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***
Ukraine has announced that it will have to halt electricity exports to Europe. Russian missile strikes are said to be responsible for the forced suspension of power exports, Kyiv has announced.
Damage to energy infrastructure caused by Moscow’s air strikes in retaliation for the “terrorist attack” on the Crimean bridge has forced Ukraine’s government to cut off electricity exports to the European Union. The strikes removed a supply source that Kyiv claims helped its partners reduce their reliance on power generated with Russian natural gas.
Russia has already said that the missile strikes on Ukraine were a response to the damages done t the Crimean bridge. President Vladimir Putin said Monday’s air strikes on Kyiv and other major Ukrainian cities (targeting military, energy, and communications infrastructure) came in response to Ukraine’s attack on the strategic Crimean Bridge on Saturday.
“If there are further attempts to conduct terrorist attacks on our soil, Russia will respond firmly and on a scale corresponding to the threats created against Russia,” Putin announced.
Now that the Nord Stream pipelines are destroyed, Europe has no choice but to reduce its dependence on Russian natural gas. There is so far been no retaliation for the destruction of the pipelines, however, no ruling class had yet to take responsibility for the attack either.
“Today’s missile strikes, which hit the thermal generation and electrical substations, forced Ukraine to suspend electricity exports from October 11, 2022, to stabilize its own energy system,” the Ukrainian Energy Ministry said on Monday in a statement, according to a report by RT. “The cynicism is that the entire supply chain has been hit,” Energy Minister German Galushchenko said. “It’s both electricity distribution systems and generation. The enemy’s goal is to make it difficult to reconnect electricity supplies from other sources.”
Ukrenergo, the national power grid operator, claimed its specialists have been “engaging backup supply schemes” and repaired some of the damage by Monday night.
In the meantime, the ministry urged “all citizens of Ukraine to unite” and minimize their energy use during the peak demand hours, arguing that not only Ukraine is implementing measures to reduce power consumption, but the “whole of Europe is doing this now.”
*
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***
Wars don’t begin on a single day by a single military action — even though history portrays things this way at times.
Hostile actions escalate over time to full-blown conflicts — the pattern unfolding in Ukraine since hegemon USA’s so-called 2004 Orange Revolution in former nation-state.
It’s now a territory controlled by the empire of lies and forever wars, a platform for waging war on Russia.
Things escalated since the Obama/Biden regime’s 2014 Maidan coup in Kiev.
Vladimir Putin authorized Russia’s SMO last February because over 100,000 US-controlled Ukrainian troops were mobilized in preparation to invade Donetsk and Lugansk, as well as the Russian Republic of Crimea — preceded by weeks of heavy cross-border shelling.
Since then, Russian forces liberated the LPR entirely, most of the DPR, and most Kherson and Zaporozhye areas.
Following open, free and fair referendum voting last month, they joined the Russian Federation — exercising their UN Charter right of self-determination.
At the same time, hegemon USA — perhaps jointly with one or more vassal states — detonated explosives to render 3 of 4 Nord Stream gas lines to Germany inoperable, an act of state-sponsored terrorism against the Russian Federation.
Then on October 8, Ukrainian Nazis damaged a portion of the Crimean Bridge across the Kerch Strait — another terrorist act against what connects Russia’s Republic of Crimea to the mainland.
What was a symbolic, not a strategic, action was authorized by dominant Biden regime hardliners.
At war on Russia by use of Ukrainian foot soldiers, hegemon USA is fully in charge of their operations.
On Sunday in response to Crimean Bridge sabotage, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman, Dmitry Medvedev, minced no words as follows, saying:
“Russia can only respond to this crime by directly killing terrorists, as is the custom elsewhere in the world.”
“This is what Russian citizens expect.”
What happened “was a terrorist act and sabotage committed by the criminal Kiev regime.”
“There never was any doubt about that.”
“All reports were presented and conclusions made.”
On Sunday, Vladimir Putin met with Russia’s Investigative Committee Chairman, Alexander Bastrykin.
He explained the following, saying:
“(O)ur investigative team of the Main Directorate of Investigations and crime and forensic experts promptly arrived at the site of the incident.”
“They carried out a detailed examination of the site together with explosives experts and forensic team and reached well-grounded tentative conclusions.”
“We opened an investigation in accordance with part 2 of Article 205 “Terrorism,” and this is confirmed by the preliminary stage of the investigation.”
“We interrogated numerous witnesses and eyewitnesses.”
“Special expert studies have been launched and largely completed – explosives expertise, DNA testing and a forensic analysis.”
“Respective instructions were issued to the Federal Security Service and the Interior Ministry of Russia regarding investigative activities.”
“We have already established the route of the lorry which exploded.”
“It drove through Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, North Ossetia, and the Krasnodar Territory.”
“In addition, we have also identified the carriers – the persons who took part in arranging the movements of that lorry.”
“The FSS field agents helped to identify suspects from among those who could have arranged the terrorist act and those who are active within the Russian Federation.”
Mincing no words, Vladimir Putin said the following on Sunday:
Crimean Bridge sabotage “was a (state-sponsored) terrorist attack aimed at destroying critical Russian civilian infrastructure.”
Kiev regime “special services were the authors, perpetrators and customers” of what happened — as authorized by their US master.
Separately on Sunday, Belarusian State Border Committee Chairman, Anatoly Lappo, accused Ukrainian Nazis of planning imminent strikes on the nation’s territory, saying:
“Today, almost all border bridges have been blown up.”
“Automobile and railway border routes are completely mined.”
Ukrainian Nazis “put anti-tank mines in three rows on roads” along border areas.
“We are under pressure.”
“They are aiming at our border guards.”
“Sometimes they shoot in the air.
“Constant aerial reconnaissance is being carried out.”
“Ukraine is planning to conduct a strike on the territory of Belarus.”
Last week, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko accused Kiev of massing tens of thousands of troops along the nation’s 1,000 km border.
According to Belarusian Defense Minister, General Viktor Khrenin, the nation’s military is able to deploy around 500,000 forces to defend its territory against foreign aggression.
Separately on Monday, Russia responded to state-sponsored terrorism by Kiev regime Nazis against the Crimean Bridge.
According to eyewitnesses, multiple explosions rocked Kiev, Odessa and other Ukrainian cities.
Reportedly, the regime’s Security Service (SBU) and key infrastructure targets were struck.
Its so-called prime minister, Denis Shmygal, said the following:
“As of 11:00 AM Monday, 11 crucial infrastructure facilities were damaged in eight regions and in Kiev.”
“Some regions are currently without power.”
“We need to brace for temporary disruptions in electricity and water supplies and communication services.”
Occupied Kharkov areas lost power and water.
More on Russian retaliation against regime state terror as additional information becomes available.
Months earlier, Belarusian President Lukashenko warned that hegemon USA, its NATO vassals and Nazified Kiev are “push(ing) toward a third world war” against Russia, adding:
The empire of lies and forever wars “is the sole beneficiary of what is happening here.”
“In this way, Europe can be shown its place and (US) competitors eliminated.”
A new “iron curtain” emerged.
The risk of US-dominated NATO global war with nukes is ominously higher today than ever before.
Based on recent events discussed above, has it already begun unannounced?
*
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ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102
PDF Edition: $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)
Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.
Reviews
“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.” –John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University
“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.” -Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations
Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction. –Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate This Article button below the author’s name.
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***
The old adage is that a good foreign policy is the reflection of the national policy. A perfect storm is brewing on the foreign policy front in America triggered by the OPEC decision on Thursday to cut oil production by 2 million barrels a day, which will on the one hand drive up the gas price for the domestic consumer and on the other hand expose the Biden Administration’s lop-sided foreign policy priorities.
At its most obvious level, the OPEC decision confirms the belief that Washington has lost its leverage with the cartel of oil-producing countries. This is being attributed to the deterioration of the US’ relations with Saudi Arabia during the Biden presidency. But, fundamentally, a contradiction has arisen between the US interests and the interests of the oil producing countries.
Contradictions are nothing new to the geopolitics of oil. The 1970s and 1980s witnessed two major “oil crises.” One was man-made while the other was an interplay of historical forces — the Yom-Kippur War of 1973 and the Iranian Revolution of 1979.
In the downstream of the Yom-Kippur War, the Arab nations weaponised oil and proclaimed an oil embargo on western nations which were perceived to have supported Israel in the war. The result was that the price of oil rose nearly 300% in less than 6 months, crippling the world’s economy.
President Nixon asked petrol stations not to sell gasoline from Saturday night through until Monday morning. The crisis affected industry more than the average consumer.
In 1979, the Iranian Revolution hit oil production rates and the world’s oil supply shrunk by 4%. Panic set in, demand for crude oil shot up and price more than doubled.
The Biden Administration tempted Fate by underestimating the importance of oil in modern economic and political terms and ignoring that oil will remain the dominant energy source across the world for the foreseeable future, powering everything from cars and domestic heating to huge industry titans and manufacturing plants.
A smooth transition to green energy over time is largely dependent on the continued availability of plentiful, cheap fossil fuel. But the Biden Administration ignored that those who have oil reserves wield a huge amount of power over our oil-centred energy systems, and those who buy oil are on the contrary, cripplingly dependent on the market and the diplomatic relations which drive it.
The Western powers are far too naive to think that an energy superpower like Russia can be simply “erased” from the ecosystem. In an “energy war” with Russia, they are doomed to end up as losers.
Historically, Western nations understood the imperative to maintain good diplomatic relations with oil-producing countries. But Biden threw caution into the wind by insulting Saudi Arabia calling it a “Pariah” state. Any improvement in the US-Saudi relations is not to be expected under Biden’s watch. The Saudis distrust American intentions.
The congruence of interests on the part of the OPEC to keep the prices high is essentially because they need the extra income for their expenditure budget and to maintain a healthy investment level in the oil industry. The International Monetary Fund in April projected Saudi Arabia’s breakeven oil price — the oil price at which it would balance its budget — at $79.20 a barrel.
The Saudi government does not disclose its assumed breakeven oil price. But a Reuters report suggested that a preferred price level would be around $90 to $100 a barrel for Brent crude — at which level, it won’t have a huge impact on the global economy. Of course, over $100 will be a windfall.
Meanwhile, a “systemic” crisis is brewing. It is only natural that the OPEC views with scepticism the recent moves by the US and the EU to push back Russia’s oil exports. The West rationalises these moves as aimed at drastically reducing Russia’s income from oil exports (which translates as its resilience to fight the war in Ukraine.) The latest G7 move to put a cap on the prices at which Russia can sell its oil is taking matters to an extreme.
The OPEC regards it as a paradigm shift, as it implicitly challenges the cartel’s assumed prerogative to ensure that global oil supply matches demand, where one of the key measures of supply-demand balance is price. Arguably, the West is de facto setting up a rival cartel of oil-consuming countries to regulate the oil market.
No doubt, the West’s move is precedent-setting — namely, to prescribe for geopolitical reasons the price at which an oil-producing country is entitled to export its oil. If it is Russia today, it can as well be Saudi Arabia or Iraq tomorrow. The G7 decision, if it gets implemented, will erode OPEC’s key role regulating the global oil market.
Therefore, the OPEC is proactively pushing back. Its decision to cut down oil production by 2 million barrels per day and keep the oil price above $90 per barrel makes a mockery of the G7 decision. The OPEC estimates that Washington’s options to counter OPEC+ are limited. Unlike in the past energy history, the US does not have a single ally today inside the OPEC+ group.
Due to rising domestic demands for oil and gas, it is entirely conceivable that the US exports of both items may be curtailed. If that happens, Europe will be the worst sufferer. In an interview with FT last week, Belgium’s prime minister Alexander De Croo has warned that as winter approaches, if energy prices are not brought down,
“we are risking a massive deindustrialisation of the European continent and the long-term consequences of that might actually be very deep.”
He added these chilling words:
“Our populations are getting invoices which are completely insane. At some point, it will snap. I understand that people are angry . . . people don’t have the means to pay it.”
De Croo was warning about the likelihood of social unrest and political turmoil in European countries.
Without doubt, this is a tectonic shift in geopolitics which may probably turn out to be more important than the conflict in Ukraine in the making of the multipolar world order.
This perfect storm in Biden’s foreign policy can also impact the midterms in November and deliver a Republican majority in the Senate, which could set the tempo for the 2024 US presidential election.
The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that by turning away from Russian energy, Europe has become a captive market for the US oil companies which are now making “crazy money,” but the high cost of it is draining away the competitiveness of the European economy.
“Production is collapsing. Deindustrialization is coming. All this will have very, very deplorable consequences for the European continent over probably, at least, the next 10-20 years,” Peskov said.
Russia could be the biggest “gainer” of OPEC+cuts. The expert opinion is that oil prices will move higher from current levels through year-end and next year. That is to say, Russia will not cut any output while the price of oil is set to rise in the coming months! As oil price rises, Russia will not have to cut even a barrel of its production so long as it has a big enough market after December to sell the crude now going to Europe. Again, Russia, for its part, reiterates that it will not supply oil to countries that would join the G7 price cap. It is matching the Biden Administration’s non-market instruments.
*
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***
Ukrainian advance in all regions has stopped. In the south of the country, Ukrainian forces are preparing for further offensive deep in the region. Russian artillery and warplanes are heavily attacking the amassing forces of the enemy.
The Ukrainian command is regrouping forces along the entire front line in the region before the upcoming offensives on Kherson and Novaya Kakhovka.
On the left bank of the Ingulets River, Russian precise strikes destroyed three Ukrainian pontoon crossings — in Velike Artakovo, Belaya Krynitsa, Novogrigorivka. Clashes continue in the area of Davidov Brod.
On the morning of October 7, Ukrainian militants struck a residential quarter in Kherson with HIMARS MLRS. Five civilians were killed after a precision-guided missile hit a bus.
In the north-eastern front, Ukrainian forces have not managed to advance in the recent days.
The Ukrainian military is regrouping forces preparing to further attack Svatovo and Kremennaya. Reconnaissance groups and foreign UAVs are active in the region. Russian units are preparing for the defense. Most of civilians were evacuated.
In turn, Russian-led forces continue their slow advance in the DPR. In the Bakhmut region, they took control of the villages of Otradovka and Veselaya Dolyna. Ukrainian forces are still fighting on the western outskirts of Zaitsevo. In the town of Bakhmut, Wagner fighters took control of the Asphalt Plant.
In the Zaporozhie region, the Ukrainian military command is reinforcing positions apparently preparing for large-scaled offensive. The attacks are expected to come in the directions Melitopol and Berdyansk. Offensive operations could be carried out in the area of the Zaporozhie NPP as well. The Ukrainian maneuvres could be also aimed at distraction of the Russian military from other regions.
After the four former regions of Ukraine entered the Russian Federation, Moscow clarified that it can use all means to protect its territories, including nuclear weapons. At the same time, it was noted that their deployment is only possible in accordance to the Russian military doctrine and the fundamental laws of state policy in the field of nuclear deterrence. Thus, their deployment is possible in the case of aggression against Russia or its allies with the use of weapons of mass destruction, or aggression with the use of conventional weapons, when the existence of the state itself is threatened.
Blaming Russia, the Kiev regime called on NATO to launch “preventive” strikes against Russia, and not “wait for Russia’s nuclear strikes.”
“What should NATO do? Exclude the possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons…. Preemptive strikes so that they know what will happen to them if they do use. That’s what NATO should do: review the order of use,” said Zelensky.
Moscow assesses his demands as call for the outbreak of World War. The West is inflaming a nuclear war, and the puppet unstable Zelensky has turned into a monster whose hands can destroy the planet, the Russian Foreign ministry responded.
*
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ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102
PDF Edition: $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)
Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.
Reviews
“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.” –John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University
“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.” -Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations
Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction. –Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate This Article button below the author’s name.
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
***
The pound – at 1.11 cents to the dollar and 1.14 to the Euro is back at the levels it was before the Kwarteng budget.
Contrary to an original estimate the UK’s economy grew in the second quarter of this year by 0.2% revised up from -0.1% but there were 4 bank holidays in this period each probably costing about 0.16% of GDP (CEBR study 2012) so those 4 days would have added another 0.64%
The UK has the second lowest debt to GDP ration in the G7 countries:
Japan 266%, Italy 151%, Canada 118%, France 113%, UK 96%, Germany 70%
While the crisis in Germany and the Eurozone has been due to the boomerang effects of anti Russian sanctions, particularly in the gas market, The United Kingdom has proven natural gas reserves of 200 billion cubic meters, reserves have stayed at the same level since 2015 and it amounts to about 5 years of UK gas consumption.
Euro in Trouble
While in the last year the pound is down 17% against the US dollar the Euro is down 15%.
Two European banks Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank are in crisis. The latter was fined $14bn in the USA and they manage respectively $1.45 trillion and $1.3 trillion of assets. France’s 3 biggest banks have set aside $1.4bn for losses.
The European Systemic Risk Board has flagged “severe risks to financial stability” and Christine Lagarde, the President of the European Central Bank has warned that the risks to financial stability are “severe”.
32 French reactors out of service. EDF is forced to buy on the open market at extortionate rates. And that at a time of critical gas shortages due to western sanctions against Russia which supplies 40% of Europe’s gas. European gas prices are about 10 times what they are in the USA so the incentive for European (and especially German) industry to move to the USA is growing.
The USA is shipping record amounts of LNG to Europe to counter the loss of Russian gas but as Natural gas prices rise in the USA those exports could be cut off with even more catastrophic results for European industry.
While the Bank of England has been buying Government bonds to reduce interest levels the ECB has been buying Italian bonds (yields rose to 4.9%) in order to save the Euro. The more they buy the more inflationary it is and the more interest rates in Italy come under pressure – and the more they have to buy Italian bonds! The prospect of contaminating all Euro bonds is high – and EU pension funds hold Euros 800bn in bonds. If bonds collapse so do pensions!
If Gas for the giant German company BASF drops by 50% it will shut down completely with possible permanent damage. BASF produces fertilizer, petroleum refining, medicines, plastics, consumer products and critical industrial materials for the rest of German industry. 40% of BASF production is direct from gas 60% is used for energy.
At the moment Germany is running on stored gas. Ammonia production is down 70% in Western Europe (spring planting crisis no fertiliser) with a threat to diesel exhaust fluid and engine oil additives (ie the entire transport sector).
Metals smelting is down 50% with Eurometaux warning of permanent de-industrialistion. 50% of EU aluminium and zinc capacity has been forced offline and many companies have closed indefinitely.
Germany has nationalised its biggest gas importer Uniper and given domestic households priority over industry. Domestic vegetable production is threatened due to energy costs (up 10 times since 2021)
If, as is virtually certain unless the USA and Europe can make peace in Ukraine, Russia’s permanent redirection of energy eastwards means long lasting gas shortages and higher prices for European industry.
USA Destroys Russia-Germany Pipeline
There is no serious doubt about the fact that it was the USA which sabotaged the two pipelines Nordstream 1 and Nordstream 2 bringing gas from Russia to Germany not least because President Joe Biden, Russophobic State Department official Victoria Nuland and Republican Senator Ron Johnson are all on the record demanding the Nord Stream pipelines be taken out.
As Sea Power Magazine reported on June 14th, the US Navy’s 6th Fleet Task Force 68 was running underwater explosives removal drills in the exact area where these sabotage explosions took place.
Der Spiegel reported that the CIA had warned of an attack and a former Polish foreign minister Mr Sikorski said the US did it.
Jim Geraghty, senior political correspondent for the American political journal National Review, has also praised the attacks in a brief piece called Who Will Rid Me of This Meddlesome Pipeline? He is proud that he has been arguing about the importance of taking Nord Stream 2 offline since February and suggests that the attacks reflected his influence.
Having already described the mad nature of the Ukraine war we now have the madness of NATO allies attacking each other, threatening economic catastrophe and breaking a critical taboo that international infrastructure like pipelines should not be attacked in war.
Of course it is Europe with its massive network of internal and international oil, gas and electricity pipelines which is vulnerable – not the United States. If, as George Friedman of Geopolitical Futures says:
“The EU was created to ensure peace and prosperity, as its motto proclaims. Peace is shaky, and prosperity is slipping away. The Italian election signals a crisis.”
Then it is predominantly the USA which has been responsible for this collapse making a mockery of its vaunted gift to the world of its “rules based order”!
As if the lack of gas itself were not crucifying European industry the financial losses of the destruction of the pipelines will severely affect the corporations which needed them for supplies and cannot deliver and those which invested in them.
Wintershall Dea AG and PEG/ E.ON; the Dutch N.V. Nederlandse Gasunie and the French ENGIE.
Then there are those which financed NS2: Wintershall Dea and Uniper; Austrian OMV and British-Dutch Shell.
The Biden mad house has made as many enemies among its friends as it has world wide for its war on Russia through Ukraine. No wonder some 150 countries in the UN cannot be brought on board.
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Featured image is from Freenations
And Into The Fire
Fascist elements in post war Europe and the development of the European Union
By Rodney Atkinson
With contributions from William Dorich and Edward Spalton
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***
The secret British intelligence plot to blow up Crimea’s Kerch Bridge is revealed in internal documents and correspondence obtained exclusively by The Grayzone.
The Grayzone has obtained an April 2022 presentation drawn up for senior British intelligence officers hashing out an elaborate scheme to blow up Crimea’s Kerch Bridge with the involvement of specially trained Ukrainian soldiers. Almost six months after the plan was circulated, Kerch Bridge was attacked in an October 8th suicide bombing apparently overseen by Ukraine’s SBU intelligence services.
Detailed proposals for providing “audacious” support to Kiev’s “maritime raiding operations” were drafted at the request of Chris Donnelly, a senior British Army intelligence operative and veteran high ranking NATO advisor. The wide-ranging plan’s core component was “destruction of the bridge over the Kerch Strait.”
Documents and correspondence plotting the operation were provided to The Grayzone by an anonymous source.
The truck bombing of the Kerch Bridge differed operationally from the plot sketched therein. Yet, Britain’s evident interest in planning such an attack underscores the deep involvement of NATO powers in the Ukraine proxy war. At almost precisely the time that London reportedly sabotaged peace talks between Kiev and Moscow in April this year, British military intelligence operatives were drawing up blueprints to destroy a major Russian bridge crossed by thousands of civilians per day.
The roadmap was produced by Hugh Ward, a British military veteran. A number of strategies for helping Ukraine “pose a threat to Russian naval forces” in the Black Sea are outlined. The overriding objectives are stated as aiming to “degrade” Russia’s ability to blockade Kiev, “erode” Moscow’s “warfighting capability”, and isolate Russian land and maritime forces in Crimea by “denying resupply by sea and overland via Kerch bridge.”
In an email, Ward asked Donnelly to “please protect this document,” and it’s easy to see why. Of these assorted plans, only the “Kerch Bridge Raid CONOPS [concept of operation]” is subject to a dedicated annex at the conclusion of Ward’s report, underlining its significance.
The content amounts to direct, detailed advocacy for the commission of what could constitute a grave war crime. Markedly, in plotting ways to destroy a major passenger bridge, there is no reference to avoiding civilian casualties.
Across three separate pages, alongside diagrams, the author spells out the terms of the “mission” – “[disabling] the Kerch Bridge in a way that is audacious, disrupts road and rail access to Crimea and maritime access to the Sea of Azov.”
Ward suggests that destroying the bridge “would require a cruise missile battery to hit the two concrete pillars either side of the central steel arch, which will cause a complete structural failure,” and “prevent any road re-supply from the Russian mainland to Crimea and temporally [sic] disrupt the shipping lane.”
An alternative “scheme” entails a “team of attack divers or UUVs [unmanned underwater vehicles] equipped with limpet mines and linear cutting charges” targeting a “key weakness” and “design flaw” in the bridge’s pillars.
This “flaw” is “several thin pylons used to support the main span,” which were intended to allow strong currents to flow underneath the Bridge with minimal friction. Ward pinpoints a particular area in which the depth of water around a set of pillars was just 10 meters, making it the “weakest part” of the structure.
In related emails obtained by The Grayzone, Chris Donnelly, the senior British army intelligence operative and former NATO advisor, declared the proposals to be “very impressive indeed.”
Reached by phone, Hugh Ward did not deny that he had prepared the Kerch Bridge destruction blueprint for Chris Donnelly.
“I’m going to have a chat with Chris [Donnelly] and confirm with him what he’s prepared for me to release,” Ward told The Grayzone, when asked directly if he drafted the “audacious” plan.
Asked again to confirm his role in the blueprint, Ward paused, then said: “I can not confirm that. I’ll have a chat with Chris first.”
A suicide attack on a $4 billion transportation artery
At dawn on October 8th, an incendiary attack damaged the Kerch Bridge. A truck exploded, setting two oil tankers ablaze, causing two Crimea-bound spans of the roadway to collapse into the sea below, and killing three.
While the affected section was quickly repaired and traffic resumed the next day, Western media has celebrated the incident as the latest Russian embarrassment and failure in the conflict with Ukraine. In some cases, journalists openly cheered and joked about what could plausibly be categorized as a war crime that claimed civilian lives.
The suicide strike targeted a connecting structure between Crimea and mainland Russia constructed at a cost of $4 billion, and whose opening provided a major public relations victory for the Kremlin, reinforcing Moscow’s renewed control of the majority Russian-speaking territory.
Upon its unveiling in May 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin remarked:
“In different historical epochs, even under the tsar priests, people dreamed of building this bridge. Then they returned to this in the 1930s, the 40s, the 50s. And finally, thanks to your work and your talent, the miracle has happened.”
The Bridge has been heavily defended since February 24th, not least because it serves as a major transport route for military equipment to Russian soldiers in Ukraine. Russia has previously promised major reprisals in response to any strike on the structure.
Following the attack, widespread euphoria erupted among Ukrainians, Ukrainian authorities, and Ukraine supporters on social media. Oleksiy Danilov, head of Ukraine’s national security and defense council, posted a video of the burning bridge alongside a black-and-white clip of Marilyn Monroe singing Happy Birthday, Mr. President — a reference to Putin turning 70 the same day.
Furthermore, Ukrainian media has reported via an anonymous source “in law enforcement agencies” that the attack was carried out by the Security Service of Ukraine. Yet, high-ranking Ukrainian officials, including chief presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak, are now backtracking, claiming instead that the incident was a Russian false flag.
Such allegations have become commonplace in the wake of incidents in which Ukrainian – or Western – culpability seems likely or indeed certain, such as the Nord Stream pipeline explosions.
Laying the foundations of World War III
While the attack on Kerch Bridge did not involve specialist divers, underwater drones or cruise missiles, there are indications that Ward’s plans were shared with the Ukrainian government at the highest levels. In fact, Chris Donnelly forwarded them to former Lithuanian Minister of Defense Audrius Butkevičius, before introducing the pair by email.
A leading figure in Lithuania’s anti-Communist movement, Butkevičius has admitted to deliberately leading pro-independence fighters into Soviet snipers’ line of fire on January 13th 1991. This incident is sometimes referred to as Vilnius’ “Bloody Sunday,” and is officially observed as the Day of the Defenders of Freedom. Butkevičius and his confederates knew the maneuver would provoke mass casualties, further inflaming the local population against Soviet leadership and encourage regime change, which is why they orchestrated it.
More recently, Butkevičius co-owned Bulcommerce KS, a company that servedas “the main intermediary in the supply of Bulgarian weapons and ammunition to Ukraine through third countries,” for use in the civil war in Donbas.
Butkevičius has been credibly accused of working for British intelligence. Email exchanges with Donnelly confirm he is in contact with Guy Spindler, a long-time MI6 officer who was posted in London’s Moscow Embassy concurrently with the infamous Trump-Russia “dossier” author Christopher Steele.
Reached by phone and asked if he reviewed the “Audacious” plan to destroy Kerch Bridge, Spindler told The Grayzone: “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
Contemporary accounts suggest Spindler directly coordinated with Boris Yeltsin at the time of a failed coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991.
Butkevičius was also for many years a “senior fellow” at the Institute for Statecraft, a shadowy “charity” founded by Donnelly that manages a number of arm’s length military and intelligence operations on behalf of the British state and NATO, including the now notorious Foreign Office black propaganda unit, the Integrity Initiative.
Leaked Initiative files name Butkevičius as the organization’s key contact in Ukraine at the time of the country’s 2019 election. Three years earlier, he was one of the “escorting personnel” for five Ukrainian intelligence operatives whisked to London by the Institute for Statecraft in order to brief the British military on Russian “hybrid warfare” techniques. Alongside him was Vidmantas Eitutis, who at the time trained Ukraine’s army to conduct “active counterintelligence operations” in Luhansk.
In the Kerch Bridge sabotage proposal commissioned by Donnelly, Ward asks whether the Russian military knew how vulnerable the bridge supposedly was, and “what countermeasures could be expected” in response to its destruction (see image above).
The blitz of retaliatory missile strikes on Ukraine on October 10th provides a likely answer. It is also probable that if Ward’s outline was followed, Moscow’s reprisal would have been even more deadly, putting the lives of countless Ukrainians – and Russians – at significant risk.
Donnelly was clearly unmoved by such concerns, declaring the plans to be “very impressive indeed.”
A similar disregard for catastrophic consequences was evident in a private memo authored by Donnelly in March 2014, outlining “military measures” that Ukraine should take following Moscow’s seizure of Crimea.
Stating that, “if I were in charge I would get the following implemented,” Donnelly advocated mining Sevastopol harbor using a “car ferry,” destroying fighter jets on Crimean airfields “as a gesture that they are serious,” using a “big microwave anti-satellite weapon” to take down Russian space installations, and turning to the West for oil and gas supplies.
“I am trying to get this message across,” he concluded. These prescriptions have yet to be implemented, perhaps because they risk triggering an apocalyptic situation. Indeed, such “gestures” would amount to brazen provocations against a nuclear power, from which Ukraine’s oil and gas network was and remains exclusively designed to receive energy.
Yet it appears Donnelly and those around him would be content to see World War III erupt over Crimea. In fact, as the leaked documents obtained by The Grayzone will continue to demonstrate, provoking conflict between the West and Russia has long-been one of his ultimate objectives.
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Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions.
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***
“You know, when police start becoming their own executioners, where’s it gonna end? Pretty soon, you’ll start executing people for jaywalking, and executing people for traffic violations. Then you end up executing your neighbor ‘cause his dog pisses on your lawn.”—“Dirty Harry” Callahan, Magnum Force
When I say that warrior cops—hyped up on their own authority and the power of the badge—have not made America any safer or freer, I am not disrespecting any of the fine, decent, lawful police officers who take seriously their oath of office to serve and protect their fellow citizens, uphold the Constitution, and maintain the peace.
My concern rests with the cops who feel empowered to act as judge, jury and executioner.
These death squads believe they can kill, shoot, taser, abuse and steal from American citizens in the so-called name of law and order.
Image: An officer opens the driver’s door and orders Erik Cantu out of the vehicle in San Antonio, Texas, on Oct. 2, 2022.San Antonio Police Dept.
The driver, 17-year-old Erik Cantu and his girlfriend, were eating burgers inside the car when the police officer—suspecting the car might have been one that fled an attempted traffic stop the night before—abruptly opened the driver side door, ordered the teenager to get out, and when he did not comply, shot tentimes at the car, hitting Cantu multiple times.
Mind you, this wasn’t a life-or-death situation.
It was two teenagers eating burgers in a parking lot, and a cop fresh out of the police academy taking justice into his own hands.
This wasn’t an isolated incident, either.
In Hugo, Oklahoma, plain clothes police officers opened fire on a pickup truck parked in front of a food bank, heedless of the damage such a hail of bullets—26 shots were fired—could have on those in the vicinity. Three of the four children inside the parked vehicle were shot: a 4-year-old girl was shot in the head and ended up with a bullet in the brain; a 5-year-old boy received a skull fracture; and a 1-year-old girl had deep cuts on her face from gunfire or shattered window glass. The reason for the use of such excessive force? Police were searching for a suspect in a weeks-old robbery of a pizza parlor that netted $400.
Image: Philando Castile (Courtesy Of Castile Family)
In Arizona, a 7-year-old girl watched panic-stricken as a state trooper pointed his gun at her and her father during a traffic stop and reportedly threated to shoot her father in the back (twice) based on the mistakenbelief that they were driving a stolen rental car.
This is how we have gone from a nation of laws—where the least among us had just as much right to be treated with dignity and respect as the next person (in principle, at least)—to a nation of law enforcers (revenue collectors with weapons) who treat the citizenry like suspects and criminals.
The lesson for all of us: at a time when police have almost absolute discretion to decide who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and how harshly they can deal with the citizens they were appointed to “serve and protect”—and a “fear” for officer safety is used to justify all manner of police misconduct—“we the people” are at a severe disadvantage.
Add a traffic stop to the mix, and that disadvantage increases dramatically.
This free-handed approach to traffic stops has resulted in drivers being stopped for windows that are too heavily tinted, for driving too fast, driving too slow, failing to maintain speed, following too closely, improper lane changes, distracted driving, screeching a car’s tires, and leaving a parked car door open for too long.
Motorists can also be stopped by police for driving near a bar or on a road that has large amounts of drunk driving, driving a certain make of car (Mercedes, Grand Prix and Hummers are among the most ticketed vehicles), having anything dangling from the rearview mirror (air fresheners, handicap parking permits, toll transponders or rosaries), and displaying pro-police bumper stickers.
Equally appalling, in Heien v. North Carolina, the U.S. Supreme Court—which has largely paved the way for the police and other government agents to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance—allowed police officers to stop drivers who appear nervous, provided they provide a palatable pretext for doing so.
Traffic stops aren’t just dangerous. They can be downright deadly.
Patrick Lyoya was pulled over for having a mismatched license plate. The unarmed man was shot in the back of the head while on the ground during a subsequent struggle with a Michigan police officer.
Levar Jones was stopped for a seatbelt offense, just as he was getting out of his car to enter a convenience store. Directed to show his license, Jones leaned into his car to get his wallet, only to be shot four times by the “fearful” officer. Jones was also unarmed.
Bobby Canipe was pulled over for having an expired registration. When the 70-year-old reached into the back of his truck for his walking cane, the officer fired several shots at him, hitting him once in the abdomen.
Dontrell Stevens was stopped “for not bicycling properly.” The officer pursuing him “thought the way Stephens rode his bike was suspicious. He thought the way Stephens got off his bike was suspicious.” Four seconds later, sheriff’s deputy Adams Lin shot Stephens four times as he pulled out a black object from his waistband. The object was his cell phone. Stephens was unarmed.
That police are choosing to fatally resolve these encounters by using their guns on fellow citizens speaks volumes about what is wrong with policing in America today, where police officers are being dressed in the trappings of war, drilled in the deadly art of combat, and trained to look upon “every individual they interact with as an armed threat and every situation as a deadly force encounter in the making.”
Keep in mind, from the moment those lights start flashing and that siren goes off, we’re all in the same boat. Yet it’s what happens after you’ve been pulled over that’s critical.
Trying to predict the outcome of any encounter with the police is a bit like playing Russian roulette: most of the time you will emerge relatively unscathed, although decidedly poorer and less secure about your rights, but there’s always the chance that an encounter will turn deadly.
Survival is key.
Technically, you have the right to remain silent (beyond the basic requirement to identify yourself and show your registration). You have the right to refuse to have your vehicle searched. You have the right to film your interaction with police. You have the right to ask to leave. You also have the right to resist an unlawful order such as a police officer directing you to extinguish your cigarette, put away your phone or stop recording them.
However, there is a price for asserting one’s rights. That price grows more costly with every passing day.
If you ask cops and their enablers what Americans should do to stay alive during encounters with police, they will tell you to comply, cooperate, obey, not resist, not argue, not make threatening gestures or statements, avoid sudden movements, and submit to a search of their person and belongings.
Unfortunately, in the American police state, compliance is no guarantee that you will survive an encounter with the police with your life and liberties intact.
More often than not, it seems as if all you have to do to be shot and killed by police is stand a certain way, or move a certain way, or hold something—anything—that police could misinterpret to be a gun, or ignite some trigger-centric fear in a police officer’s mind that has nothing to do with an actual threat to their safety.
Now politicians, police unions, law enforcement officials and individuals who are more than happy to march in lockstep with the police state make all kinds of excuses to justify these shootings. However, to suggest that a good citizen is a compliant citizen and that obedience will save us from the police state is not only recklessly irresponsible, but it is also deluded.
In a nutshell, the following are your basic rights when it comes to interactions with the police as outlined in the Bill of Rights:
You have the right under the First Amendment to ask questions and express yourself. You have the right under the Fourth Amendment to not have your person or your property searched by police or any government agent unless they have a search warrant authorizing them to do so. You have the right under the Fifth Amendment to remain silent, to not incriminate yourself and to request an attorney. Depending on which state you live in and whether your encounter with police is consensual as opposed to your being temporarily detained or arrested, you may have the right to refuse to identify yourself. Not all states require citizens to show their ID to an officer (although drivers in all states must do so).
As a rule of thumb, you should always be sure to clarify in any police encounter whether or not you are being detained, i.e., whether you have the right to walk away. That holds true whether it’s a casual “show your ID” request on a boardwalk, a stop-and-frisk search on a city street, or a traffic stop for speeding or just to check your insurance. If you feel like you can’t walk away from a police encounter of your own volition—and more often than not you can’t, especially when you’re being confronted by someone armed to the hilt with all manner of militarized weaponry and gear—then for all intents and purposes, you’re essentially under arrest from the moment a cop stops you. Still, it doesn’t hurt to clarify that distinction.
While technology is always going to be a double-edged sword, with the gadgets that are the most useful to us in our daily lives—GPS devices, cell phones, the internet—being the very tools used by the government to track us, monitor our activities, and generally spy on us, cell phones are particularly useful for recording encounters with the police and have proven to be increasingly powerful reminders to police that they are not all powerful.
Knowing your rights is only part of the battle, unfortunately.
As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the danger arises when the burden of proof is reversed, “we the people” are assumed guilty, and we have to exercise our rights while simultaneously attempting to prove our innocence to trigger-happy cops with no understanding of the Bill of Rights.
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***
Gabbard should have done this years ago, but it is better late than never.
I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue & stoke anti-white racism, actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms, are… pic.twitter.com/oAuTnxZldf
Now, let’s take a look at a Newsweek write-up on Gabbard’s decision.
Gabbard, who unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in the 2020 election, made the announcement in a video posted on Twitter, in which she accused the Democrats of stoking “anti-white racism,” and “dragging us ever closer to nuclear war.”
