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Clinics around the world follow guidelines from the Netherlands for gender treatments in children. The basis for this is, among other things, a much-criticized study sponsored by a German hormone manufacturer.
More and more children and young people believe they have to question their gender identity. Some 60 minors were treated in the Netherlands in 2010, but has increased to around 1 600 last year. Another 1 800 people under the age of 18 were on the waiting list because gender clinics in the country are full.
Institutions around the world use a standard procedure developed in Amsterdam in the 1990s when it comes to the drug treatment of supposedly transsexual children.
A report by the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad has meanwhile cast doubt on the directive and the independence of gender research at the Amsterdam UMC hospital. As strict as the conditions for treatment may appear, several complications have been overlooked: The terrible side effects of the heavy drug has been brushed off by doctors as being the lesser evil.
Hormone manufacturer sponsored ‘puberty blocker’ study
The approach with puberty inhibitors has since been known internationally as the “Dutch protocol”. The protocol has become the basis for the “gender-affirming standard of care” used throughout the world. Tens of thousands of children are affected worldwide, and in the Netherlands certainly several hundreds, although no precise figures are available.
Scientists investigated whether hormone treatment in transsexuals is more successful if their puberty was initially suppressed with medication. The sponsor of the study was the German hormone manufacturer.
Ferring Pharmaceuticals, the company that markets the drug Triptorelin as a puberty inhibitor had a strong commercial interest in the outcome. Primarily, treatment relies on administering hormones from the opposite sex: men are given oestrogen to become more feminine, women testosterone to become more masculine. But teenagers are additionally administered puberty inhibitors, which prevent boys from developing a low voice and beard growth and girls from developing breasts and other feminine shapes.
There are many criticisms of the study. Questionnaires were inconsistent, there was no control group at all, and the researchers used random samples from the 196 treated children for the results.
Several countries are moving away from ‘puberty blockers’
In the meantime, there is objection in more and more countries to the treatment of children with “puberty blockers”. Not only are they said to impair the physical sexual development of minors, but they can also cause osteoporosis, anorgasmia and infertility. According to the NRC, the drug is said to sometimes even impair the ability to make rational decisions.
Worldwide, there is increasing criticism of the scientific content and non-existent empirical basis of the Dutch protocol developed at the gender clinic of the Free University of Amsterdam. In several countries, health authorities have already decided to treat children mainly psychologically and prescribe puberty inhibitors only exceptionally. In Sweden, they concluded that “the risks currently outweigh the possible benefits” and spoke of possibly the country’s “worst medical scandal”.
In the UK, criticism of the Dutch protocol was so serious that the Tavistock gender clinic, the largest in the world, was closed by the authorities.
Sweden, Finland and Great Britain only want to prescribe the drug in rare, particularly severe cases. Instead, they are increasingly relying on psychological support for patients.
Since February last year, Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare has followed the Karolinska Institute’s policy regarding hormonal interventions for gender-dysphoric minors. Karolinska’s pediatric gender services at Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital (ALB) has ended the practice of prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to gender-dysphoric patients under the age of 18.
Marketing redundant drugs for the wrong condition
In the US, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been investigating two pharmaceutical companies for advertising puberty blockers to children. This is a condition they are not approved to treat.
In December, Paxton announced investigations under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act into Endo Pharmaceuticals and AbbVie Inc., the two companies that sell puberty blockers. The drugs were approved to treat precocious puberty and forms of prostate cancer but were being marketed and prescribed off-label to treat gender dysphoria.
“These drugs were approved for very different purposes and can have detrimental and even irreversible side effects,” Paxton said. “I will not allow pharmaceutical companies to take advantage of Texas children.”
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Featured image: Trans Rights Protest In London, Soho. Photo credit: Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona
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In response to Western sanctions, Russia’s central bank is dropping the US dollar and will buy Chinese yuan on the foreign exchange market. The yuan’s share of Moscow’s currency trading increased from 1% to 40-45% in 2022, while dollar trade halved from 80% to 40%.
Western sanctions have locked Russia out of the US-dominated international financial architecture. Numerous Russian banks were disconnected from the SWIFT inter-bank messaging system. Washington and Brussels even froze a staggering $300 billion of the Russian central bank’s foreign exchange reserves.
In response, Russia’s central bank has largely abandoned the US dollar and euro, and instead it plans to buy Chinese yuan on the currency market.
In the span of less than a year, the yuan has quickly replaced the dollar as the most sought foreign currency in Moscow.
But rising geopolitical conflict, fueled by Washington’s new cold war, has pushed Russia, China, Iran, and a growing list of countries to try to de-dollarize, or at least to diversify their foreign reserves.
Reuters reported that daily “yuan-rouble trading volumes on the Moscow Exchange are already exceeding dollar-rouble trades on some days,” and noted that this trend is likely to increase in 2023.
An anonymous source in Russia’s banking system told Reuters, “The central bank can currently now buy yuan,” and, “if next year budget revenues from the export of oil and gas exceed 8 trillion roubles, then the central bank will buy yuan.”
Another anonymous source in the Russian government said to Reuters, “We have a lot of friendly currencies. On the exchange, the Chinese yuan is the most traded currency, it is the friendliest currency so far.”
With the conflict in Ukraine and Western sanctions on Moscow shutting Russia's banks and many of its companies out of the dollar and euro payment systems, China’s yuan has swept into the country's markets, presenting an economic counterweight to the dollar https://t.co/3OsuyJqsEtpic.twitter.com/bJvcPUNvYW
At the same time, dollar trade halved from 80% to 40% of volumes on the Moscow Exchange.
Russia has quickly become the world’s fourth-biggest offshore trading center for renminbi – a drastic change, considering it was not even in the top 15 at the beginning of the year.
Reuters acknowledged that Moscow’s de-dollarization campaign is not new, but it accelerated in 2022.
“While the yuan, or renminbi, has been making gradual inroads into Russia for years, the crawl has turned into a sprint in the past nine months as the currency has swept into the country’s markets and trade flows,” the media outlet wrote.
It added, “Russia’s financial shift eastwards could boost cross-border commerce, present a growing economic counterweight to the dollar and limit Western efforts to pressure Moscow by economic means.”
The IMF noted that the use of Chinese yuan in global central bank reserves has increased, while holdings of the US dollar declined from roughly 70% in year 2000 to less than 60% by 2021.
Western sanctions on Russia have also incentivized countries around the world to create new financial systems for regional trade in other currencies – not just adversaries, but also longtime US allies such as India, Egypt, and even Saudi Arabia.
Both Putin and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called to challenge the dominance of the US dollar, instead proposing the use of local currencies for trade.
Iran & Russia pledge to cut US dollar from global trade, strengthen China alliance
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Fifteen-minute cities are popping up everywhere, and the World Economic Forum is wildly enthusiastic about them. Last year it was announced that Paris, France, would become a 15-minute city, and now the British city of Oxford is next. However, outraged Brits are fighting back.
As reported previously at RAIR Foundation USA, the city council has announced that it will divide Oxford into 15-minute neighborhoods or small 15-minute towns billed as “greener, cleaner and safer.” To further seize control of people’s lives, Globalists are pushing the false idea that these “green” cities, which make services accessible to residents within 15 minutes of their homes, will “save the planet” and help all humanity.
Instead, they are nothing more than a way for them to restrict, coerce, fine, punish, surveil, and limit the fundamental right of freedom of movement for residents. For example, residents are not allowed to leave your 15-minute city by car more than the allotted times a year. Otherwise, you will be fined. In addition, the government will track and control your every movement through your smartphones & facial recognition technology.
World Economic Forum
Climate lockdown
The “15-minute city” concept is crucial in the United Nations Agenda 2030 and their Net Zero green agenda. The World Economic Forum is also pushing this new concept. Oxford, which has declared a ‘climate emergency,’ is hoping their 15-minute cities will help achieve the Council’s ‘Net Zero carbon Oxford’ vision by 2040.”
As early as 2024, Oxford plans to impose “climate lockdowns” on residents to help achieve the Council’s ‘Net Zero carbon Oxford’ vision by 2040.” The “15-minute city” concept is also crucial for the United Nations Agenda 2030. And not surprisingly, the World Economic Forum is also pushing the idea.
Oxford will be divided into six zones ‘to save the planet’ from “global warming.” Electronic fences are placed on access roads to ensure residents remain within their own zone.
Residents are allowed to leave their 15-minute city a maximum of 100 times a year, but then they must first register their car, which is tracked throughout the city via smart cameras.
While the initial allotment of escape tickets may seem reasonable to some, once the public accepts that the state has the right to confine you, it is guaranteed that they will add additional restrictions and fewer permits to leave your zone. This was established very clearly and quickly in many Western nations in the past few years under the rubric of Covid restrictions.
Protests
Oxford residents are furious over council plans to turn the city into ’15-minute’ controlled zones. They have been brushed away by the Council, which has ignored their displeasure.
Media silent
Oxford citizens have taken to the streets, “The media is silent, of course,” writes UK journalist Sophie Corcoran. She implored people to stand with the citizens of Oxford against this type of totalitarianism.
Here are the residents of Oxford out protesting against the 15 min zone that will see them unable to move freely in their own cities.
Media silent of course. We must join them and so no to this type of totalitarianism pic.twitter.com/nq67TfRGrf
“At the end of this week, thousands of the world’s elite will be jetting off to Davos in their private jets, whilst people around the globe are starting to be confined to 15-minute zones in their cities and need a permit to drive over it,” Corcoran said.
At the end of this week thousands of the worlds elite will be jetting off to davos in their private jets, whilst people across the globe are starting to be confined to 15 Min zones in their cities and need a permit to drive over it.
Corcoran is referring to the Globalist conference next week in the Swiss ski resort of Davos 52 heads of state and government are expected to meet. Nearly 600 company directors have also been invited. Public sessions are held, but it is mainly where the Globalists make their deals behind the scenes in secret backrooms.
While people worldwide are forced to choose between eating dinner or heating their homes, the Elites will fly to Davos in their private planes, stay in posh hotels, eat expensive food and scheme how to confine us to our “15-minute” prisons.
The Dutch party Forum for Democracy (FvD) previously made an English-language video exposing the dangerous and freedom-crushing agenda concocted by the Globalists who attended the annual meeting in Davos this past May:
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Amy Mek is an Investigative Journalist: Banned in parts of Europe, Wanted by Islamic countries, Threatened by terror groups, Hunted by left-wing media, Smeared by Hollywood elites & Fake religious leaders.
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The USG is busy in South America, making sure the right people are in control of the government. In Peru, there are “clashes between security forces and demonstrators,” as described by the AFP.
It comes as trade unions, left-wing parties and social collectives readied for an afternoon march through Lima, the capital, to denounce a “racist and classist … dictatorship.”
Supporters of ousted president Pedro Castillo are demanding new elections and the removal of current leader Dina Boluarte.
📝🇵🇪Peru: Police clash with protesters at tourist city of Cusco: The deadly clashes have spread to the tourist city of Cusco, the ancient capital of the Inca Empire, where one protester was killed and more than 20 people, including six police officers, were wounded. pic.twitter.com/fFIaRtjxBY
Castillo, a former school teacher and student of Peruvian neurosurgeon and Marxist-Leninist politician Vladimir Cerrón, was impeached last year and held on charges of sedition and high treason after he unwisely attempted to form a new government.
It should be noted that Peru is renowned for its corruption. President Alberto Fujimori was convicted of ordering murders, embezzlement of public funds, abuse of power, and crimes against humanity. He controlled the Grupo Colina death squad. This death squad massacred Fujimori opponents in Barrios Altos and La Cantuta. Fujimori also had a journalist and businessman kidnapped.
Fujimori served as Washington’s man in Lima. He was fully onboard with neoliberal “free market reforms” (selling off public assets for private, corporate gain). In return, the USG, in particular the Clinton administration, turned a blind eye to human rights abuses in Peru.
In Peru’s repressive environment, the Comités de Derechos Humanos (Human Rights Committees) was born and despite the brutality of the Shining Path Maoists, the left began to gain power and influence, in part due to the horrors inflicted on Peruvians by the government and the Shining Path guerrillas. According to a truth and reconciliation commission report, 69,280 people were killed between 1980 and 2000, during the Reagan, Clinton, and Bush administrations.
The US ambassador in Peru, Lisa Kenna, worked for the CIA for 9 years, and the Pentagon
2 days before the coup against elected left-wing President Pedro Castillo, Kenna met with Peru’s defense minister
One day prior to the coup d’état overthrowing Castillo, the USG ambassador to Peru, Lisa Kenna, met with Gustavo Bobbio Rosas, the country’s defense minister. Kenna is a CIA veteran and worked with embassies in former tank commander Mike Pompeo’s state department. Her state department bio does not mention nine years spent at the CIA.
In 2019, Pompeo admitted the CIA lies, cheats, and steals (add murder and torture and you have rounded the circle).
The CIA operates out of USG embassies around the world. Philip Agee details this in his book, “CIA Diary: Inside the Company,” while Allan Nairn explores how the agency went about neutralizing troublesome political opposition in Latin America.
In regard to Peru, the CIA gave ex-Peruvian spook Vladimiro Montesinos more than $10 million over the period of 25 years, ostensibly to fight drugs (much of the money was funneled into an “anti-terrorist” operation), according to Angel Paez, a Peruvian member of the Center for Public Integrity’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
Montesinos was sentenced to a 20-year prison term for his hands-on involvement in an illegal arms deal to provide 10,000 assault weapons to Colombia’s FARC rebels.
The USG “has staunchly supported Peru’s unelected coup regime, which declared a nation-wide ‘state of emergency’ and deployed the military to the streets in an attempt to crush the protests,” Ben Norton wrote for MRonline in December. “Most governments in Latin America have criticized or even refused to recognize Peru’s unelected coup regime, including Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Honduras, Venezuela, Cuba, and various Caribbean nations.”
¿La gloriosa Policía Nacional del Perú vandalizando un mototaxi para luego echarle la culpa a los manifestantes? No creo. Ellos jamás harían algo así. pic.twitter.com/NEbRDI9rwb
However, reading the corporate media, we learn nothing about the CIA’s meddling in Peru or the widespread disapproval of the coup government outside Peru. Instead, US News & World Report insinuates Castillo, with “no experience in elected office or ties to the Lima establishment,” is at the center of the crisis.
The Grand Lady of Propaganda, The New York Times, dwelled on the plight of a “fragile democracy“ betrayed by “supporters of the former president,” supporters accused of “attacks against police stations, airports and factories.”
Indeed, Pedro Castillo was elected by the people of Peru because he is not tied to the ruling elite in Lima, a financial elite wedded to neoliberalism and supremely unconcerned with “the high cost of living and staggering social inequality” for the majority of the population, as Andrea Lobo summarizes.
Socialism has a failed record in South and Latin America. However, this should not dismiss interference by the USG, its CIA, USAID, and “democracy” operations abroad run by presumed NGOs.
These agencies and organizations work together to undermine socialists—or any political group opposed to neoliberal policies—voted into office by impoverished peasants, victims of an elite conspiring with the USG, global corporations, and the neoliberal financial elite to deprive them of their birthright, livelihood, and natural resources.
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In the year 1986, when I was sixteen years old, I founded the Save the Earth Club, which I believe was the first high school environmental organization in Texas. Dallas in those days was heavily influenced by the oil industry, and a lot of people thought I was unhinged. Maybe I was. At any rate, my adolescent brain was given to apocalyptic images of planet earth and all of its beautiful forests, oceans, and creatures going up in smoke. If only humanity weren’t so terribly selfish, greedy, and wasteful, I thought. Then we would all be saved and live in harmony with nature instead of dominating and exploiting it.
Looking back, I believe I was in the grip of powerful yearnings for absolution, salvation and redemption. And boy, was I a sucker for anyone who claimed to offer a solution. I gave much of my spare money to Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and other environmental non-profit organizations. During my freshman year in college, I worked for Greenpeace in Boston as a telephone fundraiser, and I briefly contemplated dropping out of college to become a full time Eco-Warrior.
Greenpeace got its start protesting atomic bomb testing and the commercial whaling industry. I thought of this last night when I saw a news report about humpback whales washing up on the New Jersey Shore in an area where preparations are underway for a large-scale, offshore wind farm.
A bit of learning that ultimately helped me to overcome my attachment to the Environmental Cult came from my high school physics teacher, who did an excellent job of explaining the Laws of Thermodynamics and the related law of the Conservation of Energy. I remain grateful to him, because his lessons later spared me from the monstrous ignorance that now shapes public perceptions of so-called Renewable Energy.
Consider the energy required to build a single large wind turbine. First there’s the site preparation with excavators and bulldozers (burning diesel). Turbines in the 1 to 2 MW range typically use 130 to 240 m3 of concrete for the foundation. This means: 1). Excavating and hauling cement, sand, and gravel for concrete (burning diesel) 3). Hauling concrete to site (diesel). 4) Laying concrete foundation (diesel).
This is just the foundation. Then you get into the massive, energy intensive business of building and hauling the gigantic turbine blades. Mining and refining and manufacturing all of the steel for the blades and the copper power cable. Miles of the latter must be run underground in order to connect the turbine to the power grid. On and on it goes.
Then there’s the terrible inefficiency of wind turbines—which only deliver significant power to the grid for a relatively small period per year—and their short lifespan of around 20 years, at which point they must be dismantled and the giant blades hauled off and buried. Finally, wind turbines are murderous for migratory birds and (if suspicions prove to be correct) migrating whales. Compared to natural gas—an abundant, high density, clean-burning energy mass that can be efficiently transported through existing pipelines—wind turbines are of abysmal utility.
Examine any major “Climate Initiative” and you’ll see that it doesn’t square with math and the Laws of Thermodynamics. If the mega billionaires of the world really want to reduce the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, they would get serious about economic investment in tropical nations that continue to clear rainforest for palm oil plantations and other low-yielding economic activities. Bill Gates could easily scratch a check for the entire palm oil industry of Borneo, thereby saving its rainforests and orangutans from incineration.
How to explain this nonsense? For starters, the Climate Cult is able to harness very powerful yearnings like those that gripped me when I was a dumb adolescent. Secondly, because profligate politicians with access to unlimited debt financing have gotten in on the act, the “Renewable Energy” industry has become an absolute bonanza.
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Featured image: Climate & Vaccine Cult High Priest, Bill Gates, at 2010 Ted Talk “Innovating to Zero!” on the pressing need to reduce CO2 emissions in order to save planet Earth.
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The recently freed Puerto Rican-American will be remembered as Castro’s “exceptional person” and Cuba’s “respect and admiration” for infiltrating the Pentagon to prevent the US from destroying Cuba.
The US calls her the “Queen of Cuba,” but the intention to brand her as a notorious figure of evil nature is something Western-entrenched to be avoided in this article. To say her name, Ana Belen Montes, is for her to be remembered for saving Cuba and its people so many times that so many innocent deaths of Cubans were avoided.
She is not a queen, nor a terrorist as the Americans describe her. She is a hero who singlehandedly saved lives by giving Cuba information about possible attacks by the US at a time when the US was carrying out a colonial campaign against Central America, due to fear of communist presence in the region.
Sibling rivalries at the FBI
Ana Belen Montes was born in Nuremberg in what was then West Germany on February 28, 1957, on a US Army base where her father was stationed. After moving to the US, she received a Bachelor’s from the University of Virginia in International Affairs and was hired by the Defense Intelligence Agency in 1985 before acquiring a Master’s degree in the same specialty from Johns Hopkins in 1988.
With her intelligence and hard work, she excelled and constantly got promoted until she was finally hired by the Pentagon in 1992 as an analyst specializing in Cuban matters. That was the door for her to gain access to files and documents related to Cuba by the CIA, FBI, and the National Security Agency (NSA). Of her three siblings, two were employed with the FBI: her brother Tito served as an FBI special agent and her sister, Lucy, also worked as a Spanish-language FBI agent who would later do the exact opposite of what Ana set out to do.
During her position, Montes traveled to Cuba in 1993 on a “fact-finding” mission to study the Cuban military for intelligence study paid for by the CIA. She would later go on to have many more of these trips. She planned to achieve her goal during the time of Fidel Castro as Cuba’s leader and revolutionary hero, alongside Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and during Bill Clinton’s time as US President.
Communication between Montes and Cuban officials was done via numeric messages transmitted over shortwave radio with the use of codes, and with Montes’ access to files and sensitive information, she was able to memorize everything at work and type them out at home to facilitate communication.
Image: The cheat sheet used by Montes for communication (Source: FBI Archives)
On February 23, 1996, American Rear Admiral Eugene Carroll visited Cuba as part of an American campaign to gradually control the island. The Cuban Ministry of Defense warned the US not to allow the “Brothers to the Rescue” planes to fly over Cuba as planned. The “Brothers to the Rescue” refers to the group formed by five Cuban exiles who were an anti-Castro opposition established in 1991 and protected by the US due to common interests naturally.
However, the US decided to continue poking the bear and let two of the planes fly over Havana the next day, which were then shot down. It was found that Montes was the one who arranged Admiral Carroll’s travel to Cuba and when asked about it, she stated that she chose that specific date because it was a free date available on the Admiral’s schedule – with the help of the Wasp Network, known as La Red Avispa in Spanish.
The “Brothers to the Rescue” was infiltrated by the Wasp Network, and five of the activists pertaining to the Network were caught by the US in 1998 and charged with conspiracy to commit espionage. They were caught with the help and treachery of Montes’ sister, Lucy, who was responsible for translating the wiretapped conversations.
Snitch with a ‘gut feeling’
As a result of suspicion by a colleague in her department, she was subjected to two polygraphy tests, informally known as lie detector tests that check a suspect’s heart rate and respiration to determine if they committed a crime or not through lying. She passed both tests. Her colleague and DIA employee, Scott Carmichael, became a pest for the FBI after he built a whole file on Montes due to his ‘gut feeling’ and finally came through to lead agent Steve McCoy who opened the investigation against her. According to the Washington Post, FBI agents waited for her to leave town with her boyfriend to break into her apartment and came across the infamous Toshiba laptop. The hard drives containing all the sensitive information were confiscated, and the laptop was left as it was.
In 1999, the NSA caught and deflected a Cuban communication message which revealed a top official associated with the DIA’s SAFE software system – indicating that the official was most likely an employee of the DIA. Not only so, but the official was discovered to have traveled to Guantanamo Bay back in 1996 and used a Toshiba laptop – Montes matched all the above. Montes was arrested in September 2001 at Bolling Airbase in Washington, D.C., and was convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage.
The moment she was captured, FBI agents had a nurse, oxygen tanks, and a wheelchair prepared, because they expected her to collapse and “be a wreck,” retired FBI special agent Pete Lapp said, as he added, “And I think she could have just carried both of us out on her back. She walked out that calm — I won’t say ‘proud’ — but with that kind of composure.”
She was sentenced to 25 years at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas. At Carswell, she was placed in a special unit meant for offenders with mental and psychiatric problems, but it was never clarified as to why. During her trial 21 years ago, she stated that the US government’s policies against Cuba are very harsh, speaking out that she behaved according to her conscience rather than the law. She added,
“I felt morally obligated to help the island defend itself from our efforts to impose our values and our political system on it.”
She suffered inhumane imprisonment conditions in Carswell as she was not allowed to contact other inmates, receive external letters, read newspapers and magazines, or watch TV. Her basic and constitutional rights were violated at the prison.
Back home
In 2002, a year after her imprisonment, Fidel Castro was asked at the University of Informatic Sciences in Havana about her arrest by an American journalist. He responded by saying that a noble American who is against such an injustice and against a blockade of over 40 years, who was able to act in the manner that she did, is an exceptional person…. who “deserves respect and admiration.”
On January 7, a day before her release, Cuban-American Florida Senator, Marco Rubio, said, “[H]er treason against the US accomplished nothing for the Cuban people. On the contrary, by helping the criminal Castro regime, Montes strengthened the Cuban people’s worst enemy,” making it seem as if he is entitled to speak on behalf of the Cuban people who, according to him, prefer Cuba to remain silent while the US carries on its colonial endeavors.
On January 8, Ana Belen Montes was released. Her lawyer, Linda Backiel, confirmed that she has reached her homeland Puerto Rico and relayed Montes’ letter to the public on her behalf.
“I am more than happy to touch Puerto Rican soil again. After two rather exhausting decades and faced with the need to earn a living again, I would like to dedicate myself to a quiet and private existence. Therefore, I will not participate in any media activities…. I encourage those who wish to focus on me to focus instead on important issues, such as the serious problems facing the Puerto Rican people or the US economic embargo against Cuba. February will mark the 61st anniversary of the economic embargo against Cuba, enacted by President John F. Kennedy and later tightened by the US Congress.”
We contacted Ms. Backiel through email to find out more about Montes’ imprisonment conditions but have not received any comment yet.
In a letter written by her sister Lucy and addressed to her in prison, she wrote, “You betrayed your family, you betrayed all your friends. Everyone who loves you was betrayed by you,” adding, “You betrayed your co-workers and your employer, and you betrayed your nation. You worked for an evil megalomaniac who shares or sells our secrets to our enemies.”
Her family has cut contact with her since her arrest and imprisonment over 20 years ago, given the fact that both her siblings and their spouses were all FBI agents.
Ana Belen Montes should be a lesson to demonstrate how vulnerable and cowardly the US is, in the face of those who stand and fight against injustices toward innocent people through attacks, embargoes, and murders. Ana Belen Montes will be one for the books and a symbol of hope for the activist in everyone.
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Introduction by Dr. Gary Kohls
The 28 minute video below tells the powerful story of Canadian distance-runner Shaun Muldoon, an innocent, previously healthy young victim of the not uncommon, but commonly mis-diagnosed, vaccine-induced autoimmune disorder called “VITT” (Vaccine-Induced Thrombotic Thrombocytyopenia).
The VITT syndrome is known to be caused by AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine (which vaccine, in Muldoon’s case, was injected 2 weeks before his emergency small bowel resection that was followed by two additional major abdominal surgeries, which has left him to deal with the life-long serious consequences of a “short bowel syndrome”).
The Covid vaccine-caused autoimmune disorder resulted in the formation of antibodies to his own platelets (the phenomenon of “molecular mimicry”) that caused the platelets to clump and thus cause blood clots in the blood vessels leading to his bowel, lung, spleen, and who know what other organs).
The abnormal platelets (now being recognized as a foreign substance to Muldoon’s immune system) clumped excessively and clotted both small and large blood vessels anywhere in the body – including possibly the circulation to the brain (causing TIA’s [transient ischemic attacks/stroke warnings] and completed strokes; impaired circulation to the heart (angina pectoris, heart attacks, and even cardiac arrest). (Makes one wonder about the real, over-looked cause of Buffalo Bills cornerback, Damar Hamlin’s near-SADS [Sudden Adult Death Syndrome) cardiac arrest episode on Monday Night Football a couple of weeks ago.)
Note that AstraZeneca’s vaccine is not an mRNA gene-altering inoculation (like the Pfizer or Moderna “vaccines”) which is also well-known to cause the circulatory issues noted above.
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Dr Gary G. Kohls is a retired rural family physician from Duluth, Minnesota. Since his retirement in 2008, Dr Kohls has written a weekly column, titled Duty to Warn, which has been re-published and archived at websites around the world. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
Dr Kohls practiced holistic mental health care in Duluth for the last decade of his family practice career, primarily helping psychiatric patients who had become addicted to their cocktails of dangerous, addictive psychiatric drugs to safely go through the complex withdrawal process. His Duty to Warn columns often deal with various unappreciated health issues, including those caused by Big Pharma’s over-drugging, Big Vaccine’s over-vaccinating, Big Medicine’s over-prescribing, over-screening, over-diagnosing and over-treating agendas and Big Food’s malnourishing and sickness-promoting food industry. Those four powerful, profit-seeking entities combine to seriously affect the physical, mental, spiritual and economic health of the recipients of the prescription drugs, medical treatments, toxic vaccines and the consumers of the tasty, ubiquitous and disease-producing “FrankenFoods” – particularly when they are consumed in combinations, doses and potencies that have never been tested for safety or long-term effectiveness.
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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***
By any standard, the money the United States government pours into its military is simply overwhelming. Take the $858-billion defense spending authorization that President Biden signed into law last month. Not only did that bill pass in an otherwise riven Senate by a bipartisan majority of 83-11, but this year’s budget increase of 4.3% is the second highest in inflation-adjusted terms since World War II. Indeed, the Pentagon has been granted more money than the next 10 largest cabinet agencies combined. And that doesn’t even take into account funding for homeland security or the growing costs of caring for the veterans of this country’s post-9/11 wars. That legislation also includes the largest pay raise in 20 years for active-duty and reserve forces and an expansion of a supplemental “basic needs allowance” to support military families with incomes near the poverty line.
And yet, despite those changes and a Pentagon budget that’s gone through the roof, many U.S. troops and military families will continue to struggle to make ends meet. Take one basic indicator of welfare: whether or not you have enough to eat. Tens of thousands of service members remain “food insecure” or hungry. Put another way, during the past year, members of those families either worried that their food would run out or actually did run out of food.
As a military spouse myself and co-founder of the Costs of War Project, I recently interviewed Tech Sergeant Daniel Faust, a full-time Air Force reserve member responsible for training other airmen. He’s a married father of four who has found himself on the brink of homelessness four times between 2012 and 2019 because he had to choose between necessities like groceries and paying the rent. He managed to make ends meet by seeking assistance from local charities. And sadly enough, that airman has been in all-too-good company for a while now. In 2019, an estimated one in eight military families were considered food insecure. In 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, that figure rose to nearly a quarter of them. More recently, one in six military families experienced food insecurity, according to the advocacy group Military Family Advisory Network.
The majority of members of the military largely come from middle-classneighborhoods and, not surprisingly perhaps, their struggles mirror those faced by so many other Americans. Spurred by a multitude of factors, including pandemic-related supply-chain problems and — you guessed it — war, inflation in the U.S. rose by more than 9% in 2022. On average, American wages grew by about 4.5% last year and so failed to keep up with the cost of living. This was no less true in the military.
An Indifferent Public
An abiding support for arming Ukraine suggests that many Americans are at least paying attention to that aspect of U.S. military policy. Yet here’s the strange thing (to me, at least): so many of us in this century seemed to care all too little about the deleterious domestic impacts of our prolonged, disastrous Global War on Terror. The U.S. military’s growing budget and a reach that, in terms of military bases and deployed troops abroad, encompasses dozens of countries, was at least partly responsible for an increasingly divided, ever more radicalized populace here at home, degraded protections for civil liberties and human rights, and ever less access to decent healthcare and food for so many Americans.
That hunger is an issue at all in a military so wildly well-funded by Congress should be a grim reminder of how little attention we pay to so many crucial issues, including how our troops are treated. Americans simply take too much for granted. This is especially sad, since government red tape is significantly responsible for creating the barriers to food security for military families.
When it comes to needless red tape, just consider how the government determines the eligibility of such families for food assistance. Advocacy groups like the National Military Family Association and MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger have highlighted the way in which the Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH), a non-taxable stipend given to military families to help cover housing, is counted as part of military pay in determining the eligibility of families for food assistance. Because of that, all too many families who need such assistance are disqualified.
Debt-Funded Living, Debt-Funded Wars
The BAH issue is but one part of a larger picture of twenty-first-century military life with its torrent of expenses, many of which (like local housing markets) you can’t predict. I know because I’ve been a military spouse for 12 years. As an officer’s wife and a white, cisgender woman from an upper-middle-class background, I’m one of the most privileged military spouses out there. I have two graduate degrees, a job I can do from home, and children without major health issues. Our family has loved ones who, when our finances get tight, support us logistically and financially with everything from childcare to housing expenses to Christmas gifts for our children.
And yet even for us, affording the basics has sometimes proved challenging. During the first few months after any move to a new duty station, a typical uprooting experience for military families, we’ve had to wield our credit cards to get food and other necessities like gas. Add to that take-out and restaurant meals, hotel rooms, and Ubers as we wait weeks for private contractors to arrive with our kitchen supplies, furniture, and the like.
Tag on the cost of hiring babysitters while we wait for affordable childcare centers in the new area to accept our two young children, and then the high cost of childcare when we finally get spots. In 2018, during one of those moves, I discovered that the military had even begun putting relocated families like ours at the back of wait lists for childcare fee assistance — “to give others a chance,” one Pentagon representative told me when I called to complain. In each of the five years before both of our children entered public school, we spent nearly twice as much on childcare as the average junior enlisted military service member gets in total income for his or her family.
Our finances are still struggling to catch up with demands like these, which are the essence of military life.
But don’t worry, even if your spouse isn’t nearby, there are still plenty of social opportunities (often mandated by commanders) for family members to get together with one another, including annual balls for which you’re expected to purchase pricey tickets. In the post-9/11 era, such events have become more common and are frequently seen as obligatory. In this age of the gig economy and the rolling back of workplace benefits and protections, the military is, in its own fashion, leading the way when it comes to “bringing your whole self (money included) to work.”
Now, add the Covid-19 pandemic into this fun mix. The schedules of many military personnel only grew more complicated given pre- and post-deployment quarantine requirements and labor and supply-chain issues that made moving ever less efficient. Military spouse unemployment rates, which had hovered around 24% in the pre-pandemic years, shot up to more than 30% by early 2021. Spouses already used to single parenting during deployments could no longer rely on public schools and daycare centers to free them to go to work. Infection rates in military communities soared because of travel, as well as weak (or even nonexistent) Covid policies. All of this, of course, ensured that absenteeism from work and school would only grow among family members. And to make things worse, as the last Congress ended, the Republicans insisted that an authorization rescinding the requirement for military personnel to get Covid vaccines become part of the Pentagon budget bill. All I can say is that’s a bit more individual freedom than this military spouse can wrap her brain around right now.
Worse yet, this country’s seemingly eternal and disastrous twenty-first-century war on terror, financed almost entirely by national debt, also ensured that members of the military, shuttled all over the planet, would incur ever more of it themselves. It should be no surprise then that many more military families than civilian ones struggle with credit-card debt.
And now, as our country seems to be gearing up for possible confrontations not just with terror groups or local rebel outfits in places like Afghanistan or Iraq, but with other great powers, the problems of living in the U.S. military are hardly likely to get easier.
The Fire of War Is Spreading
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has at least publicly acknowledged hunger as a problem in the military and taken modest steps to alleviate the financial stresses on military families. Still, that problem is far larger than the Pentagon is willing to face. According to Abby Leibman, MAZON’s chief executive officer, Pentagon officials and military base commanders commonly deny that hunger exists among their subordinates. Sometimes they even discourage families in need of food assistance from seeking help. Daniel Faust, the sergeant I mentioned earlier, told me that his colleagues and trainees, concerned about seeming needy or not convinced that military services offering help will actually be useful, often won’t ask for assistance — even if their incomes barely support their families. Indeed, a recently released RAND Corporation investigation into military hunger found that some troops worried that seeking food assistance would jeopardize their careers.
I’m lucky that I haven’t had to seek food assistance from the government. However, I’ve heard dozens of officers, enlisted personnel, and family members shrug off such problems by attributing debt among the troops to lack of education, immaturity, or an inability to cope with stress in healthy ways. What you rarely hear is someone in this community complaining that military pay just doesn’t support the basic needs of families.
Ignoring food needs in the military is, in the end, about more than just food. Individual cooking and communal meals can help individuals and families cope in the absence of adequate mental healthcare or… well, so much else. The combat veteran who takes up baking as a tactile way of reminding himself that he’s here in the present and not back in Afghanistan or Iraq or Somalia or Syria is learning to conquer mental illness. The family that gathers for meals between deployments is seizing an opportunity to connect. In an age when military kids are suffering from widespread mental-health problems, eating together is one way parents can sometimes combat anxiety and depression.
Whatever is life-enhancing and doesn’t require a professional degree is vital in today’s stressed-out military. Heaven only knows, we’ve had enough excitement in the years of the war on terror. Perhaps in its wake you won’t be surprised to learn that military suicide rates have reached an all-time high, while mental healthcare is remarkably inaccessible (especially to families whose kids have disabilities or mental illnesses). And don’t let me get started on sexual assault or child abuse, or the poor school performance of so many military kids, or even the growth of divorce, not to speak of violent crime, in the services in these years.
Yes, problems like these certainly existed in the military before the post-9/11 war on terror began, but they grew as both the scale and scope of our disastrous military engagements and the Pentagon budget exploded. Now, with the war in Ukraine and growing tensions with China over Taiwan, we live in what could prove to be the aftermath from hell. In other words, to quote 1980s star Billy Joel’s famous record title, we did start this fire.
Believe me, what’s truly striking about this year’s Pentagon funding isn’t that modest military pay raise. It’s the way Congress is allowing the Department of Defense to make ever more stunning multi-year spending commitments to corporate arms contractors. For example, the Army has awarded Raytheon Technologies $2 billion in contracts to replace (or even expand) supplies of missile systems that have been sent to aid Ukraine in its war against Russia. So count on one thing: the CEOs of Raytheon and other similar companies will not go hungry (though some of their own workers just might).
Nor are those fat cats even consistently made to account for how they use our taxpayer dollars. To take but one example, between 2013 and 2017, the Pentagon entered into staggering numbers of contracts with corporations that had been indicted, fined, and/or convicted of fraud. The total value of those questionable contracts surpassed $334 billion. Think of how many military childcare centers could have been built with such sums.
Human Welfare, Not Corporate Welfare
Policymakers have grown accustomed to evaluating measures meant to benefit military families in terms of how “mission ready” such families will become. You would think that access to food was such a fundamental need that anyone would simply view it as a human right. The Pentagon, however, continues to frame food security as an instrument of national security, as if it were another weapon with which to arm expendable service members.
To my mind, here’s the bottom line when it comes to that staggering Pentagon budget: For the military and the rest of us, how could it be that corporate weapons makers are in funding heaven and all too many members of our military in a homegrown version of funding hell? Shouldn’t we be fighting, first and foremost, for a decent life for all of us here at home? Veteran unemployment, the pandemic, the Capitol insurrection — these crises have undermined the very reasons many joined the military in the first place.
If we can’t even feed the fighters (and their families) decently, then who or what exactly are we defending? And if we don’t change course now by investing in alternatives to what we so inaccurately call national defense, I’m afraid that there will indeed be a reckoning.
Those worried about looking soft on national defense by even considering curbing military spending ought to consider at least the security implications of military hunger. We all have daily needs which, if unmet, can lead to desperation. Hunger can and does fuel armed violence, and has helped lead the way to some of the most brutal regimes in history. In an era when uniformed personnel were distinctly overrepresented among the domestic extremists who attacked our Capitol on January 6, 2021, one of the fastest ways to undermine our quality of life may just be to let our troops and their families, hungry and in anguish, turn against their own people.
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***
Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev has issued ultra-provocative words claiming that it’s not fundamentally Ukraine that Russia is at war with, but that the Russian military is facing all of NATO inside Ukraine.
“The events in Ukraine aren’t a clash between Moscow and Kiev. It’s a military confrontation of NATO, first of all the US and Britain, with Russia. Fearing a direct engagement, NATO instructors push Ukrainian men to certain death,” he said in a fresh interview with state-owned newspaper aif.ru.
Patrushev continued by describing Russia’s military as geared toward seeking to “free its regions from occupation and must put an end to the West’s bloody experiment to destroy the fraternal people of Ukraine.”
