first tower was struck that people should return to their offices in World Trade Center building 2, which cost many people their lives?^[5]
5. Why did the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), American Airlines and NORAD each report different times for orders to send out fighter jets to intercept the hijacked planes and why were the planes never intercepted?
6. Why was Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld not informed about the 9/11 attacks when they occurred? And why was the Pentagon undefended when it oversaw a trillion dollar budget for national defense?
7. How was it possible that the passports of alleged hijackers Mohamed Atta and Satam al-Suqami were found at street level in the rubble of the World Trade Center, unsinged?
8. Why did FBI headquarters block agent Coleen Rowley in Minneapolis, agent Robert Wright in Chicago, and the FBI offices in New York City from properly reporting evidence of terrorist plotting?
9. Why did the FBI, who had Mohamed Atta under surveillance, do nothing to prevent him from re-entering the U.S. three times in 2001, despite his expired visa?
10. Why were members of the bin Laden family flown from the U.S. to Saudi Arabia right after the 9/11 attacks when all commercial and private flights were officially grounded?
11. Why did the CIA withhold information from the FBI about two of the alleged hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar?

Where Were the Eyes and Ears of North American Skies?

One of the biggest unanswered questions that the 9/11 Commission failed to address was why NORAD jets were unable to intercept the hijacked planes if they were airborne within eight minutes of notification?

Founded in 1957 as a joint command military organization between the U.S. and Canada, NORAD was the “multimillion dollar, 24-hour eyes and ears of North American skies.”

Holding an impeccable record in aviation safety, it had successfully intercepted 129 off-course flights in 2000 over U.S. air space, and carried out anti-hijack training exercises every six days.

After a 1956 mid-air crash over the Grand Canyon, the FAA had made it mandatory for all planes to have approved flight paths tracked by radar and to have their cruising altitude approved before take-off.

An Air Traffic Control Center binder from August 1998 counseled controllers that, when a plane strayed from its approved flight path or altitude assignment, it will “likely find two [jet fighters] on their tail within 10 minutes or so.”^[6]

On 9/11 these jet fighters could have been able to perform aerial maneuvers around the hijacked flights to force them off course. However, inexplicably, neither the FAA and NORAD followed its normal protocol on 9/11, and its top commanders went AWOL during the attacks.

NORAD Commander Ralph Eberhart was himself unreachable for 45 minutes between 9:30 a.m. and 10:15 a.m. while driving his car. Eberhart claimed in an interview on March 1, 2004, that he chose to be absent from the command post for 45 minutes while the attacks were unfolding because things had “quieted down,” which is ridiculous.^[7]

The 9/11 Commission Report conceded that the response by NORAD was “one failure after another,” though it failed to investigate these failures in any depth or to uncover their root cause.

Lorie Van Auken, a member of the 9/11 Family Steering Committee, said that she was stunned that the 9/11 Commission Report omitted the fact that there were two fighter jets from the Atlantic City International Airport in Pomona, New Jersey, carrying out mock bombing sorties only eight minutes away from ground zero that were never called.

Paul Thompson, author of The Terror Timeline, commented that the 9/11 Commission considered a criminal investigation of NORAD and Pentagon officials who gave the inquiry seven different, and contradictory, stories regarding the military response to the hijackings.

Strangely, while two of the flight attendants from the hijacked planes contacted the airline to alert them that a hijacking was in progress and it was protocol to notify NORAD of any hijacking in progress, under NORAD’s timeline no one was in touch with them until much later.

The FAA also only received word of the hijackings at 9:34 a.m., over an hour after air traffic controllers at Boston Center began notifying the FAA that a hijacking had taken place.

Significance of War Games Exercises

Further suspicious was the unprecedented number of war games exercises that just happened to be held on September 11, which appears to have contributed to the confusion and slower response times by the FAA and NORAD—though this was never explored by the 9/11 Commission.

The scenario for one of the war games, Amalgam Virgo One, involved a suicide pilot attacking a military building, while Fertile Rice featured Osama bin Laden directing a drone filled with explosives to target Washington, D.C.

Two other games, Vigilant Guardian and Global Guardian, had a photo of bin Laden on the cover of their documents and featured a script where terrorists hijacked a plane in order to attack Manhattan.^[8]

When questioned by the 9/11 Commission, NORAD Commander General Ralph Eberhart falsely claimed that the war games “cost us 30 seconds,” when it was likely far more.

Source: oilempire.us

How Did the World Trade Center Buildings Collapse?

9/11 families and members of the 9/11 Truth Movement have raised further questions as to why the steel from the World Trade Center was removed so quickly and sold to scrap dealers without being examined.

NYPD firefighters had entered the smoldering World Trade Center towers on 9/11 based on their collective experience that steel-framed buildings did not collapse when they were on fire.

The 9/11 Commission confirmed that none of the fire chiefs present believed that a total collapse of either tower was possible.

The 9/11 Commission, however, did not follow up on the matter or raise questions as to what caused the building’s steel beams to drip molten metal down their sides, which was observed.

It also ignored the conclusion of a study carried out by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which determined that collision with a large jet airliner (Boeing 707) would result in only local damage and could “not cause collapse or substantial damage to the building.”

An editorial in Fire and Engineering revealed that “numbers of members of the New York Fire Department who were first responders on 9/11 reported explosions from within both of the Twin Towers before and after the planes hit the top of the towers.”^[9]

Three television networks, four cable news channels, and four local TV channels in New York City reported explosions at the World Trade Center, with Cynthia McFadden referring to Ground Zero as the “blast site” on ABC.^[10]

Survivors said that, when they went down to the lobby of Building 2, they saw a woman with her face blown off, and that the lobby had been destroyed—as if by a bomb.

The first casualty to arrive at Bellevue Hospital in New York, Marlene Cruz stated that she was in an elevator that blew up from an explosion. Cruz had worked at the World Trade Center when it was bombed in 1993 and thought to herself: “Here we go again, another bomb.”^[11]

The grainy footage, taken before the South Tower collapsed, appears to show an explosion. [Source: mirror.co.uk]

FDNY firefighter John Coyle, who was in the South Tower when it collapsed, told the New York Times that, when he called his father to tell him he was alive, his father asked him whether he was there when the planes hit, to which Coyle replied: “No I was there when it exploded, the building exploded.” When his father interjected: “You mean when it fell down,” Coyle said: “No, when it exploded.”^[12]

Why Did World Trade Center Building 7 Collapse?

A related mystery is why World Trade Center Building 7 collapsed when it was not hit by any hijacked planes. The official explanation was that a diesel fuel oil tank caused a fire that led the building to collapse, though numerous survivors heard explosions go off that sounded like bombs or incendiaries.^[13]

On March 25, 2020, the University of Alaska Fairbanks issued a four-year computer modeling study on the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 which concluded that “fire did not cause the collapse of WTC 7 on 9/11.” The collapse, rather, was caused by “near simultaneous failure of every column in the building,” which could be achieved only by a controlled demolition.

World Trade Center Building 7 stands amid the rubble of the recently collapsed Twin Towers. [Source: popularmechanics.com]

“He Could Not Fly at All”

Another important question is how alleged hijacker Hani Hanjour performed such a complex maneuver in reportedly steering Flight 77 into the Pentagon.

The New York Times reported, in an article entitled “A Trainee Noted for Incompetence,” that Hanjour had failed a number of piloting courses in Phoenix, Arizona, at the Pan Am International Flight Academy and JetTech Flight School.

A JetTech employee said: “I am still to this day amazed that he could have flown into the Pentagon. He could not fly at all.”

Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush’s Lies

The 9/11 Commission never probed the strange behavior of President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on 9/11 and the lies that they told.

1) George W. Bush: President Bush was informed by the Director of the White House Situation Room, Rear Admiral Deborah Loewer, that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center North Tower at 8:50 a.m. EDT, though he strangely decided to continue with his visit to a second grade classroom in Sarasota. When he was told that the second plane had crashed, Bush, against protocol, kept reading The Pet Goat to the second graders, while Press Secretary Ari Fleischer held up a paper with the words: “DON’T SAY ANYTHING YET.”

On December 4, 2001, Bush claimed that, while he was waiting to enter the classroom in Sarasota, he saw an airplane hit the tower—on TV. However, The Washington Timesreported that President Bush did not have access to a television until fifteen minutes later, while the Boston Herald noted that video of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center did not surface until the next day.

2) Dick Cheney: According to numerous reports, Cheney was taken to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center beneath the White House the moment the South Tower was struck at 9:03 a.m. However, the 9/11 Commission reported that Cheney did not arrive at the bunker until 9:58 a.m.—though Cheney was seen by a Secret Service agent at 9:30 a.m. Cheney told the 9/11 Commission that he was carried away from his office by the Secret Service at 9:35 a.m. However, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta arrived at the Presidential Emergency Operations Center at 9:20 a.m. and observed that Cheney was clearly in command.

Mineta said he saw an unidentified young officer come in and report to Cheney that a plane was approaching the Pentagon, and then he asked: “Do the orders still stand,” and Cheney said “yes.” Mineta told Lee Hamilton he thought the order was a shootdown order; however, the order may have actually been not to shoot down American Airlines Flight 77.^[14]

3) Donald Rumsfeld: Rumsfeld was working in the east side of the Pentagon on the morning of September 11. He claimed that he was not told that a plane was headed for the Pentagon even 15 minutes before and that he was unaware at the time that jets had crashed into the World Trade Center. After Rumsfeld felt the building shake, he claimed to have gone outside and started helping the injured into stretchers. After aiding the victims he said he then went into the war room.

Rumsfeld’s story is contradicted by testimony of Victoria Clarke, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, who says that she told Rumsfeld after 8:46 a.m. that the first tower had been hit 51 minutes before American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon.

Rumsfeld’s claim about going outside to help the victims is also implausible because each side of the Pentagon is the length of three football fields and Rumsfeld’s office was a brisk ten-minute walk to the Pentagon lawn. Rumsfeld could thus only have been at the crash site for an extremely brief period; he did not have half an hour to spend before returning to his office at the time he claimed—10:00 a.m. (American Airlines Flight 77 was reported to have hit the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m.).

Missing $2.3 Trillion

The day before 9/11, Rumsfeld admitted that $2.3 trillion of Pentagon money was missing. Auditors had audited the 1999 fiscal year of the Department of Defense and found that $2.3 trillion was missing paperwork. There was a further $1.8 trillion that the auditors were unable to review due to lack of time and proper staffing due to budgetary cuts to the audit department.

On September 11, American Airlines Flight 77 blew concentric holes through six walls and slammed into the newly renovated U.S. Army financial management and audit area, resulting in the deaths of 34 of its 65 employees.

Most of those killed were civilian accountants, bookkeepers and budget analysts. This raises the question as to whether the attack on September 11 was used as an opportunity to target the auditors investigating the missing $2.3 trillion.

Did an Airplane Actually Hit the Pentagon?

An eyewitness to the crash, reporter Jamie McIntyre, stated that there was no evidence of an airplane having actually crashed anywhere near the Pentagon. There were no large tail sections, wing sections, fuselage, nothing like that anywhere around which would indicate that the entire plane crashed into the side of the Pentagon and then caused the side to collapse. The only debris appeared to be small pieces of an airplane, with the biggest piece being only three feet long.^[15]

Speculative Bets in Money Markets

After the 9/11 attacks, there were people who made speculative bets in money markets that the price of airline stock—the same ones that were hijacked on 9/11—would fall.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported on September 29, 2001 “there is evidence that a number of the transactions in financial markets indicated specific (criminal) foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.”^[16]

The firm that managed the suspicious transactions was Bankers Trust, a major U.S. investment bank with ties to CIA Executive Director Alvin “Buzzy” Krongard. He used to be Vice Chairman of the Board of Bankers Trust and had been involved in specialized banking operations identified by the U.S. Senate and other investigators as having been closely connected with the laundering of drug money.

The CIA routinely monitored evidence of irregular trading activity through its PROMIS software system that would have alerted it to the likelihood of a terrorist attack.

On the eve of 9/11, there had been insider trading and suspicious sales of shares in airlines, insurance companies and gold and oil markets that suggest they were conducted with insider knowledge. Some of these were traced to the Marsh & McLennan data center on the 95^th floor of the North Tower, which was hit on 9/11.

Marsh & McLennan’s chief of risk management was Paul Bremer, who was subsequently appointed by President Bush as the administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority of Iraq.

When the North Tower was hit, a conference call was proceeding where Marsh & McLennan employees were raising concerns about mysterious transactions in the data center. But they all died when the building collapsed—though Bremer survived as he was flying back to New York.^[17]

Some of the unusual stock trades involved Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch—two of the biggest occupants of the World Trade Center—in investments that originated in Germany’s Deutsche Bank, which had acquired Bankers Trust.^[18]

The FBI also identified suspicious trades between September 6 and September 10, 2001, involving Stratesec Incorporated, which provided security to airports.

These traced back to Wirt Walker III, a board member of the Carlyle Group, a leading military contractor and relative of George W. Bush and business partner of one of Bush’s brothers, Marvin.

This discovery should have prompted further investigation by the 9/11 Commission, which failed to do so.^[19]

Among the Truthers

During an address to the United Nations on November 10, 2001, President George W. Bush warned that he would not tolerate “outrageous conspiracy theories” about 9/11.

However, it is apparent that Bush is the one who was promoting an outrageous conspiracy theory that was contradicted by massive evidence that has come to light.

In his book, Among the Truthers: A Journey Through America’s Growing Conspiracist Underground, Canadian journalist Jonathan Kay told his readers that “people who believe in alternative views about what happened on 9/11 are among a large group of people who are afraid of vaccines and fluoride, deny the Holocaust, doubt the NASA moon landing ever took place, and don’t believe President Obama was born in America.”

Kay added that “damaged survivors are particularly effective as recruiters for conspiracist movements because the spectacle of their grief short circuits our intellectual faculties.”

But it is Kay who lacks the intellectual curiosity and faculty to process the copious evidence that contradicts the official narrative about 9/11. And it is Kay who is the one who is psychologically damaged—as he disparages a noble group of people who have worked tirelessly to expose what may be the greatest criminal conspiracy in U.S. history.

Why, after so many years, are there still so many unanswered questions about 9/11?

The answer is as obvious as it is frightening. The only barrier to full knowledge about what really happened on 9/11 has always been—our government. By which I mean every administration and every elected official—Republican or Democrat—working in collusion with the powerful network of corporate interests and private billionaires who elect them.

The popular belief is that Democrats and Republicans are always at each other’s throats, incapable of bipartisanship or cooperation, but that is a myth. On the “big” issues—like approving huge military budgets, overthrowing legally elected governments of other countries, funding imperialist wars, giving banks and corporations huge windfalls at taxpayer expense, militarizing the police, and erecting an increasingly intrusive and oppressive surveillance state—they endorse identical self-serving policies.

Nowhere has this been clearer than in the sham investigations and cover-ups, endorsed by both Republicans and Democrats, into some of the great crimes of our era, such as:

• the assassinations of John F Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr, Robert F Kennedy and Malcolm X;
• Israel’s 1967 “false flag” sneak attack on the U.S.S. Liberty that killed 34 American sailors;
• the fabricated “Tonkin Gulf incident” of 1964 that embroiled America in the Vietnam War;
• the 1995 bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City;
• the bizarre official verdict that investigative reporter Gary Webb, who was exposing illegal CIA drug-running, had “committed suicide” [with two bullets to the head!];
• the convenient death of left wing Senator Paul Wellstone in a mysterious plane crash [on the eve of his predicted re-election to a narrowly divided Senate];
• the verdict that Seth Rich was murdered in a “robbery gone wrong” [right after he was accused of having leaked DNC emails that exposed the Democratic party’s illicit undermining of Bernie Sanders’s election campaign];
• the death of MK-Ultra researcher Frank Olsen who “fell out of a window” after the CIA feared he might expose its illicit LSD and mind-control experiments on unwitting American soldiers and germ warfare operations in the Korean War.

The list is as long as it is shameful. Our (bipartisan) government has created countless investigative commissions that are set up to fail—because critical documents are withheld from them; because crucial eye witnesses are never interviewed, or mysteriously die; because legitimate citizen inquiries are stonewalled or derailed by insurmountable procedural roadblocks. And when the above fail, there always remain “No comment” or outright lying by government officials.

The status of 9/11 investigations has followed the same pattern. Clearly the need to classify or otherwise hide information is intended to obscure government sanctioned connections to these crimes and to protect high-ranking persons and organizations—in or out of government—from being brought to account. What other possible reason can there be?

Surely it is time—in fact, long past time—to conduct thorough and uncompromising investigations into all of the crimes named above, including that of 9/11, which was not only tragic in itself, but has also served as a pretext to launch tragic military conflicts around the globe, and justify the ominous aggrandizement of executive power that has so devastatingly eroded democratic norms and smothered civil liberties.

*

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The author wishes to thank Steve Brown and Bill Montross.

Jeremy Kuzmarov is Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine. He is the author of four books on U.S. foreign policy, including Obama’s Unending Wars (Clarity Press, 2019) and The Russians Are Coming, Again, with John Marciano (Monthly Review Press, 2018). He can be reached at: [email protected].

Notes

1. Bush attended the meeting along with Vice President Dick Cheney, 9/11 Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, and two other Bush administration officials (Tom Monheim and Bryan Cunningham). 

2. Ray McGinnis, Unanswered Questions: What the September Eleventh Families Asked and the 9/11 Commission Ignored (Vancouver, B.C.: Northern Star Publications, 2021), 284, 285. Information that the 9/11 commission obtained about the hijackers came from statements made by Guantanamo Bay detainees under torture, and should thus be suspect. 
3. McGinnis, Unanswered Questions, 44. 
4. Zelikow had written a book with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on German reunification and another on the Cuban Missile Crisis, which was called out in The Atlantic magazine for its shoddy scholarship. 
5. McGinnis, Unanswered Questions, 157. The announcement was made by Philip T. Hayes, WTC Fire Safety Director for the South Tower (and retired New York City firefighter) based on instructions from Tabeek. Hayes strangely appealed to people’s sense of patriotism, saying “this tower has been secured. You are in America. Return to your offices.” 
6. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in March 2002, NORAD Commander Ralph Eberhart explained that, once FAA suspects something is wrong with a flight over domestic airspace, “it takes about one minute” for them to notify NORAD, which could in turn scramble jets within 2.5 minutes up to an altitude of 29,000 feet “to anywhere in the U.S.” 
7. In 2002, Eberhart was promoted to head the U.S. Northern Command. 
8. McGinnis, Unanswered Questions, 113, 114. 
9. Firefighters’ radio communications indicated that they were tracking numerous explosions in the Twin Towers and issued warnings about explosive devices. On July 31, 2019, ZeroHedge ran a story with the headline “NY Fire Commissioners Demand New 9/11 Probe, Citing ‘Overwhelming Evidence of Pre-Planted Explosives.’” The blog stated that the “overwhelming evidence presented in said petition demonstrates beyond any doubt that pre-planted explosives and/or incendiaries—not just airplanes and the ensuing fires—caused the destruction of the three World Trade Center buildings, killing the vast majority of the victims who perished that day.” 
10. NBC’s Anne Thompson reported that she had tried to leave the World Trade Center building but, “as I got outside, I heard a second explosion, and another rumble and more smoke and more dust. I ran inside the building. The chandelier shook and again black smoke filled the air. Within another five minutes, we were covered with more soot and dust. And then a fire marshal came in and said “we had to leave,” because if there was a third explosion this building might not last.” On CNBC, Wall Street Journal reporter John Bussey told network anchors: “I looked up at the south building, the second World Trade Center to be hit, and explosions were coming down the building. It looked as if the charges had been set on each floor and they were in succession going off. When I saw the floor-by-floor explosions happening, I dove out of the office where I was because the windows looked directly over the World Trade Center.” Mika Brzezinski, then of CBS, also reported on explosions at 10:05 a.m. which brought down the towers. Marcia Kramer told viewers of WCBS that CNN was “reporting a third explosion at the WTC, probably an explosion from the ground, that caused WTC 1 to collapse on top of itself. Again, there was a third explosion. It is unclear what caused it, whether it was a bomb or whether the first plane that crashed into the tower had somehow been booby trapped with a bomb that was timed to explode later after the crash had occurred.” Stephen Evans of BBC also reported on a series of explosions. 
11. Bob McIlvaine insisted his son Bobby died from an explosion. A doctor who examined his son’s body said that Bobby had lacerations all over his chest from flying glass and that he did not have burns on him, only slight postmortem burns, meaning that a detonation killed him, and then the heat coming afterwards put some burns on him. It is believed that Bobby was killed by the force of the explosion while walking into the World Trade Center lobby and that he was taken to the morgue before the towers came down. Bob was told that he had been killed on the 106^th floor, which was not consistent with the autopsy report. Doctors who were on the scene told McIlvaine that they found people who were “blown into hundreds of pieces.” He exclaimed: “How can that happen with fire and a building falling straight down. These buildings came down from explosions.” 
12. McGinnis, Unanswered Questions, 242. Captain Karin DeShore said she saw a series of orange and red flashes coming from the North Tower. She said that concussive blasts followed immediately after these flashes. She recalled, “Initially, it was just one flash. Then this flash kept popping all the way around the building and that building started to explode…These popping sounds and the explosions were getting bigger, going both up and down and then all around the building.” DeShore said further that the explosion had “sucked all the oxygen out of the air. You couldn’t breathe and the feeling of suffocation…These popping sounds and the explosions were getting bigger and louder…here was another explosion…and this wave of force.” 
13. For some unknown reason, the building’s alarm system was put into test mode and deactivated at 6:47 a.m. on September 11. 
14. Mineta’s testimony to the 9/11 Commission was omitted from its report. The other suspicious aspect is that Cheney showed extraordinary self-containment in the face of shocking live coverage. A witness with security clearance in the bunker with Cheney told the Washington Post, there was a groan in the room when the South Tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m.—with the exception of Cheney who made no sound. Said the witness, “I remember turning my head and looking at the vice president, and his expression never changed,” suggesting foreknowledge. Another witness wrote “While others assessed casualties and the work of ‘first responders,’ Cheney began planning for a conflict that would call upon lawyers as often as soldiers and spies. 
15. McGinnis, Unanswered Questions, 179. McIntyre later contradicted his original statement by telling CNN viewers that he saw parts of the damaged plane inside the Pentagon. 
16. McGinnis, Unanswered Questions, 126. 
17. On September 11, a fire raged in World Trade Center Building 7 (WTC7), floors 11 to 13, which housed Securities and Exchange Commission records relating to multi-billion dollar investigations. The Los Angeles Times reported that an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 cases were destroyed, including SEC’s major inquiry into the manner in which investment banks divided up hot shares of initial public offerings during the high tech boom. The destruction of these files resulted in huge savings for the CEOs and corporations being investigated. 
18. A German computer firm, Convar, was able to retrieve data from the computer disk drives in the rubble at Ground Zero, which suggested that some people had advance knowledge of the approximate time of the plane crashes in order to move out amounts exceeding $100 million. Convar’s data retrieval expert Richard Wagner said that “they thought the records of their transactions could not be traced after the main frames were destroyed.” McGinnis, Unanswered Questions; Erik Kirschbaum, “German Firm Probes last-minute World Trade Center Transactions,” Reuters, December 19, 2001. 

19. Further investigation was also warranted of Larry Silverstein of Silverstein Properties who owned World Trade Center Building 7 and was awarded $4.55 billion in insurance claims while avoiding the cost of having to remove asbestos from the building. 

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***

In January 2023, all masks were thrown off. The Euro-Atlantic elites, motivated after their meetings in Davos, realized that there was no more need to cover their true intentions with hypocritical appeals to “save the young Ukrainian democracy for the sake of world peace.”

More and more representatives of the so-called “golden billion” from the West recognize the real goals of the bellicose policy that they have been waging against Russia for decades, namely, the destruction of the integrity of the Russian Federation as a state and the deprivation of the Russian people of statehood in order to gain control over huge resources that “for some historical injustice belong to the Russian barbarians.”

The fate of the state of Ukraine and the lives of its population are of little interest to them, because in case of victory, its fertile territory will become a pleasant bonus.

Euro-Atlantic elites have unleashed and are waging an aggressive war against the Russian Federation in their personal interests. Moreover, the ongoing development of the military conflict, the lack of political will of the West to resolve it and the strengthening of bellicose rhetoric with the recognition of the true goals of the war indicate that these elites are ready to escalate the conflict up to the third world war, and even the nuclear threat will not stop them.

On January 20, at a ceremony in Madrid, Josep Borrel recalled Russia’s great victories over Hitler and Napoleon, from which he concluded that it was necessary to continue to increase military pressure on it. With his statement, the Head of EU diplomacy put the modern collective west on a par with ”the collective West created by Hitler” and the ”collective West of Napoleon”, who were both defeated by Russia.

“Russia is a big country, it is used to fighting to the end, it is used to almost losing, and then restoring everything. They did it to Napoleon, they did it to Hitler. It would be absurd to think that Russia has lost the war or that its military is incompetent. Therefore, it is necessary to continue arming Ukraine.”

Borrel’s statements did not become a sensation. He was not the first to express such threats to Russia. However, the recent statement has become one of the  most outspoken claims. He voiced the real goal of the military company of the West which is the destruction of Russia and the seizure of its territories, as Hitler and Napoleon had previously attempted to do.

Amid the revelations of Western leaders, the words of Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland sounded particularly interesting at the forum in Davos. She also supported the position of Mr. Borrel, specifying that Russia’s defeat “would be a huge boost to the global economy.” Freeland, whose grandfather was a member of Andrei Melnik’s OUN-UPA nationalist group, hit the limelight several times over the past few years by speaking in support of Ukraine’s Nazis and by making Russophobic statements.

Ukraine winning its war against Russia this year “would be a huge boost to the global economy,” says Trudeau’s Deputy PM and WEF board member, Chrystia Freeland.

This is the 21st century war for resources, full-scaled and simple. – Spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry commented on her claims.

Amid the bellicose rhetoric of the West and the ongoing defeat of the Ukrainian Army on the battlefield, the beginning of the year 2023 was also marked by the strengthening of military support for the puppet Kiev regime.

While Europe is looking for tanks for Ukrainian soldiers in warehouses, Washington has already announced a new $2.5 billion military aid package. LINK

NATO and Washington no longer hide that they not only maintain the Ukrainian army, but also provide the necessary intelligence information, command Ukrainian troops on the battlefield and have taken control of the military decision-making process. Leading US media are often reporting that “the US recommended the Ukrainian military to withdraw from Bakhmut” or that “the US is helping to plan counter-offensive operations in Ukraine.” According to reports, the United States will help Ukraine plan counter-offensives to take back the “occupied territories, including Crimea.”

“Russia did not seek to escalate the conflict, but Western countries, driven by the United States, crossed red lines and began to pose a threat to our national interests. Now the United States is talking about supporting Ukrainian aggression against Crimea and new Russian territories. But the Kiev regime must realize that the support of Western countries will backfire it and Ukraine. The more Western countries interfere in the affairs of Ukraine, the further the border of our special operation will move in order to create a buffer zone and protect our country from the enemy neighbors.” Deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation from the Crimean region Mikhail Sheremet commented on the issue.

The actions of the United States and its European allies are leading the world to a global catastrophe. If Washington and NATO countries supply weapons that will be used to attack peaceful cities and attempt to seize Russian territories, this will lead to retaliatory measures by the Russian military using more powerful weapons.

By their decisions, Washington and Brussels are leading the world to war which will be completely different from the hostilities that are ongoing today, when strikes are carried out exclusively on military and strategic infrastructure facilities used by the Kiev regime.

The arguments that there is no nuclear threat as the nuclear powers have not previously used weapons of mass destruction in local conflicts are untenable because these states have never faced a threat to the security of their citizens and the territorial integrity, which NATO threatens Russia with today.

The sharp tightening of the West’s rhetoric, up to outright threats of war and destruction of the Russian state, was clearly heard in Moscow.

The Russian political leadership, who until recently tried to maintain a dialogue with “Western partners” based on the principles of real politic or at least basic international law, seem to have changed their position.

After a year of hostilities in Ukraine, it became clear that the current conflict was orchestrated by the collective West not even in the last 8 years but decades ago, when already in 2004 it became obvious that Russia was trying to break out of the neocolonial shackles of the post-Soviet period. As a result, Moscow has finally accepted the rules of the game imposed by the West and makes it clear that for its part, it no longer sees ways to peacefully resolve accumulated contradictions with NATO countries and is ready to enter into a full-scale war.