The upper echelon of the ruling Democrats is not for or against an individual based solely on his or her skin color. The only thing that matters is class and how much money and power an individual has. There is no real support for Black Lives Matter or less radical groups. It is simply a tool for diversion and control.
The same principle applies to Republicans, including so-called MAGA Republicans. Each group or rather faction of the ruling political class has its own social, political, and economic schtick to attract different elements of a culturally diverse nation. Overall effectiveness hinges on slightly different approaches pushing the same basic neoliberal doctrine.
The vast majority of Congress and the political class can be said to be almost exclusively upper middle class to mega-wealthy.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of America has slipped into the lower middle class, what used to be called the working class. Millions more are living in poverty where there is growing childhood malnutrition and widespread violence. The Democrat elite lies when they say they are champions of the poor and downtrodden. Both Democrats and Republicans—essentially a uni-party representing corporate and banking interests—pay lip service and deliver crumbs to the vast majority of America as it is pushed deeper into poverty.
On the topic of war, Democrats have shown, especially in regard to Ukraine, they are quite frankly dangerously insane.
Historians and high school history teachers say liberal Democrats are traditionally antiwar, citing the countercultural values of the 1960s resistance to the Vietnam War.
All of that is nonsense. Democrat Truman used two atomic bombs on Japanese civilians. Democrat Kennedy sent advisers to Vietnam (following the failures of French colonialism in SE Asia). Johnson escalated Vietnam. Carter set the stage for Afghanistan and the Mujahideen that would splinter into al-Qaeda. All these Democrats were staunch “anti-communists,” especially JFK.
Clinton and NATO bombed an Eastern European country for over seventy days. Clinton also killed civilians with cruise missiles in Iraq and bombed a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan. Obama and Clinton’s wife along with NATO bombed Libya, where 30,000 died, and fueled horrific violence in Syria in an attempt to overthrow Bashar al-Assad.
Now comes the Democrat Biden and the war in Ukraine.
This is not to say political class Republicans are peaceniks. Nixon escalated Johnson’s escalation in Vietnam and spread the bloodshed and horror into Laos and Cambodia, the latter so destabilized it ended up with Pol Pot and around a third of the population butchered.
Reagan illegally supported a terrorist group in violation of the Bolan Act. He sent warships to flatten villages in the mountains of Lebanon. His warplanes killed the adopted daughter of Moammar Gadaffi, a fate Moammar would later suffer himself for the mistake of taking the USG at its word.
And, finally, the George Bushes, father, and son, instigators of two wars on one country, Iraq, with a long and inhumanely punishing sanctions regime in between, enforced by Clinton.
The corporate media is rife with lies about Russia and nuclear war. Russia has said it will resort to nuclear weapons if its existence is threatened. Vladimir Putin did not say he will use nukes in what’s left of Ukraine.
Now that Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk have voted to join the Russian Federation, any attacks on the Donbas will be considered an attack on Russia proper.
It really was the only way to stop the mass murder of ethnic Russians in Ukraine committed by Nazi-leaning ultranationalists. They have bombed and attacked fellow Ukrainians of Russian ethnicity since 2014 and the illegal USG coup that deposed the elected leader of the country. The people of Donetsk have pleaded for help for years, only to be ignored by the “democratic” “international community” of neoliberal captured governments.
Yes, Democrats should be outraged about war. Short of self-defense, it is never acceptable. But the problem here is that they are only selectively outraged, as directed by the elders of the Democrat faction of the USG Uniparty. Loyal Democrats did not complain when their hero Obama ramped up the illegal drone war (extrajudicially killing Americans, in addition to foreigners) and put together the unwarranted war that turned Libya from the most advanced country in Africa into a violent slave market.
As you may have noticed, I am not linking anything here. I have done that hundreds of times since nine eleven.
Most of what I said above is historical fact. It can be researched. If you believe I am a “conspiracy theorist,” I dare you to check out the facts, that is if you can get an accurate read with the new search engine ranking algorithms that require a deep drill, extra work, creative search criteria, and often dead ends where there was not before. I count the loss of a stellar research database, the History Commons, in the “misinformation” reshuffle of reality.
It is difficult not to be cynical. There is literally next to no opposition to this war, only angry rhetoric and cartoonish representations of Putin, and half-ass prayers for the victims of Ukraine on social media where the most outrageous and transparent lies become memes with grade school level insults hurled about, thus keeping the division alive as the world economy begins to take on water and a nuclear WWIII seems all but inevitable.
Newsweek knows there are murderous Nazi goons in Ukraine. It has reported as much. The liberal alternative press has posted a long list of articles on the Nazi problem in Ukraine. Do you hear about that now? How it just might have something to do with what is now going on?
No, you hear crickets.
Tulsi:
I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue & stoke anti-white racism, actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms, hostile to people of faith & spirituality, demonize the police & protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans, believe in open borders, weaponize the national security state to go after political opponents, and above all, dragging us ever closer to nuclear war.
All very true—and will get her forever marked as a “conservative Republican,” and thus easily tossed around in the divisive political game that has gone into hyperspace since covid.
Finally, Gabbard is calling for Democrats with any shred of human dignity left—there are sadly few—to leave the party. This can be ignored—especially if it does not pick up any traction.
It just might. I hope it does.
I think the German psychologist and socialist Wilhelm Reich was correct when he observed in his largely unknown little book, “Listen, Little Man,” that the average person would rather leave the dirty work to the political psychopaths and remain blissfully unaware of the crimes committed in their names.
“I believe in a government that is of, by, and for the people,” she said. “Unfortunately, today’s Democratic Party does not. Instead, it stands for a government of, by, and for the powerful elite. I’m calling on my fellow common sense independent-minded Democrats to join me in leaving the Democratic Party.”
I hope you can, Tulsi. But again, I am by nature a cynic, especially in regard to the state and war.
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Kurt Nimmo writes on Kurt Nimmo on Geopolitics where this article was originally published. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: U.S. Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard speaking with attendees at the 2019 California Democratic Party State Convention at the George R. Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California. Credit: Gage Skidmore/ Flickr)
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***
The seven-month-old war between NATO and Russia in Ukraine escalated Monday, after Russia carried out a series of attacks against largely civilian infrastructures throughout Ukraine.
Some 14 people were killed and 97 injured in the strikes, according to Ukrainian officials, and power was disrupted in more than half the country’s regions. The Wall Street Journal reported that most strikes were “hitting electricity substations and other targets outside city centers, away from civilian homes.”
On Friday, the Ukrainian Special Forces orchestrated a terrorist suicide bombing on the Kerch Bridge, which connects Russia to Crimea. The move came after the former commanding general of the US Army in Europe, General Ben Hodges, urged Ukraine to “drop” the bridge, and current US officials publicly gave a green light to attack it.
Days after the attack, the aim of the Kerch Bridge bombing comes into sharper view. Its purpose was to provoke a military response by Russia against civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, which could then be used to justify a massive increase in US-NATO involvement in the conflict.
For months, US officials had been expressing concern that Russia had not been “provoked” into expanding the war into western Ukraine, which had been largely spared in recent months.
Last month, former US Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor complained to The Hill that, despite the fact that the White House had provided “larger, more capable, longer-distance, heavier weapons to the Ukrainians,” the “Russians have not reacted.” Up to this point, Taylor said, the “Russians have kind of bluffed and blustered, but they haven’t been provoked.”
With Tuesday’s attack, Russian authorities had, in fact, allowed themselves to be “provoked,” setting the stage for an even more massive escalation of US-NATO involvement in the war.
The attack on the Kerch Bridge was timed to take place just days before the NATO defense ministers’ meeting on October 12 and 13, which is expected to expand the level of direct NATO involvement in the conflict.
A senior Biden administration official interviewed by the Washington Post called the escalation of the war a “turning point.”
The attacks, in the words of the Washington Post, raise the question of “whether the United States and its partners may have to move beyond the concept of helping Ukraine defend itself, and instead more forcefully facilitate a Ukrainian victory.”
The Post wrote:
“So far, the US supply effort has been deliberative and process-oriented in the kinds of weapons it provides, and the speed at which it provides them, so as not to undercut its highest priority of avoiding a direct clash between Russia and the West. That strategy is likely to be part of the agenda at Tuesday’s emergency meeting of G7 leaders and a gathering of NATO defense ministers later in the week.”
In other words, dominant sections of the US political establishment will use the attacks as a pretext to carry out a long-planned escalation of the war.
In this way, the attacks on civilian infrastructure ordered by Putin play right into the hands of the US and NATO, which had hoped that by provoking Russia, they would be given a pretext to intervene more directly in the war and ensure Russia’s military defeat.
Ahead of the meeting, US officials are demanding an expansion of arms shipments to Ukraine.
“I pledge to use all means at my disposal to accelerate support for the people of Ukraine and to starve Russia’s war machine,” said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez.
CIA Democrat Representative Elissa Slotkin tweeted that the dispatch of more air defense systems for Ukraine was “urgent,” adding,
“Providing these systems is a defensive—not escalatory—step, and our European friends need to step up along with us to get the Ukrainians what they need.”
The Wall Street Journal in an editorial demanded that the United States “provide Ukraine with more weapons, including better air defenses,” declaring, “Mr. Putin won’t end his war until it becomes clear the cost of continuing it is too high.”
Speaking to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday, Biden “pledged to continue providing Ukraine with the support needed to defend itself, including advanced air defense systems,” according to a summary of the call from the White House.
On Tuesday, Zelensky will address a meeting of the G7, which is likewise expected to pledge more military support to the conflict. Zelensky will, according to the Guardian, “emphasize anti-aircraft systems, and repeat the longstanding demand for longer-range missiles.”
Ukrainian officials claimed that Russia conducted missile attacks against more than 20 cities, including the capital, Kiev. According to the Ukrainian General Staff, Russian forces launched more than 84 cruise missiles and 24 drone attacks.
The Institute for the Study of War reported that
“Russian forces launched missiles from 10 strategic bombers operating in the Caspian Sea and from Nizhny Novgorod, Iskander short-range ballistic missile systems, and 6 missile carriers in the Black Sea.”
In a sober assessment of the military consequences of Monday’s strikes, the Institute for the Study of War wrote,
“Ukrainian and Western intelligence have previously reported that Russia has spent a significant portion of its high-precision missiles, and Putin likely knows better than Medvedev or the milbloggers that he cannot sustain attacks of this intensity for very long.”
It continued,
“The October 10 Russian attacks wasted some of Russia’s dwindling precision weapons against civilian targets, as opposed to militarily significant targets.”
It added that
“Ukrainian air defenses also shot down half of the Russian drones and cruise missiles,” and noted that “Russia’s use of its limited supply of precision weapons in this role may deprive Putin of options to disrupt ongoing Ukrainian counter-offensives in Kherson and Luhansk Oblasts.”
“Throughout the war, the Russian military has had problems with target selection and the accuracy of their missiles,” Michael Kofman, director of Russia studies at CNA, told the New York Times. “As the war goes on, their supply of precision-guided weapons has dwindled, and they are using weapons that are not suited to land targets or that are old and unreliable.”
Meanwhile, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he had ordered troops to deploy together with Russian forces near the Ukrainian border. Lukashenko declared that
“Strikes on the territory of Belarus are not just being discussed in Ukraine today, but are also being planned.”
Poland urged its citizens to leave Belarus “with available commercial and private means.”
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On March 11, 2022, President Biden reassured the American public and the world that the United States and its NATO allies were not at war with Russia. “We will not fight a war with Russia in Ukraine,” said Biden. “Direct conflict between NATO and Russia is World War III, something we must strive to prevent.”
Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s prime minister, grabbed the global limelight a few years ago, making headlines by stating she wanted to put “kindness” into politics. In 2019, Foreign Policy, a publication closely associated with the Atlantic Council and the US State Department, published the article ‘The Kindness Quotient’, a glowing promotion of Ardern.
US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, says the government is working closely with Congress to review alternatives regarding ties with Saudi Arabia. That’s a day after the 23 countries, together known as OPEC+ agreed to reduce the output by 2 million barrels per day from November.
In 1929, a Pashtun tribal leader in nearby Afghanistan named Bhadshah Khan – a peer of Gandhi – became an important ally by inaugurating Afghanistan’s indigenous non-violent movement known as the Khudai-Khidmatgar – the servants of God.
In November 2010, when now President Vladimir Putin was Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, he proposed “the creation of a harmonious economic community stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok.” The European Union never accepted that vision. Three years later, the United States staged a coup d’état in Ukraine with the complicity of the European Union and its member countries.
Last week PayPal, an online service for making and receiving payments, announced that at PayPal’s “sole discretion” $2,500 would be seized from accounts of those PayPal decided were guilty of spreading misinformation.“Misinformation” is whatever some speech control office at PayPal doesn’t like or dissent from official narratives.
In less than three years the Group – call it what you will – that engineered this phoney pandemic, shut down the entire world within weeks, and pushed a campaign of fear and control that had the best and brightest shilling for masks, lockdown, universal ‘vaccination’ and quarantines – this Cabal has managed to inoculate, at the time of writing, 68.2 percent of the world’s population.
Last week the New York Times ran a shocking article claiming that the US intelligence community believes the Ukrainian government to be responsible for the August attack that killed Darya Dugina, the daughter of a prominent Russian philosopher.
At least 450 kg of explosives were employed in the blast. Not on the truck, but mounted inside the Crimea Bridge span itself. The white truck was just a decoy by the terrorists “to create a mirage of cause and effect.” When the truck reached the point on the bridge where the explosives were mounted, the explosion took place.
The European Parliament requested a research report “Health Impact of 5G” which was released in July 2021 and concluded that commonly used RFR frequencies (450 to 6000 MHz) are probably carcinogenic for humans and clearly affect male fertility with possible adverse effects on the development of embryos, fetuses and newborns.
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The European Parliament requested a research report “Health Impact of 5G” which was released in July 2021 and concluded that commonly used RFR frequencies (450 to 6000 MHz) are probably carcinogenic for humans and clearly affect male fertility with possible adverse effects on the development of embryos, fetuses and newborns.
Cell towers, 5G Networks and 4G Small Cells Emit Radiofrequency (RF) Radiation
Studies find RF exposure elevated in buildings located close to cell antennas.
Baltrėnas et al 2012 investigated RF power density levels from cell phone antennas located 35 meters away from a 10-story apartment building. The transmitting antennas were approximately at the same height as the 6th floor of the building. The researchers found the highest RF at floors 5–7. The RF at the 6th floor balcony was three times higher than the 3rd floor balcony. The RF power density at the 6th floor was about 15 times the RF measures at the first floor.
The study “Radiofrequency radiation from nearby mobile phone base stations-a case comparison of one low and one high exposure apartment “ published in Oncology Letters (Koppel et al 2019) found that the apartment with high RF exposure had outdoor areas as close as 6 meters (about 19.6 feet) from the cell antenna array. In contrast, the low exposure apartment’s balcony had cell antennas at 40 meters (about 131 feet) away. The researchers also found that both apartments had good mobile phone reception and “Therefore, installation of base stations to risky places cannot be justified using the good reception requirement argument.”
A 2017 case report of RF levels in an apartment close to two groups of rooftop cellular antennas used an exposimeter to measure levels of different types of RF in the apartment and balconies including TV, FM, TETRA emergency services, 2G GSM, 3G UMTS, 4G LTE, DECT cordless, Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz and WiMAX. The closest transmitting antennas were at a base station 6 meters from the balcony. The researchers documented a number of important findings. First, 97.9% of the mean RF radiation was caused by downlink from the 2G, 3G and 4G base stations. (Downlink means frequencies emitted “down” from the base station cellular antennas.) The researchers found that if the base station RF emissions were excluded, the RF radiation in the children’s bedrooms was reduced ~99%. The researchers conclude that, “due to the current high RF radiation, the apartment is not suitable for long‑term living, particularly for children who may be more sensitive than adults.”
Outdoor levels of RF are increasing from the densification of wireless networks
A study measuring RF EMF exposure in the European cities of Basel, Ghent and Brussels found total RF exposure levels in all investigated outdoor locations had increased up to 57.1% in one year (April 2011 to March 2012). The RF increase was most notably observed in outdoor locations due to mobile phone base stations. Urbinello et al., 2014
A 2018 study published in Oncology Letters documented measurements of “unnecessarily high” radiofrequency (RF) radiation levels in several locations in Stockholm, Sweden. The authors conclude “Using high-power levels causes an excess health risk to many people. Even higher RF radiation is expected when 5G is implemented.”
A 2018 study by Hardell et al published in the World Academy of Sciences Journal found the RF levels at Järntorget square in Stockholm Old Town Sweden (measured in April, 2016) were only one order of magnitude lower than the RF levels associated with an increased incidence of tumors in the Ramazzini radiofrequency animal study (Falcioni et al 2018) which exposed rats to a lifetime of RF mimicking cell tower base station exposures. The authors concluded that, “These results indicate that an increased cancer risk may be the situation for individuals staying at the square, primarily for those working in shops and cafés around the square. We have not measured RF radiation emissions in apartments around the square. It cannot be excluded that at certain places, the radiation may even be higher…”
A 2017 study of Royal Castle, Supreme Court, three major squares and the Swedish Parliament found despite the hidden architecturally camouflaged antennas, the passive exposure to RF radiation from cell antennas can be higher than RF levels associated with non thermal biological effects. Some of the highest levels were from antennas closer to the ground and targeted towards the square. The researchers note that the heaviest RF load falls on people working or living near hotspots, compared to people that are walking by and briefly exposed. RF measurements from earlier published studies were compared to the 2017 measurements indicating that “it is clear from our present and previous studies that the level of ambient RF radiation exposure is increasing.”
A 2016 study at Stockholm Central Railway Station in Sweden documented higher RF levels in areas where base station antennas were located closest to people. Importantly, the RF from the downlink of UMTS, LTE, GSM base station antennas contributed to most of the radiation levels.
A 2022 study in the World Academy of Sciences Journal measured levels of radiofrequency radiation (RFR), from wireless networks including 5G, in the city of Columbia, South Carolina and found the highest RFR levels in areas where the cell phone base station antennas were placed on top of utility poles, street lamps, traffic lights or other posts near to the street. When the scientists compared their 2022 findings to a 2019 published review on the mean outdoor exposure level of European cities, they found the Columbia, South Carolina measurements to be the highest. The Columbia, S.C. study concluded that the highest exposure areas were due to two reasons: cell phone base antennas on top of high-rise buildings provide “good cell coverage reaching far away, but creating elevated exposure to the radiofrequency electromagnetic fields at the immediate vicinity; and cell phone base station antennas installed on top of utility poles have placed the radiation source closer to humans walking on street level.”
Image from Koppel T and Koppel T: Measurements of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields, including 5G, in the city of Columbia, SC, USA. World Acad Sci J 4: 22, 2022
Published Reviews That Recommend Cell Towers Be Distanced Away From Homes and Schools
An analysis of 100 studies published in Environmental Reviews found ~80% showed biological effects near towers. “As a general guideline, cell base stations should not be located less than 1500 ft from the population, and at a height of about 150 ft.” (Levitt 2010)
A review published in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health found people living less than 500 m from base station antennas had an increased adverse neuro-behavioral symptoms and cancer in eight of the ten epidemiological studies (Khurana 2011).
A paper by human rights experts documented the accumulating science indicating safety is not assured and considered the issue within a human rights framework to protect vulnerable populations from environmental pollution. “We conclude that, because scientific knowledge is incomplete, a precautionary approach is better suited to State obligations under international human rights law.” (Roda and Perry 2014)
Cell Towers Radiofrequency Radiation and Cancer: World Health Organization International Agency for Research on Cancer
In 2011, radiofrequency radiation was classified as a Class 2B possible carcinogen by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (WHO/IARC). The WHO/IARC scientists clarified that this determination was for RFR from any source be it cell phones, wireless devices or cell towers. Since 2011, the published peer-reviewed scientific evidence associating RFR to cancer and other adverse effects has significantly increased.
In 2019, the WHO/IARC advisory committee recommended that radiofrequency radiation be re-evaluated as a “high” priority in light of the new research. The date of the re-evaluation has not been set.
European Parliament requested a research report “Health Impact of 5G” which was released in July 2021 and concluded that commonly used RFR frequencies (450 to 6000 MHz) are probably carcinogenic for humans and clearly affect male fertility with possible adverse effects on the development of embryos, fetuses and newborns.
A large-scale animal study published in Environmental Research found rats exposed to cell tower emission RF levels had elevated cancers, the very same cancers also found in the US National Toxicology Program animal study of cell phone RF. Falcioni 2018
A study published in Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine found changes in blood considered biomarkers predictive of cancer in people living closer to cell antenna arrays (Zothansiama 2017).
A study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found higher exposure to cell arrays linked to higher mortality from all cancer and specifically lung and breast cancer (Rodrigues 2021).
A 10 year study published in Science of the Total Environment on cell phone antennas by the local Municipal Health Department and several universities in Brazil found a clearly elevated relative risk of cancer mortality at residential distances of 500 meters or less from cell phone towers (Dode 2011).
A study commissioned by the Government of Styria, Austria found a significant cancer incidence in the area around the transmitter as well as significant exposure-effect relationships between radiofrequency radiation exposure and the incidence of breast cancers and brain tumors (Oberfeld 2008).
A review published in Experimental Oncology found “alarming epidemiological and experimental data on possible carcinogenic effects of long term exposure to low intensity microwave (MW) radiation.” Even a year of operation of a powerful base transmitting station for mobile communication reportedly resulted in a dramatic increase of cancer incidence among the population living nearby (Yakymenko 2011).
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Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s prime minister, grabbed the global limelight a few years ago, making headlines by stating she wanted to put “kindness” into politics. In 2019, Foreign Policy, a publication closely associated with the Atlantic Council and the US State Department, published the article ‘The Kindness Quotient’, a glowing promotion of Ardern.
The strategic marketing of Ardern in various publications has focused on her likeability, pro-environment stance, compassionate values and collaborative nature. To further appeal to liberal sentiments, she was said to represent everything Trump is not.
Ardern belongs to a set of global leaders who were groomed for their positions through the World Economic Forum (WEF) Young Global Leaders programme. Yes, that WEF – the elitist organisation where hard-nose billionaires and their handmaidens gather to set out policies aligned with powerful business interests.
The charm offensive that Ardern’s promoters undertook was an investment. She delivered on COVID and is now expected to sell more questionable policies to the public.
Arden recently stated at the UN:
“As leaders, we are rightly concerned that even the most light-touch approaches to disinformation could be misinterpreted as hostile to values of free speech that we value so highly.”
She went on to state:
“How do you tackle climate change if people believe it does not exist? How do you ensure the human rights of others are upheld as they are subjected to hateful and dangerous ideology.”
She continued by saying speech (that the authorities disagree with) can be a weapon of war.
During COVID, Ardern urged citizens to trust the government and its agencies for all information and stated:
“Otherwise, dismiss anything else. We will continue to be your single source of truth.”
Throughout that period, in the US, Fauci presented himself as ‘the science’. In New Zealand, Ardern’s government was ‘the truth’. It was similar in countries across the world – different figures but the same approach.
When anyone in power or any institution lays claim to ‘the truth’, history shows we are on a slippery slope to silencing thought and dissent that we disagree with.
Like other political leaders, during COVID, Ardern clamped down on civil liberties with the full force of state violence on hand to ensure compliance with ‘the truth’.
Clearly, Ardern is not alone here. Trudeau, Biden and others display Orwellian undertones as they talk of the need to challenge ‘misinformation’ and those who question ‘the truth’. The thin end of a very wide authoritarian wedge.
It seems critical analysis and open debate are fine as long as those involved keep within the framework of what is deemed supportive of the narrative. Chomsky was correct on that.
We are often urged to ‘trust the science’ and accept that the ‘science is decided’ on various issues. We heard this on the COVID issue, when we were told governments are ‘following the science’, while they and the big tech companies censored world-renowned scientists and opposing views and opinions. In ‘following the science’, conflicts of interest were rife and notions of objectivity, open disclosure and organised scepticism – core values of scientific endeavour – were trampled on.
Those who questioned the COVID narrative were smeared, shut down and censored – the playbook of Big Pharma, Big Tobacco, Big Ag and authoritarian governments down the years.
Is anyone who questions and wants a more open debate on climate change or whether such change is occurring as stated or will lead to ‘extinction’ to be charged with disseminating misinformation?
Is questioning the orthodoxy of the zero-carbon policy agenda to be shut down and those who challenge it to be labelled ‘extremists’.
Ardern asks: How do you tackle climate change if people believe it does not exist?
But it is also pertinent to ask: How do you tackle it if you accept it exists?
Even if we accept humanity is in trouble and facing a genuine climate emergency, people should at least be able to question the current ‘green’ agenda based on a ‘stakeholder capitalism’ strategy (governments and others facilitating the needs of private capital) that has co-opted genuine concerns about the environment to pursue new multi-billion-dollar global investment opportunities – described in the 2020 report Nature for Sale by Friends of the Earth.
If you read that report, you might conclude that we are witnessing a type of green imperialism that is using genuine concerns about the environment to pursue a familiar agenda of extractivism, colonisation and commodification – the same old mindset, greenwashed and rolled out for public consumption.
For some, things seem set to remain the same – business as usual.
Economic crisis
But in March 2022, BlackRock’s Rob Kapito warned that a “very entitled” generation of people would soon have to face shortages for the first time in their lives as some goods grow scarce because of rising inflation.
“We have a very entitled generation that has never had to sacrifice.”
He, of course, was referring to ordinary people, not the high-flying class of the mega-carbon-footprint multi-millionaires and billionaires who will continue to live life to the max and cash in on their various investments and ventures.
Kapito talked about the situation in Ukraine and COVID being responsible for the current crisis, conveniently ignoring the inflationary impact of the trillions pumped into imploding financial markets in 2019 and 2020 (dwarfing the crisis of 2008) and a moribund economic system his ilk have milked dry to the point of collapse.
Kapito is a co-founder of Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager which exerts enormous influence on monetary policy in the US and Europe. According to Salary.com, Kapito, as the president of BlackRock, made $26,750,780 in total compensation in 2021. Of this, $1,250,000 was received as a salary, $9,700,000 was received as a bonus, $15,125,180 was awarded as stock and $675,600 came from other types of compensation.
Neither Kapito nor any of the hegemonic, unimaginably entitled and unelected billionaire class will have to experience any hardships in the coming years. No, they will be responsible for inflicting it on you. The same class of people who designed and profited from a strident neoliberalism based on deregulation and privatisation – a system now in collapse and responsible for the current crisis and the immiseration of hundreds of millions.
In the 1980s, to legitimise the neoliberal agenda, governments rolled out an ideological onslaught, pressing home the notion of individual rights and the primacy of the market. Now, there is a new ideological shift towards a great reset – again being driven by neoliberalism, this time, its collapse.
Arden’s utterances on the dangers of free speech, the singularity of ‘truth’ and the implicit shift towards authoritarianism must be viewed within the context of managing the economic crisis. What she says reveals how the financial and political elites based on Wall Street, in Washington and in the City of London are thinking.
The authorities fear blowback in terms of mass dissent. Liz Truss, the UK prime minister wants to place ‘legal curbs’ on striking trade unions as many of them take action to counter the ‘cost of living’ crisis. There is also the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts (PCSC) Act which came into force in June and threatens citizens’ rights, not least the right to protest.
It therefore comes as no surprise that, today, individual rights and free speech are under threat. The ultimate control mechanism would be linking central bank digital currencies to personal carbon footprints, spending and dissent in an age of economic turmoil. Trudeau gave the game away on that when he hit protesting truckers where it hurt most – denying access to their bank accounts.
How long before ‘misinformation’ and challenging ‘the truth’ becomes thought crime and – as Jacinda Arden might put it – ‘cruel to be kind’ actions are taken against those who challenge dominant state-corporate narratives?
Well, not long because we have already witnessed it during the last few years.
Tyranny is the type of ‘kindness’ we don’t need.
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Renowned author Colin Todhunter specialises in development, food and agriculture. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) in Montreal.
Featured image: Ardern speaking during the session “Safeguarding Our Planet” at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, 22 January 2019 (Photo by Foundations World Economic Forum – Safeguarding Our Planet at the Annual Meeting 2019, licensed under CC BY 2.
Read Colin Todhunter’s e-Book entitled
Food, Dispossession and Dependency. Resisting the New World Order
We are currently seeing an acceleration of the corporate consolidation of the entire global agri-food chain. The high-tech/big data conglomerates, including Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Google, have joined traditional agribusiness giants, such as Corteva, Bayer, Cargill and Syngenta, in a quest to impose their model of food and agriculture on the world.
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Tensions are heating up between the United States and Saudi Arabia after Riyadh-led OPEC and allied oil producing countries announced a big output cut.
US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, says the government is working closely with Congress to review alternatives regarding ties with Saudi Arabia. That’s a day after the 23 countries, together known as OPEC+ agreed to reduce the output by 2 million barrels per day from November.
Oil producers insisted they want to boost the crude market already reeling from the global economic crisis. But the decision came amid soaring energy prices. Washington harshly reacted to the move by OPEC+, calling it a “shortsighted decision”. It also vowed to reduce OPEC’s control over energy prices. The US has warned the oil cartel about the crippling consequences of its measure for the world economy.
Interview questions referred to the OPEC+ decision to reduce outputs as an instrument to increase prices, create more energy shortages – all this ahead of a predicted cold winter – and thereby helping to plunge Europe into an economic fiasco.
And how come President Biden failed to convince Saudi Arabia to increase OPEC’s oil production to keep economies around the world alive? Instead, Washington may be accusing Riyadh of siding with Washington?
Responding, I said that this was another big sham; that Biden never tried to convince OPEC to increase petrol output.
To the contrary, the US wanted to destroy Europe, and what better way of doing so than to deprive them from the energy that would keep Europe’s economy turning?
By pretending the contrary, Washington just wanted to make sure that they are perceived as the “good guys”, wanting to help the world to get enough energy to sustain their economies.
Whatever happens these days, we have to put into the context of the Big Picture, and that’s like almost always the “Great Reset” or UN Agenda 2030 – their planned disastrous predicaments for Europe and the world.
In fact, OPEC+ petrol output reduction (2 million barrels per day), if it happens, it will be following instructions of the US. Washington is known for dancing on several weddings at the same time. They show this all the time.
Referring to WWII, as one of the most flagrant examples: The US was officially fighting against Hitler, while at the same time funding his war against the Soviet Union. With money directly from the FED and with Petrol delivered by the Rockefeller’s Standard Oil.
Today, we are talking about a much bigger plan, as depicted in the Great Reset a.k.a UN Agenda 2030, aiming at a One World Order, plunging the entire 193 UN member countries into an abyss of unheard proportions. Associations of countries, like the Euro-bloc, as well as individual countries sovereignty have to be destroyed.
The plan is to actually devastating Europe with the help of two of the most corrupt and treacherous German politicians, the President of the EU Commission and the German Chancellor. They were put into their positions precisely for their treacherous character and lack of ethics.
It was clear from the beginning that US / NATO was behind the sabotage of Nord Stream 1 and 2, with the full knowledge and acquiescence of Madame Ursula von der Leyen, and very likely also of Chancellor, Olaf Scholz.
After all, there is plenty of evidence, including Biden telling a journalist on 2 February 2022 that he has means to stop the flow of Russian gas to Germany and Europe.
See below the full PressTV interview – Youtube 12 min. Or click here to watch on Youtube.
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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also is a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
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Is not the Pashtun amenable to love and reason? He will go with you to hell if you can win his heart, but you cannot force him even to go to heaven. – Badshah Khan
If anyone today could name an historical figure connected to the origin of non-violent resistance against political oppression, it would most likely be India’s Mohandas Gandhi. Gandhi virtually defined the idea of non-violent resistance in his struggle to free India from British colonial rule. But in 1929, a Pashtun tribal leader in nearby Afghanistan named Bhadshah Khan – a peer of Gandhi – became an important ally by inaugurating Afghanistan’s indigenous non-violent movement known as the Khudai-Khidmatgar – the servants of God. Since Khan realized that God needed no service he decided that by serving God they would in fact be serving humanity and set out to remove violence from their ancient Pashtun tribal code. Known as Pashtunwali, Afghans had lived by the code’s elaborate rules for millennia and continue to order their lives by it to this day.
In addition to establishing a leadership council accepted by the community, Pashtunwali laid out in detail the proper behavior for hospitality as well as what was necessary to create security for all including how and when the act of revenge was acceptable.
Following Britain’s colonization of Afghan tribal lands east of the Hindu Kush Mountains in 1848, these principles of Pashtun law were gradually replaced by a new British colonial order. Pashtun society was already known to be in need of social reform for its long-standing acceptance of revenge killing. But the British creation of a small, elite landlord-class to control and administer the province turned revenge killing into a permanent blood bath.
According to Dr. Sruti Bala of the University of Amsterdam:
“With traditional tribal authority diminished, this ruling elite gradually emerged as a group of powerful landlords who fought among each other and increased rivalry among the clans. By introducing their own manner of punishment and control, including fines, levies and even imprisonment, they created a new culture of conflict with its own rules of settlement.”
According to Bala “this was a major change in comparison with the tribal councils’ traditional focus on limiting conflicts and blame, and resolving feuds without punishment.” The 1872 Frontier Crimes Regulation Act further worsened the situation by sanctioning punishments and mass arrests without trial and legal support and placed heavy restrictions on the free assembly of ethnic Pashtuns. The Frontier Crimes Regulations were far stricter in the Pashtun territories than in any other part of British India and directly limited civil liberties. According to Bala, “The infringements on civil as well as basic human rights were legitimized by the apparent need to control the Western frontier as a defensive line against Russian aggression and military advances in the region.” And this was of course long before the threat of Soviet communism ever existed.
British competition with Russia for control of Central Asia was a central feature of the 19th century imperialism known as the Great Game. Over time a delicate balance was reached and Afghanistan used as a buffer state between empires but not without a brutal suppression of the Pashtun tribes by the British.
Khan’s appeal to non-violence was accepted by many Pashtuns as a way to resolve deep rooted social problems while undermining British authority at the same time. Although organized like an army, his recruits swore an oath to renounce violence and to never so much as touch a weapon. Over time, the Khudai-Khidmatgar movement developed an educational network to address the social and cultural reforms needed to leave revenge and retribution behind and move towards non-violent development.
This network served the community by focusing on education for all, encouraging poetry, music and literature as avenues of expression that would help eradicate the roots of violence that had become normalized among Pashtuns during British rule.
The non-violence base of the Khudai-Khidmatgar not only addressed the imbalance created by tribal feuds, it also brought Afghans under the single platform of non-violence which ultimately helped the Pashtuns present a powerful united front against British imperial designs.
Khan at a pro-independence rally in Peshawar with Mahatma Gandhi in 1938 (Licensed under the Public Domain)
Khan was an active member of the Indian National Congress, Chief of the Frontier Province Chapter of the Congress and a close ally of Gandhi and when they first met he questioned Gandhi about something that troubled him. “You have been preaching non-violence in India for a long time,” he said. “But I started teaching the Pashtuns non-violence only a short time ago, yet the Pashtuns seemed to have grasped the idea of non-violence much quicker and better than the Indians. How do you explain that?” To which Gandhi replied, “Non-violence is not for cowards. It is for the brave and for the courageous and the Pashtuns are brave and courageous. That is why the Pashtuns were able to remain non-violent.”
Gandhi’s response to Badsher Khan’s question defined the Khudai-Khidmatgar accurately, but a true understanding of the Pashtun non-violence movement only begins there.
Followers of Khan’s Khudai Khitmatgar movement (c. 1947) (Licensed under the Public Domain)
The strength of Badsher Kahn’s Khudai-Khidmatgar and its philosophy challenged more than just the Afghan tribal code of Pashtunwali and the dominance of the British Empire in India. Badsher Khan also challenged the idea expressed by many Western orientalists that his movement was just an aberration.
As we discovered in writing our book Invisible History: Afghanistan’s Untold Story, getting an authentic picture of Afghan culture through the minefield of orientalist scholarship is no simple task. Sruti Bala’s 2013 article in the Journal Peace and Change points out that commentaries and studies of anything regarding the Afghan non-violence movement are “ridden with interconnected problems” that make it impossible to come anywhere close to an honest understanding of Badsher Khan’s movement.
Cultural stereotyping of Pashtuns, labeling acts of non-violent resistance as simply an aberrant phase of an inherently violent culture and denying the indigenous Afghan roots of the movement are just the start. Added to that is an intellectual prejudice which privileges elitist viewpoints of Gandhi’s Hindu non-violence movement over the actual concrete acts and practices of the Muslim Khudai-Khidmatgar.
The maltreatment of the Afghan nonviolent movement reveals more about the biases of Western academics than of the movement itself and according to Sruti Bala has completely obscured its place in history. She writes:
“The social and political movement that this organization spearheaded is arguably one of the least known and most misunderstood examples of non-violent action in the twentieth century. The lack of extensive research is partly connected to the systematic destruction of crucial archival material during the colonial era, as well as by Pakistani authorities following independence.”
Why was the non-violence movement of Mohandas Gandhi awarded recognition and international celebrity status by the West; while the Pashtun Khudai-Khidmatgar movement and its leader Badsher Kahn were suppressed, imprisoned and eventually outlawed? Should the Afghan non-violent movement be dismissed as just an aberration as critics say, or is it more likely that Badsher Khan’s commitment by Pashtuns to internal tribal reform and genuine non-violent resistance was something the British Empire feared might actually change the game and so, did everything in their power to erase it from the public’s memory and pretend it never existed.
Dr. Sruti Bala provides some clues about Badsher Khan and the suppression of the Khudai-Khidmatgar.
“Khan belonged to a comparatively well-off land-owning family. Unlike Gandhi or Nehru, he was neither a man of Western learning nor a prolific writer.” She writes. “In fact, he was described as, ‘a man of very large silences,’ a nationalist leader whose life of ninety-eight years, one third of which was spent in jail, is steeped in myth and legend.”
“Khan spent nearly thirty-five years of his life in prison for his political activities and involvement in civil disobedience actions. The British and later the Government of Pakistan systematically destroyed most documents and material records of the movement by raiding homes and confiscating anything related to the Khudai-Khidmatgar from handkerchiefs to uniforms and flags to copies of the movement’s journal.”
The treatment of Badsher Khan was an extreme example of British colonial brutality that left a mark on Afghan society that remains to this day. But as Sruti Bala points out, without taking these aspects of Pashtun history into consideration it is easy to fall into the orientalist discourse of viewing Pashtun culture stereotypically as one that intrinsically values brutality and revenge.