“We are not at war with Ukraine because we can’t have hatred for ordinary Ukrainians by default,” he stressed. He then presented Russian and Ukrainian heritage and closely bound up together, according to state media:
“Get this: the Ukrainian language is one of the official languages in Crimea. Ukrainian cultural centers, Ukrainian folk song and dance groups continue to exist in many cities. A considerable number of people in the south of the Far East regard Ukrainian culture as their own, given a large proportion of migrants from the times of Stolypin,” he said, referring to Pyotr Stolypin, a prime minister of the Russian Empire in the early 1900s, who oversaw a resettlement policy.
“The sooner the people of Ukraine realize that the West is using them to wage a war on Russia, the more lives will be saved,” Patrushev added. “Many have realized that long ago, but they are afraid to say that publicly out of fear of reprisals. It’s not a part of the West’s plans to save someone’s life to the detriment of its enrichment and other ambitions. Even so, the Americans, the British and other Europeans often create an illusion that they protect civilization from barbarians.”
He then referenced the ongoing Western backed attempts of Kiev to make Russian language and culture illegal, which directly impacts millions in the region: “all this story with Ukraine was engineered by Washington to rehearse the technologies of dividing a people that’s one and sow discord,” he said.
Meanwhile, there’s a growing move among leading NATO countries to begin transferring Western tanks and troop carriers to the Ukrainian battlefield. Starting last week, France began leading the way, resulting in a fierce response from the Kremlin…
French President Emmanuel Macron, by agreeing to send AMX-10 RC wheeled tanks to Ukraine, has crossed a red line and broke a military taboo, becoming the first Western leader to make the step, the Daily Telegraph reported:https://t.co/0fSr32AjrRpic.twitter.com/6lFh1xsMa3
But following this warning that a “red line” has been crossed, the Biden administration approved sending Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and now Britain is the next to be mulling tanks for Ukrainian forces, as Sky Newsreports Monday:
The UK is considering supplying Ukraine with British tanks for the first time to fight Russia’s invading forces, Sky News understands.
Discussions have been taking place “for a few weeks” about delivering a number of the British Army’s Challenger 2 main battle tank to the Ukrainian armed forces, a Western source with knowledge of the conversations said.
A Ukrainian official was cited in the report as saying that the UK sending tanks would in turn “encourage others to give tanks.” President Zelensky during his December in-person address to US Congress mentioned that his country is in dire need of tanks, and he’s specifically multiple times asked Washington for M1 Abrams tanks.
The US has still remained reluctant, however, largely on fears that to much heavy weaponry too fast would lead to direct NATO-Russia confrontation, ostensibly at least.
But based on the words of Russian Security Council Secretary Patrushev, it seems Russia increasingly sees military confrontation with NATO as already happening. After all, the massive loss of Russian troops in the Makiivka barracks attack was reportedly accomplished with US-supplied HIMARS missile systems.
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Featured image: Challenger 2 battle tank, file photo via Zero Hedge
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On January 10th, Russia’s Defense Minister, Nikolai Patrushev said: “The events in Ukraine are not a clash between Moscow and Kyiv – this is a military confrontation between Russia and NATO, and above all the United States and Britain.”
“The main threat to the [NATO] alliance” is “the Russian Federation. Today Ukraine is eliminating this threat. We are carrying out NATO’s mission today. They aren’t shedding their blood. We’re shedding ours. That’s why they’re required to supply us with weapons.”
They both agree that the war in Ukraine is a proxy-war for NATO (the U.S., UK, and EU) against Russia, in which the battlefields are in Ukraine, and that this is not a war that Ukraine and Russia are waging against each other. They agree that Ukraine is helping NATO to defeat Russia in Ukraine’s battlefields, and is expending Ukrainians’ “blood” in order to achieve this objective of NATO, instead of this war’s being NATO helping Ukaine to defeat Russia.
None of the mainstream, and almost none of the non-mainstream, news-media, in U.S.-and-allied countries, are presenting this war in that way: instead, it is being presented as being NATO choosing to help Ukraine to defeat Russia. Ukraine’s Defense Minister is saying: We wage NATO’s war; NATO supplies weapons. “Like a real shield, [Ukraine] is defending the entire civilized world, the entire West,” from the Russians, he alleges, while he goes on to assert that the New Year’s greetings that he had received “from Western defense ministers” were “to that effect.” However, virtually no news-media in The West have been presenting the war in this way. To the contrary: it is being presented as being a war between Ukraine and Russia, not as being a war between NATO and Russia.
Here are some of the statements that NATO itself has officially made about this matter, during the year 2022:
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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.
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***
Below is a slightly modified version of my NY Post column on the discovery of the second batch of classified documents in areas previously used by President Joe Biden. A number of questions remain unanswered by the perplexing response of President Biden that he will not even ask about the identity of these documents on advice of counsel. However, with the discovery of a second batch of classified documents at a different location, the President’s “surprise” could grow exponentially in the days to come. You might want to find a chair . . . the forthcoming spin from the press and pundits could produce global vertigo.
Here is the column:
There is an old story attributed to Noah Webster of being caught in a closet with a paramour. His wife cried out, “Noah! I am surprised!” Webster responded with a grammatical correction that “It is I who am surprised. You are astonished.”
The Webster story came to mind this week when President Joe Biden broke days of silence over the discovery of highly classified documents in a closet. Biden declared that he was “surprised” by the discovery but then said that his lawyers advised him not to ask (or presumably answer) other questions.
Biden was grammatically correct, if legally confused, in only describing his first reaction rather than his prior actions.
Biden was indeed surprised by the discovery. The rest of us should be astonished.
After all, it was Biden who expressed revulsion at the very thought of his predecessor possessing classified documents at Mar-a-Lago: “How that could possibly happen, how one anyone could be that irresponsible.”
Biden is not the only one who appears hopelessly conflicted. With the reported discovery of a second batch of highly classified documents connected to President Biden, the decisions of Attorney General Merrick Garland are fast moving from the inexplicable to incomprehensible.
Garland was presumably briefed that classified documents were discovered in Joe Biden’s old office on Nov. 2. He also presumably knew about the Biden documents when he appointed a special counsel to investigate the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago 16 days later.
At the time of the appointment of Jack Smith, some of us noted the inexplicable refusal of Garland to appoint a special counsel to look into alleged Biden influence peddling and other crimes.
Garland continued to refuse an appointment for Biden even as he justified the appointment for Trump on the basis that Trump was running for the presidency. Joe Biden is the president. What is the difference?
President Biden, meanwhile, is feigning ignorance, simply saying he was “surprised” the documents were there.
By not discussing the content of the documents, Biden minimizes his vulnerability to charges of obstruction or false statements. He can simply declare “surprise,” knowing that many in the media will welcome his silence as they spin the scandal.
Despite the lack of information, the press and pundits have already declared there is no real national security danger and certainly no comparison to Mar-a-Lago. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, declared “There is no comparison. They were in a locked closet. They were not accessible.”
So that is the standard? A locked closet? The Mar-a-Lago storage room was locked and later the security was enhanced at the request of the FBI.
It is fair to note that Trump and his staff are accused of false statements and obstruction. However, that does not change the same alleged crime of unlawful removal and possession.
Biden is taking a page from the Hillary Clinton playbook. Recall the long-sought Whitewater documents. After the case was effectively over, they suddenly appeared. The New York Times called the documents “elusive,” as if they moved by free will.
Clinton was also “surprised” by the discovery of the documents . . . after they could not be used as part of the earlier investigation.
There are some obvious explanations for the documents being present in the office, particularly given Biden’s work on a book that discussed his work in some of the referenced countries like Ukraine. However, even that explanation raises more questions. For example, Biden left office as vice president in 2017 and had an office at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia after finishing his term until 2019. On February 8, 2018, the Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement says that it opened its doors in Washington, D.C.
So if these documents were removed when Biden left office, where were they in the prior year and were they moved repeatedly before they ended up in the Washington office? This does not appear a “one-and-done” mistake. Rather documents may have been at various locations over a five year period.
Otherwise, Biden would have had to request and receive classified information at some point in the five years outside of a secure location.
Now that we have a second batch of documents, there is an increasing concern that classified documents were distributed or divided among different offices. This also means that an even greater array of individuals may have had access to such documents at different locations over the five-year period.
None of this could be clarified with Biden simply expressing “surprise.”
The FBI has two immediate tasks: secure the highly classified documents and then determine whether they may have been compromised.
Consider that Biden did not categorically deny asking for the documents to be taken at the end of this term as vice president.
He also did not explain when he was briefed after they were found.
Democrats and the media are eager to wave this away and move on. But, as the statements of Garland and Biden show, there are many questions that need answering. The discovery of new classified documents only magnifies those unanswered questions.
That is why we were not “surprised” but we can all be legitimately (and grammatically) astonished by the discoveries in Joe Biden’s closet — and his silence about the contents.
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Jonathan Turley is an attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School.
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Among the many lessons that we should have collectively learned as a society in the post-COVID era is that the pharmaceutical industry willfully lies, manipulates, bribes, and threatens the American public for the sake of profit and social control. Often, the products it markets don’t work or have extremely negative side effects or both.
A pair of recent stories further illustrate the point:
an arthritis drug that actually exacerbates arthritis, and
an Alzheimer’s drug rushed through clinical trials that costs more than most people’s annual salaries yet doesn’t actually do much of anything to improve the disease trajectory
“Two recent studies have shown that corticosteroid injections, which are commonly used to treat the pain associated with knee osteoarthritis, may actually contribute to the progression of the disease…
Statistical analysis showed that corticosteroid knee injections were significantly associated with the overall progression of osteoarthritis in the knee, specifically in the lateral meniscus, lateral cartilage, and medial cartilage.”
If you monitor the medical industry with a healthy skepticism, you may recall the unprecedented fanfare over a new “miracle” Alzheimer’s drug aducanumab (sold under the brand name “Aduhelm”), which earned “accelerated approval” by the US Food and Drug Administration.
“Accelerated approval” in the context of drug rollout is an immediate red flag. It almost always means that corners were cut and standard safety and efficacy clinical research was not sufficiently performed.
“Aduhelm received “accelerated approval” from the FDA in June despite the fact that an independent panel advising the US drug regulator had found insufficient evidence of its benefit and some experts had raised concerns about inconsistency in the drug’s clinical data.
At least three of the 11-member independent committee that voted unanimously against recommending the drug to the FDA subsequently resigned.”
The parallels to the COVID vaxx rollout are startling.
In September 2021, two leading FDA officials resigned over the Biden administration’s unscientific booster recommendations.
“The US Food and Drug Administration announced the resignations of two top vaccine officials on Tuesday, and reports said the two were leaving in anger over the Biden administration’s plan to roll out COVID-19 booster shots before officials had a chance to approve it.”
While this might seem like welcome news because it illustrates that there are still some honest people in government, the ultimate outcome is that the decent people are all driven out of positions of authority to be replaced by industry yes-men willing to greenlight any pharma product no matter how scant the evidence to support it.
Similar to the COVID vaxx clinical trial fraud, there were significant problems with the original trials that should have warranted further investigation before approval for public use.
“Two months before the Food and Drug Administration’s deadline to decide whether to approve Biogen’s controversial Alzheimer’s drug, aducanumab, a council of senior agency officials resoundingly agreed that there wasn’t enough evidence it worked…
On June 7, the F.D.A. greenlighted the drug anyway — a decision that has been met with scathing rebuke from many Alzheimer’s experts and other scientists and calls for investigations into how the agency approved a treatment that has little evidence it helps patients.”
In the end, patient health be damned, the right hands got greased at the FDA, the right officials were made promises of lucrative positions in private industry after departing public service (the infamous revolving door), and voila!
An expensive, ineffective drug gets pushed on vulnerable patients with wildly unrealistic promises of recovery if they just open their hearts and wallets to the good people at Biogen. Their bank accounts get drained while their health further deteriorates.
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Of course, describing the above as “failures” of modern medicine is largely a subjective judgment based on perspective.
If you’re a patient with one of these conditions, they are, indeed, abject failures that waste your money and keep you preoccupied with non-effective treatments when you could be doing something proactive.
But if you’re an executive at one of the pharmaceutical firms profiting off of human desperation, they’re a whopping success. Not only do they generate massive revenue – they keep patients hopeless, sick, and grasping at straws for the next round of bogus drugs to sell them.
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This article was originally published on The Daily Bell.
Ben Bartee is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs. Follow his stuff via Armageddon Prose and/or Substack, Patreon, Gab, and Twitter. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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***
A chief executive of an oil company will lead the United Nations COP international climate conference for the first time in its 30 year history. There have already been calls for Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber to stand down from the fossil fuel major before negotiations begin in earnest.
Al Jaber has been confirmed as the incoming COP28 president. He is an influential member of the United Arab Emirates government, holding roles as a minister of industry, chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and chair of the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar).
The 49-year-old was educated in the US and the UK, and has been the face of the UAE’s energy sector over the last decade, setting up Masdar in 2006 while running the UAE government’s strategic investment arm. Al Jaber is not in the royal family, making his rise all the more remarkable. He is known to have close relationships with world leaders and CEOs.
Planetary
Tasneem Essop, the executive director of Climate Action Network International, said:
“With the COP28 host, the UAE, announcing the appointment of His Excellency Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber as president of COP28, it is imperative for the world to be reassured that he will step down from his role as the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Corporation.
“He cannot preside over a process that is tasked to address the climate crisis with such a conflict of interest, heading an industry that is responsible for the crisis itself. If he does not step down as CEO, it will be tantamount to a full scale capture of the UN climate talks by a petrostate national oil company and its associated fossil fuel lobbyists.
“COP26 in Glasgow had 500 fossil fuel lobbyists in attendance, the COP in Egypt saw a 25 per cent increase in their presence, COP28 now seems to be open season for vested interests who will no doubt use the climate talks to continue to undermine any progress on climate action. As civil society we demand that Al Jaber does the right thing and either stand aside or step down.”
Rachel Kyte, the dean of the Tufts University, Fletcher School, said:
“The incoming COP president has a dilemma. The UAE is competing to be the most efficient and lowest-cost source of fossil fuels as global production must diminish through the energy transition in line with IPCC and IEA pathways.
“There cannot be any more development of fossil fuels. It will be challenging as COP president to unite countries around more aggressive action while at the same time suggesting that other producers stop producing because UAE has you covered. We don’t have the planetary space for mixed messages.”
Health
Christiana Figueres, the UN climate chief from 2010 to 2016, said:
“The International Energy Agency (IEA) has been abundantly clear that there is no more atmospheric space for any new oil, gas or coal. This policy clarity echoes the findings of science and the increasing demands of public opinion. COP28 must not only align itself with this reality, but in fact accelerate global decarbonization. There is no other path forward.”
Vanessa Nakate, a climate justice activist from Uganda, said:
“COP28 needs to see real money put into the loss and damage fund agreed in Egypt. But alongside this, COP28 must speed up the global phase out of fossil fuels – we cannot have another COP where fossil fuel interests are allowed to sacrifice our futures to eke out another few years of profit.
“And finally, the voices of civil society and young activists are crucial in holding governments to account — they must be heard in Dubai without intimidation.”
Maria Mendiluce, the chief executive of the We Mean Business Coalition, said:
“Strong ambition and leadership from the UAE’s new President of COP28, Sultan Al Jaber, is critical for accelerating the significant investment needed globally to deliver a clean energy system – with the new jobs, health and economic benefits it will bring.
“Science is telling us the perils of going beyond the 1.5C limit: there can be no new fossil fuel projects, according to the International Energy Agency.”
Embrace
She added:
“At COP27, global business strongly backed the call to ensure we limit global temperature rise to 1.5C, and over 80 countries supported a call to phase down fossil fuels. Simply put: fossil fuels will inevitably be replaced with clean energy.
“Business needs the COP28 presidency to mobilize ambitious government policy and finance to dramatically scale up investments in clean energy while stopping new investment in fossil fuels. This will enable companies to cut emissions at speed, and build a safer, more stable and thriving global economy.”
Manuel Pulgar-Vidal was the president of COP20 and minister of environment for Peru. He is currently the global climate and energy lead at WWF. He said:
“In time, we will realise that 2021-2022 was a critical turning point.
“It is the moment that a few calls at COP to once and for all end climate-wrecking fossil fuels became an undeniable clamour. We need COP28 in the UAE to build on this foundation with a well-considered approach that quickly enables the whole world to fully embrace a complete transition to clean energy. We have no more time to lose. I look forward to supporting COP28 to achieve successful outcomes.”
Petroleum
Yvo de Boer, the UN climate chief from 2006 to 2010, said:
“The UAE has much to offer, especially when it comes to the thorny question of how to rise to the climate challenge while creating prosperity at the same time. Masdar City in Abu Dhabi is a renowned green innovation hub that also houses the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).
“In addition the UAE has adopted a sound green growth strategy and is a major investor in renewable energy both at home and abroad. The COP President designate has been instrumental on many of these issues. This equips him with the understanding, experience and responsibility to make COP28 ambitious, innovative and future focussed.”
The 2023 conference promises to be a particularly tough event, given worsening geopolitics, rising climate damages and a fractious end to the COP27 summit in Sharm El Sheikh. The COP28 event will be the third time a major UN climate summit has been held in the Middle East, with Qatar (2012) and Egypt (2022) among the previous hosts.
UAE has a huge per capita carbon footprint: the world’s 4th largest behind Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait. According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) it’s the seventh-largest petroleum and other liquids producer in the world with export revenues topping $70 billion.
Technology
The government’s PR machine does a good job highlighting the Masdar initiative and solar investments through to 2030. Solar is now available at 1.35 cents per kilowatt hour in UAE, with 9GW due online by 2030. Renewables nonetheless account for a fraction of the country’s power mix, as the US EIA observes.
Recent energy announcements include plans to switch a coal fired plant under construction to gas; a deal valued at $100bn with the US government to invest in carbon capture technology and grow its renewables sector; a green hydrogen partnership with Germany and an$11bn onshore wind farm in Egypt.
Al Jaber himself claimed in a piece for Project Syndicate that all the electricity consumed by ADNOC comes from zero-carbon nuclear and solar power in August 2022. But ADNOC’s announcement of this in December 2021 said construction would begin in 2022 with commercial operation commencing in 2025. Then there is the issue of the gas that would previously have been burned to power its operations being sold instead.
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Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist.
Featured image: Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber chairs a meeting. Image: ΝΕΑ ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ / Flickr / ΝΕΑ ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ / Creative Commons 2.0
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***
In the West, all the stops are pulled out in the effort to keep the destruction of Russia, and the assassination of its elected leader, front and center.
For instance, consider the militarization of the Miss Universe spectacle, an annual gala self-described as the “Greatest Celebration of Women,” or rather some women—not those defending Donetsk and Luhansk, those are Putin’s terrorists.
Saint Michael the Archangel? Now the propagandists are deep diving the Book of Enoch. This mystical character was invented by ancient Jews to act as a Torah referee and protector of Israel. He features prominently in Revelation 12:7-12, doing battle with Satan, and also in the Epistle of Jude, where heretics are denounced. Saint Michael is an archangel for Jews, Christians, Muslims, and followers of the Baha’i faith.
On the stage in New Orleans, a blonde model, a slender female remake of Saint Michael the Avenger, spreads gold-tipped wings, and we are told she is a “warrior or light” on a mission to save Ukraine, presumably from the New Satan, Putin.
Next up, a half-naked woman prances across the stage, her cape emblazoned with “Be Brave Like Ukraine.”
It rhymes! There is no way you can forget this catchy one-liner!
The propagandists are selling suspicion, hatred, murder, torture, rape, and ethnic cleansing. How better to sell it than on the bodies of semi-clad young women?
For some reason unexplained, this grotesque promotion of Russian corpses rotting in the field is not denounced as shameless exploitation and war propaganda. It is simply more entertainment—and if anything, Americans demand to be entertained. Inserting war propaganda in the stream of Hollywood pablum is a logical step.
It’s simply another day in America, where the inequities and crimes of the state and the ruling elite are sold to the people in a form they understand, not much different than Pavlov’s dogs understanding the dinner bell.
Forget archangels. It might be time to dig deep into Slavic tradition and find a more suitable myth to recast as war propaganda.
For instance, Zorya, the Red Maiden, doubles as a warrior goddess protecting men in battle. She might be conscripted as an attractive propaganda tool in the war to defeat Russia. A neon pink Agua de Coco bikini might be appropriate. Maybe they can convince the model Olga Kurilenko to wear a skimpy bikini and a war propaganda cape?
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***
Since the ouster by the parliament of former leftwing President Pedro Castillo in December, demonstrations demanding his release from detention and the reversal of the military-backed coup have been unrelenting.
Official figures indicate that over the last month some 48 people have died as President Dina Boluarte has attempted to end protests which are seeking her resignation, the immediate release of Castillo and the holding another round of elections.
The impeachment of Castillo was done in a perfunctory manner absent of any substantiative hearings where evidence of alleged crimes could have been presented. A split from the Peru Libre party on whose slate Castillo and Boluarte ran in 2021 encouraged the rightist elements along with the military to take effective power.
Despite the departure of Castillo and Boluarte from Peru Libre, the president maintained widespread support by the electorate concerned about the reforms under which he campaigned during 2021. Castillo retains tremendous support in the southern region of the country among the rural population groups. This region is key to the overall economy of Peru which is heavily dependent upon tourism and the extractive industries.
Castillo, an educator and trade union leader based in the rural areas of the South, was just elected in a runoff vote during mid-2021. During his first year in office, there were several attempts to impeach him over disagreements related to the domestic policies of the country.
After a lull in the demonstrations during the holiday season, the mass protests and acts of civil disobedience have resumed. In response to the unrest, the Boluarte regime has declared a state of emergency and imposed curfews throughout sections of the country.
Image: Peru anti-coup demonstrators
A general work stoppage was called for aimed at ending the tenure of Boluarte and the present Congress which ousted the grassroots trade union leader on December 7. The broad support for Castillo has been evidenced by the economic and social impact of the mass demonstrations and general strikes which have gripped key regions of the country for more than a month.
Those political interests now controlling the Peruvian Congress are described by the Castillo supporters as completely out of touch with the realities of the workers, farmers and youth within the Indigenous communities.
January 4 witnessed the beginning of an indefinite strike in the departments of Arequipa, Ayacucho, Apurimac, Cusco, Moquegua, Madre de Dios, and Puno. Simultaneously organizations in Ayacucho, Huancavelica and Apurimac were debating over whether to join the actions.
The General Confederation of Workers of Peru (CGTP) held a demonstration in the capital of Lima expressing solidarity with the mobilizations and strike actions in various sections of the country. In addition, the CGTP endorsed the demand for the closing of Congress, the resignation of Boluarte and the holding of general elections immediately.
“The land Transport Superintendence confirmed the blockade of roads in 46 sites scattered in eight regions of the country. Among them is the blockade of traffic between Puno and Arequipa, two important commercial cities. Currently, the strongest protests are taking place in the southern part of the country. Local media report traffic blockades on the Interoceanic Highway and the Pan-American Highway, as well as protests in Andahuaylas, Aymaraes, and Abancay. In this last region, 70 percent of the population has complied with the national strike, leaving a large number of vehicles stranded on the roads. In the city of Chalhuanca, the police tried to unblock a highway, which led to clashes with the indigenous communities.”
Massacre at Juliaca
On January 9, it was reported that 17 civilians were massacred in the city of Juliaca in San Roman province by the security forces in the southeast of the country. Just two days later, protesters marched with coffins of the deceased through the city with signs denouncing Boluarte. When the funeral procession walked past a local police station, the people began to chant “murderers, murderers.”
The supporters of Castillo have engaged in a general strike to emphasize the need to reverse the current political situation inside the country. In response, the police and military forces at the aegis of the Boluarte administration have exercised maximum force to end the protests against the undemocratic character of the regime.
Demonstrations in Peru have focused on closing down airports and roads which facilitate the large tourism industry in the country. Although most of the protest actions have been nonviolent, there were reports that at least one police officer was burned to death after being thrown into a fire.
With specific reference to the attacks by the police on the people of Juliaca, Telesur noted as the events unfolded that:
“The first death was recorded just hours ago (Jan. 9) when 35-year-old Gabriel Omar Lopez was identified. A pellet hit the victim in the head during clashes in the southern city of Juliaca, in the province of San Roman, Puno department. The death of a 17-year-old girl was reported. The initial casualty and injury toll issued by the Health Network was lower but has been updated with the report of 12 dead and 38 injured. In the midst of such a scenario, road blockades are maintained at Puno’s connection points with Arequipa, Cusco and Madre de Dios. According to the Superintendence of Land Transportation of People, Cargo and Goods (Sutran), the blockade affects 20 sectors in the different roads of the region. The roads leading from Puno to Desagüadero, in the sectors of Platería, Acora, Ilave, Juli, Yunguyo and Desagüadero, are blocked. In the city of Puno, the carriers blocked with mobile units different streets, parks, entrances and exits of the city of Lago and the city of Juliaca, in the Yanamayo sector.”
Meanwhile, Castillo remains in detention as his family has been given political asylum in the Republic of Mexico. Several states throughout the region including Mexico, Cuba, Argentina, Venezuela, among others, have rejected the removal of the former president.
At the same time the Attorney General of Peru announced on January 11 that President Boluarte and Prime Minister Alberto Otarola along with the ministers of defense and interior, are under investigation for genocide. This investigation stems directly from the repressive measures instituted by the regime to halt dissent and public protest since the December 7 removal and arrest of Castillo. The announcement of the investigation took place during the same week as the Peruvian Congress gave a vote of confidence to the Boluarte and Otarola administration.
The Role of the U.S. and Its Allies
There are a number of governments which have recognized Boluarte as president. The U.S. State Department supported the coup against Castillo, who has repeatedly claimed that his impeachment was illegal and that he remains the legitimate president.
In the immediate aftermath of the removal of Castillo, Reuters press agency reported:
“The U.S. government said it welcomed the appointment of Dina Boluarte as President of Peru, who was sworn in by Congress on Wednesday (Dec. 7) in a day that saw ex-leader Pedro Castillo arrested following his ousting from office in an impeachment trial. ‘We commend Peruvian institutions and civil authorities for assuring democratic stability and will continue to support Peru under the unity government President Boluarte pledged to form,’ a U.S. State Department spokesperson said in a statement.”
The U.S. has a history of favoring and installing military regimes in Latin America. Although Boluarte is ostensibly a civilian president, from the beginning of her tenure she has empowered the Peruvian National Police and the Peruvian Armed Forces to suppress the democratic and left opposition to the removal of Castillo.
In Bolivia during 2019, a military-backed coup was carried out against socialist President Evo Morales. This move on the part of the right-wing was backed by the administration of former President Donald Trump.
Recently in Brazil, right-wing supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro called upon the military to seize power and arrest the incumbent head-of-state Lula da Silva. Although the U.S. has condemned the attacks on the government buildings in Brasilia on January 8, it is well known that Bolsonaro was influenced by the Trump administration during their tenures in office. Republicans have regained control of the U.S. House of Representatives while Democrats in general have not taken any meaningful measures to halt the destabilization efforts by the State Department and the intelligence agencies around the world.
These methods of destabilization will continue until the threat of U.S. imperialism is eliminated in Latin America. Solidarity efforts from the U.S. antiwar and peace movements could have a tremendous impact in curtailing the interventionist policies of Washington and Wall Street.
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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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***
On January 11th, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees appointed a Commission of eight neoconservatives (otherwise called “defense hawks,” or, in more ordinary terms, supporters of U.S. invasions and of military defense contractors) to advise them on the Pentagon’s existing budget for the coming fiscal year.
Some of them have been MIC (military industrial complex) executives; others have been advisors to members of Congress, and the Chair, Jane Harman, was a leading member of several defense-related House committees, as well as of defense-related nonprofits (think tanks).
Congress recently has been seeking higher Defense spending than the White House proposes, and this Commission will be well suited to recommending that.
The Commission’s Chair will be Democrat Jane Harman.
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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.
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***
No sooner did the new year ring in, did the corporate state’s cancel culture machine kick into high gear, finding a fresh new target.
Not satisfied with regulating speech on the web, the establishment in New Zealand has set its sights on canceling print publications as well, this time for the alleged crime of spreading ‘dangerous conspiracies.’ The gears of censorship have a problem though. As tired epithets like ‘conspiracy’ continue to lose their potency, the cancelation machine is now having to resort to openly lying about content they seek to ban.
In their bid to protect the public from “harmful” speech, leading the charge was mainstream media outlet Stuff.co.nz, who dutifully alerted the public on January 3rd that they might be exposed to some dangerous text found in the periodical section of one of the country’s leading retail chains.
In his article,”Whitcoulls stocks magazine peddling mosque terror attack conspiracy,” senior reporter, Geraden Cann, explained how during a routine counter-disinformation reconnaissance mission to a local newsagent, either himself or a colleague (it’s not clear which), spied the offending publication: the latest issue of New Dawn Magazine, now targeted for removal from the store’s shelves.
According to Stuff, the article in question is a short piece located in the back of the magazine on page 70, entitled, “The Strange Story of Brenton Tarrant,” by writer T.J. Coles (see PDF of full article below), which Cann claims is “peddling a number of anti-vax conspiracies and insinuating the Christchurch mosque terror attack was a false flag operation.” The key word here is insinuating, which, according to Stuff, meets their fluid criteria for a nationwide ban.
Interestingly, the T.J. Coles article is not listed on the cover of the issue, so it’s possible what may have first triggered Stuff was the cover – an image poking fun at masks and jabs, and the well-worn “Trust The Science” mantra; or, maybe the mention of an interview with antipodean bête noire, Australian celebrity chef and “antivaxxer” and “conspiracy theorist,” Pete Evans (also targeted for cancelation by both the Australian and New Zealand media). It’s difficult to say, but the answer probably depends on which talking point garners more political outrage.
Stuff’s intrepid reporter didn’t stop there, and proceeded to travel around the city to check if any other stores had dared to stock the controversial publication. Cann was appalled to discover that, “Lambton Quay store in Wellington had copies of two issues of New Dawn magazine for sale this week. It was also spotted in another Wellington store, Johnsonville, and at New Lynn in West Auckland.”
It’s now clear that Cann’s article was the catalyst for initiating a much wider and highly organised public mobbing campaign – which was meant to target all bookstores and newsagents in New Zealand, beginning with one of the nation’s largest such retailer, Whitcoulls. This was then followed by the usual reflexive activist swarming and ‘brigading‘ on social media, first by disseminating Stuff’s hit-piece, followed by a wave of outrage from various activist accounts in New Zealand. Note the numerous replies in the Twitter thread (below), including vitriol specifically targeting Whitcoulls’ corporate PR department.
Poor form, Whitcoulls.
"Whitcoulls stocks magazine peddling mosque terror attack conspiracy"https://t.co/DOThlVwE2a
Once the Whitcoulls cancelation campaign was fully under way, activists expanded their brigading by targeting other print retailers, including another leading national chain Paper Plus, pressuring them to remove New Dawn from their stores (see tweet below).
Less than a day later on January 4th, Stuff then began taking a victory lap in a follow-up piece, again by Geraden Cann, informing the world that the “Magazine peddling mosque attack conspiracy disappears from Whitcoulls shelves,” clearly indicating they, along with their online brigade, had indeed put sufficient pressure on the bookstore chain, and as Twitter threads clearly show, berating corporate officials and branch managers for not moving fast enough to cancel New Dawn.
To complete the public mobbing circle, Stuff seems to have drafted the help of Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand and its spokesperson Abdur Razzaq who, after likely not having read the magazine, derided New Dawn, saying that it “had no meaningful information, except to confuse and raise conspiracies.”
Razzaq then went on to assure Stuff’s readership that cancelation was imminent, stating, “We have sent communications to Whitcoulls on this matter and expect them to play their part in promoting social good as an iconic New Zealand company.”
Feigning forbearance, Stuff’s Geraden Cann seemed content that even though Whitcoulls had not responded to his request for comment, that the bookstore still did ‘the right thing’ by removing all copies of the magazine:
“the magazines had in fact been removed from the shelves a Stuff reporter had visited Lambton Quay and Cuba St stores in Wellington last Tuesday…. A staff member in Johnsonville said: “That magazine was stocked by us in the past, it is no longer stocked by us and we have no further comment on that.”
Mission accomplished. A successful modern day book burning.
The Big Lie
Unfortunately, the damage was not limited to celebratory booking burning. Stuff felt the need to employ some extremely underhanded tactics to ensure their conquest was successful. Outlets engaging in defamation is not uncommon in mainstream media, especially where politics are concerned, and Stuff is no exception.
In order to destroy the reputation of New Dawn Magazine, an incredible lie was conjured up.
The level of speed and coordination in this operation is nothing short of breathtaking.
Initially, Stuff‘s Geraden Cann, along with academic Kate Hannah from the Disinformation Project, pushed out the fanciful claim that the magazine’s contents could cause readers to fall foul of the law in New Zealand:
“Kate Hannah, director of The Disinformation Project, a research group monitoring Covid-19 disinformation, said some of the commentary in New Dawn was borderline in legality.”
She said some of the commentary in New Dawn was borderline in legality, because it described the content of livestreamed video of the Christchurch shootings, as well where it had been published, which could encourage people to seek it out.
Mainstream Kiwi outlets like Bay of Plenty Times and News Talk ZB then ran with the Stuff’sfabrication, “Magazine sold in Whitcoulls could get readers in legal trouble,” and claimed that the article contained details about where to view the video of the mass shooting:
“A claim an article in a conspiracy magazine sold in Whitcoulls could cause readers to run afoul of the law. The book chain is stocking a copy of New Dawn, a magazine with anti-vax conspiracies and an article insinuating that the Christchurch Mosque attack was a false flag operation. A claim an article in a conspiracy magazine sold in Whitcoulls could cause readers to run afoul of the law. The book chain is stocking a copy of New Dawn, a magazine with anti-vax conspiracies and an article insinuating that the Christchurch Mosque attack was a false flag operation. Disinformation Project Director Kate Hannah says that while some of the articles will be harmless, the one about the mosque attack details where to find the banned livestream of the attack. She says a naive reader may choose to look it up, which would be illegal.”
This last point was in fact a lie, as no such details appear in the article.
This begs the question: did Cann or Hannah actually read the article? If they had, then they should have concluded that, “The Strange Story of Brenton Tarrant,” by T.J. Coles (PDF below) does not contain any details about where to find the location of the livestream of the 2019 Christchurch Mosque attack. The article mentions how at the time of the shooting video links were posted on forums like 8chan, but for Stuff or Kate Hannah to claim this is ‘illegal’ is laughable, not least of all because the entire global mainstream media have all reported how those links were posted on 8Chan and the like – a well-known fact is already part of the historical record. How any ‘fact-checker’ or qualified journalist would claim that by merely mentioning this fact of history, New Dawn Magazine and its writer T.J. Coles have engaged in some kind of unlawful or dangerous act, is incredible. While it may be ridiculous on their part, it is by no means accidental. Their big lie was intended to inflict maximum damage on the magazine’s brand, and see it banned nationwide, and beyond. As Australian independent journalists Ethan Nash from TOTT News aptly points out, the information in T.J. Coles Christchurch Shooting article in New Dawn is the same information which appears on the Christchurch Shooting’s official Wikipedia page.
If Cann and Hannah’s logic were correct, then millions of Wikipedia readers would be in trouble with the law in New Zealand. Of course they aren’t, but that’s not what this is about. It’s about state-sponsored media and third sector organizations like the Disinformation Project waging targeted campaigns against selected dissident voices whose crime is simply daring to ask questions and challenge the official narrative on any given story or state policy.
Checking the ‘Fact-Checkers’
Another common tactic by Establishment outlets like Stuff is to claim that independent media must be canceled, or at least regulated by state-approved agencies, is because they lack the necessary ‘fact checking’ controls which are somehow necessary for preventing potential “harm” (a completely arbitrary term) emotional or otherwise, at any point in the future. That is the core of their argument. They claim that mainstream media outlets already meet this ethical and professional standard, and have rigorous fact checking in place. But that delusional assumption does not square with reality, and everyone knows it. There are volumes of books and academic studies detailing mainstream media lies and propaganda over the ages. Many wars have been started as a result of their lies. However, after reviewing the article in question, “The Strange Story of Brenton Tarrant,” by T.J. Coles, it’s clear that the article in question does not need any “fact checking” – because all historical references are footnoted, and it merely offers a critical analysis which includes some theory, but does not posit any conclusions. It merely asks a few pertinent questions about the many known anomalies present in this mass shooting event story. The same cannot be said for those pointing the finger at New Dawn, as it’s now clear that Stuff and its senior reporter Geraden Cann did not even bother to ‘fact-check’ their own work as it pertains to this story.
Still, the New Zealand establishment and its frontline infantry at Stuff and the Disinformation Project, seem determined to shut down any basic (and legal) critical discourse on this topic, and feel justified in doing so. This pervasive lack of self-awareness by the mainstream media and academia is not a strong indicator of a healthy democracy. History dictates it’s quite the opposite.
If this is how the state and the media are going to operate, then we have arrived at Fahrenheit 451, the 1953 dystopian novel by American writer Ray Bradbury. It was meant to be a warning, not a handbook.
Forbidden Speech: False Flags
Even more interesting though, is the knee-jerk reaction by the state and its private-public media partners at the mere mention of false flag events. It is a historical fact that many wars and high-profile ‘terror attacks’ have featured the hidden hand of intelligence services, military, and government agencies. Such revelations often come after the fact, showing the use of deception and the misattribution of blame, by way of covert state involvement in order to control and steer what the public would normally perceive as an ‘extremist’ terrorist attack – and always to affect some political or geopolitical outcome.
One of the best examples of was the 1993 World Trade Center bombing which is widely attributed to home-grown Muslim extremists, when in fact it was the FBI who groomed and managed a ‘terror cell’ – one of their many ‘sting’ operations gone awry. Despite the FBI debacle being documented by the New York Times and others, most politicians and mainstream media routinely ignore the facts and stick to the popular “al Qaeda” narrative. In fact, most so-called ‘terror busts’ during the War on Terror era featured paid FBI informants, some of whom were the ringleaders of the radical groups. This uncomfortable truth has been documented by American author Trevor Aaronson in his best-selling book, Terror Factory, The: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism. These are but a few examples. Does that mean that the 2019 Christchurch Shooting in New Zealand was also a false flag? No, it does not. That is a question for a special government inquiry, and for investigative journalists to interrogate, and it’s a process which requiresquestioning the official narrative of any incident or event in history. That is the essence of freedom of speech and the free press. In a truly democratic society, these should be nonnegotiables. In almost every case, revelations of actual false flag events are discovered after the fact, and only then due to the brave testimony of whistleblowers and investigative journalists – and almost never from ruling governments and their state-sponsored narrative gatekeepers. Therefore, journalists, writers, and academics must be allowed to probe these historic incidents in order to discover the truth, including writer T.J. Coles and New Dawn Magazine. This speech must be protected by our society and governments, even if those uncomfortable questions happen to offend someone. It is the legal and constitutional right of writers like T.J. Coles to objectively interrogate historic events, without fear of reprisals by the corporate state. Claims by Stuff, Kate Hannah or the government, that doing so is somehow “harmful” seems more like the mark of a very insecure and thin-skinned establishment that’s increasingly obsessed with narrative management. The visceral reaction by the New Zealand establishment to this New Dawn issue certainly looks as if they are not comfortable with people asking questions, and that maybe, just maybe, they may not be telling the whole story.