The recent press conference of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, which summed up the results of Russian diplomacy in 2022, was a clear example. The Russian Minister described the current situation extremely harshly LINK:

What is happening in Ukraine now is the result of preparations by the US and its satellites for the start of a global hybrid war against the Russian Federation. Nobody is hiding this fact. This is clear from statements by unbiased Western politologists, scientists and politicians. In his recent article, Ian Bremmer, political science professor at Columbia University, wrote: “We are not in a cold war with Russia. We are in a hot war with Russia. Now it’s a proxy war. And NATO is not fighting it directly. We are fighting it through Ukraine.” This admission is frank and this conclusion is on the surface. It is strange that some people try to refute it. Recently, President of Croatia Zoran Milanovic said that this is a NATO war. An open and honest statement. Several weeks ago, Henry Kissinger (before he urged NATO to accept Ukraine in his recent article) wrote in clear terms that the events in Ukraine were a clash, a rivalry of two nuclear powers for control over that territory. It is clear enough what he meant.

Our Western partners are cunning while vehemently trying to prove that they are not fighting Russia but are only helping Ukraine respond to an “aggression” and restore its territorial integrity. The scale of their support makes it clear that the West has staked a great deal on its war against Russia; this is obvious.

The events surrounding Ukraine have brought to light the implicit push by the United States to drop attempts to reinforce its global position with legitimate means and to adopt illegitimate methods to ensure its dominance. Anything goes. Once revered mechanisms and institutions that were created by the US-led West have been discarded (and not because of what we are seeing in Ukraine). Free market, fair competition, free enterprise, the inviolability of property, and the presumption of innocence, in a word, everything the Western globalisation model relied on collapsed overnight. Sanctions have been imposed on Russia and other objectionable countries that do not comply with these tenets and mechanisms. Clearly, sanctions can be imposed any time on any country, which, in one way or another, refuses to mindlessly follow American orders.

The European Union has been completely subsumed by this US dictatorship (there’s no point in discussing this at length) …

Like Napoleon, who mobilised nearly all of Europe against the Russian Empire, and Hitler, who occupied the majority of European countries and hurled them at the Soviet Union, the United States has created a coalition of nearly all European member states of NATO and the EU and is using Ukraine to wage a proxy war against Russia with the old aim of finally solving the “Russian question,” like Hitler, who sought a final solution to the “Jewish question.” …

Recently, there were reports about some changes in the Russian political and military leadership. In particular, some officials in top positions in key political bodies such as the Presidential Administration, the Security Council, special services, etc were changed. Inspections have been initiated to clarify the compliance of several high-ranking officials to their positions, their ties with foreign countries and the any possible corruption actions are being checked.

Changes have also taken place in the Russian Ministry of Defense. Army General Valery Gerasimov was appointed commander of the Russian group of troops in the zone of a special military operation (SVO) in Ukraine. He fought Chechen militants at the head of the army, organized an operation in Syria, and has been heading the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces since November 2012. The changes in the Russian military command may indicate the new stage of hostilities in Ukraine. Also, new generals were appointed to a number of other key positions in the Ministry of Defense.

In January, the Russian military began to defiantly strengthen the air defense system in the capital. In recent days, footage of new air defense systems deployed near the decision-making centers, like the Moscow Kremlin and the building of the Ministry of Defense, were widely shared online.

All this reflects a change in the Kremlin’s vision of the ongoing processes and its readiness to address the challenge from the West.

Perseverance of the Euro-Atlantic elites was finally appreciated by Russia and received a worthy response. Unfortunately, the position of the West means that the world can no longer hope for an early end to the war in Europe. Moreover, the conflict is likely to escalate.

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***

The United States of America is a term that contains in it all the hope and all the contradictions of our country, and of the Americas. That hope dates far back in the past, to the inspiring words of the Declaration of Independence that articulated a form of governance that was, at least in terms of its potential, unprecedented.

The enslavement of Africans and the attacks on the native nations belied those powerful words “that all men are created equal.” But the power of those words transcended the limitations of the men who wrote them and echoed around the world.

America’s contradictions, which we have buried out of shame, continue to hold us back from realizing our potential to be great in word and deed.

If we were at last “united” as “states” we could achieve our destiny and find strength in unity. But that would require us to recognize not only the shadows that have accompanied the bright light of hope, but also the tremendous wisdom left to us by the original peoples of the Americas, men and women who wove intricate tapestries of life and spirit that were completely invisible to the dull men who drafted maps far away, who sold off mountains, rivers and forests as a dry and exchangeable thing called “real estate.”

The sad legacy of those past sins is that politics and economics in the United States have been reduced to a game of division.

• People are divided using symbols and motifs that appeal to unconscious associations;
• nations are divided using misperceptions and false generalizations;
• land is divided using alien concepts like real estate, national borders and property rights.
• Security for one’s family and for one’s home has been distorted into a right to destroy nature and community in the pursuit of profit.

The “United States of America” ends today in a militarized wall, a DMZ of the South that defines in a precise manner, to the inch, where one nation state ends and where another nation state begins. But for all the precision of this division, it has no basis in human experience, in the natural world and it certainly means nothing to the sun and the moon that have offered their light to the diverse nations of the Americas for hundreds of thousands of years.

When the sun and the moon look down from above they see a long stretch of land between the two poles that narrows to a delicate isthmus in the middle, forming an exquisite whole, balancing the mountains that rise up above the ground with those that lie beneath the ocean.

Unbroken bands of culture and natural chains of plants and animals link together the Americas from South to North. From the concentric stone circles that form Moray, the agricultural laboratory developed by the Incas to assure a sustainable future for all, and the soaring temples of Tenochtitlan, erected by the Aztecs to reflect the unity of Heaven and Earth, to the delicate communities of the Karitiana people deep in the pristine jungles, and the Mesa Verde city carved into the face of a cliff by the elders of the Pueblo Nation, the human achievements of the Americas are diverse and exquisite.

From the soaring peaks of the Aconcagua Mountains, and the surface of Lake Titicaca that reflects the skies so perfectly, to the waves of sand constantly reshaped in fantastic patterns by the winds of the Mohave Desert, the surface of the Americas forms an inspiring mosaic.

Those climates and habitats are inhabited by the golden lion tamarin that swings gracefully through the lush Amazon trees, by the magnificent Magellanic penguin standing watch confidently on the shores of Patagonia, by the indefatigable armadillo that has roamed over the grasses between Big Bend Ranch and Canon de Santa Elena ―from long before humans gave those formations names.

Moreover, the working people in the cities of the Americas, whether they speak Spanish or English, or other tongues, have so much more in common with each other than they could possibly know. There is a great unity of experience, whether it is the pleasures of being with our children in the mornings, or the frustrations of work, or the sorrows of communities torn apart by hidden forces.

Yet, there are hidden powers and subterranean currents that are not blocked by borders. No, those powers make the borders, enforce the borders, so as to keep the little people, the honest people, North and South, penned up like cattle, so as to deny them the freedom of the eagle or of the taruca.

There is the flow of money and currency, a flow of agricultural goods, finished products and components, a flow of information and data controlled by the powerful, and used for their own selfish ends. That flow is unimpeded by borders.

The powerful drink deeply from that flow of money. They want us to be separated from each other, and they will do anything to encourage us to think that it is the hard-working families from the South, struggling to feed themselves, and not the multinational corporations that are responsible for the pain we feel.

Powerful politicians, Democrat and Republican, promote borders, enforce borders, and militarize borders. They have built a horrific DMZ between the United States and Mexico. They make fortunes for their friends pouring concrete where there were once cactuses and wildflowers.

Who are those borders for?

Those borders pin us up inside and make us prisoners. They are also building walls in our neighborhoods, walls around their mansions and their exclusive communities, and walls around private prisons and camps where they detain us and abuse us.

Sadly, many in the United States think that what is being done to Hispanics has nothing to do with them. They could not be more wrong.

What has been done to immigrants in the camps over the past few years is but a trial run for what will be done to all working Americans. The time has come for all Americans to realize that they have much more in common with the immigrant family locked up in a camp than they do with the billionaires.

The peoples of the South do not travel to the North because they like the cold weather, or because they like the wretched taste of processed foods like hamburgers. They would rather live in their villages, farm their fields ― the fields where their ancestors farmed for decades before they too lay beneath them.

They are forced to move, compelled to leave behind family, friends and familiar landscapes because of the hidden flow of money over borders that powers the takeover of farms by corporations for wasteful and destructive production. Corporations force farmers to use one-use seeds and pesticides and herbicides that poison our sacred land. They drive the butchery of the majestic jungles and encourage the drilling for natural resources underground at any human cost.

That oil and metal should stay underground where it is. Those soaring trees must be left alone.

We are subject to a psychotic pursuit of profit powered by forces far from the jungles and rivers of the Americas. Investment banks in London, in Hong Kong or in Dallas that seek quick profits for their wealthy clients are driving this suicide march. They care nothing about nature or about people.

Americans do not know about the horrors unfolding in the South because such truths are kept secret from them by a corrupt and decadent media, a media that is a tool for control, a weapon of deception.

Americans see those forced to immigrate, forced to work for almost nothing to survive and they feel threatened. They would feel solidarity with those people if they could see how much they have in common.

Instead, they are told by the dark powers that these people are the enemy. The newspapers, the public opinion leaders and church ministers repeat those lies.

Those newspapers and those churches have been bought off by the billionaires.

It was those billionaires who manufactured this disaster.

We can certainly understand why some Americans respond emotionally to what seems like an invasion of foreigners. Their emotions are not unlike the emotions felt by those in the Amazon when they see tractors destroy their jungles in search of oil, minerals and timber.

The shooting at the Walmart in El Paso, Texas, on August 3, 2019, represented a terrible evil that is invisible even as it stalks the streets in daylight.

August 3 is not just any day. It was on August 3 of 1492 that Christopher Columbus set off from Spain to “discover” this land and set up, unknowingly, a process that would unleash tremendous evil. It was on August 3 of 1914 that Germany invaded Belgium and started the First World War. It was on August 3 of 1934 when Adolf Hitler declared himself as “Fuhrer” (leader) and ended the rule of law in Germany.

The El Paso attack left 23 dead and 23 injured. It was an obvious bid to turn fear and loathing into outright war.

Who knows what happened in El Paso? We know that people died there and that a terrible evil was unleashed that slouches now toward a murky horizon.

The Bible teaches us that evil is colorless, that evil is invisible, and that evil is seductive. This evil is not the obvious evil encountered by superheroes.

No. It is a far more pernicious, more subtle and more enticing evil ― an evil that demands that we be prepared for an epic battle over the soul of humanity.

We do not need a “United States” of finance, of manufacturing and of distribution. We need a “United States” of teachers, of doctors, of social workers, of students, and of farmers.

We need a “United States” of mothers and fathers. When we have that, then we will discover how much we have in common. Our universal concerns cross over borders, languages and habits of the mind.

We must go back to the original sin, to the manner in which the Conquistadores took over the Americas, doing such terrible damage, and bringing with them a new culture that remains with us today, a culture that offers us great depths, but also savage cruelty camouflaged as piety. The sins of this day are but the latest variation on that original sin.

Remember that it was Jesus on the cross that gave authority to the Conquistadores. It makes no sense, but it is the truth. Jesus, who lived among the poor, among the homeless, the beggars,  Jesus who refused to possess anything, Jesus who died on the cross for his spiritual resistance to the decadent power of the Roman Empire, that Jesus was invoked as a cause for the destruction of the cultures of the Mayans, of the Incas, of the Aztecs and of many, many other peoples.

And now, we witness a similar erasure of cultures and of peoples across the Americas.

At the heart of this transformation we find the concept of ownership, specially the ownership of land.

Consider the famous case of the island of Manhattan.

The story we learned as children in school is that Peter Minuit of the Dutch West India Company met Lenape Nation representatives in May 1626 and that he purchased for his company the island of Manhattan for 60 guilders.

We assumed that the Lenape People were simply naive, that they did not understand the value of Manhattan. They were too ignorant, or too foolish, to see how these rocks and forests would become a great center for global finance that would rise up in the form of skyscrapers where once there were trees.

Now we know that the truth was the complete opposite. The Lenape people were wise and the Dutch West India Company was foolish.

The Lenape Nation did not see the exchange of currency (coins, or beads or trinkets) as anything more than an agreement for cooperation. The very idea that the soil, the rivers, the forests and the wildlife that filled that sacred island of Manhattan could belong to any one person, let alone to a soulless corporation, made no sense to them.

The concept of real estate and of assets embraced by the Dutch West India Company was an irrational, and in a sense a psychotic, misperception of the relationship between people and nature. Perhaps a five-year-old child may have such a self-centered concept of the world, but for adults to be so indulgent suggests it was a spiritual sickness.

The conflict that followed was, at its core, not a conflict between peoples, between interests, or between nations, but rather a conflict between means of perception, between basic values.

A terrible blindness seized the souls of those who trampled on the cultures of the Incas, the Mayans, the Aztecs, and those of their brothers and sisters. Many of those involved in this original sin were not aware of what they were doing.

And now, the environmental and cultural crisis is so great that we are forced to recognize that a sustainable society must be integrated with nature and that there will be no future otherwise. That is what Lenape people and the Mayan people knew all along. The myth of development and growth that we believed in for so long was a falsehood.

The scars created in the violence of the past are like the bluffs along a river. They are aged, but the fractures are still clear.

The harm resulting from the violence of today in the detention camps, and in the prisons, in places where children are locked up alone and families are torn apart, that harm remains a gaping wound.

The scars and the wounds are a part of who we are.

In some cases, the scars make us stronger; in other cases, they hold us back. We can be sure, however, that any progress forward must also involve a return to that painful past.

In some cases, money can help. In some cases compensation can ease the pain of the past.

But if compensation to the native peoples of the Americas and of Africa is only seen in terms of money, the results will be limited. If we assume that everything can be solved by money, that assumption will reinforce the horrid centrality of money in our society, in how we perceive land and water, plants and animals, people and cultures.

Memory and history are critical. They are more critical than money because if people remember what existed before, then they will value the past.

If there is no memory, there will be no political will. No political will means no money.

First, before we talk about anything else, we must tell the painful tale of how native cultures were destroyed, recognizing that we are talking about that potential for evil that rests within all of us. There is no border between North and South America when it comes to those past sins, or to current sins.

One possible first step is to establish two new Holocaust museums in Washington, D.C.

A Holocaust museum stands on the Mall in Washington, D.C., that faithfully records the horrific killing of Jews in Europe in the 1940s. It is a source of information of tremendous value to us as we strive to understand the nature of evil. I recommend that you take your children to the Holocaust museum.

Yet, we must remember that the Holocaust documented at that museum happened in Europe, and not in the Americas.

There were, however, two terrible holocausts that took place in North and South America, two holocausts that cry out from the grave for a fit and proper memorial on the Mall. My administration will fight tooth and nail to build both Holocaust museums.

The first Holocaust museum will be dedicated to memory of the hundreds of millions of native peoples in the Americas who were slaughtered, or left to die of starvation, or of disease, in the brutal process of colonization and development that took place over four long and cruel centuries.

We need a Holocaust museum that documents the history of the peoples of the Americas, and records their cultures and their arts. We need this museum so that all of our children learn about that tragedy, about what humans are capable of doing in their blindness.

We need another Holocaust museum on the Mall. We need a Holocaust museum that documents the sufferings and the losses of the hundreds of millions captured in Africa and shipped to the Americas for slave labor over 400 years. Millions of men, women and children died on the slave ships, millions more were worked to death, or grew old and died miserably in slavery. Their cultures, their families and their very souls were trampled into the mud. All schoolchildren should visit this Holocaust museum as well and learn what was lost, what was affirmed, and what hope remains for the United States if we look back on our past with honesty.

Because these two memorials will make no distinction between North and South America, they will draw the attention of Americans to the common sufferings and the common tragedies of the Americas. The term “American” itself will expand to include both North and South and the artificial divisions created will start to fade away.

Part of that healing process must involve the introduction of the best of the cultures, the medicines, the spiritual practices, the clothing and designs, the architecture and the history of our native peoples into all aspects of contemporary American society. Our fashions should draw on the patterns of the Navahos and the Incas, our hospitals should use the herbs employed by the Hopi and the Cari, and the legends of all the original nations should be integrated into our contemporary dramas, movies and songs.

Only then will their true value be made manifest. Only then will their living spirit, after being buried for centuries, be brought back to life, be rekindled for a new age.

When I imagine the relationship of the United States with our southern neighbors, with our southern partners, with our southern brothers, I keep coming back to the inspiring work of Henry Wallace, the remarkable politician who implemented President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor Policy” toward Latin America. Vice President Wallace fought for an equal relationship with all nations in the Americas, a balanced dialogue on education, on agriculture, on science and on society that created an inspiring consensus on what was possible. His tour of Latin America in 1943 created excitement about true unity, and ardent opposition to Fascism, that has not been matched since.

It did not stop there for Wallace. He was passionate about the spiritualism of the native Americans and he believed wholeheartedly in the depth to be found in the original cultures. He grasped a potential for growth, not merely in terms of money and products, but in terms of civilization itself.

The policy of my administration toward the Americas will assume the same potential for harmony and unity in the pursuit of a true “new deal.” It will be a harmony with all peoples that is respectful, and a harmony with nature that is sustainable.

We will assert that small is beautiful and that the greatest wisdom can be found in the subtle thinking of ancient people, in the cultures of those who left only the slightest traces on the natural environment.

We will shy away from the gaudy rituals of politicians.

We will step back and promote a dialogue between people that dissolves away borders much as a swift current cuts a beautiful canyon through the hardest of stone.

Click here to view the video

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This article was originally published on Fear No Evil.

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

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Einführung

In der Neuzeit, der Zeit Aufklärung, haben die Menschen neue Ideen entwickelt. Doch der sozialistische Gedanke, der antimilitaristische Gedanke des Friedens, der Freiheit, der Gleichheit, der Gerechtigkeit und der Solidarität hat Schiffbruch erlitten. Er war die Hoffnung der Proletarier der ganzen Welt. Wir alle haben diese schönen Gedanken vernachlässigt und sie dadurch zunichte gemacht. Es gibt eben keine Politik, keine Erklärung der menschlichen Belange ohne Kenntnisse der Psychologie.

Der rumänische Schriftseller Panait Istrati war nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg in der Sowjetunion und hat seine Beobachtungen in drei Bänden niedergeschrieben. Über die Volksrepublik China schrieb vor kurzem Ökonomieprofessor Michel Chossudovsky „Es ist kein Sozialismus“. Gut zu wissen in heutiger Zeit. Bleibt die Frage: Wird der sozialistische Gedanke des Friedens und der Freiheit eines Tages nochmals Triumphe feiern?

Sowjetisches Experiment misslungen

In der ehemaligen Sowjetunion ist das Experiment völlig misslungen. Sie haben den Menschen nicht erfasst. Sie haben die Menschen nicht richtig eingeschätzt, sich nicht mit ihnen assoziiert. Die Kommissare stellten sich über die Arbeiter. Überall fehlte die Psychologie.

Das Volk wäre zu haben gewesen, es ist solidarisch. Der russische Bauer hat im Mir gelebt, einer russischen Dorfgemeinschaft. Ihr gehörten alle Bauern eines Dorfes an. Der von ihnen genutzte Grund und Boden wurde periodisch unter ihnen umverteilt. Jeder Bauer bekam soviel Land zur Nutzung, dass er sich selbst erhalten und seinen Verpflichtungen gegenüber Staat und Grundeigentümer nachkommen konnte. Jeder Haushalt konnte entsprechend der Anzahl seiner erwachsenen Mitglieder einen oder mehrere Landstreifen beanspruchen (1).

Wo hat die bäuerliche russische Bevölkerung jemals Richter oder Spitzel gesehen? Es gab keine. An den Türen haben sie keine Schlösser gehabt, weil sie sie nicht zugesperrt hatten. Bis zur Revolution bearbeiteten sie ihre Felder gemeinsam. Das bisschen Leben, das sie gehabt haben, verbrachten sie in Ruhe und Frieden und ohne Krieg.

Auf einmal sind die dummen „Roten“ gekommen und haben noch schlechter gewirtschaftet als der Zarismus. Kommissare, die nichts verstanden, sind auf das Land geschickt worden und haben den Bauern gesagt, was sie anbauen sollen. Sie haben den Staat aufrechterhalten und schließlich die Bauern und Arbeiter auf das „Feld der Ehre“ gejagt.

Im sehr armen Jugoslawien war das Prinzip menschlicher als in Russland. Wenn der Mensch Arbeit hatte, konnte er nicht gekündigt werden. Dort ist das Prinzip der Selbstverwaltung, der Arbeiterräte verwirklicht worden. Russland ist diesen Weg nicht gegangen und war deshalb gegen Jugoslawien.

Panait Istrati: “Vers l’autre flamme“ („Auf falscher Bahn“)

Panait Istrati (1884 bis 1935) war ein französisch- und rumänischsprachiger Schriftsteller rumänischer Herkunft. Nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg ist er nach Russland gereist und hat nach seiner Rückkehr nach Frankreich seine Beobachtungen in drei Büchern niedergeschrieben. Dieser politische Reisebericht „Vers l‘autre flamme“ ist 1929 in französischer Sprache erschienen und lautet in deutscher Übersetzung „Auf falscher Bahn. 16 Monate in der Sowjetunion. Bekenntnisse eines Besiegten.“ (2)

Sein Bericht war ein leidenschaftlicher politischer Appell an seine Genossen, deren autoritäre stalinistische Organisationsformen, Linientreue und Obrigkeitsgläubigkeit er scharf anprangerte. Bis dahin waren im Westen ausschließlich Berichte über die Sowjetunion erscheinen, die des Lobes voll waren. Doch daraufhin wurde er sehr verleumdet:

„Istratis Buch bricht mit einem Tabu und wagt öffentliche Kritik an ihr. Schlagartig distanzierten sich alle seine bisherigen Freunde von ihm, allen voran sein bisheriger Mentor Romain Rolland. Er wird verleumdet und eine Hetzkampagne gegen ihn setzt ein. Von den Trotzkisten, denen er ansonsten fernstand, wurde Istrati hingegen vereinnahmt.“

(…).

„Auf falscher Bahn“ beeindruckt durch die Leidenschaftlichkeit und Wahrheitsliebe Istratis, letztlich aber auch durch seine Schonungslosigkeit sich selbst gegenüber. Am Ende bleibt ein ‚Besiegter‘ zurück, wie er es selbst ausgedrückt hat, ein einsamer Kämpfer jenseits der Ideologien, ein kranker und gebrochener Mensch.“ (3)

Michel Chossudovsky: „Die VR China ist kein sozialistisches Land.“

Zur gegenwärtigen Situation der Volksrepublik China schrieb der langjährige Forscher an der Universität Hongkong, Ökonomie-Professor Michel Chossudovsky den aufklärenden und vielbeachteten Artikel: „Es ist kein Sozialismus“: China ist eine kapitalistische Billiglohnwirtschaft, basierend auf extrem niedrigen Löhnen. Menschen auf der Linken behaupten, die VR China sei ein sozialistisches Land.“ (4)

In der Einleitung heißt es:

„Den meisten Analysten und Historikern ist nicht klar, dass sich China nach den frühen 1980er Jahren zu einem vollwertigen kapitalistischen Land entwickelt hat. Es gibt mächtige US-Geschäftsinteressen, darunter Big Pharma, große Hi-Tech-Unternehmen und Bankinstitute, die in China fest verwurzelt sind.

Die Vereinigten Staaten haben treuer Verbündete in Chinas Geschäftswelt sowie unter Akademikern, Wissenschaftlern und Ärzten, die tendenziell ‚pro-amerikanisch‘ sind.“ (5)

Der Artikel schließt mit einer persönlichen Anmerkung: Prof. Chossudovsky konnte das Manuskript seines 1984 verfassten Buches mit dem Titel „Towards Capitalist Restoration? Chinese Socialism after Mao“ erst zwei Jahre später veröffentlichen, weil es von den Linken „salopp abgelehnt“ worden war. Man kann es von seiner Homepage als PDF kostenlos herunterladen (6).

Wird Sozialismus nochmals Triumphe feiern?

Bei aller Genugtuung darüber, dass sich die Welt politisch ganz langsam Richtung Osten bewegt, ist es wichtig, Chossudovskys aufklärenden Beitrag zur Kenntnis zu nehmen, um sich keinerlei Illusionen hinzugeben. Ob die Idee des Sozialismus im kommunistischen Systems Russlands eine Chance hat, bleibt damit noch unbeantwortet.

Sollten die Menschen der Welt irgendwann zur Vernunft kommen und sich selbst erkennen, wird der sozialistische Gedanke, der Gedanke des Friedens und der Freiheit vielleicht seine Triumphe feiern.

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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel ist Schul-Rektor, Erziehungswissenschaftler (Dr. paed.) und Psychologe (Dipl.-Psych.). Nach seinen Universitätsstudien wurde er wissenschaftlicher Lehrer (Professor) in der Erwachsenenbildung: unter anderem Leiter eines freien Schul-Modell-Versuchs und Fortbildner bayerischer Beratungslehrkräfte und Schulpsychologen. Als Pensionär arbeitete er als Psychotherapeut in eigener Praxis. Bei einer Öffentlichen Anhörung zur Jugendkriminalität im Europa-Parlament war er Berichterstatter für Deutschland. In seinen Büchern und Fachartikeln fordert er eine bewusste ethisch-moralische Werteerziehung sowie eine Erziehung zu Gemeinsinn und Frieden. Für seine Verdienste um Serbien bekam er 2021 von den Universitäten Belgrad und Novi Sad den Republik-Preis „Kapitän Misa Anastasijevic“ verliehen.

Noten

1 https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir_(Dorfgemeinschaft)

2 https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vers_l’autre_flamme/

3 a. O.

4 https://www.globalresearch.ca/its-not-socialism-china-is-a-capitalist-cheep-labour-economy-based-on-exceedingly-low-wages/5804938/

5 a. O.

6 a. O.

Gekennzeichnetes Bild: Sozialisten auf dem Union Square in New York City am 1. Mai 1912 (gemeinfrei lizenziert)

 

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17,000 physicians and medical scientists declare that the state of medical emergency must be lifted, scientific integrity restored, and crimes against humanity addressed.

We, the physicians and medical scientists of the world, united through our loyalty to the Hippocratic Oath, recognize that the disastrous COVID-19 public health policies imposed on doctors and our patients are the culmination of a corrupt medical alliance of pharmaceutical, insurance, and healthcare institutions, along with the financial trusts which control them. They have infiltrated our medical system at every level, and are protected and supported by a parallel alliance of big tech, media, academics and government agencies who profited from this orchestrated catastrophe.

This corrupt alliance has compromised the integrity of our most prestigious medical societies to which we belong, generating an illusion of scientific consensus by substituting truth with propaganda. This alliance continues to advance unscientific claims by censoring data, and intimidating and firing doctors and scientists for simply publishing actual clinical results or treating their patients with proven, life-saving medicine. These catastrophic decisions came at the expense of the innocent, who are forced to suffer health damage and death caused by intentionally withholding critical and time-sensitive treatments, or as a result of coerced genetic therapy injections, which are neither safe nor effective.

The medical community has denied patients the fundamental human right to provide true informed consent for the experimental COVID-19 injections. Our patients are also blocked from obtaining the information necessary to understand risks and benefits of vaccines, and their alternatives, due to widespread censorship and propaganda spread by governments, public health officials and media. Patients continue to be subjected to forced lock-downs which harm their health, careers and children’s education, and damage social and family bonds critical to civil society. This is not a coincidence. In the book entitled “COVID-19: The Great Reset”, leadership of this alliance has clearly stated their intention is to leverage COVID-19 as an “opportunity” to reset our entire global society, culture, political structures, and economy.

Our 17,000 Global COVID Summit physicians and medical scientists represent a much larger, enlightened global medical community who refuse to be compromised, and are united and willing to risk the wrath of the corrupt medical alliance to defend the health of their patients.

The mission of the Global COVID Summit is to end this orchestrated crisis, which has been illegitimately imposed on the world, and to formally declare that the actions of this corrupt alliance constitute nothing less than crimes against humanity.