According to Bala, Indian nationalism also played an important role in perpetuating the image of the brute Pashtun, while never acknowledging or mentioning its own role in sustaining a racist Pashtun narrative. As an example, the Indian bourgeoisie were quite prepared to participate in the structural and institutional violence of the Frontier Province and eager to gain favors from the British.
Image: Khan pictured with Mahatma Gandhi (c. 1940s) (Licensed under the Public Domain)
And then there is the Pashtuns own complicity with the narrative through their service to the Empire. “The British ruled the Pashtun provinces through rich and influential landlords.” Bala writes. “One of the most prestigious regiments in the British Indian Army founded in 1847 was the Corps of Guides with a significant Pashtun presence. Many of the activities of the Khudai-Khidmatgar were thus addressed as much against Pashtun collaboration with the British, as directly against British colonial laws.
Yet without exception, the old stereotype continues to rule. Every historical account of the Khudai-Khidmatgar always begins by highlighting Pashtun culture as violent and vengeful, instead of portraying it as a culture living on the borders between civilizations under constant threat to its survival and forced to defend itself… Why is this so?
Again according to Bala,
“Gandhi’s speeches to the Pashtuns on his visits to Khudai-Khidmatgar camps reveal a clear mistrust of Pashtun nonviolence which can be traced back to both a suspicion of the lower class Khidmatgar’s soldiers’ inability to embrace the ‘HIGH’ ideals of nonviolence as well as a subtle anti-Muslim slant in his perception of the Pashtuns.”
So despite overt proof of the Khudai-Khidmatgar’s commitment to nonviolence, Ghaffar Khan’s movement continued to be subjected to Gandhi’s personal mistrust of Muslim values and specifically his class biases.
“For the Khudai-Khidmatgar” Bala writes, “nonviolence was not a matter of individual soul-searching and achievement, but a principle for the entire community, requiring a collective effort. This is why I believe the Pashtun interpretation of nonviolence is very different from the individualistic approach that Gandhi adopted.”
And so in this is to be found a profound difference between the Afghan and Indian concept of nonviolence and perhaps the key to their success or failure as peace movements. According to Bala, Khan is generally placed in the shadow of Gandhi, often referred to as his pupil or even more patronizingly as the Frontier Gandhi. They were good friends, shared similar views on civil disobedience, spent significant time working together and held each other in high regard. But, in terms of serving as a movement whose ideals for peace could be made universal, it would seem that it was Gandhi’s appeal to the West’s upper class elites that won him success even though Badsher Khan would have served as a more realistic, grassroots hero for a world in dire need of workable community-based formulas for peace.
Yet largely because of Gandhi, Badsher Khan’s movement remains viewed as just a poor provincial attempt at replicating his ideology and not a genuine indigenous movement of its own with its own characteristics. During his visits to the service and training camps of the Khudai- Khidmatgar, Gandhi insisted on incorporating his personal ideas such as vegetarianism, fasting, and hand spinning (Khadi) into their social reform activities in order to instill what he believed was a “true” sense of nonviolence in the soldiers of the Khudai-Khidmatgar. But for Gandhi to make his specific personal religious preferences a gauge for the purity of Pashtun nonviolence, he risked removing his philosophy from the realm of a cultural movement and placing it firmly into the realm of a personality cult.
According to Bala, references in Khan’s biography indicate that such missionary attempts at making Pashtun practices palatable to liberal upper caste Hindu sensibilities were often met with mild derision. One Khudai-Khidmatgar leader remarked that he had no objections to eating vegetarian food in Gandhi’s ashrams, but wished the Gandhians would not be so fussy when they came to the Frontier Province themselves.
But yet, the sense of Gandhi’s moral superiority was no laughing matter when it came to the plight of the Pashtuns under British rule. In an October 1938 speech to Khudai-Khidmatgar rank and file members Gandhi announced openly that the Pashtun’s commitment to peace was incomplete. He then proceeded to refer to the idea that Pashtuns – who held life so cheap and would have killed a human being with no more thought than they would kill a sheep or a hen, could at the bidding of one man lay down their arms and accept nonviolence – AS A FAIRY TALE.
Gandhi made his apartness from the common Afghan man and woman, landed or landless a hallmark of his speeches. Reading them today betrays a racist sensibility and a disregard and prejudice for the detail, history and context of Pashtun life that has been systematically carried forward into numerous current high minded but failed social experiments.
Gandhi’s disrespect for the elaborate system of Pashtun tribal rules known as Pashtunwali is troublesome. More troublesome still is that multiple generations of historians and journalists have looked to Gandhi’s Pashtun stereotype as the end all and be all to the history of the Khudai-Khidmatgar. Badsher Khan understood more than anyone the need to disassemble and delegitimize the acceptance of violence within the context of Afghan society as a prerequisite for creating an authentic peace movement. It is that model inspired by Badsher Kahn that should comprise the next stage of a global movement that removes the impetus from the elite and places it in the hands of the people. And only by doing that can a genuine peace movement move forward.
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Featured image: Founder of the Awami National Party (ANP) in what is now the state of Pakistan. He also served as a politician in Pakistan as well as leader of the Red Shirt Movement, which had close ties to Gandhi of India. (Photo licensed under the Public Domain)
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In November 2010, when now President Vladimir Putin was Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, he proposed “the creation of a harmonious economic community stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok.” The European Union never accepted that vision. Three years later, the United States staged a coup d’état in Ukraine with the complicity of the European Union and its member countries. In this context, President Vladimir Putin’s speech on September 30th, receiving four other regions as part of the Russian Federation, was especially historic.
In fact, he effectively acknowledged Russia’s abandonment of the policy of wanting to maintain relations with Europe and with the West in general. This is a revolutionary change in international relations that affects the whole world. The speech of September 30th arises from the experiences of a leader and his government team during ten years of constant efforts for Peace, for a more just and equitable world, and for respectful relations based on international law. President Putin’s words express the exasperation of a lost decade of one attempt after another to maintain relations of respect and understanding with the United States and the European Union.
It was a decade of patience constantly frustrated, of goodwill constantly scorned and insulted, of agreements signed in good faith, the Minsk Agreements among many others, constantly undermined and betrayed. President Putin comments, “We will defend our land with all the forces and resources we have, and we will do everything to ensure the safe life of our people. This is the great mission of liberation of our people.” That mission is about liberating the peoples of the Russian Federation from the sinister hybrid war against them and the explicit threats by Western leaders who want to destroy it, including with nuclear weapons.
Invoking the right of self-defense, President Putin clearly explains why the West is attacking Russia:
“…it is greed, the determination to maintain its power not limited in any sense, which are the real reasons for the hybrid war that the West is fighting collectively against Russia. They don’t want our freedom, they want to see us become a colony. They don’t want equal cooperation, but they do want to loot. They do not want us to be a free society, but a multitude of slaves without souls.”
President Putin discusses in his speech the issue of impunity in relation to the various crimes against humanity committed by the European powers and the United States. He recognizes that those countries accumulated their wealth through centuries of conquest, genocide and slavery and then maintained the tremendous advantages thus accumulated, by means of a system of intimidation and neo-colonial plunder. But President Putin takes his argument beyond mere condemnation of Western criminality, when he invokes the cause of Russia’s self-defense as also and necessarily the defense of humanity, not only in the material sense but in a deeply spiritual sense as well.
For many, this is the central part of his message:
“I would like to insist that the dictatorship of Western elites is directed against all societies, including their own. It is a challenge to all, this absolute denial of humanity, the trampling of religion and traditional values, the suppression of freedom is acquiring features “of a religion in reverse”, of a self-evident Satanism. Jesus Christ already said it in the Sermon on the Mount: “By their fruits you will know them.” He was referring to the pseudo-prophets.”
For Nicaragua, a target of Western imperialism for centuries, this speech by President Vladimir Putin has special relevance and importance because it categorically vindicates the same experiences at the Latin American and Caribbean level of Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Perhaps it is worth sketching the characteristics of the ”obvious Satanism” of the West pointed out by President Putin. The two predominant anti-values among the American and European governments are hypocrisy and sadism from which flow:
systematic disrespect for the interests and sensibilities of others
the constant practice of intimidation and harassment
the systematic use of lies and deception
psychological warfare with the abandonment of all norms of good faith reporting in all areas of information (media, institutional, academic and non-governmental among others)
the use of aggression and terrorism in all its forms
Precisely these anti-values have characterized Western policies towards the ALBA-TCP countries, reaching their height in the case of Nicaragua with the diabolical failed coup d’état of 2018. But it is also about endless other crimes in many countries of the world. It is only necessary to remember the innumerable terrorist acts against the brotherly Cuban people and the permanent sabotage of their economy or the constant harassment against the government of Evo Morales that ended in the coup of 2019.
In the case of the sister Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, it is about the endless terrorist sabotage of the country’s energy and oil infrastructure in the context of the sadistic economic and financial offensive of more than a decade. The sister Islamic Republic of Iran has suffered, in addition to illegal unilateral coercive measures, repeated terrorist attacks, including the murder of its most prominent nuclear scientists, crimes openly admitted by Israel with the most complete impunity, and the notorious assassination of General Qassem Soleimani in January 2020 by the United States.
It is impossible to summarize so much criminality briefly stretching from Haiti to Somalia and the Congo, to Palestine and Yemen, to Afghanistan and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, to mention just a few of the most notorious examples
Through their control of the international financial system, the Western authorities have stolen billions of dollars from the resources of Libya, Iran, Afghanistan, Venezuela and now more than US$300 billion from the Russian Federation. The United States occupies part of the Syrian Arab Republic and has stolen millions of barrels of oil and thousands of tons of wheat from the occupied area with total impunity. In what many writers consider the most significant terrorist attack since September 11th 2001, the United States and its allies destroyed the Nord Stream 1 and a branch of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea.
These gas pipelines had been built at a cost of many tens of billions of US dollars. They carried the huge quantities of cheap Russian gas needed to sustain the European economy, and especially the manufacturing economy of Germany. Now Europe is going to depend mainly on extremely expensive liquefied natural gas from the United States that will not even meet the enormous energy demand in European countries. In recent days, a terrorist attack was also carried out on the bridge connecting the rest of Russia with Crimea. All this criminality reflects the malevolent anti-values so tenaciously rooted in Western culture.
Against the sinister anti-values of the West and its regional and local accomplices, genuine values focused on the human person, on their aspirations and needs are promoted in the majority world, which imply:
always acting in good faith
sincerely acknowledging the interests and sensitivities of others
insistence on dialogue for the resolution of disagreements and conflicts
always telling the truth and demonstrating honesty
reporting the truth authentically and reliably in every area of human activity and international relations
always promoting Peace and a culture of Peace
These are precisely the moral and cultural values that Nicaragua, under the leadership of President Daniel and Vice President Rosario, has developed with their revolutionary strategic vision based on the principles of Christianity, Socialism and Solidarity. Now, President Putin’s speech has ratified in the most categorical way the convictions and values permanently expressed by President Daniel, but also by President Nicolás Maduro, by our Bolivian brother Evo Morales and President Luis Arce, by the president of Cuba, compañero Miguel Díaz Canel, and also by prominent Caribbean leaders such as Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves.
In Nicaragua, we perfectly recognize the satanic nature of the West because we experienced it for ourselves at firsthand in 2018. Now we continue to witness the infinite hypocrisy and sadism of the US and European governments frustrated that did not achieve their goal of destroying Nicaragua. We believe the truths enunciated by President Putin in his speech of September 30th are undeniable because our own experience shows that he is absolutely right.
Now that Nicaragua’s relations with the Russian Federation, with the People’s Republic of China, with the Islamic Republic of Iran are developing to new levels, in addition to maintaining very good relations with many other countries in Asia and Africa, Nicaragua is part of an unstoppable historical trend. The majority world no longer has to keep silent about the monstrous, terrorist, parasitic nature of the West. Certainly, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela are not keeping quiet.
As our Vice President Rosario has repeatedly commented,
“Hatred, Never Again! Let them learn this, let them know this, let them internalize this. Nothing is built with hatred, because hatred destroys. With Love, you make your way, you create a Future, you create Well-being, you create Joy… Love can do anything, Love conquers everything!”
The vast majority of the population in Nicaragua believes this truth. Next November 5th will provide another massive democratic confirmation of the faith of our people in their revolution for the Common Good of a Christian, Socialist, Solidarity based society.
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This article was originally published on Tortilla con Sal, translated from Spanish.
Stephen Sefton, renowned author and political analyst based in northern Nicaragua, is actively involved in community development work focussing on education and health care. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
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Last week PayPal, an online service for making and receiving payments, announced that at PayPal’s “sole discretion” $2,500 would be seized from accounts of those PayPal decided were guilty of spreading misinformation.“Misinformation” is whatever some speech control office at PayPal doesn’t like or dissent from official narratives.In other words, PayPal announced a policy of thought control as described in George Orwell’s 1984. See this and this.
Moreover, $2,500 would be seized for each bit of misinformation, apparently even for errors resulting from being misinformed or from misunderstanding.If an account holder spreads misinformation twice, $5,000 is seized; ten bits of misinformation costs the account holder $25,000.Since the definition of misinformation is at PayPal’s sole discretion, it wouldn’t be long before PayPal, faced with missing its quarterly expected profits, would jack up its earnings by seizing people’s accounts.
It is unclear how a person spreads “misinformation” on a payments mechanism.Does it mean that “spreading misinformation” means donating to an organization that challenges official narratives?Does it mean that PayPal would have an army of employees watching social media comments of account holders and reading their emails?
The first seizure was in England where the robbed account was that of the Free Speech Union.It caused an uproar and protests from Members of Parliament and PayPal’s former president, and a couple of days later PayPal said that PayPal’s announcement that it was going to seize money from customers’ accounts for spreading misinformation was itself misinformation. See this.
Think about this for a moment.If PayPal can seize $2,500 from your account because some woke freak in PayPal’s Thought Control Police Force finds your opinion “offensive,” so can your bank, your 401k, your IRA, your investment account.Your credit card company can bill you $2,500 for each disapproved statement and turn your account over to bill collectors when you don’t pay.Maybe your car and house will be seized. Once central banks impose digital money on their insouciant populations, people can be robbed at will by every approved party for every imaginable offense.
A Fish Rots From the Head
Where did PayPal get the idea that it can seize the money of people whose statements it disapproves?Obviously, they got it from the US government.The US government has seized people’s property because the property “facilitated a crime,” which means that a crime took place on the property by someone, not necessarily the owner (The Tyranny of Good Intentions by Paul Craig Roberts).The US government seized Venezuela’s gold because it disapproved of Venezuela’s politics.The US government seized Russia’s central bank reserves when Russia intervened in Ukraine to protect the Russian population of former Russian territory.US lawmakers want to punish Saudi Arabia for tending to its own interest instead of Washington’s (see this).The California government wants to steal the medical licenses of doctors who ignored medical protocols designed to serve Big Pharma’s profits and instead saved their patients’ lives (see this).
It should be obvious that Western Civilization no longer exists.A civilization is defined by its values, such as free speech, and when those values are no longer honored, the civilization no longer exists.
Think about what the US government has done to Julian Assange.His decade long incarceration in the absence of charges, trial, and conviction violates all legal principles that comprise our constitutional protections from arbitrary and unjust treatment by government.It shows how far gone we are that Assange’s illegal and unconstitutional treatment continues year after year and produces no outrage from Congress, media, law schools, bar organizations, courts, or the American population.The official narrative is that he is a Russian spy and we have to get him at all cost, including the establishment of precedents that destroy our security from arbitrary and ruthless oppression.The assertion that Assange is a Russian spy is an intentional lie, and for the sake of supporting a lie we are depriving ourselves of our constitutional protections.
The US government’s policy of seizing whoever’s property it wants to seize is spreading worldwide.If the home of democracy and the rule of law can arbitrarily do as it likes, so can the South African government which says it is considering seizing the farms of white people without compensation (see this).In other words, there is no longer a rule of law. There is a rule of power.
The rule of power is what the American and European peoples are up against, and they seem very slow to realize it.
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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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Every day I receive articles examining and reexamining Covid variants and subvariants, discussing studies about the effects of the pathogen, reporting on the ever-evolving plans for further ‘vaccinations’ and also the ever mounting evidence for the inefficacy and danger of the existing so-called vaccines and boosters. We are enveloped in a storm of information, from all sides, about what is in essence a sham. The pathogen exists, it has evolved, the jabs keep jabbing and all the while Phase I of the plan to digitize and enslave humanity is reaching its culmination – quite successfully, I should add.
In less than three years the Group – call it what you will – that engineered this phoney pandemic, shut down the entire world within weeks, and pushed a campaign of fear and control that had the best and brightest shilling for masks, lockdown, universal ‘vaccination’ and quarantines – this Cabal has managed to inoculate, at the time of writing, 68.2 percent of the world’s population.
During this period various governments have discovered how easy it has been to control the peoples from whom, ostensibly, they derive their power. Medicine has been subverted and became an ignominous caricature of itself, the legal system has shown thoroughgoing corruption, and free speech and free expression have been punished. Bank accounts of those who protested governmental restrictions and illogical ‘health’ policies were violated and the creeping dissipation of once-cherished beliefs about fundamental human rights and ideals and the hitherto inviolability of one’s savings and property has been tolerated.
As I expected from the lawless criminals who have imposed their agenda upon us, the mortality and morbidity resulting from their inoculations is now being attributed, by them, to the coronavirus they unleashed, and because of the unprecedented variability in ‘vaccine’ batches, their crimes have been further obscured. Truths about the origin of the pathogen and the effects of the jab have been concealed very cleverly, and while diligent researchers devote time to demonstrate, belatedly, what was evident from the beginning about the fraud, Phase II lies waiting to be unleashed.
I note with wry dismay that doctors who shilled on mainstream media for the Jab without exercising one iota of the critical thinking that should have been in operation from the beginning are now going very public with their mea culpas. But they are far too late, and their regrets do not move me to sympathy after the damage they have inflicted by their negligence.
And although many people have awoken to the hypocrisy, the greater majority remain unthinking and unquestioning still.
What lies in store for us?
China is giving us a glimpse. I have been appalled to learn from a correspondent in that vast country the conditions under which people lived during the infamous lockdown of Shanghai, China’s most ‘advanced’ city, with a population of 26 million, from April to June of 2022. The inhabitants there were confined to their apartments, or apartment buildings, or apartment complexes, depending on Covid case proximity, and positive cases were forced to move to Fangcang shelter hospitals. The delivery of food was unreliable and inadequate. In my informant’s words, “it’s worse than prison because the prisoners still have some time to walk around the prison.”
Nasal and throat PCR tests were administered with alarming frequency – sometimes twice daily –and even now malls, shops and restaurants require a negative PCR test within 72 hours for entry. There are PCR testing booths throughout the vast city, apparently to stay. Paper money has virtually disappeared from use, and cash apps via mobile phones have become the norm. Jabs were ‘encouraged’ for everyone, from age 3 upwards – but curiously enough the pressure to be jabbed came from no official government document or decree, but from school teachers, employers, community workers, etc.
During Phase II of the Agenda in the West, the Green New Deal with carbon tracking systems will be introduced, cash will be phased out, and those who have been unfortunate enough to have been jabbed will be getting sick and dying in significant numbers. Digitization, with its utopian promise of convenience, has lulled us into complacent passivity. The wet dream of the Technocratic Elite will be well on its way, unless … unless we reclaim our senses and recognize that a renaissance of the human spirit can reverse these impositions. Power – human power – flows up from the populace, not down from it’s self-appointed hegemons.
Rousseau famously began his Social Contract with the observation that men are born free and everywhere in chains. The goal of humankind, fettered from within by instinct and from without by institutionally imposed strictures, is to realize the promise of its unalienable right to liberty.
Should one wish for inspiration, the example of the late psychoanalyst Muriel Gardiner comes to mind. After the Anschluss in Austria this brave heroine fought a fight of guile, courage and indefatigability in the underground, as she recounts in her autobiographical memoir, Code Name “Mary”.
I reread it just last week and I can think of no more relevant work to assist those of us seeking to break the chains of deceit, confusion, terror and blunt force epitomized by the Corona War against humanity, a war that is the most encompassing and unique in our brief history. How we fight will determine the outcome, and fight we will – with dignity, determination, adaptability, intelligence, and without masochism, for we aspire to victory, not martyrdom.
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Dr. Garcia is a Philadelphia-born psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand in 2006. He has authored articles ranging from explorations of psychoanalytic technique, the psychology of creativity in music (Mahler, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Delius), and politics. He is also a poet, novelist and theatrical director. He retired from psychiatric practice in 2021 after working in the public sector in New Zealand.
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‘Safe and Effective: A Second Opinion’ chronicles the ‘perfect storm” of safety trial problems, regulatory lapses, and government propaganda that led to mass ‘vaccination’ with a shot that has devastated lives.
A newly released documentary that has been praised as “brilliant” and “outstanding,” chronicles the shocking story of how COVID shots were pushed in the United Kingdom using government propaganda and misleading data from Big Pharma.
While the film, aptly titled, “Safe and Effective: A Second Opinion,” is primarily focused on the U.K., one of its most powerful sub-narratives is relevant worldwide: How pharmaceutical manufacturers sidestepped safety hurdles and misled the public regarding the effectiveness and potential harms of the COVID jabs.
The documentary uses expert testimony to show how the trial data was flawed, and how the “vaccine” manufacturers used “very, very misleading” figures to promote the COVID-19 shot.
Consultant cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra, who was “one of the first to take the Pfizer vaccine,” shared how Pfizer’s promotion of its shot using relative risk reduction, and not absolute risk reduction, led to the impression that the mRNA COVID shot was dramatically more effective at preventing disease than was actually the case.
“The guidance has been for many years that we must always use absolute risk reduction in conversation with patients, not just relative risk reduction alone. Otherwise, it’s considered unethical,” Malhotra explained.
“The accusation is that governments acted on Pfizer’s relative risk figure of 95% efficacy. When the absolute risk was a mere 0.84%. In other words, you’d have to vaccinate 119 people to prevent just one from catching COVID,” said John Bowe, founder of C.O.V.I.D. Charity Organisation for the Vaccine InjureD.
The film went on to highlight the “shocking allegations” of clinical trial research specialist Alexandra Latypova, who studied Pfizer trial documents that were force-released in the U.S. after a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Among her findings were the following:
“Pfizer skipped major categories of safety testing altogether.
The toxicity of the COVID-19 vaccines’ mRNA active ingredient was never studied.
The FDA and Pfizer knew about major toxicities associated with gene therapy class of medicines.
The CDC, FDA and Pfizer lied about vaccines staying in the injection site.
My examination of leaked Moderna documents also revealed that vaccine-induced antibody-enhanced disease was identified as a serious risk.”
Worsening the problem of woefully inadequate studies was a disruption of the ordinary regulation process, Bowe explained. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) Chief Executive June Raine had “admitted that the agency had changed from Watchdog to Enabler.”
The film highlighted video footage in which Raine confessed that normal safeguards in the clinical trials for “vaccines” had been discarded for the COVID jabs: “We tore up the rule book and we allowed companies to immediately start juxtaposing not sequential phases of clinical trials, but overlapping. Beginning the next one before the previous had been finished.”
Furthermore, a huge conflict of interest was posed by the finding that “86% of the funding of the MHRA comes from the drug industry,” according to Malhotra.
The film went on to highlight heart-tugging stories of COVID jab injuries, which in some cases shattered the lives of the victims, making them almost entirely dependent on caregivers for day-to-day living.
MP Sir Christopher Ghope protested in parliament that doctors have proceeded to add insult to injury in these unfortunate cases by consistently dismissing the jabs as a possible causal factor:
Those who were in perfect health before their vaccine have encountered too much ignorance and skepticism when seeking medical help. For some, their GP’s have refused to engage and that has reached the extent that they are made to feel gaslighted, Madam Deputy Speaker, with their physical pain being dismissed or explained away as mental illness. How insulting and humiliating is that?
Another key piece of the documentary was its demonstration of how the UK government scandalously coordinated propaganda to promote the COVID jab. It showed screenshots of actual instructions from a “playbook” of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), which explicitly instructed, “Use [of the] media to increase [a] sense of personal threat,” to achieve government aims during COVID-19, among other things.
“Immediately,” the UK’s communications regulator, Ofcom, “asked broadcasters to take note of the significant potential harm that could be caused by material misleadingness in relation to the virus or public policy regarding it,” Bowe said.
“They warned of taking appropriate regulatory action on any breaches,” he continued, pointing out that this warning was issued “the same day” the above-mentioned SAGE document “was approved.”
Following this series of events, a BBC reporter was shown publicly stating, “Just to let you in on a journalistic point here. We actually don’t, as a matter of editorial policy, we don’t debate with anti-vaxxers, whether they’re right or wrong. We actually don’t do that.”
Watch “Safe and Effective: A Second Opinion” for free here.
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Featured image is from Oracle Films / YouTube
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 Biden Administration is swiftly establishing a narrative that the recent OPEC decision to cut oil production by two million tonnes is a geopolitical “aligning” by Saudi Arabia and Russia. It taps into the Russophobia in the Beltway and deflects attention from the humiliating defeat of President Biden’s personal diplomacy with Saudi Arabia. But it is not without basis, either.
Foreign policy was reputed to be Biden’s forte but is turning out to be his nemesis. An ignominious end is not unlikely; as with Jimmy Carter, West Asia may become the burial ground of his carefully cultivated reputation.
The magnitude of what is unfolding is simply staggering. Biden realises belatedly that territorial conquests in Ukraine is not the real story but embedded in it is the economic war and within that is the energy war that has been incubating through the past 8-month period following the Western sanctions against Russia.
The paradox is, even if Zelensky wins the war, Biden would still have lost the war unless he wins the energy war and goes on to win the economic war as well.
President Vladimir Putin visualised such an outcome as far back as in 2016 when on the sidelines of the G20 Hangzhou summit, the tantalising idea of OPEC+ crystallised between him and then Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
I wrote at that time that “An understanding between Russia and OPEC holds the potential to completely transform the geopolitical alignments in the Middle East… This shift cannot but impact petrodollar recycling, which has been historically a robust pillar of the western financial system. In strategic terms, too, Washington’s attempt to ‘isolate’ Russia is rendered ineffective.” That was 6 years ago. (See Pay heed to the butterfly effect of Putin-Salman oil deal in Hangzhou, Asia Times, Sept. 7, 2016)
The debris that surrounds Biden today is a large messy pile. He didn’t realise that the lackadaisical way the Russian offensive in Ukraine rolled on because Putin was concentrating on the economic war and the energy war, the outcome of which will determine the future of the US’ global hegemony, which has been riveted on the dollar being the reservecurrency.
Precisely, back in the early 1970s, Saudi Arabia agreed that the price of oil should be determined in dollars and that oil, the world’s most widely traded commodity, be internationally traded in dollars, which virtually mandated that every country on the planet ought to hold dollar reserves in order to buy oil. The US, course, reciprocally pledged on its part that free access to dollar was guaranteed for all countries.
However, it turned out to be a phoney assurance in the wake of the rampant weaponisation of dollar and the US’ preposterous moves to grab other countries’ dollar reserves. Unsurprisingly, Putin has been harping on the need for setting up a reserve currency alternative to the dollar, and that finds resonance in the world opinion.
All indications are that the White House, instead of introspection, is considering new forms of punishment for Saudi Arabia and Russia. While “punishing” Russia is difficult since the US has exhausted all options, Biden probably thinks the US holds Saudi Arabia by its jugular veins: being supplier of weaponry and custodian of massive Saudi reserves and investments and being the mentor of Saudi elites.
Brian Deese, the director of the National Economic Council, told reporters Thursday, “I want to be clear on this (OPEC production cut), the president has directed that we have all options on the table and that will continue to be the case.” Earlier on Thursday, Biden himself told reporters that the White House is “looking at alternatives.”
Neither Biden nor Deese explicitly named what those “alternatives” might be, other than to reiterate their ability to pull from strategic petroleum reserves, lean on energy companies to reduce consumer prices and work with Congress to consider legislative options.
This is a foreign policy black eye for Biden who is facing ridicule over his trip to Saudi Arabia in July, which was excoriated by Democrats and Republicans alike. The US political elites feel that the OPEC decision looks like a targeted Saudi move to weaken Biden and Democrats in advance of the November elections. They are furious.
Potentially, this could have an impact beyond the US-Saudi relationship and could change the security picture in West Asia more than anything since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Already, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is slouching toward West Asia with Iran joining it and Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Egypt being granted status as dialogue partners and Turkey intending to seek full membership. In the broader terms of de-dollarisation, the SCO summit in Samarkand drew up a roadmap for the gradual increase in the share of national currencies in mutual settlements, flagging the seriousness of its intention.
Now, the American defence industry will stiffly resist any attempts to unwind its business in Saudi Arabia, and it has extremely close ties to Biden administration. But Washington may work for some sort of regime change in Riyadh. Prince Salman has said he “does not care” if Biden misunderstands him. There is little affection between them. The point is, this is not a mere hiccup.
A colour revolution is unrealistic but a palace coup to block MBS from succession is a possibility. But it is risky as a coup attempt will probably fail. Even if it succeeds, will a successor regime have legitimacy regionally and be able to establish control? A chaoticsituation like in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq may ensue. The consequences can be disastrous for the stability of the oil market and rocky for the world economy. It could lead to the upsurge of Islamist groups.
What rankles Biden is that his last trump card to reduce Russia’s high oil revenues without depressing supply through a “price cap” is in reality a conundrum that has become a lot more difficult now. Hence Biden’s rage that the Saudis have “sided” with Russia, which will now not only benefit from higher oil prices ahead of a price cap, but if Russia indeed is ever called upon to sell oil at a discount, at least the reduction will start at a higher price level!
As FT put it, “The kingdom and its allies in the Gulf are unlikely to turn their back on Russia. The Gulf states have not spoken out against the Ukraine invasion, and bringing Russia closer to the OPEC fold has been a long-term aim.”
The heart of the matter is that what Biden has done to Russia by grabbing that country’s reserves cannot but unnerve the Saudis and other Gulf regimes. They see the latest “price cap” project against Russia as setting a dangerous precedent that one day can lead to US attempts to control oil prices and even a direct attack on the oil industry.
Suffice to say, Russia cannot be cornered through the next 3-4 year period at least when there is such a tight-rope walk ahead. The OPEC+ decision is poised to benefit Russia in multiple ways. It will buoy Russia’s oil revenue heading into winter, when demand for Russian energy from Europe typically rises — in essence, help Russia maintain market share even if its production in absolute terms drops off.
Ironically, Moscow won’t have to reduce a single barrel of output, as it is already producing well below the agreed OPEC target, while benefiting from higher oil price. Actually, the 2 million barrel cut will be achieved through reduction mainly by OPEC Gulf producers — shouldered by Saudi Arabia (-520,000 bpd), Iraq (-220,000 bpd), the UAE (-150,000 bpd) and Kuwait (-135,000 bpd).
Isn’t it amazing that Russian oil companies will benefit from higher prices while at the same time keeping output steady?And this is when the Central Bank in Moscow is likely to have more than recovered the $300 billion of reserves already that were frozen by the Western central banks at the beginning of the Ukraine war.
In reality, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states involved with OPEC+ have effectively sided with the Kremlin, which enables Russia to refill its coffers and to limit the impact of western sanctions. The implications are far-reaching — from the Ukraine war to the future relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia, and of course the emergent multipolar world order.
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***
Last week the New York Times ran a shocking article claiming that the US intelligence community believes the Ukrainian government to be responsible for the August attack that killed Darya Dugina, the daughter of a prominent Russian philosopher.
Surely the established narrative that Ukraine is a model western democracy standing strong for our shared values against an aggressive Russian invader is damaged with reporting that Kiev conducted an al-Qaeda style attack on an innocent civilian inside Russia. The murder of Dugina was a textbook definition of terrorism, which is, “the use of violence or the threat of violence, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political goals.”
Just over a month later, the Nordstream pipelines were blown up, seemingly ending at least in the near term the possibility that Germany may find a way to save its economy by mending fences with its main energy supplier. A leading Polish politician thanked the US for doing the job.
Then over the weekend, the bridge connecting mainland Russia to Crimea was bombed, killing at least six civilians and leaving part of the bridge under water. Traffic was restored hours after the attack, but Russian President Vladimir Putin placed the blame on Ukraine’s intelligence service. We all know that Ukraine relies on its US masters, so we can assume the US provided the intelligence allowing the targeting of the bridge.
There is a pattern here. More and more brazen attacks are being launched against Russia and Washington is doing little to hide US fingerprints. Why?
The Biden Administration seems to be moving us closer to nuclear war over Ukraine and Biden himself seems to know it. Last week he said, Putin “is not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons…” For the “first time since the Cuban missile crisis, we have a direct threat of the use [of nuclear weapons] if in fact things continue down the path they are going.”
So the question is if he knows that his proxy war against Russia is moving us closer to the unthinkable – nuclear annihilation – why does his Administration persist in crossing red line after red line? Apparently, Biden’s “experts” believe that Putin is bluffing and will do nothing about the Dugina assassination, the Nordstream pipeline sabotage, and the Kerch Bridge attack.
But what if they’re wrong?
Normally foreign policy action should be weighed on a cost/benefit basis. Will adopting one particular policy benefit the United States more than the risks involved? In this case there is absolutely nothing on the positive side of the ledger. Will the security and prosperity of the United States benefit more from regime change in Russia than it would suffer should nuclear war break out?
It doesn’t seem all that hard. No.
So what’s going on here? Why does the US Administration – with the support of most Republicans in Congress – continue to send tens of billions of dollars in military aid and move us toward nuclear war over a conflict that has nothing at all to do with the United States?
The time to end US participation in this war is yesterday. And if it takes millions of Americans in the streets peacefully protesting while demanding that their representatives stop this madness, then bring it on. Tomorrow may be too late.
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ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102
PDF Edition: $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)
Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.
Reviews
“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.” –John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University
“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.” -Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations
Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction. –Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute
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***
Dear Dr. Barnett:
On September 19, 2022, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) issued a short statement expressing grave concern about worsening conditions in Haiti and pressing for “urgent and immediate attention from the international community.” In light of CARICOM’s more direct engagement in Haitian affairs in recent months, we call on your organization to respect Haitian sovereignty and to support the Haitian masses in their stand against the ongoing occupation of their country by foreign powers.
Despite the erroneous representation of the current protests in Haiti as simply “gang violence,” the latest demonstrations are a direct result of two factors. First, they are a response to the everyday economic misery caused by rising inflation, especially through the staggering increase in the price of fuel. Second, they are part of a long history of demands for the end of foreign meddling in Haitian affairs, especially via the installation and maintenance of an unelected and illegitimate government by the Core Group, of which the United Nations is a part.
We applaud your concern for Haiti. We have also noted the support your member nations have given to Caribbean and Latin American self-determination. For this reason, we would like to remind CARICOM members that the U.S., Canada, France, and other Western countries, along with the Core Group, and UN missions such as MINUSTAH, are directly responsible for the current conditions in Haiti. Attempting to solve the current crisis in Haiti through a dialogue between unelected and illegitimate Haitian “stakeholders” will not be successful. It will only serve the needs of non-Haitians.
We share with you the words of a coalition of Haitian grassroots organizations explaining the main reason for the currency protests:
“[T]hese popular protests are part of a struggle for a Haiti free from suffocating foreign interference, gangsterization, this extreme manufactured misery and an anti-national, illegitimate, criminal political regime established by the Core Group of which the UN is a member.”
A brief historical contextualization is in order:
The UN Mission to Haiti Is a Foreign Occupation Repressing Haitian Sovereignty
As you surely are aware, the United Nations became an occupying force in Haiti after the U.S.-France-Canada-led 2004 coup d’état against Haiti’s democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. We must note that, in addition to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, only Jamaica’s P.J. Patterson, in his capacity as leader of CARICOM, spoke up against the coup.
Following the coup, the UN took over from U.S. forces. Under Chapter VII of the UN charter, the UN established the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (or MINUSTAH), for the tasks of military occupation under the guise of establishing peace and security. The Workers Party-led government of Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva then betrayed the Haitian people and undercut Haiti’s sovereignty by agreeing to lead the military wing of the UN mission in Haiti.
The history of the UN in Haiti has been a history of violence. An expensive, multi-billion dollar operation, MINUSTAH had between 6,000 and 12,000 military troops and police stationed in Haiti alongside thousands of civilian personnel. Like the first U.S. occupation (1915-1934), the UN occupation under MINUSTAH was marked by its brutality and racism towards the Haitian people. Civilians were brutally attacked and assassinated. “Peace-keepers” committed sexual crimes. UN soldiers dumped human waste into rivers used for drinking water, unleashing a cholera epidemic that killed between 10,000 and 50,000 people. The UN has still not been held accountable for this needless death.
The Core Group — an international coalition of self-proclaimed “friends” of Haiti — came together during the MINUSTAH occupation. Non-Black, un-elected, and anti-democratic, the goal of the Core Group is to oversee Haiti’s governance. Meanwhile, as with the first occupation, the United States and MINUSTAH trained and militarized Haiti’s police and security forces, often rehabilitating and reintegrating rogue members. The United States, in collusion with MINUSTAH and the Core Group, also over-rode Haitian democracy, installing both neo-Duvalierist Michel Martelly and his Haitian Tèt Kale Party (PHTK), alongside Martelly’s protege and successor, the late Jovenel Moïse.
It is claimed that this occupation officially ended in 2017 with the dissolution of MINUSTAH. But the UN has remained in Haiti under a new acronym: BINUH, the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti. BINUH has had an outsized role in Haitian internal political affairs. For example, soon after Moïse was assassinated, its representative, Helen La Lime, asserted that Claude Joseph would be installed as Haiti’s leader. Later, the “Core Group” switched gears and demanded that Ariel Henry should be president. And this is exactly what happened when a “new” Haitian government was announced on July 20, 2021, with Henry as leader. This, without any say from the Haitian people, without any pretense of a democratic process, without any concern for Haiti’s sovereignty.
UN Occupation Increases Violence and Instability
Haiti currently has an unelected, unpopular, unaccountable, and illegitimate prime minister, propped up by the United States and the western nations. Meanwhile, Haiti’s security situation has deteriorated considerably as groups, armed by the transnational Haitian and Levantine elite, continue their attacks on the Haitian people. We must emphasize that, in the eighteen years that the United Nations mission has participated in the occupation of Haiti, the Haitian people have only experienced violence and political instability. You must recognize the foreign occupation of Haiti has left it in a state of disarray and violence.