It’s understandable how Stuff and Hannah might feel confident in advancing this totalitarian approach to speech control, especially after PM Jacinda Ardern had openly declared at last year’s UN General Assembly that free speech online should be regarded as a “weapons of war,” and therefore regulated by the corporate state to prevent ‘potential harm.’ There’s that word again, harm. For the new authoritarian caste and disinformation mavens, anything goes in the righteous pursuit of harm reduction. Ardern was rightly admonished by critics for her remarks at the UN, but it would be a mistake to think that her connotation merely misunderstood. No, she was firing a salvo on behalf of a globalist technocracy which is authoritarian by nature; antithetical to constitutional rights and civil liberties, and which proven without a shadow of a doubt through the actions and words of its adherents during the ‘global pandemic’ moment. The likes of Stuff, Kate Hannah and the Disinformation Project are merely foot soldiers that globalist technocracy.
One of the world’s leading academics on the subject of state propaganda is British academic Dr. Piers Robinson, who recently reacted to this story on social media. He warned that, “Censorship and de-platforming continues to corrode our public sphere; see recent events with New Dawn Magazine, Unless we stand our ground and defend the critical right freedom of expression, democracy will be eclipsed.”
Censorship and de-platforming continues to corrode our public spheres; see recent events with @newdawnmagazine. Unless we stand our ground and defend the critical right to freedom of expression, democracy will be eclipsed. @21stcenturywirehttps://t.co/3pKht7BgYl
Who is Kate Hannah? What is the Disinformation Project?
The long-established mainstream media practice of parroting actual misinformation and outright falsehoods is nothing new, and these establishment outlets rarely, if ever, pay a price for regularly spreading untruths on an almost daily basis. Of course, none of these mainstream outlets are ever taken to task by the new legion of fact-checkers and disinformation/misinformation’ experts and agencies.
How about the so-called ‘disinformation/misinformation’ officials? It seems that in her haste to stir-up public outrage intended to get the magazine banned, ‘Disinformation Project‘ director Kate Hannah used her state-approved platform to spread the lie that the New Dawn article contained the details of the location of Tarrant’s livestream video of the mosque attack and could land readers in legal trouble. How could such an accomplished academic make such a fatal error? It’s worth asking: did she actually read the article, or was she simply going off of second and third hand information about the magazine contained in mainstream media reporting and posts on social media?
Failing that, you could just write this off as incompetence on the part of Hannah. If that is indeed the case, then this is really a good example as any of a how inept this new breed of self-styled ‘disinformation’ experts truly are. Still, they receive regular rounds of state funding, and are given a public profile to act as de facto judge, jury and executioner when policing speech and media content, but are reckless when it comes to applying basic journalistic standards themselves and their media partners. At present, no one seems to want to hold them to account.
Regardless, the big lie was amplified by Kate Hannah, which then led to the magazine effectively being pulled from the shelves across New Zealand – shelves which New Dawn Magazine has been on for decades.
Who is Kate Hannah, and is she really qualified to adjudicate free speech and public discourse? One would expect that New Zealand’s top authority for policing speech and ‘disinformation’ would have at least some experience in journalism, broadcasting, or media? Only, it turns out that Hannah, a Research Fellow at the University of Auckland, has no such experience. According to her university bio, she has MA in “19th Century American Literary Culture”, and her principal research area is the “historiography of the history of science, with a focus on the cultures and subcultures of science, gender in science history, and narrative and complexity” and “investigating novel hybrid methodologies for the history of science.” Lots of academic theory and social sciences, but nothing remotely resembling real world or industry experience in the very sector she is in charge of policing (presumably on behalf of the ruling Ardern government).
One of the recent jobs completed by Kate Hannah and the Disinformation Project was to scrape data and use web analytic tools like CrowdTangle to track and identify dissident users online, and then draw-up extensive lists of supposed undesirable accounts on social media. Hannah recently named “The Disinformation Dozen,” in almost mirror fashion to the Biden Administration’scensorship campaign with the same name – a list of social media users marked as a priority for censorship and deplatforming – supposedly for committing the crime of Covid or vaccine ‘misinformation/disinformation.’ Recent revelations from the Twitter Files from the United States show how these similar academic working groups and fact-checking organisations are actively coordinating with Big Tech firms and Government in order to dox, target, and ultimately deny peoples’ right to free speech and access to major social media platforms, namely Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn.
As of today, the Disinformation Project (founded in February 2020, fortuitously, just a month before the Covid crisis) does not appear to list their source of funding on their website, or at least easily searchable on their site. So one can only assume it’s being funded through some form of public money or research grant, most likely through from Te Pūnaha Matatini (TPM), a technocracy think tank hosted by the University of Auckland, and funded through the Tertiary Education Commission. TPM describes itself as the county’s “Centre of Research Excellence for complex systems,” with “different disciplines, ways of thought, methods, and crucially, people – to define, and then solve, society’s thorny interconnected problems.” Early on in the Covid hysteria in 2020, TPM was New Zealand’s version of Imperial College, using Neil Ferguson-style computer modeling to erroneously “predict” that 83,500 residents would die without heavy-handed ‘public health’ intervention measures, like severe lockdowns. As with Ferguson, TPM’s doomsday death toll turned out to be pure science fiction. Not surprisingly, they now claim that their recommended lockdown saved all those lives. It’s important to note how governments relied on otherwise credible academic institutions, such as Imperial College and Te Pūnaha Matatini/University of Auckland, to help wage a campaign of fear against the public in order to usher in non-science-based ‘mitigation’ policies like lockdowns, mandatory masks, social distancing, medical apartheid (vaccine passports), as well as Jacinda Ardern’s ludicrous “Zero Covid” policy, when the PM ordered a national lockdown after just one positive PCR ‘case’ appeared on the state’s bio-surveillance radar. For helping to spin-up the fear, TPM was later given a $6 million dollar award by the government.
Stuff – A Private-Public Partnership
It’s important to point out that Stuff.co.nz receives large tranches of funding from the government of New Zealand, as well as tech giants like Google.
Recently, Stuff secured a large tranche of funding, supposedly “to fight misinformation about the Covid-19 vaccination” in partnership with Māori TV and the Pacific Media Network – funded through the Google News Initiative for support from its Covid-19 Vaccine Counter Misinformation Open Fund.
In addition, Stuff raked in at least $2.37 million in a New Zealand government self-described “media bailout.”
Aside from all this, like so many other media outlets, Stuff is probably surviving off of government advertising money for “public information campaigns” in support of Jacinda Ardern’s COVID-19 policies – another way in which governments have been able to control editorial shape of mainstream media outlets during the Covid pseudo pandemic.
With money comes strings, along with promises of future rounds of funding. Considering how closely the state has partnered with Big Pharma and Big Tech during the COVID crisis, the conflicts of interest should be glaringly obvious by now. For any media outlet being subsidized by this sea of public-private partnership cash, it would be impossible to not continually defend the government’s policies and its public health institutions, and in the case of Stuff – attack its critics.
Hence, any government funding for Kate Hannah’s Disinformation Project and state-funded Stuff.co.nz, should be viewed for what it really is: money to quell any public opposition to the government’s pandemic policies by monitoring, attacking and marginalising any skeptics and dissenters on social media, independent media, or ‘rogue’ medical professionals.
Hannah also worked closely with New Zealand state-funded media Stuff.co.nz with an article and video entitled, “Covid-19: ‘Multiple complaints’ over anti-vaccine doctors,” a hit-piece attacking any medical professionals in New Zealand who were asking for informed consent with the experimental mRNA vaccines, or who challenge the Ardern government’s “single source of truth” on Covid-19 and vaccine policies. Hannah and Stuff reserved their most severe attacks for popular New Zealand doctor and broadcaster, Dr.Sam Bailey, and her fellow medical colleagues at NZDSOS, who dared to question the efficacy of government’s Covid measures and for raising concerns about vaccine safety for children.
Finally, Kate Hannah claims that, “People who see and/or consume such content must understand that there are larger and more dark agendas present, particularly the Russian connections, which aim to destabilise liberal democracy.”
Well, of course. It’s those dastardly Russians, again. Hell-bent on undermining our fragile democracy.
This is the definition of gaslighting, and a tragic example of how twisted the establishment’s disinformation strawman has become. They rely on a low-attention span public to take the media’s lies at face value and then parrot them to make those lies go viral, thereby fueling cancelation and censorship. That’s how this machine works.
If there is any dark agenda here, then it has to be the one which Hannah and her media partners at Stuff are working so feverishly to obfuscate: the tens of millions of people worldwide who experienced serious loss, injury or death – as a direct consequence of governments’ pandemic mitigation measures. That includes the countless thousands worldwide who have suffered adverse reactions or deaths following their mRNA injection.
Who is going to hold government, Big Pharma, and mainstream media to account for their role in imposing this debate on societies worldwide? Certainly not government, Pharma, or the mainstream media.
Which leaves us with citizen journalists and the independent media – as liberal democracy’s last line of defense against this Orwellian juggernaut.
And the mainstream media are invited to join us, if they can summon the courage.
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Author Patrick Henningsen is an American writer, accredited journalist, global affairs analyst, co-founder and executive editor of 21st Century Wire, host of the SUNDAY WIRE weekly radio show and the Patrick Henningsen Show on TNT Radio International, as well as co-host of the popular UK Column News TV program. He is also a featured writer at New Dawn Magazine. His work has appeared in a number of international publications and on TV channels globally, and over the last decade he has worked on the ground covering politics and global affairs in North America and Europe, as well as work in conflict zones in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon. Patrick has an MA in International Relations from the University of Plymouth in the UK.
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“An unexpected result of Yemen’s war: More men are cooking and cleaning,” The Washington Post reported in 2016 on the social and cultural impact of the war in Yemen. The seemingly good side of this U.S.-sponsored genocide: gender equality!
The fact that Yemeni men, provided they have not yet been blown to pieces by American and European bombs, are taking the housework off their wives should please German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who pursues a “feminist foreign policy.”
Like her good acquaintance, billionaire speculator George Soros, she vehemently advocates human rights and democracy in all those countries that do not want to submit to American “security interests.” The lack of democracy and the serious human rights violations in Ukraine, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, which are part of the U.S. sphere of influence, are therefore not part of their vigorous moral offensive.
Tweet by Annalena Baerbock showing her with George Soros at the 2019 Munich Security Conference. [Source: volksverpetezer.de]
Surprisingly, on December 16, 2022, U.S. mainstream media outlet MSNBC reported rather lonely from the dreary, uniform Western media desert: “Few people noticed, but the United States Senate came very close to ending America’s complicity in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen earlier this week. But the very same person who had vowed to end that war intervened and stopped the Senate from taking action—President Joe Biden.”
There were no protests from politicians of all stripes against Saudi Arabia—and certainly not from “transatlanticists” and U.S. allies like Baerbock and other representatives of the European Union—being allowed to continue its war against the neighboring country with all brutality and with predominantly American, but also German, British and French weapons.
The former leading German news magazine, Der Spiegel, reports daily (see for example here) about “Russia’s war of aggression” against Ukraine. Saudi Arabia’s Western-backed war of aggression against Yemen, which exacts an incomparably higher toll, hardly receives any attention in that magazine—or in the rest of the European mainstream media. They condemn and demonize Putin daily, but not the Saudi rulers and their Western supporters.
One reason for U.S. involvement in the Yemen war by the Obama administration was to “tamp down Riyadh’s opposition to a nuclear agreement with Iran by supporting an aggressive, Saudi Arabia-led response to what was perceived as rapidly growing Iranian influence in Arab countries.”
Another one was that for U.S. military commanders “countering Iran took strategic priority over the fight against al-Qaeda and ISIL,” although “some top officers questioned Washington’s support for the Riyadh-led intervention, which they believed was doomed,” as Al Jazeera reported in April 2015.
Since the Houthi minority in Yemen are Shiites, Sunni Saudi Arabia accused them of being vassals of rival Iran. According to a February 2015 Newsweek report, Houthis are fighting “for things that all Yemenis crave: government accountability, the end to corruption, regular utilities, fair fuel prices, job opportunities for ordinary Yemenis and the end of Western influence.”
Like al-Qaeda and its Syrian offshoot al-Shabab, IS (ISIL, ISIS or also called Daesh) is a Wahhabi terrorist organization largely funded by wealthy Saudi Wahhabis. In Yemen, they were successfully fought by the Shiites (Houthis), and in Syria by a government with an Alawite president (Alawites are close relatives of the Shiites) with Russian support, because the United States also supported these Wahhabi terrorist organizations there in order to bring about regime change.
Political instability in Yemen began after the U.S.-sponsored “Arab Spring” uprising in 2011 that toppled President Saleh. Then-Vice President Hadi became Yemen’s interim president for a two-year term pending scheduled elections.
In 2014, Yemenis’ frustration with rampant corruption, unemployment and rising fuel prices led to unrest throughout Yemen, including calls for an independent southern Yemen. Fighters from the Houthi tribe marched into the capital Sanaa in September with the support of former President Saleh. Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia.
With the stated goal of returning Western backed Hadi to power, Saudi Arabia joined forces with the United Arab Emirates in 2015 to form a coalition of nine Arab countries. The coalition was supported by the United States, Britain, France and Canada.
As justification for the war of aggression, Saudi and Western propaganda claims the Houthis are merely agents of Iran. The proud tribe rejects such claims. Yemen expert Stephen Zunes, a professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco, told Al Jazeera: “Unlike some [Iran-allied, F.A.] militias in Iraq and Syria, the Houthis have never been an Iranian proxy. They have their own unique history, grievances and agenda.” [Emphasis added.]
And as usual, overwhelming vested interests also play a role here on the part of Washington: Several U.S. congressmen profit from the arms deliveries to Ukraine because they are investors in the arms companies. It is the same war profiteers who escalated the proxy war in Ukraine who have no interest in ending the war in Yemen.
Remember: According to the UN, this war is the world’s biggest humanitarian disaster. It has already claimed hundreds of thousands of victims and 20 million of Yemen’s 30 million inhabitants are starving in the war-ravaged country.
If the West had wanted, this war would never have happened or it would have ended long ago with the stroke of a pen. The Saudi regime could not have survived two weeks without American support, as then-U.S. President Trump told his hosts in Saudi Arabia in his own, very direct way.
The people of Yemen have the misfortune of not being “good”—like Banderist western Ukrainians—and they are subjected to a proxy war against Iran, backed by the U.S.-led liberal-democratic West. The Western media have barely reported on the ongoing massacre.
Expressions of solidarity from Western politicians and celebrities are extremely sparse compared to those raining down on Ukraine, and sanctions against the perpetrators and supporters of this “good” war, which is causing incomparably more death and devastation than the war in Ukraine, are not being sought. All this fits perfectly with the morally sublime “values of the West.”
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Felix Abt is the author of “A Capitalist in North Korea: My Seven Years in the Hermit Kingdom” and of “A Land of Prison Camps, Starving Slaves and Nuclear Bombs?” He can be reached via his Twitter account.
Featured image: WFP Provides Food Assistance to a Record 7 Million People In Yemen In August 2017. UN World Food Program. [Source: wfp.org]
The International Health Regulations Review Committee (IHRRC) of the World Health Organization (WHO) is planning to meet in secret from Monday, January 9, 2023 to Friday January 13, 2023. The IHRRC will be working to finalize what is now a 46 page document that includes proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR).
MP Andrew Bridgen has had the Conservative whip remove him, – meaning he is suspended from sitting as a Conservative MP and must sit without party affiliation – pending a “formal investigation” after causing “great offence” with remarks saying the Covid vaccines are “causing serious harms” and the vaccination campaign was “the biggest crime against humanity since the holocaust”.
A poll by mainstream firm Gallup found that Nicaragua is the No. 1 country in the world where citizens feel at peace. Nine of the top 14 countries are in Latin America. But the US constantly attacks the Sandinista government and imposes sanctions on it.
The rapidity with which the U.S. penetrated and dominated much of post-Soviet territory is breath-taking. Only three years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union former federal republics of the nation were absorbed in NATO’s first, as it were, apprenticeship program, the Partnership for Peace.
A damning indictment of the Net Zero political project has been made by one of the world’s leading nuclear physicists. In a recently published science paper, Dr. Wallace Manheimer said it would be the end of modern civilisation. Writing about wind and solar power he argued it would be especially tragic “when not only will this new infrastructure fail, but will cost trillions, trash large portions of the environment, and be entirely unnecessary”.
Last year marked six decades since the publication of Rachel Carson’s seminal work Silent Spring, the book often credited with inspiring the modern environmental movement (at least in North America). One impactful line from the book stands out as being even more true today than it was in 1962: “Every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the moment of conception until death.”
Since January 1, the UK has banned Russian LNG imports and is looking to other producers such as the US to meet demand. On January 9 the UK government announced it is extending the support it provides to companies regarding their energy bills for another year – which will cost around £ 5. bn.
If reports are correct that modern Western weapon systems are slated to pour into Ukraine–the latest US and German tanks, Patriot missile systems, and other current weaponry–Minister Reznikov is correct.
Thanks to Aga Wilson and Children’s Health Defence Europe for bringing international attention to the unlawful weaponization of the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario and British Columbia, against ethical doctors who maintain our oaths and responsibilities, while refusing to participate in the covid-crimes-against-humanity. Here is the interview.
Another needless, fatuous endeavour; another irresponsible drain on the public purse; another expression that the military-industrial complex Down Under is thriving in all its insidious stupidity. But Australia’s purchase of HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) batteries from the United States can be put down to loneliness – or the feeling of being left out.
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MP Andrew Bridgen has had the Conservative whip remove him, – meaning he is suspended from sitting as a Conservative MP and must sit without party affiliation – pending a “formal investigation” after causing “great offence” with remarks saying the Covid vaccines are “causing serious harms” and the vaccination campaign was “the biggest crime against humanity since the holocaust”.
According to Sky News, Tory Chief Whip Simon Hart said:
Andrew Bridgen has crossed a line, causing great offence in the process. As a nation we should be very proud of what has been achieved through the vaccine programme. The vaccine is the best defence against Covid that we have. Misinformation about the vaccine causes harm and costs lives. I am therefore removing the whip from Andrew Bridgen with immediate effect, pending a formal investigation.
His ‘offensive’ comment came in a tweet (now deleted) on Wednesday morning linking to a write-up by Israeli academic Dr. Josh Guetzkow of the recently released CDC adverse event analysis, where Bridgen approvingly quotes an unnamed “consultant cardiologist” who he said had told him: “This is the biggest crime against humanity since the holocaust.”
Mr. Bridgen, who has a science background, has become Parliament’s most vocal critic of the Covid vaccines. He thus made himself a big target for the pro-vaccine zealots who will have been looking for an excuse to punish and cancel him, and who have predictably leapt on the first ‘offensive’ thing they could find.
Dr. Guetzkow, the academic whose article Mr. Bridgen linked to in the tweet and who is Jewish and lives in Israel, defended him from allegations of anti-Semitism. He told the Daily Sceptic that “there is nothing at all anti-Semitic about his statement” and that “the hollow accusations against him only distract from genuine examples of anti-Semitism”. He said:
As a Jew living in Israel, I’m surprised by the accusations against Bridgen, because there is nothing at all anti-Semitic about his statement. This is a tempest in a teapot. The hollow accusations against him only distract from genuine examples of anti-Semitism and ultimately hinder attempts to draw attention to them, much like the boy who cried wolf.
John Mann, the Government’s independent anti-Semitism adviser, went straight to full-on cancel mode, saying:
“There is no possibility that Bridgen can be allowed to stand at the next election. He cannot claim that he didn’t realise the level of offence that his remarks cause.”
Karen Pollock, Chief Executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said:
“This comment is highly irresponsible, wholly inappropriate and an elected politician should know better.”
Matt Hancock, the disgraced lockdown Health Secretary, hit out at Mr. Bridgen’s “disgusting, antisemitic, anti-vax conspiracy theories” at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday. He said the comments were “deeply offensive” and “have no place in this House or in our wider society”.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak replied that he joined Mr Hancock in “completely condemning those types of comments in the strongest possible terms”.
“Obviously it is utterly unacceptable to make linkages and use language like that and I’m determined that the scourge of antisemitism is eradicated,” he told the Commons.
“It has absolutely no place in our society. I know the previous few years have been challenging for the Jewish community and I never want them to experience anything like that ever again.”
The Board of Deputies of British Jews tweeted:
“For an MP to suggest that Covid vaccines are the biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust is unconscionable. We will be writing to the Chair of the Conservative Party Nadhim Zahawi to express our deep concern and to ask for clarification as to what action will be taken.”
Three months ago, one of the most eminent and trusted cardiologists, a man with an international reputation, Dr. Aseem Malhotra, published peer-reviewed research that concluded that there should be a complete cessation of the administration of the Covid mRNA vaccines for everyone because of clear and robust data of significant harms and little ongoing benefit. He described the roll-out of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine as “perhaps the greatest miscarriage of medical science, attack on democracy, damage to population health, and erosion of trust in medicine that we will witness in our lifetime”.
Interestingly, there has so far not been a single rebuttal of Dr. Malhotra’s findings in the scientific literature, despite their widespread circulation and the fact that they made international news.
Before I state the key evidence-based facts that make a clear case for complete suspension of these emergency use authorisation vaccines, it is important to appreciate the key psychological barrier that has prevented these facts from being acknowledged by policymakers and taken up by the U.K. mainstream media. That psychological phenomenon is wilful blindness. It is when human beings – including, in this case, institutions – turn a blind eye to the truth in order to feel safe, reduce anxiety, avoid conflict and protect their prestige and reputations. There are numerous examples of that in recent history, such as the BBC and Jimmy Savile, the Department of Health and Mid Staffs, Hollywood and Harvey Weinstein, and the medical establishment and the OxyContin scandal, which was portrayed in the mini-series “Dopesick”. It is crucial to understand that the longer wilful blindless to the truth continues, the more unnecessary harm it creates.
Here are the cold, hard facts about the mRNA vaccines and an explanation of the structural drivers that continue to be barriers to doctors and the public receiving independent information to make informed decisions about them. Since the rollout in the U.K. of the BioNTech-Pfizer mRNA vaccine, we have had almost half a million Yellow Card reports of adverse effects from the public. That is unprecedented. It is more than all the yellow card reports of the past 40 years combined. An extraordinary rate of side effects that are beyond mild have been reported in many countries across the world that have used the Pfizer vaccine, including, of course, the United States.
Those who feel that they have been damaged by the vaccine should of course have the full support of their elected Members of Parliament and the NHS. Only a couple of weeks ago, I was interviewed by a journalist from a major news outlet who said that he was being bombarded by calls from people who said that they were vaccine-harmed but unable to get the support they wanted from the NHS. He also said that he thought this would be the biggest scandal in medical history in this country. Disturbingly, he also said that he feared that if he were to mention that in the newsroom in which he worked, he would lose his job. We need to break this conspiracy of silence.
It is instructive to note that, according to pharmaco-vigilance analysis, the serious adverse effects reported by the public are thought to represent only 10% of the true rate of serious adverse events occurring within the population. The gold standard of understanding the benefit and harm of any drug is the randomised controlled trial. It was the randomised controlled trial conducted by Pfizer that led to U.K. and international regulators approving the BioNTech-Pfizer mRNA vaccine for administration in the first place.
Contrary to popular belief, that original trial of approximately 40,000 participants did not show any statistically significant reduction in death as a result of vaccination, but it did show a 95% relative risk reduction in the development of infection against the ancestral, more lethal strain of the virus. However, the absolute risk reduction for an individual was only 0.84%. In other words, from its own data, Pfizer revealed that we needed to vaccinate 119 people to prevent one infection. The World Health Organisation and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges have previously stated and made it clear that it is an ethical responsibility that medical information is communicated to patients in absolute benefit and absolute risk terms, which is to protect the public from unnecessary anxiety and manipulation.
Very quickly, through mutations of the original strain – indeed, within a few months – Covid fortunately became far less lethal. It quickly became apparent that there was no protection against infection at all from the vaccine, and we were left with the hope that perhaps these vaccines would protect us from serious illness and death. So what does the most reliable data tell us about the best-case scenario of individual benefit from the vaccine against dying from COVID-19? Real-world data from the U.K. during the three-month wave of Omicron at the beginning of this year reveals that we would need to vaccinate 7,300 people over the age of 80 to prevent one death. The number needed to be vaccinated to prevent a death in any younger age group was absolutely enormous.
Of course, it is important that the Government justify why they are rolling out a vaccine to any cohort of people, particularly our children. He will recall that, in the Westminster Hall debate, we questioned the validity of vaccinating children who have minimal risk, if a risk at all, from the virus when there is a clear risk from the vaccine. I will again report on evidence from America later in my speech about those risks, particularly to young children.
In other words, the benefits of the vaccine are close to non-existent. Beyond the alarming Yellow Card reports, the strongest evidence of harm comes from the gold standard, highest possible quality level of data. A re-analysis of Pfizer and Moderna’s own randomised controlled trials using the mRNA technology, published in the peer-reviewed journal Vaccine, revealed a rate of serious adverse events of one in 800 individuals vaccinated. These are events that result in hospitalisation or disability, or that are life changing. Most disturbing of all, however, is that those original trials suggested someone was far more likely to suffer a serious side effect from the vaccine than to be hospitalised with the ancestral, more lethal strain of the virus. These findings are a smoking gun suggesting the vaccine should likely never have been approved in the first place.
In the past, vaccines have been completely withdrawn from use for a much lower incidence of serious harm. For example, the swine flu vaccine was withdrawn in 1976 for causing Guillain-Barré syndrome in only one in 100,000 adults, and in 1999 the rotavirus vaccine was withdrawn for causing a form of bowel obstruction in children affecting one in 10,000. With the covid mRNA vaccine, we are talking of a serious adverse event rate of at least one in 800, because that was the rate determined in the two months when Pfizer actually followed the patients following their vaccination. Unfortunately, some of those serious events, such as heart attack, stroke and pulmonary embolism will result in death, which is devastating for individuals and the families they leave behind. Many of these events may take longer than eight weeks post vaccination to show themselves.
An Israeli paper published in Nature’s scientific reports showed a 25% increase in heart attack and cardiac arrest in 16 to 39-year-olds in Israel. Another report from Israel looked at levels of myocarditis and pericarditis in people who had had covid and those who had not. It was a study of, I think, 1.2 million who had not had Covid and 740,000 who had had it. The incidence of myocarditis and pericarditis was identical in both groups. This would tell the House that whatever is causing the increase in heart problems now, it is not due to having been infected with COVID-19.
It was accepted by a peer-reviewed medical journal that one of the country’s most respected and decorated general practitioners, the honorary vice-president of the British Medical Association and the Labour party’s doctor of the year, Dr. Kailash Chand, likely suffered a cardiac arrest and was tragically killed by the Pfizer vaccine six months after his second dose, through a mechanism that rapidly accelerates heart disease. In fact, in the U.K. we have had an extra 14,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in 2021, compared with 2020, following the vaccine rollout. Many of these will undoubtedly be because of the vaccine, and the consequences of this mRNA jab are clearly serious and common.
Ministers may understandably wish to defer the responsibility for a decision such as withdrawing vaccines from the population to regulators such as the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, or in America the Food and Drug Administration. Historically, when undertaking the approval of any drug, the regulators ultimately end up relying on the summary results from the drug companies in their sponsored trials, where the raw data is kept commercially confidential. Furthermore, the MHRA has a huge financial conflict of interest, receiving 86% of its funding from the pharmaceutical industry it is supposed to regulate. In effect, we have the poacher paying the gamekeeper.
In a recent investigation by the BMJ into the financial conflicts of interest of the drug regulators, the sociologist Donald Light said: “It’s the opposite of having a trustworthy organisation independently and rigorously assessing medicines. They’re not rigorous, they’re not independent, they are selective, and they withhold data.”
He went on to say that doctors and patients “must appreciate how deeply and extensively drug regulators can’t be trusted so long as they are captured by industry funding”.
Similarly, another investigation revealed that members of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation had huge financial links to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation running into billions of pounds. Ministers, the media and the public know that the foundation is heavily invested in pharmaceutical industry stocks.
Unfortunately, the catastrophic mistake over the approval, and the coercion associated with this emergency-use authorisation medical intervention, are not an anomaly, and in many ways this could have been predicted by the structural failures that allowed it to occur in the first place. Those shortcomings are rooted in the increasingly unchecked visible and invisible power of multinational corporations – in this case, Big Pharma. We can start by acknowledging that the drug industry has a fiduciary obligation to produce profit for its shareholders, but it has no fiduciary obligation to provide the right medicines for patients.
The real scandal is that those with a responsibility to patients and with scientific integrity – namely, doctors, academic institutions and medical journals – collude with the industry for financial gain. Big Pharma exerts its power by capturing the political environment through lobbying and the knowledge environment through funding university research and influencing medical education, preference shaping through capture of the media, financing think-tanks and so on. In other words, the public relations machinery of Big Pharma excels in subterfuge and engages in smearing and de-platforming those who call out its manipulations. No doubt it will be very busy this evening.
It is no surprise, when there is so much control by an entity that has been described as ‘psychopathic’ for its profit-making conduct, that one analysis suggests that third most common cause of death globally after heart disease and cancer is the side-effects of prescribed medications, which were mostly avoidable. Because of those systemic failures, doctors often receive biased information, deliberately manipulated by the pharmaceutical industry, which exaggerates the benefits and the safety of their drugs. Furthermore, the former editor of the BMJ, Richard Smith, claims that research misconduct is rife and is not effectively being tackled in the U.K. institutions, stating: “Something is rotten in… British medicine and has been for a long time.”
It has also been brought to my attention by a whistleblower from a very reliable source that one of these institutions is covering up clear data that reveals that the mRNA vaccine increases inflammation of the heart arteries. It is covering this up for fear that it may lose funding from the pharmaceutical industry. The lead of that cardiology research department has a prominent leadership role with the British Heart Foundation, and I am disappointed to say that he has sent out non-disclosure agreements to his research team to ensure that this important data never sees the light of day. That is an absolute disgrace. Systemic failure in an over-medicated population also contributes to huge waste of British taxpayers’ money and increasing strain on the NHS.
We need an inquiry into the influence of Big Pharma on medications and our NHS. That is been called for many occasions and by some very influential people, including prominent physicians such as the former president of the Royal College of Physicians and personal doctor to our late Queen, Sir Richard Thompson. On separate occasions in the last few years those calls have been supported and covered in the Daily Mail, the Guardian and, most recently, the i newspaper.
We are fighting not just for principles of ethical, evidence-based medical practices, but for our democracy. The future health of the British public depends on us tackling head-on the cause of this problem and finding meaningful solutions. In 2015 a commentary by Richard Houghton, Editor-in-Chief of the Lancet, suggested that possibly half of the published medical literature “may simply be untrue”. He wrote that “science has taken a turn toward darkness”, and asked who is going to take the first step to clean up the system.
That first step could start this evening with this debate. It starts here, with the Vaccine Minister and the Government ensuring in the first instance an immediate and complete suspension of any more Covid vaccines with their use of mRNA technology. Silence on this issue is more contagious than the virus itself, and now so should courage be. I would implore all the scientists, medics, nurses and those in the media who know the truth about the harm these vaccines are causing to our people to speak out.
We have already sacrificed far too many of our citizens on the altar of ignorance and unfettered corporate greed. Last week the MHRA authorised those experimental vaccines for use in children as young as six months. In a Westminster Hall debate some weeks ago, I quoted a report by the Journal of the American Medical Association studying the effect of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccination on children under five years of age. It showed that one in [500] had an adverse event that resulted in hospitalisation, and symptoms that lasted longer than 90 days.
As the data clearly shows to anyone who wants to look at it, the mRNA vaccines are not safe, not effective and not necessary. I implore the Government to halt their use immediately. As I have demonstrated and as the data clearly shows, the Government’s current policy on the mRNA vaccines is on the wrong side of medical ethics, it is on the wrong side of scientific data, and ultimately it will be on the wrong side of history.
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Featured image is from TDS
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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Letter signed by “diverse group” of NGOs calls for closing Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba, which was created after September 11, 2001 attacks but shortly thereafter became a site of “unrelenting human rights violations”.
More than 150 organisations have sent a letter to US President Joe Biden urging him to “prioritise closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.”
The letter was signed by 159 organisations from the US and other countries who called themselves a “diverse group of non-governmental organisations” working on issues including international human rights, immigrants’ rights, racial justice and combating anti-Muslim discrimination.
“It is long past time for both a sea change in the United States’ approach to national and human security, and a meaningful reckoning with the full scope of damage that the post-9/11 approach has caused,” they wrote in the letter on Wednesday.
“Closing the Guantanamo detention facility, ending indefinite military detention of those held there, and never again using the military base for unlawful mass detention of any group of people are necessary steps towards those ends.”
“We urge you to act without delay, and in a just manner that considers the harm done to the men who have been detained indefinitely without charge or fair trials for two decades,” they added.
Often referred to as Gitmo, the Guantanamo Bay detention facility was created after September 11, 2001 attacks to hold suspects captured in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.
It became the focus of worldwide controversy over alleged violations of the legal rights of detainees and accusations of torture or abusive treatment of prisoners by US authorities.
Experts appointed by the UN have called Guantanamo Bay “a site of unparalleled notoriety, defined by the systematic use of torture, and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment against hundreds of men brought to the site and deprived of their most fundamental rights.”
‘It destroyed many Muslim lives’
Meanwhile, a virtual rally was held on Wednesday to mark 21 years since the opening of the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay.
The virtual event was attended by many people from different locations, including activists, lawyers and human rights advocates, who demanded the closure of the notorious prison that the US leased from Cuba in 1903 as a coaling station and naval base.
Among the speakers were Daphne Eviatar, Amnesty International USA’s Director of Security with Human Rights, Aliya Hana Hussain, Advocacy Program Manager at the Center for Constitutional Rights and Andy Worthington of the Close Guantanamo campaign as well as other advocates, with Lu Aya, co-founder of The Peace Poets, the moderator.
The participants called on the US government to close Guantanamo prison while talking about the stories of injustice.
Besides calling for justice, the participants marked the 21st anniversary of Guantanamo by reading poems and singing tribute songs.
Like other speakers, Maha Hilal, an author and the co-director of Justice for Muslims Collective, called for the closure of Guantanamo because “it has destroyed the lives of so many Muslim men and boys.”
“As we call for the closure of Guantanamo, we call for the abolition of Guantanamo, and an end to Islamophobia,” she said.
The detention camp has held roughly 780 detainees since it was opened, most of them without charge or trial, with many said to have gone through unspeakable horrors.
Currently, 35 detainees remain and 20 of them are eligible for transfer.
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A poll by mainstream firm Gallup found that Nicaragua is the No. 1 country in the world where citizens feel at peace. Nine of the top 14 countries are in Latin America. But the US constantly attacks the Sandinista government and imposes sanctions on it.
A poll found that Nicaragua is the top country in the world where citizens feel at peace.
The United States and Western media outlets have long demonized Nicaragua’s Sandinista government and its President Daniel Ortega, sponsoring violent coup attempts against him and imposing illegal unilateral sanctions aimed at hurting the Central American nation’s economy.
But studies show that the Sandinista Front is very popular among the Nicaraguan people, who enjoy a high quality of life compared to their neighbors.
This is based on a survey conducted by the mainstream firm Gallup.
Gallup interviewed adults in 122 countries across the planet. They found that 34% of people on Earth “always” feel at peace, while 39% “often” do, 17% “rarely” do, and 5% “never” do.
Nicaragua came in first place, with 73% of its population reporting it “always” feels at peace.
Gallup noted that “Latin American countries dominate the ‘always at peace’ list worldwide”.
There are 14 countries in the world where the majority of the population “always” feels at peace. A staggering nine of these 14 are in Latin America.
Nicaragua is No. 1, followed by El Salvador at No. 3, Panama at No. 4, Honduras at No. 5, Paraguay at No. 6, Dominican Republic at No. 7, Uruguay at No. 8, Colombia at No. 12, and Mexico at No. 14.
Gallup wrote:
The plethora of Latin American countries that top this list may not be entirely surprising: Many of these same countries regularly rank among the most likely in the world to report experiencing positive emotions each day, such as feeling well-rested, smiling or laughing, learning something interesting, feeling treated with respect, and experiencing enjoyment.
Compared with their counterparts in Latin America, people in countries in Northern America — including the U.S. (28%) and Canada (26%) — are significantly less likely to say they always feel at peace with their thoughts and feelings.
Nicaragua is also the No. 7 in the world in terms of gender equality. It has the highest level of women’s representation in all of the Americas.
While Nicaraguans are nearly three times as likely to feel at peace than North Americans, the US government has frequently attacked the nation’s Sandinista government, claiming democratically elected President Daniel Ortega is “authoritarian”.
This is despite the fact that 77.4% of Nicaraguans support Ortega, according to a late 2022 study conducted by one of the leading polling firms in Central America, M&R Consultores. (US President Joe Biden had just a 37% approval rating in the same period.)
Ortega is consistently one of the most popular leaders in Latin America.
In 2018, the United States supported a violent coup attempt in Nicaragua. In this rare moment of instability in an otherwise very safe country, right-wing extremists backed by Washington used bloody tactics to try to overthrow President Ortega.
When the coup failed, the US and European Union imposed several rounds of devastating unilateral sanctions on Nicaragua, which are illegal under international law.
Despite the fact that numerous polls like these show that Nicaraguans feel very safe, the US State Department has since 2018 issued an annual travel advisory, discouraging tourists to visit the country.
Washington claims the Central American nation is dangerous, suffers from supposed “arbitrary enforcement of laws”, and has “limited healthcare ability”.
As part of its hybrid war on Nicaragua's Sandinista gov't, the US State Department renewed its travel advisory, to discourage tourism and hurt the economy
The reasons given are absurd. Nicaragua is the safest country in Central America and has free healthcare (even for tourists) pic.twitter.com/r7YndbwVob
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This article was originally published on Anti-bellum in October 2020.
Amid the rash of eleventh-hour stories, claims and counter-claims relating to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s and his son Hunter’s roles in the Burisma Holdings foreign-aid-for-cash-and-influence affair, the historical backdrop of the scandal and its potentially catastrophic geopolitical consequences have largely gone unnoticed. Or commented upon.
Hunter Biden’s opportunity to secure a lucrative sinecure job in a nation half the world away with no apparent qualifications, and that immediately on the heels of being cashiered from the U.S. Navy for rampant drug abuse, is a tale hardly out of Plutarch but perhaps one befitting True Crime Magazine.
And it’s also a subject worthy of illustrating what one hopes is the dying gasp of what since 1991 and the collapse of the Soviet Union has been embraced by some as the unipolar moment. That is, Washington’s uncontested global sway and ability to dictate terms to and exploit opportunities in every nation on the planet, however remote and obscure.
The rapidity with which the U.S. penetrated and dominated much of post-Soviet territory is breath-taking. Only three years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union former federal republics of the nation were absorbed in NATO’s first, as it were, apprenticeship program, the Partnership for Peace. (George Orwell would have nodded in defeat at the hubris of that euphemism.) The first former Soviet nation to join that program was Ukraine in 1994.
In the interim Ukraine has been of the utmost geostrategic, and no little economic, interest to the U.S.