We must restore the people’s trust in medicine, which begins with free and open dialogue between physicians and medical scientists. We must restore medical rights and patient autonomy. This includes the foundational principle of the sacred doctor-patient relationship. The social need for this is decades overdue, and therefore, we the physicians of the world are compelled to take action.

After two years of scientific research, millions of patients treated, hundreds of clinical trials performed and scientific data shared, we have demonstrated and documented our success in understanding and combating COVID-19. In considering the risks versus benefits of major policy decisions, our Global COVID Summit of 17,000 physicians and medical scientists from all over the world have reached consensus on the following foundational principles:

1. We declare and the data confirm that the COVID-19 experimental genetic therapy injections must end.
2. We declare doctors should not be blocked from providing life-saving medical treatment.
3. We declare the state of national emergency, which facilitates corruption and extends the pandemic, should be immediately terminated.
4. We declare medical privacy should never again be violated, and all travel and social restrictions must cease.
5. We declare masks are not and have never been effective protection against an airborne respiratory virus in the community setting.
6. We declare funding and research must be established for vaccination damage, death and suffering.
7. We declare no opportunity should be denied, including education, career, military service or medical treatment, over unwillingness to take an injection.
8. We declare that first amendment violations and medical censorship by government, technology and media companies should cease, and the Bill of Rights be upheld.
9. We declare that Pfizer, Moderna, BioNTech, Janssen, Astra Zeneca, and their enablers, withheld and willfully omitted safety and effectiveness information from patients and physicians, and should be immediately indicted for fraud.
10. We declare government and medical agencies must be held accountable.

Watch the full video below and DISCUSS with doctors and supporters here.

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In the last several months, the Russian military has been conducting intensive training for approximately 300,000 newly mobilized soldiers, in addition to other preparations that would enable it to deliver a final knockout punch and end hostilities in Ukraine. The stakes are now being raised even higher with Army General Valery Gerasimov, the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, assuming the overall command of Russia’s counteroffensive against NATO’s “quasi-Barbarossa”. The move clearly implies that the Russian military is intent on achieving greater coordination and that it’s focusing much of its conventional capabilities to put the final nail in the coffin of the Neo-Nazi project in Ukraine.

Expectedly, the political West’s mainstream propaganda machine is presenting this change as the supposed failure of General Sergei Surovikin, resulting in his apparent replacement due to perceiving battlefield setbacks. However, quite conveniently, they are withholding critically important information, such as the fact that the Russian special military operation in Ukraine is now expanding in scope and magnitude, making it virtually impossible for Surovikin to coordinate the entire endeavor all by himself. For that reason, Moscow has decided to employ four of its top commanders and give them command of various operational sectors, with General Gerasimov at the helm of this expanded operation.

Apart from Russia’s Chief of the General Staff, three other top-ranking Russian military officers are directly taking part in commanding Moscow’s troops engaged in Ukraine — Army General Oleg Salyukov and Colonel General Alexei Kim, in addition to General Surovikin himself, now assuming the positions of General Gerasimov’s deputies, with special tasks within the enlarged scope of the special military operation. With a force of well over half a million men, supported by the Russian Aerospace Forces and Navy firing hundreds of long-range cruise missiles and swarms of drones, the Kiev regime is faced with an offensive the scale of which is incomparable to anything seen in decades.

Naturally, the Russian military’s plan for the new offensive in Ukraine is a secret, but the information provided by several sources allows a reasonable estimate as to how it might play out. Head of the Kiev regime’s State Property Fund Rustem Umerov claims that the upcoming offensive will come from three directions. “The attack will come from the north, [from] across the Belarusian border, from Russian strongholds in eastern Ukraine and from the south,” Umerov stated, without citing any sources or intelligence. The claim comes approximately a week after CIA chief William Burns visited Kiev and apparently warned Volodymyr Zelensky about Russia’s “impending offensive”.

The possibility of an all-out Russian offensive from three directions certainly shouldn’t be excluded. However, it’s also in the interest of the Russian military to maintain at least some element of surprise and deny the Kiev regime forces the ability to accurately predict its course of action. It’s a strong possibility that the Eurasian giant might decide to take control of the entire left-bank Ukraine, which would require offensive operations in at least three sectors, the northeast (toward Chernigov), east (toward Kharkov) and south (toward Zaporozhye and Dnepropetrovsk). All the while, troops deployed in the Donbass are expected to maintain pressure and tie in as many Kiev regime forces as possible, which eventually could result in the encirclement and final elimination of these units.

The success of such an operation would result in irrecoverable losses for the Neo-Nazi junta and possibly even end the conflict or at least wipe out Kiev’s overall fighting capability, limiting it to militia troops incapable of any maneuvers or large-scale movement necessary to stop further Russian advance. Meanwhile, many of the regime’s forces would be tied in expecting Russian advance from the north, which may or may not happen. And while it’s impossible to say how likely this scenario is, such shaping up of the battlefield can certainly be expected from the Russian military, as this would enable it to take key areas and further exacerbate the Neo-Nazi junta’s position, forcing it to negotiate on terms favorable to Moscow or even surrender if the battlefield losses become completely unbearable.

Although the mainstream propaganda machine is spinning the narrative about General Surovikin’s alleged “failures”, the Kiev regime’s high command doesn’t share the same blind optimism. Kiev’s chief commander General Valery Zaluzhny is well aware of Gerasimov’s competence, as he himself once described Russia’s top military officer as “the smartest of men”. Realizing the impending consequences of Gerasimov’s appointment as the overall commander of the Russian forces engaged in Ukraine, the Neo-Nazi junta is fuming at its NATO sponsors for not providing more weapons. The political West is now divided on delivering heavy tanks, with Washington DC and Berlin trying to toss the hot potato to each other.

Despite its refusal to commit more advanced heavy armor and repeated insistence that its European allies and vassals do this, the US wants the hostilities to last for as long as possible. During a meeting at the Ramstein airbase in Germany, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley said: “From a military standpoint I still maintain that for this year it would be very, very difficult to militarily eject the Russian forces from all, every inch of… Russian-occupied Ukraine.” While NATO pledged more weapons for the Kiev regime, the aforementioned question of delivering heavy tanks was left unanswered. And although it still hasn’t even been a full month this year, the US wants the hostilities to last “well into 2024”, obviously hoping to see at least another year of stalemate, despite mounting casualties of its favorite puppet regime.

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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***

Introduction

In modern times, the Age of Enlightenment, people developed new ideas. But the socialist idea, the anti-militarist idea of peace, freedom, equality, justice and solidarity was shipwrecked. It was the hope of the proletarians of the whole world. We have all neglected these beautiful thoughts and thus destroyed them. There is no politics, no explanation of human concerns without knowledge of psychology.

The Romanian writer Panait Istrati was in the Soviet Union after the First World War and wrote down his observations in three volumes. About the People’s Republic of China, economics professor Michel Chossudovsky recently wrote “It’s Not Socialism”. Good to know in this day and age. The question remains: will the socialist idea of peace and freedom one day celebrate triumphs once again?

Soviet experiment failed

In the former Soviet Union, the experiment was a complete failure. They did not grasp the people. They did not assess people correctly, did not associate with them. The commissars put themselves above the workers. Psychology was missing everywhere.

The people could have been had, they are in solidarity. The Russian peasant lived in the Mir, a Russian village community. All the peasants of a village belonged to it. The land they used was periodically redistributed among them. Each peasant was given enough land to use to maintain himself and to meet his obligations to the state and the landowner. Each household could claim one or more strips of land according to the number of its adult members (1).

Where did the peasant Russian population ever see judges or informers? There were none. They had no locks on their doors because they did not lock them. Until the revolution they worked their fields together. What little life they had, they spent in peace and quiet and without war.

Suddenly the stupid “Reds” came and managed even worse than Tsarism. Commissars who understood nothing were sent to the countryside and told the peasants what to grow. They maintained the state and finally chased the peasants and workers to the “field of honour”.

In very poor Yugoslavia the principle was more humane than in Russia. If a person had work, he could not be dismissed. There the principle of self-management, of workers’ councils was realised. Russia did not go this way and was therefore against Yugoslavia.

Panait Istrati: “Vers l’autre flamme” (“On the wrong track”)

Panait Istrati (1884 – 1935) was a French- and Romanian-language writer of Romanian origin. He travelled to Russia after the First World War and wrote down his observations in three books after his return to France. This political travelogue “Vers l’autre flamme” was published in French in 1929 and its German translation is “Auf falscher Bahn. 16 Months in the Soviet Union. Confessions of a Defeated Man.” (2)

His report was a passionate political appeal to his comrades, whose authoritarian Stalinist forms of organisation, loyalty to the line and faith in authority he sharply denounced. Until then, only reports about the Soviet Union had appeared in the West, full of praise. But as a result he was much maligned:

“Istrati’s book breaks a taboo and dares to criticise it publicly. Suddenly all his previous friends distanced themselves from him, above all his previous mentor Romain Rolland. He was slandered and a smear campaign against him began. On the other hand, Istrati was taken over by the Trotskyists, from whom he otherwise stood aloof.”

(…).

“On the Wrong Track” impresses with Istrati’s passion and love of truth, but ultimately also with his ruthlessness towards himself. In the end, we are left with a ‘defeated man’, as he himself put it, a lonely fighter beyond ideologies, a sick and broken man.” (3)

Michel Chossudovsky: “The PRC is not a socialist country.”

On the current situation in the People’s Republic of China, long-time researcher at the University of Hong Kong, economics professor Michel Chossudovsky wrote the enlightening and well-received article: “It’s Not Socialism”: China Is a Capitalist Cheap Labour Economy, Based on Exceedingly Low Wages. People on the Left Claim the PRC is a Socialist Country.” (4)

The introduction states:

“Most analysts and historians do not realise that China developed into a full-fledged capitalist country after the early 1980s. There are powerful US business interests, including Big Pharma, large hi-tech companies and banking institutions, that are firmly entrenched in China.

The United States has faithful allies in China’s business community as well as among academics, scientists and doctors who tend to be ‘pro-American’.” (5)

The article concludes on a personal note: Prof. Chossudovsky was unable to publish the manuscript of his 1984 book entitled “Towards Capitalist Restoration? Chinese Socialism after Mao” only two years later because it had been “casually rejected” by the left. It can be downloaded free of charge as a PDF from his homepage (6).

Will socialism celebrate triumphs once more?

Despite all the satisfaction that the world is slowly moving eastwards politically, it is important to take note of Chossudovsky’s enlightening contribution in order to avoid any illusions. Whether the idea of socialism has a chance in Russia’s communist system thus remains unanswered.

Should the people of the world eventually come to their senses and realise themselves, the socialist idea, the idea of peace and freedom, will perhaps celebrate its triumphs.

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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel is a school rector, educationalist (Dr. paed.) and psychologist (Dipl.-Psych.). After his university studies, he became an academic teacher (professor) in adult education: among other things, he was head of an independent school model experiment and further training instructor for Bavarian counselling teachers and school psychologists. As a retiree, he worked as a psychotherapist in private practice. He was rapporteur for Germany at a public hearing on juvenile delinquency in the European Parliament. In his books and articles, he calls for a conscious ethical-moral education and an education for public spirit and peace. For his services to Serbia, he was awarded the Republic Prize “Captain Misa Anastasijevic” by the Universities of Belgrade and Novi Sad in 2021.

Notes

(1) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir_(village-community)

(2) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vers_l’autre_flamme/

(3) op. cit.

(4) https://www.globalresearch.ca/its-not-socialism-china-is-a-capitalist-cheep-labour-economy-based-on-exceedingly-low-wages/5804938/

(5) op. cit.

(6) op. cit.

Featured image: Socialists in Union Square, New York City on May Day 1912 (Licensed under the Public Domain)

New Zealand: From Worst to Even Worse? The WEF-YGL Political Intrusion

By Peter Koenig, January 23, 2023

New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, resigned on 18 January 2022, in the midst of the WEF Davos 53^rd Conference. PM Ardern is a graduate of the WEF’s Young Global Leaders (YGL) program. She is – or was? – a favored “daughter” of Klaus Schwab. About at the same level as Justin Trudeau, PM of Canada. He too has been schooled, or better, brainwashed, by Schwab’s Academy for Young Global Leaders.

A Pandemic of Lies: MHRA Confirms COVID Is Man-Made & the Vaccines Are Not Based on the “Virus” But Instead on Computer-Generated DNA

By The Expose, January 23, 2023

The DNA template used does not come directly from an isolated virus from an infected person. The DNA template (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 GenBank 908947.3), was generated via a combination of gene synthesis and recombinant DNA technology.

CDC Aware of Hundreds of Safety Signals for COVID Jab. “CDC Has Ignored Clear ‘Death’ Signal”

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, January 23, 2023

In September 2022, The Epoch Times asked the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to release its Proportional Reporting Ratio (PRR) data mining results. PRR measures how common an adverse event is for a specific drug compared to all the other drugs in the database.

Situation for Kiev Is “Very, Very Difficult”. US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley

By Lucas Leiroz de Almeida, January 23, 2023

While Western journalists insist that Ukraine is “winning” the conflict, experienced military and analysts continue to point to the evident fact that Russia cannot be defeated so easily. In a recent interview, a top US general commented that the situation is very complicated for the Ukrainians, who will have many difficulties to fulfill their promise to “expel” Russian forces from territories already reintegrated into Moscow’s sovereign space.

When Journalists Act as State Propagandists

By Peter Oborne, January 23, 2023

In advance of the invasion of Iraq 20 years ago, the UK media parroted government lies and fabrications uncritically and became an enthusiastic part of the state’s propaganda machine. An inquiry into British reporting of the Iraq war is well past due.

Russia Targets Africa to Boost Military Arms Sales. Russia’s Strategic Foothold?

By Kester Kenn Klomegah, January 23, 2023

Undeniable fact is that Africa’s G5 Sahel (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger) and Central African Republic (CAR) have bartered their natural resources for Soviet-era and Russian military weapons and equipment. The G5 Heads of State are currently struggling against growing terrorism in the region and needed support from external countries.

U.S. Now Considering to Invade Russia: NYT

By Eric Zuesse, January 23, 2023

Russia might not employ nuclear weapons in the event of such an attack against Crimea — it might instead respond without nuclear warheads, but only with non-nuclear ones; and, since the invasion of Crimea would have been carried out by both Ukraine and America, Ukraine and/or America would be targeted.

Thousands in the Peruvian Capital Demand the Resignation of the Military-backed Regime

By Abayomi Azikiwe, January 23, 2023

As the political situation becomes even more intense in the capital city of Lima in Peru and other regions of the South American country, the western-backed administration of Dina Boluarte has called for dialogue among the contending political forces.

Rise of Nazism in Interwar Germany: Hitler’s Political Rivalry with Ludendorff

By Shane Quinn, January 23, 2023

General Erich Ludendorff, the German Empire’s military ruler during the latter half of the First World War (1916-18), made a fateful attempt in the spring of 1925 to reclaim the dictatorship of Germany by participating in the presidential election.

UK Data Shows: The mRNA “Vaccine” Bioweapon Is Working

By Dr. Mark Trozzi, January 23, 2023

The SARS CoV2 virus pandemic agenda was rolled out in early 2020. However, despite fear mongering and propaganda, UK total death statistics in 2020 were unremarkable aside from the month of April when there was increased death in mature and older age groups.

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***

Through the course of his political life, the current US president has often been injudicious. He has stumbled, bungled and miscalculated.  His electoral victory was fortuitous, aided by a number of factors, not least the conduct of his opponent and the murderous gift of a global pandemic.  Along with his fellow Democrats, he has made the issue of Donald Trump a matter of pathology rather than politics.

It is precisely that pathological approach that has come back to haunt his administration.  While Trump continues to be characterised as the proto-authoritarian in waiting, squirreling off classified documents that should have been deposited in the national archives, Biden claimed to be above such behaviour.

His own Attorney General, Merrick Garland, has now appointed two prosecutors as special counsels responsible for investigating how Biden and Trump handled classified documents, with the latter also facing an investigation on his role in the January 6 storming of the Capitol.  Former federal prosecutor in Maryland Robert K. Hur has been tasked with dealing with Biden and any relevant staff in their alleged mishandling of classified material.  Veteran Department of Justice investigator Jack Smith is conducting two criminal investigations into the conduct of Trump.

Biden’s imbroglio centres on what happened to official documents after the conclusion of his Vice-Presidency during the Obama administration, though the problem is promising to be wider than that.  The circumstance of their uncovering is significant and bruising for a president extolling the merits of transparency.

Last November, one of Biden’s personal attorneys, Pat Moore, uncovered relevant documents in the private office and home of Biden.  These were then turned over to the National Archives.  The timing was relevant: the discovery took place less than a week before the midterm elections.  The following month, another tranche of classified documents were found in Biden’s garage in his Wilmington home.  In January, a third set of documents were found at the Delaware home.

On January 20, the Justice Department made what it claimed to be thorough combing of the president’s Wilmington home.  The search revealed a number of additional classified documents, some dating from Biden’s time as Senator, and more during his vice-presidential tenure.  According to Bob Bauer, the president’s personal attorney, the seizure of six items involved “documents with classification markings and surrounding materials.”  Handwritten notes from the vice-presidential period were also taken.

Such revelations have thrown the administration off its stroke.  For one thing, the White House initially made no mention of the garage discovery.  A few days later, the tune was tinkered and adjusted.  There was little mention about what additional things would come out this month.

Neil Eggleston, White House counsel in the final two and half years of Obama’s presidency, is keen to diminish the significance of such discoveries.  Speaking to the New Yorker, he claimed there was no reason to think that a crime had been committed.  “It appears that, as the Vice-President’s office was being dismantled [at the end of the Obama presidency], some classified information got commingled with other material, and as soon as it was located it was turned over to the National Archives.”

Eggleston does, at the very least, admit that the White House could have handled matters “differently” and not just assume that the National Archives had the responsibility to alert the Justice Department.  But he does much to leave room open for the fool’s defence, which is hardly admirable for the US Commander-in-chief.

Biden’s spin doctors are breaking into a sweat in pushing the already devastated and withered line that the president is not only cooperative, but transparent.  That this whole search took place with his permission showed eagerness and willingness to resolve the matter, unlike the recalcitrant Trump, who made the FBI seek a court-approved search of Mar-a-Lago.  “In the interest of moving the process forward as expeditiously as possible, we offered to provide prompt access to his home,” explained Baur.

Biden, for his part, is trying to play the role of receptive statesman, keen to follow advice and good counsel, thereby showing how one leads less from the front than from the cushioned middle.  “I have no regrets in following what the lawyers have told me what they want me to do – it’s exactly what we’re doing.”  With such un-presidential words, he was also confident that there was “nothing there” in terms of what documents had been found.

Only the most fervent of Trump supporters would claim that the doddery Biden would have actively sought to funnel and conceal classified documents, though the question will never go away.  But from the throne of judgment, the current president has shown himself to be fallible and prone to habitual error.

As a result, the opposing Republican Party, which has been publicly cannibalising itself over such matters as the election of the House speaker, is receiving drip-feed sustenance.  For one, they can argue that the Democrats can hardly make the purer-than-pure case about their own executive handling of classified documents.  “It makes Biden look like a giant hypocrite,” opines Republican strategist and former spokesman for President George W. Bush, Alex Conant.  “Clearly Trump’s handling of classified materials was a lingering problem that Republicans had not had a good answer for until this week.”

With each new discovery and unveiling, President Biden is also being shown to be a monumental, unreliable dolt.  His commitment to, in the words of his special counsel Richard Sauber, “handling this responsibly because he takes this seriously” is proving increasingly risible.

*

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

Featured image is from Countercurrents.org

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***

An informational iron curtain is coming down across the West, and its architects are determined to make examples out of those who refuse to pick a side.

Our Democracy™ has adopted a zero-tolerance policy for pollution of the information ecosystem, and the Thought Police are standing by to halt rogue infodemics in their tracks, lest the people lose trust in their institutions.

Dr. Tim Coles, a freelance writer and postdoctoral researcher until recently at the University of Plymouth didn’t realize he was in their crosshairs until he found himself locked out of his university email account in October. Tech support was no help; department staff refused to talk to him, closing ranks and sending him a threatening email demanding he cease contact. Clearly, he had violated some unwritten law. But what?

The chain of emails that had culminated in his removal only raised further questions about why an apparent stranger whom Plymouth has refused to name – a university employee, he suspects – had complained about his writing for Australian magazine Nexus to his old PhD examiner.

In a Kafkaesque turn, the complaint lacked a single concrete accusation of wrongdoing that Coles could defend himself against, instead equivocating around familiar “conspiracy theorist” tropes. At any rate, no one had thought to consult Coles, perhaps believing him to be a disgruntled ex-student trading on his old university email rather than a researcher whose work at the university was funded by an outside trust and had nothing to do with his political writing. Rather than pause for clarification, his PhD examiner appeared to jump in with both feet, urging tech staff to help get Coles “off [the university’s] books.”

While a prolific writer on many controversial topics – US funding and training of neo-Nazis in Ukraine, the West’s neocolonial plunder of Africa under the guise of fighting terrorism, and Big Pharma’s giant power-grab under cover of Covid-19 unholy alliance of Big Pharma and Big Tech amid the coronavirus outbreak are just a few – Coles believes he ran afoul of the university censors with a series of articles about intelligence agencies blackmailing people with child sexual abuse that ran in Nexus not long before the cancellation effort began. That particular subject has a tendency to get journalists killed, and Coles wonders if his ejection from Plymouth might be a warning shot from groups displeased with his inquiries. He acknowledges, however, that the timing may be a coincidence – Hope Not Hate and other intelligence-controlled censorship advocates were apparently trying to have Nexus banned in the UK around the same time for its publication of unorthodox views on Covid-19.

While he believes the evidence in the email chain is enough to prove wrongdoing by the university, Coles couldn’t even file a complaint through the normal channels, as his inquisitors had roped the complaints department into their conspiracy by including them in the email chain. He has considered releasing the messages publicly as a last resort, but first plans to employ an outside arbitrator and give the System one last chance – more than he was given, at any rate.

Lessons from The Lobby

Coles is far from the first to be booted from a British university campus for thought crime. He sees parallels between his case and that of David Miller, the University of Bristol sociology professor who was subjected to a ferocious academic inquisition and ultimately drummed out of his post in late 2021 after the Board of Deputies of British Jews deliberately misinterpreted comments he had made about Israel weaponizing Jewish students abroad. The university’s Union of Jewish Students had been attacking him for years before seizing upon the supposedly discriminatory comment, which they only heard because they had sent in an activist ’spy’ to monitor one of his classes  – ironically validating the professor’s claims better than his own arguments could have.

Like Coles, Miller was never directly confronted by his accuser, who opted for mealy-mouthed pseudo-accusations (“conspiracy theorist,” “inciting hatred”) over potentially-disprovable crimes. Like Plymouth, Bristol took the side of the accuser against its employee almost reflexively. Former Labour MP Chris Williamson, himself a victim of the Israeli lobby’s devastating smear machine, joined the Support David Miller campaign in warning that the university’s failure to stand up for the professor would only encourage “bad faith actors” to pursue further censorship.

Shortly before the lobby finally convinced Miller’s university to mount an investigation into his supposed bigotry, he observed that such pressure tactics were imported from the Israel lobby in the US and pointed out that if any other foreign lobby attempted to wage such total war on its critics, they would be “laughed out of the room.” But Coles’ experience suggests other groups have taken lessons from the Israelis – and that Williamson’s warning was prescient.

Academic “cancel culture” is a well-known scourge of American campuses, where careless tweeting costs lives and professors can be axed for using the wrong pronouns. But while most discussion of the phenomenon centers on the targeting of conservative professors, it has targeted left-wing heterodoxy with equal fury, as tenured New York University media studies professor Mark Crispin Miller discovered when a student demanded his firing via Twitter after taking offense to a discussion questioning the utility of masks in his 2020 class on Propaganda.

Like Coles and the other Miller across the pond, Miller was attacked by university colleagues with vague allegations of “attacks on students and others in our community,” “aggressions and microaggressions,” and “explicit hate speech” and an investigation was launched behind his back even in the absence of any specific forbidden act. Administrators went one step further and contacted all his students to remind them of the CDC’s mask guidance, lest their fragile minds have been corrupted by the conspiracy theorist in the classroom. They couldn’t fire him – he was tenured, after all – but they did their best to make his life so miserable that he would leave, forbidding him from teaching his beloved Propaganda class, and he has been on sabbatical since.

Even Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, was recently denied a fellowship at the Carr Center for Human Rights, part of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, on the basis of wrongthink – what its dean described as his “anti-Israel bias.” Roth has toed the line on foreign policy groupthink elsewhere, dutifully demonizing Putin, Assad, Trump, and so on as the needs of Empire demanded. But his refusal to ignore Israel’s increasingly bold apartheid policies got him the David Miller treatment despite years of faithful service. If Roth isn’t safe, many academics have begun to wonder, what the hell are they going to do to me?!

Will Censor for Food

While Coles questions if universities were ever really the freethinkers’ utopia so many academic misfits yearn for, there is no denying groupthink has tightened its hold in recent years. While an academic might once have been left alone to research controversial subjects on his own time so long as he didn’t embarrass his employer, this laissez-faire approach has been replaced by an administrative panopticon that is both hyper-responsive and reflexively condemnatory – a “cottage industry of shutting people down,” in the words of its recent target. Censorship has been outsourced from the state and its corporate minions to “academics and think tanks who are given a well-funded government hammer so they see everything as a nail of disinformation,” Coles explains. Not simply salaried, they are financially incentivized to bag-and-tag as many pieces of “disinformation” as they can, essentially bounty hunters for inconvenient truths, enabling a much tighter, more granular control of information than was ever possible under a traditional totalitarian model.

These programs and campaigns – with names like Integrity Initiative, Center for Countering Digital Hate, Trusted News Initiative – initially appear to be independent nonprofits that just happen to share a common devotion to fighting fake news.

However, their cooperation is more than superficial, with many of the same entities ultimately directing their actions as they work together to artificially muscle the discourse in the desired direction, choking off competing narratives while maintaining plausible deniability regarding their connections to the state.

In this model of soft totalitarianism, the dissident is not so much ordered to cease publishing objectionable ideas, or even threatened with execution or creative torture. He is merely subjected to mounting insults, ‘nudged’ in certain directions, and gradually stripped of resources, especially any public platform he may have had in accordance with his refusal to follow the rules. Amid this complex ballet of carrot and stick, he is constantly reminded that these are his decisions, making him (in his own mind, at least) a willing participant in his own spiritual suffocation.

Fact-checkers, once mere newsroom employees tasked with verifying the details of major stories, have been artificially elevated into a caste of gatekeepers, deemed impartial arbiters of truth even as their donor lists burst with conflicts of interest from Pierre Omidyar to Bill Gates to George Soros. This veneer of independence allows them much greater latitude than any equivalent government body, as the ignominious collapse of the US’ Disinformation Governance Board last year proved. This official Ministry of Truth, which would have operated out of the Department of Homeland Security, was a bridge too far even for the American media establishment, which had long since embraced its unofficial equivalent censoring tweets and Facebook posts to keep the world safe for democracy.

All it took to get English-speaking countries to accept the need for these newly-minted (the International Fact Checking Network was only launched in 2015) cognitive babysitters was for a few pathological liars to blame Trump’s 2016 electoral victory and Brexit on Russian disinformation.

Never mind that neither hypothesis was ever substantiated, or that both have since been thoroughly discredited – unfiltered access to information has joined the lengthy list of threats to social harmony, and the fact-checkers, having tasted power, are unlikely to return to the newsroom. Given that a free press is integral to a functioning democracy, it goes without saying that any regime looking to dismantle the latter would want to get the former out of the way.

New Dawn in Old Bottles

No sooner had Coles been chased out of his university for his writing in one Australian alt-media magazine then he was engulfed in a censorship firestorm over another. An article appeared earlier this month in New Zealand news outlet Stuff excoriating bookstore chain Whitcoulls for carrying the latest edition of New Dawn, a publication which proudly bills itself as a “forum for alternative, non-mainstream ideas that question consensus reality.” Stuff’s coverage berated the bookstore for exposing unsuspecting customers to the jungle of “conspiracy theories” barely restrained within its pages (full disclosure: I have also contributed writing to New Dawn), focusing its rage on Coles’ “The curious case of Brenton Tarrant,” about the Christchurch mosque shooter.