The consequences of Foreign Meddling and Occupation
We must remind you that this is the sixth week of protests of the Haitian people against both the U.S.-backed puppet government of Ariel Henry and the continued occupation and meddling of the Core Group and the UN itself. With all the talk of Haitian “lawlessness,” one would never know that the other main reason for the protests was the illegitimate government’s decision, under IMF austerity dictates, to cut fuel subsidies, amid spiraling inflation and economic insecurity. Hear the people’s words:
“This new decision, taken to the detriment of the interests of the people, has aroused his anger and also intensified a protest movement already initiated, whose objective is the recovery of our sovereignty, the recovery of Haiti’s destiny by Haitians, the establishment by Haitians of a legitimate government, capable of defending the interests of the people and meeting the various challenges of the moment.”
No to Occupation. Yes to Self-Determination.
The speed at which contemporary events are moving in Haiti makes it difficult for those outside the Caribbean republic to understand its internal political dynamics. Because of this, it is easy to resort to historical cliches and short-hand analyses in an attempt to neatly package and summarize or flatten what are oftentimes complex, structural, and historical formations whose origins are as much rooted outside than inside the country. Thus to outsiders Haiti is in the middle of a crisis, a never-ending crisis marked by lawlessness and violence, by the failure of government and the collapse of the state, and by a savage populism paired with well-armed, predatory gangs.
We believe this representation of Haiti is fueled by an ancient racism premised on the notion that Haitian people (and African people more generally) are incapable of self-government, and this notion, in turn, nurtures the rationalization for the strengthening of the current mandate for the continued international occupation of Haiti.
We ask that you think with all seriousness about the relationships among nations in our region. All nations should be able to chart their own destiny, not just some. You must know the history of the proud Haitian people whose Revolution changed the course of world history and material aid helped the liberation of the Americas from colonial rule and enslavement. Despite the continued affront to its self-determination, the people of Haiti will continue to fight for its liberation.
The Black Alliance for Peace, in alignment with the wishes of the Haitian masses and their supporters, absolutely stands against any foreign armed intervention in Haiti, and continues to demand an end to the unending meddling in Haitian affairs by the United States and Western powers. We call for the dissolution of the imperialist Core Group, an end to Western support for the unelected and unaccountable puppet government of Ariel Henry, and for the respect of Haitian sovereignty.
Signed,
The Black Alliance for Peace, Haiti/Americas Team
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Featured image: Since August 22, Haitians have been mobilizing against poverty, inflation, shortage of fuel, gang-related violence, and the devaluation of the national currency. (Photo: Radyo Rezistans/Facebook via Peoples Dispatch)
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***
Aseem Malhotra, MBChB, a prominent London-based cardiologist and author, has gained considerable attention after detailing his changing thoughts on the legitimacy and necessity of COVID-19 vaccines. Malhotra wrote two editorials about his changing perspective in the Journal of Insulin Resistance, where he works as an editor.[1,2] He has also been discussing his stance with the media, appearing in a press conference hosted by the World Council for Health and regularly discussing the topic in interviews and on social media.
Malhotra was once a vocal supporter of COVID-19 vaccines, even appearing on television to promote the benefits of vaccination. Now, however, he is questioning if COVID-19 vaccines have done more harm than good for the general public and asking that they stop being administered altogether.
“There is a strong scientific, ethical and moral case to be made that the current COVID vaccine administration must stop until all the raw data has been subjected to fully independent scrutiny,” Malhotra said in his second of two editorials. “Looking to the future the medical and public health professions must recognize these failings and eschew the tainted dollar of the medical-industrial complex. It will take a lot of time and effort to rebuild trust in these institutions, but the health—of both humanity and the medical profession—depends on it.”
Why the change of heart on COVID vaccines?
Malhotra wrote that he happily received both doses of a COVID-19 vaccine in early 2021. In fact, he said, he was “surprised and concerned” at the time about the number of “vaccine-hesitant patients” he encountered on a regular basis.
When his father tragically died after suffering a cardiac arrest in July 2021, however, he says he started to reconsider his perspective. Malhotra’s father, Prof. Kailash Chand, OBE, was a celebrated figure throughout England and beyond—and, yes, he was vaccinated. His death confused Malhotra, both because his father had been taking great care of his body and because “there was no evidence of an actual heart attack.” Malhotra ultimately concluded that there is a “real possibility” the COVID-19 vaccines had played a significant role.
Malhotra explained that this is when he started thinking more and more about the vaccines. After reviewing the data in great detail in his editorials, he shared his conclusion that the numbers suggest there is “a greater risk of serious adverse events from the vaccines than being hospitalized from COVID-19.”
“Pharmacovigilance systems and real-world safety data, coupled with plausible mechanisms of harm, are deeply concerning, especially in relation to cardiovascular safety,” he added.
Scientists and doctors respond to claims the COVID vaccine causes more harm than good
The medical and scientific communities have responded to these editorials rather quickly. Both columns were repeatedly shared once they went live, and groups agreeing with Malhotra and disagreeing with Malhotra have both been quite active.
Health Feedback, a group focused on “sorting fact from fiction in health and medical media coverage,” provided a thorough rebuttal of the editorials on its website.
“Scientific evidence from clinical trials and safety monitoring indicate that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective,” the group wrote. “While severe reactions to the vaccine can occur, they are rare, and the most common side effects of vaccination are mild and go away within a few days. All available evidence indicates that being vaccinated is safer than not being vaccinated.”
The Health Feedback response highlighted the fact that multiple organizations supporting Malhotra have been associated with spreading COVID-19 misinformation in the past. This includes the World Council for Health, the host of the previously mentioned press conference, and Health Advisory and Recovery Team.
A recent blog post from Science-Based Medicine, a website owned and operated by the New England Skeptical Society, focused on the second of Malhotra’s two editorials. David Gorski, MD, PhD, a professor with Wayne State University, wrote the blog post, describing it as “projection, pure and simple.”
“He’s accusing conventional medical authorities, big pharma, and social media companies of spreading medical misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines by using the very techniques of misinformation that he claims to decry, such as cherry-picked studies and conspiracy theories, to do it,” Gorski wrote.
Gorski also shared his doubts about the validity of the Journal of Insulin Resistance, saying the publication does not appear to publish many articles—and when it does, it appears to primarily publish the thoughts of its own editors. Both of these facts, he said, “raise red flags for this being an ideology journal disguised as a medical journal.”
Many have also fully agreed with Malhotra, sharing his story and commenting on it online. The Epoch Times and other outlets already known for being vocal against COVID-19 vaccines, for example, have highlighted the importance of his story. Also, one quick video of Malhotra from Sept. 27 has already hit 1.1 million views on Twitter.
The most important announcement of my life and career so far. Please watch, listen and share with family and friends. I reached these sobering conclusions reluctantly. To read the free full open access peer reviewed medical journal articles visit https://t.co/9IMbUlAAQ9pic.twitter.com/sYxJJjeh9S
Cardiovascular Business also reached out to both the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and European Society of Cardiology (ESC) about the content of Malhotra’s editorials. The ACC has repeatedly supported COVID-19 vaccines, emphasizing that the small risks of these vaccines are not nearly as severe as the risks of a COVID-19 infection.
Instead of a full comment, the ACC highlighted its previous publications on this topic, specifically a 2022 document from its Solution Set Oversight Committee.[3] The ESC has not yet responded.
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Featured image: Dr. Aseem Malhotra. (Courtesy of Dr. Aseem Malhotra)
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 terror attack on Krymskiy Most – the Crimea Bridge – was the proverbial straw that broke the Eurasian camel’s back.
Russian President Vladimir Putin neatly summarized it:
“This is a terrorist attack aimed at destroying the critical civilian infrastructure of the Russian Federation.”
The head of the Russian Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, confirmed face-to-face with Putin that Terror on the Bridge was carried out by the SBU – Ukrainian special services.
Bastrykin told Putin,
“we have already established the route of the truck, where the explosion took place. Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, North Ossetia, Krasnodar… The carriers have been identified. With the help of operatives of the FSB, we managed to identify suspects.”
Russian intel leaked crucial info to military correspondent Alexander Kots. The cargo was ordered by a Ukrainian citizen: explosives packed in 22 pallets, in rolls of film under plastic wrap, were shipped from Bulgaria to the Georgian port of Poti. Afterwards, the cargo was loaded onto a truck with foreign license plates and proceeded overland to Armenia.
Clearance at the Armenia-Russia border was smooth – according to the rules of the Eurasian Customs Union (both Russia and Armenia are members of the Eurasian Economic Union, or EAEU). The cargo evidently avoided detection through X-rays. This route is standard for truckers traveling to Russia.
The truck then re-entered Georgia and crossed the border into Russia again, but this time through the Upper Lars checkpoint. That’s the same one used by thousands of Russians fleeing partial mobilization. The truck ended up in Armavir, where the cargo was transferred to another truck, under the responsibility of Mahir Yusubov: the one that entered the Crimean bridge coming from the Russian mainland.
Very important: the transport from Armavir to a delivery address in Simferopol should have happened on October 6-7: that is, timed to the birthday of President Putin on Friday the 7th. For some unexplained reason, that was postponed for a day.
The driver of the first truck is already testifying. Yusubov, the driver of the second truck – which exploded on the bridge – was “blind:” he had no idea what he was carrying, and is dead.
At this stage, two conclusions are paramount.
First: This was not a standard ISIS-style truck suicide bombing – the preferred interpretation in the aftermath of the terror attack.
Second: The packaging most certainly took place in Bulgaria. That, as Russian intel has cryptically implied, indicates the involvement of “foreign special services.”
‘A mirage of cause and effect’
What has been revealed in public by Russian intelligence tells only part of the story. An incandescent assessment received by The Cradle from another Russian intel source is way more intriguing.
At least 450 kg of explosives were employed in the blast. Not on the truck, but mounted inside the Crimea Bridge span itself. The white truck was just a decoy by the terrorists “to create a mirage of cause and effect.” When the truck reached the point on the bridge where the explosives were mounted, the explosion took place.
According to the source, railroad employees told investigators that there was a form of electronic hijacking; the terror operators took control of the railway so the train carrying fuel received a command to stop because of a false signal that the road ahead was busy.
Bombs mounted on the bridge spans were a working hypothesis largely debated in Russian military channels over the weekend, as well as the use of underwater drones.
In the end, the quite sophisticated plan could not follow the necessarily rigid timing. There was no alignment by the millimeter between the mounted explosive charges, the passing truck and the fuel train stopped in its tracks. Damage was limited, and easily contained. The charges/truck combo exploded on the outer right lane of the road. Damage was only on two sections of the outer lane, and not much on the railway bridge.
In the end, Terror on the Bridge yielded a short, Pyrrhic PR victory – duly celebrated across the collective West – with negligible practical success: transfer of Russian military cargo by railway resumed in roughly 14 hours.
And that brings us to the key information in the Russian intel source assessment: the whodunnit.
It was a plan by the British MI6, says this source, without offering further details. Which, he elaborates, Russian intel, for a number of reasons, is shadow-playing as “foreign special services.”
It’s quite telling that the Americans rushed to establish plausible deniability. The proverbial “Ukrainian government official” told CIA mouthpiece The Washington Post that the SBU did it. That was a straight confirmation of an Ukrainska Pravda report based on an “unidentified law enforcement official.”
The perfect red line trifecta
Already, over the weekend, it was clear the ultimate red line had been crossed. Russian public opinion and media were furious. For all its status as an engineering marvel, Krymsky Most represents not only critical infrastructure; it is the visual symbol of the return of Crimea to Russia.
Moreover, this was a personal terror attack on Putin and the whole Russian security apparatus.
So we had, in sequence, Ukrainian terrorists blowing up Darya Dugina’s car in a Moscow suburb (they admitted it); US/UK special forces (partially) blowing Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 (they admitted and then retracted); and the terror attack on Krymsky Most (once again: admitted then retracted).
Not to mention the shelling of Russian villages in Belgorod, NATO supplying long-range weapons to Kiev, and the routine execution of Russian soldiers.
Darya Dugina, Nord Streams and Crimea Bridge make it an Act of War trifecta. So this time the response was inevitable – not even waiting for the first meeting since February of the Russian Security Council scheduled for the afternoon of 10 October.
Moscow launched the first wave of a Russian Shock’n Awe without even changing the status of the Special Military Operation (SMO) to Counter-Terrorist Operation (CTO), with all its serious military/legal implications.
After all, even before the UN Security Council meeting, Russian public opinion was massively behind taking the gloves off. Putin had not even scheduled bilateral meetings with any of the members. Diplomatic sources hint that the decision to let the hammer come down had already been taken over the weekend.
Shock’n Awe did not wait for the announcement of an ultimatum to Ukraine (that may come in a few days); an official declaration of war (not necessary); or even announcing which ‘”decision-making centers” in Ukraine would be hit.
The lightning strike de facto metastasizing of SMO into CTO means that the regime in Kiev and those supporting it are now considered as legitimate targets, just like ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra during the Anti-Terror Operation (ATO) in Syria.
And the change of status – now this is a real war on terror – means that terminating all strands of terrorism, physical, cultural, ideological, are the absolute priority, and not the safety of Ukrainian civilians. During the SMO, safety of civilians was paramount. Even the UN has been forced to admit that in over seven months of SMO the number of civilian casualties in Ukraine has been relatively low.
Enter ‘Commander Armageddon’
The face of Russian Shock’n Awe is Russian Commander of the Aerospace Forces, Army General Sergey Surovikin: the new commander-in-chief of the now totally centralized SMO/CTO.
Image: Army General Sergey Surovikin by Mil.ru, licensed under CC BY 4.0
Questions were being asked non-stop: why didn’t Moscow take this decision way back in February? Well, better late than never. Kiev is now learning they messed with the wrong guy. Surovikin is widely respected – and feared: his nickname is “General Armageddon.” Others call him “Cannibal.” Legendary Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov – also a colonel general in the Russian military – lavishly praises Surovikin as “a real general and warrior, an experienced, strong-willed and far-sighted commander.”
Surovikin has been commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces since 2017; was awarded the title of Hero of Russia for his no-nonsense leadership of the military operation in Syria; and had on the ground experience in Chechnya in the 1990s.
Surovikin is Dr. Shock’n Awe with full carte blanche. That even rendered idle speculations that Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov were removed or forced to resign, as speculated by the Wagner group Telegram channel Grey Zone.
It is still possible that Shoigu – widely criticized for recent Russian military setbacks – could be eventually replaced by Tula Governor Alexei Dyumin, and Gerasimov by the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces, Lieutenant General Alexander Matovnikov.
That’s almost irrevelant: all eyes are on Surovikin.
MI6 does have some well-placed moles in Moscow, relatively speaking. The Brits had warned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the General Staff that the Russians would be launching a “warning strike” this Monday.
What happened was no “warning strike,” but a massive offensive of over 100 cruise missiles launched “from the air, sea and land,” as Putin noted, against Ukrainian “energy, military command and communications facilities.”
MI6 also noted “the next step” will be the complete destruction of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. That’s not a “next step:” it’s already happening. Power supply is completely gone in five regions, including Lviv and Kharkov, and there are serious interruptions in other five, including Kiev.
Over 60 percent of Ukrainian power grids are already knocked out. Over 75 percent of internet traffic is gone. Elon Musk’s Starlink netcentric warfare has been “disconnected” by the Ministry of Defense.
Shock’n Awe will likely progress in three stages.
First: Overload of the Ukrainian air defense system (already on).
Second: Plunging Ukraine into the Dark Ages (already in progress).
Third: Destruction of all major military installations (the next wave).
Ukraine is about to embrace nearly total darkness in the next few days. Politically, that opens a completely new ball game. Considering Moscow’s trademark “strategic ambiguity,” this could be a sort of Desert Storm remixed (massive air strikes preparing a ground offensive); or, more likely, an ‘incentive’ to force NATO to negotiate; or just a relentless, systematic missile offensive mixed with Electronic Warfare (EW) to shatter for good Kiev’s capacity to wage war.
Or it could be all of the above.
How a humiliated western Empire can possibly raise the stakes now, short of going nuclear, remains a key question.
Moscow has shown admirable restraint for too long. No one should ever forget that in the real Great Game – how to coordinate the emergence of the multipolar world – Ukraine is just a mere sideshow. But now the sideshow runners better run for cover, because General Armageddon is on the loose.
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This article was originally published on The Cradle.
Pepe Escobar,born in Brazil, is a correspondent and editor-at-large at Asia Times and columnist for Consortium News and Strategic Culture. Since the mid-1980s he’s lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Singapore, Bangkok. He has extensively covered Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia to China, Iran, Iraq and the wider Middle East. Pepe is the author of Globalistan – How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War; Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad during the Surge. He was contributing editor to The Empire and The Crescent and Tutto in Vendita in Italy. His last two books are Empire of Chaos and 2030. Pepe is also associated with the Paris-based European Academy of Geopolitics. When not on the road he lives between Paris and Bangkok.
In retaliation for the terrorist attack against the Kerch Strait bridge, Russia has reportedly damaged an EU “mission” said to help organize security in Ukraine.
Global food security, especially in Africa, has been in the media publications these past few months. While a few outspoken African leaders shifted blames to Russia-Ukraine crisis, others focus on spending state budget to import food to calm rising discontent among the population.
Amini died allegedly of a cerebral hemorrhage or stroke after, eyewitnesses claimed, she was beaten while incarcerated. The Iranian government, however, released a video which appeared to show that Amini merely got in a dispute with a police officer about the way she wore the hijab and that the police officer walked away.
Even South Korea’s President Roh Moo-Hyun had to obtain permission from the United Nations Command (UNC) in order to cross the dividing line between the two Koreas on his way to the summit with his counterpart Kim Jong-Il in Pyongyang. The UNC has used its authority to grant permission to cross the dividing line as a wedge in the inter-Korean Railway Projects, and the United States government, which commands the UNC, has been engaged in a tug-of-war to preserve the armistice regime and the Cold War order in Northeast Asia.
The opportunity that I had to study at Yale College as an undergraduate and later at Harvard University for my Ph.D., the chance I had to wander among the gothic buildings, to imbibe confidence and purpose, and to learn to think, learn how things work, from distinguished scholars, was a point of stubborn pride for me when I started my career as a professor, but that legacy had devolved into a nightmare, into a travesty.
Here is a distinctly minority opinion about the Ukraine war: Some people, more than a few, don’t support anything the military-industrial complex is promoting, especially since Vietnam, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Afghanistan, Grenada, Panama, Somalia, Libya, and whatever new hegemonic expeditions are planned.
Now is the time for you to speak with your doctors and know whether they are willing to protect your medical files or will they hand over your most private and confidential details to the state.
At the first glance, an ordinary citizen of the globe can think that probably it must be that everything that is now happening in Banderistan Ukraine and around, including and reconstruction of international relations and reformulation of the global order in politics, is just a big misunderstanding.
In what was described as a harsh rebuke of Russia, the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Ukrainian human rights organization Center for Civil Liberties, along with Belarusian human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski and the Russian human rights organization Memorial. While at first glance, the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties might sound like a group that is well deserving of this honor, Ukrainian peace leader Yurii Sheliazhenko wrote a stinging critique.
Over and over again, we are being told that there is nothing to be concerned about and that our leaders have everything under control. But then we keep getting more signs that more war is coming. In fact, it appears that preparations are being made for scenarios that would have once been unthinkable.
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On the latest slimed path Julian Assange has been made to trod, a few things have presented themselves. The rusty sword of Damocles may be suspended above him (he, we are informed, has contracted COVID-19), but there are those, in the meantime, willing to defend him with decent conviction against his dispatch to the United States, where he is certain to perish.
From the side of decent conviction and steadfastness came the October 8 protests across a number of cities, attended by thousands. A human chain numbering some 7,000 persons formed around the Houses of Parliament in London demanding the release of the WikiLeaks publisher from Belmarsh Prison.
Then there was the Boadicea-like performance that his wife is becoming famous for. On the ideologically dry-cured medium of Piers Morgan’s Uncensored Program, a taster of that vengeance US justice is famous for could be gathered from an encounter between Stella, and the trumpeting warmonger and failed Trump advisor, John Bolton.
Bolton, it should be remembered, was the only evidence that President George W. Bush, dyslexic and reformed drunk, had a mild sense of humour. Sending that man to the United Nations as US ambassador was the equivalent of appointing a randy, murderous fox to guard unsuspecting chickens. That appointment had it all: resentment, masochism and disgust for that concept known as international law.
There is much to say that former President Donald Trump, for all his insufferable foibles, insoluble perversions and naggingly vicious pettiness, never embarked on the eschatological murderous destiny that Bolton believes the US is destined for. The messianic types always find some higher meaning for death and sacrifice, as long they are not the ones doing it. The difference between the suicide bomber and the deskbound scribbler keen on killing is one of practice, not conviction. Both believe that there is a higher meaning written in blood, inscribed in the babble of post-life relevance and invisible virtue. For us humble folk, life is good enough, and should be preserved.
According to Bolton, the 175 years Assange might receive for exposing the abundant dirty laundry known as US foreign policy and imperial violence was hardly sufficient. He would, naturally, get a “fair trial” in the United States (never explain the ideologically self-evident), though absolute fairness was dependent on him receiving 176 years. “Well, I think that’s a small amount of the sentence he deserves.” With such a fabulous nose for justice, Bolton shares common ground with the commissars and gauleiters.
Unsurprisingly, Stella Assange had a view markedly at odds with such an assessment. Her husband was being pursued,
“For receiving information from a source and publishing it, and it was in the public interest. It was US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he revealed tens of thousands of civilian deaths that had not been acknowledged before.”
Morgan, an incarnation of that guttersnipe, sewerage swilling demon virtually unsurpassed in modern British media, tried to sound cerebral and moral at points. Did WikiLeaks redact the material from Chelsea Manning, one of the key sources for the disclosures? Or had WikiLeaks been drunkenly cavalier in exposing all and sundry to the world? Best ignore reading trial transcripts, Piers. Knowledge drawn upon the cobblestones of truth is bound to be rough.
To those familiar with WikiLeaks, its practices and, indeed, the trial at the Old Bailey regarding Assange’s extradition, such claims could only be seen as decidedly weak. Stella explained that WikiLeaks did “redact all of those documents that Manning gave to WikiLeaks, and in fact it was in cooperation with those newspapers.” The trial itself made it clear that the secret spiller, as Assange has often been accused of being, was none other than the Guardian itself, whose journalists had left, with tantalising promise, the decryption key in their book WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s war on secrecy.
Stella, aflame with purpose and aware of her brief, also reminded the audience who she was talking to. Bolton, she shot with acid fury, “sought to undermine the international legal system, sought to ensure that the US is not under the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction.”
Then came the well fashioned grenade, pin removed.
“And if it was, Mr Bolton might in fact be prosecuted under the ICC [International Criminal Court]. He was one of the chief cheerleaders of the Iraq war, which Julian then exposed through these leaks, so he has a conflict of interest.”
There have been other befouling episodes that can only be of concern to Assange and his family. It has now come to light that security officials, in Australia’s Parliament, were under “significant pressure” to seize books from the Assange delegation during their August visit to Canberra. A letter to Greens Senator David Shoebridge by the Department of Parliamentary Services explained that it was all linked to a protest.
The nature of the bureaucrat’s tone is to mock the valuable and diminish the relevant. In the considered view of the Secretary of the Department of Parliamentary Services, Rob Stefanic,
“I appreciate that Assange’s family may not have viewed the screening procedure in a positive light, but having reviewed the processes followed by security staff, I am confident they performed their duties with respect and due diligence.”
Such reasoning would suffice for most police states, where bureaucrats sup at the same table with the security wonks.
The Department, it transpired, had tripped up. The claim about the protest was inaccurate, as neither Assange’s father, John Shipton, nor his brother, Gabriel, had attended any protests.
“It is apparent that there are factual inaccuracies in the letter to Senator Shoebridge and the secretary will be writing to correct the record.”
The world has turned full circle. Those opening the cabinet of secrets are considered the nasty tittle-tattles, who simply revealed the fact that daddy fiddled and mummy drank. In this world, homicidally excited types like Bolton revel in expressing unsavoury views in the open; those who expose the bankruptcy of such views are to be punished. We await the next grotesquery with resigned disgust.
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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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In retaliation for the terrorist attack against the Kerch Strait bridge, Russia has reportedly damaged an EU “mission” said to help organize security in Ukraine.
The EU Mission to Kyiv's windows were blasted out in Russia's missile strikes. The mission is right next to the Klitschko bridge. Curious to see how this is received in Brussels. @vonderleyen@JosepBorrellFpic.twitter.com/RUo6fT2t5P
While the Klitschko bridge (also known as the “Glass Bridge”) appeared to be the target, the EU, USG, and the war propaganda media will portray this as an attack on good-natured folks merely attempting to help Ukraine (the mission was established after the violent 2014 coup arranged by the neocon, Victoria Nuland, and the US state department).
Russia understands perfectly well what the purpose of a “mission” established in Ukraine to help a coup-installed government that includes neo-Nazi psychopaths is—to further integrate the economic and social basket case semi-country into the European Union and NATO, thus moving the threat closer to Russia.
The timing of the “collateral damage” to the “mission” is curious, considering:
The European Union’s top diplomat has criticized the bloc’s slow pace of action in setting up a military training mission for the Ukrainian armed forces, as foreign ministers prepare to discuss the plan next week. https://t.co/trRd3A9ybN
If the bridge was indeed the target, the missile missed, as this video reveals:
The strike fell not on the “Klitschko bridge”, but a little further.
Approximately there in Kyiv is the office of the EU Advisory Mission. It opened in Ukraine in December 2014, in response to the Maidan events. The mission was engaged in the reform of the Ukrainian police. pic.twitter.com/SXK97C5T8W
I believe, as stated in the tweet below, that the explosion was intended to send a message to the European Union about the role it plays in the war. The EU acted as an early enabler in arming Ukrainian neo-Nazis.
More than 25 nations have joined in purchasing and delivering weapons to support Ukraine’s war effort. The U.S. has sent billions of dollars in missiles, ammunition and other items to the front. The EU signed off on a €500 million ($551 million USD) package — a first for the 27-country European bloc — to help arm Ukraine. And both Finland and Germany have rewritten long-standing policy that barred exporting weapons into war zones. (Emphasis added.)
It would have been easy to take out the entire “mission” for its effort “to achieve a civilian security sector that is efficient, accountable, and enjoys the trust of the public,” according to the EUAM Ukraine website.
In September, the USG state department “committed an additional $457.5 million in civilian security assistance to enhance the efforts of Ukrainian law enforcement and criminal justice agencies to improve their operational capacity and save lives as they continue to help defend the Ukrainian people, their freedom, and their democracy from the Kremlin’s brutal war of aggression.”
Prior to that, in late March, the state department handed over $100 million in “civilian security assistance to enhance the capacity of the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs,” according to this USG state department press statement.
It is a known fact or should be, that the main internal security apparatus of the Ukrainian state is the SBU (Sluzhba bezpeky Ukrayiny), or the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU). It is infested with neo-Nazis and violent ultranationalists that will not tolerate the kind of “democracy” EUAM claims to want for Ukraine.
Under Zelensky's watch, Ukraine's SBU has partnered with neo-Nazis from Azov and C14 to hunt down left-wing activists
This is from video posted by Azov members during the SBU's torture & kidnapping of leftist Alexander Matjuschenko in Dnipro – targeted for his political views pic.twitter.com/AboabzzT4T
In post-coup Ukraine, “internal security” is on par with that of its former mentor and collaborator, Nazi Germany, and the latter’s Gestapo. The SBU is busy at work eliminating the opponents of Zelenskyy’s authoritarian regime, the same as the Nazis did in Germany in the 1930s and early 40s.
As @dancohen3000 reported, exiled Ukrainian opposition figure @anatoliisharii said he faced a recent SBU assassination attempt after his friend was kidnapped.
Shariy's party was among 13 opposition parties outlawed by Zelensky under martial law. https://t.co/B2oLZ8v3au
The Kyiv Independent reported [in the last week of April] that “a hunt for alleged collaborators is underway in recaptured parts of the country.” The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) along with the national and local police, territorial defense units and the State Emergency Service, are leading the hunt for suspects.
Perhaps most horrifying though, is that the intelligence agency of Ukraine, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), with their special forces unit referred to as the Alpha Group, perpetrated a large amount of human rights violations, aided by the volunteers from the numerous regiments and battalions of Ukraine, alongside the official Ukrainian military.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) is, in itself, a creation by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) cooperates, and works alongside the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
The Responsible Statecraft website notes the CIA “is operating in Kyiv and has been for some time, according to new reporting by the New York Times” (report locked behind corporate war propaganda paywall).
“The Ukrainian SBU security services has served as the enforcement arm of the officially authorized campaign of repression,” reports The Grayzone. “With training from the CIA and close coordination with Ukraine’s state-backed neo-Nazi paramilitaries, the SBU has spent the past weeks filling its vast archipelago of torture dungeons with political dissidents.”
The Ukrainian security service known as the SBU has served as the main enforcer of the post-Maidan government’s campaign of domestic political repression. Pro-Western monitors including the United Nations Office of the High Commission (UN OHCR) and Human Rights Watch have accused the SBU of systematically torturing political opponents and Ukrainian dissidents with near-total impunity.
The UN OHCR found in 2016 that “arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment of such conflict-related detainees were common practice of SBU… A former Kharkiv SBU officer explained, ‘For the SBU, the law virtually does not exist as everything that is illegal can be either classified or explained by referring to state necessity.”
Yevhen Karas, the founder of the infamous neo-Nazi C14 unit, has detailed the close relationship his gang and other extreme right factions have enjoyed with the SBU. The SBU “informs not only us, but also Azov, the Right Sector, and so on,” Karas boasted in a 2017 interview.
EUAM is convinced that the SSU will with dignity master all challenges and prevent the enemy’s encroachments against the state of Ukraine by making best use of its 30-year experience in counterintelligence, counterterrorism and cybersecurity. The members of the Security Service, and in particular the Center for Special Operations “A”, destroy the enemy and capture invaders. The Departments for Counterintelligence and National Statehood Protection regularly detain Russian agents and saboteurs. SSU investigators record the crimes perpetrated by the invader and open criminal proceedings. Cybersecurity experts repel hacker and information attacks, initiate pressure on the aggressor’s infrastructure, and help to collect data on the movement of enemy’s equipment, subversive and reconnaissance groups.
Translation: the neo-Nazi-infested and CIA-controlled SBU aka SSU will continue to ferret out critics and political activists, described here as “Russian agents and saboteurs,” and torture and kill them. This is fully supported by unelected EU apparatchiks in Brussels and, without saying, Tony Blinken and his coterie of “humanitarian interventionists,” more accurately described as “liberal” neocons.
In a more perfect world, all of these characters, including Blinken, Biden, and Jake Sullivan, to name but a few would be brought before The Hague on crimes against humanity and enabling Nazi terrorism.
Unfortunately, we don’t live in that world.
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Kurt Nimmo writes on Kurt Nimmo on Geopolitics where this article was originally published. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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***
Global food security, especially in Africa, has been in the media publications these past few months. While a few outspoken African leaders shifted blames to Russia-Ukraine crisis, others focus on spending state budget to import food to calm rising discontent among the population. Some experts and international organizations have also expressed the fact that African leaders have to adopt import substitution mechanisms and use their financial resources on strengthening agricultural production systems.
At the G7 Summit in June, President Biden and G7 leaders announced over $4.5 billion to address global food security, over half of which will come from the United States. This $2.76 billion in U.S. government funding will help protect the world’s most vulnerable populations and mitigate the impacts of growing food insecurity and malnutrition, including from Russia’s war in Ukraine, by building production capacity and more resilient agriculture and food systems around the world, and responding to immediate emergency food needs.
U.S. Congress allocated $336.5 million to bilateral programs for Sub-Saharan African countries, including Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe and regional programs in southern Africa, west Africa, and the Sahel.
Also of this $2.76 billion, USAID is programming $2 billion in emergency food security assistance over the next three months. As of August 8, 2022, the U.S. has provided nearly $1 billion specifically for countries in Africa toward this $2 billion commitment, including Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Uganda.
That compared, Russia plans to earn (revenue) $33 billion by the end 0f 2022 through massive export of grains and meat poultry to Africa. The plan remotely aims at marginalizing local production, cut out foreign contributions to support livelihoods through local production and make African leaders spend their hard earned revenue on food imports instead of supporting agricultural production.
Primarily, Russia needs to export an estimated 50-60 million tonnes of grain this agricultural year from July 2022 to June 2023. Agriculture Minister Dmitry Patrushev and Algerian Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Mohamed Abdelhafid Henni, co-chairing the Russian-Algerian Intergovernmental Commission on late September, agreed on an increased wheat exports from Krasnodar Territory and Siberia regions to Algeria.
The Agriculture Ministry’s Agroexport Center said in a report that Russia has to increase exports to Angola. The estimated potential for Russian agribusiness exports to Angola is $100 million per year, and this includes grains, foremost wheat, soybean oil, beef, poultry, edible pork by-products, yeast and other agribusiness products.
Agroexport Federal Center for Development of Agribusiness Exports in close partnership collaboration with Trust Technologies and the business expert community drew up a concept for the development of exports of principal agricultural products (grain, dairy, butter, meat and confectionery products) to promising markets of African countries. It is estimated to build on the total volume of exports to African countries which in 2021 amounted to $33 billion.
“The African continent is an interesting and promising area for the development of Russian food exports. However, when working in this market, it is important to take into account a number of factors: strong differences in the level of welfare of the population, political instability in some countries, state regulation of prices for a number of goods, et cetera,” Agroexport head Dmitry Krasnov was quoted as saying in the statement and reported by Russian media including the Interfax News Agency.
By increasing grain exports to countries in Africa, Russia aims at enhancing the competitiveness of Russian agricultural goods in the African market. According to the business concept report, five African countries have been identified and chose as target markets for the delivery of the agricultural products. These are Angola, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria, Tunisia and South Africa.
In a sharp contrast to food-importing African countries, Zimbabwe has increased wheat production especially during this crucial time of the current Russia-Ukraine crisis. This achievement was attributed to efforts in mobilizing local scientists to improve the crop’s production. Zimbabwe is an African country that has been under Western sanctions for 25 years, hindering imports of much-needed machinery and other inputs to drive agriculture.
At the African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) summit held September in Rwanda, President Emmerson Mnangagwa told the gathering that
“we used to depend on importation of wheat from Ukraine in the past, but we have been able to produce our own. So, the crisis in that country has not affected us. There is an urgent need to adopt a progressive approach and re-purpose food policies to address the emerging challenges affecting our entire food systems.”
There are various local efforts to attain food security on the continent. For instance, the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) African Emergency Food Production Facility (AEFPF) to increase the production of climate-adapted wheat, corn, rice, and soybeans over the next four growing seasons in Africa. The International Fund for Agricultural Development’s (IFAD) Crisis Response Initiative (CRI) to help protect livelihoods and build resilience in rural communities. The Africa Adaptation Initiative (AAI) to develop a pipeline of bankable projects in Africa, to leverage private equity.
The Africa Risk Capacity (ARC) Africa Disaster Risk Financing Programme (ADRiFi) to help African governments to respond to food system shocks by increasing access to risk insurance products. A fertilizer efficiency and innovation program to enhance the efficiency of fertilizer use in countries where fertilizer tends to be over-applied. Support for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) will fund soil mapping spanning multiple countries to provide information allowing for wiser water usage, greater fertilizer conservation, and improved climate resilience impacts.
Significant to note that during business conference held at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center on April 22, African Development Bank Group President Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, speaking as a guest of the Washington, DC, US-based think tank, called for an increased sense of urgency amid what he described as a once-in-a-century convergence of global challenges for Africa, including a looming food crisis. The continent’s most vulnerable countries have been hit hardest by conflict, climate change and the pandemic, which upended economic and development progress in Africa.
Adesina said the ramifications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 spread far beyond the conflict to other parts of the world, including Africa. Russia and Ukraine supply almost 30% of global wheat exports, and the price has surged nearly 50% globally, reaching levels reminiscent of the 2008 global food crisis.
Adesina said the tripling of fertilizer costs, rising energy price and rising costs of food baskets, could worsen in Africa in the coming months. He noted wheat made up 90% of Russia’s $4 billion in exports to Africa in 2020, and of Ukraine’s nearly $3 billion in exports to the continent, 48% was wheat and 31% was maize.
Adesina said Africa must rapidly expand its production to meet food security challenges.
“The African Development Bank is already active in mitigating the effects of a food crisis through the African Food Crisis Response and Emergency Facility, a dedicated facility being considered by the bank to provide African countries with the resources needed to raise local food production and procure fertilizer,” Adesina said. “My basic principle is that Africa should not be begging. We must solve our own challenges ourselves without depending on others…”
The bank chief spoke about early successes through the African Development Bank’s innovative flagship initiative, Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) program, which operates across nine food commodities in more than 30 African countries. TAAT has helped to rapidly boost food production at scale on the continent, including the production of wheat, rice and other cereal crops.
“We are putting our money where our mouth is,” Adesina said. “We are producing more and more of our own food. Our Africa Emergency Food Production Plan will produce 38 million metric tons of food.”
He said TAAT already had delivered heat-tolerant varieties of wheat to 1.8 million farmers in seven countries, increasing wheat production by over 1.4 million metric tons and a value of $291 million. He added that during the drought in southern Africa in 2018 and 2019, TATT was able to help deploy heat-tolerant maize varieties which were cultivated by 5.2 million households on 841,000 hectares.
In a similar argument and direction, the World Bank has also expressed worry over sub-Saharan Africa countries high expenditure on food imports, that could be produced locally using their vast uncultivated lands, and devastating impact on budgets due to rising external borrowing. According to the bank, it is crucial to increase the effectiveness of current resources to expanding and supporting local production especially in the sectors of agriculture and industry during this crucial period of Russia-Ukraine crisis.
In a press release titled – African Governments Urgently Need to Restore Macro-Economic Stability and Protect the Poor in a Context of Slow Growth, – High Inflation, the global lender said African governments spent 16.5 per cent of their revenues servicing external debt in 2021, up from less than 5 per cent in 2010. Eight out of 38 IDA-eligible countries in the region are in debt distress, and 14 are at high risk of joining them.
In late May 2022, the IMF and World Bank considered 16 low-income African countries to be at high risk of debt distress, while 7 countries – Chad, Republic of the Congo, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe, Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe – were already in debt distress. Bright spots, such as Côte d’Ivoire and Rwanda, are expected to exhibit rapid growth in 2022, the report said. However, 33 African countries need external assistance for food, and acute food insecurity is likely to worsen in the next months in 18 of these economies.