In 2004 and 2005 the U.S. government, along with plausible-deniability outlets like the National Endowment for Democracy and assorted private think tanks and planning bodies as well as the usual plethora of self-styled non-governmental organizations, assisted overtly and otherwise in the so-called Orange Revolution in Ukraine, in which the apparent winner of the run-off election, Victor Yanukovych, was declared the loser and the loser, Victor Yushchenko, the winner in an unprecedented and constitutionally dubious third round of polling.
The roles would be reversed in 2010. Victor Yushchenko, according to the West the people’s and assuredly Uncle Sam’s favorite six years before, received only 5.45% of the vote in the first round. A point worth recalling is that then-sitting president Yushchenko’s wife Kateryna (Kathy to Washington insiders) was born and raised in Chicago, graduated from the University of Chicago and worked for the State Department, the Treasury Department and the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress. In the course of her career she also worked for the KPMG Peat Marwick/Barents Group, one of the Big Four accounting organizations, where she met her spouse-to-be Victor Yushchenko. It’s bad form to mention such matters, but if an American presidential candidate, if a serving president, were to be married to, say, a Russian-born former official of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs it might be a topic of conversation in the columns of the New York Times and Washington Post, one supposes. Perhaps Rachel Maddow would see fit to comment on the matter. Shrilly as usual.
Victor Yanukovych defeated his opponent Yulia Tymoshenko in the 2010 run-off election and served as head of state in Ukraine without incident until, in November of 2013, he postponed signing an association agreement with the European Union under the Eastern Partnership initiative which was launched to absorb all former Soviet states in Europe and the Caucasus not already members of the EU; all, that is, but Russia. Its ultimate purpose is to eliminate remnants of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Eurasian Economic Union, the Collective Security Treaty Organization and other organizations formed by Russia with fellow former Soviet states. Ukraine was of more economic and geostrategic value than the other five candidates (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia and Moldova). Instead Yanukovych accepted a $15 billion deal offered by Russia, one which offered discounted gas. His administration also abandoned anti-Russian maneuverings with the Odessa–Brody oil pipeline. For the three above offenses Yanukovych’s days were numbered.
Almost immediately, ostensibly because of an obscure project that it’s doubtful one in ten Ukrainians had even heard of, the capital of Ukraine and other major cities were flooded with “spontaneous” disruptions and thousands of “peaceful” protesters. In Kiev they succeeded, among other actions, in setting on fire over a hundred police officers, killing no less than a dozen of them. A familiar technique, it is one inaugurated by Otpor! (Resistance!) in Yugoslavia in 2000 and replicated afterward in Georgia, Ukraine (2004-2005 and again in 2013-2014), Lebanon, Kyrgyzstan (twice or three times: 2005, 2010 and this year), Egypt, Moldova, Armenia (twice, successfully in 2018) and elsewhere.
This as Senator John McCain and Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland were befriending and passing out pastries to the suddenly geopolitically-informed rioters, who set much of the nation’s capital on fire.
Two days before the government was overthrown, on February 22, 2014, and its internationally-recognized head of state fled to Russia, Yanukovych was on the receiving end of a phone call with Vice President Joseph Biden. Such fatal phone calls have become the norm in how the indispensable nation (see Madeleine Albright, Barack Obama, et al.) conducts international relations, earlier adumbrated in much-loved American movies about La Cosa Nostra and street gangs, but ordinarily and pro forma they are to be initiated by the secretary of state or one of his or her subordinates. Not by the vice president. If the latter occurs and is revealed it might look bad, might cast aspersions on the nobility and purity of national intentions. As the Associated Press reported shortly after the event, Biden warned (again, see the above Hollywood precedents) that Ukraine had the bad habit of being “’a day late and a dollar short’” with their “attempts to appease political protesters.” That leaves little doubt about which side Biden and his government were on in the nascent civil war in Ukraine, and as little doubt about which side the “protesters” were on as well.
Biden, Nuland, McCain and company achieved their consummation devoutly wished and a junta of Ukrainian putschists assumed power; intriguingly enough the very persons appointed by former U.S. ambassador to NATO Nuland in a phone call two weeks before the coup succeeded to U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt in a conversation that was not intended to be made public, though as Under Secretary of State Nuland was in the habit of bullying other – weaker – nations over government transparency.
As the new American-appointed “transition government” (in Latin America traditionally known as a junta) was consolidated by attacks on the recent ruling and other parties in the parliament, general street-tough thuggery against news media and other personnel and overtly, as in World War II-level anti-Russian rhetoric – not only as in Russia but as in Russians and Russian-speakers – the eastern part of the nation, that bordering Russia, the Donbas, announced its non-recognition of the junta and declared the creation of independent republics in Donetsk and Lugansk. A war ensued, one which lingers to this day, ebbing and flowing, which in 2014 led to war on Russia’s border with several Russian civilians injured and at least one killed by Ukrainian government shelling.
At about this point Biden made a return visit to Ukraine to survey the results of his efforts and to consolidate control of the new military and energy satrapy. When he arrived in Kiev on April 22 he was the most senior U.S. government official to do so since the coup two months earlier. In doing so he reprised the role he had performed in Georgia in 2008. He was then, while serving in the Senate and under consideration for Barack Obama’s vice presidential running mate, the first major American official to arrive in the capital after the five-day war between Georgia and Russia following Georgia’s invasion of South Ossetia, which itself followed shortly after major U.S.-NATO war games in the Caucasus nation. In both cases he issued warnings (see above) to Russia. Georgia is a key hub in various oil and gas pipelines originating in the Caspian Sea which must have proven enticing to Biden father and son, to the extent the latter took much note of that or anything else at the time.
Again usurping the role customarily allotted to the State Department or the president, as the Washington Post put it at the time: “Biden in recent weeks has become the administration’s highest-ranking emissary to Eastern European governments worried suddenly over Putin’s ambitions in the region. Last month, he visited Poland and Lithuania, NATO member nations, where he reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to the pact’s essential collective security pledge.”
That is to say, more offers to Ukraine, more warnings to Russia, when there’s any difference between the two. The Post added, “[an] official traveling with Biden said the vice president will also listen to additional military aid requests from Ukraine’s leaders, following the administration’s decision last week to send nonlethal assistance to Ukrainian security forces.”
Lastly, and most to the current purpose, the report stated:
“[The] new U.S. support to be announced by Biden will focus on economic expertise, which will emerge from an assessment now being conducted by a U.S. team here on shifting Ukraine’s Russian-dependent energy supply toward one that relies more on domestic and Eastern European gas production.
“The official said the U.S. energy consulting team will travel from here to Slovakia and Hungary to work on ways of reversing the flow of some of Ukraine’s pipelines now supplying Europe. Over the longer term, the official said, the U.S. government will work with Ukraine to help the government increase domestic gas production.”
And he had just the “energy consulting team” to do so. The very next month Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma, Ukraine’s largest oil and gas company.
At the time of the appointment, ABC News asked White House press secretary Jay Carney about “potential conflicts of interest” with the fact that the son of the man who seems to have ordered the dismissal of one government and was giving orders to its replacement was, just months after his disgraceful discharge from the military, afforded an extremely high-paying position in a country he had no familiarity with in a field where his knowledge was no greater. Carney replied, “Hunter Biden and other members of the Biden family are obviously private citizens, and where they work does not reflect an endorsement by the administration or by the vice president or president.”
One wonders what the response would have been had the prime minister of the Yanukovych government secured a comparable post for his son at Exxon Mobil. And that after that prime minister had been instrumental in replacing the government of the U.S. with one more to his liking; in fact of his designation.
In 2015 Biden chimed in with U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, who with Victoria Nuland the preceding year had selected the personnel to constitute Ukraine’s post-coup government, in demanding the resignation – in fact the head – of Prosecutor General Victor Shokin, who has confirmed he was investigating Burisma at the time.
In the waning days of the Obama-Biden administration, indeed just days before the 2016 presidential election, Foreign Policy ran a feature with the sentimental title of What Will Ukraine Do Without Uncle Joe?, which includes this excerpt:
“The vice president’s impact is largely based on the force of his big personality, his backing from Obama, and his long track record of promoting a robust American role in Eastern Europe – from supporting NATO’s enlargement to pushing for U.S. military intervention in the Balkans in the 1990s.
“Biden speaks to Ukrainian leaders on the phone two or three times a month, and ‘he is very hands-on,’ the administration official told Foreign Policy.”
The article above laments the fact that if Hillary Clinton were to lose the election that year, Biden’s Ukraine policy (and by implication his son’s career) might suffer, celebrating the fact that “No one in the U.S. government has wielded more influence over Ukraine than Vice President Joe Biden.”
And as the Los Angeles Times phrased it, “Obama essentially outsourced the portfolio to his vice president – a task, by most accounts, Biden enthusiastically embraced.” Solely out of disinterested concern for the Ukrainian people, some would have us believe.
Only four days before he left the White House (though perhaps not for good), Biden made his seventh trip to Ukraine in six years. Rarely if ever has a major American government official taken such a concentrated interest in the nation of slightly over 40 million people. He has left behind a nation riven by division and war, one which at any moment may see a resumption of military conflict near or on Russia’s western border. A future Russian government may not react as complacently as the current one has over the past six and a half years.
The price of gas and oil deals, of self-serving geopolitics, political patronage and nepotism will then prove to be catastrophic to an extent unimaginable.
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Rick Rozoff, renowned author and geopolitical analyst, actively involved in opposing war, militarism and interventionism for over fifty years. He manages the Anti-Bellum and For peace, against war website.
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
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Benjamin Netanyahu’s return to power in Israel has ushered in a government more dominated by religious and ultra-nationalist extremists than any ruling coalition in the country’s 74-year history.
While that fact has been well-reported, most Americans are oblivious to a grim implication: The new Israeli government’s extreme policies toward Palestinians and regional rivals will imperil American lives at home and abroad.
Americans aren’t jeopardized by those policies per se, but rather by the U.S. government’s unconditional military, financial and diplomatic support of Israel, which are seen as enabling such policies. Anger over that support is a principal motivator of terror attacks on American targets, and it intensifies when Israel’s actions grow more extreme.
At the same time civilians face a heightened danger from terror attacks, members of the American military will face a higher risk of being drawn into pointless conflicts initiated by more hawkish Israeli government.
Support of Israel a Key Driver of Anti-US Terrorism
Along with U.S. intervention in the Middle East and support for corrupt dictators in the region, American backing of Israel was repeatedly cited by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden as a foremost motivator of his jihad against the United States
Indeed, Bin Laden said his determination to attack targets in the United States initially sprang from Israel’s destruction of apartment towers during Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon…so much so that it focused his attention on the World Trade Center as a target:
“We witnessed the injustice and tyranny of the American-Israeli alliance against our people in Palestine and Lebanon…As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me punish the unjust the same way [and] to destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women,” bin Laden said in a 2004 speech.
In his 1996 declaration of war against Americans, he pointed to the First Qana Massacre, in which Israel launched an artillery attack on Lebanese civilians sheltering at a UN compound. The attack killed 106 — half of them children —and video evidence points to Israel’s awareness that they were targeting civilians.
Bin Laden said Muslim youth “hold [the United States] responsible for all the killings…carried out by your Zionist brothers in Lebanon; you openly supplied them with arms and finance.”
The same reasoning drove 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. As the 9/11 Commission report asserted, Mohammed’s “animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experiences there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel.”
U.S. backing of the Israeli government also animated individual 9/11 hijackers, including Mohammad Atta, who led the hijackers inside the United States and piloted American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center’s North Tower.
Atta signed his will on April 11, 1996, the day Israel unleashed Operation Grapes of Wrath on Lebanon. “According to one of his friends, Atta was enraged, and by filling out his last testament during the attack, he was offering his life in response,” writes Lawrence Wright in The Looming Tower.
When future United Flight 175 hijacker-pilot Marwan al-Shehhi was asked why he and 9/11 lead hijacker Mohammed Atta never laughed, al-Shehhi said, “How can you laugh when people are dying in Palestine?”
Testifying before the 9/11 Commission, FBI Special Agent James Fitzgerald was asked what drove the hijackers to sacrifice their lives and kill thousands of civilians. He said, “I believe they feel a sense of outrage against the United States. They identify with the Palestinian problem…and I believe they tend to focus their anger on the United States.”
Despite the overwhelming evidence, it’s understandable that most Americans are ignorant about the link between terrorism and the U.S.-Israel relationship — influential forces in their government want it that way.
In its final report, the 9/11 Commission gave very little attention to the question of motives, largely sweeping al Qaeda’s Israel-rooted motivations under the rug. In their memoir, commission co-chairs Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton explained that a group of commissioners prevailed in keeping the Israel-Palestine factor out of the report:
“In their view, listing U.S. support for Israel as a root cause of al Qaeda’s opposition to the United States indicated that the United States should reassess that policy.”
Though 9/11 is the most jarring example of an attack that targeted Americans over their government’s support of Israel, there have been many more instances where terrorists have directly articulated that motivation — most recently, the New Year’s Eve machete attack on police officers near Times Square.
Meanwhile, though it received very little media attention, the Department of Homeland Security recently concluded that Al Qaeda is planning new attacks in the United States. According to a non-public intelligence alert issued on Dec. 31 and obtained by Judicial Watch, the attacks, “possibly involving planes, will use new techniques and tactics.”
Israel: Extreme Rulers, Provocative Policies
Because the risk of U.S. citizens being targeted by terrorism is driven in part by the actions of the Israeli government, the new Netanyahu government is particularly concerning.
To retake the prime minister’s office, Netanyahu built a ruling coalition that gives unprecedented power to ultra-religious and ultranationalist parties with names like “Jewish Power” and “Religious Zionism” that leave no doubt about their nature.
Extremists have advanced from the fringe to hold key ministerial posts. For starters, consider Jewish Power Party leader Itamar Ben-Gvir, a man who:
Was convicted of inciting racism while joining attacks on Arabs.
Brandished a gun when Arab security guards asked him to move his car from a no-parking zone.
Decorated his living room with a photograph of Baruch Goldstein, who slaughtered 28 Muslim worshipers and wounded another 125 in 1994’s Cave of the Patriarchs massacre.
He’s now national security minister, which ominously gives him responsibility over Israeli police in the West Bank, where Palestinians live under a 55-year-old military occupation and suffer recurring attacks by Jewish settlers and the demolition of their homes by Israeli authorities.
Far from promoting security, Ben-Gvir is known for provocative behavior — so much so that The Times of Israel called him a “pyromaniac.” He’s only been national security minister since Dec 29, but has already used his new role to pull off a series of anti-Palestinian provocations.
Days after being sworn in, he went to the Jerusalem plateau that’s home to the Al-Aqsa mosque, revered by Muslims as the place from which Muhammad ascended to heaven. A similar stunt in September 2000 by then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon sparked the Second Intifada, a four-year conflict with between Israel and Palestinians that killed thousands.
Last week, Ben-Gvir toured a renovated prison and said he wanted to ensure the renovation didn’t result in an improvement of conditions for jailed Palestinians. Hamas — the Palestinian political and militant organization that controls Gaza — called his visit and rhetoric “a dangerous escalation.”
In a brazen attack on an essential expression of Palestinian identity and aspirations for statehood, Ben-Gvir on Sunday announced that he’d ordered Israeli police to remove Palestinian flags from public spaces.
Ben-Gvir isn’t the only worrisome character in the new government. Another is Bezalel Smotrich. The leader of the Religious Zionism party and now finance minister, Smotrich has called for Israel’s annexation of the entire West Bank and the imposition of citizenship requirements that would preclude most Palestinians from qualifying.
His immediate plans include authorizing dozens of illegal West Bank outposts and continuing the demolition of unauthorized Palestinian homes there.
Smotrich has made racist comments, to include asserting that new Jewish mothers in hospitals should be separated from new Palestinian mothers. “[My wife] would not want to sleep next to someone who just gave birth to a baby who might want to murder her baby in twenty years,” he said.
He and his party aspire to make Israel a theocracy governed by the Torah, and both Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have advocated the expulsion of Arabs who fail to agree that “the land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people.”
In late December, Netanyahu put aspirations of a two-state solution squarely in the crosshairs of his new government, declaring that “the Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel. The government will promote and develop the settlement of all parts of the Land of Israel” — including the West Bank, the presumed home of a future Palestinian state.
On The Scott Horton Show, U.S.-Palestinian journalist Ramzy Baroud summed up the bleak implications for Palestinians — and for peace:
“Something terrible is going to happen. We’re talking about the potential of a real war. So everyone should be very worried about what will happen in Israel now that Netanyahu has not only a government of fascists, but he has…a total and absolute majority in the Knesset.”
Tensions are already mounting. Hamas threatened retaliation for Ben-Gvir’s Al-Aqsa provocation. In response, an Israeli member of parliament and the Jewish Power party said Israel’s practice of attacking the Palestinians “every two or three years” should be ended with a “final war” that would “subdue them once and for all.”
As if provocations of anti-U.S. terrorism weren’t enough to worry about, Netanyahu also has a history of directly aiding al Qaeda. In 2016, it was revealed that Netanyahu’s government provided direct medical support to members of the Al Nusra front —an al Qaeda spin-off in Syria — treating their wounds and sending them back to wage jihad.
Asked why Israel would help al Qaeda, which had carried out the 9/11 attacks on Israel’s benefactor, former Mossad head Efraim Halevy said, “Al Qaeda, to the best of my recollection, has not attacked Israel.”
US Military Service Members At Risk
While American civilians face an heightened risk of terrorist attacks sparked by resentment of the U.S. government’s backing of Israel, American military service members will be at greater risk of being drawn into an Israel-sparked war.
There are many scenarios under which that could happen. For example, a third intifada uprising by Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank — triggered by new levels of Israeli subjugation — could expand to include the well-armed, Iranian-backed Hezbollah political party and militant group in Lebanon. That, in turn, could expand to all-out war with Iran and with Syria, where U.S. troops are still deployed.
The Israel-Palestine conflict aside, there’s also the risk that this more-hawkish Netanyahu government will carry out a solo military strike on Iranian nuclear energy facilities, which could spark a wider war that pulls in the United States.
Netayahu has appointed Tzachi Hanegbi to lead Israel’s national security council. In November, Hanegbi said Netanyahu will “have no choice but to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.” Israel opposed the deal that limited Iran’s nuclear program, encouraged Donald Trump to abandon it, and has fought efforts to restore it.
A little-reported October U.S. Department of Defense assessment reiterated previous conclusions that Iran “does not pose a nuclear threat” and has not decided to pursue nuclear weapon development. Of course, Netanyahu has long been crying wolf about Iran’s nuclear energy program, as he stands ready to fight Iran down to the last American.
It’s part of an established pattern where Netanyahu angles for American attacks on Israel’s regional rivals. While so far he’s mostly come up short where Iran is concerned, Netanyahu — who once privately boasted that “America is a thing you can move very easily” — did help push America into the disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq.
“If you take out Saddam, Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region,” Netanyahu told Congress in 2002.
In addition to its dreadful toll on Iraqis and others, the Iraq war killed more than 4,500American military members, wounding some 32,000 more — while only making the region more unstable.
That instability isn’t a bug of Israeli policy in the Middle East; it’s a feature —and one that’s also embraced by many in the DC establishment. As Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, told me, “There are people in this country who believe the chaos in the Middle East…is conducive to Israel’s security.”
With Americans’ security already subordinated to the Israeli agenda in both Washington and Tel Aviv, and with extremists now installed in key Israeli ministerial posts and holding greater sway in the legislature, brace for even more Israel-cultivated chaos…with potentially deadly repercussions for American civilians and service members alike.
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Featured image: The Israeli and American flags displayed on the walls of the Old City in Jerusalem (Photo: Yonatan Sindel)
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A damning indictment of the Net Zero political project has been made by one of the world’s leading nuclear physicists. In a recently published science paper, Dr. Wallace Manheimer said it would be the end of modern civilisation. Writing about wind and solar power he argued it would be especially tragic “when not only will this new infrastructure fail, but will cost trillions, trash large portions of the environment, and be entirely unnecessary”. The stakes, he added, “are enormous”.
Dr. Manheimer holds a physics PhD from MIT and has had a 50-year career in nuclear research, including work at the Plasma Physics Division at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. He has published over 150 science papers. In his view, there is “certainly no scientific basis” for expecting a climate crisis from too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the next century or so. He argues that there is no reason why civilisation cannot advance using both fossil fuel power and nuclear power, gradually shifting to more nuclear power.
There is of course a growing body of opinion that points out that the Emperor has no clothes when it comes to all the fashionable green technologies. Electric cars, wind and solar power, hydrogen, battery storage, heat pumps – all have massive disadvantages, and are incapable of replacing existing systems without devastating consequences.
Manheimer points out that before fossil fuel became widely used, energy was provided by people and animals. Because so little energy was produced, “civilisation was a thin veneer atop a vast mountain of human squalor and misery, a veneer maintained by such institutions as slavery, colonialism and tyranny”.
This argument hints at why so many rich, virtue-signalling celebrities argue not just for Net Zero but ‘Real’ Zero, with the banning of all fossil fuel use. King Charles said in 2009 that the age of consumerism and convenience was over, although the multi-mansion owning monarch presumably doesn’t think such desperate restrictions apply to himself. Manheimer notes that fossil fuel has extended the benefits of civilisation to billions, but its job is not yet complete. “To spread the benefits of modern civilisation to the entire human family would require much more energy, as well as newer sources,” he adds.
The author notes that the emphasis on a false climate crisis is becoming a “tragedy for modern civilisation”, which depends on reliable, affordable and environmentally viable energy. “The windmills, solar panels and backup batteries have none of these qualities,” he states. This falsehood has been pushed by what has been termed a climate industrial complex, comprising some scientists, most media, industrialists and legislators. Furthermore, he continues, this grouping has “somehow” managed to convince many that CO2 in the atmosphere, a gas necessary for life on Earth, one which we exhale with every breath, is an environmental poison.
In Manheimer’s view, the partnership among self-interested businesses, grandstanding politicians and alarmist campaigners, “truly is an unholy alliance”. The climate industrial complex does not promote discussion on how to overcome this challenge in a way that will be best for everyone. “We should not be surprised or impressed that those who stand to make a profit are among the loudest calling for politicians to act,” he added.
Perhaps one of the best voices to cast doubt on an approaching climate crisis, suggests the author, is Professor Emeritus Richard Lindzen of MIT, one of the world’s leading authorities on geological fluid motions:
What historians will definitely wonder about in future centuries is how deeply flawed logic, obscured by shrewd and unrelenting propaganda, actually enabled a coalition of powerful special interests to convince nearly everyone in the world that CO2 from human industry was a dangerous planet-destroying toxin. It will be remembered as the greatest mass delusion in the history of the world – that CO2, the life of plants, was considered for a time to be a deadly poison.
Much of Dr. Manheimer’s interesting paper debunks many of the fashionable nostrums surrounding politicised ‘settled’ climate science. It is an excellent read. Discussing some of the contrary opinions that debunk obviously false claims, he says it is “particularly disheartening” to see learned societies make definitive claims when so much contrary information is readily available. He points out that over the last 10,000 years, the Earth has almost certainly been warmer. There have been warmer and colder periods, just like today.
To find the off-narrative information, even Google can be used, Manheimer says – though he does note that the company warns it will not provide information on “claims denying that long-term trends show that the global climate is warming”.
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Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic‘s Environment Editor.
In this case, report two previously healthy persons, a man aged 63 years and a woman aged 62 years, developed symptoms of the microwave syndrome after installation of a 5G base station for wireless communication on the roof above their apartment. A base station for previous telecommunication generation technology (3G/4G) was present at the same spot since several years. Very high radiofrequency (RF) radiation with maximum (highest measured peak value) levels of 354 000, 1 690 000, and >2 500 000 μW/m2 were measured at three occasions in the bedroom located only 5 meters below the new 5G base station, compared to maximum (peak) 9 000 μW/m2 prior to the 5G deployment.
The rapidly emerging symptoms after the 5G deployment were typical for the microwave syndrome with e.g., neurological symptoms, tinnitus, fatigue, insomnia, emotional distress, skin disorders, and blood pressure variability. The symptoms were more pronounced in the woman. Due to the severity of symptoms, the couple left their dwelling and moved to a small office room with maximum (peak) RF radiation 3 500 μW/m2. Within a couple of days, most of their symptoms alleviated or disappeared completely. This medical history can be regarded as a classic provocation test.
The RF radiation levels in the apartment were well below the limit proposed to be “safe” below which no health effects would occur, recommended by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation (ICNIRP). These now presented symptoms of the microwave syndrome were caused by non-thermal effects from RF radiation and highlight that the ICNIRP guidelines used in most countries including Sweden do not protect human health. Guidelines based on all biological negative effects from RF radiation are urgently needed, as well as monitoring human health, not the least due to rapidly increasing levels of exposure.
Conclusions
“5G is being rolled out without any studies showing that 5G is safe for humans and wildlife. To our knowledge, this is the first study of health outcomes in persons exposed to 5G RF radiation. Within a couple of days, a new 5G base station caused severe symptoms in two previously healthy persons that correspond to the microwave syndrome. The deployment of 5G also caused a dramatic increase in maximum (peak) microwave radiation exposure, from 9 000 μW/m2 to >2 500 000μW/m2. The symptoms quickly reversed when the couple moved to a dwelling with much lower exposure. This case is in line with scientific findings reported already 50 years ago on effects of exposure to microwave radiation and that most symptoms disappear when the exposure is discontinued. This study and previous studies show that the microwave syndrome appears at levels well below the current limits recommended by the ICNIRP.”
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Last year marked six decades since the publication of Rachel Carson’s seminal work Silent Spring, the book often credited with inspiring the modern environmental movement (at least in North America).
One impactful line from the book stands out as being even more true today than it was in 1962: “Every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the moment of conception until death.”
Chemical pollutants have been found in rainwater, at Earth’s highest and lowest points, and in human placentas and fetuses. A study published earlier this year found glyphosate residues in 80 percent of a representative sample. There are discoveries about new frontiers that man-made chemicals have surpassed virtually every month.
Many of the chemicals Carson described by name are still in wide circulation today and thousands more have been synthesized and marketed since then. As John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark put it, “Despite a number of victories, Carson and those who followed in her footsteps lost the war against synthetic pesticides.”
We lost because the environmental movement took the wrong lessons from Silent Spring, focusing on Carson’s expository work—the compelling description of the human and ecological damage being caused—and ignoring her explanations of how and why we got here. The movement seized on the idea that public awareness was all that was missing, but it failed to understand the more radical part of her analysis: that the devastation was being wrought primarily to create markets for an over productive chemical industry, not because of some kind of innate, consumer-driven demand for poison.
Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), the chemical that inspired Carson’s book, provides an illustrative example. The US government coordinated large amounts of DDT production during the Second World War in order to use it to treat lice and eliminate typhus among soldiers. As the war came to an end, massive amounts of DDT (and DDT manufacturing capacity) needed a new market. The US government and the nascent chemical industry worked in coordination to create that market by selling DDT, both literally and figuratively, to the general public. Carson went so far as saying it wasn’t just chemicals that needed a market after the war: large numbers of surplus planes and pilots did, too, driving the push for widespread aerial spraying campaigns.
In another example of state-sponsored market creation, Carson discussed the fire ant. It had been endemic in the southern US since the First World War but was generally considered nothing more than a nuisance and not a major threat to agricultural production until 1957, when the US government embarked on an anti-fire ant marketing campaign. They ran ad campaigns and even produced films aimed at rebranding the fire ant as the biggest threat to agriculture in the South. Having painted a picture of the ant as an enemy, the state then initiated a multi-million dollar spraying program in the region, giving chemical companies a massive new source of revenue. Carson managed to dig up a quote from an industry trade journal that said the quiet part out loud: ”United States pesticide makers appear to have tapped a sales bonanza in the increasing numbers of broad-scale pest elimination programs conducted by the US Department of Agriculture.”
The proliferation of pesticide use in the postwar era wasn’t a natural response to a new, useful technology. It was proactively driven by capitalists—often leveraging the state itself as a tool—seeking to solve their postwar overproduction crisis and ensure continual growth.
Production patterns inaugurated by the Second World War shaped our futures in other areas, too: plastics followed an almost identical pattern to organic pesticides. Plastic was a relatively new material before the war but it proved to be extremely useful for the military; productive capacity grew dramatically to meet that need. At the end of the war, the plastic industry needed to find new markets, which it did by creating the culture of disposability we see today. As one researcher put it, “We were trained to buy this stuff.”
The context of the war was somewhat unique (although US warmongering throughout the latter half of the 20th century continued to prove a cash cow for the chemical industry), but the phenomenon at play—the need for capitalists to find or create new markets to support constant growth and excess productive capacity—is not. Virtually every environmental woe we have today is at least in part a result of the same mechanism.
Glyphosate, an organophosphate that hadn’t yet been identified as a potent herbicide when Carson was writing, has, in just thirty years, become the most widely used herbicide in history. Its story demonstrates the many avenues by which industry creates and entrenches demand for destructive (and often unneeded) products, all while manipulating the public sphere to protect itself.
Glyphosate was first released as an herbicide in 1974 under the trade name “Roundup,” but its use didn’t explode until the mid-1990s when Monsanto (now owned by Bayer) released the first “Roundup Ready” crops, genetically modified plants that could tolerate direct application of glyphosate during the growing season. This development facilitated a whole new approach to industrial agriculture—one that used much higher amounts of herbicide. Within just two decades of the release of the GMO crops, 19 billion pounds of the chemical had been used.
Roundup Ready crops were a technological development, but they also represented a new frontier for the monopolization of agriculture and the creation and perpetuation of demand for Monsanto’s products: by selling them, Monsanto was able to lock farmers that chose to use their crops into their herbicide (and vice versa). The new crops encouraged farmers to use more Roundup than ever before, quickly making glyphosate into a cash crop of its own.
Widespread use of herbicides, as Carson pointed out 60 years ago, inevitably leads to one thing: resistant weeds and the need for new, more toxic alternatives. Glyphosate has been no exception to this rule. But resistance, it turns out, isn’t a problem for chemical manufacturers—it’s a business plan. They’re all developing GMO crops resistant to other herbicides and patenting and selling new herbicide formulations to sell to farmers desperate to control the superweeds these products have created. As Carson put it, “Chemical control is self-perpetuating, needing frequent and costly repetition.” It is part of the “modern trend to built-in obsolescence.”
Roundup Ready crops didn’t just accelerate the already-present treadmill of herbicide application and resistance: they enabled Monsanto to use legal tools and the nature of both seed and aerosol spraying to force farmers to use their products against their wishes.
Monsanto patented the genes defining their Roundup Ready trait and went to work rooting out farmers—complete with a snitch line—who accidentally ended up with Roundup-resistant strains growing on their property. In Canada in 1998, just a few years after the crops first became available, Monsanto sued a farmer, Percy Schmeiser, and won: the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that even though Schmeiser didn’t knowingly plant Monsanto’s seeds, he was still in violation of their patent.
The Union of Concerned Scientists published a study in 2004—just a handful of years into the GMO crop revolution—finding that (patented) GMO DNA had already contaminated large portions of the ostensibly non-engineered seed supply.
A report published by the Center for Food Safety in 2013 found that both Monsanto and DuPont, another major agrochemical company, had large numbers of staff (and in some cases, third-party private investigators) focused solely on identifying farmers with herbicide-resistant GMO crops growing on their property, whether intentionally or not. At the time the report was published, US courts had awarded Monsanto nearly $24 million dollars in these cases, but that doesn’t include those settled out of court and, more significantly, it doesn’t include the profits Monsanto made by using these legal tools to scare farmers into paying for their products.
Herbicides are generally sprayed, which means that spray can drift beyond where it’s intended. Farmers that choose not to use these herbicide-resistant strains (and, as such, don’t apply herbicides during the growing season) can be impacted by neighbouring farms that are using them. With the growing ubiquity of herbicide-resistant GMO crops (and the heavy spraying practices that come with them), that pressure can drive farmers to use Monsanto’s products. In one particularly egregious example, Monsanto released a dicamba-and-glyphosate-resistant strain before the US government had approved the version of dicamba they intended to sell with the crop. Farmers that bought the new dicamba-resistant seeds went ahead and used other, pre-existing forms of dicamba that were more prone to drift and devastated their neighbours’ crops.
The agrochemical companies aren’t held responsible when herbicide drift happens, but they gain another lifetime customer every time a farmer is forced to start using their herbicide-resistant crops after having their harvest damaged by drift too many times.
These companies also use international trade law, international institutions, and the soft power of host countries (predominantly the US) to create and protect their markets around the world. The most straightforward way they do this is by campaigning against bans on their products in other jurisdictions. A Reutersinvestigation reported that the US government and Bayer (which bought Monsanto in 2018) worked together to force Thailand to back out of a plan to ban glyphosate. Just last year, the Guardianreported that Bayer, CropLife America (a trade association), and the US government were exerting similar pressure on Mexico in advance of a proposed ban on glyphosate.
Glyphosate was first released as an herbicide in 1974 under the trade name “Roundup,” but its use didn’t explode until the mid-1990s when Monsanto (now owned by Bayer) released the first “Roundup Ready” crops.
But they use more proactive tactics, too, leveraging philanthropic organizations backed by the billionaire class that owns these corporations, state power, and international institutions to force their way into new markets, particularly in the Global South. The Rockefeller Foundation, with the backing of the US government, was instrumental in bringing industrial agriculture to (or forcing it upon) the Global South during the postwar era, along with the dependence on proprietary seeds, inputs, and machinery that it brings. They opened up vast new markets in Asia and Latin America for northern agrochemical companies.
The process has been repeating itself over the last two decades with genetically modified crops and potential markets that were “left behind” by the previous Green Revolution, spearheaded by groups like the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), founded by those two foundations and supported by international institutions and Global North countries, including Canada, is working to bring genetically modified, commodified seeds, and industrial farming to Africa. According to their own “Results to Date” infographic, one of their main achievements so far has been commercializing 562 seed varieties.
There is a reasonable discussion to be had about the impacts of industrial farming on total yield and the costs and benefits for human and ecological health in a region. But there’s one thing that’s very clear: bringing large-scale commercialized agriculture that is heavily dependent on proprietary seeds and proprietary chemical inputs to a region that is dominated by smallhold peasant farming represents a massive new market for agrochemical companies. And it’s not necessarily a willing market: as Ashok Kumbamu, a sociologist at Mayo Clinic, wrote, a “philanthropic-corporate-state complex” is driving what he calls today’s “Gene Revolution” and leading to “the dispossession of millions of primary agricultural producers from their means of production, nature, and indigenous knowledge systems.”
This agricultural revolution is a mechanism by which capitalism manufactures the proletariat, transforming subsistence farmers existing largely outside the global capitalist system into wage-earners that have to pay rent to the owning class in order to survive.
The industry’s push into Africa isn’t just about new markets: it’s also about creating new products (with captive markets) by patenting and commodifying genetic material of plant strains produced over thousands of years by local farmers. It’s a modern, biotechnology-based form of a process known as “enclosure of the commons.” AGRA funds research focused on identifying, breeding, or engineering high-yield varieties that produce well at large scales in various regions in Africa. When they find those varieties, they encourage the patenting and commercialization of them—indeed (it’s one of their highlighted accomplishments). This forces farmers who have themselves carefully produced climate-adapted crops over hundreds of generations to start purchasing seeds annually from corporate owners.
As Carol Thompson, a professor of political science who studies the interactions between global capital and smallholder farmers, put it, “Removing seed from the public sector and privatising it are the coercive innovations that AGRA finances.”
Companies selling glyphosate have also used some of the traditional tactics that Carson wrote about to create self-perpetuating markets by shaping government regulation and government-funded programs. In Canada, for example, glyphosate is used regularly by the logging industry, sprayed on clear-cuts to kill non-coniferous plants in an alleged effort to make their monoculture plantations more productive. The catch, aside from the obvious ecocidal side effects, is that thanks to the research of scientists like Dr. Suzanne Simard, we’ve known that this strategy doesn’t really work for decades. But it’s so entrenched—thanks to the agrochemical industry’s massaging of our legal systems to guarantee a long term market—that both government and private companies are still doing it, poisoning our ecosystems along the way (don’t pick berries in a clear-cut).
Power line rights-of-way, railroad tracks, road margins, and more are also sprayed with glyphosate (and other herbicides) in Canada. But as Carson pointed out in 1962, these annual spraying programs are environmentally destructive and unnecessary. Selective treatment of tall shrubs and trees would, at least in many cases, accomplish the same goal with less work, less expenditure, and less ecological devastation, but, predictably enough, these are programs supported (if not created) by chemical companies because it establishes a permanent growing market for them.
Carson gave us a vivid and compelling description of the barren world that the agrochemical industry was creating. But hidden within that was a clear analysis of why it was happening: the inherent drive to accumulation within capitalism and the willingness of corporations and capitalists to use every tool available to them, including the state itself, to create markets and grow profit. The climate crisis has shown itself to be a symptom of the same fundamental problem over and over again, from the auto industry shaping suburbia and manipulating the public into wanting ever larger vehicles to the fossil fuel industry funding academia, spreading disinformation, and using the power of the state to block divestment campaigns.
It’s not just environmental problems: the opioid crisis emerged as a result of the same drive and through many of the same mechanisms, and of course, the infamous tobacco industry did too.
Capitalists saw the depth of Carson’s critique even while the environmental movement didn’t. That’s why there’s still a website called “RachelWasWrong.com” today espousing the “life-enhancing value of chemicals.” It’s funded by right-wing think tanks like The Heartland Institute and it’s just another entry in the 60-year campaign to discredit her work and distract attention from the real issues.
The answer to the ongoing chemical apocalypse is not to vigorously fight each chemical. Nor is the answer to the climate crisis to vigorously fight each individual source of emission. And neither answer is to convince the users of these products—the farmers and the foresters, drivers and airplane travelers—to stop. Instead, we have to address the way that corporations create, shape, and control demand, leveraging the state as a tool. Demand-focused policy that pins the blame on so-called consumers can never do that.
An effective environmental movement has to be one that pursues policies aimed at disempowering the capitalist class and loosening its grip on state power. Anything less just leaves us on the same kind of chemical treadmill as industrial agriculture: every time our resistance to one disaster grows, capitalists will simply seize it as an opportunity to sell us a new one.
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Nick Gottlieb is a climate writer based in northern BC and the author of the newsletter Sacred Headwaters. His work focuses on understanding the power dynamics driving today’s interrelated crises and exploring how they can be overcome. Follow him on Twitter @ngottliebphoto.
Featured image: Fertilizing, May 1972. Photo by Charles O’Rear from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Documerica project/US National Archives/Flickr.
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Since January 1, the UK has banned Russian LNG imports and is looking to other producers such as the US to meet demand. On January 9 the UK government announced it is extending the support it provides to companies regarding their energy bills for another year – which will cost around £ 5. bn. However, this is not enough and business representatives have warned that they cannot help but pass on extra costs to customers, thus contributing to an increase in inflation, according to Irish macroeconomist Philip Pilkington. These two pieces of news are not unrelated.
The British economy has been collapsing, largely due to high energy costs, as I’ve written, and those, in turn, have everything to do with the Western economic warfare against Russia which has backfired. For the same reason, a new depression also haunts Europe. Moreover, the German-Russian Nord Stream 2 project (now gone) , against which Washington campaigned so heavily, could have avoided the current energy crisis in Europe. This is a geoeconomic and geopolitical crisis which serves American interests quite well. In today’s plight, energy, economy, geopolitics and industry issues are all intertwined.