When Whitcoulls did not immediately capitulate, “disinformation expert” Kate Hannah was called in to warn Kiwis who picked up the magazine that they were enabling “dark agendas” seeking to “destabilize liberal democracy.” Reading Coles’ article wasn’t just engaging in wrongthink, but actually committing a crime, she explained, because the article included information on how to access the illegal-in-New-Zealand helmet-cam video Tarrant recorded while shooting his way through the mosque. Just reading about where to find the video might run afoul of hate speech laws, she mused in a radio interview.

Of course, the article includes no such instructions, nor does it – as Hannah claimed – claim Tarrant didn’t shoot anyone. Coles is baffled by the disinfo expert’s disinfo, but suspects the reason they didn’t include his name (standard practice in establishment hit-pieces) in the pressure campaign is that he could justifiably sue for libel. But the mere threat of legal repercussions was sufficient to keep 99.9% of Kiwis away from the forbidden magazine, and perhaps sensing no sales in its future, Whitcoulls finally pulled the issue from its shelves.

New Zealand’s size and isolation make it a perfect experimental laboratory, and the other Four Eyes haven’t hesitated to use it as such. Nor have the Israelis, whose operation was exposed during the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. The 2019 shooting that launched the current touchless torture regime was preceded as such events often are by a series of odd ‘coincidences’ and foreshadowings. Just a few months before the massacre, a group of American survivors of the Parkland, Florida high school shooting visited the city to discuss “living through a tragedy” with their Kiwi counterparts; two Parkland survivors and a Sandy Hook survivor allegedly committed suicide in the months following the mosque killings. A police drill just happened to be taking place near the fleeing gunman, allowing participants to “heroically” capture him in what media dutifully described as a “hell of a coincidence.”

The speedy gun-grab that followed the tragedy left citizens helpless in the claws of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and the subsequent clampdown on the internet was unprecedented in any other western “democracy,” with prison sentences meted out for merely sharing a link. Ostensibly to prevent anyone from reading Tarrant’s manifesto or watching the curiously videogame-like footage of the killings, the rules had the effect of banning access to entire video archives, international forums, and other information resources that might have helped the country’s residents make sense of what had just been done to them, and they were designed to be copied by the other four Eyes – or any other country that should want them.

While all five Eyes adopted unprecedented controls on social media during Covid-19, New Zealand went much further than its peers in controlling the actual publication of news. In March 2020, facing rumors that lockdown was imminent, Ardern warned upstanding citizens to avoid all unauthorized sources of information, urging them to stick with the government’s official site as “your single source of truth.”

The message didn’t age well – New Zealand was locked down within the week – but her point had gotten across loud and clear. Arrested while protesting Auckland’s return to lockdown in 2021 over just three “cases,” popular radio host and pandemic dissident Vinny Eastwood was only released on the conditions that he remain under house arrest 24/7 and stay off the internet – draconian requirements for a man who made his living live-streaming. He was later permitted back online, but only on the condition that he not advocate against Covid-19 restrictions – a deliberately subjective line in the sand meant to encourage self-censorship above all.

While the media establishment overflowed with praise for Ardern over her iron-fisted suppression of the population – er, pandemic – no one has thought to ask why, if the West questions all Covid-19 stats coming out of China due to government control of all information sources, they believed the numbers coming out of New Zealand. Even news sites like Stuff, which describes itself as “fiercely independent,” are actually public-private partnerships – in this case funded by the New Zealand government and the Google News Initiative, powered by the bonanza of helicopter money that was dumped on the news media in 2020 to fight the “infodemic” of Covid-19 “disinformation.”

That the campaign against New Dawn was no organic outrage was clear – Coles’ article is the last in the issue, and the likelihood of an indignant civilian pawing through 70 pages of conspiracy contraband just to find something they can claim is illegal approaches zero. Its favorable result means it will likely become the blueprint for future book-burning campaigns.

But why go after a couple of obscure Australian conspiracy magazines?

Especially in New Zealand, but increasingly in the US and Europe, Big Tech no longer allows the average user to stumble upon the kind of content published by New Dawn or Nexus.

Even non-Google search results from once-reliable alternatives like DuckDuckGo and Brave have been scrubbed clean of all deviations from the establishment line on topics like Covid-19 or the war in Ukraine, let alone the Christchurch shooting, and as Coles remarked, the censorship is even creeping through time into the Wayback Machine, the internet researcher’s go-to that once contained archives of much of the internet dating back decades – but now increasingly turns up error pages or sloppily retconned fact-checks. However, Kiwis browsing at Whitcoulls had at their fingertips a powderkeg of new information, rendered all the more volatile by three years spent in informational quarantine. Just as a person locked down for months will see her immune system suffer for lack of outside stimulation, any novel pathogens hitting her much harder when she finally goes outside, the Good Citizen who imbibed only Ardern-approved data for three years will likely be unable to muster even the slightest argument against whatever outrageous claims she finds in New Dawn and perhaps become lost to the weak grasp of establishment propaganda forever.

There’s an easy solution to this problem, should New Zealand want to solve it. Teach children to think critically, instead of the dumbed-down “media literacy” programs being promoted by every self-proclaimed “disinfo expert” this side of PropOrNot. Thought-stopping “information hygiene” techniques (Google it! Look it up on Wikipedia!) and reflexive appeals to authority (only a scientist can interpret  that study for you!) do not help an individual resist persuasion. But a population armed with the ability to recognize an official lie and dismantle it would not allow themselves to be locked down over a few cases of a disease they were almost 100% certain to survive anyway – so of course New Dawn couldn’t be permitted to question Christchurch. It is the (shaky) foundation on which Ardern’s hastily-constructed police state was built. As rumors fly about her surprise resignation on Thursday and the media establishment rends its garments over how “unfairly” this “icon of many” was treated by “far-right extremists,” it seems clear her departure will be weaponized to further crack down on the increasingly nebulous specter of “hate speech.”

Replacing Replacement Theory       

Americans who believe the New Dawn affair could only have happened in an unarmed, isolated nation like New Zealand should pay attention to what their Congress is up to. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) earlier this month introduced a bill that would criminalize the publication of “antagonism based on ‘replacement theory’” and “hate speech that vilifies or is otherwise directed against any non-White person or group” on social media if it can be said that the perpetrator of a “white supremacy inspired hate crime” had encountered the material before committing the crime – or that if they had encountered the material, it could conceivably have motivated them to take such actions.

Without bothering to define such critical terms as “hate speech” or even “replacement theory,” often trotted out for effect when the speaker needs to strike an emotional chord, the bill leapfrogs pre-crime to a total reversal of cause and effect. A content creator can be charged with conspiracy to commit a white supremacy motivated hate crime so long as the actual criminal can be shown to have engaged with their content before committing the crime. In fact, they don’t even need to engage with it – so long as the content could theoretically motivate a “person predisposed to engaging in a white supremacy inspired hate crime” to, well, you know. It’s completely subjective, based on what a “reasonable person” would do when no “reasonable person” would be caught dead in the same room as this bill. This means if someone reads the nursery rhyme “Baa baa black sheep” – declared ‘problematic’ nearly a decade ago for its racial overtones – then picks up an AR-15 and shoots a black family at church, the nursery rhyme writers could be charged with conspiracy to commit a white supremacy-motivated hate crime. Jackson Lee herself cited the example of “someone making a post online that catches the attention of someone who then drives to North Texas and kills 20 Mexican Americans” to make clear precisely how unhinged she is.

It’s doubtful that such a case would make it to court, or lead to a conviction if it did, but public opinion – a product of think tank fellows rather than crowds – can turn on a dime. What sorority girl getting sloshed on margaritas in an oversized Cinco de Mayo sombrero in 2012 would have thought she’d be sentenced to remedial readings of “White Fragility” in 2022? The aim is not to create more work for the official censors but to spook the target into silence with fear of what could happen. Leaving the definition of “white supremacy” open-ended allows an ever-larger spectrum of opinion to be cordoned off as toxic, banned from university campuses and social media, and finally memory-holed as unthinkable. At the same time, actual racists like Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov Battalion are invited with open arms to travel the US speaking on university campuses, swastika tattoos and all. While the Anti-Defamation League is quick to tar and feather anyone who points out Israeli war crimes, the censorship-loving Jewish organization has issued what amounts to an official indulgence for Ukraine’s biggest Third Reich fanboys.

Given the FBI’s penchant for crafting terrorism plots out of whole cloth, it would be a simple matter to take out all online wrongthinkers in one fell swoop under the white supremacy conspiracy law – just set up the usual militia honeypot for disaffected white boys, hand them the gear and point them at the minority in question, and make sure a manifesto is found nearby conspicuously listing the websites of every influential dissident in America. While last year’s Missouri v. Biden lawsuit proved – and the Twitter Files confirmed – that social media platforms were being used by a dozen or more government agencies to circumvent First Amendment prohibitions on state censorship, this new arrangement would eliminate even the need for that end-run, requiring only the fig leaf of Unacceptable White Supremacist Beliefs™ to justify the most egregious constitutional abuses.

“Replacement theory” – the idea that white Americans and/or Europeans are being deliberately supplanted in “their” nations by swarthy foreign hordes to suit nefarious ruling class purposes – first entered the mainstream discourse when Tarrant, who titled his manifesto “The Great Replacement,” supposedly set out to kill as many Muslims as possible because they were out-breeding Europeans. Tarrant’s manifesto would have gotten quite a few people in trouble as white-supremacy conspirators, many of them dead – it includes poems from Dylan Thomas and Rudyard Kipling, memes, Wikipedia articles, and an infamous passage explicitly citing black conservative commentator Candace Owens as his ideological inspiration. Tarrant and copycats like Payton Gendron (the Buffalo supermarket shooter and friend of the FBI whose manifesto borrowed liberally from Tarrant and others) have helped transform the epithet “conspiracy theory” from CIA-sponsored smear to precursor of violent extremism, though they couldn’t have done it without UNESCO, the World Jewish Congress, and the Council of Europe, who recently joined forces to remind humanity that “conspiracy theories cause real harm to people, to their health, and also to their physical safety.”

Europe has taken the legal lead in equating conspiracy theory to terrorism, banning author David Icke from the entire Schengen Area last year because his scheduled speech at a peace rally in the Netherlands posed a potential “threat to public order.” Rather than stand up to the police state, the media eagerly flew to its side, quoting “experts” who sagely opined that the “danger” posed by Icke’s “conspiracy ideology” was both clear and present and could inflict “lasting harm” upon the country.

This is in keeping with the refrain the WHO has kept up all alongside Covid-19 – that a deadly “infodemic” is spreading through sharing unapproved information about the virus, and that good citizens refrain from posting conspiracy theories online because words are equivalent to violence. This is a central part of children’s “media literacy” classes, aimed at building the perfect content filter directly into the child – because Big Brother can’t be everywhere. The idea is to graduate a generation for whom privacy is alien, dissent is criminal, obedience is a competitive sport, and turning in your parents for wrongthink is second-nature, all justified by the vague nonspecific crisis that has been looming in the background since they were born.

The censorship of New Dawn, the university witch-hunts against Dr. Coles and both Millers, the absurd white supremacy conspiracy bill, are all symptoms of the same totalitarian virus gradually sucking the will to resist out of humanity. Just as viruses need host cells to multiply, so does this one require an army of facilitators – “fake news” bounty hunters, “disinformation experts,” and the like – to smooth out humanity’s rough edges into blissful obedience. A pandemic – even an artificially-inflated synthetic one like Covid-19 – has to end, but an infodemic is forever, and this one has proven 100% fatal to human rights.

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Helen Buyniski is a journalist and photographer based in New York City. Her work has appeared on RT, Global Research, Ghion Journal, Progressive Radio Network, and Veterans Today. Helen has a BA in Journalism from New School University and also studied at Columbia University and New York University. Find more of her work at http://helenofdestroy.com and http://medium.com/@helen.buyniski or follow her on Twitter at @velocirapture23.

She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

T.J Coles articles on Global Research

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I recently came across a fantastic email exchange between Francis Leader and the UK Medicine Regulator, the MHRA –  

In this exchange, the MHRA admits that as regards the Covid-19 vaccines –

1. The DNA template used does not come directly from an isolated virus from an infected person
2. The DNA template (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 GenBank 908947.3), was generated via a combination of gene synthesis and recombinant DNA technology.

Source

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The Russian special envoy for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, accuses Washington of attempting to build ties with armed opponents of the current Afghan government.

In an interview with Russia 24 TV, Kabulov added that the United States is seeking blackmail by freezing Afghan assets.

“They really want to avenge their shameful military-political defeat in Afghanistan and, in retaliation, they do everything so that peace is not established in this long-suffering land, but even worse is that, in addition to contacts with the armed opposition in Afghanistan, they secretly sponsor Daesh,” Kabulov said.

“Americans are using this tool as a pretext for blackmail. I promise to clear the never-ending case. To be frank, the authorities are currently using the humanitarian help that has been allotted to Afghanistan as a tool of pressure,” he said.

In reaction to the Russian special envoy’s remarks, the Islamic Emirate’s spokesperson, Zabiullah Mujahid, said that the current government will not allow any country to interfere in Afghanistan. He reiterated that the Islamic Emirate seeks good ties with all countries.

“Afghanistan is an independent country. We do not want any country’s interference here and we work to maintain good ties with all countries,” Mujahid said.

Kabulov said that there will be a number of meetings regarding Afghanistan with participation from regional nations in the next months. He added that assisting the Afghan people will be on the agenda of these events.

“The US uses the blocking of the Afghan people’s assets as a tool for political pressure and the most important negative impact of this pressure from the US is placing the Afghan people in a dire situation in terms of their economy and livelihood,” said Abdul Latif Nazari, the deputy minister of economy.

“The Islamic Emirate should strengthen its ties with all countries, including those in the region so that the US would no longer be able to interfere in Afghanistan,” said Abdul Jamil Shirani, a political analyst.

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In September 2022, The Epoch Times asked the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to release its Proportional Reporting Ratio (PRR) data mining results. The CDC refused. A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request has now forced the release of these data, and they are stunning

The CDC’s PRR monitoring has identified several hundred safety signals, including for Bell’s palsy, blood clots, pulmonary embolism and death. In individuals aged 18 and older, there are 770 safety signals for different adverse events, and more than 500 of them have a stronger safety signal than myocarditis and pericarditis

In the 12- to 17-year-old age group there are 96 safety signals, and in the 5- to 11-year-old group there are 66, including myocarditis, pericarditis, ventricular dysfunction, cardiac valve incompetency, pericardial and pleural effusion, chest pain, appendicitis and appendectomies, Kawasaki’s disease and vitiligo

The proportions of deaths, which were only provided for the 18-plus age group, was 14% for the COVID jabs compared to 4.7% for all other vaccines

The FDA is also required to perform safety monitoring, using empirical Bayesian data mining. The Epoch Times asked the FDA to release its monitoring results in July 2022 but, like the CDC, the FDA refused, only to admit in December 2022 they’d confirmed the Pfizer shot was linked to pulmonary embolism

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In September 2022, The Epoch Times asked the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to release its Proportional Reporting Ratio (PRR) data mining results. PRR¹ measures how common an adverse event is for a specific drug compared to all the other drugs in the database.

According to the standard operating procedures^2,3 for the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which is run jointly by the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration, the CDC is required to perform these data mining analyses.

Not only did the CDC refuse to release the data, but it also provided false information — twice — in response to The Epoch Times’ questions about the monitoring being performed. As reported by The Epoch Times back in September 2022,⁴ the CDC initially claimed PRR analyses were “outside the agency’s purview” and that no monitoring was being done by them.

Eventually, the agency admitted it was doing PRRs, starting in February 2021, only to later claim they didn’t perform any PRRs until March 2022. The Epoch Times also cited several papers in which the FDA and/or CDC claimed their data mining efforts had come up empty handed.⁵ Now, we find that was all a pack of lies.

CDC Monitoring Reveals Hundreds of Safety Signals

In reality, the CDC’s PRR monitoring reveals HUNDREDS of safety signals, including Bell’s palsy, blood clots, pulmonary embolism and death — all of which, according to the rules, require thorough investigation to either confirm or rule out a possible link to the shots. As reported by The Epoch Times in early January 2023:⁶

“The CDC analysis was conducted on adverse events reported from Dec. 14, 2020, to July 29, 2022. The Epoch Times obtained the results through a Freedom of Information Act request after the CDC refused to make the results public …

PRR involves comparing the incidence of a specific adverse event after a specific vaccine to the incidence after all other vaccines. A signal is triggered when three thresholds are met, according to the CDC: a PRR of at least 2, a chi-squared statistic of at least 4, and three or more cases of the event following receipt of the vaccine being analyzed. Chi-squared tests are a form of statistical analysis used to examine data.

The results obtained by The Epoch Times show that there are hundreds of adverse events (AEs) that meet the definition, including serious conditions such as blood clotting in the lungs, intermenstrual bleeding, a lack of oxygen to the heart, and even death. The high numbers, particularly the chi-squared figures, concerned experts.

For many of the events, ‘the chi-squared is so high that, from a Bayesian perspective, the probability that the true rate of the AE of the COVID vaccines is not higher than that of the non-COVID vaccines is essentially zero,’ Norman Fenton, a professor of risk management at Queen Mary University of London, told The Epoch Times in an email after running the numbers through a Bayesian model that provides probabilities based on available information.”

Myopericarditis Is Far From the Only Problem

One of the few side effects of the COVID jabs that the CDC has actually acknowledged is myocarditis (heart inflammation), and a related condition called pericarditis (inflammation of the heart sack). Alas, the PRR monitoring results reveal there are more than 500 other adverse events that have stronger warning signals than either of those conditions.

Josh Guetzkow, an Israeli professor trained in statistics at Princeton University told The Epoch Times:⁷

“We know that the signal for myocarditis is associated with something that is caused by the mRNA vaccines, so it’s more than reasonable to say that anything with a signal larger than myocarditis/pericarditis should be taken seriously and investigated.”

Guetzkow expanded on his commentary in a January 4, 2023, Substack article.⁸ Below is a summary list of some of the key findings from the CDC’s PRR analysis. Guetzkow goes deeper in his article, so for more details, I suggest reading it in its entirety.

For even more analyses and commentary, see Fenton’s Substack article, “The CDC’s Data on COVID Vaccine Safety Signals.”⁹ If you want to investigate the PRR data for yourself, you can download them from The Epoch Times’ January 3, 2023, article.¹⁰ You can also find them here.¹¹

It’s worth noting that the CDC didn’t perform its first safety signal analysis until March 25, 2022 — 15 months after the shots were rolled out. Why the long wait — especially since the CDC had announced it would begin monitoring in early 2021? Just consider, for a moment, how many lives have been lost because the CDC failed to properly monitor safety, and still drags its feet when it comes to warning people about the risks involved.

FDA Still Refuses to Share Safety Data

The FDA is also required to perform safety monitoring using another technique called Empirical Bayesian data mining. The Epoch Times first asked the FDA to release its monitoring results back in July 2022,^13,14 but like the CDC, the FDA refused and insisted the data showed no evidence of serious adverse effects. In other words, “Just trust us. We’re experts.”

According to the FDA, the only potential signal they’d found through April 16, 2021, was for raised body temperature.¹⁵ Then, in mid-December 2022 — just four months after The Epoch Times tried to get these data — the FDA announced that pulmonary embolism (blood clots that block blood flow in the lungs) had met the threshold for a statistical signal, and continued to meet the criteria after in-depth evaluation, but it was only linked to the Pfizer jab.¹⁶

As noted by The Epoch Times,¹⁷ pulmonary embolism is also identified as a signal in the CDC’s PRR analysis for individuals as young as 12, which really ought to strengthen concerns.

The FDA also admitted it had already evaluated three other warning signals: lack of oxygen to the heart, immune thrombocytopenia (a blood platelet disorder) and intravascular coagulation (a type of blood clotting), but none of these continued to meet the threshold after analysis.

If the FDA was evaluating four warning signals, why did they tell The Epoch Times there was no evidence of ill effects, and why did they claim the only potential signal they’d found was slight fever? Are we to believe they discovered these signals after The Epoch Times asked for the monitoring results and then completed four in-depth investigations in four months?

Whatever the truth, it’s clear that both the CDC and FDA are not being transparent. Worse, they’ve hidden data, knowing it could mean the difference between life and death for hundreds of thousands of people.

CDC Has Ignored Clear ‘Death’ Signal

The CDC ignoring a clear signal for death is probably the most egregious example of its failures as a public health institution. As early as July 2021, Matthew Crawford published a three-part series^18,19,20 detailing how the CDC was hiding safety signals by using a flawed formula. In August that year, Steve Kirsch informed the agency of these problems, but was ignored.

Then, in an October 3, 2022, article,²¹ Kirsch went on to show how “death” should have triggered a signal even when using the CDC’s flawed formula (which is described in its VAERS standard operating procedures manual²²). Here’s an excerpt:²³

“The formula the CDC uses for generating safety signals is fundamentally flawed; a ‘bad’ vaccine with lots of adverse events will ‘mask’ large numbers of important safety signals … Let me summarize the key points for you in a nutshell: PRR [proportional reporting ratio] is defined on page 16 in the CDC document²⁴ as follows …

A ‘safety signal’ is defined on page 16 in the CDC document as a PRR of at least 2, chi-squared statistic of at least 4, and 3 or more cases of the AE [adverse event] following receipt of the specific vaccine of interest. This is the famous ‘and clause.’ Here it is from the document:

Only someone who is incompetent or is deliberately trying to make the vaccines look safe would use the word ‘and’ in the definition of a safety signal.

Using ‘and’ means that if any one of the conditions isn’t satisfied, no safety signal will be generated. As noted below, the PRR will rarely trigger which virtually guarantees that most events generated by an unsafe vaccine will never get flagged.

The PRR value for the COVID vaccines will rarely exceed 1 because there are so many adverse events from the COVID vaccine because it is so dangerous (i.e., B in the formula is a huge number) so the numerator is always near zero. Hence, the ‘safety signal’ is rarely triggered because the vaccine is so dangerous.”

A Fictitious Example

Using a fictitious vaccine as the example, Kirsch explained how an exceptionally dangerous vaccine will fly under the radar and not get flagged, thanks to this flawed formula:²⁵

“Suppose we have the world’s most dangerous vaccine that causes adverse events in everyone who gets it and generates 25,000 different adverse events, and each adverse event has 1,000 instances.

That means that the numerator is 1,000/25,000,000 which is just 40 events per million reported events. Now let’s look at actuals for something like deaths. For all other vaccines, there are 6,200 deaths and 1 million adverse events total.

Since 40 per million is less than 6,200 deaths per million, we are not even close to generating a safety signal for deaths from our hypothetical vaccine which killed 1,000 people in a year … The point is that a dangerous vaccine can look very ‘safe’ using the PRR formula.”

Calculating Death Signal for the COVID Jab

Next, Kirsch calculates the PRR for death for the COVID jab — using VAERS data and the CDC’s definitions and formula. As of December 31, 2019, there were 6,157 deaths and 918,717 adverse events total for all vaccines other than the COVID shot. As of September 23, 2022, there were 31,214 deaths and 1.4 million adverse events total for the COVID jabs. Here’s the formula as explained by Kirsch:²⁶

“PRR = (31,214/1.4e6) / (6,157/918,717) = 3.32, which exceeds the required threshold of 2. In other words, the COVID vaccine is so deadly that even with all the adverse events generated by the vaccine, the death signal did not get drowned out!

But there is still the chi-square test. Chi-square test results were 18,549 for ‘death,’ which greatly exceeds the required threshold of 4. The CDC chi-square test is clearly satisfied for the COVID vaccine. Because the death signal is so huge, it even survived the PRR test.

This means that even using the CDCs own erroneous … formula, all three criteria were satisfied:

A safety signal should have been generated but wasn’t. Why not? … Hundreds of thousands of American lives have been lost due to the inability of the CDC to deploy their own flawed safety signal analysis … It’s been known since at least 2004 that using reporting odds ratio (ROR) is a better estimate of relative risk than PRR.²⁷ I don’t know why the CDC doesn’t use it.”

The CDC is also hiding the severity of side effects in other ways. As explained by Fenton,²⁸ the way side effects are categorized by the CDC help obfuscate the scale of certain problems. For example, “cardiac failure acute,” “cardiac failure,” “infarction,” “myocardial strain” and “myocardial fibrosis” are listed as separate categories, even though in real life they’re all potential effects of myocarditis.

By separating them, you end up with fewer frequency counts per category, thereby giving you an underpowered chi-square test so that a warning signal is not triggered. If related categories were merged, far stronger safety signals would likely emerge.

CDC Has No Reasonable Defense

The CDC is responsible for monitoring both VAERS and V-Safe, and between these two databases, there’s no possible way they could ever say they didn’t know the shots were harming and killing millions of Americans.

The CDC also has access to other databases, including the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED), which (before it was intentionally altered²⁹) showed massive increases in debilitating and lethal conditions, including a tripling of cancer cases.³⁰

The findings in these databases have never been brought forward during any of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) meetings or the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) meetings, at which members have repeatedly voted to authorize the jabs to people of all ages, including infants and pregnant women.

They even added these toxic shots to the childhood vaccine schedule — which allows states to mandate them for school attendance — without addressing any of the 66 safety signals found in the CDC’s PRR analysis. The fact of the matter is that the CDC has known about these risks all along, and there’s no excuse for not sharing and acting on these data.

Help Spread the Word

Mainstream media are ignoring all of this, so help spread the word. Everyone needs to know what the CDC’s safety data reveal. To that end, here are a few suggestions for how you can help:

• Write or call your members of Congress and ask them to investigate the CDC’s safety monitoring — We cannot have a public safety agency that is incapable of monitoring safety and taking appropriate action when problems are found, be it correcting a flawed formula or announcing that a safety signal has been detected. Of course, they must also publish their findings once an investigation has been made.
• Contact your local newspaper and urge them to investigate and report on the CDC’s failure to act on safety signals.
• Share the data on social media and ask why no one in the media, Congress, academia or medical community is investigating these matters.
• Share this information with your doctor and members of the medical community.
• Also share it with university administrators, and ask them to explain how and why, in light of these data, they are still mandating COVID shots.

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Notes

¹ All About Pharmacovigilance PRR

² VAERS Standard Operating Procedures January 2021

³ VAERS Standard Operating Procedures February 2022

^{4, 5, 13, 15} Epoch Times September 10, 2022

^{6, 7, 10, 17} Epoch Times January 3, 2023 (Archived)

⁸ Josh Guetzkow Substack January 4, 2023

^9, 12, 28 Where Are the Numbers? Substack January 4, 2023

¹¹ Public Tableau PRR VAERS Data Summary 12/14/2020-7/29/2022

¹⁴ Josh Guetzkow Substack September 14, 2022

¹⁶ Epoch Times December 17, 2022 (Archived)

¹⁸ Rounding the Earth Newsletter Part 1

¹⁹ Rounding the Earth Newsletter Part 2

²⁰ Rounding the Earth Newsletter Part 3

^{21, 23, 25, 26} Steve Kirsch Substack October 3, 2022

^22, 24 CDC VAERS Standard Operating Procedures January 29, 2021

²⁷ Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Safety August 2004; 13(8): 519-523

²⁹ WISPolitics February 10, 2022

³⁰ Steve Kirsch Substack February 5, 2022 DMED

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Arab citizens across the Middle East and North Africa continue to view Israel and the United States as the primary threats to their country’s security, and opposition to normalization with the Jewish state remains high, according to the 2022 Arab Opinion Index released Thursday by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Qatar.

Approximately 80 percent of respondents said that U.S. and Israeli policies “threaten the security and stability of the region.” By contrast, 57 percent said the same about Iran and Russia, an almost 15-point improvement for both countries since 2016. Turkey and China were the only countries that earned a positive approval rating for their policies in the Arab world.

“There is a general sense of American hypocrisy on Middle East policy,” argued Dana El Kurd, a professor at the University of Richmond, at a press briefing about the findings. “There is a sense that there is a Middle East exception to this administration’s pro-democracy position.”

Respondents had a particularly dim view of U.S. policy on Palestine, with only 11 percent saying they approve of Washington’s positions. By comparison, 31 percent of those polled approved of Iranian policy toward the Palestinians, and 43 percent approved of Turkish policy.

The Arab Opinion Index survey includes data from largely in-person interviews with 33,000 respondents across 14 Arab countries. (Interviews with Saudi respondents took place over the phone.) The 2022 poll is the eighth since 2011, when the Arab Center launched the project. Interviewers posed a wide range of questions on democracy, politics, and the economy.