With the above facts, African leaders have to demonstrate a higher level of commitment to tackling post-pandemic challenges and the Russia-Ukraine crisis that have created global economic instability and other related severe consequences. And this requires collaborative action, and much stronger pace of transformation to cater for the needs of the population over 1.3 billion in Africa.
Máximo Torero, chief economist of the Food and Agriculture Organization, has observed that African policies have relatively failed to alleviate food security problems. It has emphasised the fragility of over-dependence on a globalised agricultural system. What is needed to achieve a more integrated and regionalized agricultural system is coordinated public policy responses to support agribusiness. These responses must ensure small and medium-sized farmers are included.
Action can be taken at a regional level too. And it would help identify issues relating to market access, border and transport-related problems, and possible anticompetitive behaviour. The integration of regional economies is one vehicle for alleviating pervasive food security issues. But regional integration can’t be achieved without the appropriate support for investment in production, infrastructure and capabilities.
An estimate suggests that rich Africans were holding a massive $500 billion in tax havens. Africa’s people are effectively robbed of wealth by an economy that enables a tiny minority of Africans to get rich by allowing wealth to flow out of Africa.
According to our basic research, Africa is not poor as foreign player are stealing its wealth. But, there is $203 billion leaving the continent. Based on a set of new figures, sub-Saharan Africa is a net creditor to the rest of the world to the tune of more than $41 billion. Then there’s the $30 billion that these corporations repatriate – profits they make in Africa but send back to their home country, or elsewhere, to enjoy their wealth.
In an opinion article published September by Foreign Policy in Focus, Imani Countess wrote that every year nearly $90 billion of African resources are lost to the global north in Illicit Financial Flows, or IFFs. It isn’t just the Russians, but also U.S.-based corporations and others throughout the global north. Russians are flying unprecedented huge quantity of gold out of Sudan, precious resources from the extractive industry out of Central African Republic and Guinea.
According to him,
“the financial mechanisms that facilitate illicit financial flows are complex, most often through opaque deals and contracts involving government officials. People in these plundered communities do not have a voice. They face harm to local biodiversity, loss of their livelihoods, and a lack of meaningful benefits, especially in providing sustainable development. The losses are breathtaking and heartbreaking, as they represent revenue that should be invested in sustainable development in Africa.”
Dr Richard Munang is UNEP’s Africa Regional Climate Change Programme Coordinator and Ms. Zhen Han is a doctoral student at Cornell University wrote in a joint article that people living in extreme poverty in the sub-Saharan Africa increased from 290 million in 1990 to 414 million in 2010. The region currently spends more than $35 billion on food imports per year.
Of the challenges currently facing the continent, it is climate change that has greatly slowed down Africa’s progress towards MDGs, especially those related to eliminating hunger and poverty, improving human health and ensuring environmental sustainability. This is because climate change disproportionately affects the livelihoods of the most vulnerable population by increasing the occurrence of natural disasters, affecting the continuity of ecosystem functioning and the ecosystem services it provides. Climate change also damages the critical natural resources that vulnerable communities depend on.
Establishing food security is important for millions of people facing hunger in Africa and is crucial for sustainable economic development and long-term prosperity of the continent. Addressing food security in a changing climate, therefore, is key for a rising Africa in the 21st century. From the discussions above and various perspectives, African leaders have to focus and redirect both human and financial resources toward increasing local production, the surest approach to attain sustainable food security for over 1.3 billion population in Africa, and this falls within the framework of the Agenda 2063 of the African Union.
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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS), is now a regular contributor to Global Research. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports.
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In late September, protests erupted in Iran following the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, after she had been arrested by morality police in Tehran purportedly for not wearing the hijab.
Amini died allegedly of a cerebral hemorrhage or stroke after, eyewitnesses claimed, she was beaten while incarcerated.
The Iranian government, however, released a video which appeared to show that Amini merely got in a dispute with a police officer about the way she wore the hijab and that the police officer walked away.
Amini subsequently collapsed in the Tehran police station and died two days later after having a heart attack allegedly caused by prior health problems (Amini allegedly underwent open brain surgery as a child in 2006).[1]
U.S. President Joe Biden was very supportive of the protests from the outset, announcing intensified sanctions on Iran while assigning restrictions on the export of software and hardware to make it easier for Iranians to communicate with each other and the outside world.
Biden said that he was “gravely concerned about reports of the intensifying violent crackdown on peaceful protesters in Iran, including students and women, who are demanding their equal rights and basic human dignity,” and that for decades “Iran’s regime has denied fundamental freedoms to its people and suppressed the aspirations of successive generations through intimidation, coercion and violence.”
Are Iranian Leaders Paranoid?
Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, claimed that outside forces led by the U.S. had ignited the protests and were trying to bring down the Iranian regime.
The Iranian government was particularly vulnerable because of severe economic problems—caused in no small part by U.S. sanctions—and reports about the declining health of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is allegedly making preparations for his son, Mojtaba, to succeed him and sustain Iran’s commitment to Islamic ideology.
The U.S. has a track record of supporting regime-change operations like in Libya, Syria and Iraq among other countries.
The CIA also orchestrated a coup in Iran in 1953 that resulted in the overthrow of democratic reformer Mohammad Mosaddegh and installed the pro-Western Shah who terrorized his opposition and enabled foreign control of Iran’s oil industry.
Since the 1979 Iranian Revolution that overthrew the Shah, the U.S. has repeatedly tried to overthrow the Iranian government, which famously took U.S. Embassy officials hostage and frequently supported U.S. adversaries such as Hezbollah; the Houthi in Yemen; the Palestinians; and the Assad government in Syria.[2]
The Obama administration followed suit by a) encircling Iran with missiles placed in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE); b) strengthening Bush’s economic sanctions and pushing Saudi Arabia to drive up its oil production to push oil prices down; and c) removing the Mujahedin e-Khalq—a dissident group that plotted sabotage operations against the Iranian government—from the State Department’s list of terrorist groups.[3]
The Trump administration ratcheted up sanctions even further and assassinated General Qasem Soleimani, famed commander of the Quds force, an elite unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
So Iranian leaders clearly are not paranoid in believing that the U.S. is behind the recent protests.
As in other “color revolutions,” legitimate grievances can be easily exploited by outside forces and protests can quickly become violent and dominated by extremists bent on regime change.
Images have filled social media of Iranian protesters waving signs such as “death to the dictator” amidst a backdrop of burning cars. One video showed a crowd defacing a billboard depictingQasem Soleimani, a national hero.
This is all eerily reminiscent of protests in Syria, Libya, Ukraine and elsewhere that resulted in civil wars and violent coups that devastated their societies for years afterwards.
U.S. Agent of Regime Change
In an article on the independent Arab webzine Al Mayadeen entitled “Dirty Money: Meet the U.S. Agent Driving the CIA-Led Riots in Iran,” journalist Mona Issa profiles Masih Alinejad, whom Issa calls “Washington’s weapon of choice for flaring up the largest color revolution attempt in Iran today.”
Image: Masih Alinejad—Washington’s weapon of choice. [Source: wikipedia.org]
“I’m leading this movement. The Iranian regime will be brought down by women. I believe this.”
Operating from an FBI safe house in New York, Alinejad has been living in the U.S. for the past decade working as a full-timer for Voice of America, Persia, a U.S. propaganda mouthpiece funded by the U.S. Congress.
Alinejad’s coziness with the U.S. power elite was evident in a photo she took in May 2019 with former CIA Director and then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a strong advocate of regime change in Iran.
Issa uncovered that, between 2015 and 2022, the U.S. Agency for Global Media paid Alinejad more than $628,000 to harass veiled women, spread propaganda, and demand more sanctions against Iran—even though those sanctions were causing vast suffering, especially among women.
When Alinejad takes on Islamic regimes for oppressing women, generally, she targets only enemies of the U.S.—Iran primarily and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan—and not U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia, which is most notorious for its mistreatment of women.
Alinejad curiously has never sought to rally behind feminists in Saudi Arabia—only U.S. enemy states like Iran and Afghanistan. [Source: humanists.international]
So how real is Alinejad’s actual commitment to women’s rights?
Alinejad’s Accomplices
One of the first to accuse the police of beating Amini was Maziar Bahari, a filmmaker, former Newsweek reporter (1998-2011) and founder of the anti-Ayatollah news site IranWire, who wrote a book about being detained in Tehran’s infamous Evin Prison on what he claims were trumped up charges of espionage and sedition in the aftermath of Iran’s contested 2009 election.
Another Twitter post which propagated what appears to be a false narrative was from Babak Taghvaee, a military writer who was accused of being a CIA, Mossad and British MI6 agent and wrote reports for the Pentagon and U.S. State Department-funded Radio Free Asia/Radio Liberty.
What Role the NED?
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a CIA offshoot which supports civil society groups worldwide with the aim of ‘strengthening capitalism and democracy’ and overthrowing governments the U.S. does not like.
In 2021, it provided $631,500 to Iran. Part of the sum went to human rights groups that document abuses by the Iranian government with the goal of discrediting it. Other grants went to media groups that spread negative stories about the Iranian government, and yet more toward supporting dissident political groups under the guise of democracy promotion.
Advancing the rumor that Iran’s Supreme leader was on his deathbed, the article quoted from human rights activists condemning the Iranian government’s response to the protests and treatment of women in the country, of which Amini’s death was allegedly emblematic.
A senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa, Mariam Memarsadeghi is quoted as saying that “people of all different world views and lifestyles are out on the streets in one voice demanding the overthrow of the regime.”
Memarsadeghi continued:
“The only way these women and girls in Iran can be free of this indiscriminate violence, humiliation and everyday fear of a totalitarian regime is to be rid of that regime. Speaking out like this is definitely better than not doing so, but the foreign policies of democratic states and the United Nations has to be that this is a regime that should not exist…So long as this cabal rules, there really is no prospect for women’s rights inside Iran.”
What Kind of Regime Change?
While going all out in favor of regime change, the NED “Democracy Digest” article and others of its kind say very little about the kind of regime they would like to see replace that of the Ayatollahs.
The latter may be harsh but beyond abolishing the hijab, what kind of economic program do they advocate for? And what policies toward other Middle Eastern countries would be better than those advanced by the Ayatollahs?
Many it seems would want to ally Iran very closely with the U.S., raising questions as to whether they want to see a return to the Shah’s reign and the kind of exploitative economic practices that left Iran an underdeveloped vassal state of the West and ignited the 1979 Iranian Revolution in the first place.
And what about the fates of Syria, Libya and Ukraine? Do the proponents of regime change in Iran want to see their country enmeshed in civil war and destroyed?
While there may be no smoking-gun proof of CIA involvement in the Iranian protests, all the signs are there that history is being repeated—from the vocal support of President Biden and U.S. media to the protests, to the heavy involvement of the NED in Iran, to the role being played by exiled feminist Twitter warriors with ties to U.S. government-funded agencies.
In spite of mounting inflation and divisions over the hijab policy, the regime of the Ayatollahs will likely endure, however, because Iranians know their history.
They remember the brutality of the U.S. installed Shah and the CIA’s overthrow of Iranian democracy, and understand how Western imperialism weakened and humiliated many Middle Eastern countries before—and will do it again—as always under the phony veneer of advancing women’s and other human rights.
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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].
Notes
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has called for a complete investigation, telling Amini’s family that “your daughter is like my own daughter, and I feel that this incident happened to one of my loved ones.”
Equally problematic from a U.S. point of view has been Iran’s recent support for Russia’s military operation in Ukraine with combat drones and its joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and agreement to provide oil to China in exchange for China’s investment in Iran’s infrastructure. Tehran also recently announced that it would now conduct trade with Russia in the two country’s own currencies, rather than in U.S. dollars.
Jeremy Kuzmarov, Obama’s Unending Wars: Fronting the Foreign Policy of the Permanent Warfare State (Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2019), 255.
In 2021, Iranian deputy speaker of the parliament Ali Motahari suggested another referendum on the veil be conducted, which would be the best way to revoke the law if it is unpopular.
Even Human Rights Watch acknowledged that some protesters threw rocks and that others assaulted security forces. Saterah Sadeghi, an educator from Isfahan, told journalist Max Blumenthal of The Grayzone Project that “a lot of those people [involved in the protests] died because of the thugs and mobs that were involved in these protests.” Sadeghi also said that militant Kurdish groups from Iraq—who wanted to sow chaos in Iran—were among those to attack police stations. They were part of the Barzani clan, which has historically been armed by the U.S. and Israeli Mossad
The regime is considered a failure because it has stood up to the U.S. in the international arena—other governments with worse records on human rights, like Saudi Arabia, and the economy, are never given such a designation.
Featured image: Iranian protestors on the Keshavrz Boulvard (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)
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***
When this international press episode had already been recorded, the following news appeared in the New York Times:
“US intelligence agencies believe that parts of the Ukrainian government authorized the car bomb attack near Moscow in August, which killed Daria Dughina, American officials also said they had not been informed in advance of the operation and that they would have opposed the killing if they had been consulted”. For this reason, we added our comment entitled “
The murder of Daria Dughina according to the CIA narrative” at the beginning of this episode.
Who carried out the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines from Russia to Germany is the same President Biden who pointed it out in an interview when he declared:
“There will no longer be a Nord Stream. We will put an end to this project. I promise you that we will be able to do that.”
Joe Biden: “There will be no longer a Nord Stream 2”
This is confirmed by the fact that on the very day the Nord Stream was sabotaged, the alternative pipeline was opened: the Baltic Pipe, which transports gas from Norway to Poland and other countries.
The gas pipeline war is part of the strategy by which the US and NATO, with the full support of the EU, want to break off all relations between Europe and Russia and make Europe the front line of the war against Russia.
To this end, US military spending has been raised by Congress to over $ 800 billion a year, 37 billion more than President Biden requested, while US debt, which doubled in ten years, exceeds 31 trillion dollars for the first time. This allows Washington to supply Kyiv with increasing quantities of weapons, coming not only from the Pentagon reserves but directly from the US military industries. In this way, Washington is fueling “an indefinite war against Russia” in Europe, and to the Nazi leaders of Azov who were released by Russia, the Ukrainian Presidency paid homage in Turkey, in the front row.
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This article was originally published on byoblu.
Manlio Dinucci, award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
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***
The opportunity that I had to study at Yale College as an undergraduate and later at Harvard University for my Ph.D., the chance I had to wander among the gothic buildings, to imbibe confidence and purpose, and to learn to think, learn how things work, from distinguished scholars, was a point of stubborn pride for me when I started my career as a professor, but that legacy had devolved into a nightmare, into a travesty.
I watched up close how the thoughtful and insightful men and women who were my classmates at Yale and Harvard, who were my colleagues as a professor, responded to the horrific institutional decay of the United States over the past two decades. Sadly, although I remember fondly the moments of deep insight and kind exchanges of those good old days, I observed how they, as intellectuals, as lawyers, doctors, engineers, executives, professors and government officials, how they betrayed their fellow citizens and buried the wisdom they had obtained at those temples of learning deep in the excrement of fraud and hypocrisy.
You see, they forgot the entire point of that elite education they had received. It was not supposed to be something you boasted about, or that you possessed like a yacht[P1] or a racehorse, a special key that got you into the club. No! That sort of thinking is the outgrowth of deep moral decay.
That education was a privilege alright, but one that brought with it an absolute obligation to serve society, to stand up bravely for the interests of the nation, and above all for the interests of those who have not had the opportunity to learn how the system works, to study about science and technology, about foreign lands and ancient things.
That is right, you were given special tools that few had access to. They were given to you so that you could use them, use them to help society, especially in times of need, in times of crisis.
And yes, that moment of crisis inevitably came. The 2000 election came, a moment when the entire federal government was taken over by multinational corporations and a handful of the wealthy. I looked around and my colleagues and friends acted as if nothing had happened. They took the fictions of the New York Times as their gospel and clung ever tighter to their privileges.
Then came the collapse of the twin towers, the last card in the Tarot deck, a modern miracle that belongs the Book of Revelations. In other words, a massive fraud that any high school student who has taken a semester of physics could see through.
And yet again, my colleagues from Yale and Harvard were silent; in many cases, they appeared at think tank seminars, on television, to promote this blatant fiction, and to use it as a justification for endless foreign wars, for the transfer of wealth to the billionaires.
It was, sadly, nothing other than the treason of the intellectuals.
I know that the billionaires were ultimately behind this, using their pawns and pets, but if the intellectuals, the upstanding members of society who have the specialized knowledge, the ability to write effectively, and the confidence to use those skills, if they had not sided with the establishment, if they had asked the most basic questions, the drive for war into Afghanistan, into Iraq, into Syria, and into another dozen nations, ending at the doorsteps of Russia and China, that downwards spiral could never have started.
And then there I was again, in January of 2020, right there in Washington DC, watching in amazement as the utterly contrived and unconvincing COVID-19 pandemic was rolled out for mass consumption. I knew that my colleagues were smart enough to see through that circus from the start, but almost without exception, they bought into the farce with enthusiasm, with pride and glee.
Some of them with medical expertise lent their credentials to this sinister operation.
I am an extremely limited man and I cannot claim any remarkable achievements, but I can say that it was obvious to me that the 2000 election, the 9.11 attacks, and the drive for war with Afghanistan and Iraq were a fraud and I spoke openly, and unambiguously, about these crimes at that moment.
I felt that it was my obligation as an educated American. It was, in a sense, the entire purpose of the education I had received.
My efforts, my dismissal from my job, and how I was forced out of the country, remain taboo topics for my colleagues from Yale and Harvard. Mentioning what was done to me, and to others like me, for opposing the COVID-19 fraud is also a no-no in the best of circles.
Let me say, dear colleagues, that I was also at fault. I did not do enough, especially to engage working people, and I overestimated my own capacity to effect change. I was limited by the subtle arrogance of the Ivy League I had imbibed and it took me two decades to relearn.
That is my confession, my apology, and my pledge to do better.
Now, dear colleagues, it is your turn. Admit to yourself, and to those around you, that you wrong, that you betrayed the trust placed in you by society, by those around you who did not receive such illustrious educations, when you played stupid in the face of the 2000 elections, the 9.11 incident, the drive for world war starting in Afghanistan, and finally the operation COVID-19 pandemic.
We can be forgiving of your mistakes, but only if you are ready to ask for forgiveness.
We are waiting now, for your answers, for your pledges, and for your actions. We hope you will make proper use of the educations that you have received at this moment of national crisis.
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Emanuel Pastreich served as the president of the Asia Institute, a think tank with offices in Washington DC, Seoul, Tokyo and Hanoi. Pastreich also serves as director general of the Institute for Future Urban Environments. Pastreich declared his candidacy for president of the United States as an independent in February, 2020.
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***
There would be hell to pay. Congress would demand the bombing of Moscow begin posthaste. The corporate propaganda media would have a field day. Brainless Russophobia would spread faster than covid. Russians would be gunned down on the streets of America.
And yet here is a former USG official, a man undoubtedly guilty of numerous war crimes, calling for the president of Russia to be assassinated. He threatened the people of Russia with retaliation for the supposed nuclear threats of their leadership. Putin said nukes may be used if Russia faces an existential threat. The media lies and says he will use “tactical” nukes in Ukraine if Russia begins to lose. There is no way Russia can “lose” in Ukraine, no matter what the turncoat Matt Drudge’s website says.
Not a ripple. Hardly anyone (in the corporate propaganda media that is) complained about how outrageous John Bolton’s remarks were. In the video, Bolton has all the composure of Jeffrey Dahmer during his trial for murder.
It’s rare these warmongers are called out. First and foremost, John Bolton—during the Bush administration, when he pretended to be ambassador to the United Nations (because few in Congress saw him as ambassadorial material, thus did not vote to confirm)—was a primary driving force behind the illegal and war crime-ridden invasion of Iraq (1.5 million people killed).
“People like Bolton, who don’t want any constraints on his power from the international rule of law, are just trying out for the role of people like Nazi generals Günther von Kluge and Gerd von Rundstedt, who led the assault on Poland,” writes Juan Cole.
"J'espère qu'il prendra au moins 176 ans de prison pour ce qu'il a fait"
Voilà comment John #Bolton (qui, pas + tard que cet été, se vantait d'avoir aidé à planifier des coups d'État) s'adresse aujourd'hui à la femme de Julian #Assange, en amont de son extradition vers les USA. pic.twitter.com/Rmeb8zO5tk
Bolton is a staunch defender of racist Likudnik ethnic cleansers in Israel, thus a supporter of apartheid and the assassination of journalists, both serious crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The 1973 United Nations International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid has not been applied to Israel, clearly an apartheid state. Article 4 A (4) of the Third Geneva Convention and Article 79 of Additional Protocol I mention the protection of journalists.
“International law [the Fourth Geneva Convention] prohibits without exception, the extra-judicial killing and considers it as a grave violated of international humanitarian law, and human rights protocols,” writes Wasem Mawlana (“Assassination & International Human Law”).
Neocons like Bolton don’t believe in laws preventing them from attacking foreign countries and calling for the assassination of elected foreign leaders.
Bolton’s casual reference to murdering Vladimir Putin and warning the Russian people of the fate that awaits them (likely along the lines of what Bush did in Iraq and Obama and Trump did in Syria and Libya) is not featured in the headlines of the corporate war propaganda media. Instead, the reports focus on Biden’s idiotic reference to Armageddon, thus widening the political divide between Democrats and Republicans (while the state continues to push for WWIII).
It is truly disgusting the corporate media turns to “experts” and “former officials” of Bolton’s reprehensible caliber for discussion on what is evolving into WWII and nuclear annihilation.
Meanwhile, those exposing war crimes of the state are locked away and slowly tortured to death, as seems to be the case with Julian Assange.
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Kurt Nimmo writes on Kurt Nimmo on Geopolitics where this article was originally published. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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***
“We are on a path of escalation to nuclear war, nothing less than that.” —Prof. Jeffrey Sachs,
Here is a distinctly minority opinion about the Ukraine war: Some people, more than a few, don’t support anything the military-industrial complex is promoting, especially since Vietnam, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia,2 Syria, Afghanistan, Grenada, Panama, Somalia, Libya, and whatever new hegemonic expeditions are planned.
Enough is enough.
But in addition, this very quiet minority especially doesn’t rally behind anything neo-Nazis are involved with, so support for Ukraine, Bandera, and the Azov Battalion are certainly wanting. The head of the Ukrainian parliament in 2019 was a neo-Nazi named Andriy Parubiy.3
Are you kidding?
Just look at the photos of the Azov symbol and the SS Wolfsangel Nazi symbols below.4
Nazi SS Wolfsangel symbol and Ukrainian Azov battalion boasting the same symbol (Source: Prof. Jerry Kroth)
These symbols, including swastikas, actually abound, but the corporate media scrubs them with a surfeit of fervor so that we can all maintain the fantasy that we are saving democracy and freedom at any cost.
As for Russia’s invasion, yes, this is clearly a war crime, because the UN did not authorize any intervention, and, legally that makes Putin a war criminal, but no less than George Bush qualifies for the same designation for his unprovoked aggression in Iraq, similarly unauthorized by the UN, and the 300,000 plus people he slaughtered.5
Regrettably, this minority is not at all enthusiastic with the New York Times-CNN-Nancy Pelosi-Mitch McConnell festivities in Ukraine. Trying to have little Ukraine defeat the world’s greatest nuclear superpower is sheer madness. That’s our policy, and it is patently insane.
Russia will not allow the US to build military bases in Malaya Rossia (“little Russia”) which is the historic name for the Donetsk-Luhansk region.6,7.8
We wouldn’t allow Russia to build military bases in Juarez, across from El Paso either, whether or not Mexico insisted on its sovereign right to engage in a mutual defense alliance with a foreign power.
Nor going to happen . . not by the hair of our chinny chin chins!
Sadly, if the West had agreed not to expand NATO, and to keep Ukraine neutral like Finland, Sweden, Austria, and Switzerland, there would have been no war, no death, no destruction, no invasion, no war crimes, no streaming refugees. The boiling point was reached on Jan 7, 2022 when NATO told Putin it had a right to expand into any country it wished. He threw up his hands, and, for the final time said, ‘not in my backyard.’9
So the war started, followed by sanctions, followed by export controls, followed by shortages of gas, oil, wheat, and sunflower oil, which, in turn, causes inflation which then brings recession, first in Europe, then the U.S., and that leads to starvation across Africa and the Middle East (coming) with global unemployment following on its heels. . . and it all started with an American neo-con gambit to try build military bases on Russia’s back porch.
The Western media has done its best to try to confuse and disrupt understanding this causal linkage calling it “Putin’s price hike,” 10 and, while most Western news consumers believe that misdirection, history will not forget the causal chain, even as the American echo chamber does.
NATO expansion, the military-industrial complex, American insistence on its exceptionalism and hegemony, and a deeply complicit media is the cause, and inflation, recession, war, and death the effect.
Currently, one of the most dangerous aspects of this Western media connivance is how it is obscuring the Ukrainian army’s shelling of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. This bombardment could set off another Chernobyl, but media legerdemain makes it look like Russia is somehow mysteriously responsible for bombing the same facility it has been occupying.
It has occupied Zaporizhzhia since April, but the media obsessively speaks about Russia’s shelling the plant.11 Finally on Sept. 2nd, IAEA inspectors reported the Ukrainians were shelling the nuclear station, not the Russians, arguing that could endanger the whole of Europe—quite to the consternation of the Western media censors who couldn’t seem to prevent them from reporting the truth.12
The same holds true for the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline. Russia and Germany spent over $8 billion to build it, all with great pride, and the U.S. tried everything in its toolbox to stop it. Finally, it is sabotaged and the leak spews natural gas all over the Baltic.
But the first thing the Western Media does is to blame Russia for sabotaging its own creation.13
That’s right: Russia is blowing up its own pipeline —all they had to do was turn off the gas!— and it is bombing a nuclear power plant that it controls and occupies.
Really!14
Isn’t it just a smidgen more likely that Ukraine has been shelling the Russian occupied nuclear plant, and that the US or Britain, actually sabotaged the pipeline they wanted to close for so long?
Just how much more media misdirection do we have to endure!
To end all this nonsense, killing, mayhem, propaganda and nuclear lunacy, the solution is quite simple: Negotiate a solution and a ceasefire before the nut cases blow us all up. That’s what Henry Kissinger, Noam Chomsky and Professors John Mersheimer and Jeffrey Sachs advocate, and this silent minority couldn’t agree more.15 If the brutality and killing is unfathomably disgusting, as it should be, demand negotiation from your senator not escalation.
Chomsky says the U.S. is engaged in a proxy war with Russia down to the very last Ukrainian. No one in our government presently is advocating negotiation, nor peace. Corporate Democrats, boutique liberals, and Republicans are cheerleading us right to the doorstep of Armageddon.
Ukraine doesn’t have high tech anti-ship technology, but the US approved giving it harpoon missiles. If Ukraine succeeds in sinking a Russian ship, Putin would be an idiot not to sink a US ship in retaliation.
If one thinks this is not just as dangerous as the Cuban Missile Crisis, they are living in Washington Post la-la land. The corporate media is providing generous soporifics that all this talk of nuclear war is just Putin’s blather and bluster, so nothing has diminished the steady introduction of more and more venomous weaponry—Javelins, Howitzers, Harpoons, NASAMS, and even paying salaries of the Ukrainian army16 — all to the enthusiastic applause of liberals and conservatives alike:
A billion here. Another billion there. Go get em Ukraine!
But to interrupt these whoops and hurrahs and introduce a spoonful of reality-contact, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday clock to just 100 seconds before midnight, closer than the Berlin crisis of 1961, closer than the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, closer than at any time since 1947.17
On June 4, Putin said of the imminent dangers of nuclear war and of the West sending more and more lethal weapons into Ukraine: “The Horsemen of the Apocalypse are already on their way, and all hope now is with the Lord God Almighty.”18
The Secretary General of the UN said on Aug. 2 “Today, humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation.”19 He said that almost on the very same day that the military-industrial complex sent its latest ambassador, Nancy Pelosi, to Taiwan this time to try to rattle the cage of the Chinese.
And she did: Chinese Premier Xi Jinping said to President Biden,
“If you play with fire, you will burn to death.”20
Go Nancy!
On Sept 21, Putin addressed his nation, looked directly into the camera and warned Western powers that this could all lead to nuclear war. “This is not a bluff,” he said.
Isn’t it time we woke up? How much closer to the edge must the hawks and neo-con maniacs in the West think they can step before this all blows up in their face and in the faces of our children?
Conclusion: Negotiate a neutral Ukraine, end the war, cut the bloated Pentagon budget, and stop this global provocation, adventurism, brinkmanship, and insanity.
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Jerry Kroth, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor Emeritus from Santa Clara University (ret) and may be contacted through his website, collectivepsych.com.
7 A newer intermediate range U.S. Pershing missile travels 5800 mph. The distance from Donetsk to Moscow is 650 miles. So a U.S. Pershing stationed at a NATO base in Donetsk, Ukraine (assuming Russia said nothing, did nothing, did not go to war, and submitted to NATO expansion) would take 6.8 minutes to hit Moscow with a nuclear weapon. The fact that the U.S. got out of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Treaty doesn’t help. Trump cancelled that treaty in 2019. None of this escaped Russian strategic fears. If NATO bases are put in Ukraine, what is to stop the U.S. from installing the new Pershing? Certainly no existing treaty:
ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102
PDF Edition: $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)
Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.
Reviews
“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.” –John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University
“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.” -Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations
Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction. –Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute
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***
According to recent reports, an amendment proposed by AUKUS (Australia, UK and the US) countries to legitimize their nuclear submarine cooperation is being curbed by Chinese diplomatic efforts. The $122.4 billion dollars deal reached in September 2021 had been announced as the core component of this new strategic partnership.
AUKUS, the security pact between these three Anglo-Saxon countries to counter China, was announced in September 2021, and has been controversial from the very start. Together with the QUAD, it has certainly increased tensions in the Asia-Pacific region.
In this context, Australian authorities in Canberra plan to acquire at least eight nuclear submarines, thereby possibly making the Indo-Pacific state the first one in the Southern Hemisphere to possess such vessels, as well as the first country that is a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to do so other than the five recognized weapon states, namely the US, Russia, China, UK, and France. According to the International Atomic Energy (IAE) Rafael Grossi, these submarines will be fuelled by “highly enriched uranium”, so they could be weapons-grade or close to it. Beijing’s Permanent Mission, in a position paper sent to the IAE last month, emphasized the fact that the “AUKUS partnership involves the illegal transfer of nuclear weapon materials, making it essentially an act of nuclear proliferation.”
The AUKUS countries in turn argue that the NPT allows marine nuclear propulsion as long as the proper arrangements are made with the Agency. However, in this case, nuclear material will be transferred to rather than produced by Australia itself. China disagrees with the AUKUS’ stance, arguing that the IAE is in fact overstepping its mandate. Beijing has called for an “inter-governmental” process to examine the issue at hand.
This is a complicated matter: when nuclear submarines are at sea, their fuel is not within the reach of the IAE’s inspectors and there is no way to keep track of the nuclear material. The agency’s director himself, Rafael Grossi, has told the BBC the AUKUS submarine deal would be “very tricky” for nuclear inspectors.
China’s mission to the UN in Vienna has also bluntly described AUKUS’ plans as nuclear proliferation under a naval nuclear propulsion “cover”. Ambassador Wang Qun, Chinese Permanent Representative to the UN accused the AUKUS states of “double standard” in a September 19 interview.
American-Chinese tensions are already too high over the issue of Taiwan and to add fuel to the fire, Beijing perceives the US-led AUKUS plans as the West pushing its sea frontiers against China by weaponizing its ally Australia with nuclear submarines. To make matters worse, under the current arrangements the fleet would be a US-controlled squadron. Given the ongoing American “dual containment” policy, Beijing’s concerns do make a lot of sense.
Chen Hong, president of the Chinese Association of Australian Studies and also a director of the Australian Studies Center at East China Normal University, has even warned that by playing a part in this, Canberra could be sacrificing its own national security for the sake of other countries’ national interests.
In July, two Chinese think-thanks (China Arms Control and Disarmament Association and China Institute of Nuclear Industry Strategy) had already warned that the AUKUS submarine project could set a “dangerous precedent” and thus threaten non-proliferation in a lengthy report called “A Dangerous Conspiracy: The Nuclear Proliferation Risk of the Nuclear-powered Submarines Collaboration in the Context of AUKUS.”
According to the document, if the US and the UK have their way, nuclear states will for the very first time be transferring weapons-grade nuclear material to a non-nuclear state (Australia). Such a precedent, it warns, “ferments potential risks and hazards in multiple aspects such as nuclear security, arms race in nuclear submarines and missile technology proliferation, with a profound negative impact on global strategic balance and stability.” The report also controversially evokes the possibility that Canberra might actually be intent on acquiring nuclear weapons, given its historical pursuit of the technology since the 1950s.
Meanwhile, Rob Wittman and Donald Norcross, two members of the US House Armed Services Committee, in a Wilson Center discussion on southeast Asia and the Pacific, have urged Australians to work closely with the US to master nuclear technology.
Anthony Moretti, a Department of Communication and Organizational Leadership Professor at the Robert Morris University argues that there is a loophole in the NPT which would allow Canberra to acknowledge to the IEA that it has acquired nuclear materials and then simply refuse to allow any inspections validating its procedures. This would be the only way for Australia to go ahead with the AUKUS deal under the current framework, but the problem is the dangerous precedent it would set, as mentioned above. It is quite hard to imagine how Beijing could possibly allow such development.
In his recent book titled “Sub-Imperial Power: Australia in the International Arena”, retired Australian army intelligence officer, Clinton Fernandes makes the convincing point that Canberra’s defense strategy has been built around a “structural dependence” on the US, which leaves it unable to defend itself in any scenario other than “in the context of the US Alliance.”.
Australia has been called the “coup capital” of the so-called democratic world and the American influence on the country over the years has a lot to do with this. Washington has also controlled Canberra’s foreign policy for decades, as exemplified by the infamous Anglo-American coup that “dismissed” Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. Right now, the island-country has become yet another focal point of tensions between great powers.
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Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.
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***
Now is the time for you to speak with your doctors and know whether they are willing to protect your medical files or will they hand over your most private and confidential details to the state.
Canadian doctor Mary O’Connerhas been threatened with prison for refusing to violate her patient’s medical privacy and safety. Yet, despite the government’s intimidation tactics and harassment, the brave doctor of 50 years continues her selfless fight to protect her patient’s rights and those of every Canadian citizen.
In September 2022, Dr. O’Conner delivered a powerful speech detailing her fight for her patient’s safety who are under attack. But, as she explained, her battle is “now a battle to fight for every patient, for their Rights:
1. Right to access medical treatment
2. Right to adequate medical treatment
3. Right to privacy of their medical records
Dr. O’Conner, who has been practicing medicine in her office for 44 years, went to Parliament Hill to explain her situation and warn others that the attacks happening to her and her patients could soon happen to everyone.
On October 8, 2021, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) contacted Dr. O’Conner. They had become aware that she was writing medical exemptions for patients for masks, PCR tests, and “vaccines.” The CPSO has the mandate to govern the practice of medicine in Ontario. Doctors must belong to this “College” to practice medicine in Canada.
It was discovered that some of the employers of O’Conner’s patients had contacted the CPSO to see if her exemptions were “legitimate.” The CPSO responded by demanding that she turn over the names and charts of all her patients who had received medical exemptions.
They demanded she violate the legal rights of her patients. O’Conner explains,
“I was asked to violate my patient’s rights…both to choose their medical treatment and the Right to have their private medical records remain confidential between themselves and their doctor.”
The investigators from the CPSO were instructed they could enter her office “by force, if necessary, and no one was allowed to obstruct them.”
Fearing for her patients and her safety, O’Conner had a friend stand guard at her medical office and lock the door between patients.
On Nov. 4, 2021, the group forbade the doctor from writing her patients any more exemptions. However, O’Connor did not receive their message until November 24.
On November 22, a “Private Eye” hired by the “College” tricked O’Conner into giving her an exemption. What followed is terrifying; on December 8th, as she had feared, four investigators stormed her office. The doctor’s friend was there alone and had not locked the door. They entrapped her friend in the boardroom. The chief investigator pummeled him with questions as to her whereabouts. They were extremely aggressive and traumatized her friend. While three investigators terrorized him, one searched her file cabinets, but thankfully, she had moved her charts months before.
The investigators did not stop with Mary’s friend or office; they went to her old neighborhood and harassed neighbors, demanding they reveal where she had moved.
On December 23, midnight, the radicalized medical body suspended Dr. O’Conner’s medical license.
On January 7, they took her to Ontario Superior Court, held online in what they called “ZOOM court.” Those targeting Dr. O’Conner’s patients, careers, and livelihoods were allowed to black out their faces and hide their identities. Meanwhile, the doctor of 50 years, who has worked endlessly to improve people’s lives, was allowed to be maligned and smeared publicly while her accusers were protected?
Why was Dr. O’Conner deprived of her right to face her accusers? Sadly she lost her case. The Judge ruled against her patients. He said she had to hand over the names and charts of patients who received medical exemptions.
Despite the court ruling, she refused to do so. Dr. O’conner explained,
“I will not violate my oath or my patient’s medical privacy.”
Thankfully, she intends to Appeal. However, she could be found in contempt of Court for refusing to comply. This could mean that an 80-plus-year-old doctor can end up serving prison time.
This could mean that any doctor could be punished for protecting their patient’s right to medical privacy.
If the CPSO is successful against her, this will mean that Canadian’s most intimate private medical details could be given to the “College” if they decide there is an “Emergency,” and there will be no way for you to fight back.
Dr. O’conner is asking citizens to take action now,
Now is the time for you to speak with your doctors and know whether they are willing to protect your medical files or will they hand over your most private and confidential details to the “College”.
The brave doctor ended her powerful speech with a message to those attacking her, her patients, and all of Canadian’s medical freedoms and privacy,
I say to the “College”, Dr. Nancy Whitmore, the 4 Investigators, the private eyes, the newspaper reporters, the lawyers, and the Judge.
I am not angry.
I feel great sorrow for you. You are in the lie and on the side of darkness.
I hope and pray to Our Good Lord that you will come to see the light….and help to protect Canadians; otherwise, you are complicit in their injuries
I will not surrender my charts.
Say loudly
LEAVE MY PATIENTS ALONE.
WE WILL HOLD THE LINE.
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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.
Featured image is from RAIR
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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***
This article was published by The Sydney Morning Herald in November 2020.