The economics and energy crises and the European deindustrialization they may bring about cannot be understood without taking into consideration the crisis in Ukraine and the geoeconomics of European reliance on Russian gas.
Russia is the world’s second-largest natural gas producer, and, in 2021, Germany, Turkey, and Italy were the world’s main importers of Russian gas. In 2021, Europe imported 2.4 million barrels per day (bpd) from the Eurasian power. Russia natural gas in fact accounted for almost 40% of EU gas imports in 2021 (160 bcm). In 2021, as a response to Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine, EU state members committed to reducing gas imports from Russia and in fact overachieved their own goals: imports have fallen from 40% to about 4%, thus apparently ending what could be described as a half-century long mutually beneficial relationship.
As a result, gas prices have risen, which makes European industry uncompetitive and, in the post-Nord Stream world, this reality has come to stay for a very long time.
As a response, EU regulators will start publishing a daily liquified natural gas (LNG) price assessment on January 13, as part of the bloc’s plans to make pricing more transparent and to form a continental benchmark price – to avoid European countries bidding against each other for supplies (thus risking driving up prices even more).
Even though European gas prices have now fallen, their future remains uncertain due to weather shifts and storage issues. According to Ashley Kelty, a Panmure Gordon’s oil and gas director, the forecast is for Europe to exit the winter season with less than 15% in storage, which is much lower than the historic average of 30-35% – and this will result in prices remaining high, with the higher demand to refill. Kelty believes that, due to the absence of Russian supplies, among other factors, prices should remain high for the foreseeable future.
Moreover, as the global competition for fuel is heating up, once China emerges out of COVID, for instance, it will once again be a huge demand player, thereby potentially leaving Europe to compete for what remains available with one of the biggest buyers in the market, warns Toby Copson, Trident LNG’s global head.
Pilkington in turn argues that European gas imports are at their lowest in recent history because LNG imports have simply reached their upper limit. The 2400mcm per week or so seems to be a hard limit that won’t be crossed anytime soon. Thus, according to Pilkington, we can expect a huge energy crisis in Europe in 2023, which will collapse European economies and the UK.
Although warmer than usual temperatures this winter have held the demand for heating back, thus prompting a fall in natural gas prices and an increase in gas storage, this good performance, the economist warns, is “not game-changing”. Some experts estimate the EU could face a 30 Bcm deficit for 2023-24.
European economies might endure this winter, the prospect is not good. At this point one can only speculate, but one can expect an European economic collapse and the resulting deindustrialization and social unrest to strengthen the so-called populist camp in Europe, with a possible impact on elections, and on foreign policy. Even an European leader such as French President Emmanuel Macron himself has been talking about the possibility of the political West becoming divided over US policies and industry and subsidies wars.
Since the aftermath of WWII, Europe has relied on the US for security, while relying up until 2022 on Russia for gas. This has been the latent geoeconomic-geostrategic contradiction within the bloc which seems to be short-circuting now. With regards to oil and gas, trading links are largely dictated by geography, regardless of the political will. This being so, Russian-EU cooperation on energy has always been a strategic matter for both concerned parties, while the US agenda has been one of trying to disrupt any such Eurasian cooperation.
To sum it up, the current US-backed conflict in Ukraine and its economic and energy outcomes has proved itself disastrous not only to Kiev and to Ukrainians, but also to the EU and the UK, as well as the West itself. Europe cannot afford to decouple from Russia energetically and cannot easily separate from the US-led NATO’s structure, even when American geopolitical goals collide with the continent’s interests. This is Europe’s main sovereignty contradiction and its great drama today.
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Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.
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“Ukraine is already a de facto member of NATO.” — Oleksii Reznikov, Defense Minister of Ukraine
If reports are correct that modern Western weapon systems are slated to pour into Ukraine–the latest US and German tanks, Patriot missile systems, and other current weaponry–Minister Reznikov is correct.
These weapons imply that Ukraine has enough soldiers left to use them.It will require months to prepare Ukraine for these weapons.A logistical system is necessary for the delivery, maintenance, and protection of the weaponry from Russian air and missile attack.This will require US/NATO personnel on the ground in Ukraine if the weapons are to be effectively used.
In other words, the “limited military operation” has widened into a war between the US/NATO/Ukraine and Russia.
Apparently, it is going to be a war without a NATO declaration of war.
The reason is that if all the weaponry promised is delivered, NATO and the US will be without fighting ability except in Ukraine where the weapons will be located.Russia could, if she had the leadership, simply sweep through weapons-depleted Baltics and Finland around Germany into France and circle back to Serbia, leaving East and West Europe cut off and surrounded.But this would make the war officially one with NATO, and the US would have to use its only means–nuclear weapons.
So it looks as if Russia will continue to pretend that there is only a limited military operation,and US/NATO will continue to pretend that the weapons are just aid to Ukraine.
A Russian military operation that the Kremlin should have completed in a few days eight years ago has now, once belatedly begun, extended another year.The consequence of the Kremlin’s unpreparedness and endless delay is a full-fledged involvement of US/NATO in the war with the aim of retaking Donbass and Crimea from Russia.The increased Ukrainian firepower means far more Russian casualties, and Washington’s involvement has passed the threshold at which Washington can accept a Russian victory.
It short, the Kremlin has blown its opportunity, and we are headed toward Armageddon.
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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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The decision by Budapest to block the so-called European integration of Kosovo, despite already recognising Serbia’s southern province as an independent state, is motivated by the sovereign foreign policy enforced by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who not only seeks to defend international law, but also preserve friendly relations with Serbia.
Hungary is not among the five EU members (Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Slovakia, and Spain) that refuse to recognise Kosovo’s independence. Hungary’s recognition of Kosovo was carried out by Orbán’s predecessors in 2008. None-the-less, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on January 10 that his country will vote against Kosovo’s membership in European bodies.
Despite recognising Kosovo, Hungary is perhaps the only country in the EU today that truly pursues a sovereigntist policy. Serbia, a non-EU member, is one of the few countries in all of Europe to also pursue a sovereign policy. With both countries being neighbours and having deep historic links, it is only natural that they are friendly today.
With Kosovo applying for EU membership in December and announcing its intentions to do the same with the Council of Europe, moves that have overwhelming support in Brussels, Hungary has not shied away from defending Serbia.
Responding to these actions in a joint press conference with his Serbian counterpart Ivica Dačić, Szijjarto said that:
“The premature admission of Kosovo by various European entities may jeopardise the search for reconciliation. Therefore, if there is a vote on whether to accept Kosovo as a member of the Council of Europe, the government will vote no.”
For his part, Dačić said that the Kosovo issue can only be resolved through concessions.
“We believe that the issue of Kosovo can only be resolved by compromise and we are very sensitive that it is approached in accordance with the policy of double standards when it comes to territorial integrity,” said Dačić. “Either territorial integrity is a principle, or it is not. You can’t be in favour of preserving territorial integrity in one case, and say it the other way around.”
Belgrade and Pristina have been in an EU-led dialogue on the normalisation of relations since 2011, and naturally little progress has been made since Brussels is unrelenting in its recognition and support for Kosovo’s separation from Serbia. This is despite the fact that it violated international law, specifically UNSC Resolution 1244, which established a temporary international administration in the province and guaranteed the territorial integrity of Serbia.
The Serbian foreign minister then stressed that the security of ethnic Serbs in Kosovo must be ensured.
“If KFOR does not want to do this and if the Kosovo police do not want to do it, then do not take us to the point that the Serbian police and army must guarantee security and peace in Kosovo. This is something we would not want,” he stressed.
The Orbán administration is aware that it is nearly impossible for Kosovo to become an EU member as there are five states which will VETO such a move. None-the-less, given that Kosovo is nothing more than a NATO military occupation and a hub for Albanian narcotics and human trafficking, Orbán fears the repercussions that such a country could have on his own if it were to become an EU member.
Just as importantly, there is a personal friendly relationship between Orbán and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, which is reflective of the strong relations that modern Hungary and Serbia have developed. Despite this development though, even Orbán has limitations and it unlikely that Budapest will reverse its recognition of Kosovo as an independent state in the foreseeable future. It must be taken into account that Hungary is an EU and NATO member and has certain obligations towards its partners.
As the majority of EU and NATO members recognise Kosovo’s independence, we cannot expect Hungary to reverse its recognition overnight, especially since the country is already under intense pressure for its position on the war in Ukraine.
Despite the West’s unwavering position, it has not stopped pressure from mounting on the ruling Albanian authorities in Kosovo. Serbia demands for the establishment of the Association of Serb Municipalities, a structure that would have executive powers, but something that Kosovo’s so-called Prime Minister Albin Kurti and the Constitutional Court have ruled out.
This has not, surprisingly, stopped the West from pressuring Kosovo, with a senior US Department of State advisor, Derek Chollet saying on January 11 that
“Kosovo must fulfill all commitments within the dialogue, including the formation of the Association of municipalities with a Serbian majority”.
None-the-less, with more and more countries withdrawing their recognition of Kosovo, albeit all non-European countries, the West are desperately trying to conclude an agreement between Belgrade and Pristina. For this reason, Chollet uses language like
“We believe that the government of Kosovo should celebrate that diversity and should establish policies that bring success to all Kosovars, regardless of their ethnicity.”
But Pristina is not interested in building an inclusive state, but rather an Albanian supremacist state, a prospect that Hungary absolutely refuses to support, and for this reason is standing by its Serbian partner in a strong way.
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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
Featured image: Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (Source: New Eastern Outlook)
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First published on October 14, 2022
Changes in the medical screening practices of the Red Cross for blood donor eligibility have been observed. The questionnaires now include the record of receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. The medication deferral list includes the experimental vaccines as they may affect a person’s eligibility to donate blood. When the pandemic began in 2020, the Red Cross began testing blood donors for COVID-19 antibodies but they have completely stopped the procedure and now focus on vaccines.
A person who would like to donate blood to the Red Cross needs to read and answer a list of questions to find out if they are eligible. The Red Cross assures the public that donors who received COVID-19 shots can still give blood as long as they are symptom-free and feeling well at the time of donation. However, under the eligibility guidelines applied to vaccine recipients, a donor needs to provide the name of the manufacturer of the vaccine received to determine the deferral time to be implemented.
A Need for a Greater Blood Supply
Challenges in the blood supply were already present even before the emergence of COVID-19. The pandemic brought about a crisis for blood services as the spread of infection caused cancellations of blood drives. In 2022, the number of weekly cases has continued to decrease, and local governments have started to loosen public health restrictions. The worst part of the pandemic appears to have passed, but crises in the blood supply have not ended.
The concern about blood availability is not due to increased demand for transfusion, but because of the decline in supply due to reduced donations. As a result of the unprecedented blood supply shortage, hospitals are forced to delay or reschedule surgeries. To prevent these problems, the Red Cross continues to encourage the public to donate blood.
COVID-19 Vaccine and Blood Donation
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted an emergency use authorization (EUA) to Pfizer-BioNTech on December 11, 2020. Since then, different varieties of vaccines have been developed against COVID-19 such as messenger RNA (mRNA), vector vaccine, and protein subunit vaccine. As of October 1, 2022, about 68% of the world’s population has received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
With the majority of the population receiving jabs, the screening process for blood now includes the donors’ vaccination status. As part of the Red Cross screening process, the blood donor is asked a series of personal questions to ensure that it is safe for patients to receive their blood and that it is safe for the donor to give blood on the appointed day.
On March 17, 2020, Gail McGovern, president and chief executive officer of the American Red Cross reassured the public that “blood donation is a safe process, and that we have put additional precautions in place at our drive drives.”
Eligibility Guidelines Concerning COVID Shots
Ten organizations, including the World Health Organization (WHO), FDA, and Association for the Advancement of Blood & Biotherapies (AABB), released various recommendations on the deferral periods for blood donors who had received COVID-19 vaccine. The deferral periods range from zero to 28 days, depending on whether the donor received a live or inactivated vaccine.
Among these organizations, the Red Cross follows the eligibility guidelines set by the FDA. Updated information for blood establishments regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and blood donation was released by the FDA on January 11, 2022. It suggests that individuals who received a nonreplicating, inactivated, or mRNA-based vaccine can give blood without a waiting period, and there’s a short waiting period (e.g., 14 days) for donors who received a live-attenuated shot. As a response to these requirements, the Red Cross released the COVID-19 Vaccine & Booster Blood Donation Guide for Donors where the donor is expected to report the name of the vaccine manufacturer during the screening process.
Concerns for the Blood Recipients
There are significant differences in the public’s acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines, and this has also affected the acceptance of blood transfusions from COVID-19 vaccinated donors. Some patients refuse blood transfusions and demand physicians to disclose details of the donor, including whether the donor received a COVID-19 vaccine.
As reported in TrialSite, there are concerns about why vaccinated individuals are allowed to donate blood within two weeks after receiving the shot if the spike proteins circulate in the body for up to a month after mRNA vaccination. A study by the Stanford University Department of Pathology revealed that the blood of Pfizer vaccine recipients contains at least as much spike protein as unvaccinated individuals who were infected by the virus.
The Australian Red Cross advises donors to wait three days after receiving each jab before donating blood, plasma, or platelets regardless of the type of vaccine received because of the possible side effects such as mild fever.
Antibody Testing for Blood Donors
In the early period of the pandemic, the Red Cross tested all blood, platelet, and plasma donations for COVID-19 antibodies. The result helped inform the donors whether they have been exposed to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS Cov-2), the virus that carries COVID-19.
The antibody test was authorized by the FDA and helped indicate if the donor’s immune system had produced antibodies to the coronavirus, regardless of the development of symptoms. It was implemented for a limited time from June 15 – 30, 2020. They discontinued the program when infection rates decreased and new treatment options became available.
A positive result from the antibody test does not confirm infection or immunity, as it only indicates potential exposure to the virus.
Are We Repeating History?
Blood transfusion is one of the most frequently performed medical procedures, yet this practice has historically been mired in controversy such as when African-Americans were banned from donating blood during World War II. This was followed by a lifetime ban on blood donations on men who had sex with men (MSM) during the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. During the mid-twentieth century, the U.S. National Blood Program encouraged blood donation and ensured that gender, race, and sexuality would not influence the transfusion process.
Practices in blood donation have improved, but the societal views of it remain controversial. The issues surrounding COVID-19 vaccines have led some patients to get worried about becoming infected with COVID-19 or developing long-term effects from the vaccine itself.
According to the AABB, there is no evidence that donated blood from COVID-19-vaccinated donors may pose a risk to recipients. It recognizes the importance of protecting blood donors and the blood supply by maintaining donor anonymity. Data privacy is also acknowledged by numerous organizations, as they consider it to be crucial in maintaining the relationship between volunteer blood donors and blood transfusion services.
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Thanks to Aga Wilson and Children’s Health Defence Europe for bringing international attention to the unlawful weaponization of the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario and British Columbia, against ethical doctors who maintain our oaths and responsibilities, while refusing to participate in the covid-crimes-against-humanity. Here is the interview.
I take great pride in being one of these physicians. Dr Hoffe, Dr Luchkiw, Dr Phillips, and Michael Alexander JD and are on my short list of heroes.
Aga Wilson/CHD Europe: Canadian Doctors Speaking Out Against the Narrative are being Suspended and Attacked
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Featured image is from the author
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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The US is facing major moves by the global community to de-dollarize their economies. The reserve status of the US dollar will eventually come to an end, maybe not anytime soon, but sometime in the future as it is facing numerous challenges not only from major powers such as Russia and China who are actively trying to rid themselves of the toxic currency, but also countries with smaller economies who are based in the Southeast Asian region which includes Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos. The globalist think tank, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) published an article on August 22nd, 2022, on the US dollar’s waning influence in Southeast Asia titled ‘Southeast Asia’s Growing Interest in Non-dollar Financial Channels—and the Renminbi’s Potential Role’ stated what was taking place between China and several Southeast Asian countries:
China’s central bank—announced the launch of a new emergency liquidity arrangement that can be funded using renminbi and tapped by participating central banks during times of market stress. Three of the five participating central banks are Singapore’s, Malaysia’s, and Indonesia’s, which each recently renewed agreements with the PBOC implicitly aimed at reducing dollar usage in cross-border payments. This follows policymakers in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar all announcing efforts to reduce dollar usage, as well as comments by Indonesia’s central bank head that consumers across five of Southeast Asia’s largest economies will soon be able to make intra-regional cross-border payments via linkages that avoid using the dollar as an intermediary, as is currently often the case
Interestingly, The CEIP listed several reasons why Southeast Asian countries want to dramatically reduce the use of US dollars are as follows:
Several factors are behind the various efforts aimed at reducing dollar usage in Southeast Asia. To begin with, many officials are concerned about the potential economic impacts of U.S. monetary policy tightening on the region given its high usage of the dollar; accordingly, some are seeking to reduce usage of the dollar in intra-regional trade payments as a means of curbing dollar reliance more broadly. Recent sanctions may also be spurring demand for alternative financial channels—for example, Myanmar’s military government is actively exploring how to circumvent EU and U.S. sanctions to transact with Russia
According to an article published by almayadeen.net‘Bank Indonesia calls against payments in US Dollars’who translated the report by an Indonesian news portal called Tempo.net on what Nugroho Joko Prastowo of the Solo Bank Indonesia Representative Office said regarding Indonesian businesses using national currencies to reduce its reliance on the US dollar:
Bank Indonesia has urged importers and exporters to use national currencies in international payments in order to reduce Indonesian financial markets’ reliance on the US dollar, according to Tempo.co, an Indonesian news portal. “About 90% of export-import payments are conducted in US dollars, while the share of Indonesian direct exports to the US is estimated at only 10%, and US imports account for 5%”
The report also mentioned that “China, Japan, Thailand, and Malaysia have already agreed to use the two-way payment mechanism, with Singapore and the Philippines planning to join the system, according to the economist.”
The yuan was included in the list of Myanmar’s official settlement currencies in January 2019. The move at that time was more symbolic, as all contracts and trade were still not settled in the Chinese currency. Zhou said that the move, in the long term, will help break the monopoly of the US dollar in Myanmar’s foreign currency reserves. The US has been abusing the dollar’s dominant status to impose arbitrary sanctions on other countries, and the yuan’s further expansion in Myanmar’s trade settlements may provide a shield against such a potential weapon, analysts said
Cambodia is on Board Dumping US Dollars
Why Cambodia with a population of close to 17 million people and a much smaller economic impact on the world’s economy is willing to drop US dollars is an important development. The Diplomat, a current-affairs magazine based on analysis and commentaries from various authors on developments throughout Asia and the rest of the world published an article by Luke Hunt on the case of Cambodia’s attempt to stop using US dollars titled ‘Cambodia Reduces its Dependency on the US Dollar’lays out the mood of the Cambodian government.
“Ever since United Nations peacekeepers arrived in war-torn Cambodia to oversee elections held in 1993, the U.S. dollar has been a mainstay of the local economy with a dual currency system providing steady exchange rates in a volatile place” but there is a monumental shift taking place when the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) announced that it “would phase-out small-denominated U.S. dollar bills – $1, $2, and $5 notes – following negotiations with banks and micro-finance institutions (MFIs).” Naturally it’s a step to reduce the dependency of the US dollar according to the NBC “Cambodia has to encourage the use of its riel, more. So, allowing the circulation of small U.S. bills is an obstacle in urging the use of the riel.”
There are several reasons for Cambodia’s move, one of them is to allow the use of digital currencies to “give the central bank more control over the Cambodian economy and bolster the local riel currency, which for decades suffered from a lack of confidence due to negative sentiment stemming from a 30-year war” in addition it will allow the central bank “control over monetary policy and interest rate settings and reduced costs in handling the sheer volume of $1 dollar notes circulating through the economy.”
Hunt mentions the dark period of Cambodian history with the US-backed Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge who destroyed Cambodia and it’s traditions and started a new revolution with a new culture that would begin on Year Zero, therefore everything before would be deemed irrelevant,
“It’s a far cry from the late 1970s, when Khmer Rouge rule abandoned money, banks were abolished, and the NBC blown-up as Pol Pot tried to create a utopian, agrarian society that led to the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians.”
One of the darkest times in world history indeed. It is a positive development that the NBC is encouraging the use of the Cambodian Riel for its economy, so the future seems promising. NBC Governor Chea Chanto spoke at the 40th Anniversary of the re-establishment of the Riel
“he said demand for the currency had increased by an average of 16 percent a year for the last 20 years amid annual average growth rates of 7.8 percent and inflation at around 2.5 percent.”
Chanto said that “I firmly believe all ministries, institutions, companies, enterprises, and those who actively participate in the process of developing the banking system promote the use of the riel, which is our national currency.”
According to an unidentified analyst “It’s also a matter of sovereignty and pride. It’s their country and they are entitled to have their own currency like anywhere else.”
“Any reduction in the use of the dollar needs to be handled carefully, according to foreign chambers of commerce in Cambodia. They say the central bank is unlikely to fully phase-out the US currency and any sudden moves to end reliance on the dollar would be bad for business.” European Chamber of Commerce Advocacy Manager Noe Schellinck said that “
To a certain extent, the dollarisation now can be ascribed to the success of the Cambodian economy, with a great influx of Foreign Direct Investment, compared to the historic context of when the dollarization came about.” But the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce President Dalton Wong disagrees with Schellinck’s assessment:
De-dollarisation is not a bad thing as it is a re-balancing of the fiscal and monetary policy tools. It is certainly not a complete displacement and substitution of the US dollar in favour of the Khmer Riel in trade and investment, which some observers and analysts seem to mischievously suggest, which is not so helpful. In fact, promoting a greater use of the Khmer riel will give greater monetary policy tools to the Cambodian author
The collapse of the US dollar is becoming a reality as China and Russia continue to buy gold and trade with their own currencies at an accelerated pace with many more countries around the world who are also racing to de-dollarize their economies. As we already know, several countries in Southeast Asia will soon make its move to rid itself of the toxic currency, but there are also other countries who are also making moves including India, Iran, South Africa, Syria, and Venezuela who are all motivated to drop the US dollar. One of the main reasons for these countries to move forward by eliminating the use of US dollar is because Washington uses its currency status as a weapon to impose harsh sanctions on countries they deem as enemies.
African countries are also starting to look for alternatives to the US dollar including Ghana according to a report published by Reuters on November 24th, 2022, ‘Ghana plans to buy oil with gold instead of U.S. dollars’said that “Ghana’s government is working on a new policy to buy oil products with gold rather than U.S. dollar reserves” Ghana’s reason slightly differs from other countries since “The move is meant to tackle dwindling foreign currency reserves coupled with demand for dollars by oil importers, which is weakening the local cedi and increasing living costs.” This means that the US dollar is causing inflation. The move is expected to take place in the first quarter of 2023 as Ghana’s Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia said that the new policy “will fundamentally change our balance of payments and significantly reduce the persistent depreciation of our currency” as he explained that “using gold would prevent the exchange rate from directly impacting fuel or utility prices as domestic sellers would no longer need foreign exchange to import oil products.” Libya was one of the first countries in Africa to propose the idea of creating an alternative currency to bypass the US dollar called the African Dinar which would have been gold-backed but the Obama regime supported a violent coup to overthrow its president who suggested the idea, Muammar Ghaddafi who was tortured and then killed in the process making Libya a hotbed for terrorism and at the same time, re-creating the centuries-old industry of slavery.
The bottom line is that US dollar’s dominance in the global market will come to an end sometime in the foreseeable future. No one has a crystal ball of when it will happen, but it is certain. The world will experience an alternative economic reality that will change the dynamics of the US and its Western powers dominating the World’s economy with an outdated and flawed currency that will eventually have the same value as toilet paper.
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Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his own blog site, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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I mentioned on Tucker Carlson last week in commentary on Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin that genetic conditions will be considered. There is an array of known sodium, potassium, and other ion channel mutations in the heart that pose a genetic proclivity to sudden death. In severe mutational cases, the channelopathy is the sole determinant. Many other circumstances, the baseline abnormality and then a superimposed insult to the heart. Two papers (Lim from Korea, Ittiwut from Thailand) now have found that SCN5A variants for cardiomyocyte channels by genetic assessment or by clinical determination on ECG (Brugada pattern) explain cases of sudden death after vaccination.
Lim KH, Park JS. COVID-19 Vaccination-Induced Ventricular Fibrillation in an Afebrile Patient With Brugada Syndrome. J Korean Med Sci. 2022 Oct 31;37(42):e306. doi: 10.3346/jkms.2022.37.e306. PMID: 36325610; PMCID: PMC9623033.
The Brugada pattern and sudden death is known to be triggered by fever, thus the reactogenic phase of vaccination with fever itself may explain the initiation of VT/VF and cardiac arrest.
Ittiwut C, Mahasirimongkol S, Srisont S, Ittiwut R, Chockjamsai M, Durongkadech P, Sawaengdee W, Khunphon A, Larpadisorn K, Wattanapokayakit S, Wetchaphanphesat S, Arunotong S, Srimahachota S, Pittayawonganon C, Thammawijaya P, Sutdan D, Doungngern P, Khongphatthanayothin A, Kerr SJ, Shotelersuk V. Genetic basis of sudden death after COVID-19 vaccination in Thailand. Heart Rhythm. 2022 Aug 5;19(11):1874–9. doi: 10.1016/j.hrthm.2022.07.019. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 35934244; PMCID: PMC9352648.
I am disappointed that world class electrophysiology research departments at US medical schools are being outclassed by investigators in Asia. COVID-19 vaccine induced myocarditis and sudden death should be a top research priority for every cardiology division in the country at this time.
These papers raise the concept that not all patients after the injection or those with manifest COVID-19 vaccine-induced myocarditis are at risk for sudden death. In my clinical practice I incorporate genetic testing for channelopathies to fine tune the prognosis for patients. Let’s hope Damar Hamlin gets high quality of care and critical thinking by electrophysiologists who understand the COVID-19 vaccine induced myocarditis can be fatal in the setting of a channelopathy such as SCN5A and probably many others.
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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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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Our thanks to The Daily Mail for having brought this important article to our attention
Andrew Bridgen shared an article on the Pfizer and Moderna jabs on Twitter
MP compared use of jabs to ‘biggest crime against humanity’ since Holocaust
Chief whip Simon Hart said his comment ‘crossed the line’ and removed whip
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Rishi Sunak has slammed the ‘utterly unacceptable’ actions of a Tory MP who compared the Covid vaccine rollout to the Holocaust.
Andrew Bridgen was stripped of the party whip after an astonishing outburst on Twitter that led to widespread condemnation from politicians, Jewish groups and medical experts.
The MP for North West Leicestershire has made a series of anti-vaxxer claims on social media and in the Commons chamber in recent weeks.
But action was finally taken against him this morning after he shared an article on the Pfizer and Moderna jabs online, based on safety data reportedly from US health agencies, and added: ‘As one consultant cardiologist said to me this is the biggest crime against humanity since the holocaust.’
Mr Sunak voiced his own anger after the comment, made in a now-deleted Tweet, was raised by former health secretary Matt Hancock at Prime Minister’s Questions.
Tory chief whip Simon Hart took action because the remarks ‘crossed a line’, and other senior Tory MPs lined up to criticise his remarks.
One said they were ‘disgraceful’ and another warned that if he prevented people from being vaccinated he would have ‘blood on his hands’.
It caps a turbulent period for the now independent MP, who is currently serving a five-day Commons ban for breaking rules on paid lobbying.
The tweet gained 150,000 views in just two hours, with dozens of users of the social media platform hitting out at the ‘disgusting analogy’ and labelling him ‘dangerous’.
Olivia Marks-Woldman, chief executive of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, told MailOnline: ‘We find it disturbing particularly as we approach Holocaust Memorial Day that some people think it’s appropriate to invoke the imagery of the Holocaust to score political points.
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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
Comments Off on Rishi Sunak Leads Condemnation of Tory MP Who Claimed COVID Vaccine Was ‘the Biggest Crime Against Humanity Since the Holocaust’: Andrew Bridgen Is Suspended by Party for Anti-vaxxer Twitter Rant and Warned He May Have ‘Blood on His Hands’
Gore pomenuti citat američkog pesnika i istoričara Karla Avgusta Sendberga ne odgovara stvarnosti: čovek, bilo da je mlad ili star, ne može da kaže: “Ne, neću da idem u rat!”, on mora da se povinuje. Do dan danas ova ljudska reakcija ne može da se objasni, jer čovek još uvek nije spoznao samog sebe – ni sebe, ni svoju prirodu, ni svoje mentalno stanje kao ni svoje načine reagovanja. Na osnovu dubinskih psiholoških saznanja znamo u današnje vreme da je vaspitanje u ranom detinjstvu imalo takav uticaj na njihov emotivni život da moraju da idu. Nema tu slobodne volje. Ali uz stručnu pomoć čovek može da spozna samog sebe malo po malo, da postane svestan svojih nesvesnih emocionalnih delova i da promeni svoje ponašanje za dobrobit čovečanstva. Ako možemo da se pomirimo sa ovim psihološkim razmišljanjima, dobićemo na hrabrosti i neće se pojavljivati novi strahovi.
Ratnijeneizbežna sudbina; on jestedobar biznis, alije iporaz za čovečanstvo.
Bilo da je Prvi ili Drugi svetski rat, bilo da je Vijetnamski rat ili trenutni proksi rat Zapada protiv Rusije: majke iznova šalju svoje sinove na “polje časti”, a “ponosno ožalošćene”zatim nose crni flor oko ruke. Mladi umiru pre nego što mogu da otpočnu da žive (1).
Rat je velika nesreća za sve nas. Papa Jovan Pavle II rekao je 13. januara 2003. godine: „Rat nikada nije neizbežna sudbina. Rat uvek znači poraz za čovečanstvo.” Osvajanje drugih naroda i dominacija nad njima je dobar biznis. Nikada ranije države u svetu nisu potrošile toliko novca na naoružanje, kovali toliko smrtonosnog oružja kao danas. Profit globalne industrije naoružanja je astronomski.
U životima naroda je militarizam uvek igrao katastrofalnu ulogu. Čovekova borba protiv čoveka je više puta dovodila u pitanje tekovine kulture. Ratoborni način života ima brutalni efekat i rezultat je obično ponovno vraćanje u varvarizam, što je primetno u svim oblastima društvenog života.
Nažalost, čovečanstvo nije u stanju da iskoreni ovo prastaro zlo iz sveta. Politički, ekonomski i socijalni razlozi konstantno podstiču duh nasilja i dovode do razarajućih ratova. Imajući u vidu ogromne ljudske i materijalne žrtve o kojima izveštava ratna istorija, s vremena na vreme se pojavljivao apel plemenitih ljudi koji su proklamovali ideal mirnodopskog sveta. Ideja o večnom miru je zasigurno stara koliko i samo čovečanstvo.
Danas vidimo da rat donosi samo uništenje; od njega nikada ne možemo da očekujemo svoje spasenje. Istorijske analize čak pokazuju da je propast kulture uvek bila povezana sa ratovima. I pored toga što je ova činjenica dobro poznata, nema tog univerzitetskog profesora, ni filozofa niti psihologa koji će dobaciti mladima: “Ne idite!”
Nažalost, muškarci bilo kog uzrasta ne mogu drugačije. Vaspitanje je toliko uticalo na njihov emotivni život da moraju da odu. Kao što su morali da se povinuju ocu i majci u jaslicama, tako se povinuju političkim autoritetima kao odrasle osobe. Oni nose taj osećaj apsolutne poslušnosti od detinjstva do duboke starosti, ali toga nisu svesni. Zato ne možemo i ne smemo da ih osuđujemo. A roditelji, nažalost, nisu znali da je vaspitavanje u apsolutnoj poslušnosti bila greška. Obično su imali dobru nameru, ali u svom neznanju i na osnovu sopstvenih iskustava iz detinjstva svoju decu dovode u nevolje diskutabilnim metodama vaspitanja.
Dobra vest je da uz pomoć psihoterapeuta ljudi mogu da spoznaju sami sebe malo po malo, da postanu svesni svojih nesvesnih emotivnih delova i promene svoje ponašanje.
Dubinska psihologija i dinamika podsvesnog kao suštinski i veoma efikasan deo života
U predpsihološkim vremenima koje je oblikovao religiozni srednji vek niko nije imao znanje o sebi, o svojim osećanjima i o svom životu. Tek sa Ludvigom Fojerbahom (od 1804. do 1872. godine) i Karlom Marksom (od 1818. do 1883. godine) ljudi su počeli da gledaju na sebe kao bića prirode i da posmatraju sami sebe (2). Nedugo zatim izvesni doktor Zigmund Frojd (od 1856. do 1939. godine) otkrio je u Beču da čovek ima podsvest. To je bilo pre više od 100 godina.
Nažalost, kao tipičan predstavnik svog vremena Frojd nije razumeo svet i ljude. Bio je konzervativac i dobar patriota. Primera radi, bio je mišljenja da Austrougarska treba da pobedi u Prvom svetskom ratu. Da ostali treba da propadnu. Njegova psihoanaliza je na neki način iščezla; ona je postala stvar medicine.
Ali na osnovu naučnih saznanja dubinske psihologije znamo danas da možemo da pomognemo ljudima da se preorijentišu i promene svoja osećanja. Učenje individualnog psihologa Alfreda Adlera (od 1870. do 1937. godine) postalo je kamen temeljac dubinske psihologije i neizostavni deo psiholoških istraživanja. Dalji razvoj dubinske psihologije dao je Adleru za pravo po pitanju mnogih aspekata. Za Adlera je karakter kreativan proizvod deteta koji proizilazi iz suočavanja sa životnim okolnostima ranog detinjstva, posebno sa vaspitnim uticajima koji su najpresudniji za formiranje karaktera.
Fundamentalna spoznaja dubinske psihologije je pretpostavka dinamičnog nesvesnog kao suštinskog i veoma efikasnog dela psihičkog života čoveka. Iz tog razloga čovek ne može da kaže: “Ne, neću da idem u rat!” Vaspitanje u ranom detinjstvu je oblikovalo njegov emotivni život na takav način da mora da se povinuje autoritetu koji ga poziva na oružje. Pošto se ovde radi o nesvesnim emocionalnim delovima iz detinjstva, njegovo ponašanje nije rezultat slobodne volje. Stoga ne može biti osuđivan.
Nažalost, i danas je malo psihologa koji se bave ovo problematikom ljudi.
Ali ovo nije željeno ovako. Znanje mladog čoveka koji se posvećuje proučavanju psihologije padana staro tlo. On je religiozan, nacionalista, patriotski nastrojen i veran državi. Po pravilu, zauzima stanovište o očuvanju ovog sistema.
Poštovani čitaoci, nadam se da se razumemo i da ćete moći da se pomirite sa psihološkim tokom misli. Samo kada ljudi dobiju unutrašnji emocionalni osećaj da uvek mogu da kažu NE i da ne moraju nikome da se povinuju, tek tada dolazi do akcije.
Dinamika podsvesnog u ljubavnom odnosu muškarca i žene
U tom kontekstu autor se priseća psihoterapeutskih razgovora tokom školovanja i u sopstvenoj ordinaciji. Ti razgovori bavili su se i dinamikom podsvesnog.
Muškarci su se u potrazi za pomoći okrenuli psihoterapeutima, jer je njihov stav o ogorčenosti i odbijanju uništavao ljubav sa njihovim devojkama i ženama. Zbog njihovih iskustava iz detinjstva sa roditeljima i braćama i sestrama, nisu mogli da afirmišu ženu, nisu mogli da se postave ravnopravni sa njom. Želeli su da budu važniji od žene i da uvek imaju poslednju reč; žene, s druge strane, očekivalo se da budu dobre i poslušne. Ovi muškarci su samokritično izjavljivali da su oni itekako nerazumni, jer sami sebi nanose zlo.
Ali nisu bili nerazumni. Ponašali su se itekako razumno, jer su njihovi postupci odgovarali njihovoj emotivnoj situaciji. Zbog iskustava iz detinjstva kao što su razmaženost, senzibilizacija i favorizovanje njih kao muškog potomstva, nisu mogli da afirmišu ženu i želeli su da budu smatrani važnijim od nje.
I ovde, roditelji u svom neznanju su napravili grešku favorizujući svoje sinove u odnosu na njihove sestre, tako što su ih razmazili. Doveli su ih u ovu situaciju kao odrasle osobe. Međutim, umesto da se ljutite na roditelje i da se srdite, veoma je važno da ih razumete i da se pomirite sa njima.
Zato se mladićima savetovalo da uz pomoć psihoterapeuta smognu snage i hrabrosti da postanu svesni podsvesnih osećanja iz detinjstva uz pomoć psihoterapeuta, kako bi ljubavni odnosi bili spaseni. Pošto nisu mogli ništa da preduzmu povodom svog iritantnog ponašanja – to nije bila slobodna volja – ne bi trebalo ni da krive sebe. Međutim, trebalo bi da budu svesni da ovde postoji nešto što oni ne mogu da iskontrolišu.
I kod ovih muškaraca je prvo morala da se razvije zdrava emocionalna osnova, pre nego što su mogli da postanu ravnopravni sa ženom i svim drugim ljudima.
Postulati za vaspitanje
Pošto smo mi ljudi proizvod iskustava iz detinjstva, mi kao odrasli ljudi imamo samo na raspolaganju ono što smo doživeli i iskusili sa našim osobama od poverenja u smislu poverenja, hrabrosti i znanja. Roditelji i braća i sestre su naš svet. Ovde deca dobijaju, da tako kažem, svoj red vožnje, kompas za ceo život. Kada posle krenu u vrtić, već znaju, već imaju stav i mišljenje o sebi i drugim ljudima.
Vaspitne metode iz prošlosti iznedrile su tip osobe koja može da izazove istorijsku tragediju. Autoritarni princip koji je vekovima smatran neupitno validnom osnovom vaspitavanja već u detinjstvu je gušio osećaj zajedništva ljudi i ispunio ih spremnošću na agresiju koja je omogućila nasilnom svetu da ostane u stanju nasilja.
Zahvaljujući saznanjima naučne psihologije danas znamo da je čovek u tolikoj meri proizvod svog vaspitanja da može da neguje nadu da će moći da oblikuje ljude boljim, to jest, psihološkim vaspitnim metodama koji će biti imuni na uplitanja težnje ka dominaciji. Pedagogija će proizvesti tip osobe koja nema “mentalitet potčinjenog” i zbog toga više neće biti poslušno oruđe moćnicima u našem svetu, tako što će da odustane od isključivog autoriteta i primene nasilja kod kuće i u školi i da se prilagodi psihičkom životu deteta sa istinskim razumevanjem.
Škola takođe ima veliki zadatak i odgovornost. Prvo i najvažnije, mora da prenese uverenje da znanje zasnovano na iskustvu, intelekt i razum uvek i svuda imaju prioritet. Od samog početka bi trebalo da usadi mladima vrednosti koje odgovaraju našoj sadašnjosti i koje još uvek važe i u odraslom dobu. Pored toga, trebalo bi da pruži mladima psihološko obrazovanje, znanje o sebi samima i svom značaju.
Dalje, škola mora da ojača sopstvenu snagu i samopouzdanje mladih ljudi i da skrene pažnju sa sopstvenog voljenog spasenja na spasenje šire javnosti, na potrebu da se pomogne.
Demokratizacija vaspitanja, koju shvatamo kao poštovanje ličnosti deteta i kao prijateljsku pažnju vaspitača prema svom učeniku na osnovi doslednog disciplinovanja bez prinude i nasilja, je pozvana da da jedan od najvrednijih doprinosa izgradnji humanog društvenog poretka.