While the detailed poll results are only available in Arabic, Arab Center Washington DC published an executive summary of the survey in English. Countries polled included Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Tunisia.

When it comes to foreign policy, the results highlight the sharp disconnect between the citizens of Arab countries and their leaders, many of whom have begun to seek détente with Israel. While the poll found a significant shift in favor of normalization in Morocco and Sudan — both of which, along with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, have already established ties with Israel — the vast majority (84 percent) of all respondents opposed any form of diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv.

In Saudi Arabia, which Israel has considered the most important target for mutual recognition, only five percent of respondents said they favored normalization, while 38 percent said they were opposed, and 57 percent said they either didn’t know or declined to answer. Opposition was strongest in Algeria, Mauritania, Libya, Palestine, Jordan, and Tunisia where from 90 to 99 percent of respondents said they opposed normalization with the Jewish state.

U.S. policymakers should take this divide into consideration when they formulate policy for the region, argued Khalil Jahshan, the executive director of the Arab Center Washington DC.

“For countries that pride themselves on support for democracy, it behooves them to look at public opinion… to look at what the public really wants,” Jahshan said.

The vast majority of respondents expressed support for democratic governance, though 47 percent expressed concern that their country is “unprepared for democracy.”

While 80 percent of those polled viewed the Arab people as a single nation, the survey revealed sharp divides between Gulf states and the rest of the Arab world over economic issues.

Over 90 percent of Gulf citizens described their family’s economic situation as good or very good, as compared to 66 percent in North Africa and 50 percent in the Levant. Eighty-six percent of Gulf natives said their household income was enough to get by or save money, while nearly half of Levant citizens — including respondents from Jordan, Palestine, and Lebanon — said their income is not enough to cover daily costs.

Nearly three out of four (73 percent) respondents said their home country suffered from widespread corruption. In Lebanon, Tunisia, and Iraq, more than 90 percent of respondents reported extensive corruption, while in Qatar and Saudi Arabia less than 30 percent said the same.

Notably, the survey also found that 36 percent of respondents rely on online news as their primary source of information, a 31-point jump from 2011, when the question was first asked. Despite the interest in online news, 57 percent said they do not trust information circulated on social media.

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***

Auditors say the Pentagon cannot account for $220 billion worth of government-owned gear provided to military contractors—and the actual total is likely much higher.

In a report released Tuesday, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) slammed the Pentagon’s handling of so-called “government-furnished property” (GFP) that has been passed off to contractors with little oversight. The GAO notes that auditors have asked for decades that the Pentagon develop a plan to account for that gear and equipment—which can include “ammunition, missiles, torpedoes,” and component parts for those items—to little avail. In 2001, the Pentagon said it would address the issue by 2005. In 2020, it said the process would be complete by 2026.

Perhaps someday we’ll know how much taxpayer-funded military gear has been handed out to contractors. For now, the GAO notes that the $220 billion estimate is “likely significantly understated.” That figure is based on a 2014 report, but in 2016 the Army told auditors that the actual figure is “unknown and that actual quantities may be greatly different than the Army’s documented property records reflect.”

The Pentagon failed a fifth consecutive audit in November, when it could only account for 39 percent of its $3.5 trillion in assets. Nevertheless, the military received $858 billion—a 10 percent budget increase—in the omnibus bill passed late last year.

The amount of taxpayer-funded military gear that’s been handed out to contractors is a relatively small sum compared to the Pentagon’s astronomical budget and gordian accounting issues. Even so, it serves as an illustrative example of the broader accountability problems within the most expensive portion of the federal discretionary budget.

“DOD’s lack of accountability over government property in the possession of contractors has been reported by auditors as far back as 1981,” the new GAO report states. “These long-standing issues affect the accounting for and reporting of GFP and are one of the reasons DOD is unable to produce auditable financial statements.”

It can also serve as a litmus test for the seriousness of would-be fiscal conservatives who are calling for spending cuts.

The new Republican majority in the House of Representatives has vowed to roll back discretionary spending to 2022 levels—effectively undoing the omnibus bill passed in December. But some are already indicating that they would like to exempt the Pentagon from that belt-tightening.

“During negotiations, cuts to defense were never discussed,” Rep. Chip Roy (R–Texas) said in a statement posted to his office’s Twitter account last week. “Spending cuts should focus on non-defense discretionary spending.”

That’s a bunch of nonsense. If the Department of Education couldn’t account for more than 39 percent of its assets, conservatives would rightly be outraged about the rampant waste. If the Department of Transportation had misplaced more than $220 billion of equipment, they would likely haul Secretary Pete Buttigieg before a committee to answer for the mess. The Pentagon should be treated no differently—in fact, given the long-standing accountability issues there, it should arguably be subjected to even tighter scrutiny.

A bipartisan group of senators including included Chuck Grassley (R–Iowa), Mike Lee (R–Utah), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), and Ron Wyden (D–Ore.), proposed a possible solution last year. Their bill would automatically cut 1 percent from the budget of any part of the Pentagon that fails an annual audit. If that had passed, 20 of the Pentagon’s 27 agencies would have faced budget cuts this year.

As it stands, there is little incentive for the military bureaucracy to get its act together because lawmakers from both parties will vote to shower more money on the Pentagon even when it can’t account for most of what it’s already been given. That won’t change until Congress’ approach to the Pentagon budget does.

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Eric Boehm is a reporter at Reason.

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***

While Western journalists insist that Ukraine is “winning” the conflict, experienced military and analysts continue to point to the evident fact that Russia cannot be defeated so easily. In a recent interview, a top US general commented that the situation is very complicated for the Ukrainians, who will have many difficulties to fulfill their promise to “expel” Russian forces from territories already reintegrated into Moscow’s sovereign space.

According to the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, Ukraine will face many problems in order to achieve its military objectives in the current conflict against Russia. He points out that most Western leaders, and even the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, despite the bellicose speech, believe that the resolution of the conflict will be done through diplomatic negotiations instead of by force. Milley seems skeptical of any possibility of Ukrainian success through the military dispute.

Milley also commented on the time it would take to end hostilities. Although some Ukrainian and Western politicians claim that they plan to expel the Russians as soon as possible, he does not believe in the possibility of this process being completed by 2023. The solid positions maintained by the Russian forces in the regions newly integrated into the Federation make it difficult to believe in the possibility of a rapid military reversal strong enough to guarantee Kiev the control of these territories.

“President Biden, President Zelensky, and most of the leaders of Europe have said this war is likely to end in a negotiation (…) From a military standpoint, this is a very, very difficult fight (…) I still maintain that for this year, it would be very, very difficult to militarily eject the Russian forces from every inch of Russian-occupied Ukraine (…) That doesn’t mean it can’t happen, doesn’t mean it won’t happen. But it’d be very, very difficult”, he said during the interview.

Milley’s views sound realistic. He makes it clear that Ukraine’s weaknesses will not be overcome so easily, despite Western help. The US alone has already sent over 110 billion dollars in military aid to Kiev, providing packages that include heavy weapons, combat vehicles, anti-aircraft systems and over a million artillery shells. Europe and NATO allied nations are also providing everything they can to the Ukrainian neo-Nazi regime. However, Russian military superiority sounds evident, as Moscow celebrates more and more important victories, such as the recent seizures of Soledar and Klescheevka.

There are many factors that explain Russia’s success despite Western aid to Ukraine. Moscow’s focus is on avoiding a war of attrition that needlessly kills Russian soldiers and civilians. For this, there is a strategic direction of the fighting forces to key regions, where the military victory makes viable the cutting of the supply lines of the Ukrainian forces. Also, Russian artillery focuses on big military zones and infrastructure facilities, while parallel troops, such as the private military company “Wagner Group” play the role of infantry force, mainly in urban areas.

On the other hand, Kiev seems to have difficulties in strategically managing the conflict. Despite NATO’s support, the Ukrainian forces, as already reported by several on the ground informants, are marked by disorganization and corruption. Most Western weapons are absolutely new to the Ukrainian soldiers, who do not know how to operate them correctly, often causing damages against their own side.

Furthermore, Ukrainians seem to prioritize territory over human lives, unlike Russians. While Moscow constantly promotes strategic retreats to save lives, Kiev keeps troops in the trenches even when the battles are virtually lost. The result is the death of thousands of soldiers in unnecessary combat. These soldiers are replaced by new fighters, with not enough training and no military experience, resulting in strategic errors and more deaths.

In addition, it is important to mention that since 2014 Kiev deliberately attacks civilians and this has been getting worse as heavy weapons from the West arrive in the country. Much of the equipment imported by Ukraine has been used in demilitarized areas in Donbass for the sole purpose of murdering ethnic Russian civilians, without any military gain, which makes it even more complicated for this Western aid to have any real impact in the conflict.

In fact, Milley’s words just confirm what has already become a constant conclusion among military experts: Kiev is not able to defeat Russia – both because Moscow is militarily stronger and because of the lack of organizational and administrative capacity on the part of the Ukrainians. The possibility of a real military reversal would only happen in a scenario of more direct NATO’s intervention, but in this case the war would certainly escalate to the nuclear level and end without winners.

On the near horizon, only the Russian victory looks like a real scenario. The best to do is to resume the talks, with Kiev fully accepting Russian ceasefire terms. As Milley suggested, Western politicians themselves believe this, but they prefer to continue funding the conflict just to try to destabilize Russia’s strategic environment as much as possible, even if it costs the lives of Ukrainian citizens.

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

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***

The internal balances of the European Union are significantly transforming as a consequence of the US’ proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. The countries that are close neighbours of the conflict zone — countries of Eastern Europe and the Baltic States — have a greater sense of involvement in the conflict in comparison with the countries of Old Europe. These New Europeans have had a difficult history that puts them on a pronouncedly ‘anti-Russian’ trajectory. 

Their Manichean fears of Russia brought them closer to the US and post-Brexit Britain than to their natural allies in western Europe. Poland, the mightiest entity of New Europe, is investing massively in defence, which may catapult it as the leading military power in Europe. 

In 2022, Poland concluded a huge arms purchase contract with South Korea: heavy combat tanks (four times more than France), artillery, fighter jets, for 15 billion euros. Warsaw also signed a contract last month to purchase two observation satellites from France for 500 million euros. Poland is determined to be ever more consequential in European affairs. 

On the other hand, for Germany, Europe’s powerhouse, the war is a particularly sensitive issue and it is caught up in a certain constant questioning of itself. Germany’s Nazi legacy, its chosen dependence on Russian gas and the reluctance to deliver the first weapons to Ukraine put it in agony today over the issue of heavy tank deliveries. 

Nonetheless, Germany promptly seized the Russian special military operation in Ukraine to announce on February 27 a sharp increase in its military spending to more than 2% of its economic output in one of a series of policy shifts. The government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz decided to supply 100 billion euros for military investments from its 2022 budget. (Germany’s entire defence budget by comparison was 47 billion euros in 2021.)

Not to be left behind, President Emmanuel Macron said in June that Russia’s operation in Ukraine had sent France into “a war economy” that he expected to last a long time. He announced in the weekend he would ask parliament to approve a new budget of €400 billion for the period 2024-2030, up from €295 billion for 2019-2025.

The new budget is intended to modernise France’s military in the face of multiple potential new threats, Macron said on Friday, adding,  “After repairing the armed forces, we are going to transform them. We need to do better and do it differently.”

To be sure, the geopolitical earthquake in Ukraine caused tremors all over Europe and every country is evaluating its position and role. Although no country is questioning its European commitment, there is a palpable sense of disorientation. Scholz wrote in an essay two months ago in Foreign Affairs magazine that it was time for a Zeitenwende, or historic “turning point,” on Germany taking responsibility. 

Again, on Friday, Macron and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez signed a new treaty of joint cooperation, described as a historic friendship treaty to achieve common strategic objectives. They have  decided to put behind the tensions over the proposed MidCat gas pipeline through the Pyrenees (which was blocked by France due to environmental reasons.) 

But both countries have different motivations. France may be shoring up European support as it prepares to dispute with the US over the billions of dollars in subsidies for American companies as part of President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which aims to fund a green transition. And Spain probably aims to become a more prominent player in the nucleus of European power, and is estimating that a tighter alliance with France will help.

However, by Sunday, Macron is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Franco-German reconciliation of 1961 at a summit in Paris with Scholz, coupled with a joint Council of Ministers, with focus on recapturing the verve of the Paris-Berlin axis which used to preside over the EU until the conflict in Ukraine erupted. Whether that swagger can be recaptured remains to be seen. 

France and Germany were not ready for this war in Ukraine, while the countries of the Eastern front were more vigilant vis-à-vis Moscow and immediately perceived the stakes. The political cost of this discrepancy is not quantifiable yet. Meanwhile, the balance of power in Europe has changed, and it is unclear whether France and Germany will succeed in forging a new balance. 

For the present, Scholz has come under increasing pressure from allies to send German-made Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine, or to allow other countries to re-export from their own stocks. The US is leading this pantomime from the rear. 

Washington is determined to put the final nails on the coffin of German-Russian rapprochement and disrupt the revival of the Franco-German axis to address jointly a European response to Biden’s predatory subsidy law and map out pathways to protect European industry. The economic stakes are very high as, lured by US subsidy, a migration of European industry to America is likely. 

France and Germany are deeply skeptical that Washington will make meaningful changes to the green investment plan. At issue is “the ideal of a Europe that is united and in full control of its destiny,” as Macron said at the ceremony at Sorbonne in Paris today with Scholz by his side. Scholz in turn said, “Today we strive side by side to strengthen the sovereignty of Europe.” They affirmed amitié indestructible (indestructible friendship.)

Indeed, Poland chose precisely today to train its guns on Germany, while Macron and Scholz were celebrating the 60 years of Elysee Treaty in Paris to shore up their alliance with a day of ceremonies and talks on Europe’s security, energy and other challenges. 

Polish Prime Minister Morawiecki tore into Scholz in extremely harsh language threatening to build a “smaller coalition” of European countries if Germany does not agree to the transfer of Leopard 2 tanks. Morawiecki thundered: “Ukraine and Europe will win this war — with or without Germany.”

He accused Scholz of not “acting up to the potential of the German state” and of undermining or sabotaging “the actions of other countries.” Morawiecki raged in uncontrollable anger: “They (German politicians) hoped to pawn off the Russian bear with generous contracts. That policy bankrupted them, and to this day Germany finds it difficult to admit its mistake. Wandel durch Handel has become synonymous with epochal error.” 

It is still 36 hours to go for the first anniversary of the Russian operation in Ukraine. But the war has spilled over to Europe. As Russia steadily gains the upper hand militarily and the spectre of defeat haunts the US and NATO, Poland is getting frantic. A tipping point is coming for it to recover its “lost territory” in western Ukraine  if and when that country collapses — although Stalin had compensated Poland with more than 40,000 square miles of east German lands. 

Europe is unlikely to be party to Polish revanchism, especially Germany. These sweeping political maneuvers can be seen as an attempt to adapt to the new world of war and, perhaps, as well to prepare Europe for the one that comes after. 

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Featured image: France’s President Emmanuel Macron (R) with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as they arrive to attend a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the Elysee Treaty, Sorbonne university’s Grand Amphitheatre, Paris, Jan. 22, 2023

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***

Amidst indignant reactions to ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s revelations about the Minsk accords, worry about Americans “advising” Ukrainians en situ, and the back-and-forth of battle lines, it’s easy to forget what the Ukraine War is all about: the struggle of the United States to maintain its status as the world’s only superpower. More exactly, America’s attempt to suppress China as a rival superpower is the center of this tragedy.

China, allied with its back-door gas station Russia, is a nearly unbeatable foe. China’s seaports can easily be cut off if container ships are threatened against docking there. Its back door is another matter. So those hard-eyed folks in Washington, obsessed with the Wolfowitz Doctrine, need to eliminate or take over Russia. That is the sine qua non of the American strategy. Without this step, the strategy falls apart.

And the step needs to be taken quickly; already the confrontation with China is picking up momentum.

Hence the Ukraine War. As President Biden ad-libbed himself, “[Putin] cannot remain in power.” He later walked back the comment, but the slip obviously reflects thinking in the Oval Office. The nice way to remove him is to cause a Russian defeat in Ukraine and the resignation — or worse — of its president, replaced (neocons hope) by a pliable drunk like Boris Yeltsin. I would imagine that foreign-policy blobbers long ago convinced themselves that they would really, actually, in their heart-of-hearts prefer to do things this way. Because the other way is not nice.

Not nice at all: the other option is a nuclear attack. Invasion of Russia won’t do the trick. Russians would see it coming a mile off. And they wouldn’t stand for a conventional war on their territory because they know they would lose. Nor would they stand for another Yeltsin, nor a foreign ruler that broke the country into ten pieces. Long before the Yankees got to within a HIMARS-throw of Moscow, Russia would resort to nuclear weapons.

The savants of Washington know this, as they have always known that Russia could not possibly lose a conventional war against Ukraine: a table-flat country, on its border, with a third the population, and no real war-making resources other than an actor-president who — credit where credit is due — could sell sand in the Sahara. I would give him his bust in the halls of Congress just for sheer chutzpah.

A conventional attack being impossible, Washington needs a war right on Russia’s border to use as cover, as an excuse, for a nuclear attack. If you doubt that their determination, remember that this reckless gambit in international affairs has been built through four administrations of neocons, who: 1) scrapped the relevant arms-control treaties; 2) overthrew a democratically-elected regime on Russia’s border; 3) pulled Europe apart from Russia, wrecking the European economy; and 4) literally destroyed the NordStream pipeline to make sure that the wreck stayed wrecked. I would imagine that even among older practitioners of U.S. foreign policy — Kissinger, Baker and their lot — those measures must have raised a few eyebrows. Biden’s crew is like fifteen-year-olds let loose in the foreign-policy candy store.

There are two ways, as I see it, of the war provoking a nuclear crisis: if the United States and/or Nato enter the war, or if, somehow, the Ukrainians mount a chemical- or biological-weapon attack against Russia, perhaps a dirty bomb. In either case, a crisis explodes, threats are made, and the U.S. has an excuse to unleash a nuclear attack on Russia — maybe with just a minimum of tactical nukes to impose a surrender, for only God and the CIA know what the Americans can actually do.

The point is to have a credible excuse for a first strike; without the Ukraine War, credibility would have been problematic — or at least more problematic; I have no doubt that, in a pinch, the same agile novelists who gave us the Kennedy Assassination and 9-11 could come up with a vivid tale. Whatever it is, the public will accept it, for they have been carefully cultivated by media stories about Russia: how Putin has turned into a dictator, how the LGBT community is persecuted, how Russian men fled the country to avoid conscription, and especially, repeatedly, poundingly like the drumming on a heavy-metal tune, that Vladimir Putin is a madman, a megalomaniac.

When the first images of blasted-out Moscow appear, President Biden will explain to a frightened world his heart-wrenching decision to strike first: the covers of Siberian rocket silos had been removed, the radio traffic was unmistakable, humint and e-lint confirmed suspicions, the Russian military brass had all suddenly slipped away to command centers around the country, and the crowning touch: President Putin’s recent mental state was “extremely concerning.” His statement need be but the merest window-dressing; the public, though appalled, will breathe a sigh of relief to know that this madman is no more.

President Biden would never do such a thing? This foggy-headed grandfather might be fully against World War III, but his foreign-policy team has by now taken the measure of him and knows exactly what to say in order to panic him into acting.

The foreign-policy crew fears a nuclear response from Putin? Hardly. They seem to have taken the Russian’s measure as well, and come away satisfied. Putin didn’t react when: 1) Nato expanded again and again; 2) Washington staged the coup d’etat in Kiev; 3) Washington (the only real suspect, either hands-on or not) sabotaged the NordStream 2 pipeline; and 4) when Washington assisted the Ukrainian government’s attack on the Donbass. Indeed, Putin waited through eight years of this violence to finally invade, having exhausted every other possibility to avoid war, and even then launched not a war but a lame “special military operation.”

Add all of this to the neocons’ wishful thinking that once Russia is out of the way, China will be a piece of cake that they will eat deliciously smacking their lips; and a nuclear first strike easily crosses into their realm of the feasible. Hitler and Napoleon would understand.

How strange that the drive to conquer Russia returns again and again in history; it is the West’s recurring nightmare, and it will be this time as well — though this aspect of the Ukraine story is strictly ignored by our slovenly mainstream media. So I leave the last word to Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, who said, “The past is indestructible; sooner or later everything comes back around, and one of the things that come back around is the project to abolish the past.”

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***

 

 

 

This is the advice which social media say the U.S. Government is today giving to the Zelensky regime in Kiev. It follows by a day or two the public release by German intelligence operatives of their own assessment of the latest course of the war, saying that the stubborn resistance of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to advancing Russian ground units in Artyomovsk (Bakhmut), just as the defense of Soledar (lost to the Russians a week ago) was and is a death trap set by the Russians for the Ukrainians. As the U.S. overlords understand today, continued losses of Ukrainian forces in these hopeless PR stunts are compromising any chances of their making a spring counteroffensive when the advanced military gear now being shipped to them arrives and is put into the field.

What conclusion can we reach from “withdraw from Artyomovsk”?  Very simply that the notion of 1:1 death and ingured rates that the Anglosaxon news disseminators have been shouting for weeks to slant the news towards some “stalemate” between the opposing sides is pure nonsense.  It would be safer to follow the figures put out by the Russian military, which indicate a 10:1 imbalance in casualties on the Ukrainian side.

Meanwhile, the big news in the past 24 hours was the meeting of the Ukraine Contact Group in the German army base at Ramstein. This was most notable for the failure of the defense ministers of the 50 participating countries to reach any agreement over delivery of tanks to the Ukrainians. Tanks are allegedly needed to support Ukraine’s spring counter offensive, with the objective not merely to push back the Russians to the line of demarcation in Donbas prior to the start of the Special Military Operation, but even to recapture the Crimea.

The central issue at Ramstein was German Chancellor Scholz’s refusal to send in German Leopard heavy tanks or to allow the many NATO countries where Leopards are held in the inventory to send any of their tanks to Kiev.  Scholz is said to insist the Americans first ship their own Abrams tanks to Kiev before Germany will lift a finger.  And why is he being so stubborn in resisting all the jackal states in NATO on this very issue? Western reports say he is fearful of leading the pack on delivery of tanks and incurring special Russian wrath.

Let us decode this message:  the German chancellor is not some indecisive imbecile, as our newspapers hint.  No, he is a cunning fox who is unwilling to allow Washington to send him and Europe to hell in what could easily become a Russia-NATO hot war if the Russian red lines forbidding heavy armaments deliveries are crossed.

So all the Ukrainians will get by way of new weapon systems as per the decisions announced yesterday in Ramstein are token deliveries of armored personnel carriers and armored machine gun and cannon vehicles that one might just call light tanks.   That and a lot more howitzers of every variety coming from several different NATO countries.

But in terms of the big picture, what difference would tanks make?   The vision of big tank warfare across the Ukrainian steppes that underlies the Washington war scenario is fallacious.  As I have pointed out repeatedly, despite the lies and PR blasts from Washington and London, the war is being fought according to the Russian scheme, not the U.S. scheme.

We have heard how poorly the Russians coordinate air and ground.  We have heard how they just cannot put together any good shock and awe. But this is beside the point.  The Russians are waging an artillery war for good reasons:  they have the world’s largest manufacturing industry of cannon, multi-rocket field launchers and munitions and they are waging a war of attrition on the ground which can only favor their armies.

If the slaughter of Ukrainians continues at its present rate, if the United States and its allies cannot ramp up munitions production, if the destruction of the Ukrainian energy infrastructure continues, if the logistics for conveying Western military supplies to the front are further impaired, then the Russians will find themselves against a disarmed Ukrainian army some time in the early spring, and they may get the capitulation they seek without shock and awe heroics.

In saying this, I acknowledge my own misreading of the Russian war plans, since I expected them to deliver the death blow to Kiev some time ago.  But then I am joined in this misreading by many others who actually have military expertise guiding their assessments, such as Col. Douglas MacGregor.

Who laughs last, laughs best.  And that may well explain the sardonic smile we see from time to time in President Putin’s public statements about the course of the war effort.

That is not to say that we can sleep calmly in the belief that the end of the war is nigh.  There are risks arising as the inevitability of a Russian victory sinks into thick skulls at the Pentagon.  The latest risks come from those saying publicly in Washington that the Ukrainians must be given longer range missiles so that they can strike directly at Russian military installations in Crimea if not in Central Russia.   Such extravagant plans for the conquest of Russia can lead only to a nuclear response from Moscow and…the end of civilization as we know it.

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Gilbert Doctorow is an independent political analyst based in Brussels.

Featured image: Ukrainian trench during the battle, November 2022 (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)

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***

The US government is preparing to hand Ukraine assets confiscated from Russian businessmen under a scheme proposed by the Biden administration last year, which aims to target the wealth of “oligarchs” and pass it on to Kiev.

Andrew Adams – the head of ‘KleptoCapture,’ a Department of Justice sanctions task force created last March – detailed the progress made on the asset seizure plan during a talk at the Hudson Institute on Thursday.

“In the future, we’re also poised to begin the transfer of forfeited assets for the benefit of Ukraine,” he said. “In the closing days of 2022, Congress passed, and the president signed, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, and among its provisions is a law that newly empowers the Justice Department to direct forfeited funds to the State Department for the purpose of providing aid to Ukraine.”

Adams noted that the law does not allow for all frozen Russian assets to be transferred to Kiev, namely those seized due to export control violations, and said the amounts involved are “minuscule” compared to the costs of Moscow’s invasion.

“It’s not a silver bullet, but it is nevertheless something that makes me hopeful that we will start to see the first transfers from Justice to the State Department occurring in the coming weeks and months,” he continued.

The White House first floated the asset scheme last April, pushing to confiscate any wealth thought to be “linked to Russian kleptocracy” and use it to “support Ukraine.” The proposal required Congress to change some existing laws, alterations that were included in the massive $1.7 trillion spending package for 2023.

According to the Atlantic Council’s Russia Sanctions Database, more than 1,300 Russian nationals and some 1,100 entities are under US sanctions. While the overall worth of Russian assets currently frozen by the US Treasury has not been publicized, Washington has also targeted wealth owned by Moscow’s central bank totaling around $300 billion. Those funds cannot be seized, however, and will remain frozen barring any change in US law.

A number of Western allies have followed suit on the sanctions and asset seizures, among them Canada, Switzerland, Britain, Australia and the European Union itself, all aiming to isolate Russia’s economy in retaliation for invading its neighbor last February.

Moscow responded harshly to Adams’ comments regarding Russian assets, saying plans to send the captured funds to Ukraine were a “breach of fundamental American values” and marked an “obvious disregard of generally accepted legal norms.”

“Such dangerous precedents only serve to discredit the United States as a ‘bastion’ of free enterprise,” the Russian Embassy in the US said in a statement on Thursday night. “Washington, with its own hands, is undermining confidence in both the American and international financial system, as well as the security of the dollar jurisdiction.”

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Will Porter is assistant news editor at the Libertarian Institute and a staff writer at RT. Find more of his work at Antiwar.com and Consortium News.

Featured image: FILE PHOTO: A stack of Russian currency. (Credit: Stockvault)

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***

The small Nordic country of Norway may not be particularly notable on the global crypto map. With its 22 blockchain solution providers, the nation doesn’t stand out even at the regional level. 

However, as the race to test and implement central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) accelerates every day, the Scandinavian nation is taking an active stance on its own national digital currency. In fact, it was among the first countries to begin the work on a CBDC back in 2016.

Dropping cash

In recent years, amid a rise in cashless payment methods and concern over cash-enabled illicit transactions, some Norwegian banks have moved to remove cash options altogether.

In 2016, Trond Bentestuen, then an executive at major Norwegian bank DNB, proposed to stop using cash as a means of payment in the country:

“Today, there is approximately 50 billion kroner in circulation and [the country’s central bank] Norges Bank can only account for 40 percent of its use. That means that 60 percent of money usage is outside of any control.”

A year before that, another large Norwegian bank, Nordea, also refused to accept cash, leaving only one branch in Oslo Central Station to continue handling cash.

This sentiment came in parallel with Bitcoin enthusiasm, as DNB enabled its customers to buy BTC via its mobile app, local courts demanded that convicted drug dealers pay their fines in crypto, and local newspapers widely discussed investments in digital assets.