Ethiopia’s military has accused World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of supporting and trying to procure arms and diplomatic backing for Tigray state’s dominant political party, which is fighting federal forces.
“He himself is a member of that group and he is a criminal,” army chief of staff General Birhanu Jula claimed in a televised statement on Thursday before calling for him to be removed. Birhanu did not offer any evidence to support his accusations.
Tedros, 55, is an Ethiopian of Tigrayan ethnicity.
He immediately denied aiding the dissident Tigray region.
“There have been reports suggesting I am taking sides in this situation,” Tedros said in a statement. “This is not true and I want to say that I am on only one side and that is the side of peace.”
Western diplomats in Geneva said that for now in the absence of any evidence of wrongdoing, there was no rush to judgment or move to challenge Tedros at the WHO.
On Twitter, Britain’s ambassador Julian Braithwaite posted a photo of himself and Tedros after a Thursday meeting on the campaign led by WHO and the GAVI alliance to distribute COVID-19 vaccines, treatments and tests to poor countries.
***
Our thanks to The SMH for having brought this article to our attention
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***
At the first glance, an ordinary citizen of the globe can think that probably it must be that everything that is now happening in Banderistan Ukraine and around, including and reconstruction of international relations and reformulation of the global order in politics, is just a big misunderstanding. For the same people, probably NATO’s constant expansion to the east since 1999, i.e., to the direction of Russia, has nothing to do with the attempt to subdue and tear Russia apart as wanted the same both Napoleon (in 1812) and Hitler (in 1941).
They will tell you that instead of a war against and occupation of Russia, the goal of NATO’s enlargement is to make the strongest possible global defense alliance for the sake that the people of the world would be ready to resist the alien attack from the cosmos, once it happens. Finally, who will defend our planet if not NATO, and in that alliance, Ukraine is irreplaceable.
Without Banderistan Ukraine, we are going to be unable to efficiently defend our planet from bad guys from the cosmos. Therefore, this is not about NATO’s campaign in the east against Russia and has nothing to do with some earlier in history, bloody attempts of a similar kind (Napoleon & Hitler). Allegedly, this is a misreading of real Western intentions (USA, NATO, EU). In other words, this is a classic case of Russian paranoia, which sees a threat and a conspiracy against Russia in everything, even in foreign (NATO) bases and rockets right next to the Russian western borders (from Estonia to South Ukraine and across the Black Sea in Turkey).
To put aside the irony and cynicism from the previous paragraph as it is not appropriate for a situation in which the people of Ukraine are suffering and whose lives are falling apart in a thousand ways since 2014. However, how to hide the disappointment from the crocodile tears that are shed over the fate of Ukraine by those who, in fact, have been constantly pushing Ukrainians into the war since 2014?
The question became how to react to the diabolical hypocrisy of those who have been systematically destroying foreign countries and making their citizens unhappy for decades, not caring about international law or elementary norms of civilization, and who suddenly, right now in Ukraine, discovered that international law exists? For instance, to remind ourselves, from 1945 to 2001, there were 81% of wars launched by the USA and only 19% by others.
The Russian special military intervention in Ukraine or according to the Western Russophobic media, the 2022 Russian-Ukrainian War was, in fact, inevitable, as it was planned by NATO and consequently, step by step, led to such an outcome. Nevertheless, it has to be quite clear that the plan for the war was not made either in Ukraine or Russia. Both countries are tragic objects of the Western geopolitical plans and their own weaknesses. All we are looking at is a crescendo of processes that began long before 2022. It did not take much intelligence to predict what would happen. The triumph of evil and madness is always more clearly seen in retrospect, always when it is too late. Never since the end of the Second World War has madness ruled Europe as it does today. Europe is reminiscent of a puppet show run by an invisible (USA) hand.
After this conflict, the ethnic Ukrainians will lose the most, regardless of the saying that there is no winner in a war.
Who does not believe, let him ask the former Yugoslavs.
History has not forgiven the Yugoslavs for their stupidity, so neither will the Ukrainians.
Russia’s suicidal pro-Western policy of Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s is only now gaining its full meaning. It is not worse to repeat – history does not forgive stupidity. The only visible winners, at least for short time, are the United States as the global power at sunset of its influence manages to slow down its descent from the throne, it manages to weaken both Europe and Russia at the same time, preparing itself for the great Chinese final.
Today in Ukraine we are witnessing a tragedy of two close Slavic peoples who were in the same state until 1991, which after that just changed the name (from the USSR to the CIS). And when they parted peacefully in 1991, everyone went their own way, bravely, headlong, straight into economic and social chaos. They were led in both economy and politics by foreign advisers who have been showing them the way to “transition”. On that path, Ukraine managed to go much worse even than Yeltsin’s Russia.
Today, Ukraine is the country with the lowest gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in Europe and has just lost the battle for the penultimate place from Moldova. This sad staggering cannot be explained by political reasons and conflicts in East Ukraine. The Ukrainians cannot blame the Russians for their economic ruin.
Even before 2014, Ukraine was constantly falling on the ranking list of European countries. At the beginning of the “transition” in 1991, Ukraine had a GDP per capita higher than Belarus by about 63%, higher than Poland by about 37%, and higher than Albania by about 293%. However, before the beginning of the crisis in Ukraine in 2013, its GDP per capita was lower than Poland’s by about 51%, Belarus’ by about 33%, and higher than Albania’s by only 8%. No country in Europe has fallen so badly in “transition” as Ukraine did.
Finally, a long-term economic and financial exploitation of Ukraine’s rich Russian-speaking eastern regions by the administration in Kiev led inevitably in 2014 parallel with the Russophobic Nazification of ethnic Ukrainians to the separation of the Russian-speaking eastern provinces which voluntarily and democratically rejoined their ethnohistoric motherland of Russia in October 2022 for the very reason to avoid further military terror by Banderistan Ukraine and her Western sponsors.
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Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović is a Former university professor in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is a Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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***
High energy costs continue to wreak havoc in Europe, with Britain being no exception to the crisis. British companies are becoming bankrupt at a rapid rate, one not seen since the peak of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2009. The Europe-wide crisis is mostly attributed to economic problems stemming from their own sanctions against Russia, which as a result has made energy prices skyrocket.
The most recent quarterly report by the United Kingdom’s Office for National Statistics found company closure figures are similar to those reported in 2009 at the peak of the GFC. According to the British agency, 5,629 companies collapsed and became insolvent throughout England and Wales during the second quarter of 2022, a figure not seen since the third quarter of 2009.
Although the figure is still far from the highest peak recorded during the GFC, with a total of 6,943 firms closed, the trend for the following months is not encouraging.
British government statistics from August show that 1 in 10 local businesses face a moderate to severe risk of insolvency. Although the reasons for the insolvency are various, they are all related to the difficulties that the sanctions against Russia have caused for European trade, supply chains and the energy market, whose historical inflation has brought several problems to British authorities.
According to the Office for National Statistics, 22% of the companies that are at moderate risk of closure put the increases in electricity rates as their main concern, 7% more than in February of this year. In small companies (from 10 to 49 employees), the percentage increases to 30%.
Other companies say that their biggest concerns are their inability to pay their debts, the increase in raw material prices, as well as the interruption of the supply chain. According to the British government, of the more than 5,600 companies that declared themselves insolvent, 20% correspond to construction companies, while 14% are in wholesale and retail market firms.
Asked in an interview published on October 4 by Germany’s RND media network on whether EU countries would need disaster relief due to the energy crisis, EU Crisis Management Commissioner Janez Lenarčič responded: “Yes, that is quite possible.”
He added that EU member states could face a “black out” due to the energy crisis, but described this as only a “minor incident” despite the fact it would lead to other member states needing to deliver power generators.
Britain is facing a very similar crisis, with the National Grid operator saying people would receive advance notice as electricity cuts will occur in rotations to avoid mass black out.
“This would be necessary to ensure the overall security and integrity of the electricity system,” according to its recently published winter outlook report.
This comes as analysts at Deutsche Bank said the British GDP would not return to the level of December 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, until 2024. This means that there will only be limited economic progress by the time of the next election in January 2025.
According to official figures, the British economy remained 0.2% smaller than pre-Covid levels at the end of June. The Bank of England said the economy is close to recession and on course for limited progress next year, with most of this attributed to soaring energy prices and weaker global growth.
Sanjay Raja, a senior economist at Deutsche, said:
“Household spending and business investment are likely to track a little lower than we previously anticipated, especially with unemployment expected to rise from next year.”
He explained that the UK GDP growth was now forecast to slow to 3.5% this year and that the economy is expected to shrink by 0.5% next year before rebounding to 1% growth in 2024. The expert also stressed that stronger growth might not be seen until “the second half of the decade” as it will for now have to settle on 1.25% growth per year, a short cry to Truss’s growth target of 2.5% a year.
The British economic decline also coincides with its lowering prestige across the world. Despite its reputation being affected, Britain continues to behave in a hegemonic manner without having the means to enforce it. Take for example that Britain has spent billions of pounds propping up the Kiev regime to fight Russia despite the eventual realisation of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporozhye being completely liberated from Ukrainian occupation. This money could certainly have been better spent saving British businesses and families from economic ruin.
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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
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***
Actions speak louder than words. Let me put it another way. Most of the time, what people do is so much more important than what they say. This is especially true when it comes to government officials, because many government officials lie as easily as they breathe. Over and over again, we are being told that there is nothing to be concerned about and that our leaders have everything under control. But then we keep getting more signs that more war is coming. In fact, it appears that preparations are being made for scenarios that would have once been unthinkable.
Let me give you an example of what I am talking about. On Thursday, we learned that the U.S. government is spending almost 300 million dollars to buy radiation sickness drugs…
The US has stocked up on radiation sickness drugs just weeks after Vladimir Putin threatened to use nuclear weapons against the West.
Officials said the deal — worth $290 million — was ‘part of ongoing work’ and ‘has not been accelerated’ by the Kremlin leader’s escalating rhetoric.
The drug that is being purchased is known as Nplate, and it is used “to reduce bleeding caused by acute radiation syndrome”.
This is not a cheap medication at all. It is being reported that a single dose can cost “between $1,000 and $2,500”…
However, the timing will likely raise questions given that this is the first time the US Government has bought Nplate.
It is unclear how many doses the order covers, but the drug normally fetches between $1,000 and $2,500 per dose.
A nuclear war would be the only reason why we would ever need such a high number of doses.
So why is such a large purchase being made if Biden administration officials are assuring us that there is almost zero chance of a nuclear conflict with Russia?
Something doesn’t add up.
Meanwhile, both sides continue to escalate the conflict in Ukraine.
The mainstream media keeps telling us that the “Ukrainian Army” is whipping the Russians right now, but that is not exactly accurate.
The Ukrainian Army that existed at the beginning of the war was largely decimated as the Russians steadily gained territory for months.
Mercenaries from Eastern Europe account for 60%-70% of the Ukrainian army’s manpower near Lugansk, an aide to the LPR’s interior minister, Vitaly Kiselyov, said on Wednesday.
“In practice, 60%, in some cases, 70% of Ukraine’s military personnel are mercenaries from Eastern Europe,” he said on Russia’s TV Channel 1.
A lot has been made of the fact that there are English-speaking mercenaries involved in the offensive against the Russians, but the truth is that most of the mercenaries are not from wealthy western nations.
Our money is certainly paying for them, but most of the troops are actually coming from the poor countries of eastern Europe.
American officials are intensifying efforts to build a giant stockpile of weapons in Taiwan after studying recent naval and air force exercises by the Chinese military around the island, according to current and former officials.
The exercises showed that China would probably blockade the island as a prelude to any attempted invasion, and Taiwan would have to hold out on its own until the United States or other nations intervened, if they decided to do that, the current and former officials say.
Why would we build a giant stockpile of weapons in Taiwan if there was no threat of invasion?
Actually, by arming Taiwan so heavily we are making an invasion more likely. The Chinese are getting angrier and angrier, but we just keep provoking them.
Before I end this article, I want to talk about the rising tensions between North Korea and South Korea.
The North Koreans really do not like the new South Korean leader, and on Thursday there was an incident that made international news…
An unusually large number of South Korean fighter jets were scrambled today in response to reported air-to-surface firing exercises flown by North Korean warplanes, on the other side of the border. The incidents add to tensions around Korea, where a tit-for-tat campaign of surface-to-surface missile launches continues, as part of potentially provocative exercises on both sides of the Korean Demilitarized Zone as well as in the waters off the peninsula.
The South Korean Yonhap news agency reported that a formation of at least 12 North Korean warplanes “presumably conducted a firing exercise” today, with aerial activity “north of the inter-Korean air boundary.” The location of the drills took the North Korean aircraft from Koksan County to Hwangju County in North Hwanghae Province, a process that took around an hour, according to the Korea Herald. North Hwanghae Province is situated on the western end of the border between the two Koreas.
Of course this wasn’t the first time that the North Koreans have done something provocative this week.
North Korea fired a ballistic missile that likely flew over Japan, the militaries of South Korea and Japan said Wednesday evening.
The unidentified ballistic missile was fired into the Sea of Japan, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed to NBC News.
Things with North Korea seemed to be getting better during the Trump era, but now there has been a complete reversal.
The North Koreans have conducted dozens of missile launches in 2022, and there are rumors that they may soon resume their nuclear tests for the first time in quite a few years…
As for the North Korean missile launches, these are only the most recent within a growing total, with the tally for this year so far having reached around 40, including a “super-large” intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), back in March. At the same, there are continued concerns among officials in both Washington and Seoul that North Korea could be poised to conduct a nuclear test — its first since 2017.
I do not believe that a North Korean invasion of South Korea is imminent.
But if China invades Taiwan, I think that the North Koreans will be extremely tempted to make a move.
While the U.S. is preoccupied with Russia and China, it would be a golden opportunity for the North Koreans to pour across the border.
The South Korean military would be completely outmatched, and only massive U.S. intervention could save the day.
Hopefully such a scenario will not play out any time soon.
A war between Israel and Iran is far closer than most people would dare to imagine, the Russians will be moving a lot more troops into Ukraine to bolster their existing forces, and I am convinced that the Chinese will move against Taiwan at some point.
There is no peace on the horizon.
The third world war has begun, but for now it is still only in the very early stages.
Unfortunately, politicians all over the globe are determined to show how tough they are, and that is really bad news for all of us.
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ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102
PDF Edition: $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)
Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.
Reviews
“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.” –John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University
“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.” -Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations
Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction. –Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute
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***
The list of complications, conditions, and diseases resulting from the COVID shots is nearly endless and can affect any organ system in the body. Pfizer knew. Here’s their document.
Look at the last 8 pages, which lists more than 1100 serious side effects and life-threatening illnesses Pfizer knew would happen from the first shot. We posted an article on The Tenpenny Reports about it: They All Knew.
“This mini-review focuses on the mechanisms of how SARS-CoV-2 affects the brain, with an emphasis on the role of the spike protein in patients with neurological symptoms.
“Following infection, patients with a history of neurological complications may be at a higher risk of developing long-term neurological conditions associated with the alpha-synuclein prion, such as Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia.
“Compelling evidence has been published to indicate that the spike protein, which is derived from SARS-CoV-2 and generated from the vaccines, is not only able to cross the blood–brain barrier but may cause inflammation and/or blood clots in the brain.
“Consequently, should vaccine-induced expression of spike proteins not be limited to the site of injection and draining lymph nodes there is the potential of long-term implications following inoculation [vaccination] that may be identical to neurological complications seen in patients who were infected with SARS-CoV-2.”
It is important to mention, we now know the spike proteins do not remain localized in the arm.
Let’s drill down on this article, starting with some definitions:
Alpha-Synuclein: These are the major component of Lewy bodies, which are characteristic of Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia. There is much speculation on what the primary function of alpha-synuclein may be under healthy conditions. However, the accumulation of this protein when it has folded abnormally seems to be central to neurodegeneration. Since the culprit of chronic illness has been widely described as being the spike protein, a 2021 study of monkeys provided compelling evidence that the spike protein associated with SARS-CoV2 is responsible for Lewy body formation.
Parkinson’s disease: A long-term degenerative disease of the central nervous system, affecting the motor system. The most obvious early signs are resting tremor, rigidity, slowness of movement, and difficulty walking.
Lewy body dementia: This type of dementia is associated with difficulty thinking, slowed movement along with changes in behavior and mood. Lewy body dementia is one of the most common causes of dementia, affecting more than 1 million individuals in the United States and millions more around the world.
Both Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia are characterized by groups of misfolded alpha-synuclein proteins in brain. The two diseases together are the second most common cause of neurodegenerative dementia, only surpassed by Alzheimer’s disease.
The Oldfield article goes on to say:
“…many of the serious neurological symptoms associated with COVID-19 are due to hypoxia, cytokine storms, and blood clots, all of which contribute to damaging neurons in the brain. Some of the symptoms of brain injury include loss of smell and taste (anosmia), severe headaches, debilitating fatigue, trouble thinking clearly (brain fog), seizures, strokes, and various degrees of paralysis.”
We know that these symptoms can be attributed to the spike protein, which can enter the brain by two primary entryways:
Through the Vasculature: All of the blood vessels in the brain have ACE2 receptors. The spike protein binds to this receptor, which essentially ‘opens the door’ and allows the spike protein to enter. Once inside the cell, the spike proteins promote and contribute to micro-thrombi, leading to small and large blood clots.
By directly damaging the blood brain barrier: The blood–brain barrier (BBB) is part of the microvasculature of the central nervous system. The tight junctions in these specialized blood vessels control what is allowed to pass from the general circulation into the brain. The BBB protects the central nervous system from toxins, pathogens, and other pro-inflammatory molecules. Spike proteins tested in vitro caused significant changes to the properties of the BBB with loss of barrier integrity. When the BBB is destabilized, the spike protein—and many other destructive substances—can freely pass into the brain, leading to the neurological complications seen in both those who have experienced the infection and those who have received a COVID vaccine.
A separate mouse study showed that spike (S1) proteins tagged with iodine (I-S1) crossed the BBB very quickly. In fact, more than 50 percent of I-S1 proteins crossed the capillary wall and entered into the brain and interstitial fluid spaces within 30 minutes of the IV injection. The spike protein was taken up by all 11 areas of the brain that were tested, which could explain the wide variety of different neurological symptoms that are observed clinically.
“These data show that S1 antigen production after the initial vaccination can be detected by day one and is present beyond the site of injection site and the associated regional lymph nodes.”
“It was observed that the spike protein S1 subunit was detectable in the systemic circulation up to approximately two weeks post-injection in eleven out of thirteen healthcare workers. Although concentration of the S1 subunit was low, this study provides proof-of-principle that spike proteins can get into circulation following inoculation.”
Can it be any clearer that the pathology observed after a COVID injection is from the spike proteins produced by the mRNA, gene-modification technology that came through that needle?
Will those who had the shots and experienced now immediate side effects be at greater risk of Parkinson’s disease or Lewy body dementia in 10 or 20 years? Is brain dysfunction already starting to appear?
Although it seems we’ve been talking about this pandemic and its shots forever, the Pfizer and Moderna shots were unleashed on the world December 2020; the J&J and AstraZenca shots were released in February 2021. In reality, it’s been less than two years. We are in the middle of a great experiment, and the final results will not be known for many years.
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Dr. Sherri Tenpenny is a board-certified osteopathic medical doctor. She is the founder ofTenpenny Integrative Medical Center,Tenpenny Health Restoration Center, LLC, medical clinics located near Cleveland, Ohio and several online educational businesses that can be found atDrTenpenny.com. She writes two Substacks per week. The first,EyeOnTheEvidenceare educational pieces to help the general public understand complex medical concepts. The second, released on Sundays, are inspiration pieces OnWalkingWithGod.
Featured image: Studies suggest that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines may lead to neurological issues in the brain like Parkinson’s disease. (CGN089/Shutterstock)
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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***
Russia is not ruling out the possibility of repairing the Nordstream gas pipelines, the Russian Embassy in Denmark said in a statement on its website on Friday.
The Russian embassy criticized the efforts to investigate the pipelines following four explosions that took them offline—some say indefinitely—because the Russian side was excluded from the investigations.
“The Danish side’s reluctance to involve Russia’s representatives in the ongoing investigation undermines its credibility. Limiting the circle of participating states, which are either already members of NATO, or on the way to this alliance, turns the study into politically preconceived,” the statement read, adding that it would investigate the possibility of conducting an investigation on the site of the explosions itself.
“The Russian side does not rule out the possibility of repairing gas pipelines, but a decision on this can be made after examining the site and assessing the extent of damage to gas pipelines.”
Russia also said it was ready to supply gas to Europe through the undamaged line of the Nordstream 2 pipeline. The $11 billion contentious Nordstream 2 pipeline, however, failed to receive certification from Germany to start the flow of gas. Germany halted the project, which sought to double the amount of gas flowing from Russia to Germany, in February after Russia recognized as independent two breakaway territories in Ukraine.
The Swedish Security Service found on Thursday that detonations caused the explosion that damaged the pipelines, “strengthening the suspicions of serious sabotage.”
The Nordstream 1 pipeline has the capacity to send 59 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia to Europe each year. Russia had stopped the flow of gas into Europe via Nordstream 1 prior to the explosion, stating that flows would not resume until sanctions were lifted.
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Julianne Geiger is a veteran editor, writer and researcher for Oilprice.com, and a member of the Creative Professionals Networking Group.
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***
A continually unhinged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has spent the past year trying to draw NATO powers into direct conflict with Russia, and he has yet to achieve success, despite many attempts to do so. While the rhetoric between D.C., Brussels, and Moscow has certainly become more fiery, the kinetic pieces on the geopolitical chessboard have remained steadily in place, because the major parties to the conflict do not want to witness World War III breaking out.
On Thursday, Zelensky ramped up the rhetoric even further, calling on NATO forces to bomb Russia and try to eliminate their nuclear arsenal.
NEW – Ukraine's Zelensky calls on NATO to launch "preemptive strikes" against Russia to "eliminate the possibility" of a Russian nuclear strike.pic.twitter.com/gj6mSRZfFF
Of course, such a mission, which would launch WWIII, is not even possible, as Moscow retains the nuclear triad and thousands of nuclear weapons at their disposal.
Zelensky, an actor by trade, doesn’t seem to care about the details. He just wants NATO/US forces on the ground in Ukraine, and he’s willing to accept World War III to make that happen.
Last week, Zelensky signed an expedited NATO application.
The good news, at least for now, is that none of the major parties involved in this conflict want nuclear armageddon via WWIII.
On Ukraine's NATO application, Sullivan says any decision on membership is between the 30 allies and that process in Brussels should be taken up at a different time.
NATO powers certainly do not want to get thrown into a direct skirmish with Russia. As the past several months have shown, they are only content to pursue the arming and funding of Ukraine from the sidelines of the war.
These powers remain committed to propping up Kiev as the tip of the spear in what they hope is a long, drawn out conflict with Moscow. They do not seek a Ukrainian victory over Russia, but an Afghanistan-like perpetual war that acts both to weaken their foe and facilitate several forms of laundering for the global elite.
Thankfully, the leaders of Western powers don’t actually believe the hysterical nonsense about Putin being some kind of imperial Hitler-like figure who seeks to conquer the entirety of Europe.
The Russians don’t want World War III either. Their overt goal, as articulated by the Kremlin, is to eliminate the threats to their territorial integrity. Their more unspoken goal, as proven by Russia’s political and military actions, is to secure territory that is both strategically valuable and populated by citizens who welcome or are indifferent to the idea of switching sovereigns. Russia is a minimally expansionist power, in a limited setting that targets friendly populations.
Zelensky has miscalculated, badly, because none of the internationalist players involved in propping up Kiev actually care about Ukraine. If they truly did care about Ukraine, they would seek a cessation to hostilities. Instead, the direct opposite is happening, and Ukraine has become the new gold mine for the military industrial cartel.
Zelensky and his more recent predecessors have completely botched realpolitik. Instead of harnessing Ukraine’s power as a neutral buffer state, his government went all-in on becoming subservient to one coalition while antagonizing its more powerful neighbor. This has had devastating consequences for the Ukrainian people.
While Ukraine’s political class, headed by Zelensky, is happy to enrich themselves by consuming small drops from the proxy war spigot, the Ukrainian nation is being torn apart by war, and its people remain impoverished.
While it would certainly be a setback for the NATO coalition if Kiev was lost to Russia’s sphere of influence, their actions showcase that it is not something worth fighting World War III over. This concerns Zelensky, because the game would be up for him and his allies in government. Therefore, hoaxing the world into World War III is the go-to strategy for Kiev. Luckily, for now at least, no major power wants to pursue that route.
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***
In what was described as a harsh rebuke of Russia, the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Ukrainian human rights organization Center for Civil Liberties, along with Belarusian human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski and the Russian human rights organization Memorial. While at first glance, the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties might sound like a group that is well deserving of this honor, Ukrainian peace leader Yurii Sheliazhenko wrote a stinging critique.
Sheliazhenko, who heads up the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement and is a board member of the European Bureau for Conscientious Objection, accused the Center for Civil Liberties of embracing the agendas of such problematic international donors as the U.S. Department of State and the National Endowment for Democracy. The National Endowment for Democracy supports NATO membership for Ukraine; insists that no negotiations with Russia are possible and shames those who seek compromise; wants the West to impose a dangerous no-fly zone; says that only Putin violates human rights in Ukraine; never criticizes the Ukrainian government for suppressing pro-Russian media, parties, and public figures; never criticizes the Ukrainian army for war crimes and human rights violations, and refuses to stand up for the human right, recognized under international law, to conscientious objection to military service.
Supporting conscientious objectors is the role of Sheliazhenko and his organization, the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement (UPM). While we hear a lot about Russian war resisters, as Sheliazhenko points out even inside Ukraine, which is portrayed in Western media as a country entirely united in its war with Russia, there are men who don’t want to fight.
The Ukrainian Pacifist Movement was founded in 2019 when fighting in the separatist-ruled Donbas region was at a peak and Ukraine was forcing its citizens to participate in the civil war. According to Sheliazhenko, Ukrainian men were “being given military summonses off of the streets, out of night clubs and dormitories, or snatched for military service for minor infractions such as traffic violations, public drunkenness, or casual rudeness to police officers.”
To make matters worse, when Russia invaded in February 2022, Ukraine suspended its citizens’ right to conscientious objection and forbade men between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving the country; nevertheless, since February, over 100,000 Ukrainian draft-eligible men managed to flee instead of fight. It’s estimated that several thousand more have been detained while trying to escape.
International human rights law affirms peoples’ right, due to principled conviction, to refuse to participate in military conflict and conscientious objection has a long and rich history. In 1914, a group of Christians in Europe, hoping to avert the impending war, formed the International Fellowship of Reconciliation to support conscientious objectors. When the U.S. joined WWI, social reformer and women’s rights activist Jane Addams protested. She was harshly criticized at the time but, in 1931, she became the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
In Russia, hundreds of thousands of young men are refusing to fight. According to a source inside Russia’s Federal Security Service, within three days of Russia’s announcement that it was drafting 300,000 more recruits, 261,000 men fled the country. Those who could booked flights; others drove, bicycled, and walked across the border.
Belarusians have also joined the exodus. According to estimates by Connection e.V., a European organization that supports conscientious objectors and deserters, an estimated 22,000 draft-eligible Belarusians have fled their country since the war began.
The Russian organization Kovcheg, or The Ark, helps Russians fleeing because of anti-war positions, condemnation of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine, and/or persecution they are experiencing in Russia. In Belarus, the organization Nash Dom runs a “NO means NO” campaign to encourage draft-eligible Belarusians not to fight. Despite refusing to fight being a noble and courageous act for peace—the penalty in Russia for refusing the draft is up to ten years in prison and in Ukraine, it is at least up to three years, and likely much higher, with hearings and verdicts closed to the public—neither Kovcheg, Nash Dom nor the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, were announced as Nobel Peace Prize winners yesterday.
The U.S. government nominally supports Russia’s war resisters. On September 27, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declared that Russians fleeing Putin’s draft were “welcome” in the U.S. and encouraged them to apply for asylum. But as far back as last October, before Russia invaded Ukraine, amid tit-for-tat U.S.-Russia tensions, Washington announced it would henceforth only issue visas to Russians through the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, 750 miles away from Moscow.
To put a further damper on Russian hopes of refuge in the U.S., on the same day as the White House held its press conference where it encouraged draft-eligible Russians to seek U.S. asylum, the Biden administration announced that it would be continuing into fiscal year 2023 its FY2022 global refugee cap of 125,000.
You would think that those resisting this war would be able to find refuge in European countries, as Americans fleeing the Vietnam war did in Canada. Indeed, when the Ukraine war was in its early stages, European Council President Charles Michel called on Russian soldiers to desert, promising them protection under EU refugee law. But in August, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked his Western allies to reject all Russian emigres. Currently, all non-visa travel from Russia to EU countries is suspended.
As Russian men fled after Putin’s draft announcement, Latvia closed its border with Russia and Finland said it was likely going to be tightening its visa policy for Russians.
Had the Nobel Peace Prize awardees been the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian organizations that are supporting war resisters and peacemakers, it would have drawn global attention to the courageous young men taking this stand and perhaps opened more avenues for them to get asylum abroad. It could have also initiated a much-needed conversation about how the U.S. is supplying Ukraine with an endless flow of weapons but not pushing for negotiations to end a war so dangerous that President Biden is warning of “nuclear Armageddon.” It certainly would have been more in line with Alfred Nobel’s desire to bring global recognition to those who have “done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies.”
From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
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Ariel Gold is the executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation – USA, the oldest peace and justice organization in the U.S. Previously, she was the national co-director of CODEPINK, where she helped manage the Peace in Ukraine coalition.
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***
According to a new survey of Americans, a growing majority desire negotiations with Washington’s enemies. For example, nearly 80% of people polled said they want the White House to continue nuclear talks with Iran.
The Eurasia Group Foundation released a new survey asking Americans if our government should negotiate with adversaries. Nearly twice as many Americans said they want more talks compared to those calling for less diplomacy.
Since Joe Biden became president, Washington’s relationship with Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang and Tehran has become more contentious. However, the increasingly hostile White House is not reflective of the American public. Year-over-year the poll shows an increase in Americans favoring diplomacy over isolation.
The pollsters also found overwhelming support for negotiations with Iran. When asked, “Do you think the US should continue to pursue negotiations to prevent Iran from obtaining or developing a nuclear weapon in the near future?” 78.8 of Americans said yes, including over 70% of Republicans.
Source: EGF via The Libertarian Institute
Biden campaigned on engaging Tehran and returning to the nuclear agreement that President Barack Obama helped create. President Donald Trump illegally exited in 2018. The Biden White House has largely adopted the hardline position of the Trump administration, expanding the “maximum pressure” campaign, piling on additional sanctions, and preventing the US from reentering the nuclear deal.
While Americans prefer engagement with adversaries, politicians in Washington largely advocate for an isolationist path Republican Senator from North Carolina Thom Tillis recently said talking with Iran was ill-advised. Democratic Senator Bob Menendez is a well-known Iran hawk and has repeatedly expressed his opposition to a diplomatic agreement with Tehran.
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Kyle Anzalone is news editor at the Libertarian Institute, assistant editor at Antiwar.com and co-host of Conflicts of Interest.
Connor Freeman is a writer and assistant editor at the Libertarian Institute, and co-hosts Conflicts of Interest.
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***
Russia says the United States’ decision to ship more weapons to Ukraine poses an “immediate threat” to Moscow’s interests and hikes the risk of a direct military confrontation between Russia and the West.
“The supply of military products by the US and its allies not only entails protracted bloodshed and new casualties, but also increases the danger of a direct military clash between Russia and Western countries,” Russia’s Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov said on the Telegram messaging app on Wednesday.
“We perceive this as an immediate threat to the strategic interests of our country,” he said, after US President Joe Biden pledged a new $625-million military aid package to Ukraine on Tuesday.
The US package would include High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launchers, reportedly used in Ukraine’s recent counter-offensives against Russian forces, leading to their withdrawal.
Last week, Washington also unveiled a $1.1-billion arms package for Ukraine, which included 18 HIMARS launcher systems, accompanying munitions, various types of counter drone systems and radar systems.
But last week’s weapons package was funded by the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), meaning the government has to procure the weapons from industry, rather than pulling them from existing US weapons stocks.
The latest announcement would mark more than $16.8 billion worth of US security military aid to Kiev since Russia began what it calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine back in February, citing the failure of the US-led NATO military alliance and Kiev to offer Moscow security guarantees it sought in connection with NATO’s eastward expansion.
The aid package is the first since the accession to Russian Federation of four former Ukrainian territories — namely Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia — after holding referendums that Russia said overwhelmingly favored the move.
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***
On October 8, the Kerch Bridge, also known as “Crimean Bridge”, was partially damaged after a terrorist attack. The bridge connects Crimea to the Krasnodar region and is extremely strategic for Russian logistics, since it is the main transport infrastructure point between Crimea and the rest of the Federation. The attack was aimed only on civilian targets on the Bridge, with no Russian military vehicle operating in the region at the moment.
The attack took place in the morning when a truck was passing by the Bridge and exploded. The fire hit fuel tanks that were circulating on the railway part of the Bridge. Currently, investigations are being carried out by Russian authorities in order to clarify the details of the attack and the exact way in which the sabotage was planned and conducted. There are suspicions of remote detonation. The damage affected a considerable part of the motorway sections but did not totally collapse the general functioning of the 19km long Bridge. On the same day of the explosion, vehicles returned to normal circulation in the stretches that were not destroyed, and the regularity of services has been maintained.
Ukrainian authorities have claimed responsibility for the attack. An adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, Mykhailo Podolyak, posted on his social media account:
“Crimea, the bridge, the beginning. Everything illegal must be destroyed, everything stolen must be returned to Ukraine, everything occupied by Russia must be expelled”.
In the same vein, the official page of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense published:
“The guided missile cruiser Moskva and the Kerch Bridge – two notorious symbols of russian power in Ukrainian Crimea – have gone down. What’s next in line, russkies?”.
Also, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelesky himself wrote:
“Today was not a bad day and mostly sunny on our state’s territory. Unfortunately, it was cloudy in Crimea. Although it was also warm”, in what appeared to be a reference to the Crimea Bridge attack case.
In response, several Moscow’s officials made statements about the incident. Russian President Vladimir Putin himself commented on the case stating that “this was a terrorist attack aimed at destroying critical Russian civilian infrastructure” and that “the Ukrainian special services were the authors, perpetrators and customers”.
In the same vein, Russian Investigative Committee head Alexander Bastrykin made it clear that although investigations are still ongoing, there is no doubt that it was a deliberate terrorist act that targeted civilian infrastructure:
“We are continuing our investigation into the goals and objectives of this bombing. It undoubtedly carries a terrorist character. This was an act of terrorism. All our data allow us to draw an unambiguous conclusion – this was a terrorist attack prepared by the Ukrainian special services. The purpose of this terror attack was to destroy a large piece of civilian infrastructure which has a great importance for Russia”.
Indeed, the Russian response began on October 10, when Russian tactical attacks were launched against Kiev and other major Ukrainian cities. The main targets were strategic points such as intelligence agencies’ headquarters and critical infrastructure. The objective also was to neutralize Ukrainian forces by directly hitting the decision-making centers.
On the same day, Putin made new public statements, claiming that Kiev has initiated terrorist acts that cannot be left unanswered. The Russian president also emphasized how the Ukrainian regime has also initiated actions of nuclear terrorism, attacking power plants and creating risks of radioactive leakage. He promised that Russian responses could become even tougher.
In fact, the special military operation is acquiring the character of an anti-terrorist operation. The Ukrainian regime has already made it clear that terrorism is its usual praxis. The murder of Daria Dugina, the attacks on Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant and the explosion on the Crimean Bridge show that terrorists are in leading the government in Kiev.
In an ideal scenario, not only Russia but the entire international society would mobilize to solve the Ukrainian terrorist problem. But on the contrary, the western world continues to finance Kiev and support these illegal acts perpetrated by the local regime. In practice, NATO has acted as an organization sponsor of terrorism by sending money and weapons to Ukraine. More than that, some Western powers seem to be involved even in direct terrorism, considering the possible American and British participation in a boycott of Russian-European cooperation through the attacks on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines.
It also shows how the western narrative of the “global war on terror” has always been a fraud, whose objective is only to attack countries considered enemies. When allied nations use terrorism, NATO’s attitude is one of support, not condemnation.
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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 Telegra/m.
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Hundreds of tech employees have been protesting against Google and Amazon signing a deal with the Israeli government to develop artificial intelligence tools under the so-called Nimbus project which will be used to trace and control Palestinian movements
Hundreds of employees of the world’s biggest tech companies have joined together to prevent their employers’ collaboration with the state of Israel. The movement called ‘No Tech for Apartheid’ raises questions related to big tech companies such as Google and Amazon’s disregard for ethical standards and their growing complicity with the Israeli occupation and apartheid in the occupied Palestinian territories.
A joint statement issued with the consent of over 1,000 Google and Amazon employees on the dedicated website of the movement asserts that “technology should be used to bring people together, not enable apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and settler colonialism.” The movement claims to be inspired by the successful fight against apartheid in South Africa.
The movement has pointed that Google and Amazon’s joint project with the state of Israel, called project Nimbus, is nothing new but part of a long list of similar previous collaborations like with the US Department of Defense, Immigrants and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and various State and local police departments to provide different types of data and processing tools. These technologies have sharpened the effectiveness of the state’s repressive capacities by making it easier for organizations such as ICE to target vulnerable groups like immigrants.
A dangerous project
The Israeli Finance Ministry announced last year that it has signed a USD 1.2 billion deal with these companies to jointly develop an advanced cloud computing system, Project Nimbus, to provide artificial intelligence tools to the Israeli government and military.
Google and Amazon went ahead with the deal with Israel despite reports of Blue Wolf facial recognition technology and the Pegasus spyware grabbing global headlines amid last year’s deadly assaults on Gaza, which led to over 250 deaths.
A report published in July in The Intercept details the dangerous role project Nimbus could play in the persecution of Palestinians. It notes that the project will be used for carrying out surveillance and control of Palestinians activities and to sustain the Israeli occupation. It also talks about how the cloud system, once completed, will allow the Israeli authorities to pool and analyze data on a very large scale.
The No Tech for Apartheid campaign acknowledges that the project is “dangerous” and underlines that “when technology is used to harm communities, they make the world less safe for us all.” The movement declares that these tech companies are “helping to make Israeli apartheid more efficient, more violent, and even deadlier for Palestinians.”