Nesvesne emocije iz detinjstva koje je zaboravio i koje ga često ne čine srećnim odrastao čovek može da razjasni sa kompetentnim dubinskim psihologom na psihoterapiji i da tako samog sebe bolje razume. Uvek je moguće da prevaziđemo stare negativne misli i osećanja i da konačno odlučimo da li želimo da idemo u rat – ili rađe ne.
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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel je doktor pedagogije (dr ped.) i diplomirani psiholog (dipl. psih.). Dugi niz decenija bio je nastavnik (rektor) i obučavao je specijaliste pedagogije. Kao penzioner radio je kao psihoterapeut u sopstvenoj ordinaciji.
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Another needless, fatuous endeavour; another irresponsible drain on the public purse; another expression that the military-industrial complex Down Under is thriving in all its insidious stupidity. But Australia’s purchase of HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) batteries from the United States can be put down to loneliness – or the feeling of being left out. And history shows that loneliness in the context of weapons and harm involves a need to acquire more means to do further harm.
The timing of the announcement this month seemed curious enough. Could it have been coincidental that it came soon after the Ukrainian strike using the HIMARS system that destroyed a makeshift Russian garrison with lethal consequences? It was certainly wonderfully grotesque timing, even if Australian defence officials had already yearned for the HIMARS system in 2022.
The HIMARS system is certainly getting its sales, proving to be a bountiful treasure for Lockheed Martin. Its lethal strength lies in accuracy over considerable distances and easy deployment. It is also indicative of a broader missile fetish that has gripped Canberra. To make the point, the Australian government also announced the signing of a contract with Norway-based Kongsberg to purchase Naval Strike Missiles for its naval destroyers and frigates, designed to replace the Harpoon anti-ship missiles from next year. Perceived obsolescence remains the militarist’s nightmare and the weapons manufacturer’s hope.
The nervousness towards Russian ambitions in Ukraine has done its bit to boost the purchases for countries historically clutched by the old empire and its interests. Last month, the Baltic states secured deals to attain the rocket system. Such purchases serve two purposes: to reassure the anxious and to fill the pockets of the ambitious. Defence ministers will always cue their performance. “It is a big step for our armed forces, this new system, and it will significantly enhance our national and regional capabilities,” stated Lithuanian Defence Minister Arvydas Anusauskas.
The Australian example, however, is even less comprehensible, unless read through the demands and needs of a foreign power keen on keeping the gunpowder dry for war. Otherwise, there are no threats to speak of, except in the feverish mind of stupefied analysts subsided by foreign powers. Why, then, go for 20 of such systems at the cost of $385 million ($A558 million), which is more likely to be more expensive, given the refusal by government sources to reveal the actual amount?
James Heading, Director of Programs, Strategic Capabilities Office at Lockheed Martin Australia’s Missiles and Fire Control did little to explain the broader necessity for such a system for Australia, turning it into a logistics fun fair for adult children prone to violent urges. What mattered was how good the killing system was, a toy the entire military family could have. “HIMARS employs a ‘shoot to scoot’ capability which enhances crew and platform survivability in high threat environments.”
With gushing admiration, Heading spoke of “a generational leap in capability for Australia, taking Defence from cannon artillery to Long-Range Precision Fires that provide a 24/7 persistent, all-weather capability.” Such historical comparisons are flawed to the point of caricature, but they tend to be predictable in weapons sales and the need to find ever more imaginative ways of killing. For all the posturing, Heading did lift the cover on the broader strategic value of supplying Australian forces with such weapons: the US imperium, namely, demands it. “HIMARS offers the Australian Defence Force the ability to use and share common munitions and to integrate into a coalition effort.”
This poorly-cooked tripe was swallowed by Australian Defence Minister and chief weapon’s fetishist Richard Marles, “The Albanese Government is taking a proactive approach to keeping Australia safe – and the Naval Strike Missile and HIMARS launchers will give our Defence Force the ability to deter conflict and protect our interests.” (No account has ever shown any defence minister authorising purchases against the country’s interests.)
The Australian Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy was also seduced by the whole issue of capability in the face of fictional demons, till one realises that the only demon being fantasised upon is located to Australia’s distant north and known historically as the Middle Kingdom. To the ABC, he explained with a toddler’s enthusiasm that Australia would now have “an Army ground-launched missile that can reach targets up to 300 kilometres away.”
For all his confidence, Conroy’s Washington masters were also speaking in his ear. “We are part of a developmental program with the United States called the Precision Strike Missile that will allow [the] the army to hit targets in excess of 499 kilometres. So, this will give the Australian army a strike capability they have never had before.”
The US Defense Department was affirmingly clear in its rationale for endorsing the system’s export to Canberra. “The proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States,” wrote the Pentagon. “Australia is one of our most important allies in the Western Pacific. The strategic location of this political and economic power contributes significantly to ensuring peace and economic stability in the region.”
The clods in defence are bound to be revelling in all of this. There are no bounds of accountability, no reason to argue against insensible procurements. It’s all about the toys and using them in the next war.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
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Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
Extensive crimes against humanity have been committed.
Our message to WHO Director General Dr. Tedros and the representatives of the IHRRC of the WHO:
“The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law, acted as Head of State or responsible government official, does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.”
(Nuremberg Principle III)
According to the WHO:
The IHR Review Committee regarding amendments to International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR) is convened pursuant to Articles 50.1.(a)2 and 47 of the IHR, as well as Decision WHA75(9).
This Review Committee will function in accordance with the WHO Regulations for Expert Advisory Panels and Committees, and will provide its report to the WHO Director-General no later than mid-January 2023. [i.e prior to WEF, Davos on January 16, 2023]
The sole purpose of this Review Committee is to provide technical recommendations to the Director-General on amendments proposed by State Parties to the IHR, as decided by the Health Assembly in Decision WHA75(9).
We call upon the members of the IHR review committee to act responsibly and question the legitimacy of both the proposed amendments as well as the fraudulent leadership of the WHO Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Tedros’ leadership should be questioned. The evidence amply confirms that Dr. Tedros is in “conflict of interest” according to the WHO’s own definition:
“Generally speaking, a conflict of interest arises when a secondary interest interferes with the primary interest of WHO and its staff. The scope of conflict of interest goes beyond financial interest.” (WHO)
The World Economic Forum, Davos, January 2023
These so-called amendments will no doubt be “coordinated” by the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos in consultation with the parties concerned and Tedros will conform.
It is understood that Principle III of Nuremberg applies to all decisions and/or recommendations envisaged by “responsible government officials” not to mention the “philanthropic billionaires” meeting under the auspices of the January 2022 World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos Switzerland.
“The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law, acted as Head of State or responsible government official, does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.”
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, January 12, 2022
The following summary review was compiled by James Roguski. (with thanks)
The International Health Regulations Review Committee (IHRRC) of the World Health Organization (WHO) is planning to meet in secret from Monday, January 9, 2023 to Friday January 13, 2023. The IHRRC will be working to finalize what is now a 46 page document that includes proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR).
The proposed amendments would:
Change the overall nature of the World Health Organization from an advisory organization that merely makes recommendations to a governing body whose proclamations would be legally-binding. (Article 1)
Greatly expand the scope of the International Health Regulations to include scenarios that merely have a “potential to impact public health.”
Seek to remove “respect for dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms of people.” (Article 3)
Give the Director General of the WHO control over the means of production through an “allocation plan for health products” to require developed states parties to supply pandemic response products as directed. (Article 13A)
Give the WHO the authority to require medical examinations, proof of prophylaxis, proof of vaccine and to implement contact tracing, quarantine and TREATMENT. (Article 18)
Institute a system of global health certificates in digital or paper format, including test certificates, vaccine certificates, prophylaxis certificates, recovery certificates, passenger locator forms and a traveller’s health declaration. (Articles 18, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31, 35, 36 and 44 and Annexes 6, 7 and 8)
Redirect unspecified billions of dollars to the Pharmaceutical Hospital Emergency Industrial Complex with no accountability. (Article 44A)
Allow the disclosure of personal health data. (Article 45)
Greatly expand the World Health Organization’s capacity to censor what they consider to be mis-information and dis-information. (Annex 1, page 36)
Create an obligation to build, provide and maintain IHR infrastructure at points of entry. (Annex 10)
The 76th World Health Assembly is scheduled to occur from Sunday May 21, 2023 to Tuesday May 30, 2023.
In order for the proposed amendments to be considered during the 76th World Health Assembly, they must be submitted to the World Health Organization at least 4 months in advance.
The IHRRC plans to submit these proposed amendments to the WHO by Sunday, January 15, 2023.
The International Health Regulations are existing, legally-binding international law. If the proposed amendments are presented to the 76th World Health Assembly, they could be adopted by a simple majority of the 194 member nations.
According to the already agreed upon rules of the IHR, if the proposed amendments are adopted, the member nations would not need to take any additional actions. The United States Senate would not be required to provide a two-thirds vote to give their “advice and consent.” No signatures by national leaders would be needed.
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Featured image is from Reclaim the Net
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
Comments Off on The WHO Pandemic Treaty Secret Negotiations. Crimes against Humanity. Dr. Tedros Has Promoted “Fraudulent Science”. He Is “In Conflict of Interest”
People are unaware that the sovereignty of every country over its health practices is about to be turned over to the World Health Organization, an unaccountable bureaucracy.This is the final nail in our coffin.Once this goes through, we are captured in Bill Gates and Klaus Schwab’s net.The WHO alone can declare a pandemic and the protocols.
While the COVID-19 shots are referred to as “vaccines,” they do not meet the classical definition of a vaccine. Health authorities actually had to change the definition to accommodate the COVID shots and shut down the argument that, as experimental gene therapies, they may be riskier than traditional vaccines.
On January 9th, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that relations between US and South Africa are tense. The reason for the diplomatic instability would be the fact that last month a South African naval base received a Russian cargo ship sanctioned by Washington, with no public information about the contents inside the vessel.
Pierre de Gaulle, a grandson of former French President Charles de Gaulle, has said the U.S. is making Europeans suffer by fueling the Ukraine conflict and waging a pre-planned economic war against Russia.
Frank Berry is an Irish film director and screenwriter who doesn’t shy away from exposing the harsh realities of contemporary life in Ireland. In his films, Berry has tackled difficult topics such as prisons, suicide and poverty. He doesn’t indulge in middle-class condescension of working class people either.
China will not let the Asia-Pacific region turn into a hotspot for geopolitical conflict, and will defend its own sovereignty and integrity, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson declared on Monday.
As is well known, Iran experienced a wave of protests after September 22, when a young woman, Masha Amini, died in the custody of the Iranian moral police. A prominent place among the protesters was occupied by women, especially younger ones, then students and other parts of the urban population. The Western media covered all of this with rhetoric about a spontaneous protest, about the struggle for the emancipation and liberation of women who allegedly live in a servile and humiliating position in Iran, etc. This version from the cartoons or fairytales, of course, also has another side, which unfortunately you cannot hear in the Serbian and western media.
The outcome of that meeting, and the expected follow-up meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, may form the basis for the recovery of Syria, circumventing the UN resolution 2254, which has failed to produce results.
The latest demand by neocons that Russia must be wiped off the map is locked up behind a paywall at the CIA’s favorite newspaper, The Washington Post. In order to read what former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote, I used a browser text reader to bypass the paywall.
Finally! Zachary Stieber at the Epoch Times managed to get the CDC to release the results of its VAERS safety signal monitoring for COVID-19 vaccines, and they paint a very alarming picture (see his reporting and the data files here, or if that is behind a paywall then here).
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The notion that the COVID shots are a form of gene therapy is so risky for Big Pharma’s bottom line, they’re going to great lengths to make sure people don’t think of them that way
The Associated Press published a “fact check” in which they argued that COVID shots are not gene therapy because they do not alter your genes
The AP misled readers by focusing on just one part of the FDA’s definition of a gene therapy — the part about modifying expression of a gene. But the full definition also includes the words “or to alter the biological properties of living cells,” which is precisely what the COVID shots do
When the mRNA shots were rolled out in 2021, they did not meet the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s definition of a vaccine. They only met the FDA’s definition of a gene therapy
The only reason COVID shots meet the CDC’s definition of a vaccine now is because they changed the definition to prevent “COVID-19 deniers” from saying that “COVID-19 vaccines are not vaccines per CDC’s own definition”
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While the COVID-19 shots are referred to as “vaccines,” they do not meet the classical definition of a vaccine. Health authorities actually had to change the definition to accommodate the COVID shots and shut down the argument that, as experimental gene therapies, they may be riskier than traditional vaccines.
Meanwhile, based on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s definition of “gene therapy” they’re clearly gene therapies, and both Moderna and BioNTech acknowledge this. Despite that, the notion that the COVID shots are a form of gene therapy is so risky for Big Pharma’s bottom line,1 they’re going to great lengths to make sure people don’t think of them that way.
Most recently, The Associated Press (AP) tried to debunk the idea that COVID shots are gene therapy, but as you’ll see, they’re either lying to protect the industry, or have gotten so inept they don’t know how to do investigative journalism anymore. Either way, it doesn’t reflect well on their credibility.
AP Lies About COVID Shots Not Being Gene Therapy
AP, at the end of December 2022, published a “fact check” titled “No, COVID-19 Vaccines Aren’t Gene Therapy,” in which they argued:2
“The COVID-19 vaccines do not change a person’s genes, as gene therapy does … The shots from Pfizer and Moderna use messenger RNA, or mRNA, to instruct the body to create a protein from the coronavirus. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine, meanwhile, uses a modified adenovirus to trigger an immune response …
In recent days, social media posts have shared a claim that the vaccines are ‘gene therapy’ — which involves modifying a person’s genes to treat or cure a disease, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.”3
.
The Definition of Gene Therapy
The FDA defined gene therapy in July 2018 and has not changed it since. Per the FDA’s website as of this writing:4
“Human gene therapy seeks to modify or manipulate the expression of a gene or to alter the biological properties of living cells for therapeutic use. Gene therapy is a technique that modifies a person’s genes to treat or cure disease …”
Here’s where AP went wrong. They only used ONE part of the FDA’s definition of a gene therapy — the part about modifying expression of a gene — in its debunking attempt. But the full definition also includes the words “or to alter the biological properties of living cells,” which is precisely what the COVID shots do.
The mRNA in the COVID jab are molecules that contain genetic instructions for making various proteins. mRNA COVID shots deliver synthetic mRNA with a genetic code that instructs your cells to produce a modified form of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.
In other words, they “alter the biological properties of living cells for therapeutic use.” Whether they modify your DNA is irrelevant. Note the word “or” in the FDA’s definition. It means it can be one OR the other. They don’t have to alter gene expression in order to still qualify as gene therapy, at least not per the FDA’s definition.
Yes, the COVID Jabs Are Gene Therapies Per Definition
Moderna’s November 2018 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) registration statement5also confirms that its mRNA injections are defined as gene therapy, clearly stating that “mRNA is considered a gene therapy product by the FDA.”
The September 2019 SEC filing for BioNTech (its mRNA technology is used in the Pfizer vaccine) is equally clear, stating on page 21:6
“… in the United States, and in the European Union, mRNA therapies have been classified as gene therapy medicinal products …”
So, in the U.S. and Europe, mRNA therapies, as a group, are classified as “gene therapy medicinal products.”7 There’s simply no way around this. Yet to this day, mainstream media tries to “debunk” the reality of the COVID jab.
Definition of Vaccine Was Changed to Fool You
In 2018, Moderna acknowledged that mRNA technology was of a “novel and unprecedented nature,”8 yet for the past three years, we’ve been told that it’s just a newer, faster way to make vaccines.
The fact of the matter is that when the mRNA shots were rolled out in early 2021, they didn’t meet the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s definition of a vaccine. They only met the FDA’s definition of a gene therapy. And the only reason they meet the CDC’s definition of a vaccine now is because the CDC changed their definition.9
All the way up until the end of October 2021, the CDC defined a vaccine as “a product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease.” Immunity, in turn, was defined as “Protection from an infectious disease,” meaning that “If you are immune to a disease, you can be exposed to it without becoming infected.”
The new definition10 of “vaccine” is: “A preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.” So, a “vaccine” went from being something that produces protective immunity, to simply stimulating an immune response. The key words “to produce immunity” were eliminated from the equation.
This makes the COVID shots fit the description, as they do not make you immune against COVID-19 and weren’t designed to prevent infection in the first place.
Internal CDC correspondence11 obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests also conclusively prove the reason for the change was simply to shut down arguments by “right-wing COVID-19 pandemic deniers” that “COVID-19 vaccines are not vaccines per CDC’s own definition.”
FDA Knew COVID Jabs Were Risky Territory
The FDA’s guidance for the human gene therapy products industry,12 published in January 2020, also classified mRNA injections as gene therapy. Importantly, in this document the FDA stressed that gene therapy products that carry microRNA or cytokines can have “unknown pleotropic effects, including altered expression of host (human) genes that could result in unpredictable and undesirable outcomes.”
While the COVID jab certainly produces undesirable outcomes, negative consequences were not unpredicted. Early on, a number of scientists who had looked into the shots’ mechanisms of action warned about the possibility of severe adverse outcomes, including impairment of the immune system, neurological dysfunction and cancer. Today, a wide array of data and statistics prove those early concerns were valid.
Risk-Benefit Analysis Decimates Safety Claims
For example, a risk-benefit analysis13 looking at the impact of booster mandates for university students concluded that between 22,000 and 30,000 previously uninfected adults (aged 18 to 29) must be boosted to prevent one COVID-19 hospitalization.
Meanwhile, for each hospitalization prevented, the jab will cause 18 to 98 serious adverse events, including 1.7 to 3 “booster-associated myocarditis cases in males, and 1,373 to 3,234 cases of grade ≥3 reactogenicity which interferes with daily activities.” According to the authors, mandating a third COVID shot for university students will result in “a net expected harm.”
The authors also stress that “Given the high prevalence of post-infection immunity, this risk-benefit profile is even less favorable.” They go on to state that “University booster mandates are unethical because:”14
“1) no formal risk-benefit assessment exists for this age group;
2) vaccine mandates may result in a net expected harm to individual young people;
3) mandates are not proportionate: expected harms are not outweighed by public health benefits given the modest and transient effectiveness of vaccines against transmission;
4) U.S. mandates violate the reciprocity principle because rare serious vaccine-related harms will not be reliably compensated due to gaps in current vaccine injury schemes; and
5) mandates create wider social harms. We consider counter-arguments such as a desire for socialization and safety and show that such arguments lack scientific and/or ethical support.”
Government Study Also Highlights COVID Jab Problems
A small observational study15,16 led by neurology researchers at the National Institutes of Health brought equally bad news, as they found “a variety of neuropathic symptoms” occurring within three to four weeks of COVID injection:
“We studied 23 patients (92% female; median age 40 years) reporting new neuropathic symptoms beginning within 1 month after SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. 100% reported sensory symptoms comprising severe face and/or limb paresthesias, and 61% had orthostasis, heat intolerance and palpitations …
Together, 52% (12/23) of patients had objective evidence of small-fiber peripheral neuropathy … This observational study suggests that a variety of neuropathic symptoms may manifest after SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations and in some patients might be an immune-mediated process.”
FDA and CDC Refuse to Release Key Safety Analyses
Isn’t it curious that the FDA, CDC, NIH and mainstream media refuse to admit there are risks, even though the NIH’s own research shows it? In all likelihood, the FDA’s and CDC’s data collection on the shots also reveal there are significant problems, as both agencies are stonewalling attempts to get key safety analyses released. As reported by The Epoch Times back in the summer of 2022:17
“According to operating procedures laid out by the agency and its partner in January 202118and February 2022,19 the FDA would perform data mining ‘at least biweekly’ to identify adverse events ‘reported more frequently than expected following vaccination with COVID-19 vaccines.’ The agency would perform the mining on data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).
In a recent response, the FDA records office told The Epoch Times that it would not provide any of the analyses, even in redacted form. The agency cited an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act that lets the government withhold inter-agency and intra-agency memorandums and letters ‘that would not be available by law to a party other than an agency in litigation with the agency.’
The agency also pointed to the Code of Federal Regulations, which says that ‘all communications within the Executive Branch of the Federal government which are in written form or which are subsequently reduced to writing may be withheld from public disclosure except that factual information which is reasonably segregable …’
It’s not clear why the FDA could not produce copies of the analyses with non-factual information redacted.”
According to the VAERS standard operating procedures cited above, the CDC is also required to perform data mining analyses using Proportional Reporting Ratio (PRR) data mining. PRR20measures how common an adverse event is for a specific drug compared to all the other drugs in the database.
When The Epoch Times asked the CDC to release its results, it too refused. According to The Epoch Times,21 the CDC “has also twice provided false information when responding to questions.” First, they claimed that no PRR analyses were done and that data mining was outside their purview.
Some time later, they admitted the agency did perform PRRs starting in February 2021, only to later backtrack, saying they only started doing PRRs in March 2022. The Epoch Times cites several papers in which the FDA and/or CDC claim their data mining efforts have come up empty handed.
But if that’s true, why the reluctance to release the data? Don’t they want us to be reassured that these shots are as safe as they claim them to be? Why sit on exculpatory evidence? Unless, of course, the data proves the FDA and CDC are lying.
Was No-Test Drug Approval the Plan All Along?
While I cannot prove it, I suspect Operation Warp Speed — devised in the spring of 2020 by a dozen top officials from then-President Trump’s health and defense departments to expedite the development of a COVID 19 vaccine22 — may have been intended to normalize the approval of gene therapy drugs without the proper testing.
Before the COVID shots were given emergency use authorization, no mRNA gene therapy had ever made it to market, despite more than 20 years’ worth of research and development. That tells you something about how difficult it is to get these products right, to make sure they work and are safe.
With the FDA’s implementation of a “Future Framework” scheme in June 2022 to speed up the delivery of COVID boosters,23 the regulatory obstacles for gene therapies, especially the stringent safety requirements, were brushed aside. Now, the FDA can and will authorize reformulated COVID shots without human trials.24,25,26
The FDA basically rewrote the rules on the fly, deciding that mRNA gene therapies are equivalent to conventional influenza vaccines and can be updated and released without testing.
The idea is that the safety of the mRNA COVID shots has already been proven by the original shots, which they claim have harmed or killed no one. Hence, safety is a given, and the effectiveness of reformulated boosters can be assessed simply by checking the antibody levels in a few mice, which is what Pfizer and Moderna did.
I have no doubt this “Future Framework” will also, over time, be widened to include other vaccines and drugs that drug makers may want to tinker with. Already, there are mRNA shots in the pipeline against herpes, malaria, influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), sickle cell disease, HIV, Epstein-Barr and cancer,27,28 and vaccine makers have received fast-track approval designation for at least some of these shots.29
Eventually, this fast-tracking trend may even lower standards for drug trials in general, which historically have required at least 10 years of multiphase testing.30 The dangers of this trend really cannot be overstated — especially when we’re talking about gene-based products.
So, to circle back to where we started, hopefully you can now see how the AP and other media are misleading you in their “fact checks” by focusing on just one aspect of the FDA’s gene therapy definition (the DNA-altering part), while ignoring the fact that COVID shots DO meet the complete definition, and ARE classified as gene therapy, as acknowledged by BioNTech and Moderna in their SEC filings.
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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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Although Pakistan is suffering from a severe economic crisis, food shortages, and is locked in a decades-long struggle with India over Jammu and Kashmir, the country’s authorities are set to send another consignment of weapons and ammunition to help the Ukrainian army’s fight against Russia.
Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF), a state-owned defence industrial enterprise, is reportedly sending 159 containers of 155mm artillery shells, M4A2 propelling bag charges, M82 primers, and PDM fuses to Ukraine via Poland over the coming weeks. According to the Economic Times, Project Shipping – a Pakistani shipping and brokerage firm – will transport the consignment from the Karachi Port to the Gdansk Port later this month.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Pakistan established military and industrial ties with Ukraine. Since achieving independence in 1991, Ukraine up until 2020 sold weapons and military equipment worth nearly $1.6 billion to Pakistan. These include more than 320 T-80UD tanks, along with a fully formed ecosystem for their maintenance, usage, ammunition, and spare parts.
In addition, Pakistan has become a key logistics hub in transporting humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine. It is recalled that the CEO of Pakistani logistics and engineering firm Kestral, Liaqat Ali Beg, travelled to Poland, Romania, and Slovakia in May and June 2022 to consolidate Pakistan as part of an air bridge to supply Ukraine with weapons. The UK is also using Pakistan’s Noor Khan Airbase in Rawalpindi as a key base for the transportation of military equipment for the Ukrainian Army.
While Pakistan will be supplied with Western military equipment in exchange for assistance to Ukraine, Islamabad has repeatedly ignored requests from Moscow for ammunition and weapons. This is despite the fact that the South Asian country still receives 100,000 barrels of Russian crude oil per day at discounted rates, thus signifying Islamabad’s rapid shift away from Moscow in the post-Imran Khan period.
Meanwhile, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) issued arrest warrants on January 10 for former prime minister Imran Khan and other top leaders of his party in a contempt case. The former prime minister has been calling for the resignation of the ECP chief for failing to be a neutral election commissioner – an allegation that the chief rejected by asserting that he was working as per law.
Khan was overthrown in April 2022 in a US-supported soft coup. He was specifically targeted because his independent foreign policy radically shifted from Pakistan’s traditional alliance with the US. Since being ousted, the former prime minister has held massive protests across Pakistan, blasting the unelected government for becoming an American “slave.”
“The US has made Pakistan a slave without having to invade it. The people of Pakistan will never accept the imported government,” he said while addressing a rally in Faisalabad in Pakistan’s Punjab province on May 15, 2022.
Khan believes that Pakistan should have been a non-aligned country during the Cold War instead of being a US vassal. He insists that Pakistan should be an independent country today, especially given the current geopolitical climate between the US and Western Europe on one side and China and Russia on the other.
“Pakistan should not take any sides,” Khan said. “Why do we have to take sides? Pakistan should have a good relationship with both China and with the United States. Similarly, I feel with Russia and the United States.”
“For instance, that’s the policy of India,” he added. “I must say that I have always admired the way India remained non-aligned during the [first] cold war. I thought it was a sensible thing to do.”
Only weeks before Khan was ousted, Washington demanded that he denounce Moscow over its war in Ukraine. For rebuking the Western pressure campaign and declaring that he refused to be a “slave,” it is unsurprising that Washington quickly supported a soft coup to place Shehbaz Sharif, an American asset, in power.
It cannot be forgotten that Khan arrived in Moscow on February 24, 2022 – the day that a massive global conflict started. This put the then-prime minister under immense pressure as he was the first world leader to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin since the war in Ukraine broke. He was expected to condemn Moscow’s actions.
For his steadfastness and defending his country’s interests, Khan was ousted instead. Islamabad’s unelected US-backed regime, before sending weapons to Ukraine, then changed the country’s position and promptly criticised Moscow.
While Pakistan is sending weapons to Ukraine, the country is also suffering from multiple overlapping crises, including the Covid pandemic, terrorism, food shortages and rising energy costs. Under this context, Russia is assisting Pakistan through its mostly self-inflicted economic crisis by providing discounted oil. Kremlin decision-makers could be mulling on whether to end the discount offer since Islamabad has now ended its extremely short foray of following an independent foreign policy and is now firmly back in Washington’s orbit of control vis-à-vis relations with Moscow.
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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
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People are unaware that the sovereignty of every country over its health practices is about to be turned over to the World Health Organization, an unaccountable bureaucracy.This is the final nail in our coffin.Once this goes through, we are captured in Bill Gates and Klaus Schwab’s net.The WHO alone can declare a pandemic and the protocols.
There is no longer any doubt that the Covid pandemic was an orchestrated event and that the “Covid vaccine” was known in advance to be neither safe nor effective.Indeed, it is not a vaccine.
The researcher in the video below, the third item, explains how beginning in 2013 the scheme was set up in secrecy in a way to protect all those involved in the scheme.It shows clearly that there is a conspiracy.
Meanwhile “vaccinated” people continue to die suddenly.
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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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How do you trust a government that continuously sidesteps the Constitution and undermines our rights? You can’t.
When you consider all the ways “we the people” are being bullied, beaten, bamboozled, targeted, tracked, repressed, robbed, impoverished, imprisoned and killed by the government, one can only conclude that you shouldn’t trust the government with your privacy, your property, your life, or your freedoms.
Consider for yourself.
Don’t trust the government with your privacy, digital or otherwise. In the two decades since 9/11, the military-security industrial complex has operated under a permanent state of emergency that, in turn, has given rise to a digital prison that grows more confining and inescapable by the day. Wall-to wall surveillance, monitored by AI software and fed to a growing network of fusion centers, render the twin concepts of privacy and anonymity almost void. By conspiring with corporations, the Department of Homeland Security “fueled a massive influx of money into surveillance and policing in our cities, under a banner of emergency response and counterterrorism.” For instance, all across the country, police are installing Flock Safety license plate readers as part of a public-private partnership program between police and the surveillance industry. These cameras, which upload data in real time to fusion crime centers, signal a turning point in the transition from a police state to a police-driven surveillance state.
Don’t trust the government with your property. In yet another effort to legitimize warrantless searches, police are employing “hit-and-hold” tactics in which police enter a home, carry out an initial sweep of the property, handcuff the occupants, then wait for official search warrants to be secured and applied retroactively. In the meantime, police have managed to bypass the Fourth Amendment. The rationale, to prevent possible destruction of evidence, is the same one used to deadly effect with no-knock raids. If government agents can invade your home, break down your doors, kill your dog, damage your furnishings and terrorize your family, your property is no longer private and secure—it belongs to the government. Hard-working Americans are having their bank accounts, homes, cars electronics and cash seized by police under the assumption that they have allegedly been associated with some criminal scheme.
Don’t trust the government with your finances. The U.S. government—and that includes the current administration—is spending money it doesn’t have on programs it can’t afford, and “we the taxpayers” are being forced to foot the bill for the government’s fiscal insanity. The national debt is $31.3 trillion and growing, and we’re paying more than $300 billion in interest every year on that public debt, yet there seems to be no end in sight when it comes to the government’s fiscal insanity. According to Forbes, Congress has raised, extended or revised the definition of the debt limit 78 times since 1960 in order to allow the government to essentially fund its existence with a credit card.
Don’t trust the government with your health. For all intents and purposes, “we the people” have become lab rats in the government’s secret experiments, which include MKULTRA and the U.S. military’s secret race-based testing of mustard gas on more than 60,000 enlisted men. Indeed, you don’t have to dig very deep or go very back in the nation’s history to uncover numerous cases in which the government deliberately conducted secret experiments on an unsuspecting populace—citizens and noncitizens alike—making healthy people sick by spraying them with chemicals, injecting them with infectious diseases and exposing them to airborne toxins. Unfortunately, the public has become so easily distracted by the political spectacle out of Washington, DC, that they are altogether oblivious to the grisly experiments, barbaric behavior and inhumane conditions that have become synonymous with the U.S. government, which has meted out untold horrors against humans and animals alike.
Don’t trust the government with your life: At a time when growing numbers of unarmed people have been shot and killed for just standing a certain way, or moving a certain way, or holding something—anything—that police could misinterpret to be a gun, or igniting some trigger-centric fear in a police officer’s mind that has nothing to do with an actual threat to their safety, even the most benign encounters with police can have fatal consequences. The number of Americans killed by police continues to grow, with the majority of those killed as a result of police encounters having been suspected of a non-violent offense or no crime at all, or during a traffic violation. According a report by Mapping Police Violence, police killed more people in 2022 than any other year within the past decade. In 98% of those killings, police were not charged with a crime.
Don’t trust the government with your freedoms. For years now, the government has been playing a cat-and-mouse game with the American people, letting us enjoy just enough freedom to think we are free but not enough to actually allow us to live as a free people. Freedom no longer means what it once did. This holds true whether you’re talking about the right to criticize the government in word or deed, the right to be free from government surveillance, the right to not have your person or your property subjected to warrantless searches by government agents, the right to due process, the right to be safe from militarized police invading your home, the right to be innocent until proven guilty and every other right that once reinforced the founders’ belief that this would be “a government of the people, by the people and for the people.” On paper, we may be technically free, but in reality, we are only as free as a government official may allow.
Whatever else it may be—a danger, a menace, a threat—the U.S. government is certainly not looking out for our best interests, nor is it in any way a friend to freedom.
Remember the purpose of a good government is to protect the lives and liberties of its people.
Unfortunately, what we have been saddled with is, in almost every regard, the exact opposite of an institution dedicated to protecting the lives and liberties of its people.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, “we the people” should have learned early on that a government that repeatedly lies, cheats, steals, spies, kills, maims, enslaves, breaks the laws, overreaches its authority, and abuses its power at almost every turn can’t be trusted.
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Collated by Dr. Gary G. Kohls
Summary
The Medical Case, U.S.A. vs. Karl Brandt, et al. (also known as the Doctors’ Trial), was prosecuted in 1946-47 against twenty-three doctors and administrators accused of organizing and participating in war crimes and crimes against humanity in the form of medical experiments and medical procedures inflicted on prisoners and civilians.
Physician and surgeon Karl Brandt, the lead defendant, was the senior medical official of the German government during World War II; other defendants included senior doctors and administrators in the armed forces and SS. Brandt had been appointed by Adolf Hitler to head the Euthanasia Program, Aktion T4. The defendants were indicted on four counts:
1. Conspiracy to Commit War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity;
2. War Crimes (I.E., Crimes Against Persons Protected by the Laws of War, Such as Prisoners of War);
3. Crimes Against Humanity (Including Persons Not Protected by The Laws of War); and
4. Membership in a Criminal Organization (the SS).
The specific crimes charged included more than twelve series of medical experiments concerning the effects of and treatments for high altitude conditions, freezing, malaria, poison gas, sulfanilamide, bone, muscle, and nerve regeneration, bone transplantation, saltwater consumption, epidemic jaundice, sterilization, typhus, poisons, and incendiary bombs.
These experiments were conducted on concentration camp inmates. Other crimes involved the killing of Jews for anatomical research, the killing of tubercular Poles, and the euthanasia of sick and disabled civilians in Germany and occupied territories. The defendants were charged with ordering, supervising, or coordinating criminal activities, as well as participating in them directly. The fourth count concerned membership in the SS (Schuttzstaffeln) of the Nazi regime.
Karl Brandt and six other defendants were convicted, sentenced to death, and executed; nine defendants were convicted and sentenced to terms in prison; and seven defendants were acquitted.
The material presented in this project includes case file documents (the briefs and document books created and used in the course of the trial), evidence file documents (the evidentiary documents from which the prosecution, and occasionally the defendants, derived their exhibits), and the trial transcript.
The trial documents and evidence file documents related to Case 1 amount to approximately 2800 documents and 13,000 pages of material.
Indictments – (25 Oct. 1946)
Four Counts:
Conspiracy to commit war crimes against humanity: The ordering, planning, and organization of the war crimes and crimes against humanity charged in counts two and three. Charged against all of the defendants. The tribunal decided not to convict on this charge.
War crimes: Charged against all defendants. 15 guilty, 8 acquitted.
Crimes against humanity: Charged against all defendants. 15 guilty, 8 acquitted.
Membership in a criminal organization: Membership in the SS. Charged against K. Brandt, Genzken, Gebhardt, R. Brandt, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Sievers, Brack, Hoven, and Fischer. All found guilty.
Human Experiments and Other “Medical” Crimes (itemized in counts 2 and 3):
High-altitude experiments. March – August 1942. Conducted for the German air force to investigate the effect of high-altitude flying; experiments were conducted at the Dachau camp using a low-pressure chamber. Charged against Becker-Freyseng, K. Brandt, R. Brandt, Gebhardt, Handloser, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Romberg, Ruff, Schroeder, Sievers, and Weltz. Charges against K. Brandt, Handloser, Mrugowsky, and Poppendick were withdrawn. R. Brandt and Sievers were convicted.
Freezing experiments. August 1942 – May 1943. Conducted primarily for the German air force to investigate treatments for persons who had been severely chilled, using prisoners at the Dachau camp. Charged against Becker-Freyseng, K. Brandt, R. Brandt, Gebhardt, Handloser, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Schroeder, Sievers, and Weltz. Becker-Freyseng, K. Brandt, Gebhardt, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, and Weltz were acquitted; R. Brandt, Handloser, Schroeder, and Sievers were convicted.
Malaria experiments. February 1942 – April 1945. Conducted to test immunization for and treatment of malaria;experiments were conducted on more than 1000 prisoners at Dachau. Charged against Blome, K. Brandt, R. Brandt, Gebhardt, Handloser, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Rostock, and Sievers. (Evidence was also presented against Rose, but no judgment was reached.) No judgment was made concerning Mrugowsky. Blome, K. Brandt, R. Brandt, Gebhardt, Handloser, Poppendick, and Rostock were acquitted; Sievers was convicted.
Mustard (“lost”) gas experiments. September 1939 – April 1945. Conducted for the benefit of the German armed forces to investigate treatment of injuries caused by Lost (mustard) gas; experiments were conducted at Sachsenhausen, Natzweiler, and other camps. Charged against Blome, K. Brandt, R. Brandt, Gebhardt, Handloser, Rostock, and Sievers. Blome, Gebhardt, Handloser, and Rostock were acquitted; K. Brandt, R. Brandt, and Sievers were convicted.
Sulfanilamide experiments. July 1942 – September 1943. Conducted for the benefit of the German armed forces to test the effectiveness of sulfanilamide and other drugs as treatments for infected wounds; experiments were conducted at Ravensbrueck. Charged against Becker-Freyseng, Blome, K. Brandt, R. Brandt, Fischer, Gebhardt, Genzken, Handloser, Mrugowsky, Oberheuser, Poppendick, Rostock, and Schroeder. Charges against Becker-Freyseng, Blome, and Schroeder were withdrawn. No judgment was reached concerning R. Brandt. Genzken, Poppendick, and Rostock were acquitted; K. Brandt, Fischer, Gebhardt, Handloser, Mrugowsky, and Oberheuser were convicted.
Bone, muscle, and nerve regeneration, and bone transplant experiments. September 1942 – December 1943.Conducted for benefit of German armed forces, using Polish inmates at the Ravensbrueck camp. Charged against K. Brandt, R. Brandt, Fischer, Gebhardt, Handloser, Oberheuser, and Rostock. Charge against R. Brandt withdrawn. K. Brandt, Handloser, and Rostock were acquitted; Fischer, Gebhardt, and Oberheuser were convicted.
Seawater experiments. July – September 1944. Conducted for the German air force and navy to test methods of making seawater drinkable; experiments were conducted at Dachau. Charged against Becker-Freyseng, Beiglboeck, K. Brandt, R. Brandt, Gebhardt, Handloser, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Rostock, Schaefer, Schroeder, and Sievers. The charge against Mrugowsky was withdrawn. K. Brandt, R. Brandt, Handloser, Poppendick, Rostock, and Schaefer were acquitted; Becker-Freyseng, Beiglboeck, Gebhardt, Schroeder, and Sievers were convicted.