Last year Torbjørn Hægeland, executive director for financial stability at Norway’s central bank, Norges Bank, outlined to the project’s goal of replacing cash use in the country:

“With this background, the decline in cash use and other structural changes in the payment system are key drivers for the project.”

The experimental phase of the Norwegian CBDC will last until June 2023 and end with recommendations from the central bank on whether the implementation of a prototype is necessary.

Ethereum is the key 

In September 2022, Norges Bank released the open-source code for the Ethereum-backed digital currency sandbox. Available on GitHub, the sandbox is designed to offer an interface for interacting with the test network, enabling functions like minting, burning and transferring ERC-20 tokens.

However, the second part of the source code, announced to go public by mid-September, has yet to be revealed. As specified in a blog post, the initial use of open-source code was not a “signal that the technology will be based on open-source code,” but a “good starting point for learning as much as possible in collaboration with developers and alliance partners.”

Earlier, the bank revealed its principal partner in building the infrastructure for the project — Nahmii, a Norway-based developer of a layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum of the same name. The company has been working on this scaling technology for Ethereum for several years and has its own network and tokens. At this point, the test network for the Norwegian CBDC uses not the public Ethereum ecosystem, but a private version of the enterprise blockchain Hyperledger Besu.

In late 2022, Norway became part of Project Icebreaker, a joint exploration with the central banks of Israel, Norway and Sweden on how CBDCs can be used for cross-border payments. Within its framework, the three central banks will connect their domestic proof-of-concept CBDC systems. The final report for the project is scheduled for the first quarter of 2023.

Local specifics, universal problems

In terms of hopes and fears, what defines the Norwegian CBDC project among others is the national regulatory context. Like its geographical neighbors, Norway is known for its cautious approach to the digital assets market, with high taxes and the relatively small scale of its domestic crypto ecosystem — a recent study by EU Blockchain Observatory estimated its total equity funding at a modest $26.9 million.

Norwegian serial entrepreneur Sander Andersen, who has recently moved his fintech company to Switzerland, doubts that the upcoming project will co-exist peacefully with the crypto industry. There are already more than enough problems for tech entrepreneurs in the country, he said in a chat with Cointelegraph:

“Despite the country’s strong infrastructure for entrepreneurs in other industries, such as low energy costs and free education, these benefits do not extend to the digital realm. The tax burden faced by digital companies makes it nearly impossible to compete with businesses based in more business-friendly jurisdictions.”

As central bank digital currencies have the potential to compete with private cryptocurrencies, and the goal of any government is to control financial transactions as tightly as possible, Andersen doesn’t see Norway among the exceptions:

“The Norwegian central bank’s CBDC project can also pose a threat to the legal status of private stablecoins in the country. The introduction of a CBDC may prompt increased regulation and oversight of private stablecoins, making it harder for these companies to operate.”

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Michael Lewellen, head of solutions architecture at OpenZeppelin, a company contributing its contracts library to the Norges Bank project, doesn’t sound so pessimistic. From a technical perspective, he emphasized, there is nothing stopping private stablecoins from trading and operating alongside CBDCs on both public and private Ethereum networks, especially if they use common, compatible token standards such as ERC-20.

However, from a policy perspective, there’s nothing that can stop central banks from performing financial gatekeeping and enforcing the Know Your Customer (KYC) standards, and this is where the CBDC looks like a natural development. Banks will not sit idly by as the blockchain ecosystem grows, as there is a lot of shadow-banking activity happening on-chain, Lewellen specified, adding:

“CBDCs offer central banks the ability to better perform gatekeeping and enforce KYC rules on CBDC holders, whereas enforcing the same standards against entities using non-governmental stablecoins is far more challenging.”

Could Norway’s CBDC offer anything reassuring in terms of users’ privacy? It’s hardly possible from both technological and strategic points of view, Lewellen said. Today, a mature solution doesn’t exist that would allow privacy in a compliant manner regarding the use of CBDCs.

Any national digital currency would almost certainly require every address to be linked to an identity, using KYC and other means we see in banks today. In fact, if done on the private ledger, like the one that Norges Bank is testing right now, the CBDC will offer not only less privacy for a single customer, but at the same time less public transparency with regard to blockchains.

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***

The Golden Rule anti-nuclear sailboat, crewed by US veterans and friends, has successfully completed an historic voyage to Cuba. The 34-foot wooden ketch, which in 1958 was sailed toward the Marshall Islands to interfere with US nuclear testing, is owned by Veterans For Peace, and carries out an important part of its mission, “to end the arms race and to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons.”

Five crew, including several members of Veterans For Peace, sailed the Golden Rule from Key West, Florida and, after 22 hours at sea, arrived at Havana’s Marina Hemingway on December 31, just in time to celebrate New Years and the 62nd anniversary of the Cuban Revolution.

The Golden Rule was sailed to Havana under a General License issued by the US Treasury Dept. that allows US residents to travel to Cuba for educational and people-to-people purposes.

The Golden Rule crew was joined by seven others who flew into Havana to participate in a week-long educational program. The Proximity Cuba tour agency organized an Arts & Culture program that highlighted many facets of the rich and diverse Cuban culture, including Afro-Cuban music and dance. The Golden Rule delegation also held a well-attended press conference that was featured on the top of the Cuban TV news and in other Latin American media.

“We are on an educational mission,” says Golden Rule Project Manager Helen Jaccard. “We are four months into a 15-month, 11,000 mile voyage around the “Great Loop” of the midwestern, southern and northeastern United States.

“When we saw we would be in Key West at the end of December, we said, ‘Hey, Cuba is only 90 miles away, and the world almost had a nuclear war over Cuba,’” said Helen Jaccard.

Sixty years ago, in 1962, the world came perilously close to a civilization-ending nuclear war during what became known as the “Cuban Missile Crisis.” How did that happen? Many of us will remember that the Kennedy administration discovered that the Soviet Union had placed nuclear missiles in Cuba, within easy striking distance of U.S. cities. This was of course unacceptable, but it was a response to the US placing nuclear missiles in Turkey near the USSR. And the CIA had recently organized the “Bay of Pigs” invasion, a failed attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro. President Kennedy ordered a naval blockade of Cuba, leading to a nuclear standoff with the USSR. Kennedy and Soviet premier Nikita Krushchev then successfully negotiated to avoid a nuclear war that neither man wanted.

Without US hostility to an independent, socialist Cuba, we would not have come so close to nuclear war in 1962. There are a lot of lessons to learn from the Cuban Missile Crisis. But have they been learned? Some people think that the US prevailed because of Kennedy’s get-tough policy. They do not know of the secret deal Kennedy made with Kruschchev – Kennedy quietly had US missiles removed from Turkey several months later.

The US seems to be making the same mistakes in Ukraine today. This time it is the US and NATO that have moved hostile military forces, including nuclear weapons systems, close to Russia’s borders.” Veterans For Peace is part of the Peace In Ukraine Coalition, which is calling for Diplomacy to End the War in Ukraine, Not Weapons to Prolong It.

Veterans For Peace has been calling for an end to the US blockade of Cuba for many years. Now some in the US are calling for at least a temporary suspension of the blockade, to allow Cuba to rebuild after Hurricane Ian, which destroyed as many as 10,000 homes in the western province of Pinar del Rio.

“We carried humanitarian aid and delivered it to Pinar del Rio,” said Anthony Donovan, a member of New York City Veterans For Peace, who flew to Cuba to greet the Golden Rule.“We also witnessed the economic suffering that is being caused by the cruel 60-year US blockade of Cuba. We will be telling people about this wherever the Golden Rule sails. When people learn about the suffering that the US government is causing normal Cuban citizens, they will join Veterans For Peace in calling for the US blockade to finally end.”

The primary message of the Golden Rule is the urgency of stepping Back from the Brink of nuclear war, and of abolishing nuclear weapons altogether. The VFP Golden Rule Project encourages local communities to pass resolutions calling on the US to sign the historic Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which was approved by the General Assembly in July 2017 by a vote of 122-1.

Veterans For Peace has produced its own VFP Nuclear Posture Review, which concludes in part:

It is hard to imagine the US taking serious steps toward nuclear disarmament without a sea change in the thinking among its political elites and real change in its posture toward the rest of the world. Activist efforts to restrain US militarism and intervention around the globe, to cut the military budget, and to encourage mutual respect and diplomacy among nations must therefore go hand-in-hand with efforts to reduce and eliminate all nuclear weapons.

This is why the VFP Golden Rule Project will now be calling for an end to the US blockade of Cuba. Nuclear disarmament will only be achieved in tandem with a peaceful US foreign policy, and we must organize simultaneously for both.

On December 9, the beautiful wooden boat, her red sails emblazoned with a white peace sign and Veterans For Peace logo, sailed along the famed Malecon sea wall of Havana, and were later greeted by members of Cuba’s Quaker community. On the following day, the Golden Rule and her intrepid crew sailed out of Marina Hemingway and made a 43-hour transit to Miami, arriving on the morning of January 12.

On Sunday, January 22, the second anniversary of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons going into effect, the Golden Rule anti-nuclear sailboat will set sail for Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Jacksonville, among other Florida stops, before continuing further north on its “Great Loop” educational voyage – another year to go. See schedule here.

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Gerry Condon is a Vietnam-era veteran and former president of Veterans For Peace.

Featured image: VFP Board Member Enya Anderson steers the Golden Rule into Havana’s Marina Hemingway (Photo: Courtesy of Gerry Condon/Veterans for Peace)

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***

“Ingsoc. The sacred principles of ingsoc. Newspeak, double-speak, the mutability of the past.” – George Orwell, 1984

As today dawned, I was looking out the window into the cold grayness with small patches of snow littering the frozen ground.  As light snow began to fall, I felt a deep mourning in my soul as a memory came to me of another snowy day in 1972 when I awoke to news of Richard Nixon’s savage Christmas bombing of North Vietnam with more than a hundred B-52 bombers, in wave after wave, dropping death and destruction on Hanoi and other parts of North Vietnam.  I thought of the war the United States is now waging against Russia via Ukraine and how, as during the U.S. war against Vietnam, few Americans seem to care until it becomes too late.  It depressed me.

Soon after I was greeted by an editorial from The New York Times’ Editorial Board, “A Brutal New Phase of the War in Ukraine.”  It is a piece of propaganda so obvious that only those desperate to believe blatant lies would not fall down laughing.  Yet it is no laughing matter, for The N.Y. Times is advocating for a wider war, more lethal weapons for Ukraine, and escalation of the fighting that risks nuclear war.  So their title is apt because they are promoting the brutality.  This angered me.

The Times’ Editorial Board tells us that President Putin, like Hitler, is mad.

“Like the last European war, this one is mostly one man’s madness.”  Russia and Putin are “cruel”; are conducting a “regular horror” with missile strikes against civilian targets; are “desperate”; are pursuing Putin’s “delusions”; are waging a “terrible and useless war”; are “committing atrocities”; are responsible for “murder, rape and pillaging,” etc.

On the other hand, “a heroic Ukraine” “has won repeated and decisive victories against Russian forces” who have lost “well over 100,000 Russian soldiers killed and wounded,” according to the “reliable” source, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chief of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley.  To add to this rosy report, the Ukrainians seem to have suffered no casualities since none are mentioned by the cozy Times’ Editorial Board members from their keyboards on Eighth Avenue.  When you support a U.S. war, as has always been The Times’ modus operandi as a stenographer for the government, mentioning the dead pawns used to accomplish the imperialists’ dreams is bad manners.  So are the atrocities committed by those forces, so they too have been omitted.  Neo-Nazis, the Azov Battalion?  They too must never have  existed since they are not mentioned.

But then, according to the esteemed editorial writers, this is not a U.S. proxy war waged via Ukraine by U.S./NATO “to strip Russia of its destiny and greatness.”  No, it is simply Russian aggression, supported by “the Kremlin’s propaganda machinery” that has churned “out false narratives about a heroic Russian struggle against forces of fascism and debauchery.”  U.S./NATO were “horrified by the crude violation of the postwar order,” so we are laughingly told, and so came to Ukraine’s defense as “Mr. Putin’s response has been to throw ever more lives, resources and cruelty at Ukraine.”

Nowhere in this diatribe by the Times’ Board of propagandists – and here the whole game is given away for anyone with a bit of an historical sense – is there any mention of the U.S. engineered coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014.  It just didn’t happen.  Never happened.  Magic by omission.  The U.S., together with the Ukrainian government “led” by the puppet-actor “President Volodymyr Zelensky,” are completely innocence parties, according to the Times.  (Note also, that nowhere in this four page diatribe is President Putin addressed by his title, as if to say that “Mr. Putin” is illegitimate and Zelensky is the real thing.)

All the problems stem from when “Mr. Putin seized Crimea and stirred up a secessionist conflict in eastern Ukraine n 2014.”

Nowhere is it mentioned that for years on end:

that U.S./NATO has been moving troops and weapons right up to Russia’s borders,

that George W. Bush pulled the U.S. out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and that

Trump did the same with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty,

that the U.S. has set up so-called anti-ballistic missile sites in Poland and Rumania and asserted its right to a nuclear first-strike,

that more and more countries have been added to NATO’s eastern expansion despite promises to Russia to the contrary,

that 15,000 plus mostly Russian-speaking people in eastern Ukraine have been killed by Ukrainian forces for years before February 2022,

that the Minsk agreements were part of a scheme to give time for the arming of Ukraine, that the U.S. has rejected all calls from Russia to respect its borders and its integrity, that the U.S./NATO has surrounded Russia with military bases,

that there was a vote in Crimea after the coup,

that the U.S. has been for years waging economic war on Russia via sanctions, etc.

In short, all of the reasons that Russia felt that it was under attack for decades and that the U.S. was stone deaf to its appeals to negotiate these threats to its existence.

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that if all were reversed and Russia had put troops and weapons in Mexico and Canada that the United States would respond forcefully.

This editorial is propaganda by omission and strident stupidity by commission.

The editorial has all its facts “wrong,” and not by accident.  The paper may say that its opinion journalists’ claims are separate from those of its newsroom, yet their claims echo the daily barrage of falsehoods from its front pages, such as:

• Ukraine is winning on the battlefield.
• “Russia faces decades of economic stagnation and regression even if the war ends soon.”
• That on Jan.14, as part of its cruel attacks on civilian targets, a Russian missile struck an apartment building in Dnipro, killing many.
• Only one man can stop this war – Vladimir Putin – because he started it.
• Until now, the U.S. and its allies were reluctant to deploy heavy weapons to Ukraine “for fear of escalating this conflict into an all-in East-West war.”
• Russia is desperate as Putin pursues “his delusions.”
• Putin is “isolated from anyone who would dare to speak truth to his power.”
• Putin began trying to change Ukraine’s borders by force in 2014.
• During the last 11 months Ukraine has won repeated and decisive victories against Russian forces …. The war is at a stalemate.”
• The Russian people are being subjected to the Kremlin’s propagandamachinery “churning out false narratives.”

This is expert opinion for dummies.  A vast tapestry of lies, as Harold Pinter said in his Nobel Prize address.  The war escalation the editorial writers are promoting is in their words, “this time pitting Western arms against a desperate Russia,” as if the U.S./NATO does not have CIA and special forces in Ukraine, just weapons, and as if “this time” means it wasn’t so for the past nine years at least as the U.S. was building Ukraine’s military and arms for this very fight.

It is a fight they will lose in the days to come.  Russia was, is, and will triumph.

Everything in the editorial is disingenuous.  Simple propaganda: the good guys against the bad guys.  Putin another Hitler.  The good guys are winning, just as they did in Vietnam, until reality dawned and it had to be admitted they weren’t (and didn’t).  History is repeating itself.

Little has changed and so my morning sense of mourning when I remembered Nixon and Kissinger’s savagery at Christmas 1972 was appropriate.  As then, so today, we are being subjected to a vast tapestry of lies told by the corporate media for their bosses, as the U.S. continues its doomed efforts to control the world.  It is not Russia that is desperate now, but propagandists such as the writers of this strident and stupid editorial.  It is not the Russian people who need to wake up, as they claim, but the American people and those who still cling to the myth that The New York Times Corporation is an organ of truth.  It is the Ministry of Truth with its newspeak, double-speak, and its efforts to change the past.

Let Harold Pinter have the last words:

The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Behind the Curtain.

Edward Curtin is a prominent author, researcher and sociologist based in Western Massachusetts.

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

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***

In advance of the invasion of Iraq 20 years ago, the UK media parroted government lies and fabrications uncritically and became an enthusiastic part of the state’s propaganda machine. An inquiry into British reporting of the Iraq war is well past due.

Twenty years ago, Tony Blair provided the British public with false information about Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction in order to make the case for the illegal invasion of Iraq.

Sir Tony has never gone on trial. He has suffered no personal consequences. Nor have his spy chiefs and advisers. He was recently awarded the Order of the Garter, the highest honour in British public life.

Not one of the British journalists who published Sir Tony’s lies and falsehoods about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction has suffered professionally. Many have gone on to greater things.

Meanwhile, those who revealed the illegality and barbarism of the war have suffered. Julian Assange, who revealed so many of the war crimes committed by US forces, now languishes in jail.

In the United States there have been agonised inquests into the misreporting of Iraq. Not so in Britain, where much of the press and broadcasting media became an enthusiastic part of the state propaganda machine.

Britain’s most senior and respected journalists passed on government lies uncritically, very often adding fresh fabrications of their own.

Guardians of the establishment

Take the Guardian. It swallowed the Blair government’s false claim that Saddam Hussein’s agents were scouring Africa for uranium to buy a nuclear bomb – and went much further.

Under the headline: ‘Iraq dossier: African gangs offer route to Uranium – Nuclear suspicion falls on Congo and South Africa’, the paper claimed to have seen secret documents proving contacts between African militia groups and Baghdad.

The Observer was ever more agile and creative in the pro-war cause, seeking ever more sensational angles to demonstrate Saddam Hussein’s actual or alleged malevolence, such as a 1,560 word interview with a woman claiming to be a former lover of Saddam Hussein.

She claimed to have been with Osama Bin Laden as a guest at one of Saddam’s palaces, and that Hussein had funded Osama.

Meanwhile the newspaper echoed false claims made by Tony Blair as a post-facto justification for war. “Thousands have died in this war”, thundered the paper’s political columnist Andrew Rawnsley, “millions have died at the hands of Saddam.”

The Sunday Telegraph, meanwhile, pumped out oceans of state propaganda, floating sensational but insubstantial reports which inflamed the mood of public alarm on the eve of war.

On 19 January 2003 it claimed that United Nations weapons inspectors “have uncovered evidence that proves Saddam Hussein is trying to develop an arsenal of nuclear weapons.” In fact when the weapons inspectors produced their verdict a few days later, they concluded nothing of the sort.

The Sun splashed ‘Brits 45 minutes from doom’ – nonsense. It later told readers that chemical weapons were being “handed to Iraqis on front line” [sic] in an article headlined ‘Fiend to unleash poisons’, warning readers that “Saddam’s vile cousin” Chemical Ali was in charge of the operation.

Blair the hero

Meanwhile, critics of the war were marginalised or smeared. Scott Ritter, the United Nations weapons inspector repeatedly questioned British and United States claims about Saddam’s WMD. His well-informed interventions, amply justified as it turned out, were downplayed, while attack stories were boosted.

After Saddam was toppled, No.10 milked the apparent success of the war for political gain. The prime minister authorised carefully selected personal friends to give special interviews with the Financial Times’ political editor casting light on his state of mind as the decision was made to go to war.

The prime minister was duly portrayed as an heroic figure driven by religious conviction, all accompanied by a series of rare posed photographs portraying Tony Blair as a wizened international statesman who had been to hell and back.

The Sun did something similar. Meanwhile it emerged that the Times editor, Sir Peter Stothard, had been embedded in Downing Street for the duration of the war writing a narrative of events, Thirty Days: An Inside Account of Tony Blair at War, later published by Rupert Murdoch-owned Harper Collins.

Andrew Marr, political editor of the BBC, joined in, telling TV viewers that Tony Blair “stands as a larger man and a stronger prime minister” as a consequence of the war. In this way he gave the imprimatur of objective comment to Downing Street’s reinvention of Blair in the aftermath of the war.

There were exceptions, above all the Daily Mirror under the editorship of Piers Morgan. In general there is no denying that the great majority of British media became an enthusiastic part of the state propaganda machine.

Cultivated by MI6

One journalist, David Rose, has written with integrity and considerable moral courage about his role in placing false stories into the public domain. As far as I know he is the only journalist to have done so.

In an article for the New Statesman published four years after the invasion, Rose wrote in detail about how he (and other newspaper journalists) had long been cultivated by MI6. In an article which pays revisiting, he wrote:

“To my everlasting regret, I strongly supported the Iraq invasion, in person and in print. I had become a recipient of what we now know to have been sheer disinformation about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and his purported ‘links’ with al-Qaeda – claims put out by [opposition figure] Ahmad Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress. I took these stories seriously because they were corroborated by ‘off-the-record’ intelligence sources on both sides of the Atlantic.”

He added: “I am certain that those to whom I spoke at MI6 acted then in good faith,” giving as proof his conversation with an intelligence source shortly after the war who reassured him about the existence of Iraqi WMDs in the aftermath of the invasion.

“Don’t worry,” my source said soothingly. “We’ll find them. We’re certain they’re there. It’s just taking longer than we expected. Keep your nerve.”

Share of the blame

The Rose article is suggestive that the role of the intelligence services in disseminating false information about Saddam Hussein’s Iraq went much wider than the discredited September 2002 dossier of Sir John Scarlett, the then head of the Joint Intelligence Committee.

This factor never emerged in either the Hutton Enquiry shortly after the invasion or the Chilcot Report into the war.

To be fair to the late Sir John Chilcot, he did a scrupulous (if too long delayed) job in holding British politicians to account for the conduct of the Iraq invasion. No similar examination has been carried out of British journalists, though independent organisations, above all Media Lens, forensically exposed the complicity of mainstream media with the state machine right from the start.

Few paid attention. There is an unspoken understanding in the mainstream British press that we do not hold each other to account. Yet journalists and newspaper editors banged the drum for war and thus mobilised public opinion.

We must bear our share of the blame, alongside politicians and intelligence bosses, for the calamity that followed. Twenty years on, we need a Chilcot report into British reporting of the Iraq war.

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Peter Oborne is a journalist and author. His latest book is The Fate of Abraham: Why the West is Wrong about Islam.

Featured image is from OneWorld

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***

We often remember events from our childhood that came from physical experiences such as a broken arm or falling into a stream. Most patients from yesteryear remember childhood rheumatic or scarlet fever. Parents bringing their children age 5-11 years for COVID-19 vaccination may be creating adverse childhood experiences based on the most recent CDC safety data published by Hause et al in MMWR.

Hause AM, Marquez P, Zhang B, Su JR, Myers TR, Gee J, Panchanathan SS, Thompson D, Shimabukuro TT, Shay DK. Safety Monitoring of Bivalent COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Booster Doses Among Children Aged 5-11 Years – United States, October 12-January 1, 2023. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2023 Jan 13;72(2):39-43. doi: 10.15585/mmwr.mm7202a5. PMID: 36634021.

Moderna, which had greater frequency of adverse events than Pfizer, for example, caused 30% of children to have fever and vomit. Combined, 22% reported that boosters had a negative health impact, 14% could not perform daily activities to return to school, and 2% were so sick they required acute medical care. Adverse childhood experiences can have lasting social and psychological ramifications later in life, particularly if they are repeated. No vaccine, no matter how theoretically compelling, should be in public use with these symptomatic side effects. Vaccines should have acceptable safety profiles with <5% having any significant short-term symptoms, be safe over the long term, provide at least 50% protection against a disease, inhibit transmission, and last at least a year. Faulty vaccines that underperform or make our kids sick should be rejected by parents and removed from the market to protect public safety.

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Sources

Hause AM, Marquez P, Zhang B, Su JR, Myers TR, Gee J, Panchanathan SS, Thompson D, Shimabukuro TT, Shay DK. Safety Monitoring of Bivalent COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Booster Doses Among Children Aged 5-11 Years – United States, October 12-January 1, 2023. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2023 Jan 13;72(2):39-43. doi: 10.15585/mmwr.mm7202a5. PMID: 36634021.

O’Shea BQ, Demakakos P, Cadar D, Kobayashi LC. Adverse Childhood Experiences and Rate of Memory Decline From Mid to Later Life: Evidence From the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Am J Epidemiol. 2021 Jul 1;190(7):1294-1305. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwab019. PMID: 33534903; PMCID: PMC8484774.

Featured image is from Mercola

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PressTV: The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres skewered oil firms on Wednesday (19 January) for having “peddled the big lie” about their role in global warming, telling the World Economic Forum that they should be held accountable. Addressing a room full of the world’s business and political elite, Guterres drew a parallel between the actions of oil companies and those of tobacco companies that have been hit by huge lawsuits over the adverse effects of cigarettes.

“We learned last week that certain fossil fuel producers were fully aware in the 1970s that their core product was baking our planet,” Guterres said.

He was referring to a study published in the journal Science that said ExxonMobil had dismissed the findings of its own scientists on the role of fossil fuels in climate change.

Could you please comment on this?

Peter Koenig: Sorry, for not being available at the time of the live-interview. Your audience may want to know about the UN Secretary General’s Guterres’ lies about fossil fuels causing climate change. Mind you, Guterres got the UN job only because he is gullible and corruptible, and a puppet to the rulers of the West, foremost the US.

He is drumming the drums of the ruling elite’s narratives – be it covid, or climate or energy crisis; or whatever else may hit the crisis-board.

Fossil fuel causing climate change is a scientifically proven lie. No trillion dollars can undo it.

Just We, the People, by standing up in masses for the truth.

For now and for at least the next 50 or more years the world can unlikely live without fossil fuels. Unless there is a major breakthrough on capturing for example solar energy on a different dimension than through highly polluting solar panels, for example via photo-synthesis, what the plants do.

Research on this has been going on for decades. And maybe the “solution” has been found, patented, and the patent possibly bought or blocked by the oil magnates. It wouldn’t be a first.

Today, 30 years after the first Environmental Conference in Rio, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED – June 1992), still about 85% of all energy used on the planet stems from fossil fuel. Thirty years ago, hydrocarbons accounted for about 90% of all energy consumed.

This proportion has hardly changed in the last 20 to 30 years. And it won’t drastically change for quite some time.

Unless they succeed in massively decimating the 8 billion world population.

That’s what the genocidal eugenists Bill Gates, Rockefeller, Soros et al, have in mind.

The climate changes all the time, as the universe is not static.

What by far most influences the climate on earth, is the sun. Solar activities are to more than 95% responsible for climate variations on Mother Earth.

Humanity contributes less than 0.5% to CO2 gases.

And of these less than 0.5 %, about two thirds or more stems from the military, from wars. By far most of the ongoing wars and armed conflicts comes from the WEF Davos war-monger masters, i.e., the US and NATO, and the NATO-embedded European Union (EU) nations.

Western media are paid not to talk about the military CO2 emissions.

Plus, a final and maybe most important point. Without CO2 there would be no life on earth. Trees, plants – hence, our food production, needs CO2 to grow. CO2 is good for the world, for our lives.

Plants feed on CO2, then emit oxygen which humans and animals, all sentient beings, need to breathe for life. Without CO2, no oxygen.

The oceans of our planet are sponges for excess CO2. They are responsible for the CO2 equilibrium. If there is too much CO2 in the air, the oceans absorb it, and in turn they release it when it is needed.

A lot of this balancing act has to do with “seasons”… depending on when the plants and trees absorb more or less CO2…

Mother Earth is perfect. We don’t need a WEF and fake elite “science”, a bought and corrupted science. Or as John Kerry, former US Vice-President, and Joe Bidens Environmental Envoy to the WEF claims, that the “WEF Davos Elite are like ‘Extraterrestrials’…” intending to save the planet. See this.
Hilarious.

Please don’t save our planet, Mr. Kerry.

The world does not need a puppet Guterres, to command the ignorant around and to scare the world with apocalyptic predictions.

We don’t need a UN system, compromised to the western billionaires and financial giants.

What they want, what the WEF is all about, is a One World Order, with total control over every soul of this planet, plus total control of all the globe’s resources.

They won’t achieve it. We will resist.

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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and  co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also is a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

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Undeniable fact is that Africa’s G5 Sahel (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger) and Central African Republic (CAR) have bartered their natural resources for Soviet-era and Russian military weapons and equipment. The G5 Heads of State are currently struggling against growing terrorism in the region and needed support from external countries.