Gabriel Schubiner, part of the Alphabet Workers Union, said in an interview to Democracy Now that “cloud technology is extremely powerful and providing that power to a violent military and to an apartheid government is not a neutral act,” as claimed by these companies.
Such campaigns have had a mixed impact so far. Microsoft, another technology giant, was forced to pull out all its funding from Israeli facial recognition firm AnyVision in 2020 under popular pressure. Google was also forced to stop its so-called “project Maven” with the US Ministry of Defense for similar reasons in 2018. Project Maven used to provide the US Department of Defense artificial intelligence technology to help detect targets captured by drone images. However, there are no other major examples to show that tech companies are ready to respond to concerns raised by their employees or the general public. On the contrary, big corporations often try to silence opposition.
Culture of retaliation
Google is accused of a culture of retaliation against its employees. Workers raising questions of ethics are oppressed and forced to go quiet or leave, according to several former employees. The recent example of Ariel Koren, a product marketing manager at Google who was forced to resign, is a case in point. Koren was critical of project Nimbus and had played a significant role in mobilizing her colleagues to raise the issue. She resigned in July claiming that she was transferred without consent from her current location in San Francisco to Brazil, as retaliation to her activism.
Most of the signatories of a statement issued by the No Tech for Apartheid campaign last year have remained anonymous, fearing retaliation from their employer and the prospect of losing their job.
Nevertheless, a large number of tech workers have come out in public and participated in a couple of nationwide demonstrations held last year in cities in the US. They proudly held the banners declaring ‘No tech for apartheid’ and demanding that Google and Amazon drop the project with Israel.
It is clear that movements such as No Tech for Apartheid have created some pressure on these companies and their collaborators. The Israeli government has also been forced to seek additional safeguards to protect the project from eventual shut down.
Talking about the significance of No Tech of Apartheid, Apoorva Gautam, South Asia and Asia Pacific coordinator of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, notes that “it is an intersectional campaign” which responds to the concerns raised by the “Palestinian civil society, tech workers, students, teachers, digital rights and Palestine solidarity activists,” asking tech companies to end “their complicity in apartheid.” She asserts that “apart from defending Palestinian human rights, this campaign also stands with struggles against digital colonialism and militarization of our societies through technology.”
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Ammar al-Baluchi, who has spent close to two decades at Guantanamo, has been for years suffering from severe brain damage as a result of his treatment at CIA black sites.
And despite Guantanamo Bay’s chief medical officer noting earlier this year that the facilities at the detention centre are inadequate in providing complex treatments for the prison’s ailing and ageing population, the Biden administration is continuing to oppose Baluchi’s requests for an independent commission of medical experts to come to the prison and assess his condition.
Alka Pradhan, Baluchi’s defence lawyer who returned from Guantanamo last week, told Middle East Eye that during her last session with the detainee, his condition was so bad he wasn’t able to read or form complete thoughts.
“Ammar has brain damage, stemming from his time in the black sites – and the effects of that brain damage have become really pronounced in his cognitive abilities,” Pradhan said.
“His ability, for example, to read documents, his ability to put together complex thoughts that would contribute to his defence, his ability to sit with us and strategise are really compromised at this point.”
She added that when it comes to Guantanamo,
“there is just no hope in sight for the sort of complex medical care that he needs, both psychological and physical”.
For the past few months, Pradhan has been petitioning the US District Court in Washington DC to grant a mixed medical commission (MMC) – a panel of independent experts made up of a medical officer from the US military and two doctors from a neutral country chosen by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
If granted, the panel could ultimately conclude that Baluchi’s condition requires him to be transferred out of the prison.
The Department of Justice has resisted the MMC request, stating in a September filing that an MMC would not lead to Baluchi’s transfer and that he “will continue to have comprehensive medical care available to him, administered by qualified military staff duty-bound to protect his physical and mental health”.
“Notably, Petitioner’s motion does not describe any actual medical emergency or even a condition for which urgently necessary treatment is not available at Guantanamo,” the administration’s filing said.
On Monday, Pradhan submitted a pleading in Baluchi’s case that called into question the Biden administration’s opposition to the request, saying the Department of Justice had failed to respond to the actual petition.
“I don’t want to say that they’re lying, but they have at every stage avoided responding to the specific facts of his case and instead has put forward these affidavits saying, ‘no, no, everything is fine at Guantanamo’,” Pradhan said.
In June, the detention centre’s chief medical officer offered testimony to the military commissions, in which he said that, while primary care was readily available to the prison population, many more specific procedures or treatments were not possible at the base:
“Where you’re going to find difficulties and breakdowns and pinch points are the, you know, when we need to see, for instance, this special study or this special provider.”
Steve Xenakis, a retired US Army brigadier-general and psychiatrist who has been advising on Baluchi’s case for the past decade, said the conditions faced by the detainee were complex and deteriorating.
“He clearly needs very sophisticated treatment and care for a condition that may end up being very chronic. It’s a problem he’s had for some time and it’s a progressive deterioration,” Xenakis told MEE.
He added that, for many detainees including Baluchi, “the equipment that you would need, and the other capabilities to both evaluate them and treat them are not here on the island”.
Why put up a fight?
Baluchi’s lawyers argue that a military ruling, titled Army Reglation 190-8, requires any prisoners be granted an MMC when requested.
The detainee’s defence team also cites a landmark 2020 ruling by Judge Rosemary Collyer of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, who concluded that another detainee, Mohamed al-Qahtani, was allowed an MMC to determine whether he was eligible for repatriation based on his medical condition.
However, a Trump administration filing in Qahtani’s case – described as “sloppy” and “hastily written” by Pradhan – asserted that the detainees at Guantanamo were not subject to regulation 190-8, and therefore could not receive an MMC.
The Biden administration ultimately mooted the court’s decision in that case by transferring Qahtani to Saudi Arabia, but Pradhan says Judge Collyer’s ruling already sets the precedent for Baluchi to be independently evaluated by an outside medical team.
The administration has signalled it will not interfere with plea negotiations that could resolve the long-stalled prosecution of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-defendants.
But despite this messaging, as well as the recent appointment of an official to oversee the transfers out of Guantanamo, Biden’s government has continued to push against fulfilling Baluchi’s request.
“I really do not understand why they are putting up such a fight on this which really undermines what the left hand is doing, trying to very slowly find a way to close Guantanamo,” Pradhan said.
Scott Roehm, Washington director of the Center for Victims of Torture, similarly questioned the administration’s approach.
“If the goal is to close Guantanamo, and a mixed medical commission is to conclude that this person is so sick, debilitated, injured, etc, that they have to be repatriated, that facilitates closure,” he told MEE.
Thirty-six men remain held at Guantanamo Bay, 20 of whom have been approved for transfer. Five are currently in indefinite detention and not approved for transfer, ten are awaiting trial and two have been convicted, including Majid Khan, who has finished his sentence and is in need of a country to be transferred to.
The Department of Justice declined to comment on the case.
Baluchi’s severe brain damage
Baluchi, a 44-year-old Kuwaiti national also known as Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, spent more than three years in CIA custody and was moved between a total of six “black sites” before being transferred in 2006 to Guantanamo Bay.
His case has been in pre-trial hearings for a decade, with delays over the legal admissibility of testimony obtained after his torture.
According to Pradhan, a neuropsychologist carried out an MRI of Baluchi’s head in October 2018 and found “abnormalities indicating moderate to severe brain damage” in the parts of his brain affecting memory formation, retrieval, and behavioural regulation.
According to another neuropsychologist’s evaluation of Baluchi in early 2020, the Guantanamo detainee’s psychological functioning had “seriously diminished” as a result of the torture, leaving him with a host of issues including traumatic brain injury, anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Another MRI scan was taken of Baluchi in 2021, revealing that a spinal lesion in his back had grown at an alarming rate, according to Pradhan. However, with the base’s MRI machine now broken, medical staff are not able to assess the condition or diagnose the lesion.
Earlier this year, newly declassified documents revealed that during his time at a black site in Afghanistan, Baluchi was used as a “prop” and training tool for trainee interrogators to practice torture techniques.
The documents revealed that interrogators-in-training lined up to take turns experimenting on him, including one CIA-approved technique called “walling”, in which the detainee’s heels are placed against a plywood wall “which had flexibility to it”, and a rolled-up towel was put around their neck. The detainee is then repeatedly slammed into the wall by their collar. Baluchi was naked during the interrogation.
Rights groups and civil society organisations have for years criticised the US government for the lack of medical facilities provided to properly treat many of the detainees at Guantanamo.
A 2019 report by The Center for Victims of Torture and Physicians for Human Rights found that medical equipment and expertise available on-site were “increasingly insufficient to address detainees’ health needs”.
“As they get older, I mean, we have to recognise that they’re going to need all sorts of different sophisticated treatments,” said Xenakis. “And we’re gonna have to figure out how that’s going to be set up.”
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Col. (Douglas) MacGregor was on some platform yesterday saying that there is no evidence whatsoever that the Russians are planning to use nuclear weapons. They don’t need to. They have overwhelming military superiority at the moment as they’re building up for the fall offensive. So it seems to me what we’re really talking about here is America setting off a nuclear bomb and attributing it to Russia. In case you didn’t notice, they did this already with the pipeline, so why wouldn’t they do it with a nuclear weapon?
On Wednesday, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that it would spend $290 million to secure an undisclosed quantity of Amgen’s blood disorder drug Nplate, which has been approved to treat blood cell injuries caused by acute radiation syndrome (ARS) in both children and adults.
The Union of Concerned Scientists agrees that a civilization-ending nukefest is closer than ever. Their Doomsday Clock is currently set to “doom’s doorstep”— 100 seconds from midnight. That is the worst “doom setting” since the Doomsday Clock was inaugurated in 1947.
Biden and the mainstream media are pre-emptively blaming Putin. They say that Russia is losing, growing desperate, and likely to resort to a nuclear strike.
But militarily experienced analysts like Col. Douglas MacGregor and Larry Johnsonbeg to differ. They point out that the vaunted Ukrainian advances are relatively insignificant. As Johnson writes:
Rolling across wide open plains represents a feel good moment, but this territory is not defensible once Russia decides to counter attack…Russia is baiting Ukraine to take territory and then face the task of trying to take a city Russia holds, such as Kherson…Ukraine will have to conduct a frontal assault on the city of Kherson and, in order to do this, will have to mass troops and equipment that will be easy targets for Russian artillery, missiles and bombs.
If Russia were really losing, wouldn’t the sanctions-flouting nations representing 85% of Earth’s population quickly capitulate to the US, cut off their trade with Russia, and beg for Uncle Sam’s forgiveness? And wouldn’t the Saudis and the rest of OPEC+ side with Biden rather than Putin? But that isn’t happening. On the contrary, it seems that most world leaders are betting on the Russians, not the Americans. They know the actual military score. They know that the pre-war Ukrainian military is mostly destroyed, that Ukraine has taken atrocious losses, and that the mad dashes against undefended empty plains are a desperate PR stunt, not a real threat to the success of the Russian SMO. The Russians are currently massing for their winter offensive, and when it comes, Ukraine will lose everything it has gained and then some, setting the stage for a decisive resolution to the conflict.
So it is the Ukrainians and their American neocon backers—not the Russians—who are desperate. How desperate? Well, Zelinsky wants to the US to pre-emptively nuke Russia, that’s how desperate.
But the Americans know that’s impossible. You can’t just pre-emptively nuke the biggest nuclear power on earth without destroying yourself in the process.
There are signs that American officials are annoyed with Ukrainian loose cannons like “nuke ‘em first and ask questions later” Zelinsky. The New York Times recently published a barely-coherent article headlined “U.S. Believes Ukrainians Were Behind Darya Dugina Assassination” that appeared to be some kind of CIA message to the Russians, or the Ukrainians, or US vassals, or some combination thereof, insisting that “we Americans are really, really mad at the Ukrainian hotheads who killed Darya Dugina, and we’re worried about the Ukrainians doing more recklessly stupid things.”
One extremely recklessly stupid thing Ukrainian hotheads might do is set off a nuclear false flag designed to be blamed on Russia. Maybe there is a faction of the CIA that doesn’t like that idea, and the New York Times article is a sort of pre-emptive strike against it.
In any case, if one or more radioactive mushroom clouds arises over Ukraine or its general vicinity, regardless of whether it was done by Ukrainian hotheads or US special operatives or their Polish stooges or Blackwater or the same guys who blew up Nordstream or the team that murdered Darya Dugina or the liars who dreamed up the Ghost of Kiev and the Foul-Mouthed Martyrs of Snake Island, it won’t really matter, because we all know the hysterical neocon propaganda media will blame Putin and bay in unison for his blood; Zelensky will demand immediate Armageddon; and generally all hell will break loose, figuratively and perhaps literally. If people believe the propaganda, we’ll be facing a World War III scenario.
That’s why it’s important to share this article and spread the news far and wide that if and when a nuke goes off, it will be the American-Ukrainian side, not the Russian side, that did it.
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ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102
PDF Edition: $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)
Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.
Reviews
“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.” –John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University
“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.” -Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations
Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction. –Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute
As boosters that have not been tested on humans are being rolled out across the country, a new study indicates that the jab is far more dangerous than COVID-19 itself. And the CDC has provided false information regarding their tracking of adverse events linked to the vaccines.
The year 2022 has been an ideologically-deafening Tower of Babel year, not unlike that described in the Bible in Genesis 11:1, where, since the beginning of human existence, human language, thought and conflict has been forever victimized by a constant babble of falsities & half-truths.
The evidence is in. They are willfully killing and maiming and sterilizing us with these jabs. Some of us know this. Most remain unconvinced. All holocausts are enabled by fence-sitters, willful ignorance etc., and it is happening now. Never again is now.
The US-employed terrorists, Maghawir al-Thawra (MaT), have turned against their partners, the US Army, stationed at al-Tanf base in the eastern Syrian desert. On October 4, the terrorists, who are employed as mercenaries by the US military, attempted to break out of the illegal US base using a large-caliber machine gun on the pickup truck they were driving.
The corporate propaganda media in the West is celebrating the death of three people on the Kerch Bridge, partially disabled last night in what might be described as a suicide bombing.
The Kremlin blasted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s “preemptive strikes” on Russia remarks from the day prior, accusing him of trying to start a world war. Zelensky had in a virtual address to Australia’s Lowy Institute urged US-led allies to conducted preventative strikes on Russia so that “knows what to expect” if it used nuclear weapons.
It is a stinker in terms of policy, and unconvincing in effect, but the wholesale, indiscriminate retention of telecommunications data continues to excite legislators and law enforcement. In the European Union, countries continue to debate and pursue such measures, despite legal challenges.
Even though the pipelines were a joint Russian-German effort costing $23 billion, Ukrainian and U.S. politicians and media immediately blamed Russia for the destruction. That this charge is ridiculous is only obscured by the last decades of fever-pitch propaganda slandering Russia and Vladimir Putin.
Despite the fact that the secret program had already been revealed by the CIA’s former chief of the directorate of Operations for the Near East and South Asia Dr. Charles Cogan and former CIA Director Robert Gates and was largely ignored, Brzezinski’s admission brings attention to a glaring misconception about Soviet intentions in Afghanistan that many historians would rather leave unexplained.
While Russia has issued statement after statement warning the US they will use nuclear weapons to defend their territory and are “not bluffing,” the US has been shipping billions in high-tech weaponry to Ukraine to attack Russian forces and strike inside of Russia.
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“Most people seem to get off on the fact that it’s escalating,” said socialist MEP Clare Daly, who condemned the E.U. for doing nothing to prevent Russia’s war from becoming “a wider horror.”
Two Irish members of the European Parliament on Thursday voted against a resolution calling for a massive increase in weapons shipments to Ukraine and blasted E.U. member nations over their refusal to pursue diplomatic initiatives to end Russia’s devastating war.
In a fiery floor speech ahead of Thursday’s vote on the resolution—which ultimately passed by an overwhelming margin of 504 to 26, with 36 abstentions—Irish MEP Clare Daly lamented that “practically nobody in this chamber is doing anything to prevent” the war in Ukraine from “quickly escalating into a wider horror,” a nod at the growing risk of nuclear catastrophe as Russian President Vladimir Putin ramps up his threatening rhetoric.
“In fact, most people seem to get off on the fact that it’s escalating,” said Daly, an Independent. “And at this precise moment, of course, as usual, the voices challenging the rush to war are attacked and silenced, smeared as traitors, cronies, Putin puppets, Kremlin stooges, Russian agents.”
“Frankly, it’s pathetic,” she continued. “And I don’t make the comparison lightly, but the crudeness and cynicism of these slurs coming from mainstream E.U. parties might as well have been written by [Nazi war criminal] Hermann Göring, who infamously said that even though people never want war, they can be brought to war with threats and smears.”
“This house should be ashamed of this debate,” Daly added. “Words are being twisted, meanings subverted, and the truth turned on its head. Opposing the horrible madness of war is not anti-European, it’s not anti-Ukrainian, it’s not pro-Russian: it’s common sense. The working class of Europe has nothing to gain from this war and everything to lose. And I find it laughable that those calling for arms to Ukraine never call for arms for the people of Palestine, or for the people of Yemen. Unlike you, I oppose all war. I want it stopped. I make no apology for that.”
As war in Ukraine escalates out of control, out come the vicious, scapegoating slurs against those who speak for peace: "cronies," "puppets," "stooges," "agents." Opposing the horror of war is not "anti-European," "anti-Ukrainian" or "pro-Russian." It's common sense. pic.twitter.com/KU9mAYYFmf
In addition to calling on nations backing Ukraine to “massively increase their military assistance,” the newly approved resolution condemned “in the strongest possible terms the unjustified, unprovoked, and illegal Russian war of aggression against Ukraine” and denounced as “illegal and illegitimate” the “sham referendums conducted at gunpoint to annex the oblasts of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia.”
Daly and fellow Independent Irish MEP Mick Wallace emphasized following Thursday’s vote that they have consistently opposed Russian aggression in Ukraine and that they rejected the resolution because of its calls for more arms deliveries and its “bellicose, escalatory language.”
“We don’t believe that pouring more weapons into Ukraine is a good idea,” Wallace said in a radio interview Friday. “We think more Ukrainians will die and it’s going to have a terrible impact on an awful lot of people.”
Since Russia’s invasion began in February, E.U. member countries have provided billions of euros worth of military assistance to Ukraine.
Earlier this week, Daly and Wallace teamed up with Independent Irish MEP Luke Ming Flanagan—who abstained from the resolution—to introduce an amendment decrying the “absence of E.U. diplomatic initiatives” and advocating “negotiations and dialogue to achieve a cease-fire” and a peaceful end to the war.
The Irish Timesreported that the amendment “was rejected by the majority of MEPs.”
In an explanation of her vote Thursday, Daly wrote that while she condemns “the illegal aggression of Russia,” she also disagrees with a “one-sided narrative that excuses the Western role in what is now happening.”
“I urge a cease-fire, negotiations, and genuine E.U. efforts to secure a peace,” Daly continued. “I oppose the policy of collective punishment, sanctions that also hurt European citizens, the flooding of Ukraine with weapons, and other actions that escalate the war and run the risk of igniting a direct conflict between NATO and Russia.”
From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
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Featured image: Clare Daly, an Irish member of the European Parliament, delivers a speech on October 5, 2022. (Photo: Clare Daly/Facebook Screengrab)
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How or When Did this Potentially-Fatal Road to Nuclear War in Ukraine Begin?
The year 2022 has been an ideologically-deafening Tower of Babel year, not unlike that described in the Bible in Genesis 11:1, where, since the beginning of human existence, human language, thought and conflict has been forever victimized by a constant babble of falsities & half-truths.
With the ever-escalating War in Ukraine, potentially leading towards an ultimate nuclear confrontation, the Western press continues to pummel the world with a withering barrage of officialparty line propaganda, creating a simplistic false narrative of the complex, decades-long, geo-politics that underlie this war. Parroted, at the same time, is the ideology of the elite within the Dark State who continue to direct, from behind the scenes, the American national security state’s unrelenting vehement ideological assault against Russia and its ultimate desire, at all costs, to not only bring about a regime change in Russia but, ultimately, once-and-for-all crush its Empire for the American-led Western Empire’s own gain.
The architects of the Project for a New American Century are among those who have long had a goal of planning, in one fashion or another, extending America’s long-held philosophy of Manifest Destiny into a wider expanse of world conquest and domination. The result has been a never-ending Cold War Redux with Russia, Ukraine’s Civil War now its epicenter of a Hot War, about to perhaps get even nuclear hotter, sooner rather than later, if those military analysts are correct who now suggest the hands of the Doomsday Clock should be more accurately moved up to one minute before midnight.
Either Way Ukraine’s Civil War Goes, It Will be a Long-Drawn Out “Savage Affair”
An unmistakably-telltale signal of what the West has all along intended, since day one, to do this time to Russia in the war in Ukraine is the clear message it consistently has given to Russia and the world that this time it isn’t prepared, one iota, to diplomatically negotiate with or back down in the stance it has taken over the crisis in Ukraine. This cold, hostile, frightful and frightening, turning-of-the-back on meaningful negotiations by the U.S. and its allies is another, gob-smacking classic example of the old saying “War is the failure to communicate”.
The heavy metal rock group Guns N’ Roses in 1991 produced the album Use Your Illusions that contained the track “Civil War” that was included in their Greatest Hits album in 2004. The lyrics speak to the never-ending absurdity of this current war that asks, “So what’s so civil about war anyway?”
Axel Rose’s words are worth reminding one’s self at this point:
What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate. Some men, you just can’t reach. So, you get what we had here, last week. Which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it And I don’t like it any more than you or me. Look at your young men. Look at your women crying. Look at your young men dying. The way they’ve always done before. Look at the hate we’re breeding Look at the fear we’re feeding. Look at the lives we’re leading, the way we’ve always done before. My hands are tied. The billions shift from side to side. An’ the wars go on with brainwashed pride. For the love of God and our human rights. An’ all these things are swept aside by bloody hands time can’t deny an’ are washed away by your genocide. An’ history hides the lies of our civil wars. D’you wear a black armband when they shot the man who said peace could last forever? An’ in my first memories, they shot Kennedy. I went numb when I learned to see. So I never fell for Vietnam. We got the wall in D.C. to remind us all that you can’t trust freedom when it’s not in your hands. When everybody’s fightin’ for their promised land.
And I don’t need your civil war. It feeds the rich, while it buries the poor. Your power hungry, sellin’ soldiers in a human grocery store. Ain’t that fresh? I don’t need your civil war. Ooh, no, no, no, no, no, no! Look at the shoes you’re filling. Look at the blood we’re spilling! Look at the world we’re killing, the way we’ve always done before. Look in the doubt we’ve wallowed! Look at the leaders we’ve followed! Look at the lies we’ve swallowed! An’ I don’t want to hear no more! My hands are tied. For all I’ve seen has changed my mind. But still, the wars go on, as the years go by. With no love of God or human rights. An’ all these dreams are swept aside by bloody hands of the hypnotized who carry the cross of homicide. And history bears the scars of our civil wars. We practice selective annihilation of mayors and government officials to create a vacuum. Then we fill that vacuum. As popular war advances, Peace is closer. I don’t need your civil war! It feeds the rich, while it buries the poor. Your power hungry, sellin’ soldiers in a human grocery store. Ain’t that fresh? I don’t need your civil war! No no no no no no no no no no no no! I don’t need your civil war! I don’t need your civil war! Your power hungry, sellin’ soldiers in a human grocery store! Ain’t that fresh? I don’t need your civil war! No no no no no no no no no no, no, no! I don’t need one more war! Ooh, I don’t need one more war! No no no, no! whoa, no! whoa! What’s so civil ’bout war anyway?
The Long Road to Now in Ukraine’s Human Grocery Store Is a Painful One
Axel’s words are profound! Short of ending the war with an all-out quick-strike nuclear confrontation, the already existing complexities behind the Civil War in Ukraine already includes too many ugly soldiers and military doing what they always do in the human grocery store. Behind-the-scenes meddling by Washington and other Western governments and their collective military intel forces have long been in operation, plotting and planning, before Ukraine’s Civil War ever began in earnest.
For starts, depending upon your political and ideological beliefs, if you’re a Russian-speaking Eastern Ukrainian, the origins of this civil war are described as the 2014 Maidan coup d’ etat, when U.S. State Department officials supported the radical Azov and Right Sector neo-Nazi nationalists overthrow of the democratically-elected, Russian-leaning government of Viktor Yanukovych.
The Maidan false flag operation by fascist snipers of protestors in Kiev’s Independence Square, gleefully backed by Washington and oligarch nationalists, are what triggered the Maidan coup and set off the domino effect of: the subsequent annexation of the Crimea by the Russians; the commencement of the war in the Donbas and; renewed Cold War between Russia and the West. Once Ukraine’s civil war is over and won by Russia, which it indubitably will, it’s expected President Putin will return deposed President Viktor Yanukovych back in power to replace President Zelensky.
Whereas, Ukrainian-speaking Western Ukrainian’s who lean towards the European vector and EU Free-Trade Zone for development, are among those who backed the coup in 2014, which they instead call a Revolution of Dignity. The 108 protestors who were massacred, under false flag operations, by nationalist snipers or burned alive in barricaded buildings by their own right-wing thugs, are still referred to as the Heavenly Hundred Heroes.
The complexity of what all has transpired in Ukraine over the past eight years since 2014 seems too much for the outside amnesiac world to comprehend. To begin with, the majority of the citizenry in the West are either just: too busy with their own lives; too intelligently ill-equipped; too poorly-ill-informed by choice or by design, or; too disinterested to even try to remember or understand the complexities of the decades-long causes that underlie the historical hostilities between the American and Russian Empires. The masses just aren’t that interested, beyond being fed a steady diet of war news over their next meal, coffee and dessert; unquestioningly willing to accept as gospel, whatever is fed them by whatever national or international Western propaganda news feed or affiliate. It’s how World War’s I & II, and every other war in the world before or since, was ever started.
Both sides in this conflict now have been led to believe they must be totally prepared to knock out the other, once and for all, if ever there is to be any kind of resolution to this untenable situation. The Russians realize they are going to have to totally wipe out the Ukrainian Army to successfully end the conflict. While the West, as the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton broadcasted early in March, at the start of this renewed civil war, if the West is ever to win they must be prepared to give their nuclear knockout punch or fight a long, brutal, bloody insurgency war like the CIA did in Afghanistan, with neo-Nazi elements continuing to fight a clandestine ethnic cleansing war of Russian-speaking Ukrainians and occupying Russian troops; with a right-wing government in-exile to serve as a figurehead high command. But this insane option only makes some kind of quick -fix nuclear strike even more desirable on either side.
To make matters worse, almost every major airwave and journalistic platform in the West now is under the unofficial command: of America’s national security state; its multitude of Intel agencies and; their battalions of skilled wordsmiths, visual media artists, talking heads and tacticians of all manner of psychological warfare, who deftly or clumsily, only spin the story in Ukraine one way. This includes all those broadcasting networks who, collectively, who rightly could be characterized as ‘Radio Free Ukraine’, or their WWII, Cold War predecessors: Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty and Voice of America.
Forever absent is the ‘equal time’ space allotted to opposing independent media anti-war sources who challenge the validity of the primary argument that Ukraine, rather than a country with a long-standing history of frustrated democratic principles and longings, instead is one who, in the Western region of Ukraine, clearly has long had strong neo-Nazi sentiments, held since WWII and before, that has led to an unbridgeable ideologically-divide and Civil War-mentality between its Western and Eastern regions.
Not surprisingly, The Americans, true to form, have chosen to protect the Western region’s Ukrainian-speaking people, while Russia, based on a democratic vote taken in a war-zone under extremely trying conditions, has chosen now to place the Eastern Ukraine’s four regions of Russian-speaking people – in Zaporizhzia, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk – back under the protection of Mother Russia.
By so doing, the hands of the Doomsday clock have now moved even dangerously closer to midnight, while the United States and its Western European allies refuse to accept the validity of the democratic vote in Eastern Ukraine and are now preparing to provide the Western regions with the latest, cutting-edge battlefield nuclear weaponry, while Russia and its allies have also declared their readiness to use nuclear weapons to protect the four annexed regions that now are part of the greater Mother Russia.
The Hands of the Doomsday Clock Move Ever Closer to Midnight
Ukraine’s pro-Western region, now is being used by the American national security state as a pawn to ram through a fully-fledged NATO Army in Ukraine, with which to ostensibly defend itself from its Eastern, pro-Russian side; with the additional collective military might of the West’s NATO nations unequivocally backing them up to the hilt at the cost of even every NATO country’s citizenry. It’s a recipe for disaster.
Whereas many alternative peace-prone, anti-war media sources, left out of the conversation, instead contrarily hold that Ukraine is a country in need of a new identity for itself with the world’s collective help; not to fuel yet another world war but to find non-violent ways to protect and grow the desired freedoms of the Ukraine people, and, by inference, all the rest of the citizenry in the free world, from the unwarranted aggressions of whatever born and bred evil Empire at home or abroad.
A brilliant counterbalance to the massive ideological conformity and dissonance of the dominant war mentality that now flourishes in Ukraine, is the wide spectrum of countervailing voices of the alternative press that already can readily be found on the opposite side of the Tower of Babel’s constant blare of war, conquest, empire-building and genocide. This would be the Tower of Babel’s social media platform to be found in places like: www.YouTube.com that offers a rich source of contrary voices to the War that serve as antidotes to the West’s mainstream media’s crisis of self-censorship.
Cherry-Picking Voices From Youtube.Com to Counter Western Propaganda
One sterling YouTube.com voice taken from the Tower of Babel, that sheds more light and truth on this nuclear crisis, is Scott Ritter and his Scott Ritter Report. This regularly updated report, is an excellent source that and can always be counted on to provide as honest, truthful and accurate an accounting as one can expect of the rapidly unfolding and evolving situation in Ukraine.
Ritter, born into an American military family, is a former U.S. Marine Corp intelligence officer who served as a military advisor during Operation Desert Storm and following that war in Iraq served as a weapons inspector who oversaw the disarmament of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from 1991 to 1998. Rittter is a superb author of numerous books: “Shifting Sands: The Truth About Unscom and Disarming of Iraq”; “Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & Selling of American Empire”; “Dangerous Ground: America’s Failed Arms Control Policy from FDR to Obama”; “Scorpion King: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump”, and; “Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika: Arms Control and the End of the Soviet Union”.
In one of his latest reports on YouTube, Ritter provides a fascinating and informative interview with the Russian military leader and political statesman Andrey Gurulyov about Russia’s recent annexation of the four regions in Eastern Ukraine and what his prognosis is for the future conduct of the war.
For the sake of this piece of reporting, this writer has further chosen to cherry-pick another important report by Ritter about the recent annexation by Russia of the four regions of Russian-speaking Eastern Ukraine that have democratically-voted to return under the protection of Mother Russia.
Still to follow are a few of the many representative examples of the rich wealth of healthy, balanced, open voices of debate to be found through You Tube’s social media platform. In the face of the West’s reticence to open up the debate on its airwaves, the selections that follow lend themselves to expand the dialogue between all those truly interested in listening to the many challenging critics who endeavor to speak truth to power about the War in Ukraine and the extremely dangerous situation in which the world now finds itself tottering.
Crisis of Media Censorship & Ideological Conformity
Since the inception of the shooting war began some eight months ago, The Chris Hedges Report, is another sterling voice of anti-war and anti-imperialism, that always provides an excellent perspective on war.
Chris Hedges, is an award-winning American journalist, Presbyterian minister and author of over 50 books who arguably is the world’s most influential social media star. A longtime host of the Emmy-nominated program On Contactfor the Russia Today America television show, Hedges was the one-time Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief of the New York Times during the wars in Afghanistan and the then Yugoslavia. He is also the author of over 50 books (“Empire of Illusion”, “American Fascists, the Christian Right and War on America”). Yet since the war broke out in Ukraine, six years (the entire archive) of his RT On Contact program have simply mysteriously “disappeared”, deleted without notice or explanation, when You Tube unilaterally decided, or perhaps was forced, to do so because of Hedge’s opposition to NATO warmongering in Ukraine his criticisms of the war actions by both the Democrats and Republicans.
Hedges co-host on this still available segment in You Tube’s archive is Patrick Lawrence, author, columnist essayist for The Nation magazine, foreign correspondent (who wrote under the name Patrick Smith) for the Far Eastern Economic Review, International Herald Tribune and The New Yorker. Hedges enters into an enlightening dialogue with Patrick Lawrence about media censorship and ideological conformity in general in the American press vs a vis war reporting during wartime.
How did all this press censorship Hedges and Lawrence speak about first happen? Even though Ukraine possesses its own undeniable history of Nazi affiliations, Fascist, Anti-Russian, Anti-Communism sentiments? Yet, in spite of the horrendously-ugly, vicious Maidan coup d’etat in 2014, it now suddenly, seemingly overnight, has become a democratic country who now needs its own fully-fledged, cutting-edge NATO Army and trillions of defense dollars from tax payers around the world to properly outfit it with the latest cutting-edge, even nuclear. war materials, along with the immediate total military, political, logistical protections and defenses of the entire U.S. dominated and led NATO nations that already encircle the Russian land mass.
It’s like say what? It would seem the Americans and their allies clearly are now prepared to do to the Russians what the European invaders once did in the New World, following the so-called Age of Discovery that more rightly should be deemed the Age of Conquest, when they themselves ruthlessly “annexed”, willy-nilly, all its territories and First Nation peoples, and then for the next five hundred years murdered or subjugating them by putting the survivors onto reservations and reserves (i.e. “concentration camps” or “Stalags”), totally surrounding them with troops and restricting their movements so they no longer could threaten the conquering, colonizing immigrant masses in their midst. While, at the same time, all their wordsmiths set out to rewrite all the history books and create a different spin to New World history.
RT America Is Dead! Long Live RT America
In 2017, RT America won 9 awards, 2 Gold, One Silver and Bronze, 19 awards in all, at the prestigious New York Festival of the World’s Best TV. RT America in that year was nominated in 18 categories, including war zone coverage and documentaries, beating out Germany’s Deutsche Welle & Voice of America. But just like Chris Hedges brilliant archives of RT On Contact mysteriously disappeared when the war in Ukraine broke out, so too did all the airwave providers, that, one by one, black listed RT America.
Direct TV immediately distanced itself from RT America by removing all its programming, curtly stating, “We are accelerating this year’s contract expiration timeline with RT America and will no longer offer its programming effective immediately”. FoxTel in Australia soon followed suite as did Canadian broadcasters who were no longer allowed to distribute Russia’s state-run RT America broadcasts when Canada’s regulators found its programming had in some way targeted Ukrainians during the on-going war. Canada’s CRTC and PM Trudeau also immediately took steps to combat what they and he called Russian “disinformation”. Even the satellite carrier Roku, a major television provider in the US banished RT America from its platform. RT America also was pulled from YouTube and RT America soon ceased production and was forced to lay off all its employees. So much for democracy in action and the rule of law in the West. It was a clear sign, early on, that the fix against Truth was in!
Now, with Western Ukraine in the war camp of the West, NATO’s ploy is to get as many client states positioned as close as possible on the actual physical border with Russia, literally everywhere in its face, as it were, with a full-compliment of nuclear weapon systems at the ready, with fingers poised on the buttons.
But if this were yet another Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and President Kennedy was caught on the prongs of the same dilemma as President Putin, Kennedy no doubt would be taking far more aggressive actions than Vladimir Putin so far has done with his “Special Military Action”, in order to back-off NATO’S war-mongering, imperialism. But with the latest annexations of territories in Eastern Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has now just done exactly that when he issued the same ‘hands off’ ultimatum to the West and its Ukrainian Zelensky puppet that President Kennedy once gave to Cuba’s Castro and Russia’s President Khrushchev, OR ELSE! Yet by President Biden and his Western NATO ally’s arrogant responses to Putin’s dire warning it’s clear that Western ideology in Ukraine now, clearly, seems to be a struggle to the death to bring into alignment the West’s deceitful ‘Master Plan’ for the future of the world.
Sabotage of Nordstrom Pipeline: A Classic Case of Western Deceit & Subterfuge
What the Americans and their NATO allies, or whomever is involved in the sabotage of Russia’s Nordstrom Pipeline to Germany, has in mind is another crystal-clear example of how insidious and flagrant the West’s leaders of the so-called “Free World” are in carrying out their Machiavellian Master Plan to ultimately defeat Russia..
Without getting into a host of contentious, pusillanimous details of the whodunnit’s and why’s of it all, there’s the curious fact that at the time of the sabotage, the USS Kearsarge, a U.S. amphibious assault ship, apparently was in the area conducting military underwater demolition exercises, okay. Yet President Biden and the Western press immediately jumped on the bandwagon, screaming “IT WAS THE RUSSIANS!” The whole matter ugly and nauseating.
One need only recall past comments made by the then U.S. Sect. of State Condoleezza Rice to sense where the smoking gun indeed lies behind this incident and the war itself. Rice queried, “Do you want to change the structure of energy dependence? Do you want to depend more on the North America energy platform that don’t have pipelines that don’t go through Ukraine & Russia?”
Europe, and especially Germany’s industry obviously depends upon cheap energy from Russia. Without it Germany would end up de-industrialized and financially broke.But at the outset of the war, Biden clearly threatened to disable the pipelines connecting Europe to Russia if and when they became operational.
But when Biden remarked at the outset of the war, “If Russia invades…then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it”. Yet, when a reporter at the time repeatedly asked the President: “But how will you do that, exactly, since the project is in Germany’s control?” Biden’s simply smugly repeated several times, with a Cheshire cat smile, “I promise you, we will be able to do that.”
Pres. Biden: "If Russia invades…then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it."
Reporter: "But how will you do that, exactly, since…the project is in Germany's control?"
Hello! Is anyone listening? Clearly, are these remarks by Biden not now a clear bellicose open declaration of war against not only Russia but against Germany and any other European country that considers doing business using Russia’s oil and gas? The sabotage of Russia’s Nordstrom is yet one more example of the harsh reality of what now is afoot in the world, that could be summed up with a line from Shakespeare, “Something is rotten in Denmark!”
Lordy, what the world is witnessing in slow motion is a classic textbook case of ruthless 21st century empire-building like what, for centuries, occurred over and over again in Western & Eastern Europe, and throughout the America’s, during the bogus ‘Age of Discovery’ in the New World, that back then also clearly had the full religious, moral and military support and approval of Catholicism, Europe’s other major religions and all of Europe’s feudal lords and leaders. It’s just a repeat of the same old ugly imperialism.