Epidemic jaundice experiments. June 1943 – January 1945. Conducted for the benefit of the German armed forcesto investigate causes of and inoculations against epidemic jaundice; experiments were conducted on Polish prisoners at Sachsenhausen and Natzweiler camps. Charged against Becker-Freyseng, K. Brandt, R. Brandt, Gebhardt, Handloser, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Rose, Rostock, Schroeder, and Sievers. Charges against Becker-Freyseng, Rose, and Sievers were withdrawn. R. Brandt, Gebhardt, Handloser, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Rostock, and Schroeder were acquitted; K. Brandt was convicted.
Typhus (“spotted fever”) and other vaccine experiments. December 1941 – February 1945. Conducted for the benefit of the German armed forcesto test the effectiveness of vaccines against typhus, smallpox, cholera, and other diseases; experiments were conducted at Buchenwald and Natzweiler. Charged against Becker-Freyseng, K. Brandt, R. Brandt, Gebhardt, Genzken, Handloser, Hoven, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Rose, Rostock, Schroeder, and Sievers. Becker-Freyseng, K. Brandt, Gebhardt, Poppendick, and Rostock were acquitted; R. Brandt, Genzken, Handloser, Hoven, Mrugowsky, Rose, Schroeder, and Sievers were convicted.
Poison experiments. December 1943 and September – October 1944. Conducted to investigate the effect of various poisons, including poison in food and poisoned bullets; experiments were conducted at Buchenwald (food) and Sachsenhausen (bullets). Charged against Gebhardt, Genzken, Mrugowsky, and Poppendick. Gebhardt, Genzken, and Poppendick were acquitted; Mrugowsky was convicted.
Incendiary bomb experiments. November 1943 – January 1944. Conducted to test pharmaceutical treatments for phosphorus burns; experiments were conducted at Buchenwald, involving the infliction of burns by materials from incendiary bombs. Charged against Gebhardt, Genzken, Mrugowsky, and Poppendick. All were acquitted.
Sterilization experiments. March 1941 – January 1945. Conducted to develop methods of rapid, large scale sterilizationin order to ensure the eventual elimination of “enemy” populationswhile keeping captive workers as a labor force during the war. Experiments were planned and/or conducted at Auschwitz, Ravensbrueck, and elsewhere employing drugs, x-rays, and surgery. Charged against Brack, K. Brandt, R. Brandt, Gebhardt, Mrugowsky, Oberheuser, Pokorny, and Poppendick. The charges against Mrugowsky and Oberheuser were withdrawn. K. Brandt, Pokorny, and Poppendick were acquitted; Brack, R. Brandt, and Gebhardt were convicted.
Skeleton collection. June 1943 – September 1944. Conducted to complete a skeleton collection for an anatomical research project at the Reich University of Strasbourg; one hundred twelve Jews at Auschwitz were killed for the purpose. Charged against R. Brandt and Sievers; both were convicted.
Tubercular Polish nationals. May 1942 – January 1944. Polish nationals alleged to have incurable tuberculosis were imprisoned or killed on the pretext of protecting the health of Germans in Poland. Charged against Blome and R. Brandt; both were acquitted.
Euthanasia. September 1939 – April 1945. Involved the secret killing of the aged, insane, incurably ill, deformed children, and others, beginning at asylums in Germany and later in the camps and occupied territories. Charged against Blome, Brack, K. Brandt, and Hoven. Blome was acquitted; Brack, K. Brandt, and Hoven were convicted.
Other charges:
Phenol (gas oedema) experiments. 1942 – 1944. Conducted to investigate whether levels of phenol in gas oedema serum caused fatalities among wounded soldiers; experiments were conducted on prisoners at Buchenwald. Charged against Handloser, Hoven, and Mrugowsky. Handloser was acquitted; Hoven and Mrugowsky were convicted.
Phlegmon experiments. 1942. Conducted to test treatments for sepsis and related diseases, in coordination with sulfanilamide experiments at Ravensbrueck; experiments were conducted at Dachau and Auschwitz. Charged against Fischer, Oberheuser, and Poppendick; all were acquitted.
Polygal experiments. 1943 – 1944. Conducted to test the effectiveness of polygal, a blood coagulant, for the treatment of wounds. Charged against Blome, Handloser, Poppendick, and Sievers. Blome, Handloser, and Poppendick were acquitted; Sievers was convicted.
Planning, organization, and administration (of 1-15 above)
The great weight of the evidence before us to effect that certain types of medical experiments on human beings, when kept within reasonably well-defined bounds, conform to the ethics of the medical profession generally. The protagonists of the practice of human experimentation justify their views on the basis that such experiments yield results for the good of society that are unprocurable by other methods or means of study. All agree, however, that certain basic principles must be observed in order to satisfy moral, ethical and legal concepts:
1. The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have the legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject there should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment.
The duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality of the consent rests upon each individual who initiates, directs, or engages in the experiment. It is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another with impunity.
2. The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature.
3. The experiment should be so designed and based on the results of animal experimentation and a knowledge of the natural history of the disease or other problem under study that the anticipated results justify the performance of the experiment.
4. The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury.
5. No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur; except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects.
6. The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the experiment.
7. Proper preparations should be made and adequate facilities provided to protect the experimental subject against even remote possibilities of injury, disability or death.
8. The experiment should be conducted only by scientifically qualified persons. The highest degree of skill and care should be required through all stages of the experiment of those who conduct or engage in the experiment.
9. During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end if he has reached the physical or mental state where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be impossible.
10. During the course of the experiment the scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage, if he has probable cause to believe, in the exercise of the good faith, superior skill and careful judgment required of him, that a continuation of the experiment is likely to result in injury, disability, or death to the experimental subject.
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Dr Gary G. Kohls is a retired rural family physician from Duluth, Minnesota. Since his retirement in 2008, Dr Kohls has written a weekly column, titled Duty to Warn, which has been re-published and archived at websites around the world.
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
Dr Kohls practiced holistic mental health care in Duluth for the last decade of his family practice career, primarily helping psychiatric patients who had become addicted to their cocktails of dangerous, addictive psychiatric drugs to safely go through the complex withdrawal process. His Duty to Warn columns often deal with various unappreciated health issues, including those caused by Big Pharma’s over-drugging, Big Vaccine’s over-vaccinating, Big Medicine’s over-prescribing, over-screening, over-diagnosing and over-treating agendas and Big Food’s malnourishing and sickness-promoting food industry. Those four powerful, profit-seeking entities combine to seriously affect the physical, mental, spiritual and economic health of the recipients of the prescription drugs, medical treatments, toxic vaccines and the consumers of the tasty, ubiquitous and disease-producing “FrankenFoods” – particularly when they are consumed in combinations, doses and potencies that have never been tested for safety or long-term effectiveness.
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Even with the emerging countries several times making clear their solid position of not supporting the sanctions against Russia, the US remains with an absolutely interventionist foreign policy, threatening the states that maintain relations with “blacklisted” nations. Now, South African authorities report that they are being blackmailed by the US because of business that the country maintains with Moscow. More than that, it is reported that across the African continent there are many cases of anti-Russian intimidation, which reveals the high levels of interventionism on the part of Washington.
On January 9th, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that relations between US and South Africa are tense. The reason for the diplomatic instability would be the fact that last month a South African naval base received a Russian cargo ship sanctioned by Washington, with no public information about the contents inside the vessel. US authorities demand that their African counterparts report details on the cargo contained on the ship, demanding a kind of “justification” for the fact that the country maintains relations with sanctioned Russian companies.
“[Washington is] concerned by the support the South African Armed Forces provided to the ‘Lady R’ (…) There is no publicly available information on the source of the containers that were loaded onto the ‘Lady R’ “, a senior US official told the WSJ – “Lady R” being the term used to refer to the Russian ship.
The lack of information about the ship’s contents makes it difficult to ascertain whether it was bringing Russian products to Africa or transporting African products to Russia. Obviously, the greatest fear of US officials is that Russia and South Africa are strengthening ties of military cooperation. In a statement issued by the South African Minister of Defense Thandi Modise it was said that “whatever contents this vessel was getting were ordered long before Covid”.
Darren Olivier, a consultant at African Defense Review, commented to the WSJ that “South Africa’s defense industry does not generally produce armaments and complete systems that are used by the Russian military”. He claims it is possible that Russia eventually becomes interested in some South African military products such as optics and guidance systems for combat drones, but this does not appear to be the case about the latest “Lady R” expedition.
Olivier believes that most likely the ship was carrying to South Africa some tons of Russian ammunition that had previously been ordered by Pretoria. In 2020, South Africa signed a contract with Russian suppliers valued at more than 500,000 dollars to acquire ammunition. Considering the information that the ship’s contents referred to contracts signed “before Covid”, as the minister said, so it is likely that this was the cargo in December.
Commenting on the topic, Minister Modisa also expressed dissatisfaction with the way in which the US operates its relations with South Africa and other states on the continent. According to her, Washington “threatens Africa, not just South Africa, of having anything that is even smelling of Russia”. Indeed, the US does not seem willing to respect the sovereign foreign policy of African nations, simply ignoring the fact that there is real desire for cooperation with Russia on the part of these states.
In the specific case of South Africa, the American posture is even more serious, since Pretoria and Moscow are both members of the BRICS, maintaining a fundamental strategic alliance that cannot be vulnerable to the decisions taken by the American politicians. The posture of US diplomats in Pretoria in the “Lady R” case shows how Washington still conducts its diplomacy based on coercion. American officials called on the South African authorities to expose the ship’s cargo, simply because in Washington such ship is “blacklisted”.
In fact, American legislation itself allows this type of anti-diplomatic maneuver. There is a law in the US that permits the country to impose sanctions on any entities around the world that contract the services of blacklisted ships, which explains Pretoria’s stance on not disclosing details on the matter. The US wants to find out which South African entities are involved in the transaction in order to impose sanctions on them, which is why the South African state correctly omits the data to protect its domestic entities.
This shows how threat and coercion are not efficient diplomatic mechanisms. The American authorities seem connected to a belligerent logic according to which it is possible to obtain any kind of advantage through violence and blackmail. But the contemporary world goes in another direction. There is a process of transition towards geopolitical multipolarity that cannot be stopped through blackmail.
South Africa did not comply with the anti-Moscow sanctions because they were against its strategic interests. Currently, pragmatism, and not the “need” to please the US, is the parameter that guides the decisions of the states.
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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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***
Pierre de Gaulle, a grandson of former French President Charles de Gaulle, has said the U.S. is making Europeans suffer by fueling the Ukraine conflict and waging a pre-planned economic war against Russia.
“I revolt and protest this intellectual dishonesty in the Ukraine crisis because the triggers of the war are the Americans and NATO. The United States unfortunately continues the military escalation, making not only the Ukrainian population suffer, but the European population as well.”
“The scale and the number of sanctions show that all of this was organized a long time in advance. It is an economic war, from which the Americans are the beneficiaries. The Americans sell their gas to Europeans for a price four to seven times higher than they do in their own country.”
“public opinion in France is beginning to understand what the evil game of the Americans is today. By using lies, . . .the United States has managed to use the Ukrainian crisis to destabilize Europe. The Americans, as it were, cut off Europe from Russia, set the Europeans against the Russians. Why would they do that? Because Europe in alliance with Russia could be a strong bloc both politically and economically, culturally and socially…Ever since the Vietnam War and the economic crises that followed, Americans have always tried by force, cunning and other dishonest means to make up for the loss of their economic and political influence, although it is inevitable. In particular, Americans are trying to slow down the dollar’s loss of its status as the only…world exchange currency. And this policy continues.”
Target of the CIA
Charles de Gaulle was a hero of the French resistance against the Nazi occupation during World War II who went on to serve as French president from 1959 to 1969.
The CIA has declassified documents revealing that the Agency was involved in a plot in 1965 to kill de Gaulle, who had angered the Johnson administration by opposing the Vietnam War and throwing U.S. servicemen off French military bases.
De Gaulle had also pursued a progressive policy toward the Soviet Union, withdrawing French forces from NATO in 1966 and opening up negotiations with Soviet leaders, visiting Moscow numerous times and signing a trade agreement with the Soviets.
After a failed assassination attempt in 1961, right-wing military officers who hated de Gaulle for relinquishing French control over Algeria, approached the CIA and developed an assassination plot that involved infiltrating an agent wearing a poisoned ring into a group of old soldiers attending a reception at which de Gaulle would appear.
When de Gaulle gestured to shake his hand, the general would fall to the ground while the assassin strolled calmly off into the crowd.
Restoring Grandpa Charles’s Vision
In a speech on the national day of the Russian Federation in June at the Russian embassy in Paris, Pierre de Gaulle noted how Russia had been seen by his grandfather as an indispensable ally whose friendship would contribute to the stability of Europe.
“The General [his grandfather] even said ‘Napoleon’s disastrous decision to attack [Czar] Alexander I is the biggest mistake he ever made. Nothing forced him to do so. It was contrary to our interests, to our traditions, to our genius. It is from the war between Napoleon and the Russians that our decadence dates.’”
France’s greatest folly: Napoleon’s army retreating in the Russian snow. [Source: kanopy.com]
Emphasizing how the Russian and French people were linked together “by long years of friendship and by the blood shed against the Nazis,” Pierre stated that he had come here to “affirm once again, loud and clear, that it is in France’s interest to maintain good relations with Russia and to say that we must work together in order to help the union and security of our continent, as well as the balance, progress, and peace of the entire world.”
In Pierre’s view, the “systematic and blind policy of confiscation and discrimination directed against the entire Russian people” [reference to sanctions] was “scandalous.” French elites had betrayed his grandfather’s legacy by siding with the U.S. and NATO and the “reckless” and “condemnable policy of the Ukrainian government towards the Russian-speaking population of Donbas, [which involved] discrimination, plundering, embargoes and bombings.”
The West, according to Pierre, has “allowed Zelensky, his oligarchs and the neo-Nazi military groups to be trapped in a spiral of war,” with their “blindness having serious consequences for the Ukrainian people. But let’s make no mistake. What do the Americans want, if not to provoke a new East-West confrontation, whose only goal is to weaken and divide Europe in order to impose their directive, their economy, and their system.”
Pierre further noted that the Americans have “never accepted, nor the West with them, that after the difficult transition of 1991 and the reconstruction that followed, Russia would not fit into their unipolar world…nor that Russia should transform itself according to the Western model—in its own way. Because of this, and from the beginning, President Putin was perceived as a dictator, whereas he is a great leader for his country!”
The United States, Pierre continued, “has also never accepted the loss of the role of the dollar as the dominant currency in the settlement of international trade in the world.”
Pierre’s words are heretical to American ears and those of the French ruling elite; however, they present a wonderful and realistic vision that progressive movements should embrace.
Pierre ended his speech by noting that his grandfather loved Russia and “always supported and defended the imperative need, even in the most difficult moments of history, to build and preserve a strong and shared relationship with Russia. Allow me to quote General de Gaulle once again: ‘In France, we have never considered Russia an enemy. I am for the development of Franco-Russian friendship; and I have never sent and I will never send arms to people who would have fought against Soviet Russia.’”
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Jeremy Kuzmarov is Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine. He is the author of four books on U.S. foreign policy, including Obama’s Unending Wars (Clarity Press, 2019) and The Russians Are Coming, Again, with John Marciano (Monthly Review Press, 2018). He can be reached at: [email protected].
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***
“When you’re in survival mode, you numb yourself.” – Clemantine Wamariya
Frank Berry is an Irish film director and screenwriter who doesn’t shy away from exposing the harsh realities of contemporary life in Ireland. In his films, Berry has tackled difficult topics such as prisons, suicide and poverty. He doesn’t indulge in middle-class condescension of working class people either. Those in power know they have power and use it to lord it over the weak and vulnerable. Berry’s previous work includes films such as Ballymun Lullaby (2011), I Used to Live Here (2014), and Michael Inside [see my review here](2017).
His latest film is no exception. Aisha (2022) stars Letitia Wright as Aisha, a Nigerian refugee living in an Irish detention centre. Her life is constrained by the fact that her father and brothers were killed by gangsters and she needs to get her elderly mother over to stay with her before she too becomes a victim of the violence.
The staff in the centre are not particularly friendly or sympathetic except for one new security guard, Conor (played by Josh O’Connor). They strike up a difficult friendship as Aisha’s family problems weigh heavily on her emotional life. She works in a hairdressers which she enjoys while also learning a trade, yet this is taken from her too when she is transferred to a different detention centre in the countryside, further isolating her. The problem of state bureaucracy is examined through interview panels of experts who don’t realise or care how serious her situation is.
Berry’s approach to directing is understated. Throughout the film Aisha tries to keep calm but eventually explodes with anger when the situation becomes too much for her. The audience understands the difficulty of her position in Ireland but Aisha keeps much to herself, out of fear and possibly worry that revealing too much might make her position worse. It shows us that, in many cases, what emigrants are going through is something we cannot really comprehend in a country that has not had similar political and violent upheavals in nearly one hundred years.
Berry’s social realist style is typical in that he depicts the most vulnerable people in society, while at the same time rooting the story in a realistic, contemporary situation that may be shocking for those who have no idea what life is like for the less fortunate that they coexist with. Gaining such awareness creates empathy and understanding, maybe not in everyone who sees the film but hopefully even the most cynical will have their biases disturbed. As Sartre wrote,’to reveal is to change.’
Housing crisis
The context for Aisha is also important to note. The refugee issue in Ireland is hitting serious crisis proportions. The Irish government struggles to find accommodation for refugees in a national situation where house prices are very high, rents are very high, and homelessness is on the increase. According to Daft.ie (main site for buying/renting/selling property in Ireland) in August 2022: “Ireland’s rental market has plumbed new depths as the number of homes available has dropped to an all-time low while the rate of inflation in prices climbed to its highest level in at least 15 years.”The rental market has been decreasing for various reasons: high taxes, constant changes in law (as the government tries to figure out how to solve the rent increases problem), and a “lack of any effective enforcement or regulation if a dispute between Tenant/Landlord arises.”
Adding to all of these issues is the arrival of “more than 62,000 Ukrainian refugees” which the Irish government has been accommodating in hostels, hotels and other private accommodations, even in tents.
Journalists Ferghal Blaney and Eithne Dodd have written (as recently as 6 Jan 2023), that: “Despite government promises that tents would not be used to accommodate refugees anyone, nearly 90 people slept in a tent last night in county Clare. […] Before Christmas, news that asylum seekers were being housed in tents caused outrage and promises were made that the move was purely temporary and would end on 12 December 2022.”
In an interview with Roderic O’Gorman (a spokesperson for Minister for Equality): “The war in Ukraine combined with the high number of International Protection applicants continues to put real pressure on the government’s ability to offer accommodation, and has resulted in the largest humanitarian effort in the State’s history.”
The upshot of these multivaried pressures on accommodation is the dramatic increase of homelessness in Ireland. The online Irish journal, thejournal.ie, (published on 8 January 2023) an article stating that: “Homelessness record broken again as 11,542 people in emergency accommodation in November. The CEO of Dublin Simon Community said that the figures convey “nothing short of a tragedy.” The number of people experiencing homelessness in Ireland has once again hit a record high with latest government figures showing that 11,542 people were living in emergency accommodation in November. It is the fifth consecutive month that the record number has been broken. A total of 5,423 single adults, 1,371 young people and 3,494 children were living in emergency accommodation between 21 and 27 November.”
All this in a country with a relatively small population. The CSO (Central Office for Statistics) stated that: “Ireland’s population was estimated to be 5.10 million, increasing by 88,800 persons in the year to April 2022. This was the largest 12-month population increase since 2008 when the population increased by 109,200.”
In fact, Ireland is a big country with a small population, and one of the very few countries in the world that has fewer inhabitants now than in the nineteenth century when Ireland is estimated to have had over 8 million (in 1841).
Compare these figures for Ireland with those of the Netherlands, for example:
Ireland
Population: 7,026,636 (2022) [combining Republic of Ireland: 5,123,536 (2022) and Northern Ireland: 1,903,100 (2021)],
Area: 84,421 km2 (32,595 sq mi),
Pop. density: 77.8/km2 (201.5/sq mi).
The Netherlands
Population: 17,783,400 (2023 estimate),
Area Total: 41,850 km2 (16,160 sq mi),
Pop. density: 520/km2 (1,346.8/sq mi)
The Netherlands has more than twice the population of Ireland on half the total area. Thus, it can be seen that Ireland’s immigrant problems are not due to any lack of space but decades of mismanagement of resources.
Aisha’s story points up the stresses and anxiety that these bureaucratic issues pile onto the many immigrants whose sense of insecurity is already badly shaken.
These days the billionaire media makes political change difficult. Making art that not only looks at the plight of ordinary people, but also in a very expensive medium, cinema, is a victory over a dominant and very conservative cultural hegemony. Berry’s films are shining stars in a galaxy of romanticist superhero, super-funded, short-lived supernovas. What we need are more artists – a new movement even – of artists willing to go against the dominant cultural hegemony and produce a new culture of progressive change, with an understanding of how neo-liberal politics and economics affects ordinary people. How we treat other people reflects how we would like to be treated, and the vagaries of the late capitalist global system mean that the situation can suddenly reverse when we least expect it.
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Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáinis an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork consists of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country here. Caoimhghin has just published his new book – Against Romanticism: From Enlightenment to Enfrightenment and the Culture of Slavery, which looks at philosophy, politics and the history of 10 different art forms arguing that Romanticism is dominating modern culture to the detriment of Enlightenment ideals. It is available on Amazon (amazon.co.uk) and the info page is here.
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
Soleimani was the commander of Iran’s IRGC Quds Force and was killed in Baghdad by a US drone strike in January 2020. At the time, Tamir Hayman served as the head of Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate. Hayman toldJewish News that Israel had provided the US with information to convince the US Soleimani posed a threat.
“We supplied the intelligence and shared analysis and over a long period of time they were eventually convinced that Soleimani was an immediate threat to American lives and its strategic posture in the Middle East,” Hayman said.
Trump told reporters at the time of the killing that Soleimani was “plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel, but we caught him in the act and terminated him.” The claim was never confirmed, and according to then-Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi, Soleimani was in Baghdad as part of an Iraqi mediation between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
“I was supposed to meet him in the morning the day he was killed, he came to deliver a message from Iran in response to the message we had delivered from the Saudis to Iran,” Abdul-Mahdi said after the assassination.
Trump’s justification for the assassination later changed, and members of Congress briefed on the killing said the administration provided no evidence of “imminent attacks.” In a legally mandated memo to Congress issued in February 2020, the administration dropped the “imminent attacks” claim altogether.
The memo said the assassination was done to “protect United States personnel, to deter Iran from conducting or supporting further attacks against United States forces and interests, to degrade Iran’s and Quds Force-back militia’s ability to conduct attacks, and to end Iran’s strategic escalation of attacks.”
The series of events that led to Soleimani’s assassination was sparked by a rocket attack on a base in Kirkuk, Iraq, that killed a US contractor on December 27th, 2019. The US blamed the Kirkuk attack on Kataib Hezbollah, a Shia militia the US views as an Iranian proxy.
The US responded to the Kirkuk attack by launching airstrikes on several Kataib Hezbollah targets, killing 25 of the group’s fighters. The airstrikes enraged many Iraqis, and protesters stormed the US embassy. After the embassy incident, President Trump ordered the drone strike that killed Soleimani.
The US never substantiated the claim that Kataib Hezbollah was responsible for the Kirkuk attack. In February, Iraqi intelligence officials told The New York Times that it was more likely that ISIS carried out the Kirkuk attack. ISIS would also have the motive to spark fighting between the US and Iran and the Shia militias as they were previously allied against the Sunni terror group.
The drone strike also killed Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, who led the Popular Mobilization Forces, a group of mostly Iraqi Shia militias that was formed in 2014 to fight ISIS. The killings enraged many in Iraq and brought the US and Iran to the brink of war, but the standoff was defused after Iranian missile strikes on bases in Iraq housing US troops that didn’t result in any deaths. But to this day, Iran vows revenge for Soleimani’s death.
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Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.
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***
As a teenager in the 1970s, I recall talking to my dad about fears of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. My dad took a broad view, suggesting that if U.S. and Soviet leaders were stupid enough to blow each other to smithereens, a billion Chinese people would be left to pick up the slack and move the world forward.
My dad was right about many things, but what he didn’t realize was that U.S. nuclear war plans (known as SIOPs) often called for the elimination of the USSR and China, even if China had had no involvement in events leading up to the war. Basically, the ruling U.S. nuclear war philosophy was: If you’re red, you’re dead.
Daniel Ellsberg wrote about this in his book, The Doomsday Machine. As I wrote in my review of that book:
“U.S. nuclear war plans circa 1960 envisioned a simultaneous attack on the USSR and China that would generate 600 million deaths after six months. As Ellsberg notes, that is 100 Holocausts. This plan was to be used even if China hadn’t directly attacked the U.S., i.e. the USSR and China were lumped together as communist bad guys who had to be eliminated together in a general nuclear war. Only one U.S. general present at the briefing objected to this idea: David M. Shoup, a Marine general and Medal of Honor winner, who also later objected to the Vietnam War.”
What’s truly startling is that only one U.S. military leader present, General David Shoup, objected to the SIOP that would lead to the death of 600 million people in six months. A decade later, scientists learned that such a huge nuclear exchange would likely cause a nuclear winter that would kill billions due to famine. Truly, the (few) living would envy the (many) dead.
Mention of David Shoup’s name leads me to this fine article: “The Marine Corps legend who tried to stop the Vietnam War,” by James Clark. Shoup was a remarkable American who helped to prevent the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 from escalating to a nuclear war. Once he retired from the Marines, he became a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War and militarism in general, a worthy successor to General Smedley Butler.
The Joint Chiefs in 1961. General Shoup is on the far right, next to General Curtis LeMay, architect of SAC and of a possible nuclear doomsday
I urge you to read Clark’s article on Shoup, who quotes Shoup’s hard-won wisdom here:
About the Vietnam War, Shoup said “I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar-crooked fingers out of the business of these nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own.”
In the Atlantic Monthly, Shoup, echoing the warning of Eisenhower about the military-industrial complex, wrote bluntly about America’s war culture and its anti-democratic nature:
Somewhat like a religion, the basic appeals of anti-Communism, national defense and patriotism provide the foundation for a powerful creed upon which the defense establishment can build, grow, and justify its cost. More so than many large bureaucratic organizations, the defense establishment now devotes a large share of its efforts to self-perpetuation, to justifying its organizations, to preaching its doctrines, to self-maintenance and management.
You would think that a Medal of Honor recipient who’d proved his bravery and patriotism at Tarawa during World War II would be immune from charges of being unpatriotic or weak on defense, but you’d be wrong.
Where are today’s Shoups among the U.S. military brass? Where are the leaders who are against genocidal nuclear war and who are willing to speak out against it? Where are the leaders who reject a new cold war with China and Russia? Where are the leaders with the courage to advocate for peace whenever possible in place of more and more war?
Have we fallen so far under the spell of militarism that America no longer produces leaders like Dwight Eisenhower, Smedley Butler, and David Shoup, generals who truly knew war, despised it, and wanted above all to put an end to it?
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***
In America’s rush to build the nuclear arsenal that won the Cold War, safety was sacrificed for speed.
Uranium mills that helped fuel the weapons also dumped radioactive and toxic waste into rivers like the Cheyenne in South Dakota and the Animas in Colorado. Thousands of sheep turned blue and died after foraging on land tainted by processing sites in North Dakota. And cancer wards across the West swelled with sick uranium workers.
The U.S. government bankrolled the industry, and mining companies rushed to profit, building more than 50 mills and processing sites to refine uranium ore.
But the government didn’t have a plan for the toxic byproducts of this nuclear assembly line. Some of the more than 250 million tons of toxic and radioactive detritus, known as tailings, scattered into nearby communities, some spilled into streams and some leaked into aquifers.
Congress finally created the agency that now oversees uranium mill waste cleanup in 1974 and enacted the law governing that process in 1978, but the industry would soon collapse due to falling uranium prices and rising safety concerns. Most mills closed by the mid-1980s.
When cleanup began, federal regulators first focused on the most immediate public health threat, radiation exposure. Agencies or companies completely covered waste at most mills to halt leaks of the carcinogenic gas radon and moved some waste by truck and train to impoundments specially designed to encapsulate it.
But the government has fallen down in addressing another lingering threat from the industry’s byproducts: widespread water pollution.
Regulators haven’t made a full accounting of whether they properly addressed groundwater contamination. So, for the first time, ProPublica cataloged cleanup efforts at the country’s 48 uranium mills, seven related processing sites and numerous tailings piles.
Uranium Mill Waste Is Concentrated in the Four Corners Region
Data obtained by ProPublica via public agency documents and satellite imaging tools; map by Lucas Waldron, ProPublica
At least 84% of the sites have polluted groundwater. And nearly 75% still have either no liner or only a partial liner between mill waste and the ground, leaving them susceptible to leaking pollution into groundwater. In the arid West, where most of the sites are located, climate change is drying up surface water, making underground reserves increasingly important.
ProPublica’s review of thousands of pages of government and corporate documents, accompanied by interviews with 100 people, also found that cleanup has been hampered by infighting among regulatory agencies and the frequency with which regulators grant exemptions to their own water quality standards.
The result: a long history of water pollution and sickness.
Reports by government agencies found high concentrations of cancer near a mill in Utah and elevated cancer risks from mill waste in New Mexico that can persist until cleanup is complete. Residents near those sites and others have seen so many cases of cancer and thyroid disease that they believe the mills and waste piles are to blame, although epidemiological studies to prove such a link have rarely been done.
“The government didn’t pay attention up front and make sure it was done right. They just said, ‘Go get uranium,’” said Bill Dixon, who spent decades cleaning up uranium and nuclear sites with the state of Oregon and in the private sector.
Tom Hanrahan grew up near uranium mills in Colorado and New Mexico and watched three of his three brothers contract cancer. He believes his siblings were “casualties” of the war effort.
“Somebody knew that this was a ticking atomic bomb,” Hanrahan said. “But, in military terms, this was the cost of fighting a war.”
A Flawed System
When a uranium mill shuts down, here is what’s supposed to happen: The company demolishes the buildings, decontaminates the surrounding soil and water, and encases the waste to stop it from leaking cancer-causing pollution. The company then asks the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the lead agency monitoring America’s radioactive infrastructure, to approve the handoff of the property and its associated liability to the Department of Energy’s Office of Legacy Management for monitoring and maintenance.
ProPublica’s analysis found that half of the country’s former mills haven’t made it through this process and even many that did have never fully addressed pollution concerns. This is despite the federal government spending billions of dollars on cleanup, in addition to the several hundred million dollars that have been spent by companies.
Often, companies or agencies tasked with cleanup are unable to meet water quality standards, so they request exemptions to bypass them. The NRC or state agencies almost always approve these requests, allowing contaminants like uranium and selenium to be left in the groundwater. When ingested in high quantities, those elements can cause cancer and damage the nervous system, respectively.
Bill Dam, who spent decades regulating and researching uranium mill cleanup with the NRC, at the DOE and in the private sector, said water pollution won’t be controlled until all the waste and contaminated material is moved. “The federal government’s taken a Band-Aid approach to groundwater contamination,” he said.
The pollution has disproportionately harmed Indian Country.
Residents of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe in southeast Utah protest the last active uranium mill in the country, called the White Mesa Mill, which is operated by Energy Fuels.Credit: Liz Moughon and Gerardo del Valle/ProPublica
Six of the mills were built on reservations, and another eight mills are within 5 miles of one, some polluting aquifers used by tribes. And the country’s last conventional uranium mill still in operation — the White Mesa Mill in Utah — sits adjacent to a Ute Mountain Ute community.
So many uranium mines, mills and waste piles pockmark the Navajo Nation that the Environmental Protection Agency created a comic book superhero, Gamma Goat, to warn Diné children away from the sites.
A comic book produced by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1999 warns children about the dangers of abandoned uranium mines, mills and waste in the Navajo Nation.Credit: Illustrations by Jay Robinson. Graphic composition by Mauricio Rodriguez Pons/ProPublica
NRC staff acknowledged that the process of cleaning up America’s uranium mills can be slow but said that the agency prioritizes thoroughness over speed, that each site’s groundwater conditions are complex and unique, and that cleanup exemptions are granted only after gathering input from regulators and the public.
“The NRC’s actions provide reasonable assurance of adequate protection of public health and safety and the environment,” David McIntyre, an NRC spokesperson, said in a statement to ProPublica.
“Cleanup Standards Might Suddenly Change”
For all the government’s success in demolishing mills and isolating waste aboveground, regulators failed to protect groundwater.
Between 1958 and 1962, a mill near Gunnison, Colorado, churned through 540,000 tons of ore. The process, one step in concentrating the ore into weapons-grade uranium, leaked uranium and manganese into groundwater, and in 1990, regulators found that residents had been drawing that contaminated water from 22 wells.
The DOE moved the waste and connected residents to clean water. But pollution lingered in the aquifer beneath the growing town where some residents still get their water from private wells. The DOE finally devised a plan in 2000, which the NRC later approved, settling on a strategy called “natural flushing,” essentially waiting for groundwater to dilute the contamination until it reached safe levels.
In 2015, the agency acknowledged that the plan had failed. Sediments absorb and release uranium, so waiting for contamination to be diluted doesn’t solve the problem, said Dam, the former NRC and DOE regulator.
In Wyoming, state regulators wrote to the NRC in 2006 to lambast the agency’s “inadequate” analysis of natural flushing compared to other cleanup options. “Unfortunately, the citizens of Wyoming may likely have to deal with both the consequences and the indirect costs of the NRC’s decisions for generations to come,” the state’s letter said.
ProPublica identified mills in six states — including eight former mill sites in Colorado — where regulators greenlit the strategy as part of a cleanup plan.
When neither water treatment nor nature solves the problem, federal and state regulators can simply relax their water quality standards, allowing harmful levels of pollutants to be left in aquifers.
First image: A photo of a site marker at the Gunnison disposal cell taken in September 2022 by government officials. Second image: A 1992 report from the Department of Energy showing how to move waste from the Gunnison mill.Credit: Graphic composition by Mauricio Rodriguez Pons/ProPublica
County officials made a small area near the Gunnison mill off-limits to new wells, and the DOE suggested changing water quality standards to allow uranium concentrations as much as 475 times what naturally occurred in the area. It wouldn’t endanger human health, the agency said, because people wouldn’t come into contact with the water.
ProPublica found that regulators granted groundwater cleanup exemptions at 18 of the 28 sites where cleanup has been deemed complete and liability has been handed over to the DOE’s Office of Legacy Management. Across all former uranium mills, the NRC or state agencies granted at least 34 requests for water quality exemptions while denying as few as three.
“They’re cutting standards, so we’re getting weak cleanup that future generations may not find acceptable,” said Paul Robinson, who spent four decades researching the cleanup of the uranium industry with the Southwest Research and Information Center, an Albuquerque-based nonprofit. “These great mining companies of the world, they got away cheap.”
NRC staffers examine studies that are submitted by companies’ consultants and other agencies to show how cleanup plans will adequately address water contamination. Some companies change their approach in response to feedback from regulators, and the public can view parts of the process in open meetings. Still, the data and groundwater modeling that underpin these requests for water cleanup exemptions are often wrong.
One reason: When mining companies built the mills, they rarely sampled groundwater to determine how much contamination occurred naturally, leaving it open to debate how clean groundwater should be when the companies leave, according to Roberta Hoy, a former uranium program specialist with the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality. She said federal regulators also haven’t done enough to understand certain contaminants at uranium mills.
In one recent case, the NRC fined a mining company $14,500 for incomplete and inaccurate groundwater modeling data. Companies use such data to prove that pollution won’t spread in the future. Freeport-McMoRan, the corporation that owns the fined mining company, did not respond to a request for comment.
At a 2013 conference co-hosted by the NRC and a mining trade group, a presentation from two consultants compared groundwater modeling to a sorcerer peering at a crystal ball.
ProPublica identified at least seven sites where regulators granted cleanup exemptions based on incorrect groundwater modeling. At these sites, uranium, lead, nitrates, radium and other substances were found at levels higher than models had predicted and regulators had allowed.
McIntyre, the NRC spokesperson, said that groundwater models “inherently include uncertainty,” and the government typically requires sites to be monitored. “The NRC requires conservatism in the review process and groundwater monitoring to verify a model’s accuracy,” he said.
Water quality standards impose specific limits on the allowable concentration of contaminants — for example, the number of micrograms of uranium per liter of water. But ProPublica found that the NRC granted exemptions in at least five states that were so vague they didn’t even include numbers and were instead labeled as “narrative.” The agency justified this by saying the groundwater was not near towns or was naturally unfit for human consumption.
This system worries residents of Cañon City, Colorado. Emily Tracy, who serves on the City Council, has lived a few miles from the area’s now-demolished uranium mill since the late 1970s and remembers floods and winds carrying mill waste into neighborhoods from the 15.3-million-ton pile, which is now partially covered.
Uranium and other contaminants had for decades tainted private wells that some residents used for drinking water and agriculture, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. The company that operated the mill, Cotter Corp., finally connected residents to clean water by the early 1990s and completed cleanup work such as decontaminating soil after the EPA got involved. But the site remains without a final cleanup plan — which the company that now owns the site is drafting — and the state has eased water quality standards for molybdenum, a metal that uranium mining and milling releases into the environment.
First image: Golfers watch as wind blows uranium mill waste off a now-covered pile at the Cotter Uranium Mill. Second image: Drone footage shot in July 2021 that shows the site of the former Cotter mill.Credit: Photos courtesy of Emily Tracy. Graphic composition by Mauricio Rodriguez Pons/ProPublica
“We have great concerns about what it might look like or whether cleanup standards might suddenly change before our eyes,” Tracy said.
Jim Harrington, managing director of the site’s current owner, Colorado Legacy Land, said that a final cleanup strategy has not been selected and that any proposal would need to be approved by both the EPA and the state.
Layers of Regulation
It typically takes 35 years from the day a mill shuts down until the NRC approves or estimates it will approve cleanup as being complete, ProPublica found. Two former mills aren’t expected to finish this process until 2047.
Chad Smith, a DOE spokesperson, said mills that were previously transferred to the government have polluted groundwater more than expected, so regulators are more cautious now.
The involvement of so many regulators can also slow cleanup.
Five sites were so contaminated that the EPA stepped in via its Superfund program, which aims to clean up the most polluted places in the country.
At the Homestake mill in New Mexico, where cleanup is jointly overseen by the NRC and the EPA, Larry Camper, a now-retired NRC division director, acknowledged in a 2011 meeting “that having multiple regulators for the site is not good government” and had complicated the cleanup, according to meeting minutes.
Homestake Mining Company of California did not comment on Camper’s view of the process.
Only one site where the EPA is involved in cleanup has been successfully handed off to the DOE, and even there, uranium may still persist above regulatory limits in groundwater and surface water, according to the agency. An EPA spokesperson said the agency has requested additional safety studies at that site.
“A lot of people make money in the bureaucratic system just pontificating over these things,” said William Turner, a geologist who at different times has worked for mining companies, for the U.S. Geological Survey and as the New Mexico Natural Resources Trustee.
If the waste is on tribal land, it adds another layer of government.
The federal government and the Navajo Nation have long argued over the source of some groundwater contamination at the former Navajo Mill built by Kerr-McGee Corp. in Shiprock, New Mexico, with the tribe pointing to the mill as the key source. Smith of the DOE said the department is guided by water monitoring results “to minimize opportunities for disagreement.”
Tronox, which acquired parts of Kerr-McGee, did not respond to requests for comment.