As well-known, Moscow is broadening its geography of military diplomacy covering poor African countries and especially fragile States that need Russia’s military assistance. As part of its foreign policy, the authorities have been strengthening military-technical cooperation. These often include officer training and the sale of military equipment, though the details are rarely publicly available. It has signed bilateral military-technical cooperation agreements with more than 20 African countries, according to several reports.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reported in December that Russia accounted approximately $14bn of the volume of major arms supplied to sub-Saharan Africa. These are done through the  state intermediary agency Rosoboronexport. Stockholm’s report further explains that the military deals with Africa are going strong, political ideology is not a significant factor, and the focus is partly to counter Western and European interests in Africa.

In an interview discussion, Professor Dmitri Bondarenko, Deputy Director of the African Studies Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, said:

“With African countries, the primary aim now for Russian business is to regain a competitive edge in the global arms trade, and what’s interesting today is that the approach is not ideological but very pragmatic – you pay, we ship. It’s simply business and nothing more.”

As expected, Russia is delivering in order to achieve its aim of boosting appreciable revenue from arms sales and to halt French domination. Russia is fighting what it referred to as “anti-colonialism” and engages in fierce political confrontation against Western and European players on the continent. Several reports say Russia considers the growing colonial tendencies on the continent as a barrier and therefore sets to confront rather than cooperate in development initiatives there.

During the fourth quarter of 2022 and this January, a number top politicians from Burkina Faso, Chad, Central African Republic and Mali visited Moscow. Russian Special Presidential Envoy to the Middle East and Africa Mikhail Bogdanov said during the meeting with CAR Prime Minister Felix Moloua at the Russian Foreign Ministry that Moscow was ready to further assist in stabilizing the situation in country.

“The Russian side expressed readiness to further assist the efforts of the Central African leadership on stabilization of the situation in the country, both on the bilateral basis and as a permanent UN Security Council member,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The sides reportedly had an involved and trustful exchange of opinions on priority issues of further development of Russian-Central African relations.

On January 19, 2023, AFP reported that Mali’s military rulers received more warplanes and helicopters from Russia, the latest in a series of deliveries from its new top military and political ally. AFP said it counted eight planes and two helicopters at a ceremony attended by Russian Ambassador Igor Gromyko and the Head of Mali’s junta, Colonel Assimi Goita.

Mali’s military said the shipment included Sukhoi Su-25 attack planes designed to support ground troops; and the Czech-designed Albatros L-39. The L-39s, while initially designed for training purposes, have also been used as attack aircraft. Bamako also received Mi-8s, a Soviet-designed Russian transport helicopter that, as well as transporting troops and equipment, can be fitted with weapons to defend ground troops. The previous deliveries were made in March and August, 2022.

Ukrainskaya Pravda reported mid-January that Moscow was broadly using military-technical cooperation strategy to gain stature and influence in African countries, and that the Wagner Group, Russian private military company, the makes millions in Africa to finance war against Ukraine. It quoted from Politico which also cited a Western official and a diplomatic cable it recieved. Details: Over the past year, the Wagner Group has significantly expanded its operations in the Central African Republic, where mining profits could grow to nearly $1 billion, the news outlet’s sources said.

In June 2022, The New York Times also reported that the Wagner Group, led by oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, was mining gold in Sudanese mines to illegally replenish Russia’s gold and foreign exchange reserves and soften the effect of Western economic sanctions on the Russian economy.

According TASS, the local Russian News Agency, the Russian embassy in the Republic of  Chad warned in communique this January that attempts to undermine Russia-Chad dialogue doomed to fail, and further emphasized the provocative nature of the statement from the Chadian rebels, aimed at casting a shadow on the successfully developing Russian-Chadian cooperation.

The embassy pointed out that this video is “part of a broader campaign, launched on the Internet, to discredit the Wagner PMC in the eyes of African governments, creating a significant obstacle to advancing political and business interests of some major players in Africa. It also noted that there are indeed insurgents on the Chadian-Central African border who pose a threat to the Chadian authorities.

“The provocative nature of the statement from the Chadian rebels, aimed at casting a shadow on the successfully developing Russian-Chadian cooperation, is also becoming evident. In this regard, the Embassy states that attempts to introduce elements of mistrust into the political dialogue between Moscow and N’Djamena will be doomed to failure, no matter who they come from,” the embassy emphasized.

Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat has reiterated the necessity of creating regional forces for fighting terrorist groups, but added that the African armies are still under-equipped.

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi was very outspoken, shared valuable experiences about the use of well-constituted regional military force for enforcing peace and security in Mozambique. Creating regional military forces to fight threats of terrorism will absolutely not require bartering the entire gold or diamond mines for the purchase of military equipment from external countries.

Now, Mozambique has relative peace and stability after the 16-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) had finally approved the deployment of joint military force with the primary responsibility of ensuring peace and stability, and for restoring normalcy in the Cabo Delgado province, northern Mozambique.

The South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) has published a special report on Russia-Africa. The report titled – Russia’s Private Military Diplomacy in Africa: High Risk, Low Reward, Limited Impact – says that Russia’s renewed interest in Africa is driven by its quest for global power status. Few expect Russia’s security engagement to bring peace and development to countries with which it has security partnerships.

While Moscow’s opportunistic use of private military diplomacy has allowed it to gain a strategic foothold in partner countries successfully, the lack of transparency in interactions, the limited scope of impact and the high financial and diplomatic costs exposes the limitations of the partnership in addressing the peace and development challenges of African host countries, the report says.

That report was based on more than 80 media publications dealing with Russia’s military-technical cooperation in Africa. He interrogates whether fragile African states advance their security, diplomatic and economic interests through a relationship with Russia.

The report explained the dimensions of Russian power projection in Africa, new frontiers of Russian influence and provided a roadmap towards understanding how Russia is perceived in Africa. It highlighted narratives about anti-colonialism and described how these sources of solidarity are transmitted by Russian elites to their African public. For seeking long-term influence, Russian elites have oftentimes used elements of anti-colonialism as part of the current policy to control the perceptions of Africans and primarily as new tactics for power projection in Africa.

In the context of a multipolar geopolitical order, Russia’s image of cooperation could be seen as highly enticing, but it is also based on illusions. Better still, Russia’s posture is a clash between illusions and reality. “Russia, it appears, is a neo-colonial power dressed in anti-colonial clothes,” says the report.

Simply put, Moscow’s strategic incapability, inconsistency and dominating opaque relations are adversely affecting sustainable developments in Africa. Thus far, Russia looks more like a ‘virtual great power’ than a genuine challenger to European, American and Chinese influence.

Overcoming the multidimensional problems facing all the G5 Sahel countries, Libya, Sudan, Somali and the Central African Republic will require comprehensive peace and development strategies that include conflict resolution and peacebuilding, state-building, security sector reform, and profound political reforms to improve governance and the rule of law – not to mention sound economic planning critical for attracting foreign direct investment needed to spur economic growth.

The political changes, economic developments in relation to foreign players in these African countries are being observed and monitored closely by the the regional organization – the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the continental body – the African Union (AU) and the Security Council of the United Nations (UN).

*

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***

The bioweapons are working. UK data shows dramatically accelerated dying in all age groups since the middle of 2022.

The SARS CoV2 virus pandemic agenda was rolled out in early 2020. However, despite fear mongering and propaganda, UK total death statistics in 2020 were unremarkable aside from the month of April when there was increased death in mature and older age groups.

The misrepresented and coerced injections were imposed in 2021. Around the world, increased death comes on the heels of the injections.

Despite one red alert after another, the covid machine has continued manipulating, deceiving and injecting people. Two shots, morphed into endless “boosters”.

The UK death statistics for the latter half of 2022 are devastating across all age groups. Even children and young adults have red and crimson alert levels of increased dying.

Solutions: stop the shots, prosecute the crimes, help the survivors.

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“Watch Out!”

“There is in all of us a retrograde desire to kill, to destroy, a love of the dark. And we have a lot of forces to keep us from doing it, most of the time.

And when a leadership arises in a country that believes that it can lead by using the darkness in man, it is probably unstoppable at a certain point.

“We have seen it in more than one place. The power over others and the willingness to destroy others, is very deep in the human mind.” – Arthur Miller, Playwright (1915 – 2005)

New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, resigned on 18 January 2022, in the midst of the WEF Davos 53^rd Conference.

PM Ardern is a graduate of the WEF’s Young Global Leaders (YGL) program. She is – or was? – a favored “daughter” of Klaus Schwab. About at the same level as Justin Trudeau, PM of Canada. He too has been schooled, or better, brainwashed, by Schwab’s Academy for Young Global Leaders.

They both have led among the most tyrannical covid lockdown policies worldwide. Their vaxx drive with biological killer-shots have brought death to thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of people. Not covid but the killer-injections. They have clearly followed Schwab’s, Gates’, Rockefeller’s, et al, eugenist agenda.

Ardern’s and Trudeau’s popularity has been sliding to levels that the mainstream cannot be truthful about.

Both of them belong to this privileged group that Klaus Schwab proudly refers to as “We are proud having been able to infiltrate our Young Global Leaders into Governments around the world.”

Ms. Ardern’s resignation is effective as of 7 February 2023.

🚨BREAKING: New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern has resigned.

pic.twitter.com/SH9ZP7wkdK

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 19, 2023

Why did she choose the 2023 WEF Davos event for announcing her resignation? She officially says the pressure has been too much…. Mainstream says, her “official” popularity has plummeted to about 35%, similar to Joe Biden’s. The reality is probably much worse.

In the circus of neoliberal, covid and the lockdown crazy western leaders, 35% would be rather “good”. Hence the reality may be life-threateningly low.

Does she no longer want to deal with “what’s to come”?  She must know. Death threats?

Or, has she been forced out, perhaps by the very WEF-man who put her in the NZ PM position in the first place? The timing of her resignation and her body language could well be sending a message in his direction.

The truth may come out sooner or later.

*

The new designated PM is current Education Minister, Chris Hipkins. The final approval by his Labor Party is just a formality. It is expected to happen on Sunday, 22 January 2023. Mr. Hipkins would have just over eight months in office, until the next General Election, planned for 14 October 2023. In this short time, Hipkins has to turn voters’ interests back to Labor.

Not easy, after what Labor, in the name of Jacinda Ardern, has done to the people of NZ in the last three years.

Isn’t it interesting, how around the world, In the so-called west, or Global North, as well as Latin America, most, if not all of these so-called leaders (sic), most if not all from the WEF’s YGL-Academy, are so-called socialists or left-wingers?

Looks like this is the point, where in the extreme, left meets the extreme right and fuses into neo-fascism.

When nominated on Saturday, Hipkins said, “I’m really humbled and really proud to be taking this on. It is the biggest responsibility and the biggest privilege of my life.”

He added, “I like to think I’m pretty upfront and pretty straight with people. I’m decisive and I can get things done. People won’t die wondering what I think.”

See this for more from BNN Bloomberg.

Master Schwab has often made allegations to the effect that the future will be a “globalist socialism”. Remember the infamous ending of Schwab’s Great Reset – “You will own nothing but will be happy”. That’s kind of a neo-Nazi doctrine: You behave and we will take care of you.

It’s George Orwell’s 1984 at its best. Dystopia, so well disguised, you’ll love it. You will even believe, that war is actually to bring about Peace.

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Mr. Hipkins has a reputation that fits exactly this profile.

He earned his reputation during the COVID pandemic, when he became the authoritarian crisis manager, Ms. Ardern often sought advice from, when confronted with difficult covid and lockdown situations.

In July 2021, Hipkins warned that the government will start tracking down individuals who haven’t “come forward” to take the COVID jab.

“I think early next year we’ll be in the phase of chasing out people who haven’t come forward to get their vaccination, or missed their bookings and so on,” Hipkins then told reporters.

“I want every New Zealander to come forward, but human behavior suggests that there will be some people that we actually have to really go out and look for, and some of that may spill into next year….”

Hipkins asserted the government will essentially hunt down unvaccinated individuals, claiming normal “human behavior” suggests many people won’t willingly take the mRNA vaccine. He added, “In fact, everyone WILL get the vaccine.”

The new prime minister of #NewZealand #ChrisHipkins Remember what he said before? If you are not jabbed we will come looking for you!! So if you thought #jacindaardern was crazy enough… look what #NewZealand has now… pic.twitter.com/FWPAKYhguQ

— Gillian McKeith (@GillianMcKeith) January 21, 2023

When asked about his future covid and other “crisis” management policies – like high inflation, global climate change – the declining economy, Hipkins is careful not to make any commitments at this point. After all, his ambitions are to win the next October Genera Elections.

See this.

It is, however, fairly clear that Mr. Hipkins has to find ways to make his PM performance attractive enough for people to turn back to Labor, yet be clever enough conforming to the global narrative of total control.

NZ and Canada may be test-cases of how far global tyranny may go, before mass upheavals of resistance may put the Reset and 2030 Agenda at risk – and destroy it.

Let’s hope and work towards accelerating the downfall of the Death Cult masters, WEF and its allies of Darkness, conglomerate finance, NATO and the Deep State West.

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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and  co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also is a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing. 

Featured image:  Ardern speaking during the session “Safeguarding Our Planet” at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, 22 January 2019 (Photo by Foundations World Economic Forum – Safeguarding Our Planet at the Annual Meeting 2019, licensed under CC BY 2.

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***

An obliquely-written news-report in the New York Times on January 18th headlined “U.S. Warms to Helping Ukraine Target Crimea” and subheaded “The Biden administration is considering the argument that Kyiv needs the power to strike at the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.” It reported that,

“the Biden administration is finally starting to concede that Kyiv may need the power to strike the Russian sanctuary, even if such a move increases the risk of escalation, according to several U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive debate. Crimea, between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, is home to tens of thousands of dug-in Russian troops and numerous Russian military bases.”

It goes on to say that this “would be one of its boldest moves yet, helping Ukraine to attack the peninsula that President Vladimir V. Putin views as an integral part of his quest to restore past Russian glory.”

This news-story omitted to mention that according to Russian law, Crimea (which was part of Russia throughout 1783-1954 when the Soviet Union’s dictator, a Ukrainian, arbitrarily transferred it to Ukraine) was restored to Russia on 16 March 2014, when a vote by Crimea’s residents supported by over 90% the return of Crimea to being a part of Russia, and Russia accepted that application by the Crimean people, for Crimea to become again a part of Russia.

None of this was mentioned in the NYT’s news-report, nor was the fact mentioned there that even U.S. polling of the residents of Crimea, both before and after the 2014 plebiscite there, found over 90% of respondents to want restoration of Crimea as being a part of Russia. All of that crucial information has been kept secret from the American people, and from the people in U.S.-allied countries — they don’t know it. The NYT’s article says only that Crimea is “the peninsula that President Vladimir V. Putin views as an integral part of his quest to restore past Russian glory.”

See this.

Furthermore, the NYT’s news-report fails to mention that on 8 June 2020, Russia published from Putin’s office, “Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence”, which presented four circumstances, lettered “a” through “d”, under which “the possibility of nuclear weapons use by the Russian Federation” would exist; and letter “a” there is: “arrival of reliable data on a launch of ballistic missiles attacking the territory of the Russian Federation and/or its allies.”

In other words: “the possibility of nuclear weapons use by the Russian Federation” would exist if America and Ukraine carry out “a launch of ballistic missiles attacking” Crimea.

According to Russian law, Crimea is, again, a part of Russia; it certainly is part of “the territory of the Russian Federation and/or its allies.” It falls under Russia’s stated nuclear umbrella, Russia’s protection up to and including the use of nuclear weapons — the four official conditions under which Russia MIGHT respond by means of nuclear weapons. (And: it falls under “circumstance” “a” — the first one that is listed.)

Russia might not employ nuclear weapons in the event of such an attack against Crimea — it might instead respond without nuclear warheads, but only with non-nuclear ones; and, since the invasion of Crimea would have been carried out by both Ukraine and America, Ukraine and/or America would be targeted. If Ukraine would be targeted, then America might defend Ukraine by further attacking Russia — perhaps only in Crimea, but perhaps not. In any case: Washington and Kiev would jointly have violated the top condition in which Russia might respond with nuclear weapons; and, so, a second attack by America and Ukraine against Russia would almost certainly result in a nuclear response by Russia; and, as Scott Ritter has already noted, any circumstance in which one or more of Russia’s red lines have already been crossed by America and/or by one of America’s alies would precipitate a launch by Russia of its entire nuclear stockpile of thousands of nuclear weapons, from land, sea, and air, which would mean, within pehaps 30 minutes to an hour, game-over for everyone, and the end of life on Earth — not by some delayed “nuclear winter,” but immediately by the direct blast-effects and the intense nuclear radiation then spread throughout the entire atmosphere of the planet.

Though the NYT hid this crucial additional information, I don’t, though perhaps the hundreds of U.S.-and-allied news-media that I am submitting this news-report to might all decide not to publish it. Anyway: they all are receiving it on January 22nd. We’ll see which ones publish it, and whether ONLY ones that Google bans do publish it, in which case this news-report still will appear here, even if that turns out to be the only place that does.

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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 21st Century Wire

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***

As the political situation becomes even more intense in the capital city of Lima in Peru and other regions of the South American country, the western-backed administration of Dina Boluarte has called for dialogue among the contending political forces.

Nonetheless, despite the Boluarte’s stance in running as vice-president with detained ousted President Pedro Castillo during 2021 on the left-wing ticket of the now fractured Peru Libre Party, the current right-wing and military-installed leader soon allied with the armed forces in attempts to consolidate a regime which was immediately recognized by the White House and the United States State Department.

In continuing the legacy of supporting military coups against progressive and socialist-oriented movements throughout Latin America, President Joe Biden has not been pressured by his political party as to why he has backed a coup against an elected leader. Castillo, a former school teacher and trade union leader, has won the allegiance of the people located largely in the rural areas of the South of the mineral-rich state.

On December 7, then President Castillo called for the dissolution of the Congress so that elections could be held in Peru. This proposal was rejected by the majority of the legislature who in turn voted to remove the president from office. As Castillo was leaving the area where some claimed he was to take refuge in the Mexican embassy, he was arrested by the security forces and detained where he remains until this day despite calls from numerous regional governments demanding his release, echoing the mass sentiment within Peru among the farmers and workers.

Over 50 people have reportedly been killed as a direct result of the uprising against the ouster and detention of Castillo. A state of emergency has been declared in six district regions of the vast country as Boluarte and the military has pledged to end the demonstrations through brute force.

During the week of January 16, thousands of people took to the streets in the capital of Lima where workers and farmers demanded the resignation of Boluarte, the release of Castillo and the immediate holding of national elections. Although Boluarte has repeatedly reimposed states of emergency, the demonstrations are growing in their participation and militancy.

In a Reuters press agency report from January 20 says that:

“Dozens of Peruvians were injured after tensions flared again on Friday (Jan. 20) night as police clashed with protesters in anti-government demonstrations that are spreading across the country. In the capital Lima, police officers used tear gas to repel demonstrators throwing glass bottles and stones, as fires burned in the streets, local TV footage showed. In the country’s southern Puno region, some 1,500 protesters attacked a police station in the town of Ilave, Interior Minister Vicente Romero said in a statement to news media. A police station in Zepita, Puno, was also on fire, Romero said. Health authorities in Ilave reported eight patients hospitalized with injuries, including broken arms and legs, eye contusions and punctured abdomens. By late afternoon, 58 people had been injured nationwide in demonstrations, according to a report from Peru’s ombudsman. The unrest followed a day of turmoil on Thursday (Jan. 19), when one of Lima’s most historic buildings burned to the ground, as President Dina Boluarte vowed to get tougher on ‘vandals.’”

In the south of the country where Castillo is greatly admired among the Indigenous and rural population, since the December 7 impeachment in the Congress, people have blocked highways and airports to demonstrate their commitment to removing the present government. The historic tourist attraction of Machu Picchu, the 15th century citadel of the ancient Inca civilization, was closed to the public on January 20 due to the escalating anti-government unrest.

Prior to the pandemic, approximately one million people would visit Machu Picchu making it a major source of revenue for the country. The site illustrates the advanced social character of South American Indigenous civilizations prior to the arrival of the European colonialists and enslavers who viciously oppressed and exploited the people.

According to another Reuters article on the situation in the south of Peru it emphasized:

“In the Cusco region, the gateway to Machu Picchu, Glencore’s (GLEN.L) major Antapaccay copper mine suspended operations on Friday (Jan. 20) after protesters attacked the premises – one of the largest in the country – for the third time this month. Airports in Arequipa, Cusco and the southern city of Juliaca were also attacked by demonstrators, delivering a fresh blow to Peru’s tourism industry. Cultural authorities in Cusco said in a statement that ‘in view of the current social situation in which our region and the country are immersed, the closure of the Inca trail network and Machu Picchu has been ordered, as of January 21 and until further notice’.”

Significance of the Demonstrations in Lima

Thousands of farmers, workers and youth from various regions of the country have poured into the capital of Peru where many have been housed by students and intellectuals at the San Marcos University. On January 21, the Peruvian National Police entered the university campus where they attacked anti-government protesters.

Untold numbers of people have been arrested while funds and other resources collected to sustain the demonstrators were seized by the security forces. Students took over the University on January 17 in solidarity with the masses of people protesting the coup regime of Boluarte.

These developments portend much for the future outcome of the struggle against the present regime and its international backers among the imperialist states and their allies in the Latin America region. The south of Peru is a center for tourism and mining while the seat of government is based in the capital of Lima.

Both the economic lifelines of the country and the center of the national government are critical in the ongoing suppression of the popular will of the majority of the people within the country. The organizations opposing the Boluarte administration are advancing the notion of a constituent assembly to serve as an interim government until national elections can be organized. Such a scenario would provide a mechanism to foster genuine democratic discussions and debates over the type of dispensation that would benefit the people of Peru.

International solidarity with the people of Peru against the coup regime have been exemplified by the following statements from governments, trade unions and mass organizations around the world published by Telesur:

“CUBA: The revolutionaries of Latin America and the rest of the world have the moral obligation to show solidarity with the Peruvian people and contribute to making visible the struggle that is being lived today in the land of Mariategui and Tupac Amaru,’ said the Red Scarves (Pañuelos Rojos).

CHILE: Paulina Cartagena, the vice president of the National Directorate of Teachers, posted on social networks images in which school teachers are seen holding signs that read, ‘The Peruvian people will not surrender.’

MEXICO: ‘The coup right wing trembles. Today the people of Peru are preparing to take back the reins of their destiny. From all corners of that sister country, thousands of women and men will try to take Lima peacefully,’ Morena Party founder Tomas Pliego.

ARGENTINA: ‘All the strength for the Peruvian people in their just fight for dignity. Total repudiation of the repressive government. Soon we will be accompanying them in a new mission of solidarity and human rights,’ Professor Juan Grabois announced.

SPAIN: ‘At Sant Jaume in Barcelona Square, we accompany our Peruvian sisters in their protest against the repression and in memory of all the injured and murdered people, stated the Catalan organization Entrepueblos Entrepobles Entrepobos Herriarte.”

These expressions of outrage against the violent repression of the Peruvian people by an obviously U.S.-supported coup are essential in building an anti-imperialist movement aimed at upholding the democratic aspirations and right to self-determination for the majority of the people. The genuine revolutionary forces throughout South America, Central America and the world acknowledge the legitimate struggles of the Peruvian people while recognizing the important role these developments are playing in the much broader transformation of the international situation.

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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from the author / featured image: Peru San Marcos University attacked by the PNP on Jan. 21, 2023

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General Erich Ludendorff, the German Empire’s military ruler during the latter half of the First World War (1916-18), made a fateful attempt in the spring of 1925 to reclaim the dictatorship of Germany by participating in the presidential election. 

The election took place at that time due to the death on 28 February 1925 of president Friedrich Ebert, of the left-leaning Social Democratic Party, who had been the German leader for 6 years at the head of the Weimar government. Ebert’s health was broken, in part, because of the continuous verbal attacks he had to endure from Germany’s radical right.

There is no doubt that Ludendorff’s intention was to retake supreme power in Germany, rebuild the military, and then embark upon a war of conquest across the European continent to reassert German dominance. He held severe contempt for social democracy and the Weimar Republic. From 1919 Ludendorff said repeatedly that he “ought never to have let myself been dismissed” by Kaiser Wilhelm II at the end of World World I, and that his desire was to “get back to power”. (1)

Ludendorff’s bid to regain the dictatorship was an important event in interwar German history. Should he fail and fail spectacularly, it would eliminate him as the main rival to Adolf Hitler for the extreme right in Germany, while bolstering Hitler’s position within the Nazi Party. Hitler himself was actively encouraging Ludendorff to run for the presidency in 1925, as a candidate for the Nazi Party. Ludendorff had already been elected to the German parliament (Reichstag) in December 1924 as a Nazi member of parliament (MP) for Bavaria, Germany’s largest state in the south of the country.

In March 1925, shortly before the presidential election took place, Ludendorff said,

“I have just had an anxious discussion with Hitler” and “we have come to the conclusion that I should stand as the candidate of the National Socialists [Nazis]. Hitler is convinced that the risk must be run… Hitler knows perfectly well that although he has a great following in Bavaria, he can count on very few votes in north Germany and east of Berlin. On the other hand, the name of Ludendorff is well known and respected throughout Germany. In particular, the East Prussians and Silesians have been bound to me by gratitude and devotion ever since the war”. (2)

Unknown to Ludendorff, Hitler was playing a cunning game here, entirely for his own benefit and ultimate goal of taking the dictatorship. Hitler possessed much shrewder political instincts than the military elite, and Ludendorff was too rash and impatient to make a politician.

Alexander Clifford, a historian who focuses on interwar European history wrote, “Hitler conceived the presidential campaign from the get-go as a sure-fire method of discrediting Ludendorff as a leadership rival. Well aware of the general’s political limitations… Hitler calculated that a torrid defeat would only serve to further tarnish Ludendorff’s reputation. By pushing the general to stand as a token candidate, Hitler lost nothing, but a dismal electoral performance would serve to prise more Nazi supporters away from the idea that Ludendorff was suited to a leadership role in the party”. (3)

A dismal electoral performance it would turn out to be. Out of several candidates for the 1925 presidential election, Ludendorff ended comfortably in bottom position. He drew a measly 285,793 votes, less than 1.1% of the national total. For example the Communist Party of Germany candidate, Ernst Thälmann, attracted almost 2 million votes, over 6 times more than Ludendorff.

The humiliation for Ludendorff was deepened by the fact that his close army colleague, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, won the presidency as a right-wing Independent, gathering more than 14 million votes. The 77-year-old Hindenburg had pleaded with Ludendorff not to partake in the election, warning him what the outcome would be (4). Ludendorff went his own way, however.

It is ironic that Hindenburg outmatched Ludendorff in the political realm, when in the military sphere Hindenburg possessed much less military ability than the more aggressive and intelligent Ludendorff, a fact which the German public was not aware of. After the Kaiser was acquainted with Hindenburg, he said he felt him to be “wooden and unimaginative”, and he described Ludendorff as “the Sergeant-Major”. (5)

Hindenburg’s great reputation with the German people was based on myth and legend: that the field marshal had been responsible for the German victories in the war, such as at the Battles of Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes. In reality Hindenburg, like the Kaiser, was a ceremonial figurehead during the war. Hindenburg may not have been a military genius, but he was a more stable and decent individual than Ludendorff. According to General Otto von Lossow, the overall commander of German troops in Bavaria in 1923, Ludendorff had become “a wild man” with “evil in his head”. (6)

Hitler was delighted with the outcome of the 1925 presidential election. He gloated in private that Ludendorff was “finally finished” as his political rival. Of Ludendorff, Hitler said to his loyal follower Rudolf Hess,

“I would like his name to disappear if possible from the movement [Nazi Party] because he makes it harder for me to win the workers”. Hitler believed that Ludendorff was strictly a military leader, not a political one, and he wanted “only true National Socialists” near the top of the Nazi Party. (7)

The general’s political debacle was a considerable step forward for Hitler; but Ludendorff was actually finished as a force in Germany since 1923, when he began to associate with the Nazis on the streets of Munich, Bavaria’s capital city. Doing so destroyed whatever popularity Ludendorff still enjoyed with the German public, which was reflected in the presidential vote.