Every World Citizen Must Listen to Their Favorite Voices in the Tower Of Babel
The time is long since passed that the citizenry of the world should have already totally turned their backs on all the West’s propagandists and their endless clamor and drone of intellectually-suffocating, ideologically-imperialist world press that intentionally stifles and smothers whatever independent thought ever seeks to break through it all.
This time around, The West’s diabolical geo-political chess masters, with their strategic Project for a New American Century (PNAC) blueprint already carefully laid out, continues to engage Russia in their long-awaited WWIII nuclear chessboard. Now, with all the final pieces and checkmate strategies almost all meticulously set in place; while exploring ways to maneuver Russia to move into the final trap that a host of military strategists, fascist politicians, corporate kingpins and warmongers have been plotting long before even the U.S.-master-minded own Maidan coup d’etat became operational.
The Doomsday clock now should perhaps be reset at one minute before Midnight as world events continue to speed up, exponentially. But before that moment of truth arrives, it behooves every citizen of the world to refresh their memory of what the actual substance and underlying intentions are of those imperialists who originally authored the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). Once the reader has digested their intentions, it would be worth while to listen to the writer-author David Swanson.
David Swanson is an author, Green Party activist, journalist, director of World Beyond War, a global non-violent movement to end war and establish a just and sustainable peace. His books include, “War is a Lie” and “When the World Outlawed War”. Swanson also hosts Talk World Radio and is a Nobel Peace Prize Nominee.
Undaunted by the truth, Western NATO countries and NATO commands continue to press their ‘hot war’ rhetoric while they up the ante, stock-piling Ukraine with the latest armaments, logistics, military intelligence and strategic support by the U.S. and other Western nations who, for their own maniacal, unipolar view of world history, duplicitously continue to use Ukraine as a proxy spearhead to, once and for all, finally pierce the heart of their historically-hated Russian Empire nemesis.
For decades, American and European imperialists have sought to create one international crises after another between Ukraine, Russia, America or whomever. But even the controversial right wing talk show hosts, like Tucker Carlson. now get the incredulity and insanity of it all.
Whether right or left-wing, fascists or democrats, many voices, past and present, continue to speak out from their Tower of Babel perch about the craziness of what all is going on in the world.
One of them is the late Professor Stephan Cohen, one-time professor emeritus at New York University and Princeton University who, when he was alive, brilliantly countered the American government and its State Department’s anti-Russian hostility. Even in death, Professor Cohen offers the kind of sober-minded balance that needs to be brought to the table about the war in Ukraine and America’s right wing political leaders, and especially to those who only listen to the Western world’s right-wing mainstream press, to the exclusion of alternative sources of media in both the Western and Eastern press, Cohen’s wisdom in regard to Russia and America relations knows no equal. The books he authored:” War with Russia”; “Rethinking the Soviet Experience: Politics and History since 1917” still stand alone without equal.
During the Cold War, Cohen was critical of both Western war hawks and the Soviet Government. He said Bill Clinton backtracked on the promise of his predecessors not to extend NATO eastward. In 2014, he wrote that President Obama had unilaterally declared a Cold War against Russia and that the Washington Beltway was complicit in it by their silence. In 2014, Cohen said the crisis in Ukraine also came about as a result of complicit U.S. actions, started by Bill Clinton and completed by George Bush to expand NATO’s sphere of influence to the borders of Russia.
In relation to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Cohen said, “any Russian leader who has legitimacy at home would have had to do the same version of what Putin is now doing. They’d push back!”
One last voice to be selected from the Tower of Babel is that of Jeffrey Sachs who speaks to U.S. Policy and and how the West’s false narrative has continued to stoke the tensions with Russia and China.
Jeffrey Sachs is a renowned Harvard economic professor that some contend is possibly the most important economist in the world because he has worked between Russia and the United States and as an advisor to reform-minded governments from Bolivia to Slovenia to Poland, where Poland now is one of the fastest-growing economies in Eastern Europe. Says Sachs, “If Poland can do it, so can Russia.” Sachs, as well, is the former director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and its Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. He also is President of the UN Sustainable Developed Solutions Network and co-founder and chief strategist of Millennium Promise Alliance dedicated to ending extreme poverty and hunger.
Sachs declares, “The world is on the edge of nuclear catastrophe in no small part because of the failure of Western political leaders to be forthright about the causes of the escalating global conflicts. The relentless Western narrative about the West while Russia and China are evil is simple-minded and extraordinarily dangerous. It is an attempt to manipulate public opinion, not to deal with the very real and pressing diplomacy.”
Will the Hope & Challenge of a New Direction & Purpose for Humankind Ever Come to Pass
The abuse of the planet’s natural world and its indigenous inhabitants by aggressive homo sapiens in every nation continues at a record pace and pitch greater perhaps than what ever occurred in the past. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize what the end result will be if the so-called ‘Age of Discovery’, that began in the New World 500 years ago, follows the same pattern for another five centuries, with the: decimation of its First Nation peoples; their natural worlds, ancient endemic species of life, natural resources and rare earth minerals; not to mention the out-of-control disastrous effects of ever-greater populations of immigrants, refugees and displaced peoples from other parts of the globe, devastated by war and famine, that continue, wherever they go, to stretch all life-support systems far beyond their coping capacities.
In the 21st century and beyond, the Western World’s historical track record of the past five centuries suggests what the most likely continued trajectory in the future will be, if left unattended, for because of war in places like Ukraine or Russia, or because of one planetary climatic calamity after another. Given the same propaganda of world domination by the same dominant powers in the West and East, they all point in the inexorable direction of some eventual human-made conflagration, or climate crisis of yet unknown cataclysmic consequences. “There But for the Grace of God!”, as that old saying goes.
Meanwhile, the unabated rape and pillage of everything by the corporate world in the Old & New Worlds continues to feed the mayhem that leads ever closer towards yet another, possibly fatal, world war, that threatens not only humankind’s fate but that of all living things on Mother Earth.
This disaster-in-progress between the West and East’s, is like a Damocles sword coming everywhere closer one looks. The choice is clear: peaceful Evolution or violent Revolution for all of Humankind & Mother Earth alike. CLEARLY, another different way forward must be found.
To put it bluntly, without listening to and taking into account the wisdom of critics like those in the Tower of Babel featured here and many other like-minded ones can only lead humanity to becoming as if partially brain-dead or, to put it yet another way, to end up being left with one sandwich-short-of-a-picnic, when it comes to clearly understanding the whys and wherefores of the War in Ukraine or so many of the other man-made or natural crises that now threaten the earth and humanity with extinction..
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Jerome Irwin is a Canadian-American writer who, for decades, has sought to call world attention to problems of environmental degradation and unsustainability caused by a host of environmental-ecological-spiritual issues that exist between the conflicting world philosophies of indigenous and non-indigenous peoples.
ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102
PDF Edition: $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)
Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.
Reviews
“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.” –John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University
“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.” -Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations
Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction. –Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute
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The evidence is in. They are willfully killing and maiming and sterilizing us with these jabs. Some of us know this. Most remain unconvinced. All holocausts are enabled by fence-sitters, willful ignorance etc., and it is happening now. Never again is now.
People who share the truth, especially about the jabs, are censored in myriad ways. Dr. McCullough was just removed from Twitter, apparently for posting the brilliant “Are the Kids OK?” video.
The aforementioned video demonstrates first that “COVID-19” does not cause myocarditis and pericarditis, but that the experimental jabs do. (1)
Second, that mainstream messaging, including “fact-checkers”, were wrong to label jab-related myocarditis as “COVID misinformation.” (2)
Finally, that the catastrophic jab-related mortalities and morbidities are actually considerably under-estimated. (3)
Fatal Lockdowns are coming back to Canada, land of the unfree. Do what you can to beat the censorship, the logorithms, the smears etc.
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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017.
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-employed terrorists, Maghawir al-Thawra (MaT), have turned against their partners, the US Army, stationed at al-Tanf base in the eastern Syrian desert. On October 4, the terrorists, who are employed as mercenaries by the US military, attempted to break out of the illegal US base using a large-caliber machine gun on the pickup truck they were driving. However, their break out was thwarted by the Syrian Arab Army who hold positions nearby and returned fire causing the MaT to retreat into the US base.
Russian Major General Oleg Yegorov, deputy chief of the Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Opposing Parties in Syria, reported the incident on Wednesday.
The US military had cordoned off al-Tanf base in the 55-kilometer deconfliction zone, shut down the internet, and ordered all mercenaries to lay down their arms and leave the base at once on foot. On September 27, to reinforce the message, US coalition aircraft flew over the area and broke the sound barrier to drive home their insistence that mercenaries who refuse US military orders must leave.
The military council of the MaT has rejected the US military’s decision to remove the former commander of the MaT and replace him with a man who is not a member of the MaT. The US-employed terrorists stated, “… that it rejects any foreign intervention in the appointment of its revolutionary leadership.” The MaT must not have understood that when you are on the payroll of the US military you are obliged to follow their orders. Equally, the US Army must not have understood that when you partner with Radical Islamic terrorists you cannot expect them to follow orders. As the saying goes, “When you feed a monster, it can turn to bite you.”
Al-Tanf is an illegal US military base in Homs province on the M2 Baghdad–Damascus Highway in the Syria-Jordan-Iraq border triangle. The outpost began in early 2016 under the command of the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR). The MaT consists of at least 300 terrorists partnered with at least 200 US troops. The Syrian government has demanded the US leave its occupation of several bases in Syria.
According to Israeli defense sources, al-Tanf hosts around 350 military personnel and civilians, “including some British and French forces that were described as ‘intelligence experts.” CNN reported in August 2022, that there are approximately 900 US troops in Syria, with most of them split between the al-Tanf base and Syria’s eastern oil fields.
On September 29, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights sources reported that dozens of residents gathered near al-Tanf base to protest the coalition’s decision and called on its command to appoint any other officer from the faction instead of an outsider.
The previous leader
Brigadier General Muhannad al-Talaa was removed from his position by the US-led coalition late last month. The former colonel, who defected from the Syrian Arab Army, was the founder of the MaT in 2016. Without explicitly charging al-Talaa with any crimes, local speculation points to the former commander’s involvement in instances of corruption, weapon and drug trafficking, and other violations.
Sources say he was removed from his command because he had traveled to Turkey, where he has family living, and while there met with Turkish Intelligence officials. This would be an obvious violation of the chain of command in US military protocol and would border on spying charges.
However, the same sources point to al-Talaa’s dismissal of corruption, smuggling weapons, and drug trafficking crimes. Al-Talaa worked with a core of corrupt terrorists within MaT, and if they were exposed by the US forces red-handed for weapons and drug smuggling, he would arrange for them to lay low for a period, and then he would engineer their return to full pay in the MaT. Al-Talaa became an expert at manipulating the system whereby every six months there is a change of American officers at al-Tanf.
Jordan had demanded that the US remove al-Talaa from command of the MaT, but their pleas were not heeded until now. The Jordanians became aware that it was al-Talaa and his group of criminal terrorists who were in control of the drug trade plaguing Jordan. This became a security threat to Jordan and its war on drugs. During al-Talaa’s final meeting with Jordanian military intelligence officers, they directly accused him of being a drug dealer. They had arrested Abu Hamza al-Khudair, a well-known drug dealer, who admitted that al-Talaa was aware of the drug smuggling to Jordan.
Jordan formally cut off humanitarian support to the Rukban refugee camp next to al-Tanf because of al-Talaa’s drug trafficking, but he remained in his post until he was recently removed.
The new leader
Al-Talaa was replaced by Muhammad Farid al-Qassem, a former captain who defected from the Syrian Arab Army and formed the al-Qaryatayn Martyrs Brigade with support from the US.
Al-Qassem, who is a violent radical, has never been a member of the MaT. According to people from the al-Qaryatayn area, his hometown, he is a “cruel person” and will not be suitable to manage the civilians living in desperate conditions in the squalor of the Rukban camp.
A former MaT commander at al-Tanf said, “There are suspicions that al-Qassem is also involved in smuggling operations through his deployment points.” The media source close to the coalition agreed, adding that the new commander is also accused of involvement in “a murder and other violations.”
Sources close to the base thought that al-Qassem was chosen because he is an outsider, and will not support the criminal activity his predecessor was involved in, and the Jordanians would accept working with him. However, he has a troubled past with the US military when he was kicked out of the Pentagon training program in 2017 for violations. After that, he began working with the CIA on another program that dealt with terrorist training for the US-led coalition and American military forces in Syria.
Rukban camp
The Rukban refugee camp for internally displaced Syrians is located within the de-confliction zone which includes the al-Tanf base. Camp residents are split on their acceptance of the decision to remove al-Talaa. Citizens of the camp live in deplorable conditions and are dependent on the MaT for supplies after humanitarian aid was cut off in 2019. The US, Syria, and Jordan all have fallen short in supplying aid to the thousands of men, women, and children at Rukban suffering in the desert.
Camp residents who had survived depending on the smuggling activities of al-Talaa are protesting his removal, while others who suffered from his command are accepting the US decision to remove him, and the rest are quietly trying to survive without taking one side or the other.
On September 29, the local council of Rukban published on Facebook, photos, and videos showing protests in which dozens of camp residents participated inside the walls of Tanf, in opposition to the isolation of al-Talaa.
Al-Qassem is said to have a better working relationship with Jordan, which supplies water to the Rukban camp. However, his appointment is not likely to change Jordan’s policy towards the camp, which does not support aid to the camp other than water.
Pentagon and CIA terrorist training in Syria
In October 2019, President Trump ordered the withdrawal of US troops from Syria, but the Pentagon would allow his order to stand, and in the end, the US military won the day. The US involvement in Syria began in March 2011 in Deraa, and the CIA began its program, Timber Sycamore, in 2012 to provide training and weapons to thousands of terrorists following Radical Islam in their effort to overthrow the secular government in Damascus. A parallel program run by the Pentagon began in 2014 called Train and Equip, which was a covert program to train terrorists. In 2017, President Trump shut down the billion-dollar CIA program.
When President Obama designed the 2011 regime change war in Syria, military experts warned that US weapons could fall into the hands of Al Qaeda or other similar terrorist groups. Obama’s Free Syrian Army died off years ago and morphed into Jibhat al-Nusra, the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, who today occupy Idlib, the last remaining terrorist-controlled territory and are holding three million people as human shields. Al-Talaa was an American-backed terrorist who pulled in a monthly paycheck from Uncle Sam and supplemented his US dollars by selling US weapons to other terrorist groups and smuggling drugs into Jordan. The US tax-payer-voter should be questioning why the US partners with Radical Islamic terrorists, and perhaps demanding a change in command in the US coalition in Syria. “When you feed a monster, it can turn to bite you.”
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Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image is from the author
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***
The corporate propaganda media in the West is celebrating the death of three people on the Kerch Bridge, partially disabled last night in what might be described as a suicide bombing.
⚡️Eyewitnesses post photos, video of the fiercely burning Kerch bridge.
The Kerch bridge from Russia to Crimea has been hit by a massive explosion on the span that carries railway traffic early on Oct. 8. pic.twitter.com/5wvIjBZmZZ
“Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and the 19-km (12-mile) bridge linking it to Russia’s transport network was opened with great fanfare by President Vladimir Putin four years later.”
Propagandists love to use misleading and deflective language. For instance, the verb “seized” in the above sentence. Trained propagandists (otherwise known as establishment journalists) would have the ignorant, which comprise the majority of the American people, believe Russia violently “seized” (take over, conquer, subjugate are related words) the Crimean Peninsula, described as forever part of Ukraine. In fact, the majority of ethnic Russians living there have long attempted to place distance between themselves and the neo-Nazi worshippers in Kyiv. It was also known as the Autonomous Republic of Crimea after Victoria Nuland and her band of saboteurs overthrew the elected government and installed a neo-Nazi-influenced government.
Re Crimea, when I went there in 2019, people spoke to me about "returning" to Russia, not simply joining Russia. https://t.co/kfBvLTakNG
If we are to believe the pathological USG liars and their war propaganda media, Crimea was “seized” from people who want to remain a part of a coup regime and kleptocracy that hates them and thinks nothing of burning them to death.
Source: Kurt Nimmo on Geopolitics
Headline-skimming Americans know virtually nothing about Crimea. Since the late 1700s and the reign of Katherine the Great, Crimea has been Russian in population and culture. The peninsula was administratively transferred to Ukraine under the rule of Nikita Khrushchev. He was born on the border of Ukraine and later worked in the Donbas.
Here in the West, the state and its media say the vote was illegal because the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe didn’t monitor it. The OSCE “partners” include NATO, the Council of Europe (enforcers of neoliberal “rule of law”), the unelected European Union, and the United Nations. It is not difficult to guess what they would conclude (and the UN eventually did).
A group of international observers from Israel, Spain, Italy, USA, UK, Latvia, Moldova and Serbia, which were invited by the Central Electoral Commission of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, visited the largest cities of Crimea – Simferopol, Yalta, Evpatoria, Alushta, Saki, as well as many villages in the countryside… All observers unanimously noted that the referendum was held in full compliance with international standards. (Emphasis added.)
However, according to the fake upholders of “democracy” at the United Nations, it does not matter over 90% of the people of Crimea no longer want to be associated with Kyiv-Ukraine, now effectively Ukronaziland, and soon to be a landlocked rump state, thanks to Vicky Nuland and her neo-Nazi co-conspirators.
For the UN, NATO, and USG, the will of the people is irrelevant, only the skewed “rule of law” mandates handed down arrogantly by a mega-state are legitimate. The ethnic Russians of Crimea, having lived there for centuries, are expected to obey the UN-EU-NATO authoritarians and allow sadistic neo-Nazis to rape, torture, and kill them.
That’s how mob rule—what is pleasantly referred to as the will of the people—works: 50.0001% can demand, at gun or drone point, what the “losers” do, say, and think. That’s how it works in theory. In reality, the ruling elite, through propaganda and other forms of manipulation (including dramatic false flags), shape the opinions and emotions of a vast number of Americans.
So now, we are told the secret service of Ukraine blew a hole in the 19-kilometer bridge spanning the Kerch Strait from Crimea to Russia. The bridge remains operational, especially its train route, and will be repaired in short order. The bomb was supposedly ferried by a suicide driver. Sensationalistic videos of the explosion are proliferating on corporate media websites.
The first cars moving on the Kerch Bridge again, going from Crimea to Russia.
You can see how the burned out rail carts are still there, on the left-hand side. pic.twitter.com/RKviDd4ZAL
Zelenskyy and his neo-Nazi collaborators no doubt consider this incident, which did not disable to bridge, a major propaganda victory. Maybe it is for the Nazi flag saluting miscreants in Kyiv. Russian munitions and troops will continue to be moved into Crimea over the bridge in preparation for the planned—no doubt with assistance from NATO, the Pentagon, and the CIA—neo-Nazi invasion of the peninsula.
If Russia is going to put an end to the genocidal insanity of Vicky Nuland’s installation of Nazi ultranationalists and their sworn mission to torture and kill all Russians (in addition to others considered sub-human, including Jews, for instance, Nuland herself, of Ukrainian Jewish ancestry), it will need to get serious in Ukraine. That will require at a minimum taking out all the bridges on the Dnieper River, including the old Darnytskyi bridges in Kyiv.
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***
The Maine Board of Licensure in Medicine next week will hold a hearing related to the board’s Jan. 12 suspension ofDr. Meryl Nass’s medical license.
CHD.TV will livestream Nass’s hearing on Oct. 11, 1 p.m. Eastern. You can watch here.
Nass’s original suspension order included accusations of spreading “misinformation.” However, the board on Sept. 26 withdrew six of those accusations and, on Sept. 30, withdrew more of its factual allegations related to “misinformation.”
There are no patient complaints for the board to review.
According to her opening statement, Nass will introduce 286 pages of e-mails and letters from her patients and others, attesting to her competency, care and responsiveness to patient needs.
You can read two of the board’s recent notices withdrawing various complaints (second and third notices), Nass’s opening statement to the board and defense counsel’s timeline of events that led to her suspension.
Commenting on Nass’s suspension, Children’s Health Defense (CHD) President and General Counsel said:
“The Board’s attempts to censor physicians like Nass have no role in medicine or science. They present a grave danger to the health and human rights of all Americans.”
CHD is supporting Nass’s defense. Testifying experts will include: Harvey Risch, M.D., Ph.D., professor emeritus in epidemiology at Yale University; Dr. Paul Marik, pulmonary and critical care specialist; Dr. Robert Malone, inventor of mRNA vaccine technology; Dr. Pierre Kory, intensive care specialist; Dr. Steven Katsis, surgeon and member of the Oklahoma Medical Board.
Prior to her suspension, in November 2021, Nass wrote to the board asking it to define what it means by “misinformation” and “disinformation,” and to clarify what statutory authority the board has to discipline physicians on the basis of undefined transgressions.
Nass wrote the letter after the board issued a position statement in which it said:
“Physicians who generate and spread COVID-19 vaccine misinformation or disinformation are risking disciplinary action by state medical boards, including the suspension or revocation of their medical license.”
The board did not respond to her letter, Nass told The Defender today.
Suspended without a hearing
The board suspended Nass, an internist with special interests in vaccine-induced illnesses, a biological warfare epidemiologist and member of the CHD scientific advisory committee, after accusing her of “unprofessional” and “disruptive” behavior based on her public criticism of government COVID-19 policies and early treatment of the virus.
Prior to her suspension, throughout her 40 years of practicing medicine, Nass never had a malpractice case or a prior board action taken against her.
However, between October and December 2021, the board received four complaints against her.
Two of the complaints came from strangers who cited “misinformation” they saw on the internet, one came from a physician who accused Nass of prescribing “deworming medication” (ivermectin) and one came from a midwife regarding Nass’ prescribing hydroxychloroquine.
Without a hearing, the board ordered her license immediately suspended, demanded a neuropsychological evaluation and implied that she was mentally impaired or a substance abuser and incompetent to practice medicine.
Nass’s Maine counsel, Gene Libby and Tyler Smith, moved to dismiss all charges and asked the board to apologize to Nass for what they characterized as its unfounded case, intended to silence Nass and like-minded physicians who used effective early treatments for COVID-19 instead of advising their patients to do nothing until or unless they became ill enough to require hospitalization.
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***
The Kremlin blasted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s “preemptive strikes” on Russia remarks from the day prior, accusing him of trying to start a world war. Zelensky had in a virtual address to Australia’s Lowy Institute urged US-led allies to conducted preventative strikes on Russia so that “knows what to expect” if it used nuclear weapons.
“What should NATO do? Eliminate the possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons,” Zelensky said in the provocative Thursday remarks. “I once again appeal to the international community, as it was before February 24: preemptive strikes so that they [Russia] know what will happen to them if they use it, and not the other way around.”
“Don’t wait for Russia’s nuclear strikes, and then say, ‘Oh, since you did this, take that from us!’ Reconsider the way you apply pressure. This is what NATO should do – reconsider the order in which it applies pressure [on Russia],” the Ukrainian leader added.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday responded by saying the statements mark “are nothing but a call to start a world war,” which would result in “unforeseeable disastrous consequences.”
NEW – Ukraine's Zelensky calls on NATO to launch "preemptive strikes" against Russia to "eliminate the possibility" of a Russian nuclear strike.pic.twitter.com/gj6mSRZfFF
And separately Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova charged Zelensky with seeking nuclear escalation:
…”every person on the planet” should recognize that the “unbalanced” Ukrainian leader had turned into “a monster, whose hands can destroy the planet”, reported state-run news outlet RT.
Additionally, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday pointed out that Zelensky’s remarks confirmed and justified the need for Russia to pacify Ukraine. Referencing the request for a NATO preemptive attack on Russia, Lavrov explained,
“By doing so, (he) essentially presented the world with further evidence of the threats posed by the Kyiv regime,” adding that “This is why a special military operation was launched to neutralize them.”
President Biden last month in a CBS “60 Minutes” interview warned Putin to not “change the face of war” by employing either tactical nuclear or chemical weapons against Ukraine. But more recently and importantly, on the same day as Zelensky’s call for a preemptive strike, Biden said that the threat of nuclear “Armageddon” is at its highest level since the Cuban missile crisis, and that the US is trying to find an “off-ramp” for Russia before they begin the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
“We’re trying to figure out what is Putin’s off-ramp? Where does he get off? Where does he find a way out?” Biden said at a Thursday fundraiser in New York City for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee at the New York home of James Murdoch, the son of News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch. “Where does he find himself in a position that he does not, not only lose face but lose significant power in Russia?”
“He is not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological and chemical weapons, because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming,” Biden added, according to Bloomberg. “I don’t think there’s any such thing as the ability to easily use tactical nuclear weapons and not end up with Armageddon.”
4ever respect to Zelensky for sinking his Nobel Peace Prize by calling for a preemptive nuclear holocaust on the eve of the announcement 💪
Following all of this, Zelensky’s office attempted an awkward walk-back, issued a statement seeking to clarify that he…
“did not call on NATO countries to pre-emptively use nuclear weapons against the Russian Federation — he spoke about the period before the start of a full-scale invasion.”
“Colleagues, you have gone a little far with your nuclear hysteria and now you hear nuclear strikes even where there are none,” Zelensky’s press secretary Serhiy Nikiforov said. “The President spoke about the period until February 24. Then it was necessary to take preventive measures to prevent Russia from starting a war. Let me remind you that the only measures discussed at that time were preventive sanctions.”
International headlines warning about nuclear Armageddon have been on the rise over the last month, especially as Ukrainian forces began making rapid gains against Russian front lines in the east and south. The thinking among Western pundits tends to be that the more Moscow feels cornered and is losing ground in its “special operation” – the more unpredictable and desperate Putin’s decision-making grows, leading to the possibility of a tactical nuke or other WMD deployment in Ukraine.
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Featured image: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky seen earlier this year. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Service)
ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102
PDF Edition: $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)
Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.
Reviews
“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.” –John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University
“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.” -Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations
Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction. –Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute
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***
Judicial Watch announced today that it received 249 pages of records from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) detailing the extensive media plans for a propaganda campaign to push the COVID-19 vaccine.
Judicial Watch is asking for all records regarding the application process; all organizations asking to be chosen to participate; all grants; and all communications of representatives of the Department of Health and Human Services regarding the program.
PGS 30- 34 The newly released records include a document titled “PEC [Public Education Campaign] Plan April 19 -May 31 [2021],” which includes the following media plans and action items:
Major [Public Education] Projects in April
Vaccine engagement package to all entertainment talent and management agencies
Vaccine engagement package to all media companies and show producers
Outreach to major culture event producers
Outreach with WCDT [likely We Can Do This] brand and engagement ideas to major businesses and associations
Launch Community Corps Business Chapter
Start celebrity Share the Mics
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POTUS May 1-31
Late night hosts vaccination video.
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Additional Ideas to be Considered
Digital Media
Produce HHS question-and-answer videos featuring local Black doctors discussing the vaccines, how they work, and why the public should get vaccinated
Request that Tom Brady create a video with his parents encouraging vaccination (his parents had COVID last year and he has talked about their tough recovery).
Create custom partnerships with the social media platforms with algorithms to hit the audience.
Launch Hollywood comedy writers video content.
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Work with YouTube on an original special about vaccinations targeted to young people (similar to the YouTube’s Dear Call of 2020 special).
Work with Instagram to produce a series about vaccines for @Instagram (the largest social media account in the world, 387 million followers). Feature young creators doing in-depth pieces about young people’s questions. Request a Stories Highlight on Vaccines on @Instagram to stay on the account through 2021.
Request major TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram influences to create videos of themselves being vaccinated and start a special campaign of funny and/or musical videos about being vaccinate to encourage others to create content and post.
Earned Media
Request a vaccination special on Christian Broadcast Network featur[ing] Evangelical leaders.
Request that the major live TV entertainment shows feature hosts being vaccinated on air (ex: the hosts of The Voice).
Request that the TV morning and daytime talk shows feature special vaccination reunion moments with everyday Americans talking about what this means to them (ex: hugging grandma for the first time).
Convene an editorial meeting with the publishers of Catholic newspapers and newsletters across the country (ex: America Magazine, Florida Catholic, The Catholic Spirit, The Tablet).
Dr. Biden interview with Chip and Joanna Gaines for Magnolia.
Request vaccination specials with BET, The Undefeated, Desus & Mero, Sneaker Shopper. Hot Ones.
Request a vaccination special With Christian Broadcasting Netflix and Evangelical leaders.
Place a trusted messenger on the Joe Rogan Show and Barstool Sports to promote vaccination (work with outside expert to identify who will be most effective).
Partnerships
Work with the NFL, NASCAR, MLB, CMA to request they create content with their talent and release through their broadcast and social channels. Also create a Share the Mic program where the talent elevates public health voices.
Work with all major sports leagues to send vaccination information to ticket holders
Work with ESPN for hosts to provide vaccination information.
Partner with Disneyland Parks for vaccination events when the amusement parks reopen.
Work with the Hollywood guilds to work vaccination messaging into scriped and reality TV shows (ex: Writers Guild, Directors Guild.)
“These records show a disturbing and massive campaign by the Biden administration to propagandize and politicize the controversial COVID vaccine,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “It seems as if the entire entertainment industry was an agent for the government!”
Through FOIA, Judicial Watch has uncovered a substantial amount of information about COVID-19 issues:
Recently, NIH records revealed an FBI “inquiry” into the NIH’s controversial bat coronavirus grant tied to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The records also show National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) officials were concerned about “gain-of-function” research in China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2016. The Fauci agency was also concerned about EcoHealth Alliance’s lack of compliance with reporting rules and use of gain-of-function research in the NIH-funded research involving bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, China.
HHS records revealed that from 2014 to 2019, $826,277 was given to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for bat coronavirus research by the NIAID.
NIAID records showed that it gave nine China-related grants to EcoHealth Alliance to research coronavirus emergence in bats and was the NIH’s top issuer of grants to the Wuhan lab itself. The records also included an email from the vice director of the Wuhan Lab asking an NIH official for help finding disinfectants for decontamination of airtight suits and indoor surfaces.
HHS records included an “urgent for Dr. Fauci ” email chain, citing ties between the Wuhan lab and the taxpayer-funded EcoHealth Alliance. The government emails also reported that the foundation of U.S. billionaire Bill Gates worked closely with the Chinese government to pave the way for Chinese-produced medications to be sold outside China and help “raise China’s voice of governance by placing representatives from China on important international counsels as high level commitment from China.”
HHS records included a grant application for research involving the coronavirus that appears to describe “gain-of-function” research involving RNA extractions from bats, experiments on viruses, attempts to develop a chimeric virus and efforts to genetically manipulate the full-length bat SARSr-CoV WIV1 strain molecular clone.
HHS records showed the State Department and NIAID knew immediately in January 2020 that China was withholding COVID data, which was hindering risk assessment and response by public health officials.
University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) records show the former director of the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), Dr. James W. Le Duc warned Chinese researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology of potential investigations into the COVID issue by Congress.
HHS records regarding biodistribution studies and related data for the COVID-19 vaccines show a key component of the vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech, lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), were found outside the injection site, mainly the liver, adrenal glands, spleen and ovaries of test animals, eight to 48 hours after injection.
Records from the Federal Select Agent Program (FSAP) reveal safety lapses and violations at U.S. biosafety laboratories that conduct research on dangerous agents and toxins.
HHS records include emails between National Institutes of Health (NIH) then-Director Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci, the director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), about hydroxychloroquine and COVID-19.
HHS records show that NIH officials tailored confidentiality forms to China’s terms and that the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted an unreleased, “strictly confidential” COVID-19 epidemiological analysis in January 2020.
Fauci emails include his approval of a press release supportive of China’s response to the 2019 novel coronavirus.
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Featured image is from Judicial Watch
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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***
Underwater explosions Sept. 26 severely damaged the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines from Russia to Germany.
World leaders, technical experts and engineers are nearly unanimous that the pipelines were attacked by a planned powerful underwater explosion of a highly complex nature.
Such industrial sabotage will impact millions of people, raise prices and seriously undermine Germany and other EU countries’ industrial capacity.
Source: Gazprom/BBC
German officials fear that both Nord Stream pipelines could be permanently unusable, depending on the amount of salt water that has entered and corroded their insides, the newspaper Tages Spiegel explained. Others predict months to years to repair.
And the ruptures further threaten the global climate. These pipeline leaks are the largest single release of methane — a powerful climate-damaging, greenhouse gas — ever recorded, the United Nations Environment Program said.
The gas pipelines, each four feet wide, consist of concrete-coated, reinforced steel pipes laid on the seabed. They are designed to last 50 years under harsh conditions and very high operating pressures and to withstand sabotage, earthquakes, landslides and other disruptions. The seas are full of sensors and monitors.
Who is responsible?
In an insurance investigation or a crime novel, the first question the investigator should ask is a centuries-old Latin phrase: Cui bono; or who benefits? Look first to those who stand to gain from a crime and who has a motive for committing that crime.
Even though the pipelines were a joint Russian-German effort costing $23 billion, Ukrainian and U.S. politicians and media immediately blamed Russia for the destruction. That this charge is ridiculous is only obscured by the last decades of fever-pitch propaganda slandering Russia and Vladimir Putin.
The continued delivery of gas to the EU was Russia’s most valuable bargaining chip for resolving the war in Ukraine, ending sanctions and arriving at a negotiated agreement. Russia is the world’s largest exporter of gas and oil. While new markets opened, with many countries in the Global South buying Russia’s energy products, Russia’s largest market remains in Europe. Russia has no motive to destroy its own valuable, long-term assets.
However, any investigation controlled by NATO member countries is likely to find only Russia guilty.
On the other hand, U.S. imperialism can benefit from this crime, and the U.S. military has the equipment and access to the pipelines. Washington has both motive and means.
This widespread conclusion that the destruction of the pipelines was planned by the U.S. was captured by pro-NATO former Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorsky, who tweeted immediately after the explosions: “Thank you, USA.”
U.S. opposition to pipelines
Both the Trump and the Biden administrations have publicly and in the strongest terms opposed these gas pipelines from their inception, because they integrate the economy of Russia and the European Union.
Demonstrations in Germany, calling for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to be opened and sanctions lifted before winter, have had growing mass support, as well as reflecting German industrial interests.
Nord Stream 1 had accounted for 40% of the European Union’s gas supplies via Germany, keeping energy costs low in the EU’s largest economy, for the last 10 years. Nord Stream 2 was due to double export capacities to 110 billion cubic meters.
The project began in 1998 with seabed studies and complex financing and technical expertise, involving many European countries. Nord Stream 1 opened November 2011; Nord Stream 2 was due to open February 2022.
U.S. Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland warned on Nov. 13, 2018, that then-President Donald Trump had many ways to stop Nord Stream 2:
“We have not deployed the full set of tools yet that could significantly undermine if not outright stop the project.” (Reuters, Nov. 13, 2018)
And U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell sent openly threatening letters to German companies working on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Grenell reportedly warned:
“We emphasize that companies involved in Russian energy exports are taking part in something that could prompt a significant risk of sanctions.” (Bild am Sonntag, Jan 13, 2019)
Germany is a member of the NATO military alliance, and it is the country with the strongest economy in the EU. For U.S. imperialism to openly threaten its German imperialist ally with economic sanctions was a brazenly aggressive act.
President Joe Biden repeated these open threats, even as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stood by his side during a February 2022 state visit. At a White House press conference, Biden boasted that the U.S. was “able” to shut down Nord Stream 2 in the Baltic Sea if Russia invaded Ukraine.
As shown on a Feb. 7 video that was reposted on Twitter, a reporter asked Biden, “But how will you do that, exactly, since . . . the project is in Germany’s control?” Biden said,
“I promise you; we will be able to do that.”
Sanctions failed to collapse Russia
Last winter Washington promised that the hundreds of economic sanctions imposed on Russia would lead to hyperinflation, shortages and massive unemployment, and this would lead to regime change. This stated goal never happened.
The Russian economy is self-sufficient in grain, energy and other essential products, and it has access to global markets. China and the whole Global South in Africa, Latin America and Asia have refused to comply with U.S.- and European-imposed sanctions on Russia.
Washington understood that only by prolonging the war in Ukraine could the sanctions on Russia last. Thus, billions in weapons and growing numbers of trainers, advisors and contractors have continued to pour in.
The corporate media in Germany and throughout the EU reported that U.S. opposition to the pipelines was rooted in U.S-based companies anxious to sell liquid natural gas (LNG) obtained from fracking to EU countries. LNG is far more expensive than Russian gas.
U.S. naval operations above pipelines
Numerous social media posts have pointed to the highly suspicious role of U.S. naval operations in the immediate area of the explosions. The Baltic Sea is controlled by NATO.
The BALTOPS 22, a Naval Strike Force Exercise, held 13 days of naval maneuvers in the area of the pipelines, with 47 ships, 89 aircraft and 7,000 personnel, in June, joined by 16 NATO-allied nations. The exercises centered on exercises in new technology, including submarine and mining and demining operations.
The U.S. 6th Fleet, led by the USS Kearsarge, coordinated BALTOPS 22. The Kearsarge remained in the immediate area for months after BALTOPS 22 ended. The USS Kearsarge tested special drone underwater-vehicle, mine-hunting technology in the Baltic Sea, just off the coast of Danish island of Bornholm, near the Nord Stream pipelines. (seapowermagazine.org, June 14)
Investigative journalist Diana Johnstone examined the political significance of the sabotage and how a major state actor could carry out a naval operation in the middle of a densely monitored area, full of countless sensors and monitors. The presence of the USS Kearsarge until just days before the explosions is highly suspicious. Modern explosive devices can be detonated remotely.
Johnstone points out:
“By an odd coincidence, only a few hours after the sabotage of Nord Stream 1 and 2, ceremonies began opening the new Baltic Pipe carrying gas from Norway to Denmark and Poland.”
The most ominous result of the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines was that until the explosion, the pipelines remained ready for use as soon as an agreement was reached on Ukraine. But now, Johnstone writes,
“The sabotage has virtually announced that the war can only intensify with no end in sight.”
U.S. strategy aims to close off every possibility of negotiations in Ukraine and to pull every country in Europe into the war against Russia. Closing off any possibility of negotiations makes the European countries more dependent on U.S. energy supplies, and this forcibly dismantles European industry.
In the U.S., endless funds to continue the war mean escalating inflation and economic insecurity for millions of working people and the growing danger of wider war.
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This article was originally published on Workers World.
Sara Flounders is an American political writer active in progressive and anti-war organizing since the 1960s. She is a member of the Secretariat of Workers World Party, as well as a principal leader of the International Action Center. Sara can be reached at [email protected].
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