All the while, 2.5 million tons of waste sit adjacent to the San Juan River in the town of 8,000 people. Monitoring wells situated between the unlined waste pile and the river have shown nitrate levels as high as 80 times the limit set by regulators to protect human health, uranium levels 30 times the limit and selenium levels 20 times the limit.
“I can’t seem to get the federal agencies to acknowledge the positions of the Navajo Nation,” said Dariel Yazzie, who formerly managed the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund Program.
A 1977 report from the EPA acknowledging water pollution at the Shiprock millCredit: Photo by the Department of Energy. Graphic composition by Mauricio Rodriguez Pons/ProPublica
At some sites, overlapping jurisdictions mean even less cleanup gets done.
Such was the case near Griffin, North Dakota, where six cows and 2,500 sheep died in 1973; their bodies emitted a blue glow in the morning light. The animals lay near kilns that once served as rudimentary uranium mills operated by Kerr-McGee. To isolate the element, piles of uranium-laden coal at the kilns were “covered with old tires, doused in diesel fuel, ignited, and left to smolder for a couple of months,” according to the North Dakota Geological Survey.
The flock is believed to have been poisoned by land contaminated with high levels of molybdenum. The danger extended beyond livestock. In a 1989 draft environmental assessment, the DOE found that “fatal cancer from exposure to residual radioactive materials” from the Griffin kilns and another site less than a mile from a town of 1,000 people called Belfield was eight times as high as it would have been if the sites had been decontaminated.
But after agreeing to work with the federal government, North Dakota did an about-face. State officials balked at a requirement to pay 10% of the cleanup cost — the federal government would cover the rest — and in 1995 asked that the sites no longer be regulated under the federal law. The DOE had already issued a report that said doing nothing “would not be consistent” with the law, but the department approved the state’s request and walked away, saying it could only clean a site if the state paid its share.
“North Dakota determined there was minimal risk to public health at that time and disturbing the grounds further would create a potential for increased public health risk,” said David Stradinger, manager of the Radiation Control Program in the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality. Contaminated equipment was removed, and the state is reevaluating one of the sites, he said.
“A Problem for the Better Part of 50 Years”
While the process for cleaning up former mills is lengthy and laid out in regulations, regulators and corporations have made questionable and contradictory decisions in their handling of toxic waste and tainted water.
More than 40 million people rely on drinking water from the Colorado River, but the NRC and DOE allowed companies to leak contamination from mill waste directly into the river, arguing that the waterway quickly dilutes it.
Federal regulators relocated tailings at two former mills that processed uranium and vanadium, another heavy metal, on the banks of the Colorado River in Rifle, Colorado, because radiation levels there were deemed too high. Yet they left some waste at one former processing site in a shallow aquifer connected to the river and granted an exemption that allowed cleanup to end and uranium to continue leaking into the waterway.
Uranium contamination extends several miles in an aquifer under the Bluewater disposal site in New Mexico.Credit: Mauricio Rodriguez Pons/ProPublica
For a former mill built by the Anaconda Copper Company in Bluewater, New Mexico, the NRC approved the company’s request to hand the site off to the DOE in 1997. About a decade later, the state raised concerns about uranium that had spread several miles in an aquifer that provides drinking water for more than 15,000 people.
The contamination hasn’t reached the wells used by nearby communities, and Smith, the DOE spokesperson, said the department has no plans to treat the uranium in the aquifer. It’s too late for much more cleanup, since the DOE’s Office of Legacy Management’s mission is to monitor and maintain decommissioned sites, not clean them. Flawed cleanup efforts caused problems at several former mills after they were handed off to the agency, according to a 2020 Government Accountability Office report.
“Uranium has been overplayed as a boom,” said Travis Stills, an environmental attorney in Colorado who has sued over the cleanup of old uranium infrastructure. “The boom was a firecracker, and it left a problem for the better part of 50 years now.”
“No Way in Hell We’re Going to Leave This Stuff Here”
Mining companies can’t remove every atom of uranium from groundwater, experts said, but they can do a better job of decommissioning uranium mills. With the federal government yet to take control of half the country’s former mills, regulators still have time to compel some companies to do more cleanup.
Between 1958 and 1961, the Lakeview Mining Company generated 736,000 tons of tailings at a uranium mill in southern Oregon. Like at most sites, uranium and other pollution leaked into an aquifer.
“There’s no way in hell we’re going to leave this stuff here,” Dixon, the nuclear cleanup specialist, remembered thinking. He represented the state of Oregon at the former mill, which was one of the first sites to relocate its waste to a specially engineered disposal cell.
First image: A warning sign at the Lakeview disposal site. The photo appeared in a DOE annual report. Second image: A 1984 report from the Oregon Department of Energy discusses possible sites to host relocated mill tailings.Credit: Graphic composition by Mauricio Rodriguez Pons/ProPublica
A local advisory committee at the Lakeview site allowed residents and local politicians to offer input to federal regulators. By the end of the process, the government had paid to connect residents to a clean drinking water system and the waste was moved away from the town, where it was contained by a 2-foot-thick clay liner and covered with 3 feet of rocks, soil and vegetation. Local labor got priority for cleanup contracts, and a 170-acre solar farm now stands on the former mill site.
But relocation isn’t required. At some sites, companies and regulators saw a big price tag and either moved residents away or merely left the waste where it was.
“I recognize Lakeview is easy and it’s a drop in the bucket compared to New Mexico,” Dixon said, referring to the nation’s largest waste piles. “But it’s just so sad to see that this hasn’t been taken care of.”
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Mark Olalde is a Reporter at ProPublica covering the environment in the Southwest.
Mollie Simon is a research reporter at ProPublica.
Alex is a research reporter for the Local Reporting Network at ProPublica.
Gerardo del Valle is a Video and Film Fellow with ProPublica.
Liz Moughon is a Video and Film Fellow at ProPublica.
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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***
Two years after the traumatic experience of leaving Tehran at the time of the start corona, in December I had the opportunity to visit Iran again. Colleague Vladimir Trapara and I participated in a large international conference sponsored by Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and organized by their leading institute for international relations, IPIS.
The opportunity to visit Iran at this time has aroused great interest among Serbian and International, especially western colleagues. Namely, if you follow the western media and especially various foreign services in Persian language, you get the impression that everything is on fire there, that hundreds of thousands of people are protesting and that the country is facing great instability. So this was an extraordinary opportunity to see what is really happening, and to evaluate the reports I hear about the situation in both domestic and foreign media with the most competent Iranian colleagues.
As is well known, Iran experienced a wave of protests after September 22, when a young woman, Masha Amini, died in the custody of the Iranian moral police. A prominent place among the protesters was occupied by women, especially younger ones, then students and other parts of the urban population. The Western media covered all of this with rhetoric about a spontaneous protest, about the struggle for the emancipation and liberation of women who allegedly live in a servile and humiliating position in Iran, etc. This version from the cartoons or fairytales, of course, also has another side, which unfortunately you cannot hear in the Serbian and western media.
Image is from InfoBrics
The prehistory of these events begins in July, when the media announced that Iranian services had carried out hacking attacks on Albania’s cyber space. This happened again in September, which led to the expulsion of Iranian diplomats and the severance of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Why Albania? Well, this open Balkan friend and partner of ours has a very interesting and specific place in the intelligence world. In addition to being the center of the Gulenist network in the Balkans since 2016, Albania is also one of the two most important centers for the activities of the Iranian opposition. During my last visit to Tehran in 2020, colleagues from their Strategy Institute showed me photos of troll factories located in this country, where hundreds of Iranians sit in hangars and wage cyberwars, write comments as bots acting subversively against the current order in Tehran. Everything happens, of course, with the support of the host, in coordination with the Western intelligence systems, and the money is provided by the Middle Eastern country that most often finances such things, which happens to be the patron of Wahhabism around the world.
So the supposedly spontaneous protests that began after September 22 were prepared months in advance in coordination with Western intelligence systems. We will remember the protests from 2009, and on several other occasions the same actors tried to undermine or overthrow the regime in Iran. Let’s remember that in the meantime, evidence was disclosed that MI6 and the CIA organized a coup in 1953 that overthrew the democratic government of Muhammad Mossadegh, so the accusations of the same actors today have full logic and legitimacy. The Americans have not had an embassy there since 1979, and the former embassy where the hostages were kept, today is a museum that can be visited with everything found there, including interrogation rooms or a special section for encryption and similar operations. Today the institution exists under the name Museum of the USA Den of Spionage.
But the British are also present with the embassy, and Iranian officials again accused them of subversion. It is also extremely interesting that the late Masha was from the Kurdish part of Iran, which has also become the subject of serious international interest in recent months. This part of the imaginary Kurdistan was the only one that was peaceful during the last decades and there were no serious rebellions and unrest in it. In the Iraqi and Syrian parts, separate states within the state were created, and in the Turkish part, there are constant fights between the central government in Ankara and parts of the PKK, which Turkey defines as a terrorist organization. That is why many international actors are interested in burning that part as well.
As a result of the protests, the regime abolished the so-called Moral Police, which the opposition considers a great victory. On the streets of Tehran, girls and women walking without covering their hair can be seen en masse. This is especially pronounced in the north, where the wealthier parts of the elite live, as well as around the universities. In the southern parts of the city and in other places, this is not the case. The authorities believe that in these conditions it was necessary to show a certain flexibility so that the protests would not turn into even more serious manifestations, where dissatisfaction could go to the side of social protests due to inflation and the like.
The protests have slowly died down and life is going on normally. From time to time, for example, several hundred protesters gather around some university or in Tajriz square, and in the evening, even from the apartments of young people, you can hear chants of “death to the dictator”, directed against the supreme leader. The future will show whether this episode was another failed attempt at destabilization or the beginning of some more serious processes of westernization of society. In an increasing number of newly opened cafes, young people drink coffee instead of tea, while the music that can be heard in any western bar, but is not yet on the radio, comes from the speakers.
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Misa Djurkovic is a researcher from Belgrade, Serbia and at the time director of the Belgrade based Institute of European Studies.
Featured image: Iranian protestors on the Keshavrz Boulvard (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)
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***
Today, the Foreign Ministers of Turkey and Syria will meet in Moscow. This is the highest level meeting between the two countries who have been on opposite sides of the US-NATO war on Syria for regime change since 2011.
The outcome of that meeting, and the expected follow-up meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, may form the basis for the recovery of Syria, circumventing the UN resolution 2254, which has failed to produce results.
The US has lost the war, but has used armed militias to remain occupying parts of Syria, and to impose a stalemate which prevents a peaceful solution and recovery for Syria. America is no longer the only superpower, and decisions made in the new Middle East no longer depend on orders from the US State Department.
Erdogan is up for re-election in June and faces heavy opposition. The economy is dismal, and people blame the Syrian refugees for lost jobs and social ills. Erdogan and the opposition promise to send the refugees packing.
The Turkish export market to Syria in 2011 represented half of the entire global export market for Turkey. That was lost when Damascus banned all Turkish imports because of their participation in the war on Syria. Erdogan could get the Syrian market restored by repairing the relationship.
In order to win re-election, Erdogan proposes a rapprochement with Assad. The US has voiced its displeasure at any attempt of any country to repair relations with Syria. However, Erdogan will not be swayed by US opinion or threats, in light of the fact that the US supports, trains and supplies weapons to the Kurdish militia (SDF and YPG) linked to an internationally banned terrorist organization (PKK), which have killed thousands in Turkey over three decades of terrorism. The Kurds know that Turkey is a much more important ally to the US, and the US will never fight Turkey to save the Kurds. Former US envoy to Syria, James Jeffrey, told the Kurds they should repair their relationship with Damascus for protection. The US never supported a “homeland” for the Kurds.
Syria and Turkey are united in their goal to demilitarize the Kurdish northeast of Syria. Syria and Turkey share a common enemy (the Kurds), and a common ally (Russia). This may be the basis of forming a new foreign policy between the two neighbors.
Syria
Syrian officials have met with Turkish officials and Arab Gulf officials. Some Arab embassies in Damascus were re-opened, and Assad made a visit to the UAE.
The Assad administration in Damascus controls the vast majority of the Syrian territory. The exceptions are: Idlib province in the northwest is under the occupation of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a Radical Islamic terrorist group which was the former Al Qaeda branch in Syria, and the Kurdish administration region in the northeast under the occupation of about 600 US troops and two local Kurdish militias (SDF and YPG) which follow a communist political ideology first promoted by the jailed PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan.
Syria and Russia have been prevented from attacking and liberating Idlib from terrorist control. The US uses the three million civilians living under occupation as human shields to prevent attack. The US and its allies in the UN demand that the UN food and medical supplies be delivered to Idlib. The civilians are being fed and clothed, but the terrorists and their families are as well. The international community is supporting the welfare of the terrorists, who are there at the behest of the US, to prevent peace and recovery in Syria. Despite the UN protocol which demands all UN members to fight Al Qaeda, or their affiliates, anywhere on earth, the US and Turkey have circumvented the protocol and use the terrorists as guards of the political stalemate which the US imposed on Syria.
The US
America has maintained an iron grip on Syria through the use of US sanctions and a brutal military occupation which has prevented the Syrian citizens from fuel for transportation and home heating, and to generate electricity. Syrian houses, hospitals, schools and businesses have between 15 minutes to 1 hour of electricity in four intervals per day because of the US imposed sanctions, which have not affected the Syrian government, but have brought the Syrian people to desperation. Kidney dialysis machines require electricity constantly. A gasoline powered generator can suffice when there are blackouts, but the US sanctions also prevent the importation of gasoline. How can Syrians survive?
Despite Richard Haass writing in 1998 that US sanctions are ineffective and immoral against civilians, the US State Department hangs on to sanctions as a tool for regime change.
Iran
Iran and Syria have been united in their resistance to the occupation of Palestine Golan Heights and Shebaa Farms. Iran stood firmly with Syria during the US-NATO attack on Syria because it is a key in the land route from Iran to Lebanon. Recently, there are some cracks appearing in the relationship between Damascus and Tehran. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s meeting in Damascus was postponed recently. Some experts feel Iran has been asking too much of Syria, and with new opportunities for improved relations with the Arab Gulf and Turkey, Syria may be taking time to evaluate its options.
Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab countries want to see Iran out of Syria. As long as Iran is in Syria the Israeli airstrikes will continue, which have been deadly and destructive.
There were 32 Israeli raids in 2022 that destroyed and struck 91 targets, including civilian infrastructure, buildings, weapons caches and vehicles. Eighty-eight military personnel were killed and 121 wounded in the attacks.
Perhaps this may explain why the US takes no action against Saudi Arabia even when there have been deadly issues, or when Biden asked the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) to pump more oil, and he refused.
MBS is making huge reforms, which includes loosening restrictions on women, and creating new tourism and international sports opportunities.
MBS and Netanyahu are united in a common issue: to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, despite Iran insisting on wanting nuclear capabilities for peaceful purposes, such as energy production and medical research. Netanyahu has stated one of his main priorities in office will be to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia.
The Arab League
The upcoming Arab League Summit will take place in Saudi Arabia, traditionally scheduled yearly in March. Depending on the outcome of meetings between now and spring, Syria could possibly be reinstated and occupy their seat at the table. Big changes have been taking place in the region involving the relations between Arab countries and the US, China and Russia. Saudi Arabia is in the driver’s seat and will use their hosting of the summit to project their ranking as the Middle East’s power broker.
Israel
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen has announced that the next Abraham Accords summit will be held in Morocco in March 2023.
The US had brokered in 2020 the Abraham Accords for the normalization of relations between Israel, Morocco, the UAE and Bahrain. Later, Sudan joined the accords. Areas of shared interests are: defense, investment, agriculture, tourism, and energy.
The meetings and realignments between Syria and Turkey, mediated by Russia, may produce lasting changes in the Middle East, and bring enemies together as new friends. The Israeli occupation of Palestine will continue to be the primary cause of instability and violence in the region. It fuels religious extremism and terrorism. If Israel values the establishment of relations with their Arab neighbors, they must first look at their closest neighbors in Gaza and the West Bank. The Middle East and the world wait for a peace summit to begin the process of peace for Israel and Palestine, and the host country will not likely be the US.
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Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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The latest demand by neocons that Russia must be wiped off the map is locked up behind a paywall at the CIA’s favorite newspaper, The Washington Post. In order to read what formerSecretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote, I used a browser text reader to bypass the paywall.
Rice and Gates argue:
The way to avoid confrontation with Russia in the future is to help Ukraine push back the invader now. That is the lesson of history that should guide us, and it lends urgency to the actions that must be taken—before it is too late.
In other words, this must happen prior to Russia concluding its SMO and its eradication of neo-Nazis elevated and empowered after the USG staged a 2014 coup in Kyiv.
For Putin, defeat is not an option… He cannot cede to Ukraine the four eastern provinces he has declared part of Russia. If he cannot be militarily successful this year, he must retain control of positions in eastern and southern Ukraine that provide future jumping-off points for renewed offensives to take the rest of Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, control the entire Donbas region and then move west. Eight years separated Russia’s seizure of Crimea and its invasion nearly a year ago.
When Rice and Gates claim Russia intends to “move west,” they are exploiting a Big Lie—invented by the USG and telegraphed by a corporate propaganda media—that Russia intends to occupy the whole of Ukraine, and who knows, possibly Europe and maybe the whole world!
Vladimir Putin remains fully committed to bringing all of Ukraine back under Russian control or — failing that — destroying it as a viable country. He believes it is his historical destiny — his messianic mission — to reestablish the Russian Empire and, as Zbigniew Brzezinski observed years ago, there can be no Russian Empire without Ukraine.
The Russian SMO objectives say nothing about conquering all of Ukraine or the absurd lie that Putin wants to reestablish the Soviet Empire. Rice and Gates know this. They are repeating falsehoods because Big Lies must be repeated over and over in order for lies to become faux “facts” (that do not require corroboration or evidence) similar to the way the Gulf of Tonkin lie resulted in the Vietnam War and three million dead people in Southeast Asia.
There is but one “messianic mission”—that of total neoliberal conquest, domination, and neutralization of any nation that does not play by “rules-based” authoritarianism.
Gates and Rice cite Zbigniew Brzeziński on Ukraine. His mention provides an opportunity. Brzeziński, the architect of intervention in Afghanistan and a Russophobe, wrote at length about the objectives of the global financial elite.
The three grand imperatives of imperial [neoliberal] geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together. (“The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives.”)
The “barbarians” are those in opposition to the “geostrategy” of psychopaths.
The lesson of Moammar Gadaffi, raped with a knife, and brutally assassinated, is that if you refuse to participate in the neoliberal game of theft and murder, you will be eliminated, and gruesomely so.
In the past, this was accomplished in the dark by covert means. Now it is performed at high noon, with the sun blazing above, so all can see and take stock. The message sent: either accept the fiat dollar-dominated financial swindle or be turned out as a corpse.
Rice and Gates lay out what they consider unacceptable.
Absent another major Ukrainian breakthrough and success against Russian forces, Western pressures on Ukraine to negotiate a cease-fire will grow as months of military stalemate pass. Under current circumstances, any negotiated cease-fire would leave Russian forces in a strong position to resume their invasion whenever they are ready. That is unacceptable.
Really, these people can’t help it. They are pathological liars.
The Ukronazis have yet to realize a “breakthrough and success” in preventing Russia’s SMO from terminating their murderous ethnic cleansing agenda.
It is now virtually impossible for Ukraine’s decimated armed forces to push Russia out of the eastern and southern regions of the country. Donbas is now part of the Russian Federation. It is the will of the people living there who have suffered eight years of Ukronazi bombardment and terrorism. Gates and Rice have nothing to say about that ongoing war crime. For them, the lives of ethnic Russians are immaterial. The “rules” demand they be terrorized, executed, tortured, and raped.
The solution is simple, according to Rice and Gates. Forget about a negotiated settlement, a peace deal. According to the neocon duo, defeating Russia is a simple matter—it requires battle tanks, more artillery, Lockheed Martin HIMARS, Patriot missiles, drones, fighting vehicles, etc., thrown into the cauldron. Not to worry, though. Future generations will pay down the massive debt incurred—if there are future generations.
Let’s face it—our “elder statesmen” (and women) are conscienceless psychopaths. They are addicted to war and its organized mass murder to achieve globalist political ends. They are unable or unwilling to accept that by far most people on the planet are disgusted by their threats, self-serving “rules,” forever wars, and insistence on calling the shots, never mind how many people must die.
Increasingly, members of Congress and others in our public discourse ask, “Why should we care? This is not our fight.” But the United States has learned the hard way — in 1914, 1941 and 2001 — that unprovoked aggression and attacks on the rule of law and the international order cannot be ignored. Eventually, our security was threatened and we were pulled into conflict. This time, the economies of the world — ours included — are already seeing the inflationary impact and the drag on growth caused by Putin’s single-minded aggression. It is better to stop him now, before more is demanded of the United States and NATO as a whole. We have a determined partner in Ukraine that is willing to bear the consequences of war so that we do not have to do so ourselves in the future.
The above quote is riddled with lies.
1914, 1941, 2001. Indeed, unprovoked aggression.
If not for the economic warfare imposed on Japan by FDR and the USG (similar to the economic warfare now waged against Russia and China), the Japanese would not have attacked Pearl Harbor and FDR’s “day of infamy” would have never occurred. FDR and the USG would not have had an excuse to enter another disastrous war, a hedious war concluded with the use of atomic weapons.
If not for the financial support of Wall Street and German industrialists, Hitler would have never come to power, and war in Europe would have been avoided. Harsh “war reparations” imposed on a defeated Germany at Versailles following WWI resulted in the destruction of the German economy and the rise of radical fascism, adopted from Mussolini’s Italian version.
France and Pax Britannica wanted a war to stop a unified Germany from embarking on colonial ventures. France and Britain, previous rivals, came together to stop Germany and Russia from partaking in the spoils of imperialism. All it took was the assassination of a Hapsburg archduke and his wife to get things rolling.
The German colonial empire held East Africa, Togoland, Southwest Africa, and the Cameroons. German Far East territories consisted of New Guinea, Samoa, the Chinese leasehold of Kiaochow, and a number of small islands.
The effort to roll back the German empire resulted in more than 15 million dead. It also precipitated a Bolshevik revolution that claimed five million lives during the Red Terror and the Russian civil war. In addition, another five million starved to death during famines and purges under Stalin.
According to the late Professor Antony Sutton, who taught economics at California State University, and was a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, Wall Street and the City of London assisted in funding the Five-Year Plans of Lenin. This was accomplished through finance, technology and industrial transfers, and technical assistance.
Winston Churchill is now cited when the state and its media talk about the Man in Green, the hapless president of a corrupt failed state overtaken by psychopaths, a state that will not rest until ethnic Russians (and Jews, Roma, and other resented minorities) in Donbas and elsewhere in Ukraine are either dead or ethnically cleansed.
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s speech before Congress last month reminded us of Winston Churchill’s plea in February 1941: “Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.” We agree with the Biden administration’s determination to avoid direct confrontation with Russia. However, an emboldened Putin might not give us that choice. The way to avoid confrontation with Russia in the future is to help Ukraine push back the invader now. That is the lesson of history that should guide us, and it lends urgency to the actions that must be taken — before it is too late.
Churchill was an unrepentant psychopath, a racist, and a war criminal. He suggested aircraft should use “machine-gun fire or bombs” against Irish revolutionaries in 1920. Churchill advocated using poison gas on rebellious Arabs, what he described as “uncivilized tribes.”
In Afghanistan, he demanded “all who resist will be killed without quarter,” because, as he insisted with racist arrogance, the Pashtuns need to “recognize the superiority of race.”
“We proceeded systematically, village by village, and we destroyed the houses, filled up the wells, blew down the towers, cut down the great shady trees, burned the crops and broke the reservoirs in punitive devastation,” he bragged about the crimes committed by the British Empire in Afghanistan.
He was also responsible for massacring protesters in Athen, excluding Iran from its own oil reserves (the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company refused to pay Iran its share of dividends, thus resulting in the nationalization of oil by Iran, followed by a Brit-USG orchestrated coup overthrowing the elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953).
Then there was Britain’s “declared a state of emergency in Kenya in 1952 to protect its system of institutionalized racism that they established throughout their colonies so to exploit the indigenous population,” notes Crimes of Britain.
150,000 men, women and children were forced into concentration camps. Children’s schools were shut by the British who branded them “training grounds for rebellion”. Rape, castration, cigarettes, electric shocks and fire all used by the British to torture the Kenyan people under Churchill’s watch.
Palestine, South Africa, China, and “British Guiana,” all suffered the criminal behavior of Winston Churchill and the British Empire.
It makes perfect sense Rice and Gates, along with the USG and its war propaganda media, put Zelenskyy on a pedestal along with the racist war criminal Churchill.
It’s said the Man in Green cannot possibly be a neo-Nazi because he is Jewish. This is nonsense to be consumed by the cognitively handicapped and incurious headline skimmers.
Zelenskyy has closed down political opposition; his neo-Nazi brownshirts kill activists, dissidents, and journalists; the Russian Orthodox Church was forcibly shuttered, told to leave the country, and Ukrainians attending services are now deemed traitors. Add to this the wanton murder of fellow Ukrainians for the crime of their heritage, culture, and language, and you have a man paralleling Churchill, although not with the vile intelligence of Churchill.
Rice and Gates will not rest until the USG and NATO are fully involved, with soldiers on the ground in Ukraine, and participating in killing Russians and threatening the national security of Russia.
Putin has repeated what Russia will do if it faces an existential threat, the sort of threat Gates, Rice, the neocons, Biden, and practically the entire USG are calling for. It will undoubtedly result in an endgame none of them want.
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Britain has deployed its armed forces for combat over 80 times in 47 countries since the end of the Second World War, in episodes ranging from brutal colonial wars and covert operations to efforts to prop up favoured governments or to deter civil unrest
The British military has used or threatened to use military force much more in the postwar world than is conventionally remembered or believed. Declassified has documented 83 interventions by the UK armed forces since 1945, in 47 different countries.
The most striking of the British uses of force have been the overt invasions or armed attempts to overthrow governments such as in British Guiana (now Guyana) in 1953, Egypt in the 1950s, Iraq in 2003 and Libya in 2011.
The brutal colonial counter-insurgency wars of the 1950s and 1960s – in Kenya, Malaya, Aden and Cyprus – involved the widespread use of torture and, often, pernicious operations to displace large numbers of people to control the local population.
In Malaya between 1948 and 1960, British forces herded hundreds of thousands of people into fortified camps, heavily bombed rural areas and resorted to extensive propaganda to win the conflict.
British brutality fighting ‘Mau Mau’ forces in Kenya demanding independence from the UK resulted in tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of deaths, often from starvation in concentration camps.
But this pattern of armed intervention – which was of course routine during the nineteenth century empire – was in the postwar period set immediately after Allied forces defeated Japan and Germany in 1945.
Britain’s first interventions in the postwar world sought to suppress budding, popular movements fighting European imperialism. In 1945-46, British forces intervened in Vietnam and Indonesia to restore French and Dutch, respectively, colonial control. In Vietnam the British rearmed defeated Japanese imperial troops to fight pro-independence forces.
The deployment of force continued as routine over the decades, notably to prop up favoured regimes. Armed forces were dispatched to Oman (1957), Nyasaland (now Malawi, 1959), Brunei (1962), Anguilla (1969) and Jordan (1970) to bolster pro-British governments being threatened by independence or popular movements.
In 1964, British forces put down army mutinies in three countries in close succession in East Africa – Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania – to shore up pro-British governments just after they had become independent.
Covert military operations have been planned by Whitehall officials in numerous instances where their strategy would be unpopular at home or controversial abroad. British governments have if anything become less and less transparent about these covert operations over time.
The beginnings after the war were when UK forces sought to stir up opposition to emerging communist rule in Albania, Ukraine and the Baltic States in the late 1940s – operations which all failed to prevent these countries coming under communist control.
Covert wars continued in the 1950s in Indonesia – in an attempt to promote a rebellion against nationalist president Sukarno – and in the 1960s in Yemen – in a war to bog down the forces of Egypt’s leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, in which tens of thousands of people died.
In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher’s government executed Britain’s largest postwar covert operation to date, in backing mujahideen warriors to counter the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
The strategy involved not only supplying arms and training for combat inside Afghanistan, but also the sabotage of Moscow’s supply lines inside the then Soviet republics of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
British covert operations have recently proliferated again in view of the unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2011-13, Whitehall planners secretly launched at least four covert wars involving special forces on the ground in Libya, Syria, Somalia and Mali.
Overt intervention
Some of the UK’s most brutal interventions have been with the US, notably the bombing of and occupation of Afghanistan after 2001, the UK’s supportive role in Washington’s near-destruction of Vietnam from the 1960s and the forcibledepopulation of the Chagos Islands from 1968-73, to make way for a US military base in the Indian Ocean.
After Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the UK acted as the US’ junior partner in a ferocious bombardment of Iraq the following year that destroyed much of the country’s civilian infrastructure. Anglo-American bombing of Iraq continued for a decade after the Gulf War until the 2003 invasion.
On several occasions, the British military has been used to counter threats to favoured allies from neighbouring countries, such as the deployment to Kuwait in 1994 to deter a threat from Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and the dispatch of troops to Aqaba in Jordan in 1949 to fend off a territorial threat from Israel.
The UK intervened at least four times in British Honduras (which became independent as Belize in 1981) – in 1948, 1957, 1962 and 1977 – to deter Guatemala from its claims over the territory. The Falklands war of 1982 – after Argentina invaded the islands – was far from being the first time a Latin America state had claimed territory it saw as a relic of the colonial period.
Imposing order
Still more frequent when Britain was a formal colonial power was the despatch of forces to quell riots and protests – which occurred in countries as diverse as Singapore (1950), Bermuda (1968), New Hebrides (now Vanuatu, 1980), Hong Kong (1967), Mauritius (1965 and 1967) and the Maldives (1959) – and to break strikes – such as in the Bahamas (1958) and Swaziland (1963).
Britain’s longest-running military deployment, lasting nearly three decades from 1969, was in Northern Ireland, where the armed forces and intelligence services’ countering of the IRA also involved sectarian support for, and collusion with, loyalist paramilitary forces that contributed to hundreds of further deaths.
Only a handful of these interventions might be regarded as truly benign. The UK’s deployment of forces to Sierra Leone in 2000 prevented the vicious Revolutionary United Front taking control of the capital, Freetown.
Britain’s involvement in the Korean war in the early 1950s – one of the most destructive conflicts of the past century – upheld the non-communist south of the country, and allowed a future South Korea to prosper.
But most of the UK military deployments have been to maintain colonial or postcolonial control of states and key resource interests, uphold British prestige or great power status, and demonstrate to the US – Whitehall’s key ally – that London is, with Washington, still prepared to continue to rule the world by force.
Not included
The list of interventions is far from exhaustive. It is unlikely to have found all the British military deployments for combat since 1945. Further, it does not include mercenary operations by British personnel, often backed by Whitehall, or purely intelligence operations to overthrow governments.
It also excludes military involvement in international peacekeeping missions, relief activities and actions to evacuate UK nationals from countries. Finally, it does not include training and advisory military operations which, often linked to British arms exports, are another key way Whitehall officials try to maintain their global influence.
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Mark Curtis is the editor of Declassified UK, and the author of five books and many articles on UK foreign policy.
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You might have heard of killer robots, slaughterbots or terminators – officially called lethal autonomous weapons (LAWs) – from films and books. And the idea of super-intelligent weapons running rampant is still science fiction. But as AI weapons become increasingly sophisticated, public concern is growing over fears about lack of accountability and the risk of technical failure.
Already we have seen how so-called neutral AI have made sexist algorithms and inept content moderation systems, largely because their creators did not understand the technology. But in war, these kinds of misunderstandings could kill civilians or wreck negotiations.
For example, a target recognition algorithm could be trained to identify tanks from satellite imagery. But what if all of the images used to train the system featured soldiers in formation around the tank? It might mistake a civilian vehicle passing through a military blockade for a target.
Why do we need autonomous weapons?
Civilians in many countries (such as Vietnam, Afghanistan and Yemen) have suffered because of the way global superpowers build and use increasingly advanced weapons. Many people would argue they have done more harm than good, most recently pointing to the Russian invasion of Ukraine early in 2022.
In the other camp are people who say a country must be able to defend itself, which means keeping up with other nations’ military technology. AI can already outsmart humans at chess and poker. It outperforms humans in the real world too. For example Microsoft claims its speech recognition software has an error rate of 1% compared to the human error rate of around 6%. So it is hardly surprising that armies are slowly handing algorithms the reins.
But how do we avoid adding killer robots to the long list of things we wish we had never invented? First of all: know thy enemy.
What are Lethal Autonomous Weapons (LAWs)?
The US Department of Defence defines an autonomous weapon system as: “A weapon system that, once activated, can select and engage targets without further intervention by a human operator.”
Many combat systems already fit this criteria. The computers on drones and modern missiles have algorithms that can detect targets and fire at them with far more precision than a human operator. Israel’s Iron Dome is one of several active defence systems that can engage targets without human supervision.
While designed for missile defence, the Iron Dome could kill people by accident. But the risk is seen as acceptable in international politics because the Iron Dome generally has a reliable history of protecting civilian lives.
There are AI enabled weapons designed to attack people too, from robot sentries to loitering kamikaze drones used in the Ukraine war. LAWs are already here. So, if we want to influence the use of LAWs, we need to understand the history of modern weapons.
The rules of war
International agreements, such as the Geneva conventions establish conduct for the treatment of prisoners of war and civilians during conflict. They are one of the few tools we have to control how wars are fought. Unfortunately, the use of chemical weapons by the US in Vietnam, and by Russia in Afghanistan, are proof these measures aren’t always successful.
Worse is when key players refuse to sign up. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) has been lobbying politicians since 1992 to ban mines and cluster munitions (which randomly scatter small bombs over a wide area). In 1997 the Ottawa treaty included a ban of these weapons, which 122 countries signed. But the US, China and Russia didn’t buy in.
Casualties…have been disturbingly high for the past seven years, following more than a decade of historic reductions. The year 2021 was no exception. This trend is largely the result of increased conflict and contamination by improvised mines observed since 2015. Civilians represented most of the victims recorded, half of whom were children.
Despite the best efforts of the ICBL, there is evidence both Russiaand Ukraine (a member of the Ottawa treaty) are using landmines during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine has also relied on drones to guide artillery strikes, or more recently for “kamikaze attacks” on Russian infrastructure.
Our future
But what about more advanced AI enabled weapons? The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots lists nine key problems with LAWs, focusing on the lack of accountability, and the inherent dehumanisation of killing that comes with it.
While this criticism is valid, a full ban of LAWs is unrealistic for two reasons. First, much like mines, pandora’s box has already been opened. Also the lines between autonomous weapons, LAWs and killer robots are so blurred it’s difficult to distinguish between them. Military leaders would always be able to find a loophole in the wording of a ban and sneak killer robots into service as defensive autonomous weapons. They might even do so unknowingly.
San Francisco, CA – December 5, 2022: Activists opposed to the implementation of armed police robots rallied at City Hall.Phil Pasquini
We will almost certainly see more AI enabled weapons in the future. But this doesn’t mean we have to look the other way. More specific and nuanced prohibitions would help keep our politicians, data scientists and engineers accountable.
For example, by banning:
black box AI: systems where the user has no information about the algorithm beyond inputs and outputs
unreliable AI: systems that have been poorly tested (such as in the military blockade example mentioned previously).
And you don’t have to be an expert in AI to have a view on LAWs. Stay aware of new military AI developments. When you read or hear about AI being used in combat, ask yourself: is it justified? Is it preserving civilian life? If not, engage with the communities that are working to control these systems. Together, we stand a chance at preventing AI from doing more harm than good.
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Jonathan Erskine, PhD Student, Interactive AI, University of Bristol
Miranda Mowbray, Lecturer in Interactive AI, University of Bristol
Michael Inside is a new Irish movie which looks at the prison system in Ireland and the people who serve their time in it.
The film is about a young man who is sent to prison for the first time after being caught with drugs he had stashed in his grandfather’s house who he shares with. In prison he is taken under the wing of an older experienced prisoner who helps him to stand up for himself but also ensnares him in a cycle of violence in the prison itself.
We see the emotional and psychological growth and strengthening of Michael with these harrowing experiences. The big question of the film is then: will he become like his father, also in jail, or learn from his grandfather’s advice?
The most important aspect of this new Irish film is its cinematic approach to telling the story. Ireland has a long history of theatre and successful drama which spilled over into its film-making too. Irish films in the past have been worthy and wordy with directors more comfortable with theatrical styles than cinematic imagery. It was also difficult to achieve cinematic lift-off with the gravity of so many winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Ireland won four times in the 20th century: W. B. Yeats (1923), George Bernard Shaw (1925), Samuel Beckett (1969) and Séamus Heaney (1995), all of whom wrote plays. Not forgetting, of course, Lady Gregory, John Millington Synge, George Moore, Oscar Wilde and Seán O’Casey. The developing language of cinema filtered slowly into Irish film-making either for reasons of fear of audience reaction (more used to theatre) or a lack of an appreciation of the idea that sometimes less is more.
Michael Inside has at times an almost documentary feel to it in the way the prison and the prison officers are portrayed. They come across as empathetic and generally respectful of the prisoners. The director of Michael Inside, Frank Berry, stated the story-line was “researched with former prisoners” and authenticity was desired even to the point of using former prisoners as extras.
Michael Inside official trailer
The use of the camera has a Tarkovskian feel with long takes, blurring and choreography before the camera. Some scenes like in the grandfather’s house are performed in front of a stationary camera with minimal lighting and wonderful blocking as actors move in and out of shot during the dialogue. Michael’s life outside of prison seems almost as oppressive as inside. Sparse dialogue, sparse rooms and ennui add to this feeling.
The tyranny of montage is felt though when Michael goes into his cell for the first time and sits down on the bottom bunk. This would have been a perfect moment to let the camera linger and linger to illustrate the timelessness of prison life. Steve McQueen, the British director, does this brilliantly in Hunger (2008) (also a great movie) when he has a fixed camera on one end of a long prison corridor pointed at a person washing the floor and stays on him until he finally gets to the other end. A similar very long take is used in the Irish Traveler film (2005), Pavee Lackeen to illustrate the difficulty of such basic things as making a cup of tea as we see the young girl go outside and walk to a hose behind a metal fence, fill the bucket and walk back to the mobile home. However, in Michael Inside, it cuts all too soon in the prison cell to the next shot.
Cinema fans who liked A Prophet (French: Un prophète), the 2009 French prison drama-crime film directed by Jacques Audiard will also enjoy Michael Inside. Unlike A Prophet, the protagonist of Michael Inside is exposed to alternative paths for his future as a former prisoner who has studied for an MA and is progressing towards a PhD gives the inmates a talk on the importance of education. This is an important moment in the film as it demonstrates one way with which to break the cycle of violence and transgenerational incarceration. Indeed Michael plans to further his education despite the bias against former prisoners.
Michael Inside is a wonderful film about the Irish penal system, the sparseness of some working class lives and the potential for positive change. The irony of this depiction of working class poverty and hopelessness is the fact that the film is conceived, researched, and acted using the imagination, talents and experience of Irish working class people. It points to a new self-awareness and education happening in sections of Irish society that augur well for the future.
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Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork consists of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country at http://gaelart.blogspot.ie/. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
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