Yet Ludendorff was impeded, in his campaign for the presidency, due to the Nazi Party itself having hardly any money in 1925. Some Nazi officials said that the election campaign was a method in which to discredit Ludendorff (8). Nor did the general appear very often in public, or deliver any speeches in the build-up to the voting. Ludendorff had also been losing supporters on the right, because of his condemnations of Roman Catholicism from the early 1920s, which he blamed for spreading international and pacifist thinking in Germany, and which he felt to be a factor in his country’s defeat in World War I.

The few influential Nazis who supported Ludendorff in his presidential bid, such as Ernst Röhm, shifted towards Hitler after the result of the vote. With Ludendorff not a threat, Hitler no longer had a serious rival on the far-right. (9)

Perhaps there is an underlying misfortune about Ludendorff’s political demise. For if he had reclaimed the German autocracy, it would most likely have prevented Hitler’s rise to power. By 1924 and 1925 the formerly warm relationship between Ludendorff and Hitler was growing colder; and in the event of retaking power Ludendorff, a general, might well have been unwilling to hand over the reins to Hitler, a corporal.

It seems unlikely that had Ludendorff regained power in the mid-1920s, or later, that he would have proceeded to do what Hitler did – unleash genocide against Europe’s Jewish and Gypsy populations. The younger fanatics who emerge are usually worse than their elders, a truism which has stood the passage of time.

Born in 1865, a quarter of a century before Hitler, Ludendorff belonged to an older generation of Germans whose formative years occurred during the happy and generally prosperous years of Otto von Bismarck’s chancellorship (1871-90); when Germany was the dominant nation in mainland Europe, which remained the case up to the outbreak of war in 1914. Had Ludendorff’s intentions turned out to be as bad as Hitler’s, and again it is doubtful, the general would probably have refrained in any case from committing genocide, by the continued influence of moderate figures like Hindenburg in Germany.

Ludendorff was certainly a virulent anti-Semite as shown in an article he wrote in 1922, where he lamented “the strong intrusion of the Jewish people inside our borders”, and hinted at their expulsion from Germany (10). A 1925 census outlined that the population of German Jews amounted to 564,973 (11), less than 1% of the recorded total German population that year of 62,410,619.

Though Ludendorff’s views are vicious enough, Hitler said outright in 1922 that he would commit genocide against Germany’s entire Jewish population were he to enter high office. “If I am ever really in power, the destruction of the Jews will be my first and most important job” Hitler said, and that in order to do so he would have “gallows after gallows erected… as many of them as the traffic allows” until “Germany is cleansed of the last Jew”. These words were noted by Josef Hell, a German journalist, who had asked Hitler what he would do “if he ever had full freedom of action against the Jews” (12). Hitler’s disturbing remarks, which feature in John Toland’s biography of the Nazi leader, reveal that Hitler had become a monster even as a young man in his early 30s.

Of Germany at this time the philosopher and scholar Noam Chomsky said,

“Well, Goebbels himself wrote about how he was influenced by the success of U.S. commercial propaganda. This was the 1920s, early 30s. They turned it into a highly refined system, which was very effective. Now it’s pretty remarkable to see what happened in Germany. You go back to the 1920s. Germany was the most civilized country in the world. It was at the peak of Western civilization, and the arts and sciences, it was considered a model of democracy by political scientists. That was Germany in the 1920s. Ten years later, it was the absolute depths of human history [Nazi Germany]. Go ten years later than that, you’re back to becoming a civilized society. It’s a quite astonishing illustration of the capacity of organized propaganda to totally change the population, from the most civilized in the world, to the most degraded in history”. (13)

Following Ludendorff’s resignation as Germany’s warlord in late October 1918, the only way he could have reclaimed power was at the head of a coup d’état. He participated in two coups, the Kapp Putsch of 1920 and the 1923 Nazi Beer Hall Putsch, both of which were a fiasco and that Ludendorff had not really led.

Those two putsches, which had little chance of succeeding, came too soon after the end of the war. The Western Allies, France most of all, could never have tolerated a militarist resurgence in Germany in the early or mid-1920s. The time most suitable for Ludendorff to have instigated a coup would have been around 1930, when France was weaker and the international situation more favourable to a far-right putsch, as the Great Depression was hitting Europe hard by then.

Ludendorff’s complete break with Hitler came when the Nazi leader refused, for political reasons, to join in with Ludendorff’s criticisms of the Roman Catholic Church. Ludendorff became contemptuous of Hitler and he wrote a pamphlet in 1931 with the headline, “Hitler’s Betrayal of the German People to the Roman Pope”.

By now Ludendorff had fallen out with almost everyone. He quarrelled with Crown Prince Rupprecht, a field marshal and last heir apparent to the Bavarian throne, because of the Crown Prince’s belief in Roman Catholicism and ties to the church. He quarrelled with other royal family members and with German generals who were sympathetic to the Crown Prince, and as a result 37 generals signed a manifesto excluding Ludendorff from their officers associations. He quarrelled with the prominent admiral, Alfred von Tirpitz, calling the political party (German National People’s Party) which he supported “a gang of perjured renegades”, and the admiral never spoke to Ludendorff again. He quarrelled with his wife Margarethe and ended up divorcing her in 1925.

He quarrelled too with Hindenburg. In the summer of 1925 Hindenburg, the new president, wrote to Ludendorff that he could no longer make the trip to see the latter at his home at Ludwigshöhe near Munich, because of the responsibilities he had as president. Ludendorff “foamed with rage” at the rejection and was also deeply hurt; he spoke of Hindenburg thereafter only in bitter language.

Ludendorff had previously insisted, “Come what may, in the eyes of the world Hindenburg and I must always stand together and be and remain the pattern of German loyalty and German unity” (14). Now that unity was broken, which further served Hitler’s cause.

In late August 1927, when Ludendorff attended the dedication of the Tannenberg Memorial, he created a scene by refusing to stand beside Hindenburg (15). Infuriated, Hindenburg left before Ludendorff spoke at the ceremony. After the dedication, Ludendorff was shunned by all of his former military colleagues. He ended up leaving by himself and made his way to his car. Neither did Ludendorff make an impression in Berlin as a Nazi deputy. He cut a lonely figure in parliament and his tenure as a Nazi Party MP ended silently in 1928.

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

Notes

1 Donald J. Goodspeed, Ludendorff: Soldier: Dictator: Revolutionary (Hart-Davis, 1 January 1966) p. 280 

2 Alexander Clifford, Hindenburg, Ludendorff and Hitler: Germany’s Generals and the Rise of the Nazis (Pen and Sword Military, 14 December 2021) p. 109 

3 Ibid., p. 108 

4 Goodspeed, Ludendorff, p. 305 

5 Ibid., p. 188 

6 Ibid., p. 297 

7 Clifford, Hindenburg, Ludendorff and Hitler, p. 106 

8 Ibid., p. 109 

9 Richard J. Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich (Penguin Putnam Inc., 25 January 2005) p. 202 

10 Erich Ludendorff, “General Ludendorff, On Overcoming the Consequences of the Lost War (1922)” 

11 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Jewish communities of prewar Germany”, Holocaust Encyclopedia 

12 John Toland, Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography (First Anchor Books Edition, January 1992) pp. 155-156 

13 Noam Chomsky, “Dr. Noam Chomsky discusses the birth of U.S. commercial propaganda and the art of manufacturing consent”, Propwatch.org, 13 July 2022 

14 Clifford, Hindenburg, Ludendorff and Hitler, p. 133 

15 Goodspeed, Ludendorff, p. 307

Featured image: General Erich Ludendorff (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

The Whole of Europe Turned Into a Battlefield

By Manlio Dinucci, January 22, 2023

The Federation of American Scientists confirms in January the news given by Grandangolo in December 2022 based on a U.S. Air Force document: the C-17A Globemaster aircraft has been authorized to carry the U.S. B61-12 nuclear bomb to Italy and other European countries.

Peru’s Natural Resources: CIA-linked US Ambassador Meets with Mining and Energy Ministers to Talk ‘Investments’

By Ben Norton, January 23, 2023

Peru has large reserves of copper, gold, zinc, silver, lead, iron, and natural gas. After a coup overthrew left-wing President Pedro Castillo, the US ambassador, CIA veteran Lisa Kenna, met with mining and energy ministers to discuss “investments”. Europe is importing Peruvian LNG to replace Russian energy.

US Expands Training of Taiwanese Military with National Guard

By Dave DeCamp, January 23, 2023

A source told Nikkei that the training began sometime before spring 2022. In May 2022, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen announced cooperation with the National Guard while hosting Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) in Taipei.

French Unions Stage One-day General Strike Against Pension Reforms

By Abayomi Azikiwe, January 23, 2023

Over a million French workers and students participated in a general strike on January 19 demanding that the proposed pension reforms drafted by President Emmanuel Macron be halted. The bill to be voted on in the French Assembly would raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 while increasing the level of contributions into the pension system by employees.

South Korea’s Nuclear Weapons Project on Behalf of Washington

By Andrew Korybko, January 22, 2023

South Korea has no independent agency when it comes to this sensitive subject since it’s unrealistic to expect it to defy Washington’s will by going forward with a nuclear weapons program without its military patron’s permission.

Saudi Crown Prince bin Salman (MBS) Defies the US Policy Against Syria

By Steven Sahiounie, January 22, 2023

In November 2022, Saudi Arabia formally changed its stance on Syria. Saudi Arabia is the political powerhouse of the Middle East, and often shares positions on foreign policy and international issues with the UAE, which has previously re-opened their embassy in Damascus.

Ukraine War: When Good Refugees Turn Bad

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, January 22, 2023

When the first Russian forces began entering Ukrainian territory in February 2022, the instant reaction from Europe, the UK, Canada and Australia, was one of open commitment to Ukraine’s refugees.  The relentless human trains heading westwards were initially embraced by Poles, whose history with Ukraine is, at best, tense and sketchy.

Orthodox Bishop Denounces Ukrainian Crimes at UNSC

By Lucas Leiroz de Almeida, January 22, 2023

The Russian Orthodox Church went to the UN to denounce Ukrainian crimes. At a meeting of the Security Council on January 17, invited by the Russian diplomatic representation at the UN, an Orthodox bishop linked to the Moscow Patriarchate commented on the situation of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine in the face of the persecutions imposed by the Kiev’s neo-Nazi regime. This was the first time that a representative of the Orthodox clergy has addressed to the UNSC.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) Calls for Destruction of America’s Middle Class

By Kurt Nimmo, January 22, 2023

I have said this for a long time. The global elite hate you, they want to destroy your standard of living, and reduce you to a serf, a powerless and dispensable carbon emitter.

The New Zealand Government Reaches for Total Medical Control

By Guy Hatchard, January 21, 2023

The necessity and benefits of a broad natural diet are evident from Egyptian skeletal remains from 6000 years ago, which suggest scurvy—a disease resulting from a lack of vitamin C. In 1753 a Scottish surgeon, James Lind demonstrated that scurvy could be treated with citrus fruit. The New Zealand government seems intent on changing history.

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Today the Environmental Protection Agency released a plan for regulating wastewater pollution, including discharges of the “forever chemicals” known as PFAS. But the plan doesn’t reflect the urgent need to tackle these discharges more quickly.

The agency’s long-awaited plan will take years to complete, delaying much-needed restrictions on PFAS discharges into waterways. The plan, the  Effluent Guidelines Program Plan 15, falls short of the EPA’s vow in its 2021 PFAS Strategic Roadmap to “get upstream” of the forever chemicals problem.

The EPA confirmed that by spring 2024 – nine months later than previously scheduled – it will release a draft regulation for manufacturers of PFAS or those that create mixtures of PFAS. The agency will do the same for metal finishers and electroplaters by the end of 2024, a delay of six months. The EPA did not announce when final rules will be available for these industries.

The agency will also begin regulating PFAS releases from landfills but did not provide a timeline for a final rule.

For all other industrial categories the EPA considered for PFAS wastewater limitation guidelines, the new plan includes more studies and monitoring, likely delaying restrictions on these sources indefinitely.

“Polluters have gotten a free pass for far too long to contaminate thousands of communities. Now they need aggressive action from the EPA to stop PFAS at the source,” said Melanie Benesh, Environmental Working Group vice president of government affairs. “But the EPA’s plan lacks the urgency those communities rightfully expect.

“We are deeply concerned that the EPA is punting on restrictions for PFAS polluting industries like electronics manufacturers, leather tanners, paint formulators and plastics molders,” said Benesh. “We are also alarmed that the EPA’s proposed restrictions on some of the most serious PFAS polluters – chemical manufacturers and metal finishers – are also getting delayed, with no timeline for when those limits will be final, if ever.

“Although it’s a good thing the EPA is committing to address PFAS discharges from landfills – a source of pollution that disproportionately affects vulnerable communities – it’s also frustratingly unclear from EPA’s plan when, if ever, those limits will materialize.

“Given the glacial pace of change in the EPA’s plan, states should not wait for the EPA to act on PFAS,” she said.

Industrial discharges of PFAS have caused significant contamination in places like the Cape Fear River Basin, in North Carolina, and Parkersburg, West Virginia. 

EWG has used EPA enforcement data to identify nearly 40,000 potential industrial dischargers.

Very low doses of PFAS in drinking water have been linked to suppression of the immune system, including reduced vaccine efficacy, and an increased risk of certain cancers. PFAS are linked with increased cholesterol, reproductive and developmental problemsand other health harms.

Some lawmakers are also trying to force the EPA to address PFAS more quickly. The Clean Water Standards for PFAS Act, introduced by Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) last year, would require the agency to develop PFAS wastewater limitation guidelines and water standards for PFAS in nine different industry categories by the end of 2026.

The EPA is planning to propose industry-wide regulations for certain industries, but regulators can update facility permits to address PFAS any time. The EPA released guidance for federal permit writers in April and guidance for state permit writers in December.

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Peru has large reserves of copper, gold, zinc, silver, lead, iron, and natural gas. After a coup overthrew left-wing President Pedro Castillo, the US ambassador, CIA veteran Lisa Kenna, met with mining and energy ministers to discuss “investments”. Europe is importing Peruvian LNG to replace Russian energy.

The US ambassador in Peru, Lisa Kenna, is a CIA veteran who supported a parliamentary coup in December 2022 that overthrew the South American nation’s democratically elected left-wing president, Pedro Castillo.

Castillo was subsequently imprisoned for 18 months without due process, setting off massive protests across Peru. The unelected government responded with extreme violence, killing approximately 50 protesters in just over a month.

One day before the December 7 coup, the former CIA officer turned US ambassador met with Peru’s defense minister, who then told the country’s powerful military to turn against President Castillo.

Since then, Kenna has been quite busy, regularly meeting with top officials in Peru’s coup government, including unelected President Dina Boluarte and her ministers.

On January 18, the US ambassador sat down with Peru’s minister of energy and mining, as well as its vice minister of hydrocarbons and vice minister of mining.

Peru’s Ministry of Energy and Mines boasted that they discussed “investment” opportunities and plans to “develop” and “expand” the extractive industries.

🔴 Un diálogo institucional de alto nivel entre Perú y Estados Unidos, que abordó temas de desarrollo del sector minero, sostuvo hoy el ministro Oscar Vera Gargurevich y Lisa Kenna, embajadora estadounidense en el Perú. @USAmbPeru pic.twitter.com/35CRV5unSl

— Ministerio de Energía y Minas (@MinemPeru) January 19, 2023

Peru is a country rich in natural resources, especially minerals. Spanish colonialists exploited the South American nation’s substantial silver and gold reserves, and today transnational corporations see it as a very profitable resource hub.

One of Earth’s top producers of copper, lead, zinc, tin, silver, and gold, Peru’s economy relies heavily on the mining sector, which represents more than half of total national exports and over 10% of GDP.

The world’s three largest transnational mining corporations – BHP, Rio Tinto, and Glencore – are heavily invested in Peru, along with other prominent companies from Canada, Brazil, Switzerland, Britain, the US, Japan, and Australia.

Peru is the planet’s second-biggest copper producer (after its neighbor Chile), meaning it will become increasingly important in the global shift toward renewable energy technologies.

US investment banking giant Goldman Sachs stated in 2022 that “copper is the new oil”, writing: “The critical role copper will play in achieving the Paris climate goals cannot be overstated… As the most cost-effective conductive material, copper sits at the heart of capturing, storing and transporting these new sources of energy”.

Peru is also a significant producer of liquified natural gas (LNG). Its LNG exports are largely overseen by foreign corporations like Shell.

Europe became the top importer of Peruvian LNG in 2022, after the European Union boycotted Russian energy over the proxy war in Ukraine.

While natural resources are not the only reason for these coups in Latin America, they are a significant factor.

Following the violent putsch in Peru’s mineral-rich neighbor Bolivia in 2019, a critic wrote to billionaire Elon Musk on Twitter, “You know what wasn’t in the best interest of people? The US government organizing a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia so you could obtain the lithium there”.

Musk replied, “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it”.

Peru’s President Castillo: ‘We want our natural resources to directly benefit the people’

When he ran for office in 2021, left-wing presidential candidate Pedro Castillo had made one of the central themes of his campaign the need to reassert popular control over Peru’s natural resources.

Condemning foreign companies for “pillaging” the country, he called to renegotiate contracts to ensure that 70% of all proceeds from mining went to the state, to fund social programs.

A few weeks before the presidential elections, Castillo said, “Let’s be clear: these decades of betrayal, corruption, and cynicism are the symptoms of this neoliberal system dedicated exclusively to the exploitation of our people and natural resources for the benefit of a few scoundrels”.

When he entered office, Castillo was very limited in what he could do politically. The right-wing opposition had a majority in the congress, and they were hellbent on destabilizing and eventually removing him with a presidential “vacancy”. They used Peru’s legislature and the heavily politicized and corrupt judiciary to launch constant attacks against Castillo, as part of a campaign of systematic persecution and lawfare.

But Castillo did what he could. The president announced a “second agrarian reform” and declared, “We are rescuing the resources of the country for all Peruvians”. He explained his goal: “We want our natural resources to directly benefit the people“.

Presidente @PedroCastilloTe: "Hoy rescatamos los recursos del país para todos los peruanos. El guano de las islas permitirá que los agricultores solventen a las familias más necesitadas como parte de la Segunda Reforma Agraria". #SiempreConElPueblo pic.twitter.com/MpmTebnJjN

— Presidencia del Perú 🇵🇪 (@presidenciaperu) February 27, 2022

Castillo’s government made plans with left-wing President Gustavo Petro in neighboring Colombia to develop gas infrastructure in Peru and expand internal use.

This was part of Castillo’s progressive economic model of import substitution industrialization, which aimed to grow local industry and boost domestic consumption, so Peru would not rely exclusively on low value-added exports.

Immediately after ousting Castillo, however, Peru’s coup regime returned to the neoliberal economic model of the Washington Consensus, prioritizing foreign corporate investment over internal development.

The Ministry of Energy and Mines tweeted on January 18 that it had just conducted a “high-level institutional dialogue between Peru and the United States, which addressed themes of development of the mining sector”.

US Ambassador Kenna met with Peru’s minister of energy and mining, Óscar Vera Gargurevich; vice minister of hydrocarbons, Enrique Bisetti Solari; and vice minister of mining, Jaime Chávez Riva.

🔴 Un diálogo institucional de alto nivel entre Perú y Estados Unidos, que abordó temas de desarrollo del sector minero, sostuvo hoy el ministro Oscar Vera Gargurevich y Lisa Kenna, embajadora estadounidense en el Perú. @USAmbPeru pic.twitter.com/35CRV5unSl

— Ministerio de Energía y Minas (@MinemPeru) January 19, 2023

The ministry said they discussed “themes linked to the expansion of natural gas, mining investments, and the development of renewable energies in our country”.

It added that “Minister Vera was grateful for the support from the North American government in mining-energy issues, and he reiterated the will of the national government, whose priority is the expansion of natural gas, energy security, and the petrochemical development of the south of the country”.

Mining dominates Peru’s economy

The Peruvian government itself has publicly stated that its economy relies heavily on mining and exporting minerals such as copper, zinc, gold, silver, lead, iron, and molybdenum.

Peru’s top exports in 2022 included copper, gold, and liquified natural gas (LNG).

The mining sector made up 58.7% of all of Peru’s exports, 57.1% of which were metals and 1.6% of which were non-metals, according to the most recent publicly available statistics, from January to October 2022.

Copper, gold, zinc, and iron represented 88.4% of the total value of Peru’s mineral exports, and 51.9% of the value of all of the country’s exports.

As of 2022, the largest corporate investor in Peru’s mining sector was the UK-based company Anglo American.

The second biggest investor was Compañía Minera Antamina S.A., a local firm that is majority owned by Australian and Swiss mining giants. The third was the US-Mexican Southern Copper Corporation.

Local communities in the South American country, especially those of Indigenous descent, have long protested the mining companies that devastate their environment.

These rural communities were the base of support for President Castillo. Since the coup, they have organized massive protests, demanding that he be freed, that new elections be held, and that the government convene a constituent assembly to write a new constitution, to replace the current one that was inherited from the former US-backed far-right dictatorship of Alberto Fujimori.

Europe becomes top importer of Peru’s LNG, following boycott of Russian energy

After minerals, Peru’s other top export is natural gas – and more specifically liquified natural gas (LNG).

Peru’s gas sector saw a huge boom in 2022, with LNG exports increasing by 85% in the first eight months of the year, in comparison with the same period in 2021.

One of the main reasons for this surge was Europe’s sky-high demand for gas.

Before 2022, most of Peru’s LNG had gone to Asia (primarily Japan, South Korea, and China). But as tensions between NATO and Russia escalated in late 2021 and early 2022, and the EU moved to boycott Russian energy, this drastically shifted.

The vast majority of Peru’s LNG exports went to Europe in 2022, primarily to Britain and Spain.

In months like April, May, and August, all of Peru’s LNG exports went to Europe, according to data published by the state company Perúpetro.

Peru’s LNG exports are overseen by a consortium of foreign corporations including Britain’s Shell, the US Hunt Oil Company, Japan’s Marubeni Corporation, and South Korea’s SK Group.

While Peru only exports a relatively small amount of LNG when compared to the United States – which quickly established itself as the world’s top LNG exporter in 2022 – the South American nation has become an important energy partner for Europe.

In its attempt to reduce trade with Russia, Spain increased its imports of LNG from the Americas – including the US, Peru, and Trinidad and Tobago – by 77.4% in 2022. (Spain boosted its imports of US LNG specifically by 93.4% in 2022.)

Ironically, by pledging to boycott Russian oil, Spain also ended up increasing its imports of more expensive Russian LNG by 37% in 2022.

At the same time, from the beginning of 2021 to mid-2022, the price of natural gas skyrocketed by 700%.

Transnational corporations rake in profits in Peruvian mining

Foreign companies have made a killing in Peru’s mining sector.

In promotional materials urging more foreign investment, the Peruvian government boasted that the planet’s three largest mining corporations are active in the country: BHP Group, of Australia; Rio Tinto, of Britain and Australia; and Glencore, of Switzerland.

The Ministry of Energy and Mines wrote with pride in 2018: “The world’s most important companies in the mining sector are making investments in our country. Due to our mineral reserves, Peru is a market that is always taken into account by these companies when they decide their investment budgets in exploration and exploitation”.

Many local mining companies in Peru are owned by foreign corporate giants.

The second-largest investor in mining in Peru, the Compañía Minera Antamina (Antamina Mining Company in English), was 33.75% owned by BHP, another 33.75% owned by Glencore, 22.5% by Canada’s Teck Resources, and 10% by Japan’s Mitsubishi, as of 2018.

The Compañía Minera Antamina operates in Peru’s western Áncash region, and was responsible for roughly one-fifth of national copper production and 15% of national silver production in 2018.

Peru was the source of 20% of BHP’s global production of copper in 2017, as well as 50% of its global production of silver and 100% of its global production of zinc.

The British-Australian Rio Tinto corporation oversees the La Granja mining project in the northwestern Cajamarca region. Peru was the source of 15% of Rio Tinto’s global production of copper in 2017.

Other large transnational corporations active in Peru’s mining sector include the US company Freeport-McMoRan and Mexican Southern Copper Corporation, both of which are based in Phoenix, Arizona; as well as Canada’s Barrick Gold.

But this is just to mention existing mining operations. Foreign companies are also heavily invested in exploration for new projects.

The top foreign countries whose companies are investing in mining exploration in Peru are Canada, Brazil, Switzerland, Britain, the US, Japan, and Australia, according to a 2022 report from the Ministry of Energy and Mines.

Companies located in Peru are responsible for 37.8% of investment in exploration, but this figure can be misleading because many of these firms are owned by much bigger transnational corporations.

As of 2022, 43.4% of exploration investment went into looking for gold, 36.1% for copper, 11.2% for zinc, 8.3% for silver, and 1% for tin.

Mining exploration projects are taking place all across western Peru.

Many of these regions, which are underdeveloped and suffer from high rates of poverty, have seen large protests against the US-backed coup regime and in support of Castillo.

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Featured image: CIA veteran and US ambassador in Peru, Lisa Kenna, with the country’s mining minister, on January 18, 2023

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If you’re watching the World Economic Forum’s annual ruling class confab in Davos this week, you might be surprised by the lack of disagreement among the rich and powerful there. Every panel in Davos acts as a reinforced echo chamber in which there is one problem, one objective, and only one solution. Regardless of who populates these panels and speeches, whether it’s invited corporate media, governmental officials, and/or business executives, there’s never any apparent dissent or difference of opinion expressed.

Given that the World Economic Forum is best understood as a narrative and ideas generator for the global ruling class, one might be under the impression that Davos would be a place for a healthy, robust debate. That’s why many new observers in the space have been understandably baffled by the incredible conformity expressed by speakers and attendees at the Swiss retreat.

Many noticed as former CNN host Brian Stelter, who claims to defend the importance of a free press, smiled and nodded at a co-panelist’s vicious attack on open speech.

European Commission VP Věra Jourová at the WEF:

"Illegal hate speech, which you will have soon also in the U.S. I think that we have a strong reason why we have this in the criminal law." pic.twitter.com/iLR1MePTYT

— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) January 17, 2023

Former New York Times editor Jill Abramson offered her own no holds barred commentary on the matter.

Author Walter Kirn tweet expressed his fascination with “how little disagreement there is.”

What strikes me most about the WEF is how little disagreement there is. The largest matters on earth are at stake (supposedly) yet the conferees don't argue. They don't debate. All points seem smugly settled. It's an ego orgy, a great self-satisfied mutual grope.

— Walter Kirn (@walterkirn) January 19, 2023

The truth of the matter is that the World Economic Forum and its leaders prefer conformity to debate. In fact, debate is actively discouraged, and stepping out of line — via a narrative violation — is grounds for permanent removal from Club Davos.

Klaus Schwab discusses this very topic in his book, “The Great Narrative,” which is book two of his infamous “The Great Reset” series.

Discussing the goals of the WEF, Schwab starts by claiming that his outfit is open to all ideologies and political perspectives. We quickly learn that he is not truly referring to all perspectives, but only those that he views as legitimate.

There is one specific group of people who he says are to be dismissed whole cloth. That group, of course, is individuals and groups that do not accept the World Economic Forum’s climate narrative, and its very specific “solutions” to the supposed climate problem.

“Climate action, sustainability, inclusivity, global cooperation, health, and well being” are “the most important issues to address in our times,” he writes. “Not moving right away and decisively would render our biosphere so hostile as to derail global economic growth and … further endangering political and social stability.”

In short, Schwab’s narrative insists that the world is on fire, and there is no room for debate on this issue, and the only solution is to roll back human progress.

The publicly diplomatic Schwab expresses absolute disdain for these non compliant actors, who he notes, with disgust, are largely located in the United States.

Klaus Schwab *hates* non-conformity, deciding that those who refuse to comply are conspiracy theorists who are responsible for all of the world’s ills. Schwab says that these “anti-science movements” have acted to “prolong the waning of the COVID-19 pandemic,” adding that we are “hindering both public health, and more fundamentally, our ability to move forward in unison.”

The WEF approaches all of its big ticket items as issues that already have complete and total consensus. Everything important to the WEF is categorized in one form or another as an “emergency,” so they claim there is no room for debating these issues at Davos. This “emergency” is too serious for the speakers at Davos to challenge the narrative. They already have an established problem and an agreed upon solution. The only thing that’s left to debate is how fast they can move forward on these supposed problems and solutions, and how aggressively they will attempt to trample all over our individual rights in the process.

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